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Title

Black Mountain College Bulletin Newsletter (Vol. I, No. 3, April 1943): Three-Fold Summer Program at Lake Eden

Date
1943
Century
20th century
Medium & Support
Ink on paper
Object Type
Archival Documents
Credit Line
Black Mountain College Collection, gift of Barbara Beate Dreier and Theodore Dreier, Jr. on behalf of all generations of Dreier family
Accession Number
2017.40.022
Copyright
In Copyright, Educational Use Permitted
Courtesy of the Theodore Dreier Sr. Document Collection, Asheville Art Museum
Description

The newsletter provides a summary for the education program at BMC, framed as a contribution to the American war effort and fight for democracy. Includes, among other announcements and updates, the success of Josef Albers's Art Book Campaign for the Art Department at BMC.

BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE BULLETIN
Newsletter April 1943 Volume 1 Number 3
THREE-FOLD SUMMER PROGRAM AT LAKE EDEN
This issue of the Newsletter Bulletin will go to new as well as to old friends of the College, and some of the general notes on the three-fold summer program will be in the nature of news to a number of readers. Hence this Newsletter gives a brief survey of Black Mountain’s general program of education for democratic citizenship- a program which in the current emergency constitutes a definite and direct contribution to America’s war effort.
Black Mountain moves into its tenth year at a time when it is imperative that young people share as fully as possible in the work of their country. The College now has mature experience in evolving methods for preparing young men and women for citizenship, and means through which they can make their greatest social contribution today. The approach of the College’s tenth anniversary finds the staff deep in preparations for the imminent summer program, which will include three things: Summer Study Quarter of eleven weeks, beginning July 5, with regular academic study as provided under the new year-round plan; a Summer Work Camp running concurrently with the study program and offering a limited number of young mean and women opportunity to contribute to the war effort, in a congenial environment where they may participate in stimulating educational and community activities; and a six weeks’ Seminar on America for foreign scholars, teachers, and artists (July 1 to August 12) under the direction of Black Mountain’s Professor of Sociology, Dr. Herbert A. Miller. Dr. Miller was instrumental in founding and has been resident director of similar Seminars sponsored by the American Friends’ Service Committee each summer since 1940. Summer school registrants, Work Campers, and Seminar enrollees will all be regarded as members of the College community, free to participate in all community activities.
Black Mountain has always believed that American democracy has its roots in people who have the training, physique, and convictions vital to a democracy. Therefore, believing that young people must have the opportunity to being directly confronted by some of the main tasks that exist for the individual in our day- such as making one’s personal and immediate contribution to national life, and at the same time improving oneself in practical skills and in intellectual and spiritual stamina- the College this summer again offers a Work Camp as an adjunct to its general educational program. It is hoped that for some Work Campers this period of part time physical work with participation in academic, musical, dramatic, and artistic activities, and with a healthful outdoor program of water sports and hiking, will serve as an introduction to the regular College work in the fall term.
Some information may be given here to new readers of this Letter, who may not know the College but may be interested in coming here this summer term or the following. The College is located on a mountainside overlooking North Carolina’s North Fork Valley. The Craggy Mountains, Mount Mitchell, and the famous Skyline Drive are very near. Lying fifteen miles east of Asheville and five miles west of the town of Black Mountain, the College is in a completely rural setting. There is frequent bus service to both centers. The property compromises nearly 800 acres of beautiful woodland in an area which is one of the richest botanical districts of the United States. The College’s Lake Eden provides swimming and boating facilities and furnishes the focal point for the College buildings, of which there are twenty-four. Black Mountain is in the heart of a famous summer resort section at an elevation of 2400 feet, and has cool nights and warm summer days.
Work Campers and other members of the community who wish to do so will participate this summer in the College farm and building projects, engaging in such work as gardening, logging, construction, and maintenance work. Activities of Work Campers will be of two main kinds; farming and building construction. Black Mountain’s farm program is no “made” program, but a real project which has grown with the College in its progress toward the greatest possible self-sufficiency. In war time the program has taken on even wider significance and has been broadened this year in order that the College may engage as fully as possible in the war program of production and conservation. The College farm now is producing eggs for the College, as well as food for meat and milk herds. This year a vegetable truck garden of several additional acres has been added.
The work of campers is usually scheduled in the morning hours, thus providing opportunity for healthful relaxation and participation in other activities. Campers will do five hours’ work per day during the week. Board, room, and tuition is provided at $12.50 per week, and actual class-work in the liberal arts is offered at slight additional cost. The Work Camp group usually comprises young men and women of college age. This year, in order that necessary work may go on and in order to assure a representative number of masculine campers, a few capable of junior and senior high school work will also be considered. Because of limited enrollment, letter of appli-
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BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE BULLETIN Newsletter April 1943
Volume 1 Number 3
Issued four times a year, in November, January, February, and April. Application for entry as second-class matter at the Postoffice at Black Mountain, N.C., under the Act of August 24, 1912, is pending.
-cation should be submitted as early as possible to the Work Camp, Black Mountain College, Black Mountain, North Carolina.
Black Mountain has conducted a Summer Work Camp since 1941. During these years the Work Camp for architectural students has been especially valuable. The Work Camp’s active laboratory in architecture will be again under the direction of A Lawrence Kocher, distinguished modern architect, who heads the Black Mountain Department of Architecture. It provides field experience and supplements the drafting board and classroom work in field surveying, construction work, and building supervision. This year’s Camp will make special use of local building materials, and will deal also with new materials, economical construction, and post-war planning. Such institutions as Harvard University have contributed a number of graduate students to the Work Camp of Black Mountain College.
Seminar on America
The Seminar on America is planned to provide an opportunity for qualified newcomers to this country with specialized training to accelerate their adjustment to American community life and to get a better understanding of American democracy and history. Emphasis will be placed upon principles and methods of education.
The Seminar should especially interest adults who need to improve their English and their general orientation to the American community and to American education as related to their professions, as well as those professional people interested in the Seminar program who are in need of a summer’s rest and adjustment period in pleasant intensive tutoring in written and oral English, lectures on America, American history and government, literature and education. As the College will be in session throughout the summer, members of the Seminar group will be free to participate in all campus activities and social events and in contacts with students and teachers, who represent many different sections of America and a number of foreign countries. They will share such college interests as instrumental and choral music, dramatic productions, art and architecture projects, and will have access to the College’s recreational facilities and the College library and music library. They may, if they wish, observe or take part in the College’s regular work program of farm, building, and maintenance tasks. Fees of $110 will cover all expenses of board, room, and college tuition for the six weeks’ session. Application may be addressed to Dr Herbert A Miller at the College.
A savings plan
At the time of the armistice the American armed forces will find themselves somewhere in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Several addition months will pass before they will see American shores again. When eventually demobilization begins, say in 1945 or 1946, there will be many among the veterans who had been forced by the war to interrupt their studies, or who had not been able to start them. Many among them may be inclined toward these studies. The war will have taught them how necessary it is to gain a deeper insight into human affairs and a broader knowledge of history. They will understand how important it is to gain a professional or vocational training. Nevertheless, they may doubt whether they are justified in following their inclinations- for obvious reasons. They may wish to get married and to become financially independent. Their decision must be made in time of transition. Even the best post-war preparations can not prevent basic changes. It will take years before the nation becomes adapted to the new conditions. There will be years of insecurity and risks; but there will also be great opportunities for the man who begins his work at once. Under such circumstances who will have the courage and patience to devote several more years to studies? Will not parents of these veterans feel that their responsibility of educating has ended?
If young people of the war generation repudiate further study, the nation will lose whole classes of citizens with trained talents at a time when such citizens will be urgently needed; and all the veterans who justly have the first claim, will lost the advantages which education and training would give them in the long run. In addition, colleges would continue to suffer from depletion of their student bodies for many years after the war. The tradition of liberal arts once interrupted cannot be easily revived.
As yet there is no national organization which encourages and aids young people, both soldiers and workers, men and women, to resume their studies.
The Faculty, therefore, early in April unanimously accepted a plan worked out by Dr Erwin Straus during the Spring Vacation. The College had already presented a plan for the education of veterans. Although this has been favorably received by the War Department, there have been difficulties in the way of its execution. However, according to our latest information, it is still under consideration. This second plan could be added to or substituted for the first, since they differ in scope and administration. The former plan dealt exclusively with the education of veterans, emphasized the educational problems of the duration, and assumed the financial responsibility of the government; while the second plan includes civilians as well as soldiers, looks forward to the post-war situation, and is based upon self-help.
The plan is based on the assumption that many with the Armed Forces, with the WAAC and WAVES, or working in essential industries could now save the funds necessary for future studies.
Therefore, those who look forward to taking up study after the war should now choose a college or university and apply for admission. If admitted they should start to pay monthly in installments the annual fee set by their chosen institution at the time of their entrance into the savings plan. The completed payment for one or more academic years should guarantee them the right to study for a corresponding period, whatever the fees of the institution may be later on. Thus they will acquire a claim protected against inflation. Those whose studies are interrupted by the war should make appropriate arrangements with their college for continued studies under this plan. The amounts paid would be accepted and deposited by a special savings trust company incorporated under federal and state law. The amount paid would remain at the disposal of the applicants. After the war they could choose to enter a college or university or to get their money back.
Early in April the plan was sent to a small number of eminent educators, bankers, and government officials. Answers received thus far have all been very sympathetic with the plan. However, there has not yet been a sign that anyone is going to take the initiative to realize these ideas. Therefore, the Faculty has decided that we will go ahead by ourselves. We hope that our step will increase interest in this plan and precipitate acceptance on a nationwide scale. If this should happen we would probably join such a national organization.
We are now preparing the organization of the Savings Fund for Black Mountain College. This fund will be kept completely independent of college finances. The Savings Fund will be administered by a group of trustees in co=operation with one of the big banks or with a foundation, so the security of the savings will not suffer even if the College would not survive one of its many crises.
We are now sending individual letters to our alumni in order to get information from them regarding the number who are interested in joining the organization. We expect also to hear from people who, although interested in such a plan in general, are inclined for one reason or another to begin or to complete their work at other institutions.
Nevertheless, those who later on would prefer another college would, in writing to us now, help to realize their own intentions. For, if in our publicity, we can report a widespread interest in this plan, this might well influence other colleges to follow our example or it might push forward a nation-wide organization, as foreseen in our plan.
Recent publicity
In an introduction to four pages of pictures of life at Black Mountain presented in a recent issue of Click Magazine, editors of the publication described the college as “an experiment in education, a blueprint for democracy at work… In the post-war world, this college may take the lead in pointing the way to a new type of training for our youth.
“If the war is to mean anything, it must lead the way to greater regard of man for his fellow man”, the Click article continues. “Paradoxically, that job begins on the battlefields of the world. But it must also be done in the schools and colleges. To educate is not enough. Youth must be trained in co-operation and democracy.
“Black Mountain tries to do the job in two ways. It educates through an inter-related program of subjects where the influence of history on literature is covered in a single course, where philosophy and the social sciences become a study of man’s problems in the terms of the student’s own experiences. It trains through a work program which teaches students the proper use of tools, gives them a community sense and responsibility about their work… That the program of Black Mountain has been successful is evident in the way students speak about the college… you know you’ve found a school which can’t die, a school which will continue to build itself into a highly important institution.”
The College program is illustrated in seventeen photographs depicting settings, classes and laboratory work and showing representative students and teachers engaged in various typical community activities.
College notes
Black Mountain College textiles that were exhibited at the Mint Museum in Charlotte during January were later, by invitation, exhibited in Louisville, Kentucky, under the sponsorship of Lou Tate.
Black Mountain College observed Negro History Week in February. The features of the Week were: a lecture by Dr Herbert A Miller on “The Contributions of the Negro to American Culture Patterns”, a lecture by Kenneth Kurtz on “Literary Contributions of the Negro”, a showing by Josef Albers of slides on Negro Art, a showing of the Harmon Foundation technicolor film on Hampton Institute, and an informal talk on “The Negro Problem” by W A Robinson, Director of the Negro Secondary School Study. Students and teachers of Black Mountain College participated in the Second Western North Carolina Drama Festival in Asheville in March. Elsa Kahl presented a group of students from the Eukinetics classes in a half-hour program of body movements. Robert Wunsch, the Chairman of the Festival, gave a demonstration in directing, using a scene from “Ethan Frome”.
Faculty news
Josef Albers attended the second annual Carolina Workshop Spring Festival at Chapel Hill in April and participated in a panel discussion on “The Artist in the Post War Peace”. Also on the panel were James Boyd, the author of Drums, Struthers Burt, and author of Along These Streets, and Howard Thomas, a painter.
“Designing”, a paper by Anni Albers, has been accepted for publication by the American Craftsmen’s Cooperative Council in the May issue of their magazine, Craft Horizons.
The February 6 issue of The Nation contained an article, “Literature and the Third Reich”, Dr Eric Bentley. The current issue of the Antioch Review contains another article by Dr Bentley: it is entitled “Bernard Shaw, Caesar, and Stalin”.
Frederic Cohen’s compositions, “A Spring Tale” and “The Prodigal Son”, were recently performed in the British cities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield.
The Advisory Board of the American Council of Learned Societies at a recent meeting voted a grant of $950.00 toward the cost of publishing Secret Chromatic Art in Netherlands Motet by Dr Edward E Lowinsky.
Early in April Dr Herbert A Miller attended the two days’ conference in Philadelphia on the Future of Asia and spoke on “Asia’s Struggle for Freedom” and “Dynamic Patterns of Asia”.
Dr Erwin Straus will present a paper on “Depersonalization: Its Significance for Psychology and Psychopathology” before the North Carolina Academy of Science at Duke University on May 1.
Trudi Straus participated as violinist in the March concerts in Asheville, Chapel Hill, and Raleigh by the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra.
Robert Wunsch was the chief speak at two recent monthly meetings of the Western North Carolina Schoolmasters’ Club. He talked on “Progressive Education in American Secondary Schools and Colleges” and on “Objectives, Procedures and Evaluations in Secondary Education”.
Accepts new post
Dorothy Trayer left Black Mountain College on April 24 for Concord, New Hampshire, to take up her new duties as laboratory technician at the diagnostic laboratory of the State Board of Health. During her stay here she was College Registrar and a piano student under Frederic Cohen.
Visitors
Dr Frederick D Kick, director of the Carolina Playmakers, spent a week-end recently heard him in informal readings from Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology and other American poetry which he believes possesses great possibilities for dramatic interpretation.
Miss Eunice Miller, Supervisor of the Investigation Division of Child Guardianship in the Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare, was a College visitor during April. During her stay she spoke informally to a College audience on “A State and Its Children,” giving an outline of the social program of Massachusetts for its young people.
Miss Agnes Tweedie, Head of the College Bureau at the Anacostia High School in Washington, DC, and Lecturer in Education at George Washington University, spent her spring vacation at Lake Eden.
Rachel Dwinell, for two years a secretary to the Black Mountain College Faculty and now Program Assistant in the YMCA at Fort Slocum, near New Rochelle, New York, was a recent visitor. She said that in carrying out her duties of meeting and talking with soldiers there are many opportunities “to set up channels of thinking about what tolerance and democracy really mean”.
William T McCleery, editor of PM’s Picture News, will spend several days at the College the first week in May.
Among the other recent visitors to the College were: Miss Ilse Hoffman, Gretel Lowinsky’s sister; Jules Schwerin, who is connected with the Office of Imports of the Board of Economic Warfare; Mr and Mrs Alexander Kopp, the parents of Anatole Kopp, instructor of architecture at the College’ Terry West, a student at Barnard; Mr and Mrs. Harry Oppenheimer, the parents of Herbert; Ruth Bucher, Barbara Payne’s sister, and her husband, Lieutenant Bucher; Nils Haugaard, Erik’s brother, a student at University of Philadelphia; Mr J B Jamieson of Newton Centre, Massachusetts; and Homer Bobilin, who spent his vacation at Lake Eden after having completed a course at a Code School in New York City.
Derek Bovingdon
Lieutenant Derek Bovingdon, for three years, before his entrance into the Army Air Forces, a student a Black Mountain College, was killed in a bomber crash in Washington State on May 29. Very little is known about the accident, but it is supposed that unfavorable weather conditions were the cause of it. Derek had received his commission on January 4 with a class in which he was one of the nine top ranking men. He was sent immediately with his high ranking eight classmen to Hobbs, New Mexico; there he learned to fly the B-17F, the Flying Fortress. He was not required to go through the usual preliminary step of being a co-pilot, but was entrusted once with the duties of a pilot. From Hobbs he was sent to Ephrita, Washington. On the day that Derek received his commission he and Barbara Sieck, formerly a student at Black Mountain College, were married.
Memorial Services were held for Derek in the Quiet House at Lake Eden on Sunday, April 11. After the A Capella group had sung a Bach Corale, “Es 1st Genug”, Rector Robert Wunsch read an excerpt from a letter from Charles Lindsley, describing Derek as a student at Blue Ridge and at Lake Eden; then Theodore Dreier spoke briefly about Derek. “He is one of those people inseparably associated in our minds with the building of this place, Lake Eden. But his association was with the people about him no matter what was being done, and his generous enthusiasm and zest for action won him friends easily. He was perhaps the closest link we have ever had with the village of Black Mountain, where he was trusted, admired and liked… He came here as a boy and went away a man prepared to do his share in the struggle for victory that we are now engaged in… At this moment Derek’s passing has more than usual portent for us because he is the first to give his life among the many who have gone and are going, prepared to do likewise if necessary. In time of war we cannot escape till so late in life the challenge of death that comes. We are apt to feel pretty inadequate to find and help create anything sufficiently significant to balance the sorrow and help it to make sense. Yet that is what it’s up to us to do and I believe actually that death can make us understand more vividly what our opportunities are while we are still here and give us strength to dedicate ourselves and persist in seeing to it that our friends and those whom we love shall not have given their lives for nothing.”

Former Students
After six months at Guadaleanal as a private, first class, in the Marines, Emery Whipple recently spend a short leave at his home in Concord, Massachusetts. He enlisted in the Marines two weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Bertrand Richard has been reported missing in Tunisia. It is possible that he was taken prisoner.
Ensign Bela Martin is now in the South Pacific.
Jack Roberts has been in North Africa since last November.
Corporal John M Stix is now recuperating in the Hospital at Camp Butner near Durham, North Carolina, from a serious attack of meningitis.
John J Kasik was recently graduated from the OCS at Fort Monmouth in Red Back, New Jersey.
George Hendrickson received the commission on February 11 at Fort Davis. He is now stationed at Long Beach, California.
Lieutenant Morris Simon is now stationed at Fort Bragg where he is working in a Plans and Training Department.
Nancy Farrell was commissioned an Ensign in the United States Naval Reserve on March 9 at the Midshipman’s School at Northampton, Massachusetts. She has gone to her assignment at a Naval base on the Southeastern Seaboard.
Evelyn Tubbs, a WAAC recruit, is now stationed at the Texas State College for Women in Denton, Texas.
Lisa Jalowets is now working with Designer Boris Aronson on “The Family”, a Broadway show. Earlier in the year she designed the settings for the New School production of Bernard Shaw’s “Arms and the Man” and the Neighborhood Playhouse production of Thorton Wilder’s “The Happy Journey” and “The Long Christmas Dinner”.
Martha Jane Eliot Hunt was married at Spuyten Duyvil in New York on March 13 to Lieutenant Royal Goodridge Whiting of the United States Army.
Ruthabeth Krueger was married on March 8 in Denver, Colorado to Naval Lieutenant Edward Everett Conrad.
Botn to Mr and Mrs Morton Steinau on March 20 a son. He has been named Peter.
Born to Mr and Mrs Edward North Jenks on the same day a son. He has been named John Dexter Jenks.
Suzanne Noble has been granted a scholarship in psychology for the second semester at Radcliffe College.
Jimmy Jamieson is now working as an attendant at the Brattleboro Retreat in Brattleboro, Vermont.
Former teachers
Private John Evarts, stationed at Miami Beach in Florida, recently played the role of the father in the camp production of Maxwell Anderson’s “The Eve of St Marl”. The play was directed by Morgan Farley.
Bedford Thurman was graduated at the OCS in Miami Beach, Florida, on April 16. He is now in the Special Service in Lexington, Virginia.
Robert Babcock is not assistant chief of the Intelligence Division of the Board of Economic Warfare in Washington, DC.
Lecture series
The evening programs at the College have included a lecture series, attended not only by members of the College community but by soldiers from the Moore General Hospital and the Twenty-Eighth Training Center at Swannanoa. The speakers for the series have come almost entirely from the faculty. Among them have been: Dr Eric Bentley, who addressed the College on “The War-Its Nature and Origin”; Josef Albers, who gave a slide-illustrated lecture on “Leonardo Da Vinci”; Dr Edwards E Lowinsky, who spoke on Leonardo Da Vinci”; Dr Fritz Hansgrig, who gave three experiment-illustrated talks on “Acoustical Problems in Music”; Barney Voigt, who gave a slide-illustrated lecture on “The Italian Gardens of the Renaissance”; and Dr Frances de Graaf, who spoke on “The Soviet Union Today.”
Dramatics
There were two major productions during the Winter Quarter: the Owen Davis-Donald Davis dramatization of Edith Wharton’s “Ethan Frome” and Moliere’s “Le Malade Imaginaire”. The settings for “Ethan Frome” were designed by Anatole Kopp and constructed, under his direction, by the students in Stage Technique. The costumes for “La Malade Imaginaire” were designed and created by Jane Slater and Marilyn Bauer.
In the North Carolina State Dramatic Festival, held in Chapel Hill in March, Black Mountain College was awarded first place in each of the four contests it entered. The prize winning entries were: Otis Levy’s original farce, “The Insanity of Love” in the One-Act Play Contest; Will Hamlin’s “Mr Whitcomb and the Horse” in the Radio Script Contest; the costume plates by Jane Slater and Marilyn Bauer for “Le Malade Imaginaire” in the Costume Design Contest; and the set designs and floor plans by Anatole Kopp for the Lake Eden production of “Ethan Frome” in the Stage Design Contest.
Sketches of Anatole Kopp’s state designs for “Ethan Frome” with an accompanying article on his methods of using new and inexpensive materials will probably appear in a summer issue of a national theatre magazine.
The major dramatic production of the Spring Quarter will be Charlotte Chorpenning’s “The Elves and the Shoemaker”, a fairy play. It will be presented at the Plaza Theatre in Asheville under the sponsorship of the Asheville Junior League on May 15 for thirteen hundred school children. Later it will be produced for the Asheville Negro children at the Stephens-Lee High School.
Advanced students in dramatics will present in May a bill of one-act plays including Paul Green’s “Fixin’s”, Strindlberg’s “The Stronger”, and Noel Coward’s “Fumed Oak”.
Music
As an innovation in the widely attended course on Mozart’s Operas conducted by Dr.Heinrich Jalowetz, pictorial liberetti designed by Anni Albers, Bill Reed and Anatole Kopp have been successfully used as an optical complement to the complete recordings of “Don Giovanni” and “Le Nozze di Figaro” from Dr Fritz Hansgirg’s record collection.
In addition to the Saturday evening concerts which have been played to an audience considerably increased by soldiers and officers of the new Moore General Hospital, the Music Department has given concerts in Asheville and in the Hospital and has broadcast every second week over Station WWNC on the College’s radio program.
The A Capella group conducted by Dr Edward E Lowinsky presented a lecture-concert “Music in Mediaeval Society” with slides on February 6. The group is preparing at present a similar concert, “Music of the Renaissance.” The College Chorus under the direction of Dr Jalowetz, gave a special concert on March 18 with works by Beethoven and Brahms.
Another addition to the Music Curriculum is a Piano Seminar in which Frederic Cohen’s music students meet to become acquainted with the Piano repertoire, sight reading, analysis and ensemble playing.
During Easter Week Dr Fritz Hangirg played to the College community a recorded unabridged performance of Bach’s Passion of St Matthew.
Radiana Pazmore, contralto, a member of the Converse College Music Department, gave a song recital at Black Mountain College on March 13. Miss Pazmore was accompanied at the piano by Dr Nowak, acting Dean of the Music Department of Converse.
Four music cubicles, designed by Architect Lawrence Kocher, are being build behind the College tennis courts by architecture and music students under the direction of Anatole Kopp. They are wood construction with sawdust insulation.
Theodore Dreier and Gorman Mattison are on extended trips in the East in the interest of the financial program of the College. They are expected to return to Lake Eden early in May.
Art book campaign
In the middle of January Josef Albers inaugurated a campaign to obtain books for the College Art Department. He sent out seventy letters to personal friends, including his former students at the Bauhaus and at Harvard, as well as at Black Mountain College, and accompanied these letters with mimeographed circulars describing the art needs of the College.
The surprisingly good response to these letters encouraged Mr Albers to send out one hundred and eighty more letters and circulars. The mailing list this time included, as well as names of alumni and art dealers all over the United States. More than half of the museums and art galleries responded positively one way or another, sending catalogues, reproductions and photographs. About twenty-five percent of the alumni of Black Mountain College responded.
To date the Art Department has received more than two hundred and fifty books and reproduction folders, several hundred illustrated catalogues, museum bulletins, reproductions and photographs, and about two hundred and fifty slides. The Department has received also more than six hundred dollars in cash gifts. Of this amount two hundred dollars has come from alumni. More contributions have been promised. The Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard will send books, reproductions and slides. Several art institutions have placed Black Mountain College on their permanent mailing lists to receive future publications.
From the cash gifts received the Art Department has bought books, slides and color reproductions.
In commenting on the campaign, Mr Albers said, in part: “I believe that in addition to bringing us many useful books which we needed very much, the campaign was worthwhile from an advertising viewpoint; it informed quite a number of people about Black Mountain College and stimulated quite a few of them to help us now and later. In general, the campaign proved that the College and the Art Department are known and approved of.”
The College is deeply appreciative of the gifts and the spirit that prompted the donors to send them.

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