General announcements on the education programming, campus, and fundraising efforts. Also includes student/faculty updates and mention of BMC during wartime. The farm and harvest is also mentioned, including and announcement regarding harvest yield and milking cows. 18-page booklet, stapled. Matte paper, off-white.
BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE BULLETIN
Newsletter September 1943 Volume 2 Number 1
COLLEGE BEGINS ELEVENTH SESSION
Eighteen members of the 1942-43 staff resumed their work when the College began its eleventh session on Monday, September 27. They were: Anni Albers, Josef Albers, Eric Bentley, Frederic Cohen, Theodore Dreier, Franziska de Graaff, Mary Gregory, Fritz Hansgrig, Heinrich Jalowetz, Elsa Kahl, Kenneth Kurtz, Herbert Miller, Robert Orr, Nell Rice, Erwin Straus, Trudi Straus, H Macguire Wood, and Robert Wunsch.
The only new member of the teaching staff is Clark Foreman, who will teach American History and United States Government. He will arrive, with his family, on October 2.
Dr Foreman has just returned from England where for eight months he had been doing operational research for the Navy. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Dr Foreman received his early education in the public schools there are received his AB degree at the University of Georgia in 1921. He then did work at the Harvard Graduate School of the Arts and Sciences. In 1922 he travelled in Europe, and during the following two years attended the London School of Economics. From 1925 to 1926 he was Secretary to the Georgia Committee for Interracial Cooperation, then became Assistant to Jesse Jones, Director of the Phelps-Stokes Fund. After receiving his Ph D from Columbia University in 1932, Dr Foreman travelled in Europe on a Rosenwald Fund Scholarship. When he returned to the United States, he became an Advisor to the Secretary of the Interior. From 1935 to 1940 Dr Foreman was Director of the Power Division of the Public Works Administration, then Director of Defense Housing.
Dr Paul Radin, who because of illness has been away from the College on a leave of absence, will return in January. During the Winter and Spring Quarters he will teach courses in Anthropology, Latin America, and Spanish.
Because of the possibility of an early induction into military service Dr Edward Lowinsky is still uncertain about his return to Black Mountain College this fall. Should he be unable to join the teaching staff, Dr Heinrich Jalowetx and Frederic Cohen will include in their classes most of the matter planned by Dr Lowinsky for his courses.
There is a completely new secretarial staff in the College offices this fall: Arlyn McKenna, from Arlington, New Jersey, has succeeded Olga Schwartz as Secretary to the Registrar. Doris Bollen, from New York City, has succeeded Margaret Stenderhoff as Secretary to the Rector. The new Secretary to the Treasurer is Lydia S Griscom, from New York City. Henrietta Barth, Robert Kumabe, a graduate of the Harvard Graduate School of Business and a native of Hawaii, are the new assistants in the Business Office. Mrs Louise Wright, Dr Fritz Hansgirg’s personal secretary, gives occasional secretarial aid to the main office.
Olga Schwartz of Brooklyn, New York, this summer inaugurated the new Secretary-Student Plan at Black Mountain College, the plan under which competently trained stenographers work in alternate quarters to pay for their tuition during the other two quarters of a four quarter session. Mrs Schwartz did secretarial work in adverting and in insurance fields before coming to Lake Eden. She is the wide of a captain in a dental corps in the Third General Hospital, now overseas.
During the Summer Quarter Mrs Schwartz was Secretary to the Registrar. She found spare time between her duties to take a few classes. During the Fall Quarter she will take a student load; but as her share of the community work, she will spend three afternoons a week in the College offices.
Effect of the War
The crisis in higher education due to the war involved major readjustments in all the men’s colleges and coeducational colleges in the country. IN most cases, ability to continue was dependent upon receiving some specialized training assignment from the armed forces, and not a
BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE BULLETIN Newsletter September 1943
Volume 2 Number 1
Issued seven times a year, in September, November, December, January, February, April, and August. Application for entry as second-class matter at the Postoffice at Black Mountain, N.C., under the Act of August 24, 1912, is pending.
Few colleges that failed to receive any such assignment have been forced to close. The size of training units consistently been too large for the facilities of Black Mountain. As a result its enrollment dropped from a pre-war figure of seventy-eight, more than half of whom were boys, to thirty-seven last spring when the last of the Enlisted Reserve Corps were called to active duty.
At Black Mountain College this crisis was superimposed on a condition already precarious. Almost without capital and with no financial resources in view, the College had been compelled to move and to build a new plant during the fifteen months preceding Pearl Harbor. Some money was raised, some was borrowed, the faculty contributed, and are still contributing, most of their salaries, and both students and faculty worked with their hands as well as with their brains. For the first half year after moving, the College operated amidst the chaos of half-finished buildings. But the days of not so long ago when students and teachers are breakfast in overcoats in an unheated building with the temperature at fourteen degrees have now almost been forgotten. The buildings will not be finished until after the war, but all that were started are in usable condition. In the meantime, a farm has been developed, and most of the tables is being produced on this farm. In addition, some pork and beef is being sold to people outside the College.
Meeting this earlier crisis was an educational experience that fitted in well with, and demonstrated the strength and flexibility of the whole program of the College. So, although the College found itself pushed harder and harder financially, and although the whole organization and plans for self-support were disrupted by the manpower demands of the war, the teachers and students believed that every effort should be made to carry the College through the duration. For they are sure the College has a part to play, both now and later.
Accordingly, last March the College inaugurated a campaign for $25,000 to cover last year’s deficit and to have a reasonable amount in advance with which to start the new year. During the summer it was felt that with this amount and an enrollment of forty=five students for the Fall Quarter, the College would be justified in opening in good faith. The final decision was taken on August 17, the outlook being that the amount of money raised would be somewhat less than the amount hoped for, but that the student enrollment would be somewhat larger. The amount actually raised by September 1, including definite pledges for the coming year, was $17,811.84, and now it looks as though the fall enrollment would be fifty-five, of whom twenty-five per cent will be boys. As the average student fee is about $750.00, this means that the equivalent of the goal set was just surpassed.
The Student Summer Campaign has netted $1,315.75 up through September 25. Most of this is included in the total figure given above, running through September 1.
Fire loss
The new Service Building, which was recently destroyed by fire, was insured to the extent of the original cost of materials, namely $2,250.00. On account of increased costs and because the College no longer has sufficient manpower to do the building itself, it would cost more than double this to replace the original structure. Consequently it may be necessary to construct a smaller building instead. A final decision has not yet been reached on this matter, however.
So far $100.00 has been received in aid in the cost of rebuilding and $139.25 to help reimburse the colored staff for their loss of personal property. The insurance company estimated the personal property loss at $820.00, less than half of the replacement cost. This was covered to the extent of $448.00, so that the total amount to date available to reimburse the Negroes is $587.25.
As the establishment of the colored staff under conditions of reasonable comfort is of great concern to the College, any additional contributions to help either with the rebuilding or the personal property replacement will be greatly appreciated by the College.
Looking ahead
It has been estimated that approximately $30,000.00 in gifts per year will be necessary to enable Black Mountain College to continue during the war. This amount includes a small allowance for essential additions to the plant and equipment. As it is of vital importance that knowledge of the ability to continue should not again be delayed as late as it was the past year, the College is at present inaugurating a campaign for $30,000.00, in the hope that at least a substantial portion of it can be raised fairly early during the year. Success in this campaign would put the College in much more secure position to face the future and to make the most of its opportunities.
Summer Quarter
During the Summer Quarter, which began on July 5 and ended on September 17, courses were given in American Life and Letters, American Sociology, Chorus, Color, Drama From Ibsen to Lessing, Drama Since Ibsen, Dramatic Production, Elements of Musical Form and Structure, Ensemble, Eukinetics, European Geography, German, Introductory Writing, Piano, Physics, and Psychopathology of Language. On the Summer Faculty were: Josef Albers, Dr Eric Bentley, Frederic Cohen, Oliver Freud, Mary Gregory, Dr Heinrich Jalowetz, Elsa Kahl, Kenneth Kurtz, Dr Herbert Miller, Dr Erwin Straus, Trudi Straus, and Robert Wunsch.
Oliver Freud, the son of Sigmund Freud, was appointed by the Board of Fellows to the Summer School Faculty. He taught a course in European Geography and a course in Physics.
Mr Freud received the degree of Dilpom Ingenieur at the Technological Institute in Vienna in 1915. He worked for more than fifteen years as a construction engineer in Central and Eastern Europe upon railroad-tunnel constructions and industrial buildings above and under ground, especially in reinforced concrete; and worked in a planning and calculating office as well as in supervising building yards. He was known in Berlin as an expert for difficult constructions in concrete and steel. In May 1933 Mr Freud was forced to emigrate to France. He worked for the next eight years in Nice as a photographer, specializing in industrial and commercial work, reproducing pictures, sculptures, and documents in his own establishment, which he lost in consequence of the German occupation. Mr Freud was accompanied to Lake Eden by his wife, a painter; Mrs Freud was a member of the Seminar on America. Mr Freud, as Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Physics on the Army Specialized Training Program, began his new duties at William and Mary College in Williamsburg, Virginia, on August 30.
Sixteen students, ten girls and six boys, were enrolled for the Summer Quarter classes. Of this group nine were new students. All but one of the new students have returned for the 1943-44 session.
Seminar in America
Nineteen European refugees enrolled for the six weeks Seminar on America, held at Lake Eden from July 1 to August 12. Among them were scholars and artists prominent in the cultural and professional life of their own countries in the Pre-Nazi Era. There were Austrians, Czechoslovakians, Frenchman, Germans and Russians in the group. The refugees came by train from New York; and for most of them the journey by rail marked their first glimpse of American beyond the Atlantic Seaboard metropolis that was their port of entry into this country.
Designed to accelerate the adjustment of the refugees to American life and enable them to take their places as rapidly as possible in the professions and industries of their new homeland, the Seminar included courses in American Life and Letters, American Sociology and Introductory Writing, tutorials in the English language, and occasional lectures and trips.
On their first Sunday in North Carolina all the members of the Seminar were entertained at dinner in Asheville homes after they had attended the Fourth of July services at All Souls Church there. On two subsequent Sunday groups of the refugees were guests of the Methodist Assembly at Lake Junaluska. At Lake Junaluska they gave to large audiences accounts of their experiences in Europe and their adjustments to life in the United States.
The Seminar was directed by Dr Herbert A Miller, who had served at similar sessions in two previous summers under the auspices of the American Friends’ Service Committee. Dr Miller gave lectures on the Seminar instructing staff were: Kenneth Kurtz, who gave instruction in American Life and Letters; Robert Wunsch, who taught a course in Introductory Writing; and six tutors, who gave intensive work in the English language. These tutors were: Miss Mignon Couser, a graduate of the University of Dublin, who now teaches at the Foxcraft School in Virginia; Mrs Theodore Dreie, a graduate of Bryn Mawr College; Mrs Walter Gethman, a Ph D graduate in French from Bryn Mawr, who is now a member of the staff at Nortfield Seminary; Miss Elizabeth Kellogg, a graduate of Bryn Mawr, who know teaches at Westover School in Connecticut; Mrs Kenneth Kurtz, a graduate of Colorado State College; and Miss Rosamond Tuve, a Ph D graduate from Bryn Mawr, who is now an Associate Professor of English at Connecticut College for Women.
The roster of the Seminar included: Archie Abbott, a banker from France, and his wife; Rodrigo Alvarez de Toledo, a mathematician who was born in Vienna and studied in four or five European universities and later taught geography, history, Latin and mathematics; Oliver Freud, a construction engineer, and his wife, a painter; Mrs Elizabeth Hirschfield, a musician who had studied in German conservatories; Dr Emilio de Hofmannsthal, an international lawyer, Austrian by birth, a citizen of Chile, now a resident of New York City; his wife; Mrs Helen Huckel, a writer and psychologist, who was born in Prague and studied at the University there; Mrs Lily Koerber, a writer, a native of Russia; Henry Leonard, who for many years was connected with the Ulstein Publishing House in Berlin; his wife, Lotte Leonard, for many years a famous oratoria and concert singer of Pre-Hitler Central Europe, now on the teaching staff of the Cincinnati College of Music; Wilhelm Levinger, a lawyer who before coming to America practiced for thirty years in the district and superior courts in Munich; Karl Obermann, a German-born journalist; Victor Ornstein, a Czechoslovakian by birth who was Presiding Judge of the Criminal Division of the Superior Court in Vienna from 1918 to 1938; Mrs Catherine Ruminow, a secretary, born in Russia, educated in Germany; Mrs Helene Reiche; Mark Vishniak, a journalist who was born in Moscow and who lived many years in Paris; and Mrs Mark Vishniak.
At the closing exercises of the Seminar Mr Freud spoke for himself and for all the other members of the Seminar. “We are going to leave Black Mountain College”,, he said. “Now we can look out with free eyes and quiet spirits upon the land where our future lies”.
Institutes
An experiment unique in the history of the American labor movement was conducted on the College grounds during the latter part of September, when sixty members of the southern staff of the Textile Workers Union of America, an organization of the CIO, met for a training institute. So far as is known, no other union has ever undertaken anything of the sort.
The staff training course was preceded by the Union’s Annual Southern Institute for Workers, also held at Lake Eden. About sixty men and women attended the Institute. For three days during the staff training course in Union’s Executive Council held its quarterly meeting. Of prime importance in the discussions, both of the workers and the staff members, was the Union’s post-war plan, adopted in the convention of the Textile Workers Union of America held in New York last May.
Among the speakers at the staff training conference were: Dr Rupert Vance, Professor of Research at the University of North Carolina; David J Saposs, Chief Economic Advisor of the Labor Production Division of the War Production Board; and H R Hawks, of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Lawrence Rogin, Director of the Education Department of the Textile Workers Union of America, directed the institutes.
A number of students and teachers of the College attended several sessions of the two institutes that were open to the public.
The Lion’s Club of Black Mountain had its Ladies’ Night Dinner at Lake Eden early in August. Clyde R Hoey, Ex-Governor of North Carolina, was the chief speaker of the evening, and Mrs Lotte Leonard, accompanied at the piano by Dr Heinrich Jalowetz, gave a brief concert of songs.
Research and mining
During the summer Dr Fritz Hansgirg started research on a new process which he is developing for the extraction of magnesium from olivine. The proves may prove to be an important new source of production for the light metal.
The editors of Iron age have accepted an article on “The Thermal Reduction of Magnesium Compounds” by Dr Hansgirg for inclusion in an early publication of their journal.
During the summer prospecting was begun, under the direction of Dr Hansgirg, on mica deposits on the College property. Mica of an excellent grade, classified as strategic war material, was found in quantities sufficient to give hope of commercial value for the College. Organization is under may to mine the mica and to split and trim it at the College and sell it to the United States Government.
Faculty notes
Josef Albers gave a course in Design and Freehand Drawing at the summer session, from June 21 to July 14, at the Lowthorpe School in Groton, Massachusetts. From July 16 to July 22 he gave a course for art teachers at the Museum of Modern Art. He returned to Lake Eden then to teach a class in Color the last half of the Summer Quarter.
Dr Eric Bentley’s review of GBS: A Full-Length Portrait by Hesketh Pearson appeared in the Spring Issue of the Rocky Mountain Review. Another review, entitled: “Brecht: Poetry, Drama and the People”, appeared in the first August issue of The Nation. The September 13 issue of the same publication contained “The Jewish Wife” by Bertold Brecht, translated by Dr Bentley. Among the other Bentley papers that have appeared or are scheduled to appear soon are articles: on the translation of Stefan Georg in Partisan Review; on Hero Worship in Nietsche and Carlyle in the Sewanee Review; on Wagner and Hitler in the New Mexico Quarterly Review; on various new German books in Books Abroad. During the spring and summer Theodore Dreier and Gorman Mattison spent overlapping periods in the east, in connection with publicity and money-raising.
On a scholarship from the American Council of Learned Societies Miss Francis de Graaff attented the six weeks Linguistics Institute at the University of Wisconsin this summer and took an intensive course in Polish to prepare herself to be able to teach soldiers assigned to ASTP units.
Kenneth Kurtz was elected by the Faculty to the Board of Fellows to complete the unexpired term of A Lawrence Kocher. Later the Board of Fellows elected Mr Kurtz to the Secretaryship of the Board of Fellows and the Faculty. Late in the spring Mr Kurtz spoke to the X Club in Asheville, a Western North Carolina association of educators, newspaper editors and business men, on “Some International Scholarships and Their Influence in Public Leadership Today.”
Born to Dr and Mrs Edward Lowinsky on July 29 in Berkeley, California, a daughter, Naomi Ruth.
During the Spring and Summer Quarters Dr Herbert Miller gave a number of addresses in Western North Carolina. Among them were: a talk on “India” at the Asheville College chapel exercises; an address on “What Should Be Done to Germany” to the Western North Carolina Chapter of the United States Nations Association, a national organization; a talk on “Asia” at a dinner meeting of the X Club; and an informal talk on “The Refugee” to the Methodist Assembly at Lake Junaluska. On Wednesday, September 29 Dr Miller will talk at the luncheon meeting of the Asheville Rotary Club on “Contemporary Trends.”
During the summer Dr Erwin Straus spoke on “Reminiscences of Inflation in Germany, 1919-1923” at a dinner meeting of the X Club.
Dr Straus has accepted the invitation of Dr HC Solomon, Director of the Psychiatric Department of the Harvard Medical School, to address the staff of the Boston Psychopathic Hospital on Saturday, October 2.
H MacGuire Wood spent most of the summer in Pittsfield, New York, doing various kinds of volunteer war work and doing small jobs of architectural designing and constructing for old clients.
Last spring in Blacksburg, Virginia, Robert Wunsch addressed the American Association of University Women on “Black Mountain College” and the students at Virginia Polytechnic Institute on “Obligations of the Educated.”
Mr. Wunsch was the Coordinator of the Triple-Summer Program at Black Mountain College.
Graduates and Candidate
At the end of the Spring Quarter of the 1942-43 session Cynthia Carr and Gisela Kronenberg, having completed successfully their Upper Division Plans, were graduated by the Faculty. Cynthia Carr, who did her major work in English Literature with Kenneth Kurtz, was examined by Dr C H Gray, Dean of Bard College. Gisela Kronenberg, a psychology major, took her written and oral examinations under Dr Donald W MacKennon, a member of the psychology staff at Bryn Mawr College.
Betty Brett, who completed her Upper Divisions work at the College during the Summer Quarter recently, took her examinations for graduation under Dr Jacques Barzun, a member of the History Department of Columbia University and author of “Darwin, Marx, and Wagner.” She took her written examinations at Lake Eden but went to New York City for her orals. At its first meeting in the new session the College faculty will consider for graduation the recommendations of her examiner and her faculty adviser, Dr Eric Bentley, who was present in New York at the oral examinations.
Notes
Renate Benfey will take a secretarial course at the Hickoe School in Boston this fall.
Betty Brett has begun her work at Dalton School as an assistant in social studies and history under the direction of Mrs Mukerji in the Middle School.
Twelve students were admitted into the Upper Division at the end of the Spring Quarter. They were: Renate Benfry, Maja Bentley, Sam Brown, Dora Harrison, Betty Kelley, Liese Kulka, Isaac Nakata, Ruth O’Neill, Irene Sagan, Jane Salter, Ralph Tyler, and Barnara Pollet.
During the summer the College Office published two pamphlets: a supplement to the College Catalogue, and a twelve-page bulletin entitled “Graduation at Black Mountain College.” The supplement announced war-time changes in the academic program and tuition fees and gave a complete list of the 1942-43 staff. The bulletin contained excerpts from graduation examiners’ reports, letters from officials of other colleges expressing their approval of the academic standards of Black Mountain College, and comments by prominent people throughout the country who have expressed enthusiasm for the College program. The two pamphlets were prepared by Gorman Mattison.
Rubye Lipsey, a familiar figure in the Black Mountain College Kitchen and Dining Hall for the first ten years of the institution, has decided to prepare herself for office work. She has enrolled in the Business Department of Morris Brown College of Atlanta University.
Betty Kelley spent six weeks of the summer as a student at the Plymouth Drama Festival in Plymouth, Massachusetts. She was one of the college dramatic students selected, from several hundred applicants from every stat in the Union, for special study in the theatre and radio techniques. During the summer she played roles in “The Warrior’s Husband” and “The Famous Mrs.Fair.” During the summer Betty Kelley and Homer Bobolin announced their engagement.
William McLaughlin spent the summer at his home in Easton, Pennsylvania, working at a large steel mill on the outskirts of Easton as a member of a labor and maintenance gang.
Ruth O’Neill and Paco Leon have announced their engagement.
Barbara Pollet divided her vacation time between piano practicing and acting as governess for the small children of Will Bradley, the well-known jazz band leader.
War information, an article on Black Mountain College was written during the summer by Kenneth Kurtz. According to Mr Noble, “a series of these articles interpreting famous American college for foreign readers will be distributed world-wide” by the Office of War Information.
Lectures
The evening programs of the College during the Spring and Summer Quarters included a series of lectures presented by members of the teaching staff, members of the Seminar on America, and speakers invited to the College. Most of the talks were informal. In the series were: “Photos as Photography and Photos as Art”, a slide-illustrated lecture by Josef Albers; “Shakespeare and the Age of Exuberance”, a lecture by Kenneth Kurtz, “Mary and Martha or About Pragmatism”, two addresses by Dr Erwin Straus; “Problems of the South”, a talk by CK Robinson, an editor on the staff of the Asheville Times; “What Does Nazi Education Mean and Where Does It End”, a talk by Karl Obermann, a journalist enrolled in the Seminar for America; “The Jew in Central Europe”, an address by Victor Ornstein, also a Seminar member; and “Mexican Tradition and Art”, a slide-illustrated lecture by Jean Charlot. All the talks were open to the public.
Art
In observance of the tenth anniversary of the arrival of the Albers in North Carolina the Weatherspoon Gallery of the Woman’s College in Greensboro, the State Art Society in Raleigh, and the Person Hall Gallery of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill will exhibit, this fall, the paintings and prints of Josef Albers and the weavings of Anni Albers and the Textile Department.
Mr and Mrs Albers will attend the Founders’ Day exercises at Woman’s College on October 5. As part of the day’s program Mr Albers will talk informally to students and teachers on his art.
Black Mountain College has been invited to send textiles to an exhibition of Contemporary Handwoven Textiles from the Southern Highlands. The first showing will be during Octobert in Louisville, Kentucky.
Drama
An innovation in dramatic presentation at Black Mountain College was the Saturday evening program, during the Summer Quarter, of poetry, drama and recent history by the Class in Drama Since Ibsen. Acting as Chariman, Dr Eric Bentley made commentaries on contemporary history and literature and illustrated his remarks with readings from the poetry of Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, TS Eliot, WH Auden, Bert Brecht, and WR Rodgers. He was assisted in the reading of a TS Eliot poem by one of the students. Scenes from “The Private Life of the Master Race”, an unpublished drama by Bert Brecht, were read by several students to illustrate Dr Bentley’s commentaries on the use dramatics are making of the contemporary conflict of ideologies.
Students in the Summer Quarter Class in Dramatic Production gave two experimental one-act play presentations during the term. Conrad Seiler’s farce, “The Twelve Pound Look”, directed by Robert Wunsch, were presented against very simple backgrounds, planned and executed by Louise Minster, a Summer School student.
The Black Mountain College Players have been invited by the Asheville Children's Theatre to climax their season of 1943-44 productions with a fairy play in April.
Robert Wunsch will attend the annual conference of Dramatic Directors of North Carolina to be held in the Carolina Playmakers Theatre in Chapel Hill on Saturday, October 9.
Music
Mozart’s “The Magic Flute”, with the complete recording from Dr Fritz Hansgirg’s record collection and with a pictorial libretto by Lisa Jalowetz, concluded by Dr Heinrich Jalowetz’s Spring Quarter course on Mozart’s Operas.
Among the regular Saturday evening concerts during the Spring Quarter two were of special interest. One was “Music in the Renaissance”, a program arranged and directed by Dr Edward Lowinsky. It included music by the A Cappella group, two compositions by the String Quartet. There were also interpolated comments by Dr Lowinsky and a showing of lantern slides. The other was an All-Student concert with works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Ravel, played by Patsy Lynch, Ruth Miller, and Barbara Pollet, pianists; Gwendolyn Currier, ‘cellist; and Tanya Sprager, harpist.
On a Sunday afternoon at the end of the Spring Quarter all the piano students played for each other and the community in an informal recital.
During August Mrs Lotte Leonard gave a recital of German Lieder, and Miss Radianna Pazmore sang a program of American songs. At the end of their stay at Lake Eden the two singers gave a joint recital of duets by Bach, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms. All three recitals were accompanied by Dr Heinrich Jalowetz.
During his visit to Black Mountain College Mr Benjamin Swalin accepted Gwendolyn Currier, a second year music student, as ‘cello player in his North Carolina Symphony Orchestra for the coming season.
During the summer Dr Heinrich Jalowetz completed a two piano arrangement of Arnold Shoenberg’s last composition, a melodrama on Lord Byron’s poem, “Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte”, the speaker’s part of which was studied by Dr Eric Bentley.
Music library
Largely under the direction of Dr Edward Lowinsky, the Surette Music Library and the other books, sheet music and records owned by the College were, during the Spring Quarter, repaired, catalogued, and reshelved in the College Round House or Music Room.
For the repair work a bindery was set up, Dr Fritz Hansgrig donating a fine assortment of tools and binding leathers for it. Here, under the leadership of Mrs Heinrich Jalowetz, with the cooperation of Mrs Nell Rice and Mrs Edward Lowinsky and the help of the Community Work Program, forty volumes were bound. Among these volumes were such items as Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, Haydn’s Trios, Mozart’s Requiem and Magic Flute, Beethoven’s nine symphonies, Beethoven’s overtures, and Chopin’s works.
To preserve the sheet music and the chamber music, which contained, in addition to the score, the different single parts, it was found that the least expensive and the most effective method was to use cardboard boxes for the sheet music and music binders. In this the example of the Music Division of the Library of Congress was followed. The music binders are stiff covers between which the score is pasted; the single parts have been put into the pockets on both sides. More than seventy chamber music works were put into music binders during the Spring Quarter. Among them were Bach’s concertos for the piano, trios and symphonies by Mozart, trios and quartets by Beethoven, almost the complete collection of chamber music by Brahms, and a series of chamber music works by Hindemith.
Mrs Lowinsky took over the office of music librarian, and regular hours were instituted for the signing out for and the bringing back of books, music and records. Added to the Music Room were several sets of new shelves, a new blackboard with music staffs, and a library ladder, the handiwork of student workers.
Radio
Black Mountain College concluded its 1942-1943 weekly radio series over Station WWNC in Asheville during the Spring Quarter. In May it presented five programs: a concert of Preludes by Bach, Chopin, and Debussy, played by Frederic Cohen and Dr Edward Lowinsky; an original dramatic script, “The Mysetry of Swift and Stella”, written by Kenneth Kurtz and Cynthia Carr, a student, and enacted by students in the literature classes; a piano concert, including Mozart’s Rondo in A Minor and Beethoven’s Bagatelles, opus 126, played by Mr Cohen; a dramatization of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey by Dora Harrison, a student, enacted by drama and literature students; and an A-Cappella concert, directed by Dr Lowinsky.
The Faculty and the Student Officers decided at the end of the 1942-1943 session to discontinue the College broadcasting during the Fall and Winter Quarters of the subsequent session because of the time demands on students and teachers and the present-day difficulties of transportation.
Art book campaign
The College continued to receive donations of art books, slides and mounted photographs during the summer. From the Metropolitan Museum of Art came forty books on art and four hundred and sixty slides. From the Fogg Museum of Harvard University came three hundred slides and one thousand mounted photographs. In one gift were thirty books on the history of architecture. Other donors sent a total of one hundred and seventy-five books, swelling the total received by the College since early in January to five hundred.
By mail
Robert Babcock who served for several months as Assistant Chief of the Intelligence Division of the Board of Economic Warfare in Washington, DC, is not an Ensign in the Navy. He has just been sent to a Supply Corps School at Wellesley College. He and Mrs Babcock and their small son, Bobby, are living at Wellesley Farms in Massachusetts.
Howard Dearstyne, a member of the staff of Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisconsin, is teaching Mechanical Drafting to a group of sailors in the Navy V-12 Program, and Architectural Design to a regular college class.
Corporal John Evarts is stationed on the campus of the University of Illinois as a member of an ASTP unit.
Born to Dr and Mrs Jack French at the Iowa State Hospital on Wednesday, May 26, a son. He has been named John RP French III. Dr French is now an Industrial Psychologist at the Harwood Corporation in Marion, Virginia.
Joe J King has been appointed Chief of a new Group Services Section, a combination of the Cooperative Section and the Farm Security Administration Water Facility in Portland, Oregon. He is also serving as a public referee on some of the employer-union dispute cases of the West Coast Lumber Commission, which is part of the War Labor Board.
A Lawrence Kocher, for three years head of the Department of Architecture at Black Mountain College, has been granted a leave of absence for the duration of the war. He has gone to New York to engage in special research in new construction materials and uses to which they may be put in the post-war period. He is living with his family in their Forest Hills home on Long Island.
The July issue of Pencil Points, an architectural magazine, contained a complete description of an Architectural Planning Center proposed by Mr Kocher. The article is generously illustrated with floor layouts and exterior and interior sketches. Mr Kocher’s plan is for a coordinated planning service for the entire building industry which includes architects, representatives from industry, research experts, and educators.
Born to Mr and Mrs Joseph Martin, on July 28, a son. He has been name David Clark.
Gorman Mattison, Instructor in Marketing and Assistant to the Rector for the 1942-43 session, has gone to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to take up his new work with the Community Fund.
Lieutenant Bedford Thurman is at present stationed at Lubbock Field in Texas.
Barney Voigt, Instructor in Botany and Landscape Architecture during the 1942-43 session of the College, will spend the autumn in New York City collaborating with Christopher Tunnard on a book on landscape architecture. He and Margaret Stenderhoff, Secretary to the Rector during the Winter and Spring Quarters, have announced their engagement.
In the service
Early in August Henry Adams was assigned to an ASTP unit at North Carolina State College in Raleigh. During the earlier part of the summer Henry was a student at Black Mountain College.
Lieutenant Thomas Brooks has been transferred from Fort Knox to Camp Campbell, which is also in Kentucky, and has been assigned to an Armored Regiment.
Corporal Doughten Cramer is now somewhere in England. He took his first schooling at Keesler Field in Mississippi, on the Gulf Coast; then he was sent to Chanute Field near Champaign, Illinois, where he learned to be a specialist on the electrical systems of aeroplanes. He was graduated from Chanute Field, then he was sent to Key Field near Meredian, Mississippi.
Rudy Haase, enlisted in the College Naval Program at the University of Michigan, is continuing his regular engineering course and taking, in addition, four hours of naval training every day.
Corporal Pete Hill and Technical Sergeant George Randall are stationed at Camp Edwards, Massachusetts with the Amphibian Engineers.
Lieutenant John J Kasik is now stationed at the Lakeland Army Air Field near Lakeland, Florida.
Leslie Katz, a private in the Heavy Weapons Division of the Infantry, is stationed at Fort McClelland, near Anniston, Alabama.
Roman Maciejczyk won his wings and gold bars in July at Camp Hondoe, in Texas. He is not stationed at the United States Army Air Base in Mountain Home, Iowa.
Lieutenant Bela Martin, after several months of duty with a fighting squadron on Guadalcanal, recently had a thirty days leave in the United States. He was married on September 2 in Nashville, Tennessee to Miss Virigina Allison.
Privates Isaac Nakata, Thomas Wentworth, and Emil Willimetz are stationed at Camp Shelby in Mississippi.
Private First Class Bruno Piscitello who has completed his preliminary training, has been sent to Sheppard Feield in Texas to become an aircraft mechanic.
Jacqueline Tankersley, enrolled in the WAVES, is studying radio technique on the campus of the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Technician Third Grade Evelyn J Tubbs is a member of the first Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps until to set foot in Britain. The detachment arrived in May in the English theatre of operations to assume noncombat jobs at Allied Headquarters in London.
Private First Class Jerry Wolpert, stationed now near Hays, Kansas, is clerk in the headquarters squadron on an air field for heavy bombers.
Former students
Maude Dabbs was Drama and Music Counsellor at Camp Tree Tops on Lake Placid in New York during the summer. She has returned to the Bancroft School in Worcester, Massachusetts where she will again teach all the music in the grammar and high school this season.
Born to Mr and Mrs Albert G Gudgeon in Brooklyn during July a girl who has been named Gloria Joan. Mrs Gudgeon was formerly Gloria Larsen.
Elmer Hall is not taking his second term of work at the University of the City of Los Angeles.
Will Hamlin is now working for the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation in New York City, learning about the tests the Foundation gives and the aptitudes they measure, giving tests occasionally, and taking care of much of office work.
Lisa Jalowetz has accepted a position to teach costume design at the New School for Social Research in New York City. During September she spent two weeks at Lake Eden with her parents.
Ruthabeth Krueger Conrad gave a concert in New Haven with Shirley Turner the last Sunday in April and played in an orchestra concert in Boston in May. During the summer she played in the Lanier String Quartet in Eliot, Maine.
Mendez Marks, now on the staff of The New Yorker, had a story in the August 25 issue of the magazine.
Jane Mayhall Katz is on the editorial board of a “little magazine” called The Chimera.
One of Frances Kuntz’s drawings for a production of “Frogs” by Aristophanes appeared in the July issue of Theatre Arts.
Fernando Leon will be graduated in October from Columbia University. He will receive the degree of Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering.
Alice Lee Swan is now in the Near East after exciting and hazardous experiences in Tiensin under Japanese occupation. She was in Tiensin from the bombing of Pearl Harbor until September 24; during that time her baby was born. From Tiensin she and her husband and baby were taken to South Africa. There Alice Lee studied commercial art. She is married to Walter Gerald Graham.
Phyllis Josephs Thomas is working at Sharpe and Dohme’s, pharmaceutical manufacturers in Philadelphia, as editor-in-chief of the company’s magazine. During July she and her husband, a medical student, spent their brief vacation at Lake Eden.
Norman Weston, an Ensign in the Supply Corps of the Navy, is stationed in New Orleans, Louisiana. He and Mrs Weston live in one of the older sections of the city with their two small children, Michael Chapin, now five years old, and Carol Betty, nearly two years old.
Sybil Yamins was graduated from the School of Business at Simmons College in June. She is not doing secretarial work in New York City.
Visitors
Among the former students who visited Lake Eden during the Spring Quarter were: Mrs Isaac Newton Stokes Phelps, with her husband; Connie Spencer, and Corporal John Stix.
After his visit to Lake Eden in May, William T McCleery, editor of PM’s Picture News, wrote one of his “Dear Joe” Letters in which he described the war-time life at Black Mountain College. This letter appeared in the Sunday, May 25, issue of the Picture News.
Mr and Mrs Michael Higgins were College visitors for two weeks in July. My Higgins, an Englishman, is working for the Indian Government. His office is in Washington, DC.
Dr and Mrs Karl Terzhagi, of Winchester, Massachusetts, were visitors during August. Dr Terzhagi is Professor of Soil Mechanics at Harvard University and a member of the Advisory Council of Black Mountain College. Mrs Terzhagi was formerly Professor of Geology at Wellesley College.
Dr and Mrs Eric Werner spent part of their August vacation at Lake Eden. Dr Werner, a musicologist, is a member of the teaching staff at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati.
Mr and Mrs Henry Leonard attended the last session of the American Seminar, then remained at Lake Eden until September as guests.
Arthur Morgan, Ex-President of Antioch College and Chairman for five years of the Tennessee Valley Authority, visited the College for an afternoon and evening early in September and spoke informally to a group of students and teachers on Cooperative Communities and their relation to the present world crisis. He was accompanied on his visit by his wife.
Jean Charlot, resident artist at the University of Georgia, and his wife and two small children spent the first ten days of September at Lake Eden. During his stay here he gave a slide-illustrated lecture on “Mexican Tradition and Art.” Mr Charlot is well known as a mural painter and as a writer on art. He was active in the modern Mexican Art Movement.
Among the other visitors to the College during the Spring and Summer Quarters were: Mr and Mrs H.B. Adams, the parents of Henry, a student; Mrs John P Carr, mother of Cynthia, a student; Miss Isabel Cary, copywriter for the Tuttle Agency in New York City; Mr and Mrs WH de Graaff, the parents of Frances, from Portland, Oregon; Miss Lux Elsner, a cousin of Frederic Cohen, on an extended visit in the United States from her home in Buenos Aires; Mrs JB Jamison, of Newton Center, Massachusetts, a member of the Advisory Board of the College’ Miss Radiana Pazmore, a member of the teaching staff in the Music Department at Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina; Mrs HL Robinson, the mother of Janie, a student; Mrs Gertrude Stenderhoff, mother of Margaret; Mrs AD Stone, of Richmond, Virginia; Mr Benjamin Swalin, a member of the staff of the Music Department at the University of North Carolina dn the Director of the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra; Mr Frank Vitullo, a member of the staff of the Museum of Modern Art; and Mrs OB Voigt, the mother of Barney.
Work report
As part of the summer triple-program the College operated a work camp similar to the projects of the two preceding summers. More emphasis was put upon farm work, however; less upon construction work. There was a total of sixteen work campers during the summer months, and each camper put in a five-hour work day. Fifteen students, with full class loads, contributed three afternoons a week to work projects. Members of the teaching staff and their families lent aid in emergencies when they could get away from their regular community duties. Important in all the work done were Bas Allen, Ross Penley, Pearson Mundy and Ben Sneed. In addition to doing their own work they directed the students who were helping them.
Much effort was put into improving the buildings on the grounds. In the Studies Building screens were installed in the living rooms of the teachers and in all the class rooms. The entire interior of the building was thoroughly scrubbed and otherwise cleaned for the Seminar on America; then again, later in the summer, for the fall opening of the College. One half of the insulation underneath the building was completed. The sun deck was repainted, as was also the front entrance to the building. The windows and doors were repaired to insure easy and efficient opening and closing. The concrete slab before the entrance of the building was water-proofed, and the roof of the building was tar-treated by professional workers to prevent further leakage during wet weather.
North Lodge was thoroughly cleaned and otherwise prepared at the beginning of the summer for guests. Bathrooms and beds were scrubbed and painted, and screen partitions were made and installed in the attics to create alcoves. South Lodge was also thoroughly cleaned, and its bathrooms were painted.
The South Apartment in Mountain Stream was entirely repainted, the closet was renovated, and the floors were shellacked. The walls and the ceilings in the Stone Cottage were painted.
During the spring the road from the campus gate to the New Cottage had been scraped and its drainage had been redirected. During the summer the road was kept in good repair.
The lawns in front of the Lodges and around the Stone Cottage were moved periodically, and the grounds near the Gate House and the Science Building and along the road were scythed and mowed twice during the summer.
In the Shop shelves were built for the Library and the Music Room. The book press was rebuilt, and racks to hold the supplies of the Bookbinding Room were constructed. Three prints were framed for the Art Department, and a cabinet for a faculty study was made. Electric stoves, furniture, light fixtures, tools and a harness were repaired. For the farm two gates for the Lower Pasture and two calf pens were constructed.
Periodically trash was collected and hauled away, kindling was cut, new fuses were inserted, leaky faucets were repaired, new window panes were installed; daily the outgoing mail was carried from the Office to the Dining Hall to the rural mail carrier, and the incoming mail was distributed; the work slips were checked and recorded; the Store opened and closed; bought and sold, and periodically, took inventory. Weekly the Office sent out mimeographed Bulletins and other material. Rooms were prepared for guests.
Two times a day the milk was cooled, and all the milk vessels were washed. Twice a week freshly churned butter was brought to the kitchen. When help was scarce, students, members of the American Seminar, and the wives of the teachers helped in the kitchen to prepare vegetables for cooking, to clean the dining tables, to wash the dishes.
The farm
Six milking cows produced all the milk the community needed and an average of fourteen pounds of butter a week as well as enough milk and butter for the Penley family. Three of them also produced three calves and milk for these calves.
The beef herd was increased by eight new calves, two of them bulls; the sows produced twenty-five pigs. Three young cows, a calf, a sow and three shoats bought a total of $135.06.
Four beef animals and two shoats were slaughtered. This brought to the kitchen around sixteen hundred pounds of beef and 400 pounds of pork.
Harvest
The vegetable garden brought to the kitchen fifty-six bushels of onions, sixty bunches of radishes, eight bushels of peas, nine and a half bushels of beets, four bushels of squash, eight bushels of tomatoes, three bushels of carrots, twenty bushels of beans, four bushels of cucumbers, twenty-four pounds chard, a hundred and thirty pounds of greens, and fifty pounds of cabbage. On the pantry shelves in the kitchen are one hundred and ninety-seven Number 10 cans of beets, thirteen Number 10 cans of beans, forty-two half-gallon jars of carrots, and forty gallons of kraut. The canning was done at the Farm School in Swannanoa. Still to be harvested for winter storage are one and three-quarter acres of potatoes, fifteen bushels of beans, and three hundred pounds of cabbage.
Already raised and stored for winter feeding are thirty-eight tons of hay, seventy-two tons of silage. One hundred and fifty bushels are expected from the corn in the Grove Stone Field which is being cut and shocked to dry. The crop land is being replowed to be put into cover crops of barley, vetch and rye. Four acres of alfalfa have already been planted.
