5 page newsletter on matte white paper. Includes description of building plans for Lake Eden Campus and fall work program. Provides both faculty and student updates and closes with a quote from John Dewey about BMC.
Handwritten in pencil “T.Dreier- personal file copy.”
BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE NEWSLETTER
Number 9 August, 1940
GREETINGS FROM LAKE EDEN!
Lake Eden, the future home of the College, has been the present home of thirty-six members of the community for the past two months. Of this number, about half comprise the Inn staff; the rest are carrying on the College office work, planning the work for the coming year, and vacationing. Guests, happily, are numerous this year. The management, of course, can make no statement for the press, but it is generally believed that the season will show well “on the books”. The Lake Eden grounds are looking very well this year, thanks to the able assistance of Faculty and Staff members.
Building Plans
In September, 1941, the College plans to open in buildings of its own on its Lake Eden property, since Blue Ridge, its present location, will probably no longer be available. The prospect of raising sufficient funds in those difficult times to erect even the first part of the splendid buildings designed by Gropius and Breuer seems slight. Hence an alternative simpler plan is being evolved to enable the College to move at the least possible expense, without interfering, however, with the possibility of latex carrying out the original plans if and when funds become available.
The plan is to insulate and install heating equipment in the present Lake Eden buildings which are to be used for living quarter dining room etc. The present building will thus provide about half of the space necessary for the College. The other half will have to be constructed and a comprehensive plan for the whole is being worked out.
The most important new building will be principally for student and faculty studies and will probably also provide space for the library, for college offices, a few faculty suites and other items. Plans have been discussed with several architects including Marcel Breuer and A Lawrence Kocher, both of whom have visited Lake Eden this summer. The latter is now making actual working drawings and material lists so that work can start in September. Mr Kocher was formerly editor of the Architectural Record. He has also been professor of architecture at Carnegie Tech and at the University of Virginia. He has been interested in Black Mountain and particularly in the art work here since we started in 1933
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Fall Work Program
Because there is nothing like the amount of money in sight to have even these buildings constructed, the students and faculty decided last May that the thing to do was to undertake to build them themselves as far as possible, making use of the building materials that exist on the Lake Eden property. It was decided to extend the practical work program with this in mind.
It should be emphasized that the idea is to make the practical work a more integral part of the life and of the educational program of the College; and to avoid having it exist in a compartment isolated from everything else. With this in mind an attempt has been made to find for some of the faculty vacancies, men who have had experience in practical work as well as in intellectual or art work, or both, so that they will be able to understand and to illuminate the connections between these different fields.
The man who has been especially invited to the College to halp organize the work program, as well as to teach economics, is Dr Richard Gothe (see page 3). To take charge of the actual building and to direct the students on the job, the College has engaged Charles Godfrey, a well-known local builder. It is planned to make as much use as practicable of the building stone and gravel which abound on the Lake Eden property. At the present time a survey of the timber resources is being made to determine whether installation of a small sawmill would be justified.
Second in importance to the building is the farm program. The condition of the farm is greatly improved over what it was two years ago. Intensive work for a year or two now would further improve it to the point of producing effectively for the College, especially if a little money were now available for equipment. In view of a very possible approaching food shortage in the world, this may be of great importance. At any rate it will help the College to be somewhat more self-sufficient and secure. Mr Penley, the farmer, has some fine crops this year. Mr Larsen, from the Farm School near Asheville, has been very helpful in advising us about the farm and we hope to continue to have his help this fall in directing the farm work.
A temporary work Committee consisting of people who are spending the summer at Eden has been working on details of organization. It is planned to invite a few students to return on September 2nd, a week before College opens, in order to get the work under way. Anyone interested should reflect that only good workers are wanted and that a full day’s work will be expected daily. If anyone is still interested write to Charles Lindsley at Lake Eden, or to Ted Dreier who will be at Bolton Landing, Lake George, New York, August 12-23, and thereafter at Eden. Warning- because of the
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Fact that guest reservations have been made at Lake Eden up until September 7, do not come and expect to find lodging at the Inn unless you have a letter from either Charles Lindsley or Ted Dreier, specifically asking you to come.
Faculty
Five new members of the Faculty have been appointed by the Board of Fellows. Last May the appointment of Dr J Richard Carpenter in Biology and Mr Robert S Babcock in Political Science was announced. In July Dr Richard Gothe accepted the position in Economics left vacant by the resignation of Dr Gerald Barnes. He has also accepted the responsibility of the direction of the work program connected with the erection of the new buildings at Lake Eden.
Dr Gothe’s experience and training particularly qualify him for his work here. Born in Berlin, Germany, where he attended elementary school, he spent four years from 1914-1918 learning his trade as machinist and toolmaker. After a year as a private in the German Army he spent nine years working at his trade in Germany, Brazil, and the United States. The passing of a special examination admitted him to the Universities of Berlin and Kiel where he studied economics and sociology from 1929 to 1934. During this time he organized and directed 20 Voluntary Labor Camps in northern Germany, emphasizing especially the educational program. He also founded the Workers and Students Community House in Kiel. After State examinations in 1934 he was awarded his PhD in Economics.
During most of this period Dr Gothe worked as a non-political journalist in Berlin, and after the coming of the Nazi regime prohibited his activities with the labor camps, he devoted his time to a study of leisure time activities in Berlin and London. He came to the United States in the fall of 1938.
In this country, Dr Gothe continued his interest in work camps by studying NYA resident centers in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi. With the American Youth Commission he made a study of the CCC, NYA and Private Work Camps. This study, together with his teaching experience at the Peoples High Schools in Berlin and Kiel, and his wide research in the fields of economics and sociology, gives him a breadth and depth of background that is unusual. He has for the past two summers been directing summer work camps for the American Youth Commission. He recently spent two days at Lake Eden discussing preliminary work plans with the Building Committee.
For the vacancy in Physics the Board feels itself fortunate to have secured the services of Dr Nathan Rosen, who comes to us from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he was been engaged in research work during the past two years. Both his
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Undergraduate and his graduate work were done at MIT where he received his ScD in 1932. Following this he was for two years a National Research Fellow at the Universities of Michigan and Princeton. The subsequent two years were spent at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton as assistant and collaborator of Professor Albert Einstein. Another two years was spent at the University of Kiev as professor of physics, where he taught electromagnetic theory, physical optics, quantum mechanics, relativity theory, and nuclear physics. Dr Rosen’s research work has included the publishing of several papers on questions in relativity and quantum theory, most of them in the Physical Review. Dr Rosen is married and has two young sons.
The Board of Fellows is also glad to announce the appointment of Mr John R P French, Jr to the Faculty as teacher of Introductory Psychology. Mr French was graduated from Black Mountain College in 1937 and has since been at Harvard University where he has been completing the work for his doctor’s degree. Mr and Mrs French are both known to the Black Mountain College community and we shall be glad to welcome them in September.
Candidates are being considered for the vacancies in American History and Art, and for the assistantships in Music and Dramatics. The vacancy in Art is occasioned by the leave of absence granted Mr and Mrs Albers for the coming year. They left on August 7th for the west, hoping to get to Mexico again, if possible. They will return to BMC about Thanksgiving time. During the second semester Mrs Albers will resume her classes, while Mr Albers has accepted an invitation to give some courses in design at Harvard University, courses usually given during the summer only.
Anne and Fred Mangold and John Evarts have done a Spartan job this summer in interviewing candidates, publicizing the College, and trying to secure financial assistance. The latter task, difficult at best, has been made more so by the international situation and the many calls for war relief. Large immediate results are not evident at present, but it is felt that the work has been definitely worth while. Up to August 5, a total of $2760 had been definitely pledged or received for the coming year.
STUDENTS
Seventeen applicants have been fully admitted for entrance in September:
Mariette Allen, Mariemont, Ohio Peter Hill, Laguna Beach, California
Renate Benfey, Black Mountain Marjorie Karlin, Long Beach, NJ
John Campbell, Fairhope, Alabama Marjorie Moench, West Newton, NJ
Thomas Dalton, Lexington, Mass Mendez Marks, Jr., San Antonio, TX
Jack Deaver, Escondido, Calif Leslie Paul, New York City
Robert Goehring, Newtonville, Mass Jane Slater, Ogden, Utah
Margaret Greene, Winchester, Mass Carolyn Spencer, Washington, DC
Elmer Hall, Lyndhurst, New Jersey Alexandra Weekes, Oyster Bay, NJ
Stephen Forbes, Freeville, NY (return after leave of absence)
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Tentatively admitted and awaiting the comparative judgement of the Admissions Committee are: six boys, nine girls. Eight applications are pending (four boys and four girls). The Committee feels confident that the Fall Semester will open with about seventy-five students.
The four graduates of last June are, and will be, working at interesting jobs. Dick Andrews is about to undertake teaching. Bela Martin, after a summer at the Miquon Country Day Camp at Miquon, Pennsylvania, will go to teach art at the John Burroughs School near St Louis, Missouri. Bill Reed writes enthusiastically of his life in the Friends’ Work Camp in Reading, Pennsylvania. Hope Stephens has been spending the summer at the camp in the Adirondacks and in September will take an apprentice teaching position at the Shady Hill School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
IN CLOSING
Recently we received a letter from John Dewey was both encouraging and challenging. We quote it in full:
“I hope, earnestly, that your efforts to get adequate support for Black Mountain College (and it is impossible in its case to separate the two) is a living example of democracy in action. No matter how the present crisis comes out, the need for the kind of work the College does is imperative in the long-run interests of democracy. The College exists at the very ‘grass roots’ of a democratic way of life.”.
July 18, 1940
