Reminiscences of Algernon David Black

More serendipity.  This time someone asked me about Algernon D. Black.  I shared what I had (not a whole lot outside of the Bibliography), but I got curious and went looking for more.  Black was an alumnus of Harvard, which now houses many of his papers from 1932 - 1981.  Given his active public life, there are a number of records to be found in other places.  Interestingly, there is no Wikipedia page for Black (or most other Ethical Culture Leaders), but there is a page on KeyWiki:

a bipartisan knowledge base focusing primarily on corruption and the covert side of politics in the United States and globally. While particular interest is taken in the left, KeyWiki serves to expose covert politics on both the left and the right of the political spectrum.

Along the rabbit trail to find out more about Black, I also found ArchiveGrid, which lists archives of primary resources "held in archives, libraries, museums and historical societies."  One happy find was an item held by Columbia University.  It was a happy find because the material was actually digitized and available for online reading.  The ArchiveGrid entry linked to the page on Columbia Library's website about "Reminiscences of Algernon David Black, 1978."

Merritt Russell interviewed Black over several weeks about his life, including:

Immigrant background, Ethical Culture School, Harvard; early interest in civil liberties; Roger N. Baldwin; settlement house work, 1926-1933; work with West Virginia mining families, 1933; teacher and leader at Ethical Culture from 1933; co-chairman, city-wide Committee on Harlem, 1941-1947; job opportunities for blacks; state committee on fair housing, 1949; chairman of board of National Committee on Discrimination in Housing, 1950-1967; black militancy in late 1960s; chairman of Civilian Complaint Review Board of Police Department, New York City, 1966; encampments for citizenship from 1939; writing and broadcasting on ethical issues; internal security investigations[.]

These interviews were tape recorded and then transcribed.  Black read the transcripts, made corrections and additions, and, given some of the controversies that he discussed, provided additional interviews to expand on those subjects.  These interviews were part of a larger oral history project at Columbia University. 

I couldn't stop myself from taking a peek at the transcript.  Then I couldn't stop myself from reading the whole transcript, all 251 pages of it.  It was fascinating.  From his earliest childhood memories to his work for human rights; from his early school experiences to his admission to the Ethical Culture School and what that meant for his life and understanding of human relations; from his civic roles to his handling of civil rights.  And more.  

Having done so, I was more disheartened than shocked when I ran across KeyWiki and its "guilt by association" post on Algernon D. Black.  How fortunate to have his own testimony to his work and his intentions and his ethics to throw some light on the matter.  How sad to see that the McCarthy Era hasn't ended and that good people--and the memory of good people--can still be subjected to such tactics.

Well, the interview is in the Bibliography now.  You should read it.

What to Do with the Adler Study

 

The Adler Study at NYSEC

Ever since my trip to New York last fall and the overwhelming discoveries in the areas where the archives are kept in the NYSEC building near Central Park, I have been thinking of how we can manage to preserve, document, and increase access to as many of those discoveries as possible.  Someone recently asked me if I knew whether a particular book was in the Adler Study.  😶  That's when I realized that I had not been including this seriously important repository of history and knowledge in my plans and strategies.  

The Adler Study is a historical space within the NYSEC building, which itself is a historical space for New York City and the nation.  It was Felix Adler's study--office--conference room--center of action--from its construction in 1910 until his death in 1933.  It houses books that he wrote, that he consulted for reference, that he read for study and further cultivation of his--and his followers'--Ethical being.

When I visited Room 514 last September, I could hear the pride--and a degree of reverence--in my guide's voice.  I recognized that I had entered a space where great thoughts and deeds had occurred.  But I also saw that this was a working space for the New York Society.  A place for meetings.  A place for gathering.  But not necessarily a place for study.  With all four walls filled with tall bookcases, the wealth of information and inspiration to be found there was behind locked glass doors.

I have no desire to see those doors thrown open for the everyday use of the resources there.  Much of what is there--as far as I have seen--is unique or in fragile condition or of historical value beyond measure.  I do, however, want to know what is behind those glass doors.  I also want to read and study what is behind those glass doors.  And I want to share it with others in some way that does not damage the physical condition of the contents.

I was privileged to examine the contents of just one of those cabinets.

Cabinet A, Adler Study, 2023

Among the treasures there were bound copies of Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record as well as its successor, The Standard.  There were books that Adler might have consulted in preparing for a lecture about Lincoln, and there were books published long after his death.  The Adler Study served other Leaders in the ensuing years.  

Well, this room and its contents have to be considered as part of the NYSEC Ethical Culture Archives (I just made up that name), and I have a few thoughts about what to do next.  While I am drafting a more detailed proposal reflecting those thoughts, here's a list for starters:

• Locate or create a Statement of Purpose for the Adler Study which serves to guide policy for its preservation and use.
• Photograph the entire Study, with detailed photo-documentation of the cases and each shelf.
• Locate any past inventories of the contents of the bookcases.
• Label the bookcases and shelves for location references.
• Develop a detailed inventory/bibliography of the contents of the Study, using photo-documentation to convey records to remote analysts/compilers (guess who? 🤠).
• Identify which items in the Study have already been digitized, and determine which, of the remainder, should be digitized.
• Develop an online repository for Ethical Culture's history of thought, including at least the inventory of this collection.  Add more items as allowed by US copyright laws.
• Develop policies related to use, retention, and dissemination of the contents of the Study.
• Write a history of the space prior to its current use as both archive and meeting space.

And, apparently, the list could go on.  Now that I think about it, the same list should apply to the room across the hall from 514:  The Elliott Library.  Work to be done.  More hands needed.  Just saying.

Ethical Books and Pamphlets

John Mitchell, President of UMWA, with "Breaker Boys"

Working with the Fifteenth Series of Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record had it challenges, one of which was to check the lists of Ethical books and pamphlets listed for sale on the covers of each monthly number.  I was looking to see which addresses already published in EA&ER were then also printed as pamphlets and sold "at the library table" for, literally, nickels and dimes.  This provided a "quality check" in two ways:

1. Any address listed as a pamphlet that did not appear in EA&ER might be something that I missed when documenting the series that I have looked at so far;
2. After doublechecking for that error, I can feel fairly certain that we are looking at pamphlets that were important for some reason--so it would be good to find and document them.

A case in point are four addresses by Felix Adler:

• "The Ethics of the Political Situation";
• "The Ethics of the Labor Struggle";
• "Evils Disclosed by the Coal Strike";
• "The Sabbath and the World's Fair."

All four of these seem to be related to current events, whether local, national, or international initially unclear.  

The coal strike seems to refer to the Pennsylvania coal strike in 1902.  The John Mitchell Papers, archived on microfilm at Cornell, show the second and third pamphlets preserved on Reel 54 (Items 1 and 2).  The guide to that reel indicates that both were also published in The Ethical Record, which had not at that time been merged with Ethical Addresses.  While we have located a complete set of the latter, the former has been a little more elusive.  There is also documentation of the second pamphlet, via Horace Friess, in Esther Lifschitz' Senior History thesis at Columbia (2010).  

With a little more searching, another citation about the coal strike appeared.  It is from the Theodore Roosevelt Papers in the Library of Congress Manuscript Collection (Evils disclosed by the coal strike. Theodore Roosevelt Papers. Library of Congress Manuscript Division. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Research/Digital-Library/Record?libID=o39591.)  Fortunately there's also the whole address, originally given on October 19, 1902, and published in The Ethical Record as a "Lecture Supplement."  The scan is dark, the interface is fiddly, but the address is both readable and accessible.

The fourth pamphlet is identified as a platform delivered on January 29, 1893, and is preserved in Box 19 of "Felix Adler papers, 1830-1933" archived at Columbia University.  The only other reference I've found to it is in a list of publications (perhaps the same list that I am using) copied into Stanton Coit's history of Ethical Culture in England.

The first pamphlet--"The Ethics of the Political Situation"--was the last I searched for, assuming it to be too vaguely titled to be findable.  Of course, it turned out to be easier to find than the others.  (Thanks, Google Books!)  It's also turning out to be an interesting read, referring to the 1884 election contest between Grover Cleveland and James G. Blaine (without naming either candidate).  That contest was full of ethical, moral, and legal breaches (and accusations of such breaches) and certainly worthy of an address on the ethics of the "situation" by Adler.  I found it interesting that the date of the address--October 19, 1884--was the 100th anniversary of the day of thanksgiving declared when the War of Independence was finally over.  Adler's words ring true today as he (and our nation's founders) called us to maintain high regard for the national honor and to raise our young with those "fundamental virtues whereon the true welfare of peoples and governments depends."  Adler, by the way, advocated for "none of the above" candidates, because of character.  Both candidates, he argued, failed to live up to the standards demanded by our national honor, so he advised his listeners:

At such a time, then, as this, I believe it right that we should look about among the candidates; and, if we find any one whose character is strong and whose record is stainless, that we should cast our votes for him, no matter on what party platform he may stand. For, in this contest, party platforms are not at issue, and character is all in all . 

Happily, none of these four pamphlets were "missed addresses" in my earlier documentation of our Ethical literature, but looking for more information to document them has certainly been worth the effort.  That they were important enough to warrant separate publication is revealed as we discover them in archives related to the political actors of the period.  Hopefully we can find better ways to incorporate them into our own understanding of the role that Adler and others played in our nation's history.