A European Jew in the Jim Crow South: Lincoln in the 1940s

This continues the blogpost "A European Jew in the Jim Crow South: Intro to Simon Grünzweig."

Upon arriving in New York City in the summer of 1947, Simon Grünzweig faced the prospect of starting a new life in a foreign country.  One major challenge was finding new employment, never an easy task for a 40-year old immigrant with limited language abilities.

Grünzweig was helped in his job search by the International Rescue Committee (IRC).  The organization had formed the American Committee for Emigre Scholars, Writers and Artists which was charged with helping place refugees into jobs.  The subcommittee had surveyed US universities and made inquiries about positions for refugee scholars.

The IRC had success in finding employment for Grünzweig.  By September 1948 (roughly 1 year after he arrived in the US), Grünzweig had accepted an assistant professorship at Lincoln University.  Lincoln is a Historically Black University (or HBCU) in rural Pennsylvania.  At the time, the university offered a 4-year liberal arts education that was fully accredited by the Middle States Association (a notable achievement for an HBCU at the time).  However, in many respects Lincoln was different from 4-year universities most contemporary readers are familiar with.

Lincoln University was founded shortly before the Civil War (in 1854) for the purpose of providing an education to Black men.  While White students had attended the university since the 19th century,  the student body was overwhelming Black when Grünzweig was there, and there were no female students (although some faculty wives attended courses).

Now Lincoln is a public university, but it was originally a private institution closely tied to the Presbyterian Church.  In the 40s and 50s, it remained a private university (although state Governor held an ex-offico position on the Board of Trustees), and Christianity played an important role in campus life.  The university, for example, maintained a seminary and offered regular church services.

Lincoln University was tiny even by the standards of the time.  Student enrollment was below 200 students in 1944.  The end of World War Two saw a large increase in enrollment, and when Grünzweig arrived the student population stood at roughly 500.  This was the highest enrollment until the 1960s.  (Today enrollment stands at about 2,000.)

Physics Professor William Cole
From the 1949 Lincoln University Yearbook

Lincoln also employed a small number of professors.  During the Second World War, the size of the teaching staff was about 30 with a little over 20 of them being professors (the remainder being instructors and lecturers).  Many subjects were taught by only one or two professors.

Staffing math classes presented an especially difficult challenge.  The university only employed one math professor, Walter Livingston Wright, and he was University President.  The math teaching was done by Wright together with Chemistry Professor Edward Haviland, and Physics Professor William Cole.

Beyond the large increase in student enrollment brought about by the end of the war, the 1946-47 academic year saw other important changes.  After serving as University President for almost a decade, Walter Wright retired and was replaced by Horace Mann Bond, Lincoln's first Black President. To manage the growth of the student body, President Bond expanded the size of the teaching staff to roughly 40.

That year the math teaching was done by Professor Cole together with two instructors: Nathan T. Seeley and George H. Butcher, Jr.  Both Seeley and Butcher went on to become math professors.

George H. Butcher, Jr.
From the 1947 Lincoln University Yearbook

Butcher was originally from Washington DC and received an undergraduate degree from Howard University.  He had moved to Pennsylvania to pursue graduate studies at University of Pennsylvania. and had remained in the area after completing his master's degree in 1943.  Later, after teaching at Lincoln, he completed his PhD and returned to DC to teach at Howard.

Nathan T. Seeley
From the 1949 Lincoln University Yearbook

Seeley was from Mamaroneck, New York and had recently graduated from Lincoln.  He would later receive a M.S. degree from University of Pennsylvania and become a math professor at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, North Carolina A&T State University, and Morgan State University.

Grünzweig would be the third Jewish refugee to work at Lincoln.  The Austrian economist Herbert Furth arrived at Lincoln in 1939, but he left before Grünzweig (in 1943) to work at the Catholic University of American in Washington DC.  However, the other refugee, German philosophy professor Walter Fales (formerly Feilchenfeld), was a colleague of Grünzweig's.  Professor Fales taught at Lincoln from 1946 to 1953 (when he died of cancer).

The next blogpost will explore what Grünzweig's experience was like when he arrived at Lincoln.

Walter Fales
From Lincoln University Yearbook 1948