A European Jew in the Jim Crow South: Grünzweig at Lincoln

This continues the blogpost "A European Jew in the Jim Crow South: Intro to Simon Grünzweig" and "A European Jew in the Jim Crow South: Lincoln in the 1940s"

The Lincoln University campus
1942 Lincoln University Yearbook

Moving to Lincoln University must have been a huge shock to Grünzweig.  Up to this time, Grünzweig had lived in major cities: New York City and European capitals like Vienna and Stockholm.  Lincoln was as different as one can imagine.  It was a largely self-contained environment of the university students, staff, and faculty and the residents of a small neighboring village.  Most faulty, including Grünzweig, lived in university housing.  The nearest town, Oxford, Pennsylvania, was only 4 miles away, but Oxford itself was quite small (less than 3,000 residents), and Lincoln faculty tended to stay on campus.

The isolation at Lincoln was reinforced by the social climate of the region.  While Pennsylvania is a Northern state, Lincoln lies near the Maryland border, and culturally the region had much in common with Upper South states like Maryland.  Pennsylvania did not enact the type of segregationist laws which existed in the Jim Crow South, but schools, movie theaters, swimming pools, and other facilities in the area were segregated by social practice.  Lincoln's tradition of promoting integration and Black uplift generated conflict with Oxford residents.  Professor Fale's wife recalled that, in the 1940s, white students from Oxford would occasionally drive to Lincoln to harass students and faculty by, for example, throwing cherry bombs.  Attempts by Lincoln students to challenge segregated facilities in Oxford were met with threats of violence.

Lincoln University Faculty, Grünzweig is row 2, in the center
The Lion Yearbook, 1950

Grünzweig had a difficult time adjusting to teaching at Lincoln.  He was hired as an assistant professor on a 1 year contract.  His workload was very high: five classes per term.  Moreover, Grünzweig was largely running the math department by himself.  The only others teaching the subject were Professor Cole (who was also responsible for teaching physics) and Nathan T. Seeley (who had left by Fall 1950).

Grünzweig's colleagues were displeased with his classroom performance. In Spring 1950 (after he had been teaching for a year and a half), he was informed that that he might not be employed the next year.  The university tried to hire Wade Ellis, an African American professor working at Oberlin College, to take over the Mathematics Department. They were unsuccessful. Ultimately, Grünzweig was offered employment for the 1950-51 academic year with the understanding that there was no possibility of further employment at Lincoln.

It is difficult to reconstruct from existing records what about Grünzweig's teaching caused displeasure.  It seems that he had difficulties teaching in English and also adjusting to teaching US students, common difficulties for refugee scholars.  A glimpse of the students' view of Grünzweig is given in the 1950 student yearbook.  In the yearbook, each graduating senior had a detailed entry with humorous comments about their time at Lincoln.  The entry for math student Donald Roberts reads, "he wore out three math profs...met his match mit der 'zweig [with Grünzweig]."

Donald C. Roberts's yearbook entry states that he "met his match met der 'zweig"
From The Lion Yearbook, 1950

While at Lincoln, Grünzweig crossed paths with one especially remarkable math student: Abdulalim Shabazz (then going by "Lonnie Cross").  Shabazz was a standout student, receiving a number of academic awards and graduating salutatorian.  Shabazz graduated at the end of Grünzweig's first year at Lincoln and left the area for graduate school.  Dr. Shabazz would later become a math professor at various universities (including Lincoln) and was honored by U.S. President Clinton with a National Mentor award in 2000.

Given the small size of Lincoln, Shabazz must have crossed paths with Grünzweig, although I have been unable to locate any account of their interactions.  There are a few accounts of Shabazz's time at Lincoln, and he credits a math and chemistry professor (probably Edward K. Haviland) with sparking his interest in math.

Abdulalim Shabazz at Lincoln
The Lion Yearbook, 1949 

Grünzweig's departure from Lincoln provoked controversy.  Unidentified members of the university alleged that the decision not to renew Grünzweig's contract was motivated by anti-semitism, but University President Bond denied this in a strongly-worded written statement. The non-renewal decision was made because Grünzweig "was not a distinguished teacher, nor even a very good one."  

During the 30s and 40s, anti-semitism was a concern at Lincoln.  In an interview he gave later in life, Professor Furth said that, during the 30s (before the US was at war with Nazi Germany), some students openly expressed their support for Adolf Hitler in his presence.  Hitler, in their view, was a force for anti-colonialism in African because he was an opponent of France and England.

Anti-semitism does not seem to have played a role in Grünzweig's dismissal: he was replaced by James W. Frankowsky, a Jewish refugee from Poland who ended up teaching at Lincoln for 40 years.

James W. Frankowsky
The Lion Yearbook, 1953

While Grünzweig did not find long-term professional success at Lincoln, his time there marked the beginning of his involvement in U.S. mathematics.  Two year after his departure he produced his first mathematics research.  We will explore what that research was in the next blogpost.