A European Jew in the Jim Crow South: Becoming Prof Green in Tulsa

This blogpost continues the blogposts "Intro to Simon Grünzweig," "Lincoln in the 1940s," "Grünzweig at Lincoln," "Grünzweig gets his PhD," "Philander Smith in the 1950s," "Grünzweig in Little Rock," and "Tulsa in the 1950s."

Simon Green
The Kendallabrum Yearbook

Green was one of several STEM faculty with advanced training that were hired in fall 1954.  He developed an especially good working relationship with two other new hires: William A. Rutledge and Manual Schwarz.   

W. A. Rutledge
The Kendallabrum Yearbook

Rutledge had graduated from the University of Tennessee with a PhD in mathematics in 1950.  He was supervised by J.Wallace Givens and wrote the dissertation "The Hurwitz Integral Quaternions as a Principal Ideal Domain."  Earlier, in 1948, he wrote a masters thesis "Normality in Semigroups."  Rutledge remained at the University of Tennessee for a few years and then taught at Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University) before moving to Tulsa.

Manual Schwartz
The Kendallabrum Yearbook

Schwartz was moving to Tulsa directly from graduate school.  He was from a Jewish family in Chicago. He's written his dissertation "Secondary emission by positive ion bombardment at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Green found Tulsa to be a much more intellectually stimulating environment than Little Rock.  He began writing a textbook in collaboration with other Tulsa professors and regularly participated in regional meetings.  At those meetings, he presented original research projects, although none of them seem to have been turned into journal publications.

Green gave his first research presentation shortly after arriving in Tulsa.  In October 1954, he participated in the October meeting of the Oklahoma Section of the MAA, which was held at Oklahoma City University.  Green was the only TU faculty member to present a paper, and he spoke on "Series related to the Fourier coefficients."  In his presentation, he showed how to use ideas related to Bessel's inequality to establish the convergence of some series constructed from the Fourier coefficients of a Lebesgue integrable function.

Green remained active in the MAA during his time in Tulsa.  He returned to Oklahoma City University the next year, in October 1955, to give a talk on math education research done jointly with Schwartz.  The talk "Classroom notes in elementary integral calculus" focused on how to present Riemann sums in a more sophisticated way so as to, for example, emphasize the flexibility with which one can subdivide an interval.

While they were in Tulsa, Green, Rutledge, and Schwartz began collaborating on a textbook on vector analysis.  Some results of their collaboration were presented at the March 1956 meeting of the Oklahoma section of the MAA.  The meeting took place at Tulsa University, and Green gave the talk "Vectorial analytic geometry" which presented some ideas on the use of vector algebra in a first course in analytic geometry.  His talk was complemented by a talk Rutledge  gave on "Elements of area in coordinate-transformation."  Rutledge's talk discussed how the area element of a surface in 3-dimensional Euclidean space transforms under a change of coordinates.

Walter E. Stuermann
The Kendallabrum Yearbook, 1956

The next year, in April 1957, Green returned to Arkansas to attend the regional meeting the MAA, which was held at the University of Arkansas.   Green spoke on "Boolean algebra and simple switching circuits."  According to the abstract, in the talk, Green explained the definition of an abstract Boolean algebra and how to interpret a two-valued algebra in terms of a switching circuit.  Green was likely discussing ideas he had first studied as a PhD student as his advisor J. S. Taylor published several papers on Boolean algebra.

Green's talk was on join work with Walter E. Stuermann.  Like Green, Rutledge, and Green, Stuermann was a new arrival to Tulsa, but unlike them, he was trained as a philosopher.  He had received his PhD from the University of Chicago on "A critical study of Calvin's concept of faith."  However, he seems to have had a long-standing interest in Boolean algebra as he published two articles on the subject in the American Mathematical Monthly.

Green gave his last MAA talk in April 1958 at Central State College (now University of Central Oklahoma) in Edmond, Oklahoma.  His talk "Certain nonaffine projective transformations in 4-space" described work related to his dissertation.  However, he seems to have continued to do work on the subject while in Tulsa as the abstract described the work as work done jointly with Rutledge.

Overall, Green seems to have adjusted well to working at the University of Tulsa.  In the summer of 1957, he was promoted to associate professor.  However, he left the university the next year.  In December 1958, the American Mathematical Monthly announced that both Simon Green and William A. Rutledge had been appointed as associate professors at the University of South Carolina.  The next post will talk about Green's experience in South Carolina and beyond.

The University of South Carolina campus
Garnet and Black Yearbook, 1959

A European Jew in the Jim Crow South: Tulsa in the 1950s

This blogpost continues the blogposts "Intro to Simon Grünzweig," "Lincoln in the 1940s," "Grünzweig at Lincoln," "Grünzweig gets his PhD," "Philander Smith in the 1950s," and "Grünzweig in Little Rock."

Kendall Hall at the University of Tulsa
The Kendallanrum Yearbook: 1955

By Fall, 1954, Simon Grünzweig, recently renamed Simon Green, had left Little Rock, Arkansas for Tulsa, Oklahoma to work at the University of Tulsa (TU).  The historical record is silent on Green's reasons for leaving, but the move was a natural one.  While Green had worked exclusively at HBCUs since moving to the U.S., this seems to have been a matter of convenience.  Unlike the Iggerses and Lorches, for whom working at an HBCU provided opportunities for personally satisfying political activity, Green seems to have taken the jobs simply because they were available.  

Moving to a new professorship was a way of expanding his professional opportunities.  At Philander Smith, Green was the only faculty member with a PhD in mathematics and was teaching students whose education had been stunted by a segregated school system and generations of inequality.  On a personal level, faculty salaries at HBCUs tended to be low, and Green would have faced social stigma from white Arkansans for teaching at an HBCU.

Tulsa was a natural place to look for a new academic position.  While not exactly close to Little Rock (it's over 200 miles away), Tulsa is one of the nearest big cities.  Moreover, Tulsa was growing during the 1950s.  Since the early 20th century, Tulsa has been an international center for the oil industry.  Its economy expanded during the mid-20th century.  During the Second World War, the federal government built an aircraft assembly facility in the city.  With this as a foundation, Tulsa grew into a leader in the aviation industry during the 1940s and 1950s.

Population statistics demonstrate how Tulsa was prospering.  From 1950 to 1960, the population of Tulsa grew by almost 50%, from 182,740 to 261, 685.  In contrast, Little Rock saw little population growth during this time. Its population stood at 102, 213 in 1950 and grew by only 5,600 people over the next decade.

University of Tulsa campus, 1955
The Kendallanrum Yearbook: 1955

The University of Tulsa (TU), especially its STEM departments, benefited from the growth Tulsa was experiencing.  The aviation and oil industries provided job opportunities for college graduates, especially those with advanced STEM training.  

The University of Tulsa was and is a private research university.  The university was small by national standards, but it was significantly larger than the schools Green had previously taught at.  In 1949, TU's student population stood at 3,034, roughly two-and-half times the size of Philander Smith's student body and six-times the size of Lincoln's.

University of Tulsa campus, 1955
The Kendallanrum Yearbook: 1955

The larger student body naturally supported a larger math department, albeit a math department where most faculty were less research-oriented than Green.  The year before Green arrived (in 1953-54 academic year), the school yearbook listed five math faculty, only one of which held a PhD.

William Roth
The Kendallabrum Yearbook, 1954

The PhD-holder was William Roth.  Roth had received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin in 1928.  He was supervised by Arnold Dresden, an influential early 20th century mathematician who had, for example, served president of the Mathematical Association of American.  Roth did research in linear algebra, and wrote the dissertation "A solution of the matric [sic] equation P(X)=A."  Before moving to TU, he had worked for a number of years in Milwaukee at the University Extension Division of the University of Wisconsin.  He had remained research active, having published 10 papers by 1954.  All of his work was in linear algebra, and a number of his papers were along the lines of his dissertation, analyzing how to solve certain matrix equations.  Roth retired around the time Green arrived in Tulsa, and by 1956, he was living in Mississippi.

The other faculty were Sarah Burkhart, H. N. Carter, E. A. Howard, and Ralph Veatch.  All four had has masters degrees, Burckhart from the University of Kansas, Carter from "Colorado" (probably the University of Colorado), and Veatch from Northwestern.  Burkhart and Veatch were TU alumni who had returned to teach after doing graduate work.

Sarah Burkhart
The Kendallabrum Yearbook, 1954

H. N. Carter
The Kendallabrum Yearbook, 1954

Edgar A. Howard
The Kendallabrum Yearbook, 1954

Ralph Veatch
The Kendallabrum Yearbook, 1954

For Green, the biggest change would be that he was working on the other side of the color line.  Tulsa had a significant Black population, although it was smaller than the population in Little Rock (Blacks made up about 10% of Tulsa's population and 25% of Little Rock's).  

Tulsa had experienced a horrific race riot, one more severe than any experienced in the Deep South.  In 1921, a race riot broke out after a Black man was accused of assaulting a White woman.  Over the course of two days, rioting Whites destroyed Black businesses and attacked Black residents.  Order was restored only after the Governor called out the National Guard to impose martial law.  After the riot ended, the state residents tried to ignore that it had happened.  No one was criminally convicted  for violent acts, and there was minimal public recognition of the event until the 1970s.  However, the riot would have been preserved privately in the living memory of residents when Green arrived in the 1950s.

In the 1950s, the Black community was separated from the White community by segregationist laws and social practices.  However, segregationist practices were more mild than in the Deep South.  For example, the public universities had started to desegregate around 1948, 6 years before the Brown v. Board of Ed court decision. 

Legal progress towards desegregation had a limited impact on the University of Tulsa as the university was private, and it isn't entirely clear what happened as desegregation occurred in a quiet, informal fashion.  For example, I was unable to locate any information about when Blacks were officially admitted to the university.  What is documented is the following.  In February, 1947, university officials announced the creation of an extension program that allowed Blacks to study off-campus with TU faculty.  Official policy continued to bar Black students from campus, but unofficially a small number of Black students were allowed on campus to attended classes with white students. 

University officials maintained an official policy of racial segregation throughout the 1950s.  In Spring, 1950, two Black students applied for admissions into graduate programs, and their applications were refused by the Board of Trustees.  However, the issue was openly debating on campus, and students advocated for desegregation as early as 1949.  

Overall, in Fall, 1954, Simon Green was arriving at a university where he would be in a work environment that was more supportive of academic research.  While it was not a place where political issues like segregation could be ignored, politics were not a dominant feature of life in Tulsa the way they were in Little Rock at this time.  This proved to be a good change for Green: his time in Tulsa proved to be the most professionally productive period of his life.  We will explore what he did in the next blogpost.

The Professors of the Radical University: T. N. Roberts

Theophilus Nunez Roberts (b. January 29, 1839; d. November 4, 1909)
Georgia. White.
Education: Medical College of South Carolina (M.D.)
Occupation: physician, professor

T. N. Roberts was born in 1839 in Savannah, Georgia.  Nothing is known about his early life.  In the 1850s, he studied in Charleston, South Carolina under Middleton Michel, a respected physician. Shortly before the Civil War, Roberts began attending the Medical College of South Carolina (now the Medical University), graduating with an M.D. in March 1861.

While Roberts was of military age, according to an 1867 oath he signed, he did not serve in Confederate army.  After the war, during the late 1860s, he worked as a physician for Union troops stationed at Fort Pulaski in Savannah, in Atlanta, and in Charleston under Major Brayton   By the early 1870s, Roberts had moved to Columbia and was working as city physician.

Roberts became Professor of Chemistry, Pharmacy, Mineralogy, and Geology at the University of South Carolina in June, 1872.  That professorship had long been held by Joseph LeConte, a distinguished 19th century scientist.  However, LeConte found life under Reconstruction intolerable and resigned the professorship in 1870.  In his place, the Board of Trustees appointed James Woodrow, a professor at the Columbia Theological Seminary.

Woodrow's appointment had been intended as temporary, and he left the position in 1872 to travel in Europe.  He was replaced by Roberts.  At the meeting where Roberts received his appointment, the Board of Trustees also appointed A. W. Cummings as a professor.

Accounts differ as to whether Woodrow willingly tendered his resignation in order to travel or if he was pressured by the Board of Trustees. In any case, he left the university at a fortuitous time.  The Board of Trustees was formed by Radical Republicans, and the next year, they removed all faculty with opposing political beliefs.  Woodrow had supported the Confederacy and was opposed to Reconstruction, so he almost certainly would have been removed had he not left for Europe.

Roberts' appointment as a professor received a mixed reception.  Newspapers such as the Columbia Union, the Charleston Courier and the Newberry Herald wrote positively about the appointment, citing, for example, "high testimonials from several eminently scientific men attesting [Roberts'] proficiency in the science."

Others were highly critical of Roberts' appointment.  The Charleston Daily News reported that Roberts "is mentioned by the [Columbia] Carolinian [newspaper] as recently elected city physician of Columbia under her present Radical administration, but beyond this he appears to be a youth to fortune and to fame unknown, and it is possible that he may even know something about chemistry."

Some students directly expressed their disapproval of Roberts.  At the June commencement ceremony, held shortly after Roberts' appointment, three graduating university students "hooted at" Roberts and Cummings.  The exact offensive was not described in newspapers, but it was sufficiently upsetting that both the Board of Trustees and law school students took action.  The Board passed a resolution banning the students from campus and debarring them of alumni privileges.  A graduating law student wrote a Letter to the Editor of the Columbia Union newspaper stating that the law students did not countenance the behavior of the three students.  These actions were received with defiance.  The three offending students responded with a letter to the Daily Phoenix newspaper stating that they did not seek or desire the "countenance" of the law students and they stood by their actions.  The Edgefield Advertiser mocked the Board, calling their resolution "farcical in its silliness and impotency."

The views critical of Roberts were the ones which were ultimately used in later historical accounts.  Writing in 1905, historian John S. Reynolds wrote in his book Reconstruction in South Carolina, 1865-1877 that

Roberts was unknown to the people and was generally accounted an adventurer whom the trustees thought they could use in their scheme to convert the University into a mixed school for whites and blacks.

Roberts changed professorships after about a year, when there was major turnover in the faculty.  On October 3, 1873, four days before the first Black student registered at the university, the Board accepted one professor's resignation and dismissed two others.  One of the dismissed professors was R. B. Barnwell, the Professor of History, Political Philosophy, and Political Economy.  Roberts was appointed to his professorship, and Roberts' old professorship was given to William Main.  A third professor, Fisk Brewer, replaced one of the other dismissed professors.  This change in the faculty was harshly criticized by Conservative newspapers.  For example, the Daily Phoenix described the changes as "a step backwards toward medieval darkness."

As a professor, Roberts appears to have been well-regarded by his students.  His former student C. C. Scott wrote that he "was a marvel to most of the students.  He made the subjects so interesting that many of them were sorry when the recitation period had expired."  Roberts remained at the university until it closed in July, 1877.

After the university closure, Roberts remained in Columbia for a few years.  During this time, he worked as an inventor.  He received three U.S. patents in 1879.  One was for a fire alarm, and the other two were for a combination lock-alarm.

Roberts left Columbia after a few years, but he remained in the state, working as a physician and for the federal government.  He moved to Charleston but later moved to Mount Pleasant (a suburb of Charleston) and to Summerville.  He held federal appointments as a storekeeper (based in Walhalla), for the Internal Revenue Service, and as postmaster (for Mount Pleasant).

Roberts died in Charleston in 1909.  The cause of death was given as "chronic nephritis" (inflammation of the kidneys).

Diagram of Roberts' alarm-lock
Patent No. 213,249

Diagram of Roberts' fire alarm
Patent No. 216,576

Sources
1). "Local items."  The daily phoenix, June 20, 1872, p. 2.

2). "The South Carolina University."  The daily phoenix, October 01, 1869, p. 2.

3). Reports and Resolutions of the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina at the Regular Session Commencing January 10, 1899, Vol. 2.  Bryan Printing Company, Columbia, SC.  1899. p. 590.

4). Reports and Resolutions of the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina at the Regular Session Commencing January 10, 1889, Vol. 2.  James H. Woodrow, Columbia, SC.  1890. p. 323-324.

4). Reports and Resolutions of the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina at the Regular Session Commencing November 23, 1886, Vol. 2.  Charles A. Calvo, Jr., Columbia, SC.  1887. p. 323-324.

5). Georgia, Office of the Governor. Returns of qualified voters under the Reconstruction Act, 1867. Georgia State Archives, Morrow, Georgia

6). Record of Appointment of Postmasters, 1832-1971. NARA Microfilm Publication, M841, 145 rolls. Records of the Post Office Department, Record Group Number 28. Washington, D.C.: National Archives

7). Charleston, South Carolina, City Directory, 1880, 1886

8). National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington, D.C.; Returns from U.S. Military Posts, 1800-1916; Microfilm Serial: M617; Microfilm Roll: 1126

9). Charleston, South Carolina, Marriage Records, 1877-1887.  South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina.

10). South Carolina Department of Archives and History; Columbia, South Carolina; South Carolina Death Records; Year Range: 1900-1924; Death County or Certificate Range: Charleston.  Certificate Number: 001452.

11). "Professor Theophilus N. Roberts."  The Newberry herald, July 10, 1872, p. 1.

12). "The New Professors."  The Charleston daily news, June 22, 1872, p. 4.

13). "Petty Spite."  Edgefield advertiser, August 8, 1872, p. 2.

14). The daily phoenix, July 3, 1872, p. 2.

15). "The Recent Changes in the State University," The daily phoenix, October 7, 1873, p. 2.

16).  Roberts, Theophilus N. "Improvement in Alarm-Locks."  Patent No. 213,249. United States Patent Office. January 20, 1879.

17).  Roberts, Theophilus N. "Fire-alarm."  Patent No. 216,576. United States Patent Office. June 17, 1879.

18).  Roberts, Theophilus N. "Alarm-Locks."  Patent No. 216,219. United States Patent Office. June 3, 1879.

19). "The South Carolina University"  The Charleston daily news, June 21, 1872, p. 1.

A European Jew in the Jim Crow South: Grünzweig in Little Rock

This blogpost continues the blogposts "Intro to Simon Grünzweig," "Lincoln in the 1940s," "Grünzweig at Lincoln," "Grünzweig gets his PhD," and "Philander Smith in the 1950s."

Philander Smith Campus
Philander Smith Yearbook, 1954

Simon Grünzweig arrived at Philander Smith College in fall 1952.  He arrived at a time when the racial segregation of Arkansas began facing serious challenges.  In civil rights history, Little Rock is best know for the 1957 Little Rock Crisis, a major battle over high school integration.  However, in the early 1950s, most Americans would not have expected Little Rock to be the site of that type of violent battle.  Arkansas was regarded as a relatively progressive part of the South where citizens recognized the need to change the state's system of segregation.

Philander Smith College played a noticeable role in desegregation, especially through the political actions of Philander professors Georg and Wilma Iggers.  Upon arriving in Little Rock in 1951, the Iggerses learned that the main city public library was closed to Blacks.  Georg wrote a Letter to the Editor of the local newspaper advocating that Blacks be allowed access.  In response the library's Board of Trustees voted unanimously to allows Blacks to use the library, although this was done quietly and without a public announcement. He also convinced the managers of local department stores to desegregate their store's water fountains.

Their work for desegregation marked the beginning of the Iggerses' involvement with the civil rights movement.  Their work attracted the attention of the local chapter of the NAACP, and Georg and Wilma were soon made members.  Among their activities for the NAACP, they wrote a report documenting the disparities between the whites-only and blacks-only public schools in Little Rock.  This report was used to generate public pressure on the School Board to desegregation the school system.  The Iggerses were hoping to also file a lawsuit based on the report, but they were dissuaded from doing so by the national office of the NAACP.  At the time, the U.S. Supreme Court was considering the Brown v. the Board of Education case (which challenged the segregation of public schools), and the national office did not want to file suit until the outcome of the Brown case was clear.

Dorothy Martin
Philander Smith Yearbook, 1954

Philander Smith College itself desegregated in fall 1953, the semester that Grünzweig arrived.  The college enrolled its first white student, Dorothy Martin, that term.  Dorothy enrolled with the explicit goal of challenging segregation.  While her decision was a challenge to segregation, within the context of Arkansas politics, it was a mild one.  The University of Arkansas, the state's flagship school, had admitted African Americans on a limited basis since the 1940s.

Dorothy's enrollment was reported in newspapers, and she was criticized by some white Arkansans, but there was none of the national publicity, or violent resistance, that was later seen with the desegregation of the high schools.

Philander Smith Faculty Apartments
Philander Smith Yearbook, 1954

Grünzweig himself seems to have been largely uninvolved in politics.  Instead, during his time at Philander Smith, he became increasingly involved in the profession of mathematics.  In December, 1953, after his first semester of teaching at Philander, he went to St. Louis, Missouri to attend the Annual Meeting of the American Mathematical Society, the first such meeting he attended.

In Spring, 1953, Grünzweig joined the Mathematical Association of American and the American Association of Physics Teachers.  He also became active regionally and was involved in the Arkansas Academy of Science.

Grünzweig continued to participate in professional meetings during the 1953-54 academic year.  During the summer, he attended the Summer Meeting of the American Mathematical Society at Queen's College and the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario in Canada, and during the winter, he attended the Annual Meeting of the AMS at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.  At Hopkins, Grünzweig gave a talk on "Eleven Point Conics." The eleven point conic is a classical construction of a conic with 11 distinguished points from the data of 4 general points and a line.  Later in the academic year he gave a talk on his dissertation at a meeting of the Arkansas Mathematics Teacher's Association at Arkansas State University.

The Philander Smith Math and Physics Department saw considerable turnover while Grünzweig was there.  By the end of his first year, all other math and physics faculty except for Charles Henry Daniels (whose primary appointment was in physical education) had left.  During Grünzweig's second year, he was joined by Lillian Joyce Venable, who had just received her M.A. degree from Fisk University.

Lillian Joyce Venable
From The Golden Bull Yearbook, 1950

Towards the end of his second year (1953-54 academic year), Grünzweig submitted his first math publication to the American Mathematical Monthly.  The November 1954 issue contained the following question:

Problem for Solution
American Mathematical Monthly, Nov., 1954

I will let readers puzzle through how to solve the question.

The publication is significant for a second reason as well: it marks the end of Simon Grünzweig and the beginning of Simon Green.  In 1954, he stopped using the last name "Grünzweig" and instead began going by "Green."  Green is a reasonable anglicization of Grünzweig which is German for "Green Branch."  Grünzweig's decision to change his name was a common one: many Jewish immigrants  anglicized their names during the mid-20th century.  (Mathematician readers might know that Arnold Ross, for example, was born Arnold Chaimovich.)

The November issue of the American Mathematical Monthly also contained an important announcement about Grünzweig/Green: he was leaving Arkansas.  At the end of his second year, he left for Tulsa, Oklahoma, bringing an end to his time at HBCUs.

Glenn E. Smith
Philander Smith Yearbook, 1955

L. Joyce Venable left around the same time as Grünzweig, and they were replaced by new three faculty members: Morris E. Mosley, Glenn E. Smith, and Tse-Pen Tseng.  Smith was hired as instructor.  He was an alumnus of Philander Smith and was returning to teach after working on a master's degree at the University of Arkansas.

Morris E. Mosley
Graduates Book for State Teachers College at Montgomery, Alabama, 1938

Morris E. Mosley was hired as an associate professor.  Mosley was originally from Alabama and had received his B.A. degree from State Teachers College, Alabama State College for Negroes (now Alabama State University) in 1938.  In 1946, he had received his M.S. degree from Atlanta University.  He wrote the master's thesis "Properties of Elastic Curve[s]."

Tse-Pei Tseng
Philander Smith Yearbook, 1955

Of the three, Tse-Pen Tseng had the most unusual background.  He was a Chinese national who had moved to the U.S. in 1948 for graduate studies.  Tseng was born in Beijing and had studied at Yenching University.  Yenching was created in the late 1910s from four Christian schools. By the time Tseng was a student there, the university had established itself as one of the best in China.  The Harvard-Yenching Institute, for example, was originally founded to foster ties between Yenching and Harvard University.  The university no longer exists as an independent institution, although parts of it were merged with Peking University in the 1950s.

Tseng was a student at Yenching during the 1930s, receiving a B.S. degree in 1937 and a M.S. degree in 1940.  He then worked at the university, as a research fellow in 1941 and then as a lecturer from 1943 to 1948.  This was a challenging time to work at Teaching: war between China and Japan broke out in 1937.  Yenching had been located in Beijing, but the city became occupied by the Japanese military, and the university relocated to Chengdu.

Tseng left China for the U.S. in 1948.  His departure was timely as he left just as the Chinese Civil War was coming to an end.  The next year Chairman Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China.

In the U.S., Tseng studied for a year at Columbia University, and then enrolled as a PhD student at The Ohio State University.  He was supervised by John Gilbert Duant and wrote a thesis "Properties of matter at very low temperatures."  Tseng graduated in 1954, and his position at Philander Smith was his first.

Mosley, Smith, and Tseng all left Philander Smith after a year.  They were replaced by Lee Lorch in 1955 and Garland D. Kyle in 1956.  Kyle was returning to Philander after teaching at Arkansas AM&N and was discussed in an earlier blogpost.

Lee Lorch
Philander Smith Yearbook, 1957

Lee Lorch was coming to Philander from Fisk University.  Lorch was a math professor and a committed civil rights activist.  He had been dismissed from Fisk for his political activities.  In 1955, he had been called before the House Un-American Activities Committee and questioned about his relationship with Communism.  This was likely a retaliatory action against Lorch for his work on desegregating public schools.  Using the HUAC hearings as justification, Fisk University officials ended Lorch's contract.

Lorch continued his political activism at Philander and was involved in the Little Rock School Integration Crisis.  In 1957, when Black students (the Little Rock Nine) tried to enroll at the all-white Little Rock Central High School, Lee and his wife Grace helped escort the students.   The students were prevented from enrolling by the National Guard and harassed by a white mob.  Grace was photographed trying to protect one of the students, Elizabeth Eckford, from harassment.

For their role in the Little Rock Crisis, Lee and Grace began receiving threats, both of personal harm and of financial harm to Philander.  In response to those threats, Lee left Philander in Spring, 1957.  After teaching for a year at Wesleyan University, he left the U.S. for Canada.  He remained in Canada for the rest of his life.

You can listen to an interview with Lee Lorch at the website for the Holocaust Museum.  He (very briefly) mentions Simon Green at the end.

Grace Lorch protecting Elizabeth Eckford during the 1957 Little Rock Crisis
Photo by Will Counts

The students of the Radical University: Francis Cummings

Francis Asbury Cummings (b. September 1, 1855)
North Carolina.  White.
Occupation: business manager, farmer.
Father's occupation: merchant, preacher, professor, teacher.

Francis (or Frank) A. Cummings was born in North Carolina in 1855 to Isabella and Anson W. Cummings.  The family was living in Asheville, and the father Anson was working as College President of the Holston Conference Female College, a woman's college affiliated with the Methodist Church.  His parents are described in more detail in the entry for his brother Olin.

After the Civil War, in 1866, the family moved to Spartanburg, South Carolina because Anson had been hired as president of the Methodist Female College.  They stayed in Spartanburg until 1872, when they moved again, this time to Columbia, South Carolina.  They moved to Columbia because Anson had been made Professor of Mathematics and Civil and Military Engineering and Construction at the University of South Carolina.

Francis and his brothers Charles and Olin lived registered as students at the University of South  Carolina after moving to Columbia.  They were among the few students to remain after Blacks were admitted in October, 1873.  (The others were children of Professor Babbitt, Charles and Edward.)

In the 1872-73 academic year, Francis was a college student taking coursework in law and mathematics. He is listed as a "special student" at the university in February, 1875 and then as a student in the first class of the (college) preparatory school in January, 1876.  The 1877 closure of the university brought an end to his studies.

Francis left South Carolina for Wellsville, New York with his family in 1877.  There his father ran the Riverside Seminary, and Francis worked as seminary treasurer and business manager.

By 1902, Francis had left Wellsville and was living in Kansas.  He last appears in the 1910 U.S. Census.  That year he had moved to Fork, South Carolina (in Anderson County).  He was living with the family of his nephew Anson (the son of Charles) and was working on the family farm.

Sources

1.  1860; Census Place: Asheville, Buncombe, North Carolina; Page: 245

2.  1870; Census Place: Court House, Spartanburg, South Carolina; Roll: M593_1508; Page: 410A

3.  1880; Census Place: Scio, Allegany, New York; Roll: 809; Page: 349D; Enumeration District: 024

4). 1910; Census Place: Fork, Anderson, South Carolina; Roll: T624_1448; Page: 6B; Enumeration District: 0043

5). "Olin F. Cummings."  Wellsville Daily Report, May 28, 1902.  p. 5.

6). Cummins, Albert Oren.  Cummings Genealogy. Argus and Patriot Printing House, Montpelier, Vt. (1904).