John Beecher: an Activist Poet Chronicles an American Century
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MIDDLE TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY JOHN BEECHER: AN ACTIVIST POET CHRONICLES AN AMERICAN CENTURY A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY MURFREESBORO, TENNESSEE MAY 2011 UMI Number: 3464541 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMT Dissertation Publishing UMI 3464541 Copyright 2011 by ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This edition of the work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 JOHN BEECHER: AN ACTIVIST POET CHRONICLES AN AMERICAN CENTURY ANGELA J. SMITH Approved: a^ Carroll V. West, Reader Mary L. Nichols,/Reader Michael D. Allen, Dean, College of Graduate Studies ACKNOWLEDGMENTS No doctoral student reaches the finish line without immense support, and so many people gave me so much. I am grateful to the members of the History Department of Middle Tennessee State University for the opportunity to study history with them for eight years. Many have nurtured me along the way. I want to particularly thank the department chair, Dr. Amy Sayward, and Dr. Jan Leone, Dr. Rebecca Conard, and Kathy Slager. I also want to thank fellow student travelers Tara White, Brian Dempsey, John George, Elizabeth Goetsch, and Virgil Statom for being supportive friends as I moved through the program with them. My dissertation director, Dr. Pippa Holloway, is my hero both academically and personally. She has guided me and pushed me to excel. Dr. Holloway, thank you for all you have done. I am also grateful to the other faculty members on the committee for their work on my behalf. Thank you, Dr. Susan Myers-Shirk, Dr. Bren Martin, Dr. Van West, and Dr. Mary Nichols. This project was born in the summer of 2005 when I met Barbara Beecher, the wife of John Beecher for twenty-five years. During those years and the three decades since his death, her mission has been to ensure her husband's legacy. Because of her devotion and determination, historians have the records of John's life and work, as well as much of the Beecher history for two generations before him. Thank you, Barbara, for your perseverance and your willingness to share John's story with me. Finally, I am deeply indebted to my family for their love and support on this long and sometimes grueling path. My brother, Randy, is my rock and my biggest cheerleader. My iii adopted dad, Gene Quigley (1927-2009), helped me financially for the first several years of grad school. He believed in me in a way that continues to fill my heart. My partner, Linda Quigley, has selflessly supported me in word and deed. She is the greatest editor ever and a wonderful partner. Accomplishing this goal would have been impossible without her. Finally, I want to dedicate this effort to my mother, Margaret Gail Smith (1941-1990), who believed in me and gave me unconditional love, which is the foundation for my truly fortunate life. Thank you, Mama. IV ABSTRACT John Beecher's legacy of poetry and non-fiction spans the pivotal social movements in America from 1920-1980. He was a great-great-nephew of the abolitionist Beechers of New England, and his own activism continued that tradition, from his work in the Southern steel mills in the early 1920s to New Deal programs in the Great Depression to civil rights reporting in the 1960s. He constantly surveyed the plight of people that he believed were marginalized by economic and racial injustice, unfair labor practices and anti-left political scrutiny. While some critics have compared him to noted American poets Walt Whitman and Carl Sandburg, he never gained wide critical acclaim or a significant public audience. However, his extensive letters and other papers and a dozen published books contain a record of public concerns in American history from the plight of workers in the steel mills in the 1920s to the sharecroppers' struggles in the Depression to the civil rights marches in the 1960s and their aftermath. The central aspect of my research is to study Beecher's life and work to learn how the culture and politics of the South intersected with the broader American culture at pivotal points in the twentieth- century. v CONTENTS Chapter I: Introduction 1 Chapter II: The Family 7 Chapter III: Shaping Forces 25 Isabel Garghill Beecher, A Woman in the Public Sphere 27 A Short History of Tennessee Coal and Iron 34 Birmingham A City of the New South 44 The Beechers Move South 50 Education 55 Steel Mill 67 Father Coyle 69 Alter Chnstus 72 The Grand Tour 75 Cornell 77 Chapter IV: Becoming a Poet 83 Big Boy 85 Chapter V: Experimental College 103 Chapter VI: Government Work 119 University of North Carolina 120 Wilmington, N C 127 Sociological Research in Mississippi 140 Early Resettlement Administration Work 144 Birmingham Resettlement Project 147 Southern States Iron Roofing, Savannah, Georgia 162 FSA, Migratory Camps, Belle Glade, Florida 166 Excerpt from Here I Stand 178 FEPC 181 SS Booker T Washington 193 UNRRA 196 Institute of Social Relations 204 Chapter VII: The Loyalty Oath 208 The California Loyalty Oath 213 Beecher and the Loyalty Oath 224 Inquest 234 Chapter VIII: 1955-1980 235 A Small Press of Their Own 237 Return to University Teaching and a Long Walk 248 Reporting the Civil Rights Movement 253 The Final Years 263 Conformity Means Death 269 Bibliography 270 APPENDIX 1: 10 Thoughts and Tips for Public History Websites 293 VI 1 CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION John Beecher is best known—when he is known at all—for his poetry. His legacy, however, is much wider, and includes the poetry and nonfiction he wrote over five decades, the sociological research and observation he undertook for New Deal agencies, and the teaching that he cut short when he stood his ground against the Red Scare. He never had a far-reaching public audience in the span of his life, 1904 to 1980, but his work documents key episodes in the history of twentieth-century America. Though a man of the twentieth century, Beecher's roots stretch into the nineteenth century as well. As a descendant of the Beecher family of abolitionists from New England, he identified with and was inspired by the nineteenth-century Victorian social moralism of his ancestors. Regardless of his environment, whether he was in the Jim Crow South or among the New York intelligentsia, he followed his own moral compass derived from this sensibility. Many times those decisions led him down paths that made life difficult for his family, but that did not stop him. Time after time, Beecher surveyed and documented the plight of people that he believed were marginalized by economic and racial injustice, by unfair labor practices, and by biased political scrutiny. While some critics have favorably compared elements' of Beecher's poetry about the working class to the work of Walt Whitman and Carl Sandburg, Beecher never gained their level of critical acclaim or public exposure. Despite the absence of a broad audience, he continued to write. His extensive letters, articles, unpublished manuscripts, and a dozen published books contain a record of public concerns in American history from the plight of workers in the steel mills in the 1920s, to 2 the struggles of sharecroppers in the Great Depression, to the battle for racial equality in the 1960s. In every one of those periods, Beecher was in a position to document the key people, places, and events in the social and cultural stories that shaped much of the century. He failed to gain lasting notice in the government, press, or academy, even though he worked in and contributed to every one of those areas through most of his life. This study of his life and work does not attempt to elevate his stature as a writer nor does it suggest that he was a man whose biography must fill a void in the historical record. Instead, this study explores Beecher's life and work as they document historical events in the twentieth century and seeks to expand our understanding of those events. Beecher moved easily—and often—throughout the country. His ancestral home was in New England, he was born in New York City, and he grew up in Birmingham as it evolved into a key city in the New South. "My father was chief financial officer for U.S. Steel in the South for more than a generation. The things he told me! And what I could see for myself," Beecher wrote.1 During the span of that generation, Beecher had a front- row seat to the economic and social struggles as industry overtook agriculture, unions challenged the status quo of cheap labor, and blacks chafed under the injustice of the Jim Crow laws. He used his personal vantage point, as well as his ancestral legacy, to bear witness to a rapidly changing world as he pursued his various roles as student, teacher, and writer. Many junctures in Beecher's life show his connection to the times in which he lived and the significance his written records bring to history. He administered New Deal programs in the South and conducted fieldwork in sociology to document needs and 1 John Newman Beecher to Fred Chappell, February 18,1974, Barbara Beecher Personal Collection, Burnsville, NC.