Do You Rhumba?

Castle Society Dance Folio

Do you rhumba? Groucho Marx famously asked this question in the zany movie A Night at the Opera. Groucho took special pleasure in spoofing ballroom dancing. But along with the rhumba there was the foxtrot, the bunny hug, the hesitation, the maxixe, the Boston, the one-step, the tango, the turkey trot, and most especially the Castle walk, named for New Rochelle’s lively dance couple Vernon and Irene Castle (1893-1969). 

Irene was born Irene Foote on April 17, 1893 in New Rochelle. Her father was a local physician. Her romance with Vernon – born William Vernon Blythe – began at the New Rochelle Rowing Club in 1910. Within a year they were married and launched in a career that put them in the forefront of the ballroom dance craze in America and Europe.

Irene was a fashion trend-setter in many aspects of pop culture beyond dance – her bobbed hair style was a hit and copied widely; she appeared in silent films; and many women envied or emulated her elegant lifestyle. She traveled to Paris with Vernon and achieved instant popularity in ragtime dance. In 1914, the couple opened a dancing school, and the two illustrations here (from the Library’s Archive) of the Castle Society Dance Folios are evidence of their popularity – everyone wanted to dance like the Castles and step out to their music. 

Castle Society Dance Folio No. 2 

The jazz historian Phil Schaap has pointed out that the ballroom dance craze of the 1910s and 1920s was a major factor in the breakthrough of jazz to the very pinnacle of pop music. Before jazz and swing, ballroom dancing ruled pop music in America. Dancers were the music stars, and the ballroom styles of dance fostered an orchestral concept. Jazz merged with the social ballroom phenomenon to create the jazz orchestra in the 1920s, usually with the extra vitality of a hot tempo. Not only that, paired couples like Irene and Vernon Castle countered sexism in instrumental music at the time by bringing the talent, grace, and audacity of female performers to the forefront. 

The Castles made ballroom dancing respectable and fostered much enjoyable entertainment during the years of the Great War. Tragically, Vernon lost his life in an aviation accident in 1918, but Irene went on to star in many silent films. For more on the Castles, see the 1939 film, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (another famous dance couple), and the biography by Eve Golden, Vernon and Irene Castle’s Ragtime Revolution (2007).

March 1, 2021 / David Rose / New Rochelle Public Library Archive

Two African American Philanthropists of New Rochelle

The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) stands as one of the most successful philanthropies in American history. Its incisive slogan – a mind is a terrible thing to waste – is etched into our collective memory because it challenges us to fulfill every promise of human improvement. We must never believe this principle can be reduced only to a branding exercise or advertising tagline, for it resonates with the necessity of seeking social justice through the immediate needs for higher education. The mind is a wonderful thing to nurture, cherish, and protect.

Frederick Douglas Patterson

The UNCF (https://uncf.org/) today follows a threefold mission of student scholarships, financial support for historically Black colleges and universities, and advocacy for minority education. Two of its most prominent leaders, Frederick Patterson and Christopher Edley, were long-time residents of New Rochelle. Frederick Douglas Patterson (1901-1988) was President of Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) from 1935 to 1953. His many educational attainments culminated in a Ph.D. in Veterinary Pathology from Cornell University. Named for the famed abolitionist leader Frederick Douglas, Dr. Patterson recognized the need for collaborative fund-raising among colleges serving Black students and founded the UNCF in 1944. Under his leadership, the UNCF became the largest independent source of financial support for the nation’s private, historically Black colleges and universities. Dr. Patterson went on to create the College Endowment Funding Plan in 1976, and after a long life of activism and leadership in education and philanthropy he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1987.

Christopher Fairfield Edley, Sr.

Christopher Fairfield Edley, Sr. (1928-2003) became President and CEO of the UNCF in 1973 just after the Advertising Council, a public service organization, coined its famous slogan. He had graduated magna cum laude from Howard University in 1949 and received his law degree from Harvard University in 1953. He then joined the Human Rights Commission of Philadelphia and became a law partner of the firm of Moore, Lightfoot & Edley. Over the course of a 17-year career with the UNCF, Mr. Edley developed it into one of the most widely recognized charitable organizations in the nation, increasing the visibility of the needs of Black colleges. Leveraging the UNCF mission into further prominence through strategic marketing, Mr. Edley broadened its campaign to television in an annual telethon with the singer Lou Rawls as host. His work set new standards in public service advertising. Further, he orchestrated the largest individual donation in the history of Black philanthropy – a $50 million challenge grant in 1990 from publishing magnate Walter H. Annenberg.  

The achievements of African American professionals in the struggle for racial justice in the U.S. have lasting importance to this day. The innovative leadership of Frederick Patterson and Christopher Edley of New Rochelle stand high among many signal achievements, and we salute their lives of service and activism during Black History Month as we study and learn African American history throughout the year.

February 1, 2021 / David Rose / New Rochelle Public Library Archive

“Oh, What a Beautiful City”: Treasures from NRPL’s Archives Center’s African-American Collection

African American history is central to the understanding of American history. This insight deserves repeated emphasis. African American history is central – not marginal, not tangential, not secondary, not something to be noticed only during Black History Month (though it is perfectly appropriate for deep focus then), but without understanding African American history in its full entirety we will fall short in understanding the history of our nation and the contemporary dynamics of our political life.

Bethesda Baptist Church Program / January 20, 2014

Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee / A Raisin in the Sun / Playbill / 1959

Harlem Blues & Jazz Band at New Rochelle Public Library / Concert Announcement / February 23, 2020

At the New Rochelle Public Library, African Americans are documented in photographs and civic records in the Library’s Archive. With the growing force of the civil rights movement after World War II, the Council for Unity of New Rochelle was formed in 1947 “devoted to securing equal opportunities in employment, education, health, recreation, housing, and civil rights for all citizens, regardless of race, creed, or ancestry.” These words are quoted from a 1948 booklet of the Council for Unity, a key document in our Publications Collection, along with a report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in 1962 that describes in a concise narrative the Lincoln School desegregation case. 

Much of the printed ephemera that abounds in our collection is more celebratory.  First and foremost are concert programs of Ellabelle Davis, a New Rochelle resident who was the first African American to sing the lead role in Verdi’s opera Aida. There is a program from 1971 of the St. Catherine A.M.E. Zion Church, where she first sang in the church choir. Ms. Davis was later celebrated by the late Karen S. Allen in the opera The Gentle Lark of New Rochelle. Other concert programs include those of Katherine Graves, Marian Anderson, Leontyne Price, and Pearl Primus and her company, all of whom performed in New Rochelle. Our Publications Collection also features materials of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Colored Women’s Club of New Rochelle, the National Association of Negro Business, and the Alumni Association of the Charles W. Dickerson Field Music, Inc. 

Ellabelle Davis Headlines 1948 Season at Carnegie Hall / Jan 13, 1948

Ellabelle Davis recorded the song “Oh, What a Beautiful City,” and one can discover in our Archive tints of the sentimental beauty of that spiritual song in many documents and recordings of African American history. Hear Ellabelle Davis sing it in this magnificent rendition from a 1950 London Recording, Ellabelle Davis Sings Negro Spirituals, one of several of her recordings we have digitized, and preserved. The novelist James Baldwin expressed one of the essential statements on the meaning of history. He wrote: “History is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in everything we do. It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspirations.” It is worth noting that this stunning quotation is presented as a monumental inscription in the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, which should be the first destination on your agenda the next time you visit the nation’s capital.

October 16, 2020 / David Rose / New Rochelle Public Library Archive

Small Tracts and Fugitive Pieces

Samuel Johnson, the preeminent literary figure of the 18th century, once organized a collection of materials from the library of the Earl of Oxford known as the Harleian Miscellany. In doing so, Johnson spoke up for the importance of preserving "small tracts and fugitive pieces," that is, ephemeral pamphlets that are more likely to be discarded than preserved. On the contrary, Johnson insisted, such "fugitive" pamphlets constitute a vital part of a library collection. He went even further, stating with great emphasis that such tracts "preserve a multitude of particular incidents, which are forgotten in a short time...and which are yet to be considered sparks of truth, which, when united, may afford light in some of the darkest scenes of state."

Sparks of truth! What a fascinating phrase! The Archive of the New Rochelle Public Library has its own collection of pamphlets that deserve recognition as the "sparks of truth" that illuminate the history of New Rochelle. Our collection of pamphlets is gathered into a group of records call the Publications Collection. In this collection are the ephemeral pamphlets, brochures, and printed notices that document our social and cultural life through the course of two centuries. Over the years, the Library staff has built up a collection of hundred of pieces of printed literature. Many items have been generously donated by history-conscious city residents who find an old trunk in the attic with their own fugitive pieces. The Publications Collection includes historical programs for anniversaries and special occasions, stage coach schedules, periodical publications such as the magazines They Say and The Tatler, church bulletins from our many churches, concert and graduation programs from our schools, exhibit programs of the Library, journals for annual Police Department benefits, offprints of scholarly articles about Thomas Paine, auction notices, industrial catalogues, street maps, a variety of printed city codes that regulate traffic, building, plumbing, and civil service - the list goes on and on. To make sense of this miscellany is the business of archives, and we now have the archival collection of printed materials organized into logical categories known as "archival series" described in a finding guide to the entire collection. 

       

Found among this historical bounty of printed matter are some unexpected items; for example, a bookplate of Carrie Chapman Catt; a musical score for City Alive, the official song of New Rochelle; an invitation to a cruise sponsored by the Quahaug Club, dated 1865; a report card of a high school student from 1945; and two of Norman Rockwell's "Four Freedoms" posters. There are also many brochures in French relating to La Rochelle, France, our "sister city" which launched the migration of Huguenots who landed on the shore of what became the City of New Rochelle. Samuel Johnson claimed that there are many advantages to maintaining such a collection of printed literature or "flying sheets." The obvious advantage for us today is that the Library makes accessible for study a great stream of occasional documents that collectively portray the scintillating historical landscape of our city that we can all claim as our own "sparks of truth."

Images (In Order of Appearance): 

1. A Guide to New Rochelle and Vicinity by Robert Bolton / 1842

2. Thanksgiving Dinner Menu / Fort Slocum / 1920

3. National Airmail Week / Commemorative Envelope / 1946

4. Advertising Brochure for Greater La Rochelle, Our “Sister City” in France / 2016

5. Calendar Illustration for Teddy’s Deli / c. 1960s

6. Library Exhibit / Association of Women Painters and Sculptors / 1915

September 3, 2020 / David Rose / New Rochelle Public Library Archives

A Tribute to the League of Women Voters of New Rochelle

A Tribute to the League of Women Voters of New Rochelle 

August 18, 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote. This success of the women's suffrage movement stands as a transcendently important moment in the history of American democracy. Carrie Chapman Catt, who led the movement as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, also established the League of Women Voters in 1920 to continue to educate on all the social and political issues bearing on the rights and responsibilities that come with voting. Four years later, in 1924, New Rochelle established its own branch of the League of Women Voters, and the fact that Ms. Catt was a resident of the city ensured that their challenges, their power, and their successes would be intertwined. The New Rochelle Public Library was also part of the equation as a venue for lectures, meetings, and programs sponsored and organized by the League. 

An inconspicuous part of the League's legacy has been the preservation of its own history. The art and practice of keeping documents often happens unseen, but League officers have carefully preserved the record of its work over the years as the most knowledgeable curators of its history. However, let this important work be inconspicuous no longer! The League of Women Voters of New Rochelle has utilized the Library for the storage of its records, and its entire collection is now formally organized as part of the Library's Archive. An archival finding guide to the collection is available here. This is a rich and wonderful collection of documents that provides, in great detail, not only the history of the League but a political history of the City of New Rochelle itself. The League of Women Voters of New Rochelle has been a formidable actor in the field of education, and with the organizatino of its historical records its legacy as a nonpartisan political organization is again revealed as a vital leader in the education of the community. Kudos to the League of Women Voters of New Rochelle!  

It is interesting to know that other local branches of the League have maintained archival collections, such as the one at Columbia University Libraries documenting the League of Women Voters of the City of New York. And, there are archival collections of Carrie Chapman Catt papers at the Library of Congress and the NY Public Library. Ms. Catt's work as an advocate for world peace as also deserves renewed attention. In 1930, she participated in a "World Affairs Conference" in her honor held in New Rochelle that focused on the possibilities for lasting peace. With the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment, and with availability of the archival collection at the New Rochelle Public Library, there will be many occasions to study the work of Carrie Chapman Catt and the League of Women Voters even further. 

August 13, 2020 / David Rose / New Rochelle Public Library Archives

The National War Fund: A Story of Philanthropy and Crisis

New Rochelle Community Chest Appeal / 1942  (front)

New Rochelle Community Chest Appeal / 1942  (back)

A community chest was once a popular means of collective philanthropy, superseded today by non-profit foundations and the digital philanthropy of crowdfunding online. The first community chest appeared in Cleveland, Ohio in 1913, and New Rochelle organized its own in 1936 during the Great Depression, In the 1930s, business and social leaders of New Rochelle touted its community chest as "one campaign for ten human welfare agencies," noting the efficiency of one brief annual appeal by a single agency rather than ten individual appeals. The agencies that benefited from the largesse of the community included the New Rochelle Day Nursery, Huguenot YMCA, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and the Colburn Memorial Home for the Aged among others. The local community chests of mid-century eventually morphed into what we now know today as the United Way. 

U.S. Committee for the
Care of European Children / 1943

In 1941, the philanthropic landscape changed with the advent of war. With the new crisis, the New Rochelle community chest broadened its mission to include emergency aid for victims of wartime catastrophe in Europe and China beginning in 1942. This was done through a new agency, the National War Fund (NWF). The NWF was created as an umbrella agency to support the United Service Organizations, known as "the USO," that provided live entertainment and other social support for American troops overseas. In addition, the NWF distributed its funds to affiliated relief organizations providing succor to nations suffering from Nazi oppression and the wartime tragedies of homelessness, hunger, persecution, imprisonment, exile, and injury brought on by the global conflict. There were many such relief organizations aligned with the "United Nations," as America and her allies were then known; these included American Relief for Norway, the U.S. Committee for the Care of European Children, The British War Relief Society, the Greece War Relief Association, and the United Seamen's Service. 

National War Fund Member Agencies
with Norman Rockwell Illustration / 1943

Though there were many other fund-raising appeals during World War II (most notable were the periodic war bond drives), the NWF aligned with local community chests to provide direct aid to a host of relief organizations. The New Rochelle community chest was one of hundreds of local civic organizations that supported this effort through the NWF. In 1942, it advertised its mission as a community chest and "war chest." Among the many historical treasures of printed literature in the Library's archival collection is a fine assortment of pamphlets distributed during the war years to educate the public and raise awareness about this intricate network of national relief organizations. A small selection of these pamphlets appear here. One of the ("Remember Us") includes the artwork of famed New Rochelle artist Norman Rockwell whose message "each according to the dictates of his own conscience" typifies the appeal to common philanthropy in a time of crisis. As we struggle to come to grips with the current pandemic and express appreciation for the frontline workers in medicine and public health, it is helpful to reflect on the past generosity of ordinary citizens in a time of national and global crisis. The National War Fund existed from 1942 to 1947. Its history may seem obscure to us today, but it is one that deserves a much more comprehensive historical exploration. 

June 29, 2020 / David Rose / New Rochelle Public Library Archives

Seven Things You Might Know about Carl Reiner, The Dick Van Dyke Show and New Rochelle

Remarks by Barbara Davis, City Historian at the 2018 event for the honorary re-naming of Bonnie Meadow Road to Dick Van Dyke Way

1. In 1953, Carl Reiner and his wife, Estelle, and their two children, 6-year old Rob and 3-year old Annie moved from an apartment in the Bronx to their first home, at 48 Bonnie Meadow Road, in New Rochelle. They paid about $30,000.
   
   
   This is how their son, Rob, later described New Rochelle:
   "There was a 'Leave it to Beaver' aspect of suburban life, we went sleigh riding and played ball. There was a lot of unbuilt land in that area where my friends Steven Rabin, Michael Leeds, Paul Schindler and I played army."
   
   
   In another article, Carl remembered buying fresh corn from the Hutchinson Farm, down the street.
   
   
2. In 1959, Carl produced a pilot in 1959. "Head of the Family" as it was called, based on his own life living in the suburbs and working as a writer for a variety show. He played the lead; his wife was played by Barbara Bitton. It did not fly. An actor by the name of Dick Van Dyke was recommended for the lead by Sheldon Leonard, a TV comedy producer.
   
   
3. Although they had no intention of leaving their home in New Rochelle, Carl once told a reporter that the film industry mecca of the West Coast beckoned him in 1960.
   
   
4. The first episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show aired on October 3, 1961.
   
   
5. After the first year, the show was due to be cancelled. The sponsors convinced CBS to continue for at least another season. By its third episode of its second season, the Dick Van Dyke Show became the 2nd most watched show in America. The first? The Beverly Hillbillies. 
   
   
6. After four more seasons, with 157 episodes, the last Dick Van Dyke Show aired on September 7, 1966.
   
   
7. Today, it is considered one of America's "most beloved" sitcoms. The show won more Emmy's than any other during the 1960s. The first was received after the first season, when Carl Reiner was awarded for Outstanding Writing Achievement in Comedy. It was nominated a total of 23 times and was awarded 15 Emmys by the Television Academy. TV Guide ranked in #13 out of the 50 greatest TV Shows of All Times.
   
   
   Now, here is something we all know – New Rochelle is proud and honored to have been the setting of The Dick Van Dyke Show!