Digging a Little Deeper: William Bronk

Posted on behalf of Mark Seidl, Technical Services Librarian for Archives & Special Collections

William Bronk

William Bronk

April is National Poetry Month and an excellent time to consider poets connected to Vassar and the Hudson Valley. Vassar itself counts several notable poets among its graduates, including the flamboyant Edna St. Vincent Millay and Elizabeth Bishop. Vassar’s Archives & Special Collections Library holds papers of both of these figures, major collections of correspondence, manuscripts, and other materials that document their fascinating lives and works.

Dig a little deeper into Vassar’s collections, however, and you’ll find materials relating to lesser known but no less compelling poets. One of these is William Bronk, a poet who is not exactly a household name, even among avid readers of poetry. Born in 1918 in Fort Edward, NY, Bronk was descended from Jonas Bronck, the Dutch settler for whom the Bronx is named. His family moved to Hudson Falls, NY (north of Albany, not far from Lake George) where Bronk grew up and lived for most of the rest of his life. In 1934 he entered Darmouth College. He went on to serve in the army in World War II, after which he taught briefly at Union College. He then returned to Hudson Falls to manage his family’s coal and lumber business, a job he held until 1978. After his retirement he continued to live in Hudson Falls. His childhood home became a pilgrimage point for many young poets and artists, who enjoyed Bronk’s hospitality and gourmet cooking. He died in 1999 at home in Hudson Falls.

Bronk found his vocation as a poet while at Dartmouth, where he studied with the poet and critic Sidney Cox and met Robert Frost. Over the course of his long writing career Bronk published 30 collections of poetry with significant small presses including Elizabeth Press, New Directions, North Point, and Talisman House. He also published collections of essays, a volume of literary criticism, and many broadsides of his poems. Bronk’s poetry has often been compared to that of Wallace Stevens and is marked by its clear, unadorned, and precise language and by its philosophical concerns. Engaging subjects that range from ancient Mayan architecture to northeastern American landscapes, Bronk’s poems, such as Midsummer, explore the limits of human knowledge and the flux of time.

Bronk Broadside

Bronk broadside: “In the Beauty of the World…,” Providence: Burning Deck, n.d.

Though by no means among the largest Bronk collections (those at Columbia and the University of New Hampshire are considerably larger), Vassar’s book collection in particular is notable for its completeness and provenance. The set of books includes copies of all of Bronk’s poetry collections inscribed by him to Matthew Weseley, the donor of the materials who, in the 1990s, met and corresponded with Bronk. Complementing the book collection is a small collection of papers. These items include Mr. Weseley’s correspondence with Bronk and one of Bronk’s publishers, James Weil, manuscripts of some of Bronk’s poems, two cassette recordings of Bronk reading from his work, and some broadsides such as the one pictured above.

And what might be the Vassar connection? Mr. Weseley’s mother, Lenore Levine Weseley, is a Vassar graduate (Class of 1954) who went on to become a noted pediatrician in New York City. As a result of her son’s generosity, her alma mater can now boast this wonderful collection of works by one of America’s great poets.

Happy Poetry Month!

Vassar’s First Black Students

Trio

Beatrix McCleary, June Jackson, and Camille Cottrell: 1944 and 1944-5 Vassarions.

February is African American History Month. The story of race at Vassar is long and complex, and a blog is hardly the forum to try to address even half of it, but one question that comes up time and again here in Archives and Special Collections is, “Who was the first Black graduate of Vassar College?” The quick answer is Anita Hemmings, VC 1897. Her story has been told in the Miscellany News, the Vassar Quarterly, and elsewhere. Often mentioned in the articles about Hemmings is her daughter, Ellen Love, who was a member of the class of 1927. There is less discussion, however, of Beatrix McCleary, VC 1944, Camille Cottrell, and June Jackson, both VC 1945-4 — and one could make the argument that it was those three women who were truly the first African Americans admitted to Vassar.

Anita Florence Hemmings

Anita Hemmings, ca. 1897

Anita Hemmings was of African American descent, and did indeed graduate from Vassar, but no one at Vassar knew she was Black until a few weeks before graduation. Hemmings had “passed” as white for four years, but in the spring of 1897, the father of a suspicious roommate undertook an investigation of Hemmings’ family in Boston, and revealed her heritage. Hemmings was allowed to graduate, but the faculty and trustees had to take the matter under consideration. There are no records of the trustee conversations on the issue, but not only did Hemmings graduate, she returned the following year for reunion. Hemmings’ daughter, Ellen Love, was also a Vassar graduate. She was raised in New York, where her mother continued to pass as white, as did her father, Dr. Andrew Love. It seems unlikely that someone in the Vassar administration didn’t make the connection between Hemmings and their daughter, but Love was admitted and graduated without incident. The college may have known Ellen Love’s family history, but it’s possible that Love herself didn’t know she had African American blood. Her parents raised their children to believe that they were white and seem to have broken ties with the “Blacker” sides of their families.

Ellen Love

Ellen Love, 1927 Vassarion

So can we really say that Vassar was integrated with the arrival of Hemmings in 1894? No. Hemmings’ story is important, her bravery should be admired, and more research needs to be done about her experiences here. Indeed, the whole topic of passing is a painful and significant chapter in African American history, and how Hemmings fits into that story is well worth studying. However, Hemmings’ time at Vassar is not a tale of a college’s valiant stand for integration. As far as the world knew, Vassar did not accept African American students until 46 years later.

Beatrix McCleary Hamburg’s class will celebrate its 70th reunion this spring. Camille Cottrell Espeut and June Jackson Christmas will have theirs in 2015. All three have spoken fondly of their alma mater, but there’s no avoiding the truth that race was still an issue during thir time at Vassar. When asked if she experienced discrimination in college, Beatrix McCleary Hamburg said, “On the contrary, I felt that I was being killed with kindness.” But she also wrote that she was “bombarded” with questions about the Black world and felt that she “represented the Negro Problem — in capitals.” Both she and June Jackson Christmas felt that they were sometimes viewed not so much as fellow students, but rather as the answer to a larger social problem good liberal arts students should be concerned about. But there were more painful incidents as well, such as Christmas being told by a professor that a paper she’d written must have been plagiarized because “it didn’t sound like a Negro’s writing.” There were also things they might have suspected but never heard. In 1994, Phyllis Larsen reminisced at her 50th reunion about a night in 1942 when another white student became extremely uncomfortable after realizing she had accepted a seat at the same dining hall table as June Jackson. Larsen wondered if June realized what had happened. If she did, she certainly didn’t let on then, but she wrote later that sometimes the “personal pain at racist incidents was so deep that I could not share it with my new-found White friends…”

There’s so much more to research and ponder about the Black experience at Vassar. I’ve listed the sources I used for this brief post below, but if you have the interest and the opportunity, you are more than welcome to contact Archives and Special Collections to learn more. In the meanwhile, take a few minutes and watch this fascinating video featuring the first Black woman accepted at Vassar, Dr. Beatrix McCleary Hamburg:

Hamburg video

Video by Eric Hamburg, available at http://vimeo.com/25206310

Sources for further research:

Seals and Shields Quiz

3 shields

You've seen the shields over the Library doors and in the vestibule perhaps hundreds of times. You might even have been paying attention when the guide told you what they represented during your admissions tour. Or maybe you're an esteemed member of the faculty who knows all things about all things. But can you earn an A on this quiz? Are you too chicken to try? Too cool for schools? Come on, loosen up, give it a shot. You might even giggle at the extremely witty wrong answers. Or learn something or whatever...