Television in White Sulphur Springs
From The Meagher County News, Wednesday, March 24, 1954:
The first television program broadcast by station KFBB, Great Falls, was viewed last Sunday at the Marvin Corkill home by neighbors who dropped in during the evening. This is the first television program, lasting for any considerable time, which has been received in White Sulphur Springs, although during the past year “skip” or intermittent reception from several points in the United States was reported by Marvin Corkill and Hersman Gwin.
In later television related news, Taylor Gordon appeared on local television at one point after he returned to live in the Springs. An article in The Meagher County News (Oct 26, 1967) describes that appearance:
Tuesday morning, October 24, Taylor Gordon was on KRTV in Great Falls on the “Today in Montana” show at 8:00 A. M. Miss Norma Ashby introduced his book, “The Man Who Built the Stone Castle,” the biography of B. R. Sherman. Miss Ashby also persuaded Taylor to sing three songs. “Because,” “Old Man River,” and one verse of “Camptown Races.”
Taylor Gordon and John Ringling
As a young man, Taylor Gordon worked for circus impresario John Ringling as his valet and as the porter on Ringling’s private railway car. Taylor is mentioned by Henry Ringling North in his autobiography The Circus Kings: Our Ringling Family Story. He relates several incidents revealing something about the relationship between Taylor and Ringling.
Robert Ringling, John’s nephew, was an opera singer, and although possessed of a good baritone voice, “It must be admitted that Uncle John could not stand him.”
Henry Ringling North continues:
I remember one evening when Robert came . . . prepared to give us a marvelously enjoyable evening, and Uncle John naughtily said, “I have a treat for you, Robert.”
He called in his valet, Taylor Gordon, who was studying voice on the side, and Manny (as we called him) sang for hours while Bob listened as gracefully as possible. (172)
Gordons and the Montana Plaindealer
Although the Gordons visited Helena with some regularity, I’ve found only a few news items about them in Helena’s African American newspaper, The Montana Plaindealer.
April 26, 1907:
F. E. Gordon better known as Blondie hot footed it back to his home at White Sulphur Springs where he says he knows he can get by.
[At least, this seems likely to be one of the Gordons, but I'm not sure if the initials refer to Francis, in which case it should be J. F., or Emmanuel Taylor, in which case it should be E. T. rather than F. E. The nickname doesn't help much either, as "Blondie" is not among the many nicknames Taylor lists for himself in Born to Be, and Francis' nickname was Sam.]
October 30, 1909
Miss Rosa [sic] Gordon and brother were over to visit the fair.
January 28, 1910
R. J. Gordon of White Sulphur visited several days in the city last week.
Montana Plaindealer
Edited by African American Helena resident Joseph B. Bass, The Montana Plaindealer was published from March 16, 1906, through September 5, 1911. The newspaper was primarily distributed to the black community of Helena, and its content is reflective of the interests of that community. The newspaper comments on political issues of concern, reports on the activities of members of the community, supports and black-owned businesses (and provides an advertising forum) in the Helena area, and provides news of general interest to black westerners.
I’ve been reading through the entire run of the Plaindealer, in part because it is interesting reading in and of itself, but primarily because I am continuing to look for information about the Gordons. Robert in particular regularly visited Helena and was member of one of the city’s black fraternal lodges. Aside from my interest in the Gordons, the Plaindealer is well worth looking at for the slice of life view it provides of the interests and concerns of early-twentieth-century black westerners living in Helena.
The Plaindealer was particularly active in opposing anti-black legislation introduced in the Montana legislature, including a proposed ban that would make it illegal for African American men to wear insignia indicating their membership in a fraternal lodge. This notice appeared in the February 1, 1907, edition of the newspaper.
Seasons Greetings from the Taylor and Rose Gordon Biography Blog!
Throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s, Rose Gordon bought an annual “seasons greetings” ad in the Meagher County News (as did other business others in White Sulphur Springs), partly as a way of advertising her physiotherapy business. Posting a couple of her ads seemed like a good way of saying best wishes and seasons greetings to the readers of the The Taylor Gordon and Rose Gordon Biography Project blog.
McKanlass Colored Specialty Company
One of the great things about working on the biography of Taylor and Rose Gordon is that I’ve been able to discover a lot of information about African Americans living in Montana before 1900. Not only was there an active African American community in the Gordons’ hometown of White Sulphur Springs, but there were also African Americans coming in an out of the area as part of travelling musical and theatrical shows. The Fisk Jubilee Singers from Nashville performed in White Sulphur, as did other touring companies made up of predominantly African American performers. One touring group, the McKanlass Colored Specialty Company, advertised their performance in the June 14, 1888, edition of the Rocky Mountain Husbandman.
Click her for more information about the McKanlass family and their contributions to American music.
Taylor Gordon in Concert (1960)
When Taylor Gordon returned from New York in the late 1950s to settle once more in White Sulphur Springs, Montana, he also returned (at the age of 67) to the concert stage for the first time in well over two decades, performing in the Springs as well as in other Montana towns and cities. One of those concerts is advertised here in the February 24, 1960, edition of the Meagher County News:
The March 2, 1960, edition of the Meagher County News reports on the concert:
“A program of negro spirituals, classical and secular songs was presented in a concert by Taylor Gordon, at the grade school auditorium last Saturday evening. A sizeable crowd, including a number of people from out of town, attended in spite of the below-zero weather that night.
“Mr. Gordon was accompanied by Miss Mary Louise Nelson at the piano.
“The concert was Mr. Gordon’s first public appearance since 1939, and the first time he had sang here since 1936.
“Mr. Gordon began his singing career in 1919. From that year until 1925, he was a vaudeville performer in many eastern cities. In 1925 he formed a partnership with J. Rosamond Johnson and they toured the country giving concerts. They were featured in a radio program, ‘Dixie Echoes,’ on the CBS network until 1930. During this time Mr. Gordon published an anthology of Negro Spirituals, which was issued in two volumes.”
[The MCN is in error here, as it was his partner J. Rosamond Johnson with his brother James Weldon who published The Books of the American Negro Spirituals, although Gordon was connected to the books, as the Johnson / Gordon concerts were intended in part to promote them.]
“In 1932 he appeared in the New York show ‘Shoot the Works,’ which was written and produced by the late Heywood Broun. Later he appeared in ‘Pursuit of Happiness’ with Seth Arnold; and in 1934 in ‘The Gay Divorcee’ which starred Fred Astaire. This last show was taken from New York to Chicago during the World’s Fair and Mr. Gordon went with the troupe to Chicago. His last public appearances were in New York [sic] during the 1939 World’s Fair.
“When the United States entered World War II, he took a job with the Curtiss-Wright aircraft company in New Jersey. After the war he was employed by Merit Studios, a division of Burton, Barton, Durstine and Osborne advertising agency. He returned to White Sulphur Springs last year.
“Mr. Gordon published a book entitled ‘Born to Be’ in 1929. The book tells of his early life in White Sulphur Springs, and of his adventures while traveling with the Ringling circus. Copies of the first edition have become collector’s items, and Mr. Gordon is planning to have the book republished.”
Rose Gordon’s Newspaper Contributions
I’m in the midst of getting ready for the Western Literature Association conference coming up this week. I’ll be presenting a paper on Rose Gordon’s contributions to the White Sulphur Springs newspaper, the Meagher County News. Rose wrote letters and columns for the paper from the 1940s until her death in 1968.
Rose’s newspaper contributions fall into three categories, one) memorial tributes to recently deceased members of the community, which varied in length from a few lines to several columns; two) columns published as “Rose Gordon’s Recollections,” or alternately, after Montana’s Centennial celebration in 1964, “Centennial Notes,” both of which contained a mixture of autobiography and local history; third) letters that commented directly on current politics and social issues.
Her particular specialty was the memorial tribute, examples of which appeared frequently in the Meagher County News, and which was a genre of writing well-suited to her interests and strengths as a writer. The tributes allowed her to combine her interest in local history with her talent for personal narrative, as most of the tributes involve an overview of the individual’s contribution to the WSS community as well as Gordon’s narration of her personal memories of the deceased. She was also democratic in her choice of subjects, writing memorials for both the town’s prominent and lesser known citizens. Even with the town’s prominent citizens, in addition to acknowledging their public record she also is careful to include the anecdote of everyday life. In her tribute to Bide Edwards, she acknowledges his public role as “county commissioner and mayor of the city for many years,” but the greater emphasis is placed on a more homely public service: “Our winters were bitter cold years ago and Mr. Edwards always did his best to see that all had coal and would leave a little extra in his wagon in case of emergency at night so people could get coal” (MCN, January 20, 1965).
A typical example is an undated memorial to Mrs. Lavina Bandel. This comes from Gordon’s scrapbook, and was likely published sometime in the 1940s:
“I want to pay tribute to Mrs. Lavina Bandel.
I well remember the first time I met her. She was a charming young lady, full of life and very pleasant. She possessed stability and inner poise. Everything she did was done well. She often spoke of her childhood days, saying she was taught to be obedient, and above all to finish every duty she took part in. She married Mr. Eugene Bandel many years ago; she was a wonderful wife and real helpmate.
I will miss her very much. She was a kind neighbor. When I was planting my front yard, she gave me lilac bushes, golden glow and many other plants. They will be living memories of her. She was a great lover of nature.
Her son Theodore lives in California. He will always hold fond memories of his wonderful mother and may her memory lead him in the path of destination she had always dreamed of for him.”
Service to others, whether to family members or the community as a whole, is the quality that Rose most often mentions, especially in terms of the little kindnesses that are easily forgotten. Rose also celebrates the homely and the everyday, and she does so through personal anecdotes that reveal something about the personality of the deceased, that “she was a great lover of nature” who also shared the natural beauty that she loved with her neighbors.
Opportunity Review of Born to Be
When published in 1929, Taylor Gordon’s autobiography Born to Be was widely reviewed by both the white and the black press. In addition to the highly critical Crisis review (discussed in an earlier post), Born to Be was also reviewed in the New York Times Book Review as well as in Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life. Few reviews failed to take a shot at Carl Van Vechten (who provided a forward to the book), and some reviews spent more time on Van Vechten’s foreward than on the book itself.
Opportunity, published by the National Urban League, was an important journal during the 1920s and 1930s, publishing (as did Crisis) poetry and fiction as well as news, articles on social issues, and reports on African American accomplishments in a variety of fields. For a time, Opportunity sponsored a literary contest (winners included Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston, and Helene Johnson), and it also sponsored several fund-raising events for the National Urban League, including a series of concerts at which Taylor Gordon and Rosamond Johnson performed (among a long list of others, including Paul Robeson, Nora Holt, etc.).
The Opportunity review of Born to Be, written by Eugene Gordon, was far more positive than the Crisis review (while still taking its shots at Van Vechten), and finds particularly praiseworthy some of the earthier elements of the book that the Crisis found most objectionable. The review, however, makes a couple of somewhat puzzling arguments, questioning why someone as young as Taylor Gordon would have written an autobiography, especially as his life had been fairly typical for a young black men (and the review barely mentions Gordon’s singing career and the surprising rise to fame that made him anything but typical). The review also praises Gordon for being articulate and sophisticated and a good storyteller, but, despite acknowledging these skills, suggests that the humor in Gordon’s book is unconscious and that his humor is most apparent when Taylor is being pompous. Whatever Taylor’s character flaws, it’s hard for me to see pomposity as one of them, and the reviewer doesn’t offer an example.
On the whole, though, the Opportunity review is a positive one. The review also reveals that the reaction to Born to Be in the black press was by no means monolithic, as has sometimes been suggested by historians who refer only to the Crisis review in their references to the book.
From the Opportunity review:
[. . . .] Muriel Draper, in the introduction adds: “Taylor Gordon is a human being.”
I am in complete agreement with the lady. As a matter of fact, I am somewhat abashed that she would think that what appeared to the reader to be so obvious would need to be thus emblazoned. One cannot get through the first chapter without being aware of the fact that he is a human being with considerable of the animal dominant in him. Which, I hasten to append, is nothing to his discredit. We are all too prone at times to forget our close affiliation with the animal kingdom, and it is refreshing to find someone like Taylor Gordon reminding us constantly that whatever else we may pretend to be we are animals, first and last. As to Carl Van Vechten’s groping to determine precisely what has happened in the book—well, I think I appreciate how he feels. Something has happened, without a doubt; but I am far less concerned with what has happened as to how it happened.
For why Taylor Gordon at 36 should have thought his life involved enough with richly varied experiences to justify his writing a book about it I do not know. Perhaps some of Mr. Gordon’s friends, having heard from time to time snatches of his inimitable stories, urged him to write them out. [. . .] Thus we have first rate publishers [Covici-Friede] of a book containing matter that might easily be excelled by any of a score of Negro youths, working their way through such colleges as Howard, Fisk, and Lincoln, if they took the trouble to write out their experiences. The book would be more literary than Mr. Gordon’s and far richer, in some instances; but I doubt it would be quite so readable.
Born to Be is a funny book. It is funny because the author takes himself very seriously. It is funny in the sense that a pompous person is often funny; that is, without being aware of it. On the other hand, there are times when Mr. Gordon obviously tries to show humor, and the obviousness is always most obvious. He is funny when he does not sense it. It is not an important book. It does not add anything of value to our store of knowledge. It is true that we learn a great deal of the youth and manhood of an American Negro who was born and reared in a Montana village among whites, and therefore did not encounter race prejudice until he had grown up. It is true also that we learn how an intelligent young black man, with little schooling, reacts to the stimuli of a prejudiced world, of a curious world, of a world of passionate, animal women, of a world that loves the songs he sings, of the world of Harlem, of the world that is Europe; but I doubt that Gordon’s experiences were different from those of any other young Negro in similar situations would have had. It only happens that Gordon became articulate where others would have remained silent.
The most interesting feature of the book, aside from the drawings by Covarrubias, is the language in which it is written. It is the language of the untutored, and as such retains all the vigor of the original. The book would have been flatly commonplace if the editors had polished its grammar and bolstered up its rhetoric. It would have then had nothing remaining to recommend it except its vulgarities. Even these would have appeared rather slack rewritten in literary English.
Mr. Gordon is best when he tells a straight story. His sense of narration is excellent. He knows all the tricks of the professional story teller. His tale about Old Billy Leapopa, “a rich Scotch farmer and stock-man” who visited the sporting house, where the youthful Taylor worked, every Saturday night; his account of the episode in Dan Smith’s Saloon, with its significantly vulgar closing words; his stories of narrow escapes from particularly hazardous situations involving white women, and of his reception in Europe by the parasitical nobility,–all these are told with the skill of the born raconteur. “Ho! Ho! . . . I wonder what I was born to be?” he chuckles, as the last word of his biography. Perhaps he was born to be a writer of such tales as Cassanova told in his day or as Frank Harris told at a later period. At any rate, Born to Be, taken all in all, is a fair beginning. It is not all like that, to be sure, and I do not wish to give the impression that it is. (Although I do not suppose the publishers would greatly mind, since it is their wish chiefly to sell the book.)
Born to Be is the naïve but interesting story of a sophisticated but interesting young man’s life, but the only reason I can see for its having been written, when there are thousands of lives more interesting in rich variety, is that Taylor Gordon happened to be articulate. And happened also to have the moral support of man who stands in well with certain publishers.
Citation: Eugene Gordon. Rev. of Born to Be. Opportunity (January 1930): 22-23.
Jubilee Singers
For a brief time early in the history of White Sulphur Springs, the African American citizens of the town took an active part in the cultural life of the Springs, contributing a cornet band (which was carried through the town’s streets on a wagon that the town’s African American blacksmith Irvin Smith helped build), a quartet that specialized in singing spirituals, and even a group that put on several minstrel shows in the 1890s. The advertisement above was published in the Rocky Mountain Husbandman on April 13, 1893, one year after another successful minstrel show (discussed in an earlier post). We must take with a grain of salt the ad copy that promises the show will reveal “The happy days of the log cabin in the Sunny South true to life.”
However, it’s interesting to note that the “troupe of colored artists” appears “under the management of IRVIN SMITH.” Smith owned and operated his own blacksmith shops in the Springs from 1880 until at least 1900, and his work at the forge quite literally helped build the town of White Sulphur Springs. He was highly successful, as evidenced by occasional notices in the newspapers of his business transactions, or of his ranch, or of his stock of horses. He also apparently possessed storytelling and musical talents. He played bass drum in the cornet band (a good musical position for a blacksmith to hold), and he not only managed but acted in the minstrel shows. And he is just one of several remarkable African American individuals whose stories have been appearing as I continue to look into the early life of Taylor Gordon’s hometown.
