A Trip to the Big Apple to look at Socialist Cheesecake

Doing family history can take you to lots of exotic places, both geographic and emotional. Our recent trip to New York City had some of both. One moment, we were in the Rare Book Reading Room of New York Public Library's Schomburg Center struggling to stifle ourselves over the photo on the cover of the May 1919 issue of The Crusader, and then a few hours later, we found ourselves ensconced in Riverside Church's cozy columbarium, surrounded by marble plaques marking the final resting places of ash-filled urns. We weren't just being weird: the ashes of two of Jane's relatives are in there.

What a trip—but first things first: our Crusader cover girl.

The Crusader was founded in Harlem by a journalist named Cyril Briggs. Born in St. Kitts-Nevis, he moved to Harlem and became a major figure in the African-American self-determination/liberation movement. He worked for Harlem's Amsterdam News for a time and then struck out on his own in September, 1918, with The Crusader, a journal that advocated for African-American national self-determination. The magazine became the publicity organ for the Hamitic League of the World, and later the African Blood Brotherhood. These organizations were eventually folded in the U.S. Communist Party—but the paramount point is that in 1918-19, Harlem was teeming with people, energy and ideas, ranging from politics to the arts. It was an electric place to be. It was the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance.

Of course, beyond the general idea that there had been a Harlem Renaissance, I knew little else a few weeks ago. What I did know, though, was that Jane's grandfather was George Ralston. He was born in Charleston, lived in Savannah, and moved to New York City around 1906, where he became a well-known community, sports, and educational leader, retiring from his position as track coach at Brooklyn's Midwood High School in 1954. Because we don't know much about his Savannah connection, I Google "George Ralston" occasionally, just to see if the all-seeing, all-knowing Google machine has found something interesting that wasn't available before.

And what came up a few weeks ago was this image put up by the Schomburg Center:

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. "The Crusader; May 1919; [Mrs. George Ralston; Cover page]." New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed January 25, 2016. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47df-a163-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

Say what? How is the cover for the May 1919 issue of The Crusader magazine a hit for "George Ralston"?! I was puzzled until I read the fine print: it's not a hit for Granddad George Ralston; it's a hit for our cover girl, who is identified inside in the table of contents as "Mrs. George Ralston."

Well, of course my jaw hit the floor. I mean "Ye gods and little fishes!!!" I was looking at the first positively-identified picture of Jane's grandmother, Audrey McCabe Ralston, that I had ever seen. If the photo was taken in early 1919, it was taken just a few months after Jane's mother was born in November, 1918.

Audrey wasn't the only cover girl for The Crusader; subsequent issues had other fetching young women on the cover of whom there was no substantive mention in the publication. However progressive these young African-American male socialists might have been, they weren't averse to using cheesecake to attract readers—male of course. Socialist cheesecake!

I breathed none of this to Jane, who was planning one of her occasional trips to New York City anyway. This time, however, I planned to join her for a few days, and first on the list of places to visit was the Schomburg Center so I could show her the original of this image.

The Schomburg Center is on the northwest corner of W. 135th and Lenox, right across from the Harlem Hospital. No doubt I'll learn some day about all the historic buildings and happenings at 135th and Lenox, but that day, my mind was fixed elsewhere. I first had to register with the Library and get a provisional library card so I could submit requests in the Rare Book room. That took all of a few minutes. First we went downstairs to the general Reference area, where it was hot as blazes. The staff there referred us up to the second floor for the Rare Book Reading Room, and soon we were sitting at a table, waiting for the first bound volume of issues of The Crusader. In short order, we were summoned to the desk where the librarian handed us an old book and two wedges so that the book could be opened without flattening out and breaking the spine. There were little sandbags to hold the pages open. We carefully arranged the wedges, gently laid the volume open against them, and I told Jane to find the May, 1919 issue. Just that quickly, we were looking at the twenty-one year old Mrs. George Ralston—the very image you see above, complete with inkspot opposite her face.

The English have a good expression for how we both felt:

We paged around in the volume and saw articles about the origins of human civilization in Africa, calls for justice and action, and even an occasional column of recipes—obviously, a section aimed at women. And we also found, in the premiere issue, a section acknowledging the financial contributions of various community members to the start-up of the magazine. On p. 23, the listing included the following:

The name at the bottom—George Ralston—is of course, Jane's grandfather, and the husband of the beautiful woman on the cover of the May 1919 issue. Jane's grandparents were in the thick of the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance.

And then another "Aha!" moment regarding a newspaper clipping I had come across regarding Granddad George Ralston. Here is the clipping, from the 18 Dec 1920 New York Age, p. 8:

New York Age, 18 Dec 1920, p. 8. Note the stray character in the address;
it should read "4-6 West 131st Street." 

Yes, it's that Paul Robeson. He sang at a benefit for an organization of which Granddad Ralston was the Physical Director. In 1920, Robeson will have been a law student at Columbia University on nearby W. 116th St. He had only just made his stage debut at the Harlem Y.W.C.A. in Torrence's Simon the Cyrenian. He was still five years away from his film debut in Oscar Micheaux's Body and Soul, and six years away from his major singing debut.

Nevertheless, Granddad Ralston clearly knew talent when it came his way: he apparently jumped at the chance to have the young Robeson sing to benefit the newly-opened Boy's Welfare Association. Of course, it didn't hurt that his wife, our socialist cheesecake, also had a small career as a soprano recitalist, so the world of music was not foreign to him. One inevitably wonders: did Paul Robeson and Audrey McCabe Ralston ever sing together? I've not yet come across any press reports that they did. Robeson's personal papers are at Howard University, just down the road from me, so I'll check there next.

What a day—and it was only the first few hours. Now, on to the columbarium!