Cheesy Grits: Granddad Ralston--Not Just a Job, a Career

The Settlement movement was a progressive social movement begun in England and the United States during the latter part of the XIXth century. The movement was aimed at poor folks in cities, with the thesis being that the nation as a whole would be enriched if all its citizens were able to contribute as fully as possible without being bound by class. The aim was to provide programs and places were the more-privileged were able to share their skills, resources, and abilities with the less-privileged. The locations where these activities were centralized were called "Settlement Houses," with the most famous Settlement House in the U.S. being Jane Addams's Hull House in Chicago.

In New York City, the Settlement movement almost immediately focused on the thousands of immigrants arriving New York City through Ellis Island. The Henry Street Settlement was established by Lillian Wald on Manhattan's Lower East Side in the early 1890s and served many of these new arrivals, helping them to learn English, to care for themselves and each other, and to navigate this new society in which they found themselves.


But New York City's burgeoning African American community also demanded attention, and, true to their Progressive ideals of equality and opportunity, the Settlement folks responded. The politics of racism, however, were such that the Henry Street Settlement decided that a "separate-but-equal" facility needed to be established to serve Manhattan's black population.

One of the earliest of the African American settlement houses established by Henry Street was the Stillman House, which opened in 1907 in San Juan Hill on W. 60th St. The facility itself was small and the number of programs quickly expanded far beyond the building's capacity; so in 1914, Henry Street found a new building at 202 W. 63rd St. where the programs could be brought under one roof. This new Settlement was called the Lincoln House Settlement. The Henry Street board of directors wanted dynamic leadership for this newly-consolidated venture, so they recruited Miss Birdye Haynes, the first African American to earn a graduate degree in social work at the University of Chicago, from her position in Chicago's settlement houses to run the newly-formed Lincoln House.

Miss Haynes was a dynamic leader who immediately saw a special need for emphasis on programs for the boys of San Juan Hill, and the cry went out for someone to lead those programs at Lincoln House. That cry was clearly heard by Granddad Ralston.

And so it was that the offices of Town & Country magazine received a letter dated Dec. 20, 1915 from Viola Conklin of the Henry Street Settlement. The letter read:

Dear Sirs:

      Mr. George Robert Ralston has applied to us for the position of director for boys work at our branch for colored people. He will be the leader, in great measure, the example of some two or three hundred boys, and we [feel] very anxious to be assured of his qualifications as to integrity, personality, and general stability of character before giving him this work....

The reply by the publisher of Town and Country magazine, one Franklin Cox, was brief and to the point. Here is an image of it:

 First off, it's of course a fine reference that attests to Granddad's character and reliability. But it also contains some interesting details about his previous employment history, to wit, that he came to Town & Country from the offices of Standard Oil, who also gave him a fine reference.

And when I first saw this letter in the Lillian Wald Collection at Columbia University's Butler Library, I had to smile: Granddad George obviously started networking early: at least two of his older Thorne cousins in Brooklyn are identified in various places as also having worked for Standard Oil. Not to mention that Granddad was obviously a busy young man, what with all the demands of keeping in shape for running in track meets and then managing two different storied track teams all the while holding down these office jobs.

But never mind: the suggestion is very powerful that Granddad Ralston had seen an opportunity to make a career move that united his skills, experience, and vision to make a contribution in helping young people learn about both the discipline and the rewards of sports.

On 27 Dec 1915, just four days after the date of the glowing reference letter from the publisher of Town & Country magazine, the board of directors at the Henry Street Settlement offered Granddad Ralston "the directorship of the department of boys' work at Lincoln House." Starting salary was $60 per month.


Notes:

1) I'm not sure why there isn't more written about the life and work of Miss Birdye Haynes. As a graduate of Fisk University and the winner of a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship to attend the University of Chicago's School of Civics and Philanthropy, she was, as I mentioned above, the first African American to have earned a graduate degree in social work, which she was awarded in 1914. After heading up two major settlement houses—first, Chicago's Wendell Philips Settlement and then New York's Lincoln House Settlement—her promising career was cut short when she succumbed in New York at age 32 to complications from surgery.

The only summary of her career that I'm aware of is at the citation below, but, alas, you need access to the JSTOR database to see it:

Carlton-LaNey, Iris. “The Career of Birdye Henrietta Haynes, a Pioneer Settlement House Worker.” Social Service Review, vol. 68, no. 2, 1994, pp. 254–273. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/30012240.

2) The reference letter from Town & Country reproduced here is from the Lillian D. Wald papers, 1895-1936, Special Collections, Butler Library, Columbia University.