# The J. W. Johnson Collection at Yale

By Carl Van Vechten

FOR a very long time I pondered, in my own mind, the question of what would be my ultimate disposal of my collection of Negro books, manuscripts, letters, photographs, phonograph records, and music; not a large collection, perhaps, but an extremely interesting and valuable one, since it has been my privilege during the past two decades to know intimately many of the more prominent members of the race. In this quandary, and spurred on by world conditions to arrive at my decision in some haste, I was invited by Bernhard Knollenberg, the librarian of Yale university, to deposit this material in the Yale library. Fortuitously, he employed precisely the right words to convince me that Yale was the place for it: "We haven't any Negro books at all."

It seemed to me then that this Collection of mine could not only be made immediately useful at Yale (the first white college in the North, I believe, to make any determined effort to secure such material) but also might become an active and growing source of propaganda, for no student, hitherto uninformed on the subject, could read these letters, the inscriptions in the books, or even the books themselves, without asking himself, and others, many questions.

There are other advantages connected with New Haven as a depository for research material. It is near New York, Boston, and other cultural centers, and in the very heart of the thickest section of the collegiate world. It is sufficiently close to the largest Negro community on the globe, which itself already boasts one of the most remarkable collections of Negro material, that of Arthur A. Schomburg in the New York Public Library. The new Yale library building offers more elastic space to the collection than can be found in most other college library buildings. Further, the material has been accepted on my own terms and with an enthusiasm from the librarian and his staff which speaks well for the future.

The official title of this gift is The James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of Negro Arts and Letters, founded by Carl Van Vechten. It seemed most appropriate to couple the name of my friend James Weldon Johnson with material of which his advice had been so important an element in its selection. My love and respect for the dead poet actually demanded that I do so. Furthermore, I was frank in hoping that this title would serve to induce others to make valuable additions to the collection. This already has proved to be the case.

*Started by Mr. Van Vechten and
named for the late James Wel-
don Johnson, this collection of
Negro arts and letters at New
Haven already possesses many
rare items*

Mr. Knollenberg agrees with me that any manuscripts or books written by any one with Negro blood, and the best books about Negroes written by white men, belong in this collection. Further, interesting photographs, rare first editions of music (I wish somebody would give us the St. Louis Blues in this form!) phonograph records, programs of plays or concerts, and especially letters, should find a fitting, permanent resting place here. Incidentally, at some time to be appointed in the not too distant future, the collection will be officially opened with a showing of some of the more interesting material already in hand.

## The author's contributions

My own Negro library, which forms the nucleus of the collection, is not rich in the work of the past, although it does contain a first edition of Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, several books by William Wells Brown and Frederick Douglass, and many anti-slavery pamphlets and slave narratives. Beginning, however, with the early twentieth century and continuing to date, it assembles an almost complete accumulation of the literary work of the period, mostly represented in association items, together with a quantity of letters from the authors themselves. Charles W. Chesnutt, for example, has written long autobiographical inscriptions in all his books. Unfortunately, I didn't know Paul Laurence Dunbar, but he is fully represented by first editions, and in one of them is laid a letter from his wife with his autograph enclosed. James Weldon Johnson himself is represented by a complete set of his books, presentation copies of first editions, with long personal inscriptions, for the most part in mint condition in the original dust jackets, by phonograph records, by pamphlets, by clippings, by musical settings of his poems, by photographs, and by a fine series of letters. The gift of the James Weldon Johnson manuscripts is all we need to make this collection the final one!

## Authors represented

Among the authors who are solidly represented (often in pamphlet form and by letters as well as by books) on the Yale library shelves, in first editions in

superb condition, and for the most part by association items, are the following: Jean Toomer, Wallace Thurman, George Schuyler, Eric Walrond, Zora Neale Hurston, C. L. R. James, Nella Larsen, Sterling Brown, Georgia Douglass Johnson, Claude McKay (including the very rare Constab Ballads) Alain Locke, Rudolph Fisher, William Stanley Braithwaite, W. E. B. DuBois, Arna Bontemps, Richard Wright, Walter White, Booker T. Washington, William Attaway, and Waters E. Turpin.

Langston Hughes, through my own library, and by his own gifts to Yale, is so fully represented here that no other library will ever be able to compete with Yale in this respect. All his books, with personal inscriptions, songs set to his words, inscribed to me, photographs, a quantity of letters, most of his magazine and newspaper appearances, his inclu-
sions in anthologies, translations of his work (into Spanish, French, Yiddish, Russian, Swedish, and German) together with eight large boxes of manuscripts (partly my gift, partly his) are already stored on the shelves at New Haven. Manuscripts of all the several drafts of Not Without Laughter, of many of his poems, of all of his plays, save Mulatto, are in the collection. Countee Cullen is only less fully represented, but by important and unique items. Through separate gifts from Roberta Bosley, Harold Jackman, and myself, we have succeeded in putting together the complete series of manuscripts of The Lost Zoo, in several drafts, beginning with Mr. Cullen's original notes. The typed manuscript of his version of The Medea, containing a Prologue and an Epilogue not included in the published play, together with Mr. Cullen's original manuscript of this Prologue and Epilogue, written in his own hand, with corrections, in a Paris notebook, are all preserved at Yale for posterity to examine.

The collection contains the published books of W. C. Handy, most of his music, all of it inscribed to me, and a good deal of it in first editions, a great many letters, photographs, and phonograph records, and several extremely interesting manuscripts, including the full score in parts of an arrangement of The Basement Blues for band. J. Rosamond Johnson is equally fully represented and some of his songs are also signed by his poet brother, James Weldon Johnson. There is a large group of spirituals, arranged by Henry T. Burleigh, inscribed to me, and Mr. Burleigh has also given me for the collection two manuscripts from the cycle, Passionale, with corrections in the hand of James Weldon John-

son who wrote the words. Clarence Cam-
eron White has presented us with the
manuscript score of the Prelude to his
opera, Ouanga. Another of the more
interesting items in this department of
the collection is the manuscript orchestral
score of William Grant Still's ballet,
Sahdji, in which is laid autobiographical
comment in longhand by Alain Locke
and Bruce Nugent, who collaborated on
the scenario for this dance-drama.

There is endless material in books concerning the spirituals and the blues and these are fully represented on records, of which the collection contains an almost complete listing of such singers, on discs now rare, as Bessie and Clara Smith, Paul Robeson, Ethel Waters, Marian Anderson, Dorothy Maynor, and many others are equally well represented in this section.

Photographs

One of the unique features of the collection is a set of photographs of Negroes (already there are eleven boxes with an average of forty photographs in a box) which I have made myself during the past ten years, perhaps the largest group of photographs of notable Negro personalities ever made by one man. A few names of those pictured in these boxes are Cab Calloway, Bricktop, William L. Dawson, Aaron Douglas, Paul Williams, Taylor Gordon, Zora Neale Hurston, Rex Ingram, James Weldon Johnson, Nella Larsen, Rose McClendon (including pictures of her in The Medea of Countee Cullen, although she died too early to create this rôle in the theatre) Claude McKay, Bill Robinson, Ethel Waters, Horace Pippin, Marian Anderson, Joe Louis, Henry Armstrong, Avon Long, Ruby Elzy, Richard Wright, Dean Dixon, Richmond Barthé, Countee Cullen, and a great, great many more.

There are photographs, mostly inscribed, from other lenses in the collection, of James Weldon Johnson, Paul Robeson (including many pictures of Mrs. Robeson), Adelaide Hall, A'Lelia Walker, Josephine Baker, Richard B. Harrison, Charles W. Chesnutt, Nora Holt, and countless others. There is also a group of photographs of celebrated paintings which include Negroes, from the public and private galleries of Europe and America. Further, there are several original paintings, decorations, and prints by Charles Sebree, Zell Ingram, Hale Woodruff, Aaron Douglas, and others.

Books

On the shelves at New Haven stand
many famous books about Negroes by
white authors, including Edward Shel-
don's The Nigger, Du Bose Heyward's
novel, Mamba's Daughters (accompa-
nied by an inscribed presentation copy
of the first edition of the play from
Ethel Waters) Leonard Merrick's The

Quaint Companions, Dorothy Baker's Young Man with a Horn, W. D. Howell's An Imperative Duty (a most amazing book for the year 1892!) George W. Cable's The Silent South, and The Negro, Gilmore Millen's Sweet Man, the extremely rare first edition of Joel Chandler Harris' Uncle Remus, and other books by Mr. Harris, the Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones, Ellen Glasgow's Barren Ground and In This Our Life, novels and stories by Julia Peterkin, plays by Paul Green, Willa Cather's Sapphira and the Slave Girl, Vachel Lindsay's The Congo, and a mass of material, which includes the rare Henry-Music, by and about Nancy Cunard. A great many of these books are association items. Further, the manuscripts I possess of my own work concerning the Negro, together with the first appearances of this material, have been given to the collection.

There is a fund of books dealing with
sociological subjects and there are many
books and pamphlets connected with the
Negroes' dealings with Communism and
the Catholic church. Boxes are devoted
to The Negro in Art, the Negro in Sci-
ence and Medicine, the Negro in the
Theatre, Concert, and Ballet, to general
bibliographies of the subject. There are
five large boxes devoted exclusively to
theatre material, including programs,
clippings, and pictures. There are files
of several periodicals, of which those of
Challenge, Phylon, etc., are complete.
The file of Opportunity begins with Vol-
ume II; that of THE CRISIS with the
year 1925, Volume XXX. We have
Volume VIII (1926) complete of The
Messenger; the first three numbers of
1925 and the last eight of 1927 are
missing. We haven't the other years of
this magazine at all. It would be a
splendid thing if somebody would make
the collection a gift of any of the missing
years of these periodicals. Opportunity
with only Volume II missing would be
the easiest file to complete.

Contributors

I have been amazed and endlessly de-
lighted by the response which the an-
nouncement of the founding of the col-
lection has met from Negroes and others
who possess Negro material. From the
very beginning they have been of the
greatest assistance to me in planning
additions to the collection. Dorothy Pet-
erson, for instance, has secured for us
many interesting volumes by Puerto
Rico Negroes, and the second volume of
Opportunity, not on my own shelves.
She has successfully solicited many gifts
from others. Walter White gave me
carte blanche to take any books from his
personal library not already in the col-
lection. I availed myself literally of this
opportunity and confiscated a great
many, a number of which are association

items. Mr. White has further furnished
the James Weldon Johnson collection
with a complete set of pamphlets (many
written by Mr. Johnson himself) issued
by the N.A.A.C.P. from 1912 to date
and has been instrumental in securing
much material from others. Harold Jack-
man likewise has permitted me to pillage
his library to my heart's content and
further has turned over many important
letters and manuscripts and has been
endlessly and continuously valuable in
unearthing other buried treasures. It has
already been suggested that Langston
Hughes has presented the collection with
practically everything he possesses relat-
ing to himself or to Negroes in general.
Claude McKay has given us the manu-
script of Home to Harlem and other
material. Arthur Spingarn has given
most generously from his own superb
Negro library. The Misses Helene
Grant and Georgia Washington have pre-
sented to the collection the manuscript
of Aunt Hagar's Children, an unpub-
lished book by Wallace Thurman, also
four pages of the manuscript on which
Thurman was writing when he died, and
letters and photographs of this writer.
Fannie Hurst has given the collection a
first edition of Imitation of Life, stills
from the picturization of this story, and
other material. Dean E. George Payne
of New York University has presented
us with several fine letters from James
Weldon Johnson and Amy Spingarn has
given us Langston Hughes's letters to
her and letters from James Weldon John-
son, J. Rosamond Johnson, and others
to Joel Spingarn. Dorothy West has
given us the manuscripts of two short
stories. Further gifts have been received
from Robert C. Weaver, Dr. Louis
Wright, Henry W. Greene, and others.
Donald G. Wing of the Accessions De-
partment at the Yale library has put
the cream on the other gifts by adding
to the collection by purchase a fine let-
ter from Toussaint Louverture. I hope
we shall be able to announce in the fu-
ture the acquisition of manuscript ma-
terial, letters, or photographs of the two
Dumas and Pushkin.

And I hope to be able to announce
more, lots more. Any one who has let-
ters, manuscripts, photographs of prom-
inent Negroes, please be assured they
will be welcome and safer and more per-
manently preserved and of greater serv-
ice than they would be at home. So will
rare books and association copies. So
will theatre programs and phonograph
records when they are in fine condi-
tion and do not duplicate material
already in hand. After writing to in-
quire if it is desired, donors may send
material for the James Weldon Johnson
Memorial Collection of Negro Arts and
Letters to me at 101 Central Park West,
New York City, or direct to Bernhard
Knollenberg, Librarian, Yale university,
New Haven, Connecticut.

Reprinted from CRISIS, July, 1942