Charles W. Chesnutt to W. E. B. Du Bois, 25 July 1925
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5/8/2
CHAS. W. CHESNUTT
HELEN C. MOORE
CHESNUTT & MOORE
SHORTHAND REPORTERS
Replying to your telegram received this morning, my summer address will be Cleveland until about the middle of August, after which we hope to be at Idlewild, Michigan for a couple of weeks.4
As you don't mention any urgency, I am answering by letter. With best wishes for a pleasant summer,
Sincerely yours, Chas. W. Chesnutt.Correspondent: William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868–1963) was a sociologist, historian, and world-renowned civil rights activist. After completing coursework at the University of Berlin and Harvard University, Du Bois became the first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard in 1895. He was a professor of history, sociology, and economics at Atlanta University (1897–1910 and again in the 1930s). He was a prominent leader of the Niagara Movement and helped found the NAACP in 1909. As the editor of the NAACP's journal, The Crisis, from 1910 to 1931, Du Bois published four of Chesnutt's short stories as well as two of his essays. See "The Doll" (April 1912), "Mr. Taylor's Funeral" (April/May 1915), "The Marked Tree" (Dec 1924/Jan 1925), and "Concerning Father" (May 1930); and "Women's Rights" (1915) and "The Negro in Art" (November 1926).
1. The Williamson Building, occupied by many prominent Cleveland firms, was a lavish 17-story office building with marble floors and walls on Public Square in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. It stood on the site of the homestead of Samuel Williamson (1776–1834), and in these years was owned by the Williamson Corporation, which was founded by his son Samuel Williamson, Jr. (1808–1884), a railroad-company director, banker, and lawyer whose own son, Judge Samuel E. Williamson (1844–1903) provided Chesnutt with his legal training in the 1880s. Chesnutt's stenography and law practice occupied an office at three different locations (1005, 1105, and 1106) in the building at various times between 1901 and 1924. [back]
2. The Union Trust Building is a 21-story office building in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Chesnutt and his partner Helen Moore (1881–1963) moved their offices shortly after its completion to #1646, and operated out of this office until Chesnutt's death. [back]
3. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) began in February 1909, with a Committee on the Negro and "The Call," a statement protesting lawlessness against Black people. In 1910, the organization adopted its current name and in 1912 began publication of a monthly journal, The Crisis, which was edited by W. E. B. Du Bois from 1912 to 1944. Chesnutt's involvement with the NAACP extended over many years, and included serving on its General Committee, attending conferences, presiding at NAACP events in Cleveland, publishing four stories and two essays in The Crisis (1912, 1915, 1924, 1926, 1930, and 1931), and being awarded in 1928 the organization's highest honor, the Spingarn Medal. [back]
4. Starting in 1922, the Chesnutts spent every summer until Chesnutt's death in Idlewild, in Lake County, Michigan, about 380 miles northwest of Cleveland. Idlewild was a popular lakeside resort for hundreds of Black families from the urban Midwest from the 1910s to the 1960s, when racism excluded them from many resort towns. In the spring of 1924, Chesnutt purchased a plot of land, where he had a summer home built in 1925. [back]
