Charles W. Chesnutt to Edward C. Williams, 20 December 1921
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December 20, 1921.
Prof. E. C. Williams,
912 Westminster Street, N. W.,
Washington, D. C.
My dear Ed.:
I received your letter concerning Miss Lula Allen1 and her application for a position in Columbus, and wrote the Governor2 a letter of which I enclose a copy, receiving in reply a letter from his executive secretary, acknowledging receipt of my letter and stating that my endorsement will receive serious consideration when appointments in this department are made, and closes up by saying "Governor Davis wishes to thank you for your interest and your desire to be helpful as indicated in your communication."3
Ethel4 tells us that Charlie is in New York working and studying.5 Mrs. Chesnutt6 has been worrying about him more or less, but Ethel tells us not to worry that Charlie is all right. I should like to have seen him go to college. Ethel says he may yet, but I fear that the longer he stays away the less attractive it will seem to him. If you know his address or are in touch with him, I should like to know where to write him a letter.
Cordially yours, CWC/FLCorrespondent: Edward Christopher Williams (1871–1929), the son of a Black father and a White mother of Irish descent, was from Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated from Western Reserve University's Adelbert College in 1892 and became its head librarian (1894–1909), also receiving an M.A. in library science at the New York Library School in 1899. He had known the Chesnutts at least since the 1890s and married Chesnutt's daughter Ethel in the fall of 1902; their son Charles (Charlie) was born in 1903. In 1909 the family moved to Washington, D. C., where Williams served as principal of M Street High School (1909–1916) and then as director of Howard University's library (1916–1929), where he also taught library science and foreign languages. He wrote a play performed at Howard University, as well as poetry and fiction for the Black literary magazine The Messenger in the 1920s. During the summer, Williams often worked at the Harlem branch of the New York Public Library at 135th Street, and in 1929 he enrolled in a Ph.D. program in library science at Columbia University in New York City, but in December of that year he died unexpectedly after a brief illness.
1. Lula Allen (also Allan, 1879–1968), was a Black woman from Columbus, Ohio, the younger sister of Mattie Allen McAdoo (1868–1936). They sometimes performed together as singers and were personal friends of the Chesnutts. Although she did not hold a library science degree, Allen became cataloguer and then assistant librarian at Howard University in Washington, D. C., in the early 1910s, eventually under Chesnutt's son-in-law Edward C. Williams (1871–1929), who would become Howard's head librarian. Both Chesnutt and Williams wrote her recommendations for a position at the Ohio State Library in 1921 when she returned to Columbus. However, Allen does not seem to have worked there and by the late 1920s she had moved back Washington, D. C., and served as head librarian at the Miner Normal School, a teachers' college for Black women adjacent to the Howard University campus. [back]
2. Harry Lyman Davis (1878–1950) was a White Republican from Cleveland, Ohio, who served three terms as Cleveland's mayor (1916–1919). He then became Ohio's 49th Governor, serving one term (1921–1923). Shortly after Chesnutt's death, he was elected mayor of Cleveland for one more term (1934–1935). [back]
3. See Chesnutt's letter from December 14, 1921, and the acknowledgment by William S. Bundy, Governor Davis' executive clerk, from December 15, 1921. [back]
4. Ethel Perry Chesnutt Williams (1879–1958), Chesnutt's eldest daughter, graduated from Smith College in June of 1901 and worked as an instructor at Tuskegee for the academic year 1901–1902. In the fall of 1902, she married her fiancé, Edward C. Williams (1871–1929), then head librarian at Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Their only child was Charles Waddell Chesnutt Williams (1903–1940). After several years spent in Cleveland in 1909, the Williamses moved to Washington, D.C., where Ethel continued to live and work after her husband's death in 1929; in the early 1930s, she was working as a social worker (home visitor) for Associated Charities of Washington, a poverty-relief umbrella organization. By 1939, she had remarried; her spouse was Rev. Joseph N. Beaman (1868–1943). [back]
5. Charles Waddell Chesnutt Williams (1903–1940), known as Charlie, was the older of Chesnutt's two grandchildren and the only child of Chesnutt's daughter Ethel and her husband Edward C. Williams. Charlie was 18 at this time and likely quite familiar with New York City, where his father Edward often spent his summers, but it is not known where or for how long he worked and studied there. Five years later, in 1926, Charlie graduated from Howard University in Washington, D. C., where his father was director of the library. [back]
6. Susan Perry Chesnutt (1861–1940) was from a well-established Black family in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and worked as a teacher at Fayetteville's Howard School before marrying Chesnutt. They were married from 1878 until his death in 1932 and had four children: Ethel, Helen, Edwin, and Dorothy. Susan led an active life in Cleveland. [back]
