Harlem in transition
One hundred years ago today … Harlem was being remade.
African American migration to Harlem was exponential in the years leading up to 1920; the Harlem African American population reached 150,000 that year. This was double the number from 1916.
This growth produced a need for amenities specifically geared to the African American community, and structures to house them, as is shown by the March 13 New York Age. The weekly’s front page featured two stories about the changing Harlem landscape.
Newspapers.com
The first was a business deal, the purchase of a huge lot at the southwest corner of 7th Avenue and 133rd St. The purchaser was the Wage Earners Savings Bank of Savannah Georgia, an African American owned company, with its president, L. E. Williams.
The second story was about a fundraising drive for the Harlem Young Women’s Christian Association (Y.W.C.A.), headquartered at 137th, where a banquet was held on Thursday, March 11, 1920. This article is packed with details that benefit from some unraveling; the below is merely scratching the surface.
The Committee of Management for the drive was captained by “Mrs. J. W. Brown.” This was Martha Brown, née Martha Hill of Philadelphia. She was married to Reverend J. W. (James Walter) Brown, pastor of Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. The National Cyclopedia of the Colored Race, Vol. 1, published in 1919, has a biographical entry for J.W. Brown (that includes the details that he was a member of the Order of Odd Fellows). The volume includes this mention of Martha Brown: “In all his [James Walter’s] endeavors Mrs. Brown takes a helpful and leading part, relieving him whenever possible, sharing the burden and responsibility whenever it is not possible to relieve him” (Richardson, 234).
The fund drive’s “Administration Group” was led by Viola I. Chaplain is or Chaplin; the name appears as both here, as it does throughout the historical record. Chaplin/Chaplain had been employed as secretary of YWCA’s “colored division” for several years. Later in 1920, she was reported to have had a “nervous breakdown.” (“News of Greater New York,” The New York Age, Oct 30, 1920, p. 8). Happily, she returned to work for the Y.W.C.A. the following year.
The article provides a lengthy list of participants in the drive, in some cases including the social club they were affiliated with. One of the participants, Carrie Conde, was well known as both a musician and an activist/volunteer working for the Circle of Negro War Relief.
(NY1920.com also reported on Harlem development in earlier posts here and here.)