'Studies In Iowa History' The Negro In Iowa ~ Robert N. Hyde
'STUDIES IN IOWA HISTORY'
The Negro In Iowa
by
Leola Nelson Bergmann
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In the half decade of the sixties following the Civil War and during the seventies the organized activities and individual happenings within the Negro group still found a place in the newspapers, but as the emotions of the Civil War era cooled and Negroes gradually took their place in the everyday life of northern communities, the special interest and the ready sympathy of earlier days waned; as the Negro population increased, the number of newspaper items devoted to their affairs decreased. And in the kind of news that was reported one can detect the opposition that slowly accumulated in the public mind. By the late eighties and certainly in the nineties the infrequent reports concerning Negroes are nearly always found on the page devoted to crimes -- thievery, murder, rape. If colored groups engaged in worthwhile educative or social projects -- and certainly they did -- newspaper readers were not often apprised of it. Honors bestowed upon a member of the Negro group passed by unnoticed. When President Harrison appointed an Iowa Negro minister to Liberia in l890, the press in the State ignored it; when he died at his post a few months later, no notices appeared.
Upon rare occasion, however, one does find items reporting the Negroes' participation in public life. During the opening sessions of the State legislature in l888, the following comment was made in a Des Moines paper under "Legislative Notes": "The colored men were yesterday remembered with a large number of good nominations at the hands of the Republican Senate and House caucuses." At least one of these positions -- a janitorship in the Senate cloakroom -- was filled by Wm. Coalson, A Negro listed as a barber in the Des Moines City Directory for l886-l887. In l894 he became the president of the Bystander Publishing Company, a Negro newspaper concern. A year later the city directory listed his occupation as "custodian in the State Executive Department".
A newspaper item noted that the "Senate barber shop in the cloakroom is in running order and is doing a flourishing business under the direction and care of Miles N. Bell." About a month later this barber acted as secretary of a meeting of the colored Republicans in Des Moines, which was called for the purpose of considering the nomination of one of their people, G.H. Cleggett, for police judge in the approaching convention. Cleggett, who was a constable in Des Moines and later went into the barbering business, was defeated for the Republican candidacy. although he received the second highest number of votes. The city directory of l895 also indicates that he held high offices in the colored Masonic Lodge, serving as one of the three officers in the Grand commandery of the Knights Templar in the Iowa and Illinois region, and as recorder for two of the local chapters of the organization.
Because the Negroes were not getting news of their own people, a group of energetic colored men in Des Moines banded together in l894 and established a weekly newspaper which they called the Iowa State Bystander. Wm. Coalson was chosen president of the concern, James E. Todd, vice president, B.J. Holmes, a janitor in one of the public schools, treasurer, J.L. Thompson, editor and secretary, and J.H. Shepard, a bailiff for the Polk County District Court, business manager. It was Republican in politics, independent in religion, and its purpose was to elevate the colored race and to promote better race relations. In a few years it was circulating throughout the State and even beyond the Iowa borders in other States. Still in existence today, it is the oldest Negro weekly in the State.
Among the most fruitful sources of information about Negro life for this period are the city directories. From the Des Moines City Directory for l895-l896 the occupational status of the Negroes in the city is seen in the following tabulation of 5l7 listed as colored.
Laborers - 93
Porters - 53
Barbers - 4l
Waiters - 36
Cooks - 3l
Janitors - l6
Domestic service - l5
Bell boys - 8
Miners - 7
Plasterers - 6
Students - 6
Coachmen - 4
Dressmakers - 4
Ministers - 4
Bootblacks - 3
Musicians - 3
Teamsters - 3
Printers - 3
Firemen - 3
Police - 2
Broommakers - 2
Chiropodists - 2
Laundresses - 2
Butchers - 2
One person was listed for each of the following: constable, lawyer, physician, engineer (Kirkwood Hotel), restaurant owner, manager (rug-cleaning establishment), foreman, bookkeeper, bailiff (Polk County District Court), rodman (city engineer's office), mail carrier, carpenter, mason, whitewasher, shoemaker, expressman, gardener, housekeeper and bootstand operator. No occupation was given for l44.
The somewhat surprising number of barbers is explained by the fact that in this period the Negro barbers still had a substantial white clientele. The change to a completely Negro clientele did not come about until after the World War. Probably among the more successful of the Negro entrepeneurs in Des Moines was Robert N. Hyde, manager of the Electric Fan Carpet Dusting Company, whose one-third page advertisement with an engraving of the manager, bearded in the style of the nineties is prominently displayed in the directory. Only two colored people are listed as employed by him, the foreman and a woman bookkeeper, but some of those listed as "laborers" may have worked for him. Two of the three printers were employed by the Iowa State Register. Several bits of trivia emerge from such a study. For example, there were three John Browns, perhaps named about l860 by parents who felt more keenly than most the sacrifice John Brown had made for their race.
To Be Continued. . .'Geographic and Economic Pattern of Negro Life in Iowa . . .'
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Copied by Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert
September 6, 2003
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