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CHAPTER 3: SHAPING FORCES

Tree undamental orces shaped John Beechers lie: his amilys legacy, his parents,and growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, during the early twentieth century. Whilehis ancestors legacy made an impact on John in an indirect way, his parents inuence

trumped all others. As an only child, he had their undivided attention and support,though in dierent ways. His athers high position in the steel industry provided a degreeo wealth and prestige, which in turn gave John many advantages. His mothers success asa dramatic reader in the world o the Chautauqua and Lyceum circuits, where she was onthe same bill as the great orators o the day, gave her a confdence that was uncommon ora woman during the early twentieth century. She passed on to John a love or language,literature, and the arts. Finally, the industrial New South city o Birmingham provided acontext to Johns understanding o lie, particularly in terms o race, class, and gender.

Leonard and Isabel moved to New York in 1901, and as Leonard began his new job

with ennessee Coal and Iron, Isabel continued her career as a dramatic reader. Tecouple believed they were unable to have children, but in 1903, aer fve years o marriage,they learned Isabel was pregnant. John Beecher was born on January 22, 1904, in NewYork City. Leonard was away on a business trip to Birmingham, but Isabel knew she wasully capable o getting through childbirth on her own. She arrived at the hospital by cabrom their Upper West Side apartment and gave birth to a healthy boy.53 As an acknowl-edgement o the miracle and a tribute to their aith, they named their son John HenryNewman Beecher, chosen to honor Cardinal Newman, whose work Leonard creditedor his personal spiritual renewal. In Johns autobiography, he comments on the irony o

his given name. Lennie had done a shocking thing to name Dr. Lyman Beechers great-grandson aer a Papist prelate.54 He also explains that his name was more complex thanmerely being named aer Cardinal John Henry Newman. I also arrived like St. John theBaptist aer my parents had given up hoping that they would be able to have a baby. Teywere both 36 years old at the time I was born and considered themselves already middle-aged, so that, like St. John the Baptist, I was considered to be something o a physiologicalmiracle. 55


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ISABEL GARGHILL BEECHER, A WOMAN IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE

Isabel Garghill Beechers inuence on her son was complex, as was she. She was aproud, cultured, and educated woman with great confdence and poise whose lie was notconstrained to the domestic sphere as were many women o this period. While John wasyoung, Isabel traveled extensively all over the country perorming, missing his January 22birthday or most o his young lie. However, she always sent him a gi and a telegram de-claring her love. A strict Roman Catholic rom a working class amily, she was regimentedin her approach to childrearing, and John wrote in letters as well as his biography abouthis ear o her disapproval. Tis worked to keep him in check while he was young. Inaddition, she held elitist class-based attitudes toward the South and pushed John to excelin order to demonstrate his superiority within the local class system. Tough he rebelledagainst her elitist attitudes, by the time he entered young adulthood he began to gravitatetoward literature and poetry, and they became much closer.

Unlike most white women with her class position, Isabel worked in the public sphere.For the frst decade o the twentieth century, Isabel traveled with the Lyceum circuitduring midwinter and the Chautauqua circuit during the summer. Having a child didnot change her work schedule; she continued to perorm, and her job took her awayrom home, her husband, and their young son. Until the dawn o the twentieth century,women were expected to live and work primarily oen solelyin the domestic sphere,the home. Tis division o labor and roles between women and men shaped this setting,and encouraged mothers to raise pious and pure children as model citizens. As women

ventured into public lie, however, they became ocused on their external roles, and men

were sometimes drawn into the domestic sphere. Leonard gladly participated in childcare,and John credits him with being the more characteristically maternal o his parents. Teconstruct o separate spheres has helped historians distinguish the gender roles in thenineteenth and twentieth centuries. Women, the idea suggests, do not work; instead, theyhelp. Tey unction in outside jobs, but their place is at home, nurtured by the love o theiramilies, rather than rewarded or contributions that are equal to those o men. 56 Withshis in the economy by the turn o the century, the income provided by a woman mayhave been important, but was usually downplayed. Te two-income household so preva-lent in the late twentieth century existed, but the womans income, psychologically i not

literally, was superuous rather than essential. In the Beecher amily, the success o Isabelswork gave her an opportunity to earn money on the Chautauqua and Lyceum circuits. Shehad been established on the circuit beore her marriage in 1898 and continued workingsteadily until 1912, aer which she still gave occasional perormances.

Isabel Beecher was one o many women who took advantage o the increasing publicspaces open to women in the late nineteenth century. In the early 1800s, the Lyceum,derived rom Englands mechanics institutes, appeared in the United States; it oeredlectures by men and or men. Over the course o a century, however, it became a broadercultural tradition that brought women to the stage and also to the audience, as did the

Chautauqua movement that arose in the 1870s. Tose changes, however, came about withthe changing realms o men and women in the culture. 57 In e Chautauqua Movement,Andrew Reiser argued, By treating the assembly as an extension o the typical Victorianparlor, Chautauqua women would make their towns sae in preparation or womens ullerentrance into civic lie.58 He suggested that the emale participants made an unconsciousbargain with the Chautauqua leaders, who were male. In exchange, the women continuedto hold moral authority within the movement, but they would not challenge the leaders


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authority. Tus, by recreating the domestic sphere within the Chautauqua movement,women began to crack the spheres. 59

From its beginning, the Chautauquamovement promoted culture and educationthrough extension courses, community col-leges, adult education centers and dozens oother ventures. Among those were the travel-ing big tent chautauquas begun in 1904 byKeith Vawter, ormer manager o the ChicagoRedpath Lyceum Bureau.60 Although the bigtent was not technically an arm o the insti-tutional Chautauqua, ounded in New YorkState in 1874, the traveling programs had aparallel mission to bring culture and educa-tion to rural America. Tey grew to includeopera, concerts, lectures, entertainment, andrecreation, as well as study courses. Vawterbegan the traveling chautauqua because hebelieved intelligent planning could produce afnancially successul venture. Mass trans-portation had begun to open up rural areas,so planning became the key to his success. Atfrst, he lost money, but by 1907 he calculateda way to make the enterprise proftable bypartnering with independent chautauquas.According to Joseph Gould, Te connota-tion o wickedness and abandon that ruralAmerican associated with the theatre werenot applied to tent chautauquas. Te nameitsel was a warrant o respectability, andthe reputations o the personalities who appeared behind the chautauqua ootlights wereabove reproach. It was in this context that Isabel Garghill Beecher perormed Shake-speare, Parsial, and other great poetic works.61

Te lyceums were initially the province o men, rom Mark wain to Bronson Alcottto Henry Ward Beecher, but aer women gained a spot onstage, they became integral tothe chautauquas mission. By the end o the nineteenth century, women were one o themain attractions on the traveling lecture circuit. In act, Isabel Beecher became the high-est paid and most popular dramatic reader o her time. 62 Harry P. Harrison, a managerwith the Redpath Lyceum Bureau, which operated in Birmingham and eleven other cities,spoke o her appeal: Te act that we advertised her as a niece o Henry Ward Beecherdid not hurt her with the ticket buyers. 63 She was not only popular, but also talented,as Charles Wagner noted when he said she certainly could have had a great success as adramatic actress had she so chosen.64 Many years aer Isabels death in 1955, a very oldlady wrote to John Beecher: I heard your mother read Ibsens Ghosts in Cleveland once. In the pauses you could hear the mens watches ticking in their pockets.65

In Isabels own mindand with a nod to the traditional womens spherepursuinga career as an actress was not in the cards. Her attitude towards the theater was the com-mon view o these supermoral times, Charles Wagner said. Te stage was looked down

Isabel Garghill Beecher Program

PICTURE COURTESY OF BARBARA BEECHER


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upon; society was knocking, not knocking at, the stage door in that period. She told me:My son John [then two years old] will grow up and I want him to have every advantage. Ieel that he might not be proud o an actress mother.66 Her son would not have held thatagainst her, though. When he was a sophomore at Cornell, his mother spent a week withhim and charmed his riends. When she le, John told her: Te boys are all wild aboutyou, Mother. Tey all know you do something on the stage, but they dont quite seem tograsp it. Gee, I wish you were a regular actress. She was a good sport about their queryand later shared it with promoter Wagner, who had ailed in all his eorts to convince herto take up the stage.67

In spite o her absences, it seems that John did not eel that his mother neglectedhim, although he certainly noticed her absence. John described his mothers return romreading Peter Pan in Chicago. She sat down beside me on the porch swing. Hold outyour hands! she commanded. Im going to give you all the money I got or reading PeterPan to those children in Chicago. Ten will you orgive me? What would I do with thissudden ortune? An electric train perhaps? But my mother swept the [fve] crinkly twenty-dollar bills out o my hands and returned them to her purse. Tis money is going intoyour savings account, she said.68 On another occasion, there was a St. Patricks Day treat.She sent me a little green stovepipe hat with tiny green candies and a clay bubble-pipe in-side. I piously sucked one o the candies every night because i I rationed mysel to a singlecandy per nocturn, my ather said, mother would be home just as I fnished the last one.Meanwhile, he would have to get by with his ather, the household help, and his writing.

In 1979, the year beore his death, John wrote a letter profling his education. Heincludes his mother as one o his most inuential teachers:

My frst teacher was my mother, Isabel Garghill Beecher (1867-1955)who was a quondam member o the aculty at Northwestern UniversitysSchool o Oratory, the frst college level school o speech in the UnitedStates. Beore and aer marriage to my ather in 1898, she was one othe ornaments o the Lyceum and Chautauqua stage and was certainlythe greatest Shakespearean reader (interpreter was the ancy word)this country has ever known. She should, and could, have been atragic actress but this was incompatible with being the wie o a highocial o U.S. Steel, my ather, Leonard . Beecher (1867-1959), and themother o what she called, in ouchstones phrase, an ill-avored thing,but mine own, namely the aorementioned universal man who was inhis earliest youth an ugly duckling.69

Isabel Beecher might have been atypical in her upper-class social niche; it was not accept-able or an educated woman who had married well to work outside the home. Her role,in the parlance o the time, was to use her education, talents and auence to raise accom-plished children. Tat emphasis on child nurture and education was to be used to keepsons out o the work orce in order to extend their education and improve their chances

or upward mobility. 70 She worked outside the home but also engaged in appropriateparenting, even though there was a shi in the distribution o responsibilities in her home.Most important, that shi in her amily and in others did not lead to the destruction othe moral fber o the nation. Tough still not in great numbers, men increasingly steppedup and flled some o the gaps le by working women. While the traditional spheres hadoverlapped, there were distinct boundaries in some areas, many o which are exemplifed


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Isabel Garghill Beecher Program

PICTURE COURTESY OF BARBARA BEECHER


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A SHORT HISTORY OF TENNESSEE COAL AND IRON

ennessee Coal and Iron played a central role in John Beechers lie. Not only was hisather a high-ranking executive o the company or thirty-six years, but John also workedthere in several positions over the years. It was while working the open hearth in 1923 thatJohn began to write poetry. Moreover, Leonards job at CI provided the means or mucho Johns lie and even in the lives o his children. Finally, the company inuenced the birthand growth o Birmingham in matters o politics, race, and class. Birmingham was labeleda City o the New South, and CI was the company that represented this newly articu-lated ideal.

During the last quarter o the nineteenth century, the growth and development oAmerican cities, railroads, and industries demanded a steady supply o coal, iron, andsteel. Beore the Civil War, small companies provided a sucient supply, but as the nationand the need or the products grew, larger companies run by the barons o industry swal-

lowed many o the mid-century providers. Regional companies became national com-panies. Tis industrial consolidation continued into the twentieth century. In 1898, theHouse o Morgan sponsored a merger between Illinois Steel, Minnesota Steel, and severalsmaller frms to orm Federal Steel. Tree years later, in what was then the largest mergerin history, Federal Steel, Carnegie Steel, and several smaller producers combined to ormUnited States Steel. In an eort to increase eciency, production, and profts, the ventureslinked companies that could manuacture iron and steel with companies that had largeholdings o natural resources. Leonard Beechers decision to move to Chicago and acceptthe position o accountant at Illinois Steel in 1892 put him in the right place at the right

time to move up in the steel industry. By the time he accepted the position o secretaryand treasurer o ennessee Coal and Iron (CI) in 1901, he was in the hub o these indus-trial shis, and they helped shape his uture and ultimately the uture o his son. 72

Leonard spent most o his lie working or CI, while John worked at various times inthe plant as a young man. By the early twentieth century, the company was the largest steelproducing company in the South and the third largest in the nation. When Leonard washired as the secretary and treasurer, CI was a major competitor in the world market.73However, the large company where Leonard and John worked was very dierent rom theoperation that began in 1852 as a coal mining company in the Cumberland Mountains o

ennessee.Between the mid-1870s and 1900, CI bought out many smaller coal and iron opera-tors in the southern Appalachian region. Aer the Civil War, small operators began todevelop the mineral wealth in the region. Over the next thirty years, investors and entre-preneurs built a booming business empire by buying up the small operations. Tey usedconvict labor to work the mine felds, convert coal into the essential coke, and build ur-naces to make iron and steel. In 1881, wealthy cotton broker John H. Inman put togethera group o investors rom Wall Street to purchase controlling interest o CI. Mergers andacquisitions dominated business during the late nineteenth century as larger companies

gobbled up their smaller competitors; this was particularly evident in the iron and steelindustry.74

CIs headquarters moved to Birmingham in 1886 to take advantage o the citysnatural resources in the oothills o the Appalachians and a growing industrial inrastruc-ture. Birmingham, developed aer the Civil War as the frst New South city, was designedwith an eye toward the uture. Civic boosters gushed about the magic city where workcould be ound, touting an all-out eort to build an industrial South. CI headquarters


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moved there when Colonel Enoch Ensley, a Memphis entrepreneur, purchased controllinginterest. Ensley owned Pratt Coal and Coke in Birmingham, and he merged it with CI tocreate the largest coal, iron, and steel company in the South.75 Nathaniel Baxter, a Nash-

ville banker and investor, became CIs president in 1881 aer being appointed by JohnInman. He held the position or most o two decades.76 Te company, staed by ocers oSouthern origin, continued to grow.

Te fnal decade o the nineteenth century was volatile or the company as productionmethods improved, older equipment became outdated, prices o pig iron uctuated wildly,and the nation endured an economic depression ollowed by a our-year recovery. In aneort to survive as well as to consolidate Birminghams coal, iron, and steel productioncapabilities, CI merged with DeBardeleben Coal and Iron in 1892. Henry DeBardelebenbecame the largest shareholder and frst vice president in the newly organized CI. Inan eort to increase the value o CI stock, he embarked on a high-risk mission to raisethe companys stock price. Within six weeks, he had lost his ortune and control o CIbecause he tried to bull the market, though he continued to hold the chair o frst vicepresident until he was pushed out in 1894 by New York investors, a ate that also beellJohn Inman two years later. Inmans ouster came when he tried to get more margins romhis loans to CI because he was in a dicult fnancial position. He suered a nervousbreakdown and died o heart ailure at the end o 1896. Te board o directors was thenle in the charge o James Woodward, the president o Hanover National Bank o Newand a northeast fnancier; or the frst time in the companys history, there was not aSoutherner at the helm.77 CI survived the period, but not without coming perilouslyclose to bankruptcy.78

Te New York investors that John Inman recruited in 1881 had been relatively unin-volved in company decisions until 1894. Ten, with the departure o Henry DeBardeleben,they gradually began to exercise their power to increase profts and dividends. Since thecompanys economic circumstances had been dicult or much o the 1890s, the investorspushed to bypass vital inrastructure upgrades. Although CI desperately needed to keepup with the changing technology o iron and steel manuacturing to meet demand, theessential capital was slow to materialize. Tey did, however, have a strategic advantage. By1900, most Northern steel makers were using the better quality Southern pig iron in theirsteel manuacturing process; CI was in an excellent position to capitalize on this turn oevents. Given the good position the company had in the market, the board o directorslost aith in CIs homegrown management to bring the company orward and decidedto replace Nat Baxter with an iron and steel proessional rather than a banker or investor.In 1901, industry veteran Don Bacon, then president o Federal Steel in Chicago, becamechie executive ocer and chairman o the board.79

Bacon had been in the coal, iron, steel, and railroad business or most o his lie andhad come up through the ranks, frst at Minnesota Iron Company and then at FederalSteel. Leonard went to work or him in 1895 as chie accountant at Minnesota Iron. In1898, Illinois Steel and Minnesota Iron merged to orm Federal Steel. Bacon was chosen asthe president o the new company, and Leonard continued as chie accountant o the newentity. Leonard described Bacon as a small vigorous and absolutely tireless man o fy orthereabouts. His background was mining and he had come up the hard way. He was, nev-ertheless, a orceul and able executive though careless equally o dress and the amenitieso ocial position. 80 Soon aer Bacon became president, he oered Leonard the positiono secretary and treasurer o CI. In his memoir, Leonard notes that when he acceptedthe job at CI it marked a completed passage in his lie. Ten o a sudden I saw it all as it


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was. Something had happened to me. Something had ended. I was no longer looking ora job. I belonged. I was in the steel businessand I was ready. Chicago had prepared me.As ar as I was concerned, Chicago had meant that.81 Tus, Leonard Beecher began work-ing or CI at the beginning o a new century and a new phase o his lie.

Te team spent the next fve years making signifcant improvements. According tohistorian Justin Fuller, Bacon was one o the fnest ore men in the country. Bacon madehis greatest achievements in renovating Red Mountain mines. Spending almost $900,000,he installed new boilers, air compressors, and hoists; he erected new houses or the minersand constructed hospitals at the mining camps. Trough his eorts these mines achievedgreater eciency than ever beore.82 He eliminated the contractors and expanded thecompanys own acilities. Fuller also noted that Bacons biggest ailure was with labor. Be-tween 1901 and 1906, when he resigned, the company endured six major strikes. Laborersin the South were dierent rom the Midwestern workers. Tey were less experienced andthe racial makeup o the workorce created additional issues that Bacon had never con-ronted. aking a hard line, he tried to orce changes in labor and met intense resistance.No matter what he attempted, the company remained unproftable. Orders rom the Northand abroad, however, had grown steadily during Bacons tenure. By all accounts, when heresigned rom CI, the company was on more stable ooting than when he arrived. He,like Baxter beore him, knew the company needed more capital investment to ully realizeits potential. Te company did have great value. However, the value was not in short-termprofts or dividends, but in the vast property and natural resource holdings and the trans-portation systems that could move raw materials quickly rom mines to steel productionand then to market.

A exas wire and steel man, John W. Gates, understood the value o CI. ToughCI had not been proftable in the past, with some inrastructure investment it could be amajor competitor to U.S. Steel. In December 1905, a syndicate that Gates led took over thecompany. Several years earlier, Gates, who had a reputation or being a high-stakes gam-bler, had attempted to create chaos in the steel market by driving down prices through hiscompany, Republic Steel. He believed he could build CIs competitive advantage by usinga syndicate, a group o investors who would agree to work together to purchase groups ostocks and wrestle control o a company at the lowest price possible. Te syndicate workedor nearly a year to purchase the majority o outstanding CI stock rom the bankers thatJames Woodward led. Te Wall Street frm o Moore and Schley managed the stock poolor the syndicate, and it had authorization to use the giant block o stock as collateral onloans or other securities. Te syndicate soon brought in John opping to replace DonBacon as president. Aer gaining control o the company, Gates immediately raised theunds to expand and improve the company by completing a second steel mill and secondrail mill. Steel production increased rapidly as the open-hearth technique grew to be pre-erred over the older Bessemer technique that U.S. Steel used. CIs superior ore, trans-portation logistics, and processes, gave the company an edge over U.S. Steel.83

By 1907, the economy began to contract, and the rampant stock speculation createdvolatility in the market; that ultimately destabilized it. CIs orders began to drop, and all-ing prices in steel and pig iron ollowed. By the beginning o October, the country was in aull-scale recession. By the end o the month, a panic had begun and banks were orced toclose. J. Pierpont Morgan, one o the wealthiest and most successul men in the world bythat time, stepped in to help stop the panic. He met with leading bankers and organized


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the resources to cover the runs. Te measures worked and the panic slowed.Despite the improvement, a week later there was the threat o another crisis, this one

involving the brokerage house o Moore and Schley, manager o the CI syndicate. Tebanks demanded payment on outstanding loans and then reused to accept the collateralthe frm had pledged because the collateral had lost value in the panic. Moore and Schley,orced to pay o its debts or put up additional collateral, was unable to do either. One othe syndicate members, Oliver H. Payne, suggested that Moore and Schley sell CI to U.S.Steel to get out o the predicament. Paynes lawyer made the proposal to Morgan, whoimmediately contacted Elbert Gary, president o U.S. Steel, and urged him to purchase theCI stock at a reduced price. Gary agreed, but on the condition that President TeodoreRoosevelt would not prosecute U.S. Steel in an antitrust suit. Gary and his colleague,Henry Frick, went to Washington to consult with the president on November 3, 1907.Tey couched their proposal as an act o altruism, insisting that under normal conditions,they would not consider purchasing CI. Teir main concern was to prevent a panic andgeneral industrial smashup. 84 Roosevelt agreed because he thought this was one way toprevent an economic collapse and he believed Gary and Frick. With Roosevelts assuranc-es, they returned to New York to close the deal. U.S. Steel got $30 million in CI commonstock in exchange or $632,000 in cash and $34 million in U.S. Steel bonds.85 Te banksaccepted the U.S. Steel stock as collateral or Moore and Schley and the markets and banksbegan to stabilize. 86

Leonard, who continued at his post with CI in New York aer Don Bacon le, wasunsure about his uture once U.S. Steel acquired the company. In a letter to Isabel on No-

vember 12, 1907, just aer the transaction occurred, he said,

I am existing. Tat is about all that can be said o my present state omind. Te entire unsettlement regarding even our immediate utureoperates to leave me in a state o suspense not conducive to concentra-tions o mind on any specifc occupation, even i your absence did notleave me devoid o resources in my sel as it does. My frst rather tooconfdent thought expressed in my frst letter to you was based on Mr.oppings very confdent assurance that he would see that I was welltaken care o in the Corporation. I now see what I did not then appreci-ate, that nothing he can say or do is going to make the slightest dier-ence about anybodys position and although I have no reason to doubthis sincere purpose to serve me I realize that whatever I get will be dueto mysel and not to him.87

U.S. Steel chose George Craword, an engineer rom Georgia, as the new presidento CI; Leonard was retained as secretary and treasurer o the division and relocated toBirmingham with the rest o the management team. Tis dramatic episode marked a newchapter or Leonard and his amily. In 1892, Leonard heeded the advice o his cousin,William Smythe, to go to Chicago rather than Birmingham or his frst job in the steelindustry. Nevertheless, in feen years Leonard moved to Birmingham, where he would

spend the next thirty years working or CI as a subsidiary o U.S. Steel.


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BIRMINGHAM: A CITY OF THE NEW SOUTH

Certainly, a womanly manner was expected o the wie o an executive in a growing,but still conventional, city in the Deep South. For Isabel, as well as or Leonard and John,the New South world they entered was quite dierent rom the northeast metropolisthey le behind. It was consciously designed to promote a new kind o industrial or-derone based on a separation o people by race and class to harmonize the social order.Historians have long debated the source o this order, asking whether the attitudes aboutrace and class order descended rom the working class or the bourbon class. Ultimately,the distinction was irrelevant; many actors outside the elites control, such as nationaleconomy, the chaos o the stock market, the market or produced goods, competition, andthe availability o capital and labor, aected the industrial order in the South. Te worldthe Southern industrialists created was chaotic and at times unstable. It developed in ftsand starts. By the time U.S. Steel purchased CI, the city o Birmingham was jubilant at

the promise o stability the steel giant could bring.

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Te Jones Valley was a predominantly agrarian landscape until the early 1870s, whena group o businessmen fled incorporation papers or the city o Birmingham. o thesouth was Red Mountain, rich with iron ore, and to the north were the Warrior coalfelds.Land speculators and city boosters, many o them rom the railroad companies, jockeyedor the best trade routes to move products to market in the South. Te central locality andmineral wealth o the valley made it an attractive option. By the 1870s, two railways ranacross Alabama and intersected in Jones Valley, and this was where Birminghams ound-ers chose to locate the city. 89

Te citys ounders wanted to capitalize on uture industrial growth in the South. Fewregions showed as much promise as Birmingham, the magic city, due to the availablemineral resources in proximity to transportation systems capable o carrying productsand raw materials to market. In the early 1870s, men like Daniel Pratt and his son-in-law,Henry Fairchild DeBardeleben, capitalized on the promise by becoming the frst large-scale iron and coal producers Tey built the frst iron urnace within the city limits andnamed it Alice, aer DeBardelebens daughter. By 1880, the urnace was operational; by1883, it had nearly 500 employees. ennessee Coal and Iron moved its headquarters andconsolidated other operations rom ennessee to Birmingham in 1886, thus becoming

Alabamas largest industrial company. By 1890, the city had twenty-fve blast urnaces withseveral others on the drawing board. Tere was some resistance to the growth, but it camerom other Alabama cities like Montgomery and Mobile, where there was resentmenttoward Birminghams rapid growth.90

Te growth o a New South industrial city required a dierent approach to urbanplanning i the leaders wanted to avoid the pitalls o the North. With the unraveling othe Southern slave economy aer the Civil War, Birminghams leaders inherited a newlabor market. Te challenge or the industrialist managers was to manage both white andblack work orces; they began by segregating jobs. For skilled labor, they employed white

crasmen, and initially a relationship developed between these valued workers and thecapitalists. During the 1880s, a large number o the skilled laborers moved to Birminghamrom the industrial cities o the North and Midwest. During the last twenty years o thenineteenth century, power struggles between the skilled unions and the capitalists oc-curred at regular intervals as each vied or power to defne the terms o their relationship.Unions and their members were instrumental in keeping black workers out o the skilledtrades. Almost 50 percent o the iron and steel jobs beore 1900 were in the unskilled


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trades. Tese jobs were the lowest paid, as well as the hottest, dirtiest, and most danger-ous in the industry. Birminghams ounders envisioned white workers in these positions,but by the 1880s, it became clear the urban white labor pool was insucient. Many o therural whites owned land and held to their Jeersonian belie that land was the key to ree-dom and sel-determination. Tus, employers reluctantly appealed to blacks throughoutthe South to work as common laborers. 91 Te situation was not much better or blacksworking in the steel industry than as a sharecropper working in the felds. Many yearslater, John described the dicult working situation at CI when he worked there in theearly 1920s:

No black was a helper on a urnace, a melter, a craneman, a blower ora manipulator on the Bessemer converters, a mixer-man or a dog-housechemist. Te slag-hole gang was all black. So was the ertilizer plantcrew except or the oreman and the two cranemen. It was the same atthe lime plant which I used to visit. Te main job there was sweeping

under the huge cylindrical rotating kilns which calcined limestone anddolomite. Each shi had a crew o black sweepers, captained by a headsweeper. Te burnt lime was a very fne white powder. It sied out andcovered everything around the lime plant, settling thickly on the oorunder the kilns. I you got a little in your high workshoes it would slakeand blister your eet. When it blew in your eye it would raise a blisteron your eyeball. But the black sweepers had to go under the kilns and

Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Co. [Company] furnaces, Ensley, Ala..COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS


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sweep up the dust with no more protection than bandanas tied overtheir noses and mouths.92

Te hierarchy o labor carried over into lie outside o work where sharp boundar-ies divided skilled white workers and unskilled black workers. Tis division extended toneighborhoods. During the 1880s, the industrial opportunities o Birmingham attractedyoung males o both races who came there to work. As this generation grew up and settleddown with wives and children, they rented, built, or purchased the best homes they couldaord in neighborhoods populated by their peers in the labor orce. Consequently, each

area developed raternal organizations, churches, and saloons or their particular group.Te suburbs began to develop by the turn o the century. Tese communities were madeup largely o white skilled workers who earned more money than unskilled workers andhad more power and inuence in the growing city.93

Tis industrial boom brought people rom outside the region and the country intothe city. By 1909, Birmingham was the largest city in Alabama. Census records show thatthe citys population increased 145.4 percent between 1900 and 1910, leading populationgrowth in the state.94 Te racial mix in the urban areas o the state was comprised o 57.6percent white, native-born citizens and 42.3 percent black. Tere were 19,286 immigrants

in urban areas o the state, up over 5,000 since 1900.95 Te majority o the population wasprotestant, though the Catholic numbers were increasingnearly 33 percent o peoplewho lived in Birmingham were Catholic by 1910primarily skilled labor and manage-ment rom the industrial north and abroad.96 Between 1889 and 1909, coal productionincreased exponentially. By 1908, Alabama was the largest producer o coal in the South

Business section of the city of Birmingham, Alabama. Drawn in 1903 by C. N. Dry.

COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS


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and sixth largest producer in the country.97During the early twentieth century, the inuential industrial leaders and business-

men o the Birmingham area were tagged the Big Mules, and they oen ound politicalcommon ground with the Black Belt land owners at the state and national level. Te termwas frst coined and described by politician Bibb Graves. He said they reminded him oa armer who had harnessed a small mule to a wagon heavily loaded with corn. Behindthe wagon he had hitched a big mule who was amused itsel by leisurely munching cornout o the wagon, while the small mule strained every muscle to pull the entire load.98 Assecretary and treasurer, Leonard was one o the top executives o ennessee Coal and Iron,a position that would certainly have put him among the Big Mules.

Leonards position, along with both his and Isabels income, set them apart rommany in the world o the New South. In Birmingham, the separation o people in acto-ries as well as neighborhoods was based primarily on race and class. Te unction o theseparation to promote the most eective labor confguration possible was not out o theordinary or the time; a divide that was oen patently racist was less common.


15/3228

THE BEECHERS MOVE SOUTH

When the Beechers arrived at the train station in Birmingham in early 1908, it wasclear that they were solidly upper class. Teir well-known amily name and their RomanCatholicism would set them apart within that class in the coming decades, although theirreligion was rarely addressed to them directly. What an observer would have seen that dayis what John wrote many years later: I clambered rom the Pullman in a ur suit and urleggings, clutching a eddy bear in each hand, John wrote. My golden curls cascadedaround a ur hat. At my side was Emelia Mertling, my nurse, whom I called Mia. Behindus ollowed my mother in peacock-eathered hat and sealskin coat, looking like the greattragic actress she chose not to be. Next came my ather with his mustachios, high-crownedderby and velvet-collared Chesterfeld, lacking but the toothy grin to double or his idol,President Teodore Roosevelt. Te amily stepped o the train and into a city that wouldshape all their lives or the next hal-century. A line o hacks in various stages o decay

stood along the curb o wentieth Street where two ten-story sky scrapers reared abovedreary small-town stores. On a near corner rose the skeleton o the Brown-Marx Build-ing, soon to be the biggest structure south o the Potomac and the Ohio. My athers oceswould take up hal o the ourteenth oor or the next generation. He, or one, had cometo stay. While Isabels career on the Chautauqua circuit would take her out o Birming-ham requently or the next decade, John, because o his age, and Leonard, because o hisposition with CI, were destined to settle quickly into a very new lie.99

Te frst casualty o their new lie was Johns devoted nurse, Mia. All the other chil-drens nurses there were black. Custom

prohibited her associating with them,John wrote. She could neither sit at tablewith my parents nor discuss anythingwith them save the consistency o mystools. She was utterly isolated rom lieby caste and class restrictions. We putthe inconsolable Mia on the train backto New York, but I never heard rom oro her again. In due course, Isabel and

Leonard hired a black nurse or John. Sheft in with her peers, but John did not.[She] took me down to where the nurse-maids oregathered with their chargesand sat gossiping on a wall while theuture masters o Birmingham pelted mewith chunks o red hematite ore rom themountainside. Tey berated the Yankeeboy or his accent, his clothing, and his

curls. He soon reused to go out and tookreuge at home. 100

Aer living or some months in arented bungalow, Leonard and Isabelchose a lot where they would build apermanent home in an upscale section othe city. It was easily accessible to Leon-

John Beecher and his mother

PHOTO COURTESY OF BARBARA BEECHER


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ards oce and the country club where he played gol and to the programs o the High-land Avenue book club that gave Isabel access to cultural programs, o which there wasa scarcity in Birmingham. Isabel, however, was on tour in Caliornia when Leonard wasapproached by Colonel Tomas Octavious Smith about building in a restricted develop-ment about three miles rom downtown Birmingham. Te colonel, a graduate o VirginiaMilitary Academy and commander o a volunteer regiment in the Spanish-American War,was head o the Birmingham rust and Savings Bank. Leonard, as secretary and treasurero CI, had chosen that bank as the principal depository or CIs unds, which includeda weekly payroll o around one million dollars.101 In a reciprocal gesture, Smith oered tosell Leonard the fnest acre on the heights, located on Emma Avenue just a block romColonel .O.s own home and actually overlooking it, was still available or purchase by aperson o quality. He convinced Leonard that the amenities so accessible rom HighlandAvenue would be accessible rom Graymont as well. Pending the acquisition o a carriageand pair, my ather could ride the Owenton streetcar to his oce downtown. [It was] atthe bottom o the hill only a hal-mile away. Leonard decided on the spot to buy the lot,and by the time Isabel returned, the servants quarters and stable on the back o the lotwere under construction. 102

Leonards purchase, which overrode the joint decision he and his wie made ear-lier, served to urther isolate Isabel. My mother accepted her deeat with good grace,John wrote. She always maintained an admirably stoical ront when things could not behelped. She did, however, point out to Leonard that the streetcar line that was a hal-miledownhill also required a hal-mile uphill walk to returnand the ride rom Graymont toSouth Highlands was a three-hour round trip. When the servants quarters were com-pleted, the amily moved in there as a temporary residence so that they were onsite as themansion that Leonard designed was under way. 103

With that move, our-year-old John ound a riend and a proound inuence inRob Perdue, a black teenager who was the younger brother o Tomas Perdue, a servantor Colonel .O. and his amily. His job was to serve as plumber, electrician, carpenter,painter, paperhanger, butler, and ultimately automobile mechanic and chaueur, and heworked or the Beechers or the next thirty years. Yet, Roberts supreme gi was storytell-ing. According to John, He was in a class with Uncle Remus though his material was notWest Arican olklore but actual Alabama black lie. Te stories reected the race andclass issues that John would witness in Birmingham in the coming years, issues that were

very close to home.

From Rob I learned about the convict mines where men were keptshackled, put into sweat boxes, spread-eagled and lashed with lead-loaded thongs. Sometimes they were beaten to death by murderoustrusties and their bodies thrown down old shas. CI had 500 o theseconvicts working its mines when we came South in 1907. According toa Southern-born Yale historian the average lie-span o a convict in anAlabama mine o that period was six months.

Rob also told me gruesome tales o the blast urnaces and steel mills,o men being burnt up by ladles o slag, o molten steel exploding or ocorpses strewn about the blast urnace cast house when carbon mon-oxide leaked rom a main. Te gas had no smell. You simply keeledover dead. W.C. Handy came rom Birmingham and had once been a


17/3230

molders helper on a CI blast urnace. Rob sang or whistled all Handys

blues to me.

As a child, John considered Rob his best riend. Not only was he a playmate, he alsotaught John about lie as a Negro in the south. 104

Johns immersion in the realities o racism continued, as Leonards parents movedto Birmingham ollowing Papa Frederick Beechers retirement rom his service as anEpiscopal rector in upstate New York in 1909 when he was fve years old. Tey lived frstin a bungalow near Graymont. Soon they moved into what had been the servants quarterso their sons house so that as they aged they were near him and his amily. Mama Sara

Beecher began to educate John about his ancestors. Even though Saras own amily historyincluded American patriots, in her eyes the Beecher lineage was ar loier. By her account,John declared, Ours was the greatest amily in American history. Having married into it,she was prouder o the Beecher clan than i the blood o Grandather Lyman and his pro-digious progeny owed in her own veins. She had besought Lennie, my ather, to name meWard aer Uncle Henry, the Shakespeare o the pulpit as well as my great-great-great-grandather, General Andrew Ward o George Washingtons sta. Lennie had not heededher, calling me aer that wrong-headed person, John Henry Cardinal Newman, who hadenticed Lennie into the Church o Rome. Neither had Leonard embraced his mothers

enthusiasm or the Beecher orebears causes and eccentricities. However, Mama urtherpointed out the importance oUncle Toms Cabin aloud to John, who was still just our.Te book aected me most not because a Beecher had written it but because it corrobo-rated the contemporary social evils which Rob Perdue was describing to me. It seemedto me that there was a lot o emancipating still needing to be done. Between them, RobPerdue and Mama made a wentieth Century Abolitionist out o me.105

COURTESY OF BARBARA BEECHER


18/3231

EDUCATION

As an only child, John had the attention not only o his grandmother, but also oLeonard, who held great ambitions or his son. By the time John was ready or frstgradethe starting age at that time was sevenhe had learned to read, write and dosimple mathematics. His academic work continued as he challenged the teachers in theBirmingham public schools, who moved him orward until, by the end o his frst se-mester, he was in the ourth grade. While Isabel was traveling, Leonard tutored John athome in arithmetic, geography, grammar and history. Te only subject which my atherwaived was Alabama History, John wrote. He examined the prescribed text which hada Conederate ag on the cover and went into a towering rage. It occasioned his only visitto my school. He marched in on Mr. Bush, our Principal, a ormer ootball hero at theCitadel in South Carolina, and told him that he wouldnt allow me to be misguided bythis pernicious book. Tough Alabama History was required by State law and one might

not be graduated without it, Mr. Bush absolved me by virtue o my athers position asthe chie fnancial ocer o Birminghams greatest corporate enterprise.106 Banishing aschoolbook rom Johns lie, however, did not limit his exposure to racism in Birmingham.In the 1912 election year, Leonard was a Bull Mooser supporting Teodore Roosevelt.John later realized that it was a curious anomaly that R was our household hero. Hiscraven treachery in OKing Morgans exile o CI head oce rom NY to Birminghamhad exiled us in 1907. As a fh-grader ollowing his athers political lead, however, Johnwas the sole supporter o Teodore Roosevelt in the whole Graymont School.107 Hisclassmates derided Roosevelt as a nigger-lover, and John soon convinced his parents to

let him leave the classroom and return to home-schooling. He and Leonard resumed theirold routine. Tis time, however, the two walked together to the CI oces, and along theway, Leonard drilled John in academics. Ten I rode the streetcar back home throughniggertown, passing the black high school en route, two rows o alley shacks with plankslaid rom stoop to stoop. Each shack was a classroom. At the end o the double row wasa dilapidated rame church with a leaning steeple like a gnomes hat. Tis was the audito-rium. It was the only black high school in Jeerson County.108 A report by the Bureau oEducation noted that the school was condemned in 1915 and moved to rented quarters.At the time, the county had more than 90,000 black residents, more than any other county

in the United States.

109

John returned to the Graymont School or the sixth grade, but once more, he was arahead o the curriculum. Aer various conerences with Mr. Bush and the teachers, it wasdecided to try me out in the seventh grade, then the concluding step o elementary school,even though I was only nine. In May 1914, he received his elementary school diploma justour months aer his tenth birthday. Dr. John Phillips, superintendent o schools, notedthat he was the youngest pupil ever to be graduated rom elementary school in the city. 110

Te question about what John would do next was a troublesome one or his parents.As an elementary school graduate in Birminghams public school system, Johnin the

customary sequencewould move on Central High School, along with everybody elsein town save the steel workers and coal miners children. Te latter group went to thebrand-new Ensley High School, where Isabel had recently begun to teach English anddrama. However, the Beechers realized that neither school was an option or an immatureten-year-old boy, no matter how great his academic ability. In due course, they decidedthat Isabel would go ahead on her requisite Chautauqua tour. At the end o the summer,Leonard, Isabel and John would vacation in Canada; Isabel and John would sail rom


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Montreal to Europe and extend their vacation; and then, John wrote, She would drop meo at some fne school in Switzerland. Tat changed quickly aer a Serbian patriot assas-sinated the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir-apparent to the Austro-Hungarian throne,and set o World War I.111

Tis turn o events changed Leonard and Isabels plan or John, and aer a year o, itopened the door or John to go to military preparation school. His parents allowed himto take a year o because he was too young to enter high school. During that time, Johnrequently accompanied his mother on short trips or perormances and his ather onbusiness trips or CI.112 As the summer o 1915 approached, my ather decided that theleast he could do was to sacrifce his only son to the war god, or at least prepare him orsacrifce, John wrote. He enrolled eleven-year-old John in summer camp at Culver Mili-tary Academy even though the minimum age was twelve. John was hesitant, but Leonardsweetened the deal with a vacation. During my eleventh year I was taken to the SanFrancisco and San Diego expositions, allowed to set oot on Mexican soil, then depositedor the summer at Culver Military Academy, as the martial discipline was at that timeconsidered a sovereign corrective or all problems o adjustment. At Culver, John excelledat military strategy and ed his war antasies, as illustrated by a Birmingham ortifcationplan he created.113 He returned to Culver or the next three summers and spent each o thesubsequent school years at Ensley High School, ulflling the attendance requirement eventhough he believed the school had little to oer him academically. 114

When the Beechers decided to keep John out o school or a year, class distinctionwas also a contributing actor to their decision. Isabel, in particular, was conscious o theirplace in the social hierarchy o Birmingham. In Ohio, Isabel had been the schoolteacheror the coal miners children in Mineral Ridge and the steel miners children in Brier Hill.Having been a proletarian kid hersel she knew what they were like, John wrote. Black-guards was her terse judgment o them. I accepted it. I knew what upper-class Southernkids were like. Blackguards. A year later, however, John entered Ensley High School asa sophomore, despite the blackguards. He was twelve years old, and he aced taunts andbullying rom the boys in his class every day. He made one riend, Alban Derryberry, whoprovided some advice that he elt John needed: Dont let anybody out here know youre aCathlic. John was urious.

Te reborn Ku Klux Klan was just getting started, spurred by the D.W.

Griths flm, Te Birth o a Nation, which I had seen mysel. Te audi-ence had leaped up on the seats to whoop when the Klansmen in theirhoods and sheets rode aer the villainous carpetbaggers and their allies,the uppity niggers. Tis time around the Klan was aimed at Catholicsand Jews as well as blacks. Birmingham was a Klan town and Ensley oneo the Invisible Empires greatest strongholds.

Tat was reinorced or him in many ways, including the act that the head o thehousehold next door to the Beecher amily was reputedly the Kleagle o the local Klavern

o the Ku Klux Klan. His name was Walter McNeill, and he was an executive with PrattConsolidated Coal Company, which continued to use black convict labor long aer CIended the practice. While McNeills proession would seem to have put his amily onequal ooting with the Beechers, Isabel did not see it that way. McNeill, who came rom aamily o the Scots-Irish working class, was married to a woman rom a prominent amilyin South Carolina, where her brother was governor. She was not society in Birmingham,however, perhaps because she had married beneath her or perhaps simply because the


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McNeills didnt have enough money. My mother never once invited her to a party de-spite her genteel origins, John wrote. Isabel apparently did not see in the McNeills anyreection o her own amilythe Irish coal miners daughter who married into what wassometimes called the most amous amily in America. Both the McNeills, however, werekind to John. Mrs. McNeill oen sent home with a plate o cookies and Mr. McNeill madehim senior patrol leader o the new Boy Scout troop he had started.115

In the summer o 1917, a ew weeks beore John was to begin his third stint at Culver,his parents learned that he needed only a single mathematics course in order to graduaterom Ensley High School in the spring o 1918. Leonard arranged or a tutor, the head othe math department at Central High School, to help John fnish the required course. Johndescribed the sessions: We met or two or three hours every morning in his oce at theschool. In exactly twelve sessions we disposed o solid geometry.116

John Beecher learned lessons about class and race distinction during his third year atCulver. He went o to camp, ushed with the triumph o completing the required workor a high school diploma. He was sure he would earn the rank o frst sergeant. Mean-while, he took his frst turn in the rotation o ocer o the day, barking orders at theyounger campers while strutting in his red sash. Encountering a new boy with his hat oncrooked, his shirt-tail dangling rom his shorts behind, and his socks rolled unevenly, Istopped him, John wrote. He looked Jewish. My mother wrinkled her nose at people shetermed Jewy. My ather said they were ruining New York. John did note that the previoussummer when his mother visited him at Culver, she took him to dinner, along with BernieSteiner, a ellow camper at Culver and son o a Birmingham banker. Back in Birmingham,however, the Beechers had never invited the Steiners to dinner, nor had they entertainedany other nice Jews. Tus, Johns initial reaction to the boy at Culver might have been inkeeping with his upbringing. Tere was no name-calling; in act, when John demandedthe boy tell his name, the boy remained silent. John ordered him to the guardhouse, whichwas neither a house nor was it guarded, but it symbolized the punishment and the author-ity o Ocer o the Day, John Beecher. Te commandant ound out about the incidentquickly; he stripped John o his rank and ordered him to turn in his sash and belt. I hadyour name down or First-Sergeant o B Company, the commandant told him. But youhave oreited that. You have grossly exceeded your authority. Tere is something radicallywrong with you, Beecher. John went back to his tent, accepting the rebuke, but cringingover the remark that something about him was radically wrong. He wrote to his ather,insisting that the commandant had given him a raw deal, and asking to come home. Leon-ard replied that John would not come home, but would stay the entire term and take thebitter with the sweet. Isabel signed her reply with the initials V.N.H. John later explained,demonstrating that his rustration with his mothers response still nagged at him. Teseinitials stood or Voice o Your Higher Nature. Tey were always appended to the samesententious platitudes and old saws designed to inspire me to be a better boy. But whocalled people Jewy or said the Jews were ruining New York?117

His parents still had an eye on a military career or John, so with a nod to West Point,his ather enrolled him in the Junior Plattsburgh raining Camp during the summer o1918. Te army had just inaugurated the camp that year, its aim to recruit or the war e-ort. John was incredibly critical o the camp and the training. He believed his training atCulver was certainly a cut above that o Plattsburgh, though his superiors ailed to makeuse o his aptitude. Once more my age disqualifed me rom military oce although I hadmore knowledge o inantry tactics than any other cadet. I remained a ront rank privatewhile receiving orders rom cadet captains, lieutenants, sergeants and corporals who were


21/3234

ignorant o the most elementary maneuvers.118Aer John arrived home aer his summer in Plattsburgh, his ather announced that

he had gotten him a job working or the Birmingham Southern Railroad, CIs industrialrailroad. He was part o a survey crew planning a new road to Mobile rom Birming-ham. CI had a ship building company on the coast and wanted a more ecient way totransport steel to Mobile. His ather believed this job might be a good ft because Johncould use his newly mastered trigonometry. He was a rear rodman, responsible to holdone end o a survey chain so the surveyor could measure. Within a week, he became boredwith the job; he contended that he was learning nothing. John soon deserted the crew andound a ride back home to Birmingham, where his parents were once again aced withwhat to do with him. Tis was the frst in a lietime o impulsive decisions about employ-ment that John would make. 119

At 14, John was still too young or college, but his mother spoke to the presidento Notre Dame, the Rev. John Cavanaugh, who agreed to take John or the year. He wasexcluded rom much o the social lie o the university because o his age, which leonly classes or his own diversions to occupy his time. For entertainment, he would hangaround the main train station in South Bend. On one occasion, tired o the monotony oNotre Dame, he went to the station, hopped a train to Chicago, and went to visit amilyriends who immediately telegrammed his mother. She came to get him two days later. Sheposed the question, Do you intend to keep running away rom everything thats hard?Both o his parents were worried at his inability to complete his endeavors. Tey were at aloss or how to deal with his rebellious and stubborn nature.120

Back in Birmingham in the all o 1918, Johns ather got him a job as an apprenticeor the chie chemist at CIs Ensley Steel Works, Dr. Harris. Tough he was too youngto legally work in the lab, they covered up the issue with a alse entry in the employmentregistry. He would work daily rom 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and until 1 p.m. Saturdays; he wouldbe paid $60 per month. All o the workers in the lab were college graduates, and Dr. Har-ris put Mr. McFarland in charge o young Beecher, a very patient and kind mentor. Helearned to work with nitric acid, as well as conduct analysis o carbon and phosphorus.He learned about the chemical makeup o steelan alloy made up o iron and carbonand how the carbon content determined the hardness o the metal. Aer John had beensuciently trained, McFarland was draed or the war eort. John was essentially aloneto conduct McFarlands work. John described his work in the lab as mundane and mind-numbing. He was appalled that college graduates had to conduct such uninteresting work.One morning he was conducting his repetitive routine when he mistakenly cracked afve-gallon glass o undiluted nitric acid. Te acid spilled all over his lower legs and eet.Coworkers quickly neutralized the acid with ammonia. John described the incident:

I was in shock rom the pain. My pants were burnt entirely o belowthe knees. Tey came away in charred bits. My socks were pulp. Telaces had been burned out o my shoes. Te leather crumbled intosomething like corn akes.

Rob came with the Buick. Tey put me into the back seat. Te CIhospital was by-passed. No accident report was ever fled. It would haverevealed that I was under-age, feen at this time. Te company doc-tor came to see me at the house. He said he hoped he wouldnt have toamputate my legs. It was close. Tey swelled to gigantic, dropsical size.


22/3235

Te esh sloughed o. I ran a ever o 104. Ten I slowly got better,my ever began to drop, my eet and legs diminished in size. Tey werecovered with deep channels where the acid had run. I could examine thearterioles and venous structures as in an anatomical transparency.121

A month later, he was back at work. McFarland, however, was back rom the army,

and the lab managers decided they no longer needed an apprentice. Having lost his job,John and his parents again aced the question o what to do next.

John still had a dream o being a soldier. His ather sent a query to Oscar W. Under-wood, the senior senator rom Alabama and a good riend o CI. He wanted to know ithe senator would sponsor an appointment to West Point or John. Te senator was gladto comply with the request, but the minimum age or entrance was 17. Tus, John Beecherwas once more denied entrance because o his age. Ten Colonel .O. Smith, their neigh-bor and riend, suggested that John attend his alma mater, Virginia Military Institute.Smith graduated in 1882, and his sons and many o their riends attended the well-known

military school, which was in Lexington, Virginia. Te school had no minimum age re-quirement, and it was highly regarded in military circles and would give John an excellentopportunity or a commission when he graduated. It was decided. Aer a fnal summer atCulver, he would attend Virginia Military Institute in all o 1919.

With great diculty, John Beecher endured one year and eight days at VirginiaMilitary Institute. He contracted a bladder inection near the end o the frst semester andwas sent home to recover. He was opposed to returning in January because he hated thecontinuous hazing he received as a rat, the name given to frst year cadets. His parents,however, were convinced that he needed to learn to fnish his endeavors. His mother, in

particular, was convinced that he needed to remain in school and not be a quitter. John,however, was less certain. On the trip back, he bypassed Lexington and headed or NewYork where he visited his mothers good riend and ormer student, Miss Teodora UrsulaIrvine. She secretly telegraphed Isabel, who arrived within two days to escort him backto VMI. In a fnal eort to escape his ate, John bought some chloric acid at the drug-gists and poured it in his shoe on his healed acid burns. He managed the pain until hismother dropped him o, then went to the infrmary. He spent most o the semester inthe infrmary, which he preerred over the barracks where he had be regularly hazed.John, fnally resigned to stay at VMI, said, My eelings o rebellious panic had given way

to sullen resignation. I would get through the year. I lived what was le o it one day ata time.122 In early June 1920, aer fnal exams, Leonard and Isabel welcomed John as ahero or completing the year. Leonard had also concluded that he was not cut out or themilitary, though it took a while longer or his mother to accept this act. John was deter-mined not to return to VMI in the all, but Isabel was adamant that he would fnish twoyears. She could see him collecting on Senator Underwoods promise and entering WestPoint i he would just fnish one more year at VMI. Tey wrangled with the decision, andfnally Leonard and Isabel made a deal with John. I he would return to VMI or just oneyear, he could then go on to the college o his choice. According to John, I could attend

any college I pleased in the all o 1921 Cornell, my athers alma mater; or Williams,where Papa had graduated in 1857; Yale, where Great-great grandather Lyman had been

valedictorian in 1797 and Great-grandather Edward in 1822; Harvard even or Columbiai I wanted to go back to my birthplace. I was sick at heart at the prospect o slouchingthrough another year at VMI as a slimy third classman, but she gave me no choice. 123 Sohe headed back to VMI, where a crackdown on hazing had begun. John and his classmates


23/3236

were inuriated that they were prohibited rom inicting on the incoming cadet rats thesame punishment they had endured. Some hazing continued, and in one situation Johnwas present. When the situation came to the attention o administrators, John reused toname the culprit. Soon aer the term began, the honor court expelled him. Tus Johnsyouthul military endeavors ended, much to his relie.124


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STEEL MILL

When John returned to Birmingham in the all o 1920, Dick Bowron, the superinten-dent o the Ensley open hearth and the son o one o CIs ounders, hired John as a delayboy. In this position, he moved throughout the dierent sections o the plant and createdreports. According to John, the Delay Report showed

the status o every open hearth urnace, the delays incurred overthe time allotted or a normal run rom tap to tap, the reasons or thedelays, the number o pots blown on the converters, the amount o pigiron in the mixers, the heats o steel tapped, the analyses run in thedog-house and other miscellaneous dope which Ralph had posted inhis hip pocket notebook. When the report was complete Ralph phonedit to Mr Mathias oce in the Brown-Marx Building downtown inBirmingham. Mr Mathias was a man o great importance, the assistant

to Mr H.C. Ryding, who was the assistant to Mr Frank Crockard, theoperating vice president.125

While working around the Ensley steel manuacturing plant, he was exposed to manykinds o men, including many who were associated with the KKK. Some would tease himabout his religion, telling him jokes about priests and nuns. He seemed to take it in stride.In January 1921, aer Bowron fred the night delay man, John replaced him and becameassistant to the night superintendent. I elt very important, drawing all that money andholding down such a responsible job when I was just turning seventeen. I didnt mind

the hours since I was happier on the open hearth than I had ever been anywhere else inmy lie. John wrote.126 Te sights, sounds, and avor o the mill inspired him. Much oJohns poetry both then and later reects observations rom this period, although at thetime he thought he was headed or a management career at CI like his ather or DickBowron.

Aer John worked or nine months at the Ensley plant, his parents pushed him tomake a decision about where he would attend college. John made a case or staying on atthe plant, arguing that he liked the job immensely and all o the men he worked or hadound success without fnishing college. I wanted to be an operating man, not a techni-

cian going through motions in a laboratory or sitting up in some oce, John remem-bered.127 Leonard pushed him toward attending Cornell, his alma mater. John could studyengineering like CI president George Craword, and then he could return to the openhearth in some kind o management capacity, his ather told him. John dutiully senttranscripts to Cornell and to Williams College, his grandathers alma mater. Finally, hisparents bribed him with a spring trip with his ather to Cornell and then a summer tripto Europe.128 While at Cornell, he hit it o with the members o his athers raternity, Chi

Business section of the city of Birmingham COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS


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Psi. Near the end o the visit, he was invited to join. It was decided. Leonard had maneu-vered his way around John and also around Isabel, who wanted her son to attend Williamsand become immersed in liberal arts. By mid-June, John was on a train to New York withWilliam Rushton, also a student, and William Wright, a Birmingham elementary schoolprincipal who would be their European guide.129


26/3239

FATHER COYLE

When John was young, the amily attended church at Saint Pauls Cathedral in down-town Birmingham where Father James E. Coyle had been priest since 1904. Born in 1873in County Roscommon, Ireland, he began his ministry in Mobile at age 23 and moved toBirmingham eight years later. John shared his respectul eeling or the priest in a descrip-tion o his frst communion with Father Coyle presiding:

John Hennery Newman Beecher, who made you?

God made me, to know, to love, and to serve Him in this world, and tobe happy with Him orever in the next.

Father Coyle pronounced my ull name reverentially, unlike my con-temporaries on Graymont, who sometimes called me John HenryOldman Beecher with mirthul cackles Father Coyle was the gentlesto men, except or his hatred o the British who had hanged his grand-ather. When the time came or my frst conession I dredged up everyconceivable sin rom the dark bogs o memory. Father Coyle was unim-pressed with my iniquity. He waved away rom serious consideration mydalliance with Delphine and my corrupting the innocent youth o Up-per Montclair. He told me that all little boys had similar experiences. Farrom Gods hating me, I was infnitely precious to Him and I must never

orget it. Now all my sins were orgiven. As a penance, I could just saythree Hail Marys and three Our Fathers. Te next morning at my FirstCommunion the sacred host which Father Coyle placed on my tongueblissully melted away. I was now armor-plated against sin like St. Mi-chael with his oot on Satans neck in the painting above the altar.130

Te Beecher amily had been members o Father Coyles parish sincemoved to Birmingham; they had a warm relationship with Father Coyle.

Hence, when a Methodist minister gunned down Father Coyle in broad daylighton an August aernoon in 1921, many in Birmingham were very upset, including JohnBeecher and his amily. Te gunman was the Reverend Edwin R. Stephenson, a Methodistminister and KKK member who did not have a church, but was known as the marryingminister because he camped out at the courthouse and perormed marriages or a smallee aer a couple procured their marriage license. Stephenson was upset that Coyle hadperormed a marriage ceremony or Stephensons only child, Ruth, and a paperhangernamed Pedro Gussman, a dark-skinned man who had come to Birmingham rom hisnative Puerto Rick twenty-two years earlier. Ruth, eighteen, had converted to Catholi-cism in order to marry Pedro, who was 44. Initially, Ruths parents thought she had beenkidnapped by a group o Catholics. When her ather learned o the marriage, he went tothe rectory and shot Father Coyle three times. Stevenson then proceeded next door tothe courthouse, gave himsel up, and admitted he had just shot a man. He immediatelyrequested that Hugo Black, who was to become a two-term senator rom Alabama anda Supreme Court justice, deend him. A stellar deense team was arranged with moneydonated rom Klan sources. In their eyes, Stephenson was a hero or shooting the priest.


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Te trial was an obvious attack on Catholicism interspersed with racial prejudice. Teprosecution did not present a single witness that Stephenson committed the crime ortestimony about Father Coyles character and the act that he never carried a weapon. Te

jury twelve white male Protestants declared Stephenson not guilty; they reasoned that heacted in sel-deense. 131

Te timing o Father Coyles assassination revealed some changes in the social andpolitical world o Birmingham and the South. Te new Ku Klux Klan was reborn beoreWorld War I rom remnants o Southern populism and a Protestant middle-class whose

voice had been ignored by an entrenched power structure.132 Te organization was some-what dierent rom the extralegal terrorist organization during the Civil Rights Move-ment; the organization was initially a raternal organization concerned with controllinglocal moral sensibilities and fghting or temperance in the social and political arenas.As David Chalmers notes in Hooded Americanism, the Klan was very active in JeersonCounty where Birmingham is the county seat.133 Most Klansmen did not believe that theywere opposing the Catholic because o his religion, but because hierarchical control romRome prevented his assimilation.134 Te murder o Father Coyle and the trial outcomeillustrates the rising voice and power o the new Klan and Southern nativism in the early1920s.135 Te loss o Father Coyle and the inroads o the resurgent Klan had a powerulimpact on John. In 1966 he published Alter Christus in the collection oTo Live and Diein Dixie. In it he recalled the event and mocked the townspeople who passed on gossipand allowed a murderer to go ree:

Alter Christus

written about Father Coyle

Yes I remember hima truly saintly priestalter Christusthat is to say another Christsuch as we priests are all supposed to bebut yet you know a man like thatcan do more mischie than a hundredo the humdrum usual kindTat trouble he got into

could so easily have been avoidedFoolhardy was the word or himI remember how or years he set his ace againstall plans o his parishionersto provide him with a car and driverTe welve Disciples went on oot he saidso trolleys should be good enough or himO hed go to nowhere on the trolley allalone and in the dead o nighttaking the sacraments to some poor soul

Te Ku Klux Klan was capable o luring him tosome abode o viceon a ake calland compromising him in peoples eyesthus doing all o us priest an injuryTe Bishop tried to make him seethe olly o his ways but he just shook his head


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and smiled angelicallyNo harm could come to him he said on such a holy errandOur Lord Himsel was there to guard himSo when this woman came to him and saidshed like him to instruct her in the aithhe went ahead despite her character

Why she was a allen womana very Magdalen!He should have been more prudentbut no he treated her as i shed beena bona fde convertand ound a husband or her in the ChurchSome kind o oreignerI never went along with those who claimedthe oreigner had Negro bloodthough to be sure his skin was rather swarthy

but still the womans ather had good causeto eel aggrievedHe was a Klansmana sort o jackleg preacherwho hung around the court houseand eked a living out by marrying coupleshot o the license bureauPerhaps he elt his business was inringedRight in broad day he took his gunthe priest was sitting on his porch

reading his breviary or Passion Weekand hearing eet come up the stepshe must have raised his eyes and looked into the pistols mouthSome might consider him a martyrbut do you knowhe actually did us all a lot o harmTe murderer was acquitted o his crimeby a jury packed with Klansmenand the woman didnt even stickShe ell away soon aerwardsTey always do that kindTe town believed that there had beensomething between the two o themTe whisper went aroundand where a priests involvedsuch whispers fnd a ready earTats why I always saywe cant be too suspiciouso those who come to us rom lives o public vice and sin

with tears o eigned repentanceTe saest thing or us to dois shut our door against such personslest scandal enter in.136


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THE GRAND TOUR

Dr. Oliver Cromwell Carmichael, a principal at one o the Birmingham high schoolsand the uture president o Montevallo College, just south o Birmingham, and VanderbiltUniversity had originally been scheduled to lead a European trip that John had signed upor.137 Tough Cromwell dropped out because only two boys signed up, an understudy,William Wright, the 38-year old principal o a Birmingham Elementary School, took hisplace.138 By the middle o June 1921, Wright, John Beecher, William Rushton were on atrain to New York where they would to take an Italian Line ship, the Dante Alighieri, toNaples. Tere were many young men and women on the boat making a similar voyage.Tey arrived in Naples around the beginning o July. John, ull o gratitude, wrote his par-ents aer arriving in Italy, I certainly wish you were both with meyou would have thetime o your lives. Again, I want you to know o the deep gratitude I eel or your generos-ity in giving me this trip.139 Aer seeing Pompeii, they traveled to Rome, Florence, Milan,

Venice, Lake Maggiore, Basel, Berlin, and Paris. While in Paris, they traveled to the battle-feld trenches o the Great War that ended just two and a hal years earlier. John describesthe experience in his autobiography, From Paris we visited the battlefelds, the shatteredReims cathedral, the trenches where emurs and other interesting ragments o human-kind stuck up rom the parapets, the cemeteries with their lines o white crosses stretch-ing to infnity.140 From Reims they took the train to Brussels, Antwerp, Amsterdam, andfnally London. While he was in London, Isabel wrote him, It seems like a dream that youare in London! How I do hope you will enjoy England, as I am sure I would. Give yourselup to all the lovely part o the traditions o your amily and all that makes a link with the

ages. I am ollowing you every minute.

141

Tey arrived back in New York on September 4,1921.142


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CORNELL

John entered his athers alma mater, Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, aerhis return rom Europe in the all o 1921 with the goal o becoming an engineer. He andLeonard visited the university or several days in June and Leonard enjoyed introducinghis son to his raternity brothers at the Chi Psi Lodge, where Leonard lived while he wasat Cornell.143 Te lodge had been the Fiske-McGraw Mansion, home o one o the primarybeneactors o the university, and was converted to a raternity house in 1896.144 John hit ito with the other young men and pre-pledged the raternity as a legacy pledge. When hearrived in the all, he hit the ground running both academically and socially. He initiallystudied engineering, but his greatest education at Cornell took place outside the class-room.

Johns frst term was dierent rom any social or intellectual experience he hadknown. He took advanced courses and tried out to be a writer or the student newspaper,

the Cornell Daily Sun. As the only reshman in the Chi Psi Lodge that year, he was quicklyintroduced to the vices o upper classmen such as women and alcohol. Tough prohibi-tion was in eect, there were plenty o avenues to procure alcohol.

Cornell was made up o primarily middle-class and upper-class men, and they wereparticularly conscious o style during the early 1920s. Tough class-consciousness waspresent, historian Carol Kammens research shows that Cornell was also sociologicallycomplex. One-quarter o the men belonged to raternities, while the others were indepen-dent.145 Te independents had an organization representing their interests. Tus, there wasboth an independent spirit and raternal consciousness alive on the campus.

Tere was a tradition that one could recognize Cornell man by clothes he wore; Johnwas no exception. Leonard Beecher wrote John many letters reprimanding him or themoney he spent on clothing. Long ur coats or men were all the rage, and John had tohave one, too. He even created drawings o the defnitive Cornell man. John wrote o hisashion sense in his autobiography:

Each week the tailors and haberdashers o New York and New Havenput on an exhibition o their wares in the Hotel Ithaca. Sometimes theygave a showing o swatches o materials in the Lodge, took orders andmeasured us or custom-made suits. Tough my ather was giving me

an over-generous allowance o $250 a month it was insucient to meetall the bills I ran up. I had won the name o best dressed reshman inthe university. My outfts included imported British shoes, Scottish Ar-gyll socks, oulard ties and regimental stripes rom the racks o Libertysin London, a Norolk jacket, a couple o our-button herringbones, anew tuxedo and, capping all, a coonskin ur coat so voluminous thatwhen I walked abroad in it I kicked up the back with my heels.146

Like many young men o the day, he binged on alcohol and women, and his aca-demic work took a backseat to un. His ather wrote him many long letters encouraginghim to buckle down and study. As was oen true, John paid little attention. Beore long,his grades suered and he was placed on academic probation. Aer Christmas, he wentback to Cornell to settle down, but he soon became ill. Te illness lingered so long that hismother came to Ithaca so she could go with him to a doctor in New York. He was diag-nosed with a severe sinus inection and scheduled or surgery. Aer the surgery, he spentthree weeks in the hospital, and his mother remained with him. Tis was a turning point


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in his relationship with Isabel.

My mother never le me. She read to me all day and slept in myroom, serving as my night nurse. For the frst time in my lie I becameacquainted with contemporary literature. She was beginning to givepublic readings o the newer poets and fction writers. She read to me

poems by Sandburg, Masters, Lindsay, Millay, Frost, Robinson, Hous-man, Masefeld and Yeats, novels and stories by Conrad, Sinclair Lewis,C.S. Montague, and Ivan Bunin. It opened up a rich and exciting worldo which I had been totally unaware. I couldnt hear enough o it. 147

He had always had a dicult relationship with his mother. His ather had been thenurturer in the amily; while his mother had consistently pushed him to the higheststandard in all things and rarely encouraged him to be emotionally close to her. Duringhis hospital recovery, literature and art became a bond between them that would continue

or the rest o their lives. Aer he was discharged rom the hospital, they headed back toBirmingham. Te doctor advised him to go home. Te warmer environment and rest wasvital to his recovery.

He returned to Cornell in the all o 1922. As he convalesced, he decided that hewas tired o his wild ways and decided to settle down, ocus on his studies, and fnd asteady girlriend. He soon began dating Caroline Brooks, a student at the all-emale WellsCollege in Aurora, New York, which was near Ithaca. She was rom a strict Presbyterianamily that did not smoke or drink, and they quickly became serious. He wrote her lettersevery day, and they had properly chaperoned dates on the weekends. However, he did not

adhere to his resolution perectly. He would on occasion go out with his riends or wineand women. His grades continued to suer. His ather, araid that he was squandering hisopportunity or a good education, sent a warning letter early in the term:

You have got to get a clear record established at Cornell now i youhave any expectation or ambition o pursuing your education hereaer,either there or anywhere else. At the present stage o the game, you aredistinctly on probation as ar as home is concerned. You have it in youto deliver the goods i you will, but in order to do that you have got tounderstand and act on the theory that your work is 1st and everything

else is 2nd. ... I have not the slightest intention o sending you to Cornellor anywhere else just to have a good time. I want you to have a goodtime, as you know, but not now or ever at the expense o your work. 148

No amount o coaxing rom his parents seemed to work; he was 19 years old andextremely stubborn.

By November, John was thinking o asking Caroline to marry him. He wrote to hisather, who advised him to slow down. Leonard warned o the diculty men ace fnish-ing their education and supporting a amily. You are still very young. You have practically

our years o school beore you, even i you orego a post-graduate year. Aer that youhave to establish yoursel in some kind o work that will enable you to support yourseland a wie and possibly a amily.149 Nothing deterred him, however, and while in Birming-ham on spring break, with his parents blessing he bought an engagement ring. He askedCaroline to marry him on Easter 1923. For the rest o the term, she tried to persuade himto attend her Presbyterian church. He reused. She then suggested they both become Epis-copalians, much more palatable to her parents than Catholicism. Again, he reused. He


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was not an active Catholic, but he was not ashamed to be a Catholic. Tey came up with aplan or the summer; he would work in Birmingham and she would come or a visit at theend o the summer to be introduced to his Southern home.

Once school was out, John traveled back home and began working once again in theopen hearth. His ather also agreed to buy him a new car. Aer shopping around, theychose a new Buick Sports Roadster. It was fre engine red with leather upholstery tomatch, ancy disc wheels, a canvas top that olded down and a rumble seat.150 Carolinearrived in Birmingham near the end o the summer and would return to Ithaca with Johnand his parents on a road trip in September. Te visit did not go well. She hated the city,the weather, and the dirtiness o the steel mills. Te relationship was going downhill. Onceback at school, she renewed her attempts to persuade him to change his religious alia-tion. Failing in that, she told him that she could not marry him because he was a Catholic;she returned his engagement ring and his Chi Psi pin.151

He spent some time indulging his hurt eelings by drinking heavily, but fnally madeit through the og with new insight:

I now experienced a revulsion against my whole style o lie. ToughI was attending classes and labs even studying aithully none o itmeant anything to me. I was in a state o inner turmoil, a prey to rageand despair. I wrote my parents saying I could no longer stand Cornell,Ithaca, or the Chi Psi Lodge. I wanted to come home and go back towork on the open hearth. o my amazement, they both agreed with-out demurring. Tey knew I had broken o with Caroline because shedemanded that I turn Episcopalian. Tey had been very proud o me orthis. Perhaps they eared she would change her mind and start thingsup again i I stayed in Ithaca. Tey were quite right in their suspiciono her though they didnt know me. Once done with somebody I stayeddone.152

He wanted to come home immediately, but his ather pushed him to stay and fnishthe term. It will be the manly thing to do and aer it is done, it is done right you will lookto this year as having contributed greatly to the development and strengthening o yourcharacter, Leonard wrote.153 John fnished the term.

His mother arrived in Ithaca by train aer Christmas and together they traveled back

to Birmingham. He said, I began to perceive that she was the best sport in the world,tough-fbred and witty, a delightul companion. Our whole relationship changed. She haddecided to love me aer nineteen years.154 Once back in Birmingham, he worked at theopen hearth again on eight-hour day shis. Te plant had changed throughout the opera-tion rom twelve- to eight-hour shis while he was gone. In addition, he enrolled in theUniversity o Chicago correspondence school and studied liberal arts. His mother workedwith him on his studies every evening much as his ather had when he was young.

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