Jack Breckinridge Tenney (April 1, 1898 – November 4, 1970) was an American politician who was noted for leading anti-communist investigations in California in the 1940s and early 1950s as head of the California Senate Factfinding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities ("Tenney Committee"); earlier, he was a song-composer, best known for " Mexicali Rose ".
129-606: Jack Breckinridge Tenney was born on April 1, 1898, in St. Louis , Missouri and moved to California in 1908. During World War I , he fought with the American Expeditionary Force in France. Upon his return, he married Leda Westrem, a 16 year-old stenographer, and they had a baby while living at 3764 South Main street, Los Angeles . Marital problems ensued when Tenney became a professional musician in 1919, formed
258-487: A WASP category. He was attracted more to the African-American people and neighborhood of Harlem than to his studies, but he continued writing poetry. Harlem was a center of vibrant cultural life. Hughes worked at various odd jobs before serving a brief tenure as a crewman aboard the S.S. Malone in 1923, spending six months traveling to West Africa and Europe. In Europe, Hughes left the S.S. Malone for
387-416: A constitutional amendment to be placed on the state ballot that would give the state legislature authority over the university in matters of loyalty. Tenney's Senate Bill 130 would have forbidden the teaching of un-American subjects in the public schools of California, which would be required to teach "Americanism." The University's representative at the legislature, Controller James H. Corley, who served as
516-586: A segregated America. Many of his lesser-known political writings have been collected in two volumes published by the University of Missouri Press and reflect his attraction to Communism. An example is the poem "A New Song". In 1932, Hughes became part of a group of black people who went to the Soviet Union to make a film depicting the plight of African Americans in the United States. Hughes
645-540: A slave trader of Clark County , who Hughes claimed to be Jewish . Hughes's maternal grandmother, Mary Patterson , was of African-American, French, English and Native American descent. One of the first women to attend Oberlin College , she married Lewis Sheridan Leary , also of mixed-race descent, before her studies. In 1859, Lewis Leary joined John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry in West Virginia, where he
774-739: A "Committee on Intellectual Freedom to Safeguard the Rights of Library Users to Freedom of Inquiry." At the same time, Tenney was appointed the chair of a legislative Fact-Finding Committee on Un American Activities in California, which was charged with investigating "all facts ... rendering the people of the State ... less fit physically, mentally, morally, economically, or socially." The Tenney Committee began to investigate any textbooks associated with suspected subversives, such as Carey McWilliams or Langston Hughes . A multi-volume series of textbooks called
903-585: A Communist or to have Communist sympathies". Those investigated by Tenney's committee included: In 1941, producer Walt Disney took out an ad in Variety , the industry trade magazine, declaring his conviction that "Communist agitation" was behind a cartoonists and animators' strike . According to historians Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund, "In actuality, the strike had resulted from Disney's overbearing paternalism, high-handedness, and insensitivity." Inspired by Disney, California State Senator Tenney, chairman of
1032-761: A Mississippi River expedition led by Laclède, who searched for a location to base the company's fur trading operations. Though Ste. Genevieve was already established as a trading center, he sought a place less prone to flooding. He found an elevated area overlooking the flood plain of the Mississippi River, not far south from its confluence with the Missouri and Illinois rivers. In addition to having an advantageous natural drainage system, there were nearby forested areas to supply timber and grasslands which could easily be converted for agricultural purposes. Laclède declared that this place "might become, hereafter, one of
1161-630: A brief farewell message entitled "el gran poeta de raza negra" ("the great poet of the black race"). Hughes was also involved in other Communist-led organizations such as the John Reed Clubs and the League of Struggle for Negro Rights . He was more of a sympathizer than an active participant. He signed a 1938 statement supporting Joseph Stalin 's purges and joined the American Peace Mobilization in 1940 working to keep
1290-632: A busboy at the Wardman Park Hotel . Hughes's earlier work had been published in magazines and was about to be collected into his first book of poetry when he encountered poet Vachel Lindsay , with whom he shared some poems. Impressed, Lindsay publicized his discovery of a new black poet. The following year, Hughes enrolled in Lincoln University , a historically black university in Chester County, Pennsylvania . He joined
1419-526: A customs house was constructed in the Greek Revival style in 1852, but was demolished and replaced in 1873 by the U.S. Customhouse and Post Office . Because much of the city's commercial and industrial development was centered along the riverfront, many pre-Civil War buildings were demolished during construction of the Gateway Arch. The city's remaining architectural heritage of the era includes
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#17327795780451548-699: A general pessimism about race relations, as well as a sardonic realism. He also became an advisory board member to the (then) newly formed San Francisco Workers' School (later the California Labor School ). In 1935, Hughes received a Guggenheim Fellowship . The same year that Hughes established his theatre troupe in Los Angeles, he realized an ambition related to films by co-writing the screenplay for Way Down South , co-written with Clarence Muse , African-American Hollywood actor and musician. Hughes believed his failure to gain more work in
1677-543: A greater population than New Orleans. Settled by many Southerners in a slave state , the city was split in political sympathies and became polarized during the American Civil War . In 1861, 28 civilians were killed in a clash with Union troops . The war hurt St. Louis economically, due to the Union blockade of river traffic to the south on the Mississippi River. The St. Louis Arsenal constructed ironclads for
1806-477: A hero and an example to be emulated within their own work. One of these young black writers ( Loften Mitchell ) observed of Hughes: Langston set a tone, a standard of brotherhood and friendship and cooperation, for all of us to follow. You never got from him, 'I am the Negro writer,' but only 'I am a Negro writer.' He never stopped thinking about the rest of us. Hughes was drawn to Communism as an alternative to
1935-894: A leader of the Harlem Renaissance . He famously wrote about the period that "the Negro was in vogue", which was later paraphrased as "when Harlem was in vogue." Growing up in a series of Midwestern towns, Hughes became a prolific writer at an early age. He moved to New York City as a young man, where he made his career. He graduated from high school in Cleveland , Ohio, and soon began studies at Columbia University in New York City. Although he dropped out, he gained notice from New York publishers, first in The Crisis magazine and then from book publishers, and became known in
2064-503: A multi-block district of cobblestone streets and brick and cast-iron warehouses called Laclede's Landing . Now popular for its restaurants and nightclubs, the district is located north of Gateway Arch along the riverfront. Other industrial buildings from the era include some portions of the Anheuser-Busch Brewery , which date to the 1860s. St. Louis saw a vast expansion in variety and number of religious buildings during
2193-542: A pan-tribal alliance to counter British control over the region but received little support from the indigenous residents of St. Louis. By 1765, the city began receiving visits from representatives of the British, French, and Spanish governments. St. Louis was transferred to the French First Republic in 1800 (although all of the colonial lands continued to be administered by Spanish officials), then sold by
2322-422: A poem titled Roar, China! which called for China's resistance to the full-scale invasion which Japan had launched less than two months earlier. Hughes used China as a metonym for the "global colour line." According to academic Gao Yunxiang, Hughes's poem was integral to the global circulation of Roar, China! as an artistic theme. In November 1937, Hughes departed Spain for which El Mono Azul published
2451-528: A previous relationship, Virginia Woodward. Tenney died in 1970, aged 72. Tenney also gave the commencement address there that year. St. Louis St. Louis ( / s eɪ n t ˈ l uː ɪ s , s ən t -/ saynt LOO -iss, sənt- ) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri . It is located near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020,
2580-595: A public corridor of 300 feet fronting the river, but later this area was released for private development. For the city's first few years, it was not recognized by any governments. Although the settlement was thought to be under the control of the Spanish government, no one asserted any authority over it, and thus St. Louis had no local government. This vacuum led Laclède to assume civil control, and all problems were disposed in public settings, such as communal meetings. In addition, Laclède granted new settlers lots in town and
2709-522: A racial chauvinist. He found some new writers, among them James Baldwin , lacking in such pride, over-intellectual in their work, and occasionally vulgar. Hughes wanted young black writers to be objective about their race, but not to scorn it or flee it. He understood the main points of the Black Power movement of the 1960s, but believed that some of the younger black writers who supported it were too angry in their work. Hughes's work Panther and
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#17327795780452838-607: A recount of the votes in November, officially did so in March 1877. The 1877 St. Louis general strike caused significant upheaval, in a fight for the eight-hour day and the banning of child labor. Industrial production continued to increase during the late 19th century. Major corporations such as the Anheuser-Busch brewery, Ralston Purina company and Desloge Consolidated Lead Company were established at St. Louis which
2967-476: A sequence about Hughes in the radio series Destination Freedom . In 1943, Hughes began publishing stories about a character he called Jesse B. Semple, often referred to and spelled "Simple", the everyday black man in Harlem who offered musings on topical issues of the day. Although Hughes seldom responded to requests to teach at colleges, in 1947 he taught at Atlanta University . In 1949, he spent three months at
3096-469: A series of Midwestern small towns. His father left the family soon after the boy was born and later divorced Carrie. The senior Hughes traveled to Cuba and then Mexico, seeking to escape the enduring racism in the United States . After the separation, Hughes's mother traveled, seeking employment. Langston was raised mainly in Lawrence, Kansas , by his maternal grandmother, Mary Patterson Langston. Through
3225-535: A similar Levering Act . Tenney ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in 1944, and in 1949, the year he was removed from the chairmanship of his committee, he ran in the Los Angeles mayoral election , placing fifth. The conduct of the hearings, by a later account, "egregiously violated due process", and of the hundreds of people subpoenaed and interrogated in its eight years, not
3354-818: A single one had been indicted, much less convicted, of any sort of subversion. In 1952, Tenney sought to move to the United States House of Representatives , accepting the help of anti-Semite Gerald L. K. Smith of the America First Party . Tenney lost to Joseph F. Holt , who won the general election. Tenney produced a number of antisemitic books, which "stressed invidious interpretations of Talmudic passages", including Anti-Gentile Activity in America , Zion's Fifth Column (1952), Zionist Network (1953), and Zion's Trojan (with an introduction by John O. Beaty ). Tenney ran for Vice President on
3483-495: A symbol of failure in public housing, and was torn down less than two decades after it was built. Since the 1980s, several revitalization efforts have focused on Downtown St. Louis . The urban revitalization projects that started in the 1980s continued into the new century. The city's old garment district , centered on Washington Avenue in the Downtown and Downtown West neighborhoods, experienced major development starting in
3612-574: A temporary stay in Paris. There he met and had a romance with Anne Marie Coussey, a British-educated African from a well-to-do Gold Coast family; they subsequently corresponded, but she eventually married Hugh Wooding , a promising Trinidadian lawyer. Wooding later served as chancellor of the University of the West Indies . During his time in England in the early 1920s, Hughes became part of
3741-550: A toning down of Soviet propaganda on racial segregation in America. Hughes and his fellow Blacks were not informed of the reasons for the cancellation, but he and Koestler worked it out for themselves. Hughes also managed to travel to China, Japan, and Korea before returning to the States. Hughes's poetry was frequently published in the CPUSA newspaper and he was involved in initiatives supported by Communist organizations, such as
3870-879: A water route to the Pacific Ocean, but the party had to go overland in the Upper West. They reached the Pacific Ocean via the Columbia River in summer 1805. They returned, reaching St. Louis on September 23, 1806. Both Lewis and Clark lived in St. Louis after the expedition. Many other explorers, settlers, and trappers (such as Ashley's Hundred ) would later take a similar route to the West. The city elected its first municipal legislators (called trustees) in 1808. Steamboats first arrived in St. Louis in 1817, improving connections with New Orleans and eastern markets. Missouri
3999-567: A year. While at Columbia in 1921, Hughes managed to maintain a B+ grade average. He published poetry in the Columbia Daily Spectator under a pen name. He left in 1922 because of racial prejudice among students and teachers. He was denied a room on campus because he was black. Eventually he settled in Hartley Hall , but he still suffered from racism among his classmates, who seemed hostile to anyone who did not fit into
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4128-611: Is an example of the Polish Cathedral style . Among the other major designs of the period were St. Alphonsus Liguori (known as The Rock Church ) (1867) in the Gothic Revival and Second Presbyterian Church of St. Louis (1900) in Richardsonian Romanesque . By the 1900 census , St. Louis was the fourth largest city in the country. In 1904, the city hosted a world's fair at Forest Park called
4257-401: Is pride in the African-American identity and its diverse culture. "My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind", Hughes is quoted as saying. He confronted racial stereotypes, protested social conditions, and expanded African America's image of itself; a "people's poet" who sought to reeducate both audience and artist by lifting
4386-455: Is the Mississippi River, which separates Missouri from Illinois. The Missouri River forms the northern line of St. Louis County, except for a few areas where the river has changed its course. The Meramec River forms most of its southern line. The urban area of St. Louis has a humid subtropical climate ( Köppen : Cfa ); however, its metropolitan region even to the south may present a hot-summer humid continental climate ( Dfa ), which shows
4515-800: Is the tallest building in St. Louis. During the 1990s, St. Louis saw the construction of the largest United States courthouse by area, the Thomas F. Eagleton United States Courthouse (2000). The Eagleton Courthouse is home to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit . The most recent high-rise buildings in St. Louis include two residential towers: One Hundred in
4644-459: The 1952 Christian National Party ticket headed by Douglas MacArthur . MacArthur had been "drafted" by the CNP (as well as the America First Party ) without his consent, and the CNP ticket gained few votes. In 1954, the head of the state Republican committee pointed to this race as a reason to oppose Tenney for renomination. In an April 1954 debate with Mildred Younger , who was challenging him for
4773-487: The Building America Series , which had been used in classrooms for over a decade, came under the scrutiny of Tenney's Committee. Committee member Richard E. Combs argued that the series put "undue emphasis on slums, discrimination, unfair labor practices, ... and a great many other elements that comprise the seedy side of life." Miriam Matthews wrote an article detailing CLA's work fighting censorship for
4902-460: The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, alongside those of his contemporaries: Zora Neale Hurston , Wallace Thurman , Claude McKay , Countee Cullen , Richard Bruce Nugent , and Aaron Douglas . Except for McKay, they worked together also to create the short-lived magazine Fire!! Devoted to Younger Negro Artists . Hughes and his contemporaries had different goals and aspirations than the black middle class . Hughes and his fellows tried to depict
5031-669: The Illinois Country (also known as Upper Louisiana) were built by the French during the 1690s and early 1700s at Cahokia , Kaskaskia , and Fort de Chartres . Migrants from the French villages on the east side of the Mississippi River , such as Kaskaskia, also founded Ste. Genevieve in the 1730s. In 1764, after France lost the Seven Years' War , Pierre Laclède and his stepson Auguste Chouteau founded what
5160-553: The Louisiana Purchase Exposition . Its architectural legacy is somewhat scattered. Among the fair-related cultural institutions in the park are the St. Louis Art Museum designed by Cass Gilbert , part of the remaining lagoon at the foot of Art Hill, and the Flight Cage at the St. Louis Zoo . The Missouri History Museum was built afterward, with the profit from the fair. But 1904 left other assets to
5289-683: The Missouri History Museum , and Tower Grove Park and the Botanical Gardens. After the Civil War, social and racial discrimination in housing and employment were common in St. Louis. In 1916, during the Jim Crow Era , St. Louis passed a residential segregation ordinance saying that if 75% of the residents of a neighborhood were of a certain race, no one from a different race was allowed to move in. That ordinance
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5418-551: The Missouri River . The Chouteau brothers gained a monopoly from Spain on the fur trade with Santa Fe . French colonists used African slaves as domestic servants and workers in the city. During the negotiations for the 1763 Treaty of Paris , French negotiators agreed to transfer France's colonial territories west of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers to New Spain to compensate for Spanish territorial losses during
5547-673: The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency . Major research universities in Greater St. Louis include Washington University in St. Louis , Saint Louis University , and the University of Missouri–St. Louis . The Washington University Medical Center in the Central West End neighborhood hosts an agglomeration of medical and pharmaceutical institutions , including Barnes-Jewish Hospital . St. Louis has four professional sports teams :
5676-571: The Omega Psi Phi fraternity. After Hughes earned a B.A. degree from Lincoln University in 1929, he returned to New York. Except for travels to the Soviet Union and parts of the Caribbean , he lived in Harlem as his primary home for the remainder of his life. During the 1930s, he became a resident of Westfield, New Jersey for a time, sponsored by his patron Charlotte Osgood Mason . Some academics and biographers believe that Hughes
5805-969: The St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball , the St. Louis Blues of the National Hockey League , St. Louis City SC of Major League Soccer , and the St. Louis BattleHawks of the United Football League . The city's attractions include the 630-foot (192 m) Gateway Arch in Downtown St. Louis , the St. Louis Zoo , the Missouri Botanical Garden , the St. Louis Art Museum , and Bellefontaine Cemetery . [REDACTED] Kingdom of France 1690s–1763 [REDACTED] Kingdom of Spain 1763–1800 [REDACTED] French First Republic 1800–1803 [REDACTED] United States 1803–present The area that became St. Louis
5934-860: The State Senate as a Republican , and served three four-year terms there. Tenney made his name in the State Senate as a foe of Communism , and was chair of the California State Senate Committee on Un-American Activities from 1941 to 1949. He stated, "You can no more coexist with communism than you can coexist with a nest of rattlesnakes." As the chairman of the California Senate Factfinding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities , which investigated alleged communists in California, Tenney "vigorously attacked everyone he believed to be
6063-463: The Union Navy . Slaves worked in many jobs on the waterfront and on the riverboats. Given the city's location close to the free state of Illinois and others, some slaves escaped to freedom. Others, especially women with children, sued in court in freedom suits , and several prominent local attorneys aided slaves in these suits. About half the slaves achieved freedom in hundreds of suits before
6192-526: The United States and Latin-American countries ." Although Tenney claimed he had evidence the riots were "[A]xis-sponsored", no evidence was ever presented to support this claim. Japanese propaganda broadcasts accused the U.S. government of ignoring the brutality of U.S. Marines toward Mexicans. In late 1944, ignoring the findings of the McGucken committee and the unanimous reversal of the convictions by
6321-402: The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools as a visiting lecturer. Between 1942 and 1949, Hughes was a frequent writer and served on the editorial board of Common Ground , a literary magazine focused on cultural pluralism in the United States published by the Common Council for American Unity (CCAU). He wrote novels, short stories, plays, poetry, operas, essays, and works for children. With
6450-469: The city proper had a population of 301,578, while its metropolitan area , which extends into Illinois , had an estimated population of over 2.8 million. It is the largest metropolitan area in Missouri and the second-largest in Illinois. The city's combined statistical area is the 20th-largest in the United States. The land that became St. Louis had been occupied by Native American cultures for thousands of years before European settlement . The city
6579-423: The "New York Suitcase Theater" with playwright Paul Peters, artist Jacob Burck , and writer (soon-to-be underground spy) Whittaker Chambers , an acquaintance from Columbia. In 1932, he was part of a board to produce a Soviet film on "Negro Life" with Malcolm Cowley , Floyd Dell , and Chambers. In 1931, Prentiss Taylor and Langston Hughes created the Golden Stair Press , issuing broadsides and books featuring
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#17327795780456708-593: The "low-life" in their art, that is, the real lives of blacks in the lower social-economic strata. They criticized the divisions and prejudices within the black community based on skin color . Hughes wrote what would be considered their manifesto, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain", published in The Nation in 1926: The younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly, too. The tom-tom cries, and
6837-450: The 1920 census, it was the fourth-largest city in the country. It separated from St. Louis County in 1877, becoming an independent city and limiting its political boundaries. In 1904, it hosted the Louisiana Purchase Exposition , also known as the St. Louis World's Fair, and the Summer Olympics . St. Louis is designated as one of 173 global cities by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network . The GDP of Greater St. Louis
6966-444: The 1970s, leading to a court challenge and interdistrict desegregation agreement. Students have been bused mostly from the city to county school districts to have opportunities for integrated classes, although the city has created magnet schools to attract students. St. Louis, like many Midwestern cities, expanded in the early 20th century due to industrialization, which provided jobs to new generations of immigrants and migrants from
7095-413: The 19th and 20th century, most major cities aggressively annexed surrounding areas as residential development occurred away from the central city; however, St. Louis was unable to do so. Several urban renewal projects were built in the 1950s, as the city worked to replace old and substandard housing. Some of these were poorly designed and resulted in problems. One prominent example, Pruitt–Igoe , became
7224-409: The American Civil War. The printing press of abolitionist Elijah Parish Lovejoy was destroyed for the third time by townsfolk. He was murdered the next year in nearby Alton, Illinois . After the war, St. Louis profited via trade with the West, aided by the 1874 completion of the Eads Bridge , named for its design engineer. Industrial developments on both banks of the river were linked by the bridge,
7353-443: The American Library Association's Library Journal in which she argued that, if successful, the Tenney Committee's legislative efforts would "prohibit instruction in controversial subjects." On June 21, 1943, the State Un-American Activities Committee, under state senator Tenney, arrived in Los Angeles with orders to "determine whether the present Zoot Suit Riots were sponsored by Nazi agencies attempting to spread disunity between
7482-439: The Central West End neighborhood and One Cardinal Way in the Downtown neighborhood. The city is divided into 79 officially-recognized neighborhoods. According to the United States Census Bureau , St. Louis has a total area of 66 square miles (170 km ), of which 62 square miles (160 km ) is land and 4.1 square miles (11 km ) (6.2%) is water. The city is built on bluffs and terraces that rise 100–200 feet above
7611-412: The French to the U.S. in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase . St. Louis became the capital of, and gateway to, the new territory. Shortly after the official transfer of authority was made, the Lewis and Clark Expedition was commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson. The expedition departed from St. Louis in May 1804 along the Missouri River to explore the vast territory. There were hopes of finding
7740-458: The Hungarian author Arthur Koestler , then a Communist who was given permission to travel there. As later noted in Koestler's autobiography, Hughes, together with some forty other Black Americans, had originally been invited to the Soviet Union to produce a Soviet film on "Negro Life", but the Soviets dropped the film idea because of their 1933 success in getting the US to recognize the Soviet Union and establish an embassy in Moscow. This entailed
7869-521: The Lash , posthumously published in 1967, was intended to show solidarity with these writers, but with more skill and devoid of the most virulent anger and racial chauvinism some showed toward whites. Hughes continued to have admirers among the larger younger generation of black writers. He often helped writers by offering advice and introducing them to other influential persons in the literature and publishing communities. This latter group, including Alice Walker , whom Hughes discovered, looked upon Hughes as
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#17327795780457998-409: The Majestic Orchestra and spent 1920 to 1923 playing dance halls and hotels in Calexico and Mexicali . Leda filed for separation on the grounds of desertion and non-support in July 1920, and was awarded custody and support. She was killed in an automobile accident in January 1921. While he was a bandleader and professional musician 1919-1933 in Calexico , California and Mexicali, Mexico, he composed
8127-415: The NFL in 2017, alleging the league breached its own relocation guidelines to profit at the expense of the city. In 2021, the NFL and Rams owner Stan Kroenke agreed to settle out of court with the city for $ 790 million. The architecture of St. Louis exhibits a variety of commercial, residential, and monumental architecture . St. Louis is known for the Gateway Arch , the tallest monument constructed in
8256-461: The Republican nomination for the 38th Senate District (which comprised Los Angeles County ), Tenney denied under direct questioning from Younger that he had any knowledge of Smith, despite his having run as Vice President for Smith's party and appeared on the cover of Smith's The Cross and the Flag the month before the debate. Younger beat Tenney, but lost the general election to the Democratic candidate. The New York Times saw his defeat as part of
8385-412: The South. It reached its peak population of 856,796 at the 1950 census. Suburbanization from the 1950s through the 1990s dramatically reduced the city's population, as did restructuring of industry and loss of jobs. The effects of suburbanization were exacerbated by the small geographical size of St. Louis due to its earlier decision to become an independent city, and it lost much of its tax base. During
8514-510: The U.S. from participating in World War II . Hughes initially did not favor black American involvement in the war because of the persistence of discriminatory U.S. Jim Crow laws and racial segregation and disfranchisement throughout the South. He came to support the war effort and black American participation after deciding that war service would aid their struggle for civil rights at home. The scholar Anthony Pinn has noted that Hughes, together with Lorraine Hansberry and Richard Wright ,
8643-412: The United States at 630 feet (190 m). The Arch pays homage to Thomas Jefferson and St. Louis's position as the gateway to the West. Architectural influences reflected in the area include French Colonial , German , early American , and modern architectural styles. Several examples of religious structures are extant from the pre-Civil War period, and most reflect the common residential styles of
8772-483: The University's chief lobbyist, was alarmed as he felt that Tenney represented a political movement that was bound to succeed. After Corley consulted with Tenney, the loyalty oath program was implemented without recourse to the ballot, apparently without consulting with University chancellor Robert Gordon Sproul . Ironically, Corley overestimated Tenney's power. He was ousted as the chair of the Un-American Activities Committee that year. In 1950, Sproul supported passage of
8901-427: The appeals court in the Sleepy Lagoon case on October 4, the Tenney Committee announced that the National Lawyers Guild was an "effective communist front." Tenney was instrumental in forcing the University of California to implement loyalty oaths on its faculty when he introduced legislation requiring such oaths. In 1949, as the head of the Un-American Activities, Tenney drafted legislation that would introduce
9030-460: The area encountered by early Europeans included the Siouan -speaking Osage people , whose territory extended west, and the Illiniwek . European exploration of the area was first recorded in 1673, when French explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette traveled through the Mississippi River valley. Five years later, La Salle claimed the region for France as part of La Louisiane , also known as Louisiana . The earliest European settlements in
9159-446: The area, and parts of the city are karst in nature. This is particularly true of the area south of downtown, which has numerous sinkholes and caves. Most of the caves in the city have been sealed, but many springs are visible along the riverfront. Coal, brick clay , and millerite ore were once mined in the city. The predominant surface rock, known as St. Louis limestone , is used as dimension stone and rubble for construction. Near
9288-691: The artwork of Prentiss Taylor and the texts of Langston Hughes. In 1932 they issued The Scottsboro Limited based on the trial of the Scottsboro Boys . In 1932, Hughes and Ellen Winter wrote a pageant to Caroline Decker in an attempt to celebrate her work with the striking coal miners of the Harlan County War , but it was never performed. It was judged to be a "long, artificial propaganda vehicle too complicated and too cumbersome to be performed." Maxim Lieber became his literary agent, 1933–1945 and 1949–1950. (Chambers and Lieber worked in
9417-561: The basis of his poetry of racial pride. In 1930, his first novel, Not Without Laughter , won the Harmon Gold Medal for literature. At a time before widespread arts grants, Hughes gained the support of private patrons and he was supported for two years prior to publishing this novel. The protagonist of the story is a boy named Sandy, whose family must deal with a variety of struggles due to their race and class, in addition to relating to one another. In 1931, Hughes helped form
9546-490: The black American oral tradition and drawing from the activist experiences of her generation, Mary Langston instilled in her grandson a lasting sense of racial pride. Imbued by his grandmother with a duty to help his race, Hughes identified with neglected and downtrodden black people all his life, and glorified them in his work. He lived most of his childhood in Lawrence. In his 1940 autobiography The Big Sea , he wrote: "I
9675-576: The black expatriate community . In November 1924, he returned to the U.S. to live with his mother in Washington, D.C. After assorted odd jobs, he gained white-collar employment in 1925 as a personal assistant to historian Carter G. Woodson at the Association for the Study of African American Life and History . As the work demands limited his time for writing, Hughes quit the position to work as
9804-614: The book, Madrid 37 , signed in pencil and annotated as II [Roman numeral two] has appeared on the rare book market. In Chicago, Hughes founded The Skyloft Players in 1941, which sought to nurture black playwrights and offer theatre "from the black perspective." Soon thereafter, he was hired to write a column for the Chicago Defender , in which he presented some of his "most powerful and relevant work", giving voice to black people. The column ran for twenty years. Hughes also mentored writer Richard Durham who would later produce
9933-484: The central corridor has seen major investment starting in the early 2010s. Between 2013 and 2018, over $ 50 million worth of residential construction has been built in the neighborhood. The population of the neighborhood has increased by 19% from the 2010 to 2020 Census. The St. Louis Rams of the National Football League controversially returned to Los Angeles in 2016. The city of St. Louis sued
10062-567: The city hosted the World's Fair and the Olympics , becoming the first non-European city to host the games. The formal name for the 1904 World's Fair was the Louisiana Purchase Exposition . Permanent facilities and structures remaining from the fair are located in Forest Park , and other notable structures within the park's boundaries include the St. Louis Art Museum , the St. Louis Zoo and
10191-434: The city, like Theodore Link 's 1894 St. Louis Union Station , and an improved Forest Park. One US Bank Plaza , the local headquarters for US Bancorp , was constructed in 1976 in the structural expressionist style. Several notable postmodern commercial skyscrapers were built downtown in the 1970s and 1980s, including the former AT&T building at 909 Chestnut Street (1986), and One Metropolitan Square (1989), which
10320-554: The construction of the Gateway Arch to publicize their effort to gain entry for African Americans into the skilled trade unions, where they were underrepresented. The Department of Justice filed the first suit against the unions under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . Between 1900 and 1929, St. Louis, had about 220 automakers, close to 10 percent of all American carmakers, about half of which built cars exclusively in St. Louis. Notable names include Dorris, Gardner and Moon. In
10449-489: The creative community in Harlem. His first poetry collection, The Weary Blues , was published in 1926. Hughes eventually graduated from Lincoln University . In addition to poetry, Hughes wrote plays and published short story collections, novels, and several nonfiction works. From 1942 to 1962, as the civil rights movement gained traction, Hughes wrote an in-depth weekly opinion column in a leading black newspaper, The Chicago Defender . Like many African-Americans, Hughes
10578-834: The drive to free the Scottsboro Boys . Partly as a show of support for the Republican faction during the Spanish Civil War , in 1937 Hughes traveled to Spain as a correspondent for the Baltimore Afro-American and other various African-American newspapers. In August 1937, he broadcast live from Madrid alongside Harry Haywood and Walter Benjamin Garland . When Hughes was in Spain a Spanish Republican cultural magazine, El Mono Azul , featured Spanish translations of his poems. On 29 August 1937, Hughes wrote
10707-511: The early 19th century. The original St. Louis courthouse was built in 1826 and featured a Federal style stone facade with a rounded portico. However, this courthouse was replaced during renovation and expansion of the building in the 1850s. The Old St. Louis County Courthouse (known as the Old Courthouse ) was completed in 1864 and was notable for having a cast iron dome and for being the tallest structure in Missouri until 1894. Finally,
10836-698: The effect of the urban heat island in the city. The city experiences hot, humid summers and chilly to cold winters. It is subject to both cold Arctic air and hot, humid tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico . The average annual temperature recorded at nearby Lambert–St. Louis International Airport , is 57.4 °F (14.1 °C). 100 and 0 °F (38 and −18 °C) temperatures can be seen on an average 3 and 1 days per year, respectively. Precipitation averages 41.70 inches (1,100 mm), but has ranged from 20.59 in (523 mm) in 1953 to 61.24 in (1,555 mm) in 2015. The highest recorded temperature in St. Louis
10965-403: The encouragement of his best friend and writer, Arna Bontemps , and patron and friend, Carl Van Vechten , he wrote two volumes of autobiography, The Big Sea and I Wonder as I Wander , as well as translating several works of literature into English. With Bontemps, Hughes co-edited the 1949 anthology The Poetry of the Negro , described by The New York Times as "a stimulating cross-section of
11094-448: The ending for McCarthyism . Tenney moved to Banning, California , in 1959, and worked as a part-time city attorney in nearby Cabazon, California . He ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1962. In 1921 Tenney married Florence. They had one daughter, Leila. In 1945, Tenney and Florence Tenney were divorced. One of Tenney's daughters is Leila Florence Donegan, a former mayor of Monterey Park , California. Tenney had an older daughter from
11223-542: The finest cities in America". He dispatched his 14-year-old stepson, Auguste Chouteau , to the site, with the support of 30 settlers in February 1764. Laclède arrived at the future town site two months later and produced a plan for St. Louis based on the New Orleans street plan. The default block size was 240 by 300 feet, with just three long avenues running parallel to the west bank of the Mississippi. He established
11352-414: The first part of the century, St. Louis had some of the worst air pollution in the United States . In April 1940, the city banned the use of soft coal mined in nearby states. The city hired inspectors to ensure that only anthracite was burned. By 1946, the city had reduced air pollution by about 75%. De jure educational segregation continued into the 1950s, and de facto segregation continued into
11481-432: The globe to encourage pride in their diverse black folk culture and black aesthetic . Hughes was one of the few prominent black writers to champion racial consciousness as a source of inspiration for black artists. His African-American race consciousness and cultural nationalism would influence many foreign black writers, including Jacques Roumain , Nicolás Guillén , Léopold Sédar Senghor , and Aimé Césaire . Along with
11610-534: The imaginative writing of the Negro" that demonstrates "talent to the point where one questions the necessity (other than for its social evidence) of the specialization of 'Negro' in the title". From the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, Hughes's popularity among the younger generation of black writers varied even as his reputation increased worldwide. With the gradual advance toward racial integration , many black writers considered his writings of black pride and its corresponding subject matter out of date. They considered him
11739-501: The late 1990s as many of the old factory and warehouse buildings were converted into lofts. The American Planning Association designated Washington Avenue as one of 10 Great Streets for 2011. The Cortex Innovation Community , located within the city's Central West End neighborhood, was founded in 2002 and has become a multi-billion dollar economic engine for the region, with companies such as Microsoft and Boeing currently leasing office space. The Forest Park Southeast neighborhood in
11868-545: The late 19th century and early 20th century. The largest and most ornate of these is the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis , designed by Thomas P. Barnett and constructed between 1907 and 1914 in the Neo-Byzantine style. The St. Louis Cathedral, as it is known, has one of the largest mosaic collections in the world. Another landmark in religious architecture of St. Louis is the St. Stanislaus Kostka , which
11997-550: The lucrative movie trade was due to racial discrimination within the industry. In 1937 Hughes wrote the long poem, Madrid , his reaction to an assignment to write about black Americans volunteering in the Spanish Civil War . His poem, accompanied by 9 etchings evoking the pathos of the Spanish Civil War by Canadian artist Dalla Husband , was published in 1939 as a hardcover book Madrid 1937 , printed by Gonzalo Moré, Paris, intended to be an edition of 50. One example of
12126-423: The north, and the grounds of the Gateway Arch, to the south. Today the road deck has been restored, allowing vehicular and pedestrian traffic to cross the river. The St. Louis MetroLink light rail system has used the rail deck since 1993. An estimated 8,500 vehicles pass through it daily. On August 22, 1876, the city of St. Louis voted to secede from St. Louis County and become an independent city, and, following
12255-622: The official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" became Hughes's signature poem and was collected in his first book of poetry, The Weary Blues (1926). Hughes's first and last published poems appeared in The Crisis ; more of his poems were published in The Crisis than in any other journal. Hughes's life and work were enormously influential during
12384-590: The popular "standard" " Mexicali Rose ". In 1922, he wrote the lyrics, putting them under the name "Helen Stone", a singer who put up the money for the first publication, by W.A. Quincke & Co., Los Angeles, on March 10, 1923 ( 1923-03-10 ) . However, Tenney turned his energies towards night law school, and moved back to Los Angeles in 1928. The 1929 sound film Mexicali Rose , starring Barbara Stanwyck , came and went. He reportedly sold his interest in "Mexicali Rose" for two to three thousand dollars to M.M. Cole Company of Chicago. In December 1932 Tenney
12513-538: The respect and support of black churches and organizations and avoid exacerbating his precarious financial situation, Hughes remained closeted . However, Arnold Rampersad , Hughes' primary biographer, concludes that the author was probably asexual and passive in his sexual relationships rather than homosexual, despite noting that he exhibited a preference for African-American men in his work and life, finding them "sexually fascinating". from "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" (1920) ... My soul has grown deep like
12642-644: The rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln — went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy — bosom turn all golden in the sunset. ... —in The Weary Blues (1926) First published in 1921 in The Crisis ,
12771-661: The second in the Midwest over the Mississippi River after the Hennepin Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis. The bridge connects St. Louis, Missouri to East St. Louis, Illinois . The Eads Bridge became a symbolic image of the city of St. Louis, from the time of its erection until 1965 when the Gateway Arch Bridge was constructed. The bridge crosses the St. Louis riverfront between Laclede's Landing, to
12900-550: The southern boundary of the city of St. Louis (separating it from St. Louis County ) is the River des Peres , practically the only river or stream within the city limits that is not entirely underground. Most of River des Peres was confined to a channel or put underground in the 1920s and early 1930s. The lower section of the river was the site of some of the worst flooding of the Great Flood of 1993 . The city's eastern boundary
13029-505: The state legislature's California Senate Factfinding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities , launched an investigation of "Reds in movies". The probe fell flat, and was mocked in several Variety headlines. In 1941, John D. Henderson, President of the California Library Association (CLA), predicted that in the 1940s librarians would experience a "war on books and ideas." In response to this climate, CLA formed
13158-520: The surrounding countryside. In hindsight, many of these original settlers thought of these first few years as "the golden age of St. Louis". In 1763, the Native Americans in the region around St. Louis began expressing dissatisfaction with the victorious British, objecting to their refusal to continue to the French tradition of supplying gifts to Natives. Odawa chieftain Pontiac began forming
13287-442: The theory of the black aesthetic into reality. The night is beautiful, So the faces of my people. The stars are beautiful, So the eyes of my people Beautiful, also, is the sun. Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people. —"My People" in The Crisis (October 1923) Hughes stressed a racial consciousness and cultural nationalism devoid of self-hate. His thought united people of African descent and Africa across
13416-686: The time. Among the earliest is the Basilica of St. Louis, King of France (referred to as the Old Cathedral ). The Basilica was built between 1831 and 1834 in the Federal style. Other religious buildings from the period include SS. Cyril and Methodius Church (1857) in the Romanesque Revival style and Christ Church Cathedral (completed in 1867, designed in 1859) in the Gothic Revival style. A few civic buildings were constructed during
13545-408: The tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain free within ourselves. His poetry and fiction portrayed the lives of the working-class blacks in America, lives he portrayed as full of struggle, joy, laughter, and music. Permeating his work
13674-432: The underground together around 1934–1935.) Hughes's first collection of short stories was published in 1934 with The Ways of White Folks . He finished the book at "Ennesfree" a Carmel-by-the-Sea, California , cottage provided for a year by Noel Sullivan, another patron since 1933. These stories are a series of vignettes revealing the humorous and tragic interactions between whites and blacks. Overall, they are marked by
13803-522: The war. These areas remained under Spanish control until 1803, when they were transferred to the French First Republic . During the American Revolutionary War , St. Louis was unsuccessfully attacked by British-allied Native Americans in the 1780 Battle of St. Louis . The founding of St. Louis was preceded by a trading business between Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent and Pierre Laclède (Liguest) in late 1763. St. Maxent invested in
13932-609: The western banks of the Mississippi River, in the Midwestern United States just south of the Missouri -Mississippi confluence . Much of the area is a fertile and gently rolling prairie that features low hills and broad, shallow valleys. Both the Mississippi River and the Missouri River have cut large valleys with wide flood plains. Limestone and dolomite of the Mississippian epoch underlie
14061-689: The works of Senghor, Césaire, and other French-speaking writers of Africa and of African descent from the Caribbean, such as René Maran from Martinique and Léon Damas from French Guiana in South America, the works of Hughes helped to inspire the Négritude movement in France. A radical black self-examination was emphasized in the face of European colonialism . In addition to his example in social attitudes, Hughes had an important technical influence by his emphasis on folk and jazz rhythms as
14190-499: Was $ 209.9 billion in 2022. St. Louis has a diverse economy with strengths in the service, manufacturing, trade, transportation, and aviation industries. It is home to fifteen Fortune 1000 companies, seven of which are also Fortune 500 companies. Federal agencies headquartered in the city or with significant operations there include the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis , the U.S. Department of Agriculture , and
14319-409: Was 115 °F (46 °C) on July 14, 1954, and the lowest was −22 °F (−30 °C) on January 5, 1884. Langston Hughes James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri . One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry , Hughes is best known as
14448-467: Was a Negro, and I liked Negroes very much." His father had hoped Hughes would choose to study at a university abroad and train for a career in engineering. He was willing to provide financial assistance to his son on these grounds, but did not support his desire to be a writer. Eventually, Hughes and his father came to a compromise: Hughes would study engineering, so long as he could attend Columbia. His tuition provided, Hughes left his father after more than
14577-538: Was a center of the Native American Mississippian culture , which built numerous temple and residential earthwork mounds on both sides of the Mississippi River. Their major regional center was at Cahokia Mounds , active from 900 to 1500. Due to numerous major earthworks within St. Louis boundaries, the city was nicknamed as the "Mound City". These mounds were mostly demolished during the city's development. Historic Native American tribes in
14706-542: Was a victim of a stereotype. There were only two of us Negro kids in the whole class and our English teacher was always stressing the importance of rhythm in poetry. Well, everyone knows, except us, that all Negroes have rhythm, so they elected me as class poet. During high school in Cleveland, Hughes wrote for the school newspaper, edited the yearbook, and began to write his first short stories, poetry, and dramatic plays. His first piece of jazz poetry, "When Sue Wears Red",
14835-477: Was active as an educator and activist for voting and rights for African Americans. His and Mary's daughter Caroline (known as Carrie) became a schoolteacher and married James Nathaniel Hughes (1871–1934). They had two children; the second was Langston Hughes, by most sources born in 1901 in Joplin, Missouri (though Hughes himself claims in his autobiography to have been born in 1902). Langston Hughes grew up in
14964-423: Was admitted as a state in 1821. St. Louis was incorporated as a city in 1822, and continued to develop largely due to its busy port and trade connections. Immigrants from Ireland and Germany arrived in St. Louis in significant numbers starting in the 1840s, and the population of St. Louis grew from less than 20,000 inhabitants in 1840, to 77,860 in 1850, to more than 160,000 by 1860. By the mid-1800s, St. Louis had
15093-589: Was also home to several brass era automobile companies, including the Success Automobile Manufacturing Company ; St. Louis is the site of the Wainwright Building , a skyscraper designed in 1892 by architect Louis Sullivan . In 1900, the entire streetcar system was shut down by a several months-long strike , with significant unrest occurring in the city & violence against the striking workers. In 1904,
15222-544: Was an adolescent. The family moved to the Fairfax neighborhood of Cleveland , Ohio , where he attended Central High School and was taught by Helen Maria Chesnutt , whom he found inspiring. His writing experiments began when he was young. While in grammar school in Lincoln, Hughes was elected class poet. He stated that in retrospect he thought it was because of the stereotype about African Americans having rhythm. I
15351-795: Was elected to the lucrative post of president of Local 47 of the American Federation of Musicians . In 1935, he passed the California State Bar examination and became successful in practice. He went on to be elected to the California State Assembly and Senate on multiple occasions. Tenney ran for the California State Assembly as a Democrat in 1936 and won. In 1940, he also served as one of California's electors, casting his vote for Franklin D. Roosevelt . In 1942, Tenney ran for
15480-570: Was fatally wounded. Ten years later, in 1869, the widow Mary Patterson Leary married again, into the elite, politically active Langston family. Her second husband was Charles Henry Langston , of African-American, Euro-American and Native American ancestry. He and his younger brother, John Mercer Langston , worked for the abolitionist cause and helped lead the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society in 1858. After their marriage, Charles Langston moved with his family to Kansas, where he
15609-525: Was founded by B. F. Bowles in St. Louis, and at the time no other college in St. Louis County admitted black students. In the first half of the 20th century, St. Louis was a destination in the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South seeking better opportunities. During World War II , the NAACP campaigned to integrate war factories. In 1964, civil rights activists protested at
15738-578: Was founded on February 14, 1764, by French fur traders Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent , Pierre Laclède , and Auguste Chouteau . They named it for King Louis IX of France , and it quickly became the regional center of the French Illinois Country . In 1804, the United States acquired St. Louis as part of the Louisiana Purchase . In the 19th century, St. Louis developed as a major port on the Mississippi River; from 1870 until
15867-704: Was hired to write the English dialogue for the film. The film was never made, but Hughes was given the opportunity to travel extensively through the Soviet Union and to the Soviet-controlled regions in Central Asia, the latter parts usually closed to Westerners. While there, he met Robert Robinson , an African American living in Moscow and unable to leave. In Turkmenistan , Hughes met and befriended
15996-648: Was homosexual and included homosexual codes in many of his poems, as did Walt Whitman , who, Hughes said, influenced his poetry. Hughes's story "Blessed Assurance" deals with a father's anger over his son's effeminacy and "queerness". Additionally, Sandra L. West, author of the Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance , contends that his homosexual love of black men is evidenced in a number of reported unpublished poems to an alleged black male lover. The biographer Aldrich argues that, in order to retain
16125-464: Was of mixed ancestry. Both of Hughes's paternal great-grandmothers were enslaved Africans, and both of his paternal great-grandfathers were white slave owners in Kentucky. According to Hughes, one of these men was Sam Clay, a Scottish-American whiskey distiller of Henry County , said to be a relative of statesman Henry Clay . The other putative paternal ancestor whom Hughes named was Silas Cushenberry,
16254-518: Was struck down in a court challenge, by the NAACP, after which racial covenants were used to prevent the sale of houses in certain neighborhoods to "persons not of Caucasian race". Again, St. Louisans offered a lawsuit in challenge, and such covenants were ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1948 in Shelley v. Kraemer . In 1926, Douglass University , a historically black university
16383-526: Was to become the city of St. Louis. (French lands east of the Mississippi had been ceded to Great Britain and the lands west of the Mississippi to Spain; Catholic France and Spain were 18th-century allies. Louis XV of France and Charles III of Spain were cousins, both from the House of Bourbon. ) The French families built the city's economy on the fur trade with the Osage, and with more distant tribes along
16512-634: Was unhappy for a long time, and very lonesome, living with my grandmother. Then it was that books began to happen to me, and I began to believe in nothing but books and the wonderful world in books—where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas." After the death of his grandmother, Hughes went to live with family friends, James and Auntie Mary Reed, for two years. Later, Hughes lived again with his mother Carrie in Lincoln, Illinois . She had remarried when he
16641-626: Was written while he was in high school. Hughes had a very poor relationship with his father, whom he seldom saw when a child. He lived briefly with his father in Mexico in 1919. Upon graduating from high school in June 1920, Hughes returned to Mexico to live with his father, hoping to convince him to support his plan to attend Columbia University . Hughes later said that, prior to arriving in Mexico, "I had been thinking about my father and his strange dislike of his own people. I didn't understand it, because I
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