Cedar Rapids, IA, USA  
Digital Edition Digital Edition
Log in Log In My Account My Account
Subscribe Today
The Gazette The Gazette
The Gazette The Gazette
  • COVID-19
  • News
  • Sports
  • Opinion
  • Food & Drink
  • Business
Digital Edition Digital Edition
Log in Log In My Account My Account
Subscribe
CLOSE
The Gazette
Subscribe
My Account
  • News
    • All News
    • Election 2020
    • Coronavirus
    • Business News
    • Community
    • Crime and Courts
    • Education
    • Government
    • Health
    • Nation and World
    • Time Machine
    • Search Archive

    Our Journalists

    • Rod Boshart
    • Lee Hermiston
    • Erin Jordan
    • James Q. Lynch
    • Trish Mehaffey
    • Vanessa Miller
    • Kat Russell
    • Grace King
    • John Steppe
    • Gage Miskimen
    • Marissa Payne
  • Sports
    • All Sports
    • Iowa Hawkeyes
    • Hawkeye Football
    • Hawkeye Basketball
    • Prep Sports
    • Prep Volleyball
    • Prep Football
    • Prep Basketball
    • Prep Wrestling
    • Iowa State Cyclones
    • UNI Panthers
    • Small College Sports
    • Minor League Sports
    • Outdoors

    Sports Desk

    • Mike Hlas
    • Jeff Johnson
    • Jeff Linder
    • J.R. Ogden
    • K.J. Pilcher
    • Leah Vann
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Editorial Mission
    • Guest Columnists
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Political Cartoons
    • Staff Columnists
    • Staff Editorials
    • Submit a Letter or Column

    Our Columnists

    • Todd Dorman
    • Adam Sullivan
  • Food and Drink
    • All Food and Drink
    • Chew on This
    • Recipes
    • Restaurants
  • Business
    • All Business
    • Agriculture
    • Business Notes
    • Companies
    • Personal Finance
    • Economy
    • Employment
    • Energy
    • Manufacturing
    • Openings & Closures
    • Real Estate
    • Retail
    • Small Business
    • Transportation

    Our Journalists

    • Rod Boshart
    • Erin Jordan
    • John Steppe
  • Obituaries
    • All Obituaries
    • In Memory Of
    • Submit an Obituary
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • Daily News Podcast
    • Fact Checker
    • Hlastradamus Odds
    • Iowa Prep Sports
    • On Iowa
    • On Iowa Politics
    • On UNI
    • Pinning Combination
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • Art
    • Books
    • Museums & Galleries
    • Music
    • Theater
    • Things To Do
  • Living
    • All Living
    • Health & Wellness
    • Home & Garden
    • Milestones
    • People & Places
    • Pets & Animals
    • Recreation
    • Religion & Belief
    • Travel

    Our Writers

    • Diana Nollen
  • Kids Gazette
    • See All
    • Kids Cooking Series
    • Kids Galleries
    • Printables
    • Activities
    • Articles
    • Submissions
    • Resources
  • Photos
    • All Photos and Videos
    • The Iowa Photo
    • Photo Store

    Our Photojournalists

    • Andy Abeyta
    • Liz Martin
    • Rebecca Miller
    • Jim Slosiarek
    • Gazette Visuals
  • Milestones
    • All Milestones
    • Anniversaries
    • Days To Remember
    • Engagements
    • Holidays
    • In Remembrance
    • New Arrivals
    • Thank Yous
    • Submit a Milestone
  • Data
    • Arrests
    • Building Permits
    • Interactive Maps & Charts
    • Salaries
  • Gazette Sites
    • Classifieds
    • Corridor Careers
    • Garage Sales
    • Gazette Gives Back
    • Gazette Rewards
    • Gazette Store
    • Green Gazette
    • HER
    • Iowa Wedding Experience
    • Holiday Light Finder
    • Hoopla
    • Iowa Ideas
    • Photo Store
  • Special Events
  • Special Sections
  • Other
    • About The Gazette
    • Archives
    • Article Removal
    • Business Directory
    • CR Arrest Database
    • Mobile Apps
    • Customer Care
    • Order Back Issues
    • Privacy Policies
    • Puzzle Answers
    • Sponsorship Requests
    • Submit a Letter
    • Weather
Daily News PodcastDaily News Podcast
Daily NewslettersDaily Newsletters
Log out

FOLLOW US

The Gazette
  • News
  • Sports
  • Opinion
  • Food and Drink
  • Business
  • Obituaries
  • Podcasts
  • Entertainment
  • Living
  • Kids Gazette
  • Photos
  • Milestones
  • Data
  • Gazette Sites
  • Special Events
  • Special Sections
  • Other
  • All News
  • Election 2020
  • Coronavirus
  • Business News
  • Community
  • Crime and Courts
  • Education
  • Government
  • Health
  • Nation and World
  • Time Machine
  • Search Archive

Our Journalists

  • Rod Boshart
  • Lee Hermiston
  • Erin Jordan
  • James Q. Lynch
  • Trish Mehaffey
  • Vanessa Miller
  • Kat Russell
  • Grace King
  • John Steppe
  • Gage Miskimen
  • Marissa Payne
  • All Sports
  • Iowa Hawkeyes
  • Hawkeye Football
  • Hawkeye Basketball
  • Prep Sports
  • Prep Volleyball
  • Prep Football
  • Prep Basketball
  • Prep Wrestling
  • Iowa State Cyclones
  • UNI Panthers
  • Small College Sports
  • Minor League Sports
  • Outdoors

Sports Desk

  • Mike Hlas
  • Jeff Johnson
  • Jeff Linder
  • J.R. Ogden
  • K.J. Pilcher
  • Leah Vann
  • All Opinion
  • Editorial Mission
  • Guest Columnists
  • Letters to the Editor
  • Political Cartoons
  • Staff Columnists
  • Staff Editorials
  • Submit a Letter or Column

Our Columnists

  • Todd Dorman
  • Adam Sullivan
  • All Food and Drink
  • Chew on This
  • Recipes
  • Restaurants
  • All Business
  • Agriculture
  • Business Notes
  • Companies
  • Personal Finance
  • Economy
  • Employment
  • Energy
  • Manufacturing
  • Openings & Closures
  • Real Estate
  • Retail
  • Small Business
  • Transportation

Our Journalists

  • Rod Boshart
  • Erin Jordan
  • John Steppe
  • All Obituaries
  • In Memory Of
  • Submit an Obituary
  • All Podcasts
  • Daily News Podcast
  • Fact Checker
  • Hlastradamus Odds
  • Iowa Prep Sports
  • On Iowa
  • On Iowa Politics
  • On UNI
  • Pinning Combination
  • All Entertainment
  • Art
  • Books
  • Museums & Galleries
  • Music
  • Theater
  • Things To Do
  • All Living
  • Health & Wellness
  • Home & Garden
  • Milestones
  • People & Places
  • Pets & Animals
  • Recreation
  • Religion & Belief
  • Travel

Our Writers

  • Diana Nollen
  • See All
  • Kids Cooking Series
  • Kids Galleries
  • Printables
  • Activities
  • Articles
  • Submissions
  • Resources
  • All Photos and Videos
  • The Iowa Photo
  • Photo Store

Our Photojournalists

  • Andy Abeyta
  • Liz Martin
  • Rebecca Miller
  • Jim Slosiarek
  • Gazette Visuals
  • All Milestones
  • Anniversaries
  • Days To Remember
  • Engagements
  • Holidays
  • In Remembrance
  • New Arrivals
  • Thank Yous
  • Submit a Milestone
  • Arrests
  • Building Permits
  • Interactive Maps & Charts
  • Salaries
  • Classifieds
  • Corridor Careers
  • Garage Sales
  • Gazette Gives Back
  • Gazette Rewards
  • Gazette Store
  • Green Gazette
  • HER
  • Iowa Wedding Experience
  • Holiday Light Finder
  • Hoopla
  • Iowa Ideas
  • Photo Store
  • About The Gazette
  • Archives
  • Article Removal
  • Business Directory
  • CR Arrest Database
  • Mobile Apps
  • Customer Care
  • Order Back Issues
  • Privacy Policies
  • Puzzle Answers
  • Sponsorship Requests
  • Submit a Letter
  • Weather
Daily News PodcastDaily News Podcast Daily NewslettersDaily Newsletters
LOG OUT

FOLLOW US

More Stories

Iowa State Patrol trooper killed during standoff

Hari Michele Osofsky is first University of Iowa presidential finalist…

Despite their discomfort, some residents beginning to agree to COVID-19…

CANCELED: Operation Quickfind issued for Marion boy

Iowa OSHA: Anamosa prison didn’t have reliable radios

After border visit, Hinson calls for reinstating Trump policies

Visitor restrictions eased at Cedar Rapids hospitals

Joni Ernst says ‘zero’ chance she will run for president…

Home / Arts & Entertainment / Art

Book explores rarely told African American history rooted in Grinnell

Feb. 27, 2020 8:00 am Updated: Feb. 26, 2020 5:34 pm
Book explores rarely told African American history rooted in GrinnellBook explores rarely told African American history rooted in GrinnellBook explores rarely told African American history rooted in GrinnellBook explores rarely told African American history rooted in Grinnell

In the late 1860s, about a decade after the town was founded, a teenage girl named Emma A. Morgan came from New Orleans to live in Grinnell.

Born in slavery, she lived in a children's home in New Orleans before a prominent Grinnell family brought her to Iowa. She died young, probably from an illness around age 20. After her death, despite having lived with one of the town's settlers and Congregational Church deacons, Stephen Bartlett, she was buried without a grave marker in potter's field, an area normally reserved for strangers and the homeless.

Her story might have been lost to time, unrecorded, if not for a Bible inscribed with her name. When Grinnell historian Daniel Kaiser came across it in the collection of the Grinnell Historical Museum, he was curious to learn more about this young woman and her life. Yet he could find very little about her - or indeed about many of Grinnell's African American families - in the formerly compiled written histories of the town.

'The more I've thought about this, the more persuaded I am that in towns like Grinnell, people of color have been sort of written out of consciousness,” he said.

That's what inspired him to research and write those stories down. He collected what he found in a new book, 'Grinnell Stories: African Americans of Early Grinnell,” published by the Grinnell Historical Museum.

A retired Grinnell College history professor, his career focused on Russian history. After he retired, his interest in local history grew, and he began researching and writing about the town. He joined the board of the Grinnell Historical Museum and became drawn to stories that often were underrepresented in the museum collections of the marginalized parts of the population. He thinks stories of people of color were at times either deliberately left out of the narratives or were simply not regarded as important.

'Museums collect what people want remembered,” he said. 'The more I've thought about it, I think it's more than an accident.”

He pointed to uncomfortable truths, such as that though the town's namesake, Josiah Grinnell, was a staunch abolitionist and the town was a stop on the Underground Railroad, early residents of color did not always find a warm welcome there and often found it hard to find employment.

'I didn't know very much about the town except the heroic narrative the Chambers of Commerce liked to talk about. I'd always assumed there had been an African American presence here and they'd been welcomed here,” Kaiser said. 'But in the very early records of the town, there was some dispute of whether or not African Americans should be here, despite the strong abolitionist sentiments of the founders,” he said.

'After the Civil War, around 1870 to 1880, a large number of black people showed up here, in part I think, because of the abolitionist reputation of the town. There was this tradition of support. But then there seems to be this long absence in the record where you find almost no record of their lives. I just didn't understand how that could be. So I thought it fair to point out that the town claimed many white people who went on to do great things. Here were other people that went on to do great things, and nobody knew about them.”

He was greatly aided in his research by Edith Renfrow Smith, a former Grinnell resident who now is 105 years old and living in Chicago. She was the first African American woman to graduate from Grinnell College in 1937, and in 2019 the college awarded her an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters. In 2015, at age 101, she traveled back to Grinnell and did a recorded interview with Kaiser about her life. One of her sisters, Helen, married Allyn Lemme and lived in Iowa City, where in 1955 she was named 'Woman of the Year” for her civic engagement. Lemme Elementary School was named in her honor when it opened in 1970.

Another aid came when a group of college students stumbled on a collection of papers from the Tibbs family, who first lived in Grinnell in the 1920s. Patriarch Jim Tibbs worked shining shoes. The collection included photos, bank books, documents and more than 100 letters from the Tibbs family.

'That kind of resource is quite rare,” Kaiser said. 'We have a record of what they were thinking.”

Along with these papers, Jim Tibbs' shoe shining chair is part of the Grinnell Historical Museum's collection, as is Morgan's Bible, but Kaiser said he hopes the museum can grow its collection of documents and objects related to African American history. At the end of the book, he has a list of African American people in Grinnell's history that he wasn't able to find much information about.

'I'm hoping these stories and bare bones information will help encourage some more research and we'll learn still more,” he said. 'I'm hoping something like this can happen in a lot of towns. I'd love to see more places where more people can be brought back into the narrative.”

Book Reading

' What: Daniel Kaiser will give a reading and talk, 'Coloring the White History of an Iowa Small Town”

' When: Noon March 11

' Where: State Historical Society of Iowa Research Center, 402 Iowa Ave., Iowa City

' Cost: Free

' More information: 'Grinnell Stories: African Americans of Early Grinnell” is available from the Grinnell Historical Museum, 1125 Broad St., Grinnell; (641) 236-7827, grinnellhistoricalmuseum@gmail.com, and from the Pioneer Bookshop, 933 Main St., Grinnell; (641) 269-3424, for $24.99. Proceeds benefit the Grinnell Historical Museum.

Eva Pearl Craig Renfrow in her wedding dress in 1901. The Craigs and the Renfrows were some of the few black families living in Grinnell at the turn of the century. (John W. Kester, photographer/Courtesy Edith Renfrow Smith)
First-graders at Grinnell's South School, circa 1912. Alice Renfrow is far left, second row. The Renfrows were one of the few black families living in Grinnell at the turn of the century. (Drake Community Library, Local History Archive, McNally photos)
The three daughters of George and Eliza Craig, circa 1900: Anna Katherine Craig (1867-1946), Theodora (Dora) Craig (1864-1949), and Eva Pearl Craig (1875-1962). The Craigs were one of the few black families living in Grinnell at the turn of the century. (Courtesy Edith Renfrow Smith)
Daniel Kaiser Historian, author of 'Grinnell Stories: African Americans of Early Grinnell'
Preview, Daily Report, Small Town

Trending

  • Hawkeyes add 6-foot-11 Riley Mulvey for next season

    Mike Hlas

  • There is a QB competition at Iowa

    Leah Vann

  • Cyclist hit Wednesday in Coralville dies

    Lee Hermiston

  • The night Norm Macdonald mortified the University of Iowa

    Mike Hlas

  • Dylan Nedved shows off his two-way prowess as Iowa baseball…

    Jeff Johnson

Give us feedback

We work hard to provide fair, accurate coverage because we value your trust. If you find an error or omission in our reporting, please tell us here.

Submit a story idea

Do you have a story idea that we should look into? Please tell us here.

Related Stories

Mission Creek streaming online: Tickets on sale for Iowa City…

Mission Creek streaming online: Tickets on sale for Iowa City…

Diana Nollen Art Mar. 28, 2021 11:25 am

Monticello car show revved up and ready to go despite…

Monticello car show revved up and ready to go despite…

Diana Nollen Community Feb. 21, 2021 11:17 pm

Linn Soil and Water Conservation District moves tree sale online…

Linn Soil and Water Conservation District moves tree sale online…

Gage Miskimen Government & Politics Feb. 16, 2021 8:51 pm

Art

Holocaust survivor shares firsthand account of what can happen when…

Holocaust survivor shares firsthand account of what can happen when…

By Erin Owen, correspondent

Art Apr. 2, 2021 9:24 pm

Barn quilts enhance the beauty of the Washington County countryside

Barn quilts enhance the beauty of the Washington County countryside

By Carrie Campbell, for The Gazette

Art Mar. 29, 2021 5:52 pm

Iowa universities presenting livestream with Dan Levy

Iowa universities presenting livestream with Dan Levy

The Gazette

Art Mar. 26, 2021 4:16 pm

Exhibit traces rise of Czech & Slovak museum from idea…

Exhibit traces rise of Czech & Slovak museum from idea…

Diana Nollen

Art Mar. 19, 2021 6:54 pm

Arts & Entertainment

Donors help replace Orchestra Iowa music ruined in derecho

Donors help replace Orchestra Iowa music ruined in derecho

Diana Nollen

Music Apr. 9, 2021 1:27 pm

Iowa posts sports betting record of $161.44M in March

Iowa posts sports betting record of $161.44M in March

Rod Boshart

Government & Politics Apr. 9, 2021 1:31 pm

Mark and Leslie Nolte creating community arts center in former…

Mark and Leslie Nolte creating community arts center in former…

Diana Nollen

Community Apr. 4, 2021 12:09 pm

Who should translate Amanda Gorman’s work?

Who should translate Amanda Gorman’s work?

By Sindya Bhanoo, Washington Post

Books Apr. 2, 2021 6:54 pm

Community

Volunteers needed to deliver and plant trees the weekend of…

Volunteers needed to deliver and plant trees the weekend of…

Community Apr. 9, 2021 3:07 pm

Grant Wood Scenic Byway highlights featured on Northeast Iowa podcast

Grant Wood Scenic Byway highlights featured on Northeast Iowa podcast

Community Apr. 9, 2021 12:39 pm

Donors help replace Orchestra Iowa music ruined in derecho

Donors help replace Orchestra Iowa music ruined in derecho

Diana Nollen

Music Apr. 9, 2021 1:27 pm

Downtown Iowa City launches StoryWalk to promote reading and exercise

Downtown Iowa City launches StoryWalk to promote reading and exercise

Community Apr. 8, 2021 5:12 pm

News

Hari Michele Osofsky is first University of Iowa presidential finalist…

Hari Michele Osofsky is first University of Iowa presidential finalist…

Vanessa Miller

Higher Ed 2h ago

Linn and Johnson outpace state in rate of adults completing…

Linn and Johnson outpace state in rate of adults completing…

John McGlothlen

News Apr. 11, 2021 3:41 pm

Despite their discomfort, some residents beginning to agree to COVID-19…

Despite their discomfort, some residents beginning to agree to COVID-19…

Michaela Ramm

Health Care and Medicine Apr. 11, 2021 12:04 pm

CANCELED: Operation Quickfind issued for Marion boy

CANCELED: Operation Quickfind issued for Marion boy

The Gazette

Crime and Courts Apr. 11, 2021 11:40 am

FOLLOW US

The Gazette is Iowa’s independent, employee-owned source for local, state, and national news coverage.

© 2021 The Gazette

All Rights Reserved.

  • Advertise with us
  • Privacy
  • Web Accessibility

Contact Us

  • 116 3rd St SE
    Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
  • customercare@thegazette.com
  • (319) 398-8333
  • Live Chat

Links

  • Puzzle Answers
  • CR Arrest Database
  • Article Removal Request
  • Archives
  • Green Gazette
  • Corridor Careers Jobs
  • Work at The Gazette
  • Customer Care

© 2021 The Gazette

All Rights Reserved.

  • Advertise with us
  • Privacy
  • Web Accessibility
Folience A Folience Company