On August 22, 1897, Paul Laurence Dunbar spent the day with his friend Sallie Brown in her New York City apartment. He described his productivity in a letter to his fiancée Alice Ruth Moore in West Medford, Massachusetts.
Dear Sallie is an inspiration and makes me work, so while I do not usually do such things on Sunday, I did a big day's work: wrote a poem and an article on that Boston Hemmings girl affair. Monday morning I got up, copied the article and two poems on my typewriter, went down town and sold them all – poem to Bookman, poem to Century (a little question about this) and the article to the N.Y. Tribune. Then I went home and copied a chapter of my novel.
Paul Laurence Dunbar to Alice Ruth Moore, August 23, 1897. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 5).
Paul's letter refers to Anita Florence Hemmings, a light-skinned African American woman who enrolled at Vassar College. She passed for white until her true race was discovered shortly before graduation. Hemmings was an outstanding student, so she was awarded her diploma in 1897, although Vassar did not officially accept people of color until 1940.
A negro girl was among the class graduated from Vassar college in June last. The young woman, it is asserted, came from Boston. It is explained that the young woman was thought by her classmates and the faculty to be a dark brunette. The only member of this year's class from Boston was Anita Florence Hemmings.
"A Dark Brunette." The Denver Evening Post (Denver, Colorado). August 16, 1897. Page 1.
Paul's essay in the New York Tribune mocked the absurdity of the whole affair. He questioned why there was any hesitation to award Hemmings with a degree, since she had completed the same requirements as others in her class.
Enormous papers of the metropolis, exponents of the opinions of a cosmopolitan city, came out with glaring headlines above sensational columns. And all because a colored young woman, too fair to be recognized as one with African blood, had graduated from Vassar! Well, what of it? What a theme to raise a tempest about! What a reason for dragging a refined woman into unpleasant notoriety! Had she hurt Vassar or her schoolmates? Did her dark blood have any virus in it which could inoculate those who came into contact with her? Would anybody but an American teeming with narrowness and prejudice have thought twice about the matter? Would a Frenchman, an Englishman or a German have said, as has been said in this case, that "she was graciously permitted as a favor to take equal rank with the members of her class"? Graciously permitted to do what was her right! Graciously fiddlesticks! Any other action would have been outrage. "The president himself advised that at so late a day no official action be taken to prevent the girl from graduating with her classmates." Official action! What for? One would think that some crime had been committed. It is too disgraceful. It seems that common decency would have prevented the exposition of such blind narrowness. What an evidence of breadth it is in a great institution of learning to even think of taking "official action" because a pupil who had filled all the requirements of the school, who had been universally respected and loved, was found to have mixed blood. It is utterly childish.
"Treatment of the Negro," by Paul Laurence Dunbar. New York Tribune Illustrated Supplement (New York, New York). August 29, 1897. Page 6.
After leaving Vassar, Hemmings began working at the Boston Public Library. Alice had lived in the Boston area and was acquainted with Hemmings, who spoke highly of Alice's romance with Paul.
You remember Anita Hemmings, the Vassar girl about whom there was such a kick-up? Well, we are good friends, you know. She is in the Library here. Speaking of literature generally the other day, she clasped her hands and exclaimed rapturously, "Oh, how idyllic it must be to be beloved by a genius!" I assured her that it was worse than idyllic, it was too idyllic. (Now this last was only slang pure and simple).
Alice Ruth Moore to Paul Laurence Dunbar, December 31, 1897. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
Two years later, Paul wrote the book for a musical comedy called Uncle Eph's Christmas that was produced at Boston's Music Hall. The show includes a Black character named Parthenia Jenkins who attends a white college. The title character, Uncle Eph, describes her in exaggerated dialect.
Did you ever hear about Parthenia, about de time she went to skollege? She made up her mind to make her exit in to skollege and git an ejimuncation. Well she gits up and makes her debut into dis here Vaseline skollege. Dis Gassar's skollege, dat's what I mean. White folks don't ax her whether she black or ha, ha, ha. So she goes to dis here Gasoline skollege and gets an ejimuncation herself and de final cousemquences is dat she gradumungates at de head of her class and de white folk dey don't know she's a brudenette case she looks jest like dem, so dey's tickled to death when she come out of dis Glycerine skollege.
Excerpt from Uncle Eph's Christmas, by Paul Laurence Dunbar. Published in In His Own Voice, edited by Herbert Woodward Martin and Ronald Primeau. Ohio University Press (Athens, Ohio). 2002. Page 121.
Performances at Boston Music Hall yesterday were witnessed by impressively large audiences. "Uncle Eph's Christmas," book and lyrics by Dunbar, seems again to be the hit of an excellent bill of entertainment. The music of its comedy is as clear as a bell and the dancing is very spirited. Ernest Hogan has done splendidly by the incidental songs, and shows his versatility by depicting two separate characterizations, while Abbie Mitchell, "just from Vassar," has the most charming airs and graces in the world.
"Boston Music Hall." Boston Herald (Boston, Massachusetts). January 1, 1900.
Paul again wrote about Hemmings in another musical called Jes Lak White Fo'ks. In the show, a young Black woman named Mandy sings about how she graduated from Vassar.
Have you heard the latest news they tell?
It's startling all the nation.
If you haven't heard the news, ah well,
Just listen to my song.
There once was a school that was so very rare.
That a poor dusky maid couldn't breathe its very air.
You couldn't enter unless you were a millionaire.
To be ought but a blue blood or swell you didn't dare.
I am the first dark belle who ever went to Vassar.
I played my part so well, I came from Madagascar.
They thought I was a swell and the boys they did adore
And if I gave a smile, they quickly asked for more.
They sent bouquets galore to the elegant brunette.
I've got a stocking store of their billet deux.
They did not know sufficient to come in from out the wet.
And now they're sore, they're sore you bet.
They had never seen my dark papa
And I didn't have to show him.
Till I bade the others all ta! ta!
Then I didn't mind at all.
Oh the papers howled and said it was a shame.
And they really thought that I was to blame.
They thought that I had played an awful game.
Tho' they had to own that I got there just the same.
Excerpt from Jes Lak White Fo'ks, by Paul Laurence Dunbar. Published in In His Own Voice, edited by Herbert Woodward Martin and Ronald Primeau. Ohio University Press (Athens, Ohio). 2002. Pages 121.