Letters

Lone Scout

To the editor:

Responding to last issue's review of my book hone Scout: W.D. Boyce and American Boy Scouting, I will begin by describing this biography as the first documented study of Boyce's life and accomplishments.

Unlike other Progressive-era businessmen, including William Randolph Hearst, with whom the reviewer offers comparisons and who has been the subject of more than a dozen books—until now no one has written more than a pamphlet-length Boyce biography. And although most biographers gain insights by studying archival collections at historical societies and other institutions, no Boyce correspondence has surfaced at any repository, nor is he given more than brief notice in any Chicago history. Even Donald Miller, author of the acclaimed Chicago: City of the Century, has no Boyce references. My research information, therefore, was gained primarily from contemporary newspaper articles, court records, the recollections of a few business associates, and his own publication.

With that explanation, I offer these Boyce perspectives:

In one of his travel books, Boyce commented on white-race superiority—an observation made during the Post-World War I period of race confrontation in America. As historian William Tuttle reported in his book, Race Riot, after the 1919 Chicago riot the stereotypes about black people "continued to be invariably deprecating and hostile." Boyce's opinion mirrored the prejudice of his time.

In 1910, the year Boyce incorporated the Boy Scouts of America, his daughters, reared in privilege, were in their early twenties, traveling in the east and abroad. His motivation for helping young boys reflected the struggles of his own rural youth. Yet as early as the 1890s, he employed female reporters and later hired females in sales positions. And within two years of the BSA, Juliette Gordon Low would organize the Girl Scouts of America.

Boyce's adolescent laborers may have been unsalaried, but they were not unpaid. Every week in newspaper advertisements he explained to the youngsters how much he would pay per copy sold.

Probably no one knew whether Boyce performed a good deed every day. Through his many business enterprises, he provided employment to hundreds of workers as well as to thousands of his youngster sales agents. Perhaps those qualify as good deeds.

As to "what made him tick," Boyce continually demonstrated traits of a hard-working, authoritarian, profit-driven businessman. If someday someone uncovers Boyce correspondence, the reviewer's and others' questions may be answered. Without that primary-source material, however, I believe that attempting to account for or to analyze Boyce's excesses, prejudices, racism, or sexism would be blindly "pinning the tail on the donkey."

Janice Petterchak
Rochester

Katherine Dunham

Dear editor,
I was quite interested in the article "Katherine Dunham, controversial pioneer," by Hope Rajala, which appeared in the July-August, 2003, issue of Illinois Heritage.

As a retired librarian, I have been involved with the development of the Glen Ellyn Historical Society Archives. A Glen Ellyn resident interested in preparing a history of dance in Glen Ellyn recently queried me. I made reference to Katherine Dunham because a local Presbyterian minister/historian had written of the dancer's childhood years in Glen Ellyn, something most residents are neither aware nor appreciative of. In Dunham's autobiography, A Touch of Innocence, Memoirs oj Childhood, (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1959), she makes several references to Glen Ellyn. Shortly after the birth of her older brother, she wrote, the family moved away from Chicago to Glen Ellyn because of the social discrimination and malicious comments they were subjected to in Chicago. A distant relative had settled in Glen Ellyn, a place which seemed "untouched at that time by the economic pressures or racial discrimination or restrictive codes of the city." The family built a house in Glen Ellyn and lived there a short time, until her Mother's death. There are people still living who remember her distant relatives.

Dunham's autobiography doesn't say where she was born. She could have been born in Chicago while her family was living in Glen Ellyn. She does make reference to early childhood recollections (fantasies?) of nine babies in a row in a hospital. That would have been unlikely in Glen Ellyn. Would this have been a story told her early on?

Thank you for presenting the article about Katherine Dunham. It creates so many questions, while supplying some answers. Most communities have many children of special potential, often unrecognized at the time. Local historians can play a role in bringing to light the significance of these individuals and their lives, if too often belatedly.

Lynda Hoornbeek
Glen Ellyn

Editor's Note: In the feature story "Rendezvous with History," printed in the July/August issue of Illinois Heritage, we mistakenly reported the death of Marvin Hilligoss. We are happy to report that Mr. Hilligoss, who for several years played the costumed commandant for reenactments at Fort de Chartres State Historic Site, is still with us in spirit and in flesh. We wish him well.

4 |Illinois Heritage