Alice Browning Papers

Biographical Note

Alice Browning (née Crolley) was born in 1907 at Provident Hospital in Chicago, the first of three children of Liattah Marshall Crolley and Richard A. Crolley. The family was active at St. Mark’s M.E. Church at 50th Street and Wabash Avenue, where Richard Crolley was Sunday School superintendent and a trustee. In an autobiographical sketch, Alice Browning writes that she was married at age 16, presumably to George Franklin (Alice Browning’s teaching certificate gives her name as Alice Franklin). Franklin was a sociologist who would later contribute to the study that became Black Metropolis. The couple had one daughter, Barbara (who married WVON radio disc jockey Lucky Cordell). Alice took courses at Chicago Normal College before earning a B.Phil. from University of Chicago in 1931. While it is not clear how her marriage to George Franklin dissolved, it was at the University of Chicago that Barbara met classmate and fellow philosophy student Charles Patrick Browning. They married in 1936, while Charles was employed as the Illinois state director of the National Youth Administration. Charles would spend the rest of his career at the Chicago Defender, serving as vice president and director of advertising. In 1925, Alice suffered the first of several tragedies when her mother Liattah took her life; her father, Richard, died suddenly in 1938. Charles Browning died in 1954 after being struck in the head with a plane propeller in Little Rock, Ark., while on a visit to the Hot Springs Baptist Bath House, where he had assumed the post of manager.

Alice Browning received her Illinois teaching certificate in 1930 and taught at Forrestville Elementary School in the Chicago Public Schools until she retired in 1973. In 1941, Browning took a sabbatical year to complete course work for an M.A. in English from Columbia University. While there, she wrote her thesis on the African American novel before 1900 with eminent scholar Vernon Loggins. Browning also took courses at Northwestern University and the Social Services Administration at University of Chicago, but she never completed her M.A.

Though she later professed an interest in writing beginning at the age of 7, it was while a student at Columbia that Browning began writing short stories for publication. That year, she sent a story entitled “Tomorrow” to Esquire magazine, only to have it rejected. She had better success with the Pittsburgh Courier with a story called “New Years Eve: 1942.” Nevertheless, Alice’s experience with Esquire inspired her to create an outlet for African American writers to publish their short fiction. Her first attempt appeared in 1942, a journal called N.Y.P.S. (Negro Youth Photo Script). But it wasn’t until 1944 that she would hit upon a success, teaming up with her friend Fern Gayden, a social worker who had been involved with the South Side Writers Group in the late 1930s. With the help of Gayden and Parkway Community House director Horace Cayton, Browning gained permission from Richard Wright to reprint his story “Almos’ a Man,” which had appeared Harper’s Bazaar in January 1940. Borrowing $200 from her husband Charles, Browning launched Negro Story from her home at 4019 Vincennes Avenue.

Negro Story ran from 1944-1946, publishing a total of nine issues featuring nearly every prominent African American writer of the time, including Ralph Ellison, Chester Himes, Langston Hughes, Frank Marshall Davis, Margaret Burroughs, Richard Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Owen Dodson. Browning published one of her own stories in nearly every issue under the pseudonym Richard Bentley. It was around this time that Browning completed the first draft of a novel, Chicago Girl , which she would continue to revise throughout her life.

When Fern Gayden stepped down as co-editor for the December 1944/January 1945 issue, citing her heavy case load, Alice Browning began to pursue ever more ambitious projects under the auspices of the new Negro Story Press. These included a children’s magazine modeled after the Chicago Defender’s “Bud Billiken” page entitled Child’s Play , the sole issue of which appeared in 1945. Lionel Hampton’s Swing Book , a guide to the contemporary music scene, featured biographical sketches and photographs of such key figures as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and, of course, Lionel Hampton. Now extremely rare, it is considered a key text for understanding the influence of black popular music in the 1940s.

In 1953 Browning launched a new publication endeavor, The Browning Letter, which for three years ran feature articles and society gossip. Contributors included Frederick H. Robb (Hammurabi), a Pan-Africanist and famed street corner speaker, actress Louise Pruitt, who wrote a theater column, and novelist Chester Himes. In May 1954 The Browning Letter began including a section called “Zip” to celebrate “Zip girls,” one of whom was Browning’s own daughter Barbara Cordell. In 1963 Browning repackaged Zip as its own monthly magazine.

In 1970, nearing retirement from teaching at Forrestville, Browning met with fellow leaders in the African American community, including Judge Sidney Jones, Roma Jones, Leo Sparks, Marian Stevenson, Ilena Crushon and June Perryman, at the Washington Park Community Fieldhouse to plan the first annual International Black Writers Conference. Over the next decade the conference would grow into a three-day affair attended by such prominent writers as Lerone Bennett, Herman Gilbert, Lu Palmer, Oscar Brown, Jr., Henry Blakely, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sam Greenlee, Alex Haley, Vernon Jarrett, Haki Madhubuti, Dudley Randall, Margaret Walker Alexander and John Oliver Killens. Browning organized the conference until her health began to fail in 1984. She died October 15, 1985 at Crestwood Nursing Home in Chicago.

Sources

Bone, Robert. “Richard Wright and the Chicago Renaissance.” Callaloo. 28 (Summer 1986) 446-468.

Mullen, Bill. Popular Fronts: Chicago and African-American Cultural Politics, 1935-1946. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.

Scope and Content Note

The Alice Browning Papers consist chiefly in manuscripts, serials, pamphlets, photographs and ephemera from throughout Browning’s life, concentrated largely from 1968 to 1985, the years when she was organizing the International Black Writers Conference. The collection has been divided into eight series: Manuscripts , Biographical , Clippings , Organizations , Booklets , Serials , Publicity and Memorabilia , and Photographs and Audiovisual material. A single folder of correspondence, including a six-page letter about housing concerns signed “The Block Clubs of the South Side” and sent to President Jimmy Carter, is filed at the end of the Manuscripts series in Box 2.

The Manuscripts series is divided into manuscripts by Alice Browning and manuscripts by other authors. Included in the manuscripts by Browning are drafts of several short stories, essays, and poetry, as well as a complete draft of her novel Chicago Girl and a typescript draft and mock-up of her cartoon book, “It’s No Fun to Be Black” (the manuscript is titled “It’s No Fun to Be a Negro”). The section of manuscripts by other authors predominantly consists in play scripts by Robert M. Morris, who led sessions on drama at the International Black Writers Conference. Browning’s daughter Barbara Cordell starred in a production of Morris’s play Teacher Night Out. Also included in this section is a manuscript of Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem tribute to Browning, which Brooks read at Browning’s funeral in 1985.

The Biographical series includes a brief autobiographical sketch by Browning, her Chicago teaching and retirement certificates, and obituaries and Browning’s funeral program. It also includes a copy of Charles Browning’s funeral program and materials about George Franklin, Barbara Cordell’s father, and William West Franklin, her uncle.

The Clippings series is divided into clippings by Alice Browning, clippings about Alice Browning, clippings about the International Black Writers’ Conference and other clippings. For other articles by Alice Browning, see Serials.

The Organizations series includes material from Negro Story Press and the International Black Writers Conference. The material relating to Negro Story Press comprises solely a letter from the United States Copyright Office with instructions for applying for the copyright for Lionel Hampton’s Swing Book and publicity materials for Lionel Hampton’s Swing Book. Material for the International Black Writers Conference is organized by year and includes a program for nearly every year of the conference from 1970-1985 and then more sporadically through 1994. The file for the 15th anniversary conference in 1985 is particularly extensive. Some material from other conferences is included at the end of the IBWC subseries.

The Booklets series predominantly comprises poetry chapbooks that Browning collected throughout the 1970s. Most of these are quite rare.

The Serials series includes nearly complete runs of the magazines Browning edited: Negro Story, The Browning Letter, Zip, Black Writers News, and The Black Writer, as well as single issues of Child’s Play and Travel News. Issues of Negro Story are included. Researchers should note the irregular dating and numbering of The Browning Letter and Black Writers News. Browning’s review of Gwendolyn Brooks’s Report from Part One appears in the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History Newsletter; her article “Sciffle Music and the Jazz Era” appears in the single issue of Villager.

Miscellaneous Publicity materials appear to relate to performers contracted for the International Black Writers Conference. Memorabilia includes several award certificates given to Alice Browning. A pair of checks from the Douglas National Bank, Chicago’s first black-owned bank, appear to have been given to Barbara Cordell as souvenirs in return for a donation to St. Mark’s M.E. Church (see the Correspondence in Box 2, Folder 14 for the letter that accompanied the checks).

The majority of the Photographs date from the International Black Writers Conferences of 1974, 1976, and 1978. Figures represented include Gwendolyn Brooks, Sam Greenlee, Vernon Jarrett, Glennette Turner, Haki Madhubuti, and Val Gray Ward. Audiovisual material comprises two VHS tapes of IBWC proceedings in 1985 and 1986.

Container List

Series 1: Manuscripts, cicra 1946-1985

The Manuscripts series is divided into manuscripts by Alice Browning, arranged alphabetically by title, and manuscripts by others, arranged alphabetically by author’s last name.

Series 2: Biographical, 1939-1988

Biographical material relating to Alice Browning is followed by material about Charles Browning, Barbara Cordell’s father George Andrew Franklin, and her uncle William West Franklin.

Series 3: Clippings, 1936-1998

Series 4: Organizations, 1946-1994

Series 5: Booklets, 1946-1985

Series 6: Serials, 1944-1991

Serials are arranged alphabetically by title. Note that issues of The Browning Letter and Zip are in Oversize Box 12.

Series 7: Publicity and Memorabilia, 1959-1983

Series 8: Photographs and Audiovisual, 1953-1990

For audiovisual material, see Oversize Box 12.

Oversize