Elizabite: The Story of the Book - Part VI

McCain Library and Archives
University of Southern Mississippi

           Harper and Row reissued H. A. Rey’s Elizabite in the fall of 1962. The copyright date on the book’s verso remained 1942. There was no mention of a second edition, nor that the book had been revised, yet a major editorial change had been made from the 1942 version. An examination of Rey’s original color separations for the 1942 book tells the story. For the new edition, Rey carefully cut out the head of Mary, the black maid, from the pages where she appeared in the 1942 book, and on each taped patch he painted a Caucasian woman’s face. Her striped stockings and black arms were also erased, painted over in peachy/white tones.

McCain Library and Archives
University of Southern Mississippi

 

McCain Library and Archives
University of Southern Mississippi

          Rey's decision to change the maid Mary's race in the 1962 revision is explained in a letter he wrote to Ursula Nordstrom in 1973. "Remember when we changed Mary, the maid from colored to white to avoid the opprobrium of racism?” he wrote. “Well the other day a bright Radcliff girl was looking at the book and I told her that story and she said,   ‘Now with women’s lib[eration], won’t you want to have a butler or a man-servant instead of a maid cleaning up?”
       Rey closed the letter with a drawing of a butler and a rhyme. “The butler Jeeves comes with a broom to tidy up the messy room.”

 “Elizabite: The Story of the Book” is based on “From Elizabite to Spotty: The Reys, Race and Consciousness Raising,” an essay published in the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, Vol. 35, #4, Winter 2012.

Elizabite: The Story of the Book - Part V

 

          Call Me Charley (Harper, 1945), author Jesse Jackson’s first young adult novel, is dedicated to Hans and Margret Rey. As Leonard Marcus notes in Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom, Jackson had met the couple at a Bread Loaf writer’s conference in the early 1940s. Jackson’s work drew the praise of Wallace Stegner, who advised him to stop by Harper and Brothers on his way home and show his work to Ursula Nordstrom, editor of the juvenile department.          

           Jackson's initial efforts did not meet with approval, however. Upon hearing Nordstrom's doubts about Jackson's ability to produce a publishable book, the Reys became his mentors. Hans provided his studio for Jackson to use, while Margret coached him on writing. 

 

Hans, Jesse Jackson, Margret and Charcoal on 5th Avenue

Curious George Takes a Job

Houghton Mifflin, 1947



          No doubt Jackson told the couple about why he was writing the book and of his experience as a juvenile probation officer in 1936 when three young black boys, fourteen to sixteen years old “had been sentenced to life terms in the Ohio State Penitentiary for robbing a restaurant and killing the owner for five dollars.” As he interviewed the young men, Jackson learned that they had dropped out of school “because they were too embarrassed to tell their teachers they couldn’t read.” 
 

Harper & Brothers, 1945

            During the early months of 1945 Margret too was working on a book about a spotted bunny who also suffered discrimination for being different. Spotty was not the first book published by Margret with her own byline; Pretzel had been issued in 1944. It was, however, with the exception of Curious George Goes to the Hospital (Houghton Mifflin, 1966) the only book the Reys created with a purpose in mind. Hans spoke of this in a 1959 newspaper article when he reflected that Spotty’s “ordeals teach a subtle lesson in mutual tolerance.” In November 1947 Spotty was selected along with Jackson’s second book, Anchor Man, to be included in the 1948 Children’s Reading for Democracy List sponsored by the American Brotherhood of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith included Spotty in its bibliography of recommended books well into the 1950s.

“Elizabite: The Story of the Book” is based on “From Elizabite to Spotty: The Reys, Race and Consciousness Raising,” an essay published in the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, Vol. 35, #4, Winter 2012.

           

Elizabite: The Story of the Book - Part IV



The Carnivorous Plant (~1939)
McCain Library and Archives
University of Southern Mississippi

          Ursula Nordstrom wasted no time in signing a contract with Hans Rey for Elizabite: The Adventures of a Carnivorous Plant and by the first of August, Rey was busy preparing his manuscript.  One character in the book that had not been changed from the Portuguese version to the British version was the maid. In both of these versions she was depicted as a tall, attractive brunette wearing a blue dress and apron—a character who could have been easily mistaken for the botanist’s wife.

         The maid in the Harper edition was strikingly different, redrawn as a heavy-set, thick-lipped black servant wearing a blue bandana and buffoonish red and white striped hose. There are no clues as to why Rey made

Color separation for Elizabite (1942)
McCain Library and Archives
University of Southern Mississippi

 this change. Perhaps he sought to redraw the maid to mirror the stereotyped images of African Americans commonly published in books, newspapers, and the mainstream magazines of the day—images that reflected the Jim Crow humor many Americans were accustomed to seeing.  Perhaps he had observed domestic servants in New York who dressed in a similar fashion.  In any case, both Rey and his editor Ursula Nordstrom felt the characterization to be appropriate.          

          Criteria for evaluating books "by and about the Negro suitable for children" had been developed as early as 1938 by Augusta Baker, a librarian at the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library. However, only a handful of books by mainstream trade publishers before 1940 met the standards outlined by Baker. 

Charlemae Hill Rollins
McCain Library and Archives
University of Southern Mississippi

In 1941, Charlemae Hill Rollins, head of the children’s room at the South Side Branch of the Chicago Public Library, wrote We Build Together: A Reader’s Guide to Negro Life and Literature for Elementary and High School Use, published by the National Council of Teachers of English. Rollins maintained that the continued use of stereotyped images in children books was due to authors and editors who were “either unaware of the danger or writing to satisfy a popular demand for humorous books, which amuse white children, but present the Negro in a false light, thus ridiculing him.” This criticism could have certainly been made of Elizabite. However, it was received by reviewers and most librarians at the time as “sheer nonsense” (Kirkus Review) and “a bright spot of hilarity in a darkened world” (New York Times)

            Little more than two years later, Hans Rey would encounter a man who would raise his awareness of racist images and the hurt they can cause. Their friendship would ultimately change both their lives and impact the world of children’s literature as well.

            “Elizabite: The Story of the Book” is based on “From Elizabite to Spotty: The Reys, Race and Consciousness Raising,” an essay published in the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, Vol. 35, #4, Winter 2012.