Hide Article Text (OCR)
inhistoryThe Iowa Federation Home is seen Feb. 14 on Iowa Avenue in Iowa City. In 1919, a group of black women students worked with the Iowa Federation of Colored Women's Clubs to purchase the home and use it as an off-campus dorm. The home is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its role in housing African American students. (Rebecca F. Miller/The Gazette)Two Iowa City homes tied to African American history added to National Register of Historic PlacesBy Alison Gowans, The GazetteTwo pieces of Iowa City history have received national recognition after a three-year process of studying their history.The Tate Arms, 914 S. Dubuque St., and the Iowa Federation Home, 942 Iowa Ave., two buildings that housed black students at the University of Iowa at a time when they were barred from campus housing, are now on the National Register of Historic Places.The designation is the culmination of a nominating process that started in 2017, when the National Park Service awarded a $16,000 grant to the city to develop educational materials on the homes and prepare nominating forms for the national register.Richard Carlson, an architectural historian in the Office of the State Archaeologist, prepared the two nominations.His work included compiling a list of all known references to African American students at the University of Iowa from 1910 to 1926 as well as all African Americans he could find in census records and directories from the 1910s to the 1950s. He used that data to demonstrate the importance of the two buildings, which offered black students a place to stay at a time when they faced massive housing discrimination.“It was well over 1,000 hours of work, but worth it,” he said. “African American history is not as well known as it should be, and so this is helping to uncover that history.”He used the lists to create maps of where African American students and residents of the city lived. What he found was that most black-headed homes and rentals were clustered almost exclusively in one area of the town, especially after 1925. That area was the 1st Ward, which on a modern map was south of East Washington Street to Highway 6 and roughly bounded to the east and west by South Gilbert Street and the Iowa River.“It’s a graphic representation of how segregated housing became. In 1925 to 1940 there were a lot more blackheaded houses, and they were a lot more concentrated in the 1st Ward. By 1930,85 percent of all black-headed households were located in the 1st WareThe Tate Arms home, 914 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City, is seen Feb. 14. Elizabeth and Junious Tate owned the home and rented out rooms to black students who were not allowed to live on campus. The home is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places for their role in housing African American students when options were scarce. (Rebecca F. Miller/The Gazette)^ i i * c, £b ^ 5 £Residents who lived in the Iowa Federation Home at 942 Iowa Ave., Iowa City, are shown from the mid-1920s. (From the scrapbook of Altheda Beatrice Moore, the University of Iowa Libraries’ African American Women in Iowa Digital Collection)That is likely due to a combination of more black residents and the same white supremacist attitude that existed around the nation,” Carlson said.He said more research into the mechanisms behind thatsegregation needs to be done before drawing firm conclusions, but they fit a pattern found across the country.“Iowa City was not big enough to have official homeowner loan association redlin ing maps. But I’m convinced,I’m certain, that there were a number of factors in the community that meant that if you were going to have a house with African American tenants, or even owners, they’d be much more likely, for various reasons, to be in the 1stLEARN MORE• What: Presentation on Tate Arms and Iowa Federation Flome with Iowa City Historic Preservationist Jessica Bristow• When: Noon Feb. 25• Where: Iowa City Public Library, Meeting Room A, 123 S. Linn St., Iowa City• More information: Read about the homes online at icgov.org/ project/ preserving-black-history-i owa-city-tate-a rms-a nd-i owa-federation-homeWard/’ he said.The maps help illustrate how difficult finding housing was for black students, Carlson said, especially since they were kept out of the dorms available to white students.Tate Arms was probably the only house built in Iowa City specifically as a rooming house for African Americans, Carlson said. “The builder saw a need for rooming houses when white landlords were not willing to rent to black tenants. Without these handful of landlords, there would be very few African American people► HOMES, PAGE 8B
Newspaper Details
Cedar Rapids Gazette
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, US
Sat, Feb 22, 2020
Page 19
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 15 Apr 2022
Other Publications Near Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Cedar Rapids Gazette
Cedar Rapids Republican and Times
Cedar Rapids Republican
Cedar Rapids New Cosmos
Cedar Rapids Cosmos
