Black Mountain: An Exploration in Community

by Martin Duberman

With faculty and alumni that included John Cage, Robert Creeley, Merce Cunningham, Buckminster Fuller, Charles Olson, Josef and Anni Albers, Paul Goodman, and Robert Rauschenberg, Black Mountain College ranked among the most important artistic and intellectual communities of the twentieth century. In his groundbreaking history, Martin Duberman uses interviews, anecdotes, and research to depict the relationships that made Black Mountain College what it was. Black Mountain documents the college’s twenty-three-year tenure, from its most brilliant moments of self-reinvention to its lowest moments of petty infighting. It records the financial difficulties that beleaguered the community throughout its existence and the determination it took to keep the college in operation. Duberman creates a nuanced portrait of this community so essential to the development of American arts and counterculture.

Genres: History, Art, Education, Nonfiction, Poetry, Theory, Art Design

616 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Martin Bauml Duberman is a scholar and playwright. He graduated from Yale in 1952 and earned a Ph.D. in American history from Harvard in 1957. Duberman left his tenured position at Princeton University in 1971 to become Distinguished Professor of History at Lehman College in New York City.

Reviews

[Troy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing history of a group of people who tried and succeeded to make a new form of college ... for awhile. In the process, they irrevocably changed the U.S. Not just the U.S. art scene, but the U.S. (Or so says me.)

What is important is NOT the list of illustrious names that passed through and were transformed by Black Mountain College (BMC) (and that list of names is amazing, including Anni and Joseph Albers, Robert Rauschenberg, Franz Klein, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Buckminster Fuller, Paul Goodman, Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, on and on and on...). But fuck that. That is what I used to know about BMC. That is, that BMC was one of the amazing secret engines driving the 20th c. artistic scene. I thought BMC lasted for a few years and burned out, leaving behind endless impressions on poetry, plastic arts, lit, design, etc. But that's not the case. BMC started in 1933, before WWII, and ended in 1956, right before the flowering of the forces it had initiated. And although they didn't change education, life, or colleges in any large scale way, they did have an effect. They were trying to remake how colleges operate, how communities operate, how education operates, how art operates.

What I didn't know is that they were completely progressive. In the '30s they were not arguing about if they should admit black students, but if admitting black students would result in violent reactions by the local community (BMC was in N. Carolina, so their fears were legit). They made the wrong choice, which is to not allow an open racial policy, but their decision, while cowardly, is still cool, since they all thought it was the right thing to do.

And the conflicts! Oh shit, the conflicts... As someone who has tried and failed with many collective endeavors, the endless conflicts, and the endless detailing of conflicts in the book, struck hate and sorrow in my heart. It's books like this that both make me want to run out and start something new; to start an alternative college (because fuck it, I complain enough about contemporary academia; isn't it time to try to build something new instead of constantly complaining?) and also makes me want to give up on collectivity altogether, or at least admit that no one knows how to do it yet, and that it might be decades before we figure it out, and hey, just maybe, some people are right and we can't have any real collectives until we loosen the grip of capitalism (not that I believe that; I mean, hell, I still don't know what people mean when they say "capitalism" anyway).

But damn. I dare you to read this and not be changed. Yeah, the author's technique of constantly inserting himself is now dated and often annoying, but at the same time, it often nails the naive forthrightness that BMC themselves were trying to get at. And although, right now, I'm annoyed (or even, honestly, filled with hate) at all the collective projects I've been part of (including Occupy) it's a testament to this book and to the author that I want to go out and start yet another potentially destructive collective endeavor, and really delve into the ones that I'm ostensibly part of. Despite the incessant detail; despite the minutiae; despite the endless transcriptions of petty fights, this book is enthralling and intoxicating.

Then again, I keep starting collective projects, so maybe it just speaks to me.

[Eliot Cohen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, and Black Mountain College, has been with me for years. Since (at least) the end of my time in that immersive, isolated yeshiva on a mountain, through to setting up of campaigning movement alongside the heavy exhaustion of law school, onwards to the tumultuous collision of the pandemic and the legal training, this hardy, hopeful, messy, catty place in North Carolina accompanied me. I am sad for the end of its book, the closure of the college, the distance with educating and learning that I feel now 7 years on from when I first entered Lee Hall. Perhaps one day….

[Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A meticulous, yet uneven history of BMC. Obviously I’m more interested in the latter rather than former years (the book is much more detailed about the early years) but I did get lots of background… A bit gossipy with certain details, but its investigations into ‘community’ have this quality of longing and despair. The story kind of eulogizes its origins as they are unfolding, so that even 50, 100, 200, 300 pages into it, you feel the impending doom of the experimental space vs the serious miracle that it lasted even 6 months.

[Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Black Mountain College is one of those few-and-far-between topics that, despite its tremendous importance, isn't easily researched in depth with google and wikipedia. This makes this book truly and deeply valuable, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in radical education, art, or intentional community building in America - especially people interested in alternatives to "art colonies".

[ManuFactured Artists · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is by far the most comprehensive and well-balanced of the books I've read on the origins and history of Black Mountain College, a small progressive college founded in 1933 near the North Carolina community of Black Mountain. This college existed for little more than twenty years, yet arguably had more influence on avant-garde art and literature than any other American institution.

The real beauty of this edition is Martin Dubberman's focus on the college's role as an experimental educational community, reporting the precise circumstances and details (of conversations even) of its founding, as well as the community's ongoing self-assessment and as-needed reinvention through twenty-two years and three rectors, including a physical remaking of the school, as the students and faculty would eventually construct new buildings to house expanded studio spaces for the students.

It is important to note that Black Mountain College was a progressive liberal arts college, not an art school.

This book is certainly the place to start if you are interested in art history, U.S. and /or European history (many of the school's original faculty were intellectuals and artists who'd fled Europe before or during World War II) or experimental models of educational progressivism.

See the link below for an interesting overview of the college's origins and current relevance, in a recent ten minute interview with Alice Sebrell, Program Director of The Black Mountain College Museum+Arts Center in Asheville, NC.


http://uspoco.com/2011/03/02/edvid-wh...


CP
5/8/2011

[Mike Polizzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

With a love for fracas, this meticulous history provides a richly detailed account of the Black Mountain community, from its inception through its dissolution. It's difficult at times to discern Duberman's hierarchy for the material he presents, Albers in particular is handled in a fairly oblique manner, but the book is at its best when the endless community conflicts are contrasted to the extraordinary cultural contributions made by its personnel. Impressive for its knowledge of utopian communities, contemporary art, music and writing; and despite its wistful ending, there's a considerable focus on the frustrations and failures of the community. For what must have been a place of great creative cross pollination, little of that brilliant inspirational core gets imparted- when it does, as when Cage's Untitled Event 1 is presented, the effect is deeply moving.

[Abraham · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best history of anything I've ever read. Duberman approaches the remarkable many lives of black mountain as a question, and struggles to understand the meaning and form of the book much as the students and faculty at BMC struggled toxins their own meaning. At times,Duberman inserts himself into long past conversations, and at other times shares his own struggles with comprehending and evaluating the choices of those who spent their lives I that experiment. It was a troubled place and a visionary place, always ahead of its time and always hot with the eternal questions that find their best exploration in specific histories. I couldn't recommend the book more.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Recently tried to re-read this. It's a grand failure -- or maybe not so grand. Researched during one of the worst stretches in the nation's history (late Sixties), and full of misgivings about its project, ostensibly the chronicle of a utopian experiment in republican higher education, using way too much of its documentary source material in the account, subjecting this to agitprop fourth-wall-destroying recursiveness, and ultimately pissy and condescending to the poets who ran the place into the ground, I was trying my best to find its rhythm, but it's just a great big unreadable botch.

[Jud Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

As good a book, probably, as will ever be written on this failed experiment of a college that somehow became a revered, inspirational byword for modernism. Perhaps unwittingly, Duberman chronicles the failure better than the inspiration, but that might be as good a lesson as any: dynamic, visionary leaders do not play well together unless there is something to force them (codes, laws, rules, George Washingtons).

I've known about this book for a long time, ever since I worked at Marloff Paperbook Corner in Sheridan Square in the Village in NYC back in the late 70's. The bookstore included a collection -- lovingly curated by a former manager and unquestioningly maintained by his successors -- of works of poetry, music, and art connected in one way or another with such widely-known affiliates of BMC as Albers, Cage, Cunningham, Olson, Oppenheimer, and Rexroth. And there was this book, which sold regularly, and which I stashed away in some "to-read" pile in my brain.

But even before that, I'd been made vaguely aware of BMC by my father, a devotee of modernism (Dueling metronomes: check. Abstract sand sculpture: check.) who every now and then would suggest that we should go over to North Carolina from Tennessee just out of curiosity, to see what the college looked like. Recently I did in fact do just that, and for the same reason. While you can visit the setting where the college was (a few miles distant from the town of Black Mountain itself), its best remnant is a museum dedicated to its memory in downtown Asheville -- I bought the book in its gift shop -- where along with rotating exhibits is a small but tantalizing browsing library of books by and about BMC notables.

For me, then, it was a bit of a letdown to descend from a hazy notion of BMC as some kind of artsy, modernist Parnassus to Duberman's depiction of the sausage-making reality of a place that seemed only to agree on one thing: that it was an experiment. Faculty membership was a revolving door rarely lasting two years (even among the founding leadership); in Duberman's telling, personality conflicts masquerading as clashes on didactic principle produced a seemingly constant atmosphere of turmoil. It seems as though the student body was more constant than the faculty, even though it's not apparent that they received so much as a diploma at the end of whatever was considered to be a finished course of study. A certificate of attendance? Maybe?

Duberman is well aware that his archival sources -- minutes of faculty meetings, correspondence with potential funders, etc. -- lend themselves to a jaundiced account of things, so he goes to some lengths to try to capture the less institutional side of a place that tried but could not avoid being an institution. There is first of all the atmospherics of the historical period: the Depression, World War II, Southern racism, McCarthyism, the loosening stays of sexuality, all of which Duberman uses to contextualize his account. Second, in the middle of the book, is the extended excerpt from the reminiscences of novelist Peggy Bennett Cole, a student in the mid-1940's, much of which has to do with the communal experience of music:

"On my very first evening at the college, on finishing the meal, the whole room seemed to burst spontaneously into song, table by table, taking turns. ... How did it happen? who had started this tradition, if it was a tradition, and when? -- one of the central tables unexpectedly broke into boisterous song, singing the first stanza of ... 'Green Grow the Rushes, Ho!' ... then their voices died out, and they waited, but not for long. Suddenly another table burst joyously, robustly, into song, as if answering the first table. ... Again a third table took over. ... And so on and on, table after table, singing with glorious abandon and enthusiasm, until finally the song itself played out. I listened in amazement. ..." [p. 223; all punctuation sic]

It may be that the reputation of the college was more the result of its "summer institutes," which brought vacationing artistic celebrities, as well as summer-only students, to the college for a few weeks of interactive creativity. Duberman pointedly regrets that this be so, saying that they "misrepresent Black Mountain ... because the substitution of 'famous names' for the record of daily pain illuminates nothing beyond the already well-known penchant in our society for confusing notoriety with existence." [p. 291] Be that as it may, some of the most memorable -- and perhaps well-reported -- events connected with Black Mountain College took place at these institutes, one tantalizing example being Buckminster Fuller's first-ever attempt in the summer of 1948 at building a large geodesic dome (reader: it failed). John Cage and Merce Cunningham were there; together they produced a performance of a play by early-modernist Erik Satie called the Ruse of Medusa. Cast in a leading role was none other than Buckminster Fuller, who had never acted before and who had to be carefully coached so that he could get over his fear of "making a damn fool" of himself (Fuller's words). When the time came, Fuller performed -- in Cage's assessment -- "magnificently." The fact that Duberman devotes considerable space to a detailed account of the summer of 1948 indicates some sensitivity to the notion that, for all of his finicky distaste for the penchants of society, he must nonetheless account for the sources of a long-lived notoriety that to this day stimulates interest in whatever the real thing may have been.

[Eve Lyons · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very thorough history of the creation and eventual demise of a community of left-wing academics and artists, attempting to forge an alternative community.

[Siddiq Khan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There is no comfort if you really believe in liberty. You´re just not going to have comfort; you´re going to have conflict."

-- John Rice, founder of Black Mountain College

This is history as in has rarely been written before, appropriate to a community of scholars committed to the pursuit of a new vision of higher education with an intensity rarely seen before or since.

Duberman dives headlong into the tumultuous passage of these pioneer spirits through a relatively brief period of time, and his rapt engagement carries the reader along with him over wave after wave of shifting personalities, continuous crises and exuberant climaxes. A sixties generation academic with an interest in the radical tradition in American history, from anarchism to utopian socialist communities, who came of age a generation after the college collapsed, Dauberman´s determination "to write a book about the impact of Black Mountain on ME" is a refreshing gift to the reader, as the story he presents transmits this impact in with vigorously vivid vitality.

Black Mountain College was a learning community where teachers and students lived and worked together in an atmosphere of democratic inquiry and experimentation. There was no set curriculum, faculties, examinations, or degrees. In many cases there were no fees, as students could work in exchange for their studies, food and accommodation. In many cases there was no salaries for teachers. It was a labour of love, and for most the only reward necessary was the opportunity to pursue their practical passions in an atmosphere of individual freedom and collective dialogue, surrounded by natural beauty, and furnished generously with working material and physical plant. Intrinsic motivation, the foundation for all true learning, was the basis of activity, both for teachers and students.

It is true that students came second. There was not full democracy in the community, and this was one of its biggest weaknesses. The fact that faculty made all major decisions meant that fratricide was a constant problem. If students had the power of hiring and firing, on the other hand, there might have been more solidarity and less factionalism. The fact that students ultimately have no vested interest in the institution, that they are a transient element passing through it, results in a sense of distance and perspective, as well as continual renewal and freedom from conventional thinking, that the faculty lacked. Permanent staff tend to develop stakes in an organisation that tends towards territorial competition and institutionalization.

The impact that BMC had on me was the recognition of the wealth of cultural, intellectual, social and emotional experience possible among a small but group of dedicated and creative people whose diverse interests and expertise are united by a common purpose, and the difficulties -- chiefly financial, political, philosophical and interpersonal -- attendant upon such an endeavour. An inspiring and harrowing read in equal measure.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

When we opened a bookstore in Black Mountain, NC, I did not know much about the history of Black Mountain College. I learned quickly that out-of-town customers were very interested in learning more about this college. After much research and reading (the librarian in me kicked in), this book (Black Mountain: An Exploration in Community by Martin Duberman) helped me the most, and it became a favorite. Duberman presents the history of the founding, the existence, and the closing of this school in a very readable format. In spite of its length, he kept me engaged in the story, and presented quite a fascinating layout of the principal characters. During the existence of our bookstore, this book went out of print. Much to my delight, it has been reprinted, and I gladly bought a new copy for my own personal library.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me years to get around to reading this exhaustive exploration of the untraditional educational community that flourished and struggled in rural North Carolina from 1933 - 1957, and attracted many creative individuals as students and teachers. Glad I finally dipped into it, and, over a period of months, read the entire mind-provoking book.

[Lance Grabmiller · Rating 3 out of 5]

An amazing book about an amazing people at an amazing place in time. By turns, hard to put down, hard to swallow, invigorating, infuriating... it's a book I head to move through slowly. Let it simmer...

[Matteo Ponzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is written exactly how it needed to be.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a well-written examination of the controversial community at Black Mountain that traces its evolution from a radical experiment under Rice to its collapse under Olson. Duberman pioneers an engaged manner of writing history, which enables him to be present in the writing to a much greater extent than other chroniclers might have been happy with. I found this appealing and honest.

Black Mountain College either stirs something in you that is prepared to see the good in it for all its eccentricities or frustrates you so much that you are glad it disappeared. The sheer quality of the staff and the graduating students from the college speak in its favour: from Albers to Merce Cunningham to Robert Creeley to Charles Olson with many accompanying bit parts. Duberman talks to people and lets their own doubts about the experiment show through in the interviews.

I was particularly taken by Michael Rumaker's voice and went on to read a couple of books by him. he is well worth following up.

[Jodi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book mostly because it related to some things I'm doing at work. It was unexpectedly readable and for the most part entertaining. It got a bit bogged down in the middle with names, dates and such but it is a history book so that's to be expected.

Probably my most important take-away from this book is that I personally would have HATED to attend Black Mountain College at any point in it's history. I'm sure there were drama free periods but they seemed to be few and far between.

Interesting read if you care to know more about BMC. Since I have a couple of related books on my to read shelf it will be interesting to see how this history matches up with the others.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very, very interesting book for a number of reasons:

1. the way that Duberman writes the history, inserting himself and his own teaching experience within the "story" of Black Mountain,
2. as Duberman interacts with the ideas and people that he's writing about, he gives a picture, not only of Black Mountain, but also the time that he's writing in,
3. it's an in depth description of how a college was instituted, progressed and dissolved

Fascinating.

[versarbre]

A narrative of a highly interesting group of personalities in the genre of history. Perhaps I shall find something to read more about the Albers in the future regarding both their educational experiments in the Bauhaus and in BMC.

[Penny]

Very enthused about how this one......

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just wish it was longer and more detailed. And that more people knew about the importance and excellence (and, yes, a lot of pettiness) of Black Mountain College.

[Grant Custer · Rating 4 out of 5]

slow going at points but really rewarding overall.