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The Social Life of the Elites
The Appeal, a St. Paul African American newspaper printed from 1885-1923, kept readers up to date on social happenings in African American communities across the region. The articles show close ties between families in the small African American community of Fargo-Moorhead. Accomplishments like Nelly Patterson being Fargo’s first Black student to graduate High School in 1897, or occasions like Sarah Duty visiting from Winnipeg, were causes for celebrations. Women’s dresses were described in detail, as was the music played and the flowers on display. The paper reported on the barber families, whom they called “the elites.” Three of the barber families – Frank and Fannie Gordon, Horton and Laura Adams, and Leroy and Violet Fort – were always at the same engagements, whether they were formal events or intimate holiday dinners. But most of the columns follow the exciting social lives of their children as they formed bicycle clubs, organized grand parties, and fell in love. |
A newspaper clipping from The Appeal, a St. Paul based African American newspaper, detailing the social life of African Americans in Fargo.
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The painting Lottie Adams by Franklin Ugochukwu.
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Lottie Adams by Franklin Ugochukwu
In the late 1890s, Laura “Lottie” Adams, daughter of Fargo barber Horton Adams, was the queen of Fargo’s African American social scene. The St. Paul Appeal described events organized by Lottie and her friends in Fargo. Her visits to St. Paul, Duluth, and Grand Forks were celebrated with parties that also made the news. Lottie married Aaron Bradford and moved to St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood in (checking on date). She had no children of her own, but the Bradford house was home to many of her extended family over the years, including her nephew Bradford Benner, who became a Civil Rights activist and head of the St. Paul chapter of the NAACP. Our museum commissioned Moorhead artist Franklin Ugochukwu to paint a portrait of Ms. Adams. Born in Nigeria, Franklin came as an art student to Minnesota State University Moorhead. We thought his colorful and vibrant style could bring Lottie Adams to life. |
William Thornton Montgomery - Farmer
Farmer William Thornton Montgomery had more land than any other African American in Dakota Territory. From about 1881-1900, he owned 1,020 acres two miles north of Christine, ND (about 20 miles south of Fargo) plus more land in Cass County and Manitoba. Local newspapers describe him as “a most worthy man,” and “the greatest Colored farmer of the Northwest.”
W. T. Montgomery had a fascinating life. He was well educated (against the law) as an enslaved child. He served in the US Navy in the Civil War. His family bought the plantation where they were once enslaved, and for a time they were among the wealthiest merchant-planters in Mississippi. William’s appointments as a postmaster and a constable in 1867 make him likely the first African American to hold public office in Mississippi. He moved to Dakota Territory in 1881 because he was pessimistic about the prospects of African Americans receiving fair treatment in the South
Farmer William Thornton Montgomery had more land than any other African American in Dakota Territory. From about 1881-1900, he owned 1,020 acres two miles north of Christine, ND (about 20 miles south of Fargo) plus more land in Cass County and Manitoba. Local newspapers describe him as “a most worthy man,” and “the greatest Colored farmer of the Northwest.”
W. T. Montgomery had a fascinating life. He was well educated (against the law) as an enslaved child. He served in the US Navy in the Civil War. His family bought the plantation where they were once enslaved, and for a time they were among the wealthiest merchant-planters in Mississippi. William’s appointments as a postmaster and a constable in 1867 make him likely the first African American to hold public office in Mississippi. He moved to Dakota Territory in 1881 because he was pessimistic about the prospects of African Americans receiving fair treatment in the South
William Thornton Montgomery, circa 1865. Mississippi Department of Archives and History
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Lithia, North Dakota, grew up around the home and grain elevator of W.T. Montgomery. It no longer exists. Minnesota State University Moorhead Archives
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The Utopias of W. T. Montgomery
William Thornton Montgomery spent most of his fascinating life in Utopian Communities.
Utopia - a community where the residents create an ideal society apart from others. From the Greek meaning “nowhere.”
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Robert Owen’s Worker’s Utopia
Robert Owen was a wealthy British factory owner who became an early philosopher of Utopian Socialism. He turned his bleak Scottish Industrial Revolution textile factory into a utopia for his workers. He shortened the work day to 10 hours and gave them health care, sick pay, and health insurance. He abolished child labor and put the children in school instead. In the 1820s he went to America to spread his philosophical ideas and set up new utopian communities. All of his utopias failed, but his ideas aged well. Jefferson Davis & the Civil War
Joseph Davis’ land also included the plantation of his younger brother Jefferson Davis. When the Civil War broke out, Jefferson Davis became president of the Confederate States of America. The Davis “utopia” ended when the US Navy arrived in 1862 and all the enslaved “members” chose freedom. Several men including W.T. Montgomery joined the US military to fight the Confederacy. For the rest of the war, the US government took pleasure in using Jefferson Davis’ plantation as a place for the Freedmen’s Bureau to experiment with ways of easing formerly enslaved people into freedom and a market economy. Isaiah Montgomery’s Mound Bayou
W.T. Montgomery liked Dakota Territory and tried to convince his family and other former members of the Association to move here. His younger brother Isaiah, however, decided to start a new utopian community of African American landowners and businesses in Mississippi called Mound Bayou. In the last decade of his life, W.T. Montgomery decided to join the colony, working as a director of the Bank of Mound Bayou and co-founder of the Mound Bayou Loan and Investment Co. |
Joseph Davis’ Utopian Plantation
In 1825, Joseph Davis met Robert Owen and tried to adapt his utopian ideas to the Mississippi plantation system. The 345 men, women and children on his unique plantation in 1860 had better living conditions than most enslaved people in the South, but they were still enslaved. They had better food and clothing rations, larger homes, and overseers could not punish anyone unless they were convicted by their peers in the Hall of Justice. People were encouraged to learn skilled trades to make extra money and to learn to read and write, which was illegal in the South. This is where W.T. Montgomery grew up. The Association of Montgomery & Sons
Benjamin Montgomery, William’s father, was the enslaved operator of the Davis plantations. He was highly educated against Mississippi laws, a mechanical and business genius, and charismatic. Before the war, a general store he opened on the plantation made him wealthy. As a freed man at the end of the war, he purchased the plantation from Joseph Davis. Montgomery shared Davis’ utopian philosophy, and he created a community of free African American sharecroppers he called the Association. For a time, the Montgomerys were among the wealthiest merchant-planters in the South, but the community was eventually undone by a combination of local natural disasters, the crash of the cotton industry, and a white court awarding Jefferson Davis much of the land under questionable reasoning. The demise of the Montgomery & Sons Association convinced W.T. Montgomery to move to Dakota Territory in 1881. |