Ten Takeaways from "Cedar Falls: City of Writers, Speakers, and Thinkers."

Post date: Dec 20, 2018 4:58:55 AM

I finished up my third book chapter in August and sent it off to my editor. Here is a summary of my chapter, which is about the history of Cedar Falls and how it shaped the community's attitudes about reading, writing, and thinking.

The town of Cedar Falls, Iowa predates the Civil war by a decade: this frontier town became a railroad town, provided a home for Civil War orphans, then established a college to train teachers, supported a newspaper, created a library, and built a number of churches. Along the way, it became an important hub for writers, readers, and thinkers. Early town leaders like Peter Melendy wrote about its history and at least five best-selling authors have ties to Cedar Falls: Bess Streeter Aldrich, Ruth Suckow, James Hearst, Robert James Waller, and Nancy Price. The North American Review found a home at UNI more than fifty years ago, the Hearst Center for the Arts sponsors workshops and exhibits for writers and artists, The Cedar Falls Supper Club continues to draw from Town and Gown and encourage lively presentations and discussion, and other community groups support readers and writers. This chapter explores the history of Cedar Falls and examines the factors that make it the “City of Writers, speakers, and thinkers.”

What did I learn about my adopted town?

1. At one time, we were the last stop on the railroad west. The railroad came to Cedar Falls on May 11, 1861 And the next day, Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter, and war was declared two weeks later. For five years, Cedar Falls was the end of the westward line.

2. Cedar Falls has a long history of supporting reading and readers. Peter Melendy formed the Cedar Valley Horticultural and Literary Association in 1859, which developed a small lending library for its members. Later, a free city-wide library opened in 1878 and during Melendy’s tenure as mayor, 1895-1901, the city planned the construction of the Dayton-Carnegie Public Library.

3. The Cedar Falls Parlor Reading Circle met to discuss assigned readings and topics, which ranged from lectures on shipbuilding to the literature of Charles Dickens. Membership was limited to thirty and was open to men and women. One member said, “few towns…are more interested in social and intellectual culture than [Cedar Falls].”

4. The Tuesday Club in Cedar Falls is the oldest federated women’s club in Iowa. It began with six women gathering in a home in 1892, but quickly grew to 40 members. For more than 125 years, Cedar Falls’ Tuesday Club members have gathered monthly to hear programs. Topics vary, and different themes are selected each year, frequently revolving around Cedar Falls and its history.

5. The Cedar Falls Supper Club grew out of a conversation in 1940, when a group of men talked about forming a group to connect the college and community. Ferner Nuhn was one of five founders of the Supper Club, along with poet James Hearst, professor Bill Reninger, professor Martin Grant, and businessman Paul Diamond. They recruited seven other local men, kept organization to a minimum, and encouraged lively discussions and debate. Each month members took turns presenting talks, and then, after the speaker was done, everyone discussed the ideas. Even today, the member in charge of the meeting reminds all visitors that they are expected to participate.

6. Several of our early mayors and community leaders were writers. Peter Melendy’s The Record of Cedar Falls (1893) traced the first fifty years of the town’s history. Roger Leavitt was the unofficial historian of Cedar Falls, keeping numerous scrapbooks of clippings, which he used to write When Cedar Falls was Young (1928) and Main Street (1948). Leavitt persuaded novelist Bess Streeter Aldrich to write a pioneer novel about her hometown, sending her eighteen pounds of documents, which resulted in her novel Song of Years (1938). Later, University of Northern Iowa professor, cartoonist and illustrator Herb Hake gathered other people’s memories into 101 Stories of Cedar Falls (1977[3] [4] ).

7. For the past fifty years, The North American Review (NAR), the oldest literary magazine in the nation, has been housed at the University of Northern Iowa, again reflecting the value placed on literature by the community and university alike. Founded in Boston in 1815 and subscribed to by Thomas Jefferson, The North American Review was purchased by the University of Northern Iowa in 1964. The magazine is published quarterly, and its contributors include Margaret Atwood, Raymond Carver, Joyce Carol Oates, Kurt Vonnegut, and many more. Today the Review “showcases the [world’s] best short fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry.”

8. In the fall of 2016, a group of retired professors and community leaders created another town/gown initiative: The Cedar Falls Authors Festival (CFAF). The CFAF celebrates five best-selling, nationally known authors with ties to Cedar Falls: Bess Streeter Aldrich, Ruth Suckow, James Hearst, Nancy Price, and Robert James Waller. A year-long Festival resulted, beginning in May 2017 and continuing through June 2018.

9. As I examined the relationships between the five writers, I discovered that James Hearst was at the heart of it all. He was friends with writer Ruth Suckow and Ferner Nuhn: they wrote introductions for each other’s books. He and Ferner were two of the five founders of the Cedar Falls Supper Club. Later on, Ferner donated a number of paintings done by his artist sister to what would become the James Hearst Center for the Arts. Hearst and Bess Streeter Aldrich corresponded. Hearst became acquainted with Nancy Price when she was a teenager, and he and his wife let her use their house for a place to write when they were traveling. After Hearst died, Professor Scott Cawelti compiled all of Hearst’s poetry into one book, The Complete Poetry of James Hearst (2001), and with a Foreword by Nancy Price. As I searched, I found that Robert James Waller had written a wonderful review of the book.

"James Hearst wrote eloquently of the land, its pleasures and sorrows, carefully turning the language as one of his farmer heroes turns the soil. Scott Cawelti and his colleagues have done us all a favor by assembling this fine collection, ensuring the onward resonance of Hearst's words and sensibilities." - Robert James Waller (Review posted on Amazon)

10. UNI Professor Tom Connors compiled a list of twenty-four books about Black Hawk County and Cedar Falls, and another eight about the history of UNI. The complete list is posted on the Cedar Falls Authors Festival website, http://www.cfauthorsfestival.org/home/list-of-resources-on-cf-history

Last updated December 19, 2018