A Tough Talk: Rutgers Moves To Destroy Victor, Camden, Music History
By: Graham Alexander
Eldridge R. Johnson Park’s famous 1916 mosaic is set to become the latest victim of revisionist history
We’ve all felt compelled to make public the position of myself (and the Victor Company) very clear on some disturbing news that came across ‘the wire’ this last week. The news pertains to what can only be explained as one of the worst examples of reactionary policy making that I can recall by an organization of some academic prowess.
If you haven’t heard, RUTGERS University announced that it would be obscuring - and eventually permanently covering a 1916 mosaic tile art installation that sits in Eldridge R. Johnson Park -specifically in the ceiling of the entry way of the former cooper branch library building in Camden, New Jersey.
FROM RUTGERS UNIVERSITY ON THE REMOVAL:
“Rutgers–Camden is a place of inclusion. We know that we are stronger — as a community and as a nation — when we embrace the diversity of our great state and the humane treatment of all people,” university spokesman Mike Sepanic told TAPinto Camden on Thursday. “The image depicted on this frieze does not reflect those values. In the coming days, we will obscure the frieze while we explore longer-term options for addressing and remedying this situation.”
Some quick background on the whole situation; The Victor Talking Machine Co. and Eldridge R. Johnson (first President and co-founder of The Victor Talking Machine Co./Victor Records - by all means a founding father of the entire tech/music industry) purchased the land (which sits in the campus of the original Victor Plant) in 1915 from The Cooper Estate - knocking down the original building at the location and constructing a beautiful library and park complex - complete with wading pool, rare statues, and handcrafted tile mosaic - which was completed in 1916.
The Victor Co. & Eldridge R. Johnson commissioned the ornate tile mosaic ‘frieze’ and the artwork itself was designed and created by Nicola D’Ascenzo Studios - a Philadelphia firm also famous for the creation of the stained glass windows atop the ‘Nipper tower’ of Victor Building 17 (The Modern Victor Lofts Building). The mosaic is officially called ‘America Receiving The Gifts Of The Nations’.
This is a critical concept. So keep it in mind as I detail more about the work itself…..
Across the entire front of the building, this 70 foot wide magnificent work of art contains 36 figures in the composition. Of this number, 29 advance from the left and right, presenting their gifts to America as a symbolic representation of a ‘melting pot’ of cultures and societies. With ‘America' in the center, her left stands her son, ‘Opportunity' - on her right is her daughter, ‘Equality'. Two Native Americans kneel at America’s feet (one representing Native Americans - the other representing Arctic Indigenous Peoples). The kneeling a representation of the Native American’s scared reverence for the land that became the modern Americas). Also included are Christopher Columbus (at the time a serious figure to Italian Americans - giving the fairly new immigrant group a claim of their own to the founding of America); Ancient Greece holding the model of a temple of Democracy in her right hand; Rome carrying the standard and fasces; Moses carrying the Ten Commandments; The Middle East, with an abacus to symbolize higher mathematics; Raphael carrying his famous “Sistine Madonna” is followed by Michelangelo. In the right wing of the frieze are Shakespeare, Longfellow, and Palestrina in representing furthering art. William Penn and a group of Quakers stand beside Equality and typify religious freedom. George Washington stands towards the background - on America’s right are representations of peoples and gifts of culture from Asia & Africa including Japan, China, The Persian Empire -modern day Iran, Egypt, Northern Africa), Babylonia and India. England is represented by William Tyndall. Johannes Gutenberg represents Germany…while three literary figures are on the left wing of the frieze; French Playwright; Moliere, Camden New Jersey’s own Walt Whitman (one of the very first meaningful American Poets) and Dante.
Got all that? Yea- they went out of their way to create a work that would be …PRETTY inclusive of…just about everyone…especially for 1916 standards. Standards which, admittedly, have changed - and will continue to change. Hence the ‘towards a more perfect union’ part of the founding of the country...
So, long story shorter; 1918, the whole park and library opens - The Victor Talking Machine Co.’s President, Eldridge R. Johnson donates the entire custom made Greek column library AND park to the City of Camden…he even funds its maintenance for decades - he only has one caveat; he wants the library to continue to operate for the betterment of the city and its people - forever more.
Fair enough…!
1000s of RCA-Victor workers held events and ate lunch at Eldridge R. Johnson Park (this photo is taken from Victor Building 8)
The Library at Eldridge R. Johnson Park in 1922
The City Of Camden takes over the park and library. Can you guess what happened next?
By the 1950s, the building is starting to crumble so RCA-Victor (created by merger of Victor Talking Machine Co. and RCA in NYCs manufacturing division)…steps up to help repair and maintain the building and park. They take over the maintenance of the grounds (its a fairly sizable plot of land with a large running water platform - beautiful statues - pathways…etc)
It really is one of the more beautiful places in the city. By the 1980s and 1990s, the structure was crumbling faster than you can imagine - as the corporations abandoned the city, they left the cash strapped town to maintain the park (as they’d promised to do)…of course The City Of Camden’s government failed Eldridge R. Johnson’s wishes again…. By the early 2000s, the park was fenced off for a period of time as it crumbled. The building became the site of refuse from the local drug and gang epidemics - an open air drug market sprouted up nearby. Vandals also took to the outside and inside of the building…the city found a solution to the overwhelming task of mowing a lawn; let someone else take the building …and THEY’LL mow the lawn (and maintain and help restore the building).
Rutgers at Johnson Park 2020
Of course, this didn’t work out quite like it should have as Rutgers University took the property over and proceeded to let another organization seek funding to restore the park (pool, statues, pathways etc) to its former glory. This task cost private donors and taxpayers 2 million dollars (not a great deal made here; many of the contractors used on the relatively straight forward restoration project were charging 10-20X market rate…..) But in Camden, NJ Government…as we’ve seen…its all taxpayer cash…who cares if its $1.2 million extra than it should have been? certainly not anyone at Cooper’s Ferry or Rutger’s University Camden… both prominent influences/leaders of the fairly transparent shadow like Camden City Government.
So, Rutgers University purchased the building (the building that was a gift to the city, mind you) and they proceeded to try to find a way to make this building and park fit into their plans for the school.
For years, the building sat largely empty - a few classes here and there…recently they installed a plethora of cheaper computers in it in hopes of putting the space to some use as a ‘computer laboratory’. Its also been used as storage site for the theater program at the school - the theater is nearby.
So where do we stand NOW? There are several answers/thoughts on this because this is a matter of so many issues colliding at one;
1. The action Rutgers University is taking in obscuring the mosaic itself indicates that it believes the local community of students AND Camden City residents - aren’t ‘smart enough’ to understand its context…This is the intellectual equivalent of changing the sum of (132 + 24 - 2 x 13)…because it would be too hard to explain it in passing…it is at best; enabling Americans to be intellectually lazy - and at worst; pretending your own students and the local neighborhood aren’t intelligent enough to understand their surroundings. I hate to rain on that parade - but like David Bowie once said; ‘they’re quite aware of what they’re going through’…
2.Rutgers University has lost focus on historic context; Its knee jerk reaction to a 100+ year old work of art is a STARTLINGLY dangerous trend for many academic institutions... it lacks critical thought... The idea that an institution of higher learning lacks critical thought is not a GOOD sign for the future of the country…what does it say about the administration’s ability to teach the same skill-sets to students? - likewise; hiding behind a wall of social media-centric hyperbole cited by Rutgers University for this decision… broad and vague concepts like ‘inclusiveness’ - wont suffice in the argument that this work should be destroyed, covered permanently, etc…if the work of art was overwhelmingly inclusive to begin with. The sheer AMOUNT of inclusion in this work is….far greater than a singular white woman sitting at Ellis island representing all of America…do we plan on removing the Statue Of Liberty for its singular portrayal of America?
3. Columbus seems to be the target of this battle; of course - I’m assuming Rutger’s knows the original overview of the artwork and its relation to Native Americans (I might be giving them too much credit by assuming they understand the intended Native American portrayals are in honor of their land…)…after all; their own website about the mosaic can’t get the name right of the work (among hundreds of details). None the less, new Italian immigrants in the early 1900s - when this work was conceived - struggled to find that America had Italian ties. As an inclusive measure of the time, Christopher Columbus - a rather run of the mill Italian explorer (one of the early Europeans to set foot in the Americas marking early contact between Western Civilization and ’The New World’) was promoted heavily as a link in making Italian American’s of the era feel that the US was as much theirs as anyone elses - a concept that worked! No matter the realities of the situation - there is no changing that moral concepts alter as time plows forward…there is no hiding them, there is no undoing them; there is only now and forward. MANY of Victor Talking Machine Co’s early workers were ITALIAN IMMIGRANTS- especially Victrola carvers and Victor record pressers. Thousands of these Italian American immigrants worked across the street at The Victor Plant and often ate lunch in Johnson Park - many were subjected to the bigotry of xenophobia - many were considered criminal based solely on their heritage. Including Christopher Columbus as a representation of Italy’s connection to the American Dream …was not just “something that happened”… it was for these workers. Many of these same workers and their families lobbied heavily for the creation of the colleges that would become Rutgers Camden. Weird, right?
Yikes. Maybe if they pretend they care this deeply…they’’ll get some extra private donations to make up this 200 million+ revenue loss they are expecting.
4. Rutgers University is suffering from a cash flow problem - with new students holding off on enrollment due to COVID19 and enrollment already down due to the skyrocketing costs of tuition and a building national student loan crisis …no surprise they aren’t addressing this directly…it wouldn’t be good for business. The reality may be that Rutgers higher ups are courting private donors/organizations that are demanding the University take public action on even seemingly arbitrary parts of its policies, staff, facilities or any aspect of Rutgers life that might be considered ‘conservative’…or ‘racist’…or even ‘non liberal’. The new dean of Rutgers most stunning achievement in recent years was leading Yale University to a scathing report that 75% of its students felt the school administration wanted absolutely nothing to do with any kind of conservative ideology. That said…lets push that aside and say; Rutgers has suddenly grown a true ‘not money-centric’ heart; would it not benefit Camden, NJ far more if Rutgers spent less time focusing on creating a non existent ‘Confederate Statue’ moment and more time actually changing their own inherently systemically racist policies? Issuing the obligatory ‘we must not stand for racism’ statement about a mosaic is largely undercut by the amount of bad loans Rutger’s helps facilitate every year to profit off of the backs of persons of color.
Johnson Park 2016
5. This mosaic really isn’t Rutgers to destroy or ‘permanently obscure’ - it was gifted to the City Of Camden and its people…a city that has been making all of the right moves in recent years. A city that engaged in protests so historically well these last 2 months that it got commendation from Barack Obama about the unique relationship between protestors and Camden County Police. While this building (and park) was sold (which was…yet another low point…like re-gifting), it is a designated historic site by New Jersey and it MAY not even legally be allowed to disturb the mosaic. Would it not benefit the whole community to learn the very proud history of the mosaic? is it Rutger’s duty in society to obscure the meaning of a work of art - art they really were never really given….or is it their duty to give it context and understanding given the modern moral standard…in a city of very few proud historic works of art….and very few attractions….why is it Rutgers right to fill in the moral blanks for what was a gift to the citizens of Camden City…while simultaneously robbing the city of a significant artistic and architectural landmark?
A Final Note: The Victor Company supports equality…we support diversity…we support Black Lives Matter, we support Camden, NJ, its history, and the musicians of the music industry. The most important part of this article is that the rationale for writing it is singular; we saw very little debate from Rutgers other than a canned PR release that claimed the multi-million dollar organization was somehow in touch with our community…many at our camp felt it was important to declare that myself, The Victor Co. as an entity, and Camden’s own sprawling and diverse communities are far from unanimous in support of Rutgers decision to remove this mosaic.
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