A Chic and Vivacious Woman

In the fall of 1964, Dubuque goodwill ambassador Mary Regina Hayford assumed the role of “Little Old Lady” and traveled to New York City on a mission to fight the perception of her hometown as being the epitome of Midwestern provincialism.

When asked if Mrs. Hayford would be invited to the offices of The New Yorker, a bemused spokesman for magazine politely declined. “We just have never gone in for this kind of thing,” he explained.

Neil Sheehan, “Little Old Lady From Dubuque Seeks to Change Town’s Image,” New York Times, September 26, 1964, page 33.

Pussy-Words of Manhattan Sophisticates

When Harold Ross and his colleagues boasted in 1925 that their new literary magazine The New Yorker would not be “edited for the old lady in Dubuque,” TIME ridiculed the claim as “pussy-words of Manhattan sophisticates.” An excerpt:

Dubuque, population 39,141, produces wagons, coffins, clothing, boots, river steamboats, barges, torpedo boats, was once rated the fourth important manufacturing centre in the U. S. It has a notable public library, an insane asylum, a business college. To an old lady in Dubuque there was sent a copy of The New Yorker. She was asked by telegram for an opinion. Replied she:

“I, and my associates here, have never subscribed to the view that bad taste is any the less offensive because it is metropolitan taste. To me, urbanity is the ability to offend without being offensive, to startle composure and to deride without ribaldry. The editors of the periodical you forwarded are, I understand, members of a literary clique. They should learn that there is no provincialism so blatant as that of the metropolitan who lacks urbanity. They were quite correct, however, in their original assertion. The New Yorker is not for the old lady in Dubuque.”

From “The New Yorker” in TIME, Monday, March 02, 1925.

Category: Dubuque, Iowa

There are 87 pages in the “Dubuque, Iowa” category at Wikipedia, most notably Dubuque, Iowa and History of Dubuque, Iowa.

White Racism on the Western Urban Frontier

Currently reading:

Mohammad A. Chaichian, White Racism on the Western Urban Frontier: Dynamics of Race and Class in Dubuque, Iowa (1800-2000), Africa World Press, 2006.

While at the University of Dubuque from 1986-1993, Professor Chaichian taught a course called “Sociology of Dubuque.” He’s now at Mount Mercy College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Here is an excerpt from a recent Telegraph Herald article about Professor Chaichian’s work:

“Analysis of race relations in Dubuque can serve as a case study with much wider applications at the national level,” Chaichian said. Census data about racial and ethnic composition shows that “Dubuque is neither unique nor an exception to the rule,” he added.

Although African-Americans have accounted for less than one percent of Dubuque’s demographic makeup for much of the city’s history, it is “anticipatory racism,” or fear of non-whites moving in that has fueled most racially-based incidents and attitudes, he said.

From Mary Nevans-Pederson, “Professor: Racism in Dubuque ebbs, flows,” Telegraph Herald (Dubuque), November 29, 2006, p. A1.

Visually Diverse

More from Flickr, Bradley Spitzer’s photoset, Dubuque, Iowa.

Bradley writes, “On Saturday, September 30th I visited Dubuque, Iowa and had a good time exploring the city with a camera in tow. I could definitely see myself living there someday; it is a visually diverse city with a growing culture/design/art community.”

Old World Header Image

This blog’s header image is Grandmother with grandson, Germany, early 50s, posted to Flickr by John Copleston, alias Very Good with Computers.

The image, while not directly related to Dubuque, is a good representation of Dubuque’s mystique, very Old World and very German, yet not without humor.

I’d really like to use Todd Ehlers’ photo, 1976 Dubuque Mother, or maybe 1950s: Mom Gulps a Cold One while Grandma Watches, but I’d need to get Todd’s permission first.

Viva Dubuque

Welcome to the Dubuquer, a blog about the mystique of Dubuque, Iowa.

The title is derived from The New Yorker, a magazine of which founder Harold Ross famously delcared in the 1920s, “. . . is not edited for the old lady in Dubuque.”

Runner-up blog title: Viva Dubuque, taken from the October 25, 1992 New York Times article by J.M. Fenster, “Move Over, Vegas: Viva Dubuque; Casinos are cropping up everywhere from mountain saloons to Mississippi riverboats.”