The Hall of Fame for Great Americans
95
opposite. Leaders like Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. Dubois were totally
overlooked. Sojourner Truth was nominated but did not receive a vote, Harriet
Tubman received one singular vote. Moreover, the Hall was located in a
neighborhood that was becoming “minority,” and when the campus was
transferred to the BCC, the students wandering through the Hall each day could
not relate to the monuments surrounding them. The Hall did not contain any
Hispanics, there were no Asian Americans or Native Americans, and there were
no Roman Catholics. Only three of the enshrined were Jewish (Grundfest, 1977,
pp. 193-208).
The incumbents in role of director have had their role in the demise of the
Hall. Almost all were older men—in their late 50s or 60s—^when they began
their service. They had retired from other prominent positions (such as the
Presidency of Yale University), and for the most part held the post for its honor,
rather than holding it with a mission of service. They were generally very well
connected; however, they did not use the position to gather funds for the Hall.
All but two died while they were in the position. There have been seven
directors of the Hall of Fame, although Henry MacCracken certainly played the
role of director, he did not wear the title. He was the person in charge from 1900
until his death in December, 1918, at the age of 78. He played the leadership
role even after resigning from the Chancellorship of New York University in
1910. Perhaps the fact that he relied almost exclusively upon the wealthy
daughter of Jay Gould to support the Hall set in tone a belief that the directors
did not have to reach out to others for funds. Until the 1980s there were no
outside funds for the Hall itself All fundraising was confined to gathering
money to pay for busts of the inductees. And most of these funds came from
relatives of the persons honored. MacCracken was followed in this leadership
role by these directors:
Robert Underwood Johnson 1919-1937d
John H. Finley 1937-1940d
William Lyon Phelps 1941-1943d
James Rowland Angell 1944-1949d
Ralph W. Sockman 1949-1970d
Russell D. Niles 1970-1975
Jerry Grundfest 1975-1979
Ralph M. Rourke 1987-2003d
(“d” indicates that the director died in office)
In 1973 one elector visited the site and suggested that the Hall had to move.
He felt that Helen Gould had come to sponsor the Hall of Fame because of the
prestige New York University brought to it, that she never would have
underwritten a hall of fame “on the campus of an obscure community college.”
He was also concerned that the surrounding neighborhood in the Bronx had
deteriorated and was unsafe for visitors to the Bronx campus (Nelson, 1990, “A
Fresh Start”).