Harold Raymond

Unable to attend the last two years of high school because of illness, Harold Raymond was tutored privately at his home in Melrose, Massachusetts. Having experienced an unconventional high school education, he was concerned that he might not be comfortable in a conventional college setting. A cousin who was teaching in New York City recommended Black Mountain College to him.

At Black Mountain he took a general curriculum before specializing for graduation in history. He was Student Moderator for one year and thus a member of the Board of Fellows. He recalled that he provided unskilled labor for the Studies Building construction – nailing floorboards, pouring concrete, digging the drainage ditch.

Three weeks after graduation, Raymond was inducted into the U.S. Army. When asked what he did at college, he mentioned that he built a bridge (in fact, a wooden bridge over a stream) and was immediately put into the Army Engineer Corps, a move that possibly saved his life. He served as a radio operator in the Pacific and in the United States. After the war, he attended Harvard University for his Ph.D. in English history (1952). He taught at the University of Delaware (1948-51) and then for forty-two years at Colby College in Maine. He retired Professor Emeritus in 1994.

In addition to his teaching, he was speech writer for the Maine Democratic Party and was active in the Citizenship Clearing House. He was active in community activities in Waterville and traveled in South America, the British Isles, Canada, Scandinavia and the USSR. He also reviewed books for Choice magazine. In 1951 he married Dorothy McLean and is father of a son Paul Bradford Raymond.

Biography written by Mary Emma Harris for the Black Mountain College Project.

Relationships

Examiner: Robert Roswell Palmer, American historian at Princeton and Yale universities, who specialized in eighteenth-century France

Black Mountain College Project

Mary Emma Harris interviewed Harold in 1997 and the transcript is available from Appalachian State University under The Mary Emma Harris and Black Mountain College Project, Inc. Oral History collection.

Topics: Hearing about BMC – general curriculum – John Rice’s Plato class – class organization – Kenneth Kurtz as teacher – effectof no grades – graduation process – enrollment at Harvard – interlude at BMC – college entertainment – Roy’s Tavern – Studies Building construction – college farm – strengths and weaknesses of college – political position of college – work program – role as student moderator – process of decision making – college conflicts – BMC influence – Gashouse Gang – Frank Nacke death – BMC students

Library of Congress Collection

The LOC has interviews with Harold as part of their Veterans History Project at the American Folklife Center.

Harold Bradford Raymond Collection