Glenn Carrington and Harry Dana: A Shared “House and Home and Hearth and Heart”

Glenn Carrington, likely photographed by Harry Dana in the late fall of 1928 on the second-floor porch of the Longfellow House in Cambridge.

H.W.L. Dana Papers, Collected Materials. Longfellow House - Washington's Headquarters NHS. (1002/9.4-#1141)

C. Glenn Carrington (1904-1975) was a photographer, scholar, social worker, and amateur archivist. Though not as well-known as many of his Harlem Renaissance contemporaries – including Dr. Alain Locke, Langston Hughes, Amiri Baraka, and Harold Jackman – Carrington served as an avid collector of their works, a photographer of their likenesses, and a valuable part of the Black and queer communities. The letters he wrote, received, and archived provide an invaluable look into how queer relationships were developed and expressed in a time of severe suppression. His photographs inject an endearing, humanizing layer to these struggles and relationships, reminding us of the people behind these stories. These relationships were an interconnected social circle spanning not just hundreds of miles, but decades of time. His letters with fellow amateur archivist Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana (1881-1950) exemplify not just the struggles in queer life at the time, but the meaningful connections that formed just the same.

Glenn Carrington, though born in Richmond, Virginia, spent most of his life based in New York and Cambridge.¹ Henry “Harry” Dana, lived most of his adult life in Cambridge at the Longfellow House – the 18th century colonial home held in a family trust originally owned by his grandfather, American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Though it’s unclear how they met, Glenn’s relationship with Harry was an important connection for the both of them, from their earliest letters through missives sent over twenty years later.

Much like Harry, Glenn collected documentation on the careers of artists and authors as well as personal and family histories. On more than one occasion, Glenn wrote Harry detailing the price and location of artifacts written by Longfellow that he found for sale in New York City, ultimately supporting Harry’s dedication to amassing and archiving his family history that would one day result in the donation of his family home to the National Park Service.²

Both men were academics employed as lecturers and professors – Harry mainly taught Literature while Glenn would teach English, History, and Sociology throughout his life – and both kept extensive records. The letters the two left behind – dated mostly between 1926 and 1929 but stretching as late as 1947 – document their relationship. They shared an interest in language and culture, Russian and French in particular, both of which appear in their letters to each other over the years.³ This love of language bled into love of travel, with several seemingly unfruitful trips planned together to which Glenn never seemed to commit.⁴

Harry's photo captured Glenn peeking out from behind table piled with papers and packages on the second-floor porch of the Longfellow House.

H.W.L. Dana Papers, Collected Materials. Longfellow House - Washington's Headquarters NHS. (1002/9.4-#1234)

Glenn and Harry first bonded in no small part because they were both queer men operating within queer social circles couched in an unaccepting society. They faced various instances of discrimination across their lives. Among the final few letters Harry saved from Glenn is a 1929 apology for not having written to him more often, citing his troubles with finding housing as a “room seeker who happens to be a Negro” in a sparing reference to racism in their letters, but an undoubtedly common occurrence in Carrington’s own life.⁵ This event was mirrored in Harry’s own experience just six years later, when he was arrested in 1935 on a “morals charge” due to his sexuality and was made to vacate his home by request of the trustees.⁶

Regardless of the hardships they faced, they continually found ways to meet and bond. Harry had “a series of lectures” in New York City at the Rand School of Social Science and Columbia University that brought him down to Manhattan on a regular basis.⁷ During this time, likely not long after having met, Glenn introduced him to the wealth of outspoken LGBTQ+ Harlem Renaissance era artists who too could sympathize with being queer in that time, with major figures like Alain Locke and Langston Hughes among them.⁸

Their shared interest in queer media produced both by Glenn’s contemporaries and other artists of their day constructed another tight bond between the two. Early in their relationship, they bonded over Ioläus and The Captive – a book and Broadway show respectively about the early 20th century queer experience. Despite the explicitly queer subject matter of these works – nearly every work that Harry suggested to him was in a similar vein – their content on sexuality is never directly addressed, even in private letters between the two of them. Nonetheless, Glenn made a point to speak repeatedly about these works and how “reassuring” they were to him.⁹

Just returned from Russia, Harry dressed as a Cossack and posed in mock-surrender to his “mountain of mail.”

H.W.L. Dana Papers, Collected Materials. Longfellow House - Washington's Headquarters NHS. (102/9.4-#1131)

Despite living in different cities at the start of their relationship, they made a consistent effort to see each other, from attending meetings together, to Glenn observing Harry’s lectures.¹⁰ The connection between the two ran deep, especially between 1926 and 1928, the period in which the majority of their letters have been preserved. Their intimacy is further expressed in the photographs they took of each other. Though Harry was the subject of most shots, he provided the occasional look back at the prolific photographer. The photos made a clear impact on them both. In 1947, over 20 years after they first met, Harry recalled a then nearly two-decade old photo series featuring each of them posing with a “mountain of mail” he had accrued from spending months overseas.¹¹

Time and again, they displayed a deep affection for each other. Harry repeatedly provided Glenn with money whenever he was in need, and Glenn expressed a deep admiration for Harry for doing so, writing that he had “enlarged [his] life not only in material assistance, but through a joyous emotional transfusion and spiritual elevation.”¹² Harry even offered Glenn a job working as his secretary to assist him with cataloguing items in the House – a position Glenn seemingly took on for a time, becoming “the best secretary [he] ever had.”¹³

Harry clearly felt strongly for Glenn, proclaiming after having not seen him for over a year of traveling abroad that “not a day [had] gone by since [Glenn’s] face disappeared in the darkness of the dock” after Glenn saw him off on his journeys. Harry further assured that he was “constantly thinking of [him]” and could not wait for his move to Cambridge.¹⁴ Though letters immediately following this period are sparse, one can only imagine that their relationship continued during Glenn’s two-year stint working at Harvard University, just a short walk away from 105 Brattle Street.

The two remained in contact well into Harry’s old age, with occasional visits organized between the two of them over the years. Despite years-long gulfs in archived communication between the two, they were still arranging meetings as late as 1947. These rendezvous remained incredibly familiar. Harry specifically requested to have Glenn visit for a weekend when Harry’s secretary was on vacation because “when the secretary is away...”¹⁵

Regardless of the full nature of their relationship, their clear bond as preservationists, as activists, and as friends was undeniably intensely important to them both. Harry welcomed Glenn into his “house and home and hearth and heart,” forever solidifying him and the photographs he shared as part of the Longfellow House’s long and storied history.¹⁶

-Alex Goutier, 2024

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Notes

Quotations from letters to H.W.L. Dana are from Series II. A. Incoming Correspondence, “Carrington, Glenn, 1926-1929” in the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana (1881-1950) Papers, 1774-1972 (bulk dates 1850-1950) (LONG 17314), Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site, cited below as HWLD Papers, LONG.

Quotations from letters to Glenn Carrington are from “Glenn Carrington Papers,” Sc MG 89, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library, cited below as Carrington Papers, NYPL.

1. Staff, MSRC, "CARRINGTON, C. Glenn" (2015). Manuscript Division Finding Aids. 27. https://dh.howard.edu/finaid_manu/27
2. Glenn Carrington to H.W.L. Dana, 14 May 1941; Glenn Carrington to H.W.L. Dana, 16 May 1941 (HWLD Papers, LONG).
3. Glenn Carrington to H.W.L. Dana 25 January 1927, Glenn Carrington to H.W.L. Dana 12 January 1927 (HWLD Papers, LONG).
4. Glenn Carrington to H.W.L. Dana, 24 March 1927 (HWLD Papers, LONG).
5. Glenn Carrington to H.W.L. Dana, 24 July 1929 (HWLD Papers, LONG).
6. Sara Patton Zarrelli, The Long Road to Restoration: An Administrative History of Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site (National Park Service, April 2021).
7. Glenn Carrington to H.W.L. Dana, 25 January 1927; Glenn Carrington to H.W.L. Dana, N.D. (HWLD Papers, LONG).
8. Glenn Carrington to H.W.L. Dana, 24 February 1927; Glenn Carrington to H.W.L. Dana, 31 December 1928 (HWLD Papers, LONG); H.W.L. Dana to Glenn Carrington, 2 December 1926 (Carrington Papers, NYPL).
9. Glenn Carrington to H.W.L. Dana, 23 December 1926, 12 January 1927, 25 January 1927 (HWLD Papers, LONG).
10. H.W.L. Dana to Glenn Carrington, 7 March 1927 (Carrington Papers, NYPL).
11. H.W.L. Dana to Glenn Carrington, 5 September 1947 (Carrington Papers, NYPL).
12. Glenn Carrington to H.W.L. Dana, 24 March, 1927 (HWLD Papers, LONG).
13. H.W.L. Dana to Glenn Carrington, 5 September 1947; H. W. L Dana, to Glenn Carrington, 28 September 1928 (Carrington Papers, NYPL).
14. H.W.L. Dana to Glenn Carrington, 28 September 1928 (Carrington Papers, NYPL).
15. H. W. L Dana to Glenn Carrington, 13 November 1947 (Carrington Papers, NYPL).
16. H.W.L. Dana to Glenn Carrington, 22 November 1947 (Carrington Papers, NYPL).