Buxton: A Black Utopia in the Heartland, An Expanded Edition

Acknowledgments

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We are grateful to many people for assistance with the Buxton project. First, we would like to acknowledge and thank the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service of the Department of the Interior for a grant for the period June 1, 1980, to May 31, 1982, which underwrote the cost of the interdisciplinary research for this stud'y. The original research personnel included David Gradwohl and Nancy Osborn of the Depanment of Sociology and Anthropology at Iowa State University, who carried out the archeological portion of the grant. Dorothy Schwieder of the Department of History at Iowa State University , Joseph 'Hraba of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology , and Elmer Schwieder of the Depanment of Family Environment conducted the oral histories and collected the archival data. We are also indebted to many people for the successful completion of the grant and for assistance in preparing the manuscript. We particularly want to thank Adrian Anderson, former Director of the Iowa State Historical Depanment, for assistance in writing and administering the grant. The Buxton grant proposal was drawn up jointly by the Io~a State University PREPS Office, project personnel, and Adrian Anderson. We also want to thank Iowa State University for contributions to the project in the form of faculty salaries and the use of ISU facilities. Our thanks also go to Lowell Soike and Jack lufkin of the Iowa State Historical Department, who expedited manynecessary grant procedures and answered innumerable questions about grant requirements. Many other individuals helped collect and process the data. Mornetta Skipper, Mary Jane Graves, Joyce Bruce, Pam Bruce, and Donald Graves, Jr., all spent many hours collecting census data. Louise Fedricks and Debbie Henderson, graduate students in the Department of Family Environment, helped process the data and type the oral history transcripts. Jeri Cole and Phyllis Gray, graduate students in the Depanment of Sociology and Anthropology, also assisted with this work, and we wish to thank the Depanment of So- xx Acknowledgments ciology and Anthropology for the financial support it gave them. We also want to express our gratitude to Audrey Burton, manuscript typist for the Department of History, for patiently typing several drafts of the manuscript. Finally, a special thanks to Linda Kerber, University of Iowa, for her careful reading of the manuscript. Most of all, we are deeply indebted to all the former Buxton residents who consented to be interviewed. Many former residents allowed us to copy their personal photographs of Buxton and of family members who lived there. We also wish to thank the Buxton, Iowa Club, a group of former Buxton residents who live in Des Moines and assisted with the grant. In particular, we wish to thank Buxton Club member Dorothy Collier, who provided the project team with continual support. Mrs. Collier supplied names of people to be interviewed and set up and took part in many interviews. ...