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From its humble origins to its
heyday in the 1950s and ’60s, the College’s literary
magazine has been a launching pad for many writers. But what
of the future of The Purple?
By Karen Hart
 Interspersed
among the faded yearbooks and the old newspapers on shelf
upon shelf of the Holy Cross library archives is the 105-year
history of The Purple, the College's literary journal.
The oldest copies are bound by year, covered in faded and
cracked leather. The latest editions float loose on a bottom
shelf, thin and unassuming heirs to the legacy
of The Purple.
These volumes hold the hours spent by students huddled late at night over dorm
room desks or library tables. They hold the time spent alone, working a line,
searching for a phrase. They hold the loud voices of argument, the sure hand
of disapproval and the sigh of heartbreak. They hold the dreams of students long
dead and long forgotten, and the angst and hope of those who have just left school,
degree in hand.
They hold the pages where Holy Cross' young men, and eventually women, lamented
over lost love, imitated the poetic forms of the day, celebrated the triumphs
of the College and mourned the deaths of classmates and alumni.
Travelers on the Slopes of Parnassus
In 1894, George E. Reidy wrote the introduction to the first
successful attempt at publication of a journal of the arts
at Holy Cross. It was a 97-page volume called Verses
by the Acroama Circle.
Photographs of the Acroama writers, staid portraits
of young men in brown and white, appear throughout the book, separated by onion
skin from the romantic,
traditional rhymed musings of the Victorian era.
"'Footprints of College Life' might be an apt title for these little verses,
the result of a two-years' courtship of the Muse of Poetry," wrote Reidy in the
introduction. "If the discerning reader discovers but little of the 'Divinus
afflatus' of poesy in these pages, let him remember that they are but the efforts
of travelers on the slopes of Parnassus, whose path was beset by all the difficulties
which such a journey entails. ... May the thoughts and fond memories which we
have entwined about our college life by this little souvenir, re-echo in our
hearts for many a year. May our years with the muses ever make music in our lives."
However ambitious and eloquent, Reidy's soliloquy appears to be his only one. The
Acroama Circle never published again, but the muses had already taken
hold of Holy Cross, and in June of that same year, the first edition
of The Purple was
published.
Prior to 1894, Holy Cross had no newspaper, no publication
for alumni, no place to report college events or sports results, no creative
outlet for the poesy-inspired.
That year, The Purple arrived and fulfilled all those needs.
It carried advertising from Worcester merchants, including harness
and saddle
purveyors,
clothiers and hatmakers, graineries and stationers. Georgetown University
was an advertiser as was Holy Cross itself, which offered tuition,
board, linen
washing and mending, physicians' fees and medicine, all for $225 per annum.
The Purple's first editor, George J. Walsh, described in his
inaugural editorial a much different mission for The Purple than
the literary aspirations of the Acroama Circle: "The hope so long cherished by students
of Holy Cross is at length realized. After several ineffectual attempts, the
students of 1893-1894 have succeeded in establishing a paper. Realizing the
advantages that must flow from the establishment of a journal in our college,
we venture to send forth the Holy Cross Purple into the fields
of college journalism."
The Purple of Walsh's day was a quick success and was printed monthly.
It included editorials, letters, an entire section devoted to alumni news,
essays, poetry, lecture reviews and reports on Holy Cross' "Base Ball" team.
In June 1896, the Purple staff put together the
first and apparently only Purple alumni edition, as part of
its regular publication. This volume is a collection of biographies
and notes
on Holy
Cross students who
had attained military and historic success. The Civil War was
fought by many Holy Cross men, including Gen. Frank C. Armstrong,
who entered
Holy Cross
in 1845.
"Throughout the entire war records we find his name mentioned in terms of the
highest praise," The Purple boasts.
A Gen. Donahoe of Lowell and Col. Francis Aloysius Lancaster
from Philadelphia are profiled, as is Gen. Patrick Robert
Guiney of Tipperary, Ireland, who entered Holy Cross in 1854,
after immigrating to Maine. Portraits of 19th century judges,
doctors and others who fell
under the heading, "The Highest Type of Good Citizen," fill the pages of The
Purple.
It was not until November 1930, however, that
the identity of The Purple's first mentor was revealed when the death
of Rev. Philip M. Finegan, S.J., who taught at Holy Cross from 1893-1897, was
noted in a department called "Purple Patches": "The efforts to foster journalism
[at Holy Cross] led to the publication in 1894 of a monthly magazine by the class
of 1897. With the graduation issue of 1894 the class turned the magazine over
to the whole student body and the publication
became the Holy Cross Purple. ... To Father Finegan, the Purple owes
one of its greatest debts, the impetus of its foundation."
Since that time, poets, fiction writers, essayists,
photographers and painters
have all put their hearts into the pages of The Purple.
The Transformation
With dedicated staff and a regular publishing schedule, The
Purple grew in prestige both on campus and nationally.
Reviews of the magazine from national journals continually
noted its wealth of talent and its professional
presentation.
Rev. David Granfield, OSB, '43 was a Purple editor from the days of
the journal's greatest national recognition.
"We didn't have a big staff," said Fr. Granfield. "We dealt mainly with editing
and checking on things. It was something-one
of the leading literary magazines."
Though he only published one poem himself
in The Purple-and was able to quote it from memory so many years
later-Fr. Granfield spent a good portion of his life writing. He went to Harvard
Law School and taught at Catholic University Law School, in Washington, D.C.
Fr. Granfield later decided to become a priest and joined the Benedictines. He
has since written six books, all dealing with U.S. judicial issues and Catholic
morality.
His titles include The Abortion Decision,
Judas Prudence and Spirituality and Heightened Consciousness: The Mystical
Difference. Today, Fr. Granfield is a professor emeritus of Catholic
University Law School and lives in Chevy Chase, Md.
For more than a half-century, The Purple stayed
with its tried and true format of college news augmented by poetry
and creative essays. In the 1930s,
many editorial departments took labels. "The Moon of Books" featured book reviews
written by students. "The Round
Table" became the scorecard for Holy Cross sports. "The Quadrangle" threw a bit
of editorial commentary into the mix. In 1934, "The Coffeehouse" appeared, a
column full of insider campus gossip.
But by the early 1950s, The Purple's readership
and staff were ready for
something different.
In 1952, The Purple editors "gave warning" of changes in content and design of
The Purple. The Purple, they wrote,
had previously gained "nationwide reputation as one of the half dozen finest
college literary magazines in the country," but since "the last war," The Purple
had fallen in prestige.
"
We realize that there will still be a group that steadfastly refuses to read
the magazine, or even to carry it to their rooms," the editors wrote. And thus
launched a format aimed at attracting the "average reader." Their program included
publishing "less abstract poetry" and more fiction. By 1956, the journal, which
was published six times a year, no longer grouped stories by department, ceased
to solicit advertising, and gave less coverage to school news and sports reports.
The Purple was metamorphosing into an
artists-only journal.
The Heyday
Whether it was the bold editorial changes of the 1950s-era,
editors who attracted new talent, or a bumper crop of exceptional
individuals,
for the next several decades, The Purple became the nursery for an immensely
creative group of artists-many of whom are now nationally recognized in their
fields of endeavor.
"The Purple was the last, most difficult-to-cross
threshold of aspiration
for me my first year at Holy Cross," said John
Callahan '62. "I was impressed beyond words when the first issue of The Purple
came out. Writing a short story for the magazine became something of a grail
for me. And, I might add, a welcome distraction from buckling down to work in
courses which didn't much interest me."
Over Christmas break of his first year, Callahan
wrote a short story called "Under the New Rule," submitted it and waited for
the inevitable rejection slip. Instead, editor Barry Gault '60 called Callahan
and told him his story was worth publishing-with a few changes.
"After I revised it, I'll never forget going
to my mailbox and finding his note. 'Think we can print-BG,' it read, and it
was as exciting to me as if my first novel had been accepted by Scribners-like
Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise. To this day I can feel the excitement and
satisfaction of opening the distinctive cover of The Purple's January
1959 issue (the cover had a drawing of Michelangelo's David) and
seeing my story."
Today, Callahan is a professor at Lewis and Clark College
in Oregon and one of this country's leading scholars on the
American writer, Ralph Ellison (he first read Ellison's Invisible
Man as a second-year student at Holy Cross). His latest
work is an edition
of Ellison's long-rumored novel, Juneteenth. Like many Purple alumni,
Callahan has nothing but admiration for the magazine and those who contributed
to it.
Gault, the editor who encouraged Callahan, was a premed
student, and eventually gave up writing for the love of medicine. He wrote lyrics
for student musicals
at Yale Medical School and kept up with poetry for some years during his early
career. But since 1994, Gault has been the chief of psychiatry at Newton (Mass.)-Wellesly
Hospital and
has little time left for creative writing.
"I was in my sophomore year when I submitted a poem or two and, over three years,
I published a bunch of poems and a
short story. I was editor in '59-60," he said. "There were some remarkably creative
people in the '50s. ... I just remember how impressed I was with the individual
talent that published there."
John Hackett '61, editor of The Purple in his senior year is now
an English professor at San Antonio (Texas) College. He was remembered
by Callahan,
Gault
and many others, as a talented writer.
"John Hackett was as gifted as anyone I knew
at Holy Cross," Callahan said. "He was shy, down-to-earth and a hell of a good
intramural basketball player."
"
I think we were all very serious about poetry, and I think there was a bunch
of good poets in those days," Hackett said. "I think The Purple was
a forum for a more authentic voice, and I must say, The Purple in
those years was a remarkably free magazine."
Hackett added that, although he let poetry slide in
importance in his life, it
has moved again to the forefront of
his creativity.
"When you go off to graduate school and start teaching English ... at times poetry
seems distant from other urgencies
in life. It's not that I'm ambivalent-It's more important now, oddly enough,
and I'm slowly getting better."
It was also during the late '50s and early '60s that the artistic presentation
of The Purple expanded.
Artwork by Jim Mullen '61, Terry O'Shea '63, and others adorned the covers in
four colors. Photographs, drawings and paintings were regularly included, and
the visual presentation of The Purple was continually being modified. The Purple
appeared four times a year and had a regular staff. Text fonts switched from
traditional typefaces to more modern sans serif types and poets experimented
with visual forms.
In 1960, The Purple's table of contents included two poems by the young
Billy Collins '63: "Awakening" and "Her
Back is to the Wind." The author of these works is the Billy
Collins, one of today's best-known contemporary American poets (see
sidebar).
In 1968, on the 125th anniversary of the founding of Holy
Cross, Purple editor Randall Caudill '69 felt it was time
to put
together a retrospective of Purple writers. With the help of faculty moderator
Gene McCarthy, he poured through 40,000 pages and 80 volumes
of The Purple to create a 125th Anniversary Issue.
In his preface, Caudill wrote:
"A century from now, perhaps this very issue may be regarded in turn. If this
issue is ever so perused, its editor would like to say that once in the winter
of 1969, we took time out to look back some 80 years, and if anything an awareness
of our inheritance increased
our humility."
Caudill left Holy Cross a Rhodes Scholar and spent two
years at Oxford in England studying medieval lyric poetry and Shakespeare. He
then taught in England for
several years before returning to the United States and beginning a career as
an investment banker on Wall Street. Although his success in the field was considerable,
his love for literature never faded, and now, retired and living in California,
Caudill is working on his poetry again.
"I haven't thought about that for 30 years," he said, when asked about The
Purple. "But it's funny you should
mention it. I've just hauled out my old poetry at the request of a local
journal."
While Purple alumni have differing recollections
of elitism or cliquishness, and budgets have been alternately
bountiful and bare-boned, no alumni can recall censorship,
either from within the group or from the administration.
In fact, the editorial freedom allowed The Purple staff
to cover just about any subject it wanted. In 1973, Purple staffers
scored an all-time interview coup when they tracked down
Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali in New York and
published
the interview and photographs in The Purple.
Fred Contrada '74, now a reporter at the Springfield (Mass.) Union
News, was one of the instigators of the interview.
"Salvador Dali was a favorite of ours," Contrada
said. "We knew that he stayed at the St. Regis Hotel in New York and we had an
issue of The Purple that was all about art. We'd put together what people
like Charles Mingus' and Anne Sexton's thoughts about art were. We wanted to
call Dali and say, 'What about art?' So we said, 'Let's call the hotel, and the
next thing you know Salvador Dali answers the phone
and ... he said, 'Come see me Wednesday night.' "
After graduation, Contrada made his rounds
in the nation's workforce, did time on a boat on the Mississippi River, worked
as a cab driver in Santa Fe and waited tables in New Orleans. He
took the reporter's job at the Union News 12 years ago, but he really
has not gone far from his roots. Contrada was a copy boy at The Boston
Globe during high school and free-lanced news stories during his cross-country
days.
He has also written six unpublished novels; the main
character of his latest
effort is from Worcester.
One of the more recent post-Purple success stories
is that of 1988 graduate Lauren McLaughlin, who was an
editor of The Purple for four years; as a first-year student,
she won the "Purple Purse," a literary award no longer offered by the magazine.
An English major at Holy Cross, McLaughlin wrote mostly
poetry but turned to screenplays after graduation. With two produced scripts
to her credit, she is
now the vice president of production
at Lions Gate Films in New York.
A Purple Future
Lindsay Rose '00, an English major from Westwood, Mass.,
is this year's editor of The Purple. Rose took over at the
suggestion of English Professor
Robert Cording, The Purple's faculty advisor for the last 18 years.
Rose's enthusiasm for her task is as earnest and as dedicated as all The Purple
editors who have overseen the journal for over a hundred years. But things are
quite different for Rose at The
Purple's helm. While the magazine once published impressive, creative journals
four times a year, Rose has taken over a struggling, once-a-year
publication.
For the most part, The Purple of the 1990s has
been a vehicle for poets and short story writers, although photographers have
also contributed to it.
Rose said she thinks other campus publications,
particularly the weekly Crusader student newspaper, have overshadowed The
Purple's presence.
"Because it's entirely a literary magazine, quite naturally
it's read by people
who are English majors and those who have a vested interest in
it," she said.
Diversification has also taken its toll on The Purple.
The magazine has even lost its cliquishness. Gone are the days of the gangs
of sullen, black-clad
poets. Gone are the late-night shufflings of submissions between editors
and staffers at press deadline.
Rose is the single staff member for The Purple and handles everything
through a mailbox. There is no Purple office, no weekly meeting.
"There isn't anybody else," Rose said. "Maybe there
should be more than one person. But I don't think it's big
enough at this point. I don't feel overwhelmed."
The Purple, it seems, has come full circle-back to the days of the Acroama
Circle, when a small group of people struggled to see themselves in print.
Rose said the journal is no longer mailed to every student, although copies
are placed near student mailboxes. Calls for submissions tend to come from
English professors. And many students now submit their work to a variety
of other student publications.
"The point of it is really to highlight the writers out there and to expose the
rest of the campus to the people who do have some talent," Rose said, but acknowledged
that The Purple's future may be in limbo.
"I wish it could come out more often, there's certainly enough material for it," she
said. "If it came out four times a year, maybe that would help."
Most likely, The Purple is simply going through
one of its periodic evolutions. But ultimately, only time will tell if
the journal will survive
into the next century. In a time when students can fashion their own
personal Web pages, perhaps the paper-and-ink literary journal is becoming
a quaint
notion. But whatever the future holds for the College's oldest magazine, the
back issues of The Purple testify to a rich history of creativity
and self-expression.
"Billy Collins '63" Sidebar >
Karen Hart is a free-lance journalist
from West Boylston, Mass.
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