Tom,
You wrote, "I have absolutely no idea if A.W. Tillinghast was a racist or not... I'm quite sure by Tillinghast's use of words in that article he was not trying to create some type of racial ruckus in what he said..."
You went on to say, "I say that because I don't like sanitized history at all. My sense is to present it precisely the way it really was---warts and all. I think that's the only way it can be best understood and the best way for those of us today and in the future to learn from it."
As someone who is also fascinated with history and the accurate presentation of it, and who also has a deep interest in Tilly's life & times, I thought that I'd share an anecdote from my tilly bio that I believe will both answer the question of his view on race and show the "warts" that existed in his time.
"These, though, weren’t the only visitors to come calling on Tillinghast at this time. Some were unwelcome and came at night, very late at night.
With the Depression at its height there was very little work going on, in fact the only new work Tillinghast found in 1931 was a small renovation at Wykagyl and the wonderful new design of Alpine in New Jersey, a project that proved both difficult and time-consuming. Tilly, who was a very difficult taskmaster in overseeing his workers, had decided that his foreman was not doing a good job. He not only was drinking on the job, an irony that wasn’t lost on Tilly, but no longer held the respect of the workers, who were not producing as Tilly felt they should. The only choice he felt he had was to fire him.
This was a difficult thing to do, but especially at this time, with the Great Depression already several years in length and with no end in sight. This also meant that he would have to hire a new foreman, and fortunately he had the perfect man for the job, a man who was already a leader on his work crews and who was greatly respected by all those he worked with. A man named Lonny, a black man.
This was quite a controversial thing to do. How could he fire a white “boss” and put a black man in his place, and over other white workers at that? Needless to say, in doing this he upset some people.
Lonny, though, was a very humble man, and suggested to Tilly that he might be making a mistake, after all, he “didn’t know how to read and write.”
Tilly’s response was that he’d teach him.
Lonny responded asking how he could he tell the men what to do since he “didn’t know the technical terms or have the education for it?”
Tillinghast simply said, “Lonny, I’ll teach you.”
Well, Lonny finally agreed to do it, but reminded his boss that since it was now fall he should remember that Lonny would be leaving New Jersey in a few weeks for his winter job in the fields of North Carolina, but would be back, as always, in the spring.
Tilly said, “No, you won’t. I want you to stay, you and your wife Mary, and live with my family. You can stay in the apartment above the carriage house. I will teach you everything you need to know over the winter. The only thing I ask that you do is shovel the snow and drive my wife where she needs to go.”
So his new foreman Lonny, along with his wife Mary, moved above the carriage house, where they enjoyed a warm winter. In fact some nights were decidedly warmer than others.
It was that winter that the unwanted visitors came calling often, and always late at night.
Barbara vividly remembers one evening being awakened from a sound sleep by some noise, in fact by a lot of noise, coming from out in back of the house. Afraid, she called for her mother, who didn’t answer.
Getting out of bed, she opened her door and walked down the short hallway to where her mother stood staring out the second story window, oblivious to her young daughter.
Attracted by the glimmering of lights and noise from outside, she walked over and peeked out from behind her mother. This was the first time that Barbara Worden Manny saw a cross being burned by a group of men. Several times that winter, members of the Ku Klux Klan, who at that time maintained an active presence in New Jersey, burned crosses on his lawn to protest Tilly’s promotion of Lonny.
The Klan had misjudged the object of their protests. Tillinghast had stood up to much greater and better men than these. Lonny kept managing his crews for as long as he had workers."
I believe this tells a great deal about Tilly the man.