COURTESY OF ROTARY CLUB OF MADISON
WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
THE LIFE
AND TIMES OF
Carson Gulley
BY SCOTT SEYFORTH
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wisconsinhistory.org
WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
During the decade of the 1950s, Carson Gulley
crisscrossed Wisconsin presenting hundreds of
cooking lectures and demonstrations to school,
community, and civic groups. He was often one of
the only African American speakers invited into the
communities he visited. Here Gulley is speaking to
the Rotary Club of Madison in 1954.
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3
I
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n August 1965, at the height
of the civil rights movement—the same month
President Lyndon Johnson
signed the Voting Rights Act into
law and the Watts Riots shook
Los Angeles—the University of
Wisconsin Regents voted to name
a building on campus after Carson
Gulley, a beloved longtime university chef. Carson Gulley Commons
was the first UW–Madison
building named after an African
American, and the first building
on campus named after a civilservice employee.1 Though now
largely forgotten, Carson Gulley
was a celebrated figure in the midtwentieth century, known for his
groundbreaking efforts crossing
racial barriers in Wisconsin as
a teacher, a radio and television
personality, and a pioneer in the
struggle for equal housing. The
story of Gulley’s life sheds light
Carson Gulley, ca. 1925
on the persistent practices of
racial segregation and exclusion
in Wisconsin in the twentieth century and illustrates how one
African American used his professional and public stature to
challenge those practices.
Carson Gulley was born in 1897 in Nevada Township,
Arkansas, the third of ten siblings. His parents, Ely and Elizabeth Gulley, grew cotton, and Gulley began work in the fields
at age six. School was held in the local church and the calendar
was based around the needs of the cotton fields. As a child,
Gulley usually only attended school for two months a year.2
When Gulley was sixteen years old, his father hoped to
improve his son’s chances at success in life and apprenticed
him to a teacher in a nearby community, where Gulley worked
in exchange for tutoring. He graduated from high school at
eighteen years old, passing in two years. Following his graduation, he took the teaching examinations and returned to teach
in his local church schoolhouse while also sharecropping.
Gulley taught school there for three years, learning how to
teach and acquiring the skills of an educator. He would utilize
these skills for the remainder of a lifetime spent teaching and
educating others.3
In 1917, at the age of twenty, Gulley married Maybelle
Lenor, and by 1923 they had four children. Little is known
of Gulley’s early family life with his first wife and children. At
some point in the 1920s, Gulley and Maybelle separated and
the children stayed with their mother in Arkansas.4
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Beatrice Gulley (née Russey) worked as a
school teacher in Arkansas. After moving
to Madison in 1930, she worked as a
seamstress at a women’s clothing store,
Carmen’s on the Square, then for a number
of years as a domestic helper for a Madison
family.
Gulley attempted sharecropping cotton in 1918 on an
eighty-acre farm, with several acres planted with vegetables
for home use. Working diligently, he produced a bumper crop
of cotton. But the landowner claimed high operating expenses
and took all of Gulley’s profits, a common occurrence in sharecropping. The following year brought the same success with
the crops, the same claims from the landowner, and Gulley
gave up the farm. He decided to leave home to try to find a
trade for himself, determined to find some kind of work other
than sharecropping.5
When Gulley left rural Arkansas, he joined the first
Great Migration of over 1.6 million African Americans. They
moved from mostly rural areas in the South to northern and
midwestern cities, leaving Jim Crow segregation with its widespread violence and terror and lack of economic opportunity
for African Americans.6 At first Gulley tried the construction
business, where for a few months he worked as a hod carrier,
carrying bricks and other construction materials for plasterers
and bricklayers. But that position ended abruptly when his
employer went broke.7
Then, in 1921, Gulley landed a dishwashing job in a little
restaurant in the oil boom town of El Dorado, Arkansas. When
the cook quit, Gulley was allowed to cook in his place, and
after a four-week trial, he became the head cook. He stayed on
for several months, but eventually made the decision to move
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Beatrice and Carson Gulley, ca. 1930s
around the Midwest, learning the cooking trade in cafes, restaurants, and railroad cars. “In those days,” Gulley recalled, “there
were no schools for chefs, and if there were, I didn’t know of
them. One had to serve a long apprenticeship, but it was difficult for me to obtain this training, since my connections were
poor and my background deemed an insufficient recommendation. I left El Dorado, and traveled about from place to place,
picking up jobs here and there, and trying to learn all I could
as I went along. Frequently more kindly chefs would help; more
often they would not. And, so it went for years.”8
Gulley served as pastry cook at the Baltimore Hotel in
Kansas City, Missouri, which led to an assignment as a chef
at a large chain restaurant in Saint Louis. It was at this restaurant in 1922 that Gulley—and a piece of his Washington Pie—
caught the attention of the president of Principia Institute, a
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Saint Louis Christian Science educational institute, who hired Gulley as head
chef. Gulley would work at Principia for
the next four years.9
During his time at Principia, when
the institute was closed for the summer,
Gulley worked at summer resorts in
Kansas and Florida, and spent some
of the busiest days of his work life at an
exclusive resort at Lake Chautauqua,
New York, where on Sundays he cooked
1,400 chicken pot pies.
In the summer of 1926, while Gulley
was cooking at the Essex Lodge in Tomahawk, Wisconsin, Don Halverson, the
director of university housing at UW–
Madison, happened to stop at the lodge
for the evening. The kitchen was closed,
but Gulley opened it and served Halverson a memorable meal. Afterward,
Halverson asked to meet the chef. When
Gulley came out, they visited for a long
time and Halverson stayed another day
at the lodge getting to know Gulley—
inviting him fishing at 5:00 a.m. and
enjoying the noon and night meals that
day. Before leaving, Halverson offered
Gulley a job at the university. Several
months later, in December 1926, Gulley
began his career at the University of
Wisconsin at the age of twenty-nine. 10
As he established himself in his
work at Madison, Gulley also met the
woman who would become his second
wife: Beatrice Russey, the sister-in-law
to one of his brothers. Beatrice lived in
Chidester, Arkansas, and Gulley courted
her long-distance, eventually asking her mother if Beatrice
could move to Madison. In 1930, Beatrice made the move,
renting a room with a family in town. On Saturday, July 26,
1930, Gulley asked Beatrice to go for a ride in his car. While
out driving, they stopped at the home of Reverend Joseph
Washington, the pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church. Once
inside the house, Beatrice took a seat. In response, Reverend
Washington said, “Sister, you don’t sit down for this. You stand
up for what you’re going to do.” Gulley laughed and remarked
to the pastor, “She’s getting married, but she doesn’t know it.”
The marriage proposal that day was a surprise to Beatrice, but
one she accepted on the spot.11
Gulley continued his work at the university until, in 1936,
he was invited by the president of Tuskegee Institute to develop
and instruct a ten-week summer course as in-service training
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In the summer of 1936, Gulley (third from left) taught this chef’s in-service training course at the Tuskegee
Institute in Alabama.
for currently employed chefs. Gulley was granted a short-term
leave from his position as chef at the University of Wisconsin to
spend the summer immersed in life at Tuskegee Institute, one
of the most important centers of African American identity,
culture, and community in the United States.12 At Tuskegee,
Gulley drew on faculty members, including famed botanist and inventor Dr. George Washington Carver, to supply
specialty lectures and demonstrations in his course. Carver
helped Gulley understand the importance of food beyond its
effects on personal health, putting it in relation to its larger
role in commerce.
The course Gulley taught at Tuskegee included site visits
to the institute’s slaughter house, creamery, dairy, poultry
yard, and the city of Tuskegee fish markets. The class traveled
to Montgomery to study wholesale groceries, packing houses,
and the kitchens of the city’s finest hotels. The program culminated in a two-day simulation of a hotel restaurant, advertising
itself in the community as “Hotel Tuskegee.” For the simulation, the institute’s cafeteria paralleled actual hotel conditions
and opened for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, taking reservations from community members. Gulley’s students had to
perform not in a classroom setting but in “restaurant conditions.”13 The ten-week summer course would quickly become
a full degree program at Tuskegee.14
After Gulley returned from Tuskegee to his chef’s position
in the University of Wisconsin dormitories, his teaching skills
became more widely recognized. The US Navy chose Gulley
to direct a Cooks and Bakers School during World War II that
ran from 1942 to 1944 at the University of Wisconsin. Over
those two years, Gulley trained more than one hundred navy
cooks who would provide meals on ships and other locations
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around the world.15 Gulley replicated his Tuskegee Institute
course right down to the simulation restaurant as the final
exam, even inviting the governor and the officers from Great
Lakes Naval Training Station to serve as judges of the final
product.16
Soon Gulley would become one of the first instructors of
color for the University of Wisconsin.17 After witnessing the
quality of Gulley’s teaching with the Navy Cooks and Bakers
School, University of Wisconsin dormitories decided to use
Gulley’s talents to develop a professional cook’s short course
for present and prospective state employees at Madison in
1944.18 In 1946, the six-month program was expanded to
become a two-year training course taught at Madison under
the GI Bill. Many of Gulley’s navy students came back to
continue their training at Madison. In fact, almost every
person who took the course was a veteran.19 Similar to the
Tuskegee course, the program included field trips to tour
different restaurant operations, including the Palmer House
in Chicago. The course also ended each year with the restaurant simulation.20
Gulley’s teaching only further ignited his desire to learn
about the food industry. During the 1930s and 1940s, Gulley
often spent part of his summer vacation traveling around the
country to study food production and processing. He visited
Puget Sound fisheries, watched the grading of citrus fruits
in California fruit orchards, studied frozen food plants in
Oregon, and observed methods of processing vegetables in
packing plants in California. He studied food retail by examining cafeteria item pricing in Los Angeles and visiting hotel
kitchens wherever he went, from the Waldorf-Astoria in New
York City to Chicago’s Palmer House. He attended meetings of
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US Navy Cooks and Bakers School trainees at Van Hise Refectory observe Gulley and the Van Hise staff preparing Thanksgiving dinner for
UW–Madison students on November 25, 1942.
the Wisconsin Restaurant Association and the annual conventions of the American Restaurant Association, continuing to
advance his knowledge of food production and his artistry as a
chef and educator.21
In the late 1940s, as word of Gulley’s teaching skills spread,
Gulley became one of the few African Americans in the state
to be broadcast on the radio. He was offered appearances
on radio programs around Wisconsin under the auspices of
the WHA radio Homemaker’s Program. The UW College
of Agriculture Extension designed the WHA Homemaker’s
Program as a way to reach residents in all corners of Wisconsin
to share homemaking advice.22 Gulley’s appearances on WHA
led to an invitation to host his own cooking program on WISC
radio in Madison. Ralph O’Connor, general manager of
WISC, praised Gulley as “an unquestioned expert who has
the happy talent of making his teachings understandable to
even the most inexperienced.”23 In the early 1950s, Gulley’s
radio program Cooking School of the Air moved to Madison’s
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WIBA radio where it ran three times a week, offering recipes
and cooking advice.24 Gulley received hundreds of letters
and postcards from listeners requesting recipes. WIBA soon
published a monthly booklet of Gulley’s recipes as a way of
meeting listeners’ demand.25
His success on the radio soon led to opportunities in television. In 1953, Gerald Bartell, who was launching WMTV
in Madison, offered Gulley one of the anchor programs on
the fledgling station.26 Beatrice joined him as cohost of the
program, initially called What’s Cookin’, which ran from
1953 to 1962. They became some of the first African Americans to host their own television program in the United States.
Though WMTV received hate mail for having an African
American couple star in one of their programs, Bartell unwaveringly supported Carson and Beatrice Gulley.27
What’s Cookin’ aired for half an hour, increasing from
once a week to five days a week as the show became more
popular. Carson and Beatrice would rehearse the show
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Beatrice and Carson Gulley on the set of their long-running cooking show, 1950s
Gulley had a professional interest in spices and discussed them at a
time when many home cooks did not often season their food beyond
the use of salt and pepper. He used his traveling spice case, shown
here, as a practical visual prop for his lectures around the state.
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together at home before broadcast to make sure the program
went smoothly. On camera, Beatrice usually passed items to
Carson, who did most of the presenting. Carson, then in his
fifties, utilized his decades of experience teaching others to
cook. He came across as a natural television host. His warm,
inviting personality transferred well to the small screen, and he
excelled at explaining the successive steps needed to complete
a recipe.28
While local cooking shows were ubiquitous in the 1950s
and ’60s, existing in almost every television market in the
country, it was uncommon for one to be led by an African
American couple.29 Ebony magazine counted fewer than
twelve locally broadcast shows starring African Americans
in the United States at any one time throughout the 1950s.30
The Gulleys’ show was one of the longest running of that era,
airing for ten years. It stands out as the only known program
to feature an African American husband and wife team in a
television show in the United States during the decade of the
1950s.31
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The Gulleys were avid golfers and they are both buried in Madison at Forest Hill Cemetery, within sight of the
eighth hole green of Glenway Golf Couse, where Gulley once shot a hole-in-one. He asked to be buried within
sight of that hole.
Gulley’s radio shows, television program, and cookbook,
published in 1949, added to his celebrity and led to invitations for him to address various groups of homemakers, men’s
civic organizations, and service clubs. Throughout the 1950s,
Gulley maintained an active lecture and cooking demonstration schedule, often giving between one and three talks a week
in communities around the state and the greater Midwest.
As a result of this demanding schedule, Gulley had a special
carrying case built to hold seventy-five of the herbs and spices
he commonly used as a speaker and demonstrator. He brought
with him a complete traveling set of butchering and chef
knives. And, perhaps most helpful, he had the trunk of his car
converted into a portable refrigerator.32
Despite his professional success and public celebrity,
Gulley was subject to segregation and other forms of exclusion
at his university job and in the Madison community—discrimination that all African Americans in Madison experienced
during the early part of the twentieth century.33 Gulley worked
at an educational institution where there were no African
American professors or administrators; where fraternities,
sororities, and student organizations forbade membership to
people of color and Jews through restrictions in their bylaws;
and where residence hall students were paired with roommates of the same race on the assumption that white students
didn’t want to live with African Americans.34 In the Madison
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community, African Americans were not allowed to dine in
some restaurants. Downtown department stores had policies that would not allow African Americans to try on clothes
under the assumption that white people would not want to
buy clothes that had been tried on by a person of color.35
African Americans could not rent rooms in hotels in Madison
or teach in Madison public schools, and they were systematically excluded from jury duty lists in Dane County.36 And,
due to restrictive covenants in deeds and landlords’ refusals to
integrate boarding houses, African Americans had difficulty
finding housing outside of several small, prescribed areas in
Madison.37
In his travels around Wisconsin in the 1950s, Gulley was
often one of the only African American speakers invited into
communities he visited, giving talks in communities that had
no African American residents. In fact, some were considered
sundown towns, communities that intentionally kept African
Americans out by custom or law. Hotels in most of the towns
where he spoke would not accept African Americans. Often
after speaking by invitation to hundreds of people, Gulley
would have to drive back to Madison after the evening’s
engagement or find people in the community with whom to
stay.38
Finding housing in Madison was an ongoing struggle
for the Gulleys. In 1932, when they rented and moved into
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UW–MADISON ARCHIVES
CAPITAL TIMES, AUGUST 14, 1953
WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
Carson Gulley, ca. 1950
This 1953 Capital Times (Madison) article describes an attempt by Gulley to purchase
property. The sale was later terminated using racial segregation laws.
a house on West Johnson Street, white neighbors circulated
a petition stating that they did not want African Americans
in the neighborhood. The Gulleys were given notice by their
landlord to move, and by 1933, they had relocated to 1418
Northern Court.39 In 1934, they were able to rent an apartment at 1200 West Johnson. But once again, neighbors circulated a petition asking the landlord to give the Gulleys notice.
This time, the landlord refused and the Gulleys lived there for
the year, until Beatrice decided to attend Tuskegee Institute to
complete a seamstress degree while Carson stayed to work in
Madison.
Upon Beatrice’s return in 1935, the couple again had
great difficulty finding a place to live.40 Gulley asked Don
Halverson, director of dormitories, for help. However, after
finding them an apartment near campus, Halverson received
a phone call from the Gulleys’ upstairs neighbor saying they
were going to be evicted. “I’m running for alderman,” the
man explained, “and I cannot get anywhere when I have
a colored person living in my house.” Frustrated, Gulley
decided to take a job he had been offered outside of Madison.
To temporarily resolve the housing problem and to induce
Gulley to stay at the university, Halverson obtained permission for the university to build Gulley an apartment. Located
in the basement of Tripp Hall, the apartment had an outside
entrance that led directly to the Van Hise Refectory where
Gulley worked next door. Gulley accepted the university’s
offer, and the Gulleys lived in the basement apartment until
Carson retired in 1954.41
Since the late 1940s, Gulley had been challenging Madison
segregation laws by attempting to buy property on which to
build a home. At this time, Gulley was active in the Madison
chapter of the NAACP, an interracial organization dedicated
10
to eliminating local race-based discrimination. The Madison
chapter included skilled organizers such as labor leader Hilton
Hanna, educators Velma and Harry Hamilton, social worker
Pauline Coggs, and Reverend Joseph Washington, and it
provided a community of support dedicated to challenging
practices of racial segregation in Madison.42 Real estate agents
would explain to Gulley that Madison deeds contained restrictive covenants prohibiting property from being purchased by
a person of color. Eventually, Gulley found a local realtor who
would help him buy property using white “go-betweens” in the
negotiations leading up to the purchase.43 But even in these situations, Gulley was refused property numerous times in Madison
and Monona Village. In 1949, he purchased property on Highways 12 and 18, but the deal fell through and his money was
returned to him. A similar purchase fell through in 1953 when
he bought a lot on Ridge Road at a Dane County tax sale.44
Discouraged by his fruitless attempts to obtain housing in
Madison, Gulley testified before the Madison City Council’s
Committee on Human Rights in 1951. He stated that he had
been refused housing in Madison more times than he could
remember. His testimony came during a committee session
devoted to learning the extent of discrimination against people
of color in Madison—a study requested by the city council.
Gulley explained, “We have faced so much embarrassment
we gave up hope of ever owning a home of our own in the
city.”45 Progressive members of the city council attempted to
pass a Madison ordinance making it unlawful to refuse to sell
or rent property to another person because of race, color, or
religion, but in 1952 the full Madison City Council tabled such
proposals for “further study.”46
On August 3, 1954, Gulley again bought a piece of undeveloped property in order to build a home, this time in a new
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Carson and Beatrice Gulley stand ready to welcome family and friends to their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary party in July 1955 at their new
home, 5701 Cedar Place, Madison.
subdivision five miles west of downtown Madison that was run
as a cooperative called Crestwood.47 A group of Crestwood
residents circulated a petition asking the Crestwood board of
directors to appropriate funds to buy back Gulley’s lot or call a
stockholders’ meeting for that purpose.48 Some residents placed
large signs in their yards threatening to leave Crestwood if the
Gulleys moved in.49 On September 16, 1954, a special meeting
of the cooperative was held to discuss the issue. The Gulleys
chose not to attend, but two hundred Crestwood stockholders
and their families packed into the Highlands-Mendota Beach
School that evening. A motion to buy the Gulleys’ lot was
made with the stipulation that further discussion on the issue
not be allowed. “More hard feelings have been generated over
this than any issue that has arisen in Crestwood in its fifteenSUMMER 2016
year history,” declared Charles Achtenberg, who made the
motion.50 The motion also called for a standing vote. Stockholders had to rise and vote “yes” or “no” on the motion as
their names were called. In an intense and divisive meeting,
the co-op voted sixty-four to thirty against the proposal and
invited the Gulleys to join the community.51
This decisive vote effectively ended the enforcement of
the restrictive covenants in the Crestwood deed. Immediately
after the vote, Crestwood developer and resident Marshall
Erdmann rose and stated that he was in favor of Mr. Gulley
living in the community. Furthermore, he offered to buy back
the home of any current resident who didn’t want to live in
Crestwood. Gulley said afterward that the vote meant his
over-twenty-year search for a home “in a decent location” had
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Carson Gulley stands outside of Van Hise Refectory, the building where he worked throughout his career at UW–Madison, and which would
later be renamed for him, ca. 1940s.
ended. “I’m just so thrilled I don’t know what to do,” Gulley
said. “It gives me assurance that people have come a long way
in learning about people.”52
When the Gulleys moved into their Crestwood home in
late December 1954, they were concerned about how they
would be treated. Once, a cross was burned in their yard.
They received hate mail and phone calls.53 They did receive
positive overtures from some neighbors: one man originally
opposed to Gulley building in Crestwood later told him, “With
the vote showing that the majority wants you here you’ll find it
won’t be like you were afraid it would be.”54 However, tensions
remained high in the Crestwood neighborhood following the
vote, even as the integration attempt was being put forth by the
Governor’s Commission on Human Rights as a model of how
integration could be achieved.55 There was no mass exodus of
white residents from Crestwood, but a few residents did sell
their homes and leave the neighborhood. No other African
Americans followed the Gulleys into Crestwood.56
The story of the Crestwood vote went out over the AP and
was reported in papers across Wisconsin.57 The Gulleys’ move
into Crestwood was newsworthy because it differed sharply
12
from similar integration attempts occurring in Wisconsin and
Illinois at the time. Many of those attempts required outside
negotiators, and sometimes they became full-scale race riots
involving hundreds, or even thousands, of angry whites. In
some cases, support from the National Guard was necessary
to quell white rioters and restore order.58
The Gulleys’ move was an individual victory for open
housing in Madison, and a very public one at that—the Capital
Times called it an “action unique in Madison history.”59 Yet,
this stand for integration did not produce immediate change
to Madison housing laws. The local mass movement for fair
housing did not come until 1963, a year after Gulley’s death.60
Years of continually being passed over for the director of
dormitory food services and other positions for younger, less
qualified white candidates wore deeply on Gulley.61 In 1954,
after over sixteen million meals served to students and twentyseven years of service, Gulley retired from the University of
Wisconsin.62 With newfound speaking, catering, television,
and radio ventures to support him, Gulley chose to move on.
In a 1958 letter to Don Halverson, Gulley described his work
environment and reasons for leaving the university. He wrote:
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Publicity photo for the Gulleys’ catering business, ca. 1960
I am sure you know that my job with the different
people I had to work with was not a bed of roses.
. . . The only way that I could do that job was to
swallow the bitter pill of prejudice, opposition and
hatred. I feel that I have made some gains. I would
like to have spent the rest of my life at the University. However, as you know, when one is young and
the body is strong, one can stand a lot, but when
one grows old and the resistance becomes low, one
cannot stand up to the things one endured or did
while young. Therefore, I gave it up.63
In the early 1960s, the Gulleys decided to expand their
catering service into a full-fledged restaurant. Carson and
Beatrice had been running their own catering business
since 1953, working side by side to outfit everything from
small private dinner parties to convention banquets of 3,500
people.64 In 1961, they bought property on University Avenue
and built a structure with living quarters on the second floor,
a restaurant on the first floor, and catering preparation in the
lower level.65 Carson Gulley’s Catering and Dining Service
opened on September 15, 1962.66 Just two weeks later, Gulley
became ill due to complications from diabetes and entered the
hospital.67 He never recovered and died there on November 2,
1962. News of his death appeared in the conservative paper of
record in Madison, the Wisconsin State Journal, on the front
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page above the fold.68 At the time of his death, there was, arguably, no better known African American in Wisconsin.
With a stable of loyal staff, Beatrice Gulley continued
operating the restaurant until 1965. The public reason for
the closing was that Beatrice was no longer “able to handle
the many responsibilities of the business.”69 Privately, two
factors contributed. First, the city would never give the
Gulleys a liquor license, making it almost impossible to
compete with other supper club businesses. Secondly, the
amount of hate-filled phone calls and racial harassment
toward Beatrice increased after Carson’s death. With intensified threats, Beatrice found it difficult to live alone in the
large commercial building and desired to move to a more
residential environment.70 In 1965, Gerald Bartell bought
the building from her.71 In the late 1980s, Beatrice began to
experience dementia and moved into a care facility.72 She
died in Madison in 2001.73
Carson Gulley’s life was filled with many triumphs and
challenges. His professional career included many pioneering
efforts and public acclaim. Gulley used his celebrity to fight
a series of struggles, some but not all of them successful, to
achieve equal standing in Madison and the state. The story of
his life offers not just the case of one extraordinary individual,
but provides examples of the persistent practices of segregation and exclusion that African Americans actively challenged
in mid-twentieth-century Wisconsin.
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Beatrice Gulley at Carson Gulley Commons, the first building on UW–Madison’s campus to be named after an African American, ca. 1966
Notes
1. “U.W. Building Named for Gulley,” Capital Times (Madison), August 21, 1965; “UW
Honors Chef Carson Gulley,” Wisconsin State Journal (Madison), August 23, 1965.
2. 1900 US Census, Records for Nevada County, Arkansas, accessed at ancestry.com; Herbert
Stein, “Students Prepare Farewell Meal for Chef Who Prepared 4,500,000 for Them,”
Wisconsin State Journal, June 1, 1936; Charlotte Knechtges, “Carson Gulley, He Got His
Start while the Regular Chef was Sleeping off a Hangover,” Madison Magazine, September
1979, 23–25.
3. Stein, “Students Prepare Farewell Meal”; Knechtges, “Carson Gulley,” 23–25; “Chef
Gulley Would Train More Cooks,” Capital Times, October 21, 1952; “UW Staff News,”
Office of Non-Academic Personnel, January 1952, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Archives, Madison, WI.
4. Carson Gulley and Mabelle Lenor marriage record, February 25, 1917, Arkansas, County
Marriages Index, 1837–1957, accessed at ancestry.com; 1930 US Census, accessed at ancestry.
com; Robert Pennie interview by author, Madison, WI, August 6, 2013.
5. “UW Staff News.”
6. James N. Gregory, The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White
Southerners Transformed America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005);
Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration
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(New York: Random House, 2010).
7. “UW Staff News.”
8. Stein, “Students Prepare Farewell Meal.”
9. Al Shadde, “Carson Gulley,” Gulley Scrapbook clipping, n.d., ca. 1946–1947, Carson
Gulley Collection, University of Wisconsin–Madison Archives; Mary D. Hudgins, “A Famous
University Honors a Famous Arkansas Chef,” Arkansas Gazette, April 1966; Stein, “Students
Prepare Farewell Meal”; “UW Staff News.”
10. Hudgins, “A Famous University”; Stein, “Students Prepare Farewell Meal”; Jean Hird,
“Van Hise Chef Develops Food Preparation Hobby,” Wisconsin Country Magazine, January
1945, 7; Donald Halverson interview by Barry Teicher and John W. Jenkins, Oral History
Program, 1983, Tape 364, University Archives, University of Wisconsin–Madison.
11. “Black Pioneers,” Capital Times, February 11, 1989; Beatrice Gulley interview by Angela
Whitmal, Coming to Madison Oral History Project, 1989, Tape 1206 A, Wisconsin Historical
Society, Madison, Wisconsin.
12. Stein, “Students Prepare Farewell Meal”; “An Adventure in Good Cooking: The Commercial Dietetics Course at Tuskegee Institute,” Service Magazine, October 1936.
13. “An Adventure in Good Cooking.”
14. “Commercial Dietetics At Tuskegee Institute: History and Background,” Service Magazine, April 1940.
15. “Chef Gulley, Others Hold Cooks’ Class,” Capital Times, September 24, 1944.
wisconsinhistory.org
WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
16. S. Lee Burns interview by Barry Teicher, Tape 365, Oral History Program, 1983–1984,
University Archives, Madison, Wisconsin; “Chef Gulley, Others Hold Cooks’ Class.”
17. Jessie Parkhurst Guzman, ed., Negro Year Book: A Review of Events Affecting Negro Life,
1941–1946 (Tuskegee, AL: The Department of Records and Research, 1947); “Tally Retires,”
Badger Chemist—A Newsletter from the Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin–
Madison, Newsletter 21, August 1974, Odell Taliaferro Biographical File, University Archives,
University of Wisconsin–Madison.
18. “Cooks’ School,” Wisconsin Alumnus, October 15, 1944.
19. “U.W. Cooks Pass ‘Cum Laude’ If Guests Ask for Seconds,” Wisconsin State Journal,
February 13, 1949; “Roast Duck Dinner at Van Hise Marks Graduation of Student Chefs,”
Wisconsin State Journal, January 18, 1948; “Guests Dine at New Type of U. Graduation,”
Capital Times, January 16, 1948; “Chef Gulley, Others Hold Cooks’ Class”; “University Chef
to Talk On Achievement Day,” Racine Journal Times, May 14, 1951.
20. “U.W. Cooks Pass ‘Cum Laude’ If Guests Ask for Seconds”; “Final Exam for Cooks
at UW Means Preparation of Meal,” La Crosse Tribune, February 16, 1950; “Roast Duck
Dinner at Van Hise Marks Graduation of Student Chefs.”
21. “Chef Gulley Shares Cooking Know-How with His Public: ‘Seasoning Secrets’ Booklet by
U.W. Man is Published,” Capital Times, August 16, 1949; Hird, “Van Hise Chef”; “Chef of
Men’s Hall Refectory Studies Food Processing Methods,” n.d., Gulley Scrapbook, ca. 1941;
“Train More Cooks,” Capital Times, October 21, 1952; “Attend Convention,” Wisconsin
State Journal, April 21, 1948.
22. “Preparing Thanksgiving Turkey Is Easy, University Chef Says,” Capital Times,
November 11, 1947; Erika Janik, “Dear Mrs. Hazard,” On Wisconsin, Spring 2007.
23. Carson Gulley, Seasoning Secrets and Favorite Recipes of Carson Gulley (Madison, WI:
Strauss Printing Co., 1956).
24. “Carson Gulley, U. Chef, Given Tuskegee Master Crafts Award,” Capital Times, April
2, 1952; James G. Fleming and Christian E. Burckel, Who’s Who in Colored America: An
Illustrated Biographical Directory of Notable Living Persons of African Descent (Yonkers,
NY: Christian E. Burckel Associates, 1950); “Carson Gulley Will Show His Cooking Secrets
on TV,” Wisconsin State Journal, May 17, 1953.
25. “Gulley Solves Problem,” Capital Times, October 1, 1952; “170 Honor Carson Gulley,
Retiring U.W. Cooking Expert,” Wisconsin State Journal, June 7, 1954.
26. Beatrice Gulley interview.
27. Richard Harris interview by author, Madison, WI, April 9, 2013.
28. Bob Friedl interview by author, Madison, WI, February 19, 2016; Beatrice Gulley interview.
29. Margaret McKeegan and Margaret I. Liston, “Techniques and Problems of Presenting
Homemaking Television Programs,” Journal of Home Economics 46 (1954): 384–386.
30. “Negro TV Productions Open Door to New Local Markets,” Ebony, December 1957.
31. “Negro Performers Win Better Roles in TV Than in Any Other Medium,” Ebony, June
1950.
32. “Chef Gulley Shares Cooking Know-How with His Public,” Capital Times, August 16,
1949; “Dorm Chef Writes ‘Seasoning Secrets,’” Daily Cardinal (UW–Madison), July 29,
1949; “Gulley Says More Schools Needed for Turning Out Good Chefs,” Capital Times,
September 30, 1953. A partial list of speaking engagements in Wisconsin in the early 1950s
includes presentations in Beloit, Clintonville, Cuba City, Green Bay, Hazel Green, Madison,
Marinette, Milwaukee, Mineral Point, Orfordville, Racine, Sheboygan, Stoughton, and
Waukesha plus Saint Paul, MN, and Chicago, IL, Gulley scrapbook clippings, n.d.
33. Harry Hamilton, “Wisconsin and the N.A.A.C.P.,” Thirtieth Star, May 1963.
34. “Demands U.W. Wipe Out All Discrimination: Minority Report Is Filed with Pres. Fred
by Student Board Head,” Capital Times, August 5, 1949; John Hunter, “Group Reports
Discrimination in U. Housing: Anti-Negro Practices Found in Survey of Student Housing,”
Capital Times, February 29, 1952; “U.W. Policy on ‘Rights’ Gets Teeth,” Wisconsin State
Journal, August 10, 1952; Report and Recommendations of the Committee on Student
Life and Interests Concerning University Policies on Human Rights of Students, University of Wisconsin–Madison, October 3, 1949, accessed at http://archives.library.wisc.edu/
uw-archives/exhibits/protests/HumanRights.pdf; “Students Bar Negroes, Housemothers
Charge,” Wisconsin State Journal, April 26, 1940.
35. Pauline Coggs, “Does Wisconsin Have a Race Problem?,” Wisconsin State Journal, June
15, 1946; Phil Brinkman, “NAACP Turns 50: Longtime Members Recall Past, Assess Future,”
Wisconsin State Journal, October 16, 1993; Richard Harris, Growing Up Black in South
Madison (Madison, WI: Roytek Publishing, 2012); “City Told to Guard against Racial Bias,
NAACP Official Warns of Rise,” Wisconsin State Journal, May 21, 1946.
36. “Risser, Charging Color Line in Jury Selections, Wins Delay for Taliaferro,” Wisconsin
State Journal, January 14, 1936; “Should Be No Color Line,” Wisconsin State Journal,
January 16, 1936.
37. Ralph L. Davis, et al., Negro Housing in Madison: A Study Published in the Public
Interest by the Madison Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (Madison, WI: Madison NAACP, 1959).
38. James W. Loewen, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism (New
York: The New Press, 2005).
39. Harold E. Entwistle, “Carson Gulley Planning to Build Home,” Capital Times, August
14, 1953.
40. Odell Taliaferro, Colored People in Madison, Wisconsin (Madison, WI: Madison Council
on Human Rights, 1951).
41. Entwistle, “Carson Gulley Planning To Build Home”; Taliaferro, Colored People in
Madison, Wisconsin; Hudgins, “A Famous University Honors a Famous Arkansas Chef”;
Donald Halverson interview by Barry Teicher and John W. Jenkins, Oral History Program,
1983, University Archives, University of Wisconsin–Madison.
42. “Schuyler to Discuss Negro’s Future,” Wisconsin State Journal, February 13, 1944;
SUMMER 2016
Hilton Hanna, “Bright Spot in Dreary Situation: Negro Advancement Society,” Wisconsin
State Journal, April 9, 1943; “Hamilton Heads Madison NAACP,” Wisconsin State Journal,
November 27, 1947.
43. Harris interview.
44. Entwistle, “Carson Gulley Planning to Build Home”; Taliaferro, Colored People in
Madison, Wisconsin; Hudgins, “A Famous University Honors a Famous Arkansas Chef”;
“Human Rights Committee Meets, Negro Chef Tells of Useless Attempts to Get Housing
Here,” Capital Times, December 19, 1951.
45. George Rodgerson, “Housing, Union Bias against Negro Told, but Gulley Opposes
Penalty Law; Blocked by Carpenters, Vet Says,” Wisconsin State Journal, December 19, 1951.
46. “Council Votes 11 to 9 to Delay Civil Rights Ordinance Action,” Capital Times,
September 26, 1951; “Rights Law Fails by 1 Vote,” Wisconsin State Journal, March 12, 1952.
47. Governor’s Commission on Human Rights, A Case Study of Integrated Housing and
Property Values, Governor’s Commission on Human Rights, Madison, WI, 1957.
48. “Chef Gulley Is Target—Crestwood to Air Petition to Bar Negro from Co-op,” Capital
Times, September 9, 1954.
49. David Cheney interview by author, Madison, WI, March 11, 2013.
50. “He Will Proceed with Building Plans—Crestwood Rejects Move to Bar Gulley, Negro
Chef,” Capital Times, September 17, 1954.
51. “He Will Proceed with Building Plans”; “Crestwood Community Wants Carson Gulley as
Neighbor,” Wisconsin State Journal, September 17, 1954.
52. “He Will Proceed with Building Plans”; Helen Matheson, “Crestwood Community Wants
Carson Gulley as Neighbor,” Wisconsin State Journal, September 17, 1954.
53. Lynn Ronnie interview by author, Madison, WI, April 12, 2013; Cheney interview; David
Giffey, The People’s Stories of South Madison (Madison, WI: Decades Mural Project, 2001),
42–44.
54. “Crestwood: A Pioneer Cooperative Housing Project,” Historic Madison: Journal of the
Four Lake Region, Vol. XIV (1997): 19–21; Ronnie interview; Cheney interview.
55. Governor’s Commission on Human Rights, A Case Study of Integrated Housing and
Property Values; Ronnie interview; Cheney interview.
56. “Crestwood: A Pioneer Cooperative Housing Project,” 19–21; Ronnie interview; Cheney
interview.
57. “Madison People Refuse to Bar Negro Family,” Manitowoc Herald Times, September 17,
1954; “Madison Suburb Will Welcome Negro Family,” Janesville Daily Gazette, September
18, 1954.
58. “Rights Body Ends Racial Dispute, Negro Family Returns to Milwaukee Camp,”
Wisconsin State Journal, July 13, 1949; “Chicago Units Taking Over Policing Job in Racial
Dispute,” Capital Times, July 16, 1951.
59. Kaz Oshiki, “The Gulleys Realize a Life Dream—Their Own Home,” Capital Times,
January 8, 1955.
60. “Chef Gulley Is Target”; “He Will Proceed with Building Plans,” Capital Times,
September 17, 1954; Oshiki, “The Gulleys Realize a Life Dream”; Matheson, “Crestwood
Community Wants Carson Gulley as Neighbor.”
61. Hudgins, “A Famous University Honors a Famous Arkansas Chef”; Angela Whitmal,
“Black Pioneers Traveled Rough Road,” Capital Times, February 11, 1989.
62. “Chef Gulley Retires at UW after Sixteen Million Meals,” Milwaukee Journal, June 13,
1954.
63. Carson Gulley to D. L. Halverson, Carson Gully Biographical File, University Archives,
University of Wisconsin–Madison.
64. Louise C. Mahston, “Couples Work Happily ‘Side by Side,’” Wisconsin State Journal,
February 28, 1960.
65. “Gulleys Receive Restaurant Permit,” Wisconsin State Journal, December 22, 1961;
Pennie interview.
66. “Gulley to Open Dining Service,” Capital Times, September 11, 1962.
67. Pennie interview; “Carson Gulley Is ‘Satisfactory,’” Capital Times, October 2, 1962.
68. “LATEST: Gulley, 65, Well Known Chef, Dies,” Wisconsin State Journal, November 3,
1962.
69. “Mrs. Gulley Sells,” Wisconsin State Journal, February 16, 1965.
70. Pennie interview.
71. “Mrs. Gulley Sells.”
72. Pennie interview.
73. “Beatrice R. Gulley Dies at 92,” Wisconsin State Journal, November 19, 2001.
A B O U T T H E AU T H O R
Scott C. Seyforth holds a PhD in educational leadership and policy analysis from
the University of Wisconsin–Madison
where he is an assistant director of residence life. He is one of the founders of
the Madison LGBTQ Oral History Project
and the Madison LGBTQ Archive at the
UW–Madison Archives. 15