Moving away from home to a new town, state or country to a small plot of land hidden in the woods is quite the transition. Collectively, we all get caught up in trying to remember new friends’ names, staying on top of our assignments and attempting to cram every cool event into our calendars. In the whirlwind that is earning your college degree while trying to balance the awkward ins and outs of personhood, it is easy to overlook the interesting underbelly of Drew’s history. Students come and go from The Forest and their stories are buried in The Oak Leaves, old photographs in the University Archives, strung together through bylines in old editions of The Drew Acorn. Other stories are lost completely. Yet, this past, forged by the tens of thousands of Drew alums, makes up the foundation of Drew’s unique culture, and it is important not to forget. Thanks to the work of a truly dedicated student’s fascination with the history of The Forest, Drew’s early history is preserved.
John Cunningham (C’38) is well-remembered as a lifelong member of the Drew community and a committed storyteller. He was so seriously committed to the art of storytelling that he published over 52 books about local and state history, helped found the New Jersey Historical Commission and is credited with helping write the state’s fourth grade history curriculum.
Importantly, Cunningham compiled the most comprehensive history of Drew as a passion project and published it as the “University in the Forest” in 1972. It is in this book that Drew’s history, from the Methodist roots to the speech of Martin Luther King Jr., is covered in its fullest form. Cunningham’s project, according to the book’s foreword, aimed to “recapture the excitement and controversy of human beings in an institution changing with the decades” and “portray Drew as a living, vital thing.”
Cunningham was among some of the first young gentlemen to graduate from Brother’s College back when it was an all-men institution. As he recalls, he “grew up in a family where education was supreme,” so following his graduation from Morristown High School, he saved his money to enroll in Brother’s College of Liberal Arts. Cunningham found his start and wrote for The Drew Acorn as a sports editor, drawing on his experience writing for the Morristown Record while still in high school.
He sought out a career as a journalist after graduation, contributing to papers such as the (now defunct) Newark News while continuing to work for the Morristown Record. After returning from war service in the South Pacific, he continued writing. At the time he planned to strictly be a journalist, and recalls, in an interview with the New York Times, that his “goals did not include either the writing of books or becoming a historian.” Yet, by 1953 his first book, “This is New Jersey” was published and a lifelong commitment to history was set in motion.
According to the same New York Times article, Cunningham’s writing inspired his love for his home state. Through exploring the nooks and crannies of the state from Newark to Essex County, he found his appreciation for the small stories. Cunningham had a knack for turning potentially dull stories into interesting reads. One of Cunningham’s friends, Dick Floersheime, remembers how Cunningham’s work gave “commonplace events to a lustrous shine” and inspired readers to take an interest in local history.
In his pursuits, he produced over 2,000 articles, helped create dozens of documentary films and still found time to give public lectures.
In 1972, “University in The Forest” provided Drew with a spotlight. Cunningham turned the admiration he found for the small and the mundane to his Alma Mater. As Cunningham writes in the foreword to his book, “University in the Forest” is “filled with affection” and “nostalgia” for his previous home. However, in staying consistent with his commitment to journalistic style, the history Cunningham presents deals with the complex history of Drew in a subjective and sophisticated way. Due to Cunningham’s connection to our tiny little campus, we have an evergreen memorial for the hard work and dedication that went into building the institution of Drew. Through intense research with the university archivists, he presented a detailed history of everything from university administration to Drew going coeducational. Each chapter is also complete with pictures to truly allow the reader a glimpse into the past. His work captures the details of the past and presents them to future students and faculty to contend with on their own.
Cunningham’s work, both at a state level and a local level, embodies what it means to use shared history to foster a sense of community pride. In 1997 he received the Governor’s Gold Medal for his dedication to fostering pride among New Jerseyans. His works have similarly remained influential among the Drew community. Alums who range from casual readers to full-fledged historians regard Cunningham as “Drew’s storyteller.” It is for these reasons that Drew presented him with an honorary degree in 1976. Cunningham’s dedication to telling the story of Drew provided the university with a tool designed to bring us together.
Drew Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow is in no way attempting to live up to the work of Cunningham. It would take years of research to achieve such a feat. However, this column in its past iterations and in its future endeavors aims to shed light on the important stories hiding among the oak trees. By knowing about the grounds we haunt day in and day out we can relish in the excitement that something deeply interesting has happened here. We can take inspiration from the past to craft the community we want and need. This year this column will dive into the rich cultural history of Drew and dig up a story or two that all of us can find interesting.
Jocelyn Freeman is a senior majoring in English and history with a minor in Chinese.
