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| Image Font © Bradley Kennedy 2014 |
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Sarah A. Leavitt, Introduction in Priscilla J. Henken, Taliesin Diary: A Year With Frank Lloyd Wright. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012, p. 15—
The Taliesin Fellowship [Frank Lloyd Wright’s school near Spring Green WI] was received suspiciously by many; newspapers and magazines reported the activities at the farm to be exotic and somewhat strange…Beginning during World War II, the FBI focused on Wright’s antiwar stance and sympathies with Russia and Germany, and investigated whether Wright was unduly influencing his disciples to have anti-American views. Ten years later, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was still worried about Wright and the Fellowship, writing to the Bureau field office in Milwaukee that Wright needed to be watched, given that his “school contained no classrooms” and “appeared to be a religious cult.” Hoover mentioned rumors that “the foundation held dances to the moon, told the students how to think and that if a student did not attend certain meetings which had nothing to do with the study of architecture, the student would be dismissed from the school.” He also reported that his informant “had heard there were homosexuals attending the school.” Newspaper reports throughout the 1940s and 1950s made reference to Wright’s “communist” views and his nontraditional learning environment.
See also: Roy R. Behrens, FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT and Mason City: Architectural Heart of the Prairie (2016).
