Eluard Luchell McDaniel

ELUARD McDANIEL:

Okay, I came to San Francisco. Then went back down there.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Well, when you came to San Francisco, what were you looking for? What sort of work?
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

None.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

You were just, exploring, California.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

I’ll tell you what I did. Come to San Fransisco. Walked around and banquet with anybody that had any food, with anybody that had food around. And then I was picked up by Consuelo Kanaga. The photographer and her family.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Who was this.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

Consuelo Kanaga.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Consuelo Kanaga?
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

Kanaga. Consuelo. Consuelo Kanaga. A photographer.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Kanaga. Right.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

A photographer, which, picked up on the beach by her. And, a art critic by the name of Julius Kramer. And they take me in, she take me in cause they live in the same place.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Right.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

And I lived with them from now up to going to school.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

And what did you do with them?
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

Oh, I’d get up and make coffee in the morning. Sweep off the front porch. Pick up a little junk around the house and that’s about all
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

right.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

They didn’t make me work hard.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

But this was in San Francisco.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

Yeah. And then she taught me her photographer ways, printing, and researching, and developing. Consuelo Kanaga.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

So how did how long did you stay with them? You were them?
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

long time, long time. Let’s see, All through junior high school and high school.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Now, you went to school at the same time?
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

yeah, they sent me to school.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Now they saw to it that you went to school?
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

Oh, yeah. They insist that I went to school and make the best grades. I had good grades in San Francisco. All through high school I made A plus , A, A and A-plus. okay. Mission and had to finish up at Humbolt evening. I went to every junior. Mission and finished up at Humbolt evening high school and then I went to San Francisco State in the art College.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

So your major in college was, art?
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

Wish that I had majored in art. I had art prizes. Won paying prizes and stuff like that. Watercolors
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Watercolors and painting and, photography.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

Photography.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Were you doing any writing then?
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

oh, yeah. in ’34. I mean just published that in ’37, but, I did write before that, but just something for right there. And then, her sister ____ Brown, which was a commercial artist. And then had done puppets and all. Gave us puppets. I worked with him on puppets. And I worked with his.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

And the others, that is, you know.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

So now what the. They must have had a pretty dramatic influence on your life, in the sense that, do you feel that those two people.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

That’s family.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

That’s family.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

It was a German Scotch family, right. A German Scotch family. the Mother German, the parents Scottish. They had a good influence on me because they insist that since I was the only black, out in the mission. in the schools. At the time I was in there. Cause Dr. Spencer had been there before and her brothers.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

But I was the only black at the time. And then there were two more blacks. They insist that I be the best student in the school. Cause of who I was.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Did you know the, Ray. Ray Thompson’s family.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

No, not at that time.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

That’s, I know he was a pastor, in the mission at that time.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

No, at that time, I didn’t know. I got to know him in later years. Yeah, only, three Negro families, two Negro families in the mission. That was, the Fisher family, which the daughter was director of Booker Washington, Booker Washington, and two sons was teamsters. Only two Negro teamsters.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

And they was in that one family. And a Negro family up the street, a Negro up the street there, a Negro man, a white woman. They had a daughter about my age. Which she wasn’t allowed to speak to me because I was considered a servant.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Well educated, well educated. Servant. Yeah.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

Servant. See, even though we was in the same school, in mission together, in Humboldt. She had been the face of a humble eening high school. But she wasn’t allowed to speak to me. Well in front of the family cause we was pretty good friends.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

But now, I say now, you were with them, through high school and all the way through college. Well, what amount of years was that? What’s the total?
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

well, you see, when I say, to high school all the way through college. Got to make allowances because, you see, during that high school time when the longshore union was being organized. Which I was active in that.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Ah you were.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

Oh you know,I was in the union in 1933.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

I wonder when did you first get connected with them.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

When they first started out.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

So it was about 32.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

32 we had a conference and ’33 we had a convention. And organized with the union under the ILA.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Now, if you let’s say, you know, say when I tried to get straight.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

This woman, this photographer was also involved in that strategy.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Oh she was?
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

That’s what got me involved in that, because I didn’t know anything about it til she brought me into that. Consuelo Kanaga, she’s done photographs.That’s what got me involved.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Where both of these, people left leaning, where they, socialist.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

Oh, she was, running around with the head of the communist organizers at the time.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

Called uh…. he was a communist organizer at that time.She wasn’t but he was. I’m trying to think about it because…. but he was, the organizer, communist organizer at the time. Well he was a friend of hers in 33 and 34. Of course I’m in their family.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

Because I wasn’t working for them all the time anyway. And I got development to say that because, she was, well, I, well, I was still in leadership anyway. I was taking journalism in high school, she’s teaching me photography, darkroom developing stuff like that. printing.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Now, had you been reading political literature at that?
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

Oh, yeah. Yeah.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

What what sort of.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

Western worker, western worker during that time. And this family, this other man who had this big magazine down there, we had another magazine, in fact, I was reading that too but it had the guy married to Ella Winters, Lincoln Steffens.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Oh, yeah. Sure.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

Well, I was at his house. I used to go Lincoln Steffenc, Ella Winters, Lincoln Steffens, I spent time at their house, spent a lot of time at their house.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

What was he like? oh. You’re.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

Oh, he was, a nice old man. Was fired by Hearst. He was fired but we went over there. Lincoln Steffens. He’s married to Ella Winters. In Carmel. So I spent a lot of time at their house because Consuelo Kanaga was a friend of theirs. And that’s how I got to know the people.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Right
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

She was a society photographer, which lost a lot of money, customers, because she was, got associated with radicals. Before that she did the Lebowitz’s and the, and the… She did the Lebowitz’s, I did a lot of their photographs. The Lebowitz’s and Zellerbachs and all of them. Lebowitz’s and Zellerbachs. A bunch of big names, and Rob Charles. and that’s how I know all of them because I was a darkroom worker.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

Developing, printing, retouching and stuff like that.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Right when? Well, now, your activity then in the IOW, you you were, doing publicity work with her. Were you doing photographs and.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

Oh, just. No, we did the waterfront. All of the photographs of the waterfront strike was did by the woman I was with and working for and under. I mean I was involved in them because she was the one who was doing them and I was helping her out.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Did you take photographs of yourself.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

Oh I did. I photographed.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Do you have any, record of, the material you did.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

No, but experimenting with what was shot, She photographed and I developed the print.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Right. I see.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

Experimenting down, shot down on the waterfront that she was photographed at and I did the printing. Actually, she was the photographer. I was the aid.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

How did you meet her?
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

I walking on the beach down there. No. She run me down on the beach. Her and Julius Kramer. I was running up and down the beach down there, swimming, and banqueting with everybody that had any food. If they had anything for a picnic, I’d join them. I’d figure didn’t matter what color they was. Color didn’t make any difference for picnics, as long as they had the food I would get in there and go eat it. And I could run very fast. And I was quite a good athlete. And everybody was talking about that mysterious black boy, negro they called me, on the beach down there.
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

And so she was out there for a couple of months, her and Julius Kramer, traing to catch me. So they finally caught me, sleeping, and then they take me home with them.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

you you told them that you had no place to live and that you were just,
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

Oh. I, told them where I live. I told them I had a hotel downtown I paid for. Dollar or quarter a week. Dollar and a quarter for a week. something like that. That was a pit in the hotel, they give me a room there for a dollar and a quarter a week. And I had to empty trashcans, ands tuff like that, and sweep the hall out. And so she pulled me out of the hotel and take me up to their house.
 

BRUCE KAIPER:

Right
 

ELUARD McDANIEL:

On telegraph hill.