Evidence suggests that Walter Garfield Madison, member of the Cosmopolitan Club, 1914 graduate of Iowa State College, and head of an early Black family in Ames, was the first Black Iowa State student to put down roots in Ames after he graduated.
Madison came to Ames sometime between his graduation from Tuskegee in 1909 and his enumeration in the US Census on May 5th, 1910, as a laborer living at the campus home of Edgar Stanton. Such a move before enrolling would have helped Madison establish Iowa residency to lower his cost of tuition. Born in Manor, Texas, in 1888, Madison had left his parents and eight brothers and sisters behind to seek higher education in engineering, first earning a diploma in Steam Engineering from Tuskegee Institute and, then, a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Iowa State College. While at ISC, Madison played clarinet in the band, participated in the Forum Literary Society, and the Cosmopolitan Club.
His marriage to Gussie Irene Askew occurred in Cook County, IL, in 1917. The two later moved into a house at 1204 Third Street and had 4 sons—Walter Jr., Archie, Horace, and Ira. Both Walter, Jr., and Archie attended Iowa State.
The Madisons became one of the leading Black families in Ames, with Walter operating a successful plumbing and heating company that, over the years, won significant contracts with the City of Ames, Tuskegee Institute, and Fisk University, among others. Throughout his time in Ames, Madison was a strident voice for respectful and equitable treatment of Blacks. In 1922, he won a lawsuit against an Ames restaurant owner for discrimination.
Like Archie and Nancy Martin, progenitors of the best-known Black family in Ames, who housed Black students in their home at 218 Lincoln Way, the Madisons opened their home to no fewer than 12 Black ISC students and also took in other Black lodgers between 1926 and 1941.
After some years splitting time between his Ames business and work at Fisk University in Nashville, where he held the position of Chief Engineer beginning in 1938, Madison moved his family from Ames permanently to take up employment as a Professor of Engineering at Howard University in 1942.
Iowa State College Dissertation Title: The design of a central heating system [for the] Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (Ala.), 1914
Iowa State University Catalog Record:https://iowa-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/12tutg/01IASU_ALMA21190364460002756
Sources
Photo Credit: Iowa State University. (1914). The Bomb 1914. p. 83. Retrieved from https://digitalcollections.lib.iastate.edu/islandora/object/isu:TheBomb_47457#page/94/mode/2up
Biography available at HBCU Connections at Iowa State University : Walter G. Madison, Sr. ( http://hbcuconnections.iastatedigital.org/Walter_G._Madison,_Sr. )
