Month: September 2026

Franklin Williams

To me, this 1942 photo of “Sargeant Franklin Williams, home on leave from Army duty, with his best girl Ellen Hardin, splitting a soda” (that’s the original caption, including misspellings) is one of the most iconic images of the World War II homefront ever produced. Franklin and Ellen seem to be such an appealing couple, she with her beautiful smile and him looking sharp in his uniform with sergeant’s stripes.

The more I looked at this photo, the more I wanted to know about these two young people. That desire sparked me to begin a fairly long quest to find as much information as possible about Franklin and Ellen, their backgrounds, and what the future would hold for them. I haven’t yet gotten the whole story, but I’ve been able to uncover quite a bit. I think it’s a story worth sharing.

Who Was Sergeant Franklin Williams?

Born on March 30, 1915, Franklin H. Williams was 27 years old when the photo of him and Ellen was taken in May of 1942. He was a native of Baltimore and graduated from Frederick Douglass High School, where he ran track and played football. According to the 1940 census, Franklin worked as a chauffeur for a “private family.” And he was a hard worker – in the week just before the census, he worked 84 hours.

Sometime between April 1940, when the census information was recorded, and March 1942, when he was in the army, Franklin may have changed jobs. A July 1942 newspaper article announcing his graduation from Officer Candidate School lists him as having been a government employee in Baltimore.

Franklin Williams Becomes an Ideal Recruit

According to an article in the November 14, 1942 edition of the Baltimore Afro American newspaper, Franklin joined the army as a volunteer (not a draftee) in 1940. Assigned to the 41^st Engineering Regiment at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, he quickly demonstrated his aptitude as a soldier and a leader. Not only was he soon wearing the stripes of a sergeant, but he impressed his commanders by exemplifying everything a recruit in America’s new and quickly expanding military should be.

The “Model Colored Soldier”

The 41^st Engineers was, like all U. S. military units at that time, a segregated outfit. Before the country began mobilizing for its entrance into WW2, there had been very few African Americans in the army, and practically none in other branches of the service. Now, in the wake of Pearl Harbor, hundreds of thousands of black Americans were suddenly being enrolled as volunteers or draftees.

The U. S. government felt the need to demonstrate to an American public that was not used to seeing blacks as good military material, that these new soldiers were capable of becoming quality fighting men and making a strong contribution to the war effort. To tell that story, they needed to put a face on what they considered “the model colored soldier.” They chose Sgt. Franklin Williams.

This was going to be a major public relations effort, and the Office of War Information assigned not just one, but two of their best photographers to the project. Arthur Rothstein and Jack Delano are both highly regarded for their photographic records of life in the U. S. in the 1930s and 40s. With Rothstein taking the lead, their plan was to show Sgt. Williams as a typical American soldier, both in his military activities and in his relations with the folks at home.

Starting in March of 1942, Rothstein began photographing Sgt. Williams in all phases of his life with his unit at Fort Bragg.

Sgt. Williams Goes Home

In May of 1942, Franklin Williams was given a ten-day furlough, with all expenses paid, to go home and see the folks back in Baltimore. But this wouldn’t be just a social visit. Rothstein and Delano would be there as well to take the photographs that would show the country what the home life of a typical African American soldier was like.

The Williams family lived at 2025 McColloh Street in Baltimore. Their house, built in 1920, boasted 2780 square feet spread over three stories. And the family needed all that space. According to the 1940 census, the household consisted of nine people.

The Williams Household in 1940

Name	Age	Relation	Occupation	Income in 1939
Annie Williams	54	Head of household	Seamstress	0
Thomas Williams, Jr.	29	Son		0
Franklin Williams	25	Son	Chauffeur	$684
Sarah Williams	15	Daughter	High school student	0
Annetta Hammond	21	Daughter		0
Ernest Hammond	22	Son-in-law	Waiter	$780
Ernest Hammond, Jr.	7 months	Grandson		0
William Taylor	35	Lodger	Orderly	$624
Elizabeth Taylor	24	Lodger		0

This census information provides a fascinating insight into what life was like for middle class African Americans as the nation was just coming out of the Great Depression.

First of all, it’s evident why the Williams family needed to take in lodgers. The head of the household was Annie Williams, Franklin’s mother. The 1942 Baltimore Afro American article that reports on Franklin joining the army also mentions that Annie was a member of Union Baptist Church and of the Modiste Club, an organization of dressmakers. The 1940 census lists her occupation as seamstress, but records her as having no income in 1939.

Annie’s oldest son, Thomas, is listed as having no occupation and no income. The census information shows him as having completed college, and I wonder if perhaps he was still a student in 1939. Or, with the country still in the last stages of the Depression, perhaps he just couldn’t find a job.

As the census information makes clear, the only direct family income reported for the Williams household in 1939 was the $684 contributed by Franklin, and the $780 brought in by son-in-law Ernest. The average income of an American worker in 1939 was $1,730.00. Franklin’s and Ernest’s income combined amounted to less than 85 percent of that amount. In fact, with the average cost of a new car in 1939 being $700, it’s unlikely the family could afford an automobile.

Where Is Dad?

One puzzling feature of this 1940 census snapshot of Williams family life is the absence from the household of Franklin’s father. He is certainly prominent in the photographs taken by Rothstein and Delano in 1942. The November 1942 Baltimore Afro American article that featured Annie Williams as well as Franklin says “Her husband, Thomas A., Sr., is an insurance broker.” Several of Rothstein’s photos depict Franklin Williams “discussing insurance problems with his father.”

What About Ellen Harden?

From Jack Delano’s photos, it’s evident that Ellen Harden fit quite comfortably into the Williams family circle.

Ellen, born in 1919, was, like Franklin, a Baltimore native who had attended Frederick Douglass High School. In fact, it was at school that she and Franklin first met. The 1930 census lists her as living with her mother, Mrs. Leila Harden Scott, in a household headed by Leila’s husband, James Scott. Leila and James also had a baby daughter named Betty Scott.

A November 1942 newspaper article recounts that Ellen had attended Hampton Institute and Howard University, but does not say whether she graduated from either school.

A Comprehensive Photographic Record of Williams’ Family Life

Intent on showing Americans all aspects of the ideal African American soldier’s family life, Rothstein and Delano photographed everything from Annie Williams cooking in the kitchen, to Franklin taking a bath.

I’m not sure the men of the Williams family always dressed in suits when there were no photographers around, but they certainly wanted to present the best possible picture to an American public that had for far too many years been exposed to only the most negative and demeaning stereotypes of African American life.

Rothstein’s and Delano’s photographic chronicle of the life of the “model colored soldier” was completed in May of 1942, and was eventually distributed around the world. Some of the photos appeared in the October 6, 1942 issue of Look Magazine, in an article by Fowler Harper entitled, “Negro Solider, Sergeant Franklin Williams of Baltimore fights with distinction.”

What Did the Future Hold for Franklin and Ellen?

Soon after his return to Fort Bragg from his home leave, Sgt. Franklin Williams was off again, this time to the Officer Candidate School at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. As one newspaper account put it, he was intent on “exchanging chevrons for gold bars.”

And he did. Sergeant Franklin Williams was a sergeant no longer. He became 2^nd Lieutenant Franklin Williams in July of 1942, and was assigned to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri.

The publicity he had received had made Franklin Williams a person of general interest. Thus it was that on November 20, 1942, The Lincoln Clarion (Jefferson City, Mo.), carried an article with the following headline:

Lieut. Williams Acquires Bride

Noting that readers may have seen in the Look magazine article a picture of Lt. Williams that “showed him with family and with his fiancée, Miss Ellen Harden,” the article went on to say:

“Lieut. Williams went to Baltimore recently on a nine-day leave and on the very last day he married Miss Harden.”

I Wish I Knew More!

That’s all I’ve been able to find about Franklin and Ellen so far. I’d really like to know what happened to them after 1942.

Or maybe I wouldn’t.

I have come to regard the whole Williams clan as people I might have known and would have enjoyed having as friends. So it’s hard to realize that Franklin was born more than 100 years ago. Rather than reading obituaries and perhaps about other unwanted events that might have happened in their lives, maybe it’s best to just remember them as they were in 1942 – happy and excited about the great new prospects life was opening for them.

I sincerely hope all their dreams came true.

Suggested Reading

• Tuskegee Airmen History: The Freeman Field Mutiny
  In April 1945, 101 African American officers of the U.S. Army Air Force’s 477^th Bombardment Group were court martialed. The maximum penalty for their alleged crime of resisting segregation during time of war was death.
  
• First Black Female Naval Officers: Frances Wills, Harriet Pickens
  The story of Frances Wills, Harriet Pickens, and Mildred McAfee, three pioneering female officers who helped integrate the US Navy.
  
• The Stage Door Canteen and African Americans In WW2
  In WW2, The Stage Door Canteen was one of the few places in the nation where African Americans were treated just like anyone else.

© 2015 Ronald E. Franklin