Portraits of the New Negro Woman: Visual And Literary Culture in the Harlem Renaissance

In this engaging narrative, the author uses the writings of Nella Larsen and Jessie Fauset as well as the work of artists like Archibald Motley and William H. Johnson to illuminate the centrality of the mulatta by examining a variety of competing arguments about race in the Harlem Renaissance and beyond.

These writers led purposeful and productive writing and personal lives despite the fact that "at no point in their lives did anyone ever provide them with leisure to write." (p. 10). In addition, Dr. Hull asserts that black women participants' experience of the Harlem Renaissance had embedded in it the usual social tensions of caste and social class - plus the biggest handicap of all: femaleness. In most aspects, it was (not surprisingly) a man's world.

Dr. Hull has done something wonderful here. Photographs of each poet are included in the wealth of biographical material. The research is deep, as is the interpretation. Texts are excerpted. She has read letters, diaries, and a wealth of unpublished material. There is good historical and social context provided. This is a valuable, assured study. There are pages of notes, and a good index.

Shadowed Dreams features new poems by Gwendolyn Bennett, Anita Scott Coleman, Mae Cowdery, Blanche Taylor Dickinson, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Jessie Fauset, Angelina Weld Grimké, Gladys Casely Hayford (a k a Aquah Laluah), Virginia Houston, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Helene Johnson, Effie Lee Newsome, Esther Popel, and Anne Spencer, as well as writings from newly discovered poets Carrie Williams Clifford, Edythe Mae Gordon, Alvira Hazzard, Gertrude Parthenia McBrown, Beatrice Murphy, Lucia Mae Pitts, Grace Vera Postles, Ida Rowland, and Lucy Mae Turner, among others.

Covering the years 1918 through 1939 and ranging across the period's major and minor journals, as well as its anthologies and collections, Shadowed Dreams provides a treasure trove of poetry from which to mine deeply buried jewels of black female visions in the early twentieth century.

Represented in this anthology are such important African-American women authors as Georgia Douglas Johnson, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Angelina Weld Grimke, and Helene Johnson. In addition, there appear many authors whose names may even be unknown to specialists in the field of Black women's literature: Esther Popel, Marjorie Marshall, Isabel Neill, and more. Where data is available, Honey provides brief author bios at the end of the book. She also contributes a substantial introduction.

The poems are grouped into four sections: "Protest," "Heritage," "Love and Passion," and "Nature." I must admit, I didn't particularly care for this breakdown. Because the works of individual poets are scattered among two or more sections, I think this editorial strategy dilutes the possible impact of seeing a larger sampling of a single poet's work in one place. Also, the headings seem to impose a particular, limited reading upon each piece.

Still, this is an impressive anthology. The poems range from formal constructions to free verse. Highlights include Georgia Douglass Johnson's passionate pieces "The Heart of a Woman" and "I Want to Die While You Love Me," Dorothea Matthew's solemn "The Lynching," Anita Scott Coleman's sentimental "Black Baby," and Angelina Weld Grimke's haiku-like "Dawn." Particularly impressive are the technical proficiency and linguistic richness of Helene Johnson's poems. "Shadowed Dreams" is an essential volume for those interested in United States literature of the 1920s, African-American studies, and women's studies.

Nella Larsen: Novelist of the Harlem Renaissance : A Woman's Life Unveiled

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Nella Larsen: Novelist of the Harlem Renaissance : A Woman's Life Unveiled
Thadious M. Davis
Manufacturer: Louisiana State Univ Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0807118664

Harlem Renaissance and Beyond: Literary Biographies of One Hundred Black Women Writers, 1900-1945

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Harlem Renaissance and Beyond: Literary Biographies of One Hundred Black Women Writers, 1900-1945

Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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In this ground-breaking collection of literary biographies, many with pictures, authors Lorraine Elena Roses and Ruth Elizabeth Randolph chronicle the lives and works of 100 black women novelists, short-story writers, playwrights, poets, essayists, critics, historians, journalists, and editors writing in the United States between 1900 and 1945.

Here are insightful portraits of famous black women, among them Zora Neale Hurston, Katherine Dunham, Angelina Weld Grimké, Mary Eliza Church Terrell, and Ida Bell Wells-Barnett. Here, too, are many thoughtful profiles of neglected writers--their works deserving to be rescued from obscurity. Drawing on extensive archival research and interviews with the writers and their families, The Harlem Renaissance and Beyond traces its subjects' contributions to literature, their concerns about race and gender, their common themes, their relationships with artistic contemporaries, and the influence of these early writers on their modern-day counterparts in American literature.

From acclaimed novelist Ben Neihart, a vibrant portrait of gay Harlem's most memorable diva: A'Lelia Walker.

When A'Lelia Walker died in 1931 after a midnight snack of lobster and chocolate cake washed down with champagne, it marked the end of one of the most striking social careers in New York's history. The daughter of rags-to-riches multi-millionaire Madame C.J. Walker (the washerwoman who marketed the most successful straightening technique for African American hair), A'Lelia was America's first black poor little rich girl, using her inheritance to throw elaborate, celebrity-packed parties in her Westchester Mansion and her 136th Street would-be salon, 'Dark Tower'.

In Rough Amusements, third in Bloomsbury's Urban Historicals series, Neihart takes us into the heart of A'Lelia's world-gay Harlem in the 1920s. In tracing its cultural antecedents, he delves into the sexual subculture of nineteenth-century New York, exploring mixed-race prostitution; the bachelorization of New York society; French Balls ("the most sophisticated forum for testing the boundaries of urban sexual behavior"); and The Slide (New York's most depraved nineteenth-century bar). Using A'Lelia's lavish parties as a jumping-off point, Neihart traces the line connecting Davy Crockett's world without women to Walt Whitman's boundless love of beautiful men to A'Lelia's cultivation of the racial, social, and sexual risk that defined the Harlem Renaissance.

It's the real life story of A'Lelia Walker, the daughter of Madame C.J. Walker who became a multimillionaire by selling personal-care products to African American women. The story is based on the life of A'Lelia, how she used her inheritance after her mother died, and the flamboyant characters she surrounded herself with. She threw elaborate, celebrity-filled parties in her Westchester mansion and 136th Street apartment. The story centers on the 1930 lavish drag ball, where female impersonators and the underground gay culture existed in all its splendor and sexuality. We are introduced to such figures as; Langston Hughes, the poetic genius, Nancy Cunard, the shipping heiress, Richard Nugent, Harold Jackman, and the most tragic figure of the drag ball, sexual addict Jennie June. There is more revealed about this fascinating character than any other in this story, including A'Lelia's. That Jennie June is a major part of the story is fitting as she is the most compelling and interesting of all the people portrayed.

Neihart has created a magnificent view of the Harlem Renaissance and written it in a way that is entertaining, light, and easy to read. It was a rough & sometimes tragic time to being living, but as this story shows it was also an exciting time of parties, fun, and lavish entertainment. Never dull, never boring, it's a piece of history that will enlighten and educate you.