Product Description
Whether in schoolrooms or kitchens, state houses or church pulpits, women have always been historians.Although few participated in the academic study of history until the mid-twentieth century, women labored as teachers of history and historical interpreters. Within African-American communities, women began to write histories in the years after the American Revolution.Distributed through churches, seminaries, public schools, and auxiliary societies, their stories of the past translated ancient Africa, religion, slavery, and ongoing American social reform as historical subjects to popular audiences North and South.

This book surveys the creative ways in which African-American women harnessed the power of print to share their historical revisions with a broader public.Their speeches, textbooks, poems, and polemics did more than just recount the past.They also protested their present status in the United States through their reclamation of that past. Bringing together work by more familiar writers in black America-such as Maria Stewart, Francis E. W. Harper, and Anna Julia Cooper-as well as lesser-known mothers and teachers who educated their families and their communities,this documentary collection gathers a variety of primary texts from the antebellum era to the Harlem Renaissance, some of which have never been anthologized.Together with a substantial introduction to black women's historical writings, this volume presents a unique perspective on the past and imagined future of the race in the United States. ... Read more

Product Description
The Harlem Renaissance was a monumental cultural event in African American history.Yet, unlike its literary artists, the Harlem visual artists have not been recognized by modern art critics; only one tenth of canonical textsmention African American artists of the Harlem Renaissance. This interdisciplinary study examines the reasons for the exclusion of Harlem artists from these texts.
A number of factors contributed to Harlem's becoming the Negro metropolis of the world. By the mid 1920s, with the Jazz Age in full swing, Harlem was, according to James Weldon Johnson, "the great Mecca for the sight-seer, the pleasure-seeker, the curious, the adventurous, the enterprising, the ambitious and the talented of the whole Negro world." An influx of artists, writers, philosophers, educators, actors, immigrants from the south and voyeurs seeking to fuel their fantasies culminated in the cult of the primitive, with Harlem as its center. In Paris, Josephine Baker had already thrilled Parisian audiences with the seductive rhythm of her dans sauvage.At the Cotton Club in New York City, black stars entertained the white elite and blacks and Africa were in vogue as they had never been before.
This study shows how historical events affected the cultural milieu that became the Harlem Renaissance. Other current issues discussed are: the blues aesthetic, feminism, the black aesthetic, the African diasporic influence, issues of difference and otherness and primitivism. (Ph.D. dissertation, Florida State University, 1993, revised with new index) ... Read more

Product Description
During the 1920s and 1930s, black artists and writers achieved something totally unprecedented: they created a new image of African Americans that truly reflected their times as well as their history. In so doing, they set the artistic agenda of the Harlem Renaissance and gave form to some of its most compelling visions.

This innovative study examines the efforts of Harlem Renaissance artists and writers to create a hybrid expression of black identity that drew on their ancient past while participating in contemporary American culture. Caroline Goeser investigates a critical component of Harlem Renaissance print culture that until now has been largely overlooked, arguing that illustrations became the most timely and often most radical visual products of the movement.

This vibrant partnership between literary and visual talents--a trail blazed by artist Aaron Douglas and poet Langston Hughes--resulted in the image of the New Negro, one that remade the African American past in order to foster greater participation in modern American culture and commerce. Illustrations by Douglas, James Wells, Gwendolyn Bennett, and others appeared on covers of books about black American life and in journals such as Opportunity and The Crisis. Goeser considers the strategies that these artists developed to circumvent stereotypes and shows how their work was received within the movement and in mainstream America.

Connecting visual imagery with literary text and commercial enterprise, these illustrations participated in the modern economy in ways that painting and sculpture could not. Goeser reveals how Harlem Renaissance illustrators depicted the wide-ranging and sometimes conflicting ideas about black identity held within the community: African roots and Egyptian heritage, racial uplift and gay pride. She shows how some artists revisited the Judeo-Christian tradition by portraying a black Adam and Jesus, and examines the interdependent relationships between race and sexuality in the work of artists Richard Bruce Nugent and Charles Cullen, the former black, the latter white.

Goeser clearly shows that, contrary to common belief, the visual image of the New Negro was created by African Americans, for African Americans. Her work assigns a central role to black artists as cultural innovators and is a new touchstone in understanding both the emergence of black identity and American culture between the world wars. ... Read more

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Read this book to find out about the many talented writers, painters, and other artists of the Harlem Renaissance.Explore the sights and sounds of Harlem's busy streets.Learn more about the people and places of Harlem's "Golden Age." ... Read more

Product Description
Discusses the characteristics of the Harlem Renaissance art movement which flourished in Harlem, New York, in the 1920s and presents biographies of eleven artists. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Brutha on Cover Looks like Chris Rock
This book will help young readers to learn briefly about the Harlem Renaissance and get snapshots of its material artists.This book helps to inform the public that the Harlem Renaissance was not solely about authors.

This book neither forgets racism, nor obsesses with it.An art teacher once accused me of racism when I criticized his assignment for only focusing on white, male artists.Can you imagine that challenging Eurocentricity or androcentricity could mean one is racist?!Many people, across the political spectrum, want to close their eyes and act like the art world does not have the prejudices of the larger society.This book mentions how many of these artists were denied jobs and art entry due to their race.Some artists' work was either destroyed or not kept in good condition because it was assumed that Black art had no value for posterity.Still there's talk of how poverty and prima donna attitudes hurt some of these artists.

In the same way that many Black authors later wanted to visit James Baldwin in France, this book says many Renaissance painters wanted to meet Henry O. Tanner there.Many of these artists had parents who died young or dealt with family members that suffered from mental illnesses.Nevertheless, please throw away the idea of the artist dying before his time.This book clearly shows how most of these artists lived into their 70s or beyond.Though the Renaissance movement may have ended, the painters and sculptors in the movement did not die soon thereafter.

The book works hard to be diverse.It includes painters, sculptors, and at least one photographer.It includes New York natives, denizens, and those who might have never visited the City at all.The book only has two chapters on female artists, but this may reflect the gender-imbalanced nature of the profession.It is not an act of sexism.It includes a biracial artist and one involved in an interracial marriage.Still, many Harlem Renaissance works don't want to address sexual orientation matters, and unfortunately, this is one of those non-courageous books.It is mentioned when these artists marry people of the opposite sex.However, it mentions Richmond Barthe, Langston Hughes, and Alain Locke but never once states that they were Rainbow Flag men.

This book is one installment of a series called Artists in Profile.Other installments include Pop Artists and Surrealists.Thus, this book is not one in a series with Black Poets, Black Playwrights, etc.One could ask how the project would have been different if such a series produced it.Each chapter on an artist is incredibly short.Most elementary school reports require the students to focus on one famous person, not a group of them.Thus, I do wonder if this book would face difficulties that a book focused solely on one Renaissance artist would not. ... Read more

Product Description
Poet, dramatist, writer of short fiction, translator, activist, and social critic, Langston Hughes was a major figure in American letters of the 20th century and an important component of the Harlem Renaissance with Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston, and others.
In March 1992, to mark the 25th anniversary of Hughes's death, a NEH series of public programs was presented at Hughes's alma mater, Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.The articles here provide an in-depth exploration of many facets of the writer's life and work.The majority of the contributors knew Hughes, and this adds a personal dimension to their work.
This book will be of great interest to students of American literature, cultural and gay and lesbian studies, and American social history in general. ... Read more

Product Description
Over a forty-six-year career, Langston Hughes experimented with black folk expressive culture, creating an enduring body of extraordinary imaginative writing. Riding the crest of African American creative energy from the Harlem Renaissance to the onset of Black Power, he commanded an artistic prowess that survives in the legacy he bequeathed to a younger generation of writers, including Alice Walker, Paule Marshall, and Amiri Baraka. Montage of a Dream extends and deepens previous scholarship, multiplying the ways in which Hughes s diverse body of writing can be explored. By showing that Hughes continues to speak to the fundamentals of human nature, this comprehensive reconsideration invites a renewed appreciation of Hughes s work and encourages new readers to discover his enduring relevance as they seek to understand the world in which we all live. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Definitive Book about Langston Hughes
The definitive book for literary criticism fans of Langston Hughes, one of the country's most important and gifted writers. ... Read more

Product Description
Winner of the Jaz Dorsey Fusion Award from the African American Playwrights Exchange (AAPEX). Based on the full-length stage play, this thoroughly researched "Jitterbug Romance," weaves a fictional love story between the lives and times of legendary black entertainers such as Cab Calloway and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, black and white thugs, and the common man in swinging 1930's Harlem. This "radio play" version was edited and shortened for readings and for use in the classroom. It's perfect for Black History Month. Optioned by film producer LaMont Cain of The Reserve Entertainment Group with principle photography slated for 2010.

Brief Synopsis: BILLY RHYTHM is the quintessential American: he never gives up despite all the obstacles thrown his way. He thinks he's the best dancer in Harlem and when he meets THARBIS JEFFERSON, a "copper colored gal" from the latest Cotton Club revue, he decides to partner with her to win the club's dance contest to prove it. Unfortunately, his former gang, the Jolly Fellows, famous for being the toughest-- and best dancers-- in Harlem, have entered their own champions, SHORTY SNOWDEN and BIG BEA. By the time the climatic dance contest begins, the black street gangs and the white gangsters have been very busy killing their own and this murderous anger finds its way onto the dance floor. Razor blades are unleashed on Billy and Tharbis as they brush the encroaching crowd on the dance floor and by the time they win the contest through some amazing mind blowing steps, their clothes are shredded and covered in blood. Billy's last words to the bad guys-- both black and white-- are the kind that get an audience up on their feet to cheer their heroes on. ... Read more

Product Description
Visual arts of the United States refers to thehistory of painting and visual art in the United States. In thelate eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, artists primarily painted landscapes and portraits in arealistic style. A parallel development taking shape in ruralAmerica was the American craft movement, which began as areaction to the industrial revolution. Developments in modernart in Europe came to America from exhibitions in New York City such as the Armory Show in 1913. Previously American Artists had based the majority of their work on Western Painting and European Arts. After World War II, New York replaced Paris as the center of the art world. Sincethen many American Movements have shaped Modern and PostModern art. Art in the United States today covers a hugerange of styles. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Tsk
This book is NOT a serious source of information for scholars or people simply curious about this subject. It was not put together by scholars, researchers, or people who are at all knowledgeable about this field of knowledge.

This volume is literally a bunch of articles literally copied and pasted off Wikipedia literally as is, with literally no clean-up of text or anything else. Literally. The text is very clunky since it was not cleaned up or formatted properly. You can see arrows where on Wikipedia there were links, as well as 'citation needed' and other html markup. Foreign language text along with symbols are also missing from the printed text in this book.

There's nothing with with Wikipedia itself. It's a lovely source of free information, but it needs to be taken with a grain of salt due to vandals and people posting - intentionally or not - inaccurate information. To exacerbate the problem, the original subject of this book actually only makes up part of this volume. If you've read Wikipedia, you are familiar with how some words within the article provide links to other articles (for those curious and wishing to expand their research/reading) and while this can be helpful, not all of the links within any particular Wikipedia article are too relevant to the original subject matter. There is also often a list of other articles at the bottom of any Wikipedia article that are 'See also...' but these articles vary in relevance. Sadly, the 'editors' of this book simply click these links and copy and paste these articles, whether or not they're truly relevant (or even related) to the original subject matter, so a decent portion of this book actually has nothing to do with the original subject matter.

The pictures within this book are also poor-quality, shrunk down from their original versions on Wikipedia and made black-and-white. Diagrams and other technical images therefore become near impossible to read or study. The size of the actual book itself isn't very large, and is about the size of a larger-size paperback (the ones that measure about 8"x5.5" and are generally the next size of standard paperback after your common pocket paperback), and the text itself is actually hard to read on top of being poorly formatted (some pages actually have rather large gaps/blank spaces)

You're better off reading the original articles on Wikipedia for free, and if you wish for longer and more relevant books on this particular subject, you can look right here on Amazon for books written and edited by people who are genuinely passionate and knowledgeable about the subject. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, 2nd ed., brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 11006 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.The Early Civilizations in the Americas Reference Library provides a comprehensive overview of the history of the regions of the American continents in which two of the world's first civilizations developed: Mesoamerica (the name for the lands in which ancient civilizations arose in Central America and Mexico) and the Andes Mountains region of South America (in present-day Peru and parts of Bolivia, northern Argentina, and Ecuador). In both regions, the history of civilization goes back thousands of years. ... Read more

Product Description
It's 1925 and Mark Purvis is a 16-yr-old with a summer to kill. He'd rather jam with his jazz band (they need the practice), but is urged by his parents to get a job.As an assistant at The Crisis, a magazine for the "new Negro," Mark rubs shoulders with Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen. He's invited to a party at Alfred Knopf's place. He's making money, but not enough, and when piano player Fats Waller entices him and his buddies to make some fast cash, Mark finds himself crossing the gangster Dutch Schultz. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Harlem Summer by Walter Dean Myers
The book Harlem Summer by Walter Dean Myers relates one summer in the life of 16-year-old Mark Purvis.Mark lives in Harlem and dreams of being a famous jazz saxophonist.Mark is exposed to the "New Negro" during a summer job at The Crisis, a famous African American newspaper, where he meets the likes of W.E.B. DuBois and Langston Hughes. After Mark gets into hot water with the police and some notorious gangsters, he has a better idea of who he wants to be as a man.This one summer impacts his life in hilarious and moving ways.The book incorporates real people that played major roles in the Harlem Renaissance.It's a history lesson told in a very entertaining format.I would definitely recommend this book to all readers, young and old!

Dr. Mary Hollowell / Teacher EDU / Clayton State University
Mark is at a crossroads in his life in Harlem in the 1920s.He has the dream of becoming a great saxophone player but doesn't have the discipline to practice.His hero, Fats, cons him into loading bootleg liquor onto a truck, and when the truck goes missing, a gangster threatens them.Mark isn't terribly worried, at first.

He goes with the flow and dutifully starts a summer job, arranged by his aunt, at The Crisis magazine, headed by W.E.B. DuBois.Mark encounters many other greats such as Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Ethel Waters.He attends a glamorous party at the home of publisher Alfred Knopf and just misses hearing Marian Anderson sing.

In a marvelous twist ending, Mark is freed from a life of crime, and inspired by great writers and singers, he comes to appreciate hard work and his own community.Walter Dean Myers gives us the Harlem Renaissance as seen through the eyes of a tremendously likeable main character.It is a treat to read the conversations between the young Mark and Langston Hughes.(Photographs of the real famous and infamous characters, during this time period, are included in an appendix.) Mark is a teenager that other teens can relate to; he doesn't have quite enough drive until he finds the right role models.Harlem Summer is filled with humor, glamour, and danger and recreates an important era in the twentieth century.

Bright or Shady Side
It's 1925 in Harlem, New York when readers are transported into the life of Mark, the main character of HARLEM SUMMER.Told from his point of view, this coming-of-age story features Harlem Renaissance figures such as Langston Hughes, Jesse Fauset, and Fats Waller.

As the book opens, summer has arrived, Mark, an aspiring sax player who wants to make it big.He gets an opportunity to work for Fats Waller, an already established and widely sought after musician, hauling crates. Though the job with Fats is a one day thing, it has a lasting impact on Mark's summer and introduces him to a number of unsavory characters and exposes him to life on the "shady side of the street." Around the same time, Mark lands a job at The Crisis magazine (the NAACP publication).He would be working under the supervision of Jesse Fauset as more or less an errand boy.At the magazine office, Mark learns about the "New Negro" for the first time, meets a virtual who's who of that movement, and experiences what life on the "sunny side of the street" was like.Mark is at a crossroads in his life, trying to figure out what he wants to be and how to live.The experiences with Fats, The Crisis, and the ensuing dramas force Mark to make decisions about how he wants to live his life.

HARLEM SUMMER is a wonderful book that pairs historical fiction with the day-to-day struggles of a teenager trying to find his place in life.Mark's character has a universal appeal, and his voice is genuine and humorous.At the end of the book there are brief biographical sketches and photos of many of the famous people who find their way in the story.Walter Dean Myers has written a funny and engaging tale that reminds us that all of our decisions have consequences and that life on the shady side of the street isn't always what it is cracked up to be.


Reviewed by Stacey Seay
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

Richie's Picks: HARLEM SUMMER
"As soon as the news got round
The folks downtown,
Came up to Harlem,
Saw everyone Truckin'

It didn't take long
Before the high-hats were doing it,
'Park Avenuing' it,
All over town,
You see them shufflin,' shufflin,' shufflin' down."

--"Truckin' " written by Rube Bloom and Ted Koehler, and performed by Fats Waller

These days the course is listed as, "Afrocentric Perspectives in the Arts." Back in the spring of 1975 it was titled "Black Experience in the Arts." A couple of guys in my dorm at the University of Connecticut had heard that "Black Arts" was an easy class, if only because the lectures were of a civilized nature, being that their frequency was but once a week and they were held IN THE EVENING rather at some ungodly hour that might involve having to wake up in order to attend class.

My dormmates persuaded me to tack the class on to my already full schedule for that semester. That way, if they were too busy to show up on a particular evening, they'd be able to copy my notes.

Back in the spring of 1975 I was a teenager who owed so much of my sensibilities to having grown up tolerant in lily white northern suburbs and having spent the 1960s watching the horrific news on television of white "Christians" engaged in the beating, maiming, and slaughtering of Negroes and Negro sympathizers during the Civil Rights era.

But while I knew a lot about what American citizens of color had endured before and during my childhood, I hadn't a clue at the beginning of my semester in Black Experience in the Arts of the existence of the Harlem Renaissance, nor any knowledge of the colorful characters whose work defined this rich cultural period in American history. But my knowledge base changed rapidly. Structured in large part as a series of guest lectures, my fond recollections of that course involved evenings of hearing first hand accounts of those lives and times. A particularly memorable highlight was listening to the late George Houston Bass who had been Langston Hughes' personal assistant and who served as the executor of Hughes' literary estate.

These experiences came roaring back (as in Roaring Twenties) as I read Walter Dean Myers' exceptionally fun romp, HARLEM SUMMER.

"C. Cephus Carter owned the House of Palms Funeral Home over on Lennox Avenue, down from Freddy's Fish Shack. Now, whenever you talked to that man he only had one thing on his mind, and that was how good the undertaking business was.
" 'Everybody you see is a potential customer!' he liked to say. And he said it again and again. 'People dying today ain't never even thought of dying before!' "

At the center of this HARLEM SUMMER is a sixteen year old young man of color named Mark. It is 1925, and Mark is an aspiring sax player who knows neighborhood star Fats Waller and dreams of jamming with the famous and beloved musician (who would have been twenty-one that summer). But the summer of 1925 gets much hotter than Mark could ever have imagined, thanks to his getting a summer job at the downtown office of THE CRISIS (which was and still is the official publication of the NAACP), and also thanks to Mark's finding himself --through events involving Fats Waller -- in serious trouble with the infamous Prohibition-era gangster Dutch Schultz.

As Mark deals with moms and mobsters dishing him out some serious grief, Walter Dean Myers succeeds in bringing to life the mid-Twenties Harlem summertime neighborhood as well as the cast of Harlem Renaissance musical and literary figures whom I'd learned about back in 1975.

(Of course, what is great fun --and what we couldn't do in 1975 -- is going online and listening to 30 second snippets of Fats Waller between chapters. This is certainly a book that begs for an accompanying CD of tunes and poetry readings.)

"I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow
of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers..."
--Langston Hughes

"Mr. Dill made out the checks for the May issue. Langston Hughes got two dollars for a poem that had only twenty-five words. That was eight cents a word! The writing business was starting to look better."

The root of Mark's troubles is his desire for money -- the easier the better. While most readers know Walter Dean Myers as the author of some pretty intense award-winning stories, many readers are going to be thoroughly surprised by HARLEM SUMMER because of its being so dang funny. For instance, when Mark figures that writing poetry might be a road to riches, he asks Langston Hughes about it:

" 'You think I could learn to write poetry?'
" 'Sure. I used to copy other people's poems and rewrite them,' Langston said. 'That gave me a feel for what it was like.' "

The poem that results from Mark's taking that advice had me rolling.

So download some Fats Waller tunes, shuffle on over into a shady spot, and check out HARLEM SUMMER.

Courtesy of Teens Read Too
It's the summer of 1925 in Harlem, a summer that sixteen-year-old Mark Purvis will never forget. In just a months time, Mark will get to meet the best and the worst people of New York City.

Mark gets a job at The Crisis, a magazine that promotes and encourages "New Negroes." The magazine was part of a movement created during that time with a mission to discover talented persons of color -- poets, novelists, and musicians -- and show them to the world.

But Mark is not so sure that he wants to become a "New Negro." What he really wants to do is become a famous jazz player and play the saxophone with his band. So when "Fats," a well known piano player who made records, offers him and his friend, Henry, what sounds like an "innocent" job loading trucks in New Jersey, Mark and Henry don't think twice. This could be the opportunity they were looking for, their big break, a golden chance to be with "Fats" and tell him all about their jazz band. Maybe he could even help them get a record deal.

What Mark didn't know is that the job was actually for the most dangerous man and leading bootlegger, Dutch Schultz. And Mark didn't know that what they helped load was illegal alcohol, and that the truck driver was going to drive away, all of a sudden, with the merchandise. And now Dutch Schultz wants his money back, and he wants Mark and Henry to pay for it.

Will Mark get the money for Dutch Shultz? Will Mark become a "New Negro?" Will he be able to keep his job at The Crisis? Or will Mark end up traveling the wrong path? You'll have to read the book to find out.

Every single word in Walter Dean Myers' book flows effortlessly in this entertaining novel. He makes writing look easy.

HARLEM SUMMERS is a book that will strike a chord with all readers. Parents will love the lack of cursing and sex often seen in young adult literature. (Although, to be honest, I think that the author could have used some more cursing to make the dialogue sound a little more realistic.) Teachers and librarians will LOVE this novel that complements perfectly what we studied in 8th-grade social studies. I'm sure that this book will soon be part of many recommended summer reading lists. And teens will love the story, because after all... who wouldn't want to meet the head of a notorious gang?!

The end of the book contains a section with biographical information of real individuals that appear in the book and lived in New York City during that period, like Alfred Knopf, Langston Hughes, "Bumby" Johnson, and others.

Reviewed by:Christian C. ... Read more

Product Description
Tremendous optimism filled the streets of Harlem during the decade and a half following World War I.Langston Hughes, Eubie Blake, Marcus Garvey, Zora Neale Hurston, Paul Robeson, and countless others began their careers; Afro-America made its first appearance on Broadway; musicians found new audiences in the chic who sought out the exotic in Harlem's whites-only nightclubs; riotous rent parties kept economic realities at bay; and A'Lelia Walker and Carl Van Vechten outdid each other with glittering "integrated" soirees.

When Harlem Was in Vogue recaptures the excitement of those times, displaying the intoxicating hope that black Americans could create important art and compel the nation to recognize their equality.In this critically-acclaimed study of race assimilation, David Levering Lewis focuses on the creation and manipulation of an arts and belles-lettres culture by a tiny Afro-American elite, striving to enhance "race relations" in America, and ultimately, the upward mobility of the Afro-American masses. He demonstrates how black intellectuals developed a systematic program to bring artists to Harlem, conducting nation-wide searches for black talent and urging WASP and Jewish philanthropists (termed "Negrotarians" by Zora Neale Hurston) to help support writers.

This extensively-researched, fascinating volume reveals the major significance of the Renaissance as a movement which sprang up in Harlem but lent its mood to the entire era, and as a culturally-vital period whose after-effects continue to add immeasurably to the richness and character of American life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

When Harlem was in vogue
This is another great reference book with historical as well as antidotal information about Harlem during the 1920s and 1930s. I liked the detailed information Lewis gives about salaries, and the cost of living--groceries, rent and clothing back then.

What I appreciated in a major way, was the global view Lewis provided--putting into prospective what going on in white America and comparing it to activities in Harlem, DC and the Deep South from the beginning of World War I until the Great Depression.

Lewis also introduces some of the major players in Harlem's literary world--Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, Walter White, Claude Mc Kay, Carl Van Vechten, Richard Bruce Nugent, Sterling Brown, Nella Larsen, Countee Cullen, Jean Toomer, Marcus Garvey, Alaine Locke, Wallace Thurman and A'Lelia Walker Robinson to mention a few.

This is an impressive piece of historical research work that should be required reading in all American schools.

When Harlem was in Vogue
I have not had the opportunity to read this selection.I am interested in the Harlem Renaissance and will read this at first chance.

The Harlem Renaissance Comes Alive
David Levering Lewis's book is a very readable review of the Harlem Renaissance.My interest in Zora Neale Hurston brought me to this book.Hurston began her literary career in the 1920s and is a key participant in the "New Negro Movement" or Harlem Renaissance, so I was interested both in the book's treatment of the movement itself and in its treatment of Hurston in particular.

While I would like to have seen a more thorough discussion of Hurston and a more sympathetic treatment of her work, I was taken by Mr. Lewis's scholarship and his wonderful style of writing.His descriptions of Harlem are enlightening, and he strikes a wonderful balance between providing detail and making a point.Even his biographical pieces giving background on the key Renaissance figures are filled with lively writing.

Having read this book, I am now a fan of David Levering Lewis.If you haven't read it, get it.You won't be disappointed.The book provides the historic context necessary to understanding this important period.

A Great Survey Of One Of America's More Notable Creative Waves...
I've read David Levering Lewis' WHEN HARLEM WAS IN VOGUE several times, and am always fascinated by it.As previous reviewers note, the writing is exacting and very detailed, but I found that this methodical approach very vividly recreates the world of the Harlem Renaissance:this is one those rare books which manages to succeed in both it's academic rigor, and it's vivid, cinematic detail.It sent me back into many of the writers, some still well-known, many unfortunately not.

The book doesn't try to answer all the questions it raises, and it shouldn't - the subject is far too historically rich for one book.Still, the suggestions of class divisions within African-American communities are danced around here, and Lewis could have ventured a bit more deeply into that.

His cutoff with the Great Depression likewise seems a bit neat: Harlem's notorious decline is a vast and tragic subject unto itself, but Lewis does devote a little time to some of the roots of that decline - which were evident even in the waning days of the renaissance.

Still, there are many provocative accomplishemnts here - you will find the genesis of many strands of African-American art and political thought in the movement, and they are explored in detail here, and this great, vast introductory work is an excellent jumping-off point for further reading.

-David Alston

The Crowded Party
The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s opened a fascinating chapter in American life, heralding the first time African-Americans were taken seriously as poets, novelists, painters, composers, and intellectuals by a broad white audience. David Levering Lewis is maybe too close to the figures he talks about to do them justice. Reading his book is like being at a crowded cocktail party with a friend who seems to know everyone and only has time for brief introductions before moving on to the next guest. You get just a glimpse of Renaissance luminaries like Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Jean Toomer, Jessie Fauset, Wallace Thurman, and the imperious W.E.B. Du Bois before they disappear back into the swim of names.

On the upside, Lewis does a fine job of shedding light on the behind-the-scenes maneuvering of the African-American elites--the 'Talented Tenth'--who hoped to use the new vogue for all things black as a way of dissolving race prejudice. Insofar as the book has an argument, it's that Harlem grandees like Alain Locke, James Weldon Johnson, Charles S. Johnson, and W.E.B Du Bois who saw intellectual achievement as an antidote to racism learned a hard lesson with the onset of the Depression, where economic reality squashed their assimilationist dreams and a new generation of black intellectuals opted for Communism over poetry.

The book left me wanting to know more about the white supporters of the New Negro Movement--patrons like Carl Van Vechten, the Spingarns, Julius Roswenwald, and the redoubtable Charlotte Osgood Mason, "Godmother" to Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston--who held the purse strings and much of the power in deciding which expressions of Harlem life made it to the mainstream. The louche world of jazz, nightclubs, liquor, rent parties, razor fights and skin-baring dancers that largely defined Harlem in the white imagination also goes pretty much unexplored in favor of Top Tenth aspirations to join the upper middle class. There's a disappointing reticence too about homosexuality among the era's leading lights. Still, it's a great book for piquing interest in some of the tensions and achievements that went into making Harlem the heart of the Roaring Twenties
... Read more