Book 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.
Customer Reviews:
A Great Survey Of One Of America's More Notable Creative Waves..........2006-09-16
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. 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.
And his cutoff with the Great Depression also seems a bit neat: Harlem's notorious decline is a subject unto itself, but Lewis does devote a little time to some of the roots of that decline - 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 here, and this great, vast introductory work is an excellent jumping-off point for further exploration.
-David Alston
The Crowded Party.......2005-11-23
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
O.k........2005-09-13
Interesting to see about the actual people who were involved in the Harlem Renaissance, but the author uses so many names that it gets confusing.
The Roaring Twenties- a culturally vital era.......2005-01-05
Harlem's gaudiest and best-known nightspot was a "whites only" nightclub serving Vaudevillian-style black entertainment to the white patrons that flooded into Harlem from downtown Manhattan. Everybody was swinging and boozing. They were high times and they were really hopping. Alcohol sales and consumption climbed rapidly. Nightclubs, cabarets and after-hours clubs, on the strip of 133rd Street between Lenox and Seventh Avenues, thrived with the influx of white trade. Jazz, big bands, blues, and high-steppin', "high-yeller" girls set the tone. Money flowed in like water and the Mob's power grew. In the midst of all that was occurring, black artists, intellectuals and social activists flourished throughout Harlem in what is now called The Harlem Renaissance. Very well researched vital to learning about the richness of American life and character
A zesty account.......2004-02-21
Claude McKay and Jean Toomer helped to launch the Harlem Renaissance and chose to live elsewhere. Sterling Brown denied that a Harlem Renaissance had ever existed. It began as a somewhat forced phenomenon.
DuBois believed the history of the world was the history of groups. War experiences spurred people to seek decisive change. Unfortunately a number of racial incidents took place directly after Word War I. The historian Carter Woodson was witness to a riot in Washington D.C.
Black Harlem ran from 130th to 145th Streets. Jazz and blues in Harlem were produced by persons from the Great Migration--Mamie Smith, Perry Bradford, and others. There were new stars in Harlem. Claude McKay and James Weldon Johnson became personal friends. MacKay's HARLEM SHADOWS appeared in 1922. Countee Cullen said that on the whole he liked CANE by Jean Toomer. Countee Cullen's only serious rival in Harlem was Langston Hughes.
Alain Locke and Charles Johnson, a sociologist, made contributions to the intellectual life of the Harlem leadership. Arna Bontemps and Zora Neale Thurston were also notable figures. Many motives animated the Lost Generation Caucasian supporters. The motives included guilt, Christianity, inherited abolitionism.
There were rent parties in Harlem and other evidence of stress and overcrowding. Nonetheless the twenties was a time of artistic triumph with such musical personalities James P. Johnson, Willie the Lion Smith, Fats Waller, and Duke Ellington seeking and finding engagements. There were success stories. Even in the Depression people were generally well-dressed and happy. Harlem was filled with strivers and professionals.
1925 was year one of the Harlem Renaissance. James Weldon Johnson's ancestors had been free, literate, and prosperous before the Civil War. He and his brother composed an opera. The mid twenties solidified the Harlem Renaissance. Harlem was Afro-America's Paris. LULU BELLE (1926) sent whites to Harlem in unprecedented numbers. Factually speaking, though, most of Harlem was sober and hardworking.
The Rosenwald Fund and the Harmon Fund were influential by promoting and rewarding African American artistic achievement. Alain Locke had been a sort of custodian of the Harlem Renaissance. Claude McKay's last novel appeared in 1933. Sugar Hill, Strivers' Row and the Dunbar were landmarks of the Renaissance. The last novel of the Renaissance was Zora Neale Thurston's JONAH'S GOURD VINE.
The book covers other topics interestingly, revealing many bits of information previously unknown to this reader. Photographs are included and an appendix of sources.
Book Description
A literary event, this love story was written and set in the 1920s during the Harlem Renaissance and is being published in book form for the very first time.
In the tradition of Dorothy West's The Wedding and Nella Larsen's Passing, When Washington Was in Vogue casts a loving but critical eye on Black high society of 1920s Washington, D.C. A novel told in letters, this sly, humorous story was first published anonymously in the Black journal The Messenger from 1925 to 1926. This is the first time When Washington Was in Vogue is being published as a book.
In When Washington Was in Vogue, protagonist Davy Carr has just moved to Washington, D.C., and is a member of its Black bourgeoisie. In his letters to his friend Bob in Harlem, Davy recounts his growing romance with Caroline, a beautiful, sharp-witted flapper who tries any number of ways to get Davy's attention. When Washington Was in Vogue details Caroline's earnest but coquettish efforts to woo Davy; it also chronicles Davy's wavering stoicism as he struggles to admit he's attracted to -- and moved by -- this much younger, darker-skinned woman. Along the way, Davy writes his impressions of race, politics, social mores, and the state of Black America.
At its heart, however, When Washington Was in Vogue is an old-fashioned love story. A look into African-American aristocracy in the early part of the twentieth century, this Victorianesque novel about modern romance is filled with the drama and style of one of the most hopeful cultural moments in African-American history. Together with Professor Adam McKible's introduction and Professor Emily Bernard's commentary, this undiscovered story offers a fascinating and memorable reading experience.
Customer Reviews:
One of my favorite books!.......2005-12-29
I fell in love with the characters as they love, party, study, fight, and simply live as successful African Americans in the roaring 20's. I couldn't put it down.
A belated discovery.......2004-10-18
Reading WHEN WASHINGTON WAS IN VOGUE you will feel young again, even if the protagonist, Davy Carr, isn't as young as he used to be before the Great War, in which he served honorably. His letters to his friend Bob reveal, step by step, how he entered an uppermiddle class world of black society in Washington during the days of the 1920s, during Prohibition, and how he found acceptance in the household of a beautiful widow and her two exquisite daughters--one of them, Genevieve, ladylike and stunning, the other, Caroline, a true product of the Jazz Age, flirtatious, fun, and slightly scandalous. Davy's growing interest in Caroline is concealed even from himself, he seems like he's the last person in DC who can figure it out. Is it because she is so much younger than he is?
The editor, Adam McKible Ph.D., hints that this state of affairs parallels Williams' own interests in much younger women, coeds in the great universities in which he served as a librarian, and he quotes from Zora Neale Hurston's memoirs of him flirting like crazy back and forth with young girls. McKible seems a little too taken with his own discovery of this novel, which is no masterpiece by any means, but let him pat himself on the back if he feels like he deserves it, he certainly has given us all some amusing moments and some poignant ones too. I'd like to see a movie version of this book, perhaps with Beyonce as the flirty Caroline and with Angela Bassett as the older and more dignified sister, Genevieve, and to play Captain Davy, who else but Samuel Jackson?
An up close and personal look . . ........2004-07-04
I liked this novel, originally published in a black journal from 1925 through 1926. The details of Davy Carr's middle class existence were sometimes too tedious for my liking, but for anyone who is interested in the daily lives of African Americans during the Roaring Twenties, this book is a must read.
I've read a lot of Edith Wharton and WHEN WASHINGTON WAS IN VOGUE fits nicely with Wharton's insider look at polite society and its pitfalls. There was a lot of discussion in this book about "passing" and "light skinned" girls, but the story didn't shed much light on the real issues of race. Instead the reader learned about dazzling dinner parties, week-ends in the country and late night card games.
There is a love story buried in the book, too. Although there's no real conflict or struggles in the novel, it's worth a few afternoons of your time.
Enjoy.
Love is Timeless.......2004-07-03
Originally published anonymously at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, WHEN WASHINGTON WAS IN VOGUE is a great example of literature of that time period. The story is told with letters composed by Davvy Carr, a former army soldier, to his friend Bob in New York. Davvy, a recent transplant to Washington, DC becomes a student of the life and times of high society there.
Davvy takes up residence in the boarding house of Margaret Rhodes and there he makes the acquaintance of many interesting people, including Caroline Rhodes. She is feisty and demanding, her very presence screams for attention. Caroline does her best to try to capture Davvy's interest by forceably inviting herself into his room and perusing his personal belongings. Unbeknownst to Davvy, Caroline is interested in him, however he does not consider her as a love interest because she is many years his junior. Through the letters, the story is revealed. Much to his surprise, Davvy develops feelings for Caroline. At this time of realization Davvy must discover whether it is too late for or will Davvy and Caroline be able to overcome their difference and succumb to the possibility that love holds for them?
This novel is unique in its portrayal of boy meets girl. It provides an interesting glimpse into the 1920's. The book speaks to inter-race and societal issues. It captured my attention through its use of vivid details and genuineness, yet it was not a major page-turner that compelled me to want to read on. I think it is a decent read that offered a refreshing twist on the unfolding of a relationship.
Reviewed by Nedine
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers
A captivating and well written love story.......2004-06-22
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book. The style was unusual and very entertaining. Davy (the main character) detailed the characters so richly, it was easy to envisioned each person. I was especially drawn to Davy's use of colorful language. Several times I found myself stifling a laugh on the train and I didn't want the letters to end.
I recently started a book club with several friends and "When Washington Was In Vogue" will definitely be a book we share together. Thanks to Professor McKible for a great discovery.
Product Description
Softcover - 1st paperback edition
Book Description
Each book in the Art School series explains all the materials, techniques , methods and contains inspirational and practical projects, expert ideas and approaches, clear instructions and examples and at-a-glance, step-by-step images that every artist will value. This book is divided into two practical sections. The book first discusses which types of paper and brushes to use and the principles of working in watercolor. The techniques section explains the main methods of brushwork, texturing, line and wash and masking. More specialized methods are then introduced, clearly and simply, for increasingly advanced and sophisticated efforts. The book contains over 175 color images including an inspirational gallery, and is filled with practical guidance on how to treat classical subjects.
Book Description
Featuring compelling images created by more than 35 of the world's best nature photographers including such visionaries as John Sexton and Jim Zuckerman, this book is packed with stunning examples of wildlife portraiture, fine art landscape images, and botanical and insect close-ups. Photographers learn the secrets behind creating images such as those found in Audubon and U.S. News & World Report directly from the photographers who risked their equipment, personal safety, and in some cases, their lives, to produce these first-rate images. With tips on choosing a camera, selecting aperture and shutter speed, reading natural light, and using filters, each photographer discusses his or her own favorite technique, equipment, and compositional strategies and reveals how to achieve unique, evocative images that truly tell a story.
Customer Reviews:
Ads for photographers in this book.......2003-02-11
It's mainly used as an introduction to the works of the photographers featured in this book. The text included by each photographer is so brief that you'd learn almost zero from them. The range of photographers in there is pretty wide: you have big names like Art Morris and you also have photos from some others which are really weak.
Typical Amherst Media Product - Poor Quality.......2003-01-01
I thumbed through this book in a local store, because the subject matter was of interest to me. I was disappointed, but not surprised, by the poor quality, both in content and reproduction quality. Unfortunately, this is typical of all the books in the Amherst Media photgraphy series.
Average customer rating:
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Hagar the Horrible: Strapped for Cash
Dik Browne
Manufacturer: Ace Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0441314813 |
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- Cowgirl Saddle Pals
- Saddle Pals are Forever Pals
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Cowgirl Saddle Pals (Western Mini Series)
Gladiola Montana
Manufacturer: Gibbs Smith, Publisher
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Don't Squat With Yer Spurs On! II
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Don't Squat With Yer Spurs On!
ASIN: 1586850016 |
Book Description
Cowboy sweetheart Gladiola Montana has put together another fine gift book in our western mini-series. "Of all the good things in this world, a good cowgirl saddle pal is the goodest" and "Neither miles nor days come between cowgirl saddle pals"--these are just a couple of the pearls of wisdom we have come to expect from this author.
Customer Reviews:
Cowgirl Saddle Pals.......2007-01-09
Absolutely delightful sayings and quotes. A must for all your "cowgirl pals"-they will love it and so will you!!
Saddle Pals are Forever Pals.......2001-05-15
Charming little book full of delightful sayings that epitomize the philosophy of cowgirl friendship. There is the added bonus of a colorful dust jacket depicting cowgirls of yesteryear, and there are pencil sketches throughout the book. I have bought several copies of this delightful book to give to my special Cowgirl Saddle Pals plus I ordered one for me to treasure. To quote from the book "Everything is better shared."
Book Description
This resource explores fascinating new avenues in music therapy. The author discusses connections between music therapy and theorizes that every little nuance found in nature is part of a dynamic system in motion. She also shows how everything is complexly inter-related and addresses how music is able to touch people in a deep and consequentially healing way.
Customer Reviews:
Wonderful book!!.......2005-04-27
This is not a light read but it is well worth every minute. Wonderful innovative ideas!
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Facing It: AIDS Diaries and the Death of the Author
Leigh Ross Chambers
Manufacturer: University of Michigan Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Popular Culture
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ASIN: 0472087487 |
Book Description
For a generation or more, literary theorists have used the metaphor of "the death of the author" in considering the observation that to write is to abdicate control over the meanings one's text is capable of generating. But in the case of AIDS diaries, the metaphor can be literal. Facing It examines the genre not in classificatory terms but pragmatically, as the site of a social interaction. Through a detailed study of three such diaries, originating respectively in France, the United States, and Australia, Ross Chambers demonstrates that issues concerning the politics of AIDS writing and the ethics of reading are linked by a common concern with the problematics of survivorhood. Two of the diaries chosen for special attention in this light are video diaries: La Pudeur ou l'impudeur by Hervé Guibert (author of To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life), and Silverlake Life, by the American videomaker Tom Joslin (aided by his lover and friends, notably Peter Friedman). The third is a defiant but anxious text, Unbecoming, by an American anthropologist, Eric Michaels, who died in Brisbane, Australia, in 1988. Other authors more briefly examined include Pascal de Duve, Bertrand Duquénelle, Alain Emmanuel Dreuilhe, David Wojnarowicz, Gary Fisher, and the filmmaker (not a diarist) Laurie Lynd. Finally, Facing It takes on the issue of its own relevance, asking what contributions literary criticism can make in the midst of an epidemic.
"Groundbreaking in its approach and potentially wide in its appeal. . . . The rigor of the ideas, their dramatic nature, and the political drive of the rhetoric all should win Facing It a large readership that could extend far beyond students of narrative or queer theory." --David Bergman, Towson University, editor of Camp Grounds: Style and Homosexuality
Ross Chambers is Distinguished University Professor of French and Comparative Literature, University of Michigan, and author of Room for Maneuver: Reading (the) Oppositional (in) Narrative and Story and Situation: Narrative Seduction and the Power of Fiction.
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Basic Patterns in Union Contracts
Manufacturer: Bna Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Labor Policy
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ASIN: 0871794233 |
Book Description
Ideal comparison tool, with subject breakdowns of the major provisions in 400 representative contracts. Includes a wide cross-section of industries, employee populations, and policies.
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Basic Patterns in Union Contracts
Manufacturer: Bna Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Labor & Industrial Relations
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ASIN: 0871796384 |
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- Acrylic Painting Techniques/How to Master the Medium of Our Age
- America's Favorite Art Instructor Bob Ross' New Joy of Painting
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