When Harlem Was in Vogue

When Harlem Was in Vogue
by David Levering Lewis

When Harlem Was in Vogue
List Price: $16.00
Our Price: $9.08
You Save: $6.92 (43%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $1.85 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


(Click here)
Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: David Levering Lewis
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1997-06-01
ISBN: 0140263349
Number of pages: 448
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)

Book Reviews of When Harlem Was in Vogue

Book Review: A zesty account
Summary: 5 Stars

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.

Summary of When Harlem Was in Vogue

Stretching from the close of World War I to immediately after the Depression, the Harlem Renaissance was a time of glorious artistic freedom and intellectual collaboration between black artists and white bohemians of Greenwich village. In his masterful and fascinating study of this era, Lewis takes a daring look at what was considered to be a successful utopian effort at assimilating and validating black culture in white America.

Art History Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Art History Books
Learn to Paint Oil Pastels ImageLearn to Paint Oil Pastels
by Jacqueline Black
HarperCollins; Published: 1993-07-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $28.91
Oil Painting (Collins Artist's Guides) ImageOil Painting (Collins Artist's Guides)
by ANGELA GAIR (EDITOR)
COLLINS; Published: 1998; Paperback; Book
Collins Artist's Guide: Making Pictures Pb (Artists Guides) ImageCollins Artist's Guide: Making Pictures Pb (Artists Guides)
by Angela Gair
Harpercollins; Published: 1997-07; Paperback; Book
Colour Mixing: Everything You Need to Know to Get Started (Collins Learn to Paint Series) ImageColour Mixing: Everything You Need to Know to Get Started (Collins Learn to Paint Series)
by Judy Martin
HarperCollins UK; Published: 1998-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $699.99
Learn to Draw Dogs Pb ImageLearn to Draw Dogs Pb
by David Brown
Harpercollins; Published: 1996-02-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.95
Garfield Sits Around the House (Garfield (Numbered Paperback)) ImageGarfield Sits Around the House (Garfield (Numbered Paperback))
by Jim Davis
Ballantine Books; Published: 1984-10-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.99
Sargent's Venice ImageSargent's Venice
by Richard Ormond, Warren Adelson
Yale University Press; Published: 2006-12-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $383.98
Farewell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism ImageFarewell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism
by Timothy J. Clark
Yale University Press; Published: 1999-03-11; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $35.10
Price in other shops: $70.00
Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art ImageBasquiat: A Quick Killing in Art
by Phoebe Hoban
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1999-09-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.94
Price in other shops: $15.95
The Illustrator in America: 1860-2000 ImageThe Illustrator in America: 1860-2000
by Walt Reed
Collins Design; Published: 2003-07-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $339.10
Similar Books and other products
Double-Take: A Revisionist Harlem Renaissance Anthology ImageDouble-Take: A Revisionist Harlem Renaissance Anthology
Rutgers University Press; Published: 2001-12-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $27.87
Price in other shops: $29.95
The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s ImageThe Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s
by Lynn Dumenil
Hill and Wang; Published: 1995-06-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.44
Price in other shops: $17.00
Discontented America: The United States in the 1920s (The American Moment) ImageDiscontented America: The United States in the 1920s (The American Moment)
by David J. Goldberg
The Johns Hopkins University Press; Published: 1999-01-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.97
Price in other shops: $24.00
The Blacker the Berry (Dover Books on Literature & Drama) ImageThe Blacker the Berry (Dover Books on Literature & Drama)
by Wallace Thurman
Dover Publications; Published: 2008-05-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.50
Price in other shops: $7.95
Home To Harlem (Northeastern Library of Black Literature) ImageHome To Harlem (Northeastern Library of Black Literature)
by Claude McKay
Northeastern; Published: 1987-11-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.98
Price in other shops: $19.95
Harlem Renaissance ImageHarlem Renaissance
by the late Nathan Irvin Huggins
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2007-05-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.33
Price in other shops: $19.95
The Era of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933-1945: A Brief History with Documents (Bedford Series in History & Culture) ImageThe Era of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933-1945: A Brief History with Documents (Bedford Series in History & Culture)
by Richard D. Polenberg
Bedford/St. Martin's; Published: 2000-01-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.05
Cane (New Edition) ImageCane (New Edition)
by Jean Toomer
Liveright; Published: 2011-06-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.11
Price in other shops: $13.95
The New Negro : Voices of the Harlem Renaissance ImageThe New Negro : Voices of the Harlem Renaissance
Touchstone; Published: 1999-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.00
Price in other shops: $16.00
The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader (Portable Library) ImageThe Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader (Portable Library)
by David Lewis
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1995-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.35
Price in other shops: $20.00
Book store. Illustrated catalog of books on different categories