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L. S. Alexander Gumby
Levi Sandy Alexander Gumby (February 1, 1885 – March 16, 1961) was an African-American archivist and historian. His collection of 300 scrapbooks documenting African-American history have been part of the collection of Columbia University since 1950 as the ''Alexander Gumby Collection of Negroiana''. Gumby was also the proprietor of a popular bookstore during the Harlem Renaissance, where he was host of a salon. Gumby's passion for collecting earned him the nicknames "The Count" and "Mr. Scrapbook". Life Born in Maryland, Gumby was the son of an evangelist, Levi Thomas Gumby, and his wife, Louisa Morris. He and his sister were sent to live with their grandparents in 1901. Gumby studied law at Dover State College in Delaware at the behest of his grandmother, but feeling his inadequacy in law he moved to New York City, which would be his home until his death. Gumby embraced life in New York, saying in his 1952 essay ''The Adventures of My Scrapbook'' that "At once I became a Ne ...
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African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of Slavery in the United States, enslaved Africans who are from the United States. While some Black immigrants or their children may also come to identify as African-American, the majority of first generation immigrants do not, preferring to identify with their nation of origin. African Americans constitute the second largest racial group in the U.S. after White Americans, as well as the third largest ethnic group after Hispanic and Latino Americans. Most African Americans are descendants of enslaved people within the boundaries of the present United States. On average, African Americans are of West Africa, West/Central Africa, Central African with some European descent; some also have Native Americans in th ...
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Literary Journal
A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry, and essays, along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters. Literary magazines are often called literary journals, or little magazines, terms intended to contrast them with larger, commercial magazines. History ''Nouvelles de la république des lettres'' is regarded as the first literary magazine; it was established by Pierre Bayle in France in 1684. Literary magazines became common in the early part of the 19th century, mirroring an overall rise in the number of books, magazines, and scholarly Academic journal, journals being published at that time. In Great Britain, critics Francis Jeffrey, Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, Henry Brougham and Sydney Smith founded the ''Edinburgh Review'' in 1802. Other British reviews of this period included the ''Westminster Review'' (1824), ''The ...
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Arthur Fauset
Arthur Huff Fauset (January 20, 1899 – September 2, 1983) was an American civil rights activist, anthropologist, folklorist, and educator. Born in Flemington, New Jersey, he grew up in Philadelphia, where he attended Central High School. Family background Fauset was born on January 20, 1899, and was the middle child of three children in an interracial family in Flemington, New Jersey. His father, Redmon Fauset, was African American and likely of mixed race. He was a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Redmon Fauset's second wife, a white woman named Bella, was born into a Jewish family. Bringing three children from her first marriage, she converted to Christianity to marry Fauset. Redmon Fauset had seven children by his first marriage, before his wife Annie (née Seamon) died. As a person of known mixed race, Arthur Fauset never identified fully with either of his parents' ethnic groups as a child or adult. According to the hypodescent practices of U.S. so ...
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Richard Bruce Nugent
Richard Bruce Nugent (July 2, 1906 – May 27, 1987), aka Richard Bruce and Bruce Nugent, was a gay writer and painter in the Harlem Renaissance. Despite being a part of a group of many gay Harlem artists, Nugent was among only a few who were publicly out. Recognized initially for the few short stories and paintings that were published, Nugent had a long productive career bringing to light the creative process of gay and black culture. Biography Early life Richard Bruce Nugent was born in Washington, DC, on July 2, 1906, to Richard H. Nugent, Jr. and Pauline Minerva Bruce. He completed his schooling at Dunbar High School in 1920, and moved to New York following his father's death. After revealing to his mother that he decided to devote his life to only making art, she worried about his lack of interest in getting a stable job, so she sent him to Washington, DC, to live with his grandmother. To earn enough money to sustain the family, Nugent would pass as white to earn hig ...
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Augusta Savage
Augusta Savage (born Augusta Christine Fells; February 29, 1892 – March 27, 1962) was an American sculptor associated with the Harlem Renaissance. She was also a teacher whose studio was important to the careers of a generation of artists who would become nationally known. She worked for equal rights for African Americans in the arts. Early life Augusta Christine Fells was born in Green Cove Springs (near Jacksonville), Florida, on February 29, 1892, to Edward Fells, a Methodist minister, and Cornelia Murphy. Augusta began making figures as a child, mostly small animals out of the natural red clay of her hometown. Her father was a poor Methodist minister who strongly opposed his daughter's early interest in art. "My father licked me four or five times a week," Savage once recalled, "and almost whipped all the art out of me." This was because he believed her sculpture to be a sinful practice, due to his interpretation of the "graven images" portion of the Bible. She persevered, ...
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Helene Johnson
Helene Johnson (July 7, 1906 – July 7, 1995) was an African-American poet during the Harlem Renaissance. She was also a cousin of writer Dorothy West. Career Johnson's literary career began when she won first prize in a short story competition sponsored by the ''Boston Chronicle''. She also received an honorable mention in a poetry contest organized by ''Opportunity'', the journal of the National Urban League that was a leading showcase for the talents of African-American artists. She reached the height of her popularity in 1927 when her poem "Bottled" was published in the May issue of '' Vanity Fair''. In 1935, Johnson’s last published poems appeared in ''Challenge: A Literary Quarterly''. She continued to write a poem a day for the rest of her life. Personal life Johnson, whose given name was Helen, spent her early years at her grandfather’s house in Boston. The rest of her formative years were spent in Brookline, Massachusetts. She and Dorothy West moved to Har ...
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Dorothy West
Dorothy West (June 2, 1907 – August 16, 1998) was an American storyteller and short story writer during the time of the Harlem Renaissance. She is best known for her 1948 novel ''The Living Is Easy'', as well as many other short stories and essays, about the life of an upper-class black family. Early years Dorothy West was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 2, 1907, the only child of Virginian Isaac Christopher West, who was enslaved at birth and became a successful businessman, and Rachel Pease Benson of Camden, South Carolina, one of 22 children. The poet Helene Johnson was her cousin. Late in life she wrote that in Boston Blacks "were taught very young to take the white man in stride or drown in their own despair". She detailed how her mother guided her and her many cousins, all with varied skin tones, into the inhospitable world: West reportedly wrote her first story at the age of seven. Her first published work, a short story entitled "Promise and Fulfillment", a ...
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Aaron Douglas (artist)
Aaron Douglas (May 26, 1899 – February 2, 1979) was an American painter, illustrator and visual arts educator. He was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance. He developed his art career painting murals and creating illustrations that addressed social issues around race and segregation in the United States by utilizing African-centric imagery. Douglas set the stage for young, African-American artists to enter the public-arts realm through his involvement with the Harlem Artists Guild. In 1944, he concluded his art career by founding the Art Department at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. He taught visual art classes at Fisk until his retirement in 1966. Douglas is known as a prominent leader in modern African-American art whose work influenced artists for years to come. Early life Aaron Douglas was born and raised in Topeka, Kansas, on May 26, 1899, to Aaron Douglas, Sr, a baker from Tennessee, and Elizabeth Douglas, a homemaker and amateur artist from Alabama. His pas ...
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Heywood Broun
Heywood Campbell Broun Jr. (; December 7, 1888 – December 18, 1939) was an American journalist. He worked as a sportswriter, newspaper columnist, and editor in New York City. He founded the American Newspaper Guild, later known as The Newspaper Guild and now as The NewsGuild-CWA. Born in Brooklyn, New York, he is best remembered for his writing on social issues and his championing of the underdog. He believed that journalists could help right wrongs, especially social ills. Career Broun was born in Brooklyn, the third of four children born to Heywood C. Broun and Henrietta Marie (née Brose) Broun. Broun attended Harvard University, but did not earn a degree. He began his professional career writing baseball stories in the sports section of the ''New York Morning Telegraph''. Broun worked at the ''New York Tribune'' from 1912 to 1921, rising to drama critic. He started working in 1921 for the ''New York World.'' While at the ''World,'' he started writing his syndicated colum ...
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Alain LeRoy Locke
Alain LeRoy Locke (September 13, 1885 – June 9, 1954) was an American writer, philosopher, educator, and patron of the arts. Distinguished in 1907 as the first African-American Rhodes Scholar, Locke became known as the philosophical architect —the acknowledged "Dean"— of the Harlem Renaissance. review of Jeffrey C. Stewart, ''The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke'' (Oxford University Press, 2018) He is frequently included in listings of influential African Americans. On March 19, 1968, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed: "We're going to let our children know that the only philosophers that lived were not Plato and Aristotle, but W. E. B. Du Bois and Alain Locke came through the universe." Early life and education He was born Arthur Leroy Locke in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 13, 1885,Note: Locke always gave his year of birth as "1886", and many sources give 1886. He was, however, born in 1885. A note by Locke in the Alain Locke Papers (archived at ...
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Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson ( ; April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass-baritone concert artist, stage and film actor, professional football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his political stances. In 1915, Robeson won an academic scholarship to Rutgers College. While at Rutgers, he was twice named a consensus All-American in football and was the class valedictorian. He received his LL.B. from Columbia Law School while playing in the National Football League (NFL). After graduation, he became a figure in the Harlem Renaissance with performances in ''The Emperor Jones'' and '' All God's Chillun Got Wings''. Robeson performed in Britain in a touring melodrama, ''Voodoo'', in 1922, and in ''Emperor Jones'' in 1925. In 1928, he scored a major success in the London premiere of ''Show Boat''. Living in London for several years with his wife Eslanda, Robeson continued to establish himself as a concert artist and starred ...
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Rose McClendon
Rose McClendon (August 27, 1884 – July 12, 1936) was a leading African-American Broadway actress of the 1920s. A founder of the Negro People's Theatre, she guided the creation of the Federal Theatre Project's African American theatre units nationwide and briefly co-directed the New York Negro Theater Unit. Biography Rose McClendon was born as Rosalie Virginia Scott in Greenville, South Carolina, and as a child relocated to New York City. She started acting in church plays in her youth. She became a professional actress in her thirties, after winning a scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Art. At age 20 she was married to Dr. Henry Pruden McClendon, a chiropractor. Her first notable role came in ''Deep River'', a "native opera with jazz", in 1926. In addition to acting, she also directed several plays at the Harlem Experimental Theatre. She appeared in the 1927 Pulitzer Prize-winning play ''In Abraham's Bosom'' by Paul Green. In 1931, she was in another Paul ...
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