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Harlem Renaissance

(Encyclopedia)Harlem Renaissance, term used to describe a flowering of African-American literature and art in the 1920s, mainly in the Harlem district of New York City. During the mass migration of African American...

Toomer, Jean

(Encyclopedia)Toomer, Jean, 1894–1967, American writer, b. Washington, D.C., as Nathan Eugene Toomer. A major figure of the Harlem Renaissance, he is known mainly for Cane (1923, rev. ed. 1988, 2011), a collectio...

Harlem

(Encyclopedia)Harlem, residential and business section of upper Manhattan, New York City, bounded roughly by 110th St., the East River and Harlem River, 168th St., Amsterdam Ave., and Morningside Park. The Dutch se...

McKay, Claude

(Encyclopedia)McKay, Claude məkāˈ [key], 1889–1948, American poet and novelist, b. Jamaica as Festus Claudius McKay, studied at Tuskegee and the Univ. of Kansas. A major figure of the Harlem Renaissance, McKay...

Van Vechten, Carl

(Encyclopedia)Van Vechten, Carl văn vĕkˈtən [key], 1880–1964, American music critic, novelist, and photographer, b. Cedar Rapids, Iowa, grad. Univ. of Chicago, 1903. While he was a leading music and dance cri...

Hughes, Langston

(Encyclopedia)Hughes, Langston (James Langston Hughes), 1902–67, American poet and central figure of the Harlem Renaissance, b. Joplin, Mo., grad. Lincoln Univ., 1929. He worked at a variety of jobs and lived in ...

Cullen, Countee

(Encyclopedia)Cullen, Countee kounˈtēˈ [key], 1903–46, American poet, b. New York City, grad. New York Univ. 1925, M.A. Harvard, 1926. A major writer of the Harlem Renaissance—a flowering of black artistic a...

Walker, Madam C. J.

(Encyclopedia)Walker, Madam C. J., 1867–1919, African-American entrepeneur, b. Delta, La., as Sarah Breedlove. Thought to be America's first black female millionaire, this daughter of ex-slaves was orphaned at 7,...

Renaissance

(Encyclopedia)Renaissance rĕnəsänsˈ, –zänsˈ [key] [Fr.,=rebirth], term used to describe the development of Western civilization that marked the transition from medieval to modern times. This article is conc...

Van Der Zee, James

(Encyclopedia)Van Der Zee, James, 1886–1983, American photographer, b. Lenox, Mass. The son of Ulysses S. Grant's maid and butler, Van Der Zee opened his first studio in Harlem, New York City, in 1915. For 60 yea...
 

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