Research Themes & Topics

Politics and social forces that influenced the New Negro Movement

  • Arturo Schomburg and the Schomburg Collection
  • Arturo Schomburg and his role as a promoter of the New Negro Arts Movement
  • The development of the Harlem branch of NYPL; Arturo Schomburg, the librarians and civic leaders who helped organize the Schomburg Collection of Negro Literature, Art and Prints
  • The Great Migration, racial violence, migration patterns and settlement in Harlem in the 1920s
  • The Red Summer of 1919
  • Garveyism
  • Philosophers and Educators:
    • Marcus Garvey and UNIA
    • W.E.B DuBois
    • Alain Locke, etc.
  • The Talented Tenth and the intellectual differences between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois
  • Strains of intellectual thought: differences between Garveyism and the beliefs of the HR elite and Talented Tenth
  • A sociological analysis of the New Negro Movement and the economic events that allowed Blacks to prosper in Harlem
  • Alain Locke’s groundbreaking anthology “The New Negro” in defining The New Negro Movement and the consciousness of a new generation
  • The Great War and the New Negro: A consciousness of a new generation

 

Economic forces that defined the Harlem Renaissance

  • The Negro in Business
  • Afro American Realty Company and the Afro-American Investment and Building Company

 

Publishing, Periodicals, and Literature

  • Challenging Racism Through Literature: African American Publications
  • The Influence of Black literary journals on the Harlem Renaissance: the Crisis, Opportunity, Fire! and the Messenger
  • Literary  contests: Charles S. Johnson and the Emancipation of Black Artists
  • William Waring Cuney, an overlooked and forgotten poet of the Renaissance
  • Women writers of the Harlem Renaissance
  • The Expatriates: The presence of Harlem Renaissance writers in Paris a movement toward black literature worldwide
  • Escaping prejudice and racism: Black writers in France
  • DuBois and his editorship of the Crisis
  • Literary themes in the writings of Claude McKay Jamaican Island life versus Harlem New Negro Intellectual
  • Jean Toomer’s Cane and biracial Identity
  • Countee Cullen’s Poetry: Religion, Love, and Social Conscience
  • Carl Van Vechten’s Nigger Heaven exploiting the primitive black stereotypes when “the Negro was in Vogue”
  • The Theme of Harlem in Langston Hughes’s Poetry
  • African Heritage in the Harlem Renaissance
  • The influences of Africa in Countee Cullen’s poetry.
  • Themes of African folklore and art in the writing expressing heritage and cultural pride
  • Zora Neale Hurston and Negro Folk Art
  • Themes of primitivism in the writing of McKay, Hurston, and Van Vechten.

Past Is Prologue

  • The Origin of Modern Black Expression
  • Post-bellum and Pre-Harlem Years 1880-1920
  • Negro Writing before the Renaissance
  • Contextualizing the Harlem Renaissance examining the literature and art– from 1880 to 1920– that fiction writer Charles W. Chesnutt called the “postbellum, pre‐Harlem” Renaissance era:
    • Paul and Alice Dunbar-Nelson
    • W.E.B. DuBois
    • James Weldon Johnson
    • Ossawa Tanner
    • Booker T. Washington, etc
  • The Post-Harlem Renaissance era: The New Negro Movement and its influences on:
    • James Baldwin
    • Richard Wright
    • Jacob Lawrence
    • Ralph Ellison
    • Romare Bearden, etc.
    • American Negro Theatre
    • Gordon Parks
  • The New Negro Movement and its influence on the Black Arts Movement
    • Amiri Baraka
    • Alice Childress
    • Cheryl Clarke
    • John Henrik Clarke
    • Julian Mayfield
    • Larry Neal
  • The New Negro Movement and its influence on Hip Hop/Rap

Performing Arts

Drama

  • Amateur Night at the Apollo: The Depression years
  • The drama of the Harlem Renaissance: Racial barriers and the Negro Theater in the Twenties
  • White Playwrights explore Negro Themes
    • Ridgely Torrence
    • Marcus Connelly
    • Eugene O’Neill
  • Primitivism, Black characters and the lure of white audiences
  • Stereotypical portrayals of blacks in drama
  • Primitivism and Drama: Defining the Black Theater
  • Black Theater and the popularity of primitivism: The slow progress of the Black drama
  • Theophilus Lewis’ reflections of a drama critic
  • Paul Robeson’s reflections on Eugene O’Neill and his plays
  • The Black Playwright: Early Achievements of Black Theater
  • Women Playwrights of the Harlem Renaissance: Writing with a social conscience
    • Angelina Grimke
    • Georgia Douglas Johnson
    • Alice Dunbar-Nelson
    • Mary Burrill
  • May Miller
  • Ruth Gaines-Shelton-Religious Plays
  • Black Drama and the folk tradition
  • Eulalie Spence

Harlem Renaissance Theater Companies

  • The Frogs
  • Lafayette Players 1916-1932
  • Ida Anderson Players 1917-1928
  • Negro Players 1917-1928
  • Negro Players (Hapgood Players) 1917
  • Players Guild 1919
  • Acme Players 1922-24
  • National Ethiopian Art Theatre 1924-25
  • Aldridge Players 1926
  • Alhambra Players 1927-1931
  • American Negro Theater
  • The Colored Dramatic Stock Company in 1914
  • The Lafayette Theater

Film

  • From Harlem to Hollywood: Hollywood’s relationship to Blacks in Harlem in the 1920s
  • Oscar Micheaux
  • Ideology and representations of “The Birth of a Nation”
  • Paul Robeson

Music: Blues and Jazz

  • The Influence of blues on the cultural and literary history of the Harlem Renaissance
  • Duke Ellington and the Cotton Club
  • The Jazz Age: how the downtown NYC perceived and defined the New Negro

Visual Arts

Visual arts and its influence on the New Negro Movement

  • Augusta Savage
  • Meta Warrick Fuller
  • Romare Bearden
  • Beauford Delaney
  • Aaron Douglas and his murals
  • Palmer Hayden
  • Malvin Gray Johnson
  • William H. Johnson
  • Archibald J. Motley
  • James VanDerZee and his  themes, techniques, and subjects
  • Hale Woodruff
  • The Negro Artist and the Harmon Foundation

Patrons, Promoters, and Supporters of The Harlem Renaissance

  • White interest in Harlem: “When the Negro was in Vogue”
  • Albert C. Barnes and African Art
  • “Godmother” Charlotte Mason
  • Carl Van Vechten
  • The sincerity of white patrons
  • Exploiting the Renaissance

Harlem: Culture Capital

Nightlife in Harlem

  • Rent Parties and the musical forum it created for musicians
  • The Dark Tower
  • Speakeasies
  • Cabarets
  • Ballrooms and contributions to music and dance innovations
  • Savoy
  • Alhambra
  • Renaissance Ballroom
  • Negro Tropics
  • The West Indian Influence in the 1920s

Sports

  • Basketball in Harlem: The Harlem Rens

Economics

  • Beauty parlors and hair salons: The legacy of Madam C. J. Walker
  • The Renaissance Draws to a Close: A Legacy of Creative Protest
  • Reflecting on the significance of the New Negro Movement
  • The Failure of the Creative Intellectual: An Analysis of Harold Cruse’s The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual

 

 

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