US.40 Describe the Harlem Renaissance, its impact, and its important figures, including an examination of literary and informational text of or about Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong.
The Harlem Renaissance
Take notes on the following aspects of the Harlem Renaissance. Pay special attention to the concepts/terms in bold.
TARGET QUESTIONS:
1. What was the "Harlem Renaissance"?
2. Who were major figures of the Harlem Renaissance and what were they known for?
1. What was the "Harlem Renaissance"?
2. Who were major figures of the Harlem Renaissance and what were they known for?
The Savoy Ballroom in Harlem in 1926 was The Place and Lindy Hop was The Dance!
It was time for a cultural celebration. African Americans had endured centuries of slavery and the struggle for abolition. The end of bondage had not brought the promised land many had envisioned. Instead, white supremacy was quickly, legally, and violently restored to the New South, where ninety percent of African Americans lived. Starting in about 1890, African Americans migrated to the North in great numbers. This Great Migration eventually relocated hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North. Many discovered they had shared common experiences in their past histories and their uncertain present circumstances. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, the recently dispossessed ignited an explosion of cultural pride. Indeed, African American culture was reborn in the Harlem Renaissance.
The First Great Migration
The First Great Migration began because of a "push" and a "pull." Disenfranchisement, unfair sharecropping, and Jim Crow laws pushed African Americans out of the south to hope for a new life up north. The booming northern economy was the "pull". Industrial jobs were numerous, and factory owners looked near and far for sources of cheap labor. Unfortunately, northerners did not welcome African Americans with open arms. While the legal systems of the northern states were not as obstructionist toward African American rights, there was still prejudice among the populace. White laborers complained that African Americans were flooding the employment market and lowering wages. Most new migrants found themselves segregated by practice in run down urban slums. The largest of these was Harlem. In Harlem, writers, actors, artists, and musicians glorified African American traditions, and at the same time created new ones. |
Writers and Actors
The most prolific writer of the Harlem Renaissance was Langston Hughes. Hughes cast off the influences of white poets and wrote with the rhythmic meter of blues and jazz. Claude McKay urged African Americans to stand up for their rights in his powerful verses. James Weldon Johnson ventured into the issue of racial identity. Book publishers soon took notice and patronized many of these talents. Zora Neale Hurston was an influential female author who brought African-American experiences into her writings as well as early feminism.
The most prolific writer of the Harlem Renaissance was Langston Hughes. Hughes cast off the influences of white poets and wrote with the rhythmic meter of blues and jazz. Claude McKay urged African Americans to stand up for their rights in his powerful verses. James Weldon Johnson ventured into the issue of racial identity. Book publishers soon took notice and patronized many of these talents. Zora Neale Hurston was an influential female author who brought African-American experiences into her writings as well as early feminism.
Musicians
No aspect of the Harlem Renaissance shaped America and the entire world as much as jazz. Jazz flouted many musical conventions with its syncopated rhythms and improvised instrumental solos. Thousands of city dwellers flocked night after night to see the same performers. Improvisation meant that no two performances would ever be the same. Harlem's Cotton Club boasted the talents of Duke Ellington. Singers such as Bessie Smith and Billie Holliday popularized blues and jazz vocals. Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong drew huge audiences as white Americans, as well as African Americans, caught jazz fever.
No aspect of the Harlem Renaissance shaped America and the entire world as much as jazz. Jazz flouted many musical conventions with its syncopated rhythms and improvised instrumental solos. Thousands of city dwellers flocked night after night to see the same performers. Improvisation meant that no two performances would ever be the same. Harlem's Cotton Club boasted the talents of Duke Ellington. Singers such as Bessie Smith and Billie Holliday popularized blues and jazz vocals. Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong drew huge audiences as white Americans, as well as African Americans, caught jazz fever.
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The Lost Generation
Take notes on the following aspects of the Lost Generation. Pay special attention to the concepts/terms in bold.
TARGET QUESTIONS:
1. What was the "Lost Generation"?
2. Who were major figures of the Lost Generation? What themes were reflected in much of their writing?
1. What was the "Lost Generation"?
2. Who were major figures of the Lost Generation? What themes were reflected in much of their writing?
The "Lost Generation" is a term which refers to the generation of young people who came of age during and shortly after World War I, alternatively known as the World War I generation. In Europe, they are mostly known as the "Generation of 1914," for the year World War I began. In France, the country in which many expatriates settled, they were sometimes called the Génération au Feu, the "Generation in Flames. " The term "lost generation" was popularized by Ernest Hemingway, who used it as one of two contrasting epigraphs for his novel, The Sun Also Rises. The novel epitomizes the lifestyle and mindset of the post-war expatriate generation. In that volume, Hemingway credits the phrase to Gertrude Stein, who was then his mentor and patron.
In A Moveable Feast, which was published after Hemingway and Stein were both dead and after a literary feud that lasted much of their life, Hemingway reveals that the phrase was actually originated by the garage owner who serviced Stein's car. When a young mechanic failed to repair the car in a way satisfactory to Stein, the garage owner told her that while young men were easy to train, he considered those in their mid-twenties to thirties, the men who had been through World War I, to be a "lost generation"—une génération perdue. Stein, in telling Hemingway the story, added, "That is what you are. That's what you all are...all of you young people who served in the war. You are a lost generation. "
The themes of Lost Generation writing focus on: decadence, idealized past, loss of purpose, disillusionment with society, and war experiences.
This generation included distinguished writers and artists such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, T. S. Eliot, John Dos Passos, Waldo Peirce, Alan Seeger, and Erich Maria Remarque.
Adapted from The Lost Generation
Boundless - U.S. History
In A Moveable Feast, which was published after Hemingway and Stein were both dead and after a literary feud that lasted much of their life, Hemingway reveals that the phrase was actually originated by the garage owner who serviced Stein's car. When a young mechanic failed to repair the car in a way satisfactory to Stein, the garage owner told her that while young men were easy to train, he considered those in their mid-twenties to thirties, the men who had been through World War I, to be a "lost generation"—une génération perdue. Stein, in telling Hemingway the story, added, "That is what you are. That's what you all are...all of you young people who served in the war. You are a lost generation. "
The themes of Lost Generation writing focus on: decadence, idealized past, loss of purpose, disillusionment with society, and war experiences.
This generation included distinguished writers and artists such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, T. S. Eliot, John Dos Passos, Waldo Peirce, Alan Seeger, and Erich Maria Remarque.
Adapted from The Lost Generation
Boundless - U.S. History
Reading Analysis
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