Miss Anne in Harlem, Carla Kaplan
Miss Anne in Harlem, Carla Kaplan
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Miss Anne in Harlem
The White Women of the Black Renaissance

Author: Carla Kaplan

Narrator: Liisa Ivary

Unabridged: 13 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 04/15/2014


Synopsis

New York City in the Jazz Age was host to a pulsating artistic and social revolution. Uptown, an unprecedented explosion in black music, literature, dance, and art sparked the Harlem Renaissance. While the history of this African-American awakening has been widely explored, one chapter remains untold: the story of a group of women collectively dubbed "Miss Anne."Sexualized and sensationalized in the mainstream press—portrayed as monstrous or insane—Miss Anne was sometimes derided within her chosen community of Harlem as well. While it was socially acceptable for white men to head uptown for "exotic" dancers and "hot" jazz, white women who were enthralled by life on West 125th Street took chances. Miss Anne in Harlem introduces these women—many from New York's wealthiest social echelons—who became patrons of, and romantic participants in, the Harlem Renaissance. They include Barnard College founder Annie Nathan Meyer, Texas heiress Josephine Cogdell Schuyler, British activist Nancy Cunard, philanthropist Charlotte Osgood Mason, educator Lillian E. Wood, and novelist Fannie Hurst—all women of accomplishment and renown in their day. Yet their contributions as hostesses, editors, activists, patrons, writers, friends, and lovers often went unacknowledged and have been lost to history until now.In a vibrant blend of social history and biography, award-winning writer Carla Kaplan offers a joint portrait of six iconoclastic women who risked ostracism to follow their inclinations—and raised hot-button issues of race, gender, class, and sexuality in the bargain. Returning Miss Anne to her rightful place in the interracial history of the Harlem Renaissance, Kaplan's formidable work remaps the landscape of the 1920s, alters our perception of this historical moment, and brings Miss Anne to vivid life.

About Carla Kaplan

Carla Kaplan is an award-winning professor and writer who holds the Stanton W. and Elisabeth K. Davis Distinguished Professorship in American Literature at Northeastern University. She has published seven books, including Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters and Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance, both New York Times Notable Books. A recipient of Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Humanities “Public Scholar” fellowships, Kaplan has been a fellow in residence at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the W. E. B. DuBois Institute, is a fellow of the Society of American Historians, and serves on the board of Biographers International. She divides her time between Boston and Cape Cod.


Reviews

Goodreads review by robin on February 09, 2024

Miss Anne In Harlem In African-American slang, "Miss Anne" refers to a white woman. The "free play of identity" is a modern concept which suggests that individual identities can be changing and fluid rather than fixed. Individuals often try to remake or reinvent themselves in various ways and choose......more

Goodreads review by Rama on June 30, 2020

Jungle fever in 1920's Harlem This book tells the story of white women in black Harlem collectively referred to as "Miss Anne," has never been told until now. White women who wrote impassioned pleas such as "A white girl's prayer" about their longings to escape the "curse" of whiteness were overlooke......more

Goodreads review by RYCJ on September 29, 2013

'First they ignore you... then sexualize you...and then call you crazy and write you off as a social misfit...' is the overriding theme I found most revealing, or should I say telling, in the reading about defining Miss Anne. Prior to reading this book Miss Anne was either a prissy young girl, or a......more

Goodreads review by Biblio on August 19, 2013

Although the women known collectively as "Miss Anne" had a few things in common -- they were white, they came from middle or upper class families, and they had an intense interest in the lives of the black people of Harlem -- they were very different individuals. Fortunately, each of the six women t......more

Goodreads review by Jessica on July 16, 2014

update: Well-researched and written, a fascinating account of six white women who passionately involved themselves, to varying degrees of success, in the lives of Blacks in Harlem. * * Heard the author speak yesterday at the Mount, Edith Wharton's home. Highly informative, passionate and engaging. Loo......more