Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance
    Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance
    Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance
    Audiobook13 hours

    Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance

    Written by Carla Kaplan

    Narrated by Liisa Ivary

    3.5/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateApr 15, 2014
    ISBN9780062347565
    Author

    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 is the author of The Erotics of Talk and Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters. A recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, 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 and is a fellow of the Society of American Historians.

    Related to Miss Anne in Harlem

    Related audiobooks

    United States History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      What Do Meghan Markle And Chicago Woman Who Wrote 'Passing' Have In Common?

      Feb 28, 2018

      CHICAGO - Nella Larsen was a mystery in life, and a mystery after her death in 1964. According to biographers, when she died her half sister inherited the $35,000 that remained in Larsen's savings, then said she didn't know she had a half sister. Whi

      7 min read

    • Article

      Harlem’s Renaissance

      Jul 1, 2020

      Harlem’s Renaissance
      3 min read

    • Article

      Bobby Seale

      Oct 8, 2016

      The Black Panthers co-founder, whose new book marks the 50th anniversary of the party’s establishment, talks about guns, Trump and Obama

      2 min read

    • Article

      In 'A More Beautiful And Terrible History,' Fuel For The Fight Ahead

      Feb 4, 2018

      Jeanne Theoharis' new book re-examines civil rights history and the way it's been manipulated. "It is used to make us feel good about ourselves, to make us feel good about our progress," she says.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Understanding Ellison

      Feb 20, 2020

      Understanding Ellison
      4 min read

    • Article

      Cornel West on Why James Baldwin Matters More Than Ever

      Mar 2, 2017

      James Baldwin was the prophetic voice of an era that isn’t over. Fifty years ago he was the intense man from Harlem who wrote, in essays and novels, his version of a civil-rights movement. Over the ruins of the 1960s, and specially the assassination

      12 min read

    • Article

      There Is No Right Way To Fight For Your Life

      Jun 5, 2020

      AS PROTESTS SPRING UP ACROSS the country and around the world in response to the video of George Floyd’s murder, there seems to be some confusion about why this moment, this death at the hands of police, has sparked so much outrage. And if it were an

      2 min read

    • Article

      Femi Kayode

      Feb 4, 2021

      Femi Kayode
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Robert Jones, Jr.

      Dec 2, 2021

      This year I realized that there is a distinct difference between reading books as an average reader and as someone whose own book is now out in the world, The post A Year in Reading: Robert Jones, Jr. appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      The South Got Something To Say: A Celebration Of Southern Rap

      Aug 3, 2020

      Our list of the best songs, albums and mixtapes by Southern rappers is a celebration that recenters the South as a creative center of hip-hop and honors the region for all that it has given to us.

      13 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Miss Anne in Harlem

    3.5/5

    26 ratings4 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      An interesting study on the social upheaval caused by early interracial social and intellectual exchange. It offers a glimpse of how parts of the American population are truly isolated and what happens when attempts are made to bridge that isolation. Carla Kaplan provides an excellent background and examples in the six women she profiles in this book.
    • 5/5
      Gave me an insight that I didn't think existed at this time period in America .
    • 5/5
      This history and group biography of several of the strong minded but sometimes misguided white women who inserted themselves into the Harlem Renaissance is a fascinating look at the rich culture of the time, black and white. Though the 1920's is thought of as an era of freethinking flappers, views of race were rigid and and punishments for crossing the color line were harsh. These "Miss Anne" white women wanted to help bring about a paradigm shift, but they met with a lot of resistance from both sides then, and are largely forgotten today. Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance is a scholarly book with end-notes and a bibliography, but it is anything but dry. The women's stories are told in sensitive but unvarnished detail and their lives are varied and highly interesting. I picked up the book because I wanted to read about forward thinking novelist Fannie Hurst and rebel British aristocrat Nancy Cunard, but the other women profiled include organizers, educators, and authors whose struggles, choices, personal lives, and public personas are just as compelling.
    • 5/5
      This book is a keeper. Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance by Carla Kaplan is an amazing piece of research and was difficult to stop reading. The term “Miss Ann” was brand new to me. Most often, the women who were called "Miss Ann" thought it was a curse that they were white. One woman, Josephine Cogdell Schulyer pushed for "intermarriage as a solution to the race problem". She married a black man herself. She was able to keep her marriage secret from her parents by visiting them without her husband and her daughter. She really wants to make her mark in the world but after marrying, she pushed that aside and concentrated on homemaking. She found herself without women friends and her marriage was a disappointment. Her story is heart wrenching and very sad. This book is set in the 1920s and 1930s in Harlem mostly. Carla Kaplan concentrated on lives of six women who qualify as "Miss Anns" but their lives were all different. The author picked these women because their lives had the most documentation. But there were many white women who flocked to Harlem and their stories will never be told. Harlem at that time seemed to be big experiment. Whites wanted to go to Harlem so they could shock their friends and relatives with amazing tales. Blacks and Whites danced and drank together. It seemed that Whites could loosen up there. Harlem was exploding with Black art, poetry, literature, dance and acting. Duke Ellington played to an all White audience in the cotton club but usually blacks and whites played together in the nightclubs.The black people who lived there saw them as intruders. Celebrities like Tallulah Bankhead and her friend came in drag. Jimmy Durante was there so many recognizable celebrities and politicians came. Writers told of their experiences there. There were even tour guides. It took the Great Depression to end the Harlem Renaissance.This book is full of history that I never read about Harlem and Miss Ann.I received this book as a win from First Reads and that in no way influenced my thoughts or feelings in my review.