Ms. Moss-Pham’s Web Link Bibliography for

the Harlem Renaissance (1917-1935)

A Note to the Reader: the purpose of this bibliography of websites is to guide colleagues and students Grades 9-12 to the best available websites on various aspects of that period in American history known as the Harlem Renaissance. By “best,” I mean most authoritative, interesting, and rich both in information about and appreciation of this period of artistic creativity in American culture. While this bibliography is not comprehensive, it is intended to provide colleagues teaching about the period and students studying or writing about it with a solid background upon which to base further inquiry.

Harlem Renaissance: Background & Context

The Black Renaissance: A Bibliography of Selected Resources at Howard University

http://www.founders.howard.edu/moorland-spingarn/harlem.html

For the very ambitious scholar, this website contains a bibliography (including call numbers) of materials housed in various locations on the Howard University campus pertaining to the Harlem Renaissance and the intellectuals and artists who were its founders and spokesmen. There are primary documents (such as Alain Locke’s private collection of papers) listed here and available at Howard University that are not available elsewhere and that would greatly enrich one’s understanding of the period. However, if you are looking for full text information on the period, this is not the site for you.

Encyclopedia.com

http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/H/HarlemRen.asp

This subscription-only service is an excellent source of information on the Harlem Renaissance and its key figures in the literary, artistic, and intellectual arenas. From the first page of this section of the website where a general description of the era can be found, there are many links to brief biographical sketches of many important figures of the Harlem Renaissance. The feature that makes this website special is that next to each entry (e.g., Langston Hughes), there is a sidebar entitled “High Beam Research” with links to many related articles from scholarly journals. Perusing the titles alone can give you some interesting ideas for further research. Actually reading them may qualify you as an expert in the field! J

Encyclopedia Britannica Online

http://www.britannica.com/search?query=Harlem%20Renaissance&ct=

This subscription-only service is a wonderful resource for gathering information on the Harlem Renaissance from both primary and secondary sources. It contains a lengthy general description of the period of African-American artistic and intellectual creativity known as the Harlem Renaissance, as well as articles about writers of the Harlem Renaissance from well-respected literary journals. It also contains primary sources of interest such as facsimiles of the literary and cultural magazine Opportunity published from 1923 to 1949 and contributed to by many of the leading figures of the Harlem Renaissance. For a user name and password, see Ms. Moss-Pham at the front desk.

Harlem 1900-1940: An African-American Community

http://www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/Harlem/index.html

Created and maintained by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York City Public Library, this website is described by its creators as an “exhibition portfolio” on the era between1900-1940 in Harlem. Although not

focused exclusively on the Harlem Renaissance, the site includes much information about that era and its major intellectual and artistic figures and may serve as an excellent jumping off point for further research into the Harlem Renaissance. Its interactive timeline of events between1900-1940 is especially useful in getting oriented to the era and its major players.

Harlem: Mecca of the New Negro – A Hypermedia Edition of the March 1925 Survey Graphic Harlem Number

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/harlem/

The leading social work journal in 1920’s America was called Survey Graphic, and in 1924 its chief editor invited Alain Locke, professor of philosophy at Howard University, to create a special issue devoted to the African-American literary and artistic renaissance then taking place in Harlem. The March 1925 edition of Survey Graphic was the result of this invitation. This hypermedia version of that issue allows teachers and students to access a primary document of great value to understanding the Harlem Renaissance as its movers and shakers saw it. With contributions from poets like Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, and Claude McKay, and political commentary from such writers and intellectuals as W.E.B. DuBois and James Weldon Johnson, this issue of Survey Graphic now available to students online is a treasure trove of information and insight on the Harlem Renaissance and the “New Negro.”

The Harlem Renaissance

http://www.fatherryan.org/harlemrenaissance/

A February, 2000 USA Today award-winner, this website was designed by the Honors Computer Science students of Father Ryan High School. Each year, a new class takes over the maintenance and updating of this website which was originally designed to celebrate the achievements of African-American writers, artists, and intellectuals during the period known as the Harlem Renaissance. This website has an inviting, user-friendly layout with links to information on Literature, Political Thought, Art and Music, and artists of the era. It includes a good bibliography of print materials and a set of links to other websites that may provide additional information on the subject. Worth looking at if you want to get a brief, student-generated orientation to the Harlem Renaissance.

Library of Congress’ African-American Odyssey Collection

“The Harlem Renaissance and the Flowering of Creativity”

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart7b.html#07c

The portion of the Library of Congress’ African-American Odyssey website that is devoted to the Harlem Renaissance is an exciting resource for teachers or students who like to use primary sources. While this portion of the website features only a handful of important persons and/or events related to the Harlem Renaissance, each brief description of persons or events provides links to help you find relevant primary documents housed in various parts of the Library of Congress’ enormous collection.

Art in the Harlem Renaissance

Artcyclopedia – The Guide to Great Art on the Internet

Artists by Movement: The Harlem Renaissance

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/harlem-renaissance.html

In addition to providing information on the visual arts in the Harlem Renaissance, the part of this website that deals with the artists of the Harlem Renaissance provides links to online exhibits of the artists’ work in various public art galleries and museums around the world. Some of these exhibits include online guided tours where the museum curator explains the meaning of the work in its social, historical, cultural and artistic context. A fabulous resource for students or faculty interested in experiencing the artwork of the Harlem Renaissance virtually first-hand J

Online Newshour: Harlem Renaissance

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/february98/harlem1.html

Asking such provocative historical questions as why Harlem Renaissance artists used sensual, primitive and exotic images in their work when these were the very stereotypes Blacks had been tarred with for centuries, and why the Harlem Renaissance came to en end, PBS’s Online Newshour website provides a forum for these questions to be asked and answered. The Q. & A. session about the Harlem Renaissance takes place in print only (no streaming video or audio is included), but the responses are formulated by professors who have spent years researching this era. Great (if small) site to begin exploring questions about the Black aesthetic in the Harlem Renaissance.

Questia – The World’s Largest Online Library

http://www.questia.com/search/harlem-renaissance-artists

This is a search engine for online books (full text) about any subject one can imagine. The keyword search “Harlem Renaissance artists” yielded 2,374 results in the online book category alone. It also yielded 243 journal articles; 123 magazine articles; 22 newspaper articles, and 2 encyclopedia entries on the subject. All titles returned were on point. However, while the online books can be accessed with no problem, access to the journal, magazine, and newspaper articles is restricted without a subscription to this service. An amazing online resource since most of the books are published by reputable academic presses like Oxford University Press, Duke University Press, etc. Because of its highly academic nature, this resource may be more useful to faculty than to students, though some students will certainly be capable of mining it effectively for information related to the Harlem Renaissance.

Rhapsodies in Black: Art in the Harlem Renaissance

http://www.iniva.org/harlem/index2.html

An online version of the exhibition “Rhapsodies in Black: Art in the Harlem Renaissance,” shown in both London and Washington, D.C., this website provides a brief introduction to some of the major visual artists of the Harlem Renaissance and their most important works. Best for its beautifully reproduced, large images of the art works under discussion, this website educates the viewer about the major historical and cultural influences of the day and how each informed and are expressed in the art of the Harlem Renaissance.

Biography: Major Figures of the Harlem Renaissance

DuBois: The Activist Life

http://www.library.umass.edu/spcoll/exhibits/dubois/intro.htm

Created and maintained by the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) Libraries, this website contains biographical information about DuBois, a leading intellectual of the Harlem Renaissance and beyond, as well as photographs of him and his family and facsimiles of some of his important personal documents now housed in the University of Massachusetts’ library collection. An excellent introduction to his life and works, this site can serve as a good springboard for further research.

Ellington Tour Preview

A Multimedia Tour of Duke Ellington’s Life and Music

http://americanhistory.si.edu/archives/de-tour/ppreview.htm

This website, created by the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, consists of a thirty-five minute virtual tour of the Duke Ellington musical collection, and biographical pieces about his relationships with his son, Mercer, his lifelong friend, Billy Strayhorn, and the evolution of his religious beliefs in the latter years of his life. An excellent and engaging introduction to the life and works of one of America’s greatest musical composers and leading artists during the Harlem Renaissance and beyond.

Langston Hughes

Poets.org from The Academy of American Poets

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/83

The section of this website devoted to poet Langston Hughes is a rich and user-friendly resource not only because it contains a detailed description of his life and achievements along with links to information about the major influences on his work, but also because it contains sidebars that have multiple links to the following areas: Related Prose; Poems of Langston Hughes; Other Harlem Renaissance Poets; other Jazz Poets, and External Links.

The Zora Neale Hurston Plays at the Library of Congress

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/znhhtml/

Part of the Library of Congress’ American Memory collection, this site contains ten plays written by the novelist, playwright, folklorist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston. An important figure in the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston collected and preserved the experiences and folkways of African-Americans in the rural South during the early part of the 20^th century. Beyond the ten plays, this site contains a bibliography on Hurston’s life and works, and searchable images of pages from her plays. A good place to begin researching Hurston’s work. For biographical information, visit some of the literary sites listed elsewhere in this bibliography and search by author’s name.

Jazz in the Harlem Renaissance

A Note to the User/Reader: after extensive searching on the internet using “Jazz in the Harlem Renaissance” as my key phrase, I came to the conclusion that very little information on this topic is currently available – at least free of charge. I did discover several scholarly articles or books that treat the subject in depth, but they are in online scholarly journals that are also restricted access sites (i.e., for subscribers or patrons only). Some of the more promising titles on this subject – e.g., Deep River: Music and Memory in the Harlem Renaissance – are in our library collection and can be checked out on an overnight basis by faculty and students. See me for a list of these books and articles.

Drop Me Off in Harlem: Exploring the Intersections

http://www.artsedge.kennedy-center.org/exploring/harlem/facesmain_text.html

An interactive website produced and maintained by the Kennedy Center, Drop Me Off in Harlem features video and audio clips as well as text and images featuring some of the most important figures in the Harlem Renaissance. The categories of persons featured on the website include musicians, writers, actors, dancers, and visual artists as well as important intellectual and financial supporters such as W.E.B. DuBois, Alain Locke, and Marcus Garvey. Under its Themes and Variations link, the website also supplies links to other excellent websites on the major musicians and artists of the Harlem Renaissance.

Jazz: A Film by Ken Burns

Biographies: Life and Times of the Great Ones

http://www.pbs.org/jazz/biography/

This portion of the PBS website devoted to Ken Burns’ film Jazz is a great resource for students or faculty who want to know more about the jazz greats of the Harlem Renaissance. Including biographies for almost 100 of the greatest jazz musicians of all time, the website is easy-to-use with an alphabetical index of the artists’ names and, best of all, audio clips of the artists’ most influential musical works within their respective biographies. For this website to be most useful, go to the Drop Me Off in Harlem website (above) to determine which of the jazz musicians included here belong to the era known as the Harlem Renaissance. This will make your search through the index in the PBS website more focused and fruitful.

Literature of the Harlem Renaissance

Modern American Poetry: An Online Journal and Multimedia Companion to the Anthology of Modern American Poetry (Oxford University Press, 2000)

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/

For biographical information (including primary sources like facsimiles of personal correspondence, manuscripts, photographs, etc.); poetry readings and analysis by poets and/or critics, and a wealth of links to other information about the writer and his/her life or philosophy, visit this stellar website. Many of the important poets of the Harlem Renaissance are included here in an easy-to-use, alphabetical-by-author’s-last-name index.

PAL: Perspectives in American Literature – A Research and Reference Guide -- Chapter 9: Harlem Renaissance, 1919-1937

http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap9/CHAP9.HTML

Created and maintained by an English professor at California State University, this website is a good place to start searching for information about the literature and literary figures of the Harlem Renaissance. It includes an excellent bibliography of print and electronic sources on the era; a detailed timeline of important events and publications, and bibliographies of both print and non-print sources for several of the most important figures of the Harlem Renaissance. This website is not a one-stop source of the information needed to write or lecture about the Harlem Renaissance; rather, it is a detailed map of how to find the information one would need to do either. Its thoroughness and the quality of its selections are what make it a worthwhile place to begin more extensive research on the topic.

Thomson/Gale Infotrac

http://infotrac.galenet.com/menu

The Thomson/Gale website houses a humanities-based academic database that contains information on literature as well as history, geography and world cultures. In the literature category, the database consists of Discovering Authors online (biographies) and literary criticism and analysis of authors’ works. This is a powerful resource for students interested in researching the authors of the Harlem Renaissance as well as the literary works they produced. Thomson/Gale Infotrac is a subscription-only service, one subscribed to by Montgomery County Public Schools. See Ms. Moss-Pham to obtain a user name and password to this site.