Miss Anne in Harlem

by Carla Kaplan

  151 “gross”: Tanne, “Now I Know the Truth.” Tanne, “The Avenue,” 56. Tanne’s poetry is occasionally sentimental about interracial love. For example, in one tableau, we see an interracial couple’s stroll through snow: “He, brown, and I, pink-white—/ Strange flowers of a common vine.” Tanne, “The Avenue,” 56. But more often, it is biting about the “cold Nordic” world that “lashes” the black man’s soul. Tanne, “Barrier,” 79. Most of the pseudonyms that I have come to believe were Josephine’s are verifiable. I also suspect, but cannot verify, that Helna Issel is her. No such person appears in the U.S. Census or any other searchable database from that time. Publishing in 1931, in The Crisis, during the height of Josephine’s publishing years under other names, Issel celebrates loving a black man with the claim that her heart is made “light with the daring price it paid” for love. “There is no good like giving all for this.” Issel, “While All May Wonder,” 234. Josephine Cogdell published poems in The Crisis as Laura Tanne and Heba Jannath in numerous issues, including October 1928, December 1928, September 1929, May 1930, August 1930, September 1930, December 1930, May 1931, and July 1932. It is likely that poems published under the names Laura E. Forrest on May 1931, Helna Issel on July 1931, and Gwyn Clark on October 1931 are hers as well.

  152 usually a masculine form: All of the principal satirists of the Harlem Renaissance—Wallace Thurman, Richard Bruce Nugent, Walter White, George Schuyler, Theophilus Lewis, Rudolph Fisher, J. A. Rogers, and others—were men.

  152 Hence, anyone paying attention: See “Raggetybag” and “The Circle,” published as “Two Poems by a Young Nordic Southerner.”

  153 “Believe me, I know”: Jerome, “Love Always Changing,” 9. I am grateful to Hania Musiol for helping me to locate copies of these columns.

  153 “money is necessary”: Jerome, “Money and Marriage,” A7; Jerome, “Wait for the Right Mate,” B4.

  153 Think of marriage: Jerome, “Men Still Want to Marry,” A4.

  153 “your first duty”: Jerome, “Divorce Better Than Disgust,” 6.

  153 “mercenary” . . . “calculating”: Jerome, “Mrs. Jerome Praises the Modern Girl,” B4.

  153 “Couples should be pals”: Jerome, “Treat Wives as Comrades,” B3.

  154 “sad are beautiful revenges”: Josephine Cogdell Schuyler, diary, Box 8, Folder 5, Josephine Schuyler Papers, Schuyler Family Papers, Schomburg.

  154 “Generally speaking”: Anonymous [Josephine Cogdell Schuyler], “An Interracial Marriage,” 275.

  154 “an adventure in bitterness”: Tanne, “On Lenox,” 338.

  154 She continued to call herself: Josephine’s 1936 passport is the last one to list her occupation as “writer.” Subsequent passports list it as “housewife.” Josephine’s passports are in her papers at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, cataloged, ironically enough, with the papers of her daughter and her husband.

  155 Reporters were magnetized: See Bennett, “Negro Girl, 2½, Recites Omar and Spells 5-Syllable Words,” 18; “Prodigious Crop,” 27; “The Shirley Temple of American Negroes,” 4; Bracker, “Child Composer, 8, Is Honored,” 28; Mitchell, “An Evening with a Gifted Child,” 8–31; Talalay, “All-American Newsreel,” Composition in Black and White, 45–54.

  156 “topple America’s race barriers”: Talalay, Composition in Black and White, 103.

  156 “What glory she will reflect”: George Schuyler to Josephine Cogdell Schuyler, October 20, 1935, Schomburg.

  156 “Jody’s desire to prove”: Talalay, Composition in Black and White, 49.

  156 “As I look back”: Josephine Cogdell Schuyler, scrapbook, November 1936, Philippa Schuyler Papers, Syracuse University.

  156 Both parents were followers: Talalay, Composition in Black and White, 55.

  157 “widows”: Josephine Cogdell Schuyler, scrapbook, 1936. Philippa Schuyler Papers, Syracuse University. When Philippa was five and Josephine needed to make a quick trip back to Texas to see her father, who was ailing, she left Philippa not with George but with a white woman friend, Edna Porter, for the duration of the ten-day trip.

  157 “somewhat less” than his best: George Schuyler to Josephine Cogdell Schuyler, n.d., Schuyler Family Papers, Schomburg.

  157 “Jody was Philippa’s whole world”: Talalay, Composition in Black and White, 59.

  157 “obsessive need”: Talalay, Composition in Black and White, 58.

  157 “ruled by Philippa”: Kathleen Houston, quoted by Talalay, Composition in Black and White, 222.

  157 “she has no other influence”: Josephine Cogdell Schuyler to George Schuyler, July 8, 1949, Schuyler Family Papers, Schomburg.

  158 “greatest literary effort”: Peplow, George S. Schuyler, 56.

  159 “There was something lacking”: George S. Schuyler, Black No More, 40.

  159 “You are indeed”: Josephine Cogdell Schuyler to W. E. B. Du Bois, February 19, 1931, W. E. B. Du Bois Papers, Manuscript Division, LOC.

  159 “white literature”: Van Doren, “Black, Alas, No More!” (review of Black No More), Nation, February 25, 1931, 218.

  159 Josephine rushed to its defense: Josephine Schuyler, “Correspondence,” 382.

  160 “further right than Barry Goldwater”: Talalay, Composition in Black and White, 97.

  160 “Communist plot”: George Schuyler, Black and Conservative, 187.

  161 “I felt you had long ago”: Josephine Cogdell Schuyler to George Schuyler, July 8, 1949, Schuyler Family Papers, Schomburg.

  163 Carolyn: Carolyn Mitchell, the wife of one of their friends and later executrix of George’s estate. The suicide note is at Schomburg and Syracuse.

  Chapter 5: Black Souls: Annie Nathan Meyer Writes Black

  169 “Black Souls is accusing them”: Josephine Cogdell Schuyler to Annie Nathan Meyer, “Friday Morning” [1932], Box 13, Folder 1, Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, Jacob Rader Marcus Center, American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio (hereafter abbreviated AJA).

  170 not “authentic”: Meyer, It’s Been Fun, 268.

  171 “felt utterly unworthy”: Annie Nathan Meyer, journal entry dated April 6 [1924], Box 13, Folder 1, Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, AJA.

  171 “Miss Ovington”: Annie Nathan Meyer, journal entry dated May 14 [1924], Box 13, Folder 1, Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, AJA.

  172 “Miss Ovington tho’t play”: Annie Nathan Meyer, journal entry dated June 7 [1924], Box 13, Folder 1, Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, AJA.

  172 edit and authenticate: This practice was not altogether uncommon in the Harlem Renaissance. Van Vechten also used it with Nigger Heaven, which was read in galleys by James Weldon Johnson and Walter White and then authenticated and fact-checked by Rudolph Fisher. See Kellner, Carl Van Vechten, 211.

  172 “keys me up”: Zora Neale Hurston to Annie Nathan Meyer, May 12, 1925, in Kaplan, Zora Neale Hurston, 55, 58.

  172 “I must not let you be disappointed”: Zora Neale Hurston to Annie Nathan Meyer, May 12, 1925, in Kaplan, Zora Neale Hurston, 55.

  172 “Your grateful . . . gratefully”: Zora Neale Hurston to Annie Nathan Meyer, May 12, 1925; July 18, 1925; September 15, 1925; September 28, 1925; November 10, 1925, in Kaplan, Zora Neale Hurston, 55, 63, 62, 65, 68.

  172 “immensely moving”: Zora Neale Hurston to Annie Nathan Meyer, January 15 [1926], in Kaplan, Zora Neale Hurston, 78.

  172 “I want to be the principal’s wife”: Zora Neale Hurston to Annie Nathan Meyer [Winter 1925–1926], in Kaplan, Zora Neale Hurston, 74.

  172 “every one of the literary people”: Zora Neale Hurston to Annie Nathan Meyer [Spring 1926?], in Kaplan, Zora Neale Hurston, 82.

  172 “scouting around”: Zora Neale Hurston to Annie Nathan Meyer [winter, 1925–1926], in Kaplan, Zora Neale Hurston, 73.

  173 “[If] the book is published”: Annie Nathan Meyer to Zora Neale Hurston, January 21, 1927, Box 7, Folder 3, Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, AJA.

  173 “I hope you will like”: Zora Neale Hurston to Annie Nathan Meyer, March 7, 1927, in Kaplan, Zora
Neale Hurston, 91.

  173 “would strike”: Zora Neale Hurston to Annie Nathan Meyer, October 7, 1927, in Kaplan, Zora Neale Hurston, 108.

  173 Meyer was committed: It is not clear whether Hurston and Meyer managed to meet before deciding to drop the project. The failed collaboration seemed to cause no bad feelings. They stayed in touch throughout the next decade, mostly by telephone, and Meyer continued to look for ways to support and endorse Hurston’s growing career. Meyer recommended Hurston’s first novel, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, to Lippincott and read the novel in draft. When Hurston published her second book, Mules & Men, the collection of folklore and nonfiction by which she is best known today, she dedicated the book to Annie Nathan Meyer: “To My Dear Friend, Mrs. Annie Nathan Meyer, Who Hauled the Mud to Make Me But Loves Me Just The Same.” They celebrated with one of Meyer’s large, formal, elegant interracial teas on May 10. The party, at the Women’s University Club in midtown (Meyer’s Park Avenue apartment was much too cluttered for parties), gave the guests a chance to dress up and forget, for a few hours, that they were in the middle of a depression. Hurston dressed in “a flaming white dress” and looked “like a movie actress.” Robert Hemenway, transcript of interview with Bertram Lippincott, 1971, personal library of Robert Hemenway, University of Kansas. I am grateful to Robert Hemenway for providing access to those files.

  173 “any manager bold enough”: Annie Nathan Meyer, journal entry, June 7 [1924], Box 13, Folder 1, Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, AJA.

  174 “To me the most original note”: Meyer, It’s Been Fun, 271.

  174 “absolutely true to life”: Josephine Cogdell Schuyler to Annie Nathan Meyer, January 4, 1933, Box 6, Folder 2, Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, AJA.

  175 “Those policeman made me tell a lie”: Gilmore, Defying Dixie, 121–22.

  175 For white women, especially: Cunard, Grand Man, 98; Cunard, “Black Man and White Ladyship,” reprinted in Moynagh, 190.

  175 “we are two nations”: Dos Passos, The Big Money, 371.

  175 “the lynch machinery”: Cunard, “Scottsboro and Other Scottsboros,” in Negro, ed. Cunard, 252.

  175 nine convictions: In May, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, but by November it had ruled only that the case be remanded to the lower courts which upheld the guilty verdicts and death sentences. The Alabama supreme court, in 1934, denied new trials for the Scottsboro Boys, but the U.S. Supreme Court, once again, agreed to hear the case. In 1935, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the absence of any blacks on the jury had denied the defendants their right to a fair trial, and the case was, once again, remanded to the Alabama courts, which, nonetheless, found the defendants guilty again. In 1937, the charges were finally dropped against four of the defendants. Of the remaining defendants, one was paroled in 1938, two in 1944, and one in 1946, and one, Haywood Patterson, escaped, was charged with murder after a barroom fight, was convicted of manslaughter, and died in prison. In 1976, Clarence Norris, the only convicted defendant still alive, was pardoned by Governor George Wallace. Norris died in 1989.

  175 “our nation . . . emerge”: Original program for Black Souls, opened Wednesday, March 30, 1932, Annie Nathan Meyer papers, Barnard College Archives, New York (hereafter abbreviated Barnard).

  175 When the Provincetown Playhouse: Federal support for theater had not yet begun and would not begin until after 1933, following an appeal from George Biddle, Katherine Garrison Chapin Biddle’s brother-in-law, to President Roosevelt. See http://wwcd.org/policy/US/newdeal.html.

  176 “stands up & dares”: Annie Nathan Meyer, journal entry, May 15, 1891, Box 13, Folder 1 Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, AJA.

  176 “narrow, provincial”: Nathan, Once upon a Time and Today, 50.

  176 “we used our solid silver”: Meyer, It’s Been Fun, 67.

  176 “imbued . . . with the spirit”: Nathan, Once upon a Time and Today, 34.

  177 “the nobility of Jewry”: Meyer, It’s Been Fun, 11.

  177 Augusta Anne Florance: Even in Nathan family documents, “Florance” is sometimes spelled “Florence.”

  177 “well-to-do and surrounded”: Meyer, It’s Been Fun, 40.

  177 “pursuits”: Meyer, It’s Been Fun, 163; Nathan, Once upon a Time and Today, 44, 45.

  177 “heart-hungry, brain-famished”: Meyer, It’s Been Fun, 188.

  177 “Men hate intelligent wives”: Meyer, It’s Been Fun, 157.

  177 “stand out”: Meyer, It’s Been Fun, 120.

  177 “the fighting Nathan sisters”: Birmingham, The Grandees, 310.

  177 “She did it mostly to spite Maud”: Birmingham, The Grandees, 316.

  177 “attracted a great deal of attention”; “most forceful of the Antis”: Meyer, It’s Been Fun, 205; 206.

  178 “During the entire forty-six”: Annie Nathan Meyer to Helen Worden, January 13, 1936, Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, AJA.

  178 “heart-sick”: Annie Nathan Meyer, journal entry, November 10, 1935, quoted in Goldenberg, “Annie Nathan Meyer,” 307. Even recently, books that recount Meyer’s founding tend to avoid the definite article in describing her. See, for example, Rosalind Rosenberg’s careful rhetoric in her Changing the Subject, 2.

  178 “grudging, grudging”: Annie Nathan Meyer, journal entry, November 10, 1935, quoted in Goldenberg, “Annie Nathan Meyer,” 309.

  178 Jewish activists might become “white”: According to many historians of whiteness, Jews were not yet considered fully white by the 1920s. See especially Brodkin, How Jews Became White Folks, and Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color. The history of black and Jewish relations is long, vexed, and also, sometimes, a model of political collaboration. See, e.g., Sundquist, Strangers in the Land. While much has been written on the complex history of black-Jewish relations, most of it focuses on the period following World War II, considered a “golden age” of black-Jewish alliance, and little of it specifically on white Jewish women or their work in black communities in the 1920s. Excellent work on that subject in later periods, however, includes Schultz, Going South, and Antler, The Journey Home.

  178 “God! I’d like to be recognized”: Annie Nathan Meyer, journal entry, July 2, 1924, in Goldenberg, “Annie Nathan Meyer,” 258.

  178 To cover the play’s costs: Guerita Donnelly to Annie Nathan Meyer, April 8, 1932, Box 6, Folder 1, Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, AJA.

  178 By the end of the fourth night: Eleanor Fitzgerald Expense Sheet, April 2, 1932, Box 6, Folder 1, Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, AJA.

  179 “happy Negroes at a fish fry”: Connelly’s stage direction, Part I, Scene II.

  179 “As you know,” she wrote to Meyer: Josephine Cogdell Schuyler to Annie Nathan Meyer, “Friday Morning” [1932], Box 13, Folder 1, Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, AJA.

  180 “‘Miss Verne, I begged you’”: Meyer, Black Souls, 58. All citations from the play are from this edition.

  181 “I am absolutely certain”: Zora Neale Hurston to Annie Nathan Meyer, October 7, 1927, emphasis in original, in Kaplan, Zora Neale Hurston, 108.

  181 “reluctant to adopt”: Perkins and Stephens, Strange Fruit, 6, 5. “Very few white women,” Hazel Carby has written, “responded to the critiques” of black women who demonstrated their “compromised role . . . in the maintenance of a system of oppression.” Carby, “‘On the Threshold of Woman’s Era,’” 262–77. According to some historians, a comprehensive attempt to mobilize white women on these lines did not take place until the 1930s, when the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching began “publicly accepting the responsibility that black women had been pointing out to them for decades.” Perkins and Stephens, Strange Fruit, 7. On the difficulty of opting out of dominant ideology through what are sometimes called “negative performatives”—“count me out,” “not in my name,” or “don’t do this on my account”—see especially Butler, Gender Trouble, and Parker and Sedgwick, Performativity and Performance, 9–10.

  181 “about the worst enemies”: Quoted in Perkins and Stephens, Strange Fruit, 23.
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  182 “a remarkably courageous and straightforward”: Publicity brochure for Black Souls, Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, Barnard.

  182 “one of the most powerful”: James Weldon Johnson, publicity blurb for print edition of Black Souls. Two-page flyer of “country-wide enthusiasm” (including statements by George Schuyler and Mary White Ovington), Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, Barnard.

  182 “unvarnished truths”: Unpublished editorial, Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, Barnard.

  182 “Black Souls . . . gives a true picture”: Johns, review of Black Souls. A few black reviews were critical. The New York Amsterdam News felt that McClendon had been underutilized in the play, and The Crisis review, which accused the play of being “overladen with propaganda,” prompted a long, angry exchange between Meyer and W. E. B. Du Bois, who apologized for the offense and explained that he had not been in town to review it personally. Annie Nathan Meyer, scrapbooks, AJA, and W. E. B. Du Bois to Annie Nathan Meyer, Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, AJA.

  182 “The author has such”: Promotional blurbs, notes found inside a draft of Meyer’s essay, “Spreadhenism Again,” Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, AJA.

  182 fan letters: Frederich W. Hinnichs to Annie Nathan Meyer, April 18, 1932; Bell Lanafear Lewis to Annie Nathan Meyer, April 8, 1932; Estelle G. Platt to Annie Nathan Meyer, April 11, 1928, all in Box 6, Folder 1, Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, AJA.

  182 it was also roundly dismissed: W. A. Vicker, The American, March 31, 1932; S.C., New York Daily Mirror, March 1932; The Daily News, March 31, 1932; The New York Journal, March 31, 1932; J.H., The New York Times, March 31, 1932; S.R., The Sun, March 31, 1932; B.W., World Telegram, March 31, 1932; N.S.K., The Wall Street Journal, April 6, 1932.