Quicksand is the first novel by American author Nella Larsen , first published in 1928. Out of print from the 1930s to the 1970s, Quicksand is a work that explores both cross-cultural and interracial themes. Larsen dedicated the novel to her husband.
76-491: Nellallitea " Nella " Larsen (born Nellie Walker ; April 13, 1891 – March 30, 1964) was an American novelist. Working as a nurse and a librarian, she published two novels, Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929), and a few short stories. Though her literary output was scant, she earned recognition by her contemporaries. A revival of interest in her writing has occurred since the late 20th century, when issues of racial and sexual identity have been studied. Her works have been
152-764: A silver medal in the Intercollegiate Rowing Association championships in 1973 and served as captain and stroke of the men's varsity crew in 1974–5. He served in the Peace Corps in Burkina Faso from 1975-7, organizing well-digging projects by hand, for water, in rural villages. Within three months, he abandoned his preconceived notions, attending instead to the work at hand and the people with whom he lived. While in Burkina Fasso , he read Julius Nyerere 's Ujamaa: Essays on Socialism . These essays had
228-425: A 'retreat' motivated by a lack of courage and dedication." What they overlooked is that during that time period, it was difficult for a woman of color to find a stable job that would also provide financial stability. For Larsen, nursing was a "labor market that welcomed an African American as a domestic servant". Nursing had been something that came naturally to Larsen as it was "one respectable option for support during
304-476: A West Indian father, who is absent. Her early years were spent with her Danish mother and White step-father who loathed her, and there began her torn relationship with her split identity. The novel gives us a glimpse into the dichotomy of biracial identity and the divergence into two vastly different worlds as the protagonist travels through uniquely different cultural spaces ranging from Jazz Age Harlem to Copenhagen, Denmark. The novel begins with Helga teaching at
380-402: A child, he loved writing fiction, beginning in about fourth grade. By high school he began to enjoy writing research papers for school, and a fascination for research as well as writing has remained throughout his life. The creative, self-expressive aspect of writing has always enthralled him. When Hutchinson was young, his mother emphasized to him being ‘modern’ and open to the new but retaining
456-580: A descendant on his paternal side of Henry or George Walker, white men from Albany, New York , who were known to have settled in the Danish West Indies in about 1840. In the Danish West Indies, the law did not recognise racial difference, and racial lines were more fluid than in the former slave states of the United States. Walker may never have identified as "Negro." He soon disappeared from the lives of Nella and her mother; she said he had died when she
532-512: A different stage in her emotional and psychological growth." Nella Larsen's early life is similar to Helga's in that she was distant from the African-American community, including her African-American family members. Larsen and Helga did not have father figures. Both of their mothers decided to marry a white man with the hope of having a higher social status. Larsen wanted to learn more about her background so she continued to go to school during
608-551: A fellowship from Cornell's Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future from 2016 to 2021. He is currently working on ecologies of literary emergence in American literature, a well-digger's memoir set in the village of Zéguedéguin, Burkina Faso , and a biography of Jean Toomer . Hutchinson was 1988 and 1989 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow. He was also a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow . His book In Search of Nella Larsen ,
684-623: A groundbreaking biography of the author long referred to by scholars as "the mystery woman of the Harlem Renaissance," won the Christian Gauss Award of Phi Beta Kappa and was listed by The Washington Post and Booklist as one of the best Nonfiction books of 2006. It was also selected as an Editors' Choice by the New York Times Book Review and as an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice magazine. His book Facing
760-520: A large public school. At the same time as the migration of Southern blacks increased to the city, so had European immigration. Racial segregation and tensions had increased in the immigrant neighborhoods, where both groups competed for jobs and housing. Her mother believed that education could give Larsen an opportunity and supported her in attending Fisk University , a historically black university in Nashville, Tennessee . A student there in 1907–08, for
836-470: A lasting influence on Hutchinson's view of property rights and their relation to individual rights more generally, not to mention capitalist democracy itself. Hutchinson's experience as a well digger in Africa completely transformed his understanding of American culture and race, and since then he has never quite accommodated himself to American culture, particularly its wastefulness, its worship of money at
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#1732855773251912-468: A lost generation." This accusation referred to the lack of purpose or drive resulting from the horrific disillusionment felt by those who grew up and lived through the war, and were then in their twenties and thirties." The first-ever licensed radio station was created during the 1920s, and allowed for people to listen in real-time about news, sports, or whatever else. By 1926, there were over 700 radio stations nationwide. The creation of radio stations sparked
988-490: A mostly white neighborhood of German and Scandinavian immigrants, but encountered discrimination because of Nella. When Nella was eight years old, they moved a few blocks back east. The American author and critic Darryl Pinckney wrote of her anomalous situation: as a member of a white immigrant family, she [Larsen] had no entrée into the world of the blues or of the black church . If she could never be white like her mother and sister, neither could she ever be black in quite
1064-516: A novel about a love triangle in which all the protagonists were white. She never published the book or any other works. Larsen returned to New York in 1937, when her divorce had been completed. She was given a generous alimony in the divorce, which gave her the financial security she needed until Imes's death in 1941. Struggling with depression , Larsen stopped writing. After her ex-husband's death, Larsen returned to nursing and became an administrator. She disappeared from literary circles. She lived on
1140-447: A nurse at Lincoln Hospital. After earning the second-highest score on a civil service exam, Larsen was hired by the city Bureau of Public Health as a nurse. She worked for them in the Bronx through the 1918 flu pandemic , in "mostly white neighborhoods" and with white colleagues. Afterwards she continued with the city as a nurse. In 1919, Larsen married Elmer Imes , a prominent physicist; he
1216-564: A racist pet name, although he doesn't know that she is partially black. Irene becomes furious that Clare did not tell her husband about her full ancestry. Irene believes Clare has put herself in a dangerous situation by lying to a person who hates blacks. After meeting Clare's husband, Irene does not want anything more to do with Clare but still keeps in touch with her. Clare begins to join Irene and Brian for their events in Harlem, New York while her husband
1292-544: A sense of quality and what will last. This emphasis may have contributed to Hutchinson's tendency to write counter to intellectual fads while trying to expand his readers' understanding of the possible in the past and present. Hutchinson was also influenced as a child by his maternal grandfather, a geologist who had a reputation for scholarly boldness and integrity. He graduated from Brown University with an A.B. in American Civilization in 1975. At Brown, he won
1368-408: A sermon by a white preacher, who advocates the segregation of blacks into separate schools and says their striving for social equality would lead blacks to become avaricious. Crane quits teaching and moves to Chicago . Her white maternal uncle, now married to a bigoted woman, shuns her. Crane moves to Harlem , New York, where she finds a refined but often hypocritical black middle class obsessed with
1444-675: A short story for which she was accused of plagiarism . "Sanctuary" was said to resemble the British writer Sheila Kaye-Smith 's short story, "Mrs. Adis", first published in the United Kingdom in 1919. Kaye-Smith wrote on rural themes, and was very popular in the US. Some critics thought the basic plot of "Sanctuary," and some of the descriptions and dialogue, were virtually identical to Kaye-Smith's work. The scholar H. Pearce has disputed this assessment, writing that, compared to Kaye-Smith's tale, "Sanctuary"
1520-440: A slough of disillusionment and indifference. She tries to fight her way back to her own world, but she is too weak, and circumstances are too strong." The critics were impressed with the novel. They appreciated her more indirect take on important topics such as race, class, sexuality, and other issues important to the African-American community rather than the explicit or obvious take of other Harlem Renaissance writers. For example,
1596-546: A southern black school in Naxos (thought by critics to reflect Larsen's experiences of the Tuskegee Institute and Fisk University ). The principal is Dr Anderson, with whom Helga—as she later realises—falls in love. While teaching in Naxos, Helga suffers from angst, repelled by the institution's tendency to whitewash her black colleagues. A key development in the plot is her discontent at the social uplift philosophy espoused by
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#17328557732511672-706: A store-front revival and has a charismatic religious experience. She implicitly has sex with a preacher whom she meets there, marries him, and moves with him to rural Alabama, in the Deep South . Initially embracing the role of pastor's wife, Helga swiftly has four children. Fully indulging in an intimate relationship with a man for the first time, Helga is forced to exist in one space and becomes stuck, becoming disillusioned with religion once more. The fourth birth breaks her health and her spirit. The novel ends with Helga's fifth birth about to take place. Larsen wrote Quicksand during an intense American cultural nationalism, where
1748-513: A total of three years, between 1909 and 1912, and attended the University of Copenhagen . After returning to the United States, she continued to struggle to find a place where she could belong. In 1914, Larsen enrolled in the nursing school at New York City's Lincoln Hospital and Nursing Home . The institution was founded in the 19th century in Manhattan as a nursing home to serve black people, but
1824-507: A way to stand out from the rest. The way she dressed also goes against the way Naxos wanted their teachers to look. She was meant to stand out. George B. Hutchinson George B. Hutchinson is an American scholar, Professor of Literatures in English and Newton C. Farr Professor of American Culture at Cornell University , where he is also Director of the John S. Knight Institute for Writing in
1900-549: A white man who is a racist. Unlike Clare, Irene passes as white only on occasion for convenience, in order be served in a segregated restaurant, for example. Irene identifies as a black woman and married an African-American doctor named Brian; together they have two sons. After Irene and Clare reconnect, they become fascinated with the differences in their lives. One day Irene meets with Clare and Gertrude, another of their childhood African-American friends; during that meeting Mr. Bellew meets Irene and Gertrude. Bellew greets his wife with
1976-454: A white preacher, a Booker T. Washington -inspired sermon that reinforces racial segregation and warns black students that striving for social equality will lead them to become avaricious. Helga's anger at the sermon incites her first attempt to escape oppression: she quits her job and moves home to Chicago. In Chicago, Helga's white maternal uncle and former sponsor, now married to a bigoted woman, shuns her. Unemployed and in desperation, Helga
2052-554: A white woman at Fisk University, where he was a professor. Imes and Larsen would divorce in 1933. In 1921, Larsen worked nights and weekends as a volunteer with librarian Ernestine Rose , to help prepare for the first exhibit of "Negro art" at the New York Public Library (NYPL). Encouraged by Rose, she became the first black woman to graduate from the NYPL Library School. It was run by Columbia University and opened
2128-401: Is exoticised and sexualised , not least by a prominent painter, Axel Olsen, whose offer of marriage Helga refuses. Again dissatisfied, Helga returns to New York City. In New York, Dr Anderson marries Helga's best friend Anne. Later, Dr Anderson sexually assaults Helga. Helga hopes that a love affair will follow, but Dr Anderson dashes her hopes. Close to a mental breakdown, Crane happens upon
2204-529: Is "... longer, better written and more explicitly political, specifically around issues of race – rather than class as in 'Mrs Adis'." Pearce thinks that Larsen reworked and updated the tale into a modern American black context. Pearce also notes that in Kaye-Smith's 1956 book, All the Books of My Life , the author said she had based "Mrs Adis" on a 17th-century story by St Francis de Sales , Catholic bishop of Geneva. It
2280-658: Is also portrayed as potentially bisexual, as if the characters are passing in their sexual as well as social identities. Some read the novel as one of repression. Others argue that through its attention to the way "passing" unhinges ideas of race, class, and gender, the novel opens spaces for the creation of new, self-generated identities. Since the late 20th century, Passing has received renewed attention from scholars because of its close examination of racial and sexual ambiguities and liminal spaces. It has achieved canonical status in many American universities. Quicksand (Larsen novel) Jacquelyn Y. McLendon called this work
2356-511: Is courted by Dr Anderson, who has, she discovers, also fled Naxos's toxic ideologies, but does not accept his overtures. An unexpected inheritance from her uncle enables Helga to make her third flight, this time moving to the home of her well-to-do maternal aunt Katrina in Copenhagen . Although she enjoys the life of leisure she enters in Denmark and an escape from the structural racism of America, she
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2432-520: Is disillusioned by the people's adherence to religion. In each of her moves, Crane fails to find fulfillment. She is looking for more than how to integrate her mixed ancestry. She expresses complex feelings about what she and her friends consider genetic differences between races. The novel develops Crane's search for a marriage partner. As it opens, she has become engaged to marry a prominent Southern Negro man, whom she does not really love, but with whom she can gain social benefits. In Denmark she turns down
2508-411: Is portrayed as tragic, as she has difficulty marrying and finding a place to fit into society. Others suggest that this novel complicates that plot by playing with the duality of the figures of Irene and Clare, who are of similar mixed-race background but have taken different paths in life. The novel also suggests attraction between them and erotic undertones in the two women's relationship. Irene's husband
2584-501: Is saved by a few days working as secretary to the black, wealthy but brash Mrs. Hayes-Rore, who is a prominent activist concerning the "race problem". Hayes-Rore enables Helga to move to Harlem and become a secretary there. Helga is initially enthusiastic about Harlem life, but becomes dissatisfied, partly because she feels excluded by the polarisation of black and white politics: she experiences complex feelings about what she and her friends consider inherent differences between races. She
2660-510: Is the lovely and refined mixed-race daughter of a Danish white mother and a West Indian black father. Her father died soon after she was born. Unable to feel comfortable with her maternal European-American relatives, Crane lives in various places in the United States and visits Denmark, searching for people among whom she feels at home. As writer Amina Gautier points out, "in a mere 135 pages, Larsen details five different geographical spaces and each space Helga Crane moves to or through alludes to
2736-512: Is to find a place where she doesn't draw attention to, or take away from, her differences. However, society and social order play a role in which people are viewed if they are culturally different. Helga's racial identity has been constructed by others' inability to accept her own differences. Helga is a young biracial (half white, half black) woman. For Helga, identifying as a biracial woman means she has fewer restrictions when it comes to racial labels. Her struggles with her identity come from
2812-462: Is traveling out of town. Because Irene has some jealousy of Clare, she begins to suspect her friend is having an affair with her husband Brian. The novel ends with John Bellew learning that Clare is of mixed race. At a party in Harlem, she falls out of a window from a high floor of a multi-story building, to her death, in ambiguous circumstances. Larsen ends the novel without revealing if Clare committed suicide, if Irene or her husband pushed her, or if it
2888-563: Is unclear if the two married. Larsen died in her Brooklyn apartment in 1964, at the age of 72. In 2018, The New York Times published a belated obituary for her. She was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame in 2022. Nella Larsen was an acclaimed novelist, who wrote stories in the midst on the Harlem Renaissance. Larsen is most known for her two novels, Quicksand and Passing ; these two pieces of work got much recognition with positive reviews. Many believed that Larsen
2964-611: Is unknown whether she knew of the Larsen controversy in the United States. Larsen herself said the story came to her as "almost folk-lore ", recounted to her by a patient when she was a nurse. No plagiarism charges were proved. Larsen received a Guggenheim Fellowship even in the aftermath of the controversy, worth roughly $ 2,500 at the time, and was the first African-American woman to do so. She used it to travel to Europe for several years, spending time in Mallorca and Paris , where she worked on
3040-507: The American Civil War . This had given many families an advantage in establishing themselves and gaining educations in the North. In the 1920s, most African Americans in Harlem were exploring and emphasizing their black heritage. Imes's scientific studies and achievement placed him in a different class than Larsen. The Imes couple had difficulties by the late 1920s, when he had an affair with
3116-502: The Harlem Renaissance ), Larsen gave up her work as a librarian. She became a writer active in Harlem's interracial literary and arts community, where she became friends with Carl Van Vechten , a white photographer and writer. In 1928, Larsen published Quicksand , a largely autobiographical novel. It received significant critical acclaim, if not great financial success. In 1929, she published Passing , her second novel, which
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3192-632: The Lower East Side and did not venture to Harlem. Many of her old acquaintances speculated that she, like some of the characters in her fiction, had crossed the color line to " pass " into the white community. Biographer George Hutchinson has demonstrated in his 2006 work that she remained in New York, working as a nurse. Some literary scholars have engaged in speculation and interpretation of Larsen's decision to return to nursing, viewing her decision to take time off from writing as "an act of self-burial, or
3268-680: The NAACP leadership: W.E.B. Du Bois , Walter White , James Weldon Johnson . However, because of her low birth and mixed parentage, and because she did not have a college degree, Larsen was alienated from the black middle class, whose members emphasized college and family ties, and black fraternities and sororities. Her mixed racial ancestry was not itself unusual in the black middle class. But many of these individuals, such as Langston Hughes , had more distant European ancestors. He and others formed an elite of mixed race or people of color, some of whom had ancestors who had been free people of color well before
3344-570: The New York Times reviewer found it "an articulate, sympathetic first novel" which demonstrated an understanding that "a novelist's business is primarily with individuals and not with classes." The novel also won Larsen a bronze prize (second place) for literature in 1928 from the William E. Harmon Foundation . Larsen's novel Passing begins with Irene receiving a mysterious letter from her childhood friend Clare, following their encounter at
3420-499: The Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama , where she soon became head nurse at its John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital and training school. While at Tuskegee, she was introduced to Booker T. Washington 's model of education and became disillusioned with it. As it was combined with poor working conditions for nurses at Tuskegee, Larsen decided to leave after a year or so. She returned to New York in 1916, where she worked for two years as
3496-470: The " New Negro " movement because of the main characters in her novels being confused and struggling with their race. However, others argue that her work was a raw and important representation of how life was for many people, especially women, during the Harlem Renaissance. Larsen's novel Passing was adapted as a 2021 film of the same name by Rebecca Hall . Helga Crane is a fictional character loosely based on Larsen's experiences in her early life. Crane
3572-419: The "race problem." Taking her uncle's legacy, Crane visits her maternal aunt in Copenhagen . There she is treated as an attractive racial exotic. Missing black people, she returns to New York City. Close to a mental breakdown, Crane happens onto a store-front revival and has a charismatic religious experience. After marrying the preacher who converted her, she moves with him to the rural Deep South . There she
3648-553: The 1920s. On Wall Street in 1920 , a terrorist attack killed nearly 40 civilians and injured hundreds. With more gruesome things happening, the KKK ( Ku Klux Klan ) sowed fear in the whole nation. During the 1920s, the " Lost Generation " began its transformation of American literature . The term was "coined from something Gertrude Stein witnessed the owner of a garage saying to his young employee, which Hemingway later used as an epigraph to his novel The Sun Also Rises (1926): "You are all
3724-656: The Abyss: American Literature and Culture in the 1940s was shortlisted for the Christian Gauss Award in 2019 and won Honorable Mention for the Matei Călinescu Prize of the Modern Language Association , for distinguished scholarship on 20th and 21st century literature and thought. His edition of Jean Toomer 's Cane (novel) , published by Penguin Classics in 2019, was an Editors' Choice of
3800-561: The Disciplines. He is well known for his transformative work on 19th- and 20th-century American and African American literature and culture, focusing especially on the racial mores , materialistic addictions, and ecological errors of the United States. A recipient of both the NEH and Guggenheim Fellowships , he is the author of several foundational books. Hutchinson was raised in Indianapolis . As
3876-455: The Drayton Hotel, after twelve years with no communication. Irene and Clare lost contact with each other after the death of Clare's father Bob Kendry, when Clare was sent to live with her white aunts. Both Irene and Clare are of mixed African-European ancestry, with features that enable them to pass racially as white if they choose. Clare chose to pass into white society and married John Bellew,
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#17328557732513952-493: The Harlem Renaissance. Even though Larsen's early life parallels Helga's, in adulthood, their life choices end up being very different. Nella Larsen pursued a career in nursing while Helga married a preacher and stayed in a very unhappy marriage. In her travels, she encounters many of the communities that Larsen knew. For example, Crane teaches at Naxos, a Southern Negro boarding school (based on Tuskegee University ), where she becomes dissatisfied with its philosophy. She criticizes
4028-613: The USA around 1886 and going by the name Mary, Larsen's mother worked as a seamstress and domestic worker in Chicago. She died in 1951 in Santa Monica , Los Angeles County . Larsen's father was Peter Walker, believed to be a mixed-race Afro-Caribbean immigrant from the Danish West Indies . Walker and Hansen obtained a marriage license in 1890, but may never have married. Walker was probably
4104-467: The character of Brian, a doctor and husband of the main character. Larsen describes Brian as being ambivalent about his work in the medical field. Brian's character may also be partially modeled on Larsen's husband Elmer Imes , a physicist. After Imes divorced Larsen, he was closely associated with Ethel Gilbert, Fisk Director of public relations and manager of the Fisk Jubilee Singers , although it
4180-602: The definitive biography of Larsen. Since 2013, Hutchinson has researched and taught nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature and culture at Cornell University , focusing particularly on critical questions around race and ecology. His book Facing the Abyss: American Literature and Culture in the 1940s —a work of cultural criticism and history that brings together a wide range of literature, art, philosophy and music alongside discourses on civil rights, ethnicity, gender, labor, politics and ecology—was published by Columbia University Press in 2018. Hutchinson held
4256-533: The expense of the commonwealth, its dearth of community life, and its racial etiquette. After graduating from Indiana University Bloomington with a Ph.D. in English and American Studies in 1983, Hutchinson taught at the University of Tennessee from 1982-2000, chairing the American Studies Program from 1987-2000 and holding the Kenneth Curry Chair in English from 1999-2000. During this time, he
4332-540: The first time Larsen was living within an African-American community, but she was still separated by her own background and life experiences from most of the students, who were primarily from the South, with most descended from former slaves. Biographer George B. Hutchinson established that Larsen was expelled, along with ten other women, inferring that this was for some violation of Fisk's strict dress or conduct codes for women. Larsen went on her own to Denmark, where she lived for
4408-632: The formation of mass media. From 1910 to the 1930s, Harlem was in the "golden period" or the " Roaring 20's " and was shaping the path for many African Americans to display their art of music, dance, literature, and much more. Many famous artists still known today were born in the Harlem Renaissance – for example, writer Langston Hughes , poet Countee Cullen , jazz musician Louis Armstrong, Josephine Baker and her musicals, and painter Aaron Douglas . Many more artists came forward as time went on. Helga's struggles with race are emphasized due to society's attitude toward her. Helga's mental and physical expedition
4484-583: The hospital elements had grown in importance. The total operation had been relocated to a newly constructed campus in the South Bronx . At the time, the hospital patients were primarily white; the nursing home patients were primarily black; the doctors were white males; and the nurses and nursing students were black females. As Pinckney writes: "No matter what situation Larsen found herself in, racial irony of one kind or another invariably wrapped itself around her." Upon graduating in 1915, Larsen went South to work at
4560-481: The how other people view themselves and others. Helga's understanding of herself is constructed through cultural artifacts created by others. Helga follows a biracial identity by refusing to follow a strict racial lifestyle but she still acknowledges her black culture. Helga's future is determined by her sex and her race. Her fascination with clothing and color is a way for Helga to build a female identity for herself. Helga dressed in styles unique to herself and others as
4636-409: The more "obviously autobiographical" of Larsen's two novels. Larsen called the emotional experiences of the novel "the awful truth" in a letter to her friend Carl van Vechten . The protagonist is the well-educated, mixed-race Helga Crane, who struggles to find her identity in a world of racialized crisis in the 1920s. Helga is the daughter of a Danish mother, who died when she was an adolescent, and
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#17328557732514712-424: The nation shared one culture. During this period, books and essays devoted to this large period of cultural nationalism and interpretations of African American modernism were released. The majority of the novel took place in Harlem. The story was written and published in 1928, meaning that the 1920s were almost over by the time Nella Larsen had published this fictional autobiography. Many major events took place during
4788-596: The process of learning about the work." During her work as a nurse, Larsen was noticed by Adah Thoms , an African-American nurse who co-founded the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses . Thoms had seen potential in Larsen's nursing career and helped strengthen Larsen's skills. When Larsen graduated in 1915, it was Adah Thoms who had made arrangements for Larsen to work at Tuskegee Institute's hospital. Larsen draws from her medical background in Passing to create
4864-508: The proposal of a famous white Danish artist for similar reasons, for lack of feeling. By the final chapters, Crane has married a black Southern preacher. The novel's close is deeply pessimistic. Crane had hoped to find sexual fulfillment in marriage and some success in helping the poor Southern blacks she lives among, but instead she has frequent pregnancies and suffering. Disillusioned with religion, her husband, and her life, Crane fantasizes about leaving her husband, but never does. "She sinks into
4940-469: The same way that Langston Hughes and his characters were black. Hers was a netherworld, unrecognizable historically and too painful to dredge up. From 1895 to 1898, Larsen lived in Denmark with her mother and her half-sister. While she was unusual in Denmark because of being of mixed race, she had some good memories from that time, including playing Danish children’s games, which she later wrote about in English. After returning to Chicago in 1898, she attended
5016-524: The staff of the branches. Larsen transferred to the Harlem branch , as she was interested in the cultural excitement in the African-American neighborhood, a destination for migrants from across the country. In October 1925, Larsen took a sabbatical from her job for health reasons and began to write her first novel. In 1926, having made friends with important figures in the Negro Awakening (which became known as
5092-623: The subjects of numerous academic studies, and she is now widely lauded as "not only the premier novelist of the Harlem Renaissance , but also an important figure in American modernism ." Nella Larsen was born Nellie Walker, in a poor district of south Chicago known as the Levee , on April 13, 1891 (though Larsen would frequently claim to have been born in 1893). Her mother was Pederline Marie Hansen, an ethnically Danish immigrant , probably born in 1868, possibly in Schleswig-Holstein . Migrating to
5168-466: The way for integration of library staff. Larsen passed her certification exam in 1923. She worked her first year as a librarian at the Seward Park Branch on the Lower East Side , which was predominantly Jewish. There she had strong support from her white supervisor Alice Keats O'Connor, as she had from Rose. They, and another branch supervisor where she worked, supported Larsen and helped integrate
5244-589: Was President of the Knoxville Rowing Association and played a vital role in establishing the university's first-ever varsity women's crew. In 1986, his first book, The Ecstatic Whitman , was published by the Ohio State Press. In 1993-4 and 1998, Hutchinson was Visiting Professor of North American Studies at the University of Bonn . Hutchinson's second book, The Harlem Renaissance in Black and White,
5320-478: Was a rising star as an African American novelist, until she soon after left Harlem, her fame, and writing behind. Larsen is often compared to other authors who also wrote about cultural and racial conflict such as Claude Mckay and Jean Toomer . Nella Larsen's works are viewed as strong pieces that well represent mixed-race individuals and the struggles with identity that some inevitably face. There have been some arguments that Larsen’s work did not well represent
5396-445: Was also critically successful. It dealt with issues of two mixed-race African-American women who were childhood friends and had taken different paths of racial identification and marriage. One identified as black and married a black doctor; the other passed as white and married a white man, without revealing her African ancestry. The book explored their experiences of coming together again as adults. In 1930, Larsen published "Sanctuary",
5472-408: Was an accident. The novel was well received by the few critics who reviewed it. Writer and scholar W. E. B. Du Bois hailed it as "one of the finest novels of the year." Some later critics described the novel as an example of the genre of the tragic mulatto , a common figure in early African-American literature after the American Civil War . In such works, it is usually a woman of mixed race who
5548-567: Was initially published, the Afro-American scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. notably acknowledged the status of Hutchinson's book as "the bible on the Harlem Renaissance". From 2000 to 2012, Hutchinson was the Booth Tarkington Professor of Literary Studies at Indiana University Bloomington , where he chaired the English department . In 2006, Harvard University Press published Hutchinson's third book, In Search of Nella Larsen ,
5624-651: Was published by Harvard University Press in 1995. Hutchinson was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in History in 2006 for this book, which was also a finalist for the Rea Non-Fiction Prize of the Boston Book Review in 1996. Following a lecture given by Hutchinson at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research in 2021, more than twenty-five years after The Harlem Renaissance in Black and White
5700-512: Was the second African American to earn a PhD in physics . After her marriage, she sometimes used the name Nella Larsen Imes in her writing. A year after her marriage, she published her first short stories. The couple moved to Harlem in the 1920s, where their marriage and life together had contradictions of class. As Pinckney writes: By virtue of her marriage, she was a member of Harlem's black professional class, many of them people of color with partially European ancestry. She and her husband knew
5776-648: Was very young. At this time, Chicago was filled with immigrants, but the Great Migration of blacks from the South had not begun. Near the end of Walker's childhood, the black population of the city was 1.3% in 1890 and 2% in 1910. Marie then married Peter Larsen (aka Larson, b. 1867), a fellow Danish immigrant. In 1892 the couple had a daughter, Anna Elizabeth, also known as Lizzie (married name Gardner). Nellie took her stepfather's surname, sometimes using versions spelled Nellye Larson and Nellie Larsen, before settling finally on Nella Larsen. The mixed family moved west to
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