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Show GENErAL PhOTOGrAPhS COLLECTION, ATLANTA UNIVErSITy CENTEr, rOBErT W. WOODrUFF LIBrAry FALL 2013 UHQ pp 304-385_UHQ Stories/pp.4-68 9/16/13 1:25 PM Page 345 Wallace Henry Thurman: A Utah Contributor to the Harlem Renaissance By WILFrED D. SAMUELS AND DAVID A. hALES he 1920s were a turbulent and contradictory period in American history. Though the legacy of World War I haunted the era, it was yet a time of prosperity and optimism. On the one hand, during the so-called Roaring Twenties, many Americans enjoyed dance crazes, Model-T cars, and the first transatlantic flight. No longer bound by the tenets of what literary critic Granville Hicks called “the great tradition,” Americans across the social spectrum reveled in a frenzied pursuit of pleasure, which became paramount in the lives of urban trendsetters.1 On the other hand, it was a period of rising intolerance and isolation, as much of post–World War I America retreated into provincialism, as evidenced by the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, the anti-radical hysteria of the Palmer raids, restrictive immigration laws, and prohibition. Then came the decade’s sobering end: the stock market crash of 1929.2 The Harlem Renaissance was among the trends that sprang from and contributed to the confusion and excitement of the 1920s. Also known as the “New Negro Manhood Movement,” the Harlem Renaissance was a movement of African American artists, musicians, and writers, among others, dedicated to the celebration of black culture. It became renowned in part for its African American literary icons, such as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Nella Larsen, and a lesser-known Utahn, Wallace Thur man (1902–1934). Born and reared in Salt Lake Langston Hughes (left) and City, Thurman attended West High School Wallace Thurman (right), 1934. T Wilfred D. Samuels is a professor of English and Ethnic Studies at the University of Utah. David A. Hales is a professor emeritus, University of Alaska Fairbanks, and a retired librarian and educator now living in Draper, Utah. 1 Granville Hicks, The Great Tradition: An Interpretation of American Literature since the Civil War (New York: Macmillan, 1993). 2 John F. Wukovits, ed., The 1920s (San Diego: Greenhaven, 2000), 9–19. 345 |
