The Harlem Renaissance

This page lists web resources for the study of the Harlem Renaissance, the period from roughly 1919 to the mid-1930s which saw a significant "flowering of African American literature and art," centered in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City.1 This page includes links to primary texts, digital projects and online exhibits, resources on individual authors, reference sources and web portals.
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Primary Texts

• Harlem: Mecca of the New Negro
  "A Hypermedia Edition of the March 1925 Survey Graphic Harlem Number."

Digital Projects and Online Exhibits

• Drop Me Off in Harlem: Exploring the Intersections
  "What happens when creative and intellectual minds, wealthy patrons, and fervent activists live in the same place? Discover how prominent figures in Harlem influenced, challenged, and supported one another in the period between 1917 and 1935. Investigate how their collective and individual voices reflected and shaped what we now call the Harlem Renaissance."
• Harlem 1900-1940: An African American Community
  Online exhibition from the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture. Includes a timeline of events during the Harlem Renaissance, teaching materials, biographies and links to additional resources.
• Harlem History
  "Harlem History presents a wealth of archival treasures and scholarship from Columbia about the history of one of the world's most famous and influential neighborhoods.” Primary source material related to the Harlem Renaissance can be found under the link for “arts and culture."
• Virtual Harlem
  "THE VIRTUAL HARLEM PROJECT (VHp) is a collaborative learning network whose purpose is to study the Harlem Renaissance, an important period in African American literary history, through the construction of a virtual reality scenario that represents Harlem, New York, as it existed between the 1920-30s. Virtual Harlem is a learning environment in which students studying the Harlem Renaissance can experience the historical context of its literature."

Individual Authors

• A Literary Tribute to Sterling A. Brown
  "This webpage, a collaborative effort of The Founders Library, the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, and the English department at Howard University, highlights the life and work of professor Sterling Brown. The Manuscripts Division in the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center maintains the Sterling A. Brown Papers."
• W.E.B. DuBois.org
  Excellent research guide. Includes full text of many primary and secondary sources, including many of DuBois's writings.
• Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind
  Companion site to a PBS film about Garvey. Includes timeline, image gallery, informational sketches on people and events, teacher's guides and more.
• Marcus Garvey: The Official Site
  Contains primary documents, including poems, articles, audio, video, FBI reports and court documents, pertaining to the life and work of Marcus Garvey.
• The Zora Neale Hurston Digital Archive
  "The primary purpose of the Zora Neale Hurston Digital Archive is to provide an academic site that will provide a repository of biographical, historical, critical, and other contextual materials related to Hurston's life and work. The site also seeks to make available various teaching resources so that both teachers and students can more fully appreciate the cultural and literary richness of Hurston's numerous writings. With time and funding, we hope to also develop a digital edition of Hurston's writings."
• The Zora Neale Hurston Plays at the Library of Congress
  "The Zora Neale Hurston Plays at the Library of Congress present a selection of ten plays written by Hurston (1891-1960), author, anthropologist, and folklorist. Deposited in the United States Copyright Office between 1925 and 1944, most of the plays remained unpublished and unproduced until they were rediscovered in the Copyright Deposit Drama Collection in 1997. The plays reflect Hurston's life experience, travels, and research, especially her study of folklore in the African-American South. Totaling 1,068 hundred images, the scripts are housed in the Library's Manuscript, Music, and Rare Books and Special Collections Divisions."
• James Weldon Johnson, 1871-1938
  Online exhibit from the James Weldon Johnson Collection, Cooper Library, at the University of South Carolina
• James Weldon Johnson Papers (Correspondence)
  Finding aid to correspondence in the James Weldon Johnson Papers collection at Yale University.

Reference Sources and Web Portals

• Encyclopedia Britannica: Harlem Renaissance
  Timeline from the Britannica Guide to Black History. Includes links to information on key individuals.
• Encyclopedia Smithsonian: Harlem Renaissance
  Bibliography of useful resources for doing research on the Harlem Renaissance
• Perspectives on American Literature (PAL)
  A research and reference guide to the Harlem Renaissance with links to author profiles and bibliographies.
• Selected Women Writers of the Harlem Renaissance
  Author biographies and links to related resources.

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