This anthology engages questions about origins of the Black Chicago Renaissance (1930-1955) from wide-ranging disciplinary perspectives. It traces a foundational stage from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition to onset of the Depression. Eleven essays contribute to recovering understudied black artists and intellectuals, remapping African American cultural geography beyond and before 1920s Harlem, and reconceptualizing the paradigm of urban black renaissance. Contributors probe the public lives and achievements, class and family backgrounds, education and training, areas of residency, and institutional affiliations of such African American cultural pioneers as writers Fannie Barrier Williams, James David Corrothers, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Fenton Johnson; visual artists William E. Scott, Charles C. Dawson, and King Daniel Ganaway; and dance teacher Hazel Thompson Davis. Organized chronologically and deploying rich archival explorations, these essays unearth local resonances of such world-changing events as the Columbian Exposition, First World War, Great Migration, 1919 Red Summer, and Jazz Age. They identify internally-generated, transformative forces that supported emergence of creative individuals and cultural circles committed to professional work in arts and letters. These individuals were often identified with the appellation “New Negro,” whose multiple (sequential, overlapping) meanings are explored in relation to the formation and growth of a geographically compact, racially homogenous, and increasingly autonomous Black Metropolis.
