Social Origins of Chicago's New Negro Artists and Intellectuals, 1890-1930

FAIN: RZ-51562-13

Roosevelt University (Chicago, IL 60605-1315)
Christopher R. Reed (Project Director: September 2013 to March 2022)
Richard A. Courage (Co Project Director: September 2013 to March 2022)

Research leading to the creation of an online digital archive, an edited collection of essays, and public presentations on African American intellectuals in Chicago, 1890-1930. (36 months)

The project will identify and examine the works of African American residents of Chicago who contributed to the literary arts, journalism, scholarship and visual arts between 1890 and 1930 to develop evidence-based generalizations about the provenance and substance of intellectual life and creative expression among African Americans. We will trace their lives and careers through the family and social networks and institutional affiliations that supported and sustained them. The project team will consist of the most authoritative chronicler of early African American history in Chicago, a literary scholar who has published an award-winning cultural history of 1930s/1940s South Side Chicago, a social anthropologist who is mapping early black life outside of Chicago’s historic “Black Belt,” and a researcher specializing in interactive websites. Research results will include a collection of scholarly essays, an interactive website with searchable databases and public presentations.