Published in 1926, Fire!! A Quarterly Devoted to the Younger Artists, was a one-hit wonder. The magazine appeared only once, and the stock of unsold copies were, ironically, destroyed in a fire. It is all the more remarkable, then, Fire!! survives as a groundbreaking record of African American literary and artistic achievement, featuring work by seven “younger artists” who would ultimately be recognized as major figures of the Harlem Renaissance.
Who were these artists and how young were they? To make sure I got accurate information, vetted by experts in the field, I consulted the biography collections in the Gale Virtual Reference Library, a subscription database freely accessible to you through our Library. Proceeding through the table of contents of Fire!! I found these “at a glance” biographies in Contemporary Black Biography, which also offers much more detailed narratives.
Aaron Douglas (1899-1979), was 27 at the time he drew the cover and portraits for Fire!!
Born May 26, 1899, m Topeka, KS; died of a pulmonary embolism, February 2, 1979, in Nashville, TN; son of Aaron and Elizabeth Douglas; married Alta Mee Sawyer, 1926 (died 1958). Education: University of Nebraska, B.F.A., 1922; University of Kansas, B.A., 1923; Columbia University Teachers College, M.A, 1944; also attended L’Académie Scandinave, Paris. Studied under Winold Reiss, Charles Despiau, Hemri Waroquier, Othon Frieze, and Dr. Jacqueline Bontemps
Pioneering Harlem Renaissance artist known for black-and-white drawings, portraits, landscapes, and murals; entertained prominent black artists and writers in New York City; taught art at Lincoln High School, Kansas City, KS; Fisk University, teacher of art, beginning 1937, founder and chair of Art Department, retired in 1966.
Works shown at New York’s Harmon Foundation exhibition, 1928 and 1935; Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas, 1936; Howard University’s Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1937; Brooklyn Museum, 1940; Gallery of Modern Art and Findlay Gallery, both in New York, 1940; Fisk University, Nashville, 1971; and Studio Museum in Harlem (traveling exhibition), 1988. Had solo shows at the universifie of Kansas and Nebraska. Executed many murals, often of allegorical scenes depicting history and cultural background of African Americans. Murals hang in the Countee Cullen Branch of the New York City Public Library on 135th Street; illustrations appear in editions of books by Countee Cullen, James Weldon Johnson, Alain Locke, Langston Hughes, and other black writers, and in magazines sudi as the Crisis and Vanity Fair.
Awards: Barnes Foundation fellowship, 1928-29; Rosen-wald grant, 1931; Rosenwald travel grant for studies in the southern U.S. and in Haiti, 1937.
Richard Bruce [Nugent] (1906-1987) was 20 when he contributed “Smoke, Lilies and Jade” to Fire!! According to Thomas H. Wirth in the editorial insert that comes with the Fire!! reprint, Nugent “wrote ‘Smoke, Lilies, and Jade’ under the name of Richard Bruce so as not to disgrace the family name. That its theme is explicitly homosexual and its sensibility utterly incompatible with the work ethic made [the story], of all the pieces in Fire!!, the primary target of hostile middle-class critics.”
Born on July 2, 1906, in Washington, DC; died on May 27, 1987, in Hoboken, NJ; married Grace Marr, 1952 (died 1969).
Career: Poet and writer, 1925-89; Fire!! magazine, editor and contributor, 1926; dancer, 1927-50; Federal Writers Project, writer, 1930s; FWP Union, shop steward, 1930s; freelance artist and portraitist, 1940s-1950s; historical and biographical consultant, 1980s.
Memberships: Harlem Artist Guild, founder, 1935; Harlem Cultural Council, founder, 1960s.
Wallace Thurman (1902-1934) was 24 when he edited and contributed “Cordelia the Crude” and “Fire Burns” to Fire!!
Born Wallace Henry Thurman, August 16, 1902, in Salt lake City, Utah; son of Oscar and Beulah Thurman; died December 21, 1934, in New York City; married Louise Thompson August 22, 1928 (separated); Education: attended University of Utah 1920-1922; University of Southern California 1922-1923.
Worked as writer and assistant on the periodical The Looking Class, 1925; in 1926 became managing editor of the Messenger, and launched publication Fire!!; m 1927 served as the circulation manager of World Tomorrow, and wrote articles for the New Republic, The Independent, and Dance; published novel Blacker the Berry, 1929; on February 20, 1929, play Harlem: A Melodrama of Negro Life in Harlem debuted at the Apollo Theatre; in 1932 published novels Infants of the Spring, and The Interne, 1932; wrote Hollywood screen-plays Tomorrow’s Children, 1934, and High School Girl, 1934, released by studio in 1935.
Zora Neale Thurston (1891-1960) would have been 35 when her story “Sweat” and play Color Struck were published in Fire!! Color Struck won second prize in the drama division of an 1925 literary contest sponsored by Opportunity but does not seem to have been staged during the Harlem Renaissance.
Born January 7, 1891, in Eatonville, FL; died of heart disease, January 28, 1960, in Fort Pierce, FL; daughter of John (a carpenter, reverend, and mayor) and Lucy Ann (a teacher and seamstress; maiden name, Potts) Hurston; married Herbert Sheen (a doctor), May 19, 1927 (divorced, 1931); married Albert Price III, June 27, 1939 (divorced, 1943). Education: Attended Howard University Prep School, 1918-19; Howard University, A.A., 1924; Barnard College, B.A., 1928; graduate study at Columbia University.
Published first story, 1921; assistant to writer Fannie Hurst, 1925-26; collected folklore in the South, 1927-31; taught drama at Bethune-Cookman College, Daytona, FL, 1933-34; collected conjure lore in Jamaica, Haiti, and Bermuda, 1936-38; collected folklore in Florida for the Works Progress Administration, 1938-39; drama instructor at North Carolina College for Negroes at Durham (now North Carolina Central University), 1939; story consultant for Paramount Studios, Hollywood, CA, 1941-42; conducted folklore fieldwork in Honduras, 1947-48; employed as a maid in Rivo Island, FL, 1950; free-lance writer, 1950-56; librarian at Patrick Air Force Base, FL, 1956-57; substitute teacher at Lincoln Park Academy, Fort Pierce, FL, 1958-59.
Member: American Folklore Society, American Anthropological Society, American Ethnological Society, Zeta Phi Beta.
Awards: Guggenheim Fellowship, 1936 and 1938; Litt.D. from Morgan State College, 1939; Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Race Relations, 1943; Howard University’s Distinguished Alumni Award, 1943; Bethune-Cookman College Award for Education and Human Relations.
Gwendolyn Bennett (1902-1981) would have been 24 at the time:
Born on July 8, 1902, in Giddings, TX; died on May 30, 1981, in Reading, PA; married Alfred Jackson, 1928 (died 1936); married Richard Crosscup, 1941 (died 1979). Education: Attended Columbia University, NY, 1921–24; Pratt Institute, NY, BA, art education, 1924; attended Académies de la Grande Chaumière, Julian, and Colarossi, and the École du Panthéon, Paris, 1925.
Career: Howard University, Washington, DC, assistant professor, 1924–25; Opportunity magazine, New York, editor, 1926–28; Fire!!, New York, editorial board member, 1926; Department of Information and Education of the Welfare Council of New York, New York, journalist, 1932–38; Harlem Community Art Center, New York, director, 1939–44; George Carver Community School, New York, director, 1943–47; Consumers Union, New York, correspondent, c. 1948–1968; Pennsylvania, antiques dealer, late 1960s through early 1970s.
Memberships: Harlem Artists’ Guild; Writers’ Guild.
Awards: Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Fellowship, 1925; Alfred C. Barnes Foundation Fellowship, 1928.
Arthur Huff Fauset (1889-1983) would have turned 37 in 1926.
Arthur Huff Fauset was the fourth known African American to receive the Ph.D. in anthropology. His dissertation, Black Gods of the Metropolis: Negro Religious Cults of the Urban North, was first published in 1944. As a young man, he won prizes in the Urban League’s Opportunity contests. He also wrote books and articles in the areas of folklore and history. He had a long career as a school principal in Philadelphia, during which time he fought for better working conditions for teachers, as well as for civil rights for blacks and other disadvantaged people.
Arthur Huff Fauset was born on January 20, 1899, in Flemington, New Jersey. His parents were Redmon and Bella Huff Fauset. Redmon Fauset was a widower with seven children when he married Bella Huff, who already had three children from her previous marriage. The couple then had three children of their own, two boys and a girl. Arthur was the second of the three.
Arthur was the half-brother of Jessie Redmon Fauset (1882–1961), the youngest child of Redmon Fauset’s previous marriage. Jessie Fauset, the first known black woman to be elected to Phi Beta Kappa, was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance both as a literary editor of the NAACP’s influential magazine The Crisis and through her creative writing.
Countee Cullen (1903-1946) would have been 23 and would marry DuBois’s daughter Nina two years later in 1928.
Born Countee (first name pronounced “Coun-tay”) Leroy Porter, May 30, 1903, in Louisville, KY (some sources say New York, NY, or Baltimore, MD); died of uremic poisoning, January 9, 1946, in New York, NY; buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, New York, NY; no record of natural parents; adopted by Frederick Asbury (a minister) and Carolyn Cullen; married Nina Yolande DuBois, April 9, 1928 (divorced, 1930); married Ida Mae Roberson, September 27, 1940. Education: New York University, B.A., 1925; Harvard University, M.A., 1926.
Poet, columnist, editor, novelist, playwright, children’s writer, and educator; began writing poetry in the early 1920s; Opportunity: journal of Negro Life, editor and writer, 1926-28; Frederick Douglas Junior High School, New York, NY, teacher, 1934-45.
Awards: Witter Bynner Prize for “Poems,” 1925; John Reed Memorial Prize for “Threnody for a Brown Girl, Poetry magazine, 1925; Amy Spingarn Award for “Two Moods of Love,” Crisis magazine, 1925; Palm Poetry Contest second prize winner for “Wisdom Cometh With the Years,” 1925; Crisis Poetry Contest second prize winner for “Thoughts in a Zoo,” 1926; Harmon Foundation Literary Award, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), for “distinguished achivement in literature by a Negro,” 1927; Guggenheum Foundation fellowship, 1928-30.
Member: New York Civic Club, Phi Beta Kappa, Alpha Delta Phi.
Helene Johnson (1906-1996) would have been 20. Strange that she was so prominent in the Harlem Renaissance, disappeared so young, but died only two decades ago.
African-American writer. Name variations: Helen Johnson Hubbell. Born Helen Johnson, July 7, 1906, in Boston, Massachusetts; died July 6, 1995, in New York, NY; only child of Ella (Benson) Johnson and William Johnson; cousin of Dorothy West (1907–1998); attended Boston University and Columbia University Extension School; m. William Warner Hubbell (motorman), 1930s; children: Abigail Calachaly Hubbell (b. 1940).
Poet, part of the younger generation of writers of the Harlem Renaissance, whose literary career, though brief, had an important impact on American poetry; while still living in Boston, was a member of the literary group, the Saturday Evening Quill Club; also won 1st prize for short-story contest in Boston Chronicle; moved to NYC with cousin Dorothy West (1920s); published poems in numerous periodicals, including Opportunity, Vanity Fair and Fire!; became active in A’Lelia Walker’s literary salon, the Dark Tower, and in Fellowship for Reconciliation, an international organization; won literary awards for poems “My Race” and “Metamorphism” (1926); published one of her best poems, “Bottled,” in Vanity Fair (1927); probably returned to Boston (c. 1929); disappeared from Harlem literary scene (1929).
Waring Cuney (1906-1976) would have been 20.
Born on May 6, 1906, in Washington, DC; died on June 30, 1976; son of Madge Louise Baker and Norris Cuney II. Education: Lincoln University, PA, BA, 1920s; studied at the Boston Conservatory of Music, 1920s; studied at the Rome Conservatory, 1920s; studied at the Columbia University, special music student, 1920s. Military Service: U.S. Army, World War II, South Pacific, 1940s.
Career: Poet, 1926-76; Federal Writers Project, Work Projects Administration, researcher of New York City black history, 1930s; Crisis, art and music critic, 1930s.
Awards: Witter Bynner Prize, honorable mention for undergraduate poetry, 1926; Opportunity magazine, tied for first and second place for “No Images,” 1926, Alexander Pushkin section, second honorable mention for “A Traditional Marching Song/” general poetry section, third honorable mention for “De Jail Blues Song/” 1927; U.S. Army, Asiatic Pacific Theater Ribbon, three Bronze Stars.
Arna Bontemps (1902-1973) would have been 24.
Born Arnaud Wendell Bontemps, October 13, 1902, in Alexandria, LA; died of a heart attack, June 4, 1973, in Nashville, TN; son of Paul Bismark {a brick mason, jazz musician, and minister) and Maria Caroline (a teacher; maiden name, Pembrooke) Bontemps; married Alberta Johnson, August 26, 1926; children: Joan Marie Bontemps Williams, Paul Bismark, Poppy Alberta Bontemps Booker, Camille Ruby Bontemps Graves, Constance Rebecca Bontemps Thomas, Arna Alexander. Education: Pacific Union College, A.B., 1923; University of Chicago Graduate School of Library Science, M.L.S., 1943.
Harlem Academy, New York City, teacher, 1924-31; Oakwood Junior College, Huntsvilie, AL, teacher, 1931-34; Shiloh Academy, Chicago, IL, teacher, 1935-38; served on Federal Writer’s Project, W.P.A., Chicago, 1938-42; Fisk University, Nashville, TN, professor and head librarian, 1943-64, writer-in-residence, 1970-73; University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, professor, 1966-69; Yale University, New Haven, CT, visiting professor and curator of James Weldon Johnson Collection, 1969.
Selected awards: Poetry prize, Crisis magazine, 1926; Alexander Pushkin poetry prizes, 1926, 1927; short story prize, Opportunity magazine, 1932; Julius Rosenwald Fellowships, 1938-39, 1942-43; Guggenheim Fellowships, 1949-50, 1954-55; Jane Addams Children’s Book Award for Story of the Negro, 1956; James L. Dow Award, Society of Midland Authors, for Anyplace but Here, 1967; honorary consultant in American Cultural History, Library of Congress, 1972; honorary LH.D., Morgan State University, 1969, and Berea College, 1973.
Member: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), PEN, American Library Association, Dramatists Guild, Metropolitan Nashville Board of Education, Sigma Pi Phi, Omega Psi Phi.
Edward Silver and Lewis Alexander were not found in the Gale Reference Library. Try searching for them in the resources available in our course guide.
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