Harlem History

	Columbia University Home \| Institute for Research in African-American Studies	About this Site




	"Harlem, New York, was a place where for the first time Negroes got out into the mainstream of the dramatic world. You had extraordinarily large dramatic movements." —A. Philip Randolph View Photo Essay


	Special Feature: Treasures from the M. Moran Weston Papers Rarely seen images from a 1945 Negro Freedom Rally are accompanied by video of Professor Manning Marable providing historical background on them. A short slide show of other images from the Weston papers is also included.


	The Institute for Research in African-American Studies (IRAAS) Visit our Web site for information on upcoming events related to Harlem history.

Professor of history and director of the American Studies Program, Casey Nelson Blake discusses the Harlem Renaissance in The Rise of Consumer Culture, the sixth e-seminar in his series Intellectual and Cultural History of the United States, 1890–1945. Blake views the Harlem Renaissance in the context of the growing consumerism of 1920s America, a culture that promoted the immediate gratification of impulses and instincts as the way to live a good life. Professor Blake argues that although the cultural achievements of the black artists and writers of the Harlem Renaissance held some promise of making American culture more cosmopolitan, America's new culture of consumption would prove remarkably resilient.

Launch Learning Tool