Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance

"Carla Kaplan’s revelatory cultural history explores the lives of white women — collectively known to Harlemites by the nickname of “Miss Anne” — who risked family exile and social ostracism to be part of the artistic and political movements of the Harlem Renaissance. Blacks suspected them of sentimentality, as well as appropriating what was thought of as a more “primitive” culture. The white world, in turn, diagnosed “Miss Anne” as either a lunatic or a sexual vampire. British heiress, Nancy Cunard, for instance, was categorized by the U.S. State Department as a “white woman who had Gone Negro.” Throughout her fascinating book, Kaplan explores the heavy personal price “Miss Anne” paid for defying racial norms."