Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance
by Carla Kaplan
Buy on AmazonWinner, Julia Ward Howe Prize New York Times Notable Book Publishers Weekly, "Ten Best" Books of 2013 NPR, "Best of 2013" Los Angeles Times bestseller "Must Read" Book, Massachusetts Book Awards New York City in the Jazz Age was host to a pulsating artistic and social revolution. Uptown, an unprecedented explosion in black music, literature, dance, and art sparked the Harlem Renaissance. While the history of this African-American awakening has been widely explored, one chapter remains untold: the story of a group of women collectively dubbed "Miss Anne." Sexualized and sensationalized in the mainstream press—portrayed as monstrous or insane—Miss Anne was sometimes derided within her chosen community of Harlem as well.…
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"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."
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