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Chapter 8 - Black Print Culture of the 1930s

from Part III - Cultivating (New) Black Readers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2022

By
Shawn Anthony Christian
Edited by
Eve Dunbar  and
Ayesha K. Hardison
Eve Dunbar
Affiliation:
Vassar College, New York
Ayesha K. Hardison
Affiliation:
University of Kansas
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Summary

This chapter explores how the NAACP’s Crisis, the National Urban League’s Opportunity, Abbott’s Monthly and Challenge/New Challenge are representative of the more palpable literary focus on the experiences of the working classes and the poor that occurs in 1930s Black print culture. Along with novels, volumes of poetry, and coverage in the Black press more generally, these literary journals and magazines published explicit depictions of African Americans’ social conditions. As instances of how the New Negro reader of the Harlem Renaissance was recast throughout the decade, The Crisis, Opportunity, Abbott’s Monthly, and Challenge/New Challenge often targeted African Americans as working subjects and intended readers. As the chapter illustrates, the sections of literature, book reviews, editorials/criticism, and correspondence comprising these literary journalsʼ and magazinesʼ 1930s content allowed editors and writers to engage in work that both prioritized literary portrayals of African Americans’ inner lives as maids, cooks, day laborers, and the unemployed and expanded audiences for their developing literary tradition.

Keywords

literary journals and magazinesprint cultureAfrican American readershipshort storyThe CrisisOpportunityAbbott’s MonthlyChallenge/New Challenge
Type
Chapter
Information
African American Literature in Transition, 1930–1940 , pp. 238 - 262
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

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