Nella Larsen - Knowledge

841: begins with Irene receiving a mysterious letter from her childhood friend Clare, following their encounter at the Drayton Hotel, after twelve years with no communication. Irene and Clare lost contact with each other after the death of Clare's father Bob Kendry, when Clare was sent to live with her white aunts. Both Irene and Clare are of mixed African-European ancestry, with features that enable them to pass racially as white if they choose. Clare chose to pass into white society and married John Bellew, a white man who is a racist. Unlike Clare, Irene passes as white only on occasion for convenience, in order be served in a segregated restaurant, for example. Irene identifies as a black woman and married an African-American doctor named Brian; together they have two sons. After Irene and Clare reconnect, they become fascinated with the differences in their lives. One day Irene meets with Clare and Gertrude, another of their childhood African-American friends; during that meeting Mr. Bellew meets Irene and Gertrude. Bellew greets his wife with a racist pet name, although he doesn't know that she is partially black. 867:. In such works, it is usually a woman of mixed race who is portrayed as tragic, as she has difficulty marrying and finding a place to fit into society. Others suggest that this novel complicates that plot by playing with the duality of the figures of Irene and Clare, who are of similar mixed-race background but have taken different paths in life. The novel also suggests attraction between them and erotic undertones in the two women's relationship. Irene's husband is also portrayed as potentially bisexual, as if the characters are passing in their sexual as well as social identities. Some read the novel as one of repression. Others argue that through its attention to the way "passing" unhinges ideas of race, class, and gender, the novel opens spaces for the creation of new, self-generated identities. 807:

for lack of feeling. By the final chapters, Crane has married a black Southern preacher. The novel's close is deeply pessimistic. Crane had hoped to find sexual fulfillment in marriage and some success in helping the poor Southern blacks she lives among, but instead she has frequent pregnancies and suffering. Disillusioned with religion, her husband, and her life, Crane fantasizes about leaving her husband, but never does. "She sinks into a slough of disillusionment and indifference. She tries to fight her way back to her own world, but she is too weak, and circumstances are too strong."

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Clare begins to join Irene and Brian for their events in Harlem, New York while her husband is traveling out of town. Because Irene has some jealousy of Clare, she begins to suspect her friend is having an affair with her husband Brian. The novel ends with John Bellew learning that Clare is of mixed race. At a party in Harlem, she falls out of a window from a high floor of a multi-story building, to her death, in ambiguous circumstances. Larsen ends the novel without revealing if Clare committed suicide, if Irene or her husband pushed her, or if it was an accident.

506: 2110: 2124: 2139: 566:, her second novel, which was also critically successful. It dealt with issues of two mixed-race African-American women who were childhood friends and had taken different paths of racial identification and marriage. One identified as black and married a black doctor; the other passed as white and married a white man, without revealing her African ancestry. The book explored their experiences of coming together again as adults. 33: 2159: 645:

period, it was difficult for a woman of color to find a stable job that would also provide financial stability. For Larsen, nursing was a "labor market that welcomed an African American as a domestic servant". Nursing had been something that came naturally to Larsen as it was "one respectable option for support during the process of learning about the work." During her work as a nurse, Larsen was noticed by

2096: 407:. At the time, the hospital patients were primarily white; the nursing home patients were primarily black; the doctors were white males; and the nurses and nursing students were black females. As Pinckney writes: "No matter what situation Larsen found herself in, racial irony of one kind or another invariably wrapped itself around her." 773:

Larsen wanted to learn more about her background so she continued to go to school during the Harlem Renaissance. Even though Larsen's early life parallels Helga's, in adulthood, their life choices end up being very different. Nella Larsen pursued a career in nursing while Helga married a preacher and stayed in a very unhappy marriage.

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The novel develops Crane's search for a marriage partner. As it opens, she has become engaged to marry a prominent Southern Negro man, whom she does not really love, but with whom she can gain social benefits. In Denmark she turns down the proposal of a famous white Danish artist for similar reasons,

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Irene becomes furious that Clare did not tell her husband about her full ancestry. Irene believes Clare has put herself in a dangerous situation by lying to a person who hates blacks. After meeting Clare's husband, Irene does not want anything more to do with Clare but still keeps in touch with her.

799:. There she is treated as an attractive racial exotic. Missing black people, she returns to New York City. Close to a mental breakdown, Crane happens onto a store-front revival and has a charismatic religious experience. After marrying the preacher who converted her, she moves with him to the rural 772:

Nella Larsen's early life is similar to Helga's in that she was distant from the African-American community, including her African-American family members. Larsen and Helga did not have father figures. Both of their mothers decided to marry a white man with the hope of having a higher social status.

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The scholar H. Pearce has disputed this assessment, writing that, compared to Kaye-Smith's tale, "Sanctuary" is "... longer, better written and more explicitly political, specifically around issues of race – rather than class as in 'Mrs Adis'." Pearce thinks that Larsen reworked and updated the tale

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From 1895 to 1898, Larsen lived in Denmark with her mother and her half-sister. While she was unusual in Denmark because of being of mixed race, she had some good memories from that time, including playing Danish children’s games, which she later wrote about in English. After returning to Chicago in

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Some literary scholars have engaged in speculation and interpretation of Larsen's decision to return to nursing, viewing her decision to take time off from writing as "an act of self-burial, or a 'retreat' motivated by a lack of courage and dedication." What they overlooked is that during that time

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daughter of a Danish white mother and a West Indian black father. Her father died soon after she was born. Unable to feel comfortable with her maternal European-American relatives, Crane lives in various places in the United States and visits Denmark, searching for people among whom she feels at

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Marie then married Peter Larsen (aka Larson, b. 1867), a fellow Danish immigrant. In 1892 the couple had a daughter, Anna Elizabeth, also known as Lizzie (married name Gardner). Nellie took her stepfather's surname, sometimes using versions spelled Nellye Larson and Nellie Larsen, before settling

803:. There she is disillusioned by the people's adherence to religion. In each of her moves, Crane fails to find fulfillment. She is looking for more than how to integrate her mixed ancestry. She expresses complex feelings about what she and her friends consider genetic differences between races. 810:

The critics were impressed with the novel. They appreciated her more indirect take on important topics such as race, class, sexuality, and other issues important to the African-American community rather than the explicit or obvious take of other Harlem Renaissance writers. For example, the

374:. A student there in 1907–08, for the first time Larsen was living within an African-American community, but she was still separated by her own background and life experiences from most of the students, who were primarily from the South, with most descended from former slaves. Biographer 378:

established that Larsen was expelled, along with ten other women, inferring that this was for some violation of Fisk's strict dress or conduct codes for women. Larsen went on her own to Denmark, where she lived for a total of three years, between 1909 and 1912, and attended the

532:, which was predominantly Jewish. There she had strong support from her white supervisor Alice Keats O'Connor, as she had from Rose. They, and another branch supervisor where she worked, supported Larsen and helped integrate the staff of the branches. Larsen transferred to the 251:

A revival of interest in her writing has occurred since the late 20th century, when issues of racial and sexual identity have been studied. Her works have been the subjects of numerous academic studies, and she is now widely lauded as "not only the premier novelist of the

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She returned to New York in 1916, where she worked for two years as a nurse at Lincoln Hospital. After earning the second-highest score on a civil service exam, Larsen was hired by the city Bureau of Public Health as a nurse. She worked for them in the Bronx through the

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Imes's scientific studies and achievement placed him in a different class than Larsen. The Imes couple had difficulties by the late 1920s, when he had an affair with a white woman at Fisk University, where he was a professor. Imes and Larsen would divorce in 1933.

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reviewer found it "an articulate, sympathetic first novel" which demonstrated an understanding that "a novelist's business is primarily with individuals and not with classes." The novel also won Larsen a bronze prize (second place) for literature in 1928 from the

722:" movement because of the main characters in her novels being confused and struggling with their race. However, others argue that her work was a raw and important representation of how life was for many people, especially women, during the Harlem Renaissance. 477:. However, because of her low birth and mixed parentage, and because she did not have a college degree, Larsen was alienated from the black middle class, whose members emphasized college and family ties, and black fraternities and sororities. 314:

of the United States. Walker may never have identified as "Negro." He soon disappeared from the lives of Nella and her mother; she said he had died when she was very young. At this time, Chicago was filled with immigrants, but the

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to create the character of Brian, a doctor and husband of the main character. Larsen describes Brian as being ambivalent about his work in the medical field. Brian's character may also be partially modeled on Larsen's husband

653:. Thoms had seen potential in Larsen's nursing career and helped strengthen Larsen's skills. When Larsen graduated in 1915, it was Adah Thoms who had made arrangements for Larsen to work at Tuskegee Institute's hospital. 581:

in 1919. Kaye-Smith wrote on rural themes, and was very popular in the US. Some critics thought the basic plot of "Sanctuary," and some of the descriptions and dialogue, were virtually identical to Kaye-Smith's work.

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Larsen returned to New York in 1937, when her divorce had been completed. She was given a generous alimony in the divorce, which gave her the financial security she needed until Imes's death in 1941. Struggling with

701:; these two pieces of work got much recognition with positive reviews. Many believed that Larsen was a rising star as an African American novelist, until she soon after left Harlem, her fame, and writing behind. 539:

In October 1925, Larsen took a sabbatical from her job for health reasons and began to write her first novel. In 1926, having made friends with important figures in the Negro Awakening (which became known as the

493:. This had given many families an advantage in establishing themselves and gaining educations in the North. In the 1920s, most African Americans in Harlem were exploring and emphasizing their black heritage. 768:

points out, "in a mere 135 pages, Larsen details five different geographical spaces and each space Helga Crane moves to or through alludes to a different stage in her emotional and psychological growth."

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moved west to a mostly white neighborhood of German and Scandinavian immigrants, but encountered discrimination because of Nella. When Nella was eight years old, they moved a few blocks back east.

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even in the aftermath of the controversy, worth roughly $ 2,500 at the time, and was the first African-American woman to do so. She used it to travel to Europe for several years, spending time in

310:, who were known to have settled in the Danish West Indies in about 1840. In the Danish West Indies, the law did not recognise racial difference, and racial lines were more fluid than in the 306:. Walker and Hansen obtained a marriage license in 1890, but may never have married. Walker was probably a descendant on his paternal side of Henry or George Walker, white men from 461:

By virtue of her marriage, she was a member of Harlem's black professional class, many of them people of color with partially European ancestry. She and her husband knew the

426:'s model of education and became disillusioned with it. As it was combined with poor working conditions for nurses at Tuskegee, Larsen decided to leave after a year or so. 630:, Larsen stopped writing. After her ex-husband's death, Larsen returned to nursing and became an administrator. She disappeared from literary circles. She lived on the 403:

as a nursing home to serve black people, but the hospital elements had grown in importance. The total operation had been relocated to a newly constructed campus in the

1709: 594:, Catholic bishop of Geneva. It is unknown whether she knew of the Larsen controversy in the United States. Larsen herself said the story came to her as "almost 2210: 284:. Migrating to the USA around 1886 and going by the name Mary, Larsen's mother worked as a seamstress and domestic worker in Chicago. She died in 1951 in 776:

In her travels, she encounters many of the communities that Larsen knew. For example, Crane teaches at Naxos, a Southern Negro boarding school (based on

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Nella Larsen's works are viewed as strong pieces that well represent mixed-race individuals and the struggles with identity that some inevitably face.

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of blacks into separate schools and says their striving for social equality would lead blacks to become avaricious. Crane quits teaching and moves to

450:. After her marriage, she sometimes used the name Nella Larsen Imes in her writing. A year after her marriage, she published her first short stories. 355:

1898, she attended a large public school. At the same time as the migration of Southern blacks increased to the city, so had European immigration.

650: 2215: 485:, had more distant European ancestors. He and others formed an elite of mixed race or people of color, some of whom had ancestors who had been 665:, a physicist. After Imes divorced Larsen, he was closely associated with Ethel Gilbert, Fisk Director of public relations and manager of the 641:" into the white community. Biographer George Hutchinson has demonstrated in his 2006 work that she remained in New York, working as a nurse. 319:

of blacks from the South had not begun. Near the end of Walker's childhood, the black population of the city was 1.3% in 1890 and 2% in 1910.

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Martha J. Cutter, "Sliding Significations: Passing as a Narrative and Textual Strategy in Nella Larsen's Fiction", in Elaine Ginsberg (ed.),

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Pilgrim, David (2000). "The Tragic Mulatto Myth". Jim Crow: Museum of Racist Memorabilia. Ferris State University. Retrieved June 26, 2012.

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Nella Larsen was an acclaimed novelist, who wrote stories in the midst on the Harlem Renaissance. Larsen is most known for her two novels,

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Helga Crane is a fictional character loosely based on Larsen's experiences in her early life. Crane is the lovely and refined

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Many of her old acquaintances speculated that she, like some of the characters in her fiction, had crossed the color line to "

2320: 1856: 2235: 236:; April 13, 1891 – March 30, 1964) was an American novelist. Working as a nurse and a librarian, she published two novels, 2240: 1873: 1304: 2143: 1533: 528:

Larsen passed her certification exam in 1923. She worked her first year as a librarian at the Seward Park Branch on the

2265: 1706: 1453: 316: 1946: 1529: 1072: 780:), where she becomes dissatisfied with its philosophy. She criticizes a sermon by a white preacher, who advocates the 2270: 1989: 1543: 1181: 521:(NYPL). Encouraged by Rose, she became the first black woman to graduate from the NYPL Library School. It was run by 346:. If she could never be white like her mother and sister, neither could she ever be black in quite the same way that 248:(1929), and a few short stories. Though her literary output was scant, she earned recognition by her contemporaries. 2245: 2076: 1567: 1404: 874:

has received renewed attention from scholars because of its close examination of racial and sexual ambiguities and

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Her mixed racial ancestry was not itself unusual in the black middle class. But many of these individuals, such as

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and his characters were black. Hers was a netherworld, unrecognizable historically and too painful to dredge up.

2295: 2275: 754: 557:, a largely autobiographical novel. It received significant critical acclaim, if not great financial success. 547:

She became a writer active in Harlem's interracial literary and arts community, where she became friends with

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and tensions had increased in the immigrant neighborhoods, where both groups competed for jobs and housing.

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Nikki Hall, "Passing, Present, Future: The Intersectional Prescience of Nella Larsen's 1929 Classic", in

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published a belated obituary for her. She was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame in 2022.

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in the 1920s, where their marriage and life together had contradictions of class. As Pinckney writes:

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Larsen is often compared to other authors who also wrote about cultural and racial conflict such as

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Hathaway, Rosemary V., "‘Almost Folklore’: The Legend That Killed Nella Larsen's Literary Career,”

1327:"Surviving the Taint of Plagiarism: Nella Larsen's 'Sanctuary' and Sheila Kaye-Smith's 'Mrs. Adis'" 950: 552: 396: 380: 362:

Her mother believed that education could give Larsen an opportunity and supported her in attending

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in which all the protagonists were white. She never published the book or any other works.

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Wall, Cheryl A. (1986). "Passing for what? Aspects of Identity in Nella Larsen's Novels".

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into a modern American black context. Pearce also notes that in Kaye-Smith's 1956 book,

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The novel was well received by the few critics who reviewed it. Writer and scholar

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In 1930, Larsen published "Sanctuary", a short story for which she was accused of

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as a member of a white immigrant family, she had no entrée into the world of the

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Mixed-Race Identity Politics in Nella Larsen and Winnifred Eaton (Onoto Watanna)

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There have been some arguments that Larsen’s work did not well represent the "

2194: 1776: 1632: 1416: 1350: 1342: 765: 614: 446:, a prominent physicist; he was the second African American to earn a PhD in 83: 2172: 1965: 1535:

American Women Writers, 1900–1945: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook

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American Nursing: A History of Knowledge, Authority, and the Meaning of Work

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Nella Larsen, Novelist of the Harlem Renaissance: A Woman's Life Unveiled

1823:(2007), ed. by Carla Kaplan. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, p. 85. 1405:"Nella Larsen Wrestled With Race and Sexuality in the Harlem Renaissance" 855:

Some later critics described the novel as an example of the genre of the

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In 1921, Larsen worked nights and weekends as a volunteer with librarian

431: 404: 1708:, “Nella Larsen’s Chicago,” Chicago Public Library Blog, April 3, 2015. 1640: 1448:. Johns Hopkins University: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 3. 875: 800: 796: 760: 662: 570: 443: 296: 183: 1326: 590:, the author said she had based "Mrs Adis" on a 17th-century story by 719: 400: 257: 1848:

Who's who in Gay and Lesbian History: From Antiquity to World War II

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Deborah E. McDowell, "Introduction", in Deborah E. McDowell (ed.),

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Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History from Antiquity to World War II

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Selected Women Writers of the Harlem Renaissance: A Resource Guide

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Kaplan, Carla (2007). "Introduction". In Larsen, Nella (ed.).

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and training school. While at Tuskegee, she was introduced to

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Taking her uncle's legacy, Crane visits her maternal aunt in

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Nella Larsen was born Nellie Walker, in a poor district of

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Upon graduating in 1915, Larsen went South to work at the

1972:, July 17/24, 2006, pp. 26–30. Review: Hutchinson's 1840: 1838: 1209: 1207: 1205: 2032: