Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes was born in Missouri in 1902. His parents split up, so he was primarily raised by his grandmother.

He eventually settled in with his mom in Cleveland, Ohio where he fell in love with writing poetry. He was educated at Columbia University in New York

His writing eventually took off. He wrote a column for the black newspaper “The Chicago Defender”, as well as poems, plays and an autobiography.

He became one of the leading voices of the Harlem Renaissance.

I look at the worldI Look at the world From awakening eyes in a black face— And this is what I see:T his fenced-off narrow space Assigned to me.

I look then at the silly walls Through dark eyes in a dark face— And this is what I know: That all these walls oppression builds Will have to go!

I look at my own body With eyes no longer blind— And I see that my own hands can make The world that's in my mind. Then let us hurry, comrades, The road to find.

I, Too I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong.

Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table When company comes. Nobody’ll dare Say to me,“ Eat in the kitchen,” Then.

Besides, They’ll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed— I, too, am America.

Jacob Lawrence

Jacob Lawrence bounced around a lot as a child. He was placed in foster care at a young age, but eventually moved into with his mother at the age of 13 in Harlem, New York.

He loved art. He dropped out of school and began taking classes at the Harlem Art Workshop.

In 1937, Lawrence won a scholarship to the American Artists School in New York. When he graduated in 1939, he received funding from the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project. He had already developed his own style of modernism, and began creating narrative series, painting 30 or more paintings on one subject.

He completed his best-known series, Migration of the Negro or simply The Migration Series, in 1941.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

“It was an age of miracles. It was an age of art, it was an age of excess.” – Fitzgerald writing about the Jazz Age of the 1920s

F. Scott Fitzgerald was an author who achieved popularity during the 1920s at a very young age. He wrote about the lives of people in the upper classes of society. His first novel, This Side of Paradise, sparked a successful career. He eventually wrote for the The Saturday Evening Post a popular magazine of the time and many short stories including Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Gatsby

Published in 1925, The Great Gatsby is narrated by Nick Carraway, a Midwesterner who moves into the town of West Egg on Long Island, next door to a mansion owned by the wealthy and mysterious Jay Gatsby. The novel follows Nick and Gatsby's strange friendship and Gatsby's pursuit of a married woman named Daisy, ultimately leading to his exposure as a bootlegger and his death.

Remember a bootlegger is someone who illegally sells alcohol during Prohibition.

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong, nicknamed "Satchmo," "Pops" and, later, "Ambassador Satch," was born on August 4, 1901, in New Orleans, Louisiana. An all-star virtuoso, he became popular in the 1920s, influencing countless musicians with both his daring trumpet style and unique vocals.

Armstrong's charismatic stage presence impressed not only the jazz world but all of popular music. He recorded several songs throughout his career, including he is known for songs like "Star Dust," "La Via En Rose" and "What a Wonderful World." Armstrong died at his home in Queens, New York, on July 6, 1971.

Louis Armstrong playing in front of a mostly white audience. His popularity with both black and white

audiences was high.

In 1918, Louis was part of the most popular band in Chicago. He started playing music fulltime by 1919 playing at local “honkey tonks”, parties, dances and funeral marches. In 1922, he moved to Chicago to play full time in a Creole Jazz Band. By 1924, Armstrong moved to New York City and worked for the largest African American band in the city. Louis introduced swing music with his solos.

During this period, Armstrong set a number of African-American "firsts." In 1936, he became the first African-Amercican jazz musician to write an autobiography: Swing That Music. That same year, he became the first African-American to get featured billing in a major Hollywood movie with his turn in Pennies from Heaven, starring Bing Crosby. Additionally, he became the first African-American entertainer to host a nationally sponsored radio show in 1937, when he took over Rudy Vallee's Fleischmann's Yeast Show for 12 weeks.

Bessie Smith

Bessie Smith was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee on April 15, 1894. She began to sing at a young age and in 1923 signed a contract with Columbia Records. Soon she was among the highest-paid black performers of her time.

The Empress of the Blues

By the early 1920s, Smith had settled down and was living in Philadelphia, and in 1923 she met and married a man named Jack Gee. That same year, she was discovered by a representative from Columbia Records, with whom she signed a contract and made her first song recordings. Among them was a track titled "Downhearted Blues," which was wildly popular and sold an estimated 800,000 copies, propelling Smith into the blues spotlight. With her rich, powerful voice, Smith soon became a successful recording artist and toured extensively. Going forward with an idea presented by her brother and business manager Clarence, Smith eventually bought a custom railroad car for her traveling troupe to travel and sleep in.

By the end of the 1920s, however, her popularity had lessened, though she continued to perform and made new recordings at the start of the Swing Era. Her comeback and life were cut short from an automobile accident outside of Clarksdale, Mississippi, with Smith dying from her injuries on September 26, 1937.

Georgia O’Keefe

Georgia O'Keeffe was born on November 15, 1887, in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. Photographer Alfred Stieglitz gave O'Keefe her first gallery show in 1916 and the couple married in 1924.

Georgia O'Keeffe died on March 6, 1986.

Some of her popular works from this early period include Black Iris (1926, shown below) and Oriental Poppies (1928). Living in New York, she translated some of her environment onto the canvas with such paintings as Shelton Hotel, N.Y. No. 1 (1926).

After frequently visiting New Mexico since the late 1920s, O'Keeffe moved there for good in 1946 after her husband’s death and explored the area's rugged landscapes in many works. This environment inspired such paintings as Black Cross, New Mexico (1929) and Cow's Skull with Calico Roses (1931, to the left).

George Gershwin

George Gershwin was born Jacob Gershowitz on September 26, 1898, in Brooklyn, New

York. The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, George began his foray into music at age 11

when his family bought a secondhand piano for George’s older sibling, Ira.

Early Career

After dropping out of school at age 15, Gershwin played in several New York nightclubs and began his stint as a “song-plugger” in New York’s Tin Pan Alley.

After three years of pounding out tunes on the piano for demanding customers, he had transformed into a highly skilled and dexterous composer. To earn extra cash, he also worked as a rehearsal pianist for Broadway singers. In 1916, he composed his first published song, “When You Want 'Em, You Can't Get 'Em; When You Have 'Em, You Don't Want 'Em.”

Rhapsody in Blue

In the early 1920s a famous band leader, Paul Whiteman, asked Gershwin to create a jazz number that would heighten the genre’s respectability.

Legend has it that Gershwin forgot about the request until he read a newspaper article announcing the fact that Whiteman’s latest concert would feature a new Gershwin composition. Writing at a manic pace in order to meet the deadline, Gershwin composed what is perhaps his best-known work, “Rhapsody in Blue.”

Summertime When Then Livin’ Is Easy

In 1935, a decade after composing “Rhapsody in Blue,” Gershwin debuted his most ambitious composition, “Porgy and Bess.” It drew from both popular and classical influences. Gershwin called it his “folk opera,” and it is considered to not only be Gershwin’s most complex and best-known works, but also among the most important American musical compositions of the 20th century including songs like “Summertime”.

Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington was born April 29, 1899, in Washington, D.C. A major figure in the history of jazz music, his career spanned more than half a century, during which time he composed thousands of songs for the stage, screen and contemporary songbook

The Cotton Club

In the 1920s, Ellington performed in Broadway nightclubs as the bandleader of a sextet, a group which in time grew to a 10-piece ensemble. The Duke was a regular at the world famous Harlem night club, the Cotton Club.

Ellington sought out musicians with unique playing styles, such as Bubber Miley, who used a plunger to make the "wa-wa" sound, and Joe Nanton, who gave the world his trombone "growl."

Ellington made hundreds of recordings with his bands, appeared in films and on radio, and toured Europe on two occasions in the 1930s.

Ellington's fame rose to the rafters in the 1940s when he composed several masterworks. Some of his most popular songs included "It Don't Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Swing," "Sophisticated Lady," and "Satin Doll.”