Cavalcade of the American Negro is a grouping of related artworks collaboratively created by employees of the WPA-funded Illinois Writers' Project and the Federal Art Project for the 1940 American Negro Exposition, a world's fair-style event celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Emancipation of enslaved people in the United States.
There were several African-American ethnographies produced and published by the state-level and city-level projects during the duration of the New Deal’s Federal One creative arts programs. [1] A retrospective review of the literary output of the Federal Writers' Project said the 96-page [2] Cavalcade of the American Negro: The Story of the Negro's Progress Over Seventy-Five Years was "probably, despite a number of factual errors, the best of the [Project's] early ethnic studies." [3] Others believe that The Negro in Virginia (1940), [4] supervised by Roscoe E. Lewis, is a more substantial work. [5]
The Cavalcade book, which drew, in part, upon some of the Slave Narratives material that was later published under the title Lay My Burden Down, had a print run of [6] (and may have sold [3]) 50,000 copies. Two editions were printed, a paperback priced at $0.25 and a "deluxe" clothbound hardback priced at $1. Cavalcade was the only title in the 1941 Illinois FWP catalog with more than one edition. [2]
Although unsigned, the work is generally agreed to have been written by Illinois Writers' Project employee Arna Bontemps, [7] who is credited in the foreword as "editor of this work," and his assistants, Henry Bacon, Alvin Cannon, Herman Clayton, Fenton Johnson, Edward Joseph, and George D. Lewis. [8] Johnson most likely wrote the chapters on African-American theater and poetry. [6] The booklet is described as having been "hastily concocted" [5] between March and the Exposition opening in July. [6]
The National Urban League magazine Opportunity described the content as "A history recounting the heroic exploits of the Negro as soldier and sailor in defense of this country…[that] gives a picture of the Negro's participation in the economic, civil and cultural growth of the nation." [9] Later critics described this as the "contributions approach" to retelling African-American history, which was opposed to the "social problems approach." [10]
The Negro in Illinois: The WPA Papers (2013), quoting from an internal memo, reported that poet and professor Sterling Brown, who served as the Director of Negro Affairs for the Federal Writers Project [11] was "disappointed" [6] with the book. While commending the "fluency" he credited to Bontemps, he overall found the work "cautious" with "nothing to disturb the white or Negro reading publics." [6] The contributions approach to African-American history, mentioned above, "sought to win higher regard for African Americans by stressing individual accomplishment in a manner that separated individuals from the group, ignored black cultural life, and implied that the standards of the dominant group were the only measurements of achievement." [10]
Bontemps and Jack Conroy repurposed some of the material they had gathered for Cavalcade of the American Negro in their 1945 book They Seek a City, about the ongoing Great Migration. [10]
Bontemps and Langston Hughes collaborated on a stage play that was to be presented at the Exposition, called Jubilee! Cavalcade of the Negro Theater. It was a revue of the history of the African-American stage, from The Octoroon (1859) to the "birth of the Blues." [12] According to the catalog of the New Deal archive at the University of Kentucky, "Hughes noted that it was written for the American Negro Exposition, Chicago, but never produced." [13]
A typescript copy marked "Arna" sold at auction for $12,500 in March 2022. [12] According to Swann Galleries, which listed the item, the script "was later reworked by its two original authors for a 1941 showcase production by CBS Radio. It was then recorded in 1943 by the War Department for broadcast overseas to the troops." [12] Hughes produced several African-American revue projects during his career, of which Cavalcade was but one. [14]
The souvenir book Cavalcade of the American Negro is illustrated by two woodcut prints by Federal Artists Project employee Adrian Troy (1901–1977). The cover design appears to be based on a chapter early in the book that reiterates the presence of African-Americans at many essential moments in colonial American history. The title page illustration is a much denser work, depicting African-Americans at work as scientists, clergy, laborers, performers, and athletes (the representative boxer is probably a nod to Negro Exposition sponsor and heavyweight champion Joe Louis). The top and bottom right corners of the image are haunted by what appears to be a slave overseer with a whip and some kind of enforcer with a bat. [8]
Troy was born in England and emigrated to the United States in 1922. [15] He had previously exhibited at a 1938 WPA show in Chicago called "Art for the Public," and later taught woodcut engraving at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the 1950s and 1960s. [15] The Smithsonian Institution holds seven other prints by Troy; his work is also in the collections of the Art Institute, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Illinois State Museum. [16] [15] [17]
The WPA Poster Division created a poster advertising the book to Chicago residents.
WPA poster art historian Christopher DeNoon called the Cavalcade poster "a powerful image whose elements (upraised fist, broken chain) prefigure the ' Black Power' posters of the late 1960s." [18]
Another WPA art collector suggests the multicultural work of some WPA artists was a political act: "WPA posters offered a glimpse into American life that counteracted a systematic absence or misrepresentation of people of color in mainstream advertising—a dominant narrative form in our market-focused country." [19]
Cleo Sara Van Buskirk Thornburg (1912–1997) created the image using silkscreen on board. [20] Thornburg, who was credited as Cleo Sara [20] and signed the work as Cleo, has works in the collections of MoMA and the National Gallery of Art. [21] [22] The poster measures 22 in (56 cm) by 14 in (36 cm). [18]
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