Wallace+Thurman

Wallace Thurman was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah on August 16, 1902 to Oscar and Beulah Thurman. He attended the [|University of Utah] for a year before transfering to the [|University of Southern California] in Los Angeles during 1922. While he lived in L.A., Thurman started a magazine, //Outlet,// hoping to initiate on the West Coast a literary Resistance. This paper stemmed from his job writing "Inklings," a column for a black-oriented newspaper.

// Outlet //, unfotunately only lasted six months, before Thurman went east to New York City, New York. There he took a job as a reporter and editor at //The Looking Glass//, then managing editor of the //Messenger//. He published short works by Langston Hughes, and pieces by Zora Neale Hurston. He continued this until fall of 1926, where he left to join the staff, as a circulation manager, of the white-owned, //World Tomorrow.//

//During the summer of 1926, Hughes asked Thurman to edit// //Fire!!//, a magazine that artist [|Bruce Nugent]and herself were planning. Members of the editorial board consisted of [|Gwendolyn Bennett], [|Aaron Douglass], and Zora Hurston. //Fire!!// offered a fourm for younger black writers to show literary skills, with not focus on contemporary social issues. Thurman advanced a large amount of money for the magazine's publication after agreeing to write it, and the first issue featured short stories by Thurman, Hurston, and Bennett, poetry by Hughes, along with several other articles. Only after one issue, however, it was cancelled; it was ignored by many white critics, and criticized as irreverent by some blacks. Thurman tried once again two years later, as he published "//Harlem: A Fourm of Negro Life in Harlem,"// which also failed miserably after its first issue. While working for //World Tomorrow,// Thurman's ability to read eleven lines of text at a time landed him a job as the first black reader at Macaulay Company, the publisher that would later allow him to start his career as an author with his three published novels, //The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life// (Published in 1929), which explores intra-racial conflicts related to skin color; //Infants of the Spring// (Published in 1932), which satirizes the Harlem Renaissance and its leading artists; and //The Interne// (Published 1932), co-authored with A.L. Furman. Thurman's play, "//Harlem: A Melodrama of Negro Life in Harlem,"// opened on Broadway Ferbruary 20, 1929, at the Apollo Theatre. The drama centered on the Williams family, who relocate in New York City to escape economic difficulties. However they find a city plagued with other migrated families, unemployment, and tension. The play received mixed reviews, considered interesting in general. R. Dana Skinner stated in a 1929 Commonwealth review the he was upset by "the particular way in which this melodrama exploits the worst features of the Negro and depends for its effects solely on the explosions of lust and sensuality." Even so, "//Harlem//" played for ninety-three performances in what was thought to be a poor theatre season and was taken on tour to Canada, and across the United States.  All in all, Thurman was a leading novelist, critic, poet, and playright of the Harlem Renaissance. His life was cut short on December 22, 1934 in New York City due to tuberculosis, which was worsened because of his alcohol problems. Though he died at age 32, Wallace Thurman left behind a great legacy as a literary revolutionary, and opened further doorways for black men and women alike in the world of writing.  __ Works Cited "Drop Me Off in Harlem." __ARTSEDGE: ARTSEDGE Home__. 18 Feb. 2009 .

"PAL: Wallace Thurman (1902-1934)." __California State University Stanislaus | Home__. 19 Feb. 2009 http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap9/thurman.html.

"Wallace Thurman." __African American Literature Book Club: African American Books by Famous Black Authors And Poets__. 18 Feb. 2009 http://aalbc.com/authors/wallace.htm