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The Art of Women's Writing, 1910-1935 City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 9-2016 “Vital Glowing Things”: The Art of Women’s Writing, 1910-1935 Elizabeth C. Decker The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1562 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] “VITAL GLOWING THINGS”: THE ART OF WOMEN’S WRITING, 1910-1935 by ELIZABETH DECKER A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2016 © 2016 ELIZABETH DECKER All Rights Reserved ii “Vital Glowing Things”: The Art of Women’s Writing, 1910-1935 by Elizabeth Decker This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in English in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _____________________ _________________________________________ Date Hildegard Hoeller Chair of Examining Committee _____________________ _________________________________________ Date Mario DiGangi Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Wayne Koestenbaum Nancy K. Miller THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT “Vital Glowing Things”: The Art of Women’s Writing, 1910-1935 by Elizabeth Decker Advisor: Hildegard Hoeller The rising field of new modernisms continues to breathe new life into the literature of marginalized writers of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century. By imagining modernism as a series of modes and strategies, and expanding the axes upon which we map modernism’s boundaries, we make way for writers who were shut out by the often imbalanced, limited modernism of the past and illuminate the field with new possibilities. This dissertation takes part in this exciting, vibrant conversation by identifying a mode of modernism present in the literature of three early twentieth-century women writers, who all used visual art techniques to incorporate biographical interests into their literature, thereby strengthening and invigorating their work. Relying on new modernist theories proffered by Rebecca Walkowitz, Douglas Mao, and Paul Saint-Amour, this dissertation takes new approaches to the lives and literature of writers Fannie Hurst, Edith Summers Kelley, and Nella Larsen. The dissertation explores the way each writer harnessed techniques of a visual art practice to respond to biographical preoccupations. Hurst, writer and political activist, engages collage to use her literature to “react and protest” against America’s political climate and the rapidly evolving socioeconomics of New York City in the early 1900s. Back-to-the-land traveler and mother of three, Edith Summers Kelley, employs techniques of modern photography to reach across America and find the “great and deep humanity” that connects us all; and Nella iv Larsen—biracial, bicontinental, a woman with multiple careers and lives—enacts aesthetics of painting to explore the (in)visibility of women in a developing global and social climate. Each reading aspires to illuminate the literature of these women, the vital glowing things each one has left for her readers. In doing so, the dissertation contributes to the emerging work of new modernisms. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My thanks to all of the following, for their role in bringing this dissertation to light— To Hildegard Hoeller, who beyond thanks I owe a deep indebtedness, whose courses were the genesis of this project and whose guidance lit the way to the end, To Wayne Koestenbaum and Nancy K. Miller, for their generous and thoughtful support, To Jean Mills, for her time and enthusiasm, To the Advanced Research Collaborative and Lost & Found, for their funding and support of my archival expeditions, and to Aaron Lisec of Southern Illinois University and Chloe Morse of Brandeis University for their invaluable assistance at those archives, To the Graduate Center and to the English Department for its support in general, but in particular to the following people, who offered mentorship and support in ways large and small: Talia Schaffer, Kandice Chuh, Duncan Faherty, Nancy Silverman and Ammiel Alcalay, To Madison Priest, Alyssa MacKenzie, and Liz Goetz, for modernist belonging, To Luke Waltzer and Anke Geertsma, for their fourth-quarter support and encouragement, To Erin Nicholson Gale and Heather Zuber, for leading the way, To Erin Spampinato, Kaitlin Mondello, Talia Shalev, Danica Savonick, Roya Biggie, Chris Eng, and Melina Moore, for their friendship, To Liz Pardon and Meg Kennedy, for always being there, To my parents and siblings, for their unflagging devotion, And finally, to Christian and Fritz, to whom this dissertation is dedicated, and whose bright lights illuminate my world. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………...iv Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………….vi List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………………...viii Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter One: “React and Protest”: Fannie Hurst’s Lummox as Collage………………………...23 Chapter Two: “A Great and Deep Humanity”: Edith Summers Kelley and the Everyday……...72 Chapter Three: “Study in Contrasts”: (In)Visibility in Nella Larsen….…………………….....120 Afterword……………………………………………………………………………………….169 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………………….177 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Illustrations from Just Around the Corner…………………………………………….39 Figure 2. Image from Lummox………………………………………………………………...…63 Figure 3. Image from Lummox.………………………………………………………………..…64 Figure 4. Image from Lummox.……………………………………………………………..……67 Figure 5. Untitled, Walker Evans. Printed in Let Us Now…………………………………….…84 Figure 6. McDaniel, Georgia, Margaret Bourke-White. Printed in You Have Seen….…………84 Figure 7. Untitled, Walker Evans. Printed in Let Us Now……………………….………………88 Figure 8. Untitled, Walker Evans. Printed in Let Us Now…………………………………….…89 Figure 9. Untitled, Doris Ulmann. Printed in The Darkness and the Light. …………….………93 Figure 10. Untitled, Doris Ulmann. Printed in Appalachian Photographs. ……………….……97 Figure 11. Untitled, Doris Ulmann. Printed in The Darkness and the Light. …...………………98 Figure 12. Self-Portrait (Myself at Work), Archibald Motley. Printed in Jazz Age. ………..…131 Figure 13. Stomp, Archibald Motley. Printed in Jazz Age……………………………….......…133 Figure 14. Brown Girl After the Bath, Archibald Motley. Printed in Jazz Age.………..………135 Figure 15. Mulatress with Figurine and Dutch Seascape, Archibald Motley. Printed in Jazz Age……………………………………………………………………137 Figure 16. The Octoroon Girl, Archibald Motley. Printed in Jazz Age…………………...……137 Figure 17. Bronzeville at Night, Archibald Motley. Printed in Jazz Age…………….…………142 Figure 18. Between Acts, Archibald Motley. Printed in Jazz Age…………………………...…144 Figure 19. Hot Rhythm, Archibald Motley. Printed in Jazz Age. ………………………………149 Figure 20. Saturday Night, Archibald Motley. Printed in Jazz Age……………….…...………152 Figure 21. Blues, Archibald Motley. Printed in Jazz Age………………………..…..…………159 Figure 22. The Argument, Archibald Motley. Printed in Jazz Age……………..………………161 Figure 23. Tongues (Holy Rollers), Archibald Motley. Printed in Jazz Age. …………….……164 viii INTRODUCTION LIGHTING A FIRE In the Spring of 2012, I enrolled in a Graduate Center seminar entitled “Faking it: American Women Writers and the Masks of Modernisms.” Designed by Dr. Hildegard Hoeller, the course sought to answer this question: how did American women writers “[manipulate] their texts and the reader/writer contract within the rich critical context of modernism's use of modes and strategies such as collage, textual borrowing, translation, ethnography, folklore, masking, and primitivism”? In so many ways, that single course was the genesis of my graduate study and this dissertation. It introduced me to Professor Hoeller, who would soon become my advisor. And, it introduced me to women writers that my high school and college education failed to include: Julia Peterkin, Nella Larsen, Fannie Hurst, Edith Summers Kelley, Anzia Yezierska, and more. The exposure to these writers, these women’s voices telling women’s stories, many of them silenced by the academic, literary canon, alit an interest in feminist scholarship that would guide me to this dissertation project. In addition to these so-called unmet friends, a term created by Carolyn Heilbrun, the questions and assumptions that motivated the seminar ignited my scholarly interests in the ways that women writers formed relationships with themselves as writers, with their readers, and the “strategies” enacted in their art. In particular, the assertion that modernism is a set of modes—as stated in the course description: collage, textual borrowing, masking—instead of a blanket label applied to a writer and their work, opens up new ways of thinking and talking about modernist writers. That these strategies could be applied to writers who fell on the boundaries or fully outside of modernism breathed new fire into my academic curiosities about the accomplishments of the non-canonical, marginal writers of the early twentieth century. Thinking about the 1 purposeful ways women manipulated their texts, and the ways they positioned themselves within the text, made space for exploring their biographies and how their art came to reflect the preoccupations
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