Blog Posts by Subject: Harlem

The Schomburg Center's collection of WPA photographs is now available on the NYPL's Digital Collections site.

Robert G. O’Meally, Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Director of the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University recites this letter about faith composed by Harlem Renaissance poet and novelist, Langston Hughes, to Jamaican born Harlem preacher E. Ethelred Brown.

Celebrate Countee Cullen’s birthday on Tuesday, May 31 at the Countee Cullen Library and the Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division of the Schomburg Center.

Material relating to the WPA Writers' Program in New York City and the book The Negro in New York.

Today’s episode features a letter from Jamaican-American Harlem renaissance era poet and writer Claude McKay to NAACP leader and civil rights activist, Walter White.

Today’s episode features a note from Harlem Renaissance writer Nella Larsen to an unidentified friend—“Eddie”—regarding a social gathering preceding the wedding of Yolande Du Bois and Countee Cullen.

A love letter from musician and composer Nathan Woodard to his wife and creative collaborator Alice Childress.

Today’s episode features a memorable love note from leading Harlem Renaissance painter, illustrator, and graphic artist Aaron Douglas to his wife and life partner Alta Sawyer Douglas, an esteemed educator and Harlemite.

Today’s letter features correspondence between Arturo Alfonso Schomburg and Langston Hughes. In the excerpt below, Schomburg speaks with Hughes regarding acquisitions for The Division of Negro Literature, History and Prints—the forerunner to today’s Schomburg Center.

Another African Burial Ground was officially “discovered” in New York City a few days ago. If this is news to most, it is not to preservationists, historians, and archivists who have been aware of the existence of the cemetery for years.

Katherine Ellington, a New York City medical humanities scholar and researcher, discusses the work and legacy of legendary artist Augusta Savage.

In September 1945, our American Negro Theatre (ANT) became the first theatrical company to present a radio program. Titled "New World A-Coming," the series aired Sunday afternoons for 30 minutes and was designed "to promote the universality of scripts, characters and performing talent."

The Schomburg Center's collection of WPA artwork is now available on the NYPL's Digital Collections site.

Can I tell you how to get to Sesame Street? Well, I can try. You can get to the Sesame Street Subway Stop by the A, B, 1, or 2 trains, which if you check any MTA map, do not intersect at any current station.

It is with sad news that I write here today, a very short poem of a great writer that has just gone away. A man who's presence is no longer here, But whose words and spirit would remain and never disappear.

As NYPL's oral history projects continue... we've launched our oral history project in Harlem at 115th Street Library!

Come and show off your knowledge of past and present African-American culture! Fun for all. Ages 10 - adult.

Pearl Street Native/Indigenous

AIR is a Native American and ancient colloquialism for music and voice, as heard upon the earth. Musicians and singers performed at festivals at sacred places like Pearl Street, where shells mounded for centuries, in Lenape tradition, to honor and "give thanks" for the sun, moon, stars, rain, wind and all elements of the air.

New Amsterdam. ca. 1625 - People arrived to the various ceremonies and festivals along the East River shoreline via rafts, canoes and by walking down the main island trail (widened for vehicles in the 

By 1900, New York City and the United States were undergoing waves of dramatic, traumatic change. Industrialization, Reconstruction and a surge of immigrants from across the globe were remaking every aspect of life, from transportation to education, leisure, labor, race relations and the status of women. One response to the dislocations and turmoil of this era was the reform efforts that we now classify as the “Progressive Movement.”