Notes
ABBREVIATIONS
Berg = The Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations
CCOHC = Columbia Center for Oral History Collection
CVV = Carl Van Vechten
FM = Fania Marinoff
NYPL = Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations
YCAL = Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University
PROLOGUE
“I’m going to … Paris”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (March 3, 1960), 21, CCOHC.
“a serious menace to our civilization”: Josiah Strong, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis (New York: Baker & Taylor, 1885), 128.
“For him Manhattan … world”: Emily Clark, Innocence Abroad (1931; repr., Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1975), 138.
On February 16 … began: CVV daybooks, February 16, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“If people have … juice”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (May 25, 1960), 355, CCOHC.
“I can cut … me”: Ibid., 354.
1. THE GILDED AGE: A TALE OF YESTERDAY
In 1651 he … action: A.J.F. Van Laer, ed. and trans., Minutes of the Court of Rensselaerswyck, 1648–1652 (Albany: University of the State of New York, 1922), 149–52.
“His Excellency and … frisk”: Gerald M. Carbone, Nathanael Greene: A Biography of the American Revolution (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 120.
The town boasted … Midwest: Figures cited from a collation of U.S. Census Bureau data by the State Library of Iowa, State Data Center Program, http://data.iowadatacenter.org/datatables/PlacesAll/plpopulation18502000.pdf.
“churchy, Republican, wholesome”: William L. Shirer, The Start, 1904–1930, vol. 1 of 20th Century Journey: A Memoir of the Life and the Times (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976), 171.
“very surprised … stork”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (March 3, 1960), 5, CCOHC.
“My little boy’s … been”: Ada Amanda Fitch Van Vechten, diary, June 17, 1882, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“tear wildly at … way”: Charles Lewis Fitch to CVV, December 22, 1889, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“surrounded by great … lawn”: CVV, The Tattooed Countess: A Romantic Novel with a Happy Ending (1924; repr., Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1987), 33.
In its rolling … locations: CVV, “The Folksongs of Iowa,” Sacred and Profane Memories (London: Cassell & Company, 1932), 29–30.
Van Vechten admitted … boy: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (March 3, 1960), 45, CCOHC.
“I hated interference … attention”: CVV, “The Tin Trunk,” Sacred and Profane Memories, 15.
“my mother, picturing … nest”: Ibid., 8.
“Death, up to … about it”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (April 23, 1960), 144, CCOHC.
“I’d begun to … not”: Ibid., 145.
“was not civilized … beauty”: Susan Glaspell, The Road to the Temple (London: Ernest Benn, 1926), 60.
“to be themselves … live for”: CVV, Tattooed Countess, 224.
“It was the day … bee”: Louis Raymond Reid, “The Small Town,” Civilization in the United States: An Enquiry by Thirty Americans, ed. Harold E. Stearns (London: Jonathan Cape, 1922), 288.
To his embarrassment … tablecloth: CVV, “Chapter Four,” unpublished juvenilia, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
He proudly told … autodidactic: CVV to Arthur Davison Ficke, August 19, 1937, Arthur Davison Ficke Papers, YCAL; CVV, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, ed. Bruce Kellner (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987), 156.
“sophisticated enough to … existed”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (March 3, 1960), 41, CCOHC.
In an unpublished … boys: CVV, “Chapter One,” unpublished juvenilia, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“boys with imagination … suspicion”: CVV, Tattooed Countess, 109.
“They have some practical … ‘Soap?’”: Charles Lewis Fitch to CVV, December 22, 1894, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“excelled in female … stardom”: CVV, “Terpsichorean Souvenirs,” The Dance Writings of Carl Van Vechten, ed. Paul Padgette (New York: Dance Horizons, 1980), 3.
“Imagine two hundred … soup”: “The Cherry Sisters Chestnut,” Cedar Rapids Gazette, March 15, 1893, 4.
“as ‘homelike’ as … children”: B. F. Keith, “The Vogue of the Vaudeville,” American Vaudeville as Seen by Its Contemporaries, ed. Charles W. Stein (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984), 17.
When the Marx Brothers … flag: John E. DiMeglio, Vaudeville U.S.A. (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1973), 185.
Van Vechten documented … men: CVV scrapbooks 4125 and 4126, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
As a teenager … rest: The photographs CVV took in Cedar Rapids can be found in the Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
2. THE COSMOPOLITAN STANDARD OF VIRTUE
He was repulsed … sight: CVV to Ada Amanda Fitch Van Vechten, July 1892, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“First in violence … none”: Lincoln Steffens, The Shame of the Cities (New York: Peter Smith, 1948), 234.
It has been suggested … Matisse: Hilary Spurling, The Unknown Matisse: The Life of Henri Matisse: The Early Years, 1869–1908 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 65.
“until then I had … women”: CVV, “The Tin Trunk,” Sacred and Profane Memories, 18.
“novel to most … delighted me”: Ibid.
“you will see … conceive”: Lisa Krissoff Boehm, Popular Culture and the Enduring Myth of Chicago, 1871–1968 (New York and London: Routledge, 2004), 61.
In the first chapter … destiny: CVV, “Chapter One,” unpublished juvenilia, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
His own brother … emotions: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (March 3, 1960), 40, CCOHC.
“a frightfully stupid life”: Mahala Dutton Benedict Douglas to CVV, August 8, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“quite respectable enough”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (March 3, 1960), 40, CCOHC.
Even thinking of females … might be: CVV, “Chapter One,” unpublished juvenilia, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“high-spirited” girl … “further”: Henry Seidel Canby, The Age of Confidence (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1934), 37.
“a brown derby hat … boots”: CVV, Tattooed Countess, 24.
In the 1950s … himself: CVV to Peter David Marchant, April 25, 1956, Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 260.
“the cosmopolitan standard of virtue”: Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie (New York: Bantam Books, 1958), 1.
“In no other city … soul”: CVV, “The Spanish Theatre,” In the Garret (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1920), 336.
When Van Vechten was taken … do so: CVV to Ada Amanda Fitch Van Vechten, c. July 1892, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“all that is gaudy … windows”: Jane Addams, The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets (New York: Macmillan Company, 1909), 27.
“If you do not like … yours”: Lawrence W. Levine, Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 189.
In a creative writing … great art: CVV, “Unfinished Symphony,” Miscellaneous College Themes, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“came from the leading … Chicago”: Peter A. Gabauer et al., Annals of Psi Upsilon, 1833–1941 (New York: Psi Upsilon Fraternity, 1941), 215.
“drunken ruffians … men”: George Ade, “The Fable of the Copper and the Jovial Undergrad,” The America of George Ade, ed. Jean Shepherd (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1960), 81.
In his perfunctory … assignation: CVV diary, 1901–1902, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
He confessed to … acted upon: CVV diary, August 13 and August 14, 1901, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
Two weeks after … only ask: CVV diary, June 29, 1901, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
In some quiet … heart: CVV diary, December 26–31, 1902, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
He claimed that … mother: CVV, “Chapter One,” unpublished juvenilia, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“I picked it up fast”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (March 3, 1960), 55, CCOHC.
In the Levee … path: Karen Abbott, Sin in the Second City; Madams, Ministers, Playboys and the Battle for America’s Soul (New York: Random House, 2007), 10–13.
In a diary entry … morning: CVV diary, December 1, 1901, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“philandering spirit”: Anna Elizabeth Snyder to CVV, undated, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
In the writer … Vanderpool: See Abbott, Sin in the Second City for an absorbing account of the Everleigh sisters and their club. Also Charles Washburn, Come into My Parlor: A Biography of the Aristocratic Everleigh Sisters of Chicago (New York: National Library Press, 1936).
When asked as an old man … begin with: CVV to Bruce Kellner, September 27, 1957, Bruce Kellner Papers, YCAL.
“one of the great memories … surpassed”: CVV, “Terpsichorean Souvenirs,” Dance Writings of Carl Van Vechten, 5.
According to his own … party: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (March 3, 1960), 15, CCOHC.
Shortly after joining … Sublett: In 1904 CVV wrote “The Inky Ones,” a semifictionalized account of his relationship with Desdemona Sublett and his experiences of African-American Chicago. Because of his use of various pseudonyms in the story, some writers have previously identified the story’s character, Mrs. Manchester, as a woman named Aurelia Veta Clement. However, in a manuscript of “The Inky Ones,” which constitutes the fourth chapter of his autobiographical novel, now held in the Carl Van Vechten Papers at the New York Public Library, CVV wrote in the margin that Mrs. Manchester is in fact Desdemona Sublett. In a subsequent essay he wrote in 1925 titled “A Note on Breakfasts,” he also names his fraternity housekeeper as Mrs. Sublett, and the description of her resembles the sketch of Mrs. Manchester in “The Inky Ones.” In 1922 Elizabeth Lindsay Davis wrote The Story of the Illinois Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, in which a photograph of Desdemona Sublett appears along with a description of her as “one of the pioneers in Illinois club work” and “an active member of the Civic League of Quinn Chapel.” This matches CVV’s description of Mrs. Manchester as a pious woman who worked tirelessly on behalf of Quinn Chapel.
She was a hefty … faith: CVV, “The Inky Ones,” unpublished manuscript, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
Before long Van Vechten … attendance: Ibid.; CVV, Keep A-Inchin’ Along: Selected Writings of Carl Van Vechten About Black Art and Letters, ed. Bruce Kellner (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1979), 4.
“uncultured and uneducated … clever”: Ibid., 5.
“dusky matrons with ample bosoms”: Ibid.
“invariably taken for a coon”: CVV, “Chapter One,” unpublished manuscript, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
3. THAT SHUDDER OF FASCINATION
In a dingy … west: Larry Lorenz, “The Whitechapel Club: Defining Chicago’s Newspapermen in the 19th Century,” American Journalism 15, no. 1 (Winter 1998): 83–102.
“I cannot remember … write”: CVV, “Notes for an Autobiography,” Sacred and Profane Memories, 225.
“the first novelist … account”: Ibid.
An entry from … face: CVV diary, July 17, 1901, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“the modern editor … facts”: Wayne Klatt, Chicago Journalism: A History (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009), 77.
“to enlighten and … San Francisco”: William Salisbury, The Career of a Journalist (New York: B. W. Dodge & Company, 1908), 146
“never allow any … ‘features’”: Ibid., 166.
“the most terrific din you ever heard”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (April 1, 1960), 72, CCOHC.
As William Salisbury … existence: Salisbury, Career of a Journalist, 153.
“I was so successful” … unscathed: Ibid., 60.
He spent a bleak … withdrawal: CVV, “Letter from Chicago,” Pulse 4 (January 1904): 88, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
It turned out … exclusive: For a lengthier account of Howey’s unethical but ingenious espionage see Klatt, Chicago Journalism, 74–76.
“on the sidewalk … smothered”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (April 1, 1960), 78, CCOHC.
“chorus of opinion … Van Vechten”: Jack Lait, “Should a Teacher Marry? Yes—and No!,” New York Journal, September 15, 1934, CVV scrapbook 26, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
He wrote about a young woman … death: “Sues Suitor, Cooled by Glass Eye,” Chicago American, c. September; “Gossip of the Chicago Smart Set,” Chicago American, July 18, 1905; “Find Hanish an Imposter; Two of Faithful Desert,” Chicago American, March 21, 1905; “‘High Priest’ Forced to Flee from New York in Order to Avoid Arrest,” Chicago American, c. March 1905. All in CVV scrapbook 27, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
With puckish delight … feet: “A New Type of Chorus Girl,” Chicago American, c. May 1905, in CVV scrapbook 27, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“I have never seen … killed him”: “Xmas Toys Boy’s Death Messenger,” Chicago American, December 26, 1904, CVV scrapbook 27, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“creative rather than critical”: CVV, Red: Papers on Musical Subjects (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1925), xvii, x.
“That was some life … there”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (March 3, 1960), 58, CCOHC.
“I learned to dislike [it] heartily”: Ibid., 12.
“there are lots of ways … eventually”: Ibid., 13.
“I didn’t get over it … usually didn’t”: Ibid.
“human or normal … call it”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (April 23, 1960), 130, CCOHC.
“lowering the tone of the Hearst papers”: CVV, “Theodore Dreiser as I Knew Him,” Fragments from an Unwritten Autobiography, vol. 2 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1955), 3.
“New York, my dear … restaurants”: CVV to Leah Maynard, January 1907, Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 3.
On the Lower East Side … world: In 1907 the journalist Barton W. Currie investigated the nickelodeons of New York City and estimated that they entertained around two hundred thousand customers a day. Barton W. Currie, “The Nickel Madness,” Movies and American Society, ed. Steven J. Ross (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), 32–37.
“one’s trousers full of maybugs”: Richard Strauss, Recollections and Reflections, trans. L. J. Lawrence (London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1953), 152.
It lacked the insight … opera: CVV, “Salome: The Most Sensational Opera of the Age,” Broadway Magazine 17 (January 1907), 381–91.
He wrote Leah … match it: CVV to Leah Maynard, January 1907, Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 3.
“tense with a sort … fascinating”: Richard Aldrich, “Strauss’s ‘Salome’ the First Time Here,” New York Times, January 23, 1907.
“Her entrance was … staircase”: CVV, “Olive Fremstad,” Interpreters and Interpretations (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1917), 34.
“I cannot yet … passion”: Ibid.
“overpowering and dominating temperament”: Ibid., 11.
“Salome is the worst … nothing”: “Take Off ‘Salome’ Say Opera House Directors,” New York Times, January 27, 1907, CVV scrapbook 1, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“We take issue … text”: “‘Salome’ Withdrawn; Conried Fully Yields,” New York Times, January 31, 1907, CVV scrapbook 1, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“In defence [sic] of bad taste”: CVV, “In Defence of Bad Taste,” The Merry-Go-Round (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1918), 11–20.
“Caruso’s Mustache Off … without it?”: “Caruso’s Mustache Off,” New York Times, December 8, 1906, CVV scrapbook 1, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
Luisa Tetrazzini took to … fame: Luisa Tetrazzini, “The Story of My Operatic Career by Luisa Tetrazzini,” Cosmopolitan (June 1908): 49–51; and Tetrazzini, My Life of Song (London: Cassell & Company, 1921). Tetrazzini’s autobiography gives an entertaining insight into this charismatic and self-regarding woman, as well as a vivid snapshot of the “golden era” of New York opera.
“exuberant,” “like a great … football”: CVV, “Feodor Chaliapine,” Interpreters and Interpretations, 98–99.
“I spik English … you!”: Ibid., 98.
“The effect in” … memory: Ibid., 99.
“gilded, but shabby … crowded”: CVV, “Oscar Hammerstein: An Epitaph,” In the Garret, 238.
“check all children … this one”: “Baby Checked at Opera,” New York Times, February 15, 1907, CVV scrapbook 1, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“some of the artists … any more”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (April 1, 1960), 130, CCOHC.
4. A CERTAIN SENSUOUS CHARM
“You don’t pick up … wanting to”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (March 3, 1960), 27, CCOHC.
“burst out of … desires”: Lewis A. Erenberg, Steppin’ Out: New York Nightlife and the Transformation of American Culture, 1890–1930 (Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood Press, 1981), 24.
At clubs like … regulars: Ray Argyle, Scott Joplin and the Age of Ragtime (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009), 65–78.
Van Vechten insisted … double act: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (March 3, 1960), 19–20, CCOHC.
In the ramshackle … encounters: Kevin Mumford, Interzones: Black/White Sex Districts in Chicago and New York in the Early Twentieth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).
At the Bowery’s … drag shows: See George Chauncey’s riveting study of New York’s gay subcultures in early-twentieth-century New York: George Chauncey, Gay New York: The Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940 (London: Flamingo, 1995), 34–45.
Van Vechten’s fascination … too: The diaries of CVV’s friend Edna Kenton make several brief but telling mentions of his love of slumming and “bohemian” pastimes, both in Chicago and in New York. Kenton’s diaries for the years 1906 to 1914 are held as part of the Yale Collection of American Literature at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University.
A fleeting moment … taken further: Chauncey, Gay New York, 188–89.
The myth of Leda … mainstream: Paul Cézanne was one of many late-nineteenth-century painters to depict this scene, but the most famous articulation of the sexually subversive subtext of the Leda and the swan myth is W. B. Yeats’s poem “Leda and the Swan,” first published in 1924. At the same time that CVV started to wear his intaglio ring, the English writer and occultist Montague Summers was strutting around Oxford with an image of Leda and the swan engraved on his silver-topped cane.
“but not without … tie”: CVV, Firecrackers: A Realistic Novel (Alfred A. Knopf; New York, 1925), 45.
In the poses … sexuality: For lengthier analysis of CVV’s homoerotic photography, see James Smalls, The Homoerotic Photography of Carl Van Vechten: Public Face, Private Thoughts (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006), and Jonathan Weinberg, “Boy Crazy: Carl Van Vechten’s Queer Collection,” Yale Journal of Criticism 7, no. 2 (1994): 25–49.
“the air of … wolf”: Linda Simon, The Biography of Alice B. Toklas (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991), 208.
“gay, irresponsible and brilliant”: Alice B. Toklas, What Is Remembered (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963), 126.
“dead sweet affectionateness”: Mabel Dodge Luhan, Movers and Shakers, vol. 3, Intimate Memories (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1936), 45.
“Women, seemingly, have … men”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (April 23, 1960), 144, CCOHC.
“I am determined to be … forgive me!”: Anna Elizabeth Snyder to CVV, August 31, 1904, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“I do care … ever”: Anna Elizabeth Snyder to CVV, September 8, 1904, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
Comparing the “pure passion” … adoration: Anna Elizabeth Snyder to CVV, December 1, 1906, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“Do you remember … you again”: Anna Elizabeth Snyder to CVV, c. 1904, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“all the men … years”: Anna Elizabeth Snyder to CVV, February 20, 1907, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
the defense used … history: Neil McKenna, The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde (London: Random House, 2011), 527.
“with all the joy … before him”: Ibid.
“This wouldn’t be … one another”: Neith Boyce, “Art and Woman,” unpublished manuscript, Hapgood Family Papers, YCAL. For analysis of Boyce and Hapgood’s personal lives and professional works, see E. K. Trimberger, Intimate Warriors (New York: Feminist Press at CUNY, 1991).
“I could never … with me”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (May 14, 1960), 259, CCOHC.
“I am not writing … realities?”: Anna Elizabeth Snyder to CVV, c. January 1907, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“It shall be a day … you”: Charles Duane Van Vechten to CVV, June 28, 1907, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“It would be difficult … head”: CVV, Peter Whiffle: His Life and Works (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1922), 19.
“the first night … of it”: Ibid., 19–20.
“your indecent and … world”: Edna Kenton to CVV, February 15, 1909, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“It wasn’t formal … delightful”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (April 9, 1960), 121, CCOHC.
“No American, with … behind you”: CVV, “Some Literary Ladies I Have Known,” Fragments from an Unwritten Autobiography, vol. 2, 53.
“I don’t think … wanted”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (April 9, 1960), 122, CCOHC.
On his return … himself: The historian Arthur Frank Wertheim expands on the importance of 1908 in New York as the genesis moment for modern American culture. Arthur Frank Wertheim, The New York Little Renaissance (New York: New York University Press, 1976).
“ritual, pleasure, light-heartedness … need”: Van Wyck Brooks, The Wine of the Puritans: A Study of Present Day America (London: Sisley’s, 1909), 15.
“the elements of … left out”: Levine, Highbrow/Lowbrow, 214.
“I was almost … dancing”: CVV, “Terpsichorean Souvenirs,” Padgette, Dance Writings of Carl Van Vechten, 6–7.
“the corporeality of things”: Charles Caffin, “Henri Matisse and Isadora Duncan,” Camera Work, no. 25 (January 1909): 17–30.
“life and gaiety … Samothrace”: “Isadora Duncan Reappears,” New York Times, November 10, 1909, CVV scrapbook 1, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; “Miss Duncan’s Vivid Dances,” New York Times, November 17, 1909, CVV scrapbook 1, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“a sacrilege” her use … “dancing”: Ibid.
“an inartistic child”: “Annual Fall Salon Exhibit of Freaks,” New York Times, October 3, 1908, CVV scrapbook 2, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“Like any other … to me”: CVV, “The New Isadora,” Merry-Go-Round, 314.
“a more sensuous … emotion”: “Loie Fuller Shows Her Dancing Girls,” New York Times, December 1, 1909, CVV scrapbook 3, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“there were no … applause”: “Maud Allan as Salome,” New York Times, January 30, 1910, CVV scrapbook 3, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“grace, a picturesque … head”: “Maud Allan in Greek Dances,” New York Times, January 21, 1910, CVV scrapbook 3, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“I not only … desire you”: Anna Elizabeth Snyder to CVV, May 16, 1911, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“suppress the tale … opinion”: Elsie Stern Caskey to CVV, January 26, 1912, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
In his memoirs … graduation: Bruce Kellner, “Carlo’s Wife,” Kiss Me Again: An Invitation to a Group of Noble Dames (New York: Turtle Point Press, 2002), 183.
“the things you have not … written”: Charles Lewis Fitch to CVV, February 19, 1912, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“she influenced me … progress”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (April 9, 1960), 136, CCOHC.
“I can stop … hard”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (May 25, 1960), 354, CCOHC.
According to the accounts … stardom: CVV, “Fania Marinoff’s Memoirs,” unpublished manuscript, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Kiss Me Again, 170–73.
“a maid of … charm”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (April 9, 1960), 150, CCOHC.
“If there was a door … through it”: Reverend Peter Francis O’Brien, S.J., interview with author, October 2011. O’Brien paraphrased a line from “Waiting in the Wings,” Noël Coward’s play about a retirement home for actresses.
“prompt responses for … automatic”: Mabel Dodge Luhan, “Twelfth Night,” unpublished manuscript, Mabel Dodge Luhan Papers, YCAL.
“Darlingest Angel baby … sure”: CVV to FM, May 19, 1913, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 4.
“I must have kisses … over me”: Charles Duane Van Vechten to Ada Fitch, April 9, 1861, and March 30, 1861, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“the only one … satisfies me”: CVV to Fania Marinoff, July 13, 1913, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 8.
“Fania’s native intelligence … worthless”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (April 23, 1960), 150a, CCOHC.
5. HOW TO READ GERTRUDE STEIN
“Any one or two … first one”: “Real Music and Art Rising out of a Sea of Fake,” New York Times, March 9, 1913, CVV scrapbook 8, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“We have left … ugly!”: Mabel Dodge Luhan, European Experiences, vol. 2, Intimate Memories (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1935), 453.
“a repudiation of grimy New York”: Dodge Luhan, Movers and Shakers, 5.
According to Dodge … “malice”: Ibid., 14–15.
“affectionate fun … hope”: Ibid., 15.
“warm friendships for … rooms”: Ibid., 16.
“Curtis Cigarettes, poured … piano”: CVV, Peter Whiffle, 145. In CVV’s semiautobiographical novel Peter Whiffle, Mabel appears as a character named Edith Dale, a celebrated salon hostess. His descriptions of Dale’s salon were based directly on CVV’s experiences at 23 Fifth Avenue.
“The groups separated … whisky”: Ibid., 124.
“women in low-necked … locks”: Ross Wetzsteon, Republic of Dreams: Greenwich Village: The American Bohemia, 1910–1960 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002), 23.
“The man strummed … hands”: Dodge Luhan, Movers and Shakers, 80.
In the early nineteenth century … raised: Eric Lott, Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 49–55.
“I think I owe … person”: CVV, “Some Literary Ladies I Have Known,” Fragments from an Unwritten Autobiography, vol. 2, 36.
“The days are … pleasant”: Gertrude Stein, Portrait of Mabel Dodge at the Villa Curonia (Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International, 1994), 1.
“cubist of letters … view”: “Cubist of Letters Writes New Book,” New York Times, February 24, 1913, CVV scrapbook 8, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“Everybody went and … nickel”: CVV, Peter Whiffle, 123.
“seized upon the … pay”: “Cubists and Futurists Are Making Insanity Pay,” New York Times, March 16, 1913.
“Art Show Open to Freaks”: Patricia Bradley, Making American Culture: A Social History, 1900–1920 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 128.
As the historian Patricia Bradley … together: Ibid., 117–34.
He wrote Marinoff … both: CVV to FM, May 19, 1913, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“altogether disgusting”: CVV to FM, May 19, 1913, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 5.
“erect Tom-Tom’s … mine”: CVV to FM, May 19, 1913, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 5.
“a wonderful personality”: CVV to FM, June 2, 1913, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 6.
“villain of Mrs. Van Vechten’s tragic tale”: Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1933), 149.
“a Roman emperor … guests”: Bravig Imbs, Confessions of Another Young Man (New York: Henkle-Yewdale House, 1936), 162.
That first performance … morning: The reports even found their way back to New York, where the Times described the ballet as “the last degree of stupidity” in an article published June 8, 1913.
In a letter … “beautiful”: CVV to FM, June 4, 1913, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 6.
“provocation and event”: Modris Eksteins, The Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1989), 15.
“A certain part … evening”: CVV, Music After the Great War (New York: G. Schirmer, 1915), 87.
“to beat rhythmically … ourselves”: Ibid.
Van Vechten never intended … value: In Modris Eksteins’s fascinating exploration of the significance of the first night of Le Sacre du Printemps he questions the accuracy of CVV’s recollections but not his core assertion that he really was there.
“one must only be accurate … fiction”: CVV to Gertrude Stein, May 17, 1913, Edward Burns, ed., The Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 1913–1946 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 54.
“Au revoir et merci”: Dodge Luhan, Movers and Shakers, 217.
Van Vechten took to the task … conversation: Muriel Draper, Music at Midnight (New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1929), 121–24.
He praised its … “shriek”: “New York’s ‘Darktown’ Would Do Well on Broadway,” New York Press, December 14, 1913, CVV scrapbook 9, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“One thing is certain … this one”: Ibid.
“is not an imitation … to us”: “Real Thrills in ‘Granny Maumee,’” New York Press, March 31, 1914, CVV scrapbook 9, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“essentially Negro character”: CVV, “The Negro Theatre,” In the Garret, 319.
he was so intoxicated … meaning: CVV to Mabel Dodge, c. October 1913, Mabel Dodge Luhan Papers, YCAL; Kellner, ed., Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 9.
Evans had befriended … principles: Evans’s unusual personality can be discovered in the strange letters he sent to Van Vechten between 1912 and 1922 in the Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“there are in America … only”: Karen Leick, Gertrude Stein and the Making of an American Celebrity (New York: Routledge, 2009), 42.
Frederick James Gregg … Painters: Bradley, Making American Culture, 133.
“Miss Stein drops … Prelude”: CVV, “How to Read Gertrude Stein,” Gertrude Stein Remembered, ed. Linda Simon (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994), 41–48.
“I have often questioned … satisfaction”: Ibid., 42.
“Her vagueness is … qualities”: Ibid., 47.
“turned language into … art”: Ibid., 42.
“I am very pleased … me”: Gertrude Stein to CVV, October 25, 1914, Burns, Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 31.
“favorite genius”: Phillip Herring, Djuna: The Life and Works of Djuna Barnes (New York: Viking, 1995), 93.
Among a crowded itinerary … proximity: CVV notebook, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL. CVV kept a journal of his 1914 trip to Europe, the first such document since his college days.
“intellectual Jewess … slippers”: CVV notebook, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Bruce Kellner, “Baby Woojums in Iowa,” Books at Iowa 26 (1977): 3–18.
It was obvious … famously: CVV notebook, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
Upon his arrival … upset: CVV notebook, August 1, 1914, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
As an old man … politics: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (May 14, 1960), 263, CCOHC.
When it came to elections … standing: Ibid., 264.
“stupid republican [sic] presidents”: CVV daybooks, November 7, 1928, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Bruce Kellner, ed., The Splendid Drunken Twenties: Selections from the Daybooks, 1922–1930 (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 225.
On the day … admired: CVV notebooks, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“I’ve done it all … to be”: CVV, “July–August 1914,” Sacred and Profane Memories, 119–20.
“a mask of quiescent boredom”: Dodge Luhan, Movers and Shakers, 290.
“Just think … again”: CVV, “July–August 1914,” Sacred and Profane Memories, 118.
6. IN DEFENSE OF BAD TASTE
“exclude stupidity, banality … beasts”: CVV, “The Editor’s Workbench,” Trend 8, no. 1 (October 1914): 101.
“destroy dilettantism and … marriage”: CVV, “War Is Not Hell,” Trend 8, no. 2 (November 1914): 147.
“That is what the war … life”: Ibid., 150.
“gifted with the most magnetic … today”: CVV, “Away Go the Critics, and On Come the Plays,” Trend 8, no. 2 (November 1914): 239.
Jolson sought Van Vechten … grabbed him: CVV to FM, November 7, 1914, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“While the alimony … dog”: Ralph Van Vechten to CVV, April 16, 1912, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“Don’t fear anything … man”: Charles Duane Van Vechten to CVV, March 26, 1915, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“It was fearfully exciting … doctor”: Louise Bryant to CVV, c. 1915, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“The only place for a writer is prison”: Mina Loy to CVV, March 12, 1915, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
Though Stein had numerous … awakening: Loy’s biographer Carolyn Burke maps out the crucial role that CVV played in helping Loy navigate her way between her feminist instincts and the intellectualized misogyny of Marinetti’s futurism that so inspired her. Carolyn Burke, Becoming Modern: The Life of Mina Loy (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997).
“for his unrestrained guests … I didn’t”: CVV, “How I Remember Joseph Hergesheimer,” Fragments from an Unwritten Autobiography, vol. 1 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1955), 8.
“Wonderful in their lithe … perfection”: CVV, “On Visiting Fashionable Places out of Season,” Excavations: A Book of Advocacies (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926), 13.
a “primitive jingle … sex”: Ibid., 15.
“wild leaps, whirls … Igor”: Ibid.
“strewn with dried palm … cries”: CVV, “The Holy Jumpers,” In the Garret, 141–42.
“A young negress … still”: Ibid., 143–45.
“ecstasy of a Negro’s sanctity”: Ibid., 145.
“Americans are easily thrilled … Ballet”: Ibid., 134.
“Americans have little aptitude … discussion”: CVV, “In Defence of Bad Taste,” Merry-Go-Round, 18.
“it is preferable to be … cage”: Ibid., 17.
“is really distinctively American”: “Ragtime’s Rage a Regular Riot,” April 1912, New York Times, CVV scrapbook 6, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“has had its day”: CVV, “Music After the Great War,” Music After the Great War, 7.
“beyond doubt that music … 1914”: Ibid., 6.
“considerable enjoyment but less sound sense”: “Music After the War,” Springfield Republican, March 26, 1916, CVV scrapbook 10, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
Modern music in America … rebellion: For a detailed examination of the significance of CVV’s work in developing an American critical tradition of modernism in music, see Carol J. Oja, Making Music Modern: New York in the 1920s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 297–310.
“His revolt … Greenwich Village”: H. L. Mencken, “The Tone Art—Snowbirds in Hell, Presbyterians in Paris, Blondes Along the Niger, Musical Critics in the United States!,” Smart Set (July 1916), CVV scrapbook 10, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“has been in Paris … souls”: Unidentified author and article, New York Sun, January 16, 1916, CVV scrapbook 10, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“genial middle ground … slang”: Van Wyck Brooks, America’s Coming of Age (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1915), 7.
“the fullest expression … cubism”: Christine Stansell, American Moderns: Bohemian New York and the Creation of a New Century (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2000), 6.
“the enemy”: CVV, “The Bridge Burners,” Music and Bad Manners (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1916), 169.
“even the extreme modern music … genius”: Ibid.
“Music has changed … hear”: Ibid., 193.
“vibrates with the unrest … war”: CVV, “Leo Ornstein,” Music and Bad Manners, 243.
“not to make the world … pessimist”: Donald Evans to CVV, July 5, 1917, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“narrowly about your case … register”: John Pitts Sanborn to CVV, June 16, 1917, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“It is very exciting … converts”: CVV to Gertrude Stein, April 5, 1917, Burns, Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 58–59.
Indeed, according to Van Vechten … gutter: CVV to Gertrude Stein, April 5, 1917, Burns, ed., Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 59.
“Lewis F. Muir … 2001”: CVV, “The Great American Composer,” Interpreters and Interpretations, 270.
“complicated vigor of American life”: Ibid., 279.
“Americans are inclined … same”: Ibid., 281.
“It is no more use … of us”: Ibid., 284.
“a vast body … baseball”: H. L. Mencken, “The National Letters,” Smart Set (February 1918), CVV scrapbook 11, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“a man may be an American … America”: Ibid.
“He likes what is new … appreciation”: “Interpreters and Interpretations,” Musical America (July 13, 1918), CVV scrapbook 11, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“It would be much better … Ornstein”: Theodora Bean, “Readable Musical Criticism; A Talk with One Who Writes It—Carl Van Vechten,” New York Morning Telegraph, February 24, 1918, CVV scrapbook 11, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
Upon the publication … men: Charles Duane Van Vechten to CVV, March 19, 1916, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“for musical people … people”: Charles Duane Van Vechten to CVV, September 3, 1916, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“Really it looks to us … enough”: Charles Duane Van Vechten to CVV, August 24, 1918, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
Marshall’s also attracted … Interior: William B. Scott and Peter M. Rutkoff, New York Modern: The Arts and the City (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 86.
“Come with me … play”: CVV, “Farfariello,” In the Garret, 302–303.
“working men in … theatre”: Ibid.
“No hysteria or … play”: CVV, “Mimi Aguglia as Salome,” In the Garret, 292.
“New York … unobserved”: CVV, “La Tigresse,” Sacred and Profane Memories, 175.
7. WHAT ONE IS FORCED BY NATURE TO DO
“It was an age … fun?”: F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Echoes of the Jazz Age,” My Lost City: Personal Essays, 1920–1940, ed. James L. W. West III (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 131.
“A young man … live”: Malcolm Cowley, Exile’s Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920s (London: Penguin Books, 1994), 79.
Many decades later … apartment: Donald Angus to Bruce Kellner, undated, Bruce Kellner Papers, YCAL.
As they talked and drank … scrutinizing: Ibid.
“Baby Van Vechten”: Kellner, “Carlo’s Wife,” Kiss Me Again, 181.
In an echo … 1920: Ibid. Kellner explains that precise dates for the adoption are impossible to ascertain because all the relevant documentation appears to have been deliberately destroyed.
“for the good of your soul”: Mabel Dodge Luhan to CVV, January 27, 1920, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“has very strong … life”: Ibid.
Every time he received … cocaine: CVV to Mabel Dodge, June 21, 1920, Mabel Dodge Luhan Papers, YCAL.
“Your enhancing appreciation … daggers”: Mabel Dodge to CVV, c. 1920, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“held the firm belief … novelty”: CVV, Red, ix.
“not only brings … readers”: Ibid., xiii.
“orphic wall of my indecision”: CVV, Peter Whiffle, 12.
“a free fantasia … Rhapsody”: Ibid., 15.
“I have done too much … lived it”: Ibid., 251.
“It is necessary … to do”: Ibid., 250.
Van Vechten was … Exquisites: Alfred Kazin, On Native Grounds: An Interpretation of Modern American Literature (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1942), 227.
The notional figurehead … 1919: Kazin also included Thomas Beer, Elinor Wylie, and CVV’s close friend and fellow Knopf author Joseph Hergesheimer in this group.
“Melville’s greatest book … world”: CVV, “The Later Work of Herman Melville,” Excavations, 79.
“cosmopolitan, a sly humorist … Washington”: Ibid., 77.
“Why don’t you decide … Pepys”: Mabel Dodge to CVV, c. 1922, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“The Twenties were famous … behavior”: CVV, “How I Remember Joseph Hergesheimer,” Fragments from an Unwritten Autobiography, vol. 1, 7.
“the splendid drunken twenties”: Ibid.
During a typical … parties: CVV daybooks, April–May 1922, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“makes a provincial ass of himself”: CVV daybooks, August 4, 1922, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Splendid Drunken Twenties, 10.
“stood on her head … generally”: CVV daybooks, September 25, 1922, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Splendid Drunken Twenties, 11.
an “egotist” of “considerable charm”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (May 2, 1960), 218, CCOHC.
“guide to fast life … sense”: CVV, The Blind Bow-Boy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923), 59.
“the manly American”: Ibid., 95.
“Ferris wheels … education”: Ibid., 75–76.
“A thing of beauty is a boy forever”: CVV, The Blind Bow-Boy, 117.
“impudent sissies that clutter Times Square”: Chauncey, Gay New York, 308–309.
“that is what any … happiness”: Herbert Armstrong Jaggard, Jr., to CVV, December 3, 1925, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“He knew everyone … Day”: George George to Bruce Kellner, May 29, 1980, Bruce Kellner Papers, YCAL.
“It is impertinent … capital”: Sinclair Lewis to CVV, September 27, 1923, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
The reader summarized … “pictures”: Winnifred Reeve to CVV, April 29, 1925, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“The new book … know”: Charles Duane Van Vechten to CVV, August 10, 1923, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
Just before Christmas … with him: Charles Duane Van Vechten to CVV, December 17, 1923, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“very clever” novel … “yourself”: Charles Lewis Fitch to CVV, August 13, 1923, CVV Papers, NYPL.
“Very suddenly, out of … money”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (May 2, 1960), 202, CCOHC.
The occasion was recorded … paid: CVV daybooks, December 13, 1923, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“The kind of writing … better”: CVV to Ralph Van Vechten, February 7, 1919, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 27–28.
“alert intelligence … sets in”: CVV, Tattooed Countess, 1.
To his friend … “sophistication”: CVV to Hugh Walpole, October 18, 1924, Hugh Walpole Collection, Berg; Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 72.
“the Countess was certainly full of pricks”: CVV to Arthur Davison Ficke, August 30, 1924, Arthur Davison Ficke Papers, YCAL; CVV, quoted by Bruce Kellner in introduction to Tattooed Countess, xix–xx.
“a sort of invisible force … possible”: Shirer, Start: 1904–1930, 186.
During his visit … at once: CVV to FM, October 24, 1924, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“Carl Van Vechten … read”: CVV, “Some Literary Ladies I Have Known,” Fragments from an Unwritten Autobiography, vol. 2, 44.
“Beyond a doubt … more”: CVV to Ronald Firbank, October 30, 1923, Carl Van Vechten Papers, Berg; Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 58.
“title is delicious”: Ronald Firbank to CVV, November 17, 1923, Ronald Firbank Papers, Berg.
“an autocratic way … wanted”: Mark Lutz to Bruce Kellner, June 11, 1968, Bruce Kellner Papers, YCAL.
“My books are … champion them”: Ronald Firbank to CVV, December 16, 1924, Ronald Firbank Papers, Berg.
“I seemed always to be … critics”: CVV, Red, xi.
One evening the following … Blue: CVV daybook, January 17, 1924, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“He [Gershwin] has … Nègres!”: CVV to Hugh Walpole, October 18, 1924, Hugh Walpole Papers, Berg; Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 73.
Even Paul Rosenfeld … flaw: Paul Rosenfeld, By Way of Art: Criticisms of Music, Literature, Painting, Sculpture, and the Dance (New York: Coward-McCann, 1928) provides a good overview of Rosenfeld’s ideas about jazz, modern art, and America. Carol J. Oja, Making Music Matter, has much of interest to say about the differences between CVV’s and Rosenfeld’s views on jazz and modern music in the United States.
“Jazz may not be … hope”: CVV, Red, xv.
8. AN ENTIRELY NEW KIND OF NEGRO
“It was Paul … agreeable”: CVV, Firecrackers, 1.
“You’re too evolved … manifestations”: Mabel Dodge to CVV, September 24, 1924, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“who sleeps with who isn’t funny anymore”: Mabel Dodge to CVV, October 17, 1924, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“a great negro novel”: CVV daybooks, June 19, 1924, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Splendid Drunken Twenties, 52.
“I had no idea … mine”: Walter White to CVV, August 7, 1924, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
The two men … immediately: CVV daybooks, August 26, 1924, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“most Negroes have a talent for acting”: CVV, “The Negro Theatre,” In the Garret, 320.
“How the darkies … lives”: Ibid., 316.
He wrote an excited letter … about him: CVV to Mabel Dodge Luhan, c. October 1924, Mabel Dodge Luhan Papers, YCAL.
“He speaks French … circles”: CVV to Edna Kenton, c. August 1924, Edna Kenton Papers, YCAL; Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 69.
“was a hustler”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (March 3, 1960), 20, CCOHC.
“I was never completely sold on Walter”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (May 14, 1960), 266, CCOHC.
“I was no particular … to me”: Ibid., 272.
“he served his purpose”: Ibid.
“was a miracle straight out of the skies”: James Weldon Johnson, Black Manhattan (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930), 3.
In November, as … “pianists”: CVV to Gertrude Stein, November 15, 1924; Burns, Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 208.
“violently interested in … addiction”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (May 2, 1960), 193, CCOHC.
“the great black walled city”: CVV, quoted by Kathleen Pfeiffer in introduction to Nigger Heaven (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000), xxiv.
“Harlem is laughing … home”: “Harlem Laughs as Night Club Is Smashed Up,” Afro American, January 25, 1930.
“bright, crowded with … laughter”: Claude McKay, Home to Harlem (Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2012), 250.
“adorable, rich, chic”: CVV to Gertrude Stein, July 24, 1926; Burns, Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 131.
Small’s Paradise, where … cocaine: CVV daybook, March 19, 1925, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“was surely as gay as it was black”: Henry Louis Gates, “The Black Man’s Burden,” Fear of a Queer Planet, ed. Michael Warner (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1993), 233.
The male writers … era: The cultural historian Ann Douglas poses an interesting thought experiment on the subject. “Try to imagine,” Douglas prods, “what the white 1920s generation would have been like if, like the Harlem Renaissance, its most important male ringleaders and spokesmen—say Sinclair Lewis, Mencken, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway—had been homosexual. One almost can’t do it; the differences are too immense, too complex.” Ann Douglas, Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995), 97.
“they undressed by … Beauty”: Richard Bruce Nugent, “Smoke, Lilies and Jade,” Gay Rebel of the Harlem Renaissance, ed. Thomas Wirth (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), 82.
It is worth noting … living: Richard Bruce Nugent to CVV, January 26, 1942, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“Harlem was very much … closet”: Ibid., 21.
In one of his first … orgies: CVV daybook, March 10, 1925, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL. Donald Angus gave an account of the incident to Bruce Kellner: Splendid Drunken Twenties, 76.
“All around the den … busy above”: McKay, Home to Harlem, 31.
“young black entertainer … disappeared”: Chad Heap, Slumming: Sexual and Racial Encounters in American Nightlife, 1885–1940 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 259.
He was part … projected: CVV daybook, January 10, 1924, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL. CVV records that one of those movies was Strictly Union, a heterosexual picture notable to historians of the genre for featuring a high-concept story line about the arrival of trade unions in Hollywood—it was made by aspiring mainstream directors who could not get a break with any of the big studios—as well as for being the first known American film to feature graphic close-ups of various sexual acts, such as fellatio and penetration.
he badgered Arthur … behalf: Arthur Davison Ficke to CVV, October 4, 1922, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL; see also the exchange of letters between CVV and Ficke throughout 1922 on this issue, in Van Vechten and Ficke collections at YCAL.
“give a remarkable performance … etc.”: CVV daybook, September 29, 1925, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Splendid Drunken Twenties, 97.
“He was extraordinary … anything”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (May 2, 1960), 217, CCOHC.
“in great glee … as one”: Ibid., 197.
“a lovely, lovely dry Martini”: Chris Albertson, Bessie (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), 172.
“full of shouting … sensuous too”: CVV, “Moanin’ wid a Sword in Ma Han’,” Vanity Fair (February 1926): 61.
“Get the fuck … shit”: Albertson, Bessie, 174.
It is worth noting … numbers: CVV daybook, December 4, 1928, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“really thrilling experience”: CVV to Scott Cunningham, c. January 1925; Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 74–75.
“the unpretentious sincerity … known”: CVV, “The Folksongs of the American Negro,” Vanity Fair (July 1925): 52.
“the new American Caruso”: Martin Bauml Duberman, Paul Robeson: A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989), 80.
To Gertrude Stein … Chaliapin: CVV to Gertrude Stein, June 30, 1925; Burns, Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 116.
Van Vechten, pained … than his: CVV to FM, May 8, 1925, May 27, 1925, and May 30, 1925, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
The evening after she left … dawn: CVV daybook, April 29, 1925, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“Droning a drowsy … croon”: Langston Hughes, “The Weary Blues,” The Weary Blues (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1929), 9
“who sang the blues … rock”: Langston Hughes, The Big Sea (New York: Hill and Wang, 1963), 110.
“heritage of rhythm and warmth”: Langston Hughes, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” cited in Nathan Irving Huggins, ed., Voices of the Harlem Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 307.
“the low-down folks … standardizations”: Ibid., 306.
“people who have their hip … go by”: Ibid.
“I shall write … Covarrubias”: CVV to Langston Hughes, June 24, 1925, Emily Bernard, ed., Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten (New York: Vintage Books, 2002), 10–11.
“You’re my good angel … flying!”: Langston Hughes to CVV, May 18, 1925, Bernard, Remember Me to Harlem, 15.
He worried that … sex: Rampersad, The Life of Langston Hughes—Volume I: 1902–1941: I, Too, Sing America (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 116; Bernard, Remember Me to Harlem, 16.
“The influence, if … side”: CVV to Langston Hughes, c. April 1927, Bernard, Remember Me to Harlem, 48–49.
In his very first letter … Haiti: CVV to Langston Hughes, May 6, 1925, Bernard, Remember Me to Harlem, 4.
Soon after, he also … doing so: CVV to Langston Hughes, May 13, 1925, and Langston Hughes to CVV, May 17, 1925, Bernard, Remember Me to Harlem, 6–7, 10–11.
“Do not let any lionizers stampede you”: Rampersad, I, Too, Sing America, 119.
“a nice boy”: Wirth, Gay Rebel of the Harlem Renaissance, 226.
“beginning to sound … remain”: Duberman, Paul Robeson, 85.
“it was you who made me sing”: Paul Robeson to CVV, October 21, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“their independence and … indecency”: Jody Blake, Le Tumulte Noir: Modernist Art and Popular Entertainment in Jazz Age Paris, 1900–1930 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), 93.
“strong coffee before the cream is poured in”: CVV, “Prescription for the Negro Theatre,” Vanity Fair (October 1925): 98.
“a wild pantomimic … passion”: Ibid.
“coining money out of niggers”: Emily Bernard, Carl Van Vechten and the Harlem Renaissance: A Portrait in Black and White (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2012), 119.
“voice, choking with … artist!”: CVV, “Prescription for the Negro Theatre,” 92.
“The music of the Blues … combinations”: Ibid., 44.
“Mr. Van Vechten … cheers”: James F. Wilson, Bulldaggers, Pansies, and Chocolate Babies: Performance, Race, and Sexuality in the Harlem Renaissance (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010), 139.
He once wrote … enjoy: CVV to James Weldon Johnson, October 11, 1933, James Weldon Johnson and Grace Nail Johnson Papers, YCAL.
According to a report … otherwise: “Author Thought Tiny White Girl Was Colored/Offered to Place ‘Brown’ Lassie, He Met at Party, in Broadway Show/LEARNS OF JOKE/Writer Insists Girl Is of Black Origin—Tells Her So; Then She Yells,” Zit’s Theatrical Newspaper, April 7, 1928, CVV scrapbook 22, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
By 1927 his … population: John E. Pember, “Race Amalgamation Will Settle American Problem: An Interview with Carl Van Vechten,” Chicago Defender, March 26, 1927, CVV scrapbook 21, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
Hurston believed as fervently … relationship: Robert E. Hemenway, Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1980), 104–33.
“I have taken … to be”: Ibid., 109.
“the guard-mother … Zora”: Douglas, Terrible Honesty, 282–86.
Over two decades … islands: Zora Neale Hurston to CVV, various dates between 1925 and 1945, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“the importance—and insignificance—of racial difference”: Bernard, Carl Van Vechten and the Harlem Renaissance, 43.
“You are just … or not”: Harold Jackman to CVV, February 14, 1925, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
9. EXOTIC MATERIAL
“a Negro novel”: CVV to FM, October 23, 1924, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“comparatively easy for me … stop-time!”: CVV to Langston Hughes, June 4, 1925, Bernard, Remember Me to Harlem, 17.
The following month … setting: CVV to Gertrude Stein, June 30, 1925, Burns, Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 116.
“the nigger book”: Gertrude Stein to CVV, July 21, 1925, Burns, Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 119.
“Title of ‘Nigger Heaven’ comes to me today”: CVV daybook, August 14, 1925, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Splendid Drunken Twenties, 93.
“found so good a title … write”: CVV to Scott Cunningham, August 16, 1925, Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 82.
“primitive birthright … emotion”: Ibid., 89–90.
“men and women … evil rites”: Ibid., 254–55.
Grace Nail Johnson … with it: CVV daybooks, November 25, 1925, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
Walter White judged … himself: CVV daybooks, December 1, 1925, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
Countee Cullen … thing: CVV daybooks, November 27, 1925, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
Van Vechten dismissed … people: CVV daybook, November 28, 1925 Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“It had more … understand”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (May 2, 1960), 208, CCOHC.
“is freely used … resented”: CVV, Nigger Heaven, 26.
“Your ‘Nigger Heaven’ … blacks”: Charles Duane Van Vechten to CVV, November 28, 1925, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“You are accustomed … change it”: Charles Duane Van Vechten to CVV, December 7, 1925, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
On the ninth … indulgence: CVV daybook, January 10, 1925, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
He told Hugh … again: CVV to Hugh Walpole, March 7, 1926, Hugh Walpole Collection, Berg.
“the race is getting more popular every day”: CVV to Gertrude Stein, March 4, 1926, Burns, Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 127.
“The squalor of Negro life … remains?”: CVV, “The Negro in Art: How Shall He Be Portrayed?,” Crisis (March 1926): 219.
“shoutin’, moanin’, yelling … jungle”: CVV daybook, May 23, 1926, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Splendid Drunken Twenties, 120.
During a trip to Virginia … Harlem: CVV to FM, April 20, 1926, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“There is seldom” … race: Robert F. Worth, “Nigger Heaven and the Harlem Renaissance,” African American Review 29, no. 3 (Autumn 1995): 461.
“She says she is … for me?”: CVV daybook, June 25, 1926 Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Splendid Drunken Twenties, 125.
“I was having an affair … but—”: Cecilia Garrard, “And the Famous Man Washes Dishes at Home/Wife Says Carl Van Vechten Likes to Do Them,” Brooklyn Eagle, October 4, 1925, CVV scrapbook 17, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
Early the next week … fitting: CVV daybook, June 29, 1926, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“between the covers … world”: Advertisement from Publishers Weekly, June 26, 1926, CVV scrapbook 18, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“careful observations … passion”: Walter Yust, “Novels by Van Vechten and Pio Baroja,” New York Evening Post Literary Review, August 21, 1926, CVV scrapbook 18, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“understanding and insight”: Edwin Clark, “Carl Van Vechten’s Novel of Harlem Negro Life,” New York Times Book Review, August 22, 1926, CVV scrapbook 18, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“lived among the colored … think”: “New Light on Negro Ideals and Destiny,” New York Evening Graphic, August 21, 1926, CVV scrapbook 18, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“a second-hand dish … we are”: Nathan Irving Huggins, Harlem Renaissance (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 114.
“purity of race”: M. P. Shiel to CVV, c. July 1926, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
To the fashionable white crowd … hands: Sinclair Lewis to CVV, September 20, 1926, and Henry Mencken to CVV, August 4, 1926, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; F. Scott Fitzgerald to CVV, c. 1926, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“one of the most enthralling … Harlem”: Press advertisement, CVV scrapbook 19, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“the Race … aren’t they?”: Arthur Davison Ficke to CVV, August 8, 1926, CVV Papers, NYPL.
The Van Vechtens’ housekeeper … press: CVV daybook, September 3, 1926, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“with their noses arched … eyelids”: “Van Vechten’s Book,” Norfolk Journal & Guide, September 23, 1926, CVV scrapbook 19, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“You mean to say … nigger?”: Eden Bliss, “This Harlem,” Afro American, CVV scrapbook 19, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“We don’t care … exaggerated about”: Lewis Baer to CVV, September 28, 1926, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“somebody does something … immediately”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (May 25, 1960), 354, CCOHC.
“The cries of protest … Paris”: Nora Holt to CVV, August 17, 1926, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“breach of the peace … men”: Hubert Harrison, “Homo Africanus Harlemi,” Amsterdam News, September 1, 1926. Reprinted in Jeffrey B. Perry, ed., A Hubert Harrison Reader (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2001), 341–44.
“It is the surface mud … sadism”: W.E.B. DuBois, “Books,” Crisis (December 1926): 81–82.
Shortly after the first bad … mob: CVV daybook, September 4, 1926, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“make a stir … sympathy”: Charles Johnson to CVV, August 10, 1926, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“colored people the rare tribute … puppets”: James Weldon Johnson, “Romance and Tragedy in Harlem—A Review,” Opportunity 4, no. 26 (October 1926): 316, 330.
With a dash of pride … criticizing it: CVV to James Weldon Johnson, September 7, 1926, James Weldon Johnson and Grace Nail Johnson Papers, YCAL.
Hubert Harrison’s review … society: L. M. Hussey, “Homo Africanus,” American Mercury (January 1925): 83–89.
“Harlem’s new and … publicity”: Harrison, “Homo Africanus Harlemi,” Perry, Hubert Harrison Reader, 83.
“the vogue for … other book”: Gwendolyn Bennett, “The Ebony Flute,” Opportunity 4, no. 26 (October 1926): 322.
“Sightseers, visitors and … around”: Gwendolyn Bennett, “The Ebony Flute,” Opportunity 4, no. 27 (November 1926): 357.
In fact, librarians … his books: Charles Chesnutt to CVV, September 7, 1926, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“Can it be possible … classes?”: Florence Thompson to CVV, April 15, 1928, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“all the other characters … fine”: Joseph Epstein to CVV, February 9, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“who go to Negro homes … equals?”: Lilian Wang to CVV, February 12, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“The things that I said … ‘Heaven’”: Walter White to W.E.B. DuBois, November 26, 1926, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“misdirected a genuine poet”: Allison Davis, “Our Negro Intellectuals,” Crisis 35 (August 1928): 268; and Hughes’s response: Langston Hughes [letter to the editor], Crisis 35 (September 1928): 302.
Claude McKay’s 1928 novel … begun: In 1924, frustrated that he could not find a publisher willing to handle his gritty depiction of black life, McKay had burned his manuscript of The Color Scheme. Wayne F. Cooper, Claude McKay: Rebel Sojourner in the Harlem Renaissance (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996), 193–222.
“powerful … daring and even sensational”: Advertisement for Sweet Man in unidentified newspaper, CVV scrapbook 24, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“I pay no attention … opinion”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (May 25, 1960), 342, CCOHC.
Marinoff was desperate … infected him: FM to CVV, January 5, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
10. CRUEL SOPHISTICATION
“long, lone, uninspired Kansas … New Mexico”: CVV daybook, January 1, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Splendid Drunken Twenties, 145.
“naïve—yet blood stained … breasts”: Mabel Dodge Luhan to CVV, April 12, 1920, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“How can you like … more”: Mabel Dodge Luhan to CVV, c. June 1920, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“tall and slight … pince nez”: Mabel Dodge Luhan to CVV, October 8, 1920, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“Couldn’t you pick out … of them”: Flannery Burke, From Greenwich Village to Taos: Primitivism and Place at Mabel Dodge Luhan’s (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008), 29.
Mabel acquired a new type … Lujan: Although Tony Lujan spelled his name the traditional Spanish way, Mabel Anglicized the name for her own use after they married, styling herself as Mabel Dodge Luhan.
“finally overcome all … environment”: Mabel Dodge Luhan, Edge of Taos Desert (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1937), 177.
“like the dawn of the world”: Mabel Dodge Luhan, Lorenzo in Taos (London: Martin Secker, 1933), 15.
His letters to Marinoff … Fifth Avenue: CVV to FM, January 8, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“I got very drunk … at 3”: CVV daybook, July 1, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Splendid Drunken Twenties, 150.
“His face was … moonshine”: Dodge Luhan, “Twelfth Night,” 11, Mabel Dodge Luhan Papers, YCAL.
“cruel sophistication”: Ibid., 14.
“two overgrown schoolboys”: Ibid., 17.
Van Vechten wrote Marinoff … week: CVV to FM, January 14, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
A further letter … Fania: CVV to FM, January 16, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
One evening he and Tony … of thanks: CVV to FM, January 14, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“Not even Louis … thinking”: Dodge Luhan, “Twelfth Night,” 13, Mabel Dodge Luhan Papers, YCAL.
The “Indians” of Taos … surface: CVV to FM, January 14, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
After only five days … natives: CVV to FM, January 6, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
A couple of days before … “moodiness”: CVV daybook, January 11, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Splendid Drunken Twenties, 151.
“Mr. Van Vechten was disappointed … Harlem”: Dodge Luhan, “Twelfth Night,” 17, Mabel Dodge Luhan Papers, YCAL.
“The air was all clear … singing”: Ibid.
she wrote him a letter … his stay: Mabel Dodge Luhan to CVV, March 4, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
suggested to his friend … good: CVV to Max Ewing, December 13, 1925, Max Ewing Papers, YCAL.
who wondered aloud why … changed: Mordaunt Hall, “Strange Parcel of Mirth Serves as Miss Negri’s Latest Vehicle,” New York Times, December 20, 1925, CVV scrapbook 17, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“more money, more … dissatisfaction”: CVV, “Fabulous Hollywood,” Vanity Fair (May 1927): 54.
Van Vechten worried … city: CVV to FM, January 19, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
Aside from the Fitzgeralds … above: CVV, “Fabulous Hollywood,” 54.
“often late in the afternoon … night”: Ibid.
“Say that I am one author … around”: Gilmore Millen, “Carl Von [sic] Vechten in L.A. Tells His Ideas of Authors,” Los Angeles Evening Herald, January 20, 1927. Clipping included in a letter from CVV to FM, January 22, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“an astonishing sight” … hills: CVV daybook, January 19, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
The very next morning … command: CVV daybook, January 20, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“as much intensive study … Earth”: CVV to FM, January 24, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 92.
meeting every significant person … master: CVV to FM, January 24, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
For Vanity Vair … “humanity”: CVV, “Hollywood Royalty,” Vanity Fair (July 1927): 38.
As the three of them entered … ovation: Ibid.
“the power of satisfying wishes”: Ibid.
“accompanied by nude Nubians with torches”: Ibid.
“I am swimming among movie stars”: CVV to FM, January 24, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 93.
Like a tourist … roll call: CVV, “Hollywood Parties,” Vanity Fair (June 1927): 47.
“Never before … Hollywood”: Ibid.
“which may have been something … concerned”: Ibid.
she told Carl bluntly … together: FM to CVV, January 19, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
She received assurances … teetotal: CVV to FM, January 24, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“incredible, fantastic, colossal”: Van Vechten, “Fabulous Hollywood,” Vanity Fair, 54.
“walls of the Hollywood houses … hollow”: CVV, “Understanding Hollywood,” Vanity Fair (August 1927), 78.
11. A QUITE GAY, BUT EMPTY, BUBBLE THAT DAZZLES ONE IN BURSTING
she sent letters home … end: See letters from FM to CVV throughout April and May 1927, especially a lengthy one dated May 13, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
a new sense of menace … Cummings: CVV daybook, entries from April and May 1927; the references to the violence at Bob Chanler’s appear on April 5, 1927, and April 14, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
although the movie producer Arthur Hornblow … story: CVV to FM, April 18, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
In an attempt to get him … next: FM to CVV, April 29, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“embarked on a party that lasted three months”: Sara Mayfield, Exiles from Paradise: Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald (New York: Delacorte Press, 1971), 119.
“Charles Lindbergh arrives … aircraft”: CVV daybook, May 21, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Splendid Drunken Twenties, 166.
“From the depths … drunkenness”: Zelda Fitzgerald to CVV, May 27, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“a gas range … dining room”: Zelda Fitzgerald to CVV, May 29, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“way of life didn’t appeal to me”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (May 2, 1960), 226, CCOHC.
“they both drank … excessive”: Nancy Milford, Zelda Fitzgerald (London: Penguin Books, 1985), 110.
“You need a change … see you”: Hugh Walpole to CVV, April 22, 1927, Hugh Walpole Papers, Berg.
He was now gaunt … escapades: CVV daybook, June 12, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
Ralph passed away … June 28: CVV daybook, June 28, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
phlebitis in his leg: Problems with CVV’s leg, for which he was given a number of diagnoses and treatments, persisted for years.
“I adore having Marinoff … alive”: CVV daybook, July 4, 1927, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Splendid Drunken Twenties, 170.
He wrote Mabel … tranquillity: CVV to Mabel Dodge Luhan, October 10, 1927, Mabel Dodge Luhan Papers, YCAL.
a depressing experience … problems: CVV to Aileen Pringle, December 19, 1927, Aileen Pringle Papers, YCAL.
“Van Vechten Follywood … Bursting”: Anthony J. Casey, “Van Vechten Follywood a Quite Gay, but Empty, Bubble That Dazzles One in Bursting”, Brooklyn Eagle, August 26, 1928, CVV scrapbook 23, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“My revulsion towards … complete”: CVV daybook, March 6, 1928, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Splendid Drunken Twenties, 199.
“I listened for two hours … knees”: Gilmore Millen, “C. Van Vechten Wants to See Aimee, Fox,” Los Angeles Herald, February 29, 1928, CVV scrapbook 22, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“I only hope that you didn’t … damn”: H. L. Mencken to CVV, March 3, 1928, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
Somerset Maugham wrote … “water”: Somerset Maugham to CVV, July 21, 1928, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“You just can’t beat … later”: FM to CVV, July 30, 1928, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Jack F. Sharrar, Avery Hopwood: His Life and Plays (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1989), 195.
Van Vechten scribbled in his notebook … turn: CVV notebook from 1928, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
A few days after spotting … company: Ibid.
when he met Greta Garbo … immediately: CVV to FM, February 26, 1928, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“That was almost my fate … Harlem”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (May 2, 1960), 206, CCOHC.
“You’ll find little Harlems … it all”: Langston Hughes to CVV, May 8, 1929, Bernard, Remember Me to Harlem, 64.
Paul Robeson’s highly praised … Theatre: Sheila Tully Boyle and Andrew Bunie, Paul Robeson: The Years of Promise and Achievement (Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001), 192–206, provides a useful account of Robeson’s popularity in Britain at the same time.
“It was their first party” … Astaire: CVV to Gertrude Stein, November 27, 1928, Burns, Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 184.
Van Vechten passed several long nights … rent boys: CVV daybook, various entries for June, July, and August 1929, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“Exhausted by wars … themselves”: Alfred A. Knopf advertisement for Parties, c. August 1930, CVV scrapbook 24, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“hot asphalt, a distinct … streets”: CVV, Parties (1930; repr., Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1993), 141.
“most of which … years ago”: Ibid., 142.
“what is new … is old”: Ibid., 140.
“that interest in America … Europe”: Jack Campbell, “Speaking of Beaux-Arts … Carl Van Vechten Returns,” New York Herald (Paris edition), August 10, 1930, CVV scrapbook 24, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“bootlegger, speakeasy, buffet-flat … ecstasy”: CVV, Parties, 185.
“the expression of electricity and living movement”: Ibid, 186.
“It is so funny … country”: Ibid., 260.
“‘Parties’ scared me … upsetting”: Mabel Dodge Luhan to CVV, September 22, 1930, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“strange” and “disquieting”: Joseph Hergesheimer to CVV, November 10, 1930, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
Marinoff was less diplomatic … home: CVV daybook, April 23, 1930, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; FM diary, April 22, 1930, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“they have so much in common … Freud”: H. O., “Freud and Van Vechten on Our Attempts to Escape Unhappiness,” Baltimore Evening Sun, September 13, 1930, CVV scrapbook 24, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
In time he came … achieved: In a letter to Reverend Peter Francis O’Brien, S.J., written one week before his death, CVV described Parties as his best novel. CVV to Reverend Peter Francis O’Brien, S.J., December 14, 1964. Letters in the possession of Reverend Peter Francis O’Brien, S.J.
“He was getting on … fifty”: CVV, Parties, 238.
On August 22 … lesbians: CVV daybook, August 22, 1930, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
the Silhouette, a favorite … ties: See Florence Tamagne, A History of Homosexuality in Europe, 1919–1939 (New York: Algora Publishing, 2004) and Mel Gordon, Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin (Port Townsend, WA: Feral House, 2000) for vivid details of the clubs Van Vechten visited during his trip.
“I am very sad … place”: CVV daybook, August 28, 1930, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Splendid Drunken Twenties, 299.
On May 18 … research: CVV to FM, May 18, 1931, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“rotten act”: CVV to FM, May 21, 1931, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 122.
“already forgotten … flowers”: CVV to FM, May 22, 1931, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 122.
12. PAPA WOOJUMS
he telegrammed Marinoff … airborne: CVV to FM, October 10, 1931, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL; CVV to Gertrude Stein, October 19, 1931, Burns, Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 246.
“tinkers with planes … liked it”: Joseph Mitchell, “Mrs. Van Vechten, ‘Tired of the Speakos,’ Becomes Fania Marinoff of Stage Again,” New York World-Telegram, January 12, 1932, CVV scrapbook 25, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
“Taylor Crump is … there”: Hunter Stagg to CVV, August 15, 1926, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
When they first spoke … high-handedness: Mark Lutz to Bruce Kellner, June 29, 1967, Bruce Kellner Papers, YCAL.
In one of his notebooks … nature: CVV notebook, undated, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
put Lutz in touch … trial: For commentary and analysis of Hughes’s response to the Scottsboro Boys incident, see Rampersad, I, Too, Sing America, 216–31; Langston Hughes and Susan Duffy, The Political Plays of Langston Hughes (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000).
“It was disappointing … yesterday”: Mark Lutz to CVV, December 16, 1944, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“I settled down … MILLUN”: Mark Lutz to CVV, June 20, 1945, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“bright winter Saturdays”: Prentiss Taylor to Bruce Kellner, May 21, 1980, Bruce Kellner Papers, YCAL.
“Great photographers are born, not educated”: “Born to Use a Lens,” New York Herald Tribune, October 16, 1938, CVV scrapbook 27, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL. CVV gave his opinions on what makes a great photographer in his review of Walker Evans’s seminal collection American Photographs.
As early as February … hold an exhibition: CVV to Gertrude Stein, February 28, 1932, Burns, Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 252.
struggling to decide … good: CVV to Max Ewing, February 7, 1932, Max Ewing Papers, YCAL.
By June he was … talent: CVV to Mabel Dodge Luhan, June 10, 1932, Mabel Dodge Luhan Papers, YCAL.
“My first subject … O’Neill”: J. M. Flagler, “The Talk of the Town: Van Vechten,” New Yorker (January 12, 1963), 21.
the volume of celebrated people … shoot: Prints of all these photographs can be found in Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“a few glasses … self-consciousness”: Mark Lutz to Bruce Kellner, June 29, 1967, Bruce Kellner Papers, YCAL.
“in about a twentieth of a second”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (May 18, 1960), 306, CCOHC.
“She began to cry … laughing”: Ibid.
“There are no good photographs … of her”: Ibid.
he used much of the same … “documentary”: CVV to Mary Seymour, October 19, 1942, Kellner, The Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 187; The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (May 14, 1960), 232, CCOHC.
“The revolutionary poems … ever”: CVV to Langston Hughes, March 4, 1933, Bernard, Remember Me to Harlem, 103–104.
“the only person one can improve is oneself”: CVV to Noel Sullivan, February 13, 1940, Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 172.
On March 7 … Germany: FM diary, March 7, 1934, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
She spent a good deal … marriage: FM diary, April 1935, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
In the summer of 1933 … Taos: Prints of this series of photographs are in Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
Even on December 31 … time: FM diary, December 31, 1935, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“elegance in the ordinary”: Lincoln Kirstein, “An Unpublished Eulogy for Carl Van Vechten, December 23, 1964,” Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“first saw an American ballet … ballerinas”: Ibid.
In May 1933 … “good”: CVV to Gertrude Stein, May 1, 1933, Burns, Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 266.
“only gave real loyalty … to her”: Andrea Weiss, Paris Was a Woman: Portraits from the Left Bank (London: Pandora, 1995), 98.
“a tinge of jealousy”: CVV to Gertrude Stein, October 23, 1933, Burns, Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 282.
“OUR Three Lives”: CVV to Gertrude Stein, September 21, 1933, Burns, Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 277.
“I am getting very excited”: Gertrude Stein to CVV, February 5, 1934, Burns, Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 294.
“I haven’t seen a crowd” … day: CVV to Gertrude Stein, February 8, 1934, Burns, Letters of Carl Van Vechten and Gertrude Stein, 295.
Henry-Russell Hitchcock … tears: Steve Watson, Prepare for Saints: Gertrude Stein, Virgil Thomson, and the Mainstreaming of American Modernism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 279.
he also implied that … in 1933: CVV, “A Few Notes About Four Saints in Three Acts,” Gertrude Stein, Four Saints in Three Acts. An Opera to Be Sung, etc. (New York: Random House, 1934), 7.
Thomson maintained his … elsewhere: Watson, Prepare for Saints, 199.
On her first night back … them all: FM diary, October 24, 1934, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
The scholar Tirza True Latimer … rival: Wanda M. Corn and Tirza True Latimer, Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 2011), 149.
On receiving the Virginia … “happy”: Gertrude Stein to CVV, March 12, 1935, Burns, Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 411.
A matter of weeks into the tour … time: CVV to Mabel Dodge Luhan, c. November 1934, Mabel Dodge Luhan Papers, YCAL.
“Thornton Wilder has got me … PLEASE!”: CVV to Gertrude Stein, 1935, Corn and Latimer, Seeing Gertrude Stein, 150.
“I always wanted to be … baby on”: Gertrude Stein and CVV, “A Message from Gertrude Stein,” Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), vii.
“It is violent and gentle … genuine”: Douglas Gilbert, “U.S. Is ‘Violent and Gentle,’ Miss Stein’s Parting Shot,” New York World-Telegram, May 4, 1935, CVV scrapbook 26, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL
13. YALE MAY NOT THINK SO, BUT IT’LL BE JUST JOLLY
“Im [sic] in a big show … notice!”: CVV to Langston Hughes, November 29, 1935, Bernard, Remember Me to Harlem, 133.
“literature’s loss is photography’s gain”: Henry McBride, “The Leica Exhibition,” New York Sun, November 30, 1935.
Man Ray, who was … work: Man Ray to CVV, September 14, 1934, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“They are damn swell … few”: Alfred Stieglitz to CVV, September 25, 1933, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“cold sober and … mood”: CVV, “Memories of Bessie Smith,” Jazz Record (September 1947): 7.
“I got nearer her real personality … exist”: Ibid., 29.
“I hadn’t planned to meet … saw him”: Milford, Zelda Fitzgerald, 347.
“a nice, sober … side”: Frances Scott Fitzgerald Lanahan to CVV, August 7, 1948, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“the glamour … years ago”: Zelda Fitzgerald to CVV, December 29, 1940, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“one red, one white … Americans”: Hughes, The Big Sea, 254–55.
“I always said … amusing”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (May 14, 1960), 270, CCOHC.
“tolerant of unorthodox behavior … advice”: Bernard, Carl Van Vechten and the Harlem Renaissance, 214.
a bronze statue … requested: For an illuminating analysis of this episode, see Bernard, Carl Van Vechten and the Harlem Renaissance.
“Walter was never … Johnson was”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (May 14, 1960), 266, CCOHC.
“to induce others to make … collection”: CVV, “The J. W. Johnson Collection at Yale,” Crisis (July 1942): 222.
“and no doubt verge toward the grandiloquent”: Langston Hughes to CVV, October 30, 1941, Bernard, Remember Me to Harlem, 193.
“Don’t be selfconscious about Yale … halls”: CVV to Langston Hughes, April 11, 1941, Bernard, Remember Me to Harlem, 196.
“was all white people’s … places”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (May 18, 1960), 294–95, CCOHC.
“I am mad over … segregation”: CVV to Arna Bontemps, December 31, 1943, Arna Bontemps Collection, YCAL; Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 199.
“The use of riches … level”: George Santayana, The Last Puritan: A Memoir in the Form of a Novel (London: Constable & Co., 1935); CVV notebook, Carl Van Vechten Papers, NYPL.
In the entry for … page 14: James Weldon Johnson Collection Catalogue, written by CVV, 411, 70, James Weldon Johnson Collection, YCAL.
“so much in your debt … for you”: Mahala Dutton Benedict Douglas to CVV, March 26, 1936, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“With great pleasure … sympathizers”: CVV to Dorothy Peterson, December 4, 1939, Dorothy Peterson Collection, YCAL; Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 169.
he noted that C.L.R. James’s … writer: James Weldon Johnson Collection Catalogue, written by CVV, 466, James Weldon Johnson Collection, YCAL.
He told Dorothy Peterson … “week”: CVV to Dorothy Peterson, October 23, 1942, Dorothy Peterson Collection, YCAL; Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 188.
telling Pearson that he made it … “Negroes”: CVV to Norman Holmes Pearson, September 28, 1948, Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 237.
“cultivate the art of living”: Santayana, The Last Puritan, 552–53.
“I am understood by … fewer”: George George to CVV, July 24, 1943, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
George came to idealize … grand: George George to CVV, January 18, 1944, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
By 1947 Hoover … existed: Jennifer Terry, An American Obsession: Science, Medicine, and Homosexuality in Modern Society (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 323.
between 1947 and 1955 … homosexuals: Ibid., 324–25.
The article in question … assault: “Whipping of Boy Starts Hunt for Harry K. Thaw,” New York Times, January 12, 1917, CVV scrapbook 11, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“Dad Praises Courage of Son-Turned-Daughter”: “Dad Praises Courage of Son-Turned-Daughter,” unidentified newspaper, c. December 1951, CVV scrapbook 9, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
The inclusion of … noted: Jonathan Weinberg, “Boy Crazy: Carl Van Vechten’s Queer Collection,” Yale Journal of Criticism 7, no. 2 (1994): 25–49.
Into his seventies and … woodpeckers: CVV to Aileen Pringle, September 22, 1953, and May 21, 1953, Aileen Pringle Papers, YCAL.
“pornography in the family mailbox”: Paul S. Boyer, Purity in Print: Book Censorship in America from the Gilded Age to the Computer Age (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), 297.
“occupy key positions … FBI”: William N. Eskridge, Gaylaw: Challenging the Apartheid of the Closet (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 75–76.
“Dear Carl … CURIOSA!”: CVV scrapbook 8, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“we should exchange … here”: Max Ewing to CVV, c. December 1932, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“some of them have worn … cold”: Max Ewing to CVV, July 22, 1932, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
“Note the influence of ‘Freaks’”: Ibid.
“my African model”: CVV to Langston Hughes, February 10, 1941, Bernard, Remember Me to Harlem, 185.
“Grace in suffering … St. Sebastian”: Charles Darwent, “Arrows of Desire,” Independent (February 10, 2008).
George wrote a fellow … beauty: George George to Bruce Kellner, December 7, 1979, Bruce Kellner Papers, YCAL.
“life more easy in a concentration camp”: CVV to Arthur Davison Ficke, December 18, 1940, Arthur Davison Ficke Papers, YCAL; Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 175.
“Yale May Not … Jolly”: CVV scrapbook 3, Carl Van Vechten Papers, YCAL.
EPILOGUE: THE ATTENTION THAT I USED TO GET
Months before its … published: CVV to Charles R. Byrne, c. June 1950, Kellner, Letters of Carl Van Vechten, 240–41.
“most of the Negroes … read it”: CVV, Nigger Heaven, “A Note by the Author.”
asking the Scottish academic … kilt: CVV to Bruce Kellner, c. June 1955, Bruce Kellner Papers, YCAL.
“segregation is being dealt … Negro”: CVV, Nigger Heaven, “A Note by the Author.”
“My relations with … to get”: The Reminiscences of Carl Van Vechten (May 14, 1960),” 274, CCOHC.
“was that Gertrude … chew”: CVV, “A Few Notes à Propos of a ‘Little’ Novel of Thank You,” Gertrude Stein, A Novel of Thank You, vol. 8 of The Yale Edition of the Unpublished Writings of Gertrude Stein (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1958), vii.
Aged seventy-eight … boys: CVV to Bruce Kellner, April 12, 1959, Bruce Kellner Papers, YCAL.
The artist Wynn Chamberlain … too far: Elwyn Chamberlain, interview with the author, July 2012.
“Very few Americans … engaged in”: Elwyn Chamberlain to CVV, September 9, 1954, CVV Papers, YCAL.
“between sensitive and creative people”: Ibid.
“one of the city’s most … Negroes”: Flagler, “The Talk of the Town: Van Vechten,” New Yorker, 21–22.