Related Guides
Historical Context
Below are brief lists of resources highlighting key aspects of the play’s historical context. Please note that these lists are not exhaustive; for additional materials on each topic, consult the library catalog and databases.
The Great Migration
Links
"Great Migration." Entry from Brittanica.com
The Great Migration, 1910-1970 (The National Archives)
Books
Chicago's New Negroes: Modernity, the Great Migration, & Black Urban Life by Davarian L. Baldwin. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2007.
Knock at the Door of Opportunity: Black Migration to Chicago, 1900-1919 by Christopher Robert Reed. Carbondale, SIU Press, 2014.
Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration by James R. Grossman. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1989.
Early 20th Century Black Communism and Socialism
Books
Black Marxism: the Making of the Black Radical Tradition by Cedric J. Robinson. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020.
Black Scare, Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States by Charisse Burden-Stelly. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2023.
New Negro, Old Left: African-American Writing and Communism Between the Wars by William J. Maxwell. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
Garveyism
Links
"Garveyism." Entry from the Encyclopedia of Chicago (Chicago History Museum)
Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (National Humanities Center)
Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey (HathiTrust)
A. Philip Randolph on Marcus Garvey (Library of Congress)
Books
Black Moses: the story of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association by Edmund David Cronon. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969.
Black Power and the Garvey Movement by Theodore G. Vincent. Baltimore, MD: Black Classic Press, 2006.
Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey by Theodore G. Vincent. Baltimore, MD: Black Classic Press, 2006.
The Works Progress Administration
Links
Illinois Writers Project (Chicago Public Library)
"Overview of the History and Activities of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the Midwest." Video produced by Encyclopedia Britannica
"We Work Again." Promotional reel created by the Works Progress Administration, 1937
"Works Progress Administration." Entry from Brittanica.com
Records of the Federal Works Progress Administration (National Archives)
Books
American-Made: the Enduring Legacy of the WPA: When FDR Put the Nation to Work by Nick Taylor. New York: Bantam Books, 2008.
Federal Relief Administration and the Arts; the Origins and Administrative History of the Arts Projects of the Works Progress Administration by William Francis McDonald. Columbus: Ohio University Press, 1969.
The Negro in Illinois: the WPA Papers. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2013.
The WPA: Creating Jobs and Hope in the Great Depression by Sandra Opdycke. New York: Routledge, 2016.
The WPA Federal Theatre Project
A Century of Negro Migration by Carter G. Woodson, 1918.
Photo credit: Library of Congress Digital Collections. https://lccn.loc.gov/18017856