Nella Larsen

Who was Nella Larsen?

Background

• Born 1891 in Chicago
• Died in 1964 in NYC
• Biracial (black Indian father, white Dutch mother)
• Attended historically black college, Fisk University
• Studied at University of Copenhagen (Denmark)
• Received nursing certification in NYC
• Superintendent of nurses at Tuskegee Institute, Alabama
• Returned to NYC, worked in the public library system

The Harlem Renaissance brought recognition to Larsen's writing. She was the first African-American woman to get the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. Although Larsen's career was brief, contemporary interest in her writing has elevated her to the status of one of the most significant figures of the time.

Interesting Facts

• Married famed physics professor Elmer Imes in 1919, who was the second black person to ever earn a Ph.D in physics.

• Couple relocated to Harlem, and Larsen began writing a collection of short stories.

• Exposed to other Harlem Renaissance greats such as famed writer/photographer Carl Van Vechten, the NAACP's Walter White, W.E.B. Du Bois, and other related figures as a result of Imes' status in the community.

• Elmer (Clare's husband) and Van Vechten (Hugh Wentworth) are used as influences in "Passing."

Social Issues

• Larsen's mom urged her to go to Fisk College, a historically black college in Nashville, Tennessee.
• Larsen lived in an African-American community for the first time as a student there in 1907-08.
• She felt isolated from the majority, who were basically from the South, and descendents of previous slaves.
• Larsen was expelled for a violation of Fisk's strict dress or conduct codes for women.
• Larsen left and traveled solo to Denmark, where she learned at the College of Copenhagen from 1909-1912.

• Larsen enrolled in nursing school at the Lincoln Hospital and Nursing Home in New York City in 1914.
• The institution was founded in the nineteenth century in Manhattan as a nursing home for black people.
• Larsen moved south after graduating in 1915 to work at the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, where she quickly rose to the position of head nurse at the institute's hospital and training school.  
• While at Tuskegee, she was introduced to Booker T. Washington's educational model and became disillusioned with it.
• Larsen decided to leave Tuskegee after about a year because of the poor working conditions for nurses there.

Nursing Career

• In 1930, Nella Larsen's life and career were turned upside down.
• While working on her third novel in Spain, her short story "Sanctuary" was accused of plagiarism.
• She discovered her husband was cheating on her with a white woman.
• They divorced in 1933 shortly after the publishing of Passing, and Nella Larsen's third novel remained unfinished.

Post-writing Career

Quicksand

In her debut book, Quicksand (1928), a young, independent biracial woman searches for love, acceptance, and a sense of direction only to become bogged down in an emotional quagmire of her own making.

Autobiographical in some natures, the novel explores racial duality and comments on the struggles of Black, middle-class women.

The novel was lauded for its authenticity of the Black voice and experience, and it won second prize in a Harmon Foundation contest, sparking Larsen's career as a Harlem Renaissance artist.

Passing

"It’s funny about ‘passing.’ We disapprove of it and at the same time condone it. It excites our contempt and yet we rather admire it. We shy away from it with an odd kind of revulsion, but we protect it." - Nella Larsen, Passing, 1929

Passing

Plot

Setting: 1920s Chicago

Clare Kendry, a biracial and light-skinned Black woman "passing" as white, who reunites with her childhood friend, Irene Redfield, in Chicago. Irene narrates our story.

Passing is the story of Clare and Irene grappling with their marriages and, in many facets, completely opposite lives.

Connections to TEWWG

BIOGRAPHY