survive, also transcending the impending limita-
tion he faced to become a writer.
While self-exiled in Europe like JAMES BALDWIN
and ALFRED B. CELESTINE, Fair also published two
collections of poems, Excerpts (London, 1975) and
Rufus (Germany, 1977). Fair also received a grant
from the National Endowment for the Arts (1974)
and a Guggenheim Fellowship (1975). Although
his work has received mixed reviews overall, he
received an award for World of Nothing from the
National Endowment of Letters (1971) and a Best
Book Award from the American Library Associa-
tion for We Can’t Breathe (1972).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baxter Miller, R. “Ronald L. Fair.” In Dictionary of
Literary Biography, vol. 33: Afro-American Fiction
Writers after 1955, edited by Thadious Davis and
Trudier Harris, 65–76. Detroit: Gale, 1984.
Bell, Bernard W. The Afro-American Novel and Its
Tradition. Amherst: University of Massachusetts
Press, 1987.
Fair, Ronald. Hog Butcher. New York: Bantam Books,
1966.
Rich Roberts
Fauset, Jessie Redmon (1882–1961)
Jessie Redmon Fauset was born on April 27, 1882,
the seventh child of Anna Seamon and Redmon
Fauset, a Methodist Episcopal minister from Phil-
adelphia. The family lived in Fredericksville, New
Jersey. Her mother passed away when Jessie was
still a child. Her father then married Bella Huff, a
widow with three children of her own; together,
Bella and Redmon had three children. In 1900,
Fauset graduated with honors from the Phila-
delphia High School for Girls; she was probably
the only African-American student in her high
school. Fauset became the first African-American
woman to attended Cornell University in Ithaca,
New York, graduating in 1905. She was also the
first African American to be elected to the honor
society Phi Beta Kappa at Cornell University. She
began her career as a teacher of Latin and French
at Washington, D.C.’s M Street High School (later
renamed Dunbar High School). Fauset received
this post after a Philadelphia school had rejected
her because of her race. Fauset also earned a
master’s degree in French from the University of
Pennsylvania (1919) and studied in Paris at the
Sorbonne. After her studies, Fauset went to live in
New York City.
Often called “the Midwife of the HARLEM RE-
NAISSANCE,” Fauset, a prolific, economically secure
writer and well-known editor, sought to mentor
a younger generation of writers aiming to find
voice and style. This group included LANGSTON
HUGHES, JEAN TOOMER, GEORGE SCHUYLER, and
COUNTEE CULLEN. Starting in 1919, Fauset was the
literary editor of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR
THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE (NAACP)
publication The CRISIS; she became a contributing
editor in 1926. Her work as an editor allowed her
to collaborate closely with W. E. B. DUBOIS. From
1920 to 1921, she also worked on the NAACP’s
The Brownies Book, a publication modeled after
The Crisis for African-American children. Her
first novel, THERE IS CONFUSION, was honored at
the 1924 March “Civic Club Dinner” in the pres-
ence of other Harlem Renaissance authors. In
1927 Fauset resigned as an editor of The Crisis
and accepted a position as a teacher of French at
New York City’s De Witt Clinton High School. She
taught in New York City until 1944. In 1929 Fauset
married Herbert E. Harris; they moved to Mont-
clair, New Jersey, in 1940. In 1945 Fauset’s friend
Laura Wheeler Waring painted her portrait. The
painting is housed today in the National Portrait
Gallery. Following her husband’s death in 1958,
Fauset returned to live in Philadelphia, where she
died on April 30, 1961.
Fauset published several novels during the
Harlem Renaissance, including There Is Confusion
(1924), Plum Bun: A Novel without a Moral (1928),
The Chinaberry Tree: A Novel of American Life
(1931), and Comedy, American Style (1933). She
also published a number of poems, essays, book
reviews, children’s stories, short stories, and trans-
lations. Fauset’s creative work deals primarily with
the situation of a highly educated black middle
class. Her novels address topics like the situation
of middle-class African-American women, racial180 Fauset, Jessie Redmon