Frank, Waldo (1889–1967)
A talented white writer whose involvement with
the Harlem Renaissance included stints with con-
temporary publications and close ties to the writer
JEAN TOOMER, with whom he traveled on
Toomer’s formative journey throughout the South.
He was born in New Jersey to Julius and Helen
Frank. MARGARETNAUMBERG, the first of his
three wives, became the lover and spiritual mentor
of Toomer, the author of CANE.Frank was a noted
literary critic and editor of the period.
Like ALAIN LOCKE,RUDOLPH FISHER, and
JESSIEFAUSET, Frank was a PHIBETAKAPPAscholar.
After graduating from YALEUNIVERSITYand a short
residency in Paris, Frank arrived in NEWYORKCITY.
In 1916 he collaborated with VANWYCKBROOKS
and others to establish the arts journal THESEVEN
ARTS.The antiwar platform of the magazine’s editors
resulted in federal censure, and The Seven Acts ulti-
mately was forced out of print. A decade later, he
was contributing editor on THENEWREPUBLICand
NEWMASSES.Frank was an outspoken political ac-
tivist who had ties to the COMMUNISTPARTY. Twice
during the 1930s he endorsed and campaigned for
Communist Party presidential candidates.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Frank published
several novels with BONI&LIVERIGHT, the same
firm that published JESSIEFAUSET,JEANTOOMER,
and ERICWALROND. Works published during the
1920s and 1930s included The Dark Mother
(1920), Rahab(1922), a lynching tragedy entitled
HOLIDAY (1923), Chalk Face (1924), and The
Bridegroom Cometh(1938). Frank also wrote two
plays, New Year’s Eve(1929) and Dot(1933).
Bibliography
Bittner, William. The Novels of Waldo Frank.Philadel-
phia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1958.
Carter, Paul. Waldo Frank.New York: Twayne Publishers,
1967.
Cooley, John. “White Writers and the Harlem Renais-
sance.” In The Harlem Renaissance: Revaluations,
edited by Amritjit Singh, Stanley Brodwin, and
William Shiver. New York: Garland Press, 1989,
13–22.
Helbling, Mark. “Jean Toomer and Waldo Frank.” Phy-
lon: The Atlanta University Review of Race and Cul-
ture41 (1980): 167–178.
Trachtenberg, Alan, ed., Memoirs of Waldo Frank.
Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1973.
Frazier, Edward Franklin(1894–1962)
A pioneering sociologist and educator who began
his professional career in the 1930s following his
completion of doctoral studies at the UNIVERSITY
OFCHICAGO. The first of four children born to
James Frazier, a bank messenger, and Mary Clark
Frazier, whose work as a domestic supported the
family after James’s untimely death in 1905, Frazier
also was the paternal grandson of a slave who
bought his family’s freedom. In 1922 he married
Mary Winton, a published poet and aspiring lawyer
from North Carolina who benefited from profes-
sional advice on her writing from the poet COUN-
TEECULLEN.
Educated in the segregated Baltimore school
system, Frazier went on to attend HOWARDUNI-
VERSITYon scholarship, and his impressive schol-
arly efforts earned him the nickname of “Plato.”
Following graduation from Howard, he began a se-
ries of teaching jobs that included posts at
TUSKEGEEINSTITUTE. He continued his graduate
studies throughout the 1920s and earned a mas-
ter’s degree in sociology from Clark University in
Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1920. In 1921 he be-
came the first African-American recipient of the
prestigious American Scandinavian Foundation
Fellowship and used the award to finance a year of
studies at the UNIVERSITY OFCOPENHAGEN.In
1923 he began doctoral studies at the University
of Chicago, received a prestigious Social Science
Research Council Grant to fund his research on
the African-American family, and earned his
Ph.D. in 1931. In 1940 he joined the elite intellec-
tual circle of Guggenheim Fellows and used his
fellowship to develop a comparative study of race
relations in Brazil and in the United States. He
was the president of the American Sociological
Society and, as such, was the first African Ameri-
can to serve as president of a predominantly white
professional organization.
Frazier’s professional career as a scholar and
sociologist included faculty appointments at AT-
LANTAUNIVERSITY, Carleton College, FISKUNI-
VERSITY, Howard University, MOREHOUSECOLLEGE,
Sarah Lawrence College, New York University, and
the University of California at Berkeley. In 1934 he
became chair of the Sociology Department at
Howard and is credited with revitalizing the cur-174 Frank, Waldo