Lewis, David Levering. W. E. B. DuBois: Biography of a
Race, 1868–1919.New York: Henry Holt and Com-
pany, 1993.
Atlanta University
The alma mater and intellectual home of pioneer-
ing American writers, activists, and intellectuals,
Atlanta University was established in 1865 by
Northern Congregationalist missionaries.
JAMESWELDONJOHNSON, an NAACP leader,
is one of its best-known graduates. Joseph Bibb,
founder of the Chicago Whip,enrolled there, and
GEORGIA DOUGLASJOHNSON, the Washington,
D.C., poet, furthered her studies there as well. In
1897 W. E. B. DUBOIS, a sociology Ph.D. from
HARVARDUNIVERSITY, began his 13-year tenure
there. In 1935 WILLIAMSTANLEYBRAITHWAITE
joined the faculty as a professor of creative writing,
a position that he held for 10 years. The institution
is known now as Clark Atlanta University follow-
ing its 1988 merger with Clark College, one of the
city’s historically black institutions.
Bibliography
Bacote, Clarence. The Story of Atlanta University: A Cen-
tury of Service, 1865–1965.Atlanta: Atlanta Uni-
versity Press, 1969.
Lewis, David Levering. W. E. B. DuBois: Biography of a
Race, 1868–1919.New York: Henry Holt and Com-
pany, 1993.
Atlantic Monthly, The
A highly respected “magazine of literature, art, and
politics” that was founded in Boston in November
- James Russell Lowell, a Harvard University
graduate, poet, and literary critic, was the first edi-
tor and served from 1857 through 1861. The writer
William Dean Howells, whose poetry, fiction, and
literary reviews appeared in the journal, eventually
became one of its best-known editors. From 1871
and throughout his tenure as editor, Howells en-
couraged a diverse group of writers, including
Stephen Crane, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Sarah Orne
Jewett, CHARLESCHESNUTT, and Edith Wharton.
During the 19th century, prominent writers such as
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and
Mark Twain published memorable pieces in the
journal. In 1869, Stowe’s controversial essay on
Lord Byron appeared and prompted some 15,000
readers to cancel their subscriptions. Two years
later, in 1871, the journal paid Bret Harte the im-
pressive sum of $10,000 for 12 stories. Twain’s writ-
ing on his adventures aboard American steamboats,
on which he based his 1883 book entitled Life on
the Mississippi,appeared in the Atlanticin 1875.
Charles Chesnutt was the first African-
American writer to be published in the monthly
periodical. During the 1920s the Atlanticbegan
publishing articles of a more political nature, in-
cluding essays by African-American figures such
as BOOKERT. WASHINGTON. It also published
the works of Harlem Renaissance writers such as
RUDOLPHFISHER, who made his literary debut
with “The City of Refuge,” the short story that
appeared in 1925.Attaway, William(1911–1986)
A novelist, playwright, and composer who began to
publish in the last years of the Harlem Renaissance.
Two years after he published his first novel, Let Me
Breathe Thunder(1939), he completed BLOOD ON
THEFORGE(1941). Between 1950 and 1985, Att-
away published works that included two books on
music and two scripts, one of which focused on the
Atlanta serial killings of African-American boys.
Critics have drawn parallels between Attaway’s
works of sobering realism and those written by
ARNABONTEMPSand RICHARDWRIGHT. His first
novel focused on white transients and offered a
compelling account of depression-era life. It was
Attaway’s second work of fiction, however, that re-
vealed his capacity for generating riveting accounts
of African-American life and experiences. His tale
about three southern brothers who join the black
migration to the North is a tragic story about the
crisis of black masculinity, the social tensions sur-
rounding integration, and the sometimes over-
whelming and inhumane demands of the American
urban workplace.At the Coffee HouseGeorge S. Schuyler
(1925)
A sparse one-act play by GEORGES. SCHUYLER
that appeared in the June 1925 issue of The
MESSENGER.At the Coffee House 15