571

Y

Yale University
Founded in 1701 and part of the Ivy League, a
group of eight prestigious northeastern universities,
Yale was renamed in 1718 after Elihu Yale, a
British merchant and the school’s benefactor. Dis-
tinguished alumni of the school that is located now
in New Haven, Connecticut, include Samuel
Morse, William Howard Taft, Noah Webster, and
Eli Whitney.
A number of individuals who shaped the liter-
ary and political traditions of the Harlem Renais-
sance attended Yale University and its law school.
OWEN DODSON earned an M.F.A. from the
renowned School of Drama, and SHIRLEYGRAHAM
DUBOISenjoyed a two-year residency there on a
JULIUS ROSENWALD FELLOWSHIP. Among those
who completed undergraduate and graduate work
there were JOSEPH DANDRIDGEBIBB,SHEPPARD
RANDOLPH EDMONDS,JOHN FARRAR,WILLIAM
FERRIS,WALDOFRANK, George Edmund Haynes,
WILLIAMPICKENS, and CLEMENT WOOD.ARNA
BONTEMPSbecame the chief archivist of the im-
pressive JAMESWELDONJOHNSONcollection, held
in the university’s Beinecke Library.

Bibliography
Kelley, Brooks. Yale: A History.New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 1974.

Yeiser, Idabelle (1897–unknown)
An active member of the literary circles in
PHILADELPHIAduring the Harlem Renaissance, a
poet, and a prize-winning essayist. There are lim-
ited biographical details about Yeiser’s early and

late life. The details that she herself provided in au-

tobiographical prefaces to her works reveal that she

spent part of her life in New Jersey and graduated

from the State Normal School in Montclair. Yeiser,

who attended the UNIVERSITY OFPENNSYLVANIA

for a time, earned her Ph.D. in French from

COLUMBIAUNIVERSITY. After time abroad, she re-

turned to Philadelphia and began a teaching career.

During the Harlem Renaissance, Yeiser published

in the major journals THECRISISand OPPORTUNITY.

Her travels in Europe and the Middle East inspired

her essay “ANECHO FROMTOULOUSE,” published in

the July 1926 Crisis.One year later she published

“Letters,” an autobiographical travel narrative. In

1937 Yeiser published MOODS,her first collection of

poems and her only Harlem Renaissance–era book.

Her second collection, Lyric and Legend,appeared

in 1947.

Yeiser appears to have settled in Louisiana after

the Harlem Renaissance. In 1945 she was identified

as a professor of education at Dillard University and

celebrated as one of several faculty members who

had “distinguished themselves not only as teachers

but as writers and scholars” (Dillard Bulletin,1945).

Bibliography

Dillard Bulletin,December 1945. Available online. URL:

http://books.dillard.edu/ Archives/Bulletin. Accessed

June 1, 2005.

Yellow Peril: A One-Act PlayGeorge Schuyler

(1925)

A comical but pointed play by GEORGESCHUYLER

about intraracial sexual mores and mischief. The