71

C

Calloway, Cabell (Cab), III(1907–1994)
An extremely popular and beloved figure of the
Harlem Renaissance era. Born on Christmas Day
in 1907 in Rochester, New York, he began to study
law but turned instead to music. He became the
bandleader at the COTTONCLUBshortly after he
arrived in HARLEMin 1928.

Calverton, V. F.(Victor Francis Calverton)
(1900–1940)
A white Marxist intellectual, an accomplished edi-
tor of the Modern Quarterly,and the first editor of
the ANTHOLOGY OFAMERICANNEGROLITERA-
TURE.Born George Goetz, he was the first of
three children of Charles and Ida Geiger Goetz,
German-Americans who settled in Baltimore,
Maryland. Calverton, who adopted this new name
in the 1920s in order to protect himself from politi-
cal prejudice, attended Johns Hopkins University
and graduated in 1921. He began graduate studies
there but left to become a public school teacher in
Baltimore. He married twice. Following his divorce
from Helen Letzer, his first wife and the mother of
his daughter, Calverton married Nina Melville in

1931. He died in 1940 as a result of pernicious
      anemia. Calverton was buried in Loudon Park
      Cemetery in Baltimore.
      Calverton was an earnest political activist
      whose beliefs were shaped by his family’s tradition
      of outspoken critique. He embraced socialism but
      during his twenties turned to communism. He es-
      tablished the journal Modern Quarterlyin 1923, just

two years after graduating from college. He served

as editor of the journal until his untimely death in

1940s. As Calverton scholar Phillip Abbott notes,

the journal featured writings by influential political

and literary figures such as Leon Trotsky, John

Dewey, SHERWOODANDERSON, and LANGSTON

HUGHES. From 1934 through 1936, MAXEASTMAN

worked alongside Calverton as co-editor of the

journal. Eastman recalled that he was especially

“proud” of this work and that “Calverton had gen-

erously offered him an outlet when no publication

would print his criticism of Stalinism” (Abbott, 3).

The first volume of the Anthology of American

Negro Literature appeared in 1929. It included

works by well-known writers of the Harlem Re-

naissance period such as LEWIS ALEXANDER,

GWENDOLYNBENNETT,COUNTEECULLEN,GEOR-

GIADOUGLASJOHNSON,JAMESWELDONJOHN-

SON, Langston Hughes, JOHN MATHEUS, and

NELLALARSEN. Critics Victor Kramer and Robert

Russ credit Calverton for his “exceptional indepen-

dence of white stereotypes.” They and others sug-

gest that it was Calverton’s Marxist philosophies

and appreciation of African-American economic

realities that fueled his genuine interest in African-

American literature during the Renaissance.

Calverton was a prolific man who was a regu-

lar contributor to leading American publications

and an author and editor of numerous cultural and

literary studies, including The Bankruptcy of Mar-

riage, American Literature at the Crossroads, Sex in

Civilization,and Woman’s Coming of Age.Abbott

notes that “there was not a major journal in