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Melvin Donalson
Van Vechten, Carl (1880–1964)
Carl Van Vechten was a writer, critic, and pho-
tographer best known as a white promoter of
African-American cultural expression. Van Vech-
ten initiated his career as an arts critic for such
periodicals as the New York Times, the New York
Press, and the New Music Review. After tiring of
criticism in the early 1920s, Van Vechten authored
a number of popular novels offering satirical ex-
plorations of the decadent lifestyle of his “mod-
ern” social circle; the most notable of these are
Peter Whiffle (1922), The Blind Bow-Boy (1923),
Firecrackers (1925), Spider Boy (1928), and Parties
(1930). His most widely read work both then and
now, however, is his popular Harlem novel NIG-
GER HEAVEN (1926), a highly controversial though
sympathetic and candid account of the burgeon-
ing New Negro Renaissance.
Van Vechten was born into a progressive Victo-
rian household in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Both par-
ents taught him to respect individuals regardless
of race or socioeconomic standing. He was deeply
influenced by his father, Charles Duane Van Vech-
ten, a founder of the Piney Woods School for Af-
rican-American children in Mississippi, who had
an unorthodox concern for African Americans.
Carl, or “Carlo” as he was later called by friends,
learned to treat local black laborers in the same
manner he treated middle-class whites (Bernard,
xviii). While attending the University of Chicago,
Van Vechten explored black neighborhoods and
spent time at churches and nightclubs run by
Chicago blacks. During this period he adopted an
idealistic image of African Americans as a whole
and later admitted that his early experiences may
have made him more sympathetic to blacks than
any social grouping deserves. Writing to CHESTER
HIMES, Van Vechten, at age 76, explained that his
youthful sympathy toward the black race, benign
as it may have been, vanished after a revelation
that, in fact, not all African Americans were the
same: “one day I came home shouting, ‘I HATE a
Negro! I HATE a Negro!’ It was my salvation and
since then I’ve had no trouble at all. From that
point on I understood that they were like every-
body else that is they were thieves and cut-throats,
generous and pious, witty and wise, dumb and
foolish” (Letters 259).
In 1924, Van Vechten met writer and civil rights
activist WALTER WHITE at a party hosted by their
publisher Alfred Knopf (Knopf had published
White’s novel The Fire in the Flint that year); they
instantly became friends. Within weeks White in-
troduced Van Vechten to life in Harlem, where he
met and befriended many black intellectuals and
celebrities, including LANGSTON HUGHES, JAMES
WELDON JOHNSON, JESSIE FAUSET, Paul Robeson,
and WALLACE THURMAN. The relationships be-
came mutually beneficial: The writers provided
Van Vechten with access to black Manhattan, and
in return, he promoted their works to the “great
white” publishing market. Within three weeks of
meeting Langston Hughes, for example, Van Vech-
ten convinced Knopf to publish the 23-year-old’s
first book of poetry, The Weary Blues (1926).
Van Vechten was, in Ann Douglas’s words, “a li-
aison and PR man extraordinaire between Harlem
and white New York” (81). He was instrumental
in securing publication for many key Harlem Re-
naissance texts, including a new edition of James
Weldon Johnson’s The AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN EX-
COLORED MAN (1912, 1927), NELLA LARSEN’s novels
Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929), and poetry
by Langston Hughes and COUNTEE CULLEN. Va n
Vechten, who was older than many of the youth-
ful talents he supported, assumed a paternal role
in their career. After Paul Robeson’s wife, Essie,
referred to him as “godfather,” the Herald TribuneVan Vechten, Carl 521