founder of Chicago’s first African-American fed-
erally chartered bank, started the publication in
- Its editor was Katherine Williams Irvin.
The magazine’s subtitle, “A Colored Monthly
for the Businessman and the Homemaker,” sig-
naled its goal to provide articles on business, do-
mestic practices, and material culture that this
upwardly mobile constituency might find especially
appealing. In addition, The Half-Centuryincluded
works of nonfiction, news, and fiction. The Half-
Century, which ceased publication in 1925 and
merged with Overton’s Chicago Bee,was one of
several well-known African-American periodicals
and newspapers based in Chicago, including AB-
BOTT’SMONTHLYand the CHICAGODEFENDER.
Bibliography
Johnson, Abby Arthur, and Ronald Maberry Johnson.
Propaganda & Aesthetics: The Literary Politics of
African American Magazines in the Twentieth Cen-
tury.Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1979.
Handy, William Christopher (W. C. Handy)
(1873–1958)
A pioneering musician whose compositions and ef-
forts to establish music companies created an impor-
tant legacy in American blues music. Born in
Florence, Alabama, to formerly enslaved parents,
Handy showed his talents in music while still a
child. He excelled in school and considered pursu-
ing a career in teaching, but the low salary and
pressing demands created by sharecropping and
farming on his students persuaded Handy to stay fo-
cused on music. He taught briefly at Alabama
A&M University before immersing himself com-
pletely in the music communities of CHICAGOand
throughout the South.
Handy enjoyed major success in the decades
leading up to the Harlem Renaissance period. His
most well-known songs include “Memphis Blues”
(1912), “St. Louis Blues” (1914), and “A Good
Man Is Hard to Find” (1918), which sold some half
a million copies. In 1926 Handy published Blues:
An Anthology. During the 1930s, he published
Negro Authors and Composers of the United States
(1936) and two years later The Book of Negro Spiri-
tuals(1938). Handy’s autobiography Father of the
Blues,edited by ARNABONTEMPSand based on
Handy’s notes about his life, appeared in 1941.
Handy threatened to sue Bontemps because he
was not pleased with the volume. Despite the con-
flict, Bontemps, who saw no problems with the
memoir, included Handy’s lyrics in Golden Slippers
(1942), his anthology of poetry for children.Bibliography
Handy, W. C. Father of the Blues: An Autobiography,
edited by Arna Bontemps. 1941, reprint, New York:
Da Capo Press, 1985.“Hannah Byde”Dorothy West(1926)
One of the first two stories that prompted
DOROTHYWESTto relocate to NEWYORKCITY
and immerse herself in the Harlem Renaissance
communities. “Hannah Byde” appeared in the July
1926 issue of THEMESSENGER;its companion piece,
the prize-winning short story “THETYPEWRITER,”
appeared in the July 1926 issue of OPPORTUNITY.
“Hannah Byde” complements the stark do-
mestic realism in works by EUGENE GORDON,
ZORANEALEHURSTON,NELLALARSEN, and oth-
ers. Its central character, Hannah Byde, can hardly
be called a protagonist. She is plagued by her pow-
erlessness and the limits that her class position and
unsatisfying marriage place on her. Hannah strikes
out at her husband George, a man who tries to
provide her with luxuries. She rejects him and his
efforts, even though he tells her, “Ain’t no man
livin’ c’n do better’n his best.”
The story opens on New Year’s Eve, a night
on which Hannah begins to unravel. She imag-
ines her husband dead, entertains visions of her
own funeral, and contemplates how she might kill
herself. A newlywed neighbor drops by to listen to
records and asks George to come down to her flat
to persuade her hardworking physician husband
to join them in some New Year’s revelry. Left
alone, Hannah prepares to cut her throat but
faints before she can. When she is revived, the
doctor sitting by her bedside encourages her to
live and to protect her unborn child. He and his
new bride leave George and Hannah to them-
selves. Hannah reveals her pregnancy, is taken
aback by George’s delight, and then shuns him.
The story closes as she locks herself in the bed-
room, “flung herself across the bed and laughed
and laughed and laughed.”210 Handy, William Christopher