the Harlem Renaissance. The organization hoped
to produce annual issues and was quite firm in its
resolve only to circulate, rather than sell, copies to
members and a small number of interested sup-
porters. Members also hoped to use the publication
as part of their own efforts to improve their writing
rather than to acquire fame or simply to draw at-
tention to themselves.
The first issue, which appeared in June 1928,
three years after the founding of the club, provided
readers with a detailed note about the missions of
the Quill Club members. Editor EUGENEGORDON,
a Boston Postjournalist and Quill Club president,
insisted that the magazine’s purpose was “chiefly to
present original work of Saturday Evening Quill
Club members to themselves” and that “this publi-
cation is not for sale.” Gordon explained that
“Members are not particularly desirous of hearing
praise of what is found herein, but will listen to it,
as, also, they will listen to adverse criticism.” “Nor
have the members an exalted opinion of their
work,” he revealed. “They had not published it be-
cause they think any of it ‘wonderful’ or ‘remark-
able,’ or ‘extraordinary,’ or ‘unusual,’ or even
promising. They have published it because being
human, they are possessed of the very human traits
of vanity and egotism.” He also noted matter-of-
factly that the publication would be produced only
if “it annually has something to publish and suffi-
cient money with which to pay the printer.”
There were three annual issues of the maga-
zine published from 1928 through 1930 and ap-
proximately 250 copies of each issue produced.
The group refrained from printing additional
copies even when besieged by “numerous re-
questors.” Unlike some of the more daring maga-
zines and editorial groups, the Quillmaintained an
air of literary propriety and prided itself on the re-
spectable material that appeared in each issue. The
issues featured poems, plays, essays, short stories,
and book reviews, many of which were sophisti-
cated creative works.
A number of prominent figures published their
work in the Saturday Evening Quill.Among those
featured in the magazine were LEWISALEXANDER,
EDYTHEGORDON,FLORENCEHARMON,ALVIRA
HAZZARD,HELENE JOHNSON, and DOROTHY
WEST.Saturday Evening Quillmembers devoted the
April 1929 issue to member and poet A. Aloysius
Greene, one of the youngest members, who had
just passed away tragically at age 23 and for whom
“the inevitability of [his] brilliant future only death
could hinder.”
The Saturday Evening Quillearned high criti-
cal praises from leading figures of the Harlem Re-
naissance. W. E. B. DUBOIS, longtime editor of the
New York City–based CRISIS,suggested that “[o]f
the booklets issues by young Negro writers in New
York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere, this collection
from Boston is the most interesting and best.” He
went on to insist that not only was it “well printed
and readable” but that it “maintains a high mark of
literary excellence.” The widely read New York
AMSTERDAMNEWSpredicted that the existence of
the Quill Club and its magazine was encouraging.
“Of such things good literature will come,” it pre-
dicted. “Harlem writers should follow their exam-
ple” (Saturday Evening Quill,April 1929).
Although it was a short-lived literary enter-
prise, the Saturday Evening Quillmagazine was a
significant Harlem Renaissance endeavor.Saturday Evening Quill Club
The BOSTON-based literary club established during
the Harlem Renaissance. Like similar literary soci-
eties in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., the
group, also known as the Boston Quill Club, met
regularly to discuss literary matters and new works.
The club’s publication, the SATURDAYEVENING
QUILL,referred to the club as “an organization of
Boston writers,” most of whom “are unprofession-
als, and all, incidentally, are Negroes, although
anybody who is eligible may become a member.”
Members of the Quill Club included promi-
nent Bostonians and others who went on to
achieve fame during the Harlem Renaissance. The
membership roll included Alice Furlong, EDYTHE
GORDON,EUGENEGORDON,GERTRUDEPARTHE-
NIAMCBROWN, Grace Vera Postles, FLORIDARUF-
FIN RIDLEY,GERTRUDE SCHALK, and Roscoe
Wright.
In 1928 the group began to publish the Satur-
day Evening Quill,a short-lived but significant pub-
lication of the period. Eugene Gordon edited the
annual publication that was circulated, rather than
sold, to members and supporters. During its three
years of publication, the magazine featured works466 Saturday Evening Quill Club