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Acknowledgments My abiding interest in Jean Toomer has indebted me to many scholars, informants, and friends over the years. The late Robert B. Jones first piqued my interest in Toomer. Kent Anderson Leslie was of great assistance in ferreting out biographical information, securing permission to publish Toomer family photographs, and supplying me with helpful genealogical charts. Nathan Grant’s and Charles Scruggs’s astute readings of the manuscript for the University of Illinois Press were very helpful as I revised the text for publication. Other scholars who have assisted me are Esme Bhan, Rudolph P. Byrd, Lee Ann Caldwell, Edward Cashin, Russell Eliot Dale, Timothy Dayton, Maria Onita Estes-Hicks, Cynthia Franklin, Peter Gardner, Angus Gillespie, Marcial González, David Hoddeson, Cynthia Earl Kerman, Charles Larson, Nellie Y. McKay, Adam McKible, Gregory Meyerson , Carlton Morse, David G. Nicholls, Gino Michael Pellegrini, Carla Peterson, Kathleen Pfeiffer, Lola Richardson, Frederik L. Rusch, Gerald J. Smith, Claudia Tate, Paul Beekman Taylor, Mark Whalan, Belinda Wheeler, and Jon Woodson. I am grateful to the many members of the staff at Yale’s Beinecke Library who have patiently assisted me over the years, including Sara Azam, Nancy Kuhl, and Patricia C. Willis. I wish to thank L. Malcolm Morris of the Division of Archives of the State of Louisiana; Andrea Jackson of the Atlanta University Center; Joellen ElBashir and Robin Van Fleet of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University; Brenda Square of the Amistad Research Center, Tulane University ; Sandra Stelts of the Rare Books Room, Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania; Judith Gray of the Library of Congress; Ann Allen Shockley of the Special Collections Division at the Fisk University Library; Lori N. Curtis of the Special Collections division of the University of Tulsa; and Muriel McDowell, Genealogy Librarian of the Middle Georgia Regional Library. Several local historians and current or former residents of Middle Georgia provided valuable information relevant to Toomer’s family history and the making of Cane. These include Colin Campbell, Dr. Jimmy Carter, George L. Gardiner, Gertrude (Trudy) Lewis, Josephine Richardson, John W. Rozier, Dr. Guy Braswell Sheftall, and Forrest Shivers. Harrell Lawson and LaVerne Lawson-Jack made it possible for me to interview some dozen Sparta residents. I am especially grateful to them for introducing me to Katy Hunt, the 106-year-old granddaughter of Spencer Beasley, Johm Cain’s coconspirator in the 1863 Sparta slave revolt; and George (“Snap”) Ingram, who once worked at Sparta’s Old Rock Shop and x Acknowledgments recalled a woman with two Negro sons who lived between the railroad tracks and the Culverton Road, evidently the prototype of Toomer’s Becky. Special thanks must go to members of the Toomer and Dickson families: Fannie and George Toomer of Perry, Georgia; Sharon Toomer of New York; Margery Toomer Latimer of Doylestown, Pennsylvania; and Jean Jackson of Annapolis, great-granddaughter of Amanda America Dickson. Two grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and two grants from the Rutgers Research Council provided valuable time and funds that enabled me to complete this project. The University of Illinois Press provided me with splendid support in bringing this book into being. I wish especially to thank Willis Regier, director of the press, for guidance going back to the press’s 2003 publication of Spectres of 1919: Class and Nation in the Making of the New Negro, which was originally conceived as the first part of this study of Jean Toomer. Dustin Hubbart, the art director, did an outstanding job of producing the book’s illustrations. Deborah Oliver performed the work of copyediting with expert precision and subtlety. Thanks also go to Jennifer Clark for her speedy and efficient work, as well has her patient response to my last-minute request for revisions. I especially thank my children, Adam Stevens and Margaret Stevens, for the humor and patience with which they have heard me talk about Jean Toomer over many years. Peter Gardner, who read early drafts of various chapters, cheered me on with astute advice and loving support. This book is dedicated to my dear brother, David Ross Foley, who has a passion for literature, politics, and history. ...

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