Stormy Weather: Middle-Class African American Marriages between the Two World Wars

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments This project began many years ago when I found a box of my grandparents ’ letters from their courtship and early months of marriage. As a young history major, I was thrilled that my own family had participated in the historical events I studied in my courses. Since then, I have been at work on this project in one way or another. Because Stormy Weather has been a book long in the making, countless supporters have made it possible. I mention here some of those colleagues , friends, and family who have helped it come into being. Researching a world as private as that of marriage has been a challenge , but it has been eased by the wonderful sta∏ of several archives. The people working at the Moorland-­ Spingarn Research Center at Howard University are uniformly helpful and friendly; I look forward to every visit. The e∏orts of the sta∏— ​Dr. Ida Jones, Joellen El-­ Bashir, Lela Sewell-­ Ward, and Donna Wells— ​were invaluable to my work. I also found help at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library; from Kathy Kraft and Kathy Jacobs at the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Harvard University; from Beth Howse at the Fisk University Library; from Nancy Miller at the University of Pennsylvania Archives and Record Center; and at the Auburn Avenue Research Library, Atlanta-­ Fulton Public Library System. At the beginning stages of this project, I was mentored by Shan Holt at Bryn Mawr College and Emma Lapsansky at Haverford College . When I reached Princeton University, I had the great fortune to  xii acknowledgments have Nell Irvin Painter as an advisor. An excellent reader and editor, not to mention a gifted historian, Nell had tremendous faith in the importance of this study. Her rigorous interrogations of my analyses forced me to ask diΩcult questions and explore ideas that went beyond conventional historical wisdom. Christine Stansell, Deborah Gray White of Rutgers University–New Brunswick, and social psychologist Deborah Prentice made important interventions that greatly improved the project. Other faculty who provided feedback or encouragement include Dirk Hartog, Kevin Kruse, Liz Lunbeck, Colin Palmer, and Deborah Nord. Helpful colleagues included Malinda Lindquist and Belinda Gonzalez, Meri Clark, Karen Caplan, Jolie Dyl, Crystal Feimster, Dani Botsman, Victoria Klein, Cheryl Hicks, Chad Williams, Anore Horton, Felicia Kornbluh, Sam Roberts , and Keith Mayes. I am also grateful for the support I received from Princeton’s Graduate School, the Department of History, and the Program in African-­American Studies, all of which provided valuable research assistance for the project. As a new faculty member, I have been welcomed warmly into the Program in African American and Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt University, where I have found unparalleled research resources and collegial support. Tracy D. Sharpley-­ Whiting and Gilman Whiting took an interest in my work at an early date and have continued to be extremely supportive as I have completed it. Ti∏any Patterson, Victor Anderson, Rosanne Adderley, Karen Campbell, Dana Nelson , and Susan Kuyper have provided crucial advice at crucial times. Tara Williams’s administrative support has been similarly indispensable . Under­ graduate research assistant Nattaly Perryman transcribed many of the Curwoods’ letters. I have also been helped generously by my colleagues in the Global Feminisms Collaborative, in the Department of History, and at the Culture and Creativity Workshop at the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy. Early in my academic career I benefited from the hospitality of Alan Rogers and my colleagues in the Department of History at Boston College. Important research assistance has come from the Mellon Foundation and the Social Science Research Council in the form of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate/University Fellowship, from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation’s dissertation and Career xiii  acknowledgments Enhancement Fellowships, from the Ford Foundation’s Postdoctoral Diversity Fellowship, and from Vanderbilt’s College of Arts and Science . I have gained not only financial assistance for research, which has been essential, but also access to a wide network of colleagues through all of these foundations. I cannot name all of my Ford and Mellon “family” members individually, but they have been a very important source of energy and feedback for this project. Sian Hunter of the University of North Carolina Press took an early interest in this project and has patiently waited...