Charlotte Mason (philanthropist)

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Charlotte Osgood Mason (born May 18, 1854 in Princeton (New Jersey) , † April 15, 1946 in New York City ) was an American philanthropist and patroness of writers of the Harlem Renaissance .

Life

Charlotte Louise Quick was the daughter of Peter Quick and Phoebe Van der Veer, who died in 1864. At the age of 32, Charlotte married the 24-year-old doctor Rufus Osgood Mason , who had a daughter from his first marriage, was interested in hypnosis and is considered a forerunner of parapsychology . Rufus died in 1903 after seventeen years of marriage. Charlotte had participated in his world of ideas and in 1907 published her only known work, the magazine article “The Passing of a Prophet. A True Narrative of Death and Life ”in the North American Review. Mason was now a wealthy widow who used her financial means to sponsor a number of artists and institutions, pursuing her own philosophical and social ideas in the process.

As a patron, she supported the ethnographic work of Natalie Curtis , who recorded the music of the North American Indian population and published this music-ethnological work in 1907. With Curtis, she expanded her interest in African American music, and Alain LeRoy Locke (1885–1954), professor at Howard University , introduced her to the artists of the Harlem Renaissance.

Natalie Curtis
Zora Neale Hurston
Langston Hughes

In contrast to Carl Van Vechten , who was also looking for a personal friendship with his Afro-American acquaintances, the old lady kept her distance and allowed herself to be dubbed “ Godmother ” by the artists who became dependent on her . In November 1927 she became the patroness of Langston Hughes , a Harlem Renaissance poet. Zora Neale Hurston , who worked ethnographically, was financially supported by her between 1927 and 1931, which went so far that Hurston had to forego the right to independently publish the results of her collection in return for generous payment and equipment with a car and film camera, as Mason did was convinced that only she could judge the publication. In doing so, Mason also ensured that Hurston's folklore collection "From Mules and Men" did not tear apart before it was released. The employment relationship was finally terminated in 1931, and Hurston increased her literary work. In his autobiography, The Big Sea , Langston Hughes describes how he enjoyed the state of patronage for a while, having nothing more to do than assemble material that lived up to Mason's specifications of "primitive black art." Mason expected exclusively “primitive” African-American art, which should still have roots in Africa; she was not interested in an independent art of blacks in the USA. Among the artists who benefited from their patronage were Claude McKay , Arthur Fauset , Hall Johnson , Aaron Douglas , Richmond Barthé and Miguel Covarrubias .

For the last thirteen years of her life, Mason was bedridden in New York Hospital and dependent on the help of her sister, the sculptor Cornelia Van Auken Chapin (1893–1972) and her niece, the poet Katherine Garrison Chapin , who also handled her correspondence . Mason tried to act more in the background. So she finally decreed that the New York Times didn't dedicate an obituary to her.

literature

  • James I. German: Lemma Mason, Charlotte Louise in: John Arthur Garraty, [Ed.]: American National Biography , Vol. 14, pp. 640–642 New York [u. a.]: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999 ISBN 0-19-512781-1
  • Tiffany Ruby Patterson, Zora Neale Hurston and a history of southern life , Temple University Press, ISBN 978-1-59213-290-4
  • Sharon L. Jones: Rereading the Harlem renaissance: race, class, and gender in the fiction of Jessie Fauset, Zora Neale Hurston, and Dorothy West , Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 2002.
  • Cary D. Wintz; Paul Finkelman: Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance , New York: Routledge, 2004. ISBN 978-1-57958-389-7
  • Amritjit Singh et al. (Ed.): The Harlem renaissance: revaluations , New York: Garland, 1989 ISBN 0-8240-5739-2
  • Langston Hughes: The Big Sea , Hill and Wang, New York 1963
  • Robert E. Hemenway: Zora Neale Hurston: a literary biography , Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1977 ISBN 0-252-00652-6

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rufus Osgood Mason at DNB
  2. ^ Robert Hemenway, Zora Neale Hurston: a literary biography , chapter Godmother and Big Sweet 1927-1931 , pp. 104-135
  3. ^ Robert Hemenway, Zora Neale Hurston: a literary biography , p. 110
  4. ^ Robert Hemenway, Zora Neale Hurston: a literary biography , pp. 175-185
  5. ↑ Langston Hughes: The Big Sea , pp. 311-324
  6. ↑ Sharon L. Jones: Rereading the Harlem renaissance, pp. 68 and 76
  7. ↑ Chapin, Cornelia, 1893-1972. Papers of Cornelia Chapin, 1822-1959: A Finding Aid
personal data
SURNAME Mason, Charlotte
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mason, Charlotte Louise; Mason, Charlotte Osgood
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American patroness
DATE OF BIRTH May 18, 1854
PLACE OF BIRTH Princeton, New Jersey
DATE OF DEATH April 15, 1946
Place of death New York City