Research Paper on:
James Van Der Zee's Harlem Renaissance Photography

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
during the 1920s and 1930s ("The Harlem," 2001). There was a great deal occurring at the time, inclusive of social criticism, protest, and political advancement (2001). The movement  highlighted the fact that the African American connected psychologically and spiritually to slavery, but also looked at the lives of urbanized black Americans who had lost sight of that spirituality  as they assimilated and pursued material things( 2001). Members of the Harlem Renaissance were searching for a voice for black representation within the mainstream as well as within their own  cultural group. Many critics suggested that the Harlem Renaissance first appeared with the publication of Jean Toomers novel Cane in 1923, which was a work that investigated lower class  life for the African American ("The Harlem," 2001). But Toomer was promoted by another writer of the era by the name of Jessie Redmon Fauset?("Harlem Exhibit," 2002). In fact, there  were so many creative writers, artists, musicians and photographers to come from that particular time and place in American life, it would be hard to note them all. However, a  student writing on this subject will want to note that one artist of great importance was the photographer by the name of James Van Der Zee. During the 1920s, James  Van Der Zee took photograph after photograph and turned his attention to showing Harlem in its best light (McCollum, 2002). He did seem to embellish the pictures. He made  them as artistic and aesthetic as any artist could. In the process of making his pictures, it is said that "he crafted a dazzling record of middle-class black life,  a side of America rarely seen at the time" (2002, p.PG). Indeed, his contribution to society, and to African American society, was to provide the beauty of a black community