When Washington Was in Vogue: A Love Story

by Edward Christopher Williams

Overview

Nearly lost after its anonymous publication in 1926 and only recently rediscovered, When Washington Was in Vogue is an acclaimed love story written and set during the Harlem Renaissance. When bobbed-hair flappers were in vogue and Harlem was hopping, Washington, D.C., did its share of roaring, too.

Davy Carr, a veteran of the Great War and a new arrival in the nation's capital, is welcomed into the drawing rooms of the city's Black elite. Through letters, Davy regales an old friend in Harlem with his impressions of race, politics, and the state of Black America as well as his own experiences as an old-fashioned bachelor adrift in a world of alluring modern women.

With an introduction by Adam McKible and commentary by Emily Bernard, this novel, a timeless love story wonderfully enriched with the drama and style of one of the most hopeful moments in African American history, is as "delightful as it is significant" (Essence).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780060555467
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/29/2005
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	1,147,420
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.72(d)

About the Author

Edward Christopher Williams was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1871. He was schooled at Western Reserve University, where he was Phi Beta Kappa and valedictorian, and at the New York State Library School. Williams is documented as the first Black American to graduate from a library school. He was a notable scholar, a brilliant teacher, and a pivotal developer of education for librarians. He was married to Ethel Chesnutt, the daughter of Charles W. Chesnutt, author of the seminal novel The House Behind the Cedars. Williams died of a sudden illness in Washington, D.C., in 1929 at the age of fifty-eight.

Read an Excerpt

When Washington Was in Vogue
A Love Story

Chapter One

In which Davy, having arrived in Vanity Fair, looks for lodgings and finds a home.

Washington, D.C., Monday, October 2, 1922

Dear Bob:

You certainly were right when you advised me to wait until I found just what I wanted. I was getting impatient and I should have taken the place on T Street, if it had not been for your letter. So I decided to hold out a few days longer, and my waiting has been rewarded, for I have found the best place imaginable. This self-congratulation may seem a little premature, but somehow I do not think it is. My good luck came from an unexpected source, too.

I called on the Wallaces the other night, and in the midst of a very interesting conversation Mrs. Wallace happened to ask me if I were located satisfactorily. I told her my troubles, and gave her an idea as to what I wanted. She reflected a minute, and then said she thought she could help me out. So she excused herself and, while Wallace and I talked and smoked, I could hear her in the next room telephoning. After a while she returned and handed me a note. I glanced at the envelope and noted that it was inscribed to a Mrs. Margaret Rhodes, at an address just around the corner from the T Street house I was considering. So I went there the next afternoon at about five. I was met at the door by a handsome, rather stately young woman with a very dignified manner, who ushered me into the back parlor, where I was asked to have a seat. She left me for a moment, but reappeared almost immediately to say that her mother would see me in a few minutes. She then returned to the parlor, where she was entertaining a lady caller.

Thus left to my own devices, I took the opportunity to look about me, and to say that I was delighted with what I saw expresses it mildly. Rarely have I seen a room -- it was evidently a library-living room -- that I have liked better. Solid, substantial furniture, walls lined with bookcases filled with good books, and more good pictures and art objects, well selected and in the best of taste, than I have seen in an ordinary home for a long time. Nothing seemed new, but, on the contrary, everything showed signs of use, and looked as if it were an integral part of the room. An open fireplace, in which a fire was laid ready for lighting, gave the final touch of coziness. To say I was charmed is putting it mildly. Mrs. Rhodes, when she entered, seemed quite in place in the picture. She is an attractive, motherly person of quiet manners and refined speech. My mind was made up the moment I saw her and I was afraid only that she might refuse me. In fear and trembling, so to speak, I gave her Mrs. Wallace's note. She read the note attentively, and then arose and offered me her hand.

"I am pleased to meet any friend of the Wallaces, Mr. Carr. I was not planning to take anyone else," she continued. "We have one lodger, and we have just begun to get used to him. You see, we never had anyone in the house except our own family while Mr. Rhodes was alive, and it is hard to break old habits. What Mrs. Wallace says puts a different face on it, of course. Mr. Rhodes knew your people well, I believe. I have heard him speak often of your father." She hesitated, and looked at me again smilingly. "We have only one room available, and I don't like to think of renting it. It was Mr. Rhodes's private den." Again she hesitated, and again she looked at me. "Well, let's look at it, anyway, since you are here." She arose, and I followed her -- two flights of stairs to the third-floor back. The room itself finished me, and I decided then and there that I must have it. It was appointed to suit me exactly -- wallcases, couch, table, revolving bookcase and all.

"This is just what I want," I said. "If only you will let me have it, I promise you I shan't give you a bit of trouble. I am a quiet person, and you won't know I am here."

To make a long story short, the good lady agreed to take me in, and I hastened to clinch the bargain by paying my first month's rental, which was most reasonable, and making immediate arrangements for the moving in of my traps.

As we reached the lower hall, the young woman who had let me in was just taking leave of her visitor. As she turned from the door, Mrs. Rhodes called her.

"Genevieve, let me present Mr. Carr. Mr. Carr, this is my daughter, Miss Rhodes."

That dignified young person received the introduction with a cool graciousness which was a curious mixture of perfect courtesy and impersonal indifference.

Then Mrs. Rhodes explained my errand, told who I was, and otherwise oriented me for the benefit of the handsome young woman with the coldly gracious manner, who withdrew as soon as she could do so without too much abruptness.

So two days later I moved in, and had a rather enjoyable time unpacking my books, and bestowing my belongings properly. All is now in order, and I hope sincerely that I am settled for the winter. Somehow I feel that I am going to like this place. The house is certainly homelike and attractive, and the Rhodes family are surely "easy on the eyes," for they have as high an average of good looks as any household I have seen in many a day. Mrs. Rhodes must have been a belle in her youth, and she is still good looking, with the dearest, most motherly manner in the world;

When Washington Was in Vogue
A Love Story. Copyright © by Edward Williams. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

What People are Saying About This

Brian Keith Jackson

“An engaging and vibrant peek into a world known to exist, yet rarely presented with such vivid and unapologetic detail.”

Kathleen Pfeiffer

“Fascinating and complex . . . Williams’s lively and insightful account of Davy Carr enhances the African American canon.”

Editorial Reviews

When Washington Was in Vogue brings this time and place vividly to life…. Great Gatsby with a happier ending.” — Wall Street Journal

“When Washignton Was in Vogue brims with life.” — Boston Globe

“As delightful as it is significant.” — Essence

“An engaging, eminently readable work.” — San Francisco Chronicle

“Richly rewarding.” — —Honey

“McKible’s discovery is sure to provoke scholarship and discussion, and attract well-deserved attention.” — Publishers Weekly

“A love story . . . rendered with the keen eye of a sociologist.” — Booklist

“Charming . . . a sincerely delightful book.” — Library Journal

“Dramatic frisson for historians and Black studies scholars.” — Kirkus Reviews

“When Washington Was in Vogue offers a welcome and consistently entertaining glimpse of a pivotal era in our recent past.” — —The Crisis

“An engaging and vibrant peek into a world known to exist, yet rarely presented with such vivid and unapologetic detail.” — Brian Keith Jackson, author of The Queen of Harlem

“An absolutely fascinating novel. . . . A page-turner, witty and charming.” — ——Elizabeth Nunez, author of Bruised Hibiscus and Discretion

“Fascinating and complex . . . Williams’s lively and insightful account of Davy Carr enhances the African American canon.” — —Kathleen Pfeiffer, Associate Professor of English, Oakland University

From the Publisher

When Washignton Was in Vogue brims with life.

Boston Globe

An engaging, eminently readable work.

San Francisco Chronicle

Richly rewarding.

Martha Honey

A love story . . . rendered with the keen eye of a sociologist.

Booklist

When Washington Was in Vogue offers a welcome and consistently entertaining glimpse of a pivotal era in our recent past.

The Crisis

As delightful as it is significant.

Essence

When Washington Was in Vogue brings this time and place vividly to life…. Great Gatsby with a happier ending.

Wall Street Journal

A love story . . . rendered with the keen eye of a sociologist.

Booklist

An engaging and vibrant peek into a world known to exist, yet rarely presented with such vivid and unapologetic detail.

Brian Keith Jackson

An absolutely fascinating novel. . . . A page-turner, witty and charming.

Elizabeth Nunez

Fascinating and complex . . . Williams’s lively and insightful account of Davy Carr enhances the African American canon.

Kathleen Pfeiffer

Richly rewarding.

Honey

An engaging, eminently readable work.

San Francisco Chronicle

As delightful as it is significant.

Essence

When Washington Was in Vogue brings this time and place vividly to life…. Great Gatsby with a happier ending.

Wall Street Journal

This lost epistolary novel of the Harlem Renaissance, originally serialized in The Messenger in 1925-1926, is slight in plot but deep in detail, an invaluable addition to period scholarship. Williams, the country's first professionally trained black librarian, aptly portrays the 1920s African-American high society of which he was a part. After WWI, army officer Davy Carr moves to Washington, D.C., to research a book on the African slave trade. Lodging at the refined home of Margaret Rhodes, he meets her two daughters: older, serious Genevieve, and irrepressible, flirtatious Caroline. Davy immerses himself in their busy society, attending dances, teas, socials and sporting events, and, as in any novel of manners, he makes detailed observations of this new world's mores, writing his findings to a friend. Although he has a fine eye for details in others' lives, Davy realizes he has been blind to his own feelings for the mischievous and darker-skinned Caroline. Williams provides a glimpse into a parallel universe of privilege in which slight variations in skin tone said everything about status, and stuffiness was de rigueur (Caroline, Davy muses, "makes not the slightest outward show of culture in her ordinary social relations, [but] she has... a perfectly uncanny fluency of speech, as I have found out to my discomfiture"). As a light-skinned man who refused to "pass," Williams had an abiding interest in intraracial tension, and the absence of white characters further dramatizes the issue. Though the story holds little suspense, McKible's discovery is sure to provoke scholarship and discussion, and attract well-deserved attention. (Jan.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Originally published in serial form in the African American tract, the Messenger, from 1925 to 1926, this story was rediscovered by Adam McKible (English, John Jay Coll. of Criminal Justice) and is being published as a novel for the first time. Williams (1871-1929), the first professionally trained African American librarian, writes of the days (and nights) of the Harlem Renaissance in Washington, DC, instead of Harlem. Charming and conventional protagonist Davy Carr, a World War I veteran, goes to the nation's capital to research a book on the slave trade. He finds a room very much to his liking and, through his proprietress, Mrs. Rhodes, meets her prominent, well-to-do, and intellectual friends, as well as her daughter, Caroline. These people give him a different perspective on Washington society and nightlife, which he relates in a series of letters to his friend, Bob. Davy's letters also touch on serious matters, such as how blacks accept the variations in their own skin tones. Slowly, after observing so many other details, Davy reads the signs and clues in front of him-Caroline's strong feelings for him and his own for her. Davy often speaks of the pleasures of sitting before a crackling fire in the hearth, and that would be a good place to enjoy this sincerely delightful book. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries.-Lisa Nussbaum, Dauphin Cty. Lib. Syst., Harrisburg, PA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Long-lost fiction, written in the 1920s by the first professionally trained African-American librarian, about a young man's romantic adventures among the black elite of Washington, DC. Williams (1871-1929), a minor figure in the Harlem Renaissance, was a mulatto (his mother was Irish) who serialized this story in The Messenger in 1925 and 1926. Published now as a novel, it consists entirely of letters written by WWI veteran Davy Carr describing his first impressions of Washington to his old army buddy Bob Fletcher back in Harlem. Davy is light enough to pass for white, and he moves somewhat self-consciously through the upper echelons of the District's black society (where nuances of "lightness" or "darkness" take on an almost Talmudic importance) as he researches a study of the African slave trade. At his boardinghouse, Davy becomes fascinated to the point of obsession with his landlady's daughter, Caroline Rhodes, a kind of African-American Sally Bowles who smokes cigarettes, flirts shamelessly, and knows all the latest dances. Serious and high-minded-and, frankly, something of a stuffed shirt-Davy disapproves of Caroline and tells her so. But he's drawn to her in spite of himself. The story is basic boy-meets-girl, with the ending a foregone conclusion by the second chapter and no really convincing obstacles in the way, so that the only distinguishing features to speak of are race and class. The fact that Caroline is dark-skinned while Davy is light may throw in a dramatic frisson for historians and Black Studies scholars, but for most of us this will have little engaging power or lift. Meanwhile, Williams's petty snobberies are aggravating enough without the addition of his badimitation of Jane Austen ("The ladies, except Mrs. Wallace, are all very fair, and would not be likely to be taken for colored, and in manner and dress they all of them showed real class"). Of academic interest only.

Kirkus Reviews