Langston Hughes Papers

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Langston Hughes in Chicago

One of the finest and best-known American writers of the twentieth century, Langston Hughes excelled at a wide range of genres. He was acclaimed for his poetry, plays, memoirs, short stories, translations and literary criticism. He was born James Mercer Langston Hughes on February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. Early in his childhood his parents, Carrie Langston Hughes and James Hughes, moved to Lawrence, Kansas, where his maternal grandfather owned a grocery store. He moved several times in his childhood, later living in Lincoln, Illinois and Cleveland, Ohio. Langston Hughes’ great-uncle was John Mercer Langston, a prominent Abolitionist, who was later one of the few 19th century African Americans elected to Congress.

The Big Sea, the sole subject of this manuscript collection, is Langston Hughes’ memoir of his life from childhood years through his world travels to his participation in the Harlem Renaissance. The first draft of the book was written in Chicago, from April 24 through May 26, 1939, while Hughes was living in the Hotel Grand, at 51st and South Parkway.

He had already been a regular visitor to Chicago. In April 1938 he spoke at the George Cleveland Hall branch of the Chicago Public Library on his experiences in the Spanish Civil War. He returned in November 1938, when his play, “Don’t You Want To Be Free?”, was performed by Chicago’s Negro People’s Theater, at the Abraham Lincoln Center. A later reception for Hughes at the Center featured a “who’s who” of Chicago’s African American writers, artists, and political activists.

In 1940, he again visited Hall Branch Library to speak at Vivian Harsh’s “Book Review and Lecture Forum,” discussing The Big Sea. It was at this event that Vivian Harsh convinced Hughes to donate the manuscript drafts of The Big Sea to what was then called the “Special Negro Collection” at Hall Branch Library. This event took place during the run of the famed American Negro Exposition, held at the Chicago Coliseum. Hughes played an important role in the planning of the Exposition, working with the event’s leader, Truman Gibson, and with another friend, Howard University professor Alain Locke.

One of the attractions of Chicago was his close friendship with another highly regarded writer, Arna Bontemps, then living in Chicago and working as co-director of the Illinois Writers’ Project’s “Negro in Illinois” study. In their lives, Hughes and Bontemps exchanged at least 2,300 letters, many of them centered on people and places in Chicago that were important to them.

Hughes also formed a friendship with Horace Cayton, then director of Chicago’s Parkway Community House, located near the Hotel Grand. Cayton asked Hughes to create an in-house theater group at Parkway, to be named the Skyloft Players. Hughes wrote the group’s first play, “The Sun Do Move,” and directed its premiere performances in April 1942.

Though he never lived in Chicago for any significant length of time, Langston Hughes had a great impact on Chicago, and Chicago helped shape his work.

Sources

• Dolinar, Brian, ed. “Introduction,” The Negro in Illinois: The WPA Papers. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2013
• Miller, R. Baxter. “Langston Hughes,” in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 51: Afro-American Writers from the Harlem Renaissance to 1940. Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Company, 1987
• Nichols, Charles H., ed. Arna Bontemps-Langston Hughes Letters, 1925-1967. New York, New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1980
• Rampersad, Arnold. “Introduction to Langston Hughes’ The Big Sea”. New York, New York: Hill and Wang, 1993
• _______________. “Introduction to Langston Hughes’ The Big Sea” in The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, Volume 13. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2002
• “Will Honor Playwright at Reception,” Chicago Defender, October 5, 1940

SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE

Series 1: The Big Sea, First Draft, 1939

This series consists of all extant pages of the draft typed and then hand-corrected in pencil by Langston Hughes, working at the Hotel Grand in Chicago from April 24 to May 26, 1939. The draft is presented in the order in which it was arranged by Hughes. Toward the end of the manuscript some of the chapters contain two typescript versions. Several other chapters, which appear in later drafts, do not appear in this first effort. The order and titles of the chapters also undergo significant changes from this draft to later versions. According to Hughes, the penciled corrections were added when he reread each chapter at the end of the first draft.

.Series 2: The Big Sea, Second Draft, 1939

This series consists of all extant pages of the draft typed and then hand-corrected in pencil by Langston Hughes. It was completed on October 3, 1939 at a writer’s colony, Hollow Hills Farm, located in Monterey, California. The draft is presented in the order in which it was arranged by Hughes. It appears much closer to the final published book. Several chapters which do not appear in the first draft are now added. Titles of chapters are changed, and contents are significantly revised in others. Hughes told his Chicago Public Library audience that in the second draft he made penciled revisions soon after some of the chapters were written, and did not wait until the whole second draft was completed. Even so, there are chapters added in the second draft which were late insertions; these have no pagination.

Series 3: The Big Sea, Third Draft, 1939

On the title page of the third draft, Langston Hughes wrote that this draft was the “final copy as delivered to the publishers.” The content of this draft is nearly the same as what was set in type for the galley proofs. Nevertheless, there are several pages of the third draft which are missing. We do not know whether these were lost by Hughes before he donated all the drafts to the Special Negro Collection at George Cleveland Hall branch of the Chicago Public Library, or whether they were lost at some later date.

Series 4: “Big Sea” Fragments, and a short story, “Spanish Blood”

Thirteen (13) pages of manuscript fragments, found in a separate envelope, are included in this series. Four (4) of these pages appear to have been part of a chapter of the book entitled “Literary Quarrel,” on a dispute Hughes had with Zora Neale Hurston while the two of them were working on a play, “Mulebone.” Also included in this series is a short story entitled “Spanish Blood.” Hughes wrote the story in 1934 and it was published in a magazine then. An introductory paragraph to this typescript, as well as page numbers added, seems to show that Hughes intended to include it in the second draft of The Big Sea. In the end, it did not become part of the book.

Series 5: Galley Proofs of “The Big Sea”

This series consists of all the galley proofs of The Big Sea sent to Hughes by the typesetters at H. Wolff Book Manufacturing Company, June 7, 1940. On the first galley, Hughes wrote: “Read and corrected by Langston Hughes, June 15, 1940, Hotel Grand, Chicago.” Hughes was instructed to make only corrections of typographical errors, but an examination of the galleys reveals a significant number of authorial changes.

Series 6: Addendum to the Langston Hughes Papers

RELATED MATERIALS

Related materials at the Chicago Public Library include:

• Abbott- Sengstacke Family Papers
• Etta Moten Barnett Papers
• Alice Browning Papers
• Horace Cayton Papers
• Chicago Public Library- George Cleveland Hall Branch Archives
• Richard Durham Papers
• Fern Gayden Papers
• William McBride Papers
• Era Bell Thompson Papers

Related materials at other institutions include:

• The Langston Hughes Papers at Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library

CONTAINER LIST

Series 1— “The Big Sea,” First Draft

Series 2— “The Big Sea,” Second Draft

Series 3—“The Big Sea,” Third Draft

Series 4— “Big Sea” Fragments, and a short story, “Spanish Blood

Series 5— “Big Sea” galley proofs

Series 6— Additional Langston Hughes documents