Mary Unger publishes book on Black women’s role in literature during the 20th century

Mary Unger, associate professor of English and director of women’s, gender and sexuality studies, had her book, “Reading the Renaissance: Black Women’s Literary Reception and Taste in Chicago, 1932-1953,” published by the University of Massachusetts Press.

In her book, Unger constructs a reception history of the Black women who read, reviewed, published, promoted, collected and curated literature of the era on Chicago’s South Side in the middle decades of the 20th century.

Unger said she examines five women and the various cultures of reading they created in order to demonstrate how they democratized reading habits and practices in Bronzeville, Chicago’s predominantly Black neighborhood during the years of the Black Chicago Renaissance (1930s, 1940s and 1950s).

“I argue that the tastes, habits and practices that these women advocated in turn helped shape the reading and reception of Black literature (and American literature more broadly) in the years after the Harlem Renaissance and before the Black Arts Movement and rise of second- and third-wave Black feminist activism of the late 20th century,” Unger said.

Unger said she was inspired to begin this research from a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) summer institute she attended in 2013 in Chicago. It was then that she first visited the Chicago Public Library’s Vivian Harsh Research Collection — the archive that houses the majority of materials referenced in her book.

“Once I started looking through old letters, newspaper articles, meeting minutes, flyers and other ephemera of reading practices, I knew I wanted to write a book that proved there were more Black female readers during these early decades than previously thought,” Unger said.

This subject matter resonates not only with Unger but also with her students to whom she teaches this subject.

“This book also was shaped by a course I taught in the spring of 2020: Chicago Renaissances,” Unger said. “I hope to offer more courses on African American literature, culture and reading practices at the College in the future.”

After many years of researching and writing, Unger said she is ready for others to read her book and to start her next project.

“I’m thrilled that, after more than a decade of research and writing, the book is finally in the world,” Unger said. “I am now eager to move onto my next project, a book about the reading and reception of slave narratives during the Jazz Age (1920s).”

Unger said people should read her book if they are interested in forgotten histories of ordinary people attempting to navigate extraordinary times.

“The women I write about used reading as a way to cope with and challenge Jim Crow America, the Great Depression and World War II,” Unger said. “I hope their stories inspire readers to learn more about the Black Chicago Renaissance, the rich legacy of Black women’s intellectualism and activism and the history of reading in the U.S.”