All-Night Party: The Women of Bohemian Greenwich Village and
Harlem, 1913-1930 (2004) -- Finalist Lambda
Literary 2004
GLBT Studies Awards
They were smart. Sassy. Daring. Exotic. Eclectic. Sexy. And
influential. One could call them the first divas--and they ran absolutely
wild. They were poets, actresses, singers, artists, journalists, publishers,
baronesses, and benefactresses. They were thinkers and they were drinkers.
They eschewed the social conventions expected of them--to be wives and
mothers--and decided to live on their own terms. In the process, they became
the voices of a new, fierce feminine spirit.
There's Mina Loy, a modernist poet and
much-photographed beauty who traveled in pivotal international art
circles; blues divas Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters; Edna St. Vincent
Millay, the lyric poet who, with her earthy charm and passion, embodied
the '20s ideal of sexual daring; the avant-garde publishers Margaret
Anderson and Jane Heap; and the wealthy hostesses of the salons, A'Lelia
Walker and Mabel Dodge. Among the supporting cast are Emma Goldman,
Isadora Duncan, Ma Rainey, Margaret Sanger, and Gertrude Stein.
Andrea Barnet's fascinating accounts of the emotional
and artistic lives of these women--together with rare black-and-white
photographs, taken by photographers such as Berenice Abbott and Man
Ray--capture the women in all their glory.
This is a history of the early feminists who didn't
set out to be feminists, a celebration of the rebellious women who paved
the way for future generations.