Rent Was Due - Rent Parties as Racial-Cultural Phenomenon in the Literature and Culture of the Harlem Renaissance

Aug 29, 2026

This project maps a lineage of house-rent parties through Harlem Renaissance literature, positioning them as conduits of black cultural production and lived experience. Rent parties emerged as ubiquitous social gatherings popularized during the Great Migration, and the research traces them from Langston Hughes’s archive of invitations to 1920s poetry and fiction. The dissertation also follows the tradition into 20th- and 21st-century media. Findings frame rent parties as joy and mutual aid shaped by working-class survival amid racialized capitalism.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages182

Reading Time7 h 39 min

AccessFree to download

Prologue

Images 1.1-1.2

Chapter One

Chapter Two

RENT WAS DUE: RENT PARTIES AS RACIAL-CULTURAL PHENOMENON IN THE LITERATURE AND CULTURE OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE By ANGEL CLARICE DYE A dissertation submitted to the School of Graduate Studies Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program of Literatures in English Written under the direction of Imani D. Owens and Evie Shockley And approved by | | | --- | | | | | New Brunswick, New Jersey October 2025 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Rent Was Due: Rent Parties as Racial-Cultural Phenomenon in the Literature and Culture of the Harlem Renaissance By ANGEL CLARICE DYE Dissertation Director: Imani D. Owens Evie Shockley, Co-Director This project maps a lineage of house-rent parties through the literature of the Harlem Renaissance positioning them as conduits of multiple forms of black cultural production and experience. Rent parties were the ubiquitous social gatherings popularized in Harlem during The Great Migration of black people from the U. S. South to many other parts of the country. Using Langston Hughes’s extensive archive of rent party invitations as a starting point, this research fills in scholarly gaps about rent parties and their centrality to every other mainstream offshoot of black art and culture in Harlem, including jazz music and literature. While Hughes’s real-world collection of invitations and memoirs by he and his contemporaries provide insight into the lived experience of hosting and attending rent parties, the poetry and fiction produced in the 1920s also consistently represent rent parties. Rent parties continue to appear in television, film, and books throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, marking a continual importance and utility via mutual aid and innovation. Rent parties are gatherings based simultaneously on enjoyment and economics, and this research prioritizes the affective, joy-driven experiences of working-class laypeople and the rent party tradition. This dissertation argues that analyzing the dynamic rent party tradition allows for readings of African American literature and media through lenses of race, gender, and class that are not otherwise possible. This project demonstrates that rent parties are a theoretical framework for Harlem Renaissance studies that privileges black people’s mundane acts of survival in the face of imposing racialized, capitalist structures. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are countless people I have to thank for supporting me and helping on this journey to becoming a first-generation Ph.D. First and foremost, I thank God. My relationship with Jesus Christ is the center of my being, and it is why and how I am anything at all. My mother is owed so much as well; she raised me with the help of a huge village and has always encouraged me to reach for the stars no matter what I put my hands to. Thank you, Mommy. I love you, and I pray I have made you proud, and I’ll keep going! I thank my biological and chosen family, my friends and connections ofall kinds far and near. My best friend—but really my brother from another mother—Justus, I love you so much. Thank you for your unending belief and pride in me. We have seen each other through so much, and this accomplishment is ours. I have a circle of close girlfriends and God-sisters who mean the world to me. Thank you for your FaceTime calls, voice notes, text message threads, memes, synced TV-watching sessions, and everything you have done to hold me up throughout this journey. To my Howard University and University of Kentucky families, thank you for the seeds you sowed that led me to this research and profession. Thank you to every professor and colleague who helped me hone my intellectual commitments. To Dr. Shauna Morgan, our paths were divinely destined to intersect. Thank you for being something beyond a mentor and teacher, something there are not enough loving and grateful words to

FAQs

What does the dissertation study about rent parties?

It maps a lineage of house-rent parties through Harlem Renaissance literature, treating them as key conduits for black cultural production and experience.

Which starting source does the research use to trace rent parties?

The research begins with Langston Hughes’s extensive archive of rent party invitations and related materials.

How does the dissertation interpret the significance of rent parties beyond the 1920s?

It argues that the tradition continues to appear in later television, film, and books, highlighting ongoing importance through mutual aid and innovation.

Aug 29, 2026

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