Carla Kaplan

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NPR's "Fresh Air" reviews "Miss Anne in Harlem"

Miss Anne in Harlem was reviewed by Maureen Corrigan for NPR's "Fresh Air" on September 16th. You can listen to the full review online, or read a transcript.

"In compelling detail, Kaplan describes the lives and motivations of white women who, much like poet Edna Margaret Johnson, yearned to become what was then called a voluntary Negro....Kaplan readily admits that her subjects' motives in crossing the color line were not always politically correct. Aside from its significance as cultural history, Miss Anne in Harlem is packed with amazing life stories...Throughout her fascinating book, Kaplan makes the point that women like [Josephine] Schuyler, while not heroic, often paid a heavy personal price for defying racial norms. In the dispiriting judgment of one of her other subjects, Annie Nathan Meyer, the founder of Barnard College: It is of no more use to be ahead of your time, than to be behind it."