COTTON CLUB #1687

$ 10.00

Caption from poster__

A broad swath of hedonists- from international chic society to Greenwich Village bohemians- considered Harlem the perfect place

to cap off a night at the theater or to diffuse the tensions of a hectic business day. "Harlem is the one place that is gay and

delightful however dull and depressing the downtown regions may be," novelist Max Ewing wrote his mother. "Nothing affects the

vitality and the freshness of Harlem."

Disco Man."

A major element of Uptown allure was its enormous social fluidity; in this urban free zone- "a seething cauldron of Nubian mirth and

hilarity," as one newspaper columnist put it-the Social Register and Emily Post held no sway. The rigorously enforced rules had been

carefully rewritten when, in the wake of World War 1, America's social arbiters moved from the Four Hundred to Café Society; now they

were simply dumped with cheerful abandon. The elite not only frequented public restaurants, but basement speakeasies, where they

mingled not only with non-Social Register customers but with people of color. Blacks were employed in the best homes, not as maids

and butlers, but as Charleston instructors. As one of Carl Van Vechten's characters observed, "Rilda, my pretty, there's no such thing

as a set any more and you know it. Everybody goes everywhere."