June 17, 1880

Carl Van Vechten (June 17, 1880 to December 21, 1964) was a herald of the mundane modern for America. If he is remembered most today for documenting and publicizing  the Harlem Renaissance, in fact he had earlier demonstrated a rare appreciation of unrecognized genius. Carl Van Vechten was the first critic of modern dance for the New York Times: Here for instance are some details of his early career:

Early in 1907 Van Vechten convinced the editor of Broadway Magazine, Theodore Dreiser, to buy his article on a controversial new musical drama at the Metropolitan Opera House, Richard Strauss's Salome. Later that year, having lived on funds borrowed from his father until that point, Van Vechten obtained a permanent job as a staff reporter at the New York Times. He was soon made an assistant to their music critic, and covered noteworthy new productions and symphonies premiering on New York's stages.

In 1913 Van Vechten met Gertrude Stein in Paris, and took up publicizing her writing. In the 1920s his own stories and novels were as popular as they are now forgotten. In the 1930s he began documenting in photos the geniuses he had nurtured, including Stein on her American tour. He would become Stein's literary executor.

Van Vechten was famously fond of the feline. Here is a photo (1919) of the photographer with "Feathers."





And here is a link to the full copy of Van Vechten's The Tiger in The House (1920). You can download this wonderful book as a pdf file if you like.

If Van Vechten looked down on his Cedar Rapids origins, as it is said he did, the fact is middle America has a strange wind pattern that has blown forth much of that country's creative genius.