This dissertation proposes that the work produced by black writers between the end of the Depression and the end ofWorld War II, specifically that ofEllison, Himes and Petry--and to the degree that it influenced the others, that ofWright--comprises a distinct period in African American literature. Their work is characterized by a concern with the implications of the war for the self-determination of African Americans within the United States and for people of colour worldwide. In addition, these writers explored the effects of the war effort, particularly ofthe second Great Migration ofblack Americans from South to North, on the cultural and political strategies of African Americans as a whole. These migrants, the majority of whom had been employed as agricultural or domestic labourers in the South, entered into industrial occupations and left service work in private homes in unprecedented numbers. In their prewar role within a neo-feudal southern economy characterized by white power over the labouring black body, these workers were seen by many contemporary commentators, and particularly those aligned with the American Left, as conforming to a socio-economic category of the "folk." In the South, the black folk had developed strategies for survival and resistance, many of which were contained in their folklore. As these migrants entered into industrial relations of production and a concomitant working-class consciousness in a war-driven economy, African American writers, intellectuals, and workers were faced with the question of the degree to which this folk "past" was usable in the present. In the work ofEllison, Himes and Petry, the figure of the black folk in the urban-industrial environment, as it e/merged with the working class, became the embodied site for an examination of the massive cultural and political shifts engendered by World War II. In addition, each ofthese writers employed black folklore as a strategy in the struggle for Mrican American selfdetermination within the United States during the war. / This dissertation proposes that the work produced by black writers between the end of the Depression and the end ofWorld War II, specifically that ofEllison, Himes and Petry--and to the degree that it influenced the others, that ofWright--comprises a distinct period in African American literature. Their work is characterized by a concern with the implications of the war for the self-determination of African Americans within the United States and for people of colour worldwide. In addition, these writers explored the effects of the war effort, particularly ofthe second Great Migration ofblack Americans from South to North, on the cultural and political strategies of African Americans as a whole. These migrants, the majority of whom had been employed as agricultural or domestic labourers in the South, entered into industrial occupations and left service work in private homes in unprecedented numbers. In their prewar role within a neo-feudal southern economy characterized by white power over the labouring black body, these workers were seen by many contemporary commentators, and particularly those aligned with the American Left, as conforming to a socio-economic category of the "folk." In the South, the black folk had developed strategies for survival and resistance, many of which were contained in their folklore. As these migrants entered into industrial relations of production and a concomitant working-class consciousness in a war-driven economy, African American writers, intellectuals, and workers were faced with the question of the degree to which this folk "past" was usable in the present. In the work ofEllison, Himes and Petry, the figure of the black folk in the urban-industrial environment, as it e/merged with the working class, became the embodied site for an examination of the massive cultural and political shifts engendered by World War II. In addition, each ofthese writers employed black folklore as a strategy in the struggle for Mrican American selfdetermination within the United States during the war. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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Testing the Seams of the American Dream: Minority Literature and Film in the Early Cold War delineates the concept of the liberal tolerance agenda in early Cold War. The liberal tolerance message of the U.S. government, the Democratic Party, and others endorsed racial tolerance and envisioned the possibility of a future free from racism and inequality. Filmmakers in often disseminated a liberal message similar to that of the politicians in the form of “race problem” films. My shows how these films and the liberal tolerance agenda as a whole promises racial equality to the racial minority in exchange for hard work, patriotism, education, and a belief in the majority culture. My first chapter, “Washing White the Racial Subject: Hollywood’s First Black Problem Film,” performs a close reading of Arthur Laurents 1946 play Home of the Brave, which features a Jewish American protagonist, in conjunction with a reading of the 1949 film version, which has an African American protagonist. The differences between the two texts reveal the slippages in the liberal tolerance agenda and signal the inability of filmmakers to envision racial equality on the big screen. “The American Institution and the Racial Subject,” my second chapter, discusses the 1949 film Pinky as well as Américo Paredes’s George Washington Gómez and Monica Sone’s Nisei Daughter. All of these works suggests that the attainment of education promises entry into the mainstream by racial minorities, yet Paredes and Sone question this process by interpreting it as resulting in the dual segregation of their protagonists. My third chapter, “Earning and Cultural Capital: The Work that Determines Place,” looks at the promise that with hard work anyone can attain the American Dream. I show how the 1951 film Go for Broke!, Ann Petry’s The Street, and José Antonio Villarreal’s Pocho work to dispel this American myth. My final chapter, “The Regrets of Dissent: Blacklists and the Race Question,” examines the 1954 film Salt of the Earth alongside Chester Himes’s If He Hollers Let Him Go and John Okada’s No-No Boy to reveal the dangerous mixture of race and dissent in this era. / text