Joy goddess : A'Lelia Walker and the Harlem renaissance / A'Lelia Bundles.

By:

Bundles, A'Lelia Perry [author.]

Material type: Text

TextPublication details: New York : Scribner, 2025.Description: xix, 363 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cmContent type:

text

Media type:

unmediated

Carrier type:

volume

ISBN:

9781416544425
1416544429

Subject(s):

Genre/Form:

LOC classification:

E185.6 B89 2025

Summary: "Dubbed the "joy goddess of Harlem's 1920s" by poet Langston Hughes, A'Lelia Walker, daughter of millionaire entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker and the author's great-grandmother and namesake, is a fascinating figure whose legendary parties and Dark Tower salon helped define the Harlem Renaissance. After inheriting her mother's hair care enterprise, A'Lelia would become America's first high profile black heiress and a prominent patron of the arts. Joy Goddess takes readers inside her three New York homes -- a mansion, a townhouse, and a pied-a-terre -- where she entertained Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Paul Robeson, Florence Mills, James Weldon Johnson, Carl Van Vechten, W.E.B. DuBois, and other cultural, social and intellectual luminaries of the Roaring Twenties. Now, based on extensive research and Walker's personal correspondence, her great-granddaughter creates a meticulous, nuanced portrait of a charismatic woman struggling to define herself as a wife, mother, and businesswoman outside her famous mother's sphere. In Joy Goddess, A'Lelia's radiant personality and impresario instincts -- at the center of a vast, artistic social world where she flourished as a fashion trendsetter and international traveler -- are brought to vivid and unforgettable life." -- Provided by publisher.

List(s) this item appears in: New Adult Nonfiction

Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Collection	Shelving location	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Adult Book	Phillipsburg Free Public Library	Adult Non-Fiction	New Books	920.0092 BUN	Checked out	07/07/2025	36748002617050

Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A vibrant, deeply researched biography of A'Lelia Walker--daughter of Madam C.J. Walker and herself a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance--written by her great-granddaughter.

Dubbed the "joy goddess of Harlem's 1920s" by poet Langston Hughes, A'Lelia Walker, daughter of millionaire entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker and the author's great-grandmother and namesake, is a fascinating figure whose legendary parties and Dark Tower salon helped define the Harlem Renaissance.

After inheriting her mother's hair care enterprise, A'Lelia would become America's first high profile black heiress and a prominent patron of the arts. Joy Goddess takes readers inside her three New York homes--a mansion, a townhouse, and a pied-a-terre--where she entertained Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Paul Robeson, Florence Mills, James Weldon Johnson, Carl Van Vechten, W.E.B. DuBois, and other cultural, social and intellectual luminaries of the Roaring Twenties.

Now, based on extensive research and Walker's personal correspondence, her great-granddaughter creates a meticulous, nuanced portrait of a charismatic woman struggling to define herself as a wife, mother, and businesswoman outside her famous mother's sphere. In Joy Goddess , A'Lelia's radiant personality and impresario instincts--at the center of a vast, artistic social world where she flourished as a fashion trendsetter and international traveler--are brought to vivid and unforgettable life.

"Dubbed the "joy goddess of Harlem's 1920s" by poet Langston Hughes, A'Lelia Walker, daughter of millionaire entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker and the author's great-grandmother and namesake, is a fascinating figure whose legendary parties and Dark Tower salon helped define the Harlem Renaissance. After inheriting her mother's hair care enterprise, A'Lelia would become America's first high profile black heiress and a prominent patron of the arts. Joy Goddess takes readers inside her three New York homes -- a mansion, a townhouse, and a pied-a-terre -- where she entertained Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Paul Robeson, Florence Mills, James Weldon Johnson, Carl Van Vechten, W.E.B. DuBois, and other cultural, social and intellectual luminaries of the Roaring Twenties. Now, based on extensive research and Walker's personal correspondence, her great-granddaughter creates a meticulous, nuanced portrait of a charismatic woman struggling to define herself as a wife, mother, and businesswoman outside her famous mother's sphere. In Joy Goddess, A'Lelia's radiant personality and impresario instincts -- at the center of a vast, artistic social world where she flourished as a fashion trendsetter and international traveler -- are brought to vivid and unforgettable life." -- Provided by publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

In this scintillating account, biographer Bundles (On Her Own Ground) revisits the pioneering glamour and cultural patronage of her own great-grandmother, the hair-care heiress and Harlem Renaissance socialite A'Lelia Walker. Born in 1885, A'Lelia spent her early years in poverty until her mother, washerwoman Sarah Breedlove, refashioned herself as Madam C.J. Walker, purveyor of the Wonderful Hair Grower and first self-made woman millionaire. Bringing A'Lelia out from under her mother's shadow (during her lifetime she faced down unfavorable comparisons to her mother's business acumen, and the two had a contentious "fire and ice" relationship), Bundles argues that the heiress had a "gift" for "creating distinctive events" that "surprised even blasé New York." She hosted landmark soirées at her inherited Westchester County mansion and founded both the Walker Salon, "one of Harlem's most popular venues for private parties," and the Dark Tower, a cultural salon named after a Countee Cullen poem "where her downtown friends joined her uptown friends." Bundles shows how A'Lelia's wide range of guests, from cutting-edge musicians, artists, and poets to high-ranking African Americans in the federal government, created a potent and unprecedented cultural mix. Along the way, she depicts A'Lelia with admiration for her "diva-worthy flamboyance" and, thanks to the familial connection, unmatched intimacy. This brings vibrant life to a luminary described by Langston Hughes as the "joy goddess of Harlem." (June)

Booklist Review

In her latest work of biography, Bundles (On Her Own Ground) turns her attention to A'Lelia Walker, Bundles' great-grandmother and heiress to Madam C.J. Walker's fortune. Born into poverty during the Reconstruction era, A'Lelia Walker ascended to the upper echelon of Black life via her mother's unparalleled business acumen. Together, the two women built a beauty empire during a period of profound social change and racial oppression. With 1920s Harlem as a backdrop, the mother-daughter duo navigated the pains and successes of a family business, becoming community leaders in the process. Bundles' voice is brisk and curious, nimbly leading readers through the relationships and historical currents that created the Harlem Renaissance. Her personal connection to the Walkers pays off via an expansive number of primary sources. In addition to being useful for scholars of the time period, it makes for an engrossing history as readers are invited to luxuriate in the details of Walker's life.

Kirkus Book Review

The eventful life of a celebrity heiress. Bundles, a former network television executive and producer, draws on family archives to create a lively portrait of her great-grandmother, A'Lelia Walker (1885-1931), a tireless champion of Black artists, writers, and musicians. The only child of millionaire beauty entrepreneur Madam C. J. Walker, the subject of Bundles' earlier biography, Lelia (she added A' to her name in 1923) became an influential figure of the Harlem Renaissance and a prominent socialite, swathed in furs and dressed in French couture, who hosted glittering parties in her Harlem townhouse and villa on the Hudson. Her life began in hardship: Her mother had been a St. Louis laundress and a widow when she married a man who turned out to be abusive. She escaped, with Lelia, to Denver, married C. J. Walker, and reinvented herself as a savvy, successful businesswoman, selling products particularly suited to Black people's needs. Lelia's relationship with her mother was tense and sometimes acrimonious, and Madam could be critical of Lelia's handling of her business responsibilities, social life, and choice of suitors. In rebellion, Lelia eloped in 1909 with a man who would, as her mother predicted, betray her. Her second marriage, to philandering physician Wiley Wilson, was no better; a third marriage also ended in divorce. Encouraged by her mother, Lelia adopted Mae Bryant, a fatherless girl who served as a hair model and assistant for the company. While Mae at first considered the adoption a great privilege, Lelia proved as domineering as Madam had been, leaving Mae--Bundles' biological grandmother--feeling "indebted and cornered." Lelia could be difficult, to be sure, but Bundles captures her energy, her drive, and her commitment to the creative community that she nourished. An engaging biography of a formidable woman. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.