ABSTRACT
Harold Jackman, teacher, model, muse, and patron, is best known for being the best friend of poet Countee Cullen. Yet Jackman was himself a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance-though Arna Bontemps singled him out as one whose contributions to the renaissance had been ignored. Jackman had a collection of African American cultural artifacts; in addition, he was a witty and gossipy letter writer, and his correspondence with such figures as Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, and Carl Van Vechten provides insight into his role in encouraging and supporting their literary efforts. Jackman was the physical model for the character Bryon Kasson in Van Vechten’s novel Nigger Heaven, and he also appears in Wallace Thurman’s novel Infants of the Spring.
