Jonathan Ezra Goldman - Talk & Book Signing

Join us at Hallwalls for an evening with J Ezra Goldman to discuss his latest book, Hidden Histories of Jazz Age New York: From the Suppressed to the Strange! This event will begin with a talk, to be followed by book signing. Books will be available for purchase from Talking Leaves Books. Purchase of your book from Talking Leaves and donation to Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center (via cash or QR code on-site) are the best ways to support this event.

About the Book

Jonathan Ezra Goldman's whirlwind tour of early 1920s New York City visits an all-female police platoon, a Black amusement park shut down before it opened, an Arabic literary salon, socialist Puerto Rican cigar factories, Chinatown funerals, lesbian cafes, overcrowded jails, toxic dumps, and Ku Klux Klan recruitment offices.

Hidden Histories of Jazz Age New York offers a fresh, panoramic view of New York City in the 1920s, uncovering hidden histories from entertainment, politics, arts, technology, and the law. It unearths stories of everyday life and marginalized communities. The book portrays sweeping events such as the Harlem Renaissance, Prohibition, and immigration reform that counter the era's popular conceptions of ballooning wealth and uproarious celebration. The grand narratives of the 1920s interweave with little-known anecdotes about well-known figures such as Marcus Garvey, Dorothy Parker, and Babe Ruth, serving as a backdrop to the everyday challenges and triumphs of a city beset by crowds, automobile traffic, and rapidly changing technology and urban infrastructure, as well as erased stories of injustices like Jim Crow practices, immigration anxieties, and the violent treatment of political dissent ...