"Big Apple" revisited: Alain Locke's supposed 1919 Harlem/big apple quote (2nd try)

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

    I tried to send this second message about the supposed 1919 Harlem/big apple quote, but it doesn't seem to have gone through (At least it doesn't show up on my machine).  Maybe it has something to do with the Google-books excerpt I posted.  I'll try again with a somewhat altered wording.

     My message is that I was mistaken about Google books.  I see the book Marc Miller was referring to is the book of quotations by Hugh Rawson and Margaret Miner (2005). That book gives the "Harlem is the precious fruit in the Garden of Eden, the big apple" quote and adds: "Alain Locke, c. 1919."  But Rawson & Miner don't say just where this quote appears in Locke's writings (at least not in the Google-books excerpt).  And why the approximate date?

   I'll get ahold of Rawson and Miner to see if they present any additional information.

Gerald Cohen


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From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Cohen, Gerald Leonard
Sent: Tue 6/2/2009 7:54 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: "Big Apple" revisited: Alain Locke's supposed 1919 Harlem/big apple quote

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This is a follow-up and a request for assistance.

    Barry Popik and I have been checking the statement as reported in the 1/17/2007 Wall Street Journal that A. Locke said in 1919: "Harlem is the precious fruit of the Garden of Eden, the big apple." The statement reportedly appears on a map of the Harlem Renaissance in the possession of Marc H. Miller (Founder and Director of Ephemera Press), but no source was cited.

    I don't find the quote entered in Google books, and in some twenty years of research on the origin of "The Big Apple" neither Barry nor I have come across mention of it other than in the 2007 WSJ article.   Marc Miller recently responded to a query of mine about this, but the source still remains unknown (a book of quotations in the B'klyn Public Library--title not given--and the book of quotations did not cite the source of A. Locke's supposed 1919 "big apple" quote).

     Barry's website (barrypopik.com)  comments: "I have spent many hours reading the Amsterdam News and New York Age, and looking at all of Locke's and [Fletcher] Henderson's works. "Big Apple" is not there before the 1930s."

    The interpretation seems clear.  Unless a source can be located for A. Locke's 1919 quotation, it should be regarded as non-existent.  But, if by chance, someone can locate the quote, I'd very much appreciate hearing of it. Full credit would be given in the "Big Apple" book that Barry and I are presently preparing (2nd, revised, edition of my 1991 monograph on the origin of the sobriquet).

    Btw, below my signoff is the response I've just received (June 1) from Marc Miller on the A. Locke quotation.

Gerald Cohen

[reply on A. Locke's supposed 1919 "Harlem is...the big apple" quotation]:

Dear Gerald Cohen,

My knowledge about this quotation has not changed since I last answered your
query.  I found it in a book compiling well-known quotations in the main
branch of the Brooklyn Public Library.    I was seeking an appropriate
quotation about Harlem.  Unfortunately I do not have a record of the title
of the book.  If the book had listed a source for the quotation along with
the date, I would have written it down.   Knowing a bit about Locke, I can
say it is not uncommon for him to use the word "fruit" or to make biblical
allusions   I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of the quote.  It is
possible that the book of quotations was mistaken about the date.  Locke
lived until 1954.  Good luck with your book.

Sincerely,
Marc H. Miller. Ph.D.

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