Often traced back to the stonemason guilds of the Middle Ages, freemasons were supposedly found among all the great minds of the Renaissance, including Da Vinci. Regardless, the movement really took off in the 1700s, when anyone who was anyone was...

Jean Toomer's Cane was advertised as "a book about Negroes by a Negro," despite his request not to promote the book along such racial lines. Nella Larsen switched the title of her second novel from Nig to Passing , because an editor felt the...