Great Depression

The Great Depression is relevant here chiefly as a period in Nella Larsen’s later life and career, not as a setting for the novel’s central events. Passing is set in 1927 and was published in 1929; the biographical account then places a series of reversals in Larsen’s life and work in the Depression’s early years.

Chronology and Literary Context

Passing’s story is situated in 1927, while the novel appeared in 1929. Its concerns include racial classification, social exclusion, and the pressure of conflicting allegiances, but the supplied evidence does not identify these plot conflicts as consequences of the Great Depression. The period matters instead as part of the chronology surrounding Larsen’s subsequent career.

Larsen’s Career During the Depression

In 1930, Larsen became the first African American woman to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship in creative writing. The account describes the early Depression years as a time when her personal life and career suffered several reversals. She was erroneously accused of plagiarizing the short story “Sanctuary,” published under her name in Forum magazine, and could not secure acceptance for a third novel.

Following a highly publicized divorce in 1933, Larsen gradually withdrew from literary circles and abandoned writing. She spent the last twenty years of her life working as a nurse in Manhattan hospitals. The chronology places these developments in the Depression era, but the evidence does not establish the economic crisis as their direct cause.

Significance and Limits

The Great Depression marks a sharp biographical contrast with the recognition Larsen had recently received: her 1930 fellowship was followed by professional setbacks and eventual withdrawal from writing. This context should be distinguished from the novel’s 1927 plot and its analysis of racial and legal boundaries. The evidence supports a connection between the Depression’s early years and the period of Larsen’s reversals, not a claim that the Depression explains the novel’s themes or the causes of each personal and professional change.