Jessie Fauset Publishes 'There Is Confusion'—First Novel by Black Woman at Major Publisher

Jessie Fauset's 'There Is Confusion' was published in March 1924, a novel about a middle-class Black family in Philadelphia. Published by Boni & Liveright, it was one of the first novels by a Black woman issued by a major American publisher. Fauset, who as literary editor of The Crisis had championed Hughes, McKay, Larsen, and others, demonstrated in her fiction that Black middle-class life was worthy of serious literary attention.