t the beginning of 1926. Some of its poems were in dialect, on jazz and cabaret themes; others were more traditional and formal in nature, often expressing great loneliness and isolation. The book contained what would become some of his most famous works, including "Mother to Son," "I, Too," and the title poem. The reviews were generally favorable in both the black and the white press, including, to Hughes's surprise, white newspapers in the South. Also early in 1926, Hughes enrolled in tiny Lincoln University in southeastern Pennsylvania, from which he would graduate in 1929. In the spring of that year, he met Charlotte van der Veer Quick Mason, a very wealthy widow who had devoted a good part of her considerable fortune to her interest in Native and African American cultures. She became Hughes's patron, and would be his main source of financial support for the next four years, until a break that was brought about by his resistance to her attempts to control his work schedule and his career. Thereafter, he continued, as always, to support himself through a succession of jobs rather than steady employment. But now, having established himself as a literary figure, he was able to find the kinds of writing, editing, and lecturing assignments that would become the pattern for the rest of his life. Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927), Hughes's second book of poetry, was, because of his emphasis on telling the truth no matter how unpleasant some might find it, something of a setback for him. Its title--which alluded to the necessity of bringing one's wardrobe, in hard times, to a pawnbroker (many of whom were Jewish, especially in black neighborhoods)--was off-putting and somewhat offensive to many white readers, while the poems themselves, straightforward treatments of the harsh and gritty lives of ordinary black people, were offensive to many black critics and intellectuals, who wanted only the most positive and refined images of black life to b...
