Jessie Redmon Fauset (1882-1961) had a career as a teacher, but she is best known for her writing and her contribution to the Harlem Renaissance as literary editor of the Crisis.

Fauset was born on April 27, 1882, in Camden, New Jersey. She was the seventh child born to Redmon Fauset, an African Methodist Episcopal minister, and Annie Seamon Fauset. After the death of Annie Fauset, Redmon Fauset married Bella Huff, a widow with three children. To this union three children were born, including writer Arthur Huff Fauset. Jessie Fauset grew up in cultured but economically poor circumstances in Philadelphia, graduating with honors from the High School for Girls in 1900 as the only black student. Officials at Bryn Mawr College, which Fauset sought to enter, obtained aid for her to go instead to Cornell University, from which she graduated in 1905 after a demanding course of study emphasizing languages (Latin, Greek...