A Raisin In The Sun By Lorraine Hansberry | DPLA

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SearchPrimary Source SetsA Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine HansberryA Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

Lorraine Hansberry’s groundbreaking play, A Raisin in the Sun (1959), tells the story of the Youngers, three generations of an African American family living together in a small apartment on Chicago’s South Side. Set in the postwar era, the play follows the family’s struggles with poverty and their decision to move to a single-family home in the all-white neighborhood of Clybourne Park. It explores themes of discrimination, assimilation, black pride, gender, and sacrifice; its title is a reference to the Langston Hughes poem, “Harlem” (“A Dream Deferred”). Hansberry based this work on her family’s own experiences with housing discrimination and racially motivated restrictive covenants in Chicago’s Washington Park neighborhood, litigated in the U.S. Supreme Court case, Hansberry v. Lee (1940). When A Raisin in the Sun debuted on Broadway in 1959, it brought the daily struggles of African American life to the overwhelmingly white Broadway audience, while also attracting an unprecedented African American audience. In its own day, the play won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle award for best play of 1959 and was nominated for a number of Tony Awards. It has since become one of the most frequently taught, most enduring works of American drama. This primary source set includes photographs, documents, and news footage that provide context for the challenges characters face in the play.

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Created By

Franky Abbott, Digital Public Library of America

Time Period

Postwar United States (1945 to early 1970s)

Subjects

American Literature
Women
African Americans

Cite this set

Chicago citation styleFranky Abbott. A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. 2015. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America (Accessed January 25, 2026.)APA citation styleFranky Abbott, (2015) A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of AmericaMLA citation styleFranky Abbott. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of AmericaNote: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.

Source Set
Additional Resources
Teaching Guide

A photograph of the back steps of apartments on Chicago’s South Side, 1941.
An excerpt from a Chicago commission report on building new neighborhoods, 1943.
A photo of an African American woman working as a domestic, 1939.
A photo of an African American chauffeur, 1939.
A photo of African American women in 1950s attire.
A photo of a bride and groom in traditional Nigerian dress.
A photo of a female customer at the Natural Kuumba Hair Salon.
A photo of crowd gathered after a white supremacist protest of the arrival of the first black family to an Atlanta neighborhood, 1946.
A television news clip about integration challenges in a Fort Worth, Texas, neighborhood, 1956.
A 1967 political cartoon about war and residential integration.
A photo of Lorraine Hansberry at the time A Raisin in the Sun opened in New Haven, Connecticut, prior to its run on Broadway, 1959.
A photo of actors playing Walter Younger, Ruth Younger, Beneatha Younger, and Karl Lindner in the first stage production of the play, 1959.
A photo of actors playing Walter Younger, Ruth Younger, and George Murchison in the first stage production of the play, 1959.
A photo of actors playing Walter, Ruth, and Beneatha Younger in the first stage production of the play, 1959.