Toomer devoted eight months to the study of Eastern philosophies and continued to be interested in this subject. Some of his early writing was political, and he published three essays from 1919-1920 in the prominent socialist paper "New York Call". His work drew from the socialist and "New Negro" movements of New York. Toomer was reading much new American writing, for instance Waldo Frank's "Our America" (1919). In 1919, he adopted "Jean Toomer" as his literary name, and it was the way he was known for most of his adult life.