On May 3, 1919, after moving to New York City to work in industry, Imes married Nella Larsen, a nurse who became a writer. An American of Danish and Afro-Caribbean descent, she is considered part of the Harlem Renaissance, having published short stories and two novels in the late 1920s. The couple had moved from Jersey City, New Jersey, to Harlem, where they became part of the professional and cultural society that included artists and intellectuals such as Langston Hughes and W.E.B. Du Bois, members of the black elite.