Virtual Harlem is a virtual reality reconstruction of Harlem, New York, during the 1920s. It was designed to immerse students of the Harlem Renaissance directly in the historical context of the literature of that period. The goal of this prototype is to develop rich, interactive, and narrative learning experiences to augment classroom activities for students in the humanities. This paper describes a semester-long user study using Virtual Harlem in an English literature course and discusses our experiences of integrating virtual reality technology in the classroom.