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Black women in art and literature
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Dorothy West was a novel and short story writer. She was born on June 2, 1907 in Boston, Massachusetts . She was the daughter of Isaac West and Rachel Benson West. Dorothy West didn’t have any siblings. She was an only child. West’s father was a former slave. Her father was a rich fruit dealer in boston Massachusetts. The West had many good friends that were writers. Two of them were Harry T. Burleigh and James Weldon Johnson. Dorothy West was influenced by many of her family friends to be a novelist and a short story writer. Dorothy West worked hard to achieve her goal of becoming a writer. West wrote her first story when she was 7 years old. West started school at the age of four. She was put in the second grade at Farragut School in Boston. West attended the Boston’s Girls’ latin school at age 10. It was one of the best school at the time. Not to mention, Boston’s Girl’s Latin school was a school that chose their students carefully. West graduated in the year n 1923. West also got a diploma for that school. While in school, West continued to write books. not long after she graduated she wrote books continuously. She won prizes regularly in contests that were put up by local newspapers. One of the books that she wrote and that won a prize was "Promise and Fulfillment" at age 14. The contest was held by the Boston Post. A magazine called Opportunity Magazine held a contest which Dorothy West won Second place.The magazine was held by the National Urban League. The book that won the contests was called The Typewriter. The magazine was held by the national competition. This also started her professional career. West went to New york to receive her prize, she was fascinated by the environment of the state. ... ... middle of paper ... ...nfortunately, she died in 1994. The book was published in 1995. Two years after the novels were released , in 1997, a party was held in celebration and honor of Dorothy West. For her accomplishments and career. Many of the famous celebrities where there. Including the First Lady then, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Oprah Winfrey. Later that year , 1998 August 16, West died. She didn't have a husband or children. She died at the age of 91. At the time she was the last member of the Renaissance. References http://www.anb.org/articles/16/16-03513.html http://www.biography.com/people/dorothy-west-40051 http://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/19/arts/dorothy-west-a-harlem-renaissance-writer-dies-at-91.html http://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/news/schlesinger-newsletter/now-digitized-papers-dorothy-west
When he was fifteen years old, his mother died from appendicitis. From fifteen years of age to his college years, he lived in an all-white neighborhood. From 1914-1917, he shifted from many colleges and academic courses of study as well as he changed his cultural identity growing up. He studied physical education, agriculture, and literature at a total of six colleges and universities from Wisconsin to New York. Although he never completed a degree, his educational pursuits laid the foundation for his writing career.
Dorothy Day was a brilliant student, and she was accepted to the University of Illinois; however, she only stayed for two years and deserted her studies to move to New York City. In New York City, Day became drawn in a literary and liberal crowd in the city’s Greenwich Village neighborhood. She also got involved with journalism in which she wrote for several socialist and progressive publications in the 1910s and ‘20s. She also helped to establish special homes to help those in need. As she began to socially and politically protest for women’s rights, she ended up arrested and in jail several times. As an effort to get the right for women to be able to vote, she protested in front of the White House in 1917. As a result, she was arrested, put in jail, and then preceded to go on a hunger strike for that.
Dorothea Dix was born in Hampden, Maine in 1802. Her mother was not very mentally stable and her dad was an abusive alcoholic. The Dix moved from Maine to Vermont just before the British War of 1812. Then, after the war they moved to Worcester, MA. While in Worcester, the Dix had two more children, both boys. The family would eventually break apart because of the mother’s mental state and the father’s drinking.1
BIOGRAPHY: According to the entry « Eudora Welty » found on Wikipedia, Eudora Alice Welty was an American author and photographer, well-known for working on the South American theme. She began higher education at the University of Wisconsin, then went to New York, where she studied at Columbia University until 1931. Unable to find a job on the East Coast because of unemployment due to the Great Depression, she went back to her her native city Jackson, Mississippi. She started to publish short stories in magazines from 1936 and rapidly acquired notoriety as a short story writer, managing to carefully describe the culture and the racial issues of the South. Each publication of her short stories collections was considered as a literary event. In 1956, her novel The Pounder Heart, adapted by Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov, achieved great success on Broadway. In 1975, her enchanting novel The Robber Bridegroom became a musical. In 1973, Eudora Welty received the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Optimist’s Daughter. Three years earlier, she published a collection of photographs that she had taken herself in the years 1930 and 1940, One Time, one Place: Mississippi in the Depression: a work intending to depict the harsh living conditions in Mississippi during the Great Depression. In 1984, at the request of Harvard University Press, she put on paper a lecture that she gave the year before to the students: the work became a bestseller. She died of pneumonia in 2001.
On September 17 Winfrey stood up and announced she wanted "to get the country reading." She told her adoring fans to hasten to the stores to buy the book she had chosen. They would then discuss it together on the air the following month. Every book that Oprah even mentioned would generate hundred of thousands of sales for that author, so being on Oprah’s book list was an achievement in itself.
Born in San Francisco, in the year of 1916, Shirley Jackson had an inauspicious entrance to the world, despite the chilling nature of her writing. She moved two years after she was born to Burlingame, California, where she resided for most of her childhood. When she was 17, she began to attend the University of Rochester, she only spent a year there, as after a time of questioning her friend’s loyalty and long periods of unhappiness, she left the school for a year, practicing writing almost religiously, with a minimum of one thousand words every day. In 1937, she entered Syracuse University, at first pursuing a degree in journalism before transferring to the English department.
Clara Schumann suffered from a stroke that caused her death on 20 May 1896. As she lay dying, she asked her grandson Ferdinand to play a beautiful piece of music for her, her husband's F-sharp major romance. That was the last music Clara Schumann ever heard. Johannes Brahms and many others attended the funeral.
Born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts, Nathaniel Hawthorne was the son of Nathaniel and Elizabeth Manning Hathorne (Pennell 1). Finding the harshness of his strict Puritan ancestors to be unsettling, Hawthorne later decided to add the “w” to his name to separate him from his predecessors (Leone 11, 12). In 1808, Hawthorne’s father dies of yellow fever while at sea (Pennell 1). Eventually, Hawthorne enrolled into Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, in 1821 and graduated in 1825 (Leone 13, 14). In 1828, Hawthorne published his first novel Fanshawe, but the book received unfortunate reviews. Thinking he had failed miserably, Hawthorne sought to destroy all copies he could find. Starting in 1830, Hawthorne began having several short stories and sketches published in magazines and periodicals (Pennell 3). In the future, during the spring of 1838, Hawthorne met Sophia Peabody. Similar to Hawthorne, Sophia suffered from her fair share of illnesses and possessed enthusiastic artistic abilities and interests. Towards the end of that year, they were privately betrothed (Leone 16). Hawthorne found a job as a salt and coal measurer at the Boston Custom House in 1839. For the
Bradstreet, Anne. "To My Dear Children." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: Norton & Company, 1999. 144-147.
After graduation he turned his passion of writing and published his first novel Fanshawe. This novel was unsuccessful, but it did not discourage Hawthorne. A few years later he wrote a few short stories and “Young Goodman Brown” was one of the famous ones. After realizing he could not make a living as a writer (because of the financial needs) he decided to enter the work force. In 1839 he obtained a job with Boston Custom House, but was dismissed three years later.
Sophie Treadwell was born on October 3, 1885 in Stockton, California. She is known mostly as a playwright, but wrote in various other genres also. Her written works not only include plays, but also books and novels, fiction and non-fiction. Her journalism career was quite successful. Her commentaries and articles were always captivating to the public eye. Sophie frequently followed sensational stories in the news, some of which gained much acclaim, one being her interview with Pancho Villa.
Eudora Welty’s writing process began as she started using experience from her job as material for short stories. Welty knew that she was starting something new and she
What inspires her to write the story? As I read her biography I concluded that her personal life and experiences. she mentions that she started to write after her husband’s death. Which indicates that she was not allowed to write before and when in the story her husband
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts on July 4, 1804 to Nathaniel Hathorne and Elizabeth Clarke Manning. Hawthorne’s father was a sea captain and died of yellow fever in 1808 when Nathaniel was only four years old. After the death of his father, his mother, two sisters, and he moved in with his mother’s relatives, the Manning’s, and lived there for ten years. Hawthorne discovered journals that his father had written as a sailor over the years, showing an immediate interest which inspired him to become a writer. In 1821, Hawthorne started college at Bowdoin College with the financial support of his uncle, Robert Manning. He was elected Phi Beta Kappa in 1824, graduated in 1825, and published his first work, a novel called “Fanshawe” in 1828. Shortly after graduating, Hawthorne added the “w” to his last name in order to hide his relation to one of his ancestors, John Hathorne, one of the only judges involved in the Salem witch trials and never repented of his actions.
She died of a suicide and she that because at a certain point in her life she had enough of suffering.