|
Books by Zora Neale
Hurston
Their Eyes Were
Watching God /
Mules and Men
/
Jonah’s Gourd Vine
/
Tell
My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica
Zora Neale Hurston : Novels and Stories
/
Dust
Tracks on a Road: An Autobiography
Alice Walker and Zora Neale Hurston: The Common Bond
* *
* * *
Zora Neale Hurston (1903-1960)
A Bio-Chronology
Zora
Neale Hurston, folklorist and writer, became a central
figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Hurston was born and educated
in Eatonville, Florida, the first incorporated black city in the
United States. At the age of 16, she left her home to work with
a traveling theatrical company. The company ended up in New York
City , where Hurston studied anthropology at Columbia
University. She then attended Howard University as well as
Barnard College.
In
1931, Hurston collaborated with Langston Hughes to write the
play
Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts. She
wrote her most acclaimed work,
Their Eyes Were Watching God
in 1937. After writing her autobiography (Dust Tracks on a
Road) in 1942, she went on to teach at what is now North
Carolina Central University. Her work, revived by feminists in
the 1970s, has gained her considerable recognition as one of the
most important black writers in American history.
*
* * * *
January
7, 1891 – Born in Eatonsville, Florida, the fifth of eight
children, to John Hurston, a carpenter
and Baptist preacher, and Lucy
Potts Hurston, a former schoolteacher.
September
1917 – June 1918 – Attends Morgan Academy in Baltimore,
completing the high school
requirements.
Summer
1918 – Works as a waitress in a nightclub and a manicurist
in a black-owned barbarbershop
that serves only whites.
1918-1919
– Attends Howard prep School, Washington, D.C.
1919-1924
– Attends Howard University; receives an associate degree in
1920.
1921
– Publishes her first story “John Redding Goes to
Sea,” in the Stylus, the campus literary
society’s magazine.
December
1924 -- Publishes “Drenched in Light,” a short story, in
Opportunity.
1925
– Submits a story, “Spunk,” and a play Color Struck,
to Opportunity’s literary contest. Both
win second-place awards;
publishes “Spunk” in the June number.
1925-27
– attends Barnard College, studying anthropology with
Franz Boas.
1926
– begins field work for Boas in Harlem.
Summer
1926 – Organizes Fire! With Langston Hughes and
Wallace Thurman; they publish only one
issue, in November 1926. The issue includes Hurston’s
“Sweat.”
August
1926 – Publishes “Muttsy” in Opportunity.
September
1926 – Publishes “Possum or Pig” in the Forum.
September-November
1926 – Publishes “The Eatonsville Anthology” in the Messenger.
1927
– Publishes The First One, a play, in Charles S.
Johnson’s Ebony and Topaz.
February
1927 – Goes to Florida to collect folklore.
May
19, 1927 – Marries Herbert Sheen.
September
1927 – First visits Mrs. Rufus Osgood Mason, seeking
patronage.
October
1927 – Publishes an account of the black settlement at St.
Augustine, Florida, in the Journal
of Negro History; also in this issue “Cudjo’s Own story
of the Last African Slaver.”
December
1927 -- Signs a contract with Mason, enabling her to return
to the South to collect
folklore.
1928
– satirized as “Sweetie Mae Carr” in Wallace Thurman’s
novel about the Harlem Renaissance
Infants of the Spring; receives a bachelor of arts degree
from Barnard.
January
1928 – relations with Sheen break off
May
1928 – Publishes “How It feels to Be Colored Me” in
the World Tomorrow.
1930-32
-- Organizes the field notes that become
Mules and Men.
May-June
1930 – Works on the play Mule Bone with Langston
Hughes.
1931
– Publishes “Hoodoo in America” in the Journal of
American Folklore.
February
1931 – Breaks with Langston Hughes over the authorship of Mule
Bone.
July
7, 1931 – Divorces Sheen.
September
1931 – writes for a theatrical revue called Fast and
Furious.
January
1932 – Writes and stages a theatrical revue called The
Great Day, first performed on
January 10 on Broadway at the
John Golden Theatre; works with the creative
literature department of
Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida, to produce a concert
program of Negro music.
1933
-- Writes “The Fiery Chariot.”
January
1933 – Stages From Sun to Sun (a version of Great Day) at
Rollins College.
August
1933 – Publishes “The Gilded Six-Bits” in Story.
1934
– Publishes six essays in Nancy Cunard’s anthology, Negro.
January
1934 – Goes to Bethune-Cookman College to establish a
school of dramatic arts “based on
pure Negro expression.”
May
1934 – Publishes
Jonah’s Gourd Vine, originally
titled Big Nigger; it is a Book-of-the-Month
Club selection.
September 1934 – Publishes “The
Fire and the Cloud” in the Challenge.
November 1934 – Singing Steel (a
version of Great Day) performed in Chicago.
January 1935
– Makes an abortive attempt to study for a Ph.D. in
anthropology at Columbia
University on a fellowship from the Rosenwald Foundation. In
fact, she seldom attends
classes.
August 1935 – Joins the WPA
Federal Theatre project as a “dramatic coach.”
October 1935 – Mules and men
published.
March 1936 – Awarded a Guggenheim
Fellowship to study West Indian Obeah practices.
April –September 1936 – In
Jamaica.
September-March 1937 – In Haiti;
writes
Their Eyes Were Watching God in seven weeks.
May 1937 – Returns to Haiti on a
renewed Guggenheim.
September
1937 – Returns to the United States;
Their Eyes Were Watching God published,
September 18.
February-March 1938 – Writes
Tell
My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica; it is published the same year.
April 1938 – Joins the Federal
Writer project in Florida to on The Florida Negro.
1939 – Publishes “Now Take
Noses” in Cordially Yours.
June 1939 – receives an honorary
Doctor of Letters degree from Morgan State College.
June 27, 1939 – marines Albert
Price III in Florida.
Summer 1939
– Hired as a drama instructor by North Carolina College for
Negroes at Durham;
meets Paul Green, professor of drama, at the University of North
Carolina.
November 1939 –
Moses, Man of
the Mountain published.
February 1940 – Files for divorce
from Price, though the two are reconciled briefly.
Summer 1940 – Makes a
folklore-collecting trip to South Carolina.
Spring-July 1941 – Writes
Dust
Tracks on a Road.
July 1941 – Publishes “Cock
Robin, Beale street” in the Southern Literary Messenger.
October 1941-January 1942 –
Publishes “Story in Harlem Slang” in the American Mercury.
September 5, 1942 – Publishes a
profile of Lawrence Silas in the Saturday Evening Post.
November 1942 --
Dust
Tracks on a Road published.
February 1943
– Awarded the Anisfield-Wolf Book award in Race Relations for Dust
Tracks; on the
cover of the Saturday Review.
March 1943 – Receives Howard
University’s Distinguished Alumni Award.
May 1943 – Publishes "The 'Pet
Negro' Syndrome” in the American Mercury.
June 1944 – Publishes “My Most
Humiliating Jim Crow Experience” in the Negro Digest.
1945 – Writes "Mrs. Doctor" ; it is
rejected by Lippincott.
March 1945 – Publishes “The Rise
of the Begging Joints” in the American Mercury.
December 1945 – publishes “Crazy
for This Democracy” in the Negro Digest.
1947 –
Publishes a review of Robert Tallant’s
Voodoo in New
Orleans in the Journal of American
Folklore.
May 1947
– Goes to British Honduras to research black communities in
Central America; writes
Seraph on
Suwanee; stays in Honduras until March
1948.
September
1948 – falsely accused of molesting a ten-year-old boy and
arrested; case finally
dismissed in March 1949.
 |
October 1948 –
Seraph on
Suwanee published.
March 1950
– Publishes “Conscience of the Court” in the Saturday
Evening Post, while working as
a maid in Rivo Island, Florida.
April 1950 -- Publishes “What
White Publishers Won’t Print” in the Saturday Evening
Post.
November 1950 – Publishes “I Saw
Negro Votes Peddled” in the American Legion Magazine.
|
Winter 1950-51 – Moves to Belle
Glade, Florida.
June 1951 – Publishes “Why the
Negro Won’t Buy Communism” in the American Legion Magazine.
December 8, 1951 – publishes “A
Negro Votes Sizes Up Taft” in the Saturday Evening Post.
1952 – Hired by the Pittsburgh
Courier to cover the Ruby McCollum case.
May 1956 – Receives an award for
“education and human relations” at Bethune-Cookman College.
June 1956 – Works as a librarian
at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida; fired in 1957.
1957-59 – Writes a column on
“Hoodoo and Black Magic” for the Fort Pierce Chronicle.
1958 – Works as a substitute
teacher at Lincoln Park Academy, Force pierce.
Early 1959 – Suffers a stroke.
October 1959 – Forced to enter the
St. Lucie County Welfare Home.
January 28,
1960 – Dies in the St. Lucie County Welfare Home of
“hypertension heart disease”;
buried in an unmarked grave in the Garden of Heavenly Rest, Fort
Pierce.
August 1973 – Alice Walker
discovers and marks Hurston’s grave.
March 1975 -- Walker publishes “In Search of
Zora Neale Hurston,” in Ms., launching a Hurston revival
*
* * * *
* * *
* *
updated 1 October 2007 |
