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Ann Petry
If I were a maker of
perfumes, I would make one and call it "Spring,” and it would smell
like
this cool, sweet, early-morning air.
-Ann Lane Petry
Biography-Criticism
Ann Lane Petry authored of one of the first novels to
address black women's experiences in terms of race, class, and gender.
Petry's
novel, The Street, published in 1946, was the first book by an
African-American woman to sell over one million copies
Petry was born on October 12, 1908 in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.
She was the
second daughter of Peter
C. Lane
and Bertha James Lane.
She grew up middle class in a predominantly white community. Her
parents both
had a professional status in the community. Her father owned the local
drugstore and worked as a pharmacist. Her mother was a licensed
chiropodist,
and worked also in many other occupations such as a hairdresser, a
barber, a
manufacturer, and an entrepreneur.
Petry first encountered racial prejudice when she was on a
Sunday school outing at the age of seven. This, along with other
experiences of
racial prejudice and oppression, brought about a feeling of outrage,
which remained
with her for many years. In contrast, her parents created an
environment that
enabled her to survive against the effects of bigotry and isolation.
Petry first began writing while in high school. She started
out with creating a slogan for a perfume company. From this she went on
to
writing one-act plays and short stories. When she graduated from Old Saybrook High
School in 1929, she
had not yet chosen writing as a career. Instead, she went on to
graduate from
Connecticut College of Pharmacy in 1931 with a Ph.D. With this she
returned
home to work in the family drugstore for a period of five years. Then
for two
years she managed the family drugstore in Old Lyme. During her time as
a
pharmacist she observed the customers who she later included in her
writing.
Petry left her career in pharmacy to marry George D. Petry,
a New York
mystery writer, in 1938. They moved to New York where she decided that she
wanted to pursue a
career in writing. She started out working for the Amsterdam
News selling ad space until 1941. On August
19, 1939, her first story, "Marie of the Cabin Club," was published
in the Afro-American
under the pseudonym Arnold Petry. She had decided to save her own name
for her
more "serious" work.
In 1941, she began working as a reporter for the People's
Voice. She credited her five years as a journalist,
working in almost every aspect of the newspaper business, as the most
influential on her writing. She then shifted her objective from
observation to
direct interaction with the people of Harlem by founding Negro Women,
Inc., and
then in 1944 becoming a recreational specialist at P.S. 10, a Harlem
elementary
school. Here she designed programs for problem children. She also took
up an
active civic and social life. She studied painting, took piano lessons,
acted
in Striver's Row, an
American Negro Theater production, and taught a business letter-writing
course
at the Harlem Branch of the NAACP. She published The Steet in
1946 and
the reissue of The Street in the mid 1980s triggered another
round of
critical acclaim by a new generation of readers and renewed attention
by
academics.
In the early 1990's there was a flurry of activity around
Petry's work. She was given a Connecticut Arts Award in 1992 and a
symposium on
her writings was held at Trinity
College
in 1992. Petry
was appointed a visiting professor of English at the University
of Hawaii (1944-45), and she
lectured
widely throughout the United States. Her
contribution to literature has
been acknowledged by membership in the Author's Guild and American
P.E.N.;
Association of Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, and Novelists;
and by
honorary doctorates from several colleges and universities. When Mrs.
Petry
died in 1997 in Old Saybrook, a short distance from the James Pharmacy,
which
still bears her aunt's name. She was widely regarded as a pioneering
figure in
the twentieth-century African-American writing.
Selected Bibliography
Works by the
author
The Street (1946)
Country Place
(1947)
The Drugstore Cat
(1949)
The Narrows
(1953)
Harriet Tubman:
Conductor on the Underground Railroad (1955)
A Girl Called Moses:
The Story of Harriet Tubman (1960)
The Common Ground
(1964)
Tituba of Salem Village
(1964)
Legends of the Saints
(1970)
Miss Muriel and Other
Stories (1971)
Works about
the
author
Bone, Robert A. The
Negro Novel in America.
New Haven:
Yale
U P,1965.
Davis, Arthur P. From
the Dark
Tower:
Afro-American Writers from 1900
to 1960.
Washington:
Howard UP, 1974.
De Montreville, Doris, and Hill, Donna ed. Third
Book of Junior Authors.
Bronx: Wilson,1972.
Gillespie,
John, and Lembo, Diana. Juniorplots: A
Book Talk Manual for Teachers and Librarians.
Ann Arbor:
Bowker, 1967
Littlejohn,
David, Black on White: A Critical
Survey of Writing by American Negroes. New York: Viking, 1966.
Related Links
http://www.galent.galgroup.com
http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/397/Novelist_Ann_Petry_wrote_for_all_ages
-Picture and Biography of Ann Petry.
http://www.cwhf.orghttp://www.cwhf.org/hall/petry/petry.htm
-Women’s Connecticut Hall of Fame; Ann Petry a Survivor and
a Gambler.
http://www.bridgew.edu
http://authors.aalbc.com/annpetry.htm
Pictures of Ann Petry when she was young and
when she has aged.
www.upress.state.ms.us/catalog/fall2005/can_anything_beat_white.html
-Picture of Ann Petry’s ancestors.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r105:S09MY7-115:
-Gives information about Ann Petry’s home.
This page was researched and
submitted by Lurshawn
Williams. Please contact the editor with any questions or
suggestions. |
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