Eudora Welty

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Eudora Welty
Born Eudora Alice Welty
April 13, 1909(1909-04-13)
Jackson, Mississippi, United States
Died July 23, 2001 (aged 92)
Jackson, Mississippi, United States
Occupation Author, photographer
Notable award(s) Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
1973 The Optimist's Daughter
Literature portal

Eudora Alice Welty (April 13, 1909 – July 23, 2001) was an award-winning American author who wrote short stories and novels about the American South. Her book The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 and she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous awards. She was the first living author to have her works published by the Library of America. Her house in Jackson, Mississippi was designated a National Historic Landmark and opened to the public as a museum.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Welty was born in Jackson, Mississippi, to Chestina and Christian Welty, a schoolteacher and insurance executive, respectively. She had two brothers, Edward and Walter.[1] She lived most of her life in Jackson's Belhaven neighborhood, in the house her parents built in 1925. She donated her home to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in honor of her parents. It has been preserved as a museum after having been designated a National Historic Landmark.

She was educated at the Mississippi State College for Women (now called Mississippi University for Women), and later studied at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Columbia Business School. While at Columbia University, she was the captain of the women's polo team, Welty was a regular at Romany Marie's café in 1930.[2] Her work was rooted in her sense of place, of Mississippi and its peoples.[3]

Welty died of pneumonia in Jackson, at the age of 92. She was buried there in Greenwood Cemetery.

[edit] Photography

The headstone of Eudora Welty at Greenwood Cemetery in Jackson, Mississippi

During the 1930s, Welty worked as a publicity agent for the Works Progress Administration, a job that sent her around Mississippi. On her own time, she took some of her most memorable photographs during the Great Depression, of people from all economic and social classes. Collections of her photographs were published as One Time, One Place (1971) and Photographs (1989).

[edit] Writing career

Welty was focused on her writing but continued to take photographs until the 1950s.[4] Her first short story, "Death of a Traveling Salesman", appeared in 1936. Her work attracted the attention of author Katherine Anne Porter. Porter became a mentor to Welty and wrote the foreword to Welty's first collection of short stories, A Curtain of Green, in 1941. The book immediately established Welty as one of American literature's leading lights and featured the stories "Why I Live at the P.O.", "Petrified Man", and "A Worn Path".

Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1973. In 1992, Welty was awarded the Rea Award for the Short Story for her lifetime contributions to the American short story.

Welty was a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, founded in 1987. She also taught creative writing in college and workshops. She lived near Belhaven College, and in her neighborhood was a common sight among the people of her hometown.

[edit] Honors

[edit] Short story collections

[edit] Novels

[edit] Literary criticism and non-fiction

  • Three Papers on Fiction (criticism), 1962
  • The Eye of the Story (selected essays and reviews), 1978
  • One Writer's Beginnings (autobiography), 1983
  • The Norton Book of Friendship (editor, with Roland A. Sharp), 1991
  • 3 Minutes or Less (selected essay), 2001

[edit] Commemoration

  • Eudora, the name given to the Internet email program developed by Steve Dorner in 1990, was inspired by Welty's story "Why I Live at the P.O."[17]
  • The State of Mississippi established a "Eudora Welty Day".

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Carol Ann Johnston, "Eudora Welty", The Mississippi Writer's Page, University of Mississippi, Feb 2006, accessed 25 May 2009
  2. ^ Jan Whitaker. Tea at the Blue Lantern Inn: A Social History of the Tea Room Craze in America, New York: St. Martin's Press, 2002, (p. 42). ISBN 0-31229-064-0
  3. ^ Nicholas Dawidoff, "At Home with Eudora Welty' Only the Typewriter Is Silent", The New York Times, 10 Aug 1995, accessed 26 May 2009
  4. ^ Karen Rosenberg, "Eudora Welty's work as a young writer: Taking pictures", The New York Times, 14 Jan 2009, accessed 26 May 2009
  5. ^ Nicholas Dawidoff, "At Home with Eudora Welty' Only the Typewriter Is Silent", The New York Times, 10 Aug 1995, accessed 26 May 2009
  6. ^ Nicholas Dawidoff, "At Home with Eudora Welty' Only the Typewriter Is Silent", The New York Times, 10 Aug 1995, accessed 26 May 2009
  7. ^ Carol Ann Johnston, "Eudora Welty", The Mississippi Writer's Page, University of Mississippi, Feb 2006, accessed 25 May 2009
  8. ^ Suzanne Marrs, Eudora Welty: A Biography, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005, p. 547
  9. ^ Dana Sterling, "Welty reads to audience at Helmerich award dinner", Tulsa World, December 7, 1991.
  10. ^ Suzanne Marrs, Eudora Welty: A Biography, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005, p. 547
  11. ^ Suzanne Marrs, Eudora Welty: A Biography, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005, p. 549
  12. ^ Suzanne Marrs, Eudora Welty: A Biography, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005, p. 549
  13. ^ Suzanne Marrs, Eudora Welty: A Biography, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005, p. 549
  14. ^ Suzanne Marrs, Eudora Welty: A Biography, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005, p. 549
  15. ^ Carol Ann Johnston, "Eudora Welty", The Mississippi Writer's Page, University of Mississippi, Feb 2006, accessed 25 May 2009
  16. ^ Carol Ann Johnston, "Eudora Welty", The Mississippi Writer's Page, University of Mississippi, Feb 2006, accessed 25 May 2009
  17. ^ Eudora e-mail program

[edit] Additional reading

  • Suzanne Marrs, Eudora Welty: A Biography, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005

[edit] External links

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