Alice Dunbar-Nelson

Hazel Jenkins

English 273

Dr. Long

October 4, 1999

Alice Dunbar-Nelson was born, July 19, 1875, to Patricia Wright, a seamstress and Joseph Moore, a Merchant marine. She was of mixed race -- since her mother was black and Native American and her father was white. Because of her mixture, she had, as a baby, reddish-blond curls and a light enough complexion to "pass" for white, however her hair darkened to auburn as she grew older.

Alice was educated in the New Orleans schools and graduated from Straight University (now Dillard University) in 1892. Later she studied at Cornell University and at the University of Pennsylvania. She began her teaching career in the public school system of New Orleans.

Dunbar-Nelson was married three times, the first being to Paul Laurence Dunbar. She had written an article that was published, along with her picture, in The Monthly Review in 1897. He wrote to her and thus began a correspondence that culminated in their being secretly married on March 6, 1898 in New York where she was teaching. They kept the marriage secret at first because teachers were supposed to be single. When they made the marriage known, she moved to Washington, D. C. where he lived. Their

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life together was a stormy one and he had problems with alcohol but the real story of why they finally separated went to the grave with them. It is interesting to note that Alice’s mother objected to the marriage for several reasons but one was that he was too black!

The second marriage was also a secret. This one was to Henry Arthur Callis (in 1910) but it ended in divorce only a year later.

Her final marriage was in 1916 to a journalist named Robert J. Nelson. This one lasted until her death in 1935.

It was in 1895 that she published her first book, "Violets and Other Tales," a collection of short stories and poems. In this volume, there were several pieces that reflected the life of New Orleans at the turn of the Century. She had a gift for the language spoken by the rich mixture of cultures that was in that place at that time. In one story, "Titee," she tells a rather sad story about a young mis-fit school boy and the ending of his short but rough life. She continued to write and in 1899 published a second book, "The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories." This included a revised "Titee" with a happier ending. The second book was published four years after the first. These were the only two books that came out in her lifetime and they were at the very beginning of her career.

Besides those two collections of short stories, she also wrote other stories, poems, and plays, most of which were not published until after her death. She did other writing also, such as essays and articles for newspapers. In 1921 she began a diary but did not

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keep it long. However, in 1926 to 1931 she again kept a diary. Her diary is one of only two full length diaries written by Nineteenth century Black women that we have available to us.

She was a poet, journalists, playwright, and unpublished novelist. In her newspaper columns she spoke out from the view point of a black woman. In her diary she discussed her world and spoke of family, health, work, writing, sexuality. One can even find documentation that verifies the existence of a Black lesbian network in which she apparently participated. We can also read there of associations with such noted people as Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Georgia Douglas Johnson, W.E.B. Dubois and Mary McLead Bethune.

It is interesting that she apparently had some prejudices against black people. She seemed to feel that the true blacks who were associated with slavery were lesser people than those of mixed blood. Apparently she had some real problems over her own background and struggled with some identity problems. She was prejudiced against certain attitudes and seemed to carry some kind of negative feelings from her childhood that affected her whole life.

In her work, she included themes from the life in New Orleans where she was raised. She also wrote about differences -- contrasting such things as Protestants and Catholics and the Anglo versus the Creole. She gave a lot of attention to color and the

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fact that some Blacks could pass as white due to their mixed heritage. In this area she reveals a bit about her own history. She wrote -- in 1929 -- an essay entitled "Brass Ankles Speak" in which she expressed her distaste for the prejudices of black people against those who were light skinned. Apparently as a child she was called a "light nigger, with straight hair." This was a kind of abuse that seemed to set the stage for much of her writing and may be why she seemed to have some difficulty in fitting in anywhere. It probably also accounts for her championing the odd person -- the one who was different from others. It is also interesting to note that in her stories, none of her heroines were black.

Alice Ruth Moore Dunbar-Nelson was a multi-faceted woman. She became a spokesperson for her sex, she was active in the politics she was permitted to work in, and taught school, championed the downtrodden, and kept herself entertained in sometimes rather eccentric ways. She could pass for white yet all her husbands were black. She was part black herself yet she frequently looked down on the true black. She did not want to be considered a part of slavery yet her mother had been a slave. The complexities of her life and of her experiences gave her the materials for her volumes of writings. In the beginning they showed her inexperience but when she married Paul Laurence Dunbar, she was able to get some recognition that she might not have been

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able to get on her own.. After they were married they saw themselves as a modern day version of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett. They wrote together sometimes and she kept his name even after their divorce and through her subsequent two marriages. In a book titled Color, Sex & Poetry, by Gloria T. Hull, the author had this to say about Alice Dunbar-Nelson. "Dunbar-Nelson [wrote] in a transitional era -- when Victorian ideas maintained force, but when social and legal changes were widening women’s lives and increasing their participation in paid labor. Work outside the home was still felt to detract from true femininity and was seen as temporary/secondary. As a young, informed, progressive black woman, Dunbar-Nelson reflects the contemporary debate, but also her own personal/historic experiences of work and women’s roles (40).

She died at age 60 of heart trouble in the University of Pennsylvania hospital. Gloria T. Hull, who wrote Color, Sex, & Poetry says, "In her sixty years, (Dunbar-Nelson) she had been busy enough and successful enough at her business to make three distinguished lifetimes (104). She also says that Dunbar-Nelson’s place as an Afro-American female writer is just being appreciated. "[She was] a creditable romantic poet, an interesting -- if uneven -- short fictionist, an essayist and speech writer, a renowned journalist, and a marvelous diarist..."(104).

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A rather ironic note is the fact that in spite of her standing and all the progress that had been made in her lifetime, Dunbar-Nelson’s body had to be taken to Delaware to be cremated because no Philadelphia establishment would perform that service for a black person. Her ashes were scattered on the Delaware River.

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CHRONOLOGY

1875 July 19, born in New Orleans, Louisiana

1892 graduated from Straight College

studied at the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art

also studied at the University of Pennsylvania

1892-96 taught school in New Orleans

1895 published Violets and Other Tales

1897-98 taught in Brooklyn, New York

helped found the White Rose Mission

1889 married poet Paul Laurence Dunbar

1899 published The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories

1902 separated from Paul Laurence Dunbar

moved to Wilmington Delaware

1902-20 taught and administered at Howard High School, Wilmington

taught two summer sessions at Hampton Institute

1909 April -- published "Worsdworth’s Use of Milton’s Description of Pandemonium" in the Modern Language Notes

1910 January 19 -- married teacher Henry Arthur Callis

1913-1914 wrote for and helped edit the A. M. E. Church Review

1914 edited and published Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence

1915 was field organizer for the Middle Atlantic States in the campaign for women’s suffrage

1916 April 20, married Robert J. Nelson, a journalist

1916-1917 published a two-part article, "People of Color in Louisiana," in the Journal of Negro History.

1918 toured the South as a field representative of the Woman’s Committee of the Council of National Defense

1920 served on the State Republican Committee of Delaware and directed political activities among Black women

edited and published the Dunbar Speaker and Entertainer

helped found the Industrial School for Colored Girls in Marshaltown, Delaware

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1920-22 co-edited and published the Wilmington Advocate newspaper

1921 August -- began her diary and kept it for the remainder of the year

1922 headed the Anti-Lynching Crusaders in Delaware fighting for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill

1924 directed the Democratic political campaign among Black women from New York headquarters

August and September published a two-part article on Delaware in
"These ‘Colored’ United States" in The Messenger

1924-28 was teacher and parole office at the Industrial School for Colored Girls

1926 January 2 -- September 18, wrote column "From the Woman’s Point of View" in the Pittsburgh Courier

1926-31 Resumed and kept her diary

1928-31 was executive secretary of the American Friends Inter-Racial Peace Committee, which entailed much travel and public speaking

1930 January -- May, wrote column, "So It Seems to Alice Dunbar-Nelson" in the Pittsburgh Courier

1931 was included in James Weldon Johnson’s The Book of American Negro Poetry

1932 moved to Philadelphia, after Robert was appointed to the Pennsylvania Athletic (Boxing) Commission in January

1935 September 18, died of heart trouble at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital

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Works Cited

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I. Davidson, Cathy N. & Wagner-Martin, Linda (Eds.). 1995. The Oxford Companion to Women’s Writing in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press

II. Hull, Gloria T. (1987). Color, Sex and Poetry. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

III. Hull, Gloria T. (Ed). 1984. Give Us Each Day -- the Diary of Alice Dunbar-Nelson. New York: W. W. Norton & Company

IV. Hull, Gloria T. (Ed). 1988. The Works of Alice Dunbar-Nelson.

(Vols. 1-3). New York: Oxford University Press