[>] Zora's siblings ranged in age...: The birthdates of ZNH's brothers and sister are given in Letters, p. 37.
"Jacksonville made me know...": Dust, p. 70.
[>] "So I came back to my father's house...": Dust, p. 84.
[>]–24 "I was shifted from house to house...": Dust, p. 87.
[>] "No matter how I resolved...": Dust, pp. 88–89.
a memorable incident that occurred around 1911...: Dust, pp. 75–78.
4. "THE GOLDEN STAIRS"
Dust and Speak provided most of the information for this chapter.
[>] "Nothing can describe my joy ...": Dust, 99.
Shortly after graduating from Meharry in 1913 ...: Rainbows, 67. This book was helpful regarding many other dates as well.
My feet mounted up the golden stairs...": Dust, 101–2.
[>]–32 ZNH's adventures with "Miss M" and the operetta troupe are described in Dust, pp. 102–19.
[>] "I have no race prejudice of any kind": Dust, p. 231.
[>] "I learned that skins...": Dust, p. 191.
"find the road...": Dust, p. 122.
[>] According to Maryland state law...: Rainbows, p. 75.
"[Literature is] my world...": Dust, p. 123.
[>] "Dear Dean...": Letters, p. 54.
[>] "Zora, you are Howard material..."; "You can come and live": Dust, pp. 129–30.
[>] An event that she witnessed in the barbershop...: Dust, pp. 134–36.
[>] "For the first time since my mother's death...": Dust, p. 204.
[>] "I knowa place...": Speak, p. 9.
[>] "John Redding Goes to Sea": This story can be found in Speak, p. 13.
[>] "Drenched in Light": This story can be found in Speak, p. 9.
[>] "So ... the first week of January...": Dust, p. 138.
5. "A TOE-HOLD ON THE WORLD"
Most of the material for this chapter comes from Dust, Hemenway, Rainbows, and Letters.
[>] "fun to be a Negro": Rainbows, p. 93.
[>] "when Zora was there...": Hemenway, p. 61.
[>] "Zora Neale Hurston is a clever girl...": Rainbows, p. 99.
[>] "My Dear Mrs. Meyer...": ZNH to Annie Nathan Meyer, May 12,, 1925, in Letters, p. 55.
[>]–54 "Almost nobody else could stop...": Rainbows, p. 114.
[>] "Today I have 11 cents...": Letters, pp. 67–68.
on one occasion she actually stole money...: Rainbows, p. 105.
55–56 "My idea of Hell...": ZNH to Katherine L'Engle, February 1946, in Letters, pp. 540–41.
56 "shorthand was short on legibility...": Rainbows, p. 107.
[>] "I have had some small success...": Rainbows, p. 103.
"I shall try to lay my dreaming aside..." ZNH to Annie Nathan Meyer, January 1926, Letters, 76–77.
"I do not wish to become Hurstized..." ZNH to Annie Nathan Meyer, December 13, 1925, Letters, pp. 71–72.
[>] "took a roll of toilet paper..."; "She never made that boy feel bad...": Rainbows, 134.
"Fire has gone to ashes...": ZNH to Alain Locke, October 11, 1927, in Letters, pp. 109–10.
6. 1927
Most of the information for this chapter comes from Dust, Hemenway, Rainbows, and Letters.
[>] "I did not have the right approach...": Dust, pp. 143–44.
[>] "I found that what you obtained...": Rainbows, p. 146.
"It was not my happiest day...": Dust, p. 204.
"Yes, I'm married now...": ZNH to Dorothy West and Helene Johnson, May 22, 1927, in Letters, pp. 101–2.
[>] "Zora was full of her work...": Rainbows, p. 150.
[>] she committed the cardinal sin...: The story of ZNH plagiarizing material about Cudjo Lewis comes from Hemenway, pp. 96–100.
[>] "Getting some gorgeous material...": ZNH to Langston Hughes, March 17, 1927, in Letters, p. 93.
[>] "I stood before Papa Franz...": Dust, p. 144.
[>] "Dear Bambino...": ZNH to Langston Hughes, September 21, 1927, in Letters, pp. 106–7.
7. "MOST GORGEOUS POSSIBILITIES"
Most of this chapter is based on material from Dust, Rainbows, Hemenway, and Letters.
[>] "I believe I have almost...": ZNH to Langston Hughes, March 8, 1928, in Letters, pp. 112–14.
"I saw sudden death...": Dust, pp. 155–56.
[>] "On the third night, I had dreams...": Dust, pp. 156–57.
[>] "I am now writing music...": Letters, p. 147.
[>] "I just had to know more...": Dust, p. 157.
[>] "only [her] return ticket and 24 cents...": ZNH to Langston Hughes, October 15, 1929, in Letters, pp. 148–49.
"Well, I tell you, Langston...": ZNH to Langston Hughes, December 10, 1929, in Letters, pp. 154–55.
8. "YOU, LANGSTON HUGHES, CUT ME TO THE QUICK"
Most of the information for this chapter comes from Hemenway, Rainbows, and Letters.
[>] "Darling my God-Flower...": Letters, pp. 187–89.
[>] "I love you, Godmother....": Rainbows, pp. 203.
[>] "I was just plain hurt....": Letters, pp. 201–4.
[>] "[Zora] pushed her hat back..."; "I had to get up out of bed...": Rainbows, p. 215.
"DARLING GODMOTHER...": ZNH to Charlotte Mason, February 3, 1931, in Letters, p. 209.
[>] "Godmother, for love...": Letters, pp. 221–23.
9. "IT COST $1.83 TO MAIL, AND I DID NOT HAVE IT"
This chapter is based mainly on material from Dust, Rainbows, Hemenway, and Letters.
[>] "I firmly believe...": ZNH to Charlotte Mason, September 25, 1931, in Letters, pp. 226–30.
"My work is coming on most satisfactorily...": ZNH to Charlotte Mason, May 17, 1932, in Letters, pp. 255–56.
[>] "Early in Feb. we sing...": ZNH to Charlotte Mason, January 6, 1933, in Letters pp. 275–77.
[>] "It cost $1.83 to mail...": Dust, p. 174.
[>] "When I opened it and read...": Dust, p. 175.
[>] "scared to death of reviews": ZNH to Carl Van Vechten, April 26, 1934, in Letters, p. 301.
[>]. "I WROTE IT IN SEVEN WEEKS": THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD
Information for this chapter comes mainly from Dust, Rainbows, Hemenway, and Letters.
[>] "One day eight people were trying to direct...": Letters, p. 317.
[>] "the real love affair of my life": Dust, p. 207.
[>] "He was tall, dark brown...": Dust, p. 205.
[>] "I love myself when..." ZNH to Carl Van Vechten, December 10, 1934, in Letters, p. 324.
"That one thing I could not do..." Dust, p. 208.
[>] "better even than Leadbelly": Hemenway, p. 212.
[>] "gorgeous clothes"; "beautiful things": Rainbows, p. 278.
[>]–21 "I wrote Their Eyes...": Dust, p. 175.
[>] "They saw other people...": Their Eyes Were Watching God, p. 153.
"I tried...[to embody] all the tenderness...": Dust, p. 211.
[>]. "I SHALL KEEP TRYING"
The sources for most of the material in this chapter are Rainbows, Hemenway, and Letters.
[>] "an example of rank dishonesty"; "a fraud"; "[He] knows nothing...": Hemenway, pp. 241–42.
"Alain Leroy Locke is a malicious...": ZNH to James Weldon Johnson, February 1938, in Letters, pp. 413–14.
[>] "Let's go!": Rainbows, p. 317.
"Aunt Zora doesn't have any business...": Rainbows, p. 325.
Zora and Albert were married...: Information about ZNH's marriage to Albert Price III appears in Speak, p. 25.
[>] "They have strong winds on the Florida west coast...": Bordelon, Go Gator and Muddy the Water, p.76.
[>] "I don't think it achieved..." ZNH, October 12, 1939, in Letters, pp. 422–23.
[>] "I did not want to do it now...": ZNH, December 30, 1941, in Letters, pp. 463–65.
[>] "the most unfortunate thing Zora ever wrote": Hemenway, p. xvii.
[>] "I feel lucky to be under Max Perkins": Letters, p. 550.
[>]. "I HAD EXACTLY FOUR PENNIES"
Information for this
chapter comes mainly from Rainbows, Hemenway, and Letters.
[>] "Please help me..." ZNH to Fannie Hurst, February 10, 1949, in Letters, pp. 579–80.
[>] "I had exactly four pennies": Letters, pp. 649–50.
[>] "old cuss"; "He could not accept the reality..."; "We fought like tigers...": ZNH to Burroughs Mitchelf July 21, 1950, in Letters, pp. 630–32.
[>] "The story I am burning to write...": ZNH to Carl Van Vechten, September 12, 1945, in Letters, pp. 528–30.
[>] "under the spell of a great...": ZNH to Burroughs Mitchell, October 2, 1953, in Letters, pp. 702–4.
"Naturally, I am sorry...": ZNH to Burroughs Mitchell, August 12, 1955, in Letters, pp. 741–42.
[>] "too well educated...": ZNH, June 27, 1957, in Letters, pp. 756–60.
"Discipline at Lincoln Park Academy...": ZNH, March 7, 1958, in Letters, pp. 765–68.
[>]. "NOTHING IS DESTRUCTIBLE": THE REBIRTH OF ZORA NEALE HURSTON
Material for this chapter comes partly from Rainbows and Speak.
[>] "Nothing is destructible..." Dust, p. 226.
[>] Their Eyes has now sold well over five million copies...: Speak, p. 7.
TWO "LIES" (FOLKTALES) COLLECTED IN FLORIDA BY ZORA NEALE HURSTON
[>]–58 The Sis Snail "lie" appears in Go Gator and Muddy the Water, p. 78, and the sweet potatoes folktale is on page 77 of that book.
Bibliography
Bordeion, Pamela, ed. Go Gator and Muddy the Water: Writings by Zora Neale Hurston from the Federal Writers' Project. New York: Norton, 1999.
Boyd, Valerie. Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston. New York: Scribner, 2003.
Hemenway, Robert E. Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977.
Hurston, Lucy Anne. Speak, So You Can Speak Again: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston. New York: Doubleday, 2004.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Dust Tracks on a Road. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.
————. Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings. New York: Library of America, 1995.
————. Mules and Men. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978.
————. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper & Row, 1990.
Kaplan, Carla, ed. Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters. New York: Doubleday, 2002.
Lyons, Mary E. Sorrow's Kitchen: The Life and Folklore of Zora Neale Hurston. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1990.
Nichols, Charles H., ed. Arna Bontemps-Langston Hughes Letters, 1925–1967. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1980.
Walker, Alice, ed. I Love Myself When I Am Laughing ... and Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader. New York: Feminist Press, 1979.
Image Credits
A. Peck: 54.
American Memory Collection: 93.
Barnard College Achives: 52.
Florida Memory Collection, State Archives and Library of Florida: 12, 79, 80.
Library of Congress: 36, 38, 44, 45, 48, 49, 56, 59, 85, 96 (self-portrait), 106, 107, 109, 120.
Moorland-Spingarn Library, Howard University: 34, 42.
Newspaper.com: 145.
Olin Library Archives, Rollins College: 103.
Rush University, Chicago: 40.
Saturday Evening Post: 131.
Stetson Kennedy Collection at the University of Florida, Gainesville: 20, 65, 136, 146, 148, 153, 155.
University of Southern Alabama Archives: 69.
Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library: viii, 51, 62, 72, 75, 115, 150, 155 (bottom).
Zora Neale Hurston Trust: 6, 23, 27, 28.
Index
Page numbers in italics refer to photos and their captions.
African Americans
college enrollment, [>]
deathbed customs, [>]–[>]
founding of Eatonville, Florida, [>]
in Harlem, [>], [>]–[>]
Harlem Renaissance, [>]–[>], [>], [>]
high school attendance, [>]–[>]
literacy, [>]
lynchings, [>], [>]–[>]
rarity of authors among, [>]
segregation, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
stereotypes about, [>], [>]
American Mercury, [>]–[>]
Amsterdam News, [>]
Anisfield-Wolf Award, [>]
Bahamas, folklore project in, xiii, [>]–[>], [>]
Barnard College, [>], [>], [>]–[>]
Barnicle, Mary Elizabeth, [>]–[>]
Barracoon, [>], [>]
Bennett, Gwendolyn, [>]
Bethune-Cookman College, [>]
blacks. See African Americans
Boas, Franz, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]
"Bone of Contention, The," [>]
Bontemps, Arna, [>], [>]
books
Barracoon (also called The Life of Kpssula), [>], [>]
Dust Tracks on a Road, [>]–[>]
first novel, [>]–[>], [>]
Florida Negro, The, [>], [>]
Golden Bench of God, The, [>], [>]
Herod the Great, [>]–[>], [>], [>]
Jonah's Gourd Vine, [>], [>], [>]
Lives of Barney Turk, The, [>]–[>], [>]
Moses, Man of the Mountain, [>], [>]
Mules and Men, [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>]
out of print, [>], [>]
poor sales, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
reissues, [>]
rejections, [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
Seraph on the Suwanee, [>]–[>], [>], [>]
Tell My Horse, [>], [>]–[>]
Their Eyes Were Watching God, [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]
Boyd, Valerie, [>]
Brett, Reginald, [>]
Brown, Gabriel, [>]
Brown, Sterling, [>]
Burritt family, [>]–[>], [>], [>]
Color Struck, [>]–[>], [>]
Columbia University, [>]–[>], [>], [>]
"Conscience of the Court, The," [>], [>], [>]
Crisis magazine, [>], [>]
Cullen, Countee, [>], [>]
Douglas, Aaron, [>]
"Drenched in Light," [>]–[>]
Du Bois, W.E.B., [>], [>], [>], [>]
Dust Tracks on a Road, [>]–[>]
Duval, Patrick, [>]
education
Barnard College, [>], [>]–[>]
boarding school, [>]–[>], [>]
Columbia University, [>]–[>], [>], [>]
elementary school, [>], [>]
high school diploma, [>]
at home, [>]
Howard University, [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]
manicuring course, [>]
night high school, [>]
preparatory school, [>]–[>], [>]
self-education, [>]
tuition for, [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]
Fast and Furious, [>]
Fauset, Jessie, [>]
Federal Theatre Project, [>]
Federal Writers' Project (FWP), [>], [>]
Fire!! magazine, [>]–[>]
Florida Baptist Academy, [>]–[>], [>]
Florida Negro, The, [>], [>]
Florida Normal and Industrial College, [>]
folklore collection projects
in Bahamas, [>], [>]–[>], [>]
for Federal Writers' Project, [>]
in Florida lumber camp, [>]–[>], [>], [>]
former slaves, [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]
in Haiti and jamaica, [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>]
in Honduras, [>], [>]–[>]
"lies," [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>]
Lomax-Hurston-Barnicle expedition, [>], [>], [>]–[>]
in New Orleans, [>]–[>]
plagiarized report on, [>]–[>]
in South, [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]
voodoo, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]
folk opera plans, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
French, Rochelle, [>]<
br />
From Sun to Sun, [>], [>], [>]–[>]
ghostwriting, [>]–[>]
"Gilded Six-Bits, The," [>]
Godmother. See Mason, Charlotte "Godmother"
Golden Bench of God, The, [>], [>]
Great Day, The, [>]
Guggenheim Foundation grant, [>]
Haiti, folklore project in, [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>]
Harlem Renaissance, [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]
health problems, [>]
abdominal pains, [>]
appendicitis, [>]–[>]
influenza with complications, [>]
multitude of, [>]
strokes, [>]–[>]
Hemenway, Robert, [>]
Herod the Great, [>]–[>], [>], [>]
"Home," [>]
Honduras, folklore project in, [>], [>]–[>]
Howard University, [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]
Hughes, Langston, [>]
autobiography, [>]
childhood, [>]
coauthorship of Mule Bone, [>]–[>]
cofounding of Fire!! magazine, [>]
feud over Mule Bone, [>]–[>]
financial support from Godmother, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]
first novel, [>], [>]
folklore collection trip, [>], [>]
folk opera plans, [>], [>], [>], [>]
friendship with Zora, [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
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