by Ann Petry
It is with reluctance that I speak of my own writing. I have never been satisfied with anything I have written and I doubt that I ever will be. Most of what I have learned about writing I learned the hard way, through trial and error and rejection slips. I set out to be a writer of short stories and somehow ended up as a novelist—possibly because there simply wasn’t room enough within the framework of a short story to do the sort of thing I wanted to do. I have collected enough rejection slips for my short stories to paper four or five good sized rooms. During that rejection slip period I was always reading the autobiography of writers, and in Arthur Train’s My Day in Court I found a piece of rather wonderful advice. He said that if he were a beginning writer one of the things that he would do would be to enter Mabel L. Robinson’s course in the short story at Columbia University. Needless to say I promptly applied for admission to the class.
I spent a year in Miss Robinson’s short story class. And during another year I was a member of the workshop that she conducts at Columbia. What I didn’t learn through trial and error I learned from Miss Robinson. She taught me to criticize what I had written and to read other people’s creative efforts with a critical eye. Perhaps of even greater importance she made me believe in myself.
As partial payment for a debt of gratitude I am passing along Arthur Train’s advice. If the walls of your apartment or your house are papered with rejection slips I suggest that you apply for admission to one of Miss Robinson’s classes.
The Writer’s Book, ed. Helen Hull (1950)
CHRONOLOGY
NOTE ON THE TEXTS
NOTES
Chronology
1908–1912
Born Anna Houston Lane in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, on October 12, 1908, the younger of two surviving children of Bertha Ernestine James and Peter Clark Lane. Mother, thirty-three, is a recently licensed barber and beautician who later starts her own business, Beautiful Linens for Beautiful Homes, producing handmade linen and lace tablecloths and napkins. Father, thirty-five, has owned and operated the local drugstore at 2 Pennywise Lane since 1902; the family lives above it. Their first child, Bertha Harriet Lane, died of pleurisy as an infant, in 1905; their second, Helen Louise Lane, was born December 14, 1906. The Lanes are one of four black families in Old Saybrook, “a picture-postcard of a town” (as she later describes it) but also “an essentially hostile environment for a black family.” The 1910 census lists paternal uncle Warren Lane, a thirty-three-year-old livery driver, and maternal aunt Helen James, a thirty-year-old grade school teacher, as members of the household. Aunt Anna Louise James arrives in 1912 and works in the family drugstore; the previous year, at age twenty-five, she became the first licensed African American woman pharmacist in Connecticut.
1913–1917
Enters Old Saybrook Elementary School at age four, along with her older sister. The two girls are bullied by boys who hurl rocks and racial epithets. The next day, their uncles accompany them to school, confront the boys, and the bullying stops. Reads Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women in the second or third grade; feels “as though I was part of Jo and she was part of me.” In 1915, mother graduates from New York School of Chiropody in Harlem and begins practicing next to the family drugstore.
1918
Father takes job with a drug wholesaler in Hartford, Connecticut, boarding with relatives during the week and returning home on weekends. Aunt Anna Louise James takes responsibility for the family pharmacy, and within a few years becomes its owner.
1919
Becomes an “omnivorous reader,” she later remembers, after her encounter with Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone.
1920
In May, family moves from their apartment above James Pharmacy into a new house in Old Saybrook.
1921
Father writes letter to NAACP magazine The Crisis, not published, describing problems with a racist eighth-grade teacher in Old Saybrook: “I want my daughters to have a good education and they want to get one also. I am a laboring man and have got to have some one to help me to get my girls through this school.”
1922–1923
In May 1922, is confirmed as a member of the Old Saybrook Congregational Church, which her family attends. Remains active in the church for the rest of her life, helping to organize the Sunday school and collecting books to be sold at annual church fairs.
1924
Sister is accepted at the Woman’s College in Brown University; arriving on campus with her family, she is told she cannot live in school dormitories because of her race and must find private accommodation.
1925
Graduates from Old Saybrook High School.
1926
Attends Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Hampton, Virginia; takes courses in meal preparation and domestic economy.
1927
Leaves Hampton in the fall in the wake of a strike in which students demand an expanded role in the administration, more African American faculty, and a higher quality of teaching.
1928–1930
Attends Connecticut College of Pharmacy in New Haven beginning in 1928. Sister graduates from Brown with a degree in English the same year, and goes on to teach.
1931–1935
Graduates from Connecticut College of Pharmacy in 1931 and begins working in the family business, first in Old Saybrook and then as manager of a second store in Old Lyme, Connecticut. (“I worked seven days a week,” she later recalls; “the only time that the drugstore was closed was on Christmas in the afternoon and on Thanksgiving in the afternoon.”) Sends short stories to magazines, receiving many rejection letters. Meets future husband George David Petry during a trip to Hartford, where both are visiting friends; about a year her senior, Petry moved to New York City during the 1920s from New Iberia, Louisiana, to continue his education, ultimately completing two years of college while managing a restaurant. He also played football, and wrote detective fiction.
1936–1937
On March 13, 1936, marries Petry in Mount Vernon, New York, keeping the fact secret from her parents. Acting Mayor William E. Hughes, Jr., officiates. A week after the ceremony, supplies false information for a story in The Amsterdam News (“Connecticut Druggist Likes Shows, So She Comes Here,” March 21), which reports that Miss Anna Houston Lane has been staying at the Emma Ransom House, a women’s residence at the Harlem YMCA, to attend Broadway shows with her friends. The reasons for her secrecy remain obscure.
1938
On February 22, marries George Petry publicly in a ceremony officiated by the Rev. Herbert P. Wooden in her parents’ living room in Old Saybrook; gives 1938 as the date of her marriage in subsequent accounts of her life. The couple lives at 2 East 129th Street in Harlem with George’s older sister. Works briefly as an advertising copywriter for a wig company, then begins career at New York’s Amsterdam News in the advertising department.
1939
Publishes first short story, “Marie of the Cabin Club,” in the Baltimore Afro-American on August 19, under the pseudonym Arnold Petri; receives a check for $5.
1940
Performs in the role of newspaper editor Tillie Petunia in the American Negro Theater’s production of On Striver’s Row, written and directed by Abram Hill, which opens on September 11 at the 135th Street Library Theater (now part of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture) and runs for five months. Later helps to raise funds for the theater company. Publishes story “One Night in Harlem” in the Afro-American on November 16, again under the pseudonym Arnold Petri. In December, helps to organize and serves as temporary chair of the Consolidated Housewives League, a Harlem consumer group “determined to put a stop to the shady practices of unscrupulous merchants.”
1941
In February, the Housewives League protests a planned New York screening of D. W. Griffith’s film The Birth of a Nation. Leaves The Amsterdam News to work fo
r The People’s Voice, founded by Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and the most radical of Harlem’s three weekly newspapers, serving as women’s editor. Reports on “everything from teas to fires, with births, deaths and picket lines interspersed,” as she later puts it; some of her journalism inspires her later fiction. Takes painting and drawing classes at the Harlem Community Arts Center.
1942
With Dollie Robinson, a trade unionist and political activist, establishes Negro Women Incorporated, described as “a Harlem consumer’s watch group that provides working class women with ‘how-to’ information for purchasing food, clothing, and furniture.” The organization also encourages participation in the war effort, mobilizes the vote, and teaches black women to recognize themselves as political agents. Begins a regular weekly column for The People’s Voice on March 7; titled “The Lighter Side,” it discusses art, literature, music, the comings and goings of Harlem’s elites, and other topics of the day. In August, joins a Negro Women Incorporated picket line protesting New York Daily News coverage of Harlem; writes article “Harlem Women Wax Indignant over Latest ‘Crime’ Campaign” for her paper. Volunteers for the Laundry Workers Joint Board, developing educational materials for the children of laundry workers, and hosts a tea to benefit Hope Day Nursery in Harlem. Is admitted to Mabel Louise Robinson’s celebrated writing workshop at Columbia University; studies with Robinson for two years, later crediting her with having a profound influence on her literary development.
1943
In April, with other journalists, helps to organize a variety show to benefit Harlem Neighborhood Clubs, which provide “wholesome activities for the boys and girls of Harlem.” Loses her full-time position at The People’s Voice amid staff cutbacks, publishing her last column on May 8, but continues to contribute occasional articles. On July 3, husband enlists in the U.S. Army; he enters active service on July 24 at Camp Upton, New York. Works in several part-time or short-term positions: for the Harlem-Riverside Defense Council, preparing press releases as assistant to the secretary; for the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses, as publicity director; and for Harlem’s Play Schools Association Project at Public School No. 10, as a recreation specialist. In the latter role she helps to develop programs for the children of working parents at the school, focusing on the problem of “latchkey” children, who return from school to empty apartments because their parents work long hours. Receives $20 for the story “On Saturday the Siren Sounds at Noon,” which appears in the December issue of The Crisis; an editor at Houghton Mifflin, reading the story, asks if she is working on a novel, and encourages her to apply for the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship.
1944
Starts writing The Street in the fall. Toward the end of the year, submits outline and chapters of the novel to Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship. Organizes Negro History discussions at P.S. 10 on St. Nicholas Avenue and 116th Street. In October, Negro Women Incorporated holds voter registration mass meeting at Abyssinian Baptist Church, located at 132 West 138th Street. Story “Doby’s Gone” appears in Phylon, a journal established by W.E.B. Du Bois in 1940.
1945
In February, wins $2,400 Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship to work on The Street. Publishes “New England’s John Henry,” about Venture Smith, a slave who purchased his freedom in 1765, in the March issue of Negro Digest, followed by stories “Olaf and His Girl Friend” and “Like a Winding Sheet” in The Crisis. Is honored by Negro Women Incorporated at an April testimonial tea at the 135th Street Public Library. Moves to a new apartment in the Bronx sometime before June; spends summer vacation with family in Old Saybrook.
1946
On February 7, Houghton Mifflin publishes The Street with notable fanfare; 20,000 copies are sold in advance of its release (the novel will eventually sell over one million copies, the first book by an African American woman to do so). Publisher hosts a book party at the Hotel Biltmore attended by Owen Dodson, John Dos Passos, Lewis Gannet of the New York Herald Tribune, Harold Jackman, Grace Nail Johnson, Bucklin Moon, Isabelle Washington Powell, Orville Prescott of The New York Times, and Cornelia Otis Skinner, among others. Friend Frances Reckling hosts more intimate gathering in her Harlem studio. Corresponds with prominent Harlem Renaissance intellectual Alain Locke about her plans for a second novel. In April, is featured speaker at a New York conference of the Play Schools Association. Describes a personal encounter with racism for the Negro Digest series “My Most Humiliating Jim Crow Experience” in June: at age seven, she and her classmates had to leave a Connecticut beach because she was black. Is honored for “exceptional contributions to the life of New York City” by the Women’s City Club. In September, reviews Margaret Halsey’s Color Blind: A White Woman Looks at the Negro for PM, a liberal-leaning New York daily. Husband George is discharged from the U.S. Army at Camp Pickett, Virginia, on October 4. The Crisis publishes her story “Like a Winding Sheet” in November; it is included in the year’s Best American Short Stories, which editor Martha Foley dedicates to Petry.
1947
Article “What’s Wrong with Negro Men” appears in the March issue of Negro Digest; reviews Laura Z. Hobson’s novel Gentleman’s Agreement in PM. In June, The Street is optioned for film by a former Warner Brothers publicist. Country Place, her second novel, is published by Houghton Mifflin in September; some reviewers compare it unfavorably to The Street. Friend Frances Kraft Reckling hosts book party at her Harlem studio. Moves to Old Saybrook with husband George, “beleaguered,” as she later puts it, “by all the hoopla, the interviews, the invitations to speak” that follow her fame as a novelist. They purchase an old house, originally built for a sea captain around 1790, which they gradually renovate. Furnishes the house with local antiques, becoming a lifelong collector of china and silver and frequenter of estate sales. Donates manuscripts of The Street to the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection at Yale University. Publishes stories “The Bones of Louella Brown” in Opportunity (October–December), “Solo on the Drums” in ’47: The Magazine of the Year (October), and “In Darkness and Confusion” in the anthology Cross Section, edited by Edwin Seaver.
1948
In May, attends Harlem book party for publication of Dorothy West’s novel The Living Is Easy. Donates letters, photographs, and the manuscript of Country Place to James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection at Yale.
1949
Daughter Elisabeth Ann Petry is born on January 28 in Middletown, Connecticut. Photo-essay “Harlem” appears in the April issue of Holiday. Reviews Bucklin Moon’s novel Without Magnolias in the New York Herald Tribune. Father dies of cancer on August 27. Publishes first children’s book, The Drugstore Cat, with Thomas Y. Crowell in November; it is illustrated by Susanne Suba.
1950
Essay “The Novel as Social Criticism” appears in The Writer’s Book, edited by Helen Hull. Reviews novels Stranger and Alone by J. Saunders Redding and Taffy by Philip B. Kaye for the Saturday Review of Literature. Lectures at Morgan State College in Baltimore.
1951
Works intensively on third novel The Narrows, for which she had begun making notes around 1948.
1952
Speaks at a February conference of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, at Hunter College in New York.
1953
The Narrows is published by Houghton Mifflin on July 30; for many reviewers, it confirms and extends the promise of her debut. The Boston Globe praises the novel as “a story filled with dramatic force, earthy humor, and tragic intensity.”
1954
In April, speaks to the Essex (Connecticut) Women’s Club on the business of publishing. The Narrows is published in England by Victor Gollancz. Reviews John Oliver Killens’s novel Youngblood in the New York Herald Tribune.
1955
Addresses the Old Saybrook Women’s Republican Club in February on “The Origins of Constitutional Government.” (“In order
to have a say in local governance,” her daughter later explains of her mother’s politics, “one joined the Republican Party,” but “with the possible exception of Dwight Eisenhower, I know she never voted for a GOP presidential candidate during my lifetime.”) Also in the mid-1950s, joins the League of Women Voters and is elected to the Old Saybrook Board of Education. After uncle Fritz James suffers a stroke in March, takes responsibility for overseeing the family’s Old Lyme pharmacy. Publishes Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad on June 30. In December, delivers opening address at Hampton Institute Book Fair, “How To Write.”
1956
Signs American Civil Liberties Union’s “Statement on Censorship Activity by Private Organizations and the National Organization for Decent Literature” along with other writers; the NODL had included The Narrows on its lists of books recommended for censorship. New plans for a film version of The Street are widely publicized beginning in August. To be produced by Harold Robbins, who completes a screenplay, the film will potentially feature Leigh Whipper, Rosalind Hayes, Diahann Carroll, or Lena Horne as Lutie Johnson; Joe Louis, Earl Hyman, and Nat King Cole are mentioned in male roles, Gerd Oswald as director, and Duke Ellington as contributor of an original score. Mother dies in Old Saybrook on September 2.