Dorothy West (June 2, 1907 – August 16, 1998) was an American storyteller and
short story
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...
writer during the time of the
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the t ...
. She is best known for her 1948 novel ''
The Living Is Easy'', as well as many other short stories and essays, about the life of an
upper-class
Upper class in modern societies is the social class composed of people who hold the highest social status, usually are the wealthiest members of class society, and wield the greatest political power. According to this view, the upper class is gen ...
black family.
Early years
Dorothy West was born in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
, on June 2, 1907, the only child of Virginian Isaac Christopher West, who was enslaved at birth and became a successful businessman, and Rachel Pease Benson of
Camden, South Carolina
Camden is the largest city and county seat of Kershaw County, South Carolina. The population was 7,764 in the 2020 census. It is part of the Columbia, South Carolina, Metropolitan Statistical Area. Camden is the oldest inland city in South Caro ...
, one of 22 children. The poet
Helene Johnson
Helene Johnson (July 7, 1906 – July 7, 1995) was an African-American poet during the Harlem Renaissance. She was also a cousin of writer Dorothy West.
Career
Johnson's literary career began when she won first prize in a short story competit ...
was her cousin.
[ Late in life she wrote that in Boston Blacks "were taught very young to take the white man in stride or drown in their own despair".][ She detailed how her mother guided her and her many cousins, all with varied skin tones, into the inhospitable world:]
West reportedly wrote her first story at the age of seven. Her first published work, a short story entitled "Promise and Fulfillment", appeared in ''The Boston Post
''The Boston Post'' was a daily newspaper in New England for over a hundred years before it folded in 1956. The ''Post'' was founded in November 1831 by two prominent Boston businessmen, Charles G. Greene and William Beals.
Edwin Grozier bough ...
'' when she was 14 years old, She was inspired to start writing stories by an advertisement for a writing contest she saw in her aunt's copy of the NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...
's magazine ''Crisis
A crisis ( : crises; : critical) is either any event or period that will (or might) lead to an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, or all of society. Crises are negative changes in the human or environmental affair ...
'', which her mother thought carried news she wanted to shield her daughter from.[ She won several local writing competitions. West attended Girls' Latin school, now called ]Boston Latin Academy
Boston Latin Academy (BLA) is a public education, public Magnet school, exam school founded in 1878 in Boston, Massachusetts providing students in grades 7th through 12th a Classical education movement, classical University-preparatory school, p ...
, graduating at 16, and went on to Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...
and the Columbia University School of Journalism
The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is located in Pulitzer Hall on the university's Morningside Heights campus in New York City.
Founded in 1912 by Joseph Pulitzer, Columbia Journalism School is one of the oldest journalism sc ...
.
In 1926, she tied for second place in a writing contest sponsored by ''Opportunity
Opportunity may refer to:
Places
* Opportunity, Montana, an unincorporated community, United States
* Opportunity, Nebraska, an unincorporated community, United States
* Opportunity, Washington, a former census-designated place, United States
* 3 ...
'', a journal published by the National Urban League
The National Urban League, formerly known as the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, is a nonpartisan historic civil rights organization based in New York City that advocates on behalf of economic and social justice for African Am ...
, with her short story "The Typewriter". The person West tied with was future novelist Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-1900s American South and published research on Hoodoo (spirituality), hoodoo. The most ...
. "The Typewriter” appeared in Dodd Mead
Dodd, Mead and Company was one of the pioneer publishing houses of the United States, based in New York City. Under several names, the firm operated from 1839 until 1990.
History Origins
In 1839, Moses Woodruff Dodd (1813–1899) and John S. Ta ...
's annual anthology ''The Best Short Stories of 1926'' alongside work by Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...
, Ring Lardner
Ringgold Wilmer Lardner (March 6, 1885 – September 25, 1933) was an American sports columnist and short story writer best known for his satirical writings on sports, marriage, and the theatre. His contemporaries Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Wo ...
, and Robert Sherwood.
Between 1928 and 1930, some of West's other early writings were published in the ''Saturday Evening Quill
The ''Saturday Evening Quill'' was a short-lived (1928–1930) African-American literary magazine of the Harlem Renaissance. It was founded by the journalist Eugene Gordon.
History
In 1925, Boston-based journalist Eugene Gordon organized an Afr ...
'', a short-lived annual literary magazine that grew out of a literary club of the same name, of which West was a founding member.[Verner Mitchell and Cynthia Davis. ''Literary Sisters: Dorothy West and Her Circle, A Biography of the Harlem Renaissance''. Rutgers University Press, 2011, pp. 85–90, 171.]
Harlem Renaissance
Shortly before winning the ''Opportunity'' writing contest, West moved to Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...
with her cousin, the poet Helene Johnson
Helene Johnson (July 7, 1906 – July 7, 1995) was an African-American poet during the Harlem Renaissance. She was also a cousin of writer Dorothy West.
Career
Johnson's literary career began when she won first prize in a short story competit ...
. There West met other writers of the Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the t ...
, including Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, Hug ...
, Countee Cullen
Countee Cullen (born Countee LeRoy Porter; May 30, 1903 – January 9, 1946) was an American poet, novelist, children's writer, and playwright, particularly well known during the Harlem Renaissance.
Early life
Childhood
Countee LeRoy Porter ...
, and the novelist Wallace Thurman
Wallace Henry Thurman (August 16, 1902 – December 22, 1934) was an American novelist active during the Harlem Renaissance. He also wrote essays, worked as an editor, and was a publisher of short-lived newspapers and literary journals. He is bes ...
. West was quoted as saying in 1995: "We didn't know it was the Harlem Renaissance, because we were all young and all poor." Hughes gave West the nickname of "The Kid", by which she was known during her time in Harlem, and she was among a group of African Americans who traveled with him on a trip to Russia in 1932 for a film about American race relations. It provided material for a 1985 essay that described her encounter with the film director Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ ɪjzʲɪnˈʂtʲejn, 2=Sergey Mikhaylovich Eyzenshteyn; 11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, screenw ...
.[Margaret Busby, "Dorothy West: Treasure in Harlem" (obituary), '']The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', August 22, 1998, p. 25. The film was abandoned by the Russians, and she returned to the United States after a year when she learned of the death of her father.
During the Great Depression, West's principal contribution to the Harlem Renaissance was to publish the magazine ''Challenge'', which she founded with $40 in 1934, the final issue being published in spring 1937. She also published the magazine's radical though shortlived successor, ''New Challenge'', which published Richard Wright's groundbreaking essay "Blueprint for Negro Writing", together with writings by Margaret Walker
Margaret Walker (Margaret Abigail Walker Alexander by marriage; July 7, 1915 – November 30, 1998) was an American poet and writer. She was part of the African-American literary movement in Chicago, known as the Chicago Black Renaissance. H ...
and Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994) was an American writer, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel ''Invisible Man'', which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote ''Shadow and Act'' (1964), a collecti ...
, but closed after one issue.
West never married, though Countee Cullen once proposed to her because his father thought it would end his homosexuality.[ After their trip to Russia, she offered a marriage proposal in writing to Langston Hughes, who declined.
]
Novelist and journalist
After struggling as a magazine publisher, West found secure employment with the Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...
's Federal Writers' Project
The Federal Writers' Project (FWP) was a federal government project in the United States created to provide jobs for out-of-work writers during the Great Depression. It was part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a New Deal program. It ...
until the mid-1940s. During this time she wrote a number of short stories for the ''New York Daily News
The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in ta ...
'', where she was the first black writer published. In 1947 she moved to her family's home in Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard
Martha's Vineyard, often simply called the Vineyard, is an island in the Northeastern United States, located south of Cape Cod in Dukes County, Massachusetts, known for being a popular, affluent summer colony. Martha's Vineyard includes the s ...
, where she had previously spent summers. There she wrote her first novel, ''The Living Is Easy''. Featuring an ironic sense of humor unique to West's style, the story chronicles the life of a southern woman in pursuit of an upper-class lifestyle in Boston. One 21st-century assessment said it "satirizes the Black bourgeoisie". Published in 1948, the novel was well received critically but did not sell many copies. In ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', Seymour Krim described it as "a housewifey novel: a look at life from the kitchen and the parlor", focused on characters who were women first and secondarily Black. He wrote: "The important thing about the book is its abundant and special woman's energy and beat. The beat is a deep one and it often makes a man's seem puny."
For the next four decades, West worked as a journalist, primarily writing for a small newspaper on Martha's Vineyard. In 1948, she started a weekly column about Oak Bluffs people, events, and nature. In 1982, The Feminist Press
The Feminist Press (officially The Feminist Press at CUNY) is an American independent nonprofit literary publisher that promotes freedom of expression and social justice. It publishes writing by people who share an activist spirit and a belief in ...
brought ''The Living Is Easy'' back into print, giving new attention to West and her role in the Harlem Renaissance and she was included in the 1992 anthology ''Daughters of Africa
''Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent from the Ancient Egyptian to the Present'' is a compilation of orature and literature by more than 200 women from Africa and the African diaspora, ...
'' (ed. Margaret Busby
Margaret Yvonne Busby, , Hon. FRSL (born 1944), also known as Nana Akua Ackon, is a Ghanaian-born publisher, editor, writer and broadcaster, resident in the UK. She was Britain's youngest and first black female book publisherJazzmine Breary"Let' ...
). As a result of this renewed attention, at the age of 85 West finally finished a second novel, entitled '' The Wedding''. Though its action occurs in the course of a weekend on Martha's Vineyard, it recounts the history of an affluent Black family over the course of centuries. She dedicated it to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Jacqueline Lee Kennedy Onassis ( ; July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994) was an American socialite, writer, photographer, and book editor who served as first lady of the United States from 1961 to 1963, as the wife of President John F. Kennedy. A pop ...
, who late in life was an editor at West's publisher, Doubleday, who had encouraged her to complete it.[ Published to acclaim in 1995 – the '']Publishers Weekly
''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...
'' review stated: "West's first novel in 45 years is a triumph." – the novel was a best-seller and resulted in the publication of a collection of West's short stories and reminiscences called ''The Richer, the Poorer''. Its thirty selections included eleven pieces not published before. The ''New York Times'' reviewer advised the reader to look past West's "weakness for melodrama" in a few instances and enjoy her "naturalist's ear and eye for detail, an unsentimental view of human failings and a clear, crisp narrative style". Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Gail Winfrey (; born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954), or simply Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', br ...
's production company turned the novel into two-part television miniseries, '' The Wedding'' in 1998.
Last years and death
Documentary filmmaker Salem Mekuria used West as one of the principal sources for her half-hour study of the Black community on Martha's Vineyard, ''Our Place in the Sun'' (1988), and then created a biographical study ''As I Remember It: A Portrait of Dorothy West'' (1991). Both received Emmy nominations.
After her re-emergence as a writer, she was a celebrated figure on the Vineyard. Guests at her 90th birthday party included Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950) is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker, who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African Ame ...
, Anita Hill
Anita Faye Hill (born July 30, 1956) is an American lawyer, educator and author. She is a professor of social policy, law, and women's studies at Brandeis University and a faculty member of the university's Heller School for Social Policy and ...
, Jessye Norman
Jessye Mae Norman (September 15, 1945 – September 30, 2019) was an American opera singer and recitalist. She was able to perform dramatic soprano roles, but refused to be limited to that voice type. A commanding presence on operatic, concert ...
and Charles Ogletree
Charles James Ogletree Jr. (born December 31, 1952) is an American attorney, law professor and the Jesse Climenko Professor at Harvard Law School, the founder of the school's Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice. He is also th ...
.
Two years before she died, West won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award is an American literary award dedicated to honoring written works that make important contributions to the understanding of racism and the appreciation of the rich diversity of human culture. Established in 1935 by Clev ...
for Lifetime Achievement.
West died on August 16, 1998, at the age of 91, at the New England Medical Center
Tufts Medical Center (until 2008 Tufts-New England Medical Center) in Boston, Massachusetts is a downtown Boston hospital midway between Chinatown and the Boston Theater District.
The hospital is a community based medical center for biomedical ...
in Boston. Though her cause of death was never officially released, it is thought that she died of natural causes. At her death, she was one of the last surviving members of the Harlem Renaissance. When asked what she wanted her legacy to be, she responded: "That I hung in there. That I didn't say I can't."
Selected writings
* reissued by The Feminist Press, 1982
*
*
*
*
*
Papers
*James Weldon Johnson Collection, Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
* Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...
*
*
See also
* African-American literature
African American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. It begins with the works of such late 18th-century writers as Phillis Wheatley. Before the high point of slave narratives, African-A ...
References
;Sources
* Shockley, Ann Allen, ''Afro-American Women Writers 1746-1933: An Anthology and Critical Guide'', New Haven, Connecticut: Meridian Books, 1989.
* Sherrard Johnson, Cherene, ''Dorothy West's Paradise: A Biography of Class and Color'', New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2012.
*
External links
* ; Mekuria's 1991 biographical documentary film (complete)
{{DEFAULTSORT:West, Dorothy
20th-century African-American women
20th-century African-American writers
20th-century American novelists
20th-century American short story writers
20th-century American women writers
1907 births
1998 deaths
African-American novelists
African-American women writers
American women novelists
American women short story writers
Harlem Renaissance
Novelists from Massachusetts
Federal Writers' Project people
Writers from Boston
Boston Latin Academy alumni