Gertrude Sanborn (December 20, 1881 – July 17, 1928) was an American journalist, short story writer, and novelist.

Biography

Born in

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...

, Wisconsin, Anna Gertrude Sanborn was the daughter of Perley Roddis Sanborn (1854–1936) and Jane White Robbins (1849–1946). Her paternal grandfather was

Dane County Dane County is a county in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census, the population was 561,504, making it the second-most populous county in Wisconsin. The county seat is Madison, which is also the state capital. Dane County is the ...

Judge Alden Sprague Sanborn. Sanborn was a reporter for

The Milwaukee Journal The ''Milwaukee Journal Sentinel'' is a daily morning broadsheet printed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where it is the primary newspaper. It is also the largest newspaper in the state of Wisconsin, where it is widely distributed. It is currently o ...

from 1915 to 1917. Her first two books were ''Blithesome Jottings: A Diary of Humorous Days'' (1918) and ''I, Citizen of Eternity: A Diary of Hopeful Days'' (1920). Each were published by the

Four Seas Company The Four Seas Company was a bookstore and small-press publisher in Boston, Massachusetts. It is remembered today mostly for its publication of the early work of major modernist writers such as William Faulkner, William Carlos Williams, Gertrude Ste ...

, a Boston publishing house that released the works of many important modernist writers such as Gertrude Stein and William Faulkner. In ''I, Citizen of Eternity'', Sanborn penned an optimistic riposte to

Mary MacLane Mary MacLane (May 1, 1881 – ''c''. August 6, 1929) was a controversial Canadian-born American writer whose frank memoirs helped usher in the confessional style of autobiographical writing. MacLane was known as the "Wild Woman of Butte".Wat ...

's 1917 memoir '' I, Mary MacLane''. Sanborn's third novel, ''Toy'' (1922), is the coming-of-age story of Antoinette Ashworth, a wealthy socialite from Chicago. Sanborn attained significant notoriety for her novel ''Veiled Aristocrats'' (1923) which featured an interracial romance set partly in Chicago. Published by Carter G. Woodson's Associated Publishers, it dealt with race relations more directly than was fashionable at the time. The novel belonged to the genre of " passing" stories wherein light-complexioned African Americans passed for white. The novel's title was borrowed in 1932 by pioneer African American filmmaker

Oscar Micheaux Oscar Devereaux Micheaux (; January 2, 1884 – March 25, 1951) was an author, film director and independent producer of more than 44 films. Although the short-lived Lincoln Motion Picture Company was the first movie company owned and controlled ...

for his movie ''

Veiled Aristocrats ''Veiled Aristocrats'' is a 1932 American Pre-Code race film written, directed, produced and distributed by Oscar Micheaux. The film deals with the theme of " passing" by mixed-race African Americans to avoid racial discrimination. It is a rema ...

''. It was a remake of his 1924 silent film ''House Behind the Cedars'' based on the novel by that name by

Charles Chesnutt Charles Waddell Chesnutt (June 20, 1858 – November 15, 1932) was an American author, essayist, political activist and lawyer, best known for his novels and short stories exploring complex issues of racial and social identity in the post-Ci ...

. Micheaux's ''Veiled Aristocrats'' also focused on "passing" and interracial relationships, but owed more to its source in Chesnutt than to Sanborn's novel. Anna Gertrude Sanborn is memorialized at

Forest Home Cemetery Forest Home Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery located in the Lincoln Village neighborhood of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and is the final resting place of many of the city's famed beer barons, politicians and social elite. Both the cemetery and ...

in Milwaukee.

Books

* ''Blithesome Jottings: A Diary of Humorous Days'' (1918). Boston: The Four Seas Company. * ''I, Citizen of Eternity: A Diary of Hopeful Days'' (1920). Boston: The Four Seas Company. * ''Toy'' (1922). New York: M.A. Donahue & Co. * ''Veiled Aristocrats'' (1923). Washington D.C.: Associated Publishers.

References

* Bowser, Pearl; Gaines, Jane M; Musser, Charles; (2001). ''Oscar Micheaux and His Circle: African-American Filmmaking and Race Cinema of the Silent Era''. * Gray, Charles L. (2016). ''In Plain Sight: Changing Representations of "Biracial" People in Film 1903-2015'' (Ph.D.). Marquette University. * McGilligan, Patrick (2007). ''The Great and Only Oscar Micheaux: The Life of America's First Black Filmmaker.'' * Richards, Larry (1998). ''African American Films Through 1959: A Comprehensive, Illustrated Filmography''. * Watrous, Jerome, A. (1909). ''Memoirs of Milwaukee County: From the Earliest Historical Times Down to the Present, Including a Genealogical and Biographical Record of Representative Families in Milwaukee County''.

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sanborn, Gertrude 1881 births 1928 deaths 20th-century American novelists American women novelists Writers from Milwaukee 20th-century American women writers Novelists from Wisconsin