Annie Christmas
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Annie Christmas or flatboat Annie is a character in the folklore and
tall tale A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some tall tales are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories ("the fish that got away") such as, "That fish was so big, why I tell ya', it n ...
s of Louisiana, described as a tall, supernaturally strong
African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...
woman
keelboat A keelboat is a riverine cargo-capable working boat, or a small- to mid-sized recreational sailing yacht. The boats in the first category have shallow structural keels, and are nearly flat-bottomed and often used leeboards if forced in open w ...
captain. She has been described as a female counterpart of the John Henry character, another supernaturally strong African American folklore character. Like John Henry, the character may have been based on a real person. Stories of Annie Christmas have been included in several collections of folktales from the
Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
. In his book "The Gangs of New Orleans", Herbert Asbury states that Annie Christmas was originally a white New Orleans woman and white folk hero, who “became a demigod among the Negroes” who presented her as black. He writes that “In the white version of the Annie Christmas saga, she was murdered in a New Orleans gambling-house, but Negro tradition permits no such commonplace end. The Negroes have it that she killed herself for love.” The stories describe how she defies traditional gender hierarchies and the rules and expectations for female behavior. She drinks exorbitant amounts of liquor and dominates men who challenge her authority. She wears a pearl necklace, and each pearl represents the defeat of someone who has unsuccessfully challenged her. Though unmarried, she has twelve sons who work as her crewmen on the keelboat. In one tale of her death she was attacked by 100 men who shot and stabbed her. The novel ''1993: Free Enterprise: A Novel of Mary Ellen Pleasant'' by Jamaican Author Michelle Cliff includes a character named Annie Christmas, probably inspired by the folktale character.Willis, Charlotte. 2007. ''Rene. Myth and Memory: Reconstructing the feminine in Caribbean-American fiction''. Texas Christian University, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2007. 1441422. Andrew Lloyd Webber and
Jim Steinman James Richard Steinman (November 1, 1947 – April 19, 2021) was an American composer, lyricist and record producer. He also worked as an arranger, pianist, and singer. His work included songs in the adult contemporary, rock, dance, pop, mus ...
wrote an Annie Christmas song for their play ''Whistle Down the Wind'' (1996).


References


Further reading

* Emile Carter Cook and Barbara Smetz (1974). ''Annie Christmas: Lady Longshoreman''. Society for Visual Education (juvenile picture book with music and narration). * William Conrad (narrator) and Davie Krebs (producer) (1956). ''Annie Christmas''. Pacifica Radio Archive ** Available via YouTube a
"The Legend of Annie Christmas"
– replay of the
CBS Radio Workshop ''The CBS Radio Workshop'' was an experimental dramatic radio anthology series that aired on CBS from January 27, 1956, until September 22, 1957. Subtitled “radio’s distinguished series to man’s imagination,” it was a revival of the earlie ...
episode (30 minutes) {{DEFAULTSORT:Christmas, Annie Louisiana folklore Fictional African-American people Fictional characters from New Orleans Fictional ship captains Legendary American people Tall tales Folklore of the Southern United States