Jimoh,, A Yemisi, PhD

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University of Massachusetts AmherstScholarWorks@UMass AmherstAfro-American Studies Faculty Publication Series Afro-American Studies2002Ann Petry: BiographyA Yemisi Jimoh, PhDUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst, jimoh@afroam.umass.eduFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/afroam_faculty_pubsPart of the African American Studies Commons, American Literature Commons, and the OtherAmerican Studies CommonsThis is brought to you for free and open access by the Afro-American Studies at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion inAfro-American Studies Faculty Publication Series by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, pleasecontact scholarworks@library.umass.edu.Recommended CitationJimoh,, A Yemisi PhD, "Ann Petry: Biography" (2002). The Literary Encyclopedia. 68.Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umass.edu/afroam_faculty_pubs/684/14/12 Literary Encyclopedia: Printer Format1/14www.litencyc.com/php/printer_format_people.php?UID=3542Ann Petry (1911-1997)Send to printerA Yemisi Jimoh (University of Massachusetts Amherst)(Ann Lane)Biographer, Children's/Young Adult writer,Essayist, Film Script-writer/ Screenwriter,Journalist, Literary Critic/ Historian, Novelist,Poet, Story-writer, Teacher/ Professor, TheatreActor/ Actress. Active 1939-1988 in United States By birth Ann Lane Petry was a third generationNew Englander, a Connecticut Yankee whosematernal grandmother, Anna Houston James,was born in New Haven and whose mother,Bertha James Lane, was born in Hartford.Petry also was the granddaughter of WillisSamuel James who escaped the shackles ofhuman captivity in Virginia on theUnderground Railroad and settled in4/14/12 Literary Encyclopedia: Printer Format2/14www.litencyc.com/php/printer_format_people.php?UID=3542Connecticut where he married Anna Houston.Petry's father, Peter Lane, was a native ofGermantown, New Jersey. Ann Lane Petry wasthe younger of Bertha James Lane and PeterClark Lane Jr.'s two surviving children. AnnLane was born 12 October 1908 in OldSaybrook, Connecticut, where she would residefor all except nine years of her life.The Lane family owned drugstores in OldSaybrook and in Old Lyme, Connecticut, whereAnn Lane worked until she married and movedto New York in 1938. Ann Lane Petry's father aswell as one of her maternal aunts was alicensed pharmacist. Peter Lane opened hisfirst drug store in Old Saybrook in 1902, and in1931, Ann Lane also earned a degree inpharmacy from the Connecticut College ofPharmacy in New Haven, which is now theSchool of Pharmacy at the University ofConnecticut, Storrs. Anna Louise James,Petry's aunt who received her degree from theBrooklyn College of Pharmacy the same yearher niece was born, opened a drugstore inHartford, Connecticut before assumingownership of the pharmacy owned by herbrother-in-law in Old Saybrook.Throughout Ann Lane's childhood, the Lanes4/14/12 Literary Encyclopedia: Printer Format3/14www.litencyc.com/php/printer_format_people.php?UID=3542were one of two black families in Old Saybrook.Helen Lane, the elder of the Lane daughters,who would attend Pembroke, the women'sbranch of Brown University, was two yearsolder than her sister Ann. Yet they both enteredOld Saybrook Elementary School in 1912, whenAnn was four years of age. Their parents didnot believe that the school officials would allowtheir younger daughter to remain at the school,but they did, as no one noticed that she was yettoo young to attend school. The Lanes were aclose-knit, middle-class black family, whichprovided the young Ann Lane with a strongsense of herself as well as with a level ofconfidence that would allow her to take herplace in a world that she knew often would notbe kind to her as a black woman. In anautobiographical essay, which was published in1988, Petry states that Old Saybrook “providedan essentially hostile environment for a blackfamily” (253-69).Petry's best example for living in such a worldwas her mother, Bertha James Lane. Ann LanePetry's mother along with her sisters, Petry'saunts – all of whom the writer refers to as“extraordinary women” whose lives were notcentered on housewifery – provided her withexamples of womanhood that never left Petry4/14/12 Literary Encyclopedia: Printer Format4/14www.litencyc.com/php/printer_format_people.php?UID=3542with any doubt that she could attainaccomplishments far beyond what was typicalfor her times. Bertha Lane was anindependent-minded woman and anentrepreneur who employed Connecticutfarmwomen to assist her with the elegantlinens that she produced in her business. Shecalled her successful company, which was theoutlet for her hand-embroidered linens,Beautiful Linens for Beautiful Homes. BerthaJames Lane also was a chiropodist (trained innon-surgical treatment of disorders affectinghands and feet), a hairdresser, and a licensedbarber. And she manufactured hair tonic aswell as a household cleaning product.In 1938, shortly after her marriage to GeorgePetry – a transplant to Connecticut from NewIberia, Louisiana – Ann Lane Petry and herhusband moved to Harlem. Petry no longerwanted to work as a pharmacist and decidedthat she would seek employment that wouldallow her to have a connection to writing. Eventhough the nation was well into the difficultDepression era, Petry soon began  work sellingadvertising space for the Harlem-based weeklynewspaper the Amsterdam News. Then, in1941, Petry became the editor of the women'spage and a news reporter for the People's4/14/12 Literary Encyclopedia: Printer Format5/14www.litencyc.com/php/printer_format_people.php?UID=3542Voice, a weekly that was owned by AdamClayton Powell Jr. For a brief time Ann Petrywrote a weekly column, “The Lighter Side”, forPowell's paper. In a similar vein as the fictionalpersona Jesse B. Semple, created by LangstonHughes for the Chicago Defender, Petrycreated for her column in the People'sVoice Miss Jones and Miss Smith.While living in New York, Petry was activelyengaged in artistic, literary, and communityendeavors. Her work in the Harlem communitywas varied and included among otheractivities, teaching a course in basic businesscorrespondence at the YWCA in Harlem;helping to create – through the educationaloffice of the Laundry Workers Joint Board –dramatic programs for children of the laundryemployees; developing programs for childrenwho attended Public School number 10, locatedin the distressed, wartime era Harlemneighborhood; and co-founding Negro WomenIncorporated, a women's consumer advocacygroup. In 1946, one year before Petry returnedto Old Saybrook, her numerous communityendeavors in New York were recognized by theNew York Women's City Club, which presentedher with an award for the “exceptionalcontributions” that she had made to the city of4/14/12 Literary Encyclopedia: Printer Format6/14www.litencyc.com/php/printer_format_people.php?UID=3542New York.Ann Petry's New York years also includedpiano lessons; a course in drawing at theHarlem Art Center, where she honed her skillsin observation; membership in the AmericanNegro Theatre and her performance, at theSchomburg Center, of the role Tillie Petunia inAbe Hill's comedy production On Striver'sRow. Petry associates her work in the theatrewith helping her understand how dialogueoperates in a narrative to move the actionforward. An instrumental event in Petry'sdevelopment as a writer was her work in acreative writing course that was taught byMable Louise Robinson at ColumbiaUniversity. Robinson told Petry that her futureas a writer “is entirely up to you.” Robinson'sencouragement increased Petry's confidence.Now armed with newly acquired confidence, astrong understanding of her craft, and a wealthof stories – culled from the tales she heardfrom her father and maternal uncles when thenow aspiring writer was a child – Ann LanePetry's imagination took shape. Several of hershort stories as well as her first novel, TheStreet, were influenced by a combination of thetales she had heard as a child and herobservations while working as a reporter and4/14/12 Literary Encyclopedia: Printer Format7/14www.litencyc.com/php/printer_format_people.php?UID=3542living in New York.One year after she established her residence inNew York, Ann Lane Petry's first publishedfiction appeared under the pseudonym ArnoldPetri on 19 August 1939 in the Baltimore Afro-American; the piece was a short story titled“Marie of the Cabin Club”, for which she waspaid five dollars. Petry, however, dates herwriting career from her high school yearswhen, after receiving five dollars for a sloganthat she created for a perfume company, sherealized that she could earn money for writing.In December 1943, while studying creativewriting with Mable Louise Robinson, Petrypublished, under her own name, a short storyin Crisis, the official publication of theNational Association for the Advancement ofColored People (NAACP). The editorsat Crisis paid Petry twenty dollars for “OnSaturday the Siren Sounds at Noon”, the storywhich would bring her to the attention of aneditor at the Boston-based publisher HoughtonMifflin and begin her literary career.The period from December 1943 through to1944 was a turning point in Petry's literary andpersonal life. She saw in print her firstimportant literary publication, and, along with4/14/12 Literary Encyclopedia: Printer Format8/14www.litencyc.com/php/printer_format_people.php?UID=3542it, she received encouragement from an editorat Houghton Mifflin to write a novel and toapply for a literary competition that wassponsored by the publisher. These literaryboons allowed Petry to turn the temporary lossof her husband to the war effort in 1944, andthe permanent loss of her job at thefailing People's Voice, into financial andpersonal independence. This newlyindependent lifestyle would allow Petry topractice her skills in discipline and frugalityand to write her first novel.Ann Petry spent several months early in 1944working part-time as a typist; later she workedfor three weeks exclusively writing cataloguecopy for a company that manufacturedhairpieces: wigs, toupees, false beards,moustaches, and eyebrows. The money thatPetry earned and saved along with the spouse'sstipend that she received from her husband'smilitary service funded her writing of TheStreet during the remaining months of thatyear. In December 1944, she submitted fivechapters of the manuscript and a synopsis ofthe whole novel to Houghton Mifflin's literarycompetition. Her entry won the publisher's$2,400 fellowship for a work in progress. Petrycompleted the manuscript for her first novel4/14/12 Literary Encyclopedia: Printer Format9/14www.litencyc.com/php/printer_format_people.php?UID=3542while living on her fellowship funds, which shereceived in 1945. Petry’s novel The Street waspublished January 1946. As a testament to herdedication as a writer and her love of the shortstory form, Petry, while working on hersizeable novel, also wrote three stories, whichappeared in print in 1944 and 1945: “Doby'sGone”, “Like a Winding Sheet”, and “Olaf andHis girlfriend”. In 1971, Petry collected thesestories along with ten others in her lastpublished book, Miss Muriel and OtherStories.Petry's first novel received wide critical acclaimand sold over one million copies. That TheStreet – a novel focusing on a black, singleparent in Harlem who struggles againstdifficult social forces and finds that her effortsultimately are quashed, though she is notentirely defeated – was so well received provedan additional accomplishment for this writer.For Petry and other black writers, the 1940sand 1950s were decades in which they wereencouraged to write what some refer to as“raceless” literature. So-called raceless writersrefocused their narratives and turned awayfrom a concern with the problematics of race.For some writers this meant removing blackcharacters from the center of their novels; for4/14/12 Literary Encyclopedia: Printer Format10/14www.litencyc.com/php/printer_format_people.php?UID=3542other writers this meant eliminating blackcharacters altogether. Major writers such asRichard Wright, to whose novel NativeSon Petry's The Street often is compared, ZoraNeale Hurston, Chester Himes, and JamesBaldwin all wrote novels of this type in the1940s and 1950s. Petry's second novel, CountryPlace (1947) received glowing reviews for itsseeming emphasis on racelessness, thoughlater she would say that the concept ofracelessness had nothing to do with her writingof that novel. In 1953 Petry's third and lastnovel, The Narrows, includes a multi-ethnicmix of characters and again centers on blackcharacters.The publication of Petry's best-selling firstnovel and the acclaim which followed thepublication of her second novel brought thewriter a level of celebrity that she foundunbearable and in 1947, following thepublication of Country Place, prompted her toreturn to Old Saybrook, where she and herhusband soon purchased a house and started afamily. In 1949, their only child, Elisabeth Ann,was born.Petry provides all of her novels withgeographical titles: The Street, in general4/14/12 Literary Encyclopedia: Printer Format11/14www.litencyc.com/php/printer_format_people.php?UID=3542terms, refers to oppressed and neglectedneighborhoods, though specificallyHarlem; Country Place, a transparent, thoughultimately ironic, reference to small-town,wholesome and healthy USA, yet specificallyPetry's fictional Lennox, Connecticut; TheNarrows, a small town version of Harlem'sStreet, this time located in Petry's fictionalMonmouth, Connecticut. Such titles along withPetry's characterization of each of therespective neighborhoods in her novels haveled many commentators on her writing to referpositively to the power of her ability to bring tolife not only a broad range of characters butalso the places in which they are located andfrom which they have been shaped. Equallyimportant, though, is Ann Lane Petry's abilityto debunk received myths, such as theAmerican Dream, small-town innocence, andsociety's construction of the feminine, thatpermeate the culture of the United States.Not only a novelist and short story writer, Petryalso distinguished herself as a writer ofchildren's literature as well as youth literature.Her youth and children's books, The DrugstoreCat (1949), Harriet Tubman: Conductor on theUnderground Railroad (1955), Legends of theSaints (1964), and Tituba of Salem4/14/12 Literary Encyclopedia: Printer Format12/14www.litencyc.com/php/printer_format_people.php?UID=3542Village (1964), emphasize surviving difficultodds. Throughout her life, Ann Lane Petrycontinued to write short stories, andoccasionally she contributed articles andliterary criticism to various publications, whichinclude Crisis, Opportunity, The NewYorker, The Negro Digest, Holiday, Redbook,and the New York Times Book Review. Two ofPetry's notable essays are “The Novel as SocialCriticism” and “Harlem”. In “The Novel asSocial Criticism”, Petry defends the value ofproblem or social novels by advising writersthat such novels should critique societywithout abolishing individual, personalresponsibility. In “Harlem” Petry presents anoverview of the various faces of Harlem anddecries the “ghetto” state into which Harlemhad fallen following the Depression and thewar in the 1930s and 1940s.Also included among Petry's many writingcredits is a script, “That Hill Girl”, written forColumbia Pictures in 1958; the film was neverproduced. In 1976, Ann Lane Petry's firstpoems appeared in print. When these poemswere published, Petry's literary reputationresided primarily in her strength as a novelistand short story writer. She would publish twoadditional poems in 1981. All of Petry's4/14/12 Literary Encyclopedia: Printer Format13/14www.litencyc.com/php/printer_format_people.php?UID=3542published poems, “3 Poems: Noo York City 1,2, and 3”, “A Purely Black Stone”, and “A RealBoss Black Cat”, reflect the influence on her ofthe Black Arts Aesthetics Movement of the1960s and 1970s. Before Ann Petry's death in 1997, she had beena writer for over fifty years. During that timeshe received numerous honors in addition tohonorary degrees from Suffolk University, Mt.Holyoke College, and the University ofConnecticut. Petry spent seventy-nine of hereighty-nine years in Old Saybrook,Connecticut, yet she persisted in the belief that,even with all of her success, she was not a NewEngland insider. Ann Lane Petry saw herself asa woman whose identity included her great-great-aunt, a conjure woman; her grandfather,a fugitive from slavery; her father, who facedthreats as he opened his drugstore in NewEngland; her sister who was refused a room inthe dormitory of New England's BrownUniversity. She also includes as part of heridentity the black woman buried withoutrespect in the Old Saybrook burial grounds; theman on the chain-gang in Georgia; and the oldblack woman who held-off a gang of white men4/14/12 Literary Encyclopedia: Printer Format14/14www.litencyc.com/php/printer_format_people.php?UID=3542during a riot in Chicago. According to Petry,these incidents are not her direct experiencesprimarily because her “family used their smallsavings to buy [her] out.”Citation: Jimoh, A Yemisi. "Ann Petry". The LiteraryEncyclopedia. 14 July 2002.[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3542, accessed 14 April 2012.]This article is copyright to ©The Literary Encyclopedia.For information on making internet links to this page andelectronic or print reproduction, please read Linking andReproducing.All entries, data and software copyright © The LiteraryDictionary Company LimitedISSN 1747-678X

Ann Petry: Biography

Jimoh,, A Yęmisi, PhD

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