Alice Dunbar Nelson

Alice Ruth Moore Dunbar Nelson (July 19, 1875 - September 18 1935) was an American poet, journalist and political activist. She was one of the prominent African Americans involved in the Harlem Renaissance. Her first husband was the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar; she then married physician Henry A. Callis; and last married Robert J. Nelson, another poet. She was bisexual and her husband Paul Dunbar was reported to have been disturbed by her lesbian affairs [Lillian Faderman, "Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America", Penguin Books Ltd, 1991, page 98] .

Life

She was born in New Orleans to middle-class parents Patricia Wright, a seamstress and former slave, and Joseph Moore, a merchant marine, who were people of color and part of the traditional multiracial Creole community of the city. At a time when fewer than 5% of any people went to college, Moore graduated from Straight University (now Dillard University) in 1892 and started work as a teacher in the public school system of New Orleans.

In 1895 her first collection of short stories and poems, "Violets and Other Tales" [ [http://digilib.nypl.org/dynaweb/digs/wwm977/@Generic__BookView "Violets and Other Tales", Monthly Review, 1895. Digital Schomburg.] ] , was published by The Monthly Review. About that time she moved to New York. In 1898 she married the poet/publisher Paul Dunbar there. She was teaching at the White Rose Mission (White Rose Home for Girls) in Harlem, which she had co-founded. After her marriage, she and Dunbar moved to Washington D.C.. She and Paul Dunbar separated in 1902 but were never divorced. Paul Dunbar died in 1906. Alice Dunbar then moved to Wilmington, Delaware and taught at Howard High School. In 1910 she married Henry A. Callis, a prominent physician and professor at Howard University, but this marriage ended in divorce. She later married Robert Nelson, a marriage that lasted until her death.

From 1913 to 1914, Dunbar was coeditor and writer for the "A.M.E. Review", an influential church publication produced by the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME Church). In 1916 she married the poet Robert J. Nelson. From 1920, she coedited the "Wilmington Advocate" newspaper and published "The Dunbar Speaker and Entertainer", a literary anthology for a black audience.

Alice Dunbar Nelson was also an activist for African Americans' and women's rights. In 1915 she was field organizer for the Middle Atlantic states for the woman's suffrage movement. In 1918 she was field representative for the Woman's Committee of the Council of Defense. In 1924 Dunbar-Nelson campaigned for the passage of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill. She was made an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated.

Works

* [http://digilib.nypl.org/dynaweb/digs/wwm977/@Generic__BookView "Violets and Other Tales", Monthly Review, 1895. Short stories and poems, including "Titée", "A Carnival Jangle", and "Little Miss Sophie". Digital Schomburg.]
* "The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories", 1899, including "Titée" (revised), "Little Miss Sophie", and "A Carnival Jangle".
* "Wordsworth's Use of Milton's Description of Pandemonium", 1909. in "Modern Language Notes".
* "Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence", 1914.
* "People of Color in Louisiana", 1917, "Journal of Negro History"
* "Mine Eyes Have Seen", 1918, one-act play, in "The Crisis"
* Poems were published in "Crisis, Ebony and Topaz", the journal of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
* Poems were published in "Opportunity", the journal of the Urban League.
* "Caroling Dusk - a collection of African-American poets", 1927, including "I Sit and I Sew"
* "Snow in October", and "Sonnet", 1927
* "The Colored United States", 1924, "The Messenger", literary and political magazine in NY
* "From a Woman's Point of View" ("Une Femme Dit"), 1926, column for the "Pittsburgh Courier".
* "As in a Looking Glass", 1926-1930, column for the "Washington Eagle" newspaper
* "So It Seems to Alice Dunbar-Nelson", 1930, column for the "Pittsburgh Courier"
* "Give Us Each Day: The Diary of Alice Dunbar-Nelson". ed. Gloria T. Hull, New York: Norton, 1984.

References

External links

*gutenberg author|id=Dunbar_Nelson_Alice_Moore|name=Alice Dunbar-Nelson
* [http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/findaids/dunbarne.html Alice Dunbar-Nelson Papers]