Hidden Figures: Ann Petry #BlackHERstoryMonth 27/29 (Patreon)

Hidden Figures: Ann Petry #BlackHERstoryMonth 27/29

Ann Lane Petry was born on October 12, 1908, in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, the youngest of three daughters to Peter Clark Lane and Bertha James Lane. Ann and her sisters worked as maids in addition to attending school, and she initially planned on becoming a pharmacist, despite being told by an English teacher in high school that she had the talent to be a professional writer if she wanted. After graduating in 1929 from Old Saybrook High School, she went to college and graduated with a degree from the University of Connecticut College of Pharmacy in 1931, and worked in the family business for several years while also writing short stories. On February 22, 1938, she married George D. Petry and moved to New York. Finding Harlem inspiring artistically, she decided to switch careers and pursue her passion for writing. Petry worked as a journalist for newspapers such as The Amsterdam News (between 1938 and 1941) and The People's Voice (1941–44), and published short stories in N.A.A.C.P. magazine The Crisis, where her first story appeared in 1943. Between 1944 and 1946 she studied creative writing at Columbia University. She also worked at an after-school program at P.S. 10 in Harlem. She became involved in several political causes and also found that the living conditions of the poor Black people in New York made her want to put pen to paper, leading her to write her acclaimed novel ‘The Street.’ Petry's first and most popular novel, 'The Street' was published in 1946 and won the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship, with book sales exceeding one million copies. This made her the first Black woman author to sell more than a million copies of a novel, and catapulted her into widespread fame and acclaim. It was widely reviewed, published in several paperback editions, and translated into French, Spanish, Japanese, and Portuguese, with Petry being hounded to appear on magazine covers and even in a full spread in Ebony magazine. A loner by nature and uncomfortable with fame in New York, Petry returned to Old Saybrook, Connecticut with her husband in 1947, where she proceeded to work on her follow up books: 'Country Place,' which was released in 1947, 'The Narrows,' which was released in 1953, and several other short stories and books for children. Much of her work has been lost, however, as Petry herself destroyed many journals and unpublished writings due to her abhorrence of the public. She told a radio interviewer: “Continuous public exposure, though it may make you a ‘personality,’ can diminish you as a person. To be a willing accomplice to the invasion of your own privacy puts a low price on its worth. The creative processes are, or should be, essentially secret, and although naked flesh is now an open commodity, the naked spirit should have sanctuary.” After removing herself from the public literary world, Petry became a member of the American Negro Theater and appeared in productions, including On Striver's Row. She also lectured at University of California, Berkeley, Miami University and Suffolk University, and was Visiting Professor of English at the University of Hawaii. She died in Old Saybrook at the age of 88 on April 28, 1997. She was outlived by her husband George, who died in 2000, and her only daughter, Liz Petry. #HiddenFigures #AnnPetry ****************** Merchandise! MAKE SURE U GETTA SHIRT!! https://www.teepublic.com/user/sssseren Follow me on social media! Instagram: @sensei_aishitemasu Personal Tumblr: http://sensei-aishitemasu.tumblr.com Tumblr for my work: https://sssseren.tumblr.com Snapchat: sssseren GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/tc5wh7q Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/seren_sensei ****************** Did you know I wrote a book? ☺️ 'So, About That... A Year of Contemporary Essays on Race and Pop Culture' Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/About-That-Contemporary-Essays-Culture-ebook/dp/B013V0CHK6 Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B013V0CHK6 Digital download (e-book): https://gumroad.com/l/IkUa ****************** Links: The Street: A Novel (by Ann Petry): https://www.amazon.com/Street-Novel-Ann-Petry/dp/0395901499 Ann Petry - Brief life of a celebrity-averse novelist: 1908-1997 https://harvardmagazine.com/2014/01/ann-petry 'The Author Who Didn’t Care to Be Remembered:' https://lithub.com/the-author-who-didnt-care-to-be-remembered/ 'Did you know? Ann Petry’s first novel The Street was the first novel by an African American to sell more than a million copies:' https://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=Ann+Petry Ann Petry (Wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Petry