Arna Bontemps


Arna Bontemps Names: Arnaud Wendell Bontemps Born: October 13, 1902 Died: June 4, 1973 Ethnicity: African American Hometown: Alexandria, LA Residence: Nashville, TN Education: BA Pacific Union College, 1923; MA Chicago, 1943 Career: Teacher (various places), 1922-1938; Librarian Fisk, 1943-1975; Professor Illinois, 1966-1969; Visiting Professor and Curator of James Weldon Johnson Collection Yale, 1969; Writer-in-Residence Fisk, 1970-1973 Awards: Crisis Poetry Prize, 1926; Alexander Pushkin Poetry Prizes, 1926 and 1927; Opportunity Short Story Prize, 1932; Julius Rosenwald Fellowships, 1938-1939 and 1942-1943; Guggenheim Fellowships, 1949, 1954; Jane Addams Children's Book Award, 1956; Dow Award, 1967; L.H.D. Morgan State College, 1969; L.H.D. Berea College, 1973 Genres: Novels, Poetry, Plays, History, Childrens Internet Sites: Arnaud Wendell Bontemps (1902-1973): Teacher Resource File http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/bontemps.htm Compiled by the Internet Sites: School Library Media Center. Collection of resources designed for teachers. Includes a a bibliography, biography, lesson plans, and links to other resources and texts of some of his works. Arna Bontemps Page http://www.arnabontempsmuseum.com Extensive biography of the poet with links to related sites by the Arna Bontemps African American Museum and Cultural Arts Center. Biography: Arnaud Bontemps was the son of Marie Pembroke Bontemps, a schoolteacher, and Paul Bontemps, a brickmason. The family was Seventh Day Adventist, and he was raised according to the rather strict precepts of the church. His family focused upon the cultural heritage of their religion rather than their ethnic identity, but they could not escape the racial prejudice that surrounded them. After a series of racially motivated confrontations, Paul Bontemps moved his family from Louisiana to California. Bontemps was only three. The move was beneficial, although they were the only black family in the neighborhood. Los Angeles was far more tolerant than rural Louisiana, and their new neighbors were friendly and open. Bontemps attended a boarding school when he grew older where he was one of the few black students. Bontemps was not completely cut off from his heritage, however. After his mother died when he was twelve, his father sent him to live with his maternal grandmother and grand uncle. His uncle was a bit of a ne'er-do-well, as well as a heavy drinker, but his trove of ethnic stories, songs, spells, and tales introduced Bontemps to southern black culture. Bontemps was fascinated by his uncle's repertoire despite his father's disapproval. He graduated from Pacific Union College in 1923, and taught in New York's schools while writing poetry on the side. He had arrived in New York during the height of the Harlem Renaissance, and there were many outlets for his poetry. He became published by 1924, and won several prizes for poetry over the next few years. While in New York Bontemps also married, wedding Alberta Johnson in the sumnmer of 1926. The couple eventually had six children. Bontemps had initially planned to return to school to earn an advanced degree, but the Depression intervened. The economic crisis devastated the country, removing the easy money that had encouraged the artistic movements of the 1920s. The Harlem Renaissance subsided as the economic situation worsened. Bontemps was forced to move South to find a job, joining the faculty of Oakwood Junior College (in Alabama) in 1931. The black, Seventh Day Adventist school seemed ideally suited for Bontemps, but school leaders disapproved of Bontemps' open avowal of his black identity. Focused on assimilation, the school discouraged students or teachers from thinking about racial identity. Bontemps and the college parted ways argumentatively in 1934 and he moved to California. Bontemps quickly found another position, moving to the Shiloh Academy in Chicago in 1935. He had begun writing novels instead of poetry as the Depression settled in, and he finished three novels during the 1930s. Bontemps left Shiloh in 1938. He had received a Rosenwald fellowship, which he used to travel in the Caribbean. When he returned, he worked for the WPA and enrolled in library school. He graduated from the University of Chicago with the degree of masters in library science in 1943. Upon graduation, Bontemps became head librarian at Fisk University in Nashville, TN, where he remained for the next 22 years. Bontemps was a dynamic force at Fisk, helping the university acquire important collections such as the papers of Langston Hughes and others writers of the Harlem Renaissance. He also produced a noteworthy body of work in several fields. Determined to redress the absence of black history and heritage in children's literature, Hughes wrote fiction and nonfiction for children. He also produced plays, fiction, and adult history. He edited significant anthologies of black literature, reintroducing many of the best works from his own youth to new generations of readers. Shortly before his death, Bontemps temporarily left Fisk for the University of Chicago in 1969. He returned to Fisk as a writer-in-residence just two years later, and remained until his death in 1973. References Gwin, Minrose C. "Arna Bontemps." Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 48, Peter Quartermain, ed. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1986. Jones, Kirkland C. "Arna Bontemps." Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 51, Trudier Harris and Thadious M. Davis, eds. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1987. --Jennifer Duke-Sylvester Primary Bibliography: Books God Sends Sunday, Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1931 Popo and Fifina: Children of Haiti (with Langston Hughes), Macmillan, 1932 You Can't Pet a Possum, Morrow, 1934 Black Thunder, Macmillan, 1936 Sad-Faced Boy, Houghton Mifflin, 1937 Drums at Dusk, Macmillan, 1939 The Fast Sooner Hound (with Jack Conroy), ill. Virginia Lee Burton, Houghton Mifflin, 1942 The Low-Down on Tuberculosis, Pennsylvania Tuberculosis Society, [1943] Special collections of Negroana, University of Chicago, 1943 They Seek a City (with Jack Conroy), Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc., 1945; revised and enlarged as Anyplace But Here, Hill & Wang, 1966 We Have Tomorrow, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1945 Slappy Hooper, the Wonderful Sign Painter (with Jack Conroy), ill. Ursula Koering, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1946 American Missionary Association Archives in Fisk University Library, Nashville: N.p., 1947 Story of the Negro, ill. Raymond Lukfin, Knopf, 1948; enlarged 1955 George Washington Carver, Row, Peterson, 1950 Chariot in the Sky: A Story of the Jubilee Singers, Winston, 1951 Sam Patch, the High, Wide & Handsome Jumper (with Jack Conroy), ill. Paul Brown, Houghton Mifflin, 1951 The Story of George Washington Carver, Grosset & Dunlap, 1954 Lonesome Boy, Houghton Mifflin, 1955 Frederick Douglass: Slave, Fighter, Freeman, Knopf, 1959 100 Years of Negro Freedom, Dodd, Mead, 1961 Personals, P. Breman, 1963 Famous Negro Athletes, Dodd, Mead, 1964 I Too Sing America (with Langston Hughes), Verlag Lambert Lensing, 1964 Listen to Our Songs, selected by Arna Wendell Bontemps, ill. Richard Loehle, Science Research Associates, 1968 Mr. Kelso's Lion, Lippincott, 1970 Free At Last: The Life of Frederick Douglass, Dodd, Mead, 1971 Young Booker: Booker T. Washington's Early Days, Dodd, Mead, 1972 The Old South: "A Summer Tragedy" and Other Stories of the Thirties, Dodd, Mead, 1973 The Pasteboard Bandit, The Iona and Peter Opie Library of Children's Literature (with Langston Hughes), ill. Peggy Turley, intro. Alex Bontemps, afterword Cheryl A. Wall, Oxford University Press, 1997 Bubber Goes to Heaven, ill. Daniel Minter, intro. Jim Haskins, afterword Charles L. James, Oxford University Press, 1998 Compilations and Edited Books: Golden Slippers, an Anthology of Negro Poetry for Young Readers,, comp. Arna Wendell Bontemps, Harper & Row, 1941. Also available on LP, cassette, and compact disc. The Poetry of the Negro, 1746-1949: An Anthology, ed. Arna Wendell Bontemps and Langston Hughes, Doubleday, 1949 Father of the Blues: An Autobiography, W. C. Handy, ed. Arna Wendell Bontemps, foreword Abbe Niles, The Macmillan Company, 1941 The Book of Negro Folklore, ed. Langston Hughes and Arna Wendell Bontemps, Dodd, Mead, 1958 American Negro Poetry, ed. and with an intro. by Arna Wendell Bontemps, Hill and Wang, 1963 Negro American Heritage, Faces and Places of the New World, Paul Lawrence, Esther McStay, historical ed. Arna Wendell Bontemps, Century Schoolbook Press, 1965 Great Slave Narratives, comp. Arna Wendell Bontemps, Beacon Press, 1969 Hold Fast to Dreams: Poems Old and New Selected, comp. Arna Wendell Bontemps, Follett Pub. Co., 1969 Five Black Lives: The Autobiographies of Venture Smith, James Mars, William Grimes, the Rev. G.W. Offley, James L. Smith, edited and with an intro. by Arna Wendell Bontemps, Wesleyan University Press, 1971 The Harlem Renaissance Remembered: Essays, edited and with a memoir by Arna Wendell Bontemps, Dodd, Mead, 1972 Introductions: A List of Manuscripts, Published Works and Related Items in the Charles Waddell Chesnutt Collection of the Erastus Milo Cravath Memorial Library, Fisk University, Mildred Freeney, Mary T. Henry, Fisk University Library, intro. Arna Wendell Bontemps, [Fisk University], 1954 Not Without Laughter, Langston Hughes, intro. Arna Wendell Bontemps, Collier Books, 1969. Interviews and Readings: [Poems], Library of Congress Recording Laboratory, N.d., 1 sound reel Smithsonian Folkways Children's Music Collection, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, compiled from Folkways and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings (1942-1996). Bontemps reads "Bedbug." Available on cassette and CD. Anthology of Negro Poetry, Arna Wendell Bontemps, Langston Hughes, Sterling Allen Brown, et al., Folkway Records, 1954. Available on LP and cassette. In the Beginning: Bible Stories for Children, Sholem Asch, narrator Arna Wendell Bontemps, Folkway Recordings, 1955. Available on cassette and LP. Arna Wendell Bontemps Reading His Poems with Comment at Radio Station WPLN, Nashville Public Library, May 22, 1963 (with Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature (Library of Congress)), Library of Congress, 1963. Available on cassette and sound tape reel. Arna Bontemps, Jacqueline Shachter, Thomas J. Bloser, and Arna Wendell Bontemps, Temple University, Office of Television Services, 1971. 1 videocassette. Plays: St Louis Woman: A Play (with Countee Cullen), L. Salisbury, [1930-1939]. Is a dramatization of the novel, God Sends Sunday. Premiere: New York, 31 March 1946. When the Jack Hollers; or, Careless Love, a Negro Folk-Comedy in Three Acts, Arna Wendell Bontemps and Langston Hughes, 1936. Typescript manuscript available on microfilm from the New York Public Library, Premiere: Cleveland, Ohio, Gilpin Players, N.d. Free and Easy, Premiere: Amsterdam, 15 December 1949. Radio Programs and Other Recordings: Negro Writers: Arna Bontemps, "Golden Slippers", W.C. Handy and Arna Bontemps, "Father of the Blues", Richard Wright, "Twelve Million Black Voices", William Attaway, "Blood on the Forge", Northwestern University on the Air, Of Men and Books V. 1 No. 8, critic John T. Frederick and guest Arno Wendell Bontemps, Northwestern University Radio Dept., 1941 Children's Books and American Unity: John R. Tunis, "All-American", Frederic Nelson Litten, "Airmen of the Amazon", Arna Bontemps, "Fast Sooner Hound", Northwestern University on the Air, Of Men and Books V. 2 No. 8, critic John T. Frederick, guest Frederic Nelson Litten, and guest Arno Wendell Bontemps, Northwestern University Radio Dept., 1942 Race Relations: Sylvestre C. Watkins, "Anthology of American Negro literature", R.M. MacIver, "Group Relations and Group Antagonisms", Edwin R. Embree, "Brown Americans", Howard W. Odum, "Race and Rumors of Race", Northwestern University on the Air, Of Men and Books V. 3 No. 33, critic John T. Frederick and guest Arno Wendell Bontemps, Northwestern University Radio Dept., 1944 Make a Loud Noise .., Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting, [1970-1979]. 1 videocassette. "Interspersed with a discussion of Black theater by Sam Wilson, Arna Bontemps, and Ed Bullins, performers from the Arena Playhouse in Baltimore, Maryland present excerpts from, In New England Winter, by Ed Bullins and Tambourines to Glory, by Langston Hughes." The Harlem Renaissance, Argus Communications, 1970. 1 sound cassette. Manuscript Collections, Correspondence, & Photographs: Nichols, Charles Harold, editor. Arna Bontemps-Langston Hughes Letters, 1925-1967Dodd, Mead, 1980 Langston Hughes Portrait Collection, [1928-1967], New York Public Library. Includes group photograph(s) which include Bontemps. Arna Bontemps Portrait Collection, [1930-1959], New York Public Library Secondary Bibliography: Bibliographies: James Weldon Johnson and Arna Wendell Bontemps: A Reference Guide, Robert Edward Fleming, G.K. Hall, 1978 Biographies: Arna Bontemps Remembered, Fisk University, 1973 Profiles of Black Achievement: Aaron Douglas, Arna Bontemps, Arna Wendell Bontemps and Guidance Associates, Guidance Associates, 1973. 2 filmstrips, 2 cassettes, and a discussion guide. Renaissance Man from Louisiana: A Biography of Arna Wendell Bontemps, Kirkland C. Jones, Greenwood Press, 1992 Criticism and Interpretation: Arna Bontemps, Meet the Authors, Arna Wendell Bontemps, Imperial International Learning, 1969, 1 sound tap reel Nat and Gabriel: The Problem of Perspective, Amzie Sullivan Natalie, University of Virginia, 1970. Discusses Bontemps' Black Thunder. A Study of the Fiction of Arna Wendell Bontemps, Betty Taylor-Ashe, Howard University, 1978 The Sense and Sensibility of Arna Bontemps, Angela Wendell Hayes, Northwestern State University of Louisiana, 1989 A Time for Freedom, Marie Salter, Saint Anselm College, 1989. Discusses Bontemps' Black Thunder. The Hammers of Creation: Folk Culture in Modern African-American Fiction, Mercer University Lamar Memorial Lectures No. 35, Eric J. Sundquist, The University of Georgia Press, 1992 The Raceless Novel of the 1930s: African-American Fiction by Arna Bontemps, George Henderson, Countee Cullen, Jessie Fauset, and Zora Neale Hurston, Ronald Glynne Rummage, Middle Tennessee State University, 1994. Discusses Bontemps' God Sends Sunday.