Ann Nolan Clark
Ann Nolan Clark was an American author and educator born on December 5, 1896, in Las Vegas, New Mexico Territory, to Irish immigrant parents. She developed a passion for writing early in life, leading her to edit her high school newspaper and pursue a teaching career after attending New Mexico Normal School. Over her career, Clark taught in various locations, including German and Pueblo communities, emphasizing culturally relevant education. Notably, she authored "In My Mother's House," published in 1941, which was created to resonate with her Native American students’ experiences. Throughout her life, she advocated for inclusive educational materials, writing bilingual readers and engaging in educational initiatives during World War II. Clark received numerous accolades for her literary contributions, including the Newbery Medal for "Secret of the Andes" in 1953 and several Spring Book Festival Awards. Her work remains significant for its impact on children's literature and its cultural relevance, particularly for Native American readers, despite her own non-Native background. Clark passed away on December 13, 1995, leaving behind a legacy of educational advocacy and literary achievement.
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Subject Terms
Ann Nolan Clark
Writer
- Born: December 5, 1896
- Birthplace: Las Vegas, New Mexico Territory
- Died: December 13, 1995
- Place of death: Tucson, Arizona
Biography
Ann Marie Nolan Clark was born on December 5, 1896, at Las Vegas, New Mexico Territory, to Irish parents, Patrick Frances Nolan and Mary Dunne Nolan. Her father was a merchant and her mother taught school. Clark attended a convent school and enjoyed hearing her paternal grandfather’s stories. She aspired to become a writer and edited her high school newspaper.
After graduation, Clark studied at New Mexico Normal School in her hometown and taught English as an assistant until the United States entered World War I. She then taught school at a German town, Optimo, and at Tesuque Pueblo in New Mexico and reported for a Tacoma, Washington, newspaper before accepting another teaching position at Gallup, New Mexico. On August 6, 1919, she married Thomas Patrick Clark, and they later had one son.
Clark eventually separated from her husband and resumed teaching at Gallup, where principal Mabel Parsons influenced her instructional methods. In 1930, Clark passed tests required for employment with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and accepted a position at Santa Fe, New Mexico. By 1934, the Tesuque Pueblo had asked Clark to teach there.
Clark became concerned that reading materials to teach her students the English language only provided Caucasian examples, so she wrote a geography book for her pupils that contained information familiar to them. A BIA representative showed Clark’s geography book to Viking Press editor May Massee, who asked Clark to develop it; the book was published as In My Mother’s House in 1941. Willard W. Beatty, BIA’s director of Indian education, asked Clark to write bilingual readers, such as The Pine Ridge Porcupine, in Sioux and English for various tribes.
During World War II, Clark helped her coworkers create schools for Japanese teachers at a Japanese internment camp. That assignment upset her because her son died while serving with the United States Air Force in the Pacific.
Starting in 1945, Clark spent five years working for the Inter-American Educational Foundation, traveling to several South and Central American countries to teach adults to become educators. In 1962, Clark endured a lengthy hospitalization after an accident and retired. She lived at Red Dog Ranch at Tesuque, New Mexico. Clark died on December 13, 1995, at Tucson, Arizona.
Scholars consider Clark ’s work significant because she created books that were culturally and socially relevant to Native American readers, even though she was not Native American. Reviewers in Horn Book, The New Yorker, and other journals praised the elegance of Clark’s writing and the educational value of her books. Clark won three Spring Book Festival Awards sponsored by the New York Herald Tribune for In My Mother’s House in 1941, Secret of the Andes and Looking-for-Something: The Story of a Stray Burro of Ecuador in 1952, and Santiago in 1955. The American Library Association gave Clark its Newbery Medal in 1953 for Secret of the Andes. The U.S. Department of the Interior honored Clark with a Distinguished Service Award in 1962; the Catholic Library Association awarded her its Regina Medal in 1963, recognizing her overall contributions to children’s literature.