Julia Peterkin
Julia Peterkin (1880-1961) was an influential American author known for her poignant portrayals of black life in the South. Born in Laurens County, South Carolina, she was raised by her grandparents after her mother's early death. Peterkin attended Converse College and took up teaching before marrying William George Peterkin, a plantation manager, and moving to Lang Syne Plantation, which employed a significant number of black workers. She began writing at the age of 40, and her early stories, featured in the magazine Reviewer, highlighted the experiences of black characters, earning her critical acclaim.
Her first major work, *Green Thursday* (1924), was lauded for its authentic representation of the Gullah culture. Peterkin's novels, including *Black April* (1927) and *Scarlet Sister Mary* (1928), explored complex themes within black communities and earned her the Pulitzer Prize. While her later work, notably *Bright Skin* (1932), faced criticism for not addressing racial conflict, it still reflected the social changes of its time. After a period of decreased literary activity, Peterkin's contributions were revived in the 1970s, acknowledging her role in American literature and the representation of black folklore.
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Julia Peterkin
Writer
- Born: October 31, 1880
- Birthplace: Laurens County, South Carolina
- Died: August 10, 1961
- Place of death: Orangeburg, South Carolina
Biography
Julia Peterkin, nee Mood, was born in 1880 in Laurens County, South Carolina. Her father, Julius Andrew Mood, was a physician. Her mother, Alma Archer, died in 1883, and Peterkin was subsequently raised by her grandparents, Henry Mood, a Methodist preacher, and his wife, Catherine Mood. She received her higher education at Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, earning her B.A. in 1896 and her M.A. in 1897. She taught in a country school from 1897 until 1903, the year she met William George Peterkin, a plantation manager. She married him and went to live at Lang Syne Plantation, one of the most productive in South Carolina, with more than 450 black workers. The Peterkins later had a child.
Peterkin did not attempt to write until 1921, when she was forty years old. Her initial stories appeared in a little magazine called Reviewer. Readers liked these stories because of Peterkin’s realistic portrayal of black characters, as exemplified in “Missy’s Twins.” In 1924, most of these stories were collected in Green Thursday, which was widely praised as giving voice to the black experience. Even black critics could not tell if the author was white or black, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) recommended the book.
Peterkin’s stories were remarkable for her ability to transliterate the Gullah dialect of the Southern Carolina coast. She had become thoroughly acquainted not only with the Gullah dialect but also with the folklore of these former black slaves from Angola, who existed as a subculture within the wider black culture. Some of these stories brought her to the attention of the critic H. L. Mencken and he anthologized them in The Smart Set; one of the stories was published in the collection O. Henry Memorial Prize Stories of 1930.
Peterkin’s first novel, Black April, was published in 1927. It centered around a black plantation foreman and did not feature any white characters. Her new publishers, Bobbs- Merrill, promoted the book enthusiastically and it made the best- seller lists. The book established Peterkin as an expert on black folklore. Her second novel, Scarlet Sister Mary (1928), was a more controversial book because it sympathetically related the story of a promiscuous black woman. The novel was considered for the Pulitzer Prize after some adjustments were made to the rules of the prize competition; Scarlet Sister Mary received the Pulitzer Prize and subsequently sold more than a million copies. The book also was adapted as a Broadway play, with Ethel Barrymore playing the part of Mary.
Literary tastes changed during the Depression and Peterkin’s next novel, Bright Skin (1932), was criticized for some of the things for which her earlier fiction had been praised, including her refusal to portray racial conflict or criticize the plantation system. Bright Skin is the story of a mulatto girl who leaves the plantation for Harlem, typical of the large exodus of blacks from the rural South to the big cities of the North that had been going on for decades. The novel presents a real dissection of social upheaval. The youngest black characters feel the pull of the cities, while the older ones remember slavery and Africa. Although it was in many ways Peterkin’s best book, Bright Skin was commercially unsuccessful.
Her last two books retreated from fiction. Roll, Jordan, Roll, with photographs by Doris Ulmann, was published in 1933, and A Plantation Christmas, illustrated by David Hendrikson, was released in 1934. The former book is a series of essays of a rather sociological nature on black culture; the latter, as its name suggests, is a seasonal and somewhat sentimental account of a southern Christmas. Another Southern woman writer, Eudora Welty, wrote a similar book, One Time, One Place: Mississippi in the Depression, some forty years later.
After fifteen years of writing, Peterkin stopped and wrote no more. She died in 1961 at Orangeburg, South Carolina. After a period of critical neglect, Peterkin’s short stories were published in 1970 as Collected Short Stories of Julia Peterkin. The novels were reprinted in the mid-1970’s as part of the growing interest in black and regional studies.