Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle was an American author born on June 19, 1850, in Alabama. She hailed from a privileged background as her father was a physician and plantation owner, and her early education was provided by private tutors. The upheaval of the Civil War significantly altered her family's circumstances, leading to a move to Selma, Alabama, where her father established a medical practice after losing their plantation and slaves. Pyrnelle continued her education in New York and became a governess and teacher across several Southern states.
After marrying John R. Pyrnelle in 1880, she shifted her focus from teaching to writing, producing her first novel, "Diddie, Dumps, and Tot: Or, Plantation Childlife" in 1882. The book reflects her nostalgia for plantation life and portrays the world of the Old South through the lens of white children, incorporating dialect typical of the era. Although her depictions of slavery are now considered inappropriate, her works provide insight into the sentiments of some white Southerners following the Civil War. Pyrnelle wrote one additional novel, "Miss Li'l Tweetty," published posthumously in 1917, which also addresses themes of plantation life. Overall, her writings offer a complex view of a significant historical period through a specific cultural perspective.
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Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
- Born: June 19, 1850
- Birthplace: Near Uniontown, Alabama
- Died: August 26, 1907
- Place of death: Birmingham, Alabama
Biography
Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle was born on June 19, 1850, on Ittabena, her father’s plantation near Uniontown, Alabama. Her father, Dr. Richard Clarke, was a physician; he and his wife, Elizabeth Carson Bates Clarke, were from important Southern families, and they ran their plantation with the labor of slaves. Pyrnelle spent her first decade living a life of privilege, and was educated by private tutors. During the Civil War, Pyrnelle’s father was a captain in the Confederate army. When the war ended in 1865, he lost his slaves and his land and moved the family to Selma, Alabama, where he established a medical practice.
After the move, Pyrnelle was educated at private schools, at first attending Hammer Hall in Montgomery, Alabama, and later studying at Mrs. Anna Randall Diehl’s College of Education and Professor McKay’s Delsarte School, both in New York. She returned to the South and became a governess and teacher. She taught in public schools in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Texas until 1880, when she married John R. Pyrnelle of Alabama. Married women were not allowed to work as teachers, so Pyrnelle turned her energies to writing.
Her first novel, Diddie, Dumps, and Tot: Or, Plantation Childlife (1882), reflects her longing for her former life on the plantation and her bitterness at having lost it. Diddie, Dumps, and Tot are the nicknames of three white children who live on a plantation before the Civil War, and much of the novel recounts their daily life. Pyrnelle explained in the preface that she hoped the book would help preserve the stories and folkways of the Old South. The novel, written in the form of dialect common in the nineteenth century, presents slavery as a natural and deserved state; even the slaves understand why they are not fit for freedom. The white family is destroyed by the Civil War, with characters dying or going mad, the plantation burning to the ground, and the slaves freed.
After the publication of Diddie, Dumps, and Tot, Pyrnelle set out on a lecture tour and gained some fame. She wrote only one other book, Miss Li’l Tweetty (1917), which was not published until ten years after her death. This second book, also set on a plantation, focuses on the daughter of a physician and her maid. With their heavy use of dialogue and their attitudes toward slavery, Pyrnelle’s books no longer seem appropriate or interesting for children to read. However, they do offer a fascinating look at how the end of the Civil War might have felt to one group of displaced plantation owners.