Eudora Welty
Aaron, Devin, Sheronda, Taylor
6th Period – English III
Mrs. Cleveland
Eudora Alice Welty
 Born on April 13, 1909, in Jackson, Mississippi
 The oldest of her family's three children and
the only girl
 She attended the Mississippi College for
Women, graduated from the University of
Wisconsin (1929)
 Studied advertising at Columbia University for
a year
 The years in Wisconsin and New York
broadened Welty's horizons
 New York City was especially
meaningful for it was during the peak of
The Harlem Renaissance, an artistic
awakening that produced many African
American artists
 Welty returned to Jackson in 1931 after her father's
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death
She worked as a part-time journalist, copywriter, and
photographer for the Works Progress Administration
(WPA), which was aimed at providing jobs for writers
The latter job took her on assignments throughout
Mississippi, and she began using these experiences as
material for short stories
In June 1936, her story "Death of a Traveling
Salesman" was accepted for publication in the journal
Manuscript
Within two years her work had appeared in such
respected publications as the Atlantic and the Southern
Review.
 Soon after her first novel was published,
she stopped writing to care full-time for
her family for fifteen years
 After her mother died in 1966, she
returned to writing
 She was a 6-time winner of the O. Henry
Award for Short Stories, the National
Medal for Literature, the American Book
Award, and in 1969, a Pulitzer Prize
 Her writings supports the power of community
and family life and at the same time explores
the need for peace
 While much of modern American fiction has
focused on isolation and the failure of love,
Welty's stories show how tolerance and
generosity allow people to adapt to each other's
weaknesses and to painful change.
 Welty's fiction particularly celebrates the love
of men and women, the fleeting joys of
childhood, and the many dimensions and stages
of women's lives
 In August of 2000, Country Churchyards, with
photographs by Welty, excerpts from her
previous writings, and new essays by other
writers, was published.
 Welty was inducted into the National Women's
Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York, on
October 7, 2000.
 Welty died at the age of ninety-two on July 22,
2001, in Jackson, Mississippi.
 It is for her fiction (usually set in the rural
South), that she's known as the First Lady of
Southern Literature.
The Welty House, located at 1119 Pinehurst Street in
Jackson, Mississippi, was donated to the state of
Mississippi and is being preserved as a national
monument.
References
 Page numbers – 8-16
 Website for picture – eudorawelty.org