Joel Chandler Harris papers

Joel Chandler Harris (December 9, 1848 - July 3, 1908), journalist and author of the Uncle Remus tales, was born in Eatonton, Putnam County, Georgia, the son of Mary Harris, a seamstress. From 1856-1862, he attended Eatonton schools, primarily the Eatonton Male Academy. In March 1862, he answered an ad for a printer's devil at The Countryman, a weekly newspaper published at the nearby Turnwold Plantation by Joseph Addison Turner. There Harris learned the newspaper trade and began composing poems, paragraphs, and short stories, several of which appeared in The Countryman. Turner encouraged and critiqued young Harris's writings and introduced him to the classics of literature.

In 1866, after The Countryman folded, Harris became a typesetter for the Macon Telegraph. Five to six months later, he traveled to Louisiana to work as a private secretary for William Evelyn, editor and publisher of the New Orleans Crescent Monthly, a magazine devoted to "Literature, Art, Science, and Society." He remained in New Orleans for six to eight months, the longest period of time Harris would ever spend outside of his native state. Returning to Georgia in 1867, he became printer and editor of the Monroe Advertiser of Forsyth, and in 1870, he joined the staff of the Savannah Morning News as associate editor. At all of these newspapers except the Crescent Monthly, Harris contributed poems, paragraphs, editorials and news reports for publication.

While in Savannah, Harris met Esther LaRose of Upton, Canada, who was spending the summer of 1872 with her parents in the Georgia city. They were married the following April. The Harrises had nine children, six of whom lived to adulthood. They were Julian Harris (1874-1963), Lucien Harris (1875-1960), Evan Howell Harris (1876-1878), Evelyn Harris (1878-1961), Mary Esther "Rosebud" Harris (1879-1882), Lillian Harris (1882-1956), Linton Harris (1883-1890), Mildred Harris (1885-1966), and Joel Chandler Harris, Jr. (1888-1964). Esther LaRose Harris survived her husband by thirty years, dying in 1938.

In 1876, a yellow fever epidemic in coastal Georgia drove Harris, his wife, and two young sons inland to Atlanta. When offered a position as associate editor of the Atlanta Constitution, Harris and his family decided to settle permanently in Atlanta. He joined editor Henry Grady in propounding the virtues of a "New South" and began writing Uncle Remus sketches. In December of 1880, Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings was published, winning its author instant critical and popular acclaim. Harris became widely known for his rendering of Negro dialect and for his retelling of plantation stories he had heard as a boy in Eatonton and Turnwold.

The year after Uncle Remus appeared, a more financially secure Harris moved his growing family to West End, then just outside of Atlanta. The property was first called "Snap Bean Farm," and later "The Wren's Nest." From 1883-1907, in addition to his duties with the Atlanta Constitution, Harris published twenty-three collections of Uncle Remus stories, novels, and a history textbook/storybook for Georgia students. He retired from the newspaper in 1900 to devote full-time to his writing. In 1902, Emory College, then located at Oxford, Georgia awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Literature. Three years later, he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Finally, in 1907-1908, Harris served in his last editorial post, editing the New Uncle Remus Magazine (shortly after his death, the name was changed to Uncle Remus Home Magazine). He wrote numerous articles and editorials for the monthly periodical. Harris died in July 1908, leaving behind a large collection of Negro folk tales and writings on Southern lifestyles and values before, during and after the Civil War.

Biographical Source:Julia Collier Harris, The Life and Letters of Joel Chandler Harris (1918), Paul M. Cousins, Joel Chandler Harris: A Biography (1968), and R. Bruce Bickley, Joel Chandler Harris (1978).