Joel Chandler Harris (1848 - 1908)

Born 9 Dec 1848 in Eatonton, Putnam, Georgia, United States

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 3 Jul 1908 at age 59 in Atlanta, Fulton, Georgia, United States

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Biography

Joel Harris is Notable.

Joel Harris has Irish ancestors.

Joel Harris was a Georgian.

Joel was born in Eatonton, Georgia in 1845 or 1848, the child of Mary Ann Harris, who was unmarried. His father abandoned them shortly and is not known. A local physician named Dr. Andrew Reid sympathized with the single mother, and allowed the pair to live in the cottage behind his mansion. He also paid Joel's tuition for schooling when he became old enough.

In 1862, he began an apprenticeship at Turnwold where the owner Joseph Addison Turner both operated an agricultural plantation and the printing press for his newspaper called The Countryman. During this time, he spent his free time socializing at the slave quarters. This is where he became sympathetic to their plight, and absorbed the oral storytelling, traditional folklore, and dialect.

After the war, he became a typesetter in Savannah. He soon write a political humor column, published across the state. He married French-Canadian Esther LaRose and had 9 children with her, of whom 6 survived to adulthood. See his full family tree in an interactive format here.

When they moved to Atlanta, they rented and then in 1881 bought Snap Bean Farm, later the Wren's Nest in the West End and lived there until his death.

In the late 1880s and early 1890s, he took in his adolescent godddaughter Daisy Baker, now known as the actress Margaret Dumont, and raised her at Snap Bean.

Career

In 1876, he became a writer at The Atlanta Constitution and worked there for 24 years, later becoming editor. He abhorred the racist violence towards the formerly enslaved such as lynchings, and criticized the planter class. He supported African-American education, suffrage, and equality, and the vision of a New South with racial reconciliation. He created the Uncle Remus character as a vehicle to discuss social and political topics.

Harris wrote novels, narrative histories, translations of French folklore, children's literature, and collections of stories depicting rural life in Georgia. He began writing fairytales from African-American folkloric tradition, as told by "Uncle Remus", first as a newspaper serial and then a book which became a best-seller. He left the Consitution in 1900.

Harris and his son Julian founded what would become Uncle Remus's Home Magazine. Harris wrote to Andrew Carnegie that its purpose would be to further "the obliteration of prejudice against the blacks, the demand for a square deal, and the uplifting of both races so that they can look justice in the face without blushing." Although his commentary was progressive for the time, he has been more recently criticized as paternalistic and culturally appropriative.

Sources

• R. Bruce Bickley, "Joel Chandler Harris," New Georgia Encyclopedia. Originally published Jul 18, 2002, last modified Dec 2, 2019.
• The Wren's Nest: About Joel Chandler Harris (see interactive family tree)

See also

• Wikidata: Item Q554269, en:Wikipedia
• Find A Grave: Memorial #6819403
• Joel Chandler Harris stamp (1948) - Smithsonian National Postal Museum]

Works by Joel Chandler Harris:

• Digital scans with zoomable images at the University of Florida, Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature.
• 24 Books at Project Gutenburg
• Works by or about Joel Chandler Harris at Internet Archive