Zora Neale Hurston Research Paper

1489 Words6 Pages
Zora was an outstanding folklorist and anthropologist who worked to record the stories and tales of many cultures, including her own African – American heritage. Zora Neale Hurston was born on January 7, 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama which was a small town not far from Orlando. Zora was the fifth of eight children in the Hurston household. Her father John Hurston was a sharecropper, a carpenter, and a Baptist preacher, and her mother Lucy Ann was a school teacher. When Zora was very young, the family moved to Eatonville, Florida which at the time was one of the first black towns to be incorporated in the United States. Eatonville was a town neatly divided by a dirt road when Zora lived there. Since, Eatonville was a black town Zora didn’t come…show more content…
Zora spent much of her time at Howard writing and graduated with only a two year Associates degree. A few years later Zora headed to New York City as the Harlem Renaissance was at its peak, and she became one of the writers at its middle point. The Harlem Renaissance was depicted as a renewal and flourishing of black literary and musical culture during the years after World War I in the Harlem section of New York. During the Harlem Renaissance Zora was able to meet amazing writers one was Langston Hughes. After being employed in many jobs and writing many entries Zora was granted a scholarship to Barnard College, where she was the college sole black person. At Barnard College Zora educated in the subject of anthropology and was able to work with noted anthropologist Franz Boas of Columbia University. While at Barnard College, Zora married her boyfriend from Howard, Herbert Sheen, but the marriage didn’t last long. After graduating from Barnard College Zora spent two years as a graduate student at Columbia University, were she continued in anthropology with Franz Boas who helped her go back to Eatonville to collect stories as material for her blossoming writing career. The 1930s and early 1940s marked the peak of Hurston's literary career. By the mid-1930s, Hurston had published several short stories. She published the much admired Mules and Men in 1935, which documented…show more content…
Zora works also impacted the Harlem Renaissance not just because of her contributions but because of her collaborations on stories with other famous Renaissance writers. Zora was the major contributor to the surfacing of female African American writers in the United States. It is clear in all the achievements and hardship Zora has overcome that her ethnic background wasn't her burden. Zora took pride in what she was and once said, "I have no separate feelings about being an American citizen and colored. I am merely a fragment of the great soul that surges within my country". Meaning cultural understanding of the African American society was severely improved worldwide due to her impact on literature. Zora novels and short stories have given people such a light to the African American culture. It has been discovered how influential and important Zora's literature was to the all cultures of the United States. Decades after her death, the Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community, Inc., established the Zora Neale Hurston Street Festival of the Arts and Humanities. This event is usually scheduled for the last weekend in January and frequently runs from Thursday afternoon through Sunday afternoon. It includes a great variety of events related to the humanities. The events include a juried art show, theatrical
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