Peterkin, Julia (1880–1961)

Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist. Born Julia Mood on October 31, 1880, in Laurence County, South Carolina; died on August 10, 1961; daughter of Julius Andrew Mood (a physician) and Alma (Archer) Mood; Converse College, Spartanburg, South Carolina, B.A., 1896, M.A., 1897; married William George Peterkin, on June 3, 1903; children: William George.

Published first novel, Black April (1927); awarded honorary D.Litt. from Converse College (1927); won Pulitzer Prize for Scarlet Sister Mary (1929).

Selected writings:

Green Thursday (1924); Black April (1927); Scarlet Sister Mary (1928); Bright Skin (1932); Roll, Jordan, Roll (1933); A Plantation Christmas (1934); Collected Short Stories of Julia Peterkin (Frank Durham, ed., 1970).

Born in Laurence County, South Carolina, in 1880, Julia Peterkin was the daughter of Julius Andrew Mood, a country doctor, and Alma Archer Mood , who died while giving birth to her. Peterkin was raised largely by a Gullah nurse, her first experience with the people about whom she would later write. Her father encouraged Peterkin's love of literature and writing, and she graduated from Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, with a bachelor of arts degree in 1896, earning a master's degree the following year. She then taught in the small town of Fort Motte, where she met William Peterkin; they married on June 3, 1903, and would have one son. When Julia assumed managerial duties on William's large estate, Lang Syne Plantation, one of her tasks was to supervise approximately 450 Gullah employees. Gullahs (also called Geechee) are descendants of slaves, many from the area of Sierre Leone, who were brought to the coastal areas of South Carolina, Georgia, and northeast Florida in the 18th and 19th centuries to work on rice plantations. Living for generations in isolated communities, often on coastal islands, they have managed to maintain an African-based culture and a distinct dialect containing many African words. Gullah life and culture became the subject matter of Peterkin's fiction.

Her first work appeared in the Reviewer, a little magazine edited by Emily Clark , and in H.L. Mencken's The Smart Set. In 1924, Peterkin published her first book, Green Thursday, a collection of Reviewer sketches about the struggles of an African-American plantation family; it sold 5,000 copies. Black April, a novel about the downfall of a larger-than-life plantation overseer, was published in 1927. Scarlet Sister Mary, published the following year, gained her critical acclaim and a Pulitzer Prize for best novel of the year in 1929, eventually selling more than one million copies. Set in a Gullah community, the novel follows Mary Pinesett, who marries at 15, shocks her community, and is ostracized from her church because of her sexual behavior. After the death of her firstborn son, she disavows her earlier lifestyle and is readmitted into the church and the community. The book contains much information about Gullah culture, and Peterkin was praised for her realistic and sympathetic presentation of black characters. (Nonetheless, in part because of this sympathy, Scarlet Sister Mary was barred from several Southern public libraries.)

Peterkin's work fits within the framework of "Southern grotesque," with no shortage of violence, murder and illicit liaisons. She intentionally avoided the issue of race relations, preferring, she said, "to present these people in a patient struggle with fate, and not in any race conflict." When taken in the context of their time, her portrayals of plantation life are notable for their lack of what was then nearly standard condescension and stereotype from white writers. In the context of the modern-day, post-civilrights movement world, however, her works have been criticized by some for just that sort of condescension and stereotype.

Bright Skin (1932), Peterkin's third novel, was a disappointment to fans and supporters, and its lack of success essentially ended her career as a fiction writer. (Some of the blame for this is also due to the Great Depression, during which book promotion fell drastically.) She produced a volume of sketches and essays about black culture titled Roll, Jordan, Roll, in 1933, and republished an earlier sketch, A Plantation Christmas, in 1934, but these were received with politeness at best. Her popularity fell off quickly, and by the time she died in 1961, all of her works were out of print and her audience had disappeared. Her books remain valuable for the wealth of detail they provide about Gullah life, however, and some interest in her fiction was renewed with the publication of her collected short stories by the University of South Carolina Press in 1970.

sources:

Contemporary Authors. Vol. 102. Detroit, MI: Gale Research.

Kunitz, Stanley J., and Howard Haycraft, eds. Twentieth Century Authors. NY: H.W. Wilson, 1942.

Landess, Thomas. "Julia Peterkin" in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 9: American Novelists, 1910–1945. Edited by James J. Martine. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1981.

Weatherford, Doris. American Women's History. NY: Prentice Hall, 1994.

suggested reading:

Landess, Thomas. Julia Peterkin. NY: Twayne, 1976.

Kari Bethel , freelance writer, Columbia, Missouri