Eudora Welty - Biography

Biography

Eudora Welty was born in Jackson, Mississippi on April 13, 1909, the daughter of Christian Webb Welty (1879–1931) and Mary Chestina (Andrews) Welty (1883–1966). She grew up with younger brothers Edward Jefferson and Walter Andrews. Eudora’s mother was a schoolteacher. Eudora soon developed a love of reading, reinforced by her mother who believed that "any room in our house, at any time in the day, was there to read in, or to be read to". Her father, who worked as an insurance executive, was intrigued by gadgets and machines and inspired in Eudora a love of all things mechanical. She later would use technology for symbolism in her stories and would also become an avid photographer, like her father.

Near the time of her high school graduation, Eudora moved with her family to a house built for them at 1119 Pinehurst Street, which would remain her permanent address until her death. Wyatt C. Hedrick designed the Welty's Tudor Revival style home, which is now known as the Eudora Welty House.

From 1925 to 1927, Welty studied at the Mississippi State College for Women, then transferred to the University of Wisconsin to complete her studies in English Literature. She studied advertising at Columbia University at the suggestion of her father. Because she graduated at the height of the Great Depression, she struggled to find work in New York. Soon after she returned to Jackson in 1931, her father died of leukemia. She took a job at a local radio station and wrote about Jackson society for the Tennessee newspaper Commercial Appeal. In 1935, she began work for the Works Progress Administration. As a publicity agent, she collected stories, conducted interviews, and took photographs of daily life in Mississippi. It was here that she got a chance to observe the Southern life and human relationships that she would later use in her short stories. During this time she also held meetings in her house with fellow writers and friends, a group she called the Night-Blooming Cereus Club. Three years later, she left her job to become a full-time writer.

In 1936, she published "The Death of a Traveling Salesman" in the literary magazine Manuscript, and then proceeded to publish stories in several other notable publications, including The New Yorker. She solidified her place as an influential Southern writer when she penned her first book of short stories, A Curtain of Green. Her new-found success won her a seat on the staff of The New York Times book review and as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship grant that allowed her to travel to France, England, Ireland, and Germany. While abroad, she spent some time as a resident lecturer at Oxford and Cambridge. In 1960, she returned home to Jackson once again to care for her elderly mother and two brothers.

She continued to write, and won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1973 for her novel, The Optimist's Daughter. She also published a collection of photographs depicting the Great Depression titled "One Time, One Place" in 1971. She then lectured at Harvard University and eventually turned the speeches into a three-part book entitled One Writer's Beginnings. She continued to live in her family house in Jackson until her death of natural causes on July 23, 2001.