Fauset, Jessie Redmon (1882–1961)
Fauset, Jessie Redmon (1882–1961)
African-American writer. Born Jessie Redmon Fauset, April 27, 1882, in Camden, New Jersey; died April 30, 1961, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; dau. of Redmon Fauset (minister of African Methodist Episcopal Church) and Annie (Seamon) Fauset; was the 1st black woman to graduate from Cornell University, 1905; also attended the Sorbonne; University of Pennsylvania, MA, 1919; m. Herbert E. Harris (businessman), 1929 (died 1958).
Novelist, journalist, poet, and editor whose wide-ranging literary skills both influenced other writers of the Harlem Renaissance and vividly captured the struggles and successes of black Americans in the early part of 20th century; taught Latin and French in Washington, DC, at the M Street High School (later Dunbar High School, 1906–19); served as literary editor of Crisis (1919–26), giving much-needed exposure to young novelists and poets like Nella Larsen and Gwendolyn Bennett; edited, with W.E.B. Du Bois, a children's magazine, The Brownies' Book (1920–21); wrote 4 novels: There Is Confusion (1924), Plum Bun (1929), The Chinaberry Tree: A Novel of American Life (1931), Comedy: American Style (1933); taught French at DeWitt Clinton High School in NY (1927–44); moved to Montclair, New Jersey, with husband (early 1950s); after his death, moved to Philadelphia (1958), where she died of heart disease (1961).
See also Carolyn Wedin Sylvander, Jessie Redmon Fauset: Black American Writer (Whitston, 1981); and Women in World History.