Zora Neale Hurston

Brief     

     Hurston (1891-1960) was a novelist, poet, anthropologist, and folklorist who documented life across the African diaspora and stood as a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Her work focused on Black cultural traditions, spirituality, and the vibrant dynamics of Black communities across the Americas. Her most well known works were Their Eyes Were Watching God, Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica, Mules and Men, and "How it Feels to Be Colored Me".

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Collections & Letters

1. George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Zora Neal Hurston Papers

The collection includes manuscripts, documents and photos that were saved from a burn barrel after Hurston’s death. There are also digitized materials that include correspondence, photographs, a teaching guide, and recording of Hurton’s voice from her time with the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

2. Yale, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Zora Neale Hurston Collection

The collection includes correspondence, "Harlem Slanguage", short stories such as "Book of Harlem", drafts of her autobiography, Dust Tracks on the Road, the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, and a play written with Langston Hughes "Mule Bone", as well as a study of Hurston written by Robert Hemenway in 1972.

3. Yale, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Carl Van Vechten Papers Relating to African American Arts and Letters (JWJ MSS 1050) … Hurston, Zora Neale, 1925–1949‍

Collection contains several letters from Hurston to Van Vetchen.

4. Library of Congress, Zora Neale Hurston Plays

The collection includes ten (10) manuscripts of largely unproduced plays. They reflect Hurston's experiences and "knowledge of her folklore in the African-American South". The plays are as follows:

• Cold Keener, a Revue (1930)
• De Turkey and de Law: A Comedy in Three Acts (1930)
• The Mule-Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts (1931)
• Forty Yards (1931)
• Lawing and Jawing (1931)
• Poker! (1931)
• Woofing (1931)
• Spunk (1935)‍
• Meet the Mamma: A Musical Play in Three Acts (1925)
  
• Polk County: A Comedy of Negro Life on a Sawmill Camp with Authentic Negro Music in Three Acts (1944)

4. University of Massachusetts Amherst, Credo Digital Library, Letter from Hurston to W.E.B. DubBois, June 11, 1945

Here, Hurston refers to DuBois as the Dean of American Negro Artists and implores him to take on the "important project" of establishing a cemetery for the "illustrious Negro dead".