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Julia Mood Peterkin Collection

 Collection — Multiple Containers
Identifier: Mss-0063

Scope and Contents

The bulk of this collection consists of copies of correspondence between Julia Peterkin of Lang Syne Plantation, Fort Motte, South Carolina, and her publishers from the early 1920s through the 1930s. This correspondence deals primarily with her books Black April, Scarlet Sister Mary, and Bright Skin. Internal evidence indicates the wide acclaim and friendships she shared with other authors and critics who praised her for her honest and sensitive writing about life on a Southern plantation, the plantation workers, and their dialect, superstitions, and relationships. The collection also contains copies of fourteen early short stories published in the Reviewer.

Dates

  • 1920 - 1964
  • 1920 - 1939

Restrictions on Access

Covered by copyright laws.

Biographical Note

Julia Mood Peterkin was born to Dr. and Mrs. Julius Mood in Laurens, South Carolina. Her mother died when she was a few months old. Her father returned to Sumter, South Carolina, with his children who were then reared by a grandfather and a nanny. At age 16, Peterkin graduated from Converse College and returned the next year for her M.A. degree. She specialized in music. Several years later she married William G. Peterkin, a large planter at Fort Motte, South Carolina. Isolated on Lang Syne plantation with her husband and son and the plantation workers, she recorded stories, supersitions, and customs of plantation life. Each week she traveled to Columbia for piano lessons under Dr. Bellamon who was also a literary critic and poet. He was fascinated by her story telling and her handling of the difficult Gullah dialect and insisted that she write her plantation stories.

She wrote in a one-room cabin some hundreds of feet from the "big house." Her work was submitted to H.L. Mencken whose criticisms were very positive. She published a number of stories and two books before she received the Pulitzer Prize for her third book, Scarlet Sister Mary, in 1928. She was acclaimed by critics as one of the best writers on plantation life. Her other books were Green Thursday (1924), Black April (1927), Bright Skin (1932), and Roll, Jordan, Roll (1933). Mrs. Peterkin died August 1961, age 80, in Orangeburg Memorial Hospital.

Extent

0.25 Cubic Feet

Language of Materials

English

Arrangement

Arranged chronologically.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Dr. Louis Henry of the Clemson University English Department wrote his dissertation on Julia Peterkin and gave these copies to the library.

Related Archival Materials

The Behrend collection, also in Clemson University Special Collections, contains correspondence between Mrs. Margaret Chase Behrend and Mrs. Peterkin. In memory of Mrs. Peterkin, Mrs. Behrend gave to Clemson College several autographed first editions of Mrs. Peterkin's books and correspondence between Mrs. Peterkin and Mrs. Behrend. Mrs. Behrend also gave a memorial gift fund to be spent on books about Negro folklore and history and South Carolina history.

Source

Title
Julia Mood Peterkin Collection
Status
Completed
Language of description
Undetermined
Script of description
Code for undetermined script

Repository Details

Part of the Clemson University Libraries Special Collections and Archives Repository

Contact:
230 Kappa St.
Clemson SC 29634 U.S.A. US