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Female Firsts: Ann Petry · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to Stephane
0:07
Speaker 1: never told your production of I Heart Radio, and it's
0:19
Speaker 1: time for another female first, which means we are once
0:21
Speaker 1: again delighted to be joined by our friend, the amazing,
0:25
Speaker 1: the wonderful Eaves. Welcome e Hi. I feel like we
0:30
Speaker 1: should do a super cat of these introductions, trying to.
0:33
Speaker 1: I try to mix up the superlatives I give you
0:36
Speaker 1: every time, but I don't know how well I'm succeeded.
0:39
Speaker 1: I like it. I'm here for it. I feel very
0:41
Speaker 1: welcome every time, and I feel like that's the point
0:43
Speaker 1: of them. So I feel you are special. And we
0:49
Speaker 1: just had a very interesting conversation about cockroaches. Yeah in here,
0:56
Speaker 1: I'm I'm dancing. Ye yep, we're all on edge. You're
1:00
Speaker 1: looking around until on the high schoovel right now, waiting
1:04
Speaker 1: for something to show up. Yeah. Yeah, because it's very
1:09
Speaker 1: warm here and that's when the cockroaches come out. And
1:12
Speaker 1: in my experience, and it also sounded like we had
1:16
Speaker 1: I think we could write, you know, some poems, some
1:19
Speaker 1: essays about cockroaches. Yeah, we might have to for Catharsis
1:24
Speaker 1: pretty soon, honestly, I think so. I think so, and
1:28
Speaker 1: I think it is interesting, and I swear this is
1:30
Speaker 1: all going to relate to what we're talking about, um,
1:33
Speaker 1: how cockroaches are in my case spiders. We were talking
1:37
Speaker 1: about kind of these life changing events and for me, like,
1:41
Speaker 1: there are certain things I do because of bugs, And
1:44
Speaker 1: one is I flipped my all my glasses are down
1:48
Speaker 1: so they can't get into glass before I've gone to
1:52
Speaker 1: fill up a glass with water and there was a
1:54
Speaker 1: bug in there, been there. Yeah. True. I don't do
1:58
Speaker 1: that though, so yeah, I should think about that. I
2:01
Speaker 1: feel like I'm like really amping or getting everybody on edge.
2:04
Speaker 1: But you've got a jacket, a jacket thing, Yeah, I do,
2:08
Speaker 1: I sow any when the warm months roll around and
2:11
Speaker 1: I know that the cockroaches are about to show up,
2:13
Speaker 1: I will be really careful about taking my my sweaters
2:19
Speaker 1: and we'll not sweaters like hoodies and things that have
2:22
Speaker 1: arms and a lot of material on them and shaking
2:24
Speaker 1: them out before I wear them because I had a
2:27
Speaker 1: roach in one of my jackets when I was younger
2:30
Speaker 1: and it just scarred me for life. So I honestly
2:32
Speaker 1: like I feel a little bit embarrassed and guilty about
2:35
Speaker 1: having to think about that when I take stuff because
2:37
Speaker 1: I'm like, I shouldn't still be living with this. This
2:39
Speaker 1: feels like trauma living in the body. But I'm not
2:43
Speaker 1: going to release it. Honestly, I'm not because no matter
2:46
Speaker 1: how many people try to tell me that insects are
2:48
Speaker 1: cool and they're necessary and that I shouldn't be afraid
2:51
Speaker 1: of them because they're smaller than me, I some things
2:55
Speaker 1: I just had to accept aren't logical, and this is
2:57
Speaker 1: one of them. So I'm going to continue to be
3:00
Speaker 1: myself and do that. All these bugs have defense mechanisms
3:04
Speaker 1: and it scares the but Jesus out of Most people
3:07
Speaker 1: actually have a similar experience with scorpions because we had
3:10
Speaker 1: them in growing up and they would get into our shoes.
3:14
Speaker 1: So I will check my shoes because I have been
3:16
Speaker 1: stung on the foot because the scorpions calling into things
3:20
Speaker 1: like that. So I think that's just the universal people
3:22
Speaker 1: have some typically I think someone has. Everyone has something
3:26
Speaker 1: along those lines, because they're mean. These little bugs are mean. Yeah,
3:30
Speaker 1: I do feel like people who can deal with it
3:32
Speaker 1: that are really cool, Like I would be a little
3:34
Speaker 1: bit cooler if I was just like, oh, you know,
3:38
Speaker 1: you gotta get this book out of here. Gonna pick
3:39
Speaker 1: it out ran and take it outside and there you go,
3:42
Speaker 1: scoot on away, you know. But now I just have
3:44
Speaker 1: to freak out. I don't I don't believe those people.
3:48
Speaker 1: I'm like, I know you're freaking out, and you're just
3:49
Speaker 1: trying to be cool. I know. My dad was somebody
3:53
Speaker 1: who would be like, we're not killing that s I e.
3:55
Speaker 1: We're gonna take it outside. I used to have a
3:57
Speaker 1: lost nest in my room, so I would literally wake
3:59
Speaker 1: up with like thirty wasps in my room. Every morning.
4:02
Speaker 1: He would come in with like tweezers and he would
4:04
Speaker 1: just put him back outside. He would get back in. Yeah,
4:10
Speaker 1: it was one of those things. Looking back now, I'm like, wow,
4:14
Speaker 1: what an interesting thing to live with. But I had
4:17
Speaker 1: a cousin who he kind of grew up in in
4:21
Speaker 1: a place that further north that didn't deal with bugs
4:24
Speaker 1: like this. He came to stay with us one time
4:27
Speaker 1: when he was like nine years old, and I told
4:30
Speaker 1: him the scorpion thing. I was like, you gotta okay,
4:31
Speaker 1: you gotta check your shoes. Freaked out, and then I
4:34
Speaker 1: told him about like the wasp. Freaked out, and then
4:38
Speaker 1: the cicadas. The sound of the cicadas. He called his
4:41
Speaker 1: parents and said, you gotta get me out of here.
4:43
Speaker 1: I cannot take this again. It's true, Southern living is
4:51
Speaker 1: a whole different thing. It is. It's an acquired taste
4:56
Speaker 1: for many reasons, for so many reasons. Um, okay, well,
5:02
Speaker 1: I suppose we should get into our topic for today.
5:06
Speaker 1: I feel like we could continue on this route for forever.
5:08
Speaker 1: But who did you bring for us to discuss today? Today?
5:12
Speaker 1: We're going to be talking about Anne Petrie. So. Ann
5:16
Speaker 1: Petree was the person who wrote the first book by
5:19
Speaker 1: a black American woman to sell more than a million copies.
5:23
Speaker 1: We're gonna be getting into her story today, a little
5:26
Speaker 1: bit about her up upbringing, how she started writing, Um,
5:30
Speaker 1: the things that she cared about. Yeah, she had a
5:33
Speaker 1: lifeboll lived. So I'm excited to talk about her. Yeah. Yeah,
5:37
Speaker 1: and a lot of very good quotes, which I know
5:39
Speaker 1: you love. Oh my goodness, Yes, okay, yes, the list
5:44
Speaker 1: some of her quotes that really really struck me. It's
5:48
Speaker 1: some funny you mentioned that, because you know I do.
5:50
Speaker 1: I really love to get into the quotes, and I'm like,
5:52
Speaker 1: I won't honestly won't get into too many today. Um,
5:56
Speaker 1: but she did give some interviews, and she did, um
6:01
Speaker 1: write quite a few short stories, and she wrote a
6:03
Speaker 1: few novels. But um, just as a little teaser. One
6:07
Speaker 1: of the things that I think is super relevant about
6:09
Speaker 1: her story and that I love, love, love, and like
6:12
Speaker 1: I'm probably going to be dwelling on and lining sit
6:15
Speaker 1: within me for the like the next like month or so.
6:17
Speaker 1: Probably it's gonna be on my spirit is the way
6:20
Speaker 1: that she talked about public exposure, and UM, I would like,
6:27
Speaker 1: I really would love to know how she feels about
6:30
Speaker 1: how we interact with public exposure and ideas of personality
6:34
Speaker 1: and celebrity and fame today. But um, we should talk
6:37
Speaker 1: about a little bit more about her and so so
6:40
Speaker 1: everyone knows who she is before we get into that. Yes,
6:43
Speaker 1: but I do want to say I thought of you
6:45
Speaker 1: and I read those quotes about public ex social It's
6:48
Speaker 1: like this feels very like eased to me. Yeah, I
6:50
Speaker 1: would love to know. Yeah, when we I'll pause there.
6:53
Speaker 1: I would love to know both of your thoughts on
6:55
Speaker 1: that for sure. Yeah, all right, but I suppose we
6:59
Speaker 1: should yes, build led up to that they get into
7:01
Speaker 1: some history, so we'll start from the beginning. She was
7:05
Speaker 1: born Anna Houston Lane in nineteen o eight in old Saybrook, Connecticut.
7:10
Speaker 1: Her parents were Bertha Ernestine James and Peter Clark Lane.
7:14
Speaker 1: Her mother was a barber and beautician and she later
7:17
Speaker 1: started a business making line and lace, tablecloths and napkins,
7:22
Speaker 1: and her father owned and operated a drug store which
7:25
Speaker 1: they lived above, and they actually stayed in for many
7:29
Speaker 1: many years. They had one child who died as an infant,
7:34
Speaker 1: and Helen Louise Lane. Their other child was Ann's older sister.
7:39
Speaker 1: There weren't many black families in their town, and later
7:42
Speaker 1: called it an essentially hostile environment for a black family.
7:47
Speaker 1: But in the nineteen ten cents is one of her
7:50
Speaker 1: uncles and aunts were listed as members of the household.
7:54
Speaker 1: So another of her aunts, Anna Louise James, who comes
7:58
Speaker 1: up later in her story. Um, she had her own
8:00
Speaker 1: first Actually she was the first licensed Black American woman
8:04
Speaker 1: pharmacist in Connecticut. But um. When Anne was four years
8:09
Speaker 1: old she started going to Old Saybrook Elementary School. She
8:13
Speaker 1: and her sister were bullied at the school, but their
8:16
Speaker 1: uncle's went to school with them one day and shut
8:18
Speaker 1: that down. Um. She read the book Little Women and
8:21
Speaker 1: Did by Louisa May Alcott when she was in elementary
8:25
Speaker 1: school and she really connected to it um. So she
8:29
Speaker 1: was starting to getting too reading. And in nineteen fifteen
8:34
Speaker 1: and his mother graduated from the New York School of
8:37
Speaker 1: Koropoti in Harlem, and she started practicing near the family
8:42
Speaker 1: drug store. But her father took a job in Hartford, Connecticut,
8:46
Speaker 1: so he would go out there and spend time with
8:48
Speaker 1: family while he was there, and he would come home
8:50
Speaker 1: in the weekends. And so Anna's aunt and Louise James,
8:53
Speaker 1: took over the pharmacy and was soon its owner. And
8:58
Speaker 1: I'll call her from now on and pe. Yeah, so
9:00
Speaker 1: she became a member of the church. Because there there
9:03
Speaker 1: is a little bit confusion in the name. So she
9:05
Speaker 1: was born Anna, but she is referred to as Aunt Petrie.
9:09
Speaker 1: But yeah, so she became a member of the church.
9:11
Speaker 1: Her family attended the Old Staybrook Congregational Church. She was
9:16
Speaker 1: an active member for the rest of her life. And
9:20
Speaker 1: she graduated from Old Staybrook High School. And it was
9:23
Speaker 1: during this time where she talks about. Ann says that
9:27
Speaker 1: she got interested in writing UM and she was kind
9:31
Speaker 1: of encouraged by a teacher who didn't like her. But
9:34
Speaker 1: she realized that when her teacher called out one of
9:36
Speaker 1: her essays and read it to the class, and she
9:39
Speaker 1: realized that she really liked writing and it was something
9:41
Speaker 1: that she wanted to do. But anyway, in nineteen twenty six,
9:44
Speaker 1: she started attending Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, which is
9:48
Speaker 1: now Hampton University in Virginia, where she took courses in
9:53
Speaker 1: mail prep and domestic economy. But she left there soon
9:58
Speaker 1: after a strike happened um due to staffing and teaching concerns.
10:02
Speaker 1: She started going to a College of Pharmacy in New
10:05
Speaker 1: Haven in ninety eight, and she graduated and kind of
10:09
Speaker 1: followed the family line, began working for the family store
10:12
Speaker 1: in old Saybrook, then an old line in Connecticut, so
10:16
Speaker 1: she was kind of following the same path that had
10:18
Speaker 1: already been forged by her father and her aunt. And
10:21
Speaker 1: during this time she was already um, she was already
10:26
Speaker 1: a writer, so she was already sending short stories to
10:28
Speaker 1: magazines and getting rejected. She talks about how she could
10:32
Speaker 1: fill rooms with her rejection slips, which I think is
10:35
Speaker 1: something pretty much every writer can relate to. But she
10:39
Speaker 1: met George David Petrie on a trip to Hartford and
10:42
Speaker 1: they married in March of nineteen thirty six in New York.
10:46
Speaker 1: But at that point she didn't tell her parents. She
10:50
Speaker 1: was pretty secretive about the marriage at that time. But
10:55
Speaker 1: a couple of years later she married him in a
10:57
Speaker 1: public ceremony at her parents house. So you'll see her
11:02
Speaker 1: not in a period in her record keeping not really
11:06
Speaker 1: commenting on the nineteen thirty six marriage at the time
11:08
Speaker 1: that they were married, but the night as the quote
11:11
Speaker 1: unquote official marriage are the ones that other people and
11:14
Speaker 1: her family recognized. Um. But yeah, So they moved to
11:18
Speaker 1: Harlem not long after they were married, and it was
11:20
Speaker 1: at this point that she switched professional direction towards writing,
11:24
Speaker 1: so what she was making money off of though she
11:27
Speaker 1: said she known that she been wanted to be a
11:30
Speaker 1: writer since high school. So this is where we get
11:47
Speaker 1: deeper into her career. After she moved to New York,
11:49
Speaker 1: she worked in an after school program In Harlem, she
11:53
Speaker 1: worked as an advertising copywriter for a wig company, then
11:58
Speaker 1: got a job in the advertising depart men at Amsterdam News,
12:01
Speaker 1: and in nineteen nine she published her first short story,
12:05
Speaker 1: Marie of the Cabin Club, in the Baltimore Afro American
12:08
Speaker 1: under the pseudonym Arnold Petrie. She wrote a few more
12:12
Speaker 1: works under the pseudonym as well. She got paid five
12:15
Speaker 1: dollars for that one. A year later she she acted
12:19
Speaker 1: in as a newspaper editor in an American Negro theater
12:22
Speaker 1: production of Orange Driver's Row. And yes so. But after
12:27
Speaker 1: a while she stopped working at the Amsterdam News and
12:31
Speaker 1: she went to the People's Voice to work as a
12:34
Speaker 1: women's editor. And it was at this point where she
12:37
Speaker 1: was becoming more involved in activism. It's a whole list
12:42
Speaker 1: of things, but for brevity's sake, there here are a
12:45
Speaker 1: few things. She was involved in the Consolidated Housewives League,
12:49
Speaker 1: which aimed to stop the quote unquote shady practices of
12:52
Speaker 1: unscrupulous merchants. UM. She helped establish Negro Women Incorporated, which
12:59
Speaker 1: helped provide working class women with info and purchasing things,
13:03
Speaker 1: and it encouraged political action and voting and things of
13:06
Speaker 1: that sort. And she also volunteered for the Laundry Workers
13:10
Speaker 1: Joint Board. So she kept writing and she kept publishing.
13:14
Speaker 1: By the way, I mean, that is her whole life
13:17
Speaker 1: pretty much. UM. Writing, working and things that are related
13:22
Speaker 1: to writing, teaching, UM, doing lectures, interviews, things of that
13:26
Speaker 1: sort was constant throughout her entire life. She was accepted
13:31
Speaker 1: into Mabel Louise Robinson's writing workshop after she found out
13:34
Speaker 1: about it, which was at Columbia University, and she studied
13:38
Speaker 1: with her for a couple of years, and she really
13:42
Speaker 1: she credits a lot of her interest and love and
13:46
Speaker 1: passion for writing to Mabel Louise Robinson UM. But she
13:50
Speaker 1: was let go from the People's Voice because of staff cuts.
13:53
Speaker 1: She did though, go on to work a number of
13:57
Speaker 1: part time and temporary position and her story on Saturday,
14:03
Speaker 1: The Sirens Sounds at Noon was published in the crisis.
14:06
Speaker 1: When an editor who was at home in Mifflin read
14:10
Speaker 1: her story, they reached out and acts if she was
14:13
Speaker 1: working on a novel and suggested that she applied for
14:16
Speaker 1: the Hoe in Mifflin Literary Fellowship. So that's when she
14:20
Speaker 1: She didn't have a novel, but she started working on
14:23
Speaker 1: the street and she submitted it to the fellowship. She
14:27
Speaker 1: ended up winning two thousand four dollars from the fellowship
14:30
Speaker 1: to work on the novel. She did finish the novel
14:33
Speaker 1: and then she went on and published it, and so
14:36
Speaker 1: this is her first UM. On February seven, ninety six,
14:40
Speaker 1: she published the novel. It sold twenty thousand copies before
14:43
Speaker 1: it was released and eventually it sold over one million copies,
14:49
Speaker 1: making it the first book by black American woman to
14:52
Speaker 1: do so. So her first novel, her debut novel, Um Yeah,
14:57
Speaker 1: was released to a lot of critical and clearly commercial
15:01
Speaker 1: um success. Uh. The novel is about a single black
15:05
Speaker 1: mother and her son and Harlem and the main character
15:09
Speaker 1: in his book, as are a lot of the characters
15:12
Speaker 1: in the works that she created. Was were driven by
15:15
Speaker 1: the pursuit of the quote unquote American dream. It was
15:20
Speaker 1: received pretty well, but obviously there are always people who
15:25
Speaker 1: aren't fully okay with it. Um. Some did criticize his
15:28
Speaker 1: depiction of Harlem, and there was a lot of back
15:31
Speaker 1: and forth with it being optioned for a film. It
15:34
Speaker 1: considered forced to be on the stage, but that didn't happen.
15:39
Speaker 1: But that same in Hoe and Mifflin published her second novel,
15:45
Speaker 1: which was Country Place about a white family in a
15:47
Speaker 1: small town in Connecticut. So this is what we kind
15:52
Speaker 1: of referred to at the top of the show, how
15:55
Speaker 1: it was at this point, Like you can imagine the
15:58
Speaker 1: amount of attention that was dumped her her in this moment.
16:00
Speaker 1: It was her first novel that was coming out. It
16:03
Speaker 1: was released to a lot of fanfare. She was going
16:06
Speaker 1: to the parties, doing the interviews and all those sorts
16:09
Speaker 1: of things. And you know, even though there were some
16:14
Speaker 1: critics who, you know, the second novel is like the
16:17
Speaker 1: all the comparison to the first novel that happens, there
16:19
Speaker 1: were some critics who didn't think her second novel was
16:22
Speaker 1: as up to par up to the part of the
16:25
Speaker 1: first one. But she was getting tired of all that
16:28
Speaker 1: fanfare that she had to endure because of her newfound celebrity.
16:32
Speaker 1: And she described feeling like quote unquote public property, and
16:38
Speaker 1: she even destroyed some of her letters and writing and
16:42
Speaker 1: she said that it made her quote feel as though
16:45
Speaker 1: I were a helpless creature impaled on a secting table
16:50
Speaker 1: for public viewing. And she didn't even want people to
16:54
Speaker 1: photo copy work from her archives. There is her a
16:57
Speaker 1: lot of her work is saved in archives, some of
16:59
Speaker 1: her manuscrept of her letters and photographs and things like that.
17:02
Speaker 1: But when it came to the question of people asking
17:05
Speaker 1: her if they could photocopy it, she was definitely buttoned
17:08
Speaker 1: up about that and didn't want it to be reproduced
17:12
Speaker 1: in that manner. So, yeah, she really she clearly clearly
17:17
Speaker 1: valued privacy and seclusion, you know, um, one thing that
17:22
Speaker 1: we often don't have a lot of this these days
17:24
Speaker 1: and talk a lot about the protection of those things
17:27
Speaker 1: in technological ways. And so she moved to Old Saybrook
17:30
Speaker 1: with George and this is pretty cool. They got an
17:35
Speaker 1: old house originally built for a sea captain in late
17:37
Speaker 1: eighteenth century and ended up renovating it. But yeah, that's
17:41
Speaker 1: kind of a thread at this point in her life
17:43
Speaker 1: where she kind of removed herself from all of the
17:46
Speaker 1: limelight and all of the the business um that comes
17:50
Speaker 1: along with the family she got from her work and
17:53
Speaker 1: didn't interact with it in that way. And the interviews
17:57
Speaker 1: that she did, given what she wrote in her journal,
18:00
Speaker 1: she talked about how that was intentional. You know, she
18:04
Speaker 1: realized that she knew that she had to make that
18:06
Speaker 1: move for herself. Yeah, so that is something I think
18:11
Speaker 1: that YouTube, as well as being podcasters and knowing how
18:16
Speaker 1: much interacting and engaging with the world through things like
18:19
Speaker 1: social media is considered a necessity in a lot of ways,
18:24
Speaker 1: even though it's not completely a necessity, but that's the
18:27
Speaker 1: way that it is uh pressed upon people who are
18:31
Speaker 1: quote unquote personalities, are public figures, are public intellectuals, which
18:36
Speaker 1: sounds like such an like I don't know, maybe not,
18:39
Speaker 1: because I know there are people who who who claim
18:41
Speaker 1: the title for themselves and are okay with it. But yeah,
18:44
Speaker 1: so I figured that's something that we can all relate to. Yes,
18:49
Speaker 1: And I feel like I'm worried that I won't give
18:52
Speaker 1: this the complete nuance so that it deserves. But just
18:55
Speaker 1: like kind of when I was first going through this,
18:59
Speaker 1: they're so many things that I did relate to UM
19:04
Speaker 1: in terms of and and we've talked about this on
19:06
Speaker 1: the show, UM in terms of what is expected when
19:10
Speaker 1: you are a public figure and what is owed as
19:14
Speaker 1: a public figure, and what you feel like you have
19:16
Speaker 1: to give and how That's kind of why I thought
19:18
Speaker 1: about you, Eaves, because to me, you feel like somebody
19:20
Speaker 1: who's very cognizant of boundaries and UM taking care of
19:26
Speaker 1: yourself and self care and UM internalizing drama. I could
19:29
Speaker 1: be totally wrong, and you could tell me, but I'm
19:32
Speaker 1: all about the trauma. Actually, that's what it feels like
19:36
Speaker 1: that you're good at sort of at least recognizing that
19:40
Speaker 1: it's been something difficult for me, because especially when you're
19:43
Speaker 1: in the arts, it feels like you have to give
19:48
Speaker 1: parts of yourself. Maybe you don't want to, and maybe
19:51
Speaker 1: you do, but then it becomes expected. And so like
19:54
Speaker 1: this part where she destroyed a bunch of her own works,
19:57
Speaker 1: her own writings and things like that, Um, I've done
20:02
Speaker 1: that as well, and I think that can be as
20:04
Speaker 1: long as you're doing it, because maybe you're like, oh,
20:06
Speaker 1: this is terrible, I don't want anybody whatever. But I
20:09
Speaker 1: did it because I just was like ashamed of how
20:12
Speaker 1: other people would interpret it, and kind of that idea
20:16
Speaker 1: of I've also talked about, I'm because I'm such a nerd,
20:20
Speaker 1: but that also comes with like a lot of toxic
20:22
Speaker 1: fan culture. And I was thinking about that the other day,
20:26
Speaker 1: where I just thought, I feel like I could really
20:29
Speaker 1: write something great in here, but I'm never going to
20:30
Speaker 1: do it because I don't want to have to deal
20:32
Speaker 1: with all of this stuff that's expected of someone who
20:36
Speaker 1: is writing in that world. And that means we're losing
20:40
Speaker 1: I mean, who knows, maybe I wouldn't write anything that great,
20:43
Speaker 1: but we're losing people and art because of this whole
20:48
Speaker 1: expectation and idea of artists. Really, and I'm always I'm
20:54
Speaker 1: always impressed with artists who are able to have their
20:56
Speaker 1: private lives um and are to separate it anyway, I
21:01
Speaker 1: just spent for a long time, but it is something
21:03
Speaker 1: that in our jobs, I do think about a lot um.
21:08
Speaker 1: For me, I'm just thinking about her perspective and the
21:10
Speaker 1: fact that she was the first black American woman to
21:14
Speaker 1: sell that many and the expectations and the naysayers that
21:18
Speaker 1: were probably on top of her, Like I cannot fathom
21:22
Speaker 1: that idea that not only to cheach that a precedent
21:25
Speaker 1: for herself as someone who did do these amazing things,
21:29
Speaker 1: but then because people were wanting to see her fail,
21:32
Speaker 1: they try to push back on her as well. Like,
21:36
Speaker 1: I can't imagine the toll that it would take with
21:39
Speaker 1: that type of lime light on you, especially if all
21:44
Speaker 1: you're trying to do is right. End of story. So
21:47
Speaker 1: there's such a big difference between those who will be
21:50
Speaker 1: on stage and acting and even those who do want
21:52
Speaker 1: the light. Though to be famous, people typically don't know
21:56
Speaker 1: what that means. Truly means that beings, not only do
21:59
Speaker 1: you have people who love few, but that there's going
22:01
Speaker 1: to be people who don't like you and want to
22:03
Speaker 1: see you fail and therefore truly work against you. So
22:07
Speaker 1: like all those things and to be a writer, an
22:09
Speaker 1: intellectual who just wants to put things on books and
22:11
Speaker 1: has a perspective of uh, fictionalized characters that she probably
22:15
Speaker 1: loved and or hated at times but felt passionately about
22:18
Speaker 1: to be scrutinized and then continually be like, well, it's
22:21
Speaker 1: not at like the same the first thing, because there's
22:24
Speaker 1: a standard that after it's released, it is owned by
22:28
Speaker 1: the fans, like they have this kind of like odd
22:31
Speaker 1: relationships to the character, so therefore they own it in
22:35
Speaker 1: the type of way and therefore can judge it um.
22:38
Speaker 1: And again this is like a whole different level because yeah,
22:41
Speaker 1: there's the time is different. Could you imagine what would
22:43
Speaker 1: have happened had there been social media at that point
22:46
Speaker 1: in time any of those conversations of course, But I
22:50
Speaker 1: do think about all of that, and it's layered perspective
22:54
Speaker 1: for her as someone who's just just trying to find
22:57
Speaker 1: her way, Like just even the context of her history
22:59
Speaker 1: and family life is just literally just yeah, we just
23:02
Speaker 1: do it because it's there, not because she has this
23:05
Speaker 1: lofty goal of being famous or rich or any of that.
23:07
Speaker 1: It's just finding something that you love and doing it.
23:11
Speaker 1: For me, Yeah, it's been weird to see the level
23:14
Speaker 1: of criticism. I feel like, as being a woman in general,
23:18
Speaker 1: that's obvious that it's going to be criticized for everything,
23:21
Speaker 1: and then any mistake is going to be emboldened and
23:24
Speaker 1: highlighted for everyone to read. Reminded, See you look at her,
23:28
Speaker 1: she she did this thing that we knew. She just
23:30
Speaker 1: she was gonna trip Bobby any time now. Like it's
23:32
Speaker 1: just it's such an odd place anyway. And yeah, the
23:35
Speaker 1: whole perspective of again, ownership of of fictionalized characters. I
23:39
Speaker 1: was created by someone. It's a whole different conversation. Yeah,
23:43
Speaker 1: And I want to like the dissonance as well of
23:48
Speaker 1: being a person who talks about things that we aren't
23:53
Speaker 1: necessarily able to live in because of the expectations that
23:56
Speaker 1: are placed upon us, because of who we have to
23:58
Speaker 1: be in public, in the standards that we have to uphold,
24:01
Speaker 1: Like we can talk about these feminist ideas of the
24:06
Speaker 1: way we care for ourselves, the way we interact with
24:08
Speaker 1: the public, the kind of agency that we have, the
24:12
Speaker 1: kind of uh choices for control that we have, and
24:16
Speaker 1: like be it will be so difficult to be able
24:19
Speaker 1: to maintain those in public because of the expectations that
24:22
Speaker 1: are placed on us. So that is I know that
24:25
Speaker 1: is a very deep topic. And this is an aside
24:27
Speaker 1: and the three's biography, but um, it is something that
24:31
Speaker 1: she talked about and she was passionate about. So I
24:33
Speaker 1: feel like, because it's something that I think we all
24:36
Speaker 1: have experience with that it could be helpful to talk
24:38
Speaker 1: about it a little bit in context of her story.
24:41
Speaker 1: But um, but that's said, maybe we'll continue that another day.
24:59
Speaker 1: We'll get back to and p three story. So she
25:03
Speaker 1: her daughter, Elizabeth and Petree, was born in nineteen forty nine,
25:07
Speaker 1: and that same year she published her first children's book,
25:09
Speaker 1: which was The Drug Store Cat. And she continued publishing
25:13
Speaker 1: more essays, book reviews, doing speaking events, and she had
25:18
Speaker 1: also been working on her third novel, The Narrows, which
25:21
Speaker 1: was published in nineteen fifty three. That one revolves around
25:24
Speaker 1: an interracial love affair and it was received pretty well.
25:30
Speaker 1: So she joined the League of Women Voters and she
25:33
Speaker 1: was elected to the Old Say Board of Education. Those
25:37
Speaker 1: are some of the other things that she was involved
25:39
Speaker 1: in in in terms of her social engagement. Um, and
25:45
Speaker 1: she did get some heat for the things that she
25:46
Speaker 1: was writing in her books. So a lot of her
25:51
Speaker 1: inspiration for the work that she created was obviously how
25:55
Speaker 1: she looked at the world around her through a lot
25:57
Speaker 1: of her observation, particularly when she got to Harlem and
25:59
Speaker 1: the her observations of black people who lived in Harlem
26:04
Speaker 1: and race relations and her consciousness that was growing through
26:07
Speaker 1: her work. Um all show up through her activism, we're
26:11
Speaker 1: all showing up in her writing work as well. And
26:15
Speaker 1: the National Organization for Decent Literature recommended her book The
26:18
Speaker 1: Narrows for censorship, so she was involved in some of
26:26
Speaker 1: like there. She got a little bit of heat for
26:28
Speaker 1: the stuff that she was writing at the time. There
26:29
Speaker 1: is some scholarship on her We're talking about how, um,
26:32
Speaker 1: a lot of the novels at the time were moving
26:38
Speaker 1: through a space where there was this idea of racelessness,
26:40
Speaker 1: and that shows up in some of her work as well,
26:44
Speaker 1: and also relating to the way that she was portraying
26:48
Speaker 1: Harlem and how it was gritty and it was grimy
26:51
Speaker 1: and this kind of sense of hopelessness, and a lot
26:54
Speaker 1: of people took fault with that. UM. But anyway, in
26:58
Speaker 1: the night she spent I'm in Hollywood working as a
27:02
Speaker 1: screenwriter on an adaptation. But that that film was never produced.
27:08
Speaker 1: Um her aunt who ran the family pharmacy. In nineteen
27:13
Speaker 1: sixty seven she was injured and she took over individually
27:20
Speaker 1: closed the shop, but the James Pharmacy is now listed
27:23
Speaker 1: in the National Register of Historic Places. And she also
27:30
Speaker 1: became visiting professor of English at the University of Hawaii
27:35
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy four for an academic year. In nineteen
27:39
Speaker 1: seventy six she started publishing poems, so there she does
27:45
Speaker 1: have some poetry in her collection, and she got Literature
27:49
Speaker 1: Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in nineteen
27:53
Speaker 1: seventy eight. And as I said earlier, her work continued
27:56
Speaker 1: throughout her life. She did get a bunch of honorary
27:59
Speaker 1: degree like from Suffolk University, the University of Connecticut, Mount
28:04
Speaker 1: Holyoke College, and Trinity College. And over the course of
28:08
Speaker 1: her life she donated a lot of her materials to
28:13
Speaker 1: places like the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection at Yale,
28:17
Speaker 1: um Boston University, um Shaw University, Ratcliffe College was a
28:24
Speaker 1: place that some of Anna Luisi's James papers were donated to.
28:30
Speaker 1: And there's a collection of a Petree papers um in
28:33
Speaker 1: New York. So there is a lot of her archive
28:38
Speaker 1: available to people at those places, and including things like
28:44
Speaker 1: some of the personal and professional letters that she wrote
28:47
Speaker 1: to people like artists and writers like Paul Brooks, Ruby D. Davis,
28:52
Speaker 1: and Helen Hall. But she died in ninet and she's
28:57
Speaker 1: buried in Old State brook Her daughter, her Elizabeth, has
29:02
Speaker 1: written a lot about the family's history, including the family's
29:04
Speaker 1: history before and Petrie was born. She talks about how
29:09
Speaker 1: much her mother gave inaccurate information about her life, even
29:12
Speaker 1: when it came to her birth date, which is uh
29:15
Speaker 1: something that I think if you could listen to other
29:17
Speaker 1: episodes of Female First and you've heard a little bit
29:22
Speaker 1: about the birthdate miscommunications and purposeful uh, purposeful slights. She
29:29
Speaker 1: gave no less than six birthdates. Um. And she did
29:32
Speaker 1: things like this which you can see if you look
29:34
Speaker 1: through her archives. She obscured dates, she removed pages, she
29:38
Speaker 1: marked out names, and she really kind of controlled what
29:41
Speaker 1: information was available to others. Um. So Yeah, but even
29:45
Speaker 1: though she valued privacy, Elizabeth, her daughter, has written a
29:49
Speaker 1: lot about the family and made some more of those
29:51
Speaker 1: available to the public through UM libraries and research centers
29:56
Speaker 1: and Farah dr Fara Jasmine Griffin has also written about
29:59
Speaker 1: her and d is some of these works about her,
30:01
Speaker 1: so you can go in um read some of her
30:04
Speaker 1: work about and Putree as well. And I would also
30:08
Speaker 1: just encourage everybody to go and read and Putree's writing
30:11
Speaker 1: because obviously what we talked about earlier, that was she
30:14
Speaker 1: had the struggle between you know and I am I
30:17
Speaker 1: the writing and the personality element of it, and she
30:21
Speaker 1: cared about her writing and that's what she wanted people
30:23
Speaker 1: to read. So UM. But she has a lot of
30:25
Speaker 1: short works as well, so some of her essays, UM,
30:29
Speaker 1: if you're interested in those, more in the nonfiction writing
30:34
Speaker 1: more than the fiction. But she also has short stories
30:37
Speaker 1: and and her three novels. She talked about what you
30:41
Speaker 1: need to do a book club. He's on, Yes, I
30:49
Speaker 1: mean once again, another great story. And it's it's so
30:54
Speaker 1: many times you bring something and we end up talking
30:56
Speaker 1: about like these through lines that were still discussing, and
31:01
Speaker 1: I was just thinking about the kind of controlling the
31:03
Speaker 1: narrative and picking and choosing at different dates, and I
31:06
Speaker 1: was trying to I was trying to figure out if
31:09
Speaker 1: that could work today with our technology. But kind of
31:15
Speaker 1: the right to a private life idea, Yeah, I think
31:20
Speaker 1: we should we should come back and revisit that. Yah,
31:22
Speaker 1: I got. I feel like we all have a lot
31:24
Speaker 1: of thoughts about it. Yeah, that need to be. He's
31:28
Speaker 1: now a lot more for me. My end, like I mean,
31:33
Speaker 1: starts early, you know, because I mean I grew up
31:36
Speaker 1: obviously the internet was a lot different. It was very
31:40
Speaker 1: different when I was younger, but starting from a place
31:43
Speaker 1: where the Internet existed and I spent a lot of
31:47
Speaker 1: my life online and sharing things with people whose faces
31:50
Speaker 1: I had never seen. Um, starting a life from that
31:53
Speaker 1: point and then reaching this point now. Um, I think
31:56
Speaker 1: is a lot of uh things that can come up
32:01
Speaker 1: when it comes to privacy. So it's definitely something that
32:04
Speaker 1: needs to be I need to think about a lot more. Yeah. Yeah,
32:10
Speaker 1: and certainly in our at the age we're living in
32:13
Speaker 1: where we all kind of know that our data is
32:16
Speaker 1: getting collected. Um. Just seeing this through line and where
32:23
Speaker 1: am Petree was and where we are now interesting to
32:26
Speaker 1: think about, interesting to think about. Yeah, but yes, this
32:31
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for bringing this too as ease.
32:34
Speaker 1: I definitely want to check out some of Petrie's work, um,
32:39
Speaker 1: which I'm excited about. Yeah, I am too. So this
32:43
Speaker 1: is one thing I will say. One quote because I
32:45
Speaker 1: feel like I can't leave without saying a quote from
32:47
Speaker 1: a Petrie since we did bring it up, and so
32:49
Speaker 1: this is what one thing that she said. Continuous public exposure,
32:53
Speaker 1: though it may make you a personality, can diminish you
32:56
Speaker 1: as a person. To be a willing accomplice to the
33:00
Speaker 1: evasion of your own privacy puts a low price on
33:02
Speaker 1: its worth. The creative processes are or should be, essentially secret,
33:08
Speaker 1: and although naked flesh is now an open commodity, the
33:12
Speaker 1: naked spirit should have sanctuary. Yeah. Do you think she
33:16
Speaker 1: would have been okay with the fact that her daughter
33:18
Speaker 1: did release so much about her after her death. I
33:22
Speaker 1: don't even want to speak to that because there are
33:23
Speaker 1: people who are far greater scholars on her than I.
33:27
Speaker 1: So I do know that her her daughter has talked
33:30
Speaker 1: about it, you know, like, I don't know if she
33:32
Speaker 1: would be okay with it. But at the end of
33:35
Speaker 1: the day, she did release a lot of her own work,
33:37
Speaker 1: give a lot of her own work. And there was
33:39
Speaker 1: a point that, um, she said something along the line,
33:43
Speaker 1: so if I when it was when she was talking
33:45
Speaker 1: about the photo copying of her work kind of how
33:48
Speaker 1: she didn't really she donated her work to them, but
33:50
Speaker 1: she didn't imagine or she couldn't fathom the way that
33:55
Speaker 1: people would interact with them, that people would want to
33:58
Speaker 1: do things like photo copy them. And yeah, so I
34:02
Speaker 1: think she she donated them. But then the afterlife of
34:06
Speaker 1: that is a different story. You know, how can you
34:09
Speaker 1: think about me? He's Jeff Code, who has no relation
34:13
Speaker 1: to her family talking to you and all these other
34:16
Speaker 1: people who are listening to it about her stuff. I
34:19
Speaker 1: feel like those kind of things feel hard to accept
34:22
Speaker 1: or don't really feel that tangible when you're living. But
34:25
Speaker 1: I really it's so few of us. I mean, I
34:27
Speaker 1: think there's a conversation to be had about her archive
34:30
Speaker 1: work as well, and the work that her family continued
34:32
Speaker 1: to do after she passed and making it accessible to people,
34:37
Speaker 1: but the work that she did herself when she was
34:39
Speaker 1: alive and honoring her own legacy as she was creating it,
34:42
Speaker 1: which I really respect and I love, And it's one
34:44
Speaker 1: thing that I can pull something from um anyone can,
34:49
Speaker 1: like you know, like you're writing it, damn it, I
34:54
Speaker 1: mean something. And I know you are both writers, so
34:58
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a bigger significant in this conversation for you.
35:02
Speaker 1: But I do I would say, yeah, celebrating someone's work
35:05
Speaker 1: and accomplishments is a whole different level in making sure
35:07
Speaker 1: that they do get their due. And I'm sure because
35:10
Speaker 1: her daughter was I'm assuming again this is a lot
35:13
Speaker 1: of assumption that was very proud of her, what her
35:16
Speaker 1: mother did and the foundation she laid for other writers,
35:19
Speaker 1: especially other black women writers. I'm sure that this was
35:23
Speaker 1: out of celebration and love for her. But yeah, I
35:25
Speaker 1: do have those questions at the back of behind, like, oh,
35:27
Speaker 1: what about the drama? Yeah, and I think again future
35:33
Speaker 1: episode you've come back on. But it's also like, you
35:35
Speaker 1: can't anticipate certain technologies, and the Internet was a big one,
35:40
Speaker 1: and so I feel like now we're seeing actors having
35:44
Speaker 1: to say you can't you can or cannot use my
35:46
Speaker 1: image to recreate a deep figure or whatever after they die,
35:48
Speaker 1: Like there's some things you can't anticipate. Yeah, and you
35:53
Speaker 1: can't you can't imagine what is going to happen in
35:57
Speaker 1: the future to your art now that's going to be impacted. Yeah,
36:01
Speaker 1: So I think there's a little bit of that going
36:03
Speaker 1: on as well. The Internet really disrupted a lot of
36:06
Speaker 1: things which was not available throughout my entire life. This
36:11
Speaker 1: is how a normal Okay, well, clearly this is sparked
36:13
Speaker 1: a conversation and we'll have to return to it. Thank
36:17
Speaker 1: you so much for including that quote. I think it
36:18
Speaker 1: was lovely and very poignant. Well, as always, we love
36:23
Speaker 1: having you here. I'm so grateful there were no cockroach
36:26
Speaker 1: attacks that disrupted this recording. I was very nervous. But
36:33
Speaker 1: until next time, where can the good listeners find you? Ease?
36:37
Speaker 1: I am online at ease Jeffcote dot com, so you
36:41
Speaker 1: can find a lot of stuff on there. But in
36:44
Speaker 1: terms of podcast, you can listen to me right here
36:46
Speaker 1: in this very podcast and many many other episodes of
36:50
Speaker 1: Female First in which you can hear about people who
36:54
Speaker 1: had first in history, and on Twitter at ease Jeff
36:57
Speaker 1: going on Instagram and not apologizing. Yes, so I so
37:00
Speaker 1: funny to shout out those handles when you're like personal
37:02
Speaker 1: life respect, I know what's you allowed to put up
37:08
Speaker 1: or what you want to put up. You can go
37:09
Speaker 1: on Twitter, but you won't get anything from me, like
37:11
Speaker 1: I'm not on there. You can go follow, but sorry,
37:16
Speaker 1: it won't be that edifying for you. Because I love it.
37:24
Speaker 1: I love it um and you can find us good listeners.
37:28
Speaker 1: You can email us at some video, mom stuff and
37:30
Speaker 1: I Hurt Me dot com. You can find us on
37:32
Speaker 1: Twitter at mom stuf podcast or on Instagram at stuff.
37:34
Speaker 1: I Never told you. Thanks, it's always You're a superroducer, Christina.
37:37
Speaker 1: Thank you, Christina, and thanks to you for listening Stuff
37:39
Speaker 1: I Never told you. The protection of I Heart Radio
37:41
Speaker 1: for podcast in my heart Radio, because if heart Radio
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Speaker 1: app Apple Podcast or Radulus into your favorite shows