Ellen Tarry

Infobox Writer


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name = Ellen Tarry
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birthdate = birth date and age |1906|9|26
birthplace = Birmingham, Alabama, United States
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occupation = Author
nationality = American
period = 1940 – present
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Ellen Tarry (born September 26, 1906) is an African-American author of literature for young adults. She was born in Birmingham, Alabama. Although raised in the Congregational Church, she converted to Roman Catholicism in 1922. She attended Alabama State Normal School, now Alabama State University, and became a teacher in Birmingham. At the same time, she began writing a column for the local African-American newspaper entitled "Negroes of Note", which focused on racial injustice and promoted racial pride. In 1929, she moved to New York City in hope of becoming a writer. There she befriended such Harlem Renaissance literary figures as Langston Hughes, Claude McKay and Countee Cullen.

Tarry has published four picture books: 1940's "Janie Belle" (illustrated by Myrtle Sheldon), 1942's "Hezekiah Horton" (illustrated by Oliver Harrington), 1946's "My Dog Rinty" in collaboration with Caldecott Medal winner Marie Hall Ets (photographs by Alexander and Alexandra Alland), concerning a Harlem family and their mischievous pet, and 1950's "The Runaway Elephant" (again illustrated by Harrington), which continued the relationships started in "Hezekiah Horton".

Tarry's "The Third Door: The Autobiography of an American Negro Woman" from 1955 tells of her life in the South, her migration to New York City, her friendship with McKay, and her deep commitment to Catholicism. Tarry was co-founder, along with Catherine Doherty, of Harlem's Friendship House, a Catholic outreach center promoting interracial friendship.

Tarry's biographies include "Katherine Drexel: Friend of the Neglected", "Pierre Toussaint: Apostle of Old New York", "The Other Toussaint: A Post-Revolutionary Black", and "Martin de Porres, Saint of the New World".

Tarry has one daughter, Elizabeth Tarry Patton, from a brief marriage.

ee also

*Friendship House

External links

* [http://muse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/access.cgi?uri=/journals/lion_and_the_unicorn/v023/23.2smith.html Excerpt from Project Muse]
* [http://www.nathanielturner.com/aphiliprandolph.htm Article by Ellen Tarry on A. Philip Randolph]
* [http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/bookreviews/tarry.htm Review of "The Other Toussaint: A Post-Revolutionary Black"]
* [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2838/is_n1_v29/ai_17276650 Review of "The Third Door: The Autobiography of an American Negro Woman"]
* [http://www.pittsburghcatholic.org/newsarticles_more.phtml?id=1616 article which mentions her from 2006]