Ann Petry manuscripts

Ann Lane Petry, born 12 October 1908 in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, was the daughter of Peter Clark Lane and Bertha James Lane. She graduated from Connecticut College of Pharmacy in 1931 and worked in her family’s business for several years. She married George Petry in 1936, and in 1938 they moved to Harlem, where she was actively engaged in literature, theatre, and politics. She wrote a weekly column for The People’s Voice, attended Mabel Louise Robinson’s creative writing workshop at Columbia University, and co-founded Negro Women, Incorporated, which was a consumer watch group that fought for the rights of African-American women and organized them for participation in the war effort. In 1945 she won the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship Award, which funded the writing of The Street. In 1947 she and her husband moved back to Old Saybrook. Ann Petry authored short stories, novels, book reviews, and books for young readers. Her published works include The Street (1946), Country Place (1947), and The Narrows (1953). Ann Petry died on April 28, 1997, in Old Saybrook.

Sources: Farah Jasmine Griffin. Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics During World War II. New York : Basic Civitas, A Member of the Perseus Books Group, 2013. "Harlem." Story of the Week. Library of America, 2019. http://storyoftheweek.loa.org/2019/02/harlem.html