Welty, Eudora, 1909-2001

Dates

• Existence: 1909 - 2001

Biography

Eudora Welty was born on April 13, 1909 in Jackson, Mississippi. Welty studied at the Mississippi State College for Women from 1925 to 1927, then transferred to the University of Wisconsin to complete her studies in English literature before going receiving her degree from Columbia University. In 1931, Welty returned to Jackson and took a job at a local radio station and wrote about Jackson society for the Memphis newspaper Commercial Appeal. In 1933, she began work for the Works Progress Administration. As a publicity agent, she collected stories, conducted interviews, and took photographs of daily life in Mississippi.In 1936, she published "The Death of a Traveling Salesman" in the literary magazine Manuscript, and soon published stories in several other notable publications including "The Sewanee Review" and "The New Yorker."n 1971, she published a collection of her photographs depicting the Great Depression, titled One Time, One Place. Two years later, she received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel "The Optimist's Daughter." She lectured at Harvard University, and eventually adapted her talks as a three-part memoir titled "One Writer's Beginnings." She continued to live in her family house in Jackson until her death on July 23, 2001.

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