Joel Chandler Harris | |
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Born | Eatonton, Georgia, U.S. | December 9, 1848
Died | July 3, 1908 Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. | (aged 59)
Occupation |
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Notable works | Uncle Remus stories |
Spouse |
Mary Esther LaRose (m. 1873) |
Children | 9 |
Relatives | Julia Collier Harris (daughter-in-law) |
Signature | |
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Joel Chandler Harris (December 9, 1848 – July 3, 1908) was an American journalist and folklorist best known for his collection of Uncle Remus stories. Born in Eatonton, Georgia, where he served as an apprentice on a plantation during his teenage years, Harris spent most of his adult life in Atlanta working as an associate editor at The Atlanta Constitution.
Harris led two professional lives: as the editor and journalist known as Joe Harris, he supported a vision of the New South with the editor Henry W. Grady (1880–1889), which stressed regional and racial reconciliation after the Reconstruction era; as Joel Chandler Harris, fiction writer and folklorist, he wrote many 'Brer Rabbit' stories from the African-American oral tradition.