Jack Conroy
Encyclopedia
Jack Conroy a leftist American writer, also known as a Worker-Writer, and was best known for his contributions to “proletarian literature
,” fiction and nonfiction about the life of American workers during the early decades of the 20th century.
camp of Monkey Nest near Moberly, Missouri
. A Depression-era novelist, Conroy drew upon his childhood growing up in a mining camp and elements of this can be seen in his novels, The Disinherited
and A World to Win
.
Though he did not complete a formal education, he worked at various jobs including: railroad shop apprentice (and eventual foreman), recording secretary for the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America union office, an auto factory worker, and construction. While he worked, he wrote and it is said that in 1934, when soaring temperatures had burned up crops and blistered city streets, Conroy moved his kitchen table outdoors beneath a shade tree where he created his second novel, A World to Win
.
From 1931 to 1941 Conroy edited successively the magazines Rebel Poet, The Anvil, and The New Anvil. He included works by Erskine Caldwell
, Langston Hughes
, and William Carlos Williams
, among others. Conroy later edited, with Curt Johnson
, a collection of these pieces, Writers in Revolt: The Anvil Anthology (1973). In 1938 Conroy came to Chicago
, on Algren's suggestions, to work on the Illinois Writer's Project. Along with recording folktales and industrial folklore, Conroy was assigned to the black history portion of the IWP, and collaborated with Arna Bontemps
, producing the pioneering black studies works They Seek A City (1945) and Anyplace But Here (1965), both about African-American migration from the South to the North. Conroy and Bontemps also collaborated on several successful juvenile books based on folktales, including The Fast Sooner Hound (1942) and Slappy Hooper, The Wonderful Sign Painter (1946).
In 1965, Conroy moved from Chicago
back to Moberly, Missouri
, where he lived until his death in 1990. He continued to write into his 80's, publishing The Weed King and Other Stories in 1985. Over the course of his career, Conroy was also a teacher and lecturer, and a mentor to younger radical writers. Known as The Sage of Moberly, Conroy also wrote under the pseudonyms of Tim Brennan and John Norcross. He died February 28, 1990 in Moberly, MO.
, confused critics because it was a narrative that challenged traditional views of the novel and did not seem to align with what was considered influential literature at the time. Most critics felt that there should be a definite line drawn between the world of the middle-class literate, and the world of the worker.
Although Conroy first achieved national attention when H.L. Mencken discovered his work and published Conroy’s sketches and stories in The American Mercury
magazine, recognition of Conroy’s work was all but abandoned between the 1930s and 1960s. Awareness of Conroy’s work disappeared for a variety of reasons, including the difficulty Conroy had in simultaneously establishing himself as a writer and staying loyal to his identity as a worker. Although Conroy longed for literary success, he decided not to abandon his worker identity, and so he worked for 23 years as an editor of an encyclopedia sold through Sears stores and as a book reviewer for the Chicago Sun and the Daily Defender. It wasn’t until the 1960s that Conroy was recognized by a new generation as a writer who knew very well the life of the worker, and as an influential writer of that worker identity.
Conroy is now remembered not only as the worker-writer, but as a teacher, lecturer, and mentor to younger radical writers. Until Jack Conroy, the worker had hardly been mentioned in American literature. Best-seller lists suggest that people would rather read about lives of the wealthy, but Jack Conroy’s legacy as a worker-writer has introduced to American literature one writer’s desire in “educating readers to prefer ‘crude vigor to polished urbanity’”. Along with his work with rather unique literary themes, Conroy has won various awards and recognition, including :
Proletarian literature
Proletarian literature refers to the literature created by working-class writers for the class-conscious proletariat, published by the communist parties. It was a literature without literary pretensions....
,” fiction and nonfiction about the life of American workers during the early decades of the 20th century.
Background
He was born John Wesley Conroy to Irish immigrants on December 5, 1898 in the coal miningCoal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...
camp of Monkey Nest near Moberly, Missouri
Moberly, Missouri
Moberly is a city in Randolph County, Missouri, United States. According to the 2008 census bureau estimate, the population was 14,227. The city was incorporated 1868. The Moberly Micropolitan Statistical Area consists of Randolph County....
. A Depression-era novelist, Conroy drew upon his childhood growing up in a mining camp and elements of this can be seen in his novels, The Disinherited
The Disinherited
The Disinherited is a proletarian novel written by Jack Conroy. It was published in 1933. Conroy wrote it initially as nonfiction, but editors insisted he fictionalize the story for better audience reception...
and A World to Win
A World to Win (Jack Conroy novel)
A World to Win is a novel written by Jack Conroy and published in 1935. It was republished in 2000. This novel, which is set before and during the Great Depression, follows two brothers through their lives both together and separately. One brother, Leo, represents the life of a working man, while...
.
Though he did not complete a formal education, he worked at various jobs including: railroad shop apprentice (and eventual foreman), recording secretary for the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America union office, an auto factory worker, and construction. While he worked, he wrote and it is said that in 1934, when soaring temperatures had burned up crops and blistered city streets, Conroy moved his kitchen table outdoors beneath a shade tree where he created his second novel, A World to Win
A World to Win (Jack Conroy novel)
A World to Win is a novel written by Jack Conroy and published in 1935. It was republished in 2000. This novel, which is set before and during the Great Depression, follows two brothers through their lives both together and separately. One brother, Leo, represents the life of a working man, while...
.
From 1931 to 1941 Conroy edited successively the magazines Rebel Poet, The Anvil, and The New Anvil. He included works by Erskine Caldwell
Erskine Caldwell
Erskine Preston Caldwell was an American author. His writings about poverty, racism and social problems in his native South like the novels Tobacco Road and God's Little Acre won him critical acclaim, but they also made him controversial among fellow Southerners of the time who felt he was...
, Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...
, and William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...
, among others. Conroy later edited, with Curt Johnson
Curt Johnson
Curt Johnson is former General Manager of the Kansas City Wizards, a position he had held from 1999 to 2006.Johnson attended North Carolina State University, graduating in 1991 with a BA in Communication studies...
, a collection of these pieces, Writers in Revolt: The Anvil Anthology (1973). In 1938 Conroy came to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, on Algren's suggestions, to work on the Illinois Writer's Project. Along with recording folktales and industrial folklore, Conroy was assigned to the black history portion of the IWP, and collaborated with Arna Bontemps
Arna Bontemps
Arnaud "Arna" Wendell Bontemps was an American poet and a noted member of the Harlem Renaissance.- Life and career :...
, producing the pioneering black studies works They Seek A City (1945) and Anyplace But Here (1965), both about African-American migration from the South to the North. Conroy and Bontemps also collaborated on several successful juvenile books based on folktales, including The Fast Sooner Hound (1942) and Slappy Hooper, The Wonderful Sign Painter (1946).
In 1965, Conroy moved from Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
back to Moberly, Missouri
Moberly, Missouri
Moberly is a city in Randolph County, Missouri, United States. According to the 2008 census bureau estimate, the population was 14,227. The city was incorporated 1868. The Moberly Micropolitan Statistical Area consists of Randolph County....
, where he lived until his death in 1990. He continued to write into his 80's, publishing The Weed King and Other Stories in 1985. Over the course of his career, Conroy was also a teacher and lecturer, and a mentor to younger radical writers. Known as The Sage of Moberly, Conroy also wrote under the pseudonyms of Tim Brennan and John Norcross. He died February 28, 1990 in Moberly, MO.
Legacy
The difficulty scholars have had in finding theoretical studies about the worker-writer in America signifies how ground-breaking Jack Conroy’s work was with introducing the worker-writer in literature. Conroy’s first novel, The DisinheritedThe Disinherited
The Disinherited is a proletarian novel written by Jack Conroy. It was published in 1933. Conroy wrote it initially as nonfiction, but editors insisted he fictionalize the story for better audience reception...
, confused critics because it was a narrative that challenged traditional views of the novel and did not seem to align with what was considered influential literature at the time. Most critics felt that there should be a definite line drawn between the world of the middle-class literate, and the world of the worker.
Although Conroy first achieved national attention when H.L. Mencken discovered his work and published Conroy’s sketches and stories in The American Mercury
The American Mercury
The American Mercury was an American magazine published from 1924 to 1981. It was founded as the brainchild of H. L. Mencken and drama critic George Jean Nathan. The magazine featured writing by some of the most important writers in the United States through the 1920s and 1930s...
magazine, recognition of Conroy’s work was all but abandoned between the 1930s and 1960s. Awareness of Conroy’s work disappeared for a variety of reasons, including the difficulty Conroy had in simultaneously establishing himself as a writer and staying loyal to his identity as a worker. Although Conroy longed for literary success, he decided not to abandon his worker identity, and so he worked for 23 years as an editor of an encyclopedia sold through Sears stores and as a book reviewer for the Chicago Sun and the Daily Defender. It wasn’t until the 1960s that Conroy was recognized by a new generation as a writer who knew very well the life of the worker, and as an influential writer of that worker identity.
Conroy is now remembered not only as the worker-writer, but as a teacher, lecturer, and mentor to younger radical writers. Until Jack Conroy, the worker had hardly been mentioned in American literature. Best-seller lists suggest that people would rather read about lives of the wealthy, but Jack Conroy’s legacy as a worker-writer has introduced to American literature one writer’s desire in “educating readers to prefer ‘crude vigor to polished urbanity’”. Along with his work with rather unique literary themes, Conroy has won various awards and recognition, including :
- Guggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
, 1935 - Literary Times Award, State of IllinoisIllinoisIllinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, 1967 - Society of Midland Authors James L. Dow Award for Anyplace But Here, 1967
- RabinowitzRabinowitzRabinowitz , is a Polish Ashkenazi Jewish surname, Slavic for "son of the rabbi". The Russian equivalents are Rabinovich or Rabinovitch.It may refer to:* Alan Rabinowitz , American zoologist...
grant to write his autobiography - MissouriMissouriMissouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
Literary Association, Literary Award, 1969 - Honorary Doctor of Humane LettersDoctor of Humane LettersThe degree of Doctor of Humane Letters is always conferred as an honorary degree, usually to those who have distinguished themselves in areas other than science, government, literature or religion, which are awarded degrees of Doctor of Science, Doctor of Laws, Doctor of Letters, or Doctor of...
, University of Missouri at Kansas City, 1975 - National Endowment for the ArtsNational Endowment for the ArtsThe National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
, Artist’s grant (1978) - Mark Twain Award, Society for the Midwestern Literature, 1980
- Recognition by the MissouriMissouriMissouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
Senate, 1984 - City of MoberlyMoberly, MissouriMoberly is a city in Randolph County, Missouri, United States. According to the 2008 census bureau estimate, the population was 14,227. The city was incorporated 1868. The Moberly Micropolitan Statistical Area consists of Randolph County....
, Jack Conroy Day, May 22, 1985 - Society of Midland Authors Award for Lifetime Achievement, 1986
- Lifetime Membership, Missouri Folklore Society
- “A True Friend of Working People”, Central Missouri Labor Council, AFL-CIOAFL-CIOThe American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, commonly AFL–CIO, is a national trade union center, the largest federation of unions in the United States, made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 11 million workers...
and all the working men and women of Mid-MissouriMid-MissouriMid-Missouri is a loosely defined region comprising the central area of United States state of Missouri. The region's largest city is Columbia . The Missouri state capital, Jefferson City, and the University of Missouri are also located here. The region also includes parts of the Lake of the...
Major works
- Edited Unrest (1929–1931) with Ralph Cheyney
- Edited The Rebel Poet (1931–1932)
- The DisinheritedThe DisinheritedThe Disinherited is a proletarian novel written by Jack Conroy. It was published in 1933. Conroy wrote it initially as nonfiction, but editors insisted he fictionalize the story for better audience reception...
(1933) reflects Conroy’s own life as it tells the story of a work-seeking coal miner’s son during the Great Depression. - A World to WinA World to Win (Jack Conroy novel)A World to Win is a novel written by Jack Conroy and published in 1935. It was republished in 2000. This novel, which is set before and during the Great Depression, follows two brothers through their lives both together and separately. One brother, Leo, represents the life of a working man, while...
(1935) is a proletariat novel that follows two brothers as they seek their own definitions of worldly success during the Great Depression. - Founded The Anvil (1935) was a literary magazine that published authors such as Richard WrightRichard Wright (author)Richard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African-Americans during the late 19th to mid 20th centuries...
, Meridel LeSueur, Erskine CaldwellErskine CaldwellErskine Preston Caldwell was an American author. His writings about poverty, racism and social problems in his native South like the novels Tobacco Road and God's Little Acre won him critical acclaim, but they also made him controversial among fellow Southerners of the time who felt he was...
, James T. FarrellJames T. FarrellJames Thomas Farrell was an American novelist. One of his most famous works was the Studs Lonigan trilogy, which was made into a film in 1960 and into a television miniseries in 1979...
, Nelson AlgrenNelson AlgrenNelson Algren was an American writer.-Early life:Algren was born Nelson Ahlgren Abraham in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Goldie and Gerson Abraham. At the age of three he moved with his parents to Chicago, Illinois where they lived in a working-class, immigrant neighborhood on the South Side...
, and August DerlethAugust DerlethAugust William Derleth was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first publisher of the writings of H. P...
. The magazine’s slogan was “We Prefer Crude Vigor to Polished Banality.” After being taken over by Communist officials and merged with the Partisan Review, it was later republished as The New Anvil. - Edited The New Anvil (1938–1942) with Nelson AlgrenNelson AlgrenNelson Algren was an American writer.-Early life:Algren was born Nelson Ahlgren Abraham in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Goldie and Gerson Abraham. At the age of three he moved with his parents to Chicago, Illinois where they lived in a working-class, immigrant neighborhood on the South Side...
was created in attempt to revive the working class magazine, The Anvil. Contributing writers included Frank YerbyFrank YerbyFrank Garvin Yerby was an African American historical novelist. He is best known as the first African American writer to become a millionaire from his pen, and to have a book purchased by a Hollywood studio for a film adaptation.-Early life:...
, Karl ShapiroKarl ShapiroKarl Jay Shapiro was an American poet. He was appointed the fifth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1946.-Biography:...
, Langston HughesLangston HughesJames Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...
, and William Carlos WilliamsWilliam Carlos WilliamsWilliam Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...
. - The Fast Sooner Hound (1942), a children’s book co-authored with Arna BontempsArna BontempsArnaud "Arna" Wendell Bontemps was an American poet and a noted member of the Harlem Renaissance.- Life and career :...
, is the first of three that paints a picture of African-American migration and settlement. - They Seek A City (1945) is the second of the children’s book series written with Arna Bontemps on the northern migration of African-Americans, both pre- and post-Civil War.
- Slappy Hooper, The Wonderful Sign Painter (1946) was written with Arna Bontemps based on one of Conroy’s folktales.
- Midland Humor: A Harvest of Fun and Folklore (1947)
- Senior editor for The New Standard Encyclopedia (1947)
- Sam Patch, The High, Wide and Handsome Jumper (1951) with Arna Bontemps
- Anyplace But Here (1966) is a republished version of They Seek A City written with Arna Bontemps. This expanded version adds chapters on Marcus GarveyMarcus GarveyMarcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr., ONH was a Jamaican publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator who was a staunch proponent of the Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements, to which end he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League...
, the Black Muslims, Malcolm XMalcolm XMalcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
, and other racial issues. - Edited Writers in Revolt: The Anvil Anthology (1973) with Curt Johnson
- The Weed King and Other Stories (1985) is a collection of tales reflecting Conroy’s life and personality.
External links
- Jack Conroy Papers at the Newberry Library