HARRIETTE ARNOW

by Catherine Jaleh Allameh

Harriette Arnow, born on July 7, 1908, in Wayne County, is widely recognized as a brilliant, female, Kentucky author for her use of characterization, dialogue, and settings. One of the most respected authors produced by Kentucky, Arnow wrote several popular novels and best-sellers including The Dollmaker, Hunter's Horn, and The Weedkiller's Daughter. She also wrote social histories about the region where she grew up: Seedtime on the Cumberland, Flowering of the Cumberland, and a personal history, Old Burnside. Her novels, Kentucky Trace and Mountain Path, were perhaps her least successful in the eyes of her critics. As well as novels, Arnow also wrote many short stories, for example, "The Hunter," and "Washerwoman's Day."

Harriette Louisa Simpson Arnow, a name given from each grandmother, was born the second of six children to Elias Thomas Simpson and Mollie Jane (Denney) Simpson. Arnow's ancestors for five generations were from Kentucky, so she came from a rich tradition of Kentuckians. Although she was born in Wayne County, Arnow's family moved to Burnside, Kentucky, when she was only five years old. She graduated from Burnside High School where she was in the literary society. Then she attended Berea College for two years. According to Shirley Williams, at Berea College, she was extremely unhappy because "she found no one who shared her interest in writing" (16). Another cause of her unhappiness was the strict rules enforced by Berea College. During her two years at the college, women had to cover their legs, wear no make-up, and could only date at specified times. The rule that most affected and angered Arnow was, "Any student caught smoking had to pay a fifty dollar fine" (Jester 1).

She decided to leave so she could become more independent. She later quit college and taught for the Pulaski County School System for two terms, a period in her life which she enjoyed immensely. She finally graduated from the University of Louisville where she found her happiness in the larger libraries and understanding professors. At the University of Louisville, she also received the support she desperately needed to encourage her writing career. She found other students who wrote prose and poetry and faculty members who could effectively critique her work.

After receiving her degree, Arnow taught for two more years in a school inPulaski County. Arnow realized that teaching was not how she wanted to spend the rest of her life; she wanted to devote more time to her writing. After setting her goals on literary success, Arnow moved to Cincinnati and worked odd jobs to pay her expenses while she wrote full-time. During these years, she worked as a cashier, library assistant, and waitress. In an interview with Shirley Williams, Arnow said, "Waitressing comes highly recommended to struggling writers, especially if done only in the evenings. That way, you don't have to get up early, so you can write late into the night" (12). Her emphasis on her writing career paid off when she had several short stories published; in 1936 her first novel, Mountain Path, was printed.

Harriette Arnow's life took a new twist in 1939 when she married Harold B. Arnow, a Chicago newspaperman. They bought a run-down farm and moved to Pulaski County, Kentucky. The farm, named Submarginal Manor, was on Little Indian Creek of the Big South Fork of The Cumberland River. The newly-married couple planned to subsistence farm and write. They soon discovered that farming took most of their time and that their writing was constantly pushed towards the end of their list of priorities. The years of subsistence living did not leave Arnow with fond memories, "for the chores of subsisting kept her continually from her writing" (Williams 18). After five years, the couple moved to Detroit, where Harold Arnow took a job with the Detroit Times. Although they lived in a crowded, noisy, public housing project, much like the area where Gertie Nevels and her family lived in The Dollmaker, Arnow accomplished some of her best writing. While living in Detroit, she wrote Hunter's Horn and most of The Dollmaker, both best-sellers.

After her literary success in the crowded, busy city of Detroit during World War II, Harold and Harriette Arnow again moved back to the country, this time to a farm near Ann Arbor, Michigan. Williams reveals that they lived on "40 acres . . . on a dirt road. There they grew a garden and enjoyed their dogs and the leisure to write" (17). They made their home in Ann Arbor with their two children, Marcella and Thomas. Harriette and Harold Arnow remained there until her death on March 22, 1986. Her years in Ann Arbor produced her other novels, The Weedkiller's Daughter (1970), The Kentucky Trace (1975), and her nonfiction work - Seedtime on the Cumberland (1960), Flowering of the Cumberland (1963), and Old Burnside (1977).

Harriette Arnow's best-selling novels and popular nonfiction have won her several literary awards and much critical acclaim. Of course, her most popular work, The Dollmaker, received the most awards. The novel was a best-seller and tied for best novel of 1954 in the Saturday Review's national critics' poll. It also came in second for the National Book Awards to William Faulkner's The Fable. The Dollmaker did win the 1955 award of the Friends of American Writers and also was produced as a movie in 1983 starring Jane Fonda. Harriette Arnow also won many awards personally, based on her history of literary success. She won the Weatherford Award for her work with Appalachian subjects, the Woodcock Award, and an honorary degree from Transylvania University. In 1955 she received a centennial award in the field of letters from Berea College. More recently, she was awarded the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Berea College in 1983 and also the Milner Award from the Kentucky Writer's Conference at Centre College. She was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame and was awarded the Mark Twain Award for Midwestern Literature from Michigan State University in 1984. Obviously, Arnow's dedication to the literary world paid off; her many awards and honors prove the success of her writings.

Harriette Arnow's remarkable style of writing combines realistic settings with complex characters and effective dialogue. The realistic settings of her novels stem directly from Arnow's personal experiences. For example, in The Dollmaker Gertie Nevels and her family move during World War II from a small farm in Kentucky to the large, busy city of Detroit, just like Arnow and her family. Also, when writing about farming the land of Gertie's Kentucky farm, Arnow relied on her memories of subsistence farming in Pulaski County, Kentucky. Another example of parallels between Arnow's life and the settings of her novels is in her first novel Mountain Path. Arnow, like her main character, Louisa Sheridan, was from Kentucky and "ventured into the Kentucky mountains to teach" (Williams 17). Arnow, however, denied ever being involved with a moonshiner as Sheridan was in Mountain Path. Many in Arnow's family became outraged at the autobiographical nature of her novel and complained, "The whole country around will be thinking that you fell in love with a moonshiner" (Williams 17). Obviously, not every incident in Arnow's works relied on personal experiences.

Hunter's Horn, a best-seller, also shows similarities in the setting of the novel to Arnow's life. Like Gertie Nevels in The Dollmaker, Nunnelly Ballew was a poor, white subsistence farmer as Arnow once was. Like the author, the Ballews lived through the Depression and watched many leave the area to journey to Detroit as Arnow eventually did. The many common incidents between Arnow's life and her novel's settings form a realistic quality that strengthens the novel. William Ward wrote, "It all has the ring of authenticity gained through the author's own experience . . . and through the knowledge she acquired through hill-country pioneer ancestors and her own careful research" (217). Most critics agree with Ward and recognize the effect of Arnow's background on her settings.

Harriette Arnow's character development also strengthens the quality of her novels. She portrays many of her women as strong, self-willed, and able, characteristics uncommon for female characters in the 1950's and 1960's. In The Dollmaker, Nevels single-handedly takes care of her many children, her house, and her land, along with her parents and her in-laws. She splits wood, milks cows, digs potatoes, and whittles but also can soothe a scraped knee, read a bedtime story, and teach the Ten Commandments. Although The Dollmaker was written in 1954, Gertie Nevels represents a true nineties woman.

Another example of a strong female character is in Mountain Path. Louisa Sheridan remains independent and self-reliant by leaving her hometown for a new life. Even after the death of the man she loves, she still learns from her experiences instead of collapsing from the weight of her grief. Louisa, like Gertie, does not give up; she merely becomes accustomed to life's twists and turns.

In Arnow's novels, men are often the weakest characters. For example, in Hunter's Horn, Nunnelly Ballew allows himself to become obsessed by a fox, King Devil, that kills his chickens and lambs. He surrenders his scarce income, the happiness of his family, his best hound Zing, the upkeep of his farm, and most of his senses to the quest of finding King Devil. His selfishness causes Ballew to lose almost everything.

Along with Arnow's realistic settings and complex characters, her use of dialect improves her novels. The Appalachian dialect in her stories makes them more realistic and more enjoyable to read. For example, Gertie Nevels' dialect in The Dollmaker strengthens the reader's understanding of the character and the region where the novel is set. The strong Appalachian dialect also contrasts sharply to the city accents of Detroit, making the Nevel family seem even more out-of-place. On the train to Detroit, Gertie says, "I wonder what the ground around Detroit is like? Will it grow sweet taters?" (Arnow 150). This one sentence illustrates how dialect can influence a novel. The realistic Appalachian language makes Detroit seem like a foreign country; even the ground is different. Arnow's use of dialect in her many novels gives the reader an inside glimpse into the lives the characters lead.

When Harriette Arnow died from natural causes on March 22, 1986, on her farm in Ann Arbor, Michigan, she took with her a legacy of award-winning and culturally significant literature. Arnow's fame brought recognition to the state of Kentucky and the acknowledgement of the brilliance of one of its best-known authors. Her death, in turn, brought a sadness felt by fellow authors, critics, and readers. Although Harriette Arnow passed away in 1986, her fiction and nonfiction remains to remind us of her accomplishments not only as an author, but more specifically, as a female Kentucky author.

Arnow, Harriette. The Dollmaker. New York: Avon Books, 1954.

Jester, Art. "Coming Home: Berea Alumna Finding New Fame as Book is Turned into Movie Starring Jane Fonda." Lexington Herald Leader 7 October 1983: 1-2.

Ward, William Smith. A Literary History of Kentucky. Knoxville: UT Press, 1988.

Williams, Shirley. "The Maker of The Dollmaker." The Courier Journal Magazine 4 November 1979: 12-18.

Short Stories by Arnow:

Arnow, Harriette. "The Hunter." Atlantic, November 1944: 79-84.

Arnow, Harriette. "Marigolds and Mules." Kosmos, August-September 1934: 3-6.

Arnow, Harriette. "A Mess of Pork." The New Talent, October-December 1935: 4-11.

Arnow, Harriette. "Washerwoman's Day." Southern Review, vol. 1, no. 3 (1936): 522-527.

Essays by Arnow:

Arnow, Harriette. "Language - The Key That Unlocks All the Boxes." Wilson Library Bulletin, May 1956: 683-85.

Arnow, Harriette. "The Gray Woman of Appalachia." Nation, December 28, 1970: 684-87.

Arnow, Harriette. "Progress Reached Our Valley." Nation, August 3, 1970: 71-77.

Arnow, Harriette. "Voices Over the Mountains." Mountain Life and Work: The Magazine of the Appalachian South, Spring 1965: 4.

Works About Arnow:

Eckley, Wilton. Harriette Arnow. New York, NY: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1974.

Kentucky Authors Handbook, University of Kentucky Extension Service, 1955.

Millet, Fred B. Contemporary American Authors: A Critical Survey and 219 Bio-Bibliographies. New York, NY: 1970.

Townsend, Dorothy Edwards. Kentucky in American Letters Volume III. Georgetown, Ky.: Georgetown College Press, 1976.

Vinson, James (ed.). Contemporary Novelists. New York: