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Joel Mark Harris Biography & Facts

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. Life Education: 1848–1862 Joel Chandler Harris was born in Eatonton, Georgia, in 1848 to Mary Ann Harris, an Irish immigrant. His father, whose identity remains unknown, abandoned Mary Ann shortly after Harris' birth. The parents had never married; the boy was named Joel after his mother's attending physician, Dr. Joel Branham. Chandler was the name of his mother's uncle. Harris remained self-conscious of his illegitimate birth throughout his life. A prominent physician, Dr. Andrew Reid, gave the Harris family a small cottage to use behind his mansion. Mary Harris worked as a seamstress and helped neighbors with their gardening to support herself and her son. She was an avid reader and instilled in her son a love of language: "My desire to write—to give expression to my thoughts—grew out of hearing my mother read The Vicar of Wakefield." Dr. Reid also paid for Harris' school tuition for several years. In 1856, Joe Harris briefly attended Kate Davidson's School for Boys and Girls, but transferred to Eatonton School for Boys later that year. He had an undistinguished academic record and a habit of truancy. Harris excelled in reading and writing, but was mostly known for his pranks, mischief, and sense of humor. Practical jokes helped Harris cloak his shyness and insecurities about his red hair, Irish ancestry, and illegitimacy, leading to both trouble and a reputation as a leader among the older boys. Turnwold Plantation: 1862–1866 At the age of 14, Harris quit school to work. In March 1862, Joseph Addison Turner, owner of Turnwold Plantation nine miles east of Eatonton, hired Harris to work as a printer's devil for his newspaper The Countryman. Harris worked for clothing, room, and board. The newspaper reached subscribers throughout the Confederacy during the Civil War; it was considered one of the larger newspapers in the South, with a circulation of about 2,000. Harris learned to set type for the paper, and Turner allowed him to publish his own poems, book reviews, and humorous paragraphs. Turner's instruction and technical expertise exerted a profound influence on Harris. During his four-year tenure at Turnwold Plantation, Joel Harris consumed the literature in Turner's library. He had access to Chaucer, Dickens, Sir Thomas Browne, Arabian Nights, Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Thackeray, and Edgar Allan Poe. Turner, a fiercely independent Southern loyalist and eccentric intellectual, emphasized the work of southern writers, yet stressed that Harris read widely. In The Countryman Turner insisted that Harris not shy away from including humor in his journalism. While at Turnwold Plantation, Harris spent hundreds of hours in the slave quarters during time off. He was less self-conscious there and felt his humble background as an illegitimate, red-headed son of an Irish immigrant helped foster an intimate connection with the slaves. He absorbed the stories, language, and inflections of people like Uncle George Terrell, Old Harbert, and Aunt Crissy. The African-American animal tales they shared later became the foundation and inspiration for Harris's Uncle Remus tales. George Terrell and Old Harbert in particular became models for Uncle Remus, as well as role models for Harris. Savannah and the South: 1866–1876 Joseph Addison Turner shut down The Countryman in May 1866. Joel Harris left the plantation with worthless Confederate money and very few possessions. He lived for a period at The Marshall House. The Macon Telegraph hired Harris as a typesetter later that year. Harris found the work unsatisfactory and himself the butt of jokes around the office, in no small part due to his red hair. Within five months, he accepted a job working for the New Orleans Crescent Monthly, a literary journal. Just six months after that, homesick, he returned to Georgia, but with another opportunity at the Monroe Advertiser, a weekly paper published in Forsyth, Georgia. At the Advertiser Harris found a regional audience with his column "Affairs of Georgia." Newspapers across the state reprinted his humorous paragraphs and political barbs. Harris' reputation earned him the position of associate editor at the Savannah Morning News, the largest circulation newspaper in Georgia. Though he relished his position in Forsyth, Joe Harris accepted the $40-a-week job, a significant pay increase, and quickly established himself as Georgia's leading humor columnist while at the Morning News. In 1872 Harris met Mary Esther LaRose, a seventeen-year-old French-Canadian from Quebec. After a year of courtship, Harris and LaRose married in April 1873. LaRose was 18, and Harris 27 (though publicly admitting to 24). Over the next three years, the couple had two children. Their life in Savannah came to an abrupt halt, however, when they fled to Atlanta to avoid a yellow fever epidemic. Atlanta: 1876–1908 In 1876 Harris was hired by Henry W. Grady at The Atlanta Constitution, where he would remain for the next 24 years. He worked with other journalists including Frank Lebby Stanton, who was in turn an associate of James Whitcomb Riley. Chandler supported the racial reconciliation envisioned by Grady. He often took the mule-drawn trolley to work, picked up his assignments, and brought them home to complete. He wrote for the Constitution until 1900. In addition, he published local-color stories in magazines such as Scribner's, Harper's, and The Century. Uncle Remus stories and later years Not long after taking the newspaper appointment, Harris began writing the Uncle Remus stories as a serial to "preserve in permanent shape those curious mementoes of a period that will no doubt be sadly misrepresented by historians of the future." The tales were reprinted across the United States, and Harris was approached by publisher D. Appleton and Company to compile them for a book. Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings was published near the end of 1880. Hundreds of newspapers reviewed the best-seller, and Harris received national attention. Of the press and attention Walter Hines Page noted, "Joe Harris does not appreciate Joel Chandler Harris." Royalties from the book were modest, but allowed Harris to rent a six-room house in West End, an unincorporated village on the outskirts of Atl.... Discover the Joel Mark Harris popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Joel Mark Harris books.