Title: Zora Hurston Neale Critical Essays - eNotes.com
Headings: 
Introduction
Zora Neale Hurston 1891-1960
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Biographical Information
Major Works
Critical Reception

Content: In addition to publishing novels and plays, three nonfiction works and numerous short stories and essays, Hurston is acknowledged as an influential collector and reteller of black American folklore. Lillie P. Howard stated: “ [ Hurston’s] works are important because they affirm blackness (while not denying whiteness) in a black-denying society. They present characters who are not all lovable but who are undeniably and realistically human. They record the history, the life, of a place and time which are remarkably like other places and times, though perhaps a bit more honest in the rendering.” Biographical Information
Hurston was born in Eatonville, Florida, the first incorporated black township in the United States and the setting for most of her writing. At the age of fourteen, she left home to work as a maid with a traveling Gilbert and Sullivan theatrical troupe. In 1923, Hurston entered Howard University, a black college in Washington, D.C., where she published short stories in Stylus, the university literary magazine, and attracted the attention of noted sociologist Charles S. Johnson. With Johnson’s encouragement, Hurston moved to New York City in 1925 and subsequently secured a scholarship to Barnard College. While at Barnard, and later at Columbia University, Hurston studied anthropology under Franz Boas, a renowned anthropologist of the era.