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Content: Hurston's work 
came at a time when critics were both white and black, but were all men. Mary Helen Washington has said that "To a large extent, the attention 
focused on Zora Hurston's controversial personality and lifestyle has 
inhibited any objective critical analysis of her work. Few male critics
have been able to resist sly innuendoes and outright attacks on Hurston's 
personal life, even when the work in question was not affected by her 
disposition or her private affairs" (1979). Hurston was the first black scholar to research folklore on the level 
that she did. She researched songs, dances, tales, and sayings. Much 
of her book material revolves around issues of slavery and the time
period immediately following it. She took her black rural culture and 
heritage and celebrated it at a time when most black scholars were 
trying hard to deny and forget it. Hurston also studied voodoo practices
in Jamaica, Haiti, and the British West Indies. She took photographs
and recorded their songs, dances, and rituals. She had a Guggenheim 
Fellowship to research in the Caribbean, where she stayed for two years.