Dunbar, Paul Laurence

Impact on the world

Became the first African American poet to attain national prominence and the first Black writer in the U.S. to attempt to support himself entirely through his writing, self-publishing his debut collection by selling it for a dollar to passengers on the elevator he operated for a living, before later collections earned acclaim from major critics and made him known as the 'Poet Laureate of the Negro Race.'

Life & background

Born in Dayton, Ohio to parents who had been enslaved in Kentucky, Dunbar was the only Black student in his high school, where his classmates included Orville Wright; the two collaborated on Dunbar's short-lived newspaper, The Dayton Tattler, printed on the Wright brothers' press. Unable to afford college and facing racial discrimination in his job search despite his academic record, Dunbar worked as an elevator operator while writing poetry, self-publishing his first collection, 'Oak and Ivy,' in 1893 and selling copies to his elevator passengers to recoup his costs. Frederick Douglass, who called him 'the most promising young colored man in America,' helped Dunbar find work and a public reading opportunity at the 1893 World's Fair, and critic William Dean Howells's favorable review of Dunbar's second collection brought him national and international acclaim. He went on to publish twelve books of poetry, four short story collections, and five novels, becoming known both for his dialect verse, which brought him his widest popular fame, and his mastery of standard English forms including the sonnet, before dying of tuberculosis at 33.

Sources

1. Academy of American Poets; Encyclopædia Britannica; Wright State University