Grace Lumpkin
Encyclopedia
Grace Lumpkin was an American
writer of proletarian literature
, focusing most of her works on the Depression
era and the rise and fall of favor surrounding communism
in the United States. Most important of four books was her first, To Make My Bread
(1932), which won the Gorky Prize in 1933.
., the ninth of eleven children born to Annette Caroline Morris and William Wallace Lumpkin. In around 1900 she moved with her family to South Carolina
. She grew up in a very religious, prominent but economically unstable aristocratic Georgian family.
In around 1910, William moved his family one final time, to a farm in Richland County
. While in South Carolina, Grace witnessed firsthand the suffering of black and white sharecroppers
and laborers. Black laborers performed fieldwork on the Lumpkin family farm, and the Lumpkin children attended school with white children from the "poorest classes". Just three months after the family began to farm, her father died and the family's financial health suffered.
Lumpkin worked at a variety of jobs before graduating from Brenau College in Gainesville, Georgia
in 1911. She volunteered in France
for a year, and then returned to Georgia. In Georgia she worked for the YMCA
, eventually organized an adult night school for farmers and their wives, and worked at home as a demonstration agent. During most of the summers she lived in the mountains of North Carolina, staying with mill workers, sharecroppers, and other laborers, which convinced her that these workers could better their lives only by means of trade union
s. Her stay in the mountains introduced her to the families about which she wrote in her first novel.
when she was twenty-five and began to write short stories, becoming involved in liberal and radical politics. In the fall of 1925 she was hired as a member of the office staff at The World Tomorrow, one of the best selling magazines in New York. There she met Esther Shemitz, with whom she became lifelong friends. (Esther Shemitz married Whittaker Chambers
.)
Like most fellow travelers of all degrees, Lumpkin probably never joined the Communist Party
. In 1927 she was arrested at a picket sponsored by the Sacco and Vanzetti
Defense Committee. She joined the staff of the New Masses in 1929, where she worked for "about a year and a half." In 1929 she was sent to the south by the Communist Party to organize among black sharecroppers and to observe and participate in the Communist-led Gastonia
textile strikes.
Lumpkin first met Michael Intrator, a close friend of Chambers, who was very involved in the Communist movement, in the late 1920s. She and Intrator eventually became lovers. His expulsion from the Communist Party in 1929 brought a strain to their relationship as Grace remained part of the Communist party until she left communism voluntarily in around 1939. Lumpkin and Intrator married in 1931. The toughest crisis Lumpkin experienced (mid- to late-1930s) was her pregnancy with Intrator’s child and decision to have an abortion, which she regretted, followed soon afterwards by divorce.
In the 1930s, Lumpkin's literary agent was Maxim Lieber
, whom Chambers later named as part of his spy ring during that same period.
Close to the time of Chambers' defection from the Soviet underground (April 1938), Lumpkin began rejecting Communist Party functions. Soon became actively anti-Communist.
. She became a frequent speaker in church circles and joined the anti-Communist Christians.
In April 1953, Lumpkin testified before the Permanent Subcommittee of Investigations of the Senate Committee on Government Operations. She was then living on Gramercy Park
in New York City and working as a proofreader for a printing firm called the Golden Eagle Press. Asked about her affiliations in the 1930s, she replied, "I was under the influence and the discipline of the Communist movement, although I was not a member" and that she had taken part in "faction meetings and cell meetings."
Asked about why she broke away from the party's influence, she described the following incident.
Lumpkin devoted all later writings to exposing the evils of Communism. She continued writing and lecturing and kept her strong tie to the church until death. She died in 1980 in Columbia, South Carolina
.
values and women’s roles. Lumpkin’s writings give cultural historians and scholars an important body to consider when considering this period and the movements to which she contributed.
Beginning in the 1950s, scholars regained interest in radical "lost novels" of the 1930s. They have pointed to Lumpkin as one of the period's most influential authors. They have noted both her historical and literary accomplishments, particularly prominent as a figure in the early feminist movement
and for promoting worker’s rights. She has received praise for her ability to portray the process in which "external forces shape a literary work".
Recent literary scholarship has noted Lumpkin’s ideals of progressive representations of race relations and how she incorporated these into her writings. For example, the characters in To Make My Bread illustrate the importance of alliances between white and black women workers, and how these can be based on mutual understanding and need. Lumpkin shows readers that solidarity across racial and economic lines is essential for members of all groups.
Historians during the 1960s and 1970s found particular interest in whether the United States run according to competitive individualism or by cooperation and mutuality. They looked to Lumpkin’s literature to study this argument.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer of proletarian literature
Proletarian literature
Proletarian literature refers to the literature created by working-class writers for the class-conscious proletariat, published by the communist parties. It was a literature without literary pretensions....
, focusing most of her works on the Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
era and the rise and fall of favor surrounding communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
in the United States. Most important of four books was her first, To Make My Bread
To Make My Bread
To Make My Bread is a novel written by Grace Lumpkin about the Loray Mill Strike. It was published in 1932. Lumpkin chronicles the McClures, a family of poor Appalachian tenant farmers, during the industrialization of the south...
(1932), which won the Gorky Prize in 1933.
Early life
Grace Lumpkin was born on March 3, 1891, in Milledgeville, GeorgiaMilledgeville, Georgia
Milledgeville is a city in and the county seat of Baldwin County in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is northeast of Macon, located just before Eatonton on the way to Athens along U.S. Highway 441, and it is located on the Oconee River. The relatively rapid current of the Oconee here made this an...
., the ninth of eleven children born to Annette Caroline Morris and William Wallace Lumpkin. In around 1900 she moved with her family to South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
. She grew up in a very religious, prominent but economically unstable aristocratic Georgian family.
In around 1910, William moved his family one final time, to a farm in Richland County
Richland County, South Carolina
Richland County is a county located in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The 2000 U.S. census recorded its population to be 320,677. In 2010, the U.S. Census Bureau recorded that its population had reached 384,504. It is the second most populous county in South Carolina, behind only Greenville...
. While in South Carolina, Grace witnessed firsthand the suffering of black and white sharecroppers
Sharecropping
Sharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on the land . This should not be confused with a crop fixed rent contract, in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a fixed amount of...
and laborers. Black laborers performed fieldwork on the Lumpkin family farm, and the Lumpkin children attended school with white children from the "poorest classes". Just three months after the family began to farm, her father died and the family's financial health suffered.
Lumpkin worked at a variety of jobs before graduating from Brenau College in Gainesville, Georgia
Gainesville, Georgia
-Severe Weather:Gainesville sits on the very fringe of Tornado Alley, a region of the United States where severe weather is common. Supercell thunderstorms can sweep through any time between March and November, but are concentrated most in the spring...
in 1911. She volunteered in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
for a year, and then returned to Georgia. In Georgia she worked for the YMCA
YMCA
The Young Men's Christian Association is a worldwide organization of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs...
, eventually organized an adult night school for farmers and their wives, and worked at home as a demonstration agent. During most of the summers she lived in the mountains of North Carolina, staying with mill workers, sharecroppers, and other laborers, which convinced her that these workers could better their lives only by means of trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s. Her stay in the mountains introduced her to the families about which she wrote in her first novel.
Communist years
Lumpkin had been publishing stories in college and other school magazines since 1908, but it was not until her mother’s death, in 1925, that she decided to take seriously her career as a writer. Lumpkin moved to New YorkNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
when she was twenty-five and began to write short stories, becoming involved in liberal and radical politics. In the fall of 1925 she was hired as a member of the office staff at The World Tomorrow, one of the best selling magazines in New York. There she met Esther Shemitz, with whom she became lifelong friends. (Esther Shemitz married Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers was born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker Chambers , was an American writer and editor. After being a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent later testifying in the perjury and espionage trial...
.)
Like most fellow travelers of all degrees, Lumpkin probably never joined the Communist Party
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
. In 1927 she was arrested at a picket sponsored by the Sacco and Vanzetti
Sacco and Vanzetti
Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were anarchists who were convicted of murdering two men during a 1920 armed robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts, United States...
Defense Committee. She joined the staff of the New Masses in 1929, where she worked for "about a year and a half." In 1929 she was sent to the south by the Communist Party to organize among black sharecroppers and to observe and participate in the Communist-led Gastonia
Gastonia, North Carolina
Gastonia is the largest city and county seat of Gaston County, North Carolina, United States. It is also the third largest suburb of the Charlotte Area, behind Concord and Rock Hill. The population was 71,226 as of Gastonia is the largest city and county seat of Gaston County, North Carolina,...
textile strikes.
Lumpkin first met Michael Intrator, a close friend of Chambers, who was very involved in the Communist movement, in the late 1920s. She and Intrator eventually became lovers. His expulsion from the Communist Party in 1929 brought a strain to their relationship as Grace remained part of the Communist party until she left communism voluntarily in around 1939. Lumpkin and Intrator married in 1931. The toughest crisis Lumpkin experienced (mid- to late-1930s) was her pregnancy with Intrator’s child and decision to have an abortion, which she regretted, followed soon afterwards by divorce.
In the 1930s, Lumpkin's literary agent was Maxim Lieber
Maxim Lieber
Maxim Lieber was a prominent American literary agent in New York City during the 1930s and 1940s. Whittaker Chambers named him as an accomplice in 1949, and Lieber fled first to Mexico and then Poland not long after Alger Hiss's conviction in 1950.- Early years :Lieber was born in Warsaw, Poland,...
, whom Chambers later named as part of his spy ring during that same period.
Close to the time of Chambers' defection from the Soviet underground (April 1938), Lumpkin began rejecting Communist Party functions. Soon became actively anti-Communist.
Later years
Lumpkin became concerned with righting what she saw as her earlier political wrong and returned to the teachings of the BibleBible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
. She became a frequent speaker in church circles and joined the anti-Communist Christians.
In April 1953, Lumpkin testified before the Permanent Subcommittee of Investigations of the Senate Committee on Government Operations. She was then living on Gramercy Park
Gramercy Park
Gramercy Park is a small, fenced-in private park in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park is at the core of both the neighborhood referred to as either Gramercy or Gramercy Park and the Gramercy Park Historic District...
in New York City and working as a proofreader for a printing firm called the Golden Eagle Press. Asked about her affiliations in the 1930s, she replied, "I was under the influence and the discipline of the Communist movement, although I was not a member" and that she had taken part in "faction meetings and cell meetings."
Asked about why she broke away from the party's influence, she described the following incident.
Once I was down with a Communist organizer in Alabama. I was staying with sharecroppers down there. We were organizing the Negro sharecroppers. For some reason, there had been some trouble, and a deputy sheriff was patrolling the road outside of the home of these Negroes. I believed in helping the Negro race. I believe in helping them to help themselves, because they are God's children, as important as I am. That is what I believe now.
But the Communist organizer ordered me to go out and slap the deputy sheriff in the face. He said as a result of that I would be arrested, and as a way of trying to get me to do that, he said, "Now, your picture will appear in all the newspapers all over the country, and you will sell a lot more of your books." That was an added inducement.
I felt that the situation was tense enough without doing something to bring a worse situation about, and I refused to do it. I mean, there are certain things like that, that I would not submit to Communist discipline about. And so, when this book came along, they had known such things about me, so that I was called to the New Masses office...
Joshua Kunitz was the head editor. He had me in the office, and they said, "You are writing a new novel, and we want to tell you that if this novel has anything against the party line in it... We will break you as a writer. We have people in strategic positions on magazines, on papers, who will write reviews of your books..."
Lumpkin devoted all later writings to exposing the evils of Communism. She continued writing and lecturing and kept her strong tie to the church until death. She died in 1980 in Columbia, South Carolina
Columbia, South Carolina
Columbia is the state capital and largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The population was 129,272 according to the 2010 census. Columbia is the county seat of Richland County, but a portion of the city extends into neighboring Lexington County. The city is the center of a metropolitan...
.
Works
- To Make My BreadTo Make My BreadTo Make My Bread is a novel written by Grace Lumpkin about the Loray Mill Strike. It was published in 1932. Lumpkin chronicles the McClures, a family of poor Appalachian tenant farmers, during the industrialization of the south...
(1932). Tells the story of a family of AppalachianAppalachian MountainsThe Appalachian Mountains #Whether the stressed vowel is or ,#Whether the "ch" is pronounced as a fricative or an affricate , and#Whether the final vowel is the monophthong or the diphthong .), often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians...
mountaineers who find themselves drawn to a mill town near their family plot after suffering great economic adversity. Soon, all the characters become involved in the politics surrounding the exploitation of labor workers. Lumpkin based her work on the Gastonia textile strikeLoray Mill StrikeThe Loray Mill Strike of 1929 in Gastonia, North Carolina was one of the most notable strikes in the labor history of the United States. Though largely unsuccessful in attaining its goals of better working conditions and wages, the strike was considered very successful in a lasting way; it caused...
of 1929 at Loray Mill, one of the most important labor strikes in United States history. Also considered an examination of cultural and feministFeminismFeminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
history during the DepressionGreat DepressionThe Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, Lumpkin’s novel addresses many of the stratifications between class and race. The novel won the Gorky Prize in 1933.
- A Sign for Cain (1935). The novel follows an African-AmericanAfrican AmericanAfrican Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
protagonist, Dennis, who dreams of organizing workers of all skin colors in order to stand together against business owners and others who wish to control them, regardless of race. A Sign for Cain focuses on the struggle between newly freed blacks and their old owners. Issues with sharecropping and land ownership impact both races represented and talk of a social uprising has tones of communist revolutionCommunist revolutionA communist revolution is a proletarian revolution inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism, typically with socialism as an intermediate stage...
, a theme then emerging more prevalently in Lumpkin’s own life. Lumpkin realized the influence the Communist Party had over her writing, and even claimed that the strong implications evident in her text were driven by her mentors in the party. Maxim LieberMaxim LieberMaxim Lieber was a prominent American literary agent in New York City during the 1930s and 1940s. Whittaker Chambers named him as an accomplice in 1949, and Lieber fled first to Mexico and then Poland not long after Alger Hiss's conviction in 1950.- Early years :Lieber was born in Warsaw, Poland,...
served as her literary agent in 1935.
- The Wedding (1939). The storyline follows the marriage ceremony of Jennie Middleton, the daughter of an aristocraticAristocracy (class)The aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...
family that has ended up in ruin. The novel is set in 1909 and the families involved live strictly by the code of the ConfederacyConfederate States of AmericaThe Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
. Jennie’s groom is Dr. Gregg, a new member of the community, having moved to town due to its rising industrializationIndustrialisationIndustrialization is the process of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial one...
. The wedding is almost put on hold after a heated argument and it is only after her mother, father, and Gregg’s friend act as peacemakers that it continues. Jennie conforms to society’s demands, having stood her ground for the last time against a marriage in which she has little emotional relation with the doctor.
- Full Circle (1962). Lumpkin’s final novel explores her changing ideas regarding communism. She uses the case of the Scottsboro BoysScottsboro BoysThe Scottsboro Boys were nine black teenage boys accused of rape in Alabama in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial...
, and the characters involved, as an expose of the "evils of Communism". The main character, Arnie Braxton, and her mother are slowly tempted into the world of Communist Party politics. Soon the two women find themselves rejecting bourgeoisBourgeoisieIn sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
illusions, allowing the sacrilege of a Christ figurine and deserting the rest of their family. Eventually, Arnie is ejected from the Communist Party for racial prejudice. Throughout the text, Lumpkin describes the Communist Party in stark terms and addresses her novel towards Southern issues.
Influence
Lumpkin provides modern readers with a window into the past of the building of the southern working class and the changes to its patriarchalPatriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...
values and women’s roles. Lumpkin’s writings give cultural historians and scholars an important body to consider when considering this period and the movements to which she contributed.
Beginning in the 1950s, scholars regained interest in radical "lost novels" of the 1930s. They have pointed to Lumpkin as one of the period's most influential authors. They have noted both her historical and literary accomplishments, particularly prominent as a figure in the early feminist movement
Feminist movement
The feminist movement refers to a series of campaigns for reforms on issues such as reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, women's suffrage, sexual harassment and sexual violence...
and for promoting worker’s rights. She has received praise for her ability to portray the process in which "external forces shape a literary work".
Recent literary scholarship has noted Lumpkin’s ideals of progressive representations of race relations and how she incorporated these into her writings. For example, the characters in To Make My Bread illustrate the importance of alliances between white and black women workers, and how these can be based on mutual understanding and need. Lumpkin shows readers that solidarity across racial and economic lines is essential for members of all groups.
Historians during the 1960s and 1970s found particular interest in whether the United States run according to competitive individualism or by cooperation and mutuality. They looked to Lumpkin’s literature to study this argument.
See also
- Proletarian literatureProletarian literatureProletarian literature refers to the literature created by working-class writers for the class-conscious proletariat, published by the communist parties. It was a literature without literary pretensions....
- Feminist literature
- GastoniaGastonia, North CarolinaGastonia is the largest city and county seat of Gaston County, North Carolina, United States. It is also the third largest suburb of the Charlotte Area, behind Concord and Rock Hill. The population was 71,226 as of Gastonia is the largest city and county seat of Gaston County, North Carolina,...
- New Masses
- Whittaker ChambersWhittaker ChambersWhittaker Chambers was born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker Chambers , was an American writer and editor. After being a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent later testifying in the perjury and espionage trial...
Further resources
- Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, "Women Writers, the 'Southern Front,' and the Dialectical Imagination", Journal of Southern History 69 (February 2003):3-38
- http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2473 New Georgia Encyclopedia
- Review of Story of the Wedding in TIME Magazine February 27, 1939
- Lumpkin Family History at Root Cellar
- Sowinska, Suzanne. “Introduction.” To Make My Bread. Alan Wald. Chicago: 2. University of Illinois Press,1995.
- Sowinska, Suzanne. “Grace Lumpkin (1891–1980).” The New Georgia Encyclopedia. Georgia Humanities Council and the University of Georgia Press. 15 October 2009. http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?path=/Literature/Fiction/Authors&id=h-2473
- “To Make My Bread.” University of Illinois Press. The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 15 October 2009. http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/44dyt2qp9780252065019.html
- Miller, James A. Remembering Scottsboro: The Legacy of an Infamous Trial. Princeton University Press, 2009. http://books.google.com/books?id=qUjVbbwpNIwC&pg=PA213&lpg=PA213&dq=Full+Circle+-+Grace+Lumpkin&source=bl&ots=mIBH8HMKVq&sig=LOcC1Ni3aZwqmJImFyS3_GW89-g&hl=en&ei=Un_WSqKgCoSqMNyvtd4D&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CA4Q6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=Full%20Circle%20-%20Grace%20Lumpkin&f=false
- “June 1929 – Strike at Loray Mill.” UNC University Libraries. 19 October 2009. http://www.lib.unc.edu/ncc/ref/nchistory/jun2004/
- “Grace Lumpkin.” Center for Working-Class Studies. Youngstown State University, Ohio. 14 October 2009.
- “The Wedding (Lost American Fiction).” Paper Back Swap. http://www.paperbackswap.com/book/details/9780809307678-The+Wedding+Lost+American+Fiction
- “Books: Bride’s Strike.” Time Magazine. 15 October 2009. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,788987,00.html?promoid=googlep