Eudora Welty

Eudora Welty (1909-2001) was an American writer and photographer that is frequently studied in literature courses today. Welty is an interesting study due to the setting and time-frame she writes in and her vast amount of descriptive language. If you need help on writing a research paper on Eudora Welty, Paper Masters can be there for you.

Welty won the following awards:

• Pulitzer Prize
• Presidential Medal of Freedom
• Order of the South

The first living writer to have his or her work published by the Library of America, Welty's Jackson, Mississippi, home where she lived from the age of 18 to her death, is listed as a National Historic Landmark and is a museum.

Welty's Background

Welty was born and raised in Mississippi and attended the Mississippi State College for Women, the University of Wisconsin and Columbia University. During the Great Depression, she moved back home and began writing for the Tennessee Commercial Appeal. In 1936, her first short story, "The Death of a Traveling Salesman" appeared and was soon followed by other stories in such magazines as The New Yorker.

Also during the Depression, Welty worked for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as a photographer, documenting the people and the conditions of the Depression. Two collections of her photographs were published, although she largely stopped photography by the 1950s.

Welty's Novels

Welty's first novel, The Robber Bridegroom, appeared in 1942. The work is seen as a modern Southern fairy tale. Her 1972 novel, The Optimist's Daughter, is critically regarded as her best and won for her the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. She continued to write until her death from natural causes at the age of 92.