Angela Morgan
Angela Morgan (c. 1875 – January 24, 1957) was an American poet. Her given name at birth was Nina Lillian, which she later changed to Angela.
Life
[edit]Nina Lillian Morgan was born in about 1875, either in Washington, D.C., or in Yazoo County, Mississippi.[1] Her father was Albert T. Morgan, a Northern abolitionist who moved to Yazoo City, Mississippi after the Civil War and became a state senator.[2] Her mother was Carrie Highgate, an "Octoroon"[3] member of a prominent family in Syracuse, New York; her eldest sister was Edmonia Highgate. Their interracial marriage was considered scandalous in Reconstruction-era Mississippi by white racists.[4]
Her family lived in Washington from 1876 to 1885, and then moved to Lawrence, Kansas, and later to Topeka, Kansas. In 1890 her father left home to become a gold prospector, and until 1898 Morgan earned money singing in a voice quartet with her three sisters. She married in 1900; the marriage was dissolved in 1906.[1]
Morgan became a journalist for the Chicago Daily American, and later worked on the New York American and on the Boston American. She reported on court cases, published interviews and wrote "human-interest" pieces. She said that her experiences as a reporter motivated and inspired her to social commentary in her poems.[1]
Her first book of poetry, The Hour Has Struck, was published in 1914, and in 1915 a poem appeared in Collier's Weekly. In the same year she was a delegate to the first International Congress of Women at The Hague, in the Netherlands.[1]
Between 1923 and 1926 she lived in London, England. While there, she gave a poetry reading for the Poetry Society at the Savoy Chapel; she was the first woman to be invited to do so.[1]
Morgan had constant money troubles, and was declared bankrupt in 1935. She moved frequently in later life, spending time in Philadelphia, in Rydal, Pennsylvania, in Brattleboro, Vermont, at Saugerties[clarification needed] and at Mount Marion, New York, where on January 24, 1957, she died.[1]
Awards
[edit]In 1942 Morgan received an honorary doctorate from Golden State University,[1] which at that time was in Los Angeles.
Publications
[edit]- The Hour Has Struck (1914)
- Utterance and Other Poems (1916)
- Forward, March (1918)
- Hail, Man (1919)
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f g John D. Stinson, Susan Malsbury (1991, revised 2007). Angela Morgan Papers 1901-1957: MssCol 2057. The New York Public Library: Humanities and Social Sciences Library, Manuscripts and Archives Division. Accessed August 2015.
- ^ "Morgan, Albert Talmon | Mississippi Encyclopedia". Mississippi Encyclopedia. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
- ^ "Winona Times, February 24, 1928 – Against All Odds".
- ^ Morgan, Albert Talmon (1884). "Yazoo: Or, on the Picket Line of Freedom in the South. A Personal Narrative".
Further reading
[edit]- Angela Morgan
- World Literature, R.D. Alcantara et al., Katha Publishing Co., 2000, p. 117
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Rittenhouse, Jessie B. (1919). The Second Book of Modern Verse. Houghton Mifflin company, Boston and New York.
External links
[edit]- Works by Angela Morgan at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
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