Jesse Stuart

Jesse Stuart Memorial Bridge over the Ohio River in 2007. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Jesse Stuart
Born	Jesse Hilton Stuart August 8, 1907(1907-Template:MONTHNUMBER-08) Riverton, Kentucky
Died	February 17, 1984(1984-Template:MONTHNUMBER-17) (aged 76) Ironton, Ohio
Occupation	Author, educator
Citizenship	United States
Alma mater	Lincoln Memorial University Vanderbilt University
Notable work(s)	Taps for Private Tussie
Notable award(s)	Guggenheim Award, 1937 Thomas Jefferson Memorial Award, 1943 Poet Laureate of Kentucky, 1954
Spouse(s)	Naomi Deane Norris
Relative(s)	Mitchell Stuart (father) Martha Stuart (mother)

Jesse Hilton Stuart (August 8, 1907 - February 17, 1984) was an American poet, fiction writer, and high school teacher.

Life

Overview

Stuart is known for writing short stories, poetry, and novels about Southern Appalachia. Born and raised in Greenup County, Kentucky, he relied heavily on the rural locale of Northeastern Kentucky for his writings.

Life

Youth and education

Stuart was born near Riverton, Greenup co., Kentucky, to Mitchell and Martha (Hilton) Stuart on August 8, 1907.

He had less than 2 years of education in the local 1-room schoolhouse, before entering Greenup High School. After graduation he worked in a carnival, spent 6 months in a Citizens Military Training Camp at Camp Knox, Tennessee, and then worked for 6 months in a steel mill in Ashland, Kentucky.

Stuart attended Lincoln Memorial University, near Harrogate, Tennessee, where he befriended writers James Still and Don West.

Career

After graduating he returned to the his home area, becoming principal and teacher at Warnock High School (a 1-room high school), and then principal at Greenup High School.

He did graduate studies for a year at Vanderbilt University, where he came to know poets Robert Penn Warren, John Crowe Ransom, and Donald Davidson. While at Vanderbilt he published his debut collection of poetry, a vanity publication called Harvest of Youth.

From 1933 to 1937 he was principal of McKell High School. . In 1937 Stuart won a Guggenheim Fellowship, and lived and studied for 14 months in Scotland, from where he travelled all over Europe.

In 1939, Stuart married Naomi Deane Norris, a school teacher, and they settled in W-Hollow.

He ended his career as an English teacher at Portsmouth High School in Portsmouth, Ohio.

He died at Jo-Lin nursing home in Ironton, Ohio, which is near his boyhood home.

Writing

Poetry

One day while Stuart was plowing in the field, he stopped and wrote the opening line of a sonnet: "I am a farmer singing at the plow," the beginning of the 703 sonnets he would collect in Man with a Bull-Tongue Plow (1934). The book was described by Irish poet George William Russell (AE) as the greatest work of poetry to come out of America since Walt Whitman published Leaves of Grass.

Novels

Stuart's debut novel was Trees of Heaven (1940). Set in rural Kentucky, the novel tells the story of Anse Bushman, who loves working the land and wants more land. Stuart's style is simple and sparse. Taps for Private Tussie (1943) is perhaps his most popular novel, selling more than a million copies in only 2 years. The novel also received critical claim and won the Thomas Jefferson Southern Award for the best Southern book of the year. In 1974, Gale Research (in American Fiction, 1900-1950) identified Jesse Stuart as among the 44 novelists in the first half of the 20th century with high critical acclaim. Stuart was the 2nd youngest of that group (William Saroyan was a year younger).

Short stories

Stuart published about 460 short stories. He wrote his earliest short story "Nest Egg" when he was a sophomore in high school in 1923. The story is of a rooster at his farm, whose behavior was so dominant that it began attracting hens from other farms, leading to conflict with the neighbors. Twenty years later, he submitted the story unchanged to the Atlantic Monthly, which accepted the story and published it in February 1943; it was later collected in Tales from Plum Grove Hills.

A highly anthologized story of his is "Split Cherry Tree," originally published in Esquire, January 1939. In this story, a high school teacher in a 1-room schoolhouse keeps a boy after school to work and pay for damage he did to a cherry tree. The boy's uneducated father comes to school to argue with the teacher, but comes to appreciate the value of higher education.

Autobiography

The theme of education appears often in Stuart's books. He described the role that teaching played in his life in The Thread that Runs So True (1949), though he changed the names of places and people. He taught school in rural Kentucky at the age of 16 at Cane Creek Elementary School, which became Lonesome Valley in his book. The Thread that Runs So True (1949) has become a classic of American education. Ruel Foster noted in 1968 that sales for the book had gone up in each successive year, an astonishing feat for any book. The book has remained continuously in print for more than 50 years.

Recognition

Taps for Private Tussie (1943) won the Thomas Jefferson Southern Award for the best southern book of the year.

In 1954 Stuart was named the poet laureate of Kentucky, a position he held until his death in 1984.

In 1961 he received the annual award from the Academy of American Poets.

Jesse Stuart Memorial Bridge

Jesse Stuart Memorial Bridge in 2007. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

The Jesse Stuart Memorial Bridge is a viaduct on top of the Greenup Locks and Dam on the Ohio River. The bridge was completed in 1984 and carries Kentucky Route 10 (unsigned) from the AA Highway/U.S. Route 23 intersection to the bridge itself, where it becomes State Route 253 to U.S. Route 52. The Ohio approach has a ramp to a rest area operated by the Ohio Department of Transportation. There is also a park on the Kentucky side of the bridge, open for fishing and recreation, operated by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Jesse Stuart State Nature Preserve

The natural settings of W Hollow were prominent throughout Stuart's writings. Prior to his death he donated Template:Convert/LoffAoffDbSoffNa of woodlands in W Hollow to the Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission. The Jesse Stuart State Nature Preserve is dedicated to protecting Stuart's legacy, and ensures that a significant portion of W Hollow will remain undeveloped in perpetuity. The trail system is open to the public from dawn to dusk all year long.

Publications

Poetry

• Man with a Bull-Tongue Plow. New York: Dutton, 1934, 1959.
• Album of Destiny. New York: Dutton, 1944.
• Kentucky is My Land. New York: Dutton, 1952; Ashland, KY: Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1992.
• Hold April: New poems. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962; Winston-Salem, NC: Palaemon Press, 1979.
• The World of Jesse Stuart: Selected poems. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975.
• The Seasons of Jesse Stuart: An autobiography in poetry, 1907-1976. Danbury, CT: Archer Editions Press, 1976.

Novels

• Trees of Heaven. New York: Dutton, 1940; Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1980. ISBN 978-0-8131-0150-7
• Taps for Private Tussie. New York: Dutton, 1943; World, 1969; Ashland, KY: Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1992.
• Foretaste of Glory. New Yor: Dutton, 1946; Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1986. ISBN 978-0-8131-0170-5
• Daughter of the Legend. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965; Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1994. ISBN 978-0-945084-42-6
• Mr. Gallion's School. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967; Ashland, KY: Jesse Stuart Foundation, 2001.
• The Land Beyond the River. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973.
• Cradle of the Copperheads (edited by Paul Douglass). New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988.

Short fiction

• Head o' W-Hollow. New York: Dutton, 1936; Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1971; Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1979.
• Men of the Mountains. New York: Dutton, 1941; Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1979.
• Tales from the Plum Grove Hills. New York: Dutton, 1946; Ashland, KY: Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1997. ISBN 978-0-945084-62-4
• Plowshare in Heaven: Stories. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1958; Ashland, KY: Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1991.
• Save Every Lamb. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964.
• Come Gentle Spring. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969; Jesse Stuart Foundation, 2008. ISBN 978-1-931672-47-4
• A Jesse Stuart Harvest. New York: Dell, 1965.
• My Land Has a Voice. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966.
• Come Back to the Farm. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971; Ashland, KY: Jesse Stuart Foundation, 2001. ISBN 978-0-945084-94-5
• 32 Votes Before Breakfast: Politics at the grass roots, as seen in short stories. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974.
• The Best-Loved Short Stories of Jesse Stuart. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972.
• New Harvest: Forgotten stories of Kentucky's Jesse Stuart, Jesse Stuart Foundation, 2003. ISBN 978-1-931672-17-7
• Clearing in the Sky, and other stories (illustrated by Stanley Rice). New York: McGraw-Hill, 1950; Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. ISBN 978-0-8131-0157-6

Non-fiction

• God's Oddling: The story of Mick Stuart, my father. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1960.
• Jesse Stuart on Education. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1992.
• Beyond Dark Hills: A personal story. New York: Dutton, 1938; Ashland, KY: Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1996. ISBN 978-0-945084-53-2
• The Thread that Runs So True. New York: Scribner, 1949; Ashland, KY: Jesse Stuart Foundation, 2006.
• The Year of My Rebirth (illustrated by Barry Martin). New York: McGraw-Hill, 1956; London: Gollancz, 1958; Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1991. ISBN 978-0-945084-17-4
• To Teach, To Love. New York: World, 1970; Ashland, KY: Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1987. ISBN 978-0-945084-02-0
• My World. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1975. ISBN 978-0-8131-0211-5
• Dandelion on the Acropolis: A journal of Greece. Danbury, CT: Archer Editions Press, 1978.
• The Kingdom Within: A spiritual autobiography. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979.

Juvenile

• Hie to the Hunters. New York: Whittlesey House, 1950; Ashland, KY: Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1996. ISBN 978-0-945084-59-4
• The Beatinest Boy (illustrated by Robert Henneberger). New York: Whittlesey House, 1953;
  • (edited by Jerry A. Herndon & James M. Gifford). Ashland, KY Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1989. ISBN 978-0-945084-12-9
• A Penny's Worth of Character (illustrated by Robert Henneberger). New York: Whittlesey House, 1954; Ashland, KY: Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1982. ISBN 978-0-945084-32-7
• Red Mule (illustrated by Robert Henneberger). New York: Whittlesey House, 1955; Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1993. ISBN 978-0-945084-33-4
• A Ride with Huey, the Engineer (illustrated by Robert Henneberger). New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966;
  • also published as A Ride with Huey, the Engineer; Fact and fiction about America's past (edited by James M. Gifford; Jerry A. Herndon). Ashland, KY: Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1988. ISBN 978-0-945084-10-5
• Old Ben (illustrated by Richard Cuffari). New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970;
  • (edited by James M. Gifford & Chuck D. Charles). Ashland, KY: Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1992. ISBN 978-0-945084-22-8

Collected editions

• A Jesse Stuart Reader: Stories and poems. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963.

“Hold April” by Jesse Stuart (read by Geoff Pope)

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

Audio / video

• Jesse Stuart (cassette). Deland, FL: Everett / Edwards, 1971.

See also

• List of U.S. poets

Preceded by Edwin Carlisle Litsey

Poet Laureate of Kentucky 1954-1984

Succeeded by Lowell Allen Willims

References

The Stars Will Shine Forever Over You (Jesse Stuart Poem) original music

• Everetta Love Blair, Jesse Stuart: His life and works. University of South Carolina Press, 1967.
• Ruel E. Foster, Jesse Stuart. Twayne, 1968,
• James M. Gifford & Erin R. Kazee, Jesse Stuart: An extraordinary life. Jesse Stuart Foundation, 2010.
• H. Edward Richardson, Jesse: The biography of an American writer, Jesse Hilton Stuart. McGraw-Hill, 1984.

Fonds

• Register of the Jesse Stuart Papers, Marshall University.

External links

Poems

• "Kentucky Is My Land"

Prose

• "Split Cherry Tree"

Books

• Jesse Stuart: First Editions A Virtual Exhibit, Marshall University.

Audio /video

• Jesse Stuart at YouTube

Books

• Jesse Stuart at Amazon.com
• Jesse Stuart at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

About

• Jesse Stuart biography
• Kentucky People: Jesse Stuart at Our Old Kentucky Home
• "Jesse Stuart, poet, dies at 76; chronicler of Kentucky hills" obituary in the New York Times
• A Force of Nature: The life and work of Jesse Stuart," Buckeye Muse.
• "Jesse Stuart: A ploughman and a poet" at Short North Gazette, 2011
• "Jesse Stuart: A man of the country, a man of the world" at Kentucky Monthly, 2013

Etc.

• The Jesse Stuart Foundation
• Jesse Stuart State Nature Preserve