Alice Crolley Browning (November 5, 1907 – October 15, 1985) was an American writer, editor, publisher, and educator. She was the founder and director of the International Black Writers Conference in Chicago.
Early life
editAlice Crolley was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Richard A. Crolley and Liattah Marshall Crolley. Her father was from Atlanta, Georgia;[1] her mother was from New Orleans, Louisiana.[2] She graduated from the University of Chicago in 1931. She later earned a master's degree in English literature at Columbia University, where she worked with Vernon Loggins on a thesis about African-American fiction in the nineteenth century.[3]
Career
editAlice Crolley Franklin worked briefly as a social worker, but for more than forty years (1930-1973), she taught at Forrestville Elementary School in Chicago, while pursuing literary interests.[4]
From 1944 to 1946, Browning published a literary magazine, Negro Story, co-edited with her friend Fern Gayden.[5] It featured works by authors Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, and Chester Himes, and by illustrator Elton Fax, among others. She also included her own stories, often under a pseudonym, "Lila Marshall" or "Richard Bentley."[6][3] A related project, the Negro Story Press, published a children's magazine and a book by Lionel Hampton.[7] The Browning Letter (1953-1956) and Zip (1963) were later efforts at periodical publication.[4]
In 1970, she founded the International Black Writers Conference. She directed the annual event in Chicago until 1984.[3][8]
Personal life
editAlice Crolley married twice, first at age 16 to George Franklin, and second in 1936 to Charles Patrick Browning. She had one daughter, Barbara Franklin Cordell. Alice was widowed in 1954 when Charles Browning died. She died in 1985, aged 77 years.[9]
Browning's papers are archived in the Chicago Public Library's Carter G. Woodson Regional Library.[4]
References
edit- ^ "Veteran Layman Buried" Pittsburgh Courier (December 17, 1938): 19. via Newspapers.com
- ^ "To Elevate the Race" Richmond Dispatch (August 8, 1902): 5. via Newspapers.com
- ^ a b c Bill V. Mullen, "Alice C. Browning" in Steven C. Tracy, ed., Writers of the Black Chicago Renaissance (University of Illinois Press 2011): 134-140. ISBN 9780252093425
- ^ a b c Melissa Barton, Guide to the Alice Browning Papers, 1936-1998, Chicago Public Library, Carter G. Woodson Regional Library.
- ^ Bill Mullen, "Worker-Writers in Bronzeville: Negro Story and the African-American 'Little' Magazine" in Popular Fronts: Chicago and African-American Cultural Politics, 1935-1946 (University of Illinois Press 1999): 106-125. ISBN 9780252067488
- ^ Kenan Heise, "Alice C. Browning, Writer, Publisher Who Aided Many Black Authors" Chicago Tribune (October 17, 1985).
- ^ "Lionel Hampton Picks Alice Browning to Edit Swing Book" Indianapolis Recorder (August 25, 1945): 12.
- ^ "Coordinates Conference" Southend Reporter (May 27, 1976): 84. via Newspapers.com
- ^ "Prominent Writer, Educator Alice Browning, 78, Dies" Jet Magazine (November 4, 1985): 18.
