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Josephine Lawrence

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Josephine Lawrence (1889–1978) was an American storyteller, novelist and journalist. Her works chronicled the lives of common people, with stories often filled with a large cast of bustling characters, emphasizing the everyday lives of children and the elderly.[1]

Literary career

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Lawrence was among the many authors who ghost wrote series books for the Stratemeyer Literary Syndicate of children's books. She had interviewed Edward Stratemeyer in 1917, and he later invited her to write for his organization. She wrote 51 such volumes between 1920 and 1935, for series including Betty Gordon, Honey Bunch, Sunny boy " and the Riddle Club.[2][3] After success writing for the Syndicate, she began writing her own series and stand-alone stories for children, including a radio series for children, ‘‘Man in the Moon,’’ which began broadcasting in October of 1921, and was the first book of stories read to children over the radio.[4][5][6][7]

1922 Man in the Moon bedtime story poster

She later wrote novels for adults, including Glenna (1929), Head of the Family (1932), Years Are So Long (1934) — which was made into a movie Make Way for Tomorrow (1937) — If I Have Four Apples (1935), Sound of Running Feet (1937) and Bow Down to Wood and Stone (1938). Her novels covered the troubles of middle class people during the depression and were both critically praised and sold well at the time they came out, but have been less well known by 21st century readers.[8] The New York Times noted that her novels detailed "money troubles and those family problems and relationships that in the 30s were most deeply felt." Two of her novels were Book-of-the-Month-Club selections: Years Are So Long and If I Have Four Apples. Her last published novel, Under One Roof, came out in 1975.[9][10]

Years Are So Long is among a set of films from two eras in the 20th century that reflect cultural conflicts around aging and femininity that helped to reinforce elder advocacy in American social policy and legislation.[11] The novel, described as “one of her more enduring works (out of approximately one hundred children's books and thirty-five social problem books for adults),”[12] was treated to an annotated edition in 2012, A Critical Edition of Josephine Lawrence's "Years Are So Long" (1934): A Novelistic Portrayal of Adult Children with Their Elderly Parents during the American Great Depression.[13]

In 1965, papers relating to her adult fiction were gathered in the Josephine Lawrence Collection at Boston University, in an archive containing letters, clippings, manuscripts of novels, poetry, and related materials.[14] Correspondence concerning her juvenile fiction for Stratemeyer is held in the Stratemeyer Syndicate Records at the New York Public Library.[15][16]

Biography

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Lawrence was born in Newark, New Jersey on March 12, 1889. By 1915, she was the editor of the children's page of the Newark Sunday Call, a weekly independent newspaper published from 1872 to 1946.[17] By the 1920s, she was also the editor of the Household Page of that paper. In 1940 she married actor and tenor Artur Platz[18][19] and moved to Manhattan. When the Newark Sunday Call closed down, she took a job at the Newark News where she wrote book reviews as well as a column titled “Book Marks.”[20] Lawrence died at home in New York City on February 22, 1978 at age 88.[21]

References

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  1. ^ Kelsey Guilfoil. 1949. “Josephine Lawrence: The Voice of the People,” The English Journal, 38:7 pp. 365-370
  2. ^ James D. Keeline. "Syndicate 101 or, Where did all those books come from?"
  3. ^ Deidre A. Johnson. 1997. "Community and Character: A Comparison of Josephine Lawrence's Linda Lane Series and Classic Orphan Fiction," Nancy Drew and Company: Culture, Gender, and Girls' Series,Sherrie A. Inness, ed. Popular Press.
  4. ^ Newark’s Literary Lights, 2016 Edition, The Newark Public Library. Edited by Catharine Longendyck
  5. ^ Man in the Moon Stories: Told Over the Radio-phone by Josephine Lawrence · 1922
  6. ^ Carmela Pinto McIntire, 2011, "The Arithmetic of Aspiration: Josephine Lawrence’s If I Have Four Apples. The Journal of American Culture 34:189-199.
  7. ^ Austin C. Lescarboura, Radio for Everybody: What the Radio Telephone Service Means and How it Can Be Applied in the Home and Business. Scientific American 1922, p. 166.
  8. ^ Gordon Hutner. 2009. What America Read: Taste, Class, and the Novel, 1920-1960. Univ of North Carolina Press.
  9. ^ Anne Philbrick, 2011. Find a Grave Memorial https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/75792185/josephine-lawrence
  10. ^ C. Gerald Fraser, Josephine Lawrence, 88, Author; Novelist of Middle‐Class America, New York Times, Feb. 24, 1978.
  11. ^ Andrea Walsh. 1989. “‘Life isn't yet over’: Older heroines in American popular cinema of the 1930s and 1970s/80s” Qualitative Sociology 12(1): 72–9.
  12. ^ Frederick J. Augustyn. The Journal of American CultureVol. 36, Iss. 3, (Sep 2013): 244-245.
  13. ^ Carmela Pinto Mclntire, Editor. 2012. A Critical Edition of Josephine Lawrence's "Years Are So Long" (1934): A Novelistic Portrayal of Adult Children with Their Elderly Parents during the American Great Depression. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.
  14. ^ Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center http://archives.bu.edu/collections/collection?id=122311
  15. ^ Deidre Johnson Josephine Lawrence - Adult Fiction, 1999 http://readseries.com/joslaw/joslaw2a.htm
  16. ^ The New York Public Library Archives & Manuscripts http://archives.nypl.org/mss/2903
  17. ^ Nat Bodian, Remembering The Newark Sunday Call https://www.oldnewark.com/memories/newspapers/bodiancall.htm
  18. ^ Viola Vaille (Barnes). 1914. The Musical Monitor, Volume 4. Campbell. p. 366
  19. ^ Charles E. Watt, Music News, Volume 8, Issue 2. 1916. p. 5
  20. ^ Deidre A. Johnson. Josephine Lawrence: A Writer of Her Time. Garden State Legacy (28) Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.wcupa.edu/eng_facpub/52 June 2015.
  21. ^ C. Gerald Fraser, Josephine Lawrence, 88, Author; Novelist of Middle‐Class America, New York Times, Feb. 24, 1978.
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