Biography:

Author; folklorist; lecturer. Born– January 11,  1862 in Newbern, Greene County, Ala. Parents– Elisha and Anne Elizabeth Ashe (Tutwiler) Young. Education– Female Academy, Greensboro; Tutwiler’s Green Springs School, Havana; Tuscaloosa Female Academy; Livingston Female Academy, 1880. After the War, the family moved to Greensboro and she returned there after graduation. Published stories and poems in periodicals; wrote sentimental and religious verse. Wrote often in African-American dialect, popular at the time.  Toured the nation reading her stories and lecturing. Elected to the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame, 1986.  Died May 9, 1941.

Source:

Martha Young; Alabama’s Foremost Folklorist by William Stanley Hoole.

Publication(s):

Behind the Dark Pines. New York; D. Appleton & Co., 1912.

Bessie Bell. New York; Scott Thaw Co., 1903.

Minute Dramas; the Kodak at the Quarter. Montgomery, Ala.; Paragon Press, 1921.

Plantation Bird Legends. New York; R. H. Russell Co., 1902.

Plantation Songs for My Lady’s Banjo and Other Negro Lyrics and Monologues. New York; R. H. Russell Co., 1901.

Somebody’s Little Girl. New York; Hinds, Noble & Eldredge, 1910.

Two Little Southern Sisters and Their Garden Plays. New York; Hinds, Hayden & Eldridge, 1919.

When We Were Wee. New York; Macmillan, 1913.

Papers;

The papers of Martha Strudwixk Young are held by the Hoole Special Collections Library at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.