WEEDEN, MARIA HOWARD, 1847-1905

Biography:

Poet; painter. Born– July 6, 1847, in Huntsville, Ala. Parents– William and Jane E. (Urquhart) Weeden.  Attended Huntsville Female Seminary and the Alabama Female Methodist College at Tuskegee (later Huntingdon College); private lessons with portrait painter William Frye.  Painted landscapes and Alabama wildflowers in watercolor; painted portraits, notably using African-American subjects.  Paintings were exhibited in Berlin (1895) and in Paris. Wrote several books of poetry in black dialect. Elected to the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame, 1998.  Died April 12, 1905.

Source:

Dictionary of Alabama Biography, Vol. 4; website of Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame.

Publication(s):

Bandanna Ballads. New York; Doubleday & McClure, 1899.

Old Voices. New York; Doubleday, Page & Co., 1904.

Shadows on the Wall. New York; Ayers Co., 1898.

Songs of the Old South; Verses and Drawings. New York; Doubleday, Page & Co., 1900.

Illustrator:

Songs and Stories from Tennessee. Philadelphia; H. T. Coates Co., 1902.