Education: 1848–1862 Joel Chandler Harris was born in
Eatonton, Georgia, in 1848 to Mary Ann Harris, an Irish immigrant. His father, whose identity remains unknown, abandoned Mary Ann shortly after Harris' birth. The parents had never married; the boy was named Joel after his mother's attending physician, Dr. Joel Branham. Chandler was the name of his mother's uncle. Harris remained self-conscious of his illegitimate birth throughout his life. A prominent physician, Dr. Andrew Reid, gave the Harris family a small cottage to use behind his mansion. Mary Harris worked as a seamstress and helped neighbors with their gardening to support herself and her son. She was an avid reader and instilled in her son a love of language: "My desire to write—to give expression to my thoughts—grew out of hearing my mother read
The Vicar of Wakefield." Dr. Reid also paid for Harris' school tuition for several years. In 1856, Joe Harris briefly attended Kate Davidson's School for Boys and Girls, but transferred to Eatonton School for Boys later that year. He had an undistinguished academic record and a habit of truancy. Harris excelled in reading and writing, but was mostly known for his pranks, mischief, and sense of humor. Practical jokes helped Harris cloak his shyness and insecurities about his red hair, Irish ancestry, and illegitimacy, leading to both trouble and a reputation as a leader among the older boys.
Turnwold Plantation: 1862–1866 At the age of 14, Harris quit school to work. In March 1862, Joseph Addison Turner, owner of Turnwold Plantation nine miles east of Eatonton, hired Harris to work as a
printer's devil for his newspaper
The Countryman. Harris worked for clothing, room, and board. The newspaper reached subscribers throughout
the Confederacy during the
Civil War; it was considered one of the larger newspapers in the South, with a circulation of about 2,000. Harris learned to set type for the paper, and Turner allowed him to publish his own poems, book reviews, and humorous paragraphs. Turner's instruction and technical expertise exerted a profound influence on Harris. During his four-year tenure at Turnwold Plantation, Joel Harris consumed the literature in Turner's library. He had access to
Chaucer,
Dickens,
Sir Thomas Browne,
Arabian Nights,
Shakespeare,
Milton,
Swift,
Thackeray, and
Edgar Allan Poe. Turner, a fiercely independent Southern loyalist and eccentric intellectual, emphasized the work of southern writers, yet stressed that Harris read widely. In
The Countryman Turner insisted that Harris not shy away from including humor in his journalism. The African-American animal tales they shared later became the foundation and inspiration for Harris's
Uncle Remus tales. George Terrell and Old Harbert in particular became models for Uncle Remus, as well as role models for Harris.
Savannah and the South: 1866–1876 Joseph Addison Turner shut down
The Countryman in May 1866. Joel Harris left the plantation with worthless
Confederate money and very few possessions. He lived for a period at
The Marshall House.
The Macon Telegraph hired Harris as a typesetter later that year. Harris found the work unsatisfactory and himself the butt of jokes around the office, in no small part due to his red hair. Within five months, he accepted a job working for the
New Orleans Crescent Monthly, a literary journal. Just six months after that, homesick, he returned to Georgia, but with another opportunity at the
Monroe Advertiser, a weekly paper published in
Forsyth, Georgia. At the
Advertiser Harris found a regional audience with his column "Affairs of Georgia." Newspapers across the state reprinted his humorous paragraphs and political barbs. Harris' reputation earned him the position of associate editor at the
Savannah Morning News, the largest circulation newspaper in Georgia. Though he relished his position in Forsyth, Joe Harris accepted the $40-a-week job, a significant pay increase, and quickly established himself as Georgia's leading humor columnist while at the
Morning News. In 1872 Harris met Mary Esther LaRose (Essie), a seventeen-year-old
French-Canadian from Quebec. After a year of courtship, Harris and LaRose married in April 1873. LaRose was 18, and Harris 27 (though publicly admitting to 24). Over the next three years, the couple had two children. Their life in Savannah came to an abrupt halt, however, when they fled to Atlanta to avoid a
yellow fever epidemic.
Atlanta: 1876–1908 In 1876 Harris was hired by
Henry W. Grady at
The Atlanta Constitution, where he would remain for the next 24 years. He worked with other journalists including
Frank Lebby Stanton, who was in turn an associate of
James Whitcomb Riley. Chandler supported the racial reconciliation envisioned by Grady. He often took the mule-drawn trolley to work, picked up his assignments, and brought them home to complete. He wrote for the
Constitution until 1900. In addition, he published local-color stories in magazines such as ''
Scribner's, Harper's, and The Century''. The tales were reprinted across the United States, and Harris was approached by publisher
D. Appleton and Company to compile them for a book.
Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings was published near the end of 1880. Hundreds of newspapers reviewed the best-seller, and Harris received national attention. Of the press and attention
Walter Hines Page noted, "Joe Harris does not appreciate Joel Chandler Harris." Royalties from the book were modest, but allowed Harris to rent a six-room house in
West End, an unincorporated village on the outskirts of Atlanta, to accommodate his growing family. Two years later Harris bought the house and hired the architect George Humphries to transform the farmhouse into a
Queen Anne Victorian in the
Eastlake style. The home, soon thereafter called
The Wren's Nest, was where Harris spent most of his time. Harris preferred to write at the Wren's Nest. He published prodigiously throughout the 1880s and 1890s, trying his hand at novels, children's literature, and a translation of French folklore. Yet he rarely strayed from home and work during this time. He chose to stay close to his family and his gardening. Harris and his wife Essie had seven more children in Atlanta, with a total of six (out of nine) surviving past childhood. By the late 1890s, Harris was tired of the newspaper grind and suffered from health problems, likely stemming from alcoholism. At the same time, he grew more comfortable with his creative persona. Harris retired from the
Constitution in 1900. He continued experimenting with novels and wrote articles for outlets such as
The Saturday Evening Post. Still, he remained close to home, refusing to travel to accept honorary degrees from the
University of Pennsylvania and Emory College (now
Emory University). In 1905 Harris was elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Letters. But in the summer or fall of 1902, Harris traveled to Washington D.C. to accept an invitation to the White House by
President Theodore Roosevelt. Five years later the invitation was renewed in November 1907. Roosevelt's admiration for Harris was expressed in these words from a speech: "Presidents may come and presidents may go, but Uncle Remus stays put. Georgia has done a great many things for the Union, but she has never done more than when she gave Mr. Joel Chandler Harris to American literature." Essie Harris was a Catholic, and Harris had long been privately convinced of the truth of that Church's doctrines. On June 20, 1908, shortly before his death, he was baptized into the Catholic Faith. He died on July 3, of acute
nephritis and complications from
cirrhosis of the liver. In his obituary, the
New York Times Book Review echoed Roosevelt's sentiment, stating: "Uncle Remus cannot die. Joel Chandler Harris has departed this life at the age of 60 ... but his best creation, [Uncle Remus] with his fund of folk-lore, will live in literature." == Writing ==