Early life Paul Laurence Dunbar was born at 311 Howard Street in
Dayton, Ohio, on June 27, 1872, to parents who were enslaved in Kentucky before the
American Civil War. After being emancipated, his mother Matilda moved to Dayton with other family members, including her two sons Robert and William from her first marriage. Dunbar's father Joshua escaped from slavery in Kentucky before the war ended. He traveled to
Massachusetts and volunteered for the
55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, one of the first two black units to serve in the war. The senior Dunbar also served in the
5th Massachusetts Cavalry Regiment. Paul Dunbar was born six months after Joshua and Matilda's wedding on Christmas Eve, 1871. Joshua died on August 16, 1885, when Paul was 13 years old. Dunbar wrote his first poem at the age of six and gave his first public recital at the age of nine. His mother assisted him in his schooling, having learned to read expressly for that purpose. She often read the Bible with him, and thought he might become a minister in the
African Methodist Episcopal Church. It was the first independent black denomination in America, founded in
Philadelphia in the early 19th century. Dunbar was the only African-American student during his years at Central High School in Dayton.
Orville Wright was a classmate and friend. Well-accepted, he was elected as president of the school's literary society, and became the editor of the school newspaper and a debate club member.
Writing career At the age of 16, Dunbar published the poems "Our Martyred Soldiers" and "On The River" in 1888 in Dayton's
The Herald newspaper. After completing his formal schooling in 1891, Dunbar took a job as an elevator operator, earning a salary of four dollars a week. In 1892, Dunbar asked the Wrights to publish his dialect poems in book form, but the brothers did not have a facility that could print books. They suggested he go to the
United Brethren Publishing House which, in 1893, printed Dunbar's first collection of poetry,
Oak and Ivy. often to passengers on his elevator. The larger section of the book, the
Oak section, consisted of traditional verse, whereas the smaller section, the
Ivy, featured light poems written in dialect. On June 27, 1896, the novelist, editor, and critic
William Dean Howells published a favorable review of Dunbar's second book,
Majors and Minors in ''
Harper's Weekly''. Howells' influence brought national attention to the poet's writing. Though Howell praised the "honest thinking and true feeling" in Dunbar's traditional poems, he particularly praised the dialect poems. In this period, there was an appreciation for folk culture, and black dialect was believed to express one type of that. The new literary fame enabled Dunbar to publish his first two books as a collected volume, titled
Lyrics of Lowly Life, which included an introduction by Howells. Dunbar maintained a lifelong friendship with the Wright brothers. Through his poetry, he met and became associated with black leaders
Frederick Douglass and
Booker T. Washington, and was close to his contemporary
James D. Corrothers. Dunbar also became a friend of
Brand Whitlock, a journalist in Toledo who went to work in Chicago. Whitlock joined the state government and had a political and diplomatic career. By the late 1890s, Dunbar started to explore the short story and novel forms; in the latter, he frequently featured white characters and society.
Later work Dunbar was prolific during his relatively short career: he published a dozen books of poetry, four books of short stories, four novels, lyrics for a musical, and a play. His first collection of short stories,
Folks From Dixie (1898), a sometimes "harsh examination of racial prejudice", had favorable reviews. Critics at the time complained about his handling of the material, not his subject. The novel was not a commercial success. Dunbar's next two novels also explored lives and issues in white culture, and some contemporary critics found these lacking as well. In collaboration with the composer
Will Marion Cook, and
Jesse A. Shipp, who wrote the libretto, Dunbar wrote the lyrics for
In Dahomey, the first musical written and performed entirely by African Americans. It was produced on
Broadway in 1903; the musical comedy successfully toured England and the United States over a period of four years and was one of the more successful theatrical productions of its time. Dunbar's essays and poems were published widely in the leading journals of the day, including ''
Harper's Weekly, the Saturday Evening Post, the Denver Post, Current Literature'' and others. During his life, commentators often noted that Dunbar appeared to be purely black African, at a time when many leading members of the African-American community were notably of
mixed race, often with considerable European ancestry. In 1897 Dunbar traveled to England for a literary tour; he recited his works on the London circuit. He met the young black composer
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, who set some of Dunbar's poems to music. Coleridge-Taylor was influenced by Dunbar to use African and American Negro songs and tunes in future compositions. Also living in London at the time, African-American playwright
Henry Francis Downing arranged a joint recital for Dunbar and Coleridge-Taylor, under the patronage of
John Hay, a former aide to President
Abraham Lincoln, and at that time the American ambassador to Great Britain. Downing also lodged Dunbar in London while the poet worked on his first novel,
The Uncalled (1898). Dunbar was active in the area of civil rights and the uplifting of African Americans. He was a participant in the March 5, 1897, meeting to celebrate the memory of abolitionist
Frederick Douglass. The attendees worked to found the
American Negro Academy under
Alexander Crummell.
Marriage and declining health After returning from the United Kingdom, Dunbar married
Alice Ruth Moore, on March 6, 1898. She was a teacher and poet from
New Orleans whom he had met three years earlier. Dunbar called her "the sweetest, smartest little girl I ever saw". A graduate of Straight University (now
Dillard University), a
historically black college, Moore is best known for her short story collection,
Violets. She and her husband also wrote books of poetry as companion pieces. An account of their love, life and marriage was portrayed in
Oak and Ivy, a 2001 play by Kathleen McGhee-Anderson. In October 1897 Dunbar took a job at the
Library of Congress in Washington, DC. He and his wife moved to the capital, where they lived in the comfortable
LeDroit Park neighborhood. At the urging of his wife, Dunbar soon left the job to focus on his writing, which he promoted through public readings. While in Washington, DC, Dunbar attended
Howard University after the publication of
Lyrics of Lowly Life. In 1900, he was diagnosed with
tuberculosis, then often fatal, and his doctors recommended drinking
whiskey to alleviate his symptoms. On the advice of his doctors, he moved to
Colorado with his wife, as the cold, dry mountain air was considered favorable for TB patients. Dunbar and his wife separated in 1902, after he beat her nearly to death but they never divorced. Depression and declining health drove him to a dependence on alcohol, which further damaged his health. Dunbar returned to Dayton in 1904 to be with his mother. He died of tuberculosis on February 9, 1906, at the age of 33. He was
interred in the
Woodland Cemetery in Dayton. ==Literary style==