Caleb Williams
Mr. Brady
Bell 4
English 10
16 May 2015
Who was Langston Hughes? Hughes' grandfather, Charles H. Langston, settled down in Kansas in 1862. Charles and Mary were free blacks who were both educated at Oberlin College in Ohio. They met there and married in the year of 1869. The couple later returned to Kansas and bought a farm just northwest of Lawrence near Lakeview. Charles Langston worked as a farmer, a teacher, an editor of The Historic Times, an African American Lawrence newspaper, and as a partner in at a local grocery store. At some point in time before Charles' death in 1892, the family moved from their farm in Lakeview to 732 Alabama Street in Lawrence. Langston Hughes' mother, Carolina “Carrie” …show more content…
It was during this time that Hughes first began to write poetry. It was also during this time that one of his teachers first introduced him to the poetry of Paul Lawrence Dunbar Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman, both whom Hughes would later cite as primary influences. Hughes as a child tried to get his work noticed and he regularly contributed to his school's literary magazine, and frequently submitted to other poetry magazines, unfortunately however they would ultimately reject …show more content…
In 1925, while working as a busboy in a Washington, D.C. hotel restaurant when he met a renowned American poet Vachel Lindsay. Hughes presented some of his poems to Lindsay, who was so impressed he used his connections to promote Hughes’s poetry which ultimately allowed it to be experienced by a wider audience. In 1925, Hughes’s poem “The Weary Blues” won first place in the Opportunity magazine literary competition, and Hughes consequentially received a scholarship to attend Lincoln University, in Pennsylvania. While Hughes attended Lincoln University, Carl Van Vechten a novelist and a critic discovered his poetry and he used his connections to get The Weary Blues, Hughes’s first book of poetry, published by Knopf in 1926. The poetry book was very popular and established both his poetic style and his commitment to black themes and heritage. Hughes was also one of the first to utilize jazz rhythms and dialect to illustrate the life of urban blacks in his work. Hughes had his second volume of poetry, Fine Clothes to the Jew, in
Mr. Brady
Bell 4
English 10
16 May 2015
Who was Langston Hughes? Hughes' grandfather, Charles H. Langston, settled down in Kansas in 1862. Charles and Mary were free blacks who were both educated at Oberlin College in Ohio. They met there and married in the year of 1869. The couple later returned to Kansas and bought a farm just northwest of Lawrence near Lakeview. Charles Langston worked as a farmer, a teacher, an editor of The Historic Times, an African American Lawrence newspaper, and as a partner in at a local grocery store. At some point in time before Charles' death in 1892, the family moved from their farm in Lakeview to 732 Alabama Street in Lawrence. Langston Hughes' mother, Carolina “Carrie” …show more content…
It was during this time that Hughes first began to write poetry. It was also during this time that one of his teachers first introduced him to the poetry of Paul Lawrence Dunbar Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman, both whom Hughes would later cite as primary influences. Hughes as a child tried to get his work noticed and he regularly contributed to his school's literary magazine, and frequently submitted to other poetry magazines, unfortunately however they would ultimately reject …show more content…
In 1925, while working as a busboy in a Washington, D.C. hotel restaurant when he met a renowned American poet Vachel Lindsay. Hughes presented some of his poems to Lindsay, who was so impressed he used his connections to promote Hughes’s poetry which ultimately allowed it to be experienced by a wider audience. In 1925, Hughes’s poem “The Weary Blues” won first place in the Opportunity magazine literary competition, and Hughes consequentially received a scholarship to attend Lincoln University, in Pennsylvania. While Hughes attended Lincoln University, Carl Van Vechten a novelist and a critic discovered his poetry and he used his connections to get The Weary Blues, Hughes’s first book of poetry, published by Knopf in 1926. The poetry book was very popular and established both his poetic style and his commitment to black themes and heritage. Hughes was also one of the first to utilize jazz rhythms and dialect to illustrate the life of urban blacks in his work. Hughes had his second volume of poetry, Fine Clothes to the Jew, in