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Alice C. Browning
- University of Illinois Press
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alice c. BroWning (november 5, 1907–october 15, 1985) Bill v. Mullen Alice Browning’s cultural entrepreneurship and dedication to local literary production provided important contributions to Chicago’s Black Renaissance. A shrewd literary gadfly, and a modestly gifted writer, Browning symbolized the inclusive spirit of the Renaissance as well as its paradoxical tendencies toward both critical engagement with pressing social issues of the day and overt commercialization of African American culture. Her primary work as editor and publisher also signifies the rise and expanding impact of the Black Press during and after World War II. The daughter of a minister, Browning was a graduate of Chicago’s Englewood High School, Chicago Normal School, and the University of Chicago. Published records and private files from Ms. Browning do not disclose her maiden name (her mother’s surname was Marshall). In an unpublished autobiographical sketch written in 1961, Browning wrote that she wanted to be an author from the age of eight when she began to read the classics. She cited the influence of British novelists like Thackeray and George Eliot, but also noted the impact of reading Paul Laurence Dunbar, Charles Chesnutt, and Jessie Fauset at an early age. Fauset’s work, she wrote, motivated her to try to represent the Black middle class, an ambition realized in her later short stories. At nineteen, Browning began study at the University of Chicago in pursuit of her bachelor’s degree. There she began writing short stories and took a home-study course in writing from the University. After graduation, she worked as an elementary school teacher and married Charles Browning, then director of the Division of Works Projects of the Illinois National Youth Administration. Her byline first appeared in a fashion column in the Chicago Defender in March, 1938, where she was described as a “young socialite-teacher.” In 1941, she took a sabbatical from her teaching position at Forestville Elementary School to work on a master’s degree in literature at Columbia University, where she came under the direction of Vernon Loggins. Loggins, a pioneer in African American literary history, was the author of The Negro Author: His Development in America to alice c. BroWning • 135 1900, as well as a biography of musical composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk. He became friend and mentor to Browning and later published short fiction in Negro Story. Originally intending to write an MA thesis on the Negro novel before 1900, she began writing short stories and showed them to Loggins, who encouraged her to submit for publication. In 1941, she submitted a short story called “Tomorrow” to Esquire, which rejected it. In 1942, she published her first story, “New Year’s Eve 1942,” in the Pittsburgh Courier under the pen name Lila Marshall. She also began work on a novel, never published. Browning pursued the ambition to publish a novel well into her adult life, at one point receiving publishing advice from Nelson Algren, who attempted to help her find an agent. She also endeavored to publish her MA thesis but was not able to do so. Later in life she took writing courses at Northwestern University in hopes of finding a publisher for her work.1 Eager to expand publishing opportunities for Black writers, herself included, Browning returned home and founded N.Y.P.S. (Negro Youth Photo Script), a glossy magazine dedicated to publishing photographs and stories about Black life in Chicago. Shortly thereafter, she began discussion with her friend Fern Gayden about the possibility of starting yet another magazine, one that would provide opportunities for Black short story writers. Thus was born Negro Story, Alice Browning’s most important and singular contribution to Chicago’s Black literary renaissance. Negro Story was imagined by Gayden and Browning to be the African American equivalent to Story magazine, the leading mainstream, and predominantly white, literary journal of short fiction begun in 1933 by Whit Burnett. But how to build a new magazine? Browning and Gayden had no national literary reputations to speak of and virtually no publishing experience . Gayden, a social worker from Kansas, had entered Chicago literary circles through her relationship to Richard Wright. In 1935, Gayden had helped move Wright and his family into a South Side apartment. The two became friends, and Wright invited Gayden, herself an aspiring writer, to join the newly formed South Side Writers Group. To cover start-up costs of publication, Browning borrowed $200 from her husband Charles, now working as vice president for public relations for...