Margaret Jones Bolsterli

Margaret Jones Bolsterli (October 10, 1931 in Watson, Arkansas) is an American author, editor, and professor emerita of English. In 2012 she won the Porter Fund Literary Prize. ^[1]

Biography

Margaret Jones grew up, with her sister Pauline and her brothers Jodie and Bob, in the Mississippi flood plain of Desha County, Arkansas. There her father owned about 200 acres, which were worked by tenant farmers using mules, until the changes brought by mechanization and WW II. She graduated from high school in Dumas, Arkansas. Her high school graduating class consisted of 28 students. ^[2]

Margaret Jones graduated in 1952 with a bachelor's degree from the University of Arkansas and in 1952 with an M.A. from Washington University in St. Louis. There she met Mark Bolsterli, who was a graduate student in physics. They married and had two sons, Eric (born 1957), and David (1959–2019). ^[3] During the 1960s, the couple divorced. She graduated with a Ph.D. in 1967 from the University of Minnesota. Her Ph.D. thesis is entitled Bedford Park: a practical experiment in aesthetics. ^[4] She was from 1967 to 1968 an assistant professor at Augsburg College and, from 1968 to 1993, a professor of English at the University of Arkansas. ^[5] For the academic year 1987–1988 she was a Fulbright lecturer in Portugal. For the academic year 1997–1998 the Program in Agrarian Studies at Yale University gave her a fellowship to study agrarian history. ^[6]

After retiring in 1993 as professor emerita, she lived and worked on her farm near Wesley, Arkansas. ^[5] For many years she has had a close relationship with Olivia Sardo (b. 1944). ^{[3] [7]}

In addition to her books and articles, Margaret Jones Bolsterli wrote the libretto for an opera During Wind and Rain, which premiered in April 2017 at the Argenta Community Theater in North Little Rock. The music for the opera was written by Michael Rice. ^{[5] [8]}

Books

• Bolsterli, Margaret Jones (1977). The early community at Bedford Park : "corporate happiness" in the first garden suburb. Routledge and Keegan Paul. ISBN   0-7100-8693-8.; USA edition. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press. 1977. ISBN   0821402242.
• ——— (1991). Born in the delta : reflections on the making of a Southern white sensibility. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. ISBN   0870496905; 152 pages; ^[9] Bolsterli, Margaret (2000). pbk 2nd edition. University of Arkansas Press. ISBN   1557286167; 132 pages
• ——— (2008). During wind and rain: the Jones family farm in the Arkansas Delta, 1848-2006. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press. ISBN   978-1-55728-871-4. ^[10]
• ——— (2012). Things you need to hear: collected memories of growing up in Arkansas, 1890–1980. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press. ISBN   978-1557289780; 160 pages, foreword by Bill Gatewood ^{[11] [12]}
• ——— (2015). Kaleidoscope: redrawing an American family tree. Fayetteville: The University Of Arkansas Press. ISBN   978-1-55728-815-8. ^{[13] [14] [15]}

as editor:

• Jackson, Nannie Stillwell (1982). Vinegar pie and chicken bread: a woman's diary of life in the rural South, 1890-1891; edited with an introduction by Margaret Jones Bolsterli. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press. ISBN   0-938626-25-6. ^[16]
• Daniel, Harriet Bailey Bullock (1993). A Remembrance of Eden: Harriet Bailey Bullock Daniel's memories of a frontier plantation in Arkansas, 1849-1872; edited with an introduction by Margaret Jones Bolsterli. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press. ISBN   1-55728-290-0; pbk; ISBN   1-55728-589-6 hbk ^[17]

References

1. "NW Arkansas achievers: Margaret Jones Bolsterli". Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette. September 10, 2012.
2. Bolsterli, Margaret (2000). Born in the Delta.
3. "Obituary. David Bolsterli". Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette. 2019.
4. Bedford Park: a practical experiment in aesthetics in libraries ( WorldCat catalog)
5. DuVal, John; DuVal, Kay (2017). "Review of Margaret Jones Bolsterli's During Wind and Rain, the Opera" (PDF). News from the Department of English, University of Arkansas. pp. 6–7.
6. Bolsterli, Margaret Jones (2008). During wind and rain. p. xi.
7. "Olivia Sardo Jewelry Design Studio, Inc". Business Directory of Arkansas, according to bizstanding.com.
8. "Composer - Arranger - Musical Director - Pianist - Michale Rice".
9. Jarvis, Steven (1992). "Born in the Delta: Reflections on the Making of a Southern White Sensibility (Book Review)". Southern Quarterly. 30 (2): 194.
10. Stockley, Grif (2008). "Review of During Wind and Rain: The Jones Family Farm in the Arkansas Delta, 1848-2006". The Arkansas Historical Quarterly. 67 (3): 303–304.
11. Inscoe, John C. (2012). "Review of Things You Need to Hear: Collected Memories of Growing Up in Arkansas, 1890-1980". The Arkansas Historical Quarterly. 71 (4): 454–456.
12. Baker, Andrew C. (November 2012). "Mini-review of Things You Need to Hear: Collected Memories of Growing Up in Arkansas, 1890-1980". The Journal of Southern History; Houston. 78 (4): 1056.
13. Riley, Steven F. (March 4, 2016). "Review of Kaleidoscope by Margaret Jones Bolsterli". mixedracestudies.org.
14. Stockley, Grif (11 June 2015). "'Kaleidoscope': The story of a discovered African-American ancestry". Arkansas Times.
15. King, Melissa (March 24, 2015). "'Kaleidoscope' Portrays the Unveiling of an Old Family Secret". News, University of Arkansas.
16. Harding, Lee E. (1984). "Vinegar Pie and Chicken Bread: A Woman's Diary of Life in the Rural South, 1890-1891 Edited with an Introduction by Margaret Jones Bolsterli (Book Review)". Southern Quarterly. 22 (2): 94.
17. Kagle, Steven E.; Sawaya, Francesca (1995). "Review of A Remembrance of Eden: Harriet Bailey Bullock Daniel's Memories of a Frontier Plantation in Arkansas, 1849-1872". The Mississippi Quarterly. 49 (1): 143–155.