James Thurber House | |
Location | 77 Jefferson Ave., Columbus, Ohio |
---|---|
Coordinates | 39°57′57″N82°59′07″W / 39.965781°N 82.985215°W |
Built | 1873 |
Part of | Jefferson Avenue Historic District |
NRHP reference No. | 79001840 [1] |
CRHP No. | CR-14 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | November 8, 1979 |
Designated CRHP | January 10, 1983 |
Thurber House is a literary center for readers and writers located in Columbus, Ohio, in the historic former home of author, humorist, and New Yorker cartoonist James Thurber. Thurber House is dedicated to promoting the literary arts by presenting quality literary programming; increasing the awareness of literature as a significant art form; promoting excellence in writing; providing support for literary artists; and commemorating Thurber's literary and artistic achievements. The house is individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places, [1] and also as part of the Jefferson Avenue Historic District.
James Thurber was born in Columbus at a different home. [2] Thurber's family rented this home on Jefferson Avenue while he was a student at Ohio State University. [3] He and his family lived there until 1917. Thurber later wrote of his experience here in My Life and Hard Times. [4] Thurber claimed to have experienced a ghost in the house on November 17, 1915, and the incident inspired his short story "The Night the Ghost Got In". [5] Writer William O'Rourke, who lived at the house in 1984, wrote his own version titled "The Night the Ghost Didn't Get In", published in Poets & Writers Magazine in 1988. [6] Thurber's short story “The Night the Bed Fell” was also inspired by events in the house. [7]
Thurber's time in the house was challenging, particularly because of his experience at the university. Due to his physical limitations, including bad eyesight, he performed poorly at required gym classes and military drills. He was not invited to join a fraternity and, as such, found few social connections. Though he registered for classes in his sophomore year, 1914–1915, he mostly stopped going to classes and failed them all. [8] Eventually, he befriended former child star Elliott Nugent, who helped Thurber become more outgoing. He eventually became co-editor of the campus newspaper and contributed to the humor magazine before becoming its editor. [9]
Thurber left school in 1918 amidst World War I. [9] For a few years he worked for the Columbus Dispatch before moving to New York. In 1927, he began his association with The New Yorker and contributed to that magazine for the rest of his career. [2] Though he ultimately spent relatively little time in Columbus, Thurber's experience there influenced his writings. As he once noted, "Many of my books prove that I am never far away from Ohio in my thoughts, and that the clocks that strike in my dreams are often the clocks of Columbus." [10]
Thurber House opened to the public as a historic house museum in 1984 after extensive renovation to the historic house. Furnishings have been restored to the period when the Thurber family lived there from 1913 to 1917. Visitors can view the first two floors, which contain a formal parlor, living room, dining room, five bedrooms, and a bathroom. Guests are also allowed to interact with many museum materials, such as sitting on chairs or playing the piano. The parents' bedroom features rotating displays of Thurber memorabilia, including a display of Thurber's drawings that became New Yorker covers.
Thurber House is part of The Jefferson Center for Learning and the Arts, a one-block stretch of Queen Anne Style Victorian homes that house cultural and social service nonprofit organizations.
Since its opening as a museum, Thurber House has become a gathering place for readers, writers, and Thurber enthusiasts of all ages. Its programs for both children and adults include author readings, writing classes, and celebrations of Thurber's life.
Through its 'Evenings with Authors', a series of readings and receptions with nationally known authors, Thurber House has attracted well-known writers such as John Updike, T.C. Boyle, Tracy Chevalier, and Scott Turow. The Thurber House also hosts two writers in residence each year through the John E. Nance Writer-in-Residence Program and the Children's Writer in Residence Program. [11] The Writer in Residence lives on the top floor of the Thurber House for four weeks. The Children's Writer-in-Residence also teaches ten hours a week for the Thurber House Summer Writing Camp. [12]
The annual Thurber Prize for American Humor has become the nation's highest designation of the art of humor writing. Its children's programs, including the popular Thurber Summer Writing Camp, and the winter program Writing Wizards have nurtured thousands of young writers.
Elwyn Brooks White was an American writer. He was the author of several highly popular books for children, including Stuart Little (1945), Charlotte's Web (1952), and The Trumpet of the Swan (1970). In a 2012 survey of School Library Journal readers, Charlotte's Web came in first in their poll of the top one hundred children's novels. In addition, he was a writer and contributing editor to The New Yorker magazine and a co-author of the English-language style guide The Elements of Style.
James Grover Thurber was an American cartoonist, writer, humorist, journalist and playwright. He was best known for his cartoons and short stories, published mainly in The New Yorker and collected in his numerous books.
My World ... and Welcome to It is an American half-hour television sitcom based on the humor and cartoons of James Thurber.
Carson McCullers was an American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940), explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts in a small town of the Southern United States. Her other novels have similar themes and most are set in the Deep South.
Ian Frazier is an American writer and humorist. He wrote the 1989 non-fiction history Great Plains, 2010's non-fiction travelogue Travels in Siberia, and works as a writer and humorist for The New Yorker.
Andy Borowitz is an American writer, comedian, satirist, and actor. Borowitz is a New York Times-bestselling author who won the first National Press Club award for humor. He is known for creating the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and the satirical column The Borowitz Report.
Robert Myron Coates was an American novelist, short story writer and art critic. He published five novels; one classic historical work, The Outlaw Years (1930) which deals with the history of the land pirates of the Natchez Trace; a book of memoirs, The View from Here (1960), and two travel books, Beyond the Alps (1962) and South of Rome (1965). During his unusually varied career, Coates explored many different genres and styles of writing and produced three highly remarkable experimental novels, The Eater of Darkness (1926), Yesterday’s Burdens (1933) and The Bitter Season (1946). Highly original and experimental, these novels draw upon expressionism, Dadaism and surrealism. His last two novels—Wisteria Cottage (1948) and The Farther Shore (1955)—are examples of crime fiction. Simultaneously to working as a novelist, Coates maintained a life-long career at the New Yorker, whose staff he joined in 1927. The magazine printed more than a hundred of his short stories many of which were collected in three anthologies; All the Year Round (1943), The Hour after Westerly (1957) and The Man Just ahead of You (1964). Also, from 1937 to 1967, Coates was the New Yorker’s art critic and coined the term “abstract expressionism” in 1946 in reference to the works of Hans Hofmann, Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and others. He was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1958. Coates was married to sculptor Elsa Kirpal from 1927 to 1946. Their first and only child, Anthony Robertson Coates, was born on March 4, 1934. In 1946, they divorced and Coates married short story writer Astrid Meighan-Peters. He died of cancer of the throat in New York City on February 8, 1973.
The Thurber Prize for American Humor, named after American humorist James Thurber, recognizes outstanding contributions in humor writing. The prize is given out by the Thurber House. It was first awarded irregularly, but since 2004 has been bestowed annually. In 2015, the finalists were for the first time, all women. Winners of the Thurber Prize have included authors from an array of diverse backgrounds, from The Daily Show hosts Jon Stewart and Trevor Noah to The New Yorker staff writers Calvin Trillin and Ian Frazier, as well as university professors Julie Schumacher and Harrison Scott Key.
Alan Zweibel is an American television writer, author, playwright, and screenwriter whom TheNew York Times says has “earned a place in the pantheon of American pop culture." An original Saturday Night Live writer, Zweibel has won five Emmy Awards and two Writers Guild of America Awards for his work in television, which includes It's Garry Shandling's Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Vijay Seshadri is an American poet, essayist and literary critic based in Brooklyn.
Shahriar Mandanipour (Persian: شهریار مندنی پور; also Shahriar Mondanipour, Shiraz, Iran, is an Iranian writer, journalist and literary theorist.
A Thurber Carnival is a revue by James Thurber, adapted by the author from his stories, cartoons and casuals, nearly all of which originally appeared in The New Yorker. It was directed by Burgess Meredith. Following a six city tryout, during which Thurber continued to rewrite the show, it premiered on Broadway on February 26, 1960, and ran for 223 performances, with a break from June 25 to September 5. It closed on November 26, 1960. The title is similar to that of The Thurber Carnival (1945), Thurber's most successful collection of stories and drawings.
The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí is an autobiography by the internationally renowned artist Salvador Dalí published in 1942 by Dial Press. The book was written in French and translated into English by Haakon Chevalier. It covers his family history, his early life, and his early work up through the 1930s, concluding just after Dalí's return to Catholicism and just before the global outbreak of the Second World War. The book is over 400 pages long and contains numerous detailed illustrations. It has attracted both editorial praise as well as criticism, notably from George Orwell.
Gardner Rea was an American cartoonist, and one of the original contributing artists to The New Yorker. Of Rea, one commentator has written: “He was bawdy without being obscene, absurd without being obscure. His captioned and uncaptioned gags were pithy and true.”
John Augustine McNulty (1895-1956) was an American journalist and writer. John McNulty is a major figure in the development of the genre of literary journalism.
Michael J. Rosen, is an American writer, ranging from children's picture books to adult poetry and to novels, and editor of anthologies ranging almost as broadly. He has acted as editor for Mirth of a Nation and 101 Damnations: The Humorists' Tour of Personal Hells, and his poetry has been featured in The Best American Poetry 1995.
William O'Rourke is an American writer of both novels and volumes of nonfiction; he is the author of the novels The Meekness of Isaac, Idle Hands, Criminal Tendencies, and Notts, as well as the nonfiction books, The Harrisburg 7 and the New Catholic Left, Signs of the Literary Times: Essays, Reviews, Profiles, and On Having a Heart Attack: A Medical Memoir. He is the editor of On the Job: Fiction About Work by Contemporary American Writers and the co-editor of Notre Dame Review: The First Ten Years. His book, Campaign America '96: The View From the Couch, first published in 1997, was reissued in paperback with a new, updated epilogue in 2000. A sequel, Campaign America 2000: The View From the Couch, was published in 2001.
"A Couple of Hamburgers" is a 1935 short story by James Thurber, the American writer, considered to be one of his best.
The Discovery District is a special improvement district in downtown Columbus, Ohio, the home of Columbus State Community College, Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus Museum of Art, and Columbus Metropolitan Library. It is considered a cultural district because of its close proximity to higher educational campuses and art destinations. It was named to imply that the area is full of possibility due to the number of learning and creative campuses in this small area. "Culture, art, and academia converge and present the Discovery District." While not typically viewed as the most prominent Columbus neighborhood, the density of academic and arts-based institutions in this area are what make this creative campus unique.
The Sundial Humor Magazine is an independent humor magazine in Columbus, Ohio, by students at Ohio State University. Founded in 1911, it is one of the oldest college humor magazines in the country.