Teaching Topics in Social Studies
Zora Neale Hurston began her writing career during the HARLEM RENAISSANCE in New York in the 1920s.

Timeline

Her desire to tell stories of AFRICAN AMERICANS in the AMERICAN SOUTH was aided by her interest and study of ANTHROPOLOGY and FOLKLORE. Always regarded as a controversial figure, Hurston opposed SCHOOL DESEGREGATION in the 1950s, a position that alienated many of her contemporaries.
 
Teaching Topics in Language Arts
Most of Hurston's work employs use of African American southern-VERNACULAR,

Scavenger Hunt What job did Zora Neale Hurston hold to help pay for her education at Howard University in Washington, D.C., in the early 1920s? . . . answer . . .

including her third novel Moses, Man of the Mountain, which rewrites the book of Exodus. Hurston's CHARACTERS tend to struggle against the predominant MORÉS of their times, as does Janie Crawford in her most powerful NOVEL, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Writing from the 1920s until her death in 1960, Hurston used IMAGERY and the richness of African American CULTURE to relay a sense of the intense struggle she and other African Americans faced living in 20th century America.

Facts About Zora Neale Hurston and Their Eyes Were Watching God Never able to support herself from her writing, Hurston died in a welfare hotel in 1960 Because of her study of folklore and anthropology, Hurston traveled throughout Florida and Louisiana to interview storytellers and Voodoo doctors Hurston wrote a play called Mule Bone with Langston Hughes, which was not published in its entirety until 1991 because of a dispute between the two over who owned the text of the play Hurston claimed to be born in January 7, 1901, though records indicate she was born on the same day in 1891 She shocked many in the Harlem Renaissance period for her excesses, including smoking in public Along with her study at Howard University, Hurston studied anthropology at Barnard College in New York