Understanding Joel Chandler Harris

Eatonton's Literary Icon

Story by Hank Segars

“It is a great blessing for a young fellow in the clutches of poverty to be raised among such people as those who lived in Eatonton when I was a boy, and whose descendants still live there. I have not the slightest difficulty in the world in referring all that I have ever done or hope to do to the kindly interest which the people of Eatonton took in my welfare when I was too young to know of the troubles which inhabit the world by right of discovery and possession."                                                                                                                                      ---Joel Chandler Harris

For over a century, Joel Chandler Harris gained worldwide fame for his Uncle Remus stories, entertaining a generation of readers with a rich collection of African American folklore filled with humor and tall tales. Thousands of Harris’s books were sold across the country and abroad, and his characters became recognizable figures in American popular culture, fostering pride in the author’s fame and in the recognition for our region.

The author’s popularity was rekindled in 1946 with the release of Walt Disney’s “Song of the South” and the publication of children’s books that featured simpler dialects and colorful illustrations. Also, Harris’s characters drew widespread attention through Disney’s theme parks and his popular TV shows of the 1950s and 60s.

Incidentally, for those who haven't seen “Song of the South” (available online or at the Uncle Remus Museum in Eatonton), the live-action, animated film highlights the friendship between two people of different generations and races and is well worth watching. Uncle Remus, the main character, is the hero of the movie, which includes an Academy Award-winning song, “Zip-a-Dee-Do-Dah.”

Today, Harris’s talent is recognized in the collection, understanding, and interpretation of authentic African American folktales. Although the dialect in his stories might be controversial and uncomfortable for modern readers and some critics, his efforts to preserve oral history and his skills as a renowned journalist are to be celebrated.

Nevertheless, there is much more to Joel Chandler Harris’s story, including some lesser-known details about his life and career. It may be a good time to look more closely at the life and works of Eatonton’s famous folklorist and how he came to overcome personal obstacles and the difficulties of his era to reach literary fame, build friendships with notable people, and secure a prominent spot in American journalism history.

* * *

Born in Eatonton in 1848 to an unmarried mother, Mary Ann Harris, the red-haired Joel Harris faced poverty and social stigmas of his time. His father, an itinerant Irish immigrant, abandoned the family soon after his son’s birth. The mother worked as a seamstress and received sympathy and support from people in Eatonton. Throughout his early years and into adulthood, shyness and a stammer became part of Joe’s personality, causing him to avoid public speaking. Despite this, he enjoyed pranks with close friends and harbored a strong desire to improve his difficult circumstances.

At 14, he apprenticed at Turnwold Plantation and stayed in Joseph Addison Turner's antebellum home—a privately owned house near Lake Oconee. Harris read extensively from Turner’s large library and began learning typesetting and elements of journalism while enjoying the natural beauty of the surrounding countryside. He also loved spending time with the servants in the slave quarters, listening to folk tales about talking “critters” and their humorous adventures.

Although reserved and self-conscious, Harris became a good listener with a strong desire to expand his education and improve his writing skills. This ultimately influenced his decision to pursue a career in journalism. After Sherman’s destruction of the region and the end of the Civil War, Turner closed The Countryman, his popular newspaper. Harris then began a series of moves, accepting typesetting, writing, and editing assignments with newspapers in Macon, New Orleans, Forsyth, Monroe, and Savannah.

By 1876, he had married his wife, Esther LaRose, and the couple had two children. (Seven more were later born.) Due to a yellow fever epidemic, the family moved to Atlanta, where Harris was hired as an associate editor at The Atlanta Constitution by Henry W. Grady, a renowned editor and orator. Soon after, he started working on his Uncle Remus stories as serials in the paper.

His Uncle Remus stories gained widespread popularity and drew the attention of newspapers across the country. Over time, Harris received notices from book publishers, and an offer from D. Appleton and Company caught his attention. Critical acclaim, nationwide recognition, and international book sales followed.

By the 1880s, Harris had become one of America's best-selling authors. President Theodore Roosevelt admired his work, along with other prominent journalists of the time. He retired from the newspaper in 1900 and had received honorary degrees from Emory College and the University of Pennsylvania. A crowning achievement was induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1905.

Joel Chandler Harris died in 1908 at age 59 from acute nephritis. He is buried in Westview Cemetery near his home, the Wren’s Nest, in Atlanta.

The life and legacy of this complex writer are not always fully appreciated. As an acclaimed journalist, he used humor, dialect, and folklore to address social issues of his era. His editorials encouraged reconciliation, education, and tolerance during a time when such ideas often faced opposition. His contributions to preserving African American folklore are monumental, and his other personal and literary achievements deserve remembrance.

In 2003, Professor John T. Bickley of Florida State University states that Harris’ “highly believable animal characters and dialogues influenced the techniques of Rudyard Kipling, A. A. Milne, Beatrix Potter, E. B. White, and other children’s authors,” and his “narratives have left their mark on writers from his time to ours — from Twain to Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Ralph Ellison, and Toni Morrison.”

Behind the fame, dialect, and folklore of the Uncle Remus stories, Harris was a man constantly seeking to understand himself, his region, its people, and all their contradictions. His legacy, like the South he loved and wrote about, is complex and full of the richest stories. In The Life and Letters of Joel Chandler Harris (1918), Julia Harris provides a profound testament to her father’s life story when she says, “He belonged to Putnam County, and that was enough.”

Indeed.

 * * *

For in-depth studies of Joe Chandler Harris, see R. Bruce Bickley, Jr.’s Joel Chandler Harris: a biography and critical study, and Paul M. Cousins’ Joel Chandler Harris, a biography. Also, visits to the Uncle Remus Museum and Georgia Writers Museum in Eatonton are recommended.

A partial listing of Harris’ books not related to the Uncle Remus stories include:

Mingo and Other Sketches in Black and White (1884)

Free Joe and Other Georgia Sketches (1887)

Life of Henry W. Grady (1890)

On the Plantation (1892)

Stories of Georgia (1896)

The Making of a Statesman and Other Stories (1902)

A Little Union Scout (1904)

~ ~ ~

This story appeared in Vol. 20, Issue 1 of Lakelife magazine and is the property of Smith Communications, Inc. No portion may be copied or used without written permission from the publisher.