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Rebecca Wanzo
Corrothers, James D. (1869–1917)
Although James D. Corrothers’s career predated
the HARLEM RENAISSANCE, many themes in his
work and recurring struggles in his life prefigured
the spirit and strivings of the Renaissance. W. E. B.
DUBOIS’s comment that Corrothers’s death was a
“serious loss to the race and to literature” suggests
that during his lifetime Corrothers had gained a
significant readership.
Corrothers was born in Chain Lake settlement,
a small rural southwest Michigan community of
free blacks and former fugitive slaves. Corroth-
ers received a strong fundamental education in
the nearby South Haven public schools, where he
was the only black student. South Haven and sur-
rounding southwest Michigan towns where Cor-
rothers tried to make a living did not offer him the
opportunities he needed after his schooling. So
after doing mill and dock work on Lake Michigan
in Muskegon, Corrothers stowed away on a steam
barge bound for Chicago, on the opposite shore of
Lake Michigan. Corrothers also traveled through
Indiana and Ohio, working at odd jobs and in-
tending to save money to attend college.
In Springfield, Ohio, Corrothers found work
and time to pursue his writing. His poem “The
Deserted Schoolhouse” appeared in the Spring-
field Champion City Times. Whites’ general reac-
tion of disbelief that Corrothers actually wrote the
poem was an ominous portent of the difficulties he
would face his entire life when pursuing his passion
for writing. After leaving Ohio, Corrothers moved
to Chicago. There, he resorted to a series of menial
jobs because he was unable to secure a publisher.
While working as a bootblack in a white-owned
barbershop, Corrothers discussed literature with
a distinguished-looking customer, who happened
to be Henry Demarest Lloyd, whose father-in-law
owned the Chicago Tribune. After their barbershop
discussion, Corrothers’s poem “The Soldier’s Ex-
cuse” appeared in the Tribune. Subsequently, Cor-
rothers was offered a job as a porter in the Tribune’s
counting room. This was also menial work, but it
was more secure than any job Corrothers had pre-
viously held.
In early 1893 many black artists were drawn to
the Chicago area, anticipating the 1893 Columbian
Exposition. In Chicago, Corrothers met poet PAU L
LAURENCE DUNBAR, who was secretary to FREDER-
ICK DOUGLASS during the Exposition. Corrothers
learned that Dunbar was also struggling to get his
work published. In 1894 Corrothers married Fanny
Clemens, and, as a result of her efforts, Corrothers
was paid for his writing for the first time. His wife
sold one of his articles to the Chicago Daily Record.
Despite this success, steady income from writing
still eluded him.
In 1896, desperate for income, Corrothers cre-
ated a sketch of a character named Sandy Jenkins,
a streetwise self-taught black man who spoke in
“Negro dialect.” The editors of the Chicago Evening
Journal published the story, titled “De Carvin,” and
insisted that Corrothers write more sketches of
Jenkins. The reception of “De Carvin” prompted
Corrothers to change his opinion of dialect writ-
ing, which he had always considered demeaning.
In his autobiography, In Spite of the Handicap
(1917), Corrothers recorded his newfound insight
that African-American dialect “was splendid mate-
rial which I had overlooked, and which all Negroes
but Dunbar had allowed to go begging.”
Eventually, Corrothers’s devotion to his reli-
gious faith drew him to the ministry. Shortly after
he received a pastoral assignment in Bath, New
York, his wife and youngest son died. After taking
his post at the African Methodist Episcopal church
in Bath, Corrothers returned to writing to supple-
ment his salary. To satisfy the appetites of Ameri-
can readers at the turn of the century, Corrothers
contributed Negro dialect poetry to leading maga-
zines, culminating with the publication of a series122 Corrothers, James D.