Gaines-Shelton, Ruth Ada (1872–1932)
A playwright and teacher whose career of two
decades saw her emerge as a prolific dramatist
committed to providing empowering and substan-
tial drama to community groups, churches, and
schools.
Born in Glasgow, Missouri, she was the daugh-
ter of Rev. George W. and Mary Elizabeth Gaines.
Her father, a Civil War soldier, was a former student
of Joanna Moore, a devoted missionary teacher. In
1891 Ruth began undergraduate studies at
WILBERFORCEUNIVERSITYin Ohio. Following her
graduation in 1895, she lived in CHICAGO and
helped her father, who was overseeing construction
of the Old Bethel A.M.E. Church on Dearborn
Street. Later that year, she returned to Missouri
and began teaching in the public school system of
Montgomery. In 1898, just one year before she
withdrew from her teaching post, she married
William Obern Shelton. The couple had three
children, George Washington, Obern Archibald,
and Mary Gloria.
Gaines-Shelton’s career as a playwright began
in 1899 but flourished in the early and mid-1900s.
She identified herself in a 1930 autobiographical
profile in Who’s Who in Colored America as a
“[w]riter of plays for Churches [and] Private The-
atricals.” She was an established local playwright
when she won second prize in the 1925 Crisisliter-
ary contest. Judges EUGENEO’NEILL, Charles Bur-
roughs, and Lester Walton awarded first prize to
WILLISRICHARDSONfor THEBROKENBANJO,sec-
ond prize to Gaines-Shelton for THE CHURCH
FIGHT, and third prize to MYRTLESMITHLIV-
INGSTONfor her play entitled FORUNBORNCHIL-
DREN.Gaines-Shelton’s prize-winning play subse-
quently was published in the May 1926 issue of
THECRISIS.Bibliography
Hatch, James. Black Theatre, U.S.A.; Forty-five Plays by
Black Americans, 1847–1974.New York: Free Press,
1974.
Moore, Joanne P. “In Christ’s Stead”: Autobiographical
Sketches.Chicago: Women’s Baptist Home Mission
Society, 1902.
Roses, Lorraine Elena, and Ruth Elizabeth Randolph.
Harlem Renaissance and Beyond: Literary Biographies
of 100 Black Women Writers, 1900–1945.Boston: G.
K. Hall & Co., 1990.Gale, Zona (1874–1938)
One of the judges in the first literary contest spon-
sored by OPPORTUNITYand CHARLESS. JOHNSON,
its editor, in 1924. Gale, who declared that she was
“honored by [the] initiation” and was happy to
“accept with pleasure,” also judged future contests
with figures such as NELLA LARSEN and
THEODOREDREISER.
The winner of the 1921 PULITZER PRIZEin
drama, Gale was a white writer whose literary career
peaked in the years leading up to the Harlem Re-
naissance. Her writing and professional life, which
included an appointment to the Board of Regents of
the University of Wisconsin, were rooted in the
Midwest.
Born to Charles and Eliza Gale in Portage, Wis-
consin, she began writing during childhood. Follow-176