Pet a Possum(1934), Bon-Bon Buddy(1935), Slappy
Hooper, Sad-Faced Boy(1937), The Wonderful Sign
Painter(1946), Famous Negro Athletes(1964), and
Mr. Kelso’s Lion(1970).
As the Renaissance came to a close, Bontemps,
like Wright and other African-American writers in
Chicago, joined the Works Progress Administration.
Bontemps returned to graduate school in the early
1940s and earned his master’s degree from the Uni-
versity of Chicago Graduate Library School in De-
cember 1943. He then became head librarian at
FISKUNIVERSITYin Nashville, Tennessee. During
his tenure at Fisk, where he impressed the faculty,
staff, and students with his generosity, charm, and
broad intellectual interests, he was elected to serve
on the American Library Association’s governing
council. He was one of the judges on the Fellowship
of the Academy of American Poets panel that in
1953 elected to bestow its highest award to writer
William Carlos Williams. He continued to be hon-
ored for his own publications and impact on Ameri-
can cultural and literary history.
He retired from the university in 1966 after a
distinguished career that included his efforts to col-
lect the papers of Countee Cullen, Langston
Hughes, and JEANTOOMER. In 1972 he was ap-
pointed honorary consultant to the Library of
Congress. Before his death in 1973, Bontemps ac-
cepted the invitation to become a visiting professor
and the Beinecke Library chief archivist of the
James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of
Negro Arts and Letters at YALEUNIVERSITY.
Bontemps’s canon of works included three nov-
els, many short stories, numerous children’s books,
anthologies of African-American writing, and
African-American histories. In addition to the vari-
ous literary prizes that he won during his lifetime,
Bontemps was also awarded two prestigious national
awards that recognized his prodigious creative out-
put and literary excellence. He won GUGGENHEIM
FELLOWSHIPs in 1949 and in 1954 for creative writ-
ing, three ROSENWALDFELLOWSHIPs, and several
honorary degrees from schools that included Mor-
gan State University and Berea College.
Bontemps, who was one of the oldest surviving
members of the Harlem Renaissance, continued to
publish widely after the period. His later works in-
cluded poetry anthologies such as Golden Slippers: An
Anthology of Negro Poetry for Young People(1941) and
The Poetry of the Negro, 1746–1949(1949), which he
coedited with Langston Hughes; collections of short
fiction and folklore such as The Old South: “A Sum-
mer Tragedy” and Other Stories of the Thirties(1973)
and the coedited The Book of Negro Folklore(1958)
with Hughes; biographies that included Frederick
Douglas: Slave, Fighter, Freeman (1958) and Young
Booker: The Story of Booker T. Washington’s Early Days
(1972); and a collection of reflections entitled The
Harlem Renaissance Remembered: Essays(1972).
At the time of his death from a heart attack in
June 1973, Bontemps was affiliated with Fisk Uni-
versity as a writer-in-residence. Funeral services were
held at the Chapel on the Nashville campus, and a
memorial service was held at the Riverside Church
in New York City. Bontemps was survived by his
wife, six children, 10 grandchildren, and his sister.
The Arna Bontemps African American Mu-
seum in Alexandria, Louisiana, was established in- The site, which opened in the restored Bon-
temps birthplace and childhood home and is
known now as the Arna Bontemps Museum and
Cultural Center, was the first African-American
museum in Louisiana when it opened.
Bibliography
“Arna Bontemps, Writer, 70, Dies,” New York Times. 6
June 1973, 50.
Arna Bontemps Papers, George Arents Research Li-
brary, Syracuse University; Fisk University Special
Collections, Fisk University; Beinecke Library, Yale
University.
Flamming, Douglas. “A Westerner in Search of ‘Negro-
Ness’: Region and Race in the Writing of Arna
Bontemps.” In Over the Edge: Remapping the Ameri-
can West,edited by Valerie J. Matsumoto. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1999.
Jones, Kirkland C. Renaissance Man From Louisiana: A
Biography of Arna Wendell Bontemps. Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1992.
Nichols, Charles H., ed. Arna Bontemps–Langston Hughes
Letters, 1925–1967. New York: Paragon House,
1990.
Reagan, Daniel. “Achieving Perspective: Arna Bontemps
and the Shaping Force of Harlem Culture,” Essays
in Arts and Sciences25 (October 1996): 69–78.
Tompkins, Lucy. “‘In Dubious Battle’ and Other Recent
Works of Fiction.” New York Times,2 February 1936,
BR 7.58 Bontemps, Arnaud (Arna) Wendell