Bibliography
Joshua B. Lippincott: A Memorial Sketch.Philadelphia: J.
B. Lippincott Co., 1888.
Boyd, Valerie. Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora
Neale Hurston.New York: Scribner, 2003.
Hinckley, Cornelius. A Day at the Bookbindery of Lippin-
cott, Grambo, & Co.New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll
Books, 1988.
Jeffrey, Maurine L. (1900–unknown)
A southern writer from Texas who was part of the
region’s small but vibrant literary society during the
Harlem Renaissance. Born in Longview, Texas, Jef-
frey was raised in Dallas. She attended Prairie View
State College. The school had important links to
the North and to Boston’s cultural circles through
the writer and anthropologist MAUDECUNEYHARE
and Caroline Bond Day. Hare taught music at
Prairie View in the late 1800s, and Day was English
Department chair at the school. Maurine Jeffrey
became a public school teacher but withdrew from
her career when she married Jessie Jeffrey.
Jeffrey’s poetry was featured in Heralding
Dawn,a 1936 anthology of writers from Texas. The
modest collection, edited by J. Mason Brewer,
showcased two poems by Jeffrey and works by fel-
low Texans such as GWENDOLYN BENNETTand
LAURETTAHOLMANGOODEN. Jeffrey also pub-
lished poems in several Texas newspapers. Her
poems, which used dialect and standard prose, fo-
cused on family and religion.
Bibliography
Brewer, J. Mason. Heralding Dawn: An Anthology of Verse.
Dallas: June Thomason, 1936.
Jelliffe, Rowena Woodham(1889–1994)
A sociologist who, with her husband, RUSSELLJEL-
LIFFE, established a settlement house and leg-
endary arts program in Cleveland, Ohio. Born in
the utopian community of Albion, Ohio, she at-
tended Oberlin College. She completed graduate
work in sociology at the UNIVERSITY OFCHICAGO,
earning a master’s degree in 1915.
Woodham met Russell Jelliffe, a Mansfield,
Ohio, native while at Oberlin. They both attended
the University of Chicago as graduate students and
married in 1915. They had one child, a son named
Roger. The couple shared a passion for racial jus-
tice, and their marriage and partnership enabled
them to realize their vision of an empowering and
supportive interracial world.
The Jelliffes’ link to the Harlem Renaissance is
seen most clearly through their relationships with
successful writers of the period. The poet
LANGSTONHUGHEScharacterized Rowena Jelliffe
and her husband as individuals who have “fought
against both the intolerance of many whites and
the bigotry of many Negroes composing the Cleve-
land community who wanted in one way or another
to limit the scope of the players and their plays.”
Hughes, who moved at age 14 to Cleveland, was
one of the talented young people who participated
in the Neighborhood Association, or KARAMU
HOUSE, programs. In addition to returning to teach
at the center, Hughes later wrote six plays for the
Gilpin Players, the talented theater company that
was founded and in residence at the Karamu
House. He maintained ties with the couple, and
their correspondence reveals important collabora-
tions and support during the Harlem Renaissance.
Jelliffe was caught up in the well-known
1930–31 controversy surrounding MULE BONE,
the drama cowritten by Langston Hughes and
ZORANEALEHURSTON. She received the play and
was enthusiastic about staging it with the Charles
Gilpin Players, the African-American troupe that
was founded and in residence at the Karamu
House. Jelliffe contacted Hughes about the work,
but he was alarmed to learn of its circulation be-
cause he had neither authorized its distribution nor
been cited as coauthor. In the ensuing tense corre-
spondence with Jelliffe, Hurston relayed the infor-
mation that she had been told about Jelliffe. She
accepted the idea that Jelliffe could be “trusted for
integrity of script,” but Hurston established strict
terms for the play’s production. Hurston instructed
that “not one word must be altered except by me”
and “script not to leave your hands.” Despite deli-
cate negotiations between the writers and the Jel-
liffes, the play was not performed. Hughes
maintained a friendly relationship with the Jelliffes
in the years following his time in Cleveland. In
1939 Langston Hughes forwarded a copy of St.
Louis Blues,the ballet libretto that he composed
and that was based on music by W. C. HANDY,to274 Jeffrey, Maurine L.