Angela Morgan (c. 1875 – January 24, 1957) was an American poet. Her given name at birth was Nina Lillian, which she later changed to Angela.
Life
editNina Lillian Morgan was born in about 1875, either in Washington, D.C., or in Yazoo County, Mississippi.[1] Her father was Albert T. Morgan, a Northern abolitionist who moved to Yazoo City, Mississippi after the Civil War and became a state senator.[2] Her mother was Carrie Highgate, an "Octoroon"[3] member of a prominent family in Syracuse, New York; her eldest sister was Edmonia Highgate. Their interracial marriage was considered scandalous in Reconstruction-era Mississippi by white racists.[4]
Her family lived in Washington from 1876 to 1885, and then moved to Lawrence, Kansas, and later to Topeka, Kansas. In 1890 her father left home to become a gold prospector, and until 1898 Morgan earned money singing in a voice quartet with her three sisters. She married in 1900; the marriage was dissolved in 1906.[1]
Morgan became a journalist for the Chicago Daily American, and later worked on the New York American and on the Boston American. She reported on court cases, published interviews and wrote "human-interest" pieces. She said that her experiences as a reporter motivated and inspired her to social commentary in her poems.[1]
Her first book of poetry, The Hour Has Struck, was published in 1914, and in 1915 a poem appeared in Collier's Weekly. In the same year she was a delegate to the first International Congress of Women at The Hague, in the Netherlands.[1]
Between 1923 and 1926 she lived in London, England. While there, she gave a poetry reading for the Poetry Society at the Savoy Chapel; she was the first woman to be invited to do so.[1]
Morgan had constant money troubles, and was declared bankrupt in 1935. She moved frequently in later life, spending time in Philadelphia, in Rydal, Pennsylvania, in Brattleboro, Vermont, at Saugerties[clarification needed] and at Mount Marion, New York, where on January 24, 1957, she died.[1]
Awards
editIn 1942 Morgan received an honorary doctorate from Golden State University,[1] which at that time was in Los Angeles.
Publications
edit- The Hour Has Struck (1914)
- Utterance and Other Poems (1916)
- Forward, March (1918)
- Hail, Man (1919)
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f g John D. Stinson, Susan Malsbury (1991, revised 2007). Angela Morgan Papers 1901-1957: MssCol 2057. The New York Public Library: Humanities and Social Sciences Library, Manuscripts and Archives Division. Accessed August 2015.
- ^ "Morgan, Albert Talmon | Mississippi Encyclopedia". Mississippi Encyclopedia. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
- ^ "Winona Times, February 24, 1928 – Against All Odds".
- ^ Morgan, Albert Talmon (1884). "Yazoo: Or, on the Picket Line of Freedom in the South. A Personal Narrative".
Further reading
edit- Angela Morgan
- World Literature, R.D. Alcantara et al., Katha Publishing Co., 2000, p. 117
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Rittenhouse, Jessie B. (1919). The Second Book of Modern Verse. Houghton Mifflin company, Boston and New York.
External links
edit- Works by Angela Morgan at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
