Talk:Zoe Akins/Archive 1

Archive 1

Merge

This (unsourced/uncategorized) material was taken from the Zoe Byrd Akins article which should be merged into this article: J. Van Meter (talk) 19:48, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Zoe Byrd Akins (1886-1958) was a successful poet, novelist, playwright, and screenwriter of the first half of the 20th Century. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1935.

She was born October 30, 1886, at Humansville, Missouri, the second of three children of Thomas Jasper Akins and Sarah Elizabeth Green. Her father was for many years chairman of the Missouri Republican Party. Her mother claimed kinship to George Washington.

The family moved to St. Louis, Missouri when Akins was a child. She received her early education at the Monticello Seminary in Godfrey, Illinois, where she wrote her first play--a parody of a Greek tragedy. She graduated from Hosmer Hall Preparatory School in St. Louis in 1903.

In 1905 she tried her hand at acting as a walk-on with the Odeon Stock Company in St. Louis, but was not well-received. She was forced to admit to herself that her talent lay in writing lines, not delivering them. So, she began composing poetry and plays while working for her father, who was then postmaster of St. Louis.

Akins achieved some recognition for a book of poetry entitled Interpretations in 1912, and for her critical anthology of contemporary poetry entitled "In the Shadow of Parnassus," which was serialized in Reedy's Mirror in 1915. But, her big break came in 1918 when her play Papa enjoyed a limited run on Broadway. This prompted her to move to New York City in 1919, when she also published her first novel Cake upon the Waters.

In New York, Akins penned a string of Broadway shows. The most successful were Declassee (1919), starring Ethel Barrymore; The Greeks Had a Word for It (1930) about a trio of Depression Era gold diggers that ran for more than 200 performances; and The Old Maid (1935), an adaptation of the Edith Wharton novella, which won her a Pulitzer Prize.

In 1925, Hollywood produced Eve's Secret, an adaptation of her play Moonflower. This encouraged her to move to California in 1929. There she made her home at "Green Fountain" in Pasadena and worked on a string of screenplays. The most successful was Morning Glory (1932), which earned Katherine Hepburn an Academy Award.

As successful as her writing career was, Akins never enjoyed much personal happiness. She married late in life, in 1932, to British theatrical designer and artist Lt. Hugo Rumbold. But, he died just eight months later. She survived until October 29, 1958, the eve of her seventy-second birthday.

Page moved

I've moved the page from Zoe Akins to Zoë Akins, as the diacritic in this instance is functional, changing the pronunciation of the name. bd2412 T 17:37, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, yes it does, but did she actually use the diacritic, or was her name generally spelt that way by others? That's all that's really important here. If the answers to those questions are "no", then it has to be moved to Zoe Akins. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:50, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Summary of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Friday, June 12, 1908.

This 851 word article has four headlines and photograph of Akins.

The headlines are as follows:

ST. LOUIS GIRL'S IDEA WOULD SEND NEGROES TO THE PHILIPPINES. Miss Zoe Akins Will Carry Plan to Republican Convention. THREE YEARS' STUDY Daughter of National Committeeman is Enthusiastic about her Novel Idea.

The 17 year old daughter of Republican National Committeeman Thomas J. Akins outlines a plan to provide free homes for Negroes in the Philippines. She will attend the convention in Chicago, along with her parents, in an effort to induce the convention to incorporate this idea in its platform.

Akins, called a 1903 graduate of Hosmer Hall, proposes the United States give Negroes free transportation across the Pacific, provide each family with 100 acres of land and a home, and then levy a tax on the earnings to pay back the enterprise.

Selected quotes as follows: "I have talked to at least fifty Negroes about it, and they all seem to think it is a capital idea. I have talked to several politicians about it, too... nobody has thrown cold water on it... Do not for one moment gain the impression that I would propose to deport all the Negroes to the Philippines. I am not in favor of that. There is a need for the elevation of the negro race... and as for an amalgamation of the races, that is impossible... In this country, I am told, disease makes great ravages among the colored people. They are naturally people for a warm climate. That is their home.

Akins says each colony should consist of about one-thousand people with a school house and Government buildings in the center. Residents would not be able to sell their property, but could, under certain circumstances, return to the United states. She first conceived her plan nearly three years ago, when she read that many negro soldiers remained in the Philippines after being discharged from the army. 7bench496 (talk) 19:32, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Requested move 23 May 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Move. Cúchullain ^t/c 20:36, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

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Zoë Akins → Zoe Akins – She did not use the umlaut, nor did any of the newspapers or magazines of that era who wrote about her. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 19:31, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

• Support per nomination. Almost all of the references and external links appended to the article indicate no diacritic. —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 06:51, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

I can't believe we actually agree on a page move proposal for once! :) Genealogizer (talk) 04:01, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

We probably agree on most subjects, including Kraków's name, where I would have preferred that the city retain a rare and much-valued English exonym. There, however, the native-name die has already been cast and I bow to the inevitable. —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 22:09, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

• Support per nomination. Genealogizer (talk) 04:01, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.