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Research Starter: Zora Neale Hurston in Florida
Research Starter
Zora Neale Hurston is most famous for her novels. However, during the Great Depression, Hurston worked as a folklorist in Florida. Through her work with the Federal Writers’ Project, Hurston captured stories, songs, traditions and histories from African-Americans in small communities across Florida.
In 1939, Hurston went to Cross City in Dixie County, Florida. Hurston’s essay, “Turpentine,” traced her travels through the pine forests with an African-American woods rider named John McFarlin. Her work on Florida’s turpentine camps is still considered authoritative.
Florida Memory
- Audio, Zora Neale Hurston
- Learning Unit, Zora Neale Hurston and the WPA in Florida
- Photographs, Zora Neale Hurston
- Photographs, Zora Neale Hurston Festivals
State Library of Florida
- Bibliography, African American History
Other Online Resources
- Florida Division of Historical Resources, Florida Black Heritage Trail Guide
- University of Central Florida, Zora Neale Hurston Digital Archive
Published Sources
- Anna Lillios, Crossing the Creek: The Literary Friendship of Zora Neale Hurston and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2010).
- Tiffany Ruby Patterson, Zora Neale Hurston and a History of Southern Life (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2005).
- Virginia Lynn Moylan, Zora Neale Hurston's Final Decade (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2011).