Zora Neale Hurston's grave site

Anthropologists

Fieldwork

African Americans

Tombs

Cemeteries

Sepulchral slabs

Grave markers

Graves

Gravestones

Stone carving

Death rites

Burial rites

Authors

Four color slides. Zora Neale Hurston was a major literary figure, known as one of the nation's preeminent African American writers, with such titles as Their Eyes Were Watching God. She was from Eatonville, and had studied anthropology under Franz Boaz. In 1959, after suffering a stroke, Hurston was forced to enter a welfare home where she died in 1960. She was buried in an unmarked grave and her work languished in relative obscurity until 1975, when famed novelist Alice Walker published the article "In Search of Zora Neale Hurston" in Ms. magazine. In the article, Walker recounts her experiences of searching for, finding, and marking Hurston's grave. The Florida Folk Arts Survey was conducted in 1987 by folklorists Tina Bucuvalis, Steve Fragos, Merri Belland, and Barbara Seitz as preliminary research for a joint folk art between the Florida Folklife Program and the Florida Museum of History. The field researchers focused on those areas previously overlooked by FFP staff. The research focused on identifying folk artists and locating appropriate exhibit objects.

State Archives of Florida, Series S1708

1987

Florida Folklife Program

slides (photographs)

Still Image

S1708

6

10

Florida Folk Arts Survey

Michael, Nancy

Hurston, Zora Neale, 1891-1960

African American

2810

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