Mary Frances Gunner
Mary Frances Gunner | |
---|---|
Born | Mary Frances Gunner Lexington, Kentucky, U.S. |
Occupation | Playwright |
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | Howard University |
Notable works | Light of the Women (1924) |
Spouse | Jerry van Dunk |
Mary Frances Gunner (November 9, 1894 – May 13, 1953) was an African American playwright and community leader based in Brooklyn, New York.
Early life and education[]
Mary Frances Gunner was born in Lexington, Kentucky and raised in Hillburn, New York, the daughter of Rev. Byron Gunner and Cicely Savery Gunner. Her parents, both born in Alabama,[1] were active in public life; her father was one of the 29 founders of the Niagara Movement and president of the National Equal Rights League, and her mother, a teacher, was president of the Empire State Federation of Women's Clubs.[2] Her grandfather William Savery, born a slave, was a founder of Talladega College.[3]
She finished at Suffern High School as the only black girl in her class, and as valedictorian.[4] She attended Middlebury College.[5] She also attended Howard University, and was an officer in that school's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.[6] In 1913, she was initiated into Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She served as President of Alpha Chapter from 1914-1915. In her capacity as President, she requested that Mary Church Terrell wrote the Sorority's Oath. In 1923, she completed a master's degree in the Political Science department at Columbia University, with a thesis titled "Employment Problems Among Negro Women in Brooklyn."[7]
Career[]
Mary Frances Gunner worked at the YWCA in Montclair, New Jersey, and after 1921[8] at the Ashland Place YWCA[9] in Brooklyn.[10] She also taught school in New York.[11] Gunner was a branch manager for the New York State Employment Service from 1938 to 1950.[12] She was active in the National Association of College Women.[13]
Her pageant play, Light of the Women (1924), presents the stories of such African-American heroines as Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Fanny Jackson Coppin, and Phillis Wheatley. It was intended for performance by community groups and schools,[14] to teach and celebrate the achievements of African-American women.[15] It was performed in 1927 at the YWCA in Orange, New Jersey.[16]
Personal life[]
Mary Frances Gunner married Jerry van Dunk, also from Hillburn, in 1946.[17] She died in Brooklyn in 1953.[18]
References[]
- ^ Angela Jones, African American Civil Rights: Early Activism and the Niagara Movement (ABC-Clio 2011): 220. ISBN 9780313393600
- ^ "Hillburn, N. Y." New York Age (July 24, 1943): 9. via Newspapers.com
- ^ Sallie L. Powell, "Byron Gunner", in Gerald L. Smith, Karen Cotton McDaniel, and John A. Hardin, eds., The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia (University Press of Kentucky 2015): 219-220. ISBN 9780813160665
- ^ "Miss Mary Frances Gunner" The Crisis (October 1911): 235-236.
- ^ Middlebury College, "Students", Catalogue (1915): 133.
- ^ Howard University Yearbooks, The Mirror (1915): 39.
- ^ Sallie L. Powell, "Mary Frances Gunner", in Gerald L. Smith, Karen Cotton McDaniel, and John A. Hardin, eds., The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia (University Press of Kentucky 2015): 220. ISBN 9780813160665
- ^ "Ashland Branch Y to Have New Secretary" New York Age (September 10, 1921): 8. via Newspapers.com
- ^ "Whites Kinder in Attitude Towards Negroes is Claim; Frances Gunner, Colored Secretary of YWCA, Sees Improved Race Relations" Bridgeport Telegram (February 13, 1928): 3. via Newspapers.com
- ^ Bernard L. Peterson, ed., Early Black American Playwrights and Dramatic Writers (Greenwood Publishing 1990): 93. ISBN 9780313266218
- ^ Catalogue of Officers and Students of Middlebury College (Middlebury College 1917): 453.
- ^ "Servants Scarce and Expensive As Result of Wartime Pay Rates" Brooklyn Daily Eagle (June 23, 1946): 10. via Newspapers.com
- ^ Linda M. Perkins, "The National Association of College Women: Vanguard of Black Women's Leadership and Education, 1923-1954" Journal of Education 172(3)(1990): 68.
- ^ Lurana Donnels O'Malley, "Spirits in Black and White: Ethiopia as the Black Columbia in African American Pageantry" in Graley Herren, ed. Text & Presentation 2015 (MacFarland 2016): 144-146. ISBN 9781476624730
- ^ Willis Richardson, ed., Plays and Pageants from the Life of the Negro (University Press of Mississippi 1993): 333-342. ISBN 9781617034565
- ^ "Orange, N. J." Pittsburgh Courier (May 7, 1927): 9. via Newspapers.com
- ^ "Frances Gunner Weds Jerry Van Dunk on Fri. By Rev. Stark" New York Age (February 16, 1946): 7. via Newspapers.com
- ^ "Ramapo Valley Independent 3 June 1954 — HRVH Historical Newspapers".
- 1894 births
- 1953 deaths
- American dramatists and playwrights
- Howard University alumni
- American women dramatists and playwrights
- Writers from Lexington, Kentucky
- Kentucky women writers
- 20th-century American women