San Antonio College Library

Stories on the manners and mores of African-Americans in 1930s Florida. They were written when the author was employed by the federal government to transcribe the oral history and to collect data on the customs of black people. At the time, few of her stories made it into print.

Two chapters are devoted to her first novel, Jonah's Gourd Vine, set almost entirely in Florida. Others discuss her work for the WPA in Florida; Tracks on the Road, her autobiography; and Mules and Men, her collection of Florida folklore gathered under the direction of anthropologist Franz Boas. The book also treats Hurston's lesser-known works such as the play Color Struck and Tell My Horse, her first-person account of fieldwork in Haiti. The legal...