Evangeline Harris Merriweather

Evangeline E. Harris was born in 1893 and raised in Terre Haute, Indiana. She attended Oberlin College in Ohio, Columbia University, and was an accomplished opera singer at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, before earning her master’s degree in education from Indiana State Normal School, now Indiana State University, in Terre Haute. Harris was a school teacher and music supervisor at various elementary schools in the Terre Haute area.[1] In 1936, she married Charles Merriweather and they remained in Terre Haute. Harris Merriweather continued to teach elementary school and perform as an opera singer both locally and across the nation.[2]

As part of her master’s thesis in the late 1930s, Harris sent out 500 questionnaires to African American elementary school officials throughout the Unites States, asking whether they had access to materials that highlighted the importance of African American culture, African American people of high achievement, or showed African American families. Only a handful of schools had materials that presented African Americans accurately and fairly. In response, she began writing the first of many editions of “Stories for Little Tots”, published in 1940, which was a collection of biographies of important African American individuals, specifically targeted for school-aged children. During this time, she was befriended by Dr. George Washington Carver who helped her promote “Stories for Little Tots”, which featured a biography of Carver.[3]

Harris Merriweather also wrote “A History of Eminent Negroes”, highlighting accomplished African American individuals. Each of her books, including her three-part “The Family” elementary reader series and “Stories for Little Tots”, went on to become highly useful educational tools for African American schools across the nation. Her books were an unprecedented form of literature designed for African American young people. According to Terre Haute resident James Flinn, “All the reading material at that time was written by whites for whites about whites.”[4] In fact, most of the authors writing about African American culture at the time were white as well, creating a skewed perspective and fostering African American stereotypes amongst their readers.

The small number of African American children literature authors in the 1940s had a limited reach and a very small audience, contributing to the prejudice and the self-fulfilling prophecies of the African American children who read of themselves mostly in a negative stereotypical light and portrayed by white authors.[5] One of Merriweather’s former students, Carolyn Roberts, who became a elementary teacher herself, remarked on the importance of Merriweather’s readers. “The first time to open up a book and see an African-American, and see what they had done, was so important.”[6] It was writers such as Harris Merriweather that greatly contributed to the shift in African American children’s literature and education, from harmful prejudiced views to those that inspired hope and motivation amongst young African American readers.

Evangeline suffered a fatal cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 57, while still in the prime of her writing, educational, and singing career. Her contributions to African American children’s literature and culture are memorialized by an Indiana Historical Bureau marker on the campus of Indiana State University (formerly Indiana State Normal School).[7]

[1] Mike McCormick. Evangeline Harris Merriweather. Terre Haute Tribune-Star, 2001. Accessed May 4, 2020. https://digital.library.in.gov/Record/WV3_vchs-562
[2] Vigo County Public Library. Evangeline Harris Merriweather Collection, N.D. Accessed May 4, 2020. https://www.vigo.lib.in.us/archives/inventories/aa/merriweather1.php
[3] Vigo County Public Library.
[4] Mike McCormick. Evangeline Harris Merriweather. 
[5] Horn Book. The Changing Image of the Black in Children's Literature. The Horn Book, 1975. Accessed May 4, 2020. https://www.hbook.com/?detailStory=the-changing-image-of-the-black-in-childrens-literature
[6] Mike McCormick. Evangeline Harris Merriweather. 
[7] Indiana Historical Bureau. Evangeline E. Harris. IN.gov, 2018. Accessed May 4, 2020. https://www.in.gov/history/markers/4414.htm

Student Author: Mary Swartz
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey

PHOTO & VIDEO:
Evangeline Harris Merriwether 1949, public domain, via Indiana Album Inc., http://indianaalbum.pastperfectonline.com/photo/82D69F28-E9A9-40A5-BF87-981528434361