December 6, 1976 The Anne Spencer House in Lynchburg, Virginia was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Annie Bethel Bannister Spencer, the first African American to have poetry included in the Norton Anthology of American Poetry, lived in the house from 1903 to her death July 25, 1975. The house is maintained today by the Anne Spencer House and Garden Museum, Inc. Spencer was born February 6, 1882 in Henry County, Virginia. She entered the Virginia Theological Seminary and College (now Virginia University of Lynchburg) at eleven and graduated as valedictorian in 1899. Spencer served as librarian for Dunbar High School for 20 years and in 1909 the Lynchburg chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded in her home. Thirty of Spencer’s Poems were published during her lifetime in anthologies, including “The Book of American Negro Poetry” (1922), “Caroling Dusk” (1927), and “Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry” (1973). Posthumously, she was published in “Time’s Unfading Garden: Anne Spencer’s Life and Poetry” (1977), “Half My World: The Garden of Anne Spencer: A History and Guide” (2003), and “Lessons Learned from a Poet’s Garden” (2011). (Source: Charles H. Wright Museum)
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 02:51:10 +0000
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