Arnow, Harriette Simpson

July 7, 1908 - March 21, 1986

Place of Birth:  Wayne County, KY

Place of Principle Residence:  Ann Arbor, MI

Biography:
  Harriette Simpson Arnow was born to Mollie and Elias Simpson in Wayne County, Kentudcky in 1908.  As a young girl she loved to read and began writing stories and poems.  Although she loved English, she decided to major in science at the University of Louisville, graduating in 1930.  After a short stint in teaching, Arnow moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to focus on her writing.  She supported herself working as a waitress, a library clerk, and an assistant for the Federal Writer’s Project and in 1936 published a highly successful novel entitled Mountain Park.  Arnow met and married Harold Arnow, a newspaper reporter, in 1939 and the two moved to a farm in the Daniel Boone Forest where they worked as farmers and writers.  In 1944 Arnold moved with her husband to Michigan, where Harold got a job as a reporter for The Detroit News.  Fifteen years after Mountain Park was published, Arnold wrote and released her second novel, Hunter’s Horn, a 1949 best seller and a Fiction Book Club selection.  Her most successful novel, The Dollmaker, was published in 1954 and was a best seller for thirty-one weeks and received second place in the National Book Awards, and a Friends of American Writers award.  In addition to her books, Arnow wrote many articles and pamphlets and instructed in the Appalachian Writer’s Workshop.  She had two children, Marcella and Thomas, and died on March 21, 1986.

Selected Works

       
• Mountain Path (1936)
       
• Hunter’s Horn (1949)
       
• The Dollmaker (1954)
       
• The Weedkiller’s Daughter (1970)
       
• Old Burnside (1977)

Awards:

       
• 1955     Runner up, National Book Award
       
• 1955 Honorary Degree, Albion College
1955 Berea College Centinnel Award        
• 1955 Friends of American Writers Award
       
• 1955 Women’s Home Companion Silver Distaff Award
       
• 1961 Commendation from Tennessee Historical Commission
       
• 1961 Award of Merit of American Association for State and Local History
       
• 1962 Tennessee Historical Quarterly prize for the best article of the year
       
• 1975 Cranbrook Writers Guild Award
       
• 1983 Inducted into Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame when living in Ann Arbor
       
• 1984 Mark Twain Award, Michigan State University
       
• n/a       Mid-America Award for Distinguished Contributions to Midwestern Literature

Critical Reception:     Arnold received many awards for her writing, including the Mark Twain Award from Michigan State University and an Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History. Relevance of Place to Author’s Work:     Arnow spent most of her life on a farm near Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Her most famous book, The Dollmaker, is about a poverty-ridden Kentucky family forced to move to Detroit to make a living.

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