Nathan Eugene Toomer was born December 26, 1894, in Pennsylvania, to Nathan Toomer and Nina Pinchback. Nathan Toomer, Jean’s father, was twenty-seven years-older than Nina Pinchback, and Nina’s father, P.B.S. Pinchback, believed that he was not a suitable husband for his daughter. He believed Nathan Toomer was unreliable and an unscrupulous businessman; however, Pinchback did not prevent the marriage of his daughter to this man. Three months after the wedding Nathan Toomer left pregnant bride and did not return until three days before the birth of his son, Nathan Pinchback Toomer. Six weeks after his birth Toomer left again for several mont

As of the experiment, Toomer married Mergery Latimer, a Wisconsin novelist who had participated in the experiment. Because of complications of childbirth, a year later she died. In 1934 Toomer married Marjorie Content, and her wealthy father gave them a farm outside Doylestown, Pennsylvania. He lived the rest of his days out on this farm, and on March 30, 1967, he died because of numerous health problems.(Scruggs)

In the fall of 1921 he took a position as a substitute teacher for a friend on a mission north to collect funds for the school. Living in rural Georgia in what he called a hut from mid September to mid November, Toomer heard fold songs and spirituals sung in a manner he had never experienced. Despite the racism of white people and the oppression of the blacks, he realized that there was a prodigious black folk culture that was alive and kicking. Ironically, segregation had thus far preserved this folk culture. He also realized that this way of life he was witnessing would soon fade away and be no more because the young black people were moving to urban areas in search of less backbreaking labor. They were making the white culture part of their own. He was very moved by this and it caused him to speak out in a poem he called “Georgia Dusk.” While on the way back in November he began to write about these experiences, and these experiences began to turn into the book Cane. By December 1921 Toomer had nearly completed the first part of the book. Ironically, in the same month his grandfather died. Toomer had loved and respected his grandfather even though they argued a lot. He took the body to New Orleans because that is where most of his grand fathers political career had taken place. He buried him in a vault right beside his mother, and this marked the end of one important part of his life and so began another.(McKay & Wagner)

During his first year at Wisconsin he discovered that he had no interest or intentions in studying scientific agriculture. Also he had a failing social life, so he lift at the beginning of the spring term. He seemed to repeat this pattern often and continued doing this for the next four years. During the years 1914 to 1918 he attended six separate educational institutions without ever receiving a degree. Through all of this and even afterwards he was still dependent upon his grandparents for financial support.(Smith)

“Blue Meridian,” the poem that began as “The First American,” was published in the New Caravan in 1936. Toomer spent many years reworking this poem, and in final form it is a carefully reasoned, idealistic statement abo

Some topics in this essay:
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