James Street  1903-1954
Major Works
- Oh, Promised Land 1940
- In My Father's House 1941
- The Gauntlet 1945
- The High Calling 1951
- The Biscuit Eater published in Saturday Evening Post, May 13, 1939, made into a film in 1940 and again in 1972 by Disney
- Tap Roots 1942 (made into a film)
- Good-Bye, My Lady 1954 (made into a film twice)
- By Valor and Arms,
- Nothing Sacred (also made into a film)
- Look Away
- Mingo Dabney
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James Street: A Biography 
By Lindsay Roberts (SHS)
Best known internationally for his boy and dog story called
The Biscuit Eater, James Howell Street was a hobo,
soda jerk, butcher, reporter, and minister before he became
a famous writer. His stories grew out of his background
and experience, primarily the country, boys, dogs,Mississippi,
and ministers. He considered himself a professional entertainer
or craftsman rather than a literary writer.
James Howell Street was born in Lumberton, Mississippi,
on October 15, 1903, to John Camillus (a lawyer) and William
Thompson Scott Street (that was his mother.) Street's
family moved to Poplarville and then Hattiesburg before
finally settling down in Laurel, Mississippi. At the age
of fourteen, Street began working at the Laural
Daily Leader, a local newspaper. He became a reporter
in Hattiesburg at nineteen.
In
1923 Street (nicknamed Jimmy) married a women by the name of Lucy Nash
O'Briant, who was a Baptist minister's daughter. That is when
Street (whose family was strictly Catholic) decided to to follow in the
footsteps of his father-in-law and become a Baptist minister. Street
studied at Fort Worth's Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and
first became the minister of a church in St. Charles, Missouri.
He then preached at churches in Lucedale, Mississippi, and later
Bayles, Alabama, while attending Howard College in Birmingham.
While he was in the ministry, his wife gave birth to their three
children: James Jr., John, and Ann. After all three were
born, Street decided that the ministry was not what he
wanted to do. When he left the ministry profession in 1926, he
started to write again, working first for newspapers and then writing
novels. (See time line).
Street's first novel appeared in 1940 and was called
The Promised Land. It was the first of five
historical novels, Tap Root, By Valour and Arms, Tomorrow
We Reap and Mingo Dabney are the others.
They tell the story of the Dabney family in Lebanon, Mississippi,
from 1794 to 1896. Street has written two stories about country
boys and dogs: The Biscuit Eater and Goodbye,
My Lady (which was published under the title "Goodbye,
My Lady" but was the same as the Saturday
Evening Post story, "Weep No More, My Lady."
The book rapidly became an American best-seller and was
made into a film after the Second World War.
In 1945 Street moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and purchased
a house and farm where he experimented with organic farming.
He was an outspoken liberal who advocated social justice for
Negroes. He also wrote two histories, The Civil
War and The Revolutionary
War, which debunked some popular myths about the
wars.
In 1945, Street wrote The Gauntlet,
an autobiographical novel about a Baptist minister. It's
sequel is The High Calling. In all, Street
ended up writing thirty-five different short stories, seventeen
novels and twenty magazine articles. Almost all of his novels
were best sellers. Some were made into movies: Good-Bye
My Lady,The Biscuit Eater, and Tap
Roots all were successful films. His success is measured
primarily on his very popular appeal rather than his literary
talent. James Street died in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, September
28, 1954, of a sudden heart attack. (Cox)
UPDATE: James Street's daughter Ann Street
Bowring reports that both her father James Street and her mother
are "buried in the beautiful, pre-Civil war cemetery on
the campus of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
The family headstone is engraved with the simple STREET,
but Dad's foot stone is unique in that it provides his birth
and date years and his name, James Street, engraved with his
signature." She adds that her mother "had a difficult
time with the granite engraver, but I'm glad she stuck to her
guns, as it is appropriate and noteworthy."
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Timeline
1903- Born in Lumberton, Mississippi
1923- Married Lucy Nash O'Briant
1924- Became a Baptist minister in St. Charles, Missouri
1926- Decided that he wasn't suited for ministry and was hired at as a reporter for the Pensacola Journal
1928- Moved to work for Associated Press
1933-Transferred to New York
1936- Produced his first full-length work Look
Away: A Dixie Notebook (sketches of life in Mississippi)
1937- Left the Press to work for the New York World Telegram
1939-The Biscuit Eater published in Saturday Evening Post, May 13.
1940- First novel published called Oh, Promised Land (long
historical narrative), Dedicated to his family including Harold Matson
(18th printing in May 1967) main character is Sam Dabney.
- Street moved to Natchez, Mississippi
1940-The Biscuit Eater
made into movie by filmmaker Stuart Heisler ( first solo work as
director), said to be the first talking feature filmed entirely
on location (in Albany, Georgia), the story of white boy and his
black friend who train a dog to hunt despite their fathers' objections.
1941- In My Father's House was produced
1942- Tap Roots published
1945- settled down in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
- The Gauntlet was published
1954- Good-Bye, My Lady was published
- Died on September 28 of a heart attack.
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A Review
of Good-bye My Lady 
by Lindsay Roberts (SHS)
Good-bye, My Lady by James Street is a novel about
a boy named Skeeter. The original story was published in the
Saturday Evening Post as "Weep No
More, My Lady." In the story Skeeter's mother died when
Skeeter was very young. Therefore, Skeeter's Uncle Jessie takes
the boy in. One day when the two are out hunting together,
they find a dog that can cry, laugh, and whine. The dog is
just like a human, but in form it is a dog. When Uncle Jessie
sees her for the first time, he calls her a Yankee dog
because he has never seen a dog like that in the South before.
Skeeter has a hard time trying to find a
name for the dog. He thinks of names like Dixie, Pal, Tray, and
Gertrude. Finally, he thinks of the name Lady. Lady
impresses Uncle Jessie because she can smell a partridge that is over
sixty yards away. Everything goes well, and then the Lady's owner
Mr. Grover shows up. Uncle Jessie and Mr. Grover talk over who should
be able to keep Lady. To find out who gets her, you must read
this book. This book is a very good book for dog lovers. It will make
you cry and laugh. I would strongly encourage you to read it. RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE
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Bibliography
Abbott, Dorothy (1985). Reflections of Childhood and Youth. Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi.
Cox, James L.(1997). Mississippi Almanac 1997-1998. Tallahassee, Florida: Rose Printing Company.
H. W. Wilson Company (1947). Current Biography 1946. New York: New York.
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Related
Web Site
Victoria
C. Bynum's The Free State of Jones: Mississippi's
Longest Civil War discusses the writings of James
Street.
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