The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 91, July 1987 - April, 1988 Page: 20
619 p. : ill. (some col.), maps (some col.), ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
boroughs moved to Waco in 1887, in order for the children to have bet-
ter educational opportunities. A scholastic prodigy, Dorothy Scarborough
contributed essays and short stories to Baylor University literary
magazines, publishing her first article at the age of fifteen. Scarborough's
sister and surviving brother both shared her literary ambitions. George
Moore Scarborough became a successful playwright on Broadway and later
moved to Hollywood as a screenwriter. Martha Douglass Scarborough
McDaniel published a book of verse, three novels, and a biography of
her husband, Baptist clergyman George White McDaniel. Dorothy Scar-
borough graduated from Baylor with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1896
and finished her Master of Arts there in 1899. For several years she taught
at public schools, continuing her studies in the summers with postgraduate
work at the University of Chicago. From 1904 to 1916 she was an in-
structor in English at Baylor, where she is credited with developing the
first college courses in journalism and short-story writing in the Southwest.
In 1910 Scarborough enrolled at Oxford University as a special student,
since women were not then allowed to pursue degrees there. Still intent
on earning a Ph.D., she turned to Columbia University, where in 1917
she was awarded her doctorate. Scarborough's dissertation, "The Super-
natural in Modern English Fiction," was commercially published and
is still a respected work in its field. Scarborough joined the faculty at
Columbia and remained there until her death on November 7, 1935.'
Scarborough's diverse publications included a volume of poetry, Fugitive
Verses (1912); nature and philosophical essays in From a Southern Porch (1919);
and two compilations of folklore, On the Trail of Negro Folk-Songs (1925)
and A Song Catcher in Southern Mountazns: American Folk Songs of British Ancestry
(1937). She also edited several short-story collections: Famous Modern Ghost
Stories (1921), Humorous Ghost Stories (1921), and Selected Short Stories of To-
day (1935). The Wind, first published anonymously by Harper and Brothers
in 1925 but soon reprinted with Scarborough's name on it, was the best
of her novels from a literary standpoint. The book's sales dropped
dramatically after the unveiling of the authorship, and Scarborough regret-
ted that the publisher had not withheld her name longer. In 1928 The
Wind became a motion picture, starring Lillian Gish and Lars Hanson,
with Scarborough and her brother George collaborating on the screenplay.
1Ann Fears Crawford and Crystal Sasse Ragsdale, "'I Have Books I Must Write'-
Dorothy Scarborough," Women in Texas" Their Lives, Their Experiences, Their Accomplishments
(Burnet, Tex.: Eakin Press, 1982), 234 - 247; Sylvia Ann Grider's foreword in Dorothy
Scarborough, The Wind (Austin- University of Texas Press, 1979), v - xvii; Dictionary of
American Biography, Suppl. I, s v "Scarborough, Dorothy"; Walter Prescott Webb, H.
Bailey Carroll, and Eldon Stephen Branda (eds.), The Handbook of Texas (3 vols , Austin.
Texas State Historical Association, 1952, 1976), II, 577
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 91, July 1987 - April, 1988, periodical, 1987/1988; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101211/m1/46/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.