1. Ann Petry
By Scott Steinback

2. Background
•Anna Lane was born on October 12,
1908
•Born and died in Old Saybrook,
Connecticut
•Grew up in a middle class community,
where her father own and operated a
local drugstore
•First began writing in high school
•The first works she produced were
slogans for a perfume company
•She then graduated to plays and short
stories
•Later she graduated from Connecticut
College of Pharmacy with a Ph. D.
•First African-American woman to sell
over a million books

3. Influence on the
Community
• Founded Negro Women Inc., which was her duty
to organize women of her community
• Became a recreational specialist for a Harlem
Elementary School, where she created programs
troubled children
• Also taught a course on letter-writing at the
NAACP

4. Early Years
• Seven years after she became a Ph.D. she made
the switch to becoming a writer
• This all began when she married a New York
mystery writer, George D. Petry
• She started out with a pseudonym Arnold Petry
and wrote “Marie of the Cabin Club”
• Later became a reporter for the Amsterdam
News and the People’s Voice, which she credits
for being the most influential thing for her writing

5. Road to Fame
• At the beginning struggled becoming a writer
• Then she spent a year under the wing of Miss L.
Robinson
• Made the leap from short stories to novels
• Toward the end of the Harlem Renaissance she
became a Communist and a Marxist
• A few years later The Street was published

6. The Street
•Was her first novel in 1946
•A best seller, critically
discussed, and a best seller
•Depicted a Working-class
African-American woman,
Lutie, who is just struggling to
provide for her and her son
Bub
•Through this novel she is
able to demonstrate the
hardships of race, gender,
and class biases

7. Sources•http://voices.cla.umn.edu/artistpages/petryAnn.php
•https://sites.google.com/site/newyorkcityapril1946/in-progress/newspapers/the-sunday-papers-
on-april-14/the-sunday-herald-tribune/editorials-opinion-and-the-news-of-the-week-in-section-
two-of-the-sunday-herald-tribune/an-interview-with-novelist-ann-petry
•http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/454590/Ann-Petry
•http://cwcs.ysu.edu/resources/literature/ann-houston-(lane)-petry