Atlanta Daily World

Exhibit On Dunbar Life At Atlanta Univ.

The fourth in a series of traveling exhibits on the Negro in American life, which is available to the schools in the Atlanta University system by the Case Extension Circuit Cooperative of New York will open in the foyer of the Atlanta University library on December 10. and be on view through December 26. The current exhibit is concerned with the life of Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Selection of the great poet's life was chosen because he is typical of the period in which he lived. All of the material on view was taken from the collection of the 135th Street branch of the New York Public library.

Dunbar was associated with many eminent personalities of his day. Frederick Douglass employed him when he was a penniless writer to serve as clerk for the Haitian Exhibit of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

William Dean Howells, the leading literary critic of the day and Dunbar's greatest literary friend, devoted his entire column in Harper's Weekly of June 28, 1896, to the then unknown poet Dunbar's first published work. "Oak and Ivy". appeared in 1892 This volume of poems was followed by thirteen others. In the current exhibit are two of the most popular in this group: "Lyrics of Lowly Life" and Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow". The latter was one of the events in the history of American Negro literature. The introduction was written by William Dean Howells.

Though Dunbar's reputation as a writer rests upon his poetry, he wrote four novels. In the exhibit are two of these: "The Sport of the Gods" and "The Uncalled". The latter first appeared in Lippincott's Magazine in 1898.

Included in the exhibit are a photograph of Dunbar. an advanced poster of one of his first appearances after he became famous, and a picture of the Bronze plate marking his grave in the Woodland Cemetery in Dayton, Ohio.