Langston Hughes: Poet Laureate of Harlem
Part of the Ohio Author Sketches series on selected Ohio authors as originally published in the Ohioana Quarterly with
material from the Ohioana Library collection.
 Known as the "Poet Laureate of Harlem," James Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, on February 1, 1902.
When his parents divorced, he lived with his grandmother in Lawrence, Kansas, but moved to Cleveland with his mother in 1916 after she remarried.
A graduate of Central High in Cleveland, he attended Columbia University for one year and then moved to Harlem.
Jobs at sea led to experiences in Africa and Europe and he spent some time as a cook in Paris. Back in America,
he became acquainted with poet Vachel Lindsay, who helped publicize his work. His first volume of poetry was
published in 1926 and was followed by fiction, plays, nonfiction, and two autobiographies. His most
famous work may be his "Simple" stories of the 1940s about Langston's fictional Jesse B. Semple. He died on May 22, 1967, in New York City.
Bibliography of the work of Langston Hughes
For collection purposes, the Ohioana Library defines an Ohioan as a person who was born here or who
lived in the state for at least five years. Under these guidelines, we did not claim
Langston Hughes because we could not prove he lived here long enough. Recently, we
unearthed the necessary information in a 1940 letter from the distinguished writer.
The letter is addressed to Mrs. Oliver Kuhn, who spent many Sundays searching the backroads of
Ohio for the homes and haunts of notable Ohioans, past and present. She photographed the
buildings and then shared a set with the person of note; the other set she kept in her scrapbooks,
which also included correspondence, newsclippings, and other interesting material. These scrapbooks were given to
the Ohioana Library after Mrs. Kuhn's death in the 1960s.
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