Author Biography/Contribution

Kate O'Flaherty Chopin was born in St. Louis, Missouri on February 8, 1951 to parents Eliza and Thomas O'Flaherty. Her father was a successful St. Louis merchant and died in a train accident when she was only 5 years old. Kate’s mother raised her along with her grandmother, and great-grandmother, all of them widows. Kate O'Flaherty grew up surrounded by smart, independent, single women. She attended The Sacred Heart Academy, a Catholic boarding school in St. Louis and was top of her class. Two years after graduating she married Oscar Chopin, the son of a wealthy cotton-growing family in Louisiana. After their marriage they lived in New Orleans and then in Coulterville. Kate and her husband had 6 children, 5 boys and 1 girl. Oscar died of malaria in 1882, leaving Kate in over $12,000 of debt.  Kate took over the running of his general store and plantation for over a year. She then sold up and moved back to St. Louis to live with her mother. Unfortunately, her mother Eliza died the following year. To support herself and her young family, she began to write and began her career as a fiction writer in 1888. She was successful and wrote short stories about people she had known in Louisiana. Over the next fifteen years, until her death in 1904 she published over one hundred stories, essays, and sketches in literary magazines.  Her first novel, At Fault, was published in 1890, followed by two collections of her short stories, Bayou Folk in 1894 and A Night in Acadia in 1897. Chopin’s second novel, The Awakening was published in 1899. The novel caused commotion and was immediately condemned nationally by male critics. She wrote about women's roles in marriage and feminine identity. Kate’s writing was far ahead of her time and is considered one of the first feminist writers.  Her poems, short stories, and novels allowed her not only to declare her beliefs for herself, but also to question the ideas of individuality during her time. On August 22, 1904 the first feminist writer passed away from a cerebral hemorrhage. Even though she has passed her writing will never be forgotten.

Sources:

Chopin, Kate. The Vogue Stories. The Online Archive of Nineteenth-Century Women's Writings. Ed. Glynis Carr. Online. Internet. Posted: Fall 1999. http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/gcarr/19cUSWW/KC/biography.html

Werlock, Abby H.P., ed. "Chopin, Kate." The Facts on File Companion to the American Novel. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts on File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=&iPin=CANov0192&SingleRecord=True.

Inge, Tonette Bond. "Kate Chopin," Dictionary of Literary Biography. American Short Story Writers 1880-1910, volume 78. Ed. Bobby Ellen Kimbel. Ann Arbor: Edward Brothers, 1989, pp. 90-109.

Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 6: American Naturalism: Kate Chopin (1851 - 1904)" PAL: Perspective on American Literature - A Research and Reference Guide.URL:http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap6/chopin.html