Frances Nimmo Greene

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Frances Nimmo Greene

Frances Nimmo Greene (born April 5, 1867 in Tuscaloosa; died December 9, 1937 in Birmingham) was a novelist, playwright and children's author.

Greene was the daughter of Thomas Finley and Virginia Owen Greene of Tuscaloosa. She was born at the "Nimmo Home", and grew up in the landmark John Drish residence, which her family shared with an aunt, Sarah Owen Drish. She attended the Tuscaloosa Female College and spent some time as a dramatic actor with the Greenwich Theater company in Greenwich, Connecticut. She was hired as principal of the Lafayette School and the Capitol Hill School in Montgomery, then moved to Birmingham to join the faculty of the East Lake Atheneum. In the 1880s she worked as a local correspondent for The Philadelphia Times and also contributed to the Birmingham Age-Herald.

In 1909 Greene was hired as an assistant in the library division of the Alabama Department of Archives and History. She also served as secretary of the Birmingham Library Association and of the Alabama Library Association's 4th annual meeting in Birmingham, Ensley and Bessemer in 1908. In 1911 she became editor of the society section of The Birmingham News. She was an active supporter of the Little Theater and taught classes to aspiring playwrights and authors in Birmingham. She resigned from those positions to focus on writing in 1915.

Greene's first published book, a retelling of Tennyson's Legends of King Arthur and His Court, was read widely, and was cited in President Harry Truman's "reading list" from his own self-education. Many of her other books were read in schools, as well. Her 1913 novel, The Right of the Strongest was the most prominent of several of her works which were adapted into films.

Greene was also politically active and toured Northern Alabama speaking in favor of the "Seaport Amendment" in 1922. During the Great Depression she was employed as director of the Southern Play Bureau of the Federal Theater Project. Greene died in 1937 at the home of Frank Jeffries on Clairmont Avenue. She is buried at Tuscaloosa's Evergreen Cemetery.

Publications

  • Greene, Frances Nimmo (1901) Legends of King Arthur and His Court. Boston, Massachusetts; Ginn & Company
  • Greene, Frances Nimmo & Dolly Williams Kirk (1905) With Spurs of Gold; Heroes of Chivalry and Their Deeds. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
  • Greene, Frances Nimmo (1909) Into the Night: A Story of New Orleans. New York, New York: Grosset & Dunlap
  • Greene, Frances Nimmo (1913) The Right of the Strongest. New York, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
  • Greene, Frances Nimmo (1913) The Ultimate American. Montgomery
  • Greene, Frances Nimmo (1915) One Clear Call. New York, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
  • Greene, Frances Nimmo (1915) Speaking of Adam: A Comedy in Three Acts. Montgomery
  • Greene, Frances Nimmo (1918) America First. New York, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
  • Greene, Frances Nimmo (1918) The Devil to Pay. New York, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
  • Greene, Frances Nimmo (1918) My Country's Voice. New York, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
  • Greene, Frances Nimmo (1920) American Ideals; a Series of Readers for Schools. New York, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
  • Greene, Frances Nimmo (1930) The Last Enemy: A Drama in Three Acts. Montgomery

Films

  • "Expiation", short (1916) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Lubin Manufacturing Co.
  • "Americans After All", short (1916) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Lubin Manufacturing Co.
  • "The Little White Savage" (1919) New York, New York: Universal Film Manufacturing Co.
  • "The Devil to Pay" (1920) Robert Brunton Productions
  • "One Clear Call" (1922) New York, New York: Louis B. Mayer Productions (with Henry Walthall)
  • "The Right of the Strongest" (1924) New York, New York: Zenith Pictures

References

  • Willard, Frances E. & Mary A. Livermore, et al, ed's (1893) "Frances Nimmo Greene" in A Woman of the Century. Buffalo, New York: Charles Wells Moulton
  • "In Alabama's Hills; Study of Primitive Life in "The Right of the Strongest" (May 4, 1913) The New York Times
  • Owen, Marie Bankhead (Spring 1953) "Frances Nimmo Greene". Alabama Historical Quarterly. No. 15, pp. 57-66
  • Grimes, Dorothy (November 14, 2012) "Frances Nimmo Greene. Encyclopedia of Alabama Online - accessed December 11, 2018
  • "Miss Frances N. Greene, Author, Dies Suddenly" (December 9, 1937) The Tuscaloosa News
  • "Funeral Service Held for Writer" (December 10, 1937) The Anniston Star

External links