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Tillie Olsen

Tillie Olsen. By: Amanda Brown Amber Morris. Questions. What caused Tillie Olsen not to go to college? What is the name of the prison that her dad escaped from? What year did she abandon her work in Los Angeles? Her mother inspired her for which book?

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Tillie Olsen

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  1. Tillie Olsen By: Amanda Brown Amber Morris

  2. Questions • What caused Tillie Olsen not to go to college? • What is the name of the prison that her dad escaped from? • What year did she abandon her work in Los Angeles? • Her mother inspired her for which book? • Which two books were published in 1989?

  3. Growing Up • Born in Omaha, Nebraska, in January 14, 1912 • Died January 1, 2007 • Daughter of Russian Immigrants • Grew up during the depression caused her not to go to college

  4. Childhood Experiences • Her father escaped from Czarist prison and fled to the United States. • Her father became State Secretary of Nebraska Socialist Party

  5. Trials of Her Younger Life • At age 15, she dropped out of school and went into the work force. • This decision was partially based on her family's need and her own failure in a class. • She finished the first four chapters over the next several years. The novel remains unfinished, as she intended to continue the story but was unable to find the time to complete it. In 1934 she published part of the first chapter in The Partisan Review as a short story called "The Iron Throat." She signed a contract to produce a chapter a month. She left her newborn daughter with relatives and moved to Los Angeles to complete the work. Unfortunately, she was unable to take the stresses of life alone without her newborn, and she abandoned the project in 1937.

  6. Early Life • Early life she was a worker, wife, journalist, and mother of four children. • She began a novel in the 1930s about a migrant family, but did not finish it.

  7. Olsen’s Early Years • At age 17, Olsen joined the young communist league. • Attended the communist party school in Kansas City.

  8. The Starting of Her Writings • She attempted to introduce the challenges of her own life and contemporary political circumstances into a novel which she began in the 1930s, when she was only 19. • Her mother was illiterate until her twenties, and was one of the people who inspired the well known book “Tell Me a Riddle.” • The strong bonds she had with her mother, Olsen has said, "are part of what made me a revolutionary • She was briefly jailed in 1934 while organizing a packing house she talks about her experiences in The Nation and The Partisan Review. • She did not return to writing until 1953

  9. Her Writings • Tillie Olsen was a Feminist Writer • Olsen has compared the harsh conditions on their Nebraska farm to those depicted in the film Heartland. • She is the author of the short story collection, Tell Me A Riddle [1962], the novel Yonnondio: From the Thirties [1994], a book of essays, Silences [1978]. She is the editor of Mothers and Daughter. • For twenty years, she was "silenced" as a writer while working to earn a living and single-handedly raising four daughters. "These are not natural silences, that necessary time for renewal," she said. "They are the unnatural thwarting of what struggles to come into being but cannot."

  10. Her Writings Continued • Tillie Olsen was fifty years old when her first book, the short story collection Tell Me A Riddle, was published. • Tell Me a Riddle was awarded the O’HenryPrie in 1961 for best American short story. • Four of the stories have been adapted into stage productions, three into films, and one into an Opera.

  11. Major Works • Tell Me A Riddle - 1961 • Yonnondio– 1974 • Silences – 1978 • Mothers to Daughter, Daughter to Mother - 1989 • Mothers on Mothering - 1989

  12. Major Works Continued • A Daybook and Reader - 1989 • Mothers & Daughters - 1995 • That Special Quality - 1995 • An Exploration in Photographs with Estelle Jussim – 1995 • The Riddle of Life Ana Death with Leo Tolstoy - 2007

  13. Work Cited • Schult, "Tillie Olsen." Tillie Olsen Bibliography. 2007. New York Times. 28 Apr 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tillie_Olsen>. • Olsen, Tillie. "Tillie Olsen." Tillie Olsen's Life. 1995. New York: Oxford UP. 28 Apr 2008 <http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/olsen/life.htm>. • Cusac, Anne-Marie. "Tillie Olsen." Tillie Olsen Interview. 1999. The Progressive. 28 Apr 2008 <http://www.progressive.org/mag_intv1199>.

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