Toni Morrison Timeline

(1931 - 2019)

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) was an acclaimed American novelist, editor, and professor whose works, including Beloved, Song of Solomon, and The Bluest Eye, explored Black identity and experience in America. She became the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. More Less

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Early Life and Education

Born Chloe Ardelia Wofford in Lorain, Ohio

Feb 18, 1931

Toni Morrison was born Chloe Ardelia Wofford in Lorain, Ohio, the second of four children in a working-class Black family. Her parents instilled in her a love of Black culture, folklore, and music that would deeply shape her later writing.

Converts to Catholicism and takes the name Anthony

1943

At around age 12, Morrison joined the Catholic Church and was baptized under the name Anthony after St. Anthony of Padua. This is the origin of the nickname 'Toni,' which friends began using during her school years.

Graduates from Lorain High School with honors

1949

Morrison graduated from Lorain High School with honors, excelling academically despite the racial segregation and economic hardship she experienced growing up in a steel town.

Image source: Lorain High School

Earns bachelor's degree in English from Howard University

1953

Morrison earned her B.A. in English from Howard University in Washington, D.C., where she experienced a vibrant Black intellectual community and encountered colorism within the Black middle class, themes later explored in her fiction.

Image source: Howard University

Teaches English at Texas Southern University

1955 - 1957

After graduate school, Morrison taught English for two years at Texas Southern University in Houston before returning to Howard University as an instructor.

Image source: Texas Southern University

Earns master's degree from Cornell University

1955

Morrison completed her M.A. in English at Cornell University, writing a thesis on suicide in the works of William Faulkner and Virginia Woolf, two writers who influenced her literary style.

Image source: Cornell University

Returns to teach at Howard University

1957 - 1964

Morrison taught English at Howard University for seven years, where she met students and future writers such as Claude McKay's circle and civil rights activists including Stokely Carmichael, whom she befriended.

Marries Harold Morrison

1958

Morrison married Jamaican architect Harold Morrison, with whom she had two sons, Harold Ford and Slade Kevin. The marriage ended in divorce in 1964.

Image source: Toni Morrison

Literary Career

Begins work on her first novel while teaching

1963

While teaching at Howard, Morrison began writing a story about a Black girl who longs for blue eyes, which would become her first novel, The Bluest Eye. She wrote it in spare moments as a single mother.

Image source: The Bluest Eye

Begins work on her first novel while teaching

Becomes senior editor at Random House

1967 - 1983

Morrison became the first Black woman senior editor in fiction at Random House in New York, where she championed Black authors such as Toni Cade Bambara, Gayl Jones, and Muhammad Ali's autobiography.

Image source: Random House

Publishes first novel The Bluest Eye

1970

Morrison published The Bluest Eye at age 39, telling the tragic story of Pecola Breedlove, a young Black girl who internalizes white beauty standards. The novel received modest attention initially but became a landmark of American literature.

Publishes Sula

1973

Her second novel Sula explored the intense friendship between two Black women in Ohio and their divergent life paths. It was nominated for the National Book Award and established Morrison as a major literary voice.

Image source: Sula (novel)

Publishes Song of Solomon

1977

Song of Solomon, following Macon 'Milkman' Dead's journey into his family history, brought Morrison national acclaim, won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and became a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, its second by a Black author since Richard Wright.

Image source: Song of Solomon (novel)

Publishes Tar Baby

1981

Tar Baby examined race, class, and gender conflicts on a Caribbean island and made Morrison the second Black woman to appear on the cover of Newsweek magazine.

Image source: Tar Baby (novel)

Leaves publishing to write full-time

1983

Morrison left her position at Random House in 1983 to devote herself fully to writing and teaching, taking up positions at universities including SUNY Albany and Princeton.

Publishes Beloved

Sep 1987

Inspired by the true story of escaped slave Margaret Garner, Beloved tells of Sethe, a former enslaved woman haunted by the daughter she killed to save from slavery. It became one of the most celebrated American novels ever written.

Image source: Beloved (novel)

Publishes Jazz

1992

Jazz, set in 1920s Harlem, was the second volume of Morrison's trilogy on love, exploring passion, violence, and migration through the story of Joe Trace and his wife Violet.

Publishes Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination

1992

Morrison's influential work of literary criticism argued that American literature has been profoundly shaped by the presence of an unfree Black population, examining how whiteness operates in works by writers like Poe, Hemingway, and Twain.

Image source: Playing in the Dark

Publishes Paradise

1997

Paradise, completing her trilogy on love, depicted the all-Black town of Ruby, Oklahoma, and the violence directed at a group of women living in a nearby convent, opening with the striking line about men shooting the white girl first.

Image source: This Side of Paradise

Opera Margaret Garner premieres

2005

Morrison wrote the libretto for Margaret Garner, an opera composed by Richard Danielpour based on the same historical figure who inspired Beloved. It premiered in Detroit starring Denyce Graves.

Publishes A Mercy

2008

Set in 1680s colonial America, A Mercy explored slavery before it became racially codified, following Florens, a young servant girl, and examined themes of abandonment and motherhood in early America.

Image source: A Mercy

Publishes Home

2012

Home told the story of Frank Money, a Korean War veteran suffering from trauma, who returns to Georgia and then travels to save his sister, exploring racism, war wounds, and the meaning of home.

Image source: Home (Morrison novel)

Publishes final novel God Help the Child

2015

Her eleventh and final novel examined childhood trauma and colorism through Bride, a dark-skinned beauty whose mother rejected her, marking Morrison's first novel set entirely in the contemporary era.

Image source: God Help the Child

Awards and Honors

Wins Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Beloved

1988

Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Beloved in 1988, after 48 prominent Black writers and critics published an open letter protesting that the novel had not won the National Book Award or National Book Critics Circle Award.

Image source: Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature

Oct 1993

Morrison became the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, cited by the Swedish Academy for novels 'characterized by visionary force and poetic import' that give 'life to an essential aspect of American reality.'

Image source: Nobel Prize in Literature

Delivers Nobel Lecture on language and power

Dec 7, 1993

In her Nobel Lecture, Morrison delivered a meditation on language, telling the parable of blind wise women and warning against using language to oppress, calling it 'dead language' when it becomes rhetoric divorced from meaning.

Receives Presidential Medal of Freedom

May 29, 2012

President Barack Obama awarded Morrison the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States, recognizing her extraordinary contributions to American letters and culture.

Image source: Presidential Medal of Freedom

Later Life and Legacy

Appointed Robert F. Goheen Professor at Princeton University

1989 - 2006

Morrison held an endowed chair in the humanities at Princeton University for seventeen years, where she taught creative writing and collaborated on interdisciplinary projects before retiring in 2006.

Image source: Princeton University

Documentary Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am released

Jun 2019

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders's acclaimed documentary featured interviews with Morrison and admirers including Oprah Winfrey, Angela Davis, and Barack Obama, celebrating her life and literary legacy months before her death.

Image source: Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am

Dies at age 88 in New York

Aug 5, 2019

Toni Morrison died at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx following complications from pneumonia. Tributes poured in worldwide honoring her as one of America's greatest writers, whose work transformed the landscape of literature.

Key Facts

Toni Morrison was born Chloe Ardelia Wofford on February 18, 1931, in Lorain, Ohio.
Her debut novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970 while she worked as an editor at Random House.
She won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988 for her novel Beloved, inspired by the true story of an escaped enslaved woman.
In 1993, Morrison became the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
She was a professor at Princeton University from 1989 until her retirement in 2006 and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.

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