George Washington Cable
American novelist (1844–1925)
George Washington Cable (October 12, 1844 – January 31, 1925) was an American novelist notable for the realism of his portrayals of Creole life in his native New Orleans, Louisiana. He has been called "the most important southern artist working in the late 19th century", as well as "the first modern Southern writer". In his treatment of racism, mixed-race families, and miscegenation, his fiction has been thought to anticipate that of William Faulkner.
He also wrote articles critical of contemporary society. Due to hostility against him after two 1885 essays encouraging racial equality and opposing Jim Crow, Cable moved with his family to Northampton, Massachusetts. He lived there for the next thirty years, then moved to Florida.
Early life
George Washington Cable was born in 1844 in New Orleans, Louisiana, to George W. Cable Sr., and Rebecca Boardman Cable. His parents were wealthy slaveholders and members of the Presbyterian Church and of New Orleans society, whose families had moved there after the Louisiana Purchase. First educated in private schools, the younger Cable had to work after his father died young: the elder Cable had lost investments, and the family struggled financially. Young Cable later learned French on his own.
“George Washington Cable” enters the record as american novelist (1844–1925). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what George, Washington and Cable can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “George Washington Cable” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.