Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison

Lorain-born novelist of The Bluest Eye, Sula and Beloved, and in 1993 the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Born February 18, 1931, Lorain (2245 Elyria Avenue)
Died August 5, 2019, The Bronx, New York City (Montefiore Medical Center)

Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

At a glance

Born: February 18, 1931, Lorain (2245 Elyria Avenue) (Lorain County) source
Died: August 5, 2019, The Bronx, New York City (Montefiore Medical Center) source
Also known as: Chloe Ardelia Wofford, Chloe Anthony Wofford
Education: Howard University, Washington, DC, to 1953, BA English, Classics minor
: Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, to 1955, MA American Literature
Known as: Writer

Life story

Chloe Wofford was born in Lorain, a mixed industrial town on Lake Erie, to a welder father and a homemaker mother. At twelve she became Catholic and took the name Anthony, which became 'Toni'.

She earned a BA at Howard and an MA at Cornell, taught at Texas Southern and Howard, and later worked as a book editor in Syracuse and New York while raising two sons.

Her novels began with The Bluest Eye (1970); Beloved (1987) won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988, and in 1993 she became the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

She taught at Princeton for years and died in 2019 in the Bronx. Lorain honors her with a school, her archive at the public library, and a statewide Toni Morrison Day.

Ohio ties

Lorain (1931-1949)
birthplace (2245 Elyria Avenue) and childhood; Lorain High School Lorain County · source
Lorain (1940s)
teenage job at the Lorain Public Library, then in the Carnegie building on W. 10th Street Lorain County · source
Lorain (1941 (fictional))
setting of The Bluest Eye Lorain County · source
Oberlin (2009; 2012-present)
Bench by the Road memorial; Oberlin College hosts the Toni Morrison Society Lorain County · source

Timeline

1931 Born Chloe Ardelia Wofford on February 18 in Lorain. source
1949 Graduated from Lorain High School, having worked at the Lorain Public Library during high school; entered Howard University that year. source
1970 Published her first novel, The Bluest Eye, set in Lorain in 1941. source
1975 Sula won the Ohioana Book Award. source
1982 Inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame. source
1993 Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. source
1995 Attended the January 22 dedication of the Toni Morrison Reading Room at the Lorain Public Library's Main Library. source
2007 Toni Morrison Elementary School opened in Lorain. source
2009 The Toni Morrison Society dedicated a Bench by the Road in Oberlin on April 23, recognizing the town's Underground Railroad history. source
2013 Ohio Board of Education President Debe Terhar sought to drop The Bluest Eye from the state's recommended reading; it stayed on the list. source
2020 Governor Mike DeWine signed House Bill 325 on December 21 making February 18 Toni Morrison Day in Ohio. source
2021 An Ohio historical marker (36-47) was dedicated August 12 at the Lorain Historical Society Carnegie Center, the old library where she worked. source

What Toni is known for

Beloved (1987), Pulitzer 1988
Nobel Prize in Literature 1993
The Bluest Eye (1970)
Sula (1973)
Song of Solomon (1977)
Beloved (1987)
Jazz (1992)
A Mercy (2008)
God Help the Child (2015)

Stories

A reading room instead of a high school

When Morrison won the Nobel Prize in the fall of 1993, people in Lorain argued over how to honor her: rename the high school, a park, or the public library. Morrison turned all three down. She asked instead for a reading room in the Main Library, where she had spent much of her childhood reading, with comfortable upholstered chairs where young people could sit with books. The library board agreed, and a Nord Family Foundation grant helped pay for it. Morrison came home for the dedication on January 22, 1995. After her death the room was renovated and re-dedicated on February 18, 2020, her 89th birthday.

Source

The landlord's fire

When Morrison was about two years old, the family's Lorain landlord set fire to the house they were renting, with the family inside, because her parents could not pay the rent. Her parents' response was to laugh at him. Morrison later described that laughter as the family's way of keeping its integrity in the face of something monstrous, and the story became part of how she explained her Lorain upbringing.

Source

How Chloe became Toni

The Ohio historical marker outside Lorain's old Carnegie library records that Chloe Wofford took the name Toni in college, a shortened form of her saint name. She had been nurtured in language by her family and by her high-school job at the Lorain Public Library, which then occupied the Carnegie building on W. 10th Street, opened in 1904. The library moved to a new building on Sixth Street in 1957 and the Carnegie building passed to the city in 1960; it is now the Lorain Historical Society's Carnegie Center. That is why the 2021 marker stands there rather than at her birthplace on Elyria Avenue.

Source

Inventions and firsts

All Ohio inventions and firsts

Nobel Prize in Literature (1993)

Honors and things named for them

Nobel Prize in Literature (1993)
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1988)
Presidential Medal of Freedom (2012)
National Humanities Medal (2000)
Toni Morrison Elementary School, Lorain (2007)
Toni Morrison Day, February 18, Ohio (law signed Dec 2020)
Toni Morrison Hall, Princeton (2017)

Named for Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison Elementary School (Lorain, Lorain County) source
Toni Morrison Reading Room, Lorain Public Library (Lorain, Lorain County) source
Toni Morrison Day (February 18), statewide by HB 325 of 2020 source

Family

father: George Wofford
mother: Ramah Willis Wofford
spouse: Harold Morrison
son: Slade Kevin Morrison

Sites to know

Homes, graves, markers, museums and monuments; the numbered ones are on the map.

Toni Morrison birthplace, 2245 Elyria Avenue (private)
Lorain Lorain County · source
1 Ohio Historical Marker 36-47, Toni Morrison, Lorain Native, at the Lorain Historical Society Carnegie Center (former Carnegie library, 329 W. 10th St.)
Lorain Lorain County · source
Toni Morrison Reading Room, Lorain Public Library Main Library, 351 W. Sixth Street
Lorain Lorain County · source
Bench by the Road, NE corner of Main and Lorain streets
Oberlin Lorain County · source

Places in Ohio to see

Lorain Public Library (Morrison archive) (museum)
351 W Sixth St, Lorain, Lorain County ZIP 44052 · Lorain · Lorain County · official page
Toni Morrison Elementary School (park)
Lorain, Lorain County Lorain · Lorain County · official page
Birthplace, 2245 Elyria Ave (home)
2245 Elyria Ave, Lorain, Lorain County Lorain · Lorain County · official page

Ohio places

Where Toni Morrison was born, lived, worked and is remembered, with the ZIP code, town and county pages for each.

Born: Lorain, Lorain County ZIP 44052 · Lorain · Lorain County

Pictures

Free to use with the credit shown. Select a picture for the original and its license.

First-edition dust jacket cover of Beloved (1987) by the American author Toni Morrison.
Public domain
Broadway director Harold Prince receives the Golden Plate award from Nobel laureate Toni Morrison at the Ameri...
Public domain
The cover of the hardcover version of Burn This Book by Toni Morrison
Public domain
O olho mais azul/Toni Morrison; tradução Manoel Paulo Ferreira; com posfácio da autora. ed. São Paulo Companhi...
CC0
First edition cover to Jazz by Toni Morrison.
Public domain
President Barack Obama talks with Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Toni Morrison in the Blue Room of th...
Public domain
President Barack Obama presents American musician Bob Dylan with a Medal of Freedom, Tuesday, May 29, 2012, du...
Public domain
O olho mais azul/Toni Morrison; tradução Manoel Paulo Ferreira; com posfácio da autora. ed. São Paulo Companhi...
CC0
Title: Toni Morrison [author, at her upstate New York home] Creator(s): Gotfryd, Bernard, photographer Date Cr...
Public domain
Title: Toni Morrison [author, at her upstate New York home] Creator(s): Gotfryd, Bernard, photographer Date Cr...
Public domain
Title: Toni Morrison, author, with her sons Harold and Slade at their upstate New York home Creator(s): Gotfry...
Public domain
Title: Toni Morrison [author, at her upstate New York home] Creator(s): Gotfryd, Bernard, photographer Date Cr...
Public domain