We hope the following materials will be helpful to Welty readers of all ages—those meeting her work for the first time as well as long-time fans, teachers, and students. Click on the linked topics to access the information below. Words below in red are links.
STORY/BOOK GUIDES
• The Optimist’s Daughter: A Readers’ Guide
• The Optimist’s Daughter: Synopsis
• Welty’s short story about the assassination of Medgar Evers, “Where Is the Voice Coming From?”
For a comprehensive on-line resource unit for teachers on this short story , CLICK HERE.
For some of the background information included in the Teacher Resource Unit, CLICK on the titles below to download pdfs.
• The Early Sixties in Mississippi, an overview of the climate of segregation during the 1960s in Mississippi and facts about Medgar Evers and Byron de la Beckwith, his assassin
• Life Into Fiction, an introduction to Welty’s creation of the story and photographs of the crime scene
• To listen to the recording of Dr. Rush Rehm’s introduction and reading of “Where Is the Voice Coming From?”, CLICK
THIS STORY CONTAINS EXPLICITLY OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE AS IT IS TOLD IN FIRST PERSON FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE ASSASSIN.
NOTE: THIS RECORDING OF “WHERE IS THE VOICE COMING FROM?” IS PROTECTED UNDER COPYRIGHT LAW AND SHOULD BE USED FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY.
• “The Whistle”: An Educational Guide
The following collection of educational resources may be downloaded by clicking the highlighted links. Eudora Welty’s “The Whistle” is a glimpse into life in rural Mississippi during the Depression of the 1930s. The story may be found in Welty’s Collected Stories and A Curtain of Green, as well as the Library of America volume of Welty: Stories, Essays, and Memoir. The resource material was researched and prepared by Karen Redhead and Lee Anne Bryan, former history and English teachers, respectively. Both were also Eudora Welty House staff members — Ms. Redhead was director of the Welty House and Ms. Bryan, assistant to the director and, most recently, education and outreach specialist.
Singer/songwriter Claire Holley was inspired by Welty’s story to write a song entitled “Pleasant Dreams,” included here through the artist’s courtesy, to enrich this discussion resource on creativity.
A helpful guide for teachers and others discussing “The Whistle,” “Pleasant Dreams,” and the creative process.
An excerpt from Welty scholar Suzanne Marrs’s One Writer’s Imagination: The Fiction of Eudora Welty about the story
Singer/songwriter Claire Holley’s song “Pleasant Dreams,” inspired by “The Whistle”
A brief statement from Holley about the creation of the song and the song lyrics, as recorded
A background essay about tenant farming in Mississippi
Two photographs taken by Eudora Welty depicting rural life in Mississippi in the 1930s: “A House with Bottle Trees” and “Tomato Packers’ Recess.”
ESSAYS AND ARTICLES
• Welty Biography
• Welty Timeline
• Welty Bibliography
• Lye Poisoning in “A Worn Path”
• Humor in Welty’s Fiction
• Stories of the Great Depression
• Eudora Welty Goes to the Movies
• Autobiography in Welty’s Fiction
• “Eudora Welty as Photographer,” article in Smithsonian Magazine
• Welty Obituary in New York Times
“WELTY AND THE CRAFT OF WRITING” MEDIA RESOURCE KIT
“Welty and the Craft of Writing” contains a DVD of rare films of Welty reading three of her most beloved stories — “Why I Live at the P. O.,” “A Worn Path,” and “Petrified Man” and an interactive CD-Rom of manuscripts, correspondence, and photographs by Welty related to each of the stories. A teacher guide is also included and available here.
Made possible by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Comcast Foundation, and Feild Co-operative Association, Inc, the kit is available free to teachers on request as long as supplies last. For an order form, click here. Teachers are asked to complete an evaluation form after using the kit, sent with the kit and available here.
WEBSITES AND LINKS OF INTEREST
• Mississippi Department of Archives and History – The Eudora Welty House and Garden
• Educator Field Trip Guide to the Eudora Welty House and Garden
• The Eudora Welty Society
• The Eudora Welty Review
• The Mississippi Writer’s Page: Eudora Welty
• The Greenwood Cemetery
TRAVELING EXHIBITS
Two traveling exhibits are available from the Museum Division of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, for both in-state and out-of-state loan. The first exhibit, “Welty,” juxtaposes some of Welty’s 1930s era photographs with excerpts from her writing to show the relationship between her source material and her writing. “Eudora Welty: Other Places” presents photographs Welty took in New Orleans and New York City from 1936 to 1939. For more information, contact the Welty House at (601) 353-7762.