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Image copyrighted to the Nebraska State Historical Society
Willa Cather was a Pulitzer prize winning novelist and short story writer. Her work centered on pioneer life in the Nebraska prairies and southwestern deserts. She graduated the University of Nebraska in 1895, moved to Pittsburgh and supported herself as a journalist and high school teacher. Her most famous work is "O Pioneers", written in 1913, which centered on a young woman's struggles on the Nebraska frontier. Other works by Ms. Cather include: "My Antonia", "Death Comes for the Archbishop" and "A Lost Lady". She received the Pulitzer for "One of Ours in 1922 and was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Letters in 1938.
Willa Siberia Catcher, Nebraska's most noted novelist, was born in 1873 in Virginia. Catcher's name was originally Willed, after her father's younger sister who died in childhood, but the family always called her "Willie." At the age of 10, she moved with her family to Webster County, Nebraska, and lived on a farm there for two years before moving into the town of Red Cloud. Red Cloud was a town of 2,500 people. It was a busy place that saw the passing of eight passenger trains a day. The people of Red Cloud played an important part in the life and work of Willa Cather. There were many people in the town who inspired her. Two of Red Cloud's doctors became her friends and allowed her to tag along on their calls. Cather also medically experimented on animals with a set of medical instruments, this disgusted and outraged some of the townspeople. In high-school Willa Cather's greatest ambition was to become a doctor, a profession few women practiced at that time. Cather was also inspired by the actors and actresses who came to perform at the towns Opera House, a place she adored. The children of Red Cloud would put on their own shows where Willa proved to be an "accomplished actress", but she always played a boy. This was no surprise because Cather was a non-conformist who preferred to dress as a boy and wear her hair shorter than most boys of her day. Later she attended the University of Nebraska she continued to dress in a masculine way.
She wore suspenders, starched shirts and insisted while in college to continue pursuing the male roles in theater productions. However, she finally let her hair grow, only to please the mother of a friend.
Cather graduated from high school in June of 1890, at the age of sixteen. She was the only student of three who graduated who intended to persue college. She entered the University of Nebraska at Lincoln the following September. Willa Cather went to Lincoln with the intent of studying science. She was very interested in botany, astronomy and chemistry. However, the event that changed her heart toward writing occurred in March 1891. A professor of Cather's assigned a theme to be written and the professor was so impressed with Cather's work that without telling her, he sent the essay to the Journal, the towns paper to find her essay in print and from the time on she forgot about medicine and concentrated on writing. While attending the university, she was a drama critic for the Lincoln Journal. She worked for Home Monthly and the Daily Leader in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and later taught English and Latin at Allegheny, Pennsylvania. She moved to New York and became the leading magazine editor of her day while serving as managing editor of McClure's Magazine from 1906 to 1912. Cather continued her education and received a doctorate of letters at the University of Nebraska in 1917. She also received a doctorate of letters at the University of Nebraska in 1917. She also received honorary degrees from the University of Michigan, the University of California, and from Columbia, Yale, and Princeton. Cather wrote poetry, short stories, essays, and novels, winning many awards including the Gold Metal of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1922 she won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, One of Ours, about a Nebraska farm boy who went off to World War I. Her novel, A Lost Lady, was made into a silent movie in 1925, It premiered in Red Cloud, Nebraska and starred Irene Rich. Other well-known Cather novels include My Antonia, O Pioneers, Death Comes for the Archbishop, and The Professor's House. Cather died in April 24, 1947 in New York. In 1961 Cather was the first woman voted into the Nebraska Hall of Fame.
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