A Research Paper On Willa Cather

Zach Meyer
3/9/2018
Lora Devereaux
Composition II
Willa Cather
Willa Cather, was an American author, whose fame was achieved fame through her writings about pioneer life on the Great Plains. Cather grew up in Virginia and Nebraska as a kid, and then moved to Pennsylvania and ultimately New York as an adult pursuing her career. She was renowned as “clever” and “skillful”, especially in the writings of her short stories. She was praised by many for her works, including the New York Times, who praised her for her first novel. Over the course of her life, Cather would go on to write many different short stories, novels, and even a biography. Willa Cather was born on December 7, 1873, in Gore, Virginia. She was born on her grandmother’s farm, in
After a year she became a telegraph editor for the Pittsburg Leader, where she consistently her poetry and short stories to The Library, another local publication. When in Pittsburg, Willa was a teacher at Central High School for a year, where she taught Latin, algebra, and English composition. She then taught Latin and English at Allegheny High School, where she became the head of the English department. During her first year in Pittsburg, Willa wrote multiple short stories. One of these stories was “Tommy, the Unsentimental”, which was about a Nebraskan girl who had a girls name, looked like a boy, and saved her father’s bank business. Janis P. Stout calls this story one of several Cather works that "demonstrate the speciousness of rigid gender roles and give favorable treatment to characters who undermine conventions." Cather had her first collection of short stories published in 1905 by McClure, Phillips, and Company. The collection contains several of her most well-known stories including, “A Wagner Matinee”, “The Sculptor’s Funeral”, and “Paul’s Case”. In 1906 Willa packed up her life and moved to New York City to take a job on the editorial staff of McClure’s Magazine. IN her first year there she wrote a critical biography of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, however Georgine Milmine was named the sole author, after doing extensive amounts of research on her own. Cather’s first novel Alexander’s Bridge received mostly favorable reviews. “Amazing dramatic situations and the clever conversations” (The New York Times). The next works by Cather, her Prairie Trilogy, would prove to be greatly popular and successful. The trilogy consisted of O Pioneers!, The Song of Lark, and My Antonia. She was nationally praised and proved to be a favorite among critics. She was complimented for making “the outside world know