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Keys to the Archive: Miss Jane Pittman

Student Artwork, Pt. 1

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Reception By Kiley Brinkman

Reception here refers to how a literary work of art is received by society and culture over time. Since The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman was published in 1971, it has been made into a movie on television, aired on CBS and has influenced pop culture and art alike. One of the biggest achievements of Ernest Gaines's literary career was being featured on Oprah's book club. Another big moment would come a little later in his career. At a ceremony in Washington D.C., President Barack Obama presented Gaines with the 2012 National Medal of Arts award.

Oprah's influential book club featured Gaines's A Lesson Before Dying in 1997. A decade later, she used a reference to The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman to celebrate Obama's political achievements while campaigning in several different states. She argued that Obama was “the One," comparing him to the character of Jimmy who became a Civil Rights leader in the novel's final section. Oprah referenced Cicely Tyson as well, alluding to the movie adaptation of the novel. Professor of African American literature Riche Richardson reflected on these evocations of Gaines, writing, “I began to meditate on the profundity with which Oprah has engaged Gaines’s fiction elsewhere in her discourse, most notably in endorsing the Obama campaign, a moment that beckoned me back to Gaines’s The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” (482). Everyone is familiar with Oprah’s popular television show, in which "everyone gets a prize." Oprah emphasized, in her own way, through citing both the novel and the movie, that Obama is “the One” for everybody. This is proof of how much of an impact the novel has had on our society and culture over the years. Oprah comparing Obama to Jimmy as “the One” lifted a community up and gave voice to those who were silenced in the past. Through her comparison, Oprah links Gaines's writing to our first black president—an achievement many ancestors of enslaved people did not expect to see during their lifetimes.

The novel has been taught at different schools across the country. That is an important part of the impact Miss Jane Pittman, her story, and Gaines have had over the years. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman has been required reading for students at different grade levels, but not without controversy. In 2006, teachers at a school in Puyallup, WA protested the teaching of this novel due to implied violence and racial slurs, deeming it inappropriate for students in the eighth grade. They were unsure young teens could handle the adult situations in this story. They decided to settle this with the school board in a vote, as to whether the novel would remain part of the curriculum. According to an article from The News Tribune on December 5th, 2006, the result was in favor of keeping the novel as required reading. The article states, “The Puyallup School Board voted 5-0 Monday night to uphold an earlier decision by a district committee requiring eighth-graders to read the novel” (A01). The “n-word” was especially a concern, but with proper guidance and education on the history and usage of this particular word, it was concluded that students will have a better understanding of racism. For teachers in favor of students reading the novel, one reason is the opportunity for them to both gain access and understanding of minority or multicultural studies in school.

Collections at the Ernest J. Gaines Center suggest the novel was also taught at an elementary school in Louisiana. The archival materials contain a teacher's syllabus and guide with tests and student artwork. Images of the artwork below show visual representations from the novel, depicting certain scenes like Miss Jane with her oak tree, and even a few drawings of Gaines himself. The student artwork comes from Mrs. Slaughter's fourth grade class at Walnut Hills Elementary in Baton Rouge. The students' different visual interpretations hint at what they learned about the novel.

Overall, even though this is a work of fiction, it represents real lives from an earlier time in American history. It dramatizes the experience of slavery and its aftermath. We may wish these things never happened, but Gaines's work keeps the memory of our traumatic history alive. Visual art, poems, novels, and other art forms can go even further to help us make sense of that history. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman shows how a literary work can impact film, politics, and pop culture for generations to come.