January 7, 1891 Born in Notasulga, Alabama, the fifth of eight children, to John Hurston, a carpenter and Baptist preacher, and Lucy Potts Hurston, a former schoolteacher. September 1917 - June 1918 Attends Morgan Academy in Baltimore, completing the high school requirements. Summer 1918 as a waitress in a nightclub and a manicurist in a black-owned barbershop that only serves whites. 1918 - 1919 Attends Howard Prep School, Washington, D.C. 1919 - 1924 Attends Howard University; receives an associate degree in 1920. 1921 Publishes her first story, "John Redding Goes to Sea," in Stylus, the campus literary
society's magazine. December 1924 Publishes "Drenched in a short story, in Opportunity. 1925 Submits a "Spunk," and a play, Color Struck, to Opportunity's literary contest. Both win award; publishes "Spunk" in the June number. 1925 - 1927 Attends Barnard College, studying anthropology with Franz Boas. 1926 Begins field work for Boas in Harlem. January 1926 Publishes "John Redding Goes to Sea" in Opportunity. Summer 1926 Organizes Fire! With Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman; they publish only one issue, in November 1926. The
issue includes Hurston's "Sweat." August 1926 Publishes "Muttsy" in Opportunity. September 1926 Publishes "Possum or Pig" in the Forum. September - November 1926 Publishes "The Eatonville Anthology" in the Messenger. 1927 Publishes The First One, a play, in Charles S. Johnson's Ebony and Topaz. February 1927 Goes to Florida to collect folklore. May 19,1927 Marries Herbert Sheen. September 1927 First visits Mrs. Rufus Osgood Mason, seeking patronage. October 1927 Publishes an account of the black settlement at St. Augustine,
1933 Writes "The Fiery Chariot." January 1933 Stages From Sun to Sun (a version of Great Day) at Rollins College. August 1933 Publishes "The Gilded in Story. 1934 Publishes six essays in Nancy Cunard's anthology, Negro. January 1934 Goes to College to establish a school of dramatic arts "based on pure Negro expression." May 1934 Publishes Jonah's Gourd Vine, originally titled Big Nigger; it is a Club selection. September 1934 Publishes "The Fire and the Cloud" in the Challenge. November 1934 Singing Steel (a version of Great Day)
performed in Chicago. January 1935 Begins to study for a Ph.D in anthropology at Columbia University on a fellowship from the Rosenwald Foundation. August 1935 the WPA Federal Theater Project as a "dramatic coach." October 1935 Mules and Men published. March 1936 Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to West Indian obeah practices. April - September 1936 In Jamaica. September - March 1937 In Haiti; writes Their Eyes Were Watching God in seven weeks. May 1937 Returns to Haiti on a renewed Guggenheim.
September 1937 Returns to the United States; Their Eyes Were Watching God published, September 18. February – March 1938 Writes Tell My Horse; it is published the same year. April 1939 Joins the Federal Writers Project in Florida to work on The Florida Negro. 1939 Publishes "Now Take Noses" in Cordially Yours. June 1939 Receives an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Morgan State college. Summer 1939 Hired at a drama instructor by North Carolina College for Negroes at Durham; meets Paul Green, professor of drama, at the University of North Carolina. November 1939 Moses, Man of the
November 1942 Dust Tracks on a Road published. February 1943 Awarded the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Race Relations for Dust Tracks; on the cover of the Saturday Review. March 1943 Receives Howard University's Distinguished Alumni Award. May 1943 Publishes "The 'Pet Negro' Syndrome" in the American Mercury. November 1943 Divorce from Price granted. June 1944 Publishes "My Most Humiliating Jim Crow Experience" in the Negro Digest. 1945 Writes Mrs. Doctor; it is rejected by Lippincott. 1945 Publishes "The Rise of the Begging Joints" in the American Mercury.
1957 - 1959 Writes a column on "Hoodoo and Black Magic" for the Fort Pierce Chronicle. 1958 Works as a substitute teacher at Lincoln Park Academy, Fort Pierce. Early 1959 Suffers a stroke. October 1959 Forced to enter the St. Lucie County Welfare Home. January 28, 1960 Dies in the St. Lucie County Welfare Home of "hypertensive heart disease"; buried in an unmarked grave in the Garden of Heavenly Rest, Fort Pierce. August 1973 Alice Walker discovers and marks Hurston's grave. March 1975 Walker publishes "In Search of Zora Neale Hurston," in Ms., launching