Joel Chandler Harris

Born in Eatonton, Georgia, in 1848 and later based in Atlanta, Joel Chandler Harris was an American journalist, fiction writer, and folklorist. He spent much of his career at The Atlanta Constitution and became nationally known through the Uncle Remus tales, which collected and adapted animal stories associated with African American oral tradition.

His best-known book, Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (1880), introduced many readers to Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and other memorable characters. Harris was admired in his own time for his storytelling and ear for regional speech, and he also wrote short stories, novels, and children's literature beyond the Uncle Remus series.

Today, his legacy is complicated as well as influential. Readers and scholars often recognize the importance of the folklore he helped preserve while also noting the limits and controversies of the plantation framing and dialect he used.