author
d. 1947
A versatile early-20th-century writer and artist, she moved between poetry, fiction, drama, and visual art with unusual ease. Her work also helped preserve stories and traditions she encountered in the American South.
Born in Alabama around 1875, Lucine Finch was known as a dramatist, graphic artist, magazine storywriter, and poet. Sources about her life are brief, but they consistently describe her as a wide-ranging creative figure whose work crossed literary and visual forms.
She is especially remembered for writing about Southern life and for traveling to perform slave narratives and songs. She was also noted as one of the early people to teach the public about the Bible Quilt associated with Harriet Powers, helping bring attention to a remarkable piece of American folk art.
Finch died on April 26, 1947. Her surviving reputation rests on a mix of published writing, performances, and historical interest in the cultural material she shared and interpreted.