Eloise Greenfield was an American children’s book and biography author and poet famous for her descriptive, rhythmic style and positive portrayal of the African-American experience.
She had a profound impact on the field of children’s literature throughout her life with her books, poems, and other literary pieces.
Surprisingly, she also served as a civil servant 1950s.
This blog post will share her life story, including her early life, writing experience, civil service, awards, and so much more.
Eloise Greenfield was born on May 17, 1929, to Weston W. Little and Lessie Jones Little. She was the second oldest of five children and had a shy personality. She was a good student but also loved music and took piano lessons.
Greenfield was born in Parmele, North Carolina. However, the family later moved to Washington, DC, where she was brought up.
They lived in Langston Terrace – a public housing development for African Americans in Washington, D.C. It’s the same place Greenfield fondly recalled and described in her book Childtimes: A Three Generation Memoir.
The library was just a two-minute walk from where they lived, so she spent most of her time reading. But that didn’t stop her from being a child; she played games, danced in fire hydrant showers, and jumped rope with other children from the neighborhood.
Greenfield graduated from Cardozo Senior High School in 1946 and attended Miner Teachers College in Washington until 1949. But, in her third year at the college, she realized she was too shy to become a teacher, so she dropped out.
Shen then took her first job as a clerk at the U.S. Patent Office in 1950. The work was boring for a creative genius like Greenfield. The monotony of the job drove her to experiment with making up rhymes, and eventually, Greenfield began writing poetry in earnest.
She also saw that far too few children’s books told the truth about African Americans and the racial discrimination they suffered. So, she decided to write about it and inspire black children to grow.
This is what she said in an interview:
“Then and there, I decided to make that my mission,” said Greenfield. “I wanted my books to enable Black children to realize how beautiful and smart they are. I wanted to write books that inspired and uplifted them, made them laugh, and be happy.”
She also married in the same year (1950). Her husband was World War II veteran Robert J. Greenfield, a long-time friend. The couple had two children, a son, and a daughter.
"I love words…sometimes they make me laugh. Other times, I feel a kind of pain in struggling to find the right ones. But I keep struggling, because I want to do my best, and because I want children to have the best."
Then in 1960, Greenfield resigned from the Patent Office to spend more time with her children; she took temporary jobs and continued to write, submitting some of her work to be published in magazines.
She finally succeeded in getting her first poem, “To a Violin,” published in the Hartford Times in 1962.
She joined the District of Columbia Black Writers Workshop in 1971and started writing books for children. There, she also served as co-director of adult fiction and then, in 1973, as director of children’s literature.
The sole purpose of the group and association was to encourage the writing and publishing of African-American literature.
Since then, Greenfield has published more than 40 books for children, including works of poetry, biography, picture books, and chapter books.
Her work was widely praised for its accurate depiction of African American experience, especially family life; Greenfield said she began writing for children after looking in vain for books for her children that reflected their lives.
Greenfield was also the writer-in-residence at the District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities from 1985–86 and taught creative writing in schools under grants from the Commission.
Bubbles, 1972
This was Greenfield’s first published book. It faced many rejections, but she didn’t give up.
Africa Dream, 1977
This is an amazing book about a Black girl’s nocturnal vision of visiting her ancestral homeland. The book won her a Coretta Scott King Award.
Childtimes: A Three-Generation Memoir, 1979
This book talked about three women’s remembrances of their childhoods from the late 19th century through the 20th century: children’s author Eloise Greenfield, her mother, Lessie Jones Little, and her grandmother, Pattie Ridley Jones.
The Great Migration: Journey to the North, 2011
The Great Migration: Journey to the North is a 2011 children’s poetry book. Written by Eloise Greenfield and illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist, the poems depict the experiences and feelings of African-American families that participated in the Great Migration in the United States in the 20th century.
The Women Who Caught the Babies, 2019
The book highlights important aspects of the training and work of African-American midwives and how they have helped, and continue to help, so many families by “catching” their babies at birth.
Eloise Greenfield won many awards and earned a reputation as a skilled writer.
She won the following awards and honors:
In addition, Greenfield has been inducted into the National Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent.
Greenfield lived a long life full of struggles, triumphs, writing, teaching, and love for her family. She had an illustrious writing career with 29 fiction books, eight biographies, and 11 poems.
Her writing touched the hearts of many and taught incredible lessons to black children and youth.
On August 5, 2021, her daughter, Monica, confirmed that Greenfield died of a stroke at the age of 92.
"People are a part of their time. They are affected, during the time that they live by the things that happen in their world. Big things and small things. A war, an invention such as radio or television, a birthday party, a kiss. All of these help to shape the present and the future. If we could know more about our ancestors, about the experiences they had when they were children, and after they had grown up, too, we would know much more about what has shaped us and our world."
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