Gordon, Caroline, 1895-1981

Caroline Ferguson Gordon was an American teacher, literary critic and novelist. Born on October 6, 1895, she grew up on a farm in Kentucky. Gordon graduated from Bethany College in West Virginia, in 1916 and began her career working as a writer for the Chattanooga Reporter until 1924. In 1925 she married Allen Tate, a poet and literary critic associated with the Southern Agrarian literary movement. Together they pursued their careers in writing, forging close bonds with other writers such as Robert Lowell, Hart Crane, Flannery O'Connor and Katherine Anne Porter. In 1931, Caroline published her first novel, Penhally, and in 1934 released her most popular work Aleck Maury, Sportsman. "Old Red," her best known story, published in Scribner's Magazine, was awarded a second-place O. Henry Award in 1934. She also received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1932. Her relationship with Tate grew volatile, and they divorced, remarried, and finally divorced permanently in 1959. Caroline continued to move around the country throughout her life, living at various times in North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, and Washington state. In 1978 she moved to San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico, to be with her daughter and died there on April 11, 1981.