Hudson Strode Papers

Eugene Hudson Strode was born in Cairo, Illinois, on October 31, 1892. His family moved to Demopolis, Alabama, when he was twelve. Strode received his AB degree from The University of Alabama in 1913 and his MA from Columbia University, New York, in 1914; he wrote his master's thesis on the stage history of Hamlet. Strode taught at Syracuse University before returning to teach at The University of Alabama in 1916, where he was a professor of literature until his retirement in 1963. During his early years at the university, Strode was involved with an acting troupe called “The Blackfriar Players.” He married Therese Cory on December 19, 1924, in Birmingham, Alabama.

Strode was known for teaching classes on Shakespeare. In 1936, he began to offer a class in creative writing. Strode’s creative writing students would publish over 55 novels, 101 short stories, and numerous articles. The London Times once referred to his creative writing class as “brilliantly effective." Between 1941 and 1945, publishing company J. B. Lippincott awarded a $1,000 annual prize to the best novel submitted for publication from his class. His creative writing students included Borden Deal, Elise Sanguinetti, and Lonnie Coleman, among others. Nelle Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, was a student in Strode’s Shakespeare class while she was at The University of Alabama in the 1940s.

Though he wrote some short stories and plays, most of Strode's own writing was in the realm of nonfiction. From 1932-1975, he wrote or edited sixteen books, many of them travel commentaries on foreign countries including Bermuda, Cuba, Mexico, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and various South American and Asian nations, such as Colombia, Thailand, and Cambodia. During his travels--sometimes accompanied by his wife Therese, who helped him type and edit his manuscripts--he met and corresponded with numerous literary and political figures. He was knighted by King Gustav Adolph of Sweden in 1961 for his contributions to US-Swedish relations with his book Sweden: Model for a World. Strode also edited and wrote the introduction to Immortal Lyrics (1939), a collection of Early Modern poetry; and Spring Harvest: A Collection of Stories from Alabama (1944), which featured short stories by his Southern creative writing students. He later wrote a three-volume biography of Confederate President Jefferson Davis (published between 1955-1964), and edited a volume of Davis’s letters (1966). While he was researching the books, Strode was the first person outside the Davis family to see some of Jefferson Davis's private letters. After the books were completed, the Davis family donated 639 letters written by and to Jefferson Davis to The University of Alabama Library. Strode’s last major work, The Eleventh House, was an autobiography covering the years of his life from 1882 to 1939. In the book, Strode told of encounters with such literary figures from the 1920s and 1930s as Eugene O’Neill, F. Scott Fitzgerald, H. L. Mencken, and Ernest Hemingway. Strode planned another volume of the work that would trace his life from 1939 to the present, but because of failing health, he did not complete the task.

Hudson Strode died on September 22, 1976, at age 83. In 1982, he was inducted to the Alabama Academy of Distinguished Authors. Therese Strode died on April 1, 1986.