Cable, George Washington

Cable, George Washington

(1844–1925) writer; born in New Orleans. When the Union forces occupied New Orleans in the Civil War, he joined a Mississippi cavalry regiment and fought in a number of engagements. After the war he held several jobs, contributed to a New Orleans newspaper, and in 1873, began to publish stories in Scribner's Monthly. The publication in 1879 of Old Creole Days, a collection of his stories drawing on the lore of old New Orleans, gained him quick national success and helped to popularize the "local color" movement then emerging in American fiction. Subsequent fictional works with New Orleans settings advanced his standing, but he had in the meantime become interested in the problems of former slaves. The reaction among some Southerners to his Silent South (1885), a collection of his essays and lectures calling for reform, led him to move to Northampton, Mass. He continued to publish novels, several dealing with the contrast between Northern and Southern manners and morals, and on reading tours with Mark Twain, who had expressed admiration for his work, he continued to agitate for equal rights for African-Americans, for prison improvements, and for other reforms.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.