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Paul Laurence Dunbar was born June 27, 1872 in Dayton, OH. His mother Matilda, was a former slave and his father Joshua had escaped slavery and served in the 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment and the 5th Massachusetts Colored Calvary Regiment during the Civil ....

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.... plays and lyrics for musical compositions. His first volume of poetry, “Oak and Ivy” was published in 1893. Many of his poems and stories were written in Afro-American dialect, of which he was initially most noted for (Martin and Hudson 16). His second volume, “Majors and Minors” was published in 1895. “Majors and Minor” were a collection of poems that was written in standard English (“major”) and in dialect (“minor”) (Young 373). It was this book that fixed him on his literary path. This book attracted favorable notice by novelist and critic, William Dean Howells who also introduced Dunbar’s next book, “Lyrics o ....