1929 -- Scarlet Sister Mary, Peterkin

This book, more than any we have read yet, highlights the timely nature of the early Pulitzer Prize novels.

Peterkin's appallingly racist book was considered progressive for the time, yet it describes Mary, a member of a Gullah community, as an earthy woman ready for anything: birthing babies, picking cotton, a roll in the hay with pretty much any man who passes by.

Mary just loves her children -- in the end she is looking after 4 newborns pretty much single handedly and thinks it is just swell.

I guess because the focus is not on the big house but in the fields this book was considered worthy of a Pulitzer. The jury the year this was chosen actually selected another book, but the Pulitzer Committee overruled and chose this one anyway. A prominent committee member resigned, although he claimed it had nothing to do with this controversy.

Ethel Barrymore appeared on Broadway in the adaptation, the only time she appeared in blackface.

Rea this book if you want to feel hopeful about how far race relations have come since the 1920s.