Mazie Earhart Clark
1874 – 1958

“Her innate courage and ambition evidenced itself at various critical states of her life…”
Jane Heck

Mazie Earhart Clark was the daughter of David and Fanny Earhart. Her mother died when she was five, testing her ambition and courage for the rest of her life. Her husband, George J. Clark, was a Sergeant in World War I and is buried in Arlington Cemetery. She was educated in the Glendale public schools and, after studying podiatry in Cincinnati, opened a beauty salon that was the hit of the town.

Mazie also wrote songs and poetry. Her work appeared in many periodicals of the time, and her poetry was considered an influential contribution to the Harlem Renaissance. Much of her poetry in “Garden of Memories” takes nature or romance as its theme. Many give a glimpse of African American life and Southern living in the 1920s.

In 1996, Mazie Earhart Clark’s work was reprinted in part in Voices in the Poetic Tradition. This volume is part of a series, African-American Women Writers, 1910-1940. Her work, along with that of two other poets, is described as forming “a bridge between an earlier poetic tradition and the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance.”