Fanny McConnell Ellison, the wife of author Ralph Ellison, was quite an accomplished woman in her own right. While attending Fisk University as an undergraduate, she worked as an assistant to the poet and novelist, James Weldon Johnson. She left Fisk due to financial reasons. However, she soon received a scholarship from the University of Iowa where she graduated.
Settling in Chicago, she founded and became the Executive Director of Chicago’s Negro People’s Theater in the late 1930s. At the same time, she wrote a political column, reviews, and essays for the Chicago Defender.
She moved to New York City in 1943 to become the assistant to the director of the National Urban League. Soon she took a new position in the city working at an organization dedicated to supporting the medical missionary work of “Burma surgeon,” Dr. Gordon S. Seagrave.
Fannie McConnell married Ralph Ellison in 1946. It was a marriage that lasted until 1994, when the author died of pancreatic cancer. She was an indispensable partner in his literary work with her strong organizational and editing skills.