The Wren’s Nest, Birth of the Laughing Place
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The Wren’s Nest, Birth of the Laughing Place
by Mark A. Thompson
The logs float to-and-fro through the lazy branch, following Brer Rabbit along his zip-a-dee-doo-dah day. In the end, Brer Rabbit arrives at the Laughing Place, just before the Briar Patch. As the song goes, “everyone’s got a laughin’ place�?, but where did the Laughing Place come from? The birth of the Laughing Place originated at a quaint home in Atlanta, Georgia called “The Wren’s Nest�?. Before there was Splash Mountain, there was Disney’s Song of the South. Before there was Song of the South, there was Uncle Remus Stories. Before Uncle Remus, there was Joel Chandler Harris.
Uncle Remus book cover
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Sketch depicting of the fictional Uncle Remus. |
Sketch of Brer Rabbit and friends. |
A native of Eatonton, Georgia, Joel Chandler Harris gained fame more than a century ago as the writer of children's stories told in dialect by Uncle Remus, a folklore American slave who entertained a young white boy with American folktales. Harris became a printer’s devil for the Countryman, a local newspaper owned by Joseph Addison Turner. Turner owned the Turnwold Plantation in Eatonton, which Harris later moved to. It was at Turnwold that Harris first met and chatted with the African American slaves. He spent many hours with them listening to their folklore. He had an ear for their dialect and committed to memory both their stories and language. In the stories of Uncle Remus, Harris was able to capture the reader and listener’s attention by his accurate detail of the African American folklore of the plantation slave. Although other writers had also imitated the language, they were unable to capture it the way Harris did.
After Harris’ tenure in Eatonton, he worked as a typesetter for the Macon Telegraph, the New Orleans Crescent Monthly and the Forsyth, Georgia, Monroe Advertiser. After the Advertiser he became as associate editor of the Savannah Morning News. He married Esther LaRose while living in Savannah in 1873. They had nine children but lost three to childhood illnesses. In 1876, Harris moved his family to Atlanta because of an epidemic of yellow fever in Savannah. It was there that he obtained his job with the Atlanta Constitution.