Juanita Harrison

Harrison was born in Mississippi in an especially racially oppressive situation for African Americans, especially women. The times were marked by racism, segregation, laborious jobs for minorities, and few if any opportunities for advancement. Harrison did not receive much schooling, as told in the preface of her book. Her school education ceased when she was about ten years old. Her early years started with "an endless round of cooking, washing, and ironing in an overburdened household," the norm for young Afro-American women in that time and place. There is not much known about her parents and family life other than what is presented in the preface to her autobiography.

Harrison's physical appearance is also a mystery to the readers. She is spoken of by a former employer's daughter as having "a slight form, fresh complexion, long hair braided about her head, made her appear younger than her years". This is the only description given about her looks. Harrison observed that people she met on her travels assumed she was Middle Eastern, Hindi or Mexican based on her appearance, especially when she adopted local attire. Harrison autographed a copy of her book and gave several personal photographs of herself to Mr and Mrs Frank Estes, on whose property in Hawaii she lived when she returned from her world travels.

Harrison began her travels at the age of 16, traversing the world and exploring 22 countries all by herself. This was quite rare for her time.

Harrison funded her travels by working various jobs wherever she happened to be. She described being employed as a nurse, nanny, and cleaning lady, among other trades of a similar sort. Her initial money came from the investments of a former employer of Los Angeles, California, George W. Dickinson and Myra K. Dickinson. The Dickinsons invested portions of her salary in real estate and gave her the profits. Harrison had long expressed a love of travel and a need to see the world; these kind employers helped her get started. The investments soon yielded $200 in interest per year. Harrison dedicated the book to Myra Dickinson in an act of gratitude.

Once Harrison was on the road she stayed in YMCAs and was able to learn French and Spanish. These language skills, especially French, helped her in many countries. She often looked up the numbers to the local boarding houses and planned her trips around her lodging accommodations.

In each country she travels to, Harrison becomes enamored by something exquisite and unique. For example, she remarked about her journeys, "Can't but help love the last place best" (19). Visiting the Taj Mahal in India was different from the Eiffel Tower in France; Harrison expresses her travels as individual revelations and experiences that could not be duplicated. She said of the Taj Mahal, "It thrilled me through as the beauty cannot be painted…this was built through love, from the love of a man for a woman so it was much nicer" (133). The book consists of her journal entries, mistakes included on her insistence: “just as I have written them misteakes and all. I said that if the mistekes are left out there’ll be only blank” (243). The pure, uncorrected language she uses to record her travels allows the reader to read it as she truly meant it to be conveyed.

She was involved in the September 10, 1928 Zaječí-Břeclav train accident in Czechoslovakia,[2] writing about it on September 13, 1928. She said the train had just pulled out of Brno. Twenty-six people were killed and many injured. Harrison wrote of trying to comfort a young German woman who was mortally injured and died in her arms. She was able to turn her most dangerous experience into profit; she asked for compensation of damages for a black eye and received the $200 she asked for. In Turkey she compared the men and evaluated her treatment. Her reactions to a man who hit her are quite candid and likely cannot be mistaken for a fabricated story.

"He ask another man if I was French and tryed to hold my hand I got angry and Hit Him in the Face and quick as litning He hit me in the Face ... that was my first fight, and the only ungentleman man I have meet in Turkey sorry it happen as I had been thinking all day if I had to give a prize to the most respectfully men it would go to the Turks, the other men felt so sad" (90).

This incident sheds light on the culture of the men she has just encountered and although shocked, in hindsight she perceives the mishap as a learning experience. Harrison realizes that sometimes women also have to defend themselves physically, not just morally. She was frequently attracted to men on her travels, and they to her, but she usually evaded them if they got too insistent.

In Europe and the Middle East, Harrison also experienced some things most black women her age and of her time could not: freedom from racial oppression, lack of border boundaries, and the chance to publish her story. Time has forgotten about My Great Wide Beautiful World but her autobiographical travelogue of events received attention when it was published. Time magazine wrote an article about her book the year it was published: “Readers of My Great Wide Beautiful World will admire not only Juanita's freedom from economic shackles but her impressionistic spelling, sometimes better than right.” The article highlighted excerpts of the book and examines them positively. Selections of Harrison's book were also published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1935. In 1994, paper engineer and book artist Carol Barton quoted Harrison's vivid description of a train ride from Istanbul in A Journal Of One's Own, a guide to making and writing a journal.[3]

Although Harrison only published one book, she has received some critical attention. The encyclopedia African American Authors, 1745–1945: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook edited by Emmanuel S. Nelson includes an entry on Harrison written by Debra J. Rosenthal. According to Rebecca Chalmers Barton, Harrison is a woman "who is not concerned about all the whys and wherefores of her past life but who only wants to convey her immediate joys to the readers." (89) Rosenthal argues that the book concentrates on the "here and now." For example, Harrison uses the present tense throughout the book in her conversational tone and carefree manner. While in Belgrade, a passing girl carrying food caught Harrison's attention and she wrote, "where ever you go I'll flower it smelled so good I flowered Her 2 blocks" (88). Although the girl was a stranger to Harrison, the writer did follow the food seller to some extent, demonstrating that the "here and now" could be at any time and in anyplace for Harrison. This allows, as Barton says, the readers to gather and share in Harrison's immediate joys.

Juanita Harrison was a woman ahead of her time, traveling alone and not timid about requiring respect for her morals and living conditions. Yet, her book reads as a humble comment on issues still relevant to women and non-Anglos today. Rosenthal also mentions that the times Harrison lived in were marred by racism and that she unlike so many others "easily melds into any society and seems to be accepted by all." Harrison herself says that while "at the Aleppo they thought I was Chinese. Here they think I am Aribian" (65). The issue of race will no doubt be uppermost for modern readers. Yet, Harrison leaves all those troubles behind to find herself immersed in the new cultures she so loves. While visiting Madrid, she remarked, "Bull fighting and ice cream are the two best things on earth" (99).

• Works by or about Juanita Harrison at Internet Archive