by The Thurber House in Columbus, Ohio is the former home (briefly) of author, humorist, and New Yorker cartoonist/writer James Thurber (1894-1961). Thurber had a successful and storied career, including winning a Caldecott for his children’s book Many Moons and a Tony Award for his Broadway play, A Thurber Carnival.
Though Thurber was born and raised in Columbus, the family did not move to this home until he was attending college locally at The Ohio State University. The 1873 Victorian Queen Anne home was rented by Thurber’s family for just a few years (1913-1917), but experiences while living in the home can be found in Thurber’s break-out book of short stories, My Life and Hard Times, written in 1933.
The home had many owners and incarnations after the Thurber family lived there, including time as a music school, beauty shop, and boarding house. The home was actually slated for demolition in the 1970s, so extensive renovation was needed to preserve and restore it.
It’s therefore no surprise that just a few items in the home relate to Thurber or his family. Thurber’s Underwood typewriter (pictured in the cover photo to this post) is a prized possession. James’ younger brother Robert was able to provide extensive input to help make the presentation as accurate as possible to the time that the Thurbers lived there.
The Thurber House organization, founded in 1984, today refers not just to the house museum, but also the literary arts center. The organization hosts two writers-in-residence each year, who get to live on the top floor of the Thurber House for four weeks. A summer writing camp is held each year at the house. It also annually awards the “Thurber Prize for American Humor,” the nation’s highest designation of the art of humor writing.
