Juanita Harrison—My Great, Wide, Beautiful World with Cathryn Halverson

Send us Fan Mail Determined from a young age to escape the Jim-Crow South and see new places, Mississippi native Juanita Harrison managed, as a working-class Black woman, to cultivate her own version of a grand world tour, paying for her globe-trotting by picking up piecemeal work as a maid, nanny or cook in far-flung places. My Great, Wide, Beautiful World, her remarkable written account of this eight-year international adventure became a bestseller in 1936 and was the most commercially successful book by a Black author at that time. Cathryn Halverson, author of a brand-new biography on Harrion, joins us this week to discuss this “born writer,” whose sheer pluck and adventurous spirit helped her take the world by storm. Mentioned in this episode: My Great, Wide, Beautiful World by Juanita Harrison ( free online version ). A Born Writer: Juanita Harrison and Her Beautiful World by Cathryn Harrison Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 210 on Mary Maclane Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 246 on Jessie Redmon Fauset Chimene Jackson Mildred Morris Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers Anthony Bourdain Era Bell Thomson Support the show For episodes and show notes, visit: LostLadiesofLit.com

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Juanita Harrison—My Great, Wide, Beautiful World with Cathryn Halverson is an episode from Lost Ladies of Lit by Amy Helmes & Kim Askew.

This episode is 50:53 long.

This episode was published on Mar 31, 2026.

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