Ruth Gaines-Shelton

Ruth Ada Gaines-Shelton (April 8, 1872 - 1938) was an American playwright and educator. She is best known for her allegorical comedy The Church Fight, written in 1925.

Biography

Gaines-Shelton was born on April 8, 1872 in Glasgow, Missouri. She was raised by her father, a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Gaines-Shelton graduated from Wilberforce University in 1895 and she went on to teach school in Montgomery, Missouri. She married William Obern Shelton in 1898 and the couple had three children. Gaines-Shelton died in 1938.

Work

Ruth Gaines-Shelton plays were part of the Harlem Renaissance. Many of Gaines-Shelton's plays were written for her own church and women's clubs. Not all of her plays have survived with many of her manuscripts lost and unpublished.

In 1925 The Crisis sponsored a play-writing contest, and The Church Fight, a comedy, won second place and a prize of $40, as well as additional recognition for Gaines-Shelton's work.

"The Church Fight" has three distinctive aspects. Being a comedy sets it apart from most other work at the time. Comedies were rare during the Harlem Renaissance because of ongoing racial struggles, World War I, and the economic challenges as the depression approached. The second unique aspect of The Church Fight is that it is a religious allegory. The characters in the play symbolize abstract categories: Investigator, Judas, Instigator, Experience, Take-It-Back, and Two-Face. The play "pokes fun at the fickleness and pettiness of some elders of the church." The church leader's name is Parson Procrastinator. The final unique aspect is that it does not deal with the relationship between different racial communities. It is totally centered around the black experience, written for a black audience. This was unusual up until the 1960's, when black theater defined black experience within itself generally. .

The characters in the play attempt to reign in the minister of the church who is misusing church funds. The Church Fight is one of the few black comedies of the time period., and may have inspired Eulalie Spence's A Fool's Errand.