User:Angelknives009/Ruth Gaines-Shelton

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Ruth Ada Gaines-Shelton (April 8, 1872 – 1938) was an American playwright and educator. She is a lesser-known writer of the Harlem renaissance era and 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. Gaines-Shelton's parents were Reverend George W. Gaines, a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and her mother Mary Elizabeth Gaines. She was raised by her father following the death of her mother and was taken care of by the African American midwest community. Gaines-Shelton graduated from Wilberforce University, a historically Black university, in 1895. Following graduating Wilberforce University, Gaines-Shelton taught in public schools in Montgomery, Missouri from 1894 to 1899. She married William Obern Shelton in 1898 and the couple had three children. Gaines-Shelton died in 1938.

Works
Ruth Gaines-Shelton plays were part of the Harlem Renaissance. She began writing plays in 1906. Many of Gaines-Shelton's plays were written for her own church, children, and women's clubs. Not all of her plays have survived with many of her manuscripts lost and unpublished. Some of her other plays include Aunt Hagar's Children, The Church Mouse, Gena, the Lost Child, Lord Earlington's Broken Vow, Mr. Church, and Parson's Dewdrop Bride.

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. Her work was subsequently published in The Crisis in May 1926.