Home / Birthday profiles / Shirley Ann Grau
Portrait of Shirley Ann Grau

Birthday profile

Shirley Ann Grau

Shirley Ann Grau, American novelist and short story writer (died 2020)

Find birthday twinsOpen interactive profile
Born
July 28, 1929
Died
August 3, 2020
Zodiac sign
Leo
Birth year
1929

About Shirley Ann Grau

Shirley Ann Grau was an American writer. Born in New Orleans, she lived part of her childhood in Montgomery, Alabama. Her novels are set primarily in the Deep South and explore issues of race and gender. In 1965 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature for her novel The Keepers of the House, set in a fictional Alabama town. Grau's first collection of stories The Black Prince was nominated for the National Book Award in 1956. Nine years later, her novel The Keepers of the House was awarded the 1965 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Shirley Ann Grau timeline

  1. Grau's first collection of stories The Black Prince was nominated for the National Book Award in 1956.
  2. In 1965 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature for her novel The Keepers of the House, set in a fictional Alabama town.
  3. Nine years later, her novel The Keepers of the House was awarded the 1965 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

The world when Shirley Ann Grau was born

Shirley Ann Grau was born in 1929. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1929

  • #1 song"Singin' in the Rain"
  • Top movieThe Broadway Melody (first Best Picture winner)
  • Best-selling bookA Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst baseball All-Star Game proposed
  • Top headlineStock market crashes on Black Tuesday
  • Technology milestoneFirst Academy Awards ceremony held
  • Defining fadYo-yos
  • Notable inventionCar radio
  • World population2.10 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderHerbert Hoover
  • Sports championPhiladelphia Athletics (World Series)
  • U.S. population121.8M

1929 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Shirley Ann Grau's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19292026
Gas$0.21$3.45/gal
Average home$6,300$435,000
Average income$3,850$67,500
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.02$0.73
Population121.8M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.