Abraham DeFrance

Submitted by sfr on Sun, 2020-03-01 09:54
Character Key Number: 
3121
Display Name: 
Abraham DeFrance
Sort Name: 
DeFrance, Abraham
Ever Present in Yoknapatawpha?: 
No
Biography: 

According to Requiem for a Nun, Abraham DeFrance advised the men who founded Jackson on how to "lay out the city" (85). Faulkner got the name "Abraham DeFrance" (along with a lot of the other names and historical details in "The Golden Dome" introduction to Act II of Requiem) from Mississippi: A Guide to the Magnolia State, a product of the Depression era's Federal Writers' Project (New York: Hastings House, 1938). In the guide's section on Jackson, DeFrance is referred to as "superintendent of public buildings at Washington, D.C."; the novel uses the same phrase, minus the "D.C." (According to history, the man most responsible for the design of Jackson was Peter Van Dorn; he was one of the commissioners who decided on the location of the new capital, but the novel doesn't mention him.)

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