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Morrison went to Howard University in Washington, D.C. in 1949, to study English. It is then that she changed her name to Toni because people at Howard often had trouble pronouncing the name Chloe. During her time at Howard University, she was a member of the theater company that presented plays about the lives of African Americans. In 1953, she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English. After she received her master's in English from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, she taught for two years at Texas Southern University in Houston before she returned to Howard University to teach ("Toni Morrison Biography").
It wasn't long before Toni met Harold Morrison, a young architect, who also taught at Howard University. They married in 1958 and had two sons, Harold and Slade, before divorcing in 1964. Morrison then moved to Syracuse, New York and began to work as an editor for Random House, which gave her free time in the evenings to raise her two small children as well as write novels. She moved to New York City where she continued to work as an editor for Random House in 1968. Morrison became a senior editor eventually and was the only African American woman to have that job in the company. While serving as a publisher, she published books by several African American writers. She also enjoyed lecturing across the country, teaching part-time, and writing many novels ("Toni Morrison Biography").
The Bluest Eye was Morrison's first novel. Her novels are all carefully written to produce poetic phrases and strong emotional responses from the readers. Often, her stories discuss a character trying to understand the truth about the world they live in. She writes about several different themes including good and evil, love and hate, beauty and ugliness, friendship, and death. In 1996, Morrison received a Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation.