American Women Writers

Second Edition
VOLUME 1 A-D
Editor
Ta r y n B e n b o w - P f a l z g r a f
Taryn Benbow-Pfalzgraf, Editor
Glynis Benbow-Niemier, Associate Editor
Kristin G. Hart, Project Coordinator
Laura Standley Berger, Joann Cerrito, Dave Collins,

Steve Cusack, Nicolet V. Elert, Miranda Ferrara, Jamie FitzGerald,
Laura S. Kryhoski, Margaret Mazurkiewicz, Michael J. Tyrkus
St. James Press Staff
Peter M. Gareffa, Managing Editor, St. James Press
Mary Beth Trimper, Composition Manager

Dorothy Maki, Manufacturing Manager
Wendy Blurton, Senior Buyer
Cynthia Baldwin, Product Design Manager

Martha Schiebold, Art Director
Ronald D. Montgomery, Data Entry Manager

Gwendolyn S. Tucker, Project Administrator
While every effort has been made to ensure the reliability of the information presented in this publication, St. James
Press does not guarantee the accuracy of the data contained herein. St. James Press accepts no payment for listing;
and inclusion of any organization, agency, institution, publication, service, or individual does not imply
endorsement of the editors or publisher.
Errors brought to the attention of the publisher and veried to the satisfaction of the publisher will be corrected in
future editions.
This publication is a creative work fully protected by all applicable copyright laws, as well as by misappropriation,
trade secret, unfair competition, and other applicable laws. The authors and editors of this work have added value to
the underlying factual material herein through one or more of the following: unique and original selection,
coordination, expression, arrangement, and classication of the information.
All rights to this publication will be vigorously defended.
Copyright 2000
St. James Press
27500 Drake Rd.
Farmington Hills, MI 48331
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
American women writers : from colonial times to the present : a

critical reference guide / editor: Taryn Benbow-Pfalzgraf. -- 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-55862-429-5 (set) ISBN 1-55862-430-9 (vol.1) ISBN 1-55862-431-7 (vol.2)
ISBN 1-55862-432-5 (vol.3) ISBN 1-55862-433-3 (vol.4)
1. American literature-Women authors-Bio-bibliography
Dictionaries. 2. Women authors, American-Biography Dictionaries.
3. American literature-Women authors Dictionaries. I. Benbow-Pfalzgraf, Taryn
PS147.A42 1999
810.9928703dc21 99-43293
[B] CIP
Printed in the United States of America
St. James Press is an imprint of Gale Group

Gale Group and Design is a trademark used herein under license
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
EDITORS NOTE
American Women Writers, Second Edition is an important resource for many reasons, the least of which is to disseminate information about
hundreds of women writers who have been routinely overlooked. A veritable treasure trove of knowledge, the women proled in this series have
literally changed the world, from Margaret Sangers quest for reproductive freedom to Jane Addams and Hull House, from Sylvia Earle and Rachel
Carsons environmental concerns, to the aching beauty of poems by Olga Broumas, Emily Dickinson, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Marianne
Moore, Sylvia Plath, Sara Teasdale, Lorrie Moore, and many others. There are writers who are immensely entertaining (M.F.K. Fisher, Jean
Craighead George, Sue Grafton, Helen MacInnes, Terry McMillan, C. L. Moore, Barbara Neely, Danielle Steel), some who wish to instruct on
faith (Dorothy Day, Mary Baker Eddy, Catherine Marshall, Anne Morrow Lindbergh), others who revisit the past to educate us (Gwendolyn
Brooks, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Paula Allen Gunn, Carolyn Heilbrun, Mary Johnston, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Mary White Ovington, Sherley
Ann Williams, Mourning Dove), and still more who wish to shock us from complacency of one kind or another (Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Lillian
Hellman, Shirley Jackson, Harriet Jacobs, Shirley Jackson, Carson McCullers, A.G. Mojtabai, Bharati Mukherjee, Carry A. Nation, Flannery
OConnor, Anne Sexton, Phillis Wheatley, and more).
The women lling these pages have nothing and everything in common; they are female, yes, but view their lives and worth in vastly different
manners. There is no census of ethnicity, class, age, or sexualitythe prerequisites for inclusion had only to do with a body of work, the written
word in all its forms, and the unfortunate limits of time and space. Yes, there are omissions, none by choice: some were overlooked in favor of
others (by a voting selection process), others were assigned and the material never received. In the end, it is the ongoing bane of publishing: there
will never be enough time nor space to capture allfor there will (hopefully) always be new women writers coming to the fore, and newly
discovered manuscripts to test our conceptions of life from a womans eye.
Yet American Women Writers is just what its title implies, a series of books recounting the life and works of American women from Colonial
days to the present. Some writers produced far more than others, yet each woman contributed writing worthy of historical note, to be brought to the
forefront of scholarship for new generations to read. Last but never least, thanks to Peter Gareffa for this opportunity; to Kristin Hart for her
continual support and great attitude; to my associate editor Glynis Benbow-Niemier; to my editorial and research staff (Jocelyn Prucha, Diane
Murphy, and Lori Prucha), and to the beloveds: Jordyn, Wylie, Foley, Hadley, and John.
v
FOREWORD
In a memorandum to contributors, Lina Mainiero, the founding editor of American Women Writers described the project she envi-
sioned in 1978:
Written wholly by women critics, this reference work is designed as a four-volume survey of American women writers from colonial
days to the present. . . Most entries will be on women who have written what is traditionally dened as literature. But AWW will also
include entries on writers in other elds. . . I see AWW as a precious opportunity for womenthose who write it and those who read it
to integrate at a more self- conscious level a variety of reading experience.
The result was a document of its time, a period when feminism was associated with building sisterhood and raising consciousness. Even a
commercial publishing venture might take on the trappings of a consciousness raising session in which readers and writers met. The idea now
seems naive, but the ideal is worth remembering. In 1978 Mainiero was neither young nor revolutionary. She was hesitant about pushing too far;
she was content to let traditional denitions stand. But the very inclusion of Rachel Carson and Margaret Mead, Betty Smith and Ursula LeGuin,
Rebecca Harding Davis and Phillis Wheatley, Gertrude Stein and Dorothy Parker in a reference work entitled simply and profoundly American
Women Writers spoke eloquently. Without ever referring explicitly to canon revision, these four volumes contributed to the process. Having the
books on the shelves testied to the existence of hundreds of women who had written across the centuries. Including those whose work was
perceived to be literary alongside those whose work was not, pregured debates that continue today both inside and outside of the academy.
Mainiero was especially concerned that contributors not aim their entries at the academic specialist. The putative reader was a college
senior, who was conversant with literary history and criticism, feminism, and the humanities. This emphasis provoked criticism, because it was
expressed during the heyday of academic feminism. American Women Writers appeared the same year as Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar
published The Madwoman in the Attic, their inuential study of 19th-century English women writers. Nina Bayms American Women Writers and
Womens Fiction: A Guide to Novels by and About Women in America had appeared the year before. In retrospect, however, the reader Mainiero
targeted is precisely the young woman she hoped would join the consciousness session organized by her elders, a woman who would not become
an academic, but who would nd in womens writing the necessary bread to sustain her in living her life.
Ideals and realities clashed in a project that was clearly intended to make money, but declined to pay honoraria to individual contributors.
Instead, the publisher promised to contribute a percentage of any prots to womens causes. The desire to reach the common reader was one
reason the volumes were published without a scholarly overview. The decision not to address an academic audience meant the entries contained no
critical jargon, but it also meant no authorities checked facts. In fairness, few facts were known about many of the women in the book. Numerous
articles proled women about whom no one had written. One way to gauge the success of feminist scholarship over the past two decades would be
to compare the bibliographies of women in this edition with those in the original edition. What we know now about womens writing in the United
States is more than we realized there was to know two decades ago. Let me use my contributions as examples. I wrote entries on Gwendolyn
Brooks, Frances Watkins Harper, Nella Larsen, and Anne Spencer. These black women lived and worked across almost two centuries. Harper, an
abolitionist and womens rights advocate, had been the most popular African American poet of the mid-19th century. Larsen and Spencer
published ction and poetry, respectively, during the Harlem Renaissance. Of Brooks, I concluded, by any reckoning, hers is one of the major
voices of 20th-century American poetry. Yet no biographies existed for any of them. All of the information in print on Harper referred to a
single source.
Twenty years later, scholars have explored Harpers life in depth; digging through the archives, Frances Smith Foster discovered three lost
novels and a treasure trove of poems. In search of the women of the Harlem Renaissance, scholars have unearthed much more information
concerning Larsen and Spencer. Now the subject of a biography by Thadious Davis, Larsen and her novelsPassing in particularhave become
key texts in the formulation of feminist theory and queer theory. Ironically, though Spencers oeuvre was the most slender, she was the only one of
these writers to have been the subject of a book: J. Lee Greenes Times Unfading Garden, a biographical and critical treatment of the poet along
with a selection of her poems. Brooks has begun to receive her due in ve biographical and critical studies. As scholars have continued their work,
readers have found a valuable reference tool in American Women Writers. The fourth and nal volume of the original edition appeared in 1982.
Soon afterward, Langdon Lynne Faust edited an abridged version, including a two-volume edition in paperback. In part because the original
edition concentrated on writers before 1960, a supplement, edited by Carol Hurd Green and Mary G. Mason, was published in 1993. The writers
included were more diverse than ever, as a more inclusive understanding of American grew.
Fostering that understanding has been a priority of this project since the beginning. That new editions continue to be published conrms the
existence of a need that these volumes ll. The explosion of feminist scholarship has enriched each subsequent edition of American Women
Writers. In this venue at least, the gap between academic specialist and common reader has narrowed. One development that no one would have
predicted is the re-emergence of the literary society, a common feature in 19th-century American life. The name has changed; it is now more often
called the reading group. But the membership remains mostly female. Such groups have grown up in every segment of American society. Indeed,
Oprahs Book Club is a macrocosm of a widespread local phenomenon. I hope and suspect members of reading groups, as well as the
undergraduates who remain its putative readers, will nd this new edition of American Women Writers a resource that can be put to everyday use.
CHERYL A. WALL
Professor of English
Rutgers University
vii
BOARD OF ADVISORS
Roger Blackwell Bailey, Ph.D. Kathleen Bonann Marshall

Professor of English Assistant Director, Center for the
San Antonio College Writing Arts
Alanna K. Brown, Ph.D. Northwestern University
Montana State University Margaret (Maggie) McFadden
Pattie Cowell Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies
Professor of English Editor, National Womens Studies
Colorado State University Association Journal
Appalachian State University
Barbara Grier
President and CEO
Naiad Press, Inc. Kit Reed
Novelist, Teaching at Wesleyan
Jessica Grim
Reference Librarian University
Oberlin College Library
Carolyn G. Heilbrun Cheryl A. Wall
Avalon Professor in the Humanities, Professor of English
Emerita Rutgers University
Columbia University
Marlene Manoff Barbara A. White
Associate Head/Collection Manager Professor Emeritus of Womens
Humanities Library Studies
Massachusetts Institute of Technology University of New Hampshire
ix
BOARD OF CONTRIBUTORS
Aarons, Victoria Antler, Joyce

Allegra Goodman Lynne Sharon Schwartz
Alice Hoffman
Armeny, Susan
Faye Kellerman
Mary Sewall Gardner
Lesla Newman
Lillian D. Wald
Tillie Olsen
Francine Prose Armitage, Shelley
Ina Donna Coolbrith
Adams, Barbara
Anne Ellis
Aimee Semple McPherson
Assendelft, Nick
Adams, Pauline
Lisa Alther
Marion Marsh Todd
Anne Bernays
Alldredge, Betty J. E. M. Broner
Katherine Mayo Marilyn Hacker
Katharine Pearson Woods Joy Harjo
Maureen Howard
Allen, Carol Florence Howe
Alice Childress Susanne K. Langer
Allen, Suzanne Meridel Le Sueur
Martha Moore Avery Bach, Peggy
Madeleine Vinton Dahlgren Evelyn Scott
Anna McKenney Dorsey
Ella Loraine Dorsey Bakerman, Jane S.
Susan Blanchard Elder Vera Caspary
Caroline Gordon Ursula Reilly Curtiss
Laura Z. Hobson Dorothea Caneld Fisher
Lillian Smith Lois Gould
Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Alonso, Helena Emma Lathen
Julia lvarez Ruth Doan MacDougall
Sandra Cisneros Margaret Millar
Achy Obejas Toni Morrison
Anderson, Celia Catlett May Sarton
Beverly Cleary Elizabeth Savage
Marguerite Henry Susan Fromberg Schaeffer
Florence Crannell Means Gene Stratton-Porter
Cornelia Meigs Mary Sture-Vasa
Dorothy Uhnak
Anderson, Eileen M. Jessamyn West
Phyllis Chesler
Bannan, Helen M.
Anderson, Kathryn Murphy Fabiola Cabeza de Baca
Beth Henley Elizabeth Bacon Custer
Marsha Norman Elaine Goodale Eastman
Helen Hunt Jackson
Anderson, Maggie
Mary Harris Jones
Jane Cooper
Kathryn Anderson McLean
Anderson, Nancy G. Franc Johnson Newcomb
Dorothy Scarborough Anna Moore Shaw
Lella Warren Elizabeth G. Stern
xi
BOARD OF CONTRIBUTORS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Banner, Lois W. Benet, Sydonie

Harriet Hubbard Ayer Janet Flanner
Mary McCarthy
Barbour, Paula L.
Josephine Miles
Jane Auer Bowles
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Barbuto, Domenica Virginia Ramey Mollenkott
Anne Warner French Linda Pastan
Amanda Theodocia Jones Katherine Paterson
Marilyn Sachs
Barnhart, Jacqueline Baker Elizabeth Spencer
Sarah Bayliss Royce
Ruth Stone
Elinore Pruitt Stewart
Michele Wallace
Barr, Marleen S. Mae West
Deborah Norris Logan Sherley Anne Williams
Baruch, Elaine Hoffman Berke, Jacqueline

Susan Sontag Harriet Stratemeyer Adams
Diana Trilling Eleanor Hodgman Porter
Bauer, Denise Berry, Linda S.
Lucille Clifton Georgia Douglas Johnson
Alicia Ostriker
Alix Kates Shulman Berube, Linda
Susan Grifn
Baytop, Adrianne Alice Hoffman
Margaret Walker Maxine W. Kumin
Phillis Wheatley Valerie Miner
Grace Paley
Beasley, Maurine
May Swenson
Mary E. Clemmer Ames
Emily Edson Briggs Beyer, Janet M.
Kate Field Erma Bombeck
Beecher, Maureen Ursenbach Ellen Goodman
Susa Young Gates Lois Gould
Doris Grumbach
Bell, Alice Nicole Hollander
Paula Fox
Biancarosa, Gina
Belli, Angela Erica Jong
Frances Winwar
Bienstock, Beverly Gray
Ben-Merre, Diana Anita Loos
Helen McCloy Shirley MacLaine
Benardete, Jane Cornelia Otis Skinner
Harriot Stanton Blatch Thyra Samter Winslow
Abby Morton Diaz Biguenet, John
Mary Abigail Dodge Valerie Martin
Amanda Minnie Douglas
Malvina Hoffman Bird, Christiane
Elizabeth Palmer Peabody Rosamond Neal DuJardin
Lydia Huntley Sigourney Josephine Lawrence
Sophie Swett Harper Lee
Harriet Stone Lothrop
Benbow-Niemier, Glynis Alice Duer Miller
Jane Kenyon
Lorine Niedecker Bittker, Anne S.
Jean Valentine Mary Margaret McBride
xii
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BOARD OF CONTRIBUTORS
Blair, Karen J. Brooker-Gross, Susan R.

Jane Cunningham Croly Ellen Churchill Semple
Ella Giles Ruddy
Brookes, Kimberly Hayden
Blicksilver, Edith Barbara Deming
Leslie Marmon Silko
Brostoff, Anita
Bloom, Lynn Z. Gladys Schmitt
Natalie Stark Crouter
Brown, Alanna Kathleen
Bloom, Steven F. Mourning Dove
Wendy Wasserstein
Brown, Dorothy H.
Bloom, Susan P. Rose Falls Bres
Natalie Babbitt Elma Godchaux
Eloise Greeneld Margaret Landon
Boisvert, Nancy L. Mary Lasswell
Judith Rossner Mary Ashley Townsend
Jeannette Hadermann Walworth
Bonazoli, Robert
Kit Reed Brown, Fahamisha Patricia
Jayne Cortez
Bordin, Ruth Carolyn M. Rodgers
Elizabeth Margaret Chandler Ntozake Shange
Mary Rice Livermore
Anna H. Shaw Brown, Lois
Octavia E. Butler
Boyd, Karen Leslie Terry McMillan
Patricia Highsmith
Nora Roberts Brown, Lynda W.
Caroline Whiting Hentz
Boyd, Lois A. Octavia Walton Le Vert
Paula Marie Cooey Anne Newport Royall
Boyd, Zohara Jennette Reid Tandy
Sophia Robbins Little Bryer, Marjorie
Josephine Pollard Michele Wallace
Martha Remick
Mary Jane Windle Buchanan, Harriette Cuttino
Corra May Harris
Brahm, Laura Helen Kendrick Johnson
Judy Grahn Agnes C. Laut
Mary Oliver Blair Rice Niles
Breitsprecher, Nancy Marie Conway Oemler
Zona Gale Josephine Pinckney
Lizette Woodworth Reese
Bremer, Sidney H. Mary Howard Schoolcraft
Lucy Monroe
Elia Wilkinson Peattie Bucknall, Barbara J.
Eunice Tietjens Pearl S. Buck
Edith Franklin Wyatt Ursula K. Le Guin
Phyllis McGinley
Brett, Sally Hannah Whittal Smith
Inglis Clark Fletcher Evangeline Walton
Bernice Kelly Harris
Edith Summers Kelley Burger, Mary
Ida Tarbell Diane DiPrima
Broner, E. M. Burns, Lois
Anne Bernays Mary Hunter Austin
xiii
Burns, Melissa Challinor, Joan R.

Anne Bernays Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams
E. M. Broner
Mary McCarthy Chase, Evelyn Hyman
Helen Hennessy Vendler Mary Ellen Chase
Butery, Karen Ann Chew, Martha

Karen Horney Mary Henderson Eastman
Sallie Rochester Ford
Butler, Francelia Maria Jane McIntosh
Harriet Taylor Upton
Chou, Jerome
Byers, Inzer Elisabeth Kbler-Ross
Annie Heloise Abel Cathy Song
Mary Sheldon Barnes Eudora Welty
Mary Louise Booth Kate Wilhelm
Catherine Drinker Bowen
Carrie Chapman Catt Christensen, Lois E.
Frances Manwaring Caulkins Louise Smith Clappe
Margaret Antoinette Clapp Clark, Susan L.
Margaret L. Coit Mignon G. Eberhart
Angelina Grimk Doris Grumbach
Sarah Moore Grimk Mary R. Higham
Louise Kellogg Mabel Seeley
Adrienne Koch
Martha Nash Lamb Cleveland, Carol
Alma Lutz Patricia Highsmith
Nellie Neilson
Cohn, Amy L.
Martha Laurens Ramsay
Lois Lowry
Constance Lindsay Skinner
Margaret Bayard Smith Cohn, Jan
Byington, Juliet Mary Roberts Rinehart
Susan Brownmiller Coleman, Linda S.
Lorna Dee Cervantes Mollie Dorsey Sanford
Alice Childress
Rosalyn Drexler Condit, Rebecca C.
Eloise Greeneld Ai
Catharine A. MacKinnon Jayne Cortez
Kate Millett Joan Didion
Andrea Nye Frances FitzGerald
Susan Sontag Paula Fox
Sandra M. Gilbert
Campbell, Mary B. Ellen Gilchrist
Carolyn Forch Marita Golden
Carl, Lisa Mary Catherine Gordon
Nikki Giovanni Lois Gould
Mary Lee Settle Joanne Greenberg
Beth Henley
Carlin, Sandra Pauline Kael
Louella Oettinger Parsons Alison Lurie
Marge Piercy
Carnes, Valerie
Rosemary Radford Ruether
Janet Flanner
Linda Ty-Casper
Carroll, Linda A. Dorothy Uhnak
Jean Craighead George Ann Belford Ulanov
xiv
Cook, Martha E. Dash, Irene

Virginia Hamilton Carolyn G. Heilbrun
Annie Fellows Johnston
George Madden Martin Davidson, Cathy N.
Katherine Bonner McDowell E. M. Broner
Mary Murfree Laura Jean Libbey
Tabitha Tenney
Cook, Sylvia
Olive Tilford Dargan
Davis, Barbara Kerr
Grace Lumpkin
Ellen Moers
Coultrap-McQuin, Susan
Eliza Leslie Davis, Thadious M.
Catharine Arnold Williams Anna Julia Cooper
Mollie Moore Davis
Cowell, Pattie
Shirley Graham
Bathsheba Bowers
Mary Spring Walker
Martha Wadsworth Brewster
Elizabeth Sandwith Drinker Rhoda E. White
Anna Young Smith
Annis Boudinot Stockton Deegan, Mary Jo
Lydia Fish Willis Edith Abbott
Anna Green Winslow Emily Greene Balch
Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge
Cox, Virginia Helen Merrell Lynd
Erica Jong Marion Talbott
Crabbe, Katharyn F.
Jane Andrews DeMarr, Mary Jean
Carolyn Sherwin Bailey Charlotte Armstrong
Katherine Lee Bates Sarah T. Bolton
Margery Williams Bianco Gwen Bristow
Claire Huchet Bishop Doris Miles Disney
Rebecca Sophia Clarke Janet Ayer Fairbank
Clara F. Guernsey Rachel Lyman Field
Lucy Ellen Guernsey Alice Tisdale Hobart
Theodora Kroeber Agnes Newton Keith
Elizabeth Foreman Lewis Alice Hegan Rice
Ella Farman Pratt Mari Sandoz
Susan Ridley Sedgwick Anya Seton
Monica Shannon Ruth Suckow
Eva March Tappan Elswyth Thane
Louisa Huggins Tuthill Agnes Sligh Turnbull
Elizabeth Gray Vining Carolyn Wells
Eliza Orne White
Demetrakopoulos, Stephanie
Crumpacker, Laurie
Mary Daly
Sarah Prince Gill
Mary Esther Harding
Cutler, Evelyn S. June K. Singer
Rose ONeill Ann Belford Ulanov
Dame, Enid
Deming, Caren J.
Gertrude Berg
Darney, Virginia Elaine Sterne Carrington
Maude Howe Elliott Agnes E. Nixon
Laura Howe Richards Irna Phillips
xv
Denler, Heidi Hartwig Donnelly, Daria

Alice French Sarah Appleton-Weber
Tina Howe Joy Harjo
Kristin Hunter-Lattany Naomi Shihab Nye
Alice McDermott Linda Pastan
Anne Tyler
Donovan, Josephine
Denniston, Dorothy L. Annie Adams Fields
Paule Marshall Louise Imogen Guiney
Sarah Orne Jewett
DeRoche, Celeste Lucy Larcom
Beverly Cleary Celia Laighton Thaxter
Natalie Zemon Davis Dooley, Dale A.
Rachel Blau DuPlessis Ai
Sylvia A. Earle Alexis DeVeaux
Louise Erdrich
Gail Godwin Dorenkamp, Angela
Katharine Graham Mary Catherine Gordon
Carolyn G. Heilbrun
Dorenkamp, Monica
Linda Hogan
Kathy Acker
Nicole Hollander
Alicia Ostriker
Barbara C. Jordan
Nancy Mairs Dykeman, Amy
Maria Mitchell Kate W. Hamilton
Robin Morgan Cecilia Viets Jamison
Gloria Naylor Adeline Trafton Knox
Anne Firor Scott
Joan Wallach Scott Eliasberg, Ann Pringle
Vida Dutton Scudder Annie Brown Leslie
Jane P. Tompkins Josephine Preston Peabody
Dorothy West Dorothy Thompson
Victoria Woodhull
Dixon, Janette Goff
Estess, Sybil
Judy Blume
Maxine W. Kumin
Erma Bombeck
Betty Friedan Etheridge, Billie W.
Barbara Tuchman Abigail Smith Adams
Helen Hennessy Vendler Mercy Otis Warren
Dobbs, Jeannine Evans, Elizabeth

Hildegarde Flanner Josephine Jacobsen
Hazel Hall Helen MacInnes
Lydia Sayer Hasbrouck Frances Newman
Leonora von Stosch Speyer Margaret Junkin Preston
Jean Starr Untermeyer Anne Tyler
Marya Zaturenska Eudora Welty
Ewell, Barbara C.
Domina, Lynn
Sarah McLean Greene
Dorothy Allison
Fannie Heaslip Lea
Susan B. Anthony
Eliza Jane Poitevent Nicholson
Rita Dove Eliza Phillips Pugh
Anne Lamott
Denise Levertov Faust, Langdon
Sojourner Truth Frances Willard
xvi
Ferguson, Mary Anne Friedman, Ellen

Lisa Alther Anna Hempstead Branch
Sally Benson Bettina Liebowitz Knapp
Doris Betts Dilys Bennett Laing
Tess Slesinger
Fuchs, Miriam
Finger, Mary E. Beulah Marie Dix
Josephine Herbst Maude McVeigh Hutchins
Madeleine LEngle
Gabbard, Lucina P.
Fiore, Jullie Ann Mary Coyle Chase
Annie Dillard Clare Boothe Luce
Fish, Virginia K. Galanter, Margit

Frances R. Donovan Barbara Tuchman
Annie Marion MacLean
Gallo, Rose Adrienne
Fitch, Noel R. Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald
Sylvia Beach Garson, Helen S.
Fleche, Anne Jacqueline Susann
Adrienne Kennedy Sophie Kerr Underwood
Fleenor, Juliann E. Gartner, Carol B.

Catharine Esther Beecher Carman Dee Barnes
Caroline Chesebrough Laura Bent
Susan Hale Mary Putnam Jacobi
Emily Chubbuck Judson Kate Jordan
Margaret Sanger Myra Kelly
Ann Winterbotham Stephens Gaskill, Gayle
Flint, Joyce Isabella MacDonald Alden
Margaret Craven Beatrice J. Chute
Marchette Chute
Florence, Barbara Moench Mathilde Eiker
Lella Secor Sarah Barnwell Elliott
Jean Kerr
Fowler, Lois
Eleanor Flexner Gensler, Kinereth
Frances Dana Gage Sandra M. Gilbert
Ida Husted Harper
Julia McNair Wright Gentilella, Dacia
Paula Gunn Allen
Franklin, Phyllis
Gerson, Risa
Judith Sargent Murray
Susanna Anthony
Elsie Clews Parsons
E. L. Konigsburg
Jean Stafford
Eliza Buckminster Lee
Frazer, Winifred
Gibbons, Christina Tischler
Dorothy Day
Mary Palmer Tyler
Voltairine de Cleyre
Emma Goldman Gibbons, Sheila J.
Mary McGrory
Freiberg, Karen
Kate Wilhelm Gilbert, Melissa Kesler
Gloria Steinem
Freibert, Lucy
Georgiana Bruce Kirby Giles, Jane
Jessica N. MacDonald Elizabeth Elkins Sanders
Marianne Dwight Orvis Catharine Maria Sedgwick
xvii
Ginsberg, Elaine K. Grifth, Susan

Amelia Jenks Bloomer Nicholasa Mohr
Maria Susanna Cummins
Hannah Webster Foster Grim, Jessica
Mary Jane Hawes Holmes Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
Betty Smith Lucy R. Lippard
E. D. E. N. Southworth Eileen Myles
Rosmarie Waldrop
Gironda, Suzanne
Michelle Cliff Groben, Anne R.
Jill Johnston Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Meridel Le Sueur
Grove, Shari
Gladstein, Mimi R. Linda Hogan
Ayn Rand
Hall, Joan Wylie
Gleason, Phyllis S. Ruth McEnery Stuart
Alice Adams Eudora Welty
Alison Lurie
Halpern, Faye
Goldman, Maureen Joanne Greenberg
Esther Edwards Burr
Maureen Howard
Hannah Flagg Gould
Hannah Sawyer Lee Hamblen, Abigail Ann
Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
Gottfried, Erika
Temple Bailey
Rose Pesotta
Amelia E. Barr
Gottlieb, Phyllis Clara L. Root Burnham
Lucy Hooper Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth
Lucy Jones Hooper Margaret Campbell Deland
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
Graham, Theodora R.
Honor McCue Morrow
Louise Bogan
Louise Redeld Peattie
Grace Elizabeth King
Lucy Fitch Perkins
Josephine Miles
Margaret E. Sangster
Harriet Monroe
Elsie Singmaster
Grant, Mary H. Elizabeth Barstow Stoddard
Florence Howe Hall Nelia Gardner White
Julia Ward Howe Ola Elizabeth Winslow
Green, Carol Hurd Hamblen, Vicki Lynn

Eve Merriam Helen M. Winslow
Greene, Dana Hannay, Margaret P.
Sophia Hume Marabel Morgan
Martha Shepard Lippincott
Lucretia Mott Hardesty, Nancy
Sara Vickers Oberholtzer Antoinette Brown Blackwell
Hannah Chaplin Conant
Greyson, Laura Sarah Ewing Hall
Hannah Arendt Phoebe Worrall Palmer
Grider, Sylvia Ann Elizabeth Payson Prentiss
Linda Dgh Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Emma Willard
Grierson, Beth
Rita Mae Brown Hardy, Willene S.
Alma Routsong Katharine Fullerton Gerould
xviii
Harlan, Judith Hill, Vicki Lynn

Sue Grafton Bessie Breuer
Shere Hite Mary Cruger
Diane Johnson Helen Hamilton Gardener
Sarah Winnemucca Ursula N. Gestefeld
Naomi Wolf Marie Howland
Ellen Warner Kirk
Harris, Miriam Kalman, Ph.D Theresa S. Malkiel
Jean Houston Myra Page
Claire Myers Owens Martha W. Tyler
Florida Scott-Maxwell Marie Van Vorst
Harvey, Mary E. Mary Heaton Vorse
Mari Evans Bessie McGinnis Van Vorst
Sally Miller Gearhart Hobbs, Glenda
Marita Golden Harriette Simpson Arnow
Kristin Hunter-Lattany
Hoeveler, Diane Long
Healey, Claire Mathilde Franziska Giesler Anneke
H. D. Phoebe Cary
Amy Lowell Mary Andrews Denison
Alice Bradley Haven
Heilbrun, Carolyn G.
Eleanor Mercein Kelly
A. G. Mojtabai
Juliette Magill Kinzie
Helbig, Alethea K. Marya Mannes
Carol Ryrie Brink Jessica Mitford
Eleanor Estes Frances Crosby Van Alstyne
Lucretia Peabody Hale Babette Deutsch
Irene Hunt Holbrook, Amy
Madeleine LEngle Alice McDermott
Myra Cohn Livingston
Emily Cheney Neville Holdstein, Deborah H.
Ruth Sawyer Harriet Livermore
Kate Seredy Vienna G. Morrell Ramsay
Caroline Dale Snedeker Dora Knowlton Ranous
Zilpha Keatley Snyder Itti Kinney Reno
Elizabeth George Speare Mae West
Anne Terry White
Holly, Marcia
Ella Young
Margaret Culkin Banning
Henderson, Kathy
Hornstein, Jacqueline
Linda J. Barnes
Jenny Fenno
Joan Didion
Sarah Symmes Fiske
Martha Grimes
Susannah Johnson Hastings
Susan Minot
Elizabeth Mixer
Henning, Wendy J. Sarah Parsons Moorhead
Marie Manning Sarah Wentworth Morton
Sarah Osborn
Hepps, Marcia Sarah Porter
Mara Irene Forns Eunice Smith
Tina Howe Jane Turell
Megan Terry Elizabeth White
Hill, Holly Horton, Beverly
Mina Kirstein Curtiss Harriet Jacobs
xix
Howard, Lillie Jones, Judith P.

Fannie Cook Phyllis Chesler
Alice Walker Eleanor Clark
Elizabeth Gould Davis
Howze, Jo Gayl Jones
Mary McLeod Bethune
Kafatou, Sarah
Hoyle, Karen Nelson Ellen Bryant Voigt
Virginia Lee Burton
Natalie Savage Carlson Kahn, Mariam
Marguerite Lofft de Angeli Ruth Benedict
Jean Lee Latham Margaret Mead
Hudspeth, Cheryl K. Kaledin, Eugenia

Rodello Hunter Carolyn Kizer
Elizabeth Spencer
Hughson, Lois
Mary Ritter Beard Karp, Sheema Hamdani
Barbara Tuchman Adrienne Rich
Humez, Jean McMahon Kaufman, Janet E.

Rebecca Cox Jackson Eliza Frances Andrews
Mary Miller Chesnut
Hunter, Edith F. Kate Cumming
Sophia Lyon Fahs Sarah Ellis Dorsey
Rebecca Latimer Felton
Irvin, Helen Deiss Constance Cary Harrison
Antoinette Doolittle Sarah Stone Holmes
Anna White Mary Ann Webster Loughborough
Judith Brockenbrough McGuire
Johnson, Claudia D. Elizabeth Avery Meriwether
Olive Logan Phoebe Yates Pember
Clara Morris Sara Rice Pryor
Sallie A. Brock Putnam
Johnson, Lee Ann Eliza M. Ripley
Mary Hallock Foote Cornelia Phillips Spencer
Susie King Taylor
Johnson, Robin
Katharine Prescott Wormeley
Marianne Moore
Kavo, Rose F.
Jones, Allison A.
Sue Petigru Bowen
Maxine W. Kumin Jane C. Campbell
Rhoda Lerman Juliet Lewis Campbell
Lois Lowry Jane McManus Cazneau
Paule Marshall Jane Dunbar Chaplin
Terry McMillan Ella Rodman Church
A. G. Mojtabai Jane Hardin Cross
Katherine M. Rogers
Susan Fromberg Schaeffer Keeney, William
Ntozake Shange Mara Irene Forns
Tina Howe
Jones, Anne Hudson
Kate C. Hurd-Mead Keeshen, Kathleen Kearney
Elisabeth Kbler-Ross Marguerite Higgins
Esther Pohl Lovejoy Ada Louise Huxtable
Gail Sheehy Miriam Ottenberg
xx
Kelleghan, Fiona Koengeter, L. W.

Marion Zimmer Bradley Ann Eliza Schuyler Bleecker
Suzy McKee Charnas Maria Gowen Brooks
Anne McCaffrey Hannah Mather Crocker
Vonda N. McIntyre Margaretta V. Faugeres
Andre Norton Rose Wilder Lane
Kit Reed Adah Isaacs Menken
Elizabeth Ann Scarborough Kohlstedt, Sally Gregory
Sheri S. Tepper Anna Botsford Comstock
Connie Willis Almira Lincoln Phelps
Kenschaft, Lori Kolmerten, Carol A.
Martha Ballard Frances Wright
Barbara Ehrenreich
Kondelik, Marlene
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Mary Shipman Andrews
Frances Kellor
Carson McCullers Koon, Helene
Ann Lane Petry Marian Anderson
Ida B. Wells-Barnett Ruth Gordon
Anna Mowatt Ritchie
Kern, Donna Casella Elizabeth Robins
Frances Fuller Victor Catherine Turney
S. S. B. K. Wood
Kern, Edith
Ann Landers Koppes, Phyllis Bixlir
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Kessler, Carol Farley
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Kouidis, Virginia M.
Mina Loy
King, Margaret J. Krieg, Joann Peck
Clara Jessup Bloomeld-Moore Charlotte Mary Sanford Barnes
Peg Bracken Susan Fenimore Cooper
Judith Crist Mary Baker Eddy
Maureen Daly
Pauline Kael Kroll, Diane E.
Elizabeth Linington Jean Fritz
Madalyn Murray OHair Katherine Paterson
Emily Post Krouse, Agate Nesaule
Mary Wilson Sherwood Rhoda Lerman
Amy Vanderbilt
Kuenhold, Sandra
Kish, Dorothy Leta Stetter Hollingworth
Rebecca Harding Davis
Kuznets, Lois R.
Klein, Kathleen Gregory Esther Forbes
Susan Grifn Lois Lenski
Ruth McKenney Lamping, Marilyn
Anne Nichols Hallie Quinn Brown
Bella Cohen Spewak Pauline Hopkins
Megan Terry Maria W. Stewart
Fannie Barrier Williams
Klein, Michael
Jean Valentine Langhals, Patricia
Florence Wheelock Ayscough
Knapp, Bettina L. Alice Bacon
Anas Nin Dorothy Borg
xxi
Langsam, Miriam Z. Ludwig, Linda

Margaret Bourke-White Kathryn Cavarly Hulme
Margaret Mitchell
Laska, Vera
Marcia Gluck Davenport MacDonald, Maureen
Elisabeth Elliot Katherine Bolton Black
Lauter, Estella MacKay, Kathryn L.
Diane Wakoski Maurine Whipple
Levy, Ilise MacPike, Loralee
Alice Hamilton Emily Kimbrough
Jane Jacobs Maxine Hong Kingston
Lewandowska, M. L. Mary Jane Ward
Marilyn Hacker Madsen, Carol Cornwall
Lewis, Janette Seaton Louisa Greene Richards
Carrie Jacobs Bond Emmeline Woodward Wells
Joanne Greenberg Maida, Patricia D.
Lewis, Sharon A. Lillian ODonnell
Marita Bonner Mainiero, Lina
Lezburg, Amy K. Willa Sibert Cather
Ilka Chase
Maio, Kathleen L.
Linden-Ward, Blanche Anna Katharine Green
Andrea Dworkin Mary R. Platt Hatch
Marilyn French Lenore Glen Offord
Robin Morgan Metta Fuller Victor
Loeb, Helen Mallett, Daryl F.

Inez Haynes Irwin Leigh Brackett
Jane E. Brody
Lohman, Judith S.
Carolyn Chute
Crystal Eastman
Emma Lathen
Londr, Felicia Hardison Ursula K. Le Guin
Agnes de Mille Reeve Lindbergh
Edith Ellis Bobbie Ann Mason
Anne Crawford Flexner Rachel Pollack
Harriet Ford Anne Rice
Rose Franken Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Ketti Frings Joanna Russ
Dorothy Kuhns Heyward Jessica Amanda Salmonson
Jeannette Augustus Marks Lee Smith
Frances Aymar Mathews Margaret Truman
Adelaide Matthews
Marguerite Merington Marchino, Lois
Lillian Mortimer Rita Mae Brown
Martha Morton Marcus, Lisa
Josena Niggli bell hooks
Charlotte Blair Parker Sherley Anne Williams
Lillian Ross
Lillie West Margolis, Tina
Rida Johnson Young Eva LeGallienne
Lord, Charlotte V. Marie, Jacquelyn
Sidney Cowell Bateman Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
xxii
Marks, Elaine McCarthy, Joanne

Germaine Bre Kay Boyle
Maeve Brennan
Marshall, Kathleen Bonann Mary Maguire Colum
Susan H. Bergman Hedda Hopper
Elizabeth Hardwick
Betty MacDonald
Linda Kaufman Kerber
Kathleen Thompson Norris
Bette Bao Lord
Lorrie Moore McCay, Mary A.
Sara Paretsky Rosellen Brown
Elaine Showalter Louise Erdrich
Mona Van Duyn Kaye Gibbons
Edith Wharton Ellen Gilchrist
Martinez, Elizabeth Coonrod Patricia Highsmith
Sandra Bentez Barbara Kingsolver
Rosa Guy Bobbie Ann Mason
Demetria Martnez Brenda Marie Osbey
Cherre Moraga Anne Rice
Judith Ortiz Cofer Helen Yglesias
Esmeralda Santiago
Helena Mara Viramontes McClure, Charlotte S.
Gertrude Atherton
Masel-Walters, Lynne
Alice Stone Blackwell McColgan, Kristin
Mary Ware Dennett Dorothea Lynde Dix
Miriam Follin Leslie
Inez Haynes Irwin McCrea, Joan M.
Katharine Coman
Mason, Mary Grimley
Betty Friedan McDannell, M. Colleen
Carolyn G. Heilbrun Katherine Eleanor Conway
Nancy Gardner Prince Pearl Richards Craigie
Amanda Smith
Mason, Sarah E. Frances Fisher Tiernan
Pauline Kael Ellen Gould White
Masteller, Jean Carwile
McFadden-Gerber, Margaret
Annie Nathan Meyer
Sally Carrighar
Elizabeth Seifert
Annie Dillard
Masters, Joellen Wilma Dykeman
Gayl Jones Fannie Hardy Eckstorm
Josephine Winslow Johnson
Masters, Jollen Harriet M. Miller
Susan Fromberg Schaeffer Louise Dickinson Rich
Matherne, Beverly M. McGovern, Edythe M.
Alice Gerstenberg Margaret Wise Brown
May, Jill P. Rachel Crothers
Ann Nolan Clark Susan Glaspell
Ingri Mortenson dAulaire Lorraine Hansberry
Maud Fuller Petersham Sophie Treadwell
Marilyn Sachs Charlotte Zolotow
Mayer, Elsie F. McKay, Mary A.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh Lee Smith
xxiii
McLennan, Karen Mollenkott, Virginia Ramey

Harriette Simpson Arnow Grace Livingston Hill-Lutz
Toni Cade Bambara Sarah Smith Martyn
Mary Daly Marjorie Hope Nicolson
Louise Glck Rosemond Tuve
Virginia Johnson-Masters
Montenegro, David
Audre Lorde
Linda Ty-Casper
Patricia Meyer Spacks
Morris, Linda A.
McQuin, Susan Coultrap Marietta Holley
Sarah Ann Evans Frances Berry Whitcher
Medeiros, Kimbally A. Mortimer, Gail
Sandra Harding Katherine Anne Porter
Eleanor Munro
Anne Truitt Mossberg, Barbara A. Clarke
Anne Waldman Sylvia Plath
Genevieve Taggard
Menger, Lucy
Ruth Shick Montgomery Moynihan, Ruth Barnes
Jane Roberts Abigail Scott Duniway
Susy Smith Murphy, Maureen
Mercier, Cathryn M. Mary E. McGrath Blake
Yoshiko Uchida Helena Lefroy Caperton
Cynthia Voigt Kathleen Coyle
Blanche McManus Manseld
Miller, James A. Mary L. Meaney
Margaret Randall Asenath Hatch Nicholson
Florence J. OConnor
Miller, Marlene M. Jessie Fremont ODonnell
Elizabeth Bishop Katharine A. OKeeffe
Kelly Cherry Clara M. Thompson
Elizabeth Cook-Lynn
M. F. K. Fisher Murphy, Miriam B.
June Jordan Sarah E. Carmichael
Martha Spence Heywood
Mitchell, Nora
Olga Broumas Murphy, Paula C.
Louise Glck Maya Angelou
Sharon Olds Eleanor Taylor Bland
Nora Ephron
Mitchell, Sally Barbara Kingsolver
Francesca Alexander Barbara Neely
Helen Dore Boylston
Margaret Mayo Mussell, Kay
Cora Baggerly Older Phyllis A. Whitney
Mary Green Pike Nance, Guin A.
Rose Porter Gail Godwin
Molly Elliot Seawell Nancy Hale
Mary Ella Waller Virginia M. Satir
Elizabeth Spencer
Moe, Phyllis
Clara M. Thompson
Abbie Farwell Brown
Helen Stuart Campbell Neils, Patricia Langhals
Eliza Cabot Follen Emily Hahn
Emily Huntington Miller Charlotte Y. Salisbury
Sarah Chauncey Woolsey Mary Clabaugh Wright
xxiv
Neville, Tam Lin Peterson, Margaret

Ruth Stone Emily Dickinson
Newman, Anne Janet Lewis
Julia Mood Peterkin
Elizabeth Sewell Pettis, Joyce
Amlie Rives Troubetzkoy Zora Neale Hurston
Nichols, Kathleen L.
Miriam Coles Harris Philips, Elizabeth
Ellen Peck Sarah Helen Whitman
Harriet Waters Preston
Anne Sexton
Phillips, Elizabeth
Nix, E. M. Elizabeth Ellet
Gail Godwin Annie Somers Gilchrist
Nochimson, Martha Estelle Robinson Lewis
Carry A. Nation Frances Sargent Osgood
Martha Harrison Robinson Caroline Ticknor
Norman, Marion Mabel Loomis Todd
Lucretia Maria Davidson
Margaret Miller Davidson Piercy, Josephine K.
OConnor, Christine Anne Dudley Bradstreet
Martha Ostenso
OLoughlin, James Pogel, Nancy
Tillie Olsen Constance Mayeld Rourke
Ockerstrom, Lolly
Mona Van Duyn Poland, Helene Dwyer
Julia Henrietta Gulliver
Pannill, Linda Susanne K. Langer
Isadora Duncan
Parker, Alice Pool, Gail
Ada Jack Carver Cynthia Ozick
Edith Hamilton
Dawn Powell
Passty, Jeanette Nyda
Isabella Oliver Sharp Pouncey, Lorene
Sarah Pogson Smith
Vassar Miller
Sukey Vickery Watson
Marguerite Young
Payne, Alma J.
Louisa May Alcott
Preston, Caroline
Pelzer, Linda C. Annie Trumbull Slosson
Patricia Cornwell
Martha Gellhorn
Pringle, Mary Beth
Anita Shreve
Lonie Fuller Adams
Penn, Patricia E. Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Del Martin
Annie Smith Peck
Puk, Francine Shapiro
Penn, Shana Elizabeth Akers Allen
Lucy S. Dawidowicz Victoria Lincoln
Perez-Guntin, Amiris Dorothy Parker
Julia de Burgos Frances Gray Patton
xxv
Radtke, Barbara Anne Rhodes, Nelson

Mary Daly Margaret Wise Brown
Rosemary Radford Ruether Alexis DeVeaux
Ann Douglas
Ratigan, Virginia Kaib Susan Grifn
Isabella Marshall Graham Lillian Hellman
Mary Agnes Tincker Zenna Henderson
Jill Johnston
Raugust, Karen Elisabeth Kbler-Ross
Kathy Acker Madeleine LEngle
Natalie Angier Harper Lee
Nevada Barr Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Ann Beattie Shirley MacLaine
Blanche McCrary Boyd Nancy Mairs
Sandra Brown Del Martin
Edna Buchanan Marsha Norman
Amy Clampitt Rochelle Owens
Nancy F. Cott Sylvia Plath
Elizabeth Daly Ayn Rand
Dorothy Salisbury Davis Hannah Whittal Smith
Elizabeth Drew Gertrude Stein
Carolyn Forch Megan Terry
Jean Garrigue Phyllis A. Whitney
Kaye Gibbons Richardson, Susan B.
Doris Kearns Goodwin Mitsuye Yamada
Jorie Graham Hisaye Yamamoto
Jane Hamilton
Lyn Hejinian Richmond, Velma Bourgeois
Laurie R. King Anne Fremantle
Frances Parkinson Keyes
Ray, Sandra Ruth Painter Randall
Rosa Guy Agnes Repplier
Mildred Pitts Walter
Nancy Willard Richter, Heddy A.
Elizabeth Frances Corbett
Rayson, Ann Olive Higgins Prouty
Adelle Davis Roberts, Audrey
Ann Lane Petry Caroline M. Stansbury Kirkland
Reardon, Joan Roberts, Bette B.
Julia Child Lydia Maria Child
Reisman, Jessica Roberts, Elizabeth

Hortense Calisher Fannie W. Rankin
Angela Yvonne Davis Maggie Roberts
Rachel Hadas Harriet Winslow Sewall
Anne Moody Eliza Ann Youmans
Ann Rule Roca, Ana
Cynthia Voigt Julia lvarez
Alice Walker Gloria Anzalda
Kate Wilhelm Achy Obejas
Reuman, Ann E. Rogers, Katharine M.

Janice Mirikitani Lillian Hellman
xxvi
Rosenberg, Julia Schoenbach, Lisi

Emma Manley Embury Germaine Bre
Mary E. Moore Hewitt
Schoeld, Ann
Rebecca Rush
Helen Marot
Caroline Warren Thayer
Schull, Elinor
Rosinsky, Natalie McCaffrey Adela Rogers St. Johns
Anne McCaffrey
Judith Merril Schwartz, Helen J.
C. L. Moore Mary Antin
Hortense Calisher
Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer
Rowe, Anne
Margaret Thompson Janvier
Maya Angelou Margaret Woods Lawrence
Elizabeth Madox Roberts Tillie Olsen
Constance Fenimore Woolson Grace Paley
Rudnick, Lois P. Schweik, Joanne L.

Mabel Dodge Luhan Marilyn French
Isabella Gardner
Rushin, Kate Vivian Gornick
Hettie Jones
Audre Lorde
Gloria Steinem
Ryan, Rosalie Tutela Scura, Dorothy M.
Jane Starkweather Locke Mary Johnston
Seaton, Beverly
Salo, Alice Bell
Florence Merriam Bailey
Marjorie Hill Allee
Gladys Hasty Carroll
Mabel Leigh Hunt
Mary Hartwell Catherwood
Elizabeth Yates
Nellie Blanchan Doubleday
Mateel Howe Farnham
Sandberg, Elisabeth Margaret Flint
Carolyn Chute Helen Morgenthau Fox
Ruth Seid Mary Grifth
Susan Huntington
Scanzoni, Letha Louisa Yeomans King
Anita Bryant Elizabeth L. Lawrence
Virginia Ramey Mollenkott Alice Lounsberry
Helen Reimensnyder Martin
Schiavoni, Andrew Sarah Edgarton Mayo
Rochelle Owens Josephine Clifford McCrackin
Susan Sontag Helen Matthews Nitsch
Frances Dana Parsons
Grace Richmond
Schleuning, Neala Yount
Gladys Bagg Taber
Meridel Le Sueur Anna Bartlett Warner
Susan Bogert Warner
Schoen, Carol B. Mary Stanbery Watts
Hannah Adams Adeline D. T. Whitney
Rebekah Bettelheim Kohut Kate Douglass Wiggin
Emma Lazarus Laura Ingalls Wilder
Penina Moise Louise Beebe Wilder
Ruth Seid Mabel Osgood Wright
xxvii
Secrest, Rose Shostak, Elizabeth

V. C. Andrews Bette Bao Lord
Mary Higgins Clark Jayne Anne Phillips
June Doman Kate Simon
Katherine V. Forrest
Nancy Freedman
Carolyn G. Hart Shur, Cherri L.
Joyce Maynard Marianne Wiggins
Sharon McCrumb
Bharati Mukherjee Shute, Carolyn
Frances Perkins Judy Blume
Belva Plain Mildred Delois Taylor
Patricia Polacco
Sylvia F. Porter
Pamela Sargent Siefert, Susan E.
Ariel Durant
Shaffer-Koros, Carole M. Fannie Merritt Farmer
Willystine Goodsell
Helen Hazlett
Ruth Putnam Skaggs, Peggy
Helen Keller
Shakir, Evelyn Catherine Marshall
Ednah Littlehale Cheney
Abigail May Alcott Nieriker
Sladics, Devra M.
Sharistanian, Janet Lilian Jackson Braun
Florence Howe Gwendolyn Brooks
Elizabeth Janeway
Tess Gallagher
Helen Waite Papashvily
Doris Grumbach
Katherine M. Rogers
Sonia Sanchez
Shelton, Pamela Dana Stabenow
Rita Mae Brown Wendy Wasserstein
Nikki Giovanni Sylvia Watanabe
Harriet Jacobs Jade Snow Wong
Sherman, Sarah Way Charlotte Zolotow
Sarah Knowles Bolton
Alice Brown Slaughter, Jane
Rose Terry Cooke Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
Gertrude Battles Lane
Louise Chandler Moulton
Mary Alicia Owen Smelstor, Marjorie
Fanny Kemble
Shinn, Thelma J.
Margaret Ayer Barnes
Frances Courtenay Baylor Barnum Smethurst, James
Kate Chopin Maya Angelou
Martha Finley Marilyn Hacker
Lucy Smith French Maxine Hong Kingston
Shirley Ann Grau Sonia Sanchez
Mary Dana Shindler Alice Walker
Harriet Prescott Spofford Margaret Walker
Shortreed, Vivian H.
Elizabeth Oakes Smith Smith, Martha Nell
Jane Grey Swisshelm Toi Derricotte
xxviii
Smith, Susan Sutton Sparks, Leah J.

Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz Sanora Babb
Jane Goodwin Austin Carman Dee Barnes
Delia Salter Bacon Doris Betts
Sarah G. Bagley Germaine Bre
Mary Edwards Bryan Olga Broumas
Maria Weston Chapman Octavia E. Butler
Adelaide Crapsey Rachel Carson
Caroline Healey Dall Kim Chernin
Eliza Ann Dupuy Phyllis Chesler
Harriet Farley Marilyn Chin
Eliza Rotch Farrar Michelle Cliff
Judith Crist
Margaret Fuller
Toi Derricotte
Caroline Howard Gilman
Diane DiPrima
Caroline Gilman Jervey
Andrea Dworkin
Elizabeth Dodge Kinney
Suzette Haden Elgin
Sara Jane Lippincott
Carol Emshwiller
Harriet Hanson Robinson Marjorie Garber
Phoebe Atwood Taylor Sally Miller Gearhart
Mary Hawes Terhune Donna Haraway
Jean Webster Lillian Hellman
Susan Isaacs
Sneller, Jo Leslie Molly Ivins
Rosemary Sprague Shirley Jackson
Gerda Lerner
Snipes, Katherine Del Martin
Clara Barton Alice Notley
Laura Jackson Martha Craven Nussbaum
Carson McCullers Flannery OConnor
Joyce Carol Oates
Snyder, Carrie Camille Paglia
Ana Castillo Margaret Randall
Julia Child Harriet Beecher Stowe
Jane Cooper Lois-Ann Yamanaka
Mari Evans
Mara Irene Forns Spencer, Linda
Shirley Ann Grau Jayne Anne Phillips
Bertha Harris Eleanor Roosevelt
Erica Jong Judith Rossner
Sandra McPherson Sprague, Rosemary
Valerie Miner Sara Teasdale
Alma Routsong
Anya Seton Sproat, Elaine
Lola Ridge
Gail Sheehy
Leslie Marmon Silko Stackhouse, Amy D.
Zilpha Keatley Snyder Edith Maud Eaton
Cathy Song Lorine Niedecker
Danielle Steel
Staley, Ann
Jane Hirsheld
Sonnenschein, Dana Stanbrough, Jane
Rosalyn Drexler Elizabeth Manning Hawthorne
Jorie Graham Hildegarde Hawthorne
Sandra McPherson Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
xxix
Stanford, Ann Swartz, Mark

Sanora Babb Djuna Barnes
Sarah Kemble Knight bell hooks
May Swenson Susan Howe
Ann Lauterbach
Staples, Katherine Cynthia Ozick
G. M. Flanders
Louisa Park Hall Swidler, Arlene Anderson
Caroline E. Rush Sarah N. Brownson
Alma Sioux Scarberry Katherine Kurz Burton
Aline Murray Kilmer
Stauffer, Helen Sister Mary Madeleva
Bess Streeter Aldrich Helen Constance White
Bertha Muzzy Sinclair
Sylvander, Carolyn Wedin
Dorothy Swain Thomas
Martha Grifth Browne
Steele, Karen B. Jessie Redmon Fauset
Elizabeth W. Latimer Frances Noyes Hart
Mary Lowell Putnam Helen Hull
Mary Britton Miller
Stein, Karen F. Mary White Ovington
Paulina Wright Davis Laura M. Towne
Alice Dunbar-Nelson Szymanski, Karen
Abbie Huston Evans Anne C. Lynch Botta
Phebe Cofn Hanaford Eliza Woodson Farnham
Elinor Hoyt Wylie
Talamantez, Ins
Stein, Rachel Ella Cara Deloria
Toni Cade Bambara
Tebbe, Jennifer L.
Stepanski, Lisa Georgette Meyer Chapelle
Ann Beattie Elisabeth May Craig
Rheta Childe Dorr
Stetson, Erlene Elizabeth Drew
Gwendolyn B. Bennett Barbara Ehrenreich
Frances FitzGerald
Stevenson, Deanna Anne OHare McCormick
Olga Broumas Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman
Anna Louise Strong
Stiller, Nikki
Helaine Newstead Terris, Virginia R.
Alice Henry
Stinson, Peggy Sarah Bryan Piatt
Jane Addams Jessie B. Rittenhouse
Agnes Smedley Lillian Whiting
Ella Winter
Anzia Yezierska Thibaux, Marcelle
Faith Baldwin Cuthrell
Stoddard, Karen M. Julia Ripley Dorr
Dorothy Daniels Ellen Glasgow
Anne Green
Summers, Shauna Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Joan Didion
Anne Tyler Thomas, Gwendolyn A.
Henrietta Buckmaster
Swan, Susan Charlotte L. Forten
Jamaica Kincaid Pauli Murray
xxx
Thompson, Ann Vogrin, Valerie

Rosemary Radford Ruether Alice Adams
Annie Dillard
Thompson, Dorothea Mosley Jamaica Kincaid
Mary Cunningham Logan Maxine Hong Kingston
Ruth Bryan Owen Carole Maso
Irma von Starkloff Rombauer Toni Morrison
Caroline White Soule Sharon Olds
Grace Paley
Thornton, Emma S. Ann Patchett
Marion Marsh Todd Amy Tan
Tipps, Lisa Wahlstrom, Billie J.

Bertha Harris Alice Cary
Anna Peyre Dinnies
Tobin, Jean Betty Friedan
Hilda Morley Zenna Henderson
Adrienne Rich Andre Norton
Ruth Whitman Joanna Russ
Townsend, Janis Waldron, Karen E.

Mildred Aldrich Kim Chernin
Gertrude Stein
Alice B. Toklas Walker, Cynthia L.
Shirley Barker
Treckel, Paula A. Taylor Caldwell
Alice Morse Earle Edna Ferber
Gerda Lerner Eleanor Gates
Emily Smith Putnam Caroline Pafford Miller
Lucy Maynard Salmon Myrtle Reed
Eliza Snow Smith Florence Barrett Willoughby
Fanny Stenhouse
Wall, Cheryl A.
Narcissa Prestiss Whitman
Gwendolyn Brooks
Ann Eliza Young
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Nella Larsen
Turner, Alberta
Gloria Naylor
Katherine Garrison Chapin
Anne Spencer
Ruth Herschberger
Barbara Howes Ward, Jean M.
Muriel Rukeyser Elizabeth Blackwell
Ella Rhoads Higginson
Uffen, Ellen Serlen
Bethenia Owens-Adair
Fannie Hurst
Welch, Barbara A.
Uphaus, Suzanne Henning Alice James
Ann Chidester
Eleanor Carroll Chilton Werden, Frieda L.
Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn Dorothy Dodds Baker
Pamela Frankau Kate Millett
Maureen Howard Bernice Love Wiggins
Marge Piercy
West, Martha Ullman
Vasquez, Pamela Rosellen Brown
Judith Ortiz Cofer Lynne Sharon Schwartz
xxxi
White, Barbara A. Yee, Carole Zonis

Lillie Devereux Blake Leane Zugsmith
Sarah Josepha Hale
Sara Willis Parton Yglesias, Helen
Marilla M. Ricker Amy Tan
Caroline Slade
White, Evelyn C. Yongue, Patricia Lee
Angela Yvonne Davis Zo Akins
Williams, Donna Glee Anne Douglas Sedgwick
Diane Wakoski Helen Hennessy Vendler
Williams, Lynn F. Young, Melanie

Marion Zimmer Bradley Harriette Fanning Read
Joanna Russ
Caroline H. Woods
Wolff, Ellen
Harriet E. Adams Wilson Zajdel, Melody M.
Jade Snow Wong Caresse Crosby
Wolfson, Rose
Klara Goldzieher Roman Zilboorg, Caroline
Elise Justine Bayard
Wollons, Roberta
Ann Douglas
Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
Maud Wilder Goodwin
Woodward, Angela Sarah Sprague Jacobs
Natalie Babbitt Charlotte A. Jerauld
Ellen Goodman Mary Elizabeth Lee
Elizabeth Gray Vining Dolley Madison
Diane Wakoski Louisa Cheves McCord
Wright, Catherine Morris Maria G. Milward
Mary Mapes Dodge Agnes Woods Mitchell
Mrs. H. J. Moore
Yarbro-Bejarano, Yvonne
Gloria Anzalda Martha Read
Ana Castillo Catherine Ware Wareld
Lorna Dee Cervantes Amelia Coppuck Welby
Sandra Cisneros
Cherre Moraga Zimmerman, Karen
Helena Mara Viramontes Marcia Muller
xxxii
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WRITERS
Abbott, Edith Auerbach, Hilda See Morley, Hilda

Abbott, Eleanor Hallowell Austin, Jane Goodwin
Abel, Annie Heloise Austin, Mary Hunter
Acker, Kathy Avery, Martha Moore
Adams, Abigail Smith Ayer, Harriet Hubbard
Adams, Alice Ayscough, Florence Wheelock
Adams, Hannah
Adams, Harriet Stratemeyer Babb, Sanora
Adams, Lonie Fuller Babbitt, Natalie
Adams, Louisa Catherine Johnson Bacon, Alice
Addams, Jane Bacon, Delia Salter
Adisa, Giamba See Lorde, Audre Bagley, Sarah G.
Agassiz, Elizabeth Cabot Cary Bailey, Temple
Ai Bailey, Carolyn Sherwin
Akins, Zo Bailey, Florence Merriam
Alcott, Louisa May Baker, Dorothy Dodds
Alden, Isabella MacDonald Balch, Emily Greene
Aldon, Adair See Meigs, Cornelia Ballard, Martha
Aldrich, Bess Streeter Bambara, Toni Cade
Aldrich, Mildred Banning, Margaret Culkin
Alexander, Francesca Barker, Shirley
Allee, Marjorie Hill Barnard, A. M. See Alcott, Louisa May
Allen, Elizabeth Akers Barnes, Carman Dee
Allen, Paula Gunn Barnes, Charlotte Mary Sanford
Allison, Dorothy Barnes, Djuna
Alther, Lisa Barnes, Linda J.
lvarez, Julia Barnes, Margaret Ayer
Ames, Mary E. Clemmer Barnes, Mary Sheldon
Anderson, Marian Barnum, Frances Courtenay Baylor
Andrew, Joseph Maree See Bonner, Marita Barr, Amelia E.
Andrews, Eliza Frances Barr, Nevada
Andrews, Jane Barton, Clara
Andrews, Mary Shipman Barton, May Hollis See Adams, Harriet Stratemeyer
Andrews, V. C. Bateman, Sidney Cowell
Angelou, Maya Bates, Katherine Lee
Angier, Natalie Bayard, Elise Justine
Anneke, Mathilde Franziska Giesler Beach, Sylvia
Anpetu Wate See Deloria, Ella Cara Beard, Mary Ritter
Anthony, Susan B. Beattie, Ann
Anthony, Susanna Beebe, Mary Blair See Niles, Blair Rice
Antin, Mary Beecher, Catharine Esther
Anzalda, Gloria Benedict, Ruth
Appleton-Weber, Sarah Bent, Laura
Appleton, Sarah See Appleton-Weber, Sarah Bentez, Sandra
Appleton, Victor, II See Adams, Harriet Stratemeyer Bennett, Gwendolyn B.
Arendt, Hannah Benson, Sally
Armstrong, Charlotte Berg, Gertrude
Arnow, Harriette Simpson Bergman, Susan H.
Ashley, Ellen See Seifert, Elizabeth Bernays, Anne
Atherton, Gertrude Berne, Victoria See Fisher, M. F. K.
Atom, Ann See Walworth, Jeannette Hadermann Bethune, Mary McLeod
xxxiii
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WRITERS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Betts, Doris Broner, E. M.

Bianco, Margery Williams Brooks, Gwendolyn
Bishop, Claire Huchet Brooks, Maria Gowen
Bishop, Elizabeth Broumas, Olga
Black, Katherine Bolton Brown, Abbie Farwell
Blackwell, Alice Stone Brown, Alice
Blackwell, Antoinette Brown Brown, Hallie Quinn
Blackwell, Elizabeth Brown, Margaret Wise
Blaisdell, Anne See Linington, Elizabeth Brown, Nancy See Leslie, Annie Brown
Blake, Lillie Devereux Brown, Rita Mae
Blake, Mary E. McGrath Brown, Rosellen
Bland, Eleanor Taylor Brown, Sandra
Blatch, Harriot Stanton Browne, Martha Grifth
Bleecker, Ann Eliza Schuyler Brownmiller, Susan
Bloomer, Amelia Jenks Brownson, Sarah N.
Bloomeld-Moore, Clara Jessup Bryan, Mary Edwards
Blume, Judy Bryant, Anita
Bly, Nellie See Seaman, Elizabeth Cochrane Buchanan, Edna
Bogan, Louise Buck, Pearl S.
Bolton, Isabel See Miller, Mary Britton Buckmaster, Henrietta
Bolton, Sarah T. Burke, Fielding See Dargan, Olive Tilford
Bolton, Sarah Knowles Burnett, Frances Hodgson
Bombeck, Erma Burnham, Clara L. Root
Bond, Carrie Jacobs Burr, Esther Edwards
Bonner, Marita Burton, Katherine Kurz
Booth, Mary Louise Burton, Virginia Lee
Borg, Dorothy Butler, Octavia E.
Botta, Anne C. Lynch
Bourke-White, Margaret Cabeza de Baca, Fabiola
Bowen, Catherine Drinker Cade, Toni See Bambara, Toni Cade
Bowen, Sue Petigru Caldwell, Taylor
Bower, B. M. See Sinclair, Bertha Muzzy Calhoun, Lucy See Monroe, Lucy
Bowers, Bathsheba Calisher, Hortense
Bowles, Jane Auer Campbell, Helen Stuart
Boyd, Blanche McCrary Campbell, Jane C.
Boyd, Nancy See Millay, Edna St. Vincent Campbell, Juliet Lewis
Boyle, Kay Caperton, Helena Lefroy
Boylston, Helen Dore Carlson, Natalie Savage
Bracken, Peg Carmichael, Sarah E.
Brackett, Leigh Carrighar, Sally
Bradley, Marion Zimmer Carrington, Elaine Sterne
Bradstreet, Anne Dudley Carroll, Gladys Hasty
Branch, Anna Hempstead Carson, Rachel
Braun, Lilian Jackson Carver, Ada Jack
Breckinridge, Sophonisba Preston Cary, Alice
Bre, Germaine Cary, Phoebe
Brennan, Maeve Caspary, Vera
Brent, Linda See Jacobs, Harriet Castillo, Ana
Bres, Rose Falls Cather, Willa Sibert
Breuer, Bessie Catherwood, Mary Hartwell
Brewster, Martha Wadsworth Catt, Carrie Chapman
Briggs, Emily Edson Caulkins, Frances Manwaring
Brink, Carol Ryrie Cazneau, Jane McManus
Bristow, Gwen Cervantes, Lorna Dee
Brody, Jane E. Cha, Theresa Hak Kyung
xxxiv
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WRITERS
Chandler, Elizabeth Margaret Cooper, Susan Fenimore

Chapelle, Georgette Meyer Corbett, Elizabeth Frances
Chapin, Katherine Garrison Cornwell, Patricia
Chaplin, Jane Dunbar Cortez, Jayne
Chapman, Lee See Bradley, Marion Zimmer Cott, Nancy F.
Chapman, Maria Weston Coyle, Kathleen
Charnas, Suzy McKee Craig, Elisabeth May
Chase, Ilka Craig, Kit See Reed, Kit
Chase, Mary Coyle Craigie, Pearl Richards
Chase, Mary Ellen Crapsey, Adelaide
Chehia See Shaw, Anna Moore Craven, Margaret
Cheney, Ednah Littlehale Crist, Judith
Chernin, Kim Crocker, Hannah Mather
Cherry, Kelly Croly, Jane Cunningham
Chesebrough, Caroline Crosby, Caresse
Chesler, Phyllis Cross, Amanda See Heilbrun, Carolyn G.
Chesnut, Mary Miller Cross, Jane Hardin
Chidester, Ann Crothers, Rachel
Child, Julia Crouter, Natalie Stark
Child, Lydia Maria Crowe, F. J. See Johnston, Jill
Childress, Alice Cruger, Mary
Chilton, Eleanor Carroll Cumming, Kate
Chin, Marilyn Cummins, Maria Susanna
Chopin, Kate Curtiss, Mina Kirstein
Church, Ella Rodman Curtiss, Ursula Reilly
Chute, Beatrice J. Custer, Elizabeth Bacon
Chute, Carolyn Cuthrell, Faith Baldwin
Chute, Marchette
Cisneros, Sandra Dahlgren, Madeleine Vinton
Clampitt, Amy Dall, Caroline Healey
Clapp, Margaret Antoinette Daly, Elizabeth
Clappe, Louise Smith Daly, Mary
Clark, Ann Nolan Daly, Maureen
Clark, Eleanor Daniels, Dorothy
Clark, Mary Higgins Dargan, Olive Tilford
Clarke, Rebecca Sophia dAulaire, Ingri Mortenson
Cleary, Beverly Davenport, Marcia Gluck
Cleghorn, Sarah Norcliffe Davidson, Lucretia Maria
Cliff, Michelle Davidson, Margaret Miller
Clifton, Lucille Davis, Adelle
Coatsworth, Elizabeth Jane Davis, Angela Yvonne
Coit, Margaret L. Davis, Dorothy Salisbury
Colum, Mary Maguire Davis, Elizabeth Gould
Coman, Katharine Davis, Mollie Moore
Comstock, Anna Botsford Davis, Natalie Zemon
Conant, Hannah Chaplin Davis, Paulina Wright
Conway, Katherine Eleanor Davis, Rebecca Harding
Cooey, Paula Marie Dawidowicz, Lucy S.
Cook, Fannie Day, Dorothy
Cook-Lynn, Elizabeth de Angeli, Marguerite Lofft
Cooke, Rose Terry de Mille, Agnes
Coolbrith, Ina Donna de Burgos, Julia
Coolidge, Susan See Woolsey, Sarah Chauncey de Mondragon, Margaret Randall See Randall, Margaret
Cooper, Anna Julia de Cleyre, Voltairine
Cooper, Jane Dgh, Linda
xxxv
Deland, Margaret Campbell Earle, Alice Morse

del Occidente, Maria See Brooks, Maria Gowen Earle, Sylvia A.
Deloria, Ella Cara Eastman, Crystal
Deming, Barbara Eastman, Elaine Goodale
Denison, Mary Andrews Eastman, Mary Henderson
Dennett, Mary Ware Eaton, Edith Maud
Derricotte, Toi Eberhart, Mignon G.
Deutsch, Babette Eberhart, Sheri S. See Tepper, Sheri S.
DeVeaux, Alexis Eckstorm, Fannie Hardy
Dexter, John See Bradley, Marion Zimmer Eddy, Mary Baker
Diaz, Abby Morton Egan, Lesley See Linington, Elizabeth
Dickinson, Emily Ehrenreich, Barbara
Didion, Joan Eiker, Mathilde
Dillard, Annie Elder, Susan Blanchard
Dinnies, Anna Peyre Elgin, Suzette Haden
DiPrima, Diane Ellet, Elizabeth
Disney, Doris Miles Elliot, Elisabeth
Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee Elliott, Maude Howe
Dix, Beulah Marie Elliott, Sarah Barnwell
Dix, Dorothea Lynde Ellis, Anne
Dix, Dorothy See Gilmer, Elizabeth Meriwether Ellis, Edith
Dixon, Franklin W. See Adams, Harriet Stratemeyer Embury, Emma Manley
Dodge, Mary Abigail Emshwiller, Carol
Dodge, Mary Mapes Ephron, Nora
Doman, June Erdrich, Louise
Domini, Rey See Lorde, Audre Estes, Eleanor
Dominic, R. B. See Lathen, Emma Evans, Abbie Huston
Donovan, Frances R. Evans, Mari
Doolittle, Antoinette Evans, Sarah Ann
D(oolittle), H(ilda) Evermay, March See Eiker, Mathilde
Dorr, Julia Ripley Fahs, Sophia Lyon
Dorr, Rheta Childe Fairbank, Janet Ayer
Dorsett, Danielle See Daniels, Dorothy Faireld, A. M. See Alcott, Louisa May
Dorsey, Anna McKenney Farley, Harriet
Dorsey, Ella Loraine Farmer, Fannie Merritt
Dorsey, Sarah Ellis Farnham, Eliza Woodson
Doubleday, Nellie Blanchan Farnham, Mateel Howe
Douglas, Amanda Minnie Farquharson, Martha See Finley, Martha
Douglas, Ann Farrar, Eliza Rotch
Dove, Rita Faugeres, Margaretta V.
Drew, Elizabeth Fauset, Jessie Redmon
Drexler, Rosalyn Felton, Rebecca Latimer
Drinker, Elizabeth Sandwith Fenno, Jenny
DuBois, Shirley Graham See Graham, Shirley Ferber, Edna
DuJardin, Rosamond Neal Field, Kate
Dunbar-Nelson, Alice Field, Rachel Lyman
Duncan, Isadora Fields, Annie Adams
Duniway, Abigail Scott Finley, Martha
Dunlap, Jane See Davis, Adelle Fisher, Dorothea Caneld
DuPlessis, Rachel Blau Fisher, M. F. K.
Dupuy, Eliza Ann Fiske, Sarah Symmes
Durant, Ariel Fitzgerald, Zelda Sayre
Dworkin, Andrea FitzGerald, Frances
Dykeman, Wilma Flanders, G. M.
xxxvi
Flanner, Hildegarde Gilbert, Sandra M.

Flanner, Janet Gilchrist, Annie Somers
Fletcher, Inglis Clark Gilchrist, Ellen
Flexner, Anne Crawford Gill, Sarah Prince
Flexner, Eleanor Gilman, Caroline Howard
Flint, Margaret Gilman, Charlotte Perkins
Flynn, Elizabeth Gurley Gilmer, Elizabeth Meriwether
Follen, Eliza Cabot Giovanni, Nikki
Foote, Mary Hallock Glasgow, Ellen
Forbes, Esther Glaspell, Susan
Forch, Carolyn Glck, Louise
Ford, Harriet Godchaux, Elma
Ford, Sallie Rochester Godwin, Gail
Forester, Fanny See Judson, Emily Chubbuck Golden, Marita
Forns, Mara Irene Goldman, Emma
Forrest, Katherine V. Goodman, Allegra
Forten, Charlotte L. Goodman, Ellen
Foster, Hannah Webster Goodsell, Willystine
Fox, Helen Morgenthau Goodwin, Doris Kearns
Fox, Paula Goodwin, Maud Wilder
Frankau, Pamela Gordon, Caroline
Franken, Rose Gordon, Mary Catherine
Freedman, Nancy Gordon, Ruth
Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins Gornick, Vivian
Fremantle, Anne Gottschalk, Laura Riding See Jackson, Laura
French, Alice Gould, Hannah Flagg
French, Anne Warner Gould, Lois
French, Lucy Smith Grafton, Sue
French, Marilyn Graham, Isabella Marshall
Friedan, Betty Graham, Jorie
Frings, Ketti Graham, Katharine
Fritz, Jean Graham, Shirley
Fuller, Margaret Grahn, Judy
Gage, Frances Dana Grant, Margaret See Franken, Rose
Gale, Zona Grau, Shirley Ann
Gallagher, Tess Graves, Valerie See Bradley, Marion Zimmer
Garber, Marjorie Gray, Angela See Daniels, Dorothy
Gardener, Helen Hamilton Green, Anna Katharine
Gardner, Isabella Green, Anne
Gardner, Mariam See Bradley, Marion Zimmer Green, Olive See Reed, Myrtle
Gardner, Mary Sewall Greenberg, Joanne
Garrigue, Jean Greene, Sarah McLean
Gates, Eleanor Greeneld, Eloise
Gates, Susa Young Greenwood, Grace See Lippincott, Sara Jane
Gearhart, Sally Miller Grifn, Susan
Gellhorn, Martha Grifth, Mary
Gent See Flanner, Janet Grimes, Martha
George, Jean Craighead Grimk, Angelina
Gerould, Katharine Fullerton Grimk, Sarah Moore
Gerstenberg, Alice Gruenberg, Sidonie Matzner
Gestefeld, Ursula N. Grumbach, Doris
Gibbons, Kaye Guernsey, Clara F.
Gilbert, Fabiola Cabeza de Baca See Cabeza de Guernsey, Lucy Ellen
Baca, Fabiola Guiney, Louise Imogen
xxxvii
Gulliver, Julia Henrietta Hewitt, Mary E. Moore

Guy, Rosa Heyward, Dorothy Kuhns
Heywood, Martha Spence
H. D. See D(oolittle), H(ilda)
Higgins, Marguerite
Hacker, Marilyn
Higginson, Ella Rhoads
Hadas, Rachel
Higham, Mary R.
Hahn, Emily
Highet, Helen MacInnes See MacInnes, Helen
Hale, Lucretia Peabody
Highsmith, Patricia
Hale, Nancy
Hill-Lutz, Grace Livingston
Hale, Sarah Josepha
Hirsheld, Jane
Hale, Susan
Hite, Shere
Hall, Florence Howe
Hobart, Alice Tisdale
Hall, Hazel
Hobson, Laura Z.
Hall, Louisa Park
Hoffman, Alice
Hall, Sarah Ewing
Hamilton, Alice Hoffman, Malvina
Hamilton, Edith Hogan, Linda
Hamilton, Gail See Dodge, Mary Abigail Holding, Elisabeth Sanxay
Hamilton, Jane Hollander, Nicole
Hamilton, Kate W. Holley, Marietta
Hamilton, Virginia Hollingworth, Leta Stetter
Hanaford, Phebe Cofn Holm, Saxe See Jackson, Helen Hunt
Hansberry, Lorraine Holmes, Mary Jane Hawes
Haraway, Donna Holmes, Sarah Stone
Harding, Mary Esther hooks, bell
Harding, Sandra Hooper, Lucy Jones
Hardwick, Elizabeth Hooper, Lucy
Harjo, Joy Hope, Laura Lee See Adams, Harriet Stratemeyer
Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins Hopkins, Pauline
Harper, Ida Husted Hopper, Hedda
Harris, Bernice Kelly Horlak, E. E. See Tepper, Sheri S.
Harris, Bertha Horney, Karen
Harris, Corra May Houston, Jean
Harris, Miriam Coles Howard, Maureen
Harrison, Constance Cary Howe, Florence
Hart, Carolyn G. Howe, Julia Ward
Hart, Frances Noyes Howe, Susan
Hasbrouck, Lydia Sayer Howe, Tina
Hastings, Susannah Johnson Howes, Barbara
Hatch, Mary R. Platt Howland, Marie
Haven, Alice Bradley Hull, Helen
Hawthorne, Elizabeth Manning Hulme, Kathryn Cavarly
Hawthorne, Hildegarde Hume, Sophia
Hazlett, Helen Humishuma See Mourning Dove
Heilbrun, Carolyn G. Hunt, Irene
Hejinian, Lyn Hunt, Mabel Leigh
Hellman, Lillian Hunter, Rodello
Henderson, Zenna Hunter-Lattany, Kristin
Henissart, Martha See Lathen, Emma Huntington, Susan
Henley, Beth Hurd-Mead, Kate C.
Henry, Alice Hurst, Fannie
Henry, Marguerite Hurston, Zora Neale
Hentz, Caroline Whiting Hutchins, Maude McVeigh
Herbst, Josephine Huxtable, Ada Louise
Herschberger, Ruth Hyde, Shelley See Reed, Kit
xxxviii
Ireland, Jane See Norris, Kathleen Kennedy, Adrienne

Thompson Kenyon, Jane
Irwin, Inez Haynes Kerber, Linda Kaufman
Isaacs, Susan Kerr, Jean
Ives, Morgan See Bradley, Marion Zimmer Keyes, Frances Parkinson
Ivins, Molly Kilmer, Aline Murray
Kimbrough, Emily
Jackson, Helen Hunt
Kincaid, Jamaica
Jackson, Laura
King, Grace Elizabeth
Jackson, Rebecca Cox
King, Laurie R.
Jackson, Shirley
King, Louisa Yeomans
Jackson, Ward See Braun, Lilian Jackson
Kingsolver, Barbara
Jacobi, Mary Putnam
Kingston, Maxine Hong
Jacobs, Harriet
Kinney, Elizabeth Dodge
Jacobs, Jane
Jacobs, Sarah Sprague Kinzie, Juliette Magill
Jacobsen, Josephine Kirby, Georgiana Bruce
James, Alice Kirk, Ellen Warner
Jamison, Cecilia Viets Kirkland, Caroline M. Stansbury
Janeway, Elizabeth Kizer, Carolyn
Janvier, Margaret Thompson Knapp, Bettina Liebowitz
Jerauld, Charlotte A. Knight, Sarah Kemble
Jervey, Caroline Gilman Knox, Adeline Trafton
Jewett, Sarah Orne Koch, Adrienne
Johnson, Diane Kohut, Rebekah Bettelheim
Johnson, Georgia Douglas Konigsburg, E. L.
Johnson, Helen Kendrick Kroeber, Theodora
Johnson, Josephine Winslow Kbler-Ross, Elisabeth
Johnson-Masters, Virginia Kumin, Maxine W.
Johnston, Annie Fellows Laing, Dilys Bennett
Johnston, Jill Lamb, Martha Nash
Johnston, Mary Lamott, Anne
Jones, Amanda Theodocia Landers, Ann
Jones, Edith See Wharton, Edith Landon, Margaret
Jones, Gayl Lane, Gertrude Battles
Jones, Hettie Lane, Rose Wilder
Jones, Mary Harris Langdon, Mary See Pike, Mary Green
Jong, Erica Langer, Susanne K.
Jordan, Barbara C. Larcom, Lucy
Jordan, June Larsen, Nella
Jordan, Kate
Lasswell, Mary
Jordan, Laura See Brown, Sandra
Latham, Jean Lee
Judson, Emily Chubbuck
Lathen, Emma
Kael, Pauline Lathrop, Rose Hawthorne
Kavanaugh, Cynthia See Daniels, Dorothy Latimer, Elizabeth W.
Keene, Carolyn See Adams, Harriet Stratemeyer Latsis, Mary Jane See Lathen, Emma
Keith, Agnes Newton Laut, Agnes C.
Keller, Helen Lauterbach, Ann
Kellerman, Faye Lawrence, Elizabeth L.
Kelley, Edith Summers Lawrence, Josephine
Kellogg, Louise Lawrence, Margaret Woods
Kellor, Frances Lazarus, Emma
Kelly, Eleanor Mercein Le Guin, Ursula K.
Kelly, Myra Le Sueur, Meridel
Kemble, Fanny Le Vert, Octavia Walton
xxxix
Lea, Fannie Heaslip Macdonald, Marcia See Hill-Lutz, Grace Livingston

Lee, Eliza Buckminster MacDougall, Ruth Doan
Lee, Hannah Sawyer MacInnes, Helen
Lee, Harper MacKinnon, Catharine A.
Lee, Marion See Comstock, Anna Botsford MacLaine, Shirley
Lee, Mary Elizabeth MacLean, Annie Marion
LeGallienne, Eva Macumber, Marie S. See Sandoz, Mari
LEngle, Madeleine Madeleva, Sister Mary
Lenski, Lois Madison, Dolley
Lerman, Rhoda Mairs, Nancy
Lerner, Gerda Malkiel, Theresa S.
Leslie, Annie Brown Mannes, Marya
Leslie, Eliza Manning, Marie
Leslie, Miriam Follin Manseld, Blanche McManus
Levertov, Denise March, Anne See Woolson, Constance Fenimore
Lewis, Elizabeth Foreman Marks, Jeannette Augustus
Lewis, Estelle Robinson Marot, Helen
Lewis, Janet Marshall, Catherine
Libbey, Laura Jean Marshall, Gertrude Helen See Fahs, Sophia Lyon
Lincoln, Victoria Marshall, Paule
Lindbergh, Anne Morrow Martin, Del
Lindbergh, Reeve Martin, George Madden
Linington, Elizabeth Martin, Helen Reimensnyder
Lippard, Lucy R. Martin, Valerie
Lippincott, Martha Shepard Martnez, Demetria
Lippincott, Sara Jane Martyn, Sarah Smith
Little, Sophia Robbins Maso, Carole
Livermore, Harriet Mason, Bobbie Ann
Livermore, Mary Rice Mathews, Frances Aymar
Livingston, Myra Cohn Matthews, Adelaide
Locke, Jane Starkweather May, Sophie See Clarke, Rebecca Sophia
Logan, Deborah Norris Maynard, Joyce
Logan, Mary Cunningham Mayo, Katherine
Logan, Olive Mayo, Margaret
Loos, Anita Mayo, Sarah Edgarton
Lord, Bette Bao McBride, Mary Margaret
Lorde, Audre McCaffrey, Anne
Lothrop, Amy See Warner, Anna Bartlett McCarthy, Mary
Lothrop, Harriet Stone McCloy, Helen
Loughborough, Mary Ann Webster McCord, Louisa Cheves
Lounsberry, Alice McCormick, Anne OHare
Lovejoy, Esther Pohl McCrackin, Josephine Clifford
Lowell, Amy McCrumb, Sharon
Lowry, Lois McCullers, Carson
Loy, Mina McDermott, Alice
Lucas, Victoria See Plath, Sylvia McDowell, Katherine Bonner
Luce, Clare Boothe McGinley, Phyllis
Luhan, Mabel Dodge McGrory, Mary
Lumpkin, Grace McGuire, Judith Brockenbrough
Lurie, Alison McIntosh, Maria Jane
Lutz, Alma McIntyre, Vonda N.
McKenney, Ruth
Lynd, Helen Merrell
McLean, Kathryn Anderson
MacDonald, Betty McMillan, Terry
MacDonald, Jessica N. McPherson, Aimee Semple
xl
McPherson, Sandra Morris, Clara

Mead, Kate C. See Hurd-Mead, Kate C. Morrison, Toni
Mead, Margaret Morrow, Honor McCue
Meaney, Mary L. Mortimer, Lillian
Means, Florence Crannell Morton, Martha
Meigs, Cornelia Morton, Sarah Wentworth
Meloney, Franken See Franken, Rose Mother Goose See Walworth, Jeannette Hadermann
Menken, Adah Isaacs Mott, Lucretia
Merington, Marguerite Moulton, Louise Chandler
Meriwether, Elizabeth Avery Mourning Dove
Merriam, Eve Mukherjee, Bharati
Merril, Judith Muller, Marcia
Meyer, Annie Nathan Munro, Eleanor
Meyer, June See Jordan, June M. Murfree, Mary
Miles, Josephine Murray, Judith Sargent
Millar, Margaret Murray, Pauli
Millay, Edna St. Vincent Myles, Eileen
Miller, Alice Duer
Nation, Carry A.
Miller, Caroline Pafford
Naylor, Gloria
Miller, Emily Huntington
Neely, Barbara
Miller, Harriet M.
Neilson, Nellie
Miller, Isabel See Routsong, Alma
Neville, Emily Cheney
Miller, Mary Britton
Newcomb, Franc Johnson
Miller, Vassar
Newman, Frances
Millett, Kate
Newman, Lesla
Milward, Maria G.
Newstead, Helaine
Miner, Valerie
Nichols, Anne
Minot, Susan
Nicholson, Asenath Hatch
Mirikitani, Janice
Nicholson, Eliza Jane Poitevent
Mitchell, Agnes Woods
Nicolson, Marjorie Hope
Mitchell, Margaret
Niedecker, Lorine
Mitchell, Maria
Nieriker, Abigail May Alcott
Mitford, Jessica
Niggli, Josena
Mixer, Elizabeth
Niles, Blair Rice
Moers, Ellen
Nin, Anas
Mohr, Nicholasa
Nitsch, Helen Matthews
Moise, Penina
Nixon, Agnes E.
Mojtabai, A. G.
Norman, Marsha
Mollenkott, Virginia Ramey
Norris, Kathleen Thompson
Monroe, Harriet
Norton, Alice See Norton, Andre
Monroe, Lucy
Norton, Andre
Montgomery, Ruth Shick
Norton, Katherine LaForge See Reed, Myrtle
Moody, Anne
Notley, Alice
Moore, C. L.
Nussbaum, Martha Craven
Moore, Lorrie
Nye, Andrea
Moore, Marianne
Nye, Naomi Shihab
Moore, Mary Evelyn See Davis, Mollie Moore
Moore, Mollie E. See Davis, Mollie Moore Oates, Joyce Carol
Moore, Mrs. H. J. Obejas, Achy
Moorhead, Sarah Parsons Oberholtzer, Sara Vickers
Moraga, Cherre OConnor, Flannery
Morgan, Claire See Highsmith, Patricia OConnor, Florence J.
Morgan, Marabel ODonnell, Jessie Fremont
Morgan, Robin ODonnell, Lillian
Morley, Hilda Oemler, Marie Conway
xli
Offord, Lenore Glen Perkins, Frances

OHair, Madalyn Murray Perkins, Lucy Fitch
OHara, Mary See Sture-Vasa, Mary Pesotta, Rose
OKeeffe, Katharine A. Peterkin, Julia Mood
ONeill, Egan See Linington, Elizabeth Peters, Sandra See Plath, Sylvia
Older, Cora Baggerly Petersham, Maud Fuller
Olds, Sharon Petry, Ann Lane
Oliphant, B. J. See Tepper, Sheri S. Phelps, Almira Lincoln
Oliver, Mary Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart
Olsen, Tillie Phillips, Irna
ONeill, Rose Phillips, Jayne Anne
Orde, A. J. See Tepper, Sheri S. Piatt, Sarah Bryan
Ortiz Cofer, Judith Piercy, Marge
Orvis, Marianne Dwight Pike, Mary Green
Osbey, Brenda Marie Pinckney, Josephine
Osborn, Sarah Pine, Cuyler See Peck, Ellen
Osgood, Frances Sargent Plain, Belva
Ostenso, Martha Plath, Sylvia
Ostriker, Alicia Polacco, Patricia
Ottenberg, Miriam Pollack, Rachel
Ovington, Mary White Pollard, Josephine
Owen, Catherine See Nitsch, Helen Matthews Porter, Eleanor Hodgman
Owen, Mary Alicia Porter, Katherine Anne
Owen, Ruth Bryan Porter, Rose
Owens, Claire Myers Porter, Sarah
Owens-Adair, Bethenia Porter, Sylvia F.
Owens, Rochelle Post, Emily
Ozick, Cynthia Powell, Dawn
Pratt, Ella Farman
Page, Myra
Prentiss, Elizabeth Payson
Paglia, Camille
Preston, Harriet Waters
Paley, Grace
Preston, Margaret Junkin
Palmer, Phoebe Worrall
Prince, Nancy Gardner
Papashvily, Helen Waite
Prose, Francine
Paretsky, Sara
Prouty, Olive Higgins
Parker, Charlotte Blair
Pryor, Sara Rice
Parker, Dorothy
Pugh, Eliza Phillips
Parrish, Mary Frances See Fisher, M. F. K.
Putnam, Emily Smith
Parsons, Elsie Clews
Putnam, Mary Lowell
Parsons, Frances Dana
Putnam, Ruth
Parsons, Louella Oettinger
Putnam, Sallie A. Brock
Parton, Sara Willis
Pastan, Linda Raimond, C. E. See Robins, Elizabeth
Patchett, Ann Rampling, Anne See Rice, Anne
Paterson, Katherine Ramsay, Martha Laurens
Patton, Frances Gray Ramsay, Vienna G. Morrell
Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer Rand, Ayn
Peabody, Josephine Preston Randall, Margaret
Peattie, Elia Wilkinson Randall, Ruth Painter
Peattie, Louise Redeld Rankin, Fannie W.
Peck, Annie Smith Ranous, Dora Knowlton
Peck, Ellen Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan
Pember, Phoebe Yates Read, Harriette Fanning
Penfeather, Anabel See Cooper, Susan Fenimore Read, Martha
Percy, Florence See Allen, Elizabeth Akers Reed, Kit
xlii
Reed, Myrtle St. Claire, Erin See Brown, Sandra

Reese, Lizette Woodworth Salisbury, Charlotte Y.
Remick, Martha Salmon, Lucy Maynard
Reno, Itti Kinney Salmonson, Jessica Amanda
Repplier, Agnes Sanchez, Sonia
Rice, Alice Hegan Sanders, Elizabeth Elkins
Rice, Anne Sandoz, Mari
Rich, Adrienne Sanford, Mollie Dorsey
Rich, Barbara See Jackson, Laura Sanger, Margaret
Rich, Louise Dickinson Sangster, Margaret E.
Richards, Laura Howe Santiago, Esmeralda
Richards, Louisa Greene Sargent, Pamela
Richmond, Grace Sarton, May
Ricker, Marilla M. Satir, Virginia M.
Ridge, Lola Savage, Elizabeth
Riding, Laura See Jackson, Laura Sawyer, Ruth
Rinehart, Mary Roberts Scarberry, Alma Sioux
Ripley, Eliza M. Scarborough, Dorothy
Ritchie, Anna Mowatt Scarborough, Elizabeth Ann
Rittenhouse, Jessie B. Schaeffer, Susan Fromberg
Rivers, Alfrida See Bradley, Marion Zimmer Schmitt, Gladys
Rivers, Pearl See Nicholson, Eliza Jane Poitevent Schoeld, Sandy See Rusch, Kristine Kathryn
Robb, J. D. See Roberts, Nora Schoolcraft, Mary Howard
Roberts, Elizabeth Madox Schwartz, Lynne Sharon
Roberts, Jane Scott, Anne Firor
Roberts, Maggie Scott, Evelyn
Roberts, Nora Scott, Joan Wallach
Robins, Elizabeth Scott, Julia See Owen, Mary Alicia
Robinson, Harriet Hanson Scott-Maxwell, Florida
Robinson, Martha Harrison Scudder, Vida Dutton
Rodgers, Carolyn M. Seaman, Elizabeth Cochrane
Rogers, Katherine M. Seawell, Molly Elliot
Roman, Klara Goldzieher Secor, Lella
Rombauer, Irma von Starkloff Sedges, John See Buck, Pearl S.
Roosevelt, Eleanor Sedgwick, Anne Douglas
Roquelaure, A. N. See Rice, Anne Sedgwick, Catharine Maria
Ross, Helaine See Daniels, Dorothy Sedgwick, Susan Ridley
Ross, Lillian Seeley, Mabel
Rossner, Judith Seid, Ruth
Rourke, Constance Mayeld Seifert, Elizabeth
Routsong, Alma Semple, Ellen Churchill
Royall, Anne Newport Seredy, Kate
Royce, Sarah Bayliss Seton, Anya
Ruddy, Ella Giles Settle, Mary Lee
Ruether, Rosemary Radford Sewall, Harriet Winslow
Rukeyser, Muriel Sewell, Elizabeth
Rule, Ann Sexton, Anne
Rusch, Kristine Kathryn Shange, Ntozake
Rush, Caroline E. Shannon, Dell See Linington, Elizabeth
Rush, Rebecca Shannon, Monica
Russ, Joanna Sharon, Rose See Merril, Judith
Sharp, Isabella Oliver
Ryan, Rachel See Brown, Sandra
Shaw, Anna Moore
Sachs, Marilyn Shaw, Anna H.
St. Johns, Adela Rogers Sheehy, Gail
xliii
Sheldon, Ann See Adams, Harriet Stratemeyer Stack, Andy See Rule, Ann
Sherwood, Mary Wilson Stafford, Jean
Shindler, Mary Dana Stanton, Elizabeth Cady
Showalter, Elaine Steel, Danielle
Shreve, Anita Stein, Gertrude
Shulman, Alix Kates Steinem, Gloria
Sidlosky, Carolyn See Forch, Carolyn Stenhouse, Fanny
Sigourney, Lydia Huntley Stephens, Ann Winterbotham
Silko, Leslie Marmon Stephens, Margaret Dean See Aldrich, Bess Streeter
Simon, Kate Steptoe, Lydia See Barnes, Djuna
Sinclair, Bertha Muzzy Stern, Elizabeth G.
Sinclair, Jo See Seid, Ruth Stewart, Elinore Pruitt
Singer, June K. Stewart, Maria W.
Singleton, Anne See Benedict, Ruth Stockton, Annis Boudinot
Singmaster, Elsie Stoddard, Elizabeth Barstow
Skinner, Constance Lindsay Stone, Ruth
Skinner, Cornelia Otis Story, Sydney A. See Pike, Mary Green
Slade, Caroline Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Slesinger, Tess Stratton-Porter, Gene
Slosson, Annie Trumbull Strong, Anna Louise
Smedley, Agnes Stuart, Ruth McEnery
Smith, Amanda Sture-Vasa, Mary
Smith, Anna Young Suckow, Ruth
Smith, Betty Sui Sin Far See Eaton, Edith Maud
Smith, Eliza Snow Susann, Jacqueline
Smith, Elizabeth Oakes Swenson, May
Smith, Eunice Swett, Sophie
Smith, Hannah Whittal Swisshelm, Jane Grey
Smith, Lee
Smith, Lillian Taber, Gladys Bagg
Smith, Lula Carson See McCullers, Carson Taggard, Genevieve
Smith, Margaret Bayard Talbott, Marion
Smith, Rosamond See Oates, Joyce Carol Tan, Amy
Smith, Sarah Pogson Tandy, Jennette Reid
Smith, Susy Tappan, Eva March
Snedeker, Caroline Dale Tarbell, Ida
Snyder, Zilpha Keatley Taylor, Mildred Delois
Solwoska, Mara See French, Marilyn Taylor, Phoebe Atwood
Somers, Suzanne See Daniels, Dorothy Taylor, Susie King
Song, Cathy Teasdale, Sara
Sontag, Susan Tenney, Tabitha
Sorel, Julia See Drexler, Rosalyn Tepper, Sheri S.
Soule, Caroline White Terhune, Mary Hawes
Southworth, E. D. E. N. Terry, Megan
Souza, E. See Scott, Evelyn Thane, Elswyth
Spacks, Patricia Meyer Thanet, Octave See French, Alice
Speare, Elizabeth George Thaxter, Celia Laighton
Spencer, Anne Thayer, Caroline Warren
Spencer, Cornelia Phillips Thayer, Geraldine See Daniels, Dorothy
Spencer, Elizabeth Thomas, Dorothy Swain
Spewak, Bella Cohen Thompson, Clara M. (b. c. 1830s)
Speyer, Leonora von Stosch Thompson, Clara M. (1893-1958)
Spofford, Harriet Prescott Thompson, Dorothy
Sprague, Rosemary Thorndyke, Helen Louise See Adams, Harriet Stratemeyer
Stabenow, Dana Ticknor, Caroline
xliv
Tiernan, Frances Fisher Walker, Margaret

Tietjens, Eunice Walker, Mary Spring
Tilton, Alice See Taylor, Phoebe Atwood Wallace, Michele
Tincker, Mary Agnes Waller, Mary Ella
Todd, Mabel Loomis Walter, Mildred Pitts
Todd, Marion Marsh Walton, Evangeline
Toklas, Alice B. Walworth, Jeannette Hadermann
Tompkins, Jane P. Ward, Mary Jane
Towne, Laura M. Wareld, Catherine Ware
Townsend, Mary Ashley Warner, Anna Bartlett
Treadwell, Sophie Warner, Susan Bogert
Trilling, Diana Warren, Lella
Troubetzkoy, Amlie Rives Warren, Mercy Otis
Truitt, Anne Wasserstein, Wendy
Truman, Margaret Watanabe, Sylvia
Truth, Sojourner Watson, Sukey Vickery
Tuchman, Barbara Watts, Mary Stanbery
Turell, Jane Weber, Sarah Appleton See Appleton-Weber, Sarah
Turnbull, Agnes Sligh Webster, Jean
Turney, Catherine Weeks, Helen C. See Campbell, Helen Stuart
Tuthill, Louisa Huggins Welby, Amelia Coppuck
Tuve, Rosemond Wells, Carolyn
Ty-Casper, Linda Wells, Emmeline Woodward
Tyler, Anne Wells, John J. See Bradley, Marion Zimmer
Tyler, Martha W. Wells-Barnett, Ida B.
Tyler, Mary Palmer Welty, Eudora
West, Dorothy
Uchida, Yoshiko West, Jessamyn
Uhnak, Dorothy West, Lillie
Ulanov, Ann Belford West, Mae
Underwood, Sophie Kerr Wetherall, Elizabeth See Warner, Susan Bogert
Untermeyer, Jean Starr Wharton, Edith
Upton, Harriet Taylor Wheatley, Phillis
Valentine, Jean Wheaton, Campbell See Campbell, Helen Stuart
Valentine, Jo See Armstrong, Charlotte Whipple, Maurine
Van Alstyne, Frances Crosby Whitcher, Frances Berry
Vandegrift, Margaret See Janvier, Margaret Thompson White, Anna
Vanderbilt, Amy White, Anne Terry
Van Duyn, Mona White, Eliza Orne
Van Vorst, Bessie McGinnis White, Elizabeth
Van Vorst, Marie White, Ellen Gould
Vendler, Helen Hennessy White, Helen Constance
Victor, Frances Fuller White, Nelia Gardner
Victor, Metta Fuller White, Rhoda E.
Vining, Elizabeth Gray Whiting, Lillian
Viramontes, Helena Mara Whitman, Narcissa Prentiss
Voigt, Cynthia Whitman, Ruth
Voigt, Ellen Bryant Whitman, Sarah Helen
Vorse, Mary Heaton Whitney, Adeline D. T.
Whitney, Phyllis A.
Wakoski, Diane Wiggin, Kate Douglass
Wald, Lillian D. Wiggins, Bernice Love
Waldman, Anne Wiggins, Marianne
Waldrop, Rosmarie Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
Walker, Alice Wilder, Laura Ingalls
xlv
Wilder, Louise Beebe Woods, Katharine Pearson

Wilhelm, Kate Woolsey, Sarah Chauncey
Willard, Emma Woolson, Constance Fenimore
Willard, Frances Wormeley, Katharine Prescott
Willard, Nancy Wright, Frances
Williams, Catharine Arnold Wright, Julia McNair
Williams, Fannie Barrier Wright, Mabel Osgood
Williams, Sherley Anne Wright, Mary Clabaugh
Willis, Connie Wyatt, Edith Franklin
Willis, Lydia Fish Wylie, Elinor Hoyt
Willoughby, Florence Barrett
Wilson, Harriet E. Adams Yamada, Mitsuye
Windle, Mary Jane Yamamoto, Hisaye
Winnemucca, Sarah Yamanaka, Lois-Ann
Winslow, Anna Green Yates, Elizabeth
Winslow, Helen M. Yezierska, Anzia
Winslow, Ola Elizabeth Yglesias, Helen
Winslow, Thyra Samter Youmans, Eliza Ann
Winter, Ella Young, Ann Eliza
Winwar, Frances Young, Ella
Wolf, Naomi Young, Marguerite
Wong, Jade Snow Young, Rida Johnson
Wood, Ann See Douglas, Ann
Wood, S. S. B. K. Zaturenska, Marya
Woodhull, Victoria Zolotow, Charlotte
Woods, Caroline H. Zugsmith, Leane
xlvi
ABBREVIATIONS
A style of all or nothing (initials or complete title) has been KR Kirkus Reviews
employed in this new edition; partial abbreviations have been
purged, to limit confusion. In cases where two well-known LATBR Los Angeles Times Book Review
periodicals have the same initials, only one has the initials
and the other is always spelled out in its entirety (i.e. NR is
LJ Library Journal
New Republic, and National Review is spelled out).
APR American Poetry Review MTCW Major TwentiethCentury Writers
CA Contemporary Authors NAW Notable American Women
CAAS Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series NAW:MP Notable American Women: The Modern Period
CANR Contemporary Authors New Revision Series

NBAW Notable Black American Women
CB Current Biography
NR New Republic
CBY Current Biography Yearbook
NYRB New York Review of Books
CLAJ College Literary Association Journal
NYT New York Times
CLC Contemporary Literary Criticism
NYTM New York Times Magazine
CLHUS Cambridge Literary History of the United States
NYTBR New York Times Book Review
CLR Childrens Literature Review
CN Contemporary Novelists PMLA Publication of the Modern Language Association
CP Contemporary Poets PW Publishers Weekly
CPW Contemporary Popular Writers SATA Something About the Author
CWD Contemporary Women Dramatists

SL School Librarian
CWP Contemporary Women Poets
TLS [London] Times Literary Supplement
DAB Dictionary of American Biography
TCCW TwentiethCentury Childrens Writers
DLB Dictionary of Literary Biography
WP Washington Post
DLBY Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook
WPBW Washington Post Book World
DAI Dissertation Abstracts International
VV Village Voice
FC Feminist Companion
FW Feminist Writers WRB Womens Review of Books
GLB Gay & Lesbian Biography WWAW Whos Who of American Women
xlvii
A
ABBOTT, Edith Compulsory Education and Child Labor Legislation of Illinois
(1917). Highly committed to the need for education until age
sixteen, the authors examine the many factors leading to school
Born 26 September 1876, Grand Island, Nebraska; died 28 July
absence, such as poverty, mental and physical defects, lack of
1957, Grand Island, Nebraska
knowledge of immigrant parents and children, and delinquency.
Daughter of Othman Ali and Elizabeth Abbott
Documenting the existence and extent of missed school days and
the historical development of compulsory education, remedies are
Edith Abbott was the rst woman dean of a graduate school
suggested. The authors arguments are still timely and the contro-
in an American university and, simultaneously, the rst dean of
versy still lively.
the rst school of social work in the nation. A dedicated social
reformer and scientist, Abbotts signicant contributions are The Tenements of Chicago, 1908-1935 (1936), is a massive
often overshadowed by the fame and writings of her close friends study of housing conditions and poverty in Chicago. The book, a
and colleagues at Hull House in Chicago: Jane Addams, Sophonisba result of 25 years of study, is based on house-to-house canvassing
Breckinridge, and her sister, Grace Abbott. in 151 city blocks, including visits to 18,225 apartments. The
Born into a well-established family that had moved to the problems Abbott and Breckinridge noted, such as lack of enforce-
Nebraska frontier just prior to her birth, Abbott was encouraged to ment of housing regulations, too few city inspectors, high rents for
be independent and intellectual. She graduated from the Universi- substandard housing, large numbers of unemployed suffering
ty of Nebraska in 1901 and, frustrated with the lack of career from the social stresses of broken families, ill health, and lack of
opportunities in Nebraska, moved to Illinois where she began her education, are as relevant today as they were over 40 years ago.
studies at the University of Chicago. The documentation of these problems provides an excellent basis
for their understanding today.
After receiving her Ph.D. in political economy in 1907,
Abbott became an industrious and illustrious faculty member of Abbotts vision of social work as an aggressive, policymaking,
the University of Chicago. When the School of Social Services and controversial profession is clearly specied in Social Welfare
Administration was founded in 1920, she was appointed dean. and Professional Education (1931). Partially written during the
Always interested in womens rights, Abbott fought for high Great Depression, it advocates government-sponsored, guaran-
positions for women, laying a foundation for the female control teed employment, centralized and organized through public
and domination in social work that has continued until today. agencies.
Abbott, her sister Grace, and Sophonisba Breckinridge were
Abbott was a talented, conscientious scholar, educator, and
major leaders in the formation of public policy affecting women,
social reformer who was overshadowed during her life by her
children, industrial relations, and immigration. Furthermore, they
association with famous and more charismatic gures. Today she
helped establish the profession of social work as an academic
remains little known outside of the eld of social work, but her
occupation, raising its prestige and power as a source of social
writings are a witness and a tribute to her talents and contributions.
change. Unfortunately, their tradition of sound research and
political advocacy on behalf of the underprivileged, especially
women, has lost much of its momentum among conservative OTHER WORKS: The Real Jail Problem (1915). The One Hundred
social workers of today. and One County Jails of Illinois and Why They Ought to Be
Abbotts rst book, Women in Industry: A Study in American Abolished (1916). Immigration: Selected Documents and Case
Economic History (1909), is a massive, comprehensive study of Records (1924). Historical Aspects of the Immigration Problem
womens work in the marketplace. Evolving out of earlier work (1926). Some American Pioneers in Social Welfare (1937). Public
done with Breckinridge on census statistics dealing with the Assistance (1940). From Relief to Social Security: The Develop-
employment of women, it developed a complex and thorough ment of the New Public Welfare Services (1941). Twenty-One
analysis of women in various industrial areas, including factories, Years of University Education for Social Service, 1920-1941 (1942).
cotton mills, and the clothing and printing industries. The book
records not only historical antecedents of womens industrial
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Chambers, C. A., Seedtime of Reform: American
labor but also 1909 public opinion. It is an invaluable history of
Social Service and Social Action, 1918-1933 (1963). Costin, L. B.,
the early labor movements and occupational structures, as well as
Edith Abbott and the Chicago Inuence on Social Work Educa-
the more specialized topic of women and industry.
tion in Social Service Review (March 1983). Costin, L. B., Two
Abbott coauthored The Delinquent Child and the Home with Sisters for Social Justice: A Biography of Grace and Edith
Breckinridge in 1912. It elaborates in a systematic and document- Abbott (1983).
ed fashion the problems of urban youth. Abbott and Breckinridge Other references: Survey Graphic (June 1936). ANB (1999).
again collaborated when they wrote Truancy and Non-Attendance
in the Chicago Schools: A Study of the Social Aspects of the MARY JO DEEGAN
1
ABBOTT AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
ABBOTT, Eleanor Hallowell In spite of critical strictures, Abbotts ction is interesting,

for it reveals a personality resolutely turning away from the
harshness of her New England mental and emotional legacy. In its
Born 22 September 1872, Cambridge, Massachusetts; died 4 June determined gaiety and its triumphant euphoria it is like a backlash
1958, Portsmouth, New Hampshire to the ponderous, doomsounding religiosity of her grandfather
Daughter of Edward and Clara Davis Abbott; married Fordyce Jacob Abbott and his ancestors. Certainly it was popular in its day,
Coburn, 1908 and perhaps no more naive than the so-called romances that ll
the racks of modern drugstores.
The youngest child in her family, Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
grew up surrounded by literary and religious luminaries. Her
fathers father was Jacob Abbott, author of many books for young OTHER WORKS: Molly Make-Believe (1910). The Sick-A-Bed
people, including the famous Rollo series. The family was friend- Lady, and Other Stories (1911). White Linen Nurse (1913). Little
Eve Edgarton (1914). Indiscreet Letter (1915). Stingy Receiver
ly with Longfellow, Lowell, and the like; the atmosphere of the
(1917). Neer-Do-Much (1918). Old-Dad (1919). Rainy Week
home was decidedly religious and scholarly. Abbotts father, a
(1921). Fairy Prince, and Other Stories (1922). Silver Moon
Congregational clergyman, left his church to be ordained an
(1923). Love and the Ladies (1928). But Once a Year (1928).
Episcopal priest; he was also editor of The Outlook for many years.
Minister Who Kicked the Cat (1932). Being Little in Cambridge
Abbott attended private schools in Cambridge, took special When Everyone Else Was Big (1936).
courses at Radcliffe, and later was a secretary and teacher of
English at Lowell State Normal School. She wrote poetry and
short stories for some time, with no success. Just as she was at the BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works:Notable Boston Authors, M.
point of giving up, Harpers Magazine accepted two long poems, Flagg, ed. (1965).
and she won three of the short-story prizes offered by Colliers Other references: Boston Transcript (15 Oct. 1913, 1 Dec.
and The Delineator. 1928). NYT (12 Oct. 1913, 3 Jan. 1937). Springeld Republican
(11 Oct. 1936). TLS (31 May 1928).
In 1908, shortly before her fortune turned, she married Dr.
Fordyce Coburn, who encouraged her literary efforts. The mar- ABIGAIL ANN HAMBLEN
riage, which took her to Wilton, New Hampshire, was a happy
one, though childless.
Until the writing of her autobiography, Abbott published 14

books and about 75 magazine stories. Judging from her own ABEL, Annie Heloise
account, as a child she had been nervous and excitable, and her
ction gives evidence that she never lost the intensity of feeling Born 18 February 1873, Fernhurst, Sussex, England; died 14
which seems to have been her chief characteristic. Her writing is March 1947, Aberdeen, Washington
unblushingly romantic, and although unpleasant occurrences do Daughter of George and Amelia Anne Hogben Abel; married
take place in her ctionpeople do sufferover the whole is a George Cockburn Henderson, 1922
sheen of unreality; each novel and story has a happy ending. Her
principal characters are young girls (much, one suspects, like Annie Abels family emigrated to Salina, Kansas, in 1884,
Abbott herself): audacious, high-strung, terribly talkative, and full and she went on to attain literary prominence as an authority on
of unsettling demands. Her male characters are usually quiet, American Indian history. Her masters thesis was Indian Reser-
strong, sturdy, and inured to patient suffering. vations in Kansas and the Extinguishment of their Title (1902).
Her doctoral dissertation, The History of Events Resulting in
Abbotts unique style gives the effect of breathlessness, as of
Indian Consolidation West of the Mississippi, won the Ameri-
a child trying to describe some deeply felt experience. Apparently
can Historical Associations Justin Winsor Prize in 1906 and was
aiming for spontaneity and originality, she too often falls into
published in the Annual Report of that year.
distressing triviality and banality; occasionally the reader feels
that Abbott is lapsing into baby talk. Sometimes she seems almost Abels major work was the three-volume study, The
manic in her hectic gaiety; imagery is often startling, and al- Slaveholding Indians, the rst of which was The American Indian
ways vivid. Though critics spoke of Abbotts work as charm- as Slaveholder and Secessionist: An Omitted Chapter in the
ing, they found the charm often forced, and emphasized the Diplomatic History of the Confederacy (1915). In Abels view,
improbability and unreality of plot and characters. One reviewer though there was slaveholding among Indian tribes, only the
summed up the matter succinctly: Miss Abbott has an original Choctaw and Chickasaw were drawn to the Confederacy because
and sprightly methodbut she overdoes it. Her apparent dislike of concerns about slavery. The South, out of its own needs,
of the conventional and tame lead her to exaggerate her own notably strategic concern for territorial solidarity, offered a num-
virtues into sensationalism. ber of concessions. Most signicant perhaps were Confederate
2
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ACKER
guarantees of criminal and civil rights. The South also offered to OTHER WORKS: Brief Guide to Points of Historical Interest in
give Indians control of their own trade, but that offer was later Baltimore City (1908). Proposals for an Indian State, 1778-1878
rescinded. Through General Albert Pike, the Confederacy made (1909). The Ofcial Correspondence of James S. Calhoun (ed. by
its approaches to the Western tribes, and his wartime disaffection Abel, 1915). A New Lewis and Clark Map (1916). A Sidelight on
with the Confederacy over its betrayal of promises to the Indians Anglo-American Relations 1839-1858 (ed. by Abel with F. J.
would prove costly to the South. Klingsberg, 1927). Chardons Journal at Fort Clark, 1834-39
(ed. by Abel, 1932). Tabeaus Narrative of Loisels Expedition to
Despite Southern concessions, Abel noted, the Indians ac- the Upper Missouri (ed. by Abel, 1939).
tually fought on both sides and for the same motives and impulses
as whites. In her view, it was the failure of the U.S. government
to provide the promised protection for the Southern Indians which
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Notable American Women,
led them to ally with the Confederacy. From rst to last, she
1607-1950, E. T. James et al., eds. (article by F. Prucha, 1971).
maintained, military conditions and events determined politi-
Other references: AHR (July 1947). ANB (1999).Mississippi
cal ones.
Valley Historical Review (March 1916, March 1920). Yale Uni-
In the next two volumes, The American Indian as Participant versity Obituary Record of Graduates (1946-47).
in the Civil War (1919) and The American Indian Under Recon-
struction (1925), Abel traced the tragic consequences of Indian INZER BYERS
involvement in the sectional strife. The alliance with the Confed-
eracy proved most unstable as the relatively few well-inten-
tioned men in Richmond were checkmated by the men west of
the Mississippi. After General Pike lost his command, white
abuses proliferated and the grossest corruption ensued. The ACKER, Kathy
North showed no concern for Indian rights whatsoever and the
Unionist mishandling of refugee problems and military operations Born 18 April 1947, New York, New York
proved especially costly. Daughter of Donald and Claire Weill Lehman; married Robert
But the nal tragedy still awaited the Indians in the Recon- Acker, 1966 (divorced); Peter Gordon, 1976 (divorced)
struction era. With the new 1866 boundary settlements, Indians
found their boundaries had ceased to be interdicted lines. First Often referred to as a punk and, later, a postmodern writer,
the non-Southern civilized tribes, then the uncivilized tribes and Kathy Acker is actively involved in the construction of new myths
white settlers breeched the lines, and nally, the Indians could not by which to live. Like many of the artists and writers who have
withstand railroad pressures. The Reconstruction treaties, Abel inuenced her work, she does not draw easy distinctions between
concluded, really meant not amnesty but conscation of rights. life and art, sometimes consciously making up contradicting
Her work also included Proposals for an Indian State, 1778-1878, stories about her past. In this way, Acker becomes as much of
a study published in the 1907 Annual Report of the American a literary construct as any of her characters.
Historical Association. In it Abel traced the history of the idea of
an Indian state from Jeffersons time to the ideas nal demise The daughter of wealthy Jewish parents who disowned her,
with the admission of Oklahoma as a state. She also investigated Acker grew up in Manhattan where she wrote poetry from an early
problems of early-19th-century westward expansion. This work age and read voraciously. She was so attached to her books she
involved primarily the editing of letters and journals. sometimes performed ceremonies in which she married them. She
received a B.A. from the University of California, San Diego in
Throughout her work Abel proves to be both an effective 1968, having transferred there from Brandeis two years earlier.
researcher and a perceptive scholar who wrote sympathetically She also completed two years of graduate work at New York
about problems the Indians encountered. Although she occasion- University and City University of New York, studying English,
ally wrote in a paternalistic or romantic tone, she is essentially an classics, and philosophy. After Blood and Guts in High School
objective historian. Her English background, she noted, freed her (1984) sold well in England, she moved to London for several
from sectional attachments in dealing with Civil War issues. And years, nding it more supportive of writers than New York.
she could likewise appraise with detachment the conict between Subsequently, she moved to San Francisco, where she taught at
Indian claims and American expansionist urges. Her work is the San Francisco Art Institute.
marked with a sense of the tragedy that befell the Indians, but this
sense did not obscure her judgement. If, in her nal view, the fate Ackers inuences are many and include photographers,
of the Indians was determined by white greed and power, she also lmmakers, and artists. Having grown up in New Yorks post-
recognized the part which the Indians inability to learn from Beat art world, it is those writers and poets who had the strongest
experience played in the nal outcome. The breadth of her inuence on the early shaping of her sensibility. The explorations
research and her capacity for informed, detached judgement gave of memory and the madeness of language through formal
her work its strength and power. styles such as repetition, used in the work of Black Mountain
3
ACKER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
poets like Charles Olson, Jerry Rothenberg, and David Antin, and Book Review noted that, in Pussy, Acker engages in some of
Beats like Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs, appear in much her favorite pastimes: decoding language, debunking culture,
of Ackers writing. deconstructing (if thats the right word) gender (thats not the right
word).
Her rst privately published book, Politics (1972), came out
of her experience working in sex shows on 42nd Streetsome- Publishers Weekly wrote of Pussy: Acker writes a deliber-
thing of a test of the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Since then ately affectless, deadpan prose, rendering both the absurd and the
Ackers work has always had an important political edge. Because disturbing. . .with a declarative nonchalance. Like Ackers other
labels tend to diffuse that edge, she rejects words like experi- work, this campy and enigmatic novel is self-consciously pro-
mental to describe her work. Even so, Acker is an experimental vocative as she detonates her battery of literary and sexual
writer, in what has become the conventional understanding of the references in order to illuminate themes of masochism and rebel-
term. She is perhaps best known, and least understood, for her lionbut its also often funny and invariably intelligent.
extensive formal use of plagiarism. When an interviewer in 1996 asked Acker why she writes so
To call attention to the already appropriated status of their many sex scenes, often graphic enough to be nearly pornographic,
images and to her refusal or inability to partake in similar, she said, Im sure my privileged background has something to
patriarchally determined productions, Acker literally copies from do with it, and the fact that my rst jobs were in the sex industry. I
a number of mostly Western, classic literary texts (Freud, Genet, think I see the world through a sexual lens, like Genet. The idea
de Sade, Cervantes, Twain). Not a response to a Barthian under- that you exist to please menthat is almost relentlessly my
standing of the diminished possibilities of literature in its subject.
postmodern state of exhaustion, instead Ackers plagiarism In 1997 Acker published Bodies of Work, a series of essays
critiques and rewrites Western cultural myths in ways that con- on topics ranging from ne arts, language, and literature to
sciously disclaim any pretension to originality or mastery. In this gender, politics, and postmodernism. In her preface she advises
respect it can also be recognized as a survival strategy in a world her audience to avoid reading the essays in the book. Since ction
where master narratives of freedom and truth have been exposed allows more freedom than this form, she says, she questions this
as such, leaving these appropriated acts the only ones available. volumes content. Yet reviewers called the essaysthe structure
of which range from conventional to pure descriptioncompelling.
Although often criticized by feminists for the violent and
pornographic elements of her novels, Acker is clearly involved in
a project to explore the conditions of living in a society that OTHER WORKS: I Dont Expect Youll Do the Same, by Clay Fear
depends on the economic and sexual dependence of some of its (1974). I Dreamt I Became a Nymphomaniac! Imagining (1974).
members, including women. Her main characters, who are often The Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec by Henri Toulouse Lautrec
on some sort of quest, are always outside of the mainstream; they (1975). The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula by the Black
are would-be pirates, cyborgs, or sex-show workers. In this sense, Tarantula (1975). Persian Poems (1978). New York City in 1979
Ackers feminist sensibility is evident in most of her writing. Her (1981). Great Expectations (1982). Hello, Im Erica Jong (1982).
most explicitly feminist novel is probably Don Quixote (1986), in Algeria: A Series of Invocations because Nothing Else Works
which Acker regures the title character as a contemporary (1984). Literal Madness: Kathy Goes to Haiti; My Death My Life
woman on a search for love. The obstacles she encounters are by Pier Paolo Pasolini; Florida (1988). In Memoriam to Identity
historical, mythical, and literary patriarchal gures (Christ, (1990). Hannibal Lecter, My Father (1991). Portrait of the Eye:
Machiavelli, Richard Nixon). Three Novels (reprint, 1992). My Mother: Demonology (1993).
Acker carries out the examinations of power structures and

relations on both thematic and formal levels. Her writing occa- BIBLIOGRAPHY: Dick, L., Feminism, Writing, Postmodernism,
sionally resembles that of Gertrude Stein in its careful and in From My Guy to Sci-: Genre and Womens Writing in the
consistent attention to the material qualities of language and the Postmodern World, H. Carr, ed. (1989). Hulley, K., Transgress-
possibilities they provide. Like Stein too, Acker connects these ing Genre: Kathy Ackers Intertext, in Intertextuality and Con-
with the materiality of the body, going a step further and, as temporary American Fiction, P. ODonnell and R. Davis, eds.
Ellen G. Friedman notes, locating the body itself as a potential (1989). McCaffery, L., The Artists of Hell: Kathy Acker and
site of revolution. In Empire of the Senseless (1988) she looks Punk Aesthetics, in Breaking the Sequence: Womens Experi-
to tattoos, a material writing on the body, as a possibility of mental Fiction, E. G. Friedman and M. Fuchs, eds. (1989).
controlling the means of sign production and self-representation. Reference Works: Benets Readers Encyclopedia of Ameri-
can Literature (1991).
Pussy, King of the Pirates (1995) drew upon the same themes Other references: Booklist (15 Dec. 1997). NYTBR (3 Mar.
evident throughout Ackers previous body of work. Inspired by 1996). PW (16 Oct. 1995, 11 Dec. 1995). Review of Contempo-
Robert Louis Stevensons Treasure Island, the book incorporates rary Fiction 9 (Fall 1989).
references ranging from Antigone to Newt Gingrich, features a
chameleon like-rst-person narrator, and includes graphic de- MONICA DORENKAMP,
scriptions of menstruation, incest, and sex. The New York Times UPDATED BY KAREN RAUGUST
4
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ADAMS
ADAMS, Abigail Smith and vivid sense of life suffer from her grandsons well-meant
editing.
Born 11 November 1744, Weymouth, Massachusetts; died 28 The Book of Abigail and John (1975, eds. L. H. Buttereld et
October 1818, Quincy, Massachusetts al.) is limited to what its editors consider the best letters of John
Daughter of William and Elizabeth Quincy Smith; married John and Abigail, spanning the years of their courtship in 1762 and her
Adams, 1764; children: ve arrival in London in 1784. In them, Adams affectionate nature is
expressed freely. Her loneliness and pride in herself and in her
husband is described, too: I miss my partner, and nd myself
Abigail Adams grew up as part of three tightly knit families:
uneaquuil [sic] to the cares which fall upon me; . . . I hope in time
that of her parents, where she acquired her Puritan faith, humor,
to have the Reputation of being as good a Farmeress as my partner
and skills in home and business management; that of her maternal has of being a good Statesman.
grandparents, where she learned social poise and a love of
politics; and that of her paternal uncle, whose wife may have been Adams never hesitated to address herself to political matters.
Adams model as a letter writer. Two issues which drew strong reaction from her were slavery and
womens rights. Writing to John in 1774, she wished most
Adams formal education was virtually nonexistent, due to sincerely there was not a slave in the province. Concerning
her poor health. Fortunately, however, she was surrounded by womens rights, Adams wrote early in 1776 the letter for which
literate adults who guided her studies that ranged from Plato, she is most famous: [A]nd by the way in the new Code of Laws
Locke, and Burke, to the Bible. She and John Adams were married which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you
by her father in Weymouth. In the rst eight years of marriage, would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous to them than
Adams bore ve children: Abigail, John Quincy, Susanna (died at your ancestors. Undaunted by Johns reply denying her petition
fourteen months), Charles, and Thomas Boylston. In 1784, Ad- and charging her with being saucy, she retorted, I can not say
ams and her daughter joined her husband and grandfather in that I think you very generous to the Ladies, for whilst you are
Europe. Horried at rst by the pleasure-seeking life of Paris, she proclaiming peace and good will to Men, Emancipating all
later grew more understanding and even learned to love the Nations, you insist upon retaining absolute power over Wives.
theater, though she wrote: I do not feel myself captivated either
with the Manners or politicks [sic] of Europe. Never dull, always animated, Adams letters are more like
conversations than compositions. Her style is easy, natural, and
John became vice-president in 1789 and president in 1797, very oral in manner. Her spelling is phonetic, underscoring the
but Adams health began to fail in 1790, and she returned to verbal nature of her writing, and her punctuation follows natural
Quincy where she spent most of her time during Johns years as pauses rather than written conventions. Her letters tell us how it
president. She did go to Washington to open the White House, but felt to live through the American Revolution and what it was like
her increasingly poor health forced her back to Quincy shortly to be a New England Puritan in Europe in the late-18th century.
before John completed his presidency. She died in Quincy on 28 More than that, however, they help us understand the creative
October 1818. force we call the Puritan ethic.
Adams claim to literary fame rests upon the hundreds of Adams has long been credited with a unique place in history
letters picturing her times in warmly human terms. John was her as wife of the second president and mother of the sixth, but she
favorite correspondent, but she wrote extensively to her large also deserves attention as a literary and historic gure in her
family and to a wide circle beyond, including such intellectuals as own right.
Mercy Otis Warren and Thomas Jefferson. In New Letters of
Abigail Adams (1947), editor Stewart Mitchell printed her corre-
spondence to her older sister, Mary Cranch. To Mary more than OTHER WORKS: Adams Family Correspondence (eds., L. H.
anyone else, Adams wrote of womens concernssmallpox Buttereld et al., 4 vols. 1963-1973).
and fevers, incompetent servants, ination, poor food, bad weath-
er, and the deplorable state the White House was in when she
arrived to become its rst mistress. BIBLIOGRAPHY: American First Ladies: Their Lives and Legacy
(1996). Bobbe, D., Abigail Adams, the Second First Lady (1929).
Mitchells publication corrects the bowdlerized portrait of Bradford, G., Portraits of American Women (1919). Gordon, L.,
Adams rendered by her Victorian grandson, Charles Francis From Lady Washington to Mrs. Cleveland (1889). Ketcham, R. L.,
Adams. His Letters of Mrs. Adams, the Wife of John Adams (2 The Puritan Ethic in the Revolutionary Era: Abigail Adams and
vols., 1840-41) and Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife Thomas Jefferson, in Remember the Ladies: New Perspec-
Abigail Adams During the Revolution (1876) not only censor her tives on Women in American History, George, C. V. R., ed.
passionate declarations of love to John, but also delete much from (1975). Hole, J. and E. Levine, The Adams Letters of Abigail &
her personal accounts of pregnancies and childbirth, the dysentery John AdamsHistorical Precedent: Nineteenth Century Femi-
epidemic of 1775, and smallpox inoculations. Adams personality nists, in Issues in Feminism: An Introduction to Womens
5
ADAMS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Studies (1995). Minningerode, M., Some American Ladies: Seven (1978) Eliza Quarles attains a sense of freedom as a poet; in Rich
Informal Biographies (1926). Richards, L. E. Abigail Adams and Rewards (1980) Daphne Matthiesen earns respect as a self-sup-
Her Times (1936). Shepherd, J., The Adams Chronicles: Four porting interior decorator; in Superior Women (1985) Megan
Generations of Greatness (1975). Stone, I., Those Who Love Greene, a nancially successful publisher, cosponsors a tempo-
(1965). Whitney, J., Abigail Adams (1949). rary haven for Atlantas homeless women. Second Chances
Other references: ScribM (Jan. 1930). Biography of the First (1988) again explores Adams trademark themes while examining
Ladies of the United States (Phoenix Multimedia, 1998). peoples changing expectations of aging. In Carolines Daugh-
ters (1991) the vicissitudes of the ve daughters lives intrude
BILLIE W. ETHERIDGE into Carolines long-awaited contented space, but Caroline en-
dures and survives.
Adams stories appeared in numerous periodicals, including
ADAMS, Alice the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and Paris Review, and she
published several short-story collections. Beautiful Girl (1979)
contains her rst O. Henry award-winning story A Gift of
Born 14 August 1926, Fredericksburg, Virginia; died 27 May 1999
Grass. The women in the stories in To See You Again (1982)
Daughter of Nicholson Barney and Agatha Erskine Boyd Adams;
abide by an Adams code: She behaves well, even under
married Mark Linenthal, Jr., 1946 (divorced 1958); child-
emotional stress. She does not make scenes, does not cry in public,
ren: Peter Adams Linenthal
rarely cries alone. In Return Trips (1985) as women recall or
revisit people who shaped their lives they recognize the
The only child of Nicholson, a Spanish professor, and Agatha
irreversible and continuing effects of past events. The stories in
Adams, a failed writer, Alice Adams wrote poetry as a child
After Youve Gone (1989) are about loss: some characters are
hoping that if she were a writer, her mother would like her.
devastated by it; most recover from it, and some are even
Raised in a semi-intellectual atmosphere that was materially
freed by it.
comfortable but emotionally unsatisfying, Adams graduated
from high school at the age of fteen and from Radcliffe College Seeing marriage as primarily concerned with propers,
in 1946. Her recurring themes of change, economic indepen- Adams lived in San Francisco with interior designer Robert
dence, and survival, which can often be paralleled to events in her McNie beginning in 1964, and she taught at the University of
life, earn her both praise and criticism. California at Davis as well as at Berkeley and Stanford. The 1982
recipient of the O. Henry Special Award for Continuing Achieve-
At the end of a writing course at Radcliffe, Adams professor
ment, Adams has been anthologized in The Best American Short
advised her to get married and forget writing. Following his
Stories and in all but one edition of Prize Stories: The O. Henry
prescription, she married within a year, spending the next 12 years
Awards from 1971 to 1989.
in the expected 1950s domestic role. For the rst year she lived in
Paris where her husband studied at the Sorbonne (the setting of her In the 1990s Adams continued her prolic output, producing
rst published story, Winter Rain, 1959). In 1948 the couple a book approximately every two years. In A Southern Exposure
moved to California and after the birth of her son, Adams found (1995) Adams travels back to her native South and back in time
little time for writing. 1939to create one of her characteristic group novels. A Con-
necticut family, the Bairds, ee their former lives, settling in
Adams rst novel, Careless Love, appeared in 1966. It
North Carolina. How they change as a result of their move is
satirizes the 1960s San Francisco dating scene in a remotely
somewhat secondary to the social satire Adams has set up, as the
autobiographical tale about a newly divorced woman. Often
Yankees, the outsiders, observe the mores of the prewar, pre-Civil
widowed or divorced, Adams characters not only survive changes
Rights South.
but transcend them, ultimately gaining economic independence
and experiencing growthand this gain becomes an integral part Almost Perfect (1993) and Medicine Men (1997) are set on
of Adams plots. Having been disinherited by her father when he more familiar ground. Novels of manners, they continue Adams
left their family home to her stepmother, and having spent the examination of the afuent, well-educated milieu of San Francis-
years following her divorce in constant struggle with part-time co, focusing on the negotiation of power between men and
secretarial jobs Adams has had rsthand knowledge of the women. Almost Perfects Stella Blake initially believes shes
importance of economic independence. found a dream relationship, her instability and going-nowhere
career buoyed by her alliance with the successful, charismatic
In the novels following Careless Love, Adams maturity and
Richard Fallon. The balance shifts dramatically, however, as
focus as a writer become increasingly evident in the complexity of
Richard experiences a precipitous descent and Stellas fortunes
her female protagonists. Usually well-educated, upper-middle
rise both professionally and emotionally; she not only survives her
class female visual artists who are enacting a journey to woman-
relationship with him, but heals old emotional wounds.
hood, the characters are often developed through the use of
parenthetical comments by an omniscient narrator. In Adams The cards are initially stacked in favor of the men of
second novel, Families and Survivors (1975), Louisa Calloway Medicine Men as well. When Molly Bonner, the protagonist, is
undergoes many changes before nding happiness in a second diagnosed as having a brain tumor she feels compelled to rely on
marriage and realizing her talent as a painter. In Listening to Billie the expertise of her arrogant physicians and her bossy new
6
doctorlover. The novel portrays the passivity, infantalization, existing works on the subject, and although it contains some
and entrapment of a patient overwhelmed by the medical estab- misinformation due to inaccurate sources, the scope of its cover-
lishment. It also reveals that the conduct expected of a good age is impressive. Edited and retitled for later editions, it includes
patientwell-behaved, uncomplaining, compliantis not much a dictionary listing of the separate Christian sects, a survey of the
different from that expected of a well woman in Adams world. beliefs of non-Christian groups, and a geographical breakdown of
world religions.
Adams remained devoted to the short story. She edited the
Best American Short Stories in 1991 and continued to write and For her Summary History of New England (1799), Adams
publish widely in this form. Another collection, The Last Lovely undertook serious primary research, delving into state archives
City appeared in 1999. Though her characters continue in large and old newspapers, causing serious injury to her eyesight. The
part to be from a privileged, protected class, her stories edged into material, which covers events from the sailing of the Mayower
a darker, melancholy realm as the characters are made vulnerable through the adoption of the Federal Constitution, is presented in a
by age, dealing with the disquieting inevitabilities of loss, dimin- clear, straightforward manner with occasional attempts to recreate
ished beauty, illness, and death. In light of these changes and the particularly affecting scenes such as the farewell of the Pilgrims
precariousness of romantic attachments, friendships are portrayed from Holland.
with increasing signicance; the old friend especially is someone
The Abridgement of the History of New England for the Use
to be treasured.
of Young People (1807) involved a protracted controversy with
Dr. Jedidiah Morse over unfair competition, eventually resolved
OTHER WORKS: Mexico: Some Travels and Some Travelers There in Adams favor. In revising her History, Adams edited it for
(1990). A Very Nice Dog, in Southwest Review (Spring 1997). greater smoothness and clarity, but simplied neither the lan-
After the War (2000). guage nor the thought. She added a paragraph at the end of each
chapter to point up the moral lesson to be learned from the event.
While working on the Abridgement, Adams published The
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bufngton, R., Comedy, Human; Variety, South-
Truth and Excellence of the Christian Religion Exhibited (1804),
ern, in Sewanee Review (Summer 1996). Karamcheti, I., Trou-
surveying the support which laymen had given to their religion
bled in Paradise, in WRB (1 Sept.1997).
since the 17th century. Divided into two parts, it rst presents
Other references: BL (19 Aug.1995). CA 81-84 (1979).
brief biographies of 60 men, showing how their lives exemplied
CANR 26 (1989). CBY (1989). CLC 46 (1988). DLBY (1986).KR
the Christian spirit. The second part provides excerpts listed under
(15 Dec. 1988). MTCW (1991). NYT 27 May 1999. NYTBR (May
various kinds of Evidence in Favor of Revealed Religion.
1988, Apr. 1991, Oct. 1995, Apr. 1997). Time (27 May 1999).
Most of the material was drawn from the writings of those covered
World Literature Today (Spring 1994).
in the rst section, but it also includes selections by the Marchion-
PHYLLIS S. GLEASON,
ess de Dillery, Hannah More, and a Mrs. West.
UPDATED BY VALERIE VOGRIN Adams The History of the Jews from the Destruction of
Jerusalem to the Present Time (1812) represented one of the rst
attempts to relate their story sympathetically, a story which
Adams described as a tedious succession of oppression and
ADAMS, Hannah persecution. Written to encourage efforts to convert the Jews,
her discussion of the early period stresses its substantiation of
our Saviors prediction of their fate. Not completely free from
Born 2 October 1755, Medeld, Massachusetts; died 15 Decem-
bias, Adams nevertheless carefully recorded the conscatory
ber 1831, Brookline, Massachusetts
taxes, the mass murders, and the expulsions suffered by the Jews.
Daughter of Thomas and Eleanor Clark Adams
Adams was probably the rst professional woman writer in
The second of ve children, Hannah Adams was considered America, pursuing her career despite the knowledge that the
too frail to attend public school and was educated at home. penalties and discouragements attending authors in general fall
Discovering she was unable to support herself at needlework, upon women with double weight. Although most discussions of
Adams undertook a literary career. Although excessively modest Adams adopt her own designation of herself as a compiler, she
and timid, she was the rst and for many years the only woman was, in fact, a ne historian whose meticulous research included
permitted to use the Boston Atheneum. Her learning was prodi- examination of primary materials when available, extraordinarily
gious, and while her books were successful, poor business ar- wide reading of secondary sources, and a remarkable objectivity.
rangements limited the income she derived from them. Her histories are no longer relevant, but her contributions to
historiography deserve attention.
The research into religious sects that Adams had begun for
her own edication became, in 1784, her rst published volume,
the Alphabetical Compendium of the Various Sects Which Have OTHER WORKS: A Narrative of the Controversy Between the Rev.
Appeared from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Present Jedidiah Morse, D.D., and the Author (1814). A Concise Account
Day. In its objectivity, it represented a major improvement over of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the
7
Jews (1816). Letters on the Gospels (1824). Memoir of Hannah A 1914 graduate of Wellesley College, an English major with
Adams (ed. by J. Tuckerman, 1832). deep interests in religion, music, science, and archeology (her
favorite Nancy Drew, The Clue in the Crossword Cipher, is based
on astounding archeological discoveries and deductions among
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brooks, V. W., The Flowering of New Eng- the Inca ruins), Adams was an active alumna and a 1978 winner of
land (1936). the Alumnae Achievement Award. Wellesleys motto, Non
Other references: The Dedham Historical Register (July Ministrari Sed Ministrare (not to be ministered unto but to
1896). The New England Galaxy (Spring 1971). New England minister), had been Adamss own guiding principle and the lesson
Magazine (May 1894). ANR (1999). she hoped to teach young readers who gathered in schools and
libraries all over the country to hear her speak. Dont be a
CAROL B. SCHOEN gimme, gimme kind of person, she told them in an amusingly
loose translation of the Latin, Do something yourself to help
other people.
ADAMS, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams traveled widely (South America, Hawaii, Africa, the
Orient), using the foreign settings to provide authentic back-
grounds for her stories, especially for the Nancy Drews. Indeed,
Born 3 December 1892, Newark, New Jersey; died 1981
Nancywhom she regarded as a third lovely daughter (in
Wrote under: Victor Appleton II, May Hollis Barton, Frank-
addition to her two real-life daughters) was rarely out of
lin W. Dixon, Laura Lee Hope, Carolyn Keene, Ann Shel-
Adams thoughts when she took a trip.
don, Helen Louise Thorndyke
Daugther of Edward and Magdalene Van Camp Stratemeyer; Adams books have been translated into more than a dozen
married Russell Vroom Adams, 1915; children: two daughters languages and, although considered nonliterary, are now staples
in most childrens libraries. In late 1977 the Hardy Boys and
Better known under a variety of pen names, Harriet Stratemeyer Nancy Drew series were adapted for television (Nancy Drew
Adams may well be the most prolic woman writer of all time. lms had been made in the 1930s), although Adams did not write
Author of the perennially popular Nancy Drew mysteries for the scripts. She did, however, require the television programs to
young girls and the equally popular Hardy Boys and Tom Swift, observe the same high standards as the books: no profanity, no sex
Jr., series for young boys, she also wrote numerous volumes in the (as a concession to the new morality, however, Nancys boyfriend
Bobbsey Twins, Honey Bunch, and Dana Girls series. All of Ned is now allowed to give her a quick goodbye hug and kiss), no
these, along with the famous Rover boys, were originated by her extreme violence (a villains moderately heavy blow on the head
father who founded the Stratemeyer Syndicate in 1901. A writ- which temporarily renders Nancy unconscious is not considered
ing factory located in Maplewood, New Jersey, it still turns out extreme), no racism, and no religious confrontations.
the most successful series books ever written for American
Adams received public recognition in the late 1970s such as
youngsters roughly eight to 14 years of age. The Hardy Boys and
the 1978 Certicate of Appreciation from the New Jersey Con-
Nancy Drew series alone sell 16,000,000 copies a year.
gress of Parents and Teachers and, in the same year, honorary
When he died in 1930, Stratemeyer left to his daughters, doctorate degrees from Kean and Upsala Colleges in New Jersey.
Harriet and Edna, the job of keeping up the 17 sets of series then in To encourage more serious study and writing of childrens books,
print. Edna remained in the business for 12 years; Harriet re- Adams endowed a chair at Wellesley to be known as the Harriet
mained a senior partner well into her 80s, working with three Stratemeyer Adams Professor in Juvenile Literature. Continuing
junior partners to update earlier titles to create new volumes. to work nearly to the end of her life, Adams died in 1981.
Adams herself wrote nearly 200 volumes, including most of the
titles in the Nancy Drew series, along with rewrites of the rst
three originated by her father: the young sleuths blue roadster OTHER WORKS: As Victor Appleton II, The Tom Swift, Jr., Series
with running boards had to be replaced, as well as outdated hair (21 titles, 1935-1972). Including: Tom Swift and His Planet Stone
styles and various dialects which the modern reader would nd (1935), Tom Swift and His Giant Robot (1954), Tom Swift and the
offensive. Spectromarine Selector (1960), Tom Swift and the Visitor from
Planet X (1972).
Characters produced by the Stratemeyer Factory are either As May Hollis Barton, The Barton Books for Girls Series (15
good or bad because, Adams maintained, mixed characters dont titles, 1931-1950). Including: Sallies Test of Skill (1931), Virgin-
interest children. Plots are spun according to a strict formula ias Ventures (1932).
guaranteed to satisfy adolescent fantasy: action and suspense As Franklin W. Dixon, The Hardy Boys Series (20 titles,
packed into 20 cliffhanging chapters. Only eighteen years of age, 1934-1973). Including: The Mark on the Door (1934), The Clue in
Nancy Drew is omniscient and omnipotent, solving mysteries that the Embers (1955), The Mystery of the Aztec Warrior (1964), The
bafe adults, professional detectives, and the well-intentioned Mystery at Devils Paw (1973).
police who, however hard they try, are never as quick-thinking As Laura Lee Hope, The Bobbsey Twins Series (15 titles,
and fast-acting as Nancy. 1940-1967). Including: The Bobbsey Twins in the Land of Cotton
8
(1940). The Bobbsey Twins on a Bicycle Trip (1955). The Bobbsey including New York University (1930-32, 1951-52), Bennington
Twins and the Cedar Camp Mystery (1967). (1935-37, 1942-45), and Columbia (1947-68). She also received a
As Carolyn Keene, The Dana Girls Series (32 titles, Fulbright Fellowship for teaching in France (1955-56) and from
1934-1978). Including: By the Light of the Study Lamp (1934), 1948-49 was a consultant to the Library of Congress. She has
Secret of the Swiss Chalet (1958), The Phantom Surfer (1968), served on numerous boards and councils for the arts and has
The Curious Coronation (1976), Mountain Peak Mystery (1978). received several awards for her writing.
The Nancy Drew Mystery Series (56 titles, 1930-1978). Including:
Adams rst book of poetry, Those Not Elect (1925), con-
Secret of the Old Clock (1930), The Hidden Staircase (1959), The
tains poems from her undergraduate days at Barnard. For the most
Mystery of the Fire Dragon (1961), The Mysterious Mannequin
part, they optimistically celebrate natural mysteries and joyous
(1970), The Nancy Drew Cookbook: Clues to Good Cooking
life. Most critics see reected in these poems and in Adams later
(1973), The Mystery of Crocodile Island (1978).
work her interest in the Elizabethan and the metaphysical poets.
As Ann Sheldon, The Linda Craig Series (4 titles, 1960-1966).
High Falcon (1929, reprinted in 1983) Adams second volume,
Including: Linda Craig and the Mystery in Mexico (1964).
reveals her special connection with Louise Bogan, with whom she
As Helen Louise Thorndyke, The Honey Bunch Series (7
later shared the Bollingen Prize (1954). Her focus on natural
titles, 1945-1955). Including: Her First Trip to a Lighthouse
imagery is especially sharp in High Falcon and has been fruitfully
(1949), Her First Trip to Reindeer Farm (1953).
compared to poetry of the metaphysics.
Poems: A Selection, appeared in 1954 (reprinted in 1959) and
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Berryman, M. A., Harriet Stratemeyer Adams was described by Wallace Fowlie in Commonweal as a work of
& the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories: Feminist Gender Tales modest proportions but one of high signicance in the history of
1930-1990, The Construction and Destruction of a Heroine, American letters. Poems contains both a sampling from earlier
(thesis, 1990). Keene, C., Nancy Drew in The Great Detec- volumes as well as new poems as rich and full as her earlier work.
tives, Penzler, O., ed. (1978). Prager, A., Rascals at Large, or, The In 1940, Adams had written in Fred B. Milletts Contemporary
Clue in the Old Nostalgia (1971). American Authors, I have been silent a long time because I am
Reference works: ANB (1999). CA (1968). now grappling with the limitations of the lyric. Poems: A
Other references: Boston Globe (6 Jan. 1976). Family Circle Selection, published 14 years later, proved that in the struggle,
(Aug. 1978). NYT (27 March 1977). NYHT (14 April 1946). Adamsand her readerseventually won.
People (14 May 1977). TV Guide (25 June 1977). WSJ (15 Jan.
1975). The Secret of Nancy Drew (lm, 1982).
OTHER WORKS: Midsummer (1929). This Measure (1933). Lyrics
JACQUELINE BERKE of Franois Villon (edited and translated by Adams, 1933). Her
Lullaby (1947). Lonie Adams Reading Her Poems (audio record-
ing, 1947). Lonie Adams Reading Her Poems in the Recording
Laboratory (audio recording, 1949). Lonie Adams Reading Her
ADAMS, Lonie Fuller Poems in the Coolidge Auditorium (audio recording, 1949).
Lonie Adams Reading Her Poems in New York City (audio
recording, 1951). Enjoyment of Poetry: Survival of the Lyric
Born 9 December 1899, Brooklyn, New York; died 27 January 1988 (audio recording, 1963).
Daughter of Charles F. and Henrietta Rozier Adams; married
William Troy, 1933
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bogan, L., Achievement in American Poetry
Lonie Fuller Adams father taught her to be an agnostic and (1950). Bonacci, B. B., Image and Idea in the Poetry of Lonie
to love poetry. From her mother, she inherited a sense of mystery, Adams (dissertation, 1977). Gregory, H., and M. Zaturenska, A
primitivism, and faith that led eventually to her joining the Roman History of American Poetry, 1900-1940 (1969). Ruihley, G. R.,
Catholic church. Her early life, she felt, was lonely, although she ed., An Anthology of Great U.S. Women Poets, 1850-1990:
tended to develop deep, mystical relationships with school friends. Temples and Palaces (1997). Tuthill, S., ed., Laurels: Eight
Both teachers and parents encouraged Adams to write; by a fairly Women Poets (1998). Untermeyer, L., Modern American Poet-
early age she had composed a great deal of poetry. ry (1962).
Reference works: Modern American Literature (1960-1969).
At Barnard College, from which she graduated in 1922, Other references: CW (26 Nov. 1954). Poetry: A Magazine of
Adams continued her study of composition and poetry. Friends Verse (March 1930). Kresh, P., ed., Allen Tate, Lonie Adams,
and professors praised her writing and one, Marian Smith, passed Yvor Winters, Oscar Williams, and Langston Hughes Reading
on some of Adams poems to Louis Untermeyer, who arranged to Their Poems (audio recording, 1970). Muriel Rukeyser, Howard
have them published. For a time after graduation, Adams lived Baker, Lonie Adams, [and] Janet Baker Reading Their Own
and wrote in New York City and, in 1928 she received a two-year Poems (audiocassette, 1969).
Guggenheim fellowship for study in Europe. She then taught in
various capacities at several American colleges and universities, MARY BETH PRINGLE
9
ADAMS, Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams third memoir is The Adventures of a Nobody began
in 1840. The title of this work aptly sums up her feelings about
herself. The long narrative, in part diary entries, records her
Born 12 February 1775, London, England; died 15 May 1852, married life until 1812. Adams appears here as an appendage to
Washington, D.C. her family who isnt even in control of the domestic arrangements;
Daughter of Joshua and Catherine Nuth Johnson; married John all decisions concerning the upbringing of the children were being
Quincy Adams, 1797 made by John Quincy. In sharp contrast to the picture she gives of
her father, her husband is depicted as a cold and distant man. The
Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams was the second daughter of details of life within the Adams family and at the Russian court are
an Englishwoman and a Maryland merchant residing in London. fascinating, but are unfortunately marred by a querulous tone.
During the American Revolution, Adams father, strongly pro- Adams seems to be trying to erase emotionally distressing epi-
American, moved to Nantes, France, where Adams became sodes from her memory by sheer repetition.
bilingual, a great asset in the diplomatic world in which she later
moved. In 1783 the family returned to London and the Johnson Adams kept a remarkable diary during the years 1818 to 1821
home became a meeting place for many Americans in London. It for her aged father-in-law, whom she dearly loved. During this
was there that John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) met, courted, and time John Adams resided in Massachusetts, while Adams herself
married her in 1797. Much of the Adams life was spent in Europe was in the midst of the Washington political and social scene. Her
at John Quincys diplomatic posts: Prussia (1797-1801), Russia comments show her to have been a keen observer and possessor of
(1809-1814), and Great Britain (1815-1817). John Quincy was a very sharp wit. The endless visitings, the importance of
also a U.S. senator, secretary of state, president, and member of protocol, and the boredom of womens restricted lives in the 19th
the House of Representatives. Throughout her marriage Adams century are vividly portrayed in this diary and Adams underused
played a secondary role to her husbands career, and her writings talents are never more in evidence. In spite of poor health during
express the anger and frustration her subordinate role engendered. this period, she carried out her extensive social duties and coped
Although Adams wrote a number of works, only one has been as best she could with a very difcult family.
published. Her unpublished writings can be read only on the Adams poems in both French and English are derivative and
microlm edition of the Adams Papers. attract the reader by the sensitive feelings they portray rather than
by originality of form or content. Several plays, written for family
The rst of Adams autobiographical works, Record of a Life
amusement, and a few prose compositions complete her works.
or My Story (1825), is a detailed account of her childhood,
None are of more than family interest.
courtship, and experiences in Prussia. Written for her children, the
story is episodic and strongly stresses the idyllic quality of her Adams lived, by her own admission, a tormented and frus-
childhood. Highly dramatic episodes are recounted in the greatest trated life. She ercely resented the self-absorbed, remote man
detail, and Adams is always at the center of attention. The with whom she lived, while at the same time admiring him for his
description of her courtship emphasizes her feelings of inadequa- patriotism. She thought herself a failure as a mother and a wife.
cy as the future wife of John Quincy Adams. Her extreme She wrote, like so many other women in the 19th century, to
sensitivity to events and people, especially to her father, are most relieve feelings too pressing to contain. Her position in the Adams
evident in these recollections. Ill health and struggles with her family is absolutely crucial in understanding the succeeding
husbands small salary made her life at the Prussian court difcult generations of Adamses. Very little has been written about her and
and she sorely missed the domestic warmth she had known as a what was usually glosses over her life with platitudes. Adams
child. Despite her extraordinary memory and talent for descrip- deserves an honest and comprehensive biography.
tion, this is essentially a family memoir. Even events at the court
are written about from a personal point of view; the wider world of
politics and history are not included. OTHER WORKS: Diary (22 Oct. 1812-15 Feb. 1814, The Adams
Papers, Reel #264). Diary (24 Jan. 1819-25 Mar. 1819, Reel
In 1836 Adams wrote a dramatic and compelling history of a #264). Diary (19 Jul. 1821-19 Aug. 1821, Reel #266). Diary (17
trip she and her seven-year-old son took in 1815. The Narrative of Aug. 1821-27 Sept. 1821, Reel #267). Diary (12 Apr. 1843-28
a Journey from St. Petersburg to Paris 1815, was published in Aug. 1843, Reel #270).
1903 by Scribners Magazine. Adams followed the route of Poems, dramatic compositions, prose reections, a common-
Napoleons retreat from Moscow through a countryside still place book, translations of poems and a prose composition can be
recovering from the ravages of war, and as she approached Paris, found in The Adams Papers, Reels #264, 268, 270-74.
Napoleon returned from exile, plunging all of France into further
turmoil. Had it not been for Adams cool head and great courage,
both she and her son might well have been killed. She wrote of the BIBLIOGRAPHY: American First Ladies: Their Lives and Legacy
trip with great intensity and the narrative includes vivid descrip- (1996). Klapthor, M. B., Marylands First Ladies of the White
tions of people and places; the self-centeredness of her other House: Mrs. J. Quincy Adams (1825-1829), Mrs. Zachary Taylor
writings is absent here. Of all Adams works this is the one most (1849-1850) (1987). Minnergerode, M., Some American Ladies:
deserving of a modern publication. Seven Informal Biographies (1926). Whitton, M. O., First First
10
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ADDAMS
Ladies 1789-1865: A Study of the Lives of the Early Presi- prostitution, are pioneering contributions to the eld of urban
dents (1926). sociology.
Other references: ANB (1999). Biography of the First Ladies
of the United States (lm,1998). Proceedings of the American Addams best known work is Twenty Years at Hull-House,
Philosophical Society (April 1974). Louisa Catherine Johnson with Autobiographical Notes (1910), the classic autobiography
Adams: The Ambiguous Adventure of a woman who was (disser- she published at age fty. The book describes Hull House and its
tation, 1992). Louisa Katherine Johnson Adams: The Price of cultural, educational, political, and humanitarian activities, but its
Ambition (1982). broader focus is the education of Addams herself. She was
indebted to the thought or moral example of such diverse gures
JOAN R. CHALLINOR as John Ruskin, Abraham Lincoln, Leo Tolstoy, her friend John
Dewey, and to the founders of the settlement house in London,
known as Toynbee Hall. But she also learned from the ideas and
problems of her immigrant neighbors, for she viewed Hull House
ADDAMS, Jane not as a charitable mission to the downtrodden but as a forum
where diverse nationalities and social classes could interact for the
betterment of all.
Born 6 September 1860, Cedarville, Illinois; died 21 May 1935,
Chicago, Illinois Like all autobiographies, Twenty Years at Hull-House is
Daughter of John and Sarah Weber Addams selective and stylized in its presentation of events. Addams writes
lucidly and sometimes movingly, enlivening her narrative with
Jane Addams attended Rockford Female Seminary, and, for anecdotal accounts of the people and situations she met in her Hull
one year, Womans Medical College in Philadelphia. She never House work. She adopts the persona of a seeker rather than
married; the closest emotional ties over her lifetime were to her dispenser of enlightenment, but she writes with moral earnestness
father and to a few women friends. and naive optimism that justice and peace will be made to prevail.
Addams name is most often associated with Hull House, the During the next two decades, Addams passed for a time
renowned settlement she founded in 1889 in the immigrant slums beyond liberal social reform to positions which many regarded as
of Chicago. Her experiences there formed the basis for her efforts, radical and even seditious. She was a pacist during World War I,
carried out on a local, national, and international scale, for social an internationalist in the isolationist 1920s, a supporter of civil
reform. She devoted herself to such causes as child labor legisla- liberties when the prevailing mood was suppressive of dissent.
tion, womens suffrage, educational reform, and world peace. She Addams discusses her peace efforts, and the condemnation and
helped found the Womens International League for Peace and self-doubt she suffered because of her unpopular views in Peace
Freedom (WILPF) and served as its president until her death. In and Bread in Time of War (1922), and in The Second Twenty
1931, she was co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Addams Years at Hull-House, September 1909 to September 1929, with a
wrote ten books, countless articles, and lectured extensively. This Record of a Growing World Consciousness (1930). The latter
presented to a wide audience her conviction that citizens of the book is a disjointed but still interesting account of Addams
new urban-industrial age must move beyond individualism to- continuing reform activities and of her view of the postwar years.
ward a new social ethic. By the time she died in 1935, Addams had It includes one of Addams favorite pieces: an analysis of a rumor
become one of the best known and most respected women of
(spread widely in 1913), that a devil baby resided at Hull House.
her time.
Even before her death, Addams had become a legendary
Her rst book, Democracy and Social Ethics (1902), is a
gure. Unfortunately, the image of her which survives is that of
perceptive analysis of the new industrial American society peo-
the do-gooder Saint Jane, the lady in long skirts who helped the
pled by masses of immigrants and urban poor. In six essays
poor. But Addams was a social reformer of far-ranging breadth
adapted from earlier articles and lectures, Addams suggests that
and inuence, a gifted writer, and a rst-rate intellect. She was not
changes in industrial and household relations, in politics, educa-
so much an original thinker as a perceptive observer of the society
tion and organized charity, and in ways of understanding the role
of women will be necessary if true democracy is to be extended around her, and an able synthesizer and popularizer of the ideas of
successfully into the new age. Her view that womens political the leading social theorists of her time. Addams work and writing
and social roles should be expanded so women could become helped make possible the liberal reforms of the Progressive Era
caretakers of the well-being and morality not just of their families, and of the New Deal and helped arouse the social conscience of
but of society at large, is typical of the viewpoint known as social two generations of Americans.
feminism.
Newer Ideals of Peace (1907) continues and expands Addams OTHER WORKS: The Women at The Hague (with E. Balch and A.
analysis, suggesting that as a social ethic of morality is put into Hamilton, 1915). The Long Road of Womans Memory (1916).
practice, the need for war will disappear. The Spirit of Youth and The Excellent Becomes the Permanent (1932). My Friend, Julia
the City Streets (1909), Addams own favorite among her books, Lathrop (1935). Jane Addams: A Centennial Reader (ed. E. C.
and A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil (1912), a study of Johnson, 1960). The Social Thought of Jane Addams (ed. C.
11
AGASSIZ AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Lasch, 1965). The Social Thought of Jane Addams 1997). Twenty society, and, after marriage, assumed the care of her husbands
Years at Hull-House, with Autobiographical Notes(1999). three children from a previous marriage. Eight days after Louis
death in 1873, one of Agassizs daughters-in-law died, and
Agassiz again became foster mother to three boys, the youngest
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brown, V., Advocate for Democracy: Jane just three years old.
Addams & The Pullman Strike, in The Pullman Strike & the
To guarantee a regular income, Agassiz opened the Agassiz
Crisis of the 1890s: Essays on Labor & Politics (1999). Bryan, School in 1855, thus providing the opportunity for teenage girls to
M. L. McCree et al, eds., The Jane Addams Papers: A Com- acquire a high school education comparable to that of their
prehensive Guide (1996). Commager, H. S., foreword to Jane brothers. In 1878-79 Agassiz was one of seven women approach-
Addams Twenty Years at Hull-House (1961 ed.). Conway, J., ed by Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Gilman about a program of higher
Jane Addams: An American Heroine, in Daedalus 93 (Spring education for women. When the Harvard Annex became the
1964). Conway, J., Women Reformers and American Culture, Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women in 1882, Agassiz
1870-1930, in JSocHis 5 (Winter 1971-72). Conway, J. K., ed., became its president. She also played a key role in convincing a
Jane Addams, in Written by Herself: Autobiographies of committee of the Massachusetts legislature to charter the new
American Women (1992). Curti, M., Jane Addams on Human college. Subsequently, she was the rst president of Radcliffe
Nature, in JHI 22 (April-June 1961). Davis, A. F., American (1893-99), and its honorary president from 1899 to 1903.
Heroine, The Life and Legend of Jane Addams (1973). Diliberto, G.,
A Useful Woman: The Early Life of Jane Addams (1999). Harvey, Agassiz joined her husband on scientic expeditions, becom-
B. C., Jane Addams: Nobel Prize Winner and Founder of Hull ing their scribe. She never claimed to be a natural scientist, but she
House (1999). Farrell, J. C., Beloved Lady: A History of Jane developed a remarkable ability to present second-hand knowl-
Addams Ideas on Reform and Peace (1967). Lasch, C., The New edge accurately and with. . .animation and authority. A First
Radicalism in America (1899-1963), The Intellectual as a Social Lesson in Natural History (1859), published under the pseudo-
nym of Actinea, went through nine printings by 1899. Agassizs
Type (1965). Lasch, C., introduction to Jane Addams The Social
achievement is more remarkable because she succeeds in making
Thought of Jane Addams (1965). Levine, D., Jane Addams and the
the structure and beauty of such creatures as sea anemones, corals,
Liberal Tradition (1971). Linn, J. W., Jane Addams, A Biography
and starsh clear and vivid without the color photographs that
(1935). Scott, A. F., introduction to Jane Addams Democracy
would aid a modern teacher.
and Social Ethics (1964 ed.). Stebnor, E. J., The Women of Hull
House: A Study of Spirituality, Vocation and Friendship (1997). Agassiz joined her husband on the Thayer Expedition to
Other references: Commentary (July 1961). American Wom- Brazil (April 1865-August 1866) and kept a journal of the trip.
en of Achievement Video Collection (video, 1995). Jane Addams: Parts of it appeared in Atlantic Monthly and then in A Journey in
A Pilgrims Progress (video, 1997). Brazil (1867, written with her husband). William James, who had
Website: www2swathmore.edu/peace/exhibits/ accompanied the expedition was agreeably disappointed in the
addams.index/html (1997). work. According to L. H. Tharp, [James] had feared there would
be too many descriptions of sunsets, but read the whole of it with
PEGGY STINSON interest and found Agassiz had varied the contents very
skillfully. . .to entertain and interest the reader.
For almost 10 years after her husbands death, Agassiz
worked on Louis Agassiz, His Life and Correspondence (1885). A
modern biographer of Agassiz considers it much more than the
ADISA, Giamba usual Victorian Life and Letters written by a devoted relative.
See LORDE, Audre
She brought to this study of her husband the perception and insight
she evidenced in the years of their marriage. In Agassizs
preface she expresses the hope that the story of an intellectual
life, which was marked by such rare coherence and unity of aim,
AGASSIZ, Elizabeth Cabot Cary might have a wider interest and usefulness, and it does. William
James felt it gave a beautiful picture of an energetic nature
impassioned in one pursuit. To this day, the book remains
Born 5 December 1822, Boston, Massachusetts; died 27 June interesting and readable.
1907, Arlington, Massachusetts
Wrote under: Actinea, Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, Mrs. Louis Agassiz
Daughter of Thomas Graves and Mary Ann Cushing Perkins OTHER WORKS: Seaside Studies in Natural History (with Alexan-
Cary; married Louis Agassiz, 1850 der Agassiz, 1865).
Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz grew up in Boston, close to her BIBLIOGRAPHY: Agassiz G. R., ed., Letters and Recollections of
Perkins, Cabot, and Gardiner relatives. She moved in Cambridge Alexander Agassiz (1913). Lurie, E., Louis Agassiz: A Life in
12
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS AI
Science (1960). Paton, L. A., Elizabeth Cary Agassiz: A Biogra- the later poems also moved from the rural, smalltown world of her
phy (1919). Reed, E. W., American Women in Science Before the rst two books into the urban arena.
Civil War (1992). Tharp, L. H., Adventurous Alliance: The Story
In Sin, which won an American Book Award from the Before
of the Agassiz Family of Boston (1959).
Columbus Foundation, and Fate, Ai creates the voices, the
Other references: Notable American Women, 1607-1950, E. T.
secret souls, of public gures such as Robert and John F.
James et al., eds. (article by H. Hawkins, 1971).
Kennedy, (Sin) and Mary Jo Kopechne (Fate). Still, the voices of
anonymous Americans are also heard. The persona poems in Sin
SUSAN SUTTON SMITH
and Fate are longer, detailed portraits rather than the snapshots
found in her earlier volumes.
In On Being 1/2 Japanese, 1/8 Choctaw, 1/4 Black and 1/16
AI Irish (1978) and Arrival (1991), Ai discusses her multiracial
heritage, her struggle to forge an identity, the importance of her
true name (Ai means love in Japanese), and her develop-
Born Florence Anthony, 21 October 1947, Albany, Texas
ment as a narrative poet. (Given the name Florence Anthony at
Also written under: Florence Haynes, Pelorhanke Ai Ogawa
birth, she has also used the names Florence Haynes and Pelorhanke
Married Lawrence Kearney, circa 1975 (divorced)
Ai Ogawa; she learned from her mother in 1973 that her fathers
surname was Ogawa.)
Ai is a narrative poet. Her work is intense, her writing
efcient and vivid. Her poems reveal an intimacy between emo- Ais passion for poetry pervades her autobiographical works.
tions and values that traditionally have been viewed as oppositional: As she has explained, I wanted to write poetry with a capital P
love and hate are enmeshed, tenderness and violence intercon- and she continues to do so. Her latest works, including 1999s
nected. The characters who speak through Ais poetry are as Vice: New and Selected Poems, presents a collection of 58
varied as the American, multiracial, multicultural society from monologues from four of Ais earlier booksCruelty, Sin, Fate,
which they, and she, emerged. All voicesof men, women, and Killing Flooralong with 17 new poems. From the past are
teenagers, children; of black, white, red, yellow, brown; famous notable contributions capturing disturbing realities in the lives and
and anonymous, infamous and obscureare heard at equal vol- deaths of such notables as James Dean, Jimmy Hoffa, Lenny
ume. Each speaks of the effort and desire to assert ones will, to Bruce, and J. Edgar Hoover. Ais new subjects rise from more
make an impact, to understand pain. Their voices are clear and recent news headlines (O. J. Simpson, David Koresh, Jon-Benet
even-toned, yet their messages are wrenching and sometimes Ramsey, and Monica Lewinsky) and from behind the headlines,
shocking. including the agony of the police ofcer who commits suicide
before being able to accept a medal for rescuing victims of the
Ai grew up in the Southwest and in San Francisco. She Oklahoma City bombing. Ais desire to examine conicting
earned a B.A. in English/Oriental studies from the University of moral values is alive and well and on display in this volume.
Arizona in 1969. While an undergraduate, she met the poet
Successfully continuing in her quest to push the envelope of
Galway Kinnell, who became a mentor for her, the most
reader emotions, Ai offers yet another glimpse into worlds of
important literary relationship of my life. Through Kinnell, she
human angst, edged with empathy, which moved one reviewer to
went to the University of California at Irvine, where she complet-
observe Vice as rewarding, but not for the squeamish. Authored
ed an M.F.A. in 1971. She taught subsequently at the State
by the foremost poet of urban terror, this mini anthology
University of New York at Binghamton, the University of Massa-
reminds one of the poets explosive earlier works and offers
chusetts at Amherst, and Wayne State University. She received a
shades of things to come.
Guggenheim Foundation fellowship in 1975.
Her rst book of poems, Cruelty (1973), established her as a OTHER WORKS: Nothing But Color (1981). Ai (1988).
new, strong voice in contemporary poetry. Cruelty projects rug- Greed (1993).
ged images of sexuality, death, sensuality, and blood, and chal-
lenges the stereotype of womens poetry. Noted Alice Walker,
If you want nice poems to like, this [ Cruelty ] is not BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1980). CLC (1975, 1980).
your book. Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995).
Other references: Belles Lettres (Spring 1991). Chicago
Ais Killing Floor (1979) won the 1978 Lamont Poetry Review (Spring 1979). LJ (15 Apr. 1999). Ms. (June 1974).
Selection Award for the best second book by an American poet. NYTBR (17 Feb. 1974, 8 July 1979, 8 June 1986). Poetry (Jan.
The poems in this collection intensify the themes of sexuality and 1987, Nov. 1991). PW (29 Mar. 1999). Virginia Quarterly Review
violence introduced in Cruelty and expand Ais cast of characters (Summer 1991).
to include public gures from history and popular culture. After Web site: http://www.wwnorton.com/ catalog/fall98/vice.htm.
winning the Lamont Prize, Ai moved to New York to actual-
ly. . .enter the world of poetry. Since her move, she published DALE A. DOOLEY,
Sin (1986) and Fate (1991), both books of poetry. The settings of UPDATED BY REBECCA C. CONDIT
13
AKINS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
AKINS, Zo for two straight years at the Empire Theater and on the road, and
by 1936 an English theater company was taking it on tour.
Born 30 October 1886, Humansville, Illinois; died 29 October It would be interesting to know precisely what it was Willa
1958, Los Angeles, California Cather detected in the not-so-good poems of a not-so-good actress
Daughter of Thomas J. and Elizabeth Green Akins; married that suggested playwriting potential. Whatever it was, Akins
Hugo C. Rumbold, 1932 never completely realized her potential as a dramatist of stature.
Except for a thorough dissertation by Ronald Mielech, Akins has
Zo Akins grew up and went to school in Illinois and received almost no scholarly attention.
Missouri, but none of her original plays give prominence to the While it is true that Akins writing is uneven and occasional-
Midwest. Most deal with the sometimes decadent middle and ly suffers from what Mielech calls romantic excesses associat-
upper classes in New York, where she lived for twenty years. ed with postwar American drama, and while many of her other-
Akins early expressed a strong interest in the theater and especial-
wise attractive protagonists periodically engage in a rhetoric that
ly in acting. When she left St. Louis and went to New York in
is uncharacteristic or platitudinous, much of her excellence has
1909, however, with romantic dreams of going on stage and with
gone unappreciated. Some of her efforts at characterization have
the determination and pluck for which she was always admired,
been misconstrued as overindulgence or a lapse in realism. Akins
she encountered her rst defeat. She was told she had no acting
signicance, it seems, lies in her extremely sharp and sympathet-
talent. She decided at this point to stay in New York and write
ic understanding of human foibles in general and of female folly
plays. This decision seems to have been implemented at least in
and frustration in particular.
part by the advice of a soon-to-be-important novelist and lifelong
correspondent and friend, Willa Cather. During the time Akins In a play like Daddys Gone A-Hunting (1921), for example,
was submitting her poetry to the then prestigious McClures Akins insightfully portrays the all too common situation of a
magazine and Cather was its managing editor. woman, Edith, blindly committed to delity to a confused hus-
band who psychologically abuses her, and who manipulates and
Cather, a drama critic in her own right, rejected Akins
keeps her with him largely through the guilt heas well as
poems but told her, prophetically and shrewdly enough, that she
societystirs up in her. When she nally rejects his open
should write for the stage. Cather must have perceived something
marriage ideas and leaves him, she ees to another, kinder man
extraordinary in Akins poems and letters, for she encouraged a
who keeps her sexually and nancially, but whom she refuses
friendship with Akins almost immediately. This was unusual,
to marry because she will not get a divorce. Although the play is
since McClures rather aloof and shy managing editor had already
recognized for its unorthodox focus on a troubled quest for
begun her practice of eschewing personal contact with all but a
personal freedom, it is more powerful for its quiet repudiation of
very special few of the literary hopefuls who approached her.
womens considerable dependence on men and for its unhappy
Although Akins rst published book was a volume of admission that women like Edithmost women for that matter
poetry, Interpretations (1911), and although she eventually wrote nd the world unsafe when their traditional sources of security
a novel, Forever Young (1941), she is best known for her original are taken from them. Neither Ediths initial decision to remain
dramas, comedies, screenplays, and adaptations. She began to true to her adulterous husband nor her later decision to live with
generate attention in 1916 with her vers libre drama, The Magical Greenough in the face of societys censure is completely admira-
City. She went on to write Dclasse (1919), perhaps the best ble. According to Akins her keen irony underscores Ediths
original play of that year. Akins high comedies like Papa (1913) appalling lack of personal identity and purposiveness, and the
and Greatness; A Comedy (1921) demonstrated continued sophis- reader experiences her horror in realizing she cannot expect men
tication and even greatness; but she later turned her art to the more or children to provide meaning and identity for her.
popular situation-type comedies which, on the whole, do not
In general, Akins playswhether serious dramas or high
possess the dramatic quality of her early original work. Her sharp
comediesemphasize the distortions in values, attitudes, and
wit and sense of irony, especially, were quite lost in the shift from
manners which society promulgates. She is simultaneously both
high to situation comedy.
amused and disturbed by the often pathetic efforts of her dramatic
While she herself never really achieved the popular or critical characters to extricate themselves from the web of social behavior
success she often deserved for her original plays which she patterns and thinking they cannot really understand. Akins is
produced steadily after 1919, Akins nally earned a measure of probably not a great playwright, but she is surely worthy of more
fame for her adaptations and screenplays, like Edith Whartons notice and exposure than she has been receiving. If she cannot be
The Old Maid (1935) and Edna Ferbers Showboat (1931). applauded for consistent dramatic excellence, she can be appreci-
ated for her exceptional insights into human nature and society,
Akins won the 1935 Pulitzer Prize for drama for The Old and for her enterprising, delightful sense of humor.
Maid. Her award initially aroused vigorous controversy over the
appropriateness of granting the drama prize for an adaptation
rather than for an original work. Eventually, though, the discov- OTHER WORKS: Such a Charming Young Man (1916). Did it
ery that a precedent had already been established silenced her Really Happen? (1917). Cake Upon the Waters (1919). Foot-
opponents. Both a critical and popular success, The Old Maid ran Loose (dramatization by Akins, 1920). The Varying Shore (1921).
14
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ALCOTT
The Texas Nightingale (rst produced 1922). A Royal Fandango Faireld, and scattered throughout her later career were necessi-
(1923). The Moon-Flower (dramatization by Akins, 1924). First ty tales, sometimes lurid and sensational, which were also
Love (dramatization by Akins, 1926). Pardon My Glove (1926). published under pseudonyms. With Hospital Sketches (1863) and
The Crown Prince (dramatization by Akins, 1927). Thou Desper- Little Women (1868), followed by a series of titles between 1870
ate Pilot (1927). The Furies (1928). The Love Duel (1929). The and 1886, Alcott became an institution, a center of public atten-
Greeks Had a Word for It (1930). O Evening Star (1935). The tion. In addition to these well-known volumes, she wrote on
Little Miracle (1936). The Hills Grow Smaller (1937). I Am contemporary problems such as suffrage, temperance, prison
Different (1938). The Happy Days (dramatization by Akins from reform, and child labor.
Les Jours Heureux by Claude-Andr Puget, 1942). Mrs. January
and Mr. Ex (1944). The Human Element by W. Somerset Maugham Driven by the demands of her public, Alcott wrote until ill
(dramatization by Akins, n.d.). health made her unable to continue. Worn out by personal tragedy,
Bradley, J., Zo Atkins & The Age of Excess: Broadway family responsibility, and sickness, she died within hours of the
Melodrama in the 1920s in Modern American Drama: the death of her father.
Female Canon (1990). Demastes, W. W., ed., American Play- Although Alcott is most commonly associated with the
wrights 1880-1945: A Research and Production Scrapbook (1995). juvenile series beginning with Little Women, she wrote in a
Mielech, R.A., The Plays of Zo Akins Rumbold (Disserta- variety of genres. Her rst published book, Flower Fables,
tion, Ohio State University, 1974). represents the charming, imaginative fantasies written for young
Other references: American Mercury (May 1928). SatRL (11 children. A combination of colorful prose and delicate poetry, it
May 1935). WLB (June 1935). not only peopled the childs world with fairies, elves, and small
animals, but taught lessons of compassion, patience, duty, honor,
PATRICIA LEE YONGUE
and above all, the power of love, in terms a child could under-
stand. The scholar can detect the inuence of transcendentalism in
the importance given to all living things, but for the child reader
the fairy songs and the enchanted world from which they come are
ALCOTT, Louisa May enough. Alcott continued to please her young audience in stories
included in Aunt Jos Scrap-Bag (4 vols., 1872-78), and Lulus
Born 29 Nov. 1832, Germantown, Pennsylvania; died 6 March Library (3 vols., 1886-89).
1888, Boston, Massachusetts
Not until the publication of Leona Rostenbergs Some
Also wrote under: L.M.A., A. M. Barnard, Flora Faireld, A.M.
Anonymous and Pseudonymous Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott
Daughter of Amos B. and Abba May Alcott
in 1943 did Alcotts public become aware of her many contribu-
tions under various pen names to the body of sensational ction
Although regarded during much of the 20th century only as
appearing in Frank Leslies Illustrated Newspaper, The Flag of
the author of Little Women, Louisa May Alcott had a many-
Our Union, and other periodicals. Four of these stories (Behind a
faceted personality. She was the daughter of Amos Bronson
Mask, Paulines Passion and Punishment, The Mysterious
Alcott, the high priest of transcendentalism, friend and admirer of
Key, and The Abbots Ghost) were made available to the
Emerson and Thoreau. She was the pseudonymous author of
general reader in Madeleine Sterns Behind a Mask: The Un-
sensational and sentimental potboilers, as well as the realistic
known Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott (1975). The title story
recorder of her brief career as a Civil War nurse, and she was the
retains its appeal for the modern reader of gothics. In it, Jean Muir,
world-known author of delightful accounts of family life. Person-
an aging but fascinating actress, has been spurned by the man she
ally, she was a child of duty supporting her family, and an early
loves and nds revenge as well as security in her plot to ruin the
advocate of woman suffrage, prison reform, and emancipation.
entire Coventry family. This brooding, passionate woman, deeply
Although the early years of Alcotts life were marked by aware of her sexual power, was perhaps the strongest and best
poverty and uncertainty, as her father sought to establish his developed of many skillfully drawn characters peopling Alcotts
perfect school, they were rewarding years. She had little escapist literature. Madeleine Stern proves Alcott was a very
institutionalized education but her father taught her under his conscious artist, producing these thrillers for a denite audi-
advanced educational theories. She knew and learned from Emer- ence, while writing for economic reasons.
son, Thoreau, and the many books which she read from an early
There is no doubt of the inuence of her own experiences on
age. Her love of drama gave her an awareness of the melodramatic
another group of Alcotts works. The earliest published book
and sensational in everyday life. Her attempts to augment the
based almost completely on her life was Hospital Sketches (1863),
family income by teaching, sewing, working as a servant, and
and its critical reception convinced its author that success lay in
acting as a companion provided raw material for her own crea-
tive works. portraying real life rather than in ights of fancy. The experiences
of Tribulation Periwinkle not only reect the realities of
In 1855 the rst book published under Alcotts own name, Alcotts nursing career but also rank with Whitmans poetic
Flower Fables, was dedicated to Emersons daughter, Ellen. record in its picturing of suffering, gallantly borne, and the
Earlier she had contributed poems under the pseudonym Flora compassion of those who served as nurses.
15
ALCOTT AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Throughout her career, Alcott produced poems, essays, and The critical reception of Alcotts works during her life
stories which were obviously autobiographical. Thoreaus Flute ranged widely but was generally favorable. There were few
(1863) reected her hours spent at Walden Pond; Transcenden- reviews of Flower Fables, but Hospital Sketches was praised for
tal Wild Oats (1873) provided a frank, humorous-pathetic its uent and sparkling style. Little Women securely estab-
account of the familys abortive Utopia; while Ralph Waldo lished its author in the favor of critics, who saw it as giving
Emerson (1882) paid tribute to the guardian angel of the pleasure to young and adult readers. An Old-Fashioned Girl
Alcott family. (1870) was particularly well received, but the other six volumes of
the series became more and more identied with a juvenile
In 1867 Alcott initiated a new genre when she rather reluc- audience.
tantly agreed to write a girls book. The result was Little Women,
which succeeded largely because, as Alcott said, We really lived The death of Alcott produced many personal tributes but no
most of it. Using experience as her starting point, she created a critical evaluation until the appearance in 1889 of Edna Cheneys
gallery of characters that entered American literature. Little Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters and Journals. As a personal
Women was an instant success, with multiple editions and transla- friend, Cheney stressed the autobiographical nature of Alcotts
tions in more than 30 languages. The simple everyday events and best work and the effect her sense of duty had upon what might
small crises of Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy, and the warmth of the have been a greater career. This biography was inuential in
family life provided by Marmee and Mr. March, along with the shaping the criticism which followed. In 1909 the rst biography
friendship of Laurie, Mr. Laurence, and the sharp-tongued Aunt written in the 20th century, Belle Moses Louisa May Alcott,
March have inuenced every generation since 1868. Although Dreamer and Worker, appeared. Moses examination of known
Jos marriage to Professor Bhaer disappointed many readers who details of publication provided the rst attempt at scholarly
hoped she would marry Laurie and disapproved of his eventual examination of Alcott. Jessie Bonstelle and Marian DeForest
marriage to Amy, the Bhaer family soon developed its own collected Little Women Letters from the House of Alcott in 1914,
personality. providing important primary sources. Not until the 1930s, howev-
er, did an important body of Alcott scholarship appear. Louisa
In Little Men (1871) and Jos Boys (1886), Alcott not only May Alcott: A Bibliography (1932) was compiled by Lucile
gave Jo two boys of her own but provided a whole school of boys Gulliver, and it made information available on all editions of
and girls of all ages, races, and levels of wealth, who were loved American, English, and foreign origin. A Newbery Medal was
and educated on the estate bequeathed by Aunt March. The awarded in 1933 to Cornelia L. Meigs for The Story of the Author
freedom of the learning environment is reminiscent of Amos of Little Women: Invincible Louisa, which provided background
Bronson Alcotts avant-garde philosophy; the lessons of love and valuable to an understanding of Alcotts works. In 1936 Kathe-
duty taught to the March girls are transmitted to all. The readers rine S. Anthonys psychoanalytical study, Louisa May Alcott,
interest in the destinies of the 12 boys who lived at Plumeld led aroused controversy but went beyond the usual interpretation of
Alcott to write Jos Boys, set 10 years later than Little Men. Alcott as a writer for children.
Interest continued far longer than Alcott could ever have imagined
with a television series based on Little Men running in 1999. Leona Rostenbergs Some Anonymous and Pseudonymous
Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott provided knowledge of the
Although the destinies of all the characters who peopled sensational ction written under a variety of pen names. Made-
Little Men are traced in Jos Boys, the changes which 15 years leine Stern followed with a number of articles presenting other
brought in the author herself are evident in the ending of the book. facets of Alcott; she climaxed her studies with Louisa May Alcott,
Despite the pleas of young readers, Dans imprisonment as the a sound critical biography in 1950 (a second edition in 1971 made
result of killing a man, even by accident, shuts him off from available a bibliography of 274 items).
marrying Bess, the exquisite daughter of Amy and Laurie. Nan,
Megs daughter, defends her position as a new woman and The 1968 centennial celebration of the rst edition of Little
pursues her career as a doctor, while Bess becomes an artist and Women was marked by the important publication of Louisa May
Josie an actress, before they become wives. Alcott: A Centennial for Little Women, by Judith C. Ullom.
Cornelia Meigss biography was reprinted with a new introduc-
Lesser known but equally delightful are Eight Cousins (1875) tion. She also introduced a Centennial Edition of Little Women
and Rose in Bloom (1876), which trace the adventures of Rose and and edited Glimpses of Louisa: A Centennial Sampling of the Best
her seven cousins, adding more memorable portraits to Alcotts Short Stories by Louisa May Alcott. Her critical overview presents
gallery and providing the author with many opportunities to an excellent nal judgement of this writer whose potential
comment upon the silliness of Victorian societys values and sociohistorical worth has not yet been fully explored. In Meigs
customs. opinion, Alcotts strength lay in her honesty, awareness of the
danger of overmoralizing, and in her ability to present a story with
In Under the Lilacs (1878), Ben and his remarkable perform-
a distinctive pattern and an atmosphere in which the common life,
ing dog, Sancho, join Bab and Betty in a series of happy adven-
its joy or pain or despair, attains a true splendor.
tures on Miss Celias estate, The Lilacs. In this childrens world
and in that of Jack and Jill (1880), many lessons are learned by the
characters and by the readers who follow the everyday crises and OTHER WORKS: Moods (1865). Morning-Glories, and Other
joys so realistically presented. Stories (1868). Kittys Class Day (1868). Aunt Kipp (1868).
16
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ALDEN
Psyches Art (1868). Three Proverb Women, or Meg, Jo, Beth and pupil and teacher at the Oneida seminary, she won a Christian
Amy (1868). My Boys: Aunt Jos Scrap-Bag, I (1872). Shawl- tract societys contest with her didactic novel, Helen Lester,
Straps: Aunt Jos Scrap-Bag, II (1872). Work: A Story of Experi- published in 1866 under Pansy, a childhood pet name given by
ence (1873). Cupid and Chow-Chow: Aunt Jos Scrap-Bag, III her father. That same year she became the wife of Gustavus R.
(1874). Silver Pitchers; and Independence, a Centennial Love Alden, a Presbyterian minister. In 1874, a year after the birth of
Story (1876). A Modern Mephistopheles (1877). My Girls: Aunt their only child, Raymond, she began to edit Pansy, a popular
Jos Scrap-Bag, IV (1878). Proverb Stories (1882). An Old- Sunday-school weekly.
Fashioned Thanksgiving: Aunt Jos Scrap-Bag, V (1882). A
Garland for Girls (1888). Recollections of My Childhoods Days Alden wrote more than 120 books emphasizing private
(1890). Comic Tragedies Written by Jo and Meg and Acted by the religious commitment, Bible study, and a moral duty to improve
Little Women (1893). The Poetry of Louise May Alcott (1997). the lives of the poor. She wrote and edited several Presbyterian
publications, taught and directed Sunday schools, and occasional-
ly lectured on temperance. She served as a teacher and organizer
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Anthony, K. S., Louisa May Alcott (1936). of the Chautauqua movement from its founding in 1874. One of
Auerbach, N., Communities of Women (1978). Bedell, M., The her best novels, Four Girls at Chautauqua (1876), not only
Alcotts: Biography of a Family (1980). Bonstelle, J., and M. promoted the summer resort of Christian education, but intro-
DeForest, eds., Little Women Letters from the House of Alcott duced the four female characters whom Alden developed in a
(1914). Cheney, E., Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters and series of novels closing with Four Mothers at Chautauqua (1913).
Journals (1889). Clark, B. L., and Albergheni, J., eds., Little
Aldens most popular novel, Ester Reid (1870), portrays an
Women and The Feminist Imagination: Criticism, Controversy,
earnest young woman committing her life and good manners to
Personal Essays (1999). Elbert, S., A Hunger for Home: Louisa
Christ, to Sunday school, and to social progress as three facets of
May Alcott and Little Women (1984). Gulliver, L., Louisa May
one work. Sequels expanded the application of Christian princi-
Alcott: A Bibliography (1932). Keyser, E. L., Little Women: A
ples of prayer and social service among middle class urban
Family Romance (1999). MacDonald, R. K., Louisa May Alcott
women. Alden consciously aimed at making religion attractive
(1983). Meigs, C. L., The Story of the Author of Little Women:
through realistic female characters who improve the personalities
Invincible Louisa (1933). Myerson, J. et al eds., The Journals of
around them with good intentions, prayer, and persistent effort.
Louise May Alcott (1989, reprinted 1997). Moses, B., Louisa May
Mrs. Solomon Smith Looking On (1882), an extended complaint
Alcott, Dreamer and Worker: A Story of Achievement (1909).
against dull-witted or fashionably bored church members, empha-
Papashvily, H. W., Louisa May Alcott (1965). Peare, C. O., Louisa
sizes that women are called to moral duty, a responsibility
May Alcott: Her Life (1954). Saxton, M., Louisa May: A Modern
superior to that of men. Alden never explores a domestic clash of
Biography of Louisa May Alcott (1977). Stern, M. B., Louisa May
values, however, and her men support their wives efforts from a
Alcott (1950). Stern, M., Lousie May Alcott: From Blood and
distance.
Thunder to Hearth and Home (1998). Ullom, J. C., Louisa May
Alcott: A Centennial for Little Women (1969). Aldens popular series on the life of Christ culminates in
Reference works: Bibliography of American Literature (1955). Yesterday Framed in Today (1898), which places the events of
NAW (1970). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the Jesus life in a modern city. Thoughtful readers are asked to
United States (1995). recognize themselves as one prominent character, who abandons
Other references: American Literature Review (Winter 1973). ambitions to join the rabble following the new master, or as
Bibliographical Society of America Papers (2nd Quarter, 1943). another, who plots against him with inuence and intellect.
New England Quarterly (June 1943, Dec. 1949). NYTM (Dec. 1964).
Though Aldens books in English and several translations
ALMA J. PAYNE sold more than 100,000 copies annually, they were rarely re-
viewed, especially in the 1870s and 1880s, when she was doing
her most original work. The little critical attention they received
resigned them to Sunday school use. Whether The Nation con-
demned the goodiness and uncomfortable amount of relig-
ALDEN, Isabella MacDonald ious slang in Ruth Erskines Crosses (1879), or The Chautauquan
praised the wholesome homeliness of Why They Couldnt
Born 3 November 1841, Rochester, New York; died 5 August (1896), each reviewer overlooked Aldens ctional development
1930, Palo Alto, California of the strong American female personality. Her heroines repeated-
Wrote under: Pansy ly overcame male patronizing with courteous intensity and worked
Daughter of Isaac and Myra Spafford MacDonald; married great changes by persistent and thoughtful attention to the effects
Gustavus R. Alden, 1866; children: Raymond of small detail. Though they may overprize the work ethic,
Aldens books are valuable records of cultural values and domes-
The sixth of seven children born to a well-educated mer- tic artifacts. When things went wrong, Alden once claimed, she
chant, Isabella MacDonald Alden was tutored by her father, who righted them in a book; this theory accounts for both the weakness
required from her a daily journal of criticism and stories. While a and the strength of her realistic portrayals of good women.
17
ALDRICH AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
OTHER WORKS: Tip Lewis and His Lamp (1867). Julia Reid: and the owers of the prairie are well expressed here, as in all of
Listening and Led (1872). The Kings Daughter (1873). The her books.
Chautauqua Girls at Home (1878). Links in Rebeccas Life
A Lantern in Her Hand (1928) is a much better work, perhaps
(1878). A New Graft on the Family Tree (1880). Next Things
because several actual events from her family history form its
(1880). Mrs. Harry Harpers Awakening (1881). Ester Reid Yet
basis. The character of Abbie Deal, who moves from Illinois to
Speaking (1883). Judge Burnhams Daughters (1888). The Prince
Iowa in 1854, then marries and homesteads with her husband in
of Peace: or, The Beautiful Life of Jesus Christ (1890). Ruth
Nebraska, is based on her mother. In spite of sorrow, hardship, and
Erskines Son (1907). An Interrupted Night (1929). Memories of lack of opportunity to develop her talents, Abbie has a happy life.
Yesterdays (completed by G. L. Hill; 1931). The lantern in her hand has lighted her childrens way. The
novel, perhaps Aldrichs best book, was immensely popular and a
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hill, G. L., foreword to Isabella MacDonald bestseller for years. Later works are sometimes variations of its
theme, setting, and events.
Aldens An Interrupted Night (1929). Logan, M. S., The Part
Taken by Women in American History (1912). Aldrichs work is romantic, optimistic, and wholesome.
Reference works: American Women, F. E. Willard and M. A. Her stories usually end happily, her romances join those people
Livermore (1897). National Cyclopedia of Amerian Biography who should be joined; some of them are sentimental. Neverthe-
(1892 et seq.). NAB, 1607-1950 (1971). less, they display certain strengthscharacterization is often
Other references: NYT (6 Aug. 1930, 7 Aug. 1930). excellent, as are her descriptions of nature. The background is
always the Midwest, and she describes it precisely and accurately.
GAYLE GASKILL Although Aldrich is most noted for her stories of the settling of the
Midwest, her short stories give ne details of middle class family
life in the small towns of the 1920s and 1930s. Her stories and
articles were published in many of the leading periodicals.
ALDON, Adair Aldrichs style is not mannered or dated; neither is it remark-
See MEIGS, Cornelia
ably original. The careful attention Aldrich gives to details
dates, clothing styles, food, customsare strong points, creating a
realistic background. The hardships of settling the frontier and of
country living, such as the back-breaking labor, particularly for
ALDRICH, Bess Streeter the women, the lack of renements, the inconvenient kitchens, the
bare and ugly houses, are details such as Hamlin Garland often
Born 17 February 1881, Cedar Falls, Iowa; died 3 August 1954, gives. But whereas Garland points out the hopelessness of the
Lincoln, Nebraska unremitting hard labor in ghting poverty, dirt, and squalor,
Also wrote under: Margaret Dean Stephens Aldrich afrms life, and her characters nd, usually, some reason
Daughter of James Wareham and Mary Anderson Streeter; for happiness, be it through love or belief in honor and duty.
married Charles Aldrich, 1907
OTHER WORKS: Mother Mason (1924). The Cutters (1926). A
Bess Streeter Aldrichs parents emigrated to frontier Iowa in White Bird Flying (1931). Miss Bishop (1933). Spring Came on
the 1850s. The familys experiences there became the basis for Forever (1935). The Man Who Caught the Weather (1936). Song
Aldrichs most successful novels. After graduating from Iowa of Years (1939). The Drum Goes Dead (1941). The Lieutenants
State Teachers College in Cedar Falls in 1901, she wrote articles Lady (1942). Journey into Christmas, and Other Stories (1949).
for teachers magazines and stories for primary school children. The Bess Streeter Aldrich Reader (1950). A Bess Streeter Aldrich
When her husband died suddenly from a heart attack in 1925, Treasury (ed. R. S. Aldrich, 1959).
Aldrich was the sole supporter of her children, and she began
writing professionally.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Aldrich, R., A Bess Streeter Aldrich Treasury
In 1930 Aldrich became book editor of the Christian Herald. (1959). Marble, A. R., A Daughter of Pioneers: Bess Streeter
She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Literature in 1935 Aldrich and Her Books (n.d.). Martin, A., Bess Streeter Aldrich
from the University of Nebraska, and she was elected to the (1992). Meier, A. M., Bess Streeter Aldrich: Her Life and
Nebraska Hall of Fame in 1973. Works (Masters thesis, Kearney State College, 1968). Peterson,
C. M., Bess Streeter Aldrich: The Dreams Are All Real (1995).
The Rim of the Prairie (1925), Aldrichs rst novel, is a Reinke, M. F., Bess Streeter Aldrich: A Pictoiral History, 1881-1925
contemporary story of Nancy, a farm girl living near a small town (1986). Thomas, J., Bess Streeter Aldrich: Conict Between
remarkably similar to Elmwood, Nebraska. Through the recollec- Home and Career in A Lantern in Her Hand, A White Bird Flying,
tions of the old people, Aunt Biney and Uncle Jud Moore, Aldrich and Miss Bishop (1994). Williams, B.C., Bess Streeter Aldrich,
recounts details of settling in this part of the country, as civiliza- Novelist (n.d.).
tion and modern farming overtake the wild prairie. The authors Other references: Appletons Book Chat (1 Feb. 1930, 21
knowledge and love of nature, her descriptions of the rolling hills Nov. 1931). WLB (April 1929). Women Writers of the Great
18
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ALEXANDER
Plains, #1: Willa Cather, Mari Sandoz and Bess Streeter Aldrich American opinion towards entrance into World War I and her
(video, 1985). assistance to soldiers and refugees, Aldrich was awarded the
Legion of Honor by the French government in 1922.
HELEN STAUFFER
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Stein, G. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

(1932). Mellow, J. R., Charmed Circle: Gertrude Stein & Compa-
ny (1973).
ALDRICH, Mildred
JANIS TOWNSEND
Born 16 November 1853, Providence, Rhode Island; died 19

February 1928, Huiry, France
Wrote under: H. Quinn ALEXANDER, Francesca
Daughter of Edwin and Lucy Ayers Baker Aldrich
Born as Esther Frances Alexander, 27 February 1837, Boston,
For 12 years, Mildred Aldrich was secretary to the manager Massachusetts; died 21 January 1917, Florence, Italy
of the Boston Home Journal and a contributor under the pseudo- Daughter of Frances and Lucia Gray Swett Alexander
nym H. Quinn. She also edited The Mahogany Tree, a journal
of ideas, and during 1892 and 1893, submitted three substantial Francesca Alexander was the daughter of a portrait painter
pieces on theater to Arena. She joined the Boston Journal in 1894, who was a member of the Boston intellectual and cultural elite.
and moved the following year to the Boston Herald. There she After moving to Florence in 1853, the family became hosts to
further strengthened her already strong reputation for astute many eminent visitors including Sarah Orne Jewett and James
dramatic criticism. Sometime around the turn of the century, but Russell Lowell (who wrote a sonnet to Francesca). Alexander was
before 1904, Aldrich moved to Paris, where she represented educated at home, and principally by herself; in art, for example,
several American theatrical producers and wrote for American she was not given lessons so that her talent might develop in its
magazines. When she was sixty-one, in 1914, she retired to the own direction. Nor was she allowed to play freely with other
French countryside. Her hilltop home, La Creste, afforded a view children or to read uncensored books. Her mother, who died at the
of the site of the Battle of the Marne. age of 102, dominated Alexander throughout her entire life.
From La Creste, Aldrich wrote four rsthand accounts of life Alexander rst sold her drawings to earn money for works of
in wartime France. A Hilltop on the Marne (1915), her most charity. She began to set down the life stories of the Italian
successful book, rst appeared in the Atlantic Monthly. It treats peasants who served as her models, and also to collect from them
the progress of the battle, and the spirit and commitment of both the traditional songs and legends of their villages. Inspired by
soldiers and villagers. The works strength derives from the medieval manuscripts, Alexander created a large folio volume of
compression of events and Aldrichs expanding understanding, traditional songs with her own English translations, embellished
which the reader shares. On the Edge of the War Zone (1917) by pen-and-ink drawings and elaborate full-page illustrations.
covers the period 16 September 1914 to 28 March 1917, and is The aging John Ruskin, visiting Italy in 1882, was entranced
more diffuse in its approach; of special interest are Aldrichs by Alexanders art, her charity, and her religious faith; he bought
reports on gas warfare and descriptions of soldiers wartime her work and arranged for its publication, praised her in his
entertainments. The Peak of the Load (1918) deals with the lectures, and wrote to her reams of the sort of precious letter with
waiting months on the hilltop from the entrance of the stars and which Ruskin favored young women. Alexanders major work
stripes to the second victory on the Marne. In the following year, was edited by Ruskin and published in ten parts in 1884-85 as
1919, came When Johnny Comes Marching Home, in which Roadside Songs of Tuscany. In this version the book is as much
Aldrich describes how the countryside settled down after the Ruskins as Alexanders; he added introductions, moral homilies,
armistice. She also produced two other wartime books. footnotes, and quotations from Alexanders letters about the
people who modeled for the illustrations. Improved photographic
Told in a French Garden, August, 1914 (1916) is Aldrichs processes made possible a new edition, in 1897, entitled Tuscan
sole work of ction. By a strange irony of Fate, nine people Songs, which reproduces the integrated text and illustration of
nd themselves in provincial France in the darkest days of the Alexanders manuscript and omits the Ruskin material. The verse
war. To raise their spirits, they follow Boccaccios example in The is poor-peoples poetry: obvious, simple, repetitive. Alexander
Decameron, and each relates a story following the days dinner. was sincerely interested in folklore and oral tradition, and respect-
Prologues and epilogues frame the stories and reveal the conicts ed the piety which often represented Christ as a character in a
in value displayed by the participants. contemporary village drama.
Aldrich also wrote the foreword to The Letters of Thomasina The Story of Ida (1883) is a narration of the rather common-
Atkins (W.A.A.C.) on Active Service (1918). This volume recounts place, unhappy love experience of a young woman who posed for
Atkins experiences in the British Womens Auxiliary Army Alexander. Though Alexander tried to reproduce reality without
Corps stationed somewhere in France. For her help in swaying exaggeration or sentimentality, Idas piety, her submission, and
19
ALLEE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
her long decline give the book a texture indistinguishable from changing values during the mid-19th century. These novels por-
religious tracts. Christs Folk in the Apennine (1888) was put tray a vivid picture of American life between 1840 and 1875, and
together by Ruskin, who selected passages from Alexanders they present a multifaceted view of slavery. Allee presents both
letters that told stories about her peasant acquaintances. After her ideological and personal conicts with clarity, restraint, and
sight had failed too much for drawing, Alexander published one impartiality.
book independent of Ruskin: The Hidden Servants (1900), a
collection of longer traditional legends retold in English verse. Three of Allees historical books recount the struggles of
The style is not so simple as her prose; archaic diction, common- widow Charity Lankester and her eight daughters to earn their
place imagery, and the extra words required to ll out convention- own living after freeing their slaves and selling their estate. While
al meters create rather tedious poetry. daughter Judith nurses a neighbors child and slowly masters a
few homemaking skills (Judith Lankester, 1930), her older sister
Alexander is remembered primarily because of the letters Catherine teaches in a one-room school, outwitting unruly boys,
Ruskin wrote to her, and Ruskin scholars now consider his nurturing neglected girls, rescuing a former slave from an angry
infatuation with Alexander to have been one of the embarrassing mob, and establishing a home in a tiny cabin (A House of Her
symptoms of the great mind in its decline. Alexanders one Own, 1934).
important work is, however, of value for preserving verbally and
pictorially details of folklore and rural life from a time now gone. In Susanna and Tristram (1929), orphaned sixteen-year-old
Susanna Cofn assumes responsibility for her younger brother.
She becomes a conductor on the Underground Railroad,
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Alexander, C. G., Francesca Alexandra, A Hid- meeting escaping slaves at the boat and driving them northward.
den Servant (1927). Alexander, F. Francesca Alexander: Draw-
ings from Roadside Songs of Tuscany (1981). Ruskin, J., Fran- In reaction against the dormitory dance-drink-drive formula
cescas Book in Works, Cook, E. T., and A. Wedderburn, eds. for the college novel, Allee wrote The Great Tradition (1937).
(Vol. 32, 1907). Swett, L. G., John Ruskins Letters to Francesca Much of this novel takes place in a biology laboratory, and it
and Memoirs of the Alexanders (1931). depicts young women engaged in serious study and research at the
Other references: Dial (16 March 1898). The Magazine of University of Chicago. The Great Tradition and The House
Art (1895). (1944) explore the problems of harmonious relations between
individuals of differing ages, social backgrounds, and races. The
SALLY MITCHELL House received an award from the Child Study Association for the
honesty and courage with which it faces the problems of
young people.
Two of Allees novels take place in settings of unusual

ALLEE, Marjorie Hill interest to the naturalist. Janes Island (1931), a Newberry honor
book, describes the unspoiled beauty of Woods Hole, Massachu-
Born 2 June 1890, Carthage, Indiana; died 30 April 1945, setts, where scientists study marine biology with inadequate
Chicago, Illinois equipment but disciplined dedication. Anns Surprising Summer
Daughter of William and Anna Elliott Hill; married Warder (1933) takes place in the dune country of northern Indiana, where
Clyde Allee, 1912 biologists strive to preserve a portion of the dunes as a natural
habitat.
Marjorie Hill Allee grew up on an Indiana farm in a commu-
nity of Quakers whose ancestors had migrated northward from the Allees female characters demonstrate a deep sensitivity to
Carolinas to escape the environment of slavery. At the age of the needs of others, and are unusually competent and resourceful
eighteen, having completed high school and two years at Earlham in solving practical problems. They are not restricted to traditional
College, Allee taught all eight grades in the one-room school activities and roles.
which she had attended as a child. The following year she enrolled
at the University of Chicago, determined to become a writer.
OTHER WORKS: The Road to Carolina (1932). Off to Philadelphia
Allees apprentice work includes the publication of numer- (1936). The Little American Girl (1938). Runaway Linda (1939).
ous articles, reviews, and stories, as well as collaboration with her The Camp at Westlands (1941). Winters Mischief (1942). Smoke
husband on Jungle Island (1925), a nonction book for children Jumper (1945).
which describes the plants and animals on Barro Colorado Island
in the Panama Canal. Between 1929 and 1945 Allee published 14
novels for older juvenile readers. Her characters are usually young BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: The Junior Book of Authors, S. J.
women just beginning to confront the personal discords and social Kunitz, and H. Haycraft, eds. (1951).
problems of adult life. Other references: Horn Book (May 1946). Illinois Libraries
(Dec. 1938).
Working from memoirs and personal histories, Allee wrote
six novels depicting Quaker families caught in the turmoil of ALICE BELL SALO
20
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ALLEN
ALLEN, Elizabeth (Ann Chase) Akers and poetic grace is evidenced in the pat rhymes and similarity of
structure and meter throughout her canon.
Born 19 October 1832, Strong, Maine; died 7 August 1911, Allen is at her best when she manages to dissociate herself
Tuckahoe, New York from her personas. Then her poetic narratives, light verse, and
Wrote under: Elizabeth Akers, Florence Percy fables are well handled metrically and display a felicity of
Daughter of John and Mary Barton Chase; married Marshall expression not found in the bulk of her work. Many of these
Taylor, 1851 (divorced); (Benjamin) Paul Akers, 1860; E. M. poems are worthy of collection for their artistic illumination of the
Allen, 1865 plight of the 19th-century woman.
Elizabeth Akers Allen was the daughter of a carpenter and

circuit preacher. Feeling unwelcome at home after her moth- OTHER WORKS: Queen Catherines Rose (1885). The Silver
ers death and fathers remarriage, she sought independence at the Bridge (1886). The Triangular Society (1886). Gold Nails to
age of thirteen through a job in a bookbindery and later as a Hang Memories On (1890). The High-Top Sweeting (1891). The
teacher. In 1856 she became an assistant editor for the Portland Proud Lady of Stavoren (1897). The Ballad of the Bronx (1901).
Transcript and published verse and essays in various magazines.
It was during this time that she was forced to divorce her
husband [Marshall Taylor] or starve, since he was legally BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cary, R., The Misted Prism: Paul Akers and
entitled to her earnings and had already misappropriated payment Elizabeth Akers Allen, in CLQ 7 (1966). Leavenworth, E. W.,
due her. Her rst volume of poetry Forest Buds From the Woods ed., Who Wrote Rock Me To Sleep? (1870). Morse, O. A., A
of Maine (1856) was well received. After her second marriage, to Vindication of the Claim of Alexander M. W. Ball (1867).
Paul Akers, her many volumes of poetry dating from 1866 to 1902 Reference works: A Woman of the Century, F. E. Willard and
were published under the name Elizabeth Akers. M. A. Livermore (1893).
Other references: Colophon (4 Oct. 1933). Northern Monthly
The poem that assures Allen of immortality is Rock Me to
(March 1868).
Sleep, which appeared in the Philadelphia Saturday Evening
Post in May 1860 under her pseudonym. It caught the popular
FRANCINE SHAPIRO PUK
imagination and was set to music by 30 different composers; it
was also issued as an illustrated Christmas giftbook and incorpo-
rated into novels, plays, and various collections. Until Allen
reprinted it in her Poems (1866) and The Sunset Song, and Other
Verses (1902), her sole remuneration was the $5 she had received ALLEN, Paula Gunn
from the newspaper. Unfortunately, authorship of the poem was
contested by Alexander M. W. Ball, a New Jersey legislator, who Born Paula Marie Francis, 24 October 1939, Albuquerque,
presented sufcient evidence and witnesses to raise serious ques- New Mexico
tions about the poems authorship. The poem, which during the Married (divorced); children: two
Civil War. . . was printed on leaets and scattered by thousands in
the army, is a plaintive cry to a departed mother for relief and
A Native American of Laguna Pueblo and Sioux heritage,
solace. The rst stanza displays the intensity of the verses which
Paula Gunn Allen was raised in Cubero, New Mexico, a Spanish
received public acclaim:
land-grant town 50 miles west of Albuquerque, abutting the
Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your ight, Laguna Reservation. Allens mother is of Laguna Pueblo and
Make me a child again just for to-night! Sioux heritage and her father was Lebanese-American. The
Mother, come back from the echoless shore, writings of her mothers uncle, John Gunn, an anthropologist and
Take me again to your heart as of yore; researcher of Native American cultures, was a major source of
Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care, information for Allens writings. Her sister is poet Carol Lee
Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair; Sanchez and her cousin is writer Leslie Marmon Silko, both of
Over my slumbers your loving watch keep; whom were reared in her community.
Rock me to sleep, mother,rock me to sleep!
After attending mission schools in rural Cubero, San Fidel,
Most of Allens poetry is awed by sentimentality and a rigid and a convent school in Albuquerque, Allen went on to receive
metrical arrangement that often degenerates into a singsong her B.A. in English from the University of Oregon (1966). After
bathos. One narrative voice permeates most of her work, which is college, she married, had two children, and subsequently di-
best described by a contemporary as sweet, sad sick-room vorced. She returned to school and in 1968 received an M.F.A. in
poetry. The lamentations on death and effusive responses to Creative Writing, also from the University of Oregon. Allen
nature contain little philosophical import or melodic composition. returned to New Mexico and in 1975 received a Ph.D. in Ameri-
Her concept of the poet as one who pours the wine of his life for can Studies and Native American Studies from the University of
bread evidently prompted her to try to wring her own most New Mexico. She was a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA in 1981-82.
heartfelt emotions for literary use. However, the lack of control Between 1986 and 1990 she was professor of Ethnic Studies and
21
ALLEN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Native American Studies at the University of California at Berke- throughout Native American traditional songs and writings. The
ley. Subsequently, Allen has been a professor of English at the stories capture the resistance and continuing hope enduring in
University of California, Los Angeles. Native American cultures that continues to be spoken and written
about by the women of the culture.
Three components central to Native American culture are the
individual, the land, and the spiritual world; the way in which they Grandmothers of the Light: A Medicine Womans Source-
are woven together forms the fabric of life for the community and book (1991) continues the discussion of mythic stories that
the basis for Allens work. She encourages her reader to see the incorporate a polytheistic female-based belief structure with its
multiplicity present in all things. Nature is welcomed and accept- concepts of duty to the larger group, balance in all things, and
ed in all forms. Spirits are continually present and the individual connections to the earth. Substantiating her assertions with exten-
aware of the power present in the world and prepared to walk in sive research in the belief structures of many Native American
balance can move down a path toward spiritual exploration and cultures, Allen stresses the applicability of these stories to the
knowledge. present day, and the necessity of these beliefs in a modern world
that has not only become estranged from the earth, the source of
Allen has written numerous books of poetry, many of which all things, but destroys it as well.
explore the issue of the relationship between the individual and a
mythic space or the spiritual realm. Even as she continues to As a writer, Allen believes it is her responsibility to bring
explore these issues through her poems, they also permeate her forth the visions existing within herself as poet, essayist, novelist,
work as a novelist exploring the depths of the individual; as an activist, teacher, woman, lesbian, and Laguna Pueblo-Sioux. Her
essayist and editor looking at feminist and historical perspectives; work makes a major contribution to the female strength, and the
and as an anthologist of Native American tales and myths looking tribal and native female resistance and hope of Native American
at the works from an anthropological feminist standpoint. cultures. As Allen re-remembers the past of Native American
cultures and history, she embodies her hope that her readers and
Allens novel, The Woman Who Owned the Shadows (1983, the Native communities will walk in balance with the sur-
reprinted 1995), introduces a recurrent theme, depicting a Native rounding world.
American woman struggling both to discover her own place in a
world bent on judging her behavior and restricting her options and
to integrate her sense of herself as a modern woman with the OTHER WORKS: The Blind Lion (1974). Coyotes Daylight Trip
power of ancient spiritual beliefs. The vital healing process and (1978). A Cannon Between My Knees (1981). Shadow Country
reeducation emerging at the end of the novel reappear in the form (1981). Star Child: Poems (1981). Studies in American Indian
of theoretical, feminist historical essays in the nonction collec- Literature: Critical Essays and Course Designs (editor, 1983).
tion The Sacred Hoop (1986, expanded 1992). Here Allen strik- Judy Grahn: Gathering the Tribe (1983). Wyrds (1987). Skins and
ingly reconstructs the gynocratic and gynocentric visions of the Bones: Poems 1979-1987 (1988). Womens Friendship: A Collec-
world as captured in the stories and religions of Native Ameri- tion of Short Stories (1991). Voice of the Turtle: A Century of
cans, examining the traditional and sacred teachings centered American Indian Fiction (editor, 1995). As Long as the River
within the sacred hoop of life in which everything has a place and Flows: The Stories of Nine Native Americans (1996). Life is a
role. Asserting that many of the orally transmitted tales have been Fatal Disease: Collected Poems, 1962-1995 (1997). Off the
inuenced by the encroaching Anglo-American patriarchal sys- Reservation: Reections on Boundary-Busting Border-Crossing
tem of politics and religion, Allen presents the tales in their Canons (1998).
original gynocentric forms. Contributor to many anthologies, including: Talking Leaves:
Contemporary Native American Short Stories (1991); A Circle of
Allens strong commitment to textual restoration also ap- Nations: Voices and Visions of American Indians (1993); No
pears in essays exploring the incompatibilities between female- More Masks! An Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Women
centered traditions and those espoused by individuals raised in Poets, Newly Revised and Expanded (1993); From Different
patriarchal societies; the differences between the European mono- Shores: Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity in America (1994);
theistic and individualist model of society and the community- Growing Up Gay/Growing Up Lesbian: A Literary Anthology
based, multitheistic Native American model; and the impact of (1994); Issues in Feminism: An Introduction to Womens Studies
writing and thinking from a position of tribal-feminism and (1995); The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology
feminist-tribalism that respects the separate natures of men (1996); Classics in Lesbian Studies (1997); The Other Within Us:
and women while stressing the need for both sexes to work in Feminist Explorations of Women and Aging (1997); Recovering
balance with each other. the Word: Essays on Native American Literature (1997); Natives
and Academics: Researching and Writing about American Indi-
Spider Womans Granddaughters (1989) explores 100 years
ans (1998).
of the strong and vital tradition of Native American women in a
collection including traditional tales, biographical writings, and
short stories. Allen feels these are the stories of women at war BIBLIOGRAPHY: Balassi, W., This Is About Vision: Interviews with
who have become captives in their own lands. The major gures Southwestern Writers (1990). Bloom, H., ed., Native American
include Sacred Woman, Grand-mother Spider, and Yel- Women Writers (1998). Bruchac, J., Survival This Way: Inter-
low Corn Woman who appear repeatedly, under various names, views with American Indian Poets (1987). Coltelli, L., Winged
22
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ALLISON
Words: American Indian Writers Speak (1992). Donovan, K. M., Allison is most well known for her novel Bastard Out of
Feminist Readings of Native American Literature: Coming to Carolina (1992), a book with many autobiographical overtones,
Voice (1998). Fleck, R. F., ed., Critical Perspectives on Native although Allison asserts it is not simply an autobiography under
American Fiction (1997). Hanson, E. I., Paula Gunn Allen (1990). another label. Yet much of the plot and many of the details do
Keating, A., Women Reading Women Writing: Self-invention in resemble Allisons life. The protagonist is a young girl named
Paula Gunn Allen, Gloria Anzalda, and Audre Lorde (1996). Ruth Anne Boatwright, known by her nickname, Bone. Bone is
Lang, N. H., Through Landscape Toward Story/Through Story illegitimate, her family is exceptionally poor, and she suffers
Toward Landscape: A Study of Four Native American Women sexual abuse by her mothers current husband, Daddy Glen,
Poets (dissertation, 1991). Rothblum, E. D., ed., Classics in whom her mother had married in part to relieve her family of its
Lesbian Studies (1997). Ruoff, A. L. B., American Indian Litera- poverty. Despite the fact that her mother denies this abuse until
tures (1990). Stauffer, H. W., and S. Rosowski, eds., Women and she can no longer ignore it, Bone achieves some security in her
Western American Literature (1982). Swann, B. and A. Krupat, familys community of women, especially with her Aunt Raylene,
eds., I Tell You Now: Autobiographical Essays by Native Ameri- who had once engaged in a sexual relationship with another
can Writers (1987). Swann, B. and A. Krupat, eds., Recovering woman. While much of Bones experience is marked by a sense of
the Word: Essays on Native American Literature (1987). desperation, she nevertheless is also characterized by the grit of a
Reference works: Benets (1991). FC (1990). Oxford Com- survivor.
panion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). 20th
Bastard Out of Carolina was both a critical and a popular
Century Western Writers (1991).
success, although some readers found it too blunt in its descrip-
Other references: American Anthropologist (Sept 1990).
tions of poverty and abuse. Allisons writing is consistently direct
American Book Review (Dec 1992, Dec. 1993). American Indian
and never sentimental. Regardless of a readers aesthetic prefer-
Quarterly (Spring 1983, Spring 1991, Spring 1992). Journal of
ences, some of Allisons scenes are painful to read, but this is
Homosexuality (1999). NDQ (interview, Spring 1989). MELUS
precisely her goal. She has stated that individuals of her back-
(interview, Summer 1983).
ground and experience have too often been the objects of writing
by others; her goal, on the other hand, is to tell her own story rather
DACIA GENTILELLA
than be told about, to present her life and the lives of people like
her as fully as possible. Like many ction writers, she claims
stories create what meaning one can nd in life.
ALLISON, Dorothy In addition to Bastard Out of Carolina, Allison has published

poetry, short stories, and essays, as well as a second novel. Her
collection of stories, Trash (1988), received more attention than
Born 11 April 1949, Greenville, South Carolina books published by small presses often do. These stories are
Daughter of Ruth Gibson Allison; children: Wolf Michael characterized by many of the same themes as her longer ction.
More recently, Allison has published a collection of essays and a
When Dorothy Allison was born in 1949, her mother, Ruth memoir, both of which address issues similar to those she raises in
Gibson Allison, was only 15 years old. In addition, she was poor her ction. Skin: Talking About Sex, Class and Literature (1993),
and unmarried. This early experience of dramatic poverty would is provocative both in terms of the ideas it addresses and the style
inuence much of her work. Eventually, Allisons mother married with which it addresses them. Her language, and her style in
a man who was not Allisons father; this stepfather abused her general, is easily accessible; her consistent choice to be direct
sexually for several years, until Allison described the experience precludes any option to participate in jargon that would exclude
to another relative. When Ruth Allison learned of these events, the some of her intended audience. Although Allison is clearly a
abuse stopped, although she remained married to this husband. feminist, she does not avoid some of the current tensions within
This experience of abuse would also inform much of Allisons the mainstream feminist movement, including class differences
writing. and the implications that accompany them. Nor does she shy away
from open acknowledgment of sexuality, sexual preference, and
After high school, Allison attended Florida Presbyterian
desire, even (or especially) when such a direct style may make
College, currently known as Eckerd College; she earned her B.A.
some readers uncomfortable. She is no more willing, in other
in 1971. She was introduced to feminism during her college years,
words, to tone her story down for middle-class feminists than she
an experience she credits with validating her life and feelings. She
would be for conservative men.
later earned an M.A. from the progressive New School for Social
Research in New York City. She currently lives in California. Allisons recent book, Cavedweller (1997), is her second
Unlike many writers who have come of age during the last novel. Cavedweller is less obviously autobiographical. Critics
generation, Allison did not serve an apprenticeship in a creative have found this novel somewhat less stunning than her rst, but
writing program; she did not begin to consider herself a serious that is perhaps inevitable. For the foreseeable future, Allison is
writer until after she earned her masters degree. She has been likely to remain known most as the author of Bastard Out
nominated for a National Book Award and has won a Lambda of Carolina, which was turned into a controversial lm by
Literary award. Anjelica Huston.
23
ALTHER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
OTHER WORKS: The Women Who Hate Me (1983). The Women with all of Althers books, it was highly praised and also strongly
Who Hate Me: Poetry, 1980-1990 (1991). Two or Three Things I condemned. Most critics praised it for its verbal wit and for the
Know for Sure (1995). irony with which the sexual escapades target stereotypes, male
sexual conquest, and adult sanctimoniousness; many recognized
it as serious social criticism. Very few mentioned the serious
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CANR (1998). Oxford Com- mother-daughter plot or perceived the female bildungsroman
panion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). structure of the book.
LYNN DOMINA In Original Sins (1981) Alther juggles the stories of ve
protagonists who nd their small-town Southern environment
pernicious. Whereas Kinicks is picaresque in its emphasis on the
journey away, Original Sins focuses on home and its limitations.
ALTHER, Lisa But as the Five mature, their self-awareness, like that of Mrs.
Babcock, offers more hope for them than for their parents. Critics
Born Elisabeth Greene Reed, 23 July 1944, Kingsport, Tennessee agreed the two female characters sexual experiences are the most
Daughter of John S. and Alice Greene Reed; married Richard P. vivid aspects of this book. In Other Women (1984), Alther again
Alther, 1966 (divorced); children: Sara juxtaposes the lives of two women, a confused nurse who has
experimented sexually as had Ginny Babcock in her search for
Though she was born and grew up in the South, Lisa Alther meaning, and an older woman psychotherapist, whose counsel
has spent all of her adult life in the North. She graduated from stems from her own tragic experiences. The book is unusual in
Wellesley College, married in 1966, and has lived for many years focusing equally on patient and therapist and offers their relation-
on the edge of a small town in Vermont. Alther has taught ship as a model of feminist therapy, nonhierarchical and eventuat-
Southern ction at St. Michaels College in Winooski, Vermont. ing in friendship. Though friendship between two women that
She identies herself as a Southern writer, however, because of blossoms into love is central to Bedrock (1990), the focus really is
the inuence of storytelling in her home and her early exposure by on a town in Vermont to which one of them ees in her search for
her English-teacher mother to the works of Eudora Welty, Flannery meaning. The 20-year romantic friendship between the two wom-
OConnor, Katherine Anne Porter, and Carson McCullers. From en in Bedrock is loosely based on the friendship between Virginia
her father, a surgeon, she acquired an interest in science, which Woolf and Vita Sackville-West. We see all the hypocrisy and
was reected in her earliest publications about the environment self-delusion of less than admirable characters, but the tone
and her continuing use of scientic metaphors. Her rst two sometimes almost farcicalis accepting and hopeful. Clea Shawn
novels are set in her native South; the second two in New England. loses her romantic illusions about a small town, remodels a
All of them reect smalltown life and deal with problems of decaying house, and nds happiness when she recognizes that her
community. long friendship with Elka is the basis of a lesbian relationship.
Alther has said she had over 200 rejection slips before her Five Minutes in Heaven (1995) follows its main character
rst ction publication, Kinicks (1976). The novel was so from childhood in Tennessee to adulthood in New York City and
nancially successful Alther has been able to write in her pre- Paris. Along the way, Jude has a number of relationships that force
ferred manner, taking several months between multiple drafts and her to come to terms with her sexuality. First, she has an attraction
a year between books. Though widely admired for her comic tone, to her best friend, Molly. After Molly dies and Jude tries to sort out
Alther is a serious writer who has focused on the ironies involved her feelings about her emerging lesbianism, she begins a relation-
in the search for meaning by characters trying to avoid stereotypical, ship and falls in love with a gay man. After losing Sandy, Jude has
inherited responses to the hostile forces of 20th-century life. a passionate love affair with a married woman. After moving to
Kinicks deals with the 1960s generations agonized conicts Paris, she nally nds comfort in her sexuality.
over sex, religion, education, and the war in Vietnam. In half the Alther explains why she wrote Five Minutes in Heaven:
chapters, Ginny Babcock recapitulates her youthful rebellion Three of my best friends died violent deathsone when we
against her parents life pattern and goals and savagely rejects were teenagers, and the other two when we were in our forties.
religious rationalizations of their greed, racism, and class preju- Five Minutes in Heaven, an extended meditation on graveyard
dices. Adolescent sexual initiation rites furnish ironic views of the love (the kind of love that lasts until youre both dead and buried
older generations hypocrisy about sex, and Ginnys search for in the graveyard), is my memorial to them. The book, Alther
alternatives includes experiments with backseat petting, hetero- says, is an extended meditation on love in all its phasesthe
sexual and homosexual monogamy, and lesbian communes. In longing for it, the contentment of its fulllment, the pain of its
alternate chapters, Alther uses a third person narrator to show loss, the memories of it that can shape a persons life. Though
Ginnys return home at twenty-seven to the bedside of her dying Althers books are lauded for her wit and humor, Five Minutes in
mother and their reconciliation when Ginny realizes her mother Heaven is much more serious and rarely gives the reader a reason
had deliberately played the stereotypical mother role in order to to laugh.
meet her childrens need for meaning. Mrs. Babcocks self-aware-
ness frees Ginny from guilt and the necessity of role playing. Althers works trace the experiences of her generation and
Kinicks has been very popular; in the 1990s it was in print. As continue to be popular. Though critical acceptance of Bedrock
24
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS LVAREZ
was somewhat grudging, her work is now being seriously consid- With the move to the U.S., lvarez began to realize the
ered by critics and scholars. Althers books have been worldwide power of language in giving one a sense of place and belonging.
bestsellers and have been translated into 17 languages including As an adolescent at the Abbott School, a boarding school north of
French, German, Dutch, Japanese, and Spanish. Her novella Boston, lvarez says she landed in the English language. The
Birdman and the Dancer (1993), is an adult fairy tale based on process of assimilation took her away, however, from the Spanish
monotypes by French artist Franoise Gilot. It has been published of her youth. Writing novels and poetry that center on the
only in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany. immigrant experience is a way for lvarez to reclaim her cultural
identity.
Many of Althers reviews and articles have been published in
the New York Times, Art and Antiques, Los Angeles Times, Boston Her rst book-length work of ction, How the Garca Girls
Globe, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Natural His- Lost Their Accents (1991), was awarded the Pen Oakland/Josephine
tory, New Society, and the Guardian. Miles award. This collection of interconnected short stories
centers around the character of Yolanda Garca, the third child in a
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Abel, E., et al., eds., The Voyage In: Fictions of Dominican family that has ed their homeland and resettled in
Female Development (1983). Prenshaw, P., ed., Women Writers New York City. Yolanda and her three sisters, Carla, Sandra and
of the Contemporary South (1984). Todd, J., ed., Gender and Soa, struggle to be accepted in their new country. As the title
Literary Voice (1980). reveals, this story is one of assimilation and the loss that assimila-
Reference works: CA (1977). CLC (1977, 1987). CANR tion inevitably entails. Arranged in reverse chronology, the
(1984, 1990). FC (1990). MTCW (1991). grown-up Garca girls at the beginning of the work have already
Other references: Appalachia/America (1980). Arizona Quar- lost their accents, but like many immigrants, they have also come
terly (Winter 1982). Booklist (1 Mar. 1995). DIA (1988). Fron- to realize the importance of holding fast to the ties that bind them
tiers 4 (1979). PW (27 Feb. 1995). to Caribbean culture and to the country they were born in. As the
stories work their way backward to the girls childhood in the
MARY ANNE FERGUSON, Dominican Republic, they become increasingly assured and pow-
UPDATED BY NICK ASSENDELFT erful. Donna Rifkind, in a review for the New York Times Book
Review, said that lvarez has beautifully captured the threshold
experience of the new immigrant, where the past is not yet a
memory and the future remains an anxious dream.
LVAREZ, Julia
In the Time of the Butteries (1994), lvarezs second novel,
takes place in the Dominican Republic during Rafael Lenidas
Born 27 March 1950, New York, New York
Trujillos brutal 31-year regime. The novel weaves historical fact
with ction to tell the story of the coming of age of four sisters:
Julia lvarezs family ed the Trujillo dictatorship in the
Minerva, Patria Mercedes, Ded and Mara Teresa (Mate).
Dominican Republic in 1960, when she was ten years old. They
went to live in New York City, where lvarezs grandfather had Known throughout Latin America by their code name, Las
worked as the Dominican cultural attach to the United Nations. Mariposas, the butteries, Minerva, Patria, and Mara Teresa
By the time she attended Connecticut College, lvarez was Mirabal, were murdered by Trujillos henchmen in 1960 on the
already receiving prizes for her poetry. She transferred to way home from visiting their husbands in jail. The novel traces the
Middlebury College in Vermont, where she graduated summa transformation of these ordinary girls into extraordinary young
cum laude in 1971 and was awarded the colleges creative writing women, revolutionaries who lose their lives in their countrys
prize. In 1975 she received a Masters degree in creative writing struggle for democracy.
from Syracuse University. She has taught writing to students of all As In the Time of the Butteries opens, Ded, the one sister
levels and all ages, from young children to senior citizens. In 1996 who survives, is preparing to be interviewed by a Dominican-
she received a Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, from the American novelist who is writing a book about the Mirabal sisters
City University of New York, John Jay College. She is currently a and the events leading up to their murders. Using rst-person
full professor in the English Department at Middlebury and a narratives, lvarez gives each of the sisters a turn to tell her story.
frequent scholar at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. The youngest, Mate, condes her secretsmostly the giggly,
It was the emotional upheaval caused by leaving her home- romantic varietyto a diary. The voice of Patria, the pious sister
land and her language behind which led lvarez to become a who as a young girl dreams of becoming a nun, is at times almost
writer. Of her childhood in the Dominican Republic she states: prayer-like, as if her words were meant for the Virgin Marys ears
The power of stories was all around me. lvarez was a or for a hushed confessional. Minerva speaks with authority and
reluctant student, who seized every opportunity to play hooky insight, like the lawyer she studies to become (only to be prevent-
from the Carol Morgan School that she attended with her three ed from practicing by a direct order from Trujillo himself). Deds
sisters, but who relished furtively reading The Thousand and One story, however, alternates between the rst and third person. She
Nights under the bedskirts or hearing legends and stories told by is the one who survives to tell and retell her sisters story, living
her elders, from the aunts and uncles in her extensive family to the out her years in their childhood home, which has been turned into
domestic servants who worked for them. a museum where the curious ock like pilgrims to see the relics of
25
AMES AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
the Mirabal sisters, martyrs to the cause of democracy, brought to with the poets Alice and Phoebe Cary, to the Utica Morning
life again by Deds words and by lvarezs own skillful writing. Herald and the Springeld (Massachusetts) Republican.
In lvarezs third novel, Yo! (1997), she continues the After her marriage to a minister ended, Ames began a
exploration of multiple narrators that is a hallmark of her ction. Womans Letter from Washington, for the New York Indepen-
Yo, Spanish for I, is also short for Yolanda, but the Yolanda of dent. The column continued from 1866 until her death. She also
How the Garca Girls Lost Their Accents is now a thirty-ve- wrote for the Brooklyn Daily Union and for the Cincinnati
year-old free spirit who has been waylaid from her early promise Commercial. Her literary output from 1870 on included two
as a scholar by hippie boyfriends and bad decisions. Seen only in novels, A Memorial to Alice and Phoebe Cary (1873), two
this novel from without, by family, friends, and others, she is still volumes based on her columns, and a book of poetry. A year
caught between two cultures but manages nally to nd a before she died, she married Edmund Hudson, a Washington
place for herself as a happily married and successful writer. journalist.
Ames literary signicance stems mainly from her column in
Before turning to ction, lvarez focused on poetry. She
the inuential weekly, the Independent. It made her one of the best
received the American Academy of Poetry Prize in 1974 and a
known of a group of post-Civil War women Washington corre-
1987-88 National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Grant. She has
spondents, known as literary ladies. Avoiding social news, she
published three collections of poetry: Housekeeping Book (hand
concentrated on political issues, defending the freed Black and
printed in 1984), Homecoming (rst published in 1984, with a
civil rights, and sharply criticizing the excesses of Gilded-Age
revised, expanded edition appearing in 1996), and The Other Side/ politics. She moved in the same social circles as leading politi-
El Otro Lado (1995). lvarezs poetry and essays have appeared cians and used them as news sources.
in the Kenyon Review, Hispanic magazine, the New Yorker, the
New York Times Magazine, and the Washington Post Magazine. In spite of her participation in the masculine worlds of both
politics and journalism, Ames repeatedly told her readers that she
lvarez has also written nonction. Something to Declare, a modestly shrank from public notice and preferred the domestic
collection of her essays, deals with many of the themes she treats scene to the political arena. Asserting her career had been the
in her ction and poetry: the immigrant experience, the politics of product of nancial necessity, she justied it morally on the
language, the importance of retaining cultural identity. Inasmuch grounds that women journalists had a spiritual duty to purify
as they treat becoming and living as a writer, however, the essays politics, even if their efforts brought them unwelcome personal
in Something to Declare also explore new territory. They are attention. She did not appear publicly to support woman suffrage,
particularly revealing in that they illustrate just how much of although she did advocate it. Considering suffrage less important
lvarezs creative work parallels her own life history: There is than economic gains, she wrote: Women can live nobly without
no such thing as straight-up ction, lvarez declares. In spite voting; but they cannot live without bread.
of our caution and precaution, bits of our lives will get into what
Ames weekly columns bore the hallmark of popular Victori-
we write.
an literatureexcessive sentiment, self-conscious moralizing,
and verbosity. Still, they provided an intriguing picture of a
BIBLIOGRAPHY: American Book Review (Aug. 1992). CLC (1996). woman standing apart from the seamy side of politics and pin-
Hispanic Journal (Spring 1993). Nation (7 Nov. 1994). New pointing politicians guilty of drunkenness and corruption. The
England Review (Summer 1993). NYTBR (6 Oct. 1991). PW (16 books based on her columnsOutlines of Men, Women and
Dec. 1996). WRB (May 1995). Things (1873) and Ten Years in Washington (1873)emphasized
people and places rather than politics. Part guidebook to the
HELENA ALONSA AND ANA ROCA
capital, Ten Years in Washington, a subscription book reprinted
three times, was crammed with historical lore. Outlines included
descriptions of scenic spots, biographical sketches of literary and
theatrical gures, and, more importantly, several essays dealing
with relations between the sexes. Ames urged men to subscribe to
AMES, Mary E. Clemmer the pure moral standards of women and exhorted women to
educate themselves. Her most successful work of nonction, A
Born 6 May 1831, Utica, New York; died 18 August 1884, Memorial to Alice and Phoebe Cary, a gushing tribute to the
Washington, D.C. women who had befriended her, drew critical acclaim in a
Wrote under: M.C.A., Mary Clemmer, Mary Clemmer Ames sentimental era.
Daughter of Abraham and Margaret Kneale Clemmer; married Making a virtue of what was obviously a handicap to a
Daniel Ames, 1851; Edmund Hudson, 1883 Washington correspondenther sexshe contended that her
womanhood gave her the right to comment on political issues to
The oldest of seven children, Mary E. Clemmer Ames moved promote reform. Trading on the Victorian mystique that women
with her family to Westeld, Massachusetts, where she attended possessed a higher moral sense than men, she showed that a facile
the Westeld Academy. Her career began in 1859, when she sent woman writer could make a place for herself by pointing a nger
letters from New York City, where she was living temporarily of righteous scorn and indignation at the men who ran the country.
26
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ANDREWS
OTHER WORKS: Victoire (1864). Eirene, or, A Womans Right became the rst black diva at the Metropolitan Opera, singing
(1871). His Two Wives (1875). Memorial Sketch of Elizabeth Ulrica in The Masked Ball (1955).
Emerson Atwater (1879). Poems of Life and Nature (1883).
In 1957 Anderson published her autobiography, My Lord
What a Morning. Her writing style is not vivid, but she gives a
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Beasley, M. H., The First Women Washington clear picture of herself as a simple, deeply religious woman who
Correspondents (George Washington University Studies No. 4, feels a strong obligation to use her talent for others benet. She
1976). Beasley, M. H., and S. Silver, Women in Media: A writes of her career in personal terms, omitting many of the honors
Documentary Source Book (1977). Hudson, E., An American that have accrued to her. They are manyover three dozen
Womans Life and Work: A Memorial of Mary Clemmer (1886). honorary degrees from American universities, the Bok Award
Whiting, L., Mary Clemmer, in Our Famous Women (1884). (1940), the Finnish decoration (1940), the Swedish Litteris et
Other references: Arthurs Home Magazine (Dec. 1884). The Artibus medal (1952), the Japanese Yokusho Medal (1953), the
Cottage Hearth (Feb. 1875). The Independent (28 Aug. 1884). Gimbel Award (1958), and the U.S. Institute of Arts and Sciences
gold medal (1958). She became a delegate to the Thirteenth
MAURINE BEASLEY General Assembly of the United Nations (1958) and, in 1963, was
awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest hon-
or an American civilian can attain. In 1965 Anderson retired
from singing and to live quietly in Danbury, Connecticut. She
ANDERSON, Marian died in 1993.
Born 17 February 1902, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; died 1993 OTHER WORKS: Essay featured in Written By Herself: Autobiog-
Daughter of John Berkeley and Anna Anderson; married Orphe- raphy of American Women: An Anthology (1992).
us H. Fisher, 1943
Marian Anderson was the eldest of three daughters. The BIBLIOGRAPHY: Formica, R., Black Americans of Achievement: A
unusual quality of her voice was noted by the time she was six Teachers Guide (1992). Kostman, S., Twentieth Century Women
years old. She began singing in the choir of the Union Baptist of Achievement (1976). Perry, S., Things from the Heart: Marian
Church near her home, and her remarkable range permitted her to Andersons Story (1981). Richardson, B., and W. A. Fahey, Great
substitute for absent sopranos, mezzos, or altos with equal ease. Black Americans (1976). Roosevelt, F. W., Doers and Dowagers
Eventually, her voice developed into a rich contralto, with a (1975). Smallwood, D., Proles of Great African Americans
particularly beautiful middle register. (1998). Smaridge, N., Trailblazers in American Arts (1971).
Spivey, L., Singing Heart: A Story Based on the Life of Marian
Her father died when she was very young, and before she was Anderson. Topplin, E. A., Biographical History of Blacks in
fteen, she began to take singing engagements to help support the America since 1528 (1971). Vehanan, K., Marian Anderson: A
family. She was unable to enroll at the Philadelphia Academy of Portrait (1941). Ware, S., Letter to the World: Seven Women Who
Music, but the black community subscribed funds for her to study Shaped the American Century (1998).
with noted voice teacher Giuseppe Boghetti, who gave her the Other references: AH (Feb. 1977). American Women of
only formal coaching she ever received. For several years she Achievement Video Collection (video, 1995). Marian Anderson
toured in the eastern and southern United States, performing (video, 1998). Marian Anderson Rare and Unpublished Record-
mostly for church groups. In 1925 Boghetti entered her name in a ings, 1936-1952 (audio, 1998).
national competition held in New York; she sang at the Lewisohn
Stadium and won rst prize out of 300 entrants. That was the HELENE KOON
beginning of her career.
In 1930 she studied in Europe, and the following year began
to concertize there. A Scandinavian tour brought favorable recog- ANDREW, Joseph Maree
nition, and by 1932 she was in demand in all the European See BONNER, Marita
capitals. Toscanini called hers The voice that comes once in a
hundred years! Her U.S. tour in 1936 was a triumph, but it was
the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) who made her
name familiar in every American household. In 1939 Anderson ANDREWS, Eliza Frances
was scheduled to sing at Constitution Hall, owned by the DAR in
Washington, but the organization decreed that no black singer Born 10 August 1840, Washington, Georgia; died 21 January
could appear there. Eleanor Roosevelt resigned in protest, and 1931, Rome, Georgia
newspapers carried the story across the country. When Anderson Wrote under: Elzey Hay
was asked to sing at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday that Daughter of Garnett and Annulet Ball Andrews
year, 15,000 people gathered before the steps, and the incident
marked a turning point for black artists. Anderson married in Eliza Frances Andrews was born at Haywood, the plantation
1943, but she continued to concertize all over the world. She home of her parents. The family was moderately wealthy by
27
ANDREWS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Southern standards, owning about 200 slaves. Andrews attended Two other novels, A Mere Adventurer (1879) and Prince
the Washington Seminary for Girls and graduated in the rst class Hal; or, the Romance of a Rich Young Man (1882), were equally
from the LaGrange Female College in 1857. successful with readers.
When Georgia seceded from the Union in January 1861,
Andrews father achieved notoriety for his uncompromising op- OTHER WORKS: Botany All the Year Round; a Practical Textbook
position to secession and his subsequent refusal to support the new for Schools (1893). Seven Great Battles of the Army of Northern
Confederacy. Although he permitted three of his sons to join the Virginia: A Program of Study and Entertainment (1906). A
Confederate army, he did not tolerate the secessionist views of his Practical Course in Botany, With Especial Reference to Its
daughters, which led to many family arguments. Bearings on Agriculture, Economics, and Sanitation (1911). The
War-time Journals of a Georgia Girl, 1864-1865 (reissued, 1997).
In December 1864, Andrews began her diary, published as The papers of Eliza Frances Andrews are in the Garnett
The War-time Journal of a Georgia Girl (1908), with an account Andrews Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of
of a trip to visit her sister near Albany, Georgia. Andrews and a North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
younger sister had to travel over rough, partially destroyed roads,
with the ever-present fear of ambush by Shermans men. Once at
their sisters, however, the two girls enjoyed a round of visits and BIBLIOGRAPHY: Coulter, E. M., Travels in the Confederate States
parties, strangely gay for a time of political and military disinte- (1948). Hart, B. S., Introduction to Georgia Writers (1929). King,
gration. Andrews ne eye for detail gives the reader a fascinating S. B., Jr., ed., Wartime Journal of a Georgia Girl (1960 ed.).
portrait of social life in the rural Confederacy. Occasionally she Tardy, M. T., ed., The Living Female Writers of the South (1872).
lapses into girlish concerns, reporting all the compliments she Reference works: NAW 1607-1950 (1971). A Woman of the
received on her appearance, but her natural skepticism always Century, F. E. Willard and M. A. Livermore (1893).
rescues her and the diary from silliness. In March 1865 Andrews Other references: NYT (23 Jan. 1931).
returned to Washington, Georgia, to witness the fall of the
JANET E. KAUFMAN
Confederacy. There she met Jefferson Davis on his ight from his
pursuers.
After her fathers death in 1873, Andrews began teaching
school. She served as principal of the Girls High School in Yazoo ANDREWS, Jane
City, Mississippi, later became principal of a girls seminary in
Washington, Georgia, and from 1885 to 1896 taught French and Born 1 December 1833, Newburyport, Massachusetts; died 15
literature at the Wesleyan Female College in Macon, Georgia. July 1887, Newburyport, Massachusetts
Andrews then returned home to Washington to teach botany in the Daughter of John and Margaret Demmon Rand Andrews
public high school. After her retirement from teaching, she
published two textbooks on botany. Jane Andrews was born and raised in the midst of the
vigorous nationalism of mid-19th century New England. She
Andrews literary career began in 1865 with an article on inherited from her family a spirit of intellectual concern and
Reconstruction in Georgia published in the New York World. A benevolence which, taken together with a broad outlook, led her to
second article on womens life and fashions appeared in Godeys become one of the earliest proponents of internationalism in
Ladys Book the following year. Her rst novel, A Family Secret education. Andrews school friends at the Newbury Massachu-
(1876), quickly became a bestseller. This mystery, set in the setts Putnam Free School and the State Normal School at West
immediate postwar south, revolves around the romance between Newton, Massachusetts, included a sister-in-law of education
Audley Malvern and Ruth Hareur and their attempts to discover reformer Horace Mann. Mann persuaded Andrews that she would
the secret of Ruths parents and the unusual ring she wears. It is nd the kind of education she wanted at his new college, Antioch,
lled with such typical 19th-century literary conventions as a where, subsequently, she was the rst student to register. Howev-
ghost in a graveyard, mistaken identities, and a last chapter er, the onset of a neurological disorder described as spinal
entitled Everybody Gets Married and Lives Happy Forever affection cut short her education in the middle of the rst year
After. and left her an invalid for the next six years. Nonetheless, Manns
inuence reinforced her commitment to believing in ones re-
A Family Secret is of interest to the modern reader for its
sponsibility to society, a commitment that inuenced the direction
strong statements on the position of women. Audleys sister, Julia
of the teaching and writing she practiced during the remainder of
Malvern, an unsuccessful teacher, writer, and clerk, concludes
her life.
that marriage for money is the only way out of her nancial
dilemma. She is not happy about this, however: Marrying for In 1860, sufciently recovered from her illness to work,
money never makes people better, but it leaves us so poor in our Andrews founded a primary school in her home. This school,
own estimation, so mean in spirit, so hollow, so empty, and, after characterized by advanced educational methods including experi-
all, so unsatised, that sometimes I almost doubt whether it ments, plays, games, and stories, was extremely successful and
pays. A few pages later she exclaims, Oh, the slavery it is to be continued to be Andrews focus for the next 25 years. In her
a woman and not a fool! school she cultivated observation, individual responsibility, and
28
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ANDREWS
creative expression in the hope of molding responsible citizens for most of her married life in Syracuse, New York, spending her
life in a society where all people were equal. summers in the familys wilderness camp in Quebec, which
provided the setting for much of her ction. Her only son, Paul
Andrews rst book, Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the
Shipman Andrews, became dean of the College of Law of
Round Ball That Floats in the Air (1861), grew out of stories she
Syracuse University.
created to supplement the geography lessons in her school. Each
story focuses on a little girl in a different culture and emphasizes Andrews rst published story, Crowned with Glory and
that although the external circumstances of life are very different Honor (1902), appeared in Scribners Magazine, and it was in
for each child, each is happy and is one of Gods family. The same the short story genre that she was to achieve distinction. From
motive held for the sequel, Each and All: Seven Little Sisters
1902 until 1929 her many stories appeared, chiey in Scribners,
Prove Their Sisterhood (1877) and for a historical counterpart,
but also in other leading journals. Most of these stories were later
Ten Boys Who Lived on the Road From Long Ago to Now (1886),
published in book form, in such collections as The Militants
which traces our race from its Aryan sources to the present.
(1907), The Eternal Masculine (1913), and The Eternal Feminine
Through these books, all of which emphasize the kinship of
(1916). Some of her best known stories, such as The Perfect
children throughout the world, Andrews hoped to offset the effect
of books like Peter Parleys, in which children from other lands Tribute (1906), appeared rst in Scribners and were later pub-
were characteristically made to look strange and unlike the lished as separate books. She also wrote novels, notably The
children for whom the books were intended. The books also Marshal (1912), a historical novel set in Napoleonic times; a book
provided an alternative morality to that of the McGuffey readers of World War I poetry, Crosses of War (1918); and a biography of
which depicted virtue as being of personal rather than of social Florence Nightingale, A Lost Commander (1929). However, it is
concern. her short tales which are of interest to the literary historian.
The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children (1889) empha- Andrews bestselling book The Perfect Tribute, illustrates
sizes the wonder of nature, and although Andrews tends at times the qualities of her writing that accounted for her popularity with
to humanize nature and to moralize (Mother Nature. . . is she to her contemporaries but which have resulted in her obscurity
whom God has given the care of the earth. . . just as he has given to today. This ctional account of Abraham Lincolns disappoint-
your mother the care of her family of boys and girls), the stories ment over the reception of his Gettysburg Address was the rst of
in this volume and those collected in Only a Year and What It several Lincoln stories written by Andrews. The tale is embel-
Brought (1888) and The Stories of My Four Friends (1900) reect lished with Andrews own historical facts and is a sentimental
her close observation of nature and her excitement at its processes. tale of Lincolns aid to a dying young Confederate soldier,
through whom Lincoln learns of the true greatness of his speech.
OTHER WORKS: Geographical Plays for Young Folks at Home Bathos, didacticism, and superpatriotism characterize this story,
and School (1880). The Childs Health Primer (1885). whose hero, Captain Blair, is virtually interchangeable with the
young, handsome, perfect heroes of many of Andrews other
works. Yet, the authors instinct for drama, her sincerity, and her
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Green, N. K., A Forgotten Chapter in American vivid description of Lincoln caused contemporary critics to over-
Education: Jane Andrews of Newburyport (1961). Hopkins, L. P., look the storys faults. The book went into many printings,
foreword to Jane Andrews Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the eventually selling more than 600,000 copies. It has been often
Round Ball That Floats in the Air (1897 ed.). Spofford, H. P., A anthologized, and its version of Lincoln has been read by thou-
Little Book of Friends (1916). sands of American schoolchildren.
Other references: EngElemR (May 1936).
In addition to her successful Lincoln tales, Andrews wrote a
KATHARYN F. CRABBE variety of stories which exemplify the types of magazine ction
popular with the American reader of the early 1900s. Whereas the
stories varied in content from love stories to adventure yarns to
patriotic war tales, they shared the common traits of superciality,
ANDREWS, Mary (Raymond) Shipman sentimentality, and melodramaalong with the ability to enter-
tain the reader. The best of them were her outdoor stories, many of
Born 2 April 1860, Mobile, Alabama; died 2 August 1936, which appeared in two collections, Bob and the Guides (1906),
Syracuse, New York written for and about young boys, and The Eternal Masculine, for
Daughter of Jacob Shaw and Ann Louise Gold Johns Shipman; adults. These stories of hunting, shing, and camping adventures
married William Shankland Andrews, 1884; children: Paul have a vitality which stems from Andrews own love of the
Shipman Andrews outdoors; in them, melodrama is kept to a minimum.
Mary Shipman Andrews, a popular ction writer of the early Although most of Andrews ction features male protago-
20th century, was raised and educated in Lexington, Kentucky, nists and takes place in the so-called masculine worlds of the
the oldest child of an Episcopalian minister. Her husband was a courtroom, the battleeld, and the wilderness, she wrote several
lawyer who later became a distinguished judge. Andrews lived stories from a womans point of view. Most of them are collected
29
ANDREWS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
in The Eternal Feminine, and vary in quality from the simplistic Andrews was conned at home partly due to an accident she
title story to the moving A Play to the Gallery. had as a teenager. She fell down the stairs at school, causing back
pain and spinal spurs, and it was years before the problem was
In her last years, Andrews realized that the audience for her accepted and treated by physicians. She spent her teenage years on
type of writing was declining and tried, unsuccessfully, to develop crutches and her adult life in a wheelchair because walking was so
a more modern approach. In themselves the stories have little painful. Giving up her dream of becoming an actress, she turned to
appeal for the modern reader; their interest lies primarily in their writing so that she could become many different characters in her
reection of popular literary taste of the early 20th century. imagination.
For seven years Andrews stayed up late writing, either by

OTHER WORKS: Vive LEmpereur (1902). A Kidnapped Colony sitting up in bed with a typewriter, or standing to write while
(1903). A Good Samaritan (1906). The Enchanted Forest (1909). wearing a back brace. By writing obsessively, sometimes as many
Counsel Assigned (1912). August First (with R. I. Murray, 1915). as 40 pages a night, Andrews produced 9 books and 20 short
Three Things (1915). Old Glory (1916). Joy in the Morning stories. She marketed them all but sold only a ctional piece for a
(1919). His Soul Goes Marching On (1922). Pontifex Maximus confessional magazine.
(1925). White Satin Dress (1930).
Andrews big break came in 1979 when Pocket Books
encouraged her to edit and then resubmit her 290,000-word novel,
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hopkins, J. G. E., The Scribner Treasury (1953). The Obsessed. After she had trimmed it down to 98 pages, she was
Reference works: The Junior Book of Authors, S. J. Kunitz, then asked to expand the novel by making it more sexually explicit
and H. Haycraft, eds. (1934). NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). Twentieth and grotesque. Renamed Flowers in the Attic, the novel became a
Century Authors, S. J. Kunitz, and H. Haycraft, eds. (1942). bestseller in two weeks. Detailing the lives of four children,
Other references: Newsweek (17 Oct. 1936). NYT (3 Cathy, Chris, Carrie, and Cory Dollanganger, who must live
Aug. 1936). hidden away in an attic, the novel was classied as horror. All the
children are products of incest, and their mother imprisons them
MARLENE KONDELIK because their grandfather might learn of their existence and cut
her out of his will. Incest between the older son and daughter is
also hinted at.
Andrews immediately began a sequel, and in 1980 Flowers

ANDREWS, V(irginia) C(leo) in the Attic was released as a hardcover and its sequel, Petals on
the Wind, was released as a paperback. Both appeared on the
bestseller lists that year, selling over seven million copies in two
Born 6 June 1924, Portsmouth, Virginia; died 19 December 1986,
years. Andrews advances surged from $7,500 to $35,000 to
Virginia Beach, Virginia
$75,000 for the third book in the series, If There Be Thorns,
Wrote under: V. C. Andrews
published in 1981. Again within two weeks, Andrews third novel
Daughter of Lillian Lilnora (Parker) and William Henry Andrews
appeared on the bestseller lists.
V. C. Andrews series of horror/gothic novels made her a In 1982 Andrews took a break from the Dollanganger series
worldwide bestselling author over her seven-year writing career. to write My Sweet Audrina. Despite its status as a stand-alone
Catering mainly to adolescent females, Andrews stories deal novel, it made sales comparable to those of her rst three books,
with young, frustrated, imprisoned, desperate characters who perhaps because of name recognition. My Sweet Audrina deals
manage to overcome their tragic situations and obtain revenge with a girls bizarre childhood in which she is forced by her family
against their oppressors. The novels tend to revolve around to forego her own identity for that of her dead sister. In 1984
forbidden love (particularly incest), rape, and child abuse. Their Andrews completed the saga of the Dollangangers with Seeds of
popularity has been attributed to Andrews ability to capture the Yesterday. She went on to begin another saga, this one concerning
feelings of adolescents who simultaneously feel the helplessness the Casteel family of West Virginia. Heaven (1985) was followed
of childhood and the negative side of adulthood. by Dark Angel (1986), which went to number one on the best
sellers chart two days after its release. Andrews was declared the
Andrews spent almost her entire childhood in Portsmouth, top bestselling author by the American Booksellers Association.
Virginia, with a brief sojourn in Rochester, New York. The
youngest of three children and the only daughter, Andrews Andrews died of breast cancer in 1986, but her name contin-
secured her rst library card and the opportunity to take art classes ues to be placed on the covers of new family sagas. Shortly before
at the local junior college at the age of seven. She later completed her death, Andrews stated that she had written down 63 synopses
a correspondence course in art over four years, going on to of novels she planned to write. Four books published after 1986
become a successful commercial artist and selling every piece she may have been completed by Andrew Neiderman, who continues
painted. to publish novels under her name.
30
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ANGELOU
OTHER WORKS: Garden of Shadows (1987). Fallen Hearts (1988). Gather Together in My Name (1974) is the second of
Gates of Paradise (1989). Web of Dreams (1990). Angelous autobiographical novels, and continues the story of her
search for meaning and security in an unstable world. Singin and
Swingin and Gettin Merry Like Christmas (1976) is the third
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Huntley, E. D., V. C. Andrews: A Critical Com-
autobiographical novel, and it traces Angelous rise to promi-
panion (1996). Winter, D., Faces of Fear (1985).
nence as a performer.
Reference works: CA 97-100 (1981). CANR 21 (1987).
Other references: LAT (obituary, 21 Dec. 1986). NYT (obitu- Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water Fore I Diiie (1971) is a
ary, 21 Dec. 1986). collection of 39 poems, divided into two parts: one group gentle
and personal, the other much more militant. Though this poetry
ROSE SECREST collection, her rst, received less critical attention than her novels,
it was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
Angelous career as poet, writer of autobiographical narra-
ANGELOU, Maya tives, dramatist, and teacher continued in the 1980s and 1990s in
much the same energetic vein as her earlier career. Appointed to a
Born Marguerite Johnson, 4 April 1928, St. Louis, Missouri lifetime chair as Z. Smith Reynolds Professor of American
Daughter of Bailey and Vivian Baxter Johnson; married Tosh Studies at Wake Forest University in 1981, Angelou has since
Angelou (divorced); Paul Du Feu, 1973 published more autobiographical narratives, volumes of poetry,
and a book-length poem for children entitled Life Doesnt Fright-
Upon the breakup of her parents marriage, Angelou and her en Me (1993). She has also authored the screenplay for a televi-
older brother were sent to live with their paternal grandmother, sion drama and hosted and written a series of documentaries,
Annie Henderson, in Stamps, Arkansas. She lived there until Maya Angelou: A Journey of the Heart. During the 1993 inaugural
her graduation with honors from Lafayette County Training ceremony of President Clinton, Angelou read her celebratory poem.
School in 1940. The Heart of a Woman (1981), Angelous fourth autobio-
Angelou then moved to San Francisco to live with her graphical narrative, describes her beginnings as a serious writer
mother. In 1944, after graduation from Mission High School, she and her involvement with the Harlem Writers Guild. It also traces
gave birth to a son, Guy, the product of an affair with a neighbors her career as a performer during the period of the Civil Rights and
son. As a teenager Angelou studied dance and drama in San Black Power movements of the 1950s and 1960s and her move to
Francisco. In the 1950s she performed in nightclubs in San Egypt with her husband, a South African revolutionary. Becom-
Francisco and New York, and appeared in Porgy and Bess as part ing increasingly active politically, she shifted away from the
of a 22-country tour of Europe and Africa. In 1966, Angelou pacist politics of Martin Luther King towards the nationalist
joined the Theatre of Being in Hollywood, and by 1970 she was a philosophy of Malcolm X. Much of the book is concerned with the
writer-in-residence at the University of Kansas and lecturer at question of gender roles in her relationships to her son, Guy
Yale University. In this year she published the rst of her Johnson (born 1944), and to her husband. The book ends with the
autobiographical works. breakup of her marriage and her decision to take a job at the
University of Ghana.
Angelous rst autobiographical novel, I Know Why the
Caged Bird Sings (1970), is an account of her childhood in Angelous fourth collection of poetry, Shaker, Why Dont
Stamps, a year in St. Louis when at the age of seven she was raped You Sing? (1983), consists primarily of short lyrics marking
by her mothers boyfriend, her return to Stamps, and nally a personal and broader social losses. The poems often strike a
move to San Francisco. The novel records the growth of Angelou muted blues tone, describing the effects of racism and disap-
from an awkward, insecure young girl to a teenage mother. pointed, betrayed, or faded love. A number of poems as well as the
Although essentially a novel of afrmation and hope, I Know Why titletaken from the song John Henryinvoke the culture
excellently portrays Angelous plight. If growing up is painful and history of African Americans in the South.
for the Southern black girl, being aware of her displacement is the All Gods Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986) continues
rust on the razor that threatens the throat. Against the insecurity the story of Angelous life in Ghana, describing her search for and
stemming from blackness, however, Angelou counters the securi- encounters with an African heritage as well as with the patriarchal
ty provided by her grandmothers general store and her grand- aspects of postcolonial African society and her difculties in
mothers hope of salvation as promised by her church. In these raising her son. Concluding the book with a description of African
two settingsstore and churchare placed some of the graphic oral memory of the slave trade and its losses, Angelou reafrms
images which are the real strength of this book, and it is here that her African inheritance as she returns to the United States.
some of Angelous ne humorous scenes appear. I Know Why the
Caged Bird Sings has been cited as a signicant work in the black Now Sheba Sings the Song (1987), a single long poem
autobiographical tradition. It has received numerous honors, been illustrated by Tom Feeling, is an answer to the biblical Song of
reprinted many times, and stayed on the New York Times paper- Solomon, praising the beauty of all women from the womans
back nonction bestseller list for over two years. It is generally point of view. The moods of Angelous fth collection of poetry, I
considered Angelous best work. Shall Not Be Moved (1990), vary considerably from poem to
31
ANGIER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
poem. Some are celebratory chronicling personal and general OTHER WORKS: Georgia, Georgia (1972). Oh Pray My Wings Are
African American survival in the face of racism and the decay of Gonna Fit Me Well (1975). And Still I Rise (1978). Lessons in
urban America; others are elegiac. A number reect the legacy of Living (1993). The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou
colonialism and the international slave trade and what she sees as (1994). Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems for Women (1995). A
continuing American neocolonialism. As elsewhere, Angelou Brave and Startling Truth (1995).
seeks to establish the continuity of African American culture and Plays: Cabaret for Freedom (1960), The Least of These
the struggles for freedom on the part of black women from slavery (1966), Gettin Up Stayed on my Mind (1967), Ajax (1974).
to the present, most notably in Our Grandmothers. Screenplays: Georgia, Georgia (1972), All Day Long (1974).
The papers of Maya Angelou are housed in the Z. Smith
While Angelous poetry and prose writings are arguably Reynolds Library of Wake Forest University.
uneven, her autobiographical narrative, viewed in its entirety,
forms a moving chronicle of a black womans very personal
engagement with the great movements and moments of African BIBLIOGRAPHY: Davis, T. and T. Harris, eds., Afro-American
American history since the 1940s. It is also perhaps the most Writers After 1955: Dramatists and Prose Writers (1985). Elliott,
important modern extension of the tradition of African American J. M., ed., Conversations with Maya Angelou (1989). Evans, M.,
autobiography that reaches back to the 18th century. ed., Black Women Writers (1950-1980): A Critical Evaluation
(1984). Gates, H. L., ed., Reading Black, Reading Feminist
Collections of short autobiographical essays still are a staple (1990). McPherson, D., Order Out of Chaos: The Autobiographi-
of Angelous art. Wouldnt Take Nothing for My Journey Now cal Works of Maya Angelou (1990). Tate, C., ed., Black Women
(1993) discusses in 24 pieces her faith and spirituality as they Writers at Work (1983). Thompson, K., Black Women in America
relate to death of loved ones, her personal style, racism, and (1993). Weixlmann, J., ed., Belief vs. Theory in Black American
pregnancy. In it she inspires her readers with her sense that life is a Literary Criticism (1986).
neverending adventure. The sister volume to this work Even the Reference works: ANR (1998). CA (Online, 1999). CANR
Stars Look Lonesome (1997) examines the mixed blessings of (1987). CB (1974, 1994). FC (1990). Modern American Women
success in 20 brief commentaries. It is intellectually provocative Writers (1991). NBAW (1992). Oxford Companion to Womens
and presented with humor and humility. Writing in the United States (1995).
Other references: America (7 Feb. 1976). Atlantic Monthly
Angelous writing for children, which was prompted by (Sept. 1990). Black American Literature Forum (1988). Booklist
childrens responses to her appearance on Sesame Street, resulted (1 Oct. 1994, 1 Mar. 1997, Aug. 1997). Ebony (Feb. 1982).
in My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken, and Me (1994) and Kansas Quarterly (1975). Massachusetts Review (1989). Macleans
Ko and His Magic (1996). The rst is the story of a young (9 Oct.1995). America (7 Feb. 1976). National Review (29 Nov.
Ndebele girls favorite things in her South African village; the 1993). NR (23 Aug.1993). NYT (15 Nov. 1998, 25 Dec. 1998).
second is about a seven-year-old West African boy who uses the NYTBR (24 March 1972). Poetry (June 1976). PW (27 Sept. 1993,
magic of closing his eyes and opening his mind to move from 4 Aug. 1997). SR (30 Oct. 1976). SHR (1973). Writers Digest
place to place. Both works combine photographs of Africa with (Jan. 1997).
the stories and show Angelous propensity for incorporating vivid
visual images with her work. ANNE ROWE,
UPDATED BY JAMES SMETHURST AND PAULA C. MURPHY
Her interest in images has led her to become involved with
various media projects. The most important of these was her rst
lm directing experience with Down in the Delta (1998). This
lm, about a Chicago-based African American family moving ANGIER, Natalie
back to the strength and security of their ancestral home in
Mississippi, gave Angelou an opportunity to focus on presenting Born 1958, Bronx, New York
her familiar themes of self-sacrice and love in a new way. Other Married Rick Weiss; children: Katherine
undertakings she participated in included writing for Oprah Winfrey,
writing poetry for and appearing in John Singletons lm Poetic Natalie Angier is a Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer for
Justice (1993) as well as appearing as the master quilter in Jocelyn the New York Times and the author of three books about scientists
Moorhouses movie How to Make an American Quilt (1995). and scientic discovery. She is known for making complicated
subjects understandable and interesting to the lay reader, often
Angelous work reects her interest in the inexhaustible
adding her own personal slant.
capacity of African Americans and human beings in general to
survive injustice, hardship, and defeat and to go on with renewed Bronx, New York-born Angier was one of four brothers and
hope and love. She infuses a needy world with this positive sisters in a working-class family. She rst attended the University
message in as many forms and to as many age groups and types of of Michigan and then Barnard, where her work in literature,
people as she can. As a result, she remains one of Americas physics, and astronomy foreshadowed her future multidisciplinary
leading African American female spokespersons. interests. She received her B.A. degree in 1978 and embarked on
32
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ANNEKE
two years of graduate studies in medieval literature before accept- ever, we need good interpreters, and Natalie Angier is one who is
ing her rst writing job as a technical writer at Texas Instruments. constitutionally incapable of writing a boring sentence.
In 1980 she became a researcher at Discover, a magazine Angiers latest book, Woman: An Intimate Geography (1999),
being launched by Time Inc., where she was soon promoted to is a feminist work that tears down many tenets of evolutionary
writer and began specializing in evolutionary biology. Angier left psychology dealing with male-female relationships and is supple-
Discover for a brief tenure at a womens magazine before becom- mented by Angiers personal experiences. Sharon Begley of
ing Times science writer from 1984 to 1990. Newsweek called the book a treasure chest of did-you-knows.
When the New York Times molecular biology writer retired In Discover, Polly Shulman wrote, [Woman] combines
in 1990, Angier assumed that position and, within a year, had won lyrical descriptions of the female body with a spirited defense of
the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for science reporting. She has also re- science done right. She added, Linguistic puritans who believe
ceived a science journalism award from the American Association that the only scientically valid description is a dry one will nd
for the Advancement of Science and a Lewis Thomas Award. plenty of lush, metaphoric language to cringe at, but they will have
a harder time nding aws in the reasoning. Schulman echoes
Angiers rst book, Natural Obsessions: The Search for the the views of other critics who nd Angiers writing style occa-
Oncogene (1988), examines the work of two teams of molecular sionally over the top, although they consistently praise her scien-
biologists competing to be rst to isolate the gene for retinoblastoma, tic arguments.
a juvenile eye cancer. Angiers approach, analogous to that of an
anthropologist, resulted in a book as much about the scientists Marilyn Yalom, on the other hand, is one of the many
personal traits, good and bad, as it was about the discovery itself. observers who enjoy Angiers way with prose. Writing in the New
York Times Book Review, Yalom found Angiers ights into
Reviewer Anthony Van Niel, M.D., writing in the New poetic rapture to be one of the books strengths, adding, The
England Journal of Medicine, took issue with her fast-paced book is a rollicking celebration of womanhood. In Publishers
portrayal of science, which ignores the painstaking tedium so Weekly, Ann Darby wrote of Angier, Tackling unusual, some-
much a part of the discipline, as well as with her denition of times even repugnant topics in vivid, playful and acrobatic prose,
success in the world of science. The signicance of can- she has developed a style and an approach to stories that are
cer-ghting discoveries tends to get lost here amid soul-search- distinctly hers. Gifted with a voracious and wide-ranging curiosi-
ing, petty rivalries and tentative experiments, he wrote. He ty, she is always on the watch for exotic and sometimes whimsical
continued, however, by saying, She does a superb job of subjects.
educating the reader in the basics of molecular biology pertinent
In interviews, Angier has commented on her tendency to
to oncogenes (a formidable task!), so that it is easy to follow the
personalize the topics about which she writes, noting that she
sequence of investigations and share in the highs and lows of
approaches her subject idiosyncratically, with my biases, im-
difcult experiments. What she seems to enjoy even more is
pressions and desires apping out like the tongue of an untucked
populating the laboratory with an assortment of the most uncom-
blouse.
mon characters. All have a story, perhaps only remotely related to
their work, that serves to make them human.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Other references: Discover (May 1999). News-
Angiers second book, The Beauty of the Beastly: New Views
week (12 Apr. 1999). New England Journal of Medicine (6 Apr.
on the Nature of Life (1995), is a collection of essays, many of
1989). NYTBR (10 Jul. 1988, 18 June 1995, 8 Apr. 1999). PW (22
which rst appeared in the New York Times, offered there in a
Apr. 1988, 8 May 1995, 22 Mar. 1999).
revised and more personal form. She offers an evolutionary view
of subjects, including parental and sexual behavior of various KAREN RAUGUST
species, among other issues. One primary theme, which appears
throughout much of her writing, is that the ugly can be beautiful,
and vice versa. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly wrote, Not
afraid to anthropomorphize, she even sees molecules as characters ANNEKE, Mathilde Franziska Giesler
in little plays; the decadence of orchids, she says, would make
Oscar Wilde wilt. . . .From cockroaches to cheetahs, DNA to
elephant dung, Angier gives us intimate and dramatic portraits of Born 3 April 1817, Lerchenhausen, Westphalia; died 25 Novem-
nature that readers will nd rewarding. ber 1884, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Also wrote under: Mathilde Franziska
The New York Times Book Review praised Angiers knowl- Daughter of Karl and Elizabeth Hulswitt Giesler; married Alfred
edge of science and her ability to put forth new theories rather than von Tabouillet, 1836; Fritz Anneke, 1847
simply summarize others. Graphic description and colorful
simile, traditional tools of natural history popularizers, are not The oldest of 12 children, Mathilde Franziska Giesler Anneke
found wanting. . . . But the touch of urbane irony, the ever-present received a strict Roman Catholic education. Her marriage, at age
smile in the fold of the phrasethese are rare gifts that shine with nineteen, to a loose-living and autocratic French wine merchant
unaccustomed splendor in this most engaging writer. More than ended soon in divorce. Anneke spent the next 10 years writing and
33
ANTHONY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
translating poetry, and writing a drama and two prayer books for Home Cemetery simply reads: We have never bent the knee
Catholic women. before false Gods; / We have never cowered in strong weather.
Annekes second marriage was to a discharged Prussian

artillery ofcer with revolutionary ideals. During the political OTHER WORKS: Deutsche Frauenzeitung (1852-1855).
activity of 1848, Anneke published Neue Klnische Zeitung, a
revolutionary journal, and Deutsche Frauen Zeitung, the rst BIBLIOGRAPHY: Heinzen, H. M. et al, Biographical Notes in
womens publication in western Europe. Both journals were Commemoration of Fritz Anneke and M.F. Anneke (manuscript
quickly suppressed, the rst because it advocated the rights of the in the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 2 vols. 1940).
people over the aristocracy, and the second because it championed Krueger, L., Madame Anneke: An Early Wisconsin Journalist,
the social emancipation and equality of women. Fritz Anneke led in WMH 21 (1937).
a force of soldiers in the German Palatinate during the Revolution Reference works: National Cyclopedia of American Biogra-
of 1848, and Anneke rode by his side into battle. After defeat, phy (1892 et seq.). NAW, 1607-1950 (1971).
however, the two ed Germany and eventually settled in Milwau- Other references: Milwaukee Historical Messenger (1967).
kee, Wisconsin, in 1849.
DIANE LONG HOEVELER
Annekes rst writings, published under the name Mathilde
Franziska, reveal her strict Catholic upbringing. Her poems in
Heimatsgruss (1840) display the dreams and longings of a woman
reared in an oppressive atmosphere. Anneke left the Catholic ANPETU WATE
church after her divorce in 1839, but it was not until 1847, the year See DELORIA, Ella Cara
of her marriage and her fathers death, that she became a free-
thinker. That year saw the publication of her pamphlet Das Weib
in Konikt mit den sozialen Verhltnissen (Women in Conict
with Social Conditions), a pamphlet advocating suffrage ANTHONY, Susan B(rownell)
for women.
Born 15 February 1820, Adams, Massachusetts; died 13 March
After settling in Milwaukee with her husband and their six 1906, Rochester, New York
children, Anneke founded Deutsche Frauenzeitung, a feminist Daughter of Lucy (Read) and Daniel Anthony
journal published monthly at a press that utilized women as
printers. In an effort to sabotage the journal, a German typographi- Susan B. Anthony was the daughter of a Quaker father and
cal union formed and demanded that printing rms re any Baptist mother. She received a thoroughly Quaker education,
women who worked as printers and compositors. Although Anneke which inuenced her belief in equality between men and women
attempted to ght the union, she and her husband decided to move as well as her interest in other social issues. She began her
east, settling in Newark, New Jersey, where she published her professional life as a schoolteacher, discovering rsthand the
journal weekly for two-and-a-half years. effects of disproportionate wages. In 1849 she decided to quit
teaching and returned to her familys farm.
Anneke also furthered the issue of womens rights by public
speaking. She addressed more than 500 Milwaukeeans in 1850, Although she is strongly linked with Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
the two women did not meet until 1850, two years after the famous
and spoke at the womans rights convention held in New York in
Seneca Falls convention during which Stanton introduced a
1853. After separating from her husband in 1861, Anneke spent
woman suffrage amendment. From the moment of their meeting,
the Civil War years in Switzerland with a friend, Mary Booth, to
however, the women were friends and colleagues. Anthony had
whom she dedicated one of her best known poems, The
already been drawn to other reform movements, especially tem-
Last Song. perance and abolition, in part because her familys household was
Anneke returned to Milwaukee in 1865 as a correspondent frequently populated by noted agitators such as Frederick Doug-
lass and William Lloyd Garrison. One of the most dramatic
for German newspapers, but she quickly dedicated herself again
moments in her conversion to the womens rights movement, in
to womens activities by cofounding with Cecilia Kapp and
fact, came through her participation in other reform work; in 1852
Amalia von Ende the Tchter Institut in 1865. Anneke not only
she was prohibited from speaking, by virtue of her sex, at a
acted as principal, she also taught courses in every area of the
temperance meeting. Her response was to form the Womans New
curriculumsocial problems, economics, and languages. York State Temperance Society. Within another year, she had
committed herself wholeheartedly to womens rights, especially
Anneke remained active in suffrage activities by helping to
suffrage, and this cause was to occupy her for the rest of her life.
found the Wisconsin woman suffrage association in 1869. Two
years before her death in 1884 she saw her drama, Othone, oder As a reformer, she was frequently held up to parody and
die Tempelweihe (1844, The Dedication of the Temple), per- scorn. She was ridiculed because of her physical appearance, her
formed at the Milwaukee Stadt Theater. Her headstone in Forest dressshe adopted for a time the Bloomer outtand her
34
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ANTHONY
status as an unmarried woman. In part because of this response, as heir to her savings of $10,000. She is buried in Mount Hope
she did not enjoy appearing on stage as a public speaker, but she Cemetery in Rochester, New York.
remained relentless in her work for justice.
During the decade preceding and during the Civil War,
Anthony became increasingly committed to abolition; beginning OTHER WORKS: The personal papers of Susan B. Anthony are
in 1856, she served as a New York agent for the American housed in a number of institutions, including the Library of
Anti-Slavery Society. Contemporary critics frequently cite her for Congress, Radcliffe College, and the Susan B. Anthony Memorial
failing to wholeheartedly support the 14th amendment to the in Rochester, New York
Constitution, providing black men the right to vote, though she
had supported the 13th, which abolished slavery. Anthonys goal,
however, was universal suffrage, and she was severely disap- BIBLIOGRAPHY: Anthony, K. S., Susan B. Anthony: Her Personal
pointed a suffrage amendment would pass that did not include History and Her Era (1954). Barry, K., Susan B. Anthony (1988).
women. She did argue that if achievement of the right to vote Dorr, P. C., Susan B. Anthony, The Woman Who Changed the
should be staggered among various groups, white women should Mind of a Nation (1928). DuBois, E. C., Feminism and Suffrage:
receive it before black men, because white women of the time The Emergence of the Independent Womens Movement in Ameri-
tended to be more highly educated than black men. She also ca, 1848-1869 (1978). DuBois, E. C., ed., Elizabeth Cady Stanton
predicted antagonism to woman suffrage would grow if more men and Susan B. Anthony: Correspondence, Writings, Speeches
were allowed to vote and that black male suffrage would be a (1981). Harper, I. H., The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (3
roadblock rather than a step on the way to woman suffrage. vols., 1898-1908). Lutz, A., Susan B. Anthony (1959).
Through the funding of George Francis Train, Anthony Reference works: Appletons Cyclopedia of American Biog-
helped to establish the suffrage newspaper Revolution. Its rst raphy (1888). DAB (1929, 1957). NAW (1971). Oxford Compan-
issue was published in January 1868. Anthony was listed as ion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995).
publisher, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury
serving as editors. Unfortunately for Anthonys enduring reputa- LYNN DOMINA
tion, the paper strongly opposed the 14th amendment because it
did not include women. The amendment, in other words, was not
radical enough, and the paper supported additional radical ideas,
especially as they related to issues of gender, such as equal pay for
men and women, better education for girls, more professional ANTHONY, Susanna
options for women, and easier access to divorce. The paper
quickly ran into nancial difculties, however, especially after
Train withdrew his support. By 1870 the paper had acquired Born 25 October 1726, Newport, Rhode Island; died 23 June
$10,000 of debt, which Anthony retained in selling the paper to 1791, Newport, Rhode Island
Laura Curtis Bullard. Daughter of Isaac and Mercy Chamberlin Anthony
In 1869 Anthony and Stanton had formed the National

Woman Suffrage Association. Later that year, other suffragists Susanna Anthony was the sixth of seven daughters in a
who opposed some of the tactics and philosophies of Anthony and goldsmiths family. Her life was devoted to God. She left Newport
Stanton formed the American Woman Suffrage Association; the only during the revolutionary war, when she taught school in the
two groups would not reunite for 20 years. To urge the suffrage countryside, and for brief periods of time to regain her health.
issue forward, Anthony voted illegally in the 1872 presidential
election. She was arrested and pronounced guilty in a highly Anthonys only writings are published excerpts from her
questionable decision by a judge who refused to acknowledge the diaries and her personal correspondence, both published posthu-
role of the jury. Anthony refused to pay her ne but was mously by prominent gures in the Congregationalist church in
prohibited from carrying the case to the Supreme Court, which she the hope that her thorough commitment to Christ would inspire
had hoped would exonerate her. piety in others. The noted Samuel Hopkins, D.D., found a
remarkable example of devotion in Anthonys writings, which
Anthonys primary publication is the History of Woman
consist mainly of self-examination of her sinful nature and
Suffrage (1881-1902), which she coauthored with Stanton and
pleas to God to forgive her for her sins.
Matilda Joslyn Gage. The complete edition of this work continues
to function as a crucial historical document for scholars working Although Anthonys writing is not sophisticated, her philo-
in this area. sophical arguments areif not formidableprecocious, espe-
In 1892 Anthony moved in with her sister in Rochester, New cially in view of her lack of schooling. Permeated with religious
York, where she remained for the rest of her life, though she fervor, her work tends toward the monotonous and didactic,
remained active in local, state, and national politics. By the time of appealing to emotion rather than intellect. Before Anthony had
her death in 1906, she had become more of a national heroine than committed herself to religion, however, she tried to arrive at the
an object of ridicule. In her will she named the suffrage movement truth in a rational manner. It is in these questioning passages of her
35
ANTIN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
diary that her writing is most interesting and most intellectual. In ANTIN, Mary
attempting to discern the benets of a religious life, Anthony
postulated a dialogue between her soul and an objector. The soul
argued for a religious life; the objector warned that if she were to Born 1881, Polotzk, Russia; died 15 May 1949, Suffern, New York
choose a strictly holy life, she would be disdained by society. The Daughter of Israel and Esther Weltman Antin; married Amadeus
soul concluded the discussion, stating, I value the approbation of William Grabau, 1901
the most high God before the esteem of poor mortals.
Mary Antins father, frustrated by czarist restrictions and
Anthonys choice of a devoutly religious life involved more
Jewish orthodoxy, immigrated to Boston in 1891. Antins educa-
than simply embracing the Christian faith with renewed ardor; it
tion progressed spectacularly in America and her teachers encour-
required a break with her parents religion, for they were Quakers
aged the prodigy; her family, despite worsening poverty, support-
and she was about to be baptized in the Congregationalist church.
ed her continued education at the Girls Latin School. As a
In her diaries, Anthony has recorded her agitation over telling her
member of the Natural History Club, she met and later married
parents of her choice and employed logical arguments in support
of the Congregationalist faith to assuage her feelings of guilt. Her geologist Amadeus William Grabau, a descendant of Lutheran
parents, however, were quite content to let Anthony make up her pastors. Moving to New York in 1901 Antin attended Teachers
own mind and she broke with the Quakers at the age of fteen. College, Columbia and Barnard (1901-1904), though without
taking a degree. In these years Antin was introduced to transcen-
Her intellectual dialogue was written when she was seven- dentalism, liberal Jewish thought, and sympathy with wom-
teen, a time at which her arguments for religion were rational and ens issues.
appeal to the intellect, while her arguments for abandoning
religion and embracing society appeal to the emotions. Once In The Promised Land (1912, reissued 1997), rst serialized
Anthony had accepted religion as a way of life, her writing in the Atlantic Monthly, Antin argued against the growing clamor
became less intellectual, consisting mainly of exhortations to God for restrictive immigration laws (which she later explicitly op-
to keep her from sinning and castigations of herself for not being posed in her polemical essay, They Who Knock at Our Gates,
truly faithful to God, despite her devout behavior and reputation 1914). Praising American democracy and its institutions as con-
for piety. ducive to individual development and expression, Antin charac-
terized her assimilation as a journey from medieval to modern
In publishing her memoirs, Reverend Hopkins stated that thought. She included material from her girlhood narrative, From
Anthonys writings were proof of the truth of the Christian Polotzk to Boston (1899, reissued 1986), which was based on
religion. Anthonys letters, however, give a better insight into her letters to her Russian uncle.
life than do the diaries, for they contain comments on daily living,
and explore her relationships with her friends. They are less Describing conditions in Russia, the passage to America, and
self-concerned than the diaries, and clearly less self-conscious. subsequent acculturation, Antin speaks to a gentile, native-born
American audience, while reproducing her childhood emotions
Anthonys writing is neither elegant nor profound, but it and psychology. Successful as a chronicler, she often fails to
serves a greater purpose than merely exemplifying Christianity in acknowledge or adequately analyze the problems of marginality
its most devout aspect; it illustrates graphically the role of religion evidenced in her autobiography. Though speaking for past gen-
in the life of a single woman in 18th-century New England. erations as well as contemporary fellow immigrants, Antin views
the act of narration as a release from her clinging past. She
deals with the disintegration of family life, threats to moral
OTHER WORKS: The Life and Character of Miss Susanna An- education and religious integrity in slum conditions, and assimila-
thony, who died in Newport (R.I.) June 23, MDCCXCI, in the tion; but such problems are drowned in her paean to American
sixty-fth year of her age consisting chiey in Extracts from Her opportunities. With some self-irony, Antin depicts her girlhood
Writings, with some Brief Observations on them (ed. S. Hopkins, rejection of Judaism for Americanism, but concludes she values
1769). Familiar Letters, written by Mrs. Sarah Osborn, and Miss the living seed of her religion when freed from its prickly
Susanna Anthony, late of Newport, Rhode-Island (1807). Mem- husk of orthodoxy.
oirs of Miss Susanna Anthony consisting chiey in extracts from
her writings and observations respecting them (ed. E. Pond, 1844). Antins work, though not presenting incisive social criticism,
provides a sensitive and idealistic chronicle of immigrant experi-
ence in the early 20th century.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: A Critical Dictionary of Eng-
lish Literature and British and American Authors (1858-1871).
American Biographical Dictionary (1857). BIBLIOGRAPHY: Handlin, O., foreword to M. Antins The Prom-
ised Land (1969). Lindenberg, K., The Effects of Gender on the
RISA GERSON Americanization of Jewish Immigrants: A Case Study of Mary
36
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ANZALDA
Antin (honors thesis, 1995). Salz, E., The Letters of Mary Racism, contains several earlier pieces, an unfortunate indicator
Antin: A Life Divided (thesis, 1995). the problems identied in Bridge persist. More recent essays
Reference works: Dictionary of American Biography, Na- focus on new forms of racism and the appropriation of discourse
tional Cyclopedia of American Biography (1892 et seq.). NAW on difference. Anzaldas introduction addresses the continuing
1607-1950 (1971). marginalization of women of color and the silencing of their
Other references: The Independent (22 Aug. 1912). NYT (14 voices, and her essay, En rapport, in Opposition: Cobrando
Apr. 1912, 18 May 1949). Outlook (June 1912). Yale Review cuentas a las nuestras contributes to the signicant debate on
(Oct. 1912). colorism and cross-racial hostility.
HELEN J. SCHWARTZ The rst six essays on Borderlands/La Frontera introduce

the concept of mestizaje, or hybridity, and inscribe a serpentine
movement through different kinds of mestizaje of races, genders,
languages, and the mind/body dichotomy. These mestizajes break
ANZALDA, Gloria down dualisms in the production of a third thing that is neither the
one nor the other but something else: the mestiza, Chicano
Born 26 September 1942, Jesus Maria of the Valley, Texas language, the lesbian and gay, the animal soul, the writing that
Daughter of Urbano and Amalia Garca Anzalda makes face.
Homeland relates the history of the border between the U.S.
Gloria Anzalda , a seventh-generation American, grew up in and Mexico. Problematizing the concept of home in the second
the Ro Grande Valley of South Texas. In the hardship of essay, Anzalda records her rebellion against her cultures betray-
eldwork, Anzalda found a love and respect for the land and the
al of women and rejection of the Indian side of Mexican cultural
people who work it. She received her B.A. from Pan American
identity. To remain within the safe boundaries of home re-
University (1969) and an M.A. in English and Education from the
quired the repression of her gender, her dark-skinned self, and her
University of Texas at Austin (1972). She has done further study
lesbian identity. Paradoxically, she must leave home to nd home.
at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Anzalda has been a
contributing editor of the journal Sinister Wisdom since 1984. In her next two essays, Anzalda formulates her project as
self-writing subject: to create a new home, a new mythology, a
As a working-class Chicana lesbian, Anzalda experiences
new mestiza culture, to fashion my own gods out of my
multiple sources of oppression; her writing traces the complex
entrails. Firstly, How to Tame a Wild Tongue recounts both
interrelations among them in texts that blend poetry and theory,
Anzaldas refusal to remain silent and the ways in which her
analysis and visceral engagement, Spanish and English. Besides
language is not appropriate according to dominant norms. The
her collections of essays and poems, Borderlands: La Frontera
The New Mestiza (1987; second edition forthcoming October language of the border transgresses the boundaries between
1999), Anzalda has edited two anthologies of writing by U.S. Spanish and English, high and low decorum, insider and outsider
women of color, both of which commonly appear as required speech, forming another kind of homeland. Using the Nahuatl
reading on Womens Studies syllabi. notion of writing as creating face, heart, and soul, Anzalda
elaborates the notion that it is only through the body that the soul
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of can be transformed. In her last essay, Anzalda denes mestiza
Color (1981), is coedited with Cherre Moraga. The book grew or border consciousness: not relativism or pluralism, not
out of the experiences of women of color active in the womens repositioning of the subject as Other or Different in binary
movement who were politicized by the need to develop a feminist relationship to the Same or Dominant, but rather the tolerance
analysis of all structures of domination, including race, class, for contradictions. The new mestiza is the site or point of
culture, and sexual practice as well as gender. Besides calling conuence of conicting subject positions.
attention to the absence of gender and sexuality in Ethnic Studies
research paradigms, Bridge has also played a crucial role in the Images in Anzaldas poetry in Borderlands show the mestiza
shift of white feminist theory from an exclusive focus on gender consciousness in the esh. In Letting Go, the female
oppression and sexual difference to differences among and subjectpart sh, part woman, is produced through the transgres-
within women. In Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World sion of bodys borders. The mestiza survivors of the nuclear
Women Writers, Anzalda writes of the need for women of holocaust have newly evolved double eyelids that give them the
color to legitimize the voice that emerges from their specic power to look at the sun with naked eyes in No se raje,
experiences, rather than imitating dominant literary models. La Chicanita, and the border crossing between the alien and the
Prieta (the dark girl or woman) foreshadows Borderlands in its human occurs in Interface.
focus on her relationship to the dark, Indian part of her self and the
Up to now Anzaldas Borderlands has been her most
place of the indigenous in her culture and her sexuality.
powerful published work. With minor exceptions, this difcult to
In 1990, Anzalda edited Making Face/Making Soul/Haciendo classify and quite bold work that uses the metaphor of the
Caras: Creating and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color, borderlands well, has received very favorable reviews by its
intended to continue where This Bridge Called My Back left critics. The text as a whole is rich, quite potent at times, and
off. The rst section, Still Trembles Our Rage in the Face of thought-provoking to the point of posing an intellectual and
37
APPLETON-WEBER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
emotional challenge to the reader, to revise, re-identify with, Third Woman (1989). Trivia (Spring 1989). Women and Lan-
rethink concepts of race, sexuality and relationships, to better guage (1989).
understand language itself, myths and religion, sexuality, ethnici-
ty and cultures. At the same time, it is accessible even if at times YVONNE YARBRO-BEJARANO,
the style appears somewhat unpolished from an academic point of UPDATED BY ANA ROCA
view and can use some editing. This is also her particular
imaginative rhetoric, her eclectic way of communicating, of
writing and crossing the borders of genre, her way of deconstructing
cultural systems and visions, giving the us the readers a stronger
taste of her authenticity and her perspectives as we connect with APPLETON, Sarah
her multiple voices documenting her own experiences as: a See APPLETON-WEBER, Sarah
woman, a Chicana of indigenous and multilingual roots, and as a
lesbian writerall selves struggling and redening her selves and
her roles in an antagonistic culture in a postcolonial era. Her
borders, our borders are clearly not just geographic, but are
spiritual while ever-present whenever cultures, races, different APPLETON, Victor, II
economic classes and languages inhabit the same environments See ADAMS, Harriet Stratemeyer
and come into natural contact.
Anchoring the sense of fragmented identity in the specic
historical experience of the borderlands, Anzaldas writing makes a
crucial contribution to the development of theories of gender, APPLETON-WEBER, Sarah
diversity and subjectivity. Her books are read widely and are
pretty standard readings in Womens Studies and Chicana/o
Born 14 April 1930, New York, New York
Studies courses.
Also writes under: Sarah Appleton
Anzaldas Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Daughter of William C. and Ellen S. Merriman Appleton;
Creative and Critical Perspectives by Feminists of Color (Aunt married Joseph G. Weber, 1965; children: Elizabeth, David
Lute Books, 1990), won the Lambda Literary Best Small Book
Press Award. Anzalda has also received many other awards and Sarah Appleton-Weber is a poet, scholar, and translator
recognitions, such as the NEA Fiction Award, the Before Colum-
whose work is unied by a transforming movement into poetry,
bus Foundation American Book Award for Making Face, Making
plant and animal life, and evolutionary forms. Preparation for this
Soul/Haciendo Caras the 1991 Lesbian Rights Award, and the
work has involved the study of poetry and sacred history, analogy
Sapho Award of Distinction. She was also a Rockefeller Visiting
and symbolism, and the natural sciences, as well as training in
Scholar in 1991 while at the University of Arizona. Today she
cosmic forms through making a new edition and translation of
continues teaching, giving invited lectures, and writing about
Teilhard de Chardins Le Phnomne humain.
culture, politics and interconnectedness.
Appleton-Webers poetry (published under the name Sarah
OTHER WORKS: Prietita and the Ghost Woman: Prietita y la Appleton) is marked by the utter attentiveness, heart delicacy
Llorona (1986). Friends from the Other Side (also as Friends from with which we need to listen to and read the book of the Earth.
the Other Side/Side/Amigos del otro lado, 1993). Her rst sequence of poems, A Plenitude We Cry For (1972),
written in the rhetoric of a small horse chestnut tree outside her
window in Northampton, Massachusetts, records the transforma-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Caldern, H., et al., eds., Criticism in the Border- tions of the tree and her own life through a seasons growth.
lands, Studies in Chicano Literature, Culture, and Ideology Ladder of the Worlds Joy (1977) was born from the energy and
(1991). Garcia, M., and E. McCracken, eds., Rearticulations: The joy of reading Teilhard de Chardins Le Phnomne humain,
Practice of Chicano Cultural Studies (1994). Gmez Hernndez, A., recording the stages, as she read, of human cosmic birth and
Gloria Anzalda: Enfrentando el desafo in Cuadernos transformation.
americanos (1996). Gonzlez, A., et al., eds., Mujer y literatura
mexicana y chicana: Culturas en contacto (1990). Sims, N., ed., After completing Ladder of the Worlds Joy, Appleton-
Literary Journalism in the Twentieth Century (1990). Trimmer, J., Weber returned to Teilhards book, translating it word by word, to
and T. Warnock, eds., Understanding Others: Cultural and discover the secret of its energy. Out of this came a third sequence
Cross-Cultural Studies and the Teaching of Literature (1992). of poems, Book of My Hunger, Book of the Earth (unpublished;
Reference works: Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in though many portions have appeared in poetry journals). This is
the United States (1995). an autobiographical sequence reecting the work of the poet and
Other references: Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies the voice of the earth, the precariousness of ever bringing a work
(1993). Gender and Society (Sept. 1992). Matrix (May 1988). together, and the continuity of the call and the grace to do so. In
38
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ARENDT
her writing, Appleton-Weber explores the transforming corre- ARENDT, Hannah

spondence between herself as a woman and poetbarren, fecund,
nurturing, evolvingand the earth.
Born 14 October 1906, Hanover, Germany; died 4 December 1975
Appleton-Weber was raised in a small hunting lodge in rural Daughter of Paul and Martha Cohn Arendt; married Heinrich
Rhode Island, where her life was nurtured by the pond, woods, Bleucher, 1940
and living things around her. She was educated at the Old Field
School and received her B.A. from Vassar College (1952). She The only child of nonreligious, German-Jewish parents,
studied ction writing at Vassar and spent a semester at the Iowa Hannah Arendt received her formal education in Germany. She
Writers Workshop, leaving to join Dorothy Day at the Catholic studied philosophy under Karl Jaspers at Heidelberg and took her
Workers Maryfarm in Newburgh, New York. At the same time doctorate in 1928, after completing a dissertation on St. Augus-
she began her growth as a poet under the guidance of Elizabeth tine. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, she ed to France
Sewell. In 1953 she was received into the Roman Catholic church. then emigrated to the United States. Arendt made her greatest
She studied analogy and symbolism at Fordham University with mark on the American academic community; an innovative and
William Lynch, S.J. (1955-56) and worked at a childrens shelter, forceful political theorist, she taught at various universities across
then at the magazines Thought and Jubilee. the country.
Appleton-Weber received her M.A. (1957) and Ph.D. (1961) Arendts best known work, The Origins of Totalitarianism
from Ohio State University and wrote her dissertation on medici- (1951, 1958), deals with the rise of totalitarianism in Germany and
nal liturgy and the relationship between sacred history and poetic Russia. It offers a description of the fundamental structure of a
form, as a way of integrating Christianity and her work of poetry. totalitarian regime and presents an account of social and political
This study was published as Theology and Poetry in the Middle conditionssuch as the growth of imperialism and anti-Semitism
English Lyric (1969). She taught for three years at Smith College on which they were built. Above all, Arendt attributed the success
and from 1965-68 she was poetry editor of Literature East and of totalitarian movements to what she termed organized loneli-
West. Along with poetry readings and workshops at colleges and ness. Loneliness, for Arendt, is not merely solitude; it is a
universities, Appleton-Weber has read poetry on tree walks condition in which individuals have lost contact with the world as
sponsored by the Academy of American Poets in the New well as with one another. Worldless people do not understand
York area. themselves as belonging to the world because they no longer have
Appleton-Weber has received grants and fellowships from the ability to add anything of their own to that world. Without a
Smith College (1964), the John Anson Kitteredge Educational world shared between them, such people lack a common sense
Fund (1968-70), and the Creative Arts Public Service Program they cannot differentiate between reality and ctionand are
(1975-76). She was a Bunting Institute Fellow at Radcliffe easily manipulated by the logic of totalitarian ideology. To
College (1970-72) and has had residencies at Yaddo and Blue Arendt, the rise of Nazism and Stalinism epitomized the crisis of
Mountain Center. the modern age. She treated totalitarianism as a radically new
form of government, a form that was the outgrowth of experiences
In France from 1981-83 Appleton-Weber studied Chardins peculiar to modernity. Such experiences must be countered by a
essays, correspondence, journal, and earlier texts of Le Phnomne new political principle capable of upholding human dignity.
humain. On her return to the U.S. she began a new edition and
translation of the work for an American publisher, to make the In The Human Condition (1958), Arendt drew a picture of the
coherence and synthesis of the book available to readers, and also classical polis, arguing that Periclean Athens made a sharp
as a deeper training and tuning to the movements of cosmic distinction between the public and the private realms: the private
evolutionary forms. realm of the household was dominated by necessity, whereas
human beings could be free in public. The separation of these two
spheres signied to Arendt that certain activities thrive on con-
OTHER WORKS: Contributor to anthologies and periodicals, in- cealment, while others demand a public audience. Delineating
cluding: Literature and the West (June 1966); Hand Book (1978); three basic modes of human activitylabor, work, and action
studia mystica (Fall 1979); Teilhard Perspective (Dec. 1985, Dec. she suggested that only the last is a truly political activity. (In
1987); Le Christ universal et levolution selon Teilhard de Between Past and Future, 1954, she held that the raison dtre
Chardin (Dec. 1990, Dec. 1991). of politics is freedom, and its eld of experience is action.) Only
action is free, for it is the spontaneous beginning of something
new, the capacity to initiate.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Appleton, S., Poetry Reading, 5 Feb. 1981,
Hamilton College (recording, 1981). Commonweal (24 June In contrast, neither work nor labor belong in the public realm.
1977). Modern Philology (May 1971). NYTBR (11 Nov. 1973). Workthe creation of durable objects as opposed to articles of
North American Review (Spring 1977). Review of English Studies consumptionis dominated by a politically destructive means-
(Aug. 1971). ends mentality. Laborthe ceaseless process in which we engage
in order to insure our physical survivalis an activity to which we
DARIA DONNELLY are driven by necessity. Arendt criticized the modern state that, in
39
ARENDT AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
its preoccupation with matters such as the allocation of economic the spirit of this tradition, Arendt may be controversial and
goods, gives public status to labor. This failure to distinguish frustrating, but she is never dull.
between public and private has permitted the political sphere to be
conquered by the forces of necessity and has deprived citizens of a
public realm in which action is possible. Action requires an OTHER WORKS: Der Liebesbegriff bei Augustin (1930). Rahel
audience, for only through the presenceand the memoryof Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess (1947). Men in Dark Times
other people can individuals leave their personal marks in the (1968). On Violence (1969). Crises of the Republic (1969). Rahel
world. To Arendt, only by appearing in the world in this manner Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewish Woman (1974).
can human beings guarantee the reality of their identities as
separate and unique individuals. Thus human dignity is secured
through the creation and maintenance of a public space. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Barnouw, D., Visible Spaces: Hannah Arendt and
the German-Jewish Experience (1990). Benhabib, S., The Reluc-
In On Revolution (1963), Arendt analyzed the character of
tant Modernism of Hannah Arendt (1996). Bergen, B. J., The
revolutionary movements of the modern age. She was attracted to
Banality of Evil: Hannah Arendt and The Final Solution
the American Revolution because she believed it had to do not just
(1998). Bowen-Moore, P., Hannah Arendts Philosophy of Natality
with liberation from oppression but with the foundation of politi-
(1989). Burks, V. C., A Speculative History of Freedom: Thoughts
cal freedom. Limited government, Arendt insisted, was not the
Inspired by a Reading of Hannah Arendts Theory (dissertation,
aim of the American founders: in order to forge a unity between 13
1994). Canovan, M., Hannah Arendt: A Reinterpretation of Her
separate states, they had to create new power. In guaranteeing the
Political Thought (1992). Canovan, M., The Political Thought of
space in which action could take place, the Constitution became
Hannah Arendt (1977). Clarke, J. P., Hannah Arendt: Revisioning
the foundation of freedom. Arendt considered it unfortunate
a Politics of Action Through a Politics of Judgement (dissertation,
that revolutionary thought of the 19th and 20th centuries address-
1993). Corvo, A., The World In-between: Hannah Arendts
ed the French Revolution rather than the American. The French
Philosophy of Education (dissertation, 1989). Curtis, K., Our
Revolution was dominated by the need to alleviate mass poverty;
Sense of the Real: Aesthetic Experience and Arendtian Politics
it failed because no true political entity can be built where the
(1999). Disch, L. J., Hannah Arendt and the Limits of Philosophy
citizenry lives in such destitution. While applauding the American
(1994, 1996). Dossa, S., The Public Realm and the Public Self:
Revolution as a political movement, Arendt deplored modern
The Political Theory of Hannah Arendt (1989). Ettinger, E.,
revolutions focusing on the amelioration of social ills rather than
Hannah Arendt/Martin Heidegger (1995). Felder, D. G., The 100
on the creation of a public realm.
Most Inuential Women of All Time: A Ranking Past and Present
Although the concept of action plays a major role in Arendts (1996). Gottsegen, M. G., The Political Thought of Hannah
work, she does not ignore the relationship between thought and Arendt (1994). Hansen, P. B., Hannah Arendt: Politics, History
action. Toward the end of her life, Arendt turned her attention and Citizenship (1993). Hinchman, L. P. and S. Hinchman, eds.,
increasingly to the phenomenon of thought. The New Yorker sent Hannah Arendt: Critical Essays (1994). Honig, B., ed., Feminist
her to Jerusalem in 1961 to cover the trial of Adolf Eichmann. Her Interpretations of Hannah Arendt (1995). Kateb, G., Hannah
report, which appeared rst as a series of articles and then as Arendt: Politics, Conscience, Evil (1984). Kielmansegg, P. et al,
Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), aroused considerable and bitter eds., Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss: German Emigres and
controversy. Arendt shocked her readers by asserting that while American Political Thought After World War II (1997). Kuracina,
Eichmanns behavior had been monstrous, his character was not. S. J., Hannah Arendts Phenomenology of Politics (dissertation,
What struck Arendt most about the Nazi war criminal was his 1983). Lloyd, M. J., Liberalism and Republicanism and the
banality. The Life of the Mind (1977), suggests that Eichmanns Thought of Hannah Arendt (dissertation, 1993). May, D., Hannah
ability to commit monstrous crimes was related to his lack of Arendt (1986). May, L. and J. Kohn, eds., Hannah Arendt: Twenty
thought. The capacity to judge between good and evil, in other Years Later (1996). McGowan, J., Hannah Arendt: An Introduc-
words, is related to thought. In Thinking, the rst volume of this tion (1998). McGowan, J. P. and C. J. Calhoun, eds., Hannah
two-part posthumously published work, Arendt maintained a Arendt and the Meaning of Politics (1997). Nordquist, J., Hannah
distinction between reason and intellect, thinking and knowing. It Arendt (1989). Nordquist, J., Hannah Arendt (II): A Bibliography
is through thinking that human beings attempt to satisfy their (1997). Parekh, B. C., Hannah Arendt and the Search for a New
quest for meaning. Political Philosophy (1981). Passerin dEntreves, M., The Politi-
cal Philosophy of Hannah Arendt (1994). Pateman, C. and M. L.
To some, Arendt was an elitist who cared little about the Shanley, eds., Feminist Interpretations and Political Theory
suffering masses around the world. To others, her sensitive (1991). Ring, J., The Political Consequences of Thinking: Gender
writings on political action and the public arena, authority, tradi- and Judaism in the Work of Hannah Arendt (1997). Stone-
tion, violence, and truth provide insight into some of the most Mediatore, S. R., Hannah Arendt, Experience, and Political
perplexing dilemmas of the modern era. It is in the nature of Thinking: Storytelling as Critical Praxis (1997). Villa, D. R.,
political theory to challenge old ways of thinking and to force its Politics, Philosophy, Terror: Essays on the Thought of Hannah
audience to think about political things from a new perspective. In Arendt (1999). Washington, J., Hannah Arendts Conception of
40
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ARMSTRONG
the Political Realm (dissertation, 1978). Waterman, R. D., Politi- Along with family relationships, Armstrong was especially
cal Action: Dialogues with Hannah Arendt (dissertation, 1983). interested in children and old people. A recurring motif in her
Watson, D., Arendt (1992). Young-Bruehl, E., Hannah Arendt: work is that of an innocent child thought to be responsible for a
For Love of the World (1982). death. Concern over the impact of the accusation on the child
Other references: NR (15 June 1963). NYTBR (19 May 1963, leads others to seek out the truth, and an adult murderer is
28 May 1978). Political Theory 5 (May 1977). Review of Politics unmasked (The Innocent Flower, 1945, and The Mark of the
(Jan. 1953). Prins, B., Hannah Arendt: Totalitarianism, Domina- Hand, 1963).
tion, and Personal Responsibility (video, 1988). The Holocaust:
Judgment in Jerusalem (video, 1987, 1998). Another recurrent theme in Armstrongs novels is that of our
responsibility toward one another. Characters are shown involv-
LAURA GREYSON ing themselves in others problems because they know that if they
do not help, no one else will. The title character in The One-Faced
Girl (1963) denes good guys as those who dont want other
people hurt. They feel it, themselves. So if any one is in pain or
trouble, then they not only want to help, they are obliged. They
ARMSTRONG, Charlotte just about have to. This concept underlies much of Armstrongs
ction; combined with her skill in handling complex plots and her
Born 2 May 1905, Vulcan, Michigan; died 18 July 1969, Glen- interest in motivation and character, it helps to account for the
dale, California consistent popularity her work has had.
Also wrote under: Jo Valentine
Armstrongs novels have attracted lmmakers of three na-
Daughter of Frank Hall and Clara Pascoe Armstrong; married
tions. The Case of the Three Weird Sisters was lmed by British
Jack Lewi, 1928
National Films in 1948. Warner Brothers made The Unsuspected
(1946) in 1947, and Twentieth Century-Fox lmed Mischief
Having begun as poet (several poems appeared in the New (1950) in 1952, under the title Dont Bother to Knock. The latter is
Yorker) and playwright (two plays ran briey on Broadway), noteworthy for Marilyn Monroes portrayal of a deranged babysitter.
Charlotte Armstrong soon turned to writing suspense novels, her More recently, French writer-director Claude Chabrol based his
rst three being conventional detective stories. The detective, La Rupture (1970) on Armstrongs The Balloon Man (1968).
MacDougal (Mac) Duff is a former history professor who has
discovered he prefers real-life puzzles to academic ones. In Lay
On, Mac Duff! (1942), and in The Case of the Weird Sisters OTHER WORKS: Ring Around Elizabeth, a Comedy in Three Acts
(1943), he is the conventional outsider who solves other peoples (1942). The Chocolate Cobweb (1948). The Black-Eyed Stranger
mysteries and then moves on. In The Innocent Flower (1945), (1951). Catch-As-Catch-Can (1952). The Trouble in Thor (1953).
however, he becomes involved with a divorcee and her six The Better to Eat You (1954). Walk Out on Death (1954). The
children; with his commitment to them, Armstrongs use of Dream Walker (1955). Murders Nest (1955). Alibi for Murder
him ends. (1956). Duo: The Girl with a Secret and Incident at a Corner
(1959). The Seventeen Widows of Sans Souci (1959). Something
A number of Armstrongs stories are inverted mysteries in
Blue (1959). The Mark of the Hand and Then Came Two Women
which the identity of the criminal is revealed early. In other
(1963). Dream of Fair Woman (1966). The Gift Shop (1966). I See
novels, suspense is created by a race against time. Sometimes,
You (1966). Lemon in the Basket (1967). Seven Seats to the Moon
terror is evoked when an innocent person is trapped in an enclosed
(1969). The Protg (1970). The Charlotte Armstrong Reader (ed.
space with several people, at least one of whom poses a threat. The
A. Cromie, 1970). The Charlotte Armstrong Treasury (ed. A.
Case of the Weird Sisters, a Mac Duff mystery, falls into this
Cromie, 1972). The Charlotte Armstrong Festival (ed. A.
group, as does The Albatross (1957), in which, ironically, the
Cromie, 1975).
threatening characters are invited into the home of the victims.
Other variants are The Girl with a Secret (1959), The Witchs
House (1963), and The Turret Room (1965).
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cromie, A., preface to The Charlotte Armstrong
Another novel of particular interest is A Little Less Than Kind Festival (1975). Cromie, A., preface to The Charlotte Armstrong
(1963), the Hamlet story reset in contemporary California. Using Reader (1970). Cromie, A., preface to The Charlotte Armstrong
the Shakespearean situation, Armstrong examines motivations Treasury (1972).
and relationships, and although her dnouement is quite different Other references: NYHTB (13 Sept. 1959). NYTBR (25 June
from Shakespeares, it develops logically from the situation and 1950, 15 July 1951, 28 March 1954, 16 Jan. 1955, 5 Aug. 1956, 10
characters. A Dram of Poison (1956), despite its serious central Nov. 1957, 12 April 1959, 10 Nov. 1963, 11 April 1965, 7 May
situation, is a comic novel, with an unlikely set of characters 1967, 29 Oct. 1967).
uniting in a common purpose and discovering in the process much
that is admirable in each other. MARY JEAN DEMARR
41
ARNOW AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
ARNOW, Harriette (Louisa) Simpson her to the plow. Compelling characters and uid prose, de-
scribed by Malcolm Cowley as poetry of earth, make this
novel exceptional.
Born 7 July 1908, Wayne County, Kentucky; died 22 March
1986, Ann Arbor, Michigan Arnows third novel, The Dollmaker, is a masterwork. An-
Also wrote under: H. Arnow, Harriette Simpson, H. L. Simpson other bestseller, it earned critical accolades, coming in second to
Daughter of Elias and Mollie Jane Denney Simpson; married Faulkners The Fable for the National Book Award. Gertie
Harold Arnow, 1939; children: Marcella, Thomas Nevels, the hulking heroine who tries to preserve her integrity and
her familys unity after their migration from the Kentucky hills to
Harriette Simpson Arnows best ction is rooted in Ken- a wartime housing project in Detroit, is Arnows most arresting
tucky, her native ground. With both parents being descendants of character. Arnows chronicle of Gertie grappling with religious
original Kentucky settlers, Arnow grew up hearing family stories and social prejudice, labor strikes, economic insecurity, family
dating from the American Revolution. These kindled her de- strife, and her own faintheartedness is a profound rendering of
sire to write ction, and tell stories herself. She attended Berea hope, disappointment, and anguish. A novel rich on many levels,
College for two years, taught school for a year, then studied at the The Dollmaker mirrors Gerties struggle in its primary symbol,
University of Louisville, where she received a B.S. degree in the cherrywood man Gertie carves. The novel won Arnow the
1930. In an act her family viewed as scandalous, Arnow quit her Friends of American Literature Award and was voted best novel
job in 1934 and moved to a furnished room in downtown Cincin- of the year in the Saturday Reviews national critics poll. Para-
nati near the city library, resolving to read the great novels and mount Pictures bought the lm rights and Jane Fonda played
to write. She supported herself with odd jobs and worked for the Gertie in a made-for-television movie in 1983.
Federal Writers Project. After her marriage to newspaperman
Two social histories were the result of 20 years of research on
Harold Arnow, she moved with him to a farm in southern
the settlers in southern Kentucky and northern Tennessee from
Kentucky. They later settled in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1950.
1780 to 1803. Seedtime on the Cumberland (1960), which won an
Arnow received national attention in 1935 with two short Award of Merit from the American Association of State and Local
stories published in little magazines. Both demonstrate her skill at History and a citation from the Tennessee Historical Commission,
characterization and at depicting shocking violence. In 1936, she celebrates the settlers resourcefulness in conquering a hostile
published the novel Mountain Path. It is based on Arnows environmentgetting food, clothing, and shelter, and struggling
experience of boarding with a hill family in a remote Kentucky to hold the land against Indians and governments. A companion
hollow and teaching in a one-room schoolhouse; her year there piece, Flowering of the Cumberland (1963) focuses on the activi-
was her rst prolonged stay with the people who were to become ties requiring social intercourse and an exchange of goods and
the primary subjects of her ction. The novel received apprecia- serviceslanguage, education, household life, agriculture, indus-
tive reviews from such respected critics as Alfred Kazin, who try, and trade. Besides demonstrating a command of several elds
decried Arnows inclusion of Kentucky ctions stock material of learning, these volumes, containing vivid reenactments of the
a mountain feudbut praised the novels most notable accom- settlers everyday crises, are often as gripping as Arnows best
plishments: its realistic, uncondescending portraits of the hill poor ction.
and its intimate revelation and occasional power. Although in
Arnows more recent novels, The Weedkillers Daughter
this novel, as in her subsequent ones, Arnow accuratelyat times
excessivelydocuments hill customs and dialect, her primary (1970) and The Kentucky Trace: A Novel of the American Revolu-
concern is moral choice and responsibility. tion (1974), lack the full-bodied characters and the narrative drive
that propel her earlier novels. The former has a new setting
The Washerwomans Day, published in Southern Review suburbiaand the latter a different time from that of her distin-
(Winter, 1936), is Arnows best and most anthologized short guished ction. Although Arnows work enjoyed a reassessment
story. She movingly depicts the self-righteousness and the arro- in the 1980s, it has still not achieved the stature her talent merits.
gance church members feel toward the poor white trash who Too often writers whose work is rmly rooted in one locale are
violate their notions of decency. This story anticipates Arnows relegated to a minor status by the term regional, which can
fuller treatment of narrow piousness in Hunters Horn (1949) and suggest a limited appeal. Arnows regional association can be
The Dollmaker (1954). doubly damaging to her reputation. Since Kentucky is often
excluded from southern literature, and Appalachian litera-
Hunters Horn, Arnows second novel, was a critically ture has only recently become a separate category, Arnows books
acclaimed bestseller. The story of a hill farmers obsessive chase are frequently not on lists of ction demarcated by region.
after an elusive red fox, the book dramatizes the cost of a
compulsion as maniacal and as mythic as Ahabs stalking of Far outdistancing other writers treating hill people from the
Moby Dick. Its riveting subplot centers on the fox hunters southern Appalachian region, Arnow is the rst and only Ameri-
daughter, Suse, who yearns to escape mountain provinciality and can novelist to describe them with delity and justice and to place
impoverishment. The inability of her father to defy ingrained them in a setting authentic to the last detail. But Arnow does more
community values causes her to be bound to a life that will break than evoke an area no other writer has captured. Like Twain and
42
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ATHERTON
Faulkner, she creates a private world whose inhabitants face Frontiers, Mountain Life and Work, Nation, Wilson Library
dilemmas reaching beyond geographical boundaries. Her best Bulletin, Writers Digest.
ction depicts the conict between an individual conscience and Unpublished novels, short stories, journal, drafts of pub-
societywhether it be family, community, or the wider world. If lished works, and correspondence are in the Special Collection at
Arnows novels at times need streamlining, they contain worlds as the University of Kentucky in Lexington.
palpable and as real as the readers own. If her hardy combatants
fail to achieve their goals, they nonetheless take responsibility for
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ballard, S. L., Harriette Simpson Arnows Cen-
the outcome of their lives, and endure.
tral Novel: Hunters Horn (dissertation, 1987). Brooks, C., Ap-
By the 1990s Arnow had been called a regionalist, an proaches to Literature (1939). Chung, H. K., ed., Harriette
Appalachian writer, naturalist, realist, and transcendentalistyet Simpson Arnow: Critical Essays on Her Work (1995). Chung, H. K.,
she resisted categorization. As she commented in an interview, Harriette Simpson Arnows Authorial Testimony: Toward of
she thought of Appalachia as a chain of mountains and didnt The Dollmaker in Critique (Spring 1995). Eckley, W., H. Arnow
like the appellation, woman writer. (Well, whats so unusual (1974). Groover, K. K., The Wilderness Within: American Women
about a woman writer? she has said. Theyve been around Writers and Spiritual Quest (dissertation, 1996). Haines, C. H., To
since Sappho and before.) Additionally, she wasnt concerned Sing Her Own Song: The Literary Work of Harriette Simpson
about posterity. Nonetheless, she realized her place in Ameri- Arnow (dissertation, 1993). Hobbs, G., Harriette Arnows Liter-
can literature with The Dollmaker which was reprinted in 1999, ary Journey: From the Parish to the World (dissertation, 1975).
while critical attention since the 1970s had inuenced the reprint- Hobbs, G. Harriette Arnows Kentucky Novels: Beyond Local
Color, in KCN, (Fall 1976). Hobbs, G., Starting Out in the
ing of another of her ve published novels, Hunters Horn
Thirties: Harriette Arnows Literary Genesis in Literature at the
(reprinted 1997), as well as her three nonction works. Her short
Barricades: The American Writer in the 1930s (1982). Oates,
stories and essays remain uncollected. In her later years, Arnow
J. C., afterword to Arnows The Dollmaker (1972). Turner, M. B.,
led writing workshops at the Hindman Settlement School Writers
Agrarianism and Loss: the Kentucky Novels of Harriette Simpson
Workshop in Kentucky (1978-85) and other sites and was invited
Arnow (dissertation, 1997).
as a speaker on several occasions.
Reference works: Bulletin of Bibliography (March 1989).
From the interviews conducted in her later years, we learn CA. DLB.
about Arnows writing process. She always wanted to be a poet Other references: MELUS (interview, Summer 1982). MQR
and wasted a lot of time, as she puts it, imitating the style of (Spring 1990). Nation (31 Jan. 1976). NYHTB (6 Sept. 1936).
Robert Browning and John Milton. Unable to write poetry, she Harriette Simpson Arnow, 1908-1986 (video, 1987).
turned to Miltons prose: Reading (him) was like watching an
GLENDA HOBBS,
incoming tide on a rocky beach. . . The whole sea carrying the
UPDATED BY KAREN MCLENNAN
burden of the tide, came crashing near me. So did Miltons
sentences. Besides Milton, Arnow also admired Thomas Hardy
and Mark Twain, and among her contemporaries Wilma Dykeman,
Jim Wayne Miller, David H. Looff, and James Still. One of her
concerns in her writing was that she was often aficted by too
ASHLEY, Ellen
See SEIFERT, Elizabeth
many words, like my characters. As an example, she cited that it
took 13 years to write Hunters Horn and 17 rewritings of the rst
chapter in order to hone a style not exactly bleak, but not wordy,
a narrative with no adverbs and few adjectives, a style of self.
ATHERTON, Gertrude (Franklin Horn)
Most of Arnows critical attention still focuses on The
Dollmaker and the complexity of Gertie Nevels. In a critical text Born 30 October 1857, San Francisco, California; died 15 June
edited by Haeja K. Chung (Critique Spring 1995), Arnows short 1948, San Francisco, California
stories, a journal, her social histories, and her other novels, Also wrote under: Asmodeus, Frank Lin
including the unpublished Between the Flowers, are thorough- Daughter of Thomas and Gertrude Franklin Horn; married
ly examined. George H. Bowen Atherton, 1876, children: two
The daughter of a Yankee businessman from California and a

OTHER WORKS: Old Burnside (1977, reprint 1996). Southern belle, Gertrude Atherton spent the rst 30 years of her
Short stories include: Marigolds and Mules in Kosmos life in and around San Francisco, a city whose history and destiny
(Feb.-March 1935), A Mess of Pork in The New Talent (Oct.- she utilized as subject and background for her favorite character, a
Dec. 1935), The Two Hunters in Esquire (Jul. 1942), Love? new Western woman. She sporadically attended private schools,
in Twigs (Fall 1971), Fra Lippi and Me in Georgia Review eloped at seventeen with a suitor of her mothers, bore two
(Winter 1979); articles and essays in Appalachian Heritage, children, and rebelled against the conventions of domestic life.
43
ATHERTON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Only after the death of her husband did she begin her serious OTHER WORKS: What Dreams May Come (1888). Hermia Suydam
writing career in New York in 1888. (1889). Los Cerritos, A Romance of the Modern Time (1890). A
Question of Time (1891). Before the Gringo Came (1894, en-
Athertons rst signicant novel was Patience Sparhawk
larged in The Splendid Idle Forties, 1902). A Whirl Asunder
and Her Times (1897), published in London where her novels at (1895). His Fortunate Grace (1897). A Daughter of the Vine
rst attracted more critical attention than in the U.S. This novel (1899). Senator North (1900). The Aristocrats (1901). The Con-
introduced the new Western woman, who in three subsequent queror (1902). A Few of Hamiltons Letters (1903). Mrs. Pendle-
novels symbolized the evolution of Western civilization at the tons Four-in-Hand (1903). Rulers of Kings (1904). The Bell in
turn of the century. In Patience Sparhawk and Her Times, the Fog, and Other Stories (1905). The Traveling Thirds (1905).
Atherton offered an ironic appraisal of American self-reliance and Reznov (1906). The Gorgeous Isle (1908). Tower of Ivory
society in the 1890s from the point of view of an aspiring Western (1910). Julia France and Her Times (1912). Perch of the Devil
woman. Through her characterization of the heroine as an idealis- (1914). California, an Intimate History (1914). Mrs. Balfame
tic, self-reliant, but passionate woman, born into lowly, isolated (1916). Life in the War Zone (1916). The Living Present (1917).
circumstances in California, Atherton narrated a romantic-realis- The White Morning (1918). The Avalanche (1919). Transplanted
tic and psychological version of the 19th century argument over (1919). The Sisters-in-Law (1921). Sleeping Fires (1922). Black
the effect of heredity and environment on the development of the Oxen (1923). The Crystal Cup (1925). The Immortal Marriage
individual. (1927). The Jealous Gods (1928). Dido, Queen of Hearts (1929).
In American Wives and English Husbands (1898), Athertons The Sophisticates (1931). Adventures of a Novelist (1932, reprint-
independent-spirited heroine, Lee Tarleton, proud of her Creole ed 1980). The Foghorn (1934). Golden Peacock (1936). Reznov
heritage and aristocratic California upbringing, is confronted with and Doa Concha (1937). Can Women Be Gentlemen? (1938).
the solid fact of English tradition and convention, personied The House of Lee (1940). The Horn of Life (1942). Golden Gate
by Cecil Maundrell, scion of a landed English family, whom she Country (1945). My San Francisco (1946).
marries and who expects her to become his second self. Their
marriage tests the past and present values of the two civilizations
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bradley, J., Valedictory Performances of Three
in regard to the relationship between man and woman and to the American Women Novelists (dissertation, 1981). Bryant, B., Late
perpetuation of the race. In this novel and also in The Doomswoman California Writers (audio cassette, 1960, 1969). Christensen, L. E.,
(1893), The Californians (1898), and Ancestors (1907), Atherton Gertrude Atherton: The Novelist as Historian (audio cassette,
penetrated the facade of civilization that organizes the basic 1982). Courtney, W. L., The Feminine Note in Fiction (1904).
relationship between man and woman and between individuals Dickey, F.A., Gertrude Atherton, Family, and Celebrated Friends
and nature. She displayed a continually ironic stance toward the (archive manuscript, 1981). Forman, H. J. A Brilliant California
argument on heredity and environment by labeling as a fools Novelist: Gertrude Atherton in California Historical Society
paradise an individuals excessive and illusory dependence on Quarterly (March, 1961). Forrey, C. D., Gertrude Atherton and
either inherited characteristics or a given environment as a path to the New Woman, in CHSQ 55 (Fall 1976). Jackson, J. H.,
happiness. Her independent and self-conicted heroine chal- Gertrude Atherton (1940). Knight, G. C., The Strenuous Age in
lenges the assumption that a woman unthinkingly accepts a American Literature (1954). Leider, E. W., Californias Daugh-
passive, procreative function as a denition of herself and of the ter: Gertrude Atherton and Her Times (1991). McClure, C. S.,
relationship between herself and nature and between herself and Gertrude Atherton, 1857-1948, in ALR 9 (Spring 1976).
civilization. McClure, C. S., Gertrude Atherton (Boise State University West-
Atherton enacted her criticism of Howells dull realism ern Writers Series, 1976). Parker, G. T., William Dean Howells:
by a call for originality and imagination in American literature. Realism and Feminism (Harvard English Studies, 1973). Phillips,
From Hippolyte Taine, she borrowed the technique of lifting a N. P.,The Womans Tournament: Men and Marriage in Six
type of character out of the commonplace conditions to which he Novels by Gertrude Atherton (thesis, 1981). Shumate, A., A
or she was apparently doomed and transferring him or her to an San Francisco Scandal: The California of George Gordon, 49er,
environment, replete with change and opportunity, where latent Pioneer, and Builder of South Park in San Francisco (1976,
potentialities could be developed. 1994). Starr, K. Americans and the California Dream, 1850-1915
(1973). Underwood, J. C., Literature and Insurgency (1914).
From her rst novel to her last, Athertons genius lay in her Weir, S., Gertrude Atherton: The Limits of Feminism, in SJS
ability to tell an exciting story about a character or characters 1 (1975).
worthy of attention as they confronted the environmental and Other references: The American West (July 1974). The
psychological circumstances of their lives, the fools paradise Bookman (July 1929).
which they could or could not manage. She believed an author was
obligated to extend the knowledge of readers beyond their provin- CHARLOTTE S. MCCLURE
cial existence. Not always successful in style and form according
to current critical tastes, Atherton nonetheless told stories in the
form of the novel according to the logic of sometimes invisible
patterns of cause-and-effect and yesterday-today and expected her ATOM, Ann
readers to apprehend and participate in them. See WALWORTH, Jeannette Hadermann
44
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS AUSTIN
AUERBACH, Hilda Giving prominence to Pilgrim mothers, Austin skillfully

See MORLEY, Hilda retells such stories as the wooing of Patricia Molines, the treach-
ery of Oldhame and Lyford, and the ousting of Morton from
Merry Mount. Details of geography, weaponry, dress, tableware,
diet, and genealogy are carefully researched. The speech, particu-
larly of those characters who are soldiers, sailors, or children,
AUSTIN, Jane Goodwin often seems unduly formal or literary.
Born 25 January 1831, Worcester, Massachusetts; died 30 March Although Austins works, like those of her friend Louisa
1894, Roxbury, Massachusetts May Alcott, show a decided split between edifying books for
Daughter of Isaac and Elizabeth Hammatt Goodwin; married young people and sensational shockers, she signed her real name
Loring Henry Austin, circa 1850 to all and seems always to delight in her story, whether contempo-
rary or historical, probable or improbable.
Austins father died during her childhood and her mother
moved to Boston, where Austin was educated in private schools. OTHER WORKS: Fairy Dreams; or, Wanderings in Elf-land (1859).
When her own three children were grown, she wrote novels, as Kinahs Curse (1864). The Novice; or, Mother Church Thwarted
well as ction for such periodicals as Harpers, the Atlantic (1865). The Tailor Boy (1865). Outpost (1866). The Shadow of
Monthly, Putnams, Lippincotts, and the Galaxy. Austin lived for Moloch Mountain (1870). Moonfolk (1874). Mrs. Beauchamp
a short time (circa 1869) in Concord, where she knew Louisa May Brown (1880). The Desmond Hundred (1882). Nantucket Scraps
Alcott, Emerson, and the Hawthornes. (1882). It Never Did Run Smooth (1892). Queen Tempest (1892).
Dora Darling; or, The Daughter of the Regiment (1864) is in The Twelve Great Diamonds (1892). The Cedar Swamp Mys-
many ways Austins most charming novel. Mrs. Darley, the tery (1901).
mother of twelve-year-old Dora, sympathizes with the Union and
hides a Union soldier even though she is dying. Doras selsh
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Blanck, J., Bibliography of American Literature
and depraved father and her brother support the Confederacy,
(1955). Cameron, K. W., Emerson, Thoreau and Concord in
and Dora is sent, after her mothers death, to live with a cruel aunt.
Early Newspapers (1958).
With the aid of an aged freedman, she escapes and joins the Union
Reference works: American Authors: 1600-1900 (1938).
army as a vivandire. She is befriended by the soldier her mother
Dictionary of American Biography (1928).
had aided (who turns out to be her cousin from Massachusetts) and
by the chaplain, who undertakes her education. Doras initiative SUSAN SUTTON SMITH
and sterling character contrast sharply with the treachery of the
villains in the novel.
None of Austins novels involves more coincidences than

Cipher (1869), on which Louisa May Alcott is supposed to have AUSTIN, Mary Hunter
collaborated. It features bastardy and miscegenation, a doctor who
poisons his wife, long-lost heirs, a poisoned Italian bracelet, a Born 9 September 1868, Carlinville, Illinois; died 13 August
Spanish gypsy, voodoo, and more happenings that strain the 1934, Santa Fe, New Mexico
readers credence. Inspired by William Bradfords newly redis- Daughter of George and Savilla Graham Hunter; married Stafford
covered history, Of Plymouth Plantation, printed in 1856, and by Austin, 1891
traditions handed down from her own Mayower ancestors,
Austin wrote several books about the Pilgrims: Standish of
Mary Hunter Austin was born into a family that had little
Standish (1889), Betty Alden (1891), A Nameless Nobleman
understanding of her unusual talents. Her father died from a
(1881), David Aldens Daughter (1892), and Dr. LeBaron and His
malarial infection contracted during the Civil War, and with his
Daughters (1890). In Standish of Standish, she is content to esh
death, Austin lost her one source of literary encouragement. In
out Bradfords narrative with dialogue and characterization, mak-
1888 Austin graduated from Blackborn College and the family
ing Myles Standish the hero and foreshadowing John Billingtons led homestead claims in the Tejon district of Joaquin Valley,
bad end by depicting the entire Billington family as coarse or California. This landscape and way of life were to form the most
troublesome. Standishs two marriages are romanticized here and important inuence on Austins writing.
in the other books. The Love Life of William Bradford, in
David Aldens Daughter, is entirely fabricated and supported by Her rst important book was The Land of Little Rain (1903),
ctitious documentation. Bradfords one-sentence dismissal of a study which drew heavily upon her experiences with nature. The
Governor Carvers wifeAnd his wife, being a weak woman, Land of Little Rain is a collection of essays dealing with the
died within ve or six weeks after himbecomes a tear-soaked Southwestits people and its religion. A lover of the land, Austin
34-page saga, The Wife of John Carver, in David Aldens writes: One must summer and winter with the land and wait its
Daughter. occasions. Austin does not like the term desert, which to her
45
AUSTIN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
indicates a land which will support no man. The desert is full of write about it. Her love for the Indian people and her efforts to
that which will support life, although it is up to man to nd this preserve their life and culture are given an important place in her
support, and the white man has not been blessed with this facility. history.
Much of the collection is taken up with the struggle between life
and death. It is not the land alone that interests Austin, but the
OTHER WORKS: Isidro (1905). Santa Lucia (1908). Lost Borders
people who inhabit it as well. Austins style reects an intimacy (1909). The Basket Woman, A Book of Fanciful Tales for Children
with the earth itself. She uses Indian names to describe nature, and (1910). Outland (1910). The Arrow Maker (1911). Christ in Italy
her descriptions are lyrical with an instinct for the precise word to (1912). Fire (1912). The Green Bough (1913). The Lovely Lady
convey natural phenomena. (1913). California, Land of the Sun (1914). Love and the Soul
The Flock (1906) deals with the history of sheep-raising in Maker (1914). The Ford (1917). The Trail Book (1918). The
the Southwest. Austin introduces into the work the allegorical Young Woman Citizen (1918). No. 26 Jayne St. (1920). The
idea of man being like sheep in possessing the instincts of the American Rhythm (1923). The Land of Journeys Ending (1924).
social ock mind. Of the ock mind Austin observes, I Everymans Genius (1925). The Man Jesus (1925). The Children
cannot say very well what it is, except that it is less than the sum of Sing in the Far West (1928). Taos Pueblo (1930). Starry Adven-
all their intelligences. Ecology is one of the major concerns of ture (1931). Experiences Facing Death (1931). Indian Pottery of
this work, and Austin is sympathetic to a land brutally abused by the Rio Grande (1934). Can Prayer Be Answered? (1934). One
humans in their attempts to survive. Smoke Stories (1934).
Austin also wrote on the feminist concerns of the day,

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brooks, V. W., The Condent Years: 1815-1915
and her novels reect the problems women face in both mar-
(1932). Campbell, J. L., From Self to Earth and Back Again in
riage and career. A Woman of Genius (1912) contains both
the Fiction of Mary Austin (thesis, 1997). Carew-Miller, A.,
semiautobiographical material and Austins strongest statement
Telling the Truth About Herself: Mary Austin and the Autobio-
on the feminist choice between career and marriage. It has been graphical Voice of Feminist Theory (dissertation, 1994). Church,
compared favorably with Sinclair Lewis Main Street. Critic P. P., Winds Trail: The Early Life of Mary Austin (1990).
Edward Wagenknecht believes the work covers everything that Dickson, C. E., Nature and Nation: Mary Austin and Cultural
is important in womans rebellion against man, for on its deepest Negotiations of the American West,1900-1914 (dissertation,
level the book is a study of creative power, of its connection with 1996). Luhan, D., and A. C. Henderson, Search for Revolution-
sexual power, and of the conict between art and love. The ary Change in the Desert Southwest (thesis, 1998). Farrar, J. C.,
childhood background of its heroine, Olivia Lattimore, is obvi- ed., The Literary Spotlight (1924). Fink, A., Mary, a Biography of
ously based on Austins own childhood. Olivia triumphs over Mary Austin (1983). Ford, T. W., The American Rhythm: Mary
hardship through her genius and becomes a success on the New Austins Poetic Principle, in Western American Literature 5.
York stage. The crisis of the novel is Olivias decision whether to Hart, T. J., Tender Horizons: The American Landscapes of Austin
marry and fulll the conventions or to follow her genius. When and Stein (dissertation, 1996). Hoyer, M. T., Dancing Ghosts:
her lover telegrams Will you marry me? Olivia can only reply, Native American and Christian Syncretism in Mary Austins Work
If you marry my work. He cannot accept this situation and (1998). Jones, L. A., Uncovering the Rest of Herstory in the
marries another woman. Olivia faces a breakdown and eventually Frontier Myth: Mary Austin, Mabel Graulich. Klimasmith, M.
marries a playwright she has known for some time. She expects a & E., eds., Exploring Lost Borders: Critical Essays on Mary
good marriage between people of similar interests, but one Austin (1999). Kircher, C. L., Women in/on Nature: Mary Austin,
lacking in the excitement of her early love. Gretel Ehrlich, Terry Tempest Williams, and Ann Zwinger (dis-
sertation, 1995, 1998). Langlois, K. S., A Search for Signicance:
Earth Horizon (1932) chronicles the life of Austin and is
Mary Austin, the New York Years (dissertation, 1987). Lanigan,
written in third person, as was Austins style in nonction writing.
E. F., Mary Austin: Song of a Maverick (1989). Lyday, J. W.,
The book describes the life of a gifted woman in a conventional
Mary Austin: The Southwest Works (1968). Milowski, C. P.,
world, and Austin makes a convincing case for the oppression of
Revisioning the American Frontier: Mary Hallock Foote, Mary
women through the examples of prejudice she personally experi- Austin, Willa Cather, and the Western Narrative (dissertation,
enced. Austin reports mystical experiences with God and nature 1996). Nelson, B. J. D., Mary Austins Domestic Wildness: An
that made her feel there was a particular pattern to her existence, a Ecocritical Investigation of Animals (dissertation, 1997). Pearce,
pattern which would make its shape known to her over the years. T. M., Mary Hunter Austin (1965). Stineman, E.,Mary Hunter
She concludes her story, It is not that we work upon the Cosmos, Austin: An American Woman of Letters (dissertation, 1989 1987).
but it works in us. The feminist bias of the work is particularly Van Doren, C., in Contemporary American Novelists (1931).
strong in her observations on marriage. She works from knowl- Wagenknecht, E., in Cavalcade of the American Novel (1952).
edge of both her mothers attitude toward marriage and her own Webster, B., Owens Valleys Mary Austin in Album (Oct.
unhappy experience. She deals with the struggle of women for 1992). White, W. A., The Autobiography (1946). Wynn, D., A
equality in the Midwest of her own time, and speaks frankly of the Critical Study of the Writings of Mary Hunter Austin (abridged
instinctual sexual desire in women. The book also portrays dissertation; 1941).
Austins love for the Southwest, and her feelings that she had to
come into a mystical rapport with the region before she could LOIS BURNS
46
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS AYER
AVERY, Martha Moore OTHER WORKS: The papers of Martha Moore Avery are collected
at Xavier College, Sydney, Nova Scotia.
Born 6 April 1851, Steuben, Maine; died 8 August 1929, Medford,
Massachusetts
Daughter of Albion King Paris and Katherine Leighton Moore; BIBLIOGRAPHY: Carrigan, D. O., A Forgotten Yankee Marxist,
married Millard Filmore Avery, 1880 (died 1890) in NEQ (March 1969). Carrigan, D. O., M. M. Avery: Crusader
for Social Justice, in Cath-HistRev (April 1968). Goldstein, D.,
After her mothers death in 1864, Martha Moore Avery, the Autobiography of a Campaigner for Christ (1936).
fourth of eight children, lived with her grandfather, Samuel Reference works: James, E. T. et all, eds., Notable American
Moore, a Maine politician, instead of with her father, a house Women, 1607-1950 (article by J. P. Shenton, 1971).
builder. She attended the village school and a private girls school.
In 1880 she joined the Unitarian church where she met her SUZANNE ALLEN
husband. When her husband left home to become a traveling
salesman in 1886, she and her daughter moved to Boston. Her
husband died in 1890.
In Boston, inuenced mainly by Dr. Charles D. Sherman, a
Master in Cosmic Law, Avery became much involved with
AYER, Harriet Hubbard
political ideas and movements. In 1891 she joined the Socialist
Labor Party, quickly attaining some importance in its ranks. Born 27 June 1849, Chicago, Illinois; died 23 November 1903,
During the 1890s, Avery became associated with another social- New York, New York
ist, David Goldstein, a cigarmaker born in England. She founded Daughter of Henry George and Juliet Smith Hubbard; married
the Karl Marx Class in 1898 (which in 1901 became the Boston Herbert Copeland Ayer, 1865 (divorced)
School of Political Economy) with Goldstein as secretary. How-
ever, both Avery and Goldstein became increasingly disenchant-
ed with socialism and, simultaneously, drawn to Catholicism. Businesswoman, journalist, and popular writer of beauty
manuals, Harriet Hubbard Ayer was born to a prominent Chicago
After her daughters conversion to Catholicism and entrance family, the third of four children. Considered shy and sickly as a
into the Congrgation de Notre Dame, as Sister St. Mary Martha child, minimally educated at a Catholic convent, married at
in 1900, as a result of the girls Quebec convent education, Avery
sixteen to the conventional son of a Chicago industrialist, she
herself became a Catholic in 1904, totally renouncing Marxism.
astonished her society by developing within a few years into one
Goldstein converted a year later. However, even before their
of the citys leading hostesses, renowned for her beauty and for
conversions, they collaborated on Socialism: The Nation of Fa-
her individuality in aunting conventions by, for example, invit-
therless Children (1903), a critical exposition of the social and
moral implications of socialism. Although the tone is strident in ing actors to her home. Largely self-taught, she early displayed a
its Catholic bias, the content of the book reects Averys and driving will, a creative personality, and a air for the dramatic that
Goldsteins intimate knowledge of the history and tactics of would enable her later to triumph over a series of severe reversals.
socialism. The authors use of quotations from Marx and Engels,
In the early 1880s, left in nancial straits by the bankruptcy
followed by refutations, works effectively. They take a strong
of her husband and angered by his drinking and indelities, Ayer
stand against many socialist credos; in particular, they charge that
the result of irresponsible sexual unions would be homeless deed Victorian conventions by divorcing her husband and,
children who would become wards of the state. following the example of the many self-made men she had known
in Chicago society, establishing her own New York City business,
The result of Averys second collaboration with Goldstein, a cosmetic rm. Her chief product was a cream whose formula,
Bolshevism: Its Cure (1919), is dedicated to the Knights of she contended, she had bought from a Parisian chemist whose
Columbus; it launches not only an assault against socialism but grandfather had originally invented it for the famed Napoleonic
also a campaign for Catholicism and patriotism. Working from beauty, Juliet Rcamier. Largely because of her advertising gen-
the teachings of Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Rerum Novarum, ius in connecting her products with glamourous French traditions
the authors elaborate on the basic differences between Marxism
of beauty, with her own socialite background, and with stage
and Catholicism; advocate support of trade unions and collective
favorites like Lily Langtry who endorsed her products, for a time
bargaining; and try to promote reform, but reform through faith in
her company ourished.
God and love of country rather than through socialism.
Avery turned more and more toward political activism. She Of mercurial temperament, Ayer was subject to periodic
and Goldstein took to the streets using the very tactics of the emotional disordersa condition which led to a probable mor-
socialists. They founded the Catholic Truth Guild, a lay apostolate phine addiction. In the early 1890s disagreements with family
that preached Catholicism from auto vans, rst in New England members and especially with a vindictive male business associate
and then in other parts of the country. Avery was an active apostle were climaxed by her involuntary commitment for 14 months to a
on the streets of Boston until only a few days before her death. mental institution. Although her business and personal life were in
47
AYSCOUGH AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
shambles, in 1895 she persuaded the editor of the New York AYSCOUGH, Florence Wheelock
World to hire her to write a weekly column of beauty advice.
Before long she also joined the reportorial staff, covering murder
Born 1878, Shanghai, China; died 24 April 1942, Chicago,
trials as well as writing exposs of city life, with a primary focus
Illinois
on women.
Daughter of Thomas Reed and Edith Haswell Clark Wheelock;
In her books and columns on beauty, Ayer preached a married Harley Farnsworth MacNair, 1935
protofeminist doctrine of attention to health, exercise, and mental
discipline as the key to beauty. In an age of feminism and Florence Wheelock Ayscough lived with her parents in
increasing freedom for women, she dened beauty as accessible China until she was nine years old, and then made her rst trip to
to any woman who took proper care of her body. Responding to America to attend school in Boston. Subsequently she returned to
her own psychological difculties and to the tenets of the 19th China, delved into a study of Chinas history and civilization and
century natural health movement, she criticized tight-lacing and learned the Chinese language.
other articial aids to beauty and often rejected the use of the One of Ayscoughs earliest publications, Fir-Flower Tablets
commercial products she once had marketed. She wrote that she (1921), is a translation of the Chinese poetry she so much admired.
was known world over as a physical culture crank. As a The polished translation was done with the help of her cherished
professional woman she wore shortened skirts, masculine suits, friend, Amy Lowell. Friendly Books on Far Cathay (1921) is
and was a member of the Rainy Daisy moderate-dress reform basically a compiled bibliography for young students but it also
group in New York City. She identied with the working women includes a brief summary of Chinese history. Most of Ayscoughs
to whom her columns in the mass circulation World were directed. later writings were similarly devoted to young readers. A Chinese
Mirror: Being Reections of the Reality Behind Appearance
Yet Ayer never joined the suffrage movement. She protested (1925), gives an informal and easy-to-read description of Chinas
that she was not really a dress reformer; she counselled women to topography, social life, and customs. More specically, it dis-
wear corsets; and she advocated that older women use cosmetics cusses the signicance and symbolism of the Yellow and Yangtze
to disguise their age, thereby furthering modern Americas xa- rivers; of Tien Shan, the Great Mountain; and of the Purple
tion with youth as the epitome of beauty. She cautioned against Forbidden City. In addition to these descriptions, which may seem
tanned skin and vigorous exercise for women which might exotic to young American readers, Ayscough also describes such
produce well-developed muscles. The beautiful arm, she wrote, common sights as the gardens, city walls, and moats.
should be round, white, and plump, and should taper gently
to the hand with an adorable curve at the small delicate wrist. One of Ayscoughs most thoroughly reviewed books is
Ayer consistently advocated the conservative position that beauty Chinese Women, Yesterday and Today (1937). Here she contrasts
was a womans greatest power. She argued that wives needed to the women of old China with those of the 1930s. Again she gives
an informal and charming description of Chinese culture; her
pay attention to their looks to keep their husbands and working
intent, she explains, is to create for American readers a sense of
women to advance in their jobs. These attitudes were the ultimate
identication and appreciation for peoples of other lands. Another
rationale behind her columns on beauty.
important work is Firecracker Land: Pictures of the Chinese
Ayer is an example both of the widespread inuence of World for Young Readers (1932), in which Ayscough shares her
feminism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and of the personal experiences of China as well as the wealth of information
enduring power of traditional attitudes about women, even among that she has acquired. She expresses the hope that by telling of
articulate, successful women who had experienced substantial Chinas great traditions and modern way of life she would
cultivate a feeling of friendship between China and America.
discrimination in their own lives. Her life was unexpectedly cut
short in 1903, when she died of pneumonia after a brief illness. After Ayscoughs death, letters of tribute and other memora-
bilia were compiled in The Incomparable Lady, edited lovingly by
Harley Farnsworth MacNair.
OTHER WORKS: Harriet Hubbard Ayers Book: A Complete and
Authentic Treatise on the Law of Health and Beauty (1899).
Womans Guide to Health and Beauty (1904). OTHER WORKS: Liu, Sung Fu: Catalogue of Chinese Paintings
Ancient and Modern by Famous Masters (1915). The Autobiogra-
phy of a Chinese Dog Edited by His Missus (1927). Tu Fu, the
Autobiography of a Chinese Poet, A.D. 712-770 (edited and
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ayer, M., and I. Taves, The Three Lives of Harriet
translated by Ayscough, 1929-1934).
Hubbard Ayer (1957). Bird, C., Enterprising Women (1976).
Hamilton, H., Harriet Hubbard Ayer (ms., Chicago Histori-
cal Society, n.d.). Kirkland, C., Chicago Yesterdays (1919). BIBLIOGRAPHY: Damon, S. F., Amy Lowell. MacNair, H. F., The
Terhune, A., To the Best of My Memory (1930). Incomparable Lady (1946).
LOIS W. BANNER PATRICIA LANGHALS
48
B
BABB, Sanora American Literature (1945, 1948) and American Childhoods
(1987). The Wild Flower and The Santa Ana appeared in
Best American Short Stories (1950, 1960). Babb received a
Born 21 April 1907, Leavenworth, Kansas
Borestone Mountain Poetry Award in 1967 and served as the
Writes under: Sylvester Davis
editor of the Clipper from 1940 to 1941 and the California
Daughter of Walter and Jennie Parks Babb; married James W.
Quarterly from 1951 to 1952.
Howe, 1949
Prominent in all Babbs writing is a respect and love for all
During Sanora Babbs early years, her family lived in Okla- people and their differing needs. She is sympathetic to their
homa, where Babb spent much time among the Oto tribe. Her problems, regardless of racial and cultural backgrounds; her main
father was at various times a farmer, baker, baseball player, and characters are those who are in some way prevented from reaching
professional gambler. After Babbs early years, the family led a their full potential. She is critical of any relationship that subordi-
nomadic life among the small towns and farms of Oklahoma, nates one person to another, including a marriage in which the
Kansas, and eastern Colorado. Babb attended the University of husband dominates the family. It is the oldest daughter in her rst
Kansas and Garden City (Kansas) Junior College. From 1925 to two published books who represents this critical view. A recurring
1929 she worked on smalltown newspapers and a farm journal. image of freedom is the great bowl of the sky, always luring those
After moving to California in 1929, Babb held various who love independence away from life-stiing relationships.
writing jobs and began publishing short stories. During the
Consistent with Babbs regard for all life is her regard for art.
Depression, she hitchhiked across the country, lived for a while in
Her books are carefully wrought, written with simplicity and
Harlem, and traveled in Europe. After returning to California, she
directness. They give a detailed picture of some vanishing ways of
wrote articles about the dust-bowl families who were arriving in
life and may be read as historical as well as literary documents.
great numbers, and helped set up camps in the elds for them.
Babbs experiences with the migratory workers provided the
substance of her rst novel, Whose Names Are Unknown, written BIBLIOGRAPHY: Saroyan, W., Letters to Sonora Babb (1932, 1941).
in 1939. She describes the uprooted farmers who became a cheap Reference works: CA (1975).
source of labor for the large industrialized farms. Women, too, Other references: London Sunday Times (28 Nov. 1971). LAT
bore the brunt of suffering; Babb describes half-starved women (31 Mar. 1958). Madison (Wisconsin) Capital Times (22 Apr.
giving birth to dead infants on the oors of tents. Drawing on 1971). NYHT (23 Mar. 1958). NYT (20 Mar. 1958). PW (22 Sept.
these same experiences with migrant workers in the Depression 1997). TLS (9 May 1958, 12 Nov. 1971).
decades later, Babb wrote The Dark Earth and Other Stories from
the Great Depression (1987). ANN STANFORD,
UPDATED BY LEAH J. SPARKS
Babbs second novel, The Lost Traveler (1958, reissued
1995), tells the tale of a smalltime gambler. Des Tannehill, based
in part on Babbs father, disdains working for others and tries to
maintain his erce independence through gambling. His choice of
a trade prevents his family from being respected members of the BABBITT, Natalie
community, a matter quite important to them. The story ends with
the disintegration of a close family. Born 28 July 1932, Dayton, Ohio
Daughter of Ralph Z. and Genevieve Converse Moore; married
An Owl on Every Post (1970, reissued 1994) is a memoir of
Samuel F. Babbitt, 1954; children: Christopher, Thomas, Lucy
Babbs family and their relocation from smalltown Oklahoma to
rural eastern Colorado. Told from a childs perspective, the book
recounts the familys loss of nearly everything they owned and Despite its intimacy, all of Natalie Babbitts work for young
captures life on the Great Plains in the early 20th century. Cry of readers has a dramatic scope and is celebratory in nature. Her
the Tinamou (1997) is a collection of 14 stories, some of which verbal pageantry, often accompanied by prologues and epilogues,
were previously published in magazines as diverse as the Satur- imparts a sense of theatricality. The roots of theater go back to her
day Evening Post and Seventeen. The tales are set in the West earlier history. In high school, Babbitt coauthored a musical
with strong female protagonists and characters of diverse racial comedy; at Smith College, she began her studies as a theater
and ethnic backgrounds. major, although she soon changed her major to art, claiming she
was a wooden actress.
Babbs recent work, Told in the Seed: Poems (1998), is her
rst published collection of poetry. Her poems and short stories That Babbitt should venture into drawing as well as writing is
have appeared in many anthologies, including CrossSection of consistent with her life history. Her mother, an amateur artist,
49
BACON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
encouraged Babbitts early painting efforts. Babbitt began her for her illustrations. The book took her four years to complete.
career illustrating books written by her husband, Sam. Eventually, After Bub, Babbitt became absorbed in smaller projects, such as
he became too busy with his job as a president of Kirkland College composing acrostics for the childrens magazine, Horn Book. She
to work with her, and she moved into illustrating her own works also wrote another picture book published in 1999, Ouch! This
and then to writing longer prose. Even when her books provide no adaptation of a story from Grimms fairytales was illustrated by
visuals, her imagistic language creates the landscape and brings Fred Marcellino.
substance and believability to the characters. Her settings have the
majesty and sweep of the air, the sea, the forest, the woods; her
characters have the dignity of individuals and the power of OTHER WORKS: The Forty-Ninth Magician (with S. Babbitt,
archetypes. The ritualistic quality inherent in place and person 1966). Dick Foote and the Shark (1967). Phoebes Revolt (1968).
pervades her work; a mythic lyricism serves both to quiet and Goody Hall (1971). Curlicues (1980).
excite the reader. Illustrator for V. Worth titles: Small Poems (1972). More
Small Poems (1976). Still More Small Poems (1978). Small
With her mastery of tone and mood, Babbitts stories resonate Poems Again (1986). All the Small Poems and Fourteen
beyond their particulars to embrace the universal and to speak of More (1987).
broad truths. In her well-loved Tuck Everlasting (1975) the highly
credible eleven-year-old Winnie faces ultimate questions about
the meaning of life and death, and the novel speaks poignantly BIBLIOGRAPHY: Harrison, B. and G. Maguire, eds., Innocence and
about the place of death in the life cycle. The books gentle and Experience: Essays and Conversations on Childrens Literature
poetic wisdom places it among the classics in childrens literature. (1987). Haviland, V., ed., Children and Literature (1973).
Silvey, A., ed., Childrens Books and Their Creators (1995).
Despite the importance of her themes, Babbitt infuses her Ward, M. E., et al., Authors of Books for Young People (1990).
work with genuine levity, and her wry, humorous perspective Reference works: CA (1975). CANR (1987). CLR (1976).
attracts younger readers. Her early The Search for Delicious DLB (1986). SATA (1987). TCCW (1989).
(1969), Kneeknock Rise (1970), a Newbery honor book, and The Other references: Horn Book (Nov./Dec. 1984, March/April
Something (1970) are the stages for her homey tales with levels of 1986, Sept./Oct. 1988, Nov./Dec. 1989, Nov./Dec. 1990). NYTBR
meaning beyond their apparent lightheartedness. Twice, in The (14 Mar. 1999). PW (21 Feb. 1994).
Devils Storybook (1976) and The Devils Other Storybook (1987),
Babbitt claims the devil as her protagonist. He is a comic SUSAN P. BLOOM,
earthbound fellow victimized by his mischievous pranks as he UPDATED BY ANGELA WOODWARD
plots against others. Babbitts restrained satire renders him an
endearing character.
Babbitt enjoys providing her readers with characters outside

the mainstream of childrens literature. In Eyes of the Amaryllis BACON, Alice (Mabel)
(1977) Jennys Gran, an irascible woman who has not made
loving her easy, must grow in ways more expected of her young Born 26 February 1858, New Haven, Connecticut; died 1 May
granddaughter. Reality and illusion crash up against one another 1918, New Haven, Connecticut
along the stormy shoreline of the novel to challenge the readers Daughter of Leonard and Catherine Bacon
belief in things they cannot explain. Her quirky Herbert Rowbarge
(1982), Babbitts personal favorite, does not have an appealing Alice Bacon wrote almost exclusively about Japan. This
character with whom young readers can identify. Even as a child, special interest began when she was only fourteen years old, when
Herbert is distant and inaccessible. The novels philosophic truth her father took under his guardianship one of a pioneering group
about sense and self, and loss of self, remains more ambiguous, of ve young girls sent by the Japanese government to be
less tangible, though no less wise than her other writings. Al- educated in the U.S. Bacon soon became best friends with her
though Babbitts canon has wide appeal to adults as well as adopted sister.
children, the characters and theme of Herbert Rowbarge presume
adult experience. Publishers Weekly proclaimed it her crowning In 1883 Bacon began teaching at Hampton Institute. In 1888
achievement. she was invited to teach at the Peeresses School in Tokyo,
conducted by the Imperial Household Department for daughters
In 1989 Babbitt returned to her painterly antecedents and of the nobility. While residing in Japan, she spent most of her time
produced her rst full-color picture book since The Something in Japanese society, experiencing many aspects of Japanese life
(1970), Nellie: A Cat on Her Own. She says she ran out of ideas for rarely seen by Western visitors.
longer works around this time, and she went on to publish another
picture book in 1994, Bub: Or the Very Best Thing. The story of a In 1889 Bacon returned to her work at Hampton, where she
king and queens search for the best thing for their child, Bub is set concerned herself with the status of the black man. She founded
in medieval times, and Babbitt painstakingly hand-sewed cos- the Dixie Hospital to provide nursing education and better medi-
tumes for her models in order to achieve the precision she wanted cal care for the community, and expressed her views on racial
50
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BACON
problems in an article entitled The Negro and the Atlanta OTHER WORKS: Human Bullets, a Soldiers Story of Port Ar-
Exposition. thur (1907).
Japanese Girls and Women (1891) is based upon Bacons

many years of living in Japan. She felt the book was needed BIBLIOGRAPHY: Baldwin, T. W., Bacon Genealogy: Michael
because, While Japan as a whole has been closely studied, and Bacon of Dedham, 1640, and His Descendants (1915). Peabody,
while much and varied information has been gathered about the F. G., Education for Life: The Story of Hampton Institute (1918).
country and its people, one half of the population has been left Reference works: DAB. NAW, 1607-1950 (1971).
entirely unnoticed, passed over with brief mention, or altogether Other references: Independent (30 Jan. 1896). New Haven
misunderstood. The information she gathered and the observa- Journal Courier (3 May 1918). New Haven Register (3 May
tions she made were not those of a casual supercial traveler, but 1918). Southern Workman (March 1926).
are based upon the intimate friendships she developed with many
PATRICIA LANGHALS
native Japanese women. Bacon became acquainted with people of
all classes and carefully noted the similarities and differences in
their ideas and customs.
Her rst chapter deals with childhood and tells of the various
BACON, Delia Salter
ceremonies and traditions connected with infancy and child
rearing. The author tells how children are dressed and treated, and Born 2 February 1811, Tallmadge, Ohio Territory; died 2 Sep-
particularly emphasizes their training in good manners. In tember 1859, Hartford, Connecticut
another chapter, Bacon discusses the formal education of a Daughter of David and Alice Parks Bacon
Japanese girl. The reader learns of the high value placed upon
Daughter of Congregationalist missionaries, Delia Salter
education in general, as well as the details of the instruction which
Bacon was born in a model community her father had established
virtually all girls receive.
in the wilderness. Bankrupt in 1812, he returned to Connecticut
In later chapters Bacon treats such topics as marriage, di- and died in 1817, leaving his wife and seven children. After one
vorce, motherhood, old age, court life, samurai and peasant year (1825-26) at Catharine Beechers Hartford school, where she
women, city life, and domestic service. The reader learns the was a classmate and literary rival of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Baker
details of arranged marriages and the standards of a beautiful taught (1826-32) at schools in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New
and accomplished maiden. One also learns how after marriage, a York. In 1833 she began a series of classes in the home of her
young upper-class woman becomes almost a servant to her brother Leonard, pastor of the First Church (Congregational) in
mother-in-law. The life of a countrymans wife offers an interest- New Haven. Her Historical Lessons proved successful in New
ing contrast to the life of the upper-class woman. Although the Haven, New York, Albany, Boston, and Cambridge.
peasant woman undoubtedly works harder and grows older earli- Bacons eloquence and charm brought large audiences to her
er, she is freer and more independent than her city sister. literary and historical surveys thirty years before female lecturers
In discussing elderly women, Bacon emphasizes the respect became common, and won her friends and admirers such as
given to the aged. She explains that an elderly woman proudly Elizabeth Peabody and Caroline W. H. Dall. The rst fruit of
Bacons intense literary ambition, Tales of the Puritans (1831)
dresses as such and does not try to make herself appear younger.
consists of three stories, The Regicides, The Fair Pilgrim,
An aged mother is treated with love and tenderness and never
and Castine. All are based on historical events in 17th-century
regarded as a burden. When times are hard, children deprive
New England. The Regicides, about the escape to New Eng-
themselves in order to give extra to their parents.
land of Puritan judges who had sentenced Charles I, is the most
Court life is the center of Japans nest drama, music, art, and effective.
literature. Similarly the city lies at the center of popular folk In 1832 Bacons sentimental romance Loves Martyr was
culture, and Bacon describes the various festivals of the common published in the Philadelphia Sunday Courier. It won rst prize
people. One of the most interesting occupations to be found in the and was chosen over ve stories by Poe. Based on the scalping of
city is that of the geisha. The Geisha ya are establishments where Jane McCrea by the Indians in 1776, the story, like those in Tales
little girls are taken to be taught dance and song, the etiquette of of the Puritans, makes a beautiful, romantic heroine the center of
entertaining guests, and whatever else goes to make a girl the action.
charming to the opposite sex. Sometimes geisha will leave the
dancing in the teahouses to become the concubine of some Beginning in 1845, Bacon became more and more absorbed
wealthy Japanese or foreigner. in her belief that the plays attributed to Shakespeare had been
written by Sir Walter Raleigh or Francis Bacon, or by a group
Although Japanese Girls and Women is Bacons major work, headed by these men. Family and friends, including Eliza Ware
she also published a collection of letters related to her experiences Rotch Farrar, attempted to dissuade her from this pursuit. But
teaching in Tokyo (A Japanese Interior, 1893), and a collection of Charles Butler, a New York lawyer, gave her the rst fellowship
stories (In the Land of the Gods: Some Stories of Japan, 1905). on record to an American woman for advanced study abroad
Both books provide a rare insight into Japanese daily life. (Hopkins), and she sailed for England in May 1853 to do research.
51
BAGLEY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
In England she became increasingly isolated, obsessed with her became one of its three-person publishing committee. While
theory and her attempts to publish it. editing the Voice of Industry and contributing to its pages, Bagley
also organized branches of the Female Labor Reform Associa-
In May 1856 Bacon appealed in despair to Elizabeth Peabodys
tion in other mill towns. She gathered more than 2,000 signa-
brother-in-law, Nathaniel Hawthorne, American consul at Liver-
tures on petitions to the Massachusetts legislature that described
pool. He could not believe in her theory, but he not only became
the adverse effects of mill conditions on the health and minds of
her unpaid literary agent, secured English and American publish-
the workers and called for laws limiting the working day to 10
ers for her book, wrote its preface, but spent over $1,100 of his
hours. The petition of the mill workers was rejected.
own money on printing and editorial costs. The Philosophy of the
Plays of Shakspere Unfolded (1857) was ignored or ridiculed by In 1847 Bagley became the Lowell agent for The Covenant, a
contemporary reviewers, but Bacon was followed by numerous Baltimore monthly devoted to Odd Fellowship and General
Baconians, and she is blamed for stirring up the biggest Literature. Bagleys writings fall into two distinct groups: her
mares nest in the history of the English-speaking world. In early, genteel contributions to the Lowell Offering and her later
1858, completely insane, she was brought back to America from militant articles in the Voice of Industry. She wrote Pleasures of
England to die at the Hartford Retreat for the Insane. Factory Life for the Offering (Dec. 1840), describing the joys of
conversation, contemplation, plants, the power to assist ones
family, opportunities to meet new people from different parts of
OTHER WORKS: The Bride of Fort Edward: A Dialogue (1839).
the country. Two short tales also written for the Offering, Tales
of Factory Life, No. 1 (1841) and Tales of Factory Life, No. 2:
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Altick, R. D., Delia Bacon, in Ohio Authors The Orphan Sisters (1841), present the stories of Sarah T.
and Their Books (1962). Bacon, T., Delia Bacon: A Biographical and Catherine Bagley, who are able to improve themselves and
Sketch (1888). Beecher, C., Truth Stranger Than Fiction (1850). assist their needy families by working in the mills. The rst story
Dall, C. W. H., What We Really Know about Shakespeare (1886). makes it plain the factory girls lot is far superior to that of the
Emerson, R. W., The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks hired girl. In her reported speeches and writings as a labor
(1960). Farrar, E. W. R., Recollections of Seventy Years (1866). organizer and editor, Bagley claimed the authority of 10 years
Hopkins, V. C., Prodigal Puritan; a Life of Delia Bacon (1959) experience in the mills, and the reported success of her speeches
Pares, M., A Pioneer: In Memory of Delia Bacon, 2 Feb. 1811 to 2 probably depended in part on their ring of sincerity and conviction.
Sept. 1859 (1959).
Reference works: American Authors 1600-1900 (1938). NAW,
1607-1950 (1971). OTHER WORKS: Selections of Bagleys work can be found in:
History of the Labor Movement in the United States (P.S. Foner,
SUSAN SUTTON SMITH ed., 1947). The Lowell Offering: Writings by New England Mill
Women (ed. B. Eisler, 1977).
BAGLEY, Sarah G. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Eisler, B., ed., The Lowell Offering: Writings by
New England Mill Women (1977). Foner, P. S., The Factory Girls
(1977). Foner, P. S., History of the Labor Movement in the United
Born circa 1820 in Meredith, New Hampshire; death date unknown
States (1947). Josephson, H., The Golden Threads: New Eng-
lands Mill Girls and Magnates (1949). Lunardini, C. A., Wom-
Sarah G. Bagley received a common school education and, if
ens Rights (1996). Selden, B., The Mill Girls: Lucy Larcom,
her sketch, Tales of Factory Life, No. 1 is autobiographical,
Harriet Hanson Robinson, Sarah G. Bagley (1983). Stern, M. B.,
she may have been in domestic service before arriving in Lowell,
We, the Women: Career Firsts of Nineteenth Century Ameri-
Massachusetts. She may also have taught school. She worked at
ca (1963).
the Hamilton Manufacturing Company for over six years and for
Reference works: NAW, 1607-1950 (1971).
two years at the Middlesex Factory. For four of the years she
worked in the mills, she conducted a free evening class for her SUSAN SUTTON SMITH
fellow workers. She joined an Improvement Circle held in a
Lowell Universalist church and contributed articles to the Lowell
Offering, edited by Harriet Farley. When she became critical of
the deteriorating working conditions and low wages in the mills, BAILEY, Carolyn Sherwin
her articles were rejected. In a speech before 2,000 workingmen at
an 1845 Independence Day rally in Woburn, Massachusetts,
Born 1875 in Hoosick Falls, New York; died 24 December 1961,
Bagley attacked the Offering, and later called Farley a mouth-
Concord, Massachusetts
piece of the corporations. The popularity of the Offering de-
Daughter of Charles H. and Emma F. Blanchard Bailey; married
clined after these attacks, and it ceased publication late in 1845.
Eben C. Hill, 1936
Bagley helped to found and became the rst president of the
Lowell Female Labor Reform Association, and when the Voice of Carolyn Sherwin Bailey was educated at home by her moth-
Industry, a labor weekly, moved to Lowell in October 1845, she er, herself a teacher and writer of childrens books, and at
52
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BAILEY
Lansingburg Academy, near Albany, New York. After graduating Children (ed. by Bailey, 1921). The Torch of Courage (1921).
from Teachers College, Columbia, Bailey studied at the Montessori Flint, The Story of a Trail (1922). Baileys In-and Out-Door
School in Rome. Returning to New York City, she began a career Playgames (1923). Friendly Tales (1923). Reading Time Stories
of writing, editing, teaching, and traveling. (1923). Surprise Stories (1923). When Grandfather Was a Boy
(1923). All the Year Playgames (1924). Boys and Girls of Pioneer
At the age of nineteen, Bailey began publishing poetry and Days (1924). In the Animal World (1924). Lincoln Time Stories
short ction in St. Nicholas and Youths Companion. Her early (1924). Little Men and Women Stories (1924). Stories from an
books were collections of short stories and poems that grew out of Indian Cave (1924). The Wonderful Tree and Golden Day Stories
her work at the Warren Goddard House in New York. Bailey later (1925). Boys and Girls of Discovery Days (1926). The Wonderful
dismissed these early works as sentimental, but one collection, Window (1926). Untold History Stories (1927). Boys and Girls of
For the Childrens Hour (1906), remained in print for more than Today (1928). Forest, Field and Stream Stories (1928). Sixty
40 years. Bailey also began writing nonction at an early age: Games and Pastimes for All Occasions (1928). Boys and Girls of
such books as Boys Make-at-Home Things (1912) and Boy Heroes Modern Days (1929). Garden, Orchard and Meadow Stories
in Making America (1919) demonstrate her predilection for com- (1929). Read Aloud Stories (1929). The Wonderful Days (1929).
bining instruction and entertainment in books for children. Plays for the Childrens Hour (1931). Stories Children Want (ed.
This duality of purpose is particularly apparent in Baileys by Bailey, 1931). Our Friends at the Zoo (1934). Tell Me a
works on Americana. In the years between 1935 and 1944, Bailey Birthday Story (1935). From Moccasins to Wings (1938). Lil
wrote four books about early American arts and handcrafts: Hannibal (1938). Country Stop (1942). The Little Rabbit Who
Children of the Handcrafts (1935), Tops and Whistles, Stories of Wanted Red Wings (1945). Merry Christmas Book (1948). Old
Early American Toys and Children (1937), Homespun Playdays Man Rabbits Dinner Party (1949). Enchanted Village (1950). A
(1940), and Pioneer Art in America (1944). Some critics consider Candle for Your Cake (1952). Finnegan II (1953). The Little Red
these to be her greatest achievement. In preparing these books, Schoolhouse (1957). Flickertail (1962).
Bailey used original research into genealogical records, person-
al letters and diaries, rare village and county records, and. . .old BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bailey, C. S., The Hundred Dresses in A
maps. Though the life of those early times is perhaps romanti- Newbery Christmas: Fourteen Stories of Christmas by Newbery
cized, Bailey has a keen eye for detail. She creates a feeling of Award-winning Authors (1998, 1991). Davis, D. R., Carolyn
immediacy and evokes a sensitive appreciation for the achieve- Sherwin Bailey, 1875-1961: Prole and Bibliography (1967).
ments of the artists and artisans whose stories she tells. Miller, B. M., and E. W. Field, eds., Newbery Medal Books,
1922-1955 (1955).
Important as the books on American art were in establishing
Reference works: Junior Book of Authors, S. J. Kunitz,
her reputation, Bailey is best known for a quite different work.
and H. Haycraft, eds. (1951).
The book that graces nearly every childrens library is Baileys
Other references: NYT (25 Dec. 1961). PW (8 Jan. 1962).
1947 Newbery award-winner, Miss Hickory (1946). The books
greatest strength is Miss Hickory herself, an acerbic, ironic New KATHARYN F. CRABBE
England spinster whose body is a twig of applewood and whose
head is a hickory nut. Baileys use of detail in evoking the New
Hampshire countryside is so powerful, however, that her descrip-
tions of Temple Mountain, the apple orchard, and the old place BAILEY, Florence (Augusta) Merriam
very nearly bring them alive.
Born 8 August 1863, Locust Grove, New York; died 22 Septem-
OTHER WORKS: Daily Program of Gift and Occupation Work ber 1948, Washington, D.C.
(1904). Peter Newells Mother Goose (1905). The Jungle Primer Also wrote under: Florence Merriam
Daughter of Clinton and Caroline Hart Merriam; married Vernon
(1906). Firelight Stories (1907). Stories and Rhymes for a Child
Bailey, 1899
(1909). Girls Make-at-Home Things (1912). The Childrens Book
of Games and Parties (1913). For the Story Teller (1913). Every
Daughter of a Republican congressman, Florence Merriam
Childs Folk Songs and Games (1914). Montessori Children
Bailey grew up in a country home in northern New York.
(1915). Everyday Play for Children (1916). Letting in the Gang
Interested in nature and particularly bird life at an early age, she
(1916). Stories Children Need (ed. by Bailey, 1916). Stories for
began to publish papers about birds while still a student at Smith
Sunday Telling (1916). Boys and Girls of Colonial Days (1917).
College. She married Vernon Bailey, a naturalist, in 1899. There
The Way of the Gate (with Sheath, Hodges, and Tweedy, 1917).
were no children. Bailey and her husband traveled and worked
Once Upon a Time Animal Stories (1918). The Outdoor Story
together, writing about the natural history of the West. In 1931 she
Book (1918). Stories for Every Holiday (1918). Tell Me Another
received the Brewster Medal of the American Ornithologists
Story (1918). What to Do for Uncle Sam (1918). Broad Stripes
Union, and in 1933 the University of New Mexico awarded
and Bright Stars (1919). Everyday Stories (1919). Folk Tales and
her an LL.D.
Fables (1919). Hero Stories (1919). Legends from Many Lands
(1919). Stories of Great Adventures (1919). The Enchanted Bugle Throughout her life Bailey published many papers about
and Other Stories (1920). Wonder Stories (1920). Merry Tales for birds in such periodicals as Audubon Magazine, and her rst book,
53
BAILEY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Birds Through an Opera Glass (1889), is based on her early sciences out of the 19th century parlors into the outdoors, creating
papers. It tells of her experiences as a bird watcher and gives some an easy transition for many readers.
advice on how to recognize birds. It was quite popular, appearing
in various editions throughout the 1890s, during the period when
OTHER WORKS: A-Birding on a Bronco (1896). Birds of Village
publishers were trying to satisfy the rising national passion for the
and Field (1898). Cave Life in Kentucky (1933).
outdoor life. Bird watching, plant identication, and rock study
were popular pastimes of a new class of American amateurs. The
outdoor life in all its healthy aspects, especially when associated BIBLIOGRAPHY: Stille, D. R., Extraordinary Women Scien-
with the American West, took the place in popular fancy of earlier tists (1995).
nature study which was seen as an extension of religious piety or Reference works: Dictionary of American Biography, Na-
simply aesthetic appreciation. tional Cyclopedia of American Biography (1892 et seq.). NAW,
1607-1950 (1971).
In 1902, after extensive travel with her husband in the West,
Bailey published The Handbook of Birds of the Western United BEVERLY SEATON
States, which remained the standard handbook in its eld for
about 25 years. A handsome book, organized by genus, this work
is illustrated by the famous nature illustrator Louis Agassiz
Fuertes. Perhaps her most signicant work in ornithology, Birds BAILEY, (Irene) Temple
of New Mexico (1928), was also illustrated by Fuertes. Bailey
wrote about Western birds for some of her husbands books, such Born circa 1869, Petersburg, Virginia; died 6 July 1953, Wash-
as Wild Animals of Glacier National Park (1918), and also ington, D.C.
published Birds of the Santa Rita Mountains in Southern Arizona Daughter of Milo Varnum and Emma Sprague Bailey
(1923) and Among the Birds in Grand Canyon Country (1939).
While Bailey was not a professional ornithologist who made Many of Temple Baileys short stories and essays appeared
specic contributions to the science, she was a highly competent in magazines, and her novels came out at regular intervals for
writer on birds for both popular and professional audiences. several decades. All of her writing was amazingly popular.
Several years before her death it was estimated that 3,000,000
But Baileys career was not limited to ornithology. Her copies of her books had been sold. She was also one of the highest-
interest in social welfare and her love of nature and concern for the paid writers in the world; for one serial she received $60,000 from
conditions of her fellow humans are especially revealed in a short McCalls magazine, and from Cosmopolitan $325,000 for three
book she wrote while in Utah in the summer of 1893. My Summer serials and several short stories.
in a Mormon Village (1894) describes the town as a haven of
rest, where she spent many delightful days listening to the Reasons for her popularity can be surmised from the com-
reminiscences of the old pioneer Mormon women whom she ments of critics and reviewers: she gave her readers the relaxation
characterized as good but suffering sisters. The intellectual pover- and pleasure of entering a delightful world where everything
ty of their lives depressed her, although she knew they were not comes out right for the good and the true. Bailey upholds all the
different in this respect from their female counterparts on back conventional standards of morality, and dramatizes, over and over
again, her thesis that the rewards of virtue are many, lavish, and
country farms.
sure. She writes of life as she would like to have it, rather than
I recalled with a shudder the statistics I had known about the life as it is, says one critic, and another characterizes one of her
number of farmers wives who go insane, she wrote. Although, novels as high-own romance with a bland disregard for realities.
at the time she visited, polygamy had been outlawed, it was still
It is tempting to speculate as to the cause of her absorption in
practiced and taught in the area. She had a chance to observe the
a bright Never-Never Land. We might nd it in the fact that she
effects of polygamy on the women, and she felt these were almost herself was, from her birth, protected from the grimmer aspects of
always negative. Polygamy had brought great suffering to the life. She may on the other hand have been shrewd enough to
women, yet most of them continued to believe in it. As she put it, recognize that the average schoolgirl and housewife hunger for
The spirit that is nest and best in womanher power of self- glamour, romance, gaiety, and a satisfying solution to every
sacrice in the face of abstract righthas been used as a tool of problem. Setting herself to provide these, she found a goal
torture, and it will be used successfully until education teaches her for a long and lucrative career. A successful business woman,
that there is a higher light for her to follow. She was little more she retained her solid background of Presbyterianism and
sympathetic when writing about other aspects of Mormon belief, Republicanism.
presenting the prophets as some clever men who took advantage
of the immigrant mentality for their own material and physi- Reviews of her novels combine weak praise and outright
cal gain. disparagement, with certain words recurring many times: whole-
some, sweet, sentimental, and, perhaps most devastating
Bailey belongs to the rst generation of writers who wrote of all, harmless and innocuous. On the plus side, Bailey is
about the life sciences for the popular audience. Her graceful credited with skill in characterization and in devising of plots.
writing style and practical knowledge combined to bring the life Most of her ction is concerned with young love, but at times she
54
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BAKER
wrote of children, or of lonely people. Her style is clear and and marries Amy North, a medical student and a complicated
smooth, and she was fond of describing nature, elegantly fur- woman, the kind who knows how to strip the nerves and kick the
nished rooms, and beautiful clothes. She is to be respected for her will around. Characters similar to Amy recur in Bakers work,
careful craftsmanship. but this is the types most vivid incarnation. When Young Man
with a Horn (1938) was lmed (1950), scriptwriters turned most
of the heros black friends white, including the singer Jo Jordan,
OTHER WORKS: Judy (1907). Glory of Youth (1913). Contrary played by Doris Day. Romance with Doris gives the lm its happy
Mary (1915). Mistress Anne (1917). Adventures in Girlhood ending. Amy North, played by Lauren Bacall, suffers from the
(1917). The Tin Soldier (1919). The Trumpeter Swan (1920). The self-conscious Freudianism sweeping Hollywood at that time.
Gay Cockade (1921). The Dim Lantern (1923). Peacock Feathers
Trio (1943), Bakers second novel, presents the conict
(1924). The Holly Hedge (1925). The Blue Window (1926).
experienced by Janet Logan when a young man evoking hetero-
Wallowers (1927). Silver Slippers (1928). Burning Beauty (1929).
sexual love enters her life. Hitherto, shed had a long-standing
Wild Wind (1930). So This is Christmas (1931). Little Girl Lost
relationship with a domineering woman professor, whom she
(1932). Enchanted Ground (1933). The Radiant Tree (1934). Fair
assisted while doing graduate work. Reviewers faulted it as
As the Moon (1935). Ive Been to London (1937). Tomorrows
overworked and lacking in humanity. Nevertheless, it won the
Promise (1938). The Blue Cloak (1941). The Pink Camellia
Commonwealth Club of California medal for literature. The novel
(1942). Red Fruit (1945).
was developed out of an earlier story Romance (Harpers
Bazaar, 1941), which achieves a compelling tension the longer
novel lacks.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Notable Boston Authors,
Flagg, M., ed. (1960). Baker and her husband rewrote Trio as a stage play, which
Other references: Newsweek (20 July 1953). NYT (8 July opened in Philadelphia in 1944. A run on Broadway was dogged
1953). PW (24 June 1933). Time (20 July 1953). WLB (Sept. 1953). by censorship that triggered industry-wide protest and also attract-
ed many reviewers. Most found it moral to the point of moralizing
ABIGAIL ANN HAMBLEN (the lesbian villain is disgraced and shoots herself), but dull. The
controversy over its forced closing outlived the play by sever-
al years.
Cassandra at the Wedding (1962), Bakers last novel, recalls

BAKER, Dorothy Dodds Trio in its triangular conict between a dominant woman, a
compliant woman, and a man; but the failures of the earlier work
are recouped in this recasting. In Cassandra, the dominant woman
Born 21 April 1907, Missoula, Montana; died 17 June 1968, overcomes her dependency on her supportive twin sister; her
Terra Bella, California suicide attempt is thwarted. The novel ends with a gesture, not a
Daughter of Raymond Branson and Alice Grady Dodds; married debacle. The mastery of technique here, said a New York Times
Howard Baker, 1930 reviewer, is just about absolute.
Dorothy Dodds Baker is best remembered for her ability to Baker published many excellent short stories. Her vivid,
describe the excitement of music, especially jazz. She grew up in precise style and knack for capturing human gesture became her
California, studying violin until she went to college. While hallmark. Her characters are often bent on some singleminded
obsession: classical music in The Jazz Sonata (Coronet, 1937),
studying in Paris in 1930, she began writing Triopublished as
boxing in Private Lesson (Yale Review, 1940), and gambling in
her second noveland met and married poet Howard Baker. She
Grasshoppers Field Day (Harpers, 1941). Though she re-
earned an M.A. in French at UCLA and taught languages in a
ceived a National Institute of Letters Fellowship in 1964, Baker
private school until her rst short story was published; then she
published little after Cassandra.
began writing full-time. All her early stories portray women in
career situations.
In 1937, Baker won a Houghton Mifin Literary Fellowship OTHER WORKS: Keeley Street Blues in O. Henry Memorial
to complete Young Man with a Horn. This widely acclaimed novel Award Prize Stories (1939). Our Gifted Son (1948). The Ninth
follows the career of jazz musician Rick Martin, from the time he Day (with H. Baker, 1967).
rst cuts school in order to practice piano at an abandoned Los
Angeles mission, till he dies at the peak of his fame in a quack
drying-out hospital in New York. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Rule, J., Lesbian Images (1975).
Other references: NYT (18 June 1968).
The hero overcomes his racial prejudice in order to learn
from black musicians who befriend him. In New York he meets FRIEDA L. WERDEN
55
BALCH AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
BALCH, Emily Greene and their ways of life in Europe and the United States. Accompa-
nied by a variety of appendices with many statistical tables, the
book is an outstanding example of early sociology. Predating and
Born 8 January 1867, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts; died 9
in many ways complementing the highly lauded volumes, The
January 1961, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Polish Peasant in Europe and America (1918-20) by W. I.
Daughter of Francis Vergnies and Ellen Maria Noyes Balch
Thomas and Florian Znaniecki, the lack of recognition received
by this and other of Balchs works on sociological topics is hard to
Emily Greene Balch is one of the two American women
explain.
(Jane Addams was the other recipient in 1931) to be awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize (in 1946), yet her life and writings remain The remainder of Balchs writings revolved around the topic
relatively obscure. Graduating in 1889 from Bryn Mawr in its rst of international peace, a particularly controversial subject imme-
matriculated class, Balch was given its highest honor, the Bryn diately prior to and during World War I. In 1915 Balch, Jane
Mawr Fellowship for European Study. Her subsequent training in Addams, and Alice Hamilton came to national prominence as
Europe, which brought her in contact with Emile Levasseur in delegates to the International Congress of Women at The Hague
Paris, resulted in a technical treatise on relief for the poor in (which later evolved into the Womens International League for
France. Returning in 1890, Balch became one of the early social Peace and Freedom) and as members of peace envoys to countries
workers and two years later, with Vida Scudder and Helena around the world. Their joint publication of The Women at The
Dudley, founded one of the rst settlement houses, Denison Hague (1915) brought the meetings to worldwide attention and
House in Boston. Further European training in Germany in 1895 subsequently subjected the women to frequent personal ostracism
was concluded with Balchs attendance at the International So- and attack. Following a sabbatical from 1915 to 1917, when Balch
cialist Workers and Trade Union Congress in London. Katherine gained national prominence as a pacist, the Board of Trustees of
Coman, a well-known economist and historian, returned to the U.S. Wellesley College failed to appoint her, terminating her academic
on the same ship with Balch and offered her an academic position career at fty-two years of age after 20 years of service.
at Wellesley College, which Balch accepted.
Continuing her ght for a peaceful settlement to World War
From 1897 until 1918, Balch was an outstanding member of I, Balch edited Approaches to the Great Settlement (1918), a
the Wellesley faculty, working in the newly formed discipline of comprehensive volume containing major statements by various
sociology as well as in economics. Around 1905 she undertook a spokespersons and groups on ways to end the war. In 1919 the
Slavic journey which resulted in her major research book, Our newly established Womens International League for Peace and
Slavic Fellow Citizens. During these years she was an active Freedom (W.I.L.P.F.) elected Balch as international secretary-
supporter of many social reforms and changes, but from 1915 treasurer. This organization became the anchor for her future
until her death, Balchs most radical and absorbing social concern career as an international arbiter for peace. As a leader of a
was pacism. committee selected by the W.I.L.P.F., Balch edited and largely
Balchs rst publication, Public Assistance of the Poor in wrote Occupied Haiti (1927). The forcefulness and reasonable-
France (1893), is a study of the historical development of care for ness of the committees arguments led to the adoption of their
the poor as well as an organizational study of the bureaucracy that recommendations by President Hoover in 1930.
administered the welfare programs. The types of services offered, In addition to these formal, abstract writings, Balch wrote a
the disabilities covered by the state programs, and the types of short book of verse, The Miracle of Living (1941), which provides
social pathologies found are all discussed. Combining cost with an insight into some of her philosophy and the simplicity of her
statistical and demographic information, the thesis was one of the world view.
earliest sociological studies of care for the poor and disabled.
Balch wrote voluminously in newsletters, academic journals,
In 1895 Balch published a technical manuscript, Manual for
and popular magazines. Many of these writings are difcult to
Use in Cases of Juvenile Offenders and Other Minors in Massa-
obtain and cover diverse topics. An excellent compilation of some
chusetts, that would be primarily of interest to historians of social
of these works is available in Beyond Nationalism (1972), edited
welfare. In 1903 she published A Study of Conditions of City Life,
by Mercedes Randall, Balchs biographer.
a bibliography on urban areas. This extensive listing of writings
on the city clearly anticipated much of the concern on the same Balchs role as an academic, theorist, and international leader
topic which later emerged at the famous Chicago School of has yet to be systematically analyzed and evaluated. Nonetheless,
sociology. recognition of her signicance, work, and writings for world
peace is evident in her status as a Nobel laureate.
Balchs most signicant book was Our Slavic Fellow Citi-
zens (1910). Convinced of the need to know her subject well, she
spent the greater part of the year 1905 in Austria-Hungary, OTHER WORKS: The Papers of Emily Greene Balch, 1875-1961
studying emigration on the spot, and over a year in visiting Slavic (microlm archives in Wilmington, Delaware, 1988)
colonies in the United States. . . . One autumn was spent as a
boarder in the family of a Bohemian working man in New York
City. In this rst major sociological work on immigration, she BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cavanaugh, B., The Earth is My Home: A Com-
discusses the Slovenians, Croatians, Austrian Poles, and Ruthenians, parison of Two Women Pacists, Emily Greene Balch and Jeannette
56
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BALLARD
Rankin (thesis, 1989). Kaufman, P.W., The Simplest of New (including those with congenital defects) were stillborn, no wom-
England Spinsters: Becoming Emily Greene Balch 1875-1961 en died at birth, and only ve women died of infection afterward
in Women of the Commonwealth: Work, Family, and Social (often during epidemics).
Change in Nineteenth-century Massachusetts (1996).
Kenworthy, L.S., Emily Greene Balch in Living in the Light: Ballard began her diary to record births, midwifery pay-
Some Quaker Pioneers of the 20th Century (1984). Meinecke, M.F., ments, and other economic activitiespeas planted, cloth taken
Emily Greene Balch: An Overlooked Leader in the International off the loom, and the gifts of food and home-produced goods that
Peace Movement and Her Travails for Peace from 1914 to 1929 sustained a barter economy. Her early entries were short and noted
(thesis, 1994). Hardy, G. J., American Women Civil Rights little except the weather and the days production and exchanges.
Activists: Biobibliographies of 68 Leaders, 1825-1992 (1993). As the years went by, she wrote more, creating a remarkable
Randall, M. M., Improper Bostonian: Emily Greene Balch (1964). record of her life: the days she did laundry or planted ax, braved
Shane, M.P., Papers of Emily Greene Balch, 1875-1961: Guide to river-crossings or blizzards or unpredictable horses to get to a
the Scholarly Resources Microlm Edition (1988). Thomas, W. I., woman in labor, treated a childs illness or tried to help her
and Znaniecki, F., The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (2 neighbors survive a scarlet fever epidemic, testied in a rape trial
vols., 1918-20). or witnessed the aftermath of a murder/suicide, or coped with her
husbands imprisonment for debt or her grown sons rages.
MARY JO DEEGAN
Ballards writing remained remarkably matter-of-fact. Few
adjectives interfered with her account of tasks accomplished and
actions taken. In the early years she might punctuate her descrip-
BALLARD, Martha (Moore) tions of especially stressful events with acknowledgments of a
merciful divine Providence. Later she was more likely to inter-
Born 9 February 1735, Oxford, Massachusetts; died early June sperse expressions of exhaustion or helplessness. In both eras,
[before 9 June] 1812, Hallowell, Maine however, the drama of her writing is to be found in its understate-
Daughter of Elijah and Doratha Larned Moore Ballard; married ment and unremitting dailiness.
Ephriam Ballard, 1754; children: nine
Like most diarists, Ballard is widely known only because one
historian took an interest in her writing and made it accessible to a
Little is known of Martha Ballards life before 1785, when
larger audience. Many scholars have used Ballards diary in their
she began writing the diary that would bring her into the historical
studies of New England farm life, and some have quoted it at
record. Evidence suggests that she was a fairly typical goodwife.
Although she came from a relatively educated family (her uncle length. For the most part, however, they dismissed it as an
was the rst person from Oxford, Massachusetts, to graduate from exhausting account of the trivial details of domestic work. In her
college), her mother signed her name with a mark. Someone prize-winning book A Midwifes Tale (1990), Laurel Thatcher
taught young Martha to write, but her spelling and orthography Ulrich showed that Ballards concerns were not trivial at all, but
remained erratic even by the standards of her time. She had nine the warp and woof of life in her time. Ulrich excerpted selections
children, three of whom died in a diphtheria epidemic shortly from the diary, and the full diary was published for the rst time
before the seventh was born. Like other married women, she two years later.
produced foods and textiles for neighborhood trade, nursed the
sick, and attended births. A family story described her, during the Ballards life was in many ways typical for a woman of her
pre-revolutionary tea boycotts, secretly preparing tea for a sick time and place. She participated in a household and neighborhood
woman. Both she and her husband seem to have had little interest economy in which almost everything people needed was pro-
in revolutionary politics. duced locally. She had more medical and herbal knowledge than
most of her (younger) neighbors, but there were plenty of other
In 1777 Ballard moved to Hallowell, Maine, and less than a midwives/herbalists with similar expertise. She grew old and
year later acted as a midwife for the rst time. At the time, fought against her increasing dependence on her son and daugh-
childbirth was a social event. Ideally, a midwife arrived rst and ter-in-law. What made her remarkable is that she left a record of
then three or more women gathered to assistbut of course things her experience.
didnt always go as planned. Hallowell, unlike Oxford, was near
the frontier of European settlement, so after her move Ballard was
one of the older women in the community. Her youngest child was
OTHER WORKS: The Diary of Martha Ballard, 1785-1812 (1992).
eight, and her daughters were old enough to do the cooking,
laundry, and weaving in her absence, so she was somewhat freed
from the responsibilities of running a home. It was not surprising,
therefore, that her younger neighbors called on her to help them BIBLIOGRAPHY: Nash, C., The History of Augusta (1961). Ulrich, L.,
with their births. Within a few years, Ballard was widely recog- A Midwifes Tale (1990).
nized as a midwife, and between 1778 and 1812 she would deliver
998 babies. Her success rates were impressive: only 14 babies LORI KENSCHAFT
57
BAMBARA AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
BAMBARA, Toni Cade praised by critics, particularly for its lyric and dreamlike experi-
mental narration, which created complex webs of communal
connections.
Born 25 March 1939, New York, New York; died 9 December
1995, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Bambaras interest in experimental narration led her into lm
Wrote under: Toni Cade (prior to 1971) work. She wrote historical scripts on gures such as Zora Neale
Daughter of Walter and Helen Brent HendersonCade II; child- Hurston, W. E. B. Du Bois, and activist Cecil B. Moore, as well as
ren: Karma renditions of her own and others ctions. Bambara was also an
active teacher and organizer. She taught and served as a consultant
For Toni Cade Bambara, writing is one means of celebrating in a range of settings, from colleges and universities such as City
movements toward personal and political change. The issue, College, Rutgers, Emory, and Spelman, to community centers,
she has explained, is salvation. I write to save our lives. In her prisons, libraries, and museums. She conducted workshops on
work as a writer of stories, a novel, essays, and lm scripts, as well writing and community organizing and was an instructor at Scribe
as a teacher and community organizer, Bambara transmits an Video Center in Philadelphia, a media access facility, training
African-American cultural heritage, records the strong communi- community groups in the use of video as a tool for social change.
ties and characters who struggle with the effects of racism, and
envisions new and more humane conditions for our lives. Its a tremendous responsibility. . .to be a writer, an artist, a
cultural worker, said Bambara. In her later years, she focused on
Bambara began writing as a child, encouraged by her mother lmmaking and community organization in fullling what she
and inspired by visits to the Apollo Theater with her father. saw as her most important role, cultural worker. She wrote,
Listening to impassioned trade unionists, Pan-Africans, Father
acted in, and directed television documentaries; taught lmmaking;
Divinists, Muslims, and Ida B. Wells supporters at Speakers
and had three lm adaptations made of her short stories. As a
Corner in Harlem, she learned the power of words to shape and
mentor she founded Image Weavers, a collective of women
share visions. Bambara earned a B.A. at Queens College and
media makers of color.
an M.A. at the City College of New York. She completed further
graduate work in American Studies and studied commedia dellarte, In a posthumous collection, Deep Sightings and Rescue
mime, linguistics, dance, and lmmaking at various institutions in Missions: Fiction, Essays, and Conversations(1996), Toni
Europe and the United States. Morrison, her friend and original editor at Random House, gath-
Bambaras early writing and editing redened African Ameri- ered the stories that reveal the heart cling of her ction.
can identities, particularly black womens complex and varied Going Critical and Babys Breath, one narrated from the
selves, beyond the connes of racist and sexist stereotypes. The perspective of the parent and the other from that of the adult child,
Black Woman (1970, as Toni Cade) is a groundbreaking antholo- play out the disparate expectations that mar the possibilities for
gy of essays, poems, and ction that grapples with the intersec- intimacy and understanding.
tions of race and gender in womens lives. Tales and Stories for Essays such as Language and the Writer express her
Black Folks (1971) offers children contemporary African Ameri- desire to change the world through the medium of lm by
can stories and black renditions of fairy tales reset in 20th-century connecting with communities and advancing her activism. How
America. She Came By Her Name is an interview with Louis Massiah,
The stories in Bambaras rst collection, Gorilla, My Love with whom she collaborated on some documentaries. Her last
(1977), are primarily rst-person vignettes of urban life narrated novel, titled Those Bones Are Not My Child was published in
by an array of black girls and women in rhythmic, pointed, poetic, 1999. Bambaras lms, however, received little critical attention.
black-inected language. Critics praised the depth and range of
Bambaras characters, and her nonpolemical emphasis on the
strength of African American community in the face of racist OTHER WORKS: Black Utterances Today (editor, 1975). Zora
patriarchal conditions. They also acclaimed Bambaras language (lm, 1971). The Johnson Girls (lm, 1972). Transactions (lm,
as sounding the musical improvisations of bop and the raptures of 1979). The Long Night (lm, 1981). Epitaph for Willie (lm,
gospel throughout her stories. 1982). Tar Baby (lm, 1984). Raymonds Run (lm, 1985). The
Bombing of Osage (lm, 1986). Cecil B. Moore: Master Tactician
The collection Sea Birds Are Still Alive (1977) moves out- of Direct Action (lm, 1987). More Than Property (lm, n.d.).
ward in scope to address other cultures, and focuses upon charac- The KKK Boutique Aint Just Rednecks (n.d.). Black Theater
ters committed to more directly political struggles such as revolu- (1969). What It is I Think Im Doing Anyhow (1980). Beauty
tions in Southeast Asia, and the civil rights and Black Power is Just Care. . .Like Ugliness is Carelessness (1981). Thinking
movements. Bambaras novel, The Salt Eaters (1980), which won About My Mother (1981).
the American Book award from the Before Columbus Founda-
tion, expands this vision of cultural and social transformation,
portraying the intertwined lives of culture workers, political BIBLIOGRAPHY: Evans, M., ed., Black Women Writers (1950-1980):
activists, and healers within a Southern community. The novel A Critical Evaluation (1984). Flora, J. M., and R. Bain, eds.,
develops the interconnections between personal well being, spiri- Contemporary Fiction Writers of the South: A Bio-Bibliographi-
tual growth, and political commitment. The Salt Eaters was highly cal Sourcebook (1993). Pearlman, M., ed., American Women
58
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BARKER
Writing Fiction: Memory, Identity, Family, Space (1989). Tate, C., for women. Since the 1950s, Banning has returned to earlier
ed., Black Women Writers at Work (1983). themes, investigating their many facets. The Will of Magda
Reference works: Black Writers (1989). CA (1978). CANR Townsend (1973) is a ctionalized autobiography in which all her
(1988). CLC (1981). DLB (1985). Encyclopedia of Black Women earlier themes reappear and take on different meanings in the new
in America: Literature (1996). FC (1990). MTCW (1991). context of youth in conict with age.
Other references: Booklist (15 Sept.1996). Callaloo (Spring
1996). KR (1996). Quarterly Black Review (1996). Bannings ction spans more than half a century. Taken
together, her work presents an accurate picture of middle-class,
RACHEL STEIN, white American women that serves as a social history.
UPDATED BY KAREN MCLENNAN
OTHER WORKS: This Marrying (1920). Half Loaves (1921).

Country Club People (1923). A Handmaid of the Lord (1924). The
Women of the Family (1926). Pressure (1927). Money of Her Own
BANNING, Margaret Culkin (1928). Prelude to Love (1929). Mixed Marriage (1930). The
Towns Too Small (1931). Path of True Love (1932). The Third
Born 18 March 1891, Buffalo, Minnesota; died 4 January 1982 Son (1933). The First Woman (1934). The Iron Will (1935).
Daughter of William Edgar and Hannah Young Culkin; married Letters to Susan (1936). You Havent Changed (1937). The Case
Archibald Tanner Banning, 1914 (divorced); LeRoy Salsich, for Chastity (1937). Too Young to Marry (1938). Enough to Live
1944; children: four (two died in early childhood) On (1939). Out in Society (1940). Salud: A South American
Journal (1941). A Week in New York (1941). Letters from England
Raised in a Roman Catholic family, Margaret Culkin Ban- (1942). Women for Defense (1942). Conduct Yourself According-
ning spent most of her life in the Midwest. After graduation from ly (1944). The Clever Sister (1947). Give Us Our Years (1949).
Vassar College in 1912, she moved to Chicago, where she earned Fallen Away (1951). A New Design for the Defense Decade
a certicate from the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy (1951). The Dowry (1955). The Convert (1957). Echo Answers
in 1913. Her rst marriage ended in divorce. She gave birth to four (1960). The Quality of Mercy (1963). The Vine and the Olive
children, two of whom died in early childhood. As a popular and (1964). I Took My Love to the Country (1966). Mesabi (1969).
nancially successful writer, Banning raised her surviving two Lifeboat Number Two (1971). The Splendid Torments (1976).
children alone. Such Interesting People (1979)
In the 1940s, most of Bannings efforts reected war issues

and she devoted her talents primarily to nonction, offering BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CB (1940). Twentieth Century
studies of womens participation in war and defense. Her novels Authors, First Supplement (1955).
reect both a personal and a social history, as well as most of the Other references: Margaret (1966). Margaret Culkin Ban-
major ethical and domestic issues which confront women. Her ning (lm, 1958).
major characters are women. In her early novels, they face
conicts between marriage and career, social need and personal MARCIA HOLLY
desire for birth control versus the churchs anticontraception
stance, and the restrictions of the church on remarriage.
From the mid-1940s on, her most frequent character is a

middle-aged Catholic woman who, after an unhappy rst mar-
BARKER, Shirley
riage, successfully pursues a career and eventually marries her
former lover. These circumstances offer Banning latitude to Born 4 April 1911, Farmington, New Hampshire; died 18 No-
develop a variety of themes: women and work, divorce, delity, vember 1965, Penacook, New Hampshire
religious convictions, nature of love, sexuality, birth control, and
two of her late favorites: difference of youth and age, and youth in A descendant of Massachusettss earliest settlers, Shirley
different periods in history. In every novel, Banning explores Barker has spent most of her life in New England, the setting for
serious social and personal issues, generally without moral nearly all of her novels. Educated at the University of New
judgements and from a perspective that suggests the complexities Hampshire, Radcliffe College, and the Pratt Institute, she has
of those issues. advanced degrees in English and library science. Her rst book of
poetry, The Dark Hills Under (1933), was selected for the Yale
In Spellbinders (1922), Banning presents another aspect of Younger Poets series.
the theme: womens participation in political affairs and its
inuence on sexual relations. The four spellbinders are women All of Barkers novels are historical, and most of them are set
who undertake to organize other women to participate in politics. in New Hampshire, where her family has lived since the 1670s.
She portrays the conicts of childbirth and Catholicism realisti- Peace My Daughters (1949) focuses on the Salem witch trials;
cally and presents marriage primarily as an economic necessity Rivers Parting (1950) moves between an ancestral home in
59
BARNES AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Nottingham and a newly established one in colonial New Hamp- BARNARD, A. M.

shire; Fire and the Hammer (1953) involves Tory Quakers in See ALCOTT, Louisa May
revolutionary Bucks County, Pennsylvania; Tomorrow the New
Moon (1955) traces the life of a Puritan minister and his cousins;
Liza Bowe (1956) is set in Elizabethan England and is Barkers
only attempt at rst person narrative; Swear by Apollo (1958) BARNES, Carman Dee
concerns a medical student who moves from revolutionary New
Hampshire to the Hebrides; The Last Gentleman (1960) is the
governor of New Hampshire during the American Revolution; Born Carman Jackson, 20 November 1912, Chattanooga, Tennessee
Daughter of James N. and Diantha Mills Jackson; married
Corner of the Moon (1961) is set in England at the time of the
Hamilton F. Armstrong, 1945 (divorced)
French Revolution; and Strange Wives (1963) traces the Jewish
settlement of Newport, Rhode Island.
Carman Dee Barnes took her name from her rst stepfather,
Barker writes formula historical novels. The characters are Wellington Barnes. Her mother, Diantha Barnes, was well known
subservient to the settings, which are rife with war, plagues, in the South for her poetry and folklore. Educated at private
epidemics, spiritual crises, and historical personages such as schools, Barnes was forced to leave the Gardner School in New
Shakespeare and Washington. Almost every novel has an obliga- York City after the principal read her successful but scandalous
tory bastard, a smattering of occultism, and incipient madness. rst novel, Schoolgirl (1929), published when the author was
Although Barker varies the pattern, each novel contains a trian- sixteen. This was the end of Barnes formal education.
gleeither the hero must choose between the undyingly faithful
With dramatist A. W. Pezet, Barnes adapted Schoolgirl for
but commonplace woman and the exciting but capricious one
Broadway, where it opened on her eighteenth birthday. She also
(Rivers Parting, Tomorrow the New Moon, Swear by Apollo,
sold the lm rights for a substantial sum. Schoolgirl had been an
Corner of the Moon) or the heroine must choose between the dull
indictment of school practices, and thus Barnes was taken up in
but dependable male and the dangerous, independent one (Peace
liberal circles as exemplifying a new realistic approach to Ameri-
My Daughters, Fire and the Hammer, Liza Bowe, The Last
can education.
Gentleman, Strange Wives).
Based on Barnes experiences at a girls boarding school,
The hero invariably chooses the faithful woman, but only
Schoolgirl follows boy-crazy Naomi Bradshaw through her real-
after a little ing with the other, who usually turns up pregnant.
istically described experiences with crushes, petting, and sexual
After some harrowing moments while the hero wonders if the
experimentation. Sent away to school after she has tried to elope,
child is his and the faithful heroine threatens to reject him for
Naomi matures from a spoiled, oversophisticated child to a
fathering the child, the paternity is placed elsewhere and all is
slightly less spoiled, still cynical, but sadder and wiser young
forgiven. In the other triangle, the heroine always chooses the
woman of almost sixteen.
dangerous man, who loves her but nds her too saucy and
independent to make a good wife. Only after the heroine is Language and technique are remarkable for a sixteen-year-old
subjected to Psyche-like trials of delity and endurance does the author, who combines sophistication with an air of innocence.
hero relent. Barnes occasional irony reveals she has so outdistanced Naomi
she can no longer take her heroine seriously, but the book is
Although Barkers novels are not original, they are, as
mainly honest narrative, as a critic described it, portraying
popular novels, a good indication of the moral attitudes still genuine emotions and real problems.
prevalent in the 1950s and early 1960s. Naughty girls are pun-
ished: they bear bastards, occasionally go mad, and never get their The dramatization simplied and romanticized the plot, not
man. Good girls are rewarded for their morality and their delity. only making the elopement partner and boyfriend at school one
Men can have the naughty girls and marry the good girls providing person, but having him still around at the end, anxious to marry
they dont father any bastards. Barker has reafrmed that despite Naomi. Brooks Atkinsons New York Times review commented
plagues, wars, and tyranny, a mans life has always been more on the plays grim determination to explain the younger
exciting. generation sympathetically, no matter what the scandal. He com-
plained that questions of right and wrong were left obscure.
OTHER WORKS: A Land and a People (1952). Beau Lover (1930) describes Gloria, a Southern girl search-
ing for her ideal lover while determinedly remaining a virgin, no
matter what the provocation. In this book, Barnes introduces the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: TCA, First Supplement (1955). issue of a womans career versus marriage. She maintains women
Other references: Newsweek (1 Jan. 1951). NYHTB (7 Jan. should not sacrice themselves to men, but suggests the ideal man
1951). NYT (27 Feb. 1949, 22 Nov. 1953, 9 Jan. 1955, 24 Aug. would be strong enough not to demand sacrice. Barnes experi-
1958). SatRL (16 April 1949). ments with technique and point of view, telling the story as if
Gloria were talking to herself in the second person. Critics
CYNTHIA L. WALKER complained of emotion without genuine impulse.
60
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BARNES
In 1945 Barnes became the second wife of Hamilton Fish Taken from a real-life incident in Kentucky (which was later
Armstrong, writer on international politics and editor of the to become William G. Simms novel, Beauchampe), Octavia
journal Foreign Affairs. Together they wrote A Passionate Victo- Bragaldi employed the format of the enormously popular roman-
rian, a play about English actress Fanny Kemble. The next year, tic plays and recast the events in 15th century Italy. It won
1946, Barnes published Time Lay Asleep, a novel based on her immediate success, played in almost every city in the U.S., and
family history and childhood. Radically different from her previ- was later produced in London and Liverpool. The play offered a
ous work, it begins with a prologue introducing Barnes concept superb leading role which Barnes acted herself to great praise.
that if one could remember ones whole past plus the past of ones After her marriage to the popular actor, E. S. Conner, the couple
ancestors, there might be a way to cheat Fate of her toll of cause appeared together in Octavia Bragaldi many times.
and effect. Moving beyond the slick simplicity of earlier books,
Barnes published La Fitte, or, The Pirate of the Gulf in 1838.
Barnes attempts, like Faulkner, to create settings with intertwined
The Forest Princess (1844), a version of the Pocahontas and
physical, psychological, and symbolic elements, and to integrate
Captain John Smith story, capitalized on a current interest in
different timelines.
Indian dramas. Toward the end of her career Barnes adapted two
All Barnes novels show her ability to mold materials from French melodramas, A Night of Expectations (1848) and Char-
her own background into technically procient, engaging novels lotte Corday (1851). The Captive (1850), which has come down in
with social implications. With four novels published before she title only, may have been based on a monodrama entitled The
was twenty-two, one regrets Barnes did not continue her develop- CaptiveA Scene in a Madhouse, which Barnes often performed
ment as a writer. in the early days of her acting career when she was appearing with
her parents.
OTHER WORKS: Mother, Be Careful! (1932). Young Woman (1934). In 1848 Barnes published a collection, Plays, Prose and
Poetry, which included the popular Octavia Bragaldi.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Warfel, H. R., ed., American

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Durang, C., The Philadelphia Stage: From the
Novelists of Today (1951).
Year 1749 to the Year 1855 (1855). Ireland, J. N., Records of the
Web sites: Hamilton Fish Armstrong Papers, available on-
New York Stage from 1750 to 1860 (1866-67). Kritzer, A.H., ed.,
line at http://infoshare.princeton.edu:2003/libraries/restone/
Plays by Early American Women: 1775-1850 (1995).
rbsc/ndi. Women Playwrights, 1900-1950, online at http://
www.geocities.com/Broadway/Alley/5379/1900Ba.html. JOANN PECK KRIEG
CAROL B. GARTNER,
BARNES, Djuna
BARNES, Charlotte Mary Sanford Born 12 June 1892, Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York; died 19
June 1982, Doylestown, Pennsylvania
Wrote under: A Lady of Fashion, Lydia Steptoe
Born 1818; died 14 April 1863 Daughter of Wald and Elizabeth Chappell Barnes
Daughter of John and Mary Creenbill Barnes; married Edmond S.
Connor, 1846 Best known for her enigmatic and stylistically dazzling novel
Nightwood (1936), Djuna Barnes is regarded as a totemic gure of
Charlotte Mary Sanford Barnes success as a woman drama- literary modernism and a forceful if challenging poet of the female
tist in the early days of the American theater was second only to consciousness. Nightwoods nonlinear form, its pessimistic out-
that of Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie. It was a success that can be look on love and redemption, and its abundance of disturbing
seen as the by-product of her parents ambitions for her theatri- images have frustrated some readers and critics, while others have
cal career. found the same qualities to be the source of the novels uncommon
emotional impact. T.S. Eliot was an early champion of Nightwood
The daughter of the well known and much admired acting
who celebrated its poetic language and appreciated its gloomy
pair, Mr. and Mrs. John Barnes, Charlotte was introduced to the
philosophy. He wrote in his 1937 introduction, It seems to me
public by her parents in her early teens. Thereafter she played with
that all of us, so far as we attach ourselves to created objects and
them often but received notices of the type that usually referred to
surrender our wills to temporal ends, are eaten by the same worm.
her acting as uninteresting and tedious. Her thorough
training in the theater, however, brought her success as a play- Brought up in modest circumstances in Huntington, Long
wright and her earliest attempt, the Last Days of Pompeii (1835), Island, and subjected to sexual abuse (possibly of an incestuous
based on the novel by Bulwer Lytton, was followed two years nature), Barnes went on to become a prominent gure in interna-
later by the best of her plays, Octavia Bragaldi, or, The Confession. tional literary circles, befriending James Joyce and artists such as
61
Berenice Abbott, Marsden Hartley, and Marcel Duchamp, as well title character in Maggie of the Saints (1917; published in the
as Eliot. Because her life story includes so many colorful person- New York Morning Telegraph Sunday Magazine), remarks, If
alities, and because the traumas of her early life directly inu- one lives long enough it is as good as being a child again. A later
enced most of her literary output, Barnes offers ripe material for play, The Antiphon (published in 1958 and premiered three years
literary biography. Phillip Herring wrote, Djuna Barnes artistic later), returned to the family themes of Ryder and transposed them
genius, like that of many writers, normally required adversity to to a setting reminiscent of Eliots The Family Reunion.
produce work of artistic merit. Indeed, Robin Vote, the central
character of Nightwood, is generally acknowledged to be a Although her writing never achieved the same degree of
ctional version of Thelma Wood, the longtime love interest of renown enjoyed by some of her contemporaries, Barnes was
Barnes. Like Wood, Vote inspires the obsessive devotion of men considered a great beauty as well as an exceptional raconteur, and
and women alike, apparently without trying, and she always on those merits she did become fairly well known in her time. The
leaves her admirers in a state of inconsolable grief, apparently passing of literary modernism and most of its central gures made
without feeling any remorse herself. During writing and revision, her something of a living relic, a status she neither enjoyed nor
Barnes continued to nurse the emotional wounds inicted by encouraged. Paraphrasing Thomas Hobbes, she is recorded as
Wood, and her bitter conclusions about love determine every saying, Life is painful, nasty and short . . . in my case it has only
relationship in the novel. been painful and nastya line which became the lengthy title of
Hank ONeals 1990 biography. Her reclusiveness only enhanced
In Nightwood the idea that love is a disguised form of her reputation as a feminist maverick, and by the time of her death
delusion or narcissism gets articulated by Dr. Matthew OConnor, in 1982, the amount of reverence for Nightwood and curiosity
a transvestite who spends most of his time in bedand one of the about the raw material on which it was based showed no signs of
oddest characters in all modern literature. The middle chapters of subsiding.
the novel are largely made up of the rambling monologues of this
ctionalized version of the Irish-American abortionist and drug
dealer, Dan Mahoney. OTHER WORKS: The Book of Repulsive Women (1915). A Book
(1923). Selected Works (1962). Creatures in the Alphabet (1982).
Nightwood is far and away Barnes best known work as well Interviews (1985). At the Roots of the Stars (1995).
as her most powerful and original, but over the course of her
45-year literary career, though far from prolic, she wrote a wide
variety of work consistent with Nightwoods satirical and doom-rid- BIBLIOGRAPHY: ONeal, H., Life Is Painful, Nasty and Short . . . In
den character. These secondary works include Ryder (1928), an My Case Only Painful and Nasty (1990). Herring, P., Djuna: The
early novel loosely based on Barnes childhood; a group of Life and Works of Djuna Barnes (1995).
one-act plays; and a series of interviews with the famous and
nearly famous, which appeared in popular newspapers and MARK SWARTZ
magazines.
Barnes undertook the interviews to supplement the small
annuity she received from her friend and patron, Peggy
Guggenheim. Her choice of subjects was typically eccentric and
BARNES, Linda J.
ambitious. In 1915 she dutifully transcribed the haunting words of
the controversial radio evangelist Billy Sunday: War has been Born 6 June 1949, Detroit, Michigan
the best thing for religion in the last century; it has lled the Daughter of Irving and Hilda Grodman Appleblatt; married
churches, it has brought men to their knees in the trenches. Richard Allen Barnes, 1970; children: Samuel
Barnes also held conversations with James Joyce, boxer Jess
Willard, and others, publishing the results in popular publications Best known for her mystery series featuring Carlotta Carlyle,
like McCalls and the New York Press. Linda Barnes also wrote a previous series of four mystery novels
starring Michael Spraggue. Her rst Spraggue novel, Blood Will
Ryder ctionalizes members of Barnes own family, in Have Blood, was published in 1982 (written under Linda J.
particular her grandmother Zadel Barnes, a journalist and activist. Barnes). It introduced readers to the independently wealthy actor
Barnes illustrated Ladies Almanack herself and published it
and amateur detective. Three more Spraggue books followed:
anonymously the same year as Ryder. A mock biography focusing
Bitter Finish (1983), Dead Act, (1984) and Cities of the Dead
on the lesbian exploits of Evangeline Musset, it ends with the
(1986). Barnes ended the series because Spraggue was getting too
heroines death, at age 99, and the ritualistic cremation of every-
depressing: since he was an amateur sleuth, and the only way to
thing but her tongue. Herring writes that the work rivals Joyces
legitimately get him involved in a murder mystery was for the
Finnegans Wake for both obscurity and bawdiness.
victim to be someone he knew. To keep him supplied with cases,
Barnes plays show the inuence of Oscar Wilde, especially everyone around him would eventually have to die. In addition, as
his revisionist biblical fable Salom, as well as John Millington the series continued, his involvement in the various cases was
Synge. The idiosyncratic dialect of Synges Irish peasants made becoming more unbelievable. But the character was popular
an uneasy pairing with Barnes penchant for satire. The incongrui- enough to spawn a made-for-television movie in 1984 loosely
ty was in all probability intentional. Mary OBrian, mother of the based on Blood Will Have Blood.
62
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BARNES
Barnes calls the Spraggue novels her apprentice work. She Carlotta grow, shell continue the series. Barnes currently resides
always wanted to write a detective novel with a female lead, but near Boston with her husband and son.
the powers that be in publishing, who said such a semitough
character would never sell, deterred her. But Barnes was deter-
mined, and between the second and third Spraggue novels she OTHER WORKS: Coyote (1990) Steel Guitar (1991) Snapshot
created Carlotta Carlyle. The six-foot-one, redheaded ex-cop, (1993) Hardware (1995) Flashpoint (1999)
who is a part-time Boston cab driver and licensed private detec-
tive, came to life in Lucky Penny (1985). Written in 1983,
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Book Review Digest 1996 (1997). CA (1997).
Barnes sold the short story to several magazines that folded before
Heising, W., Detecting Women 2 (1996). Swanson, J., and D.
ever publishing her piece, which means she was never paid. After
James, By A Womans Hand (1994).
Lucky Penny was nally published in the New Black Mask
(which folded after ve issues), it immediately earned critical
KATHY HENDERSON
acclaim. Nominated for all the major mystery honors, it won the
1986 Anthony award. This success proved to Barnes and her
editor that a female character wasnt such a bad idea after all.
A Trouble of Fools (1987), the rst Carlotta novel, enjoyed BARNES, Margaret Ayer
the same success as its short-story predecessor. It was nominated
for the Edgar and Shamus awards and won the 1988 American
Born 8 April 1886, Chicago, Illinois; died 26 October 1967,
Mystery award. The Snake Tattoo (1989), Barnes second outing
Cambridge, Massachusetts
with Carlotta, was named outstanding book of 1990 by the
Daughter of Benjamin F. and Janet Hopkins Ayer; married Cecil
London Times.
Barnes, 1910; children: three sons.
Critics praise Carlottas character for her sense of humor and
wry outlook on life. While Barnes plots are strong and intriguing, Descended on both sides from colonial English families who
the true strength of the successful series is Carlotta, who has been settled in America in the middle 1600s, Margaret Ayer Barnes
described as memorable, and her strong supporting cast. The attended the University School for Girls in Chicago and majored
secondary characters in the novels are as interesting in their own in English and philosophy at Bryn Mawr College, where she was
right: Carlottas tenant, Roz, an eccentric artist; Carlottas some- inuenced by the feminist president, M. Carey Thomas. While
times boyfriend, Sam Gianelli, son of the local mob leader; and raising three sons, she appeared in performances of the Aldis
Paolina, her young sister (through the Big Sisters organization). It Players in Lake Forest, Illinois, and of the North Shore Theater in
is Carlottas strong emotional relationship with Paolina that Winnetka, Illinois. Her stories, published by the Pictorial Review,
stands out in the series and has led to a frequent underlying theme were later collected and published in book form as Prevailing
in the books of a concern for children. Winds (1928). Barnes wrote three plays (two in collaboration with
Edward Sheldon, a dramatist and personal friend) and ve novels,
Barnes was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. Her father winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1931 for Years of Grace (1930).
was a mechanical engineer and her mother was a teacher and After the publication of her last novel, Wisdoms Gate (1938),
homemaker. When she was seventeen, Barnes won the National Barnes returned to writing occasional short stories and lecturing.
Council of Teachers of English Writing Award. She soon gave up
writing, believing that something so easily mastered at such an Prevailing Winds shows evidence of the skills that would
age must not be worth much, so she decided to pursue acting. bring her critical acclaim, but the narrow focus that would cause
Barnes graduated from Boston Universitys School of Fine and her ultimate neglect by most literary critics can also be seen. From
Applied Arts in 1971 with degrees in acting, English, and theater her theatrical experience she had learned to dene character
education. But when it came time to pursue her acting career, she through conversations; her careful observations of character,
opted to teach high school drama rather than starve in New York. however, were limited to the upper-middle-class society of Chica-
While at Chelmsford High School in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, go in the rst third of the 20th century.
Barnes got back into writing when she penned a one-act play for
the Massachusetts High School Drama Festival. This play, Wings, Distracted by the element of social history in Barness
(1973) is still performed around the country. She wrote one other ction, many critics overlooked important underlying themes.
play, Prometheus, in 1974. Feminism, a major theme which grew out of her education at Bryn
Mawr, appeared in early short stories through the portrayals of
Again unwilling to starve in New York, this time as a Martha Cavendish in The Dinner Party and of Kate Dalton in
playwright, Barnes began writing mystery novels, never imagin- Perpetual Care. Both are women prominent in Chicago society
ing they would be a series. Cold Case, her seventh novel in the who have chosen marriage and socially conventional lives, but
Carlotta Carlyle series, was published in 1997. She says there will each is confronted with a situation that leads her to question those
be at least one more because she tends to view the novels in sets of choices and seek an opportunity to break with convention. Each
four and she intends to reevaluate the series after the eighth book. resolves that the choice has come too late: Martha has learned to
If she still has an interest in the character and feels she can make live in her thoughts and let the world go as it will; Kate in the end
63
settles for memories to avoid upsetting her children by changing BARNES, Mary (Downing) Sheldon
her life.
Most of the women in Barness novels follow the examples Born 15 September 1850, Oswego, New York; died 27 August
of these two women, but in each succeeding novel they seem less 1898, London, England
satised with the choice. In Years of Grace, which traces the life Daughter of Edward Austin and Frances Bradford Stiles Shel-
of Jane Ward Carver to the eve of the Great Depression, Jane don; married Earl Barnes, 1885
abandons early adherence to the feminist principles instilled in her
at Bryn Mawr and elects to ll the traditional roles of wife and An educator and historian, Mary Sheldon Barnes made her
mother. Already before her marriage, she had admitted she lacked major contribution as a pioneer in the use of the source method of
the courage of her convictions: She who thinks and runs away, teaching history. Her rst book was the innovative Studies in
lives to think another day. . . . I dont act at all. . . . I just drift. General History (1885). In this pioneering work, Barnes dealt
When she is offered an opportunity to defy convention and marry with the period 1000 B.C. to 476 A.D. Her primary purpose was to
Jimmy Trent, she chooses to remain with her responsibilities. teach the reader how to develop critical ability and to demonstrate
Only when her daughter Cicily breaks the pattern by divorcing her how the essence of a culture could best be apprehended by the use
husband to marry Albert Lancaster, does Jane wonder if her of its documents and its art. To achieve this, she offered extracts
struggle to live with dignity and decency and decorum had from historical sources; presentation of basic events and person-
been a worthy goal. alities; and use of illustrative extracts, including literary works,
art, architecture, and philosophy. She provided questions to guide
Olivia Van Tyne Ottendorf in Westward Passage (1931)
the students development in critical judgment, for she was
temporarily accepts her second chance at an artistic life with Nick
concerned primarily with the students self-learning.
Allen, but soon returns gratefully to her husband and the limited
society she had known. She has been educated only for such a role, In later editions Barnes expanded her scope to include rst
and the reader recognizes her, as the critic Lloyd C. Taylor, Jr., the barbarian age, then the empire of Charlemagne, and, in more
points out, as a victim of an intricately structured social system condensed form, the history of Europe up to the late 19th century.
that securely, if deceptively, deprives the woman of any training For the Carolingian era, she provided illustrations not only of
that does not contribute to the creation of the lady and the European but also of Islamic life and culture. As for the more
socialite. modern history, she dealt rather briey with the French Revolu-
tion and Napoleonic era, but gave a more comprehensive account
In Within This Present (1933), Barnes explores Chicago
of the spread of Prussian power.
society once again, this time through the character of Sally Sewall.
From World War I through the Depression years, Sally struggles In 1891 Barnes and her husband applied the same source
to maintain a failing marriage just as those around her struggle to approach in their joint work, Studies in American History (1891).
preserve a disintegrating social structure. Studies in American History followed the same principles of
training the student to think for himself and also to enter into
Barnes resolves her interest in feminist themes in her nal
living sympathy with others. (It was, however, designed for
novel, Wisdoms Gate. She returns to the Carver family from
younger students than Studies in General History.) The author
Years of Grace and chronicles Cicilys life after her marriage to
used primary accounts, arguing the drama of life is in the
Albert Lancaster. Cicily has broken the pattern of her past, and
sources. Barnes laid out the basis of her method in Studies in
although she does not achieve greater fulllment, she gains
Historical Method (1896). She was concerned not merely with the
uncompromising clarity. The topics of divorce and adultery are
understanding of the past but with developing qualities of mind
examined objectively and honestly. While lacking the unity and
that would allow citizens to form independent, unprejudiced
scope of Barness earlier novels, Wisdoms Gate portrays a
judgments as to mens actions, opinions, acts, and social process-
marriage based on the honesty of a woman who has the courage of
es of their own day. In American history she did raise some
her convictions.
contemporary issues, such as the problem of immigrant adjust-
ment to America and how to change them into Americans. But
OTHER WORKS: Age of Innocence (1928). Jenny (with E. Shelton, on other issues such as woman suffrage she did not provide
1929). Dishonored Lady (with E. Shelton, 1930). Edna His information; she only raised questions.
Wife (1935).
As a proponent of the source method, Barnes made her
impact both through the histories she wrote, the accompanying
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Barnes, E. W., The Man Who Lived Twice: The separate teachers and students manuals, and her works on
Biography of Edward Sheldon (1956). Lawrence, M., The School historical methodology. Her major educational work, however,
of Femininity (1936). Stuckey, W. J., The Pulitzer Prize Novels: A probably occurred through the histories themselves. Through her
Critical Backward Look (1966). Taylor, L. C., Jr., Margaret Ayer organization and format, as well as the questions and explanatory
Barnes (1974). Wagenknecht, E. C., Chicago (1964). comments, she communicated directly to the student that the
Other references: North American Review (Jan. 1934). responsibility for learning was primarily ones own. The results of
mastery of her method, Barnes argued, would be felt not only in
THELMA J. SHINN the classrooms but in judgements which the student as citizen
64
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BARR
would bring to bear on contemporary questions. She sought to incredulous at his grief over his wifes death: There were men on
promote informed inquiry into public issues and intelligent, the mountain who had lost four wives and had never dreamed of
critical judgments. With her works Barnes did play an important such a thing as letting the light afiction of the moment work
pioneering role in the methodology of history teaching. permanent injury to such graver interests as pigs, and potatoes,
and wheat. . . . Unfortunately, these gems are lost in the often
pedantic or sentimental ramblings.
OTHER WORKS: Studies in Greek and Roman History; or Studies
in General History from 1000 B.C. to 476 A.D. (1886). Aids for Worth preserving, however, are the memorable characters of
Teaching General History (1888). General History in the High much of Barnums ction. The young Juan and Juanita charm
School (circa 1889). Proposal for the Study of Local History (circa children and adults alike as they nd their way home to Mexico
1889). Studies in American History: Teachers Manual (1892). alone; Claudia Hyde reects the strength and natural aristocracy a
Autobiography of Edward Austin Sheldon (edited by Barnes, 1911). Southern lady could display after the war had ravaged her home
and her homeland; Miss Nina Barrow exemplies the way not to
raise a child; the Withers reveal that progress up the ladder of
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: American Women (1897). Dic-
fortune often leads to emptiness. Because of her humor and
tionary of American Biography. National Cyclopedia of Ameri-
insight, Barnums ction remains eminently readable.
can Biography (1892 et seq.). NAW 1607-1950 (1971).
Other references: AH (Oct. 1948, Nov. 1948). Journal of
Education (15 Sept. 1898). Sequoia (30 Sept. 1898). Wellesley OTHER WORKS: Behind the Blue Ridge (1887). Juan and Juanita
College Magazine (Oct. 1898). (1888). A Shocking Example, and Other Sketches (1889). Claudia
Hyde (1894). Miss Nina Barrow (1897). The Ladder of Fortune
INZER BYERS
(1899). A Georgian Bungalow (1900).
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gordon, C. A., Jr., Virginia Writers of Fugitive

BARNUM, Frances Courtenay Baylor Verse.
Reference works: American Authors 1600-1900 (1938). Li-
Born 20 January 1848, Fort Smith, Arkansas; died 19 October brary of Southern Literature (1909). A Woman of the Centu-
1920, Winchester, Virginia ry, F. E. Willard, and M. A. Livermore (1893).
Wrote under: Frances Courtenay Baylor
Daughter of James and Sophie Baylor Dawson; married George THELMA J. SHINN
Sherman Barnum, 1896
Frances Courtenay Baylor Barnum carried her mothers

maiden name from her teen years on and wrote under that name BARR, Amelia E(dith Huddleston)
even after her marriage. Her father was an army ofcer, so her
childhood years were spent in such army posts as San Antonio and Born 29 March 1831, Ulverton, Lancashire, England; died 10
New Orleans. Barnum was educated by her mother, and after the March 1919, New York, New York
Civil War she moved to her mothers family home in Winchester, Wrote under: Amelia E. Barr
Virginia. The following several years were spent in England and Daughter of William Henry and Mary Singleton Huddleston;
on the continent with her sisters family, which provided the married Robert Barr, 1850; children: six (three died young)
background for Barnums international novels. After they re-
turned to Virginia, Barnum began publishing with a play, Petruchio Amelia E. Barr was the second daughter of a Methodist
Tamed, which was put out anonymously. Closely following were clergyman. The family moved several times during her childhood,
articles in such newspapers as the Louisville Courier-Journal,
and she attended various small private schools. When she was just
Boston Globe, New Orleans Times-Democrat, and the London
sixteen she felt the need to help the family nancially, and after
Truth. Her poetry, though never collected independently, was
two years of teaching she entered a normal school in Glasgow.
well known, especially Kind Words to Virginia and The Last
Here she fell in love with a prosperous young merchant and
Confederate.
married him.
Barnums ction, mostly directed at young people, reected
In 1853 her husband was forced to declare bankruptcy, and a
the aristocratic attitudes of her mother. Her earliest novel, On Both
little later, in an effort to establish himself again, brought his wife
Sides (1885), reects the lives of the best people of England
and growing family to the United States. After living in several
and America and reveals Barnums true gift of realistic portrai-
cities, the Barrs settled in Galveston, Texas, which appeared to her
ture. Her situations, however, are idealized, and plot is almost
to be the promised land, as she extolled it in several of her works.
nonexistent in most of her ction.
In 1867 her husband and three sons died of yellow fever, and in
Barnum is at her best when her not-always-gentle humor 1868, with the three surviving children, all daughters, Barr moved
reveals social and individual character, as when Johns friends are to New York City. For 19 months she was a governess in New
65
BARR AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Jersey, where she began her writing career. For the rest of her life Ribbon (1886). The Squire of Sandal-Side (1886). The Household
she wrote steadily and became quite successful. of McNeil (1886). A Border Shepherdess (1887). Paul and Christina
(1887). Christopher, and Other Stories (1887). In Spite of Himself
Her industry was remarkable. It is said that at the end of her (1888). Master of His Fate (1888). The Novels of Besant and Rice
life she herself had lost count of how many books she had (1888). Remember the Alamo (1888). Between Two Loves (1889).
produced. The National Union Catalog lists more than 75 works. Feet of Clay (1889). The Last of the McAllisters (1889). Friend
In addition, she contributed a large number of short stories and Olivia (1889). The Beads of Tasmer (1890). The Household of
essays to such periodicals as the Christian Union, the Illustrated McNeil (1890). She Loved a Sailor (1890). Woven of Love and
Christian Weekly, Harpers Weekly, Harpers Bazaar, Frank Glory (1890). Sister to Esau (1891). Love for an Hour is Love
Leslies Magazine, and the Advance. Her verses alone netted her a Forever (1891). A Rose of a Hundred Leaves (1891). The Preach-
$1,000 a year for 15 years and were reprinted widely in periodi- ers Daughter (1892). Michael and Theodora (1892). Mrs. Barrs
cals. Most amazing, perhaps, is her endurance. Up to the time of Short Stories (1892). Girls of a Feather (1893). The Lone House
her death at eighty-eight she was writing ction not perceptibly (1893). A Singer from the Sea (1893). Bernicia (1895). The
inferior to what she had done in her prime. Flower of Gala Water (1893). A Knight of the Nets (1896). Winter
Barr was a woman of rm character and decided opinions. Evening Tales (1896). The Kings Highway (1897). Prisoners of
An extremely religious person, from her earliest years she be- Consciences (1897). Stories of Life and Love (1897). Maids,
lieved she had psychic powers and was convinced her dreams Wives, and Bachelors (1898). I, Thou and the Other One (1899).
foretold the future. Later she became an ardent believer in Trinity Bells (1899). Was It Right to Forgive? (1899). The Maid of
reincarnation. Additionally, she had strong convictions about the Maiden Lane (1900). Souls of Passage (1901). The Lions Whelp
position of women. Her views on this occur again and again in her (1901). A Song of a Single Note (1902). The Black Shilling (1903).
autobiography, All the Days of My Life (1913). All my life Thyra Varrick (1903). The Belle of Bowling Green (1904). Ce-
long, she says, I have been sensible of the injustice constantly cilias Lovers (1905). The Man Between (1906). The Heart of
done to women. In one place she remarks caustically that to a Jessy Laurie (1907). The Strawberry Handkerchief (1908). The
man his children are much more valuable than his wife; the former Hands of Compulsion (1909). The House on Cherry Street (1909).
are of his esh, but the latter is not, and can easily be replaced. It A Reconstructed Marriage (1910). A Maid of Old New York
was a matter of course that she would applaud the efforts of the (1911). Sheila Vedder (1911). Three Score and Ten: A Book for
suffragettes, for whom she had nothing but praise. the Aged (1913). Playing with Fire (1914). The Measure of a Man
(1915). The Winning of Lucia (1915). Prot & Loss (1916).
She was genuinely interested in history, and many of her Christine, A Fife Fisher Girl (1917). Joan (1917). An Orkney
novels have carefully researched historical backgrounds. One Maid (1918). The Paper Cap: A Story of Love and Labor (1918).
reviewer praised her use of historical data: Mrs. Barr is very Songs in the Common Chord (1919).
skillful in correlating the interests of the past and present. Not only
do the incidents presage the situation of today, but the characters
blend in themselves the quaintness of the long ago and the BIBLIOGRAPHY: Barr, A. E., All the Days of My Life (1913).
universality of all peoples. Another critic said that her ction Reference works: American Authors: 1600-1900, S. J. Kunitz
may be read for its historical data alone. and H. Haycraft, eds., (1938).
Other references: Bookman (May 1920). Nation (14 Aug.
In spite of her use of historical facts, however, Barrs work 1913). NYT (12 March 1919). Review of Reviews (May 1919).
was not destined to lastit is too oridly romantic, too sentimen-
tal. One critic called it extremely supercial, and Barrs own ABIGAIL ANN HAMBLEN
theory of ction seems to bear him out: I have always found
myself unable to make evil triumphant. Truly, in real life it is
apparently so, but if ction does not show us a better life than
reality, what is the good of it? BARR, Nevada
Barrs personality, high-strung and fanatical though it was, is
of more interest than her writings. Her existence was one of Born 1952, in Nevada
exhausting labor, many trials, and many sorrows (of her six Married and divorced
children, only three lived to grow up, and one of these was
mentally unbalanced). Yet she retained an eager enthusiasm for Nevada Barr writes mysteries set in the unusual landscape of
living up to the very end. the National Park Service. Born in Nevada and raised in Susanville,
California, 80 miles outside Reno, Barr received her B.A. from
California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo and
OTHER WORKS: Romances and Realities: Tales of Truth and her M.A. from the University of California at Irvine. Her father
Fancy (1876). The Young People of Shakespeares Dramas was a pilot and her mother a pilot, mechanic, and carpenter.
(1882). Cluny MacPherson; A Tale of Brotherly Love (1883).
Scottish Sketches (1883). Jan Vedders Wife (1885). The Hallam After her education ended, Barr pursued an acting career. She
Succession (1885). A Daughter of Fife (1886). The Bow of Orange performed in the Classic Stage Company in New York City and
66
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BARTON
appeared in off-Broadway shows. She also acted in television In Firestorm (1996), Barr creates a locked-room mystery in
commercials and in corporate and industrial lms. In 1978, during which a crime occurs among a nite group of people. She creates
her acting career, Barr became serious about writing ction. Her this situation in the context of a forest re in Northern Californias
husband at the time, also an actor, eventually decided to quit the Lassen Volcanic National Park. Each of a group of rangers hides
theater for the park service, and Barr joined him, ending her 18- in a personal reproof tent to escape the onslaught of re. When
year foray into acting. She assumed a position as a law enforce- the inferno passes after 12 minutes, one of the characters has been
ment ranger at Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas. She stabbed to death.
subsequently worked as a ranger at Michigans Isle Royale,
Colorados Mesa Verde, and Mississippis Natchez Trace Park- Endangered Species (1997) takes place in Cumberland Na-
way National Parks, among others. Many of these were later tional Seashore off the coast of Georgia. Barr possesses that rare
featured in her mysteries. She continued as a ranger long after she combination of talents: she can write a beautiful sentence and
had become a successful novelist. create a rst-rate mystery, wrote Publishers Weekly. [She]
evokes the minimally developed islands shimmering beauty
Barrs rst published book, Bittersweet (1984), is not a while spinning an absorbing tale of danger and deceit that em-
mystery but a historical novel, one of several she wrote but the braces a realistic description of conservation work and a diverse,
only one released. It is about a Pennsylvania woman in the 1870s engaging cast.
who is accused of having an affair with a young girl. She leaves
her town and meets an abused wife with whom she begins a Barrs next novel, Blind Descent (1998) is set in New
relationship. The two move to Nevada and set up an independent Mexicos Carlsbad Caverns and is emblematic of the power of the
but difcult life as innkeepers. Although some reviewers felt the authors descriptions of nature. In the New York Times Book
characters were at, most praised the historical details and unusu- Review, Marilyn Stasio commented on Annas claustrophobic
al premise. excursion into an underground cave: Barrs descriptions of this
Stygian underworldso beautiful, so mysterious and so treacher-
Nine years passed before the publication of Barrs next book, oushave a stunning visceral quality, largely because of her
Track of the Cat (1993), which marked the debut of her series heroines afnity with the natural world.
protagonist, park ranger Anna Pigeon. The novel earned the
Anthony and Agatha awards for best rst mystery. Barr and Anna Anna visits New York in Barrs 1999 novel, Liberty Falling.
are similar in some waysboth are National Park Service rang- While supporting her hospitalized sister, Molly, and staying with
ers; both have a sister Molly (who becomes a beloved character in a ranger friend at the Statue of Liberty, Anna is faced with a crime
the series through her phone conversations with Anna), although to solve. Like Barrs other books, Liberty Falling is replete with
Annas Molly is a New York psychiatrist while Barrs sister is a vivid descriptions of a park rangers job and the surrounding
pilot; and both are single women, with Anna losing her husband in environment, as well as a page-turning plot featuring a realistic
an accident and Barr being divorced. female character.
Some reviewers cited Track of the Cat for its overripe

language and uneven writing, but all praised it for its realistic, BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference Works: CA 161 (1998).
beautiful, and sometimes activist descriptions of nature. The New Other references: National Parks (Sept./Oct. 1995); NYTBR
York Times Book Review noted, Although her human characters (18 Apr. 1993, 17 Apr. 1994, 2 Apr. 1995, 13 Apr. 1997, 5 Apr.
could use some stufng, Ms. Barr describes plant and animal life 1998); Outside (Apr. 1996); PW (6 July 1984, 4 Jan. 1993, 14 Feb.
with a naturalists eye for detail and with an environmentalists 1994, 30 Jan. 1995, 6 Jan. 1996, 5 Feb. 1996, 24 Mar. 1997, 2 Feb.
fury at the destruction of the wilderness and its creatures. 1998); Southern Living (1999).
Barr is known for her colorful secondary characters and KAREN RAUGUST
exciting endings, and for allowing her readers to share the
experiences and point of view of the strong yet vulnerable Anna.
Barr develops a complex, credible, and capable heroine who
believes in truth and justice while remaining conscious of the BARTON, Clara (Harlowe)
ambiguities of human existence, a Publishers Weekly review-
er wrote.
Born Clarisse Harlowe Barton on 25 December 1821, North
Barrs second Anna Pigeon book is A Superior Death (1994), Oxford, Massachusetts; died 12 April 1912, Glen Echo,
which takes place at Isle Royale. Ill Wind (1995) takes Anna to Maryland
Mesa Verde, where she assists FBI Agent Frederick Stanton in Daughter of Stephen and Sarah Stone Barton
solving a crime in the park and with whom she starts to develop a
relationship, marking the beginning of Barrs increasing focus on Best known as founder of the American Red Cross, Clara
human interaction. Anna is noted for being a three-dimensional Barton had several careers in her long life. Extended periods of
character with human foibles; this is demonstrated in Ill Wind by intense activity and endurance alternated with severe physical and
her struggle with remembrances of her husband and her tendency emotional exhaustion. She taught school for 18 years, then be-
to drink too much. came the rst full-time woman clerk in the U.S. Patent Ofce.
67
BARTON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
During the Civil War she became a living legend as the Angel of hurricane-swept Sea Islands, the ragged survivors who creep out
the Battleeld. of the ruins of war-gutted cities, the bloated and mangled corpses
piled high on funeral pyres after a tidal wave in Galveston.
In deance of the military prejudice against female nurses on
the battleeld, Barton gathered vital supplies on her own initiative Her style is occasionally sentimental, and perhaps offensive
and followed the troops. Survival of wounded men often depend- to some modern readers, as in her remarks about the Sea Islanders:
ed not so much upon skilled doctors as upon immediate rst aid, The tender memory of the childlike condence and obedience of
food, and shelter for the stricken. In long battles, the wounded this ebony-faced population is something that time cannot ef-
might lie neglected on the ground for two or three days before face. . . . On occasion, she has a gift for understated pathos. Four
evacuation to a hospital. Barton learned to make campres in Sea Island blacks whose wounds she had dressed in the Civil War
drenching rain, cook huge pots of gruel and coffee, go without approached her one day, One by one they showed their scars.
sleep for days while she and a few helpers fed each soldier, There was very little clothing to hide thembullet wound and
bandaged his wounds, and protected him if possible from the sabre stroke.
elements. She was never a hospital nurse like her famous contem-
In formal exposition, such as the rst part of the longer
poraries Dorothea Dix and Florence Nightingale. She was on
volume, The Red Cross in Peace and War, her style is sometimes
hand, however, in the most desperate situations with exactly what
ponderous. Yet it soon moves into more personal narrative and
was needed most, such as kerosene lanterns for a distraught
acquires more vitality, covering the same territory as A Story of
frontline doctor operating at night by the uncertain light of
the Red Cross (1904), with additional details and photographs, as
one candle.
well as the formal reports and correspondence, and some of
She was close to fty years old when she rst heard of the Bartons inspirational but undistinguished poetry.
Geneva Convention and the International Red Cross. Isolationist
The diaries, however, expose an element in Barton not
America was one of the few modern nations that had not ratied
apparent in her published works. Outwardly, even to close friends
the Geneva Treaty. When the Franco-Prussian War broke out, she
and relatives, she seemed always calm, efcient, good-natured,
joined the Red Cross in the rehabilitation of the ruined Alsatian
blessed with humor and wit. Inwardly, when not engrossed in her
city of Strasbourg. When Barton returned home she launched a
work, she suffered from depression and feelings of uselessness.
long and frustrating campaign for the ratication of the Geneva
This personal melancholy haunted her even when she was most
Treaty, which occurred nally in 1882. The rst president of the
honored at home and abroad. The demands made by her idealism
American Red Cross (organized in 1881), she acted in that
and zeal for service seem to approach the pathological, driving her
capacity for 23 years and served not only in Cuba during the
beyond physical endurance, making the necessary recuperative
Spanish-American War but also during great oods, res, fam-
period unhappy and fretful.
ines, and hurricanes. She is credited with expanding the functions
of the International Red Cross to serve after natural disasters as The writings of Clara Barton will remain a primary source of
well as on the battleeld. information on the development of the American Red Cross. They
will also provide a more personal insight into the motivations and
Except in periods of acute depression and illness, Barton
style of one of the most dynamic women of the 19th century.
recorded her experiences in diaries that contain a vivid account of
her life and times, and provide a rich source for subsequent
biographers and historians. These diaries, as well as letters and OTHER WORKS: The Red Cross (1898; reprinted as The Red Cross
other papers, are in the Library of Congress, and are widely quoted in Peace and War). Papers, 1834-1918 (microlm, 1986).
in published works. William E. Bartons biography reprints many The papers of Clara Barton are in the Library of Congress.
of her letters. One of the best introductions to her prose is the last
100 pages of Illustrious Americans: Clara Barton, written by
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Barton, W. E., The Life of Clara Barton (1922).
Barton, but with commentaries that put each excerpt in the context
Buckingham, C. E., Clara Barton, a Broad Humanity: Philan-
of her thought and action at that time. They include passages from
thropic Efforts on Behalf of the Armed Forces and Disaster
The Story of My Childhood (1907), a small volume intended for
Victims, 1860-1900 (1980, 1997). Burton, D. H., Clara Barton: In
young peoplethe extent of Bartons efforts at writing an autobi-
the Service of Humanity (1995). Downey, F., Disaster Fighters
ography. Bartons other two books, objective histories of the Red
(1938). Dulles, F. R., The American Red Cross (1950). Epler, P. H.,
Cross, lean heavily on her personal experiences in disaster situa-
The Life of Clara Barton (1941). Marko, E., Clara Barton and the
tions, described as she lived through them and recorded them in
American Red Cross (1996). McCaslin, N., Angel of the Battle-
her diaries.
eld (1993). Oates, S. B., A Woman of Valor: Clara Barton and
Although her actions are, no doubt, more important than her the Civil War (1995). Poor, S. R., Herstory (1990). Pryor, E. B.,
words, effective action often depended on her powers of persua- Clara Barton: Professional Angel (1988). Rogers, G. N., Clara
sion and skill in diplomacy, both in speaking and in writing. Barton and Hightstown (1994). Ross, I., Angel of the Battleeld
Moreover, even now her accounts are moving documents about (1956). Welles, S., Illustrious Americans: Clara Barton (1966).
human suffering among the people history soon forgets: the Williams, B. C., Clara Barton, Daughter of Destiny (1941).
common soldier quietly bleeding to death in the mud, the home- Other references: American Women of Achievement Video
less family on the ooded bayou, the destitute blacks of the Collection (video, 1995). Clara Barton (video, 1988). Clara
68
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BATES
Barton (video, 1995). Clara Barton: Eyewitness to the Civil War strong feeling for poetry, Geraldine; or, Loves Victory, originally
(video, 1997). Great Women in American History: Volume 1 produced in Philadelphia in 1859 and at Wallacks Theater, New
(video, 1996). York, is in blank verse. In 1865, with the alternate title changed to
The Master Passion, it played the London Adelphi. Evangeline
KATHERINE SNIPES (1860), a dramatization of Longfellows poem, was written for
Batemans daughter Kate. In 1871 Fanchette; or, The Will o the
Wisp, adapted from Die Grille, a German version of George
Sands La Petite Fadette, opened at the Theater Royal, Edin-
BARTON, May Hollis burgh, with Batemans daughter Isabel in the title role; later it
See ADAMS, Harriet Stratemeyer played the Lyceum in London with Henry Irving in the cast. The
Dead Secret (1877) was adapted by permission of Wilkie Collins.
Sidney Cowell, niece of Bateman, wrote in her youth [my

aunt] was a delightful actress and a beautiful woman. She was
BATEMAN, Sidney (Frances) Cowell gentle and retiring, but of very fair judgement and executive
ability. She was always the power behind the throne in all the
Born 29 March 1823, New Jersey; died 13 January 1881, Lon- elaborate productions credited to her husband and daughter.
don, England Clement Scott in The Drama of Yesterday and Today states that
Daughter of Joseph and Frances Sheppard Witchett Cowell; Bateman thought his good wife was the best writer and judge of
married Hezekiah L. Bateman, 1839 plays in existence. . . . She certainly was a very clever and
charming woman. She was much honored by the theatrical
The daughter of Joseph Cowell, English low comedian and profession at her death.
well-known American-theater manager in the south and west, and
of Frances Sheppard, Sidney Cowell Bateman was reared on a
farm in Ohio and educated in Cincinnati. At the age of fourteen, BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hewitt, B., Theatre U.S.A.: 1665 to 1957 (1959).
she began her acting career in New Orleans. In St. Louis in 1839, Hutton, L., Curiosities of the American Stage (1899). Meserve,
she married Hezekiah Linthicum Bateman, actor and manager. W. J., An Outline History of American Drama (1965). Mo-
ses, A. J., Representative Plays by American Dramatists: From
In 1869 Bateman and her husband moved to London where 1765 to the Present Day (1925). Scott, C., The Drama of Yester-
they managed the Lyceum from 1871 until Mr. Batemans death. day and Today (1899).
Henry Irving, whose distinguished career they helped launch, Reference works: Dictionary of National Biography, L.
took over the management in 1878; and Bateman, having leased Stephen, ed.
Sadlers Wells, restored its prestige. To this theater she brought Other references: London Academy 455. London
Joaquin Millers The Danites, the rst all-American production Athenaeum 2779.
in London.
CHARLOTTE V. LORD
Self, written and produced by Bateman in St. Louis at the
Peoples Theater in 1856, is one of the rst three society plays
written by a woman for the American stage. During its run in New
York at Burtons Chambers Street Theater, a critic for the New
York Times wrote: Whether it will obtain a permanent place in BATES, Katherine Lee
the limited repertoire of the native drama admits of some doubt.
Later, the outstandingly creative performance of John E. Owens in Born 29 August 1859, Falmouth, Massachusetts; died 28 March
the star role of John Unit, a true-blue Yankee banker, made a great 1929, Wellesley, Massachusetts
success of the long and sometimes dull play. Daughter of William and Cornelia Lee Bates
A social satire, Self employs local allusions, such as referenc-
Katherine Lee Bates, best known for her lyric poem Ameri-
es to patent medicines, wildcat banks, slavery, daguerreotypes,
ca the Beautiful, attended Wellesley College and received
and stereotyped characters, such as the New York merchant, the
her A.B. in 1880. After a years study at Oxford University, she
parvenus, and the faithful black servant. Melodrama, even farce,
was awarded an A.M. by Wellesley in 1881. After a brief career as
malapropisms, tag names, and a deus ex machina ending make
this play less than great dramatic literature. Edgar Allan Poe, in a high school teacher, Bates joined the faculty of Wellesley, where
the role of critic, spoke of its lack of originality and inventive- she taught until her retirement in 1925. As an educator, she was a
ness, theatricality, dependence on opulent settings, and almost signicant force in the movement toward liberalizing American
burlesque upon the arrant conventionality of stage incidents. pedagogy. In contrast to the philological approach that dominated
literary study of the 1880s and 1890s, Bates approach was based
The Golden Calf; or, Marriage la Mode was published in on the assumption that the chief aim of a literature teacher should
1857 by the St. Louis Republican Ofce. Because of Batemans be to awaken in the student a genuine love and enthusiasm for
69
BAYARD AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
the higher forms of prose, and more especially for poetry. She Yellow Clover (1922). Little Robin Stay-Behind and Other Plays
wanted her students to experience literature as dynamic, powerful, in Verse for Children (1923). America the Dream (1930).
and relevant to all people. Her sprightly and anecdotal text,
American Literature (1898), widely used as a high school and
introductory college text, spread this philosophy, as did her BIBLIOGRAPHY: Burgess, D., Dream and Deed (1952). Con-
anthology, Old English Ballads (1890), and the many other verse, F., The Story of Wellesley (1915). Converse, F., Wellesley
classics of English and American literature she edited, mostly for College: A Chronicle (1939).
student use. Other references: Boston Transcript (28 March 1929). SR
(June 1952).
Bates creative work, produced despite heavy teaching and
administrative duties, comprises poetry, verse drama for children, KATHARYN F. CRABBE
and travel books. Those who defend her poetry describe it as
characterized by grace and dignity and in the Longfellow tradi-
tion. Her detractors, on the other hand, point out that she shows a
good eye for natural phenomena but tends toward a lush expan- BAYARD, Elise Justine
siveness rather than sparse, tightly controlled use of images and
intellectual rigor.
Born circa 1815, Fishkill, New York; died circa 1850
Bates juvenile ctionsRose and Thorn, which won rst Wrote under: E. B.C., E. J. B.
prize in the 1889 juvenile ction competition sponsored by the Daughter of Robert Bayard; married Fulton Cutting
Congregational Publishing Society, and Hermit Island (1890)
are moralistic in intent, sentimental in outlook, and realistic in Evidently of French extraction, Elise Justine Bayard attained
presentation. Though their moralizing makes them unsuited to a brief local reputation through poems published in the New York
modern taste, they have good pace and feature young heroes who Knickerbocker magazine. Little seemed to be known of her life,
are both educated and fun-loving, delighting in making puns and but she appeared a promising new writer to Sarah Josepha Hale,
deploring them. The structure of the stories is comic romance, as who included her in a section of comments on young authors in
is evident in Bates tendency to bring about rapid and complete Womans Record (1853). Hale admired Bayards poems and
conversions of antagonists in order to provide the necessary happy implied that although there was no collection of Bayards works,
ending. In her travel books, both for adults and for children, and in her writing warranted one.
her verse dramas for children, as in her ction, Bates aim was
always to combine instruction and enjoyment. A reviewer of In Bayards poetry seems unremarkable today. She generally
Sunny Spain (1913), which appeared in the Little Schoolmates treats common subjectsmothers, children, lovers, time, history,
series, wrote: No child can read it without absorbing not only its deathbut her techniques produce either standard, formal, even
spirit of patriotism and of gentle courtesy, but a really extraordi- mechanical verse (as in Funeral Chant for the Old Year,
nary amount of information regarding manners and customs of reprinted in the Duyckincks Cyclopedia of American Literature),
Spain. or startlingly raw efforts in simple rhymed couplets distributed in
irregular stanzas (as in Henri de la Roche Jacqueline, one of
Although Bates thought of herself as a poet and although her her earliest poems, which appeared in the Knickerbocker in
poetry was always her greatest love, her teaching and administra- September 1834).
tive duties kept her from devoting as much time and energy to it as
she wished. Thus with the exception of her patriotic lyric, America The quantity of Bayards work is difcult to assess; much of
the Beautiful, her poetry is unread, and her reputation rests on it is apparently unsigned or merely initialed. She seems to have
her achievements as an educator. married early, for many poems almost denitely attributable to
her are signed E. B. C. one of which is Henri, but because of
its reference to the chevalier Bayard in stanza 1, we can guess its
OTHER WORKS: The Wedding Day Book (edited by Bates, 1881). author with some safety. Other poems similar in subjectthe
The College Beautiful and Other Poems (1887). Goody Santa romantic heroes and heroines of the pastare probably hers, as
Claus on a Sleigh Ride (1889). Sunshine and Other Verses for well, such as Maria da Gloria (Knickerbocker, September
Children (1890). English Religious Drama (1893). The Chap 1835) and Napoleon (Knickerbocker, Oct. 1837). Bayard also
Book (ed. by Bates, 1896). Spanish Highways and Byways (1900). continued to use her maiden initials, however; for example,
English History as Told by English Poets (ed. by Bates and K. Error, a late poem published in the weekly Literary World (16
Coman, 1902). From Gretna Green to Lands End (1907). The October 1847), is signed E. J. Bayard.
Story of Chaucers Canterbury Pilgrims (1909). America the
Beautiful and Other Poems (1911). Sophie Jewetts The Heart of a The nature of the periodicals in which her only known works
Boy (ed. by Bates, 1912). Shakespeare: Selective Bibliography appear suggests why such a relatively minor gure should receive
and Biographical Notes (1913). Sophie Jewetts Folk-Ballads of attention. A short and vague biography is included in the
Southern Europe (ed. by Bates, 1913). Fairy Gold (1916). Sigurd Duyckincks Cyclopedia probably because the Duyckinck broth-
Our Golden Collie and Other Comrades of the Road (1919). ers also edited Literary World (1847-53). The Knickerbocker
70
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BEACH
(1833-65), a more signicant magazine, similarly dedicated to Adriennes bookshop, in the summer of 1921. On this quiet little
literature and to the ne arts, must also have valued Bayards street, says Cyril Connelly, the bookshop was hidden like a
works, for it was one of the few magazines of the day to cache of dynamite in a solemn crypt.
compensate writers. It published substantial critical essays as well
Beach published for the rst time the complete edition of
as contemporary verse; for example, Thomas Cole was among its
James Joyces Ulysses, the rst copy of which she delivered to
contributors of both poems and prose. And since the artistic
Joyce on his birthday, 2 February 1922. Her intercession with the
circles of New York before the Civil War included few women
printer allowed Joyce to write a third of the novel on the page
(among them Susan Fenimore Cooper and Mary E. Field), Bayards
proofs. She promoted the book, mailed it all over the world, and
presence seems worth noting.
arranged for copies to be smuggled from Canada into the United
States. She named 16 June Bloomsday in honor of Leopold
OTHER WORKS: Miscellaneous poems attributable to Elise Justine Bloom, the hero of Ulysses, whose life on that date is presented in
Bayard may be found in the Knickerbocker (1834-1850) and the novel. In May 1930 she issued the 11th and her nal edition of
Literary World (1847-1855). Ulysses. After the novel was cleared by the U.S. court of Judge
John M. Woolsey, it was published by Random House in 1934.
She also published Joyces Pomes Penyeach (1927) and Our
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Cyclopedia of American Lit- Exagmination Round His Factication for Incamination of Work
erature, E. A. and G. L. Duyckinck (1875). Womans Record, S. J. in Progress (1929), a collection of critical articles on Joyces
Hale (1853). Finnegans Wake, edited and introduced by Beach.
Although her fame is often associated with her publication of
CAROLINE ZILBOORG
Joyces work, Beachs genius lay in her ability to stimulate the
interaction among the American, English, and French writers of
Paris between the wars. With a sense of the genuine in literature
and a devotion to literary talent, this young New Jersey ministers
BEACH, Sylvia daughter became the hub of Parisian literary activity. And she
maintained her own identity in a crowd of dominant personalities.
Born 14 March 1887, Baltimore, Maryland; died 6 October 1962, Her bookshop and lending library was a post ofce, bank, and
Paris, France meeting center for the great and soon-to-be-great artists of the
Daughter of Sylvester Woodbridge and Eleanor Orbison Beach 20th century.
She encouraged them to write critical articles, inuenced
The second of three daughters born to a long line of ministers their reading, found them publishers, translators, rooms, and
and missionaries, Sylvia Beach was reared in the First Presbyteri- benefactors. She helped organize the English and French little
an parsonage of Bridgeton, New Jersey. From 1902 to 1905, while magazines, in which the most distinguished writers of this century
she was a teenager, the family lived in Paris, where her father was got their start, and distributed the magazines in her shop. In her
an associate pastor of the American Church. She attended school rooms T. S. Eliot, Edith Sitwell, Andr Gide, Ernest Hemingway,
briey in Lausanne, but was largely self-taught. Stephen Spender, Paul Valry, and numerous others read their
works. Beach occasionally translated the work of her French
After her family settled permanently in Princeton, Beach friends into English and of her English-speaking friends into
made several extended trips to Spain, Italy, and France without French. She and Adrienne Monnier were the rst to translate T. S.
her parents. In 1919 she returned to Paris to stay. On 19 November Eliots Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
of that year she opened her bookshop, Shakespeare and Company,
at No. 8 rue Dupuytren. Here she assembled the best in English Although her bookshop was closed by the Nazis in December
and American literature. She established herself with the aid of of 1941, she refused to leave Paris, for she was as much a
Adrienne Monnier, owner of a bookshop and lending library Parisienne as an American. She was interned for six months in a
frequented by Andr Gide, Paul Valry, Valery Larbaud, Lon- detention camp at Vittel. After the war she did not reopen the
Paul Fargue, Jules Romains, and other eminent French writers. bookshop; she did, however, continue her literary activities,
Beach and Adrienne Monnier were devoted friends; for many writing, speaking, and lending books from her rue de lOdon
years they shared an apartment on the rue de lOdon. apartment. In 1950 she received the Denyse Clairouin Award for
her translation of Henri Michauxs Barbarian in Asia. In 1959 she
Shakespeare and Company, the rst American bookshop in helped organize and contributed most of the materials for an
Paris, soon became the center of French and Anglo-American outstanding exhibition of the Paris 1920s. The exhibition was
literary activities on the continent as Americans gravitated in shown in Paris and London. For her contribution to the exchange
increasing numbers to Paris. Early patrons of the lending library of literature between America and France, she was awarded the
included Stephen Vincent Bent, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Doctor of Letters by the University of Buffalo (1959) and the
Archibald MacLeish, Robert McAlmon, James Joyce, Thornton French Legion of Honor (1938). When Beach died alone of a heart
Wilder, and Ernest Hemingway. The bookshop moved to its attack in 1962, Archibald MacLeish declared, She is not alone,
permanent address at No. 12 rue de lOdon, across the street from then or ever. She had that Company around her.
71
BEARD AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
OTHER WORKS: Beowulf (translated by Beach and Monnier, ideal, abstract way. The particular economic interpretation of the
1948). Shakespeare and Company (1959, reissued 1991). Writers Revolution which pitted agrarian democrats against capitalist
of the Left Bank (cassette tape, 1962). aristocrats, and the view of the Civil War as a second revolution,
were widely accepted until after World War II, when Charles A.
Beard came under attack for viewing earlier American history
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bryher, The Heart to Artemis: A Writers Mem-
from the perspective of the progressive ght for reform against an
oirs (1962). Fitch, N. R., An American Bookshop in Paris: The
entrenched capitalism. Indeed, the Beards modied their econom-
Inuence of Sylvia Beachs Shakespeare and Company on Ameri-
ic determinism in the 1940s and gave greater play to the force of
can Literature (dissertation, 1970). Fitch, N. R., Sylvia Beach and
ideas and ideals than they had before. But their most signicant
the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties
contribution was their salutory reminder that ideals do not exist
and Thirties (1983, 1985). Ford, H., Published in Paris (1975).
outside of social contexts.
Hemingway, E., A Moveable Feast (1963). Hoffman, A., Private
Presses and Literary Patrons as Symbols of Modernism: A Study While the great collaborative effort with her husband has
of Contact Editions, Three Mountains Press and Shakespeare and now largely entered the realm of intellectual history, Beards
Company (thesis, 1998). Hutchinson, A. S., Nancy Cunard and pioneering work in womens studies, notably in On Understand-
Sylvia Beach: Contrasting Expatriates (thesis, 1987). Joyce, J., ing Women (1931) and Woman as Force in History (1946),
James Joyce to Sylvia Beach, 1921-1940 (1987, 1990). Monnier, A., remains generative today. Encouraged by the nascent eld of
Rue de lOdon (1960). Monnier, A., The Very Rich Hours anthropology, which was producing work showing women as the
(translated by R. McDougall, 1976). Parker, A.T., The Unveil- originator of agriculture and the domestic arts, Beard studied
ing of a Genius: Sylvia Beach and James Joyce (thesis, 1990). social realities as disparate as womens legal status in England and
Rogers, W. G., Ladies Bountiful (1968). Van Gessel, N. H., Re- womens contribution to Pythagorean philosophy in ancient Greece,
casting the Midwives of Modernism: Autobiographies of Ameri- in order to discover their true status and achievement. Such a
can Expatriate Women Publishers and Editors (dissertation, vision was obscured, she argued, not only by male bias and social
1996). Wright, C. M., Novel Women: Literary Expatriates of the mythology, but by feminists who themselves promulgated a false
1920s (thesis, 1988). view of women as a subject sex. The fullest and most important
Other references: Mercure de France (Aug.-Sept. 1963). treatment of these views appears in Woman as Force in History.
NOEL R. FITCH The questions she raises there remain with us, but her
answers are sometimes problematic. While her argument against
the idea of equality as the touchstone for womans relation to
man points out the difculties it engenders, the argument remains
BEARD, Mary Ritter inconclusive. Nor does the book resolve a contradiction in her
view of womens contribution. While Beard sometimes seems to
be saying women are a peculiarly civilizing force, at other times
Born 5 August 1876, Indianapolis, Indiana; died 14 August 1958,
she seems to be saying only that they have been more of a force
Phoenix, Arizona
both for good and for bad than we have realized. Still, the book
Daughter of Eli Foster and Marassa Lockwood Ritter; married
leaves us two important lines of thought: one is the denition of
Charles Austin Beard, 1900
womans just role. Beard believed that the early imitation of men
by feminists was in part a function of the individualism of 19th-
Educated at DePauw University, then a rather conservative
century America, and that as society moved toward more collectivist
Methodist institution, Mary Ritter Beard received her Ph.D. in
forms, alternatives for women would emerge. The other line of
1897. She spent her early married years in England in the circle
thought is that history is not simply the account of the politician,
around Ruskin Hall, a center for new economic thought, then
the banker, and the general. Until history describes events on the
moved to New York City and studied at Columbia University,
level of domestic economy and family relationship as well,
where her husband, the most vital intellectual inuence in her life,
womans true force, Beard believes, will not be understood, nor
was to join the faculty.
will the true causes and effects of history.
Beards earliest books, American Citizenship (1914, in col-
laboration with her husband), Womans Work in Municipalities
OTHER WORKS: A History of the United States (with C. A. Beard,
(1915), and A Short History of the American Labor Movement
1921). The American Labor Movement: A Short History (1931).
(1920), reect her lifelong interests: labor, sociology, and wom-
America Through Womens Eyes (edited by Beard, 1933). A
ens studies.
Changing Political Economy as it Affects Women (1934). Laugh-
The books she wrote with her husband in the 1920s and ing Their Way (ed. by Beard with M. B. Bruere, 1934). The
1930s, both the school texts and the enormously successful four- Making of American Civilization (with C. A. Beard, 1937).
volume The Rise of American Civilization (1927-1942), were America in Mid Passage (Vol. 3, The Rise of American Civiliza-
highly inuential. The rst two volumes of The Rise of American tion, with C. A. Beard, 1939). The American Spirit: A Study of the
Civilization were the product of two decades of progressive Idea of Civilization in the United States (Vol. 4, The Rise of
intellectual attack on the formalism of 19th-century American American Civilization, with C. A. Beard, 1942). A Basic History
historical writing, which tended to see American institutions in an of the United States (with C. A. Beard, 1944). The Force of
72
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BEATTIE
Women in Japanese History (1953). The Making of Charles A. further study in English literature. In 1973 she married musician
Beard (1955). and fellow graduate student David Gates. From 1975-77 Beattie
was visiting writer and lecturer at the University of Virginia, and
in 1977-78 she was the Briggs-Copeland Lecturer at Harvard
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Carroll, B. A., Mary Beards Woman as a Force University.
in History: A Critique in Liberating Womens History, Theoreti-
cal and Critical Essays (1976). Cott, N. F., ed., A Woman While still a graduate student, Beattie began submitting her
Making History: Mary Ritter Beard Through Her Letters (1991). short stories for publication. In April 1974 the New Yorker
Hofstadter, R., The Progressive Historians (1968). Lane, A. J., accepted A Platonic Relationship, her 20th submission. Her
Mary Ritter Beard: A Sourcebook (1997, 1999). Steadman, B. J., rst collection of 19 stories, Distortions, and her rst novel,
Womans Role in History: An Examination of the Life and Chilly Scenes of Winter, both appeared in 1976. The novel, which
Thought of Mary Ritter Beard with Special Consideration of her she claims to have written in three weeks, is perhaps her best
Theory of Womans Contribution to the Human Past (thesis, known work. Its main characters oat through the book, incapable
1981). Trigg, M. K., Four American Feminists, 1910-1940: Inez of decisive action that would change their unrewarding lives.
Haynes Irwin, Mary Ritter Beard, Doris Stevens, and Lorine Charles, mired in a dull job, longs to reestablish his broken
Pruette (dissertation, 1989). Turoff, B. K., Mary Beard as a Force relationship with Laura who left him to marry someone else. He is
in History (1979). Turoff, B. K., An Introduction to Mary Beard: surrounded by his mentally unbalanced mother, by Sam, his best
Feminist and Historian (thesis, 1978). friend and Phi Beta Kappa graduate who cannot afford law school
Other references: NR (1946). NYT (27 Dec. 1931). PSQ and so must settle for selling mens jackets, and by Pete, his well-
(Sept. 1927). World Center for Womens Archives [1913-1934] meaning but tactless stepfather. The novel became a lm entitled
(microlm, 1987). Head Over Heels (1979), with Beattie playing a minor role as a
waitress. The recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship in 1977,
LOIS HUGHSON Beattie moved to Redding, Connecticut, and became a full-time
writer. She published Secrets and Surprises, a collection of 15
stories in 1979. The idea for her next novel, Falling in Place
(1980), came to her while she was contemplating a peach tree
outside her Redding home. It chronicles a disconnected and
BEATTIE, Ann disintegrating suburban Connecticut family. At the end of the
novel, the family faces a crisis when John Joel, their ten-year-old
son, accidentally shoots his sister with a gun belonging to his only
Born 8 September 1947, Washington, D.C.
friend. The novel received a literature award from the American
Daughter of James A. and Charlotte Crosby Beattie; married
Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1980.
David Gates, 1973 (divorced); Lincoln Perry, 1988
Beatties marriage to Gates ended in May 1982. She later told
Novelist and short story writer Ann Beattie has earned her Kim Hubbard of People magazine, that Getting divorced affect-
critical reputation as a storyteller of the 1960s generation. While ed everything, my writing included. It affected the way I walked
her work includes both a childrens book, Spectacles (1985), and a the dog. I did not recover from it quickly. The Burning House,,
collection of essays in art criticism, Alex Katz (1987), her primary 16 short stories published in 1982, was seen as evidence of
preoccupation is with ctional characters who came of age during Beatties growing artistic maturity and conrmation of the fact
the turbulent 1960s and are struggling with that legacy. Beatties that the short story seemed the form that best suited her talents.
spare and direct prose style, which has been linked to the social After her divorce, Beattie lived in New York City until 1984 when
realism tradition of Hemingway and John Updike, is marked by she moved to Vermont for the summer and wrote her second
pop culture references, quotidian details, spiritually lost charac- novel, Love Always (1985), which chronicles the life of Lucy
ters, and deliberately open endings. Although generally praised as Spenser, editor of the humorous magazine Country Daze. It was
a skillful writer, she has been faulted for the apparent lack of followed in 1986 by Where Youll Find Me and Other Stories.
purpose in her characters lives. Beattie notes that If I knew what
it was that was missing [in her characters lives], Id certainly Beattie met her second husband, painter Lincoln Perry, in
write about it. Id write for Hallmark cards. Charlottesville, Virginia, where she had moved following her
brief sojourn in Vermont. He provided her with the title to her
A self-described artsy little thing and only child of a fourth novel, Picturing Will (1989), the story of ve-year-old Will
housewife and a federal government administrator, Beattie grew and his mother who moves him from Charlottesville to New York
up in suburban Washington, D.C. In 1968, while a student at City to pursue her photography career, her boyfriend Mel, and
American University (B.A., 1969), she was invited to serve as one Wills neer-do-well father. Unlike many of her previous works,
of several student guest editors for Mademoiselle magazine. this novel took Beattie three years to complete and was the
Beattie completed an M.A. in English at the University of Con- single hardest thing Ive ever worked on. What Was Mine,
necticut at Storrs (1970) and remained there until 1972 to do another collection of short stories, appeared in 1991. It received
73
BEECHER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
praise for its honest introspection and greater sympathy and BEECHER, Catharine Esther
tenderness. While she continues to remain reticent about offer-
ing answers in her ction to lifes most puzzling questions, in
these stories Beattie again demonstrates her remarkable ability to Born 6 September 1800, East Hampton, New York; died 12 May
recreate the anxiety and angst inherent in white, middle class 1878, Elvira, New York
20th-century America. Daughter of Lyman and Roxanne Foote Beecher
Another You (1995) features an emotionally distant, mid- Sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Catharine Esther Beecher
dle-aged New England professor in a humdrum marriage. The was an educator and writer who attempted to expand the domestic
book received largely negative notices, with critics pointing out power of women. Following the death of her mother, Beecher, age
that the main characters boredom permeated the book and that the sixteen and the eldest of 13 children, assumed the family and
labeling and naming of pop culture icons, for which Beattie is household responsibilities.
known, was not enough to drive the story or characterization. The
novel features a secondary narrative involving the revelation, After the death of her anc, Alexander Metcalf Fisher,
through letters, of a story from the past. It was embraced by Beecher established the Hartford Female Seminary in May 1823
Publishers Weekly, however, which wrote, Successfully avoid- with the money inherited from him. She also organized the
ing the one-note, affectless deadpan to which her work was in Western Female Institute in Cincinnati (1832-1837) and the
danger of succumbing, Beattie provides plenty of dramatic ten- Ladies Society for Promoting Education in the West, and helped
sion in this absorbing narrative of a man emotionally distanced to establish three female colleges (in Burlington, Iowa, in Quincy,
from his life. Illinois, and in Milwaukee, Wisconsin). Although Beecher left the
Hartford Female Seminary in 1831, it was considered one of the
The novel My Life, Starring Dara Falcon (1997) departed most signicant advances made in early-19th-century education
from earlier Beattie works in structure and tone. Yale Reviews for women. It marked Beechers rst attempt to redene a new
Lorin Stein wrote, Not only is it her most difcult novel, it is her relationship with American culture for herself and for other women.
most intriguing: a tissue of autobiography spun by a woman
whose life eludes her. With Park City: New and Selected Stories The author of over 30 books, Beecher expanded the senti-
(1998) Beattie returned to her preferred medium. The title con- mental view of women as saintly and moral creatures, comple-
tained 36 short stories, eight of which were new. The new pieces ments of their immoral and competitive mates. She maintained
returned to many of the themes of her earlier writing, with the that the American woman had difcult and peculiar duties which
addition of the comic sensibility on view in her last two novels. derived mainly from the crudeness and disorder of an expanding
All of what Beattie does well is here on brilliant display, wrote nation. She asserted in Letters on Health and Happiness (1855)
Lorrie Moore in the New York Times Book Review. The theatri- that it is obvious that Providence designed that the chief respon-
cal ensemble act of her characters; the cultural paraphernalia as sibility of sustaining the family state, in all its sacred and varied
historical record; the not quite grown up grown-ups playing relations and duties, should rest mainly on the female sex.
house; the charming, boyish men with their knifelike utterances. Beechers most popular volumes were A Treatise on Domestic
Economy (1841) and Domestic Receipts (1846). The former had
three editions and 17 printings between 1841 and 1856, while the
OTHER WORKS: Flesh and Blood: Photographers Images of latter had ten editions and 17 printings. They were published for
Their Own Families (includes an essay by Beattie, 1992). the use of young wives and reect both the need for practical
Convergences (1998). advice and the social milieu of mid-19th-century America.
In The Elements of Mental and Moral Philosophy (1831),
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Murphy, C., Ann Beattie (1986). Beecher asserted that woman was the moral guardian of her
Reference works: CA 81-84 (1979). CANR 53 (1997). CLC 8 culture. Common sense must be used to determine morality, and
(1978), 13 (1980), 18 (1981), 40 (1986), 63 (1991). DLBY (1982). personal conscience must dominate over doctrine. This position
CBY (1985). FC (1990). moved theology to social grounds and placed Beecher in direct
Other references: America (12 Oct. 1991). Entertainment conict with her father, the Reverend Lyman Beecher, a Calvinist.
Weekly (29 Sept. 1995, 20 June 1997). NYRB (15 Aug. 1991, 5
Nov. 1998). NYTBR (26 May 1991, 24 Sept. 1995, 11 May 1997, The major characteristic of Beechers Christianity, however,
28 June 1998). People (5 Feb. 1990, 2 Oct. 1995). PW (28 Sept. was passivity, not social activity. She spoke against active aboli-
1992, 31 July 1995). Time (25 Sept. 1995), Yale Review (Oct. tionism, asserting in An Essay on Slavery (1837) that Christiani-
1997, July 1998). ty is a system of persuasion, tending, by kind and gentle inuence,
to make men willing to leave their sins. Beecher maintained
LISA STEPANSKI, women had a proper place, a proper sphere, and that place was out
UPDATED BY KAREN RAUGUST of politics and within the home, inuencing men through quiet,
proper petition and through the education of their children.
One of Beechers concerns was the ill health of American
BEEBE, Mary Blair women. She described reported symptoms of female invalidism in
See NILES, Blair Rice Woman Suffrage and Womans Profession (1871), frequently
74
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BENEDICT
using the term delicate. She surveys women in various Ameri- (1852). Physiology and Calisthenics (1856). Common Sense
can cities, listing such symptoms as sick headaches, pelvic disor- Applied to Religion (1857). Calisthenic Exercises (1860). An
der, consumption, dyspepsia, asthma, bronchitis, liver disorder, Appeal to the People (1860). Religious Training of Children in the
palsy, scrofula, and chills, adding with alarming frequency: Do School (1864). Principles of Domestic Science (with H. B. Stowe,
not know one perfectly healthy woman in the place. Because of 1870). Work for All, and Other Tales (1871). Womans Profession
Beechers conviction that the illness of American women was as Mother and Educator (1872). Miss B.s Housekeeper and
both symptom and cause of the disorder in American society, she Healthkeeper (1873). The New Housekeepers Manual (1873).
wrote The American Womans Home (1869) with her sister, Educational Reminiscences and Suggestions (1874).
Harriet Beecher Stowe, as coauthor. The home and the guardian of
its healthful state, woman, was intertwined in Beechers mind
with the state of American society. Thus she elevated the impor- BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bruland, E. B., Great Debates: Ethical Reasoning
tance of womens health and role to national importance. She and Social Change in Antebellum America: the Exchange Be-
asserted that women, like men who must be trained for profes- tween Angelina Grimke and Catherine Beecher (1990, 1991).
sions, must be fully trained for their roles in the classroom and the Cross, B. M., The Educated Woman in America (1965).
family. Her religious language was a conscious attempt to invoke Douglas, A., The Feminization of American Culture (1977).
religious sanction of her assertion of the importance of womans Grimke, A. E., Letters to Catherine E. Beecher: In Reply to an
role in the home. She perceived the family state as the earthly Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism, Addressed to A. E. Grimke
illustration of the heavenly kingdom, and in it woman is its chief (1978, 1883). Harveson, E. M., Catharine E. Beecher (1932).
minister. Lindley, S. H.,Womans Profession in the Life and Thought of
Catherine Beecher: A Study of Religion and Reform (1974).
In this haven of secularized religion, the home, Beecher Sklar, K. K., Household Divinity: A Life of Catherine Beecher,
demanded better ventilation, the introduction of green plants, (dissertation, 1969). Sklar, K. K., Catharine Beecher: A Study in
dress reform, proper food, and the avoidance of too much intel- American Domesticity (1973). Woody, T., A History of Womens
lectual taxation. She and her sister provided many practical Education in the United States (1966).
suggestions for yards and gardens, for infant care, for earth closets Other references: AQ (Summer 1966). Civil War History
(commodes), for everything necessary for the maintenance of (June 1971).
the home.
JULIANN E. FLEENOR
As might be expected, Beecher was an avid opponent of
womans suffrage, attempting instead to expand the womans
base of domestic power. Although she advocated democracy, she
did not feel it led to womens active participation in politics and to BENEDICT, Ruth (Fulton)
furthering social change. Instead she asserted there was a social
order based on age, health, and the most important distinction,
gender; thus there was still hierarchy in the American democracy. Born 5 June 1887, New York, New York; died 17 September
1948, New York, New York
Beecher is a transitional gure whose writings inuenced Wrote under: Ruth Benedict, Anne Singleton
women to move from a state of subordination to one in which they Daughter of Frederick Samuel and Beatrice J. Shattuck Fulton;
attempted to secure a greater role in their changing, shifting married Stanley Rossiter Benedict, 1914
society. She was confronted by a competitive society in which
men aggressively sought wealth and position, and she perceived Ruth Benedicts father, a surgeon and cancer researcher, died
this activity as unworthy of women. Women, unlike men, could before she was two, leaving her mother to bring up Benedict and
effect change only by inuence and passivity. Aggression and her younger sister on their maternal grandparents farm in central
force were male prerogatives. Beechers solution was to create a New York. An attack of measles when she was a child left
quiet eye of the storm and to call it the American Home. There Benedict partially deaf, an inrmity from which she suffered
women could rule supreme and men could return for moral personally and professionally throughout her life. Her fathers
refreshment and rest. In this quiet haven, the American Home, premature death and her mothers ts of weeping traumatized her
Beecher placed her sentimentalized version of the American childhood, so that her mother came to personify fear and confu-
woman. She herself never married. sion, while the memory of her fathers translucent dead face
became a symbol of calmness and beauty. Thus she yearned for
the serenity of the world of death. As a child, she often played at
OTHER WORKS: Suggestions Respecting Improvements in Educa-
being dead in a grave she built herself in the hay. This conict of
tion (1829). Arithmetic Simplied (1832). Primary Geography
having to live in one world, while longing for the other, made her
(1833). The Lyceum Arithmetic (1835). An Essay on the Educa-
fabricate a world in which she kept to herself everything that
tion of Female Teachers (1835). Lectures on the Difculty of
mattered most.
Religion (1836). The Moral Instructor (1838). Letters to Persons
Who Are Engaged in Domestic Service (1842). The Duty of An outstanding student, Benedict won a scholarship to Vassar
American Women to Their Country (1845). Truths Stranger Than College, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1909. After
Fiction (1850). The True Remedy for the Wrongs of Women graduation, she worked for charities and taught in girls schools.
75
BENEDICT AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
When she married, she discovered a womans power in her love another. Benedicts comparison of cultures and her application of
for her husband and her desire to bear children, and she lived with clinical terms to them results in her realization that abnormality in
a new zest for life; but she soon became disillusioned, espe- any culture is simply an individual deviation from that cultures
cially when the longed-for children never came. Her sense of norms. Thus cultures cannot be compared on an ethical basis but
loneliness and meaninglessness returned, and when her desire for only on the relativity of their integrating principles.
a job of her own met with her husbands discouragement, she
slowly withdrew from him. In 1919 Benedict enrolled in the New In 1935, Benedict published two volumes of Zuni Mythology,
School for Social Research where she studied anthropology under a collection of her most massive eldwork. It includes texts
Elsie Clews Parsons and Alexander Goldenweiser. From there she gathered by her and earlier eldworkers, as well as a careful
went to Columbia and received her doctorate under Franz Boas in comparison of these texts. She concerns herself with themes in
1923, a time when cultural traits and their diffusion, rather than Zuni folklore, the relationship of these themes to the culture, and
individuals, were the interest of anthropological study. the literary problems of the Zuni narrator.
Benedict started her teaching career in 1922 as an assistant to The war years brought a shift in her interests away from
Boas in his undergraduate class at Barnard and began teaching at American Indians to one in humanism. In 1940 Benedict pub-
Columbia the following year. Her rst anthropological interest lished Race: Science and Politics, a popular, relatively unacademic
was in American Indian religion, and her dissertation, The Con- book, in which she presents theories and philosophies of race
cept of the Guardian Spirit in North America, was published in along with her own point of view on the subject of racism. She
1923. In it, Benedict deals with the variety of disparate cultural feels racism is a form of crude provincialism, and in order to
elements that are found juxtaposed within one culturealready understand it, one must rst understand persecution as a whole,
forecasting her later concern with the integrating principles of the with all its economic and social causes. The Races of Mankind,
rags and tatters that make up culture. Her rst eldwork, done written with Gene Weltsh, was published in 1943 and sold
in 1922, was among the Serrano Indians of southern California. millions of copies. Translated into lm and cartoon forms, it has
During the summers of 1924 and 1925, she collected folklore proved to be one of the most popular educational materials on
among the Pueblo Indians of Zuni and Cochiti, and the following racial differences based on anthropological data.
summer among their neighbors, the Pima. Her partial deafness From 1943 to 1945, Benedict worked in Washington in the
and extreme shyness made teaching an ordeal for her, and while Ofce of War Information, concentrating on Romania, Thailand,
doing eldwork, she had to rely entirely on English-speaking and Japan. This led to her pioneering work with literate inform-
informants and interpreters. ants from urban centers and a new shift in anthropology to the
Throughout these early years of anthropological apprentice- analysis of complex modern societies. Benedicts most gracefully
ship, Benedict remained a sensitive and solitary person, express- and cogently written book is The Chrysanthemum and the Sword
ing her inner battles with loneliness and the painful relationship (1946). It expresses the nal harmony of her two selves, the
with her husband in verse, some of which she published in Poetry anthropologist concerned with the integrity of pattern, and the
and Nation under the pseudonym of Anne Singleton. In 1930 she humanist who knows the suffering of the human spirit when it is
and husband Stanley separated, and at that time Boas appointed trapped and limited. Based on an intensive analysis of interviews
her assistant professor at Columbia. Soon thereafter, her depres- and literary material, it concerns itself with themes in Japanese
sions lifted, the need for Anne Singleton faded, and slowly the culture, stressing primarily those that have to do with reciprocal
separate lives she led became fused together in her work. relations between people. She deals with the hierarchical organi-
zation of Japanese life, portrays the structure of obligations to
In 1934 Patterns of Culture, her most famous book, was emperor, family, and self, and examines the strong sense of shame
published. It has since been translated into 14 languages and is so dominant in the culture. The underlying humanist message of
still regarded as one of the best introductions to anthropology. the book is that the only way Japan could be reintegrated into the
Combining problems of psychology and the individual with those world is by using the favorable Japanese patterns of culture as the
of anthropology and culture, she evolved a theory stating that building blocks rather than by imposing European values from
culture was not only the condition within which personality without. The book had a tremendous impact in the U.S. In 1947,
developed, but was itself a personality writ large. All culture, following its great success, the Ofce of Naval Research gave
she postulated, is structured into patterns which impose a harmo- Columbia University an extensive grant to establish under Bene-
ny upon the disparate components of life; for any one culture there dicts direction a program of Research in Contemporary Cul-
is a dominant pattern, an overriding cultural temperament. Inu- tures, the most ambitious program of anthropological research
enced by her reading of Nietzsche, and taking her data from her the U.S. had yet seen.
own work and that done by Boas and Reo Fortune, she compared
three cultures and applied psychological terms to them. The Zuni In 1948, when she was 61, Columbia nally named Benedict
of New Mexico she labeled as Apollonian in their sobriety, a full professor. In the fall of that year she died of a coronary
moderation, and self-possession. The Kwakiutl of Vancouver thrombosis. After Boass death, six years prior to her own,
Island she saw as Dionysian in their commitment to a life of Benedict was the leading American anthropologist as well as the
intoxicated frenzy and self-annihilation. They had paranoid delu- rst American woman to become a prominent social scientist and
sions of grandeur, whereas the Dobu of Melanesia had a schizo- leader in her profession. Her great contribution was her integra-
phrenic fear of their environment and a morbid suspicion of one tion of the idea of patterns, which she slowly pieced together in
76
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BENT
her own life and applied to her work. In so doing, she gave her mother, a close companion whose death devastated her. Comple-
profession a theoretical orientation at a time when science for the tion of Come Slowly, Eden (1942), a novel about Emily Dickin-
rst time was trying to deal with total cultures. Benedicts critics son, saved her from a nervous breakdown. After that, she lived
accuse her of never having written a full ethnography and of alone in New York City.
having done eldwork, either among people living in disintegrat-
Bent received a medal from the National Poetry Center in
ing cultures, or among literate informants from cultures far away.
1936, had her poems recorded at the Library of Congress in 1958,
Some have criticized her patterns as overly simplistic. However,
and in 1967 received an honorary degree from Moravian College
her deafness, shyness, and childhood traumas that cut her personal
in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. In 1978, the Empire State Chapter of
life off from others were probably not only responsible for her
the National Society of Arts and Letters gave her special recognition.
anthropological weaknesses, but are possibly what gave her both
the ability to view cultures at a distance and the tolerance for Bents six slim books of poetry are only a small part of her
deviance that led to her very great contributions. output, but she considered herself a poet rst. In Fairy Bread
(1921), the poems are lyrical, light, and fanciful; several, like the
riddle-poem Circles, accurately reect a childs world. Touch-
OTHER WORKS: Tales of the Cochiti Indians (1931). Rumanian es of her later depth and versatility appear, as in The Dragons
Culture and Behavior (1946). Thai Culture and Behavior (1946). Grandmother, with its thoughtfully realistic portrait of an old
An Anthropologist at Work: Writings of Ruth Benedict (edited woman. In Noahs Dove (1929) there are wryly amusing animal
by M. Mead, 1959). portraits, humanistic insights into ordinary events, and striking
images, like church bells described as hypodermics pricking the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mead, M., ed., An Anthropologist at Work: Writ- dulled stuff of thought.
ings of Ruth Benedict (1959). Mead, M., Ruth Benedict (1974). Impressionism and understated humor continue in Basket for
Modell, J. S., A Biographical Study of Ruth Fulton Benedict a Fair (1934), but formal aspects like rhyme seem forced, and the
(dissertation, 1980). personal note is missing. Bents sharpest insights again occur in
Reference works: National Cyclopedia of American Biogra- animal poems, where sly amusement toughens the rhymes. The
phy (1892 et seq.). NAW 1607-1950 (1971). poems in Is Morning Sure? (1947) are more solid, yet still
Other references: AA (1949, 1957). Minzokugaku Kenkyu characteristically delicate. Bent considered In Love with Time
(Japanese Journal of Ethnology, 1949). Ruth Fulton Benedict: A (1959), a Wake-Brook Foundation Award Book, the best example
Memorial (Viking Fund, 1949). of her work. Many poems have a personal base, and some
comment directly on her career and role as a woman. Two
MARIAM KAHN particularly effective poems are blank verse portraits of Bents
grandmothers, with acute commentary on their ways of life.
Bridge of a Single Hair (1974), published when Bent was
BENT, Laura 90, has quiet and simple poems that range widely, linking every-
day life with deeper meanings and emotions, and otherworldly
presences. There are still disturbing off-rhymes and inconsistent
Born 13 June 1884, Brooklyn, New York; died 17 February 1979, rhythms, but most of the poems transcend them with an evocative
New York, New York strangeness or strong lyrical statement.
Daughter of James and Frances Rose Bent
Bent also wrote full-length biographies of Poe, Stanley, and
The oldest child of an army family, Laura Bent moved others. Although originally published as books for young people,
often, from Brooklyn, New York, to Springeld, Massachusetts, Bent rightly felt they can be enjoyed by anyone. Except for
to Washington, D.C., and other posts. She went to private schools, occasional preciousness and sentimentality, these full-length works
including the Emma Willard School in Troy, and graduated from contain a wealth of specic detail, sharp characterization, and
Vassar College in 1907. lively dramatized incident. Reviewers commented on the thor-
ough research and skillful writing, one calling Thackeray: Of the
At rst working at a settlement house, Bent was also Great Heart and Humorous Pen (1947) an astonishingly satisfy-
employed as a placement worker for the Childrens Aid Society in ing book with character analysis and descriptions so de-
New York, a sanitary inspector for the Red Cross in Georgia tailed. . .that the reader feels that he would recognize Thackeray at
during World War I, and an editorial assistant for the book pages any party.
of the New York Evening Post, the New York Evening Sun, and the
New York Times. A freelance writer since 1930, she published 28 Bent rst wrote about Emily Dickinson in the novel Come
books, mostly biographies and ction primarily intended for Slowly, Eden (1942), a well-researched and imaginative recrea-
young people. The Boy Shelley (1937), one of nine of Bents tion of Dickinsons love affairs. The Mystery of Emily Dickinson
books that had remained in print into the 1980s, was her favorite. (1974) was a response to her publishers request for a documented
biography. Bent also wrote six collections of short biographies,
Bent never married, although she said she was in love twice of which Famous American Poets (1950) was best received. They
but lost out. After her fathers death, she remained with her are good for reference or quick but sympathetic characterizations.
77
BENTEZ AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
When William Rose, Stephen Vincent and I Were Young 1994 she won the Minnesota Book award for her rst novel, A
(1976) is a visit with Bent and her brothers during their child- Place Where the Sea Remembers (1994), which is based in a small
hood. She vividly recreates characters and incidents ranging from village on the Mexican coast. Three years later she published her
their nurses objection to her Spanish eyes to the serious second novel, Bitter Grounds (1997), which spans three genera-
illnesses of brothers William, eighteen months younger, and tions of womens lives in El Salvador.
Stephen, born 12 years later.
Reviewers note Bentezs talent in describing the lives and
Bent has the gift of fantasy. As a New York Times reviewer telling the stories of native people and small-town life in Mexico
wrote of the stories in Goods and Chattels (1930), she has a and El Salvador. Chicana novelist Denise Chvez said the world
childs imagination and a childs faith along with an adults of Bentez rst novel is poignant, passionate, bittersweet. There
comprehension of human happiness and misery. These qualities are no small lives. Her characters are magnicent, merciful,
keep biographies and novels engrossing and moving, and make soul-rooted creatures clinging to the shore. The Boston Sunday
her poetry worth repeated reading. Bent herself knew her limits. Globe called the novel tender and gripping. Cuban-American
I am a good poet, she said, not a great one like my brothers. writer Cristina Garca added that A Place Where the Sea Remem-
She wrote of her grandmother words that can be applied to herself: bers is a quietly stunning book that leaves soft tracks in the heart.
It was a grief to her that she had talent /Yet never that rare jewel
The rst novel weaves several characters lives through the
known as genius. Bent had a life of considerable accomplish-
possibilities of work and life in a small coastal village. Love and
ment and modest recognition, but personally and professionally
anger, on the order of a Gabriel Garca Mrquez story, inuence
lived in the shadows of two famous brothers.
the decisions of three principal characters, while each moves
through the aspirations and disillusionments of their limited
OTHER WORKS: The Hidden Valley (1938). Enchanting Jenny options. Candelario Marroqun is lled with pride and respect for
Lind (1939). Roxana Rampant (1940). Young Edgar Allan Poe his role when he is promoted to salad maker at the tourist-stop
(1941). Calebs Luck (1942). Washington Irving, Explorer of restaurant where he works. He feels he can nally provide well for
American Legend (1944). Barnums First Circus and Other his wife and the family they have always desired; since they have
Stories (1949). Coleridge, Poet of Wild Enchantment (1952). been unable to have their own child, they plan to adopt the baby
Stanley, Invincible Explorer (1955). Famous American Humor- his wifes younger sister will have. She was raped and now wants
ists (1959). In Love with Time (1959). Famous Poets for Young to leave the baby behind in good hands and go to the U.S., where
People (1964). Horseshoe Nails (1965). Famous English and she can earn good money. When Candelario is red because of his
American Essayists (1966). Famous Storytellers for Young Peo- boss own error and embarrassment, he returns home to discover
ple (1968). Famous New England Authors (1970). that his wife is now pregnant. He will have to return to a life of
The papers of Laura Bent are at the Lockwood Memorial shing and selling each days catch to the restaurants in order to
Library, State University of New York at Buffalo, and in the provide for his family. He and his wife know he cannot provide for
Brooklyn College Manuscripts Collection. two children. A quarrel ensues between the sisters, triggering a
series of events that affect the lives of many members of their
village.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Modern Maturity (Feb.-March 1978). Vassar
Quarterly (Winter 1977). The lyrical quality of this short (160-page) novel is reminis-
cent of Latin American literature of the 1950s and 1960s. Bentez
CAROL B. GARTNER writes only in English, but the essence of her stories is Latin
American. She aptly paints descriptions of peasants, small-town
life, and a peoples rootedness to their land and their region,
whether coastal Mexico or the small country of El Salvador. In her
second novel, she contrasts the lives of wealthy women with their
BENTEZ, Sandra (Ables) maids, but it is the servant women and their families whose
portraits come alive, as well as their connection to their land. The
Born 26 March 1941, Washington D.C. 1930s uprising and the revolution of the 1970s are only the
Daughter of James Q. and Marta A. Bentez Ables; married backdrop to this story of the people. New Mexican writer Demetria
James F. Kondrick, 1980; children: Christopher, Jonathan Martnez called Bentezs second novel a beautiful story and a
major contribution to the literature of the Americas. Isabel
Sandra Bentez may be little known because she only began Allende found it a story of passion, politics, death, and love
writing at age thirty-nine. She did not participate in a national written with suspense; a countrys tragic story seen by four strong
writers workshop; her stories just came out at one point in her life women. This is the kind of book that lls your dreams for weeks.
as she reached back to her varied childhood experiences. She is of And Chris Bohjalian, a reviewer for the New York Times Book
Puerto Rican descent through her mother and Midwestern descent Review, found Bitter Grounds like a recipe for a novel by Laura
through her father. She was born in Washington, D.C., where her Esquivel, the rhythms reminiscent of Sandra Cisneros. Ms. Bentez
father worked as a diplomat, then grew up in Mexico, El Salvador, certainly merits placement beside some of the mesmerizing new
Puerto Rico, and Missouri. She now lives in Edina, Minnesota. In literature with its roots in Latin America. Her 445-page second
78
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BENNETT
novel is an epic that celebrates the Salvadoran people of the 20th poems utilize a blues-spiritual format; they are chant-songs
century in their history, their land, and their beauty. rhythmic and repetitious. Musical instruments in her poems are
the piano and the banjo, of African origins.
While Bentez seems difcult to categorize ethnically, she is
truly a Latina writer: she writes in English and her themes are Almost all of Bennetts poems are imagistic word paintings:
often of womens issues and Latin American origin. She has said Brushes and paints are all I have / To speak the music in my soul
that being an avid reader in her childhood helped lead her to story . . . / A copper jar beside a pale green bowl. Similarly, Heri-
writing, and she seems to be collecting her Latin American tage simulates an etching: I want to see lithe Negro girls /
experiences to share with a North American audience. Bentez has Etched dark against the sky / While sunset lingers. Bennetts
written several short stories, which have appeared in various run-on lines simulate a brush-stroke-on-canvas effect: I want to
anthologies, including Do You Know Me Now?, edited by Eliza- see the slim palm-trees, / Pulling at the clouds. Sonnet-2 is
beth Rosenberg (1992), and Speaking in Tongues, edited by evocative of a watercolor: . . .owers bathed by rain / . . .pat-
Carolyn Holbrook-Montgomery (1993). Her awards and honors terns traced upon the sea. Bennett creates a luminous dream
include the Loft Mentor award for ction, 1987; Loft-McKnight world as in Fantasy: A slim-necked peacock. . . / In a garden
award for ction, 1988; Jerome Foundation Travel and Study of lavender hues.
Grant for literature, 1989; Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship
Her poems are terse, compact, and vivid. The militant 20-line
for ction, 1991; Minnesota Hispanic Heritage Month award,
Hatred is the best example: I shall hate you / Like a dart of
1992; Loft-McKnight award of Distinction for prose, 1993;
singing steel. It has all the collective sensory elements of
Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers award, 1993; and
Bennetts poems. To a Dark Girl is openly sensual, inviting an
Minnesota Book award for ction, 1994. Bentez is also a teacher
appreciation of the female body: I love you for your brownness /
of creative writing.
And the rounded darkness of your breast. Bennett saw beauty
and mystery in blackness, celebrating a glorious black present
OTHER WORKS: Womens Voices from the Borderlands (ed. by based on an idealized African past, symbolized by the female:
Lillian Castillo-Speed,1995). Something of old forgotten queens / Lurks in the lithe abandon
of your walk. In Song she comes close to romanticizing the
primitive: . . .heads thrown back in irreverent mirth. But
BIBLIOGRAPHY: CA 144; WRB15 (June 1998); PW (19 July 1993). Song is never sentimental or maudlin; it penetrates the mask of
Other references: Boston Globe (19 Dec. 1993). minstrelsy: Abandon tells you / That I sing the heart of a race;
Gac-Artigas, P., ed., Reexiones: 60 Essays on Spanish American to arrive at the essence: While sadness whispers / That I am the
Women Writers (1999). NYTBR (31 Oct. 1993). WPBW (5 cry of the soul.
Sept. 1993).
Web page: pgacarti@mondec.monmouth.edu Of strong, independent voice and reective mind, Bennett
has to be considered vis--vis the development of a methodology
ELIZABETH COONROD MARTINEZ explaining the philosophical and artistic meaning of similarly
oriented poetry in dening the Harlem Renaissance and its mythic
reverberations. Her poetry suggests that she is aware of psychosocial
and political relevance, and historical realities, both as determi-
BENNETT, Gwendolyn B. nants and as results of her work. She has a richly mature voice that
goes beyond that of a mere cultist. Her dispassionate poetic
intellect gives her protest poems resonance, depth, and complexity.
Born 8 July 1902, Giddings, Texas; died 1891
Gwendolyn B. Bennetts writing career spans the years 1922 OTHER WORKS: Selections of Bennetts work can be found in: The
to 1934. Although she studied at Columbia University and in Book of American Negro Poetry (1922). The New Negro (1925).
France, Bennett graduated from Pratt Institute, then taught water- Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1926 (1926). Caroling Dusk
color and design at Howard University. Author of The Ebony (1927). Ebony and Topaz (1927). Anthology of American Negro
Flute, a literary column in Opportunity, and also a frequent Literature (1929). American Negro Poetry (1963). An Introduc-
contributor to Crisis and The Messenger, Bennett has no collected tion to Black Literature in America from 1746 to the Present
volume of her verse. Her poems, dealing with nature, love, race, (1969). Afro-American Literature (1970). The Poetry of the
death, and romance, vary in length from six lines to her 39-line Negro, 1946-1970 (1970). The Poetry of Black America (1973).
free verse Song. Although she is overly identied with her Black and Unknown Bards (n.d.). The Sleeper Wakes: Harlem
often anthologized lyric, To a Dark Girl, she wrote ballads, Renaissance Stories by Women (1993). Women, Men, and the
sonnets, and protest poetry. Her poemswhether racial, expres- Great War: An Anthology of Stories (1995). The Soul of a
sionistic, or impressionisticare characterized by a heavy reli- Woman (1998).
ance on visual imagery.
Bennetts racial poems reect an African tradition: I want BIBLIOGRAPHY: Beckner, C., 100 African-Americans Who Shaped
to hear the chanting / Around a heathen re. Signicantly, these American History (1995). Eleazer, R. B., ed., Singers in the
79
BENSON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Dawn: A Brief Supplement to the Study of American Literature this obviously autobiographical work in which she appears as
(1934). Govan, S. Y., Gwendolyn Bennett: Portrait of an Artist Tootie, age six. The collection focuses on an older sister and her
Lost (dissertation, 1989). Lewis, D. L., The Portable Harlem determinedly sophisticated friends. It was made into a popular
Renaissance Reader (1995). movie starring Judy Garland.
ERLENE STETSON Benson published Women and Children FIRST in 1943. The
title originally proposed for the volume, Danger: Women at
Work, accurately describes the focus on women frittering away
their lives, manipulating each other and men. The stories center-
BENSON, Sally ing around male central characters are equally bleak in their
portrayal of human selshness and pettiness. The book exposes a
Born 3 September 1900, St. Louis, Missouri; died 21 July 1972, society which fosters useless lives by its role expectations.
Woodland Hills, California Bensons stories are slices of life in which characters,
Daughter of Alonzo Redway and Anna Prophater Smith; mar- through stream-of-consciousness or dialogue, reveal foolish pre-
ried Reynolds Benson, 1919 (divorced) tenses; swift narration and irony preclude sentimentality but
sometimes result in cruel revelations. Cumulatively her women
After Sally Bensons family had moved to New York, she are stereotypes of frivolous, stupid, and wasteful upper-middle-
attended the Horace Mann School, started working at seventeen, class New Yorkers. But Benson also described the male self-
married at nineteen, had a daughter, and later divorced her deception and use of power that compel women to utilize manipu-
husband. She wrote newspaper interviews and movie reviews and lative strategies. Her portraits of young girls reveal the anguish of
in 1929 contributed the rst of her 108 stories to the New Yorker. their socialization.
Benson also edited a volume of myths, wrote mystery reviews for
the New Yorker and more than 20 screenplays.
OTHER WORKS: Stories of the Gods and Heroes (1940). Shadow
People are Fascinating (1936) includes almost all the stories of a Doubt (1943). Experiment Perilous (1944). National Velvet
Benson had published in the New Yorker and four from American (1944). Anna and the King of Siam (1946). Come to the Stable
Mercury. The Overcoat and Suite 2049 were O. Henry (1949). No Man of Her Own (1950). Conspirator (1950). The
prize stories for 1935 and 1936. The title story offers an ironic Belle of New York (1952). The Farmer Takes a Wife (1953).
perspective on the volume: a woman dramatist reads drama into Seventeen by B. Tarkington (dramatization by Benson, 1954). The
mundane lives. Benson reveals the mediocrity of self-deluded and Young and the Beautiful by F. S. Fitzgerald (dramatization by
self-indulgent characters but is compassionate about their at- Benson, 1956). The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1960). Bus
tempts to deal with their own mediocrity, with poverty and aging, Stop (1961). Summer Magic (1962). Viva Las Vegas (1963).
with meaningless lives. Signpost to Murder (1963). The Singing Nun (1966).
In Emily (1938) Benson writes somewhat longer stories that
allow for character development and elicit compassion for those BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ferguson, M.A., ed., Images of Women in Litera-
caught in dilemmas, particularly those of growing up. Profes- ture (1991). Writers and Writing (22 July 1972). NYT (22 Ju-
sional Housewife scathingly reveals the emptiness of the role, as ly 1972).
well as that of a door-to-door salesman. When scattered in the
New Yorker these stories seem witty; in this collection they seem MARY ANNE FERGUSON
depressing.
Despite libraries classication, Junior Miss (1941) is not a
childrens book. Each story humorously shows a young girls BERG, Gertrude
attempt to learn about herself and the world; collectively, the
stories reveal the human condition. Bensons light touch does not
Born 3 October 1899, New York, New York; died 14 September
hide the seriousness of Judys problems and the inadequacies of
most adult strategies for coping with them. The dramatization by
Daughter of Jacob and Diana Goldstein Edelstein; married
Jerome Chodorov and Joseph Fields (1942) achieved success by
Lewis W. Berg, 1918
hardening the delicacy gained by Bensons stream-of-conscious-
ness technique; it has the rounded ends and climaxes
A second-generation American raised in New York City,
Benson disliked, and creates a popular stereotype. Readers of the
Gertrude Berg drew observations of Jewish family life from her
stories will perceive Junior Miss as a rare account of female rites
own childhood as well as from exhaustive research into urban
of passage.
Jewish folkways. Berg attended New York City public schools
Bensons Meet Me in St. Louis (1942) is a collection of 12 and took extension courses in playwriting at Columbia University
stories published in the New Yorker as 5135 Kensington. They from 1916 to 1918. She spent her childhood summers in the
deal with family life and are based on the diaries of Bensons sister Catskill Mountains of New York, where she wrote and performed
at the time of the Worlds Fair in St. Louis at the turn of the sketches to amuse the guests at her fathers hotel. For three years
century. Benson has ironically used her family name of Smith for after her marriage, Berg lived on a sugar plantation in Louisiana,
80
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BERGMAN
spending most of her time reading and writing. She began writing events. The most interesting characters are menwaiters, guests,
for radio after her return to New York. storekeepers, relatives. Though the women characters generally
are less sympathetically drawn, their strength and power are
Bergs rst attempt at a radio series was Efe and Laura unmistakable.
(1927), a story about two worldly young women who worked in a
ve-and-ten and talked about everything from economics to the Bergs works, however, pose two major problems for critics.
meaning of life. Bergs rst success was The Rise of the Goldbergs Almost every story Berg wrote is about the Goldbergs, and the
(1929-1931), renamed The Goldbergs in 1931. Over the years, Goldbergs are Bergs family. Accordingly, the distinction be-
The Goldbergs included over two hundred characters, though tween Berg and Molly is elusive. A second problem compounds
only ve characters sustained the series. The central character, the rst, namely, that Bergs writing relies heavily on the actors
Molly Goldberg (played by Berg), was a powerful and benevolent skill in bringing characters to life. The realization of Mollys
Jewish mother absorbed with nding sensible solutions for her character, for example, depends upon Bergs performance as
familys problems. She was an amalgam of characteristics drawn much as upon Bergs writings. Therefore, the greatness of Bergs
from Bergs mother, grandmother, and various hotel guests. Her achievement cannot rest solely upon the strength of her writing.
humor, derived from malapropisms and Yiddish dialect, was The ultimate critical and commercial success of Molly and her
lovingly authentic and never patronizing or condescending. family is the result of Bergs command of the total creative
processfrom writing, to production, to performance.
The Goldberg children, Rosalie and Sammy, typied rst-
generation Americans trying to make sense of their dual heritage.
Though always devoted to their parents, Sammy and Rosie also OTHER WORKS: House of Glass (radio drama, 1935). Make a Wish
were dedicated to modernizing them and to correcting their (lm, released 1937). Kate Hopkins (radio drama, 1941-1942).
pronunciation. Their zeal was seldom appreciated by the elder The Molly Goldberg Cookbook (1955). Let God Worry a Little
Goldbergs. Bit in From the Wise Women of Israel: Folklore and Mem-
oirs (1993).
Berg wrote ve 12-and-a-half-minute scripts per week. Each
weeks scripts worked toward a climax designed to arouse enough
curiosity on Friday to make listeners tune in on the following BIBLIOGRAPHY: Barnouw, E., A Tower in Babel: A History of
Monday. In addition to its durable humor, The Goldbergs is noted Broadcasting in the United States to 1933 (1966). Barnouw, E.,
for its realism. The program eschewed sound effects in favor The Golden Web: A History of Broadcasting in the United States
of real eggs frying or real water running in the studio. Programs 1933-1953 (1968). Edmondson, M. and D. Rounds, From Mary
requiring sounds too complicated for the studio were broadcast Noble to Mary Hartman: The Complete Soap Opera Book (1976).
from appropriate external locations. When Sammy was called to ODell, C., Women Pioneers in Television: Biographies of Fifteen
active duty in World War II, his departure was broadcast from Industry Leaders (1997). Weber, D., The Jewish-American
Pennsylvania Station. The troop train he boarded was genuine, as World of Gertrude Berg: The Goldergs on Radio and Television,
was his departure for duty. Such use of events from the actors 1930-1950 in Talking Back: Images of Jewish Women in Ameri-
lives contributed realism of the highest dramatic value. can Popular Culture (1998). Weber, D. Memory and Repres-
sion in Early Ethnic Television: The Example of Gertrude Berg
Except for a few brief interruptions, The Goldbergs remained and the Goldbergs in The Other Fifties: Interrogating Midcentury
on the air until 1950, through more than 5,000 scripts. Then the American Icons (1997).
show moved to television, where some three million viewers Reference works: CBY (1960). National Cyclopedia of Ameri-
assured the success of the program for nearly 10 years. Berg wrote can Biography (1892 et seq.).
several versions of The Goldbergs for various media: a book, The Other references: Commentary (April 1956). NYT (15 Feb.
Rise of the Goldbergs (1931), a play, Me and Molly (1948), and a 1959, 15 Sept. 1966). Newsweek (11 April 1949). SR (26 May
lm, Molly (1950), written with N. Richard Nash. 1956). Time (26 April 1943, 26 Sept. 1949, 8 March 1948).
Throughout her works, Berg asserts the importance of do- Theatre Arts (Spring 1948, Spring 1951).
mestic life for both men and women. To Molly Goldberg a
CAREN J. DEMING
home, full of hearts and faces dats yours and you is deirs is
paramount. Her husband also acknowledges his need for mar-
riage: You got right, Molly. I vouldnt be notting but a shadow; I
vouldnt be a real man. I cant even picture to mineself dat I should BERGMAN, Susan H.
be a single man. The Goldberg family adjusts to changing times,
but its integrity as a family never falters. Though The Goldbergs is
ethnic comedy at its nest, the programs warmth and authenticity Born5 May 1957, Bloomington, Indiana
give it universal appeal. Daughter of Donald and Nancy Pricket Heche; married Judson
Bergman, 1979; children: Elliot, Elise (Elizabeth), Nata-
Molly and Me (1961), a memoir written with Bergs son lie, Bennet
Cherney, is a straightforward account of the people important
in Bergs life and, ultimately, in her writings. The book re- In two different years, the Pushcart Prize (Best of Small
veals Bergs penchant for glib generalizations about people and Presses) essay award went to Susan Bergman for her short pieces
81
BERNAYS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
destined to be parts of a longer one: these short essays, chapters in Schooner, Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, and Indiana Review.
fact, were Anonymity, honored in 1991-92, and Estivation, She speaks frankly and regularly about writing and about AIDS,
honored in 1993-94. These are not the only awards Bergman has not always at the same time but always with the same courtesy and
won for her writing: her work was included among Best American attention to her audiences need to understand. In an interview
Essays in both 1987 and 1992 as a winner of Tri-Quarterlys essay with Richard Ford, broadcast by National Public Radio in 1998,
prize in 1990; moreover, her poems were recognized by the Bergman talked about her dedication to writing, its importance to
American Academy of Poets (1987-88) and Discovery/The Na- her life. Ford praised her work for its clarity, its integrity, its subtle
tion Contest (where she was a nalist in 1990). yet strong grip on what really matters about languageits power
to communicate.
The two Pushcart Prize essays evolved into Anonymity: The
Secret Life of An American Family (1994), where Bergman Bergman is on the board of directors of the Modern Poetry
reveals in memoir form the shattering experience her family Association, and a contributing editor for Books and Culture and
suffered when, upon the death of Susans father, Donald Heche, at North American Review. She has written and developed liturgical
the age of forty-ve, they learned he was one of the earliest materialstextual, visual, and musicalfor church performance.
victims of the AIDS epidemic that swept homosexual communi- Her meditation on the life and death of Saint Perpetua, Called by
ties between 1983 and 1989. Anonymity is not a long book, but its Name, appears in a volume of essays, A Tremor of Bliss (1994),
power is deeply felt by reader and author alike. Bergman has a celebrating the way that the idea and the ideal of sanctity, as it
mature style and serenity that is comforting given the plain awful has been lived in certain lives over the centuries, persist in our
facts of her story. And her technique of weaving past and present signicantly secular time. Bergman says: I cling to the promis-
events together with paragraphs of self-discovery and personal es that if we seek God we will nd him, that if we knock the door
revelation produces an authentic poetic formula of presentation will be opened. In these words lie powerful incentives to an active
where the reader is carried along the narrative by the pace and life of faith.
choice of words Bergman uses to tell her truths. She is a born teller
of stories. She writes: At rst no one believed me and I knew it.
On Sunday nights until I was at least ten (not every week) my OTHER WORKS: Buried Life (1999).
parents spanked me for my weeks worth of lies, until I cried so
hard I would lose my breath. Eventually I learned how to simulate
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Anthem (National Public Radio, Oct. 1998).
breath loss so theyd stop before the welts rose. I practiced on the
NYTBR (1994).
gullible until, satised that even skeptics would not doubt, I told
the one about my fathers performance at Carnegie Hall. And KATHLEEN BONANN MARSHALL
later, as she removes the layers of untruth: You must understand
that lying is a temporal invisibility.
Bergmans memoir shook the very foundations of Americas
love affair with the family. In a review for Christian Century, BERNAYS, Anne
Suzanna Ruta addressed what it meant from the outside to
acknowledge the family of a father who died of AIDS. . . .A Born 14 September 1930, New York, New York
strict disciplinarian, church organist, head of a fundamentalist Daughter of Edward L. and Dorothy Fleischman Bernays; mar-
family in which love was expressed, he led a double life of ried Justin Kaplan, 1954; children: Susanna, Hester, Polly
cruising and promiscuity. Each reader or reviewer confronts the
same horror and must likely draw the same conclusion: that Born into a prominent family, Anne Bernays was a grandniece
behind the statistics and the labels, behind the name-calling and of Freud and the younger of two daughters of the founding father
the blame, lie real people (often children) whose lives are changed of the public relations eld. Bernays was raised in the Sherry
forever. Netherlands Hotel during the Depression, which, she was told,
We learn from Bergman herself in Anonymity that she wished was happening to poor people. She attended the Brearley
to attend a college where her artistic and writing skills could be School in New York City, then Wellesley for two years, transfer-
honed and developed. She hoped for Cornell University. Her ring to Barnard where for the rst time, she made friends outside a
parents insisted on a Christian college, however, so her B.A. limited social circle.
degree (1979) is from Wheaton College in Illinois. Later, as her In 1953 Bernays worked as an editor of Discovery for Vance
choices were less bound by parental restrictions, Bergman Bourjaily. In 1954 she married critic Justin Kaplan and left
earned M.A. (1988) and Ph.D. (1992) degrees in English from publishing in 1957 to give birth to the rst of her three daughters.
Northwestern University. She has managed for several decades to The same year, she started writing and completed 10 short stories.
juggle motherhood (four children), a successful career as a writer, In 1959 Bernays moved with her family to Cambridge, Massachu-
and service as a teacher. She was visiting writer at her alma mater, setts, where she has taught ction workshops, written novels, and
Wheaton College, in 1997-98; at Notre Dame University in 1996; worked as a part-time editor for David Godine.
and conducted personal writing workshops for the Ragdale Foun-
dation and River Oaks Arts in Illinois. Her poems have been Bernays rst novel, Short Pleasure (1962), tells the story of
published since 1985 in such widely known periodicals as Prairie an heiress who runs away from her wedding but claims she was
82
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BERNAYS
kidnapped and stuffed into a car trunk. Bernays uses the story, become personied as mysterious old acquaintances who make
based on a newspaper item, to illustrate the extravagant lengths to claims upon her. The Address Book successfully portrays the
which a poor little rich girl will go to escape the connes of conict between Alicias genuine love of and attachment to her
her family. family and her longings to escape the personal restrictions it
imposes upon her.
One of Bernays best books, Growing Up Rich (1975), deals
again with the need to escape the familythis time, however, Professor Romeo (1989) deals with sexual harassment on the
without having the characters resort to tales of dramatic kidnap- college campus. Assuming a male voice, Bernays tells the story of
ping or to suicide, as in The New York Ride (1965). In Growing Up compulsive sexual exploitation from the point of view of the
Rich, Bernays accurately records the characteristics of the rich perpetrator, psychology professor Jake Barker, and reveals the
and the trappings of their wealth. The narrator, another poor profound emptiness looming behind Barkers accomplished fa-
little rich girl, cannot, as Bernays herself could not, make friends cade. Finally called to account for his unethical behavior, Barker
in her private school. The pudgy schoolgirl who lacks self-assur- faces his dismissal from Harvard, and the professional demise it
ance is confused by her divided loyaltiesto her natural father, a represents, with bewildered incomprehension. A shallow man
Christian, and her stepfather, a Jew; to her German parents and her from beginning to end, he shows no sign of reform or redemption.
Russian guardians. When disaster strikes, she is sent to live with
the same Russian Jews who were formerly held in contempt by her In 1990 Bernays took another direction, publishing a creative
family. In her new home, her makeshift bedroom is a converted writing manual for students with Pamela Painter. Composed of 83
porch without heat, and she goes to public, not private school. She lessons in 12 sections, each addressing a facet of ction writing,
becomes a debutante in a new sense of the word as she enters a What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers avoids theoretical
more public, less private society. Growing Up Rich is written with and technical jargon, focusing instead on practical exercises,
wit, sophistication, and a sense of pain and poignancy, holding up revision, and the study of great authors. The next year, 1991,
to ridicule the false values of upper class society. Bernays joined the faculty at Holy Cross College in Worcester,
Massachusetts. With her husband, Kaplan, she jointly holds the
With Growing Up Rich, Bernays hits her stride as a social Jenks Chair in Contemporary Letters. Bernays and Kaplan col-
satirist; she maintains the pace in The School Room (1979). In a laborated on The Language of Names in 1997, which provides
central episode, children in a Cambridge, Massachusetts, private scholarly information about names in an easily accessible style.
school, spying on their teachers through a crack in a wall, catch The authors discuss the importance of names as cultural univer-
them in a compromising situation. Multiple plots and the contrast- sals used throughout history and provide a wealth of trivia about
ing positions of children either thrust out of, or secure in, their names from literature, history, lms, racial and ethnic groups, and
families are deftly handled. Bernays humor brings levity to the the business world.
pain of adolescence. These books ensured Bernays reputation;
she is one of few writers to deal with mother/daughter relation- In addition to pursuing her own writing career, Bernays is
ships, showing that the child belongs to the nurturing, and not busy on behalf of other writers. She is a founding and active
necessarily the natural, parent. Parents in her novels are often member of PEN New England, a regional offshoot of the national
weak: mothers are too intrusive, evasive, or too busy with their anticensorship and writer advocacy organization. She is chair of
own concerns; nor can fathers help their sons. Bernays writes the Fine Arts Work Center, which funds writers and visual artists
about children and about women who are both professionals and for a years stay in Provincetown; she also serves on the board of
involved family members. Bernays wit, her acute ear for dia- the National Writers Union.
logue, her compassion for the adolescent, her ability to handle
intricate plots, and her awareness of the life of the mind as well as
her knowledge of the domestic scene make her work mature, OTHER WORKS: Prudence, Indeed (1966). The First to Know (1974).
womanly, and literate.
Bernays has explored in her ction the culture of social BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1967). CANR (1982, 1999).
privilege in America. From New York Citys high society (The SATA (1983).
New York Ride and Growing Up Rich) to the cloistered environ- Other references: Boston Magazine (Dec. 1975). College
ment of an exclusive Cambridge boarding school (The School Composition and Communication (Feb. 1992). Hudson Review
Book, 1980), Bernays has exposed with humor and poignancy (Autumn 1984). NYT (19 July 1989). NYTBR (13 Nov. 1983, 23
these often hermetic institutions of privilege. In two novels in the July 1989). Ploughshares (Spring 1976).
1980s, Bernays turned her attention to issues concerning profes-
sional women. The Address Book (1983) features a successful, E. M. BRONER,
middle-aged editor at a Boston publishing house who is offered a UPDATED BY MELISSA BURNS AND NICK ASSENDELFT
new job with a top New York rm. As Alicia Baerwife, mother,
professional womanstruggles with the decision to move on in
her career or to remain with her family, she is confronted by her
own fears of loneliness and death, as well as by her repressed BERNE, Victoria
ambition and sexuality. Submerged elements of her inner life See FISHER, M. F. K.
83
BETHUNE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
BETHUNE, Mary McLeod Division of Negro Affairs in the National Youth Administration
and as a representative to the San Francisco Conference to draw
up a permanent charter for the United Nations. At that conference
Born 10 July 1875, near Mayesville, South Carolina; died 18 May
she helped draft a statement calling for a World Bill of Rights and
1955, Daytona, Florida
urging nations to face what is one of the most serious problems
Daughter of Samuel and Patsy McLeod; married Albertus
of the 20th centurythe question of race and color.
Bethune, 1898
Throughout her career Bethune asserted her belief in the
Born to former slaves, Mary McLeod Bethune realized early promise of the American dream, pointed out the discrepancy
the importance of education in improving the quality of life. Upon between the ideal and reality, and sought to extend the promise to
graduating from Mayesville Institute, she attended Scotia Semi- all groups. Moreover, her travels and living through two world
nary in Concord, North Carolina, and pursued further studies at wars made her aware of Americas role in the world and of the ties
Moody Institute in Chicago. Two black women, Emma Wilson, that bind all people. In Certain Unalienable Rights, she brings
Bethunes rst teacher, and Lucy Laney, her rst principal and these realizations together, asserting that the black Americans
employer, inspired her by giving her an educational opportunity desire for equality was rooted in the American principles of
and by serving as models in opening schools for blacks. Moreo- democracy and that the black Americans who were angry were
ver, the teachers at Scotia taught her about the evils of discrimina- analogous to the Boston Tea Party patriots. To Bethune these
tion. Following these examples, Bethune devoted her life to black Americans were among the depressed and repressed
offering others educational opportunities and to combating col- masses all over the world who were swelling to the breaking
or, caste and class distinctions. point against the walls of the ghettoes. She concluded that
America and the world had two alternatives in reacting to the cry
After marrying, Bethune taught in mission schools in the
for equality: to act in keeping with American ideals or to
South, and in 1904 she opened the Daytona Educational and
mimic Hitler.
Industrial School for Training Negro Girls; in 1923 the school
merged with Cookman Institute and became Bethune-Cookman Bethunes leadership in education and in the cause of Peace,
College, and Bethune remained head of the school until 1942. Progress, Brotherhood and Love brought her national and inter-
national acclaim, as attested by the numerous honors and awards
It was as an educator and founder of a school that Bethune
she received, including the Spingarn Medal, the Drexel Award,
rst achieved recognition, but she refused to conne her talent
the Thomas Jefferson Award, the Honor Merit of Haiti Award,
and effort to one institution or to one group of peopleshe
and the Star of Africa Award from Liberia. In 1974 a memorial to
became a national and international leader in the cause of equality,
her was erected in Washington, D.C.
peace, and brotherhood. In 1920 she was elected to the Executive
Board of the National Urban League. In The Problems of the Although she published rarely, and never in volume form,
City Dweller (Opportunity, 3 Feb. 1925), Bethune pointed out Bethunes essays appeared in Opportunity and in the Journal of
the discrepancy between the El Dorado of the country lads Negro History. To reach a more popular audience, she turned to
dreams and the economic, social, and educational oppression Ebony with My Secret Talks with Franklin D. Roosevelt (April
found in urban centers. She urged the Urban League to focus 1949) and My Last Will and Testament (10 August 1955).
attention on the problems of the city dweller, calling equally for
the breaking down of racial barriers and for the aiding of
OTHER WORKS: Mary McLeod Bethune, Her Own Words of
immigrants.
Inspiration (1975, reprinted1990). Mary McLeod Bethune Pa-
Bethune served as vice president of the National Association pers, 1923-1942 (microlm, 1976). Mary McLeod Bethune Pa-
for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and formed the pers, Bethune Foundation Collection, Part 2: Correspondence
National Council of Negro Women. She was also president of the Files, 1914-1955 (1997). My Last Will and Testament in Can I
Association for the Study of Negro Life and History and urged Get a Witness? Prophetic Religious Voices of African American
scholars and researchers to discover, interpret, and disseminate Women: An Anthology (1997).
the truth in the eld of Negro life. She reminded them that the
social usefulness of scholarship and its ndings depends upon
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ashby, R. and D. G. Ohrn, eds., Herstory: Women
its translation into the common tongue. Focusing upon this same
Who Changed the World (1995). Blackwell, B. G., The Advocacies
theme in a 1939 speech, The Adaptation of the History of the
and Ideological Commitments of a Black Educator: Mary McLeod
Negro to the Capacity of the Child (Journal of Negro History,
Bethune, 1875-1955 (dissertation, 1978). Boehm, R., A Guide
Jan. 1939), she pointed out that children must have a true picture
to the Microlm Edition of Mary McLeod Bethune Papers:
of races because peace is based on international understanding
The Bethune-Cookman College Collection, 1922-1955 (1995).
and good will.
Brawley, B., Negro Builders and Heroes (1937). David, S. I.,
Bethunes talent, energy, and resources were drawn upon by Women Builders (1931). Embree, E. R., Thirteen Against the
two U.S. presidents. President Hoover invited her to the White Odds (1944). Felder, D. G., The 100 Most Inuential Women of
House Conference on Child Health and Protection and to the All Time: A Ranking Past and Present (1996). Greeneld, E.,
Presidents Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership. Mary McLeod Bethune (1977). Hall, J. B., Segregation and the
Under Franklin D. Roosevelt she served as Director of the Politics of Race: Mary McLeod Bethune and the National Youth
84
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BETTS
Administration, 1935-1943 (thesis, 1996). Hanson, J. A., The rejects her chance to escape with a lover; other stories show
Ties that Bind: Mary McLeod Bethune and the Political Mobiliza- characters coping with handicaps, poverty, aging, and racial
tion of African-American Women (dissertation, 1997). Hardy, discrimination. There is no sentimentality; a chain gang, murder,
G. J., American Women Civil Rights Activists: Biobibliographies maternal rejection, patriarchal ruthlessness, bitter sexual frustra-
of 68 Leaders, 1825-1992 (1993). Holt, R., Mary McLeod Bethune: tion are dispassionately presented. Betts characteristic use of
A Biography (1964). McCluskey, A. T., Mary McLeod Bethune interior monologue for ironic self-revelation, her concern for
and the Education of Black Girls in the South, 1904-1923 (disser- morality and religion, her use of animal symbols, and her humor
tation, 1991). Newsome, C. G., Mary McLeod Bethune in Relig- are all already apparent.
ious Perspective (dissertation, 1982). Peare, C. O., Mary McLeod
Betts second book of short stories, The Astronomer, and
Bethune (1951). Poole, B. A., Mary McLeod Bethune (1994).
Other Stories (1966), is actually a novella whose central charac-
Reynolds, M. D., Women Champions of Human Rights: Elev-
ter, a widower, tries to ll his life by pursuing astronomy but nds
en U.S. Leaders of the Twentieth Century (1991). Russell, D.,
he cannot ll the emptiness without involvement with other
Black Genius and the American Experience (1998). Skorapa,
people. Betts increased control of her medium is evident in the
O. L., Feminist Theory and the Educational Endeavor of Mary
economy with which several lives are simultaneously revealed. In
McLeod Bethune (dissertation, 1989). Seller, M., ed., Women
the other stories in this collection, Betts succinctly portrays people
Educators in the United States, 1820-1993: A Biobibliographical
who deal with life the best they can but not always effectively.
Sourcebook (1994). Smallwood, D., Proles of Great African
Americans (1998). Young, J. A., A Study of the Educational It is unfortunate Betts yielded to writing novels, because it is
Philosophies of Three Pioneer Black Women and their Contribu- in her short stories that she succeeds in catching whole lives
tions to American Education (dissertation, 1993, 1987). quickly. Tall Houses in Winter (1957), Betts rst novel, is
Other references: JNH (1975). Light in the Southern Sky overplotted and melodramatic, and only somewhat redeemed by
(video, 1994). Mary McLeod Bethune as Shaper of Social Reality convincing character portrayal. The Scarlet Thread (1964), a
(audiocassette, 1986). Mary McLeod Bethune: Educator (video, historical novel, is noteworthy primarily for its vivid scenes and
1997). Mary McLeod Bethune: Political & Social Development at biblical symbolism. The River to Pickle Beach (1972) skillfully
Home and Abroad (video, 1996). Mary McLeod Bethune: The uses symbols of nature to make this novel a powerful afrma-
Spirit of a Champion (video, 1996). Portraits: The Americans tion of life.
(video, 1997). Southern Workman (March 1912). The Story of
With Beasts of the Southern Wild, and Other Stories (1973),
Mary McLeod Bethune from Cotton Fields to the White House
for which Betts was a 1974 National Book award nalist, and
(video, 1990).
Heading West (1981), is a collection of seven stories representing
both a culmination of her previous work and a new departure.
JO HOWZE
More comic, more fantastic, these stories are nonetheless as
revelatory of ordinary people as Betts other ction. Using animal
images and female central consciousnesses, Betts creates a world
in which awareness of mortality heightens experience.
BETTS, Doris
Betts characters, often grotesque, gain dignity from con-
fronting loneliness, family and racial tensions, aging, and death.
Born 4 June 1932, Statesville, North Carolina She achieves rare authenticity about women through detailing
Daughter of William E. and Mary Ellen Freeze Elmore Waugh; graphically with the birth process, the emotional effects of abor-
married Lowry M. Betts, 1952; children: Doris, tion, hysterectomy, and childlessness. Betts discussions of the
David, Erskine aesthetics of writing reect her award-winning teaching.
Since winning a Mademoiselle college ction contest in Between 1954 and 1973 Betts produced three volumes of
1953, Doris Betts has published nine novels and three volumes of short stories and three novels, all focused on her native North
short stories. She has been a journalist at several North Carolina Carolina. She has always been well received in her region: each
newspapers and a professor at a number of colleges in North novel won the Sir Walter Raleigh award for the best ction of its
Carolina and Indiana. Betts has also been active in her town of year by a North Carolinian. The aforementioned Beasts of the
Sanford, North Carolina, and is the Alumni Distinguished Profes- Southern Wild and Other Stories (1973), broadened her reputa-
sor of English at the nearby University of North Carolina at tion; it was widely reviewed, and one of the stories, The Ugliest
Chapel Hill. She has won several literary awards, including the Pilgrim, was lmed for the Public Broadcasting System (PBS)
Guggenheim Fellowship in ction in 1958-59 and an American as Violet, with Betts writing the screenplay. In Heading West
Academy of Arts and Letters Medal of Merit in 1989. (1981), a Book-of-the-Month selection, the authors wider scope
is paralleled by that of her female epic hero, Nancy Finch, an
The Gentle Insurrection, and Other Stories (1954), though unmarried librarian in a small North Carolina town desperate to
published when the author was twenty-two, shows mature under- escape her dull life. Maintaining the comic voice evident in many
standing of human powers and limitations. In the title story, the of her short stories, Betts makes her story of Nancys journey to
daughter of a sharecropper, out of both fear and family loyalty, the Grand Canyon a mock epic. The Grand Canyon parallels
85
BIANCO AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Melvilles white whale as a symbol of the American quest for Tamsen Donner. Meanwhile, she meets 12-year-old Sam, who
meaning, which Betts locates, nally, in the American dream of has run away from his would-be kidnappers, and another camper,
family. Instead of Melvilles mad hero, Betts protagonist is the newly deaf Paul Cowan. The group forms a makeshift family until
victim of a mad kidnapper who introduces himself with the words Sam is kidnapped by his pursuers and Luna and Paul must go to
Call me Dwight, echoing Melvilles Call me Ishmael. his rescue. The Sharp Teeth of Love received a mixed reception
Nancys vocation as librarian gives Betts ample opportunity for from critics, who praised its appealing characters but generally
other literary parallels and allusions; the Bible, Pilgrims Prog- agreed the various plotlines didnt completely mesh.
ress, Paradise Lost, proverbs, fairytales, and popular songs fur-
nish opportunities for irony and also deepen the universality of
Nancys predicament and ambivalence. Betts subverts the myth of OTHER WORKS: Halfway Home and a Long Way to Go: The
the imperial hero, a loner who ruthlessly prevails over all Report of the 1986 Commission on the Future of the South (1986).
obstacles. Like Odysseus, Nancy returns home to complete her The papers of Doris Betts are housed at Boston University, in
spiritual journey before heading west for good. Boston, Massachusetts.
Through irony and the witty inner voice of her protagonist,

Betts makes Nancys adventures credible and the characters BIBLIOGRAPHY: Carr, J., ed., Kite-Flying and Other Irrational
convincing. Using the form of a suspenseful mystery story in Acts: Conversations with Twelve Southern Writers (1972). Dantzler,
which the good guys win, Betts has solved the dilemma of writers K. L. N., Writings of Religious Rebellion: Doris Betts Early
in a democracy of how to make a serious work accessible to many Fiction (dissertation, 1989). Evans, E., Doris Betts (1997). Kimball,
levels of readers. A published excerpt from a novel in progress, S. L. and L. V. Sandler, eds., The Home Truths of Doris Betts
Souls Raised from the Dead, makes it clear Betts has mastered the (1992). Prenshaw, P. W., ed., Women Writers of the Contempo-
novel form as well as she had already mastered that of the short rary South (1984). Wilson, M. J., Southern, Female and Chris-
story. Betts remained busy throughout the rest of the 1980s and tian: A Comparative Study of Christian Orthodoxy in the Short
early 1990s with both her teaching and writing. She contributed Fiction of Flannery OConnor and Doris Betts (dissertation, 1987).
articles, poems, short ction, and literary reviews to various Reference works: CANR (1998). Oxford Companion to Wom-
magazines; her short stories were also anthologized in various ens Writing in the United States (1995).
local and national works, including Best American Short Stories Other references: Chapel Hill Weekly (3 May 1972). Chris-
and A New Southern Reader. tian Century (8 Oct. 1997). Critique (1975). PW (25 Apr. 1994).
Red Clay Reader (1970). The Sanford (5 Dec. 1974). Southern
Souls Raised from the Dead (1994) was Betts rst novel in Quarterly (Summer & Winter 1983).
over a decade and received overwhelmingly favorable reviews.
Set in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the novels protagonist is MARY ANNE FERGUSON,
12-year-old Mary Grace Thompson, whose mother abandoned UPDATED BY LEAH J. SPARKS
Mary Grace and her highway patrolman father, Frank, three years
before. Mary Grace has a minor riding accident early in the novel
and the ensuing hospitalization leads to her diagnosis with chronic
renal failure. Frank already has one damaged kidney due to a BIANCO, Margery Williams
gunshot wound received while in the line of duty years earlier, and
Mary Grace must therefore rely upon her mother Christine as the
Born 22 July 1881, London, England; died 4 September 1944,
most likely donor.
New York, New York
Christine is afraid of undergoing surgery, however, and so Also wrote under: Margery Bianco, Margery Williams
denies her kidney by pretending that Mary Grace will be ne Daughter of Robert and Florence Harper Williams; married
without it. Mary Graces slow physical decline is mirrored in the Francesco Bianco, 1904
spiritual decline of her family. Just as her kidneys cannot serve as
an adequate lter for her bodys toxins, Mary Grace herself can no Margery Williams Bianco was born in London, where she
longer serve as a spiritual and emotional lter for her dysfunctional early developed the interest for studying animals reected in
extended family. Betts, a Presbyterian elder and devout Christian, many of her books. Biancos father died when she was seven and
gives the child an ample share of the grace for which she is named, two years later the remaining members of the family sailed for
and shows her meeting her impending death with courage and New York. From there they moved to a farm in Pennsylvania,
conviction. where Bianco reveled in berry picking, corn husking, coasting in
winterall the country things one had read about in St. Nicholas.
A childs death also gures in Betts next novel, The Sharp
Teeth of Love (1997), whose characters include a ghost and a At seventeen, Bianco began to write and occasionally publish
young runaway. Heroine Luna Stone leaves her anc midway short stories. Her rst novel, The Late Returning, appeared in
through their trip to their prospective new home in California. She 1902 and was followed by two more adult novels, The Price of
camps out in the Desolation Wilderness where the ill-fated Youth (1904) and The Bar (1906). A. C. Moore has described
Donner Party met its end and is soon haunted by the ghost of these early novels as absorbing stories of human loyalties and
86
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BISHOP
conicts in which Biancos characteristic concern for the mys- BISHOP, Claire Huchet
tery of nature was already present.
In 1922 Bianco published her rst novel for children, The
Born circa 1899, Brittany, France; died 11 March 1993
Velveteen Rabbit. This fantasy about a toy rabbit that becomes
married Frank Bishop
real through the power of love has long been acknowledged as a
work of rare distinction. A tale of patient love, willing sacrice,
and bittersweet reward, it is reminiscent of Hans Christian Ander- Born into a family and a culture where storytelling, particu-
sens literary fairy tales, which Bianco greatly admired. Her style, larly of traditional tales, was a normal part of life, Claire Huchet
which is tender and yet humorous, is well suited to the story of the Bishop seems to have come naturally to her career as a childrens
velveteen rabbit, and to the stories of toys and their people that librarian and author. After studying at the Sorbonne, Bishop
followed it: Poor Cecco (1925), The Little Wooden Doll (1925), opened the rst French childrens library, LHeure Joyeuse, in the
The Skin Horse (1927), and The Adventures of Andy (1927). years following World War I. There, in a library sponsored by an
Biancos success in these early childrens books was in her American Committee headed by Mrs. Herbert Hoover, she began
ability to create secondary realitiesworlds and characters paral- to tell stories to children. When she married pianist Frank Bishop
lel to but different from our own. Her charming style and use of and accompanied him to New York City in the 1930s, she took a
facts made animals into individuals. But Biancos later childrens position in the New York Public Library, where she was also
books demonstrate that she was also able to draw upon realistic invited to be a storyteller. Her rst book, The Five Chinese
settings, and create realistic human characters. In Winterbound Brothers (1938), was a written version of a tale she had told
(1936), the four Ellis children spend a hard winter alone in a drafty children on two continents.
Connecticut farmhouse. The two older sisters use good sense,
good spirits, and good character to bring the family through a The Five Chinese Brothers, as bets a written version of an
series of potential disasters. Biancos hand with characterization oral tale, has a simple, dramatic storyline; it makes extensive use
is so sure that not only are the Ellises all fully realized as of repetitions (Your Honor, will you allow me to go and bid my
individuals, but each member of the supporting cast is also clearly mother good-bye? asks each of the brothers. It is only fair,
and memorably dened. Throughout Winterbound, Biancos love the judge always replies); and it celebrates personal resourceful-
for the colors and the inhabitants of the countryside brings ness over social order. The Five Chinese Brothers has acquired the
landscape, ora, and fauna into the fabric of her story. status of a modern classic.
A frequent contributor to Horn Book magazine, Bianco The same structural qualities of the traditional oral tale
brought high standards of criticism to her consideration of child-
appear in The Man Who Lost His Head (1942), which is also a
rens books, and she was as demanding of herself as she was of
picture book. This droll tale is about a man who, waking one
others. She had a keen awareness of the role of literature in
morning without his head, sets out to nd it. He tries three
educating the imagination, and wrote that Imagination is another
word for the interpretation of life. alternative headsa pumpkin, a parsnip, and a piece of wood
before he regains his own through the help of a young and ragged
magician with a penchant for extraordinary words. Bishops other
OTHER WORKS: Paris (1910). The Thing in the Woods (1913). The picture books include The Ferryman (1941), Augustus (1945), and
Apple Tree (1926). All About Pets (1929). The Candlestick Twenty-two Bears (1964).
(1929). The House That Grew Smaller (1931). A Street of Little
Shops (1932). The Hurdy-Gurdy Man (1933). The Good Friends Bishop is best known for The Five Chinese, but her short
(1934). More About Animals (1934). Green Grows the Garden novels for children are also major achievements. In such books as
(1936). Tales from a Finnish Tupa (with J. C. Bowman, 1936). Pancakes-Paris (1947), Twenty and Ten (1952), All Alone (1953),
Rufus the Fox (1937). Other Peoples Houses (1939). Franzi and and A Present from Petros (1961), Bishop manages to simultane-
Gizi (with G. Loefer, 1941). Bright Morning (1942). The Five- ously evoke the uniqueness of various cultures and the universali-
and-a-Half Club (1942). Penny and the White Horse (1942). ty of childhood. Pancakes-Paris, for example, is the story of
Forward Commandos! (1944). Herberts Zoo (1949). The New Charles, a ten-year-old postwar Parisian who wants desperately to
Five-and-a-half Club (1951). make crpes for his mother for Mardi Gras. But he has no milk, no
eggs, no oilnothing. Although two American soldiers provide a
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Moore and Miller, eds., Writing and Criticism: A happy ending, the reality of Charless life and its contrast with our
Book for Margery Bianco (1951). own comes through.
Reference works: Junior Book of Authors, S. J. Kunitz,
and H. Haycraft, eds. (1951). The humanitarian impulse, evident in the soldiers who bring
Other references: EngElemR (June 1935). Horn Book (May packages of food and supplies to Charless family, is strong in
1945). PW (23 Sept. 1944). Weekly Book Review (1 Oct. 1944). Pancakes-Paris. A similar morality is at work in All Alone, the
story of two young cowherds in the French Alps who, by example,
KATHARYN F. CRABBE persuade a village to give up rugged individualism and minding
87
BISHOP AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
ones own business for a sense of community and brotherhood. BISHOP, Elizabeth
Here, as in all her novels, Bishop celebrates courage, caring, and
acceptance of responsibility, both for self and for others.
Born 8 February 1911, Worcester, Massachusetts; died 6 October
Accepting responsibility for others is a major theme in 1979, Boston, Massachusetts
Twenty and Ten, the childrens novel most closely connected to Daughter of Gertrude May Bulmer and William Thomas Bishop
Bishops writing for adults. Its the story of 20 French fth- (the Bulmer family name was pronounced with a silent l
graders who have been sent to a country house to wait out the and had the variant spelling of Boomer)
occupation, and of the 10 Jewish children they hid from the Nazis.
In this book Bishop has used the device of a childrens Christmas When Elizabeth Bishop was eight months old, she lost her
game called The Flight into Egypt to propose the oneness of father to Brights disease after he had been ill off and on for six
Christians and Jews. This concern for religious harmony is also years. The death had a disastrous effect on her mother. Unable to
the force behind two later accomplishments: her noble foreword cope with the tragedy, her mother became increasingly disorient-
to an English edition of Jesus and Israel (Jsus et Isral) by the ed and was in and out of mental hospitals during Bishops early
French historian Jules Isaac, and her own How Catholics Look at childhood. In 1916 she was permanently institutionalized and
Jews (1974). The foreword to Jesus and Israel (1970) reveals never saw her daughter again before she died in 1934.
Bishops commitment to the battle against anti-Semitism and her As an only child growing up, Bishop was continually aware
conviction that even Vatican Council II did not go far enough in that she did not provide her mother with sufcient consolation or
trying to eradicate anti-Jewish prejudice in the teachings of the sense of purpose to keep her from leaving yet again. The memory
Roman Catholic church. of what seemed to be maternal neglect and rejection stayed with
Bishop all her life and surfaced in her poetry, a particularly clear
The importance Bishop places on religion is reected in her
instance being an unpublished draft of a poem called A Drunk-
recreation of the life of Christ, Yeshu, Called Jesus (1966), and in
ard, where it is associated with the beginnings of her lifelong
her three saints lives, Christopher the Giant (1950), Bernard and
problem with alcoholism, her abnormal thirst.
His Dogs (1952), and Martin de Porres, Hero (1954), all written
for children. These books also reveal her ability to speak candidly The uncertainty surrounding her mothers condition was
about defects in the Catholic church, as in Martin de Porres, Hero mitigated by the stable and loving relationship Bishop had with
which contains several depictions of the dandyism and self- her maternal grandparents. After being widowed, Bishops moth-
indulgence that characterized some religious houses in the 16th er had taken her daughter and returned home to live with them in
and 17th centuries. Great Village, Nova Scotia, a tiny and close-knit community lled
with relatives and neighbors. When Bishop was six years old,
Bishops spare style and dry wit are admirable. She is most however, the warmth and liveliness of life in Great Village came
effective in creating a sense of place and an awareness of cultural to an end following the arrival of her fathers parents, the
differences in her novels and in echoing the oral tradition in her prosperous Bishops, whose wealth had been made from a success-
picture-story books. It is also in her ction that she most successful contracting rm noted for building such landmarks as the
fully integrates moral themes into the fabric of the work. Boston Public Library and Museum of Fine Arts. The Bishops
were intent on taking their granddaughter back with them, and so
she was returned, against her will, to her birthplace in Worcester,
OTHER WORKS: French Childrens Books for English Speaking Massachusetts.
Children (1938). The Kings Day (1940). France Alive (1947).
Blue Spring Farm (1948). All Things Common (1950). The Big The contrast between the cold and proper opulence of the
Loop (1955). Happy Christmas (ed. by Bishop, 1956). Totos Bishop home and her country existence in Nova Scotia could not
Triumph (1957). French Roundabout (1960). Lafayette: French- have been greater. The sudden isolation and boredom were
American Hero (1960). Here is France (1969). The Trufe Pig terrible experiences for a sensitive child who had already suffered
(1971). Johann Sebastian Bach (1972). Georgette (1974). more than her share of misfortune. She became ill with a number
of severe ailments including bronchitis, asthma, and eczema, all
of which plagued her for the rest of her life. Her miserable stay
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hopkins, L. B., Books are by People (1969). with the Bishops lasted only nine months, but it represented a
profound turning point. Her famous poem In the Waiting
Schwartz, A. V., On The Five Chinese Brothers, in Interracial
Room recalls it as a fall from innocence into a painfully acute
Books for Children Bulletin 3 (1977). Smaridge, N., Famous
and alienating consciousness of time and self.
Modern Story Tellers for Young People (1969).
Reference works: The Junior Book of Authors, S. J. Kunitz Her health became so poor that the Bishops allowed her to be
and H. Haycraft, eds, (1951). rescued by her aunt, Maud Bulmer Shepherdson, her mothers
Other references: LJ (Oct. 1977). PW (10 May 1947). older sister. In 1918 Bishop moved to Revere, Massachusetts, to
live with Maud and her husband. Although she loved her aunt and
KATHARYN F. CRABBE was deeply grateful for her generosity, she continued to suffer
88
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BLACK
from the sense of having no rightful place or home of her own. (1983). The Collected Prose (1984). One Art: Elizabeth Bishop
During an interview with Elizabeth Spires in 1978 (published in (letters edited by Robert Giroux, 1994).
Paris Review, Summer 1981), Bishop said, . . .my relationship
with my relativesI was always a sort of guest, and I think Ive
always felt like that. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brown, A., An Interview with Elizabeth Bish-
op, in Shenandoah 17 (Winter 1966). CANR 61 (1998). CLC 32
Before the age of fourteen Bishop had little formal education, (1985). DLB 5 (1980), 169 (1996). Goldensohn, L., Elizabeth
but with the help of her aunt she developed her literary interests Bishop: The Biography of a Poet (1991). Kalstone, D., Becoming
through independent reading. At fourteen she began attending a Poet: Elizabeth Bishop with Marianne Moore and Robert
high school and day school, and from 1927 to 1930 she went to Lowell (1989). Millier, B. C., Elizabeth Bishop: Life and the
Walnut Hill, a college prep boarding school in Natick, Massachu- Memory of It (1993); The Prodigal: Elizabeth Bishop and
setts. In 1930 she entered Vassar College and became part of a Alcohol, in Contemporary Literature 39 (Spring 1998). Paton,
group of gifted students that included Mary McCarthy, Eleanor
P. M., Landscape and Female Desire: Elizabeth Bishops Clos-
Clark, and Muriel Rukeyser. During her senior year, she was
et Tactics, in Mosaic 31 (Sept. 1998). Showalter, E., ed.,
introduced to poet Marianne Moore, who was forty-seven at the
Modern American Women Writers (1991).
time. Moore befriended the young Bishop, and their relation-
shipas mentor and apprentice initially and then as colleagues
MARLENE M. MILLER
lasted through the years, despite the many travels and changes of
residence that characterized Bishops nomadic life.
A second key friendship with a fellow poet took shape when
Bishop met Robert Lowell in 1947. As two up-and-coming BLACK, Katherine Bolton
writers, they established a relationship of peers. Both had just
published highly acclaimed collectionsNorth & South (1946)
for Bishop and Lord Wearys Castle for Lowelland they sensed Born 7 November 1903, Boston, Massachusetts; died 13 Novem-
in each other a kinship that would develop into a mutually ber 1962, Boston, Massachusetts
sustaining exchange of ideas, drafts, and advice. Daughter of Henry and Margaret Weed Bolton; married
Joseph R. Black, 1928; children: four
In 1951 Bishop embarked on a trip around South America.
During a stop in Rio de Janeiro, she suffered a violent allergic Katherine Bolton Black, daughter of a wealthy Boston busi-
reaction to the fruit of the cashew tree and had to abandon her nessman and a socialite mother, spent much of her early childhood
plans and recover there. She was cared for by the friends she had abroad in the British and French countryside. The lovely scenery
been visiting, and with one of them, Lota Costellat de Macedos of rural Europe gured prominently in her early poetry and in By
Soares, the friendship deepened into an intimate relationship. She the Riverbank (1954). Black attended Miss Brodys School for
ended up living with Soares in Brazil for 15 years. For much of Girls, then Simmons College, from which she graduated with
that period she led a settled and happy existence, combining honors in 1924. Her marriage to Joseph Black, a lawyer, produced
domesticity with creative production.
four children.
Bishops second collection of poems was published with a
Black began her writing career at Simmons, composing verse
reissuance of her rst collection, and the combined volume,
in which the recurring theme of a Natural Paradise gured
Poems: North & SouthA Cold Spring (1955), won the Pulitzer
heavily. Her rst published poem, The Greenest Pastures, ran
Prize in 1956. Her third collection, Questions of Travel (1965),
in the July 1930 issue of McCalls. Her verse was subsequently
was followed by The Complete Poems (1969), which received the
published in miscellaneous ladies magazines, but was never
National Book award in 1970.
collected in volume form.
After the tragic death of Soares in 1967, apparently by
suicide, Bishop made arrangements to take up residence in In 1942 Blacks rst attempt at ction, a long short story,
the U.S. and spent the nal decade of her life writing and teaching, At the Village Gate, was selected to run in the anthology, Best
primarily at Harvard University. In 1976 she became the rst Short Stories of the Year: 1942. In this story a British naval ofcer
American and the rst woman to receive the Books Abroad/ falls in love with Jenny, who is obviously modeled after Black. On
Neustadt International Prize for Literature. That same year saw leave, he visits Jenny at her small-town New England home, only
the publication of the nal collection to appear in her lifetime, to nd she is in love with another man. His despair at the
Geography III, which won the National Book Critics Circle award discovery is moving, although the tone of the whole is sentimen-
in 1977. After her death in 1979, Bishops reputation continued to tal. Blacks vivid descriptions of nature and the outdoors, howev-
grow and she has come to be considered one of the preeminent er, are the saving grace of this otherwise very ordinary love story.
poets of the 20th century.
Black continued to write verse and stories, but her household
and wifely duties interfered with her writing. In 1949 her husband
OTHER WORKS: Brazil (with the editors of Life, 1962). The Ballad died, and Black turned to writing with a seriousness and energy
of the Burglar of Babylon (1968). The Complete Poems, 1927-1979 not previously evident in her work. In the next few years she wrote
89
BLACKWELL AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
her most highly acclaimed stories, John, Forever Mine, and homely, and unsure, she was the only child of her demanding
Another Hillside Vacation, both solidly written, unsentimental parents. In her youth, Blackwell had rebelled against the cause
looks at married life. that demanded so much of her mothers attention. But after
graduation from Boston University, she gladly joined the suffrage
Her rst novel, By the Riverbank (1954), created little stir in
ranks. For the next 35 years, she edited the Womans Journal, the
the literary world, but one critic called it, a thoughtful study of
longest running, widest circulating feminist newspaper. She solic-
human jealousy and greed. The book centers around a newlywed
ited contributions, cajoled advertisers, and wrote copy. Her edito-
couple who have emigrated to England from France shortly before
World War II. The tensions of living in a foreign land quickly rials, along with her numerous suffrage tracts and pamphlets, were
create strong jealousies between the two young people, who are coolly logical arguments for the enfranchisement of women.
both aspiring writers. Sarah accuses her husband Stephen of Those same arguments are found in the Womans Column, a four-
involvement with the daughter of a neighboring farmer, and page collection of suffrage items also edited by Blackwell, sent
Stephen grows increasingly jealous as he realizes his wifes weekly to 1,000 newspaper editors in the United States.
creative talents are greater than his own. In By the Riverbank
Blackwells other contribution to suffragism was uniting the
Black presents an interesting psychological study of a loving
warring factions of the movement. The quarrel between the
marriage that is nearly destroyed by jealousy.
American Woman Suffrage Association, led by her parents, and
Blacks second novel, As the Crow Flies (1957), lacks the the National Woman Suffrage Association of Elizabeth Cady
ne characterization found in her rst novel. Here, Black tends to Stanton and Susan B. Anthony had begun in 1870. The split was
bog down in endless description of natural settings as she presents prompted by the problem of black versus woman suffrage. Al-
arguments in favor of ecological conservation. The story centers though the problem had long been solved, the division remained.
around a young girl growing up in New England, who witnesses By 1890, personalities, not philosophies, separated the two fac-
the destruction of natural beauty around her: farms and waterways tions. Blackwell, guided by her mother, brought them together in
are destroyed as the metropolis of Boston spreads into the sur- the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
rounding countryside. Although Black presents a convincing
argument for conservation, the storyline is sacriced to the When Lucy Stone died in 1893, Blackwell took over the
novels message. family business of suffrage and suffrage journalism. Her other
reformist impulses, long suppressed in the atmosphere created by
Blacks work is characterized by poetic description and a
her parents, became visible. Blackwell put aside her causes long
keen eye for detail. Evidence of her early interest in poetry can be
enough to write a laudatory biography of her mother. It was no
found in the graceful phrasing of her later prose works. Although
doubt published to balance the bulk of suffrage history that
not a major writer, Black deserves more recognition than she has
Blackwell believed had been written by the Stanton-Anthony
hitherto received.
faction totally ignoring the contributions of the Blackwell family.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Good Housekeeping (13 May 1954). Life (March Blackwells only brush with romance led her into another
1958). NYHTB (June 1954). NYT (16 May 1954, 23 May 1954). genre. In 1893, she met an Armenian theological student. She was
entranced by him and his tales of the oppression of Armenia.
MAUREEN MACDONALD When he died a few years later, Blackwell dedicated herself to his
people, helping them nd refuge in the U.S. She also translated
the works of Armenian poets into English. A volume of these
pieces, Armenian Poems, is heavily laced with patriotic outpourings.
BLACKWELL, Alice Stone The offerings include Let Us Live Armenians, Let Us Die
Armenians, The Lament of Mother Armenia, and The
Born 14 September 1857, Orange, New Jersey; died 15 March Wandering Armenian to the Swallows.
1950, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Her interest in Armenian verse led Blackwell to translate
Daughter of Henry Blackwell and Lucy Stone
poetry of other suppressed peoples. During her middle years, she
published the verse of Russian, Yiddish, Hungarian, and Spanish-
Alice Stone Blackwell was born into a unique family of
reformers because the women were more distinguished than the speaking writers. Although in the original these poems may have
men. Blackwells aunt, Elizabeth Blackwell, was the rst woman been inspired, the translations are not. This no doubt reects the
in America to receive a medical degree; another aunt, Antoinette fact that Blackwells literary tastes and talents were extremely
Brown Blackwell, was the rst woman ordained as a minister by a conventional.
recognized denomination in the U.S.; and her mother, Lucy Stone,
Blackwells support of socialism culminated the increasingly
was president of the countrys largest suffrage organization and
radical drift of her afliations. Her rst hesitant steps away from
publisher of its suffrage newspaper.
wholehearted adherence to suffragism had taken her to the Wom-
The Blackwell family lived and worked for the cause of ans Christian Temperance Movement, the Anti-Vivisection So-
female equality. This made life difcult for Blackwellshy, ciety, and the Womans Trade Union League. In later years she
90
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BLACKWELL
joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored ordination (belatedly she was granted the A.M. in 1878 and in
People (NAACP), the American Peace Society, and the move- honorary D.D. in 1908).
ment to save Sacco and Vanzetti. To the end of her life at the age
of ninety-three, Blackwells concerns embraced America and Blackwell became a lecturer on abolition, temperance, and
Armenia, feminism and socialism. womens rights. At Oberlin she had written an exegesis of 1
Corinthians 14:34-35 (Let your women keep silence in the
churches. . .) and 1 Timothy 2:11-12 (I suffer not a wom-
an to teach. . .), which the schools president had published
OTHER WORKS: Songs of Russia (1906). Songs of Grief and
in the scholarly Oberlin Quarterly Reviewfollowed by a
Gladness (1906). The Yellow Ribbon Speaker (with A. H. Shaw
counterargument by the schools Bible professor. E. C. Stantons
and L. E. Anthony, 1909). The Little Grandmother of the Russian
History of Woman Suffrage notes that at every early womens
Revolution: Reminiscences and Letters of Catherine Breshkovsky
rights convention Antoinette Brown was called on as usual to
(1917). A Hungarian Poet (1929). Some Spanish-American Po-
meet the Bible argument. Brown made a logical argument on
ems (1929). Lucy Stone: Pioneer of Womens Rights (1930).
womans position in the Bible, claiming her complete equality
Growing Up in Bostons Guilded Age: The Journal of Alice Stone
with man, the simultaneous creation of the sexes, and their moral
Blackwell 1872-1874 (1991).
responsibilities as individual and imperative.
In 1853 Blackwell realized her dream of becoming the rst

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hays, E. R., Morning Star: A Biography of Lucy woman ordained by a recognized denomination in this country.
Stone (1961). Hays, E. R., Those Extraordinary Blackwells (1967). She became minister of First Congregational Church in Butler and
Howe, J. W., ed., Representative Women of New England (1904). Savannah, New York. Less than a year later, however, she was
Martin, J. L., Alice Stone Blackwell: Soldier and Strategist for relieved of her duties at her own request. The difculties of
Suffrage (1993). Rolka, G. M., 100 Women Who Shaped World translating theology into the complexities of day-to-day interper-
History (1994). sonal relationships got the better of her: she comforted a dying boy
Reference works: Grolier Library of Womens Biographies with Gods love rather than pressing him into a conversion
(1998). National Cyclopedia of American Biography (1892 et experience through fear of hell; she refused to preach on infant
seq.). NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). damnation at the funeral of an illegitimate child.
After Oberlin, Blackwell had tried to work in New York City

LYNNE MASEL-WALTERS
at the Methodist Five Points Mission, but some there were
offended by her outspoken feminism. In 1855 she returned to the
city to work in the slums and prisons, because, as she said, I pity
the man or woman who does not choose to be identied with the
BLACKWELL, Antoinette Brown cause of the oppressed. She verbalized her social protest in
Horace Greeleys New York Tribune, and the article series was
later collected in Shadows of Our Social System (1856).
Born 20 May 1825, Henrietta, New York; died 5 November 1921,
Elizabeth, New Jersey For 18 years after her marriage in 1856, Blackwell rarely
Daughter of Joseph and Abby Morse Brown; married Samuel appeared on a public platform. She continued her writing, howev-
Blackwell, 1856 er, and completed two novels, A Market Woman (1870) and The
Island Neighbors (1871). Unlike most ction of the period, these
are not moralistic in tone, but rather portray universal foibles.
Antoinette Brown Blackwell, the seventh of 10 children,
Blackwell also began to write a series for Lucy Stones Womans
grew up in a small town in New York. Valuing education, her
Journal on womans capacities and abilities to work, think, and
parents sent her to the Monroe County Academy, where, with the
learn, which were collected into The Sexes Throughout Na-
exception of Greek, she quickly mastered the same subjects as the
ture (1875).
male students preparing for Dartmouth.
In The Sexes Throughout Nature as well as in many other
The Brown family was deeply religiousBlackwells father
works, Blackwell wrestled to harmonize the new evolutionary
was a Congregational deacon. At age nine, Blackwell publicly
hypothesis and its social implications, as expounded by Darwin
confessed her own religious faith and joined the Congregational
and Spencer, with her own religious and social views. The
church. In 1830 she attended Oberlin, the countrys only coed Philosophy of Individuality (1893) represents her nal attempt to
college. Despite parental objections, Blackwell persisted in fol- write a cosmology reconciling mind and matter, revealing the
lowing her brother into graduate study in theology. Her name was possible emergence of the Relative from the Absolute by the
not listed among the students in the department, and she was intervention of Benecent and Rational Causation.
denied a job teaching younger students to support herself. Al-
though Blackwell completed her studies in 1850, she was not After her husbands death in 1901, Blackwell helped to found
awarded a degree, and the faculty refused to arrange for her All Souls Unitarian Church in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where she
91
BLACKWELL AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
served as pastor emeritus from 1908 until her death. She contin- Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe were counted as
ued faithfully to attend suffrage meetings, and on 2 November friends in Ohio. In this liberal family atmosphere, the Blackwell
1920, she became the only one of the original generation of daughters and sons received their education at home from pri-
womens rights leaders to cast a vote under the 19th amendment. vate tutors.
In 1847 Blackwell was refused admission to Harvard, Yale,

OTHER WORKS: Studies in General Science (1869). The Physical Bowdoin, and medical schools in Philadelphia and New York
Basis of Immortality (1876). Sex Injustice (1900). Sea Drift City. Jefferson Medical College suggested she might attend
(1902). The Making of the Universe (1914). The Social Side of classes disguised as a man, but Blackwell believed her moral
Mind and Action (1915). crusade must be pursued in the light of day, and with public
The papers of Antoinette Brown Blackwell are at the sanction, in order to accomplish its end. Finally, Geneva Medi-
Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, and at the Library of cal College, an undistinguished rural school in New York, admit-
Congress. ted Blackwell to study in November 1847. The 150 male students
at Geneva had unanimously treated her application as a joke
and Blackwell faced ridicule and discrimination in her classes. In
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ashby, R. and D. G. Ohrn, Herstory: Women Who the summer of 1848, however, she was given the opportunity to do
Changed the World (1995). Banwell, N., Antoinette Brown work with patients at the Philadelphia Hospital of the Blockley
Blackwell: An Individual Search for Religious Truth (thesis, Almshouse. There she treated typhus among Irish immigrants and
1984). Cazden, E., Antoinette Brown Blackwell, A Biography became convinced of the need for sanitation and personal hy-
(1983). Hays, E. R., Those Extraordinary Blackwells (1967). giene. Her convictions were recorded in her thesis, published in
Kerr, L., Lady in the Pulpit (1951). Matthews, L. F., Women in 1849 in the Buffalo Medical Journal and Monthly. In 1849,
Ministry, 1853-1984 (thesis, 1985). Mermes, M. B., Three graduating at the head of her class, Blackwell became the rst
Women of the Nineteenth Century: Studies in Transcendence woman in America to earn a degree from a medical college.
Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, Reverend Antoinette Brown Blackwell,
Eager to increase her medical knowledge, Blackwell set out
Lucy Stone (thesis, 1976). Siles, W. H., ed., Studies in Local
for study in Europe after becoming a naturalized American
History: Tall Tales, Folklore and Legend of Upstate New York
citizen. In Paris she enrolled as a student midwife in La Maternit.
(1986). Stanton, E. C. et al., History of Woman Suffrage (1881).
There she contracted purulent ophthalmia and lost sight in one
Stone, L., Soul Mates: The Oberlin Correspondence of Lucy Stone
eye; all hopes of becoming a surgeon were dashed. During work in
and Antoinette Brown, 1846-1850 (1983). Stone, L., Friends and
England, she began a lifelong friendship with Florence Nightin-
Sisters: Letters Between Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown
gale and shared interests in sanitation and hygiene.
Blackwell, 1846-93 (1987).
Reference works: NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). A Woman of the In 1851 Blackwell returned to New York but faced serious
Century, F. E. Willard and M. A. Livermore (1893). difculties in establishing a private practice. She turned to lec-
tures and writing on good hygiene. The Laws of Life, with
NANCY HARDESTY Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls, published
in 1852, drew a favorable response from Quakers. By 1853
Blackwell had a one-room dispensary in the tenement district of
New York and in 1857 was renamed the New York Inrmary for
Women and Children. Blackwells plans for a medical college for
BLACKWELL, Elizabeth women were delayed by the Civil War, but in 1868 the Womens
Medical College was opened and Blackwell was appointed to the
Born 3 February 1821, Counterslip, England; died 31 May 1910, rst chair of hygiene.
Hastings, England
Blackwell returned to England in 1869, leaving management
Daughter of Samuel and Hannah Lane Blackwell
of the inrmary and college to her sister. She resided there for the
rest of her life with her adopted daughter. She established a
Elizabeth Blackwells independence of thought, pioneer spirit, successful practice in London and in 1871 helped found the
and reform interests were promoted in her parents home. She was National Health Society with the motto Prevention is better than
the third daughter among nine children. When Blackwell was cure. In 1875 she was awarded the chair of gynecology at the
eleven, her fathers sugar renery was lost by re and the family New Hospital and London School of Medicine for Women.
sailed from England to settle rst in New York City and later in
New Jersey and Cincinnati, Ohio. Blackwells father was an Blackwell continued to write and lecture on moral reform.
active dissenter and lay preacher in the Independent church Her Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of Their Child-
and was vitally concerned with social reform, the abolition of ren (1879) was rejected by 12 publishers as too controversial and
slavery, womens rights, and temperance. Reformers such as had to be printed privately. In a plain and direct manner Blackwell
William Lloyd Garrison were visitors to the Blackwell home and argued that there was no physiological necessity for a double
92
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BLAKE
standard of morality, but Victorian England and America were BLAKE, Lillie Devereux
shocked by her position.
Blackwells attention focused on economic and social reform Born 12 August 1833, Raleigh, North Carolina; died 30 Decem-
in her pamphlet Christian Socialism (1882). In this document she ber 1913, Englewood, New Jersey
called for a more just distribution of income, improved efciency Also wrote under: Lillie Devereux Umsted
in government, workers insurance, and the establishment of Daughter of George and Sarah Johnson Devereux; married
agrarian communities where women could play major roles. Frank Umsted, 1855; Grenll Blake, 1866
Blackwells autobiography, Pioneer Work in Opening the
Medical Profession to Women (1895), provides a vivid picture of For the rst 25 years of Lillie Devereaux Blakes writing
the challenges she faced in her moral crusade. In the closing career (1857-1882) she concentrated on ction, publishing sever-
chapter she wrote of her hope for the future: the study of human al novels and novellas and hundreds of short stories. After 1882,
nature by women as well as men commences that new and hopeful most of her published work took the form of essays and lectures on
era of the intelligent co-operation of the sexes through which womens rights.
alone real progress can be attained and secured. Blake was born into a distinguished Southern family. When
her father died in 1837, her mother moved to New Haven,
OTHER WORKS: Essays in Medical Sociology (2 vols. 1892-1902). Connecticut, where Blake attended a girls school and received
The Blackwell family papers are in the Library of Congress private tutoring in the Yale undergraduate course. Mother and
and the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College. Letters from daughter were very close and remained so throughout their lives.
Elizabeth Blackwell to her friend Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon When Blake debuted at age 17, she became renowned for her
are in the Columbia University Library. Other letters and docu- beauty and led a strenuous social life. In her writings she often
ments may be found in Fawcett Library, London; Sophia Smith refers to this period of her life, noting that she was taught to regard
Research Room, Smith College; Library of Hobart and William social success as the only worthwhile goal for a woman. I was
Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York; Boston Public Library; New always a belle, attered and fted. I only wonder that I was not
York Inrmary; Medical Library, St. Bartholomews Hospital, entirely ruined by an ordeal that would be pretty certain to turn the
London; Royal Free Medical School Library, London. head of a fairly well-balanced man. She portrays in her ction
many young women enfeebled by attery, enforced idleness, and
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Fancourt, M., They Dared to Be Doctors: Eliza- what she calls false education.
beth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1965). Felder, D. G., In 1869 Blake became involved in the womens rights
The 100 Most Inuential Women of All Time: A Ranking Past and movement, to which she devoted the rest of her life and most of
Present (1996). Flexner, E., Century of Struggle: The Womans her subsequent writings. From 1879 to 1890 she was president of
Rights Movement in the U.S. (1975). Hays, E. R., Those Extraor- the New York State Woman Suffrage Association and from 1886
dinary Blackwells (1967). Lovejoy, E. P., Women Doctors of the to 1900 president of the New York City Woman Suffrage League.
World (1957). Morantz-Sanchez, R. Feminist Theory and His- She was an excellent speaker, and her writings on womens rights
torical Practice: Rereading Elizabeth Blackwell in Feminists
are remarkable for their wit and humor; they are often in the form
Revision History (1994). Robinson, V., Pathnders in Medicine
of satire or parable.
(1929). Ross, I., Child of Destiny; The Life Story of the First
Woman Doctor (1949). Sahli, N. A., Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D., Blake ran for president of the National American Woman
1821-1910: A Biography (1982). Shearer, B. F. and Shearer, B. S., Suffrage Association (NAWSA) in 1900, but was forced to
ed., Notable Women in the Life Sciences: A Biographical Diction- withdraw in favor of Susan B. Anthonys choice, Carrie Chapman
ary (1996). Walsh, M. R., Doctors Wanted: No Women Need Catt. Blakes philosophy and approach differed from Anthonys
Apply: Sexual Barriers in the Medical Profession, 1835-1975 in several respects. She was often true to her aristocratic back-
(1977). Weprin, J. G., The Young Elizabeth Blackwell: Why ground, expressing concern that suffrage workers be well-dressed,
She Became the First Woman to Graduate from an American well-behaved ladies, and she inaugurated such events as the
Medical School (thesis, 1992). Wilson, D. C., Lone Woman Pilgrim Mothers Dinners, held annually at the Waldorf-Astoria.
(1970). Wright, M., Elizabeth Blackwell of Bristol: The First More importantly, she believed suffrage was only one means of
Woman Doctor (1995). improving womens status. As chair of NAWSAs Committee on
Other references: Elizabeth Blackwell: First Woman Doctor Legislative Advice, she advocated campaigning to secure legisla-
(video, 1997). tion favorable to women and agitating for the appointment of
women to new positions (e.g., school trustees, factory inspectors,
JEAN M. WARD physicians in mental hospitals, and police matrons). She was
instrumental in achieving many of these gains in New York State.
When Blakes legislative committee was dissolved by
BLAISDELL, Anne NAWSA, she founded and became president of the National
See LININGTON, Elizabeth Legislative League. This organization carried on the legislative
93
BLAKE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
approach from 1900 until 1905, when illness prevented Blake her father sent her to local schools and to Emersons Private
from continuing her work. School in Boston. Blake later studied music and modern languag-
es at the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Manhattanville, New
Although she avoids the worst excesses of the sentimental
York. Before she married a Boston physician, she was a school-
ction of the times, Blake writes much to the general pattern.
teacher. The Blakes had eleven children.
Spirited young women develop fatal fascinations for evil Lovelace
types in her stories and may or may not be saved by their Blakes poetry was widely published in Roman Catholic
honorable suitors; young lovers are separated, reunited, and then periodicals and in a number of Boston papers, including the
part forever when they discover they are siblings. In Blakes early
Boston Gazette and the Boston Transcript. Her Rambling Talks
writings, characters who espouse feminist sentiments are pun-
were a regular feature in the Boston Journal. She was an ardent,
ished. For instance, in Southwold (1859), the protagonist, when
sentimental Irish-American with conservative views about relig-
rejected by a man she loves, becomes embittered and bold and
ion and American politics.
even unfeminine in her opinions. She shocks other characters by
not taking every word of the Bible literally and by claiming Blake gained a local reputation as an occasional poet and she
Christianity has harmed womens status. The book ends with her wrote poems to commemorate notable Bostonians such as Wen-
suicide. Interestingly enough, Blake later was to espouse the dell Phillips, Admiral David Dixon Porter, and the Most Reverend
opinions her protagonist had expressed. Dogmatic theology, John J. Williams, Archbishop of Boston. Blake also wrote poems
founded on masculine interpretation of the Bible, was the
to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of the Sisters of Charity and
subject of attack in her Womans Place To-Day (1883), a series of
the 150th anniversary of the Charitable Irish Society. Oliver
lectures delivered in response to a misogynist theologian. Blake
Wendell Holmes remarked of her lyrics, You are one of the birds
was also one of the contributors to Elizabeth Cady Stantons
that must sing, and Theodore Roosevelt was said to be an
controversial Womans Bible (1895).
admirer of her work.
Blakes last novel, Fettered for Life; or, Lord and Master
(1874), is a feminist work in which wife abuse, unjust marriage Blakes rst book of poetry, Poems, was issued in 1882. Her
laws, discrimination in employment, and lack of educational themes range from Catholic devotion to nature and the seasons,
opportunities for women are illustrated and discussed by the but her most representative work celebrates family life. Several
characters. Female friendships are strong in the novel, and the poems on the death of children depict the anxiety of the times
hero, a successful reporter who frequently rescues the female about childhood mortality. Some poems reect an ambivalent
characters, turns out to be a woman in disguise. When she adopted attitude toward womens roles: Simple Story and What the
male attire, she found that my limbs were free; I could move Wifes Heart Said urge women to be content serving their
untrammelled, and my actions were free; I could go about husbands and families, while The Ballad of Elizabeth Zane
unquestioned. No man insulted me, and when I asked for work, I and Isabella of Castille clearly expresses admiration for spirit-
was not offered outrage. ed, independent women.
Although conscientious about her obligations to home and

OTHER WORKS: Rockford; or, Sunshine and Storm (1863). Forced family, Blake was an enthusiastic traveler who reminded her
Vows; or, A Revengeful Womans Fate (1870). A Daring Experi- reader that a housewife must not stop to think of her responsibili-
ment and Other Stories (1892). ties, or the stay-at-home weight will be so overwhelming in
proportion that she could not be propelled away by anything short
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Blake, K. D., and M. L. Wallace, Champion of of a catapult. On the Wing, an account of her trip across
Women: The Life of Lillie Devereaux Blake (1943). Stanton, E. C. America, serialized in the Boston Journal in 1882 and published
et al., History of Woman Suffrage (1881). in 1883, is a view of the American West through the eyes of a
Reference works: NAW (1971). partisan New Englander. A Summer Holiday in Europe (1890),
based on Blakes ve trips to Europethree of them walking
BARBARA A. WHITE tours with her childrenwent into a third printing.
Outside of her home and her work, Blake was active in the
American Peace Society. Her pamphlet The Coming Reform: A
BLAKE, Mary E(lizabeth) McGrath Womans Word, which criticized the absurdities of old fash-
ioned militarism at home and abroad, was widely circulated
Born 1840, Dungarven, Ireland; died 1907, Boston, Massachusetts during the Spanish-American War.
Wrote under: Marie of the Pilot, Mary Elizabeth McGrath Blake
Daughter of Patrick and Mary Murphy McGrath; married John G.
Blake, 1865; children: 11 OTHER WORKS: An Epic of Travel (1884). Poem: A Memorial of
Wendell Phillips (1884). The Merry Months All (1885). Youth in
Mary E. McGrath Blakes parents emigrated to Quincy, Twelve Centuries (1886). Mexico: Picturesque, Political, Pro-
Massachusetts, in about 1850. A marble worker and businessman, gressive (with M. F. Sullivan, 1888). Verses Along the Way
94
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BLAND
(1890). A Memoir of Patrick McGrath 1812-1894 (1894). In the Gone Quiet (1994) and Done Wrong (1995) reveal the more
Harbour of Hope (1907). personal side of MacAlisters sleuthing. In the rst, she deals with
the complexities of a scandal in a community held together by
religion when she helps an old friend unravel the mysterious death
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Conway, K. E., Mary Blake: Woman and Poet
of a Baptist deacon who is secretly a pedophile. The second novel
in In the Harbour of Hope (1907). Cullen, J. B., Story of the Irish
nds MacAlister engaged in investigating the real circumstances
in Boston (1890).
and secrets surrounding the apparent suicide of her late Chicago
Other references: Boston Globe (7 Feb. 1907). PW (9
police narcotics squad husband. Both works also explore the
March 1907).
personal side of the main characters life as she interacts with her
MAUREEN MURPHY children, her family, her friends, and the community and as she
comes to grip with her loneliness as a widow. Critics found
Blands writing low key and understated, but with keen insight
and plenty of action. All of them agreed that the Marti MacAlister
BLAND, Eleanor Taylor character was the cornerstone for all of Blands works.
Two unrelated murder cases are linked together by another

Born 31 December 1944, Boston older case concerning the disappearance of a young abused girl in
Daughter of Leroy and Mildred Gershefski Taylor; married Keep Still (1996). This time Bland explores the evil that exists in a
(divorced); Children: Kevin, Todd, two grandchildren dysfunctional family as she exposes the realities of child abuse.
Again the main character, Marti MacAlister, fascinates readers
Mystery writer Eleanor Taylor Bland is the author of a series with her ability to seek justice and not lose her own humanity as
of novels featuring the reported rst African-American female she juggles her work with her personal relationships with her
police detective, Marti MacAlister. Blands works not only in- children and her new boyfriend.
clude the gritty detective work of her main character, but they also
detail the personal life of this working woman and the problems Called by Booklists Stuart W. Miller her most sophisticat-
she faces as trying to operate effectively in a traditionally male ed, complex and successful work yet, See No Evil (1998) nds a
profession. Each of the novels delves into the dark secrets that psychopathic killer visiting the MacAlisters household and plot-
lead to the murders of seemingly ordinary members of the ting to murder the entire family. At the same time, Marti and her
community. They are lled with social comment and a grim look partner struggle to solve the case of a young drug-addicted and
at the reality of the modern-day suburban/urban crime scene. abused girls murder, with Marti unaware of her familys peril
because of worrying about protecting her children and educating
Bland began her writing career after an early marriage at age
them about the real world. The counterpoints of the subplots of
fourteen to a sailor, rearing two children, and working various
this novel heighten the suspense for the reader and established
jobs with disabled and abused children. In 1972, after she was
Bland as one of todays most talented mystery writers.
diagnosed with terminal cancer, she pursued a college degree,
which she completed in accounting and education. It was also at In Tell No Tales (1999), Marti nds herself newly married
this time that she became determined to publish a book. and in a new home. Her honeymoon is abruptly ended by the
The character of streetwise MacAlister was introduced in discovery of the dead body of an African-American woman who
Dead Time (1992) as a recently widowed South Side Chicago seems to have lost her life in the 1960s and the murder of a recluse
police ofcer who moves with her children to suburban Lincoln in the basement of a building owned by his family. Marti and her
Prairie, Illinois, and becomes a member of this small communitys partner, Vic, struggle with their own personal problems but
police detective force. Investigating the mysterious ophouse eventually nd a connection between the two murders. The
murders of a wealthy, schizophrenic woman and a pair of poten- complexity of the plot keeps the reader enthralled.
tial witnesses leads her in search of some abandoned children who
In an article in the Chicago magazine, Bland said, I want to
also saw the womans murder. The tense relationship of MacAlister
write about things that matter. She also stated, . . .if you no
with her white male partner and the plight of children in peril and
longer look at the world exactly the way you looked at it before
the mentally ill are revealed by Bland in what critics called a
you read my book, thats good enough. As the life of Marti
detached and often at manner and with sensitivity and
MacAlister continues to unfold, Bland achieves these goals. Her
humor.
mysteries with a social conscience are engaging and enlightening.
Blands next work Slow Burn (1993), continues the life of
MacAlister with another social commentary surrounding the
death of two medical workers killed in a clinic re connected to a BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA 166.
child pornography scheme. Issues of sexism, racism, and the ill Other works: Chicago (Feb. 1999). Booklist (1 June 1994, 1
treatment of children again are interlaced in the plot. This work June 1995, July 1996, 15 Dec. 1997, 1 Jan. 1999). Cogdill, O. H.,
was hailed for its strong and engaging character development, on A Biography of Eleanor Taylor Bland, in Sun-Sentinel South
the one hand, but panned for overshadowing the story with Florida (8 Apr. 1998, www.sun-sentinel.com/freetime/mysteries/
social issues. blandbio.htm, accessed April 7, 1998). LJ (Jan. 1998, Jan. 1999).
95
BLATCH AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
PW (3 Feb. 1992, 14 June 1993, 13 June 1994, 15 May 1995, 27 Blatch joined the Socialist Party in the 1920s and in 1924
May 1996, 22 Dec. 1997). endorsed Robert M. LaFollettes presidential campaign. To the
end of her life she was active in liberal causes. Her autobiography,
PAULA C. MURPHY Challenging Years (1940), gives a lively account of her political
activities. Herein she notes that women were the rst group in
history to be enfranchised before gaining their economic indepen-
dence. Because of her practical orientation and familiarity with
BLATCH, Harriot Stanton the tactics employed by English suffrage leaders, she widened the
appeal of the American suffrage movement in the early 20th
Born 20 January 1856, Seneca Falls, New York; died 20 Novem- century.
ber 1940, Greenwich, Connecticut
OTHER TITLES: Elizabeth Cady Stanton as Revealed in Her
Daughter of Henry Brewster and Elizabeth Cady Stanton; mar-
Letters, Diary and Reminiscences (ed. by Blatch with T.
ried William Henry Blatch, 1882
Stanton, 1922).
One of seven children of noted suffragist Elizabeth Cady
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Flexner, E., A Century of Struggle (1959). Lutz, A.,
Stanton, Harriot Stanton Blatch attended Vassar College. After a
Created Equal (1940). Stanton, E. C., Eighty Years and
year in Europe (1880-81), she assisted her mother and Susan B.
More (1898).
Anthony in preparing their History of Woman Suffrage. They had
Reference works: Dictionary of American Biography, Na-
originally planned to deal only with the National Woman Suffrage
tional Cyclopedia of American Biography (1892 et seq.). NAW,
Association, which the authors led, but Blatch urged inclusion of
1607-1950 (1971).
an account of the American Woman Suffrage Association. Her
moderate treatment of this Boston wing of the movement JANE BENARDETE
appeared in Volume II of the History (1881) and contributed to
ending the internecine war between the two leading groups in
the suffrage movement.
After marriage to William Henry Blatch, an English busi-
BLEECKER, Ann Eliza Schuyler
nessman, she lived 20 years in England where she knew such
reformers as Beatrice and Sidney Webb, Ramsay MacDonald, G. B. Born October 1752, New York, New York; died 23 November
Shaw, and Emmeline Pankhurst. She returned to the U.S. in 1902, 1783, Tomhanick, New York
and in 1907 organized the Equality League of Self-Supporting Daughter of Brandt and Margaret Van Wyck Schuyler; married
Women (later the Womens Political Union), a group designed to John J. Bleecker, 1769; children: Margaretta Bleecker
draw nonprofessional women, especially women trade unionists, Faugeres
into the suffrage movement. This group increased the numbers
and visibility of the suffragists. It organized the rst suffrage Encouraged by her wealthy lawyer husband, Ann Eliza
parades (1910) so that the enemy could see women marching Schuyler Bleecker wrote steadily throughout her life, although
in increasing numbers year by year out on the public avenues, much of her work was lost in manuscript. The couple settled in the
holding high their banner, Votes for Women. wilderness at Tomhanick, where the sensitive Bleecker was
subjected to Indian raids and the general isolation of the frontier.
Blatch became convinced that the war which had broken out A series of disasters connected with General Burgoynes invasion
in Europe would advance the cause of equal rights for women. Her in 1777 caused the deaths of her infant daughter, her mother, and
book, Mobilizing Woman-Power (1918), published with a lauda- her sister in rapid succession. Chronically depressed after these
tory introduction by Theodore Roosevelt, describes German tragedies, she received an additional shock when her husband,
Kultur as the enemy of freedom because it worships efcien- active in the militia, was kidnapped by Tories in 1781 and by mere
cy, cramps originality and initiative and is unjust to women. chance was rescued before being taken over the Canadian border.
Always interested in the relation between economics and suf- Bleeckers declining physical and mental health was exacerbated
frage, Blatch notes that the war increased employment opportuni- by a disillusioning trip to war-ravaged New York after the peace
ties for women and consequently helped free them from service in 1783, and she died in November. Her daughter, Margaretta
for the love of service, i.e., unpaid labor in the home. Payment, Faugeres, prepared Bleeckers work for posthumous publica-
she felt, changes womens status: with the pay envelope tion in 1793.
women are welcome everywhere.
A narrative of sufferings undergone by captives during the
At the wars end Blatch wrote A Womans Point of View: French and Indian War, The History of Maria Kittle (1779), is
Some Roads to Peace (1920), which became a major contribution presented as a true history, but the dramatic dialogue, psycho-
to the library against all war. She encouraged women to unite logical portraiture, and rounded plot of Bleeckers version are
in preventing another such devastation and argued that just as possible only in ction. Personications and mythological refer-
women should be given a role in political decisionmaking, so too ences contrast strangely with events: Ceres presides over elds
labor, formerly voiceless, should now be given a place in through which screaming Indians run, killing and tearing off
management. scalps. The tomahawking of the pregnant Comelia, with details of
96
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BLOOMER
her cleft white forehead, the dead staring of her ne azure eyes, identity. These proved to be too feeble to counteract the harshness
and the ripping out of her fetus and dashing it to pieces are of fate. The struggle was not only against the outer world of
unusually concrete, if grim, visualizations. Purple passages de- frontier America but against the soul-destroying disillusionment
scribe Marias sorrows as her abductors drag her to their allies in of an inner nature too idealistic to accept sordid and savage reality:
Montreal. The History has the virtue of its genuine and direct Alas! the wilderness is within, she wails. Her essential intellec-
testimony of horror, unlike the sentimental and stylized fragment, tual value resides in her biography. We read her work for the
Story of Henry and Ann. fascination of her personality and greater empathetic understand-
ing of the trials undergone by the human and feminine spirit.
Bleeckers poetry is derivative from earlier British authors,
but purposely so in the neoclassical tradition. Of most value are
her nature poems. To Mr. Bleecker, on his passage to New OTHER WORKS: The Posthumous Works of Ann Eliza
York is a long topographical piece in which Fancy takes a water Bleecker (1793).
journey down the Hudson, scenes of mountains and animals
giving way to the rst outcrops of civilization. Bleeckers patriot-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Faugeres, M., Memoirs of Mrs. Ann Eliza
ic panegyric on the Hudson River valley shows great love of the
Bleecker in The Post-humous Works of A. E. Bleecker (1793).
land, the majesty of the natural setting, and the beauty of human
Griswold, R., The Female Poets of America (1848). Hendrickson, J.,
life within it. A Pastoral Dialogue turns into a hymn to
Ann Eliza Bleecker: Her Life and Works (Masters thesis,
American industry and liberty, which are contrasted with the envy
Columbia Univ., 1935). Losche, L., The Early American Novel
and barbarity of the British and Indians. Idealistic rural scenes of
(1907). Munsell, J. The Annals of Albany (1855). Schuyler, G.,
prosperity, static word paintings of peasants reliefed against a
Colonial New York (1885). Tyler, M., The Literary History of the
monumental and fertile landscape, are suddenly ablaze with the
American Revolution, 1763-1783 (1897).
terrifyingly dynamic howls and murders of the attacking Indians.
Reference works: Cyclopedia of American Literature (1855).
Desolation again brings stasis, but it is the unnatural silence of
DAB (1929). NAW, 1607-1950 (1971).
ashes and death. But the moral superiority of the sons of freedom
revives their hope of victory. L. W. KOENGETER
Not all Bleeckers pastoral poetry is ideological; Return to
Tomhanick is naturalistic, and An Evening Prospect displays
a mystic and divine connection with nature, Wordsworthian in BLOOMER, Amelia Jenks
feeling if not in form. Poetic natural scenes are ubiquitous in her
letters and prose, and her descriptions often evoke the idealistic
landscape paintings of Cole or Doughty of the next centurys Born 27 May 1818, Homer, New York; died 30 December 1894,
Hudson River School. Council Bluffs, Iowa
Daughter of Ananias and Lucy Webb Jenks; married Dexter C.
The meditative narrative of Bleeckers Written in the Bloomer, 1840
Retreat from Burgoyne shows an unresigned anguish over her
daughters death, and her naturally pensive sensibility inu- Amelia Jenks Bloomers parents were natives of Rhode
enced her to write a number of elegies and thanatopses. In A Island. She received only a few years schooling at the district
Prospect of Death, death is a raging sea from which Virtue school in Courtland County, New York, but was evidently well
(on wings) may rescue her. The charnel-house imagery of A enough educated to teach in another school when she was seven-
Thought on Death gives way to a more personal musing on her teen years old.
own dissolution in Complaint, The Storm, Desponden-
cy, and Recollection. Her husband, a lawyer and editor of the Seneca County
Courier, encouraged her to contribute articles on social, political,
But the inherent sprightliness of Bleeckers imagination can and moral subjects to his paper. She also began to take an active
be seen in many little ironic and satirical poems and passages. The part in the temperance movement, writing frequently for the
best of these comic pieces is the mock journal in which Susan Ten Water Bucket, an organ of the temperance society of Seneca Falls,
Eycks fashionably frivolous day and neglect of her sisters New York. She attended the rst meeting on womens rights held
weighty letter is projected in Rape of the Lock style. Bleekers in Seneca Falls in 1848 but did not actively participate. In 1849
Letters, the remnants of her prolic correspondence, repeat the she began the publication of a periodical called Lily, writing on
themes and motifs of her more formal work in a manner most such subjects as temperance, education, unjust marriage laws, and
likely to suit modern taste. woman suffrage. By 1853 Lily had a circulation of some 4,000
subscribers. It was the rst newspaper owned, edited, and con-
In Bleeckers work, there is a schizophrenic contrast between
trolled by a woman and devoted solely to the interests of women.
the idyllic Eden of her imagination, based upon love of nature,
culture, intellect, and family, and the savage reality of treachery, Through Lily she met Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B.
war, death, isolation, anomy, and insanity that plagued her life. Anthony. She also met Elizabeth Smith Miller, a cousin of Mrs.
She could not adjust to the unfairness and incompletion of actual Stanton, who was the rst to wear the short skirt and full Turkish
human existence. As a good woman of her era, she clung to the trousers that came to be known as bloomers. Several of the
bulwarks of Divine Providence and family love for security and women adopted the costume, nding it more comfortable, more
97
BLOOMFIELD-MOORE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
sanitary, and better adapted to the active life they were leading one of the nest examples of the clear, forceful, and logical
than the corsets and voluminous skirts that were the fashion. They arguments presented in the cause. She ends this stirring speech by
ceased wearing the costume only when they discovered their attire calling womans admission to the ballot box the crowning right
was distracting from the message of womens rights. to which she is justly entitled and states that when woman shall
be thus recognized as an equal partner with man in the universe of
In 1852 Bloomer began lecturing on temperance and wom-
Godequal in rights and dutiesthen will she for the rst time,
ens rights, never speaking extemporaneously but always careful-
in truth, become what her Creator designed her to be, a helpmeet
ly writing out and delivering her speeches from manuscript. The
for man. With her mind and body fully developed, imbued with a
following year her husband purchased an interest in the Western
full sense of her responsibilities, and living in the conscientious
Home Visitor and the Bloomers moved to Mount Vernon, Ohio.
discharge of each and all of them, she will be tted to share with
She continued publishing Lily, served as assistant editor of the
her brother in all of the duties of life; to aid and counsel him in his
Western Home Visitor, a literary weekly with a fairly large
hours of trial; and to rejoice with him in the triumph of every good
circulation, and lectured occasionally. Early in 1855, when her
word and work.
husband decided to relocate in Council Bluffs, Iowa, it was
necessary to cease publication of Lily, but she did not discontinue It is indeed unfortunate Bloomers skill as a writer is over-
writing and speaking on behalf of temperance and womens shadowed by the association of her name with a short-lived and
rights. She was instrumental in organizing the Iowa Womans ridiculed experiment in female attire.
State Suffrage Society and worked zealously for her church and
community.
OTHER WORKS: Life and Writings of Amelia Bloomer (ed. D. C.
As a writer Bloomer produced prose that was graceful, clear,
Bloomer; 1895).
and often infused with passion. Her early writings were devoted to
temperance, imploring women to unite in that cause. Warning all
those who supported it not to relax their vigilance, she wrote in BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Appletons Cyclopedia of Ameri-
one early essay: Those who feel most secure will nd to their can Biography (1888). DAB (1929). A Woman of the Centu-
dismay that the viper has only been crushed for a time, and will ry (1893).
rise again upon his victim with a rmer and more deadly grasp
than before. In starting her journal she made it clear in her rst ELAINE K. GINSBERG
editorial that it is woman that speaks through Lily. . . .Like the
beautiful ower from which it derives its name, we shall strive to
make the Lily the emblem of sweetness and purity; and may
heaven smile upon our attempt to advocate the great cause of
Temperance reform! BLOOMFIELD-MOORE, Clara
Always a woman of strong opinions on almost every subject, (Sophia) Jessup
she introduced herself to the readers of the Western Home Visitor
by saying: What I have been in the past, I expect to be in the Born 16 February 1824, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; died 5
future,an uncompromising opponent of wrong and oppression January 1899, London, England
in every form, and a sustainer of the right and the true, with Wrote under: Clara Moore, Clara Jessup Moore, Clara Moreton,
whatever it may be connected. The causes Bloomer advocated Mrs. H. O. Ward
included employment and education for women. She considered Daughter of Augustus Edward and Lydia Eager Mosley Jessup;
the failure to educate women for meaningful occupations a serious married Bloomeld Haines Moore, 1842
wrong and insisted parents do a great injustice to their
daughters when they doom them to a life of idleness or, what is Clara Jessup Bloomeld-Moore was raised in an atmosphere
worse, to a life of frivolity and fashionable dissipation. of good breeding, charity, and devotion to learning. She was
She considered, in fact, that the education of women might be educated at Westeld Academy and at Mrs. Merricks School in
a cure for some of the ills of the nation. Replying to an article on New Haven, Connecticut. After her marriage to a Philadelphia
corruption in the state legislature, she demanded: Where then Quaker, she and her husband joined their efforts in civic and
shall the remedy for purifying and healing the nation be found? philanthropic causes. Her dedication to a life of social duty
We answer, in the education and enfranchisement of woman! continued throughout her career, both in her writing and in her
Loose the chains that bind her to the condition of a dependent, a private pursuits; income from her publishing was always con-
slave to passion and the caprices of men. Open for her the doors of signed to charities and related concerns. After her husbands
our colleges and universities and bid her enter. Hold up before her death, Bloomeld-Moore emigrated to London, where she main-
a pattern for womanly greatness and excellence and bid her to tained her ties to the literary world.
occupy the same positions held by her brothers.
In a climate of security, based on wealth, gracious living, and
Bloomers lecture on suffrage, written originally in 1852 and good works, writing was the natural pursuit of a society woman of
delivered and revised many times through the years, is perhaps leisure and position, a genteel way of living a useful life. With the
98
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BLUME
publication of several prize-winning stories and novellas written Ladys Friend (reissue of E. Farrars 1836 title, 1880). Gondalines
under pen names, Bloomeld-Moore found herself a public gure Lesson. . . and Other Poems (1881).
and a member of the Philadelphia literary circle. Following these
successes, her Philadelphia home became a retreat and salon for
the literary gures of the day. Her output of ction and poetry BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Female Prose Writers of America
(1852). NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). A Woman of the Century (1893).
spans a period of 40 years, featuring such titles as On Dangerous
Other references: Lippincotts Magazine (March 1873). NYT
Ground: A Romance of American Society (1876), The Estranged
(6 Jan. 1899).
Hearts, and The Hasty Marriage. These are now considered
to be light, sentimental works of a topical and period-piece nature.
MARGARET J. KING
Bloomeld-Moores observations, advice, rulings, and ide-
ology in the eld of etiquette had the greatest interest and the most
enduring appeal. In 1873 she anonymously published an article
entitled Some Unsettled Points of Etiquette in Lippincotts BLUME, Judy
Magazine. In this piece she posed the basic problem of American
manners: the lack of a uniformly established or accepted code Born 12 February 1938, Elizabeth, New Jersey
applicable to every region and reach of society, one which can be Daughter of Rudolph and Esther Rosenfeld Sussman; married
relied on as a standard of common courtesy. In this context, John Blume, 1959 (divorced); Thomas Kitchens, 1976 (di-
Bloomeld-Moore cited classic cases of the wide variations of vorced); George Cooper, 1987; children: Randy Lee, Law-
custom between American cities, regions, and generations. The rence Andrew.
articulation of this perplexing difculty is a key statement in the
history of American sociability. Best known for her realistic ction for adolescents, Judy
Blume is one of the most popular authors in the contemporary
Bloomeld-Moores own compilation, Sensible Etiquette of
history of childrens books. She creates frank, straightforward
the Best Society (1878), was published under the pen name of Mrs.
stories that focus characteristically on the immediate social and
H. O. Ward. It soon became the most popular and authoritative
emotional concerns of her mainly female characters. Her ta-
text of manners after the reigning standard, Mary Elizabeth
boo-breaking books address topics like menstruation, wet dreams,
Sherwoods Manners and Social Usages. Bloomeld-Moores
and premarital sex, but Blume also writes of friendship, divorce,
handbook, written for the generation of the new rich in the post- peer group approval, religion, and death. Blumes books accurate-
Civil War era, provides a fully detailed accountboth real and ly, honestly, and with great earnestness capture the speech,
idealof the rise to elegance and the aspiration (or pretension) to emotions, and private thoughts of adolescents.
European manners. This book was one of many produced in a
period of American social history inuenced by European civi- Blume received a B.A. from New York University (1960).
lized elegance. The upwardly mobile classes looked to writers Her earliest books were the result of her participation in a graduate
like Bloomeld-Moore to create the image, if not the reality, of writing course. The One in the Middle is the Green Kangaroo
good breeding appropriate to those entering society life for the (1969), a picture book, involves a second grader who feels
rst time. neglected by his family until he lands a part in his school play.
Iggies House (1970) deals with the impact of a black family
In Sensible Etiquette of the Best Society, Bloomeld-Moore moving into an all-white neighborhood. When both books met a
was obviously of the ethics-and-character school of manners, cool reception from reviewers, Blume decided to write a book
believing, in contrast to more secular pragmatists like Mrs. about adolescence based on her vivid memories of her own sixth
Sherwood, that the fundamental purpose of manners is to create grade experience. The resulting book, Are You There God? Its
and sustain good moral character. Bloomeld-Moore extended Me, Margaret (1970), explores a young girls private thoughts
this thesis on a decidedly religious set of values, attributing to about the onset of menstruation, her acceptance by a new peer
etiquette the role of making possible a truly Christian civilization group, and her struggle to nd a religion. Blumes almost com-
by encouraging a spiritual existence for the happiness of our plete recall of how it felt to be young spoke directly to readers and
earthly home. the book was immediately successful. Although it stirred some
controversy among parents, librarians, and teachers for its un-
In a later work, Social Ethics and Society Duties: Through inchingly honest treatment of a topic like menstruation, the book
Education of Girls for Wives and Mothers and for Professions made Blumes reputation: hundreds of letters from preteen girls
(1892), Bloomeld-Moores view of learning as necessary for the attested to the fact that they identied with Margaret.
progress of women reinforces the image of a good society founded
on an education in good behavior. Blumes books address subjects that childrens books tend to
disregard, leading critics to label her an issue-oriented author, an
author of problem novels. Despite her critics, Blume believes
OTHER WORKS: Tight Times; or, The Diamond Cross and Other there is nothing one should not or cannot tell a child. I dont care
Tales (1855). Miscellaneous Poems, Stories for Children, The about rules and regulations of writing for children, Blume has
Wardens Tale, and Three Eras in a Life (1875). The Young commented. My responsibility to be honest with my readers is
99
BOGAN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
my strongest motivation. Many of Blumes books are about when one woman falls in love with her friends ex-husband. Wifey
coping with difcult situations. Told in the rst person, they foster (1978) was Blumes rst novel for adults.
a strong sense of intimacy and immediacy, convincing the reader
The sensitive, often controversial themes of Blumes child-
Blume writes the truth about what kids think and feel. Then Again,
rens books have not dampened their popularity but have limited
Maybe I Wont (1971) deals with a twelve-year-olds budding
their use in the classroom and restricted their presence in some
sexual identity; Its Not the End of the World (1972) documents
libraries. Criticism of her books has been softened by societys
the effects of divorce on a preteen girl; in Deenie (1973) a seventh
greater openness to discussions about adolescent sexuality and
grader copes with scoliosis; while Blubber (1974) is the story of a
peer relationships since her rst books were published in the early
fat girl who becomes the target of ridicule in her class. Forever
1970s. In 1996 Bloom received the American Library Associa-
(1975), a book consistently placed on censored lists, explicitly
tions Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement. She
details the joy and frustration of a rst sexual relationship; a
remains an active spokesperson for the National Coalition Against
young girl in Tiger Eyes (1981) struggles to overcome grief after
Censorship, is the founder and trustee of the charitable and
her fathers violent death; and Just as Long as Were Together
educational foundation Kids Fund, and is a board member of the
(1987) depicts teenage girls grappling with friendship and oth-
Society of Childrens Book Writers and Illustrators. By 1998 her
er issues.
books had been translated into 20 languages and had sold more
Blume leavens the seriousness of her often heavy-handed than 65 million copies.
problem books with humorous dialogue and wit, while her
books for younger readers include humor in the broad, sometimes OTHER WORKS: Freckle Juice (1971). Starring Sally J. Freedman
slapstick manner many kids nd so appealing. Tales of A Fourth as Herself (1977). The Judy Blume Diary (1981). The Pain and the
Grade Nothing (1972) and Superfudge (1980) relate the hilarious Great One (1984). The Judy Blume Memory Book (1988). Heres
stories of ten-year-old Peter and the antics of his mischievous little To You, Rachel Robinson (1993).
brother Fudge. Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great (1972), a
story of overcoming fears, delights with its funny verbal sparring
and the outrageous lies children tell to impress each other. Fudge- BIBLIOGRAPHY: Rees, D., ed., The Marble in the Water (1980).
a-Mania (1990) features Peter as well as Sheila Tubman, other- Smith, S. N., Father Doesnt Know Best Anymore: Realism and
wise known as Sheila the Great. While their families share a the Parent in the Junior Works of Judy Blume, E. L. Konigsburg,
summer vacation house, Peter and Sheila have great fun being and Richard Peck (thesis, 1981).
enemies. The popularity of the Fudge and Sheila books led to a Reference works: CA 29-32 (1978). CANR 13 (1984). CLC
television series on ABC (1994-96) and CBS (1997). Tales of a 12 (1980), 30 (1984). DLB 52 (1986). MTCW (1991). TCCW, 3rd
Fourth Grade Nothing had sold more than six million copies by ed. (1989).
1996, making it the third highest-selling childrens trade paper- Other references: Elementary English (Sept. 1974). HB (Jan./
back. It also was staged by the Kennedy Center for a national tour Feb. 1985). SL (May 1987). NYTBR (16 Nov. 1997, 19 July 1998).
beginning in 1998.
CAROLYN SHUTE,
In her career as an author of childrens books, Blume has UPDATED BY JANETTE GOFF DIXON
achieved both unprecedented popularity and erce criticism,
primarily for the content of her books rather than their execution.
Reviewers have commended her for her close observation of
childhood, for the honesty and lack of condescension with which BLY, Nellie
she writes, for her warm sense of humor, and for her courage in See SEAMAN, Elizabeth Cochrane
breaking taboos and convention. Her critics cite awed character
development, permissive attitudes, the use of issues as starting
points for creative writing, uninhibited language, thin narrative, BOGAN, Louise
and a lack of social consciousness. Most agree, however, that she
has made reading easy and agreeable for many children. Her
ability to communicate with her audience has endeared her to a Born 11 August 1897, Livermore Falls, Maine; died 4 February
loyal readership, and she receives thousands of letters a month 1970, New York, New York
from them. The most moving of these are collected in Letters to Daughter of Daniel Joseph and Mary Shields Bogan; married
Judy (1986). On her website (www.judyblume.com), Blume Curt Alexander, 1916 (died 1920); Raymond Holden, 1925
encourages readers and fans to leave her messages and offers (divorced 1937); children: one daughter
information about her books and their creation.
Louise Bogan was educated at Mount St. Marys Academy in
Blume has also written books for adults, some of whom may Manchester, New Hampshire, the Boston Girls Latin School, and
have rst discovered her as children reading her books. Summer for a year at Boston University. Her rst husband, an army ofcer,
Sisters (1998) traces the friendship between dissimilar women died in 1920, shortly after the birth of their daughter, Bogans only
during 20 summers, beginning when they are twelve-year-old child. Her second husband was a poet and, from 1929 to 1932,
girls, while Smart Women (1983) explores the complicated rela- managing editor of the New Yorker; the couple was divorced in
tionships among two divorced friends and their teenage daughters 1937. For most of Bogans adult life her home was New York City.
100
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BOGAN
Reluctant to offer details about her personal life, Bogan early poems such as The Alchemist and Men Loved Wholly
valued privacy and close friendships. Published letters to Edmund Beyond Wisdom, where the earth and love triumph over intellect.
Wilson, Rolfe Humphries, Morton Zabel, Theodore Roethke,
There is also a recurrent interest in women: struggling to
May Sarton, and others reveal a warm, witty, spontaneous side of
maintain a free mind and independent being (Sonnet, The
Bogan, not often evident in her poetry. They also refer to recover-
Romantic, For a Marriage, Betrothed); failing to imagine
ies from nervous breakdowns in 1931 and 1933, as well as to the
and risk (Women); breaking into fury and madness (The
severe difculties she experienced in the mid-1930s supporting
Sleeping Fury, Evening in the Sanitarium); experiencing
herself by writing. love and surviving its endings (Men Loved Wholly Beyond
Besides poetry, Bogan wrote some ction and collaborated Wisdom, Fifteenth Farewell, My Voice Not Being Proud,
on translations from German and French. Two volumes of her Portrait). Adrienne Rich has justly called attention to the
criticism consist mainly of articles and reviews from Nation, sense of mask, of code, of body-mind division, of the sleeping
Poetry, Scribners, Atlantic Monthly, and the New Yorker, for fury beneath the praised, severe, lyrical mode.
which she was a regular reviewer of poetry from March 1931 to Bogan received many awards for her poetry, among them the
December 1968. Bollingen Prize in poetry (shared with Lonie Adams) for Collect-
ed Poems in 1955; the Academy of American Poets Award in
While Bogan advocated primarily formal poetryin Eliots
1959; and in 1967 one of ve awards of the National Endowment
words, verse as speech and verse as songher critical
for the Arts to distinguished senior American writers. She was
judgment was far from orthodox. She opposed womens attempts
a Fellow in American Letters at the Library of Congress in 1944,
to imitate a mans rougher conduct in life and art, observing
and from 1945 to 1946 held the Chair of Poetry. She was elected a
that there were no authentic women Surrealists, since Surreal-
member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1952) and of
isms frequent harsh eroticism, its shock tactics, and its coarse the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1968).
way with language, comes hard to women writers, whose basic
creative impulses usually involve tenderness and affection. The
younger women poets she praised were, in following Moore, OTHER WORKS: Body of this Death (1923). The Sleeping Fury
close but detached observers of the facts of nature, able to (1937). Poems and New Poems (1941). Achievement in American
display a womans talent for dealing intensely and imaginatively Poetry, 1900-1950 (1951). Selected Criticism (1955). The Glass
with the concrete. Bees by Ernst Juenger (trans. by Bogan, 1961). Elective Afnities
by Goethe (trans. by Bogan, 1963). The Journal of Jules Renard
The qualities most frequently cited in Bogans poetry are (trans. by Bogan with E. Roget, 1964). The Golden Journey:
those her friend Lonie Adams noted in a 1954 review of Poems for Young People (ed. by Bogan with W. J. Smith, 1965).
Collected Poems: rmness of outline, prosodic accomplishment The Blue Estuaries: Poems, 1923-1968 (1968). A Poets Alpha-
in traditional metrics, purity of diction and tone, concision of bet: Reections on the Literary Art and Vocation (eds. R. Phelps
phrase, and concentrated singleness of effect. Allen Tate, Ford and R. Limmer, 1970). The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe
Madox Ford, and Roethke compared her lyrics to those of the (trans. by Bogan, 1971). Novella by Goethe (trans. by Bogan,
Elizabethan metaphysical mode. Abjuring free verse and experi- 1971). What the Woman Lived: Selected Letters of Louise Bogan,
mental forms, Bogan worked in consciously controlled lyric form 1920-70 (ed. R. Limmer, 1973).
with a restraint and precision which contained passionate feeling.
Minor art, she wrote, needs to be hard, condensed and
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bowles, G. L., Suppression and Expression in
durable. A few critics of her work have found that control
Poetry by American Women: Linda Bogan, Denise Levertov and
scrupulous to the point of limitation and perhaps the result of
Adrienne Rich (dissertation, 1976). Couchman, J., Linda Bogan:
unwillingness to reveal herself entirely. There is a clear distancing A Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Materials, 1915-1975:
of poet from subject in the early works of Dark Summer (1929); Parts I-II in BB 33 (1976). Olson, E., Linda Bogan and Lonie
and in all but a few poems Bogan objecties responses to Adams in ChiR 8 (Fall 1954). Perlmutter, E. P., Dolls Heart:
experience and ideas through the use of third person or of a The Girl in the Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay and Linda
persona. Bogan in TCL 23 (May 1977). Ramsay, P., Linda Bogan in
Bogans greatest skill lies in metric variation and in render- Iowa Review 1 (1970). Roethke, T., The Poetry of Linda
ing descriptions in taut language whose sound values are brilliant Bogan in MAQR 67 (Aug. 1960). Smith, W. J., Linda Bogan: A
yet seemingly effortless as in Night, Song for the Last Act, Womans Words (1971). Woodard, D., This More Fragile Bounda-
ry: The Female Subject and the Romance Plot in the Texts of
Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral, Roman Fountain, After
Millay, Wylie, Teasdale, Bogan (dissertation, 1993).
the Persian. The subject matter of Bogans poetry includes love,
loss, grief, mutability, the struggle of the free mind, marriage, and THEODORA R. GRAHAM
dream. There is no mention of the city or society; settings and
imagery are drawn from naturethe country or sea, seasons and
storms. Landscape and weather are sometimes menacing as in
The Flume, where autumn can be a positive, glowing season of BOLTON, Isabel
endings. There is tension between passion of mind and esh in See MILLER, Mary Britton
101
BOLTON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
BOLTON, Sarah Knowles books shed light on 19th- century reform movements and the rise
of popular education, they are perhaps most valuable to students
of womens history. In Some Successful Women (1888), Famous
Born 15 September 1841, Farmington, Connecticut; died 21 Leaders Among Women (1895), and other collections, Bolton
February 1916, Cleveland, Ohio demonstrates that a woman can win self-respect and worldly fame
Also wrote under: Sarah Knowles through intelligence and hard work. Like the ctional Horatio
Daughter of John Segar and Elizabeth Miller Knowles; married Alger stories, these biographies stress the importance of educa-
Charles Edward Bolton, 1866 tion, discipline, and self-reliance. According to them, the rapidly
changing modern world offers many opportunities for the self-
Sarah Knowles Bolton traced her ancestry to the New Eng- made woman, and stands to benet from her humanizing inuence.
land colonists. After her fathers death in 1852, she moved with
her mother to an uncles house in Hartford, Connecticut. There Yet Boltons work reveals the strain of reconciling traditional
Bolton met Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lydia Sigourney, both female roles with ambition and leadership. In presenting individu-
lasting inuences. al women as models, she carefully balances their masculine
achievements with feminine qualities: self-sacrice, piety,
Boltons poetry appeared in Waverly Magazine when she sympathy. Mary Livermores career, for example, illustrates the
was fteen. Following her graduation from the Hartford Female work a woman may do in the world, and still retain the truest
Seminary in 1860, she taught in Natchez, Mississippi. The out- womanliness. Helen Hunt Jackson will be remembered because
break of the Civil War, however, sent her home to keep school in she forgot self and devoted her strength to the cause of others.
Meriden, Connecticut. Her rst book, Orlean Lamar, and Other Boltons championship of intellectual training, economic inde-
Poems (1864), published when she was twenty-three, received pendence, and assertive roles for women, however, is much more
mixed reviews. Wellesley (1865), a novel about the Hungarian vigorous than her dutiful nods to the cult of true womanhood.
patriot Kossuth, was serialized in the Literary Recorder a year later. Her deeper feelings about a womans proper role appear in her
In 1866 Bolton and her husband settled in Cleveland, Ohio, portrayal of male/female relations. While convention requires her
where they became deeply involved in the Womans Temperance repudiation of George Eliots unmarried living arrangement with
Crusade. As assistant corresponding secretary of the National George Henry Lewes, Bolton goes on to present a laudatory
Womans Christian Temperance Union, Bolton publicized the portrait of their relationship, noting especially Lewess support of
Unions goals and wrote a history of the crusade for the centennial Eliots career. Her study of the Brownings also stresses their
temperance volume. In 1874 she brought out a novel on the equality and mutual respect: Their marriage was an ideal one.
temperance theme entitled The Present Problem, but only 250 Both had a grand purpose in life. Neither individual was merged in
copies were sold. the other. Boltons treatment of women who preferred to remain
single is equally sympathetic.
In 1873 Charles Bolton lost his real estate business in the
nancial panic. Their struggle to repay his debts spurred Boltons Bolton encouraged young women to take themselvestheir
developing career as a journalist and author. From 1878 to 1881, minds and their ambitionsseriously. While she showed women
she served as an editor of the Boston paper, The Congregational- could achieve success in elds such as medicine, literature,
ist. While accompanying her husband on business trips to England education, art, and politics, she also reassured her audience that
in 1878 and 1881, she investigated womens higher education and true womanliness and professionalism were compatible. Men,
factory working conditions. In 1883 she presented her ndings on she argued, preferred educated, independent womenit was a
British labor relations in an inuential paper delivered before the libel on the sex to think otherwise. Although Boltons skills as
American Social Science Foundation. a publicist may have gained the upper hand, her optimistic vision
bolstered feminine resolve. Her biographies of strong, fully real-
Bolton published two other books of poetry, From Heart and ized women gave American girls crucial models on which to
Nature (1887, written with her son Charles Knowles Bolton), and pattern their lives.
The Inevitable, and Other Poems (1895). Her ction includes
Stories from Life (1886). The literary value of these works is
obscured by their didacticism and sentimentality. Boltons real OTHER WORKS: Facts and Songs for the People. Prepared Spe-
talents lay in journalism and reform, two elds which coalesced in cially for Use in the Blaine and Logan Campaign (1884). How
Success is Won (1885). Social Studies in England (1886). Famous
her series of biographies for children. Collected under titles such
American Authors (1887). Famous American Statesmen (1888).
as Famous Men of Science (1889), Lives of Poor Boys Who
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1889). Famous English Authors of the
Became Famous (1885), and Lives of Girls Who Became Famous
Nineteenth-Century (1890). Famous European Artists (1890).
(1886; Bolton recognized that femininity was as great an obstacle
Famous English Statesmen of Queen Victorias Reign (1891).
as poverty), these studies were written in a straightforward,
Famous Types of Womanhood (1892). Famous Voyagers and
vigorous style. The books sold well in the U.S. and several were
Explorers (1893). Famous Leaders Among Men (1894). Nuggets;
reprinted in England.
Or, Secrets of Great Success (with F. T. Wallace, 1895). Famous
Toward the end of her life, Bolton added animal welfare to a Givers and Their Gifts (1896). The Story of Douglas (1898).
list of humanitarian interests which included labor relations, Every-day Living (1900). Our Devoted Friend the Dog (1902).
woman suffrage, temperance, and higher education. While Boltons Charles E. Bolton; A Memorial Sketch (1907). Sarah K. Bolton;
102
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BOMBECK
Pages from an Intimate Autobiography, Edited by Her Son trust in God and live for the joy of the day but uncomplainingly
(1923). What to Read and How to Write (n.d.). Selections from accept lifes disappointments (When It Rains, Let It Rain). She
the Journal or Diary of the Late Sarah Knowles Bolton, was also a supporter of womens rights. Her best known poem,
1894-1915 (1936). Paddle Your Own Canoe, argues for a sturdy independence
and self-trust.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bolton, C. K., The Boltons in Old and New In her lifetime, Bolton was much praised. Her fellow Hoosier
England (1890). writers Lew Wallace and James Whitcomb Riley thought highly
Reference works: National Cyclopedia of American Biogra-
of her work, and William Cullen Bryant included Left on the
phy (1892 et seq.). A Woman of the Century, F. E. Willard
Battleeld, a trite and extremely sentimental poem, in his
and M. A. Livermore (1893).
selection of the 50 nest war poems ever written. In 1941, a
SARAH WAY SHERMAN plaque honoring her was placed in the rotunda of the Indiana
capitol building. Almost completely forgotten today, in her life
and work Bolton epitomized the contradictions of an intelligent
and thoughtful woman of the 19th-century Midwest who was a
BOLTON, Sarah T(ittle Barrett) child of the frontier and a world traveler, who managed to hold
concurrently both radical and conventional ideas, and who achieved
Born 18 December 1814, Newport, Kentucky; died 4 August success and fame while never being considered unwomanly.
1893, Indianapolis, Indiana
Daughter of Jonathan B. and Esther Pendleton Barrett; married
Nathaniel Bolton, 1831 OTHER WORKS: Poems (1865). The Life and Poems of Sarah Tittle
Bolton (1880). Songs of a Life-Time (1892). Paddle Your Own
Sarah T. Bolton published her rst poem at the age of Canoe and Other Poems (1897).
fourteen and continued writing during most of her life. During her
travels, including four trips to Europe, she was a voluminous letter
writer, and she twice tried her hand at ction (one novel was BIBLIOGRAPHY: Downing, O. I., Indianas Poet of the Wildwood
written when she was sixteen and then destroyed; in her last year, (1941). Wallace, L., Sketch of Mrs. Sarah Tittle Bolton in
she returned to the form, beginning a religious novel). But her Paddle Your Own Canoe and Other Poems (1897).
preferred form was verse, and it was as a poet that she achieved Reference works: American Women (1897). A Critical Dic-
fame. Although she was versatile in her use of poetic forms and tionary of English Literature and British and American Au-
sometimes inventive in rhyming, her poetry today seems to be thors (1858-1871). Dictionary of American Biography. Nation-
characterized by its sentimentality, triteness, and excesses of al Cyclopedia of American Biography (1892 et seq.). NAW,
diction, while her rhythms often approach doggerel.
1607-1950 (1971).
A number of Boltons poems deal with places visited on her Other references: The Life of Sarah T. Bolton in The Life
European travels (for example, A Day at Ouchy, on Lake and Poems of Sarah T. Bolton (1880). Impressions of Indiana:
Leman, Leaving Switzerland, and To the Arve at Its Sarah T. Bolton. (audiocassette, 1993).
Junction with the Rhone). She apotheosized such political and
literary heroes as Charles George Gordon, the Girondists, veter- MARY JEAN DEMARR
ans of the Mexican War, Edgar Allan Poe, Hawkeye Burdette (a
contemporary comic writer), and John Howard Payne (writer of
Home Sweet Home). She also composed many poems to and
about friends. Still other poems praised frontier life and pioneers.
Indiana, which compares the state favorably to many storied BOMBECK, Erma (Louise)
places, was formerly extremely popular throughout that state.
Boltons most interesting poems today, however, are those Born 21 February 1927, Dayton, Ohio; died 22 April 1996, San
which reveal her awareness of injustice and her hatred of oppres- Francisco, California.
sion. A number of poems touch on the need for political freedom; Daughter of Erma and Cassius Fiste; married William Bombeck,
and she created many pathetic portraits of the poverty-stricken, 1949; children: Betsy, Andrew, Matthew.
especially children. She argued against capital punishment in
The Doomed Anarchists and praised those such as Martin Mostly I worry about surviving, Erma Bombeck wrote in
Luther who have had the courage to defy received opinion. the introduction to one of her books. Keeping up with the times
Her most frequent tones are indignation (in the poems of in a world that changes daily. Knowing what to keep and what to
social protest), sentimentality (in narrative poems), rhapsodic discard. What to accept and what to protest. That is what this book
praise (in poems on places and on nature), and happy idealism (in is about. Surviving. Bombeck taught her readers, mostly house-
poems on pioneers and Indiana, and in those in which she predicts wives, to survive boredom, frustration, and alienation through
the future). Boltons personal philosophy seems to have been to laughter, exaggeration, truth, parody, and sarcasm.
103
BOMBECK AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
The product of a secure, middle class family, Bombeck found Although her writing focused on home-related activities,
her life changed in 1936 when her father died suddenly. Her Bombeck actively supported various public causes and organiza-
young mother and nine-year-old Erma moved into one bedroom tions. She campaigned for two years for passage of the Equal
of her grandmothers home. As a growing child, Bombeck inter- Rights Amendment, and expressed some impatience with women
preted her mothers preoccupation with work and her later who didnt realize the precariousness of equality. A convert to
remarriage as desertion. She reconsidered as an adult, and the Roman Catholicism when she was twenty-two, Bombeck had
cruel self-centeredness of children recurs as a theme in her strong religious and political beliefs, but did not use her columns
writing. Because she was a shy child, her mother enlisted her in as a vehicle to promote them. She also lent her support to the
tap-dancing lessons. Bombeck developed a stage presence and Arizona Kidney Foundation, a cause rather close to home as she
remained a local radio performer, singing and tapping, for almost had suffered from kidney ailments herself, having been diagnosed
eight years. with polycystic kidney syndrome when a young adult.
Bombecks writing career began with a humor column for
Bombecks own health problems spurred her to try and help
the junior high school newspaper. During high school she contrib-
others. Her book of interviews with children surviving cancer, I
uted to the newsletter at the department store where she worked.
Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up, I Want to Go to Boise
She started secretarial courses after high school and worked at the
(1989) received the American Cancer Societys 1990 Medal of
Dayton Herald as a copy girl. She studied at Ohio University in
Honor. Bombeck rst suffered kidney failure in 1993, only 15
Athens until her money ran out, went back to work, and entered
months after undergoing a mastectomy for breast cancer. Despite
the University of Dayton, where William Bombeck was also a
student. Upon graduation (1949) the Dayton Herald hired her as a her illness, she wrote three columns a week until 1994, then
reporter. continued with two weekly columns, while completing two more
books. She shared her health problems with her readers, but
Her marriage in 1949 and the subsequent plunge into subur- always with a sense of humor and a refusal to accept pity.
ban tract housing became the building blocks of her writing. Bombeck died in April 1996 in a San Francisco hospital from
Leaving her job to stay home with her children, Bombeck became complications following a kidney transplant.
aware of the people around her. In the 1950s a child-lled home in
a suburban tract was advertised as the family dream. Bombeck Published after her death, Forever, Erma (1996) is a collec-
knew the isolation that came with the mortgage and subsequently tion of Bombecks most popular columns and tributes from some
wrote about it. For many years her syndicated columns targeted of her many admirers, including contemporary columnists, loyal
child rearing, marriage, friends, cups of coffee, car pools, pets, fans, people with whom she had worked tirelessly for public
holidays, and common worry. The house-bound housewives read causes, friends, and family. During her career, Bombeck wrote
and realized they were not alone. Although other female writers more than 4,500 columns and 12 books, which were on bestseller
wrote humorously about being a housewife, Bombeck was the lists for years. Appearing in 600 newspapers, she was indisputably
rst to focus on middle class women living in the new suburbs. the most widely syndicated humorist. Since her death, no humor
columnist has been able to match her wide appeal. The size and
In 1963, Bombeck started a weekly column for the Kettering-
homogeny of her early, loyal audience of homemakers contribut-
Oakwood Times. Two years later, in 1965, she was offered two
columns a week at the Dayton paper. Three weeks later her ed to her success. She reigned in their world of household chaos
column was acquired by the Newsday syndicate. Through a much by making fun of herself as she battled the trials of daily life.
wider audience, Bombecks column ourished and she published Bombeck became a well-loved next door neighbor who under-
a number of humorous books throughout the 1970s and 1980s. stood and helped readers laugh about their own lives.
Beginning in 1979, Bombeck had been named annually to the

list of 25 Most Inuential Women in America by The World OTHER WORKS: At Wits End (1967). Just Wait till You Have
Almanac. She held 15 honorary doctorates, was a member of the Children of Your Own! (1971). I Lost Everything in the Post-
Society of Professional Journalists, and was the rst woman Natal Depression (1973). The Grass is Always Greener over the
named to the American Academy of Humor Columnists. She was Septic Tank (1976). If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing
appointed to the Presidents Advisory Committee for Women in in the Pits? (1978). Aunt Ermas Cope Book (1979). Motherhood:
1978 and was grand marshal of the 1986 Rose Bowl Parade. The Second Oldest Profession (1983). Family Ties That Bind. . .and
By the 1990s Bombeck was writing her At Wits End, Gag! (1987). When You Look Like Your Passport Photo Its Time
column and lling three television slots each week from the to Go Home (1991). A Marriage Made in Heavenor, Too Tired
familys Paradise Valley, Arizona, home. She had also served as a for an Affair (1993). All I Know About Animal Behavior I Learned
commentator on ABCs Good Morning America for 11 years, in Loehmanns Dressing Room (1996).
beginning in 1975. As William Bombeck retired from his job as
school teacher and administrator and her children became adults,
the focus of her columns changed and Bombeck wrote of the BIBLIOGRAPHY: Astor, D., Is There a Successor to Erma
working woman, grown children, retirement, and aging. Her Bombeck? in Editor & Publisher (28 March 1998). Dressner, Z.,
commentaries astutely combined humor and poignancy. Domestic Comic Writers, in Womens Comic Visions (1991).
104
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BONNER
Edwards, S., Erma Bombeck: A Life in Humor (1997). Hubbard, K., songs, I Love You Truly and Just a Wearyin for You,
Remembering Erma in People (28 April 1997). Walker, N., appeared in this collection.
and Z. Dressner, Redressing the Balance (1989).
Reference works: CA 21-24 (1977). CANR 12 (1984), 39 In addition to her songs and verse Bond wrote articles,
(1992). Celebrity Register (1990). MTCW (1991) WWAW (1991). childrens books, and an autobiography. Her memoir, The Roads
of Melody (1927), details her early struggle against poor health
JANET M. BEYER, and poverty, but attests to her optimistic spirit. In 1940, at the age
UPDATED BY JANETTE GOFF DIXON of seventy-eight, Bond published The End of the Road, a miscella-
ny of philosophy and verse. It is easy to dismiss Bonds work, with
its conventional symbols and artless sentiments, as naive and
simplistic. Nevertheless, her writing remains a monument to a
BOND, Carrie Jacobs state of mind and feeling lost after World War I; for this reason, it
is to be treasured. In her life and work Bond paid tribute to the
Born 11 August 1862, Janesville, Wisconsin; died 28 December power of the traditional homespun virtueshard work, persever-
1946, Hollywood, California ance, and faith. Her success is a testimony to the efcacy of
Daughter of Hannibal Cyrus and Mary Emogene Jacobs; mar- those ideals.
ried E. J. Smith, 1880; Frank Lewis Bond, 1889; child-
ren: one son
OTHER WORKS: The Path o Life (1909). Tales of Little Cats
(1918). Tales of Little Dogs (1921). A Perfect Day and Other
Carrie Jacobs Bonds kinship to John Howard Payne (a
Poems (1926). Little Monkey with the Sad Face (1930).
cousin on her grandmother Jacobs side), composer of Home,
Sweet Home, provides the key to her life and work. In both, she
exemplied the traditional, simple values extolled by the song. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Smith, C. C., Corneys Mission Inn (1993).
In 1889 Bond married Frank Lewis Bond, a physician, who Reference works: National Cyclopedia of American Biogra-
took her to live in the mining town of Iron River, Michigan. Bond phy (1892 et seq.). NAW, 1607-1950 (1971).
considered these the happiest years of her life. But Bond died in Other references: American Magazine (Jan. 1924). Indepen-
1895 of injuries from a fall, leaving his wife to care for her son and dent Woman (Nov. 1945). LAT (13 Aug. 1978). NYT (29 Dec.
herself. Without money, but with her usual courage and determi- 1946). Just Folk: A Carrie Jacobs Bond Evening (video, 1979).
nation, Bond sold most of her possessions, except her piano, and
moved herself and her son to Chicago. For a time she supported JANETTE SEATON LEWIS
herself and her son by running a rooming house, painting china,
and sewing.
Bond gradually began to receive recognition and took over BONNER, Marita
the publication and marketing of her songs. She established her
own company in 1906, and eventually became the wealthiest
woman songwriter in the country, owning several homes. She Born 16 June 1898, Brookline, Massachusetts; died 6 December
published her most successful song, A Perfect Day, in 1910. It 1971, Chicago, Illinois
was the pinnacle of Bonds career, selling more than ve million Wrote under: Joseph Maree Andrew
copies in 14 years. Daughter of Joseph and Mary Anne Bonner; married William A.
Occomy, 1930; children: William, Jr.; Warwick, Marita
Bond was not trained as a singer, but she began singing her
songs at events simply to have them heard. She half talked, half Marita Bonner was among the foremost artists, educators,
sang, in what she referred to as her composers voice. With the and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance. She began her
success of her songs came demands for her performance. She writing career as a student at Brookline High School where her
appeared before both Roosevelt and Harding at the White House, contributions to the student magazine drew the attention of a
and once sang on the same program with Caruso. faculty member who encouraged her to enroll at Radcliffe. There
Bonds later years brought both worldwide recognition and she majored in English and comparative literature and studied
tragedy. She received many honors and awards, notably an creative writing with the celebrated Professor Charles Copey
honorary masters of music degree from the University of South- Copeland. A lifelong student of music and German language and
ern California in 1930 and the Forest Lawn Award for achieve- literature, Bonner received a B.A. from Radcliffe in 1922. She
ment in music. The latter established a scholarship at the Universi- went on to publish a host of plays, essays, reviews, and short
ty of Southern California School of Music in her name in 1945. ction, some of which received long-overdue publication in the
prize-winning collection, Frye Street and Environs (1987), edited
Bond published about 170 songs, though she wrote as many by Bonners daughter with Joyce Flynn.
as 400. Her rst published collection, Seven Songs As Unpreten-
tious As the Wild Rose (1901), is typical of the kind of song and While residing in Boston, Washington D.C., and then Chica-
verse she wrote throughout her life. Two of her most famous go, Bonner taught English, participated in a theater company, and
105
BOOTH AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
was actively involved in an eminent literary salon. A regular Dramatic Writers (1990). Oxford Companion to Womens Writ-
contributor to the major journals of the Harlem Renaissance, ing in the United States (1995).
Crisis and Opportunity magazines, Bonner won the 1925 Crisis Other references: Black American Literary Forum (Spring/
Award for her essay, On Being Younga Womanand Col- Summer 1987). Saga (1985).
ored and the 1927 Crisis Contest Award for four other works in
three genres. She received honorable mention in the 1925 Oppor- SHARON A. LEWIS
tunity Awards for her short story, The Hands.
Bonners heightened awareness of her role as a black woman

artist surfaces in On Being Young. She boldly articulates the BOOTH, Mary Louise
unenviable and taxing position of a relatively privileged black
woman who is deeply concerned with the spiritual and political Born 19 April 1831, Millville, Long Island, New York; died 5
welfare of her people, particularly those who are socially and March 1889, New York, New York
economically impoverished, less fortunate than herself. Daughter of William Chateld and Nancy Monsell Booth
Bonners drama and short stories are marked by a diverse
Mary Louise Booths one major work, her History of the City
range of literary devices and strategies. Experimentally and of New York (1859), was the rst complete history of the city from
thematically expansive, her ction explores on one level the its Dutch origins to its Empire City status in the 1850s. In it, Booth
psychological states of black American women enduring the yoke stressed the impact of the Dutch on New York life, maintaining
of racial, sexual, and class oppression. On another level, her short that the period of Dutch control, particularly the period of the
ctioncommonly set in Chicago in the 1920s and 1930streats pacic rule of Stuyvesant, produced the marked individuali-
the experiences of the historically disenfranchised black commu- ty which set New York apart from other eastern cities. She saw
nity engaged with the racist American society at large. Her best- in the broad and liberal nature of the rst settlers the founda-
known play, The Purple Flower (1928), is a vexing allegorical tion for the extended view of men and things which character-
portrayal of racism in America. In several of her stories, Bonner ized the later city.
meticulously examines the problems of class and complexion
within the black community; here, she is a thematic associate of As a 19th-century historian, Booth gave due attention to the
Jessie Fauset and Nella Larsen. Also evident in Bonners work is political and military history of the city. She stressed the role of
her penetrating vision of the human condition, manifested through New York in the American Revolution, dealing with both political
her symbolic thoroughfare, Frye Street. and social issues. She underscored the political leadership of
revolutionary leaders and assessed the cost to the city of the long
The quilt, by now a familiar icon of black womens writing, British occupancy. Perhaps Booths strongest contribution, how-
most faithfully symbolizes the colorful and complex body of ever, lay in her stress on social and cultural developments. She
Bonners works. The quilt epitomizes as well her snugly inter- gave attention both to the growth of slavery and to the underlying
woven place in the black womens writing tradition. racial prejudice in the city. She cited the despotic regulations
controlling the lives of the early-18th-century slaves and discussed
at some length the tragic consequences of the alleged Negro Plot
OTHER WORKS: Exit, an Illusion (1923). The Pot Maker: A Play to of 1741. That alleged conspiracy, she argued, belonged in the
Be Read (1927). foremost rank of popular delusions.
Short ction in Opportunity (Aug. 1925, Dec. 1927, July
1933, Aug. 1933, Sept. 1933, July 1934, March 1936, July 1938, In tracing New Yorks growth as an economic and nancial
center, Booth emphasized the citys response both to newcomers
Jan. 1939) and in Crisis (Sept. 1926, May 1928, June 1939, Dec.
and to new ideas. In New York, she noted, the original pioneer
1939, March 1940, Feb. 1941).
type did not entrench itself in isolated power but proved able to
The papers of Marita Bonners are housed in the Radcliffe
blend with other races and groups. In the tolerance for new ideas
College Archives.
and persons she saw a major source of the citys vitality. While
appreciative of the position of eminence New York had attained
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Abramson, D. E., Angelina Grimkl, Mary Burrill, by the 1850s, Booth also wrote with a degree of nostalgia. She
Georgia Douglas Johnson, and Marita Bonner: An Analysis of regretted certain lost cultural values and warned that the citys
Their Plays (1985). Dana, M. W., Working Women in Depres- very individuality was in danger. She saw New York as being at a
sion-Era Short Fiction: The Short Stories of Tess Slesinger, cultural crossroads in 1859. While the city had the potential to
become the Athens of America, New Yorkers had to choose
Dorothy Parker and Marita Bonner (dissertation, 1999). Flynn, J.
whether to stress economic and nancial power or the wealth of
Marita Bonner Occomy (1987). Roses, L. E., and R. E. Randolph,
brains.
Marita Bonner: In Search of Our Motherss Gardens (1987).
Roses, L. E., Harlem Renaissance and Beyond: Literary Biogra- Booths other work was of a varied nature. She began writing
phies of 100 Black Women Writers 1900-1945 (1990). early for educational and literary journals and newspapers. After
Reference works: DLB 51 (1987). Dictionary of the Harlem the Civil War, she became editor of the newly inaugurated
Renaissance (1984). Early Black American Playwrights and Harpers Bazaar. She was also a prolic translator of books, her
106
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BORG
rst work being The New and Complete Clock and Watchmakers denouncing many China specialists for their critical views of
Manual (1860). She was particularly interested in books about Chiang Kai-shek and the support given to him by the U.S. As
French history and French reactions to the American Civil War China correspondent of the Institute of Public Relations, Borg,
and Reconstruction. She also translated fairy tales, including however, remained unintimidated. She published articles critical
those of douard Laboulaye. of Chiang Kai-sheks corrupt and unpopular government in which
she questioned Americas unconditional support. She explained
Although not a trained historian, Booth showed in her how the student protests in Kuomintang China, which she ob-
History of the City of New York that she had a sound historical served, were symptomatic of the unrest among all classes.
perspective. While she was primarily a narrative historian, she Their insistence that the civil war must stop was an important
sometimes gave a critical analysis of events. She had an easy expression of popular opinion. Chiang Kai-sheks power struggle
uent style and kept in balance local concerns and matters of against the communists was a losing battle, and for the U.S. to
general interest. In her view, New Yorkers lacked a true sense of give nancial assistance to him under these circumstances was
history, valuing achievements but disregarding the process in- useless and detrimental to future Sino-American relations.
volved in attaining those goals. Booths broad-gauged work
provided a solid basis for appreciation of the citys past. After the McCarthy furor had subsided, Borg went on to
work with the East Asian Research Center at Harvard University,
from 1959 to 1961. Then, in 1962, she became the senior research
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Boltin, S. K., Successful Women (1888). Spofford, associate of American Far Eastern policy at Columbia Universi-
H. P., Our Famous Women (1884). Spofford, H. P., A Little Book tys East Asian Institute.
of Friends (1916).
Reference works: Appletons Cyclopedia of American Biog- Borgs next major work, The United States and the Far
raphy (1888). NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). Supplement to the Cyclo- Eastern Crisis of 1933-1938: From the Manchurian Incident
pedia of American Literature (1865). through the Initial Stage of the Undeclared Sino-Japanese War,
was published in 1964. In analyzing the effects of Japans
INZER BYERS growing power on the interests and policies of the U.S. in East
Asia. Borg points out how the Roosevelt administration worked
very hard at doing nothing. Although there was a great deal of
lofty rhetoric on international responsibilities, the U.S. acqui-
BORG, Dorothy esced to Japanese expansion and was not willing to champion
Chinas independence. The major concern was not to antagonize
Japan. Thus assistance to China was restricted to what the
Born 4 September 1902, Elberon, New Jersey; died 25 Oc-
Japanese would not nd objectionable. On the other hand, for fear
tober 1993
of it appearing that the U.S. was condoning Japanese aggression,
Daughter of Sidney C. and Madeleine Beer Borg
Franklin Roosevelt avoided taking positive steps to improve
relations with Japan.
Dorothy Borg dedicated her life and career to the study and
teaching of American-East Asian relations. After graduating from The State Department Archives Borg examined reveal the
Wellesley College in 1923, she pursued more advanced studies attitudes of American ofcials toward the Chinese communists,
and received her Ph.D. from Columbia in 1931. Her doctoral and clearly illustrate many of the erroneous assumptions that
dissertation was published in 1947 under the title, American account for much of Americas failure in China. Borg masterfully
Policy and the Chinese Revolution, 1925-1928. Not only is it a used documents and periodicals to recreate the environment in
work of great scholarship, but, unlike most dissertations, is which Americas China policy was determined. By being
enjoyable reading. Through personal consultation with such lead- craftsmanlike, fair-minded, and even-tempered, she was able to
ing participants as Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg, as well as make another valuable contribution to our understanding of a
through an examination of State Department documents and most exasperating period in the history of American foreign
various unofcial publications, Borg produced a fascinating study. It policy. She concludes that policy decisions need to be better
is particularly noteworthy for its portrayal of the interrelated informed of the realities of the situation if they are to be creative
pressures and counterpressures of public opinion at home, the and successful. For her outstanding scholarship, Borg received the
rising nationalism in China, and the national interests of other Bancroft History Prize in 1965.
treaty powers. Borg masterfully shows how all of these factors
complicated policy problems in Washington. The book received Another of Borgs publications of major signicance is a
outstanding reviews by fellow scholars and was credited as having work she edited along with Shupei Okamota entitled Pearl
made an invaluable contribution to the eld of diplomatic history. Harbor as History: Japanese-American Relations, 1931-1941
(1973). Some 24 scholars contributed essays that analyze culture,
Unfortunately, however, the late 1940s and early 1950s, political process, and government structure as they related to
which encompassed the era of Cold War McCarthyism, was a Japanese-American relations during the 1930s. In this way the
controversial if not dangerous time for a scholar to be commenting editors hoped to offer fresh answers to the questions concerning
on Americas policy toward China. China lobbyists were actively why the U.S. and Japan went to war in 1941. The organization of
107
BOTTA AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
the volume includes an introduction and summary by Richard his Literati, most of Bottas work is typical of the sentimental
Leopold of discussions at a 1969 conference, and detailed essays verse of the day. Many of the poems are dedicated to her mother
analyzing the role of prime ministers, congresses, the president, and to friends, treating the themes of lifes battle and death in a
private economic groups, nancial defense bureaucracies, liberal sentimental, romanticized fashion.
and right-wing organizations, the press, and intellectuals. Borgs
Bottas most substantial work, the Handbook of Universal
own essay is a discourse on policymakers in Washington, analyz-
Literature (1860), was prepared for popular reading and attempt-
ing various kinds of inevitable interrelationships and conicts.
ed to give a unity to the history of literature that illustrated Bottas
The work has been praised for the new data made available on
holistic notion of the universe. Bottas insights into the writing of
Japanese politics and diplomacy, and for its value as a guide to
contemporary American authors, many of them personal friends,
secondary and archival sources.
are still interesting to students of American literature. The Hand-
In recognition for her lifelong dedication to U.S. foreign book went through several editions and was a favorite college text
relations, Borg was awarded the Norman and Laura Graebner through the end of the century.
Award in 1986. She died in 1993 at the age of 91.
Miscellaneous poems and articles, often published
anonymously, appeared in the Democratic Review, the Home
BIBLIOGRAPHY: New Frontiers in American-East Asian Relations: Journal, Godeys Ladys Book, and Grahams Magazine, as well
Essays Presented to Dorothy Borg (1983). as in gift annuals and albums. The most interesting of these is
The Diary of a Recluse, an autobiographical narrative of
PATRICIA LANGHALS Bottas years as a tutor to the Gardiner family of Shelter Island,
New York. One of the least sentimental of Bottas published
pieces, it chronicles her mental and emotional development and
her attempts to understand it.
BOTTA, Anne C(harlotte) Lynch As a hostess of one of the most exciting literary salons of the
19th century, Botta made her mark on her era and in Americas
Born 11 November 1815, Bennington, Vermont; died 23 March social history. Her passionate interest in people, her tact, her
1891, New York, New York eagerness to serve all contributed to her success in drawing
Wrote under: Anne Lynch Botta, Anne Lynch together artists, reformers, and statesmen for lively discussion and
Daughter of Patrick and Charlotte Gray Lynch; married Vincenzo witty repartee. In the 1840s and 1850s, her salons were largely
Botta, 1855 literary, a meeting place for notables like Edgar Allan Poe,
Margaret Fuller, and William Cullen Bryant. After the war, when
Anne C. Lynch Bottas father, an Irish patriot who emigrated salons were becoming more social than intellectual, she main-
to America rather than swear allegiance to the British crown, died tained her standards and became especially popular with foreign
in 1819. Botta attended the Albany Female Seminary, one of the visitors like Thackeray and Trollope. Bottas salons provided the
most progressive schools for women in the early-19th century. environment where art, intellect, and society could meet, and
While at school, she received class honors and awards for her where individuals could enjoy stimulating conversation at its best.
poetry. After teaching for a short time at the Seminary, Botta Bottas work, however, indistinguishable from that of other
worked as a tutor and in 1845, she moved to New York City with sentimental women authors, can be classied as popular litera-
her mother. There she wrote for the popular press, made her ture, and is now of interest primarily to literary and cultural
reputation as hostess to the literati, and taught young women in historians.
her home and at the Brooklyn Academy for Young Ladies. In
1850 Botta left New York and stayed in Washington, D.C., for
four seasons, where she successfully petitioned Congress for the OTHER WORKS: Diary of a Recluse in The Gift (1843).
unpaid portion of her grandfathers military pay and worked as Memoirs of Anne Charlotte Lynch Botta Written by Her Friends
Henry Clays private secretary. In 1855 she married an Italian with Selections from Her Correspondence and from Her Writings
Dante scholar then visiting in the U.S. and they made their home in Prose and Poetry (ed. V. Botta, 1893).
in New York City, where Botta continued her salon and her
writing.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Botta, V., ed., Memoirs of Anne C. Lynch Botta
Botta published three books and miscellaneous prose and (1893). Dolan, A. M., The Literary Salon in New York,
verse in magazines and journals. The Rhode Island Book (1841), 1830-1860 (dissertation, 1957). Fenton, M. B., The Life and
compiled during her residence in Providence, is an anthology of Letters of Anne Lynch Botta (thesis, 1940). Hemstreet, C.,
the writings of prominent citizens of the state from the time of Literary New York (1903). Sherwood, M. E., An Epistle to
Roger Williams to her own. Poems appeared in 1849 and went Posterity (1898). Walker, C., American Women Poets of the
through three editions. Though Poe complimented poems like Nineteenth Century: An Anthology (1992).
The Ideal and The Ideal Found for vigor of rhythm. . .dig- Reference works: American Women, F. E. Willard and M. A.
nity and elevation of sentiment. . .and in energy of expression in Livermore (1897). Cyclopedia of American Literature, E. A. and
108
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BOURKE-WHITE
G. L. Duyckinck, eds. (1855). Dictionary of American Biography, George Patton when he opened Buchenwald. Her reputation was
National Cyclopedia of American Biography (1892 et seq.). NAW, great, and Bourke-White, appreciative of the value of being
1607-1950 (1971). A Supplement to Allibones Critical Diction- slightly notorious, allowed myths about herself to spread.
ary of English Literature and British and American Authors (1891).
Other references: New York History (1942). By 1957 after 21 years at Life, Bourke-White was forced to
resign because of the crippling effects of Parkinsons disease.
KAREN SZYMANSKI Unable to use her camera, she wrote Portrait of Myself (1963), an
autobiography that records her struggle against the disease. She
was able to hold the disease at bay temporarily with constant
exercising, but an accident that forced her into bed nally allowed
BOURKE-WHITE, Margaret the disease to overcome her indomitable spirit.
While no theoretician, Bourke-Whites photo-essays exhibit
Born 14 June 1904, New York, New York; died 27 August 1971 clarity, warmth, and crispness. She believed fact and beauty were
Daughter of Joseph White and Minnie E. Bourke; married the keystones for good pictures, especially when the images
Everett Chapman, 1924; Erskine Caldwell, 1939 captured the similarities between people. While initially almost
exclusively a photographer, Bourke-White wrote the text of her
Margaret Bourke-White attended several universities before later books in the same crisp, clear, warm style her pictures
receiving her degree in biology from Cornell in 1927. The death of illustrate.
her father during her senior year forced her to earn her own way,
so she did photo work for the Cornell Alumni News. After
OTHER WORKS: The Story of Steel (with D. Kulas, 1928). U.S.S.R.
graduation she moved to Cleveland, Ohio, and began a profes-
Photographs (1934). Freighters of Fortune (with N. Beasley,
sional career, not in biology, but in photography. She began to
1930). The Book of Sunnybank (with A. P. Terhune, 1934). The
make a name for herself as an industrial photographer at a time
Terhune Omnibus (ed. M. J. Herzberg, 1937). North of the
when the U.S. was falling in love with the machine. She helped
Danube (with E. Caldwell, 1939). Say, is This the U.S.A.? (with E.
develop the techniques needed for dark/high intensity light situa-
Caldwell, 1941). Shooting the Russian War (1942). They Called It
tions such as those found in foundaries. In the spring of 1929
Purple Heart Valley (1944). Dear Fatherland, Rest Quietly
Henry Luce asked Bourke-White to work as an associate editor for
(1946). Halfway to Freedom (1949). A Report of the American
the yet-unborn Fortune magazine. The magazine would serve as
Jesuits (with J. LaFarge, 1956). The Photographs of Margaret
an ideal vehicle for Bourke-Whites adulation of machines and
Bourke-White (1973). Margaret Bourke-White: The Cleveland
factories.
Years, 1927-1930 (1976). The Taste of War (1985). Margaret
In the early 1930s Bourke-White executed photo murals in Bourke-White, 1904-1971: Photographs (1988). Double Expo-
RKO Radio City, took her rst trip to Russia, and put together her sure: The Story of Margaret Bourke-White (video, 1989). Power
rst book, Eyes on Russia (1931). A 1934 Fortune assignment to and Paper: Margaret Bourke-White, Modernity, and the Docu-
photograph the effects of the Depression on Midwestern farmers mentary Mode (1998). Margaret Bourke-White: Photogra-
led to Bourke-Whites awareness that people are more than pher (1998).
gures useful for establishing relative size in photos. Her new-
found social compassion led to a collaboration with Erskine
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ashby, R. and D. G. Ohrn, Herstory: Women Who
Caldwell in documenting the plight of southern tenant farmers and
Changed the World (1995). Brown, T. M., Margaret Bourke-
sharecroppers, You Have Seen Their Faces (1937). This book
White: Photo-Journalist (1972). Callahan, S., ed., The Photo-
represented a new form of journalism that integrated picture and
graphs of Margaret Bourke-White (1972). Daffron, C., Margaret
word as well as being one of the earliest depictions of the
Bourke-White (1988). Felder, D. G., The 100 Most Inuential
Depressions effects on human existence.
Women of All Time (1996). Flavell, M. K., You Have Seen Their
In 1936 Bourke-White gave up her associate editorship at Faces: Gisele Freund, Walter Benjamin and Margaret Bourke-
Fortune to become one of the four original photographers for the White as Headhunters of the Thirties (1994). Goldberg, V.,
new Luce photographic magazine called Life. From the 1930s on, Bourke-White (1988). Hood, R. E., The Compleat Bourke-
Bourke-Whites work was constantly before the public: she White in 12 at War (1967). Howard, W. L., Dear Kit, Dear
displayed her work in the 1930 exhibit Men and Machine, shot Skinny: The Letters of Erskine Caldwell and Margaret Bourke-
the rst cover of Life, published photo-essays in dozens of White (1988). Kirkland, W. M. and F. Kirkland, Margaret
magazines, lmed two moving pictures on Russia, and wrote Bourke-White, Photographer of Steel, in Girls Who Became
several books. At the outbreak of World War II, Bourke-White, Artists (1934). McEuen, M. A., Changing Eyes: American Cul-
accredited as an ofcial Air Force photographer, did work for the ture and the Photographic Image, 1918-1941 (dissertation, 1991).
Air Force and Life simultaneously. She was in Russia when the Pollack, P., Margaret Bourke-White: Roving Recorder in The
Germans invaded, taking incredible risks to shoot pictures, devel- Picture History of Photography (1969). Raymond, M. T., Girl
op them, and get them to America. She was in a ship torpedoed on with a Camera, in Topight Famous American Women (1946).
the way to Africa, ew aerial missions, and was with General Rolka, G. M., 100 Women Who Shaped World History (1994).
109
BOWEN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Rubin, S.G., Margaret Bourke-White: Her Pictures Were Her Life With Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitution-
(1999). Silverman, J., For the World to See: The Life of Margaret al Convention, May to September, 1787 (1966), Bowen returned
Bourke-White (1983). Tucker, A., ed., The Womans Eye (1973). to the theme of emerging free government in America. She
Reference works: The Encyclopedia of Photography (1963). stressed not so much the intricacies of the debates themselves as
Other references: Life (10 Sept. 1971). NYT (26 Oct. 1930, 28 the interactions of the men, the compromises achieved, and the
Aug. 1971, 10 Jan. 1971, 5 Sept. 1971, 12 Sept. 1971). factors that made the adoption of the Constitution both crucial and
possible. Her last work was The Most Dangerous Man in Ameri-
MIRIAM Z. LANGSAM ca: Scenes from the Life of Benjamin Franklin (1974). In this
account of ve periods of Franklins life, Bowen traced his
change from adherent to critic of Great Britain and explored the
complexities of his personality and roles. The book is also a
BOWEN, Catherine Drinker personal document, essays of personal reection indicating her
own afrmative response to this Enlightenment man.
Born 1 January 1897, Haverford, Pennsylvania; died 1 November
Bowen wrote several works on biographical writing itself,
1973, Haverford, Pennsylvania
Daughter of Henry Sturgis and Aimee Beaux Drinker; married including Adventures of a Biographer (1959), a series of informal
Ezra Bowen, 1919 essays; and Biography: The Craft and the Calling (1968), a study
of biographical problems and techniques. Bowen also wrote
Friends and Fiddlers (1935), informal, anecdotal essays on cham-
Although Catherine Drinker Bowen began her career as a
ber music by amateurs; and Family Portrait (1970), a history of
writer of ction, including a novel, Rufus Starbucks Wife (1932),
she early chose the role of biographer. It is in her biographical the Drinker family.
works that her major contributions as a writer lie. Bowen took the narrative approach to biography, focusing
Music gave a central focus for Bowens early biographical both on the individual personality and the age itself. The intrica-
works, Beloved Friend: The Story of Tchaikowsky and Nadejda cies of personal development concerned her most, rather than the
von Meck (1937), and Free Artist: The Story of Anton and critical exploration of historical issues. In her early work, Bowen
Nicholas Rubinstein (1939). The rst work involved interweaving often utilized ctional devices, such as transposing letters and
letters by the composer and his patron into a biographical narra- diary entries into conversation. With the Coke biography, howev-
tive; the second portrayed the Rubinsteins interaction with the er, she abandoned such techniques, relying henceforth on a skilled
musical and political world of late tsarist Russia. In these works, use of documents and mastery of detail to convey the sense of
Bowen revealed her skill in characterization. reality.
In the 1940s Bowen found a new biographical focus: men of As a biographer, Bowen revealed both a keen sense of the
law and their role in the development of free government. From complexities of human nature and the problems of personal
this concern came three biographies. Yankee from Olympus: interactions. In her handling of historical eras, she is perceptive in
Justice Holmes and His Family (1944), is a three-generational judgement and makes graphic use of detail. Ultimately Bowens
study, reaching back for the roots that permitted so splendid a strength as a biographer resides in her vivid and dramatic portrai-
owering in Holmess own life. In her portrait of Holmes as ture and her sensitive conveyance of the spirit of an age.
legal pioneer, judicial dissenter, and man of ideas and passion,
Bowen impressively achieved her aim to bring Justice Holmes
out of legal terms into human terms. In John Adams and the OTHER WORKS: The Story of an Oak Tree (1924). A History of
American Revolution (1950), Bowen concentrated on the lawyer Lehigh University (1924). On Being a Biographer: An Address
as political leader. She stressed Adamss commitment to British (1950). The Writing of Biography (1951). The Biographer Looks
constitutional principles and his growing disillusionment with for News (1958). The Nature of the Artist (1961). The Histori-
British practices. And she depicted with force and clarity his role an (1963).
in the colonies growth toward independence.
With The Lion and the Throne: The Life and Times of Sir
Edward Coke, 1552-1634 (1957), Bowen turned to the English BIBLIOGRAPHY: Luckham, W. R., Passionate History: Catherine
roots of American constitutionalism. Her account centered on Drinker Bowen and the Narrative Biography (thesis, 1992).
Cokes transformation from chief prosecutor for the Crown to Yankee from Olympus: Justice Holmes and his Family in
ardent champion of the House of Commons and the Petition of Readers Digest Great Biographies (1987).
Right. Her portrait of this difcult but impressive man gives Other references: AHR (Oct. 1957). Atlantic (July 1957). NR
full due to the complexity of his nature and his role as jurist and (29 May 1944, 2 Nov. 1974). NYT (18 June 1950, 23 June 1963,
legal authority. Bowen followed with Francis Bacon: The Temper 20 Nov. 1966). SRL (11 June 1950). Catherine Drinker Bowen:
of a Man (1963), a study of Cokes great rival. Although this book Other Peoples Lives (lm, 1971).
was written as a biography, Bowen saw it as essays of personal
reection on a man and his thought. INZER BYERS
110
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BOWERS
BOWEN, Sue Petigru a table, and little else, she became a gardener, a vegetarian, and,
according to her niece Ann Bolton, as much of a recluse as if she
had lived in a Cave under Ground or on the top of a high
Born 1824, Charleston, South Carolina; died 1875
mountain. Although Bowers was a Quaker by profession, Boltons
Also wrote under: Sue Petigru King
Daughter of James L. Petigru; married Henry King diary reports that she was so Wild in her Notions it was hard to
nd out of what religion she really was of. She read her Bible
Sue Petigru Bowen published her novels, all set in the deep much but I think sometimes to no better purpose than to afford
South, just before the Civil War. Lily (1855), her longest novel, matter for dispute in w[hich] she was always positive. Bowers
presents the tragic tale of the eponymously named young heroine eventually became a Quaker preacher, taking her ministry to
who, orphaned at ten, becomes the richest heiress in her county. South Carolina.
She is adopted by friends of her father, eventually grows to
Though records exist today for only a single volume, Bowers
maturity, but falls in love with a weak man who loves her but
cannot restrain his promiscuous appetites. The day before her is said to have written a number of books: Bowers, in fact, spoke
wedding to the repentant Clarence Tracey, Lily is murdered by his of her Works in the plural. Bowers extant volume, An Alarm
mistress as she is trying on her bridal dress. A good part of the Sounded to Prepare the Inhabitants of the World to Meet the Lord
narrative is devoted to descriptions of Lilys genteel Southern in the Way of His Judgments (1709), used the conventions of
educationher French lessons, dance instruction, and needle- spiritual autobiography to trace her life as a seemingly endless
workand also to her fashionable clothes, parties, and picnics. series of fears to be overcome. Making an analogy between
herself and Job, Bowers outlined a progression of divinely or-
Later works, such as Sylvias World; and Crimes Which the dained tests which served to place her in a special relationship
Law Does Not Reach (1859), also deal with the fashionable life. In with God. One by one, Bowers conquered her terrors of death, of
the latter, rich, virtuous girls are contrasted with coquettes.
hell, of her own strong pride, of writing and publishing, of
Interesting here is the presentation of Southern social life at a rich
preaching, even of nudity. Her spiritual progress toward a kind of
resort and the portrait of Mrs. St. Clair, a former coquette who
self-control dictated by God is presented in An Alarm as an
learns through hard experience that love lasts longer than admira-
example others may follow.
tion. In Sylvias World, a rash but virtuous young girl has her heart
broken by trusting the wrong young man. He cares more for her Interestingly, Bowers perceived her most difcult task to be
fortune than for her. the struggle against her own ambition, her chief evil and very
Bowen deals with the fashionable world of resorts and balls potent Enemy. Paradoxically, she viewed the publication of An
and with the maturation of young girls into womanhood. Her male Alarm as a triumph over this personal ambition. Though present-
characters are charming but weak and untrustworthy, and her ing her life to the public as an example for emulation may seem an
novels have didactic rather than happy endings. The vision of act of pride, Bowers emphasized the Scorn and Ridicule her
young, trusting girls destroyed or embittered through their experi- audacity would bring: tis best known to my self how long I
ences with men haunts her novels. labored under a reluctancy, and how very unwilling I was to
appear in print at all; for it was, indeed, a secret terror to me to
ROSE F. KAVO
think of making a contemptible appearance in the world. . . . [But]
now I can hear my Reputation called in question, without being
stung to the heart. Public response to An Alarm went unrecorded,
BOWER, B. M. but perhaps Bowerss fears were close to the mark. She mentioned
See SINCLAIR, Bertha Muzzy in her preface that she had met with Repulses in [her] proceeding
to Print, which made a very profound and ungrateful Impres-
sion upon [her]. . . . Such Repulses may explain why An
Alarm was nally printed in New York rather than in Bowerss
BOWERS, Bathsheba hometown, Philadelphia. Whatever the reaction of her contempo-
raries, readers today may be interested in Bowerss use of a
Born circa 1672, Massachusetts; died 1718, South Carolina conventional spiritual autobiography for her own unconventional
Daughter of Benanuel and Elizabeth Dunster Bowers activities in writing, publishing, and preaching.
Noted for its eccentricity, Bathsheba Bowerss life has at-

tracted more attention than her writing. She was born to English BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cowell, P., Women Poets in Pre-Revolutionary
Quakers who settled in Charlestown. Though they endured the America, 1650-1775 (1979). Paige, L. R., History of Cambridge,
Puritan persecution of Quakers themselves, the Bowers sent their Massachusetts, 1630-1877 (1877). Potts, W. J., Bathsheba Bow-
daughters to Philadelphia to escape it. ers, in PMHB 3 (1879). Watson, J. F., Annals of Philadelphia,
Bowers remained single all her life, building a small house, and Pennsylvania, in the Olden Times. . . (1905).
which became known as Bathshebas Bower, at the corner of
Little Dock and Second Streets. Furnishing her home with books, PATTIE COWELL
111
BOWLES AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
BOWLES, Jane Auer Pleasures (1966). Harriet leaves her sisters every year to stay at
Camp Cataract, in hopes she can get used to the outside world and
ultimately leave home permanently. Her sister Sadie tries to
Born 22 February 1917, New York, New York; died 4 May 1973,
convince her that you dont grow rich in spirit by widening your
Malaga, Spain
circle but by tending your own. When Sadie panics and comes
Daughter of Sydney and Clair Stajer Auer; married Paul
after Harriet, Sadie realizes it is she who is going on that journey
Bowles, 1938
from home, not Harriet. Sadie is perhaps the only Bowles charac-
ter who gets to the end of her search for herself, but the quest ends
After attending public schools in Long Island, Jane Bowles
in her death. Rather than emerging free from her clinging sister,
was tutored by a French professor in Switzerland. In 1935 she
nished Le Phaeton Hypocrite, a novel in French which was Harriet appears to exchange her for an aggressively depend-
never published and which has disappeared. After 1938 she and ent friend.
her husband lived in Central America, Europe, Mexico, and New
Bowles introduced almost the same plot in overtly lesbian
York City. From 1947 they spent most of their time in Tangier,
form in her unnished story Going to Massachusetts, which
Morocco.
appears with other fragments from Bowless notebooks in a
Bowles nished her only novel, Two Serious Ladies in 1941, posthumous collection called Feminine Wiles (1976). Through
and from 1944 to 1953 was engaged in writing and revising her her constant resetting of these pairs of warring women, Bowles
only full-length play, In the Summer House, ultimately produced presents a full picture of the female psyche and the extremes to
in New York City in 1953 by the Playwrights Company. which the personality is driven by the pressures of modern
society. Her representative woman tries to realize her potential
Most of the short stories which constitute the remainder of
within a world that tells her to be chaste, experienced, loyal to her
Bowless works were written during the 1940s. According to Paul
family, supportive of her man, and independent. Bowles describes
Bowles, Jane became hypercritical of her writing in the 1950s. In
1957 she suffered a cerebral hemorrhage which deprived her of this fragmented world and its absurd expectations in a style which
her ability to read and write. Her health worsened slowly, and she is eccentric, and sometimes almost surrealistic. Characters form
died in 1973, in Malaga, Spain. All of Bowles stories are about attachments and abandon each other rapidly and unreasonably;
women and their attempts at independence; male characters are they speak their minds to each other with a frankness which the
seldom important, even as blocking characters. When Bowles reader does not expect in the middle-to upper-class world that
women characters cannot nd themselves, it is other women who Bowles portrays. These sudden twists force the reader to share in
are holding them back. The essential Bowles plot presents a the sense of menace and confusion that the freedom-seeking
woman who sees to break away from tradition and nd new Bowles heroine feels in her relationship to the world.
adventures in the outside world, and a second womansister,
companion, loverwho tries to keep her at home within the old
habits of dependence. OTHER WORKS: Collected Works of Jane Bowles (1966). A Day
in the Open in The Granta Book of the American Short Story
In Two Serious Ladies, (1943), Christina Goering tries to
(1992). The Collected Works of Jane Bowles: With a New Intro-
earn salvation by leaving her home and her female companion to
duction (1989). In the Summer House in Plays by American
challenge the hated outside world. There she takes up with a series
Women, 1930-1960 (1994). My Sisters Hand in Mine: The
of increasingly menacing male strangers, the last of whom abandons
Collected Works of Jane Bowles (1966, reissued 1995). Out in the
her. The second serious lady is Frieda Coppereld, who leaves her
World: Selected Letters of Jane Bowles, 1935-1970 (1990).
husband for a prostitute named Pacica, who ultimately forces
Frieda to share her with a young man. The promiscuity, bisexuality, Plain Pleasures in Innite Riches: Classic Stories by 20th-
and sadomasochism in this novel are seldom erotic, but tend century Women Writers (1993). Senorita Cordoba in The
instead to illustrate the hidden horror in human relationships, most Graywolf Annual Two: Short Stories by Women (1986).
of which consist of greedy individual truth-seekers bouncing their
needs off each other.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bowles, P., The Portable Paul and Jane Bowles
The menace inherent in human interdependence is also the (1994). Dillon, M., Jane Bowles: Experiment as Character in
subject of Bowles play, which concerns two mother/daughter Breaking the Sequence: Womens Experimental Fiction (1989).
pairs. Vivian Constable rejects her mother and attaches herself to Dillon, M., A Little Original Sin: The Life and Work of Jane
Mrs. Cuevas, whose jealous daughter Molly murders Vivian. Mrs. Bowles (1981, 1998). Gentile, K. J, Speaking the Ineffable Name:
Cuevas abandons Molly to get married, and when Mrs. Cuevas The Novels of Emily Bront, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Djuna Barnes,
later returns to reestablish the old dependency, Molly chooses to
and Jane Bowles (dissertation, 1987). Knight, B., ed., Women of
go off with her own husband. Mrs. Cuevas threatens to tell Mrs.
the Beat Generation: The Writers, Artists, and Muses at the Heart
Constable about the murder, but it becomes clear that Mrs.
of Revolution (1996). Lacey, R. K., and F. Poole, eds., Mirrors on
Constable doesnt really care.
the Maghrib: Critical Reections on Paul and Jane Bowles and
It is the relationship between sisters Bowles examines in her Other American Writers in Morocco (1996). Maier, J. R., Desert
best short story, Camp Cataract, part of the collection Plain Songs: Western Images of Morocco and Moroccan Images of the
112
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BOYLE
West (1996). Skerl, J., A Tawdry Place of Salvation: The Art of Literary Supplement encouraged her to submit some work, which
Jane Bowles (1997). she did. Three of her stories for the Voice became the rst chapters
Reference works: World Authors 1950-1970 (1975). of her novel The Revolution of Little Girls (1991).
Other references: Life (16 Dec. 1966). Mlle. (Dec. 1966).
Novel (1968). SR (14 Jan. 1967). The book deals with a protagonist, Ellen Burns, who begins
to understand and accept her lesbianism and Southern roots after
PAULA L. BARBOUR years of drinking, enduring a poor marriage, getting mixed up in a
series of love affairs, going through several career changes, and
testing out different lifestyles. Michael Dorris, writing in the New
York Times Book Review, said, A mood of what might be called
wise nostalgia permeates this brief novels nine chapters, most of
BOYD, Blanche McCrary which could easily stand on their own as short stories. . . . Just
when we think we have identied a somber tone in The Revolution
Born 1945, Charleston, South Carolina of Little Girls, however, the author springs a scene so funny that
married (divorced) we laugh out loud. A reviewer in Publishers Weekly added,
Ellens story is fascinating and spirited, but hard to grasp, and
Blanche McCrary Boyd is a novelist, essayist, and writer of her experience becomes elusive.
short ction. Her stories take place in the American South, where
Boyd revisited Ellen Burns in Terminal Velocity (1997),
Boyd was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. Her
which focuses on Ellens four years during the 1970s when she
ction and nonction are known for their humor, but also deal
was part of the lesbian-feminist movement and called herself
with difcult themes such as drinking and mental instability.
Rain. The tale involves Rains nervous breakdown, eventually
Boyds rst book, Nerves (1973), for example, concerns a mother
leading to electroshock treatments, and drug abuse. Andrea Barnet
and daughter who are isolated emotionally from each other, even
wrote in the New York Times Book Review, As it crisscrosses the
as the mother, Lena, loses her best friend to suicide and begins
country, Boyds story moves from comic high jinks through
to go mad.
seduction, betrayal and nally violence with a speed that at times
Boyds works also feature female characters, often including feels dizzying. While noting that the novel was difcult to read
the protagonist, who are in the midst of addressing their sexuality at some points but ended up with a redemption of sorts, Barnet
and dealing with their romantic desires for other women. Mourn- continued, [Boyds] is a voice that never wavers in its authority
ing the Death of Magic (1977), Boyds second book-length work or its erce sexual politics.
of ction, is about three characters dealing with the ramications In addition to her books and her contributions to the Voice
of the civil rights movement, one of whom is unable to come to Literary Supplement, Boyd has written essays, reviews, and short
terms with her own lesbianism. stories for publications including Esquire, New York Times Maga-
In 1981 Boyd published a collection of candid essays, many zine, and Premiere. She has also taught writing at several loca-
of which had been seen rst in the Village Voice, dealing with her tions, including at Connecticut College.
departure from and eventual return to the South. The book was
called The Redneck Way of Knowledge: Down-Home Tales. The
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1998).
contemplative and beer-soaked essays, in the words of Library
Other references: Christopher Street (20 Oct. 1991). Ms.
Journal, touch on her leaving Charleston for college at Duke
(June 1982). NYTBR (30 June 1991, 24 Aug. 1997). PW (16 Apr.
University, her imperfect marriage in the suburbs of California,
1982, 15 Mar. 1991, 19 May 1997). Nation (19 June 1982).
her life in a commune in Vermont during the 1960s, her relation-
ships with female lovers in New York during the 1970s, and her
KAREN RAUGUST
mixed feelings toward her native South and her gradual accept-
ance of her heritage and past.
A reviewer in Nation wrote that the book was a redneck
rubberneck tour of the Rockettes, Pope John Paul II at Yankee BOYD, Nancy
Stadium, stock car races, a Tough Man contest, the Ku Klux Klan See MILLAY, Edna St. Vincent
shoot-up of those Commies in Greensboro, North Carolina, and
the 1980 Democratic National Convention. The magazine, which
praised Boyds serious articles on violence and politics as su-
perb, termed the more personal essays bantamweight and BOYLE, Kay
called the author a bit of a lesbian tease.
After the publication of The Redneck Way of Knowledge, Born 19 February 1902, St. Paul, Minnesota; died 27 December
Boyd stopped drinking and lost the courage to write ction again 1992, Mill Valley, California
for nearly 10 years, during which time she effectively remained in Daughter of Howard P. and Katharine Evans Boyle; married
hiding, as she later admitted. Eventually, the editor of the Voice Richard Brault, 1922; Laurence Vail, 1931; Joseph Von
113
BOYLE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Franckenstein, 1943; children: Sharon, Apple-Joan, Kathe, very old age. An excerpt from the rst book, the story of an
Clover, Faith, Ian Englishmans insensitivity on Dublins St. Stephens Green,
appeared in Atlantic (June 1980).
Kay Boyle studied music and architecture before marrying a
French engineering student and moving to his home in Brittany. A retrospective of Boyles work is emerging as her writing is
The marriage had crumbled by 1926, but Boyle remained in introduced to a new generation; several novels have been reprint-
Europe until after the fall of France in 1941. In 1946 she returned ed in Modern Classics editions. Both Fifty Stories (1980, 1992)
to Europe as a foreign correspondent for the New Yorker, while and Life Being the Best and Other Stories (1988) offer representa-
her third husband served with the War Department in occupied tive short ction from ve previous collections, stories both
Germany. She later taught at various American universities and personal and political, shaped by her years in pre- and postwar
was professor of English at San Francisco State. She received Europe, blazing with anger and compassion.
Guggenheim Fellowships in 1934 and 1961, and the O. Henry
Prize for best short story in 1935 (The White Horses of Vien- Most of the essays in Words That Must Somehow Be Said
na) and 1941 (Defeat). (1985) rst appeared in magazines, from early book reviews in
transition to the sharper political essays of the postwar and
Boyles settings are frequently European. Her novel, Plagued Vietnam era. In contrast, the poems in This Is Not a Letter and
by the Nightingale (1931) is loosely based upon a summer with Other Poems (1985) represent her writing from the late 1960s to
her Breton relatives. At rst, the novel was praised as a sensitive the 1980s. The mellowing in these poems (Dwell. . .on the
treatment of an American abroad, but today it has taken on new courage of the dead) reects a new acceptance of age, but never
interest as the story of a young couple who decide not to have a surrender.
children (because of hereditary disease) and are bitterly opposed
by their rigid, provincial family. In a sense, Boyles emphasis shifted from her initial concern
with the word to a concern with the world, though both were
Boyles acute awareness of European social and political
conditions is revealed in The White Horses of Vienna, where always of great importance to her. She believed that writ-
swastika res bloom at night on the Austrian mountains, preguring ers. . .must bear the full weight of moral responsibility. Biogra-
Nazi domination; the Lippizaners (the famed white stallions) pher Sandra Whipple Spanier argues that Boyles reputation as a
symbolize a lost nobility; and a tamed fox foreshadows the savage serious writer has suffered precisely because she has taken her
future. Two of her nest novellas are The Crazy Hunter (1940) writing so seriously, often leading her to choose unpopular
and The Bridegrooms Body (1940). The former is a horse that is positions, although her passionate defense of human dignity
suddenly struck blind, but its young owner refuses to allow it to be seems better understood now in the light of history.
destroyed. Boyle carefully works through the blindness-sight
motif, interweaving it with complex relationships between a weak Boyle nally achieved the recognition she should have
father, a strong-willed mother, and a budding daughter. The latter received long ago. In the 1980s she was honored for her lifetime of
dwells on the fatal attraction and isolation of love. writing, with grants and fellowships from the Before Columbus
Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fund for
Fascinated by the subtlety in human relations, Boyle is Poetry, and in 1989, its rst year of awards to writers who have
often concerned with political issues, which she has always met made signicant contributions to English-language literature, a
fearlessly; for Boyle, silence is not a position. Her book The special award for outstanding literary achievement from the
Smoking Mountain: Stories of Germany During the Occupation Lannan Foundation.
(1951) has been called the nest interpretation of that place and
time. . .written in English. Though Boyle clearly does not sym- Boyle said, Camus demanded that the voices of all those
pathize with the Nazis, she exhibits compassion for a proud and who could speak must ring out above the clamor of a world, ring
defeated people. Perhaps her best-known novel is Generation out in the doomed silence of the persecuted, and in this way make
without Farewell (1960), written from the viewpoint of a German the destiny of other men less lonely than before. Her life and
journalist who identies with the Americans and rejects his own writing were a testament to this ideal. She was at her best when
countrymen, only to discover that he really belongs to neither writing about highly complex human beings caught in political,
world. Although Boyle began as a poet, her prose is far more social or psychological turmoil, struggling to maintain identity
skillful than her verse. Her novels, always technically well con- and balance. Her outrage at the violation of human dignity was
structed, often contain brilliant passages. Her strongest prose form carefully muted, revealed rather than preached. She wrote with
is the novella. Here she can create a single, sustained theme, and consummate skill and passionate sincerity, and is recognized as a
embroider and enrich upon it. major novella writer in American ction.
Boyle, whose rst book appeared in 1929, continued until
her death to write with the same enthusiasm and dedication. Her
publications after 1980 included two collections of stories, a OTHER WORKS: Short Stories (1929). Wedding Day, and Other
volume of essays, a book of poems and a collected edition of her Stories (1930). Landscape for Wyn Henderson (1931). Don Juan
poems, and a translation. She also continued her work on books (by J. Delteil, translated by Boyle, 1931). Mr. Knife, Miss Fork
about Irish and German women, projects she had saved for her (by R. Crevel, translated by Boyle, 1931). Devil in the Flesh
114
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BOYLSTON
(by R. Radiguet, translated by Boyle, 1932). A Statement (1932). BOYLSTON, Helen Dore
Year Before Last (1932). The First Lover, and Other Stories
(1933, (1991). Gentlemen, I Address You Privately (1933, 1991).
Born 4 April 1895, Portsmouth, New Hampshire; died 30 Sep-
My Next Bride (1934). The White Horses of Vienna, and Other
tember 1984
Stories (1936). Death of a Man (1936, reprinted 1989). Monday
Daughter of Joseph and Fannie Dore Boylston
Night (1938, 1977) A Glad Day (1938). The Youngest Camel
(1939). Primer for Combat (1942). Avalanche (1944). American
Citizen: Naturalized in Leadville, Colorado (1944). A Frenchman An only child, Helen Dore Boylston attended Portsmouth
Must Die (1946). Thirty Stories (1946). 1939 (1948). His Human public schools and trained as a nurse at Massachusetts General
Majesty (1949). The Seagull on the Step (1955). Three Short Hospital. Two days after graduating, she joined the Harvard
medical unit that had been formed to serve with the British Army.
Novels (1958). The Youngest Camel Reconsidered and Rewritten
After the war, she missed the comradeship, intense effort, and
(1959). Breaking the Silence: Why a Mother Tells Her Son about
mutual dependence of people upon one another when under
the Nazi Era (1962). Collected Poems (1962). At Large (with H.
pressure, and joined the Red Cross to work in Poland and Albania.
Kubly (1963). Nothing Ever Breaks Except the Heart (1966).
This work, often in isolation and with little apparent effect, wasnt
Pinky, the Cat Who Liked to Sleep (1966). The Autobiography of
satisfying. Returning to the U.S., Boylston taught nose and throat
Emanuel Carnevali (editor, 1967). Being Geniuses Together:
anaesthesia at Massachusetts General for two years. During this
1920-1930 (with R. McAlmon (1968). Pinky in Persia (1968).
time Rose Wilder Lane read Boylstons wartime diary and ar-
The Lost Dogs of Phnom Penh (1968). The Long Walk at San
ranged for it to be published in the Atlantic Monthly.
Francisco State, and Other Essays (1970). Testament for My
Students, and Other Poems (1970). Enough of Dying! An Antholo- In the diary, Boylston wonders if the narrower, traditionally
gy of Peace Writings (editor, 1972). Underground Woman (1975). feminine world would have contented her if there had been no
A Poem for February First 1975 (1975). Four Visions of America war: I might even have married, as the nal Great Adventure
(with E. Jong, et al. (1977). Collected Poems of Kay Boyle (1991). which now seems to me a terrifying and impossible thing to do.
Winter Night (1993). Coming into a small inheritance, she spent several years living in
Most of Kay Boyles manuscripts and other papers are at the Europe. When her money was lost in the Depression, she returned
Morris Library of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. again to nursing but, in the meantime, began trying to earn a living
by writing.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bell, E., Kay Boyle: A Study of the Short Fiction The short stories Boylston sold to the Atlantic and elsewhere
(1992). Clark, S., Sentimental Modernism: Women Writers and are small narrative moments, with carefully controlled viewpoints
the Revolution of the Word (1991). Elkins, M. R. ed., Critical and a detailed perception of the surface of reality. Dawn is
Essays on Kay Boyle (1997). Elkins, M., Metamorphosizing the about a girls rst kiss; several others are told through the eyes of a
Novel: Kay Boyles narrative Innovations (1993). Ford, H., Four dog, cat, or horse. Failing to discover any important adult subject
Lives in Paris (1987). Gado, F., Kay Boyle: From the Aesthetics of matter, Boylston began to reproduce, for girls, the milieu she
Exile to the Polemics of Return (dissertation, 1968). Hamalian, L., knew best. Sue Barton, Student Nurse, published in 1936, was the
D. H. Lawrence and Nine Women Writers (1996). Jackson, B. K., rst of a series of seven in which Boylston intended to supply
The Achievement of Kay Boyle (dissertation, 1968). Madden, C. F., accurate information about a much-romanticized profession. Four
ed., Talks with Authors (1968). Mellen, J., Kay Boyle: Author of Carol books in the early 1940s did the same for the stage;
Herself (1994). Moore, H. T., Age of the Modern and Other Boylstons friend and neighbor, Eva LeGallienne, supplied her
Literary Essays (1971). Smith, N.A., War, Gender, and Silence in with the necessary background.
the Works of Katherine Anne Porter, Carson McCullers, and Kay The Sue Barton books are not written to formula; some are
Boyle: We Have Become Articulate (dissertation, 1996). Spanier, episodic while others answer a single dramatic question. Al-
S. W., Kay Boyle: Artist and Activist (1986). Thompson, J. C., A though the rst is undoubtedly the bestlongest, most careful in
Re-Evaluation of Kay Boyles Wartime Novel Avalanche (disser- characterization, richest in detailall are technically well above
tation, 1994). Tooker, D., and R. Hofheins, Fiction: Interviews the level of series ction. They also reect the times in which they
with Northern California Novelists (1976). Yalom, M., ed., Wom- were written. In the early novels, Sue Barton is an acceptable
en Writers of the West Coast: Speaking of Their Lives and 1930s career woman, who postpones marriage rst to develop her
Careers (1983). own talents and then for nancial reasons. In Visiting Nurse
Reference works: CAAS (1984). CANR (1990). CLC (1990). (1938) she does socially conscious work in the slums and in the
DLB (1980, 1981, 1986). FC (1990). Great Women Writers: The next book (1939) creates her own job by persuading farm women
Lives and Works of 135 of the Worlds Most Important Women to fund a rural nurse service. By 1949, however, she is the mother
Writers, from Antiquity to the Present (1994). MTCW (1991). TCL of three children under six, and wondering whether her training is
(Fall 1988). wasted now in her role as wife and mother. The next book,
Other references: CE (Nov. 1953). Criticism (1965). Kenyon Neighborhood Nurse (1949), insists that it is not and ends with a
Review (Spring 1960). NYT (10 July 1966). new pregnancy as answer to the problems of a restive wife,
although in the nal book, written in 1952, Boylston arranges for
JOANNE MCCARTHY Sues husband to be stricken with tuberculosis so she can happily
115
BRACKEN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
return to hospital work. She also makes a point of demonstrating grew with short stories, light verse, a syndicated newspaper
that Sues children are not harmed by having a working mother. column, and articles on a wide range of female topics in
periodicals such as Atlantic, McCalls, Ladies Home Journal,
The Sue Barton books remain in print and the earlier ones, at Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, and the Saturday
least, are still much read by girls between eight and twelve. Like Evening Post.
Boylstons wartime diary, the books are full of cocoa-parties and
female comradeship. Sue Barton, though technically an adult, is Known primarily as a humorist who appealed mainly to
actually a big girl with whom preadolescents identify; she is jolly, women, Brackens impact on popular culture deserves more
frank, competent, mischievous, and rather timid about facing her attention and credit. A benevolent facetiousness and lively spirit
superiors. The only thing she does with the man she loves is work of parody mark her tone. She provokes a new, more realistic
with him, as friends, to bandage a burn or track down a typhoid perspective on sociability, especially with respect to the increas-
carrier. The books are kept moving by minor crises in which Sue ingly independent role of women as the major actors, instigators,
takes a bus downtown and is afraid she will get lost, must stay and interpreters of social drama.
alone in the dark, is unsure of her ability to take on responsibility,
Discoursing lightly but authoritatively on subjects such as
has misunderstandings with her friends, or must deal with authori-
housekeeping, childrearing, travel, the telephone, rites of passage,
ty gures who are sometimes unfair or mistaken. In other words,
and the art of conversation, Bracken established herself as a
Sue is confronted with the crises which loom large in the lives of
popular social commentator on the practical matters of human
preadolescents, rather than the actual social and emotional dif-
relations. She wrote The I Hate to Cook Book (1960) for the
culties of the late teens and twenties. Sue solves most of her
harried cook who refuses to be tied to the kitchen, and The I Hate
problems without adultor malehelp. Nursing is portrayed as
to Housekeep Book (1962) for the growing class of occasional
womans ideal career because it is useful, caritative, and super-
housekeepers. I Try to Behave Myself (1964) was a bestselling
vised. It is not glamorized, however: the books give brisk and
manual on common sense manners.
bracing accounts about operations, dirty work, and insanity. Each
book emphasizes supportive female friendship; several reach an Bracken is an iconoclastic member of that overwhelmingly
emotional climax in the heroines relationship with some admira- female elite of social arbiters led by Emily Post and Amy
ble older pioneer of nursing or public health. This conception, Vanderbilt. Her effort has been to challenge, soften, and humanize
however, becomes more obviously articial as the demands of some of the more traditional aspects of etiquette in its stiffest
mature womanhood are not met; Sue is neither so convincing nor interpretation of white gloves and calling cards. She arrives at a
so interesting as an adult as she is in the early books. more informal, adaptable code based on good intentions and good
character. In this interpretation, etiquette is granted a wider range
and a more active role in everyday life, rather than a ritual to be
OTHER WORKS: Sister: The War Diary of a Nurse (1927). Sue
reserved for rare occasions.
Barton, Senior Nurse (1937). Sue Barton, Rural Nurse (1939).
Sue Barton, Superintendent of Nurses (1940). Carol Goes Back- This code, which Bracken calls the intelligence of the
stage (1941). Carol Plays Summer Stock (1942). Carol on Broad- heart, accommodates the radical shifts in taste and class that
way (1944). Carol on Tour (1946). Sue Barton, Staff Nurse have occurred since the beginning of the century and especially
(1952). Clara Barton, Founder of the American Red Cross (1955). since the early 1960s. Bracken recommends a pragmatic, inven-
tive approach to the problems of daily living, distinguishing
between the letter of an older social law and the more enduring
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lane, R.W., Travels with Zenobia: Paris to spirit of any sound etiquette system. She advocates a social
Albania by Model T Ford: A Journal (1983). interaction made humane and comfortable through the predicta-
Reference works: CB (1942). The Junior Book of Authors bility that comes from shared understandings among people.
(1951). Twentieth-Century Authors (1978).
The new etiquette acknowledges broadly based norms
SALLY MITCHELL suited to a pluralist society in ux, where once-hard-and-fast
distinctions of social status, age, sex, and education are now
blurring and converging. Bracken seeks to resolve the conict of
old rules encountering new values without giving up the battle
BRACKEN, Peg against the rising tide of barbarism in a steadily more crowded,
uncaring, and competitive world. In this way, Bracken wrestles
with unanswerable questions of contemporary living: what is
Born 25 February, circa 1918, Twin Falls, Idaho
correct (or appropriate) behavior, and how can it be dened,
Daughter of John Lewis and Ruth McQuesten Bracken; married
judged, and performed? How is the individual to manage a system
Parker Edwards, 1966 (second marriage)
of behavior which can only work if the majority understands and
shares in it?
Peg Bracken grew up in St. Louis and graduated from
Antioch College in 1940, where she was editor of The Antiochian In the exploration of these questions, Brackens role is that of
magazine. Her writing career began with advertising copy and a nonexpert, antihero housewife who tries to demonstrate that the
116
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BRACKETT
individual temperament is the true measure of action. Individuals visits to Mars include Shadow over Mars (1944), published in
cannot and should not be forced into imposed patterns of dos and book form under the same title in England in 1951, and renamed
donts. Ironically, however, Bracken has devised her own The Nemesis from Terra (1961) in the United States; and Ark of
imperatives and prohibitions: e.g., 108 Transgressions (based Mars (1953), renamed Alpha Centaurior Die! (1963). What is
on Buddhist beliefs) and 13 Things Children Should Learn and arguably Bracketts best story, Sea-Kings of Mars (1949), was
the Sooner the Better. Always a realist, Brackens concern is not renamed The Sword of Rhiannon (1953) in its book form and is
with how people ought to behave but how they do and would like loosely connected to Sorcerer of Rhiannon (1942).
to. Ultimately, Brackens devotion is to the art of civilized living
in a society which has left one set of standards behind and is badly Bracketts rst novel was No Good from a Corpse (1944), a
in need of another. mystery, which was followed in that genre by other crime novels
such as Stranger at Home (1946, ghostwritten with actor George
Sanders); An Eye for an Eye (1957); The Tiger Among Us (1957),
OTHER WORKS: Peg Brackens Appendix to The I Hate to Cook which was reprinted as Fear No Evil (1960) and as 13 West Street
Book (1966). I Didnt Come Here to Argue (1969). But I Wouldnt (1962); and Silent Partner (1969).
Have Missed It for the World: The Pleasures of an Unseasoned
Traveler (1973). The I Hate to Cook Almanack: A Book of Days In 1946 Brackett married fellow science ction writer Edmond
(1976). The Compleat I Hate to Cook Book (1986). The I Still Hate Hamilton. Critic John Clute contends that Brackett may have
to Cook Book (1967, reissued 1980). On Getting Old for the First inuenced Hamiltons writing, which seems to improve notice-
Time (1997). A Window Over the Sink: A Mainly Affectionate ably after World War II. Brackett also collaborated with a young
Memoir (1981). Ray Bradbury on a novelette, Lorelei of the Red Mist, in
Planet Stories.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: PW (25 May 1964). SR (5 Sept. 1964). WD In the 1950s Brackett penned science ction novels like The
(May 1970). Starmen (1952), renamed twice as The Galactic Breed (1955) and
The Starmen of Llyrdis (1976); The Big Jump (1955); and The
MARGARET J. KING Long Tomorrow (1955), a postapocalyptic novel. Late in the
decade she wrote a western novel, Rio Bravo (1959), and then the
screenplay, which went on to become a hit lm that year directed
by Howard Hawks, starring John Wayne, Dean Martin, Angie
BRACKETT, Leigh (Douglass) Dickinson, Ricky Nelson, Walter Brennan, Ward Bond, and
Claude Akins. This successful western was followed by another
Born 7 December 1915; died 1978 novel in the same genre, Follow the Free Wind (1963), a ctional
Married Edmond Moore Hamilton, 1946 account of James Pierson Beckwourth (1798-1866). Rio Bravo
was later remade as Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), directed by
Leigh Brackett is identied with the science ction, fantasy, John Carpenter, and spawned a sequel lm, El Dorado (1967),
and mystery elds, but is less known for her work in lms, which also starring John Wayne, along with Robert Mitchum, James
is also stellar. Her rst science ction story, Martian Quest, Caan, and Ed Asner. The screenplay was written by Brackett and
appeared in the pulp magazine Astounding Science Fiction in directed by Hawks. It was not the only time Brackett would work
1940, launching a rash of stories in science ction magazines with the legendary director; she also cowrote the screenplay for
throughout the decade, including appearances in Thrilling Won- The Big Sleep (1946) with William Faulkner and Jules Furthman,
der Stories and Planet Stories. She became known for her based on the Raymond Chandler character Philip Marlowe and
swashbuckling adventure stories, usually set on Mars. Unlike starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall; Hatari (1962),
Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter of Mars series, there was no which starred Wayne and Red Buttons; and Hawks nal lm, Rio
continuity in most of Bracketts stories until she created Eric Lobo (1970), again with Wayne, Jennifer ONeill, and Jack Elam.
John Stark. Brackett also penned the screenplay for The Long Goodbye
(1973), Chandlers penultimate novel, starring Elliott Gould and
The rst Stark story appeared as a serial called Queen of the directed by Robert Altman, and a stinker called The Vampires
Martian Catacombs (1949), followed by Black Amazon of Ghost (1945).
Mars (1951), both in Planet Stories. They were later expanded
into books as The Secret of the Sinharat (1964) and People of the In the 1970s, the last decade of her life, Brackett edited The
Talisman (1964), respectively, and collected in the Eric John Best of Planet Stories #1: Strange Adventures on Other Worlds
Stark: Outlaw of Mars (1982) omnibus. Stark would eventually (1974). She also worked on her last screenplay, The Empire
move on to Venus in Enchantress of Venus (1949) and then Strikes Back (1980), second in the acclaimed Star Wars series,
into the galaxy in The Ginger Star (1974), The Hounds of Skaith nished by Lawrence Kasdan, for which she received a posthu-
(1974), and The Reavers of Skaith (1976), the latter three becom- mous Hugo award. She would also edit The Best of Edmond
ing The Book of Skaith: The Adventures of Eric John Stark (1976). Hamilton (1977), the same year Hamilton edited The Best of Leigh
Many of the stories were also collected in The Coming of the Brackett, and the same year he passed away. The following year,
Terrans (1967) and The Haling and Other Stories (1973). Other Brackett was gone too, but her work continues to appear in print in
117
BRADLEY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
anthologies, as well as in numerous re-releases of her lm work Homosexual Fiction, in English, or available in English Transla-
on videocassette, laser disc, CD-ROM, and DVD. tion, with Supplements of Related Material, for the Use of Collec-
tors, Students, and Librarians in 1960, with supplements in 1961
and 1962, which foreshadowed her later openness about her own
OTHER WORKS: The Jewel of Bas (1944). sexual orientation.
Works anthologized in: Dozois, G., ed., The Good Old Stuff:
Adventure SF in the Grand Tradition (1998). Gorman, E. et al, Bradley graduated from Hardin-Simmons College in Abilene in
eds., American Pulp (1997). Pronzini, B., and J. Adrian, eds., 1964 and went on to do graduate work at Berkeley (1966-67).
Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories (1995). Divorced from Robert Bradley, she married Walter Breen, had
Sargent, P., ed., Women of Wonder: The Classic YearsScience two more children, and continued her writing career. She has con-
Fiction by Women from the 1940s to the 1970s (1995). Staicar, T., tinued to live in California, and, despite several strokes, acted as
ed., The Feminine Eye: Science Fiction and the Women Who the doyenne of a productive group of younger fans and writers,
Write It (1982). Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays: Star continued to produce novels, and edited two series of anthologies,
WarsA New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi Greyhaven and Sword and Sorceress. In 1988 she began to
(1997). Weinberg, R. et al., eds., Tough Guys & Dangerous publish and edit Marion Zimmer Bradleys Fantasy Magazine,
Dames (1993). which encourages tales of sword and sorcery, the fantasy
subgenre with which she is popularly associated.
Bradleys most popular series of novels, beginning with The
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Arbur, R., Leigh Brackett, Marion Zimmer Brad- Planet Savers and The Sword of Aldones in 1962, are set on
ley, Anne McCaffrey: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography Darkover, a snowy and forbidding planet originally settled by
(1982). Benson, G., Jr., Leigh Douglass Brackett and Edmond colonists from Earth. In the centuries following, the lost
Hamilton: A Working Bibliography (1986). Carr, J. L., Leigh settlers have developed a patriarchal feudal society ruled by an
Brackett: American Writer (1986). Clute, J., and P. Nicholls, eds., aristocracy that holds power partly through hereditary psychic
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993). Mallett, D. F., and R. abilities. The planets rediscovery leads to interesting conicts
Reginald, Reginalds Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards: A between Earths modern technology and Darkover conservatism.
Comprehensive Guide to the Awards and Their Winners, 2nd
edition (1991), 3rd edition (1993). Reginald, R., Science Fiction The Darkover novels are almost ideal illustrations of the
& Fantasy Literature, 1975-1991: A Bibliography of Science ways in which attitudes toward women as writers and subjects of
Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Fiction Books and Nonction science ction have changed. The earliest, designed to appeal to a
Monographs (1992). young and almost entirely male audience, are essentially exotic
adventure stories centered on white male heroes, with few female
DARYL F. MALLETT characters. But beginning with The Heritage of Hastur (1975),
Bradley began to write more complex novels focused on personal
relationships and politics rather than action, and gradually to shift
from male to female protagonists. Acknowledging her own
BRADLEY, Marion Zimmer lesbianism, she began to explore sexual roles and show both male
and female homosexuals in a positive light. Particularly inuen-
Born 3 July 1930, near Albany, New York; died 25 September tial has been her invention of the Free Amazons (or Renunciates)
1999 in The Shattered Chain (1976). These are women who in a male-
Also writes under: Lee Chapman, John Dexter, Mariam Gardner, centered world have freed themselves from a dependence on men.
Valerie Graves, Morgan Ives, Alfrida Rivers, John J. Wells Their lives are not easy or trouble-free, but their community offers
Daughter of Evelyn C. and Leslie Raymond Zimmer; married an alternative to Darkovers oppressed women.
Robert A. Bradley 1949 (divorced); Walter Breen, 1964
(divorced); children: David, Patrick, Dorothy A young adult series involving three princesses faced with
dangerous quests and self-revelation began with Black Trillium
(1990), coauthored with Andre Norton and Julian May; Bradley
Marian Zimmer Bradley grew up on a farm in upper New
was sole author of the fourth in the series, Lady of the Trillium
York state, where she very early developed a love for reading and
(1995). Bradley teamed up again with Norton and Mercedes
writing. Having won a National Merit Scholarship, she attended
Lackey to produce Tiger Burning Bright, about the women in
New York State College for Teachers (1946-48), but left to marry
three generations of a ruling house who must ee and travel in
a fellow science ction fan, Robert Bradley, many years her
disguise when an evil emperor overthrows their city-state. The
senior, and moved to Texas. She had begun writing as a teenager,
novel was not critically acclaimed, but the elements of feminism,
and after her marriage and the birth of David began a prolic
magic, romance, and action-adventure are characteristic of Brad-
output, mostly romances, gothics, and fantasies, to help support
leys writing.
her family and pay for her return to college. Beginning in 1952 she
published under a number of pseudonyms. She used her own Ghostlight (1995), Witchlight (1996), Gravelight (1997), and
name, however, when she published (with Gene Damon) Check- Heartlight (1998) are departures from Bradleys outer space
list: A Complete, Cumulative Checklist of Lesbian, Variant, and settings; they feature Truth Jourdemayne, a researcher into the
118
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BRADSTREET
paranormal, who nds herself drawn into mysteries involving Century Science Fiction Writers (1991). St. James Guide to
occult phenomena. Science Fiction Writers (1996).
Other references: Interzone (1990). Science Fiction Studies
Bradley has written and edited at least 40 other novels and (March 1980).
anthologies. Of particular interest to women are The Ruins of Isis
(1979), an ambiguous depiction of a society in which women
LYNN F. WILLIAMS,
dominate men, and two historical novels. The Mists of Avalon
UPDATED BY FIONA KELLEGHAN
(1983) became hugely popular and inuential, skillfully retelling
Arthurian legend from the point of view of Morgan Le Fay.
Dramatizing the struggle between traditional Goddess-worship
paganism and the spread of Christianity, Bradley presents a
fascinating revision of the motivations and agonies of a familiar BRADSTREET, Anne Dudley
cast made new: Arthur, Merlin, Lancelot, Gwenhwyfar, Vivian. It
is a powerfully feminist novel, depicting both the prosaic and the
magical aspects of the lives of the women who provide the novels Born 1612, Northampton, England; died 1672, Andover,
emotional punch. Avalon led to a resurgence of interest in the Massachusetts
Matter of Britain in fantasy ction, not omitting Bradleys own Wrote under: A Gentlewoman in Those Parts; A Gentlewoman in
later The Forest House (1994), a romance set in Roman Britain, New-England
and Lady of Avalon (1997). Daughter of Thomas and Dorothy Yorke Dudley; married
Simon Bradstreet, 1628
Bradley performed a similar transformation of myth in The
Firebrand (1987), which tells the story of Kassandra against the
Anne Bradstreet lived for 60 years, a long life for one who
backdrop of the Trojan War and, as in Avalon, of a matriarchal
was in chronic ill health and who reared eight children. Her youth
society overpowered by the patriarchal rule of the Greeks and
was spent in England in a particularly fortunate time. Though the
their male pantheon.
queen had died, the times were still Elizabethan and it was still an
era of exploration and expansion, of political and cultural growth.
Bradstreet had the advantage of living in the household of the Earl
OTHER WORKS: Selected: The Door Through Space (1961). I Am
of Lincoln, where her father was trusted steward and friend of the
a Lesbian (1962). Seven from the Stars (1962). The Colors of
earl. Dudley, called by Bradstreet a magazine of history,
Space (for children, 1963). The Bloody Sun (1964). The Brass
believed in the education of his daughter. She had complete access
Dragon (1969). Darkover Landfall (1972). The Jewel of Arwen
to the excellent library of the earl. Here, too, she learned to know
(short stories, 1974). The Forbidden Tower (1977). Stormqueen
and love another protg of the earl, Simon Bradstreet, whom she
(1978). The Endless Voyage (1979). House Between the Worlds
married two years before the Dudleys and the Bradstreets sailed
(1981). Sharras Exile (1981). Hawkmistress (1982). Thendara
on the Arbella for Massachusetts Bay in 1630. Bradstreets father
House (1983). City of Sorcery (1984). The Best of Marian Zimmer
was governor of Massachusetts, and her husband succeeded him
Bradley (edited by M. Greenberg, 1985). Lythande (short stories,
after she had died.
1986). The Best of Marion Zimmer Bradley (1988). The Heirs
Hammerfell (1989). Sword and Sorceress: An Anthology of Hero- Bradstreet was the rst British-American to have a volume of
ic Fiction (editor, 1992). Rediscovery (1993, with M. Lackey). poetry published, and at a time when the Puritan womans place
The papers of Marian Zimmer Bradley are collected at was in the home. Governor Winthrop, in 1645, was certain that the
Boston University. wife of the Governor of Hartford had lost her wits because she
gave herself wholly to reading and writing. . . if she had attended
her household affairs and such as belong to women and not gone
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Arbor, R., Leigh Brackett, Marion Zimmer Brad- out of her way and calling to meddle in such things as are proper
ley, Anne McCaffrey: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography for men, whose minds are stronger, etc., she had kept her wits and
(1982). Arbor, R., Marion Zimmer Bradley (1986). Benson, G. might have improved them usefully and honorably in the place
and P. Stephensen-Payne, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Mistress of God had set her.
Magic: A Working Bibliography (1991). Merlins Daughters
(1987). Breen, W., The Gemini Problem: A Study in Darkover But Bradstreet did write poems which would not have seen
(1975). Staicar, T., ed., The Feminine Eye: Science Fiction and the light of day had not an admiring brother-in-law, with family
the Women Who Write It (1982). Weedman, J. B., ed., Women connivance, carried them off to England and had them published
Worldwalkers: New Dimensions of Science Fiction and Fantasy under the astonishing title of The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in
(1985). Wise, S., The Darkover Dilemma: Problems of the America (1650). There have been several editions of her work,
Darkover Series (1976). even into the 20th century. Three are most important: the original
Reference works: CANR (1990). FC (1990). Oxford Com- British edition of The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America;
panion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). Twentieth the second edition (Boston, 1678), with corrections by the author
119
BRANCH AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
and the addition of her original lyrics; and the complete edition of 1965). The Works of Anne Bradstreet (ed. J. Hensley, 1967).
her works, edited by John Harvard Ellis (1867), to which were Poems of Anne Bradstreet (ed. R. Hutchinson, 1969).
added her prose pieces. The papers of Anne Bradstreet are at Houghton Library at
Harvard University.
As was becoming to a Puritan woman, Bradstreets rst
poetry was about biblical themes. Her models were Du Bartass
Divine Weeks and Works (1605), a widely read account of the BIBLIOGRAPHY: Berryman, J., Homage to Mistress Bradstreet
creation, and Sir Walter Raleighs History of the World (1614), a (1956). Daggett, J. E., Another Eighteenth Instance of Anne
popular book that began with the creation and continued the Bradstreets Continuing Appeal (Essex Institute Historical Col-
history of mankind to show Gods divine purpose in human lections, 3). Fuess, C. M., Andovers Anne Bradstreet, Puritan
events. The long 174-page rst poem in The Tenth Muse consists Poet, in Andover Symbol of New England (1959). Irvin, W. J.,
of quaternions of The Foure Elements, The Foure Humors of Allegory and Typology Imbrace and Greet Anne Bradstreets
Mans Constitution, The Foure Ages of Man, The Foure Contemplations, in EAL 10. Morison, S. E., Builders of the Bay
Monarchies, all written in closed couplets, all slavishly imitative Colony (1930). Phillips, E., Women Among the Moderns Emi-
of Du Bartas. Only in Choler is there any emotional content, as nent for Poetry, in Theatrum Poetarum (1675). Piercy, J. K.,
if the poet were angry at an injustice, perhaps against the treatment Anne Bradstreet (1965). Rosenfeld, A., Anne Bradstreets
of Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams. Following the four Contemplations: Patterns of Form and Meaning, in NEQ 43.
times four poems is Dialogue between Old England and New, Tyler, M. C., A History of American Literature During the
concerning the present troubles, Anno 1642, which is original in Colonial Period (1897). Vancura, Z., Baroque Prose in Ameri-
content and bold in her political concern. ca, Studies in English, Charles University (Prague), 4 (1935).
Whicher, G. F., ed., Alas, Alls Vanity, or, A Leaf from the First
Bradstreet was not pleased with her poems in print. She set American Edition of Several Poems by Anne Bradstreet (1678).
about revising her rst poetry, and she continued writing anew, White, M. W., Anne Bradstreet, The Tenth Muse (1971).
this time with freedom and originality in thought and structure.
The second (American) edition, with these changes and additions, JOSEPHINE K. PIERCY
appeared in 1678, six years after her death. It is upon these new
poems that her reputation as a poet of excellence rests. They are
free in subject matter, depending upon her own experiences, and
are lyric in form. They compose religious meditations, domestic BRANCH, Anna Hempstead
poems, love poems, and elegies upon lost members of her family.
The most highly regarded poem of all is Contemplations, Born 18 March 1875, New London, Connecticut; died 8 Septem-
composed of 33 stanzas, skillfully wrought, each stanza an entity, ber 1937, New London, Connecticut
yet all interrelated and all expressing the poets recognition of Daughter of John Locke and Mary L. Bolles Branch
God in Nature, a subject so rare it didnt nd its fruition until the
romantic period. An equally remarkable poem in the second Anna Hempstead Branch, the younger of two children, was
edition is The Flesh and the Spirit, which S. E. Morison called born at Hempstead House in New London, Connecticut, where
One of the best expressions in English literature of the conict her mothers family, the Hempsteads, had lived since 1640. Her
described by St. Paul in the eighth chapter of his Epistle to the father was a New York lawyer; her mother wrote popular child-
Romans. rens stories and poems. Following Branchs graduation from
Smith College in 1897, she studied dramaturgy at the American
The Ellis edition shows still another facet of Bradstreets Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, training which is
writing, her prose. There is a brief but moving autobiography, reected in her numerous verse plays and dramatic monologues.
revealing the spiritual doubts of a good Puritan woman. Her
Meditations were short prose pieces showing the inuence of Branch was connected with a number of philanthropic, social
the aphoristic essays of Bacon, emblems similar to those of work, and art organizations, but most of her time was divided
Quarles, and spiritual commentaries like the Psalms, Proverbs, between the Christodora House, a lower east side settlement
and Ecclesiastes. house, and Hempstead House, where she lived with her mother.
At Christodora, Branch established and directed the activities of
The estimate of Bradstreets later poetry has grown with the the Poets Guild, an association organized to bring poetry to the
years. Moses Coit Tyler and John Harvard Ellis were two scholars neighborhood, especially the children, but which also provided
who recognized her worth (in the 19th century). Conrad Aiken occasions for such poets as Edwin Arlington Robinson, Vachel
was the rst to include her in his anthology of American literature; Lindsay, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Sara Teasdale, Ridgely
Samuel Eliot Morison, the distinguished historian, pronounced Torrence, Margaret Widdemer, and Branch herself to read and
her the best American woman poet before Emily Dickinson. discuss poetry.
Branchs poems have a variety of subjects and settings, but
OTHER WORKS: The Works of Anne Bradstreet, in Prose and even those poems with apparently secular subjects are tinged with
Verse (ed. J. Harvard, 1867). The Tenth Muse (ed. J. K. Piercy, a religious and mystical apprehension. In Branchs eclectic rst
120
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BRAUN
volume, Heart of the Road (1901), many of the poems are road words are men and when we spell / In alphabets we deal with
poems in which the road symbolizes transience. The dramatic living things.
monologue The Keeper of the Halfway House, for instance,
In her time, Branch was compared to Robert Browning,
depicts an ironically dependent relationship between the transient
Christina Rossetti, and the metaphysical poets. E. A. Robinson
and the permanent. An innkeeper, a priestly gure who points
and other contemporaries regarded Branch as a major gure,
the way to travelers, sits beside a vacant chair, knowing
repeatedly including her name in discussions of poets of the day.
someone will come and ll it and then move on. As the transients
Although she was not as successful as were Blake and Yeats in
rely on the innkeepers abiding presence, so does the innkeeper
universalizing a private mystical system, she holds a secure place
rely on the succession of travelers to ll his vacant chair. In the
among the minor poets of the United States.
same volume Branch takes a hard look at the question of mortality
and probes the nature of poetic inspiration. In this volume, the
reader is struck by the haunting precision of some of Branchs OTHER WORKS: A Christmas Miracle and God Bless this House
lines and by her ability to sustain a mood. (1925). Bubble Blowers House (1926).
Branchs second volume, The Shoes That Danced (1905),
contains a strange mixture of settings (e.g., fairyland, New York BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bolles, J. D., Father Was an Editor (1940).
City, a monastery) and of characters (e.g., Watteau, shop girls, a Cary, R., The Early Reception of E. A. Robinson: The First Twenty
Puritan minister). Although in sections of the volume Branch Years (1974). Widdemer, M., Golden Friends I Had (1964).
indulges in greeting card sentiments, the title verse drama is Reference works: NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). TCA (1942).
intriguing and suggestive. Along with some masterful poems Other references: NYT (9 Sept. 1937).
expressing metaphysical doubt and some unexceptional reworkings
of great Romantic poems (Selene of Keatss Endymion and ELLEN FRIEDMAN
The Wedding Feast of Coleridges The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner), Rose of the Wind (1910) contains Branchs longest
and most famous work, Nimrod, a Miltonic epic named after
the Babylonian king. Although it was highly regarded by Branchs BRAUN, Lilian Jackson
contemporaries, the diction now seems strained and some of the
imagery imitative. The interest of the epic centers on Branchs Born circa 1916, Massachusetts
curious depiction of language. The work reects Branchs private Also writes as: Ward Jackson
symbolism, her mystical apprehension of language. Married Earl Bettinger, 1979
Branchs most satisfying volume is Sonnets from a Lock Box Lilian Jackson Brauns The Cat Who. . . series has a loyal
(1929). In the title sequence of 38 sonnets, Branch sheds her following of fans, and it is no wonder why to those who have
personae and speaks in the rst person. The sequence is distin- enjoyed her mystery series over the years. Brauns series follow
guished from some of Branchs earlier work by its directness of the life changes and adventures of newspaperman Jim Qwilleran,
expression and originality. It moves from a portrayal of various affectionately known as Qwill to characters in the series and
types of entrapment and enslavement to a search for a means of readers alike. Qwill is an amateur detective, and with the aid of his
escape. Branch seeks liberation in mystical systems, invoking trusty companions, two Siamese cats named Koko and Yum Yum,
alchemy, astrology, cabalistic symbolism, numerology, and Ho- he solves the most complex of murders.
ly Logic. Yet Branch intimates that the problem and the solution
are secondary to the poetry, the music, that they inspire. Brauns rst work was published when she was just sixteen
and did not involve cats or murder mysteries at all. Instead, she
Branchs posthumous volume, Last Poems (1944), edited by sold articles on baseball, a secret love of hers, to Baseball
Ridgely Torrence, her longtime associate at Christodora House, magazine and the Sporting News under the pseudonym Ward
contains some extreme expressions of the mystical preoccupa- Jackson, believing the sports writing eld would accept a man
tions evident in Nimrod and Sonnets from a Lock Box. The more seriously than a woman. Braun had began reading and
most striking poems and the verse drama draw their metaphors writing at the early age of three, inspired by her mother who
from alchemy and numerology. Yet Branch employs these esoter- wanted her to be able to correspond with her grandmother who
ic images in order to approach her nal subjectthe equation of lived far away. And in fact, though she was not actually writing,
language, words, and poetry with the Divine. she composed her rst poem at the age of two: Mother Goose is
up in the sky, and these are her feathers coming down in my eye.
Although Branchs poetry is at times derivative and contains
As she has said herself, Not bad for a two-year-old.
a large population of fairies, kings, clouds, shepherds, along with
the archaic diction appropriate to such a poetic population. Branch Braun began a career as an advertising copywriter, and her
had a genuine gift and an authentic voice. Her deepest subjects are rst cat story was a short story inspired by the unfortunate
language and what is to her its truest expression, poetrythe death of her Siamese named Koko, who fell from a 10-story
changeless reection of the changing dream. For Branch, words window. Neighbors suspected foul play, and thus Braun wrote a
are divine manifestations that not only create, order and give short story, The Sin of Madame Phloi, to memorialize her
meaning to reality, but that are the very stuff of life: I say that beloved cat: I was forty years old when my husband gave me a
121
BRECKINRIDGE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Siamese kitten for a birthday present. . . . I named him Koko, after Why Cats?: As subjects for mysteries, cats are clever, funny,
a character in Gilbert and Sullivans Mikado. Braun wrote other independent, subtle, wily, profound, inscrutable, andyes
cat short stories, many of which appeared in Ellery Queens mysterious. And there are no two alike. But if youre going to
Mystery Magazine. write about them, it helps to be part-cat. And as friends know,
and readers would agree, Braun must be part-cat to write so well
Her ctional writing career truly began in 1966 with the about the felines as she does.
release of The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, in which Qwill,
assisted only by Koko in this rst novel, solves his rst mystery.
The rst novel introduces Qwilleran, a former crime reporter in OTHER WORKS: The Cat Who Played Brahms (1987). The Cat
the city, who is down and out after a bitter divorce and a history of Who Played Post Ofce (1987). The Cat Who Knew Shakespeare
drinking. He nds a job as a features writer with a Midwestern (1988). The Cat Who Had Fourteen Tales (1988). The Cat Who
newspaper, the Daily Fluxion, and in tandem with his job covering Sniffed Glue (1988). The Cat Who Went Underground (1989). The
the local art beat, he solves the murder of an artist. Braun was Cat Who Talked to Ghosts (1990). The Cat Who Lived High
immediately recognized as a promising new mystery writer and (1990). The Cat Who Knew a Cardinal (1991). The Cat Who
quickly followed her rst novel with two more: The Cat Who Ate Wasnt There (1992). The Cat Who Moved a Mountain (1992).
Danish Modern (1967), in which Yum Yum is rescued by Qwill The Cat Who Went into the Closet (1993). The Cat Who Came to
after being abandoned, and The Cat Who Turned On and Off (1968). Breakfast (1994). The Cat Who Blew the Whistle (1995). The Cat
Who Said Cheese (1996). The Cat Who Tailed a Thief (1997). The
Bored with the lonely life of a writer, Braun soon began work
Cat Who Sang for the Birds (1998). The Cat Who Saw Stars (1998).
writing columns for the Detroit Free Press on many of the hobbies
that would become subjects for her ctional counterparts writ-
ings, including antiques, interior decorating, art, and food. She BIBLIOGRAPHY: The Bumbler and the Silken Sleuths: The Cat
remained in this position for 30 years, and after an 18-year hiatus Who Mysteries of Lilian Jackson Braun, in North Carolina
from The Cat Who. . . series, picked up her pen to begin again. In Literary Review (1996). PW (19 Oct. 1998).
1986 she released The Cat Who Saw Red, a manuscript she had Reference works: Encyclopedia Mysteriosa (1994). St. James
written two decades before. This newest volume in the series Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers (1996). CA Online (1999).
proved that Brauns work had lost none of its appeal. She earned a
nomination for an Edgar award from the Mystery Writers of DEVRA M. SLADICS
America in 1986.
Braun went on to write many more mysteries starring Koko
and Yum Yum and their companion, Qwill. There were 21 by
early 1999, and a new one, The Cat Who Robbed the Bank, was
BRECKINRIDGE, Sophonisba Preston
due in 2000. Braun says that keeping the series fresh has never
been a problem; she follows the changes in the lives of Qwill and Born 1 April 1866, Lexington, Kentucky; died 30 July 1948,
the townsfolk of Pickax in Moose County, 400 miles north of Chicago, Illinois
everywhere, evolving the characters with each new novel. Braun Daughter of William Campbell Preston and Issa Desha
writes characters like patchwork quilts of all the people Ive Breckinridge
known, she says. Carol Barry wrote in the St. James Guide to
Crime and Mystery Writers, Brauns ability to introduce and Born of a respected, intellectual family, Sophonisba Preston
sustain a strong cast of supporting characters keeps the reader Breckinridge graduated from Wellesley College in 1888 but
eagerly awaiting the next book. . . . The murders are both surpris- experienced a period of uncertainty characteristic of educated
ing and shocking, but the dialogue, the local color, and the women at this time, who were seen as anomalies with few career
characters make up more of the story than the act of murder opportunities available to them. Breckinridge taught high school
itself. Braun herself says her twist to the mystery story is the in Washington, D.C. until 1894, when she returned to her fathers
uncanny knack of the two Siamese to uncover clues, although it home and law ofce. By 1895, being the rst woman to success-
is a tongue-in-cheek theme, that is my premise: that cats are fully pass Kentuckys bar exams, Breckinridge decided to return
smarter than people, take it or leave it. Her narration is always to school because she could not obtain legal clients; thus began a
vivid, lending a feeling to the reader that they actually know the lifelong career at the University of Chicago. In 1901 Breckinridge
characters and the town of Pickax. Brauns fans are not only loyal earned a Ph.D. in political science and a J.D. in 1904. Simultane-
because of the stories of the unique detective work of Qwill and ously she worked as an assistant dean of women, and as a faculty
his cats, but also because Braun is able to capture their attention member, rst in the department of Household Administration, and
and keep it until the end of the story and even instill anticipation later in the Social Services Administration.
for the next installment.
In 1907 Breckinridge moved into Hull House, the social
Braun lives with her husband, Earl Bettinger, and her two settlement, together with a graduate-school friend, Edith Abbott,
cats, Koko III and PittiSing, in the mountains of North Carolina and lived there intermittently until 1920. Casting off her previous
near the town of Tryon, only promoting her books at nearby academically safe style of research, Breckinridge plunged into
bookstores and cat shows. Braun commented in an article entitled socially involved observations and analyses. At age forty-one, she
122
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BRECKINRIDGE
turned her life and career fully to the study of social welfare created by these situations are discussed, presenting a historical
and change. view of social services in this area. Both Breckinridge and Abbott,
as founders in social work education, generated a remarkable
Womens rights soon emerged as a central concern in her
series of six books (each authoring three), containing selected
writing and everyday life. She became vice president of the
documents and case records on a variety of social problems. These
National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1911, and as
texts helped establish the case work method of study and reporting
a lawyer she helped draft bills regulating womens wages and
in social work and provided a vivid account of individual lives as
hours of employment. She was also an active member of the
they were affected by social change, legislation, and public
National Trade Womens League, the Womens League, the
agencies.
Womens City Club of Chicago, the American Association of
University Women, and the Womens International League for Public Welfare Administration in the United States (1927),
Peace and Freedom. Breckinridges rst contribution to this series, notes early (1601)
origins of legislation and institutions concerning the destitute and
Breckinridge was a major force, along with Edith Abbott, in
mentally ill. Subsequent changes and the resulting hodge-podge
the founding of the Graduate School of Social Service Adminis-
of control and disorder, a legacy to todays welfare state, are noted
tration at the University of Chicago. Training large numbers of
in legal precedents and in statements made by leading authorities
students (by 1935, 1300 students had registered in the program),
of the day in agency management and administration. In the
she helped shape the profession of social work through rigorous
revised edition (1938), the expanding but still chaotic role of the
course work, the introduction of the case history method, and her
federal government is noted.
concern with a holistic, political approach to the solution of social
problems. In 1927 Breckinridge and Abbott helped found the Another volume in the series, Family Welfare Work (1924),
distinguished professional journal Social Service Review, setting presents problems or strains on the modern family: physical
a high standard for scholarly studies of social problems and the and mental illnesses; widowhood; the deserted family; unmarried
profession of social work. mothers; industrial injuries; care of family members, especially
the very young or old. Legislation and the difculty of enforcing it
Evidence of Breckinridges and Abbotts close friendship
for each of the above family problems is presented in document,
and professional support abounds. They were not only members
case history form.
of the same faculty, coadministrators, and coresidents of Hull
House for 13 years, but also coauthors and coeditors. In a world Breckinridges Marriage and the Civic Rights of Women
hostile to intelligent, assertive women, they established a strong (1932) discusses the relationship between marital status and
personal network as unique then as it is today. The Modern citizenship. A key legislation reviewed is the Cable Act of 1922:
Household (1912), coauthored by Breckinridge and Marion Talbot, for the rst time American women could retain their citizenship
Breckinridges colleague and supervisor at the University of when marrying an alien. This book is an astute combination of
Chicago, is an introductory text intended for housewives and law, social relations, and womens rights. The terseness and
college students to help them adapt to social changes affecting the clarity of the text, the comprehensive work done by women
home in modern society. The book covers a variety of topics internationally, the case studies of foreign-born women in Ameri-
ranging from the mundane care of the house to ethical concerns in ca, make this an early classic on the legal status of women and the
consumerism and the community. social barriers they encountered in obtaining citizenship rights.
Abbott and Breckinridge collaborated in writing Truancy Any student and scholar of womens role in society from
and Non-attendance in the Chicago Schools: A Study of the Social 1890 to 1933 will nd Women in the Twentieth Century: A Study
Aspects of the Compulsory Education and Child Labor Legisla- of Their Political, Social and Economic Activities (1933) a must
tion of Illinois (1917). Highly committed to the need for education on their reading lists. The growth of womens participation in life
until age sixteen, the authors examine the many factors leading to outside the home emerged from womens clubs, increased access
school absence, such as poverty, mental and physical defects, lack to institutions for higher education, the suffrage movement, and
of knowledge of the immigrant parents and child, and delinquen- concern with the political arena. Data is given on income and the
cy. Documenting the existence and extent of missed school days distribution of women in various occupations, with a number of
and the historical development of compulsory education, reme- tables providing an invaluable baseline for assessing changes or
dies are suggested. Read today, the authors arguments are still stability in income, and distribution in occupations over time.
timely and the controversy still lively. The continual conict Since this historical period is remarkable for its relatively high
between young people who do not wish to be educated, and the proportion of women professionals, the chapters discussing pro-
state which demands they attend educational institutions, is as fessional and near-professional women, womens earnings, and
problematical today as it was 60 years ago. women in business offer factual information that gives a uniquely
comparative, historical base to issues still vital to women today.
New Homes for Old (1921) is a fascinating account of
Detailed accounts of early women politicians and womens voting
difculties encountered by immigrant women in American socie-
behavior are also provided. This book in many ways is a handbook
ty. Chapters on altered family relationships, housecleaning, sav-
of womens status from 1890 to 1933.
ing and spending money, and child care provide information on
the dramatic changes in everyday life facing the foreign-born The Tenements of Chicago, 1908-1935 (1936) is a massive
housewife. Organizations established to help mitigate the stress study of housing conditions and poverty in Chicago. The book, a
123
BRE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
result of 25 years of research, is based on house-to-house canvass- taught from 1936 to 1953. During World War II, Bre served in
ing in 151 city blocks, and visits to 18,225 apartments. As a result, the French army as an ambulance driver in North Africa and as an
Edith Abbott, the primary author, and Breckinridge, the second- intelligence ofcer in France. From 1953 to 1960 she was
ary author, actually act as editors for a large number of studies chairperson of the Department of French and head of the Romance
done by their students over the years. The problems noted: lack of Languages Department at New York University, and from 1960 to
enforcement of housing regulations, too few city inspectors, high 1973 she was Vilas Professor of French and a permanent member
rents for substandard housing, and large numbers of unemployed of the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of
people suffering from social stress such as broken families, ill Wisconsin at Madison. In 1973 she accepted a Kenan professor-
health, and lack of education, are as relevant today as they were ship in the humanities at Wake Forest University. Bre has
back then. The documentation of these problems provides an received over two dozen honorary degrees and has lectured
excellent historical base for understanding these same prob- widely in the U.S., Europe, and Australia. She has been appointed
lems today. to a large number of national academic and scholarly committees
and was president of the Modern Language Association of Ameri-
Breckinridges career is remarkable for its productivity,
ca in 1975. Bre is the author of numerous books, major antholo-
diversity, and quality. As a woman completely dedicated to social
gies, innumerable articles, introductions, prefaces, and book re-
equality, her life was deeply enmeshed with those of the other views. Many of her doctoral students have become the leading
women who were associated with Hull House: Jane Addams, Julia teacher-scholars of their generation.
Lathrop, and Grace and Edith Abbott. Reading and evaluating
Breckinridges writings, one must consider them products of her What is most characteristic of Bres criticism is her suspi-
contacts with this group, with other intellectuals such as Marion cion that systems tend to mystify rather than clarify. Although she
Talbot, and with her students. At the same time, Breckinridges is well versed in all the isms that have informed 20th-century
inuence on others was overwhelming, as documented by her French culture, she does not expound a single truth. Rather, she
bibliography cards that occupy nearly an inch in the library card invites her readers and students to remain open to the richness of
catalog at the University of Chicago. Her contributions to educa- competing discourses in literary studies. Her books on Proust
tion and social reform attest to her success at being a dedicated and (1950, 1966), Gide (1953), and Camus (1959) are exemplary
intelligent scholar and educator. introductory studies to the major texts of these writers. Bre
always situates the literary text in its cultural context and gives
particular attention to its intellectual and ethical preoccupations,
OTHER WORKS: Administration of Justice in Kentucky (1901). but her emphasis is on the text as a literary construct, as a piece of
Legal Tender (1903). The Child in the City (1912). The Delin- ction. She insists on the pleasures of reading, the sensuous aspect
quent Child and the Home (with E. Abbott, 1912). Madeline of literary discourse, and the intellectual reward found in discov-
McDowell Breckinridge (1921). Social Work and the Courts ering relationships between parts. Her book on Women Writers in
(1934). The Illinois Poor Law and Its Administration (1939). France (1973) was one of the rst attempts in English to trace the
main lines of the feminist debate in France and the position of
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: DAB (1892 et seq.). NAW, French women writers vis--vis the debate and their craft.
1607-1950 (1971). Bres most impressive published work, Le XXe sicle II,
Other references: SSR (Dec. 1948, March 1949, Sept. 1949). 1920-1970 (1978), is a synthesis of the French cultural scene. It
ranges from linguistics and the cinema to cybernetics and molecu-
MARY JO DEEGAN
lar biology. The volume is divided into ve parts: history, politics,
social climate, intellectual currents, and literary movements. The
last part is the most original. Bre chooses two gures to illustrate
each decade: for the 1940s she chooses Simone de Beauvoir and
BRE, Germaine Albert Camus; for 1950-70 she chooses Marguerite Duras and
Claude Simon. Very infrequently does an academic critic who is
Born 2 October 1907, Lasalle, France not explicitly feminist select women writers as part of the main-
Daughter of Walter and Los Andrault Bre stream of contemporary literature. It is a sign of Bres commit-
ment to her own point of view, as well as a sign of her sense of
Teacher and critic of French language, literature, and culture, timing. As she did in her study of Camus and Sartre: Crisis and
Germaine Bre was the rst of six children born to her French Commitment (1972), Bre reformulates contemporary problems
Protestant mother and the third of eight children born to her by demystifying them. She is one of the rare literary critics who
British clergyman father. Both Bres parents were bilingual so present both text and context; she views literature both as a game
she grew up uent in both languages. She studied at the Jersey of words and as a human document. Bre is an outstanding
Ladies College on the island of Jersey (1917-22), the Ecole representative of the humanist tradition in academic criticism and
Normale at Nmes (1922-26), the Faculty of Letters at the Sorbonne in teaching.
(1926-31), and Bryn Mawr College (1931-32).
By the beginning of the 1980s, Bre had established a rm
Bre began her teaching career at the Lyce of Oran in position for herself in the eld of French literature. She holds
Algeria (1932-36) and then returned to Bryn Mawr, where she membership in nearly a dozen academic and writing associations,
124
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BRENNAN
including the Writers Guild and PEN, and received a National Virginia Quarterly Review (Winter 1984). World Literature To-
Book Award nomination for Camus and Sartre: Crisis and day (Autumn 1991).
Commitment. Although retired since 1984 from her position as the
Kenan Professor of Humanities at Wake Forest University, Bre ELAINE MARKS,
has continued to make important contributions to this eld. In UPDATED BY LISI SCHOENBACH AND LEAH J. SPARKS
1983 she updated and revised her 1978 work, Literature Franaise,
1920-1970, published in English as Twentieth Century French
Literature. This nimble, if promiscuous, study of literary histo-
ry, as one critic called it, covers a vast amount of territory. Bre
BRENNAN, Maeve
is at her strongest when speaking of the writers she knows well,
such as Sartre, Camus, de Beauvoir, and Duras. Born 1917, Dublin, Ireland
Daughter of James Brennan and wife; married St. Clair McKelway
In 1990, at the age of eighty-three, Bre published Le Monde
Fabuleux de J. M. G. Le Clzio, a study of the French author and The daughter of an Irish partisan, Maeve Brennan spent most
his works. Bettina Knapp commented: Clarity and cogency, two of her early life in Dublin. In 1934 her family emigrated to
of Germaine Bres many remarkable characteristics as a critic, America where, in the early 1940s, Brennan joined the staff of
serve her well in her latest volume. . . . The novels. . .are all Harpers Bazaar and then the New Yorker. She originated the
explored by Bre in her typically scrupulous manner, underscor- long-winded lady column featured in the New Yorkers Talk
ing their thematic signicance, artistic value, and fascination for of the Town, and published most of her stories in the magazine.
young and old. Her marriage to fellow staffer St. Clair McKelway lasted seven
years. In 1973 Brennan received a literature award from the
Bre continued editing and penning forewords and introduc-
National Institute of Arts and Letters and the American Academy
tions to scholarly volumes into the 1990s, as well as editing a
of Arts and Letters.
series of translated French poetry books for Wake Forest Univer-
sity Press. As a critic whose reviews and critical essays remained Brennans rst book, In and Out of Never-Never Land
in demand, Bre is in little danger of falling into obscurity. Her (1969), is a collection of stories published between 1953 and
early contributions to the eld, such as her works on Proust and 1968. Outstanding tales include The Eldest Child, concerning
Gide, are still considered among the most comprehensive and the death of a newborn son and his parents separate grief;
clearly written books on these much discussed authors. Truly a Stories of Africa, wherein a gentle Irish-woman nervously
grande dame of French literary study, Bre has continued to entertains an elderly bishop and both nd themselves surprisingly
provide the academic world with fresh work and to tackle new comforted.
problems, for which the scholars in her eld can be truly grateful.
The Long-Winded Lady (1969) includes 47 nonction vignettes
from the New Yorker. Writing about the city she loves, however,
OTHER WORKS: Du temps perdu au temps retrouv: Introduction Brennan confesses in her introduction that if she has a title it is
loeuvre de Marcel Proust (1950). Marcel Proust and Deliver- one held by many others, that of a traveler in residence.
ance from Time (trans. by C. J. Richards and A. D. Truitt, 1956). Brennans third collection, Christmas Eve (1974), introduces
Andr Gide, linsaisissable Prote: Etude critique de loeuvre waspish American critic Charles Runyon, a not-always-welcome
dAndr Gide (1953). An Age of Fiction: The French Novel from guest at fashionable Herberts Retreat. Runyon, petty in a delight-
Gide to Camus (with M. Guiton, 1957). Camus (1959). Contes et fully vicious sort of way, is at his best in a story such as The
nouvelles: 1950-1960 (with Georges Markow-Totevy, 1961, re- Stone Hot-Water Bottle, where his hostess faces a crisis of major
vised edition published as Contes et nouvelles: 1950-1970). Gide proportions over which guest will use the heirloom which Runyon
(1963). Albert Camus (1964). Voix daujourdhui (with Micheline has appropriated for his personal comfort.
Dufau, 1964). The World of Marcel Proust (1966). Essays in While her long-winded lady sketches may endear her to
Honor of David Lyall Patrick (1971). Women Writers in France: the hearts of New Yorkers, Brennans real strength lies in her
Variations on a Theme (1973) short stories: in the psychological complexity of her characters,
and in her wit and careful detail. She has the power to move her
reader by means of ordinary circumstances, to probe the inner
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lesage, L., and A.Yon, eds., Dictionnaire des
fears of her characters, to illuminate their hearts. The ambivalence
critiques littraires: Guide de la critique franaise du XXe sicle
of love and the breakdown of communication are also frequent
(1969). Marks, E., Germaine Bre: A Partial Portrait, in
themes in Brennans work. She examines with precision those
University Women (1979). Stambolian, G., ed., Twentieth Century
loveless marriages between two essentially good, decent people
French Fiction: Essays for Germaine Bre (1975). Wakeman, J.,
who grow apart without ever really knowing why. One does not
ed., World Authors (1975).
actively dislike her characterseven the worst are only poor souls
Reference works: CA (1981, 1992). CANR (1981).
who set off on the wrong foot and were never able to get
Other references: NYT (31 July 1983, 9 Dec. 1984). NYTBR
right again.
(5 Apr. 1959). Retired Professor a Renaissance Woman,
Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service (1995). Poirot-Delpech, B., Brennans best work is crystalline; the reader perceives a
Littrature franaise 1920-1970, in Le Monde (30 June 1978). brilliant clarity until another facet is turned to the light, and then
125
BRES AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
realizes he/she is looking not through the crystal but into it. Times: As the rst attempt to present in a single volume the
Nothing is ever quite as simple as it appears to be; this is the status of women in the United States under the Federal and the
essence of Brennans art. State Laws, Mrs. Bres book has unique value and interest. . . .
Her digest and discussion of the present legal status of women in
this country is scholarly and readable and makes a worthwhile
OTHER WORKS: The Springs of Affection (1999). addition to feminist literature.
Bres lost Louisiana plays seem never to have been
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Atlantic (Oct. 1969). NYTBR (23 Feb. 1969, 4 produced or published. The longest of the three, The Law and
Aug. 1974). Time (1 July 1974). the Lady Down in Dixie, is a three-act melodrama of almost
classic mode for the type, although the playwright uses a series of
JOANNE MCCARTHY ironic touches which modernize the melodrama form. In the play,
a politician expresses his fondness for the ladies and says they can
always nd him when they need him. But when questioned
directly on whether he will support legislation to change the Civil
BRENT, Linda Code of Louisiana which has come down from Napoleon, he
See JACOBS, Harriet declares, rather regretfully: The time is not yet right for the
ladies.
OTHER WORKS: Turn of the Wheel: A Humorous One Act

BRES, Rose Falls Sketch (unpublished; 12 Jul. 1907). A Fairy Tale: A One Act
Sketch (unpublished, 9 Aug. 1907). Maids, Wives and Widows:
Born 1869, New Orleans, Louisiana; died 14 November 1927, The Law of the Land and of the Various States as It Affects
Jacksonville, Florida Women (1918).
Also wrote under: Rose C. Falls
Daughter of Isaac W. and Rosetta Falls; married William A.
Bres, 1902 BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bres, R. F., Oyez! from Paducah, in Every-
bodys Magazine (Dec. 1916). Wilkins, Z. P., Portias Undis-
Little is known about Rose Falls Bres childhood, which was guised, in The Woman Citizen (Sept. 1924).
apparently spent in New Orleans. In her early teens she lived in Other references: Women Lawyers Journal 16 (1928).
Paducah, Kentucky, where she worked for a newspaper and read
law. Admitted to the bar in Kentucky (circa 1889), Bres found that DOROTHY H. BROWN
such credentials did not transfer to Louisiana when she returned to
New Orleans to practice law there. While waiting to be admitted
to the Louisiana bar, Bres worked as a secretary and a journalist.
Her rst copyrighted work was Cheniere Caminada, or The BREUER, Bessie
Wind of Death (1893), a narrative account of a storm that killed
1607 persons in the Grand Isle area of Louisiana. Born 19 October 1893, Cleveland, Ohio; died 26 September 1975
Daughter of Samuel A. and Julia Bindley Freedman; married
During her almost 18 years of law practice in Louisiana, Bres
Mr. Breuer; Carl Kahler; Henry Varnum Poor, 1925
was active in politics and journalism. She was also associate
editor of the ERA, a womans publication. In 1907 Bres copyrighted
three plays from New Orleans, one of which, The Law and the After graduating from the Missouri State University School
Lady Down in Dixie, reects many of her experiences as a of Journalism, Bessie Breuer worked for several years as a
woman professional in 19th century Southern society and in newspaper reporter, rst for the St. Louis Times and subsequently
politics. When Bres moved to New York City in 1910, she became for the New York Tribune, where she was editor of the womens
a member of the National Women Lawyers Association and later department and briey, Sunday editor. After staff work for the
national president (1925-27) and editor of their publication, The American Red Cross publicity department, Ladies Home Jour-
Women Lawyers Journal (1921-24). She served as counsel to the nal, and Harpers, she went to France where her friendships with
Lucy Stone League and was editor of a short-lived (due to World Kay Boyle and Laurence Vail encouraged her to turn her attention
War I) magazine, Oyez!, published by women lawyers in 1916. toward ction writing. She wrote for such periodicals as Worlds
Work, Pictorial Review (often in collaboration with Henry Ford),
Throughout her career, Bres worked for passage of uniform House Beautiful, Mademoiselle, and the New Yorker until the
divorce and marriage laws and for women to have the right to use 1960s. She received second prize in the O. Henry Memorial
their own names. Labor laws, property rights, treatment of immi- Award for short ction in 1944. In 1948, her only play, Sundown
grants, and capital punishment laws were also major concerns of Beach, was produced by Elia Kazan at the Actors Studio in New
hers. The Law and the Woman (1917), dedicated to the Womens York City. The play ran for seven performances after having been
Press Club of New York, was favorably reviewed by the New York dismissed by the critics as an emotional vaudeville.
126
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BREWSTER
Breuers early publications often centered on the signicance however, is to fantasize that in a different place, with a different
and implications of postsuffrage feminism. One of these articles, personality, she too could have been a Jane Addams or a La
Feminisms Awkward Age (Harpers, April 1925), a discus- Pasionaria.
sion of the difculty the modern woman faces in attempting to
Joanna Trask, the heroine of Breuers The Actress (1955),
integrate personal and sexual needs with vocational and political
seems at rst to be a continuation of the passive, introspective, and
goals, provides an excellent introduction to concerns which were
excessively vulnerable heroines typical of Breuers early ction.
crucial in Breuers later ction. She often concentrates on the fate
But the novel traces Joannas gradual development, a process
of women who ounder in endless introspection, unsatisfying
characterized by Breuer as a movement toward assuming respon-
jobs, and painful relationships; women who lack either the conso-
sibility for her own actions and control over her own fate. She
lations of a conventional identity or a mass movement in which to
becomes more active than acted upon and, for the rst time in
submerge themselves.
Breuers ction, sexual experience is viewed as necessary and
In her autobiographical sketch for Twentieth Century Au- healthy. The novel ends with the optimistic assertion that Joanna
thors, Breuer describes her ctional priorities: Somewhere will not only combine a career and a family, but do it well.
Freud has said that psychologists have frank records of the male,
Breuers ction will strike the modern reader as unexpected-
but the female is shrouded and secreted and known to no man.
ly contemporary, in part because of Breuers innovative narrative
That has been to me our great sin as writers, those of us who are techniques and her interest in the relationship between womans
women: that nowhere in our history as artists have we been the sexual and social identities. Breuer is an often fascinating writer
earth shakers because we dared not. So I try, oh, just a tiny bit, to who deserves more serious attention than she has yet received.
write of what I truly see and have known; and not being a member
of some powerful literary clan, am scolded for my lack of
morality, or ignored. Following these priorities, Breuers ction OTHER WORKS: The Bracelet of Wavia Lea and Other Stories
is sexually explicit and unsparing in its delineation of her hero- (1947). Take Care of My Roses (1961).
ines confusion. These tendencies, as well as her experimental
style, caused the critical reception to her novel to be frequently
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Blake, F., The Strike in the American Novel
negative.
(1972). Cormany, S., The Common Orchestra: The Role of the
Breuers rst novel, Memory of Love (1934), is written in the Artist in the Fiction of Bessie Breuer and Tess Slesinger (disserta-
voice of a married man as he remembers an affair he had years tion, 1993). Hill, V., Strategy and Breadth: The Socialist-Femi-
before with a woman separated from her husband. For the nist in American Fiction (dissertation, 1979).
narrator, a man who prides himself on his sexual exploits, this Reference works: American Women, D. Howes, ed. (1939).
woman is unexpectedly captivating. Alternating between equally TCA (1942).
intense moments of attraction and repulsion, the narrative re- Other references: CW (24 Sept. 1948). NR (20 Sept. 1948).
counts their passionate, tempestuous affair. Finally, the protago- NY (18 Sept. 1948). Newsweek (20 Sept. 1948). SR (16 April
nist is forced to abandon this woman when his wealthy parents 1938, 28 Dec. 1946, 17 Jan. 1949). Theatre Arts (Jan. 1949). WLB
threaten to cut off his income unless he returns to his more socially (Oct. 1938).
prestigious wife. The novel seems to stand as Breuers com-
VICKI LYNN HILL
mentary on the extreme vulnerability of the sexually active
new woman.
Breuers most successful novel, The Daughter (1938), is the
story of a young woman, Katy, and her divorced mother. Living BREWSTER, Martha Wadsworth
on an income provided by Katys prominent father (with the
stipulation that no acknowledgment of the connection be made Born circa 1730s; died date unknown
public), the two women drift from one second-rate resort to Married Oliver Brewster; children: Ruby, Wadsworth
another. The mother enjoys a series of casual affairs while the
daughter retreats more deeply into a carefully constructed aesthet- Martha Wadsworth Brewster is one of only four colonial
ic artice of classical music and contemporary poetry. Most of the women who published volumes of their verse before the Revolu-
action takes place in a west coast Florida hotel where the daughter tion. Materials for reconstructing the life of Brewster are meager:
has her rst affair. Lacking her mothers resiliency, this purely we know only what is included in the Poems on Divers Subjects
physical involvement almost destroys her and she attempts suicide. (1757). Her acrostic verses name her family, husband Oliver, and
children Ruby and Wadsworth, but they tell little more about them
In addition to its remarkable characterization of Katy, The
than Brewsters concern for their spiritual development and good
Daughter is memorable because of Breuers repeated juxtaposi-
conduct. Brewster probably lived for most of her life in Lebanon,
tion of the aimless resort world of her characters and the wider
Connecticut.
panorama of world events. If her characters do not care, Breuer
seems to, and insistently reminds her readers of the sociopolitical Beyond these sketchy details of family connection, Brewsters
background against which her novel is set. Only Katy has any life remains an enigma. Her 21 poems vary widely in theme and
sense of the signicance of this wider world. The best she can do, form: the more than 1100 lines include letters, farewells to friends
127
BRIGGS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
who are moving, epithalamiums, eulogies, scriptural paraphrases, Washington Chronicle and Philadelphia Press. Forney asked her
a love poem, a quaternion, a dream (in prose), and meditations. to write for the Philadelphia paper after he discovered she had
Conventional religious and family themes predominate, but other written an anonymous letter on behalf of women government clerks.
materialsthe violence of military encounter, the schisms of the
Great Awakening, the muted stirring of personal ambitionare Under the pseudonym Olivia, Briggs wrote social news
treated as well. columns for the Philadelphia Press from 1866 to 1882. In 1882
she became the rst president of the short-lived Womans Nation-
The untitled verse preface to Brewsters Poems detailed the al Press Association. By the 1880s, however, Briggs had given up
risks a literary woman undertook in colonial society: Pardon her journalism to become a well-known Washington hostess. In her
bold Attempt who has reveald / Her thoughts to View, more t to old age she collected her favorite columns into a book, The Olivia
be Conceald / Since thus to do was urged Vehemently, / Yet most Letters (1906).
no doubt will call it Vanity. . . . The possibility of incurring
blame for stepping outside customary womens roles was clearly Briggss column established her as a leading literary lady
in Brewsters thoughts. She opened her preface humbly, even of post-Civil War Washington, along with Mary Clemmer Ames,
defensively, protesting that her Muse had but a single Aim, / My Sara Clarke Lippincott, and Mary Abigail Dodge. Unlike some of
self and nearest Friends to Entertain. . . . Recognizing the unu- her contemporaries, however, Briggs restricted herself primarily
sual nature of her ambition, Brewster asked only the opportunity to society news and issues affecting women. As a woman she felt
to develop her literary skills. she should notor could notcompete with men. In a column on
Charles Sumner, she explained: This article is not written with
No recorded response to Brewsters Poems documents the the attempt to portray that which makes Charles Sumner the
volumes reception, but it appeared in two editions, one in New central gure of the American Senate. No woman possesses the
London, Connecticut (1757), and another in Boston (1758). Such gift to explore his mind. . . .
reprinting suggests an audience beyond Brewsters immediate
circle of family and friends. Before the poems were published, Given her pseudonym, Olivia, by a Philadelphia editor,
however, they apparently attracted less favorable notice. Some of Briggs always wrote under it, although she made no attempt to
Brewsters readers were sufciently impressed by her work to hide her true identity. Leaving the narration of actual events to
doubt its authenticity. The headnote to her verse paraphrase of II male correspondents, Briggs explained that her aim was to de-
Chronicles 6:16-18 notes that It being falsly Reported that the pict the delicate life currents and details. To this end she
Author borrowed her Poetry from Watts and others; the following composed pen pictures of leading political gures, made up
Scripture was presented to her, to Translate into Verse, in a few lists of matrimonial eligibles among Capital bachelors, and
Minutes Extempore, as a vindication from that Aspersion; which covered the White House festivities.
was accordingly Performed. . . .
Equivocal on woman suffrage, Briggs nevertheless covered
Women poets in colonial America must have been consid- suffrage conventions in minuteif not always atteringdetail.
ered rare indeed to excite such skepticism. But whatever the Although she was one of the rst women offered admittance to the
response from Brewsters contemporaries, her Poems on Divers congressional press gallery, she did not make use of the privilege.
Subjects will interest readers today as a representative voice from She felt that, as a woman, she was not really welcome there, and
the early history of American poetry. she gained news from her social contacts with political gures.
Conscious of the changes wrought by the war on the Capitals
political atmosphere, Briggs expressed sympathy for freed blacks.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cowell, P., Women Poets in Pre-Revolutionary
Even in these more serious moments, however, she would ask
America, 1650-1775 (1981). Silverman, K., Colonial American
wittily, What business have they to be born? Isnt it a crime of
Poetry (1968). Watts, E. S., The Poetry of American Women from
1632 to 1945 (1977). the darkest dye? Briggs claimed to look askance on society,
warning readers, All is glare, glitter and pomp. In view of her
PATTIE COWELL own career as a hostess, however, her comments may have been
intended to assure readers who lacked access to society that they
would not care to participate even if they could.
Valuable as a source of social history, The Olivia Letters
BRIGGS, Emily (Pomona) Edson contain reprints of columns on personalities involved in the
Johnson impeachment trial and gossipy portrayals of other nota-
Born 14 September 1830, Burton, Ohio; died 3 July 1910, bles. Her writing suffers from typical Victorian failingsgushy
Washington, D.C. sentiment and owery metaphors. But Briggs merits attention
Wrote under: Olivia because she was the rst, and one of the best known, of a long line
Daughter of Robert and Mary Polly Umbereld Edson; married of Washington society reporters.
John R. Briggs, Jr., circa 1854
During the Civil War, Emily Edson Briggss husband was a BIBLIOGRAPHY: Beasley, M. H., The First Women Washington
clerk in the U.S. Congress under John W. Forney, owner of the Correspondents (George Washington University Studies No. 4,
128
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BRINK
1976). Ingersoll, L. D., The Life of Horace Greeley (1873). Magical Melons (1944) offers 14 more stories about this
Marzolf, M. T., Up From the Footnote (1977). family and their homesteading neighbors during 1863-66. Less
Reference works: NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). unied, it has never achieved the popularity of Caddie Woodlawn.
Other references: Washington Evening Star (4 July 1910). While high in entertainment value, few of Brinks early books
WP (10 July 1994, 5 July 1910). Washington Times (1 Nov. 1903). have retained the original level of readership. Although the
dialogue and episodes are true to a childs point of view, the plots
MAURINE BEASLEY are contrived, climaxes are predictable, and language and inci-
dents seem dated and occasionally patronizing. The frivolous
fantasy, Baby Island (1937), reprinted more than a dozen times,
tells the comic adventures of two young girls shipwrecked with
BRINK, Carol Ryrie four babies and cast upon a desert island in the Pacic. In The
Highly Trained Dogs of Professor Petit (1953), young Willie
Born 28 December 1865, Moscow, Idaho; died 15 August 1981, nds jobs for the professors dogs in the little town of Puddling
La Jolla, California Center, restoring the professors fortunes and leaving the town a
Daughter of Alexander and Henrietta Watkins Ryrie; married happier place. The Pink Motel (1959) also reveals fantasy over-
Raymond W. Brink, 1918 tones as it plays with form in bringing together an engaging
combination of eccentrics in a Florida seaside motel.
Carol Ryrie Brink grew up in the West she later used for the Brinks All Over Town (1939), which relates the well-
settings of some of her works. Her father was a Scotsman who intentioned efforts of several children to help out their townspeo-
emigrated to Idaho, helped to plan and lay out the town of ple, was based on memories of her own childhood in a small Idaho
Moscow, and became its rst mayor. Her mothers family were town. Family Grandstand (1952) and Family Sabbatical (1956)
also pioneers, moving gradually westward from Boston to Mis- concern the escapades of a professors children at home in their
souri, to Wisconsin, and then to Idaho. Brink lost both parents small, midwestern university town and while on leave for a few
before she was eight and went to live with her aunt and her months in France. In spite of being spun out, these lightweight
maternal grandmother, who told her stories about her childhood in entertainments project a certain old-fashioned charm. Their abun-
Wisconsin. A lonely child, Brink amused herself by reading, dance of action and warm humor offset the predictable plots and
drawing, making up stories, and riding for hours about the stereotyped characters.
countryside. While still in high school, she published poems in
small magazines. She attended the University of Idaho and the Two Are Better Than One (1968) and Louly (1974), about life
University of California at Berkeley, graduating Phi Beta Kap- around 1908 in Warsaw, Idaho, from the point of view of three
pa in 1918. girls in their early teens, nd their source in Brinks own youth.
Fun-loving, irtatious, resourceful Louly is a strong and memora-
After Brinks marriage she moved with her husband to St. ble gure.
Paul, Minnesota, where the couple spent most of their lives. After
their son and daughter were born, Brink began to compose stories Brinks books for adults include Harps in the Wind (1947), a
for children. Altogether Brink wrote about 30 books of ction and biographical study of the singing Hutchinson family, and Chteau
nonction, mostly for children, and more than 150 short stories, Saint Barnab (1963), an intriguing account of the ve weeks
articles, poems, and plays. Among her numerous awards are a Brink, her husband, and small son spent in a French pension where
Litt.D. from the University of Idaho, and in 1954 Hamline an American ex-patriot told them her strange story. Also with a
University named her one of Minnesotas most outstanding women. French setting is The Headland (1955), a curiously awed novel
about ve young people to whom World War II brings tragedy.
Brinks rst book, Anything Can Happen on the River! Brinks other adult novels include Buffalo Coat (1944), about the
(1934), a ctionalization of some actual family adventures along family of a physician in the Idaho town of Opportunity in the
the Seine, won praise from reviewers, but its appeal has not 1890s, and Strangers in the Forest (1959), concerning exploita-
endured. Caddie Woodlawn (1935) received many awards, among tion of western pine forests. Also set in Opportunity is Snow in the
them the Newbery Medal and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, and River (1964), which Brink has said is her own favorite; although
is now regarded as a modern classic of childrens literature. Based freely ctionalized, it is probably as near to an autobiography as
upon the reminiscences of Brinks grandmother, Caddie Woodlawn I shall ever write. This uneven story of the need for order and
recreates Wisconsin pioneer life through the lively doings of propriety, with its ne picture of ambitious Uncle Douglas,
spunky eleven-year-old Caddie and her brothers, Tom and War- received the National League of American Pen Women award for
ren. The characters are memorably drawn and their conversations ction in 1966.
are fresh and individualized. Rich details ll out the episodic story
to vividly depict life on the Wisconsin frontier during the Civil Brinks writing is marked by a graceful, leisurely narrative
War. Brinks own grandmother, Caroline Woodhouse, is the style, an ability to capture the atmosphere of places, careful
Caddie of the book; most of the other characters also existed, and research, warmth, and a good sense of humor. Although her
the events nd their source in actual occurrences. The work has childrens books sometimes tend to be cute and melodramatic,
been translated into a dozen languages, and Caddie Woodlawn, A they speak to the secret desire of the young for fun and adventure
Play (1945) has been produced many times. in a world in which good and evil are easily identied and good
129
BRISTOW AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
inevitably triumphs. The most substantial of Brinks works are her whose lives parallel each other in a number of aspects. Both are
period stories, and it is the best of these, Caddie Woodlawn, deeply hurt by the war and Reconstruction, although in different
winning her a position among the most distinguished and best- ways. Their growing enmity symbolizes the gulf between the
loved of American writers for children and young people. classes they represent.
This Side of Glory (1940), set around World War I, tells of the
OTHER WORKS: Mademoiselle Misfortune (1935). Lad with a marriage between a young man from the aristocratic family and a
Whistle (1941). Narcissa Whitman (1945). Lafayette (1946). young woman from the poor white (now middle class) one. He is
Minty et Compagnie (1948). Stopover (1951). The Twin Cities portrayed as a representative of the Old South, while she is a
(1961). Andy Buckrams Tin Men (1966). Winter Cottage (1968). representative of the New; as Bristow says, he is a Southerner and
The Bad Times of Irma Baumlein (1972). she is an American. Their relationship is difcult because of their
differences in character and heritage, but their successful alliance
is meant to signify the eventual alliance of the traditions they
represent.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: The Junior Book of Authors, S. J.
Kunitz and H. Haycraft, eds. (1951). More Books by More People: Tomorrow Is Forever (1943; lmed by RKO in 1946) is a
Interviews with 65 Authors of Books for Children (1974). Newbery World War II propaganda novel, which uses a variant of the
Medal Books: 1922-1955 (1955). SAA (1971). Enoch Arden story. Here the central characters rst husband,
thought dead in World War I, returns at the start of the second war.
ALETHEA K. HELBIG Concealing his identity, he permanently changes the life of his
wife and her second family.
Bristows other three novels are all historical, and they all
deal with young women who lack the support of families but who
BRISTOW, Gwen are strong and nd enough resources within themselves to build
good lives. Jubilee Trail (1950; lmed by Republic in 1954) and
Calico Palace (1970), both set in California during Gold Rush
Born 16 September 1903, Marion, South Carolina; died Au-
days, have very similar plotlines: a headstrong young woman
gust 1980
rashly enters into a marriage that is happy but ends abruptly.
Daughter of Louis Judson and Caroline Winkler Bristow; mar-
Forced to fend for herself and her baby, the heroine discovers new
ried Bruce Manning, 1929
strengths and develops old skills; her vitality and generosity
enable her to form strong friendships with both women and men.
From childhood, Gwen Bristow intended to be a writer; her Both novels conclude with the conventionally happy solution of
rst story was written when she was six and her rst appearance in marriage, but for neither woman is the marriage a retreat from
print came when she was twelve. At Judson College in Alabama autonomy and each man recognizes the value of the womans
she wrote plays and ghostwrote required essays for her friends. assertiveness and strength. Celia Garth (1959), set in South
After a year at the Pulitzer School of Journalism, Columbia Carolina during the revolutionary war times, contains another
University, she joined the staff of the New Orleans Times- such protagonist; although the plotline is somewhat different, her
Picayune, for which she reported a wide variety of stories. Her character develops in a similar way.
rst published novels were four detective stories, written in
collaboration with her husband Bruce Manning, also a journalist. Bristows work is popular, of the sort generally considered
One of them, the Invisible Host (1930), was lmed by Columbia romantic womens ction. But her female protagonists are more
in 1934 under the title, The Ninth Guest. In 1934 the Mannings rounded, more assertive and independent, more interesting than
moved to Hollywood, where Bristows husband began a career as most in that genre. Her depiction of Southern history from the
a screenwriter. perspective of the poor white is a complement to the familiar myth
of the magnolia-laden Old South. Her contribution is modest but
Around 1934 Bristow began the Plantation Trilogy (1937-40), signicant.
her most important and most original work. The series, set in
signicant historical moments and using succeeding generations
of the same family, epitomizes Southern history. Deep Summer OTHER WORKS: The Alien, and Other Poems (1926). The Guten-
(1937) shows how pioneering white settlers came from the berg Murders (with B. Manning, 1931). The Mardi Gras (with B.
southeast and from New England to the east bank of the Mississip- Manning, 1932). Two and Two Make Twenty-Two (with B.
pi River. The land and their experiences change them, and the Manning, 1932). Gwen Bristow: A Self Portrait (1940).
central family develops several branches: two wealthy, planta-
tion-owning lines of descent, one landless poor white line, and one
black line. The Handsome Road (1938), set in Civil War times, BIBLIOGRAPHY: Taylor, M. G. S., Gwen Bristows Portrayal of
centers around an aristocratic young woman and a poor white girl, the South in Times of Crisis (thesis, 1972). Theriot, B. J., Gwen
130
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BRONER
Bristow: A Biography with Criticism of Her Plantation Trilogy carbohydrates, as well as information about maintaining a bal-
(dissertation, 1994). anced lifestyle; Jane Brodys Good Food Gourmet: Recipes and
Reference works: American Novelists of Today (1951). Menus for Delicious and Healthful Entertaining (1990), a collec-
CB (1940). tion of more than 500 recipes designed for entertaining, including
Other references: NYHTB (12 Feb. 1950). Wings (Literary appetizers, entrees, vegetable dishes, and desserts, as well as
Guild) (March 1950). Gwen Bristow: Historical Novelist (video- cooking techniques, ingredients, and equipment; Jane Brodys
cassette, 1976). Good Seafood Book (1994), written with collaborator Richard
Flaste, a primer on seafood and a collection of 200 recipes, with
MARY JEAN DEMARR everything from sources of dietary protein to a comprehensive
overview of seafood loreincluding debunking the American
myth that sh comes in one of two incarnations: sh sticks or tuna
on rye; Jane Brodys Cold and Flu Fighter (1995), offering
BRODY, Jane E. everything there is to know about preventing and coping with
colds and u, including the authors own chicken soup recipe; and
Jane Brodys Allergy Fighter (1997), a guide to understanding the
Born 19 May 1941, Brooklyn, New York
causes of allergies, from prevention to the most effective antihis-
Daughter of Lillian Kellner and Sidney Brody; married Richard
tamines, decongestants, and topical sprays. Although The New
Enquist, 1966; children: Lee Erik and Lorin Michael York Times Book of Health: How to Feel Fitter, Eat Better, and
Live Longer (1997) was written by a group of reporters from the
Hailed as The High Priestess of Health by Time magazine, New York Times, Brody gets top billing. The huge tome (496
writer and journalist Jane Brody began her career by obtaining pages), edited by Nicholas Wade, covers everything from health
her B.S. from New York State College in 1962. Followed by a and popular medicine to physical tness and nutrition, from
masters in journalism from the University of Wisconsin in 1963, menopause and vitamins to HMOs and jogging.
Brody then went on to receive honorary degrees from Princeton
University (H.H.D., 1987) and Hamline University (L.H.D., 1993). In addition to her own books, Brodys works appear in
numerous anthologies, collections, cookbooks, and health books.
Straight out of college in 1963, Brody went to work as a She also designed Cooking la Heart Cookbook: Delicious Heart
reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune, where she spent two years Healthy Recipes to Reduce the Risk of Heart Disease and Stroke
learning the ropes. She moved to New York City in 1965 where (1992), by Linda Hachfeld, Betsy Eykyn, and the Mankato Heart
she began writing for the New York Times, elevated to the position Health Program Foundation.
of science writer. She started the Personal Health column, for
which she has become best known, in 1976. Ironically, Brody The recipient of numerous awards during her career, Brody
originally believed her weekly column on health would be a counts among them the Howard Blakeslee Award from the
burden, and committed to writing it for only three months. American Heart Association (1971), the Science Writers Award
Fortunately for many health-conscious people, it quickly became ADA (1978), and a Lifeline Award from the American Health
the most popular feature on the New York Times news service. Foundation (1978). She continues to write from her home in
Brody has spent her days since then writing about everything from New York.
cancer and dental sealants to stress management and healthy
cooking. OTHER WORKS: Jane Brodys Weight Loss Program (cas-
sette, 1987).
In 1966 Brody married Richard Engquist, with whom she
would go on to write her rst book, Secrets of Good Health
(1970). With Arthur Holleb, Brody would also write You Can BIBLIOGRAPHY: Whos Who in America, 1998. ADA Daily News
Fight Cancer and Win (1977), both of which have gone out of (19 Feb. 1998). Karp, J., No Fries for You: A Checkup with the
print. Several years later, Brody had gained enough name recogni- High Priestess of Health, in At Random Magazine (Sept. 1998).
tion and clout at the New York Times to get top billing in her
publications, releasing Jane Brodys Nutrition Book: A Lifetime DARYL F. MALLETT
Guide to Good Eating for Better Health and Weight Control
(1981), covering nutrition and diet, weight control, complete with
complex carbohydrate-based recipes (rice, potatoes, pasta, and
beans, for example) and calorie and nutrition charts. It became a
BRONER, E. M.
bestseller, and her success hasnt wavered since. Jane Brodys
The New York Times Guide to Personal Health (1982) collected Born Esther Masserman, 8 July 1930, Detroit, Michigan
selections from Brodys column, covering health and medicine Daughter of Paul and Beatrice Weckstein Masserman; married
from November 1976 to the date of publication. Robert Broner, 1948; children: four
More books soon followed: Jane Brodys Good Food Book: E. M. Broners father was a journalist and a Jewish historian,
Living the High Carbohydrate Way (1985), a cookbook contain- while her mother had acted in the Yiddish theater in Poland. Both
ing more than 350 simple and healthy recipes based on complex activities were to inuence Broners plays, novels, and short
131
BRONER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
stories, into which are woven many of the themes and traditions of heritage, Broner suggests something of womens present goals
Jewish culture. and future prospects.
Broners rst book, Summer Is a Foreign Land (1966), is a As a novelist, playwright, and teacher, Broner is concerned
verse drama portraying a strong female character who works a with establishing spiritual and artistic traditions for women. In the
particular kind of womans magic. A Russian Jewish matriarch, late 1970s and 1980s her interest in tradition led to explorations of
who earlier in life inherited three magical wishes from a pious women and Judaism. A feminist, she maintains that male authori-
ancestor, lies dying of leukemia. She has already used two wishes ty in both the literary and the religious traditions has excluded
to get her family safely out of Russia, and in the course of the play, women from positions of equality.
she must decide how to use the last wish and to whom to bequeath
In 1980 Broner and Cathy Davidson jointly edited The Lost
her powers. Her daughters, sons-in-law, and grandchildren gather
Tradition: Mothers and Daughters in Literature, a large and
at her deathbed, each hoping to inherit the wish that might make
diverse selection of essays by female scholars. In the introduction,
their future a little easier. The play ends with both a death and a
the editors assert that the patriarchal tradition in literature has
wedding, emphasizing the perpetuation of life.
separated mothers from daughters. The essays discuss the depic-
An early feminist work, the title piece of Journal/Nocturnal tion of women in literature from the ancient Near East and ancient
and Seven Stories (1968), decries the passivity of women. The Greece, the Old Testament, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance
protagonist of the novella, the Wife, leads a double life, which is through to the 20th century.
effectively epitomized by the separate columns in which the tale is
In recent years Broner has worked to reconcile her feminism
written. One half of each page represents the womans journal, the
with her religious faith. After her fathers death in 1986, she
other her nocturnal pursuits. The Wife is married to a liberal
participated in an Orthodox prayer ceremony to mourn his pass-
professor who spends most of his time working against the
ing. She recounts her experience at the Orthodox synagogue in
Vietnam war. At night, she sleeps with the Guest, who defends the
Mornings and Mourning: A Kaddish Journal (1989). Prohibited
war. She agrees with both men, both political positions. The war
because of her gender from participating fully in the ceremony,
becomes a metaphor for her life and her life becomes a symbol for
Broner resisted the sexist precepts of the Orthodox ritual, even as
the way the country as a whole was split during the war.
she became a part of the small group of men who participated in
In Her Mothers (1975, reissued 1985), Beatrice Palmer the Kaddish. With a straightforward style and a good deal of
searches for her wayward, runaway daughter. In the process, she humor, the story chronicles her attempt to bring women into the
also searches for herself and for her literary, historical, and religious community as full partners. In diary entries in the book,
biological mothers. There is a powerful scene near the conclusion Broner talks of feeling like half a man during services. The
of the book where mother and daughter struggle in the ocean, the women were separated from the men by quite unsophisticated
mother almost drowning her child. Ultimately, however, there is a dividers like drapes hung on a makeshift rack and plastic shower
kind of reconciliation. The novel ends with a paean to women, to curtains. About the experience, Broner said: I won that battle
women nding themselves and each other. with the Mechitzah. I wouldnt submit. I wouldnt sit separately
from them (the men in the minyan). It no longer had anything to do
Broners fourth book, A Weave of Women (1978, reissued
with separation, but total obliteration. Faithfulness is doing mitzvot,
1985), provides a spiritual conclusion to the search initiated in her
not being submissive. Broner treats the same experience in her
previous works. In the book, Broner creates a model for a
play Half-a-Man (1989), which was performed in both Los
womans utopian society. Signicantly set in Jerusalem, land of
Angeles and Detroit. Two other plays, Letters to My Television
the prophets, the novel describes a society where women are
Past (1985) and The Olympics (1986), have been performed in
supportive, understanding, strong, and inventive. Twelve women
New York City.
and three confused girls come together to make corrections in
their lives and to restore dignity to one another. The book Broners interest in Judaism and feminism continues in a
celebrates women and womanhood, glorifying the female pas- work-in-progress, tentatively titled The Repair Shop, which fea-
sages from birth to menses, marriages, motherhood, menopause, tures a female rabbi; she received support for her work on this
and death. Like Broners earlier writing, A Weave of Women novel from the National Endowment for the Arts (1987) and a
discovers traditions for women, and where traditions are lacking, MacDowell Fellowship (1989-90). The Telling (1993) charts the
creates new ones. spiritual journey of a group of Jewish women, which includes
Broner herself, Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, and other prominent
Aside from these published volumes, Broner has written
feminists. It includes Broners earlier A Womans Passover
essays, reviews, short ction, and drama. She has also created new
Haggadah originally published in Ms. in 1977, which had
rituals for women, including A Womans Passover Haggadah
created quite a stir. Audiences at readings booed her, and Broner
(with Naomi Nimrod) published in Ms. (April 1977). Broners
admitted, It was too shocking for audiences. A potential publish-
work is exciting and innovative in both form and content. Al-
er called it a trick Haggadah. Once published, though, it
though her vision is basically tragic, as a feminist writer she is
became the pattern for other projects by other authors.
well aware of the comedy of androcentric manners. She does not
simply lament womans current social state but celebrates wom- In Broners recent book, Ghost Stories (1995), she tells the
ans strength and dignity. By placing her protagonists in an almost tale of a daughter who encounters her mothers ghost and forges a
mythic context, and by giving them a cultural and a literary deeper relationship with it than the one she had with her mother
132
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BROOKS
when she was alive. Leila meets her mothers ghost during the In addition to numerous honorary degrees, Brooks achieved
ritual 11 months of mourning following death. As she attends an unusual distinction when in 1971 black poets of all ages
synagogue, the two strike up conversations about family history, contributed to a volume, To Gwen With Love. The presence of so
recipes, life, and news about neighbors and relatives. Broners many young writers was, in part, a response to a shift in Brooks
humorous tale explores a mother-daughter relationship that doesnt political stance. From a rather apolitical integrationist in the
end with death. 1940s, she became a strong advocate of black consciousness in the
1960s. This process of change is described in her autobiography,
Broner continues to be an active teacher and lecturer as well Report from Part One (1972).
as a writer. She is professor emeritus at Wayne State University,
where she taught English and creative writing from 1964 to 1987. In A Street in Bronzeville Brooks penned memorable vignettes
During the 1980s she was a guest writer at Sarah Lawrence, of the residents of Bronzeville, the black neighborhood of Chica-
Columbia, Ohio State, Tulane, and City College of New York. go. Signicantly, although the characters in these poems are poor,
She is a contributing editor of Tikkun and Lilith, and a regular the emphasis is not on their material poverty but on their struggle
book reviewer for Womens Review of Books. Broner also has to sustain their spiritual and aesthetic well-being. In The Sun-
been a contributor to Epoch, Jewish Review, Commentary, North days of Satin-Legs Smith, a narrative poem which is a marvel of
American Review, Letters and Heresies. technical prociency, the protagonist draws on his considerable
imaginative powers to create a world on Sundays which contrasts
sharply to the drudgery of his workdays. The poem celebrates
OTHER WORKS: Colonel Higginson (musical drama, with M. Smiths resourcefulness, his sensuality, and his keen aesthetic
Zieve, 1968). The Body Parts of Margaret Fuller (play, 1978). sense, yet it reveals the lack of substance underneath the style.
The dislocations and uncertainties brought about by World
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Barkowski, F., Feminist Utopias (1989). War II are strongly conveyed throughout A Street, most profound-
Heschel, S., ed., On Being a Jewish Feminist (1983). Reddy, M., ly in the sonnet series, Gay Chaps at the Bar. Even in a volume
and B. Daly, eds., Narrating Mothers (1991). Roreck, R., and E. wherein Brooks handled diverse forms masterfully, these 12
Hoffman-Baruch, eds., Women in Search of Utopia (1984). off-rhyme sonnets are notable for their technical innovativeness.
Reference works: CA (1976). CANR (1983, 1989). CLC Her concern with the alienation, depersonalization, and terror
(1981). CN (1986). DLB (1984). FC (1990). accompanying war and modern life in general aligns her with the
Other references: Booklist (15 Mar. 1967, 1 Dec. 1975). mainstream of 20th-century poetry.
Choice (Nov. 1967). Commentary (Apr. 1969). Dispatch (Fall
Brooks won the Pulitzer Prize for Annie Allen, her most
1988). Kalliope (1985). KR (15 July 1975). LJ (1 Dec. 1966, Aug.
experimental work. Its subject is akin to her earlier poems: a
1975). MELUS (Winter 1982). Ms. (July 1976, July/Aug. 1991).
young black girl comes of age, hoping to live out the drama and
PW (11 Aug. 1975, 12 July 1976). Regionalism and the Female
romance she fantasies. But the poverty and powerlessness which
Imagination (special Broner piece, Winter 1977-78). Studies in
she kept at bay in her girlhood threaten her womanhood. Brooks
American Jewish Literature (Spring 1991).
only novel, Maud Martha (1953), illumines the life of a young
black woman who must ward off continual, often petty, assaults to
CATHY N. DAVIDSON,
her human dignity. It was one of the rst novels to portray a black
UPDATED BY MELISSA BURNS AND NICK ASSENDELFT
girls coming of age.
Written during the height of the civil-rights war, The Bean
Eaters (1960) contained more topical poems than Brooks earlier
BROOKS, Gwendolyn books; her subjects include lynching and Emmett Till, school
integration and Little Rock, and the violence accompanying the
Born 7 June 1917, Topeka, Kansas arrival of a black family in an all-white neighborhood. The epic
Daughter of David and Keziah Wims Brooks; married Henry title poem of In the Mecca (1968) brilliantly captures the mood of
Blakely, 1939 disillusionment and deance of urban America in the 1960s. It is
Brooks most richly textured poem. In her typical fashion, she
combines formal eloquence and ordinary speech, and they are
Gwendolyn Brooks attended public schools in Chicago and
perfectly fused. Brooks employs various forms, but free verse and
graduated from Wilson Junior College in 1936. A poetry work-
blank verse predominate. Visually rich as well, the poem projects
shop at Chicagos South Side Community Art Center in the early
razor-sharp images and a gallery of memorable and diverse
1940s introduced her to the rigors of poetic technique; her
characters. It is a tour de force.
extraordinary talent was soon recognized. In 1945 her rst vol-
ume, A Street in Bronzeville, appeared. A plethora of prizes Riot (1968), Family Pictures (1970), and Beckonings (1975)
quickly followed: grants from the American Academy of Arts and follow the direction established by 1968s In the Mecca. More
Letters and the National Academy of Arts and Letters, two overtly political and verbally less complex, these poems are, by
Guggenheim Fellowships, and, in 1950, the Pulitzer Prize for Brooks own testimony, written primarily for a broadly based
poetry. She was the rst black poet so honored. A similar kind of black audience. She intended they be read by the people whose
recognition came in 1968 she was named poet laureate of Illinois. lives she has celebrated throughout her career.
133
BROOKS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Brooks was the rst black American woman to achieve inducted into the National Womens Hall of Fame in 1988 and
critical recognition as a poet. Observers have noted inuences on received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National En-
her work as diverse as T. S. Eliot and Robert Frost, Langston dowment for the Arts in 1989.
Hughes and Wallace Stevens. Stylistically, she often remolds
traditional verse forms such as the ballad and the sonnet to suit her Perhaps the critics most striking discovery was that Brooks
poetic purposes; she also employs modern forms brilliantly. aesthetic had always been black. Devoted from the start to
Philosophically, she is a humanist, particularly concerned with representing the lives of the black urban poor, Brooks had drawn
exploring the strengths and travails of black women in her work. them as complex, spiritual, and contradictory human beings.
By any reckoning, hers is and has remained one of the major Revisiting her early work, feminist critics noted that Brooks had
voices of 20th-century American poetry. pioneered in portraying multidimensional black female charac-
ters. Most important, her words almost always retain the capacity
Brookss seventieth birthday in 1987 occasioned an outpour- to surprise, delight, and instruct.
ing of public affection and gestures of critical respect for this
still-vital and productive poet. That year also saw the publication Brooks prefers the word B-L-A-C-K, which comes right
of Blacks, an anthology collecting Brooks writing of four dec- out to meet you, eye to eye, she said during a Jefferson Lecture in
ades. The volumes succinct title expresses a unity in Brookss Washington, D.C. She travels through the states reading her
canon to which critics, readers, and perhaps Brooks herself had works, much of which is on audio for all to enjoy. Her reading of
been blind. Bearing the imprint of the David Company, founded her works resonates with urban imagery and wry social comment.
by Brooks, the volume testies to her commitment to build Her cutting observations have made her one of the most well-known
alternative publishing institutions. Paradoxically, Brooks princi- poets of our time. Brooks daughter, Nora Brooks Blakely,
pled stance resulted in her works being less accessible to the describes her not only as a loving mother, but also as a woman
reading public at the moment when it might have been in greatest who opens places for peoplenew doorways and mindpaths.
demand. Generated by the burgeoning interest in black womens Brooks has had an extraordinary career; in addition to being
writing, demand for the book was enhanced by Brooks enormous the rst black author to win the Pulitzer Prize, she holds over 70
success as a lecturer. Visiting scores of colleges and universities honorary degrees. Among her other honors are Consultant in
annually, she has brought to enthusiastic audiences her message Poetry from the Library of Congress (1985-86); Jefferson Lectur-
that poetry was life distilled. er, NEH; National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished
Her later work has distilled the most urgent and fundamental Contribution to American Letters; and National Medal of Arts
issues of contemporary life. Whether in the struggle against presented by President Bill and Mrs. Hilary Clinton. In addition,
apartheid in South Africa or racism in the U.S., Brooks extracted she has been inducted into the National Womens Hall of Fame in
for her poetry proles of both heroic action and wary resistance. Seneca Falls, New York, joining another great black womens
Among the public gures she has reimagined in verse are freedom writer, Maya Angelou. She has been honored by the naming of the
ghter Winnie Mandela, poet Haki Madhubuti, social reformer Gwendolyn Brooks Cultural Center at Western Illinois University
Jane Addams, and child-abuse victim Elizabeth Steinberg. Sensi- and the Gwendolyn Brooks Junior High School in Harvey,
tive as ever to the extraordinary dimensions of ordinary lives, Illinois.
Brooks has written poems narrating experiences of the near-Jo-
hannesburg boy ghting the Fist-and-the-Fury and of Lin-
OTHER WORKS: Bronzeville Boys and Girls (1956). Selected
coln West, the black American child who is liberated from
Poems (1963). The World of Gwendolyn Brooks (1971). Alone-
self-hatred when he learns his African features make him the
ness (1971). Primer for Blacks (1980). Young Poets Primer
real thing. Although she rued the decline of activism in the
(1980). To Disembark (1981). Mayor Harold Washington and
1980sin her coinage, a giantless timeshe has continued to
Chicago, the I Will City (1983). Very Young Poets (1983). The
etch vivid portraits of those who take today and jerk it out of
Near-Johannesburg Boy (1986). Gottschalk and the Grande
joint.
Tarantelle (1988). Winnie (1988). Children Coming Home (1991).
In Report from Part One Brooks had promised not to imitate
the voices of the young black poets of the 1960s, but to extend and
adapt her own voice. Determined to address a black audience that BIBLIOGRAPHY: Juhasz, S., A Sweet Inspiration . . . of My
did not normally read poetry, she abandoned the sonnet and rhyme People: The Poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks and Nikki Giovanni,
generally for free verse and sparer diction. The results were in Naked and Fiery Forms: Modern American Poetry by Wom-
uneven, as Brooks repeated revision of several poems seemed to enA New Tradition (1976). Kent, G., Blackness and the Adven-
concede, and the output was slender. Yet the best work fused ture of Western Culture (1972). Kent, G., A Life of Gwendolyn
formal eloquence and colloquial speech into a poetic language Brooks (1990). Madhubuti, H., ed., Say That the River Turns: The
that was inimitably Brooksian. Impact of Gwendolyn Brooks (1987). Melhem, D. H., Gwendolyn
Brooks: Poetry and the Heroic Voice (1987). Miller, R. B.,
The rst monograph analyzing Brooks writing appeared in Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks: A Reference Guide
1980; subsequently, in two critical biographies, a collection of (1978). Mootry, M. K. and G. Smith, eds. A Life Distilled:
essays, and numerous journal articles and chapters in books, Gwendolyn Brooks, Her Poetry and Fiction, (1987). Shands, A. O.,
critics and scholars began to give Brooks work its due. She was Gwendolyn Brooks as Novelist, in BlackWomen (June 1973).
134
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BROOKS
Shaw, Harry B., Gwendolyn Brooks (1980). Voices From the contains full and learned notes on Middle-Eastern history, sor-
Gap: Women Writers of Color (1999). cery, and biblical tradition, with many literary, botanical, cultural,
Reference works: African American Writers (1991). Black and geographical references, as in the work of Yeats and Eliot.
Writers (1991). CANR (1989). CLC (1980, 1988). DLB (1988). Deeply scholarly in one sense, its actual expression is similar to
FC (1990). Modern American Women Writers (1991). MTCW the sensuality of Keatss Eve of St. Agnes and Coleridges
(1991). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United symbolistic uncanniness in Christabel.
States (1995).
In 1838 Brookss Idomen: or the Vale of Yumuri was
Other references: Black American Writer (1969). Black Scholar
published serially in the Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. Sever-
(Summer 1972). CLAJ (Dec. 1962, Dec. 1963, Sept. 1972, Sept.
al publishers refused the ctionalized autobiography as too
1973). Jet (30 May 1994). SBL (Autumn 1973). Contemporary
elevated to sell, so Brooks published it privately in New York in
Literature (Winter 1970).
1843. Idomen, the heroine, is formed in every nerve for the
CHERYL A. WALL,
renements of pleasure, although her real life is a round of
UPDATED BY DEVRA M. SLADICS
duties and wearisome employments. For Brooks, virtuous
passion is a sign of intellectual and emotional consciousness.
The almost hallucinatory clarity of Idomens imagery height-
ens the impression that many of its images and scenes must be
BROOKS, Maria Gowen interpreted symbolically, even as archetypes. The Edenic myth is
everywhere apparentin the idyllic Cuban scenes, but also in the
Born circa 1794, Medford, Massachusetts; died 11 November celestially majestic frozen glory of the rivers and mountains of
1845, Mantanzas, Cuba Canada. Idomen herself seems a pattern of the human soul.
Wrote under: Maria del Occidente Caught in a dull marriage as the soul is caught in the mortal body,
Daughter of William and Eleanor Cutter Gowen; married John she yearns for the Ideal Absolute as personied by Ethelwald, a
Brooks, 1810 character based on Brookss Canadian ofcer. Yet Idomen cannot
have Ethelwald in this world, for some mysterious inability to
When Maria Gowen was orphaned in her childhood, she communicate with him intervenes even after she is freed by the
came under the protection of John Brooks, a Boston merchant. In death of her husband. This is one manifestation of a continuing
1810 the fty-year-old merchant married his fteen-year-old theme of psychic or supernatural fates or impulses which leads to
ward. The marriage was evidently an unhappy one, and she threw an exploration of suicidal tendencies and the hypersensitive
herself into her studies. Brooks dissatisfaction with her marriage imagination. Idomen acts out the Christ-like cycle of death,
was exacerbated when John suffered nancial losses and moved resurrection, and ascension, although such an allegory may have
the family to backwater Portland, Maine. There she met the been unconscious on Brookss part. It is as a psychological novel
Canadian ofcer who became her romantic xation. John died in of considerable subtlety that Idomen will capture the modern
1823, and Maria moved to Cuba where relatives owned coffee imagination.
plantations. On a subsequent visit to Canada, she became engaged It can hardly be explained why Brooks is not better known
to the Canadian ofcer, but they were estranged through a series and studied. Her work is good, at times great, but she was too large
of misunderstandings. Maria attempted suicide twice. In 1826 she for her assigned role in the social and intellectual world of her
began a correspondence with the British poet laureate Robert time. In this and in the continued lack of recognition of her worth,
Southey. After trips to England and Europe, Maria returned to she is an archetype of the early American woman writer.
Cuba, where she died of a tropical fever.
In 1820 some of Brooks poetry was published in a volume OTHER WORKS: The papers of Maria Gowen Brooks are in the
titled Judith, Esther, and Other Poems. By a Lover of the Fine Arts Boston Public Library, Yale University Library, and the Library
The personae in these poems are all female. In Judith and of Congress.
Esther, Brooks deals with the psychological aspects of the
trials of these biblical heroines. The Buttery presents an
analogue to relationships between the sexes: a poet is too wrapped BIBLIOGRAPHY: Grannis, R., An American Friend of Southey
up in his own concerns to save an exquisite buttery from the (1913). Griswold, R., Southern Literary Messenger (1913).
ame. The frank but almost naive Written after passing an Gustafson, Z., introduction to Maria Gowen Brooks Zophiel
evening with E. W. R. A******, Esq., who has the nest person I (1879). Southey, R., The Doctor (1834).
ever saw warmly describes the physical charms of the Canadian Reference works: Appletons Cyclopedia of American Biog-
ofcer with whom Brooks had fallen in love. raphy (1888). Cyclopedia of American Literature (1855). DAB
(1929). NAW (1971).
In 1833 Robert Southey supervised publication of Zophiel; Other references: American Collector (Aug. 1926). Gra-
or the Bride of Seven, which tells the story of a fallen angels love hams Magazine (Aug. 1848). Medford Historical Register
for a mortal woman. In it, Brooks was not afraid to include many (Oct. 1899).
passionate and forbidden scenes, or to vividly describe human
physical beauty. Zophiel is dense in the manner of Milton and L. W. KOENGETER
135
BROUMAS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
BROUMAS, Olga written with poet T. Begley, with whom she also translated three
books of Odysseas Elytis Greek poems, the last of which is Open
Papers (1994).
Born 6 May 1949, Syros, Greece
Daughter of Nicholas and Claire Pendeli Broumas; married Broumas approach to poetry is expansive and syncretic. Her
Stephen E. Bangs, 1973 (divorced) formal considerations derive from architecture and music, as well
as from literary sources: she conceives of stanzas as spatial forms,
Olga Broumas poems are voluptuous, exuberant, lyrical, words on the page as notation for the voice. To create her art,
rooted in history, and charged with political meaning. Poetry is for Broumas draws on the many parts of her life: her Greek and
her both socially meaningful and a source of deep personal European background; her experiences as a woman; her feminist
pleasure. Even when the poems concern pain and suffering, they and liberation politics; her massage work. Her poems take daring
take pleasure in their own sounds, shapes, and rhythms. Because leaps, almost greedily appropriating and juxtaposing disparate
of this play in language, there is more joy in Broumas poetic images, words, and experiences.
world than sorrow.
Born in Greece in 1949, Broumas lived briey in the U.S. as a OTHER WORKS: Restlessness (in Greek, 1967). Lyricism: Some
child and returned in 1967 to attend college. She earned her B.A. Notes on Pleasure (1978). Namaste (1978). What I Love: Selected
in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania (1970) and Poems of Odysseas Elytis, 1943-1978 (translation, 1986). The
a M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Oregon Little Mariner, poems by Odysseas Elytis (translation, 1988).
(1973). She has won fellowships from the Guggenheim Founda-
tion and the National Endowment for the Arts and has taught BIBLIOGRAPHY: Abel, E. et al., eds., The Voyage In: Fictions of
widelyat the University of Oregon, the University of Idaho, Female Development (1983). Casto, E. K., Reading Feminist
Goddard College, Boston University, and Brandeis University. In Poetry: A Study of the Work of Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, Audre
1982 she helped found Freehand, a learning community of women Lorde, and Olga Broumas (dissertation, 1990). Duncan, E.,
artists and writers, in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Broumas is Unless Soul Claps Its Hands: Portraits and Passages (1984).
currently the Fanny Hurst poet-in-residence at Brandeis and the Reference works: CA (1980). CANR (1987, 1999). CLC
director of creative writing. (1979). FC (1990). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the
In Demeter, Broumas honors her poetic maternityAnne United States (1995).
Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, and Adrienne Richbut Other references: American Poetry Review (Jan.-Feb. 1979).
she has forged her own feminist, poetic idiom that is neither Atlantic (Oct. 1977). Book Forum (1977). Christopher Street
despairing nor homiletic. Rejecting the poetry of the crazy lady, (Mar. 1977). Chrysalis (1977). Emergency Librarian (Nov. 1977).
the Classic, almost Plathian stance that Id been taught, she Hudson Review (Autumn 1977, Summer 1980, Summer 1983). LJ
seeks instead to afrm womens power and health. In pursuit of (15 May 1977). Northwest Review (1978, 1980). NYT (24 June
the adequate myth to accomplish this afrmation, she reinscribes 1977). Off Our Backs (June 1978). VV (29 Aug. 1977). Yale
Greek myths in terms of ordinary womens lives in the opening Review (Autumn 1977).
sequence, Twelve Aspects of God, of Beginning with O (1977)
DEANNA STEVENSON,
and reclaims god as a feminine principle.
UPDATED BY NORA MITCHELL AND LEAH J. SPARKS
Broumas is a bodywork therapist who has practiced in
Provincetown since 1983, and her aesthetic is intertwined with
this work; the human body has a mythic, immediate presence in
her poems. In The Moon of Mind against the Wooden Louver BROWN, Abbie Farwell
she writes to and honors a dying friend: the pluck and humor of
the song / your bones thrum while the blood still leaves / their Born 21 August 1871, Boston, Massachusetts; died 5 March
broadside and their ank. / I kiss your bones. The female body is 1927, Boston, Massachusetts
powerfully and vitally erotic. In Caritas (chapbook, 1976), she Daughter of Benjamin F. and Clara Brown
regrets the lack of language for female sexuality: A wom-
an-made language would / have as many synonyms for pink / A descendant of the earliest New England settlers, Abbie
light-lled / holy as / the Eskimo does / for snow. She seeks free Farwell Brown lived all her life in the family home on Beacon Hill
and joyful language and imagery for lesbian love poems, in which in Boston. She was educated at Boston Girls Latin School, where
the woman is both beloved and lover, giver and recipient. she formed a close friendship with Josephine Prescott Peabody,
and graduated from Radcliffe College in 1894.
Since Beginning with O, she has published eight volumes of
poetry, Soie Sauvage (1979), Pastoral Jazz (1983), Black Holes, Although Brown had written verse for St. Nicholas, feature
Black Stockings (1985), Perpetua (1989), Sapphos Gymnasium stories for the St. Louis Globe Democrat, and Quits (1896), a
(1994), Helen Groves (1994), Unfolding the Tablecloth of God one-act comedy set in a womens college, it was a visit in 1899 to
(1995), and Ithaca: Little Summer in Winter (1996). Black Holes, Chester Cathedral, England, which inspired her rst childrens
Black Stockings is a collection of prose poems written with poet book, The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts (1900), and led to
Jane Miller. The last four volumes of Broumas poetry were her career as a juvenile author. In 1902, after the success of The
136
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BROWN
Lonesomest Doll (1901), the publishers Hall and Locke engaged Read and Pieces to Speak (1908). The Christmas Angel (1910).
her as editor of their Young Folks Library series. In addition to Their City Christmas; a Story for Boys and Girls (1912). Songs of
juvenile books, poetry, and plays, Brown also wrote two volumes Sixpence (1914). Kisington Town (1915). Surprise House (1917).
of poetry for adults and composed lyrics for songs. Her poem On The Gift; a Christmas Story (1920). Heart of New England (1920).
the Trail, set to music by Mabel Daniels, became the Girl The Rock of Liberty; a Pilgrim Ode (1920). What Luck! A Study in
Scouts anthem. Opposites (1920). The Green Trunk; a Masque (1921). Round
Robin (1921). The Lights of Beacon Hill; a Christmas Message
The best of Browns childrens books derive their charm (1922). The New England Poetry Club; an Outline of Its History,
from her appreciation of traditional popular literaturelegend, 1915-1923 (1923). Our Christmas Tree (1925). The Silver Stairs;
myth, and folktale, which includes, of course, the fairy tale. Her Poems (1926). Under the Rowan Tree (1926). The Lantern and
rst and perhaps best work, The Book of Saints and Friendly Other Plays for Children (1928). The Little Friend (1960).
Beasts, retells episodes from saints legends, illustrating the
affectionate relationship between beasts and holy men and wom-
en. Without resorting to quaintness, the avor of the medieval BIBLIOGRAPHY: Meigs, C., A Critical History of Childrens Lit-
legend is preserved, while the material is ordered and simplied erature (1969).
for the secular modern child. In the Days of Giants (1902) Reference works: NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). TCA (1942).
introduces young people to the action, drama, and intrigue of Other references: Horn Book (1927). Poetry Review (1931).
Nordic myths as recounted in Icelandic sagas. Tales of the Red
PHYLLIS MOE
Children (1909), a collection of Canadian Indian stories coauthored
by James MacIntosh Bell, faithfully adheres to the spirit and style
of the folktale. The choice of stories reects the importance of the
trickster tale in Indian folklore. BROWN, Alice
Besides adapting traditional popular literature to the level
and tastes of a modern juvenile audience, Brown also employed Born 5 December 1857, Hampton Falls, New Hampshire; died 21
well known narrative formulas from fairy tale and legend to create June 1948, Boston, Massachusetts
her own stories. In the title story of The Flower Princess (1904), Also wrote under: Martin Redeld
Fleurette establishes a test for suitors: she will marry the man who Daughter of Levi and Elizabeth Lucas Brown
can identify her favorite ower. Of course, the princes fail; only
the minstrel Joyeuse has the wit, traditionally associated with the After graduating from Robinson Female Seminary, Alice
humble, to discover her secret. The hero of John of the Woods Brown taught school in New England, but soon decided on a
(1909) is the mistreated boy of fairy tales who, aided by friendly literary career. She wrote for the Christian Register, then joined
animals and a mysterious old man, nds his identity. That he also the staff of The Youths Companion in 1885. In Boston, Brown
learns to be kind and have faith in the eventual triumph of belonged to a group of young Bohemian artists led by poet Louise
goodness is part of the gentle didacticism of the tale. Imogen Guiney. The collaborations of the two close friends
included a biography of Robert Louis Stevenson (1896) and the
The Lucky Stone (1914) departs from the romanticism of founding of the Womens Rest Tour Association. During these
Browns earlier books and translates the fairy tale into a realistic years Brown wrote in support of womens rights and prison
setting, but not however, without some creaking of the narrative reform movements.
machinery. Maggie Price, a slum child who believes in fairies,
discovers a fairy palace in the country, receives mysterious gifts, An advocate of American involvement in World War I, she
nds a queer old woman, embarks on a quest, and is captured by often commented on politics, criticizing the direction of modern
an ogre. All the events are the amusements of a bored young life. In her later years, her passionate privacy and religious
woman, who nally does become a fairy godmother by opening mysticism carried her further from the mainstream. Highly praised
her home to needy children. as late as the 1920s, Browns work was virtually forgotten by the
time of her death. During a career spanning seven decades, Brown
Browns one excursion into juvenile biography, The Boy- wrote in almost every genre, including criticism, biography, and
hood of Edward MacDowell (1924), reects her appreciation for sketches. She considered herself primarily a poet, but the Victori-
summers spent in the MacDowell Colony, but it is too sentimental an idealism and strained diction of her verse has not aged well.
and speculative to be seriously recommended.
Browns greatest public recognition came to her as a drama-
Nourished by myth, legend, and the folk tale, Brown contrib- tist. In 1914, amid much publicity, she won the $10,000 Winthrop
uted to childrens literature of the early 20th century a number of Ames prize for the best play submitted by an American author.
well-written, imaginative stories, some pleasant verse, and two Her entry, Children of Earth (1915), later opened on Broadway to
distinguished versions of saints legends and Nordic myths. mixed reviews and a short run. Browns one-act plays, often
adapted from her stories, were more successful.
OTHER WORKS: A Pocketful of Poesies (1902). The Curious Book Browns ction is now considered her best work, particularly
of Birds (1903). The Star Jewels (1905). Brothers and Sisters her early local color stories. Meadow-Grass made her literary
(1906). Friends and Cousins (1907). Fresh Posies; Rhymes to reputation in 1895; Tiverton Tales conrmed it in 1899. Both
137
BROWN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
consist of loosely connected sketches portraying the ctional L. I. Guiney, 1896). The Rose of Hope (1896). By Oak and Thorn
village of Tiverton, a farming community close to the sea and (1896). Women of Colonial and Revolutionary TimesMercy
modeled after Hampton Falls. These and subsequent stories were Otis Warren (1896). The Road to Castalay (1896). The Day of His
compared favorably to the work of Sarah Orne Jewett and Mary Youth (1897). Kings End (1901). Margaret Warrener (1901).
Wilkins Freeman. Although Browns portraits of spinsters and Judgement (1903). The Mannerings (1903). The Merrylinks (1903).
rebellious wives (especially in A Day Off and The Other High Noon (1904). The County Road (1906). The Court of Love
Mrs. Dill) are as ne in their way as Freemans, her good- (1906). Chap. XI of The Whole Family (a novel by 12 authors,
natured humor, idealism, and careful craftsmanship bring her 1908). Rose MacLeod (1908). The Story of Thryza (1909). Coun-
closer to Jewetts more pastoral regionalism. try Neighbors (1910). The One-Footed Fairy (1911). My Love and
I (1912). The Secret of the Clan, A Story for Girls (1912).
However, Browns work can stand easily without such Vanishing Points (1913). Robin Hoods Barn (1913). Joint Own-
comparisons. Described as a little masterpiece, Farmer Elis ers in Spain; A Comedy in One Act (1914). Children of Earth; A
Vacation demonstrates Browns gentle irony, control of plot, Play of New England (1915). The Prisoner (1916). Bromley
and psychological acuity. Having dreamed all his life of seeing the Neighborhood (1917). The Flying Teuton and Other Stories
ocean, only six miles from his pastures, Eli makes the journey at (1918). The Loving Cup, A Play in One Act (1918). The Black
last. The vision is more than he can bear; He faced [the sea] as a Drop (1919). Homespun and Gold (1920). The Wind Between the
soul might face Almighty Greatness, only to be stricken blind Worlds (1920). One-Act Plays (1921). Louise Imogen Guiney
thereafter. Leaving his family camping by the shore, Eli hurries (1921). Ellen Prior (1923). Charles Lamb: A Play (1924). The
home gratefully to his cows and barns, the world he knows and Mysteries of Ann (1925). Dear Old Templeton (1927). The Golden
loves best. Local color is too narrow a category for this Ball (1929). The Marriage Feast, A Fantasy (1931). The Diary of
ne story. a Dryad (1932). The Kingdom in the Sky (1932). Jeremy Hamblin
As public interest in regional writing waned at the turn of the (1934). The Willoughbys (1935). Fable and Song (1939). Pil-
century, Brown experimented with other genres. Unlike many grims Progress (1944).
local colorists, she made the transition successfully. Between
1900 and 1920, she published over 130 stories in prominent
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Langill, E. D., Alice Brown: A Critical Study
magazines. In these short pieces and her many novels, Brown
(dissertation, 1975). Overton, G., The Wowen Who Make Our
attempts more urban settings and sophisticated characters. Her
Novels (1922). Pattee, F. L., The New American Literature,
themes concern the strain of reconciling city and country, the
1890-1930 (1930). Toth, S. A., Alice Brown (1857-1948), in
industrial future with the values of the agrarian past.
ALR (Spring 1972). Toth, S. A., More Than Local Color: A
Critical opinion of this later work is mixed. Browns growing Reappraisal of Rose Terry Cooke, Mary Wilkins Freeman, and
skill as a storyteller and rmer control of structure has been noted Alice Brown (dissertation, 1969). Walker, D., Alice Brown
by one critic, who observed, however, that she mistakenly adopt- (1974). Westbrook, P., Acres of Flint: Writers of Rural New
ed an elaborate gurative style beyond her powers. Only when she England, 1870-1900 (1951). Williams, B., Our Short Story Writ-
returned to her New England characters, with their earthy straight- ers (1920). Williams, Sister M., The Pastoral in New Eng-
forward dialect, did she regain the grace and authenticity of her land Local Color: Celia Thaxter, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Alice
early work. Although such novels as Old Crow (1922) and John Brown (dissertation, 1972). Wood, A. D., The Literature of
Winterbournes Family (1910) achieve a greater philosophical Impoverishment: The Women Local Colorists in America,
and psychological depth than the more charming local color 1865-1914, in WS (1972).
stories, Browns artistry could not keep pace with her ambition; Other references: Atlantic (July 1906). Book Buyer (Nov. 1896).
her characters, puppetlike, mouth lofty ideas instead of embody-
ing them. SARAH WAY SHERMAN
A devoted artist, Browns local stories hold their own against

the more famous work of Jewett and Freeman and represent a
distinctive contribution to the genre. Through a synthesis of BROWN, Hallie Quinn
symbolic and realistic representation, her work conveys an essen-
tially romantic pastoralism. Browns sentimentality is, however,
offset by knowing humor; her idealism is expressed with subtlety. Born circa 10 March 1845, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; died 16
Fresh, evocative, and lovingly detailed, her sketches of country September 1949, Wilberforce, Ohio
life show a disciplined literary craft. Her New Englanders speak Daughter of Thomas and Frances Scroggins Brown
and act with authenticity; their dilemmas are universal, their
resolutions sometimes wise and always human. Born the fth of six children to parents of mixed blood who
were freed slaves, Hallie Quinn Brown reminisces in her unpub-
lished autobiography, As the Mantle Falls, that her childhood
OTHER WORKS: Stratford-by-the-Sea (1884). The Fools of Nature home in Philadelphia was the center of many activities both for the
(1887). Three Heroines of New England Romance (with L. I. African Methodist Episcopal Church and for the Underground
Guiney and H. P. Spofford, 1894). Robert Louis Stevenson (with Railroad for runaway slaves on their ight to Canada. In 1873
138
Brown received her B.A. degree from Wilberforce University in OTHER WORKS: Bits and Odds: A Choice Selection of Recitations
Ohio, where she rst came under the tutelage of professional (1880). Our Women: Past, Present and Future (1925). Pen
elocutionists. She was awarded an honorary Master of Science Pictures of Pioneers of Wilberforce (1937). As the Mantle
(1890) and an LL.D. (1936) from Wilberforce. Falls (unpublished; at the Hallie Quinn Brown Memorial Li-
brary, Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio).
After graduation, Brown taught in several Southern schools.
While in Dayton, Ohio, she enrolled in elocution classes and it
was at this time that her career in public speaking began. As an BIBLIOGRAPHY: Daniels, S. I., Women Builders (1970). Davis, E.,
elocutionist she toured several cities in Ohio and Indiana; favor- Lifting As They Climb (1933). Dunlop, M. E., A Biographical
able reception encouraged her to continue on to New York, Sketch of Hallie Quinn Brown, in the Wilberforce University
Philadelphia, and various Southern states. Alumni Journal (1 June 1963). McFarlin, A. S., Hallie Quinn
BrownBlack Woman Elocutionist: 1845 (?)-1949 (disserta-
In 1888 Brown took the rst of several tours abroad, speak- tion, 1975).
ing and singing spirituals in an effort to raise funds for Wilberforce. Reference works: NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). Noted Negro
On her return to the U.S. in 1892 she accepted the position of Lady Women (1893).
Principal at Booker T. Washingtons Tuskegee Institute and in
1893 was appointed professor of elocution at Wilberforce. In this MARILYN LAMPING
same year, Brown was instrumental in forming the Colored
Womens League, later known as the National Association of
Colored Womens Clubs, and was its president from 1920 to
1924. She also became actively involved with the Womens BROWN, Margaret Wise
Christian Temperance Union and spoke at several of its meetings
and conferences. Born 23 May 1910, Brooklyn, New York; died 13 November
Among Browns works is a textbook on elocution called 1952, Nice, France
First Lessons in Public Speaking (1920). It gives little or no Also wrote under: Timothy Hay, Golden MacDonald, Juniper
concrete help to the neophyte orator, but rather is lled with Sage (the last being used by Brown and Edith Thacher Hurd
exhortations to lead a Christian life and imitate the many exam- on collaborative works)
ples of perseverance given in the book. Daughter of Robert B. and Maude Johnson Brown
In Tales My Father Told (1925), Brown retells stories with The middle child of a prosperous manufacturer, Margaret
which her father, who worked on Mississippi riverboats, enter- Wise Brown spent most of her formative years in solitary play on
tained the family on long winter nights in their Canadian home. the beaches and in the woods at Whitestone Landing, Long Island,
The rst three stories are highly romanticized tales of young New York. There she developed an enduring love for animals and
womens escapes from slavery and their nding of true happiness the outdoors, which she later faithfully recreated in almost 100
in Northern climes. In each of these stories the narrator-hero books written for young children. After attending New York
appears to be Browns father, who contrives, though never by schools until 1923, she spent the next two years at the Chateau
violence, to secure freedom and eventually idyllic happiness for Brilliantmont School in Lausanne, Switzerland, and graduated
each young woman. Another selection in Tales My Father Told is from Dana Hall in Wellesley, Massachusetts, in 1928. In 1932,
a history of black spirituals that compares them to Hebrew songs Brown earned her B.A. in English Literature from Hollins College
of captivity. The nal story in the collection is a didactic, in Virginia.
melodramatic morality tale about the effects of whisky on a
young man. Interested in a career as a professional writer, Brown enrolled
at Columbia University for postgraduate work, but did not nd her
Homespun Heroines, and Other Women of Distinction (1926) is niche until she became a student teacher in an innovative program
a compilation of biographical sketches written by Brown and sponsored by the Bureau for Educational Experiment (the Bank
several other women. In the greeting to her readers, Brown says Street School) in 1935. Lucy Sprague Mitchell, who headed the
she hopes to preserve for future reference the life and character of group, initiated a technique for telling childrens stories from the
the history-making women of our race. The 55 sketches are childs point of view, which gave Brown an opportunity to
brief; they tend to be subjective, though not completely lacking a observe young childrens fresh reactions to their world. She
factual basis, and almost all earnestly exhort the reader to emulate related to the preschoolers in an almost symbiotic fashion, so she
these women. often said some of her stories were their stories transcribed onto
paper. Although she did continue to write adult poetry (never
Browns life had two centers of focusher religion and
published) for the rest of her life, it is as the Laureate of the
Wilberforce University. Her dedication to both led her to support
Nursery that she earned fame, fortune, and a permanent place in
the Womens Christian Temperance Union and to advocate jus-
American literature.
tice and equality for her race, especially for the women. She made
use of her oratorical skills to further these ends and the political Brown felt strongly that although her books were written for
involvement of her later years can likewise be traced to both these adults to read to small children, their illustrations should be so
interests. inextricably bound to the texts that a preschooler could retell
139
the story to himself just by looking at the pictures. Some 38 Comedy of Punch & Judy (ed. by J. P. Collier and Brown, 1940).
different artists worked closely with her, and although she was Country Noisy Book (1940). The Fables of LaFontaine (ed. and
very demanding of them, she frequently altered her text to trans. by Brown, 1940). Baby Animals (1941). The Polite Penguin
accommodate their illustrations as well. The results in many (1941). The Poodle and the Sheep (1941). The Seashore Noisy
instances were stunning. Book (1941). A Childs Good Morning (1942). Dont Frighten the
Lion (1942). The Indoor Noisy Book (1942). Night and Day
From 1937 to 1952, Brown wrote four to eight books a year,
(1942). The Runaway Bunny (1942). Big Dog Little Dog (1943). A
did a childrens page for Good Housekeeping, contributed to some
Childs Good Night Book (1943). The Noisy Bird Book (1943).
school primers, and maintained her association with young child-
SHHhhh. . .BANG (1943). The Big Fur Secret (1944). Black and
ren as the basis for continuing a viable contact with the child
White (1944). Horses (1944). Red Light Green Light (1944). They
within herself. Engaged to be married, Brown died quite suddenly
All Saw It (1944). Willies Walk to Grandmama (1944). The
at age forty-two, due to complications following an appendectomy.
House of a Hundred Windows (1945). The Little Fisherman
It is not a simple matter to single out particular books by (1945). Little Lost Lamb (1945). Little Fur Family (1946). The
Brown as classics, but consensus would have it that in addition Man in the Manhole and the Fix-it Man (1946). The Bad Little
to the Noisy Book Series, a few titles deserve special mention. The Duckhunter (1947). The First Story (1947). The Sleepy Little Lion
Dead Bird (1938) is noteworthy as a forerunner of realistic (1947). The Winter Noisy Book (1947). Little Cowboy (1948). The
treatments of subjects only recently considered suitable for child- Little Farmer (1948). Sleepy Book (1948). Wait Till the Moon Is
rens books. At a very fundamental level, this story treats death, Full (1948). Wonderful Story Book (1948). The Color Kittens
grief, and a return to normal living after a suitable time lapse. (1949). Five Little Firemen (1949). The Important Book (1949).
Little Chicken (1949). My World (1949). Pussycats Christmas
The Little Island (1946) is particularly interesting since the (1949). Two Little Miners (1949). Two Little Trains (1949). The
little kitten who visits the island learns from a sh that the Little Dark Wood of the Golden Birds (1950). The Dream Book (1950).
Island is a part of the world and a world of its own. This The Little Fat Policeman (1950). Peppermint Family (1950). The
philosophical idea, expressed by such writers as Shakespeare and Quiet Noisy Book (1950). The Wonderful House (1950). Fox Eyes
John Donne, is here set down in very concrete terms completely (1951). Pussy Willow (1951). The Summer Noisy Book (1951).
within a small childs frame of reference. The Train to Timbuctoo (1951). Two Little Gardeners (1951).
Perhaps the all-time favorite, however, is Goodnight Moon Christmas in the Barn (1952). Doctor Squash the Doll Doctor
(1947, reprinted dozens of times, the latest in 1994), meant to be (1952). The Duck (1952). Mister Dog (1952). The Noon Balloon
read as a bedtime story. Done in simplest rhyme, and featuring (1952). Seven Little Postmen (1952). Where Have You Been?
alternate pages of black-and-white and colored illustrations, there (1952). The Dead Bird (1953). The Golden Bunny (1953). The
is a very tiny mouse to be found by the youngster in each colored Hidden House (1953). Little Frightened Tiger (1953). The Sailor
picture. As the mouse is never in the same spot twice, children Dog (1953). Sleepy A B C (1953). The Friendly Book (1954). The
actively participate in the reading experience be locating the mouse. Little Fir Tree (1954). Little Indian (1954). Wheel on the Chimney
(1954). Willies Adventures (1954). The Little Brass Band (1955).
Many of Browns books sold millions of copies and remain Seven Stories about a Cat Named Sneakers (1955). Young Kanga-
deservedly popular today. A number have been translated into roo (1955). Big Red Barn (1956). Davids Little Indian (1956).
foreign languages; but what is more signicant than her prolicness Home for a Bunny (1956). Three Little Animals (1956). Whistle
or popularity, is that a number of her stories have rightfully been for the Train (1956). Nibble Nibble (1959). The Diggers (1960).
termed classics. In addition to Runaway Bunny, many of her tales Four Fur Feet (1961). On Christmas Eve (1961).
have been reissued throughout the decades and into the late 1990s.
Compilations also abound, with numerous collections like 1992s
Three Best-Loved Tales and John Speirs Margaret Wise Brown BIBLIOGRAPHY: Allen, M. N., One Hundred Years of Childrens
Treasury: Fourteen Classic Stories and Poems (1994). Browns Books in America: Decade by Decade (1996). Blos, J. W., The
rst publisher, William Scott, perhaps best summed up the writer Days Before Now: An Autobiographical Note (1994). Greene, C.,
and her work when he wrote in 1955, All her books have an Margaret Wise BrownAuthor of Goodnight Moon (1993).
elusive quality that was Margaret Wise Brown. . . . They have Marcus, L. S., Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon
simplicity, directness, humor, unexpectedness, respect for the (1999). Marcus, L. S., The Making of Goodnight Moon: A 50th
reader, and a sense of the importance of living. Anniversary Retrospective (1997). Rylant, C., Margaret, Frank,
and Andy: Three Writers Stories (1996). Sheel, E. M., M. W.
Brown (thesis, 1969). Tobias, T., A Wild and Private Place (1992).
OTHER WORKS: The Childrens Year (edited and translated by Reference works: DAB (1977). Junior Book of Authors (1951).
Brown, 1937). When the Wind Blew (1937). Bumble Bugs and Other references: Biography (Summer 1993). Hollins Alum-
Elephants (1938). The Fish with the Deep Sea Smile (1938). The nae Magazine (Winter 1949). Horn Book (June 1958). Life (2
Little Fireman (1938). The Log of Christopher Columbus (ed. Dec. 1946). NYT (15 Nov. 1952). PW (24 Nov. 1952).
by B. de las Casas and Brown, 1938). The Streamlined Pig (1938).
Home in the Wilderness (ed. by Brown, 1939). Little Pigs Picnic EDYTHE M. MCGOVERN,
(1939). Noisy Book (1939). The Comical Tragedy or Tragical UPDATED BY NELSON RHODES
140
BROWN, Nancy Lesbian Images, the earnestness would weigh heavily if the
See LESLIE, Annie Brown book were not lifted by arrogant humor, never-mind-the-conse-
quences fury, and transcending tenderness. Flashing wit and
lively language is evident throughout the novel.
A Plain Brown Rapper (1976) collects Browns essays and
BROWN, Rita Mae political writings originally published in Quest, Rat, Come Out!,
The Ladder, The Furies, Woman, and other feminist journals.
Born 28 November 1944, Hanover, Pennsylvania Throughout the essays on politics, economics, and feminism,
Daughter of Ralph and Julia Buckingham Brown. Brown emphasizes the common struggles of oppressed people. In
Take a Lesbian to Lunch, Brown argues not for separatism, but
Orphaned at an early age, Rita Mae Brown escaped from for understanding among all people, to make a better life for
high school and college, then went to lm school. She was a ourselves individually and collectively. In Six of One (1978)
fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. and Brown continues the irreverent, jaunty style of Rubyfruit Jungle.
in 1968, when Brown joined the New York chapter of National Many of the scenes are improbable, a combination of fantasy and
Organization for Women (NOW), she insisted women confront slapstick, but as one character observes, You have to be absurd
the issue of lesbian rights and was one of the Radicalesbians to sometimes. Nothing is more deadly than routine rationality.
write The Woman-Identied Woman (1970). Active in the
womens movement, she frequently lectured on feminism and gay Concentrating her efforts on ctionshe would publish 19
liberation. novels between 1979 and 1999, in addition to several screenplays
and an autobiographyBrowns more recent ction has appealed
The Hand That Cradles the Rock (1971), Browns rst to a wider, more mainstream audience than her early work.
published collection of poetry, consists of 56 short poems with a Rubyfruit Jungle made her Americas best known lesbian au-
brief statement by Brown that women will no longer accept the thor by the 1980s, and Brown consciously and vociferously
limiting denitions of their work imposed by men. Male culture fought such categorization, saying in a 1978 interview that
and men are repeatedly associated with images of death and classifying ction by race, sex, or sex preference of the author is
destruction, but women, having slumbered, are now ready to a discreet form of censorship that ghettoizes ction and insults
break and run. The image most frequently associated with its authors.
women is that of the nourishing, life-giving sea, ever-changing
and yet unchanged. Striking a recurrent theme throughout all her While moving toward a larger readership, Brown has seen
works, Brown insists change will occur not only from the rising her literary reputation suffer somewhat in the hands of critics
strength of the individual woman but through the sisterhood of attempting to categorize her work as that of a lesbian, wom-
women. In Sapphos Reply, Sapphos voice rings down an, or Southern writer. Characterizing Brown as impudent,
through thousands of years and Brown writes: Tremble to the iconoclastic, individualistic, [and] egotistical, Deborah T. Meem
cadence of my legacy / An army of lovers shall not fail. noted in Feminist Writers that Brown insists on her right to set
her own literary, political, and personal agenda, and has made an
Although Coletta Reid, in an introduction to Browns rst effort to separate herself from any social or political movement or
book, says Brown works out of a tradition of carefully structured dogma that interferes with this independence.
language and form, this attention to language is more noticeable
The uctuation in Browns literary stature was largely the
in Songs to a Handsome Woman (1973), perhaps because Brown
result of the publication of two awed novelsSudden Death
focuses on one themelove. Although loving another person
(1983) and Venus Envy (1993)and of a style of wit many critics
brings sorrow and pain as well as joy, a society or individual
insist on reading as a lack of seriousness. Developments in the
who denies love is a state away from denying life.
eld of lesbian literature in the 1980s and 1990s also played a part.
Browns best known book is her semiautobiographical The emergence of a larger body of works emboldened lesbians
Rubyfruit Jungle (1973), one of the rst novels to feature a strong and feminist reviewers to feel more comfortable delivering harsh
lesbian who feels no need to dissemble or apologize for her sexual criticism, yet this collection of works was still small enough to
preference. Molly Bolt grows up a dirt-poor illegitimate Southern burden individual works with higher expectations. Further, main-
child who quickly learns that survival depends on her own stream reviewers remained more critical of work they perceived
feelings and assertive actions. She refuses the conventional limi- as noncanonical.
tations of being a girl. Molly grows into a young woman who
The most persistent criticism of Browns oeuvre has been
would lose her scholarship and be expelled from college rather
that she is overpresent and obvious as a narrator and that she
than deny her love for her roommate. She works at menial jobs to
resolves crucial issues too simplistically or avoids resolution
earn money to continue her education, and battles the male
altogether. From Nickle Smith of Six of One (1978) and Bingo
chauvinism of the university where she is constantly frustrated in
(1988) to Frazier Armstrong of Venus Envy, Brown is more likely
obtaining the materials and equipment readily available to men in
to tell, or have her protagonists tell, who her characters are and
the lm department.
whats happening than to let readers discover for themselves. And
Several episodes in the novel are comic, and lend themselves although Browns conclusions are sometimes rushed, critics often
readily to Browns oral readings. As Jane Rule points out in overstate the problem. In her review of Southern Discomfort
141
(1983), an historical novel set in 1918 and 1928 Alabama, Breaking with ction, in 1997 Brown published Rita Will:
Charlotte Meyer makes a common complaint: the private and Memoir of a Literary Rabble-Rouser, a look back at her life as a
social costs involved in the affair between the aristocratic writer and a lesbian feminist. The book focuses on Browns
protagonist and a young black man are not worked out. . .be- celebrity status due to her notorious love affairs with several
cause Hercules is accidentallyand convenientlykilled. Yet female athletes and gains its appeal from its authors candid
this apparent solution complicates in some ways rather than discussion of her poverty-stricken upbringing and minutiae
simplies. Hercules death may save Hortensia from a public about those romantic escapades of tabloid fame, in the opinion
reckoning, but the circumstances of his death must bring a more of critic Charlotte Innes. However, Browns iconoclastic attitude,
painful personal reckoning. She has refused to run away with him her strongly voiced moral and political views, and her tendency
to the North; the very social structure that gives her the power and toward sentimentality put off some critics, who continue to look to
position she is unable to relinquish for him is directly responsible her ction for signs of continued development as an author.
for his death. A whites only ambulance refuses to take him to
the hospital and leaves him bleeding to death on the ground.
Tragedy here, as elsewhere in Browns works, is relieved by OTHER WORKS: In Her Day (1976). High Hearts (1986). Poems
comedy in most other sections of the novel; slapstick humor and (1987). Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writers
witty dialogue abound. Manual (1988). Pay Dirt; or, Adventures at Ash Lawn (1996).
Murder She Meowed (1997). Murder on the Prowl (1998). Cat on
Browns strength is in her sense of humor and her ability as a the Scent (1999). Loose Lips (1999).
storyteller. Her characters are vividly drawn and the situations she Screenplays: Slumber Party Massacre (1982); I Love Liberty
places them in usually outrageous and entertaining. With access to (coauthor, 1982); The Long Hot Summer, Part One (1985) and
a wider audience than most so-called lesbian writers, Brown The Long Hot Summer, Part Two (with Dennis Turner, 1985); My
tries to use her wit as a weapon, to present readers with both strong Two Loves (1986); Rich Men, Single Women (1989).
lesbian and gay characters and issues of race, class, and gender
with which they may be uncomfortable. She also assails social
conventions she sees as being at odds with human nature, but in a BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ward, C. M., Rita Mae Brown (1993).
generally humorous and therefore less threatening format. If the Reference works: CANR 35 (1992). CLC 43 (1987), 79
risk is that those issues then become easier to dismissand that (1994). CBY (1986). FW (1996).
critics will consequently nd Brown herself easier to dismissit Other references: Amer. Book Rev. (Jan./Feb. 1983). Booklist
seems a risk Brown is willing to take. (15 Mar. 1994). Choice (Sept. 1972). Conditions (April 1977).
In the early 1990s Brown joined the growing ranks of HudR (Spring 1972). Lambda Rising Book Report (Dec. 1988/
mystery novelists with the publication of Wish You Were Here Jan. 1989). LATBR (23 Aug. 1997). Ms. (June 1974). NYTBR (21
(1990) and Rest in Pieces (1992). Coauthored with her cat, Mar. 1982, 19 June 1983, 20 Apr. 1986, 16 Dec. 1990, 8 Dec.
Sneakie Pie Brown, and featuring investigative postmistress Har- 1996, 3 May 1998). PW (2 Oct. 1978). Signs (Summer 1984).
ry Haristeen, these books marked the beginning of a series of Sinister Wisdom (Fall 1976). VV (April 1974). WPBW (17
novels featuring feline sleuths Mrs. Murphy (a overfed tiger), the Feb. 1974).
gray-furred Pewter, and their erstwhile corgi companion Tee
LOIS MARCHINO,
Tucker. Taking place in Crozet, Virginia, the Sneakie Pie
UPDATED BY BETH GRIERSON AND PAMELA SHELTON
novels are imbued with Southern intrigue and a rural charm that
have gained them a growing readership, despite some criticism
that noncat lovers would nd the novels less entertaining due to
the frailty of their human characters. Reviewer Marilyn Stasio
noted that despite the artice of having the books narrated by a BROWN, Rosellen
cat, Browns solid storytelling and tart regional voice . . . keep
her mysteries from congealing in their own cuteness. Born 12 May 1939, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Other novels by Brown with a Southern slant include Dolley: Daughter of David H. and Blossom Lieberman Brown; married
A Novel of Dolley Madison in Love and War (1995) and Riding Marvin Hoffman, 1963; children: Adina, Elana
Shotgun (1997). Dolley is Browns ctionalization of a year
(1814) in the life of Dolley Madison, wife of President James In A Fragment of Autobiography, Rosellen Brown re-
Madison. Painting her protagonist as a protofeminist, Brown counts her rst memories of writing while her older brother was at
breaths life into her historical characters and the politics of the school. It was during World War II and her memories include air
day, according to reviewer Marie Kuda, who praised Browns raid drills, ration books, and terrifying thunder. Even before
portrayal of Dolley Madison as full-blown and vibrant, no she learned to write, Brown practiced letters imagining a story to
longer a static silhouette on a cupcake wrapper. Riding Shotgun, suit her mood. She also remembers early reading, and her grade
a novel mixing time travel and a 1990s protagonist into its historic school librarians policy of having children sell books they
plot, was less well received by critics, who found its plot confus- enjoyed to other classmates. Reading and writing focused much of
ing and implausible. her childhood, and Brown has said that she felt, even as a child, the
142
need to replenish, just a little bit, the pool of words Im drinking of their lives, the civil rights movement, seems no longer to exist.
from, to give back a book or two. The book is about families and about the politics that bring them
together and drive them apart.
Both her parents respected learning. Her mother, who mas-
tered English in a few months after arriving from the Ukraine, Before and After (1992) again makes use of a 1960s liberal
became a teacher for other immigrants, and Brown says that she couple: Ben, who is a sculptor, works at home and does the
was a natural poet even though she never wrote a word. Her cooking; Carolyn, his wife, practices medicine in a small New
father supplemented his eighth grade education by voracious Hampshire town. Both are trying to live without losing the aura
reading and writing. He sold many of his poems to New York that the 1960s brought to their lives. When their teenaged son,
newspapers and wrote articulate and sensible letters to the editor. Jacob, murders his girlfriend, the family must begin the long
His reading journals, Brown says, were monuments to a writing journey to reconstitute itself with this enormous burden. Like
talent he could not pursue while supporting his family. Tender Mercies, Before and After tears peoples lives apart and
examines how the characters mend themselves. The novel has
Despite the seeming security in the family, Brown felt keenly been translated into 23 languages, and a lm version (with
her rootless childhood, moving from town to town for her fathers screenplay by Ted Tally) was released in 1996 that greatly
job. When she was nine, they moved to Los Angeles, where distorted both the plot and the intercultural conict driving it.
Brown was frightened, lonely, and depressed. To compensate, she
In her two books of poetry, Some Deaths in the Delta (1970)
turned to writing. Brown remembers herself as obnoxious in her
and Cora Fry (1977), Brown again combines public politics and
self-advertisement, but she wrote and imagined, even at age nine private dreams. Some Deaths is a series of trenchantly critical
and with no womens movement, that she could combine mar- poems about the new South, and the tone often foreshadows Civil
riage and family with writing. Wars. Cora Fry, a series of narrative poems about marriage and
During her years at Barnard (B.A., 1960) Brown wrote and family, reveals the ways in which personal relationships recapitu-
worked with Robert Pack and George P. Elliot, who encouraged late larger social forces. Cora, wanting only freedom, runs away
her talent, and Pack obtained a place for her in the Cummington with her children, but returns to her marriage and the risk that her
Writers workshop. She published her rst poem, a sestina, in husband may well destroy them all.
Poetry magazine when she was a senior in college. Brown also collaborated on the Whole World Catalogue, a
compendium of creative writing ideas for elementary and second-
Browns marriage in 1963 initiated a return to the rootless
ary schools. Here, as in her ction, she replenishes the pool
life she had known as a child. She and her husband lived rst in
of words.
California, then in Mississippi, the setting for Civil Wars (1984),
and subsequently in Boston, in Brooklyn, the neighborhood of her In 1994 Brown continued to replenish the supply of her
book of short stories, Street Games (1974, 1991), in New Hamp- well-wrought words with Cora Frys Pillow Book, which includes
shire, and nally in Houston, where she taught creative writing at Cora Fry and the sequel of the title. With elegant brevity, Brown
the University of Houston. Of her constant relocation, both as a continues the tale of Coras life in smalltown New England as well
child and as an adult, she comments that it has given the theme of as that of her neighbors, packing rich imagery and deep emotion
exile to her writing. She says this exile can be just as deep an into very few words.
obsession as devotion to (or aversion to) home: the theme is seen In 1996 Brown moved from Houston to Chicago, where she
in almost all of her workpoetry, short stories, and novels. teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is at work
Browns rst novel, Autobiography of My Mother (1976), on a new novel. She reviews for the Womens Review of Books, the
pits two women against one another. The mother, Gerda Stein, is a New York Times Book Review, the Boston Globe, the New Leader,
and the American Book Review. An occasional travel piece
successful civil rights lawyer; her daughter, Renata, has become a
appears in the New York Times as well and she has contributed to a
ower child and has a baby out of wedlock. The two women not
number of anthologies, including A Place Called Home: Twenty
only represent poles of the political spectrum, but they also show
Writing Women Remember (edited by Mickey Pearlman, 1997),
readers how far apart and how hurtful mothers and daughters can
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their
be to each other.
Favorite Fairy Tales (edited by Kate Bernheimer, 1998), and
Tender Mercies (1978), the story of a young woman para- From Daughters to Mothers: I Always Meant to Tell You (edited
lyzed in a boating accident caused by her husband, again rubs raw by Constance Warhoe, 1998), an anthology of letters from 75
the nerve connecting people. The marriage of Dan Courser and writers to their mothers. John Updike has selected her superbly
Laura tests the strength of both and illustrates how people survive wry and painful short story How to Win for a volume tentative-
after they have committed monumental acts of carelessness. ly titled The Best Short Stories of the Century.
Civil Wars (1984), perhaps Browns most ambitious novel,

OTHER WORKS: A Rosellen Brown Reader (1992).
combines political and personal themes and explores the public
and private histories of a group of civil rights workers in Missis-
sippi. Jessie and Teddy Carll are two 1960s liberals trying to BIBLIOGRAPHY: Howe, F., ed., Meridian, The Salt Eaters, Civil
survive and to keep their marriage together when the raison dtre Wars (1991). Howe, F., ed., Tradition and the Talents of Women
143
(1991). LeClair, T., and L. McCaffery, Interviews with Contem- Claire; and Breakfast in Bed (1983), Prime Time (1983), and
porary American Novelists (1983). Pearlman, M., ed., Mother Heavens Price (1983) under her own name.
Puzzles: Daughters and Mothers in Contemporary American
Literature (1989). Brown began to feel locked in by the conventions demanded
Reference works: CA (1979). CAAS (1989). CANR (1985). by publishers and readers of romances, including the prohibition
CLC (1985). FC (1990). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing of graphic sex scenes and bad language and required happy
in the United States (1995). endings. In 1988 she wrote her rst mainstream novel, published
Other references: American Imago (Summer 1988). Chicago by Warner Books. Her loyal romance readers were furious by the
Review (Winter 1983). Contemporary Literature (Summer 1986). change at rst, but she managed to keep most of her audience as
South Atlantic Quarterly (Summer 1991). WRB (July 1989). well as adding even more fans. She became a xture on the New
York Times Bestseller List, where she was just the second female
MARY A. MCCAY, writer, after Danielle Steele, to have three titles appear simultane-
UPDATED BY MARTHA ULLMAN WEST ously. As of 1998, Brown had produced more than 60 novels,
including 36 bestsellers, and boasted well over 50 million copies
in print. Her works have been translated into 30 languages.
Browns rst mainstream novel was Slow Heat in Heaven

BROWN, Sandra (1988), followed by Best Kept Secrets (1989); Mirror Image
(1990), which represented her rst appearance on the New York
Born 12 March 1948, Waco, Texas Times list; Breath of Scandal and Another Dawn (both 1991);
Also writes under: Laura Jordan, Rachel Ryan, Erin St. Claire French Silk (1992), which was developed into a made-for-televi-
Daughter of Jimmie and Martha Cox; married Michael Brown, sion movie; Where Theres Smoke and Shadows of Yesterday
1948; children: Rachel, Ryan (both 1993); Charade (1994); The Witness (1995); Exclusive
(1996); Fat Tuesday (1997); Unspeakable (1998); and The Alibi
Sandra Brown has been among the most prolic and com- (1999). She has also written three books known collectively as the
mercially viable authors of romance and mainstream ction Texas! trilogy, including Texas! Lucky (1990), Texas! Chase
throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Her current books contain many (1990), and Texas! Sage (1992).
of the elements associated with the romance genre where she As a rule, critics love Browns plots but are less enamored of
became established rst, but also feature traits common to crime her writing style. Publishers Weekly noted of French Silk, De-
and political thrillers and mysteries. She is a rare example of a spite occasionally stilted and didactic dialogue, the novel is
romance writer who has been able to make a successful transition adroitly plotted and sleekly paced, and has just the right mix of
into mainstream novels. menace and sex to keep pages turning. Similarly, the publication
A native Texan, Brown was the oldest of ve daughters of a called Fat Tuesday a suspenseful, if rarely subtle, tale of revenge
father who wrote editorials for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and and corruption and Unspeakable a fast-paced and romantically
a mother who counseled emotionally disturbed children. Brown charged, if stify written, thriller. . . . Browns deftly plotted
attended Texas Christian University, Oklahoma State University, narrative twists and turns without losing hold of its suspense.
and the University of Texas at Arlington, although she never Browns work typically features a large number of eshed-out
graduated. She met her husband, a video producer, while em- characters, including a career-oriented female protagonist looking
ployed as a dancer at the Six Flags over America amusement park for love; lots of what one reviewer terms raunchy sex scenes;
in Arlington. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, she was complicated plots, often involving family issues, in which
employed as a model, weather reporter, and entertainment reporter. unanticipated secrets are revealed and the heroine is placed in
Brown began writing in 1981 at age thirty-three and sold her dangerous situations; and settings in the American South, from
rst book, Loves Encore, within the year under the pseudonym Texas to New Orleans to Washington, D.C. Readers and critics
Rachel Ryan. This was followed the same year by Love Beyond alike laud her ability to create fresh plots with every new book and
Reason. In 1982, ve of her titles were released and she was soon to keep readers guessing right up to the last page.
writing for all the major romance publishers, including Harlequin/
Silhouette, Dell, Bantam, Berkley/Jove and Richard Gallen/Pock-
OTHER WORKS: Relentless Desire (1983). Tempest in Eden (1983).
et, under her own name and three pseudonyms.
Tomorrows Promise (1983). In a Class by Itself (1984). Send No
Romance readers loved the fact that her books were set in the Flowers (1984). Sunset Embrace (1984). Bittersweet Rain (1984).
American South rather than among European royalty, as was the Words of Silk (1984). Thursdays Child (1985). A Sweet Anger
norm. Some of her early genre novels included Eloquent Silence (1985). Led Astray (1985). Another Dawn (1985). Riley in the
(1982) and A Treasure Worth Seeking (1982) under the pseudo- Morning (1985). Tiger Prince (1985). Above and Beyond (1986).
nym Rachel Ryan; Not Even for Love (1982), Hidden Fires (1982) The Rana Look (1986). Honor Bound (1986). 22 Indigo Place
and The Silken Web (1982) under Laura Jordan; A Kiss Remem- (1986). The Devils Own (1987). Sunny Chandlers Return (1987).
bered (1983) and Seduction by Design (1983) under Erin St. Demon Rumm (1987). Two Alone (1987). Fanta C (1987). Tidings
144
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BROWNMILLER
of Great Joy (1988). Adams Fall (1988). Hawk OTooles Hos- one nds many similarities. Legally enforced illiteracy was the
tage (1988). Long Time Coming (1989). Temperatures Rising bane of slaves, and a mainstay of the system. Slave leaders or high
(1989). Thrill of Victory (1989). A Whole New Light (1989). A achievers were those who, by subterfuge or luck, received some
Secret Splendor (1992). schooling. Violence was a second, less successful, mainstay of
slavery. Mistresses and professed Christians were as cruel or more
cruel than tobacco-chewing, whisky-drinking masters. Even though
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference Works: CANR (1998).
they whip slaves with impunity, even to death, for such sins as loss
Other references: Forbes (2 June 1997). NYTBR (31 May
of a silver fork, slave loyalty is tied not to punishment, but to
1992). People (4 July 1994, 21 Sept. 1998). PW (30 Aug. 1985, 15
rewards. Slaves were not well-provided with clothing, food,
Apr. 1988, 21 Dec. 1990, 7 June 1991, 16 Mar. 1992, 15 May
shelter, or medical care. It was especially hard for childbearing
1995, 10 July 1995, 6 May 1996, 9 Sept. 1996, 31 May 1997, 25
women, who were severely punished for resisting white mens
May 1998, 8 June 1998). Texas Monthly (Oct. 1991). Writers
advances, and were expected to do eld work and housework
Digest (Sept. 1984).
while pregnant or nursing; they kept their children alive only to
KAREN RAUGUST see them beaten or sold. Children were not properly cared for, and
had no chance to develop self-esteem. Their mortality rate was
extremely high.
BROWNE, Martha Grifth As a novel, the Autobiography is inevitably compared to

Stowes Uncle Toms Cabin, which preceded it by four years. The
Autobiography of a Female Slave is less derivative than might be
Born date unknown; died 25 May 1906 expected, depending less than Stowes work on sentimental
Wrote under: Martha Grifth, Mattie Grifth reaction for its antislavery impact, and being much more blunt and
Daughter of Thomas and Martha Young Grifth; married Albert realistic about the majority of slaveholders than is Stowes
Gallatin Browne depiction of Southern aristocrats.
Daughter of slaveowners, Martha Grifth Browne freed the
slaves she inherited, and over the protests of her relatives used her OTHER WORKS: Madge Vertner (1859-60). Poems (1852, 1853).
own resources to give her ex-slaves a start as free persons. Moving
to Boston in 1860, she wrote for Boston and New York antislavery
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bayliss, J., Black Slave Narratives (1970).
publications and participated in William Lloyd Garrisons Ameri-
Dumond, D., A Bibliography of Anti-Slavery in America (1967).
can Anti-Slavery Society.
Loggins, V., The Negro Author, His Development in America to
Brownes principal work, Autobiograpby of a Female Slave, 1900 (1931). Lystar, K. J., Two Female Perspectives on the
was rst published anonymously in 1857 (reprinted 1998), but the Slave Family as Described in Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life
authors identity was soon made known by Garrisons the Libera- of a Slave Girl and Mattie Grifths Autobiography of a Female
tor, which on 9 January 1857 printed an extract. Since its rst Slave (thesis, 1995). McPherson, J., The Struggle for Equality
publication readers have sometimes taken the Autobiograpby to (1964). Nichols, C., Many Thousands Gone: The Ex-Slaves
be an authentic slave narrative, sometimes an edited or shaped Account of Their Bondage and Freedom (1963). Ruchames, L.,
narrative, and sometimes a completely ctionalized story. Browne ed., The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison (From Disunion to the
herself reported in 1904 that it was totally composed of recited Brink of War, vol. 4, 1975).
and well-known facts. It is clear that Brownes account of
slave life in Kentucky is accurately based on her rsthand CAROLYN WEDIN SYLVANDER
experiences, but she made the book readable by creating dialogue
and shaping a plot.
The value of the Autobiography is twofold. First, despite its BROWNMILLER, Susan
touches of sentimentality and interspersed abolitionist polemic, it
provides insight into day-to-day Kentucky slave life, both in
Born 15 February 1935, Brooklyn, New York
country and city. The broad range of characters survival accom-
modations to slaveryfrom obsequiousness to militancy in the
Susan Brownmiller, best known as a feminist and activist,
slaves, and from extreme cruelty to strong antislavery opinions in
attended Cornell University from 1952-55. She began her career
the whitesgives a comprehensive picture of human interaction
as an actress in New York City, but after four years she turned to
with the peculiar institution. Second, having a female as the
editing for Coronet where she worked her way from assistant to
central character from whose rst-person point of view the stories
managing editor. She pursued this path and worked as an editor
of many other females are told, is a needed addition to the
for the Albany Report (1961-62), before becoming a national
authentic slave narratives, of which scores were published but
affairs researcher for Newsweek (1963-64). With experience in
in which womens stories were sadly underrepresented.
newswriting, she worked as staff writer for the Village Voice
When comparing Brownes novelized Autobiography with (1965) and then on to reporting for NBC-TV (1965) and network
the slaves description of slavery culled from rsthand narratives, newswriting for ABC-TV (1966-68). During this time in the
145
BROWNSON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
1960s, Brownmiller became one of the earliest politically active Western feminist focus, she nevertheless maintains the focus of a
feminists in New York City. Acutely aware of the need for newswoman and the passion of an activist.
improved womens rights, she was a founding member of the New
York Radical Feminists in 1968. Their protest demonstrations, Hurled into the public eye, and surrounded by both criticism
along with Brownmillers freelance journalism experiences led and applause alike, Brownmillers background as a newswriter
her to help organize a 1971 Speak-Out on Rape which became and her passionate struggle for womens rights have preserved her
the focus of much of her subsequent work. She also was an a place in the feminist cannon.
organizer of Women Against Pornography. Her activism, and
both nonction and ction have garnered her respect as a leader of
the feminist movement and an adversary of pornography. OTHER WORKS: Shirley Chisholm (1972). Femininity (1984).
Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape (1981) is the result
of four years of research and writing in which Brownmiller BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hoy, P. C., et al., eds., Womens Voices (1990).
explores the subject of rape in a way it had never been done Reference works: CA (Online, 1999). Complete Marquis
before. This controversial work explores the history of rape, the Whos Who (1995). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the
political use of rape in wartime, and the cultural and social United States (1995).
permutations of rape. The thesis of the work, which caused both Other references: Book Review Digest (1995).
outrage and introspection, states that rape is nothing more or less
than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all JULIET BYINGTON
women in a state of fear, an act of brute power, a thoroughly
detestable physical conquest from which there could be no retalia-
tion in kind. Heavily researched, Brownmiller relies on govern-
ment statistics, historical accounts, and cultural myths to construct BROWNSON, Sarah N(icolena)
a view of rape as not a sexual act but as an act of power and
oppression. While the book gained her celebrity, it was received
very differently by different people. Many, especially women, Born 7 June 1839, Chelsea, Massachusetts; died 30 October
saw the work as eye-opening and liberating by offering them a 1876, Elizabeth, New Jersey
way to understand an otherwise unexplainable act of barbarism, Wrote under: An American, Sarah M(aria) Brownson, One of
while others felt it vindictively, angrily, and wrongfully accused Themselves
all men of heinous crimes against women. The controversy of Daughter of Orestes A. and Sally Healy Brownson; married
Against Our Will brought Brownmiller widespread attention and William J. Tenney, 1873; children: two daughters
the book became a national bestseller. Her ultimate hope for her
book was to give women a way to ght back against rape and to let The daughter of a leading Roman Catholic thinker of 19th-
all women together nd a way to redress the imbalance and rid century America, Sarah N. Brownson spent almost her entire life
ourselves and men of the ideology of rape. . . . My purpose in this in her fathers home. She shared his religious interests, contribut-
book has been to give rape its history. Now we must deny it a ing anonymous literary criticism to his Brownsons Quarterly
future. Review. Brownson also wrote articles, stories, and poemsmany
Brownmiller has since produced additional feminist writ- still unidentiedfor other periodicals. Only three novels and a
ings, in addition to her foray into the novel with Waverly Place biography have been recognized as hers. In 1873 Brownson
(1989). This novel again broaches a difcult subject by examining married an elderly widower, and, after giving birth to their second
child abuse. Unlike with Against Our Will, she chose to set this daughter, died, just six months after her father.
work in ction because I wanted the freedom to invent dialogue,
In Marian Elwood, or How Girls Live (1859), the young
motivations, events, and characters based on my own understand-
author, identied only as One of Themselves, states that the
ing of battery and abuse. Where she based herself entirely on
fact and statistic in her rst work, here she delves into the other book was begun in an idle moment with no thought of
side of abuse to emotionalize and personalize the unimaginable. publication. Against a background of viciously competitive up-
per-class young ladies who irt with and reject suitors, the heroine
Turning to a new genre, Seeing Vietnam; Encounters of the matures, falls in love with a good man, and atones for her former
Road and the Heart (1994) she chronicles her experiences as an frivolity through suffering and good works.
American in Vietnam. According to one critic, she is a deter-
mined aggressive reporter with a ne sense for both background At Anchor, A Story of Our Civil War, by An American
and detail. She makes the point of journeying off the beaten (1865), again deals with upper-class courtship and marriage.
track. . . . And she manages to convey the avor of ordinary life in Georgie Vane, the New England heroine, marries a Southern
Vietnam. However, all reviews were not as favorable, and gentleman and settles in the Confederacy with him, where she
another critic found Brownmiller loses the beauty and joy of the remains through much of the Civil War. In this story it is the
curious moment when she interrupts her narrative to give a horrors and suffering of war which lead the heroine to maturity
history of the Vietnamese alphabet and discuss the faults of the and an ability to love deeply. The third novel, Heremore-Brandon,
Communist regime. While she turns largely away from her or the Fortunes of a Newsboy (1868), appeared only in serialized
146
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BRYAN
form in the Catholic World; its episodic quality makes it inferior week. The expanded Crusader moved to Atlanta in 1859, and
to its predecessor in unity, coherence of plot, and motivation. Bryan followed, serving as its literary editor. In 1868 Bryan
worked for Scotts Magazine of Atlanta, and her novel The
All three of Brownsons novels have contrived plots: chance
Mystery of Cedar Bay was serialized in its pages. From 1874-84,
meetings with unknown or forgotten relatives, sudden reappear-
Bryan served as associate editor of Sunny South, a popular Atlanta
ances of supposedly dead lovers or husbands. Yet the novels show
family weekly, and began to publish her novels in book form.
an ability to develop complex characters, especially women, as
Bryan moved to New York City in 1885 to become assistant editor
well as an understanding of human growth and an increasing
awareness of social problems. of two magazines published by George Munro, Fireside Compan-
ion and Fashion Bazaar. In her spare time, she completed at least
Although Catholicism runs through all of Brownsons c- nine novels, most of which Munro published.
tion, it is most explicit in Marian Elwood, where a sensible and
wise priest is contrasted with a fatuous and infatuated Protestant Manch (1880) typies the style and content of Bryans
minister. In the later novels Catholicism serves as a force in the ction. Fifteen-year-old Milly Brown goes into convulsions when
characters lives, urging them toward good works, sympathy for her husband is accused of murder. Climaxes include a race to the
the needy, and a relative simplicity of life. gallows and a scaffold confession from the heroines supposed
father, who reveals he had killed her true father for having married
The work for which Brownson is most generally known, and the woman he loved. Bryan supplements her sensational plotting
the only book published under her own name, is the Life of with fairly believable descriptions of the bayous and border
Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, Prince and Priest (1873), a biog- settlements.
raphy of the intellectual Russian prince who converted to Roman
Catholicism and served as a priest in the mountains of Pennsylva- In Wild Work (1881), purportedly based on actual incidents
nia. Brownsons careful research resulted in the rst in-depth in recontruction Louisiana, a heroine falls in love with a carpet-
study of Gallitzin. A French translation appeared posthumously. bagger, is disowned by her family, and dies of consumption while
her husband neglects her to pursue wealth and power. Despite the
melodramatic plot, Bryans local color and history generally ring
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Maynard, T., Orestes Brownson: Yankee, Radi-
true. She stresses the credulity, superstition, and shiftlessness of
cal, Catholic (1943).
the freedmen and the rapacity of the Yankees.
Other references: BrQR (1873). Catholic World (1873).
CHR (1940). Bryans poems were characterized by contemporaries as
brilliant and passionate. Although derivative, her poetry is
ARLENE ANDERSON SWIDLER often strong and sensitive, and its earnestness recalls the religious
fervor of her youthful years. In her 1860 essay, How Should
Women Write? Bryan discusses her aspirations as a writer, and
BRYAN, Mary Edwards calls upon women to write honestly about ethical and social
questions. If Bryans poems and novels generally fail to live up to
her early promise and the serious aspirations of How Should
Born 17 May circa 1838, Lloyd, Florida; died 15 June 1913,
Women Write? they offer valuable glimpses of the south both
Clarkston, Georgia
before and after the war. Bryans achievement as a well-paid
Daughter of John D. and Louisa C. Houghton Edwards; married
editor of Northern magazines still seems remarkable today.
Iredell E. Bryan, 1854
Mary Edwards Bryan spent her early years on her fathers OTHER WORKS: The Bayou Bride (1886). Kildee; or, The Sphinx
plantation near Tallahassee, Florida. Her childhood was given to of the Red House (1886). Munros Star Recitations for Parlor,
outdoor sports and horseback rides through the wild woods School, and Exhibition (ed. by Bryan, 1887). Stormy Wedding
surrounding her home. At age eleven Bryan was sent to the (1887). My Own Sin; A Story of Life in New York (1888). Uncle
Fletcher Institute, a boarding school near Thomasville, Georgia. Neds White Child (1889). The Ghost of the Hurricane Hills, or, A
Before she was sixteen, she had already published poems and a Florida Girl (1891). Ruth the Outcast (1891). His Legal Wife
story in the local paper. (1894). The Girl He Bought (1895). Nan Haggard, the Heiress of
Mystery surrounds Bryans marriage at the age of fteen or Dead Hopes Mine (1895). Poems and Stories in Verse (1895).
sixteen. An hour before she was married, she was sitting in her Maple Leaf Amateur Reciter, a Book of Choice Dialogues for
own room, studying her Latin lesson. Two hours afterward, she Parlor, School and Exhibition (ed. by Bryan, 1908). Bayou Tree
was on her way to her husbands home on the banks of the Red (n.d.). A Fair Judas (n.d.). Fugitive Bride (n.d.). Her Husbands
River. For reasons unknown, she left her husband after a year. The Ghost (n.d.). His Greatest Sacrice (n.d.). His Wifes Friend
separation was only partial, however, because her husband was (n.d.). Sinned Against (n.d.). Three Girls (n.d.).
devoted to her, and visited her frequently. The couple had at least
ve children.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Davidson, J. W., The Living Writers of the South
In 1858 Bryan began contributing to the Georgia Literary (1869). Forrest, M., Women of the South Distinguished in Litera-
and Temperance Crusader, lling three to ve columns every ture (1861). McVoy, L. C., and R. B. Campbell, A Bibliography of
147
BRYANT AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Fiction by Louisianians and on Louisiana Subjects (1935). Ray- All of Bryants books reect her comfortable upper-middle-
mond, I., Southland Writers (1870). Raymond, I., The Living class lifestyle and the particular conservative Christian subculture
Female Writers of the South (1870). of which she is a part. Her writings indicate a dogmatic conviction
Reference works: American Women (1897). Dictionary of that her view of life is the right way, the biblical way, Gods way.
American Biography, National Cyclopedia of American Biogra- If socialization agencies such as schools or the media are permit-
phy (1892 et seq.). NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). ted to present alternative world viewsespecially on certain
social issuesBryant fears children may make wrong choices.
SUSAN SUTTON SMITH Thus in The Anita Bryant Story (1977), Bryant, who believed God
had tapped her on the shoulder and given her direct marching
orders, and her husband claim that an ordinance guaranteeing
homosexual civil rights provides children with the mistaken idea
BRYANT, Anita that there is an alternative way of lifethat being a homosexual
or a lesbian is not really wrong. Since Bryant admits before this
time she had given no thought or study to homosexuality, The
Born 25 March 1940, Barnsdall, Oklahoma
Anita Bryant Story contains a great deal of misinformation,
Daughter of Warren and Lenora Berry Bryant; married Robert
sensationalism, and unsubstantiated generalizations about homo-
Green, 1960 (divorced 1980); Charlie Dry, 1990; child-
sexuality, which Bryant hastily put together in the emotional heat
ren: four
of seeking repeal of the ordinance.
Anita Bryants husband once remarked to his wife: I dont In At Any Cost (1978), coauthored with her husband, Bryant
think you had a childhood. Bryants father was nineteen, her explains that at the outset of her involvement in the homosexual
mother eighteen, when Bryant was born. They were divorced by controversy, there wasnt even time to try to inform myself,
the time she was two, remarried one another when she was three, and claims since then she endeavored to become more knowl-
and were divorced again when she was thirteen. Later both parents edgeable. The Greens felt they were misunderstood and mishan-
remarried others. Bryant and her younger sister were frequently dled by the media and thus wrote the book to tell their side of the
uprooted as their father, a laborer in the oil elds, moved from job story. The intent of At Any Cost is, apparently, to justify the
to job, and the family experienced periods of severe poverty. political stance they have taken all along, to describe what they
have been through as a family because of it, and to challenge
According to her autobiography, Mine Eyes Have Seen the others to stand up for what the Greens believe is right. Bryant
Glory (1970), however, Bryants singing talent was noticed early. describes homosexuality as a cancer on the soul of society and
Before nishing high school, she was appearing on network radio is convinced it was promoted (along with abortion and the Equal
and she later dropped out of Chicagos Northwestern University Rights Amendment) as part of a program of revolutionary
because of heavy career demands. Bryant met her manager- women whose goal is to destroy the social structure on which
husband, Bob Green, while promoting a highly successful record America rests. She characterizes the 1977 National Womens
in Miami. Many of Bryants works are coauthored with her Year Convention held in Houston as being antimale, antiwhite,
husband. antifamily, anti-Christian, and anti-American from start to n-
ish. At the same time, Bryant writes that it saddens her to be
Before 1977, Bryant was known as a wholesome and patriot-
accused of bigotry, adding, I truly do love the homosexual, and
ic entertainer, a devoted wife and mother of four children, an
all sinners for that matter.
author of religious books, and a promoter of orange juice for the
Florida Citrus Commission. In January 1977, however, she be- Bryant writes with surprising candor. She does not hesitate to
came a highly controversial public gure, identied primarily as a disclose the details of her emotional breakdown and the psycho-
crusader against homosexual rights. logical help that enabled her to work through childhood resent-
ments. Both Bryant and her husband freely speak of their hot
The books Bryant wrote before 1977 are much like Christ-
tempers, and the ongoing struggles they have in following what
mas family newsletters, lled with photos, anecdotes, and news of
they believe is the biblical model for marriage, i.e., male leader-
the Green family. Loosely organized, chatty, and platitudinous,
ship and wifely submission.
the books lack profundity, but are sincere expressions of Bryants
outlook on life and her personal understanding of the Christian At one point, Bryant considered supporting the ERA, but her
faith. Bless This House (1972) presents Bryants philosophy of husband and others convinced her that the Equal Rights Amend-
Christian marriage and includes four chapters written by her ment was not Gods will for the women of America. Neverthe-
husband. Fishers of Men (1973) tells of the Green familys efforts less, an unbidden feminist spirit shows up at various points in
to spread their Christian faith; while Running the Good Race Bryants writings. At the beginning of her marriage, time hung
(1976) describes the familys efforts at physical tness. In the unbearably heavy on her hands until she left her full-time
foreword to her second book, Amazing Grace (1971), Bryants homemaker role to return to the entertainment world. Bryants
publishers state Bryant never considered herself an author but autobiography speaks of an intense ambition and a relentless
was persuaded to write as one way to witness to thousands . . . drive to succeed, and most of her books contain lengthy confes-
how the Lord had touched her life. sions of her struggle to be a submissive wife.
148
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BUCHANAN
Bryant and Greens struggle for a biblical marriage ended in she tried to nd out as much as possible, and ultimately earned
divorce in 1980, and Bryant remarried in 1990, to a childhood pal grudging respect from members of the police force. She also was
who told her hed been in love with her for 40 years. A New Day acclaimed for her gripping writing style, particularly her leads.
was published in 1996, presenting a mellower Bryant than her
Over the course of 15 years, Buchanan covered more than
previous books, especially those written with former husband Green.
5,000 crimes, predominantly murders, winning awards from the
National Newspaper Association, the American Bar Association,
OTHER WORKS: Light My Candle (with B. Green, 1974). Bless and the Society of Professional Journalists. She won the Pulitzer
This Food: The Anita Bryant Family Cookbook (1975). Raising for general reporting in 1986.
Gods Children (with B. Green, 1977).
Buchanans rst book, published in 1979, was Carr: Five
Years of Rape and Murder, From the Personal Account of Robert
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Melgaard, M. J., The New Politics of Fear: The Frederick Carr III. While in prison, the eponymous Carr conded
1977 Dade County Gay Rights Referendum and the Regeneration to Edna details from his years of criminal behavior. The book
of the Radical Right, 1969-1980 (thesis, 1992). Scot, D. C., achieved some critical acclaim, particularly for its psychological
Something in Orange (1978). insight, but it did not sell well, and it was eight years before
Reference works: CB (1975). Buchanan released another book-length work. In 1987 Buchan-
Other references: Anita Bryant & The Protect Americas ans memoir of her years as a crime reporter, The Corpse Had a
Children Campaign (Formerly Save Our Children) (1978). Play- Familiar Face: Covering Miami, Americas Hottest Beat, became
boy (May 1978). People (5 July 1999). Todays Christian Woman a bestseller, thanks in part to the publicity from her recent Pulitzer.
(Fall/Winter 1978-79). Although some reviewers found her newspaper style irritating in
book form, most embraced it. One example of Buchanans trade-
LETHA SCANZONI mark prose: Many of the corpses have had familiar faces: cops
and killers, politicians and prostitutes, doctors and lawyers. Some
were my friends.
Two made-for-television lms based on The Corpse Had a
BUCHANAN, Edna (Rydzik) Familiar Face were aired on CBS in 1994 and 1995, both
featuring Elizabeth Montgomery as Buchanan. Buchanan then
Born circa 1939, Paterson, New Jersey. published a subsequent memoir, Never Let Them See You Cry:
Married Emmett Miller (divorced); Jim Buchanan (divorced) More from Miami, Americas Hottest Beat. Her rst novel,
Nobody Lives Forever, was published in 1990. It received some-
what mixed reviews but was nominated for an Edgar award for
Edna Buchanan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who
best rst mystery. As in later novels, Buchanan featured Miami
covered the police beat for the Miami Herald for nearly two
almost as a character in its own right and created believable
decades, as well as a bestselling crime novelist. She is known for
characters who echoed the real lives of the people featured in her
her punchy writing style, which has carried over from her newspa-
memoirs.
per reporting into her ction. She is also renowned for her
attention to detail and her portrayals of Miamiwhich plays the Buchanans second novel, Contents Under Pressure, was
role of a major character in her novels. published in 1992, the same year as Never Let Them See You Cry.
It introduced Britt Montero, a Cuban-American reporter for a
Buchanan was born in Paterson, New Jersey. Her mother,
ctional Miami newspaper, who the author has admitted is
taking Buchanan and her younger sister with her, left Buchanans
somewhat of an alter ego. Or, as Buchanan puts it, Montero is
father, who worked in a factory and later ran a tavern, when
what she would like to be.
Buchanan was seven. When Edna was twelve, she took a position
in a coat factory to help her mother with the family nances. This Contents Under Pressure was a commercial success, as were
was followed by several other blue-collar jobs. Due to monetary her subsequent novels, many of which feature Montero. They
concerns, she never attended college. Eventually Buchanan and include Miami, Its Murder (1994), Suitable for Framing (1995),
her mother both became switchboard assemblers at Western Act of Betrayal (1996), and Margin of Error (1997). Most
Electric. During their rst vacation, they visited Miami and received mixed reviews from critics, although nearly all praised
decided to move there. her journalistic eye and ability to create a good story and capture
Miamis atmosphere. Publishers Weekly wrote of Margin of
In 1964 Buchanan took a position at the Miami Beach Sun, a
Error: Buchanans Pulitzer Prize-winning eye doesnt miss
small local newspaper where she received intensive on-the-job
much in Miami. She knows its poshest precincts, its poorest
training as a reporter. She moved to the Miami Herald in 1970 and projects and the troubles lurking in both. She also knows how to
worked as a news and court reporter before transferring to the reveal the vulnerable heart beating within Britts tough exterior.
police beat in 1973, becoming the rst woman to ll the position
full-time. She quickly gained a reputation for her tenacity in Buchanans recent novel, Pulse (1998), was praised by
gathering information and compassion for victims, about whom reviewers as a character study containing both suspense and
149
BUCK AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
emotion. Miami again plays a starring role, but the books lead women and American servicemen); and in 1963, the Pearl S. Buck
character (not Montero this time) also travels to Seattle, which the Foundation.
author portrays with equal believability.
Buck has always been popular with the general public. Her
In addition to her novels, Buchanan also writes articles for simple style, her feeling for traditional values, and her skill in
publications including Cosmopolitan, Fame, Family Circle and writing on universal themes account for her appeal to the general
Rolling Stone. reader. Buck herself never felt the novel was a branch of great
literature, intended for an elite. Her Confucian tutor had taught her
to consider the novel a form of popular entertainment, unworthy
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference Works: CA 132 (1991). CBY (1997). of the scholar, and she wished to be popular, because she liked
Other references: New Yorker (17 Feb. 1986). NYTBR (20 ordinary people.
Feb. 1994, 24 March 1996). PW (19 Sept. 1994, 16 Jan. 1995, 2
June 1997, 30 March 1998). Time (28 Sept. 1987). The Good Earth, acknowledged as her best book, was written
out of sympathy with the Chinese peasants. Wang Lung, the
farmer, marries the slave girl, O-Lan, who becomes a devoted
KAREN RAUGUST
wife and a tireless worker. As she helps him on his farm, his
prosperity grows, and he begins to buy land. O-Lan also presents
him with childrentwo boys and a girl. Then famine comes. O-
Lan kills a fourth child at birth, a girl, because there is no food, and
BUCK, Pearl S(ydenstricker) the family, together with the old grandfather, heads south. In a big
city, they eke out a miserable living and the surviving daughter is
retarded. Then, during an insurrection, O-Lan nds some jewels
Born 26 June 1892, Hillsboro, West Virginia; died 6 March 1973, in a house being looted. These jewels make it possible to return to
Danby, Vermont the farm, and Wang Lung becomes more and more prosperous. O-
Also wrote under: John Sedges Lan bears twins, a boy and a girl. Then Wang Lung takes a
Daughter of Absalom and Caroline Stulting Sydenstricker; mar- concubine and forces O-Lan to give up two pearls, which were all
ried John L. Buck, 1917; Richard J. Walsh, 1935 she had kept for herself. He wants to give them to his other
woman. His oldest son tries with the concubine. After that, O-
The daughter of American missionaries who took her to Lan dies. Finally, Wang Lung and his family are established in the
China at the age of three months, Pearl S. Buck grew up in close great house where O-Lan once worked as a slave, in conditions of
contact with the Chinese and had no intention of ever leaving wealth and ease. The whole story is told with love and understand-
China except for periods of study, such as taking her degree at ing, and without a trace of praise or blame.
Randolph-Macon Womens College in Lynchburg, Virginia. In
1917 she married an agriculturist employed by the Presbyterian People everywhere identied with these Chinese peasants,
Mission Board, and in 1924 the two attended Cornell, where Buck and The Good Earth became a worldwide bestseller. It won Buck
won the Laura Messenger Prize for an essay, China and the the Pulitzer Prize in 1931 and the Howells Medal of the American
West. This was an omen for her future, for she was to explain Academy of Arts and Letters in 1935. The 1937 lm based on the
China to the West again and again, from her rst published work, book, and directed by Sidney Franklin, was also a great success,
East Wind: West Wind (1930), to the time of her death, when she with Paul Muni as Wang Lung and Luise Rainer, who won an
was working on a novel, Red Earth, which was to tell the story of Academy Award for her touching performance of O-Lan. It was a
the modern descendants of Wang Lung, the protagonist of her beautiful lm, although its happy ending was not faithful to
the book.
famous novel, The Good Earth (1931). Many of her books
concerned other countries of Asia and also the U.S., but her love In 1938 Buck received the Nobel Prize for rich and genuine
for the China in which she was brought up lasted all her life. epic portrayals of Chinese life and for masterpieces of biogra-
Twentieth-century struggles, however, destroyed traditional Chi- phy. The Nobel Prize was thus awarded not only for The Good
na and made it impossible for her to continue living in the country. Earth but also for Sons (1932) and A House Divided (1935), which
In 1932 Buck returned to the U.S., divorced her husband, and in carry the saga of Wang Lungs family through three generations.
1935 married her publisher, Richard J. Walsh. The original Other works were East Wind: West Wind, The Young Revolutionist
incentive for her to earn money by writing had come in 1928, (1932), The First Wife, and Other Stories (1933), her translation
when she realized her daughter Carol was incurably retarded. But of a Chinese novel, Shui Hu Chuan, All Men Are Brothers (1933),
Buck did not stop at providing care for this one child. Like her and The Mother (1934).
mother supporting Chinese famine refugees, she felt that any
suffering was her concern. Selecting Amerasians, who were hard The masterpieces of biography were Bucks accounts of
to place, she brought up nine adopted children. In 1941 she her mother, The Exile, and her father, Fighting Angel (both 1936).
founded the East-West Association; in 1949, Welcome House (a Her portraits of her parents are fresh, vivid, and true. She
non-prot organization which provided care for children of Asian describes her father and his evangelical fervor with tenderness,
150
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BUCK
understanding, and an admiration that is not lessened by a touch of by E. Roosevelt, 1942). The Promise (1943). The Water-Buffalo
humor. The same qualities appear in her portrait of her mother, Children (1943). What America Means to Me (1943). The Dragon
along with a fellow feeling of sympathy for the trials her mother Fish (1944). The Spirit and the Flesh (containing earlier works,
had to endure. Bucks mother deeply felt the loss of a child who 1944). The Angry Wife (1945). China Flight (1945). China in
succumbed to tropical diseases, but she took almost as hard her Black and White (1945). Portrait of a Marriage (1945). Talk
husbands refusal to treat her as an equal. After these biographies, About Russia (with M. Scott, 1945). Tell the People (with J. Yen,
Bucks most outstanding work of nonction also concerned her 1945). The Townsman (1945). Yu Lan: Flying Boy of Japan
own family, especially The Child Who Never Grew (1950), which (1945). Can the Church Lead? (1946). The Big Wave (1947). How
tells the heartrending story of her retarded child. It Happens (with E. von Pustau, 1947). This Proud Heart (1948).
American Argument (with E. C. Robeson, 1949). Kinfolk (1949).
The Good Earth has tended to overshadow all Bucks other The Long Love (1949). New Evidence of the Militarization of
writings, a circumstance that irritated her considerably, and with America (1949). One Bright Day (1950). Gods Men (1951). What
reason, for she wrote much of value. Among her lesser novels, of the Peoples of Asia Want (1951). Bright Procession (1952). The
particular interest are the following: Pavilion of Women (1946), Hidden Flower (1952). Come, My Beloved (1953). The Man Who
which tells how a Chinese lady nds fulllment in a spiritual love Changed China (1953). Voices in the House (1953). The Beach
for an Italian priest; Peony (1948), which presents the assimilation Tree (1954). Johnny Jack and His Beginnings (1954). My Several
of the Chinese Jews; and Imperial Woman (1956), which tells the Worlds (1954). A Certain Star (1957). The Christmas Miniature
story of Tzu Hsi, who was dowager empress of China when Buck (1957). The Christmas Mouse (1957). Letter from Peking (1957).
was a child. American Triptych (containing earlier works, 1958). Friend to
Friend (with C. P. Romulo, 1958). Command the Morning (1959).
Buck was forged by two great traditionsChina and the
The Christmas Ghost (1960). The Delights of Learning (1960).
evangelical Christianity of her missionary parents. Her writings,
Fourteen Stories (1961). A Bridge for Passing (1962). Hearts
with their simple, eloquent, somewhat archaic style and their taste
Come Home and Other Stories (1962). Satan Never Sleeps (1962).
for a clear message based on real experience, have reminded
The Living Reed (1963). The Big Fight (1964). Children for
people of the Bible. But she was too earthy for a missionary, and
Adoption (1964). Escape at Midnight and Other Stories (1964).
too accepting of all religions. She refused her fathers doctrines
Joy of Children (1964). Welcome Child (1964). Death in the
(for her mother was more loving and less dogmatic) as too harsh
Castle (1965). Fairy Tales of the Orient (1965). My Mothers
and narrow, and she tempered her parents ideal of Christian love
House (1965). For Spacious Skies (with T. F. Harris, 1966). Little
and service with Confucian tolerance and calm. Whatever her
Fox in the Middle (1966). Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (1966).
subject, she sought to convey these dual lessons to the world. And
The People of Japan (1966). The Time Is Noon (1966). To My
in this task she had set herself, she was as untiring and as
Daughters, with Love (1967). The New Year (1968). Elements of
impossible to discourage as her father had been in his mission
Democracy in the Chinese Traditional Culture (1969). The Good
work. Her obituary in the New York Times said that by her 80th Deed and Other Stories of Asia (1969). The Three Daughters of
birthday, in 1972, she had published more than 85 novels and Madame Liang (1969). China As I See It (1970). The Kennedy
collections of short stories and essays, and that more than 25 Women (1970). Mandala (1970). The Chinese Story Teller (1971). A
volumes still awaited publicationa staggering output. Although Gift for The Children (1971). Pearl Bucks America (1971). The
it was never her ambition to rival the great writers of the world, the Story Bible (1971). China Past and Present (1972). A Community
quality of her work is remarkable. When one also thinks of her Success Story: the Founding of the Pearl Buck Center (1972). The
humanitarian endeavors, of which only the briefest account has Goddess Abides (1972). Once Upon a Christmas (1972). Pearl
been given in this article, one wonders how a single human being Bucks Oriental Cookbook (1972). All Under Heaven (1973).
could have done so much. Mrs. Starlings Problem (1973). Pearl S. Bucks Book of Christ-
mas (1974). The Rainbow (1974). Words of Love (1974). East and
West; Stories (1975). Secrets of the Heart (1976).
OTHER WORKS: East and West and the Novel (1932). Is There a
Case for Foreign Missions? (1932). The Laymens Mission Re-
port (1932). The Writing of East Wind: West Wind (1932). Far BIBLIOGRAPHY: Doyle, P. A., Pearl S. Buck (1965). Harris, T. E.,
and Near (1934, pub. as Twenty-seven Stories, 1943). Today and Pearl S. Buck: A Biography (1969-71). Spencer, C., The Exiles
Forever (1934). The Gifts They Bring (with G. T. Zarfoss, 1935). Daughter, a Biography of Pearl S. Buck (1936). Stirling, N., Pearl
House of Earth (containing earlier works, 1935). On Discovering Buck: A Woman in Conict (1983). Thompson, D. W., Pearl
America (1937). This Proud Heart (1938). The Chinese Novel Buck, in American Winners of the Nobel Literary Prize (1968).
(1939). The Patriot (1939). Other Gods (1940). Stories for Little Van Doren, C., The American Novel, 1789-1939 (1940). Van
Children (1940). Of Men and Women (1941). Stories of China Gelder, R., Writers and Writing (1946). Walsh, R. J., A Biographi-
(containing earlier works, 1941). American Unity and Asia (1942). cal Sketch of Pearl S. Buck (1936). Zinn, L., The Works of
Asia and Democracy (1942). China Sky (1942). The Chinese Pearl S. Buck: A Bibliography, in Bulletin of Bibliography
Children Next Door (1942). Dragon Seed (1942). Freedom for All 36 (1979).
(1942). Freedom for India Now! (with Lin Yutang, K. Shridharani
et al.; 1942). Pearl Buck Speaks for Democracy (with foreword BARBARA J. BUCKNALL
151
BUCKMASTER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
BUCKMASTER, Henrietta reality as the leaders of great nations recognize their inadequacy in
the face of potential nuclear catastrophe. Unless every nation
makes peace its top priority, any nation can destroy all. Thus, the
Born Henrietta Henkle, 10 March 1909, Cleveland, Ohio; died threat Buckmaster has presented lingers beyond the end of the novel.
April 1983
Daughter of Rae D. and Pearl Wintermute Henkle; married Peter In The Walking Trip (1972), an American girl, Molly Sayers,
John Stephens comes to London to accompany her brother on a walking trip
through Scotland. He disappears, and in an effort to nd him, she
Henriette Buckmaster grew up in New York City, where she becomes enmeshed in Rhodesian politics. Here Buckmaster uses
attended the Friends Seminary and the Brearley School. In a contemporary political situation in which black Africans seek to
addition to writing historical studies and novels, Buckmaster overthrow the power of colonialism in Rhodesia as the back-
wrote book reviews for the Saturday Review of Literature and the ground against which to present the ideal feminine personality.
Mollys courage enables her to nd a man who respects her as a
New York Times.
person and helps rescue her brother. The style is straightforward,
Buckmasters works reveal a fascination with history. They and the story is fast moving. It is not great literature but it is good
include two history booksLet My People Go (1941), the story of popular ction.
the underground railroad, and Freedom Bound (1965), which
The Rhodesian situation in The Walking Trip, like the United
describes the Reconstruction period from 1865 to 1877as well
Nations and international politics in Lion and the Stone, demon-
as numerous historical novels.
strates Buckmasters use of contemporary history. She uses the
A major concern of Buckmasters historical novels is human biblical era in And Walk in Love (1956), a novel about the Apostle
freedom. American slaves and women are often her subjects. In Paul; the 16th century in All the Living (1962), an imaginary
Deep River (1944), Buckmaster presents opposition to slavery account of a year in the life of Shakespeare; and the 19th century
from the perspective of the mountain people of western Georgia. in many works concerned with slavery and abolition. Buckmaster
The strong-willed main character, Savanna Bliss, nds in her is careful with the facts of history and is true to the spirit of the
husband Simon a man strong enough to accept her strength. He times about which she writes.
allows her to share in his struggle against slavery in the Georgia
Buckmaster writes for the common reader. She makes Ameri-
legislature in order to advance the economic situation of the poor
can ideals engrossing and edifying. Sacricing neither truth nor
white mountain farmer.
reality, she holds up to her readers the ideals of political democra-
The issues of the emancipation of women and slaves come cy and human worth. Her novels combine the scholarship of the
together again in the novel, Fire in the Heart (1948), which tells historian with the concern of the civil libertarian.
the story of Fanny Kemble, the great 19th-century English actress.
Fanny saves her family from bankruptcy and at the same time
becomes famous by playing Juliet at Covent Garden. At the death OTHER WORKS: Tomorrow Is Another Day (1934). His End Was
of her rst love, the renowned artist Thomas Lawrence, Fanny His Beginning (1936). Bread from Heaven (1952). Lucy and Loki
travels to America with her father and aunt. The theatrical tour is (1958). Walter Raleigh: Man of Two Worlds (1964). Paul: A Man
highly successful, but Fanny leaves the stage to marry a wealthy Who Changed the World (1965). The Seminole Wars (1966).
Philadelphia lawyer and businessman. Always something of a Women Who Shaped History (1966). The Fighting Congressmen:
mist in his conventional and prestigious family, Fanny nds her Thaddeus Stevens, Hiram Revels, James Rapier, Blanche K.
love sufcient to overcome all difculties except one: she must Bruce (1971).
live with the uncomfortable knowledge that their land in the South
is farmed by slaves they own.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1974). SAA (1974).
In Fire in the Heart, Buckmaster creates another free-spirited Other references: Best Sellers (1 July 1968). CSM (5 May
woman in conict with the customs and attitudes of her day. 1966, 6 June 1968). NYTBR (14 July 1968). Variety (19 Aug.
Simultaneously, she reminds her readers of the involvement in 1970). Young Readers Review (April 1966). Author Henrietta
slavery of northerners who derived wealth from the South- Buckmaster Discusses Her Book, The Lion in the Stone, with
ern system. Robert Cromie (audiocassette, 1971).
The Lion in the Stone (1968) is the story of Devar Moragoda,

GWENDOLYN A. THOMAS
secretary-general of the United Nations, and his colleagues as
they struggle to maintain peace in the post-Vietnam era. The
absence of China from the Security Council complicates their
efforts when Mongolia, by declaring itself independent of Russian
inuence, shatters the tenuous balance of power between Russia BURKE, Fielding
and China. Buckmaster achieves an atmosphere of tension and See DARGAN, Olive Tilford
152
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BURNETT
BURNETT, Frances (Eliza) Hodgson woman and the self-sacricing wife and mother. While she was
laboring over a 512-page portrayal of Anglo-American relation-
ships (The Shuttle), she would shock her readers with a heroine
Born 24 November 1849, Manchester, England; died 29 October
who has been reared as a boy and later kills her husband with a
1924, Plandome, New York
riding whip (A Lady of Quality), then dash off a novella about a
Daughter of Edwin and Eliza Boond Hodgson; married Swan
woman who, through self-abasing humility, wins the hand of a
Moses Burnett, 1875 (divorced 1898); Stephen Townsend,
wealthy nobleman (The Making of a Marchioness, 1901).
1900 (until 1907)
A Burnett biographer, Ann Thwaite, suggests that Burnetts
Frances Hodgson Burnett, the middle of ve children, lived rst bestseller changed her from a talented realist comparable to
until she was sixteen in Manchester, England. A dame school she Elizabeth Gaskell into a pen-driving machine turning out inferior
attended there provided her only formal education. In 1865, after romances. But it can also be argued that Burnett excelled when
her businessman father died, the family joined a relative in she stayed close to the fairy tale, as in her best-known childrens
Knoxville, Tennessee, where nancial need prompted Burnett to works, or when her tensions as artist and woman were allowed to
sell her rst story, published when she was nineteen. In 1873 she inform and discipline her work, as in The Making of a Marchion-
married an eye specialist, with whom she had two sons. Burnetts ess, which contains within the literary context of a romantic
writing proved a major means of the young familys support, and Cinderella tale a scathing portrayal of womens plight in the
her success as a writer of popular ction made her a celebrity Edwardian marriage market.
which allowed her family to enjoy an expensive international
lifestyle. In 1898 Burnett and her husband were divorced. From
1900 to 1907 she was married to Stephen Townsend, whose OTHER WORKS: Dolly (1877, reprinted as Vagabondia, 1883).
theatrical aspirations she had been championing since 1889 in Pretty Polly Pemberton (1877). Surly Tim (1877). Theo (1877).
London, while she was overseeing the stage production of her Earlier Stories, First and Second Series (1878). Kathleen (1878).
stories. Miss Crespigny (1878). Our Neighbor Opposite (1878). A Quiet
Life (1878). The Tide on the Moaning Bar (1878). Haworths
Burnetts career was productive as well as long. Her 55 titles (1879). Jarls Daughter (1879). Natalie (1879). Esmeralda (1881).
include ve bestsellers, and 13 of her stories and novels were A Fair Barbarian (1881). Edithas Burglar (1888; dramatization,
adapted for the stage in England or America. After her rst story Nixie, 1890). The Fortunes of Philippa Fairfax (1888; dramatiza-
was published in Godeys Ladys Book in 1868, Burnett wrote tion, Phyllis, 1889). The Real Little Lord Fauntleroy (1888). Sara
formulaic love stories for fashionable magazines before graduat- Crewe (1888). A Womans Will; or, Miss Defarge (1888). The
ing to novels. Several of these, novels of working-class and Pretty Sister of Jos (1889; dramatization, 1903). Little Saint
political life such as That Lass o Lowries (1877), Louisiana Elizabeth (1890). The Drury Lane Boys Club (1892). Giovanni
(1880), and Through One Administration (1883), gained her and the Other (1892). The Showmans Daughter (1892). The One
critical recognition as a serious artist. American reviewers com- I Knew the Best of All (1893). Piccino, and Other Child Stories
pared her work favorably with that of George Eliot and placed her (1894). The Two Little Pilgrims Progress (1895). The First
in the front rank of young American ction writers. Gentleman of Europe (1897). His Grace of Osmonde (1897). In
Connection with the De Willoughby Claim (1899; dramatization,
Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), based on her son Vivian,
That Man and I, 1904). The Methods of Lady Walderhurst (1901).
established Burnetts reputation as a popular writer. Intended
In the Closed Room (1905). The Dawn of a Tomorrow (1906;
primarily for children, the book became a bestseller and was soon
produced 1909). Racketty Packetty House (1906; produced 1912).
translated into more than a dozen languages. Burnetts stage
The Troubles of Queen Silver-Bell (1906). The Cozy Lion (1907).
version was popular in England and France as well as in America;
in 1924, Mary Pickford starred in a lm version. After this The Good Wolf (1908). The Spring Cleaning (1908). Barty Crusoe
success, Burnett wrote more books for children, two of which and His Man Saturday (1909). The Land of the Blue Flower
continue to nd an appreciative audience: A Little Princess (1909). My Robin (1912). The Lost Prince (1915). Little Hunch-
(1905), which has been made into several lm adaptations, back Zia (1916). The White People (1917). Robin (1922). In the
including in 1939 starring Shirley Temple; and The Secret Garden Garden (1925).
(1911), a pastoral novel considered a juvenile classic.
The books that found their way onto annual lists of bestsell- BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bixler, P., Frances Hodgson Burnett (1984).
ers, however, were novels of fashionable social life written for Burnett, C. B., Happily Ever After (1969). Burnett, V., The
adults: A Lady of Quality (1896), the story of a strong-willed Romantick Lady (1927). Koppes, P. B., Tradition and the
woman in early 18th-century England; The Shuttle (1907), a novel Individual Talent of Frances Hodgson Burnett, in Childrens
about an Anglo-American marriage; T. Tembarom (1913), a Literature 7 (1978). Laski, M., Mrs. Ewing, Mrs. Molesworth, and
Horatio Alger-type sequel to The Shuttle; and The Head of the Mrs. Hodgson Burnett (1950). Mollson, F. J., Frances Hodgson
House of Coombe (1922), a portrayal of social life in London Burnett, (1828-1924), in American Literary Realism (Winter
before World War I. 1975). Thwaite, A., Waiting for the Party: The Life of Frances
Hodgson Burnett (1974).
Burnetts life and writing were characterized by tensions
between the serious artist and the popular writer, the independent PHYLLIS BIXLIR KOPPES
153
BURNHAM AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
BURNHAM, Clara L(ouise) Root BURR, Esther Edwards
Born 26 May 1854, Newton, Massachusetts; died 21 June 1927, Born 1732, Northampton, Massachusetts; died April 1758, Prince-
The Mooring, Baileys Island, Casco Bay, Maine ton, New Jersey
Daughter of George F. and Mary Woodman Root; married Daughter of Jonathan and Sarah Pierrepont Edwards; married
Walter Burnham, 1873 Aaron Burr, 1752
Clara L. Root Burnhams father composed songs and cantatas, Esther Edwards Burr was the third of 11 children of Sarah
one of his most famous pieces being the Civil War marching song, Pierrepont and the prominent minister, Jonathan Edwards. At the
The Battle Cry of Freedom. Burnham attended Chicago public age of twenty she married Aaron Burr, pastor of the Presbyterian
and private schools where she developed an ambition to become a church at Newark, New Jersey, and later a founder and second
musician. president of Princeton College. At twenty-six years of age, Burr,
having been widowed a year, died from the results of an innoculation
At age nineteen Clara married a lawyer, Walter Burnham, against the small pox.
and began a long and fruitful writing career. Burnham turned out
an amazing amount of work. Not only did she write poems and In 1754 Burr began a journal of her daily life and exchanged
stories for numerous magazines, but she also produced the texts it periodically with one kept by her friend, Sarah Prince, of
for many of her fathers cantatas. The list of Burnhams novels is Boston. Burrs journal is valuable for the views it gives of the
impressively long. She had been writing girlish love stories for Puritan womans life in the mid-18th century and for the insights
some time when she was suddenly inspired to incorporate her into how Puritan values and habits of mind helped a woman to
understand and evaluate the world in which she lived.
Christian Science convictions into her ction. The Right Princess
(1902) was the rst tale in which she did so, and it was followed The dominant themes of the journal are the loneliness and
by many others carrying similar religious messages. Jewel: A hardship of everyday existence which are only made endurable by
Chapter in Her Life (1903), a bestseller, was Burnhams own the knowledge of Gods providential guidance of human affairs.
favorite. These cheery optimistic books, says one critic of her For example, when her second child was born, Burr was entirely
novels, well-laden with propaganda for the faith, appealed to alone, but her faith in God helped her to meet the ordeal: I felt
Christian Scientists and to admirers of the Pollyanna type of very gloomy when I found I was actually in labour to think that I
romance. Reviewers consistently labeled the novels pleas- was, as it were, destitute of earthly friendsno mother, no
ant, and commented on the pervasive, yet not obtrusive, strain of husband, and none of my particular friends that belong to the town
Christian Science philosophy in each. Her plot structures and . . . only my dear God was all of these relations to me. On
clear style were praised. another occasion she was visiting her father in Stockbridge,
Massachusetts, where the community was expecting an Indian
Burnham seems to have beneted personally from the beliefs attack. She had a momentary crisis of faith: I want to be made
she so earnestly tried to promulgate: the all-embracing love of willing to die in any way God pleases, but I am not willing to be
God who works everything out harmoniously, and on whom one butchered by a barbarous enemy nor cant make myself willing.
could rely with faith, love, and humility. Her ction is not great Ultimately she trusted in Providence and prayed for survival: the
literature but it is the reection of a happy, serene spirit, and in its Indians never attacked.
day, it gave pleasure and refreshment to many readers.
In the Puritan manner the journal records events large and
smallfor Gods will was manifest in every activity of life. Thus
OTHER WORKS: No Gentlemen (1881). A Sane Lunatic (1882). the journal tells of visitations to the sick, attendance at sermons,
Dearly Bought (1884). Next Door (1886). Young Maids and Old entertainment of the governors wife with cakes on militia day,
(1888). The Mistress of Beech Knoll (1890). Sweet Clover (1894). the depradations of the French and the Indians, the political
The Wise Woman (1895). Miss Archer Archer (1897). A Great maneuverings of the Newark community, the circumstances of
Love (1898). A West Point Wooing (1899). Miss Pritchards the religious revival of the mid-1750s, and the problems of
Wedding Trip (1901). Jewels Story Book (1904). The Opened moving to Princeton and of establishing the collegeall given
Shutters (1906). The Leaven of Love (1908). Clever Betsy (1910). with frank, moral assessments of what Burr thinks of the behavior
The Inner Flame (1912). The Right Track (1914). Instead of the of her contemporaries. Her commentary on the protestations of
Thorn (1916). Hearts Haven (1918). In Apple Blossom Time the local government as it prepared to meet the threatened advance
(1919). The Keynote (1921). The Queen of Farrandale (1923). of the French and the Indians is typical:
The Lavarous (1925).
I am perplexed about our publick affairs, the Men say
(tho not Mr. Burr, he is not of that sort) that women have
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: TCA (1942). no business to concern themselves about em but to trust
Other references: NYT (22 June 1927). Outlook (9 Nov. 1912). to those that know better and be content to be de-
stroyedbecause they did all for the bestIndeed, if I
ABIGAIL ANN HAMBLEN was convinced that our great men did as they really
154
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BURTON
thought was for the Glory of God and the good of the Burton did her most important work in the eld of popular
country, it would go a great ways to make me easy. biography, a genre she pioneered only after her entrance into the
Roman Catholic church. Her rst book, Sorrow Built a Bridge
As a result of this personal evaluation of the events and (1937), which remained a favorite with both the author and her
interests of her time, Burrs journal has a warm, emotional quality readers, narrates the life of Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, the youngest
which makes the incidents of the past come alive. She is frank and child of Nathaniel Hawthorne. With her husband, Rose Haw-
explicit, never falsely sentimental or literary. Like the preachers thorne Lathrop became a Roman Catholic. After being widowed,
she heard regularly, Burr kept to the plain style, proudly asserting she formed a Dominican community devoted to the care of poor
that the busy housewife had no time to be literary. The and incurable victims of cancer.
journal is, then, a sensitive, lively account of Gods way with the
Puritan woman. It is a moving story of a womans growth to Other biographies of converts followed; Burton chose for
maturity within the Puritan tradition of provincial America. these early works native-born Americans, usually of New Eng-
land birth and upbringing, in an attempt to show that good
OTHER WORKS: Esther Burrs Journal (1754-1757). A Document Americans could be good Catholics. Because Burton had been
of Evangelical Sisterhood (edited by L. Crumpacker and C. attracted to the Roman Catholic church for its continuity of
Karlsen, in preparation). Esther Burrs Journal (edited by J. doctrine, she often chose as subjects converts with similar
Rankin, 1902), an untrustworthy edition containing many pages motivations. In her conversion narratives there is little tendency to
that appear to be fabrications. denigrate other churches, for Burton was greatly moved by
The papers of Esther Edwards Burr are at Yale University, charitable works undertaken by any faith. Her books, however,
Andover-Newton Theological School (Newton, Massachusetts), are clearly intended to edify a Catholic readership, and their
and Princeton College. appeal outside this communion has been limited.
The style of informal biography which Burton developed was

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Axtell, J., A School Upon a Hill (1974). Cott, N., reviewed with qualied praise by such scholars as Theodore
The Bonds of Womanhood: Womans Sphere in New England, Maynard and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Burton made no attempt,
1780-1835 (1977). Fisher, J., The Journal of Esther Burr, in however, to be exhaustive or to document her sources, and she did
NEQ 3 (1930). little archival research. Burton was sensitive, however, to the
charge that her stories were ctional. Her biographies included
MAUREEN GOLDMAN dialogue, but she insisted that, except for feed lines, any words
within quotation marks were taken from letters, diaries, books, or
conversations.
BURTON, Katherine Kurz Burtons success in avoiding the piety and sentimentality of
older biography was uneven. Much of the appeal of her earlier
Born March 1890, Cleveland, Ohio; died 22 September 1969, books lay in their portrayal of well-known gures, i.e., the
Bronxville, New York Concord literary circles with which the Hawthornes associated, or
Daughter of John and Louise Bittner Kurz; married Harry P. the Brook Farm group. Such literary gures also provided Burton
Burton, 1910 with considerable material for the construction of dialogue. Many
of her later books, however, portrayed Catholic women who
After graduating from Western Reserve University and teach- inhabited a less intellectual and more pious world; Burtons life of
ing for a year in rural Pennsylvania, Katherine Kurz Burton Mother Butler of Marymount (1944), for example, was criticized
married a journalist and editor in 1910. From this point forward in Commonweal as sugar-coated and iced over.
she devoted herself to freelance writing and, for a short period, to
magazine editing. Burton had strong feminist leanings, and she did not conceal
the problems of women confronting male Catholic structures.
From 1928 to 1930 Burton served as associate editor of
According to the Pattern (1946) is the story of Cardinal Man-
McCalls, and from 1930 to 1933 she worked at Redbook. On the
nings efforts to get a young woman admitted to medical school. It
basis of this experience, in 1935 she was invited to edit a womens
focuses on the Catholic womans long struggle to convince
page for Sign, a Catholic monthly; according to the editor, it was
Vatican authorities that nuns should not be forbidden to become
the magazines most popular feature. Some of these pieces are
doctors.
collected in Woman to Woman (1961).
Burton was a prolic writer. Her essays and poems were
published in many religious periodicals, rst Episcopalian and, OTHER WORKS: Paradise Planters (1939). His Dear Persuasion
after her reception into the Roman Catholic church in 1930, in (1940). In No Strange Land (1942). Brother Andre of Mount
Roman Catholic magazines. Her verse, light but controlled, also Royal (1943). Celestial Homespun (1943). No Shadow of Turn-
appeared in F. P. Adamss Conning Tower in the New York ing (1944). His Mercy Endureth Forever (1946). Difcult Star
Herald Tribune, some examples of which are included in her (1947). Three Generations (1947). Mightily and Sweetly (1948).
autobiographical The Next Thing (1949). Chaminade, Apostle of Mary (1949). So Surely Anchored (1949).
155
BURTON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
The Great Mantle (1950). Feast Day Cookbook (with H. Ripperger, that followed tracks not assigned to him. The hero of Mike
1951). Where There Is Love (1951). The Table of the King (1952). Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (1939) digs himself into a hole,
Whom Love Impels (1952). So Much, So Soon (1953). Childrens and the storys innovative ending was provided by one of Burtons
Shepherd (1954). The Stars Beyond the Storms (1954). In Heaven neighborhood children. Burton satised her sons curiosity about
We Shall Rest (1955). My Beloved to Me (1957). The Golden Door steam shovels by inserting a diagram of the machine with appro-
(1957). Lily and Sword and Crown (1958). With God and Two priate terms in the published book. The Little House (1942)
Ducats (1958). Witness of the Light (1958). Faith Is the Substance describes a dwelling which becomes engulfed by the encroaching
(1959). Make the Way Known (1959). Cry Jubilee! (1960). The city, and is transported to the countryside. The background
Dream Lives Forever (1960). One Thing Needful (1960). Wheat surroundings change over the years as the house becomes more
for This Planting (1960). Leo the Thirteenth (1962). The Door of dilapidated; it is then restored in its new location.
Hope (1963). The Bernardines (1964). Bells on Two Rivers
(1965). Valiant Voyager (1965). When Burton considered writing on the subject of snow-
removal equipment, she drove to Gloucester during a snowstorm
to observe and sketch. She rejected the snowblower as being too
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Black Friars (March 1938). CathLibW (Feb. dull, and instead expanded on a tractor with a plow attached,
1944). CHR (Oct. 1939, Oct. 1944). CW (1943, 19 March 1946). resulting in Katy and the Big Snow (1943). Mabelle, the Cable Car
NEQ (Sept. 1943). (1952) is based on Burtons fond memories of the San Francisco
cable car. She dedicated the book to the People of San Francisco
ARLENE ANDERSON SWIDLER and Mrs. Hans Klussman, who in 1951 rallied their efforts to
retain the cable car when threatened as unsafe and a public
nuisance.
BURTON, Virginia Lee Burton also wrote stories about things other than inanimate
objects. Calico, the Wonder Horse; or, the Saga of Stewy Slinker
(1941) was motivated by her observing childrens fascination
Born 30 August 1909, Newton Center, Massachusetts; died 15
with comic books. She concluded that it was the spellbinding
October 1968, Boston, Massachusetts
story and special format which claimed their interest, and she was
Daughter of Alfred E. and Lena Dalkeith Yates Burton; married
determined to create a childrens book that would possess appeal-
George Demetrios, 1931
ing illustrations as well as captivating content. The innovative
horse in the story brings glory to his rider, Hank, and trouble to the
Daughter of an English poetess and musician, Lena Dalkeith,
villain. Folk humor is incorporated into the prose.
and the rst dean of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Virginia Burton lived in Newton Center until she was eight years Eight years of research were necessary to complete Burtons
old, when her family moved to California. She received one of nal book, Life Story (1962). The evolution of the earth unfolds
three state scholarships to the California School of Fine Arts in during ve acts of a play, with the stage serving as the border for
San Francisco as a junior in high school. After a year of studying the illustrations. Burtons family life through the seasons at Folly
art and ballet in San Francisco, she returned to the Boston area in Cove is woven into the last chapter.
1928. When her father broke a leg, Burton forfeited a contract
with a traveling ballet company, and remained in the Boston area Burton illustrated several books she did not write, including
to care for him. At age twenty-one, she enrolled in a sculpture and Arna Bontempss railroad yarn, Fast Sooner Hound (1942), and
drawing class at Boston Museum School, and married her teacher Anne Malcomsons Song of Robin Hood (1947), for which
the next spring. Burton, after three years of research, meticulously prepared an
illustration for each page. She also retold and illustrated Hans
Burton wrote and illustrated seven books for children, pub- Christian Andersens The Emperors New Clothes (1949), which
lished between 1924 and 1962, and illustrated several others. had been read to her by her father during her childhood.
Convinced children were distinct from adults in their comprehen-
sion of subject matter, she nevertheless thought aesthetics should Of all Burtons works, The Little House achieved the greatest
be of utmost importance for either audience. The subjects she fame, for it received the Caldecott award as the most distinguished
selected were indeed appropriate for children, and several related picturebook for children published during 1942. It has been
to the industrial technology of the time. She used a train, a steam translated into several languages and published in more than a
shovel, a tractor-snow plow, and a cable car, and demonstrated dozen countries. However, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
how these personied machines could be nonconformist and is the favorite of children.
creative. Even her rst unsuccessful attempt at a childrens book
Burton always conceived the illustrations for her books
had an inanimate charactera piece of dust, named Jonnifer
before writing the text. She made sketches, which had to be
Lint. Rejected by 13 publishers, however, the story bored even
complete within themselves, as well as tting into the whole, and
her three-and-a half-year-old son.
arranged them on the wall of her barn studio as a story board.
Choo Choo; the Story of a Little Engine Who Ran Away She then worked on the text, relating each page precisely to the
(1935), Burtons rst published book, tells the adventure of a train pictures until overall clarity and accurate detail were attained.
156
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS BUTLER
Elements of design, such as rhythm and repetition, were charac- College (CSC) at Los Angeles. She left CSC when she couldnt
teristic of both her illustrations and her story. Furthermore, her major in creative writing and began taking evening writing classes
humor and imagination are inherent in both the situation, such as at UCLA. While at CSC, Butler met Harlan Ellison, who encour-
the steam shovel at the bottom of a hole, and in the plot, such as the aged her to attend the summer 1970 Clarion Science Fiction
schemes of the villain, Stewy Slinker. Burtons training as a Writers Workshop. Her rst two stories were written during this
dancer and as an artist demanded ne form, and she incorporated intensive Pennsylvania workshop. In 1980 Butler won the YWCA
these high standards in her childrens books. Achievement Award for Creative Arts; in 1984, at the 42nd World
Science Fiction Convention, her short story Sounds won a
Hugo award, and at the next World Science Fiction Convention,
OTHER WORKS: The original manuscript and sketches for Katy Butlers peers voted her the winner of the Nebula Award for best
and the Big Snow are in the Gloucester, Massachusetts, Public novelette for Bloodchild. She received another Nebula award
Library; The Life Story in the Free Library of Philadelphia; nomination in 1987 for her novelette The Evening and the
Mabelle, the Cable Car in the San Francisco Public Library; and Morning and the Night.
The Little House in the Kerlan Collection at the University of
Minnesota. Butlers rst ve novels are part of her Patternist saga, based
on imposing generations of Patternists, the telepathic humans who
wrestle for control of the Earth. Her novel Kindred (1979), though
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Burton, V. L., Making Picture Books; Accept- set apart from the serial stories and marketed as a mainstream
ance Paper, and Hogarth, G. A., V. L. Burton, Creative novel by Butlers publisher, continues the Patternist tradition of
Artist, in Caldecott Medal Books: 1938-1957, Miller, B., and E. independent women of color who challenge the power structures
Field, eds. (1957). of their societies and are embroiled in intense social relationships,
Reference works: Authors and Illustrators of Childrens and for whom self-expression and leadership roles are vital.
Books; Writing on Their Lives and Works (1972). Children and Butler probes female experiences in terms of womens survival,
Books (1976). Illustrators of Childrens Books, 1744-1945 (1947). sexual objectication, threats to their autonomy, and full expres-
The Junior Book of Authors (1951). SAA (1971). sion of their psychic and healing talents, as well as their strong,
Other references: Childrens Literature Review (1976). Horn abiding kinship ties. Her female characters represent a dazzling
Book (1970, 1971). array of experience and originsboth futuristic and historically
grounded. Anyanwu of Wild Seed (1980) is a 300-year-old
KAREN NELSON HOYLE woman whom Butler fashioned after a mythological Onitsha Ibo
woman named Atagbusi; Mary of Mind of My Mind (1977), a
20th-century woman and descendant of Anyanwu, is a gifted
telepath who has survived physical abuse to become the mother of
BUTLER, Octavia E(stelle) a new race of beings. Both Alanna, the Afro-Asian heroine of
Survivor (1978), and Lilith, the matriarch of a small dislocated
Born 22 June 1947, Pasadena, California group of humans, forge bonds between different ethnic groups
Daughter of Laurice and Octavia Guy Butler and species within their futuristic societies. Dana, the modern
African-American heroine of Kindred, is repeatedly dragged back
into her familys slavery past and becomes an elusive, but
Hailed as the rst African-American woman science ction
nevertheless affected accomplice, victim, and link between her
writer, Octavia E. Butler began writing what would become the
enslaved and free ancestors and her own, less-peopled, postslavery
rst draft of her Patternmaster series at age twelve after watch-
American future.
ing a bad science ction movie and [deciding] I could write a
better story than that. She admits, however, that she kept on Butler began a new series with Parable of the Sower (1993), a
writing science ction because she needed fantasies to shield her futuristic tale of an America decimated by violence and environ-
from the world. Butler grew up in a strong matriarchal family mental catastrophes. In Los Angeles, small numbers of workers
with strict Baptist morals. Her mother and grandmother were the barricade themselves behind walls to hide from the mobs of
primary inuences in her life; her father, a shoeshine man, died desperate unemployed homeless. One of these workers is Lauren
when she was an infant. Butlers mother, who had worked as a Olamina, a black teenager who suffers from hyperempathy, a
maid, was born on a sugar plantation in Louisiana. At age ten, she condition causing her to literally feel the pain of others. Lauren
was taken out of school so she could work. It was perhaps this hard escapes when her community is overrun and heads north, hoping
life and history that made Butlers family worry that a writing that Earthseed, the religion she created, will guide her to bet-
career would not be reliable employment for her. One of her aunts, ter times.
the rst in the family to earn a college degree, agreed, but
encouraged her niece to do what she wanted. Laurens story is continued in Parable of the Talents (1998)
when her community of believers must go to war against the
After earning an associate degree at Pasadena City College in fanatical terrorists in newly elected U.S. President Reverend
1968, where a creative writing teacher once asked her, Cant you Andrew Steele Jarrets right-wing sect Christian America. Butler
write anything normal?, Butler went on to California State wrote Parable of the Talents partly on the proceeds of a $295,000
157
BUTLER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
grant from the MacArthur Foundation (genius) she received in The ways in which Butlers characters have to resolve their
1995. Butlers love of writing poetry is evident in both Parable of otherness with their essential membership within groups may
the Sower and its sequel in the form of poetry written by Lauren, be seen as a telling metaphor for her own place within the realm of
the books protagonist. science ction. Butler and writer Samuel Delany are the only
One of the signs Butler has posted above her desk reminds well-known African-American science ction writers, and Butler
her that tension and conict can be achieved through uncompro- is perhaps the only African-American woman science ction
mising characters in a death struggle. Indeed, the societies and writer. Although she believes science ction is potentially the
communities of Butlers ction are inundated by a host of freest genre in existence, she acknowledges the connes and
unpredictable, unrelenting individuals. The human, mutant, or preferred foci that have been encouraged for writers of the genre.
hybrid life forms in Butlers works are often engaged in violent Describing science ction as having begun in this country as a
struggles for power and mental freedom. Butlers central female genre for young boys, she argues it is this fact that explains the
characters are not always protectors or mediators in these intense, traditional exclusion of issues of race or sex from science ction
high-stake struggles; women such as Mary in Mind of My Mind texts of the past. Butler uses powerful historical fact, Afri-
rely heavily on their warlike, competitive natures to reach posi- can-American experience, and facets of the science ction genre
tions of formidable power. Yet in places so diverse as the
itself to challenge these narrow parameters. Her compelling
Patternist domains and the oating Oankali nations of Dawn
stories masterfully blend traditional aspects of the genre and
(1987), Adulthood Rights (1988), and Imago (1989), Butler also
innovative futuristic designs with sobering contemplations of the
suggests there are nurturing environments that can be culled from
besieged nations and embattled histories. realities of the worlds racial and historical present and past.
Butler capitalizes on the science ction genre most dynami-

cally in her representations of history as a layered entityone that
OTHER WORKS: Patternmaster (1976). Clays Ark (1984).
can be traversed, reentered, and never separated. Kindred and the
works forming Butlers Xenogenesis trilogy, Dawn, Adulthood
Rites, and Imago, are especially gripping because of the ways in
which Butler constructs versions of historical reality. Of Butlers BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Black Writers (1989). CANR
central characters, the women are especially imposing gures, (1988, 1990). CLC (1986). DLB (1984). FC (1990). MTCW
whose identities as women, consorts, and childbearers are under (1991). NBAW (1992). St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers
siege by the social, racial, or genetic chaos of their communities. (1996). Twentieth Century Science Fiction Writers (1991).
For the individualsremnants of nations, and newly forming Other references: Black American Literary Forum (Summer
societiesdrawn into such timeless and time-laden environ- 1984). Black Scholar (Mar.-Apr. 1986). Callaloo (1991). Emerge
ments, tortured contemplation and mourning are inevitable. Yet (June 1994). Equal Opportunity Forum Magazine (1980). Es-
the historical burdens and traditions of which they are so con-
sence (April 1979). Extrapolation (Spring 1982). Life (July 1984).
scious also propel them to achieve increasingly symbolic victories
MELUS (Spring-Summer 1986). PW (13 Dec.1993). Salaga (1981).
against their oppressors. In her treatment and revisions of history,
Sanus (Winter 1978-79). Thrust: Science Fiction in Review (Sum-
and her consistent development of evolving multiracial women,
Butler puts a most distinctive mark upon the science ction genre. mer 1979).
She grounds her work in African-American history and comple-
ments her ctional plots with realistic debates on such contempo- LOIS BROWN,
rary issues as race, bigotry, sexism, and expansionism. UPDATED BY LEAH J. SPARKS
158
C
CABEZA DE BACA, Fabiola yearly cycle of seasons and festivals in a ctionalized Hispanic
village in contemporary northern New Mexico. Cabeza de Baca
emphasizes the cultural context of cookery and the folklore
Born 16 May 1894, La Liendra, New Mexico; died 1991,
Albuquerque, New Mexico associated with food preparation and herbal medicine. Without
Also wrote under: Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert, romanticizing the hard work rural living entails, Cabeza de Baca
Fabiola C. Gilbert stresses the cooperative spirit and close relationships among
Daughter of Graciano and Indalecia Delgado Cabeza de Baca; village women that give The Good Life its quality. The second half
married Carlos Gilbert, 1939 (separated) of the book includes recipes for many of the traditional foods
described in the text.
Four years after Fabiola Cabeza de Baca was born on her
familys northeastern New Mexico land grant, her mother died, Cabeza de Baca moves out of the kitchen in We Fed Them
and Cabeza de Baca was raised by her paternal grandmother, a Cactus (1953, reprinted in 1954, 1989, and 1994); the title refers
traditional Hispanic woman of the patrn class. Cabeza de Baca to keeping cattle alive during a drought. While strong in defense
attended schools in Las Vegas, New Mexico, earning a degree in of the patrn system, Cabeza de Baca describes the life of all
pedagogy from New Mexico Normal University in 1921. After a settlers on the plains in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She
year of study in Spain, Cabeza de Baca taught in New Mexico includes stories narrated by El Cuatethe Twin, cook on her
public schools for several years. familys ranchoconcerning life on the llano before longhorn
cattle replaced buffalo and sheep. Cabeza de Baca supplemented
She became intensely interested in Domestic Science
her memory with interviews with older residents and archival
after she was assigned to teach it, earned her B.S. in Home
research, and produced a fascinating blend of folklore, history,
Economics at New Mexico State University, and immediately
and autobiography. She compares traditional Hispanic womens
began work with the New Mexico State Extension Service. As a
roles with those of Anglo homesteaders, and with her own
home demonstration agent, Cabeza de Baca visited the Hispanic
and Pueblo villages of northern New Mexico, organizing clubs for experience as a rural schoolteacher. Cabeza de Bacas perspective
women and children, teaching canning techniques, and develop- as participant makes this a valuable work, especially became little
ing skills and markets for craft products. Cabeza de Baca lost her has been written about this regions Hispanos, in a period of
right leg in an automobile accident, but continued her strenuous drastic change.
career. Her marriage to an insurance agent ended in their separation.
Cabeza de Bacas contribution to the literature of the South-
In 1951, UNESCO sent her to Mexico to establish a home west consists in imaginatively depicting the integrity and vitality
economics program among the Tarascan Indians and to instruct of Hispanic culture. Her early books show food, and the women
Latin Americans in her techniques. She has received many awards who prepare it, as central to an integrated social system that she
for outstanding achievement in her eld. After retiring in 1959, explains in more detail in We Fed Them Cactus. She reveals the
she lectured widely, wrote newspaper articles on folklore and strength of the Hispanic woman, in her works and in her life.
food, and trained Peace Corps volunteers in extension methods.
Cabeza de Bacas writing career grew from her home econo-
mics work, beginning with pamphlets in Spanish on food prepara- OTHER WORKS: Los Alimentos y su Preparacion (1934; revised
tion and canning. Her article, New Mexican Diets (1942), editions, 1937, 1942). Boletin de Conservar (1935; revised edi-
stresses the nutritional value of traditional foods, and counsels tions, 1937, 1941).
extension agents to respect and understand those they serve. Her
interest in New Mexican food, which blends Indian, Spanish,
Mexican, and Anglo inuences, led her to publish Historic BIBLIOGRAPHY: American Association of University Women,
Cookery (1939, reprinted 1970), an Extension Service cookbook Albuquerque Branch, Women in New Mexico (1976). McShane,
that sold more than 100,000 copies and was reissued several B. J. G., In Pursuit of Regional and Cultural Identity: The
times. Cabeza de Baca collected the recipes by watching village Autobiographies of Agnes Morely Cleaveland and Fabiola Cabeza
cooks and experimenting in her own kitchen to determine precise de Baca in Breaking Boundaries: New Perspectives on Womens
measurements. She pragmatically recommends using time-hon- Regional Writing (1997). Ponce, M., The Life and Works of
ored techniques or modern appliances according to their superi- Fabiola Cabeza de Baca, New Mexican Hispanic Woman Writer:
ority for each particular dish. Cabeza de Bacas book conveys the A Contextual Biography (1997).
untranslatable Spanish guisar, which loosely means to dress
Reference works: Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in
up food, with spices and, more important, with caring.
the United States (1995). Women in Education (1977).
In The Good Life (1949, revised in 1982 as The Good Life: Other references: Albuquerque Journal (24 June 1959).
New Mexico Traditions and Food), Cabeza de Baca recounts the California Farmer (16 Oct. 1954). El Palacio (June 1949). New
159
CALDWELL AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Mexico Historical Review (Jan. 1956). New Mexico Magazine almost paranoiac conviction that freedom has steadily decreased
(Oct. 1958). Santa Fe New Mexican (6 Feb. 1966, 19 May 1968). since Teddy Roosevelt was president. Caldwell can be thought of
as a modern Jeremiah, bewailing our fall from grace and its
HELEN M. BANNAN resultant consequences.
OTHER WORKS: The Eagles Gather (1939). The Earth Is the

CADE, Toni Lords (1940). The Strong City (1941). The Arm and the Darkness
See BAMBARA, Toni Cade (1943, 1982). The Turnbulls (1943). The Final Hour (1944). The
Wide House (1945). This Side of Innocence (1946, 1974, 1984).
There Was a Time (1947). Melissa (1948). Let Love Come Last
(1949). The Balance Wheel (1951). The Devils Advocate (1952).
CALDWELL, Taylor Never Victorious, Never Defeated (1954, 1982, 1984). Tender
Victory (1956). The Sound of Thunder (1957). The Listener
Born Janet Miriam Caldwell, 7 September 1900, Manchester, (1960). A Prologue to Love (1962). To See the Glory (1963). The
England; died 30 August 1985 Late Clara Beame (1964). Dialogues with the Devil (1968). On
Also wrote under: Marcus Holland, Max Reiner Growing Up Tough (1971). The Romance of Atlantis (1975).
Daughter of Arthur F. and Anna Marks Caldwell; married Ceremony of the Innocent (1976, 1983). Bright Flows the River
William Combs, 1919; Marcus Reback, 1931 (1978, 1983). Answer as a Man (1981). Yours Sins and Mine (1983).
Born of Scottish parents in England, Taylor Caldwell was BIBLIOGRAPHY: Schnabel, M. An Annotated Bibliography of the
educated at the University of Buffalo, New York. She wrote her Works By and About Taylor Caldwell in the Buffalo and Erie
rst novel, The Romance of Atlantis, when she was twelve and County Public Library, 1938-1981 (1983). Stearn, J., In Search of
wrote for many years before the publication of her rst book, Taylor Caldwell (1981).
Dynasty of Death (1938). In addition to her own work as a Reference works: American Novelists of Today (1951). Benets
novelist, Caldwell collaborated with psychic Jess Stearn and Readers Encyclopedia (1991). Oxford Companion to Womens
served as secretary on the Board of Special Inquiry of the U.S. Writing in the United States (1995). TCA (1942).
Department of Immigration and Naturalization. She won many Other references: Life (6 April 1959). Newsweek (3 Oct.
awards from such groups as the Daughters of the American 1938). NYT (18 Sept. 1938, 15 March 1959). NYTBR (28 April
Revolution (DAR), and the National League of Penwomen. From 1946 to April 1949, 27 June 1965). PW (15 Oct. 1938). Time (9
childhood she suffered from severely impaired hearing. Jan. 1956). Saturday Review of Literature (6 Jan. 1940). WLB
Caldwell published over three dozen novels in the last 50 (Feb. 1940).
years, most of which attained popular if not critical success. In
CYNTHIA L. WALKER
general her subjects alternate between power-hungry upper-class
American families of the late-19th and early-20th centuries and
historical gures of the ancient world. Successes from the 1960s
and 1970s include Testimony of Two Men (1968; later serialized CALHOUN, Lucy
for television and reprinted in 1983), a saga of Dr. Jonathan See MONROE, Lucy
Ferriers pioneering attempts to improve the medical profession;
Captains and the Kings (1972; later serialized for television and
reprinted in 1982), about a Kennedy-like family of Irish immi-
grants who build a dynasty and spawn a president; A Pillar of Iron CALISHER, Hortense
(1965, 1983), with Cicero as protagonist; Glory and the Lightning
(1974, 1983), centering on Pericles; Dear and Glorious Physician Born 20 December 1911, New York, New York
(1959, 1981), employing the gospel according to St. Luke as its Daughter of Joseph H. and Hedvig Lichtstern Calisher; married
storyline; Great Lion of God (1970, 1985), a portrait of St. Paul; Heaton B. Heffelnger, 1935 (divorced); Curtis A. Harnack,
and I, Judas (1978), a novel about the betrayal of Jesus Christ. 1959; children: Bennet, Peter
An early reviewer stated that Caldwell had a gift for storytelling
The older child of a German-born mother and a Southern
but lamented that she lacked the style to go with it; his evaluation
father, Hortense Calisher was reared in an upper-middle class
still holds. Caldwell is adept at building suspense and at setting
Jewish family. After earning her B.A. in 1932 at Barnard College,
scenes, particularly those of ancient Greece, Rome, and Palestine.
she worked as a sales clerk, model, and social worker in New York
However, her prose is orid and her characters tend to borrow the
City. She began publishing short stories in 1948.
more famous statements of Shakespeare, Emerson, Kennedy, and
Hopkins, to name a few. In addition, her personal philosophies are In Herself (1972), an aptly titled autobiographical journal
obtrusive; many of her protagonists possess a Coriolanian con- and meditation on her life as a writer, Calisher proclaims her
tempt for the lower classes, regarded as destructive rabble, incapa- emphasis on the individual, based on self-trust and acceptance.
ble of thought or feelings. Her American protagonists assert an She rejects controversy in literature as well as group action in
160
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CALISHER
politics. Her stories and novels intelligently and sensitively chronicle girl, her discovery that Aunt Leo, a maiden aunt, had male and
the experiences of the self: the loneliness of individual con- female organs. Although Aunt Leo is the pivotal character, she has
sciousness, epiphanies of communication, and pain of tiny little to do with the story that unfolds; that of the girl, her town, her
knife-moves, especially within families and between lovers. extended family, her genteel Southern mother, her father, and his
business ventures. The book won the Kafka Prize in 1987.
In the Absence of Angels (1951) includes Calishers best
short stories. In Greenwich There Are Many Gravelled Walks In Age (1987) an aging couple, Gemma and Rupert, agree
afrms the potential for love between two young people, emotion- each should keep a diary for the other to read after the partners
ally deprived but old in responsibility. The Woman Who Was death. Their awareness that they are facing the end of life is
Everybody and A Wreath for Miss Totten show the sensitive reinforced through the suicide of two friends and the death of
individual and the unsolicited good [act] against the mask of Ruperts rst wife. They abandon the diaries when they realize
the self-satised average. The title story afrms the moral impor- one will have to read alone. This deepening sense of loss that
tance of observing oneself and others fairly despite political comes with advancing age continues as a theme in Kissing
differences. In this and subsequent short story collectionsTale Cousins (1988), a memoir in which Calisher pays tribute to both
for the Mirror (1962) and Extreme Magic (1963)Calisher her Southern and Northern heritages, as she has done in other
includes semiautobiographical stories of the Elkin family. She novels, and to the value of memory. Nurse Katie Pyle is a relative
develops themes from her Southern and Jewish heritage in only through the connection of their Southern families and their
May-ry and Old Stock, explores the familial tensions of her Southern Jewish heritage; she and Calisher remained emotionally
girlhood in The Coreopsis Kid, and The Gulf Between. close throughout their lives. The independent Pyle went to war as
Textures of Life (1963) accomplishes Calishers aim to an army nurse and later continued a nursing career. As they
portray that dailiness which subtly pushes our lives on while we reminisce, Southern expressions color New York memories and
wait for the overt event. Two married women, mother and the extended family appears loving and eccentric. Pyle dies,
daughter, learn fundamental lessons; the bourgeois mother learns Calisher has her memories. Kissing Cousins, as well as in most of
to accept her artistic daughters rebelliously austere lifestyle, Calishers work, is sorrowful, rich in language, loving in tone. Her
while the daughter lowers her artistic goals and modies her language is powerful, her dialogue accurate, her memories vivid.
austerity. Only their husbands, however, consciously perceive The people in her stories are not terrible, eccentric, or bizarre, but
that they all tread the path between surprise and compromise believable in their faults and virtues.
amidst the joys and inexorabilities of life. In the 1990s Calisher received a little of the critical attention
Three disappointingly unfocused novels explore the older she has long deserved. Her writing, alternately characterized as
generations puzzlement over the younger generations entry into difcult, exasperating, pretentious, exciting, superlative, beauti-
adulthood: Queenie (1971) lightheartedly describes the heroines ful, Byzantine, or linguistically exuberant, depending on whos
sexual coming of age as she rejects commercial and political sex doing the reviewing, both challenges and rewards. What no one
for true love and revolution; in Eagle Eye (1973), young Bunty has disputed is that she continues to produce highly original and
Bronstein tries to evaluate his past and build his future through a intelligent work.
computer; while Standard Dreaming (1972) nds plastic surgeon Calishers In the Palace of the Movie King (1994), moves
Neils Berners agonizing over his lost son, seeking emotional over and through the tale of displaced Russian lmmaker. The
support from a sensitivity group of deserted parents and intellectu- novel examines the loss of meaning and self, as well as that of
al relief from a theory that runaways signal downward human language and place within a societal context. It is about immigrant
evolution. He nally continues his healing vocation and accepts experience and, to an extent, the experience of every person ever
his wandering sons freedom. subject to a sense of marginality. The book is as much concerned
On Keeping Women, Calishers 1977 novel, shows the break- about what it is to be dissident and newly American in the latter
up of the family as liberation. She sensitively depicts the indepen- half of the 20th century as it is with the meaning of meaning. The
dent decisions of Lexie and Ray, as well as their four children, to Novellas of Hortense Calisher (1997) collects seven of Calishers
leave the family home to achieve self-fulllment. In her work in short novels, peopled with complex characters caught up various-
the 1980s Calisher expanded the range of her ctional forms and ly in indelity, growing up, and family secrets. The collection
subjects. Mysteries of Motion (1983) imagines the rst civilian includes one previously unpublished novella, Women Men
space travel. In what Calisher claims is the rst novel of charac- Dont Talk About, which nds a woman weaving a compelling
ter rather than science ction set in space, six lives are revealed myth around her absent husband, until a fascinating stranger
on a space journey. In 1985 she published short works under the threatens to rupture its fabric.
title Saratoga, Hot, including Gargantua Real Impudence,
In the Slammer with Carol Smith (1997) shows that Calisher,
The Library, The Sound Track, The Passenger, The
nearing ninety, maintained a perceptive and lively interest in the
Tenth Child, Survival Techniques, and the title story.
cadence of contemporary life. It is the story of a young woman of
The strict roles assigned to both sexes and the complexities of color who falls in with some bourgeois white revolutionaries and
gender and sexuality are recurrent themes in Calishers work, as takes the fall for them, spending a good portion of her life in
are loneliness and individuality. The Bobby Soxer (1986) takes prison. When she is released, she must rend her memory and
these themes to the limit, narrating, through the eyes of a teenage herself. Though many critics found the novel disjointed, others
161
CAMPBELL AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
praised its kaleidoscopic quality and the way in which it slowly, schools qualied Campbell to become household editor of Our
but ultimately thrillingly, makes the reader privy to the protago- Continent (1882-84).
nists growing sense of self.
From 1894 to 1912 Campbell was closely associated with
In a 1992 article, Calisher wrote of how a writers psyche is in Charlotte Perkins Gilman. They coedited Impress in San Francis-
part formed by the anecdotes they hear about their culture when co and worked in Unity Settlement in Chicago. Eventually Camp-
they are children. Such a premise is vintage Calisher: a subtle, bell lived with the Gilmans in New York. During this period she
elusive, deeply refractive notion with its roots in both epistemo- lectured on home economics at the University of Wisconsin in
logical thinking and a playful interest in the tone and tenor of the 1895, and at Kansas State Agricultural College in 1897 and 1898.
culture in which she lives. Her nal years were spent in Massachusetts.
The Ainslee Series, consisting of Grandpas House (1868),
OTHER WORKS: False Entry (1961). Journal from Ellipsia (1965). The Ainslee Stories (1868), White and Red (1869), and Four and
The Railway Police and The Last Trolley Ride (1966). The New What They Did (1871) reveal Campbells ability to create trouble-
Yorkers (1969). The Collected Stories of Hortense Calisher (1975). some, lively children who tumble from one misadventure to
another as they explore their New England or Midwestern sur-
roundings. The liveliest and most amusing are Ainslee, ve-year-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Islas, A., The Work of Hortense Calisher: On old hero of the second book, and Sinny, his black friend. Although
Middle Ground (thesis, 1971). Minnesota Review (1973). no more than a collection of stories, the book is unied by its
Segal, D., ed., Short Story Criticism: Excerpts from Criticism of temporal frame and by the background of New England village
the Works of Short Fiction Writers 15 (1994). Snodgrass, K., life. While Harry in White and Red is hardly an interesting hero,
Rites of Passage in the Works of Hortense Calisher (thesis, the account of his journey and the description of Indian characters
1987). Snodgrass, K., The Fiction of Hortense Calisher (1993). and customs in Red Lake capture the imagination and make the
Reference works: CA Online (1999). CANR (1986). Contem- tale a valuable portrait of the American past. Six Sinners (1877), a
porary Novelists (1976, 1986). FC (1990). Jewish American boarding-school story written under the name Campbell Whea-
Women Writers: A Biobibliographical and Critical Sourcebook ton, lacks the freshness of Campbells earlier work, but maintains
(1994). MTCW (1991). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in her characteristic ashes of humor.
the United States (1995). Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to the
His Grandmothers (1877), which marks Campbells transi-
United States (1982). Reference Guide to American Litera-
tion from juveniles to the adult novel, is a lighthearted sketch of a
ture (1987).
household turned upside down by a int-hearted New England
Other references: Bulletin of Bibliography (Mar. 1988). CB
grandmother. It stands in lively contrast to Campbells subsequent
(1973). Iowa Review (1994). Nation (25 May 1963, 1 Dec. 1997).
novels, which often (to the detriment of the ction) attempt to
New Criterion (Feb. 1983). NYT (18 Dec. 1988, 20 Feb. 1994, 27
treat such social themes as the role of heredity, the economic
July 1997). NYTBR (13 Apr. 1969, 1 Oct. 1972, 6 Nov. 1983, 20
plight of women, the relation of diet to disease, the greed and
May 1984, 30 Mar. 1986). Saturday Review (28 Oct. 1961, 25
corruption of postwar America.
Dec. 1965, July/Aug. 1985). Southwest Review (interview, Spring
1986). Texas Studies in Literature (Winter 1989). Wisconsin In 1886s Mrs. Herndons Income, Campbells most impor-
Studies in Contemporary Literature (Summer 1965). tant novel, there are too many characters and a poorly constructed
plot, manipulated to suit the authors moral vision. It is partially
HELEN J. SCHWARTZ, redeemed, however, by the comic presence of Amanda Briggs and
UPDATED BY JESSICA REISMAN by the realistic description of New York slums. Miss Melindas
Opportunity (1886) uses a smaller canvas and a simpler plot, but is
equally didactic. For the modern reader the interest lies less in the
scheme for cooperative housekeeping than in the characterization
CAMPBELL, Helen Stuart of Miss Melinda and the evocation of New York in the Gilded Age.
Campbells reform writing, as Robert Bremner points out,
Born 4 July 1839, Lockport, New York; died 22 July 1918, places her in the company of propagandists who hoped to alter
Dedham, Massachusetts conditions by rousing the conscience of the nation. The Problem
Wrote under: Helen C. Weeks, Campbell Wheaton of the Poor (1882) and Darkness and Daylight (1891) describe life
Daughter of Homer H. and Jane E. Campbell Stuart; married in New Yorks slums and McAuleys Water Street Mission.
Grenville M. Weeks, 1860 Prisoners of Poverty (1887) attacks the exploitation of women in
New York sweatshops and department stores, employing case
Under the name Helen Weeks, Helen Stuart Campbell wrote histories to illustrate the effects of starvation wages. Prisoners of
ve childrens books as well as stories in Riverside Magazine and Poverty Abroad (1889) feebly echoes its predecessor in a super-
Our Young Folks. After 1877 Campbell adopted her mothers cial survey of women workers in Europe. Less emotional than the
maiden name (Campbell) and she wrote works mainly for an adult earlier studies and buttressed by statistics, Women Wage-Earners
audience: novels, magazine articles, cookbooks, studies of pover- (1893), which received an award from the American Economic
ty and women workers. Experience as a teacher in cooking Association, treats the plight of women factory workers across
162
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CAMPBELL
America, condemning low wages, long hours, and poor sanitation. insistence on wearing the most expensive foreign fashions. The
Campbell concludes by recommending the organization of wom- second brother can reestablish his fortune because he has a loving,
ens labor clubs and the appointment of women inspectors, as well loyal wife and daughter, both with simple tastes. They work for
as higher wages and a shorter working week. him until his business is lucrative once again.
As a ction writer, Campbell was a minor gure, memorable The heart of the collection of tales is Catherine Clayton.
only for the local color and abundant humor of her childrens In this short story, the father dies leaving his wife, their daughter
stories. Her role as reformer, however, was more signicant. Catherine, and several younger children with only a small inherit-
Campbells studies of women wage-earners stirred the conscience ance. Catherine learns to develop the skills that enable her to be a
of her age and led to the formation of consumers leagues in the good governess. The story recounts her humiliations, defeats, and
1890s, which monitored retail stores to assure fair labor practices. her growing self-respect as she nally learns to support her
family. Campbell contrasts Catherines efforts with the frivolous
lives of other teenage girls who waste rather than earn money.
OTHER WORKS: An American Family in Paris (1869). Unto the
Third and Fourth Generation (1880). Patty Pearsons Boy: A Campbells tales are heavily charged with moral messages.
Tale of Two Generations (1881). The Housekeepers Year Book Her diction is solemn and authoritative, and she launches clear,
(1882). Under Green Apple Boughs (1882). A Sylvan City or consistent attacks against a society that does not encourage its
Quaint Corners in Philadelphia (with others, 1883). The Ameri- women to work. She is thoroughly opposed to an education that
can Girls Home Book of Work and Play (1883). The What-To-Do promotes extravagance and frivolity as well as the pursuit of prot
Club: A Story for Girls (1885). Good Dinners for Every Day in the at the expense of social conscience. In most of her tales a rich man
Year (1886). Roger Berkeleys Probation (1888). Anne Bradstreet takes care of an infant who is not his own, and marriages are
and Her Time (1891). Some Passages in the Practice of Dr. across class lines, demonstrating that a true American community
Martha Scarborough (1893). In Foreign Kitchens (1893). House- is based on work and personal merit.
hold Economics (1896). The Heart of It: A Series of Extracts from
ROSE F. KAVO
the Power of Silence and The Perfect Whole (ed. H. Campbell
and K. Westendorf, 1897).
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bremner, R. H., From the Depths: The Discovery CAMPBELL, Juliet (H.) Lewis
of Poverty in the U.S. (1956). Darling, F. L., The Rise of Child-
rens Book Reviewing in America, 1865-1881 (1968). Gilman, C. P.,
The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1935). Taylor, W. F., Born 1823; died date unknown
The Economic Novel in America (1942). Wright, L. H., American Wrote under: Judith Canute
Fiction, 1876-1900 (1966).
Reference works: Literary Writings in America: A Bibliog- Juliet Lewis Campbells only novel (she also wrote nonc-
raphy (1977). NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). tion) was published in 1857 under the title Eros and Antieros; or,
The Bachelors Ward, and in 1858 as The Old Love and the New. It
PHYLLIS MOE opens with a tribute to the hero of the narrative, Arthur Walsingham,
and to the great Susquehanna River. Walsingham, a dreamy,
romantic poet and scholar, has been in love for years with the
saintly Viola, even though she has married his closest friend. At
her deathbed, soon after the death of her husband, Walsingham
CAMPBELL, Jane C. agrees to raise her daughter, also called Viola. Eventually the
daughter grows to be as lovely and virtuous as her departed
Born circa 1820s; died date unknown mother; Walsingham and she fall in love and marry.
What is notable about the novel is not the sentimental plot

Jane C. Campbell published two collections of short tales, the line, but the closeups of patriotic American life around Lake Erie.
rst initially under the title The Money-Maker, and Other Tales Campbells ideal world is rural, pastoral, and communal. As a
(1845), then in 1856 as American Evening Entertainment; or, result, she denes heroism through kindness and charity, not
Tales of City and Country Life. The second, Evenings at Home; through courageous deeds. Also of interest is the detailed chroni-
or, Tales for the Fireside, was published in 1859. The rst volume cle of Violas education in French, dance, and needlework at
presents a series of didactic tales aimed mainly at a young female Madame de Fleurys boarding school. In all, Campbell provides a
audience. It includes the story of two brothers who both experi- coherent view of the daily life of a rich American girl of her day.
ence serious nancial setbacks. The rst loses his fortune because Campbell attributes much of Violas charm to her elitist education
he is married to a woman who ruins his thriving business by her but balances the elegant frivolity of that education with simple
163
CAPERTON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
American values. Viola is as welcome in the homes of the poor writing with courage and honor. Hers was a minor gift but The
and inrm as she is at a ball with her fashionable set. Some of the Honest Wine Merchant, The Lost Governess, The Wed-
most vivid scenes in the novel have to do with the sick and dying. ding, The Rake, and Oblivion are memorable stories.
Campbells strong point is the depth of her observations and

OTHER WORKS: History of Boswells Tavern (circa 1900). The
descriptions. Her works are directed at young girls, and her
Social Record of Virginia (edited by Caperton, 1937). Like a
intentions are largely didactic: she clearly wishes to encourage
Falcon Flying (1943).
girls to be useful, loving people as well as charming creatures of
fashion. In Walsingham, Campbell portrays a rarely seen Ameri-
can hero, one who is esteemed for his gentleness and quiet BIBLIOGRAPHY: Carpenter, M. N., Virginia Authors Yearbook
strength. (1957). Parker, D., A Few Words in Helena Lefory Capertons
Legends of Virginia (1950).
ROSE F. KAVO Other references: Richmond Times Dispatch (26 March 1950).
MAUREEN MURPHY
CAPERTON, Helena Lefroy

CARLSON, Natalie Savage
Born 1878, Richmond, Virginia; died 1962, Richmond, Virginia Born 3 October 1906, Winchester, Virginia; died 23 Sep-
Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lefroy; married Mr. Caperton tember 1997
Daughter of Joseph H. and Natalie Villeneuve dit Vallar Savage;
The child of an Irish father and an American mother, Helena married Daniel Carlson, 1929
Lefroy Caperton wrote local history, edited The Social Register of
Virginia, and reviewed books for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, When Natalie Savage Carlson was eight years old, her rst
the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Louisville Times. Her story was published on the childrens page of the Baltimore
reputation, however, rests on her short stories. Sunday Sun. Later, the family moved to Long Beach, California,
and after majoring in journalism, Carlson spent three years as a
The Honest Wine Merchant was an O. Henry Memorial newspaper reporter for the Long Beach Morning Sun.
Award winner in 1930. The Lost Governess was listed in Carlsons mother was of French-Canadian extraction, and
Edward OBriens Anthology of the Best Short Stories of 1930. this French inuence is evident in Carlsons choice of subjects
Both stories appeared in Legends of Virginia (1931). In her and geographic details. Carlsons The Talking Cat, and Other
introduction to this book Dorothy Parker characterizes it as . . . Stories of French Canada (1952), Sashes Red and Blue (1956),
strange, swift, tense, emotional. . . . But there is more about them. and The Letter on the Tree (1964) are among others with French
There is a wildness, a erce rush of drama, a long-spreading Canadian settings. Wings Against the Wind (1955) was rst
terror, a passionate championship of the lovely and the innocent written as a French class composition. The Family Under the
and then a sudden curious tenderness. Bridge (1958) has a Parisian setting, in which the Tournelle
Bridge serves as a shelter for a fatherless family. Befanas Gift
Capertons preface to Legends of Virginia names her Virginian (1969) has an Italian setting, while The Song of the Lop-Eared
maternal grandfather as the inimitable storyteller from whom Mule (1961) takes place in southern Spain. The Tomahawk Family
came these tales. . .unconscious of preserving in an adolescent (1960) is the least successful, as it describes a locale which
mind the tenderness and gallantry of a past generation. A Carlson apparently did not know thoroughlySouth Dakota.
Southern regional writer, Capertons subject is honor, the afrma-
Diverse family patterns appear in Carlsons books, but there
tion of a way of life of a ruined people who had heroically fought a
is always warmth. The white girl in Ann Aurelia and Dorothy
war they were destined to lose.
(1968) lives in a foster home, since her mother left to marry Mr.
In The Lost Governess, a Confederate doctor tirelessly Lacey. The three children in The Family Under the Bridge (1958)
are fatherless. In The Happy Orpheline (1957) 20 orphans live
attends his patients despite their inability to pay. A mysterious
with Madame Flattot and are upset with the possibility that the
woman arrives in a storm, takes charge of his childrens education
favorite, Brigitte, might be adopted. Carlsons autobiographical
for ve years, and then disappears again. Later, while visiting an
books, The Half Sisters (1970) and Luvvy and the Girls (1971), tell
asylum, the doctor discovers his governess is a violent psychopath
of a closely knit family.
who had escaped for ve years but recommitted herself lest she
harm someone. In Carlsons books, situation and dialogue are lled with
humor. Albert and Pierre kick each other as they pull the church
Capertons stories are slight but intensely dramatic. The need bell rope, and it tolls crazily at a funeral in The Letter on the Tree
for grace in her characters in the face of their defeat informs her (1964). The orphan Brigitte in The Happy Orpheline lets the dogs
164
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CARMICHAEL
loose, thinking this the most wicked thing she could do, and they published more than 50 of her poems during the next eight years.
upset the marketplace. Her poetry also appeared in the Daily Union Vedette, published at
Camp Douglas, where her future husband was stationed, and the
The Family Under the Bridge was a Newbery honor book,
Womans Exponent, a feminist newspaper edited and published
and has been published in paperback and a number of translations,
by Mormon women. Because so much of her poetry was pub-
as have many of Carlsons other books. Carlson was nominated as
lished in newspapers, the full extent of her work may never
the U.S. candidate for the International Hans Christian Andersen
be known.
Award in 1966. Most of her books have remained in print,
particularly those with strong setting, family ties, and humor. The early poems of Williamson do not emphasize a distinc-
tively Mormon subject matter. Often homiletic in character, the
OTHER WORKS: Alphonse, That Bearded One (1954). Hortense, verses treat friendship, love, integrity, writing, Indian pride, and
the Cow for a Queen (1957). A Brother for the Orphelines (1959). similar topics from a humanistic, nonsectarian point of view. Even
Evangeline, Pigeon of Paris (1960). Carnival in Paris (1962). A in the poem Pharoah (Deseret News, 30 March 1859), where
Pet for the Orphelines (1962). Jean-Claudes Island (1963). mans dependent relationship to God is explored, she avoided
School Bell in the Valley (1963). The Orphelines in the Enchanted heavy-handed parallels between the exodus of the Israelites and
Castle (1964). The Empty Schoolhouse (1965). Sailors Choice that of the Mormons. And in a rare poem on a Mormon subject
(1966). Chalou (1967). Luigi of the Streets (1967). Marchers for Brigham Young (Deseret News, 17 October 1860)Williamson
the Dream (1969). Marie Louise & Christophe (1974). Marie retained control over her topic, refusing to be overawed by his
Louises Heyday (1975). Runaway Marie Louise (1977). Jaky or power, as were some of her contemporaries. The result is a poem
Dodo? (1978). Time for the White Egret (1978). that praises but is not cloying.
The papers of Natalie Savage Carlson are in the Kerlan By the early 1860s, Williamson had won local recognition
Collection at the University of Minnesota. for her efforts, and community leaders called on her for occasional
verse. Most of the praise she received was uncritical, although
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Carlson, J., Family Unity in N.S.C.s Books for Edward W. Tullidge, Utah editor, writer, and historian, saw her as
Children in Authors and Illustrators of Childrens Books; Writ- a genius whose powers of improvisation carried her to the heights,
ing on Their Lives and Works (1972). although patient shaping and reworking could not justly be
Reference works: SAA (1971). More Books by More People accredited among her higher poetic gifts and graces.
(1974). More Junior Authors (1963). Williamsons career was short, but her powers did mature.
Other references: ChildL (1976). She began to see her subjects in dramatic terms, using conict,
KAREN N. HOYLE
contrast, and irony in an increasingly sophisticated way. Three
poems published in the Deseret News, The Daughter of Herodias
(22 October 1862), Esaus Petition (11 March 1863), and the
Feast of Lucrezia Borgia (6 May 1863), reveal a growing
CARMICHAEL, Sarah E(lizabeth) command of her art.
Williamsons advancing skill eventually brought her recog-
Born 1838, Setauket, New York; died 10 November 1901, Salt nition outside of Utah. William Cullen Bryant anthologized The
Lake City, Utah Stolen Sunbeam, retitling it The Origin of Gold (A Family
Also wrote under: S. E. Carmichael, Miss S. E. Carmichael Library of Poetry and Song, 1878). Another anthologizer, May
Daughter of William and Mary Ann Carmichael; married Jona- Wentworth, included Williamsons poems A Christmas Rhyme
than M. Williamson, 1866 (died 1882) and Sorrow in her collection (Poetry of the Pacic, 1867).
There have been claims that Williamsons poems were often
Converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, reprinted without credit by the Eastern press.
Williamsons family joined the Mormons at Nauvoo, Illinois, and
in 1850 moved to Salt Lake City, where her father worked as a Williamson was profoundly moved by the Civil War, about
carpenter. Despite frontier hardships and the absence of public which she wrote vivid, dramatic poems, including her best-known
schools, Williamson gained an education and began writing poem, President Lincolns Funeral (Poems, 1866). The elegy
poetry. Her objection to polygamy, then practiced by the Lat- attracted national recognition; it was reprinted and read many
ter-Day Saints, and her marriage to an army doctor of non-Mor- times at public functions. Its expression of grief achieves a solemn
mon background, alienated her, to some extent, from the local dignity that, reportedly, pleased Mrs. Lincoln.
community. Not long after her marriage, Williamson experienced
Williamsons only book of poetry, Poems, was published in
a severe mental decline, the cause of which is unknown. Although
San Francisco to favorable reviews. The slim volume of 26 poems
she lived on for more than 30 years, her career as a poet was over.
received similar notice in the East. Included in the collection are
Widowed in 1882, Williamson spent her last years in a mental
several of her best descriptive poems: Moonlight on the Wasatch
hospital. She had no children.
and the haunting April Flowers, which seems to foreshadow
Williamsons rst signed poem, Truth, appeared in the her mental collapse in these lines: Pale, blighted owers, the
Deseret News on 10 March 1858. The Mormon newspaper summer time / Will smile on brighter leaves / They will not wither
165
CARRIGHAR AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
in their prime / Like a young heart that grieves. Williamsons These objective narratives, in which the narrator never speaks in
friends arranged for the books publication and sale. The proceeds her own voice, are only a portion of Carrighars corpus. Her
of almost $600considerable for the timewere to be used to personal writings give a good introduction to the land and people
nance the poets further education at Vassar, a project that her of northern Alaska. Moonlight at Midday (1958) narrates her
marriage and mental decline prevented. adventures researching Icebound Summer in the tiny village of
Unalakleet; it examines Eskimo life, both the traditional ways and
Of the many women and men in Utah who wrote poetry in the
the changes wrought by the white man. Wild Voice of the North
19th century, Williamson stands above all. She avoided the
(1959) is the story of her husky, Bobo, whom she rescued and
common faults of sentimentality, didacticism, and dogmatism to
cared for while living and writing in Nome. Carrighar has worked
produce poems of genuine merit that, despite changing literary
in other genres as well: a play, As Far as They Go (1956),
fashion, can be read with some pleasure today.
celebrates Alaskan history and pioneer life. An historical novel,
The Glass Dove (1962), portrays a young girl whose farm home in
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Selby, C., Sarah Elizabeth Carmichael (M.A. southern Ohio becomes a station on the Underground Railroad.
thesis, University of Utah, 1921).
Wild Heritage (1965) is Carrighars most ambitious work. It
Other references: Relief Society Magazine (Sept. 1928). Salt
synthesizes much of the pioneering work in the eld of ethology
Lake Tribune (16 Feb. 1836, 8 Mar. 1936). Utah Historical
and includes many of Carrighars own observations from her
Quarterly (Winter 1975). Western Galaxy (May 1888).
years in various wildernesses. The work treats life experiences
MIRIAM B. MURPHY
which humans share with animals: parenthood, sex, aggressive-
ness, and play. She is especially concerned with what tendencies
of animals are learned. In reporting her observations, she uses the
technique of her nature narratives, dramatizing the behavior of a
CARRIGHAR, Sally single individual of the species.
But one nally returns to Carrighars autobiography, Home
Born 10 February 1898, Cleveland, Ohio; died October 1985 to the Wilderness, for her most deeply felt writing, for her
Daughter of George B. and Perle Harden Wagner observations that mans morality originates in nature, for her
comments about females as naturalists. Nature was Carrighars
In Home to the Wilderness (1973), Sally Carrighar tells a sad healer and vocation; she could approach it with naive joy, rever-
story. Partially disgured at birth by a high-forceps delivery, she ence, and awe. But she also knew it as a scientist who relies only
was abhorrent to her mother, who once attempted to strangle her. on objective observation. That Carrighar successfully combined
The psychotic woman, loathing even her daughters touch, sought these two modes of cognition is perhaps her greatest achievement.
to deprive Carrighar of all love and openly urged her to commit
suicide. Carrighar was rescued from utter wretchedness by her
fathers devotion, her own remarkable determination, and the OTHER WORKS: Exploring Marin (1941). Prey of the Arctic
supportive atmosphere of Wellesley College. She tried various (1951). Blue Whale (1978).
artistic careers: pianist, dancer, and lm production assistant, only
to have her mother repeatedly snatch success from her. While BIBLIOGRAPHY: NYHTBR (28 Sept. 1947, 19 July 1953). NYT (10
undergoing psychoanalysis, Carrighar attempted to establish her- Dec. 1944). NYTBR (28 March 1965). San Francisco Chronicle
self as a ctionalist, failed, and abandoned words. Convalesc- (25 Sept. 1947). SR (20 March 1965). SRL (24 Feb. 1945). Weekly
ing in San Francisco from depression and heart disease, she began Book Review (26 Nov. 1944).
feeding the birds outside her window. The birds became fellow
creatures; a mouse nesting inside her radio actually sang to her, MARGARET MCFADDEN-GERBER
and in a revelation she understood her vocation: nature writing.
Words need not be abandoned, only the bizarre human world of
madness, violence, greed.
After seven years of study, Carrighar published One Day on CARRINGTON, Elaine Sterne
Beetle Rock (1944), a narrative treating the interaction of various
species in a Sierra Nevada habitat. Carrighar discovered that she Born 1892, New York, New York; died 4 May 1958, New
could portray this interaction effectively by adopting in succes- York, New York
sive chapters the point of view of specic organisms and describ- Also wrote under: John Ray, Elaine Sterne
ing how a dramatic natural event (e.g., a ash ood) affects them. Daughter of Theodore and Mary Henriques Sterne; married
To present the consciousness of a female mosquito is of course George D. Carrington, 1920
risky, for the writer appears to be anthropomorphizing nature. But
the literary strategy of Beetle Rock proved itself in One Day at While growing up in New York City, Elaine Sterne
Teton Marsh (1947), about the Grand Tetons; Icebound Summer Carringtons earliest ambition was to become a musical comedy
(1953), about the north coast of Alaska; and The Twilight Seas star. Instead, she became the most prolic writer of radio serials,
(1975), about the blue whales. though she also wrote short stories, plays, and songs.
166
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CARROLL
At eighteen, Carrington sold her rst story, King of the The marriage of wealthy Joan Field to poor-but-promising Harry
Christmas Feast, to St. Nicholas magazine. At nineteen, she won Davis was central but other marriages were also featured. Rose-
the rst prize in a scenario-writing contest sponsored by the New mary (1944-55) was, as the shows opening announcement pro-
York Evening Sun in cooperation with Vitagraph for a script claimed, dedicated to all the women of today. Each episode
entitled Sins of the Mothers. Two more prizes that yearone in a began with This is your storythis is you. The serial told the
New York Morning Telegraph scenario contest and another in a story of the Dawson family and centered upon Rosemary Daw-
Colliers magazine short story contestlaunched Carringtons sons marriage to Bill Roberts. A young working woman at series
professional career. Nightstick, a play written under the name of open, Rosemary quickly became the woman of domestic experi-
John Ray, was lengthened and produced as a lm under the title ence, the wife and mother endowed with the goodness and
Alibi (1929). kindness required of soap opera heroines. Carringtons intense
patriotism (she also wrote scripts for the U.S. Treasury Depart-
The most frequent topic of Carringtons plays is romance and ment) manifested itself in appeals to listeners to buy war bonds. In
marriage in the middle class. Five Minutes from the Station: A addition, Carringtons characters urged each other to buy Easter
Comedy of Life that Comes Close to Being a Tragedy (1930), Seals, to help returning prisoners of war, or to support some other
features Carrie Adams, a harried but spunky housewife who worthy cause.
secures a promotion for her husband Bert by cooking dinner for
his employer. Acknowledged as the originator of the radio soap opera,
Carrington established a simple principle for plots that often were
Like the plays, Carringtons stories concern courtship, mar- complex: the life of a middle class family and the bringing up of
riage, and child rearing. Plots based on secret engagements, children in an understanding way. This principle led Carrington
elopements, hopeless love between people of different classes, to focus on youthful characters, complete with current slang, a
and friction between child and stepparent are common. The focus which television soap operas of the 1970s have reestab-
central characters generally are of the middle classwives who lished, The understanding way of bringing up children in-
like to gossip, storekeepers whose shops are clean as a volved humor, which was often present in Carringtons scripts.
whistle, young women with milk-white skin and ash-blond Plotsin which illogic was not uncommonwere always subor-
hair, and steady young men who like to do the deciding. dinate to characters. In Carringtons words, The story must be
Ten of Carringtons short stories are collected in a volume written about people you come to know and like and believe in.
entitled All Things Considered (1939). The sentimentality of the What happens to them is of secondary importance. Once charac-
stories is redeemed by some incisive and devastating portraits in ters are rmly established and entrenched in the hearts of listen-
situations critics have deemed worthy of Evelyn Waugh or John ers, the latter will have to tune in to nd out what becomes of the
Collier. Carringtons fondness for ambiguity caused some re- characters because of what they feel for them. For over 20 years
viewers to nd a streak of sharp satire running under the gloss. Carrington succeeded in creating characters that evoked such
A cool, sparse style allows the characters occasionally to break loyalty from listeners. Without question, the Queen of the
free of humdrum plots. Soapers, as Carrington was known, had earned her title.
Carrington moved to radio scriptwriting with her rst series,

Red Adams (1932), later renamed Red Davis. The series starred OTHER WORKS: Follow Your Heart (TV drama, 1953).
Burgess Meredith as Davis, a supposedly typical, happy-go-
lucky, middle class teenager, who lived in the supposedly typical BIBLIOGRAPHY: Edmondson, M., and D. Rounds, From Mary
small town of Oak Park. Carrington drew the plots from her own Noble to Mary Hartman: The Complete Soap Opera Book (1976).
experiences as a wife and mother, incorporating (in her words) Reference works: CB: Whos News and Why 1944 (1945).
all the pangs of adolescence from both the childrens and Other references: NYHT (19 Nov. 1939). New York Post (25
parents points of view. Jan. 1940). NYT (12 Nov. 1939, 11 Feb. 1940, 5 May 1958).
Under the sponsorship of Proctor & Gamble, the program Newsweek (20 Oct. 1941, 3 May 1954). Parents Magazine (June
was renamed Forever Young, and then Pepper Youngs Family 1942). Time (26 Aug. 1946). Variety (8 May 1940, 16 June 1943).
(1936-56). The setting became the town of Elmwood, and Red
CAREN J. DEMING
Davis became Pepper. What began as a comedy had emerged as a
thoroughgoing soap opera. In 1938 it was on the air at three
different hours every day and was carried by both the NBC and
CBS networks. Variety rated Pepper Youngs Family above CARROLL, Gladys Hasty
average both in quality and popularity. . . .Its story stresses every-
day family situations, with little or no melodrama and nothing
lurid or emotionally upsetting. If anything, the action is too mild Born 26 June 1904, Rochester, New Hampshire
Daughter of Warren and Frances Hasty; married Herbert Car-
for maximum dramatic effect. The pace is relatively slow and the
roll, 1925
dialogue is inclined to be a trie innocuous.
When a Girl Marries (1939-56) became the serial that drew Growing up in South Berwick, Maine, Gladys Hasty was
perhaps the largest of all cumulative radio soap opera audiences. educated at Bates College, where she graduated in 1925. That
167
CARSON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
same year she married Herbert Carroll, who became a professor of CARSON, Rachel (Louise)
psychology at the University of New Hampshire. Carroll has been
awarded honorary degrees from Bates College, the University of
New Hampshire, and the University of Maine. Born 27 May 1907, Springeld, Pennsylvania; died 14 April
1964, Silver Spring, Maryland
Carrolls most famous book is As the Earth Turns (1933), a Daughter of Robert Warden and Maria Frazier McLean Carson
story of the Shaw family. A selection of the Book-of-the-Month
Club, it was second on the ction bestseller list, and was translated One of the most famous environmentalists of all time, Rachel
into many languages. The heroine of As the Earth Turns, Jen Carson combined literary talent with scientic knowledge in her
Shaw, is an earth mother, slow, calm, and capable. Together writings about the fragile state of nature. Her warnings about the
with her father, Mark, Jen holds the Shaw family together. Mark havoc that humanity and its careless ways were wreaking on the
lives for his farm work, and Jen apparently lives for her house- environment led to new policies designed to protect nature.
work: if theres anything I like, its cleaning something awful Written for both the scientist and the layperson, Carsons works
dirty! The action of the story focuses on various family crises sought to show readers the wonder of nature and instill in them a
and the relationship between the Shaws and the Janowskis, a sense of responsibility for protecting it.
Polish family newly moved into the area. As the Earth Turns was
lmed by Warner in 1934. Directed by Alfred Green, the produc- Carson was raised in rural Pennsylvania and doted on by her
tion starred Jean Muir and Donald Woods as Jen and Stan, with mother, a former schoolteacher who passed on her love of
David Landau playing Mark Shaw. The New York Times reviewed literature and nature to her youngest daughter. Rachel loved to
it favorably. write from an early age and had published articles in St. Nicholas
magazine by the time she was ten. She entered Pennsylvania
After the 1930s, Carrolls novels are of little interest. Most of College for Women (later renamed Chatham College) with the
them are preachy, often centering on conservative women resid- intention of becoming a professional writer. Yet she switched her
ing in Maine. One of her later novels, Man on the Mountain major to zoology by the end of her junior year against the advice of
(1969), is a science ction social satire, showing how America is her professors, who told her there was no future for a woman in
destroying itself. A constant theme is cultural tolerance, whether it science.
be of Poles, Irish Catholics, or French Canadians.
In 1929 Carson graduated magna cum laude and was award-
Of more interest are her autobiographical works, beginning ed a fellowship for a summer at the Marine Biological Laboratory
with Dunnybrook (1943), a social history of South Berwick from in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. It was the rst time she had seen
its founding to World War II. Only Fifty Years Ago (1962) is the the ocean. She continued to study at Woods Hole in the summers
story of her childhood; To Remember Forever (1963) is a journal while earning an M.A. in zoology at Johns Hopkins University,
of a year at Bates College. The Years Away from Home (1972) where she wrote a thesis on the development of the catsh. After a
tells of her early married life through 1933. These autobiographi- brief stint teaching at Johns Hopkins and the University of
cal works, like her later novels, are repetitious and laced through- Maryland, Carson took a position as a junior aquatic biologist at
out with World War II poster-style patriotism, but they can serve the Bureau of Fisheries in Washington, D.C. She was one of the
as documents of local and cultural history. rst two women hired by the Bureau for nonclerical jobs, and she
wrote and edited high-quality radio broadcasts and Bureau publi-
Carroll used her novels to express her own conservative cations for many years.
Republican, rural, New England values, but much of her work
cannot be rated as literature. She is a writer who had one major Elmer Higgins, Carsons supervisor at the Bureau of Fisher-
theme: the spell of the land, and she wrote it out in her rst three ies, turned down a radio script she wrote about the sea but
novels. As the Earth Turns is a great popular novel, however, and recommended she submit it to Atlantic Monthly. The resulting
it fully deserves its acclaim. article, Undersea, (1937) came to the attention of Quincy
Howe, an editor at Simon & Schuster, who asked her to write a
book about the ocean. A thorough researcher and careful writer,
OTHER WORKS: Cockatoo (1929). Land Spell (1930, reissued as A Carson had an appealing descriptive style that appears throughout
Few Foolish Ones, 1935). Neighbor to the Sky (1937). Head of the her works. Her rst book, Under the Sea Wind: A Naturalists
Line (1942). While the Angels Sing (1947). West of the Hill Picture of Ocean Life, was published in late 1941 just before the
(1949). Christmas Without Johnny (1950). One White Star (1954). outbreak of World War II and sold poorly, despite its favorable
Sing Out the Glory (1957). Come With Me Home (1960). The reviews. The book made the bestseller list upon its reissue in 1952,
Road Grows Strange (1965). The Light Here Kindled (1967). Next however, after Carson had achieved fame for subsequent works.
of Kin (1974). Unless You Die Young (1977).
At the end of the war, Carson was promoted to chief editor of
the newly renamed United States Fish & Wildlife Service. She
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hall, V. S., Down East Today (thesis, 1938). still managed to nd time to write and The Sea Around Us was
Nation (21 June 1933). NYT (7 May 1933). SRL (6 May 1933). published in 1951 after an overwhelmingly favorable response to
excerpts published in the Yale Review and the New Yorker. The
BEVERLY SEATON Sea Around Us utilized new information about the ocean to
168
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CARSON
describe it and was referred to by Carson as a biography of the 1963. Silent Spring was immediately attacked by chemical com-
sea. The book remained on the bestseller list for 86 weeks and panies and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which denounced
eventually won both the John Burroughs and the National the books ndings of DDTs ill effects on the environment
Book awards. as false.
The Sea Around Uss three sections provide a detailed look at Carson herself was painted as an unreliable, hysterical wom-
life beneath the oceans surface, yet Carsons principal focus is an by critics and attacked repeatedly in the media. Yet the furor
still to provide readers with scientically accurate information over Silent Spring died down when it became apparent that
about the sea couched in her now trademark dramatic style. This Carsons critics had misinterpreted the books message. In Silent
work won Carson the National Book award; and she famously
Spring, Carson called for increased control over the distribution
noted in her acceptance speech that if there is poetry in my book
and use of pesticides like DDT as well as the development of
about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but
biological controls as an alternative to spraying pesticides from
because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave
the air. Her dramatic presentation of humanitys destruction of the
[it] out.
environment through DDT and other pesticides shocked a public
In 1953, two years after publication of The Sea Around Us, that had heretofore been unaware of any reason for concern.
Carson became the rst science writer in 13 years to be elected to
the National Institute of Arts and Letters. RKOs production of a The overwhelming interest and anxiety about the situation
full-length documentary of the book won an Oscar the same year, presented in Carsons book led President John F. Kennedy to
although Carson never approved of the lm because of some announce a federal investigation into the problem. The report of
scientic inaccuracies. Honorary degrees and other accolades the Presidents Science Advisory Committee in May 1963 agreed
continued to pour in along with royalties from the books eventual with Carsons conclusions in Silent Spring. Later that year,
translation into 32 languages. Carson became the rst woman to win the Audubon Medal.
Within four months of Silent Springs publication, there were over
With her nancial well-being ensured, Carson resigned from
40 bills in state legislatures calling for stronger restrictions on the
the Fish & Wildlife Service to devote herself full time to writing.
use of pesticides. Carsons impact upon environmental policy did
The Edge of the Sea was published in 1955 and became another
not cease with her death in 1964. In November 1969, ve years
instant bestseller. In this book Carson describes the fragility and
after her death, the U.S. government took steps to phase out the
interdependence of the creatures living along the oceans shore.
use of DDT over a two-year period, and the Environmental
Carson continued to provide occasional scripts for radio and Protection Agency (EPA) was established a year later.
television broadcasts, including one for an Omnibus program on
clouds. Yet she had little time to write in the late 1950s due to There have been two new posthumous publications of Car-
family responsibilities. Her mother and niece died within a year of sons writings in addition to either renamed partial or complete
one another and the never-married Carson adopted Roger, her ve reprints of her earlier works. Always, Rachel: The Letters of
year-old great-nephew. Roger was the inspiration for Carsons Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman was published in 1995 to
fth book, The Sense of Wonder, which grew out of an article for great acclaim. Freeman, a naturalist and former teacher, had
Womens Home Companion. (The book was published posthu- written to Carson in 1952 after the publication of The Sea Around
mously in 1965 and urged parents to instill a love of nature in their Us when she learned Carson was building a summer home near
children.) the Freemans on Southport Island in Maine. The women later met
and became close friends for the remainder of Carsons life.
Carson was concerned about the effects of the chemical
fertilizer DDT for many years and tried unsuccessfully to publish Carsons compassionate nature and joy in life shines through
articles about the pesticides negative effects on plants and these letters, as does her concern for her family and the pain of her
animals. Her concern grew in the years after World War II when later illness. Near the end of her nieces struggle with diabetes,
DDT became widely available to farmers. Other scientists had Carson wrote to Freeman: I think I wrote you a year ago that my
noted the deterioration in the environment and the death of
great problem was how to be a writer and at the same time a
wildlife due to DDT, but none had Carsons fame or respect. She
member of my family. . . . It is that conict that just tears me to
pondered the topic of her next book in a letter to a friend in
pieces. Now, so near the end, I wonder why I cant have peace for
February 1958: It seems time someone wrote of Life in the light
even ten days, but I have thought of no practical solution.
of the truth as it now appears to us. And I think that may be the
Always, Rachel reveals that Carsons courage in the face of
book I am to write. . . . As man approaches the new heaven and
the new earthor the space-age universe, if you willhe must personal tragedy was as striking as her bravery in facing public
do it with humility rather than arrogance. criticism and her graciousness in acknowledging eventual public
triumph.
Shortly after Carson began work on the book that would
become Silent Spring, she was diagnosed with a malignant breast Lost Woods: The Discovered Writings of Rachel Carson
tumor. The cancer spread throughout her body, which made (1998) is a collection of brief essays, talks, eld notes, acceptance
writing difcult, but a condensation of the book was published in speeches, magazine articles, and personal letters. The selections
the New Yorker in June 1962 and the entire book in September in Lost Woods range from Carsons rst Atlantic Monthly article,
169
CARVER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Undersea, which was the inspiration for the book Under the CARVER, Ada Jack
Sea Wind, to her nal letter to Dorothy Freeman (1964). In this
letter, which Freeman received after Carsons death, the latter
wrote: My regrets, darling, are for your sadness, for leaving Born 7 April 1890, Natchitoches, Louisiana; died 1 December
Roger, when I so wanted to see him through to manhood. . . . I 1972, Minden, Louisiana
have had a rich life, full of rewards and satisfactions that come to Daughter of Marshall H. and Ada W. Jack Carver; married
few, and if it must end now, I can feel that I have achieved most of John B. Snell, 1918
what I wished to do. That wouldnt have been true two years ago,
when I rst realized my time was short. Born into an upper-middle-class Baptist family, Ada Jack
Carver was raised in an atmosphere of distinction and cultivated
Rachel Carson was a gifted scientist and talented writer ease with the myths that continue to inform the girlhoods of the
whose works introduced readers around the world to the delicate region. The soil of her native Natchitoches, a river town in
balance of nature and societys responsibility for preserving it. northwest Louisiana, was enriched by multicultural strataIndi-
Carson was one of the few women of her time able to achieve an, French, Spanish, and Anglo-American, with the usual South-
success in the male-dominated world of science. Through her ern admixture of African-American. Carver remembered the
inspirational and scientically sound writings she convinced her locus and people of her childhood as colorful and exciting,
colleagues and the general public of both the need for sound especially in comparison to Minden, where she lived after she
environmental policy and the capability of female scientists. married.
Often hailed as the mother of the environmental movement, On the negative side, Carvers heritage endowed her with a
her impact on literature and environmental policy is still felt sense of propriety that became more fanatical after her marriage,
today. Yet her characteristic modesty did not allow her to believe and which may have impaired her ability to deal with materials
her work would bring about lasting change. Shortly before the related to her own class, race, and sex. It was as an insider
publication of Silent Spring, Carson wrote in a letter: I have felt jealously guarding the gate that she wrote such stories as The
bound by a solemn obligation to do what I couldif I didnt at Joyous Coast (Southern Womens Magazine, 1917), Treeshy
least try I could never again be happy in nature. But now I can (Harpers, 1926), and Maudie (Harpers, 1926). The last two
believe I have at least helped a little. It would be unrealistic to are saved by the eccentricity of the protagonists, the bizarre
believe one book could bring a complete change. As writer Paul circumstances of their lives, and Carvers skill in delineating the
Brooks noted in Speaking for Nature, It may have been unrealis- interaction of inner and outer landscapes. A sense of cultural and
tic, but history has proved it true. moral ambivalence emerges from the confrontation of distinct
socioeconomic classes and life styles that allows the reader to
place in proper focus the supercilious attitude of the main narra-
OTHER WORKS: Food from the Sea: Fish and Shellsh of New tive voices.
England (1943). Food from Home Waters: Fishes of the Middle
West (1943). Fish and Shellsh of the South Atlantic and Gulf A bright spot in the congenial but repressive milieu of
Coasts (1944). Fish and Shellsh of the Middle Atlantic Coast Carvers youth was a French grandmother who elected Carver
(1945). Life Under the Sea (1968). The Rocky Coast (1971). The from the family group to share her stories and perceptions, thereby
House of Life: Rachel Carson at Work (1972). Silent Spring stimulating the childs intellect and literary imagination. Carvers
Revisited (1987). best stories deal with grandmothers or older women, e.g., The
Raspberry Dress (The Century Magazine, 1926) and The Old
One (Harpers, 1926); or other cultures, e.g., Redbone (in A.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brooks, P., The House of Life: R. Carson at Work Turners Southern Stories, 1925), and the one-act play, The Cajun
(1972). Brooks, P., Speaking for Nature (1980). Graham, F., Jr., (1926). The last two both won prestigious prizes. With the
Since Silent Spring (1970). Sterling, P., Sea and Earth: The Life exception of Redbone the interest in these works centers on the
of R. Carson (1970). Stille, D. R., Extraordinary Women Scien- perceptions and experiences of women, and on the construction of
tists. Veglahn, N., Women Scientists (1991). Whorton, J., Before a cultural context. For the women in the stories, socialization
Silent Spring: Pesticides and Public Health in Pre-DDT Ameri- provides a closed system that prevents communication with others
ca (1974). and inhibits participation in the life that is offered to them. In
Reference works: CANR 35 (1992). Current Biography (1951, The Raspberry Dress the grandmother is able to break through
1964). CBY (1951). Notable Women in the Life Sciences (1996). the barriers of her fantasy world and, instead of going back as she
Readers Companion to American History (1991). Twentieth had intended, moves forward into life with her granddaughter.
Century Authors, 1st supp. (1955). The dress itself is a central metaphor that reveals rst the
Other references: American Forests (July 1970). The Spirit disjuncture and then the consonance between inner and outer
of Rachel Carson, in Audubon (July-August 1992). SatR (16 worlds. The prospect is a good deal more bleak in The Cajun.
May 1964). Science (26 May 1995). Carver projects a wasteland situation in the play where ordinary
innocent human acts tend to mutilate rather than further lifes
LEAH J. SPARKS purposes.
170
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CARY
Carver began to publish in 1915, but her most intense which had already taken two of Carys sisters and which eventual-
creative activity occurred in the mid-1920s. There are numerous ly occasioned her death following a lengthy illness.
unresolved mysteries surrounding the relationship between her
life and her work. She virtually stopped publishing after 1928, Alice and Phoebe began to publish rst in western and then in
with the exception of a childrens play, The Clock Strikes Tomor- eastern newspapers and journals.In 1850 Cary moved to New
row, written and produced in 1935, and a story, For Suellen with York, where Rufus W. Griswold praised her work in his Female
Love, which appeared in a college review in 1949. All of Poets of America. It was also admired by other writers, including
Carvers personal papers are believed to have been destroyed at Edgar Allan Poe and Whittier, whose poem The Singer is
her death upon her request, so its unknown what manuscripts about her. Phoebe joined Cary in 1851, and by 1856 both women
remained. She did work for a period of time on a novel, but we will had well-established literary reputations. Their home in New
probably never know whether or at what point her creative York City became the center of a literary salon that for 15 years
energies were stied, or why. met each Sunday.
What critics are now calling the politics of greatness has Cary was a rm believer in abolition and womens rights,
denied Carver a place in the annals of literary history she deserves although many of her poems show womans noblest role to be that
to occupy. Although only one of her stories remained in print, of wife and mother. Despite her illness and her self-imposed
Carvers short ction should be collected and studied in classes rigorous writing schedule, she served as the rst president of the
and by scholars interested in Southern or regional literature and rst womens club in America, later kown as Sorosis. A prolic
womens writing. Her work reects a sensibility that conjoins writer, Cary authored ve volumes of poetry, as well as several
time and place in a unique and enlightening way. novels and books of sketches and short stories. Although general-
ly too didactic for modern sensibilities, her poetry was better than
most of her contemporaries, and her prose retains a remarkable
OTHER WORKS: The Cajun (1926). Bagatelle (1927). The Clock freshness. Clearly, her best works are the sketches based directly
Strikes Tomorrow (1935). The Collected Works of Ada Jack upon her recollections of western life.
Carver (1980).
Throughout Carys poetry there are recurring themes and
personae. Much of her poetry is religious or is designed to teach a
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bowman, M. I., The Negro in the Works of moral, with an overall dark tone. As she writes in Life, the
Three Contemporary Louisiana Writers (thesis, 1931). Dodson, A., world is desolate and dreary, poor and pitiful, and fruit-
Ada Jack Carver (thesis, 1930). Ford, O. L., Ada Jack Carver: less and fruitionless. Yet, not all of her poetry is pessimistic; her
A Critical Biography (dissertation, 1975). Houston, M. A., The love poems, especially those in the 1873 volume, are vivid and
Shadow of Africa on the Cane: An Examination of Africanisms in powerful. In Snowed Under, for example, she stresses the
the Fiction of Lyle Saxon and Ada Jack Carver (thesis, 1986). sensuality of the older woman: You would nip the blushing
Taylor, D. M. W., Louisianas Literary Legacy: A Critical Ap- roses; / They were blighted long ago, / But the precious roots, my
praisal of the Writings of Ada Jack Carver (dissertation, 1994). darling, / Are alive beneath the snow.
The most interesting personae of Carys poetry are the

ALICE PARKER
women. A recurring gure is that of the unmarried but pregnant
woman. This gure in Morna and later in No Ring is not
mother, wife, nor bride. Seduced and abandoned, she dies of a
broken heart. Consistently, Cary urges understanding, offers
CARY, Alice poverty as both explanation and excuse, and stands quietly on the
womans side. A second gure is the strong woman, who although
Born 26 April 1820, Mount Healthy, Ohio; died 12 February she looks happily upon marriage, retains her own identity. Such a
1871, New York, New York woman is found in The Bridal Veil, in Ballads, Lyrics, and
Also wrote under: Alice Carey, Patty Lee Hymns (1866):
Daughter of Robert and Elizabeth Jessup Cary
Were married! Oh, pray that our love do not fail!
Growing up in what was then considered the far western area I have wings attened down and hid under my veil:
around Cincinnati, Ohio, Alice Carys educational opportunities They are subtle as lightyou can never undo them,
were limited to those offered by a small country school, from And swift in their ightyou can never pursue them,
which she was removed altogether quite early. Remarkably, with And spite of all clasping and spite of all bands,
neither education, books, literary friends, nor encouragement, I can slip like a shadow, a dream, from your hands.
Cary and her sister Phoebe developed and sustained their literary
talents. It is in Carys prose, however, that the modern reader would
be most interested. Clovernook (1852, later appearing in ve
Lack of intellectual stimulation was not the only obstacle to pirated editions printed in England), Clovernook Children (1855),
Carys career as a writer. In 1835 her mother died of tuberculosis, and Pictures of Country Life (1859) taken together make a
171
CARY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
signicant contribution to our understanding of early western was based on The Trumpet, a Universalist journal, the Bible, and a
community life. The sketches are not romantic; they depict lives few sentimental or sensational novels popular at the time. Cary
that were deprived, hard, and marked by early deaths. started writing poetry at the age of thirteen. Like her sisters
poems, Carys are also lled with sudden deaths, meditations on
There is ample material for study in Carys prose, especially graves, and lingering illness, characteristics not difcult to under-
for those interested in the folklore of women. Material incidental stand when one realizes Carys two sisters and mother succumbed
to the story lines gives fascinating glimpses into a world in which, to tuberculosis within two years of each other. Phoebes poems
as Aunt Caty in Clovernook Children tells us, widders [are] were included with those of her sister Alice in Rufus W. Griswolds
sometimes better off than wives, and in which an unmarried edition of The Female Poets of America (1849), and her early
woman of 25 is a local tragedy. These stories are simple but poems were collected with her sisters for Poems of Alice and
satisfying, and especially remarkable for their vivid portrayal of
Phoebe Cary (1850). Following Alice to New York City, Cary
life in the west.
settled there in 1851 and began to earn her living by her pen. Like
her sister, she contributed to newspapers and religious journals.
Within six years the two sisters had earned enough to purchase
OTHER WORKS: Poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary (1850). Hagar:
their own home on 20th Street, where they lived for the rest of
A Story for Today (1852). Lyra and Other Poems (1852). Poems
their lives.
(1855). Married, Not Mated; or, How They Lived at Woodside
and Throckmorton Hall (1856). Adopted Daughter and Other Cary was not as prolic a writer as her sister Alice, a fact that
Tales (1859). The Josephine Gallery (edited by Cary with Phoebe put additional burdens on Alice, who was their main nancial
Cary, 1859). The Bishops Son (1867). Snow-Berries: A Book for support. Carys poems are collected in two volumes, Poems and
Young Folks (1867). A Lovers Diary (1868). The Born Thrall Parodies (1854) and Poems of Faith, Hope, and Love (1868).
(1871). The Last Poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary (edited Most of her poems are sketches of simple country people or
by M. C. Ames, 1873). Ballads for Little Folks (edited by M. C. prayers for strength and Gods forgiveness. In a few poems she
Ames, 1874). The Poetical Works of Alice and Phoebe Cary; with develops her attitudes toward womens role.
a Memorial of Their Lives (edited by M. C. Ames, 1877).
Critics of her day regarded Carys greatest gift to be her wit
and keen parodic streak. Ironically, her best verse is that which
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ames, M. C., A Memorial to Alice and Phoebe parodies the sentimental works of Longfellow and the popular
Cary, with Some of Their Later Poems (1873). Derby, J., Fifty ballads of the day. Along with her sister, she also presided over the
Years Among Authors, Books, and Publishers (1884). Greeley, H., Sunday-evening receptions held for artistic and literary gures for
Alice and Phoebe Cary in Eminent Women of the Age (1869). 15 years in their 20th Street house. Sipping sweetened milk and
Griswold, R. W., Female Poets of America (1859). Kolodny, A., water, the sisters presided over the nearest approach to the rst
The Land Before Her (1984). Venable, W. H., Beginnings of ideal blue-stocking reception in America.
Literary Culture in the Ohio Valley (1891). Wyman, M., Wom-
en in the American Realistic Novel, 1860-1893 (disserta- Cary believed in temperance, human rights, and womens
tion, 1950). social and civil enfranchisement. She briey worked as assistant
Reference works: American Women (1897). Cyclopedia of editor for Susan B. Anthonys suffrage paper, The Revolution. Her
American Literature (1855). Essex Institute Historical Collec- attitude toward women, however, contained typical Victorian
tions 109 (Jan. 1973). National Cyclopedia of American Biogra- features. Cary and her sister, although vastly different in tempera-
phy (1892 et seq.). NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). A Supplement to ment, appearance, and productivity, were totally dependent on
Allibones Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British each other, and Cary often talked of the marriage proposals she
and American Authors (1891). rejected in order to continue living with Alice. After Alices death,
Cary rapidly declined and died ve months later. Their biographer
BILLIE J. WAHLSTROM Ames asserts: It is impossible to estimate either sister without
any reference to the otheras impossible as to tell what a husband
and wife would have been, had they never lived together.
CARY, Phoebe
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ames, M. C., A Memorial of Alice and Phoebe
Cary, with Some of Their Later Poems (1873). Greeley, H.,
Born 4 September 1824, Mount Healthy, Ohio; died 31 July Alice and Phoebe Cary in Eminent Women of the Age (1869).
1871, Newport, Rhode Island Pulsifer, J., Alice and Phoebe Cary, Whittiers Sweet Singers of
Daughter of Robert and Elizabeth Jessup Cary the West in Essex Institute Historical Collections (January 1973).
Reference works: American Women (1897). Cyclopedia of
Phoebe Cary grew up in a rough farmhouse eight miles north American Literature (1855). National Cyclopedia of American
of Cincinnati, Ohio. Her meager education, like her sister Alices, Biography (1892 et seq.). NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). A Supplement
172
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CASPARY
to Allibones Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British realistic dialogue provides sound characterization. Evvie exam-
and American Authors (1891). ines murder within a triangular love affair and is very successful,
especially in its depiction of the friendship between Evvie Ashton
DIANE LONG HOEVELER and Louise Goodman.
Casparys nonmysteries, often centering on lonely urban
girls, are realistic and moving portraits of young female wage
earners. The White Girl (1929), Casparys rst novel, is spare,
CASPARY, Vera unemotional, but powerful. Solaria Cox, having decided to pass
for white, moves to New York. Her guilt and fear of discovery are
Born 13 November 1904, Chicago, Illinois; died 13 June 1987 dramatized in the blackmail scheme of a black man who turns
Daughter of Paul and Julia Cohen Caspary; married I. G. seemingly innocent invitations to Harlem rent parties into extor-
Goldsmith, 1949 tion. Solarias relationships with her friend, Dell Findlay, and
with her white anc complicate her masquerade.
Vera Caspary began her career by writing promotional book- A Chosen Sparrow (1964), the story of Leni Neumann,
lets for an advertising agency, operating her own mail order ballet survivor of Nazi prison camps, is Casparys interpretation of the
school, and editing trade magazines. She later drew from these aftereffects of the Holocaust. Taught to repress all memory of the
experiences as well as from her Chicago background in her horrors, Leni remains immature, easy prey for her ex-Nazi hus-
writings. band who symbolizes corruption in both wartime and postwar
Germany. When Leni ees from him, she learns to know herself,
Laura (1943) established Casparys reputation for suspense- to face her prison camp experiences, and to accept the fact of
ful psychological studies and introduced one of her strongest her survival without guilt. The novel is straightforward and
ctional devices: multiple points of view. A unique treatment of unsensational, and Lenis memories, forced to the surface by her
the Pygmalion myth, the novel is especially satisfying in its adroit husband, provide powerful ashbacks.
blending of clue and symbol. Caspary dramatized Laura (with G.
Sklar, 1945), and J. Mankiewiczs movie adaptation starred Gene During a 30-year period, Caspary was associated with more
Tierney, Dana Andrews, and Clifton Webb. The lm was nomi- than 20 motion pictures. She adapted the story for A Letter to
nated for four Academy Awards, and the musical theme was an Three Wives which received outstanding critical reviews and
instant success that is still heard today. appeared on the New York Times list of 10 Best Films of 1949.
Other well known Caspary lms are Claudia and David (1946),
Stranger Than Truth (1946) employs multiple points of view. The Blue Gardenia (1953), Les Girls (1957), and Bachelor in
As a result, all the narrators are rounded characters despite Paradise (1961).
Casparys use of stereotypes. The novel is a blend of mystery and
romance, and through Noble Barnes, the messiah of self-help Noted for her skill at characterization, her vivid evocation of
psychology, Caspary castigates all simplistic reformers. setting, and her expert manipulation of tension, Caspary was
considered a major talent: a sound novelist, playwright, and
Final Portrait (1971) includes serious discussion of painters screenwriter.
ethics as it describes the search for the killer of Henry Leveret.
The posthumous use of the victims own tape-recorded comments
OTHER WORKS: Ladies and Gents (1929). Music in the Street
contributes to Casparys most sensational multiple point of view.
(1930). Blind Mice (with W. Lenihan, 1931, lm adaptation
The book is skillfully wrought, and its opening sentence, I was
asWorking Girls, 1931). Geraniums in My Window (with W. S.
refused admittance to my fathers funeral, establishes an interest
Ornitz, 1934). The Murder in the Stork Club (1946). The Weeping
sustained throughout. The Husband (1957) offers a variant of the
and the Laughter (1950). Thelma (1952). Wedding in Paris
multiple viewpoint technique by reporting events twicerst as
(musical with H. May, 1956). The Man Who Loved His Wife
interpreted by Jean McVeigh, a wealthy spinster who marries to (1966). The Rosecrest Cell (1967). Secrets of Grown-Ups (1979).
assuage loneliness, and then by Stuart Howell, entrepreneur and
fraud. The device is largely responsible for the novels success.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Klein, K. G., Great Women Mystery Writers:
Bedelia (1945; lm adaptation, 1947), False Face (1954), Classic to Contemporary (1994). McNamara, E., Laura as Novel,
and Evvie (1960) are personality studies as well as mysteries. Film, and Myth (1992). Warren, A. L., Word Play: The Lives and
Bedelia focuses on the changes suspicion works in Charlie Horst Work of Four Women Writers in Hollywoods Golden Age (disser-
when he learns that his almost perfect wife may be a murderer. A tation, 1988).
garish black pearl ring and a blizzard are among Casparys deftly Reference works: Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection
handled symbols of deceit and growing uneasiness. False Face (1976). St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers (1996).
recounts the delayed maturation of Nina Redeld as she confronts Other references: Bookman (Sept. 1932). NYHTB (4 Sept.
the true personality of her childhood sweetheart, a fascinating 1960). NYTBR (20 Jan. 1929, 18 Jan. 1940). SR (17 Sept. 1932).
combination of simple faith and criminal blood. The novel
makes good use of angel and demon imagery; economical, JANE S. BAKERMAN
173
CASTILLO AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
CASTILLO, Ana culture, to be the daughter of a Mexican woman and a Mexican

man. The rst section, The Toltec, focuses on what was
received and rejected from father and mother; La Heredera on
Born 15 June 1953, Chicago, Illinois the ways heterosexual relationships have been culturally dened;
Daughter of Ramn (Ray) and Raquel (Rocha) Castillo; child- Ixtacihuatl Died in Vain presents female bonding as a nonutopian
ren: Marcel possibility.
The last section of My Father Was a Toltec documents the

Ana Castillo grew up in Chicago, where she received a B.A.
collective struggle against domination. A Christmas Gift. . .
from Northwestern University (1975) and an M.A. from the
exposes literary authority as male, white, and privileged: so
University of Chicago. In 1991 she completed a Ph.D. in Ameri-
these are not poems, i readily admit, / as i grapple with nonexist-
can studies at the University of Bremen, Germany. The voices ence, / making scratches with stolen pen. The book ends with
populating Castillos texts speak from a multiplicity of positions In My Country, a utopian vision of a world that has put an end
that at times complement and at times contradict one another. to multiple oppressions: In my world the poet sang loud / and
Their subjectivity is a weave of differences, complex and poten- clear and everyone heard / without recoiling. It was sweet / as
tially transformative. harvest, sharp as tin, strong / as the western wind, and all had / a
coat warm enough to bear it. An expanded edition of the
The epistolary novel The Mixquiahuala Letters (1986) ex-
collection was published in 1995 as My Father Was a Toltec: New
plores the geographic and psychic borderlands between the U.S.
and Collected Poems.
and Mexico as internalized by Chicanas. It also maps the border-
lands between women and women and women and men. Much of Castillos next work, Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on
the bonding, both positive and negative, between Teresa and Xicanisma (1994), is a series of 10 essays examining the roles of
Alicia is established through their relationships with men, while Mexican and Amerindian women in a sociological, historical, and
they struggle with the differences between them. Teresa begins political context. She challenges the notion of black-and-white
Letter 13, Alicia, why i hated white women and sometimes race relations and advocates the need for Xicanismaa brand of
didnt like you, and ends balancing Alicias class-and skin-privi- politically and socially active Chicana feminism.
lege against her inferior physical attractiveness. While Teresa
feels betrayed by Alicias ignorance of Mexican culture, she in A collection of short stories followed in 1996 with the
turn hides from Alicia her perception that men are more attracted publication of Loverboys: Stories. The medley varies greatly in
to her because she has internalized femininity as submissive. setting, narrative, and structure, but each examines an aspect of
love. Women in the stories deal with issues of race, culture, love
The texts structure insists on polyvalence, presenting four lost and love gained. Her latest work takes a different approach to
possible combinations of the letters. As published, the ending Mexican history with a series of essays, poetry, ction, and
foregrounds the bonding between the two women through failed historical writings on the Virgin Guadalupe. Goddess of the
relationships with men. The other endings represent the triumph Americas, La Diosa de Las Americas; Writings on the Virgin
of maternal and cultural dictates, the conrmation of womens Guadalupe (1996) brings together the work of Octavio Paz,
betrayal of women, and the quixotic preparations for yet another Sandra Cisneros, Denise Chavez, and others to examine the
trip to Mexico. impression this gure has had on the people and history of Mexico
and in countries far beyond in art and literature.
Castillos second novel Sapogonia (1990) positions women
readers not to identify with the male subject Maximo, yet it is the Castillo has been recognized for her work from nearly the
story of Pastora, whose contradictory subjectivity is both revealed beginning of her career. She was given the American Book award,
and concealed by the narrative. Maximos subjectivity is con- Before Columbus Foundation (1986 for The Mixquiahuala Let-
structed in opposition to woman as inaccessible enigma and ters), was honored in 1987 and in 1988 by Womens Foundation
vagina dentata. He both desires the primordial unity he projects of San Francisco, was granted a California Arts Council fellow-
onto Pastora and is terried of being absorbed by her. Although ship for ction in 1989 and a National Endowment for the Arts
various alternative narratives are available to her, Pastora is fellowship for poetry in 1990, and received a New Mexico Arts
complicit in her own objectication as enigma and object of Commission Grant in 1991. For So Far From God, she was
desire. Her opacity also functions as a shield from intimacy; she is awarded the Carl Sandburg Literary Award in Fiction (1993) and
both contemptuously independent of men and dependent on them. the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award (1994). Castillos
Sapogonia explores male fantasy, its potential violence to women, work continues to cast light on an often forgotten theme, refusing
and the female subjects struggle to interpret herself both within to let her issues drown in the sea of multiculturalism.
and outside of this discourse on femininity.
My Father Was a Toltec: Poems (1988), monolingual poems OTHER WORKS: Zero Makes Me Hungry (1975). I Close My Eyes
in English and Spanish, explores a subjectivity of marginalization: (to See) (1976). Otro canto (1977). The Invitation (1979). Keats,
what it means to be poor, to be hated because of skin color and Poe, and the Shaping of Cortazars Mythopoesis (1981). This
174
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CATHER
Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color distinguished of theseOne of Ourswas awarded a Pulitzer
(coedited and collected with C. Moraga and G. Anzalda, 1981). Prize. A novel of World War I, it tells the story of Claude Wheeler,
Women Are Not Roses (1984). Esta puente, mi espalda. Voces de a young man who has spent a dreary life on a Nebraska farm and
mujeres tercermundistas en los Estados Unidos (coeditor, 1988). has a brief experience of beauty and fulllment in France before
Third Woman 4: The Sexuality of Latinas (coeditor, 1989). So Far he is killed in action.
from God (1993).
In the years between 1922 and 1925, Cather seems to have
suffered the kind of crisis bearing different names, according to
ones circumstances, e.g., midlife crisis, anomie, a fall from grace,
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Horno-Delgado, A., et al, eds., Breaking Bounda-
acedia, depression, alienation. Cather attributed it to the times, a
ries. Latina Writing and Critical Readings (1989). Alarcn, N.,
plausible interpretation since her melancholy was similar to the
ed., Critical Approaches to Hispanic Womens Literature (1994).
spiritual dislocation experienced by so many Americans after
Reference works: CA (1991). CA (Online, 1999). Hispanic World War I. The new America that under Warren Harding was
Writers (1990). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the returning to normalcy seemed to her a vulgar and drab wasteland.
United States (1995). WW of Hispanic Americans (1991, 1992). Her despondency may also have stemmed from events in her
Other references: Americas Review (1992). Booklist (15 personal life. Around 1923, Isabelle McClung, recently married to
Sept.1994, 19 Aug. 1996, 15 Oct. 1996). Discurso Literario: the violinist Jan Hambourg, went to live permanently in France.
Revista de Estudios Iberoamericanos (1990). MELUS (22
Sept. 1997). Cathers recovery seems to have been related to a spiritual
rebirth, marked externally by joining the Episcopalian Church in
YVONNE YARBRO-BEJARANO, 1922. The Professors House (1925), My Mortal Enemy (1926),
UPDATED BY CARRIE SNYDER Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927), and Shadows on the
Rock (1931)the four great works of her highwater period
illustrate her feeling that religion is the best life has to offer
humankind.
In the last 16 years of her life Cather wrote little. Deaths of

CATHER, Willa Sibert loved ones, illness, housing difculties, physical disabilities, the
clouds of the Great Depression, and World War II all seem to have
Born 7 December 1873, Gore, Virginia; died 24 April 1947, New sapped her magnicent vitality. The more closely one looks at
York, New York Cathers works in the context of her life, the more clearly one sees
Daughter of Charles F. and Virginia Boak Cather Cather was always writing about herself. Life began for me
when I ceased to admire and began to remember, she said. This
reserved woman, who went to unusual lengths to maintain priva-
Willa Cather, the rst of seven children, was born to parents
cy, was driven by an inexorable need to give form to and reveal,
who owned a farm in the hilly country of northern Virginia. The
albeit indirectly, her inner self. Some of the power in her works
family was dominated by Cathers mother, a vigorous woman,
surely comes from this tensionthe romantic confessional tem-
backed up by Cathers maternal grandmother, who made her
perament writing in the classical restrained mode.
home with them. Cather was to retain strong familial attachments
all her life. In 1883 the family moved to the Nebraska frontier, and Cathers most widely read novel is My ntonia, a fact
in 1884 to Red Cloud, a bitter, dead little western town, where lamented by many Cather critics. ntonia is a daughter in an
Cather lived for the next six years. Cather, educated at home until immigrant family struggling to survive on a farm on the Nebraska
high school, later attended the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. plains of the 1890s. Needing money, ntonia enters domestic
service and is seduced and abandoned by the son of her employer.
From 1895 to 1906, Cather lived in Pittsburgh, working rst Left with her child, she returns to the farm. By the end of the
as a journalist on the Pittsburgh Leader and then as the principal novel, ntonia has triumphed. Married to the mild-tempered
of a Pittsburgh high school. Here she formed a friendship with Anton Cuzak, she reigns, among a brood of children, over a
Isabelle McClung, which was to last until McClungs death. In prospering farm. The story is told by Jim Burden, ntonias
1906, Cather joined the staff of McClures Magazine in New York childhood friend. Now a weary middle-aged man, returning to
City and for the next six years assisted S.S. McClure as managing Nebraska on a visit, he has experienced little joy from his
editor, staff writer, and general factotum. In these years she also successful law practice or his marriage.
formed a lifelong relationship with Edith Lewis.
Jim sees ntonia on many levelsas a childhood friend and
Between 1912 (the year she left McClures) and 1922, Cather fullled woman, as the apotheosis of the pioneer woman who
wrote ve novels, all of which derive from her childhood memory conquered the land, as a personication of eternal values. To Jim,
of the people and lifestyle she had observed in Nebraska. These ntonia symbolizes an America of the past, one in which there
are O Pioneers! (1913), The Song of the Lark (1915), My ntonia was heroism in everyday life. It seems safe to suggest here that
(1918), One of Ours (1922), and A Lost Lady (1923). The least Jim is Cathers alter ego.
175
CATHER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
A Lost Lady, set at the end of the era of transcontinental was not the same man they had said goodbye to. He muses on
railroad expansion, is the story of Marion Forrester, the beautiful, Augusta and himself after his encounter with death. Augusta
young wife of Daniel Forrester, a dynamic railroad builder in the was like the taste of bitter herbs; she was the bloomless side of life
great days of the conquest of the West. As Daniels health and that he had always run away from.Yet when he had to face it, he
fortunes fail, Marions world is restricted to Sweet Water, a small found that it wasnt altogether repugnant.
railway-junction town. Because of her determination to return to a
life style congenial to her, she accommodates herself to Ivy Peters, At the center of the novel lies Tom Outlands account of the
who becomes her business manager and her lover. Marions discovery of the ruins of the cliff dwellers on the Blue Mesa in the
designs work. She escapes Sweet Water and in the end seems to southwest. Living in their towns, examining the artifacts, Tom has
have found happiness as the wife of a wealthy old Englishman in a revelation of a life hitherto undreamed of. How much to be
Argentina. By the end of the novel, word of her death reaches admired were the cliff dwellers. Living in a communal society in
Sweet Water. the midst of secure, spectacularly beautiful, natural surroundings,
they spent harmonious days creating exquisite objects of daily use
On another level, A Lost Lady tells the story of Niel Herbert, and worshiping their gods in reverential ritual, and also peaceably
the central observer. The nephew of Daniels lawyer and friend, procuring the necessities of life.
Niel has been ercely committed to the Forrester family in
adolescence and young manhood. The emotion of the novel stems The Professors House is commonly held to be Cathers
from Niels disillusionment with Marion and sadness about the autobiography, and apparently, through Godfrey, Cather wrote of
passing of a greater era. With all the passion of idealistic youth, what lay close to her heart. The novel may be looked at as a double
Niel cannot accept the fact that beautiful people adjust to the ugly autobiographyone in which Cather juxtaposed the young Willa
and the sordid. Niel wants Marion to be a high priest of beauty. as Tom Outland and the middle-aged Willa as Godfrey. Tom is
But Marion is a realist; she gets what she wants. very much like Jim Burden in My ntonia and Niel Herbert in A
Lost Lady.
This slender book is surely one of the high points of Ameri-
can ction. Cathers unaffected, powerful, and lucid style is the Myra Driscoll, the protagonist of My Mortal Enemy is the
result of her untiring struggle for, as she formulated it herself, the beloved heir apparent of a wealthy and powerful Roman Catholic
correct and appropriate word, which makes possible the gift of uncle until she marries Oswald Henshawe against her uncles
inner empathy. wishes. A erce and unrelenting man, her uncle rejects and
disinherits her. She gradually realizes how much she resembles
In the course of The Professors House, Godfrey St. Peter her uncle: I can feel his savagery strengthen inside of me. In
(the professor) experiences a central passage. The setting is spite of Oswalds gentle devotion, and the fact that his life, even
Hamilton, a college town in Michigan, about 1923. In the good his business affairs, have suffered from Myras tormented tem-
days, now in the past for Godfrey, he had written a highly perament, she begins to feel he is her mortal enemy. And also that
acclaimed work, an eight-volume historical chronicle of the she herself has been her own mortal enemy. Violent natures like
Spanish adventurers in North America. He had enjoyed his hers sometimes turn against themselves and all their idolatries.
teaching, had been blessed with a happy family life, and respond- Unreconciled to her fate, this magnicent, bitter woman meets a
ed gratefully to a variety of good fortune. One of the most grim, lonely death at the end of the novel.
rewarding episodes in his life was his friendship with his student
Tom Outland, a young man endowed with unusual gifts of mind Cathers most mysterious work derives its impact from what
and character. remains unsaid, from the depths that seem constantly to be
assaulting the cool surface. Religion, Myra comes to believe, is
At the beginning of the novel Godfrey nds himself in a different from everything else; because in religion seeking is
spiritual crisis. He is unable to account for the fact that he now nding. Through a variety of images, Cather suggests that
wanted to run away from everything he had intensely cared for. Myras sin was to have sought and found false gods, the most
He cannot return to the past. Nor can he face the futurea future deceitful of which is romantic love. By rejecting the Roman
with a once-beloved wife, now increasingly worldly and opportu- Catholicism of her childhood and the position she was born to, she
nistic, with daughters blighted by money, with uncongenial sons- has lost herself. Cather does full justice to the compelling lure of
in-law, with students and colleagues fettered by the materialistic eros, which continues to exert its power over Myra and Nellie
values of the age. Only death can liberate Godfrey from his plight. Birdseye, the narrator of the story.
The climax occurs on the night that gas inltrates the attic room in
which he is sleeping. Aware of what is happening, he passively Death Comes for the Archbishopbased on the lives of
drifts off to sleep, but he is saved by Augusta, the German Bishop Jean Baptiste LAmy (1814-88) and his vicar, Father
Catholic seamstress who functions as a dea ex machina. Joseph Machebeutis the chronicle of two French priests who
are assigned to set up an apostolic vicariate in the territory of New
Cather elliptically presents the change Godfrey undergoes. Mexico, a work that could be accomplished only by long, arduous
He had let something goand it was gone. . . . His family, on a travels and devotion to their commitment. Father Jean-Marie
European holiday at the time, would probably not realize that he Latour, later archbishop of Santa F, is patrician, intellectual, and
176
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CATHER
introverted. He is loved and admired for his quiet courage, for his Many critics of the 1920s considered her to be the best
courtesy, and for the respect with which he listens to the Indians American writer of her day. Cathers rank is more qualied today,
tales of their old religion. His vicar, Father Joseph Vaillant, but the tide has started to turn, and Cathers work is apparently to
practical, companionable, is unswerving in his faith in Gods be revived with vigor and enthusiasm, as the majority of her works
providence, in his zeal to convert people to Christianity. have been reprinted throughout the 1990s. When her work re-
ceives its just desserts, Cather will take her rightful place as one of
United in their love of France and their common purpose, Americas great writers.
they succeed in organizing the new diocese of Sante F despite the
apathy of the Indians, the opposition of the Spanish priests, and
the adversities that are the lot of all pioneers. The symbol of their OTHER WORKS: April Twilights (1903). The Troll Garden (1905).
success lies in the building of the cathedral. Alexanders Bridge (1912). My Autobiography: S. S. McClure
(ghost written by Cather, 1914). Youth and the Bright Medusa
Technically, Death Comes for the Archbishop is perhaps best
(1920). April Twilights, and Other Poems (1923). Obscure Des-
viewed as a picaresque novel, though the journeys made here are
tinies (1932). Lucy Gayheart (1935). Not Under Forty (1936). The
in the service of God. The framework gave Cather scope to
Novels and Stories (1937-41). Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940).
communicate what she found compellingbiographies of many
The Old Beauty, and Others (1948). On Writing (1949). Writings
characters, recapitulation of miracles and saints legends, trans-
from Willa Cathers Campus Years (edited by J. Shively, 1950).
mission of old documents, depiction of rituals and beliefs of the
Willa Cather in Europe; Her Own Story of the First Journey
Roman Catholic church, description of landscapes and interiors.
(edited by G. N. Kates, 1956). Early Stories (edited by M. R.
The unity of the novel derives from the characters of Bishop
Bennett, 1957). Willa Cathers Collected Short Fiction, 1892-1912
Latour and Father Vaillant, and the religious drama being enacted.
(edited by M. R. Bennett, 1965). The Kingdom of Art: Willa
It is a richly sympathetic creation of a golden world in which all
Cathers First Principles and Critical Statements, 1893 to 1896
ideals are realized.
(edited by B. Slote, 1966). The World and the Parish. Willa
The particular nature of her achievement is viewed thus by Cathers Articles and Reviews, 1893-1902 (edited by W. M.
Louis Auchincloss: But the real common denominator is the Curtin, 1970). Uncle Valentine, and Other Stories (edited by B.
glory of the southwest landscape described in a lyric prose that is Slote, 1973). Willa Cather in Person: Interviews, Speeches, and
the summit of the authors achievement. There is nothing more Letters (1986, 1990). The Willa Cather Reader (1997).
vivid in American ction that this series of brilliant pictures of an
arid, glowing country.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Auchincloss, L., Pioneers and Caretakers, A
It is Cathers lot to be Americas least comprehended major Study of Nine American Women Writers (1965). Bennett, M., The
novelist. Wallace Stevens said about her that we have nothing World of Willa Cather (1961). Bloom, H., ed., Willa Cather
better than she is. But the particularity of her genius is elusive, (1999). Bloom, E. A., and L. D. Bloom, Willa Cathers Gift of
and comments about Cathers work often focus on its less central Sympathy (1964). Dennis, H. M., ed., Willa Cather and European
aspects. Cultural Inuences (1996). Downs, M. C., Becoming Modern:
Willa Cathers Journalism (1999). Durham, M., History, Women
On Cathers style, there is little dissenther prose is of the
and Cultural Transmission in the Work of Willa Cather (disserta-
highest quality, variously described as classical, restrained, won-
tion, 1991). Edel, L., Willa Cather: The Paradox of Success
derfully transparent. Cather wrote language of a kind that is not
(1960). Faulkner, C., Putting Down the Rebellion: The Narrative
indigenous to American letters, yet the nature of her genius was
Repression of Class in Willa Cathers Fiction (disseration, 1993).
such that the prose sounds impeccably American.
Funda, E. I., Every Word Counted for Twenty: Storytelling
Cathers lyrical and profound evocations of nature in its and Intimacy in Willa Cathers Fiction (dissertation, 1994).
many forms are not surpassed in American letters, and she is one Giannone, R., Music in Willa Cathers Fiction (1968). Hack-
of the few American writers who can take her place among the er, J. L. H., Building a Cathedral of Alienation: A Study
great European writers who have gloriously pictured the natu- of Despair in Willa Cathers Fiction (dissertation, 1997).
ral world. Heilbrun, C. G., Womens Lives: The View from the Threshold
(1999). Kvasnicka, M., Education in the Parish, Preparation for
Cather has, as could not be otherwise, been recognized as a the World: The Educational Tradition in the Life and Works of
religious writer. It was Henry Steele Commager who wrote: And Willa Cather (dissertation, 1997). Lewis, E., Willa Cather
all her novels and stories . . . were animated by a single great Living (1953). Lindemann, M. Willa Cather: Queering America
theme, as they were graced by a single felicitous style. The theme (1999). McDonald, J., The Incommunicable Past: Willa Cathers
was that of the supremacy of moral and spiritual over material Pastoral Modes and the Southern Literary Imagination (disserta-
values, the ever recurrent but inexhaustible theme of gaining the tion, 1994). McDonald, J., The Stuff of Our Forebears: Willa
whole world and losing ones soul. Cather may have been a Cathers Southern Heritage (1998). McFarland, D. T., Willa
mystic who saw this world as a prism of God. Cather (1972). McLendon, M. J., That Indenable Something:
177
CATHERWOOD AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
The Role of Passion and Desire in the Works of Willa Cather Chicago Worlds Fair of 1893, she argued for the aristocratic in
(dissertation, 1993). Murphy, J. J., ed., Five Essays on Willa literature.
Cather (1974). OBrien, S., ed., New Essays on Cathers My
Antonia (1999). OConnor, M. A., Willa Cather: The Critical As an historical novelist Catherwood is somewhat of a
Reception (in preparation). Randall, J. H., III, The Landscape and contradiction; meticulously accurate about details, writing under
the Looking Glass: Willa Cathers Search for Value (1960). the inuence of Parkman, she nevertheless committed one of the
Rapin, R., Willa Cather (1930). Reynolds, G., Willa Cather in cardinal sins of the careless historical novelist: she wove fact with
Context: Progress, Race, Empire (1996). Schroeter, J., ed., Willa ction in recounting the lives of actual persons. Catherwoods
Cather and Her Critics (1967). Sergeant, E. S., Willa Cather: A most popular novel, Lazarre (1901), is based on the claims of
Memoir (1963). Slote, B., Willa Cather in Sixteen Modern Eleazar Williams (1789-1858) that he was the lost dauphin of
American Authors (1974). Slote, B., and V. Faulkner, eds., The France. The novel is well written and exciting, with violence,
Art of Willa Cather (1974). Stouck, D., Willa Cathers Imagina- dramatic scenes such as a visit with Napoleon, traditional Ameri-
tion (1975). Urgo, J. R., Willa Cather and the Myth of American can characters such as Johnny Appleseed, and a romantic ending
Migration (1995). Winters, L., Giving the Land a Voice: The in which Lazarre gives up the throne of France for the woman he
Demands of Multiple Landscapes in Five Cather Novels (disserta- loves and the freedom of the western plains. Otis Skinner drama-
tion, 1990). Woodress, J., Willa Cather: Her Life and Art (1970). tized Lazarre in 1902 and the play had a successful if not
spectacular run.
Wooten, S. M., Willa Cather: Writer of the Prairie (1998).
Wurzel, N., Gender and Myth: Willa Cathers Afrmative Historians of American ction suggest that Catherwoods
Modernism (dissertation, 1993). importance lies in her having been the rst novelist to write
Reference works: Benets Readers Encyclopedia (1987). popular romantic historical novels, forecasting the bestselling
Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). genre at the turn of the century. Catherwood was the rst woman
novelist born west of the Alleghenies and the rst woman novelist
LINA MAINIERO to be a college graduate. As a writer, however, she is much more
important today because of her works of critical realism and her
pioneering regional material. Her two early novels, A Woman in
Armor and Craque-o-Doom, contain tantalizing hints of the social
realist she might have become. A Woman in Armor, despite its
CATHERWOOD, Mary Hartwell melodramatic plot, has a detailed if satiric description of the town
in which the action is set, Little Boston. It also has a slight feminist
Born 16 December 1847, Luray, Ohio; died 26 December 1902, theme, although she never developed it much beyond that novel.
Chicago, Illinois
Catherwoods major literary achievement as a regionalist/
Also wrote under: Mary Hartwell
realist can be found in her short stories; three volumes of which
Daughter of Marcus and Phoebe Thompson Hartwell; married
remained in print into the 1980s. Her relentless portrayal of
James Catherwood, 1877
various Midwest towns, from Ohio to Indiana and Illinois, attest to
her craftsmanship. Surrounded by the glamour of nature and the
After graduation in 1868 from Granville Female College in seasons, her towns are dreary cultural wastelands peopled with
Granville, Ohio, Mary Hartwell Catherwood taught in Ohio and squalid characters whose little dramas often illustrate such basic
Illinois before she was able to support herself by writing. Her beauties of human nature as parental love. Her most realistic
early work combined strands of critical realism and melodrama. stories, except for The Spirit of an Illinois Town, are not
She published many short stories and long serials in magazines collected and can only be found in periodicals. When Catherwood
such as the Atlantic and Lippincotts. Two of the early serials, A abandoned realism, however, she did not leave the short story
Woman in Armor (1875) and Craque-o-Doom (1881), were behind; in fact, she was one of the few writers who tried to use the
published as novels. She also wrote a number of juveniles in the materials of historical romance in the short-story form.
early years, which, while not well plotted, contain some ne local
color; the best of these, Rocky Fork (1882), remained in print until Catherwood has a remarkable record of rsts to her name,
the middle of this century. and her early work is worth reading. It is ironic that perhaps her
career as a serious writer was betrayed by her disdain for those
In 1889, with the publication of The Romance of Dollard, an prairie villages that she so realistically portrayed. The aristocrat-
historical romance based on the work of Francis Parkman, ic in literature has lost its charms for the modern reader, who
Catherwood took a new direction. From then until her death, she eagerly looks for evidence of just such provincial experience
wrote romantic historical ction, using the French settlement of which Catherwood (and her characters) longed to escape.
the West and Canada as background. While remaining in the
Midwest (in 1886 she helped found the Western Association of
Writers), she turned her back on realistic treatment of Midwestern OTHER WORKS: Lower Illinois Valley: Local Sketches of Long
material. At her famous confrontation with Hamlin Garland at the Ago of Mrs. Mary Hartwell Catherwood (1875). The Dogberry
178
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CATT
Bunch (1879). Old Caravan Days (1884). The Secrets at Roseladies public opinion; instead, it was the result of political maneuvering,
(1888). The Story of Tonty (1890). The Lady of Fort St. John the buying and selling of American politics. Twice, according
(1891). Old Kaskaskia (1893). The White Islander (1893). The to Catt, women found the suffrage movement tied in with other
Chase of St. Castin and Other Stories (1894). The Days of Jeanne major reforms: black rights in the 1860s and the Prohibition
dArc (1897). Bony and Ban: The Story of a Printing Venture campaign later. Twice politicians gave precedence to the oth-
(1898). Heroes of the Middle West: French (1898). Mackinac and er issues.
Other Lake Stories (1899). The Queen of the Swamp and Other
Catt focused particularly on the long period 1870-1910
Plain Americans (1899). Spanish Peggy (1899). The Stirring
when, she argued, the major obstacle was Prohibition. She denied
Off in Home Material: Ohios Nineteenth-Century Regional
any necessary linkage of suffrage with Prohibition. But the liquor
Womens Fiction (1998).
forces, along with their allies, the political bosses, believed
womans suffrage would adversely affect their interests. These
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Dondore, D. A., The Prairie and the Making of two groups worked actively if often secretly against woman
America (1926). Garland, H., Roadside Meetings (1931). Pattee, suffrage and for two generations thwarted it.
F. L., A History of American Literature Since 1870. Price, R., A Not till the rise of the Progressive Party in 1910 did propo-
Critical Biography of Mary Hartwell Catherwood: A Study of nents of woman suffrage secure a major political ally nationally.
Middle Western Regional Authorship, 1847-1902 (dissertation, Then politicians of the two major parties began to break their long
1944). Treece, P. B., The Characterization of the Nineteenth silence and opened the door for the successful new campaign. The
Century Woman in the Selected Works of Mrs. Mary Hartwell nal woman suffrage victory, however, Catt argued, was essen-
Catherwood (thesis, 1975). Wilson, M. L., Biography of Mary tially a triumph for women acting from outside politics. She did
Hartwell Catherwood (1900, 1983). pay limited tribute to male insiders who nally rescued woman
Reference works: DAB, NCAB (1892 et seq.). NAW, suffrage from the party trap.
1607-1950 (1971).
Other references: American Literature 17 (1945). Bulletin of Apart from these two books, Catts other publications were
Cincinnati Historical Society (1964). Michigan Historical Maga- generally speeches later issued as pamphlets. Prior to 1920,
zine 30 (1946). woman suffrage dominated her concern; later, her major cause
became world peace. One of the most signicant suffrage pam-
BEVERLY SEATON
phlets was The Winning Strategy, a 1916 speech in which Catt
presented her blueprint for the nal victory campaign: a double
effort for state enfranchisement and the federal amendment.
The thrust of her concern as proponent of world peace is seen
CATT, Carrie (Lane) Chapman in The Status Today of War vs. Peace, an address to the Third
Conference on the Cause and Cure of War (1928). She dened the
two great causes of war as being rst, the dependence on war
Born 9 January 1859, Ripon, Wisconsin; died 9 March 1947, preparedness as the way to peace and second, economic coloni-
New Rochelle, New York alism with its underlying racism. The hope for peace she found in
Daughter of Lucius and Maria Clinton Lane; married Leo antiwar treaties between civilized nations and in an educated
Chapman, 1885; George W. Catt, 1890 public opinion in which women must play a key part.
A key architect of the woman-suffrage victory in 1920, Catts writings generally reect the cool, logical style that
Carrie Chapman Catt was essentially an activist-lecturer rather hallmarked her political action. She avoids rhetorical ashes,
than a writer. In 1917, she edited her rst book, Woman Suffrage relying instead on perceptive analysis and the weight of historical
by Federal Constitutional Amendment, a series of six essays, four evidence. She saw suffrage as an evolutionary step, the logical
of which Catt wrote herself. Here she analyzed briey the political outcome of an earlier commitment to democracy. She did reveal
obstacles women faced and focused on the practical reasons why an underlying conservative cast of thought in her suffrage argu-
the federal amendment route seemed the only truly feasible one. ments. She indicted the major parties for offering the vote to
She discussed the problems of fraud women encountered in unprepared black males and to uneducated Southern European
seeking state suffrage amendments and the causes of failure of the males, many only on rst papers.
three 1916 referenda. She concluded with a chapter countering Though generally objective in her writings, Catt in Woman
objections to the federal amendment. Suffrage and Politics often spoke as a partisan deeply wounded in
the political struggle. The cost of the long-delayed victory for
In 1923 came her major work, Woman Suffrage and Politics
many women, she argued, was disillusionment with political
which she coauthored with Nettie Rogers Shuler. Writing imme-
parties. It is perhaps a mark of the struggles cost to herself that
diately after the 1920 victory, Catt gave major attention not to the
after 1920 her major cause was a nonpartisan one, world peace.
history of the woman suffrage drive itself, nor even to her own
role in devising the nal winning strategy. Rather she dealt with
the question of why this victory had been so long delayed. Catt OTHER WORKS: Woman Suffrage and Its Basic Argument (Inter-
contended the delay was not caused by a hostile or indifferent urban Woman Suffrage Series, no. 2, 1907). Woman Suffrage and
179
CAULKINS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
the Home (Interurban Woman Suffrage Series, no. 4, 1907). A Bit condescending, and she stresses their dependent qualities. She
of History (Interurban Woman Suffrage Series, no. 5, 1908). underscores what she sees as the paternalistic concern of Norwich
Perhaps (circa 1910). Do You Know? (1912). Woman Suffrage leaders for the Indians.
(1913). Feminism and Suffrage (1914). Address to the Congress
Caulkins stressed the early religious focus of town life, the
of the United States (1917). Objections to the Federal Amendment
decline of fervor in the late 17th century and the impact of the
(1919). Then and Now (1939). Who Can Answer? (1939).
18th-century Great Awakening. She stressed the work of Tennent,
Davenport, and Whiteeld, citing the positive impact of revival-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Fowler, R. B., Carrie Catt: Feminist Politician ism as well as the problems of church division and separatism. She
(1986). Library of Congress Manuscript Division, The Blackwell also noted in New London the role of the Rogerene sect, typical of
Family, Carrie Chapman Catt, and the National American Wom- religious extremists in their determination to be persecuted.
an Suffrage Association (1975). Peck, M. G., Carrie Chapman While her primary focus is on political and religious history,
Catt (1944). Stanton E. C. et al, History of Woman Suffrage Caulkins also has a sound grasp of local, social, and economic
(1881). Van Voris, J., Carrie Chapman Catt: A Life (1987). history. She noted the close hold on town leadership by descen-
Reference works: Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in dants of the early town fathers; not until the end of the 18th
the United States (1995). century was there substantial expansion in the Norwich leadership
Other references: American Political Science Review (Aug. ranks. Her history of New London concentrated on the pre-1815
1923). NYT (13 May 1923). period, with an account of the expansion of the whaling industry
in the 19th century. The Norwich history dealt in some detail with
INZER BYERS
19th-century events, including the expansion of manufacturing in
Norwich itself and neighboring valley towns. Caulkins under-
scored the towns roles in the various wars, particularly the
Revolutionary War. In the revised edition of the Norwich history,
CAULKINS, Frances Manwaring she paid tribute to the towns role in the Civil War.
Of the two histories, that of New London has the more
Born 26 April 1795, New London, Connecticut; died 3 February
localized view, stressing personalities and incidents often of
1869, New London, Connecticut
purely local concern. In both histories, Caulkins takes the view
Daughter of Joshua and Fanny Manwaring Caulkins
that events of local history illustrate classes of men and ages of
time. She writes with ease; her tone is at times romantic. While
Frances Manwaring Caulkins centered her literary attention she does not escape totally the self-congratulatory notes of the
on two radically different areas of concern: the religious education native, she does attempt to evaluate events within a broader
of young people and local history. She began her work in the historical perspective. Though the material differs sharply, there
1830s writing for the American Tract Society, which published a is a common denominator in her two types of writing. Both in her
wide range of her work over the next 30 years, including The writing for the American Tract Society and in her histories,
Childs Hymn Book (1835), Children of the Bible: as Examples Caulkins has in mind young people and their concerns. A sense of
and as Warnings (1842), and Eve and Her Daughters of Holy Writ Gods providence informs both types of works and she seeks to
(1861). Representative of her religious educational work was The arouse through history a more affectionate sympathy for your
Bible Primer (1854), also issued under the title Youths Bible ancestors.
Studies. In the six short volumes, Caulkins gave brief practical
lessons, utilizing question-and-answer techniques, narrative, and
inspirational material. She addressed herself particularly to the OTHER WORKS: The Tract Primer (circa 1848). Memoir of the
individual student seeking self-cultivation. Accordingly, she Rev. William Adams, of Dedham, Mass., and of the Rev. Eliphalet
deliberately omitted what is bulky, heavy or wearisome and Adams, of New London, Conn., and Their Descendants, with the
utilized biblical texts rather than commentaries. Journal of William Adams, 1666-1682 (1849). Bride Brook, A
Legend of New London, Connecticut (1852). Ye Antient Buriall
Caulkinss major achievements as a writer, however, came in Place of New London, Conn. (1899). The Stone Records of Groton
the area of local history. She wrote rst The History of Norwich, (edited by E. S. Gilman, 1903).
Connecticut, from Its Settlement in 1660 to January, 1845. A
second, revised edition carried the history to 1866. She also wrote
The History of New London, Connecticut (1852), with a second BIBLIOGRAPHY: Haven, H. P., Memoir, in History of Norwich
edition continuing to 1860. (1874). Trumbull, H. C., A Model Superintendent: A Sketch of the
Life . . . of Henry P. Haven (1880). Wilcox, G. B., In Memoriam,
In the early sections of both works, Caulkins dealt with the Miss Frances Manwaring Caulkins (1869).
local Indian tribes, their leadership conicts, and their relation- Reference works: NAW, 1607-1950 (1971).
ships with the new English settlers. In her view, the providence Other references: New London County Historical Society
of God had prepared the way for peaceable settlement, for the Records (1890-94).
tribes, weakened by conict, eagerly sought new allies. Her
perspective on the Indians is sympathetic, although at times INZER BYERS
180
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CERVANTES
CAZNEAU, Jane McManus support the claims of the Native American, the slave, and the
oppressed everywhere. Cazneau attacks Congress for being in-
competent and corrupt, charging politicians with being more
Born 6 April 1807, Troy, New York; died 12 December 1878, concerned with reelection than with moral issues.
near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina
Wrote under: Mrs. William Leslie Cazneau, Cora Montgomery, ROSE F. KAVO
Corinne Montgomery
Daughter of William T. and Catharina Coons McManus; mar-
ried Allan B. (or William F.) Storms, 1825; William L.
Cazneau, circa 1848 CERVANTES, Lorna Dee
Jane McManus Cazneaus major work is Eagle Pass; or, Life Born 6 August 1954, San Francisco, California
on the Border (1852), a rst-person narrative of her months in a
Texas border town. It is, as Cazneau states in her preface, mainly a Lorna Dee Cervantes was born in the Mission District of San
protest against the governments Native American policy, which Francisco. She traces her ancestry to the Chumash tribe of the
she labels a system of despoilment and extermination. She also Santa Barbara coast on her mothers side, and to the Tarascans of
wants to alert the public to the Mexican governments policy of Michoacn, Mexico, on her fathers. After her parents separated
imprisoning American citizens living in Mexico and along the when she was ve years old, her mother resettled with Cervantes
border. In her opening chapter, Cazneau urges her countrymen to grandmother in San Jose, California. Cervantes has written poetry
pressure Congress to act in the aid of these citizens; she blames since she was eight, her love of language fed by the books she
their imprisonment as much on the U.S. government as on the found in the houses her mother cleaned. In 1974 she founded
Mexican regime. Her work also provides fascinating accounts of Mango Publications, editing Mango, a literary review, and also
her conversations with the Native Americans and slaves living in publishing poetry chapbooks in order to broaden not only hori-
Eagle Pass. Perhaps most compelling is her description of Wild zons but also the denitions of Chicana literature. A feminist
Cat, the Seminole chief. Cazneau recounts his warm eloquence in since I knew what that was and activist in the Chicano cultural
talking with her as well as his resigned, yet devastating assess- movement, Cervantes sees herself as a cultural worker. In
ment of the White Mans role in destroying his people. Eagle Pass 1978 she received a National Endowment for the Arts grant and
closes with stunning predictions of the Red Mans threatened subsequently spent nine months at the Fine Arts Work Center in
extermination and of the inevitability of a revolution in Mexico. Provincetown. After completing her B.A. at California State
Cazneau, solidly on the side of the oppressed, pleads for Congress University, San Jose, Cervantes studied in the Ph.D. program in
to stand behind the spirit of freedom in Mexico. She also attacks the history of consciousness at the University of California, Santa
the abolitionists for their hypocritical attitudes, accusing them Cruz. She joined the creative writing department of the University
of ignoring the great injustice done to the Indians and the white of Colorado at Boulder in 1989; she has also coedited the
servant classes. crosscultural poetry magazine Red Dirt. In 1998 Cervantes re-
Cazneaus other works include two companion pieces: The ceived a Lila Wallace/Readers Digest Foundation Award.
Queen of Islands (1850) and The King of Rivers (1850). In the The title of Cervantes rst book of poetry, Emplumada
former, Cazneau proposes aid to the Cuban people in their (1981), combines connotations of feathered (emplumado/a)
revolution against Spain. She further urges that Cuba be annexed and ourish with the pen (plumada); bird imagery abounds,
and eventually granted statehood. Her treatise provides a compre- resonant in both Mexican and U.S. cultures. The poems of this
hensive study of the Cuban economy, with charts, diagrams, and collection explore what it means to be connected to nature and to
governmental statistics to document Cubas potential for econom- the urban wasteland, to be female and brown, in a voice remark-
ic growth and therefore its benets to the U.S. able for its clarity, depth of passion, and striking imagery. In
In The King of Rivers, Cazneau argues against slavery along Visions of Mexico While at a Writing Symposium in Port
the states bordering the Mississippi River, again using her re- Townsend, Washington, the poetic voice expresses the urgent
search to support the position that slavery would prove an eco- need to speak for those who have been silenced, to rewrite history
nomic, as well as a moral, disaster. She predicts the imminent from the point of view of the oppressed, and to challenge racist
emancipation of the slaves, and also denounces the abuse of the stereotypes of Mexican and Chicano people: I come from a long
Native American and his land. line of eloquent illiterates / whose history reveals what words
dont say. / Our anger is our way of speaking, / the gesture is an
Cazneaus style is simple and direct. Even though she apolo- utterance more pure than word. Other poems explore the multi-
gizes in her preface to Eagle Pass for her lack of rhetorical ple facets of Chicana identity, for example the clash between her
ourish, her clear-thinking, straightforward prose style is her mirror image (bronzed skin, black hair) and the loss of the
strength. Cazneau presents her arguments in practical terms, mother tongue (My name hangs about me like a loose tooth).
basing her convictions on her research and knowledge of econom- In the process of self-naming, the poetic voice juxtaposes her
ic facts. She believes passionately in the cause of oppressed experience with that of other Chicanas. In To Virginia Chavez
peoples who attempt to claim their freedom, and she thinks the class differences are momentarily balanced by gender solidarity:
historic revolutionary struggle of her own nation obligates the U.S. to ignoring what / the years had brought between us: / my diploma
181
CHA AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
and the bare bulb / that always lit your bookless room. In work, Theresa Hak Kyung Chas inuence as a writer is extraordi-
Beneath the Shadow of the Freeway the granddaughter prefers nary. Her book Dicte (1982), which combines poetry, prose, and
her grandmothers ways to her mothers hard pragmatism: I tie visual art in unique and radical ways, has been a source of
up my hair into loose braids, / and trust only what I have built / inspiration and empowerment for many artists and writers, and
with my own hands. continues to be cited, excerpted, and viewed as a seminal text in
the tradition of Asian and Asian-American womens writing. Cha
After a prolonged period of introspection following a family was not only a writer, but a prolic video, lm, and performance
tragedy in 1982, Cervantes began producing the poems that form artist as well. Her video and lm work won numerous awards,
her second collection, From the Cables of Genocide (1991). The including the Eisner Prize for Video and Film from the University
subtitle cues the book s thematic concerns: Poems of Love and of California at Berkeley (1975), the Stuart McKenna Nelson
Hunger. In some ways very like her rst collection thematically, Memorial Award for the Photographic Medium (1977), and a
Cables is at the same time more personal and less readily National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1981).
accessible. Pleiades from the Cables of Genocide exemplies
the poems layered fusion of the personal and the political, Cha was born in Pusan, Korea in 1951, the third of ve
referring simultaneously to the heritage of the Chumash, who children. Her parents had been raised in a Korean community in
believed they descended from the Pleiades, and to the Seven Manchuria, but returned to Korea during World War II. In 1962,
Sisters constituted by the seven major oil companies: The when Cha was eleven, the family left Korea for the U.S., settling
power / peace / Of worthless sky that unfolds menowin its rst in Hawaii, then in 1964 moving to San Francisco, where Cha
greedy / Reading: Weeder of Wreckage, Historian of the Native / attended Catholic schools and learned French as well as classical
Who says: It happened. Thats all. It just happened. / And literature. She attended the University of San Francisco beginning
runs on. in 1968, then transferred to the University of California at
Berkeley, where she received a B.A. in comparative literature in
Her childhood passion for poetry has been collected in an as 1973, a B.A. in art in 1975, and an M.F.A. in art in 1977.
yet unpublished book of poetry for middle school and high school
children. This collection of poetry written as a child between eight In the mid-1970s, Cha began performing and showing her
and fteen includes work from a manuscript Cervantes rst put works regularly; in a curriculum vita, she designated the year
together in her mid-teens. During this time, both poetry and her 1974 as the beginning of her career as producer, director,
manuscript were a fanatical obsession for Cervantes; her performer, writer in video and lm productions, installations,
youthful creative intensity led her to write prolically, often at performances and published texts. Works created between the
least ve poems a day. This collection seeks to preserve the mid-1970s and 1980 include the performance pieces Barren Cave
integrity of the childs poetic voice and to connect with other Mute (1974), A Secret Spill (1974), A Bl Wall (1975), Aveugle
young creative voices. Voix (1975), Life Mixing (1975), Vampyr (1976), and Reveille
dans la Brume (1977), and the black-and-white videos Mouth to
Mouth (1975), Passages Paysages (1978), Re Dis Appearing
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Harris, M. and K. Aguero, eds., A Gift of Tongues: (1980) and Exile (1980). In 1976 Cha went to France to study
Critical Challenges in Contemporary American Poetry (1987). lm at Centre dEtudes Amricaine du Cinma Paris, and also
Contemporary Chicana Poetry (1985). visited Amsterdam, where she met and became involved with
Reference books: CA (1991, 1999). DLB (1990). Oxford international artists. In 1977 Cha became a naturalized U.S.
Companion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). citizen. She traveled to Korea in 1979 for a visit, the rst time
Other references: Latin American Literature and Arts (July- since her family had left 18 years earlier that shed been back.
Dec. 1991). MELUS (Summer 1984). Tecolote (Dec. 1982). Third
Woman (1984). Web site: Interview, Calling Lorna Out, In 1980 Cha moved to New York City, where she began work
available online at: www.colorado.edu/creativewriting/lornaint. as an editor and writer at Tanam Press, and edited Apparatus,
Cinematographic Apparatus: Selected Writings (1980), which
YVONNE YARBRO-BEJARANO, included a piece by her, Commentaire. In 1981 she returned to
UPDATED BY JULIET BYINGTON Korea to begin gathering material for a lm which was to be called
White Dust from Mongolia. That same year she was appointed
instructor in video art at Elizabeth Seaton College in New York.
The year 1982 was perhaps Chas busiest year, and the year,
CHA, Theresa Hak Kyung ironically, that she began to get real critical notice. She was an
artist-in-residence at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, her
video Passages, Paysages was shown in New York and The
Born 4 March 1951, Pusan, Korea; died 5 November 1982, New
Hague, her 16 mm lm Permutations was shown at the San
York, New York
Francisco Art Institute, and Dicte was published by Tanam Press.
Daughter of Cha Hyung Sang and Huo Hyung Soon; married
In May she married freelance photographer Richard Barnes.
Richard Barnes, 1982
Dicte broke with tradition in a number of important ways.
Particularly considering that an early and tragic death put an Formally the work used a nonnarrative sequence, and was struc-
end to her career after the publication of just one book-length tured in nine sections, each one titled for one of the nine Greek
182
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CHANDLER
muses. Dicte used a variety of both prose and poetry forms in its womens department of his paper. Chandler moved with her
textual presentation, as well as using a fascinating array of graphic brother to the Michigan frontier in 1830, but continued as editor of
images (photographs, maps, drawings, illustrations). The use of the Geniuss womens department until her death, despite Lundys
non-English text (Korean and French) in numerous segments complaints about the difculties of regular communication with a
throughout the book added yet another layer of interest relating to forest outpost.
language, and confronted the reader with an unexpected, and
Chandler was the rst American woman author to make
instructively uncomfortable, foreignness. The content of Dicte,
slavery the principal theme of her writing. Half of her published
or the theme to the extent that concept can or should be
poems and essays dealt with slavery, African life, the emancipa-
applied, is autobiographical. It is an examination of self, of
tion movement, or the American Indian. The Slave Ship
memory and remembering, of family, of ethnicity, of history, of
employed a poignant theme which she used repeatedly: the
nationality, of the concept of home and mother country. It is a
wrenching despair and horror experienced by proud and indepen-
book about women in particularYa Guan Soon (a young Korean
dent Africans snatched from their native shores and transported in
hero who spoke and acted out against the Japanese occupation),
chains to the Americas and lifelong slavery. In The Africs
Chas own mother, and Joan of Arcand womens lives
Dream she shows the fettered slave remembering his former
predicaments, joys, sorrowsin general. It is also, as noted, very
home where he lay under his own banana tree: My own bright
much a book about language, about learning language, acquiring
stream was at my feet, / And how I laughed to lave, / My burning
it, having it, identifying with it, using it, being understood or
lip and cheek and brow, / In that delicious wave! Chandler
misunderstood because of it.
showed amazing empathy with the black slave of whom she could
Cha was murdered by a stranger in the basement of a New have had no direct knowledge. Most of her poems have strong
York building in November of 1982. She had a number of works rhythms as well as vivid imagery. Frequently they were sung as
in progress at the time of her death, including the lm about hymns at antislavery meetings, or recited as dramatic presen-
memory, White Dust from Mongolia, another book project, and a tations.
piece on the representation of hands in Western painting.
Chandler also wrote about nature, especially the wilderness
beauty of her beloved Michigan. Lundy, in the preface to Chan-
OTHER WORKS: Audience Distant Relatives (1978). dlers collected works, has high praise for her poetic skill:
Though she was by no means decient in prose, either for
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hagedorn, J., ed., Charlie Chan Is Dead: An elegance of diction, or force of expression, she excelled in poetry.
Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction (1993). Her style was easy and graceful, while the ights of her fancy
Reference works: Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in were lofty and soaring and her imagery natural and pleasing.
the United States (1995). The romantic intensity of Chandlers poetry sometimes approach-
Other references: Afterimage (Summer 1986). es sentimentality, but she evoked vivid imagery in describing the
natural world.
JESSICA GRIM
In her essays Chandler emphasized the contradiction be-
tween slavery and the Declaration of Independence, the degrading
effect of slavery on master as well as slave, and the need to destroy
CHANDLER, Elizabeth Margaret the economic base of slavery by refusing to use products which
were produced by slave labor. In a series of lively pieces, Letters
to Isabel, published in the Genius, Chandler berates an imagi-
Born 24 December 1807, Wilmington, Delaware; died 2 Novem- nary friend for hesitating to forego the pound cakes and ice creams
ber 1834, Tecumseh, Michigan made with slave-produced sugar, for devotion to the cause of
Daughter of Thomas and Margaret Evans Chandler justice and mercy.
The youngest child and only daughter of a prosperous Chandler was also an early believer in the need for women to
Quaker farmer of English stock, Elizabeth Margaret Chandler lost champion humane causes. In her essay To the Ladies of the
her mother in infancy, was orphaned at nine, and was raised by her United States, which appeared in Genius, she chided women for
grandmother and three Quaker aunts in Philadelphia. She attended deceiving themselves when they protested that they had no power
Quaker schools until only twelve or thirteen and was an avid to ameliorate the horrors of slavery: American women! Your
reader all her life. At an early age she showed her talents as a poet: power is sufcient for its extinction! And, oh! by every sympathy
at nine she produced a poem called Reections on a Thunder most holy to the breast of women, are ye called upon for exertion
Gust, at sixteen she began to publish a few poems in the public of that potency.
press. At eighteen The Slave Ship brought her a prize from the
In Opinions she wrote that emancipation might require the
editors of Casket, in which it was published.
energies of men, but it requires also the inuence of women. Her
Benjamin Lundy, the antislavery publisher, noticed The articles were extensively reprinted in the U.S., Canada, and the
Slave Ship and reprinted it in the Genius of Universal Emanci- British Isles by the more popular periodicals of the time. William
pation. Lundy recruited Chandler as a regular contributor, and two Lloyd Garrison wrote her obituary for the Liberator: There is not
years later she became the editor of the Female Repository, the a female in the United States, who has labored so assiduously, or
183
CHAPELLE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
written so copiously in the cause of the oppressed. Lundy placed 1962, she was given the Overseas Press Clubs award for report-
her only after Elizabeth Heyrich of England among women ing requiring exceptional courage and enterprise. On an assign-
writing in the antislavery cause and believed had she lived longer ment for the National Observer, covering Operation Black Ferret
her fame would easily have rivaled that of Heyrich. with marines near Da Nang, Vietnam, Chapelle was mortally
wounded by a land mine fragment which lodged in her neck.
Fellow photographer Henry Huet (who was a Vietnam casualty in
OTHER WORKS: Essays, Philanthropic and Moral (1836). The
1971), along with several wounded marines, observed as Chaplain
Poetical Works of Elizabeth Margaret Chandler (1836).
John McNamara administered last rites. Huets photograph of the
dying Chapelle, along with many of her own, were immortalized
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Clark, G., The Liberty Minstrel (1844). Dillon, in Requiem: By the Photographers Who Died in Vietnam and
M. L., E. Chandler and the Spread of Anti-slavery to Michi- Indochina (1997). She was forty-seven.
gan, in MichH (Dec. 1955). Griswold, R. W., The Female Poets
of America (1859). Lundy, B., A Memoir of Her Life and Chapelles rst photojournalism work appeared in Look in
Character, in The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Chandler (1836). the early years of World War II, a six-page article on the life
Reference works: DAB. NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). Womans throughout every hour of one day of a woman sewing fabric onto
Record (1853). the wings of RAF ghter planes in an aircraft plant in New Jersey.
She also published books on women in aviation and in govern-
RUTH BORDIN ment service. The latter included a combination of patriotic
propaganda and dramatic picture accounts of specic women
holding useful and protable jobs during the war.
CHAPELLE, Georgette Meyer In the nal years of World War II, Chapelles photographs
received major attention, especially her work on wounded sol-
diers aboard hospital ships in the Pacic where, except for nurses,
Born 14 March 1918, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; died 4 November
she was often the only woman aboard. Throughout the war,
1965, Chu Lai, Vietnam
Chapelle encountered consistent difculties in going forward,
Wrote under: Dickey Chapelle, Georgette Louise Chapelle,
military ofcers explaining that there were no facilities for
Georgette Louise Meyer
women in the eld. Chapelles work followed typical patterns of
Daughter of Paul and Edna Meyer; married Tony Chapelle, 1940
war reporting, with a heavy emphasis on the human interest story
(divorced 1955)
of the individual soldier. Her reportage was widely used in
government efforts to involve the civilian back home in the
Georgette Meyer Chapelle was born to Quaker parents and
war effort.
grew up in suburban Milwaukee. She began studying aviation as
an adolescent and at sixteen left her family to attend the Massa- Chapelles major work is her autobiography, Whats a Wom-
chusetts Institute of Technology. There she worked more on an Doing Here?: A Combat Reporters Report on Herself, pub-
developing writing skills at the Boston Traveler, however, than on lished in 1961, just as she began to cover the American involve-
completing engineering degree requirements. Returning to Mil- ment in Southeast Asia. The autobiography is an important
waukee at eighteen, she learned to y while working as a publicist document in regard to understanding the American photojournalists
for small barnstorming and air show companies. Moving to New role as a chronicler of wars during World War II and the Cold
York in 1939, she freelanced and learned photography from Tony War which followed.
Chapelle, whom she married in 1940.
In the opening pages of the autobiography, Chapelle de-
In the early years of World War II, Chapelle was a journalist scribed herself as a pacist by heredity. She developed a mad
for Look in the Panama Canal Zone, wrote six books on aviation passion for the movies and the adventure they portrayed, howev-
(two of them for adolescents), and published stories and photo- er, at the same time as she was well taught that violence in any
graphs about women in unusual war jobs. In 1945, as a war form was unthinkable. Violence became for Chapelle as
correspondent for Fawcett Publications in the Pacic, Chapelle attractive a mystery. . .as sex seemed to be to other teenagers. As
shot some of her most widely distributed photographs of wounded an adult woman she identied herself as an interpreter of
soldiers. Soon after the war ended she joined her husband in violence and a person with a need for recognition and a place.
Europe to cover stories on refugees for humanitarian agencies.
Divorced in 1955, Chapelle accepted an assignment from Life in Chapelles autobiography recounts a series of incidents which
late 1956 covering the ight of Hungarians into Austria during the portray her conicts between patriotism and a desire to show the
Hungarian revolution. In the next nine years, she covered revolu- truth, and between sympathy for subjects and a need to get a good
tions and combat in Korea, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, story. She ended her association with Fawcett Publications when
Algeria, Lebanon, Kashmir, and Vietnam for publications such as they refused to publish photographs of blood transfusions in
National Geographic, National Observer, and Readers Digest. battle: Whatever suffering men could undergo in the name of the
She also interviewed revolutionary leaders, including Fidel Castro. folks back home, surely anyone could endure to merely look at!
For an account of her imprisonment in Hungary, Chapelle Chapelle refused to rely on government press releases, choosing
received the Readers Digest First Person Award in 1957 and, in to observe rsthand the violence and want which existed in
184
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CHAPLIN
developing nations. Her famous photograph of the execution of a Chapins most ambitious poem is the long title poem of her
Vietcong soldier in 1962, considered by the military as repre- last book, The Other Journey (1959). In it she explores the primal
sentative of the American Cold War perspective, was among the generic self. She sees poetrys function as vatic and invokes the
earliest published in America displaying the brutality of the natural powers of bird and sea and sun on the selfs outward
Vietnam War. Yet Chapelle remained committed to the idea journey into space. Then her heart returns on the other journey,
of American military forces as freedom ghters against the inner journey, To reach a source serene or ominous /
communism. . . .Where the unnished revelation starts. The two journeys are
actually one, going backward into time, through history and
prehistory, into preconsciousness. The circular movement from
OTHER WORKS: NeededWomen in Government Service (1942).
life into death into life again is the ultimate truth.
NeededWomen in Aviation (1942). How Planes Are Made (1945).
The papers of Georgette Meyer Chapelle are at the Wiscon- In poetic technique Chapin is barely inuenced by the
sin State Historical Society in Madison, Wisconsin. modernist poets. Her lyrics are chiey in rhyme and meter,
controlled but not exceptionally tight or brilliant, and in no way
innovative. Though she does use some free verse, its freedom
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ellis, F., D. C.: A Reporter and Her Work consists mostly in varied line lengths. It is still largely iambic,
(thesis, 1968). Faas, H. and T. Page, eds., Requiem: By the often metrical, and employs frequent rhyme. Throughout, her
Photographers Who Died in Vietnam and Indochina (1997). imagery tends to be traditional and the metaphoric structures simple.
Knightly, P., The First CasualtyFrom the Crimea to Vietnam:
The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist, and Myth Maker In her poems Chapin shows that she is an aware member of
(1975). Marzolf, M., Up From the Footnote: A History of Women her world, has an appropriate and dignied concern for its defects
Journalists (1977). and possibilities, and indulges in no self-pity. In the words of
Other references: NYT (4 Nov. 1965). Harpers (Sept. 1972). Allen Tate, Miss Chapins poems . . . will not give the reader the
shock he has come to expect from our present cult of experi-
JENNIFER L. TEBBE ence. But they will give him or her a feeling of calm, the kind of
calm that results from witnessing an educated, intelligent woman
face an intractable universe with no help but her own resolution
and her skill with tested tools.
CHAPIN, Katherine Garrison
OTHER WORKS: The Tapestry of the Duchess (1925). Outside of
Born 4 September 1890, Waterford, Connecticut; died 30 De- the World (1930). Bright Mariner (1933). Time Has No Shadow
cember 1977, Devon, Pennsylvania (1936). Sojourner Truth (1948).
Daughter of Lindley H. and Cornelia Van Auken Chapin; mar-
ried Francis Biddle, 1918
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1963).
Educated at private schools and Columbia University, Kathe- Other references: A.B. Bookmans Weekly (20 Feb. 1978).
rine Garrison Chapin was a poet, playwright, translator, reviewer NR (9 May 1960). NYT (2 Jan. 1978). NYTBR (10 April 1960). WP
and lecturer. In the late 1920s, she published poems in such (31 Dec. 1977).
magazines as Harpers, Scribners, Saturday Review, North Ameri-
ALBERTA TURNER
can Review, Poetry, and the Ladies Home Journal. Some of her
poems were set to music and performed by the Philadelphia
Orchestra, the Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Orquesta Sinfonica
de Mexico. Among these are Lament for the Stolen (1938), CHAPLIN, Jane Dunbar
And They Lynched Him on a Tree (1940), and Plain Chant
for America (1943). Chapins readings of her poems have been
recorded in the Library of Congress Series (1945-60) and for Born 11 February 1819, Scotland; died 17 April 1884
Harvards Lamont Library (1961). Wrote under: Hyla
Daughter of Duncan Dunbar; married Jeremiah Chaplin II, 1841
Chapins subjects and opinions are typical of the times
between 1930 and 1960, though she makes little direct reference Jane Dunbar Chaplins rst major novel, Gems of the Bog: A
to World War II. She treats such American subjects as Nancy Tale of Irish Peasantry (1869) was set in Ireland one generation
Hanks; Gettysburg, and describes the landscapes of Maine, New before it was written. The narrative follows members of the
Mexico, and New Orleans. She also gives accurate pictures of Sheenan family through their hardships in Ireland to their nal
foreign places, often those signicant in the history of Western settlement in America. The major characterssuch as Mammy
civilization (Stonehenge, the Tiber, the Nile). Sometimes she Honey, the wise old matriarch of the family, Paddy and John, the
speaks in the generalized voices of woman: as a bereaved mother struggling brothers, and Peggy OCanty, the courageous young
in Lament for the Stolen, a poem on the Lindbergh kidnapping, orphan beloved and adopted by the familyare realistically and
as an anxious mother in Nancy Hanks, and as an affectionate affectionately drawn. As Kelleyrooke changes from a pastoral
and dependent lover in Maine Night. ideal to a place of death and emigration, Chaplin traces her
185
CHAPMAN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
characters endurance and emotional growth through long feuds, Unitarian, Henry Chapman, and joined him and his parents as an
religious battles, famine, and death. Chaplin also carefully docu- ardent abolitionist and supporter of William Lloyd Garrison.
ments their triumphs in the course of daily life. In her easy,
straightforward style, Chaplin sprinkles her narrative with perti- In 1832 Chapman joined 12 other women to found the
nent allusions to Irish history, relating her characters struggles to Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. She became their leader and
larger social issues. Her tone throughout is one of measured the editor of their annual report, Right and Wrong in Boston
melancholy, but it is also tender and optimistic. (1836-38). When the blue-coat mob threatened the meeting of
the Society on 21 October 1835, Chapman said: If this is the last
Perhaps Chaplins most interesting work is Out of the Wil- bulwark of freedom, we may as well die here as anywhere.
derness (1870). It relates the history of Zeke and Weza, two poor
but heroic southern blacks who migrate to New England after the Chapman was of inestimable help in editing the Liberator,
Civil War. Wezas story is a tale tinged by the sorrow of taking charge with Edmund Quincy during Garrisons absences
separation and oppression. In her dreams of freedom, Weza and illnesses. Beginning in 1834, she and her sisters ran yearly
expresses the deep cruelty behind the slave system. As the tale abolitionist fundraising fairs in Boston. For these fairs, Chapman
progresses, it becomes clear that Wezas sorrows are not nished edited the annual gift book, The Liberty Bell, to which better
with the end of the war, for she and Zeke are searching for her lost versiers and poets than herself contributed. She also helped to
sons. Although the end of the novel is sentimental and ineffective edit the Non-Resistant, the periodical of Garrisons New England
(Weza comes out of the wilderness with her family intact and Non-Resistance Society, from 1839 to 1842.
gains ownership of her former masters plantation), most of the After the 1840 split in the American Anti-Slavery Society,
novel presents a realistic portrait of the life of southern blacks. Chapman, as member of the executive committee of the national
Particularly memorable is Zeke and Wezas wedding scene at a organization, helped establish and nance the National Anti-
camp meeting, with the eccentric Preachin Jack ofciating. Also Slavery Standard in New York. Although she took her children to
impressive is Chaplins acute evaluation of the economic decline Europe in 1848 and spent the next eight years chiey in Paris, she
in the south during the last phases of the war. kept in touch with abolitionists in the U.S. and Great Britain, and
Chaplins works are effective in portraying a sympathetic continued to contribute to The Liberty Bell. She returned to
and realistic vision of the darker side of the American experience: Boston in 1855 and accepted Garrisons view that with the
the lot of blacks, poor whites, and immigrants. Her historical and issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation and the enactment of
economic sense adds intelligence and depth to the emotional the 13th Amendment, the time had come to disband the antislav-
sketches of these people and their hard struggles for dignity in the ery societies.
American system. Her point of view is clear and consistent: the Believing that the crusade against slavery could be aided by
disadvantaged are men and women with the same potential and music, Chapman edited Songs of the Free, and Hymns of Chris-
aspirations as the rich; only prejudice and lack of money impede tian Freedom (1836), and contributed many songs and poems to
their growth. Chaplin paints colorful backgrounds for her lively this collection and to The Liberty Bell. Her hymns in Songs of the
characters, and she introduces dialect and vernacular speech, thus Free are frankly occasional and singable because they follow
lending added legitimacy to language patterns other than standard well-worn metrical and rhetorical paths. Chapmans poetic contri-
English. butions to The Liberty Bell are also conventional, sincere but
ROSE F. KAVO derivative examples of sentimental religious poetry.
Chapmans polemics far outshine her poetry. Her Right and
Wrong in Boston for 1837, the annual report of the Boston Female
Anti-Slavery Society, includes a long argument for sex equality.
CHAPMAN, Lee Her controversial pamphlet Right and Wrong in Massachusetts
See BRADLEY, Marion Zimmer
(1839) addressed the question of divisions within the antislavery
movement and attributed the split to differences over womens
rights. Chapman sketched the history of the movement in Massa-
CHAPMAN, Maria Weston chusetts, pointing out that women had staunchly supported anti-
slavery in 1835, when few had rallied to the cause.
Born 25 July 1806, Weymouth, Massachusetts; died 12 July Chapman contributed competent narratives and information-
1885, Weymouth, Massachusetts al essays as they were needed by the cause, but her longest and
Daughter of Warren and Anne Bates Weston; married Henry most interesting prose work is her Memorials of Harriet Martineau
Grafton Chapman, 1830 (1877). Chapman met Martineau, the inuential English writer
who advocated unitarianism and abolition of slavery, when she
The oldest of six children, Maria Weston Chapman grew up visited America in 1835. The two became good friends, and in
in Weymouth and spent several years in England with the family 1856 Martineau wrote to Chapman saying that her death was
of her maternal uncle, a London banker. When she returned to imminent, and asked Chapman to nish her autobiography and
Boston at twenty-two, she became lady principal of Ebenezer become her literary executor. Although Martineau lived until
Baileys Young Ladies High School. She married a fellow 1876, Chapman provided a 460-page supplement to Martineaus
186
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CHARNAS
Autobiography. It is a well-organized, sensitive biography includ- reproduces by cloning. It is not a utopian culture, however; the
ing judicious selections from Martineaus journals (1837-39) and characters are prone to conict and the distresses of stagnation in
letters. which a clone society results.
In The Furies, Alldera leads a cavalry of horse-women

OTHER WORKS: Pinda (1840). Ten Years of Experience (1842). against the Holdfast, where they kill or enslave all the men they
Trial and Imprisonment of Jonathan Walker, at Pensacola, for nd there. Disagreements about how to build a new civilization
Aiding Slaves to Escape (1846). How Can I Help to Abolish point the way toward the fourth novel. The 1970s and 1980s saw
Slavery? (1855). much feminist science ction published, but Charnas work
commanded attention because of the brutality she portrayed and
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Filler, L., The Crusade Against Slavery (1960). the spotlight she focused upon dominance/submission politics.
Kraditor, A. S., Means and Ends in American Abolitionism While her women can be as aggressive and manipulative as men,
(1969). Lader, The Bold Brahmins (1961). Pease, J. H. and W. H. wreaking terrible vengeance upon their former masters, Charnas
Pease, Bound Them with Chains: A Biographical History of the plainly shows testosterone-based thinking as barbaric and women
Anti-Slavery Movement (1972). as more likely to strive for a noble vision of a creative, nurturing
Reference works: DAB, NCAB (1892 et seq.). NAW, 1607-1950 community.
(1971). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United
States (1995). Unicorn Tapestry earned the Science Fiction Writers of
Other references: New England Quarterly (March 1934). Americas Nebula award in 1980. The novella became the center-
piece of the novel The Vampire Tapestry, a Nebula nalist. This
SUSAN SUTTON SMITH novel also investigates themes of dominance and submission, here
dramatized as the relationship between predator and prey. It
depicts ve episodes in the life of one Dr. Weyland, a vampire.
Charnas subverts vampire clichs, however; Weyland is no super-
CHARNAS, Suzy McKee natural undead ghoul, but a unique biological mutation. While he
considers humans inferior and calls them cattle, he also fears
Born 22 October 1939, New York, New York that if he is discovered, they will rise against him as peasants
Daughter of Robinson and Maxine Szanton McKee; married with torches. He is complexly drawnCharnas feminizes him
Stephen Charnas; children: Charles, Joanna at times, inicting upon him in some scenes the powerlessness
and degradation that women endure. In the poignant drama of the
Suzy McKee Charnas earned a B.A. from Barnard College in Unicorn Tapestry segment, Weyland must undergo psychological
1961 and an M.A.T. from New York University in 1965. As a therapy in order to regain the university post from which he was
member of the Peace Corps, she taught English and economic red. In their pas de deux, during which Dr. Floria Landauer
history at various schools in Nigeria from 1961 to 1963. Returning realizes Weyland is not delusional but a true vampire, Weyland
to New York, she taught ancient history and African studies at the refuses her encouragements to empathize with his prey, because
junior high level from 1965 to 1967. After working in curriculum then he would be unable to feed himself. But they form a rapport
development at New Yorks Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital in the that allows him to nd a human, even a feminine, side of himself.
Division of Community Mental Health from 1967 to 1969, she
launched her writing career. Charnas never forgot these formative Weylands anagnorisis in Vampire Tapestry occurs when he
experiences, though; she has instructed at the science ction attends the opera Tosca and discovers that he can, after all, be
Clarion Workshops and chaired the Archive Project Committee of greatly moved by human passion and art. Charnas interest in
the National Council of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers begin- music and opera often enriches her ction, as such titles as the
ning in 1986. Nebula nominee Listening to Brahms (1991) and Beauty and
Her rst novel, Walk to the End of the World (1974), made a the Opera, or, The Phantom Beast (1996) suggest.
big splash, appearing as a nalist for the science ction John W.
The occult novel Dorothea Dreams (1986) features a mid-
Campbell award. This rst of the Holdfast Chronicles was fol-
dle-aged artist of Taos, New Mexico (where Charnas lives),
lowed by Motherlines (1978), The Furies (1994), and The Con-
haunted by nightmares of revolutionary France during the Terror,
querors Child (1999). These are savagely feminist novels depict-
while her house is haunted by an ancient ghost. Dorotheas desire
ing a postapocalyptic world in which women are enslaved and
terribly abused. To produce children, they are raped; to feed their to live in solitude, creating her masterwork, is inevitably disrupted
fellow fems, they are milked like cows. by the outside world.
In Walk to the End of the World, Alldera, a slave mes- Charnas has also written novels for young adults. The Sor-
sage-runner, escapes this oppressive patriarchal society and heads cery Hall trilogyThe Bronze King (1985), The Silver Glove
west, following a legend of women who live freely on the plains (1988) and The Golden Thread (1989)features Valentine, a
without men. In Motherlines, Alldera nds these Riding Women, New York City teenager who uses magic to protect mundane
and Charnas explores the possibilities of a female society that reality from evil invading from the Otherworld. In The Kingdom
187
CHASE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
of Kevin Malone (1993), teenaged Amy is drawn into a dangerous CHASE, Ilka
fantasy world in Central Park, created by bully Kevin Malone as
an escape from his abusive father.
Born 8 April 1905, New York, New York; died 15 February
Charnas oft-reprinted short story Boobs, which won the 1978, Mexico City
1989 Hugo award of the World Science Fiction Society, is Daughter of Francis D. and Edna Wollman Chase; married
narrated by a girl who discovers that during her rst menses she is Louis Calhern, 1926; William Murray, 1938; Norton S.
inicted not merely with the usual pangs of puberty but also, Brown, 1946
unusually, with lycanthropy, the ability to transform oneself into a
werewolf. Delighting in her newfound talent, she avenges herself A descendant of revolutionary-war diarist John Woolman,
upon the boys at her high school who torment her because of her Ilka Chase spent her life among the wealthy, fashionable New
budding breasts. Yorkers who people her writings. Educated in French convents
and U.S. private schools after her parents divorce, Chase was a
Charnas ction is clearly and crisply told in unornamented Broadway actress (over 20 roles), a lm star (over 30 movies), and
prose. She is praised for the characterization of her protagonists a radio and television personality (Luncheon at the Waldorf,
and antagonists, who alike are sympathetic and believable. Her Penthouse Party, Kraft Theater, The Defenders).
skill at describing the feminine point of view in conict with both
Civilized and witty rather than profound, Chases two-
the supernatural and with men is nonpareil. She is an extremely
volume autobiography (Past Imperfect, 1942; Free Admission,
popular and well-respected author in science ction and fantasy
1948) anecdotally describes her stage and screen experiences, as
and has gained critical adulation among feminist theorists.
well as her relationships with her husbands and with such literary
and theatrical personalities as Clare Booth Luce and Dorothy
Thompson. Disturbed in a conventional way by the horrors of
OTHER WORKS: Women in Science Fiction: A Symposium, with
fascism and war, Chase reacts even more strongly to their trivial
Suzy McKee Charnas et al. (ed. by J. D. Smith, 1975). A Woman intrusions upon her civilized life: dirty trains, boring army towns,
Appeared, Future Females: A Critical Anthology (ed. by M. S. inexplicable delays, and the inevitable depersonalization of the time.
Barr, 1981). No-Road, Women of Vision (ed. by D. DuPont,
1988). In Pursuit of Pure Horror: Robert Bloch, Suzy McKee Chases In Bed We Cry (1943) and I Love Miss Tilli Bean
Charnas, Harlan Ellison, Gahan Wilson, Harpers (1989). Moon- (1946), her rst two novels, provide coolly cynical insights into
stone and Tiger Eye (1992). Meditations in Red: On Writing The the cosmetics and fashion industry of the period: Chases charac-
Vampire Tapestry, Blood Read: The Vampire as Metaphor in ters are self-deceiving as well as customer-deceiving. Like all her
Contemporary Culture (J. Gordon and V. Hollinger, eds., 1997). heroines, Devon Wainwright and Tilli Bean are handsome and
The Slave and the Free (contains Walk to the End of the World and gifted women seeking success in a mans world. Chase adapted In
Motherlines, 1999). Bed We Cry for the stage, playing the lead herself to popular
though not critical acclaim in Boston and Philadelphia, before
bringing the show to Broadway, where it failed.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Barr, M., Suzy McKee Charnas; Octavia Butler; Chases subsequent novels are less successful than the rst
Joan D. Vinge (1986). Bartkowski, F., Toward a Feminist two, with the exception of The Island Players (1956). This novel
Eros: Readings in Feminist Utopian Fiction (thesis, 1982). mingles gossipy revelations about the private lives of often-
Bartkowski, F., Feminist Utopias (1989). Shugar, D. R., Separa- married and divorced theater people and their defenses against
tism and Womens Community (1995). Seven by Seven: Interviews aging with moments of brilliant slapstick comedy. As in all
with American Science Fiction Writers of the West and South- Chases novels, brittle sophistication and assumed cynicism do
west (1996). not preclude a happy ending; her heroines always end up with the
Reference works: Readers Guide to Twentieth-Century Sci- man of their dreams.
ence Fiction (1989). Articles about Charnas featured in American
Horror Fiction: From Brockden Brown to Stephen King (1990), In a series of travel books, illustrated by her husbands
Feminism and Science Fiction (1989), Feminism, Utopia, and photographs, Chase socializes with the international set, inter-
Narrative (1990), Science Fiction Roots and Branches (1990), views leaders of newly emergent nations, and admires most what
The Feminine Eye: Science Fiction and the Women Who Write It is least Westernized in each country visited. Despite Chases
(1982), Women and Utopia (1983). sympathy for the aspirations of her hosts, however, she expresses
Other references: Extrapolation 27 (Spring 1986). Janus 15 a typically ethnocentric pessimism about their chances for survival.
(Spring 1979). Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 5 (1993). Locus Chases other works, Always in Vogue (with her mother,
(May 1990). Midnight Grafti (Fall 1989). Science-Fiction Stud- 1954), Ladys Pleasure (an anthology, 1946), and The Care and
ies10 (July 1983). Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels (1985). Feeding of Friends (recipes and social behavior, 1972), posit an
SATA (1990). audience with the time, money, and inclination to create a private
world of gaiety and sophistication within the surrounding chaos of
FIONA KELLEGHAN 20th-century America.
188
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CHASE
Charming at rst, Chases writing soon becomes predictable, and also placed second for the New York Drama Critics Cir-
formulaic, unexciting. Aware of the major issues of her time, cle Award.
Chase lacks both the ability to treat them profoundly and the
discretion to avoid them. Her frequent stylistic device of twisting Mrs. McThing (1952), a runner-up for the 1951-52 New York
clichs (he worshipped the ground she trotted on) wears thin, Drama Critics Circle Award, was Chases second success. It was
yet reects accurately the reparte of New York in the 1930s and Chases attempt to create a full-length play for children that would
1940s. As a self-proclaimed feminist who refused to join any provide a theatrical experience similar to the Christmas pantomimes
movement, Chase is thus a valuable source of anecdotes from that that British children enjoy. Pleased with this aim, ANTA under-
world, in which women carved out individual careers in elds took production of the play despite very limited expectations, and
where their gender was the focus of their profession: fashion, audiences and critics were charmed by the production. The play is
theater, radio, and television. a fantasy about a witch, Mrs. McThing, who provides the wealthy
Mrs. Larue and her son Howay an opportunity to become real
human beings.
OTHER WORKS: New York 22: That District of the City Which Lies
between Fiftieth and Sixtieth Streets, Fifth Avenue, and the East Following Mrs. McThing was Bernardine (1952). Again
River (1951). Three Men on the Left Hand (1956). Carthaginian Chase was writing for young peopleher sons in particular.
Rose (1961). Elephants Arrive at Half-Past Five (1963). Second Bernardine presents a sympathetic view of the painful experi-
Spring and Two Potatoes (1965). Fresh from the Laundry (1967). ences of adolescence. A group of boys from respectable families
The Varied Airs of Spring (1969). Around the World and Other fancy themselves as hoodlums and bolster their egos with tall tales
Places (1970). The Sounds of Home (1972). Worlds Apart (1972). of conquest. Critics found the production warm and moving.
Dear Intruder (1977). The best of Chases work, despite uneven writing, reveals a
world of whimsy, good humor, and kindness. Elwood in Harvey
BIBLIOGRAPHY: NYT (19 Feb. 1978). sets the tone with his dignied courtesy and his guileless friendli-
ness in a crass, unaccepting world. Mrs. McThing adds a touch of
AMY K. LEZBURG magic as the witch turns into a beautiful fairy to bid farewell to her
tearful daughter. Bernardine carries forth Chases humor with the
character of Wormy, who, by refusing to obey his mothers
threatening commands, causes her to realize the value of the boys
CHASE, Mary Coyle as allies. Thus Chases vision is complete: love is victorious in a
pleasant world of fancy.
Born 25 February 1906, Denver, Colorado; died October 1981
Daughter of Frank and Mary McDonough Coyle; married Rob-
OTHER WORKS: Now Ive Done It (1937). The Next Half Hour
ert L. Chase, 1928; children: three sons
(1945). Loretta Mason Potts (1958). Midgie Purvis (1961).
Mary Coyle Chases mother was Irish and her brothers
brightened her childhood with tales of Irish folklore. This love of BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CB (1945).
myth was reinforced by a major in classics at the University of Other references: Cosmopolitan (Feb. 1945). NYT (8 May
Colorado at Boulder. Her rst job, however, was writing society 1945). Saturday Evening Post (1 Sept. 1945).
notes and sob sister stories for the Rocky Mountain News in
Denver. After her marriage she retired and invested her energy in LUCINA P. GABBARD
volunteer work. She founded a chapter of the American Newspa-
per Guild, and worked for the rights of Colorados Spanish-
Americans. Her writing career began and continued sporadically
while she reared three sons. Nevertheless, she wrote several plays, CHASE, Mary Ellen
a short story for Ladies Home JournalHes Our Babyand
a motion picture script, Sorority House.
Born 24 February 1887, Blue Hill, Maine; died 28 July 1973,
Chase is famous for Harvey (1944), a whimsical comedy Northampton, Massachusetts
named for a man-sized rabbit who is the constant companion of Daughter of Edward E. and Edith Lord Chase
the amiable alcoholic, Elwood P. Dowd. Elwoods insistence on
Harveys presence so humiliates his sister, Veta Louise, that she Mary Ellen Chase was the second of eight children in a
attempts to have Elwood committed. After a series of comic family that preserved a 200-year heritage of New England mari-
mistakes, she gains a new appreciation of Elwoods gentleness time village life. Entering the University of Maine at seventeen
and prevents the doctors from turning him into a normal, dissatis- and pausing at eighteen for a year of teaching in two one-room
ed person, like everybody else. Harvey was performed in Lon- schools in Maine villages, Chase graduated cum laude and Phi
don and Europe, lmed in 1950, and revived for the stage in 1970 Beta Kappa at twenty. At thirty she entered the graduate school of
by the American National Theater and Academy (ANTA) starring the University of Minnesota, where she received her doctorate in
James Stewart and Helen Hayes. It won the 1944-45 Pulitzer Prize 1922, and became assistant professor of English at the university.
189
CHENEY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
By 1926 Chases fame as a provocative teacher at Minnesota (March 1962). Duckett, E. S., A Portrait: 1962, in CLQ (March
won her a post at Smith College that would last for 30 years. Her 1962). Milbank, H. K., Mary Ellen Chase: Teacher, Writer,
short stories and essays were also appearing frequently in the top Lecturer, in CLQ (March 1962). Westbrook, P. D., Mary Ellen
literary magazines, launching her as a writer on a larger scale. In Chase (1965).
1927 she published Thomas Hardy from Serial to Novel, which Reference works: Benets Readers Encyclopedia (1987).
was adapted from her doctoral dissertation.
EVELYN HYMAN CHASE
Teaching and lecturing about the Bible as literature led Chase
to write several enduring volumes of inspired, interpretive analy-
sis: The Bible and the Common Reader (1944), Life and Language
in the Old Testament (1955), The Psalms for the Common Reader
(1962), and The Prophets for the Common Reader (1963). CHEHIA
See SHAW, Anna Moore
Chases regional novels of crisis and decline in maritime
Maine began with Uplands (1927) and reached their full greatness
in Mary Peters (1934), Silas Crockett (1935), Windswept (1941),
and The Edge of Darkness (1957). Her novels show the destruc- CHENEY, Ednah (Dow) Littlehale
tion and regeneration of a region undergoing upheaval as a result
of the cultural changes of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Born 27 June 1824, Boston, Massachusetts; died 19 November
Inspired to become a writer by Sarah Orne Jewett, whom 1904, Boston, Massachusetts
Chase met as a young girl, the younger woman followed her Daughter of Sargent Smith and Ednah Dow Littlehale; married
mentor in observing nature and in presenting it and the land as Seth Wells Cheney, 1853 (died 1858); children: one daughter
determinants of character. Discussing the inuence of the Maine
coast on her writings, Chase said in her polished, classical style, Writer, activist, and self-proclaimed jack-of-all-trades, Ednah
. . .to have sprung from Maine seafaring people; to have spent Littlehale Cheney was the third daughter of a New England family
my childhood and. . .later years on a coastline unsurpassed in of comfortable means and liberal sentiments. The independent
loveliness; to have inherited a wealth of thrilling history and spirit she displayed as a child found a home when, as a very young
traditionsuch an inheritance of imperishable values imposes a woman, Cheney came under the inuence of transcendentalists
debt which cannot possibly either be underestimated or ever fully Theodore Parker, Bronson Alcott, and, above all, Margaret Fuller.
discharged.
As ardent an abolitionist as her mentors, Cheney led the way
But Chase did discharge this debt to her Maine heritage and after the Civil War in recruiting Boston teachers for freedmens
surroundings through her novels and reminiscences. Through the schools in the South. But for most of her eighty years, her energies
use of lyrical imagery, affection for words, and owing sentence as a reformer were devoted primarily to improving the education-
structure, she presented her philosophy that reection on experi- al, occupational, and political opportunities available to women.
ence brings more reality than the experience itself. Her autobio- Through her long association with the New England Hospital for
graphical reminiscences, The Golden Asse, and Other Essays Women and Children, Cheney helped establish womens rights to
(1929), A Goodly Heritage (1932), A Goodly Fellowship (1939), medical training as well as to proper health care and information.
and The White Gate (1954), proved to be her most lasting works. She was the moving force behind a school of design and a school
of horticulture (both for women) and chairman of the New
OTHER WORKS: His Birthday (1915). The Girl from the Big Horn England Womens Club committee that founded Bostons distin-
Country (1916). Virginia of Elk Creek Valley (1917). The Art of guished Girls Latin School. As pamphleteer, public speaker, and
Narration (with F. K. Del Plaine, 1926). Mary Christmas (1926). clubwoman, she campaigned widely for female suffrage.
The Writing of Informal Essays (1929). Constructive Theme In 1853 Ednah married portrait artist Seth Wells Cheney. His
Writing for College Freshmen (1929, rev. ed. 1938). The Silver death ve years later left her with an infant daughter who herself
Shell (1930). This England (1936). Dawn in Lyonesse (1938, died at the age of twenty-six.
dramatization by T. Job 1946). Jonathan Fisher, Maine Parson,
1768-1847 (1948). The Plum Tree (1949, dramatization by L. For all her reform activities, Cheney thought of herself rst
McMahon and R. Sengel 1953). Abby Aldrich Rockefeller (1950). as a writer. Three of her early books, Faithful to the Light (1871),
Readings from the Bible (1952). Recipe for a Magic Childhood Sally Williams (1874), and Child of the Tide (1874), are better-
(1952). Sailing the Seven Seas (1958). Donald McKay and the than-average childrens ction. Though marred by the besetting
Clipper Ships (1959). The Lovely Ambition (1960). The Fishing sins of the period and the genresentimentality, didacticism, and
Fleets of New England (1961). unlikely coincidencethey are absorbing stories which often
correct conventional sexist stereotypes.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cary, R., A Bibliography of the Published In 1875 Cheney published a memoir of [surgeon] Susan
Writings of Mary Ellen Chase, in CLQ (March 1962). Dorio, J. J., Dimock, the rst of several elegies written in tribute to family,
Mary Ellen Chase and the Novel of Regional Crisis, in CLQ friends, and colleagues. The nest, clearly a labor of love, is the
190
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CHERNIN
sketch of her idol, Margaret Fuller. Rich in anecdote and personal CHERNIN, Kim
reminiscence, it shows Cheney at her sensible, insightful, gener-
ous best. Cheneys skills as a biographer again show to advantage
in the Journals of Louisa May Alcott (1889), which she edited and Born 7 May 1940, Bronx, New York
extensively annotated. Later biographers are indebted to this ne Daughter of Paul and Rose Chernin Kusnitz; married David
work not only because it includes some journal entries now lost in Netboy, 1958 (divorced); Robert Cantor, 1971 (divorced);
the original, but because Cheney does not shrink from presenting children: Larissa
the author of Little Women without disguise. Alcotts passion-
ate dissatisfactions are laid bare, as is the compulsive self-denial Kim Chernin, daughter of Russian-Jewish immigrants, spent
that embittered her life. Feminist interpretation, however appro- the rst ve years of her life in New York City, before moving
priate it might seem, enters only indirectly, perhaps because of with her father (an engineer) and her mother (a radical organizer)
Cheneys desire to lay no blame, especially on Bronson Alcott. to Los Angeles after an older sister died. Her early life was
profoundly inuenced by the loss of her sister, her mothers
But Noras Return (1890), a nondramatic sequel to Ibsens political activism, and the incarcerations and trials of the McCar-
Dolls House, is avowedly feminist. It is also outrageously sim- thy years. Chernins writings reect this heritage, joining the
plistic, contrived, and, inadvertently, very funny. poetic intuition of the childs memory to a political voice, and
presenting a mother-daughter conict embedded in the modern
The delightful opening of Cheneys last major work,
womans search for self and the immigrants search for home.
Reminiscences (1902), recalls a time when Boston was all but an
While a student at the University of California at Berkeley, she
island, town criers called out descriptions of lost children, and
met and married David Netboy. They traveled to England and
Election Day was celebrated with oysters, lobster, and baked
Ireland, where Chernin studied at Oxford and at Trinity College in
beans on the Common. Personally revealing detail abounds
Dublin. Returning to the U.S., she received her B.A. from the
Cheney staying awake in church by pricking her nger and
University of California in 1965 and an M.A. in psychology from
writing in blood in her prayer book, Cheney being asked to leave a
New College of California in 1990.
Beacon Hill school because of her bad inuence on the other
girls. Later sections of the autobiography, however, are at and Chernins dual career as writer and therapist and the tension
strangely impersonal. of her political and poetic sensibilities are evident in her publica-
tions, which include poetry, ction, ctional autobiography, and
Colleagues like Julia Ward Howe attributed much of Cheneys meditative studies on womens psychological issues. Work as a
success as a reformer to her judiciousness, calm disposition, and consultant on writing projects and on womens eating disorders
broad-mindedness. The same qualities illuminate her writing, led her to focus initially on a series of books about contemporary
which is consistently lucid, unpretentious, and humane. Much of problems of female development: The Obsession: Reections on
it deserves notice today only as social history, but her childrens the Tyranny of Slenderness (1981), The Hungry Self: Women,
ction still entertains, and her biographies of Alcott, Fuller, and Eating, and Identity (1985), and Reinventing Eve: Modern Wom-
parts of Reminiscences hold their own as literature. At moments, an in Search of Herself (1987).
Cheney achieved the kind of originality that sometimes blossoms
out of diligent research and honest, compassionate reporting. In this trio of autobiographically framed works, Chernin
addresses rst the middle-class ideal of slenderness as a prob-
lem with womens power, and then the mother-daughter bonds
OTHER WORKS: Handbook for American Citizens (1866). Pa- and patriarchal culture as inuences on female development.
tience (1870). Social Games (1871). Memoir of Susan Dimock Through these books she evolves a visionary yet theorizing form
(1875). Memoir of Seth Wells Cheney (1881). Gleanings in the to describe the essential psychological challenge, coming in
Field of Art (1881). Memoir of John Cheney, Engraver (1888). Reinventing Eve, with its formulation of modern woman as the
Memoir of Margaret Swan Cheney (1889). Stories of Olden Times Woman Who Is Not Yet, to insist that theory be developed out
(1890). Memoirs of Lucretia Crocker and Abby W. May (1893). of experience, particularly of the body. Her thesis leads her to
Life of Christian Daniel Rauch (1893). challenge traditional psychoanalytic interpretation with the voices
The letters of Ednah Cheney are at the Boston Public Library, of the women who have come to her for consultation and to
the Massachusetts Historical Society, Smith College, and the confront Judeo-Christian mythologies with the narrative of her
Schlesinger Library of Radcliffe College. own identity crisis, attempting to nd the form that will success-
fully realize the female self and unite its conicting voices.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). Rep- Chernin both uses and revises traditional psychology in her
resentative Women of New England, Howe, J. W., ed. (1904). A volume of poetry, The Hunger Song (1982), presenting childhood
Woman of the Century (1893). memory as a tool for the reimagination and recovery of a female
Other references: Memorial Meeting of the New England goddess. Chernins use of story to present psychological ideas is
Womens Club, Ednah Cheney, 1824-1904 (1905). Womens pronounced in her ction and ctionalized autobiographies, which
Journal (26 Nov. 1904). develop the themes of ethnic identity and modern intergenerational
conict. In My Mothers House (1983) begins when Rose Chernin
EVELYN SHAKIR asks her to write about her Communist party activities. Chernin
191
CHERRY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
uses this request to make a point about identity and interconnec- requires the instinctive wholly natural ruthlessness of a boy.
tion, as she weaves a narrative that is as much a story of Chernin switched gears for her next book, Cecilia Bartoli: The
mother-daughter encounters as a transcription of the tales she and Passion of Song (1997), a part scholarly, part psychoanalytic, and
her mother tell. Different voices allow the author both to reclaim part enraptured fans account of the life and performances of
her heritage, beginning with life in the Russian shtetl, and pro- opera singer Bartoli. Chernin and coauthor Renate Stendhal
claim her difference from it. Furthermore, as the two womens include biographical information on Bartoli, transcripts of inter-
stories of themselves as daughters and mothers come into counter- views with the singer, and plot summaries of operas in which she
point, the presumed narrative of Rose Chernins life becomes has appeared.
Chernins own tale, the story of four generations of immigrant
Jewish women and their intimate connection. Chernin returned to psychoanalysis and the quest for self in
The Woman Who Gave Birth to Her Mother: Seven Stages of
The Flame-Bearers (1986) and Sex and Other Sacred Games Change in Womens Lives (1998). This volume provides ctional-
(1989) also reect the themes of Chernins psychological writ- ized accounts of six mother-daughter stories Chernin obtained
ings. The Flame-Bearers tells the story of Rae (Israel) Shadmi, the through private counseling of one or both of the women. The title
rebellious inheritor of leadership in a mystical Jewish womens comes from Chernins belief that women go through seven stages
sect. Once again exploring the relationships between several in their relationships with their mothers. The nal stage of
generations of Russian-Jewish immigrant women and tracing giving birth occurs when women learn to understand and
their heritage back to the Old World, Chernin both claims for her accept their mothers after gaining a greater understanding of
heroine the wisdom of a matriarchal spiritual tradition and identi- themselves.
es the reasons why this tradition must be reformulated. Sex and
Other Sacred Games connects this spiritual drama directly to the
social world. Chernin and coauthor Renate Stendahl tell a story of BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1983). CANR (1998).
relationship by tracing conversations on womens sexuality. Us- Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995).
ing two voices, plus written letters and journals, to reinvent the Other references: Feminist Studies (Spring 1991). PW (5 July
Platonic dialogue on eros and beauty, they participate in a project 1985). Womens Studies (1987). WRB (Mar. 1990)
that both utilizes tradition and creates a new and uniquely femi-
KAREN E. WALDRON,
nine narrative.
One very powerful contribution to Chernins work is its
demonstration of the way womens narratives are reinventing
form and in so doing are beginning to integrate the conicting
voice of personal and political, psychological, and literary con- CHERRY, Kelly
sciousness. In Crossing the Border: An Erotic Journey (1994),
Chernin uses third person to recall her 1971 stay on an Israeli
Born 21 December 1940, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
border kibbutz and her ensuing relationships with male and
Daughter of J. Milton and Mary Spooner Cherry; married
female Israelis. She explores the cultural conict between herself
Jonathan Silver, 1966 (divorced 1969)
and her lovers, who include a young soldier, a fellow kibbutz
member, and her married Hebrew teacher. In A Different Kind of
Listening: My Psychoanalysis and Its Shadow (1995), Chernin Kelly Cherry was born into a home lled with music. Her
chronicles her therapy with three different analysts over a period father taught music theory at Louisiana State University and both
of 25 years. She joins traditional psychology and literary narra- he and her mother were accomplished violinists specializing in the
tive in her reminiscences about her search for self through string quartets of Beethoven. When she was four, the family
psychoanalysis. moved from Baton Rouge to Ithaca, New York, to enable her
parents to further their careers. Although it was often a struggle to
Chernins next book, In My Fathers Garden: A Daughters survive economically, they demonstrated an unagging dedica-
Search for a Spiritual Life (1996), complements her earlier work tion to their art, and this sense of the importance of creative work
In My Mothers House. The former reveals Chernins growing was communicated to Cherry and her brother, who became
awareness of her father as a kindred spirit and her appreciation of writers, and to her sister, who became a solo concert utist.
his quiet expressions of love. The second and third parts of this
three-part book provide accounts of Chernins guidance of a dying After receiving a B.A. from Mary Washington College in
woman through the process of death and of the authors spontane- 1961, Cherry was awarded a Dupont Fellowship and pursued a
ous trip to Germany to meet a spiritual guru. Ph.D. in philosophy until 1963. She then attended the University
of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she earned an M.F.A. in
My Life as a Boy (1997) continues Chernins search for 1967. Prior to taking her degree, she had gotten married in 1966 to
self-identity through literary memoirs. She writes about her affair Jonathan Silver, who was a visiting lecturer in art history. In The
with an elegant, worldly German Jewish woman and the eventual Exiled Heart: A Meditative Autobiography (1991), Cherry looks
breakup of her second marriage. The title comes from her desire to back on her decision to marry and sees it as an error in judgement
break out of her old life by discovering the capacity to act, the due in part to an uncertainty about her future. Womens lives
freedom to take, the license to choose desire that she believes were so proscribed then, especially in the South. I had ambitions
192
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CHESEBROUGH
but no understanding of how they might be spelled out in a Kelly Cherrys poetry is marked by a rm intellectual passion, a
professional life and very little encouragement and no guidance. reverent desire to possess the genuine thought of our century
historical, philosophical, and scienticand a species of power-
Another underlying factor was the vulnerability she had been ful ironic wit that is allied to rare good humor.
feeling over what she believed to be the end of her relationship
with Imant Kalnin, the Latvian composer she had met and fallen in
love with during a visit to Moscow in 1965. She had not heard OTHER WORKS: Lessons from Our Living Past (coauthor, 1972).
from him in several months and assumed he had lost interest. But Teachers Guide to Lessons from Our Living Past (1972). Sick
the relationship was in fact far from over, and the story of how it and Full of Burning (1974). Lovers and Agnostics (1975). Rela-
continued to unfold is the central subject of The Exiled Heart. tivity: A Point of View (1977). Conversion (1979). Augusta Played
After Cherry and her husband were divorced in 1969, the corre- (1979). Loneliness: Words for a Secular Canticle (1980). Songs
spondence with Kalnin resumed. Through letters they afrmed for a Soviet Composer (1980). In the Wink of an Eye (1983). The
and further developed their sense of deep connection, which was Lost Travellers Dream (1984). Natural Theology (1988). My Life
personal and also professional, as they collaborated on projects and Dr. Joyce Brothers: A Novel in Stories (1990). Gods Loud
that combined music and words. Hand (1993). Time Out of Mind (1994). Death and Transgura-
tion (1997).
In 1975 she was able to obtain a visa for a few days to see him
a second time. Their hope had long been to marry and live in
Latvia, but the Soviet authorities continually found ways to BIBLIOGRAPHY: CANR 68 (1998). DLBY (1983). Georgia Review
prevent them from going forward. In the end, after every recourse (Spring 1994, Winter 1996). Midwest Quarterly 35 (Winter
had been exhausted over a period of 15 years, there was nothing to 1994). New Literary History 23 (Winter 1992). Writers Digest 76
do but go their separate ways, an abiding friendship between (July 1996).
them. When Kalnin was in the U.S. years later to attend the
premiere of his fth symphony in Boston, they got together MARLENE M. MILLER
briey in New York City. Cherry writes about the moment at the
airport when he glanced up and saw her: I looked into his eyes
and realized, for the third time in nearly twenty-ve years, that
this was the most remarkable man I had ever known. CHESEBROUGH, Caroline
While she was contending with Cold War bureaucracy and
living with her parents, who had moved to England, Cherry Born 30 March 1825, Canandaigua, New York; died 16 February
received an invitation to teach at the University of Wisconsin in 1873, Piedmont, New York
Madison. She accepted a visiting lectureship for 1977-78 and Wrote under: Caroline Cresebro
remained on the staff, eventually becoming a full professor and Daughter of Nicholas G. and Betsey Kimball Chesebrough
writer-in-residence. She was named Eudora Welty Professor of
English and Evjue-Bascom Professor in the Humanities. As she Caroline Chesebrough attended Canandaigua Seminary and
teaches the various forms of literaturepoetry, short story, essay, taught English at the Packer Collegiate Institute, Brooklyn, New
and novelshe continues to write in all of them herself, because York, from 1865 until her death in 1873. She wrote novels and
she believes that each form has its own particular uses. Her rst short stories for both adults and children, publishing them in daily
collection, Benjamin John and Other Poems, was done as newspapers and magazines such as Knickerbocker, Putnams,
her M.F.A. thesis, and the years since have seen a steady outpour- Harpers, Atlantic Monthly, and Appletons Journal. Chesebroughs
ing of poetry works. For Cherry, poetry is closely allied with work can be classied as domestic-sentimental and highly moral-
philosophy and the act of thinking. She commented in Writers istic. Some of it depicts seduction and betrayal (The Children
Digest, To be a poet is to be wholeheartedly committed to the of Light, 1853), but most of her ction portrays women as
search for meaning. Indeed, as she sees it, all literature is a kind agents of moral regeneration. Peter Carradine (1863), probably
of knowing, one that urges us to go beyond our solipsistic selves. Chesebroughs best work, falls in the latter category. It opens with
In this regard, literature has a kinship with science, another of her a conict between the schoolteacher, Miranda Roy, and the
keen interests: Both make it possible for us to recognize one schools patron, Peter Carradine. Roy has disciplined one of
another as real beings moving in the real world. Carradines favorite students, and he decides to dismiss her. Roys
position as a female teacher is tenuous and Carradine succeeds in
Cherrys prose works include four novels. Her short ction
removing her; to overcome her resistance he has her pupils vote on
has been selected for Best American Short Stories, the Pushcart her exposition. The novel make a strong statement, with its setting
Prize, and Prize Stories 1994: The O. Henry Awards. Her collec- grounded in a social milieu in which teaching was the only
tion of essays, Writing the World (1995), explores the art of respectable employment for middle-class women.
writing and what it means to be a woman writer and a Southern
writer. In 1989 she was awarded the James G. Hanes Poetry Prize Chesebrough explored a variety of religious experiences in
presented by the Fellowship of Southern Writers for a distin- her ction. The Foe in the Household (1871) depicts Delia Roses
guished body of work. The citation naming her as recipient states, secret marriage to a man outside her Mennonite sect and the
193
CHESLER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
disastrous consequences of this act. The setting of the short story, (1855). Philly and Kit (1856). The Sparrows Fall (1863). Amy
Victory and Jacqueline, is France; the conict is between Carr (1864). The Glen Cabin (circa 1865).
the Protestants and the Roman Catholics. In Victoria (1856),
Chesebrough attacks the Calvinist who bases his religion only
upon justice, not mercy. She contrasts Calvinist justice with the BIBLIOGRAPHY: Baym, N. Womens Fiction (1978). Brown, H. R.,
compassion found in such women as Mercy Fuller (Peter The Sentimental Novel in America, 1789-1860 (1940). Doug-
Carradine), whose aid to a family in distress is subtle but las, A., The Feminization of American Culture (1977).
powerful. Papashvily, H. W., All the Happy Endings (1956).
For Chesebrough wisdom does not come from the intellect the United States (1995).
but from dreams which tell of a better world to come. God speaks
through these dreams to the sleeping mind which was previously JULIANN E. FLEENOR
closed by the intrusion of the outside world. Women are the
source of this knowledge and thus possess a power uniquely theirs
and uniquely female.
The True Woman of the 19th century is presented in
CHESLER, Phyllis
Chesebroughs ction. She is merciful, long-suffering, pious,
composed, and forgiving. She is never angry, vengeful, passion- Born 1 October 1940, Brooklyn, New York
ate, or egotistical. She might be initially poor or orphaned, but is Daughter of Leon and Lillian Hammer Chesler; married Nachmy
usually rewarded for her spiritual goodness. Bronstein, 1973; children: Ariel, 1978
Chesebroughs ction for children is primarily allegorical

In 1972 Phyllis Chesler published the controversial Women
and features orphans who live in poverty and rural, remote
and Madness, a book which quickly became seminal to 20th-
settings. Death and loss are frequent events in these stories, and
century feminism. Chesler is a psychology professor and psycho-
here, too, the female is the agent for moral regeneration. Even
therapist as well as a feminist activist and writer. She attended
though Lucy Fitzhugh is an orphan raised without Christian Bard College and the New School for Social Research, from
instruction, she eventually brings spiritual enlightenment to Gamps which she earned a Ph.D. in 1969. She has written and lectured
Island (The Fishermen of Gamps Island, 1865). Her stories at widely on a variety of subjects, especially those dealing with the
times capture a childs traumatic religious awakening as in A cultural and psychological signicance of male and female roles.
Story of a Cross, where young Fanny wonders at night what will Chesler has taught at the Institute for Developmental Studies, at
be her afiction while watching the shadows of crosses formed on the New School for Social Research, and at City University of
her bedroom wall shaped by the canes of a rose bush outside New York. She is politically active in the womens movement and
her window. is the founder of the Association for Women in Psychology (1970)
In Chesebroughs ction the women are the primary charac- and the National Womens Health Network (1976).
ters and possess superior qualities. Although she wrote in a period Women and Madness takes the feminist position that, through-
that spans the Civil War, no mention is made of this or other out history, women have been assigned a secondary and aberrant
political events. Her focus is on the spiritual world within and not status in society; consequently, they have often been seen as
on the social world without. Except for Peter Carradine, her madsimply by denition. According to Chesler, mental illness
ction projects an inner world in which women reign; characteri- in women is the result either of a dysfunctional exaggeration of the
zation replaces events. Although Chesebroughs work offers prescribed sex role or of its unacceptable rejection.
some interest to the critic of American culture, it must be
remembered that the cult of true womanhood represented in her Chesler devotes a chapter to the way female patients are
ction might have no relationship to the realities of 19th-century viewed clinically and points out that mental health in women is
American women. measured by the extent to which they adjust to a role which
demands guilt, conservatism, passivity, and self-hatred. She ex-
Chesebroughs novels and short stories remove the reader poses a double standard of diagnosis and treatment of mental
briey to a world of female moral superiority where the male is illness in women and men, and discusses in some detail the
incomplete without his spiritual complement. Calvinism, the relationship between the female role and the psychiatric symp-
religion of justice, is replaced by a religion of mercy in a society toms of depression, frigidity, and attempted suicide.
feminized by writers like Chesebrough. It is a world of camphor,
of family Bibles, of fainting couches, and of moralistic, allegori- Women, Money and Power (1976), was coauthored with
cal ction. Emily Jane Goodman, a lawyer and also a feminist. It too asks
provocative questions but only implies the answers. The book,
relying heavily on statistics and documented case studies, begins
OTHER WORKS: Dream-land by Daylight (1851). Isa, A Pilgrim- by dispelling the notion that American women either control
age (1852). The Little Cross-Bearers (1854). Susan, The Fisher- money or have the power to manipulate it. In alternating chapters,
mans Daughter (1855). The Beautiful Gate, and Other Stories Chesler and Goodman discuss in psychological and legal terms
194
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CHESNUT
the economic powerlessness of women. Both conclude that wom- published essays includes tales of women on trial, women in
en, by denition, have been shut out of the male aristocracy, in psychiatric institutions, and women in custody battles. Chesler
which a few have greater power than the many, but in which all also contends that the media contributes to this patriarchal bias.
members, as men, have more power than almost all women. She followed up this title with Feminist Foremothers in Womens
Chesler deals with the ways women have found for surviving in a Studies, Psychology, and Mental Health (1995), which she coedited
society which deprives them of all social and economic control; with Esther D. Rothblum and Ellen Cole. Letters to a Young
she emphasizes that whatever status and economic privilege Feminist (1997) contains brief essays about such diverse topics as
women have, they have by association with husbands and marriage, the pro-choice movement, abuse, the working world,
fathers. and political oppression, which Chesler directs loving voice to
a new generation of women. She wants to help feminists and
Cheslers 1978 book, About Men, has been hailed by femi-
potential feminists alike to see [their] place in the historical
nists as a classicthe rst book ever to be written about the
scheme of things and to choose whether and how to stand
masculine experience as such. Unlike the preceding books, About
[their] feminist ground in history. Chesler recounts not only
Men is speculative rather than scholarly. Here Chesler relies
what feminists have accomplished, but what still remains to be
heavily on the insights of myth, art, literature, and personal
done, while arguing for solidarity against the patriarchal bias she
experience. She suggests men, to an even greater extent than
documented in earlier works.
women, have failed to come to terms with the essentiality of
human relationships. She depicts the bitterness of unresolved Chesler is a provocative and controversial writer whose work
conict between fathers, sons, and brothers being projected on has been both hailed and dismissed by critics. Reviewers have
women in the form of hostility and envythus isolating men in a criticized her books as messy, biased, and inconclusive, while
society where only males have value. others have found the same books to be groundbreaking, coura-
geous, and convincing.
Chesler writes: A sexual revolution might destroy what
men do so well together, away from women: the making of His-
story, the making of war, the triumph of phallic will. . . . I write in BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CANR (1998).
the belief that understanding can weaken the worship of death Other references: American Scholar (1973). Journal of Mar-
that has dominated patriarchal consciousness and human action riage and the Family (Aug. 1980). LJ (1 Sept. 1976). NYTBR (31
for so long. Dec. 1972, 4 April 1976, 5 Jan. 1986, 26 June 1988). Psychology
Today (Feb. 1986). PW (13 May 1988). WS (1973).
In 1977, before About Men was published, Chesler became
pregnant with her rst child, son Ariel. Cheslers With Child: A JUDITH P. JONES,
Diary of Motherhood was published in 1979, a journal of her UPDATED BY EILEEN M. ANDERSON AND LEAH J. SPARKS
experiences during pregnancy, childbirth, and her rst year as a
mother. In this work, punctuated with insights as well as unre-
solved questions, Chesler gives voice to rarely expressed ambiva-
lence of motherhood, the intensity with which a mother both loves CHESNUT, Mary (Boykin) Miller
and hates her child. This book marked a turn in Cheslers career,
and the beginning of a series of books concerned with mothering.
Born 31 March 1823, Camden, South Carolina; died 22 Novem-
While With Child explores the personal aspects of mothering, her
ber 1886, Camden, South Carolina
next two works examine the legal side of motherhood. In Mothers
Daughter of Stephen D. and Mary Boykin Miller; married James
on Trial: The Battle for Children and Custody (1986), Chesler
Chesnut, 1840 (died 1885)
exposes gender biases in the child-custody decision process.
Refuting the popular belief mothers are given preference in
Mary Miller Chesnut was the oldest daughter of the Nulli-
custody cases, Chesler shows that in the contested custody cases
cation Governor of South Carolina. In 1859 her husband was
she studied, fathers were awarded custody more often than were
elected U.S. senator, only to resign his seat a year later. He
mothers, even when the father was abusive.
returned to South Carolina to serve in the secession convention
Cheslers concerns and arguments about motherhood and and was appointed a delegate to the Confederate Constitutional
custody were crystallized in a single case. Sacred Bond: The Convention and Provisional Congress in Montgomery, Alabama.
Legacy of Baby M. (1988) discusses the Baby M. surrogate-
Chesnut began keeping a daily journal in December 1860. In
mother case of the 1980s as it reected wider societal patterns of
manuscript form, it runs to over 400,000 thousand words, She
paternal rights and maternal obligations, the abuse of women by
willed the diary to her friend Isabella Martin who edited it with
the legal system, and of women and children through the practice
Myrta Lockett Avary in 1905. This edition is roughly one-third of
of adoption. Chesler also describes her own involvement in the
the original and focuses on Chesnut herself. Much interesting
case, which extended beyond the role of author to that of supporter
gossip was omitted for fear it would offend former Confederates
and advocate for the biological mother, Mary Beth Whitehead.
or their descendants. In 1949 novelist Ben Ames Williams edited
In Patriarchy: Notes of an Expert Witness (1994), Chesler a more complete edition which is twice the length of the former;
chronicles the negative effects of bias against women in the health Williams restored all of the rumors and gossip which make the
care and criminal justice systems. This collection of previously diary so fascinating.
195
CHIDESTER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
A Diary from Dixie is perhaps the most valuable source for B. A., ed., A Diary from Dixie (1949). Wilson, E., Patriotic Gore
the study of the social history of the Confederacy. Because of her (1962). Woodward, C. V. May Chesnut in Search of her Genre
husbands position and her own charm, Chesnut was accepted in Yale Review (Winter 1984)
everywhere and was on intimate terms with the most important
people in the Confederate government. Their wives and daughters JANET E. KAUFMAN
gravitated to her, and from this web of acquaintances emerges a
detailed portrait of life in the Civil War South. The diary gives the
reader an insiders view of the war. Despite death and military
reversals, romance and pleasure continued. Unlike other Confed- CHIDESTER, Ann
erate diarists who condently predicted victory, Chesnut saw that,
unless quarreling and jealousy among members of the administra-
Born 1919, Stillwater, Minnesota
tion and the army ceased, there would be defeat. While she was
usually fair in her judgements of people and events, she reects a
Raised and educated in Minnesota, Ann Chidester graduated
denite bias in favor of Jefferson Davis, whom her husband
from St. Catherines College in St. Paul. She began to write during
served as aide.
her teens, and in 1942, at age twenty-three, published her rst
Chesnuts own personality is clearly revealed in the diary. novel. By 1950 Chidester had published ve novels and numerous
Though she loved and respected her husband, she admits that after short stories in well-recognized magazines.
20 years of marriage, she did not really know him. There are some
Chidesters novels show a concern for women and for the
tender moments between them, but it appears that Chesnut was
lower classes, but are frequently awed by unnecessary dramatic
too stern and unbending for his vivacious wife. Whenever they
and thematic complications, creating a lack of focus. They contain
returned to the Chesnut family plantation in Camden, she was
a strong commitment to the American scene, particularly the
seized by fevers and headaches which were probably psychoso-
Midwest where she grew up. Young Pandora (1942), Chidesters
matic. She was highly critical of her tyrannical ninety-year-old
rst novel, is largely autobiographical; a young Midwestern girl
father-in-law, for he represented the epitome of the slaveholding
attends an area university, has a love affair, begins her career as a
Southerner. She detested slavery, claiming it forced white women
writer, and sets off to see the country. No Longer Fugitive (1943)
not only to compete sexually with their husbands slave mistress-
repeats the theme of travel from and return to the Midwest. The
es, but also to pretend that the mulatto offspring drop from the
main character, a young man who refuses to be drafted, travels
clouds.
widely but ultimately returns to his ancestral home in Minnesota.
Chesnuts diary explores the problems of an intelligent The novel is dominated by the young mans grandfather, a pioneer
woman in a society which did not expect women to be more than of the Midwest, now living with grandchildren and great-grand-
wives and mothers. Chesnut believed a woman must defer to her children in the old homestead. But the potential drama of this
husband, but she herself did not do so happily and often violated patriarch is lost in a confusion of unresolved issues, including war
Chesnuts explicit instructions about spending money for enter- and pacism, womens rights, the rights of blacks and Chicanos,
tainment and luxuries. Her devious attempts to outwit her husband Catholicism, and extramarital love.
are comical and remind the reader of early television husband-
The Long Year (1946) begins with the return of another
wife situation comedies. Chesnut bemoaned the fact she did not
wanderer to her childhood home in Minnesota. Kay Hasswell is an
have children, yet did not envy other women their connements
attractive, sophisticated business woman, married three times but
and responsibilities. Though somewhat vain and pampered by
now belonging to no man. Feminists might cheer, but as Kay
modern standards, Chesnut had a delightful sense of humor and a
manipulates and subdues her brother, res the employees of the
keen eye for the absurdities of life. These qualities, combined with
company, arranges for the dismissal of a schoolteacher with leftist
her literary style, make the diary a pleasure to read.
tendencies, and tries jealously to win her niece away from her
After the war, the Chesnuts returned to Camden. James boyfriend, we see that Chidester has damaged the image of the
became involved in state and local politics while Chesnut ran a liberated female. Kay Hasswell nally leaves town without her
butter business and revised her diary. James Chesnut died in 1885, niece, feeling old and lonely. The novel suffers from being
and she died a year later in 1886. overwrought; it includes threats of union activities and riots, two
murders, a trial, and a suicide, all with undeveloped social
implications.
OTHER WORKS: Mary Chesnuts Civil War (1981).
The manuscript edition of Mary Chesnuts A Diary from But with Mama Marias (1947) Chidester achieves focus and
Dixie is in the South Carolina Library at the University of South control, making it the most effective and moving of her novels.
Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina. Mama Maria, an ailing widow whose only son was killed in the
war, owns a rundown truck stop on a highway in mid-America. A
veteran employed to pump gas and wait tables becomes a substi-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Avary, M. L., and I. Martin, eds., A Diary from tute son. Here Chidesters concern for the lower class reaches
Dixie (1905). Muhleneld, E., Mary Boykin Chesnut: A Biogra- maturity, and the theme of jealousy and loneliness in old age is
phy (1981). Wiley, B. I., Confederate Women (1975). Williams, sensitively developed. In Moon Gap (1950) a young Nevada
196
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CHILD
woman, deserted by her husband, goes to live with her father in a Simone Beck became a member of an exclusive society of women
Mojave Desert ghost town. The atmosphere is that of an inescap- known as Le Cercle des Gourmettes. From the beginning, I fell
able past, both for the town and for the girl. The theme of womens in love with everything I saw, Child said. Her life was irrevocably
liberation is again unresolved as the choices for Cassie King seem changed by the experience of living in France.
limited to either husband or father.
Childs culinary career began when a group of American
The Lost and the Found (1963) develops Chidesters concern friends asked her to give cooking lessons in her Left Bank
for the lower class in the story of a migrant workers child who is apartment. Assisted by Simone Beck, Louise Bertholle, and chefs
raped and killed. The novel shows the California towns reaction from the Cordon Bleu, the classes developed into LEcole des
to this crime: the newspaper writer is moved, the rich landowner is Trois Gourmandes. When Childs husband was reassigned to the
unconcerned, the young woman is appalled. A local un-American American embassies in Marseille, Bonn, and Oslo, classes were
activities group hunts for communists but is nally ousted by a taught whenever and wherever they could be arranged. The school
younger generation devoted to the highest ideals of the moderate was so successful that the two Frenchwomen invited Child to
left. The unnecessary profusion of characters and their superci- collaborate in the writing of a cookbook adapting French culinary
ality prevents this novel from being successful, although we techniques to American ingredients and kitchens. Eight years in
applaud its concern for the migrant workers plight. preparation, the rst volume of Mastering the Art of French
Cooking was published by Knopf in 1961, one year after Childs
husband had retired and the Childs were established in their home
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Warfel, H. R., American Novelists Today (1951). in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The book was hailed by the New York Times as the nest
SUZANNE HENNING UPHAUS
volume on French cooking ever published in English, and
widely praised by the culinary establishment. Invited to appear on
a book reviewing program at WGBH, Bostons educational
television station, Child demonstrated beating egg whites with a
CHILD, Julia balloon whisk as she talked about her book. Letters requesting
more of the same led to The French Chef series that premiered on
Born 15 August 1912, Pasadena, California 11 February 1963. More than 200 shows were added to the
Daughter of John and Carolyn Weston McWilliams; married original series of 26 black-and-white programs during the next
Paul Child, 1945 nine years. Child had invented the theater of cooking; Julia had
become a household name.
Author and televisions French Chef, Julia Child coauthored After the publication of The French Chef Cookbook in 1968,
the inuential and bestselling Mastering the Art of French Cook- three subsequent television series were the basis for From Julia
ing (2 vols. 1961, 1970). She thereby translated French culinary Childs Kitchen (1975), Julia Child and Company (1978), and
techniques into an American idiom and established the standards Julia Child and More Company (1979). Recipes and techniques
for authoritative culinary writing in what has become known as from four years of monthly Parade magazine articles, six one-
Americas gastronomical coming of age. hour videocassettes called The Way to Cook, segments from the
television program Good Morning America, and the Dinner at
Enrolled in Smith College by her mother when she was born, Julias television series contributed to the comprehensive cook-
Child majored in history and received her B.A. in 1934. Although book The Way to Cook (1989). Over more than 40 years Child has
she aspired to become either a basketball star or a novelist, she developed the techniques to master ne cooking and fullled the
accepted a copywriting position at the W. & J. Sloane department joint possibilities of television and culinary instruction.
store and lived in New York for three years before returning to the
leisurely life of Pasadena and its Junior League in 1937. When Recognition as a television celebrity tends to deect attention
World War II began, Child went to Washington to work as a typist from Childs writing. Her many books, however, force their
in a government information agency. After six months, she joined readers to reexamine the canon, to look at culinary writing as a
the Ofce of Strategic Services (OSS, the precursor to the CIA), genre with its own potential for excellence. She has insisted that
opted for duty in the Far East, and was in charge of document each book be a teaching book rather than a collection of
centers in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and later in China. recipes. In the later books, however, her Olympian tone about
utensils has given way to an informal and personalized discussion
While in Ceylon, she met Paul Child, a former painter and of options.
language teacher, who designed war rooms for the OSS in the Far
East. After the war they married and lived in Washington, D.C. Childs favorite book is From Julia Childs Kitchen, because
until Paul was assigned to the American Embassy in Paris in 1948 she says, It is entirely my own, written the way I wanted to do
as the exhibits ofcer for the U.S. Information Agency. it. Indeed, the book resonates with the truest authorial voice and
tells the most compelling stories of all of her books. The reader
During the next four years in Paris, Child took French lessons comes to know the narrator intimately, her voice inspires con-
at Berlitz, studied with Max Bugnard, Claude Thillmont, and dence, and every recipe becomes the beginning of a plot in whose
Pierre Mangelette at the Cordon Bleu, and at the suggestion of denouement the reader participates.
197
CHILD AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Yet the book that represents the culmination of Childs CHILD, Lydia Maria (Frances)
career, however, is The Way to Cook. She breaks with convention-
al organization by structuring the chapters around master recipes,
Born 11 February 1802, Medford, Massachusetts; died 20 Octo-
provides over 600 color photographs to illustrate the methods
ber 1880, Wayland, Massachusetts
employed, and blends classic techniques with freestyle American
Wrote under: L. Maria Child, Mrs. Child
cooking. The award-winning book is her magnum opus, and the Daughter of David C. and Susanna Rand Francis; married
distinction it has achieved ranks with the Peabody (1965) and David L. Child, 1828
Emmy (1966) awards and the Careme Medal (1974) that have also
celebrated her culinary career. Lydia Maria Child was the youngest of six children born to a
prosperous baker and real estate broker and his wife. At twelve
Even well into her 80s, Child continues to produce books that
Child lost her mother and lived with her sister Mary and her
are highly prized for their helpfulness and down-to-earth handling
husband. On her eighteenth birthday, announcing her indepen-
of sometimes complicated cooking techniques. In Cooking with
dence, she moved to Watertown, Massachusetts, to stay with her
Master Chefs (1993), Child introduces the average cook to 16 of
brother Convers Francis, a Unitarian minister. She opened a girls
Americas top chefs with an accompanying lesson on each ones
school and startled parents by encouraging her pupils indepen-
prized recipes. A PBS television series covering the same topics dent spirit. Childs literary work included light romances, domes-
followed shortly after the books release. Following along the tic books for women and children, and historical tracts advocating
same line, In Julia Childs Kitchen with Master Chefs (1995) the rights of black slaves, Indians, and women.
features 26 chefs from the U.S.s top restaurants, but this time
right in Childs Cambridge, Massachusetts, kitchen. In typical Hobomok (1824), Childs early attempt to write an American
fashion, the creation of the specialty dishes was captured for the romance, presents the Indian as a noble savage, and makes a plea
television audience. Sidebars and special explanations in the book for tolerance. The Rebels (1825) portrays the tensions leading up
again simplify the preparation and adapt the restaurant meals to to the Revolution. In 1826 Child began the Juvenile Miscellany,
the home dining room. the rst periodical for children in the U.S., which ran successfully
for eight years. With the wide reception of her practical American
With recipes formerly featured in Julia Child and Company Frugal Housewife (1830), Child became well known and respect-
and Julia Child and More Company, Child pulls together a tutorial ed as a literary gure in New England.
on menu planning in Julias Delicious Little Dinners (1998). With
This reputation was dashed almost overnight with the publi-
depth she leads the reader through six dinners for six and suggests cation of An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called
occasions to use each menu. A similar book published with Little Africans in 1833. In her preface to this historical antislavery
Dinners is Julias Menus for Special Occasions (1998). The document, Child wrote: I am fully aware of the unpopularity of
recipes are from the same source and also include six dinner plans the task I have undertaken; but though I expect ridicule and
for six, but focus on special dinner party situations such as buffets, censure, it is not in my nature to fear them. Child not only
cocktail parties, and serving low fat or vegetarian fare. suffered nancial ruin and social ostracism, but was forced to end
her Juvenile Miscellany.
Nearing 90, Child continues to guide American eating tradi-
tions through both her books and her television tutorials. Childs constant and seless devotion to abolitionism was
supported by her husband David Lee Child, a founder of the New
England Anti-Slavery Society in 1832. In addition to writing
OTHER WORKS: Julia Childs Menu Cookbook (reprinted, 1991). many pamphlets in support of the cause, nancing slave biogra-
Julia Childs papers (professional and personal correspond- phies, such as Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), and
ence, scripts and proofs, fan letters, research notes, and various editing the National Anti-Slavery Standard from 1841 to 1849,
newspaper and magazine articles) are at the Schlesinger Library, Child, along with her husband, sheltered fugitive slaves at their
Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts. residence in Wayland, Massachusetts. Her courageous zeal per-
sisted late into her career when she published the Freedmens
Book (1865), the prots of which she donated to the Freedmens
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Chase, Chris, The Great American Waistline Aid Association. Used as a text in schools for freed slaves, the
(1981). Fitch, N. R., Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia book stressed the importance of moral principles, good health,
Child (1997). Fussell, Betty, Masters of American Cookery (1983). neatness, thrift, and politeness, citing black heroes as inspiring
Booklist (15 April 1995). New Yorker (23 Dec. 1974). There also examples.
hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles from 1963 to 1999. Childs approach to reform was well thought out and literary.
Reference works: CA 41-44 (1979). CB (1967). WWAW Her documents combined strong argument, carefully researched
(1974-75). Whos Who in Television and Cable (1983). The analysis, and sincere compassion. These faculties are also evident
Womens Book of World Records and Achievements (1983). in her feminist works. For a Ladies Library series she wrote
biographies of exemplary women and a History of the Condition
JOAN REARDON, of Women in Various Ages and Nations (1835), in which she
UPDATED BY CARRIE SNYDER argued for female equality. In 1837 she was the Massachusetts
198
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CHILDRESS
delegate to a womens rights convention in New York, though she translate into her own literary and dramatic career. After nishing
generally avoided public attention. only two years of high school, her beloved grandmother died, and
Childress was forced to leave school to begin supporting herself as
Best acknowledged as an abolitionist writer, Childs versa- an actress. By 1941 she had joined the American Negro Theatre in
tility with feminist tracts, historical romances, and domestic Harlem and was on her way to becoming not only an accom-
books for women and children points to the principal motive plished actress but in time a playwright, screenwriter, novelist,
behind all of her work: educating her readers and helping them to director, and a crusader for striving artists.
adopt a moral and humane way of life. She appealed to the young
in her Flowers to Children (1844, 1846, 1855), which contains the Childress was married briey in 1940 and had one daughter.
famous Boys Thanksgiving poem beginning with Over the While struggling to support herself and her daughter on an
river and through the woods / To grandfathers house we go. She actresss wages, she also worked as a domestic and in other
addressed the elderly in Looking Toward Sunset (1864), a miscel- low-paying jobs. Her experiences during this period shaped her
laneous collection designed to give some words of consolation career-long interest in portraying working class African American
and cheer to my companions on the way, which was applauded women caught in oppressive situations, yet maintaining their
by Whittier and Bryant. Even in her romances, she incorporated dignity. Her 1956 book, Like One of the Family: Conversations
her ideas on social reform: feminism in Philothea (1836) and from a Domestics Life uses selections and inspirations from her
antislavery in The Romance of the Republic (1837). Hers was a Heres Mildred column, which ran in the Baltimore Afro-
lifelong commitment to humanitarian values. American from 1956-58, to explore these working class issues and
successfully used satire to underscore the realities of the black
domestic workers life.
OTHER WORKS: Correspondence Between Lydia Marie Child and
Although Childress has written plays, novels, young adult
Gov. Wise and Mrs. Mason, of Virginia (1860). An Appeal for the
ction, television scripts, and a screenplay, she is best known as a
Indians (1868).
dramatist. While working with the American Negro Theatre, she
began to write for the company because, in her words, We
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Baer, H. G., The Heart Is Like Heaven: The Life of needed things. We needed good writing. Her rst play, Florence
Lydia Maria Child (1964). Clifford, D. P., Crusader for Freedom: (1949), (which she wrote in one night) draws on her early acting
A Life of Lydia Maria Child (1992). Milton, M. and P. G. Holland, years and the stereotyping of African Americans. Like most of her
eds., Lydia Maria Child: Selected Letters, 1817-1880 (1982). subsequent plays, it revolves around black female protagonists
Yellin, J. F., Women and Sisters: The Antislavery Feminists in struggling in a contradictory, often racist environment. (The play
American Literature (1989). is set at a segregated train station). In a 1967 essay Childress
Reference works: Cyclopedia of American Literature (1855). described her characteristic and memorable heroines as created
DAB (1852). NCAB (1892 et seq.). NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). and constructed on what hurts and what heals, slowly built and put
Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United States in order out of the conict which comes from the daily search for
(1995). Womans Record (1853). bread, love, and a place in the sun. Consistently, Childress
black women characters possess a depth and sensitivity rarely
BETTE B. ROBERTS granted to black subjects in American theater.
Childress second play, Just a Little Simple (1950), was
based on stories by Langston Hughes. Gold Through Trees
(1952), her third play, was the rst play by an African American
CHILDRESS, Alice woman to have a professional production, meaning it was per-
formed by equity actors. Childress 1955 play, Trouble in Mind,
Born 12 October 1920, Charleston, South Carolina; died 14 ran for 91 performances and won an Obie Award, the rst
August 1994, Queens, New York presented to a woman playwright. The play also draws on her
Granddaughter of Eliza Campbell; married (second) Nathan acting career, showing black actors resisting stereotypical portrayals
Woodard, 1957; children: Jean of black characters. One critic says of Trouble in Mind that
Writing in 1955 . . . Alice Childress used the concentric circles
of the play-within-the-play to examine the multiple roles blacks
Alice Childress moved north to Harlem at the age of ve to be
enact in order to survive. But on being lauded as the rst
raised by her dynamic grandmother, Eliza Campbell. She deems
womanand rst African American womanto receive the
her grandmothers inuence immeasurable for exposing her at an
honors she did, Childress says I never was ever interested in
early age to New Yorks cultural and artistic offerings. Campbell
being the rst woman to do anything. I always felt that I should be
would take Childress to art galleries and private showings and,
the 50th or 100th, and explains how being the rst means so
according to Childress, say Now this is my granddaughter and
many women before her of talent and importance were regretfully
we dont have any money, but I want her to know about art. If you
and unalterably shut out.
arent too busy, could you show us around? Afterwards, her
grandmother would quiz her about what she had learned. These In the 1960s Childress challenged convention with Wedding
initial experiences helped form a love for art Childress was able to Band: A Love/Hate Story in Black and White, focusing on an
199
CHILTON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
interracial relationship between a black man and a white woman Black Scenes (editor, 1973). A Short Walk (1979). Rainbow
in South Carolina in 1918. Initial attempts to mount a production Jordan (1981). Many Closets (1987).
met with resistance; the rst production took place at the Univer-
sity of Michigan in 1966. In 1973 the play was adapted for
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brown-Guillory, E., Their Place on the Stage:
television, but a number of stations refused to carry the broadcast.
Black Playwrights in America (1988). Keyssar, H., Feminist
Also facing widespread censorship, her comedy-drama contra-
Theater (1984). Patterson, L., ed., Anthology of the American
dicting image and role stereotypes, Wine in the Wilderness (1969),
Negro in the Theatre: A Critical Approach (1968).
appeared as part of a television series, On Being Black. The
Reference works: Black American Writers Past and Present
entire state of Alabama banned this telecast. (1975). Black American Playwrights (1976). Black Playwrights
Aware of the tradition of African American drama that had (1978). Black Writers (1989). Childrens Books and Their Crea-
long produced plays in schools, churches, and in community tors (1995). CA (1974, 1999). CANR (1981, 1989). CLC (1980,
centers across the country, Childress sought to bring this tradition 1997). FC (1990). MTCW (1991). More Black Playwrights (1978).
to the forefront of the American theater. In addition to her work as Notable Women in American Theater (1989). Oxford Companion
a playwright, she has also been an active supporter of her fellow to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). SATA (1975, 1995).
artists. During the 1950s, her crusades in the Dramatists Guild led Other references: Freedomways (Winter 1966). Sage (Spring
to union contracts for black performers and stagehands. 1987). Southern Quarterly (Spring 1987).
Since the 1970s Childress wrote and produced works speci- CAROL ALLEN,
cally for young adults. Ferdinand Monjo, editor and author of UPDATED BY JULIET BYINGTON
childrens books, suggested Childress write her rst young adult
book on the timely subject of drug use. The result, A Hero Aint
Nothin But a Sandwich (1973), was a novel about a black
thirteen-year-old heroine user that met acclaim as well as censor- CHILTON, Eleanor Carroll
ship. The novel was nominated for a 1974 National Book Award
and named a Notable Book by the American Library Association, Born 11 September 1898, Charleston, West Virginia; died 8
as well as banned in the Savannah, Georgia school library (the February 1949, New York, New York
rst since Catcher in the Rye). A Hero Aint Nothin But a Daughter of William E. and Mary Tarr Chilton; married Herbert
Sandwich propelled Childress into the role of screenwriter for the Agar, 1933 (divorced)
1977 lm featuring Cicely Tyson and Paul Wineld. Childress
later work includes another controversial young adult novel Those Eleanor Carroll Chilton, the daughter of a U.S. senator, was
Other People (1989). This novel is told from several outsiders educated at private schools in Charleston and New York, and
points of view and addresses difcult issues including sexual graduated from Smith College in 1922. She published her rst
abuse, homosexuality, and suicide. Called by one critic a pene- novel, Shadows Waiting in 1926, and then moved to London,
trating examination of bigotry and racism, another critic claims where her second novel, The Burning Fountain appeared in 1929.
this to be a disturbing, disquieting novel that reects another There Chilton also published, with Herbert Agar, a volume of
side of life. poetry, a book of criticism, and several plays. In 1933, Chilton
married Agar, a poet, critic, newspaper columnist, and winner of
With her husband, composer Nathan Woodward, Childress the Pulitzer Prize for history. Chiltons last novel Follow the
has written two plays focusing on the Gullah-speaking people Furies appeared in 1935; it was later adapted into a play produced
who live off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, Sea Island in New York in 1940. Chilton died, divorced and childless, after a
Song (produced 1979) and Gullah (produced 1984). Moms, based long illness.
on the life of blues singer and humorist Moms Mabley, appeared
Chiltons primary literary importance is as a novelist. As a
in 1986. Childress has received numerous acknowledgments for
critic her work is negligible; The Garment of Praise (1929), which
her contributions to American theater. In 1965 she appeared with
she coauthored, lacks theoretic originality and perception into
James Baldwin, Leroi Jones (Imiri Baraka), and Langston Hughes
individual poems. As a poet Chiltons output is slight and uneven,
on a British Broadcasting Corporation panel discussion on The bound by conventional forms and vague imagery. Yet there is a
Negro in the American Theatre. She received a Rockefeller strength of feeling, particularly in the sonnet sequence in Fire and
Foundation fellowship in 1967 and from 1966-68 was a fellow at Sleet and Candlelight (1928). These 15 love sonnets frequently
the Radcliffe (College) Institute for Independent Study. In 1984 describe an internal conict between proud independence and
she received the Radcliffe Graduate Society Medal; in 1986 she passionate love. The poet is reluctant to surrender her secret spirit
received the Audelco Pioneer Award; and before her death from that walks alone, inviolate and unwed. She is aware of the
cancer in 1994, she received the 1993 Association for Theatre in ultimate separateness of lovers, the failure of loves illusions, the
Higher Education Lifetime Achievement Award. inevitable loneliness and futility of a life that moves toward a
hungry grave and gaping night.
OTHER WORKS: String (1969). The Freedom Drum (1970). Mojo: But when Chilton deals with this same theme of the ultimate
A Black Love Story (1970). Mojo and String: Two Plays (1971). separateness of lovers in her rst novel, her talent becomes
200
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CHIN
apparent. Shadows Waiting (1926) introduces a young writer who American Literature from the University of Massachusetts at
resents total involvement with his lover and retreats to his separate Amherst in 1977 and worked as a translator and editor in the
and inviolable art, writing a novel within the novel peopled by International Writing Program at the University of Iowa from
purely private dreams and memories. Reviewers applauded the 1978 to 1982. She earned her M.F.A. from the University of Iowa
thematic depth and technical experimentation which make this an in 1981 and was coeditor of the Iowa Review in 1984. Chin taught
exceptional rst novel, while recognizing its often slowmoving in the creative writing department at San Diego State University
and articial style. from 1988 to 1996, when she became a professor of English and
Asian American studies. Chin is the director of San Diego States
Chiltons second novel demonstrates the limitations of rea- Hugh C. Hyde Living Writer Series, which brings respected
son and the power of the natural and instinctive in our lives. In The authors to the university to discuss their works. She has been a
Burning Fountain (1929) a young couple planned to have two visiting professor at several other California universities.
children to raise in a wholly rational environment. But a third
child, born during a erce thunderstorm, disrupts their orderly Since graduating from the University of Massachusetts, Chin
lives with her wild and ungovernable ways. In spite of parental has translated or edited several volumes of Asian poetry and
restraint she nally runs off into a storm, returning to the ele- prose, including Devils Wind: A Thousand Steps or More by
ments. The descriptions of nature are powerful, but the effect is Gozo Yoshimasu (1980), Selected Poems of Ai Qing (1982),
weakened by contrived symbolism. Writing from the World (1985), and Dissident Song: A Contempo-
rary Asian American Anthology (1991). Chins own writings have
In Follow the Furies (1935) the same struggle of intellect vs. appeared in anthologies like Two Hundred Contemporary Poets
emotion is explored but here it is internalized and intensied into a (1981) and Breaking Silence: An Anthology of Contemporary
private hell. Barbara Linton is the daughter of a freethinking Asian American Poets (1984). She has also contributed to periodi-
rationalist who has raised her to have no illusions, no religion, no cals, including Yellow Silk, Massachusetts Review, and Ms. Among
conscience, no belief in anything except the ultimate dignity and her awards are National Endowment for the Arts grants in
rationality of man. Because her father has taught her to be rational 1984 and 1991 and a Yaddo Writers Colony fellowship from
above all else, Barbara poisons her paralyzed and increasingly 1990 to 1994.
incompetent, fatally ill, mother. Although this mercy killing was
intellectually justiable, emotional justication is a different Chins rst volume of original poetry, Dwarf Bamboo, was
matter. Barbara becomes increasingly haunted by the killing, and published in 1987 to critical praise. Like much of her writing, the
by the fact that, in her illness, her mother had returned to the poems in Dwarf Bamboo focus on what it means to be a rst-gen-
Catholic church of her childhood, rejecting her husbands ration- eration Asian American (Im Ten, Have Lots of Friends, and
alism. Although Barbara can intellectually explain this deathbed Dont Care) and the subjugation of Asian women in a male-domi-
conversion as a psychological phenomenon, she cannot explain nated society (Homage to Diana Toy). The latter is a friend
away the fears which follow her, her nightmares, her new, institutionalized in a mental hospital to whom Chin writes:
doubting, and unwilling fascination with religion. Returning to Remember, what they deny you wont hurt you. / What they
her home and forced by an overow of guests to sleep in her dead spare you, you must make shine, / so shine, shine, shine. . . .
mothers bed, Barbara imagines poisoning her father, champion Other verses comment on the cultural stereotypes of Asian Ameri-
of the rationality which has failed her; horried by this thought, cans or, as in Chinamans Chance, the difculty in integrating
she kills herself. both American and Chinese cultures:
Chiltons strength as a writer is in her willingness to confront If you were a Chinese born in America, who would you
serious philosophical issues, while refusing to accept easy an- believe,
swers. In her last novel the reader senses Chiltons intensely Plato who said what Socrates said,
honest but futile effort to answer unanswerable ultimate questions. Or Confucius in his bawdy way:
So a male child is born to you I am happy, very very
happy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: WLB (May 1929). The railroad killed your great-grandfather.
His arms here, his legs there. . .
SUZANNE HENNING UPHAUS How can we remake ourselves in his image?
Cultural assimilation is a particularly strong theme in Chins

second work, The Phoenix Gone, the Terrace Empty (1994), a
collection of prose and verse. Among the pieces in this work is
CHIN, Marilyn How I Got That Name: An Essay on Assimilation, in which
Chin writes of her restaurant-owner fathers obsession with West-
Born Mei Ling Chin, 14 January 1955, Hong Kong ern culture and mores. Her father became so enamored of lm star
Daughter of George and Rose Chin; married Charles Moore, 1993 Marilyn Monroe that he changed his daughters name from Mei
Ling to Marilyn. Chin recalls her name change to that of some
Poet and professor Marilyn Chin was born in Hong Kong and tragic white woman / swollen with gin and Nembutal with a
raised in Portland, Oregon. She received a B.A. in Chinese mixture of bitterness and sorrow.
201
CHOPIN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Chins ability with language is revealed in other verses, character is often a woman in search of freedom, Chopin is
which are by turns funny, earthy, and bleak, but always clever in admired by feminist critics of today, but not by the moralistic
their use of spare imagery and symbolism. Chin made the follow- critics of her own day.
ing comments on her writing in an interview for Contemporary
Women Poets: I believe that my work is daring, both technically Chopins rst novel, At Fault, despite its pedestrian style, is
and thematically. . . . My work is seeped with the themes and notable for its unromantic characters and its absence of moraliz-
travails of exile, loss and assimilation. What is the loss of country ing. The rst American novel to treat divorce amorally, it tells of a
if it were not the loss of self? In discussing the compulsion to young widows attempts to apply the morality she has been taught
write, she also explained that you know youre a poet when you to life itself. When she learns her suitor had divorced a weak,
cant live without it. alcoholic wife in the past, she insists he return to mend the damage
he had done. The subsequent remarriage proves destructive to
everyone involved, ultimately leading to the wifes death. Our
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Wang, L. L., and H. Y. Zhao, Chinese American heroine must admit it was she who was at fault, learning there
Poetry: An Anthology (1991). is rottenness and evil in the world, masquerading as right and
Reference works: CANR (1999). CWP (1997). Oxford Com- moralitywhen we learn to know the living spirit from the dead
panion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). letter.
LEAH J. SPARKS
Allowing her characters to live in the world produced the
bold realism of the short stories collected in Chopins next two
books, Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897). These
stories, many of them published earlier in magazines, established
her reputation as a local colorist because of her vivid recreations
CHOPIN, Kate (OFlaherty) of the lives and language of Creoles and Acadians in Louisiana.
Both collections further explore the theme of nature vs. civiliza-
Born 8 February 1851, St. Louis, Missouri; died 22 August 1904, tion, and they also show an increasing concern with womens
St. Louis, Missouri quest for self-fulllment.
Daughter of Thomas and Eliza Faris OFlaherty; married Oscar
Chopin, 1870 (died 1882); children: ve sons Chopins exploration of this womens quest began with her
rst published stories. In Wiser Than a God Paula Van Stolz
Descended on her mothers side from the French and Creole chooses a career over a marriage which could have provided love
elite of St. Louis and on her fathers side from Irish newcomers, and economic security, but then succeeds both in becoming a
Kate Chopin, after her fathers death in 1855, was raised in a famous pianist and in gaining the love of her music professor.
household dominated by three generations of widowed women. Another story worth noting, The Maid of Saint Phillippe, is set
Her mother lled the home with people attracted to her unusual in 1765 and tells the story of a young girl who chooses to join the
beauty and vivacity; her grandmother reinforced the religious Cherokees, asserting that hardships may await me, but let it be
atmosphere of the home; her great-grandmother enthralled the death rather than bondage. Through this heroine, Chopin estab-
young girl with many stories of the characters and characteris- lishes a history of independence for American women. Unfortu-
tics, often quite intimate, of the citys founders. Although a child nately, however, Chopins women are not free of biology, and in
during the Civil War, Chopin strongly supported the South and her highly praised masterpiece, Desirees Baby, Chopin tells
was deeply affected by the death of her half-brother George. After of a woman who drowns herself and her baby when her husband
her graduation from Sacred Heart Convent, she married Oscar inaccurately suspects her of having the black blood that manifest-
Chopin, a native of Louisiana, in 1870. ed itself in their child.
Chopin moved with her husband to New Orleans, where she Biology is also the key to understanding Ednas fate in The
bore ve sons in the next 10 years. The family then settled in Awakening. Edna, the strongest and most controversial of Cho-
Cloutiersville in the Natchitoches Parish, the setting of many of pins heroines, has immersed herself in an empty marriage and a
her best stories. Chopins husband died in 1882, and she then confusing maternity. Awakening to a sense of herself through her
returned to her mothers home in St. Louis to begin a new life as a exposure to the more natural Creole society and through the
writer. Her rst poem, If It Might Be, was published in 1899; attentions of Robert LeBrun, she chooses to express herself
her rst novel, At Fault, appeared in 1890. Chopin wrote most of artistically and sensually despite social and personal repercus-
her small canon of two collections of short stories and two novels sions. But although Edna walks away from her marriage and from
in 10 years. The hostile reception of her second novel, The her children, she cannot escape the biological reality of mother-
Awakening (1899), seemed to have silenced its author who hood. Neither can she achieve her artistic goals, because the artist
thereafter wrote only 10 more stories, mostly for young people. in Chopins novel can only gain her career at the expense of both
her social and her sensual self. Edna chooses to save the self she
Chopins earliest writing, Emancipation: A Fable dates has discovered, but she must do so at the cost of the life she owes
from 1869, and tells of the connement and subsequent escape of her children. As she walks to the beach to join herself with the
an animal born in a cage, preguring her concern for the eternal ux of Nature symbolized by the sea, the children
themes of freedom and nature vs. civilization. Because her central appeared before her like antagonists who had overcome her; who
202
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CHURCH
had overpowered and sought to drag her into the souls slavery for Newsletter. Markham Review (1968). Perspectives on Kate Cho-
the rest of her days. But she knew a way to elude them. pin: Proceedings from the Kate Chopin International Conference,
6-8 April 1989, Northwestern State University, Natchitoches,
Chopins superb psychological insight, especially into the
Louisiana (1990).Southern Review (1975). The Courage to Write:
lives of her women, her vivid descriptions of Creole and Acadian
Women Novelists of the Nineteenth Century (audiocassette, 1993).
life, and her deep-felt concern with human relationships and
social institutions will preserve her reputation long after the initial
excitement of her rediscovery by contemporary critics has passed. THELMA J. SHINN
OTHER WORKS: The Complete Works of Kate Chopin (edited by

P. Seyersted, 2 vols. 1969).
Kate Chopins papers are in the Missouri Historical Society CHURCH, Ella Rodman (McIlvane)
in St. Louis, as well as in the Eugene Watson Memorial Library of
Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana.
Born 1831; death date unknown
Wrote under: Ella Rodman
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bloom, H., ed., Kate Chopin (1987). Bonner, T.,
The Kate Chopin Companion: With Chopins Translations from Ella Rodman Churchs publications include novels, child-
French Fiction (1989). Boren, L. and S. Davis, eds., Kate Chopin rens stories, and pamphlets on gardening, needlework, and bird
Reconsidered: Beyond the Bayou (1992). Boyd, V. D., The life. Churchs major novel is The Catanese; or, The Real and the
Rhetoric of Gender Politics in At Fault and Selected Short Ideal (1853). Set in southern Italy, the novel presents an interest-
Stories of Kate Chopin (dissertation, 1995). Chelte, J. S.,
ing blend of sentimental and gothic modes. Characters such as the
Philomelas Tapestry: Empowering Voice Through Text, Texture,
depraved priest, Father Roberts, and the pious heroine, Phillippa,
and Silence (dissertation, 1996). Dickson, R. J., Ladies Out of
are standard Gothic types; however, in the portraits of the King
Touch: Kate Chopins Voiceless and Disembodied Women (dis-
and Queen of the Castel Novo, Church presents characters whose
sertation, 1998). Dyer, J., The Awakening: A Novel of Beginnings
(1993). Ewell, B. C., Kate Chopin (1986). Fick, T. H., and E. complex, imperfect relationship suggests her strong interest in
Gold, eds., Kate Chopin (1994). Green, S. D., Kate Chopin: An exploring the subtleties of male-female liaisons.
Annotated Bibliography of Critical Works (1999). Green, S. D.,
Flights of Fancy (1853) is Churchs collection of short
Knowing Is Seeing: Conceptual Metaphor in the Fiction of Kate
ction. In First Impressions, one of the simplest but best tales,
Chopin (dissertation, 1998). Hoffman, P. E., The Search for
a husband and wife affectionately recall their initial negative
Self-Fulllment: Marriage in the Short Fiction of Kate Chopin,
impressions of each other. In several other tales, Church experi-
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Sarah Orne Jewett (thesis, 1991).
Koloski, B., Kate Chopin: A Study of the Short Fiction (1996). ments with the dramatic monologue form. The best is The
Leary, L., Southern Excursions: Essays on Marks Twain and Widower, in which Church traces the emotional life of a spinster
Others (1971). Martin, W., ed., New Essays on The Awakening through her journals and interior monologues. Of central interest
(1994). Petry, A. H., ed., Critical Essays on Kate Chopin (1996). in the collection is the two-part saga of the Clavers family. In the
Podlasli, H. M., Freedom and Existentialist Choice in the Fiction rst tale, The Wifes Revenge, a young wife leaves her
of Kate Chopin (dissertation, 1991). Russell, K. E., Hidden husband to become a famous actress. Whereas the readers
Darkness: Landscape as Psychological Symbol in Kate Chopins sympathy should go to the abandoned husband who must rear
Fiction (dissertation, 1998). Seyersted, P., Kate Chopin: A Criti- their infant daughter alone, Church deftly reverses this attitude
cal Biography (1990). Sparks, L. V., Counterparts: The Fiction of through a series of ashbacks illustrating how Duncan Clavers
Mary Wilkins Freeman, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Kate Chopin obsessive drive for power, money, and a more beautiful wife
(1993). Springer, M., Edith Wharton and Kate Chopin: A Refer- created his tragedy. Eventually, his teenage daughter learns of his
ence Guide (1976). The Awakening: Complete, Authoritative Text coldness to her mother and deserts him to live with her. The
with Biographical and Historical Contexts, Critical History, and second part of the narrative, Minna Clavers, is the story of the
Essays from Five Contemporary Critical Perspectives (1993). daughters maturity and the backstage world of the theater.
Toth, E., Kate Chopin (1993). Toth, E., Unveiling Kate Chopin
(1999). Van Sittert, B. C., Social Institutions and Biological Church is skilled in creating complex characters. She is
Determinism in the Fictional World of K. Chopin (disserta- particularly good at sketching intelligent, creative women with
tion, 1975). sophisticated patterns of motivation and conict. Her writings
Reference works: Benets Readers Encyclopedia (1987). deal thoughtfully with many different types of relationships
DAB. NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). Oxford Companion to Womens between men and women. Her consistent theme is the distinction
Writing in the United States (1995). Twaynes Women Authors on between what is possible and what is only desirable, and she
CD-ROM (1995). prefers reality with its imperfections to unrealistic expectations.
Other references: Kate Chopin (video, 1994). Kate Chopin
and the 19th-Century Woman (audiocassette, 1987). Kate Chopin ROSE F. KAVO
203
CHUTE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
CHUTE, Beatrice J(oy) marriage proposal from every suitor until the acceptable bride-
groom, like his devoted cat, unobtrusively joins her affectionate
female mnage.
Born 3 January 1913, Minneapolis, Minnesota; died 1987
Wrote under: B. J. Chute Chute has a genius for making believable characters perceive
Daughter of William Young and Mary Pickburn Chute in poetry and speak in clever prose. She wrote her rst stories in
male disguise and returns frequently to the male protagonist,
although her female characters are consistently brighter, more
The youngest of three literary sisters, Beatrice J. Chute
attractive, and more genuine than their lovers and husbands.
worked for 10 years in her fathers Minneapolis realty ofce until
Chute nds her ctional voice in the popular magazine but
his death in 1930 prompted her to move to New York City with her
modulates it beautifully to describe comfortable people who win
scholarly sister Marchette and their forceful, English-born moth- small victories for their better selves.
er. As professor of writing at Barnard College, Chute also worked
as a volunteer for 35 years with the New York Police Depart-
ments youth recreation program. OTHER WORKS: Camp Hero (1942). The Fields Are White (1950).
The End of Loving (1953). The Blue Cup and Other Stories
At nineteen Chute established her pen name with a juvenile (1957). Journey to Christmas (1958). The Story of a Small Life
sports story. Readers assumed B. J. Chute, author of over 50 (1972). The Good Woman (1986).
formulaic stories about young male athletes, was a man. Her rst
novel, Blocking Back (1938), sets a prep schools tense popularity
contest on the football eld. The same rivalry in Shattuck Cadet BIBLIOGRAPHY: Chute, M., Minnesota Writers (1961). Cofn, R. W.,
(1940) divides a Minnesota Episcopal military academy between ed., New York Theatre Critics Reviews (1960). Wylie, G. M.,
the letter and the spirit of its disciplinary code. B. J. Chute: Theory and Practice (thesis, 1966).
Reference works: CA (1962). More Junior Authors (1963).
While Chutes sports stories were appearing regularly in Other references: WLB (Sept. 1950). Marchette and B.J.
Boys Life and in her own collections, Shift to the Right (1944) and Chute (videocassette, 1958).
Teen-Age Sports Parade (1949), she adjusted the formula to
popular romance for McCalls, Redbook, and Womans Home GAYLE GASKILL
Companion. In 1944, however, she abandoned formula writing.
In her most successful novel, Greenwillow (1956), Chute

writes a lyric pastoral fantasy. Two ministers in amiable conict CHUTE, Carolyn
preach delight and damnation to an innocent and isolated commu-
nity. In an elegant style precisely descriptive of woodlands, Born 14 June 1947, Portland, Maine
kittens, and kitchen smells, Chute collects a pastiche of warm Daughter of Joseph R. and Annie Prindall Penny; married James
affectionsfrom a farm boys pride in a cow to the devotion of Hawkes, 1963 (divorced 1971); Michael Chute, 1978; child-
two aging spinster sisters. At its heart lies a love story of freshness ren: Joannah, Reuben (died in infancy)
and appealing charm. In 1960 Greenwillow was produced as a
musical play by Lesser Samuels with a score by Frank Loesser. It The oldest of three children, Carolyn Chute grew up in a
played almost 100 performances in New York, winning praise for military housing development in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. At
the energetic Halloween ballet, a real cow, and actor Anthony sixteen, after dropping out of high school, she married a factory
Perkins, who played Gideon. worker, James Hawkes, who was as disenchanted with school as
she was. Divorced at twenty-four, Chute picked potatoes, scrubbed
In The Moon and the Thorn (1961) Chute makes a new
oors, cleaned chickens, and performed low-paying jobs to sup-
statement with a courtship novel that unfolds three love stories.
plement the meager child support Hawkes could provide for their
She imaginatively creates a folklore to reinterpret the theme of her daughter, Joannah. She rarely made more than $2,000 per year. In
realistic novels: the fault of indelity is not love of one person but 1978 Chute married a sometimes-employed woodsman eight
neglect of another. The sexual passion which can break family ties years her junior, Michael Chutea man slow with words because
resolves into a memory under the power of a sisters understand- of illiteracy and a mild speech impediment. Though Chute com-
ing affection. pleted high school by taking evening classes and then took several
Lecturing to young writers in 1962 (When the Writer courses at the University of Southern Maine, she is a slow reader
and probably had read no more than 30 books by the time her rst
Comes of Age), Chute examined the subjective style she devel-
novel was published.
oped to study inner experience. This style controls most of the
collected short stories in One Touch of Nature (1965), an antholo- Her novels and her stories are authentic, powerful regional
gy portraying temporary solutions to perpetual domestic conicts. ction about what it means to be poor in backwoods Maine. Some
In Katie (1978), Chute creates a sexual comedy in the eloquent, critics have denounced the novels for wallowing in deprivation,
whimsical style of her best work. Katie rebels against her moth- while others commend Chutes humor, sensitivity, and compas-
ers and sisters doctrine of free love by chastely demanding a sion for those who do not take part in the American dream.
204
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CHUTE
Clearly, it is not the social implications of her characters lives Photography books have also been the focus of two of
that interest her, for she wrote, Ever since the beginning of time, Chutes recent works, as she puts words to the pictures. The rst
and until the world ends, there will be some people who will get of the pair, Up River: The Story of a Maine Fishing Community,
everything and others that dont. It is rather the struggle, and the teamed the regional writer with photographer Olive Pierce and
human dignity of those, like Chute herself, who have lived in focused on the real people of Maine, mostly hard-working, mostly
hunger, shame, and deprivation that she wants to make known. poverty-stricken, so she doesnt stray far from her usual tree.
Despite their enraged, violent, incestuous, tacky, frustrated, and Well-known novelist Peter Matthiessen said of the book, It
ignorant ways, the characters in The Beans of Egypt, Maine (1985) conveys sharply and poignantly, in text as well as photographs,
and Letourneaus Used Auto Parts (1989) exact from the reader the gritty culture of a last outpost of the beleaguered commercial
not only attention but also respect. shing communities on our diminished coasts. The second,
Elmer Walker: Hermit to Hero, was due for publication in
Poverty and human connectedness are central themes in mid-1999.
Chutes ction, as in the authors life. The rst novel is dedicated
to her son, Reuben Chute, who died in infancy from the negligent But her poverty-stricken upbringing and erratic schooling
medical attention available to the poor. Chute began writing it as have not resulted in someone ignorant. Quite the contrary, the shy,
self-help. She gave her sons name to the worst Bean character, genial personality, combined with a disarmingly rumpled-looking
whose rage is bred by poverty. Often the violence is against exterior, contains a sharp mind within. Active in local politics, she
women. Reuben used to beat his ex-wife; his cousin, Beal, rapes talks about everything from the American economic climate to
Earlene Pomerleau. Earlene drifts into marriage with Beal, but shoddy product workmanship in numerous public appearances.
ends up Reubens woman, after Beal is killed before her eyes and She also teaches creative writing classes, including at the Univer-
Reuben has come home from prison for nearly beating a game sity of Southern Maine, and has gained words of praise and
warden to death. In contrast to Reuben and his rage is green-thumbed recognition from colleagues such as Joyce Carol Oates.
Roberta Bean, earth mother to a brood of adoring children, some
Chute started writing, the only activity for which she felt
of them Beals. Chute got some publicity when, in a December
qualied, when she was eight years old. As a part-time correspon-
1992 interview in Spin, singer Kurt Cobain and his wife, Courtney dent for the Portland Evening Express, she learned to edit and to
Love, named their daughter Frances Bean Cobain, supposedly detach herself emotionally from what she was writing. Her widely
after the novel, which the interviewer described as the ultimate disparate narrative styles, as in Earlenes rural rst-person,
white trash novel. next-to-articulate narration in Beans, together with the anecdotal
Just down the road from Egypt is Miracle City, the setting of prose of Auto Parts, belie a meticulous writing process. Chute
Chutes second novel, whose name reects the heart of gold of considers herself a perfectionist who edits her work painstakingly,
Big Lucien Letourneau, who lls his home with stray individuals particularly at its inception. In Chute, the state of Maine has a
along with all the children he sires. He operates a trailer park free powerful native voice.
of charge for the down-and-outs in his battle against the books
only real villain, the housing code man. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1988). CLC (1986).
With the third book set in the area, Merry Men (1994), Other references: Ms. (April 1986). New England Review
Booklist reviewer Donna Seaman coined the phrase Egyptmainea and Bread Loaf (Winter 1985, interviews). People Weekly (25
for the series. This time we follow the life of Lloyd Barrington. March 1985).
We see him as an eight-year-old boy whose mother has died,
ELISABETH SANDBERG,
leaving him and his womanizing father and uncles to fend for
UPDATED BY DARYL F. MALLETT
themselves. Thinking himself a young Johnny Appleseed, he is
Super Tree Man, planting maple tree seedlings in the yards of less
fortunate neighbors by night. We watch him grow into a very
young grandfather. Along with Lloyds strange Uncle Walt (Unk CHUTE, Marchette (Gaylord)
Walty), who makes life-sized sculptures of the residents of Egypt,
Maine, Chutes staples appear throughout the book, with an
Born 16 August 1909, Hazelwood, Minnesota; died 6 May 1994
ex-con (Carroll Plummer) and violent death (a housewife is shot
Daughter of William Young and Mary Pickburn Chute
to death in her backyard). She deviates from her poverty-ridden
path to tell the story of Gwen, a rich widow who returns to Egypt
The second of three daughters born to a Minneapolis realtor
and pursues Lloyd. The book came about as a result of Chutes
and his English-born wife, Marchette Chute studied at the Minne-
leadership, in the early 1990s, of her own movement of the poor
apolis School of Art before earning her B.A. from the University
and underrepresented, which most called The Second Maine
of Minnesota in 1930. After her fathers death in 1939, Chute
Militia, but which she referred to as her Wicked Good Mili-
moved to a Manhattan apartment with her mother and younger
tia. The book also tells about the militia and offers a fascinating
sister, novelist Beatrice J. (B. J.) Chute.
and deep look into the tensions which exist between Maine natives
and those from away. Two additional novels, The School on Chutes diligently researched reconstructions of the lives of
Hearts Content Road and Snow, were as yet forthcoming from Shakespeare and Chaucer have contributed a great deal to scholar-
Harcourt at the time of this writing. ship about the ages in which they wrote. In Shakespeare of
205
CHUTE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
London (1949), still in print after 30 years, Chute surveys wills, Search for God (1941) is a biblical commentary using the tech-
law suits, council minutes, and church registers to detect the niques of the New Criticism: by placing familiar lines of Scripture
affections and jealousies that reveal late Elizabethan personali- into their original contexts, she evokes the personalities of writers
ties, and then threads them into historical speculations. The behind the words. Chute identies the Genesis conict of creative
remarkable absence of lawsuits in Shakespeares company, for love with punishable sin as an ancient dissatisfaction with human
example, suggests harmonious personal loyalties. Chutes Shake- ignorance of the God who would be found in Jesus, the teacher
speare is a successful theatrical investor, an actor-writer who who overcame not only death but irritation with his slow-witted
knows his craft, his company, and all the classes of his audience; disciples. She initiates her study with Job, who sancties intellec-
he is also a householder who must remain aloof from his Stratford tual struggle with ecclesiastical authority. Adroit quotation and
neighbors. Chutes imagination occasionally produces dubious lucid style compensate for theological simplicity.
assertions: from excuses for slow mail she contrives a lonely
Stratford death for little Hamnet Shakespeare while his unknow- A sequel to this work, The End of the Search (1946), is a
ing father tours the provinces. Generally, however, she offers her guide to the New Testament history of the early church. Chute
wide audience encyclopedic research with novelistic relish. emphasizes the Jewish tradition within Christian doctrine, prac-
tice, and factionalism. Her contextual approach allows her to
Chute had discovered her writing forte in Geoffrey Chaucer overlook Pauls pharisaical admonitions to women and to admire
of England (1946), a popular literary biography growing ingen- his panegyric on love, but it gives her little help in decoding the
iously from her wide contextual research. Details of international mystic metaphors of Revelation. Chute begins and ends her
diplomacy and wine trade reveal Chaucers social status; of King biography of Jesus of Israel (1961) with messianic prophecies and
Edwards courts, his audiences attitudes; and of the Romance of conates conicting gospels to show the son of God as an
the Rose, his literary prototypes. Chutes commentaries are sound orthodox, 1st-century Jew under Roman rule.
and feminist, alert to Chaucers sympathy for faithless Criseyde,
his bitterness in the Merchants tale of courtly lust, and his portrait Chutes diligent, colorful scholarship releases a new histori-
of marriage as loving partnership in the Franklins tale. Chutes cal subject from reverent myths in The First Liberty: A History of
practical criticism and rich storytelling introduce Chaucer to a the Right to Vote in America, 1619-1850, which she abridged and
popular audience. updated for high school readers in The Green Tree of Democracy
(1971). Her detailed colonial history links the hesitant growth of
The artful scholarship that portrays Shakespeare or Chaucer individual political responsibility to English tradition and capital-
as practical, friendly men of their times meets an obstacle in Ben ist expansion. Regressive property requirements dog every exten-
Jonson of Westminster (1953). Chute describes Jonsons environ- sion of the franchise, so Jeffersons radical Declaration of Inde-
ment with entertaining detailthe lot of a poor scholar in Camdens pendence wins grudging colonial approval chiey as an access to
school, the grim struggle of a soldier in the Low Countries, the French aid. Chute treats the suffrage of women and blacks as part
controversial Elizabethan theater, and the Jacobean court where of a ceaseless struggle of all citizens to achieve democratic
Jonson acted and wrotebut despite earnest diligence, she cannot identity.
quite approach her subject. She accepts Jonsons self-proclama-
tion as dictator of a moral, truly classical English theater without Chutes many works for children include rhymes about city
acknowledging the dramatic inadequacies, classical misreadings, and country life and juvenile historical romances. In The Wonder-
and sheer self-promotion. Though she has read Jonsons vitupera- ful Winter (1954), a runaway young baronet joins Shakespeares
tive satires, she discounts their revelation of his bitter jealousy, company for Romeo and Juliet. Because her plot line permits
vulgarity, and self-disgust. In Jonsons eulogy to Shakespeare Chute to explore the London theater with a bright childs delight,
He was not of an age but for all timeChute is so pleased to its incredible coincidences are excusable. Chute summarizes
nd practical friendship that she overlooks the triumph of critical Shakespeares exciting plots in Stories from Shakespeare (1956),
acumen that makes his words a tribute to both men. a reference work as useful for the young scholar as for the casual
adult theatergoer. It is a convenient home reference book that stirs
With Two Gentle Men: The Lives of George Herbert and the general reader with an experts knowledge.
Robert Herrick (1959), Chute turns her careful, sympathetic
personality research to two rural poet-priests of the 17th-century With patient, observant discipline and imagination, Chute
Church of England, dening itself between reformation and civil lovingly creates historical personalities from her library research,
war. With her usual understated style, Chute frames her subjects and, in a style that is gracious, gently humorous, unimpassioned,
with the London and Cambridge of their early development and and lucid, presents them to general readers as sympathetic, lively
contrasts their difcult lives as country priests with their forsaken souls concerned with the temporal and timeless issues of their own
ambitions in politics and Jonsonian poetry. Though she interprets experience.
Herberts struggling sacred colloquies and Herricks classical
imitations of country pleasures largely as biographical evidence,
OTHER WORKS: Rhymes About Ourselves (1932). Rhymes About
she gives a popular audience her sure grasp of historical context.
the Country (1941). The Innocent Wayfaring (1943). Rhymes
Throughout her writing career, Chute applied her investiga- About the City (1946). An Introduction to Shakespeare (1951).
tive talents to reconstructions of events of biblical stories. The Around and About (1957). The Fun of Writing a Book in
206
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CISNEROS
Bulletin of the New York Public Library (1957). The Worlds of he broke the door when his foot went through, though on most
Shakespeare (with E. Perrie, 1963). Rhymes About Us (1974). days he is okay. Except he wont let her talk on the telephone. And
he doesnt let her look out the window.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Armor, J., Bio-bibliography of Marchette Chute By the end of the book, Esperanzas journey toward indepen-
(thesis, 1959). Dobbs, P. J., Marchette Chutes Biographies: A dence merges two central themes, that of writing and a house of
Critical Analysis and Denition of Her Life-Writing Style her own. Her rejection of womans place in the culture involves
(thesis, 1974). not only writing but also leaving the barrio, raising problematic
Reference works: CA (1962). CB (1950). Everymans Dic- issues of changing class and cultural identity. But Esperanza
tionary of Literary Biography (revised edition, 1969). More concludes the book with the promise to return, understood meta-
Junior Authors (1963). SAA (1971). TCA: First Supplement (1955). phorically, through her writing: They will not know I have gone
Other references: Marchette and B. J. Chute (videocas- away to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who
sette, 1958). cannot get out.
Mango Street captures the dialectic between self and com-
GAYLE GASKILL
munity in Chicana writing. Esperanza nds her literary voice
through her own cultural experience and that of other Chicanas.
She seeks self-empowerment through writing, while recognizing
her commitment to Chicanas. Her promise to pass down to other
CISNEROS, Sandra women the power she has gained from writing is fullled by the
text itself.
Born 1954, Chicago, Illinois
Daughter of Elvira C. Anguiano and Alfredo Cisneros del Moral In Cisneros 1984 collection of poetry, My Wicked Wicked
Ways, the young voice of Mango Street coexists with that of a
The daughter of a Mexican father and a Mexican-American grown woman/poet struggling with her contradictory desires. The
mother, and sister to six brothers, Sandra Cisneros has worked as a narrator of these poems wants to be independent and an artist.
teacher to high school dropouts, a poet-in-the-schools, a college While she takes many lovers, she prefers to dance alone. As
Theresa Martnez notes, Poetryboth painful and miraculous
recruiter, and an arts administrator. She has also taught as a
emerges from a lonely and sometimes isolated self who is, at the
visiting writer at a number of universities around the country.
same time, truly her core being, a woman who is well worth
Cisneros is a graduate of the University of Iowas Writers Work-
knowing for her own sake.
shop and recipient of four writing fellowships for poetry and
ction, two from the National Endowment for the Arts, one from This struggle to nd her place not only as a woman but also as
the Lannan Foundation (1991), and one from the MacArthur an artist is carried through in Woman Hollering Creek (1991), a
Foundation (1995). She is the rst Chicana writer to be published collection of short stories. Set on both sides of the border, the
by a mainstream press (Random House). stories of Woman capture the in-between of Chicano identity,
as in Mericans, when gringo tourists are disappointed to learn
Told through the point of view of a young girl, Cisneros rst
that the picturesque children they have photographed are Ameri-
book of ction, The House on Mango Street (1984), is character-
cans visiting their Mexican grandmother. It is in these stories that
ized by a deceptively simple, accessible style and structure. The
Cisneros rst gives full rein to her biting sense of humor: the
novels short sections are marvels of poetic language that capture
grandmothers full moniker is the awful grandmother, and the
a girls vision of the world she inhabits. Esperanza is already
child narrator passes her time in church counting the awful
painfully aware of the racial and economic oppression her com-
grandmothers nose hairs. In One Holy Night, Cisneros light-
munity suffers, but it is the fate of the women in her barrio that has
ens an otherwise depressing tale with confessions like: I dont
the most profound impact on her, especially as she begins to
know how many girls have gone bad from selling cucumbers. I
develop sexually and learns that the same fate might be hers. The
know Im not the rst. In My Tocaya, the narrator, Patricia,
parade of women victimized by their cultures rigid gender roles
has a Chicana schoolmate who changes her name to Trish and
begins with her great-grandmother, a wild horse of a woman, so
affects a British accent. A girl who wore rhinestone earrings and
wild she wouldnt marry until my great-grandfather threw a sack
glitter high heels to school, Patricia observes, was destined for
over her head and carried her off. And the story goes she never
trouble that nobodynot God or correctional institutions
forgave him. She looked out the window all her life, the way so
could mend.
many women sit their sadness on an elbow. . . I have inherited her
name, but I dont want to inherit her place by the window. The stories in Woman mine the rich vein of popular culture,
Esperanza bears witness to the hard lessons taught Chicanas about as in Little Miracles, Kept Promises, and continue Cisneros
being women and belonging to men: Rafaela whose husband thematic concern with male/female relationships, whether spiral-
locks her up because she is too beautiful, Minerva who takes her ing in old patterns (Never Marry a Mexican) or telling the story
husband back every time he leaves her, Sally whose father beats of a womans escape from a battering husband through the legend
her. Sally gets married before the eighth grade to escape her of La Llorona in the title story Woman Hollering Creek. The
fathers domination, only to fall under the control of her husband: womans savior appeared in the form of a loud, laughing, pickup
She is happy except sometimes her husband gets angry and once truck driving comadre named Felice (Happiness). Felice doesnt
207
CLAMPITT AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
need a man. Shes got her truck, and she makes the payments director for the college textbook division. In 1952 she moved to
herself. the National Audubon Society, where she served as research
librarian.
In Loose Woman (1994), a book of love poems, Cisneros
poetic voice has grown stronger and more self-assured. Most of The 1950s were an unhappy period for Clampitt, who felt
the bravado of Wicked Ways has worn off, and the poet who is left herself somewhat of a mist. She wrote several novels during this
alone sometimes nds herself wishing books loved back. But decade, but none were ever published. In 1959 she returned to
she picks herself up and shakes off self-pity in the catalogue Iowa to be closer to her family, but after six months returned to
poem, You Bring Out the Mexican in Me, a rollicking, New York. The 1960s, with the decades anything-goes accept-
Whitmanesque howl at loves power to afrm life. ance, was a happier time for Clampitt who found success as a
freelance editor, writer, and researcher for the next 17 years. In
1977 she accepted a position as editor at E. P. Dutton, where she
OTHER WORKS: Bad Boys (1980). Hair: Pelitos (1994). remained until 1982.
During the 1960s and 1970s Clampitt began to concentrate
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Caldern, H. and J. D. Saldvar, eds., Criticism in on writing poetry. After being unable to secure a publisher,
the Borderlands: Studies in Chicano Literature, Culture, and Clampitt paid Washington Street Press to publish a limited edition
Ideology (1991). Garca, M. and E. McCraken, eds., Rearticulations: of her rst collection, Multitudes, Multitudes, which was released
The Practice of Chicano Cultural Studies (1994). Horno- in 1973. In 1978 the poetry editor at the New Yorker, Howard
Delgado, A., et al eds., Breaking Boundaries: Latina Writing and Moss, noticed her work and began to publish her frequently, as did
Critical Reading (1989). Kester-Shelton, P., ed., Feminist Writers other magazines, including the Atlantic Monthly, Kenyon Review
(1996). Lpez-Gonzlez, A., et al, eds. Mujer y literatura mexicana and Yale Review. In 1981 the Coalition of Publishers for Employ-
y chicana: Culturas en contacts (1990). Quintana, A. E., Chicana ment published her second limited-edition collection, The Isth-
Discourse: Negations and Meditations (dissertation, 1990). mus. Two more limited editions of Clampitts poetry followed,
Reference works: CA (1991). Hispanic Writers (1991). Ox- The Summer Solstice in 1983 and A Homage to John Keats in 1984.
ford Companion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995).
Meanwhile, Clampitts rst major collection, The Kingsh-
Other references: Americas Review (Fall-Winter 1990, Spring
erthe title inspired by a Hopkins poemwas published in 1983
1990). Critica (1986). Midwest Quarterly (Autumn 1995). Revista
and was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle award. The
Chicano-Riquena (1985).
collection is organized around the four elements of re, water,
YVONNE YARBRO-BEJARANO AND HELENA ALONSO
earth, and air, focusing on natural themes and contains examina-
tions of negative emotions (although rarely of relationships). The
sixty-three-year-olds reputation as a leading contemporary Ameri-
can poet was immediate.
CLAMPITT, Amy (Kathleen) Clampitts second collection, What the Light Was Like, was
published in 1985 and contains 40 poems organized into ve
Born 15 June 1920, New Providence, Iowa; died 10 September 1994 sections. Like The Kingsher and all of her subsequent work, it
Daughter of Roy Justice and Lutie Pauline Felt Clampitt; mar- garnered nearly unanimous critical approval, although some re-
ried Harold L. Korn viewers took issue with individual poems. Clampitts poetry is
full of allusions to modern and classical literature. A poem in the
second collection, Voyages: A Homage to John Keats, for
Amy Clampitt grew up in Iowa on a 125-acre farm, gaining
example, requires knowledge not only of his poetry but of his
an appreciation for nature but at the same time becoming cogni-
correspondence and the facts of his life. Clampitt purposely
zant of feelings of isolation and unhappiness. Both her love for the
included some poems on lighter subjects in What the Light Was
natural world and her awareness of the darker emotions are
Like, although the overall darkness of the collection persisted.
evident throughout her densely literate and allusion-lled work.
She has often been hailed as one of the leading contemporary Three other collections followed, Archaic Figure (1987),
poets in America, a fact especially notable given that her rst Westward (1990), and A Silence Opens (1994), the latter of which
major collection of poetry was not published until she was was published the year Clampitt died from cancer. Publishers
sixty-three. Weekly wrote of the last, Clampitts gravely luminous fth
volume of poems dwells, with an extraordinary certainty of
While attending Grinnell College in Iowa, she discovered
language, on the uncertain texture of living. The Collected
poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, who became a major inuence.
Poems of Amy Clampitt (1997) contains excerpts from all of her
After graduating in 1941, Clampitt moved to New York and ve previous works but none of the new poems that had surfaced
studied briey at Columbia University and later at the New since her death.
School for Social Research. Never viewing herself as an academ-
ic, she dropped out of Columbia and found a job as a secretary at All of Clampitts poetry is challenging to the reader on many
Oxford University Press, where she eventually rose to promotion levels. Its rich vocabulary includes many unfamiliar words; its
208
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CLAPP
syntax is complicated; and its allusions, which are central to the Clapps view, the crucial event in Bigelows life was his discov-
poems meanings, require an educated audience. While her themes ery, at age thirty-seven, of Swedenborgian philosophy. This
are universal, her topics are wide-ranging and her work brings discovery coincided with a critical time of questioning in Bigelows
together travel, science, psychology, metaphysics, myth, foreign personal life. Under Swedenborgs inuence, Bigelow increas-
language, commerce, nature, art, and, in some instances, humor. ingly turned his attention to public service.
Her dense poems deed the 1980s trend toward plain-lan-
In Forgotten First Citizen, Clapp focuses primarily on the
guage poetry.
public, rather than the private, gure. She argues that the public
Clampitt won a number of awards after her late start as an arena of disinterested service was the focus of Bigelows life.
acclaimed poet, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, member- Although Clapp draws on Bigelows extensive journals, she does
ship in the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a not trace the actual development of his thought. Instead, she
MacArthur Foundation grant, and a Lila Wallace-Readers Digest stresses the practical consequences of his theories.
Writers award. She was a writer-in-residence at several colleges,
Clapp had a rm grasp of the internal workings of the
including the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the College of
American political system and of the role that the political
William and Mary, and Amherst.
publicist plays in American life. Her grasp of political reality and
her perceptive approach to the life of public service gave strength
OTHER WORKS: The Essential Donne (ed., 1988). Predecessors, and focus to her portrait of Bigelow. With clarity and understand-
Et Cetera (a collection of essays, 1991). ing she portrayed the growth of the private individuals commit-
ment to public interest. She noted that both Bigelow and Bryant
viewed the primary role of the newspaper to be the formation of
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference Works: Benets Readers Encyclope- public opinion. Both men stressed the inuence the press could
dia of American Literature (1991). CANR 29 (1990). CBY have in shaping the quality of life in democratic America.
(1992, 1994).
Clapp saw Bigelow as a man of singularly balanced quali-
Other references: Economist (15 Aug. 1998). Nation (3 Nov.
ties of mind and spirit. He was, she contended, a man of idealism
1997). New Republic (19 and 26 Sept. 1994, 6 March 1995). NYT
and practicality, of realism and integrity. Though he had a clear
(12 Sept. 1994). NYTBR (9 Nov. 1997). Poetry (July 1998). PW
sense of the power of money, he was not committed to obtaining
(31 Jan. 1994). Time (26 Sept. 1994). Wall Street Journal (7
wealth. In the end, it was Bigelows long-term, clear-headed
Nov. 1997).
commitment to public welfare in New York City that won him the
KAREN RAUGUST
citys high praise as rst citizen.
Clapp edited The Modern University in 1950, and in it she
shares with Bigelow a concern for educating American society. In
the one chapter Clapp herself wrote, she focuses on the post-
CLAPP, Margaret Antoinette World War II demand for the democratization of higher educa-
tion. She clearly evaluates the immediate opportunities and prob-
Born 11 April 1910, East Orange, New Jersey; died 3 May 1974, lems associated with that dream, and discusses the difculty of
Tyringham, Massachusetts nancing such a commitment. She stresses the need to balance
Daughter of Alfred Chapin and Anna Roth Clapp enthusiasm for scientic research with a concern for education as
the transmission of culture.
Margaret Antoinette Clapp, who was for many years presi- As an educator, Clapp was responsive to the difcult task
dent of Wellesley College, is primarily known as an educator. In Bigelow set for himself, the task of educating the American
1948, however, she won a Pulitzer Prize for Forgotten First society of his day to issues of public concern. As she reveals in
Citizen: John Bigelow (1947), a biography of the versatile 19th- The Modern University, Clapp shared Bigelows concern for
century New Yorker who early on found that one career could not determining long range goals and devising practical day-to-day
absorb all his emotions or energies. Thus Bigelow pursued such actions to translate vision into reality. Clapps most important
diverse careers as practicing law, editing the New York Evening biographical achievement lies in taking a relatively minor gure
Post with William Cullen Bryant, taking part in Democratic and in the American political scene and demonstrating convincingly
Republican party politics, and serving as minister to France the impact that such a man can have in shaping the quality of
during the Civil War. He had a lifetime interest in progressive American life.
change and was involved in prison reform, abolition, and urban
reform. He ended his career as a founder of the New York Public
Library. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CB (1948).
Other references: NYT (22 June 1947, 4 May 1974). NYHTB
Clapp wrote with a keen eye for character and was sensitive (22 July 1947). Saturday Review of Literature (26 July 1947).
to the changing aspirations of a man who never did completely
fulll the worldly promise he showed as a young man. In INZER BYERS
209
CLAPPE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
CLAPPE, Louise (Amelia Knapp) Smith CLARK, Ann Nolan

Born 28 July 1819, Elizabethtown, New Jersey; died 9 February Born 1898, Las Vegas, New Mexico; died 13 December 1995
1906, Morristown, New Jersey Daughter of Patrick F. and Mary Dunn Nolan; married Tho-
Wrote under: Dame Shirley mas P. Clark, 1919
Daughter of Moses and Lois Lee Smith; married Fayette Clappe,
1848 or 1849 A shy young girl, Ann Nolan Clark rst attended convent
schools and later majored in education at Highland University.
Shortly after Louise Smith Clappes marriage to her physi- Her early life in Las Vegas was inculcated with the attitudes and
cian husband the couple migrated to the California gold elds lifestyles of four distinct cultural groups: Indian, Spanish, French,
where, they believed, there would be a great need for the services and Anglo-European. This inuence later contributed to Clarks
of a physician. The couple lived in Rich Bar and the neighboring belief in cultural understanding and to her acceptance of divergent
gold camp of Indian Bar until near the end of 1852. From this peoples. Her interest in minority children caused her to enter the
experience came Clappes observations of life in the gold camps, Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1930 as a junior high school teacher.
The Shirley Letters (1854-55). Although she wrote other letters Since then Clark taught Indian children throughout the Southwest,
and verse both before and after The Shirley Letters, none came completed education-oriented UNESCO assignments in South
even close to the latters literary quality. America, and authored several childrens books.
Clarks rst signicant books were published by the Bureau
The Shirley Letters were written to Clappes sister Mary in
of Indian Affairs as bilingual texts after she began working as a
1851-52 while Clappe was living in the gold camps. Their purpose
teacher for the Tesuque Pueblo Indian children. Written in Eng-
was . . . to give you a true picture (as much as in me lies) of
lish and Tesuque, these simple stories reect Indian culture,
mining life and its peculiar temptations, nothing extenuating nor
traditions, and history. In simple, poetic, rhythmic prose, these
setting down aught in malice. The letters reect a spirit of
early stories relate the lifestyles of the Plains Indians, the Papapa,
spontaneity and vitality, giving detailed observations and vivid
the Pueblo, and the Navaho.
commentary on daily life in the gold camps.
One of Clarks early Navaho readers, In My Mothers House
Ferdinand Clappe Ewer, editor of The Pioneer; or California
(1941), was published in a trade edition, and helped Clark gain
Monthly Magazine, published them serially from January 1854, to national recognition. It reects the Navaho respect for nature and
December 1855, and described them as . . . penned in that light, pride in their culture. Throughout her works Clark has maintained
graceful, epistolary style, which only a lady can fall into; and as a reverent attitude toward minority cultures and has depicted them
they are a transcript of the impressions which the condition of as quiet people with great human dignity. Their cultural heritage
California affairs, two years ago, made upon a cultivated mind, always remains intact, and the pride within the group is nally
[they] cannot fail to be of general interest. acclaimed by the new generation. Clarks primary concern is to
In the 1933 edition of the letters Carl I. Wheat wrote in the inform her young readers of the strengths found within the many
introduction: . . . the Shirley Letters were at once recognized different ethnic groups living in the U.S. She is intent upon
as the rst literary production of outstanding merit inspired by the portraying each group as a strong, positive culture whose only
gold rush. Men who had lived through those earliest mad years of threats come from outside.
Californias peopling found in them a faithful and accurate Winner of the Regina Medal for her continued distinguished
portrayal of scenes which they themselves had witnessed. . . . In contribution to childrens literature and of the Newbery Medal for
her words we of today may in truth see and come . . . to understand her book The Secret of the Andes (1953), Clark maintained a high
life in the California mines as it was. . . . Her womans eye caught standard. In her adult book Journey to the People (1969), she says
and recorded an array of intimate details which no man would I believe children need childrens books that have been written
have noticed. These . . . elements . . . lend brilliancy and verisi- with honesty, accuracy, and reality . . . that enrich imagination
militude to the picture which she painted. . . . With the Shirley and foster appreciation. Some of her nest later works (e.g.,
Letters Clappe created a real masterpiece. Circle of Seasons, 1970; Year Walk, 1975) concern the yearly
patterns of a cultural group, and depict a changing community
whose rituals, goals, and aspirations are being affected by other
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Oglesby, R. E., introduction to Louise Clappes
nationalities within their particular geographic region.
The Shirley Letters (1970). Paul, R. W., In Search of Dame
Shirley, in Pacic Historical Review 33 (May 1964). Russell, Clarks early books were heralded for their honesty and their
T. C., introduction to The Shirley Letters from California in sympathy with Native American Indians in a period when there
1851-52 (1922). Walker, F., San Franciscos Literary Frontier were no valuable childrens materials written that espoused the
(1939). Wheat, C. I., introduction to California in 1851: The Indians viewpoint. Her early books remain eloquent, lasting
Letters of Dame Shirley (1933). portraits of American Indians and of South Americans. Clarks
Reference works: NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). books in the later 1970s deal with immigrants to the U.S. and their
adjustments, including Spanish (Year Walk, 1975), Finnish (All
LOIS E. CHRISTENSEN This Wild Land, 1976), and Vietnamese (To Stand Against the
210
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CLARK
Wind, 1978) peoples. While these stories contain the same posi- the control and conciseness which the essay demands. From 1936
tive theme of respect and understanding, they are less signicant to 1939, Clark was a member of the editorial staff of W. W.
to childrens literature. Her earlier stories, which were written Norton; in 1937, she edited with Horace Gregory a collection of
largely for nonreading Indian children, are more skilled in plot, works by young writers called New Letters in America. It included
characterization, and tone. Her early writing style reects the her rst published short story.
quiet simple attitudes of American Indian tribes and helps young
After the publication of her rst novel, The Bitter Box (1946),
readers to respect and understand Native Americans.
Clark received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and an
award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. The Bitter
OTHER WORKS: The Slim Butte Raccoon (1942, 1996). Little Box, a heavily symbolic novel, deals with the acceptance of life as
Navajo Bluebird (1943). Bringer of the Mystery Dog: A Story of a it is and the possibility of redemption through love and suffering.
Young Boy, Who in His Quest for Bravery Brought the First Horse Clark carefully manipulates point of view, balancing surrealism
to His People, the Antelope Band, a Plains Indian tribe, About the and stream of consciousness with a commentary by an objective
Year 1700 (1943, 1996). Young Hunter of Picuris (1943, 1996). narrator who is more interested in ideas than events.
Blue Canyon Horse (1954). Third Monkey (1956). The Little In 1952 Clark nished the rst of her unusual travel
Indian Basket Maker (1957). Santiago (1957). There Still Are books produced during long periods abroad, Rome and A Villa.
Buffalo (1958, 1996). The Pine Ridge Porcupine (1958). Little Although it is concerned with setting, the books effect is medita-
Boy with Three Names (1959). A Santo for Pasqualita (1959). A tive rather than descriptive. It reveals a keen awareness of
Childs Story of New Mexico (1960). World Song (1960). Look- atmosphere and the passing of time. Clarks observations are not
ing-for-Something (1961). The Desert People (1962). Pacos limited to place but encompass the political, literary, and personal
Miracle (1962). A Keepsake (1963). Bear Cub (1963). Brave as well. Katherine Anne Porter has said that Rome and A Villa is
Against the Enemy (1963). Medicine Mans Daughter (1963). Tia autobiographical in the best sense because it reects the
Marias Garden (1963). Father Kino; Priest to the Pimas (1963). impact of the outer world upon the inner.
Who Wants to Be a Prairie Dog? (1964, 1996). This for That
(1965). Little Herder in Autumn (1965). Little Herder in Summer For her next book, The Oysters of Locmariaquer (1964),
(1965). Brother Andre of Montreal (1967). Summer Is for Grow- Clark was awarded the National Book Award for nonction.
ing (1968). Sun Journey; A Story of Zuni Pueblo (1968, 1988). Oysters, too, is a book about a place, and it too belongs to a unique
Little Herder in Winter (1969). Along Sandy Trails (1969). These genre. It combines the techniques of the essay and the novel to
Were the Valiant; A Collection of New Mexico Proles (1969). portray life in a little town on the northwest coast of France which
Little Herder in Spring (1970). Hoofprint in the Wind (1972). Ann nurtures and produces most of the worlds oysters. As she
Nolan Clark Manuscripts (mixed materials, 1962). describes, Clark writes of history, ecology, and philosophy with a
profusion of detail enriched by allusions to modern and classical
literature.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Miller, B. M., and E. W. Field, eds., Newbery
Eyes, Etc.: A Memoir (1977), like so much that Clark has
Medal Books: 1922-1955 with Their Authors Acceptance Papers
written, belongs in a class of its own. It is a moving but never
and Related Material Chiey from the Horn Book Magazine
sentimental account of a brief period in her life, shortly after she
(1955). Whitehouse, J. C., The Early Life of Ann Nolan Clark: A
learned she was rapidly going blind. Eyes tells of the authors
Contextual Biography (thesis, 1987).
angry and always realistic response to the event, her afic-
Other references: WLB (Nov. 1960).
tion. But the book is also an opinionated and wry commentary
JILL P. MAY
on contemporary life, especially on our melodramatic and sim-
plistic methods of coping with frustration and disaster. Against
this background are woven the events of the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Clark constantly contrasts Homers tough-minded portrayal of
suffering and heroism with feeble modern attempts to cope with
CLARK, Eleanor life. The book contains the familiar themes of past and present,
renewal, suffering, and survival. Her style is even more cryptic
Born 6 July 1913, Los Angeles, California; died February 1996 than usual, due, perhaps, to the circumstances under which she
Daughter of Frederick H. and Eleanor Phelps Clark; married was writing.
Robert Penn Warren, 1952
OTHER WORKS: Dark Wedding by Ramn Jos Sender (trans. by
Although born in California, Eleanor Clark grew up in Clark, 1943). Song of Roland (adaptation by Clark, 1960). Baldurs
Roxbury, Connecticut, and describes herself as an unregenerate Gate (1970). Dr. Heart: A Novella and Other Stories (1974).
Yankee. She attended a one-room country school in Roxbury, Tamrart: 13 Days in the Sahara (1984).
convent schools in Europe, and then Rosemary Hall. After her
graduation from Vassar in 1934, she wrote essays and reviews for
a number of periodicals including the Partisan Review, Kenyon BIBLIOGRAPHY: Miller, V. T., The Literary Achievement and
Review, New Republic, and the Nation. Her writing demonstrated Reputation of Eleanor Clark (dissertation, 1991). Writers at
211
CLARK AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Work: A Tribute to Elizabeth Bishop, Eleanor Clark, Mary Crapo George Washington (1969). Though not a success, the experience
Hyde and Muriel Rukeyser: An Exhibit, June 1-July 30 (1984). encouraged her to write book-length ction.
Other references: CW (13 June 1952). Ms. (Nov. 1977).
Going from a hired writer of radio shows to a partner in her
Nation (27 April 1946). NYRB (30 July 1964). SR (29 Oct. 1977).
own radio show production company, Clark looked over the
ction she enjoyed readingit was almost all mysteriesand
JUDITH P. JONES decided to write thrillers. Based on a news story about a mother
who murdered her children to keep them out of her ex-husbands
custody and then claimed that they had been kidnaped, Where Are
the Children? (1974) began Clarks successful writing career.
Earning a $3,000 advance in hardcover, Clark in three months was
CLARK, Mary Higgins able to obtain a $100,000 advance for paperback rights. She used
the money for her childrens education as well as her own,
obtaining a bachelors degree in philosophy in 1978. Clark also
Born 24 December 1929, New York, New York
remarried in 1978 to Raymond Ploetz, but the marriage was later
Daughter of Luke Joseph and Nora C. Durkin Higgins; married
annulled.
Warren F. Clark (died 1964); Raymond Charles Ploetz, 1978
(annulled); children: Marilyn, Warren, David, Carol, Patricia. While pursuing her education, Clark followed her rst novel
with A Stranger Is Watching (1978), which garnered her over $1
million in paperback rights. This time she portrayed the kidnaping
Mary Higgins Clarks work portrays average people of a mans son and lover by the stranger who killed his wife. The
unsuspectingly tossed into terrifying situations. Appealing prima- Cradle Will Fall (1980), A Cry in the Night (1982), and Stillwatch
rily to women, her novels involve a woman and/or her children (1984) followed in turn, all involve a woman who is threatened by
being threatened with kidnaping, murder, or abuse. A combina- someone planning on killing her. Weep No More, My Lady (1987),
tion of suspense and mystery, Clarks novels show the fear of her in contrast, is a more traditional murder mystery set in a California
characters and provide clues for the solving of myriad crimes. health spa. All Clarks books became bestsellers, and in 1988 she
received monetary recognition of this fact when she obtained a
Clark was born on 24 December 1929, a middle daughter record-breaking $10.1 million contract from Simon & Schuster
between two sons. Her father, the owner of a bar, died when she for four novels and a collection of short stories. In 1992 she
was ten years old. Her mother did menial jobs to support her received a contract for $35 million for ve novels and a memoir.
children, and the children took part-time jobs while still in school.
Foregoing college, Clark went to secretarial school and secured a Along with her nancial success, Clark obtained honorary
job in the eld of advertising. After working for three years, she degrees from Villanova University and Rider College. She also
met with a friend who was an airline stewardess and listened to her won the New Jersey Author Award in 1969, 1977, and 1978, the
friend describe and complain about conditions in faraway coun- French Grand Prix de Littrature Policire in 1989, the Gold
Medal of Honor from the American Irish Society in 1993, and a
tries. Clark quit her job and signed on as a stewardess for Pan Am.
Gold Medal in Education from the National Arts Club in 1994.
A witness to much political unrest, she was on the last American
Clark continued to write novels well into the 1990s, accompanied
ight out of Czechoslovakia before it turned communist.
by her daughter Carol Higgins Clark, who also writes bestselling
Only a year was devoted to world travel. After that, Clark suspense novels.
married her childhood sweetheart and raised ve children. At the
same time, she decided to write ction. Attendance at a creative OTHER WORKS: While My Pretty One Sleeps (1989). The Anastasia
writing class at New York University led Clark to write a short Syndrome and Other Stories (1991). Loves Music, Loves to Dance
story based on her experiences as a stewardess. Entitled Last (1991). All Around the Town (1992). The Lottery Winner: Alvira
Flight from Danubia, the story involves a stowaway from and Willy Suspense Stories (1994). Ill Be Seeing You (1993).
Czechoslovakia and the stewardess who discovers him and must Remember Me (1994). Let Me Call You Sweetheart (1995). Silent
decide his fate. Forty rejection slips later, the story was sold to Night (1995). Moonlight Becomes You (1996). My Gal Sunday
Extension magazine for $100. (1997). Pretend You Dont See Her (1997). Stillwatch (1997). All
Through the Night (1998). You Belong to Me (1998). Well Meet
Clarks husband died of a heart attack in 1964. Faced with the Again (1999).
same situation her mother had faced when Clark was ten, the new
widow sought work as a writer, turning to radio shows about
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Pelzer, L. C., Mary Higgins Clark: A Critical
American history, cooking, and feature news stories. She wrote Companion (1995).
prodigiously, turning out approximately 15 stories a week. She Reference works: CANR 51 (1996). Twentieth Century Crime
also spent this time writing short ction, getting up at ve oclock and Mystery Writers (1991). Beachams Encyclopedia of Popular
a.m. so she could have two hours to write before the children went Fiction (1996). Great Women Mystery Writers (1994).
to school. Using her experiences from the radio show Portrait of
a Patriot, Clark wrote Aspire to the Heavens: A Portrait of ROSE SECREST
212
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CLEARY
CLARKE, Rebecca Sophia OTHER WORKS: Christmas Fairies (1860). The Doctors Daugh-
ter (1871). Our Helen (1874). The Asbury Twins (1875). Honey
(1878). Janet: A Poor Heiress (1882). A Christmas Breeze (1886).
Born 22 February 1833, Norridgewock, Maine; died 16 August The Campion Diamonds (1897). Pauline Wyman (1898). Santa
1906, Norridgewock, Maine Claus on Snow Shoes, and Other Stories (1898).
Wrote under: Sophie May
Daughter of Asa and Sophia Bates Clarke
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: American Authors: 1600-1900
Rebecca Sophia Clarke, who as Sophie May delighted (1938). American Women (1897). DAB (1929). NAW,
child readers for four decades, was educated at the Norridgewock 1607-1950 (1971).
(Maine) Female Academy and at home, where she had private Other references: Boston Transcript (17 Aug. 1906). Kennebec
tutors in Latin and Greek. Subsequently, she taught school for Journal (18 Aug. 1906). Lewiston Journal (2 Feb. 1924).
several years in Evansville, Illinois, until increasing deafness
caused her to retire to her family home in Norridgewock. KATHARYN F. CRABBE
Clarke quickly became a regular contributor to the Little

Pilgrim (a juvenile magazine) and to the Congregationalist.
Following the practice of the time, she then collected her periodi- CLEARY, Beverly
cal stories and republished them as series books. In the introduc-
tion to the rst volume of Little Prudy stories (1863), she greets
Born 1916, McMinnville, Oregon
her young readers, saying, You who have read of Prudy Parlin,
Daughter of Chester L. and Mabel Bunn Lloyd; married Clar-
in the Congregationalist and Little Pilgrim, and have learned to
ence T. Cleary, 1940
love her there, may love her better in a book by herself, with
pictures.
In one of her many laudatory reviews of Beverly Clearys
Little Prudy was the rst and title volume of Clarkes rst work, critic E. L. Buell said, Few writers for children can handle
series. Her second, and most popular, series was Dotty Dimple, everyday comedy so briskly and so realistically. Cleary claims
which appeared from 1867 to 1869. Her other principal juvenile that from childhood on she wanted to read funny stories about
works include Little Prudys Flyaway Series (1870-73), the the sort of children I knew, and she began writing such stories.
Quinnebasset Series (1871-91), the Flaxie Frizzle Stories (1876-84), Her experience (1939-40) as a childrens librarian in Yakima,
and Little Prudys Children (1894-1901). Washington, gave her a good grounding in the conventions of
juvenile literature, and her own children, boy-girl twins, provided
Clarkes greatest strength as a writer for children is her her with additional insights into the world of childhood.
ability to create characters. Her childrensome say they were
modeled on family members or other residents of Norridgewock Two books for preschoolers, The Real Hole (1960) and Two
are buoyant, natural, good-hearted, and often naughty. That is, Dog Biscuits (1961), follow twins Jimmy and Janet through their
realistic. Whether rationalizing their own naughty behavior by sometimes heated debate over the nature and purpose of backyard
comparing themselves to friends, or suffering through the death of holes and through their grand discovery that cats eat dog biscuits.
a friend, Clarkes children remain rmly grounded in reality. Older twins in Mitch and Amy (1967) learn to help each other
Their charm is, however, somewhat lessened for modern readers through the trials of school life. These books are, as Horn Book
by Clarkes custom of having her young children use baby-talk in magazine noted, realistic and unsentimental.
which, for example, the respect of a friend becomes spec of
A group of Clearys books are written about and for adoles-
a fend.
cent girls and have been consistently praised for their understand-
Along with other juvenile writers of her time, Clarke had a ing of the teenager. This is good comedy, underlaid with
tendency to moralize. Although she clearly expects her children to common sense and insight, Buell wrote of Fifteen (1956), the
be childishly irresponsible and lacking in understanding, she also story of Jane Purdys search for a boyfriend. Jean of Jean and
lets them understand such behavior is not a part of responsible Johnny (1959) discovers and learns to live with the pangs of
adult life. Children in her books are not expected to behave as unrequited love, and in The Luckiest Girl (1958), Cleary expertly
adults, but it is also clear that adults will not be allowed to act like handles the mother-daughter relationship. In Sister of the Bride
children. Responsible adults, usually parents, are obliged not only (1963), she brings her usual sane observation to the problem of
to demonstrate and train children in virtuous behavior but also to early marriages.
protect children from whatever danger their own thoughtlessness
Clearys most universally acclaimed books, however, have
may bring to them.
been about grade school children. In Ellen Tebbits (1951), Otis
In addition to her very successful juveniles, Clarke wrote Spofford (1953), and the quieter Emilys Runaway Imagination
adult novels in which pert and lively heroines are involved in (1961), Cleary reveals the gift, for which the Saturday Review
highly romanticized plots. These novels, without exception highly praised her for making the children in her stories funny and
moral, were thought to be appropriate reading for middle pathetic at the same time. Her earliest and most famous charac-
readersthose ready to graduate from juveniles to general novels. ter, Henry Huggins, keeps his verve and individuality through ve
213
CLEARY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
books: Henry Huggins (1950), Henry and Beezus (1952), Henry New sequels feature the twins Janet and Jimmy, the
and Ribsy (1954), Henry and the Paper Route (1957), and Henry unquenchable Ramona, and her fantasy character, Ralph the
and the Clubhouse (1962). The world Henry inhabits with his dog, motorcycle mouse. In Ralph S. Mouse (1982), Ralph serves as a
Ribsy, his friend Beezus, and her unquenchable little sister, peacemaker at school. The twins return in The Growing-Up Feet
Ramona, is supercially close to that of Dick, Jane, and Sally, but (1987), a book whose emphasis on the virtues of red boots will
Clearys wit and superior observation transform the everyday events. recall an incident in Ramona the Pest (1968). In Janets
Thingamajigs (1987), Janet learns to share with her twin brother.
Spin-offs from this series are Ribsy (1964), which gives the
adventures of the dog while lost, Ramona the Pest (1968), Cleary has added three books to the six in which Ramona
Ramona the Brave (1975), Ramona and Her Father (1977), and Quimby either appears or is featured. Ramona and Her Mother
several other Ramona novels. Ramona may turn out to be Clearys (1979) deals sympathetically with the family conicts engendered
most memorable character. Anyone who followed the woes she when Mrs. Quimby retains her job even after Mr. Quimby nds an
caused Henry Huggins is delighted to meet Ramona in other interim job and then decides to return to college. In Ramona
books and to learn of her tribulations as a kindergarten dropout Quimby, Age Eight (1981) Ramona shows a maturing attitude
who nally makes good. Ramona Quimby is one of American about her parents problems and about four-year-old Willa Jean, a
letters truly comic characters and deserves her popularity with minor-league pest with whom Ramona must contend after school
readers and her book awards. each day. Ramona Forever (1984) takes the Quimby family saga
through the wedding of Aunt Bea, the birth of a third girl, and an
Although lighthearted realism is one of Clearys strengths, acceptable if not ideal resolution of the fathers job situation.
she ventured into fantasy with an anthropomorphic mouse in The Observing all that her baby sister has to learn, Ramona speculates,
Mouse and the Motorcycle (1965) and Runaway Ralph (1970). It is hard work to be a baby, and her father pronounces,
Another animal story, Socks (1973), a return to realism, is a gently Growing up is hard work. This respect for the difculties of
humorous account of a cats temporary jealousy of a new baby. childhood runs through all of Clearys books, keeping the humor
sound and strong.
Cleary is one of those rare childrens writers who is able to
amuse adult as well as young listeners. Parents chuckle and boys The Ramona stories became a television series, an experi-
[and girls] laugh out loud, said L. S. Bechtel. Most critics would ence Cleary recounts in Ramona Quimby: The Making of a
agree with the authority on childrens literature, May Hill Arbuthnot, Television Film (1988). A Ramona paper-doll book and two
who nds Clearys stories hilarious commentaries on mod- childrens diaries also appeared in the 1980s. Ramona seems well
ern life. on her way to joining the pantheon of humorous characters in
American literature.
As an author of more than 30 books for young people, Cleary
has established herself as a humorist of enduring appeal who has Readers rst met Ramona when she was only four. At the
amply fullled her often-reiterated desire to capture on her pages time, she was a major bother to her older sister, Beezus (Beezus
the humor in the everyday lives of children. She is able to blend a and Ramona, 1955.) Over 40 years later and well into her second
healing laughter into even the more serious moments in her generation of adoring readers, Cleary, in her eighties, continues to
ction. Clearys 1984 Newbery Medal winner, Dear Mr. Henshaw represent the fears, ideas, and viewpoints of children with intelli-
(the letter-and-diary account of young Leigh Botts struggle to gence, humor, and mischievousness. Her most recent book will
come to terms with his parents separation), is, as Natalie Babbitt see Ramona turn ten (Ramonas World, 1999.) Eleanor Cameron,
said, a rst-rate poignant story in which Cleary never allows in her book, The Green and Burning Tree, states that a child goes
Leighs writing to slide a millimeter away from the natural humor back to characters he loves as if they were his own family or
and unconscious pathos that make it work so honestly. Dear Mr. friends. Children continue to ndin the worlds created by
Henshaw also won the 1984 Christopher award and made many Clearyfriends with whom they resonate and have fun.
best books lists. Throughout her career, Cleary has won numerous
Clearys beloved characters have entered the upper echelon
awards from both juvenile readers and professional critics, includ-
of classics in childrens literature. Henry Huggins, Ramona, and
ing the American Library Associations Laura Ingalls Wilder
Ribsy were recently immortalized in the Beverly Cleary Sculpture
Award (1975) and the Everychild Award from the Childrens
Garden for Children in Portland, Oregon. The statues are only four
Book Council (1985) for her 35-year contribution to childrens
blocks from the real Klickitat Street, location of numerous Cleary
literature.
adventures.
Clearys later books both present new protagonists and add
Young people who struggle to make sense of the challenges
further sequels. A new character appears in Lucky Chuck (1984),
life presents captivate Clearys imagination. She engages younger
in which Chuck, unable to learn from that adolescent primer, the
readers in The Hullabaloo ABC (1998), a rhyming alphabet book.
trafc regulations manual, must learn through on-the-road experi-
Older readers as well as adults will enjoy losing themselves in
ence that motorcycles and laws deserve respect. Muggie Maggie
Clearys second installment of her memoirs, My Own Two Feet
(1990), a book with another new character, deals humorously with
(1995), the sequel to 1988s A Girl from Yamhill (1988).
that bane of school childrens lives, cursive writing. Cleary adds
herself as a child character in her warmly praised memoir of her Despite her popularity, Clearys books have been criticized
own growing-up years, A Girl from Yamhill. because they dont provide any racial or ethnic mix in the
214
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CLEGHORN
characters nor do they confront any of the serious problems of essays with her close friend Dorothy Caneld Fisher. She organ-
childhood. Cleary does not attempt to create a world different ized an unsuccessful campaign against capital punishment in
from the white, middle-class one in which she grew up. Yet Anita Vermont, and became involved in prison reform. Cleghorns
Trout of the University of Tennessee contends, The incidents in strong religious faith was the basis for all of her political action.
her books are common to the lives of most children. Most of the
After the war, unable to sell her writing because of its strong
Ramona books, Dear Mr. Henshaw (1983), which won the
pacist bias, Cleghorn (in her mid-forties) began teaching at
prestigious Newbery Medal, and the well-received Strider (1991)
Manumit Farm, an experimental school with socialist backing
are all available in Spanish translations.
primarily for workers children. Here an interracial and interna-
In April of 1997 Cleary spoke at the reopening and rededication tional group of children were taught according to the Dalton
ceremonies for the Central Library, the main branch of Multnomah method and shared farm chores and housework with the staff.
Countys libraries in her home state of Oregon. Seventy-ve years Cleghorn retired because of ill health, and, at the age of sixty,
after her rst visit to the library, Cleary recalled what it was like to published her autobiography. This was followed, before her death
be a six-year-old girl awed by the grandeur of the library. She at eighty-three, by a collection of poetry and a volume of inspira-
painted a credible, heartwarming sight: a young girl, walking tional essays.
through the massive building, yanking at slouching stockings with
Cleghorns early poetry and her rst novel, The Turnpike
one hand and clutching library books to her chest with the other.
Lady (1907), avoid political themes, concentrating instead on the
The young Beverly Cleary, she said, might ask the adult Beverly
charm of the rural past and the natural world, particularly Ver-
Cleary: Did you always know that you would write books for
mont. In her autobiography Cleghorn explains the nonpolitical
children? After conferring with the child, the adult would
nature of her early work, telling us that at this time she could not
answer: I knew I would be a childrens librarian, and with luck,
write coherently on a subject about which she felt powerfully.
write books to help ll the library shelves. It was the childs
While it was popular at the time, the contemporary reader nds
hope and determination that fueled the adults years of success.
Cleghorns work of this period soft, vague, and sentimental.
But with her increasing commitment to socialism and paci-
OTHER WORKS: Cutting Up with Ramona (paper dolls, 1983). The sm Cleghorns poetic themes change, and the 1917 collection of
Ramona Quimby Diary (1984). The Beezus and Ramona Diary her poetry, Portraits and Protests, contains many political poems
(1986). Here Come the Twins (1989). The Twins Again (1989). written between 1912 and 1916. Cleghorns protest poetry is far
Peteys Bedtime Story (1993). more direct in style, avoiding the articial diction of the early
poetry. This quatrain, written in 1914, became her most famous
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Arbuthnot, M. H., The Arbuthnot Anthology of poem: The golf links lie so near the mill / That almost every day /
Childrens Literature (1961). Arbuthnot, M. H., Children and The laboring children can look out / And see the men at play.
Books (1964). Cleghorns most explosive poem, The Poltroon, was published
Reference works: DLB 52. during the war in the Tribune, causing threats upon the publisher
Other references: Booklist (1 Sept. 1959). Childrens Litera- and hundreds of irate letters.
ture Association Quarterly (Fall 1988). Horn Book (Dec. 1959, Cleghorns later poetry, collected in Poems of Peace and
Oct. 1962, June 1967, Aug. 1970, Aug. 1984). Language Arts Freedom (1945), includes ballads, written for her students, about
(Jan. 1979). NYHT (27 Sept. 1953). NYTBR (26 Sept. 1954, 16 Harriet Tubman, Eugene Debs, and other lesser known gures,
Sept. 1956, 23 Oct. 1983). Saturday Review of Literature (10 and a series of sonnets with a strong sense of personal mysticism.
Nov. 1951). Cleghorns second novel, The Spinster (1916), has strong autobio-
graphical overtones. But far more successful is the actual autobi-
CELIA CATLETT ANDERSON,
ography, published in 1936. Threescore successfully conveys the
UPDATED BY CELESTE DEROCHE
cheerful, generous, and sensitive disposition of its author. Pre-
sented with a disarming honesty and humility, this autobiography
shows the quiet courage of a gentle reformer who lacks the bitter
CLEGHORN, Sarah Norcliffe shrillness which so often accompanies political protest. In the
introduction to Threescore, Robert Frost calls Cleghorn a saint,
a poet and a reformer.
Born 4 February 1876, Norfolk, Virginia; died 4 April 1959,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Daughter of John D. and Sarah Hawley Cleghorn OTHER WORKS: Fellow Captains (with D. C. Fisher, 1916).
Nothing Ever Happens and How It Does (with D. C. Fisher, 1940).
After the death of her sister and mother, Sarah Norcliffe The Seamless Robe (1945).
Cleghorn was sent to Vermont where she was raised by two
unmarried aunts. Even in adolescence, Cleghorn was deeply BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cook, H. W., Our Poets of Today (1918). Smith, L.,
disturbed by human cruelty and became a quiet opponent of ed., Womens Poetry Today (1929).
vivisection and of atrocities against blacks. In 1912 she began to
write protest poetry and essays, coauthoring two collections of SUZANNE HENNING UPHAUS
215
CLIFF AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
CLIFF, Michelle gives her, she sees the true history of colonialism, racism, and
privilege. At the novels end, Clare is left unsure of herself and her
place in society. Cliff describes the book as emotionally an
Born 2 November 1946, Kingston, Jamaica autobiography.
Michelle Cliff spent her early years in Jamaica and in New No Telephone to Heaven (1987), the sequel to Abeng, follows
York City, where her parents emigrated when she was a child. the Savage familys decision to leave Jamaica and migrate to
Although legally an American born abroad, Cliff claims a Jamai- America, leaving a predestined life in a racist and classist society
can identity. She calls herself Jamaican by birth, heritage and for a place where so much more could belong to them. Tracing the
indoctrination, an indoctrination she sees as separating Jamai- adjustment of each family member to a new life, she focuses again
cans into a hierarchy based on the gamut of skin tones from white on Clare who, like Cliff, moves through America, Europe, and
to red to dark. Cliff went to a girls private school on the island back to Jamaica. On the island she is brought through an old friend
conducted by English women. Her experience there conrmed into a group of revolutionaries; embracing their beliefs, Clare
her sense of the divisive effects of color. rejects the privilege of her skin color and turns to her community
to nd wholeness.
Cliff received a B.A. in European history at Wagner College
in New York City (1969). Subsequently, at the Warburg Institute Cliffs sense of history and its effects on the present recurs in
in London she earned a masters in philosophy (1974) for her a collection of reective short stories, Bodies of Water (1990),
work in languages and comparative historical studies. Between which looks at how ordinary people cope with extraordinary
1969 and 1979 she held a variety of positions in publishing in New events like the Holocaust and the Civil Rights Movement. Cliffs
York City. next volume of short stories, The Store of a Million Items (1998),
contains 11 stories about tragedy, grief, and the joy of everyday
Very light skinned, one of the fairest in her family, Cliff uses
living. Her protagonists may experience sorrow, but they also
this relationship to society as a white woman of color as a
celebrate life in small ways like the children in the title story, who
central theme in her writing. Her characters are frequently based
note the passing of time through the changing displays in a store
on herself and members of her family who are challenged by the
window. Cliffs understanding of the destructiveness of racism
dualities of colonialism and revolution, white and black, America
informs her feminist voice. As editor (1981-83) with her longtime
and the Third World.
companion Adrienne Rich of Sinister Wisdom, she enabled the
Cliffs rst publication, The Winner Names the Age (1978), publication of signicant lesbian feminist writing. She has also
is an edition of antiracist writings by the Southern American written of the inuence on her of Simone Weil and of the work of
writer Lillian Smith. Raised in the South, Smith was acutely aware black women visual artists, and provided the introduction to
of its racial divisions and uneasy with the privileges that came Audre Lorde and Richs book on black feminism in Germany,
with whiteness. Macht und Sinnlichkeit (1983).
Claiming an Identity They Taught Me to Despise (1980) Free Enterprise (1993), Cliffs third novel, is about two
brings together poetry and prose, autobiography and history, to African American women, the legendary Annie Christmas and the
evoke the colors of Jamaica and memories of her family and to real historical gure Mary Ellen Pleasant, who join forces to assist
conjure a knowledge and vivid portrayal of her past. Cliffs John Browns antislavery efforts. Like Cliff herself, the Caribbe-
The Land of Look Behind: Prose and Poetry (1985) demonstrates an-born Annie has very light skin, but is determined to reject the
her strengthening feminist voice against colonialism. In The privileges that come with it in favor of an active role in the
Laughing Mulatto (Formerly a Statue) Speaks, she speaks of the antislavery movement. Annie nds a mother gure in Mary Ellen,
link between passing for white and heterosexual in society despite an entrepreneur who owned property in California that provided
the fact that she is in reality black and lesbian. The idea that it is refuge to runaway slaves. The two women are contrasted with two
impossible to separate aspects of ones identity like race and white women, Alice and Clover Hooper, whose race enables them
sexuality is a theme throughout her work Cliff explained her to openly oppose slavery and yet who are themselves proven racist
views on feminism and what the feminist movement gave her in in the end. Once again, Cliffs theme is the challenge to maintain
an interview with African American Review in Summer 1994: I ones identity when one is a minority, whether sexual or racial or
think that liberation has to begin with oneself. The feminist both, in an oppressive, racist, homophobic society.
movement allowed me certain things, like choosing to live alone,
Cliffs work has been recognized by fellowships from the
which was frowned on in the world in which I lived. Feminism for
MacDowell Colony (1982), the National Endowment of the Arts
me was a way of looking in a mirror and seeing possibilities. It
(1982, 1989), and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation (1984);
gave me support for my choices. One of these choices ultimately
she was Eli Kantor Fellow at the Yaddo Writers Colony in 1984.
was to become a writer, which was something not at all encour-
She has taught at the New School for Social Research (1974-76),
aged in the world in which I grew up.
Hampshire College (1980 and 1981), the University of Massachu-
In her rst novel, Abeng (1984), Cliff writes of a light-skinned setts at Amherst (1980), Norwich University (1983-84), Vista
Jamaican girl, Clare Savage, and her relation to the dark-skinned College (1985), San Jose State University (1986), University
Zoe. The story focuses on the status and the damages with which College of Santa Cruz (1987), Stanford University (1987-1991),
Clares lightness is associated; within the power her skin color and at Trinity College in Connecticut (1991-92). In addition to
216
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CLIFTON
teaching, Cliff has been an invited participant at workshops and New Orleans as a slave in 1830, as an inspirational and mythical
symposiums around the world and a member of the editorial board presence in her life.
at Signs: A Journal of Women in Culture and Society (1981-89).
Clifton attended Howard University in Washington, D.C.
Her stories and essays have appeared in Chrysalis, Conditions,
(1953-1955) and Fredonia State Teachers College (now State
Sojourner, Heresies, Feminist Review, Black Scholar, and other
University of New York at Fredonia) in Fredonia, New York
journals.
(1955), where as a drama major she performed plays, developed a
writing style, and rst met and associated with an emerging class
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Black Writers (1989). CA (1986). of black intellectuals that included LeRoi Jones, A. B. Spellman,
CANR (1999). FC (1990). Oxford Companion to Womens Writ- and others. In 1958 she married Fred Clifton. They were married
ing in the United States (1995). for 27 years and had six children together when he died in 1984.
Other references: African American Review (Summer 1994, One of the most important inuences on Cliftons writing
Spring 1995, Winter 1998). Conditions (1986). NYTBR (15 July was the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which
1987). WRB (Nov. 1987). advocated the use of the arts as a means of overcoming racial
oppression and actively promoted African-American cultural and
SUZANNE GIRONDA, political nationalism. Cliftons work expresses a strong afrma-
UPDATED BY LEAH J. SPARKS tion of African-American experience and identity, consistently
addresses the problems of racial injustice, and advocates for black
children and families in the language, metaphors, and rhythms of
black vernacular speech. As critic Haki Madhubhuti put it, Clifton
CLIFTON, Lucille is a black cultural poet. We see in her work a clear transmission
of values.
Born Lucille Sayles in 1936, Depew, New York Cliftons style is spare: she uses little punctuation; her use of
Married Fred Clifton (died 1984); children: six words and space is economical; the words and lines tend to be
short, as do the poems themselves. She writes in free verse and
What I knew was true about me was that I could breathe and frequently uses only lowercase letters. She deliberately uses
I made poems, Lucille Clifton said about herself as a child, in a simple words in her poetry because, she says, I am interested in
Belles Lettres interview with Naomi Thiers in 1994. But she never trying to render big ideas in a simple way. I am interested in being
aspired to be a professional poet because, she said I hadnt understood, not admired. Critics, including Madhubhuti often
thought it possible. . . . The only poets I ever saw or heard of were agree with her: Cliftons style is simple and solid, like rock and
. . . old dead white men from New England with beards. Today granite. This apparent simplicity is belied, however, by the
Clifton is a prolic, prize-winning poet and writer of childrens resonant imagery and lyrical rhythms that characterize her poems.
books, who in recent years has been awarded Pulitzer recognition. Like other 20th-century black women poets, Cliftons verses have
Known for her simple verses and quiet, powerful tone, Clifton often been stylistically compared to black womens blues music.
illuminates the ordinary with a life-afrming vision that is widely Audrey McClusky wrote that she takes a moral stance and is
guided by the dictates of her own consciousness rather than the
celebrated by critics.
dictates of form, structure and audience. The result is poetry that
Lucille Clifton was born in 1936 near Buffalo in Depew, is often richly imagistic, emotive, and a clear expression of
New York, a place she described as a small town, . . .all its life Cliftons perspective and integrity as a woman of color.
turned like a machine around the steel mill. Her parents were
Cliftons rst published collection, Good Times: Poems
part of the Southern African-American migration north. Clifton (1969), won the Discovery award and was cited by the New York
explained: We were poor but not downtrodden. We didnt have Times as one of the best books of 1969. Like her second collection,
much money, but we had a lot of love. Her mother wrote poetry Good News About the Earth: New Poems (1972), these early
that she would read aloud to her four children. Clifton once said, volumes reect the political climate of their time. They pointedly
From Mama I knew one could write as a way to express examine racial issues, focusing on contemporary African-Ameri-
oneself. can public gures like Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver, Angela
In her autobiography, Generations: A Memoir (1976), which Davis, and the Black Panthers.
was reprinted in a later book of collected works, Good Woman: At the same time she began publishing her poetry, Clifton
Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980 (1987), Clifton wrote, When was also the mother of six children under the age of ten and began
the colored people came to Depew they came to be a family. to write childrens books. She has often credited her children and
Everybody began to be related in thin ways that last and last her role as a mother as among her most important inuences as a
Jean Anaporte-Easton said that, thematically and spiritually, poet, saying, for example, Having six children kept me human.
Cliftons work is shaped by a vision of the web which connects In 1970 Cliftons rst childrens book, The Black BCs came out,
us and a strong rootedness in her ancestry. In particular, Clifton followed by nearly 20 other books, including the well-known
often cites her great-great-grandmother, Caline, who was cap- Everett Anderson series, which celebrates pride in black history
tured in the Dahomey Republic of West Africa and brought to and heritage.
217
COATSWORTH AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
While her rst two books of poetry were critically successful, Coatsworth has written for both children and adults, but all
the critical success of the next two, An Ordinary Woman (1974) her novels and verses are notable for their poetic charm and
and Two-Headed Woman (1980), conrmed Cliftons place as a lucidity of style. Grown-ups can take pleasure in reading such
major contemporary African-American poet. Coinciding in charming tales as The Cat Who Went to Heaven (1939), and young
time with the womens movement, these two volumes turn away people can understand the subtle lesson of Silky, An Incredible
from broad racial issues to take up the more personal subject of Tale (1953). Many of her stories for children have historical
Cliftons life as a woman of color. settings and involve actual historic gures: Boston Bells (1952)
and Old Whirlwind; a Story of Davy Crockett (1953) are two
Subsequent volumes of poetry follow the trajectory of Clif-
examples.
tons life as an aging poet, widow, and grandmother, and continue
her commentary on contemporary life from her trademark life-af- Invariably, Coatsworths books for young readers drew praise
rming vision. Most recently, The Terrible Stories: Poems (1996) from reviewers who spoke of her excellent character develop-
details her own experiences with breast cancer and mastectomy. ment and realistic dialogue. One critic makes the general state-
Embracing the good with the bad and always reaching for whole- ment that the books of Elizabeth Coatsworth are remarkable for
ness and healing, she wrote, All night it is the one breast / their evocative period and regional sense as well as immediacy of
comforting the other. Madhubuti wrote, She is always looking action.
for the good, the best, but not naively so. Her work is realistic and
burning with the energy of renewal. Clifton was the Poet Again and again Coatsworth was praised for her graceful
Laureate of Maryland from 1989 to 1991 and in the late 1990s was style and the poetic quality of her prose. Edmund Fuller, review-
the Distinguished Professor of Humanities at St. Marys College ing Silky, An Incredible Tale, says as with all Miss Coatsworths
in St. Marys City, Maryland. work, it is a poets book, mystic, delicate, lovely. He goes on to
explain how Coatsworth has created a rich, fresh medium that is
at once original and yet the revival of a tradition neglected or
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Anaporte-Easton, J., She Has Made Herself distorted in this material age. Readers also praise the accuracy of
Again: The Maternal Impulse as Poetry in 13th Moon 9 (1991). her historical data and the vividness of her descriptions.
Belles Lettres (Summer 1994). Evans, M., ed., Black Women
Writers (1950-1980): A Critical Evaluation. Metzger, L., et al, Through everything Coatsworth writes breathes a love of
eds., Black Writers: A Selection of Sketches from Contemporary living, an ever-fresh appreciation of nature and children, a real
Authors (1989). Middlebrook, D. and M. Yalow, eds., Coming to compassion for men and women who suffer, and a delight in those
Light: American Women Poets in the Twentieth Century (1985). who rise above their suffering. There is no taint of solemn
WRB (Mar. 1997). moralizing, only an implied lesson that human beings are capable
Reference works: CA (1994). CLC (1991). DLB (1985). of conquering the obstacles that circumstances put before them.
Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). Coatsworths work is an excellent example of what is best and
most wholesome in American writing.
DENISE BAUER
OTHER WORKS: Fox Footprints (1923). Atlas and Beyond (1924).

Compass Rose (1929). The Cat and the Captain (1930). The
COATSWORTH, Elizabeth Jane Golden Horseshoe (1935). Sword of the Wilderness (1936). Alice-
all-by-herself (1937). Five Bushel Farm (1939). The Fair Ameri-
can (1940). Country Poems (1942). Country Neighborhood (1944).
Born 31 May 1893, Buffalo, New York; died August 1986
Maine Ways (1947). Summer Green (1948). South Shore Town
Daughter of William T. and Ida Reid Coatsworth; married
(1948). Here I Stay; The Enchanted (1951). Night and the Cat
Henry Beston, 1929
(1950). Mountain Bride (1951). Dollar for Luck (1951). The Sod
House (1954). The Sally Series, beginning with Away Goes Sally;
After attending Buffalo Seminary, Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth
Horses, Dogs and Cats (1957). Poems (1957). The White Room
graduated from Vassar College with a B.A. in 1915, and earned
(1958). The Peaceable Kingdom (1958). The Cave (1958). Indian
an M.A. from Columbia University in 1916. She was later granted
Encounters (1960). Lonely Maria (1960). Desert Dan (1960). The
two honorary degrees: Litt.D. (University of Maine, 1955)
UNICEF Christmas Book (1960). The Noble Doll (1961). Ronnie
and L.H.D. (New England College, 1958). Following her years at
and the Chiefs Son (1962). The Princess and the Lion (1963).
college, Coatsworth traveled widely and came to know such
Jocks Island (1963). Cricket and the Emperors Son (1965). The
countries as England, France, China, Egypt, and Mexico as a
Secret (1965). The Hand of Apollo (1965). The Sparrow Bush
leisurely visitor, not as a tourist.
(1966). The Fox Friend (1966). The Place (with H. Beston, 1966).
In 1931 Coatsworth was awarded the Newbery Medal for Chimney Farm Bedtime Stories (1966). Maine Memories (1968).
ction, and in 1967 the Golden Rose Award of the New England Bess and the Sphinx (1968). Light-house Island (1968). George
Poetry Club. In 1968 she was the rst runner-up for the Hans and Red (1969). Indian Mound Farm (1969). Grandmother Cat
Christian Andersen Award, and also earned the Maine Arts and and the Hermit (1970). Good Night (1972). The Wanderers
Science Award. (1972). Daisy (1973). Pure Magic (1973). All of a Sudden Susan
218
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS COLUM
(1974). Marras World (1975). Personal Geography: Almost an Coits more powerful and penetrating portrait is of Calhoun, the
Autobiography (1994). man who did risk political action, though he failed in his ulti-
mate aim.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sturges, F. M., Elizabeth Coatsworth Beston: A Coit also coauthored two accounts of the early American
Tribute (1978). nation, The Growing Years: 1789-1829 (1963) and The Sweep
Reference works: The Junior Book of Authors (1951). Westward: 1829-49 (1963). The Growing Years focuses primarily
Other references: Horn Book (1936, May 1951). KR (1 Feb. on the political and military history of the early republic. The
1951). NYHTB (20 May 1951). NYT (12 Nov. 1950). Sweep Westward is centered on the transformation of America
ABIGAIL ANN HAMBLEN
through geographical expansion and the growth of industrializa-
tion. Both books capture the sense of movement and energetic
growth of early national history. Again, Coit reveals her gift for
incisive analysis of national character and mood.
COIT, Margaret L.
In all her writing, Coit displays a gift for portraiture and a
sense of drama. Her sensitivity to the spirit of the age enables her
Born 30 May 1919, Norwich, Connecticut
to evoke past issues and national mood, and to deal perceptively
Daughter of Arch W. and Grace Trow Coit
with the changes in America. She contrasts the frontier world of
Calhouns youth with the new industrializing, consolidating na-
It is as a biographer that Margaret Coit made her major
tion against which he struggled; the post-Reconstruction South of
impact as a writer. Her two most inuential works are John C.
Baruchs youth with the precision-oriented, standardized Ameri-
Calhoun: American Portrait (1950, reprinted in 1977), for which
ca which he promoted during World War I.
she won a Pulitzer Prize in 1951, and Mr. Baruch (1957).
Her biography of Calhoun involved a signicant recasting of As a political biographer, Coit had a strong grasp of political
the story of his life. Rejecting the traditional stress on Calhoun as reality, adroitly weaving together both public action and the
sectionalist, Coit argued that his great concern throughout his maneuvers behind the scenes. Her gift for individual character
career was to preserve his section within the Union and to make analysis is particularly striking, whether in short sketches or full-
democracy work. From the time of the triumph of Jacksonian faceted studies. While she often utilizes bold, dramatic colors, she
democracy, Calhoun tried to avert the consequences of unlimited is also sensitive to the play of light and shadow within a personali-
majority rule, eventually posing the concurrent majority concept. ty. As a biographer, she depicts with grace and insight the private
In Coits view, interest in slavery was not at the center of as well as the public world of fully realized human beings.
Calhouns concern for the South. Rather, his defense of slavery
reected his view of human nature. Calhoun, she contends,
loved [freedom] too much to surrender it to those who he OTHER WORKS: The Fight for Union (1961). Andrew Jack-
thought might endanger it, as he felt blacks must inevitably do. son (1965). Massachusetts (1967). John C. Calhoun (edited by
Her portrait of Calhoun is of a man of tragic vision desperately Coit, 1971). The Continuing Relevance of John C. Calhoun
trying to avert an unavoidable future. in Continuity: Special IssueRecovering Southern History
(Fall, 1984).
In her second biography, Mr. Baruch, Coit deftly depicts the
transformation of a post-Reconstruction South Carolinean into the
Wall Street entrepreneur. The primary focus of the biography, BIBLIOGRAPHY: Annals of the American Academy (Nov. 1950).
however, is on Baruchs extended period of public service begin- Nation (1 April 1950). NYT (5 March 1950, 24 Nov. 1957).
ning with World War I. Baruchs relations with the presidents he Political Science Quarterly (June 1950). SRL (4 Jan. 1958).
served are perceptively analyzed. Coit stresses Wilsons crucial
role in capturing Baruchs imagination and enlisting his talents in INZER BYERS
the wartime mobilization of industry. In the Roosevelt years, the
relationships were more strained and Baruchs contributions to
the nation more indirect. According to Coit, between Roosevelt
and Baruch was the uneasy truce of two extraordinarily able
men whose dominant personalities made collaboration difcult. COLUM, Mary Maguire
Baruchs last major contribution came in the Truman years with
the formulation of the Baruch Plan for international control of Born 13 June 1887, Derryhollow, County Fermanagh, Ireland;
atomic energy. died 22 October 1957, New York, New York
Coits picture of Baruch is of a proud individualist, an Daughter of Charles and Maria Gunning Maguire; married
intensely private person creating his own myth. In her view, Padraic Colum, 1912
Baruchs chief weakness was that he would not put himself to the
political test and seek the public ofce where his talents might Reared in northwest Ireland by elderly relatives, Mary Maguire
most signicantly have been put to use. Of the two biographies, Colum was sent at thirteen to a convent boarding school where she
219
COMAN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
received the traditional, multilingual education on which she drew BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Catholic Authors: Contempo-
for the rest of her life. At the height of the Irish revival she rary Biographical Sketches 1930-1947 (1948).
graduated from the National University, Dublin, where she knew Other references: NY (22 March 1947). NYHTB (19 Dec.
such gures as Yeats, Maude Gonne, Lady Gregory, and Joyce. 1937). NYT (20 March 1947). NYTBR (19 Dec. 1937). SR (13
Yeats advised her to take up criticism, although she had already Nov. 1937, 27 Nov. 1937).
published ction; he also suggested she adopt a masculine pen
name, which she did not. JOANNE MCCARTHY
In 1914, two years after her marriage to poet Padraic Colum,

Colum came to the United States. She wrote ghost reviews and
in 1916 joined Womens Wear as translator and reporter. Though
she regarded writing as a very risky business and criticism
even more so, she gradually won her place, contributing regularly
COMAN, Katharine
to Forum, Saturday Review, Dial, Scribners, and other periodi-
cals. Colum received Guggenheim Fellowships in 1930 and 1938, Born 23 November 1857, Newark, Ohio; died 11 January 1915,
was honored by Georgetown University and the American Acade- Wellesley, Massachusetts
my of Arts and Letters, and in 1953 was elected to the National Daughter of Levi P. and Martha Seymour Coman
Institute of Arts and Letters.
From These Roots (1937) is Colums attempt to render an Katharine Comans father, a graduate of Hamilton College,
account of the ideas that have gone into the making of modern was a teacher, a lawyer, and a Civil War veteran. Coman graduat-
literature, beginning in mid-18th century with the works of ed from the University of Michigan in 1880 with the Ph.B. degree.
Lessing and Herder, tracing parallel development in England and She immediately joined the faculty of Wellesley College in
France. Her book is not a history of criticism, but an examination Massachusetts, and remained there all her life, teaching rhetoric,
of patterns. Colum identies true criticism as a creative force, economics, history, and sociology. She retired in 1913 as profes-
a principle through which the world of ideas renews itself, and sor emeritus.
literary criticism as that branch of literature whose most impor-
Coman was able to convince the college administration that
tant ofce is the originating of . . . ideas. She argues that modern
economics was both suitable and necessary to the education of
literature has reached a dead end, that a new criticism is required
women. She was coauthor of four textbooks on English history,
to stimulate new and original literature. Her thesis places undue
emphasis upon the role of criticism as a generative force and but wrote alone when she turned to economics. Her writings were
makes no allowance for individual genius of the creative writer. of a practical bent, based on personal observation during her
Her evaluation of American literature is also questionable; rmly extensive travels.
rooted in European culture, Colum cannot recognize the folk
The Industrial History of the United States (1905) was
tradition in American writing, and ranks the inuence of Poe
widely used as a textbook through 11 editions. In recognition of
above that of Hawthorne and Melville.
Comans contribution, the Katharine Coman Professorship of
Her autobiography, Life and the Dream (1947), sensitively Industrial History was established at Wellesley in 1921. The two-
portrays the austerity of rural Irish life and the excitement of the volume Economic Beginnings of the Far West (1912) was the
Irish revival in Dublin. Colum offers sketches of the literati of result of a four-year leave of absence for travel and research. It
Dublin, New York, and Chicago, along with a great many gives the reader an absorbing account of the explorers, the
opinions. She attacks American materialism, education, and mar- colonizers, the Mormon migration, the missionary priests in
riages; she lauds Elinor Wylie and feuds with Harriet Monroe. In a California, the Gold Rush, and the spread of slavery. Coman
world where she struggles constantly for acceptance as an intel- makes it clear that history proved the superiority of the free settler:
lectual equal, Colum is impatient with women who fail to utilize In competition with the fur traders and gold seekers, with
their full abilities. She is always independent, dogmatic, and Spaniards exploiting Indian labor, and Southern slave holders, the
passionately Irish. homesteaders, working with his family in liberty, everywhere
won the land.
Colums reputation as a respected critic rests upon her rst
book and the many reviews she contributed to periodicals during Comans life was active in pursuit of social improvement.
her long career. Her autobiography and Our Friend James Joyce She helped to develop the Young Womens Christian Association
(1958) reveal a more personal side. Although her style is still at Wellesley in 1884. In 1881, when her friend Jane Addams was
formal, her writing is frequently anecdotal, displaying a some- starting Hull House in Chicago, eastern colleges were talking
times awkward humor. Her prejudices are strong; she loves a good about similar settlement houses. In 1891 the Wellesley Chapter of
ght. Yet all her books indicate she is still very much outside the College Settlements Association was organized by Coman,
American thought. As she herself writes: I feel an exile always, Vida Scudder, Katherine Lee Bates, Emily Balch, and other
everywhere, including the land in which I was born. faculty members. In 1892 they opened Denison House, a college
220
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS COMSTOCK
settlement in Boston. It was used as a center for union organizing provided income or personal potential. Both her autobiographical
as well as for child and adult education classes. Wellesley students account, The Comstocks of Cornell (posthumously published in
worked here and in other settlement houses in New York, Phila- 1953), and reminiscences of Cornell students reect a deter-
delphia, and Baltimore. In addition to the practical social work minedly cheerful woman who once observed, our usual way has
experience it provided for students, the real purpose of college ever been to pretend that we like whatever happens.
sponsorship was to arouse interest and sympathy on social ques-
tions and provide moral and nancial support for the operation. Comstocks early work in science writing was as collaborator
with her husband, a faculty member at Cornell. She began as his
When Coman was visiting in Chicago in 1910 she came to assistant and clerk but later turned to drawing and wood engrav-
the aid of the United Garment Workers in their strike against ing, for which she won exposition prizes and was elected a
makers of ready-made mens clothing in Chicago. She acted as member of the American Association of Wood Engravers. Work-
chairman of the grievance committee, and she wrote a stirring ing steadily, she illustrated John Comstocks college textbooks,
introduction to a booklet detailing the grievances. As a result,
An Introduction to Entomology (1888) and A Manual for the Study
favorable publicity and public sympathy for the strike were
of Insects (1894); in the latter she was presented as the junior
achieved.
author and credited with some written work as well. Her
Throughout her life Coman was attached to her family on contribution was even more evident in Insect Life (1897), a
the faculty at Wellesley. She lived there with her closest friend, simplied textbook on entomology.
Katherine Lee Bates, who published a book of poems, Yellow
Clover, as a memorial to Coman. It is a loving tribute to their In the 1890s Comstock became involved in the nature study
companionship of 35 years. movement, lecturing and writing leaets on special natural histo-
ry topics for classroom use. State support for the Cornell exten-
sion programs permitted her unprecedented appointment as assist-
OTHER WORKS: The Growth of the English Nation (with E. ant professor for the summer session in 1898. After protest by
Kendall, 1894). A History of England for High Schools and some trustees her rank was changed to lecturer, but in 1913 she
Academies (with E. Kendall, 1899). History of England for was again named assistant professor, and in 1920, professor.
Beginners (1901). English History Told by English Poets (with K. L.
Bates, 1902). History of Contract Labor in the Hawaiian Is- Like other leaders in the nature study movement, Comstock
lands (1903). insisted that her goal was not to teach scaled-down species
hunting or microscopical work but rather to give pupils an
outlook regarding all forms of life and their relationship one to
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bates, K. L., Yellow Clover: A Book of Remem- another. Nonetheless, her work was accurate, unlike much
brance (1922). Burgess, D., Dream and Deed (1952). Hackett, A. P., natural history writing of the period, and Comstock often included
Wellesley: Part of the American Story (1949). Halsey, O. S., taxonomic terms. How to Know the Butteries (1904), for exam-
Katherine Coman 1857-1915, in The Survey (23 Jan. 1915). ple, begins with an elementary account of buttery characteris-
Henry, A., The Trade Union Woman (1915). Scudder, V., On
tics, outlines methods for collecting, and then discusses 12
Journey (1937).
families in detail. Such manuals as How to Keep Bees (1905), The
Reference works: NAW, 1607-1950 (1971).
Pet Book (1914), and Trees at Leisure (1916) contained anecdotal
JOAN M. MCCREA
and literary materials as well as practical advice.
Much of Comstocks own energy went into popular lectures

and essays which were romantic without being sentimental and
suggested her belief in moral education. Ways of the Six-footed
COMSTOCK, Anna Botsford (1903) contained 10 stories illustrating the social organization of
insects, their communication by sound, their use of mimicry as a
Born 1 September 1854, Otto, Cattaraugus County, New York; defense strategy, and other adaptive features. The chapter on ants,
died 24 August 1930, Ithaca, New York bees, and wasps is entitled The Perfect Socialism. Comstock
Also wrote under: Marion Lee did not belabor the analogy here nor ascribe human characteristics
Daughter of Marvin and Phebe Irish Botsford; married John H. to the insects; she did, however, use human experience to describe
Comstock, 1878 animal behavior as an educational device.
While attending Cornell University from 1874 to 1876 Anna Many of Comstocks essays appeared in The Chautauquan
Botsford studied zoology under John Henry Comstock, whom she and Country Life in America. She briey edited Boys and Girls
married. In 1885 she completed a B.S. degree in natural history (1903-07), a nature study magazine, before turning it over to her
and about that time began systematic study of wood engraving Cornell colleague Martha Van Rensselaer. For years she contrib-
with John P. Davis of Cooper Union in New York City. Childless, uted to the educational Nature Study Review (1906-23), serving as
Comstock had several overlapping careers which were unplanned, its editor from 1917 until its merger with Nature Magazine.
the apparent result of her patient application to tasks which Typically, her contributions underscored the value of all life, the
221
CONANT AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
importance of understanding nature, and the interrelationship CONANT, Hannah (OBrien) Chaplin
among creatures. Personal anecdote was a prominent feature.
Comstocks single most important volume was a compendi- Born 5 September 1809, Danvers, Massachusetts; died 18 Febru-
um of her earlier work consolidated into the 900-page Handbook ary 1865, Brooklyn, New York
of Nature Study (1911). Not discouraged by the skepticism of her Daughter of Jeremiah and Marcia S. OBrien Chaplin; married
husband and her coworker Liberty Hyde Bailey about the need for Thomas J. Conant, 1830; children: ten
such a text, Comstock provided a teaching guide for elementary
teachers dealing with animal life, plant life, and the earth and
From her father Hannah Chaplin Conant learned several
sky. The Handbook outlined programs for nature study in the
foreign languages, which turned out to be important in her later
classroom and outside, provided review questions, and suggested
career. Her parents lled the Baptist parsonage in Danvers with 10
additional references. Vindication of her initiative came in 24
children, and in 1818 the family moved to Waterville, Maine, to
editions and translation into eight languages of the Handbook.
head the struggling Baptist institution, Waterville (later Colby)
Comstocks text became known as the nature Bible because of
College.
her sensitive counseling on such topics as childrens attitude
toward death when dealing with predatory behavior, and because Conant was well prepared to be a true helpmeet for her
of her concern that living creatures be returned to their natural husband, the colleges professor of languages. In 1835 they both
habitat after study. accepted positions at Hamilton Literary and Theological Institu-
tion in Hamilton, New York (later to become Colgate University).
Only once did Comstock attempt to write ction. Confes-
In addition to college and domestic dutieswhich included the
sions to a Heathen Idol (1906), written under the pseudonym
care of 10 children by 1853Conant edited the Mothers Monthly
Marion Lee, is a romantic fantasy without any reference to
Journal of Utica from 1838 to 1839 and continued to write for it
Comstocks daily work of science. The heathen idol was a
thereafter.
teakwood Japanese gure to whom a forty-year-old widow mused
in her evening diary. It is a book in the sentimental tradition of the In 1850 the family moved to Rochester where Conants
19th century, high-minded in its morality and without any surpris- husband taught Hebrew, biblical criticism, and interpretation at
es in its development. It is, however, suggestive of Comstocks the Rochester Theological Seminary. During this period Conant
own marriage, describing as it does, continuity and satisfaction, pursued her own parallel interests, translating three popular
but also a fundamental loneliness. More strictly autobiographical practical commentaries on Philippians, James, and John by the
is The Comstocks of Cornell, edited and published two decades eminent German biblical scholar Augustus Neander. While in
after Comstocks death; the narrative centers on family life and Rochester she also wrote her own two major worksa biography
indicates Comstock accepted her role as homemaker and help- of Baptist missionary Adoniram Judson and a history of the
mate without much question. She remained detached from suf- English Bible.
frage and other feminist activity.
Conants rst original work, The Earnest Man; or the Char-
In 1923 the League of Women Voters named Comstock one acter and Labors of Adoniram Judson (1856), was designed as a
of the 12 greatest women in the United States. Popular yet more popular life to complement the scholarly Memoir by
scholarly in her science writing, she was a key gure in the nature Francis Wayland. Conants most important work, which became a
study movement, and a moving force on the Cornell campus. standard text in courses on the English Bible, quite popular in the
proliferating religious colleges, was The English Bible (1857). In
it she traces the history of English translations from Wycliffe
OTHER WORKS: Nature Notebook Series (1920). through the version authorized by King James. Interestingly, the
The papers of Anna Botsford Comstock are at the Cornell book contains a chapter on Anne Boleyn: the Royal Patroness.
Collection of Regional History and University Archives, Cornell Conant concludes with an acknowledgment of the wealth of
University. earlier manuscripts and translations becoming available to bibli-
cal scholars and raises the possibility of a new translation to
replace the King James Version.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Herriar, G. W., and R. G. Smith, eds., The
Comstocks of Cornell (1953). Needham, J. C., The Length and
Shadow of a Man and His Wife, in ScM (1946). Smith, E. J., OTHER WORKS: Lea; or, the Baptism in Jordan by G. F. A. Strauss
The Comstocks of Cornell: In the Peoples Service, in Annual (trans. by Conant, 1844). The Epistle of Paul to the Philippians by
Review of Entomology (1975). Augustus Neander (trans. by Conant, 1851). The Epistle of James
Reference works: NCAB (1892 et seq.). NAW, by Augustus Neander (trans. by Conant, 1852). The First Epistle
1607-1950 (1971). of John by Augustus Neander (trans. by Conant, 1852). Erna, the
Forest Princess; or Pilgrimage of the Three Wise Men to Bethle-
SALLY GREGORY KOHLSTEDT hem by G. Nieritz (trans. by Conant, 1855). The New England
222
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS COOEY
Theocracy: A History of the Congregationalists in New England specically religious images to convey her message of meaning-
to the Revivals of 1740 by H. F. Uhden (trans. by Conant, 1855). ful death, such as the Resurrection and the death of Joseph of
Nazareth. But it was in her poem Her Little Dying Son that she
most explicitly expressed the delights of death. Drawing from the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: NCAB. NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). Victorian leitmotif of the dying child, Conway created the scene
Other references: NYT (20 Feb. 1865). of a dying son telling his mother not to grieve: His arm is
underneath my head!Oh, it is splendidbeing dead!
NANCY A. HARDESTY
One cannot fully evaluate the signicance and creativity of
Conways writing without analyzing her role as journalist. Her
active life as editor, lecturer, teacher, and writer stood in conict
CONWAY, Katherine Eleanor with her perceived standard of womanhood. As a member of the
emerging Catholic middle class, Conway articulated many of the
Born 1852, Rochester, New York; died 2 January 1927, Boston, important questions facing Catholic women. Her answers, howev-
Massachusetts er, were traditional and inattentive to womens needs. Although
Daughter of James and Sarah Conway Conways own life was lled with professional achievement and
intellectual stimulation, she did not regard it to be a viable life
Katherine Eleanor Conways parents were Irish Catholic style for all women.
immigrants and Conway received a traditional Catholic girls
school education. After graduation from Sacred Heart Academy OTHER WORKS: On the Sunrise Slope (1881). The Good Shepherd
in New York City, she began her career as a teacher, but she soon in Boston (1892). A Dream of Lilies (1893). A Lady and Her
left the eld to become an assistant editor at the Buffalo Catholic Letters (1895). Making Friends and Keeping Them (1895). Ques-
Union and Times. Conway later successively became the editor of tions of Honor in Christian Life (1896). New Footsteps in Well-
three Catholic newspapers: the Catholic Union, the Pilot, and the Trodden Ways (1899). The Way of the World and Other Ways . . .
Republic. During her editorial career Conway lectured, taught at Bettering Ourselves (1899). A Story of Our Set (1900). Lalors
St. Marys College for Women in Indiana, traveled, and wrote. Maples (1901). In the Footprints of the Good Shepherd (1907).
She remained single and was active in Catholic intellectual and Charles Francis Donnelly; A Memoir (1909). The Woman Who
literary circles. In 1907 she was awarded the Laetare Medal by Never Did Wrong, and Other Stories (1909). Fifty Years with
Notre Dame University; this award, founded in 1883, was given Christ, The Good Shepherd (1925). The Color of Life: A Selection
each year to an American Catholic for distinguished accomplish- from the Poems of Katherine E. Conway (1947).
ments on behalf of the Church and/or the nation. A similar, higher
honor was awarded to Conway in 1912 when Pope Pius X
conferred upon her the decoration Pro Ecclesia et Pontice, for BIBLIOGRAPHY: Romig, W., Guide to Catholic Literature 1888-1940
Church and Pope. (1940).
Other references: Catholic World 124.
Conways nonction and poetry best characterize the style
and intent of her work. The major motivation behind her nonc- M. COLLEEN MCDANNELL
tion writing was to reinforce the traditional role of Catholic wife
and mother. Even though Conway herself worked outside of the
home and never married, she expended a tremendous amount of
literary effort to promote womans domestic roles. In the late COOEY, Paula Marie
1890s she wrote The Family Sitting Room Series, a ve-volume
collection of books directed toward young Catholic women. Born 21 March 1945, Hays, Kansas
Daughter of Edward Wilton and Polly Miller Cooey, Jr.; married
Although Conway posed insightful questions concerning
Philip C. Nichols Jr.; children: Benjamin
many turn-of-the-century, upwardly mobile, Catholic women, she
answered those questions in a traditional Catholic manner. She
asked rhetorically in The Christian Gentlewoman (1904), What Paula Cooeys writings during her distinguished academic
is the goodthe highest goodfor a woman? Simply, the perfec- career have ranged from her systematic analysis of Jonathan
tion of her womanhood. For Conway a womans power and Edwards, a colonial American Puritan preacher, on nature and
ability came from her natural charms, large-hearted simplici- destiny, to works of feminist theory that focus on the signicance
ty, lack of self-consciousness. A womans role in activating of the body in the context of religious experience, law, and
domestic abuse. Most recently she has published a highly readable
social change was limited to exerting inuence on her children
and generally accessible book in which she takes a look at the
and husband.
American family in the late 20th century. In her creative and
Conways poetry almost exclusively explored the relation- sensitive themes, she has used current social theory and critique,
ship between God and human in the face of hardships, especially cognitive psychology, contemporary ction and arts, and wom-
death. Life might be bitter, but death was sweet, for it brought the ens accounts of religious experience. Cooey, who writes and
intimate meeting between God and his children. Conway used speaks passionately about things that concern her, began writing
223
COOEY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
as a primary means of thinking when she was seven years old. At family values. She proposes a constructive theological position
that time, she wrote her rst short story and began to keep a that supports concern for family life in the context of secularity,
journal. She once claimed the greatest limitation and the greatest religious and political diversity, and social justice, and she speci-
strength of the body of her written work are one and the same: its cally addresses ways that confessing and civic communities can
experimental quality. This is reected not only in the content and identify avenues that empower more and more people . . . to take
the topics but also in her writing style and her choice of words charge of and to contribute responsibly to the communal process-
and images. es that govern their lives.
Born in 1945 in Georgia, she received her B.A. in philosophy In addition to her books, Cooey has written more than 20
from the University of Georgia (1968), continuing doctoral work scholarly articles and essays, numerous book reviews, and various
there in comparative literature. She transferred to the Harvard other writings, such as Transformations of Humanistic Studies
Divinity School, where she received a Master of Theological in the 21st Century in Religious Studies News (1998) and The
Studies in 1974. In 1981 she received a Ph.D. in the study of Messiness of Dying, in the Journal of Feminist Studies in
religion from Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Religion (1999). With her commitment to scholarship, research,
Sciences. After serving one year as a full-time visiting instructor and writing, Cooey also devotes enormous time and energy to the
at Connecticut College in 1979-80 and as a part-time instructor at teaching of undergraduate students. She is a creative and highly
the University of Massachusetts, Harbor Campus, in 1980-81, respected teacher, always seeking new ways to communicate with
Cooey joined the faculty of Trinity University, San Antonio, students. She received the Sears-Roebuck Foundation Award for
Texas, in August 1981. During her 18 years at Trinity, she was Excellence in Teaching and Campus Leadership in 1991; was
promoted through the ranks to become professor of religion in codirector of the Southwest Regional American Academy of
1993. In 1999 she was appointed the Margaret W. Harmon Religion Workshop on Teaching for Junior Faculty, funded by the
Professor of Christian Theology and Culture at Macalester Col- National Endowment of the Humanities and the Lilly Endowment
lege, St. Paul, Minnesota. (1994-96); and was the Trinity University nominee for the CASE
One often nds variations of the word transformation in award for outstanding teaching (1988).
her writings. From the rst publication, Jonathan Edwards on She actively participates in professional organizations, serv-
Nature and Destiny: A Systematic Analysis (1985), which was ing in leadership roles in almost every group. These include the
based on her doctoral dissertation, she wrote, Grace is the only
American Academy of Religion, the Society for Buddhist-Chris-
word I know that captures both the commonness and the specialness
tian Studies, the Society for the Scientic Study of Religion, and
of reality. It takes human misery and sorrow seriously and
the American Association of University Professors. In addition,
transforms them. The subtitle of the edited volume After Patri-
she frequently presents papers, gives endowed lectures, and
archy (1991), on which she worked with William R. Eakin and
addresses diverse groups nationally and internationally. Referring
Jay B. McDaniel, was Feminist Transformations of the World
to herself as an itinerant teacher, she speaks and teaches in
Religions. In her essay in this volume, The Redemption of the
churches and in various community and civic settings.
Body, she wrote, The body provides a source of seemingly
never-ending conict and a locus for social and environmental Truly involved with her roots and her family, she frequently
violence. . . . A post-patriarchal understanding of incarnation notes the intellectual, editorial, and personal contributions and
must be committed to a redemption of the body. In so doing, it support offered by her spouse, Philip Nichols, and her son,
must recognize that the transguration of pain begins with giving Benjamin. She also speaks of her grandparents and parents. In
voice or bearing witness to injustice with a view to healing and 1985 she poignantly described her grandparents, Mary Isabelle
nurture. and Ora Irl Miller, who helped me to see grace at work in the
Again, in Embodied Love: Sensuality and Relationship as Bible and nature. . . . Together with Ora, [Mary] taught me to
Feminist Values (1987, edited by Cooey, Sharon A. Farmer, and garden, milk cows, feed chickens, and candle eggs. With them I
Mary Ellen Ross), in Cooeys essay, Womans Body, Language, touched soil, held up earthworms for scrutiny, looked for rain-
and Value, she sees womens toughest choice in the extent to bows on the Georgia horizon, and watched tornadoes cross the
which they assume responsibility for what they value, for our Oklahoma plains (from Jonathan Edwards on Nature and
acts of valuing ultimately dene our identities. She discusses Destiny). Later she would write in Family, Freedom, and Faith
indiscriminate love and concludes, Whereas to love indiscrimi- (1996), Not a perfect family. . . . Our private stories, as opposed
nately perpetuates womens subordination to men as denitive of to our public faces, are sometimes stories of near defeat, tempo-
womans identity as woman in a negative sense, to love with rary defeat, and nally the small triumphs that build slowly into
integrity is to participate in a revolution in value that transforms survival and partial healing.
identity in ways yet to be imagined.
Cooeys book on the American family in the late 20th OTHER WORKS: Religious Imagination and the Body: A Feminist
century, Family, Freedom & Faith: Building Community Today Analysis (1994). Contributed to, among others: Created in the
(1996), deals with the public discussion of family life. She Image: Religious Values and the Shaping of Identity (audio &
discusses human religious and political diversity as well as private videocassette, 1994). Imagining Faith: Essays in Honor of Rich-
stories of domestic violence, believing the connecting point is ard R. Niebuhr (1995). Dictionary of Feminist Theologies (1996).
224
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS COOK
Horizons in Feminist Theology: Identity, Tradition, and Norms he preaches the possibility of kingdom on Earth. One must
(1997). Encyclopedia of Women and World Religion (1998). No organize fer Jesus. Cooks theme in all her novels is basically
Easy Task: Dilemmas Confronting Contemporary Mothers (1999). the same: the coming of age of the individual and, often by
The Liberating Spirit of Truth (1999). extension, of the group to which he or she belongs. Boot-Heel
Doctor (1941) and Mrs. Palmers Honey (1946) best illustrate
this point.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Modern Theology (January 1993).
In Mrs. Palmers Honey the blacks in the Ville have dreams
LOIS A. BOYD of breaking out of their stiing, overcrowded connes into a place
where they can with dignity move about as full citizens. The
Ville exists, a real place within a real city. It is the CIOthe
brotherhood of men and women groping toward a common goal
COOK, Fannie that makes some of these things possible, though none occurs
without a long, heart-and-body-rending ght.
Born 4 October 1893, St. Charles, Missouri; died 25 August This novel has been criticized for its labor propaganda. One
1949, St. Louis, Missouri reviewer for the New Yorker said that what started as a quietly
Daughter of Julius and Jennie Frank; married Jerome E. perceptive study of a very lovable Negro girl abruptly shifts to
Cook, 1915 a sort of labor tract with characters are not so important as people
as they are as espousers of the cause for democracy, unionization,
Fannie Cook grew up and attended school in St. Louis. She justice for all. Though Cook, by making the reader privy to
received her B.A. from the University of Missouri in 1914, and Honeys thoughts, suggests Honeys potential as an individual,
her M.A. from Washington University in 1916. Though Cook she never allows her fully to realize that potential. Rather, Honey,
published widely and was a painter of some distinction, she is like the other characters in the novel, remains just beyond the
largely remembered for her novel, Mrs. Palmers Honey (1946), grasp of the reader, fathomable, but subjugated to the wishes of
which was judged the most important literary contribution to the the author.
importance of the Negros place in American life. Cook was
Though the master-servant relationship is clearly upheld and
dedicated to dening and improving the Negros place and that
therefore seemingly sanctioned in Cooks works, it should be
of other oppressed groups. She was a member of the Mayors
pointed out that the black maids, or their male counterparts
Committee on Race Relations, an adviser to the National Associa-
working in the factories and the elds, somehow appear to be
tion for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the more capable than their white charges. They are always
1940 chairperson of the Missouri Committee for Rehabilitation of looking after their white employers as though they needed
Sharecroppers. tending to as much as the cooking and cleaning. In fact, it is to
Cook resigned her position as instructor of English at Wash- Cooks credit that she endows her maids, whether they are serving
ington University and began to write articles, short stories, and blacks or whites, with so much dignity that, like them, we too pity
novels. Her rst literary success came in 1935 when she won rst those who must be cared for and we become convinced that the
prize in a Readers Digest contest for new writers. Most of her white world would be in dire straits without the input of blacks.
works are regional but they are also timely and universal, reect- Cook always renders reality as she sees it, but manages to
ing the plight of the dispossessed and oppressed. Though her suggest that reality can be changed, that it must be improved upon.
landscape is usually conned to Missouri, the colonized situations She writes simply, lovingly, using regional dialects and regional
there mirror those of oppressed people everywhere. Her charac- prejudices and shortcomings to convey verisimilitude. Her main
ters, however, are never the do-nothing kind who sorrowfully characters are big people spiritually who are lesser people in
accept their lot. Rather, they struggle to make America live up to society. They are always neighborly, always engaging, gently
its promise of democracy, freedom, and equality for all. Through nudging themselves, even when not fully developed as characters,
their struggles, they come of age as individuals, thereby attaining into the readers life for keeps.
a new selfhood through which they can look at the light of day and
not be ashamed. Cooks characters rise above their miseries to
demand what is rightfully theirs. OTHER WORKS: The Hill Grows Steeper (1938). Storm Against
the Wall (1948). The Long Bridge (1949).
Cooks short works, published between 1940 and 1946,
reect her conviction that unions are the only solution for the
ailments of struggling people. In Killers Knife Aint Holy, BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: American Novelists of Today
Ambor, the preacher-protagonist, is asked to choose between the (1951). CB (1946, 1949).
church and the union. He chooses both, aiming to serve his people Other references: NYT (26 Aug. 1949). PW (23 Feb. 1946, 17
in every way possible. Whereas he had once preached that black Sept. 1949). WLB (10 Oct. 1949).
men would achieve their kingdom after death, now that he has
joined the union and understood what unionization made possible, LILLIE HOWARD
225
COOKE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
COOKE, Rose Terry Cookes respect for Calvinisms moral seriousness is reect-
ed in her careful analysis of character and motivation. Neverthe-
less, she criticizes the Puritan traditions legalism and emotional
Born 17 February 1827, Hartford, Connecticut; died 18 July repression and argues that its sour sublimity should be sweet-
1892, Pittseld, Massachusetts ened with mercy and human love, the Christian nurture of
Also wrote under: Rose Terry social bonds.
Daughter of Henry Wadsworth and Anne Hurlburt Terry; mar-
ried Rollin H. Cooke, 1873 Cookes importance as an innovator is increasingly clear. A
major inuence on local-color writing, Cooke turned the dialect
story to serious themes and gained it a place in respectable literary
Born into an old New England family, Rose Terry Cooke at
magazines. Her portrayal of spinsters, deacons, handymen, and
sixteen graduated from the Hartford Female Seminary. Following
farm women opened new possibilities for the representation of
her conversion that year, she became a lifelong member of the
everyday life. Cooke smoothed the transition from the sentimental
Congregational church. To support herself, she taught school, and romances of the 1850s to the realism of William Dean Howellsa
in 1848 a legacy gave Cooke leisure to write. Although she role evidenced by Cookes style, which swings from orid
considered herself primarily a poet, she is remembered mainly as romantic rhetoric to vernacular dialect and concrete historical
a local colorist. detail. Although her tales are loosely structured and occasionally
plotless, their focus on character is a hallmark of the modern short
Cookes published works include two volumes of poetry, a
story. Read primarily for her impact on later writers, and for her
novel, childrens stories, religious sketches, and more than 100
depiction of a lost time and place, Cooke offers a signicant
short stories. Her verse now seems conventional and spiritless;
handful of stories valuable in their own right.
only her short stories endure. For almost 40 years Cookes ction
appeared in prominent magazines, where it had a decisive impact
on the development of regional or local-color writing. Although
OTHER WORKS: Poems (1861). Groton Massacre Centennial
the local colorists she inuenced soon overshadowed her, Van
Poem (1881). Somebodys Neighbors (1881). A Lay Preacher
Wyck Brooks felt some of Cookes tales were never surpassed by
(1884). Root-Bound and Other Sketches (1885). No (1886). The
later authors.
Sphinxs Children (1886). The Deacons Week (1887). The Dea-
Rich in realistic detail and shrewd social observation, these cons Week. And What Deacon Baxter Said (1887). Happy Dodd
stories recreate rural New England before and during the 19th- (1887). The Old Garden (1888). Poems (1888). Steadfast, the
century migration to cities and prairies. Cooke knew the regional Story of a Saint and a Sinner (1889). Polly and Dolly, and Other
mind as it was shaped by Calvinism and hard work, bleak Stories (1890). Huckleberries Gathered from New England Hills
landscapes, and scanty resources. Although she could treat her (1891). Little Foxes (1904).
characters with broad Yankee humor, she took their controver-
sies with Providence seriously and reviewed their eccentric
behavior with the sympathetic but critical eye of the insider. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brooks, V. W., New England: Indian Summer
(1940). Donovan, J., New England Local Color Literature: A
Cooke describes New Englands woods and seasons with Womens Tradition (1983). Downey, J., A Biographical and
poetic sympathy, but deliberately refutes its nostalgic, pastoral Critical Study of Rose Terry Cooke (dissertation, 1956). Elrod,
image. Life on her farms centers on work, ranging from bitter E. R., Reforming Fictions: Gender and Religion in the Works of
drudgery to quiet self-fulllment. Although the mills loom on the Harriet Beecher Stowe, Rose Terry Cooke, and Mary Wilkins
periphery, her setting is preindustrial. Husband and wife share Freeman (thesis, 1991). Jobes, K. T., The Resolution of
responsibility for their familys survival, and a womans skill Solitude: A Study of Four Writers of the New England Decline
within her sphere is highly prized. (dissertation, 1961). Martin, J., Harvests of Change: American
Literature 1865-1914 (1967). Patee, F. L., The Development of
Domestic scenes, rendered lovingly, dominate Cookes c- the American Short Story (1923). Spofford, H. P., A Little Book of
tion. Critical of womens rights activists, she often reminds Friends (1916). Toth, S. A., More Than Local Color: A Reap-
readers that a womans place is in her home, under the head- praisal of Rose Terry Cooke, Mary Wilkins Freeman, and Alice
ship of a good husband. However, in Mrs. Flints Married Brown (dissertation, 1969).
Experience, a miserly deacon works his wife nearly to death, Reference works: Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in
grudging her even food and clothing; Cookes repudiation of the the United States (1995).
patriarchy which supports him is compelling. In How Celia Other references: American Transcendental Quarterly (Sum-
Changed Her Mind and Polly Mariner, Tailoress, Cooke mer-Fall 1980). BB (Summer and Fall 1955). KCN (1976).
characterizes outspoken and self-determined spinsters with evi- Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers (Fall 1992).
dent sympathy. Although many of Cookes stories are too di- WS (1972).
dactic, the best probe the Puritan psyche with considerable
sophistication. SARAH WAY SHERMAN
226
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS COOK-LYNN
COOK-LYNN, Elizabeth Medicine, and William Willard. Translated as Red Pencil,

Wicazo Sa is a journal focusing on the scholarship associated with
developing Native American studies as an academic discipline.
Born Elizabeth Bowed Head Irving, 17 November 1930, Fort Cook-Lynn has served as the journals editor and has contributed
Thompson, South Dakota numerous articles on topics ranging from land issues to Native
Daughter of Henry Renville and Hulda Petersen Irving; married American literature.
Melvin T. Cook, 1953 (divorced 1970); Clyde J. Lynn, 1975;
children: David, Mary, Lisa, Margaret In 1975 she married Clyde Lynn, a teacher and a Spokane
Native American from Willpinit, Washington. The following
year, she was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities
Elizabeth Cook-Lynn is one of the leading gures in the
fellowship at Stanford University. She also studied in the doctoral
20th-Century Native American Literary Renaissance. As a writer,
program in comparative literature at the University of Nebraska in
editor, teacher, and consultant in native studies, she has pursued
Lincoln from 1977 to 1978.
literary, scholarly, and political interests that connect deeply to
her heritage. Cook-Lynns work became widely recognized when her
mixed-genre collection, Then Badger Said This (1977), had
She was born in the Government Hospital on the Sioux excerpts included in Geary Hobsons The Remembered Earth: An
Reservation at Fort Thompson, South Dakota, and grew up in an Anthology of Native American Literature (1979) and was reissued
extended family environment along the Crow Creek, a tributary of in 1983. Then Badger Said This explores the theme of the
the James and Missouri rivers. She was named Elizabeth Bowed destruction of native lands as a result of the damming of the
Head Irving after two grandparents, both of whom gured as Missouri River in 1952. It is inuenced by the writing of Kiowa
inuences and role models in her life and work. Her grandmother, novelist N. Scott Momaday, an author Cook-Lynn admires for his
Eliza Renville Irving, was from the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux pioneering technique of combining oral tradition, multiple genres,
Reservation near the North Dakota/Canada border. During personal narrative, and tribal history to express a Native American
Cook-Lynns childhood, she lived only a few miles away and they worldview.
were able to spend a great deal of time together. She had been a
bilingual writer who worked in the Dakotah language of her Over the years, Cook-Lynn has continued to create stories
people and published in some of the early Christian newspapers. and poems that depict her peoples way of life and at the same time
In her dedication to the written word, Cook-Lynn followed in the show the effects white culture has had on it. In her novella From
literary footsteps of her father, Gabriel Renville, a native linguist the Rivers Edge (1991), she explores her central concerns from
who was instrumental in developing early Dakotah language the point of view of John Tatekeya, a cattleman who seeks
dictionaries. reparation for the theft of 45 head of his cattle and nds himself
the one accused in the white mans legal system.
Cook-Lynns other namesake was her grandfather, Joe Bowed
From the Rivers Edge was reissued as the rst work in the
Head Irving, a tribal leader and someone she characterized as a
novella collection Aurelia: A Crow Creek Trilogy (1999). It is
great talker. He was a longtime member of the Crow Creek
followed by Circle of Dancers, which features a character from
Sioux Tribal Council. Cook-Lynns father, Jerome Irving, was a
the rst book, Aurelia Blue, John Tatekeyas lover of many years.
rancher who also served as a member of the Council. Her mother,
Aurelia searches for her identity as a Dakotah Sioux woman even
Hulda Irving, was a teacher whose example she would follow
as she is trying to survive the consequences of the damming of the
when she became involved in the educational eld for many years.
Missouri River, one of the worst environmental disasters ever
In 1952 Cook-Lynn received a B.A. in English and journal- visited on the region. In the nal novella of the trilogy, In the
ism from South Dakota State College (now University). The next Presence of River Gods, Aurelia has been witness to events
year she married Melvin Cook of Eagle Butte, South Dakota, a including the birth of the American Indian Movement and the
fellow student and a Sioux from the Cheyenne River Reservation. 1974 uprising at Wounded Knee. Her perspective spans the years
They started a family and had a son and three daughters. During 1930 to 1990, and like the Corn Wife of Sioux legends, she carries
this period, Cook-Lynn worked as a newspaper editor and writer within her the history of her people.
from 1952 to 1964 in South Dakota and New Mexico. From 1965 In nonction, Cook-Lynns political and cultural thinking
to 1969, she pursued a career as a high school teacher. She did achieved powerful expression in Why I Cant Read Wallace
graduate studies at New Mexico State University and Black Hills Stegner and Other Essays: A Tribal Voice (1996), which received
State College and in 1971 received a Masters of Education in the Myers Center award for the Study of Human Rights in North
psychology and counseling from the University of South Dakota. America in 1997. She was also the recipient in 1995 of the Oyate
Igluwitaya award at South Dakota University, given by Native
She and her husband were divorced in 1970 and Cook-Lynn
American students to those who aid in the ability of the people to
accepted a professorship in 1971 at Eastern Washington Universi-
see clearly in the company of each other.
ty in Cheney. She remained on the faculty teaching English and
Native American studies until 1990, when she was named Profes-
sor Emerita. While at EWU, she founded The Wicazo Sa Review in OTHER WORKS: Seek the House of Relatives (1983). The Power of
1985 along with her colleagues Roger Buffalohead, Beatrice Horses and Other Stories (1990). I Remember the Fallen Trees:
227
COOLBRITH AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
New and Selected Poems (1998). The Politics of Hallowed Ground: Despite Coolbriths rich personal history, she wrote little of
Wounded Knee and the Struggle for Indian Sovereignty (1998). her poetry from autobiographical or topical experiences. An early
poem about the ambush of Sheriff Barton, written when she was
sixteen and published in the Los Angeles Star, is a rare exception
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Allen, P. G., ed., Spider Womans Granddaugh- to her later sentimental lyrics. Of Coolbriths mature work, done
ters: Traditional Tales and Contemporary Writing by Native primarily for the Overland Monthly and her books, only four
American Women (1989). Bruchac, J., and J. Witalec, eds., Smoke poems refer to her personal past: Retrospect, Fragment of an
Rising: The Native North American Literary Companion (1995). Unnished Poem, Unrest, and A Mothers Grief.
Swann, B., and A. Krupat, eds., I Tell You Now: Autobiographical
Essays by Native American Writers (1987). Witalec, J., ed., Native Fragment of an Unnished Poem (Poetry of the Pacic,
North American Literature (1994). 1867) illustrates the unfortunately brief retrospective period when
Reference works: CA (1991). CLC (1996). DLB (1997). Coolbrith molded a sensuous perception of her disillusioning past:
Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). The soft star closes to the golden days / I dreamed away, in that
Other references: American Indian Quarterly (Winter 1996). far, tropic clime, / Wherein Loves blossom budded, bloomed and
Journal of American Ethnic History (Summer 1995). died. In Unrest Coolbriths topic is her failed marriage; the
poet cannot sleep for the mourning memory / Her dream
MARLENE M. MILLER domains. She searches for hopes that have perished on ruined
footpaths and by the grave of Love kneels and sheds no
tear. No doubt Coolbrith could make such resolves by forging a
new identity in San Francisco where she kept her past a secret,
COOLBRITH, Ina Donna even from close friends. Yet a poem like A Mothers Grief
(Outcroppings, 1866), which mourns the loss of an infant, perhaps
Robert Carsleys child, hint that the wounds were permanent.
Born Josephine D. Smith, 10 March 1842, Nauvoo, Illinois; died
29 February 1928, San Francisco, California Because of her reticence on subjects of her past, Coolbriths
Daughter of Don Carlos and Agnes Coolbrith Smith; married Blossom Time, her second published poem in the Overland
Robert B. Carsley, 1859 (divorced) Monthly, is viewed as typical of the majority of her work in theme
and style; it celebrates the coming of spring. What was a personal
Ina Donna Coolbrith was four months old when her father passion in the autobiographical poems becomes a wistful sadness
died and with his death, Coolbriths mother moved the family to mixed with love of nature. These lines from Longing, pub-
St. Louis, Missouri, where she married printer William Pickett. In lished in 1868, exemplify this sadness:
1849, two years after the gold rush began, Pickett took his wife
and children to California. They settled in Los Angeles where And I could Kiss, with longing wild,
Coolbrith spent her early teens and twenties. At eleven, she began Earths dear brown bosom, loved so much,
writing verses and publishing in the local paper, the Los Angeles A grass-blade fanned across my hand
Star. The California Home Journal also printed many of her Would thrill me like a lovers touch.
early poems.
Coolbrith continued to pipe this same themeunhappiness
After a disappointing marriage to Robert Carsley, a partner in abated in the simple pleasures of naturein her books, A Perfect
the Salamander Iron Works, Coolbrith divorced her husband and Day, and Other Poems (1881), The Singer by the Sea (1894), and
moved to San Francisco. Here she broke all associations with her Songs from the Golden Gate (1896), a collected edition of her
unpleasant past and adopted her pseudonym, Ina Coolbrith. Soon work. But despite the single-mindedness of her poems, she
her writings attained a local reputation, and when, in 1868, Bret emerges as a top writer of the San Francisco literary group. When
Harte founded the Overland Monthly, he named her as one of the evaluating Coolbrith, one must remember the xed literary tastes
coeditors. Primarily a poet, though she did write reviews on that inuenced the poetry of the period and the attitudes that
occasion, Coolbrith wrote for the Californian, Harpers Weekly, conditioned women writers. There is a strength in Coolbriths
Century, Scribners and other magazines and became a close imagery which takes her beyond the sentimental lyricists of her
associate and friend of Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, and Joaquin day. In fact, many of her imagessensuous, yet wistfulare
Miller. With George Stoddard and Bret Harte, she was said to analogous to Theodore Roethkes perception of man and nature in
complete the Golden Gate Trinity of authors. the 20th century. As George Stoddard said of her work: She has
no superior among the female poets of her own land, and scarcely
After being acclaimed by critics in England and America, an equal. Her poems are singularly sympathetic; I know of none
Coolbrith planned to go to New York and eventually to London. more palpably spontaneous. The minor key predominates; but,
However, she was suddenly left with the responsibility of rearing there are a few lark-like carols suffused with the unpremeditated
a niece and nephew, and was forced to stay in California where art of heavenly inspiration.
she worked for the Oakland Library, the San Francisco Mercantile
Library, and the San Francisco Bohemian Club. In 1915 Coolbrith
was summoned to a World Congress of Authors, and named poet BIBLIOGRAPHY: Rhodehamel, J., and R. Wood, Ina Coolbrith,
laureate of California. Librarian and Laureate of California (1973). Walker, F., San
228
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS COOPER
Franciscos Literary Frontier (1939). Walker, F., A Literary present the womans point of view, the other side by one who
History of Southern California (1950). lives there, and who is sensitive . . . to social atmospheric
Other references: Pacic Historian (1973). Westward (1928). conditions. Coopers emphasis emerges out of an awareness that
just as whites were not to blame if they cannot quite put
SHELLEY ARMITAGE themselves in the dark mans place, neither should the dark man
be wholly expected fully and adequately to reproduce the exact
Voice of the Black Woman. Her vision is clear, intelligent, and
forceful.
Coopers essays are not merely impassioned pleas by a
COOLIDGE, Susan woman for the equitable treatment of her race. Thoughtful and
See WOOLSEY, Sarah Chauncey scholarly, her work evidences a comprehensive understanding of
the position of women in America. Written in an energetic yet
graceful prose, her essays are as engaging as they are persuasive.
They constitute a signicant contribution to the cultural and
intellectual history of women and blacks in the U.S. It is fortunate
COOPER, Anna Julia (Haywood) that her collection, reprinted in 1969, is available to contemporary
readers.
Born 10 August 1858, Raleigh, North Carolina; died 27 February The ghting yet rational spirit of Coopers essays carried
1964, Washington, D.C. over into her private life. She was the second woman appointed as
Daughter of George Washington and Hanna Stanley Haywood; principal in the Washington, D.C., public school system, and
married George A. C. Cooper, 1877 headed M Street (later renamed Dunbar) High School from
1901 to 1906. It was in this capacity that she made her most far-
reaching contribution to education. When Congress proposed a
Anna Julia Cooper had a lengthy career which she depicted as
special colored curriculum in vocational education, it did not
a conscious attempt to rectify the one mufed strain in the Silent
foresee strident opposition. Cooper, however, opposed the pro-
South, the voice of blacks. She believed that the black woman, in
posal because she believed it was based upon a conception of
particular, had been mute. Coopers life and work provided a mental inferiority of blacks. She fought for, and won, an equal
voice for the hitherto voiceless black woman of America. course of study for black youths.
Born a slave in Wake County, North Carolina, Cooper began As a principal, Cooper was ahead of her times in educational
her remarkable career at the age of six when she entered St. theory, just as she was in 1929 when she became president of
Augustines Normal and Collegiate Institute (an Episcopalian Frelinghuysen University for employed adults in Washington.
school) in Raleigh. There she became a Pupil Teacher when She was among the rst educators to recognize the need for an
only nine years old. From that time until her death at age 105, evening college for working people. Cooper served as president of
Cooper dedicated her life to teaching. The education of others and Frelinghuysen from 1929 to 1941, and worked actively for its
herself dened the pattern of Coopers career. In 1881, Cooper accreditation.
enrolled at Oberlin College in Ohio, where she received both Not only was Cooper a pioneer in education for blacks, but
a B.A. (1884) and an M.A. (1887). During her matriculation, she she was also a pioneer in life styles for women. At the age of sixty-
continued to teach, holding a position at the college preparatory, seven, she received a doctorate from the Sorbonne, University of
Oberlin Academy. In 1884, she returned to the South and to her Paris. The year was 1925, and few women, especially black
alma mater, St. Augustines, as an instructor of Latin, Greek, and women, of any age held a doctorate. Cooper allowed neither age
mathematics. St. Augustines became the springboard for Coop- nor convention to deter her personal development. Two books in
ers career as a writer. French are the result of her graduate research at the Sorbonne, Le
Plerinage de Charlemagne: Voyage Jrusalem et Constanti-
Her rst book, A Voice from the South by a Black Woman of nople (1925) and LAttitude de La France a LEgard de LEsclavage
the South (1892), is a collection of essays, treatises, and reec- Pendant La Rvolution (1925).
tions, based upon keen feminist insights and heightened racial
awareness, which resulted from Coopers own experiences. Her When Cooper died a centenarian in 1964, she left an inspira-
literary reputation rests primarily upon this pioneering volume. tional legacy of activism for which she was eulogized at funeral
Divided into two parts, Soprano Obligato and Tutti Ad services held, appropriately, in the chapel of St. Augustines
Libitum, A Voice from the South contains eight essays which College where her career had begun. She left, as well, an impres-
sive collection of unpublished and privately printed works which
address the issues related specically to the position of women
provide a rich eld for further study.
and blacks in society. In her preface, Our Raison dEtre,
Cooper announces that she has raised her voice as a black woman
who can more sensibly realize and more accurately tell the OTHER WORKS: Legislative Measures Concerning Slavery in the
weight and the fret of black life in the South. Her objective is to United States (1942). Equality of Races and the Democratic
229
COOPER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Movement (1945). The Life and Writings of the Grimk Family whole, and all of her books have included earlier poems reprinted
(1951). The Third Step (n.d.). from previous books as well as new ones. Her poems often use
The papers of Anna Julia Cooper are at the Moorland- architecture as metaphor, and two of her books use the language of
Spingarn Research Center at Howard University in Washing- building as a title, Maps and Windows and Scaffolding (1984). As
ton, D.C. in Emily Dickinsons poems, the house in Coopers work is also
the body. People often appear in the protective shells of their
houses Houses, houses, we lodge in such husks (Souve-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bogin, R., and B. J. Lowenberg, Anna Julia
nirs, 1971)and in the context of their fragile human settle-
Cooper, in Black Women in Nineteenth-Century American Life
ment (The Blue Anchor, 1978). The language of house
(1976). Harley, S., Anna Julia Cooper: A Voice for Black
construction serves for both private and public spacesboth our
Women in The Afro-American Woman: Struggles and Images
mortal bodies and the imperiled world.
(1978). Hutchinson, L. D., Anna J. Cooper: A Voice from the
South (1981). Lerner, G., ed., Black Women in White America: A Coopers rst book of poems, The Weather of Six Mornings
Documentary History (1972). Majors, M. A., Noted Negro Wom- (1969), won the Lamont Poetry Award of the Academy of
en: Their Triumphs and Activities (1893). American Poets (then a rst-book prize) in 1968. The award gave
Reference works: Afro-American Encyclopedia (1976). No- Coopers work the approval of some of the leading male poets of
table Black American Women (1992). Oxford Companion to the 1960s (the judges included Hayden Carruth, Donald Hall, and
Womens Writing in the United States (1995). James Wright) and brought her critical attention. Cooper was also
Other references: Baltimore Afro-American (14 March 1964). at this time part of a vigorous and supportive group of women
Parent-Teacher Journal (May 1930). writers whose companionship and guidance she has continued to
acknowledge in all of her works. They included Sarah Appleton,
THADIOUS M. DAVIS Grace Paley, Adrienne Rich, Muriel Rukeyser, and Jean Valentine.
The poems of The Weather of Six Mornings show the tension
of a generous political vision struggling with anger and of an
COOPER, Jane imagination struggling to work freely despite the press of the
diurnal. In the title poem, Cooper addresses the courage it takes
for a woman writer simply to come to speech at all: I try to speak
Born 9 October 1924, Atlantic City, New Jersey
/ of what is so hard for me.
Daughter of John C. and Martha Marvel Cooper
Maps and Windows includes poems from 1947-51, new
Although Jane Cooper worked strenuously and perfectly poems, and the rst printing of Coopers essay, Nothing Has
seriously on a book of poems between the ages of twenty-two Been Used in the Manufacture of This Poetry That Could Have
and twenty-six, she did not publish her rst book until she was in Been Used in the Manufacture of Bread. Here she writes of the
her mid-forties. Since then, she has published several collections sort of upper-middle class education that encourages writing,
of poems and a long poem, Threads: Rosa Luxemburg from painting, music, theater so long as they arent taken too serious-
Prison (1979). ly, and poses a central question about her early work: Why,
then, didnt I publish? And why, even more, did I give up writing
Cooper lived until she was ten in Jacksonville, Florida, and
poems? In this essay, Cooper traces her poetry of develop-
spent summers in the North Carolina mountains. In 1934 she and
ment, which the poems themselves demonstrate, and confronts
her family moved north to Princeton, New Jersey, where she
honestly womens need to be modest or generous at the expense of
attended Miss Fines School (1934-42). She studied at Vassar
full creative exploration.
College from 1942 to 1944 and received a B.A. in comparative
literature from the University of Wisconsin in 1946, completing Scaffolding (published in England in 1984 and republished as
an honors thesis on Garca Lorcas vocabulary of images. The Scaffolding: Selected Poems in the U.S. in 1993) includes most of
following year, Cooper attended the rst Oxford (England) Sum- the poems from her two earlier books as well as ve Reclaimed
mer School, where she began to think about writing a book of Poems from 1954-1969 and new poems from 1970-1983, in-
war poems from a womans point of view. Some of these poems cluding her long poem Threads: Rosa Luxemburg from Prison.
appeared in a section of Maps and Windows (1974) called Cooper does here the feminist work of retrieval on herself by
Mercators World (Poems 1947-1951). After a stint of freelance resurrecting poems she had earlier discounted as unnished or
editing, Cooper began teaching literature and creative writing at unimportant. Welcoming the opportunity to see my work ar-
Sarah Lawrence College in 1950 and remained a faculty member ranged chronologically, Cooper wrote Scaffolding gives a
there until 1987. She spent a year at the University of Iowa (M.A., sense of the continuous journey the work has been for me all
1954), where she worked on her poems and did a creative thesis along.
with Robert Lowell and John Berryman.
Her fourth collection, Green Notebook, Winter Road (1994),
The structure of Coopers books is architectural, like a house is in the authors words, a book that is meant to be very uid, as
she has built to which she keeps adding rooms and wings. Her own the private and public worlds intersect. While a melancholy
vocabulary of images includes many doors, windows, roofs, undercurrent weaves the poems together, critics assert that there
and walls. Cooper has always seen her poems as parts of a larger remains a balancing sense of hope. The works make Coopers
230
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CORBETT
maturity her greatest strength by pulling the present into the light life in Cooperstown, which was founded by her grandfather. She
of the past. Her newest venture, The Flashboat: Poems Collected later moved with her family to Mamaroneck, New York. Her
and Reclaimed, was not yet published in late 1999. education was received in boarding schools in New York and Paris.
Cooper has also coedited and authored forewords for a In 1833 Cooper returned to Cooperstown, where she re-
number of publications, including Senior English Reading (1980, mained till her death. She never married. Most of her community
with Malcolm Cooper), Extended Outlooks: The Iowa Review activities centered on humanitarian efforts. Devoted to her father,
Collection of Contemporary Women Writers (1981, coeditor and Cooper served for many years as his copyist. Her literary achieve-
author of introduction), The Sanity of Earth and Grass: Complete ments include ction, articles, biographical sketches, a series of
Poems (1994, coeditor and author of foreword), and The Life of prefaces for the edition of her fathers works, and her best known
Poetry (1997, author of foreword). Her work is also found in work, Rural Hours (1850). Her novel, Elinor Wyllys; or, The
periodicals like the New Yorker, Transatlantic Review, and Ameri- Young Folk at Longbridge (1946), was published under the
can Poetry Review. pseudonym Anabel Penfeather, and was originally thought to be
the work of her father, who edited it and wrote the preface.
Coopers many awards include grants from the Guggenheim
Foundation (1960), the Ingram Merrill Foundation (1971), the Rural Hours is a year-long journal of life in a rural American
National Endowment for the Arts (1981), and a Bunting Fellow- community. Its concerns are mainly the natural events of the four
ship from Radcliffe College in 1988. In 1978 she was the seasons which structure the work. In this it bears a great resem-
corecipient of the Poetry Society of Americas Shelley Award. blance to Thoreaus Walden, published four years later, and, in its
She has frequently been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony, treatment of local folklore and Indians, to his A Week on the
Yaddo, and the Blue Mountain Center. She received the Maurice Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Its gentle humor often brings to
English Poetry award for a book of poems by a writer in her sixth mind Emily Dickinsons similar treatment of birds, bugs, and
decade or older for Scaffolding. Honors continue into her seven- other natural subjects. An 1851 illustrated edition included color
ties. Cooper earned an award in literature from the American plates of birds and plants native to the region of Cooperstown.
Academy of Arts in Letters in 1995, and was chosen New York There were two English editions in 1850 and 1855.
State Poet for 1996-97. Green Notebook was also a nalist for the
Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. After Rural Hours Cooper took on a number of editing tasks
culminating with Pages and Pictures from the Writings of James
Coopers poems document a journey in search of necessary Fenimore Cooper (1861), a volume of selections from 25 of her
truths. In his jurors statement for the English award, poet fathers writings. For this volume she wrote an introduction
Galway Kinnell wrote, Looking at the whole body of Jane including a biography of James Fenimore Cooper.
Coopers work, one sees an artist who changes: who confronts
unsettling experience and learns to see the world and herself in
new ways. Never afraid to take the next surprising turn, Cooper OTHER WORKS: Country Rambles in England; or, Journal of a
has written, If my poems have always been about survivaland Naturalist by J. L. Knapp (edited by Cooper, 1853). The Rhyme
I believe they have beenthen survival too keeps revealing itself and Reason of Country Life; or, Selections from Fields Old and
as an art of the unexpected. New (edited by Cooper, 1854). Mount Vernon: A Letter to the
Children of America (1858). Worthy Women of Our First Century
(1877). William West Skiles: A Sketch of Missionary Life at Valle
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1977). CA Online (8 May Cruis in Western North Carolina: 1842-1862 (1890).
1999). CANR (1986). CP (1985, 1991).
Other references: Belles Lettres (1985). Booklist (15 Sept.
1994). Parnassus (1989). WRB (1986). BIBLIOGRAPHY: Birdsall, R., The Story of Cooperstown (1917).
Web site: The Academy of American Poets available online Cooper, J. F., Legends and Traditions of A Northern County
at poets.org/LIT/POET/jcooper (8 May 1999). (1921). Cunningham, A. K., Susan Fenimore Cooper, Child of
Genius, in NYH (July 1944). Jones, D., introduction to Susan
MAGGIE ANDERSON, Fenimore Coopers Rural Hours (1968 ed.).
UPDATED BY CARRIE SNYDER Other references: Otsego Farmer (4 Jan. 1895).
JOANN PECK KRIEG
COOPER, Susan Fenimore

Born 17 April 1813, Scarsdale, New York; died 31 December CORBETT, Elizabeth Frances
1894, Cooperstown, New York
Also wrote under: Anabel Penfeather Born 30 September 1887, Aurora, Illinois; died January 1981
Daughter of James Fenimore and Susan de Lancey Cooper Daughter of Richard W. and Isabelle Adkins Corbett
Susan Fenimore Cooper, the daughter of the great American One of three children, Elizabeth Corbett grew up on the
novelist, James Fenimore Cooper, lived the rst four years of her grounds of a Civil War veterans home near Milwaukee where her
231
CORNWELL AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
father was a member of the staff. She received her B.A., Phi Beta Home (1941) and one autobiographical novel, The Red-Haired
Kappa, from the University of Wisconsin in 1910. After her Lady (1945).
fathers death in 1927, she and her mother moved to New
York City.
OTHER WORKS: Cecily and the Wide World (1916). The Vanished
Corbett has authored more than 50 novels. She has also Helga (1918). Puritan and Pagan (1920). Walt: The Good Gray
written short stories, plays, and many articles. Her best known Poet Speaks for Himself (1928). If It Takes All Summer, the
character is the spry octogenarian, Mrs. Meigs, who was intro- Life Story of Ulysses Grant (1930). The Graper Girls (1931). After
duced in 1931 in The Young Mrs. Meigs. The Mrs. Meigs novels Five OClock (1932). The Graper Girls Go to College (1932).
deal with typical Corbett themes: the necessity of maintaining Growing Up with the Grapers (1934). The House Across the River
ones independence and the importance of overcoming obstacles (1934). Beth and Ernestine Graper (1936). The Far Down (1939).
such as ill health and onerous social demands. Mrs. Meigs appears The Queens Holiday (1940). Fayes Folly (1941). Early Summer
as the central character in A Nice Long Evening (1933); she nds a (1942). The Kimball Collection (1942). Golden Grain (1943).
love interest at 82 in Mrs. Meigs and Mr. Cunningham (1936) and Lady with Parasol (1946). Immortal Helen (1948). Eve and
marries him in Excuse Me, Mrs. Meigs (1943). The characters Christopher (1949). The Dukes Daughter (1950). Portrait of
early life is treated in She Was Carrie Eaton (1938) and Mr. and Isabelle (1951). The Richer Harvest (1952). In Miss Armstrongs
Mrs. Meigs (1940). Room (1953). Family Portrait (1955). The Head of Apollo (1956).
Professor Preston at Home (1957). The Presidents Wife (1958).
Another series of novels concerns the residents of Mount
Hamilton Terrace (1960). The Wainwright Inheritance (1960).
Royal, a ctional small town in Illinois, and is set in the 19th
Hidden Island (1961). The Paige Girls (1962). The Distant
century. The novels in this series include Mount Royal (1936), The
Princess (1963). The Heart of the Village (1963). Anniversary
Langworth Family (1937), Light of Other Days (1938), and
(1964). Lisa Kinnerleys Husband (1964). The Continuing City
Charley Manning (1939). Corbett has also written a number of
(1965). The Crossroads (1965). The Old Callahan Place (1966).
stories for girls about the three Graper sisters and their family.
Harry Martins Wife (1967). Ladies Day (1968). The Three Lives
Corbetts novels provide pleasant, undemanding reading and of Sharon Spence (1969). Hotel Belvedere (1970). Sunday at
offer an afternoons diversion for a feminine audience. The Six (1971).
conict in her novels comes from family pressures and the
difculties of nding an appropriate mate in the white upper-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Pfeifer, W. E., A Guide to the Collection of
middle classes of the small Midwestern communities she de-
Elizabeth CorbettA Milwaukee Author: Her Letters, Business
scribes. Though many of Corbetts novels were written and set
Papers, Drafts of Stories, Manuscripts, Newspaper Clippings,
during the Depression, the realities of poverty, work, violence,
and Photos (1980). Warfel, H. R., American Novelists of To-
and lack of education receive little attention. The conventional
day (1951).
roles of men and women in society are not challenged and
Reference works: TCA (1942).
conventional values are upheld.
Other references: NYHTB (10 June 1945). NYTBR (27 Sept.
Corbetts ingnues and heroines accept a womans life is 1931, 17 Sept. 1939). TLS (20 May 1939).
spent waiting on men. . . . indeed a womans life is best spent that
way. And in turn, her male characters willingly take on the HEDDY A. RICHTER
responsibilities of supporting wives and families. In The Constant
Sex (1935) a woman of 32 frees herself from the serfdom of
running a household for her six brothers to nd happiness in
marrying and reforming an irresponsible artist. Ingnues such as CORNWELL, Patricia
Elva in Mr. Underhills Progress (1934) and Cecile in The Young
Mrs. Meigs have nothing much to do after high school but wait for Born 9 June 1956, Miami, Florida
the young, brash, usually somewhat insouciant bridegroom Corbett Daughter of Marilyn and Sam Daniels; married Charles Cornwell,
is sure to provide. 1979 (divorced 1990)
If Corbetts young men and women tend to be indistinguish-
able from novel to novel, her middle-aged and older characters are With the publication of her rst novel, Postmortem, in 1990,
highly individualized and presented with great sympathy and Patricia Cornwell staked claim to territory distinctly her own in
optimism. Charley Manning is drawn as an attractive and sympa- the eld of the crime novel. Bringing to bear her knowledge of
thetic gure, but Corbett cannot permit his adultery to go unpun- forensic pathology and the informational and analytical capabili-
ished. This conict generates a characterization more complex ties of modern computer technology (as well as some old-fash-
than her portrayals of younger people. In A Nice Long Evening ioned legwork), Dr. Kay Scarpetta, chief medical examiner of
Corbett presents the threat of Mrs. Meigss blindness realistically Virginia and Cornwells ctional alter ego, tracked down the
and confronts the problems of old age with objectivity. serial killer terrorizing the women of Richmond, but not before
she herself had become his intended target. The novels curious
Corbett has written one volume of reminiscences about her blend of creepy suspense and scientic investigation thrilled
early years at the national soldiers home, Out at the Soldiers readers and earned accolades from her peers, sweeping ve major
232
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CORTEZ
mystery awards that year: the John Creasy Award from the British from Virginia to Paris and back again for another of Cornwells
Crime Writers Association; the Edgar Award from the Mystery chilling adventures.
Writers of America; the Anthony and Boucheron awards from the
World Mystery Convention; the Macavity from the Mystery As a crime writer, Cornwell differs from practitioners of the
Readers International; as well as Frances Prix du roman daventure. genre who are interested in the mind of the psychopath. In
Scarpettas eight subsequent forensic investigations have not America weve become so focused and so curious about these
diminished her appeal; they have made her one of the most aberrant people, we almost celebrate them, she says. Instead, she
successful contemporary crime writers. focuses on science and law enforcement and, like her heroine,
lives with a palpable sense of evil. Like Scarpetta, she also sleeps
Only a childhood lled with personal trauma and a dream in with a gun by her side and carries others on her person, and she
adolescence of becoming an archaeologist could have foreshad- lives within a high-security, gated community in Richmond in a
owed Cornwells preoccupation with detection and with law and home equipped with motion sensors and other security devices,
order. Two years after her parents separation, when she was ve, facts which may provide some insight into the series increasing
Cornwell moved with her mother and two brothers from her tone of paranoia.
Miami, Florida, birthplace to Montreat, North Carolina. Suffering
from a crippling bout of depression two years later, her mother In 1997 Cornwell launched a second series of police
tried to give her children to the evangelist Reverend Billy Graham procedurals with the publication of Hornets Nest, the clearly
and his wife, Ruth, who lived nearby. Ruth, who temporarily autobiographical tale of a rising young crime reporter for the
placed the children with a missionary family, became Cornwells Charlotte Observer assigned to ride with the citys deputy chief of
mentor and the subject of her rst published work, A Time for police. In their rst outing together, they work with Charlottes
Remembering: The Story of Ruth Bell Graham (1983). Tough and beleaguered police chief, Judy Hammer, to track a serial killer
resilient, but not without her vulnerabilities, like Scarpetta, Cornwell preying on visiting businessman. In their second outing, detailed
excelled at her studies and, following a battle with anorexia in Southern Cross (1998), the trio must nd the link between the
nervosa and bulimia, graduated in 1979 with a degree in English desecration of a Confederate memorial and the murder of an
from Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina. elderly woman as well as clean house in a corrupt Richmond
police force. Satirical in tone, this series, which has garnered little
After marriage to an English professor 17 years her senior, critical approval, lacks the verve and authenticity of the Scarpetta
Cornwell began a career as a journalist for the Charlotte (North series but is still a hit with fans. Clearly, in the male-dominated
Carolina) Observer, eventually becoming a crime reporter. A world of police procedurals and crime novels, Cornwell and her
1981 move to Richmond, where her husband pursued his studies female crime ghters are equal to their tasks.
for the ministry, brought her into contact with a Virginia medical
examiner, Marcella Fierro, who inspired Cornwell to become a
volunteer police ofcer to gain access to the autopsy room. OTHER WORKS: Ruth: A Portrait (1997).
When she started talking about how you could make the body
talk to you, I was just blown away, Cornwell explained. Soon
she had worked her way into a job as a technical writer and then as BIBLIOGRAPHY: Biography (May 1998). Great Women Mystery
a computer analyst in the Richmond medical examiners ofce. Writers: Classic to Contemporary (1994). Miller, M., and K.
Her six years of experience in the world of the morgue accounts Ames, A League of Her Own, in Newsweek (22 July 1996).
for the authenticity that characterizes her well-researched novels. New York Times Magazine (14 July 1996).
Reference works: ANR 53. CBY (1997).
Postmortem, Cornwells rst crime novel, was quickly fol-
lowed by Body of Evidence (1991), in which Scarpetta investi- LINDA C. PELZER
gates the stabbing death of a Richmond-area romance writer. All
That Remains (1992) found Scarpetta examining the skeletal
remains of two college students, victims of a serial killer targeting
young lovers. In Cruel and Unusual (1993), her next Scarpetta CORTEZ, Jayne
adventure, Cornwell introduced readers to Temple Gault, a serial
killer who would elude law enforcement ofcers and reappear
again in The Body Farm (1994) and From Potters Field (1995). Born 19 May 1936, Arizona
Scarpettas three subsequent investigationsCause of Deaths Married Ornette Coleman (divorced); children: Denardo
(1996) tale of nuclear terrorism, Unnatural Exposures (1997)
inquiry into the smallpox deaths of two women, and Point of Jayne Cortez, a poet of extraordinary musicality, was born in
Origins (1998) story of racial hatred and murderall bear Arizona but reared in the Watts section of Los Angeles. A
Cornwells trademarks: multiple murders; detailed descriptions of participant in writers workshops in Watts during the 1960s, she
forensic procedures that convey the violence perpetrated against published her rst volume of poems, Pissstained Stairs and the
the victims, who are usually women; and her formidable heroine, Monkey Mans Wares in 1969. Since then, she has published six
who must not only battle the kind of person who kills for sport, but volumes of poetry, made three recordings of readings of her work,
also confront the prejudices of a male-dominated justice system. and has had her poems included in numerous anthologies, maga-
The latest Scarpetta thriller, Black Notice (1999), takes readers zines, and journals. In 1979 she received a National Endowment
233
COTT AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry. A performing poet, Cortez has and Japan. She also appears at jazz festivals in the U.S., London,
lectured and read widely in the U.S., Latin America, and Africa, and Germany.
often reading to musical accompaniment.
In addition to her artistic efforts, Cortez has taught at Rutgers
Cortez has been described as a surrealist poet because of University (English) and was writer-in-residence at the Writers
her startling use of symbol and imagery. In her poems, colors have Community in New York. She also serves on the advisory board
tastes, sounds have texture and shape, odors are visible and of Poets House, the executive board of PEN, the governing board
audible. Cortez yokes opposites and contradictories, such as of the Poetry Society of America, and the board of directors of the
signifying stones and tattooed holes. She juxtaposes the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines. Together with Ama
beautiful and the ugly, the sublime and the disgusting, often in the Ata Aidoo, a resident of Zimbabwe, she formed the Organization
same line or phrase. of Women Writers of Africa (OWWA) to establish links between
professional African women writers and to promote interest in the
Cortezs images combine with her use of language and literature of African women.
sound. Often the poems have a sense of incantation achieved
through a judicious use of repetition. In addition, she is a student Continually active in her chosen artistic elds, Cortez offers
of black musical traditions, ancient and modern, grounding poems the following on her own creative process: I use dreams, the
in African rhythms, blues lines, and avant-garde jazz structures. subconscious, and the real objects, and I open up the body and use
Orality is central to Cortezs art. The sounds of the words organs, and I sink them into words, and I ritualize them and fuse
reinforce their sense. In Cortezs performances, the English them into events. I guess the poetry is like a festival. Everything
language also becomes tonal as she varies pitch and duration of can be transformed.
syllables to enhance the musicality of her lines. Vocalized breaths
provide rhythmic punctuation for other lines in the mode of the OTHER WORKS: Festivals and Funerals (1971). Scarications
traditional African American preacher. (1973). Mouth on Paper (1977). Firespitter (1982). Coagulations:
A high priestess for the human race, Cortez has nonetheless a New and Selected Poems (1984). Poet Magnetic (1991). Frag-
black womans vision. She is seer and healer, singer and chastiser. ments (1994). Recordings: Unsubmissive Blues (1980). There It
She self-consciously assumes a griot stance, singing praise of Is (1982).
such cultural gures as Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington, Cuban
drummer Chano Pozo, Martinican poet Leon Damas, and South BIBLIOGRAPHY: Melhem, D. H., ed., Heroism in the New Black
African freedom ghter Solomon Mahlangu. Praises for the Poetry (1990). Redmond, E. B., Drumvoices: The Mission of
works of people such as these who have joined the ancestors Afro-American PoetryA Critical History (1976).
commingle with exhortations to the living. Cortez orates from a Reference works: CA (1978). CANR (1984). DLB (1985). FC
pulpit of Pan-African cultural identity, environmental concerns, (1990). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United
and human rights advocacy. Push back the catastrophes, she States (1995).
urges in her poem of the same name. Her poems see as catastroph- Other references: Callaloo (1986). MELUS (Spring 1996).
ic all ideas and actions that prevent the actualization of human PW (3 June 1996). Yardbird Reader (1976).
potential, dignity, and creativity.
FAHAMISHA PATRICIA BROWN,
Beginning her career as a writer during a period when poets
UPDATED BY REBECCA C. CONDIT
often took to the public platform, Cortez has become known as a
highly polished performer. In 1975 she recorded her rst album,
Celebrations and Solitudes: The Poetry of Jayne Cortez, with
bassist Richard Davis. Subsequent recordings have featured other COTT, Nancy F.
noted jazz musicians, including her son, Denardo Coleman.
In her sixth book, Somewhere in Advance of Nowhere (1996), Born 8 November 1945, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Cortez again presents life in her streetwise, musical, and rhythmic Daughter of Max F. and Estelle Hollander Falik; married Leland
style. In this collection, as in her other work, the poetry ranges Cott, 1969; children: Joshua, Emma
from the clearly political to the grim; full of insight into life and
some of its darker moments. Critics continue to praise Cortezs Nancy Falik Cott is a historian, educator, editor and writer
work as a tribute to human resilience and a showcase of poetic specializing in womens history. She is recognized as an inuen-
confrontation. tial feminist scholar and is credited with contributing a great deal
to the body of knowledge on womens roles, both social and
Cortez continues to merge art, music, and poetry in her life
political, throughout the history of the United States.
and work. Involved in a wide range of creative efforts, Cortez has
worked on lms such as Tribeca (1993) and music videos Cott received her B.A. from Cornell University in 1967 and
including Mandela is Coming (1991). Her verse reects her her Ph.D. from Brandeis in 1974. She held teaching positions
extensive travels, which have included lecture tours throughout throughout the early 1970s, including at Wheaton College, Clark
Africa, Europe, Canada, and the U.S. and tours with her jazz University, and Wellesley. In 1975 she joined Yale University as
ensemble to Brazil, Germany, Italy, Zimbabwe, the British Isles, an assistant professor and has remained there, rising to full
234
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS COYLE
professor of both history and American studies. She has served as of publications, including Feminist Studies, William and Mary
the chair of both the American studies and womens studies Quarterly, Journal of Social History, Psychohistory Review,
programs at Yale, where she helped establish the latter. She also Signs: A Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Journal of
lectures at other colleges and universities and at the Boston Public American History, Yale Review, American Quarterly, and Ameri-
Library. can Historical Review.
Cotts rst book was Root of Bitterness: Documents of the As a reviewer and essayist, Cott has written for Yale Review,
Social History of American Women (1972), which was reissued in American Quarterly, New York Review of Books, American His-
1996 in an edition coedited with Jeanne Boydston, Ann Braude, tory, American Bar Foundation Research Journal, American
Lori D. Ginzberg, and Molly Ladd-Taylor. Cotts second book, Quarterly, American Historical Review, Business History Re-
The Bonds of Womanhood: Womans Sphere in New England, view, Intellectual History Newsletter, International Labor and
1780-1835, was based on research conducted while she was a Workingclass History, Journal of American History, Journal of
student at Brandeis. Interdisciplinary History, New York Times Book Review, Pacic
Studies, Signs, Times (London) Literary Supplement, and Wom-
In 1979 Cott coedited, with E. H. Pleck, A Heritage of Her
ens History Review.
Own: Towards a New Social History of American Women. The
book gathered 20 popular and scholarly essays by women from She has contributed essays to historical compilation books
many periods of U.S. history and from diverse walks of life; many edited by others, including What is Feminism? (1986), A New
of the essays are considered classics in the eld of American Perspective: Southern Womens Cultural History from the Civil
womens history. The selections included Cotts Passionless, War to Civil Rights (1989), Women, Politics and Change (1990),
which held that Victorian societys demand that women be sexless One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage
may have offered advantages and rewards, contrary to the domi- Movement (1995), Meanings for Manhood: Constructions of
nant view that the period was predominately negative for women. Masculinity in Victorian America (1990), Conicts in Feminism
A Heritage of Her Own was praised for its carefully chosen (1990), La Storia Delle Donne (1992), Suffrage & Beyond (1994),
essays, its range and variety, and its focus on controversial U.S. History as Womens History (1995), and Justice and Injus-
milestones. tice (1996). She has also supplied essays on Mary Ritter Beard and
other women to various biographical anthologies and contributed
Cotts The Grounding of Modern Feminism (1987) offers a
afterwords, introductions, editorials, interviews and commentary
historical context for modern feminists, presenting a discussion of
to a range of scholarly books and journals.
the factionalism that developed within the womens movement
even before the 19th amendment was passed. Critics praised the Cott has earned numerous honors throughout her career,
book. Nation wrote, Nancy F. Cott has given us a new way to including fellowships, grants, and awards from the Rockefeller
understand the paradoxes of modern feminism. Her brilliant book Foundation, Harvard Law School, Radcliffe, Yale, the Guggenheim
literally grounds feminism in history, both as an ideology and as a Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the
social movement, and claries its inescapable dilemma. Joanne National Endowment of the Humanities.
Meyerowitz, in the Journal of American History, added, Cotts
complex work stands among the most important books on United
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference Works: CANR (1998).
States womens history. It recovers the broad range of the early
Other references: Journal of American History (Dec. 1988).
20th-century womens movement and uncovers the neglected
Ms. (Sept. 1980, Oct. 1987, Mar./Apr. 1995). NYTBR (2 Mar.
roots of contemporary feminism. Spiced with insight and irony,
1980, 24 Mar. 1991). Nation (6 Feb. 1988). PW (18 Jan. 1991).
this is subtle and sophisticated fare. Joan Scott, writing in Ms.
magazine, agreed: Yale historian Nancy Cott traces the history KAREN RAUGUST
of this period in an engaging and intelligent book, packed with
fascinating details, new information, and wonderfully pointed
quotations. She also offers a profoundly important interpretation
crucial for understanding contemporary feminism. COYLE, Kathleen
In A Woman Making History: Mary Ritter Beard through
Her Letters (1991), Cott compiled 141 letters from more than 30 Born 1886, Derry, Northern Ireland; died 25 March 1952, Phila-
correspondents, gleaned from a number of archives, which pro- delphia, Pennsylvania
vide an overview of Beards life from 1912 to 1955. The letters are Married Charles OMaher; children: a son and a daughter
chronological and enhanced by Cotts notes explaining the his-
torical context surrounding each missive. The book offers a rare The oldest of ve children, Kathleen Coyle describes her
glimpse into the life of Beard, who was often overshadowed by youth as a tragic Bront sort of childhood. Educated at home
the attention paid to her husband. by a French governess and by her fathers library, Coyle started
writing when she was very young.
Cott also edited an 11-volume series of books for young
readers, The Young Oxford History of Women in the United States Although Magical Realm (1943) describes her early years,
(1995). In addition to her book-length works, Cott has published Coyle was reticent about her private life and few details are
articles on womens social issues and feminist history in a number known. She lived in Paris for many years before moving to New
235
CRAIG AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
York at the beginning of World War I. She married Charles CRAIG, Elisabeth May
OMaher who predeceased her; she had a daughter and a son.
Although she suffered from poor health, Coyle was a prolif-
ic writer. Born 19 December 1888, Coosaw Mines, South Carolina; died 15
July 1975, Silver Spring, Maryland
Coyles rst novel was published in 1923, but it was her fth Also wrote under: May Craig
and best known novel Liv (1929) that established her reputation. It Daughter of Alexander and Elizabeth Adams; married Don-
was translated into Italian as Come un Volo duccelli (1944). In ald A. Craig, 1909
the novel Liv Evensen asks to go to Paris to study cooking before
marrying Harold Christensen. In Paris she meets the Dadaists and Elisabeth May Craig was the sixth of nine children born to
falls in love with Per Mazons who will not dissolve his loveless parents who left England for a small South Carolina mining town.
marriage because of the nancial security it offers. While Liv Her mother died when she was ve, and she was raised by Frances
experiences an intense relationship with Per, there is no affair. She and William Weymouth, one of the owners of the phosphate
leaves Paris and returns home to Norway to a sympathetic aunt. mines in which her father was a blacksmith. In 1900 the Weymouths
Livs life in Paris touches the expatriate experience, the moved to Washington, D.C., where Craig attended Central High
moral consequences of rootlessness: We feel that we can do School, enrolled in George Washington Hospital Nursing School,
what we like and people wont know, our own people I mean. and worked at developing ction and nonction writing skills.
Liv is passionate but reason is her greater strength.
After marriage to journalist Donald Craig in 1909, Elizabeth
Coyle judged A Flock of Birds (1930) to be her best book. A began to publish feature articles and in 1923 to assist her husband
critical success, it is a mothers story. Catherine Munsters son with the column he wrote for the Gannett chain of newspapers in
Christy is sentenced to death for shooting a British soldier in Maine. When her husband died in 1936, she kept his Maine
Dublin in 1919. His older brother Valentine, a former British column, retitling it Inside in Washington and writing it almost
Army ofcer, disapproves of Christy but tries to intercede on his seven days a week until her retirement in 1965. In the 1940s Craig
behalf. Christys sister Kathleen carries a petition to well-known began radio broadcasts, and in 1949 appeared on the rst televised
Dublin literary gures. Only Catherine Munster is willing to see Meet the Press broadcast. She received national prominence as
her son die for his ideals. He was dying at the right moment, at the lady with the hats and the dodgeproof questions during her
twenty-one, with one thing well done and nothing undone. Frank tenure of 18 years.
about her possessive love for her son, Catherine realizes that shed
rather see Christy die while he is hers. The best of Craigs reportage appeared in the Gannett col-
umn Inside in Washington, which was published in four major
Coyle was widely read but she never emerged from the ranks Maine newspapers. For this column she developed a vast store of
of minor novelists. Able powerfully to evoke emotion, she sacri- political knowledge about complex bills, laws, and issues relevant
ced clarity for intensity. Most of Coyles women have too much to the national and local Maine environments. The columns topic
spirit and intelligence for the lives they are given. Failing to nd was introduced within the rst few sentences, or else a chatty
an acceptable focus, their energy is usually destructive. Liv, the description of Washington social events was followed by an
heroine of her most successful book, is an exception; she is saved abrupt shift to a political theme. Readers were presented with a
by her self-possession. It is Coyles examination of her past, a past large array of political facts organized within a framework of
that was responsible for her tragic mode, that is of lasting interest. personal opinion. Generally approving of Franklin Roosevelts
Explaining her preoccupation with the past, she says in Magical New Deal reforms because they were efforts to do something for
Realm (1943), Why, at the end of life, we return so insistently to the forgotten man, Craig also kept her readers aware of the
the mould of our childhood is simply because it is only at the end various interest groups who stood to benet from each new piece
that we are capable of comprehending the beginning. of legislation. Legislative samples explained political philoso-
phies and practical politics. Discussions of the milk imbroglio,
OTHER WORKS: Picadilly (1923). The Widows House (1923). the homestead idea, or the medical trust illustrated issues of
Youth in the Saddle (1927). Shule Agra (1927). It is Better to Tell an ideal American standard of living and the little local
(1927). There Is a Door (1931). The French Husband (1932). The grafters who saw to it that they got theirs.
Skeleton (1933). Morning Comes Early (1934). Undue Fulll- Throughout her journalistic career Craig covered presidential
ment (1934). Immortal Ease (1939). Brittany Summer (1940). and congressional politics; she attended press conferences, legis-
Who Dwells with Wonder (1940). Josephine (1942). To Hold
lative sessions, political conventions, and diplomatic conferences.
Against Famine (1942). Major (1942).
In World War II, Craig was in the European theater, where she
wrote about the Normandy campaign, London during the buzz-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: West, R., preface to Kathleen Coyles Liv (1929). bomb raids, and Paris the day after its liberation. She was the rst
Reference works: TCA (1942, 1955). woman correspondent to y in the Berlin Airlift and the rst to y
Other references: NYT (29 March 1952). WLB (May 1952). over the North Pole. During Trumans Administration she was the
only woman present at the Kaesong ceasere talks in Korea and
MAUREEN MURPHY the rst woman correspondent to receive accreditation by the U.S.
236
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CRAIGIE
Navy. During the 1950s and 1960s she wrote about Cold War CRAIGIE, Pearl (Mary Teresa)
politics in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia.
Richards
Despite the difculties being a woman journalist presented
(such as exclusion from stag White House correspondents Born 3 November 1867, Boston, Massachusetts; died 13 Au-
gatherings), Craig was part of the established Washington gust 1906
press corps. This gave her a powerful vantage point from which Wrote under: John Oliver Hobbes
she did not hesitate to criticize ofcials behavior. In her most Daughter of John M. and Laura Arnold Richards; married
widely read article, Decline of the United StatesAnd Fall Reginald W. Craigie, 1887
(reprinted in several magazines and newspapers in 1964), she
castigated the American government for being incapable of Born into a respectable Bostonian family, Pearl Richards
giving leadership. This column called for a strong man to lead Craigie was educated by private tutors in America and at schools
us in worthy causes of schools for the young, care for the in Paris and London. Most of Craigies life was spent in Europe,
elderly, strength so that none will dare attack us. and her writing reects her familiarity with European culture.
Although she returned frequently to the U.S. for visits, Craigie
Craig was an active member of the journalists union, the never took up residence.
American Newspaper Guild, and she served as an executive
ofcer of the local Washington Newspaper Guild. An articulate With the publication of Some Emotions and a Moral in 1891,
feminist, Craig was a vocal member of the board of governors of Craigie embarked on a 15-year literary career that ended abruptly
the Womens National Press Club and an elected president in with her death at the age of thirty-eight. Her plays were performed
1943. She was the rst woman elected to the Standing Committee at many British theaters, including the St. James in London. But
for Congressional Press Galleries (1944-46). As an able journal- although Craigies writings were popular, they elicited negative
ist Craig was presented with an honorary Doctor of Humane comments from the literary critics of her time. One major com-
Letters degree from the University of Maine in 1946, and in 1952 plaint was that she imitated the literary style of George Meredith,
she received the Business and Professional Womens Association an author whose inuence she acknowledged.
Award for Distinguished Service. One reason for the popularity of Craigies writings was their
continuity of theme, setting, and purpose. In more than 25 novels,
Ahead of her male colleagues on issues of equal rights in the dramas, and travelogues, Craigie adhered to one basic formula.
profession of journalism, Craig was in other matters a journalist Her stage is the French chateau, English castle, or London home.
critically attuned to the times in which she lived. Her columns are Her characters are wealthy, inuential, and intellectualthe men
a unique personal reection on nearly 40 years of American are virile, but foolish; the women beautiful, but cunning. Craigies
domestic and foreign policymaking. purpose was always the same: to illustrate how wealthy, inuen-
tial, and intellectual people initially lose themselves in romantic
games of love, but in the end discover truth. Craigie believed that
OTHER WORKS: Elisabeth May Craigs column Inside in Wash- through the maze of love, self-actualization occurred: The
ington appeared during the years 1925-65 in Maines Portland passion of love invariably drives men and women to an extreme
Press Herald, Evening Express, Kennebec Journal, and Waterville step in one direction or another. It will send some to cloister, some
Sentinel. She also shared a byline with Donald Craig for the Maine to tribune, some to the stage, some to heroism, some to crime, and
column from 1925 until 1936. all to their natural calling.
The papers of Elisabeth May Craig are at the Library of
Craigie created several types of women characters which she
Congress, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, the Gannett Publish-
used over and over in her plays and novels. One type is beautiful,
ing Company, and the archives of Meet the Press.
self-indulgent, and jealous; her polar opposite is unmarried,
homely, and intelligent: theology was her recreation, Craigie
wrote, discrete; coldblooded. Usually a third woman, older
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Marzolf, M., Up from the Footnote: A History of
and more mature, functions as a mediator between these two
Women Journalists (1977). Ross, I., Ladies of the Press (1936). types: she has the dignity, self-condence, and wisdom that
Other references: Down East (Aug. 1959). Look (26 April comes with age. Sometimes this character might be male, as in
1962). Newsweek (12 Aug. 1957). NYT (15 July 1975). Time (14 The Bishops Move. In this play it is the bishop who, through
June 1943). gentle manipulation, is able to untangle the situation of an older
woman falling in love with an insecure younger man.
JENNIFER L. TEBBE
This pattern of discovering truth through love can be found
throughout Craigies work. In The School for Saints (1897) and its
sequel Robert Orange (1899) an up-and-coming politician dis-
covers that his wife was married to another man for ve years of
CRAIG, Kit their marriage. What action should the politician now take? In The
See REED, Kit School for Saints he continues living with his wife; in Robert
237
CRAPSEY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Orange, he leaves her and his political career for religious Crapsey had long been experimenting with poetic forms. She
sanctuary. Craigies theme is again repeated: through trials and lled her commonplace book with poems by W. S. Landor, T. L.
tribulations Robert Orange discovers his destiny. Beddoes, Oscar Wilde, and Lionel Johnson. Many of her poems
show the inuence of these and earlier poets, even as they exhibit
Craigie was one of the many women writers who captured her own reticence, humor, and interest in experiments in sound
the popular imagination at the turn of the century. She drew and form. Although her consciousness of contemporary poetic
attention away from prevailing social tensions and created a world and artistic developments is important, it is also essential to
of unthreatening romantic escapades. recognize the role of Crapseys own informed craftsmanship and
studies in metrics in shaping her poetry, which shows afnities
OTHER WORKS: The Sinners Comedy (1892). A Study in Tempta- with the Georgian and Imagist movements.
tions (1893). The Gods, Some Mortals and Lord Wickenham The cinquain, a ve-line poetic form invented and named by
(1894). A Bundle of Life (1894). The Herb-Moon, a Fantasia Crapsey, is built on stresses, one for the rst line, two for the
(1896). The Ambassador (1898). A Repentance (1899). The second, three for the third, four for the fourth, with a drop back to
Wisdom of the Wise (1900). The Serious Wooing, a Hearts one for the fth line. In the poets opinion this made the most
History (1901). Tales About Temperaments (1902). The Vineyard condensed metrical form in English that would hold together as a
(1903). Love and the Soul Hunters (1903). Imperial India, Letters complete unit. Although the cinquain is built of stresses rather
from the East (1903). Letters from a Silent Study (1904). The than syllables, it resembles such Japanese forms as the haiku and
Science of Life (1904). The Artists Life (1904). The Flutes of tanka in its brevity and in its juxtaposition of images. Crapseys
Pan, a Romance (1905). The Dream and the Business (1906). nest cinquains, including Amaze, Niagara, Roma
Tales (1909). Aeterna, and Snow, involve a superposition of ideas or
intersection between the eternal and the momentary, the motion-
less and the moving. These qualities, and the distinctive compres-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Richards, J. M., The Life of John Oliver Hobbes
sion of Crapseys best work, have led Louis Untermeyer to
Told in Her Correspondence (1911).
describe her as an unconscious Imagist and Yvor Winters to
Reference works: Catholic Encyclopedia (1914). NCAB.
state she achieves more effectively than did most of the Imagists
Other references: Catholic World 84.
the aims of Imagism.
M. COLLEEN MCDANNELL Crapseys unnished work on prosody, on which she worked
so hard while in England and at Smith, was published after her
death with a preface by Esther Lowenthal. A Study in English
Metrics (1918) divides English poets into three classes according
CRAPSEY, Adelaide to the proportions of monosyllabic, dissyllabic, and polysyllabic
words used.
Born 9 September 1878, Brooklyn, New York; died 8 October The reticence and rm control characteristic of her nest
1914, Rochester, New York poems marked Crapseys own conduct. Her letters to her family
Daughter of Algernon S. and Adelaide Trowbridge Crapsey and friends provide a rare opportunity to study a person always
private and elusive, although never reclusive or withdrawn until
Adelaide Crapsey was taken to Rochester in 1879 when her her health had been seriously impaired. Her letters from Saranac
father became rector of St. Andrews Church. In 1893 Crapsey Lake show her ghting bravely and humorously what she herself
and her sister Emily were sent to Kemper Hall, an Episcopal knew to be a losing battle; vital, vivid, and detailed, they
boarding school in Kenosha, Wisconsin. After graduation from seldom fail to convey an extremely alert intelligence and a
Vassar in 1901, Crapsey spent one year at home in Rochester and sensitivity to what she perceived was going on in the intellectual
then returned to Kemper Hall to teach history and literature. world.
Around 1903 Crapsey rst began to suffer from the fatigue caused
by tuberculosis, the disease that would eventually take her life at
OTHER WORKS: Verse (1915). The Last of the Heretics (1924).
the age of thirty-six. From 1906 to 1908 she served as instructor of
The Complete Poems and Collected Letters of Adelaide Crapsey
literature and history at a preparatory school in Stamford, Con-
(edited by S. S. Smith, 1977).
necticut. Failing health caused Crapsey to give up teaching,
however, and in December 1908 she went to Europe, living in
Rome, London, and Kent. In London Crapsey continued her work BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bragdon, C., Merely Players (1929). Bragdon, C.,
on the application of phonetics to metrical problems. In 1911 More Lives Than One (1938). Fletcher, I., Adelaide Crapseys
she returned to America and began work immediately as an Cinquains, in Adam: International Review (1970). Fraser, G. S.,
instructor in poetics at Smith College. From September 1913 to Two Rochester Muses, in Adam: International Review (1970).
August 1914 Crapsey underwent treatment for her tuberculosis in Kawanami, H., A. Crapsey and Michel Revon: Their Connec-
a private nursing home at Saranac Lake, New York. After return- tion with Japanese Literature, in University of Osaka College of
ing to her familys home in Rochester she suddenly grew worse Commerce Festschrift (n.d.). OConnor, M. E., Adelaide Crapsey:
and died. A Biographical Study (thesis, 1931). Osborn, M. E., Adelaide
238
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CRIST
Crapsey (1933). Smith, S. S., The Complete Poems and Collected how bright you are afterward. Or better yet, never show them how
Letters of Adelaide Crapsey (1977). Winters, Y., Forms of Dis- bright you are.
covery (1967). Winters, Y., In Defense of Reason (1947).
Cravens competence in her craft and her ability to write
Other references: TLS (5 May 1978). Vassar Miscellany (1915).
more than delightful little stories which reect earlier cultural
SUSAN SUTTON SMITH norms became evident with the publication of her rst novel in
1973, I Heard the Owl Call My Name. When, in the 1960s, an eye
operation improved her vision, she traveled to Kingcome, an
Indian village in British Columbia. What Craven saw and heard is
CRAVEN, Margaret transformed, in the novel, into the insights of her protagonist, a
young Anglican priest. Although the theme is familiarthe
development of character through a courageous struggle with
Born 13 March 1901, Helena, Montana; died July 1980
adversityCraven transcends the banal with the choice of a male
Daughter of Arthur J. and Clara Kerr Craven
protagonist, sensitive use of Indian mythology, and lyrical de-
scriptions of nature. The Christian Science Monitor described the
Author of numerous short stories and two novels, Margaret
novel, in double-digit printings, as a shining parable. . .rare and
Craven grew up in the Puget Sound area. After graduating Phi
memorable. In 1973 General Electric Theater dramatized the
Beta Kappa from Stanford in 1924, she worked for the San Jose
novel in a television production.
Mercury Herald for three years, beginning as a secretary but
swiftly establishing herself as an editorial writer. She continued to In her second novel, Walk Gently This Good Earth, published
write features for the paper after moving to San Francisco but in 1977, Craven incorporates characters, incidents, and truisms
discontinued this means of nancial support two years later when from earlier short stories. Although the descriptions of the Puget
her short stories began to sell. Sound area and the Montana wilderness are beautifully written,
characters are at and homilies substitute for dialogue. In this
The most signicant factor in Cravens career was her almost
work Cravens dismay over the disintegration of traditional values
total loss of eyesight from a bus accident when she was in her
in the modern world has resulted in the celebration of traditional
twenties. As a result, Craven limited her writing to short stories
male-female roles and the virtue of hard work. Inspirational and
which could be written in her mind and then rapidly transferred to
didactic, the novel is marred by narrowness of scope.
paper. Faced with the necessity of earning a living during the
Depression and supporting her mother, Craven found a market for Craven died in July of 1980, and in the following year a long-
her short stories in the popular magazines of the period: Delineator, awaited compilation of her stories entitled The Home Front:
Colliers, Ladies Home Companion, American Magazine. The Collected Stories by Margaret Craven (1981) became available.
Saturday Evening Post was her major avenue of publication for
more than 22 years.
OTHER WORKS: Again Calls the Owl (1984).
Just as hard work and personal sacrice are most certainly
elements in Cravens triumph over adversity, so too are her short
stories and novels dominated by this theme. Characters are faced BIBLIOGRAPHY: Robbins, M. L., A Literature Unit for I Heard the
with difculties which they determine to surmount: the struggle Owl Call My Name,by Margaret Craven (1994). Troy, A.,
builds character and leads to success. Cravens numerous stories, Teacher Guide:I Heard the Owl Call My Name [by] Margaret
published from 1930 to 1962, attest to the popularity of this theme Craven (1987).
throughout the years of economic depression, World War II and Other references: Atlantic Monthly (April 1980). Booklist
postwar adjustment. (May 1980). CSM (30 Jan. 1974, 28 Dec. 1977). LAT (25 May
1981). LJ (1 Jan. 1978). NYTBR (3 Feb. 1974). PW (10 Oct. 1977).
Although Cravens stories sold, they were relegated to the San Diego Union (25 June 1978). Time (28 Jan. 1974). Wilson
delightful little stories category and largely ignored by serious Library Bulletin (Feb. 1978).
critics. Inadvertently, Craven pointed to the major source of this
dearth of critical attention when she commented that a short JOYCE FLINT
story comes out exactly right, like a souf, or it falls at on its
face. Cravens stories are like soufs, light and delectable, but
rarely lling. Major characters, generally women, too often
confront adversity and achieve success that is predictable and CRIST, Judith
banal. If Cravens female characters are frequently professional
women or young girls aspiring to this status, true success is Born 22 May 1922, New York, New York
identied with marriage to respectable, afuent, and preferably Daughter of Solomon and Helen Schoenberg Klein; married
self-made men. If character is developed by working ones William P. Crist, 1947 (died 1993); children Steven
way through college, wisdom lies in the recognition that intelli-
gence must be hidden and achievement curtailed for true Judith Crist attended Hunter College (A.B., 1941) and Co-
success. As a character in Pardon My Round Shoulders lumbia College (M.S., 1945). She began her career of lm
advises about men, you have to attract them rst and show them reviewer and critic as a reporter for the New York Herald Tribune
239
CRIST AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
in 1945, moving on to editor for the arts (1960-63), lm critic and moviegoer and fan, not for the elite cineast type of lm expert.
associate drama critic (1963-66), and then to lm critic for the Crists ascerbic critical style as a snide, sarcastic, supercilious
New York World Journal Tribune (1966-67). Throughout the bitch earned her the enmity of lm and news industries alike.
1960s and 1970s, Crist could be found almost everywhere as her Her scathing review of the then-huge budgeted Cleopatra, star-
reputation became rmly established as a lm commentator for ring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, for example, caused an
NBC-TVs Today Show (1963-73); contributing editor and lm uproar and an upset in news and lm industry relations. Her brash
critic for TV Guide (1966-87); contributor and critic-at-large for outspokenness, in the face of studio and lm advertising agencies
Ladies Home Journal (1966-67), as well as a contributor to reprisals, was naturally accompanied by a concern with freedom
Vogue, Look, The Washingtonian, and other mass-market publi- of speech for the lm critic. Crists own experiences have made
cations. She was also a lm critic for New York magazine (1968- her a crusader against the low state of newspaper criticism, whose
75), Palm Springs Life (1971-75), Saturday Review (1975-77), content is all too easily compromised by the lm industry through
and the New York Post (1977-78). advertising dollars and the inuence of movie moguls on publish-
Through her collected New York Herald Tribune reviews, ers. Crist attributes her anti-industry breakthroughs in lm re-
key events in the lm world are documented in a rst book, The viewing to the liberal and progressive policies of John Hay
Private Eye, the Cowboy and the Very Naked Girl: Movies from Whitney, whose 1960 acquisition of the Herald Tribune began
Cleo to Clyde (1968), followed by a second book on lm, TV an era of critical freedom that had not and has not been equaled.
Guide to the Movies (1974). Crist also contributed to several other These practices and principles give Crists work a mandate going
books written during the 1970s, including Censorship: For and well beyond providing recommendations for good lms and
Against (1971), Marriage: For and Against (1972), and Favorite criticisms against bad ones.
Movies (1972). Beginning in 1971, she organized a series of
Judith Crist Film Weekends in Tarrytown, New York, to allow Believing with critic James Agee that lm criticism is a
lm professionals, including actors, directors, producers, and conversation between moviegoers, Crist dedicates her work to
screenwriters, to interact with movie buffs and academics. Crist the idea that the rst purpose of criticism is to stimulate the
collected transcripts from several of these sessions for a book audiences response by offering judgements purposefully contro-
called Take 22: Moviemakers on Moviemaking (1984, reissued versial and volatile, provoking the individual to draw upon their
1991), which she edited with Shirley Sealey. The book includes own responses to make personal judgements of lm either in
illuminating anecdotes about both the creative and business accord with or in conict against those of the assertive and
angles of the movie industry. self-assured critic.
While working on her books, Crist was still reviewing for a In her years of lm criticism, Crist has also taught journalism
number of magazines and organizations, including the Saturday at Hunter, Columbia, and Sarah Lawrence Colleges. A host of
Review (she left in 1977 and returned for 1980-84). In the late awards for lm criticism, including the George Polk award
1980s, she was the arts critic for WWOR-TV (Channel 9 News) (1951), have come from the American Newspaper Guild, the
from 1981-87, and provided lm reviews for both Coming Attrac- Educational Writers Association (1952), the New York Newspa-
tions and Hollywood magazine from 1985 through 1993. per Guild (1955), the New York Newspaper Womens Club
(1955, 1959, 1963, 1965, and 1967), and Columbia Graduate
Crist is a charter member of an important cultural group: that
School of Journalism Alumni award (1961). She has been a
of women lm critics, including such luminaries as Pauline Kael,
Penelope Gilliatt, Renata Adler, and Susan Sontag, who lead the longtime member of the New York Film Critics Circle, the
burgeoning art form not only by virtue of their extensive back- National Society of Film Critics, and Sigma Tau Delta, and
grounds in lm history but also as innovators in prose style (often received an honorary M.HL. from the State University of New
sardonic, opinionated, and personal), in a serious yet ironic York (SUNY) at New Paltz in 1994. In 1996, she contributed
attitude toward their subject, and in setting forth new denitions, Where Does It Go? to the book What We Know So Far:
standards, and ideals of lm aesthetics and effects. Wisdom Among Women. Crist continues to reside in New York
City, where her son is now an editor and publisher.
Writing for the general audience of the mass mediathe lm
and, increasingly, the television-movie audienceand feeling she
was serving a broad popular readership rather than the elite circles BIBLIOGRAPHY: Censors and Free Speech: Judith Crist, Paul
of critics and intellectuals who see movies as lmic art, Crist is Krassner and Dr. Isidore Rubin (audiocassette, 1971). Judith
known for her Consumer Reports-style orientation toward lm. Crist (audiocassette, n.d.).
These reports address the external meanings of subject matter,
Reference works: CANR (1986). Holiday (Mar. 1976).
values, and impact, rather than the lms internal symbolism and
Other references: SR (4 Oct. 1975). Saturday Review of the
aesthetic; hence, her concern with issues of sex, violence, and
Arts (Mar. 1973).
stereotyping of all kinds.
As a self-proclaimed journalistic critic with no pretensions MARGARET J. KING,

to esoterica, Crists position is one of spokesperson for the UPDATED BY LEAH J. SPARKS
240
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CROLY
CROCKER, Hannah Mather female has the right to cover the faults of those around her
with the mantle of meek charity. Women have rights to be
virtuous, loving, religious, and sympathetic, and thus support and
Born 27 June 1752, Boston, Massachusetts; died 11 July 1829,
improve human society.
Roxbury, Massachusetts
Wrote under: A Lady of Boston Harmonious relations between the sexes are the basis not
Daughter of Samuel and Hannah Hutchinson Mather; married only of family life, but the greatness of the nation as well. Crocker
Joseph Crocker, 1779 maintains it was the mutual virtue, energy, and fortitude of the
sexes that accomplished the American Revolution, and insists
With Cotton and Increase Mather, her great-grandfather and their proper union will preserve it. The title Observations on the
grandfather respectively, Hannah Mather Crocker has claims to a Real Rights of Women (1818) is a misnomer. It is, rather, a
particular sort of American blue blood. Her husband was a captain commonplace book generally imparting advice on the sensible
in the revolutionary army and a Harvard graduate. It was not until and Christian conduct of life. As a consistent discussion of
after her children were grown that Crocker turned to writing and womens particular issues, it is certainly a failure.
more public concerns. When child-rearing duties are past, she
said, this is a fully ripe season for older women to deliver their Crocker was a natural patriot and reformer, and her sincere
well-digested thoughts for the improvement of the rising genera- convictions of the efcacy of human will and energy in solving
tion. Crockers initial publication, A Series of Letters on Free problems is in the best American tradition. It is her great energy
Masonry (1815), was written to support her old friends, the and force of character that appears through the occasionally
Society of Free Masons, when they came under attack in 1810 for clumsy form of her writing to convince us of her essential genius
carousing in Boston lodges. In the year before her marriage, as a person, if not as a writer.
Crocker had organized a number of her friends into a female
Mason society. Crocker not only defended the Masons in her
treatise, but took the revolutionary position of encouraging wom- OTHER WORKS: The papers of Hannah Mather Crocker are at the
en to promote science and literature in formal societies, as New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston, and the
more suitable to their dignity than those frivolous activities American Antiquarian Society in Worchester, Massachusetts.
ordinarily thought appropriate for female leisure.
The next year, in The School of Reform, or: The Seamans BIBLIOGRAPHY: Evans, S., Born for Liberty: A History of Women
Safe Pilot to the Cape of Good Hope (1816), Crocker extends an in America (1989). Flexner, E., Century of Struggle: The Wom-
enthusiastic but occasionally graceless exhortation to seamen ens Rights Movement in the United States (revised edition, 1975).
against drinking. Crockers Observations on the Real Rights of Hill, B., ed., The Diary of Isaiah Thomas, 1805-1828 (1909).
Women, with Their Appropriate Duties, Agreeable to Scripture, Riegel, R., American Feminists (1963).
Reason and Common Sense was published by subscription in Reference works: DAB, NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). Oxford
1818. Crocker is clearly familiar with the foremost feminist Companion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995).
thinking of her day and she dedicates her Real Rights of Women to Other references: New York Historical Magazine (March
Hannah More, an eminent English evangelical writer. Crocker 1965, May 1865).
even praises Mary Wollstonecraft as a woman of great energy
and a very independent mind, although she does not coincide L. W. KOENGETER
with her opinion respecting the total independence of the fe-
male sex.
Using Christian justice as her basis, Crocker uncompromis-
ingly insists men and women have equal powers and faculties. CROLY, Jane Cunningham
Womens minds are equal to the tasks of the statesman, lawyer, or
minister, and only local circumstances and domestic cares Born 19 December 1829, Market Harborough, Leicestershire,
have prevented them from being as productive as men. But England; died 23 December 1901, New York, New York
Crocker does concede to what she takes to be social reality and Wrote under: Jennie June, Mrs. J. C. Croly
political necessity: For the interest of their country, or in the Daughter of Joseph and Jane Cunningham; married David G.
cause of humanity, we shall strictly adhere to the principle and the Croly, 1856
impropriety of females ever trespassing on masculine ground: as it
is morally incorrect, and physically improper.
The Unitarianism of Jane Cunningham Crolys father was ill-
Womens roles, according to Crocker, lie in the training of received by his English neighbors and in 1841 the family moved
men, and in the teaching of peace and virtue. They must be the to Poughkeepsie and then to Wappingers Falls, New York. Croly
psychological counselors who convince by reason and persua- studied at home, taught district school, kept house for her older
sion, who are calm and serene under all crises, and who brother, a Congregationalist minister, and wrote a popular semi-
soothe and alleviate the anxious cares of men. Additionally, monthly newspaper for his congregation. In 1855 she moved to
right takes on the meaning of duty and obligation; every New York City and began her career as a professional journalist.
241
CROLY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Unable to win employment as a regular staff member on a city numbers of supporters. The club magazines Croly edited won
newspaper because she was a woman, Croly was assigned to write adherents for her movement, and in speech, as Sorosis presiding
a regular column on fashion for ladies. In 1857, she became one of ofcer, she alluded to the success of her writing and club activity:
the earliest syndicated female columnists, and was carried in We shall live. . .to see the Womans Club the conservator of
newspapers in New York, New Orleans, Richmond, Baltimore, public morals, the uprooter of social evils, the defender of women
and Louisville. against women as well as against men, the preserver of the
sanctities of domestic life, the synonym of the brave, true, and
In 1856 Croly married an Irish immigrant on the staff of the
noble in women.
New York Herald. In 1859 he bought, edited, and published the
Rockford Daily News in Illinois, where Crolys ofcial duty was Crolys History of the Womans Club Movement in America
to write a column entitled Gossip with and for Ladies. Crolys (1898) is further testimony to the appeal of her analysis and
rst child, Minnie, was born before the Crolys moved back to solution to womens oppression in the nineteenth century. The
New York in 1860 to work on the World, where Croly wrote the work is a staggering 1190-page reference work, with entries
womens column from 1862 to 1872. In addition to newspaper describing 1000 clubsa careful compendium of their programs,
work, Croly contributed to Grahams Magazine, Frank Leslies leaders, and histories. Crolys introduction is an ambitious and
Weekly, and Demorests Monthly Magazine, coediting the latter early work in womens history, looking back as far as 5th-century
for many years. She produced a popular cookbook, several sewing monasticism for precedents to womens organizations. Crolys
manuals, and three collections of her newspaper columns. She modesty, however, caused her to minimize her own contribution
supported the family with her writing and by teaching journalism to the movement of womens club development.
when her husband, due to illness, left newspaper work in 1875.
Croly developed an interest in the womans club movement

of her day. She became an inuential member of many clubs, OTHER WORKS: Jennie Junes American Cookery Book. . . (1866).
including the Womans Endowment Cattle Company, the Asso- For Better or Worse (1875). Knitting and Crochet: A Guide to the
ciation for the Advancement of Women, the Womens Press Club Use of the Needle and the Hook (1885). Needle Work: A Manual
of New York, the Association for the Advancement of Medical of Stitches and Studies in Embroidery and Drawn Work (1885).
Education for Women, and, most important, a founder of the Ladies Fancy Work: A Manual of Designs and Instructions in All
literary club, Sorosis. Later in life, Croly edited clubwomens Kinds of Needlework (1886). Letters and Monograms for Marking
magazines and wrote organizational histories. on Silk, Linen, and Other Fabrics, for Individual and Household
Use (1886). Sorosis, Its Origin and History (1886). Thrown on
Crolys collected articles, like Jennie Juneiana (1864), pro- Her Own Resources (1891). Memories of Jane Cunningham
vide vignettes of the domestic world, some as harmless as Croly (1904).
descriptions of Christmas day and patchwork quilts, but others The papers of Jane Cunningham Croly are at the Arthur and
lled with anger at male arrogance and thoughtlessness. Hus- Elizabeth B. Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College; in the
bands who opened their wives mail, fussed about meals, and Sorosis Papers, Sophia Smith Collection at the Smith College
demanded pristine households when they themselves were shame- Library; and in the Caroline M. Severance Papers at the Huntington
fully careless, won her scorn. Croly also found fault with women, Library in San Marino, California.
describing them as hidden under clouds of dyspepsia, nervous-
ness, overeating, personal neglect, personal abuse, vanity, deceit,
treachery, bbing, equivocation, and a hundred other signs of BIBLIOGRAPHY: Blair, Karen J., The Clubwoman as Feminist:
equal magnitude. For all her criticism, however, Croly felt The Womans Culture Club Movement in the U.S., 1868-1914,
women had a special potential to become loving, loyal, morally (dissertation, 1976). Bolquerin, M. J., An Investigation of the
superior, sensitive, perfect beings. Contributions of David, June and Herbert Croly to American
Lifewith Emphasis on the Inuence of the Father on the Son
Crolys observations enabled her to dene the sources of
(thesis, 1948). Forcey, C., The Crossroads of Liberalism (1961).
womens shortcomings. She considered education for girls in the
Hanaford, P. A., Daughters of America (1883). Hays, F., Women
ornamental arts to be useless, a restriction keeping them from the
of the Day (1885). June, J., Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly
path of perfection. Croly also faulted womens behavior, clothing,
(1904). Mott, F. L., History of American Magazines (1957).
and ambitions; instead, she advocated devotion to home duties,
Wells, M., Unity in Diversity: The History of the General Federa-
declaring that they prepared women to extend their superior
tion of Womens Clubs (1953). Winant, M. D., A Century of
inuence beyond family life to identify and rectify injustice. Use
of domestic handbooks like her own would minimize household Sorosis, 1868-1968 (1968). Wingate, C. F., Views and Interviews
duties and allow women to enter the clubs where they would on Journalism (1875). Wood, M. I., The History of the General
broaden their education, condence, friendships, and abilities to Federation of Womens Clubs (1912).
analyze and solve social problems. Reference works: American Women (1897). DAB, NCAB
(1892 et seq.). NAW, 1607-1950 (1971).
Crolys brand of womens rights, less shocking than the Other references: Demorests Monthly Magazine (Jan. 1871).
radical and militant woman suffrage movement, won greater Journalism Quarterly (Spring 1963). New York History (Oct.
242
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CROSBY
1961). NYT (24 Dec. 1901). Womans Journal (4 Jan. 1902, 11 Europe, trace their loves development to the recognition of a
Jan. 1902). betrayal, and conclude with their decision to remain together.
In 1927 the Crosbys founded Black Sun Press, which pub-

KAREN J. BLAIR
lished original works by Joyce, Lawrence, Proust, Pound, and
Hart Crane throughout the 1930s. After Henry G. Crosbys death
in 1929, Crosby maintained Black Sun Press and expanded her
interests by founding Crosby Continental Editions, which pub-
CROSBY, Caresse lished and reprinted the works of French and American writers.
Crosby was also an active publisher of other modernist writers.
However, her career as a poet ended with Poems for Harry Crosby
Born Mary Phelps Jacob, 20 April 1892, New York, New York; (1930). Published after his suicide, the love poems seek to
died 24 January 1970, Rome, Italy reassure and reassert her belief that their love was so strong, so
Daughter of William and Mary Phelps Jacob; married Rich- passionate, the two are fated Forever to be Harry and Caresse.
ard R. Peabody, 1915 (divorced); Henry G. Crosby, 1922
(died 1929); Bert Young, 1937 Much of Crosbys life, through World War II, is covered in
her autobiography, The Passionate Years (1953). As she indicates
in her foreword, she worked from memory, not notes, using only
Caresse Crosby grew up with a crystal chandelier back- the information lined upon the tablets of the mind. As a result,
ground. Her life was that of a young socialite: debutante parties her rst-person memoirs are extremely anecdotal, focusing on
at Sherrys, Yale proms, and London court presentations. Her rst personalities and her response to them. Many remembrances are
marriage was to a Back Bay Bostonian; the couple had two of short personal encounters, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald intention-
children and were divorced in 1921. Her second marriagewhen ally dropping his gloves in her stateroom, hoping to accompany
she embarked on a life in Paris, escaping with her husband from her abroad, and Hemingways irate response to being called
proper Bostonwas the starting point of her literary career. In precious. Crosbys recall is idiosyncratic. She writes as a
1925 she changed her rst name to Caresse and began publish- reporter of scenes and feelings rather than as an analyzer. Her
ing her poetry. autobiography is spritely, and provides the reader with interesting
glimpses into both the woman and the milieu.
Although a friend and promoter of many avant-garde artists
and writers, Crosbys own poetry tends toward conventional Crosbys nal publishing venture was the editing and pro-
forms and topics. Almost all of her poems are love poems, ducing of Portfolio, a mixed-media magazine published in Wash-
reecting her relationship with her second husband. Her other ington and designed to present to an imaginative public, lively
major theme, an offshoot of her romantic passion, is the search for and varied examples of work by modern authors. Although
Beauty and Life (in capital letters). This theme is present in most Portfolio had a shorter lifespan than Crosbys earlier enterprises,
of her short descriptive poems, her panegyrics to other artists, and its contributors and its critical reception were exciting. The later
several of her short prose poems, particularly Wisdom of the years of Crosbys life were spent in active support of both the arts
East, where the wise Oriental artist directs the young sculptress: and humanitarian causes. She ran an art gallery in Washing-
You must live before you can work. . .you must understand what ton, D.C., established an artists colony near Rome, maintained
beauty really is before you can portray it. and sought out new friendships with artists and writers, founded
the Citizens of the World organization, and was an active member
Crosses of Gold (printed in Paris, 1925) is typical of Crosbys of Women Against War.
poetic works, consisting mainly of love poems. The majority of
these are rhymed, resulting in occasional distortions and anachro- Although Crosby was not a major poet in her own right, her
nisms. Her best poems, such as With You I Have Known Beauty interest and support of modernist writing as a publisher make her a
in the Night, result from the successful use of sonnet form rather fascinating character. She lived her life by the motto she believed
than a break with conventional forms. Although Crosby is quick in: The answer to the challenge is always Yes.
to note the physical element of love, she loses her reader in
romanticized and abstract passion rather than in her use of
imagistic realism. OTHER WORKS: The Stranger (1927). Impossible Melodies (1928).
Crosbys Painted Shores (1927) exemplies her careful

sequencing of poems to reect the path of her love relationship. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Nin, A., The Diary of Anas Nin, Volume 5
Particularly in the rst third of this volume, Crosby links the (1975). Wolff, G., Black Sun: The Brief Transit and Violent
poems thematically as well as technically. The nal line of each Eclipse of Harry Crosby (1976).
poem is repeated (with minor variation) as either the title or rst Other references: Newsweek (15 Jan. 1945). SR (4 July 1953).
line of the succeeding poem. The poems progress from the
departure of two lovers from New York, follow their crossing to MELODY M. ZAJDEL
243
CROSS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
CROSS, Amanda CROTHERS, Rachel

See HEILBRUN, Carolyn G.
Born 12 December 1871, Bloomington, Illinois; died 5 July 1958,
Danbury, Connecticut
Daughter of Eli K. and Marie Louise dePew Crothers
CROSS, Jane (Tandy Chinn) Hardin
Rachel Crothers childhood, not surprisingly, was lonely
rst, because she was much younger than her eight siblings;
Born 1817, Harrodsburg, Kentucky; death date unknown
secondly, because her mother decided at age forty to become the
Wrote under: Jane T(andy) H. Cross
rst woman physician in central Illinois, so Crothers was sent to
Daughter of Judge Chinn; married James P. Hardin, 1835 (died);
an aunt in Wellesley, Massachusetts, for four years while her
Reverend Cross, 1848
mother attended medical school in Philadelphia. Somewhat pre-
cocious, Crothers made up people, and produced a ve-act,
Married at the age of eighteen, Jane Hardin Cross was nine-scene play, Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining, or The Ruined
widowed with three children at twenty-ve. She remarried six Merchant, at age twelve, staging it in the family parlor. After
years later and began a nomadic life traveling around Europe and graduating from Illinois Normal in 1892, where she formed a
the South, teaching at various colleges together with her husband. theater group, she attended Wheatcroft School of Acting in New
This mode of living seemed to suit her, for she remarked with York against her familys wishes. Her rst four professional
good humor that her life was as roving as that of an Arab. Soon efforts at playwriting failed, but in 1906 John Golden produced
after her remarriage Cross began publishing her four-volume The Three of Us, and Crothers Broadway career was launched.
collection of childrens tales and her tales for sorrowful wom- Some 24 full-length plays (plus some one-acts for amateurs)
en. She also wrote poetry and was a prolic contributor to followed, most of them commercially successful, almost all of
religious magazines. them cast and directed by the playwright.
Cross collections of works for childrenHeart Blossoms During World War I, Crothers headed the Stage Womens
for My Little Daughter (1855), Wayside Flowerets (1850), Bible War Relief, which raised money for entertainments in soldiers
Gleanings (1853), and Driftwood (1851)are composed of short, camps, produced by George M. Cohan and Sam Harris. In 1932,
whimsical prose sketches illustrating one specic mood or theme. with John Golden, she founded the Stage Relief Fund to assist
Typical of her work is Scarlet Geraniums, in which Cross tries unemployed actors, remaining a member of its governing board
to capture the essence of a day made for joy. The sketch, which until it disbanded in 1951. In 1933 Crothers received the Megrue
runs only a few pages, conveys mood rather than plot. La Petite Prize, awarded by the Dramatists Guild, for her play When Ladies
Fe, another mood piece, is a panegyric to a close female friend Meet (1932), and in 1939 she was given the Chi Omega National
whose charm and good nature have the much-appreciated effect of Achievement Award, in the presence of President and Mrs.
bringing the author from depression to joy. By analogy, Cross Roosevelt at the White House. In 1940 she helped form the
praises all close female friendships she feels are nurturing. Man- American Theater Wing for British War Relief, an organization
angel recounts the death of a good man who, facing death, shows which operated the Stage Door Canteen after the U.S. en-
his true courage and moral strength. He ends his life without fear tered the war.
of bitterness, praising Gods will with equanimity. Other sketch- Although Crothers asserted her plays would comprise a kind
es, such as The Magic Ring, are fantasies for children. of Comdie Humaine de la Femme, many seem closer to what
Joseph Wood Krutch characterized as dramatization of the
Cross prose style is ornate, elegant, and poetical. It is
works of Mrs. [Emily] Post, being for the most part amusing,
steeped with references to religious persons and events. Her most
well-made pieces about comfortably situated, rened people.
frequent images deal with owers, sunlight, precious jewels,
Only rarely does Crothers touch more than obliquely on problems
pretty colors, and sweet fragrances. Yet there is also a darker, confronting women, despite claims that feminine concerns were
more morbid side to her sketches. Grief, sorrow, and death are not her major focus. A number of her plays deal with marital prob-
absent from Cross awareness, but she would rather soothe sorrow lems, although she remained single throughout her life. Basically
than expose it. reecting her genteel, conservative roots, her work as a whole is
not socially critical. However, her keen sense of audience
readiness was helpful in prompting the idea that Americans who
OTHER WORKS: Duncan Adair; or, Captured in Escape (1864). wished to spend a pleasant evening in the theater did not have to
Azile (1868). look to Europe for social comedies, but could enjoy locally
created material instead.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Freeman, J. D., Women of the South Distin- Crothers was consistent in taking a stand against the double
guished in Literature (1866). standard in sexual behavior. In Let Us Be Gay (1929) she made it
clear in the prologue that a mans indelity was cause for divorce.
ROSE F. KAVO She does have the couple reunited by the plays end, but only after
244
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CROUTER
the wife has had three years as a gay divorce. Along the same 1924, Aug. 1931). Womens Journal (April 1931, May 1931).
thematic line, Crothers wrote When Ladies Meet (1932), in which World Today (June 1908).
an independent woman, Mary Howard, has accepted assurances
from her married lover that a divorce is imminent until she meets EDYTHE M. MCGOVERN
Claire Rogers, the wife, neither woman knowing who the other is.
After the true situation becomes known, both women renounce
Rogers: Mary returning him to his wife, and Claire realizing she
can never forgive him for having deceived Mary, just one in a long CROUTER, Natalie (Corona) Stark
line of affairs for him.
Despite concern with fair play in sexual conduct, most of Born 30 October 1898, Dorchester, Massachusetts; died Oc-
Crothers plays show women happy in the traditional wife-mother tober 1985
role, frequently eschewing a career and independence in favor of Daughter of Frederick J. and Bertha Scott Stark; married Erroll E.
resting comfortably in the arms of a strong man who will take care Crouter, 1927 (died 1951); children: two
of them. In her best-known play, Susan and God (1937), the
protagonist, Susan Trexel, returns from Europe after having taken Natalie Stark Crouter grew up in a comfortable household of
a keen interest there in the Oxford Movement. She spouts the a Boston suburb. Her early experiences as a polio victim (which
philosophy, but, in reality, is interested primarily in associating began at nine and left her mildly crippled) and later as a participant
with prominent people in the group and becoming a power in the in the defense of Sacco and Vanzetti endowed her with consider-
movements American version. Her alcoholic husband takes her able moral and physical fortitude. These qualities, plus her strong
at her word and tries to reform through faith. Susan then spends sense of social commitment and her enduring curiosity about
her summer pretending to make a real home for him and their human nature, prepared her well for her internment in a Japanese
lonely adolescent daughter and is surprised to nd that she herself civilian camp in Baguio, Philippine Islands. Along with her
has changed through a recognition of the power of genuine faith husband, an American businessman in the Philippines, and their
from within. The nal curtain descends on a chastened mother, a two children, Crouter was conned in the camp with 500 Ameri-
now-strong father, and a happy teenager. can and British citizens throughout World War II. After the war,
widowed since 1951, she lived in the Midwest and remained
For more than 30 years Crothers wrote prolically and staged active in liberal, social, and political causes. Her activism led to
a Broadway play almost every season, no small achievement for a friendships with Mme Sun Yat-sen and journalist Edgar Snow,
woman, particularly prior to World War I. Her dialogue sounds and to worldwide travel, including trips to China and to many
natural, but her tendency to manipulate characters to achieve a African countries.
predetermined plotline detracts from their theatrical effectiveness
and from the plays as literature. When compared with other Crouters A Diary of Internment, 1941-45 (1979), her only
playwrights of both sexes writing at the same time, it cannot be published book, is not a narrative of horror and torture, but a daily
said that Crothers made more than a modest contribution to the account of courage, grace, and ingenuity under the pressures of
American theater. privation. The Diary, begun by coincidence two days before the
bombing of Pearl Harbor and kept for three-and-a-half years, was
originally written in microscopic script on scraps of paper, care-
OTHER WORKS: Nora (1903). Point of View (1904). Criss Cross fully concealed from her captors. The complete version, which
(1904). Rector (1905). The Coming of Mrs. Patrick (1907). Myself took Crouter two postwar years to transcribe, totaled 5,000 pages.
Bettina (1908). A Mans World (1910). Ourselves (1913). Young The published edition, about one-tenth of the original, retains
Wisdom (1914). The Heart of Paddy Whack (1914). Old Lady 31 Crouters perceptive understanding of her milieu, as it chronicles
(1916). Mother Careys Chickens (with K. Douglas Wiggin, the daily activities, occupations and preoccupations, hopes and
1917). Once Upon a Time (1918). A Little Journey (1918). 39 East fears of the captives and their Japanese captors. The diary empha-
(1919). He and She (1920). Nice People (1921). Everyday (1921). sizes the social organization and humanity of the people involved,
Mary the Third (1923). Expressing Willie (1924). A Ladys Virtue captors and captives alike. Except for the bombing of Manila (the
(1925). Venus (1927). Bon Voyage (1929). Caught Wet (1931). As internees had been moved to Manila at the wars end), major
Husbands Go (1931). We Happy Few (1955). battles are subordinate, atrocities almost nonexistent.
The Diary, laced with its authors wit, New England morali-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hackett, F., Horizons, A Book of Criticism (1918). ty, social philosophy, and realistic pragmatism, comments on the
Mantle, B., American Playwrights of Today (1929). immediate: the issues and problems of family and communal
Other references: Good Housekeeping (Nov. 1911). Harp- living, marriage, child rearing, work and play; the surroundings,
ers Bazaar (Jan. 1911). Independent Woman (Jan. 1946). Liter- vast mountain and ocean beauty juxtaposed with crowded bar-
ary Digest (16 June 1917, 15 Aug. 1936). Mentor (1 March 1923). racks and regimented activities; precious food, precarious health,
Nation (23 Oct. 1937). NYT (23 June 1933, 6 July 1958, 12 July rumors about the war, longings for freedom and for communica-
1958). NYT Magazine (4 May 1941). Pictorial Review (June tion with the outer world, whether liberated Filipino friends,
1931). Theatre Arts (Dec. 1932). Theatre Magazine (March American GIs, or stateside relatives. Like so many prison diaries,
1931). Touchstone (Oct. 1918). Womens Home Companion (Feb. this work was written to maintain the authors mental agility and
245
CRUGER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
sense of self; yet it avoids the self-pity, religious zeal, or despon- their wages, bad marriages, and poor church attendance. Alice, the
dent fatalism characterizing many such works. Paramount are heroine, is Crugers most overtly political character. She rejects
Crouters common sense and identication of the revealing minu- standards of female behavior which prescribe decorum and pro-
tiae as well as the human universals. priety rather than public involvement and she chooses her hus-
band on the basis of his position on numerous social issues. Both
Alice and her husband die as a result of their temperance work,
BIBLIOGRAPHY: American Heritage (April/May 1979). consistent with Crugers general emphasis on a heavenly resolu-
tion to social problems, but the townspeople vow to continue
LYNN Z. BLOOM their work.
Information about Crugers life may be surmised from her

novel, How She Did It; Or, Comfort on $150 a Year (1888). In her
introduction to this novel about how a recently impoverished
CROWE, F. J. daughter of a prominent family builds her own home and lives off
See JOHNSTON, Jill the land, Cruger assures her readers that The author of this little
book wishes to say, as strongly and impressively as words can
express it, that its story is not merely founded on fact, but is an
actual portrayal, step by step, of her own experience, her own
wonderful success in carrying out a long cherished theory of
CRUGER, Mary comfortable economy. Complete with blueprints of the house,
detailed account books, recipes, carpentry and horticultural guide-
lines, and nutrition advice, the novel is memorable less for its plot
Born 9 May 1834, Westchester County, New York; died 1908, than for its attempt to provide a fully realized plan for living.
Montrose, New York
Daughter of Nicholas and Eliza Kortright Cruger Crugers last novel, Brotherhood (1891), was written in
response to the militant labor organizing and social unrest so
Although biographical information about Mary Cruger is frequent in the latter 19th century. Although sympathetic to the
scarce, she remains of interest to the literary historian because her problems created by inadequate wages and unsafe working condi-
ve novels are emblematic of the variety and scope of socially tions, the novel takes a stand against labor unions. Brotherhood
conscious ction written by American women during the nal contrasts a charismatic labor leader, who preaches industrial
decades of the 19th century. Each of Crugers novels examines brotherhood, with a domestic heroine, who preaches Christian
one or more social issues and posits a theory of reform. Her brotherhood. The heroine convinces the workers that a Christian
emphasis is primarily Christian; social problems are resolved faith is the only viable social philosophy. Justice will be found in
through faith in a more egalitarian afterlife and the model of heaven, if not in the factory.
idealized behavior is that of the Christian committed to a social Crugers ction is often characterized by a certain confusion
gospel of salvation. of intention. She repeatedly begins a novel with an indictment of
existing social conditions, only to abandon this focus and write
Crugers rst novel, Hyperaesthesia (1886), centers on sev-
what appears to be rst a ghost story and later a pastoral romance.
eral vacationers at an upstate New York resort. Each of her major
These frequent convolutions of plot and purpose prove detrimen-
characters suffers from an incapacitating form of hyperaesthesia,
tal to any lasting interest in her ction.
an almost morbid nervous sensitiveness affecting them physical-
ly, emotionally, and mentally. Crugers novel treats the problem
of the hysterical woman, a widespread medical problem which
rst attracted public attention due to the work of S. Weir Mitchell. OTHER WORKS: The Vanderheyde Manor House (1887). Labor,
Recent historians, among them Carroll Smith-Rosenberg and the Divine Command, by Leo Tolstoy (translated by Cruger, 1890).
Kathryn Kish Sklar, have studied the social implication of this
female hysteria and invalidism, and their orientation is similar to
Crugers. The treatment prescribed in her novel is that of wider BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hill, V. L., Strategy and Breadth: The Socialist-
activity and charity work in one case and a more responsive Feminist in American Fiction (dissertation, 1979). Taylor, W.,
marriage in the other. The Economic Novel in America (1942).
Reference works: DAB, 1600-1900 (1904). A Woman of the
Crugers temperance novel, A Den of Thieves (1886), focuses Century (1893).
on the efforts of a newlywed couple to convince their neighbors to Other references: Chautauquan (April 1886). Critic (14 Jan.
join with them to destroy the liquor trade. These middle-class 1885). Literary World (21 Aug. 1886, 20 March 1886).
reformers quickly recognize alcohol abuse explains all of the
problems in their town: the inability of factory workers to live on VICKI LYNN HILL
246
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CUMMINS
CUMMING, Kate were well equipped, others were hastily thrown together to
accommodate increasing numbers of wounded, and abandoned
just as quickly when the enemy drew too close. Confederate
Born 1828, Edinburgh, Scotland; died 5 June 1909, Birming-
medical care in general was often a compromise between what
ham, Alabama
Daughter of David and Jessie Cumming one wanted and what one could obtain under difcult conditions.
It was not always possible to obtain delicacies like coffee or milk
Kate Cummings family moved from their native Scotland to to tempt the appetites of wounded men, or the drugs to ease their
Mobile, Alabama, when she was a child. There she attended pain. The Journal reects Cummings helplessness, anger, and
school and became attached to her adopted homeland and its way nal acceptance of death which she cannot prevent or even make
of life. After the war, Cumming, who never married, moved to less painful.
Birmingham with her father. There she taught school and did
religious and charitable work. Later in life she was active in Cummings journal does not display the wit or ne eye for
Confederate veterans organizations. characterization of many other Civil War diaries. It is a straight-
forward account of life in Confederate hospitals, and does not tell
Early in the Civil War, Cumming was one of a number of the reader much about Cumming herself. We know that she was
women who volunteered their services to the Confederacy as devoted to the Confederacy and took her work and responsibilities
nurses. The government was at rst reluctant to accept them: seriously, but learn little about her hopes and dreams for the future
19th-century conventions held that a womans delicate nature or what she did during off-duty hours. Cumming appears to us
would not allow her to tolerate the sights, sounds, and smells of a quiet and capable, rather than engaging or passionate.
hospital without permanent damage to her central nervous system.
In addition, because of womens alarming propensity to faint at
the slightest distress, physicians feared they would be more
trouble than the patients they were assigned to tend. However, OTHER WORKS: Gleanings from the Southland (1895).
Cumming and other women soon proved themselves sturdier than
was imagined and were quickly accepted as an integral part of the
Confederate medical system. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Harwell, R., ed., Kate, The Journal of a Confeder-
ate Nurse (1959). Massey, M. E., Bonnet Brigades: American
Cumming was not a nurse in the modern sense of the term. Women and the Civil War (1966). Scott, A. F. The Southern
The morality of the day did not permit women to bathe or dress Lady (1971).
male patients, nor could they administer medications or treat-
ments. The former was done by male nurses and convalescent
JANET E. KAUFMAN
patients, the latter by the physicians themselves. The women
were, rather, matronsthe administrators of the wards and super-
visors of the kitchens. It was their job to see that beds were
prepared for incoming patients, diets prepared by the kitchen staff
according to the physicians instructions, laundry done, and the
patient kept as comfortable as possible by all those under their
CUMMINS, Maria Susanna
command. Often the matrons wrote letters home for the soldiers,
read the Bible to them, and prayed with them in the absence of Born 9 April 1827, Salem, Massachusetts; died 1 October 1866,
chaplains. In death, they gathered up the personal belongings, cut Dorchester, Massachusetts
off a lock of hair, and sent them back to grieving families. Daughter of David and Mehitable Cave Cummins
The matrons work was not easy. In her journal, published in
1866 as A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Both of Maria Susanna Cummins parents were descendants
Tennessee, Cumming describes a typical day: Mrs. Williamson of prominent New England families. The Cummings family (the
and I live like Sisters of Charity; we get up in the morning about 4 name was originally spelled with a g) can trace their roots to
oclock, and breakfast by candle-light, which meal consists of real Isaac Cummings, a Scottish immigrant who settled in Ipswich
coffee without milk, but sugar, hash, and bread; we eat it in our shortly before 1638. Cummins father, a man of cultivated taste,
room. Unless we get up early, we nd it impossible to get through
made certain she received a classical education, and he encour-
with our duties. Mrs. Williamson prepared toddies and egg-nogs; I
aged his daughters writing talents. After his death she lived
see that the delicacies for the sick are properly prepared. After the
quietly in Dorchester, devoting the rest of her life to her writing
duties of the day are over, we then write letters for the men, telling
and to church work.
their relations they are here, or informing them of their decease;
other times mending some little articles for them. Mrs. Williamson is Cummins rst novel, The Lamplighter, was published in
up many a night till 12 oclock, working for her dear boys, as she Boston in 1854 and shortly afterward in London. It was the most
calls them.
talked about novel of the year and an immediate bestseller. The
Cumming served in a number of hospitals in Alabama, average sale during the rst two months after publication was
Mississippi, Tennessee, and Georgia. While some of the hospitals 5000 copies a week; by the end of the rst year it had sold 70,000
247
CURTISS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
copies. Her second novel, Mabel Vaughan (1857), was not so CURTISS, Mina (Stein) Kirstein
popular, but in 1858 both novels were selected for publication by
the Leipzig-based Tauchnitz Library of British and American
Born 13 October 1896, Boston, Massachusetts; died October 1985
Authors, an indication of her international fame.
Daughter of Louis E. and Rose Stein Kirstein; married Henry T.
Cummins novels are lled with pious sentiments and moral Curtiss, 1926 (died 1928)
formulae, typical of the genre, called folk ction by some,
which led to Hawthornes comment in 1855 that America is now Daughter of a prosperous Boston merchant and noted philan-
thropist, Mina Kirstein Curtiss was tutored at home by a govern-
wholly given over to a dd mob of scribbling women. . . .
ess until the age of ten. She completed her secondary education
Specically he asked, What is the mystery of these innumerable
with two years of prep school, received a B.A. from Smith College
editions of The Lamplighter?
in 1918, and an M.A. from Columbia University in 1920. During
The success of Lamplighter is no mystery at all. Relying three periods (1920-34, 1940-41, and 1977) Curtiss taught in the
liberally on Dickens and the Bront sisters, it tells the story of an English Department at Smith, where she attained the rank of full
abandoned and mistreated orphan, Gerty, befriended by a kindly professor. Her younger brother, Lincoln, became director of the
New York City Ballet, while George became a publisher of the
old lamplighter (aptly named Trueman Flint) and then by a
periodical, Nation.
wealthy young blind woman, Emily Graham, who becomes her
patron and teacher. The story recounts Gertys transformation In 1928 Curtiss husband died. From 1935-38, she worked as
from a ragged, ignorant orphan into a self-reliant and virtuous a research assistant for the Mercury Theater and Mercury Theater
young woman, the image of female goodness and purity. By of the Air, and during World War II edited and wrote radio scripts
the novels end Gerty has found her long-lost father (who turns out for the Ofce of War Information. Between 1947 and 1957,
to be Emily Grahams stepbrother and former lover) and will Curtiss spent many months in France researching the letters of
marry her childhood sweetheart, now a successful businessman. Marcel Proust and the life of Georges Bizet. For her subsequent
books on these subjects and for her donation to the Bibliothque
Cummins second novel, Mabel Vaughan (1857), features a Nationale of her Bizet collection, she was awarded the Legion of
heroine who is not a poor orphan waif but who is nevertheless the Honor by the French Government in 1960.
victim of a series of calamities. Once a pampered child of fashion,
Curtiss rst publication, Olive, Cypress and Palm, An
she nds herself nearly penniless and charged with the care of two
Anthology of Elegiac Verse (1930), is a selection of nearly 150
incorrigible nephews, a melancholic father, and an alcoholic
poems by authors including Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dryden, Donne,
brother. A great part of this novel is set in the West and the reader
Spenser, Shelley, Byron, Poe, Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Brown-
is introduced to some interesting pioneer characters as well as, in ing, and Christina Rossetti. Letters Curtiss wrote to her husband
the city scenes, such stock characters as a dying orphan who were compiled in The Midst of Life: A Romance (1933), excerpts
exemplies piety and submissiveness to Gods will. of which ran serially in the Atlantic Monthly.
Both of these novels relied upon the bestselling formula of In her 1978 autobiography, Other Peoples Letters, Curtiss
the sentimental-domestic novel for their appeal: the plots feature wrote: Femme de Lettres, if it had an English synonym, would
calamities, sudden reversals of fortune, long-lost relatives, and the most accurately describe my profession. For letters have literally
reform of proigates; the central characters are young women been the driving force behind every book I have produced. She
who grow in strength and piety throughout the novel, enabling traced her interest to a childhood incident when she was caught
them to accomplish the gentle subjugation and reform of rogues, looking at a packet of her parents love letters, which her mother
alcoholics, and conscienceless men. quickly snatched away from her. After this she concluded that
letters intended for someone else held clues to a persons secret
El Fureidis (1860), Cumminss third novel, is a story of life and the creative process. The rst book of other peoples
Palestine and Syria, and her fourth, Haunted Hearts (1864), is a letters she edited, Letters Home (1944), was an anthology of
rather pedestrian sentimental tale. Neither of these approached enlisted mens letters about their lives in various branches of the
Lamplighter in popular appeal. armed services. Next she edited and translated the Letters of
Marcel Proust (1949), which, she indicated, were chosen prima-
rily, to provide readers of Remembrance of Things Past with clues
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Baym, N., Womens Fiction (1978). Hart, J. D., to the development of the personality and the creative process out
The Popular Book (1950). Kelley, M., Private Women, Public of which the novel grew.
Stage (1984). Koch, D. A., introduction to Maria Susanna Cummins Curtiss research in France also led to her rst biography,
The Lamplighter (1968). Mott, F. L., Golden Multitudes (1947). Bizet and His World (1958), and to her editing and translating
Reference works: American Authors, 1600-1900 (1938). Daniel Halvys Degas parle. . . , published in English as My
DAB (1929, 1934). NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). Oxford Companion Friend Degas (1964). A second biography was about Anna
to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). Ivanovna, the 18th-century ruler whose encouragement of Euro-
pean and native artists laid the foundations for the ourishing of
ELAINE K. GINSBERG Russian ballet, opera, music, and drama. Called A Forgotten
248
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CURTISS
Empress (1974), it was inspired by Curtiss travels in Russia with of the Tiger (1958), innocent Lou Fabian nds herself suspected
her brothers ballet company. Curtiss recounts the incidents which of kidnapping for the second time. The device for the concealment
led to her books and to some of her periodical articles in her of the child is brilliantly simple, and the characterization of the
autobiography, with emphasis on her Proust research in France. babys mother is especially incisive and touching. Sarah Trafton,
in So Dies the Dreamer (1960), must nd the murderer of her
Curtiss writing is characterized by its lively character por- husbands stepmother in order to solve his apparent suicide. The
traits; its judicious evaluation of people within the contexts of incorporation of information about pheasant breeding adds inter-
their cultures, periods, and relationships; and its combined tone of est, and the use of the beautiful birds as symbols of danger is
scholarship and enthusiasm. Reviewing Other Peoples Letters in effective.
the New York Times Book Review, Nancy Milford referred to
Curtiss having lived passionately more lives than one, in eras Three of Curtiss best novels combine two of her most
other than [her] own, and concluded that Curtiss has become a commonand most compellingdevices. In inverted mys-
source to the very past she once sought. teries (the murderers identity being known from the outset),
Curtiss depicts women lacking some civilizing element of intro-
spection, imagination, or gentleness. The tension depends entirely
upon the authors skill at ever more horrifying characterization,
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Smith Alumnae Quarterly (April 1977).
deft enough to preserve realism. Curtiss is masterful at this
difcult technique.
HOLLY HILL
In The Stairway (1957) Madeline Potter copes with nancial
and psychological blackmail by seemingly meek Cora Applegate,
actually a killer. Among Madelines difculties is her struggle not
to act from jealousy of her childs affection for Cora, a factor
CURTISS, Ursula Reilly adding depth to the characterization. The Forbidden Garden
(1962) traces the disintegration of elderly Elsa Marrables mur-
derous personality. The portraits of Alice Dimmock, avenger
Born 8 April 1923, Yonkers, New York; died October 1984 turned victim, and Harriet Crewe, entangled innocent bystander,
Daughter of Paul and Helen Kieran Reilly; married John Curtiss, are overshadowed only by that of little James Crewe, who knows
Jr., 1947 how to turn sickliness into advantage. Here, storm-driven tumble-
weeds symbolize the forces driving the characters.
Ursula Reilly Curtiss novels are psychological studies sea-
Celia Brett in Letter of Intent (1971) commits crimes to
soned with suspense and detection. Her heroines are often endan-
escape from her slum background into comfort and security.
gered young career women barred by uncertainty, self-doubt, or
Much of the novels strength lies in the portraits of the Vestry
promises from seeking police aid. Several novels also incorporate
sistersweak, loving Mary Ellen and strong, loyal Susanwho
gothic overtones, for example, The Second Sickle (1950, British
are contrasted with Celia. The conclusion provides a double twist
title The Hollow House), The Wasp (1963), and The Birthday Gift
and is chillingly appropriate, as is the quiet, measured tone.
(1976, British title Dig a Little Deeper).
Curtiss portraits of children are always intriguing and
The Second Sickle tries the imagination through Victoria psychologically sound, and in Out of the Dark (1964, British title
Devlins stubborn insistence on keeping a promise even in the Childs Play), perhaps her best novel, she presents a broad range
face of murder. Yet the tension never ags and the book shows of childrens personalities. The ve Mannering youngsters, live-
Curtiss potential. In The Wasp, Curtiss uses the common horror ly, mischievous, and innocent, are imperiled by and contrasted
of insects as an unusual weapon threatening the sanity and the life with their guest, teenaged Kit Austen. Kit, sensual and self-
of Kate Barlow. The ending is particularly clever: the murderer centered, unwittingly triggers murder with a prank phone call. The
dead but lionized. Lydia Peel of The Birthday Gift nds a simple reader meets the killer early, and the suspense builds as he
errand complicated by false identities and murder. Here, three of detects the whereabouts of his tormentor. Though reviewers
Curtisss cleverest characterizations stop just short of caricature: deplored Curtiss reliance on sometimes awkward adverbial con-
chainsmoking Mrs. Chilton, her femme fatale daughter, and her structions, she is recognized as a skillful writer, particularly adroit
frightful little grandson. In all three novels, as is usual in Curtiss at sustained tension, characterization, and the end-of-the-chap-
work, a dash of romance lends spice. ter hook.
In Curtiss ction, an old murder frequently spawns new

deaths. Katie Meredith of Voice Out of Darkness (1948) suddenly OTHER WORKS: The Noonday Devil (1951). The Iron Cobweb
nds herself accused of the murder of her foster sister, accidental- (1953). The Deadly Climate (1954). Widows Web (1956). Hours
ly drowned years before. The book is neatly crafted, and here, as to Kill (1961). Danger, Hospital Zone (1966). Dont Open the
elsewhere, Curtiss makes good use of blizzards to symbolize Door (1968). In Cold Pursuit (1977). The Menace Within (1979).
isolation and danger. In one of Curtiss strongest novels, The Face The Poisoned Orchard (1980). Dog in the Manger (1982). Death
249
CUSTER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
of a Crow (1983). The House of Plymouth Street and Other and scorpions dominate Custers recollections of the march to
Stories (1985). Texas, and her Kansas memories include prairie re, ood, and
A manuscript collection of Ursula Reilly Curtiss is in the cholera. Racism pervades her accounts of blacks in Reconstruc-
Mugar Memorial Library at Boston University in Boston, tion Texas, Mexican mule drivers, and American Indians; class
Massachusetts. bias colors her portraits of those who attained ofcers positions
through war service rather than West Point. She alludes to postwar
dissension in the ranks, but ends her book before the court-martial
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Encyclopedia Mysteriosa (1994). and suspension that interrupted her husbands career.
Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detections (1976). St. James Guide In Following the Guidon (1890), Custer picks up the story
to Crime & Mystery (1996). when her husband returned to duty in Kansas in 1868 to join the
Other references: NY (24 July 1971). NYHTB (19 April campaign culminating in the Battle of Washita. Custer vividly
1953). NYTBR (19 March 1950, 14 June 1964). recalls her fearful visits with captured Native Americans and
tribal peace council delegates, while glorifying her husbands
JANE S. BAKERMAN honest treatment of those he helped defeat. She also explains how
constantly menacing rattlesnakes and Native Americans impair
enjoyment of recreational hunting, riding, and horse and mule
racing. Her posthumously published letters to husband and family
reveal the pampered, pious, and principled aspects of her personality.
CUSTER, Elizabeth Bacon Custers works provide important insights into one womans
attempt to redene lady to t the regimen of cavalry life. The
Born 8 April 1842, Monroe, Michigan; died 4 April 1933, New closeness she depicts among army wives balances the traditional
York, New York emphasis on military male bonding. While marred by prejudice,
Also wrote under: Elizabeth B. Custer self-deprecation, and repetition, and intentionally incomplete by
Daughter of Daniel S. and Sophia Page Bacon; married George avoidance of controversy, Custers writings are lively and lucid
Armstrong Custer, 1864 (died 1876) accounts of an unusual female life style.
In 1863 Elizabeth Bacon Custer met Captain George Arm- OTHER WORKS: General Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn,
strong Custer, then visiting Monroe on leave from Civil War duty. June 25, 1876 (1897). The Boy General: Story of the Life
Overcoming paternal opposition to Custers involvement with a of Major-General George A. Custer (edited by M. E. Burt,
soldier, they courted by mail and married. Custer accompanied 1901). The Custer Story: The Life and Intimate Letters of Gener-
her husband to the Virginia front, where he became a major al George A. Custer and His Wife Elizabeth (edited by M.
general. His postwar military career took Custer to posts in Texas, Merington, 1950).
Kansas, Kentucky, and Dakota Territory, where she learned of his
fatal last stand. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Frost, L. A., General Custers Libbie (1976).
Stewart, J. R., introduction to Elizabeth B. Custers Boots and
Although Custers life extended 57 years beyond her hus- Saddles (1961 ed.).
bands she kept her marriage vows, fullling what she believed Reference works: American Women (1897).
were her responsibilities as the widow of a national hero by Other references: Colliers (29 Jan. 1927). Harpers (Jan.
writing and lecturing. She wrote to perpetuate her husbands 1891). Nation (30 April 1885). NYT (11 May 1888, 5 April 1933).
memory, scrupulously avoiding army political disputes by focus- Winners (30 June 1935).
ing on the domestic aspects of frontier cavalry life. Her rst book,
Boots and Saddles (1885), describes her life in Dakota with HELEN BANNAN
General Custer from 1873 to 1876. Custer emphasizes the close-
ness within and among army couples as both result of and defense
against wilderness isolation. Although she tried to appear plucky,
Custer expresses her overwhelming fear of the Native Americans CUTHRELL, Faith Baldwin
and often gives thanks that, as a woman, she was not required to be
brave. Women were, however, required to wait; Custer compellingly Born 1 October 1893, New Rochelle, New York; died 18 March
presents the shared anxiety of wives left at Fort Lincoln while 1978, Norwalk, Connecticut
husbands fought and died at Little Big Horn. Wrote under: Faith Baldwin, Faith B. Cuthrell
Daughter of Stephen C. and Edith Finch Baldwin; married
The enthusiastic reception of her rst book led Custer to Hugh H. Cuthrell, 1920
write her reminiscences of earlier campaigns. In Tenting on the
Plains (1887), Custer describes her experiences following Gener- Faith Baldwin Cuthrell spent a fashionable girlhood in Man-
al Custer in Kansas and Texas from 1865 to 1867. Insects, illness, hattan and Brooklyn Heights. She could read at three, and at six
250
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS CUTHRELL
was writing a drama, The Deserted Wife. She rst published From July 1958 to December 1965 she wrote the monthly feature
verse in her teens, prose in her twenties. Cuthrells books, stories, The Open Door for Womans Day magazine, which she
poems, and articles appeared steadily from 1921 to 1977, bringing expanded to produce Testament of Trust (1960), Harvest of Hope
her enormous popular and nancial success. Many of her novels (1962), Living by Faith (1964), and Evening Star (1966). Reec-
were made into lms. She was a founder and faculty member of tive and discursive, these almanac books follow the years
the Famous Writers School in Westport, Connecticut. cycle. Cuthrell shares her thoughts on the seasonal activities and
weather, on gardens and rooms, on love, sorrow, books, travel,
Cuthrells family history emerges in The American Family
(1935), based on her grandfathers diaries. Tobias Condit takes his memories, prayer, and people.
wife to China in the 1860s to work as a missionary. Their son is
Among Cuthrells last works are the six Little Oxford novels:
sent to America to be educated, returning to China as a doctor. The
Any Village (1971), No Bed of Roses (1973), Time and the Hour
sequel, The Puritan Strain (1935), centers on Dr. Condits daugh-
ter Elizabeth. (1974), New Girl in Town (1975), Thursdays Child (1976), and
Adams Eden (1977). Seasons are breathtakingly beautiful in this
Courtship and marriage with their attendant joys and crises suburban town, a collage of Westchester, Connecticut, and
are Cuthrells favored themes. Her rst novel, Mavis of Green Hill Long Island. Life is friendly and comfortable. A cast of characters
(1921), shows the maturation of a childlike bride, once an invalid, reappears; new people pass through or settle, usually the heirs,
into a passionate wife. Something Special (1940) explores the relatives, or friends of the inhabitants. The principal action is the
threats to a union of 14 years. Satisfactory resolutions are always forming of a marriage, or an adjustment to marriage of a sympa-
brought about. Cuthrells novels are usually told from the wom- thetic young pair (maturer lovers marry or remarry offstage), who
ans viewpoint and reveal an intimate group of womens problems. will in subsequent novels have already started a family and
become part of the backdrop for the next set of lovers.
Salient problems are the work women do and its relation to
love and marriage. Cuthrells heroines are secretaries, hostesses,
Cuthrell produced highly professional popular ction, skill-
nurses, actresses, real estate brokers. They sell bonds and securi-
fully plotted, swift-paced, and entertaining. She captures the
ties, design dresses, and run beauty salons. White Collar Girl
accents of daily speech, from plain talk to breezy dialogue. Her
(1933) speaks of the wasted talent of girls from afuent families
who stay in their hometowns to wrap up fudge in the Goodie characters are middle- and upper-class Americans, living in
Shoppe. Private Duty (1935) describes the working girls lot, the Manhattan penthouses, luxurious country estates, and suburban
long days, the social life crammed into after-hours, the little sleep. communities. Cuthrell explores matters of concern to women
Rich girls might work for pleasure: To be a working girl and work, money, love, marriage, motherhood, divorce, dignied age.
socially secure gave one a certain cachet. Working without the Her heroines are self-possessed women of mettle, some quietly
social security made all the difference. Career By Proxy (1939) independent, others spitres. Individuals, couples, families, and
queries whether a wealthy girl ought to work, thus taking employ- neighbors resolve their difculties. Cuthrells inspirational works
ment from one who needs it. In Hotel Hostess (1938), an unsym- praise the seasons, the pleasures of books, dwellings, and precious
pathetic male supposes women usually work for frivolous rea- objects, and the importance of solitude and friendship alike.
sons, or because they are exhibitionists.
Conict between career and marriage is a frequent theme.

Cuthrells suitors and husbands generally regard the womans OTHER WORKS: Laurel of Stonystream (1923). Magic and Mary
work as unnecessary, or inimical to their mutual happiness. Rose (1924). Sign Posts (1924). Thresholds (1925). Those Dif-
Cuthrell writes searchingly of the emotion on both sides. More cult Years (1925). Three Women (1926). Departing Wings (1927).
often Cuthrells heroines vainly strive to keep both marriage and Rosalies Career (1928). Betty (1928). Alimony (1928). The
career going, nally abandoning the career. In Self-Made Woman Incredible Year (1929). Garden Oats (1929). Broadway Interlude
(1939) the clash is acute, the resolution uneasy. The wife capitu- (with Achmed Adullah, 1929). Judy: A Story of Divine Corners
lates to her dominant, sexually magnetic husband with an (1930). Make-Believe (1930). The Ofce Wife (1930). Babs: A
awareness of defeat. Story of Divine Corners (1931). Skyscraper (1931, lm version,
1932). Todays Virtue (1931). Mary Lou: A Story of Divine
The West Wind (1962) patiently explores the corrosive effect
Corners (1931). Self-Made Woman (1932). Week-End Marriage
on a childless marriage of a husbands single casual act of
(with Achmed Adullah, 1932, lm version, 1933). Girl on the
indelity. The wife, fear-ridden and bitter, forgives her husband
Make (1932). District Nurse (1932). Myra: A Story of Divine
daily and thus makes their life impossible. Their spiritual isolation
Corners (1932). Beauty (1933, lm version, 1933). Loves a
and agony ultimately give way to acceptance.
Puzzle (1933). Innocent Bystander (1934). Within a Year (1934).
Cuthrells nonction, following her husbands death, in- Wife vs. Secretary (1934). Honor Bound (1934). The Moons Our
cludes the inspirational, semiautobiographical Face Toward the Home (1936, lm version, 1936). Men are Such Fools! (1936,
Spring (1956) and Many Windows: Seasons of the Heart (1958). lm version, 1938). Girls of Divine Corners (1936). Omnibus:
251
CUTHRELL AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Alimony; The Ofce Wife; Skyscraper (1936). The Heart Has Sunlight (1959). The Lonely Man (1964). There Is a Season
Wings (1937). That Man Is Mine (1937). Twenty-Four Hours a (1966). The Velvet Hammer (1969). Take What You Want (1970).
Day (1937). Manhattan Nights (1937). Enchanted Oasis (1938). One More Time (1972).
Rich Girl, Poor Girl (1938). White Magic (1939). Station Wagon
Set (1939). The High Road (1939). Letty and the Law (1940).
Medical Center (1940). Picnic Adventures (1940). Rehearsal for BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cooper, P., Faith Baldwins American Family
Love (1940). Temporary Address: Reno (1941). And New Stars (1938). Van Gelder, R., Interview with Faith Baldwin in
Burn (1941). The Heart Remembers (1941). Blue Horizons (1942). Writers and Writing (1946).
Breath of Life (1942). Five Women in Three Novels (1942). The Reference works: TCA (1942, 1955). CA (1969).
Rest of My Life With You (1942). You Cant Escape (1943). Other references: CSM (11 Jan. 1947). Colliers (27 May
Washington, USA (1943). Change of Heart (1944). He Married a 1944). Cosmopolitan (Aug. 1959). Good Housekeeping (Oct.
Doctor (1944). Romance Book (1944). A Job for Jenny (1945). 1943). NRTA Journal (Sept.-Oct. 1975). NY Post (2 Sept. 1972).
Second Romance Book (1945). Arizona Star (1945). No Private NYT (25 Oct. 1973, 20 March 1978). Pictorial Review (Dec.
Heaven (1946). Woman on Her Way (1946). Give Love the Air 1935). Saturday Evening Post (14 March 1936). Saturday Review
(1947). Sleeping Beauty (1947). They Who Love (1948). Marry of Literature (11 April 1936, 29 April 1939). Time (8 July 1935).
for Money (1948). The Golden Shoestring (1949). Look Out for Writer (May 1940).
Liza (1950). The Whole Armor (1951). The Juniper Tree (1952).
Widows Walk (1954). Three Faces of Love (1957). Blaze of MARCELLE THIBAUX
252
D
DAHLGREN, Madeleine Vinton As a founder of the Literary Society of Washington and
president of the Ladies Catholic Missionary Society, Dahlgren
remained a noted literary and religious leader of Washington
Born Sarah Madeleine Vinton, 13 July 1825, Gallipolis, Ohio; society until her death.
died 28 May 1898, Washington, D.C.
Wrote under: Corinne
Daughter of Samuel F. and Romain Bureau Vinton; married OTHER WORKS: Pius IX and France by Montalembert (translated
Daniel Goddard, circa 1855 (died); John A. Dahlgren, 1865 by Dahlgren, 1861). An Essay on Catholicism, Authority and
(died 1870); children: ve Order by J. Donoso Cortes (translated by Dahlgren, 1862).
Memoir of Ulric Dahlgren (1872). Etiquette of Social Life in
Madeleine Vinton Dahlgren was educated in Philadelphias Washington (1873). The Executive Power in the United States
Monsieur Picots boarding school and in the Convent of the by A. de Chambrun (translated by Dahlgren, 1874). South Sea
Visitation in Georgetown, D.C. After her mother and brother died Sketches (1881). Memoir of John A. Dahlgren (1882). The Lost
during her childhood, Dahlgren assumed the role of companion Name (1886). Divorced (1887). Chim: His Washington Winter
and hostess for her father, a veteran congressman from Ohio. Her (1892). Samuel Finley Vinton (1895). The Secret Directory (1896).
husband, Daniel C. Goddard, was assistant secretary of the The Woodley Lane Ghost and Other Stories (1899).
Interior Department. Widowed ve years after her marriage, she
returned to her fathers Washington house with her two children. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Washington Evening Star (30 May 1898). WP (29
She published her rst collection of writings, Idealities (1859), May 1898).
under the name of Corinne. Until her second marriage to John
Dahlgren, she helped support her family by writing and translat- SUZANNE ALLEN
ing a variety of political and religious essays from French,
Spanish, and Italian. She and Dahlgren had three children; and
when widowed for a second time in 1870, Dahlgren again
returned to her fathers home and to writing. DALL, Caroline (Wells) Healey
An extremely conservative, traditional Catholic view perme-
ates Dahlgrens ction and nonction. In 1871 she wrote a letter Born 22 June 1822, Boston, Massachusetts; died 17 December
to Congress and a pamphlet, Thoughts on Female Suffrage, 1912, Washington, D.C.
arguing woman suffrage was a burden added to the distinct and Daughter of Mark and Caroline Foster Healey; married Charles
sacred duties, including motherhood, that women were already Appleton Dall, 1844 (died 1886); children: son and a daughter
responsible for by a law higher than the U.S. Constitution. To
Dahlgren marriage was a sacred unity in which the family with the Daughter of a prosperous Boston merchant who had desired
husband at the head was the foundation of the state. She believed a son and was determined I should supply the place of one,
the 19th amendment, on the other hand, proposed marriage as a Caroline Healey Dall received a thorough education and was
mere compact in which each family member required individual devoted to her father until her desire to spend her life in charitable
representation, leading to diversity and discord rather than unity and religious work conicted with her fathers desire that she
and peace. pursue a literary career. Her marriage to Reverend Dall produced
a son and a daughter but the union was not happy. In 1855 he went
In the 1880s Dahlgren turned from nonction to ctionalized as a Unitarian missionary to India, where he remained, except for
sketches and highly didactic melodramatic novels, often serial- occasional visits, until his death in 1886.
ized in popular magazines. South Mountain Magic (1882), per-
Dall helped Pauline Wright Davis organize the womans
haps her most interesting book, is a fascinating account of the
rights convention in Boston in 1855, and she organized and
mysterious beliefs and supernatural symbols of the South Moun-
delivered one of the principal addresses at the 1859 New England
tain descendants of the German settlers in a Maryland community.
womans rights convention, also in Boston. She was one of the
A Washington Winter (1883), an involved romance set in a typical
founders of the American Social Science Association.
Washington season, reects the political and social manners of
Dahlgrens world. Her strong religious convictions and their Essays and Sketches (1849) collects Dalls early essays on
ramications in the political world surface in Lights and Shadows moral and religious subjects, which had been published in news-
of a Life (1887), which upholds the American prejudice against papers and periodicals since she was thirteen. In Liberty Bell
racial and social intermixture as a providential means of preserv- (1847), another collection of her writings, she holds, in contrast to
ing the superiority of the Republics governing race. The novel her later writings and actions, that political activity for women is
traces the complicated life of a young Southern girl and her utterly incompatible with the more previous and positive duties
relationship with a Frenchman who might have a black ancestor. of the nursery and the reside. A series of nine lectures,
253
DALY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
delivered between 1859 and 1862, was described in the New York Whittingham Genealogy (1880). My First Holiday (1881). Sordello:
Evening Post as the most eloquent and forcible statement of the A History and A Poem (1886). The Life of Dr. Anandabai Joshee
Womans Question which has been made. (1888). Barbara Fritchie (1892). Otis; The Story of an Old House
(1892). Margaret and Her Friends (1895). In Memoriam. Susan
Dall calls for the removal of educational and legal barriers so Wadden Turner et al. (1896). Transcendentalism in New England
that each human being can fully develop, and insists on a womans (1897). In Memoriam, Alexander Wadsworth (1898). Alongside
right to work and to receive equal pay for equal work: If low (1902). Memorial to Charles Henry Appleton Dall (edited by
wages, by actually starving women and those dependent upon Dall, 1902). Of Lady Roses Daughter (1903). The Story of a
them, force many into vicious courses, so does the want of Boston Family (1903). Fog Bells (1904). Charles Lowell, Pas-
employment lower the whole moral tone, and destroy even the tor. . .of the West Church, Boston (1907).
domestic efciency of those whose minds seek variety and The papers of Caroline Healey Dall are in the Schlesinger
freedom. More than once have I been to insane asylums with Library of Radcliffe College, and at the Massachusetts Historical
young girls whom active and acceptable employment would have Society in Boston.
saved from mania; and scores of times have young women of
fortune asked me, What can you give me to do? And to this
question there is, in the present state of the public mind no BIBLIOGRAPHY: Buell, L., Literary Transcendentalism (1973).
possible answer. Her convincing historical analysis, well sup- Conrad, S. F., Perish the Thought: Intellectual Women in Roman-
plied with examples, shows women have since the beginning of tic America, 1830-1860 (1971). Leach, W., True Love and Per-
civilization shared the hardest and most unwholesome work, fect Union: The Feminist Reform of Sex and Society (1980).
that they have been the worst paid, and that their efforts to nd Riegel, R. E., American Feminists (1963). Stanton, E. C. et al.,
new avenues of labor (e.g., efforts to train women as watch- History of Woman Suffrage (1881).
makers) have often been met by the selsh opposition of man. Reference works: NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). Oxford Compan-
She feels that such opposition will be overcome and that all the ion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995).
work woman asks for will inevitably be given. Other references: HLB (Oct. 1974). New England Quarterly
(March 1969).
A consistent advocate of coeducation and higher education
for women, Dall responded to Dr. Edward H. Clarkes book Sex in SUSAN SUTTON SMITH
Education (1873), in which he claimed womens health could not
withstand the strain of a college education. Her review afrms her
belief that no greater difference of capacity, whether physical or
psychical, will be found between man and woman than is found DALY, Elizabeth
between man and man, that a proper coeducational system will
make possible the fullest development of both sexes, and that
whatever danger menaces the health of America, it cannot, thus Born 15 October 1878, New York, New York; died 2 September
far, have sprung from the overeducation of her women. She calls 1967, Port Washington, New York
upon women, contented in ignominious dependence, restless Daughter of Emma (Barker) and Joseph Francis Daly
even to insanity from the need of healthy employment and the
perversion of their instincts, and confessedly looking to marriage Elizabeth Daly was the author of 16 crime novels popular
for salvation, to make thorough preparation for trades or during the 1940s and 1950s, all featuring Henry Gamadge, a
professions and to abide by the consequences of their resolutions. genteel, intelligent, upper-class man who was an expert on anti-
quarian books, maps, prints, autographs, and other documents.
Dall was, in later years, a prolic writer of obituary trib- Agatha Christie once named Daly her favorite American mystery
utes, devotional pamphlets, genealogical studies, and writer, and in fact Dalys work has often been compared to
quasihistorical works. Christies and those of other writers from the British Golden Age
of detective ction, including Arthur Conan Doyle.
OTHER WORKS: What We Really Know About Shakespeare (1855). Daly was born in 1878 in New York City. Her father was a
Womans Right to Labor; or Low Wages and Hard Work (1860). County of New York Supreme Court justice and her uncle was
A Practical Illustration of Womans Right to Labor; or, A Augustin Daly, a noted 1890s playwright and theatrical producer.
Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska (edited by Dall, 1860). Histori- Dalys writing career began during her teens, when periodicals
cal Pictures Retouched (1860). Womans Rights Under the Law such as Puck, Life, and Scribners published her short prose and
(1861). Sunshine; A New Name for a Popular Lecture on Health poetry works. After graduating with a B.A. from Bryn Mawr
(1864). The Bible Story Told for Children (1866). Nazareth College in 1901 and an M.A. from Columbia University in 1902,
(1866). The College, the Market, and the Court (1867). Egypts Daly worked as a tutor and a producer of amateur theater. She did
Place in History (1868). Patty Grays Journey: From Boston to not write a detective story until she was in her thirties. She was in
Baltimore (1869). From Baltimore to Washington (1870). On the her sixties when her rst book, Unexpected Night (1940), was
Way; or, Patty at Mount Vernon (1870). Genealogical Notes and published. She went on to write 15 more crime novels and one
Errata to Savages Genealogical Dictionary (1873). Sex and general ction title, all from 1940 to 1951. Daly won an Edgar
Education (1874). The Romance of the Association (1875). The Allan Poe award in 1960 from the Mystery Writers of America.
254
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DALY
Unexpected Night introduces Henry Gamadge, who returned BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Benets Readers Encyclopedia
as the protagonist of all her full-length detective stories. Gamadge of American Literature (1991). CANR 60 (1998). CLC 52 (1989).
is the opposite of the hard-boiled ctional detectives popular at 20th Century Crime and Mystery Writers (1985). World Authors
the time. Hes the semi-bookish type, but not pretentious, Daly 1900-1950 (1996).
said of Gamadge. Hes not good-looking, but eye-catching. . . . Other references: NYT (3 Sept. 1967).
He knows a lot, but doesnt talk about it. He is basically kind, but
at times can be ruthless. Over the course of the 16 novels in KAREN RAUGUST
which he stars, Gamadge acquires a staff, a wife, a family, and two
pets, all of which become recurring characters. Gamadge lives in
New Yorks fashionable Murray Hill district and is essentially
unemployed, but accepts frequent commissions as an expert on DALY, Mary
old books and papers. Nearly all of Dalys novels hinge on a work
of literature or a literary situation. Murders in Volume 2 (1941) Born 16 October 1928, Schenectady, New York
features the poetry of Byron, The Book of the Dead (1944) Daughter of Frank X. and Anna Catherine Morse Daly
revolves around Shakespeares The Tempest, The Wrong Way
Down (1946) centers on a Bartolozzi engraving of a Holbein In her rst book, The Church and the Second Sex (1968),
portrait, The Book of the Lion (1948) involves a lost Chaucer Mary Daly examines Simone de Beauvoirs accusations against
manuscript, and the solution of Death and Letters (1950), one of Christianity (particularly Catholicism) found in the book The
her last and most acclaimed novels, relies on the discovery of the Second Sex. Daly supports her indictment of the church as an
secret sale of a Victorian poets love letters. oppressor of women by citing its denial of womens full participa-
Daly is probably best known for her complex plots, which tion in the affairs of society, thereby restricting their maturity, as
involve crimes of forgery, theft, and murder and incorporate well as excluding women from the churchs hierarchy. Underly-
everything from reincarnations to apparitions, in addition to ing this oppression, according to Daly, is the church doctrine that
literary clues. She was especially commended for her unexpected denies women equality in this life while promising they will be
resolutions. Will Cuppy of the New York Herald Tribune said of equal souls in heaven. In addition, she analyzes the impact of the
Deadly Nightshade (1940): The plot thickens amazingly toward womens liberation movement on nuns and Catholic women in
the end, with a urry of romantic gambits, and Miss Daly proves general.
herself as deft at juggling hints as the armchair sleuth could Dalys examples are well organized and lucid, and are drawn
wish. Similarly, Isaac Anderson commented in the New York from scripture, patristic doctrine, historical evidence, and specic
Times Book Review on Evidence of Things Seen (1943): So papal documents on marriage and abortion. In a chapter entitled
ingenious is the plot of this story that we feel safe in predicting that The Pedestal Peddlars, she traces the churchs identication of
most readers will be completely fooled and will then wonder how woman with nature rather than culture, with Eve rather than Mary.
they ever happened to muff the solution. She also shows how woman is oppressed through what the church
The Gamadge novels take place among wealthy New York calls her place in the divine plan, a term Daly feels silences and
society, a group of individuals who are not greatly interested in or awes the critical faculty of most women. Her language of reform
affected by the lower classes, crime, or even World War II. At is rather strong: she would exorcise the idea of mans superi-
times, both Dalys writing style and her character Gamadge were ority and use radical surgery on the theology that genderizes
criticized as over-urbane, precious, and self-consciously God and sustains a static world view. This idea of mans superiori-
literary, but readers and reviewers generally felt compensated ty wounds the marriages of its members through insistence on the
for those drawbacks by her ingenious plotting. While her work inferiority of woman. She calls for the ordination of women
was most often considered light and civilized, Daly herself felt priests and a movement away from the masculine principle in the
detective ction was a high form of literature that brought with it hierarchical patterns of society. Daly also advocates the release of
great responsibilities for the author. nuns from the cloister into the service of their societies and
champions universal coeducation. Daly hopes theological wounds
Other books featuring Gamadge include The House Without can be healed from within the church. While this book was
the Door (1942), Nothing Can Rescue Me (1943), Arrow Pointing accused by some reviewers as overkill, it is actually a clear,
Nowhere (1944), Any Shape or Form (1945), Somewhere in the well-documented statement of what Roman Catholicism has done
House (1946), Night Walk (1947), And Dangerous to Know to women.
(1949), and The Book of the Crime (1951).
Dalys second book, Beyond God the Father (1973), sparkles
In 1941 Daly wrote her only nonmystery and her sole book with brilliant, original concepts. Although it did not receive
without Gamadge. Called The Street Has Changed, the novel (her critical acclaim, its importance lies in its setting forth seminal
fourth) was a 40-year saga set in the world of New York theater. philosophical and theological ideas. Whereas her rst book is
The work was praisedin part for her supposed extensive re- derivative of another thinker (Simone de Beauvoir), the second
search, which Daly claimed was not necessary since she had reects her own deep understanding of ancient, medieval, and
grown up in a theatrical familybut she never broke away from modern theologians, philosophers, and social scientists. She evalu-
the detective genre again. ates their ideas by showing that their thinking would have been
255
DALY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
more fruitful had they taken decisive issue with the universal and Possessions (deception, pride, and avarice). Pure Lust
oppression of women. (1984) deals with Aggression and Obsession (anger and
lust). The third volume, Outer-Course: The Be-Dazzling Voyage
Although theologians have feared woman as the antichrist (a
(1993) addresses Assimilation, Elimination,and Frag-
fear manifested in witch hunts and the burning of Joan of Arc),
mentation (gluttony, envy, and sloth), also tacitly dealt with in
Daly believes womans realization of her authentic self will
the 1987 Wickedary of the English Language.
constitute the Second Coming, as women will create new dimen-
sions of concern for all humanity. Daly sees the tolerance for In Gyn/Ecology Daly crisscrosses cultures and continents
diversity and many forms of becoming as part of the Mary painstakingly exposing Indian suttee, Chinese foot binding, Afri-
archetype stripped of patriarchal values. She believes Mary to be can genital mutilation, European witch burning, and the develop-
the last remnant of the Mother goddess who was human and ment of American gynecology to show that gynocidal practices
fallible and hence could have love also for the irregular and the are universal. She begins here her journey of creating women-
imperfect. She rejects Christ as an exclusively masculine symbol identied Time/Space. Daly differentiates between Background,
for incarnation. the divine depth within the Self, and Foreground, surface
consciousness, analytical distinctions upon which she draws in
Daly is attacked by some critics for not dening precisely
her later work.
what the feminine element will be in her androgynous vision of
the future, but her point is that women cannot yet know who they In Pure Lust, Daly journeys into the Background through
will be. Nevertheless, she does discuss several positive aspects three realms: (1) archespheres, uncovering the Archimagethe
that the Cosmic Sisterhood will bring and warns that women Original Witchwithin our Selves, (2) pyrospheres, the space
will have to be aroused to their plight before they will be able to of Elemental E-motions and ontological Passions, and (3)
assert these new dimensions of becoming. metamorphospheres, the center of Belonging and Be-friending.
Although Dalys writing is at times so complex it borders on The discussion of each realm ensues with the exposure of the
scholasticism, her sardonic wit and vivid imagery help carry the foreground that patriarchy has created to mask the spheres:
reader along. As Betty Graf, her most appreciative reviewer, says, sadospirituality, potted passions and plastic virtues, and patriar-
although Daly uses language that may shock uninformed laity and chal, inauthentic belonging and befriending. Daly retrieves lust
clergy and may outrage the uncritical, orthodox religious adher- from a phallocentric lechery and renews it with its other meanings
ent, the book is good news for modern woman and man. of eagerness, craving, and intense longing.
As a radical feminist theorist, Daly, who holds doctoral Websters First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English
degrees in philosophy (1965) and theology (1963) from the Language brings together a collection of Dalys New Words and
University of Fribourg, and a doctorate in theology from St. their various meanings. The volume has preliminary articles on
Marys College, Indiana (1954), has taught for years as an spelling, grammar, pronunciation, and guides that mirror the
associate professor in the Department of Theology at Boston image of a dictionary but are actually theoretical pieces. The
College. The corpus of her writing is central in shaping the presentation of words and meanings, woven in cahoots with
questions and debates of feminist theology/religious studies and Jane Caputi, appears in the second phase of the book. Readers
theory. The Church and the Second Sex was reissued in 1975 with unfamiliar with Dalys work will be impeded from using Wickedary
a Feminist Postchristian Introduction. including a chapter-by- as a reference tool because the words are divided into three
chapter review from Dalys transformed post-Christian vantage different word-webs that depend upon a basic understanding of
point. Her New Archaic Afterwords to a 1985 reissue, greatly her thought. A third phase, Appendicular Webs, contains four
inuenced by her later development of New Words to describe further essays by Daly
womens experience, offers a further reection on her departure
In Outer-Course: The Be-Dazzling Voyage (1992) Daly
from Christianity. Here, Daly views the earlier Daly as a
intertwines both autobiographical and philosophical material to
foresister whose work is an essential source.
portray her intellectual voyage in four interconnected spiral
In her 1985 Original Reintroduction to Beyond God the galaxies. These spirals roughly correspond to the writing of each
Father Daly maintains most of the views expressed in her second of her books, although the rst spiral includes many memories
book, but rejects traditional theological vocabulary. In her later from preexistence through the writing of The Church and the
work, language becomes paramount. While always passionate, Second Sex. The volume focuses on the power that recollections
her words become increasingly lyrical, alliterative, and special- of a woman who has journeyed through the spirals and under-
ized. Irregular capitalization in her works are used to delineate stands their interrelatedness can have to energize women and Daly
words she has revitalized and reclaimed. herself for further voyaging.
Dalys 1975 article, The Qualitative Leap beyond Patriar- In 1979 Audre Lorde penned the most well-known criticism
chal Religion, provides the trajectory of a new constructive of Daly, citing Dalys failure to include the writings and experi-
phase. In the New Intergalactic Introduction (1990) of ences of women of color except as victims. Daly publicly ac-
Gyn/Ecology Daly reiterates a plan for a three-volume work based knowledged the criticism in Gyn/Ecologys second edition and in
on the identication of eight Deadly Sins of the Fathers. Outer-Course. In Pure Lust and Wickedary Daly does try to
Gyn/Ecology (1978) deals with Processions, Professions, address diversity. The 1990 edition of Gyn/Ecology also includes
256
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DALY
an afterword by Bonnie Mann portraying the usefulness of Dalys BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lorde, A., An Open Letter to Mary Daly, in
analysis in Manns work with battered women, an effort to show This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of
the accessibility of the work to different classes. Writers of Color, C. Moraga and G. Azalda, eds. (1981). Spencer, M. L., M.
feminist criticism and texts on theory generally label Daly as Kehoe, and K. Speece, eds., Handbook for Women Scholars:
cultural feminist, an appellation Daly does not espouse in her own Strategies for Success (1982).
self-descriptions. She prefers Positively Revolting Hag, i.e., a Reference works: CANR (1990). FC (1990). MTCW (1991).
stunning, beauteous Crone, one who inspires positive revulsion Other references: America (Jan. 1974). Boston Globe (25
from phallic institutions and morality, inciting Others to Act of Feb. 1999, 28 Feb. 1999, 23 Mar. 1999). Christian Century (Jan.
Pure Lust. 1974). CW (Feb. 1974). Critic (Jan.-Feb. 1974). LJ (1 Oct. 1998).
In 1999, while still teaching at Boston College, Daly made National Catholic Reporter (5 Feb. 1999, 5 Mar. 1999). Off Our
the news when the administration, apparently responding to a Backs (1998). On The Issues (1998). PW (17 Aug. 1998). WRB 16:6.
threatened afrmative action suit, insisted she allow men in her
Introduction to Feminist Ethics course. Her policy had always STEPHANIE DEMETRAKOPOULOS,
been to teach separate classes to men and to women. Professor UPDATED BY BARBARA ANNE RADTKE AND KAREN
Daly responded by taking a semesters leave while considering MCLENNAN
her retirement. Ironically, the all-male student body of 1969
successfully demonstrated for her reinstatement and tenure when
the administration did not renew her contract. Student support in
the recent controversy was represented in a letter signed by 14
women and printed in the campus newspaper: Throughout her DALY, Maureen
33-year career at Boston College, Professor Daly has provided
insight, inspiration and mentoring. . .the administration is silenc- Born 15 March 1921, County Tyrone, Ireland
ing Mary Daly and negating the very ideals that it proclaims Daughter of Joseph D. and Margaret Kelly Daly; married
invaluable. During her sabbatical, however, Daly wasnt idle William P. McGivern, 1948
she continued work on a sequel to her 1998 book, Quintes-
sence. . .Realizing the Archaic Future: A Radical Elemental Femi-
nist Manifesto . Maureen Daly began her writing career at a young age. While
still a high school senior, her short story Sixteen placed rst in
The value and power of language led Daly to writing, as she a student contest in Scholastic magazine, and was selected for
indicates in her autobiographical essay, Sin Big (1996), where the O. Henry Prize Award Collection of 1938. While a student at
she describes her early experiences and decisions about her Rosary College (now Dominican University) in River Forest,
education. Ever since childhood, I have been honing my skills Illinois, she worked as a reporter and columnist for the Chicago
for living the life of a Radical Feminist Pirate and cultivating the Tribune. Upon graduation in 1942 she went on to the Ladies
Courage to Sin. Home Journal as an associate editor, reporter, and foreign corre-
Her eighth book, a futuristic, millennial journey, Quintes- spondent, and in the early 1950s, she began writing for the
sence, completes the quest begun in Gyn/Ecology and Pure Lust Saturday Evening Post. Throughout her career, Daly interposed
by imagining a world beyond the patriarchal history. As she magazine and newspaper work with writing for lms and television.
recounts the situation, the oppression of women, the exhaustion of
Dalys stories have been widely published in national maga-
natural resources, and the dominance of fundamentalist thought
zines such as Vogue, Mademoiselle, Cosmopolitan, and Womans
characterize life at the end of the 20th century. The title page of
Home Companion. Her writing for the magazine audience centers
Quintessence includes the additional inscription that explains the
on problems relating to the socialization process and the psy-
circumstances of the text: 2048 B.E. (Biophilic Era) Edition:
Containing Cosmic Comments and Conversations with the Au- chology of adolescence. Dalys stories, novels, articles, and
thor, Published on Lost Found Continent by Anonyma Network columns hold a prominent place among works designed to advise
(An Intergalactic Enterprise of Anonyma Network) In Celebra- and reassure young women in their struggle for identity through-
tion of the 50th Anniversary of the Work. out adolescence. Among her works of these genres are Sixteen,
Whats Your P. Q.? (Personality Quotient), a syndicated
Daly structures a ctive context in which Annie (Anonyma), column for teenagers, and a cultural commentary in Meet a
the future editor, writes a preface and records her transtemporal SubDeb installments for the Ladies Home Journal.
dialogues with the author, Mary Daly. Dalys chapters enumerate
womens experiences of Diaspora in the patriarchal, postmodernist Dalys rst novel, Seventeenth Summer (1942, 1985) is by
world. Following each chapter are Annies commentary and far her best known and most highly acclaimed publication.
conversations with the author that describe this world inhabited by Described as the Little Women of the 20th century, it has gone
women and a few enlightened men who live out Dalys feminist through innumerable printings since its rst publication. Set in the
dreams, unencumbered by the patriarchal world they left behind authors own hometown of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, the story
in 2012 B.E. relates the hope, joy, pain, and sadness of a rst young love.
257
DANIELS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Accolades for the book called it serious, sensitive, charming, and DANIELS, Dorothy
original, with appreciation of and insight into youthful emotions.
The novel is written in an expert but simple style, and is notable
Born 1 July 1907, Waterbury, Connecticut
for creating a Midwestern summer ambience of evocative nostal-
Also writes under: Angela Gray, Danielle Dorsett, Cynthia
gia for growing up in the American heartland.
Kavanaugh, Helaine Ross, Suzanne Somers, Geraldine Thayer
Reviewers regarded Seventeenth Summer the start of a prom- Daughter of Judson R. and Mary Guilfoile Smith; married
ising career for a young writer with a keen sense of emotional Norman Daniels (died)
states and inner feelings. To this day, Daly is viewed as offering an
exceptionally fresh approach to a genre customarily dominated by Dorothy Daniels writing career commenced shortly after her
clichd formulas. Dalys individual and memorable treatment of marriage to Norman Daniels, a prolic detective and spy-story
author. She began by writing romantic short stories and doctor/
the theme of young love shows how a writers imagination and
nurse novels, but when their healthy sales gures declined,
personal insight can bring overused literary themes alive. Dalys
Daniels publisher suggested she turn to the gothic romance.
repertoire also includes childrens books, light foreign-locale
Daniels is best known for her work in this genre.
ction, and anthologies of classic short stories for young adults.
Her rst gothic novel, Shadow Glen, was published in 1965.
Dalys reputation is based on her air for translating personal From that year through 1975, Daniels had sales gures of over 10
experience and memory of teenage lifewith its hopes, frustra- million copies, with more than 150 titles in print. Daniels
tions, and inhibitionsinto a popular and sympathetic vernacular. originally helped her late husband with his writing by editing and
Her rst story, Sixteen, was not originally intended for publi- typing his manuscripts. He later aided her in getting her own
cation, but was a personal exercise in introspection and catharsis career started, and has been widely and wrongly credited with
meant to relieve the tense hurt feelings inside. Daly believes writing much of her work. Daniels achieves originality in a
her empathy for adolescence depends on her gift for remaining narrowly dened genre by paying close attention to detail and
psychically close to the experiences of that period. A collection of vividly recreating an era into which the reader can escape.
her news column commentaries, Smarter and Smoother: A Hand-
book on How to Be That Way (1944), drew its effectiveness from The depiction of women in Daniels gothics is very tradition-
al. Home and marriage are often the end result of the storyline.
Dalys involved but mature identication with her audience. It has
Generally written in the rst person, the plots are predictablethe
been reviewed as the best, all things considered, of our high
reader is aware that the heroine will ultimately survive and be far
school manners and ethics.
better off by the conclusion of the nal chapter. It is this very
predictability, however, that seems to draw readers. Gothic devo-
tees are searching for variations on established themes, and
OTHER WORKS: My Favorite Stories (edited by Daly, 1948,
Daniels achieves this variation through careful and precise
1965). High School Career Series (1948-). The Perfect Hostess:
characterization.
Complete Etiquette and Entertainment for the Home (1948,
1951). Prole of Youth (edited by Daly, 1951). Whats Your P.Q. Her novels uphold the traditions and attitudes of a solid
Personality Quotient? (1952, 1970). Twelve Around the World middle-class experience where age and sex role expectations are
(1957). Mention My Name in Mombasa: The Unscheduled Adven- clearly dened. The characters in the gothics pose no threat to the
tures of a Family Aboard (with W. P. McGivern, 1958). Patrick beliefs of the readers; Daniels receives popular acceptance be-
Visits the Farm (1959). Patrick Takes a Trip (1960). Spanish cause she treats the values of ordinary people with respect. Her
Roundabout (1960). Sixteen and Other Stories (1961, 1972). insistence on happy endings reinforces the concept that good, by
Moroccan Roudabout (1961). Patrick Visits the Library (1961). its very nature, must ultimately triumph over evil. For a reading
Patrick Visits the Zoo (1963). The Ginger Horse (1964). Spains audience experiencing many challenges to traditional modes of
Wonderland of Contrasts (1965). The Small War of Sergeant behavior in the 1970s, the gothic novel was a comforting assur-
Donkey (1966, 1969). My Favorite Mystery Stories (edited by ance that certain standards never change. And despite rampant
Daly, 1966). Rosie, the Dancing Elephant (1967). My Favorite changes in society and mores in the 1980s and 1990s, Daniels is
Suspense Stories (edited by Daly, 1968). The Seeing (1981). Acts still a favorite among readers of gothic novels, or as they are
of Love (1986). First a Dream (1990). frequently labeled, escapist literature. The immense response to
her writing, however, stands as testimony to her ability to know
and fulll the desires of her reading audience. Rather than debate
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Martens, A. C., Seventeenth Summer, A Play in the merits or shortcomings of escapist literature, it is more
Three Acts (1949). Martens, A. C., You Cant Kiss Caroline; A important to study Daniels for her insight into the American psyche.
Comedy in Three Acts (1963).
Reference works: CB (1946). OTHER WORKS: Selected: The Caduceus Tree (1961). The Dark
Other references: Scholastic (20 March 1944, 22 Oct. 1945). Rider (1961). Leland Legacy (1965). Cliffside Castle (1965). The
Ladies Home Journal (June 1951, Jan. 1968). Templeton Memoirs (1966). Mystic Manor (1966). Lily Lily Pond
(1966). Midday Moon (1967). House of Stolen Memories (1967).
MARGARET KING House of the Seven Courts (1967). Candle in the Sun (1968). The
258
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DARGAN
Spanish Chapel (1969). Voice on the Wind (1970). The Attic Rope intellectual loyalties, and the different impulses created by per-
(1970). The Tormented (1970). Journey into Terror (1970). sonal and public roles. The plays were not well received by critics.
Willow Weep (1971). House of Many Doors (1971). Diablo
Dargans more conventional poetry was treated admiringly.
Manor (1971). House on Circus Hill (1972). Dark Island (1972).
The sonnet collection, The Cycles Rim (1916) was described by
The Dark Stage (1972). The Stone House (1973). The Larrabee
one reviewer as in a class with Elizabeth Barrett Brownings
Heiress (1973). Apollo Fountain (1974). Ghost Song (1974). The Sonnets from the Portuguese.
Unlamented (1975). Illusion at Havens Edge (1975). The Pos-
sessed (1975). Whistle in the Wind (1976). Vineyard Chapel The extent of Dargans left-wing intellectual leanings be-
(1976). Woman in Silk and Shadows (1977). Juniper Hill (1977). comes apparent in Highland Annals (1925), a collection of short
In the Shadows (1978). The Lonely Place (1978). Perrine (1978). stories about the poor white inhabitants of the southern moun-
Cormac Legend (1979). Yesterdays Evil (1979). Legend of Death tains. Although these sketches exhibit many of the traditional
(1980). Bridal Black (1980). House of Silence (1980). Nicola features of Southern local color writingtall tales, extravagant
(1980). The Purple and the Gold (1980). Monte Carlo (1981). The humor, rhapsodic appreciation of nature, quaintness of language
Sisters of Valcour (1981). Saratoga (1981). For Love of Valcour and customthey also note the ominous threat of the exploitative
(1983). Crisis at Valcour (1985). cotton mill and the vulnerability of the poor white woman who
suffers both for her class and for her sex.
A bloody strike among hitherto docile workers in a textile
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Dorothy Daniels Memorial Childrens Book Col- mill in Gastonia, North Carolina, in 1929 gave Dargan the ideal
lection: Selected Catalogue (Riverside Public Library [CA], setting for her rst novel. Call Home the Heart (1932) is about the
1981). Twentieth Century Romance & Historical Writers. predicament of Ishma, a Southern poor white woman who is torn
between her love for her husband, family, and mountain life, and
KAREN M. STODDARD an overwhelming desire to seek freedom from the obligations they
heap upon her. But when Ishma deserts her family for an urban,
industrial life with a lover, she only nds a new set of duties. She
discovers the poor worker trapped by the cruel paternalism of the
DARGAN, Olive Tilford textile factories, and she slowly educates herself in the intricacies
of Marxist socialism until she is ready to participate fully in strike
organization. However, just when Ishmas intellectual principles
Born 1869, Grayson County, Kentucky; died 22 January 1968,
appear to have triumphed, she ees back to her husband and
Asheville, North Carolina
family, driven by ancient prejudices against the black workers
Also wrote under: Fielding Burke
who embrace her, and drawn by her yearning for a husbands love
Daughter of Elisha F. and Rebecca Day Tilford; married Pegram and the tranquil beauty of the mountains. Many critics applauded
Dargan (died 1915) what they called the novels nal retreat into art after Marxist
and feminist propaganda. Dargan, however, leaves no doubt
Raised in Kentucky and Missouri in an academic family, that Ishmas retreat, though passionate and consoling, is a failure
Olive Tilford Dargan was educated at George Peabody College of principlea step backward from the new consciousness she
for Teachers in Nashville, and later at Radcliffe College, where seemed to be approaching. The novel implies there can be no
she met her future husband, Pegram Dargan. She began her reconciliation of pleasure and principle, that one must always be
writing career as a poet and lyrical dramatist living in New York, subordinate to the other.
but, following her husbands death by drowning in 1915, she
Dargan returned to the predicament of Ishma in her second
returned to Kentucky and wrote about the southern mountain
proletarian novel, A Stone Came Rolling (1935). Here the heroine
people. Her literary approach ranged from bemused local color
achieves the triumph of principle, but only at the cost of the death
anecdotes written during the 1920s to angry Marxist novels
of her beloved husband. She returns to dedicate her energy to
written during the Depression. Throughout her long life, Dargan
revolutionary activities with a new sense of the danger of a wasted
published social ction under the pseudonym Fielding Burke
life. Though Dargans novels show a clear Marxist emphasis, their
while using her real name for poetry and local color stories. In power lies in their sensitivity to the circumstances of an intellectu-
1916 Dargan was awarded the Southern Society of New York al and passionate woman who discovers personal happiness is the
Prize for the best book written by a Southerner, and in 1924 she price demanded by both the traditional feminine role and the
received the Belmont-Ward Fugitive Prize and an honorary doc- revolutionary feminist one.
torate from the University of North Carolina.
After the 1930s, Dargan, like most other leftward-leaning
Dargans early lyrical dramas give some clues to the intense- American writers, retreated from extreme ideological concerns.
ly political nature of her mature ction. The Mortal Gods (1912), She returned to anecdotal ction of the mountain people in From
though archaic in form and remote in setting, is nevertheless a My Highest Hill (1941), and to a liberal treatment of labor warfare
powerful study of the oppression of the working class in modern among organizing mine workers in Sons of the Stranger (1947).
industrial society. In her collection of plays, The Flutter of the Yet it is in the earlier novels of political engagement that Dargan
Gold Leaf (1922), Dargan explores conicting emotional and produced her nest and most original work.
259
DAULAIRE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
OTHER WORKS: Path Flower, and Other Verses (1904). Semiramis, books, Nils (1948) and Dont Count Your Chicks (1943), reect
and Other Plays (1904). Lords and Lovers, and Other Dramas dAulaires Norwegian heritage.
(1906). Lute and Furrow (1922). The Spotted Hawk (1958).
The couples contributions cannot be separated in the eld of
Innocent Bigamy, and Other Stories (1962).
childrens literature. Yet certain important aesthetic elements
must be acknowledged to dAulaire. It was her early happy
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Polsky, T., North Carolina Authors: A Selective childhood that was the wellspring for the spontaneity so vividly
Handbook (1952). Rideout, W. B., The Radical Novel in the U.S. captured in their early books. Her practical eye kept text at a
1900-1954: Some Interrelations of Literature and Society (1956). minimum, but helped it retain all its vitality.
the United States (1995). WW of Women (1914).
OTHER WORKS: (co-authored with Edgar dAulaire): The Magic
Other references: Nation (8 Jan. 1936). NR (29 Jan. 1936).
Rug (1931). Ola and Blakken and Line, Sine, Trine (1933). The
NYTBR (15 Dec. 1935). North Carolina Librarian (Spring 1960).
Conquest of the Atlantic (1933). The Lords Prayer (1934).
SRL (16 April 1932). Writerss Markets and Methods (inter-
Children of the Northlights (1935). George Washington (1936).
view, 1950).
East of the Sun and West of the Moon (1938). Leif the Lucky
SYLVIA COOK (1941). Wings for Per (1944). Too Big (1945). Pocahontas
(1946). Foxie (1949). Benjamin Franklin (1950). Buffalo Bill
(1952). Animals Everywhere (1954). Columbus (1955). The Two
Cars (1955). The Magic Meadow (1958). Book of Greek Myths
DAULAIRE, Ingri Mortenson (1962). Norse Gods and Giants (1967). DAulaires Trolls (1972).
The Terrible Troll-Bird (1976).
Born 27 December 1904, Knigsberg, Norway; died 24 October
1980, Wilton, Connecticut BIBLIOGRAPHY: Miller, B. M., and E. W. Field, eds., Caldecott
Daughter of Per and Line Sandsmark Mortenson; married Ed- Medal Books: 1938-1957 with The Artists Acceptance Papers
gar D. dAulaire, 1925; children: two sons and Related Material Chiey from the Horn Book Magazine (1957).
Other references: Catholic World (Feb. 1970). Horn Book
Ingri Mortenson dAulaire met her husband while at art (Oct. 1964). Children of the Northlights (lm interview, Weston
school in Munich, where they married. They returned to the U.S. Woods, Weston, Connecticut).
in 1930, and embarked on a joint career of writer and illustrator
that endured for many years. Although it is hard to ascertain where JILL P. MAY
the creative spark came from, it was dAulaires childhood that
overowed with wild antics and childish pranks. She herself said
their rst seven books capture the experiences of her childhood,
while the later books present childhood through the youthful DAVENPORT, Marcia Gluck
activities of their two sons. This husband/wife team shared in the
creation of both texts and illustrations. When asked to separate Born 9 June 1903, New York, New York; died January 1996
their roles, Edgar replied, When you nd something amusingly Daughter of Alma Gluck and stepdaughter of Efrem Zimbalist,
expressed in our books it has been said by Ingri. Sr.; married Russell Davenport, 1929
Winners of the Caldecott Medal for their illustrations of
Marcia Davenport was the daughter of Alma Gluck, celebrat-
Abraham Lincoln (1939), and of the Regina Medal from the
ed soprano of the concert stage and the Metropolitan opera.
Catholic Library Association (1970) for their continual contribu-
Davenports husband exited from her life when their child was
tion to childrens literature, the dAulaires have created the most
ve, and she began supporting herself by writing for the New
signicant biographical series available concerning early U.S.
Yorker. Later Davenport became the music critic for Stage, and
heroes. Their style is highly evocative of folklore traditions. Their
went on to be the musical commentator for NBC and the Metro-
simple stories of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and
politan Opera broadcasts.
Benjamin Franklin contain humorous details often unknown to
children. While the characters remain great, these are portraits of Davenports life was many-faceted. She had an almost mysti-
people rich in human foibles; and the biographies are also beauti- cal attraction for the land and culture of Czechoslovakia, that
fully illustrated. The illustrations, while in complete complement started years before she ever met and loved Jan Masaryk, a Czech
with the text, do not tell the same story; the two media reect and foreign minister. The country became her second homeland, and
support each other, but do not necessarily dwell on the same single she gave in to the lure of Prague, where she took up residence after
event. Thus the text can be effectively used without the illustrations. World War II.
Because of dAulaires childhood in Norway, the couple also Davenports career as an author started with her love for
produced excellent books concerning the Norse people. Ola Mozart, whose biography she published in 1932. Her rst novel,
(1932) is a beautiful folk picture of the Norwegian shing village. Of Lena Geyer (1936, reprinted 1982), is the story of a poor Czech
The tale combines a joyous text with brilliant illustrations. Later girl and of her ascent to fame and fortune, triumph and tragedy. It
260
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DAVIDSON
is a work of ction, yet Lena is only partly the child of imagina- further undermined by the schools excessively ambitious cur-
tion: she is a composite gure of several singers Davenport had riculum; by the eight to ten hours daily study in ill-ventilated
known intimately, among them her own mother. The background rooms; by the virtual absence of outdoor exercise; and by insuf-
of the novel opens a wide vista on the golden age of opera both in cient sleep, further curtailed, before examinations, by rising at two
New York and in Europe. a.m. or midnight to study until four. Despite her mothers concern,
her father approved of sending her back to school, this time at
Davenports most signicant book is her autobiography, Too
Miss Gilberts Albany Academy. Within three months Davidson
Strong for Fantasy (1967, reprinted 1992), dedicated to J. M. In
returned home to die.
Memoriam. It is a bouquet of reminiscences, an easy-owing
parade of the people in Davenports life, a mosaic that is a Whos Restricted by her inexperience, Davidson sensibly drew her
Who of the musical, literary, and political worlds of New York writing subject matter either from her daily life or from her
and Prague. The feminine touch comes through in Davenports studies. From history, biblical and national, came David and
descriptions of places and architecture, and in her attachment to Jonathon, Ruths Answer to Naomi, the prose Columbus,
her feline companion, Tam. It is equally clear, however, that and the spirited Vermont Cadetsfrom the classroom, the
Davenport is rst and foremost an independent soul; she is never a humorous Week Before Examination which was deservedly
mere appendage to her mother or to the men in her life. Historical- popular with her schoolmates; from her brief but poignant person-
ly, the most meaningful part of the memoirs is the last third of the al encounters with suffering, mental and physical, poems like
book, dealing with the international situation. It describes the Headache and Fears of Death. These latter, especially, have
regrettably one-sided struggle between East and West over Czecho- the ring of sincerity, transcending her usual level of stock images
slovakia, and the mysterious death of Jan Masaryk, who either and poetic diction.
committed suicide or was assassinated a few days before his
planned marriage to Davenport. She quotes rsthand information Amir Khan and Other Poems, selected by her mother and
no other source provides about the political crisis of 1948 and the with a biographical introduction by the artist and inventor Samuel
communist coup. She also draws a clear picture of Masaryk, the Morse, was published in 1829. Copies were sent by Morse to a
playboy of the Western world, who in his last days became the number of leading writers. In his covering letter to Robert
latter-day Hamlet. Southey, poet laureate of England, Morse invited comparison
with other youthful prodigies such as Chatterton and White, of
By her own admission, Davenport never had the genius to this new genius which sprang up and bloomed in the wilderness,
make literary history with her novels: she was driven by a need to assumed the female form and wore the features of exquisite
write what she knew rather than what she was. Only in her beauty and perished in the bloom. Southeys response was an
autobiography does Davenport open up and give of herself. She is 11-page review in the prestigious London Quarterly (1829), the
a superb craftsman of the pen and a captivating reconteur. conclusion of which, Poe protested, was twice as strong as was
necessary to establish her fame in England-fearing America.
Within 30 years, no less than 15 editions appeared on both sides of
OTHER WORKS: Mozart (1932, 1995). Valley of Decision (1942,
the Atlantic, all but the rst preceded by the biographical sketch
1969, 1989; video versions 1945 and 1994). East SideWest Side
by Catherine Sedgwick, the rst American woman novelist. A
(1947, video versions 1949 and 1991). My Brothers Keeper
German translation was published in 1844, and an Italian edi-
(1954, 1982). The Constant Image (1960, 1960). Jan (1980).
tion in 1906.
Washington Irving, in his introduction to the poetry of the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: The Revival of Bel Canto in Curtain Call for
younger Davidson sister, Margaret, confessed to nding a
Opera News: Articles from Recent Issues of the Metropolitan
popular font of tears. . .in the blissful agony. . .of these lovely
Opera Guilds (1964). Canadian Forum (Nov. 1936). LJ (1 Oct.
American girls who after giving promise of rare poetic excellence
1967). NYTBR (13 Sept. 1936, 22 Oct. 1967). SR (25 Nov. 1967).
[were] snatched from existence.
SRL (19 Sept. 1936).
Had these sophisticated and otherwise discerning contempo-
VERA LASKA raries, upon encountering the romantically tragic young poet,
abandoned all sense of proportion and critical judgement to
wallow like mawkish donkeys in sentimentality, asks Irvings
biographer? His own explanation is the reasonable one that
DAVIDSON, Lucretia Maria attuned as they were to the mind of their generation, they
responded to the prevailing philosophy of sentiment as we do to
Born 27 September 1808, Plattsburg, New York; died 27 August that of criticism. But how is Davidsons permanent contribution to
1825, Plattsburg, New York literature to be determined? Edgar Allan Poes review, challeng-
Daughter of Oliver and Margaret Miller Davidson ing Southeys ipse dixit, suggests one reasonable line of approach.
We must, he says, distinguish a heart-felt love of her worth
After her early schooling at home, Lucretia Davidson was from an intellectual appreciation of [her] poetic ability. Addi-
sent to Troy Female Academy. Coming from a household with tionally, this distinction, would have spared us much twaddle on
the sickbed as focal point, Davidsons delicate health was the part of commentators.
261
DAVIDSON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
But such a distinction is one very difcult to make. In the Davidsons poems, as is hardly surprising, reect two main
case of Davidson, writing before there was much American poetry inuences: Lucretia whom she idolized and emulated as far as she
to judge by and dying before her own poetic skills and critical could, and her mother whom she reected so completely that it is
powers could be properly formed, it is virtually impossible to be difcult to determine if there was anything of her own. David-
so completely objective. sons poems are, on the whole, longer than most of her sisters,
written in quatrains rather than rhyming couplets and express
stronger religious faith and devotion. Many deal with her various
OTHER WORKS: Poetical Remains of the Late Lucretia Maria homes and the owers, trees, rivers, and mountains surrounding
Davidson (edited by M. Davidson with biography by C. Sedg- them. Despite her mothers disapproval of extensive memorizations,
wick, 1846, revised edition with Biographical and Poetical echoes (perhaps unconscious) of Cowper, Thomson, and Scott
Remains of the Late Margaret Miller Davidson, 1857, revised constantly recur. Among Davidsons better efforts are the para-
1860). Poems by Lucretia Maria Davidson (edited by M. O. phrases of the 23rd and 42nd psalms, the Hymn of the Fire-
Davidson, 1871). Worshippers, and The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah
but these are clearly inferior to Lucretias handling of similar
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brooks, V. W., The World of Washington Irving biblical material.
(1944). Curry, K., ed., New Letters of Robert Southey (1965). Faced with the task of evaluating her contribution to Ameri-
Dewey, M. E., Life and Letters of Catherine Sedgwick (1871). can literature and womens writing, one is apt (while making due
Lutz, A., Emma Willard: Daughter of Democracy (1929). allowance for her youth and narrowness of experience) to dismiss
Mabee, C., Samuel Morse; The American Leonard (1944). Poe, Davidson as a fainter echo of her more promising elder sister.
E. A., Complete Works, Harrison, J., ed. (1902). Sparks, J., ed., Many believe she has been lifted to an entirely undeserved
The Library of American Biography (1837). Williams, S., Life of eminence because of the compassion of distinguished family
Washington Irving (1925). friends like Irving and that this eminence has been perpetuated by
the next quarter-centurys sentimental bad taste.
MARION NORMAN
Poets, as they mature, usually have the sense to destroy
juvenilia. In Davidsons case, there was no time and her mothers
blind urge to preserve every slightest memento of a beloved gifted
DAVIDSON, Margaret Miller child, inadvertantly did Davidson a disservice in exposing indis-
criminately to the harsh glare of the judgement of posterity what
should have been reserved for the loving, uncritical eyes of family
Born 26 March 1823, Plattsburg, New York; died 25 November
and close friends.
1838, Saratoga, New York
Daughter of Oliver and Margaret Miller Davidson
OTHER WORKS: Biographical and Poetical Remains of the Late
Margaret Miller Davidson received the best education at Margaret Miller Davidson (ed. by W. Irving, 1841, revised
home from her chronically ill mother. Anxious to assume the edition, 1846, revised with Poetical Remains of the Late Lucretia
family poetic mantle bequeathed her by her dying sister Lucretia, Maria Davidson, 1857). Life and Poetical Remains (1945).
she eagerly absorbed the ideas, tastes, and moral and religious
standards of her mother toward whom she formed an exceptional-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Griswold, R., Female Poets of America (1848).
ly close attachment. This attachment was then reected in innu-
May, C., The American Female Poets (1848). Poe, E. A., Com-
merable verses.
plete Works, Harrison, J., ed. (1902).
Frequent extended vacations and changes of residence proved
unable to arrest Davidsons fatal tuberculosis. Her verses, highly MARION NORMAN
autobiographic, reect her pathetic attempts to conceal from her
family the extent of her suffering, and, despite a mature accept-
ance of death and strong faith in immortality, her wistful clinging DAVIS, Adelle
to life: Oh my dear, dear Mother, I am so young. She was
fteen when she died.
Born 25 February 1904, Hendricks County, Indiana; died 31 May
Mrs. Davidson who, three years earlier when negotiating for 1974, Palos Verdes Estates, California
a new edition of Lucretias poetry, had introduced her younger Also wrote under: Jane Dunlap
daughter to Washington Irving, now provided him with all that Daughter of Charles E. and Harriet McBroom Davis; married
remained of Margarets poems. She also gave him copious George E. Leisey, 1943; Frank V. Sieglinger, 1960
memoranda which he used, often verbatim, for his biographical
introduction to Davidsons Poetical Remains (1841). A second The youngest of ve daughters, Adelle Davis attended Purdue
edition was called for in the same year, one each in London and University and then the University of California at Berkeley
Philadelphia the following year, and by 1864, there were 20 where she received her B.S. in dietetics in 1927. She then moved
editions in all. to New York and was a dietician for the Yonkers public schools,
262
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DAVIS
and a consulting nutritionist at the Judson Health Center. Davis often accused by the medical profession of being grossly inaccu-
returned to California in 1931 to be a consulting nutritionist for the rate and of distorting her facts. On the other hand, she has been
Alameda County Health Clinic in Oakland and for the William E. commended by professionals in her eld as well as by her readers
Branch Clinic in Hollywood. She attained her M.S. in biochemis- and those she personally helped through diet and vitamin therapy.
try from the University of Southern California School of Medicine Writing in her exuberant yet conversational style, Davis has
in 1939. After writing several bestselling books Davis resigned perhaps done more to make Americans aware of nutrition and
from her consulting practice in order to devote time to the lectures change their eating habits than has any other individual.
and television appearances made during the last years of her life.
Davis rst became well known with the publication in 1947 OTHER WORKS: Optimum Health (1935). You Can Stay Well
of her cookbook, Lets Cook It Right, which offers the novice in (1939). Vitality Through Planned Nutrition (1942).
nutrition an enthusiastic introduction to the preparation of health-
ful foods. She stresses the use of protein and natural foods in
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CB (1973).
cooking. Recipes are simple, easy to follow, and have innumer-
Other references: BiogNews (Feb. 1974). Life (22 Oct. 1971).
able variants depending upon what the cook happens to have in
NYT (1 June 1974). NYTM (20 May 1973). Readers Digest (Oct.
stock. The introduction gives sound nutritional cooking princi-
1973). Time (18 Dec. 1972).
ples, and Davis includes a lengthy section on meat, recognizing
that failures in this category are a major hurdle for most cooks. ANN RAYSON
Also included are sections on meat substitutes, leftovers, sh,
eggs and cheese, vegetables, soups, salads, bread, and healthful
desserts. This is the most popular and successful of Davis books,
devoid as it is of the contradictions and repetitions found so often DAVIS, Angela Yvonne
in her later books. Lets Cook It Right offers cooking advice and
directions in a clear, concise, and direct style. Born 26 January 1944, Birmingham, Alabama
Lets Have Healthy Children came out in 1951. Here Davis Daughter of Nebjamin F. and Sallye Bell Davis
stresses diet and vitamin supplements for the woman before
conception, during pregnancy when extra vitamin B-6 and folic Born to a middle-class African-American family whose
acid are required, and during lactation. The book also centers on social circle included Communist Party members, Angela Davis
proper diet for babies and young children. A staunch advocate of became one of the most prominent political activists of the 1960s
breastfeeding for the rst six months of life, Davis also provides and 1970s. An American Friends Service Committee scholarship
formula recipes. Lets Have Healthy Children was generally well allowed her to leave Birmingham to attend the progressive Eliza-
received by the public, but with the publication of Lets Eat Right beth Irwin High School in New York City, where she became
to Keep Fit in 1954 Davis came under increasing attack from the active in a Marxist-Leninist youth group and supported the
medical profession for her bold assertions that proper diet with antinuclear and civil rights movements. Later, at Brandeis Univer-
vitamin supplements could prevent most diseases and abnormali- sity she became a student of Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse.
ties. Here she details the vitamin and mineral contents of foods Davis spent her junior year in Paris at the Sorbonne and returned
and thoroughly explains what one must eat to prevent illness, to Europe after graduation from Brandeis (B.A. 1965) to continue
describing, by way of example, her own regimen. her education at the University of Frankfurt (1965-67). Davis
received a masters degree in philosophy from the University of
In 1961 Davis published Exploring Inner Space (under the California at San Diego in 1968, working again with Marcuse. She
pseudonym of Jane Dunlap) which describes her experiences has held faculty positions in a number of universities in the U.S.
while under the inuence of LSD. The book is written in an and abroad.
extravagant, even gushing style, as Davis describes her revela-
tions of God and her visions; yet she is open, honest, and sincere. By the late 1960s, the civil rights movement was in full
When later medical reports surfaced about LSDs harm to the swing. Davis joined several activist groups, including the Student
genes and body, Davis continued to claim the drugs benets. Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, the Communist Party of
the United States, and the Black Panthers. While working on her
Finally, in Lets Get Well (1965) Davis describes most doctoral dissertation, she was hired to teach philosophy at UCLA.
common illnesses and diseases and prescribes specic vitamin Then Governor Ronald Reagan, citing a law that banned Commu-
and dietary cures for them. She bases her ndings, as always, on nist Party members from teaching at state universities, protested
case studies, personal testimonials, and a wealth of scientic data, her appointment and Davis was dismissed. The law was ultimate-
painstakingly cross-referenced. This is her most controversial ly declared unconstitutional, while the ensuing controversy pro-
book, since Davis orders as cures heavy vitamin doses which pelled Davis into the political spotlight.
doctors warn can be dangerously toxic.
As a champion of the work of the Black Panthers, Davis
In all of her books, Davis attempts to act as an intermediary became involved with the plight of black prison inmates. She was
between the medical profession and the lay nutritionist. Thus she an especially strong advocate of a group called the Soledad
takes the plethora of medical data, synthesizes it, simplies it, and Brothers and of their leader, George Jackson. In August 1970
offers it to the public in an understandable language. Davis was Jacksons younger brother, Jonathan, sought to force his release
263
DAVIS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
by taking hostages at gunpoint in a California courthouse. During The Angela Y. Davis Reader (1998), a collected works that
the shootout that followed, the judge and several others were brings together excerpts of Davis writings from 1971 through
killed. Police accused Davis of purchasing the guns used in the 1998, provides an impressive documentation of Davis unfailing
shooting and charged her with conspiracy, kidnapping, and mur- courage and analytical rigor as a radical intellectual, whether she
der. Fleeing underground, Davis was on the FBIs Ten Most is writing of prisoners rights, Marxism and antiracist feminism,
Wanted List for several months until her capture. With the or culture. Her articles have appeared in scholarly journals and
rallying cry, Free Angela, the civil rights movement and the popular press, and her writing, which sometimes analyzes and
activist left rallied to her defense through her imprisonment and a sometimes agitates, has pushed the boundaries and redened the
lengthy court trial. If They Come in the Morning: Voices of compass of social philosophy and political theory.
Resistance (1971) collects Davis prison writings and those of
Davis is a passionate social and cultural critic whose writing
other black activists, including Erika Huggins, Black Panther
is consistently informed by a black, radical, and feminist con-
leader Bobby Seale, and George Jackson. It is a rsthand account
sciousness. In addition to her writing and teaching, Davis lectures
of political, racial, class, and economic oppression focusing
widely in the U.S. and abroad on numerous progressive issues
primarily on the plight of African Americans in the U.S. prison
ranging from antiapartheid efforts to reproductive rights.
system in the 1960s.
Davis was acquitted of all charges in 1972. Angela Davis, an
Autobiography (1974; reprinted as Angela Davis: With My Mind OTHER WORKS: Women & Capitalism: Dialectics of Oppression
on Freedom, 1974), written in the wake of her exoneration, is a and Liberation (1971). Violence Against Women and the Ongoing
compelling book that chronicles her life as it intersected with the Challenge to Racism (1985).
emergence of the civil rights movement. The book also details the
rise of the Black Panther party and Davis involvement with BIBLIOGRAPHY: Aptheker, B., The Morning Breaks: The Trial of
the group. Angela Davis (1975). Ashman, C., The People vs. Angela Davis
Davis continued her activist work on behalf of black prison- (1972). David, J., ed., Growing Up Black: From the Slave Days to
ers and against racism. Remaining in the Communist Party, she the Present25 African-Americans Reveal the Trials and Tri-
ran for vice president on the party ticket in 1980. Daviss umphs of Their Childhoods (1968). Dicks, V. I., A Rhetorical
groundbreaking feminist analysis of the intersecting oppressions Analysis of the Forensic and Deliberative Issues and Strategies in
of race, class, and gender in American culture, Women, Race, and the Angela Davis Trial (thesis, 1976). Finke, B. F., Angela
Class appeared in 1982. The book provides an overview of Davis: Traitor or Martyr of the Freedom of Expression (1972).
oppression as it is constructed, conducted, and institutionalized by Lanker, B., I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who
the dominant majority. Women, Culture, and Politics (1988) is a Changed America (1989). Major, R., Justice in the Round: The
collection of Davis lectures, essays, and commentary on the Trial of Angela Davis (1973). Nelson, R., Who is Angela Davis?:
changing social order in the 1980s. Her topics include violence The Biography of a Revolutionary (1972). OConnor, M., The
against women, nuclear disarmament, apartheid in South Africa, Reardon Standards and the Angela Davis Trial (thesis, 1973).
health care, and the role of black artists. Olden, M., Angela Davis (1973). Parker, J. A., Angela Davis: The
Making of a Revolutionary (1973). Smith, N. J., From Where I Sat
In the 1990s, Davis persevered as an ardent voice of social (1973). Smith, J. C., ed., Epic Lives : One Hundred Black Women
and cultural critique. A tenured professor of the history of Who Made a Difference (1993). Smith, R. A., The Angela Davis
consciousness at the University of California at Santa Cruz, Davis Case and Public Opinion (thesis, 1971). Timothy, M., Jury
lectures widely and continues to write with radical, scholarly Woman: The Story of the Trial of Angela Y. Davis, Written by a
vision. In 1995, amid controversy, she was appointed a presiden- Member of the Jury (1974).
tial chair. Reference works: African-American Orators : A Bio-Criti-
Her book Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude cal Sourcebook (1996). Afro-American Encyclopedia (1974).
Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday (1998) argues a Bearing Witness: Selections from African-American Autobiogra-
new understanding of the singers music and its effects on the phy in the Twentieth Century (1991). Benets Readers Ency-
black middle class and on U.S. culture more widely. Davis clopedia (1991). CA 57-60 (1976). CA Online (1999). CANR
analysis is informed by social commentators like Carl Van Vechten, (1983). Contemporary Black Biography (1994). Encyclopedia of
Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse, and by feminist writers and the American Left (1990). Encyclopedia of World Biography:
jazz critics. 20th Century Supplement (1987). FC (1990). NBAW (1992).
Newsmakers, 1998 Cumulation: The People Behind Todays
Her work on oppression, racism, and the prison system Headlines (1999). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the
continues, with a focus on the privatization of prisons, prison United States (1995).
populations as a growing source of cheap labor without rights or Other references: Essence (Aug. 1986). Feminist Review
unions, and the preponderance of African-American men as the (Spring 1989). New Moon (July/Aug. 1995). New Statesman
main source of prison labor raw material. In numerous articles (14 Aug. 1987). New York Magazine (31 Jan. 1993).
she addresses and delineates the invisible experiences of black
inmates and the workings of the prison systems entrenched racist EVELYN C. WHITE,
structure. UPDATED BY JESSICA REISMAN
264
DAVIS, Dorothy Salisbury Known for her fascination with the workings of the criminal
mind and with the circumstances or character aws that can turn a
person to crime, Davis creates a range of well-dened characters
Born 26 April 1916, Chicago, Illinois who participate in complicated plots and often face religious
Daughter of Alfred J. and Margaret Greer Salisbury; married crises as the plot heads toward its resolution. As noted in Publish-
Harry Davis, 1946 ers Weekly, Two themes have recurred in the Davis mysteries,
sometimes as minor counterpoints, sometimes as major elements
Dorothy Salisbury Davis is a writer of mysteries and crime in the plot: Roman Catholicism and psychotherapy. Another
ction, adept at both novels and short stories. She is known for her common thread in her books and storieswhether they take place
interest in the psychological forces behind criminal activity, for in the U.S. or Europe, are set in big cities or small towns or feature
her avoidance of violence, and for her sympathetic treatment of male or female detectivesis the similarity between the villain
her villains as well as her protagonists. and the protagonist, with the two often coming to an understand-
Davis was born in 1916 and grew up in Chicago. After ing of one another before the dnouement. Among the books
graduating in 1938 from Barat College in Lake Forest, Illinois, she dealing with this ambiguity include Death of an Old Sinner (one
took a position as a writer for Swift & Company, later becoming a of Davis best-loved books), The Pale Betrayer, Enemy and
research librarian and editor at the Merchandiser. Her rst novel, Brother (1966), and Where the Dark Streets Go (1969, lmed for
The Judas Cat, was published in 1949 by Scribnerswhich CBS as Broken Vows, 1986).
remained her publisher throughout her careerand was followed
A founding director of Sisters in Crime, Davis was president
by The Clay Hand in 1950. Her third book, A Gentle Murderer
of the Mystery Writers of America (MWA) from 1955-56 and its
(1951), a suspenseful story of a killer and the priest who tries to
executive vice president from 1977-78. She won the Grandmaster
nd him, is the book that established Davis reputation.
award for lifetime achievement from MWA in 1989 and has been
Unlike many writers in the mystery genre who create central nominated for seven Edgar awards, four times for her novels and
protagonists appearing in novel after novel, Davis has created few three times for short stories, demonstrating her facility in both forms.
recurring characters. Those who come back are featured in just a
few books. They include Mrs. Norris, who stars in Death of an Old
Sinner (1957), A Gentleman Called (1958), and Old Sinners OTHER WORKS: A Town of Masks (1952) The Evening of the Good
Never Die (1959); Jasper Tully, who appears with Mrs. Norris in Samaritan (1961) Black Sheep, White Lamb (1963) Men of No
the rst two of those stories; and Detective Marks, who is featured Property (1965). Shock Wave (1972) The Little Brothers (1973)
in The Pale Betrayer (1965), among others. Her best-known
character is probably her most recent, Julie Hayes, the central
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference Works: CANR 32 (1991). St. James
gure in A Death in the Life (1976), Scarlet Night (1980), Lullaby
Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers (1991). St. James Guide to
of Murder (1984), and The Habit of Fear (1987). All of Davis
Romance & Historical Writers (1990).
protagonists are recognized as much for their eccentric personali-
ties as for their sharp minds. Other references: NYTBR (28 Sept. 1980). PW (13 June 1980,
23 Oct. 1987, 31 Aug. 1992).
Davis cowrote God Speed the Night with Jerome Ross (1968)
and has edited collections of mysteries, including A Choice of KAREN RAUGUST
Murders (1958) and Crime Without Murder (1970). The latter was
inspired by her belief that a good mystery did not have to feature
graphic violence (although some of Davis books do contain
violent elements). Davis has also written several mainstream DAVIS, Elizabeth Gould
novels, though they werent as popular as her mysteries.
Applauded for her talent as a writer of short stories as well as Born 1910, Kansas; died 31 July 1974, Sarasota, Florida
novels, Davis is particularly fond of psychological studies, some
of which were included in her Tales for a Stormy Night: Collected When Elizabeth Gould Davis The First Sex appeared in
Crime Stories (1984). She has contributed to anthologies includ- 1971, it was barely reviewed and apparently ignored by the
ing Mirror, Mirror, Fatal Mirror, edited by Hans Santesson reading public. Yet three years later it was producing enormous
(1973), When Last Seen, edited by Arthur Maling (1977), and sales in its paperback edition. Highly controversial, it was called
Mistletoe Mysteries, edited by Charlotte MacLeod (1989). She everything from the nut book of the year to the Bible of the
has also had her stories published in periodicals ranging from Womens Movement, and has since become one of the essential
Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine to Modern Maturity. In addi- documents of twentieth-century feminism.
tion, Davis is a member of the Adams Round Table, a group of
mystery writers who gather for monthly dinners and have pro- Davis attended Randolph-Macon College in Virginia and the
duced several mystery collection, including Missing in Manhat- University of Kentucky from which she received a masters in
tan (1992) and Justice in Manhattan (1994), to which Davis has 1951. She went to work as a librarian in Sarasota, Florida, and
contributed. remained there until the time of her death.
265
Davis wrote two other major books, The Female Principle DAVIS, Mollie Moore
and The Founding Mothers, which were never published. Yet at
the time of her deaththanks to The First Sexshe had become
Born Mary Evelyn Moore, 12 April 1852, Talladage, Alabama;
something of a celebrity, surrounded by fans and devotees. It was
died 1 January 1909, New Orleans, Louisiana
the product of years of work and of commitment to an idea that
Also wrote under: Mrs. M. E. M. Davis, Mollie Evelyn Moore
Davis said she felt compelled to put into writing. She, like many
Davis, Mollie E. Moore
modern feminists, was convinced history, as we know it, is
Daughter of John and Marian Crutcheld Moore; married
grossly distorted because it has been written by men in a way
Thomas E. Davis, 1874
perpetuating a tradition male view.
The book challenges male history with the assertion that An only daughter in a family of nine children, Mollie (ne
women, not men, were the deities, educators, architects, artists, Mary) Moore Davis grew up in rural Alabama and on a plantation
and civilizers of the world in our most distant and most peaceful near San Marcos, Texas, which later provided rich material for her
past. She supports her thesis with a monumental amount of poetry and ction. In 1860 her rst poems appeared in the local
evidence (although she said the book was drastically cut by her newspaper, the Tyler (Texas) Reporter. Between 1861 and 1865,
editors) taken from all sorts of scholarly and literary sources her poetry, inspired by the Civil War, was printed in the Reporter
including mythology, psychiatry, linguistics, archaeology, and and a number of Southern newspapers. During the 1880s, Davis
anthropology. turned increasingly to the writing of ction for publication in
national literary magazines.
The First Sex is heavily inuenced by the Mother-centered
Davis more popular poems typify her musical, energetic
mythological interpretations of history developed in part by
versication and skillful handling of rhyme. A number of poems
Johann Jacob Bachofen, Robert Graves, and Robert Briffault.
after 1869 suggest a shift in her interests from short lyrics to
Davis postulates women developed and dominated the earliest
narratives and monologues, such as The Golden Rose, The
civilizations and that the Celtic races were able to preserve and
Ball (A True Incident), and Eleanor to Arthur, which is
pass on some of the values and skills of these matriarchies despite
possibly autobiographical.
the onslaught of barbarian Germanic tribes and the surge of
Christianity. She believes the abuse of woman by the succeeding In War Times at La Rose Blanche (1888), her rst book of
patriarchies validates her theory of former female dominance prose and her best-known work, is a semiautobiographical story
a dominance that man felt compelled to stamp out and forget. sequence, which now, however, appears supercial. Under the
Man-Fig (1895), Davis rst and most fully realized novel, is a
In Part I of the book, Davis establishes the existence and Southwestern tale of mystery and romance that reveals her fasci-
superiority of the peaceful Golden Age of the matriarchies. She nation with the past. The intricate plot, characteristic of all her
speculates males were eventually able to overthrow them because novels, involves a wide spectrum of characters spanning several
the women, in selecting the largest and strongest males as mates, generations and every social class in a small Texas town. The
contributed to superior physical development in men. It is clear work is most effective in its deft use of regional dialect, historical
Davis believes female society was destroyed and replaced by detail, and humorous characters.
something innitely inferior: When man substituted God for the
Great Goddess, he at the same time substituted authoritarian for An Elephants Track, and Other Stories (1897) serves as a
humanistic values. According to Davis, a war is still being sampler of Davis work in short ction, in which she is technically
waged between the physical superiority of the patriarchal male at her best. This volume contains 15 stories depicting rural Texas
and the inherent moral and mental superiority of the female. folk, Louisiana Creoles, and plantation blacks. Among the more
memorable are A Bamboula, and The Love Stranche,
Part II deals in some detail with the patriarchal takeover, which delve into the mysterious world of voodoo, and At La
especially as it is recorded in mythology and reected in the Glorieuse and The Soul of Rose Dd, which treat ghosts as
continuing hostility between men and women. Part III demon- an everyday reality. Davis achievement in the stories lies in her
strates the extent to which remnants of female dominance sur- subtle handling of regional settings, faithful rendering of rural
vived in pre-Christian and Celtic societies. The conclusion treats mores, and vivid delineation of the different socioeconomic levels
the Tragedy of Western Woman, who has fallen so far from her of Southern society.
rightful place. The Wire Cutters (1899), a novel set primarily in a rural
Although The First Sex is neither the most sensible nor the Texas community, is reminiscent of the work of Charles Dickens
most scientic book to come out of the contemporary womens in its ingenious plot complications and numerous secret identities.
movement, it seems destined to be one of the most inuential. This work contains Davis most controversial subjectsdivorce
and physical abuse in marriageand her most complex charac-
terizations, particularly of women who, though entangled in some
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Best Sellers (15 Sept. 1971). Ms. (Dec. 1974). NR stock situations, emerge convincingly as strong individuals. Con-
(22 Oct. 1971). The Social Studies (Nov. 1972). cerned with the struggle against the fencing in of pasture lands and
water sources, The Wire Cutters reects Daviss interest in Texas
JUDITH P. JONES history. Texas history was also the subject of Under Six Flags:
266
The Story of Texas (1897), a simple rendering of Texas history DAVIS, Natalie Zemon
with an emphasis on the dramatic human dimensions. An
untechnical, well-written book for young readers, it was used
previously in Texas schools and reissued in 1953. Born 8 November 1928, Detroit, Michigan
Daughter of Julian L. and Helen Lamport Zemon; married
New Orleans Creole society inspired two of Davis major Chandler Davis, 1948; children: Aaron, Hannah, Simone
works, The Little Chevalier (1903), a historical novel regarded as
her best, and The Price of Silence (1907), her most popular novel. Long admired for bringing the lives of obscure people to life,
Set in the French Louisiana territory of the mid-18th century, The Natalie Zemon Davis is a historian with an international reputa-
Little Chevalier is an adventure story of intrigue and love on a tion. Her books are published in multiple languages, and The
grand scale. It realistically depicts the manners and milieu of the Return of Martin Guerre (1983) had more than 78,000 copies in
early Creoles. The Price of Silence focuses on a Creole family in print at the end of the 1990s, and she served as historical
contemporary New Orleans whose surviving matriarch guards a consultant for the lm version of Le retour de Martin Guerre. The
family secret. Davis effectively portrays the attitudes, activities, recipient of many awards and fellowships, including 20 honorary
and speech of the upper-class French Creoles, but her treatment of degrees, Davis served as president of the American Historical
the theme of miscegenation is weak in conception and execution. Association in 1987. She is a fellow of the American Academy of
Equally adept at portraying Texas or Louisiana, plantation or Arts and Sciences and of the British Academy. In July 1996, Davis
city, Davis is exact in locating her work in time, and faithful to took early retirement from Princeton and moved to Toronto,
contemporary conditions of dress, travel, worship, and entertain- where her husband lives and where she is a research associate in
ment. She has a discerning eye for visual details and paints the Comparative Literature Department at the University of
accurate pictures of background scenes, natural landscapes, and Toronto.
physical appearance of characters, though her tendency is toward
Of Polish Jewish and Russian Jewish ancestry, Davis was
the more appealing details. Her skillful use of local ora, in
inuenced by growing up a Jew in a neighborhood where only two
particular the lush owering plants of the Southwest, creates a
Jewish families had homes. In an interview with Roger Adelson,
convincing verisimilitude, despite her melodramatic plots which
Davis recalled, The ability to identify anti-Semitism became a
overemploy coincidence and improbable turns of events. Her
part of my life without anyone sitting down and giving me a lesson
painstaking attention to exteriors does not compensate for her
seeming avoidance of much beneath the surface in human beings in it. Davis father was a successful businessman in the Detroit
and personal interactions, and this is perhaps why her work lacks textile industry. He was also an amateur playwright and an
vitality. Yet Davis is an engaging storyteller whose romances and avid reader and writer. Davis mother was a homemaker and
adventures consistently hold the readers attention. businesswoman.
Davis attended elementary school at the Hampton School in
OTHER WORKS: Minding the Gap and Other Poems (1867). Detroit. She then went to Kingswood, a private girls school in
Poems By Mollie E. Moore (1869). Poems by Mollie E. Moore suburban Detroit. Davis quickly learned what it meant to have
(1872). A Christmas Masque of Saint Roch; Pre Dagobert outsider status, because she was one of only two Jewish girls in
(1896). Throwing the Wanga (1896). The Queens Garden (1900). her class. She turned her attention to her studies. She received
Jaconetta: Her Love (1901). Tulane Songs (1901). The Mistress of outstanding grades and developed leadership skills, serving as
Odd Corner (1902). The Yellow Apples (with P. Stapleton, 1902). president of the student council. And most important she learned
A Bunch of Roses, and Other Parlor Plays (1903). A Bunch of that she loved history, especially the Enlightenment and the
Roses (1907). Christmas Boxes (1907). A Dress Rehearsal (1907). American Revolution. Davis attended Smith College and con-
His Lordship (1907). The New System (1907). Queen Anne tinued to not only take her intellectual pursuits seriously but her
Cottages (1907). The Flagship Goes Down: A Broadside Poem student activism as well. She applied questions raised by her
(1908). The Moons of Balcanca (1908). Selected Poems by Mollie political work to her honors program in history. She received her
Moore Davis (1927). The Ships of Desire (1955). Ode to Texas: bachelors degree in 1949, a year after she eloped with Chandler
Written for the Occasion of the Ladies Bazaar for the Benet of Davis, a graduate student in mathematics at Harvard University.
San Jacinto Battle Ground (n.d.).
Davis and her husband Chandler remained committed to and
active in political work. They protested the Korean War and the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Anderson, J. Q., Notes on Mary Moore Davis, work of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Davis
in LaS (Summer 1962). Davidson, J. W., The Living Writers of the continued her education at Radcliffe and completed a masters
South (1896). Wilkenson, C., The Broadening Stream: The Life degree in 1950. She found her intellectual interests turning more
and Literary Career of Mary E. Moore Davis (dissertation, 1947). toward the history not of elites but of merchants, artisans, labor-
Reference works: DAB (1909). The Library of Southern ers, and peasants. Without neglecting her political work, she
Literature (1909). NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). pursued a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan, completing the
Other references: Texas Monthly (April 1930). dissertation in 1959. Her rst academic appointment at Brown
University coincided with her husbands six-month term in Dan-
THADIOUS M. DAVIS bury Prison for charges brought against him by the House
267
Un-American Activities Committee. Chandler Davis was black- DAVIS, Paulina (Kellogg) Wright
listed in U.S. universities after serving his term, and consequently
both Davises took jobs at the University of Toronto, he in 1962
and she in 1963. Natalie went on to teach at the University of Born 7 August 1813, Bloomeld, New York; died 24 August
1876, Providence, Rhode Island
California at Berkeley and at Princeton University, where she was
Daughter of Captain Ebenezer and Polly Saxton Kellogg; mar-
named Henry Charles Lea Professor of History in 1978.
ried Francis Wright, 1833 (died 1845); Thomas Davis, 1849
Arthur Quinn in the New York Times Book Review noted,
Ms. Davis published work is. . .modest. She abstains from the Paulina Wright Davis spent her early childhood in the
big book, the grand synthesis, on which academic historians opening territories of western New York state. When her parents
usually make their reputations. She prefers instead to produce died, before she was seven, Davis was sent to LeRoy, New York,
exquisite miniatures whose scale reects the lives she seeks to to live with her aunt who reared her in orthodox Presbyterianism
represent. Over the course of her career, Davis has helped to and encouraged her to become a missionary. Instead, Davis
transform our understanding of both the common people and the married Francis Wright, a Utica, New York, merchant, and with
elite. She argues that lower- and upper-class worlds were him began her lifes work of activism on behalf of the causes of
reacting and reecting on each other and even sometimes sharing antislavery, temperance, and womens rights. The rights of mar-
rules and readers. While Davis early work focused on class ried women and health reform were particular interests of hers.
dimensions in early modern Europe, particularly in France, she After Wrights death in 1845, Davis supported herself by
went on to explore both literary and anthropological materials and lecturing about health and physiology, illustrating her talks with a
approaches. She tries to exemplify in her work what she calls a female anatomical model that shocked many of her audience (and
multidimensional view of society. inspired others). In 1849 Davis married Thomas Davis, a Provi-
dence, Rhode Island, jewelry manufacturer and member of the
This approach is well represented in Women on the Margins:
Rhode Island legislature. A beautiful and charming woman, Davis
Three Seventeenth-Century Lives (1995). Davis uses diaries,
was admired by the Providence community, although her ideas
letters, and a rich array of supporting documents to illuminate the
were more radical than her neighbors.
very different lives of three women. Glikl bas Judah Leib is a
Jewish businesswoman in Hamburg, Germany; Marie de LIncar- Davis helped organize and presided at the rst National
nation is an ascetic nun and missionary among the Huron Native Womans Rights Convention in Worcester, October 1850, and at
Americans; and Maria Sibylla Merian joined a radical Protestant many later conventions she was similarly involved. In February
sect and illustrates texts on insects. This book brings together 1853 she began to publish, almost entirely at her own expense, the
Davis reverence for history as narrative and, as Lorna Sage noted monthly womans magazine, the Una, A Paper Devoted to the
in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, its patient and imagina- Elevation of Woman, as an alternative to the current popular
tive narrative. As a triptych of 17th-century women, Davis magazines, commenting: Women have been too well, and too
presents a multilayered history where her three subjects come long, satised with Ladies Books, Ladies Magazines and Mis-
alive. The womens lives may have indeed been lived on the cellanies; it is time they should have stronger nourishment. For
margin, but their history is far from marginal. Like her other two years, with the help of a sister, Davis undertook the full
books, Women on the Margins will be translated into several responsibility for the publication; when this became too burden-
languages, including Italian, German, and Finnish. some, she planned to discontinue the journal but was enabled to
carry on an additional nine months through the editorial assistance
Davis has received tremendous scholarly acclaim, yet her of Caroline Dall, a regular contributor.
focus remains on the common people, both in history and contem-
porary society. She contends, I think that people simply want to Issues which elicited Davis editorial comments were equal
know more about the common people of the past. With incisive pay for equal work, the need for equality within marriage, the
opening of professions to women, and the need for respect and
analysis and challenging scholarship, Davis brings the pleasures
equal treatment of women in all phases of life. These were ideals
of reading history to new readers.
shared by all feminists of the period, and Davis gave them
intelligent and forceful expression: Women have to exchange
the noblest rights of their humanity for the paltry privileges and
OTHER WORKS: Society and Culture in Early Modern France:
fulsome atteries which they. . .receive. . . .Why need women be
Eight Essays (1975). Frauen und Gesellschaft am Beginn der
cramped, crippled and crushed into idiocy to make them lovely
Neuzeit (1986). Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and Their
and beloved?
Tellers in Sixteenth Century France (1987).
After the demise of the Una, Davis, suffering increasingly
from rheumatic gout, traveled in Europe, studied painting, and
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works:American Women Historians, continued to work for womens rights. In 1868 she helped found
1700s-1990s: A Biographical Dictionary (1996). CA (1997). the New England Woman Suffrage Association, and served as
president of the Rhode Island suffrage association until 1869. She
CELESTE DEROCHE supported Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony when
268
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DAWIDOWICZ
the national suffrage association split, contributing lively articles Awkward rendition of the black dialect and unconvincing charac-
to their short-lived journal, The Revolution. terization brought uncomplimentary reviews. Davis, undeterred
by the criticism, brought out another novel the same yearDallas
Davis died at sixty-three. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the
Galbraith.
chief speaker at a memorial service held for a large group of
friends at Daviss home. In Davis middle years, her views became exceedingly
conservative. In Pro Aris et Focis (1870), for example, she
declared that a womans ordained role is motherhood, and only
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Frankel, N., and N. S. Dye, eds., Gender, Class, the woman with no chance of rest in a husbands house should
Race, and reform in the Progressive Era (1991). Hanaford, P., enter the professions. In her lifetime Davis was best known for her
Daughter of America (1882). Harper, I. H., The Life and Work journalistic observations. She was never again to achieve the
of Susan B. Anthony (1898). Lutz, A., Created Equal: A Life artistry of Life in the Iron Mills. Today, few of her works have
of Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1940). Lutz, A., Susan B. Anthony survived, and her career is of interest only within the context of
(1959). OConnor, L., Pioneer Women Orators (1954). American literary history.
Riegel, R. E., American Feminists (1963). Stanton, E. C., et al.,
History of Woman Suffrage, vol. I (1881). Wyman, L. B. C. and
A. C. Wyman, Elizabeth Buffum Chace, 1806-1899 (1914). OTHER WORKS: Margaret Howth (1862). Berrytown (1872). John
Reference works: Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in Andross (1874). Kittys Choice (1874). A Law Unto Herself
the United States (1995). (1878). Natasqua (1886). Kent Hampden (1892). Silhouettes of
Other references: American Phrenological Journal (July American Life (1892). Dr. Warricks Daughters (1896). Frances
1853). NEQ (Oct., 1930). Waldeaux (1897). Bits of Gossip (1904).
KAREN F. STEIN
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Langford, G., The Richard Harding Davis Years:
A Biography of Mother and Son (1961). Quinn, A. H., American
Fiction (1936). Sheaffer, H. W., Rebecca Harding Davis, Pio-
DAVIS, Rebecca Harding neer Realist (dissertation, 1947). Wann, L., The Rise of Realism
(1942). Wyman, M., Women in the American Realistic Novel
(dissertation, 1950).
Born 24 June 1831, Washington, Pennsylvania; died 29 Septem-
Reference works: American Authors 1600-1900 (1938). NAW,
ber 1910, Mt. Kisco, New York
1607-1950 (1971). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the
Daughter of Richard and Rachel Leet Harding; married Lemuel C.
United States (1995).
Davis, 1863
Other references: Legacy (Fall 1990). NYT (30 Sept. 1910).
Rebecca Harding Daviss major work Life in the Iron DOROTHY KISH
Mills was published in the April 1861 Atlantic Monthly. Life in
the Iron Mills depicts the hardships of Hugh Wolfe, a sensitive
artist fated to a life of deprivation, harshness, and futility as a
furnace tender in a Virginia mill. Although occasionally veering DAWIDOWICZ, Lucy S.
toward emotionalism, in spite of Davis conscious effort to write
objectively, the novella has a gripping quality that earned it an
Born 16 June 1915, New York, New York; died 5 December
enthusiastic reception. Grimly naturalistic, Life in the Iron
Mills is a landmark in the history of American literature. Also
Daughter of Max and Dora Ofnaem Schildkret; married
noteworthy are John LaMar and David Gaunt, the coun-
Szymon M. Dawidowicz, 1948
trys rst realistic accounts of the horrors of the Civil War,
published in 1862 in the Atlantic Monthly. In them Davis ex-
In her lifetime, Lucy S. Dawidowicz was widely regarded as
pressed her reaction to the lthy spewings of the war.
one of the foremost historians of the Holocaust and of Eastern
Sadly, Davis did not live up to her promise. Her career had European Jewish life. Her profound identication with her subject
begun with the publication in little magazines of a few book and groundbreaking research, marked by her distinctive use of the
reviews, verses, and stories of dark conspiracies and stately Yiddish language and traditional Jewish sources, continue to
romances. She continued to write in the prevailing sentimental shape the course of Holocaust and Jewish scholarship today.
and melodramatic modes. Davis wrote essays for the New York
She was born Lucy Schildkret in New York City in 1915 to
Tribune, the North American Review, and Harpers Bazaar,
Polish Jewish immigrants who had emigrated from Poland in
numerous childrens stories, historical essays for the Youths
1908. After graduating with a B.A. from Hunter College in 1936,
Companion, and gothic thrillers for Petersons.
she took up a postgraduate fellowship at the Jewish Scientic
Of her longer works, the most signicant is Waiting for the Institute (YIVO) in Vilna, Poland, in August of 1938, where she
Verdict (1868), a melodramatic study of the problems that befall a studied the Yiddish language and Jewish history. One of the last
prominent Philadelphia surgeon when he reveals he is part black. people to see Vilna before its destruction in the res of the
269
DAY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Holocaust, as she later wrote, she was nally forced to ee one The Jewish Presence: Essays on Identity and History. In The
week before Nazi Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. Holocaust and the Historians, published in 1981, she refuted
revisionist theories of the Holocaust. From That Time and Place
After returning to the U.S. in 1939, Dawidowicz became
was her last published book. At the time of her death, she was
assistant to the research director of YIVO in New York in 1940. In
working on a history of American Jewry. Her last article, in
1946 she went to postwar Germany to serve as an education
Commentary (February 1990), was a critique of Arthur Hertzbergs
ofcer in displaced persons camps for the American Joint Distri-
book on the same subject.
bution Committee. She also worked to recover the remnants of
YIVOs library. Decades later she wrote a memoir of her prewar Dawidowiczs entire career was devoted to chronicling the
year in Vilna and of her postwar return to Europe. Entitled From history, inuences, and ideas of Jewish culture in Eastern Europe
That Time and Place: A Memoir, 1938-1947 (1989, reprinted and wherever that culture was transplanted. Her theme was
1991), the memoir was awarded the National Jewish Book Award. consistently that of Eastern European Jewish culture attempting to
reconcile the conict of modernity and traditionalism. She claimed
In 1948 she assumed a lecturing post at Yeshiva University in
that whenever Jews compromised traditional values for moderni-
Manhattan and married Szymon Dawidowicz. Three years later,
ty, whether in Europe or in the U.S., they confused and weakened
in 1951, she received her M.A. from Columbia University.
their identity. Yiddish culture was the only solution to the conict,
Together with L. J. Goldstein she published Politics in a Pluralist
but its leaders and practitioners were totally annihilated by Hitler.
Democracy: Studies of Voting in the 1960 Election (1963, revised
Because her historical view sees sacrice of traditionalism as
1974). Her anthology, The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and
self-defeating to Jewish survival, her position on women is that
Thought in Eastern Europe, chronicles the evolution of Jewish
tradition should prevail, and in Judaism, women are assigned to
culture and religion from the end of the 18th century up to the
primacy in the home, not in shul. Her own life, however,
Holocaust through the memoirs of Jewish spiritual and intellectu-
exemplied the fruits born of womens prominence in the world
al leaders. Published in 1967 (reprinted 1972), The Golden
of scholarship. Dawidowicz died of cancer at the age of seventy-ve.
Tradition marked the beginning of Dawidowiczs singular schol-
arly pursuit of Jewish themes.
In 1969 she became professor of social history at Yeshiva OTHER WORKS: The 1966 Elections: A Political Patchwork
University. Between 1970 and 1975 she held the Paul and Lea (1967). For Max Weinreich on His Seventieth Birthday: Studies in
Lewis Chair in Holocaust studies and, beginning in 1976, the Eli Jewish Language, Literature and Society (edited by Davidowicz,
and Diana Zbrowski Chair in Interdisciplinary Holocaust Studies, with J. A. Fishman et al., 1964). What is the Use of Jewish
both at Yeshiva University. History? (1980, 1992). Babi Yars Legacy (1981). On Equal
Terms: Jews in America, 1881-1981 (1982). American Jews and
Dawidowicz published her most celebrated work, The War the Holocaust (1982).
Against the Jews, 1933-45 in 1975 (reissued 1990). This book, her
masterpiece, surpassed previous research conducted on the Holo-
caust through its use of a wide range of source materials in BIBLIOGRAPHY: Altshuler, D. A., Hitlers War Against the Jews: A
Yiddish and other languages to support her groundbreaking, Young Readers Version of The War Against the Jews, 1933-
critical theses. She challenged a number of prevailing scholarly 1945, by Lucy S. Dawidowicz (1978).
conceptions of the Holocaust, most signicantly those claims Reference works: CA (1977).
holding the Jews responsible for too little resistance against and Other references: Commentary (Feb. 1990, May 1992). Jew-
too much collaboration with the Nazis. In addition, she countered ish Quarterly (Spring 1968). Lilith (Fall 1977). NYTBR (26
the assertion that Nazi antisemitism had no roots in European Nov. 1967).
history, and pioneered the thesis that Hitlers antisemitism was,
indeed, part of his deepest aims, dating back to Germanys SHANA PENN
surrender in World War I. She maintained the Final Solution was
central to Nazi ideology and war aims, as crucial as the conquer-
ing of Europe. This argument ran counter to other scholarly
assertions that the Final Solution began in 1941 as an evolving DAY, Dorothy
response to particular events and circumstances. The War Against
the Jews was awarded the Aniseld-Wolf Prize in 1976; the same Born 8 November 1897, Bath Beach, New York; died 29 Novem-
year, Dawidowicz received a Guggenheim Fellowship. ber 1980, New York, New York
With the publication of A Holocaust Reader in 1976, Daughter of John and Grace Satterlee Day; married (common-
Dawidowicz presented many of the little known public and law) Forster Battingham; children: Tamar
private sources employed in The War Against the Jews. This
collection proved to be a wealth of resources for later researchers. As an eight-year-old, Dorothy Day rst experienced that
She also published countless articles, especially in the Jewish sweetness of faith in a Methodist Sunday school which later
intellectual magazine Commentary, on subjects of historical and caused her to become a devout Roman Catholic. After the San
topical interest, including the sociology of American Jewry. In Francisco earthquake, which destroyed the newspaper plant for
1977 she published a widely praised collection of her articles in which Days father worked, the family moved to Chicago, where
270
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DE ANGELI
Day spent her girlhood years. In 1914 she went to the University Hospitality, New York City; Peter Maurin Farm, Pleasant Plains,
of Illinois at Urbana. Staten Island; Maryfarm, Easton, Pennsylvania; Chrystie Street
House, New York City; and the Tivoli Farm Retreat on the
During her high school years, Day became affected by the Hudson. The Catholic Worker ofces on Mott Street have also
plight of the underprivileged and read the stories of Eugene Debs,
served as soup kitchen for the hungry. This tough-minded but
of the Haymarket anarchists, of Kropotkin, and of the Russian
gentle-hearted woman, who seemed a saint to wanderers lacking
revolutionists. Feeling she had received a call, Day directed her
food and shelter, has been the inspiration for numerous Worker
life toward practical means of improving conditions among the
Groups, where friendship as well as food is shared.
poor. During her two years at college she began writing for a local
newspaper, joined the Socialist club, and in general pursued
her own way. OTHER WORKS: House of Hospitality (1939). On Pilgrimage
At age eighteen, Day began a serious journalistic career as a (1948). I Remember Peter Maurin (1958). Thrse (1960). Loaves
reporter for the Socialist New York Call. She joined with others in and Fishes (1963). On Pilgrimage: The Sixties (1972).
1917 in Madison Square Garden to celebrate the Russian Revolu-
tion, traveled to Washington with Columbia University students
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Avitabile, A., A Bibliography on Peter Maurin,
to protest Woodrow Wilsons draft of young men into the armed
Dorothy Day, and the Catholic Worker (available from A.A.,
services, and then went to work for Max Eastmans revolutionary
Fordham University). Coles, R., A Spectacle Unto the World: The
publication, The Masses. After the suppression of The Masses by
Catholic Worker Movement (1973). Ellsberg, R., ed., By Little and
the government, Day went to Washington with a group of militant
by Little: Selected Writings of Dorothy Day (1983). Hennacy, A.,
suffragists, who were arrested and sentenced to 30 days in prison.
Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist (1945). Hennacy, A., The
This was the rst of a number of imprisonments which Day
Book of Ammon (1970). Klejment, A. and A., Dorothy Day and
underwent throughout the years for her activism in the causes of
the Catholic Worker: A Bibliography and Index (1986). Maurin, P.,
peace and justice.
Catholic Radicalism: Phrased Essays for the Green Revolution
During 1918 Day came to know the Provincetown Players (1949). Miller, W. D., A Harsh and Dreadful Love: Dorothy Day
and talked long hours with Eugene ONeill about religion and and the Catholic Worker Movement (1973). Miller, W. D., Doro-
death as they walked the streets or sat out the nights in taverns, in thy Day: A Biography (1982). OBrien, D. J., American Catholics
waterfront back rooms. and Social Reform: the New Deal Years (1968). Roberts, N.,
Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker (1984). Sheehan, A., Peter
With $5,000 for the movie-rights to her novel The Eleventh Maurin: Gay Believer (1959).
Virgin (1924), Day bought a small bungalow on Raritan Bay, Reference works: Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in
Staten Island. There she had a daughter by her common-law the United States (1995).
husband, Forster Battingham, an anarchist, who parted with her Other references: Catholic Worker (1933 to present). NY (4
when she later had the child baptized in the Catholic Church. In Oct. 1952, 11 Oct. 1952). NYRB (28 Jan. 1971).
From Union Square to Rome (1938) she tells the story of her
conversion, and in her autobiography, The Long Loneliness (1952), WINIFRED FRAZER
of her struggle against Catholic priests whose vision did not
extend beyond their parish.
Like many other writers in the 1920s, Day spent some
fruitless months on a screenwriting assignment in Hollywood, DE ANGELI, Marguerite Lofft
thereafter going with her daughter, Tamar, to Mexico City, where
she supported herself by writing articles about the life of the Born 14 March 1889, Lapeer, Michigan; died June 1987
people for Commonweal. Back in New York, she met Peter Daughter of S. C. and Ruby Tuttle Lofft; married John de
Maurin, whose ideas dominated the rest of her life. He encouraged Angeli, 1910
her to start a paper for the workingman, extolling personalist
action and using love as a means of changing institutions to
Marguerite Lofft de Angeli perfected her contralto voice and
enable each individual to lead a full life. In Union Square on
planned for a musical career, but her inclination to draw was
1 May 1933, a day of massive celebration of Russian and worldwide
stronger. After 15 years of illustrating for magazines such as
communism, Day heroically hawked the rst issue of the Catholic
Country Gentleman and books such as Elizabeth Vinings Peggy
Worker, a four-page tabloid-sized paper, which urged social
MacIntosh, her editor, Helen Ferris, encouraged her to write the
Christian action in place of the Marxist communism of the Daily
text of a book and illustrate it herself. She created a series of short
Worker. For almost half a century, she continued to publish every
picture books for six-year-olds based on family situations, which
month this liberal voice of the Catholic Church.
were also the inspiration for later stories, but expanded into
Among the many charitable farms and houses of refuge for chapter-length episodes. De Angeli recreated her fathers child-
the poor and homeless which she helped found are the Maryfarm hood in Lapeer, Michigan, in Copper-Toed Boots (1938).
Retreat House, Newburgh, New York; St. Josephs House of Fiddlestrings (1974) is a ctionalized biography of her husband.
271
DE BURGOS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Jeffrey, de Angelis six-year-old grandson, was the model for Just Books (1947). Miller, B., and E. Field, eds., Newbery Medal
Like David (1951). Butter at the Old Price (1971) is her autobiog- Books: 1922-1955 (1955).
raphy, written in her eighties. Reference works: Junior Book of Authors (1951). SATA (1971).
Other references: Children Literature Review (1976).
In addition to family stories, her subjects have been ethnic,
traditional, and historical. She pioneered in introducing immi-
grant groups in Pennsylvania to children through literature. Two KAREN NELSON HOYLE
booksHenners Lydia (1936) and Yonnie Wondernose (1944)
are about Amish children on Pennsylvania Dutch farms. De
Angeli captured the quaintness of the language in her dialogue.
The pioneer days of William Penn and the Pennsylvania woods
was the background for Skippack School, Being the Story of Eli
DE BURGOS, Julia
Shrawder and of One Christopher Dock, Schoolmaster about the
Year 1750 (1939). Born 17 February 1914, Carolina, Puerto Rico; died 6 July 1953,
She illustrated a book of prayers and graces and then selected New York, New York
50 songs for Marguerite de Angelis Book of Favorite Hymns Daughter of Paula Garcia de Burgos and Francisco B. Hans;
(1963). She excerpted from the King James version of the Bible married Rubn R. Beauchamp, 1934 (divorced); Armando
and illustrated The Old Testament (1960). She also wove Bible Marn, circa 1943
verses into her books. Bright April (1946) ends with Ye shall
know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Skippack Julia de Burgos revealed herself in her poetry and her life as a
School concludes with, The word is a lamp unto my feet, and a woman ahead of her times. In both, she challenged the social
light unto my path. conventions that ruled over the Puerto Rican women of her epoch.
De Angelis most ambitious work is Marguerite de Angelis Her humble origins in the rural barrio of Santa Cruz in Carolina,
Book of Nursery and Mother Goose Rhymes (1954). She selected Puerto Rico, where she grew up as the eldest of a large family,
376 rhymes for which she did 260 illustrations. After World War gave her the strong unity with nature appearing constantly in her
II, de Angeli traveled to England and sketched churches, castles, poetry. When her family moved to Rio Piedras in 1928, de Burgos
inns, and scenery for two months. She specialized in the 13th enrolled at the University of Puerto Rico High School where her
century under the rule of Edward III. studiousness won her recognition. In 1931 she entered the Univer-
sity of Puerto Rico, earning a teaching certicate in 1933. Finan-
De Angelis strength is in the setting of her stories and cial difculties prevented her from continuing her studies. In
character development. She researched each book to recreate the 1934, the year of her rst marriage, she started working for the
time and place correctly. Her carefully drawn characters are Puerto Rico Economic Reconstruction Administration in a daycare
developed with insight, and they inevitably mature through the center. The following year (1935), she taught in another rural area
story. The Newbery award was given to her in 1966 for The Door in Naranjito and took courses during the summer at the university.
in the Wall (1949), while Black Fox of Lorne (1956) was later an
honor book. Yonnie Wondernose and her Book of Nursery and Although poets like Luis Pals Matos, Evaristo Ribera
Mother Goose Rhymes were Caldecott honor books. She was the Chevremont, and Luis Llorens Torres would inuence her work,
rst recipient in 1963 of the Drexel award for childrens literature it was the revolutionary patriotism of the president of the Nation-
given by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1968 she alist party, Pedro Albizu Campos, that inspired her early poems
was awarded the Regina Medal by the Catholic Library Associa- which called for social and political reform. Her rst collection,
tion for a lifetime of devotion to literature for children. Poemas exactos a m misma (Exact Poems to Myself), was
published in 1937 in a private edition. Apparently dissatised
OTHER WORKS: Ted and Nina Go to the Grocery Store (1935). with this work, she tried to suppress it. Poema en veinte surcos
Ted and Nina Have a Happy Rainy Day (1936). Petite Suzanne (Poem in Twenty Furrows), containing her famous poem Ro
(1937). A Summer Day with Ted and Nina (1940). Thee, Hannah! Grande de Loza, appeared in 1938. The river of her childhood is
(1940). Elins Amerika (1941). Up the Hill (1942). Turkey for a powerful image throughout her work; it is in the river that the
Christmas (1944). Jareds Island (1947). A Pocket Full of Posies poet seems to search for her essence. Her recurrent themes of the
(1961). The Ted and Nina Storybook (1965). The Empty Barn eternal search for her true self, love, social reform, and art as a
(with A. de Angeli, 1966). The Old Testament (1967). The Door in means of liberation rst appear in this collection.
the Wall: A Play (1969). The Lion in the Box (1975). Whistle for
Cancin de la verdad sencilia (Song of the Simple Truth,
the Crossing (1977).
1939), which received an award from the Institute of Puerto Rican
Literature, presents love as its central theme. The river is present
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hoffman, M., and E. Samuels, Authors and in various poems, now also as a rival of her lover. In Confesin
Illustrators of Childrens Books (1972). Hopkins, L., More Books del S y del No de Burgos repeats her resistance to the imposition
by More People (1974). Miller, B., Illustrators of Childrens of social values, earlier seen in Julia de Burgos. In an attempt
272
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DE CLEYRE
to free herself from social constraint, in 1940 de Burgos moved DE CLEYRE, Voltairine
rst to New York and then to Cuba with the man who had inspired
her love poems. In Havana she met the Chilean poet Pablo
Neruda, the writer who most deeply inuenced her work. Born 17 November 1866, Leslie, Michigan; died 6 June 1912,
Chicago, Illinois
In 1942, a love disillusionment that marked her for the rest of Daughter of Auguste and Eliza de Cleyre
her life occasioned her return to New York. While living there, she
actively collaborated in the publication of Pueblos Hispnicos,
founded and directed by the Puerto Rican poet Juan Antonio As a young woman, Voltairine de Cleyre began to earn fees
Correjer. Although she continued to write, in her last years as a free-thought lecturer in Philadelphia, where she taught
alcoholism weakened both her spirit and health. She spent most of foreign languages and conducted classes in English for workers.
this time in various hospitals. Collapsing on a Harlem street in The Haymarket bombing trial of 1887 had converted de Cleyre to
1953, she died, and her body was taken to Puerto Rico for burial anarchism: she, like many others, was radicalized by the martyr-
near the river she had made famous. dom of innocent workers, whose fate showed her the aws in
American law and trial by jury.
A posthumous volume El mar y t, y otros poemas (1954)
pays tribute again to her one great love and reects her disillusion- Despite physical weakness, de Cleyre gained a reputation as
ment and nal disintegration. The sea, symbol of the innite and a lecturer and writer on such subjects as Anarchism and the
witness of the cosmic union of the lovers, becomes the deathbed American Tradition, Crime and Punishment, Thomas Paine,
that called her. A compilation of her works, Obra Potica, In Defense of Emma Goldman, and Modern Educational
appeared in 1961. Reform. She urged greater freedom for the individual, and in one
Critics have seen inuences of modernism in de Burgoss tract entitled Sex Slavery, she called every married woman a
work. Jos Emilio Gonzlez, pointing out imperfections in her bonded slave, who takes her masters name, her masters bread,
poetry, contrasts her lack of interest in the discussion of aesthetics her masters commands, and serves her masters passion; who
with her deep concern with social problems. The importance she passes through the ordeal of pregnancy and the throes of travail at
placed on truth and justice, and her understanding of poetry as an his dictationnot at her desire; who can control no property, not
instrument for social and political change, gave priority to the even her own body, without his consent.
message rather than to the form. The result was the revelation of
the essence of the poet herself, making her poetry so striking- At other times, de Cleyre blasted the church, which from its
ly unique. birth has taught the inferiority of women, and the state, which
holds women in unpropertied thralldom. Sounding a modern note
on education, she condemned Mrs. Grundy for demanding women
OTHER WORKS: A Rose Made of Water: Ten Selected Poems of must cover their obscene bodies with long prison skirts and
Julia de Burgos; Translated by Rafael Ramos Albelo, from the high necks, and for decreeing little girls must not climb trees or
Original Spanish (1994). Roses in the Mirror (1992). Song of the swim (activities inappropriate to their subservient role).
Simple Truth: Obra Completa Poetica (The Complete Po-
ems) (1997). Her articles and poetry appeared in such magazines as Open
Court, Twentieth Century, Boston Investigator, Chicago Liberal,
Liberty, Magazine of Poetry, Free Society, Mother Earth, and the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: A Dream of Light & Shadow: Portraits of Latin
Independent. She translated from the French Jean Graves Mori-
American Women Writers (1995). Cabrera, F. M., Historia de la
Literatura Puertoriquena (1971). Gonzlez, Jose E., La Poesa bund Society and Anarchy and Louise Michels work on the
Contempornea de Puerto Rico, 1930-1960 (1972). Jimnez de Paris Commune. In Mother Earth appeared her translations from
Baez, L., Julia de Burgos: Vida y Poesa (1966). Julia de Burgos, the Yiddish of Libin and Peretz. Some 30 of de Cleyres poems
1914-1953 (1986). Price, J., Faces of Rebellion: Critical Com- and a dozen short stories and sketches are included in Selected
mentary and Translation of the Poetry of Julia de Burgos, Rosario Works (1913), along with a biographical sketch by Hippolyte
Castellanos, Clementina Suarez (thesis, 1981). Havel, an old anarchist companion of Emma Goldman and a
Reference works: Inventing a Word: An Anthology of Twen- barroom friend of Eugene ONeill.
tieth-Century Puerto Rican Poetry (1980). NAW (1980). Oxford
Companion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). Leonard D. Abbott highly praised de Cleyres life and her
Puerto Rican Authors: A Biobibliographic Handbook (1974). writing, calling her a priestess of Pity and Vengeance. De
Spanish American Women Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Source Cleyres words were often high-own, but never empty: Liber-
Book (1990). Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry: A Bilin- ty! Out of the dungeon, out of the sorrow, out of the sacrice, out
gual Anthology (1996). of the pain grew this child of the heart; and pure and strong she
Other references: La Torre (Sept.-Dec. 1965). Sin Nombre grew until the sabled plumes have tottered on the despots brow.
(Oct.-Dec. 1976). De Cleyre illustrated liberty in her own life and fought for it on
behalf of the worlds imprisoned. When she died, she was buried
AMIRIS PEREZ-GUNTIN in Chicagos Waldheim Cemetery beside the Haymarket martyrs.
273
DE MILLE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Drinnon, R., Rebel in Paradise (1961). MacDonald, Milles historical research was meticulous, as it was for her
G. E., Fifty Years of Freethought (1931). Symes, L., and T. earlier, illustrated Book of the Dance (1963). After a careful
Clement, Rebel America (1934). exploration of the scene of Lizzie Bordens crime, de Mille
conducts the reader through her own transformation of historical
WINIFRED FRAZER fact into dance-drama. Accidents, personality clashes, and eco-
nomic obstacles make of the creative process itself a taut, sus-
penseful narrative. In her Russian Journals (1970), de Mille
recalls the stunned appreciation of Soviet audiences for this ballet
when it was performed by American Ballet Theater on its
DE MILLE, Agnes USSR tour.
Speak to Me, Dance With Me (1973) goes back in time to de
Born 1905, New York, New York; died October 1993 Milles 1933-34 stay in London, which had been telescoped into
Daughter of William C. and Anna George de Mille; married three chapters in Dance to the Piper. The text consists of lively
Walter Prude, 1943 letters she wrote to her mother, interspersed with a running
commentary on affairs about which she could not write home.
Agnes de Milles mother was the daughter of political In Where the Wings Grow (1978), de Mille covers the earliest
economist Henry George. Her father was a successful playwright, period in her life, before she had any serious thought of becoming
but after an unexpected op on Broadway he went West to join his a dancer. In this childhood memoir of summers at Merriewold, in
younger brother, Cecil B. de Mille, and became a movie director. Sullivan County, New York, de Mille evokes a turn-of-the-
century way of life innocent of indoor plumbing and refrigeration,
De Milles rst book, Dance to the Piper (1951), begins with with home remedies, Irish Catholic house servants, lemonade and
her familys move from New York City to Hollywood in 1914, embroidery on the verandah, and ladieslike her motherwho
covers her difcult years of struggle to become a dancer and to prided themselves on their sheltered, genteel public image, even
launch a career, and culminates with her rst two solid choreo- though it masked a great deal of anguished drudgery. She also
graphic successes, Rodeo (1942) and Oklahoma! (1943). The writes of Sho-Foo-Den, the exotic Japanese mansion at Merriewold,
book ranges from childs-eye sketches of personalities who fre- and the story of its inhabitants, the Takamine family, rst glimpsed
quented the de Mille household, such as Geraldine Farrar, Ruth St. through the childs eyes, later understood on an adult level. This
Denis, Elinor Glyn, and Charlie Chaplin, to more detailed por- latest book is a landmark in de Milles literary career, because its
traits of those who affected de Milles dance careerMartha lyricism and passion and the interest it sustains depend not at all
Graham, Argentina, Marie Rambert, Antony Tudor, Lucia Chase. upon the authors reputation as a dancer/choreographer.
Enthusiasm and honesty are the keynotes of de Milles In 1973, de Mille, who was an authority on Anglo-American
literary style. Her greatest enthusiasm is for other accomplished folklore, founded the Agnes de Mille Heritage Dance Theater for
artists, and her most brutal honesty concerns her own limitations. the purpose of giving theatrical life to American folk-dance
At fteen, she says, I considered my body a shame, a trap and a forms. She also received numerous professional awards and
betrayal. But I could break it. I was a dancer. She is absolutely honorary degrees. Long recognized for her energetic contribu-
forthright in her advice on careers in dance, with constructive tions to American dance theater, de Mille was respected as a
suggestions for dance teachers and critics, in To A Young Dancer serious and prolic writer as well. Nearly half of her books were
(1962). In several of her books, she discusses how the develop- autobiographical; the others, like most of her magazine articles
and speaking engagements, deal more specically with dance as
ment of professional dance, like the development of female
an artistic and social form of expression. De Mille was much in
consciousness, has been retarded by social, religious, and eco-
demand as a speaker, known for her engaging zeal and wit, and
nomic restraints.
remained active until her death in 1993.
The balancing of de Milles own emotional and professional
life in an especially turbulent period, 1942-45, is the basis of her OTHER WORKS: American Ballet Theatre, 35th Anniversary Gala
second book, And Promenade Home (1956). She describes her (with L. Chase, 1975). Dance to the Piper & Promenade Home: A
whirlwind courtship, marriage to Lt. Walter F. Prude, and their Two-Part Autobiography (1980). Reprieve: A Memoir (1981).
subsequent two-year wartime separation, in counterpoint to her Scrapbook (clippings, 1987, 1993). Agnes de Mille [Speech on the
choreographic work on Oklahoma!, One Touch of Venus, Tally- Arts in America] (video, 1987). Agnes de Mille Talks About
Ho, Bloomer Girl, and Carousel. The nightmarish process of Martha Graham, Women and Fashion (audiocassette, 1987).
getting a Broadway show opened is reported by means of humor-
ous anecdotes, fond portraits of collaborators, and some una-
bashed diatribes. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brosnan, P. L., Agnes de Mille Interview (video,
1985). Cavett, D., Agnes de Mille Interview (video, 1980). Ed-
Lizzie Borden: A Dance of Death (1968) is a book-length wards, A., The de Milles: An American Family (1988). Felder, D. G.,
study of the creation of her 1948 folk ballet, Fall River Legend. De The 100 Most Inuential Women of All Time: A Ranking Past and
274
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DGH
Present (1996). Getz, L., Dancers and Choreographers: A Select- Pitr prize in 1963 and was later published in the U.S. as Folktales
ed Bibliography (1995). Gherman, B., Agnes de Mille: Dancing and Society: Storytelling in a Hungarian Peasant Community
Off the Earth (1994). Speaker-Yuan, M., Agnes de Mille (1990). (1969). This is Dghs most widely known work in America and it
Reference works: CB (1943). International Dictionary of is used as a textbook in many colleges and universities. A major
Ballet (1993). International Dictionary of Modern Dance (1998). classic of folklore analysis, it treats the inclusive narrative art of
Notable Names in the American Theatre (1976). the villagers of Kakasd as well as the general process of transmis-
Other references: Ballet Review (Winter 1994). Dance Chroni- sion and innovation of oral tradition. The book also deals authori-
cle (1996, 1998). Dance Magazine (Oct. 1971, Sept. 1973, Nov. tatively with the interplay of print and oral tradition in the
1974, June 1974, Jan. 1998). NYTBR (13 Jan. 1952, 12 Oct. 1968). modern world.
Agnes: The Indomitable de Mille (video, 1987). Agnes de Mille
Rehearsing Rodeo and Fall River Legend (videocassette, 1991). In 1951 Dgh was appointed to the faculty of the Folklore
City Edition: Agnes de Mille (video, 1979). The Creative Process: Department of Etvs-University in Budapest. She also served on
Agnes de Mille (video, 1988). The De Mille Dynasty: A Brief various national boards and commissions dealing with folklore
History of the Life and Times of Henry C. de Mille, William C. de and ethnography. Dgh published extensively during this phase of
Mille, Cecil B. de Mille, Agnes George de Mille (video, 1985). The her career, but since most of her books and articles are in
Frail Quarry [excerpt] (video, 1990). Good Morning Ameri- Hungarian, they are not generally accessible to an American
ca: Agnes de Mille (video, 1991). Prole of Agnes de Mille audience. In 1964 she was invited to Indiana University as a
(video, 1979). visiting professor in the Folklore Institute. After a year of eld-
work among the Hungarian ethnic colony in the industrial region
FELICIA HARDISON LONDR of northwest Indiana, Dgh returned to Indiana University as a full
professor.
Since coming to the U.S., Dghs folklore interests continued
to develop in two major areas: interethnic relations in North
DE MONDRAGON, Margaret Randall America and the modern American legend. Her research among U.S.
See RANDALL, Margaret and Canadian ethnics has been supported by various national
organizations including the National Endowment for the Humani-
ties, the American Council of Learned Societies, the American
Philosophical Society, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the
DGH, Linda Canadian Centre for Folk Culture Studies. Although she pub-
lished numerous articles dealing with different aspects of this
Born 19 March 1920, Budapest, Hungary eldwork, her major contribution so far has been a monograph,
Daughter of Karoly and Folan Engl Dgh; married Andrew People in the Tobacco Belt: Four Lives (1975). This work is
Vazsonyi, 1958 comprised of the translated life histories of Hungarians now living
in Canada with annotation and an analytical essay dealing with
Linda Dgh studied with the eminent folklorist, G. Ortutay, each. Dgh examines, among other things, the techniques by
at Pzmny Peter University in Budapest and received a Ph.D. in which the narrators structured their stories and the world view
ethnography in 1943. Her rst major publication was her disserta- revealed by them. The transcribed life histories depart from
tion, Pandur Pter mesi (Tales of Peter Pandur, 1942), a collec- standard anthropological practice because they have not been
tion of folktales with an analytical essay and annotation. rearranged and edited to t conventional chronologies.
After graduation, Dgh conducted eldwork and research for Although her work with ethnicity is extensive, Dgh is best
various scholarly institutions in Hungary, investigating primarily known in the U.S. for her research and publication dealing with
two major problems: urban/industrial folklore as it relates to the the folktale (Mrchen) and the legend. In 1968 she founded and
rural peasantry, and the folk traditions of the Hungarian revolu- began editing a scholarly journal, Indiana Folklore, specializing
tion of 1848. Her research and publication on the latter demon- in the publication and analysis of legends and legend-telling.
strated how historical facts have become folklorized through Using her own meticulous eldwork and publications as exam-
oral circulation over time, especially in lyrical and narrative ples, Dgh has trained a whole generation of Indiana University
folksongs. Later Dgh did extensive eldwork throughout eastern graduate students in the theories and techniques of dealing with
Europe examining ethnic change and interethnic relations as well folk legendry. Dgh is also a member of a committee of the
as traditional narratives, world view, and folk religion. prestigious International Congress of Folk Narrative Studies
which has undertaken the classication and intensive study of the
Dgh eventually focused her European eldwork on collect- legend in the U.S. and Europe.
ing the oral traditions of the Bukovina Szkely villagers who were
resettled in western Hungary after World War II. This eldwork
resulted in a major study on the sociology of storytelling, Mrchen, OTHER WORKS: Pandur Pter ht bagi mesje (Seven Tales by P.
Erzhler und Erzhlgemeinschaft, dargestellt an der ungarischen Pandur from Bag, 1940). Bodrogkzi mesk (Tales from Bodrogkz,
Volksberlieferung (1962), which was awarded the international 1945). tmutat 48-as hagyo-mny gyjtshez (Fieldworkers
275
DELAND AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Guide for Researching Historical Traditions of 1848-49, 1947). A searching. It made her suddenly famous, for it was much dis-
magyar npi szinjtk kutatsa (Hungarian Folk Drama Re- cussed, and often angrily denounced as wicked and immoral.
search, 1947). Trtneti nekek s katonadalok (Historical Songs
and Soldiers Songs, with I. Katona and L. Pter, 1952). A Deland followed this rst novel with a steady output of
szabadsgharc npkltszete (Folklore of the War of Indepen- ction so popular that she became one of the best-known writers
dence, 1952). Szpen szl a Kossuth muzsikja (Selected Songs of her day. Four honorary doctorates were awarded to her:
from the Revolution of 1848, 1953). Npkltszet (Folk Lit- Rutgers, 1917; Tufts, 1920; Bates, 1929; and Bowdoin, 1931. She
erature, 1953). Magyarorszgi munksdalok (Workers Songs was also one of the rst women elected to membership in the
from Hungary, with T. Dmtr and I. Katona, 1955). Kakasdi National Institute of Arts and Letters (1926).
npmesk (Folktales from Kakasd, 1955). Magyar npmesk Essentially a novelist of character, as one writer calls her,
(Hungarian Tales, 1960). Gonaquadate a viziszrny (North Ameri- Deland created a group of likable men, women, and children who
can Indian Tales, 1960). A vilgjr kirly (North European appear time after time in her various novels and short stories.
Folktales, 1961). Tolna megyei szkely npmesk (Szekely Folktales These are inhabitants of a small town, Old Chester, which was
from Tolna County, 1965). Folklore Today: A Festschrift for modeled on Manchester, where she grew up. Dominating the Old
Richard M. Dorson (edited by Dgh with F. Oinas and H. Chester scene is the all-wise, all-compassionate Dr. Lavendar,
Glassie, 1976). East European Folk Narrative Studies (edited by Rector of St. Michaels Church. The plots are concerned with sin
Dgh, 1977). and its expiation, self-sacrice, maternal love, pride, and oddly
Articles: Ethnology in Hungary in Anthropology in East- assorted marriages. Through them all runs a strong current of
Central and Southeast (1970), Folk Religion as Ideology for religion, for Delands people conceive of a deity who is intensely
Ethnic Survival: The Hungarians of Kipling, Saskatchewan in personal. Also apparent is a delightful appreciation of naturethe
Ethnicity on the Great Plains (1980). shifting seasons, owers, hills, rivers.
Though Delands ction is denitely dated, it is extremely

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Burlakoff, N., et al, eds., Folklore on Two Conti- useful to any student seeking to understand the values and mores
nents: Essays in Honor of Linda Degh (1980). of a bygone era. Further, while its faint gloss of sentimentality, its
Other references: Canadian-American Review: of Hungari- assertions regarding extramarital relations, and its rm insistence
an Studies (1977). JAF (1971, 1978). on the need for renouncing sin may seem quaint and unreal to
the modern reader, Delands work does portray the timeless
SYLVIA ANN GRIDER qualities of personal integrity, devotion, and courage.
OTHER WORKS: The Old Garden (1886). A Summer Day (1889).

Philip and His Wife (1890). Sidney: The Story of a Child (1892).
DELAND, Margaret (Wade) Campbell The Wisdom of Fools (1894). Mr. Tommy Dove and Other Stories
(1897). Old Chester Tales (1899). Dr. Lavendars People (1903).
Born Margaretta Campbell, 28 February 1857, Allegheny, Penn- The Common Way (1904). The Awakening of Helena Richie
sylvania; died 1945, Boston, Massachusetts (1906). An Encore (1907). The Iron Woman (1911). The Voice
Daughter of Sample and Margaretta Wade Campbell; married (1912). Partners (1913). The Hands of Esau (1914). Around Old
Lorin F. Deland, 1880 Chester (1915). The Rising Tide (1916). The Vehement Flame
(1922). New Friends in Old Chester (1924). The Kays (1926).
At sixteen, after attending private schools, Margaret Camp- Captain Archers Daughter (1932). Old Chester Days (1935). If
bell Deland was sent for a year to Pelham Priory, a strict boarding This Be I (1935). Golden Yesterdays (1941).
school near New Rochelle, New York, and then enrolled in the
Cooper Union, New York City, for a course in design, perspec-
tive, freehand, and geometrical drawing. After nishing her BIBLIOGRAPHY: Dodd, L. H., Celebrities at Our Hearthside (1959).
studies at the Cooper Union, she was appointed assistant instruc- Overton, G., The Women Who Make Our Novels (1928). Reep, D. C.,
tor in drawing and design at Girls Normal School (now Hunter The Rescue and the Romance: Popular Novels before World War I
College). (1982). Smith, H. F., The Popular American Novel, 1865-1920
(1980). Welter, B., Dimity Convictions: The American Women in
Delands rst novel, John Ward, Preacher (1888), is a story the Nineteenth Century (1976). Williams, B. C., Our Short Story
of religious doubt and adamant orthodoxy. Deland had been Writers (1920).
brought up a strict Presbyterian, but in the years following her Reference works: NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). Oxford Compan-
marriage she found herself painfully questioning her earlier ion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). TCA (1942).
religious attitudes. She nally left her familys denomination and, Other references: American Literature (June 1990). NYT (14
with her husband, was conrmed in the Episcopal church. It was Jan. 1945).
many years, however, before she was at peace with her convic-
tions, and John Ward, Preacher was the result of her own soul ABIGAIL ANN HAMBLEN
276
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DEMING
DEL OCCIDENTE, Maria in the mid-19th century Teton (Tiyospaye) extended family camp
See BROOKS, Maria Gowen circle. Enriched with her own experiences and views, and the
insights of a writer who combines previous research on her own
culture with the skills of the trained insider, the author creates
excellent ction. No one was better qualied than Deloria to draw
DELORIA, Ella Cara a series of Sioux female characters such as the ones central to
this novel.
Born Anpetu Wate (Dakota name), 31 January 1889, at White Against the exaggerated representation of the Sioux Nation
Swan on the Yankton Sioux Reservation, South Dakota; died as fabricated by contemporary media imagemakers, Delorias
12 February 1971, Vermillion, South Dakota work stands rmly and honestly, portraying Sioux tradition and
Daughter of Philip and Mary Sulley Bordeaux Deloria especially Sioux women in the visibly important roles they held
and continue to hold within their culture.
Anpetu Wate (which means Beautiful Day) was Ella Cara
Delorias Dakota name. Her father was a deacon in the Episcopal OTHER WORKS: Dakota Texts (1932). Dakota Grammar (with F.
church and Deloria was greatly inuenced by the church as well as Boas, 1941). Some Notes on the Santee (1967). Deer Women and
by her Sioux heritage. Dakota was the primary language spoken in Elk Men: The Lakota Narratives of Ella Deloria (edited by J.
her home, and Sioux culture was practiced there alongside Chris- Rice, 1992).
tianity. Deloria grew up on the Standing Rock Reservation, and Articles: The Sun Dance in Journal of American Folklore
graduated from the All Saints boarding school in Sioux Falls, (1929), From Waterlily in Growing up Native American (1993).
South Dakota. Following her graduation in 1910, she attended The unpublished manuscripts of Deloria, including her volu-
Oberlin College in Ohio, and then transferred in 1913 to Columbia minous correspondence with Franz Boas, are in the Library of the
Teachers College, receiving a B.S. in 1915. American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia. Manuscript pages
About 1927 Deloria began a long collaboration with Franz of Waterlily are at the Dakota Indian Foundation in Chamberlain,
South Dakota.
Boas, the distinguished anthropologist, with whom she had worked
and studied while at Teachers College. She produced for him an
immense body of research notes on Plains Indian language and BIBLIOGRAPHY: Finn, J. L., Ella Cara Deloria and Mourning
culture. Speaking of Indians (1944) is Delorias analytical des- Dove: Writing for Cultures, Writing Against the Grain in
cription of Sioux culture. Waterlily (1988), rst published 17 Women Writing Culture (1995). Mead, M., Cooperation and
years after her death, is based on her ethnographic work, but Competition Among Primitive Peoples (1937, chapter by J. Mirsky
written in the form of a novel in order to convey the details of her based on Delorias research). Morgan, K. J., The Depiction of
culture to a wide range of readers. Those who wish to know more Lakota Culture in Waterlily (thesis, 1990). Murray, J. K., Ella
about Native American women, as well as about Sioux culture, Deloria: A Biographical Sketch and Literary Analysis (disserta-
change, and more important continuity, will nd the novel richly tion, 1974). Rice, J., Deer Women and Elk Men: The Lakota
rewarding. Narratives of Ella Deloria (1992). Rice, J., Lakota Storytelling:
Black Elk, Ella Deloria, and Frank Fools Crow (1989). Sligh, G. L.,
Deloria was bilingual as well as bicultural. Her work reveals
Activism, Accommodation, and Autobiography: The Novels of
the value of an insiders perspective, providing a bridge of
Sophia Alice Callahan, Mourning Dove, and Ella Cara Deloria
understanding about Sioux society for those outside her tradition,
(dissertation, 1998).
as witnessed through the eyes of a Sioux woman. The paucity of
Reference works: NAW (1980). Oxford Companion to Wom-
books written by Native American women also makes her work an
ens Writing in the United States (1995).
important contribution to Native American studies as well as to
Other references: Introducing Ella C. Deloria (1988). Meridel
American literature. The major part of Delorias work is focused
LeSueur, Ella Deloria (video, 1984).
on the period just prior to white settlement on the western plains of
North America in the mid-19th century. Much of it challenges the INS TALAMANTEZ
still commonly held stereotypes of Native American peoples and
especially the images of Indian women.
Delorias Waterlily offers answers to questions about the role
of women by providing a platform on which they speak for DEMING, Barbara
themselves. Deloria also provides perspectives on tribal history as
well as the social and religious ideas centered on the obligations of Born 23 July 1917, New York, New York; died 2 August 1984,
reciprocity to ones kin that are evident in Sioux tradition to the Sugarloaf Key, Florida
present day. Unlike her extensive ethnographic and linguistic Daughter of Harold S. and Katherine Burritt Deming
work, Waterlily explores a series of important concepts in an
intriguing ctional narrative. Engaging anecdotes alternate with Barbara Demings ction, essays, and poetry were all grounded
serious commentary on issues that arise while contemplating life in her personal experiences. From the age of sixteen when she
277
DEMING AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
realized she was a lesbian and began to write, Demings life and In 1959 Deming discovered the writings of Mahatma Gandhi
writing were joined in a Gandhian struggle to cling to the truth while she was traveling through India. The following year she
(satyagraha). This struggle later led Deming to perceive herself as went to Cuba, and then attended a Peacemakers workshop. These
a lifelong activist, even though she did not enter public politics experiences launched Deming into a new phase of her life marked
until 1960. Writing, Deming felt, could itself be named activ- by public activism and a commitment to practicing and writing
ism because it was a process through which she discovered and about nonviolence. Her personal activism made it easier for her to
afrmed what she knew about herself and the world around empathize with the struggles of other people (Cuban, Vietnamese,
her. Living her life as a lesbiandefying the homophobic society African American) and she joined a community that Leah Fritz
that tried to dene herwas another aspect of her activism. describes as cling[ing] to a whole complexity of political truths.
Although literary periodicals published some of her poems, Active in the New England Committee for Nonviolent Action and
short stories, and reviews in the 1940s and 1950s, it was not until the War Registers League, Deming demonstrated, sat in, walked
Deming began writing news articles about the peace and civil for peace and social justice, went to jail for acts of civil disobedi-
rights movements that her work steadily reached a large audience. ence, and wrote about her experiences. Prison Notes (1966) grew
These pieces, initially published in left-wing journals, detailed her out of her participation in the Quebec-Washington-Guantanamo
own and others participation in social movements and offered her Walk for Peace and Freedom and her arrest and imprisonment in
reections on nonviolence and other issues. Whether because of Alabama. Revolution and Equilibrium (1971) includes essays that
the reputation she had gained or because changes in American stemmed from her journeys to Cuba and to North Vietnam
society made personal narratives and social analysis more accept- (1966-67). The essays in both volumes provide a series of
able, both her earlier and new work reached print after the late studies of nonviolent action and its possibilities as well as a
1960s. Demings powerful feminist critiques, veiled in her early history of The Movement for peace and social change as it
work and central after the early 1970s, gained her a devoted evolved during the 1960s. Demings essays remain among the
audience among women. Her almost spiritual theorizing about the most signicant writings on nonviolence. In 1971, a near-fatal car
connections among people and political movements continues to crash curtailed her physical activism, but her writings continued
challenge readers to claim their lives as their own while respecting to be publicly political for the rest of her life.
the same right of others. In the mid-1970s Deming became a radical feminist and
Deming and her three brothers grew up in New York City and came out publicly during a Catholic Worker meeting. Through
New City, New York. Her father was an admiralty lawyer, her letters, several of which were then printed as dialogues, she
mother a former singer. When Deming was sixteen, she fell in debated womens rights and sexuality with such civil rights and
love with an older woman and began writing poetry. Their peace activists as Dave Dellinger and Arthur Kinoy and nonvio-
relationship probably lasted until Deming went to Bennington lent tactics with feminist Jane Alpert. We Cannot Live Without
College where she majored in drama (B.A. 1938) and learned that Our Lives (1974) reprints these and an exchange of letters on
a womans sensibility was incongruent with good writing. She confronting ones own oppression, which recognizes the com-
earned an M.A. from Clevelands Western Reserve University mon roots of racism, sexism, and homophobia, and the impor-
(1941) and became an analyst for the Library of Congress lm tance of claiming ones own identity. The book is dedicated to
project at New Yorks Museum of Modern Art (1942-44). In 1945 all those seeking the courage to assert I amand especially to
she decided to become a full-time freelance writer. Her theater my lesbian sisters; it makes clear Demings deance of the
essays, lm reviews, and some poetry were published in New attempts of a homophobic and sexist society to dene her. In 1983
Directions, Chimera, New Yorker, and other periodicals, and in she took part in actions organized by the Womens Encampment
1950 she nished a book analyzing the dreams and heroes for a Future of Peace and Justice near Seneca Falls, New York,
portrayed in American lms of the 1940s. A work of sociocultural and served her nal jail term.
criticism, Running Away from Myself: A Dream Portrait of
America Drawn from the Films of the Forties was not published Deming died in her home on Sugarloaf Key of cervical
until 1969. Deming notes that this psychological study of cancer. She was survived by partners in two long-term relation-
America had taken on greater relevance in the wake of a national ships: painter and writer Mary Meigs (Demings companion in the
crisis of faith and a concomitant desire by the U.S. to impose its late 1950s and early 1960s) and artist Jane Gapen (Watrous)
will in Vietnam. Verlaine, Demings lover since the late 1960s.
Deming traveled to Europe in 1950 to recover from the

painful breakup of a love relationship. When she returned she OTHER WORKS: Wash Us and Comb Us: Stories by Barbara
began a ctional chronicle of her emotional and physical Deming (1972). Remembering Who We Are: Barbara Deming in
travail, but friends discouraged her from going beyond the rst Dialogue with Gwenda Blair, Kathy Brown, Arthur Kinoy, Brad-
chapter. She turned to writing short stories. When Deming re- ford Lyttle, Susan Sherman, Leah Fritz, Susan Saxe (1981). We
turned to the novel in 1972 she realized that it, like others of her Are All Part of One Another: A Barbara Deming Reader (edited
rejected works, held great promisethe lesbian protagonist, like by Jane Meyerding, 1984). I Change, I Change: Love Poems of
her powerful social commentaries, made friends (and publishers) Barbara Deming (1996).
uncomfortable, but the story was strong. A Humming Under My Articles in the 1940s and 1950s in Charm, Chimera, City
Feet: A Book of Travail was published in 1985. Lights, Hudson Review, Partisan Review, New Directions, New
278
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DENNETT
Yorker, Paris Review, Tulane Drama Review, Voices, Wake; in with the triumph of the powers of good. The majority of Denisons
the 1960s and 1970s in the Nation, the Catholic Worker, Libera- readers probably read these works not for their high-minded
tion (of which she was an editor), WIN, Kalliope, and other preachings but for their thrilling and graphic portrayals of evil.
magazines; Militant Nonviolence in The Witness (July 1995).
Denison was also a continual contributor to a number of
The major collection of Demings papers is in the Schlesinger
periodicals, chiey Frank Leslies Monthly, Harpers Weekly, the
Library of Radcliffe College; additional papers are in the Twenti-
Peoples Home Journal, and Youths Companion. She worked as
eth Century Collection of Boston University.
a volunteer nurse during the Civil War and was a charter member
of the League of American Penwomen.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Combellick, K. A., Feminine Forms of Closure:
Gilman, Deming, and H.D. (dissertation, 1989).
OTHER WORKS: Raphael Inglesse (1848). Home Pictures (1853).
Reference works: CANR (1998). Oxford Companion to Wom-
The Mad Hunter (circa 1860).
ens Writing in the United States (1995).
Other references: Broadside (1984). Gay Community News
(25 Aug./1 Sept. 1984, obituary). Kalliope: A Journal of Womens BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Appletons Cyclopaedia of
Art (1984). NYT (4 May 1984, obituary). Ms. (Nov. 1978, article American Biography (1888). A Critical Dictionary of English
by Leah Fritz). Literature, and British and American Authors (1858). Notable
American Women, 1607-1950 (1971).
KIMBERLY HAYDEN BROOKES Other references: Boston Transcript (17 Oct. 1911). Home
(Dec. 1856). Magazine of Poetry and Literary Review (Feb. 1895).
DIANE LONG HOEVELER

DENISON, Mary Andrews
Born 26 May circa 1826, Cambridge, Massachusetts; died 15
October 1911, Cambridge, Massachusetts DENNETT, Mary Ware
Wrote under: N. I. Edson, Clara Vance
Daughter of Thomas and Jerusha Robbins Andrews; married Born 4 April 1872, Worcester, Massachusetts; died 25 July 1947,
Charles W. Denison, 1846 Valatie, New York
Daughter of George W. and Livonia Ames Ware; married
Mary Andrews Denisons rst publications were short sketches William H. Dennett, 1900 (divorced 1913); children: three
printed in the Boston Olive Branch where her husband, a Baptist sons (one of whom died young)
minister and active abolitionist, was assistant editor. In 1847
Denison published her rst novel, Edna Etheril, the Boston Mary Ware Dennett came from an old and by her account
Seamstress. This potboiler began her prolic career as author of deadly respectable New England family. She received her
pulp ction and dime novels. education at both public and private institutions in Massachusetts
and at the school of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. At twenty-
Denison published over 80 novels during her lifetime. Many
two, she began working at the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia,
of them do not deserve close scrutiny; they can be divided into a
where she was to serve as head of the School of Design and
few groupings. Denison exploited the convention of the spotless
Decoration. Desiring to practice what she was teaching, Dennett
heroine, extolled on one of her book covers as purer, sweeter,
opened a shop with her sister in Boston. The beauty of the work
and nobler than [women] are often found in real life. The
they sold, particularly gilded leather, brought her to the attention
epitome of this genre is her most famous novel, That Husband of
of other artists in the area. They elected her a director of the
Mine (1877), quickly followed by That Wife of Mine (1878). Both
Boston Society of Arts and Crafts.
novels, along with dozens of her others, celebrate the domestic
ideal and were dedicated to All Who Love Happy Homes. Her marriage to architect Dennett was at rst a happy one;
they had three sons, only two of whom lived to maturity. They
In addition to championing marital bliss, Denison also cru-
collaborated in business; Dennett worked with her husband as a
saded against alcohol in her Gertrude Russel (1849), published by
consulting home decorator. Increasingly interested in the cam-
the American Baptist Publication Society. Another group of her
paign to enfranchise women, Dennett became eld secretary of
novels depicted stereotypical situations and stock formulas. Chip,
the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association. In 1910 she was
the Cave Child (ca. 1860) presented the story of a little white boy
elected corresponding secretary of the National American Wom-
captured by Native Americans, while The Prisoner of La Vintresse
an Suffrage Association (NAWSA), and spent three years in the
(ca. 1860) exploited a tropical setting with conventional political
New York City ofce. As organizer of the literary department, she
intrigues.
sent out millions of pamphlets, books, and reprints of speeches
Eventually, Denison wrote novels reinforcing religious con- advocating enfranchisement for her sex. Dennetts husband did
servatism and piety, such as Out of Prison (1864), Victor Norman, not share her interest in suffrage, nor did he appreciate the
Rector (1873), and John Dane (1874). They all depict the tempta- geographical separation. The couple was divorced in 1913; she
tion of evil, sin, and lust, but always conclude, anticlimactically, retained custody of the two boys.
279
DERRICOTTE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
It was for these boys that Dennett wrote an essay describing, DERRICOTTE, Toi
in a straightforward way, human reproduction and the sexual
experience. Called The Sex Side of Life, it was published in
the Medical Review of Reviews in 1918. Dennett received requests Born Toinette Webster, 12 April 1941, Hamtramck, Michigan
for reprints and had sent out approximately 25,000 copies when Daughter of Benjamin S. and Antonia Baquet Webster; mar-
the postmaster general deemed the pamphlet obscene and banned ried C. Bruce Derricotte, 1964; children: Anthony
it from the mails. Dennett, who continued to ll requests for the
piece, was found to be in violation of the law by a district court. In 1983, having published two books of poetry and more than
The American Civil Liberties Union took on Dennetts case, and 200 poems and several articles in periodicals and anthologies,
secured a reversal of the decision in the district court of appeals. given countless readings, and conducted numerous seminars for
Dennetts book, Whos Obscene (1930), is a bright and fascinating students of all ages, Toi Derricotte remarked, I want my work to
account of these experiences with the courts. be a wedge into the world, as what is real and not what people
want to hear. In 1991 she atly declared, Denitely my
Dennetts interest in sex education and birth control caused teaching and writing is about making change, yet in a Letter to
her to work with, and ultimately against, Margaret Sanger. In an Editor Who Wants to Publish a Black Writer she said, To be
1915 Sanger violated the federal obscenity statutes by publishing published as a woman of color makes me fear I will be ignored by
her magazine, the Woman Rebel. She ed to Europe to avoid most white people, treated as if I dont exist (Callaloo).
prosecution. During her absence, Dennett took over the edgling
contraceptive movement, organized in the National Birth Control Happily, Derricotte has been far from ignored and her writing
League (NBCL), repudiating Sanger and her tactics. Sanger acknowledged as much too compelling to be treated as if it does
returned to set up her own organization. It and the NBCL clashed not exist. Publishing widely in journals and anthologies, she was
throughout the 1920s. recognized by Maxine Kumin as a poet who transforms the raw
stuff of experience into a language we can all treasure and
Dennett believed that a question of basic civil liberty was continue to draw on. The Village Voices review of Captivity
involved in the birth control campaign and therefore worked (1989), her boldest examination of contemporary black female
through the legislature to eliminate all legal constraints on the experience, proclaimed it an outstanding example of personal
distribution of contraceptive material. Birth Control Laws, which exploration yielding truths that apply to all of usif we admit
she wrote in 1926, explains her position. Although certainly not an them. An African American feminist poet, Derricotte speaks
objective account of the obscenity rulings existing then, the book from a position particularly attuned to American cultures racism
contains a detailed and well-researched delineation of the statutes, and sexism. Yet in doing so, she speaks to men as well as to
as well as thoughtful arguments for their repeal. Dennetts nal women, to whites as well as to blacks; indeed, the profound
contribution to the cause was The Sex Education of Children, paradox in Derricottes work is that by repeatedly examining
published in 1931. states of poverty, abuse, motherhood, and sexual pleasure that
could only be known by women, she manages also to explore
During and after her participation in the birth control move-
experiences of fear, pain, struggle, and ecstasy common to people
ment, Dennett was also involved in other causes. Always interest-
of all races, sexes, nations, and creeds.
ed in the campaign for world peace, she worked from 1914 to
1916 to keep the U.S. out of the European war, serving as eld At twenty-one Derricotte was sent to a home for unwed
secretary of the American Union Against Militarism. When mothers to bear a son; 17 years later she wrote a book of poems
American involvement in the conict caused her to break with the about this experience, Natural Birth (1983). After receiving
Democratic party, she joined the radically antiwar Peoples Coun- her B.A. in special education in 1965 from Wayne State Universi-
cil. Years later, she was a member of the World Federalists and ty in Detroit and marrying Bruce Derricotte, she moved to New
served as their rst chairman from 1941 to 1944. Illness forced York City. There she continued her education by participating in
Dennett to withdraw from active participation in her beloved numerous writers workshops and by studying English literature
movements. But only death, which came in 1947 in a New York and creative writing at New York University (M.A. 1984). An
nursing home, could quench her interest in reform and so- associate professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh since
cial change. 1991, she was a visiting professor of creative writing at NYU in
1992. Derricotte lived for nearly two decades in New Jersey
before moving to Maryland in 1986. Between 1974 and 1991, she
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Dienes, C. T., Law, Politics and Birth Control held diverse teaching positions, including Poet-in-the-School in
(1972). Kennedy, D., Birth Control in America (1970). Lader, L., both New Jersey (1974-88) and Maryland (1987-88), writer-in-
The Margaret Sanger Story (1955). Sanger, M., An Autobiogra- residence for Cummington Community and School of the Arts
phy (1938). (1986), associate professor of English literature at Old Dominion
Reference works: Notable American Women, University (1988-90), and Commonwealth Professor of English at
1607-1950 (1971). George Mason University (1990-91). Derricotte is currently an
Other references: The Prosecution of Mary Ware for Ob- associate professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh.
scenity (1929).
Among Derricottes awards are rst prizes from the Acade-
LYNNE MASEL-WALTERS my of American Poets in 1974 and 1978, the Lucille Medwick
280
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DERRICOTTE
Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America in 1985, Poignantly, Derricottes most radical subject is examined in
National Endowment for the Arts grants in 1985 and 1990, a the most formally regularized poem, as if to emphasize the fact
Pushcart Prize in 1989, a Nicholas Roerich Poets Prize nomina- that the victims are held captive even in death, where they are
tion in 1990, a Distinguished Pioneering of the Arts award in scrutinized anonymously and only within the connes of the
1993, and the 1998 Paterson Prize for poetry. She has also television. Yet this poems speaker dares to ask the type of
contributed to various anthologies and numerous periodicals, question Mama refuses her battered little girl: Am I wrong to
including Iowa Review, American Poetry Review, Massachusetts think / if ve white women had been stripped, / broken, the sirens
Review, Ploughshares, and Feminist Studies. Derricotte served as would wail until / someone was named? The speaking of lost
a member of the editorial staff of the New York Quarterly from lives long overlooked, their tragedies denied, is equated with
1973 to 1977 and cofounded Cave Canem, a summer workshop exhuming those rendered a living dead through neglect.
retreat for African American poets, in 1996.
Tender (1997), Derricottes fourth book of poetry, is divided
Since her rst book in 1978, Derricotte has courageously
into seven sections on topics ranging from the violence of slavery
examined the powers and inuences, agonies and ecstasies of
to contemporary domestic violence. The title poem serves as a hub
family relations. Dedicated to a grandmother who owned a funeral
home and who never offered her Cadillac Fleetwood to drive her from which each section radiates as Derricotte explores how
granddaughter and daughter-in-law home after their weekly vis- violence destroys mind, body, and spirit. Derricotte, a self-
its, Empress of the Death House (1978) does more than relay the described white-appearing Black person, focuses largely on
pathos of mother and daughter always being forced to take the bus the varied identities a woman takes on through her roles as wife,
and to remember their lower status. In this book, formal experi- mother, sister, and daughter, and how each of these identities can
mentations abounddisappeared punctuation, radically stag- lead to violent outcomes. The psychology of race and gender also
gered lines, stanzas of varying and unpredictable length, ampersands comes into play as Derricottes poetry speaks of what it means to
and abbreviations employed for suggestively casual diction (yr), pass for white in todays society.
capitalization used only for emphasis. These disruptive tech-
niques complement the volumes forbidden topicsdeep and Derricottes racial identity forms the core of The Black
abiding anger toward the family all black women are expected to Notebooks: An Interior Journey (1997), which contains excerpts
protect and raw articulations of being hurt and stied by ones from the journals she kept following her 1974 move to an
own people. all-white upper-neighborhood in New Jersey. She expresses both
her pride in her blackness and her shame and self-hatred in
Natural Birth explores subjects considered too low and allowing others to think her white in passages like the following:
socially transgressive for poetrychildbirth and an unwed moth- All my life I have passed invisibly into the white world, and all
ers responses to being hidden away from public knowledge in a my life I have felt that sudden and alarming moment of conscious-
special home, to being pummeled by an impatient doctors ness there, of remembering I am black.
procedure, and to being separated from the life her womb had
protected for nine months. Though she incorporates the period Derricotte uninchingly reveals the emotional turmoil caused
into her technique much more frequently than before, Derricotte by the constant internal struggle over her identity. She describes
uses italics, prose segments, staggered and rhythmically com- the ways in which her ambivalent appearance affected every
manding schemes for lineation, and titles underscoring conations aspect of her life, from riding in a cab to her relationship with her
of objective and subjective time so readers are reminded that husband. The deeply intimate and impassioned journal entries that
meanings are never simply a matter of word choice. When she make up The Black Notebooks are by turns moving, hilarious, and
reads from this collection, the texts are transformed into rocking, painful. Derricotte won several awards for The Black Notebooks,
rolling, rhythmic, erotic performances. Through her near ecstatic including the 1998 Aniseld-Wolf Book Award and the 1998
readings, Derricotte implicitly reminds her audience of the truth Black Caucus of the American Library Association Literary
of the situation: what is unnatural is not the birth out of wedlock Award for nonction.
but societys systematically abetted brutal, slashing response to it.
In Captivity, Derricotte speculates more boldly on the debili- Tackling bloody, bruising, and bruised subjects in her poetry,
tating effects of a perpetually powerless status. Though her Derricotte launches complex and caring critiques of American
technique is somewhat more conventional than in the previous society in her persistent poetic attention to lives of disenfran-
two volumes, prose segments, arresting lineation, and unpredict- chised African American women. In doing so, she forces readers
able stanzaic division still underscore subject matter that is even to grapple with her contention, proclaimed in her 1991 Callaloo
more unconventional. In the prose poem Abuse, Derricotte interview, that a lot of what doesnt get talked about gets
portrays a daughter seeking maternal protection by speaking out translated into violenceracism, sexismand gets worked out in
about abuse by the janitor and abuse by Daddy. Mama families as physical and emotional abuse. She still believes we
seeks to fend off consciousness, responding: Dont tell me that, are prisoners of what we dont know, of what we dont acknowl-
you / make me suffer. On the Turning up of Unidentied Black edge, what we dont bring out, what we arent conscious of,
Female Corpses, a nine-stanza poem of regular, never disrupted deny. And thus Derricotte has dedicated her formidable talents
four-line stanzas, mirrors Mamas attitude of desperate to producing poetic work that is indisputably a wedge into the
resignation. world.
281
DEUTSCH AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
OTHER WORKS: Creative Writing: A Manual for Teachers (with Socrates life, and Rogues Legacy (1942), a tale patterned after
Madeline Tyger,1985). the life of the French poet, Franois Villon.
Deutschs critical writings are concerned with the correlation
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1985). CANR (1991). between modern poetry and modern society. Potable Gold: Some
Oxford Companion to African-American Literature (1997). WW Notes on Poetry and This Age (1929) discusses the inuence of
Among African Americans, 1998-1999 (1997). WW of Writers, technology on poetry and the poets relationship to his public.
Editors and Poets (1989). This Modern Poetry (1935) and Poetry in Our Time (1952) both
Other references: Callaloo (1991). Ikon (1986). Kenyon analyze major poetic gures and study the interrelationship be-
Review (1991). Paris Review (1992). tween poet and politics. According to Deutsch, the modern poet
must create a myth beyond the power of man and therefore be a
MARTHA NELL SMITH, true revolutionary.
OTHER WORKS: Fire for the Night (1930). Poetry Handbook: A

Dictionary of Terms (1956).
DEUTSCH, Babette Articles: An Unhabitual Way in Critical Essays on Kay
Boyle (1997), Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951) in Langston
Born 22 September 1895, New York, New York; died No- Hughes: Critical Perspectives Past and Present (1993)
vember 1982 Audio recordings: Babette Deutsch Reading Her Poems in
Daughter of Michael and Melanie Fisher Deutsch; married the Recording Laboratory (1947), Babette Deutsch Reading Her
Avrahm Yarmolinsky, 1921 Poems in the Coolidge Auditorium (1961), Babette Deutsch
Reading Her Poems with Comment at Station WRVR (1961).
Of German descent, Babette Deutsch grew up in New York The papers of Babette Deutsch are in the New York Public
City, where she received her B.A. from Barnard College in 1917. Library in New York City.
Although best known as a poet, Deutsch published novels, transla-
tions, literary criticism, and childrens books. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Davis, R. H., Jr., Something Truly Revolution-
In 1919, Deutsch published her rst volume of poems, ary: The Correspondence of Babette Deutsch and Avrahm
Banners, whose title piece celebrates the Russian Revolution as Yarmolinsky from Russia, November 1923 to March 1924 in
new freedoms, and new slavery. Honey Out of the Rock Biblion: The Bulletin of the New York Public Library (1993).
(1925), Deutschs second book, contains a number of short Drake, W., The First Wave: Women Poets in America (1987).
imagistic poems, biblically inspired ballads, and poems to her son. Driscoll, M. C., Babette Deutsch and Her Contribution to
Both volumes display the inuence of imagism, Japanese haiku, American Letters (thesis, 1944). Gould, J. American Women
and Greek and Jewish culture. Poets: Pioneers of Modern Poetry (1980).
Reference works: Benets Readers Encyclopedia (1987).
Considered by some critics to be Deutschs best work, CA (1977). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United
Epistle to Prometheus (1930), is a letter written by a contempo- States (1995).
rary to the Greek god. It is a survey of human history, beginning Other references: Kresh, P., ed., Babette Deutsch, Louise
with his creation and tracing the Promethean spirit as it has Bogan, Leonore G. Marshall, Stephen Vincent Benet, and Mal-
inspired humanity in 5th-century Greece, 18th-century France, colm Cowley Reading Their Poems (audio recording, 1970).
and 20th-century Russia. NYHTB (12 July 1959). Poetry (1964). SR (25 July 1959). TLS (18
June 1964). VQR (1964).
Deutschs nal three volumes of poetry, One Part Love
(1939), Take Them, Stranger (1944), and Animal, Vegetable, and DIANE LONG HOEVELLER
Mineral (1954), all reveal her rage at the destruction of World
War II. In To Napoleon she asks, But who will cut the
growth/ That gnaws at Europe now? Deutschs poetry has been
collected in two volumes: Collected Poems, 1919-62 (1963) and DeVEAUX, Alexis
Coming of Age: New and Selected Poems (1959).
As a novelist, Deutsch began her career with A Brittle Born 24 September 1948, New York
Heaven (1926), a thinly veiled autobiography about a young Daughter of Richard Hill and Mae DeVeaux
womans youth, education, and marriage. The novel reveals the
major conicts facing a woman struggling to dene herself both Feminist, poet, playwright, ction and childrens book writ-
as a professional writer, and a wife and mother. Deutschs second er, illustrator, and political journalist, Alexis DeVeaux places
novel, In Such a Night (1927), is essentially a series of character African Americans, most often black women, at the center of her
sketches showing the inuence of Virginia Woolfs stream-of- artistic world. Her work concentrates on the personal struggles
consciousness technique in Mrs. Dalloway. Deutschs other nov- and resolve of women, especially as they deal with love and
els are Mask of Silenus (1933), a historical novel based on sexuality. DeVeaux focuses on intimate relationships, whether
282
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DIAZ
they involve lesbian lovers (The Sister), contending forces in a on Her Head (videocassette and book, 1987, 1991); Midnight
love triangle (Dont Explain, 1980), or a daughter and her parent Birds: Stories by Contemporary Black Women (1990); Memory of
(Adventures of the Dread Sisters). Because she believes that Kin: Stories About Family by Black Writers (1991); and others.
an understanding of the self in relationship with the intimate other
leads to an understanding of the community, the nation, the world,
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Clarke, C., Blue Heat by Alexis DeVeaux in
DeVeauxs work also gives testimony to black culture. As Mary
Conditions, Thirteen: International Focus I (1986). Kraft, M.,
Helen Washington notes, Nigeria, the central character in Dread
Alexis De Veaux: The Riddles of Egypt Brownstone in The
Sisters (1989), is then not an isolated teenager but a collective
African American short story, 1970-1990: A Collection of Critical
protagonist. DeVeauxs writing projects her feminist perspec-
Essays (1993). Tate, C., ed., Black Women Writers at Work
tive that the personal is the political.
(1983). Washington, M. H., Commentary on Alexis De Veaux,
DeVeaux grew up in Harlem and the South Bronx, which Memory of Kin. Wilkerson, M. B. ed., Nine Plays by Black
serve as the settings for most of her work. Both Na-Ni (1973), Women (1985).
which received an Art Books for Children Award from the Reference works: Black Authors and Illustrators of Child-
Brooklyn Museum (1974-75), and Spirits in the Streets (1973) are rens Books (1988). Black Writers (1989). CA (1977). CANR
set in Harlem and revolve around the theme of preserving (1989). DLB (1985). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in
spiritual vitality in a ghetto environment. While DeVeauxs the United States (1995).
stories often embrace the harsh realities of poverty and exploita- Other references: Ms. 8 (June 1980).
tion, they are also infused with hope and beauty.
DALE A. DOOLEY,
Spirits in the Streets (1973) reects DeVeauxs array of UPDATED BY NELSON RHODES
artistic talents. It integrates innovative use of language within
narrative, lyric, and dialogue, with illustrations and variations of
typography. Spirits is at once a poem, a mural, and a song.
DEXTER, John
Music has a great inuence on DeVeauxs writing. The See BRADLEY, Marion Zimmer
Riddles of Egypt Brownstone (1977), she explains, is like jazz,
each instrument/character playing variations on the melody so
that the story is told not as a linear experience but as a holistic
one. Jazz and language come together fully in Dont Explain: A DIAZ, Abby Morton
Song of Billie Holiday (1980), a ctionalized biography of the
singer, written in lyric form for young adults. Born Abigail Morton, 22 November 1821, Plymouth, Massachu-
DeVeaux earned a B.A. from the State University of New setts; died 1 April 1904, Belmont, Massachusetts
York-Empire State College (1976) and a Ph.D. from the SUNY at Daughter of Ichabod and Patty Weston Morton; married Manuel
Buffalo (1992). She has been a community worker, an instructor Diaz, 1845
of reading and English, and a teacher of creative writing and
theater workshops in New York and Connecticut. A freelance Abigail Diaz was the only daughter of Ichabod Morton, a
writer since 1974, she has also been a contributing editor and shipbuilder, liberal Unitarian, and social reformer. In 1842 he
editor-at-large of Essence magazine. DeVeaux has written a took his family to the Transcendental utopian community, Brook
number of essays for Essence in which she reasserts her global Farm, where Diaz remained until 1847, teaching in the associa-
feminist perspective, calling for the political and social liberation tions infant school. She later taught school in Plymouth and
of black and Third World women. Her stories and poems have began writing. In May 1861 her rst story appeared in Atlantic
appeared in several publications, including Black Creation, Con- Monthly, and she eventually published in many leading juvenile
ditions: Five, and the Iowa Review. and domestic magazines of the day. Diaz was a founder and, from
1881 to 1892, president of the Womens Educational and Industri-
As a playwright, DeVeauxs Tapestry and Circles were al Union of Boston, which she saw as a sisterhood allying
produced for the television series Visions in 1976, while three urban women of means with country girls seeking work in the
other plays were produced by different theatre groups: A Season to city. In the 1880s and 1890s, Diaz traveled widely, organizing
Unravel (1979), No (1981), and Elbow Rooms (1987). In the late womens unions and lecturing at womens clubs. She was active
1990s, DeVeaux was back at SUNY Buffalo, where shed com- in the woman suffrage movement, which she saw as an outgrowth
pleted her Ph.D., to teach in the American Studies Department. of the abolition of slavery. In her later years, she became interest-
ed in Christian Science and published articles on religious subjects.
OTHER WORKS: Li Chen/Second Daughter, First Son (1975). Blue Diazs best, and most successful, juvenile ction is The
Heat: a Portfolio of Poems and Drawings (1985). An Enchanted William Henry Letters (1870), rst published in 1867 in the
Hair Tale (1987). The Woolu Hat (1997). Audre Lorde (1997). magazine Our Young Folks. Epistolary in form, it recounts the
Contributor to: Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology adventures of a mischievous redheaded boy raised by his loving
(1983); Black-Eyed Susans; The Tapestry in 9 Plays by Black grandmother. Overall, the Letters sentimentally evoke family life
Women (1986); An Enchanted Hair in The Lady with the Ship and simple fun in an idealized New England village. Theodore
283
DICKINSON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Roosevelt in his Autobiography described this book, one of his Simple Traveller (1880). The Story of Boxberry (1880). King
favorites, as a good healthy story, teaching manliness, decen- Grimalkin and Pussyanna (1881). Polly Cologne (1881). Chroni-
cy and good conduct. cles of the Stimpcett Family and Others (1882). Spirit As Power
(1886). The Law of Perfection (1886). The John Spicer Lectures
Two sequels were popular: William Henry and His Friends (1887). Leaves of Healing (1887). Conventions During the
(1871) and Lucy Maria (1874). The latter, apparently loosely Anti-Slavery Agitation (1889). In the Strength of the Lord (1889).
autobiographical, concerns a girl who took up school-keeping Mother Gooses Christmas Party (1891). The Law of Perfection
with too much self-condence and soon concluded that it is a (1895). The Religious Training of Children (1895). The Flatiron
very solemn thing to give even one life its rst direction. and the Red Cloak (1901). Those People From Skyton and
Lucy Maria wants to do heart-teaching, rather than head- Nine Other Stories (1906).
teaching; like Diaz at Brook Farm, she takes her students into the
woods to interest them in owers, trees, insectsall natural
objects. On woman suffrage, Lucy Maria, again like Diaz at this BIBLIOGRAPHY: Codman, J. T., Brook Farm (1884). Croly, J. C.,
time, disclaims personal interest in the vote (except on some History of the Womens Club Movement in America (1898).
neighborhood affair such as the location of a schoolhouse) Donham, S. A., History of the Womens Educational and Industri-
but feels that other women should have the vote if they want it, as al Union (dissertation, 1955). Swift, L., Brook Farm (1900).
suffrage is a natural right. Reference works: NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). A Woman of the
Century (1893).
Diazs interest in improving home life and the instruction of Other references: Womens Journal (14 Apr. 1904).
young children is evinced in several of her most effective books:
The Schoolmasters Trunk (1874), A Domestic Problem (1875), JANE BENARDETE
Bybury to Beacon Street (1887), and Only a Flock of Women
(1893). These novels are set in small towns with little social life.
Isolated and repressive, they are halfway stations between the
old-fashioned village and the modern city. Families struggle to DICKINSON, Emily
maintain decent standards and parents wear themselves out
with work. To reform these conditions, Diaz proposes various Born 10 December 1830, Amherst, Massachusetts; died 15 May
domestic economies, simplifying womens chores so they may 1886, Amherst, Massachusetts
devote more time to their children and to self-improvement. Men, Daughter of Edward and Emily Norcross Dickinson
she feels, should share household tasks so they may appreciate the
difculty of womens work. The community should meet Emily Dickinsons American ancestry began with Nathaniel
convivially to discuss its problems. These ideas found their Dickinson, a religious dissenter who settled in Connecticut in
practical outlet in Diazs work for the Womens Educational and 1630. Dickinsons grandfather was a founder of Amherst College,
Industrial Union, which provided personal guidance and legal and her father, Edward Dickinson, became a Massachusetts judge,
protection for working girls and women in Boston. Because of this member of the state legislature, and a U.S. congressman. A
afliation alone, she is described as an industrial reformer in formidable parent, and an exemplar of the Puritan ethic of
Willard and Livermores American Women (1897). industry and public service, he was for the most part aloof; his
Through more than 20 years, Diaz was a prolic author of daughter observed that he was too busy with his briefs to notice
juvenile stories and essays. These consistently reect her affec- his children. Her mother, Emily Norcross Dickinson, appears to
tion for children and a charming delight in games and pastimes. have been an equally remote parent, a semi-invalid for much of
The volumes of domestic advice are pleasantly stated, chatty, her childrens lives and, in Dickinsons view, a failure as a
down-to-earth. Many of the household reforms Diaz suggests mother. Dickinson once wrote a friend, I never had a mother.
have since been accomplished by labor-saving machinery, but her In childhood Dickinson suffered from a shyness and an
comments testify to the physical difculty of farm and village life emotional sensitivity she recognized as marking her different
for women a century ago. Her early exposure to Transcendental or from the others. She grew up companioned mainly by her older
Emersonian idealism is evident to the end of her life in her views brother and younger sister, who were to remain her closest ties. In
of children, education, and the prospect of moral improvement. accordance with the family emphasis upon educationfor daugh-
ters as well as sonsshe attended Amherst Academy and was sent
for a year to Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before her father
OTHER WORKS: The Entertaining Story of King Bronde, His Lily
decided her precarious health made further formal education unwise.
and His Rosebud (1869). A Storybook for the Children (1875).
Neighborhood Talks, As Reported by Mr. Codding (1876). Birds Returning home, Dickinson developed the literary interests
of Prey (with N. A. Calkins, 1878). Cat Family (with N. A. that suited her preference for isolationreading, corresponding
Calkins, 1878). The Jimmyjohns and Other Stories (1878). Scratch- with a few friends, and writing poems. Except for occasional visits
ing Birds (with N. A. Calkins, 1878). Swimming Birds (with N. A. to neighboring cities and a trip with her father to Washing-
Calkins, 1878). Wading Birds (with N. A. Calkins, 1878). Brave ton, D.C., she did not leave her birthplace again. By her thirtieth
Little Goose-girl: Little Stories for Little Folks (1880). Christmas year, she had withdrawn even from the life of Amherst. To the
Morning (1880). Merry Christmas (1880). Molasses Candy (1880). townspeople she became a legendary gure, an eccentric spinster
284
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DICKINSON
who dressed always in white, rarely received a visitor, and refused gentleman caller, escorts her to her grave: The carriage held but
to venture beyond the family house and garden. just ourselves/ And Immortality. The prospects of immortality
are left uncertain. Its signicance is that it is her only companion
Found in her room after her death was a manuscript, in the
in her isolation from the world left behind. In some poems, death
style of homemade pamphlets, of almost 900 poems, only seven of
may be simply a welcome release into oblivion; in others it
which she had published. All were short lyrics, often no more than
contains the tantalizing possibility of salvation. In this poem it is a
a quatrain or two; almost all were untitled and undated; some were
horrifying sentence to the solitude of unending existence.
unnished; some appeared in variant versions. The labor of
collecting additional manuscripts and of publishing selections of Dickinsons love poems are also usually about parting,
her verse was undertaken rst by family and friends, none of separation, and loss. They support the biographical evidence that
whom suspected their actual value. The rst Poems by Emily she suffered from a secret and hopeless love explaining her years
Dickinson appeared four years after her death, to mainly hostile of seclusion. The identity of the man has not been established.
reviews. Periodically, as new poems originally sent to friends Circumstantial evidence suggests Charles Wadsworth, a married
were discovered, new collections followed. In this century, the minister with whom she corresponded for many years. Other
number of poems has continued to increase; more than 650 were candidates have been argued.
published for the rst time as late as 1945. The authoritative text
of all known poems, numbering almost 1,800, is the three-volume The most impassioned poems are the renunciation and
edition by Thomas H. Johnson, which nally appeared in 1955. bridal poems of the 1860s, in which earthly separation is a
(The poems cited below are identied by their numbers in the prelude to spiritual reunion in heaven. In these, the theological
Johnson edition. The text has been normalized.) doctrines of Divine Election and the Marriage Covenant are
applied to a spiritual contract with a temporal groom. The
The subjects of Dickinsons poetry are, broadly, the subjects subject is sometimes handled with an ingenuity reminiscent of
of lyric tradition: love, nature, death, and God. Her religious John Donne, as in I cannot live with you (640), and Twas a
attitudes, in all their bewildering variety, permeate the bulk of her long parting (625). The poems, however, are highly generalized
verse. Except for a brief conversion experience in adolescence, and, without sustaining particulars, tend to be unconvincing. At
she resisted both family pressures and the revivalist fervor that their worst, as in Mine by the right of the white election (528),
moved through New England in her time. In some poems she is they become a series of ecstatic assertions, an abandonment to
seemingly the orthodox believer, Given in marriage unto Thee excess verging on mental unbalance. The best poems are those
(317). More often she acknowledges herself the disbeliever whom that are least reliant upon religious vocabulary and which deal
Christ omitted, observing of her exclusion that The abdica- simply, often very movingly, with the grief of separation.
tion of belief/ Makes the behavior small (1551). Characteristi-
cally, she is both doubter and quester, probing the mysteries of Many of Dickinsons nature poems are slight, whimsical
death, immortality, and eternity, appropriating biblical sources of exercises describing the particulars available in her own garden
Calvinist theology, but preferring to question on her own terms a caterpillar, a garden snake, a robin, or buttery. Their charm is in
Innitude, hadst thou no face/ That I might look on Thee? (564). their metaphorical exactitude. A snake becomes a whip-lash,/
Unbraiding in the sun (986). In its larger aspects, nature may be
The grand abstractions come to hand as readily as her responsive to her moods, but it never becomes the surrogate
metaphors for God, whom she may address with a familiarity that divinity of Emersonian transcendentalism. It remains remote, a
would have scandalized her ancestors. He is her Visitor, our haunted house from which man is excluded. It is an ominous
old neighbor, God, Banker, Shopmall, even the remorse- reminder of transiency and human isolation, for which Dickinson
less Inquisitor, who withholds from his victims the release of supplies her own religious analogues. An impressive example is
death. There is another God, the one the unbeliever cannot the poem beginning, Theres a certain slant of light,/ Winter
approach, the withdrawn God she knows exists/ Somewhere, in afternoons,/ That oppresses like the heft/Of cathedral tunes
silence. And the silence is unendurablea jest that has crawled (258). Nature is here sealed in seasonal death, but for man, death
too far (338). translates as the seal, Despair, or spiritual death. This is one of
Death, on the other hand, is the mighty reality. She Dickinsons nest poems.
contemplates it with chilling comprehension, both in the abstract
Dickinsons letters supplement her poetry. They relate her
and in the particular. As in other poems, Dickinsons fascination
early reactions to death, notably the death of a girlfriend her own
with death is not macabre; it is prompted by her awareness of the
age, and the religious stresses of adolescence when she saw
irreducible separation of the dead from the living. The tragedy lies
herself standing alone in rebellion. She often refers to her
in the inability of the living to come to terms with the separation
loneliness, but there are early hints, too, that her highly sensitive
with what she elsewhere calls the distance/ On the look of
nature found refuge in isolation. As her letters increasingly
Death (258).
become her only contact with the world, her dependency upon her
When Dickinson imagines her own death, she explores the father and brother extends to other men, with whom she estab-
other side. The viewpoint is reversed; it is that of the corpse, which lishes a pupil-teacher relationship. The letters to Charles Wadsworth
must try to accept the separation of the living from the dead. In one have been lost, but there is evidence his move to California
of her most famous poems, Because I could not stop for Death precipitated an emotional crisis. His departure coincides with the
(712), death appears personied, and with the eerie civility of a beginning of her serious dedication to poetry and of her most
285
DICKINSON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
productive years. About the same time, the friend who saved her Poems by Emily Dickinson, Third Series, edited by M. L. Todd
life appears. This was Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a poetry (1896). The Single Hound, edited by M. D. Bianchi (1914). The
critic for Atlantic Monthly, to whom she submitted four of her Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by M. D. Bianchi and
poems. Higginsons response initiated a correspondence lasting A. L. Hampson (1924). Further Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited
more than two decades, during which he served as friend and by M. Bianchi and A. L. Hampson (1929). The Poems of Emily
literary mentor. Unfortunately, he appears to have been a man of Dickinson, edited by M. D. Bianchi and A. L. Hampson (1930).
conventional tastes, and his limited appreciation of her work may Unpublished Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by M. D. Bianchi
have conrmed her fear of publication. and A. L. Hampson (1935). Poems by Emily Dickinson, edited by
M. D. Bianchi and A. L. Hampson (1937). Ancestors Brocades:
Aside from biographical interest, the letters are marked very
early by Dickinsons talent for language. She recreates in detail The Literary Debut of Emily Dickinson, edited by M. T. Bingham
the limited world she knewAmherst, the meeting house, daily (1945). Bolts of Melody: New Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited
family lifeand she entertains with a surprising are for witty by M. L. Todd and M. T. Bingham (1945). The Poems of Emily
appraisals of neighbors and family members. She shows little Dickinson, edited by T. H. Johnson (1955). The Letters of Emily
interest in external matters, even a civil war. The personality is Dickinson, edited by T. H. Johnson and T. Ward (1958). The
present in her need for warm, human exchange and in her Years and Hours of Emily Dickinson, edited by J. Leyda (1960).
sensibility; but the inner life, which is the life of her poetry, rarely Final Harvest: Emily Dickinsons Poems, edited by T. H. Johnson
surfaces. (1961). The Master Letters of Emily Dickinson (1986). Selected
Letters of Emily Dickinson (1986). Eleven Poems by Emily
The strengths, as well as the strangeness, of Dickinsons Dickinson (1988). A Brighter Garden: Poetry (1989). Inland
poetry derive in large measure from her Puritan heritage. She saw, Souls: Emily Dickinson Poems, Mary Beth Fogarty Paper Draw-
as she said, New Englandly. In the waning years of Puritanism, ings (1989). Emily Dickinson Journal (1992). The Collected
life remained for her a spiritual drama. She lived the drama, and Poems of Emily Dickinson (1993). The Works of Emily Dickinson
she recorded it with the terseness of her native idiom. She did not (1994). Emily Dickinsons Open Folios: Scenes of Reading,
translate the terms of the conict simplistically into those of good Surfaces of Writing (1995). Seven Poems of Emily Dickinson
and evilevil did not interest herbut into the shifting oppositions (1995). Skies in Blossom: The Nature Poetry of Emily Dickinson
of doubt and belief, of the known and the unknowable. Even her (1995). Emily Dickinson: Selected Poems (1996). A Light Exists
major themesdenial and renunciationwere the themes of the in Spring, and Other Poems (1996). The Essential Dickinson
Puritan pulpit, enacted in the rigorous lives and other-worldliness (1996). Final Harvest: Emily Dickinsons Poems (1997). Open
of her ancestors. Her favorite verse forms were the short lines and Me Carefully: Emily Dickinsons Intimate Letters to Susan
stanza patterns of the hymnal. Huntington Dickinson (1998). The Poems of Emily Dickin-
Dickinson is noted for the technical irregularities that aroused son (1999).
the scorn of some of her 19th-century reviewersand caused Both the Jones Library at Amherst College and the Houghton
drastic revisions by early editors: off-rhymes, broken meters, Library at Harvard University house collections of Emily Dickin-
curious punctuation, and ungrammatical phrasing. These are sons manuscripts.
given less importance by the less conventional-minded critics of
today. The aws rarely obtrude on her better poetry, and when
they do, they hardly outweigh its virtues. At her best, she is a BIBLIOGRAPHY: Alfrey, S., The Sublime of Intense Sociability:
skillful prosodist, who adapted rhyme and meter to her purposes, Emily Dickinson, H. D., and Gertrude Stein (1999). Ander-
achieving emotional shadings unobtainable by conventional means. son, C. R., Emily Dickinsons Poetry: Stairway of Surprise
Her elliptical grammar remains troublesome. It adds to an already (1960). Blackmur, R. P., Language as Gesture (1952). Cameron, S.,
highly abbreviated style the mark of mannerism, of private Choosing Not Choosing (1992). Caze, A., ed., Emily Dickinson
note-taking. (1997). Chase, R., Emily Dickinson (1951). Cunningham, J. V.,
Collected Essays (1976). Donoghue, D., Emily Dickinson (1969).
In this century, Yvor Winters, Alan Tate, and R. P. Blackmur
Eberwein, J. D., ed., An Emily Dickinson Encyclopedia (1998).
were among the rst important critics to recognize her stature as a
Farr, J., The Passion of Emily Dickinson (1994). Franklin, R. W.,
major poet. Winters assessment that she is one of the greatest
ed., The Mansucript Books of Emily Dickinson (2 volumes, 1981).
poets of our language has stood. At extremes, she is childish or
Frye, N., Fables of Identity (1963). Fuller, J., The Diary of Emily
overdramatic. The oddity of her verse is more often than not
Dickinson (1993). Fulton, A., Feeling as a Foreign Language:
the oddity of her genius for powerful expression, unexpected
The Good Strangeness of Poetry (1999). Grabher, G., et al eds.,
turns, and striking phrases. Her great achievement is that she
Emily Dickinson Handbook (1998). Gelpi, J., Emily Dickinson:
confronted implacable truths with dreadful honesty andin the
The Mind of the Poet (1965). Grifth, C., The Long Shadow:
words of another woman poet, Louise Boganhad the power to
Emily Dickinsons Tragic Poetry (1964). Higgins, D., Portrait of
say the unsayable.
Emily Dickinson: The Poet and Her Prose (1967). Juhasz, ed.,
Feminist Critics Read Emily Dickinson (1983). Loeffelholz, M.,
OTHER WORKS: Selected titles: Poems by Emily Dickinson, Sec- Dickinson and the Boundaries of Feminist Thought (1991).
ond Series, edited by M. L. Todd and T. W. Higginson (1891). Longsworth, P., The World of Emily Dickinson (1997). Lundin, R.,
286
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DIDION
Emily Dickinson and the Art of Belief (1998). Miller, C., Emily recording of actual dialogue conveying the pathetic naivet of the
Dickinson: A Poets Grammar (1987). Pearce, R. H., The Conti- ower children, drifting through drug-lled days, their lives
nuity of American Poetry (1961). Perkins, C. N., 100 Authors Who circumscribed by a few vague ideas rendered only in pale and
Shaped World History (1996). Petrino, E. A., Emily Dickinson repetitious platitudes. The other essays that comprise the rst
and Her Contemporaries: Womens Verse in America, 1820-1885 section of the collection, entitled Life Styles in the Golden
(1998). St. Armand, B. L., Emily Dickinson and her Culture: The Land, are companion pieces to the title essay in that they either
Souls Society (1984). Sewall, R. B., The Life of Emily Dickinson dramatize a desperation for immediate gratication or recall with
(1974). Simon, M., and T. H. Parsons, eds., Transcendentalism nostalgia the old American values of courage, self-sufciency,
and Its Legacy (1966). Small, J. J., Postitive as Sound: Emily and privacy. In all of these essays, California emerges as the last
Dickinsons Rhyme (1990). Smith, M. N., Rowing in Eden: frontier of American idealism, the place where people act out their
Rereading Emily Dickinson (1992). Stein, E., A Ribbon at a Time: largely vain hopes for peace, for community, for eternal romance.
A Portrait of Emily Dickinson (1996). Strait, D. H., The Work of The two nal sections of Slouching Towards Bethlehem consist of
Community: Solitude, Service, and Experience in Selected Prose ve personal essays and seven that seek to capture the peculiar
and Poetry of George Herbert and Emily Dickinson (dissertation, spirit and avor of a geographical place. These 12 essays mingle
1998). Tanter, M. L., Behind the Wall of Sense: Emily Dickin- the objective and the frankly personal; they provide an insight into
son and her Nineteenth-Century British Writers (dissertation, Didions background and her character, which is observant,
1996). Tate, A., Collected Essays (1959). Teegarden, L. M., The self-critical, unsentimental, and keenly sensitive to all types of
Search of the Circumferencial Poet: A Study of the Religious irony and incongruity.
Questionings of Emily Dickinson (thesis, 1994). Ward, T., The
Didion has all the qualities of a brilliant essayist. Her themes
Capsule of the Mind: Chapters in the Life of Emily Dickinson
are clear, her anecdotes dramatic, her style swift and crisp. In
(1961). Winters, Y., Maules Curse (1938). Wolff, C. G., Emily
addition to their merit as models of prose style, her essays increase
Dickinson (1986).
our understanding of her ction. Notes from a Native Daugh-
Other references: American Literature (Sept., 1994). Archi-
ter narrates the history of the Sacramento Valley, the setting for
tectural Digest (July, 1992). Perspectives USA (Spring 1956).
Run River, and Los Angeles Notebook depicts this city as one
Legacy (1998). Journal of American History (1999). NYRB (May
of impersonal tensions, while providing sketches of the barren
1990, 1999). NYTBR (December 1998). New England Quarterly
relationships we nd in Play It as It Lays.
(June 1993, 1997).
Between 1971, the year in which her second novel, Play It as
MARGARET PETERSON It Lays appeared, and 1977, Didion concentrated primarily on her
ction, pausing only to do an occasional screenplay with her
husband. (Didion and Dunne collaborated on the screenplay for
the lm version of Play It as It Lays, and on the script for the
Barbra Streisand version of A Star Is Born.) Her novel A Book of
DIDION, Joan Common Prayer appeared in March 1977.
In 1972 Didion alienated many feminists with an essay in the

Born 5 December 1934, Sacramento, California
New York Times Book Review that attacked feminists for their
Daughter of Frank R. and Eduene Jerrett Didion; married John
tendency to become obsessed with trivia. The essay makes
Gregory Dunne, 1964
explicit a view of women that is pervasive in her ction; women
share, she believes, a sense of living ones deepest life underwa-
Joan Didion graduated from the University of California at ter, that dark involvement with blood and birth and death. In the
Berkeley with a B.A. in English in 1956, and in the same year same essay, Didion attacked narrow feminist interpretations of
became an associate feature editor with Vogue magazine in New literature, expressing the view that since the writer is committed to
York City. She remained at Vogue until 1963, the year in which the exploration of moral distinctions and ambiguities, all
she published Run River, her rst novel. Between 1963 and 1969, political interpretations of literature must of necessity represent a
Didion wrote essays and feature articles for Vogue, the National distortion.
Review, Harpers, Holiday, and, most regularly, the Saturday
Evening Post. Her rst collection of essays, Slouching Towards Ironically, there is much in Didions ction to appeal to the
Bethlehem was published in 1968, and in the same year she true feminist. Each of her novels concerns the experience of
became a contributing editor of Life magazine. womentheir relationships with men, with their parents and
children, and with each other. Maria Wyeth, the central character
Slouching Towards Bethlehems essays, all published previ- of Play It as It Lays, feels her closest bonds with her daughter and
ously (the majority in the Saturday Evening Post) make a power- her dead mother; Grace Strasser-Mendana, the narrator of A Book
ful statement about American society in the 1960s. The title essay of Common Prayer, is not only the strongest and most rational
describes the variety of young people Didion met in 1967 when character in the novel, but also feels a sisterly bond with Charlotte
she spent some time in Haight-Ashbury. It is a vivid narrative, a Douglas, whose life and death form the subject of the book.
287
DIDION AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Didions deepest concern, however, is with the illusions on The White Album (1979) is Didions second collection of
which people build their lives, illusions made necessary by the essays, most of which were previously published in such maga-
death of old values and the absence of viable new ones. Her novels zines as Esquire and Life. The essays record her response to events
dramatize the consequences of social, economic, and political of the late 1960s and early 1970s, including reections on the
change that occurs so rapidly as to produce disorder in individual Manson family, and a return to the subject of Hollywood, de-
lives, in families, and, ultimately, in whole societies. scribed here ironically as the last extant stable society. The
volume also reprints Didions essay on the womens movement,
In Run River, set in the early 1940s, Didion studies the which caused considerable controversy among feminists when it
younger generation of two old families of Californias Sacramen- rst appeared in 1972. Didion takes less political looks at Georgia
to Valley. In this work, Didion demonstrated the qualities for OKeeffe, writes about personal experiences with migraines and
which her ction has become knownswift action, convincing travels in Hawaii and Bogot and even includes her own psychiat-
dialogue, and the ability to render complex female characters ric evaluation.
struggling to nd purpose in a disordered society. The chief
weakness of the book is the wooden character of Everett; as the Salvador (1982) is a difcult, extended essay documenting
pivotal male gure loved desperately by the two central female Didions two-week stay in the country. In one sense a travel diary,
characters, he required sharper delineation than Didion gave him. the book seeks to provide insight into the complexities plaguing
Central America. She presents the conict in El Salvador with
Play It as It Lays is a biting portrayal of a world in which little explanation or background; the confusion of the narrative
people use each other to gain success, recognition, or sensual mirrors the senselessness of the violence and hate she nds there.
pleasure. Because men possess most of the power, women are Often the people she meets who are involved in the ghting do not
especially likely to be victims. As narrator of the novel, Didion is seem to understand the conict themselves. Quite scathingly
unobtrusive, completely neutral; she simply presents Marias critical of American involvement in the crisis, Didion nds the
thoughts and actions. As a consequence of her technique, the mechanism of terror to be beyond irony. Salvador is Didion at
reader is not sure of her attitude toward her central character. her most despairing.
Some reviewers of the novel considered Maria the victim of a
brutal society; others considered her malevolent. The truth lies In Miami (1987), Didion analyzes the many complexities of
somewhere between these extreme interpretations. As a child/ the society, culture, and politics of a city of exiles and racial
woman, Maria is far too fragile for the society in which she lived; groups deeply at odds. Within the context of the history of U.S.-
however, through her passivity she participates in her own exploi- Cuban relations and its many failures, she explores the diverse
tation so her breakdown becomes, in effect, a self-conrming views and feelings of Cuban exiles and the impact of the experi-
prophecy. ence of exile. The book richly demonstrates Didions ability to see
the many sides of a difcult and confusing situation.
In A Book of Common Prayer, Didions strongest female
character yet serves as narrator. This is Didions most ambitious Didions ability to recognize, imagine, and capture a variety
novel in several respects; it has the most complex narrative of viewpoints and her mastery of the language establish her as a
structure: since the narrator met Charlotte Douglas late in both major writer. As critic Joan Zseleckzy concluded, It is not any
their lives, she must convincingly reconstruct all the previous journalist who can write a novel. It is not any journalist who can
action involving her. It also has the most complex cast of tell a story. Didion has continued to contribute to a variety of
magazines, particularly the New Yorker and the New York Review
characters, four of whomCharlotte, Grace, and Charlottes two
of Books, and to write screenplays with her husband (including
husbandsare fully developed, and the most complex setting,
1996s Up Close and Personal starring Robert Redford and
with scenes in San Francisco, New York City, and several
Michelle Pfeiffer). All of her work takes an honest, often cynical
Southern cities, all interlaced with scenes in Boca Grande, a
view of politics, society, personal relationships, even of Didion
ctitious Central American country Didion renders as convincing
herself. A master of language and prose, she conveys ideas
as any of the other locales.
succinctly in a spare but eloquent style. Believing that we tell
In these two novels, Didion has rened a tight and colloquial ourselves stories in order to live, her work continues to be driven
style, stripped of any expansive descriptions or explanations. The by her sense of moral urgency.
strength of her ction resides in this dramatic style, bringing the
In Didions recent literary offering, The Last Thing He
reader close to the events and characters and to render complex,
Wanted (1996), she weaves a web of covert operations and
often ironic, relationships through pure dialogue. Since 1979,
cloaked assassination attempts in a stunningly written
most of Didions work has been nonction; she has published
arms-deal-for-hostages story making it all too clear that American
only one novel, Democracy (1984), which is ction appearing as
foreign policy is not always created by branches of the govern-
nonction, even journalism. Didion places herself in the book as a
ment. Told in the objective, almost disembodied voice of investi-
narrator recounting the story of the Christian and Victor families
gative journalist Lilianne Owen, the reader follows along as the
and of their rise and eventual fall. Deliberately blurring the
reporter reconstructs the story 10 years after its actual occurrence.
distinctions between ction and journalism, Didion creates a
convincing narrative, especially in its climax against the backdrop Didions format in The Last Thing He Wanted is quite
of the U.S. evacuation of Saigon and the fall of the city. effective. The reader is led through the journalists reconstruction
288
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DILLARD
of the story and, in effect, eavesdrops on the raw notes dictated forces its way through the picturesque. Annie Dillards writings
into the journalists tape recorder. Lilianne is an enigma. She very beautifully depict earthly places, but she is no tourist. Nor, as
often seems to be the protagonist Elena, but reminds the reader she some would have it, is she a sort of roving regionalist. Raised in
(Lilianne) is only reconstructing Elenas story. An interesting the city, she adopted the Blue Ridge creeks, valleys, and hills
approach, especially since the reader is never given much infor- around Roanoke, Virginia, during and after her days at Hollins
mation about Lilianne. College. She now is scholar-in-residence at Western Washington
State College and lives on northern Puget Sound.
When asked why she wanted to write a thriller such as Last
Thing, Didion replied, I had never written anything that depend- Dillard startled critics with Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, which
ed totally on working out a plot, where everything has to mean won the Pulitzer Prize in 1974. Viewed by many as a naturalist
something. It was a technical exercise. It is quite hard to do, but who brilliantly revealed natures fecundity and violence, Dillard
quite interesting. The result is some of Didions nest work. was compared to writers as disparate as Thoreau and Melville.
Nature is not her real focus, however. She says of her work, Art
is my interest, mysticism my message, Christian mysticism.
OTHER WORKS: Telling Stories (1978). After Henry (1992, in Indeed, the ultimate meaning of all her work is missed if Dillard is
the U.K. as Sentimental Journeys). Some Women (1992). interpreted as a Thoreauvian transcendentalist. The faults identi-
ed by many commentatorsher extreme allusiveness and too-
dense imagery, her obliviousness to what humans have done to
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Friedman, E. G., Joan Didion: Essays and Con- nature, her escapismcan all be accounted for if the reader
versations (1984). Gender Studies: New Directions in Feminist understands that Dillards main subject is not creation (nature),
Criticism (1986). Hanley, L. T., Writing War: Fiction, Gender, but Creator.
and Memory (1991). Henderson, K. U., Joan Didion (1981).
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is, she says, really a book of
Merivale, P., ed., Innocence, Loss, and Recovery in the Art of Joan
theology it records the changing patterns of nature over a year in
Didion (1989). Pearlman, M., ed., American Women Writing
a few acres on Tinker Creek, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The
Fiction (1989). Winchell, M. R., Joan Didion (1980).
year is as liturgical as it is natural, and this journal is a mystic
Reference works: CA (1969). CANR (1985). CLC (1973,
meditation on the terror and glory of creation. The terror is
1975, 1978, 1980, 1985). CB (1978). DLB (1978). DLBY (1981,
captured in such episodes as the giant water bug sucking out the
1986). FC (1990). MTCW (1991). Modern American Women
frogs life blood or the praying mantis consuming her mate as he
Writers (1991). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the
couples with her. Also revealed is creations glory, experienced
United States (1995).
only in unselfconscious instants, where the ego is diminished in
Other references: America (5 April 1997). American Litera-
seless epiphanies of complete understanding. Dillards mission
ture (Oct. 1987). Booklist (July 1996). Commentary (July 1977).
is to see fully.
Critique (Spring 1984). Esquire (June 1990, Mar. 1996). Harp-
ers (Dec. 1971). Hollins Critic (Oct. 1989). Ms. (Jan. 1973). Tickets for a Prayer Wheel (1974) presents several visionary
Massachusetts Review (Spring 1983). NR (25 Mar. 1996). NYTBR and difcult poems that use private religious symbolism. Other
(3 Apr. 1977, 17 May 1992). PW (13 Nov. 1987, 24 June 1996). poems in the volume are more accessible, excellent topical works
Saturday Review (Apr. 1982). South Carolina Review (Spring which focus on a quotation. The title poem of the volume
1989). Working Woman (April 1982). pregures the ideas and images of Holy the Firm (1977). The
prayer wheel tickets are various prayers, as the narrator begins:
KATHY HENDERSON, Our family is looking / for someone who knows how to pray.
UPDATED BY SHAUNA SUMMERS AND REBECCA C. CONDIT
A parable of creation and the incarnation, a revelation of
grace in the face of the suffering and evil of the world, Holy the
Firm is concentrated, spare, deep, intensely poetic. The emphasis
is still on the narrators relationship with the Creator. The work is
DILLARD, Annie a very personal explanation of the doctrines of immanence and
emanation. To immanence, Christ is redundant, and all things
Born 30 April 1945, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania are one, while to emanation, the world is wholly other, linked to
Daughter of Frank and Pain Lambert Doak; married Richard God through Christ. Dillard, like many mystics, opts for a
Dillard, 1965. reconciliation of these two views: And the universe is real and
not a dream, not a manufacture of the senses; subject may know
object, knowledge may proceed.
For the tourist, places are ends in themselves, scenes to be
consumed by the ravishing eye. For the pilgrim, places are Describing the writing life Dillard asserts that the art
meansof refreshment, of soul-building, of education about the must enter the body. From her Pulitzer Prize-winning Pilgrim at
Way. To the pilgrim, allegory dissolves mere scenery, the picture Tinker Creek she establishes this relationship with both her
289
DILLARD AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
writing and the environment it reects. Rather than objectively In The Wreck of Time, Taking our Centurys Measure,
observing the scenes of her life, she experiences them as religious Dillard piles on statistic after statistic (130,000 drowned in
encounters. Her early work, up through Holy the Firm, secured Bangladesh, 69 suns in the universe for every living person),
Dillard a place among both naturalist and mystical essayists. hammering home the idea of our insignicance; at the same time
Within her natural descriptions, Dillard theologizes on creation she makes clear her belief that while her readers may be moved by
and its creator. A searching spirituality tempers her acute physical these numbers, they will nonetheless be unable to give up the idea
perceptions to create works heavy in allusionary and abstract that their individual lives matter. Death has always been ubiqui-
meaning. tous in Dillards writing; it has perhaps been especially morbid
dating back to The Living, in which she lls a small cemetery with
After Holy the Firm, Dillard began to change her focus from dead characters. This millennial essay is steeped in morbidity
external to internal environments. With the 1982 publications of
horrible natural disasters juxtaposed with the man-made horrors
Living by Fiction and Teaching a Stone to Talk, the grand spiritual
of Holocaust and purge. She makes a strong case, concluding:
abstraction that characterized her early natural vision gave way to
We arise from dirt and dwindle to dirt, and the might of the
a more personal and human intimacy. Living by Fiction explores
universe is arrayed against us. Yet beside this she sets the strong
the landscape of ction as a natural sphere of inuence and means
possibility that all life is sacred. Perhaps Dillards writing should
of personal denition, while Teaching a Stone to Talk continues to
be seen as not only ambivalent but provisional, as suggested by
rely on nature as landscape. Although her earlier work suggests
the title of her 1999 collection of essays, For the Time Being.
that meaning is present and observable in nature, Dillards later
work begins to examine her personal interactions with the land- Mornings Like This (1995) is a collection of poems con-
scape, recognizing that most meaning is humanly imposed structed from sentences Dillard lifted from sources as various as
on a scene. an antique medical text and the New Testament Apocrypha.
Sarcasm has no place in literature, Dillard told an interviewer
Dillard claried this movement with the 1984 publication of
in 1996, but irony has the highest place. She introduces
Encounters with Chinese Writers, a collection of essays based on
Mornings Like This with: Half the poems seek to serve poetrys
her experience as a member of the U.S. Cultural Delegation to
oldest and most sincere aims with one of its newest and most
China in 1982. Describing a foreign landscape and people, Dillard
ironic methods, to dig deep with a shallow tool. The other half are
seeks personal denition within cultural difference. In her autobi-
just jokes. True to her word the book is alternately heartbreaking
ography, the National Book Critics Circle-nominated An Ameri-
and hilarious, irony in service of ambivalence.
can Childhood (1987), Dillard brings that search back to the most
familiar of all landscapeschildhood. Both works exhibit a uid Dillards older work continues to nd new readers. In addi-
exchange between the writer and her landscape. The writing itself tion to being heavily anthologized, it has been collected in Three
becomes more concrete and accessible. by Dillard (1990) and The Annie Dillard Reader (1995). She was
By the time of publication of The Writing Life (1989) Dillard the 1988 editor of The Best American Essays and editor of the
has struggled to identify the tracks of her thoughts and the ssures 1995 anthology, Modern American Memoirs. Her latest project
they leave in the observed landscapes. Her writing no longer was a new book, a personal narration about God and the problem
exposes only the interaction of God and nature as creator and of pain.
creation, but the human mind as both creator and creation.
Dillard resides in Middletown, Connecticut, with her hus-
Dillards movement into ction attests to her attempt to under-
band and daughter. A writer-in-residence and professor at Wes-
stand the complex relationship between the human mind and the
leyan University, she has been the recipient of fellowships from
natural world. The Living (1992) chronicles the growth of
the National Endowment for the Arts (1980-81) and the
Bellingham Bay and its inhabitants. Although the novel is histori-
Guggenheim Foundation (1985-86).
cal, Dillard concentrates on the parallel evolutions of the personal
and the physical landscapes.
Literary critics have commented on the difculty of pinning OTHER WORKS: Sand and Clouds, Raritan (fall 1998).
Dillard down. Indeed, ambivalence is the engine that powers her
work: the strength with which she can make an argument and then
subsequently (or even simultaneously) present an opposing view BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bawer, B., QuietAuthor Suffering, in Ameri-
with equal conviction. A Dillard trademark is the uninhibited, can Scholar (Summer 1990). Clark, S., Annie Dillard: The
unbridled awe with which she views the world, and this marvel Woman in Nature and the Subject of Nonction, in Literary
extends to its apparent contradictions. She depicts the wonder of Nonction (1989). Guenther, C., Dillard Finds Poems in Others
Gods creation, at the same time wondering if He gives a hoot Work, in St. Louis Post-Dispatch (25 June 1995). Johnson, S. H.,
about it. In a recent essay, Sand and Clouds, she quotes the The Space Between: Literary Epiphany in the Work of Annie
Mahabarata: Of all the worlds wonders, which is the most Dillard (1992). Kingsolver, B., Whipsawed in Washington, in
wonderful? That no man, though he sees others dying all around Nation (25 May 1992). Scheick, W., Annie Dillard: Narrative
him, believes that he himself will die. Fringe, in Contemporary American Women Writers: Narrative
290
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DINNIES
Strategies (1985). Suhl, G., Ideas are Tough; Irony is Easy, in I could have stemmed misfortunes tide,
Yale Herald (online, 4 Oct. 1996). Smith, P. A., The Ecotheology And borne the rich ones sneer,
of Annie Dillard, Cross Currents (Fall 1995.) Have braved the haughty glance of pride,
Other references: America (8 Oct. 1977). Amer. Lit. 59:1 Nor shed a single tear.
(March 1987). Belles Lettres 8 (Fall 1992). Booklist, (1 June I could have smiled on every blow
1995). Commentary (Oct. 1974). CW (24 Oct. 1975). J. Feminist From Lifes full quiver thrown,
Studies in Religion 6 (Spring 1990). Harpers (Jan. 1998). Hungry While I might gaze on thee, and know
Mind Review (1 Nov. 1995). LA Times (25 May 1992). LATBR (25 I should not be alone.
Sept. 1988). Ms. (June 1985). Nation (16 Oct. 1989, 25 May
Others of Dinnies poems are as unremittingly romantic.
1992). NewR (6 Apr. 1974). NYTBR (24 Mar. 1974, 25 Sept. 1977,
Focusing as they do on the modesty of woman and the perfections
9 May 1982, 23 Sept. 1984, 27 Sept. 1987, 18 Nov. 1990).
of marriage, they strike the modern reader as excessively emo-
Sewanee Review 92 (Winter 1984). Signs 15 (Spring 1990). So. tional. For example, in her poem, The Blush, she denes a
Atl. Q. 85 (Spring 1986). VQR (Fall 1974). WRB (Jan. 1988). blush as A gush of feeling from the soul! Dinnies often uses
emotion to a didactic end, as in To My Husbands First Gray
MARGARET MCFADDEN-GERBER, Hair. Here the wife of the poem rst laments the gray hair and
UPDATED BY JULLIE ANN FIORE AND VALERIE VOGRIN later sees in it a reminder that all things must pass away.
Dinnies work is not entirely without humor, depth, and an
occasional sharp edge. In Wedded Love, the wife of the poem
lifts her husband out of his depression not by praising his virtues
DINNIES, Anna Peyre (Shackelford) but by afrming her own good taste. He is superior to other men
because she would not have stooped to bind / Her fate unto a
common mind. The poem Addressed to My Daughter While
Born 7 February 1805, Georgetown, South Carolina; died 8 She Slept shows another side of Dinnies work. Although the
August 1886, New Orleans, Louisiana rst stanza gives the reader the traditional image of a mother and
Also wrote under: Moina, Rachel, Mrs. Anna Peyre her sleeping child, the next six stanzas focus on the unhappy
Daughter of W. F. Shackelford; married John C. Dinnies, 1830 changes that accompany childhood and young womanhood. The
last stanza alludes to the difcult life of an adult woman and all the
sorrows woman must sustain.
A lifelong resident of the South, Anna Peyre Dinnies showed
at an early age the promise of genius and a talent for poetry. Her The majority of Dinnies literary work appeared in various
father, a judge and a distinguished scholar, supported her literary Southern journals. She wrote for the Illinois Quarterly under the
ambitions and is said to have happily and effectively inu- name of Moina, and she contributed a series of didactic articles
enced her literary taste. Fortunate enough to be educated at the called Rachels What Not for the weekly Catholic Standard,
Female Seminary of the Miss Ramsays in Charleston, South edited by her husband. Dinnies also published an illustrated
Carolina, Dinnies was further encouraged and her talents developed. volume called The Floral Year (1847), containing 100 composi-
tions in 12 groups, along with illustrations of different bouquets,
In 1826 Anna and John C. Dinnies began a four-year corre- one for each month. This volume was typical of the many early
spondence, but Anna did not meet her husband-to-be until a week 19th-century anthologies of ower sentiment, in which poetry
before their wedding. Sarah Josepha Hale wrote in her anthology, is combined with pictures of owers. Although she published
The Ladies Wreath (1837), that the Dinnies marriage contract only one book, Dinnies poetry was frequently anthologized in
was entered into solely from sympathy and congeniality of mind such volumes. Today her book and others like it seem literary
and taste. curiosities. Nonetheless, Dinnies and other traditional poets of the
early 19th century take their place as precursors of more signi-
Although Dinnies wrote before she was married, her pub- cant American poets, Emily Dickinson among them.
lished poetry comes chiey after 1830. Known as a poet of
Domestic Affections because she relied heavily on themes of BIBLIOGRAPHY: Coggeshall, W. T., The Poets and Poetry of
married life, contemporary critics took her work to be a reection the West: With Biographical and Critical Notes (1861).
of her own happily wedded state. Hale commented that Dinnies Griswold, R. W., The Female Poets of America (1873). Hale, S. J.,
poetry breathes the tender, trusting, and devoted feeling of Floras Interpreter; or the American Book of Flowers and Senti-
conjugal love, in a manner very attering to her husband. ments (1848). Hale, S. J., The Ladies Wreath (1837). Stedman,
Whether or not Dinnies poems reect her personal happiness, E. C., ed., An American Anthology, 1787-1900 (1900). Watts,
they do present an idealized vision of marriage. E. S., The Poetry of American Women from 1632 to 1945 (1977).
Reference works: A Cyclopedia of Female Biography (1857).
Dinnies most famous and frequently anthologized poem, Womans Record (1853).
The Wife, is typical of her work. In it she tells of the
dependency of a wife upon her husband: BILLIE J. WAHLSTROM
291
DiPRIMA AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
DiPRIMA, Diane feelings even if it is to declare more than explore those feelings.
Her most challenging poems use a complex symbolism that is
both idiosyncratic and archetypal. These poems, Butterick writes,
Born 6 August 1934, Brooklyn, New York represent private feelings revealed in the tradition of symbolism,
Daughter of Francis and Emma Mallozzi DiPrima; married
if not in traditional symbols themselves. In The Waiting
Alan S. Marlowe, 1962 (divorced); Grant Fisher, 1972 (di-
Room (The New Handbook of Heaven, 1963) she writes: Eve-
vorced); children: Jeanne, Dominique, Alexander, Tara, Rudra
ry human skull / uncovered, is one more home / for the spirits of
darkness. / I leave the dice at the rat hole every night / no one keeps
Since the late 1950s, Diane DiPrima has earned recognition score.
for writings marked by a spirit of rebellion and countercultural
exploration. Perhaps best known as a poet and editor, she has also In Loba, DiPrima turns her symbolizing to the task of
published novels, plays, and translations. Her early writing chroni- creating an epic of the female principle. Loba is a protean
cles the experiences of the Beat Generation, with special attention character, transforming from spirit to beast to human, alternately
to the female dimensions of this culture. Together with LeRoi representing a Lilith- and an Eve-gure. This mythic persona
Jones (Imiri Baraka), DiPrima coedited the Floating Bear (1961-69), embodies female power in a variety of forms, as in these rst
a monthly poetry newsletter that became one of the most inuen- lines: O lost moon sisters / crescent in hair, sea underfoot do you
tial publications of its kind, featuring many important Beat wander / in blue veil, in green leaf, in tattered shawl do you
writers. In all her work, she has maintained a strong consciousness wander / with goldleaf skin, with aming hair do you wander / on
of her identity as a woman writer, depicting through personal Avenue A, on Bleecker Street do you wander. The full 16 parts
relationships, political tensions, and mythological images a par- of Loba were published for the rst time in 1998 to critical
ticularly female experience or truth. acclaim. Reviewer William Gargon noted that the strength of this
DiPrima was born in Brooklyn, New York, a second genera- epic poem lies in DiPrimas ability to make it newto
tion American of Italian descent. She began writing at the age of synthesize mythological elements from a wide range of cultures
seven and had decided to become a poet by the age of fourteen. into a unique vision based on Navajo wolf mythology.
Enrolling in Swarthmore College at seventeen, DiPrima dropped
Critic Armand Schwerner argues that DiPrimas verse is not
out two years later and returned to New York, to Greenwich
always equal to her task: that in the attempt to particularize
Village and the emerging Beat scene there. She published her rst
within the context of the life of mankind, her language
book of poems, This Kind of Bird Flies Backwards, with LeRoi
sometimes falls into banality. Yet, he acknowledges, the
Joness Totem Press in 1958. These poems make generous use of
attempt, the order of inclusiveness, the mythopoetic reach are
the Beat idiom, in such lines as Like man dont ip, Im hip you /
a contribution to that profound ongoing process of poetry
cooled this scene. The book also reveals DiPrimas early interest
in myths and fables, which become central motives in Loba: Parts which. . .continues the self-transformative aims of our alchemical
I-VII (1973), one of her major works of poetry. fathers.
DiPrimas autobiographical novel Memoirs of a Beatnik For the past 20 years, DiPrima has lived in Northern Califor-
(1969) describes her experience among the Beats. Some critics nia, where she has written, taught, and practiced Buddhism and
consider her female experience circumscribed in comparison healing arts. From 1980 to 1986 she taught hermetic and esoteric
to the rambling adventures of such male Beats as Jack Kerouac. traditions in poetry at New College of Californias short lived but
Others see DiPrimas work as adding an important dimension to important program. She now resides in San Francisco, where she
our understanding of the Beat world, reminding us, George is a cofounder and teacher at the San Francisco Institute of
Butterick notes, that the generation spent as much time in urban Magical and Healing Arts. Her works in progress currently
pads as it did on the road, and that one can travel as far by include a book on Percy Bysshe Shelley as both poet and magi-
human relationships as by thumb. cian; a satire of life in California titled Not Quite Buffalo Stew,
whose narrator is a drug smuggler named Lynx; and an autobio-
Along with the Floating Bear, DiPrima worked with several graphical memoir called Recollections of My Life as a Woman.
other inuential poetry journals of the time, including Kulchur
and Yugen. She and husband Alan Marlowe founded the Poets
Press (1964-69) and the New York Poets Theatre (1961-65),
OTHER WORKS: Murder Cake (1960). Like (1960). Paideuma
which produced plays by Frank OHara, Robert Duncan, James
(1960). The Discontent of a Russian Prince (1961). Dinners and
Schuyler, and others. Her own plays were performed at the Living
Nightmares (1961, reprints 1974, 1977). The Monster (1961).
Theater in New York. In 1965 DiPrima moved to upstate New
Poets Vaudeville (1964). Like (1964). Combination Theater Poem
York, where she joined Timothy Learys psychedelic community
and Birthday Poem for 10 People (1965). Spring and Autumn
at Millbrook. She continued to write and received grants from the
Annals (1966). Some Haiku (1966). Haiku (1967). Earthsong:
National Endowment for the Arts in 1973 and 1979.
Poems, 1957-1959 (1968). Audre Lord, The First Cities (1968).
DiPrimas poetry is often highly accessible in language and Monuments (1968). Hotel Albert: Poems (1968). New Mexico
emotion, revealing a willingness to trust language with deep Poems, June-July 1967 (1968). War Poems (1968). Revolutionary
292
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DISNEY
Letters (1969). L.A. Odyssey (1969). Notes on a Summer Solstice grown-up world, occasionally disobedient, but often charming
(1969). The Book of Hours (1970). Kerhonkson Journal 1966 and always believable.
(1971). New As 1966 (1971). Prayer to the Mothers (1971). So
Fine (1971). XV Dedications: Poems (1971). The Calculus of Disney began with true mysteries, in which the criminals
Variation (1972). Discovery of America (1972). Freddie: Poems identity is withheld until the climax (see, for example, A Com-
(1974). North Country Medicine (1974). Brass Furnace Going pound for Death, 1943, and Murder on a Tangent, 1945, both Jim
Out: Song after an Abortion (1975). Whale Honey (1975). Select- ONeill mysteries). Dark Road (1946), a Jeff DiMarco story, is an
ed Poems, 1956-1975 (1975). Loba as Eve (1975). Loba, Part 2 inverted mystery, in which the murderers identity and motivation
(1976). Revolutionary Letters, etc. (1979). Pieces of a Song: are revealed early. Hazel Clements causes her husbands death
Selected Poems (1989). Zipcode: The Collected Plays of Diane because of her desire to be reunited with an old lover. Her greed
DiPrima (1992). and ambition are clearly shown, but so is the awful background
Manuscripts of Diane DiPrima are housed in the Manuscript that helps to explain her actions. At the end, the question of
Collection of the Southern Illinois University, in Carbondale, responsibility is paramount, her lover recognizing he has been her
Illinois. unwitting accomplice. Freely adapted, this novel was the basis of
a lm called Fugitive Lady (released through Republic in 1951).
Straw Man (1951; lmed by United Artists, 1953), a Jeff DiMarco
novel, begins a true mystery but reveals the criminals identity
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Knight, A. W., ed., The Beat Road (1984).
midway. Loosely paralleling Dreisers An American Tragedy
Reference works: CANR (1984). CP (1980, 1991). DLB
(which is alluded to), it movingly shows the alienation and
(1980, 1983). FC (1990). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing
withdrawal of a man wrongly convicted of murder.
in the United States (1995).
Other references: American Book Review 2 (May 1980, June/ For several novels Disney turned to the past. At Some
July 1991). LJ (Aug. 1998). MELUS (Fall-Winter 1987). NYTM Forgotten Door (1966), a variation on gothic romance, has a
(5 Nov. 1995). Rocky Ledge (Feb.-Mar. 1981). VV (13 June 1974, partly predictable plot but builds suspense gradually, as the
9 May 1989). heroine ts together clues to help her understand both her origins
Web site: Diane DiPrima Interview, available online at and her present danger. Both mysteries are claried in a powerful
http://www.rahul.net/joem/works/i-DiPrima.html (22 Sept. 1993). climactic scene. Dark Lady (1960) blends past and present; a
young professor rents a cottage in which the wife of a gifted young
MARY BURGER, writer had been murdered 75 years earlier. Becoming obsessed
UPDATED BY LEAH J. SPARKS with the writers beautiful sister-in-law, he solves the old mystery
and learns to see his own present more clearly.
Disney skillfully manipulated tone as well as plot, as in

Family Skeleton (1949), a Jeff DiMarco story, showing what
DISNEY, Doris Miles happens when a family rst conceals the accidental killing of a
cantankerous uncle and then frantically tries to reclaim his body in
order to collect his insurance. Their macabre misadventures were
Born 22 December 1907, Glastonbury, Connecticut; died 9
lmed by Fox as Stella (1950). More gently comic is Room for
March 1976, Fredericksburg, Virginia
Murder (1955), set in a boarding house run by Irish spinsters, one
Daughter of Edward L. Hart and Elizabeth Malone Miles;
of whom is addicted to true crime magazines and tries to solve the
married George J. Disney, 1936 (died); children: one daughter
case for the police. The Day Miss Bessie Lewis Disappeared
(1972) is more purely comic but also more astringent; Miss Bessie
Doris Miles Disney was a prolic, versatile writer of mystery is an elderly termagant, and her former husband, an unsuccessful
and suspense; she has been praised for never repeating herself, opportunist, is almost as comically inept as the two goons who
and for skillfully varying her approaches. trail him.
Disney created three detectives; each is a fully realized and Disneys novels are consistently interesting and readable
distinct character. Jim ONeill, a county detective; Jefferson the originality of her plots, the effectiveness of her characteriza-
DiMarco, an insurance claim adjuster, the most famous; and tions, and her skill in controlling tone made her a leader among
David Madden, a U.S. postal inspector. In Disneys ction, mystery writers. In addition, her ability to show how victims
suspense evolves from both plot and character. Her characters are sometimes precipitate their own fates and how the commission of
round and consistently portrayed, their relationships and motiva- a crime affects the criminal gives her work a depth often lacking in
tions often creating complex plots. She was particularly adept at this genre.
characterizing children. For example, Jenny, an eight-year-old
girl in Dont Go into the Woods Today (1974), and Sandy, a seven-
year-old boy recuperating from rheumatic fever in Heavy, Heavy OTHER WORKS: Who Rides a Tiger (1946). Appointment at Nine
Hangs (1952), are sometimes cranky, frequently confused by the (1947). Enduring Old Charms (1947). Testimony by Silence
293
DIVAKARUNI AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
(1948). That Which Is Crooked (1948). Count the Ways (1949). Los Altos Hills, California, and a writer whose works have won
Fire at Will (1950). Look Back on Murder (1951). Do Unto Others many awards and are translated into many languages.
(1953). Prescription: Murder (1953). The Last Straw (1954).
Divakaruni wrote three books dealing with issues of Indian
Trick or Treat (1955). Unappointed Rounds (1956). Method in
women: arranged marriages, immigration, domestic violence,
Madness (1957). My Neighbors Wife (1957). Black Mail (1958).
racism, interracial relationships, abortion, divorce, and often
Did She Fall or Was She Pushed? (1959). No Next of Kin (1959).
ultimate independence for the women. Her writings come from
Mrs. Meekers Money (1961). Find the Woman (1962). Should
her own experience as well as her encounters with South Asian
Auld Acquaintance (1962). Here Lies. . . (1963). The Departure women through Maitri (Friendship), a helpline she was instru-
of Mr. Gaudette (1964). The Hospitality of the House (1964). mental in starting in 1991. The service offers counseling and
Shadow of a Man (1965). The Magic Grandfather (1966). Night of referral to women suffering from domestic violence, depression,
Clear Choice (1967). Money for the Taking (1968). Voice from the and cultural alienation.
Grave (1968). Two Little Children and How They Grew (1969).
Do Not Fold, Spindle, or Mutilate (1970). The Chandler Policy After enrolling in a ction writing class, she produced a book
(1971). Threes a Crowd (1971). Only Couples Need Apply of short stories, Arranged Marriage (1995), which won the Bay
(1973). Cry for Help (1975). Winifred (1976). Area Book Reviewers and PEN/Oakland awards for ction, as
Papers of Doris Miles Disney can be found in the Mugar well as the prestigious 1996 American Book Award for Fiction.
Memorial Library of Boston University. These stories, according to Francine Prose, are full of the details
of Indian and Indian-American life: . . .the marriage dots on the
forehead, the saris, the curries, the Hindi musical lms, the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Encyclopedia Mysteriosa (1994). marriages contracted after just a few modest minutes of bride-
viewing, indeed the characters are performing the strenuous
St. James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers (1996). LJ (15 May
balancing act of having one foot in one country, the other foot in
1966). NYHTB (31 Oct. 1948, 21 Oct. 1951). NYTBR (13 Jan.
another. Ultimately, as Elaine Kim wrote in a review, these
1946, 22 May 1949, 15 Dec. 1968). WLB (June 1954).
women nd out what being themselves means, learn to take
care of themselves in a new country, and by doing so, discover
MARY JEAN DEMARR
and understand their complex womanhood. One story, The
Ultrasound, about two female cousins and their subsequent
pregnancies, has been expanded into her most recent novel, Sister
of My Heart (1999).
DIVAKARUNI, Chitra Banerjee Divakarunis rst novel, Mistress of Spices (1997), was
wildly successful and translated into many different languages.
The narrator is an ageless woman who learns the magical proper-
Born 29 July 1956, Calcutta, India
ties of spices and treats the people in the Oakland, California,
Daughter of Tatini and R. K. Banerjee; married S. Murthy
neighborhood she inhabits as a storekeeper. Then she falls in love
Divakaruni, 1979; children: Anand, Abhay
and must choose between her customers or her own life. As Lara
Merlin put it, Addressing the immigrant experience in particu-
Born in India, living in America, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, as lar, she [Divakaruni] asks how to negotiate between the needs of
one of the new authors of Indian-American life, uses her poetry each [the self and the community] under the earth-moving stress
and prose to form a bridge from Calcutta to California. As quoted of desire. . . .She conjures up a new American identity. Mistress
in an interview in India Currents, We, Indian-Americans, are of Spices was shortlisted for the Orange Prize in England and
still an early immigrant culture. We remember the old country and called by the Los Angeles Times one of the best books of 1997.
lament the loss of our roots, which adds poignancy to our
Sister of My Heart has already won praise from reviewers. It
writing. In the same interview she spoke of crossing the bounda-
is the story of two Indian women who are born in the same home
ries from prose to poetry: Writing poetry has taught me how to
and regard themselves as sisters. They grow up, have arranged
craft language carefully, whereas ction writing has made me
marriages, and one moves to the U.S. while the other stays home
aware of the elements of story, characters, and drama that must in India. This novel encompasses many of the issues women face,
exist even in poetry. such as abortion, love affairs, class issues, and emotional involve-
Divakaruni was born in Calcutta and, though Hindu, was ment between two women. In India Currents, Divakaruni answers
a question about romance in the following way: In Sister of My
educated at a convent school. She received her B.A. in English at
Heart I wanted to show how romance complicates the lives of
the University of Calcutta and then immigrated to the United
Anju and Sudha, though, ultimately it doesnt destroy their bond.
States at the age of twenty. She continued her English literature
Our [womens] friendships are just as important as our marriages
studies at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and then at the
and we should make every attempt to nurture them.
University of California at Berkeley, where she wrote her Ph.D.
thesis (1985) on the plays of Christopher Marlowe. In the late Divakaruni has also compiled and edited multicultural an-
1990s she was a creative writing professor at Foothill College in thologies, which include stories from immigrant perspectives, for
294
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DIX
her students to widen their knowledge about the world and the against popular notions of bravery, also constitute a central theme
women that inhabit a particular space in it. in Dixs work.
Dixs rst success in drama was A Rose oPlymouth Town

OTHER WORKS: Searching for the Goddess, Woman Of Power (1903), on which she collaborated with Evelyn Greenleaf Suther-
(1990). Searching for the Goddess (1990). The Reason for land. A romantic comedy taking place in the home of Miles
Nasturtiums (1990). Black Candle: Poems about Women from Standish in Plymouth, it was popular on Broadway and introduced
India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (1991). Leaving Yuba City: New Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., to the New York stage.
and Selected Poems (1997). English 1302 Fiction Reader: Think- With the advent of World War I, Dix turned from war as a
ing Critically About the Short Story (coeditor, 1994). Multitude: physical setting for individual assertions of heroism toward un-
Cross-Cultural Readings for Writers (editor, 1997). We, too, Sing mitigated condemnations of it. Her characters are not always
America: A Reader for Writers (editor, 1998). superior to mass violence and genocide, but are often corrupted by
opportunities to unleash their predatory and sadistic proclivities.
Across the Border (1915) is a one-act drama that opens with the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: India Currents (interview, Feb. 1999). gunning down of an idealistic young soldier risking his life to save
Reference works: Asian American Almanac (1995). Whos his battalion. Awakening, he nds himself in a pleasant and
Who Among Asian Americans (1994). impressive house, where he is received cordially, and gradually he
Other references: Amerasia Journal (Spring 1996). Black realizes he is across the border in the spiritual realm of the
Issues in Higher Education (18 Sept. 1997). Confrontation dead. He is told gently that he must soon leave, for the other
(Spring-Summer 1996). English Journal (Sept. 1997). Ethnicity inhabitants are fearful of his past willingness to murder women
and the American Short Story (1997). Ms. (July-Aug. 1995). Poets and children, and to bomb cities and villages without warning.
& Writers (Sept.-Oct. 1998). NYTBR (13 Apr. 1997, 1 Mar. 1998). The soldier requests a return to the battleeld to convince those
TLS (21 Mar. 1997). Virginia Quarterly Review (Spring 1998). still ghting to put down arms, but, though this is granted, his
World Literature Today (Winter 1998). WRB (Mar. 1996) words of admonishment to other soldiers are dismissed as the
gibberish of a seriously wounded man. Returning across the
JACQUELYN MARIE border in defeat, the protagonist is jubilant his efforts have
qualied him to remain in the House of God. Although one
individual repents of his aggression, the war continues.
An intensely vituperative condemnation of patriotic declara-

DIX, Beulah Marie tions that war can be fought for the sake of humanity is found in
Moloch (1916). The prologue of this drama presents a professors
family, characterized by warmth, intelligence, harmony, familial
Born 25 December 1876, Kinston, Massachusetts; died 25 Sep-
love, and cordiality. The epilogue exposes the disastrous effects of
tember 1970, Hollywood, California
war upon this family, now reduced in number, with conjugal,
Daughter of Henry and Marie Dix; married George M. Flebbe
paternal, and romantic ties severed. The greatest irony, however,
is the anticipation of some members toward a second imminent
Descended from Puritan settlers of Plymouth, Beulah Dix war in which their former enemy is now their ally.
studied literature, the classics, and English history at Radcliffe
College, which may have suggested the themes and events that Whether in drama, the novel, or historical romance, Dixs
dominated her dramas, comedies, novels, historical romances, style is swiftly paced and concise, replete with skillfully drawn
and juvenile stories. She graduated summa cum laude and was the characters who confront the challenges of political and historical
rst woman to be awarded Harvards prestigious George B. realities. These same qualities, accompanied by a vigorous and
Sohier Literary Prize. The date of her marriage is not known, but it lively style and poignant dramatic confrontations, made Dix a
was before she moved in 1916 to Hollywood, where she wrote successful screenwriter in Hollywood, where she wrote scripts for
movie scripts for the next 30 years. such silent movies as Black Magic, Their Own Desire, The
Hostage, Hidden Pearls, and They Made Me a Criminal.
Dixs popularity as a novelist derived from Hugh Gwyeth
(1899), based on the English civil war between the Cavaliers and
the Roundheads. Thereafter, the history of the 17th century OTHER WORKS: Cicelys Cavalier (1897). The Beaus Comedy
provided settings for much of Dixs work. The juvenile novels (with C. A. Harper, 1902). The Life, Treason, and Death of James
Merrylips (1906), Fighting Blade (1912), Maid Melicent (1914), Blount of Breckenhow (1903). The Breed of the Treshams (with E. G.
and Blithe McBride (1916), center around a hero or heroine Sutherland, 1903). Fair Maid (1905). Soldier Rigdale (1905). The
maturing in England during the Cromwell period or in America Fair Maid of Graystones (1905). Young Fernwald (1906). Alli-
during the settling of the Puritan colonies. Human dignity poised sons Lad and Other Martial Interludes (1910). Friends in the
against the ruthless demands of war, as well as authentic heroism End (1911). Betty Bide-at-Home (1912). The Gate of Horn
295
DIX AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
(1912). Mothers Son (1913). The Legend of St. Nicholas (1913). necessities of warmth and adequate clothing, were the indigent
Little God Ebisu (1914). The Enemy (1915). The Making of insane. Horried by what she observed that Sunday, Dix waged a
Christopher Ferringham (1915). A Pageant of Peace (1915). The campaign, using the newspaper as her primary forum, and aroused
Battle Months of George Daurella (1916). Clemency (1916). The enough public indignation to alleviate the abuses at the jail. This
Glorious Game (1916). Where War Comes (1916). Hands Off! was the rst such victory for the woman who was to write in one of
(1919). The Captain of the Gate (1921). Turned About Girls her memorials: I am the hope of the poor crazed beings who pine
(1922). The Road to Yesterday (1925). A Little Captive Lad in cells and stalls and cages and waste roomsshut out, cut off
(1926). The Girl Comes Home (1927). Pity of God (1932). Ragged from all healing inuence, from all mind-restoring cures.
Enemy (1934). Wedding Eve Murder (1941). In Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts, Dix
enumerated in considerable detail conditions in jails, asylums,
poorhouses, and private homes in which the insane were housed.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Logan, M. S., American Women: Images and Her catalogue of appalling abuses was direct, concrete, logical,
Realities (1972). Scott, E. F., Hollywood When Silents Were persuasiveimpassioned only in eloquent appeals to the humani-
Golden (1972). tarian impulses of the legislators, who, as a result of her investiga-
Other references: NYT (30 Sept. 1902, 18 Oct. 1914, 21 Sept. tion, voted to expand the state facility for the mentally ill at
1915, 3 Dec. 1916). Worcester.
MIRIAM FUCHS
From Massachusetts, Dix proceeded to Rhode Island, New
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and
on, in each state anticipating her pleas for reform by a thorough,
keen-sighted study of existing facilities. In 1845, a hospital was
established at Trenton, New Jersey, the rst-born child of a
DIX, Dorothea Lynde woman who was to bear many such offspring.
In 1848 Dix began a crusade for national legislation to set
Born 4 April 1802, Hampden, Maine; died 17 July 1887, Trenton, aside a tract of land (ultimately, 12.5 million acres) for care of the
New Jersey impoverished insane, and during the next six years, she lobbied,
Daughter of Joseph and Mary Bigelow Dix met with congressmen, and worked on her memorial for the
proposal. In 1854 Dixs bill nally passed both houses of Con-
gress, only to be vetoed by President Franklin Pierce. Discouraged
Dorothea Dix was early acquainted with both poverty and
by this defeat, Dix returned to England. This excursion, however,
privilege. Her father had become estranged from his family by
to the Old World was no vacation: rather, the American Invad-
dropping out of Harvard to marry Mary Bigelow, a poorly er, as she was called, persisted in her efforts for reform, making
educated woman 20 years his senior, and by moving to the frontier forays into Scotland to promote better care for the insane, moving
territory of what was then northern Massachusetts to pursue his on to the continent to Italy, Russia, and Turkey.
preferred vocation as itinerant Methodist minister. I never knew
a childhood, Dix was later to write, and in the grim wilderness Returning to America in 1856, Dix, now well known and in
settlement she spent her early years stitching religious tracts for much demand, resumed her travels for ve years. Interrupted by
her father and caring for her two younger brothers. Occasional the chaos of war, she was made superintendent of nurses for the
visits with her grandparents in Boston whetted her appetite for Union forces in 1861. In 1866, the war over, Dix continued her
education and culture, however, and at the age of twelve she ran tours of hospitals and penal institutions, concentrating for a time
away from home to live with her widowed grandmother, a strict on the ravaged South. In 1881 she retired to Trenton Hospital,
disciplinarian who initiated Dixs formal education. where she died, six years later.
Although Dix never associated herself with the womens
In 1816 Dix began her career as a teacher by opening a school
movement, judging any such involvement a distraction from her
for young children, a precocious endeavor which lasted for three
humanitarian efforts on behalf of the mentally ill, her achieve-
years until she returned to Boston to be with her aging grandmoth-
ments did much to reveal what one woman could accomplish. By
er. Between 1824 and 1836, Dix devoted herself to teaching when working contrary to accepted mores of the feminine role and
she was physically able and to writing when she was not. On the destiny, Dix fought for the humane and fair treatment of a
advice of her physician, Dix spent more than a year in England. powerless minority. She helped to establish 32 state institutions
and 15 training schools, and provided the inspiration for numer-
For four years after her return to America Dix traveled,
ous other facilities, both public and private, thereby earning the
visited with friends, and studied as she searched for a vocation that
encomium conferred upon her at her death by a friend: . . .the
would provide the stimulation and sense of purpose she had lost.
most useful and distinguished woman America has yet produced.
In 1841, asked by a young Harvard divinity student to teach a
Sunday school class for the female inmates of the East Cambridge
jail, Dix discovered her mission. Incarcerated with the criminals, OTHER WORKS: Conversations on Common Things (1824). Hymns
deprived not only of dignity but of even the most elemental for Children (1825). Evening Hours (1825). Meditations for
296
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DODGE
Private Hours (1828). Garland of Flora (1829). American Moral The literary style of Gail Hamilton, Dodges pen name, is
Tales for Young Persons (1832). Remarks on Prisons and Prison characteristically lively, opinionated, and often argumentative.
Discipline (1845). Letter to the Convicts in the Western State Several of her books are feminist in tone. Dodge often proclaims
Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, Allegheney (1848). On Behalf of the her personal and professional independence, and encourages a
Insane Poor: Selected Reports (Poverty, U.S.A.: The Historical similar spirit in others. Country Living and Country Thinking
Record Series, edited by D. J. Rothman, 1971). (1861), based upon Dodges experience as a woman running her
The papers of Dorothea Lynde Dix are housed in the Hough- familys farm, urges women to consider careers other than mar-
ton Library of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. riage, and especially to consider writing, despite the ne, subtle,
impalpable, but real prejudice against female writers. The
economic argument for independence appears again in Womans
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brooks, G., Three Wise Virgins (1957). Dain, N., Worth and Worthlessness (1872), in which Dodge notes that a
Concepts of Insanity in the United States, 1789-1865 (1964). woman is not supported by a man when she works as hard in
Hurd, H. M., ed., Institutional Care of the Insane in the United the house as he does out of it.
States and Canada (4 vols., 1916-1917). Marshall, H. E., Dorothea
For many years, Dodge was closely associated with Blaine:
Dix: Forgotten Samaritan (1937). Tiffany, F., Life of Dorothea L. she worked with him on his Twenty Years of Congress (1884-86)
Dix (1890). Tuke, D. H., Chapters in the History of the Insane in and many believed that she also drafted his speeches. Her biog-
the British Isles (1882). Tuke, D. H., The Insane in the United raphy of Blaine, undertaken as a tribute, is eulogistic and
States and Canada (1885). Wilson, D., Stranger and Traveler: nonanalytical. Her verse, collected and published posthumously
The Story of Dorothea Dix, American Reformer (1975). by her sister H. Augusta Dodge, in Chips, Fragments and Vestiges
(1902), is derivative.
KRISTIN MCCOLGAN
Dodges most characteristic theme, derived from her own
experience as a writer, is the need to train woman for spiritual and
economic independence. Given her insistence on the need for
independence, it seems ironic that Dodges own career, as well as
DIX, Dorothy her social contacts, depended to a great degree upon her associa-
See GILMER, Elizabeth Meriwether tion with Blaine, and that much of her work for him cannot be
recognized as independent from that framework.
OTHER WORKS: Courage! (1862). Gala Days (1863). A Call to My

DIXON, Franklin W. Countrywomen (1863). Stumbling-Blocks (1864). A New Atmos-
See ADAMS, Harriet Stratemeyer phere (1865). Scientic Farming (1865). Skirmishes and Sketches
(1865). Red Letter Days in Applethorpe (1866). Summer Rest
(1866). Wool Gathering (1868). Womans Wrong (1868). Memo-
rial to Mrs. Hannah Stanwood Dodge (1869). A Battle of the
Books (1870). Little Folk Life (1872). Child World (1873). Twelve
DODGE, Mary Abigail Miles from a Lemon (1874). Nursery Noonings (1875). Sermons
to the Clergy (1876). First Love Is Best (1877). What Think Ye of
Born 31 March 1833, Hamilton, Massachusetts; died 17 August Christ (1877). Our Common School System (1880). Divine Guid-
1896, Hamilton, Massachusetts ance (1881). The Spent Bullet (1882). The Insuppressible Book
Wrote under: Gail Hamilton (1885). A Washington Bible Class (1891). English Kings in a
Daughter of James B. and Hannah Stanwood Dodge Nutshell (1893). Biography of James G. Blaine (1893). X-Rays
(1896). Gail Hamiltons Life in Letters (edited by H. A.
Dodge, 1901).
Mary Abigail Dodge spent her early adult years teaching, and
in 1858 she became governess to the children of Gamaliel Bailey,
editor of the antislavery National Era in Washington, D.C. With BIBLIOGRAPHY: Beale, H. S., ed., Letters of Mrs. James G. Blaine
his help she established herself as a writer. From 1865 to 1867, she (1908). Dodge, M. A., Memorial to Mrs. Hannah Stanwood
was an editor of Our Young Folks. After 1871 she spent much of Dodge (1869). Spofford, H. R., A Little Book of Friends (1916).
each year in Washington in the home of Congressman James G. Tryon, W. S., Parnassus Corner: A Life of James T. Fields (1963).
Blaine, whose wife was Dodges rst cousin. Blaine was Speaker Reference works: A Woman of the Century (1893). NAW,
of the House and a frequent presidential hopeful. In his household, 1607-1950 (1971). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the
Dodge met politicians, writers, and numerous famous persons of United States (1995).
the day. In these years, she wrote on political issues, especially
civil service reform. JANE BENARDETE
297
DODGE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
DODGE, Mary Mapes DOMAN, June

Born 26 January 1830, New York, New York; died 21 August Born 23 April 1930, Bath, England
1905, Onteora Park, New York
Writes under: Meryle Secrest
Daughter of James J. and Sophia Furman Mapes; married
Daughter of Albert E. and Olive Edith May Love Doman;
William Dodge, 1851 (died); children: two sons
married David W. Secrest, 1953 (divorced 1965); Tho-
Mary Mapes Dodge family moved often, nally settling in mas G. Beveridge, 1975; children: Cary, Martin, Gillian
Irvington, New Jersey, where, on a large farm overlooking Staten
Island and Manhattan, her father conducted horticultural experi- June Doman is a writer of lengthy biographies of prominent
ments and edited a magazine called the Working Farmer. When artists and art critics, beginning with fairly obscure ones but
Dodge rejoined her family at the farm after the death of her quickly moving on to world-famous personages such as Frank
husband, her father started her writing for his magazine in order to Lloyd Wright and Salvador Dali. When dealing with people from
occupy her time and assuage her grief. Dodge also began telling the early 20th century, Domans writing is a tribute to extensive
stories to her two young sons, and thus, with natural talent and research of personal documents. When writing about people of the
great devotion, a long and successful career of one of Americas late 20th century, she relies on extensive interviewing, not only of
rst and best women writers and editors was inaugurated. the person themselves, but also every conceivable connection
In 1864 Dodge was prompted to write a childrens book. She they might have. Despite the possibility of having too many
had been reading Motleys Rise of the Dutch Republic, and her corroborated details in her biographies, Doman rejects the view
boys had been captivated by the Dutch sport of skating, which was that the writers style should take second place in the struggle for
just becoming popular in the United States. Dodge was also accuracy. Instead, she believes that the biographer should be
acquainted with a Dutch family whom she visited often, listening interesting to read as she writes in a way that reects her own
to their memories and stories of Holland. Putting all this together, point of view.
she wrote Hans Brinker (1865), which is still a bestseller after
more than 100 years and many translations. While growing up in Bath, England, as an only child, Doman
found herself in a college-bound curriculum after being tested at
From 1865 on, Dodge helped to edit a magazine called
the age of eleven. At the age of eighteen, however, she emigrated
Hearth and Home, until asked by Roswell Smith of the Century
to Canada with her parents. Immediately she began working on
Company to start a childrens magazine for them. So in 1873,
Dodge became the editor of St. Nicholas, the greatest childrens the Hamilton, Ontario, newspaper, writing about city politics
magazine of all time. Hans Brinker and St. Nicholas established before being named editor of womens news. After a brief return
Dodge top-notch reputation, but she also produced a number of to England in 1950, Doman married David W. Secrest on 23
other books: A Few Friends (1869), Rhymes and Jingles (1874), September 1953 and moved to Columbus, Ohio, where she raised
Theophilus and Others (1876), Along the Way (1879), Donald three children while working as the food editor for the Columbus
and Dorothy (1883), and The Land of Pluck (1894). Citizen. In the late 1950s, she moved to Washington, D.C. because
her husband had secured a political science fellowship. For a time,
St. Nicholas set a new and lasting pattern for childrens she wrote freelance for the Washington Post before being signed
literature: Kipling wrote The Jungle Books and Frances Hodgson
on as a full-time reporter. At rst she remained a writer of
Burnett Little Lord Fauntleroy for the magazine. Other top
womens news; then in 1969 she was granted the privilege of
authors, among whom were Robert Louis Stevenson, Samuel
writing for the arts and entertainment page. At last she had found
Clemens, Alfred Tennyson, eager to be published in this vital
her niche.
periodical also sent Dodge their work. Many reputations were
made in these pages. St. Nicholas was still thriving when, at age Doman wanted to be a novelist, but after a single attempt, she
seventy-ve, Dodge died at her summer residence in Onteora
gave it up. Fascinated by the life of a fairly obscure early
Park, New York.
20th-century Italian portrait painter by the name of Romaine
Brooks, she decided to try to write a biography. Between Me and
OTHER WORKS: Irvington Stories (1864). When Life Is Life: A Biography of Romaine Brooks (1974) received superb
Young (1894). reviews in both the United Kingdom and the U.S., but did not sell
well. Despite this, Doman quit her job to be a full-time freelance
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: American Women (1897). DAB writer in 1975.
(1892). NCAB (1892). NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). Oxford Compan-
Still enamored with art and people connected with it, Doman
ion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995).
Other references: Century (Nov. 1905). Critic (Oct. 1905). selected the noted Russian-American art critic and appraiser of
Current Literature (Oct. 1905). NYT (22 Aug. 1905). St. Nicholas Italian Renaissance art, Bernard Berenson, as the subject of her
(Oct. 1905). next book. Being Bernard Berenson (1979) was praised for its
psychological acuity and vivid portraiture. It was nominated for
CATHERINE MORRIS WRIGHT both the American Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. While
298
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DONOVAN
researching for her book about Berenson, Doman met with Sir and death in 1965 are now accepted as fact. Until recently, she was
Kenneth Clark, a British baron also known for his knowledge of not listed in the usual or even the more obscure sources; bio-
Italian Renaissance art. For two years during his youth he studied graphical information was often obtained from personal corre-
under Berenson. Doman was so impressed with his personality spondence or from the Special Collections of the University of
that she chose him as the subject of her next biography. Kenneth Chicago library.
Clark: A Biography (1985) was beset with many problems, most
notably by the fact that Clark objected to what was written about From 1923 to 1927, Frances R. Donovan attended some
him, forcing a rewrite that did not remain true to Domans intent. classes at the University of Chicago as well as evening meetings
of the Society for Social Research. At these meetings, which were
After writing a biography of the worlds best-known surreal- open to students, faculty, and those outside the formal university
ist painter called Salvador Dali (1986), Doman chose to write network, some kind of presentation of research was given with
Frank Lloyd Wright (1992). For the rst time, a biographer of the informal discussion following. The distinguished sociologist Robert
famous architect had access to the complete microche Wright Park was nearly always present at these gatherings and talked with
archives, and Doman was praised for producing a denitive Donovan then as well as later discussing her books in his classes.
one-volume biography that could only be superseded by a During this period the urban behavior research emphasis was
multivolume scholarly study. particularly strong in Chicago, culminating in almost two dozen
books in less than two decades. Many of these were published as
Next Doman turned to music to write Leonard Bernstein: A part of the University of Chicago Sociological Series. Donovans
Life (1994), a biography of the famous American conductor and second book, The Saleslady (1929), became part of this series. She
composer. In 1998 she remained in the eld of music to write also wrote The Woman Who Waits (1920) and The Schoolmaam
Stephen Sondheim, a biography about the famous American (1938), but except for these three books (all of which were
composer and lyricist for the Broadway stage. For this book, reprinted in the 1980s), Donovans work has disappeared. Ryans
Doman received Sondheims cooperation and massive amounts of Womanhood in America (1975) makes scattered references to her
information from his friends, family, and colleagues. Critics noted books, although there are minor inaccuracies regarding dates and
that the book was exemplary in its attention to detail and its places of her research.
successful portrayal of Sondheims inner life. The revelation of
his homosexuality drew the most notice, to Domans surprise. Donovan was a qualitative sociologist who focused on three
social worlds in her writings: that of the waitress, salesperson, and
In addition to awards from the Canadian Womens Press teacher. Her major contribution is in the area of the sociology of
Club and the Hamilton Press Club in 1950 and 1951, respectively, work occupations, particularly those held traditionally by women.
Doman was selected for a Guggenheim fellowship for the years She moves from the largely descriptive The Woman Who Waits
1981-82. and The Saleslady to a greater analytical emphasis in The
Schoolmaam. She was a keen observer, with a sense of humor,
and her perceptions of women as a devalued group are particularly
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CANR (1996). incisive.
ROSE SECREST The Woman Who Waits is based on Donovans experiences

as a waitress from the hash houses in the Loop to tea rooms and
department store lunchrooms, to some of the more fashionable
places in other parts of the city. Throughout this work the
DOMINI, Rey following threads prevail: (1) a perceptive analysis and recogni-
See LORDE, Audre tion of the lowly, nonprestigious occupation of waitress; (2) a
recognition that the problems of waitresses must be solved from
within by organizing, and, when necessary, from the outside by
legislation. Within this context, Donovan discusses the Waitress-
es Alliance, formed in 1915, whose objectives included trying to
DOMINIC, R. B. obtain proper working conditions for members as well as protect-
SeeLATHEN, Emma ing them from unjust treatment; (3) general observations on the
status of women in this occupation (many are equally germane
today): the lack of security, the sex game, the costs of
emancipation.
DONOVAN, Frances R.
The Saleslady is based on two summers Donovan spent in
New York playing the role of saleslady or salesgirl. Al-
Born 1880; died 1965 though pseudonyms are used, evidence points to prominent New
York department stores as places of employment. While this role
For years, the places and dates of birth and death of this is somewhat more prestigious than that of waitress, the salesper-
American sociologist were a mystery, though a birthdate of 1880 son has, nonetheless, little bargaining power in her interactions
299
DOOLITTLE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
with employees and customers. Donovans conceptualization of religious vocation. In it, she also promotes Shaker feminism by
the store as theater is an insightful one; subtle distinctions and presenting Shaker principles with parenthetical feminist com-
hierarchies both within the role of saleslady as well as in her ments added to them. For example, in explaining the system of
interaction with others in her world are noted. trusteeship for Shaker property, she writes: the laws of the land
were framed and executed by men exclusivelywomen having
The Schoolmaam, Donovan tells the reader, is largely per- no part nor lot in the matter, except to be taxed without
sonal testimony from one who has spent 19 years as a teacher representation.
and three years as a department manager of a large teachers
agency. Her trenchant observations on women in the teaching In her journalism, too, Doolittle supported feminism. When
occupation include the following: the preponderance of male she became coeditor of the ofcial Shaker periodical, its title was
administrators; the discriminatory practices against hiring or changed from the Shaker to the Shaker and Shakeress. Doolittle
retaining married women (they neglect home and children, and also advanced feminism outside Shaker communities. In a letter to
are not as prompt or regular in school attendance); the view of the Brooklyn Eagle, republished in the Shaker Manifesto, Doolittle
women as poor marriage risks by some men who insist upon wrote in 1881:
gentle, appealing, little girls like Copperelds Dora who cant The voice of woman is not heard in legislative halls. . . .
add up the grocery bills. With the reappearance of Donovans Why this bondage and servitude on the part of wom-
books it is to be hoped that her circle of readers will be consider- an?. . . Is she destitute of reasoning powers, and unable
ably enlarged. to plead her own cause, and the cause of her downtrod-
den and oppressed sisters, who do not nd redress from
wrongs inicted upon them at the tribunals, where male
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Kurent, H. P., Frances R. Donovan and the rulers alone preside, judge and decide? A change must
Chicago School of Sociology: A Case Study in Marginality and will come in this respect. Women possess latent
(dissertation, 1982). Ryan, M., Womanhood in America (1975). powers that need to be brought into action, both for her
Other references: Nation (23 Oct. 1929). NR (21 Sept. 1938). own benet and the good of the community.
Survey (5 Feb. 1921).
Apart from her feminism, Doolittles autobiography is nota-
VIRGINIA K. FISH ble in parts I and II for its fresh, concrete detail as she describes her
childhood and conversion. The growth of her commitment, her
adolescent struggle, and her nal choice of a life antithetical to her
familys views elicit sympathy and sustain interest. Part III, added
for a second edition, is more didactic and polemical, a public
DOOLITTLE, Antoinette rather than a private document, advocating Shaker principles. Its
purpose seems to be to educate and possibly convert the public.
Born Mary Antoinette Doolittle, 8 September 1810, New Lebanon, Nevertheless, Doolittles is the best-known and best-written auto-
New York; died 31 December 1886, Mt. Lebanon, New York biography of a Shaker woman.
Daughter of Miles and Esther Bennett Doolittle
BIBLIOGRAPHY: White, A., and L. S. Taylor, Shakerism: Its
A middle child in a family of ve girls and ve boys, Meaning and Message (1904).
Antoinette Doolittle lived from age ten to thirteen at an aunts Other references: In Memoriam, Affectionately Inscribed to
home, with her maternal grandmother, a religious woman and a the Memory of Eldress Antoinette Doolittle, by Her Loving and
strong magnet for her. After Doolittles conversion to Shakerism at Devoted Gospel Friends (1887). The Shaker Manifesto (1881).
age fourteen, she did routine work for 10 years at the Shakers
major community, Mt. Lebanon, and was then appointed assistant HELEN DEISS IRVIN
deaconess. Two years later, at twenty-six, she was made second
(or assistant) eldress. At thirty-eight, she attained the highest
ofce, eldress, and held this post at Mt. Lebanon until her death. In
1873, she became coeditor of the Shaker and Shakeress, the D(OOLITTLE), H(ilda)
ofcial Shaker periodical. Doolittle had important executive
responsibilities, such as traveling to New York City to buy
supplies to be shipped to the South Union (Kentucky) Society, Born 10 September 1886, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; died 27
then beleaguered by the Civil War. A practical administrator, September 1961, Zurich, Switzerland
Doolittle was also deeply involved in mystical and emotional Daughter of Charles L. and Helen Wolle Doolittle; married
Richard Aldington, 1915 (divorced 1938)
Shaker experiences: spiritualism and speaking in tongues.
The Autobiography of Mary Antoinette Doolittle (1880) Hilda Doolittle was the daughter of a professor of astronomy
provides a vivid picture of Doolittles growing commitment to a and the granddaughter of the principal of a local Moravian
300
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DOOLITTLE
seminary, who was a descendant of a member of the original Amy Lowell on 5 March 1917: My signature is H. D. for poetic
18th-century mystical order known as the Unitas Fratrum, or purposes. Please let it be just that. I have always wanted to
Moravian Brotherhood. Since the founding of the order, the keep R.s [her husband] and my literary personalities absolutely
concept of Unitas Fratrum has been identied with the Mystery distinct. . . . I must keep H. D. clear from R. A. Later she
which lay at the center of the world. Young Doolittle participat- expressed her conviction in this way: I have something I own. I
ed in Moravian religious exercises and rituals, all of which had a own myself. The search for personal identity and self-denition
profound effect upon her. In Tribute to Angels (1945), more than was contemporaneous with Doolittles realization of her own
40 years after her childhood experiences, she returned to the creative talents, and eventually her poetry became, in a sense, a
enigmatic Mystery, the essence of Moravian belief, describing projection of herself.
it as the point in the spectrum / where all light becomes one /
. . .as we were told as children. Doolittle ingeniously shaped the classical world to her own
temperament, weaving and reweaving the legends of the past into
Educated chiey in private schools, Doolittle spent a year modern form, emulating myth in order to gain a sense of the
and a half at Bryn Mawr, withdrawing in 1906 due to a slight spiritual, the timeless. For Doolittle, events, emotions, experi-
breakdown. She became engaged briey to Ezra Pound, who ences, became continuations of a simpler, more structured mythic
encouraged her to pursue her classical studies and to continue to past, which she found more manageable than the immediate,
write serious poetry. Soon after, Doolittle left for London to begin chaotic contemporary scene. As she developed her skills, Doolittle
the life of an expatriate, and rarely returned to America. was able to transfer mythic patterns from one culture to another, as
reected in her wide-ranging vision of Woman throughout the
In 1913 Doolittle married the British poet Richard Aldington. ages, which is included in Tribute to Angels. More notable,
Later (1917) she assumed the editorship of the Egoist while she however, in The Walls Do Not Fall (1944), she comfortably
earnestly pursued her career as a poet. The period between 1915 mingles classical allusions with observations of the shell-shocked,
and 1920 was lled with personal crisis: a miscarriage in 1915, the bombed-out, devastation of London: There as here, ruin opens /
death of her older brother in combat in 1918, separation from the tomb, the temple. . . / the shrine lies open to the sky / the rain
Aldington (nal divorce in 1938), and the death of her father in falls. . . / sand drifts, eternity endures. Typically Doolittle em-
1919. She found herself essentially alone, seriously ill, and phasizes once again her concept of identity and self-possession in
pregnant. She wrote from her at in war-torn London: Death! the lines: living within / you beget, self-out-of-self / . . .that
Death is all around us! The foregoing events precipitated a pearl-of-great-price.
severe breakdown, and Doolittle eventually sought the help of
Sigmund Freud, whom she refers to as the blameless physi- Inevitably, as the woman artist strives for self-fulllment,
cian in her brilliant psychobiography, Tribute to Freud, pub- tension develops. In Doolittles case, tension was generated
lished in 1956. gradually between physical love and artistic performance; it
manifested itself in a conict between desire and creativity.
Following World War I, Doolittle wrote 13 volumes of Doolittle compares this experience to a tableau vivant with two
poetry, along with translations, essays, dramas, lm criticism, and wrestlers standing ready for a match, with muscles and tendons
novels. When her Collected Poems, the volume that established taut and motionless.
her reputation, was published in 1925, many of the vital experi-
ences that tempered her writing had occurred. In her effort to deal with the tension and conict in both her
personal and artistic life, Doolittle reveals on the one hand her
The early tightly honed, discrete Imagist poems are familiar complete awareness of the need for love and compassion as she
to most readers. In them with clarity, precision, and control, writes, I was not unaware. . .I was not dull dead. On the other
Doolittle described pear trees with ower-tufts / thick on the hand, she rmly maintains that even love itself should be resisted
branch, with sea poppies spilled near the shrub pines / to if it threatens to diminish ones creative talent. Notwithstanding
bleach on the boulders, or grapes red-purple / their berries the contradictions inherent in this situation, Doolittle was deter-
dripping / with wine. Doolittles nal, major modern poetic mined, as she stated, to control her very modest possessions of
sequences, Helen in Egypt (1961), is less well known. Throughout mind and body.
her work, however, from the slender Imagist verse to the nal
monumental poetic sequence, Doolittle was in search of what she Resolution, reconciliation, control, she realized could be
dimly dened as a myth, the one reality. This would permit her achieved, perhaps by means of some intermediate ground: an
not only to articulate her emotions but would also allow her the organizing structure, mythical patterns, legends, and symbols.
freedom to create an organizing structure in which she could These were all part of her classical repertoire, and methods for
function as both a woman and an artist. making meaningful use of them had been reinforced during her
experience as student-analysand with Dr. Freud.
Related to the search for structure which permits freedom
was an acute awareness on the part of Doolittle of the importance The search for a myth, the one reality, was successfully
of identity to survival. Identity, self-denition, a signature, achieved by means of the pervasive, legendary gure of Helen in
were imperative. Doolittle emphasized this in a letter to her friend Doolittles last major work. In the earlier Imagist poem, Helen,
301
DORR AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
the heroine, a wan maiden with still eyes in [a] white face is Dened: The Poet H. D. and her World (1984). Hughes, G.,
clouded with subtle ambiguitiesshe is the Helen Greece could Imagism & the Imagists (1931). King, M., ed., H. D.: Woman and
love only if she were laid / white ash amid funereal cypresses. Poet (1987). Mearns, H., H. D. (1926). Monroe, H., Poets & Their
In Helen in Egypt, the mature, intelligent, condent Helen strug- Art (1932). Quinn, V., H. D. (1968). Swann, T. B., The Classical
gles for self-denition following the cataclysmic Trojan War. World of H. D. (1962). Taupin, R., Linuence du symbolisme
With things remembered forgotten / remembered again, Helen franais sur la posie Amricaine (1929). Vigier, R., Women,
assembles and reassembles her thoughts and emotions and re- Dance, and the Body: Gestures of Genius (1994). Waggoner, H. H.,
solves: I must ght for Helena. In this long poem, Doolittle American PoetsFrom the Puritans to the Present (1968).
artfully weaves and reweaves the mythic pattern until the legend- Zilboorg, C., ed., Richard Aldington and H. D. (1992).
ary gure of Helen (the Woman who will not now be denied) Reference works: FC (1990). Oxford Companion to Wom-
achieves her identity: I am awake / . . .I see things clearly at last, ens Writing in the United States (1995).
/ the old pictures are really there. Other references: Contemporary Literature (Autumn 1969).
H. D. Newsletter (1987- ). Poetry (June 1962).
With Helen in Egypt, Doolittle herself achieves self-deni-
tion and brings to a close her search for an identity, the one CLAIRE HEALEY
reality, for which she had been striving all her life.
Strong-willed, self-possessed, inherently female, the Ameri-

can expatriate Doolittles poetic realm has been described as the
perfect, timeless hieroglyph world. Whatever the realm, Doolittle
realized the sense of her own worth as a woman and as an artist;
DORR, Julia (Caroline) Ripley
and concedes in her Epitaph that she died of living / . . .solic-
iting illicit fervor / . . .following intricate songs lost measure. Born 13 February 1825, Charleston, South Carolina; died 18
January 1913, Rutland, Vermont
For more than ve decades, Doolittle devoted her life to the Wrote under: Julia C. R. Dorr, Caroline Thomas
writing of poetry. Though she has regrettably been labeled the Daughter of William Y. and Zulma Thomas Ripley; married
perfect Imagist and the Greek publicity girl, her poetry dees Seneca M. Dorr, 1847
classication. Tending on occasion to an obscurantism typical of
modern poetry, Doolittles work transcends the limitations and
prescriptions of the Imagist movement, for which she allegedly Julia Ripley Dorrs mothers family ed from Santo Domingo
was not only the inspiration but, together with Ezra Pound and to the U.S. during a slave uprising. Her father was a bank
Richard Aldington, also a formulator of its principles. Currently president, and she spent most of her formative years in Vermont
she is, and justiably so, identied as a modern. Norman Holmes receiving her education there at Middlebury Seminary. Dorr
Pearson, Doolittles literary executor, contends that Doolittle is in enjoyed the friendship of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edmund Clar-
the very center of the modern poetic movement. . .and will ence Stedman, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, among others. She
increasingly be recognized when her audience not only learns was a founder of the Rutland Library, and received a Litt.D. from
how to read her poetry but becomes familiar with classical Middlebury College in Vermont.
mythology. Dorrs rst novels, Farmingdale (1854), Lanmere (1856),
and Sibyl Huntington (1869), deal with young women living in
New England villages who are subject to a grinding routine of
OTHER WORKS: Sea Garden (1916). Hymen (1921). Heliodora, home chores. These novels are noteworthy for their realistic
and Other Poems (1924). Hippolytos Temporizes (1927). Hedylus depiction of family bitterness and the round of household activi-
(1928). Red Roses for Bronze (1932). The Flowering of the Rod ties: tubs lled with laundry, milk pans to be scalded, rag rugs to
(1946). By Avon River (1949). Selected Poems of H. D. (1957). be pieced, work baskets piled with mending. Each novel contains
Hermetic Denition (1958). Bid Me to Live (1960). pointed discussions on books, learning, literature, and libraries,
offered as the heroines reprieve from womans toil.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Alfrey, S., The Sublime of Intense Sociability: Expiation (1873) views domestic tragedy from the stance of a
Emily Dickinson, H. D., and Gertrude Stein (1999). Burnett, G., neighborly female narrator who is middle-aged, tranquil, unmar-
H. D. Between Image and Epic: The Mysteries of Her Poetics ried. The plot involves hereditary insanity, its concealment by a
(1990). Chisholm, D., H. D.s Freudian Poetics: Psychoanalysis young wife, an adolescent sons attempt to kill his mother, a cofn
in Translation (1992). Coffman, S. K., ImagismA Chapter for that yields up its supposed corpse. Gothic horrors come to light
the History of Modern Poetry (1951). DuPlessis, R. B. H. D.: The amidst the beauties of the Vermont countryside, descriptions of
Career of That Struggle (1986). Freidman, S. S., Psyche Reborn: which Dorr excels in: the riot of green, the meadows and uplands,
The Emergence of H. D.. (1981). Freidman, S. S. and R. B. brawling trout streams, the barefoot boy and the singing thrush,
DuPlessis, eds., Signets: Reading H. D. (1990). Guest, B., Herself wild roses and honeysuckles under a sapphire sky.
302
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DORR
Dorrs poetry appeared in newspapers and magazines such as DORR, Rheta Childe
Scribners, Harpers, Atlantic Monthly, and Sartains Union
Magazine of Literature and Art. Her poems were anthologized in
Emersons Parnassus (1874), and Stedmans An American An- Born 2 November 1866, Omaha, Nebraska; died 8 August 1948,
thology (1900). Dorr experimented with a variety of forms New Britain, Pennsylvania
narratives, dramatic monologues, patriotic and war verses, histo- Daughter of Edward and Lucie Childe; married John P. Dorr,
ric celebrations, sonnets, hymns, and ballads. 1892; children: one son
Poems (1872) includes themes of womens isolation or loss
(Vashtis Scroll), a lament by a fallen queen (Elsies Child), The daughter of Episcopalian parents, Rheta Childe Dorr
and prayers and poems about death. A book lover, Dorr acknowl- joined the National Woman Suffrage Association at twelve,
edges in My Friends the inuence of authors from Dante and attended the University of Nebraska for one year, and enrolled at
Shakespeare to the Bronts and Mrs. Browning. The Cherry the Art Students League in New York City in 1890. She took her
Tree introduces the recurrent theme that maturity is richer, more rst reporting job on the New York Evening Post and was a
resonant than youth. The titles of Dorrs subsequent poetry muckraker at Everybodys Magazine and Hamptons from 1907 to
volumes reect this view: Afternoon Songs (1885), Afterglow 1912. Briey a member of the Socialist Party, she became active
(1900), Beyond the Sunset (1909). in the Republican Party in 1916. A militant suffragist, she edited
Dorrs travel books are companionable, anecdotal, and his- the Suffragist, and from 1913 to 1916 was a member of the
torically informative. Bermuda appeared in 1884. The Flower of Heterodoxy, an early feminist discussion group. As a foreign
Englands Face; Sketches of English Travel (1895) takes the correspondent, she covered the Pankhursts suffrage struggle in
reader from Wales to Scotland with a long stop at Haworth to England, the Russian Revolution, World War I, and Mussolinis
collect rsthand reminiscences about the Bronts. A Cathedral march into Rome.
Pilgrimage (1896) revels in rustic gardens, chapels, spires, ru-
Dorr was the author of several books, most of which (aside
ined arches, forsaken courts open to all the sky, and columns
from her autobiography) consisted of materials previously pub-
ivy-grown and lichen clad. It imaginatively recreates medieval
life and recounts legends of martyrs and warriors. lished in newspapers and magazines. As an autobiography, A
Woman of Fifty (1924) represented both a highly successful
Despite Dorrs dislike of suffering women poets as expressed creative act and a self-revelation. Illustrating the traditional
in Farmingdale, she was not able to keep lachrymose strain out of effort of an American intellectual to relate personal experience to
her own last works. Her poetic diction includes the formalized the pattern of cultural change, Dorr sketched a political journey
lyrical utterance of her shorter poems, as well as the colloquial one that led from a progressive vision of cooperative millenialism
forthrightness of her dramatic monologues. The same chatty to a conservative faith in a sane, practical democracy, with the
directness is evident in her books of travel and advice, and recalls Great War acting as the important transforming experience.
the vigor of her early domestic novels. Her interest in family However, Dorr was rm in her commitment to feminism; the
problems arising from cruelty, pride, or error enters into her chronological narrative revolves around her own early awakening
narrative poems. Like many women poets of her time, she tended
to feminism and her struggle as a journalist to support herself and
to give them exotic, medieval, Germanic, or oriental settings;
her son. Throughout her lifetime, Dorr worked to bring others
however, the regional locales of her New England ction bestow a
from a perception of women as a ladies aid society to the human
more enduring value on her portrayals of family life.
race to an afrmation of their breaking into the human race
with full freedom.
OTHER WORKS: Bride and Bridegroom (1873). Friar Anselmo
and Other Poems (1875). Poems (1892). The Fallow Field (1893). In What Eight Million Woman Want (1910), Dorr dealt with
In Kings Houses; A Romance of the Days of Queen Anne (1898). womans invasion of industry as a permanent factor in the
Poems, Complete (1901). Last Poems (1913). W.Y.R. A Book of American economy, carefully employing data obtained from
Remembrance reporting on all social classes of women in Europe and America.
Having investigated various employments by working as a laun-
dress, seamstress, department store clerk, and assembly-line worker,
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Baym, N., Womans Fiction: A Guide to Novels
Dorr sympathetically revealed the intimate lives of the factory
by and about Women in America, 1820-1870 (1978). Carleton, H.,
workers in order to tell their story as they would tell it themselves
Genealogy and Family History of Vermont (1903). Crockett, W. H.,
if they had a chance. She also emphasized the social-reform
Vermont the Green Mountain State (1921). Morse, J. J., ed., Life
and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes (1896). Ripley, H. W., activities of educated middle-class womens organizations, con-
Genealogy of a Part of the Ripley Family (1867). Stedman, L., and cluding that the fulllment of their demands for womens eco-
G. M. Gould, eds., Life and Letters of E. C. Stedman (1910). nomic, social, and political freedom was in the best interest of a
Reference works: American Authors: 1600-1900 (1938). democratic society. Dorr reiterated these beliefs in Susan B.
American Women (1897). DAB (1929). Anthony (1928), a witty and sympathetic biography and history of
womens life in America that dramatically situated Anthony
MARCELLE THIBAUX within the social context of the post-Civil War era.
303
DORSEY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Dorr was a war correspondent from 1917 to 1918. Inside the questions. Educated entirely at home, she published verse in
Russian Revolution (1917) condemned Bolshevik politics and magazines even before her marriage in 1837. Both she and her
marked her break with New York socialist friends. Interpreting husband converted to Catholicism in 1840 as a result of the
events in terms of excesses of an unruly, unreasoning, inuence of the English Oxford Movement in America. Their
sanguinary mob intent on disengaging from the Great War, marriage produced ve children, and the youngest daughter, Ella
Dorr recommended a large dose of American economic aid and Loraine, became as popular a Catholic writer as her mother.
the help and guidance of strong leaders with pragmatic repub-
Though well received in their day, Dorseys highly melodra-
lican values. Dorr ably captured the feeling of a country at war in
matic, Catholic novels are now out of print. An early novel, The
her description of the July Revolution and the womens battalion Student of Blenheim Forest (1847), is an account of the alienation
of deathbut Inside the Russian Revolution was marred by its of a Catholic son from his anti-Catholic father, an important
strong ethnocentric bias. Virginian. Secretly baptized by his Catholic mother, the student
Dorr was among the rst journalists to report hard news reects the authors own conversion to Catholicism. The plot is
typically Victorian with its discovery of hidden relationships, and
about all classes of women, and she was among the best of the
the point of view is blatantly pro-Catholic. The book is note-
muckraking journalists. While her war correspondence was not
worthy, however, for its presentation of the history of Catholicism
consistently outstanding, she was among only a few women who
in Maryland as well as the detailed but readily understandable
obtained western-front reporting assignments during World War I.
explanations of various Catholic traditions, such as confession,
Her autobiography must be considered not only an extraordi-
the Virgin Mary, high Mass, vestments, benediction, and convents.
narily revealing document but also a provocative commentary
on American culture. Zoes Daughter (1888), another historical tale, is set in the
days of Lord Baltimore in Maryland. Other historical novels,
noteworthy for their use of dialect, describe the Irish in Ireland or
OTHER WORKS: A Soldiers Mother in France (1918). Drink: Boston: Nora Bradys Vow (1869), Mona the Vestal (1869), and
Coercion or Control? (1929). The Old House at Glenara (1887) trace the history of Christianity
in Ireland from the time of the druids through the time of the
British landlords to the Irish immigration to America. The intri-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Banner, L. W., Woman in Modern America: A cate plots stress the joys of conversion to Christianity from
Brief History (1974). Filler, L., Crusaders for American Liberal- paganism. Palms (1887), though set in ancient Rome with a
ism (1939). Marzolf, M., Up from the Footnote: A History of wealth of historical detail, follows the same basic scheme.
Women Journalists (1977). Ross, I., Ladies of the Press (1936). Although most of Dorseys stories are predictable in their
Reference works: NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). Oxford Compan- Catholic bent, she manages to maintain suspense through a clever
ion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). handling of the plot complications. For example, in Coaina, Rose
Other references: Bookman (11 Mar. 1911). Books (21 of the Algonquins (1867), which has twice been dramatized and
Oct. 1928). translated into German and Hindustani, a beautiful young Native
American maiden, Coaina, is thwarted in her romance with a
JENNIFER L. TEBBE young chief through the machinations of her slanderous aunt, a
jealous cousin Winonah, and a would-be suitor from another tribe.
They are ultimately stymied and confess their guilt because of
Coainas charity and forgiveness. While Christianity predictably
triumphs, the marriage is not between Coaina and the young chief
DORSETT, Danielle but between Coaina and Christ. In other tales, such as The Old
See DANIELS, Dorothy
Gray Rosary and Tangled Paths (1879), Dorsey mocks the
contradiction between Catholic belief and racial prejudice.
Dorseys tales are sentimental and nostalgic as well as
edifying, especially for young people. Consequently, she twice
DORSEY, Anna (Hanson) McKenney received special blessings from Pope Leo XIII, and the University
of Notre Dame awarded her the Laetare Medal.
Born 12 December 1815, Washington, D.C.; died 26 December
1896, Washington, D.C.
OTHER WORKS: A Tale of the White and Red Roses (1846).
Daughter of William and Chloe Lanigan McKenney; married
Oriental Pearl (1848). Flowers of Love and Memory (1849). Guy,
Lorenzo Dorsey, 1837; children: ve the Leper (1850). Woodreve Manor (1852). May Brooke (1856).
Theyre Coming, Grandad! A Tale of East Tennessee (1865).
Descended from prominent Maryland colonists on both sides The Flemings or Truth Triumphs (1869). The Heiress of Carrigmona
of her family, Anna McKenney Dorsey was always much in- (1887). Beths Promise (1887). Adrift (1887). Adas Trust (1887).
volved in both governmental affairs and moral and religious Warp and Woof (1887). The Fate of the Dane and Other Stories
304
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DORSEY
(1888). Tomboy (1891). The Two Ways (1891). Tears on the Arapahos celebration of the spring sun because the dance con-
Diadem: or, The Crown and the Cloister tained ferocious tests of courage and endurance. The account is
beautifully explicit and describes movingly the long ceremony,
of praise and prayer to that Lord of the white men and the Native
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Donnelly, E. C., Round Table of Representative American whom the Arapaho calls The Man Above.
American Catholic Novelists (1897).
Reference works: Catholic Encyclopedia (1976). Other articles, Women in the Patent Ofce, Women in
the Pension Ofce, and Women in the Land Ofce, recog-
SUZANNE ALLEN nize the contributions of usually unacclaimed women who work
in governmental ofces. All of Dorseys work is now out of print
and difcult to nd.
DORSEY, Ella Loraine

OTHER WORKS: Midshipman Bob (1887). Jet, the War-Mule
(1894). The Taming of Polly (1897). Pickle and Pepper (1898).
Born 2 March 1853, Washington, D.C.; died 1935, Washing- Pocahontas (1906). A Biographical Sketch of James Maccubbin,
ton, D.C. One of the Original Proprietors (1909). The Census and Its
Daughter of Lorenzo and Anna McKenney Dorsey Lesson (1924). The Children of Avalon, n.d. Da-h-pi-ki, n.d. The
Jose-Maria, n.d. Saxtys Angel, n.d. The Two Tramps, n.d.
A descendant of old and illustrious Maryland colonists and,
like her mother, a pioneer of light Catholic ction, Ella Lorraine
Dorsey showed great interest in both political and religious BIBLIOGRAPHY: Donnelly, E. C., et al., Round Table of Repre-
concerns, which continually surface in her writings. From early sentative American Catholic Novelists (1897).
childhood she was inundated with political literature and history. Reference works: A Woman of the Century (1893).
All of her relatives supported the Confederacy except her only
brother, who fought and died for the Union cause, and her father. SUZANNE ALLEN
Educated at Madame Burrs School and Visitation Convent in
Georgetown, Dorsey began writing in 1871 as Vanity Fair for
the Washington Critic and worked for 10 years on Washington
newspapers. Later she was a special correspondent for the Chica- DORSEY, Sarah (Ann) Ellis
go Tribune and for papers in Boston and in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Born 16 February 1829, Natchez, Mississippi; died 4 July 1879,
In 1886 at the urging of Catholic magazine editors, Dorsey
New Orleans, Louisiana
began writing Catholic childrens ction. Her rst stories, The
Wrote under: Filia Ecclesiae, Filia
Knickerbocker Ghost, The Tsars Horses, and Back from
Daughter of Thomas G. Percy and Mary Routh Ellis; married
the Frozen Pole, were published in Catholic periodicals such as
Samuel W. Dorsey, 1853 (died 1875)
Ave Maria and Catholic World but also in secular publications
such as Harpers. They were praised for their accuracy of detail.
Sarah Ellis Dorsey was descended from the leading planting
During the Spanish-American War, Dorsey served as a volunteer
families of Louisiana and Mississippi. Her father died when she
assistant in the Hospital Corps for the Daughters of the American
was nine years old, and her mother married another wealthy
Revolution. The experience gained there resulted in several other
planter. Dorseys childhood education was extensive; she had
pieces of edifying juvenile boys ction that became very popular.
private tutors to teach her foreign languages and the ne arts, and
Like her mothers melodramatic Catholic writings for adults, a European grand tour capped her formal training. In 1853 she
Dorseys childrens ction is pro-Catholic, clever in plot manipu- married a lawyer and the overseer on one of the family planta-
lation, and accurate and fascinating in historical detail. In her tions. The young couple moved to Tensas Parish, Louisiana, and
work, conversion to Christianity is always a great joy. Dorsey Dorsey settled into the life of a Southern wife and plantation
demonstrated her historical acumen and moral concern in the mistress. During the Vicksburg campaign of 1863, the Dorsey
societies to which she belonged. She was on the board for Trinity home was raided by Grants men. After the city fell and the area
College, the rst Catholic college for the higher education of was overrun by the Union army, the Dorseys took their slaves and
women in America, a member of the Daughters of the American trekked to Texas. Samuel Dorsey died in 1875 and Dorsey moved
Revolution, the Marquette League, the Pocahontas Memorial to their summer home, Beauvoir, near Biloxi, Mississippi.
Association, corresponding secretary of the Club of Colonial
One of Dorseys childhood friends had been Varina Howell
Dames, and an honorary member of the Association of Span-
Davis, the wife of the former Confederate president. Jefferson
ish-American War Nurses.
Davis was Dorseys guest at Beauvoir in 1876 while visiting near
Many of her writings, not meant only for children, grew out Biloxi and later settled into a cottage on the estate to write his
of these afliations. The Forbidden Dance, published in the memoirs, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government
Messenger in 1908, deals with the lack of understanding of the (1881). Dorsey served as his secretary and condante, transcrib-
Native American culture by the U.S. government in banning the ing his notes, keeping his correspondence, and entertaining his
305
DOUBLEDAY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
guests. Mrs. Davis, who was in Europe with her daughter, DOUBLEDAY, Nellie Blanchan (De
somewhat resented Dorseys close association with her husband
and refused to visit the house for several months after her return. Graff)
Eventually, though, she joined them. The Davises were so en-
chanted with the estate Dorsey sold it to them in 1879. She also Born 23 October 1865, Chicago, Illinois; died 21 February 1918,
bequeathed two Louisiana plantations to Davis in her will. Canton, China
Wrote under: Neltje Blanchan
Dorseys writing career had begun in the 1850s with a series
Daughter of Liverius and Alice Fair De Graff; married Frank N.
of articles on the religious education of her slaves for the New
Doubleday, 1886
York Churchman. Her rst book was a biography of Louisianas
Confederate governor, Henry Watkins Allen, published in 1866.
Author of several very popular bird and nature books, Nellie
A family friend, Allen had left notes and personal papers with
Blanchan Doubleday was educated at St. Johns School in New
Dorsey before his ight into exile in Mexico. The biography is
York and the Misses Masters School in Dobbs Ferry. In 1886 she
very complimentary toward the late governor, stressing his coop-
married Frank N. Doubleday (1862-1934), who later founded the
eration with the Confederate government and his attempts to
publishing rm of Doubleday, Doran and Company. An exuber-
relieve the distress of the states civilian population during ant, enthusiastic woman, Doubleday was no great authority on
wartime. birds, but her work was part of the foundations of the conservation
In Lucia Dare (1867), a novel dealing with the adventures of movement made during the early years of the 20th century. She
an English heiress during the Civil War, Dorsey used her own died in Canton while on an assignment for the Red Cross.
experiences as a refugee in Texas as the basis for the narrative. Nature enthusiasts at the turn of the century often mixed
Dorseys most famous novel was Panola, a Tale of Louisiana interest in Native American lore, birds, plants, and camping skills.
(1877). The heroine of this romance was a young, proud, shy, Although Doubledays rst book was a study of the Piegans, one
slowly-maturing, half-Indian maiden. The chastity and conti- of the Blackfoot tribes of the West, her bird writing soon took
nence of her blood through long lines of famous warriors had kept precedence. Bird Neighbors (1897), her rst bird book, is an
cool and as yet unwarmed by passion. The novel is set in the elementary eld book including information on habitats and bird
home of Dr. Canonge just before the Civil War. Panola, who is families. Introduced by John Burroughs, the volume went through
related to the doctor in some way, yet is also a servant in the many printings. The following year (1898), she published Birds
household, falls in love with Victor, the doctors grandson. The That Hunt and Are Hunted: Life Histories of One Hundred and
plot revolves around the marriage, separation, and reunion of the Seventy Birds of Prey, Game Birds and Water-Fowls, again not a
lovers. True love, not unexpectedly, conquers all. work of important new observations but a book for the amateur. In
the preface, Doubleday points out that when the public learns
Panola is typical of Dorseys ction. Sentimental and heavi-
about birds, they will willingly back laws to protect them. Her
ly romanticized, it is also poorly plotted. Characters disappear
writing style in these two books is informative and lively. In her
from the stage only to be resurrected, usually in disguise, for
chapter on the bob white, in Birds That Hunt, for example, she
dramatic effect. The writing is stilted and peppered with French
portrays in very effective scenes the devastation of the little
pseudodialect. Its appeal was to a generation of readers who
families by sportsmen. Doubleday was not against limited
wanted pretty illusions in the face of the grim realities of
hunting but favored proper conservation laws.
Reconstruction.
Another of her popular nature guides was on plants, Natures
Garden (1900), which is a guide to wildowers arranged by their
OTHER WORKS: Recollections of Henry Watkin Allen, Briga- color. This work also includes information about insects associat-
dier-General Confederate States Army, Ex-Governor of Louisi- ed with the owers. Doubleday lists all the common names of a
ana (1866). Agnes Graham (1869). Athalie; or, A Southern given plant and has short essays of appreciation about each one; in
Villeggiatura (1872). On the Philosophy of the University of these she quotes poetry, cites folk beliefs, and explains the
France. First Paper Prepared for the Academy of Sciences of New relationship between the ower and its insect visitors.
Orleans, April 13, 1874 (1874). The Aryan Philosophy. Second
Paper Prepared at the Request of the Academy of Sciences of New Another of Doubledays enthusiasms was gardening. The
Orleans (circa 1875). American Flower Garden (1909) appeared in many editions over
a period of 25 years. Well illustrated with photographs, and
beautifully printed, this book covers the topic of American
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Davis, V., Jefferson Davis, Ex-President of the gardening from a decidedly upper-class point of view. Chapters
Confederate States of America: A Memoir by His Wife (1890). on various garden topics (such as The Naturalistic Garden) and
Strode, H., Jefferson Davis: Tragic Hero (1964). chapters of plant advice (such as one on annuals) made this a
Reference works: NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). practical handbook for those with enough money to garden on
Other references: BJRL (1954). Journal of Mississippi Histo- Doubledays scale. In one chapter, The Formal Garden,
ry (1944). Doubleday extols Italian gardening and the sophisticated delights
of continental garden skill. In another, she writes: When we
JANET E. KAUFMAN remember that the masses of our population are but lately landed
306
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DOUGLAS
immigrants, it is scarcely surprising that crowds gaze with rapture The later Helen Grant series (beginning with Helen Grants
upon a life-sized elephant, done in uniform cactus rosettes, on the Schooldays in 1903) is designed for slightly older girls and offers
greensward of a public park. an idealized version of the new womanHelen is a noble,
intelligent girl, universally admired, who educates herself, attends
Although Doubleday is a minor gure in American nature college, chooses a profession, and becomes a teacher. She is
writing, her books are typical of those associated with the conser- interested in politics in a high-minded nonpartisan way, now
vation movement of the turn of the century. At that time, nature that suffrage is an issue, and she nds higher education is no
study of both ora and fauna became more than just a proper barrier to aesthetic renement and elegant womanly taste. Doug-
pastime for a genteel country woman; it became part of a growing las nal series, the long-running Sherburne series (beginning
national consciousness to preserve a magnicent natural heritage. with Sherburne House, 1892) projects a conventional domestic
romance through several generations in one wealthy family.
OTHER WORKS: The Piegan Indians (1889). How to Attract the Through her novels, Douglas (like her friend Louisa May
Birds (1902). Birds Every Child Should Know (1907). Birds Alcott in Little Women) often compares life to the progress of
Worth Knowing (1917). Christian in Bunyans Pilgrims Progress and describes human
trials as burdens to be borne for their moral instruction.
Though never explicitly feminist, Douglas repeatedly enjoins her
BIBLIOGRAPHY: McFarland, M., Memoirs of a Rose Man (1949). readers to respect single women, remembering they too may
Swanberg, W. A., Dreiser (1965). Dreiser, T. A., Letters (1959). lead good and useful lives and that marriage is not the only
Reference works: DAB (1891). NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). career of service for a woman. Her stories, though repetitive and
obviously commercial, are lively and well plotted, effectively
BEVERLY SEATON designed to entertain and instruct.
OTHER WORKS: Stephen Dane (1867). Sydney Adriance (1867).

Claudia (1868). With Fate Against Him (1870). Kathies Stories
DOUGLAS, Amanda Minnie (1871). Kathies Summer at Cedarwood (1871). Lucia: Her
Problem (1872). Seven Daughters (1874). Theres No Place Like
Born 14 July 1831, New York, New York; died 18 July 1916, Home (1875). Drifted Asunder (1876). Nelly Kinnards Kingdom
Newark, New Jersey (1876). From Hand to Mouth (1878). Hope Mills (1880). Lost in a
Daughter of John N. and Elizabeth Horton Douglas Great City (1880). Kathies Aunt Ruth (1883). Kathies Soldiers
(1883). Kathies Three Wishes (1883). The Old Woman Who
Amanda Douglas was educated at the City Institute in New Lived in a Shoe (1883). Whom Kathie Married (1883). Floyd
York City, and in 1853 moved to Newark, New Jersey, where she Grandons Honor (1884). Out of the Wreck (1884). A Womans
spent the rest of her life. At one time she considered a career as a Inheritance (1886). Foes of Her Household (1887). The Fortunes
designer and engraver, but illness in her family forced her to of the Faradays (1888). In the Ranks (1888). Heroes of the
remain at home and she began to write for publication. She soon Crusades (1889). Osborne of Arrochar (1890). Bertha Wrays
established herself as a prolic author of both short stories and New Name (1893). Lyndell Sherburne (1893). In the Kings
book-length ction. Her rst novel, In Trust, was published in Country (1894). Sherburne Cousins (1894). A Sherburne Ro-
1866. From then until almost the end of her life, she produced mance (1895). In Wild Rose Time (1895). A Little Girl in Old
steadily, frequently publishing more than one book a year. She Washington (1896). The Mistress of Sherburne (1896). The Child-
was a member of the New Jersey Womans Press Club and the ren at Sherburne House (1897). Hannah Ann (1897). Her Place in
Ray Palmer club, a womens literary organization. In 1893 her the World (1897). A Little Girl in Old Boston (1898). Sherburne
novel Larry won a prize from Youths Companion for the years Girls (1898). The Heir of Sherburne (1899). Kathies Harvest
best piece of ction for young people. Days (1899). A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia (1899). Almost as
Good as a Boy (1900). A New Sherburne Book (1900). Home
As an author Douglas developed several commercially suc- Nook (1901). A Little Girl in Old New Orleans (1901). A Question
cessful series, two of which are distinctly juvenile. The Kathie of Silence (1901). A Sherburne Inheritance (1901). A Little Girl in
stories, popular in the 1870s and 1880s, concern a sunshiny Old Detroit (1902). A Sherburne Quest (1902). How Bessie Kept
little girl who in a childish way exemplies popular conceptions House (1903). A Little Girl in Old St. Louis (1903). Helen Grants
of womanly virtuecheerful industry, love of home life, and Friends (1904). Honor Sherburne (1904). A Little Girl in Old
the desire to exert an improving inuence on boys about her. The Chicago (1904). The Heirs of Bradley House (1905). Helen Grant
Little Girl books (from A Little Girl in Old New York, 1896, to A at Aldred House (1905). A Little Girl in Old San Francisco
Little Girl in Old Pittsburg, 1909) are saccharine tales built (1905). An Easter Lily (1906). A Little Girl in Old Quebec (1906).
around references to local and national history, reecting the Helen Grant, Senior (1907). A Little Girl in Old Baltimore (1907).
buoyant patriotism of the Teddy Roosevelt era. In the Sherburne Line (1907). Helen Grant, Graduate (1908). A
307
DOUGLAS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Little Girl in Old Salem (1908). Helen Grant, Teacher (1909). forceful alliance is not convincingly substantiated, although the
Helen Grants Decision (1910). Helen Grants Harvest Year economic, political, and intellectual parallels are compelling
(1911). The Red House Children at Grafton (1913). The Red evidence of a shared disestablishment. Similarly, the authors
House Childrens Year (1915). perceptive exploration of clerical and female self-denial is
enlightening, while not quite persuading the reader of the larger
connections for which Douglas argues. As Gerda Lerner notes,
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: A Woman of the Century (1893). however, the textual richness and methodological sophistication
DAB (1929). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the of this intellectual and literary history compensate for its
United States (1995). overstatement, its lack of historical perspective, and its excessive
Other references: Book News Monthly (Sept. 1893, Jan. display of erudition.
1898). On Critical Analysis (video, 1995). For the most part strikingly well written, The Feminization of
American Culture draws attention to important aspects of 19th-
JANE BENARDETE century life all too frequently ignored by the student of literature.
Douglas introduces the reader to many writings (particularly those
by women) undeservedly overlooked and to others worth prob-
ingif not for their literary excellence, for their signicance as
part of the main body of American letters. Douglas treatment of
DOUGLAS, Ann the two case studies with which the book concludes is persua-
sively astute and prots greatly from the contexts she suggests in
the rest of her work. Her examination of Margaret Fuller is
Born 1942, Morristown, New Jersey
particularly perceptive; she analyzes Fullers difculties as a
Also writes under: Ann Wood
writer and a woman whose central problem is the absence of an
Daughter of Malcolm D. Watson and Margaret Wade Taylor;
audience and whose options become increasingly limited.
married Peter H. Wood, 1965 (to 1974)
At her best when dealing at some length with individual
writersFuller, Melville, Stowe, Buckminster, Park, Henry Ward
Ann Douglas received her B.A. degree in English literature
BeecherDouglas is always provocative in The Feminization of
in 1964 from Harvard College, where she was elected to Phi Beta
American Culture, which has gone through several subsequent
Kappa. From 1964 to 1966, she studied Victorian literature at
editions (1978 and 1988) since its 1977 publication. The books
Linacre College, Oxford, England. She received her Ph.D. from
ultimate value lies in the wide range of materials she examines and
Harvard University in 1970, writing her dissertation on Piers
in Douglas fresh view, whose coherence is at once a weakness
Plowman and the Monastic Vision Tradition. In 1974, she and a strength.
became a member of the faculty at Columbia University, where
she currently teaches American literature and culture. She has After The Feminization of American Culture, Douglas went
been a member of the editorial boards of Womens Studies since on to write articles for a myriad of publications as well as the
1972 and of American Quarterly since 1974. introduction for a new edition of Harriet Beecher Stowes Uncle
Toms Cabin in 1981. Douglas next book, Terrible Honesty:
The Feminization of American Culture (1977) is Douglas Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s was published in 1995, and she
rst book and her major work, although she has published widely wrote the introductions to Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs
in periodicals. The rst two sections (The Sentimentalization of Reader in 1998, and Joyce Johnsons Minor Characters in 1999.
Status and The Sentimentalization of Creed and Culture) Douglas celebrated 25 years of teaching at Columbia Universi-
present her dominant thesis. Douglas maintains that the many ty in 1999.
similarities between women and clergy in America from 1820 to
1875 constituted an alliance that nurtured a popular literature and
OTHER WORKS: Articles in: Journal of Interdisciplinary History,
a sentimental societyin both of which we can see the beginnings
Los Angeles Times, Modernism/Modernity, New Republic, New
of modern mass culture. In the books third section (Protest:
York Times, Raritan,Vogue and others.
Case Studies in American Romanticism), Douglas explores the
work of Margaret Fuller and Herman Melville and suggests
alternative responses to feminization (a rather arbitrary and BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Oxford Companion to Wom-
even sexist term), however, ultimately unsuccessful. ens Writing (1995). Atlantic (May 1977).
Other references: CSM (2 Aug. 1977). LJ (Aug. 1977).
Douglas appendices suggest the solidity of a sociological Nation (30 May 1977). Newsweek (13 June 1977). NYRB (14 July
study, and in the lengthy scholarly notes she reveals both her 1977). NYTBR (26 June 1977). On Critical Analysis (interview on
extensive reading of 19th-century popular literature and her video, 1995).
familiarity with secondary sources. But Douglas thesisthe
most innovative aspect of her studyseems tenuous in the end. CAROLINE ZILBOORG,
Despite the similar plight of clergy and women at the time, a UPDATED BY NELSON RHODES
308
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DREW
DOVE, Rita classically heroic, more disappointed than fullled, more ordinary
than extraordinary. Yet the book also addresses many of the major
events in Americas 20th century, most especially World War II
Born 28 August 1952, Akron, Ohio
and its aftermath. Thomas is a man disappointed not to be a soldier
Daughter of Ray and Elvira Hord Dove; married Fred Viebahn,
and disappointed to be the father exclusively of daughters rather
1979; children: Aviva
than sons, although he hopes to fulll this longing with a son-in-law
and grandson. Thomas stroke in the drivers seat of his automo-
As the second African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for
bile and his subsequent death are among the most poignant scenes
poetry and the only African American to serve as Poet Laureate of
in the book. Beulah, on the other hand, longs for solitude, quiet.
the United States, Rita Dove has acquired an eager following
When her children are napping, she sits out behind her garage,
among critics and the general public alike. Dove was born and
relishing her time to herself. Together, the lives of Thomas and
grew up in Akron, Ohio, and early distinguished herself as a
Beulah exemplify not only the details of racial struggles but also
scholar. She attended Miami University of Ohio as a National
of gendered struggles during the middle of this century.
Merit Scholar and graduated with her B.A. summa cum laude. She
subsequently received a Fulbright Fellowship, which she used to To some extent, Dove continued this attention to ordinary
study at Germanys University of Tubingen. Returning to the U.S., lives, and more specically to her own experience in Grace Notes
she earned an M.F.A. from the well-known University of Iowas (1989). A recent collection is Mother Love(1995), dedicated to her
Writers Workshop. Her other awards include grants from the daughter and relying on the myth of Demeter and Persephone; and
National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a her latest is On the Bus with Rosa Parks published in 1999.
General Electric Foundation award for Younger Writers, a Na- Throughout her work, Dove elevates ordinary experience to
tional Book award, and several honorary doctorates. She has memorable event through her use of striking detail. She has yet to
taught at Arizona State University and is currently on the faculty write a book of poetry that has not been well received.
at the University of Virginia.
Dove has also written in other genres. She has published one
Doves early publications include two chapbooks published novel, Through the Ivory Gate (1992), and a play, The Darker
soon after she graduated from the University of Iowa. Her rst Face of the Earth: A Verse Play in Fourteen Scenes (1994).
full-length poetry collection was The Yellow House on the Corner Critics continue to treat her primarily as a poet, however, not only
(1980); many of the poems in this book achieve their effects because the bulk of her work is in that genre, but also because even
through precise imagery and detail. Like many rst collections, in her prose she attends to language with the precision of a poet.
The Yellow House on the Corner addresses a variety of subject
matter, from personal coming-of-age narratives, to more political
descriptions of historically signicant events, including the Ameri- OTHER WORKS: Ten Poems (1977). The Only Dark Spot in the Sky
can slave trade. In her second collection, Museum (1983), Dove (1980). Mandolin (1982). Fifth Sunday (1985). Selected Poems
continues this trend, relying on sensual imagery to examine such (1993). The Poets World (1995).
historical gures as Catherine of Alexandria, Catherine of Siena,
and Boccaccio. To the extent that readers are familiar with the
lives of the gures Dove evokes and the events to which she BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CANR (1998).
refers, her poems are generally accessible. Her language itself is
direct and occasionally deceptively simple. Ironically, Dove has LYNN DOMINA
been criticized both for focusing too much on race and for failing
to focus enough on race. And in a climate when confessionalism
has become the easiest of targets, Dove has nevertheless been
criticized for not revealing enough of her personal characteristics. DREW, Elizabeth
These contradictory criticisms reveal Dove is comfortable work-
ing among several traditions, that she is familiar with both her Born 16 November 1935, Cincinnati, Ohio
African heritage and with the traditional Western literary and Daughter of William J. and Estelle Jacobs Brenner; married J.
cultural canon. To the extent her poetry erupts from personal Patterson Drew, 1964 (died 1970); David Webster, 1981.
experience, the content of her poems, in other words, reveal the
complicated nature of identity in the late 20th century.
Upon graduation from Wellesley College in 1957, Elizabeth
Dove is probably most well known for Thomas and Beulah Drew worked for two years as an associate editor at the Writer,
(1986). This book, which won the Pulitzer Prize, consists of two and then went on to write for the Congressional Quarterly. In
sequences, one from either characters perspective, which togeth- 1967, she became the Washington editor for the Atlantic Monthly,
er explore the individual lives of Thomas and Beulah, Doves and by 1973 was a regular contributor to the New Yorker with her
maternal grandparents, as well as their life together. Like many Letter from Washington. In 1971, Drew began interviewing
sequences, this book is most effectively read in its entirety. More public gures on her radio program Thirty Minutes With. . . ,
decidedly narrative than some of Doves work, Thomas and and since 1973 has been a commentator for the Washington Post-
Beulah has the effect of multigenerational novels. It is neverthe- Newsweek stations and a panelist for Inside Washinton (for-
less a work of its time, for the characters are more antiheroic than merly Agronsky and Company). Among other honors, Drew
309
DREW AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
has received the Society of Magazine Writers Award for Excel- future scholars who seek a sense of national politics since 1960,
lence (1970), the Dupont-Columbia Award for Broadcast Journal- her work proves invaluable.
ism (1972-73), The Newswomens Club of New York Award
(1983), the Washington Monthly Political Books Award (1984), In Senator (1979), Drew recounts 10 days in the congression-
and the Edward Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting (1988). al life of John Culver in the Senate and in his home state, Iowa.
As a political journalist, Drew has been described as the Ameri- The book is written as a case study, realistically detailing the
can Boswell and the Samuel Pepys of Washington. trivial and morally problematic aspects of political life without
offering synthesis or analysis. The book is frequently excerpted in
Drew has often directed her attention to the complexities of anthologies assigned for college political science courses.
governing and the protracted, strange, disturbing and some-
what comic process of choosing a president. Her articles and In Portrait of an Election: The 1980 Presidential Campaign
books have focused on specic topics such as presidential cam- (1981), Drew explains that she is taking a journalistic approach
paigns, congressional ethics, lobbying, regulatory commissions, that constitutes a history of the periodan account of the
foreign policy, and the events of the Watergate period. Drew realities of the time, unguided, and also undistorted, by hind-
combines a consistently understated tone with a restrained style sight. The goal is to show how people in politics think,
and often organizes a series of focused interviews around a central calculate, react and to capture how it looks and feels. One
question. Using the journal form of expression, she carefully reviewer applauded her cool, lucid style and reasoned fair-
describes what has happened and why, as well as providing a minded approach to her interviews with political actors and their
feeling for the atmosphere surrounding the events. Drew deftly advisors. Another reviewer, however, sees Drew spending time
juxtaposes the ludicrous and the profound on the American lovingly describing Democratic programs or tearing apart Re-
political scene. Her analytical and critical stance is tempered by publican rhetoric.
her ironic and humorous sensibility.
A perception by Drews colleagues that she is a serious,
Drews highly praised Washington Journal: The Events of humane, responsibly liberal, one-track-minded, mildly workahol-
1973-1974 developed from a journal which she kept during the ic veteran Washington insider, is especially borne out in Politics
Watergate years. Drew felt that being a journalist in Washington and Money: The Road to Corruption (1983). Drew carefully
[during Watergate] was like being at the battlefront, and her text synthesizes the intricacies of the role of money in the American
depicts daily confrontations with one stupefying event after political system and provides a specically argued analysis of
another. Recognizing early in 1973 that the nation would have to what should be done to bring the nation back closer to the
deal with the question of impeaching a president, Drew meticu- fundamental principles of democracy. Her investigation into the
lously observed key gures on the Judiciary Committee and great rivers of money that were essentially unaccounted for, and
developed an evocative case study of the process of decision- legally questionable, owing into both our congressional and
making during crisis. presidential elections has been consistently credited as one of
Drew interprets Watergate abuses in the context of a modern the rst journalistic attempts to document the problems inherent
representative democracy confronted with unaccountable execu- in the process of reforming campaign nance laws.
tives, reactive congresses, and citizens too easily prone to acqui-
With Campaign Journal: The Political Events of 1983-1984
escence, inattention, [and] cynicism. Washington Journal graphi-
(1985), Drew returns to the detailed diary entries, recording a
cally recalls to mind the difcult, frightening and fumbling
presidential election campaign with much of the focus on strate-
struggle to resolve the question of whether our constitutional
gies used by Democratic Party candidates trying to win back the
form of government would continue.
White House. Election Journal: Political Events of 1987-1988
Drews second book, American Journal: The Events of 1976 (1989) offers more discursive judgements of events and people
(1977), was drawn from material previously published in the New than her previous books on presidential campaigns, assigning to
Yorker. Written in journal form, it examines the process of Ronald Reagan, for instance, the role of dominant gure in the
choosing a president during the nations bicentennial year. Based 1988 election. Both books reect what a reviewer called her
on rsthand observation of the pressured candidates during the extraordinary capacity for eliciting the informed observations of
election period, Drew offers evidence that the big question of how insiders.
candidates would be at governing is given insufcient considera-
tion in the American political process. With the focus on such Since 1989 Drew has continued to contribute the Letter
things as a candidates smile, and his affability and how he is from Washington for the New Yorker as well as to write articles
doing in Illinois, candidates have accepted a process that prohib- for such publications as the New York Times Sunday Magazine.
its any possibility of articulating a broad and worthy vision of Her subjects have included the role of Congress in the post-Cold
the American future. War era, politics in the Soviet Union, the 1992 presidential
election campaign, and the politics of campaign nance reform. In
Drew is unique in her ability to discern and pursue the 1993 she began work on a book about the rst year of the Clinton
important questions facing the country. Her interviews with administration.
national leaders reveal their personalities as well as their process
of thought. Drew explores the complexity behind and below the For On the Edge: The Clinton Presidency (1994), Drew
surface realities of the contemporary political experience. For interviewed every high ofcial in the White House, along with
310
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DREXLER
Cabinet ofcers, Capitol Hill staff, and other Washington insid- the blunt grimness of newspaper tragedy. She describes her
ers. Although criticized for the number of anonymous quotes, this feminist blend of reality and fantasy as in the tradition of the
method allowed her to deliver an accumulation of painstaking Russian absurdists/surrealists such as Zamyatin, Gogol, and
detail that enhances the books credibility and paints one of the Bulgakov. Her writing is structured by plot development moti-
fullest pictures of the Clinton Administrations creation of its vated by character, located in a world like oursthough the rules
ambitious but ill-fated health care proposal. differ, and characters sometimes follow the spotlight or turn into
angels. Drexlers drama has been well received critically, and
Showdown: The Struggle Between the Gingrich Congress three of her plays (Home Movies, 1967; The Writers Opera,
and the Clinton White House (1996) offers a similarly detailed 1979; Transients Welcome, 1984) were awarded Obies. Her short
portrait, this time of then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. story Dear won a Paris Review humor prize (1966), and in
The exhaustive worka journalist colleague described her 1974 she received an Emmy Award for writing a television special
lichen-like attachment to Gingrichfollowed the Speakers for comedian Lily Tomlin. Drexler has been the recipient of
fall from triumph to failure within the space of one year. The book fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation (1965, 1968, 1974,
highlights a criticism of the type of journalistic reportage Drew 1986), Guggenheim Foundation (1970), and Yaddo (1980); she
utilizes; it creates an accurate picture of a moment in time but has also received grants from the NEA (1989, 1991), the New
lacks the potential for the kind of reliable analysis that a historical York Foundation for the Arts (1990), and the New York State
work can provide. Commission on the Arts (1993). Her creative interest in both
In Whatever It Takes: The Real Struggle for Political Power literature and art has led to membership in numerous dramatic and
in America(1997), Drew was applauded for her insight that the theatrical organizations, including the Dramatists Guild, the New
interests of a political party may conict with those of its York Theatre Strategy, and Actors Studio.
candidate: Bob Doles presidential campaign was abandoned by Drexlers artistic versatility has translated into a successful
the Republicans to increase their chances of winning the House career as a painter. She has presented one-women art shows at
and Senate. The book, a look at the activities and ethics of several New York and Boston galleries, among others, and has been a part
powerful conservative lobbies, was panned by some for shining of group shows in such prestigious venues as the Guggenheim
light on the conservatives at the same time that the Clinton Museum and the Whitney Museum. Her visual work Rosalyn
Administrations ethical difculties were coming to light. Yet Drexler: Intimate Emotions appeared in the Grey Art Gallery at
critics agreed that Whatever It Takes offers Drews usual fairif New York University in 1986. In addition to her own creative
slightly left-leaningportrait, teeming with insider information. outlets, Drexler employs her critical and scholarly command by
contributing to such periodicals as Esquire, Village Voice, and
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Marzolf, M., Up from the Footnote: A History of Mademoiselle, and by reviewing lms for Vogue.
Women Journalists (1977). Largely self-educated, Drexler has worked as a wrestler,
Reference works: CA 104 (1982). WWAW (1997/1998). singer, college teacher, director, and sculptor; as well as a noted
Other references: American Spectator (July 1996). BW (26 painter. All of these occupations are preoccupations to her writ-
May 1997). CSM (9 Nov. 1977). JAS (Aug. 1983). National ing, which she describes as very much concerned with the artist,
Review (9 Aug. 1985). NR (30 Dec. 1981, 13 Mar. 1995). NYRB creativity, and the relationship of the artist to life, with human
(21 Jan. 1982, 6 June 1996, 14 Aug. 1997). NYTBR (14 Sept. relationships and questions of what is real life and whos trying
1975, 9 Nov. 1977, 13 May 1979, 8 Nov. 1981, 11 Sept. 1983, 17 to squelch it.
March 1985, 2 April 1989, 27 Nov. 1994). Newsweek (18 Dec.
1971, 13 Oct. 1975). PW (26 Sept. 1994). Reason (Dec. 1997). Critics have compared her to the Marx Brothers (whose
Washington Journalism Review (Dec. 1981). movies she saw as a child), commenting on her honesty and the
playfulness of her sight gags, song, silliness, and puns. But
JENNIFER L. TEBBE, Drexlers writing is not just farcical, as critics who have likened
UPDATED BY KAREN RAUGUST her to Kafka, Joyce, and Pynchon recognize. Drexler loves
Beckett and Ionesco, and her worlds darker ironies and isola-
tion reect this. Her irreverence is iconoclastic. Her use of stream-
of-consciousness reveals characters who are not having fun,
DREXLER, Rosalyn whose desires lead only to loss. Her writing focuses on the
theatricality of life, the ways characters script each other and
adopt roles, revealing in the process that much of human identity
Born 26 November 1926, New York, New York
is articial and implying that these roles are inadequate or
Also writes under: Julia Sorel
damaging.
Daughter of George and Hilda Sherman Bronznick; married
Sherman Drexler, 1946; children: one daughter, one son Verbal and physical violence are also important technical and
thematic issues in Drexlers work, animating her interest in
Rosalyn Drexler, who writes under both her own name and dysfunctional families, gender relations, and the impact of the arts
her pseudonym Julia Sorel, offers readers plays and novels that and media. Her later work includes Bad Guy (1982, 1988), a novel
share pathos and satiric wit, mundaneness and magic, comedy and about a therapist who uses dream interpretation and psychodrama
311
DRINKER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
to treat a teenage rapist/murderer whose role models have all been Feminist Theatre (1984). Sontag, S., Going to Theater, Etc. in
television characters. Against Interpretation and Other Essays (1966).
Reference works: American Women Dramatists of the Twen-
Drexlers work is art and entertainment, and her characters tieth Century (1982). CA (1979, 1999). CD (1988). CLC (1974,
resemble circus grotesques, paradoxically evoking tenderness and 1976). Notable Women in the American Theater (1989). .
laughter. Her style is both compassionate toward them and Other references: American Theatre (1993). Art in America
merciless in detailing their lives. These criminals and victims, 74 (Nov. 1986). Art News (March 1964; interview, Jan. 1971).
healers and patients, social mists and apparently normal charac- george jr. (1996). Mademoiselle (interview, Aug. 1972). Massa-
terswhose psychological deformities and scars Drexler re- chusetts Review (interview, Winter 1972). New Yorker (23 May
vealsare both archetypal and idiosyncratic. Her writing is 1964). NYT (interview, 27 Feb. 1978). Plays and Players 17
memorable for these characters and their wordplay; it is poignant (April 1970). PW (1996). Theater (Winter 1985)
when we see them achieve a momentary self-awareness or tran-
scend their fragmentation in an act of intimacy or kindness DANA SONNENSCHEIN,
perhaps because the meanings of self and action remain ambiguous. UPDATED BY JULIET BYINGTON
Drexlers writing is almost always political. The point of

view is often feminist, as when she focuses on the commodication
of the female body (Line of Least Existence, 1967; Cosmopolitan
Girl, 1975) or mythologizes male rule as the rape/murder of a DRINKER, Elizabeth Sandwith
queen who incarnates her country (She Who Was He, 1973). But
Drexlers social critiques are broader than any label, ranging from Born 1734, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; died 24 November 1807,
parodies of class and racial stereotypes and witty indictments of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
commercialism, materialism, and egotism to trenchant satire of Daughter of William and Sarah Jervis Sandwith; married Henry
such topical issues as the American involvement in Panama (Cara Drinker, 1761
Pia, 1992).
Born to a successful merchant family, Elizabeth Sandwith
Drinker was educated by Anthony Benezet at a girls school that
OTHER WORKS: I Am the Beautiful Stranger (1965). The Investi- offered a curriculum similar to that available to boys in other
gation & Hot Buttered Roll (1967). One or Another (1970). To schools. Such an education was so unusual in colonial America
Smithereens (1972). Starburn: The Story of Jenni Love (1979). Art that Drinkers obituary in 1807 made note of it.
Does (Not!) Exist (1996). Dear (1997).
Fiction as Julia Sorel: Unwed Widow (1975). Dawn: Portrait In October 1758 Drinker began her diary, a record which she
of a Teenage Runaway (1976). Rocky (1976). Alex: The Other kept faithfully until shortly before her death. Never intended for
Side of Dawn (1977). See How She Runs (1978). publication, the diary lled 36 manuscript volumes with almost
Essays, short stories and essays in Arts & Antiques, Black Ice, daily entries. Drinker chronicled births, deaths, visits, price lists,
Esquire, Los Angeles Times, Mademoiselle, Ms., New American travels, illnesses, medical advice, character sketches, family mat-
Revue, New York Times, Paris Revue, Sports Illustrated, Vogue, ters, religious activities, military movements, and political devel-
Village Voice, Viva and others. opments. In fact, she recorded thousands of Philadelphia events,
Included in the following anthologies: Theater Experiment both trivial and momentous.
(1967), Collision Course (1968), The Off-Off Broadway Book A series of entries made in 1777 and 1778, for example,
(1972), 100 Monologues (1989), Women on the Verge (1993), detailed the British occupation of Philadelphia during the Ameri-
From the Other Side of the Century: A New American Drama, can Revolution. True to her Quaker pacism, Drinker seems to
1960-1995 (1998). have maintained a careful neutrality: her cryptic judgements
Unpublished plays in Drexlers possession (dates are for rst spared neither side in the controversy. On May 18, 1778, she
production): The Ice Queen (1965). Was I Good? (1972). Vulgar commented on the lavish celebration with which the British
Lives (1979). The Writers Opera (1979) Graven Image (1980). marked the departure of General Howe from Philadelphia: This
The Mandrake (1983). Starburn (1983). Delicate Feelings (1984). A day may be remembered by many from the scenes of folly and
Matter of Life and Death (1986). The Heart That Eats Itself vanity, promoted by the ofcers of the army under pretense of
(1987). The Flood (1992). showing respect to Gen. Howe. . . .How insensible do these
people appear, while our land is so greatly desolated, and death
and sore destruction has overtaken and impends over so many.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Abraham, T. T., Carnivalesque and American
Women Dramatists of the Sixties. (dissertation, 1990). Betsko, K., Yet the Continental Army hardly merited Drinkers higher
and R. Koenig, Interviews with Contemporary Women Play- esteem either. On 2 September 1777, Henry Drinker and other
wrights (1987). Brown, J., Feminist Drama: Denition and Friends had been arrested and exiled to Virginia for refusing on
Critical Analysis (1979). Dasgupta, G., and B. Maranca, eds., religious grounds to swear allegiance to the new government and
American Playwrights: A Critical Survey (1981). Gottfried, M., A contribute to its support. Due to his prominence, Henry was
Theater Divided: The Postwar American Stage (1967). Keyssar, H., released after eight months without ever coming to trial, but
312
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DuJARDIN
Drinkers diary entries for April 1778 document her trip to George marriage contract by demanding suffocating sacrices that the
Washingtons headquarters at Valley Forge to secure his release. young wife cannot accept. Malicious tongues also account for two
unnecessary deaths and the destruction of a doctors previously
After the Revolution, Drinker quite consciously directed her unblemished reputation. Only those who are able to break out
attention away from politics. In 1795, with one of the many verse from social bonds nd love and happiness, leaving those behind
entries in her diary, she characterized her interests as homebound: locked in a suspicious prison of their own making. DuJardin
I stay much at home, and my business I mind,/ Take note of the writes a solid and engaging narrative that may lack depth but
weather, and how blows the wind. But although Drinker de- nonetheless brings the value of skepticism and open-mindedness
scribes her interests as limited, the variety and detail of her within popular reach. Her characters are easy to identify with, her
36-volume diary suggest wider concerns; her record has yet to be language is vivid, and her plots are lled with the unpredictable.
fully explored by scholars of early America. Elizabeth Drinkers
diary (kept from 1758 to 1807) is in the possession of the In 1949 DuJardin wrote her rst book for teenagers entitled
Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Practically Seventeen, and she enjoyed the experience so much
that she never went back to writing for adults. She followed this
rst young adult novel with 16 others, all of which were greeted
OTHER WORKS: Extracts from the Journal of Elizabeth Drinker with enthusiastic reviews. DuJardin takes teenage novels beyond
(edited by H. D. Biddle, 1889). their usual insipid level of romance and morality to create natural,
authentic ction that deals honestly with the problems of adoles-
cence. She stresses the need for teenagers to lend a helping hand to
each other themselves, understanding that there are some aspects
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cowell, P., Women Poets in Pre-Revolutionary
of being 17 that adults know nothing about.
America, 1650-1775 (1981). Drinker, C. K., Not So Long Ago: A
Chronicle of Medicine and Doctors in Colonial Philadelphia (1937). In Double Wedding (1959), DuJardin writes a tale of believ-
Other references: PMHB (1889, 1891). able romance. The novel does not end with the nding of true
love, but begins with it. Pam and Peggy have already found their
PATTIE COWELL prospective husbands, and DuJardin explores the challenges and
problems that come up in every serious relationship. There is no
starry-eyed romance here. It is rather the awakening of two young
girls learning to cope with love, learning how to t it into their
individual career dreams, their need for personal space, and their
DuBOIS, Shirley Graham need for friends. DuJardin is writing for teenagers but she is
See GRAHAM, Shirley dealing with the adult problems adolescence is all about; she
understood and respected her audience as individuals and there is
no condescension in her narratives.
DuJARDIN, Rosamond Neal OTHER WORKS: All Is Not Gold (1937). Only Love Lasts (1943).
Brief Glory (1944). Tomorrow Will Be Fair (1946). Wait for
Born 1902, Fairland, Illinois; died 27 March 1963 Marcy (1950). Class Ring (1951). Double Date (1952). Marcy
Daughter of Edgar and Ida May Neal; married Victor Catches Up (1952). Boy Trouble (1953). Double Feature (1953).
DuJardin, 1925 A Man for Marcy (1954). Showboat Summer (1954). The Real
Thing (1956). Senior Prom (1957). Wedding in the Family (1958).
Junior Year Abroad, with J. DuJardin (1960). One of the Crowd
Rosamond Neal DuJardin, a popular writer best remembered (1961). Someone to Count on (1962). Young and Fair (1963).
for her honest, direct novels about teenagers, began her career as a
ction writer for the Chicago Daily News in 1930, but soon
moved on to sell more than 100 stories to magazines such as Good BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: More Junior Authors (1963).
Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, and McCalls. DuJardins Other references: Chicago School Journal (14 May 1951).
rst novels, published between 1935 and 1946, were written for PW (8 Apr. 1963). WLB (June 1953, May 1963).
adults and often appeared rst in magazine serial form.
CHRISTIANE BIRD
Honorable Estate (1943), like many of DuJardins works,
takes place in a small town in Illinois. A young man brings his
bride of a day home to the unwelcoming astonishment of his
mother and tyrannical grandfather. Although the year is 1940,
their lives revolve around petty, small-town gossip, not world DUNLAP, Jane
events. The narrowness of convention destroys the newly formed See DAVIS, Adelle
313
DuPLESSIS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
DuPLESSIS, Rachel Blau Michael Kings H. D. Woman and Poet (1986), which it partly
supersedes, and in all respects superior (of course) to Harold
Blooms H. D., this comprehensive and balanced gathering of
Born 14 December 1941, Brooklyn, New York
clearly written articles is the one critical anthology anyone writing
Daughter of Joseph L. and Eleanor Weslock Blau; married
about or teaching H. D. should certainly buy.
Robert Saint-Cyr DuPlessis, 1968; children: Richard, Kore
DuPlessis collected a decade of her essays for inclusion in
Feminist literary critic and poet Rachel Blau DuPlessis lives The Pink Guitar: Writing as Feminist Practice (1990). She
in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, and teaches at Temple University. examines such questions as: Isnt feminist aesthetic a contra-
She describes herself as an off-white feminist, resisting even diction in terms? And why has feminist criticism throughout its
enlightenment Judaism, a radical but middle-class U.S. inhabi- brief history searched so diligently for an aesthetic? Since literary
tant in a professional job category. Well known for her poetry in study as an intellectual and institutional practice cant seem to
such collections as Gypsy/Moth(1984) and Drafts (3-14) (1991), manage without these measuring rods, how can there be a feminist
DuPlessis is also the editor of the recently published Feminist literary criticism at all? The volume starts with her famous essay
Memoir Project (1998). For the Etruscans, and critics claim the power of this essay
DuPlessis attended Barnard College and Columbia Universi- derives from its borderline status, described as coming from the
ty. She received her Ph.D. in 1970. She taught at Rijksuniversiteit two author positions that DuPlessis delineates for herself, part
te Gent in Ghent, Belgium, and Universite de Lille III in Lille, sisterhood is powerful, part meaning is constructed through
France, in the early 1970s. She then taught at Rutgers University discursive practices. Throughout the essays in The Pink Guitar,
and began teaching at Temple University in 1974. She received a DuPlessis marshals her feminist anger through a radical writing
Fulbright professorship in 1985 and grants from the National practice that constantly questions its own discursive status while
Endowment for the Humanities in 1986 and 1988. She was upending issues of language, women, and authority. As one
awarded a poetry fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on reviewer remarked, DuPlessis sentences dart, rest, turn, twist,
the Arts in 1990. reveal, and disappear.
Feminism infuses all of DuPlessis work. She contends that In 1998 DuPlessis collaborated with Ann Snitow on an
if I had not become a feminist, I would not have been able to anthology called the Feminist Memoir Project: Voices from
write much or to think anything especially interesting in any Womens Liberation. As she did in The Pink Guitar, DuPlessis
original way. She sees her work in literary criticism as the once again exhibits her abiding commitment to giving voice to the
psychosocial analyses of literary production. DuPlessis own widest range possible of womens expression. In this case, the
writing seeks to invent an endless number of forms, structures, focus is a collection of memoirs from feminisms second wave
and linguistic ruptures in order to cut through and beyond the of the 1960s and 1970s. While assembling the collection, the
narrative-business-as-usual. Her engagement in experimental editors were lectured by a member of a younger feminist genera-
writing is part of a larger task of cultural change and revolution. tion about the need to move forward. It is time for the old to let
While writing alone cannot bring about change, DuPlessis is go of 70s politics. To practice a little strategic forgetfulness.
adamant that writing exerts a continuous destabilizing pressure. Contrary to this stance, DuPlessis sees the history of feminism as a
Language and textual structures must help cause and support the necessary building block for further activism. Ignorance of that
changes in consciousness. time. . .is also an odd handicap, the editors wrote in the Feminist
Writing Beyond the Ending: Narrative Strategies of Twenti- Memoir Project, like running a relay race with no ideas of
eth-Century Women Writers (1985) denes one major project of whats being handed on to you from the runner just behind.
20th-century women writers: the critique of the (heterosexual) Through all of her work, poetry, and criticism, DuPlessis
romance plot. DuPlessis challenges the classic relation of ro-
constantly engages the past in order to create not cultural revision
mance and quest; she seeks to invent narrative strategies to erode
but revolution. She seeks to create and preserve a narrative of
and replace the heterosexual couple as an adequate ctional
feminism that stands against historical forgetting.
ending. This book was written as a cross between feminist
humanism and the neo-Marxist analysis of Raymond Williams.
DuPlessis is also known as an authority on the life, work, and OTHER WORKS: Poetry Wells (1980). Tabula Rosa (1987). Draft
inuences of Hilda Doolittle. In H. D.: The Career of That X: Letters (1991).
Struggle (1986), she wrote a critical exploration of Doolittle.
DuPlessis collaborated with Susan Stanford Friedman on Signets:
Reading H. D. (1990), a collection spanning two decades of Hilda BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Oxford Companion to Wom-
Doolittle criticism by the most inuential critics. Well reviewed, ens Writing in the United States (1995). American Book Review
the anthology is a representative collection of essays, some (Apr./May 1991). CA (1993). Choice (1992). WRB (July 1991,
classics and others more recent, including bibliographies, chro- July 1992).
nology, and photographs. Meryl Altman in a review for the
Womens Review of Books wrote,More easily available than CELESTE DEROCHE
314
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DUNCAN
DUNBAR-NELSON, Alice (Ruth an unknown plane of life to avoid work, and reassures readers
that an independent, intelligent woman, a lawyer or doctor, does
Moore) not lose her ability to love when she gains a vocation.
During the period of her marriage to Dunbar, Dunbar-Nelson
Born 19 July 1875, New Orleans, Louisiana; died 18 September published her second collection, The Goodness of St. Rocque, and
1935, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Other Stories (1899), 14 local-color stories of New Orleans life.
Also wrote under: Alice Dunbar, Alice Ruth Moore These are crisply written sketches, portraying struggling, heroic
Daughter of Joseph and Patricia Wright Moore; married Paul L. characters trapped in difculties. Most have a surprise twist at
Dunbar, 1889 (divorced); Robert J. Nelson, 1916 their conclusions.
The younger of two daughters of middle-class working While teaching at Howard High School, Dunbar-Nelson
parents, Alice Dunbar-Nelson attended public schools and Straight edited two collections of poems and prose for oratory students,
College, New Orleans. After graduation, she began to teach and to Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence (1914) and The Dunbar Speak-
submit poetry to the Boston Monthly Review. One of these poems er and Entertainer (1920). Included in the latter are several pieces
and the accompanying photograph attracted Paul Dunbar, then a by Dunbar-Nelson, many of them (such as the one-act play Mine
young poet. He wrote her, conversationally raising literary issues, Eyes Have Seen) expressing conventional patriotic sentiments and
and enclosed a copy of his Phyllis. This began a friendship that racial pride. The short lyric I Sit and Sew, while sharing the
led to marriage. conventional patriotism of the others, is also a statement of a
woman chang at the limited range of appropriate female activity;
Dunbar-Nelson separated from Dunbar after a quarrel in it has an intensity, freshness, and power that the other pieces lack.
1902, and returned to teachingshe had taught kindergarten at
Victoria Earle Matthews White Rose Mission in New York Dunbar-Nelson was a pioneer in the black short story tradi-
becoming head of the English Department at Howard High School tion. Her second volume shows an increase in power, which
in Wilmington, Delaware. She retained this position for 18 years promised further development, had she continued to write in this
until she was red for defying an order to abstain from political genre. Instead, an energetic woman of diversied talents, she
activity. devoted her later life to journalism and political and social
activism.
During World War I, Dunbar-Nelson became involved in
organizing black women on behalf of the U.S. Council of National
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bernikow, L. The World Split Open: Four Centu-
Defense. She was the rst black woman to serve on Delawares
ries of Women Poets in England and America (1974). Brawley, B.,
Republican State Committee. She became associate editor of the
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1936). Brown, H. Q., Homespun Hero-
Wilmington Advocate, a weekly newspaper published by her
ines, and Other Women of Distinction (1926). Hull, G. T., ed., The
second husband and dedicated to the achievement of equal rights
Works of Alice Dunbar-Nelson (3 vols., 1988). Kerlin, R. T.,
for blacks. She also wrote a weekly column for the Washington
Negro Poets and Their Poems (1935). Loggins, V., The Negro
(D.C.) Eagle and contributed occasional pieces to the American
Author (1931). Martin, J., ed., A Singer in the Dawn (1975).
Methodist Episcopal Church Review. Her later years were devot-
Shockey, A. A., Afro-American Writers, 1746-1933 (1989). Stet-
ed to social work, especially with delinquent black girls, and to the
son, E., ed., Black Sister (1981). Whiteman, M., A Century of
cause of world peace.
Fiction by American Negroes, 1853-1952: A Descriptive Bibliog-
Dunbar-Nelsons reply to Dunbars rst letter to her set forth raphy (1955).
her views on the literary use of the Negro problem: I havent Reference works: NAW (1971). Oxford Companion to Wom-
much liking for those writers that wedge the Negro problem and ens Writing in the United States (1995).
social equality and long dissertations on the Negro in general into Other references: Delaware History (FallWinter 1976).
their stories. It is too much like a quinine pill in jelly. . . .Somehow
when I start a story I always think of my folk characters as simple KAREN F. STEIN
human beings, not of types of a race or an idea, and I seem to be on
more friendly terms with them. Dunbar-Nelsons letter also
mentioned the forthcoming publication of her rst book, Violets, DUNCAN, Isadora
and Other Tales (1895). In accord with her philosophy, the book
presents simple human beings caught in universal dilemmas
such as poverty and love betrayed. Born 26 May 1877, San Francisco, California; died 14 September
1927, Nice, France
While many of the 12 and 17 tales and sketches in Violets, Daughter of Joseph and Dora Gray Duncan; married Sergei
and Other Tales are romantic and slight, they give evidence of a Essenin, 1922 (separated by 1924); children: two, both
fresh, lively style. Noteworthy in this collection for their sprightli- died in 1913
ness and originality are the humorous In Unconsciousness, a
mock epic inspired by a tooth extraction, and The Woman, a One of the great originators of modern dance and an articu-
lively meditation on the independent woman. This piece decries late proponent of her art, Isadora Duncan grew up in circumstanc-
this wholesale marrying of girls in their teens, this rushing into es which encouraged her independent spirit. Her father abandoned
315
DUNIWAY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
his family when Duncan was an infant, and her mother was forced revealed in her occasional neglect of her pupils. But in general, it
to support the family by giving music lessons. Duncan left school appears Duncan was able to use her very feminine version of the
at age ten to study dance and perform in the natural, graceful, and woman artist as a more or less culturally permissible way of
seemingly improvisational manner that later made her famous. achieving her own autonomy.
Although she always considered her dance American in spirit,
Duncan never met with much success on the stage in her own Duncans version of the woman genius was powerful: she
country. She lived most of her life in Europe, where she achieved considered herself to be not merely a performer or muse but an
enormous critical and popular acclaim, began the rst of several artist whose movements came from her soul. Thus she never
schools of the dance, and bore two children. The ghastly deaths of practiced with mirrors, as do ballet dancers whose mechanical and
her children in 1913 in an automobile accident haunted the dancer prescribed movements Duncan rejected. Duncan found her model
throughout her life and lent a tragic dimension to her highly in the concepts of self-reliance, inner inspiration, and American
personal art. transcendental romanticism. Like Whitman, she rejected the
duality of soul and body, which is potentially damaging to the
In 1921 Duncan was invited to found a school of dance in integrity of women. She called on women to learn about and take
Russia, where before the Revolution her tours had inspired control of their own bodies: to become the sculptors, painters, and
innovations in the Russian ballet. During this Russian visit, architects of themselves. Social commentator and novelist Floyd
Duncan met and married Russian poet Sergei Essenin, an unstable Dell was correct when he included Duncan in his 1913 book about
man much younger than she. But by 1924, the economically feminists, and he was also correct when he labeled her feminism
troubled Soviet government had withdrawn support for the school, an extension of the feminine role itself.
and Duncan had separated from Essenin and left Russia. Thereaf-
ter she lived precariously, performing less often but creating a
lasting impression when she did. In 1927 Duncan died tragically BIBLIOGRAPHY: Dell, F., Women as World Builders: Studies in
when the fringe of her shawl caught in a wheel of a sports car, Modern Feminism (1913). Duncan, I., Duncan Dancer: An Auto-
breaking her neck. biography (1966). Duncan, I., and A. R. Macdougall, Isadora
Duncans Russian Days and Her Last Years in France (1929).
Duncans memoirs up until her 1921 departure for Russia Getz, L. Dancers and Choreographers: A Selected Bibliography
were written during her last months and published posthumously (1995). Macdougall, A. R., Isadora: A Revolutionary in Art and
in 1927 as My Life. There have been claims Duncan did not write Love (1960). Schneider, I. I., Isadora Duncan: The Russian Years
these unaided, but the exuberant style is that of her essays and of (1968). Seroff, V., The Real Isadora: A Biography (1971).
the impromptu speeches she made at the end of every dance Steegmuller, F., ed., Your Isadora: The Love Story of Isadora
recital. (Her miscellaneous writings are collected in The Art of the Duncan and Gordon Craig (1974). Terry, W., Isadora Duncan:
Dance, 1928.) There are inaccuracies in My Life, and the writing is Her Life, Her Art, Her Legacy (1963). Vigier, R., Gestures of
marred by a banality of expressionDuncans medium was Genius: Women, Dance, and the Body (1994).
movement, not wordsbut Duncan did have storytelling ability Reference works: Benets Readers Encyclopedia (1991).
and a gift for putting herself in exalted mythical contexts. Paper- International Dictionary of Modern Dance (1998).
back editions of the autobiography, prompted by a popular 1968
lm about Duncans life, have introduced a new generation of LINDA PANNILL
readers to the innovative dancer.
In My Life and elsewhere Duncan articulates the conict
between art and life for the woman artist, and there is ample
evidence she suffered greatly from these opposing demands. Her
DUNIWAY, Abigail Scott
biographers have tended to stress the disparity between the
dancers exquisite art and her untidy personal life, but Duncans Born 22 October 1834, Groveland, Illinois; died 11 October
unconventional and at times irresponsible lifestyle helped make 1915, Portland, Oregon
possible her innovative art. The dance she created was a response Daughter of John T. and Ann Roelofson Scott; married Benja-
to her need to express herself as a woman. Although My Life min C. Duniway, 1853
appears to have been commissioned by Duncans publishers
because of the authors notoriety, and although many complained The second daughter among 12 children, Abigail Scott
it tells the story of her loves rather than of her art, the book does Duniway grew up on the Illinois frontier. At seventeen, she
reveal the interdependence of Duncans life and her work. accompanied her family on the overland trail to Oregon, keeping a
journal of their 1852 crossing that is one of the best of the genre.
In her personal life Duncan demanded freedoms usually Her mother and baby brother died of cholera on the way, and the
granted only to men, but nonetheless her image of herself was family arrived virtually destitute in Oregon.
conventionally feminine. In My Life she describes herself as an
instrument inspired to movement by great works of music, poetry, Duniways rst novel, Captain Grays Company (1859), is a
and painting (always created by men) and she revels in her role as ctionalized account of her wagon trail journey to Oregon and her
the darling muse of male artists. At times Duncan betrayed an early life in an Oregon town. It reveals as much about its author
understandable ambivalence about the feminine role, as was and her attitudes as about her milieu. Agrarian as well as feminist
316
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DUPUY
in principle, Duniway was writing for the worlds workers, the to 1915 (TV script, Wilderness Women Project, University
stay and strength of our land, and hoped her book would be of Montana, 1978). Morrison, D. N., Ladies Were Not Ex-
instrumental in causing the sterner to look more to the welfare of pected: Abigail Scott Duniway and Womens Rights (1977).
the weakest of the tried and suffering of the weaker sex. More Moynihan, R. B., Abigail Scott Duniway of Oregon (dissertation,
realistic than many other womens novels of the time, the book 1979). Roberts, L. M., Suffragist of the New West: Abigail Scott
was nevertheless criticized by Duniways political and religious Duniway and the Development of the Oregon Woman Suffrage
opponents for being too romantic. It remains of interest for its Movement (thesis, 1969). Richey, E., Eminent Women of the
pervasive wit and its historical detail. West (1975). Ross, N. W., Westward the Women (1944). Smith,
H. K., The Presumptuous Dreamers (1974).
Between May 1871 and January 1887, Duniway published
and edited a weekly newspaper called the New Northwest. It RUTH BARNES MOYNIHAN
advocated both womens rights and human rights and circulated
throughout the Pacic Northwest and to women in other parts of
the country. Its lively style, strong opinions, revelations of politi-
cal and social scandals, and fervent advocacy of legal reforms and DUPUY, Eliza Ann
woman suffrage made it a particularly inuential and controver-
sial publication. In it Duniway also serialized 16 more of her own
novels. These were essentially polemical, featuring strong, mis- Born ca. 1814, Petersburg, Virginia; died December 1880, New
treated female heroines who suffer numerous adversities and Orleans, Louisiana
nally triumph over rened ladies and antisuffragist enemies. Wrote under: Annie Young
Though awed as literature, the stories include extraordinary Daughter of Jesse and Mary Sturdivant Dupuy
details of frontier family life and social relationships. Many
passages show a ne gift for writing dialogue and humor. Eliza Ann Dupuys ction, designed to appeal to popular
tastes, has few literary pretensions. Combining elements from the
Duniway also lectured extensively, bringing her message to domestic novel, the melodramatic romance, and the Richardsonian
isolated women and men with fervor and courage. Each year she novel of sentiment, her works abound with coincidences and stock
averaged 200 lectures, and traveled 3,000 miles by steamboat, characters and situations. Some favorite subjects, such as the
mud wagon, stagecoach, horseback, and railroad. She lectured her young heiress forced to marry against her will, appear regularly
way across the country six times and became vice president of the over a 30-year span from The Conspirator (1843) to The Gypsys
National Woman Suffrage Association in 1884. Duniways edi- Warning (1873). Dupuys narrative ingredients remain constant
torial correspondence now constitutes a unique historical record whether the novel is based on the traditions of her own family (The
of the people and places she saw. Huguenot Exiles, 1856), Corsican vendettas (All for Love; The
Though Duniway almost succeeded in winning woman suf- Outlaws Bride, 1873), or the life of Marshal Ney (Michael
frage in Oregon and Washington during the 1880s, the closing of Rudolph, 1870). Their frequent twists of plot, through 500 pages
the frontier led to changes that delayed it for another generation. of dark adventures, teetering suspense, long-hatched vengeances,
From 1887 until her death, Duniway continued to write and consumptive heroines, providential heroes, and descents into lurid
lecture, publishing in the Portland Oregonian, the Pacic Empire crime and sordid mystery, recall the exigencies of their original
(which she edited), and the Coming Century. When woman serial publication. Her products are carefully adjusted to the
suffrage was declared in 1912, she wrote the ofcial proclamation desires and expectations of her readers.
of victory and became the rst woman voter in Oregon. The Planters Daughter (1857) is described by a contempo-
Duniways ambition and achievement as a writer was un- rary critic as in an eminent degree sensational. With all their
doubtedly affected by her lack of formal education. Her historical alluring depictions of vice, however, Dupuys works conform to
role is more signicant than her literary achievements because she and enforce accepted mores. Although entire novels, such as The
never had the leisure, economic means, or intention to write for Country Neighborhood (1855), are said to be based on actual
arts sake. Nevertheless, the quality of Duniways vigorously life in Mississippi or Louisiana (where Dupuy herself had lived
amusing polemics is worthy evidence of her strong convictions and where she wrote many of her works), stock elements such as
and forceful, talented personality. persecuted or seduced females, glittering rakes, and avaricious
parents, supernatural devices, and the heavy use of coincidence
strain the readers belief in her realism. In general, however,
OTHER WORKS: My Musing (1875). David and Anna Matson Dupuys Southern characters are presented with less of the
(1876). From the West to the West: Across the Plains to Oregon heavy-handed satire that attends her descriptions of the high
(1905). Path Breaking (1914). society of the nouveaux riche in New York City or in Newport.
Many of Dupuys works remain satisfying as sensational
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bandow, G. R., In Pursuit of a Purpose: Abi- light ction, though modern readers will probably object to the
gail Scott Duniway and the New Northwest (thesis, 1973). extreme credulity of her heroines and the regularity with which
Capell, L., Biography of Abigail Scott Duniway (thesis, 1934). young men and women in her novels allow lial duty to persuade
McKnight, J., and J. M. Ward, Abigail Scott Duniway, 1834 them into acts against all reason or probability.
317
DURANT AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
OTHER WORKS: Morton: A Tale of the Revolution (circa 1828). The Renaissance) were dedicated to Ariel, but Will alone was
Celeste: The Pirates Daughter (1845). The Separation; The named as the author. In his introduction to The Age of Reason
Divorce; And the Coquettes Punishment (1851). Adventures of a Begins (vol. VII, 1961) Will noted that Ariels contributions to the
Gentleman in Search of Miss Smith (1852). Florence; or, The series had become so substantial that both their names had to
Fatal Vow (1852). Emma Walton; or, Trials and Triumph (1854). appear on the title page. In succeeding years, Ariel coauthored
Annie Selden; or, The Concealed Treasure (1854). Ashleigh: A with Will four additional volumes: The Age of Louis XIV (1963),
Tale of the Olden Time (1854). The Mysterious Marriage: A True The Age of Voltaire (1965), Rousseau and Revolution (1967), and
Romance of New York Life (1858). The Hidden Sin (1866). Why The Age of Napoleon (1975).
Did He Marry Her (1870). How He Did It; Was He Guilty (1871).
In their dual autobiography, Ariel characterized her work on
The Canceled Will (1872). Who Shall Be Victor? (1872). The
the early volumes of The Story of CivilizationOur Oriental
Dethroned Heiress (1873). The Mysterious Guest (1873). The
Heritage and The Life of Greeceas serving the subsidiary but
Clandestine Marriage (1875). The Discarded Wife; or, Will She
immensely important function of organizing and classifying Wills
Succeed (1875). A New Way to Win a Fortune (1875). The Shadow
material. In addition to performing these tasks, Ariel began, with
in the House; A Husband for a Lover (1881).
volume IV, The Age of Faith, to gather data for the manuscript.
She describes how, while collating material for The Age of Faith,
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Davidson, J. W., The Living Writers of the South an enthusiastic interest in the history of the Middle Ages was
(1869). Forrest, M., Women of the South Distinguished in Litera- awakened within her. Ariel was largely responsible for encourag-
ture (1861). McVoy, L. C., and R. B. Campbell, A Bibliography of ing Will to overcome his antipathy for this historical period and
Fiction by Louisianians and on Louisiana Subjects (1935). Ray- for convincing him of the need to portray the medieval Jews in a
mond, I., Southland Writers (1870). Tardy, M. T., ed., The Living full and lively manner.
Female Writers of the South (1872).
Published materials about the couple stress the importance of
SUSAN SUTTON SMITH Ariels contribution to the entire Story of Civilization series.
While she initially served largely as a proofreader and morale-
lifter to Will, by 1961 Ariel was coauthor of the seventh and
Pulitzer Prize-winning volume. Ariel is credited with checking
DURANT, Ariel Wills tendency to romanticize womens roles in history, and, in
1965, Will asserted in an interview that Ariel was certainly
capable of nishing the rest of their work (volumes X and
Born Ida Kaufman, 10 May 1898, Proskurov, Russia; died 25
XI) alone.
October 1981, Hollywood Hills, California
Daughter of Joseph and Ethel Appel Kaufman; married Wil- The Story of Civilization series is generally regarded as good,
liam J. Durant, 1913 solid popular history. The writing style is genial and relaxed; the
series is, on the whole, reliable and thoroughly researched.
Ariel Durant emigrated with her mother, three sisters, and Certain volumes have been criticized for some factual errors and
one brother to New York City in 1900 and became a naturalized for a fondness for anecdotes which can blur perspective. The work
citizen in 1913. She attended public schools and the Ferrer is recognized, however, as a massive universal history, one
Modern School in New York. At the latter institution she fell in carrying Western civilization from its very beginnings through the
love with her twenty-seven-year-old teacher, William James Age of Napoleon.
Durant. The couple were married in a civil ceremony in 1913,
The reader who wishes to encounter the personality of Ariel
when Ida was fteen years of age. In 1927 Ida Durant was
would be well advised to read Will and Ariel Durant: A Dual
affectionately and informally renamed Ariel by her husband
Autobiography. In this work, Ariel speaks for herself, and the
because, he claimed, she was as strong and brave as a boy, and as
reader is able to compare her views with Wills, since each writes
swift and mischievous as an elf. Ariel later became Ida Durants
separate and clearly delineated sections. Ariels strength, wit, and
legal name.
astonishing candor about all matters, especially the sexual, infuse
After the publication of The Age of Napoleon (vol. XI) in the portions written by her. Her accounts of her married life,
1975, the U.S. Senate, on a motion by Senator Hubert Humphrey, including times of crisis and conict, reveal her to be an indepen-
voted the Durants a scroll of recognition and applause. The French dent woman with a refreshing sense of humor and perspective.
government presented them with two medallions in appreciation
Readers of a feminist bent might be wont to criticize Ariel for
of their recording of French civilization and, in January 1977,
the apparent submersion of her unique identity in her husbands
Ariel and Will each received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
life and work. It is true that if one concentrates exclusively on The
Durant herself received several honorary doctoral degrees; in
Story of Civilization, Ariel, however unfairly, certainly seems to
1965, she was named Woman of the Year in Literature by the Los
play a secondary role in the evolution of this work. The reader
Angeles Times.
who consults the autobiography, however, will nd an astonish-
Ariel and Wills marriage in 1913 launched a dual career as ingly complex and assertive woman who, from her early youth,
the two began collaborating on the series The Story of Civilization. exhibited an unusual sensitivity to womens needs, problems, and
Volumes I, III, and V (Our Oriental Heritage, Caesar and Christ, struggles.
318
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DWORKIN
In the rst chapter of the autobiography, entirely written by women. Her generalizations about all men as neurotically domi-
Ariel, she recounts her childhood allegiance to her mother, Ethel nant brutes and all male-female relationships as pathological led
Appel. Ariels comments about her mothers personal ambitions critics to lambaste her extremist separatist ideology. Dworkin
reveal a sympathy for the struggles of this immigrant woman who emerged as one of the most strident voices of radical feminism,
helped support a family by selling newspapers but who ultimately calling in a speech at a National Organization for Women (NOW)
chose an independent life of her own. Ariel tells, with sensitivity Conference on Sexuality for heterosexual sex without erection or
and candor, how her mother, worn out by childbearing and penetration, leading opponents to coin the term castrating femi-
ignorant of contraceptives, discouraged her husbands attentions nists. Dworkin developed this argument in the book Inter-
and caused a lasting alienation between them. After absorbing the course (1987).
radical views of lecturers and reading Ibsens A Dolls House,
Ethel Appel cried, Am I never to have any freedom, never a day Radical lesbians criticized her bisexuality, and Dworkin
of happiness or rest? Ariels mother then moved from the family rejected political lesbianism as a personal politic reminiscent of
apartment and established a separate residence and, soon, a full biological determinism. She said of the latter that it justied
life of her own. Ariel we are told, was the only one in the family atrocity and attacked the militancy of prescribers who en-
who sympathized with her. force sexual conformity that impels the search for new enemies,
dividing women from women in the name of sexuality. While
Ariel, asserts that her mother was stranger than ction. . . denying a biological basis for sexism, the essentialist Dworkin
aggressive and strong and that she, Ariel, takes after her mother universalizes concepts of women and motherhood, misogyny and
alone. The strength and determination of Ariel are implicit in The sexism. She favors the concept of androgyny. The nine essays in
Story of Civilizations evolution and explicit in her portions of the Our Blood: Prophecies and Discourse on Sexual Politics (1976)
autobiography. The full dimension of Ariels remarkable person- describe destructive male dominance and the articial sex roles
ality will only be revealed, when the papers of the Durants are permeating cultures in Asia, Europe, and America, citing mani-
opened for general scrutiny. festations of gynocide in fairytales, customs, religion, pornog-
raphy, and other literature as leading to deprivation of wom-
ens rights.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Johnson, D., Practical History: A Guide to Will
and Ariel Durants The Story of Civilization (1990). Dworkin focuses on pornography as the chief agency per-
Other references: Life (18 Oct, 1963). National Review (16 petuating the violent male power system. Her essay in the volume
Jan. 1968). NYT (7 May 1968). Readers Digest (Oct. 1969). Time Take Back the Night: Women on Pornography (1980) and her
(13 Aug. 1965). Will and Ariel Durant: The Famous Historians Pornography: Men Possessing Women (1981) reject the notion
Discuss Their Life and Career with James Day (audio cassette). that pornography creatively expresses eroticism, seeing it as a
violent instrument by which men subjugate women, deprive them
SUSAN E. SIEFERT of individuality, and keep them safe, secure, but subservient.
Putting theory to practice, Dworkin teamed with attorney Catharine
MacKinnon in 1983 to draft a controversial model civil ordinance
dening pornography as illegal sex discrimination. It passed in
DWORKIN, Andrea Indianapolis; but despite Dworkins testimony before the Minne-
sota attorney general, published as Pornography Is a Civil Rights
Born 26 September 1946, Camden, New Jersey Issue for Women (1986), the law was overturned in Minneapolis
Daughter of Harry and Sylvia Spiegal Dworkin; married 1969 as violating freedom of speech. Dworkin and MacKinnon
(divorced) coauthored Pornography and Civil Rights: A New Day for Wom-
ens Equality (1988), outlining the history of womens legal status
As a child, Andrea Dworkin aspired to be a writer or lawyer and describing their ill-fated law. New organizations like Women
to really change society. Arrested at eighteen for demonstrat- Against Pornography drew upon Dworkin for the slogan Por-
ing for civil rights, she was held four days in the New York nography is the theory, rape is the practice. Dworkin remained in
Womens House of Detention and forced to undergo a painful the forefront of the antipornography movement with public ap-
internal examination. She hemorrhaged vaginally for two weeks, pearances and Letters from a War Zone, 1976-1987 (1988, re-
then went to the media to publicize the atrocity. The experience vised 1989).
informed her later passionate feminist militancy and polemical
Right-Wing Women: The Politics of Domesticated Females
writing. Retreating to Crete (1965-66), Dworkin published her
(1983) argues that the 1970s antifeminist backlash from the
rst book, Child (1966). She completed her B.A. in literature and
political right stemmed from status anxiety, fear of personal
philosophy at Bennington College in 1968.
consequences resulting from feminisms questioning of tradition-
Dworkin then left for ve years in Amsterdam, where she al roles in which many American women had invested a sense of
began Woman Hating: A Radical Look at Sexuality (1974), self, and even greater fears of what their status would be outside
aiming to incite revolution in conventional sex roles and cultural the home. The political right makes certain metaphysical and
institutions by tracing the roots of sexism through psychology and material promises to women that both exploit and quiet some of
pornography as a means by which men control and possess womens deepest fears. These fears originate in the perception
319
DYKEMAN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
that male violence against women is uncontrollable and unpre- (12 July 1981, 3 May 1992). TLS (1 Jan. 1982). VV (15-21 July
dictable. Dependent on and subservient to men, women are 1981). WPBW (21 June 1981). WRB (May 1986).
always subject to this violence. The right promises to put enforce-
able restraints on male aggression, thus simplifying survival for BLANCHE LINDEN-WARD,
women. Dworkin worries about a coming gynocide, a grim UPDATED BY LEAH J. SPARKS
future for all women but particularly for the poor and elderly.
Dworkins short stories in New Womans Broken Heart

(1980) as well as her novel Ice and Fire (1986) are, like much new DYKEMAN, Wilma
womens ction, autobiographical, polemical, and experimental
in style, sometimes nding black humor in the dilemmas of
womens lives voiced from a militant feminist perspective. Critics Born 20 May 1920, Asheville, North Carolina
faulted Ice and Fire for graphically describing sex, drugs, and Also writes under: Wilma Dykeman, Wilma Dykeman Stokely
urban violence, seeing her calculated nastiness as akin to Daughter of Willard J. and Bonnie Cole Dykeman; married
pornography. Her intent was to shake up her readers conscious- James R. Stokely, Jr., 1940 (died 1977)
ness, contrasting the contemporary squalor to a womans origins
in a typical American childhood to underscore the impact of Wilma Dykemans works betray a twofold love of Southern
pornography on lives. Mercy (1991), her second novel, is equally Appalachia: the fervid love of an immigrant for the new land, and
caustic. the comfortable, well-rooted love of one whose forebearers have
shaped a regions history. Her father came from New York state
With Sexual Harassment: Women Speak Out (1993), Dworkin but married into a long-established Asheville family, thus partial-
returned to nonction with an anthology of sexual harassment ly removing the newcomer stigma. After graduating from
stories published in the wake of the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas Northwestern University, Dykeman returned home to marry poet/
hearings. Dworkin cointroduces this volume, in which over 70 writer James Stokely. They remained in Appalachia, writing,
women share their sexual harassment experiences and the ways teaching, raising a family, and lecturing. Stokely died in 1977.
they responded. In Life and Death: Unapologetic Writings on the Dykeman continued her work, living in the village of Newport,
Continuing War Against Women (1997), Dworkin offers a collec- Tennessee, as well as in Asheville, North Carolina.
tion of speeches and essays drawing upon her experiences as a
victim of both rape and spousal abuse. The harrowing pieces The Southbut most especially the Appalachian Southis
relate tragedies as diverse as the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, Dykemans subject. Her novels, biographies, histories, and re-
the oppression Orthodox Jewish women face in Israel due to strict gional landscapes explore such themes as the mountain womans
religious laws, and sexual assault in Bosnian refugee camps. unique social role, technology and progress as threats to
Dworkin alternately pleads and demands for justice, while argu- mountain environments, the interconnectedness of blacks and
ing that not only the acts themselves, but also the impulses which whites, the crucial impact of Protestantism. Dykemans rst
gave rise to them, must be addressed. work, The French Broad (1955, yet which remains in print today),
nicely showcases her talent for social history. The French Broad
Dworkin has contributed to periodicals such as Ms., Here- River rises in the mountains of Transylvania County, North
sies, Social Policy, Village Voice, America Report, Gay Commu- Carolina, changes directions through the region several times, and
nity News, and Christopher Street. She served for a time as an nally joins the Holston to form the Tennessee River at Knox-
editor of Ms. magazine and lectures frequently around the country. ville. A river study, says Dykeman, is the best kind of travel book,
for it enables one to get the feel of the region. The French Broad is
structured both chronologically and thematically; central gures
OTHER WORKS: Morning Hair (1967). Marx and Gandhi Were of the regions past and present are detailed, as anecdotes illumi-
Liberals: Feminism and the Radical Left (1977). Why So-called nate such topics as the divisiveness of the Civil War, Appalachian
Radical Men Love and Need Pornography (1978). The Reasons religiosity, the fashionable watering places of the 19th century, or
Why: Essays on the New Civil Rights Law Recognizing Pornogra- the prototypical mountain midwife.
phy as Sex Discrimination (1985). In Harms Way: The Pornog-
raphy Civil Rights Hearing (with C. MacKinnon, 1997). Dykemans other social histories combine the same infor-
mality and personal engagement. Neither Black nor White (1957),
coauthored with husband James Stokely, responded to the Brown
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Assiter, A., Pornography, Feminism and the school desegregation decision of 1954. It tried to understand the
Individual (1989). many Souths and discover, record and interpret a republic of
Reference books: CA (1979). CANR (1986, 1992). CLC the human mind. For its contribution to race relations, the book
(1987). FC (1990). MTCW (1991). Oxford Companion to Wom- received the Hillman Award. Dykeman and Stokely later pro-
ens Writing in the United States (1995). duced The Border States (1968), and in 1975 Dykemans bicen-
Other references: Choice (Oct. 1974). Ms. (Feb. 1977, June tennial history of Tennessee appeared. The book depicts that
1980, Mar. 1981, June 1983, Apr. 1985). NR (21 Feb. 1983, 15 states three geographical regions and shows how Tennessee
June 1984). New Statesman (6 Nov. 1981, 29 July 1983). NYTBR remains in many ways a frontier area.
320
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS DYKEMAN
Dykemans storytelling knack is apparent in her novels, all of Stokely III, 1977). With Fire and Sword: The Battle of Kings
which explore regional themes. Centering on the character Lydia Mountain (1978, reprinted 1991). The Appalachian Mountains
McQueen, The Tall Woman (1962, in its 39th printing in 1999) (with D. Stokley, 1980). Tennessee (1983, reprinted 1993). Explo-
portrays the special functions mountain women performed during rations (1984). Haunting Memories (with C. Pattersons paint-
the Civil War and Reconstruction. The Far Family (1966) deline- ings, 1996). Tennessee Woman: An Innite Variety (1993). Essay
ates the mountain womans importance in preserving tradition and The Past is Never Dead: Its Not Even Past in Bloodroot:
family; sociologically, her role resembles both that of the heroi- Reections on Place by Appalachian Women Writers (1998).
cally strong black woman and the southern plantation wife.
Return the Innocent Earth (1973) explores the impact of industrial
development on the region. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brosi, G., Contemporary Appalachian Writers
(1988). Crouse-Powers, A. J., Ecofeminist Theory and Appala-
Dykemans biographies manifest her talent for social history chian Literature: A Praxis? (thesis, 1995). Gantt, P. M., Appalachia
and strong characterization. Seeds of Southern Change (1962), in Context: Wilma Dykemans Search for the Souths (dissertation,
coauthored with Stokely, traces the life of Will Alexander 1992). Gantt, P. M., A Mutual Journey: Wilma Dykeman and
(1884-1956), a Southern white liberal who, as director of the Appalachian Regionalism in Breaking Boundaries: New Per-
Commission on Interracial Cooperation, and later as chief of spectives on Womens Regional Writing (1997). Jones, O. K.,
Roosevelts Farm Security Administration, did as much as any Social Criticism in the Works of Wilma Dykeman, with a
one person to direct the South toward economic and racial justice. Primary and Secondary Bibliography of Her Work (thesis,
Prophet of Plenty (1966) explores the life and work of W. D. 1989). McGhee, J. H., The Appalachian Feminist Vision of
Weatherford (1875-1970), a champion of Appalachia whose Wilma Dykemans The Tall Woman (thesis, 1992). Nash, L. R.,
fundraising work at Berea College gave it national renown.
The Presence of Land in the Novels by Wilma Dykeman
Edna Rankin McKinnon is the subject of Dykemans third (thesis, 1992). Nelson, S. L., The Space They Love: Reconstruc-
biography, Too Many People, Too Little Love (1974). The young- tion in the Works of Appalachian and African-American Women
er sister of Jeannette Rankin, the rst woman elected to Congress, Writers (thesis, 1997).
Edna began lobbying in Washington in 1936 for birth control and Other reference: A Conversation With Wilma Dykeman (video,
then worked in Appalachia and around the world, establishing 1992). A Writers Life: It Began with the French Broad (video,
birth control and family planning clinics. Dykeman says Ednas 1993). An Evening with Wilma Dykeman, 16 November 1993
story interested her because it combined the three most important (video, 1993). Chicago Sunday Tribune (29 July 1962). CSM
issues of the 20th centurythe population explosion, the chang- (5 May 1955). Local Color: A Conversation Between Wilma
ing status of women, and the necessity for world peace. Dykeman and Richard Marius (audiocassette, 1978). Higgs, R. J.,
Transcendentalism in the Hills Three Appalachian Novelists
Dykeman, not often given a careful reading because of her
(video, 1981). Local Color: A Conversation Between Wilma
regionalism, deserves a wider critical audience. She uses an
Dykeman and Richard Marius (audiocassette, 1978). NYHTB
easy and owing style, perfectly suited to the anecdotal character
(1 May 1955). NYTBR (1 July 1962, 3 June 1973, 8 Sept. 1974).
of much of her work. She excels in describing folkways and
Pembroke Magazine (tributes, 1993). Saturday Evening Post
vividly captures mountain speech. Her themesthough regional
(April 1974). Tell It On the Mountain: Appalachian Women
at baseare in the best sense universal human concerns.
Writers (audiocassette, 1995). Wilma Dykeman (videocassette,
1995). Wilma Dykeman: Prose Reading (videocassette, 1983).
OTHER WORKS: Look to This Day (1968). Tennessee, a Bicenten-
nial History (1976). At Home in the Great Smokies (with J. MARGARET MCFADDEN-GERBER
321
Second Edition
VOLUME 2 E-K
Editor
Ta r y n B e n b o w - P f a l z g r a f
Taryn Benbow-Pfalzgraf, Editor
Glynis Benbow-Niemier, Associate Editor
Kristin G. Hart, Project Coordinator
Laura Standley Berger, Joann Cerrito, Dave Collins,

Steve Cusack, Nicolet V. Elert, Miranda Ferrara, Jamie FitzGerald,
Laura S. Kryhoski, Margaret Mazurkiewicz, Michael J. Tyrkus
St. James Press Staff
Peter M. Gareffa, Managing Editor, St. James Press
Mary Beth Trimper, Composition Manager

Dorothy Maki, Manufacturing Manager
Wendy Blurton, Senior Buyer
Cynthia Baldwin, Product Design Manager

Martha Schiebold, Art Director
Ronald D. Montgomery, Data Entry Manager

Gwendolyn S. Tucker, Project Administrator
While every effort has been made to ensure the reliability of the information presented in this publication, St. James
Press does not guarantee the accuracy of the data contained herein. St. James Press accepts no payment for listing;
and inclusion of any organization, agency, institution, publication, service, or individual does not imply
endorsement of the editors or publisher.
Errors brought to the attention of the publisher and veried to the satisfaction of the publisher will be corrected in
future editions.
This publication is a creative work fully protected by all applicable copyright laws, as well as by misappropriation,
trade secret, unfair competition, and other applicable laws. The authors and editors of this work have added value to
the underlying factual material herein through one or more of the following: unique and original selection,
coordination, expression, arrangement, and classication of the information.
All rights to this publication will be vigorously defended.
Copyright 2000
St. James Press
27500 Drake Rd.
Farmington Hills, MI 48331
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
American women writers : from colonial times to the present : a

critical reference guide / editor: Taryn Benbow-Pfalzgraf. -- 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-55862-429-5 (set) ISBN 1-55862-430-9 (vol.1) ISBN 1-55862-431-7 (vol.2)
ISBN 1-55862-432-5 (vol.3) ISBN 1-55862-433-3 (vol.4)
1. American literature-Women authors-Bio-bibliography
Dictionaries. 2. Women authors, American-Biography Dictionaries.
3. American literature-Women authors Dictionaries. I. Benbow-Pfalzgraf, Taryn
PS147.A42 1999
810.9928703dc21 99-43293
[B] CIP
Printed in the United States of America
St. James Press is an imprint of Gale Group

Gale Group and Design is a trademark used herein under license
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
EDITORS NOTE
American Women Writers, Second Edition is an important resource for many reasons, the least of which is to disseminate information about
hundreds of women writers who have been routinely overlooked. A veritable treasure trove of knowledge, the women proled in this series have
literally changed the world, from Margaret Sangers quest for reproductive freedom to Jane Addams and Hull House, from Sylvia Earle and Rachel
Carsons environmental concerns, to the aching beauty of poems by Olga Broumas, Emily Dickinson, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Marianne
Moore, Sylvia Plath, Sara Teasdale, Lorrie Moore, and many others. There are writers who are immensely entertaining (M.F.K. Fisher, Jean
Craighead George, Sue Grafton, Helen MacInnes, Terry McMillan, C. L. Moore, Barbara Neely, Danielle Steel), some who wish to instruct on
faith (Dorothy Day, Mary Baker Eddy, Catherine Marshall, Anne Morrow Lindbergh), others who revisit the past to educate us (Gwendolyn
Brooks, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Paula Allen Gunn, Carolyn Heilbrun, Mary Johnston, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Mary White Ovington, Sherley
Ann Williams, Mourning Dove), and still more who wish to shock us from complacency of one kind or another (Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Lillian
Hellman, Shirley Jackson, Harriet Jacobs, Shirley Jackson, Carson McCullers, A.G. Mojtabai, Bharati Mukherjee, Carry A. Nation, Flannery
OConnor, Anne Sexton, Phillis Wheatley, and more).
The women lling these pages have nothing and everything in common; they are female, yes, but view their lives and worth in vastly different
manners. There is no census of ethnicity, class, age, or sexualitythe prerequisites for inclusion had only to do with a body of work, the written
word in all its forms, and the unfortunate limits of time and space. Yes, there are omissions, none by choice: some were overlooked in favor of
others (by a voting selection process), others were assigned and the material never received. In the end, it is the ongoing bane of publishing: there
will never be enough time nor space to capture allfor there will (hopefully) always be new women writers coming to the fore, and newly
discovered manuscripts to test our conceptions of life from a womans eye.
Yet American Women Writers is just what its title implies, a series of books recounting the life and works of American women from Colonial
days to the present. Some writers produced far more than others, yet each woman contributed writing worthy of historical note, to be brought to the
forefront of scholarship for new generations to read. Last but never least, thanks to Peter Gareffa for this opportunity; to Kristin Hart for her
continual support and great attitude; to my associate editor Glynis Benbow-Niemier; to my editorial and research staff (Jocelyn Prucha, Diane
Murphy, and Lori Prucha), and to the beloveds: Jordyn, Wylie, Foley, Hadley, and John.
v
FOREWORD
In a memorandum to contributors, Lina Mainiero, the founding editor of American Women Writers described the project she envi-
sioned in 1978:
Written wholly by women critics, this reference work is designed as a four-volume survey of American women writers from colonial
days to the present. . . Most entries will be on women who have written what is traditionally dened as literature. But AWW will also
include entries on writers in other elds. . . I see AWW as a precious opportunity for womenthose who write it and those who read it
to integrate at a more self- conscious level a variety of reading experience.
The result was a document of its time, a period when feminism was associated with building sisterhood and raising consciousness. Even a
commercial publishing venture might take on the trappings of a consciousness raising session in which readers and writers met. The idea now
seems naive, but the ideal is worth remembering. In 1978 Mainiero was neither young nor revolutionary. She was hesitant about pushing too far;
she was content to let traditional denitions stand. But the very inclusion of Rachel Carson and Margaret Mead, Betty Smith and Ursula LeGuin,
Rebecca Harding Davis and Phillis Wheatley, Gertrude Stein and Dorothy Parker in a reference work entitled simply and profoundly American
Women Writers spoke eloquently. Without ever referring explicitly to canon revision, these four volumes contributed to the process. Having the
books on the shelves testied to the existence of hundreds of women who had written across the centuries. Including those whose work was
perceived to be literary alongside those whose work was not, pregured debates that continue today both inside and outside of the academy.
Mainiero was especially concerned that contributors not aim their entries at the academic specialist. The putative reader was a college
senior, who was conversant with literary history and criticism, feminism, and the humanities. This emphasis provoked criticism, because it was
expressed during the heyday of academic feminism. American Women Writers appeared the same year as Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar
published The Madwoman in the Attic, their inuential study of 19th-century English women writers. Nina Bayms American Women Writers and
Womens Fiction: A Guide to Novels by and About Women in America had appeared the year before. In retrospect, however, the reader Mainiero
targeted is precisely the young woman she hoped would join the consciousness session organized by her elders, a woman who would not become
an academic, but who would nd in womens writing the necessary bread to sustain her in living her life.
Ideals and realities clashed in a project that was clearly intended to make money, but declined to pay honoraria to individual contributors.
Instead, the publisher promised to contribute a percentage of any prots to womens causes. The desire to reach the common reader was one
reason the volumes were published without a scholarly overview. The decision not to address an academic audience meant the entries contained no
critical jargon, but it also meant no authorities checked facts. In fairness, few facts were known about many of the women in the book. Numerous
articles proled women about whom no one had written. One way to gauge the success of feminist scholarship over the past two decades would be
to compare the bibliographies of women in this edition with those in the original edition. What we know now about womens writing in the United
States is more than we realized there was to know two decades ago. Let me use my contributions as examples. I wrote entries on Gwendolyn
Brooks, Frances Watkins Harper, Nella Larsen, and Anne Spencer. These black women lived and worked across almost two centuries. Harper, an
abolitionist and womens rights advocate, had been the most popular African American poet of the mid-19th century. Larsen and Spencer
published ction and poetry, respectively, during the Harlem Renaissance. Of Brooks, I concluded, by any reckoning, hers is one of the major
voices of 20th-century American poetry. Yet no biographies existed for any of them. All of the information in print on Harper referred to a
single source.
Twenty years later, scholars have explored Harpers life in depth; digging through the archives, Frances Smith Foster discovered three lost
novels and a treasure trove of poems. In search of the women of the Harlem Renaissance, scholars have unearthed much more information
concerning Larsen and Spencer. Now the subject of a biography by Thadious Davis, Larsen and her novelsPassing in particularhave become
key texts in the formulation of feminist theory and queer theory. Ironically, though Spencers oeuvre was the most slender, she was the only one of
these writers to have been the subject of a book: J. Lee Greenes Times Unfading Garden, a biographical and critical treatment of the poet along
with a selection of her poems. Brooks has begun to receive her due in ve biographical and critical studies. As scholars have continued their work,
readers have found a valuable reference tool in American Women Writers. The fourth and nal volume of the original edition appeared in 1982.
Soon afterward, Langdon Lynne Faust edited an abridged version, including a two-volume edition in paperback. In part because the original
edition concentrated on writers before 1960, a supplement, edited by Carol Hurd Green and Mary G. Mason, was published in 1993. The writers
included were more diverse than ever, as a more inclusive understanding of American grew.
Fostering that understanding has been a priority of this project since the beginning. That new editions continue to be published conrms the
existence of a need that these volumes ll. The explosion of feminist scholarship has enriched each subsequent edition of American Women
Writers. In this venue at least, the gap between academic specialist and common reader has narrowed. One development that no one would have
predicted is the re-emergence of the literary society, a common feature in 19th-century American life. The name has changed; it is now more often
called the reading group. But the membership remains mostly female. Such groups have grown up in every segment of American society. Indeed,
Oprahs Book Club is a macrocosm of a widespread local phenomenon. I hope and suspect members of reading groups, as well as the
undergraduates who remain its putative readers, will nd this new edition of American Women Writers a resource that can be put to everyday use.
CHERYL A. WALL
Rutgers University
vii
BOARD OF ADVISORS
Roger Blackwell Bailey, Ph.D. Kathleen Bonann Marshall

Professor of English Assistant Director, Center for the
San Antonio College Writing Arts
Alanna K. Brown, Ph.D. Northwestern University
Montana State University Margaret (Maggie) McFadden
Pattie Cowell Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies
Professor of English Editor, National Womens Studies
Colorado State University Association Journal
Appalachian State University
Barbara Grier
President and CEO
Naiad Press, Inc. Kit Reed
Novelist, Teaching at Wesleyan
Jessica Grim
Reference Librarian University
Oberlin College Library
Carolyn G. Heilbrun Cheryl A. Wall
Avalon Professor in the Humanities, Professor of English
Emerita Rutgers University
Columbia University
Marlene Manoff Barbara A. White
Associate Head/Collection Manager Professor Emeritus of Womens
Humanities Library Studies
Massachusetts Institute of Technology University of New Hampshire
ix
BOARD OF CONTRIBUTORS
Aarons, Victoria Antler, Joyce

Allegra Goodman Lynne Sharon Schwartz
Alice Hoffman
Armeny, Susan
Faye Kellerman
Mary Sewall Gardner
Lesla Newman
Lillian D. Wald
Tillie Olsen
Francine Prose Armitage, Shelley
Ina Donna Coolbrith
Adams, Barbara
Anne Ellis
Aimee Semple McPherson
Assendelft, Nick
Adams, Pauline
Lisa Alther
Marion Marsh Todd
Anne Bernays
Alldredge, Betty J. E. M. Broner
Katherine Mayo Marilyn Hacker
Katharine Pearson Woods Joy Harjo
Maureen Howard
Allen, Carol Florence Howe
Alice Childress Susanne K. Langer
Allen, Suzanne Meridel Le Sueur
Martha Moore Avery Bach, Peggy
Madeleine Vinton Dahlgren Evelyn Scott
Anna McKenney Dorsey
Ella Loraine Dorsey Bakerman, Jane S.
Susan Blanchard Elder Vera Caspary
Caroline Gordon Ursula Reilly Curtiss
Laura Z. Hobson Dorothea Caneld Fisher
Lillian Smith Lois Gould
Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Alonso, Helena Emma Lathen
Julia lvarez Ruth Doan MacDougall
Sandra Cisneros Margaret Millar
Achy Obejas Toni Morrison
Anderson, Celia Catlett May Sarton
Beverly Cleary Elizabeth Savage
Marguerite Henry Susan Fromberg Schaeffer
Florence Crannell Means Gene Stratton-Porter
Cornelia Meigs Mary Sture-Vasa
Dorothy Uhnak
Anderson, Eileen M. Jessamyn West
Phyllis Chesler
Bannan, Helen M.
Anderson, Kathryn Murphy Fabiola Cabeza de Baca
Beth Henley Elizabeth Bacon Custer
Marsha Norman Elaine Goodale Eastman
Helen Hunt Jackson
Anderson, Maggie
Mary Harris Jones
Jane Cooper
Kathryn Anderson McLean
Anderson, Nancy G. Franc Johnson Newcomb
Dorothy Scarborough Anna Moore Shaw
Lella Warren Elizabeth G. Stern
xi
Banner, Lois W. Benet, Sydonie

Harriet Hubbard Ayer Janet Flanner
Mary McCarthy
Barbour, Paula L.
Josephine Miles
Jane Auer Bowles
Barbuto, Domenica Virginia Ramey Mollenkott
Anne Warner French Linda Pastan
Amanda Theodocia Jones Katherine Paterson
Marilyn Sachs
Barnhart, Jacqueline Baker Elizabeth Spencer
Sarah Bayliss Royce
Ruth Stone
Elinore Pruitt Stewart
Michele Wallace
Barr, Marleen S. Mae West
Deborah Norris Logan Sherley Anne Williams
Baruch, Elaine Hoffman Berke, Jacqueline

Susan Sontag Harriet Stratemeyer Adams
Diana Trilling Eleanor Hodgman Porter
Bauer, Denise Berry, Linda S.
Lucille Clifton Georgia Douglas Johnson
Alicia Ostriker
Alix Kates Shulman Berube, Linda
Susan Grifn
Baytop, Adrianne Alice Hoffman
Margaret Walker Maxine W. Kumin
Phillis Wheatley Valerie Miner
Grace Paley
Beasley, Maurine
May Swenson
Mary E. Clemmer Ames
Emily Edson Briggs Beyer, Janet M.
Kate Field Erma Bombeck
Beecher, Maureen Ursenbach Ellen Goodman
Susa Young Gates Lois Gould
Doris Grumbach
Bell, Alice Nicole Hollander
Paula Fox
Biancarosa, Gina
Belli, Angela Erica Jong
Frances Winwar
Bienstock, Beverly Gray
Ben-Merre, Diana Anita Loos
Helen McCloy Shirley MacLaine
Benardete, Jane Cornelia Otis Skinner
Harriot Stanton Blatch Thyra Samter Winslow
Abby Morton Diaz Biguenet, John
Mary Abigail Dodge Valerie Martin
Amanda Minnie Douglas
Malvina Hoffman Bird, Christiane
Elizabeth Palmer Peabody Rosamond Neal DuJardin
Lydia Huntley Sigourney Josephine Lawrence
Sophie Swett Harper Lee
Harriet Stone Lothrop
Benbow-Niemier, Glynis Alice Duer Miller
Jane Kenyon
Lorine Niedecker Bittker, Anne S.
Jean Valentine Mary Margaret McBride
xii
Blair, Karen J. Brooker-Gross, Susan R.

Jane Cunningham Croly Ellen Churchill Semple
Ella Giles Ruddy
Brookes, Kimberly Hayden
Blicksilver, Edith Barbara Deming
Leslie Marmon Silko
Brostoff, Anita
Bloom, Lynn Z. Gladys Schmitt
Natalie Stark Crouter
Brown, Alanna Kathleen
Bloom, Steven F. Mourning Dove
Wendy Wasserstein
Brown, Dorothy H.
Bloom, Susan P. Rose Falls Bres
Natalie Babbitt Elma Godchaux
Eloise Greeneld Margaret Landon
Boisvert, Nancy L. Mary Lasswell
Judith Rossner Mary Ashley Townsend
Jeannette Hadermann Walworth
Bonazoli, Robert
Kit Reed Brown, Fahamisha Patricia
Jayne Cortez
Bordin, Ruth Carolyn M. Rodgers
Elizabeth Margaret Chandler Ntozake Shange
Mary Rice Livermore
Anna H. Shaw Brown, Lois
Octavia E. Butler
Boyd, Karen Leslie Terry McMillan
Patricia Highsmith
Nora Roberts Brown, Lynda W.
Caroline Whiting Hentz
Boyd, Lois A. Octavia Walton Le Vert
Paula Marie Cooey Anne Newport Royall
Boyd, Zohara Jennette Reid Tandy
Sophia Robbins Little Bryer, Marjorie
Josephine Pollard Michele Wallace
Martha Remick
Mary Jane Windle Buchanan, Harriette Cuttino
Corra May Harris
Brahm, Laura Helen Kendrick Johnson
Judy Grahn Agnes C. Laut
Mary Oliver Blair Rice Niles
Breitsprecher, Nancy Marie Conway Oemler
Zona Gale Josephine Pinckney
Lizette Woodworth Reese
Bremer, Sidney H. Mary Howard Schoolcraft
Lucy Monroe
Elia Wilkinson Peattie Bucknall, Barbara J.
Eunice Tietjens Pearl S. Buck
Edith Franklin Wyatt Ursula K. Le Guin
Phyllis McGinley
Brett, Sally Hannah Whittal Smith
Inglis Clark Fletcher Evangeline Walton
Bernice Kelly Harris
Edith Summers Kelley Burger, Mary
Ida Tarbell Diane DiPrima
Broner, E. M. Burns, Lois
Anne Bernays Mary Hunter Austin
xiii
Burns, Melissa Challinor, Joan R.

Anne Bernays Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams
E. M. Broner
Mary McCarthy Chase, Evelyn Hyman
Helen Hennessy Vendler Mary Ellen Chase
Butery, Karen Ann Chew, Martha

Karen Horney Mary Henderson Eastman
Sallie Rochester Ford
Butler, Francelia Maria Jane McIntosh
Harriet Taylor Upton
Chou, Jerome
Byers, Inzer Elisabeth Kbler-Ross
Annie Heloise Abel Cathy Song
Mary Sheldon Barnes Eudora Welty
Mary Louise Booth Kate Wilhelm
Catherine Drinker Bowen
Carrie Chapman Catt Christensen, Lois E.
Frances Manwaring Caulkins Louise Smith Clappe
Margaret Antoinette Clapp Clark, Susan L.
Margaret L. Coit Mignon G. Eberhart
Angelina Grimk Doris Grumbach
Sarah Moore Grimk Mary R. Higham
Louise Kellogg Mabel Seeley
Adrienne Koch
Martha Nash Lamb Cleveland, Carol
Alma Lutz Patricia Highsmith
Nellie Neilson
Cohn, Amy L.
Martha Laurens Ramsay
Lois Lowry
Constance Lindsay Skinner
Margaret Bayard Smith Cohn, Jan
Byington, Juliet Mary Roberts Rinehart
Susan Brownmiller Coleman, Linda S.
Lorna Dee Cervantes Mollie Dorsey Sanford
Alice Childress
Rosalyn Drexler Condit, Rebecca C.
Eloise Greeneld Ai
Catharine A. MacKinnon Jayne Cortez
Kate Millett Joan Didion
Andrea Nye Frances FitzGerald
Susan Sontag Paula Fox
Sandra M. Gilbert
Campbell, Mary B. Ellen Gilchrist
Carolyn Forch Marita Golden
Carl, Lisa Mary Catherine Gordon
Nikki Giovanni Lois Gould
Mary Lee Settle Joanne Greenberg
Beth Henley
Carlin, Sandra Pauline Kael
Louella Oettinger Parsons Alison Lurie
Marge Piercy
Carnes, Valerie
Rosemary Radford Ruether
Janet Flanner
Linda Ty-Casper
Carroll, Linda A. Dorothy Uhnak
Jean Craighead George Ann Belford Ulanov
xiv
Cook, Martha E. Dash, Irene

Virginia Hamilton Carolyn G. Heilbrun
Annie Fellows Johnston
George Madden Martin Davidson, Cathy N.
Katherine Bonner McDowell E. M. Broner
Mary Murfree Laura Jean Libbey
Tabitha Tenney
Cook, Sylvia
Olive Tilford Dargan
Davis, Barbara Kerr
Grace Lumpkin
Ellen Moers
Coultrap-McQuin, Susan
Eliza Leslie Davis, Thadious M.
Catharine Arnold Williams Anna Julia Cooper
Mollie Moore Davis
Cowell, Pattie
Shirley Graham
Bathsheba Bowers
Mary Spring Walker
Martha Wadsworth Brewster
Elizabeth Sandwith Drinker Rhoda E. White
Anna Young Smith
Annis Boudinot Stockton Deegan, Mary Jo
Lydia Fish Willis Edith Abbott
Anna Green Winslow Emily Greene Balch
Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge
Cox, Virginia Helen Merrell Lynd
Erica Jong Marion Talbott
Crabbe, Katharyn F.
Jane Andrews DeMarr, Mary Jean
Carolyn Sherwin Bailey Charlotte Armstrong
Katherine Lee Bates Sarah T. Bolton
Margery Williams Bianco Gwen Bristow
Claire Huchet Bishop Doris Miles Disney
Rebecca Sophia Clarke Janet Ayer Fairbank
Clara F. Guernsey Rachel Lyman Field
Lucy Ellen Guernsey Alice Tisdale Hobart
Theodora Kroeber Agnes Newton Keith
Elizabeth Foreman Lewis Alice Hegan Rice
Ella Farman Pratt Mari Sandoz
Susan Ridley Sedgwick Anya Seton
Monica Shannon Ruth Suckow
Eva March Tappan Elswyth Thane
Louisa Huggins Tuthill Agnes Sligh Turnbull
Elizabeth Gray Vining Carolyn Wells
Eliza Orne White
Demetrakopoulos, Stephanie
Crumpacker, Laurie
Mary Daly
Sarah Prince Gill
Mary Esther Harding
Cutler, Evelyn S. June K. Singer
Rose ONeill Ann Belford Ulanov
Dame, Enid
Deming, Caren J.
Gertrude Berg
Darney, Virginia Elaine Sterne Carrington
Maude Howe Elliott Agnes E. Nixon
Laura Howe Richards Irna Phillips
xv
Denler, Heidi Hartwig Donnelly, Daria

Alice French Sarah Appleton-Weber
Tina Howe Joy Harjo
Kristin Hunter-Lattany Naomi Shihab Nye
Alice McDermott Linda Pastan
Anne Tyler
Donovan, Josephine
Denniston, Dorothy L. Annie Adams Fields
Paule Marshall Louise Imogen Guiney
Sarah Orne Jewett
DeRoche, Celeste Lucy Larcom
Beverly Cleary Celia Laighton Thaxter
Natalie Zemon Davis Dooley, Dale A.
Rachel Blau DuPlessis Ai
Sylvia A. Earle Alexis DeVeaux
Louise Erdrich
Gail Godwin Dorenkamp, Angela
Katharine Graham Mary Catherine Gordon
Carolyn G. Heilbrun
Dorenkamp, Monica
Linda Hogan
Kathy Acker
Nicole Hollander
Alicia Ostriker
Barbara C. Jordan
Nancy Mairs Dykeman, Amy
Maria Mitchell Kate W. Hamilton
Robin Morgan Cecilia Viets Jamison
Gloria Naylor Adeline Trafton Knox
Anne Firor Scott
Joan Wallach Scott Eliasberg, Ann Pringle
Vida Dutton Scudder Annie Brown Leslie
Jane P. Tompkins Josephine Preston Peabody
Dorothy West Dorothy Thompson
Victoria Woodhull
Dixon, Janette Goff
Estess, Sybil
Judy Blume
Maxine W. Kumin
Erma Bombeck
Betty Friedan Etheridge, Billie W.
Barbara Tuchman Abigail Smith Adams
Helen Hennessy Vendler Mercy Otis Warren
Dobbs, Jeannine Evans, Elizabeth

Hildegarde Flanner Josephine Jacobsen
Hazel Hall Helen MacInnes
Lydia Sayer Hasbrouck Frances Newman
Leonora von Stosch Speyer Margaret Junkin Preston
Jean Starr Untermeyer Anne Tyler
Marya Zaturenska Eudora Welty
Ewell, Barbara C.
Domina, Lynn
Sarah McLean Greene
Dorothy Allison
Fannie Heaslip Lea
Susan B. Anthony
Eliza Jane Poitevent Nicholson
Rita Dove Eliza Phillips Pugh
Anne Lamott
Denise Levertov Faust, Langdon
Sojourner Truth Frances Willard
xvi
Ferguson, Mary Anne Friedman, Ellen

Lisa Alther Anna Hempstead Branch
Sally Benson Bettina Liebowitz Knapp
Doris Betts Dilys Bennett Laing
Tess Slesinger
Fuchs, Miriam
Finger, Mary E. Beulah Marie Dix
Josephine Herbst Maude McVeigh Hutchins
Madeleine LEngle
Gabbard, Lucina P.
Fiore, Jullie Ann Mary Coyle Chase
Annie Dillard Clare Boothe Luce
Fish, Virginia K. Galanter, Margit

Frances R. Donovan Barbara Tuchman
Annie Marion MacLean
Gallo, Rose Adrienne
Fitch, Noel R. Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald
Sylvia Beach Garson, Helen S.
Fleche, Anne Jacqueline Susann
Adrienne Kennedy Sophie Kerr Underwood
Fleenor, Juliann E. Gartner, Carol B.

Catharine Esther Beecher Carman Dee Barnes
Caroline Chesebrough Laura Bent
Susan Hale Mary Putnam Jacobi
Emily Chubbuck Judson Kate Jordan
Margaret Sanger Myra Kelly
Ann Winterbotham Stephens Gaskill, Gayle
Flint, Joyce Isabella MacDonald Alden
Margaret Craven Beatrice J. Chute
Marchette Chute
Florence, Barbara Moench Mathilde Eiker
Lella Secor Sarah Barnwell Elliott
Jean Kerr
Fowler, Lois
Eleanor Flexner Gensler, Kinereth
Frances Dana Gage Sandra M. Gilbert
Ida Husted Harper
Julia McNair Wright Gentilella, Dacia
Paula Gunn Allen
Franklin, Phyllis
Gerson, Risa
Judith Sargent Murray
Susanna Anthony
Elsie Clews Parsons
E. L. Konigsburg
Jean Stafford
Eliza Buckminster Lee
Frazer, Winifred
Gibbons, Christina Tischler
Dorothy Day
Mary Palmer Tyler
Voltairine de Cleyre
Emma Goldman Gibbons, Sheila J.
Mary McGrory
Freiberg, Karen
Kate Wilhelm Gilbert, Melissa Kesler
Gloria Steinem
Freibert, Lucy
Georgiana Bruce Kirby Giles, Jane
Jessica N. MacDonald Elizabeth Elkins Sanders
Marianne Dwight Orvis Catharine Maria Sedgwick
xvii
Ginsberg, Elaine K. Grifth, Susan

Amelia Jenks Bloomer Nicholasa Mohr
Maria Susanna Cummins
Hannah Webster Foster Grim, Jessica
Mary Jane Hawes Holmes Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
Betty Smith Lucy R. Lippard
E. D. E. N. Southworth Eileen Myles
Rosmarie Waldrop
Gironda, Suzanne
Michelle Cliff Groben, Anne R.
Jill Johnston Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Meridel Le Sueur
Grove, Shari
Gladstein, Mimi R. Linda Hogan
Ayn Rand
Hall, Joan Wylie
Gleason, Phyllis S. Ruth McEnery Stuart
Alice Adams Eudora Welty
Alison Lurie
Halpern, Faye
Goldman, Maureen Joanne Greenberg
Esther Edwards Burr
Maureen Howard
Hannah Flagg Gould
Hannah Sawyer Lee Hamblen, Abigail Ann
Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
Gottfried, Erika
Temple Bailey
Rose Pesotta
Amelia E. Barr
Gottlieb, Phyllis Clara L. Root Burnham
Lucy Hooper Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth
Lucy Jones Hooper Margaret Campbell Deland
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
Graham, Theodora R.
Honor McCue Morrow
Louise Bogan
Louise Redeld Peattie
Grace Elizabeth King
Lucy Fitch Perkins
Josephine Miles
Margaret E. Sangster
Harriet Monroe
Elsie Singmaster
Grant, Mary H. Elizabeth Barstow Stoddard
Florence Howe Hall Nelia Gardner White
Julia Ward Howe Ola Elizabeth Winslow
Green, Carol Hurd Hamblen, Vicki Lynn

Eve Merriam Helen M. Winslow
Greene, Dana Hannay, Margaret P.
Sophia Hume Marabel Morgan
Martha Shepard Lippincott
Lucretia Mott Hardesty, Nancy
Sara Vickers Oberholtzer Antoinette Brown Blackwell
Hannah Chaplin Conant
Greyson, Laura Sarah Ewing Hall
Hannah Arendt Phoebe Worrall Palmer
Grider, Sylvia Ann Elizabeth Payson Prentiss
Linda Dgh Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Emma Willard
Grierson, Beth
Rita Mae Brown Hardy, Willene S.
Alma Routsong Katharine Fullerton Gerould
xviii
Harlan, Judith Hill, Vicki Lynn

Sue Grafton Bessie Breuer
Shere Hite Mary Cruger
Diane Johnson Helen Hamilton Gardener
Sarah Winnemucca Ursula N. Gestefeld
Naomi Wolf Marie Howland
Ellen Warner Kirk
Harris, Miriam Kalman, Ph.D Theresa S. Malkiel
Jean Houston Myra Page
Claire Myers Owens Martha W. Tyler
Florida Scott-Maxwell Marie Van Vorst
Harvey, Mary E. Mary Heaton Vorse
Mari Evans Bessie McGinnis Van Vorst
Sally Miller Gearhart Hobbs, Glenda
Marita Golden Harriette Simpson Arnow
Kristin Hunter-Lattany
Hoeveler, Diane Long
Healey, Claire Mathilde Franziska Giesler Anneke
H. D. Phoebe Cary
Amy Lowell Mary Andrews Denison
Alice Bradley Haven
Heilbrun, Carolyn G.
Eleanor Mercein Kelly
A. G. Mojtabai
Juliette Magill Kinzie
Helbig, Alethea K. Marya Mannes
Carol Ryrie Brink Jessica Mitford
Eleanor Estes Frances Crosby Van Alstyne
Lucretia Peabody Hale Babette Deutsch
Irene Hunt Holbrook, Amy
Madeleine LEngle Alice McDermott
Myra Cohn Livingston
Emily Cheney Neville Holdstein, Deborah H.
Ruth Sawyer Harriet Livermore
Kate Seredy Vienna G. Morrell Ramsay
Caroline Dale Snedeker Dora Knowlton Ranous
Zilpha Keatley Snyder Itti Kinney Reno
Elizabeth George Speare Mae West
Anne Terry White
Holly, Marcia
Ella Young
Margaret Culkin Banning
Henderson, Kathy
Hornstein, Jacqueline
Linda J. Barnes
Jenny Fenno
Joan Didion
Sarah Symmes Fiske
Martha Grimes
Susannah Johnson Hastings
Susan Minot
Elizabeth Mixer
Henning, Wendy J. Sarah Parsons Moorhead
Marie Manning Sarah Wentworth Morton
Sarah Osborn
Hepps, Marcia Sarah Porter
Mara Irene Forns Eunice Smith
Tina Howe Jane Turell
Megan Terry Elizabeth White
Hill, Holly Horton, Beverly
Mina Kirstein Curtiss Harriet Jacobs
xix
Howard, Lillie Jones, Judith P.

Fannie Cook Phyllis Chesler
Alice Walker Eleanor Clark
Elizabeth Gould Davis
Howze, Jo Gayl Jones
Mary McLeod Bethune
Kafatou, Sarah
Hoyle, Karen Nelson Ellen Bryant Voigt
Virginia Lee Burton
Natalie Savage Carlson Kahn, Mariam
Marguerite Lofft de Angeli Ruth Benedict
Jean Lee Latham Margaret Mead
Hudspeth, Cheryl K. Kaledin, Eugenia

Rodello Hunter Carolyn Kizer
Elizabeth Spencer
Hughson, Lois
Mary Ritter Beard Karp, Sheema Hamdani
Barbara Tuchman Adrienne Rich
Humez, Jean McMahon Kaufman, Janet E.

Rebecca Cox Jackson Eliza Frances Andrews
Mary Miller Chesnut
Hunter, Edith F. Kate Cumming
Sophia Lyon Fahs Sarah Ellis Dorsey
Rebecca Latimer Felton
Irvin, Helen Deiss Constance Cary Harrison
Antoinette Doolittle Sarah Stone Holmes
Anna White Mary Ann Webster Loughborough
Judith Brockenbrough McGuire
Johnson, Claudia D. Elizabeth Avery Meriwether
Olive Logan Phoebe Yates Pember
Clara Morris Sara Rice Pryor
Sallie A. Brock Putnam
Johnson, Lee Ann Eliza M. Ripley
Mary Hallock Foote Cornelia Phillips Spencer
Susie King Taylor
Johnson, Robin
Katharine Prescott Wormeley
Marianne Moore
Kavo, Rose F.
Jones, Allison A.
Sue Petigru Bowen
Maxine W. Kumin Jane C. Campbell
Rhoda Lerman Juliet Lewis Campbell
Lois Lowry Jane McManus Cazneau
Paule Marshall Jane Dunbar Chaplin
Terry McMillan Ella Rodman Church
A. G. Mojtabai Jane Hardin Cross
Katherine M. Rogers
Susan Fromberg Schaeffer Keeney, William
Ntozake Shange Mara Irene Forns
Tina Howe
Jones, Anne Hudson
Kate C. Hurd-Mead Keeshen, Kathleen Kearney
Elisabeth Kbler-Ross Marguerite Higgins
Esther Pohl Lovejoy Ada Louise Huxtable
Gail Sheehy Miriam Ottenberg
xx
Kelleghan, Fiona Koengeter, L. W.

Marion Zimmer Bradley Ann Eliza Schuyler Bleecker
Suzy McKee Charnas Maria Gowen Brooks
Anne McCaffrey Hannah Mather Crocker
Vonda N. McIntyre Margaretta V. Faugeres
Andre Norton Rose Wilder Lane
Kit Reed Adah Isaacs Menken
Elizabeth Ann Scarborough Kohlstedt, Sally Gregory
Sheri S. Tepper Anna Botsford Comstock
Connie Willis Almira Lincoln Phelps
Kenschaft, Lori Kolmerten, Carol A.
Martha Ballard Frances Wright
Barbara Ehrenreich
Kondelik, Marlene
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Mary Shipman Andrews
Frances Kellor
Carson McCullers Koon, Helene
Ann Lane Petry Marian Anderson
Ida B. Wells-Barnett Ruth Gordon
Anna Mowatt Ritchie
Kern, Donna Casella Elizabeth Robins
Frances Fuller Victor Catherine Turney
S. S. B. K. Wood
Kern, Edith
Ann Landers Koppes, Phyllis Bixlir
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Kessler, Carol Farley
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Kouidis, Virginia M.
Mina Loy
King, Margaret J. Krieg, Joann Peck
Clara Jessup Bloomeld-Moore Charlotte Mary Sanford Barnes
Peg Bracken Susan Fenimore Cooper
Judith Crist Mary Baker Eddy
Maureen Daly
Pauline Kael Kroll, Diane E.
Elizabeth Linington Jean Fritz
Madalyn Murray OHair Katherine Paterson
Emily Post Krouse, Agate Nesaule
Mary Wilson Sherwood Rhoda Lerman
Amy Vanderbilt
Kuenhold, Sandra
Kish, Dorothy Leta Stetter Hollingworth
Rebecca Harding Davis
Kuznets, Lois R.
Klein, Kathleen Gregory Esther Forbes
Susan Grifn Lois Lenski
Ruth McKenney Lamping, Marilyn
Anne Nichols Hallie Quinn Brown
Bella Cohen Spewak Pauline Hopkins
Megan Terry Maria W. Stewart
Fannie Barrier Williams
Klein, Michael
Jean Valentine Langhals, Patricia
Florence Wheelock Ayscough
Knapp, Bettina L. Alice Bacon
Anas Nin Dorothy Borg
xxi
Langsam, Miriam Z. Ludwig, Linda

Margaret Bourke-White Kathryn Cavarly Hulme
Margaret Mitchell
Laska, Vera
Marcia Gluck Davenport MacDonald, Maureen
Elisabeth Elliot Katherine Bolton Black
Lauter, Estella MacKay, Kathryn L.
Diane Wakoski Maurine Whipple
Levy, Ilise MacPike, Loralee
Alice Hamilton Emily Kimbrough
Jane Jacobs Maxine Hong Kingston
Lewandowska, M. L. Mary Jane Ward
Marilyn Hacker Madsen, Carol Cornwall
Lewis, Janette Seaton Louisa Greene Richards
Carrie Jacobs Bond Emmeline Woodward Wells
Joanne Greenberg Maida, Patricia D.
Lewis, Sharon A. Lillian ODonnell
Marita Bonner Mainiero, Lina
Lezburg, Amy K. Willa Sibert Cather
Ilka Chase
Maio, Kathleen L.
Linden-Ward, Blanche Anna Katharine Green
Andrea Dworkin Mary R. Platt Hatch
Marilyn French Lenore Glen Offord
Robin Morgan Metta Fuller Victor
Loeb, Helen Mallett, Daryl F.

Inez Haynes Irwin Leigh Brackett
Jane E. Brody
Lohman, Judith S.
Carolyn Chute
Crystal Eastman
Emma Lathen
Londr, Felicia Hardison Ursula K. Le Guin
Agnes de Mille Reeve Lindbergh
Edith Ellis Bobbie Ann Mason
Anne Crawford Flexner Rachel Pollack
Harriet Ford Anne Rice
Rose Franken Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Ketti Frings Joanna Russ
Dorothy Kuhns Heyward Jessica Amanda Salmonson
Jeannette Augustus Marks Lee Smith
Frances Aymar Mathews Margaret Truman
Adelaide Matthews
Marguerite Merington Marchino, Lois
Lillian Mortimer Rita Mae Brown
Martha Morton Marcus, Lisa
Josena Niggli bell hooks
Charlotte Blair Parker Sherley Anne Williams
Lillian Ross
Lillie West Margolis, Tina
Rida Johnson Young Eva LeGallienne
Lord, Charlotte V. Marie, Jacquelyn
Sidney Cowell Bateman Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
xxii
Marks, Elaine McCarthy, Joanne

Germaine Bre Kay Boyle
Maeve Brennan
Marshall, Kathleen Bonann Mary Maguire Colum
Susan H. Bergman Hedda Hopper
Elizabeth Hardwick
Betty MacDonald
Linda Kaufman Kerber
Kathleen Thompson Norris
Bette Bao Lord
Lorrie Moore McCay, Mary A.
Sara Paretsky Rosellen Brown
Elaine Showalter Louise Erdrich
Mona Van Duyn Kaye Gibbons
Edith Wharton Ellen Gilchrist
Martinez, Elizabeth Coonrod Patricia Highsmith
Sandra Bentez Barbara Kingsolver
Rosa Guy Bobbie Ann Mason
Demetria Martnez Brenda Marie Osbey
Cherre Moraga Anne Rice
Judith Ortiz Cofer Helen Yglesias
Esmeralda Santiago
Helena Mara Viramontes McClure, Charlotte S.
Gertrude Atherton
Masel-Walters, Lynne
Alice Stone Blackwell McColgan, Kristin
Mary Ware Dennett Dorothea Lynde Dix
Miriam Follin Leslie
Inez Haynes Irwin McCrea, Joan M.
Katharine Coman
Mason, Mary Grimley
Betty Friedan McDannell, M. Colleen
Carolyn G. Heilbrun Katherine Eleanor Conway
Nancy Gardner Prince Pearl Richards Craigie
Amanda Smith
Mason, Sarah E. Frances Fisher Tiernan
Pauline Kael Ellen Gould White
Masteller, Jean Carwile
McFadden-Gerber, Margaret
Annie Nathan Meyer
Sally Carrighar
Elizabeth Seifert
Annie Dillard
Masters, Joellen Wilma Dykeman
Gayl Jones Fannie Hardy Eckstorm
Josephine Winslow Johnson
Masters, Jollen Harriet M. Miller
Susan Fromberg Schaeffer Louise Dickinson Rich
Matherne, Beverly M. McGovern, Edythe M.
Alice Gerstenberg Margaret Wise Brown
May, Jill P. Rachel Crothers
Ann Nolan Clark Susan Glaspell
Ingri Mortenson dAulaire Lorraine Hansberry
Maud Fuller Petersham Sophie Treadwell
Marilyn Sachs Charlotte Zolotow
Mayer, Elsie F. McKay, Mary A.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh Lee Smith
xxiii
McLennan, Karen Mollenkott, Virginia Ramey

Harriette Simpson Arnow Grace Livingston Hill-Lutz
Toni Cade Bambara Sarah Smith Martyn
Mary Daly Marjorie Hope Nicolson
Louise Glck Rosemond Tuve
Virginia Johnson-Masters
Montenegro, David
Audre Lorde
Linda Ty-Casper
Patricia Meyer Spacks
Morris, Linda A.
McQuin, Susan Coultrap Marietta Holley
Sarah Ann Evans Frances Berry Whitcher
Medeiros, Kimbally A. Mortimer, Gail
Sandra Harding Katherine Anne Porter
Eleanor Munro
Anne Truitt Mossberg, Barbara A. Clarke
Anne Waldman Sylvia Plath
Genevieve Taggard
Menger, Lucy
Ruth Shick Montgomery Moynihan, Ruth Barnes
Jane Roberts Abigail Scott Duniway
Susy Smith Murphy, Maureen
Mercier, Cathryn M. Mary E. McGrath Blake
Yoshiko Uchida Helena Lefroy Caperton
Cynthia Voigt Kathleen Coyle
Blanche McManus Manseld
Miller, James A. Mary L. Meaney
Margaret Randall Asenath Hatch Nicholson
Florence J. OConnor
Miller, Marlene M. Jessie Fremont ODonnell
Elizabeth Bishop Katharine A. OKeeffe
Kelly Cherry Clara M. Thompson
Elizabeth Cook-Lynn
M. F. K. Fisher Murphy, Miriam B.
June Jordan Sarah E. Carmichael
Martha Spence Heywood
Mitchell, Nora
Olga Broumas Murphy, Paula C.
Louise Glck Maya Angelou
Sharon Olds Eleanor Taylor Bland
Nora Ephron
Mitchell, Sally Barbara Kingsolver
Francesca Alexander Barbara Neely
Helen Dore Boylston
Margaret Mayo Mussell, Kay
Cora Baggerly Older Phyllis A. Whitney
Mary Green Pike Nance, Guin A.
Rose Porter Gail Godwin
Molly Elliot Seawell Nancy Hale
Mary Ella Waller Virginia M. Satir
Elizabeth Spencer
Moe, Phyllis
Clara M. Thompson
Abbie Farwell Brown
Helen Stuart Campbell Neils, Patricia Langhals
Eliza Cabot Follen Emily Hahn
Emily Huntington Miller Charlotte Y. Salisbury
Sarah Chauncey Woolsey Mary Clabaugh Wright
xxiv
Neville, Tam Lin Peterson, Margaret

Ruth Stone Emily Dickinson
Newman, Anne Janet Lewis
Julia Mood Peterkin
Elizabeth Sewell Pettis, Joyce
Amlie Rives Troubetzkoy Zora Neale Hurston
Nichols, Kathleen L.
Miriam Coles Harris Philips, Elizabeth
Ellen Peck Sarah Helen Whitman
Harriet Waters Preston
Anne Sexton
Phillips, Elizabeth
Nix, E. M. Elizabeth Ellet
Gail Godwin Annie Somers Gilchrist
Nochimson, Martha Estelle Robinson Lewis
Carry A. Nation Frances Sargent Osgood
Martha Harrison Robinson Caroline Ticknor
Norman, Marion Mabel Loomis Todd
Lucretia Maria Davidson
Margaret Miller Davidson Piercy, Josephine K.
OConnor, Christine Anne Dudley Bradstreet
Martha Ostenso
OLoughlin, James Pogel, Nancy
Tillie Olsen Constance Mayeld Rourke
Ockerstrom, Lolly
Mona Van Duyn Poland, Helene Dwyer
Julia Henrietta Gulliver
Pannill, Linda Susanne K. Langer
Isadora Duncan
Parker, Alice Pool, Gail
Ada Jack Carver Cynthia Ozick
Edith Hamilton
Dawn Powell
Passty, Jeanette Nyda
Isabella Oliver Sharp Pouncey, Lorene
Sarah Pogson Smith
Vassar Miller
Sukey Vickery Watson
Marguerite Young
Payne, Alma J.
Louisa May Alcott
Preston, Caroline
Pelzer, Linda C. Annie Trumbull Slosson
Patricia Cornwell
Martha Gellhorn
Pringle, Mary Beth
Anita Shreve
Lonie Fuller Adams
Penn, Patricia E. Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Del Martin
Annie Smith Peck
Puk, Francine Shapiro
Penn, Shana Elizabeth Akers Allen
Lucy S. Dawidowicz Victoria Lincoln
Perez-Guntin, Amiris Dorothy Parker
Julia de Burgos Frances Gray Patton
xxv
Radtke, Barbara Anne Rhodes, Nelson

Mary Daly Margaret Wise Brown
Rosemary Radford Ruether Alexis DeVeaux
Ann Douglas
Ratigan, Virginia Kaib Susan Grifn
Isabella Marshall Graham Lillian Hellman
Mary Agnes Tincker Zenna Henderson
Jill Johnston
Raugust, Karen Elisabeth Kbler-Ross
Kathy Acker Madeleine LEngle
Natalie Angier Harper Lee
Nevada Barr Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Ann Beattie Shirley MacLaine
Blanche McCrary Boyd Nancy Mairs
Sandra Brown Del Martin
Edna Buchanan Marsha Norman
Amy Clampitt Rochelle Owens
Nancy F. Cott Sylvia Plath
Elizabeth Daly Ayn Rand
Dorothy Salisbury Davis Hannah Whittal Smith
Elizabeth Drew Gertrude Stein
Carolyn Forch Megan Terry
Jean Garrigue Phyllis A. Whitney
Kaye Gibbons Richardson, Susan B.
Doris Kearns Goodwin Mitsuye Yamada
Jorie Graham Hisaye Yamamoto
Jane Hamilton
Lyn Hejinian Richmond, Velma Bourgeois
Laurie R. King Anne Fremantle
Frances Parkinson Keyes
Ray, Sandra Ruth Painter Randall
Rosa Guy Agnes Repplier
Nancy Willard Richter, Heddy A.
Elizabeth Frances Corbett
Rayson, Ann Olive Higgins Prouty
Adelle Davis Roberts, Audrey
Ann Lane Petry Caroline M. Stansbury Kirkland
Reardon, Joan Roberts, Bette B.
Julia Child Lydia Maria Child
Reisman, Jessica Roberts, Elizabeth

Hortense Calisher Fannie W. Rankin
Angela Yvonne Davis Maggie Roberts
Rachel Hadas Harriet Winslow Sewall
Anne Moody Eliza Ann Youmans
Ann Rule Roca, Ana
Cynthia Voigt Julia lvarez
Alice Walker Gloria Anzalda
Kate Wilhelm Achy Obejas
Reuman, Ann E. Rogers, Katharine M.

Janice Mirikitani Lillian Hellman
xxvi
Rosenberg, Julia Schoenbach, Lisi

Emma Manley Embury Germaine Bre
Mary E. Moore Hewitt
Schoeld, Ann
Rebecca Rush
Helen Marot
Caroline Warren Thayer
Schull, Elinor
Rosinsky, Natalie McCaffrey Adela Rogers St. Johns
Anne McCaffrey
Judith Merril Schwartz, Helen J.
C. L. Moore Mary Antin
Hortense Calisher
Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer
Rowe, Anne
Margaret Thompson Janvier
Maya Angelou Margaret Woods Lawrence
Elizabeth Madox Roberts Tillie Olsen
Constance Fenimore Woolson Grace Paley
Rudnick, Lois P. Schweik, Joanne L.

Mabel Dodge Luhan Marilyn French
Isabella Gardner
Rushin, Kate Vivian Gornick
Hettie Jones
Audre Lorde
Gloria Steinem
Ryan, Rosalie Tutela Scura, Dorothy M.
Jane Starkweather Locke Mary Johnston
Seaton, Beverly
Salo, Alice Bell
Florence Merriam Bailey
Marjorie Hill Allee
Gladys Hasty Carroll
Mabel Leigh Hunt
Mary Hartwell Catherwood
Elizabeth Yates
Nellie Blanchan Doubleday
Mateel Howe Farnham
Sandberg, Elisabeth Margaret Flint
Carolyn Chute Helen Morgenthau Fox
Ruth Seid Mary Grifth
Susan Huntington
Scanzoni, Letha Louisa Yeomans King
Anita Bryant Elizabeth L. Lawrence
Virginia Ramey Mollenkott Alice Lounsberry
Helen Reimensnyder Martin
Schiavoni, Andrew Sarah Edgarton Mayo
Rochelle Owens Josephine Clifford McCrackin
Susan Sontag Helen Matthews Nitsch
Frances Dana Parsons
Grace Richmond
Schleuning, Neala Yount
Gladys Bagg Taber
Meridel Le Sueur Anna Bartlett Warner
Susan Bogert Warner
Schoen, Carol B. Mary Stanbery Watts
Hannah Adams Adeline D. T. Whitney
Rebekah Bettelheim Kohut Kate Douglass Wiggin
Emma Lazarus Laura Ingalls Wilder
Penina Moise Louise Beebe Wilder
Ruth Seid Mabel Osgood Wright
xxvii
Secrest, Rose Shostak, Elizabeth

V. C. Andrews Bette Bao Lord
Mary Higgins Clark Jayne Anne Phillips
June Doman Kate Simon
Katherine V. Forrest
Nancy Freedman
Carolyn G. Hart Shur, Cherri L.
Joyce Maynard Marianne Wiggins
Sharon McCrumb
Bharati Mukherjee Shute, Carolyn
Frances Perkins Judy Blume
Belva Plain Mildred Delois Taylor
Patricia Polacco
Sylvia F. Porter
Pamela Sargent Siefert, Susan E.
Ariel Durant
Shaffer-Koros, Carole M. Fannie Merritt Farmer
Willystine Goodsell
Helen Hazlett
Ruth Putnam Skaggs, Peggy
Helen Keller
Shakir, Evelyn Catherine Marshall
Ednah Littlehale Cheney
Abigail May Alcott Nieriker
Sladics, Devra M.
Sharistanian, Janet Lilian Jackson Braun
Florence Howe Gwendolyn Brooks
Elizabeth Janeway
Tess Gallagher
Helen Waite Papashvily
Doris Grumbach
Katherine M. Rogers
Sonia Sanchez
Shelton, Pamela Dana Stabenow
Rita Mae Brown Wendy Wasserstein
Nikki Giovanni Sylvia Watanabe
Harriet Jacobs Jade Snow Wong
Sherman, Sarah Way Charlotte Zolotow
Sarah Knowles Bolton
Alice Brown Slaughter, Jane
Rose Terry Cooke Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
Gertrude Battles Lane
Louise Chandler Moulton
Mary Alicia Owen Smelstor, Marjorie
Fanny Kemble
Shinn, Thelma J.
Margaret Ayer Barnes
Frances Courtenay Baylor Barnum Smethurst, James
Kate Chopin Maya Angelou
Martha Finley Marilyn Hacker
Lucy Smith French Maxine Hong Kingston
Shirley Ann Grau Sonia Sanchez
Mary Dana Shindler Alice Walker
Harriet Prescott Spofford Margaret Walker
Shortreed, Vivian H.
Elizabeth Oakes Smith Smith, Martha Nell
Jane Grey Swisshelm Toi Derricotte
xxviii
Smith, Susan Sutton Sparks, Leah J.

Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz Sanora Babb
Jane Goodwin Austin Carman Dee Barnes
Delia Salter Bacon Doris Betts
Sarah G. Bagley Germaine Bre
Mary Edwards Bryan Olga Broumas
Maria Weston Chapman Octavia E. Butler
Adelaide Crapsey Rachel Carson
Caroline Healey Dall Kim Chernin
Eliza Ann Dupuy Phyllis Chesler
Harriet Farley Marilyn Chin
Eliza Rotch Farrar Michelle Cliff
Judith Crist
Margaret Fuller
Toi Derricotte
Caroline Howard Gilman
Diane DiPrima
Caroline Gilman Jervey
Andrea Dworkin
Elizabeth Dodge Kinney
Suzette Haden Elgin
Sara Jane Lippincott
Carol Emshwiller
Harriet Hanson Robinson Marjorie Garber
Phoebe Atwood Taylor Sally Miller Gearhart
Mary Hawes Terhune Donna Haraway
Jean Webster Lillian Hellman
Susan Isaacs
Sneller, Jo Leslie Molly Ivins
Rosemary Sprague Shirley Jackson
Gerda Lerner
Snipes, Katherine Del Martin
Clara Barton Alice Notley
Laura Jackson Martha Craven Nussbaum
Carson McCullers Flannery OConnor
Joyce Carol Oates
Snyder, Carrie Camille Paglia
Ana Castillo Margaret Randall
Julia Child Harriet Beecher Stowe
Jane Cooper Lois-Ann Yamanaka
Mari Evans
Mara Irene Forns Spencer, Linda
Shirley Ann Grau Jayne Anne Phillips
Bertha Harris Eleanor Roosevelt
Erica Jong Judith Rossner
Sandra McPherson Sprague, Rosemary
Valerie Miner Sara Teasdale
Alma Routsong
Anya Seton Sproat, Elaine
Lola Ridge
Gail Sheehy
Leslie Marmon Silko Stackhouse, Amy D.
Zilpha Keatley Snyder Edith Maud Eaton
Cathy Song Lorine Niedecker
Danielle Steel
Staley, Ann
Jane Hirsheld
Sonnenschein, Dana Stanbrough, Jane
Rosalyn Drexler Elizabeth Manning Hawthorne
Jorie Graham Hildegarde Hawthorne
Sandra McPherson Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
xxix
Stanford, Ann Swartz, Mark

Sanora Babb Djuna Barnes
Sarah Kemble Knight bell hooks
May Swenson Susan Howe
Ann Lauterbach
Staples, Katherine Cynthia Ozick
G. M. Flanders
Louisa Park Hall Swidler, Arlene Anderson
Caroline E. Rush Sarah N. Brownson
Alma Sioux Scarberry Katherine Kurz Burton
Aline Murray Kilmer
Stauffer, Helen Sister Mary Madeleva
Bess Streeter Aldrich Helen Constance White
Bertha Muzzy Sinclair
Sylvander, Carolyn Wedin
Dorothy Swain Thomas
Martha Grifth Browne
Steele, Karen B. Jessie Redmon Fauset
Elizabeth W. Latimer Frances Noyes Hart
Mary Lowell Putnam Helen Hull
Mary Britton Miller
Stein, Karen F. Mary White Ovington
Paulina Wright Davis Laura M. Towne
Alice Dunbar-Nelson Szymanski, Karen
Abbie Huston Evans Anne C. Lynch Botta
Phebe Cofn Hanaford Eliza Woodson Farnham
Elinor Hoyt Wylie
Talamantez, Ins
Stein, Rachel Ella Cara Deloria
Toni Cade Bambara
Tebbe, Jennifer L.
Stepanski, Lisa Georgette Meyer Chapelle
Ann Beattie Elisabeth May Craig
Rheta Childe Dorr
Stetson, Erlene Elizabeth Drew
Gwendolyn B. Bennett Barbara Ehrenreich
Frances FitzGerald
Stevenson, Deanna Anne OHare McCormick
Olga Broumas Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman
Anna Louise Strong
Stiller, Nikki
Helaine Newstead Terris, Virginia R.
Alice Henry
Stinson, Peggy Sarah Bryan Piatt
Jane Addams Jessie B. Rittenhouse
Agnes Smedley Lillian Whiting
Ella Winter
Anzia Yezierska Thibaux, Marcelle
Faith Baldwin Cuthrell
Stoddard, Karen M. Julia Ripley Dorr
Dorothy Daniels Ellen Glasgow
Anne Green
Summers, Shauna Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Joan Didion
Anne Tyler Thomas, Gwendolyn A.
Henrietta Buckmaster
Swan, Susan Charlotte L. Forten
Jamaica Kincaid Pauli Murray
xxx
Thompson, Ann Vogrin, Valerie

Rosemary Radford Ruether Alice Adams
Annie Dillard
Thompson, Dorothea Mosley Jamaica Kincaid
Mary Cunningham Logan Maxine Hong Kingston
Ruth Bryan Owen Carole Maso
Irma von Starkloff Rombauer Toni Morrison
Caroline White Soule Sharon Olds
Grace Paley
Thornton, Emma S. Ann Patchett
Marion Marsh Todd Amy Tan
Tipps, Lisa Wahlstrom, Billie J.

Bertha Harris Alice Cary
Anna Peyre Dinnies
Tobin, Jean Betty Friedan
Hilda Morley Zenna Henderson
Adrienne Rich Andre Norton
Ruth Whitman Joanna Russ
Townsend, Janis Waldron, Karen E.

Mildred Aldrich Kim Chernin
Gertrude Stein
Alice B. Toklas Walker, Cynthia L.
Shirley Barker
Treckel, Paula A. Taylor Caldwell
Alice Morse Earle Edna Ferber
Gerda Lerner Eleanor Gates
Emily Smith Putnam Caroline Pafford Miller
Lucy Maynard Salmon Myrtle Reed
Eliza Snow Smith Florence Barrett Willoughby
Fanny Stenhouse
Wall, Cheryl A.
Narcissa Prestiss Whitman
Gwendolyn Brooks
Ann Eliza Young
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Nella Larsen
Turner, Alberta
Gloria Naylor
Katherine Garrison Chapin
Anne Spencer
Ruth Herschberger
Barbara Howes Ward, Jean M.
Muriel Rukeyser Elizabeth Blackwell
Ella Rhoads Higginson
Uffen, Ellen Serlen
Bethenia Owens-Adair
Fannie Hurst
Welch, Barbara A.
Uphaus, Suzanne Henning Alice James
Ann Chidester
Eleanor Carroll Chilton Werden, Frieda L.
Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn Dorothy Dodds Baker
Pamela Frankau Kate Millett
Maureen Howard Bernice Love Wiggins
Marge Piercy
West, Martha Ullman
Vasquez, Pamela Rosellen Brown
Judith Ortiz Cofer Lynne Sharon Schwartz
xxxi
White, Barbara A. Yee, Carole Zonis

Lillie Devereux Blake Leane Zugsmith
Sarah Josepha Hale
Sara Willis Parton Yglesias, Helen
Marilla M. Ricker Amy Tan
Caroline Slade
White, Evelyn C. Yongue, Patricia Lee
Angela Yvonne Davis Zo Akins
Williams, Donna Glee Anne Douglas Sedgwick
Diane Wakoski Helen Hennessy Vendler
Williams, Lynn F. Young, Melanie

Marion Zimmer Bradley Harriette Fanning Read
Joanna Russ
Caroline H. Woods
Wolff, Ellen
Harriet E. Adams Wilson Zajdel, Melody M.
Jade Snow Wong Caresse Crosby
Wolfson, Rose
Klara Goldzieher Roman Zilboorg, Caroline
Elise Justine Bayard
Wollons, Roberta
Ann Douglas
Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
Maud Wilder Goodwin
Woodward, Angela Sarah Sprague Jacobs
Natalie Babbitt Charlotte A. Jerauld
Ellen Goodman Mary Elizabeth Lee
Elizabeth Gray Vining Dolley Madison
Diane Wakoski Louisa Cheves McCord
Wright, Catherine Morris Maria G. Milward
Mary Mapes Dodge Agnes Woods Mitchell
Mrs. H. J. Moore
Yarbro-Bejarano, Yvonne
Gloria Anzalda Martha Read
Ana Castillo Catherine Ware Wareld
Lorna Dee Cervantes Amelia Coppuck Welby
Sandra Cisneros
Cherre Moraga Zimmerman, Karen
Helena Mara Viramontes Marcia Muller
xxxii
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WRITERS
Abbott, Edith Auerbach, Hilda See Morley, Hilda

Abbott, Eleanor Hallowell Austin, Jane Goodwin
Abel, Annie Heloise Austin, Mary Hunter
Acker, Kathy Avery, Martha Moore
Adams, Abigail Smith Ayer, Harriet Hubbard
Adams, Alice Ayscough, Florence Wheelock
Adams, Hannah
Adams, Harriet Stratemeyer Babb, Sanora
Adams, Lonie Fuller Babbitt, Natalie
Adams, Louisa Catherine Johnson Bacon, Alice
Addams, Jane Bacon, Delia Salter
Adisa, Giamba See Lorde, Audre Bagley, Sarah G.
Agassiz, Elizabeth Cabot Cary Bailey, Temple
Ai Bailey, Carolyn Sherwin
Akins, Zo Bailey, Florence Merriam
Alcott, Louisa May Baker, Dorothy Dodds
Alden, Isabella MacDonald Balch, Emily Greene
Aldon, Adair See Meigs, Cornelia Ballard, Martha
Aldrich, Bess Streeter Bambara, Toni Cade
Aldrich, Mildred Banning, Margaret Culkin
Alexander, Francesca Barker, Shirley
Allee, Marjorie Hill Barnard, A. M. See Alcott, Louisa May
Allen, Elizabeth Akers Barnes, Carman Dee
Allen, Paula Gunn Barnes, Charlotte Mary Sanford
Allison, Dorothy Barnes, Djuna
Alther, Lisa Barnes, Linda J.
lvarez, Julia Barnes, Margaret Ayer
Ames, Mary E. Clemmer Barnes, Mary Sheldon
Anderson, Marian Barnum, Frances Courtenay Baylor
Andrew, Joseph Maree See Bonner, Marita Barr, Amelia E.
Andrews, Eliza Frances Barr, Nevada
Andrews, Jane Barton, Clara
Andrews, Mary Shipman Barton, May Hollis See Adams, Harriet Stratemeyer
Andrews, V. C. Bateman, Sidney Cowell
Angelou, Maya Bates, Katherine Lee
Angier, Natalie Bayard, Elise Justine
Anneke, Mathilde Franziska Giesler Beach, Sylvia
Anpetu Wate See Deloria, Ella Cara Beard, Mary Ritter
Anthony, Susan B. Beattie, Ann
Anthony, Susanna Beebe, Mary Blair See Niles, Blair Rice
Antin, Mary Beecher, Catharine Esther
Anzalda, Gloria Benedict, Ruth
Appleton-Weber, Sarah Bent, Laura
Appleton, Sarah See Appleton-Weber, Sarah Bentez, Sandra
Appleton, Victor, II See Adams, Harriet Stratemeyer Bennett, Gwendolyn B.
Arendt, Hannah Benson, Sally
Armstrong, Charlotte Berg, Gertrude
Arnow, Harriette Simpson Bergman, Susan H.
Ashley, Ellen See Seifert, Elizabeth Bernays, Anne
Atherton, Gertrude Berne, Victoria See Fisher, M. F. K.
Atom, Ann See Walworth, Jeannette Hadermann Bethune, Mary McLeod
xxxiii
Betts, Doris Broner, E. M.

Bianco, Margery Williams Brooks, Gwendolyn
Bishop, Claire Huchet Brooks, Maria Gowen
Bishop, Elizabeth Broumas, Olga
Black, Katherine Bolton Brown, Abbie Farwell
Blackwell, Alice Stone Brown, Alice
Blackwell, Antoinette Brown Brown, Hallie Quinn
Blackwell, Elizabeth Brown, Margaret Wise
Blaisdell, Anne See Linington, Elizabeth Brown, Nancy See Leslie, Annie Brown
Blake, Lillie Devereux Brown, Rita Mae
Blake, Mary E. McGrath Brown, Rosellen
Bland, Eleanor Taylor Brown, Sandra
Blatch, Harriot Stanton Browne, Martha Grifth
Bleecker, Ann Eliza Schuyler Brownmiller, Susan
Bloomer, Amelia Jenks Brownson, Sarah N.
Bloomeld-Moore, Clara Jessup Bryan, Mary Edwards
Blume, Judy Bryant, Anita
Bly, Nellie See Seaman, Elizabeth Cochrane Buchanan, Edna
Bogan, Louise Buck, Pearl S.
Bolton, Isabel See Miller, Mary Britton Buckmaster, Henrietta
Bolton, Sarah T. Burke, Fielding See Dargan, Olive Tilford
Bolton, Sarah Knowles Burnett, Frances Hodgson
Bombeck, Erma Burnham, Clara L. Root
Bond, Carrie Jacobs Burr, Esther Edwards
Bonner, Marita Burton, Katherine Kurz
Booth, Mary Louise Burton, Virginia Lee
Borg, Dorothy Butler, Octavia E.
Botta, Anne C. Lynch
Bourke-White, Margaret Cabeza de Baca, Fabiola
Bowen, Catherine Drinker Cade, Toni See Bambara, Toni Cade
Bowen, Sue Petigru Caldwell, Taylor
Bower, B. M. See Sinclair, Bertha Muzzy Calhoun, Lucy See Monroe, Lucy
Bowers, Bathsheba Calisher, Hortense
Bowles, Jane Auer Campbell, Helen Stuart
Boyd, Blanche McCrary Campbell, Jane C.
Boyd, Nancy See Millay, Edna St. Vincent Campbell, Juliet Lewis
Boyle, Kay Caperton, Helena Lefroy
Boylston, Helen Dore Carlson, Natalie Savage
Bracken, Peg Carmichael, Sarah E.
Brackett, Leigh Carrighar, Sally
Bradley, Marion Zimmer Carrington, Elaine Sterne
Bradstreet, Anne Dudley Carroll, Gladys Hasty
Branch, Anna Hempstead Carson, Rachel
Braun, Lilian Jackson Carver, Ada Jack
Breckinridge, Sophonisba Preston Cary, Alice
Bre, Germaine Cary, Phoebe
Brennan, Maeve Caspary, Vera
Brent, Linda See Jacobs, Harriet Castillo, Ana
Bres, Rose Falls Cather, Willa Sibert
Breuer, Bessie Catherwood, Mary Hartwell
Brewster, Martha Wadsworth Catt, Carrie Chapman
Briggs, Emily Edson Caulkins, Frances Manwaring
Brink, Carol Ryrie Cazneau, Jane McManus
Bristow, Gwen Cervantes, Lorna Dee
Brody, Jane E. Cha, Theresa Hak Kyung
xxxiv
Chandler, Elizabeth Margaret Cooper, Susan Fenimore

Chapelle, Georgette Meyer Corbett, Elizabeth Frances
Chapin, Katherine Garrison Cornwell, Patricia
Chaplin, Jane Dunbar Cortez, Jayne
Chapman, Lee See Bradley, Marion Zimmer Cott, Nancy F.
Chapman, Maria Weston Coyle, Kathleen
Charnas, Suzy McKee Craig, Elisabeth May
Chase, Ilka Craig, Kit See Reed, Kit
Chase, Mary Coyle Craigie, Pearl Richards
Chase, Mary Ellen Crapsey, Adelaide
Chehia See Shaw, Anna Moore Craven, Margaret
Cheney, Ednah Littlehale Crist, Judith
Chernin, Kim Crocker, Hannah Mather
Cherry, Kelly Croly, Jane Cunningham
Chesebrough, Caroline Crosby, Caresse
Chesler, Phyllis Cross, Amanda See Heilbrun, Carolyn G.
Chesnut, Mary Miller Cross, Jane Hardin
Chidester, Ann Crothers, Rachel
Child, Julia Crouter, Natalie Stark
Child, Lydia Maria Crowe, F. J. See Johnston, Jill
Childress, Alice Cruger, Mary
Chilton, Eleanor Carroll Cumming, Kate
Chin, Marilyn Cummins, Maria Susanna
Chopin, Kate Curtiss, Mina Kirstein
Church, Ella Rodman Curtiss, Ursula Reilly
Chute, Beatrice J. Custer, Elizabeth Bacon
Chute, Carolyn Cuthrell, Faith Baldwin
Chute, Marchette
Cisneros, Sandra Dahlgren, Madeleine Vinton
Clampitt, Amy Dall, Caroline Healey
Clapp, Margaret Antoinette Daly, Elizabeth
Clappe, Louise Smith Daly, Mary
Clark, Ann Nolan Daly, Maureen
Clark, Eleanor Daniels, Dorothy
Clark, Mary Higgins Dargan, Olive Tilford
Clarke, Rebecca Sophia dAulaire, Ingri Mortenson
Cleary, Beverly Davenport, Marcia Gluck
Cleghorn, Sarah Norcliffe Davidson, Lucretia Maria
Cliff, Michelle Davidson, Margaret Miller
Clifton, Lucille Davis, Adelle
Coatsworth, Elizabeth Jane Davis, Angela Yvonne
Coit, Margaret L. Davis, Dorothy Salisbury
Colum, Mary Maguire Davis, Elizabeth Gould
Coman, Katharine Davis, Mollie Moore
Comstock, Anna Botsford Davis, Natalie Zemon
Conant, Hannah Chaplin Davis, Paulina Wright
Conway, Katherine Eleanor Davis, Rebecca Harding
Cooey, Paula Marie Dawidowicz, Lucy S.
Cook, Fannie Day, Dorothy
Cook-Lynn, Elizabeth de Angeli, Marguerite Lofft
Cooke, Rose Terry de Mille, Agnes
Coolbrith, Ina Donna de Burgos, Julia
Coolidge, Susan See Woolsey, Sarah Chauncey de Mondragon, Margaret Randall See Randall, Margaret
Cooper, Anna Julia de Cleyre, Voltairine
Cooper, Jane Dgh, Linda
xxxv
Deland, Margaret Campbell Earle, Alice Morse

del Occidente, Maria See Brooks, Maria Gowen Earle, Sylvia A.
Deloria, Ella Cara Eastman, Crystal
Deming, Barbara Eastman, Elaine Goodale
Denison, Mary Andrews Eastman, Mary Henderson
Dennett, Mary Ware Eaton, Edith Maud
Derricotte, Toi Eberhart, Mignon G.
Deutsch, Babette Eberhart, Sheri S. See Tepper, Sheri S.
DeVeaux, Alexis Eckstorm, Fannie Hardy
Dexter, John See Bradley, Marion Zimmer Eddy, Mary Baker
Diaz, Abby Morton Egan, Lesley See Linington, Elizabeth
Dickinson, Emily Ehrenreich, Barbara
Didion, Joan Eiker, Mathilde
Dillard, Annie Elder, Susan Blanchard
Dinnies, Anna Peyre Elgin, Suzette Haden
DiPrima, Diane Ellet, Elizabeth
Disney, Doris Miles Elliot, Elisabeth
Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee Elliott, Maude Howe
Dix, Beulah Marie Elliott, Sarah Barnwell
Dix, Dorothea Lynde Ellis, Anne
Dix, Dorothy See Gilmer, Elizabeth Meriwether Ellis, Edith
Dixon, Franklin W. See Adams, Harriet Stratemeyer Embury, Emma Manley
Dodge, Mary Abigail Emshwiller, Carol
Dodge, Mary Mapes Ephron, Nora
Doman, June Erdrich, Louise
Domini, Rey See Lorde, Audre Estes, Eleanor
Dominic, R. B. See Lathen, Emma Evans, Abbie Huston
Donovan, Frances R. Evans, Mari
Doolittle, Antoinette Evans, Sarah Ann
D(oolittle), H(ilda) Evermay, March See Eiker, Mathilde
Dorr, Julia Ripley Fahs, Sophia Lyon
Dorr, Rheta Childe Fairbank, Janet Ayer
Dorsett, Danielle See Daniels, Dorothy Faireld, A. M. See Alcott, Louisa May
Dorsey, Anna McKenney Farley, Harriet
Dorsey, Ella Loraine Farmer, Fannie Merritt
Dorsey, Sarah Ellis Farnham, Eliza Woodson
Doubleday, Nellie Blanchan Farnham, Mateel Howe
Douglas, Amanda Minnie Farquharson, Martha See Finley, Martha
Douglas, Ann Farrar, Eliza Rotch
Dove, Rita Faugeres, Margaretta V.
Drew, Elizabeth Fauset, Jessie Redmon
Drexler, Rosalyn Felton, Rebecca Latimer
Drinker, Elizabeth Sandwith Fenno, Jenny
DuBois, Shirley Graham See Graham, Shirley Ferber, Edna
DuJardin, Rosamond Neal Field, Kate
Dunbar-Nelson, Alice Field, Rachel Lyman
Duncan, Isadora Fields, Annie Adams
Duniway, Abigail Scott Finley, Martha
Dunlap, Jane See Davis, Adelle Fisher, Dorothea Caneld
DuPlessis, Rachel Blau Fisher, M. F. K.
Dupuy, Eliza Ann Fiske, Sarah Symmes
Durant, Ariel Fitzgerald, Zelda Sayre
Dworkin, Andrea FitzGerald, Frances
Dykeman, Wilma Flanders, G. M.
xxxvi
Flanner, Hildegarde Gilbert, Sandra M.

Flanner, Janet Gilchrist, Annie Somers
Fletcher, Inglis Clark Gilchrist, Ellen
Flexner, Anne Crawford Gill, Sarah Prince
Flexner, Eleanor Gilman, Caroline Howard
Flint, Margaret Gilman, Charlotte Perkins
Flynn, Elizabeth Gurley Gilmer, Elizabeth Meriwether
Follen, Eliza Cabot Giovanni, Nikki
Foote, Mary Hallock Glasgow, Ellen
Forbes, Esther Glaspell, Susan
Forch, Carolyn Glck, Louise
Ford, Harriet Godchaux, Elma
Ford, Sallie Rochester Godwin, Gail
Forester, Fanny See Judson, Emily Chubbuck Golden, Marita
Forns, Mara Irene Goldman, Emma
Forrest, Katherine V. Goodman, Allegra
Forten, Charlotte L. Goodman, Ellen
Foster, Hannah Webster Goodsell, Willystine
Fox, Helen Morgenthau Goodwin, Doris Kearns
Fox, Paula Goodwin, Maud Wilder
Frankau, Pamela Gordon, Caroline
Franken, Rose Gordon, Mary Catherine
Freedman, Nancy Gordon, Ruth
Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins Gornick, Vivian
Fremantle, Anne Gottschalk, Laura Riding See Jackson, Laura
French, Alice Gould, Hannah Flagg
French, Anne Warner Gould, Lois
French, Lucy Smith Grafton, Sue
French, Marilyn Graham, Isabella Marshall
Friedan, Betty Graham, Jorie
Frings, Ketti Graham, Katharine
Fritz, Jean Graham, Shirley
Fuller, Margaret Grahn, Judy
Gage, Frances Dana Grant, Margaret See Franken, Rose
Gale, Zona Grau, Shirley Ann
Gallagher, Tess Graves, Valerie See Bradley, Marion Zimmer
Garber, Marjorie Gray, Angela See Daniels, Dorothy
Gardener, Helen Hamilton Green, Anna Katharine
Gardner, Isabella Green, Anne
Gardner, Mariam See Bradley, Marion Zimmer Green, Olive See Reed, Myrtle
Gardner, Mary Sewall Greenberg, Joanne
Garrigue, Jean Greene, Sarah McLean
Gates, Eleanor Greeneld, Eloise
Gates, Susa Young Greenwood, Grace See Lippincott, Sara Jane
Gearhart, Sally Miller Grifn, Susan
Gellhorn, Martha Grifth, Mary
Gent See Flanner, Janet Grimes, Martha
George, Jean Craighead Grimk, Angelina
Gerould, Katharine Fullerton Grimk, Sarah Moore
Gerstenberg, Alice Gruenberg, Sidonie Matzner
Gestefeld, Ursula N. Grumbach, Doris
Gibbons, Kaye Guernsey, Clara F.
Gilbert, Fabiola Cabeza de Baca See Cabeza de Guernsey, Lucy Ellen
Baca, Fabiola Guiney, Louise Imogen
xxxvii
Gulliver, Julia Henrietta Hewitt, Mary E. Moore

Guy, Rosa Heyward, Dorothy Kuhns
Heywood, Martha Spence
H. D. See D(oolittle), H(ilda)
Higgins, Marguerite
Hacker, Marilyn
Higginson, Ella Rhoads
Hadas, Rachel
Higham, Mary R.
Hahn, Emily
Highet, Helen MacInnes See MacInnes, Helen
Hale, Lucretia Peabody
Highsmith, Patricia
Hale, Nancy
Hill-Lutz, Grace Livingston
Hale, Sarah Josepha
Hirsheld, Jane
Hale, Susan
Hite, Shere
Hall, Florence Howe
Hobart, Alice Tisdale
Hall, Hazel
Hobson, Laura Z.
Hall, Louisa Park
Hoffman, Alice
Hall, Sarah Ewing
Hamilton, Alice Hoffman, Malvina
Hamilton, Edith Hogan, Linda
Hamilton, Gail See Dodge, Mary Abigail Holding, Elisabeth Sanxay
Hamilton, Jane Hollander, Nicole
Hamilton, Kate W. Holley, Marietta
Hamilton, Virginia Hollingworth, Leta Stetter
Hanaford, Phebe Cofn Holm, Saxe See Jackson, Helen Hunt
Hansberry, Lorraine Holmes, Mary Jane Hawes
Haraway, Donna Holmes, Sarah Stone
Harding, Mary Esther hooks, bell
Harding, Sandra Hooper, Lucy Jones
Hardwick, Elizabeth Hooper, Lucy
Harjo, Joy Hope, Laura Lee See Adams, Harriet Stratemeyer
Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins Hopkins, Pauline
Harper, Ida Husted Hopper, Hedda
Harris, Bernice Kelly Horlak, E. E. See Tepper, Sheri S.
Harris, Bertha Horney, Karen
Harris, Corra May Houston, Jean
Harris, Miriam Coles Howard, Maureen
Harrison, Constance Cary Howe, Florence
Hart, Carolyn G. Howe, Julia Ward
Hart, Frances Noyes Howe, Susan
Hasbrouck, Lydia Sayer Howe, Tina
Hastings, Susannah Johnson Howes, Barbara
Hatch, Mary R. Platt Howland, Marie
Haven, Alice Bradley Hull, Helen
Hawthorne, Elizabeth Manning Hulme, Kathryn Cavarly
Hawthorne, Hildegarde Hume, Sophia
Hazlett, Helen Humishuma See Mourning Dove
Heilbrun, Carolyn G. Hunt, Irene
Hejinian, Lyn Hunt, Mabel Leigh
Hellman, Lillian Hunter, Rodello
Henderson, Zenna Hunter-Lattany, Kristin
Henissart, Martha See Lathen, Emma Huntington, Susan
Henley, Beth Hurd-Mead, Kate C.
Henry, Alice Hurst, Fannie
Henry, Marguerite Hurston, Zora Neale
Hentz, Caroline Whiting Hutchins, Maude McVeigh
Herbst, Josephine Huxtable, Ada Louise
Herschberger, Ruth Hyde, Shelley See Reed, Kit
xxxviii
Ireland, Jane See Norris, Kathleen Kennedy, Adrienne

Thompson Kenyon, Jane
Irwin, Inez Haynes Kerber, Linda Kaufman
Isaacs, Susan Kerr, Jean
Ives, Morgan See Bradley, Marion Zimmer Keyes, Frances Parkinson
Ivins, Molly Kilmer, Aline Murray
Kimbrough, Emily
Jackson, Helen Hunt
Kincaid, Jamaica
Jackson, Laura
King, Grace Elizabeth
Jackson, Rebecca Cox
King, Laurie R.
Jackson, Shirley
King, Louisa Yeomans
Jackson, Ward See Braun, Lilian Jackson
Kingsolver, Barbara
Jacobi, Mary Putnam
Kingston, Maxine Hong
Jacobs, Harriet
Kinney, Elizabeth Dodge
Jacobs, Jane
Jacobs, Sarah Sprague Kinzie, Juliette Magill
Jacobsen, Josephine Kirby, Georgiana Bruce
James, Alice Kirk, Ellen Warner
Jamison, Cecilia Viets Kirkland, Caroline M. Stansbury
Janeway, Elizabeth Kizer, Carolyn
Janvier, Margaret Thompson Knapp, Bettina Liebowitz
Jerauld, Charlotte A. Knight, Sarah Kemble
Jervey, Caroline Gilman Knox, Adeline Trafton
Jewett, Sarah Orne Koch, Adrienne
Johnson, Diane Kohut, Rebekah Bettelheim
Johnson, Georgia Douglas Konigsburg, E. L.
Johnson, Helen Kendrick Kroeber, Theodora
Johnson, Josephine Winslow Kbler-Ross, Elisabeth
Johnson-Masters, Virginia Kumin, Maxine W.
Johnston, Annie Fellows Laing, Dilys Bennett
Johnston, Jill Lamb, Martha Nash
Johnston, Mary Lamott, Anne
Jones, Amanda Theodocia Landers, Ann
Jones, Edith See Wharton, Edith Landon, Margaret
Jones, Gayl Lane, Gertrude Battles
Jones, Hettie Lane, Rose Wilder
Jones, Mary Harris Langdon, Mary See Pike, Mary Green
Jong, Erica Langer, Susanne K.
Jordan, Barbara C. Larcom, Lucy
Jordan, June Larsen, Nella
Jordan, Kate
Lasswell, Mary
Jordan, Laura See Brown, Sandra
Latham, Jean Lee
Judson, Emily Chubbuck
Lathen, Emma
Kael, Pauline Lathrop, Rose Hawthorne
Kavanaugh, Cynthia See Daniels, Dorothy Latimer, Elizabeth W.
Keene, Carolyn See Adams, Harriet Stratemeyer Latsis, Mary Jane See Lathen, Emma
Keith, Agnes Newton Laut, Agnes C.
Keller, Helen Lauterbach, Ann
Kellerman, Faye Lawrence, Elizabeth L.
Kelley, Edith Summers Lawrence, Josephine
Kellogg, Louise Lawrence, Margaret Woods
Kellor, Frances Lazarus, Emma
Kelly, Eleanor Mercein Le Guin, Ursula K.
Kelly, Myra Le Sueur, Meridel
Kemble, Fanny Le Vert, Octavia Walton
xxxix
Lea, Fannie Heaslip Macdonald, Marcia See Hill-Lutz, Grace Livingston

Lee, Eliza Buckminster MacDougall, Ruth Doan
Lee, Hannah Sawyer MacInnes, Helen
Lee, Harper MacKinnon, Catharine A.
Lee, Marion See Comstock, Anna Botsford MacLaine, Shirley
Lee, Mary Elizabeth MacLean, Annie Marion
LeGallienne, Eva Macumber, Marie S. See Sandoz, Mari
LEngle, Madeleine Madeleva, Sister Mary
Lenski, Lois Madison, Dolley
Lerman, Rhoda Mairs, Nancy
Lerner, Gerda Malkiel, Theresa S.
Leslie, Annie Brown Mannes, Marya
Leslie, Eliza Manning, Marie
Leslie, Miriam Follin Manseld, Blanche McManus
Levertov, Denise March, Anne See Woolson, Constance Fenimore
Lewis, Elizabeth Foreman Marks, Jeannette Augustus
Lewis, Estelle Robinson Marot, Helen
Lewis, Janet Marshall, Catherine
Libbey, Laura Jean Marshall, Gertrude Helen See Fahs, Sophia Lyon
Lincoln, Victoria Marshall, Paule
Lindbergh, Anne Morrow Martin, Del
Lindbergh, Reeve Martin, George Madden
Linington, Elizabeth Martin, Helen Reimensnyder
Lippard, Lucy R. Martin, Valerie
Lippincott, Martha Shepard Martnez, Demetria
Lippincott, Sara Jane Martyn, Sarah Smith
Little, Sophia Robbins Maso, Carole
Livermore, Harriet Mason, Bobbie Ann
Livermore, Mary Rice Mathews, Frances Aymar
Livingston, Myra Cohn Matthews, Adelaide
Locke, Jane Starkweather May, Sophie See Clarke, Rebecca Sophia
Logan, Deborah Norris Maynard, Joyce
Logan, Mary Cunningham Mayo, Katherine
Logan, Olive Mayo, Margaret
Loos, Anita Mayo, Sarah Edgarton
Lord, Bette Bao McBride, Mary Margaret
Lorde, Audre McCaffrey, Anne
Lothrop, Amy See Warner, Anna Bartlett McCarthy, Mary
Lothrop, Harriet Stone McCloy, Helen
Loughborough, Mary Ann Webster McCord, Louisa Cheves
Lounsberry, Alice McCormick, Anne OHare
Lovejoy, Esther Pohl McCrackin, Josephine Clifford
Lowell, Amy McCrumb, Sharon
Lowry, Lois McCullers, Carson
Loy, Mina McDermott, Alice
Lucas, Victoria See Plath, Sylvia McDowell, Katherine Bonner
Luce, Clare Boothe McGinley, Phyllis
Luhan, Mabel Dodge McGrory, Mary
Lumpkin, Grace McGuire, Judith Brockenbrough
Lurie, Alison McIntosh, Maria Jane
Lutz, Alma McIntyre, Vonda N.
McKenney, Ruth
Lynd, Helen Merrell
McLean, Kathryn Anderson
MacDonald, Betty McMillan, Terry
MacDonald, Jessica N. McPherson, Aimee Semple
xl
McPherson, Sandra Morris, Clara

Mead, Kate C. See Hurd-Mead, Kate C. Morrison, Toni
Mead, Margaret Morrow, Honor McCue
Meaney, Mary L. Mortimer, Lillian
Means, Florence Crannell Morton, Martha
Meigs, Cornelia Morton, Sarah Wentworth
Meloney, Franken See Franken, Rose Mother Goose See Walworth, Jeannette Hadermann
Menken, Adah Isaacs Mott, Lucretia
Merington, Marguerite Moulton, Louise Chandler
Meriwether, Elizabeth Avery Mourning Dove
Merriam, Eve Mukherjee, Bharati
Merril, Judith Muller, Marcia
Meyer, Annie Nathan Munro, Eleanor
Meyer, June See Jordan, June M. Murfree, Mary
Miles, Josephine Murray, Judith Sargent
Millar, Margaret Murray, Pauli
Millay, Edna St. Vincent Myles, Eileen
Miller, Alice Duer
Nation, Carry A.
Miller, Caroline Pafford
Naylor, Gloria
Miller, Emily Huntington
Neely, Barbara
Miller, Harriet M.
Neilson, Nellie
Miller, Isabel See Routsong, Alma
Neville, Emily Cheney
Miller, Mary Britton
Newcomb, Franc Johnson
Miller, Vassar
Newman, Frances
Millett, Kate
Newman, Lesla
Milward, Maria G.
Newstead, Helaine
Miner, Valerie
Nichols, Anne
Minot, Susan
Nicholson, Asenath Hatch
Mirikitani, Janice
Nicholson, Eliza Jane Poitevent
Mitchell, Agnes Woods
Nicolson, Marjorie Hope
Mitchell, Margaret
Niedecker, Lorine
Mitchell, Maria
Nieriker, Abigail May Alcott
Mitford, Jessica
Niggli, Josena
Mixer, Elizabeth
Niles, Blair Rice
Moers, Ellen
Nin, Anas
Mohr, Nicholasa
Nitsch, Helen Matthews
Moise, Penina
Nixon, Agnes E.
Mojtabai, A. G.
Norman, Marsha
Mollenkott, Virginia Ramey
Norris, Kathleen Thompson
Monroe, Harriet
Norton, Alice See Norton, Andre
Monroe, Lucy
Norton, Andre
Montgomery, Ruth Shick
Norton, Katherine LaForge See Reed, Myrtle
Moody, Anne
Notley, Alice
Moore, C. L.
Nussbaum, Martha Craven
Moore, Lorrie
Nye, Andrea
Moore, Marianne
Nye, Naomi Shihab
Moore, Mary Evelyn See Davis, Mollie Moore
Moore, Mollie E. See Davis, Mollie Moore Oates, Joyce Carol
Moore, Mrs. H. J. Obejas, Achy
Moorhead, Sarah Parsons Oberholtzer, Sara Vickers
Moraga, Cherre OConnor, Flannery
Morgan, Claire See Highsmith, Patricia OConnor, Florence J.
Morgan, Marabel ODonnell, Jessie Fremont
Morgan, Robin ODonnell, Lillian
Morley, Hilda Oemler, Marie Conway
xli
Offord, Lenore Glen Perkins, Frances

OHair, Madalyn Murray Perkins, Lucy Fitch
OHara, Mary See Sture-Vasa, Mary Pesotta, Rose
OKeeffe, Katharine A. Peterkin, Julia Mood
ONeill, Egan See Linington, Elizabeth Peters, Sandra See Plath, Sylvia
Older, Cora Baggerly Petersham, Maud Fuller
Olds, Sharon Petry, Ann Lane
Oliphant, B. J. See Tepper, Sheri S. Phelps, Almira Lincoln
Oliver, Mary Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart
Olsen, Tillie Phillips, Irna
ONeill, Rose Phillips, Jayne Anne
Orde, A. J. See Tepper, Sheri S. Piatt, Sarah Bryan
Ortiz Cofer, Judith Piercy, Marge
Orvis, Marianne Dwight Pike, Mary Green
Osbey, Brenda Marie Pinckney, Josephine
Osborn, Sarah Pine, Cuyler See Peck, Ellen
Osgood, Frances Sargent Plain, Belva
Ostenso, Martha Plath, Sylvia
Ostriker, Alicia Polacco, Patricia
Ottenberg, Miriam Pollack, Rachel
Ovington, Mary White Pollard, Josephine
Owen, Catherine See Nitsch, Helen Matthews Porter, Eleanor Hodgman
Owen, Mary Alicia Porter, Katherine Anne
Owen, Ruth Bryan Porter, Rose
Owens, Claire Myers Porter, Sarah
Owens-Adair, Bethenia Porter, Sylvia F.
Owens, Rochelle Post, Emily
Ozick, Cynthia Powell, Dawn
Pratt, Ella Farman
Page, Myra
Prentiss, Elizabeth Payson
Paglia, Camille
Preston, Harriet Waters
Paley, Grace
Preston, Margaret Junkin
Palmer, Phoebe Worrall
Prince, Nancy Gardner
Papashvily, Helen Waite
Prose, Francine
Paretsky, Sara
Prouty, Olive Higgins
Parker, Charlotte Blair
Pryor, Sara Rice
Parker, Dorothy
Pugh, Eliza Phillips
Parrish, Mary Frances See Fisher, M. F. K.
Putnam, Emily Smith
Parsons, Elsie Clews
Putnam, Mary Lowell
Parsons, Frances Dana
Putnam, Ruth
Parsons, Louella Oettinger
Putnam, Sallie A. Brock
Parton, Sara Willis
Pastan, Linda Raimond, C. E. See Robins, Elizabeth
Patchett, Ann Rampling, Anne See Rice, Anne
Paterson, Katherine Ramsay, Martha Laurens
Patton, Frances Gray Ramsay, Vienna G. Morrell
Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer Rand, Ayn
Peabody, Josephine Preston Randall, Margaret
Peattie, Elia Wilkinson Randall, Ruth Painter
Peattie, Louise Redeld Rankin, Fannie W.
Peck, Annie Smith Ranous, Dora Knowlton
Peck, Ellen Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan
Pember, Phoebe Yates Read, Harriette Fanning
Penfeather, Anabel See Cooper, Susan Fenimore Read, Martha
Percy, Florence See Allen, Elizabeth Akers Reed, Kit
xlii
Reed, Myrtle St. Claire, Erin See Brown, Sandra

Reese, Lizette Woodworth Salisbury, Charlotte Y.
Remick, Martha Salmon, Lucy Maynard
Reno, Itti Kinney Salmonson, Jessica Amanda
Repplier, Agnes Sanchez, Sonia
Rice, Alice Hegan Sanders, Elizabeth Elkins
Rice, Anne Sandoz, Mari
Rich, Adrienne Sanford, Mollie Dorsey
Rich, Barbara See Jackson, Laura Sanger, Margaret
Rich, Louise Dickinson Sangster, Margaret E.
Richards, Laura Howe Santiago, Esmeralda
Richards, Louisa Greene Sargent, Pamela
Richmond, Grace Sarton, May
Ricker, Marilla M. Satir, Virginia M.
Ridge, Lola Savage, Elizabeth
Riding, Laura See Jackson, Laura Sawyer, Ruth
Rinehart, Mary Roberts Scarberry, Alma Sioux
Ripley, Eliza M. Scarborough, Dorothy
Ritchie, Anna Mowatt Scarborough, Elizabeth Ann
Rittenhouse, Jessie B. Schaeffer, Susan Fromberg
Rivers, Alfrida See Bradley, Marion Zimmer Schmitt, Gladys
Rivers, Pearl See Nicholson, Eliza Jane Poitevent Schoeld, Sandy See Rusch, Kristine Kathryn
Robb, J. D. See Roberts, Nora Schoolcraft, Mary Howard
Roberts, Elizabeth Madox Schwartz, Lynne Sharon
Roberts, Jane Scott, Anne Firor
Roberts, Maggie Scott, Evelyn
Roberts, Nora Scott, Joan Wallach
Robins, Elizabeth Scott, Julia See Owen, Mary Alicia
Robinson, Harriet Hanson Scott-Maxwell, Florida
Robinson, Martha Harrison Scudder, Vida Dutton
Rodgers, Carolyn M. Seaman, Elizabeth Cochrane
Rogers, Katherine M. Seawell, Molly Elliot
Roman, Klara Goldzieher Secor, Lella
Rombauer, Irma von Starkloff Sedges, John See Buck, Pearl S.
Roosevelt, Eleanor Sedgwick, Anne Douglas
Roquelaure, A. N. See Rice, Anne Sedgwick, Catharine Maria
Ross, Helaine See Daniels, Dorothy Sedgwick, Susan Ridley
Ross, Lillian Seeley, Mabel
Rossner, Judith Seid, Ruth
Rourke, Constance Mayeld Seifert, Elizabeth
Routsong, Alma Semple, Ellen Churchill
Royall, Anne Newport Seredy, Kate
Royce, Sarah Bayliss Seton, Anya
Ruddy, Ella Giles Settle, Mary Lee
Ruether, Rosemary Radford Sewall, Harriet Winslow
Rukeyser, Muriel Sewell, Elizabeth
Rule, Ann Sexton, Anne
Rusch, Kristine Kathryn Shange, Ntozake
Rush, Caroline E. Shannon, Dell See Linington, Elizabeth
Rush, Rebecca Shannon, Monica
Russ, Joanna Sharon, Rose See Merril, Judith
Sharp, Isabella Oliver
Ryan, Rachel See Brown, Sandra
Shaw, Anna Moore
Sachs, Marilyn Shaw, Anna H.
St. Johns, Adela Rogers Sheehy, Gail
xliii
Sheldon, Ann See Adams, Harriet Stratemeyer Stack, Andy See Rule, Ann
Sherwood, Mary Wilson Stafford, Jean
Shindler, Mary Dana Stanton, Elizabeth Cady
Showalter, Elaine Steel, Danielle
Shreve, Anita Stein, Gertrude
Shulman, Alix Kates Steinem, Gloria
Sidlosky, Carolyn See Forch, Carolyn Stenhouse, Fanny
Sigourney, Lydia Huntley Stephens, Ann Winterbotham
Silko, Leslie Marmon Stephens, Margaret Dean See Aldrich, Bess Streeter
Simon, Kate Steptoe, Lydia See Barnes, Djuna
Sinclair, Bertha Muzzy Stern, Elizabeth G.
Sinclair, Jo See Seid, Ruth Stewart, Elinore Pruitt
Singer, June K. Stewart, Maria W.
Singleton, Anne See Benedict, Ruth Stockton, Annis Boudinot
Singmaster, Elsie Stoddard, Elizabeth Barstow
Skinner, Constance Lindsay Stone, Ruth
Skinner, Cornelia Otis Story, Sydney A. See Pike, Mary Green
Slade, Caroline Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Slesinger, Tess Stratton-Porter, Gene
Slosson, Annie Trumbull Strong, Anna Louise
Smedley, Agnes Stuart, Ruth McEnery
Smith, Amanda Sture-Vasa, Mary
Smith, Anna Young Suckow, Ruth
Smith, Betty Sui Sin Far See Eaton, Edith Maud
Smith, Eliza Snow Susann, Jacqueline
Smith, Elizabeth Oakes Swenson, May
Smith, Eunice Swett, Sophie
Smith, Hannah Whittal Swisshelm, Jane Grey
Smith, Lee
Smith, Lillian Taber, Gladys Bagg
Smith, Lula Carson See McCullers, Carson Taggard, Genevieve
Smith, Margaret Bayard Talbott, Marion
Smith, Rosamond See Oates, Joyce Carol Tan, Amy
Smith, Sarah Pogson Tandy, Jennette Reid
Smith, Susy Tappan, Eva March
Snedeker, Caroline Dale Tarbell, Ida
Snyder, Zilpha Keatley Taylor, Mildred Delois
Solwoska, Mara See French, Marilyn Taylor, Phoebe Atwood
Somers, Suzanne See Daniels, Dorothy Taylor, Susie King
Song, Cathy Teasdale, Sara
Sontag, Susan Tenney, Tabitha
Sorel, Julia See Drexler, Rosalyn Tepper, Sheri S.
Soule, Caroline White Terhune, Mary Hawes
Southworth, E. D. E. N. Terry, Megan
Souza, E. See Scott, Evelyn Thane, Elswyth
Spacks, Patricia Meyer Thanet, Octave See French, Alice
Speare, Elizabeth George Thaxter, Celia Laighton
Spencer, Anne Thayer, Caroline Warren
Spencer, Cornelia Phillips Thayer, Geraldine See Daniels, Dorothy
Spencer, Elizabeth Thomas, Dorothy Swain
Spewak, Bella Cohen Thompson, Clara M. (b. c. 1830s)
Speyer, Leonora von Stosch Thompson, Clara M. (1893-1958)
Spofford, Harriet Prescott Thompson, Dorothy
Sprague, Rosemary Thorndyke, Helen Louise See Adams, Harriet Stratemeyer
Stabenow, Dana Ticknor, Caroline
xliv
Tiernan, Frances Fisher Walker, Margaret

Tietjens, Eunice Walker, Mary Spring
Tilton, Alice See Taylor, Phoebe Atwood Wallace, Michele
Tincker, Mary Agnes Waller, Mary Ella
Todd, Mabel Loomis Walter, Mildred Pitts
Todd, Marion Marsh Walton, Evangeline
Toklas, Alice B. Walworth, Jeannette Hadermann
Tompkins, Jane P. Ward, Mary Jane
Towne, Laura M. Wareld, Catherine Ware
Townsend, Mary Ashley Warner, Anna Bartlett
Treadwell, Sophie Warner, Susan Bogert
Trilling, Diana Warren, Lella
Troubetzkoy, Amlie Rives Warren, Mercy Otis
Truitt, Anne Wasserstein, Wendy
Truman, Margaret Watanabe, Sylvia
Truth, Sojourner Watson, Sukey Vickery
Tuchman, Barbara Watts, Mary Stanbery
Turell, Jane Weber, Sarah Appleton See Appleton-Weber, Sarah
Turnbull, Agnes Sligh Webster, Jean
Turney, Catherine Weeks, Helen C. See Campbell, Helen Stuart
Tuthill, Louisa Huggins Welby, Amelia Coppuck
Tuve, Rosemond Wells, Carolyn
Ty-Casper, Linda Wells, Emmeline Woodward
Tyler, Anne Wells, John J. See Bradley, Marion Zimmer
Tyler, Martha W. Wells-Barnett, Ida B.
Tyler, Mary Palmer Welty, Eudora
West, Dorothy
Uchida, Yoshiko West, Jessamyn
Uhnak, Dorothy West, Lillie
Ulanov, Ann Belford West, Mae
Underwood, Sophie Kerr Wetherall, Elizabeth See Warner, Susan Bogert
Untermeyer, Jean Starr Wharton, Edith
Upton, Harriet Taylor Wheatley, Phillis
Valentine, Jean Wheaton, Campbell See Campbell, Helen Stuart
Valentine, Jo See Armstrong, Charlotte Whipple, Maurine
Van Alstyne, Frances Crosby Whitcher, Frances Berry
Vandegrift, Margaret See Janvier, Margaret Thompson White, Anna
Vanderbilt, Amy White, Anne Terry
Van Duyn, Mona White, Eliza Orne
Van Vorst, Bessie McGinnis White, Elizabeth
Van Vorst, Marie White, Ellen Gould
Vendler, Helen Hennessy White, Helen Constance
Victor, Frances Fuller White, Nelia Gardner
Victor, Metta Fuller White, Rhoda E.
Vining, Elizabeth Gray Whiting, Lillian
Viramontes, Helena Mara Whitman, Narcissa Prentiss
Voigt, Cynthia Whitman, Ruth
Voigt, Ellen Bryant Whitman, Sarah Helen
Vorse, Mary Heaton Whitney, Adeline D. T.
Whitney, Phyllis A.
Wakoski, Diane Wiggin, Kate Douglass
Wald, Lillian D. Wiggins, Bernice Love
Waldman, Anne Wiggins, Marianne
Waldrop, Rosmarie Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
Walker, Alice Wilder, Laura Ingalls
xlv
Wilder, Louise Beebe Woods, Katharine Pearson

Wilhelm, Kate Woolsey, Sarah Chauncey
Willard, Emma Woolson, Constance Fenimore
Willard, Frances Wormeley, Katharine Prescott
Willard, Nancy Wright, Frances
Williams, Catharine Arnold Wright, Julia McNair
Williams, Fannie Barrier Wright, Mabel Osgood
Williams, Sherley Anne Wright, Mary Clabaugh
Willis, Connie Wyatt, Edith Franklin
Willis, Lydia Fish Wylie, Elinor Hoyt
Willoughby, Florence Barrett
Wilson, Harriet E. Adams Yamada, Mitsuye
Windle, Mary Jane Yamamoto, Hisaye
Winnemucca, Sarah Yamanaka, Lois-Ann
Winslow, Anna Green Yates, Elizabeth
Winslow, Helen M. Yezierska, Anzia
Winslow, Ola Elizabeth Yglesias, Helen
Winslow, Thyra Samter Youmans, Eliza Ann
Winter, Ella Young, Ann Eliza
Winwar, Frances Young, Ella
Wolf, Naomi Young, Marguerite
Wong, Jade Snow Young, Rida Johnson
Wood, Ann See Douglas, Ann
Wood, S. S. B. K. Zaturenska, Marya
Woodhull, Victoria Zolotow, Charlotte
Woods, Caroline H. Zugsmith, Leane
xlvi
ABBREVIATIONS
A style of all or nothing (initials or complete title) has been KR Kirkus Reviews
employed in this new edition; partial abbreviations have been
purged, to limit confusion. In cases where two well-known LATBR Los Angeles Times Book Review
periodicals have the same initials, only one has the initials
and the other is always spelled out in its entirety (i.e. NR is
LJ Library Journal
New Republic, and National Review is spelled out).
APR American Poetry Review MTCW Major TwentiethCentury Writers
CA Contemporary Authors NAW Notable American Women
CAAS Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series NAW:MP Notable American Women: The Modern Period
CANR Contemporary Authors New Revision Series

NBAW Notable Black American Women
CB Current Biography
NR New Republic
CBY Current Biography Yearbook
NYRB New York Review of Books
CLAJ College Literary Association Journal
NYT New York Times
CLC Contemporary Literary Criticism
NYTM New York Times Magazine
CLHUS Cambridge Literary History of the United States
NYTBR New York Times Book Review
CLR Childrens Literature Review
CN Contemporary Novelists PMLA Publication of the Modern Language Association
CP Contemporary Poets PW Publishers Weekly
CPW Contemporary Popular Writers SATA Something About the Author
CWD Contemporary Women Dramatists

SL School Librarian
CWP Contemporary Women Poets
TLS [London] Times Literary Supplement
DAB Dictionary of American Biography
TCCW TwentiethCentury Childrens Writers
DLB Dictionary of Literary Biography
WP Washington Post
DLBY Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook
WPBW Washington Post Book World
DAI Dissertation Abstracts International
VV Village Voice
FC Feminist Companion
FW Feminist Writers WRB Womens Review of Books
GLB Gay & Lesbian Biography WWAW Whos Who of American Women
xlvii
E
EARLE, Alice Morse in Puritan New England. A compendium of material on the
Puritan sabbath, it ranges from a discussion of the New England
meeting house to the duties of the church deacon; from the history
Born Mary Alice Morse, 27 April 1851, Worcester, Massachu- of music in Puritan services to a commentary on the seating
setts; died 16 February 1911, Hempstead, New York arrangements of our forefathers. In her discussion of the Puritans,
Daughter of Edwin and Abigail Clary Morse; married Henry Earle reveals the human side of their lives and of their religion.
Earle, 1874 (died); children: four She utilizes the diaries, letters, sermons, and writings of men like
Judge Sewall and Cotton and Increase Mather for material on the
Alice Morse Earle, antiquarian and social historian, was a customs of New England religion and the daily lives of the
descendant of men important in the history of New England and Puritans. Humorous anecdotes and tales also ll the books pages,
Massachusetts. She was educated at Worcester High School and and we are clearly reminded that our Puritan forefathers were
at Dr. Gannetts boarding school in Boston. After her marriage, much more than the two-dimensional gures of history textbooks.
Earle moved to Brooklyn Heights and remained there her entire
life. Her early life was devoted to her husband and the care of her Colonial Dames and Good Wives (1895) deals with the roles
four children, with little thought to a career in writing or history. played by women in America from rst settlement to the Ameri-
After the death of her husband, Earle traveled extensively through can Revolution. Primarily devoted to investigation of the women
Europe with her sister. It was about this time that family members, of New England, Earle also makes reference to notable women
particularly her father, began urging her to write professionally. who lived in the middle and southern colonies. As a general work
True to her heritage, Earle was an active member of the Daughters on the history of women in America, it is a valuable and informa-
of the American Revolution and the Society of Colonial Dames. tive book even today. Earle begins Colonial Dames and Good
She was also a supporter of the woman suffrage movement. Wives with a discussion of the importance of women, both
economically and socially, in the settlement process. Women
The publication of The Sabbath in Puritan New England were vital both as workers in a labor-scarce economy and as
(1891) marked the beginning of Earles writing career, and during transmitters of English culture and civilization to the North
the next 12 years, she authored, edited, and contributed to the American wilderness. Various devices were used to lure women
publication of 17 books and over 30 articles describing various to the New World: Marylands proprietors provided women with
aspects of early American history. All of Earles works deal with free lands if they would voyage to their colony, while other
the human, domestic side of American history. Utilizing primary entrepreneurs recruited and sometimes kidnapped young women
source materialswills, letters, journals, newspapers, court rec- for service in the colonies. Once in America, however, Earle
ordsEarle pieced together an accurate picture of what everyday states, these women played elemental roles in the development of
life was like in colonial America. the American colonies.
Earle had a particular interest in the role played by women in A considerable portion of Colonial Dames and Good Wives
early America. All of her books contain a great deal of informa- is rightfully devoted to recreating the domestic and social lives of
tion on the economic and social activities of women in families colonial women. Beginning with her chapter Boston Neigh-
and their respective communities. In The Diary of Anna Green bors, Earle attempts to reconstruct the Boston of Governor
Winslow: A Boston School Girl of 1771 (1894) and Margaret Winthrops time as seen through the eyes of his wife, Margaret.
Winthrop (1895), Earle views her subjects as representative Using a variety of diaries and journals written by women of all
women of their times and utilizes them as focal points for regions in America, Earle describes the lifestyles of later colonial
discussing the everyday lives, duties, and responsibilities of women. As expressed in their own words, these women come
women in the colonial era. alive for the reader and add a new dimension to our knowledge of
the life of women in this period. Colonial Dames and Good Wives
Earles articles and books were widely read and appreciated is an important work for the student of American womens
by her contemporaries. Celebration of the Revolutionary centen- history. It was written at a time when little scholarly interest was
nial in 1876 had reawakened popular interest in early American paid to the activities and function of women in American history.
history. This popular interest demanded a new kind of historical Yet the devotion of Earle to her subject and her high standard of
literature devoted to the life of American society, and Earles scholarship made the book valuable for the people of her age as
books and articles found a welcoming audience. She never well as ours.
sacriced her scholarship and historical integrity to meet the
demands of her public, however. Her research was always of the Margaret Winthrop is, in theory, a biography of the third
highest quality, and she shared an interest in unearthing historical wife of Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts. In reality, the
truths with professionally schooled historians. book is a history of the Puritans prior to their departure to
America, of their settlement in Massachusetts, and an account of
As the early New England Puritans lives were centered their domestic and religious life in the colony. Relying primarily
around their religion and church attendance, so too is The Sabbath upon the journal of Governor Winthrop and his correspondence
1
EARLE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
with his wife for information on Margaret Winthrops life, Earle simplicity in their religion, their dress was as opulent as their
also utilized diaries, letters, wills, and religious tracts written by purses and station in life would allow. While changes in style did
other men and women to provide a setting for the book. Margaret occur in colonial times, they did not take place with such rapidity
Winthrop illustrates the changes Puritan colonists faced as a result as they do today. As Earle notes, clothing was an important part of
of their movement from England to America in search of religious a man or womans estate, the more valuable pieces being willed to
freedom. Earle devotes two chapters to the lives of Puritans in a succession of generations until they wore out. Thus knowledge
England under the reign of James I. We learn the details of life in of the clothing of early Americans is a key to understanding their
the English country manor Margaret inhabited with her husband. way of life and their attitudes about themselves.
Her experiences exemplify the duties and economic responsibili-
Reviewers of Two Centuries of Costume in America,
ties of country women, as well as the customs and fashions of the
1620-1820 saw its principal value as a glossary of terms. Earle did
age in which she lived. This picture contrasts sharply with life in
an excellent job of researching the names of various obsolete
early Massachusetts. Facing the harsh physical conditions of life
items of clothing and searching out articles of costume for which
on the Massachusetts frontier, it is little wonder many women
she had names but had no idea what they were. But perhaps the
were hesitant to leave the relative comforts of their English homes
most helpful aspect of this book is its illustrations. The work
to join their husbands in the New World.
contains over 350 illustrations, some presenting details of specic
The most widely read and referred to book written by Earle, articles and items like lace, gloves, sedan chairs, or gowns. The
Home Life in Colonial Days (1898) is an informative and enter- most outstanding are the portraits that Earle uses to illustrate
taining account of daily life in colonial America. It remains the examples of clothing worn by the colonists and to note gradual
most detailed and comprehensive account of the life and customs changes in styles as the years progressed. It is a very effective use
of those timeshow the colonists made their homes, raised their of illustration that broadens the scope of the book to include the
families, worked and worshipedthat we have to this day. history of art and portraiture from 1620 until 1820.
Beginning with an account of the variety of homes lived in by the Considered together, all of Earles works are remarkable for
early settlers and how they were constructed, Earle devotes the careful insight they give us of life in colonial America. She
chapters to the histories of such subjects as the lighting, food, was able to take advantage of the many ne collections of
drink, clothing, and gardens of the rst settlers of America. After documents acquired or unearthed by American historical societies
Earle discusses the evolution of lighting in colonial homes from as a result of the revival of interest in the American past during the
pine-knots to whale-oil lamps, we can better appreciate the last decade of the 19th century. Yet, because she was a woman
religious dedication of Puritan ministers who wrote hundreds of working in the male-dominated eld of history, Earles scholar-
their sermons by the ickering light of candlewood torches. We ship did not receive the professional appreciation it deserves.
can also understand the pride colonial women had in their tallow
and bayberry candles when we realize the work that went into If there is any aw in Earles work in general, it is that
their making. perhaps she was too prolic. She published 17 books and over 30
articles in 12 years. The popularity of her books with the reading
The examples presented in Home Life in Colonial Days make public was certainly a factor in this amazing rate of productivity.
it quite evident why the Puritans considered laziness a sin. In Yet, unfortunately, Earles works suffer for it. If one reads all of
colonial America, survival depended upon industry. In the book, her books, and not just selected volumes, one notes there is often
Earle pays particular attention to the domestic tasks of the repetition of materials and subject matter.
American settlers. The bulk of the volume encompasses the
domestic duties of colonial women. Perhaps because of her own heritage and her familiarity with
the archives of New England libraries and antiquarian societies,
Earle considered Two Centuries of Costume in America, Earle tends to emphasize the history of New England and New
1620-1820 (2 vols., 1903) her nest work. A classic study of the York in her writings. Though she is too responsible a historian to
fashions of America from the settlement of New England to the state that the customs of all the American colonies were the same,
early years of the American republic, these two volumes are the less informed reader might be misled into believing the
invaluable to students of American history, design, and art histo- Cavaliers of Virginia lived like the Puritans of Boston or the
ry. In the 77 years since its publication, no other work of its Dutch of New York. It is unfortunate Earle did not see t to devote
accuracy and detail has been published. With her in-depth knowl- more time to rigorous investigation of the social development of
edge of the lifestyles and activities of early Americans, Earle was the southern as well as the northern colonies of America.
better able to discuss and convey the signicance of the costumes
worn by the American colonists with respect to their lives. Her gift Despite this criticism of Earles works on the customs and
of description is at its best here. Readers can truly see the ne everyday life in colonial America, they are, with few exceptions,
ladies and gentlemen rufing in Silks, Velvets, Satins, Damaske, valuable books. Though rst written in the 1890s and early 1900s,
Taffetas, Gold, Silver and what not walking down the muddy they still enjoy a popular readership, which is apparently growing,
streets of colonial Jamestown or Boston. as public interest in social and womens history increases. Many
of Earles volumes are currently in print. Certainly this is proof
Earle begins Two Centuries of Costume in America, 1620-1820 enough that as a writer and a historian, Earle contributed greatly to
with a discussion of the apparel of Puritan and Pilgrim men and expanding our knowledge of colonial America and colonial
women. Although these men and women professed purity and Americans.
2
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS EARLE
OTHER WORKS: China Collecting in America (1892). Customs and became a research biologist at and curator of the California
and Fashions of Old New England (1893). Costume of Colonial Academy of Sciences. During that same year, she was named a
Times (1894). Colonial Days in Old New York (1896). Curious fellow in botany of the Natural History Museum at the University
Punishments of Bygone Days (1896). Historic New York (1897). of California at Berkeley.
Chap Book Essays (1897). In Old Narragansett: Romances and
Realities (1898). Child Life in Colonial Days (1899). Stage Coach Earle could have pursued a purely academic career, but her
and Tavern Days (1900). Old Time Gardens (1901). Sun Dials deep love of the ocean and life within it was too strong. In 1970
and Roses of Yesterday (1902). she and four other oceanographers lived in an underwater cham-
The papers of Alice Morse Earle are housed in the American ber for 14 days as part of the government-funded Tektite II
Antiquarian Society of Worcester, Massachusetts, and in the project, designed to study undersea habitats. Underwater tech-
Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College, Massachusetts. nology would play a major part in Earles future. Thanks to
underwater breathing apparatus developed in part by Jacques
Cousteau and rened during the time Earle was involved in her
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: DAB (1929). NAW, 1607-1950 scholarly research, she was one of the rst researchers to don a
(1971). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United mask and oxygen tank. Expanding her research from the oceans
States (1995). surface to literally new depths, she was able to observe the various
Other references: NYT (18 Feb. 1911). NYHT (18 Feb. 1911). forms of plant and animal habitats beneath the sea. She identied
Old Time New England (Jan. 1947). Worcester (Mass.) Telegram many new species of each.
(18 Feb. 1911).
Earles mission in her research and underwater explorations
PAULA A. TRECKEL
was to expose the necessity for living in harmony with the earths
oceans. One of her earliest books, Exploring the Deep Frontier:
The Adventure of Man in the Sea (1980) chronicled the history of
diving, from the most primitive forms, such as the Japanese Ama
sherwomen, to todays advanced submarines and other under-
EARLE, Sylvia A. water habitats. Accompanied by compelling underwater photog-
raphy, Earle argues that the habits and life forms of plants and
Born 30 August 1935, Gibbstown, New Jersey animals beneath the oceans surface must be understood and
Daughter of Lewis R. and Alice Earle; married Graham Hawkes preserved from the destruction caused by human intrusion.
(divorced)
Understanding these deep-water habitats and gaining access
to their complexities continued to occupy a great deal of Earles
When Sylvia Earle was a little girl, her mother would show
intellectual energy. She recognized the serious depth limitations
frogs to Earle and her brothers. As Earle recounted to Scientic
to SCUBA diving. Her goal, to study deep-sea marine life,
American, I wasnt shown frogs with the attitude yuk, but
required the assistance of a submersible craft that could dive far
rather my mother would show my brothers and me how beautiful
deeper than diving equipment allowed. Earle and her former
they are and how fascinating it was to look at their gorgeous
husband, British-born engineer Graham Hawkes, founded Deep
golden eyes. The afnity for the outdoors that both parents
Ocean Technology, Inc. and Deep Ocean Engineering, Inc. in
encouraged in their daughter continued to develop when they
1981 to design and build submersible craft. Earle and Hawkes
moved the family to the west coast of Florida.
rough-sketched the design for a submersible they called Deep
With the Gulf of Mexico as her laboratory, Earle received Rover, which would serve as a viable tool for ocean scientists.
her B.S. degree in the spring of 1955 from Florida State Universi- Earle told Discover magazine; In those days we were dreaming
ty. She obtained a masters degree in botany from Duke Universi- of going to thirty-ve thousand feet. The idea has always been that
ty. Her masters thesis, a detailed study of algae in the Gulf, is a scientists couldnt be trusted to drive a submersible by themselves
project she still follows. While her parents totally supported her because theyd get so involved in their work theyd run into
interest in biology, they also wanted her to get her teaching things. Driving accidents notwithstanding, Deep Rover was
credentials and learn to type, just in case. As a former chief built and continues to operate as a mid-water machine in underwa-
scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ter depths ranging to 3,000 feet.
(NOAA) and a leading American oceanographer, Earles abilities
have moved her well beyond her parents early trepidations. Over the course of her career, Earle has logged more than
6,000 hours underwater. She has been an unagging proponent of
Earle stayed at Duke University and earned her Ph.D. in the critical importance of public education regarding the impor-
1966. She immediately accepted a position as resident director of tance of the oceans as an essential environmental habitat. As the
the Cape Haze Marine Laboratories in Sarasota, Florida. The rst woman to serve as chief scientist at NOAA, Earle spent 18
following year, she moved to Massachusetts to accept dual roles months leading the agency that conducts underwater research,
as research scholar at the Radcliffe Institute and research fellow at manages sheries, and monitors marine spills. She left the posi-
the Farlow Herbarium at Harvard University, where she was tion because she felt more could be accomplished working inde-
named researcher in 1975. Earle moved to San Francisco in 1976 pendently of the government.
3
EASTMAN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Calling for more research money to be spent on deep-sea York Womens Peace Party, becoming its president in 1915. She
studies, Earle wishes the U.S. government would make as sub- also became the executive secretary of the American Union
stantial a commitment to ocean technology and science as the against Militarism.
Japanese government. In 1993 she worked with a team of Japa-
In 1917 Eastmans socialism and support of conscientious
nese scientists to develop the equipment to send rst a remote,
objectors caused a split in the AUAM. Eastman, with Roger
then a manned submersible to 36,000 feet. Earle has plans to lead
Baldwin and Norman Thomas, organized the Civil Liberties
the $10,000,000 deep-ocean engineering project, Ocean Everest,
Bureau, which later became the American Civil Liberties Union.
to take her to a similar depth.
She also became coeditor, with her brother Max, of the Liberator,
Earles message to scientist and nonspecialist alike is that the a literary magazine dedicated to revolutionary ideas.
biodiversity of the worlds marine habitats needs greater protec-
In 1922 Eastman moved to London and devoted the next ve
tion. In Sea Change: A Message of the Oceans (1995), she
years to writing about the feminist movement. Dissatised with
eloquently reviews the history of ocean exploration and makes an
the course of her writing career there, she returned to New York in
impassioned plea for conservation of the worlds marine resourc-
1927. After helping to organize the 10th anniversary celebration
es. As she has done throughout her career as marine biologist,
of the Nation, her health failed and she died at the age of
diver, high-level government scientist, political activist, and busi- forty-seven.
nesswoman, Earle seeks to dispel human ignorance about the
oceans. The magnitude of our unawareness of marine ecosystems Eastmans rst published works were reports of her investi-
is the biggest obstacle to their protection. gations into work accidents in Pennsylvania. She demonstrated
the frequency of industrial accidents and the insufcient compen-
sation received by workers. Eastman proposed that workers be
OTHER WORKS: Humbrella, a New Red Alga of Uncertain compensated for accidents according to a xed rate regardless of
Taxonomic Position From the Juan Fernandez Islands (with responsibility. In these articles, she showed a familiarity with and
Joyce Redemsky Young, 1969). Results of the Tektite Program, respect for workers that reinforced her growing revolutionary
Coral Reef Invertebrates and Plants (with Al Giddings, 1975). consciousness.
The subject of most of Eastmans writing was feminism. She
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1998). felt that the vote was only the rst step toward womens libera-
Other references: Whos Who in America (1999). Discover tion. True liberation also depended on birth control, nonsexist
(1986). Scientic American (1992). education for children, state support of mothers, and an Equal
Rights Amendment. To Eastman, domestic labor was oppressive
CELESTE DEROCHE because the home was a symbol of resignation to male will. She
advocated independence within marriage, urging wives to retain
their own names and pointing out the advantages of separate
residences. Eastman also opposed special industrial protection for
EASTMAN, Crystal women. In articles written between 1922 and 1927, she charted
the increasing tension between equal rights advocates and
Born 25 June 1881, Marlboro, Massachusetts; died 28 July 1928, protectionists, which eventually split the feminist movement.
Erie, Pennsylvania Another major concern of Eastmans was the spread of
Daughter of Samuel and Annis Ford Eastman; married Wallace militarism, which she felt was inimical to democracy. In her view,
Benedict, 1911; Walter Fuller, 1916 women could contribute much toward the abolition of war be-
cause of their greater respect for human life. This respect stemmed
Crystal Eastman was the daughter of feminist parents. Her from the experience of childbirth and childrearing, which were the
mother was a Congregationalist minister and a prominent suffra- largest roles of a womans life. Eastmans pacism was an
gist. After graduation from Vassar College in 1903, Eastman integral part of her feminism.
received a masters degree in sociology from Columbia Universi-
ty and a law degree from New York University. In 1907 she was As a Marxist and a critic of the dilatory reformism of the
hired by the Russell Sage Foundation to investigate work acci- American socialist movement, Eastmans report on communist
dents in Pittsburgh. This study, the rst systematic analysis of Hungary showed, however, that she had few illusions about
industrial accidents, established her reputation as a social investi- revolutionary governments. She described the bleakness and
gator. In 1909 she was appointed to be the sole woman member of repression of Hungary in 1919, but was heartened by the abolition
the New York State Employers Liability Commission, which, of class structure and private property and by the lack of crude
between 1909 and 1911, wrote the New York Workmans Com- nationalism in appeals for army recruits. At the same time, she
pensation Law. noted sadly that war and starvation gave birth to revolution and
revolutionary governments were conditioned by these factors as
In 1912 Eastman joined the Congressional Union (later the well as by idealism. Eastman also recognized that communist
Womens Party) in advocating a federal suffrage amendment. movements and states were not automatically feminist. Feminism,
When World War I began in 1914, she helped found the New though not hostile to the workers struggle, was different in its
4
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS EASTMAN
objects and methods. Eastman justied both feminist reforms and married Santee Sioux Dr. Charles A. Eastman (Ohiyesa), and
separate womens organizations on these grounds. She wanted the resigned her position, dedicating herself to her husband and
social revolution to be a womans as well as a workers victory. his people.
Eastmans feminism conditioned both her Marxism and her Thirty years of marriage brought Eastman six children, and
pacism. In her recognition of the inherent oppressiveness of frequent relocations due to her husbands uctuating career.
home labor and the ideological causes of womans position, and in Eastman attempted to augment her family income by writing,
her effort to raise the feminist consciousness of the socialist editing Carlisle Indian Schools newspaper and her husbands
movement, Eastman foreshadowed the concerns of modern femi- works, arranging his lectures, and running a summer camp.
nists. She found the weakness in both Marxist theory and in Financial tension, editorial resentment, and her husbands ru-
socialist politics when she pointed out the inadequacies of the mored indelity ended Eastmans marriage in 1921, although
purely materialist analysis of womans oppression. Eastman in- both kept their separation secret. Eastman returned to the Berk-
tended to write a theoretical work on women but died before she shires, continuing to write until shortly before her death at ninety.
could begin. This work could have been a signicant contribution
Eastmans literary career began early, when three volumes of
to the ongoing attempts to synthesize feminist and socialist theory.
poetry she and her younger sister Dora had written for family
gatherings were published and enthusiastically received. East-
OTHER WORKS: Work Accidents and the Law (1911). mans development of death and rejuvenation themes, her love
Some of Crystal Eastmans papers from World War I are imagery, and her deft use of language and rhyme belie her youth.
housed in the Swarthmore College Peace Collection. In Journal of a Farmers Daughter (1881), she romantically
celebrates in prose and poetry an annual cycle of rural life. Nearly
50 years later, Eastman collected her subsequently published
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cook, B. W., Toward the Great Change (1976). verse in The Voice at Eve (1930), which reects the broadened
Cook, B. W., ed., Crystal Eastman on Women and Revolution interests and insight of her maturity. Her dominant themes include
(1978). Cott, N., The Grounding of Modern Feminism (1987). woman as giver, the painful joy of loving, the noble vanishing
Eastman, M., Enjoyment of Living (1948). Eastman, M., Love and Native American, and intercultural understanding.
Revolution (1964). Showalter, E., ed., These Modern Women:
Autobiographical Essays from the Twenties (1978). Sochen, J., When Eastman embraced the cause of Native American
The New Woman: Feminism in Greenwich Village, 1910-20 education, she moved from poetry to polemics, writing many
(1972). Sochen, J., Movers and Shakers (1973). articles and pamphlets urging establishment of reservation day
Reference works: Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in schools and Protestant missions. Although she admitted everyone
the United States (1995). could learn Some Lessons from Barbarism (1890) regarding
Other references: Nation (8 Aug. 1928). NYT (29 July 1928). womens dress, equality, and generosity, she constantly empha-
Survey (15 Aug. 1928). sized the goal of assimilating Native Americans into American
culture. In her biography of Carlisle boarding schools founder,
JUDITH S. LOHMAN Pratt: The Red Mans Moses (1935), Eastman praises his efforts,
but voices her preference for day schools and condemns policies
contrary to the assimilationist philosophy she and Pratt shared.
Consistent with this emphasis, Eastman appraised the value
EASTMAN, Elaine Goodale of Native American oral traditions narrowly, as stories for child-
ren. With her husband, she published two collections of Sioux
Born 9 October 1863, Mount Washington, Massachusetts; died tales, and she simplied folklore selected from various anthropo-
22 December 1953, Hadley, Massachusetts logical collections in Indian Legends Retold (1919).
Also wrote under: Elaine Goodale
Eastmans rst works of sentimental prose ction were also
Daughter of Henry S. and Dora H. Read Goodale; married
intended for children, despite their sophisticated vocabulary. In
Charles A. Eastman, 1891 (separated 1921); children: six
Little Brother o Dreams (1910), a lonely, crippled boy nds a
friend. A land-poor Yankee familys united effort establishes a
For her rst 18 years, Elaine Goodale Eastmans world was successful summer camp in The Luck of Oldacres (1928). In
Sky Farm, the Goodales Berkshire homestead. There she learned Yellow Star (1911), a Sioux girl orphaned at Wounded Knee,
about literature from her mother, about nature from her father, and adopted and raised in New England, returns to the reservation as
started combining these lessons in poetry at the age of seven. In eld matron, teaching domestic skills to Sioux women.
1883, after the single year of boarding school that family nances
allowed, Eastman began teaching Native American students at Eastmans only adult novel, Hundred Maples (1935), focuses
Hampton Institute in Virginia. Visiting Dakota convinced East- upon Ellen Strong who, regretting her early marriage, wanders in
man reservation schools would accelerate Native American as- search of herself. She eventually accepts her complicated ties to
similation, and she established a government day school among family, and to the Vermont landscape hallowed by her foremothers.
the Sioux in 1886. Her teaching success earned her appointment in A growing awareness of lifes complexity infuses Eastmans
1890 as Supervisor of Education in the Dakotas. In 1891 Eastman autobiographical writings. In All the Days of My Life (The
5
EASTMAN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Voice at Eve), Eastman emphasizes her idealistic dedication to the year the family returned to Washington. From 1855 to 1867
motherhood and Native Americans, and the difcult adjustment her husband was sent to various military outposts, and Eastman
required of the poet as reformer and wife. Eastmans posthumous- remained for the most part in Washington with their children.
ly published memoirs, Sister to the Sioux (1978), describe her Unable to continue her research, but resolved not to be con-
childhood and reservation years, stressing her appreciation of the demned to babies, dust, and puddings, she produced several
Sioux people as well as her determination to educate them. more collections of Native American studies, a proslavery novel,
a collection of short stories and personal reminiscences, and two
Eastmans writings provide much insight into the ambigui- volumes of poetry.
ties of intercultural relations and of the female sacrice of career
for motherhood. Eastmans inability to reconcile both her sincere Aunt Philliss Cabin (1852), one of many novels written in
regard for the Sioux with her ethnocentrism, and her need for self- reply to Uncle Toms Cabin, uses a romantic plot to present an
expression within her marriage, describes one womens experi- idealized picture of slave life and to introduce stock defenses of
ence of the eternal conict between ideals and reality. slavery. Curiously, Eastmans sentimental and blatantly unrealis-
tic picture of the loving treatment of slaves includes an elderly
womans story of being kidnapped in Guinea and chained to a
OTHER WORKS: Apple Blossoms: Verses of Two Children dead woman on the slave ship. Of historical interest as a proslavery
(with D. R. Goodale, 1878). In Berkshire with the Wild Flowers novel, the work is also biographically interesting in its revelation
(with D. R. Goodale, 1879). All Round the Year: Verses from Sky of Eastmans obsessive need to justify what she uneasily termed a
Farm (with D. R. Goodale, 1881). The Coming of the Birds necessary evil.
(1883). Wigwam Evenings: Sioux Folktales Retold (with C. A.
Eastman, 1909). Smoky Days Wigwam Evenings: Indian Stories Dahcotah (1849), Eastmans rst work, recounts the legends
Retold (with C. A. Eastman, 1910). The Eagle and the Star: of the Dahcotah, or Sioux, told to her by her friend Chequered
American Indian Pageant Play in Three Acts (circa 1916). Cloud, a medicine woman and legend-teller. Eastman writes in
a owery, sentimental style and ctionalizes the legends by
adding conversations and thoughts, but she also includes detailed
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Graber, K., ed., Sister to the Sioux: The Memoirs rst-hand observations of Sioux life, in particular the violence, the
of Elaine Goodale Eastman (1978). Wilson, R., Dr. Charles poverty, and the degraded state of the women, who did most of
Alexander Eastman (Ohiyesa), Santee Sioux (dissertation, 1977). the work.
Reference works: NCAB (1904). Oxford Companion to Wom- Eastman wrote 15 selections for an edition of The Iris (1852),
ens Writing in the United States (1995). an annual magazine, and along with her Sioux pieces, she includ-
Other references: Atlantic (Aug. 1928). Great Plains Quar- ed historical accounts of other tribes based on secondary sources.
terly (Spring 1988). Mississippi Valley Historical Review (March The American Aboriginal Portfolio (1853) continues to add pieces
1936). NYT (23 Dec. 1953). NYTBR (26 May 1935). based on secondary sources, and Chicora (1854) presents only a
few Sioux works.
HELEN M. BANNAN
Fashionable Life (1856) contains two moralistic romances, a
Chequered Cloud legend, an anecdote of Eastmans failure to
prove to a woman-hater that a literary life did not unt a
EASTMAN, Mary Henderson woman for domestic duty, and a story about a woman who
rejects fashionable life in the East and goes off to become the
rst female teacher in St. Paul, Minnesota. In this story Eastman
Born 1818, Warrenton, Virginia; died 24 February 1887, Wash- insists when a woman breaks down the bars of conventionalism
ington, D.C. that society has put up, to shut her out from energy, from
Daughter of Thomas and Anna Truxton Henderson; married hope. . .she is a heroine.
Seth Eastman, 1835
Eastmans literary career reveals her to be that sort of
Mary Henderson Eastman spent her youth, that calm, heroine, particularly in her research among the Sioux. She sees the
pleasant period of my life, in her birthplace in Virginia until her Sioux as human beings, both in their strengths and in their
mother and army surgeon father moved the family of nine children weaknesses, and she recognizes the value of their history, legends,
to Washington, D.C. At seventeen she married a West Point and religious beliefs. Her pleas for their conversion to Christianity
drawing teacher from Maine, who had already begun the sketch- often appear to be merely a conventional way of introducing her
ing of Native Americans that was to lead to his illustrations for his demands for legislative action to save the original owners of the
wifes Native American studies. country from starvation. Eastmans accounts are weakened by
her sentimental language and ctional embroidering, but they
Six years later they moved to his new military command, Fort preserve the legends she heard and present in realistic detail the
Snelling, Minnesota, where Eastman learned the Sioux language, events and customs she saw. Although her later collections rely
attended Sioux ceremonies, and patiently questioned their chiefs increasingly on secondary sources, they contain some of the
and medicine men about their religion, laws, and sentiments. legends and rsthand observations giving Dahcotah its historical
She published the results of her seven years of research in 1849, and literary value.
6
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS EATON
OTHER WORKS: The Iris, an Illuminated Souvenir (1852, reprint- Eaton felt at odds with both mainstream American culture
ed as The Romance of Indian Life, 1853). Jennie Wade of and Chinese culture. As a Chinese woman she was not accepted
Gettysburg (1864). Easter Angels (1879). by American society, yet Americanized Chinese did not accept
her as a member of their race. Rather than synthesizing the two
cultures in herself, Eaton felt caught between East and West.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brown, H. R., The Sentimental Novel in America,
Realizing that she could not survive this liminal existence, she
1789-1880 (1940). McCracken, H., Portrait of the Old West
claimed her mothers heritage as her own.
(1952). McDermott, J. E., Seth Eastman (1961). Mott, R. L.,
Golden Multitudes: The Story of Best Sellers in the U.S. (1947). While a champion of her people, Eaton wrote about the
Tardy, M. T., The Living Female Writers of the South (1872). universality of human experience. She was convinced that in the
Reference works: A Critical Dictionary of English Litera- nature-versus-nurture argument, nurture or the environment was
ture, and British and American Authors (1858). NAW, 1607-1950 more inuential than nature. She did not accept that differences in
(1971). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United human beings were inherently due to race; rather, she believed the
States (1995). individual had the power to control his own behavior and that, in
the end, all human beings were basically the same.
MARTHA CHEW
OTHER WORKS: Stories and sketches in: Overland (Jul. 1899).

Century Magazine (Apr. 1904). The Chataquan (Oct. 1905).
EATON, Edith Maud Delineator (Feb. 1910, Jul. 1910). Dominion Illustrated (1888, 7
Jun. 1890). Good Housekeeping (Mar. 1909, May 1909, May
Born 1865, England; died 7 April 1914, Montreal, Canada 1910). Hampton (Jan. 1910, May 1910). Independent (21 Jan.
Wrote under: Sui Sin Far 1909, 2 Sept. 1909, 10 Mar. 1910, 18 Aug. 1910, 3 Jul. 1913).
Daughter of Edward and Grace Trefusius Eaton Land of Sunshine (Jan. 1897, Jul. 1900). New England Magazine
(Aug. 1910, Sept. 1910, Dec. 1911, Jan. 1912, Feb. 1912).
The daughter of an English father and a Chinese mother,
Edith Maud Eaton neither spoke nor wrote Chinese. According to BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ammons, E., Conicting Stories: American Women
her autobiography, Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of a Writers at the Turn into the Twentieth Century (1991). Bloom, H.,
Eurasian, published in the Independent, 21 January 1909, she ed., Asian American Women Writers (1997). Chiu, M. E., Illness
could have passed as Caucasian. At a time when it was not and Self-Representation in Asian American Literature by Women
advantageous to be Chinese, Eaton embraced her missionary (dissertation, 1998). Ferens, D., Edith and Winnifred Eaton: The
mothers nationality and through her writings in magazines in Uses of Ethnography in Turn-of-the-Century Asian American
Canada and the U.S., became the champion of Chinese-American Literature (dissertation, 1999). Ling, A., Between Worlds: Women
culture, taking the pen name Sui Sin Far. Her younger sister, Writers of Chinese Ancestry (1990); Chinese American Women
Winnifred (1875-1954), adopted the Japanese pen name of Onoto Writers, in Redening American Literary History (1990). Moser,
Watanna; she published several popularly successful romances L. T., Chinese Prostitutes, Japanese Geishas, and Working
set in Japan and also wrote for lms. Women: Images of Race, Class and Gender in the Work of Edith
Eaton was the rst Chinese-American to publish ction. Her Eaton/Sui Sin Far and Winifred Eaton/Onoto Watanna (disserta-
writing was widely read and, for the most part, received favorable tion, 1997). Patterson, M. H., Survival of the Best Fitted: The
reviews. Unlike her contemporaries, she did not create stereotypical Trope of the New Woman in Margaret Murray Washington,
Chinese characters. Instead, her characters are based on the people Pauline Hopkins, Sui Sin Far, Edith Wharton and Mary Johnston,
she met as a newspaper woman enlisting subscribers in Chinatown 1895-1913 (thesis, 1996). Song, M., The Height of Presump-
throughout the western United States. tion: Henry James and Sui Sin Far in the Age of Nation-Building
(dissertation, 1998). Spaulding, C. V., Blue-Eyed Asians:
Eaton wrote sketches and vignettes about common Chinese Eurasianism in the Work of Edith Eaton/Sui Sin Far, Winnifred
Americans, many of which were collected in Mrs. Spring Fra- Eaton/Onoto Watanna, and Diana Chang (dissertation, 1996).
grance (1912). Others appeared in a variety of popular magazines. White Parks, A., Sui Sin Far/Edith Maude Eaton: A Literary
Her purpose in writing was to bridge the gap between Chinese Biography (1995). White-Parks, A., Sui Sin Far: Writer on the
immigrants and their descendants and North Americans by allow- Chinese-Anglo Borders of North America, 1885-1914 (disserta-
ing Americans to see the Chinese as real people. She wrote about tion, 1991).
universal themes such as love between man and woman, parent Reference works: CLHUS (1988). Dictionary of North Ameri-
and child, and the forces that attempt to obstruct this love. Some of can Authors Deceased Before 1950 (1968). FC (1990). Macmil-
her stories are intentionally charming and spirited, while others lan Dictionary of Canadian Biography (1963, 1978). Oxford
are ironic or bitter. She is most ironic when expressing her outrage Companion to Womens Writing in the Untied States (1995).
at the conditions of the Chinese in the U.S. and especially the Other references: American Literary Realism (Autumn 1983).
condition of the Chinese woman. In such pieces as The Inferior Arizona Quarterly (Winter 1991). MELUS (Spring 1981).
Woman, (1910) and in stories of marriage, her interpretation is
frequently feminist. AMY D. STACKHOUSE
7
EBERHART AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
EBERHART, Mignon G(ood) control even in his absence (Message from Hong Kong, 1969, The
Unknown Quantity, 1953, Never Look Back, 1950). Invariably,
these husbands become the victims of murder, and the progress to
Born 6 July 1899, Lincoln, Nebraska; died 8 October 1996
their various deaths goes hand-in-hand with awakening on the part
Daughter of William Thomas and Margaret Hill Good; married
of their wives. The path to a newfound consciousness in a married
Alanson C. Eberhart, 1923, 1948 (twice); John H. Perry,
1946 (died) Eberhart heroine is twofold: the woman initially learns to under-
stand and reject her present subordinate position to her husband,
Mignon G. Eberhart attended Nebraska Wesleyan University but in the second stage of the process she voluntarily begins to rely
and received a Litt. D. from that same institution in 1935. upon another mangenerally younger and always more physical-
Although she published plays (Eight OClock Tuesday, 1941, ly attractive than her spouse. This man usually becomes her
with Robert Wallsten; 320 College Avenue, 1938, with Frederick husband at the conclusion of the novel.
Ballard) and short stories during the rst half of her career,
Eberhart later wrote only novels of suspense, for which the In the characters of Susan Dare in The Cases of Susan Dare
Mystery Writers of America named her their Grand Master in (1934) and Nurse Sarah Keate in The Patient in Room 18 (1929),
1970 (the second woman to receive such an honor after Agatha however, Eberhart develops a different type of female protago-
Christie in 1954). In more than 60 of her novels and short stories, nist, a woman who relies more on her brains than on her ability to
mystery is linked with romance, and the reissue of many of her be attractive to a man. Dare and Keate are not sexless beings, but
earlier works attests to her continued popularity. A reviewer of they value their own quick thinking and prefer not to play the
Escape the Night (1944) best summed up Eberharts approach to helpless female. The romantic element is not absent entirely but it
mystery writing as an expertly wrought combination of murder, is underplayed. Susan Dare and reporter Jim Byrne are coworkers
thrills by night, and fervid romance with a well-hidden killer and and do not march off to the altar at the end of a case; Sarah Keate
an exciting nish. routinely assembles evidence that she and policeman Lance
OLeary will evaluate. The difference between these two heroines
Although several of Eberharts novels are historical (The
and the prototype Eberhart heroine lies in intelligence as well as in
Cup, the Blade or the Gun, 1961, and Family Fortune, 1976, set
professionalism; Dare and Keate may not relish being caught up in
during the Civil War; Enemy in the House, 1962, set during the
American Revolution), the majority are contemporary in setting murder plots, but they work to dispatch the problems as quickly as
and display considerable patriotism, particularly during the war possible. Furthermore, Dare and Keate deal with murder repeated-
years (The Man Next Door, 1943, Wings of Fear, 1945, Five ly, whereas other Eberhart heroines confront murder as a one-time
Passengers from Lisbon, 1946). rite of passage to true love and marriage. Moreover, Dare and
Keate are not humorless creatures; unlike their confused counter-
Although Eberhart has traveled widely in the U.S. and in parts in the other novels, they have a feel for the good joke, for the
foreign countries, she rarely chooses a setting other than the ludicrous situation, and for comedy in tragedy. Man Missing
continental U.S. or the West Indies. Her settings offer the addi- (1954) provides an excellent example of what an Eberhart heroine
tional advantage of variable climate, with the result that most of
can do in this respect.
her novels feature some sort of inclement weather as a commen-
tary to the human conicts. Eberharts style is leisurely, with While Eberharts novels lack the compassion of those of
dialogue that serves to reiterate rather than advance the plot; these Charlotte Armstrong, the plotting of those of Agatha Christie, or
techniques not only increase the atmosphere of suspense that is the lively literacy and profundity of those of Dorothy L. Sayers,
her trademark, but also buy time for character development. Margery Allingham, or Ngaio Marsh, they offer a blend of
Eberharts main characters are women who nd antagonists mystery, suspense, and romance not found in the works of those
in jealous female rivals or relatives and show respect to older other authors, as well as an appeal to a different audience. In this
women. With only one exception (Another Mans Murder, 1957), light, Eberhart noted in an interview with Jean Mercier (who
Eberharts novels are told from a female characters point of view. called Eberhart the doyenne of American mystery writers), I
Her heroines are primarily cast in the roles of marriageable young have always felt liberated and I am in sympathy with womens
women suddenly confronted with love triangles bound up in death demands for equality. But oh, I do believe in marriage. Marriage is
or nancial ruin (Dead Mens Plans, 1952). They may work for forever, or should be. Eberharts novels speak to this conviction
their living (The White Dress, 1945, Danger Money, 1974), but and garnered her a wide and continuing readership. Many of her
they rarely hold positions of power. Eberharts murderers are, works were reissued throughout the mid- and late-1990s.
with few exceptions, male. If the murderer is female, as in The
White Dress, she is described as possessing traditional stereotypical
masculine characteristics. OTHER WORKS: While the Patient Slept (1930). The Mystery of
Eberharts heroines are not always virginal but they are Huntings End (1930). From This Dark Stairway (1931). Murder
always passive. They are often married to older men who physi- by an Aristocrat (1932). The Dark Garden (1933). The White
cally abuse them (Strangers in Flight, 1941, Woman on the Roof, Cockatoo (1933). Murder of My Patient (1934). The House on the
1963) or to men who practice a type of psychic torture (Fair Roof (1935). Danger in the Dark (1936). The Pattern (1937). The
Warning, 1936). Sometimes the husband exercises crippling Glass Slipper (1938). Hasty Wedding (1938). The Chiffon Scarf
8
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ECKSTORM
(1939). Brief Return (1939). The Hangmans Whip (1940). With graduation in 1888, she returned to Brewer as superintendent of
This Ring (1941). Wolf in Mans Clothing (1942). Unidentied schools, but resigned over the issue of inadequate funding. There-
Woman (1943). Sisters (1943). Another Womans House (1947). after she devoted herself to writing as a means of persuasion and
House of Storm (1949). Five of My Best: Deadly Is the Diamond, livelihood. Wed at age twenty-eight to an Episcopalian clergy-
Bermuda Grapevine, Murder Goes to Market, Strangers in Flight, man, Eckstorm bore two children before her husband died six
Express to Danger (short story collection, 1949). Hunt with the years after their marriage. She returned to her old home in Brewer
Hounds (1950). Deadly Is the Diamond (1951). Postmark Murder and continued writing. Her works treat three subject areas: birds,
(1956). Deadly Is the Diamond and Three Other Novelettes of ballads and stories, and native Americans.
Murder: Bermuda Grapevine, The Crimson Paw, Murder in Eckstorms rst book-length works were on ornithology.
Waltz Time (1959). The Crimson Paw (1959). Melora (1959). Birdwatching had become an acceptable avocation for women.
Jury of One (1960). Run Scared (1963). Call After Midnight The Woodpeckers (1901) introduces the techniques of birdwatching,
(1964). R.S.V.P. Murder (1965). Witness at Large (1966). El using the woodpecker family because these birds are so easily
Rancho Rio (1970). Two Little Rich Girls (1971). The House by identied and studied. A larger, more philosophic concern in-
the Sea (1972). Murder in Waiting (1973). Nine OClock Tide forms the book, as well. She argues that evolutionary theories do
(1978). The Bayou Road (1979). Casa Madrone (1980). Family not eliminate God but rather strengthen theistic faith.
Affair (1981). Next of Kin (1982). The Patient in Cabin C (1983).
Alpine Condo Crossre (1984). A Fighting Chance (1986). Three By 1904 Eckstorm had turned her attention to recording
various aspects of traditional culture in northern Maine. She saw
Days for Emeralds (1988).
this culture as threatened by technology, expanding population
The papers of Mignon G. Eberhart are housed in the Muger
and industry, and unconcerned young people. She joined her
Memorial Library of Boston University.
father in campaigns to save wildlife and commenced research on
ballads, place-name history, and folktales. The Penobscot Man
(1904) was the rst published book in this veina collection of
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Haycraft, H., Murder for Pleasure: The Life and
tales of the daring men who ran the Penobscot River, men who
Times of the Detective Story (1941).
kept the logs rolling downstream from the time the ice broke up in
Reference works: Detecting Women (1994). Ecyclopedia
the spring until midsummer. The tales are of heroic, almost mythic
Mysteriosa (1994). St. James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers
gures whom Eckstorm observed as a child when they worked for
(1996). TCA (1942).
her father. The Penobscot man, be he Native American or Irish or
Other references: PW (16 Sept. 1974, 1995). Italian, always puts his work rst; lives for the ideals of honor,
friendship, duty, sport, and grim, stern, granite obstinacy; and
SUSAN L. CLARK dies cheerfullyaccording to Eckstorm. The stories themselves
are fascinating evocations of the region and period.
Collaborating with well-known scholars, she published two
important works: Minstrelsy of Maine (1927) and British Ballads
EBERHART, Sheri S. from Maine (1929). The latter work, based on Childs classica-
See TEPPER, Sheri S. tion of English and Scottish ballads, collects both texts and airs
from traditional singers in Maine. Before this pioneering work, it
had been thought that New England had no ballad tradition like
southern Appalachia and illiteracy was a necessary factor in the
ECKSTORM, Fannie Hardy continued existence of balladry. The collaborators discovered that
the Maine texts were preserved in the oldest British forms, often
identical to those already collected in the southern Appalachians.
Born 18 June 1865, Brewer, Maine; died 31 December 1946, They theorized that the Maine settlers and the southern highland-
Brewer, Maine ers had arrived at about the same time from the same locale in the
Daughter of Manly and Emeline F. Wheeler Hardy; married British Isles. Both groups were relatively isolated until the 20th
Jacob A. Eckstorm, 1893 (died 1899); children: two century, thus maintaining the more traditional forms.
Eckstorms career as a regionalist culminated in her publica-
Fannie Hardy Eckstorm devoted her life to preserving the tion of the scholarly Indian Place-Names of the Penobscot Valley
heritage of the Penobscot region in Maineits wildlife, folkways, and the Maine Coast (1941). In this work she listed all the variants
ballads and stories. She absorbed the lore of lumbermen and for place names and the histories of name changes, using the
trappers, of Native Americans and old settlers, of river and forest. comparative analytic method as well as her own vast knowledge
From her father she learned to see with the precise eyes of the of the region. The work (reprinted several times) is still signicant
naturalist, to revere wilderness and the Native American, and to in the eld.
battle for resource conservation.
Eckstorms last work, also about the Native Americans of
At Smith College, Eckstorm rened her interest in bird Maine, was published when she was eighty-one. Old John Nep-
observation and began her study of Native Americans. After tune and Other Maine Indian Shamans (1945) is a narrative of a
9
EDDY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
family of Penobscot Native Americans Eckstorm and her family churches existed, and Christian Science was no longer a sect but
had known for generations. These shamans or wizards were an organized religion.
known for their clairvoyance. Eckstorms own interest in psychic
phenomena, as well as her erce loyalty to Native American Known chiey for its emphasis on psychical healing, Chris-
traditions, explains her belief in the shamans powers. With this tian Science embraces a full theology. Though Eddy rmly
and her other works, Eckstorm left an invaluable written legacy professed herself and her religion to be Christian, orthodox
that will long preserve the cultural traditions of northern Appalachia. Christianity rejected both. Basic to Christian Science is the
doctrine that God is All, Life, and Mind. Since God is Spirit, the
only manifestation of life is in Spirit, not in matter. Matter, sin,
OTHER WORKS: The Bird Book (1901). David Libbey, Penobscot pain, and death are all erroneous concepts, part of the great error,
Woodman and River-Driver (1907). The Handicrafts of the Mod- the belief in evil. Healing, then, is an important part of overcom-
ern Indians of Maine (1932). ing the error involved in the belief in the ills of the esh.
The papers of Fannie Hardy Eckstorm are at the Bangor
(Maine) Public Library and at the Smith College Archives. The unreality of evil is believed to have been demonstrated in
the life of Jesus, whose acts of love cast out error. Jesus, who
illustrated the spiritual agreement between God and man, is the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). Who Christ only in the sense that he alone demonstrated the spiritual
Was Who in America (1950). Womans Whos Who of America nature, which is the true nature of every man but which is veiled
(1914-15). by the belief in mans materiality. Though not a part of godhead,
Other references: Bangor Daily News (10 Dec. 1910, 1 Jan. Jesus is believed to be true Man, the man of Spirit.
1947). CSM (20 Oct. 1945). Nation (14 March 1928). NEQ
Christian Science rejects all anthropomorphic and personal
(March 1953). SRL (19 April 1930). TLS (6 Feb. 1930). YR
ideas associated with God; thus the Trinity becomes Life, Truth,
(Sept. 1928).
and Love, a trinity in unity known through the three ofces: God
the Father-Mother; Christ, the spiritual idea of sonship; and divine
MARGARET MCFADDEN-GERBER
Science, or the Holy Comforter. Eddys identication of Christian
Science as the Holy Comforter linked it to the aspect of God that
she saw as feminine. At one point in the evolution of Science and
Health, she went so far as to speak of God as She, but the
EDDY, Mary Baker (Glover) reference was dropped from succeeding editions.
Eddy, who claimed her teaching was a divine revelation,

Born 16 July 1821, Bow, New Hampshire; died 3 December never considered her religion as extrabiblical. She intended it to
1910, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts be understood as a scientic demonstration of universal divine
Daughter of Mark and Abigail Ambrose Baker; married law, the spiritual truth behind the literal scriptural accounts. As
George W. Glover, 1843; Daniel Patterson, 1853; Asa G. organizer and leader of the only American religious movement
Eddy, 1877 founded by a woman, Eddys contributions to feminism were
chiey her own accomplishments. In addition, her emphasis on
Founder of the Christian Science movement and of the the Motherhood as well as the Fatherhood of God forced a new
Church of Christ, Scientist, Mary Baker Eddy was originally a consciousness on her followers. In Science and Health, the
member of the Congregational church. In 1862 she received textbook of Christian Science, she advocates equality of the sexes,
treatment for a nervous ailment from Phineas P. Quimby, noted female suffrage, and the right of a woman to independently hold
Massachusetts practitioner of animal magnetism, and became and dispose of property.
interested in mind cure. In 1866 Eddy sustained a serious spinal
injury, from which she recovered through what she later described Eddy recognized the power of the written word in dissemi-
as the total conviction that her life was in God and God was Life. nating doctrine. In her life there were close to 400 editions of
Science and Health published. The monthly Christian Science
In the same year, her husband deserted her and for the next Journal began in 1883; in 1898 the weekly Christian Science
three years she lived with various friends and relatives. In 1870 Sentinel appeared; and in 1908 the daily newspaper Christian
she wrote a textbook, The Science of Man, and began teaching in Science Monitor was established. The Monitor continues to be
Lynn, Massachusetts. She published the rst edition of Science one of the most respected among international periodicals.
and Health (1875, revised and expanded, 1983) and organized the
Christian Science Association in 1876. The year 1879 saw the At one time the object of severe criticism (McClures maga-
establishment of the Church of Christ, Scientist, and 1881 the zines 1906-07 series of articles, among others) and of direct
chartering of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College. Both were ridicule (Mark Twains Christian Science, 1907), Christian Sci-
dissolved in 1889 in preparation for the founding in Boston of the ence is now a recognized part of the religious institution in
Mother Church in September 1892. By 1900 a network of 600 America, a denomination whose members maintain more than
10
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS EHRENREICH
2,500 churches. Eddy served as pastor of the Mother Church in of Christian Science (1991). Thomas, R. D., With Bleeding
Boston for many years and never relinquished leadership of the Footsteps: Mary Baker Eddys Path to Religious Leadership
movement until her death. Her Manual of the Mother Church (1994). Tomlinson, I. C., Twelve Years With Mary Baker Eddy:
(1895) still provides the framework of government for the church- Recollections and Experiences (1996). Von Fettweis, Y. C., Mary
es, and Science and Health remains the religions basic text. Thus Baker Eddy: Christian Healer (1998). Wilbur, S., The Life of
Eddys imprint on Christian Science is as strong now as it was Mary Baker Eddy (1913). Williams, J. K., Christian Scientists
when she founded it. (1997). Wills, G., Certain Trumpets: The Call of Leaders (1994).
Wright, H. M., If Mary Baker Eddys Manual Were Obeyed
(1989). Wright, H. M., Mary Baker Eddy, Leader Forever (1992).
OTHER WORKS: Christian Healing (1880). The Peoples God Reference works: Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in
(1883). Historical Sketch of Metaphysical Healing (1885). Defense the United States (1995).
of Christian Science (1885, 1983). Christian Science: No and Yes Other references: American Literature (1998). Christian
(1887). Rudiments and Rules of Divine Science (1887). Unity of Century (November 1991). Church History (1996, 1997). Com-
Good and Unreality of Evil (1888, 1994). Retrospection and parative Drama (Winter 1995). Journal for the Scientic Study of
Introspection (1891). Miscellaneous Writings (1896). Science Religion (June 1994). Journal of American History (1995).
and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1910, 1994). The First NYRB (1996).
Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany (1913). Letters of
Mary Baker Eddy to Augusta E. Stetson, C.S.D., 1889-1909 JOANN PECK KRIEG
(1990). Mary Baker Eddy: The Concord Years, 1889-1908: A
Chronology (1993).
EGAN, Lesley
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Carpenter, G. C., Mary Baker Eddy: Her Spiritual See LININGTON, Elizabeth
Footsteps (1990). Cather, W., ed. The Life of Mary Baker Eddy
and the History of Christian Science (1971). Dyck, L. L.Darwin
and Mary: Redemption and Evolution in Christian Science (dis-
sertation, 1993). Gardner, M., The Healing Revelations of Mary
Baker Eddy: The Rise and Fall of Christian Science (1993).
EHRENREICH, Barbara
Gill, G., Mary Baker Eddy (1998). Gottschalk, S., The Emergence
of Christian Science in American Religious Life (1973). Hansen, P., Born 26 August 1941, Butte, Montana
Womans Hour: Feminist Implications of Mary Baker Eddys Daughter of Ben Howes and Isabel Oxley Isley Alexander;
Christian Science Movement, 1885-1910 (dissertation, 1982). married John H. Ehrenreich, 1966; Gary Stevenson, 1983;
Keyston, D. L., ed., The Healer: The Healing Work of Mary Baker children: Rosa, Benjamin
Eddy (1996). Knee, S. E., Christian Science in the Age of Mary
Baker Eddy (1994). Meyer, D. B., The Positive Thinkers: Popular Lecturer, journalist, feminist critic, and socialist activist
Religious Psychology from Mary Baker Eddy to Norman Vincent Barbara Ehrenreich is the daughter of blue-eyed, Scotch-Irish
Peale and Ronald Reagan (1988). Miller, R. M. and P. A. Democrats whom she credits as the ultimate sources of much
Cimbala, eds., American Reform and Reformers: A Biographical of her radicalism and feminism. She graduated from Reed College
Dictionary (1996). Morgan, J. L., Mary Baker Eddys Other (1963) with a B.S. in chemistry and physics and completed her
Writings (1984). Nenneman, R. A., Persistent Pilgrim: The Life of Ph.D. in cell biology at Rockefeller University (1968). Ehrenreich
Mary Baker Eddy (1997). Oakes, R., The Story of the Chicago began her career as a writer and social justice activist as a research
Addresses of Mary Baker Eddy (1988). Oakes, R., Mary Baker analyst for the Health Policy Advisory Center (Health-PAC) in
Eddys Lessons of the Seventh Day (1989). Orcutt, W. D., Mary New York City. Among the rst social critics to speak of the
Baker Eddy and Her Books (1913). Peel, R., Mary Baker Eddy: health-care crisis in the late 1960s, Ehrenreich spent much of
The Years of Discovery, 1821-1875 (1966). Peel, R., Mary Baker the 1970s writing about womens health issues and teaching in the
Eddy: The Years of Trial (1971). Powell, L. P., Mary Baker Eddy: Health Sciences department at the State University of New York
A Life-Size Portrait (1991). Rolka, G. M., 100 Women Who (SUNY) College at Old Westbury (1971-74) and at New York
Shaped World History (1994). Sass, K., Mary Baker Eddy: A University (1979-81). During the 1980s she became a fellow at
Special Friend (1983). Satter, B., Each Mind a Kingdom: Ameri- the New York Institute for the Humanities (1980-82) and the
can Women, Sexual Purity, and the New Thought Movement, Institute for Policy Studies (1982-present) and broadened the
1875-1920 (1999). Smaus, J. S., Family, the Carolina Years: A scope of her social activism to encompass an analysis of the whole
Six-Part Series About Mary Baker Eddy and Her First Husband, of American culture and society. Ehrenreich has received a
George W. Glover (1991). Smith, C. P., Historical Sketches, From number of awards and honors including the National Magazine
the Life of Mary Baker Eddy and the History of Christian Science Award for Excellence in Reporting (1980), a Guggenheim Fel-
(1992). Smith, L. A., Mary Baker Eddy: Discoverer and Founder lowship (1987), and honorary degrees from Reed College and
11
EHRENREICH AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
SUNY, Old Westbury. She has held ofces and board member- breadwinner ethic and how that ideology collapsed as a persuasive
ships in activist organizations including the Democratic Socialists set of expectations, in just the last 30 years as men themselves
of America, the National Womens Health Network, and the revolted against their breadwinner roles. Examining documents
National Abortion Rights Action League, and has been on the from popular and elite cultural sources Ehrenreich argues men
editorial board of Ms., Mother Jones, Sociology of Health and began rejecting commitment during the 1950s. Subsequently,
Illness: A Journal of Medical Sociology, and Radical America. the psychology of the human potential movement, the do-your-
own-thing philosophy of the Age of Aquarius, as well as the
Long March, Short Spring: The Student Uprising at Home search for a liberated heart by blue collar men who abandoned
and Abroad (1969, with John Ehrenreich), the rst of a number of machismo to achieve health and upward mobility outside their
coauthored books or pamphlets with a social activist agenda, family, all reected a new moral climate that endorsed irrespon-
focuses on student movements in Germany, England, France, sibility, self-indulgence, and an isolationist detachment from the
Italy, and the United States. Eschewing any human interest or rst claims of others.
person accounts, her book analyzes student life in the late 1960s
on a general level, including the substratum of discontent and Ehrenreich warns readers against nostalgia: Even if we
the reasons why external issues, such as the Vietnam War, set off wanted to return to the feminine mystique, to the tenuous protec-
the struggle, both violent and nonviolent. tion of the family wage system, there is no going back. . .there is
no male breadwinner to lean onand probably not much use in
The American Health Empire: Power, Prots, and Politics waiting for one to appear. She hopes for a reconciliation
(1970, with John Ehrenreich) grew out of her work with Health- between men and women, resting on the ethical basis of
PAC. The book offers a critical analysis of such dramatic changes feminism.
in the health care system as the collapse of public hospitals, the
rise of the medical-industrial complex, the quest for national Also in 1983, Ehrenreich worked with coauthors on two
health insurance, and consumer attacks on the health system for its pamphlets sponsored by the Institution for New Communications.
inhumanity. While careful in their analysis of data, the authors are Women in the Global Factory (with Annette Fuentes) and Poverty
clear in their polemical stance that the American health care in the American Dream: Women and Children First (with Karen
system is not in business for peoples health. In the debate over Stallard and Holly Sklar), aimed at getting people involved in
health care reform that erupted in the 1970s and 1980s, The grassroots political organizations, to document and analyze the
American Health Empire was consistently referenced as a starting problems of exploitation of women and children and propose
point by academics and the media. ways for women to unite and resist government and business
powers that exploit.
For Her Own Good: 150 Years of Experts Advice to Women
(1978) grew out of Ehrenreichs experiences as a college teacher Re-Making Love: The Feminization of Sex (1986) grew out of
and activist in the early womens health movement. Working an article Ehrenreich coauthored with Elizabeth Hess and Gloria
from a kitchen table ofce, Ehrenreich and Deirdre English Jacobs for Ms. in 1980 to explore the subject of womens sexual
coauthored a booklet, Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History liberation. Based on interviews with middle class women and men
of Women Healers which they paid to have printed and mailed to and on popular media documents, the authors examine the sexual
people who asked for it. The Feminist Press published the booklet revolution not from the more predictable perspective of male
as a pamphlet along with Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual sexuality, but as a revolution of, by, and to a great extent, for
Politics of Sickness in 1973. Reader response was diverse and women. Exploring the ways in which dramatic changes oc-
enthusiastic. In For Her Own Good Ehrenreich and English went curred in womens sexual expectation and experience, they
on to develop a new conceptual framework, demonstrating point to the increasing success from the 1960s on of purveyors in
how rationalist scientic experts gained power over womens the marketplace who institutionaliz[ed] the sexual revolution,
lives through their defense of sexual romanticism, a systematic offering women from all classes and political persuasions left and
ideology whereby women in the home became refuge and right, numerous opportunities to become consumers of sexual
consolation to men engaged in the savage scramble of the pleasure. In the context of feminist ideology similar to that
marketplace. The book looks at 19th century medical theory, the which Ehrenreich articulates in The Hearts of Men, the authors of
development of the domestic science movement, and 20th century Re-Making Love conclude contemporary American women rec-
notions of scientic motherhood within the context of a sexual ognized that the womens sexual revolution had become unrav-
politics of health. It forces readers to look at the genre of eled from the larger theme of womens liberation. For women,
advice literature from the new perspective of preventing sexual equality with men has become a concrete possibility, while
women from competing with men in the larger world of economic economic and social parity remains elusive. As a political goal,
labor, and urges them to frame a moral outlook which proceeds women need to reunite sexual liberation and womens liberation
from womens needs and experiences but which cannot be trivial- for their mutual benet.
ized, sentimentalized, or domesticated.
Ehrenreich contributed a lengthy essay on the subject of
The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from The New Right Attack on Social Welfare to The Mean Season:
Commitment (1983) is about the ideology that shaped the An Attack on the Welfare State (1987, with Fred Block, Richard
12
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS EHRENREICH
Cloward, and Frances Fox Piven). She describes the New Right as Mother Jones. In the 1990s, her essays have also appeared
presenting an odd and even self-contradictory blend of themes regularly in Time. Frequently engaged as a public speaker at
and issues, trying at once to support the interests of the rich colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad, Ehrenreich also
while also champion[ing] the little man against forces that often appears on radio and television. A novel, Kippers Game,
would destroy his way of life, advocating unfettered free appeared in 1993.
market capitalism while also representing a kind of moral
In the mid- and late 1900s, Ehrenreich has continued to write
authoritarianism that is reminiscent of European fascism.
both as a journalist and as, in her words, an amateur scholar.
Ehrenreich advocates a reformed and expanded welfare state
Her essayssometimes humorous, sometimes notstill appear
that afrms alternative values. . .the old small-R republican
regularly in Time and the Progressive as well as Nation, Harpers,
values of active citizenship, democratic participation, and the
Ms., Life, Working Woman, and an edited volume titled Debating
challenge and conviviality of the democratic process.
PC: The Controversy over Political Correctness on College
Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class (1989) Campuses (1992). With titles such as Sex and the Married
focuses on the journey of the professional middle class from the Woman, Real Babies, Illegitimate Debates, and Confes-
generosity and optimism of the 1960s to the cynicism and sions of a Recovering Statist, Ehrenreich frequently focuses on
narrowing self-interest of the 1980s. As in previous books, issues of gender, sexuality, family life, class, and economic and
Ehrenreich examines popular media artifactstelevision, books, social policy. She also regularly comments on topical matters of
magazines, and movies. She argues that class tension had grown media interestfrom Lorena Bobbitt to drug policy to the Starr
stronger between the professional middle class and the working Report. Often written with a wry sense of humor, these essays
class and that nervous professionals had isolated themselves place the enthusiasms of the moment in a larger historical and
from contact with those outside their ranks, turning to an increas- cultural context. In 1995 Ehrenreich published a collection of her
ingly conservative right-wing politics and adopting postures pro- essays under the title The Snarling Citizen.
tective of their privileges and defensive of their status. Possibili- Ehrenreichs early training as a biologist is evident in her
ties for creating new opportunities or strengthening the U.S. study of the passions of war, Blood Rites (1997). Human beings,
economic system as a whole have thus been lost, and Ehrenreich she points out, are vulnerable creatures and were probably prey to
encourages professionals to have faith in a more egalitarian large carnivores during most of our evolutionary history. Only
future, to pursue a revival of conscience and responsibility gradually did weor at least some of usmake the transition
toward public life. She also urges that an allegiance to crass from prey to predator. Early humans who gathered together in the
consumerism and economic growth be replaced with an effort to face of threat, making noise and challenging the predator, were
develop jobs across classes that offer good and pleasurable and more likely to survive than those who scattered. Human predators
decent work: the work of caring, healing, building, teaching, therefore selected other humans who felt a strong sense of
planning, learning. solidarity, even thrill, in the face of danger. As a result, Ehrenreich
suggests, war can evoke some of the most sublime emotions
Reviewers praised Fear of Falling but differed in their known to humanity.
perceptions of the books ideological stance. While a critic from
the right called her anti-business bias a form of snobbery, a The rst half of Blood Rites examines early humans ecologi-
review from the left credited the author for asserting the value of cal, social, and psychological experiences of human and nonhuman
pleasurable work for the professional and middle class as a violence. Hunting, it concludes, probably became a predominant-
modest, humane and (Im tempted to say) neoconservative ly male activity only after large game animals became rare, due at
suggestion. least in part to human predation. The second half of the book
ambitiously examines changing patterns of war since the begin-
In The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverent Notes from a ning of written history. Social structures, Ehrenreich argues,
Decade of Greed (1990), Ehrenreich presents a selection of reect the means of destruction. For example, the develop-
reprinted articles from publications as diverse as Mother Jones, ment of missile weapons gave rise to larger armies, since only a
Ms., the Nation, the New Republic, the New York Post, the New large barrage of arrows or bullets was effective. These larger
York Times, and New York Woman. Essays with titles such as armies required larger geographical territories to support them, so
The Unbearable Being of Whiteness, The Unfastened Head they helped generate the modern nation-state. In a nal, subtly
of State, Stop Ironing the Diapers, Prole of a Welfare argued, chapter, Ehrenreich suggests war has become a predator
Cheat, and How to Help the Uptrodden illustrate Ehrenreichs beast with a life of its own.
analysis of the 1980s as a decade of greed, neglect, pain, racism,
and class polarization as well as her ability to depict it in language
that one critic described as elegant, trenchant, savagely angry, BIBLIOGRAPHY: Apple, R.D., ed., Women, Health, and Medicine
morally outraged and outrageously funny. in America: A Historical Handbook (1990).
Reference works: CA 73-76. CANR (1986, 1992). CB (1995).
Ehrenreich has written numerous columns for newspapers CLC 110.
and magazines, including the weekly Hers column for the New Other references: Atlantic Monthly (Sept. 1986). Commen-
York Times, and monthly columns in Ms., New York Woman, and tary (Jan. 1990, Apr. 1994). Humanist (Jan./Feb. 1992). Journal
13
EIKER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
of American History (Sept. 1990). Journal of Marriage and the young mans worship. The ruthless dowager justies her charac-
Family (May 1984). LATBR (2 Apr. 1995, 21 Apr. 1996). LJ (15 ter with amused self-knowledge, but the literal-minded bride
Apr. 1995, 1 May 1997).Ms. (May/June 1997). Nation (24 Dec. conscientiously sacrices her chivalrous lovers to a false ideal of
1983, 28 Feb. 1987). NR (11 July 1983). New Statesman and her own perfection.
Society (17 May 1991). NYRB (1 July 1971). NYT (16 Aug.
Eiker plots The Brief Seduction of Eva (1932) like a tidy
1983).NYTBR (7 March 1971, 5 June 1983, 14 Sept. 1986, 6 Aug.
drawing room farce. Irked that her husband adores the details of
1989, 20 May 1990, 28 May 1995, 25 May 1997, 7 Dec. 1997).
patent law and substitutes a big, belated check for thoughtful
Progressive (Feb. 1995, Oct. 1997). Psychology Today (Aug.
birthday owers, beautiful Eva welcomes an admirer whose suit
1986, Oct. 1989). PW (26 July 1993, 20 Feb. 1995, 7 Apr. 1997).
is contrived by her amused sister-in-law. When her husband
Signs (Spring 1986). TLS (10 Apr. 1998). VV (5 Feb. 1979, 23
shows no jealousy. Eva abandons the lover, who elopes with her
Aug. 1983). Vogue (Sept. 1986). WWA (1992-93). WRB (Oct.
daughter. Eva shares more affection with her knowing sister-in-
1995, Dec. 1997).
law than with either of the men who have social forms for their
commitments. The novel is Eikers clever spoof on romantic love.
JENNIFER L. TEBBE,
UPDATED BY LORI KENSCHAFT The Heirs of Mrs. Willington (1934) investigates a psycho-
logical legacy with the plot control of detective ction. Forbidden
remarriage by her husbands will, a bold dowager takes her
chauffeur as her lover, guardian, and heir. At her death, three
stepchildren discover they have lost their fathers wealth; two
EIKER, Mathilde grow vicious, but a third, Avis, shyly hires the chauffeur and
overcomes her frigidity toward her husband. With polished style,
Eiker dramatizes the vile pettiness and timorous love which
Born 5 January 1893, Washington, D.C.; died January 1982
deect each other in a wealthy family.
Also wrote under: March Evermay
Daughter of John T. and Mattie Etheridge Eiker Eikers last psychological novel, Key Next Door (1937),
portrays a successful woman writer. Safely ensconced in her
The eldest of four children born to a chief clerk of engineers family home, Agnes Thomason brings the nurse Ernestine, her
in the U.S. War Department and an Episcopalian of long Ameri- close, jealous friend, through the anguish of betrayed love, but
can ancestry, Mathilde Eiker was reared in the embassy section of loses her to marriage with a wealthy employer. The object of
northwest Washington, D.C. After earning her B.A. from George Agness own controlled devotion is a printer strangled by domes-
Washington University in 1914, she published short stories tic ties. Every character feels locked away from the ideal happi-
pseudonymously with her fathers encouragement, and in 1922 ness next door. The printers meditation on ofces emptied by the
Depression, or Agness on the erce beauty of an airplane or a
had a play accepted for production. From 1924 to 1926, Eiker
lions roar, marks Eikers best, suggestive style. Modern writers
taught in Washington but, disappointed with the public schools
fail, Agnes says epigrammatically, because they write in rst
misunderstanding of gifted children, she resigned after her rst
person or too easily explain behavior through economics.
novels success.
As March Evermay, Eiker wrote three detective novels. Like
Mrs. Masons Daughters (1925) portrays three bourgeois
British contemporaries, she minimizes brutality to emphasize
sisters freed by their mothers death from strict emotional re- motive and intellectual process. In They Talked of Poison (1938),
straints to realize their own natures. A devoted spinster joins a scrupulous, sentimental Inspector Glover patiently solves a mur-
Catholic convent; a young mother wins a divorce; and F. Mason, der for a university seminar of expert suspects. In This Death Was
high school teacher, leaves her well-disciplined class to become Murder (1940), he explains three suspicious deaths despite the
Fernanda, an unwed mother and successful restaurateur. Through jealous quarrels and loyal deceptions of ve sibling heirs. A nal
Fernanda, Eiker studies the complex personality of the female mystery, Red Light for Murder (1951), ended Eikers writ-
teacher who deliberately arms her sensitivity against the thought- ing career.
less barbarities of children and adults. Eikers accurate vignettes
of a bickering Sunday supper or an obedient childs guilt at her Eikers novels explore the complexities of power, pettiness,
classmates deceit redeem clumsy plotting. love, and guilt in suburban American families. Eiker is so alert to
the psychological suggestiveness in clothing, phrasing, furnish-
In The Lady of Stainless Raiment (1928), Eiker wittingly ing, and eating that the domestic minutiae which reveal character
depicts the humor and anguish caused by fashionable social almost overwhelm the lines of action. Careful to motivate every
hypocrisy. Artist Julian Haldane, the pleased heir to a Washington event, Eiker overplots her novels, but abandons their conclusions
mansion, idolizes an artful, aging Carolina belle and woos her to awkward coincidences. Although she is a witty parodist of
artless granddaughter. Through glittering dimmer party dialogue romantic love, Eiker prefers to represent seriously the restrained
and muted tone poems about women among owers, Eiker happiness of practical persons learning to abandon unmanage-
contrasts two generations of self-centered ladies who demand a able ideals.
14
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ELGIN
OTHER WORKS: Over the Boat-Side (1927). Stranger Fidelities Rouquette (1913), which reverently traces the history from child-
(1929). My Own Far Towers (1930). The Senators Lady (1932). hood to death of the poet-priest and missionary to the Louisiana
Choctaw Native Americans. In it she describes the beauty of the
natural environment of Louisiana, the political and religious
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Authors Today and Yesterday
history of the Crescent City, the literary works of Abb Rouquette,
(1934). TCA (1942).
Other references: NR (29 April 1925). NYHTB (9 Oct. 1927). and the customs and history of the Choctaw Native Americans.
NYT (12 Aug. 1934). SR (1 Nov. 1930). Elders scholarship in the biography keeps her for the most part
from the excessive emotion of her verse, allowing her to create an
GAYLE GASKILL inspiring portrait of a man of faith.
OTHER WORKS: James the Second (1874). Savonarola (1875).

ELDER, Susan Blanchard The Leos of the Papacy (1879). Character Glimpses of the Most
Reverend William Henry Elder, D.D. (1911). Elder Flowers
Born 9 April 1835, Fort Jessup, Louisiana; died 3 November (1912). A Mosaic in Blue and Gray (1914).
1923, Cincinnati, Ohio
Wrote under: Hermine
Daughter of Albert G. and Susan Thompson Blanchard; married BIBLIOGRAPHY: Davidson, J. W., The Living Writers of the South
Charles D. Elder, 1855 (1869). Tardy, M. T., ed., The Living Female Writers of the
South (1872).
Daughter of Captain Albert G. Blanchard of the U.S. Army Other references: Cincinnati Enquirer (4 Nov. 1923).
(later a brigadier general in the Confederate Army), Susan Blanchard
Elder attended the Girls High School and St. Michaels Convent SUZANNE ALLEN
of the Sacred Heart in New Orleans. In 1855, at the time of her
marriage, Elder converted to Catholicism. Even before then,
writing under the name Hermine, she was contributing to South-
ern newspapers stories and poems such as Babies and First
Ride, young outpourings of love and admiration of the beauty of ELGIN, Suzette Haden
life. During the Civil War, she expressed her sympathy for the
Southern cause in vivid and indignant patriotic war lyrics and in Born Patricia Anne Suzette, 18 November 1936, Louisiana,
the establishment of a hospital in her home in Selma, Alabama, Missouri
where the Elders had ed after the capture of New Orleans by Daughter of Gaylord and Hazel Lewis Lloyd; married Peter
Union troops. Haden, 1955 (died); George Elgin, 1964; children: Michael,
After the war, they returned to New Orleans. From 1882 Rebecca, Christopher, Patricia, Benjamin
through 1890, Elder was on the editorial staff of the Morning Star
as well as a literary critic and editorial contributor for other Suzette Haden Elgin is a retired professor of linguistics and
Catholic publications. Her work includes historical and literary the author of numerous nonction works on linguistics and
criticism, biographies, stories, poems, and plays written especial- communication as well as a number of science ction novels. In
ly for Catholic colleges. The primary themes in Elders work are addition to her writing, Elgin has founded several associations
love for the South, particularly New Orleans and Louisiana, and devoted to the study of linguistics, including the World Verbal
love for the church. Though acclaimed in her own time, Elders Self-Defense League and the Linguistics & Science Fiction Net-
verse now seems dated because of its melodrama and forced work. Elgin also founded the Science Fiction Poetry Association
rhymes. For example, in Cleopatra Dying, once called her
and served for a time as the editor of its newsletter, Star*Line. She
most admired poem, the excess emotion of the persona Cleopatra is
runs the Ozark Center for Language Studies, which she founded in
expressed mainly through the use of 33 exclamation points.
1980. The Ozark Center provides information on linguistics to the
Chateaux en Espagne, noted as a pleasantly turned lyric of
public and publishes the bimonthly newsletter of the Linguistics
the times, claims the South will never really be defeated because
& Science Fiction Network.
of its imagination. Southerners all possess castles in the air,
Which they never can lose by tyrannical power, / And where Elgin grew up in Missouri, the daughter of a lawyer and a
Hope smiles serene through the gloomiest hour! teacher. She attended the University of Chicago from 1954 to
A novel, Ellen Fitzgerald (1876), portrays events in the life 1956, but quit after her marriage to Peter Haden, who died several
of Dr. R. D. Williams, Irish patriot and poet, who died at her home years later. While at the University of Chicago, Elgin won an
at Thibodeaux, Louisiana, before the war. This work was quite Academy of American Poets award. She also received a Eugene
popular in the South because it is lled with Southern scenes and Saxon Memorial Trust fellowship in poetry from Harpers maga-
sentiments. Probably Elders most noteworthy contribution, how- zine in 1958 and was a corecipient of the Rhysling Award from the
ever, is her careful biographical study, The Life of Abb Adrien Science Fiction Poetry Association.
15
ELGIN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Elgin remarried in 1964 and obtained her B.A. in linguistics she created for her Native Tongue novels as examples of linguistic
from Chico State College (now California State University at experimentation through science ction.
Chico) in 1967. She received her M.A. (1970) and her Ph.D.
(1973) in linguistics from the University of California at San Elgin has written two science ction series in addition to her
Diego. While in school, Elgin held a variety of jobs, from folk Native Tongue novels. The Communipaths (1970), Furthest (1971),
guitar instructor to French teacher to writer for a local California At the Seventh Level (1972), and Star-Anchored, Star-Angered
news station. She became an associate professor of linguistics at (1979) center around Coyote Jones, an agent for the Tri-Galactic
San Diego State University in 1972 and retired as associate Intelligence Service, which is responsible for maintaining com-
professor emeritus in 1980. munications for the Three Galaxies universe. Jones mind-deaf-
ness, or lack of telepathy, and ability to project powerful
Elgins rst book, Syntax and Semantics, was published in hallucinations upon others ensure his success in a variety of
two volumes in 1972. This title was quickly followed by a number adventures.
of other nonction works on linguistics, including What is Lin-
guistics? (1973), Beginning Linguistics Workbook (1974), and The Ozark Fantasy Trilogy (1981), which consists of Twelve
Pouring Down Words (1975). The Grandmother Principles (1998) Fair Kingdoms, The Grand Jubilee, and And Then Therell Be
is a departure from Elgins previous nonction works. This title Fireworks, tells the story of 12 Ozark families who abandon the
seeks to instruct todays young women in proper behavior by dying Earth for another planet. Their new planet, named Ozark,
urging them to imitate their grandmothers. The 21 principles runs on a magical, grammar-based system of governance. Yonder
Elgin pushes in this low-key title range from The grandmother Comes the End of Time (1986) is a crossover between the world of
way is the easy way to Grandmothers dont have to be Coyote Jones and Planet Ozark.
politically correct.
Native Tongue (1984), Native Tongue II: The Judas Rose
Elgins best-known nonction work may be The Gentle Art (1987), and Native Tongue III: Earthsong (1993) are set in an
of Verbal Self-Defense (1980) and its successors, which include alternate near-future United States in which a group of linguists
Success With the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense (1989), and their families are the only ones capable of communicating
Genderspeak: Men, Women, and the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-De- with the alien civilizations that trade on Earth. The conict
fense (1993), and The Martial Art of Verbal Self-Defense (1997). between the linguists and the government form one plotline that
Elgin has written and lectured frequently on the topic of verbal runs throughout the books, as does the female linguists attempts
self-defense. Her books on this topic deconstruct such familiar to create Ladan, a language that will express the thoughts of
verbal attacks such as If you REALLY loved me, you wouldnt women more effectively than existing languages. Elgin has writ-
want to leave and Dont you even CARE about your health? ten A First Dictionary and Grammar of Ladan (2nd ed., edited
Elgin uses linguistic techniques from her years of study and by Diane Martin,1988) to provide formal instruction in this
research in applied psycholinguistics to show how native English ctional language. Elgins short ction includes a novella, Lest
speakers automatically use techniques such as emphasis on cer- Levitation Come Upon Us (1982), and pieces published in Alter-
tain words, particular word orders, and body language when native Histories (1986), Space Opera (1996), and the annual
trying to hurt someones feelings. She teaches readers how to Fantasy and Science Fiction (multiple years). A short story called
avoid taking the bait in a verbal attack by a spouse, colleague, or Weather Bulletin is available online, as are excerpts from
boss, and instead recognize, avert, or turn around a verbal attack in various articles she has written for the Linguistics & Science
an attempt to have a productive conversation. Fiction Network. Also available online is the rst chapter of an
in-progress textbook version of The Martial Art of Verbal
The Gentle Art of Communicating with Kids (1996) teaches Self-Defense.
parents how to express thoughts and feelings to children using
appropriate language behavior and communications skills. Elgin Other nonction works in progress include The Gentle Art of
instructs parents in the skills needed to defuse verbal battles in Verbal Defense at Work, an extensively revised and updated
order to create a healthy home environment in which both parents second edition of Success With the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-De-
and children are treated with respect. She provides models of fense and The Language Imperative, a book on multilingualism
appropriate language using modern, hot-button issues like dating, and the power of language. Elgin is also writing a new, as yet
sex, and cyberspace. untitled novel, and attempting to market The Peacetalk Solution,
which she calls an inspirational novel [or] extended parable.
Elgin believes language is our best and most powerful She is also working in ts and starts on an autobiography and a
resource for bringing about social change [and] that science book of psalms. Elgin is a self-taught artist who enjoys playing the
ction is our best and most powerful resource for trying out social guitar, singing, drawing, embroidery, and making gourd art in her
changes before we make them, to nd out what their conse- spare time.
quences might be. She views science ction as a laboratory in
which writers and linguists can experiment with language in a way
not possible in the real world. Elgin points to the Klingon OTHER WORKS: A manuscript collection of Suzette Haden Elgins
language that evolved from Star Trek and the Ladan language papers is housed in the Chater Collection of the Love Library of
16
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ELLET
San Diego State University; additional papers are in the Universi- Achieving success with the histories, Ellet further explored
ty of Oregon Library in Eugene, Oregon. the lives of American women by writing three books that obvious-
ly reect the range and vigor of a developing country: Pioneer
Women of the West (1852), The Queens of American Society
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CANR (1983). Oxford Com- (1867), and The Court Circles of the Republic (1869). Having
panion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). St. James
grown up on the Lake Ontario frontier and having lived in both the
Guide to Science Fiction Writers (1996).
South and the North, Ellet took a broad, liberal view of regional
Other References: Booklist (1 Feb. 1996). PW (10 May 1993,
and human diversities. She also had an eye for the specic: she
12 Dec. 1994). Whole Earth Review (Winter 1989).
reported on food (sometimes boiled acorns); furnishings (the rst
Web page: http://www.sfwa.org/members/elgin.
carpet on the oor or the rst piano west of the Alleghenies); the
LEAH J. SPARKS
oppressive silence and the inuence of solitude (appropriate for
reading the Bible and hearing wild birds sing or Native Americans
powwow); and the chores (making cartridges, grinding wheat,
splitting wood, looking for lost childrenthe responsibilities of
pioneer women).
ELLET, Elizabeth (Fries Lummis)
But what of the queens of American society? A Boston
Born circa 1812, Sodus Point, New York; died 3 June 1877, New woman entertained 300 ofcers of the French eet at breakfast;
York, New York others shaped or controlled public events and fashions, although
Daughter of William N. and Sarah Maxwell Lummis; married never desirous of the distinctions of the female politician. Some
William H. Ellet, circa 1835 were patrons of public or private charitiesand one of them,
Marcia Burns Van Ness, who founded the Washington City
Overlooked in traditional chronicles of military and political Orphan Asylum, was the rst American woman to be buried with
events, Elizabeth Ellet is the rst historian of American women. public honors, in 1832.
She is also important as an early social historian. Her rst
signicant work was The Women of the American Revolution in The thesis of Court Circles is that a fair idea of a political
two volumes (1848), supplemented by a third volume (1850), and administration can be gained from the fashionable life and every-
by the Domestic History of the American Revolution (1850, the day habits of a president and those who surround him. Conse-
two original volumes were reprinted in 1974 as The Eminent and quently, Ellet describes the attitudes, practices, and inuence of
Heroic Women in America). successive social circles from Washington to Grant. Antics and
the ambience of entertainments, conversations and orations, balls,
Noting a dearth of sources, fragmentary anecdotes, meager teas, weddings, funerals, and inaugurals suggest differences in the
correspondence and documents, the distortions of reminiscences,
character and spirit of the nations leaders. Perhaps the best
and other scholarly handicaps, Ellet also observed that womens
written of Ellets books, Court Circles is based on letters, jour-
sphere is secluded and in very few instances does her personal
nals, and gossip with a bold and easy style. There are good
history, even though she may ll a conspicuous position, afford
momentsone president has his butcher to dinner, another a
sufcient incident. . .and salient points for description, in con-
country merchant; the black servant of an American foreign
trast to the actions of men. Ellets work, then, is primarily
minister speaks French or German or Russian so guests will feel at
episodic, and the methodology of it a result of the limitations she
recognized. home; a presidents wife reports that Charles Dickens looked
bored when he visited her, and she preferred the company of
Scrupulous in the use of reliable accounts, Ellet provides Washington Irving; two suffragettes argue on the street about
contexts and settings for the remarkably varied activities of whether women should wear pantaloons. It is ironic Ellet is often
women in the heroic age of the republic. While she concen- remembered as a gossip; she was expert at putting together true
trates on the wives, sisters, mothers, and daughters whose exist- stories for the historical record.
ence was devoted to the men ghting the war of American
independence and forming a new nation, Ellet also presents many
remarkable instances of the independent exploits of women. OTHER WORKS: Poems, Translated and Original (1835). Rambles
Beyond the pervasive sympathies for the American cause by About the Country (1847). Family Pictures from the Bible (1849).
which the subjects are measured in contrast to British and Native Summer Rambles in the West (1853). The Practical Housekeeper
American depredation, Ellet speculates on whether the ma- (1857). Women Artists in All Ages (1859).
trons of the republican era were intrinsically superior in strength
and spirit to those of the present, or whether the same circum-
stances would now create such heroines. She dares one gener- BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bayless, J., Rufus Wilmot Griswold (1943).
alization: almost all the women were noted for piety. The spirit Beard, C., and M. Beard, The Rise of American Civilization
that exhibited itself in acts of humanity, courage, magnanimity, (1927). Conrad, S. P., Perish the Thought (1976). Conway, J. K.,
and patriotism was a deeply religious one. The Female Experience in Eighteenth-and Nineteenth-Century
17
ELLIOT AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
America (1982). Moss, S. P., Poes Literary Battles (1963). Poe, relationship from several angles, examining discipline and sub-
E. A., The Complete Works of Poe (1902). mission in marriage. Her ever-present logic and her faith do not
Reference works: Cyclopedia of American Literature (1855). seem to clash in her credo: You cant make proper use of a thing
NAW, 1607-1950 (1971). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing unless you know what it was made for, whether it is a safety pin or
in the United States (1995). a sailboat. To me it is a wonderful thing to be a woman under
Godto know. . .that we were made for something. Let Me Be A
ELIZABETH PHILLIPS Woman is a conscious analysis of Christian womanhood. Elliot
rmly adheres to the intellectual and spiritual equality of the sexes
except in marriage, where women must carry out their predestined
fate; only one partner leads in the dance. This type of submission
Elliot does not see as a weakness, but as obedience to the
ELLIOT, Elisabeth voice of God.
For her missionary activities, Elliot gained world fame of a

Born 21 December 1926, Brussels, Belgium sensational nature. As an evangelical writer, she has a wide
Daughter of Philip E. and Katharine Dillingham Howard; mar- audience of readers. Several of her books have been translated
ried James Elliot, 1953 (died); Addison Leitch, 1969 (died); into foreign languages. They are both inspiring and provocative,
Lars Gren, 1977 in an easy owing style, and always testifying to her mature
bedrock of faith. Elliot has a felicitous gift of blending the
factual with the spiritual, matters of the mind with those of the
Born of American missionary parents in Belgium, Elisabeth
soul, not missing the quaintness and humor of a situation. She can
Elliot graduated from Wheaton College, Illinois, in 1948. After
detect as few others, the bond between all creatures of God. Where
attending Prairie Bible Institute, she went as a missionary to
a lesser believer would acknowledge only a common denominator
Ecuador in 1952. Her rst husband was also a graduate of
of birth, joy, sorrow, and death, Elliot sees with the eyes of a true
Wheaton College and a missionary in Ecuador. When he and four
believer that all of us. . .were created by the same God, all of us
of his colleagues were killed by the Auca Indians, Elliot decided
were broken by the same Fall, and all of us might be redeemed by
to follow her call and to carry out her husbands unnished the same Grace.
mission to pacify the Aucas. With her baby daughter Valerie and
sister of one of the slain men, she entered the Aucas village in
1958, the rst white person to do so. She kept meticulous notes of OTHER WORKS: Through Gates of Splendor (1957, 1996). Shad-
her observations of the Aucas lifestyle and recorded their language. ow of the Almighty (1958). No Graven Image (1966). Who Shall
Ascend (1968). Furnace of the Lord (1968). The Liberty of
Since her return to the U.S. in 1963, Elliot devoted her life to Obedience (1968). A Slow and Certain Light (1973). These
writing, lecturing, and teaching. After losing her second husband Strange Ashes (1975). Twelve Baskets of Crumbs (1976). Disci-
in the early 1970s, she became visiting professor at the Gordon- pline: The Glad Surrender (1983, 1998). Loneliness: It Can Be a
Conwell Theological Seminary in Hamilton, Massachusetts. The Wilderness, It Can Be a Pathway to God (1988). On Asking God
Savage My Kinsman (1961, reprinted in 1981 and a 45th anniver- Why: Trusting God in a Twisted World (1989, 1997). A Path
sary edition in 1996) is an oversize book, with photographs by Through Suffering (1990, 1997). Passion and Purity: Learning to
Elliot and Cornell Capa. It is a verbal and pictorial record of her Bring Your Love Life Under Christs Control (1994). Keep a
day-by-day life among the Aucas. Here the 20th century met Quiet Heart (1996). Quest for Love (1996). Gateway to Joy:
head-on with the stone age, the process observed and interpreted Reections That Draw Us Nearer to God (1998). The Stay-at-
by a sensitive and perceptive woman. While Elliot was impressed Home Mom (1995).
by the skills of the Aucas in lling the needs of their daily lives, Other: A Balanced Family (audiocassette, 1995). A Peaceful
they in turn were puzzled by her lack of them. She did not know Home (video, 1994). Family Management (audiocassette, 1995).
how to make shnets or pots, or how to plant manioc. She could Forget Me Not: A Grandmothers Inuence (video, 1992). Glen-
not even snare a bumblebee for the children to y on a palm ber. das Story (audiocassette, 1995). Growing Through Loneliness
Elliots sharp perception for the slightest nuances in the natives (audiocassette, 1999). Obedience (audiocassette, 1998). Spiritual
behavioral patterns opened unknown vistas into the psyche of Opposition (audiocassette, 1994). Suffering Is Not for Nothing
primitives. She comprehended and was capable of communicat- (audiocassette, 1988). Teaching Your Child Self-Discipline (1995).
ing the divergencies between their concepts and those of the The Shaping of a Christian Family (audiocassette, 1958, 1995).
civilized world. While telling the Aucas about Christ, she also
established a written form for their writing.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Chicago Sunday Tribune (3 Dec. 1961). Christian
Among Elliots evangelical writings, Let Me Be a Woman Century (21 May 1969). LJ (1 May 1961, 15 May 1969). NYHTB
Notes on Womanhood for Valerie (1976) stands out as a crisply (23 July 1961).
written, down-to-earth bouquet of advice not only to her daughter,
but to all young Christian women. Elliot analyzes the male-female VERA LASKA
18
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ELLIOTT
ELLIOTT, Maude Howe others describing all the exhibits in the building and the womens
congresses held there. A history of womens participation in the
Worlds Columbian Exposition is also included.
Born 9 November 1854, South Boston, Massachusetts; died 19
March 1948, Newport, Connecticut Elliotts biographies of her family are recognized as her best
Wrote under: Maude Howe work. Life and Letters of Julia Ward Howe (1915), which she
Daughter of Samuel G. and Julia Ward Howe; married John wrote with her sisters, Laura E. Richards and Florence M. Howe
Elliot, 1887 Hall, won the Pulitzer Prize. Her autobiographies Three Genera-
tions (1923) and This Was My Newport (1944) offer views of
Maude Howe Elliott was born at her fathers Perkins Institute Newport society at the turn of the century.
for the Blind in South Boston and grew up in the midst of the
literary and reform worlds of Boston, with Theodore Parker, Elliotts novels provide important insights into American
Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Florence Nightingale, and women of the 19th century. She presents the strong and indepen-
John Brown as family friends. dent American girl on her own in society. Forced to depend on
herself for moral guidance, Elliotts American girl is not com-
After two years of publishing short stories, travel notes, and pletely sure of herself until she has met her mate. Elliotts
art reviews in the popular press, Elliott published A Newport ambivalence about independent women leads her rst to exalt the
Aquarelle in 1883. She often used travel as inspiration and setting freedom of self-sufciency and then to deate this freedom with
for her works, producing San Rosario Ranch (1884) after a trip to doubts and insecurity. Elliotts resolution to this insecurity is
Southern California, Atalanta in the South (1886) after a stay at invariably a loving marriage with a sensitive, artistic man.
the New Orleans Cotton Centennial, and a series of travel books
after several European trips. Elliott also wrote a syndicated letter Elliotts biographies of her remarkable family and her de-
for several American papers during her European travels of tailed description of womens activities at the Worlds Columbian
1894-1900 and 1906-1910. She was active in the suffrage move- Exposition are important contributions to American letters. As
ment as president of the Newport Woman Suffrage Association. both a member and a chronicler of one of Americas most
important families, Elliott was aware of her role in history.
Elliotts rst novel, A Newport Aquarelle (1883), was pub-
lished anonymously as part of the Roberts Brothers No Name
Author series. The novel establishes what was to become the OTHER WORKS: Phillida (1891). Honor (1893). The Story of
pattern of Elliotts novels: a young woman without female rela- Laura Bridgman, Dr. Howes Famous Pupil; and What He
tives to raise and advise her nds herself caught between two Taught Her, with F. M. Howe Hall (1903). Roma Beata (1904).
suitors, one a struggling artist sensitive to the heroine, and the Two in Italy (1905). Sun and Shadow in Spain (1908). Sicily in
other a dandy who covets the heroines fortune. An older woman Shadow and Sun (1910). The Eleventh Hour in the Life of Julia
enters the scene to guide the heroine, and the outcome is almost as Ward Howe (1911). Lord Byrons Helmet (1927). My Cousin, F.
predictable as the plot: the heroine marries the artist, or, rejected Marion Crawford (1934). John Elliott, the Story of an Artist
by him, she pines away. (1930). Uncle Sam Ward and His Circle (1938).
Margaret Ruysdale, heroine of Atalanta in the South, (1886)
is a stranger from the North. A sculptor, she is as hard of heart as BIBLIOGRAPHY: Deland, M., Golden Yesterdays (1941).
the Atalanta she creates, a maiden, in whose veins owed the Reference works: NCAB. NAW (1971).
pure cool blood of the Puritans. The Southern setting is impor-
tant to the novel, as Elliott uses it to initiate her judgments of the VIRGINIA DARNEY
South and of the Civil War (a mistake). Margarets two suitors
are Dr. Philip Rondelet, a soft-spoken physician, gentle to women,
composed of the stuff of which martyrs are made, and Robert
Feuardent, a passionate Creole. In a complicated subplot of ELLIOTT, Sarah Barnwell
murder, intrigue, and secret marriages, Philip is accused of
murder; when acquitted, he leaves New Orleans to help ght the
Born 29 November 1848, Beaufort, South Carolina; died 30
plague in nearby Thebes. Like her own Atalanta, Margaret is
August 1928, Sewanee, Tennessee
caught by the fruit rolled at her feet by Robert. They marry at her
Daughter of Stephen and Charlotte Barnwell Elliott
family farm in New England. Philip dies of the plague shortly
thereafter. Although Margarets friends feel she made an unwise
The youngest of ve children, Sarah Barnwell Elliott was
choice (Elliotts sympathies obviously lie with Philip), it is clear
born at her grandparents plantation on the South Carolina coastal
that by following her heart, Margaret Ruysdale has made the
plains while her father, an Episcopal bishop, toured with his
right choice.
Georgia diocese. Leading a liberal, aristocratic family, Elliotts
Elliotts Art and Handicraft in the Womans Building (1893) father resisted hostile antebellum politics and helped to found the
remains the denitive description of womens activities at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, where Elliott
Worlds Columbian Exposition. In it, Elliott collected essays by lived most of her life. In 1866 she enrolled at Johns Hopkins, and
Mrs. Potter Palmer, Julia Ward Howe, Candace Wheeler, and by 1895 was supporting herself by writing in New York, where
19
ELLIS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
she became a suffragist. In 1902 she returned to Sewanee to rear rebels into maturity by returning to the South for a business career.
orphaned nephews in the family home. Investments supplant a lost love, and Janes millionaire proposes
well after she has discarded her dependence on him. Though she
A polite duty to Episcopal dogmatism restrains Elliotts rst
exaggerates Janes stoicism and success, Elliott naturalistically
novel, The Felmeres (1879). Virtually isolated in a mansion on the
exposes facets of a lady discovering her power of self-reliance. By
desolate coastal marshes, beautiful Helen Felmere swears to her
traveling, working, and investing earned income with her own
fathers agnostic creed, studies logic instead of sewing, and
lovelessly marries her cousin instead of supporting herself as an authority, Jane makes herself into a satised, independent person.
artist. A visiting painter stirs her repressed spirit with instruction Retired in Sewanee, Elliott championed the South and wom-
and respect for her art, and a black servant urges charity work, but an suffrage while writing criticism for the Sewanee Review and
Helen joins her husband in New York society. Helen attacks Forensic Quarterly Review. In 1907 she praised Ibsens stress on
conventional piety in the Gilded Age until a long-lost brother individual will restricted in a Norway mirroring the South.
baptizes her baby, and she casts herself beneath carriage wheels.
Dialogues on doctrinal controversy intrude on gloomy, gothic In a sentimental literary period, Elliotts measured transition
settings. from romanticism to naturalism portrays the local color of Texas
frontiersmen and Tennessee mountaineers before it condently
A Simple Heart (1887), which portrays a self-sacricing
realizes a self-sufcient womanly ideal. Disciplining her insights
frontier ministry, is Elliotts tribute to her brother, the Episcopal
missionary bishop of west Texas. In a dialect study, she shows an to make a signicant statement, Elliott turns from family doc-
itinerant carpenter fullling his dream of building a church, only trines and regional viewpoints to her own experience as a sensitive
to be rejected as his congregation grows more sophisticated. The woman in turbulent times. Through all the expansive plots and
carpenters wife teaches him to read the Book of Common Prayer symbolic settings, Elliotts distinctive character is a lonely outsid-
and invites a passing Episcopal bishop to ordain him deacon er earnestly working to build a new home in a puzzling, hos-
before she dies gazing at a man-sized cross. A quiet, naytral tile world.
grasp of scripture contrasts the preacher with both wild prayer
meetings and fashionable church rafes, but her pious pathos
diminishes her local color. OTHER WORKS: John Paget (1893). An Incident and Other
Happenings (1899). Sam Houston (1900).
No longer restrained by denominationalism, Elliott returns to
the frontier setting for her longest, most successful novel, Jerry
(1891). Young Jerry escapes a brutal home in the Tennessee BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mackenzie, C. C., Sarah Barnwell Elliott (Disser-
mountains to be reared by an isolated Western miner and educated tation, 1971). Maness, D. G., The Novels of Sarah Barnwell
by a guilt-driven doctor, who inspires him to be a gentleman. Elliott.: A Critical Study (Dissertation, 1974). Wiggins, B. L.,
Founding a school, holding off railroad speculators, and organiz- Library of Southern Literature (1909).
ing a mining collective, Jerry is a folk hero until an unexpected Reference works: AA (1938). DAB (1931). NAW, 1607-1950
inheritance corrupts his ambition. Serializing Jerry for Scribners (1971). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United
magazine, Elliott shifts her attitude repeatedly. Frontiersmen are States (1995).
innocent yet disgusting; wealth is corruptive yet the entrance to Other references: NYT (31 Aug. 1928).
gracious society; leadership is self-serving yet self-sacricing.
Jerrys closing shootout does not decide Elliotts romantic dilem- GAYLE GASKILL
ma in favor of either heroic force or social compassion.
Elliott compares two smug, isolated societies of Sewanee in
The Durket Sperret (1898). In their ancient pride of family spirit,
Cumberland mountaineers scorn the fastidious new university ELLIS, Anne
people, but young Hannah rejects her drunken mountain suitor to
become a ladys maid in town. Defying the Durket matriarch
Born 1875, Missouri; died August 1938, Denver, Colorado
leaves Hannah vulnerable to her employers patronizing improve-
Daughter of Albert L. and Rachel Sweareangen Heister; mar-
ment projects and to her vengeful suitors gossip until she escapes
ried G. Fleming, 1895; Herbert Ellis, 1901
both through a farming career. The elaborate rituals of a mountain
death, buryin, and will-reading show Elliott as anthropolo-
gist, and Hannahs silent attention to a professors discourse on When still a child, Anne Ellis traveled with her family behind
the Sewanee caste system displays Elliotts psychological acu- an oxen team to Silver Cliff, Colorado. As Ellis remembers: I
men. In Hannah and the Durket matriarch, Elliott builds her two went up the gulch at the age of six and came down at the age of
strongest character studies. sixteen. When she came down, a seasoned veteran of life in
Colorados mining towns, it was with the rst batch of experi-
Elliotts strongest novel, The Making of Jane (1901), chal- ences that would make her a writer.
lenges the womanly self-sacrice that denes heroism in her early
books. Fighting her childhood homesickness in New York, young Soon after the familys move from Missouri, Ellis father left
Jane lets her aunts strict tutelage repress all personality until she his wife for a job in Buffalo and never came back. One of Ellis
20
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ELLIS
earliest memories is of the abject poverty that drove her mother to ELLIS, Edith
take one of her pieced quilts door to door trying to trade it for food.
In 1882 her mother married a miner and the family moved to
Bonanza. Here, though never free of want, they survived the ups Born 1876, Coldwater, Michigan; died 27 December 1960, New
and downs of the mining business chiey through her mothers York, New York
ingenuity as a cook and seamstress. Miners (with names like Si Also wrote under: Edith Ellis Baker, Edith Ellis Furness
Dore and Picnic Jim), fancy women, cliff-climbing, rst Daughter of Edward C. and Ruth McCarthy Ellis; married
love, a rst milk cow, dances, tales of womens rights, and dresses Frank A. Baker (died 1907); C. Beecher Furness
made of cabin curtainsall these lled Ellis life and later her
writings. Though school consisted primarily of home mastery of a Ellis began her stage career as a child of three, performing
fth grade reader, Ellis remarked that when one cannot read, one with her parents touring company in the Midwest and South.
thinks a lot. Before she was twelve, three plays were written with starring roles
for Little Edith Ellis, the Rising Star. Her varied theatrical
Shortly after her mothers death in 1893, Ellis married and experience on the road included everything from performing in
moved to a new mine, the Only Chance, to stake a claim. Living vaudeville to heading her own stock companies.
from hand to mouth most of these years, Ellis spent much of her
spare time writing. In 1938, her friends rallied to pay for the Ellis and her rst husband leased the Park Theater and later
necessary clothes and traveling expenses, when she received a the Criterion Theater, both in Brooklyn, where she directed plays
telegram invitation to appear at the University of Colorado to for several years before her audacious move to the Berkeley
receive an honorary Master of Letters degree. At that time, she had Lyceum in New York as director and leading lady of her own play,
published her three autobiographical works: The Life of an The Point of View (1903). According to a New York Times
Ordinary Woman (1929), Plain Anne Ellis (1931), and Sunshine reviewer, it could not be said that at present she shines in any of
Preferred (1934). her three capacities.
The Life of an Ordinary Woman gives a valuable rsthand After her husbands death in 1907, Ellis resumed her maiden
description and analysis of the mining West. It focuses on the name to avoid confusion with actress Edith Barker. She acted less
variety of characters and activities characteristic to a mining town: frequently, but continued to write and direct. Of her approximate-
A New Mine, The Babys First Bed, Theatricals, See- ly 35 plays, eight of them produced in New York, the best was
ing a Prize Fight, Cripple Creek Troubles, and The First Mary Janes Pa (1908). A resourceful mother of two girls runs a
Telephone. In Plain Anne Ellis, Ellis details house-building, smalltown printing press and struggles to make ends meet. When
contracting with the government to travel with and cook for a the scholarly neer-do-well who had abandoned her and their
telephone gang, sheep shearing, race relations, Indian maneuvers, daughters 10 years earlier turns up, down on his luck, she hires
county politics, and equal rights conventions. Sunshine Preferred, him out of compassion as a cook and household help, without
though not as interesting as Ellis earlier works, nevertheless revealing his identity to their children. The town gossips are
offers a rare insight into sanitariums of the 1920s and 1930s and a scandalized at the idea of a male live-in servant in a household of
few glimpses of life in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico. women. In Act III, he is almost tarred and feathered by rioting
townspeople who have destroyed her press because of the politics
One of the most refreshing rewards of reading Ellis books is of her newspaper. This moment of danger determines her true
the abundant humor that characterizes her style. She also has a feelings. She acknowledges her husband, relinquishing a promis-
talent for putting herself in perspective, which greatly enhances ing relationship with a young politician.
the psychological insight that her works provide. Ellis observa-
tions are often straightforward accounts of an active mind and a Laurette Taylor starred in Ellis Seven Sisters (1911), adapt-
vibrant body for whom the Victorian mores of her era fell by the ed from the Hungarian of Ferencz Herczegh. The play was
wayside. Of her political experiences, she writes: These men, criticized for a situation that depended too heavily upon customs
who were supposed to be my friends, tried to make it hell for me; and manners considered alien to American audiences. Ten years
but I, who recognize no hell, was neither worried, frightened nor later, in Bettys Last Bet, Ellis transparently attempted to transfer
disturbed; in fact, I rather enjoyed it; holding the whip hand was the plot of the Hungarian play, which involves getting four sisters
for me a new experience. Its no surprise that this is the same married off to men of means and ideals, to an American milieu.
woman of whom Irene McKeehan, professor of English at the But the situation is even more strained in that Ellis reduced the
University of Colorado, said: Out of hardships and limitations time span of the actionintroductions, courtships, and engage-
she had made comedy and tragedy, touching the commonplace mentsfrom nine months to one day.
with the magic of interest, transmuting ordinary life into literature.
A forceful and outspoken personality, Ellis felt she had been
handicapped by her sex. Her favorite character type, like the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Colorado Quarterly (Summer 1955). NYT (30 mother in Mary Janes Pa, was a mature woman. After all, said
Aug. 1931, 19 Aug. 1934). NYTBR (29 Sept. 1929). Ellis, she is the only person about whom a play or a story can be
written. This is the day of the mature woman in real life and on the
SHELLEY ARMITAGE stage.
21
EMBURY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Speaking of her own work, Ellis told an interviewer: I know Emburys rst collection, Guido: a Tale; Sketches from
the forms of drama. I have eaten and drunk and slept them, but I History and Other Poems (1828), contains some of her more
dont believe in being hampered by them. I belong to a club of interesting poetry, as well as much which is conventional in
women dramatists, but I do not feel akin to them, for they discuss rhyme, subject matter, and expression. Poems with titles such as
the forms and how to remain within the forms. I try to get on Love, Absence, Friendship, and I Loved Thee Not
without them. I remember the forms, but am controlled by the reect Emburys adherence to the standard rhyme schemes and
impulse of character and the impetus of action. However, Ellis idealized sentiments of her day. At times, however, especially
instinct for the dramatic was not as sure as that of her model, G. B. when her narrative skill comes to her aid, her poems can command
Shaw, and she too often fell back on tired contrivances. respect. Although hampered by its inexibly rhymed couplets and
stereotyped pale and shrunken poet-protagonist, Guido cap-
tures the attention. The occasional variation of the rhyme pattern
OTHER WORKS: A Batch of Blunders (1897). Mrs. B. OShaughnessy and the sometimes moving, sometimes exasperating story of
(Wash Lady) (1900). Because I Love You (1903). Ben of Broken Guidos unrequited love for the beautiful Floranthe overcome the
Bow (1905). Contrary Mary (1905). Mary and John (1905). The poems defects.
Wrong Man (1905). He Fell in Love with His Wife (1910). My
Man (with F. Halsey, 1910). Partners (1911). The Love Wager; Unrequited love and silent suffering are two of Emburys
Vespers; Fields of Flax; The Man Higher Up (1912). The Ame- favorite themes; they are also in evidence in the other interesting
thyst Ring (1913). Cupids Ladder; Make-Believe; Man with the experimental work in this collection, the Sketches from Histo-
Black Gloves; The Devils Garden (1915). Making Dick Over ry. Generally in the form of a monologue and preceded by an
(1916). Mrs. Clanceys Car Ride (with Edward Ellis, 1918). explanatory headnote, these poems often have a power and
Bravo, Claudia (1919). Whose Little Bride Are You? (1919). Mrs. vitality not found in her more abstract ones. Jane of France
Jimmie Thompson (with N. S. Rose, 1920). The White Villa (1921; records that queens cry of despair when her husband divorces her
produced in London as The Dangerous Age, 1937). The Illustrious and she hears the harsh decree that robbed her of a throne.
Tartarin (1922). The Judsons Entertain (1922). The Moon and Scenes in the Life of a Lover are scenes in the life of Henry
Sixpence (1924). White Collars (1924). The Last Chapter (with Percy, lover of Anne Boleyn. Embury often does her best work
Edward Ellis, 1930). Open the Door! by W. Brandon (dramatiza- when she takes on a male persona or when a man is the protago-
tion by Ellis, 1935). Incarnation; a Plea from the Masters by W. nist, as occurs in this successful poem.
Brandon (dramatization by Ellis, 1936). The Lady of La Paz Embury was well known for her poetry, but her best work is
(1936). We Knew these Men by W. Brandon (dramatization by in her tales and short stories. The collection Constance Latimer, or
Ellis, 1943). Love in the Afterlife by W. Brandon (dramatization the Blind Girl, with Other Tales (1838) contains some energetic
by Ellis, 1956). and compelling prose, although the title story is not one of
Emburys best efforts. Her abilities are better displayed in two
shorter tales from the collection, The Son and Heir and The
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bjrkman, E., ed., Mary Janes Pa (1914).
Village Tragedy. Her use of male protagonists provide her with
Patterson, A., Edith EllisA Woman Insurgent Dramatist, in
a range of emotions and actions she seems unable to allow
Theatre Magazine (May 1909).
her women.
Other references: New York Dramatic Mirror (19 Feb. 1913).
Two other collections of short stories were published during
FELICIA HARDISON LONDR Emburys lifetimePictures of Early Life, or Sketches of Youth
(1830) and Glimpses of Home Life, or Causes and Consequences
(1848). These stories demonstrate the same strengths and weak-
nesses as her earlier ones. Unrequited love, silent suffering of
EMBURY, Emma (Catherine) Manley various kinds, and the moral lessons to be learned when material
wealth departs, are her most persistent themes, generally present-
ed in a conventional manner. Her description and characterization
Born 1806, New York, New York; died 10 February 1863, New
of women is essentially drawn from one conventional model, that
York, New York
of the blond, pale, liquid-eyed maiden, causing a certain lack of
Wrote under: Emma C(atherine) Embury, Ianthe
distinction among her heroines. At times, Embury suggests to the
Daughter of James Manley; married Daniel Embury, 1828
reader that she is capable of portraying a wider range of characters
and situations. Flora Lester, for example, a story about a
After her marriage to Daniel Embury, president of the reformed belle, provides some tantalizing hints that Embury
Atlantic Bank of Brooklyn, Emma Embury lived in Brooklyn the understood human behavior better than she generally cared to reveal.
rest of her life. She established a salon and published tales, poems,
and essays in prodigious quantity. Emburys work appeared in the The Poems of Emma Catherine Embury (1869) and Selected
leading popular magazines of the day for a period of years, and she Prose Writings of Mrs. Emma Catherine Embury (1893) were
was on the editorial staff of Godeys, Grahams, and Ladies published posthumously. The latter is notable chiey for Emburys
Companion. In 1848 a serious illness ended her writing career and essay on American literature, which pleads for nancial support
rendered her an invalid the rest of her life. for artists so America may have a literary class in society and a
22
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS EMSHWILLER
national literature. Emburys Female Education, an 1831 revised in 1991), two more collections of short stories. The latter
address, was published in Anna C. Bracketts Woman and the won the World Fantasy Award for the best short story collection
Higher Education (1893). Although Embury is a proponent of of 1991. In Yukon, a woman abandons her husband and home
education for women, she attacks Wollstonecraft and other femi- in order to live with a bear in the forest. In the title story, aliens
nists and nds educations benets to be in creating the best determined to conquer the Earth form an alliance with divorced
mothers possible. In this, Embury is typical of a time when women women to ght the ruling male establishment. In Looking
writers were exalting and perpetuating the values and ideas that Down, a half-bird, half-man is transformed by the power of love.
limited them most. Nevertheless, in her work Embury at times Love, whether or not it triumphs in the end, is a theme throughout
goes beyond the restrictions of her culture. this book as Emshwillers motley collection of bizarre characters
defy their mundane existence by embracing the unexpected and
OTHER WORKS: American Wild Flowers in Their Native Haunts extraordinary.
(1845). Loves Token Flowers (1845). The Waldorf Family, or Carmen Dog (1990), Emshwillers rst novel, also incorpo-
Grandfathers Legend (1848). rates elements of the fantastic. The novel is set in a world in which
human women are degenerating into various animals, while
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Griswold, R. W., The Female Poets of America animals are developing the characteristics of human women.
(1848). Poe, E. A., article in Godeys Magazine and Ladys Book Although critics panned this as silly, formulaic, and confusing,
(Aug. 1846). Rollins, J. A., Mrs. Emma C. Emburys Account most praised the humor in Emshwillers allegorical tale. Her
Book: A Study of Some of Her Periodical Contributions (1947). second novel, Ledoyt, was a departure from her usual reliance on
Reference works: American Authors, 1600-1900 (1938). plot elements from science ction and fantasy. Instead, Ledoyt is a
Cyclopedia of American Literature (1855). DAB (1934). realistic novel set in the American West of the early 1900s. In the
Other references: Catherine Grahams Magazine (Aug. 1843). novel, Oriana Cochran and her hired man, Beal Ledoyt, fall in
love and marry despite their radically different backgrounds and
JULIA ROSENBERG personalities. The story focuses on Lotti, Orianas daughter, who
tries to break up her mothers marriage. The rst person narrative
switches between the main characters and allows the reader an
intimate knowledge of each. Leaping Man Hill (1998) is the
EMSHWILLER, Carol sequel to Ledoyt.
Born 12 April 1921, Ann Arbor, Michigan Venus Rising (1992), a novella about an exiled alien who falls
Daughter of Charles C. and Agnes Carswell Fries; married in love with a being with a very different lifestyle, was shortlisted
Edmund Emshwiller, 1949 (died 1990); children: Eve, Su- for the 1992 James Tiptree Jr. Award, an award given to science
san, Peter ction novels and short stories that explore and expand gender.
Venus Rising was also published in Flying Cups and Saucers, an
Carol Emshwiller, an adjunct assistant professor in continu- anthology of Tiptree award winners and nominees. Among
ing education at New York University, is the author of three books Emshwillers other awards are a MacDowell Colony fellowship in
of short stories and three novels. Her writings borrow elements 1973, a New York State Creative Artist Public Service grant in
from science ction and fantasy to conceive highly original 1975, a National Endowment for the Arts grant in 1980, two New
and often outrageous plots. Told from a feminist perspective, York Council grants, the Pushcart Prize, and the 1999 Gallun
Emshwillers works comment upon the state of women in contem- award from the ICON Science Fiction Convention.
porary society. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction states that In addition to her position at NYU, Emshwiller makes
in her hands science ction conventions become models of our frequent appearances at science ction conventions around the
deep estrangement from ourselves (especially women) and from
country and offered writing workshops like the one at Clarion
the world.
West in Seattle during the summer of 1998. Emshwiller is also a
Raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Emshwiller earned a B.A. in contributor of short stories to literary and science ction maga-
music from the University of Michigan in 1945 and another B.A. zines, including Omni, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Century,
in design four years later. She then attended Ecole nationale Crank, Epoch, Croton Review, and TriQuarterly. Her stories have
superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. This was followed by also appeared in various anthologies like the seventh annual The
marriage to lmmaker Edmund Emshwiller (who died in 1990), Years Best Fantasy and Horror and the Penguin Book of Erotic
with whom she had three children. Emshwiller has taught work- Stories by Women. Works in progress include Boots, a novel
shops at the Clarion Science Fiction Writing Workshop in East combining fantasy with horses and the Old West.
Lansing, Michigan, and the Science Fiction Bookstore in New
York, and taught at New York University since 1978.
OTHER WORKS: Pilobolus and Joan (1974). Family Focus (1977).
Joy in Our Cause (1974), Emshwillers rst book, is com-
prised of short stories previously published in literary and science
ction magazines. This was followed by Verging on the Perti- BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CANR (1992). Encyclopedia of
nent: Stories (1989) and The Start of the End of It All (1990, Science Fiction (1993). Oxford Companion to the Womens
23
EPHRON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Writing in the United States (1995). St. James Guide to Science young sons. She chose screenwriting, which was not entirely
Fiction Writers (1996). unfamiliar to her. In 1978 she had written a CBS television movie
Other references: PW (26 Jan. 1990, 26 Apr. 1991, 28 Aug. called Perfect Gentlemen about four women hotel thieves. She
1995, 15 Apr. 1996). had also written an episode of the ABC series Adams Rib in 1973.
Her rst lm writing assignment came when she cowrote Silkwood
LEAH J. SPARKS with Alice Arlen, about real-life union activist Karen Silkwood.
The lms conclusion, about Silkwoods controversial death in an
automobile accident, became the focus for much discussion when
it was released in 1983. It also won Ephron and Arlen an Academy
Award nomination.
EPHRON, Nora
Ephrons screenwriting took many forms. In 1986 Mike
Born 19 May 1941, New York, New York Nichols directed Ephrons screenplay of Heartburn, which starred
Daughter of Henry and Phoebe Wolkind Ephron; married Dan Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson in the well-received but not
Greenburg, 1967 (divorced); Carl Bernstein, 1976 (divorced highly acclaimed movie version of her book. In 1989 she wrote
1979); Nicholas Pileggi, 1987; children: Jacob, Max the lighthearted romance about friendships between males and
females, When Harry Met Sally, which again earned her an Oscar
nomination and began her reputation as a writer of romantic
Nora Ephrons career has been a diverse one. She has worked
comedies. Her second collaboration with Arlen, Cookie (1989),
as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter, as well as a lm director
and her 1990 My Blue Heaven (both critical failures) are funny
and producer. In doing so she has brought humor, romance, and
gangster lms that taught her the importance of directing ones
her own personal story to her audiences.
own script. She and her sister Delia then wrote her rst directorial
Born the rst of four daughters to stage- and screenwriters effort, the under-attended This Is My Life (1992), the comic story
Phoebe and Henry Ephron of Carousel, Desk Set, and Take Her, of a single mother juggling her show business career with bringing
Shes Mine fame, she grew up with the understanding that up two girls. In 1993 she cowrote (with David S. Ward and Jeffrey
everything is copy. Her childhood was spent in Beverly Hills. Arch) and directed the highly acclaimed comic love story Sleep-
After graduating from Wellesley College in 1962, Ephron worked less In Seattle (starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan), which won
as a journalist, writing for the New York Post, Esquire, New York her a third Oscar nomination for screenwriting.
magazine, and Good Housekeeping, as well as numerous other
Ephrons next project was a script (again written with her
national publications. She wrote freelance articles and became a
sister Delia) called Mixed Nuts (1994), a black comedy about
contributing editor for New York and a senior editor for Esquire in
volunteers at a suicide hot line. This was followed by the box
the 1970s.
ofce hit Michael (1997), written with Delia, Peter Dexter, and
Her work as a journalist led her to publish several books of Jim Quinlan and starred John Travolta as an imperfect angel
essays. In 1970 she published Wallower at the Orgy, which traveling with three tabloid reporters. Ephrons latest highly
explores her clever interpretation of topics relating to the popu- acclaimed work, Youve Got Mail, is another romantic comedy
lar culture of the times. In 1975 she compiled 25 pieces on the based on the Ernst Lubitsch comedy The Shop Around the Corner.
womens movement. This work, Crazy Salad: Some Things About The lm (the result of another cooperative script produced with
Women, irreverently approaches the feminist movement from the Delia) reunites Sleepless in Seattle stars Hanks and Ryan, who
perspective of the everyday frustrations of women in their quest now portray warring bookstore owners in an e-mail love affair.
for freedom. The year 1978 brought yet another set of witty words
Ephrons writing career has led her where few women have
in her Scribble, Scribble: Notes on the Media, in which she
tread. In journalism and ction she was frank, witty, and unafraid
presents lively proles, parodies, anecdotes, and interviews on the
to say what she thought; in lm she took control of her writing and
written and broadcast media and how it ought to work.
became one of the few women directors in Hollywood. It is
In 1983 Ephron published her rst novel, Heartburn. This difcult to say where her writing will lead her next, but it is pretty
poignant and humorous story of a well-known cookbook author, certain it will be a place touched by her brand of humor and
who is seven months pregnant with her second child and discovers copy from her life.
her journalist husband is having an affair, was met with critical
controversy and acclaim when it was released. Material for the
story came directly from Ephrons own divorce from Washington BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: ANR 39 (1992). CBY (1990).
Post investigative reporter Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame. Contemporary Theatre, Film and Television 15 (1996).
Although it was a bestseller, critics questioned Ephrons choice of Other References: Macleans (9 Mar. 1992). New Republic
mixing ction with reality. (3 Mar. 1997). NYT (13 Dec. 1998, 18 Dec. 1998). Rolling Stone
(8 July 1993). Time (27 Jan. 1992, 21 Dec. 1998).
At the time of her divorce from Bernstein in 1979, Ephron
realized she needed to get a job that would support her and her two PAULA C. MURPHY
24
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS ERDRICH
ERDRICH, Louise Erdrich lls in the canvas of Native American/Anglo experience.

As Alice Walker made a crazy quilt of black womens experience,
Erdrich weaves a tapestry of Native American, half-breed, and
Born 6 July 1954, Little Falls, Minnesota
Anglo experience. Tracks, chronologically the earliest (1912-24),
Daughter of Ralph L. and Rita Joanne Gorneau Erdrich; married
sets much of the background for Love Medicine.
Michael Dorris, 1981; children: Reynold, Jeffrey, Madeline,
Persia, Pallas, and Aza The conict between Native American and Anglo beliefs in
Tracks is highlighted by Fleur Pillager and Pauline Puyat. Fleur,
Louise Erdrich continues to be one of our most important who possesses life-giving and creative powers granted her by the
contemporary writers. She writes poetry and some of the most water god for having twice drowned, acts as a counterbalance to
sophisticated ction and nonction being produced in the United the destructive power of the Catholic church as represented by
States. Many of her characters grow out of her own background as Pauline, a part-Canadian, part-Chippewa, who has forsaken her
a Native American woman who grew up off the reservation. Yet Native American past and her grasp on reality; she studies to
her writing is accessible to any reader willing to put forth a bit of become a nun with an order that does not take Native American
effort. Erdrich covers the range of human experience in her work: girls. When the loggers of the Anglo logging companies, helped
accidents of birth and parentage, falling in love, generosity, greed, by the government, defraud the Native Americans of their land,
psychological damage, joy, alienation, vulnerability, differentness, Fleur disappears into the wilderness with her shamanic posses-
parenting, aging, and dying. sions and Pauline takes her nal vows. Tracks, like Erdrichs
Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Tribe, other novels, is told by several narrators, adding light and shadow
grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota, where her German-Ameri- to the story of loss of the land, loss of loved ones, and loss of
can father and her Chippewa mother were teachers for the Bureau heritage.
of Indian Affairs. The eldest of seven children, Erdrich spent The Beet Queen focuses mainly on the white settlers of
much time on the nearby Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation Argus, North Dakota, but there is a connection with the other
visiting her maternal grandmother and learning about the conict books and with Erdrichs own past. The central action takes place
between the white and native cultures from which she had sprung. in the town where Fleur Pillager had worked briey, and much of
She attended the Wahpeton Indian Boarding School where both the story revolves around a butcher shop like the one in which
her parents taught, and throughout her childhood she wrote stories Fleur worked. The shop also recalls Erdrichs own German
for which her father paid her a nickel and her mother bound ancestors who were butchers. Further, ancillary, characters from
into books. Love Medicine populate the center of The Beet Queen, which
In 1972 Erdrich entered Dartmouth College, where she met covers the years from 1932, when the 11-year-old abandoned
her future husband, Michael Dorris, also part Native American, Mary Adare hops on a freight train to nd her aunt and uncle who
who later became her agent and collaborator. After her graduation are butchers in Argus, to 1972, when her grandniece is elected
in 1976, she returned to North Dakota and conducted poetry Beet Queen of the town. More than the other two novels, The Beet
workshops for the Poetry in the Schools Program. She attended Queen is a womans book. The men father children, die, or have
Johns Hopkins University and received an M.F.A. in creative strokes, but essentially lack the enduring power of Mary, her
writing in 1979. In 1981 she was named writer-in-residence in friend Celestine, and their child, Wallacette (Dot) Adare.
Dartmouths Native American Studies Program, which Dorris Love Medicine, Erdrichs rst novel, has a cast of characters
directs. Erdrich credits her ability to address both sides of her who have endured, despite the deprivations of reservation life, and
heritage to her collaboration with her husband. have become, like many of the poor the world over, rich in
Erdrich has published poetry, short stories, and three novels humanity. The large extended families of the Kashpaws, the
that have won critical acclaim. A series of short stories won the Lamartines, and the Morrisseys add color to the North Dakota
Nelson Algren award in 1982 and a Pushcart Prize in 1983; one landscape. The novel begins with the death of June Kashpaw and
was anthologized in Best Short Stories in 1983. She also won proceeds through a series of minor tragedies to the announcement
an O. Henry award in 1985. Her rst volume of poetry, Jacklight by Lulu Lamartine that Lipsha Morrissey is June Kashpaws son.
(1984), shows the same narrative force and sense of place that All the characters are interconnected.
make her ction so powerful. Erdrichs poems have a mythic
Erdrich nds a humorous vantage point that takes the despair
sense, gained from her Chippewa and German ancestry; they pay
out of her characters lives. It is, as she says, survival humor. She
particular attention to the details of family, tribal history, and
also has a mythic perspective that enriches even the smallest acts.
nature in connecting the individual to the universal experience.
Like Leslie Marmon Silko and James Welch, Erdrich portrays the
Writing about both her maternal grandmother and her Chippewa
painful and destructive side of Native American life, but she is
ancestors, Erdrich attempts to integrate the two sides of her own
also able to create those moments of true love and enrichment that
experience in the poems. A second volume of poems, Baptism of
give peoples lives meaningthe moment when Lipsha nds his
Desire, appeared in 1989.
mother, or when Grandma Kashpaw serves up the Love Medicine
While the poems have strength, humor, and a sense of the with a garnish of lettuce and peas. Within the prose of the novels
past in the present, it is in the series of family chronicles, Love the characters can escape the alcohol sold to them by whites, the
Medicine (1984), The Beet Queen (1986), and Tracks (1988), that convents forced upon them in place of their gods, the wars they
25
ESTES AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
have been sent to by the army, and the ever-present prisons to stretches over 100 years, centers on two Ojibwa families living in
which they are taken by their white jailers. Sometimes painful, modern-day Minneapolis, and covers themes familiar to Erdrichs
sometimes surrealistic, and always honest, Erdrichs language readers: love, family, history, and the complex ways these forces
frees all her characters from the death that whites would impose both bind and separate the generations. Erdrich offers pain and
upon themthe denial of their heritage. exhilaration in equal measure.
In Tracks and Love Medicine, Erdrich successfully began to In the rst of a cycle of novels partly based on her own family
chronicle the tragedy and the glory of the Chippewa nation. The history, The Birchbark House (1999) is a story told from the point
Beet Queen shows Erdrich is also well aware of the special
of view of a young Ojibwa girl on an island in Lake Superior in
tragedies that befall strong and enduring women no matter what
1847. Her novel Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse
their race, and her writing gives a lasting voice to them all.
will be available in 2000.
Erdrichs collaboration with Michael Dorris on The Crown of
Columbus (1991) is the culmination of her own critical approach
to her work. The story of two Dartmouth professors, the novel OTHER WORKS: Route Two (with Michael Dorris, 1991).
seems in many ways to parallel the lives of its authors, although
both have insisted that the narrators, Roger Williams and Vivian
Twostar, are the products of a truly collaborative effort. Both BIBLIOGRAPHY: A Bibliography of Writing by Louise Erdrich,
writers wrote sections for both characters, read each others drafts, in American Women Writing Fiction: Memory, Identity, Family,
and worked, revised, and edited together to create a seamless Space (1989). Coltelli, L., ed., Winged Words: American Indian
whole. The tone of the book quite closely resembles both Erdrichs
Writers Speak (1990).
Beet Queen and Dorriss A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, so it might
Reference works: CA (1985).CANR (1997). CB (1989). CLC
be argued that the two authors have submerged their individual
(1984, 1989). CLCY (1985). DLB (1997). FC (1990). MTCW
voices into one voice that speaks for both.
Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, Erdrichs work has States (1995).
grown in depth and luminosity. Readers of her North Dakota saga Other references: American Audio Prose Library (1986).
were rewarded with its continuation in The Bingo Palace (1994), Booklist (15 Feb. 1995, 1 May 1996). LJ (15 Apr. 1996). Missouri
as well as more poetry with Baptism of Desire (1989). Many of the Review (1988). Mother Jones (May/June 1991). Nation (26 Nov.
poems were written, according to an authors note, between the 1990). NYT Magazine (21 Apr. 1991). North Dakota Quarterly
hours of two and four in the morning, a period of insomnia (1985, 1987). Western American Literature 22 (1987).
brought on by pregnancy, and several of the poems refer to
pregnancy, birth, growth, and loneliness. MARY A. MCCAY,
Erdrich more fully explored the rhythms of pregnancy in The UPDATED BY CELESTE DEROCHE
Blue Jays Dance: A Birth Year (1995). Using essays, thoughts,
reections, recipes, and assorted snippets, Erdrich chronicles her
thoughts about being pregnant and raising her three daughters.
The title piece is about a blue jay who audaciously faces or
dances down an attacking hawk to win its own right to life. ESTES, Eleanor
Erdrich writes a captivating account of her attempt to juggle the
joys and demands of selfhood, writerhood, and motherhood. She
Born 9 May 1906, West Haven, Connecticut; died 15 July 1988
says,A woman needs to tell her own story, to tell the bloody
Daughter of Louis and Caroline Gewecke Rosenfeld; married
version of the fairy tale.
Rice Estes, 1932
Tales of Burning Love (1996) is comprised of 46 stories, all
revolving around Jack Mauser and his four wives. Yet, by the After high school, Eleanor Estes served as a librarian in the
design of the novel, Erdrich keeps the point of view of women in
childrens department of the New Haven Public Library, of which
the forefront of her readers consciousness. The novel is far less
she became head in 1928. For her outstanding work, in 1931 she
about Jack than it is about the reactions of women to him. Erdrich
was awarded the Caroline M. Hewins scholarship for library study
creates women who are quirky, passionate, and unpredictable.
at Pratt Institute, subsequently serving as a childrens librarian
She sometimes pushes her sensuous descriptions over the top, yet
with the New York Public Library. After the publication of her
the resulting near-parody is always entertaining. Also in 1996
Erdrich published the 30-page Grandmothers Pigeon, with lush rst book, The Moffats, in 1941, Estes devoted full-time to her
illustrations by Jim LaMarche. An almost-mythical childrens writing, eventually producing fteen books for children, one
story, Erdrich draws on her range as poet and novelist to create for novel for adults, The Echoing Green (1947), and a number of
children the magic her adult readers have come to expect. magazine articles.
When The Antelope Wife (1998) opens, a cavalry soldier The most highly regarded of Estes writings are her amusing
pursues a dog with an Ojibwa baby strapped to its back. The story stories of everyday family life, the earliest and best of which are
26
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS EVANS
the books about the Moffat family: The Moffats, The Middle The Witch Family (1960). Miranda the Great (1967). The Coat-
Moffat (1942), and Rufus M. (1943), none of which is a proper Hanger Christmas Tree (1973). The Lost Umbrella of Kim
novel. Set in Cranbury, Connecticut, just before and during World Chu (1978).
War I, each book consists of a series of episodes told from the
childs point of view and are presented as a whole with neither
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hopkins, L. B., More Books by More People
climax nor suspense. The Moffats introduces Sylvie, Joey, Jane,
(1974). Lowe, C., Eleanor Estes: A Bio-Bibliographical Study
Rufus, and their widowed, dressmaker mother; the family is hard
(thesis, 1958). Townsend, J. R., A Sense of Story (1971).
pressed for money, but rich in affection for one another. The tie
Reference works: The Junior Book of Authors (1951). Newbery
that binds the various adventures together is the threat of the sale
Medal Books 1922-55 (1955). SAA (1975).
of their yellow house on New Dollar Street.
Other references: Children Literature Review (1976). Elea-
Next came The Middle Moffat, and it mainly concerns Janes nor Estes (videocassette, 1991). Eleanor Estes and Margaret K.
involvement with Mr. Buckle, the oldest inhabitant of Cranbury, McElderry (video, 1975). Horn Book Reections (1969).
and his 100th birthday celebration, while Rufus M. focuses on the
ALETHEA K. HELBIG
doings of the youngest Moffat and has World War I as its
background. Although scarlet fever, lack of money, and similar
problems trouble the family occasionally, the books are never
gloomy. Mostly, the children have simple adventures at school,
about the town, or in their own neighborhood, usually distin-
EVANS, Abbie Huston
guished by some fresh and original twist. Characterization is full
and deep, strengthened by the accumulation of details as the books Born 20 December 1881, Lee, New Hampshire; died October 1983
proceed, so that the Moffats appear today as one of the best-loved Daughter of Lewis D. and Hester Huston Evans
families in literature for children. Warm, cozy stories which have
been translated into several languages, the Moffat books hold out Abbie Huston Evans grew up in Maine where she learned to
the assurance that good times will inevitably follow bad and love nature. The sparse but tenacious vegetation of the Maine
people of good will and perseverance will eventually win through. mountains and seacoast was to form the principal subject of her
poetry. Evans father, who had been a coal miner in Wales as a
Another family story, Ginger Pye (1951), won the John boy, was a congregational minister in Camden where Evans
Newbery Award from the American Library Association in 1952. taught Sunday school. Among her pupils was Edna St. Vincent
The Alley (1964) succeeds with characterization but never fullls Millay. Millay (whose poetry was known earlier and more wide-
its potential for interest, even though it offers the mystery of who ly) wrote in the foreword to Evans rst volume, Outcrop (1928):
burglarized the Ives home in the alley on the campus of Grandby These are the poems of one more deeply and more constantly
College. Its sequel, The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode (1972), one of aware than most people are, of the many voices and faces of lively
Estes last books, plods along, characters fail to engage the nature. . . . In reading them, you will nd yourself stock-still
emotions, and conversation seems seriously anachronistic and inept. before some object with which you have rubbed elbows all your
life but which you have never truly seen until that moment.
Among Estes other, less successful writings are her short
realistic pieces and her fantasies, all of which lack the freedom, Evans received her B.A. (1913, Phi Beta Kappa) and M.A.
spontaneity, and believability of her longer family stories. Of the (1918) from Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She
short realistic writings, the most highly regarded is The Hundred was a social worker in a Colorado mining camp during World War
Dresses (1944), about a Polish immigrant girl who is teased about I, and later taught dancing, art, and dramatics at the Settlement
her foreign name and old, blue dress. Although skillfully told from Music School in Philadelphia (1923-53), and College Settlement
the childs point of view, it is too obvious an attempt at promoting Farm-Camp in Horsham, Pennsylvania (1953-57).
intercultural understanding and tolerance. Like the tenacious, slow-growing junipers Evans celebrated,
her output has been small and slow, yet her talent is substantial
Estes was at her best in her earliest books, those about real
and enduring. Author of a total of four widely spaced volumes of
people in warm, close, family situations. In the Moffat books
poetry, Evans received many awards and honors such as the
particularly, she revealed her talent for writing about the world of
Guarantors Prize (Poetry, Chicago) in 1931, the Loines Memori-
children from their point of view in language typical of children,
al Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1960, and
without nostalgia, condescension, cuteness, or sentimentality. the New England Poetry Club Golden Rose Award in 1965. She
After the Moffats, she was never able to achieve quite the same received an honorary Litt.D. from Bowdoin College, Maine, in
degree of authenticity and inventiveness, and it is generally 1961, and she served as a member of the Advisory Board of
conceded that the Moffats built her reputation and that it rests Contemporary Poetry from 1940 onward. Her poems appeared in
upon them. the Nation and the New Yorker, and were recorded for the Library
of Congress in 1964.
OTHER WORKS: The Sun and the Wind and Mr. Todd (1943). The Celebrating craggy hills, storms, the seasons, rocks, icebergs,
Sleeping Giant (1948). A Little Oven (1955). Pinky Pye (1958). and even dinosaurs, Evans poems share the hard, austere beauty
27
EVANS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
of the subjects they evoke. The Mineral Collection ashes 1963 in Phylon, Negro Digest, and Dialog. In 1965 Evans
with color; even the inty rocks are part of the living earth. Evans received the John Hay Whitney Fellowship, the rst of her many
wrote in a spare, alliterative style. In her Collected Poems (1970), writing awards.
Evans, at age ninety, was still exploring new facets of natural
science, such as the Martian landscape. She rejoiced in the sheer The poems in Where Is All the Music? (1968), Evans rst
pleasure of sensory experience and of life itself: collection, explore individual struggles for human closeness in
direct language and powerful images. Her second and best-known
This is what it is poetry collection, I Am a Black Woman (1970), shows a shift in
To be alive;. . . . theme from personal struggles to the wider political issues of the
No edge but is lit, no cobble but glows. African American community and asserts black pride: Who can
Wakings beset; wherever I turn be born / black / and not exult. Highly praised for its sense of
Flarings play close within reach of my hand. realism and authentic voice, the book received many awards,
including the Black Academy of Arts and Letters First Poetry
award (1970). Like Hughes, Evans draws on African American
OTHER WORKS: The Bright North (1938). The Poems of Jean oral traditions to make her poems speak to and for the community.
Batchelor (edited by Evans and F. S. Esdall, 1947). Fact of A third collection, Nightstar: Poems from 1973-1978 (1981),
Crystal (1961). Abbie Huston Evans Reading Her Poems in the contains powerful explorations of earlier themes and contempo-
Recording Laboratory (audio recording, 1964). rary tragedies.
While primarily a poetwith poems appearing in over 200
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brandon, G., Quintet: Essays on Five American anthologies, textbooks, and periodicalsEvans is also known for
Women Poets (1967). Saul, G. B., Quintet: Essays on Five her stories and contributions to theater, television, and other
American Women Poets (1967). media. She has written six childrens books and seven plays
Reference works: CA (1976). Contemporary Poets (1975). including Eyes (1979), a musical adaptation of Zora Neale Hurstons
Their Eyes Were Watching God. Much of her writing has ap-
KAREN F. STEIN peared on record albums and in television specials and off-Broad-
way productions. In 1968 Evans began to produce, direct, and
write a highly acclaimed weekly television series The Black
Experience. The series, which focused on political and social
issues from an African American perspective, aired on WTTV,
EVANS, Mari Indianapolis, from 1968 to 1973. It was one of the rst television
shows produced by an African American woman.
Born 16 July 1923, Toledo, Ohio
children: William, Derek Evans is also known as editor of an extensive anthology of
biographical and critical essays entitled Black Women Writers,
Poet, dramatist, short story writer, and author of childrens 1950-1980: A Critical Evaluation (1984). This collection high-
books, Mari Evans has made signicant contributions to the lights 15 black women poets, novelists, and playwrights, includ-
tradition of 20th-century African American literature. Inuenced ing Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde. Black Women
as a child by the writing of Langston Hughes, her own poetic voice Writers was welcomed by critics as a much-needed addition to
emerged out of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, exploring African American literary study. Since 1969 Evans has taught or
both personal and political struggles within the black community. been writer-in-residence at a number of colleges and universities,
Dedicated to the promotion of black pride, Evans uses vibrant including Purdue, Indiana University, Northwestern, Washington
images and powerful language to analyze, inform, and inspire. University at St. Louis, Cornell, State University of New York at
Albany, and Spelman College.
Her rst story, written when she was in the fourth grade,
appeared in her school newspaper. Her father, an upholsterer who Besides editing her own anthology, Evans has contributed
was Evans primary caretaker after the death of her mother when her poetry to numerous collections gathered by others, particular-
Evans was seven, saved the story, showing her an impression- ly in the late 1960s and the 1970s. Dark Symphony: Negro
able black youngster, . . .the importance of the written word. Literature in America (1968) and Black Voices: An Anthology of
She discovered Langston Hughes The Weary Blues when she was Afro-American Literature (1968) were the earliest of her career,
ten and was greatly inspired by his words. He later became a while The Premier Books of Major Poets: An Anthology, Antholo-
mentor and a friend who, with her father, encouraged her to aspire gy of Childrens Literature, and 3000 Years of Black Poetry: An
to become part of the black American literary tradition. Anthology followed in 1970. The year 1972 brought contributions
to Afro-American Writing: An Anthology of Prose and Poetry,
As an undergraduate at the University of Toledo, Evans New Black Voices: An Anthology of Contemporary Afro-Ameri-
wrote a column for a black-owned weekly. Her discipline as a can Literature, and The Magic of Black Poetry. Understanding
writer was further enhanced by an apprenticeship as an editor at a the New Black Poetry: Black Speech and Music as Poetic Refer-
predominantly white manufacturing plant, despite the racism that ences (1973) and Black Out Loud: An Anthology of Modern
plagued her while there. Her rst published poetry appeared in Poems by Black Americans (1975) completed the series.
28
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS EVANS
In 1975 Evans received an honorary doctorate of humane of Elizabeth Ellison and the intertwining lives of her numerous
letters from Marion College. Among her other awards and honors friends and relatives. Throughout the novel, family and friends are
are a Woodrow Wilson Foundation grant, 1968; Indiana Universi- of primary importance and much time is spent together in rural
ty Writers Conference Award, 1970; Outstanding Woman of the retreats. Although public events like the Revolution, slave upris-
Year (Bloomington, Indiana), 1976; and a National Endowment ings, and English indenture practices occur, they only affect the
for the Arts Creative Writing Award, 1981-82. characters incidentally. Events of the private, domestic world
carry much more import.
Evans recent book, A Dark and Splendid Mass (1992),
further explores social issues in the context of the African Ameri- Resignation is lled with remarkable coincidences and cases
can culture. While not widely known, the book reinforces her of poetic justice. It dramatizes the vicissitudes of fate, and those
strength and depth as an author on this subject. An anniversary characters who maintain appropriate moral behavior throughout
edition of Singing Black, published in 1998 as Singing Black: all changes are ultimately rewarded. Consequently, the honorable
Alternative Nursery Rhymes for Children, is a poetry book for Elizabeth regains her lost family estate and is free to marry her
children aimed at encouraging young African Americans to take true love.
pride in their heritage.
Christianity is a primary theme in Resignation. In her pref-
Evans currently lives in Indianapolis. Although not as active ace, Evans justies the publication of the novel by stating its aim
publishing as in the past, she continues to draw the respect of the is to direct the eye of youth to heaven. Therefore, the story
literary community for her contributions to African American narrative illustrates a necessity for piety, fortitude, cheerfulness,
writing. and abstinence. Elizabeth demonstrates the appropriate response
to the inexplicable nature of life is resignation to Gods will
OTHER WORKS: J. D. (1973). I Look at Me! (1974). Rap Stories hence, the novels title.
(1974). River of My Song (1977). Jim Flying High (1979). To woman is given the role of preserving Christian morality,
Whisper (1979). New World (childrens musical, 1984). Boochie and Evans is concerned with dening the females proper
(one-woman performance, 1985). Portrait of a Man (1985). sphere. In addition to being religious guides, women are to be
teachers and pleasant companions to men. They should cultivate
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CANR (1989). CP (1991). DLB simplicity and gentleness. Women can ll their proper sphere by
(1985, 8 May 1999). FC (1990). Negro Almanac (1989). NBAW learning the accomplishments of their sex (singing, painting,
(1992). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United versifying), as well as useful skills (cooking, sewing, tending the
States (1995). WW in Black Americans (1992). WW in Writers, sick). A female writers work should show sweetness, dignity,
Editors and Poets (1992). elegance, and piety. She should concentrate her descriptive talent
on knowledge of the heart and on moral and religious lessons.
MARY E. HARVEY,
Resignation is a patriotic novel. During the story, loyal
UPDATED BY CARRIE SNYDER
Americans support the Revolution, praise the virtues of the young
nation, and utilize American-made products. Both men and wom-
en are interested in discussing the republics future, and they
EVANS, Sarah Ann generally agree that Christianity and the elevated sphere of
woman are central to Americas glory.
Born circa 1800; died date unknown Resignation does not display literary genius but it is an
Wrote under: A Lady interesting cultural document. The novel is conventional in con-
Married Mr. Lemonoskey tent and form, bound by the denition of the sphere of the female
writer. Nevertheless, Resignation illustrates the interests of many
Sarah Ann Evans is the supposed author of Resignation: An writers and readers of the early 19th century.
American Novel, By a Lady (1825). The National Union Cata-
logue Pre-1956 Imprints reports that Miss Evans later became SUSAN COULTRAP McQUIN
Mrs. Lemonoskey, but beyond this there are no published
details about her life.
Like many sentimental novels, Resignation focuses on pri- EVERMAY, March
vate lives and how people interact with one another. It is the story See EIKER, Mathilde
29
F
FAHS, Sophia (Blanche) Lyon director of the experimental Union School of Religion until it
closed in 1929.
Born 2 August 1876, Hangchow, China; died 14 April 1978, In 1937 Fahs began her long association with the Unitarian
Hamilton, Ohio denomination (which became the Unitarian Universalist Associa-
Also wrote under: Gertrude Helen Marshall tion in 1961). She served as editor of curriculum, assuming less
Daughter of David and Mandana Lyon; married Charles H. responsibility in 1954, and nally retiring fully in 1964, when she
Fahs, 1901; children: ve, two of whom died young was eighty-eight years old. During those years she wrote and
edited the religious education materials known as the New Beacon
Series in Religious Education. These materials, books for children
The fourth child of missionary parents, Sophie Lyon Fahs
and adults, and guide books for teachers and parents, revolution-
returned to the U. S. with her family in 1880. Her mother remained
ized religious education in the liberal churches, including branch-
in America when her husband returned to China, so that Fahs grew
es of the Quakers, the Ethical Culture Society, several Jewish
up in Wooster, Ohio, and graduated from Wooster College in
groups, and some of the more liberal mainline Protestant denomi-
1897. Fully intending to go out as a Christian missionary soon
nations, as well as the Unitarian-Universalists for whom they
after college, Fahs rst taught high school and then worked in the
were produced. During all these years Fahs was a frequent and
Student Volunteer Movement recruiting other students for the
effective speaker at churches and conferences. In 1959, at the age
missionary cause.
of eighty-two, she was ordained into the liberal ministry.
In 1898 she became engaged to Charles Harvey Fahs, who
Fahs book, Todays Children and Yesterdays Heritage: A
also expected to follow a missionary career, but for reasons of
Philosophy of Creative Religious Development (1952), is a sum-
health these plans did not materialize. Before the marriage, Fahs
mary of her matured philosophy and examines the ideas behind
did graduate work at the University of Chicago studying the
the many childrens books she produced. The books she wrote and
higher criticism of the Bible; thus began a broadening of her
edited all display her hard-won conviction that we cannot give
orthodox religious beliefs which continued for the rest of her long
our children a growing and creative religious life. A ne religion
life. When she died in 1978 at the age of 101, she had become a
is a personal achievement. A persons religion is built on
symbol of the most progressive, liberal position in the eld of
experience, primarily, and this experience can be enriched and
religious education.
interpreted through books, Fahs believed.
In 1904, following her marriage and a move to New York
Her style of writing was deeply inuenced by a course she
City, Fahs received her M.A. from Columbia University, where
took in 1904 with Dr. Walter Pitkin at Columbia University,
she studied in an atmosphere charged with excitement from the
which emphasized that when writing for children every sentence
ideas of the great progressive educator, John Dewey. Fahs began
should be composed of concrete words rather than of descriptions
at once to apply the methods of the progressives to the message of
and summaries, and the younger the child for whom one was
Christian orthodoxy, and during the next 20 years the method
writing the more specic the concrete detail should be. For this
completely transformed the message. The articles and books she
reason, Fahs demanded of herself and all who worked under her
wrote between 1906 and 1976 reected the progression of her
painstaking research and delity to the facts.
beliefs, which moved like the colors of the rainbow from the
pallid, somber purples of orthodoxy through to the brilliant reds of
radical unorthodoxy.
OTHER WORKS: Ugandas White Man of Work (1907; revised
Fahs was the mother of ve children, three of whom grew to edition, 1970). Red, Yellow, and Black (1918). Racial Relations
adulthood. The process of educating these children was another and the Christian Ideal (1923). Exploring Religion with Eight
major liberalizing force in her thinking. During the childrearing Year Olds (with H. F. Sweet, 1930). Beginnings of Earth and Sky
years she was torn between her role as wife and mother and the (1937). Beginnings of Life and Death (with D. T. Spoerl, 1938;
dream that possessed her of transforming the Sunday schools of revised edition, with Beginnings of Earth and Sky, 1958). Martin
America into educationally signicant institutions. She once and Judy in Sunshine and Rain (with V. Hills, 1940). Consider the
wrote: I tremble before the task I am trying to make for myself. Children: How They Grow (with E. Manwell, 1940). Growing
Bigger (with E. Manwell, 1942). Leading Children in Worship
During these years Fahs worked as a teacher and director of (1943). Jesus: The Carpenters Son (1945). The Church Across
religious education in various churches. In 1927, she graduated the Street (with R. D. Manwell, 1947; revised edition 1962). From
with a B.D. from Union Theological Seminary and was the Long Ago and Many Lands (1948). The Old Story of Salvation
31
FAIRBANK AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
(1955). Worshipping Together with Questioning Minds (1965). disillusionment, partial corruption, and eventual courageous be-
George Fox: The Man Who Wouldnt (1971). havior when tested make up the substance of the novel. The Bright
Land (1932), perhaps Fairbanks nest novel, tells the life story of
Abby-Delight Flagg, child of New England Puritans, brought up
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hunter, E. F., Sophia Lyon Fahs: A Biogra- in a world where women face hard work and, all too often, early
phy (1966). death in childbirth. Partly to escape her dour father, she elopes,
Other references: Religious Education (Sept.-Oct. 1956, Ju- and the second half of the novel tells of her married life in Galena,
ly-Aug. 1966, Jan-Feb. 1968, Nov.-Dec. 1976). Illinois, during its years rst as a boom town and then in decline.
Like Ann Smith, Abby-Delight grows in strength and wisdom, but
EDITH F. HUNTER she has more humor and is less idealized than Ann.
Once popular, Fairbanks ction is neglected now. Her
favored Illinois settings during the 19th and 20th centuries are
FAIRBANK, Janet Ayer objectively presented, and her characters, particularly her women,
are sharply and believably delineated. The novels move at a
leisurely pace, sometimes with little action, although Fairbank
Born 7 June 1878, Chicago, Illinois; died 28 December 1951, occasionally attempted even battle scenes. In The Cortlandts of
Wauwautosa, Wisconsin Washington Square, her impressionistic presentationfrom the
Daughter of Benjamin F. and Janet Hopkins Ayer; married point of view of a young woman caught up in itof the Battle of
Kellogg Fairbank, 1900 Gettysburg is gripping. Her studies of historical trends and
political issues are serious and perceptive. Although the quantity
The older sister of novelist Margaret Ayer Barnes, Janet Ayer is not great, the quality of her work is high; her claim upon our
Fairbank was educated in private schools and attended the Univer- attention is greater than has been recognized in recent times.
sity of Chicago. A dedicated worker for woman suffrage, Fairbank
was a member of the executive committee of the Democratic
National Committee (1919-20), served as Illinois Democratic OTHER WORKS: At Home (1910). In Town, & Other Conversa-
national committeewoman (1924-28), and was a delegate to the tions (1910). Three Days More (1910). Report of National Wom-
ans Liberty Loan Committee for the Victory Loan Campaign,
Democratic National Convention in 1932. During World War I
April 21st to May 10th, 1919 (compiled by Fairbank, 1920). Idle
she was a member of the Womans National Liberty Loan
Hands (1927). The Alleged Great-Aunt by H. K. Webster (com-
Committee and of the Illinois Committee of the Womans Divi-
pleted by Fairbank, with M. A. Barnes, 1935).
sion of the Council for National Defense. Before World War II,
she was a national ofcer of the America First Committee, and in
1940 she campaigned for Willkie. Fairbanks most notable phil- BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: NCAB, 39. TCA.
anthropic activity was her 24 years on the board of the Chicago Other references: Chicagos Authors Celebrate Chicago
Lying-in Hospital, including service as its president. (cassette, 1988). The Grolier Library of Womens Biographies
(1998). Literary Digest International Book Review (Sept. 1925).
Three of Fairbanks novels form a trilogy. The Cortlandts of NYTBR (15 Oct. 1922, 28 June 1925, 7 Dec. 1930). SR (7 Jan.
Washington Square (1922) introduces Ann Byrne, ten-year-old 1933, 12 Dec. 1936).
ward of a wealthy New Yorker, and follows her growing up in the
years prior to and during the Civil War. The novel concludes with MARY JEAN DEMARR
her marriage to Peter Smith, a young worker from Chicago who
promises they will be partners. The Smiths (1925), set in
Chicago, stretches from the Civil War almost to World War I, the
story of a marriage: Anns shattering discovery that to Peter being FAIRFIELD, A. M.
partners does not mean involving her in his business; the birth See ALCOTT, Louisa May
and rearing of children; and Peters growth in wealth and status.
Throughout, Anns increasing strength and wisdom parallel the
rise of the city. Rich Man, Poor Man (1936) centers on Anns
grandson, Hendricks Smith, and his wife, Barbara, tracing their
FARLEY, Harriet
involvement in Roosevelts Progressive Party, World War I, and
the suffragist movement. Though sometimes described as a suf- Born circa 18 February 1813, Claremont, New Hampshire; died
frage novel, the book does not depict the movement fully, and 12 November 1907, New York, New York
the portrayal of Barbara, the suffragist, is not completely sympa- Daughter of Stephen and Lucy Saunders Farley; married John I.
thetic. Fairbanks interest was in character delineation, not in Donlevy, 1854
propaganda.
The sixth of 10 children of a congregational minister and his
Her two other novels of note both bear thematic relationships wife, who became harmlessly insane after bearing the child-
with the trilogy. The Lions Den (1930), a political novel, has as its ren, Harriet Farley began contributing to her familys support
protagonist an idealistic young Wisconsin congressman. His when she was fourteen. After plaiting straw for hats, binding
32
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FARMER
shoes, and engaging in other home manufacturing, she made a dress for mother and a nice black silk handkerchief for her
brief and unrewarding attempt to teach, and then went to work in father to wear around his neck on Sundays. All of the rest of her
the Lowell textile mills in 1837. In Lowell, as the autobiographi- savings have been deposited in the bank, and her father bursts into
cal Letters from Susan show, she felt free to attend lectures, tears over the bankbookproud of her prudence, self-command,
sample different churches, and join an improvement circle. In and lial affection.
spite of the 13-hour working day and the crowded corporation
Farleys poetry, like most of the poetry in her magazines, is
boardinghouse, she felt that the work offered the best economic
undistinguished: lacking true details, it is more removed than her
rewards for women and didnt require very violent exertion, as
other writing from the real experience of the workers lives.
much of our farm work does.
When the two products of the improvement circles, the
OTHER WORKS: Shells from the Strand of the Sea of Genius
Lowell Offering and the Operatives Magazine, were bought by a
(1847). Operatives Reply to. . .Jere. Clemens (1850). Happy
local Whig newspaper in 1842 and combined under the name of
Nights at Hazel Nook; or, Cottage Stories (1854). Fancys Frol-
the Lowell Offering, Farley and Harriott Curtis, assisted by Harriet
ics; or, Christmas Stories Told in a Happy Home in New Eng-
Lees, became editors and, later, owners.
land (1880).
Under attack from Sarah G. Bagley and others, Farley denied
that her magazine was supported by the corporations, but Farleys
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Eisler, B., The Lowell Offering: Writings by New
father and brother both received help from mill-owner Amos
England Mill Women (1977). Foner, P. S., The Factory Girls
Lawrence, and the Hamilton Company bought up $1,000 worth of
(1977). Josephson, H., The Golden Threads: Near Englands Mill
back numbers during the Lowell Offerings last year.
Girls and Magnates (1949). Robinson, H. H., Loom and Spindle;
Determinedly genteel and noncontroversial, the Lowell Of- or, Life Among the Early Mill Girls (1898).
fering lost its audience as the 10-hour movement gained in Reference works: DAB. NAW. NCAB.
strength, and its appeal waned even further when the well-written
SUSAN SUTTON SMITH
labor paper, the Voice of Industry, appeared in Lowell in October
1845. The Offering ceased publication in December, but after the
failure of the 10-hour movement in 1847, it was revived as the
New England Offering, with Farley as both editor and publisher.
Her efforts, however, again proved unsuccessful with the operatives.
FARMER, Fannie Merritt
After the failure of the Offering in 1850, Farley moved to New
York City, where she became a contributor to Godeys Ladys Born 23 March 1857, Boston, Massachusetts; died 15 January
Book. After her marriage, Farley gave up her writing, since her 1915, Boston, Massachusetts
husband did not approve. Daughter of John F. and Mary Watson Farmer
Farleys avowed intention in the publications she edited was An attack of paralysis, which maimed her for life, prevented
to bring a little cheer into the lives of female operatives, and the seventeen-year-old Fannie Farmer from attending college. For
the literary nature of the magazines was, she thought, above sordid a time, she worked in the family kitchen, where her interest in
issues. Her rst signed editorial said of the operatives: We cooking found an outlet in the preparation of meals for boarders in
should like to inuence them as moral and rational beings. . . .Our the home. Her health improved, and, at twenty-eight, she enrolled
eld is a wide one. . . .With wages, board, etc., we have nothing to in the Boston Cooking School. After her graduation in 1889, she
dothese depend on circumstances over which we have no was appointed assistant to the principal, Carrie M. Dearborn.
control. Farley assumed her readers were too ladylike to press Upon the latters death in 1891, Farmer became director of the
for reforms by surrounding City Hall in a mob, but, if wronged, Boston Cooking School.
would seek redress in some less exceptionable manner.
In 1902 she established her own school, Miss Farmers
Farleys essays and stories, though sometimes self-con- School of Cookery. The schools curriculum emphasized the
sciously literary and tiresomely inspirational, often provide practice rather than the theory of cooking, and it specialized in
insights into the lives and aspirations of the female factory cooking for the sick and convalescent. In addition to her work at
workers. Her most interesting sketchesbecause most realistic the school, Farmer wrote a popular cookery column for the
and closely based on her own experienceare the Letters from Womans Home Companion and lectured to such diverse groups
Susan, which appeared in the 1844 editions of the Lowell as nurses, womens clubs, and the Harvard Medical School. In
Offering. Susan gives her rst impressions of Lowell, of the 1908 Farmer suffered a stroke that completely paralyzed her legs,
crowding and noise as well as the economic and intellectual but she continued to fulll her professional commitments up to the
independence. Such stories as The Sister and Evening before time of her death. Just 10 days before she died, Farmer delivered
Pay-Day use factory and boardinghouse backgrounds for senti- her nal lecture.
mental homilies of self-sacricing sisters or daughters.
One of Farmers chief contributions to the art of cooking was
In Abbys Year in Lowell, the dutiful daughter returns the standardization of measurements. In an age when haphazard
home with some little books for the children, and a new calico measurements prevailed and cookbooks listed the vaguest of
33
FARNHAM AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
rulesa pinch, a lump the size of an egg or walnut were on her theory of female biological and moral superiority. During
common termsFarmer insisted upon exact proportions. In her the Civil War, she became involved in the Womens Loyal
books, quantities are accurately stated. While women were still National League, which sought a constitutional amendment abol-
considered emotional and unscientic, Farmer transformed cook- ishing slavery. She also nursed the wounded at Gettysburg.
ery from mere guesswork into a science.
Farnhams writing shows the independence of mind, the
The style of Farmers writing is lucid, concrete, and clear. curiosity, and the strength that she exhibited in her life. Life in
She assumes nothing and takes pains to educate the reader Prairie Land (1846) is a vivid account of her experiences in
regarding elementary cooking terminology and measurements. In Illinois. The account of her life in the West, California, In-Doors
Food and Cookery for the Sick and Convalescent (1904), her and Out (1856), is colorful and compelling. The reader is drawn
recipes for invalids are accompanied by advice and recommenda- into the world of California after the Gold Rush, when a womans
tions regarding their care. Although Farmer considered her lifes appearance brought crowds of gaping men to the street. In this
work to be the development of cooking and diets for the sick, very uid, primitive society, Farnham bought her own ranch, built
including the diabetic, she is best known today for her immensely her own house, and traveled on horseback unchaperoned. The last
popular rst work, The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (1896). part of the book, which describes and evaluates California society
This work ran into 21 editions before her death, and continues to and culture, tends to be moralistic, although Farnhams analysis of
be a standard work today. Although H. L. Mencken, in 1930, the particular problems of women in frontier society is penetrating.
criticized the work for its provinciality and Yankee practicality
Eliza Woodson (1864; a revision of My Early Days, 1859) is
and simplicity, most readers would agree with K. Smallzrieds
an autobiographical novel treating Farnhams life as a foster child
assessment in The Everlasting Pleasure: It is doubtful whether
in a home where she was treated as a household drudge and denied
any home or any food company has escaped the inuence of
the benets of a formal education. The ctional heroine reects
Fannie Merritt Farmer, indirect if not direct.
Farnhams own character as a tough, determined individual who
works hard to achieve her goals, overcoming all obstacles. Clear-
OTHER WORKS: Chang Dish Possibilities (1898). What to Have ly, Farnhams independence of thought and her interest in biologi-
for Dinner (1905). Catering for Special Occasions, with Menus cal evolution originated in her childhood.
and Recipes (1911). A New Book of Cookery (1912).
Woman and Her Era (1864), Farnhams major work, argues
that women are not only morally superior to men but biologically
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hopkinson, D., Fannie in the Kitchen (1999). superior as well. Her position is based on the following syllogism:
Smallzried, K. A., The Everlasting Pleasure (1956). Vare, E. A., Life is exalted in proportion to its Organic and Functional
Women Inventors & Their Discoveries (1993). complexity; Womans Organism is more complex and her totality
Reference works: DAB. NAW. NCAB 22. of Function larger than those of any other being inhabiting our
Other references: American Mercury (July 1944). Time (29 earth; Therefore her position in the scale of Life is the most
May 1978). exalted, the Sovereign One. Reproductive functions, commonly
cited to demonstrate female inferiority, are used in Farnhams
SUSAN E. SIEFERT philosophy to place woman far above the male.
The same idea dominates The Ideal Attained (1865). This
novels heroine, Eleanora Bromeld, is an ideal, superior woman
FARNHAM, Eliza Woodson (Burhans) who tests and transforms the hero, Colonel Anderson, until he is a
worthy mate who combines masculine strength with the nobility
of womanhood and is ever ready to sacrice himself to the needs
Born 17 November 1815, Rensselaerville, New York; died 15
of the feminine, maternal principle.
December 1864, New York, New York
Wrote under: Eliza W. Farnham In a society that dened the true woman as submissive, pure,
Daughter of Cornelius and Mary Wood Burhans; married Tho- and weak, Farnham forged her own denitions of female selfhood
mas Jefferson Farnham, 1836; William Fitzpatrick, 1852 and lived by her own standards. Both her theory and practice
(sometimes contradictory) provided alternatives for women
While her rst husband was away on exploring expeditions unsatised with the narrow lives laid out for them by their culture.
in the Far West, Eliza Woodson Farnham developed her interests
in reform. Her most controversial work was at Sing Sing prison
OTHER WORKS: Rationale of Crime by M. Sampson (introduction
where, as matron from 1844 to 1848, she revolutionized the
by Farnham, 1846).
treatment of female prisoners through her phrenological approach
to the problem of rehabilitation. She resigned after frequent
conicts with conservative staff members who denounced her BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bower, K. S., Eliza Farnham, Western Adventur-
environmentalism and determinism. In California, where she er, 1815-1865 (slideshow, 1982). Dawes, J. A., Women Writers
went in 1849 to settle her rst husbands estate, she visited and and the American Wilderness: Responses to the Frontier in
criticized San Quentin prison and lectured on various subjects. In Caroline Kirklands A New Home Wholl Follow? and Eliza
1858 she addressed the New York Womens Rights Convention Farnhams Life in Prairie Land (thesis, 1997). Davies, J. D.,
34
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FARRAR
Phrenology, Fad and Science (1955). Kirby, G. B., Years of evident in Ex-Love (1937), an expos of the alimony racket.
Experience (1887). Lewis, W., From Newgate to Dannemora: Here, a greedy and jealous woman gratuitously divorces her
The Rise of the Penitentiary in New York, 1796-1848 (1965). loving husband and then holds him to a large alimony settlement,
Mount Pleasant State Prison Annual Report of the Inspectors although she is wealthy herself and he has been ruined by the
(1846). Prison Association of New York First, Second and Third Depression. Again, blackmail saves the day, but does not save the
Reports (1845, 1846, 1847) and First Report of the Female hero from a stint in jail and the loss of his new wifes child.
Department (1845). Woodward, H. B., The Bold Women (1953).
Three other novels are set in the Susquehanna valley. Marsh-
Reference works: DAB. HWS. NAW. NCAB.
Fire (1928) is the story of another scheming woman, who gets
Other references: Atlantic (Sept. 1864). New York Tribune
ahead in business by abject attery of males. Wild Beauty (1930),
(16 Dec. 1864). NYT (18 Dec. 1864).
made into a movie (Wayward) in 1932 by Paramount, is another
KAREN SZYMANSKI
tale of domineering parents and children seeking their own lives.
Farnhams last novel, The Tollivers (1944), mixes social comedy
with eccentric characters.
These novels by Farnham are not very well written, and
FARNHAM, Mateel Howe perhaps most of their interest lies in their autobiographical ele-
ments. In their depiction of marriage, small-town society, and
Born 1883, Atchison, Kansas; died 2 May 1957, Norwalk, business adventures, they are fairly typical of their times.
Connecticut
Daughter of Edgar W. and Clara Frank Howe; married Dwight T. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bucco, M., E. W. Howe (1977). Farnham, D. T., A
Farnham, 1910 Place in the Country (1936). Farnham, D. T., Be It Ever So
Humble (1942). Farnham, D. T., The Embattled Male in the
Daughter of an editor and novelist, and named after a Garden (1941). Sackett, S. J., E. W. Howe (1972).
character in her fathers most famous novel, The Story of a Other references: NYT (3 May 1957). Saturday Evening Post
Country Town (1883), Mateel Howe Farnham wrote a number of (25 Oct. 1941).
popular novels herself. Little is known about her education,
except that she attended Mount Vernon Seminary in Washing- BEVERLY SEATON
ton, D.C. She married an engineer who wrote three humorous
autobiographical books about their country home and garden. Her
rst novel, published rather late in life, won a $10,000 prize.
FARQUHARSON, Martha
Of her novels, the three set in the Midwest are her best work. See FINLEY, Martha
Rebellion (1927), her prize-winning rst novel, has an interesting
background and the fascination of autobiographical revelations.
Dedicated to her mother, whom I have never known to do a
selsh or an unkind thing, the novel clearly exposes some of the FARRAR, Eliza (Ware) Rotch
tensions and morbidity of the Howe family life. Like Howe, the
father in the novel is a depressed and bitter man who takes out his
unhappiness on his family. While the family sketched in this book, Born 12 July 1791, Dunkirk, France; died 22 April 1870, Spring-
the Burrells, does not parallel the Howe family in many outward eld, Massachusetts
circumstances, the central conict of the story also pits the strong- Wrote under: Eliza Farrar
minded girl Jacqueline against her domineering father. Set in New Daughter of Benjamin and Elizabeth Barker Rotch; married
Concord, Kansas, the novel champions the right of the daughter to John Farrar, 1828 (died 1853)
live her own lifego to college, get a job, and marry the man of
her choice. Her vain, egotistical father would like her to be a Daughter and granddaughter of Nantucket Quakers who had
Southern belle. After many conicts, she marries suitably, despite emigrated to France to establish a tax-free whaling port, Eliza
her fathers abnormal jealousy, and gets her inheritance by Rotch Farrar went with her family to England during the Reign of
blackmailing him. Terror. At her fathers estate near Milford Haven she received an
excellent education and grew up among eminent European and
Farnhams two other Midwest novels, Lost Laughter (1933) American visitors. When her father lost his fortune in 1819, she
and Great Riches (1934), both focus on the rise of young men in went to live with her grandparents in New Bedford, Massachu-
country towns, with a suitable complement of domineering par- setts. Disowned as too liberal by the Quaker meeting there, she
ents and scheming women. became a Unitarian. Except for trips to England to visit her
parents, she spent the rest of her life in Massachusetts.
Farnhams work is shot through with gothic elements
family secrets, letters withheld from dependents, and rich, eccen- In her Address to Parents at the beginning of The Child-
tric visitorsin the same way that her fathers work is. Her novels rens Robinson Crusoe (1830), Farrar praises Defoes work for its
also share with her fathers a tendency to preach, as is most spirit and naturalness: It seems to be exactly what it
35
FAUGERES AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
purports to be, the narrative of a profane, ill-educated, runaway Schlesinger, E. B., Two Early Harvard Wives: Eliza Farrar and
apprentice of the 17th century. Farrar then asks, Can such a Eliza Follen, in NEQ (June 1965).
tale, though perfect in itself, be suited to children who have been Reference works: Female Prose Writers of America, with
carefully guarded from all profaneness, vulgarity, and supersti- Portraits, Biographical Notices, and Specimens of Their Writing
tion? Her version of Crusoe is accordingly cleansed of such (1852). NAW. NCAB.
faults as his disobedience to his parents, and his inordinate love
of adventure and endowed with qualities parents would wish SUSAN SUTTON SMITH
their children to admire and cultivate: industry, perseverance,
resignation to the will of God. To increase the utility of her
heros adventures, Farrar adds as much information about
domestic arts as could well be interwoven with the story and FAUGERES, Margaretta V. (Bleecker)
makes Friday into a native of a mild, affectionate, and tractable
nature.
Born 11 October 1771, Tomanick, New York; died 14 January
Farrar presented another proper hero to be emulated by 1801, Brooklyn, New York
children in The Story of the Life of Lafayette as Told by a Father to Daughter of John J. and Ann Eliza Schuyler Bleecker; married
His Children (1831). Henry Moreton tells his father he wishes he Peter Faugeres, 1792
lived in the days of Alexander or Caesar and could see these great
men; his father takes issue with Henrys idea of these men as Margaretta V. Faugeres was an heiress to both the wealth and
great, and reminds him that he has seen on Boston Common one the intellectual traditions of two of the most respected families in
of the most extraordinary men that ever lived! Again, the heros New York. Against her fathers wishes, she married a French
life acquires value as an example and lesson, but his actions are physician, Peter Faugeres. Called an indel, Faugeres was
generally left to speak for themselves without intrusive moraliz- actually a member of the popular Jacobin circles. Margaretta was
ing. The tale takes 17 evenings. Stirring events are briskly and an enthusiastic supporter of what she took to be the new millenium
clearly related, the moral intent doesnt interfere with the often of human freedom; her choice of Bastille Day as marriage day
exciting story and interesting anecdotes, and many vignettes of shows the whole bent of her alliance; she was marrying a
Moreton family life provide humor. movement rather than a man. Unfortunately, her husband abused
her and quickly ran through the fortune left to her by her father.
A manual of advice, The Young Ladys Friend (1836), was Faugeres and her infant daughter were reduced to living in a
Farrars most important work, widely popular in England and granary for some time in 1796. Her husband died of yellow fever
America and reprinted as late as 1880. Farrar addresses her work in 1798, and Faugeres thereafter supported herself by teaching
to middle-class girls who have nished school. It opens with a school in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and Brooklyn, New York.
brisk chapter of warning to those who assume that their intellectu- Broken in health and spirit, she was only twenty-nine years old
al life ends when they leave the schoolroom and a second chapter when she died.
On the Improvement of Time. It closes with a chapter on
Mental Culture and impressive lists of books for a course of The majority of Faugeress work was produced before she
reading on history, biography, and travel. In between, she holds was twenty. In 1793, Faugeres prepared The Posthumous Works
to an essentially conservative view of womans peculiar call- of Ann Eliza Bleecker, a collection of her mothers work supple-
ing, but emphasizes practical details of behavior and treats these mented with Faugeress own poetry and prose, including an
with gentle amusement and, above all, common sense. affecting Memoir. After 1795, she wrote some pieces for the
New York Monthly Magazine and the American Museum and, in
The Young Ladys Friend provides valuable insight into the 1797, published The Ghost of John Young, but her literary
activities and preoccupations of the 19th-century American mid- output was hampered by her family problems.
dle class. Recollections of Seventy Years (1865), Farrars last
book, furnishes fascinating glimpses of life in England and France Her tendency towards sentimental melancholy, the sadness
between 1783 and 1819. Her method is anecdotal, and many of her sincere, is expressed in highly articial language in the early
lively anecdotes seem, in themselves, to furnish enough material poems included in The Posthumous Works. Although rendered
for entire novels. Farrar cared for her invalid husband for 14 years fairly obscure by an abundance of private references, her poetic
before his death in 1853. These are the tales she told to enliven his language is very formal, with few naturalist touches. There is an
sickroom. They remain beguiling entertainment today. excessive use of the infelicitous neoclassical poetical devices:
eecy tribe is substituted for sheep, birds are the featherd
choir, personications are overabundant. The unhappy and short
OTHER WORKS: John Howard (1833). The Youths Letter-Writ- life of her mother, acting upon an immature imagination, to which
er (1834). the pose of melancholy seemed the height of human delicacy,
contributed to the themes that would now seem morbid for an
eighteen-year-old girl.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Carson, G., The Polite Americans (1966). Hop-
kins, V. C., Prodigal Puritan: A Life of Delia Bacon (1959). Supplementing these sad strains are several lively patriotic
Lynes, R. J., The Domesticated Americans (1963). poems. Faugeres was genuinely convinced of the noble renewal of
36
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FAUSET
human liberty embodied by the American and French revolutions. graduated Phi Beta Kappa and spent many years teaching French
In her long topographical poem, The Hudson (1793), one of at an all-black high school in Washington, D.C.
the few pieces in which she employs natural description, Faugeress
primary purpose is to give an account of the political history of the Correspondence from 1903 with W. E. B. DuBois, the black
Hudson River during the American Revolution. sociologist, led Fauset to early involvement with the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
In 1795 she offered Belisarius: A Tragedy to the John Street In 1919 DuBois persuaded her to move to New York City to work
Theatre. It was refused, but published by subscription the same with The Crisis, of which he was the editor. As its literary editor
year. Written simply and tastefully in blank verse, the message of from 1919 to 1926, Fauset discovered and published Langston
pacism, antimaterialism, and the vanity of power is extraordi- Hughes, Countee Cullen, Jean Toomer, Claude McKay, and other
nary for the times. In a clear analogy with French politics, Harlem Renaissance writers. She also published her own
Belisarius is the just man caught between corrupt courtiers on the work, held and attended innumerable literary soirees with black
one hand, and heartless and cruel revolutionists on the other. and white writers, and traveled abroad with DuBoiss Pan-African
Belisarius represents uncompromising human values. The play conferences. Fauset edited and did most of the writing for the
quietly exposes the vanity of fame and pomp and maintains the Brownies Book, a delightful monthly magazine for black children.
sacredness of ordinary human life.
Fauset also contributed to black American literature a large
The further development of Faugeress maturity of mind and body of her own creative writing. Her poetry, frequently
political opinion can be seen in The Ghost of John Young, a anthologized, her short stories, and her essayswhich show
monody opposing capital punishment, shewing how inconsis- sensitivity to racism and sexism worldwidewere published
tent sanguinary Laws are, in a Country which boasts of her primarily in The Crisis, 1912-29, and in the Brownies Book,
Freedom and Happiness. 1920-21. It is for her novels, however, that Fauset is primarily
remembered.
Faugeres appears to have been an extraordinarily fair and
good woman, a favorite among her literary acquaintances There Is Confusion (1924) was written in response to the
whose life of early genius and promise so quickly disintegrated picture drawn of black life by a white writer, T. S. Stribling, in
into ruin. Her political idealism is typical of many talented women Birthright. Fauset believed she could more accurately and honest-
of this era; so is the personal tragedy that prevented many of them, ly depict characters of her own race. Through the story of Joanna
Faugeres included, from living long enough to develop maturity Marshall and Peter Bye, from childhood to marriage, she makes
of literary judgement and production. clear her themes and concerns. History, heredity, and environ-
ment impinge on the free will of Fausets characters, and their
roles as women and black Americans come close to limiting and
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bleecker, A. E.,The Posthumous Works of Ann dening them. Joanna and Peters growth is seen in their being
Eliza Bleeker in Prose and Verse to Which is Added a Collection freed of their obsessions with bitterness, respectability, and suc-
of Essays, Prose and Poetical (1993). cess. Fausets execution is often weak in her rst novel, but the
Reference works: Biographie Universelle, M. Michaud (1855). subjects she explores make the book worthwhile.
CAL (article on Ann Eliza Bleecker, 1877). FPA. NAW (article on
Ann Eliza Bleecker by L. Leary). Nouvelle Biographie Generale, Fausets second novel, Plum Bun (1929), deals with a topic
J. C. F. Hoefer (1958). frequent in black literature: Angela Murray, the lighter of two
sisters, passes for white. Attention by critics to the subject
L. W. KOENGETER
matter of the book has led to their ignoring its formal strengths,
which represent a distinct improvement over the writing in
Fausets rst novel and which make Plum Bun the best of her
four novels.
FAUSET, Jessie Redmon The Chinaberry Tree (1931) concentrates in a rather nostal-
gic way on black home and community life in a small New Jersey
village. Formally, it takes Greek mythology and drama as its most
Born 27 April 1882, Camden County, New Jersey; died 30 April
immediately recognizable analogue. The comparison with Greek
1961, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
drama is evident, from a tragically inescapable family curse with
Daughter of Redmon and Annie Seamon Fauset; married Her-
overtones of incest, to the seasonal pattern of death and rebirth.
bert Harris, 1929
Fausets last published novel zeroed in on the ironies of
Jessie Redmon Fauset was the youngest of seven children American black life with more directness and less sentimentality
born to an African Methodist Episcopal minister in Philadelphia. than any of her earlier work. In Comedy: American Style (1933),
Fausets family was poor, but her fathers black church position racial discrimination is internalized in the black characters, par-
and interest in books and art kept the family working, aspiring, ticularly in the destructive power of Olivia Carey. Themes have
and discussing. The children were educated as much as biases not changed much from Fausets 1924 novel, but what has
would permit. With opportunities nearer to home shut off because changed is her willingness to unstintingly depict those who are
of her race, Fauset, the rst black woman at Cornell University, destroyed by their environments, as well as those who overcome
37
FELTON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
them. Olivias actions, destructive to her children, are motivated Macon, Georgia. When the war ended, they returned to Cartersville
entirely by her desire to be white and her hatred of blacks. At the to nd their home and elds destroyed. Undaunted, Felton and her
same time, Comedy: American Style discusses a strong, positive husband rebuilt their property and acquired more land. To bring in
black culture, supporting those characters, such as Olivias hus- money, they ran a school for young children.
band and oldest son, who embrace it. Formally, the novel is
divided into dramatic elements: Plot, Character, Teresas In 1874 Dr. Felton entered politics as the congressional
Act, Olivers Act, Curtain. The bitter comedy of Ameri- candidate of the Independent Democrats, those revolting against
can life is played out to a bitter end. the conservative Bourbons, who dominated state politics. Felton
was in her element in the rough-and-tumble world of politics.
Fausets literary strengths are those of her own character. Because it was considered improper for a woman to participate
Intelligence and curiosity are supplemented by kindness, gener- openly in politics, Felton worked behind the scenes, writing her
osity, graciousness, and tolerance. She had no dominating pas- husbands speeches and attacking the Bourbons in newspaper
sion, no driving opinions which scattered all else before them. Her articles. Felton won the election and they moved to the capital.
books are more exploratory than dogmatic, more searching than Felton was so skillful a politician and publicist that her husbands
protesting. The facts of her life and her time make clear the opponents claimed the Seventh District had two representatives in
struggle and hard work which gave her strength. Congress, both husband and wife. Dr. Felton was reelected in
1876 and 1878, but was defeated in his bid for a fourth term. In
1884 he was elected to the state legislature, where he served
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Aptheker, H., ed., The Correspondence of W. E. B. three terms.
DuBois (1973). Bone, R., The Negro Novel in America (1966).
After her husbands retirement from politics, Felton began a
Bontemps, A., The Harlem Renaissance Remembered (1972).
career as a reformer. She spoke out against the brutal convict lease
Braithwaite, W., in The Black Novelist (1970). Davis, A., From
system, both because of the institutions barbarity and because
the Dark Tower: Afro-American Writers, 1900-1960 (1974).
most of the contracts were held by her Bourbon enemies. A devout
Gayle, A., The Way of the New World: The Black Novel in
Methodist, she joined the Womens Christian Temperance Union
America (1976). Huggins, N., Harlem Renaissance (1971).
and became one of its most effective speakers. She appealed to
Hughes, L., The Big Sea (1940). Sylvander, C. W., Jessie Redmon
women to work to have liquor outlawed, citing the shame and
Fauset, Black American Writer (1980).
brutality visited on innocent women whose men drank. She also
Reference works: Black American Writers Past and Present:
shrewdly utilized racism by raising the spectre of drunken black
A Biographical and Bibliographical Dictionary (1975). Proles
men lusting after white women. Her efforts were rewarded in
of Negro Womanhood (1966). TCA, TCAS.
1908 when Georgia passed statewide prohibition. Later, Felton
Other references: CLAJ (1971, 1974). Freedomways (Winter
campaigned for woman suffrage and against the League of
1975). Phylon (June 1978). Southern Workman (May 1932).
Nations.
CAROLYN WEDIN SYLVANDER Feltons literary career began while her husband was in
politics. She enjoyed her verbal duels with the Bourbon leader-
ship, playing a sort of hit-and-run game by attacking them
unmercifully and then hiding behind her dignity as a woman when
they responded in kind. In 1885 she and Dr. Felton purchased the
FELTON, Rebecca Latimer Cartersville Free Press as a campaign organ. They renamed it the
Courant, and Felton ran it singlehandedly for over a year. For 28
Born 10 June 1835, DeKalb County, Georgia; died 24 January years she wrote a column for the Atlanta Journal, offering
1930, Atlanta, Georgia household hints and advice on personal problems and etiquette,
Also wrote under: Mrs. W. H. Felton and publicizing her reforms.
Daughter of Charles and Eleanor Latimer; married William H.
Felton had a long memory and never forgave her enemies.
Felton, 1853
Her rst book, My Memoirs of Georgia Politics (1911), pays
tribute to Dr. Felton and the Independents and denounces the
Rebecca Latimer Feltons father, a tavern keeper and the Bourbons, most of whom had died years ago. While her accusa-
local postmaster, believed his daughters should be as well educat- tions of fraud and corruption were true, they were presented in a
ed as boys and helped build a school in the community. Felton partisan manner and with little attempt to check the accuracy of
graduated from the Madison Female College in 1852, and the the sources. Country Life in Georgia in the Days of My Youth
following year married a widowed physician and Methodist (1919) is primarily a record of her middle years and her husbands
minister. The rst years of Feltons married life were uneventful. political campaigns. The Romantic Story of Georgias Women
She devoted herself to caring for her stepdaughter and raising her (1930) offers brief biographies of Revolutionary War heroines
own three children. During the Civil War, the Feltons were in the and contemporary reformers and an extended autobiography of
path of Shermans invading army and were forced to ee to herself.
38
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FERBER
Felton achieved a lifelong dream to hold political ofce critically ill at deaths door, but God had sent her back to nish her
herself in 1922, when she was appointed to ll the brief term of the work. She compares her book to the pebble with which David
late Senator Thomas E. Watson. By special arrangement with slew Goliath, hoping its religious attitudes will be so slung as to
Walter George, Watsons elected successor, Felton was allowed smite one philistine.
to appear on the oor of the Senate, present her credentials, and be
sworn in. The next day, she made a brief speech and retired, Fennos subjects in both poetry and prose are mostly tradi-
allowing George to take his seat. She returned to Georgia, the rst tional and religious. Her religious tone is one of sweet self-
woman U.S. senator, if only for a day. assurance; her persona expresses neither tension nor doubt about
the state of her soul or Gods mercy. Some poems exhibit an early
Felton should be remembered more for what she did than for romanticism; however, each nature poem ends conservatively
her writing. In many ways, she was the prototype for such modern with praise of the Deity. Indeed, graveyard romanticism is preva-
women activists as Bella Abzug. Though forced by the conven- lent in many of Fennos ostensibly religious verses. Occasionally
tions of the postwar South to use her literary talents in traditional a feeling of sweetness and languor, enhanced by her smooth-
areas, she managed to extend these conventions to include politics
rhymed couplets, invades a poem, contradicting the harsh tones of
and social reforms. If Feltons autobiographical writings were
traditional New England religious expression. Unfortunately, her
somewhat self-serving, this may be forgiven, for she had much of
childish metrics often devalues the serious ideas which she
which to be proud.
expresses.
The last third of her collection is organized as a series of short

OTHER WORKS: On the Subjugation of Women and the
sermonic essays. Many of these subjects duplicate those found in
Enfranchisement of Women (1915).
her sentimental and religious verse. As in her poetry, the tropes in
Fennos prose reect the inuence of early romanticism.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Talmadge, J. E., Rebecca Latimer Felton: Nine
Fennos verse and prose reveal a dedicated attempt to experi-
Stormy Decades (1960). Thompson, C. M., Reconstruction in
ment with the sophisticated and complicated literary modes and
Georgia; Economic, Social, Political 1865-1872 (1915). Vann
ideas of her age while remaining within a religious context. Her
Woodward, C., Origins of the New South, 1877-1913 (1951).
Reference works: NAW. simple but often skillfully atmospheric works show that by the late
Other references: Georgia Historical Quarterly (March 1946, 18th century, American women had begun to consider themselves
June 1946). Georgia Review (1955). as serious writers and had consciously accepted their expanding
roles as spiritual and moral guides for the young republic.
JANET E. KAUFMAN
JACQUELINE HORNSTEIN
FENNO, Jenny
FERBER, Edna
Born circa 1770; died death date unknown
Born 15 August 1887, Kalamazoo, Michigan; died 16 April 1968,
Jenny Fenno, a resident of Boston, Massachusetts, and a New York, New York
Baptist by religious persuasion, wrote during the last quarter of Daughter of Jacob C. and Julia Neuman Ferber
the 18th century. Biographical information is practically nonex-
istent, but Fennos choice of subject, style, and diction reects
a fairly substantial education and indicates the inuence of Edna Ferber began her writing career as a newspaper reporter
the diversied middle class cultural ambience ourishing in in Appleton, Wisconsin, as well as in Milwaukee, and Chicago,
postrevolutionary New England. but wrote her rst novel, Dawn OHara (1911), during a pro-
longed illness. She earned sudden success and great popularity
Original Compositions in Prose and Verse; on Subjects with her stories of Emma McChesney, a traveling saleswoman.
Moral and Religious (1791) reveals a dedicated, ambitious writer.
Subjects range from the simply religious to areas of contemporary In 1925 Ferber won the Pulitzer Prize for So Big (1924), her
philosophical and literary interest. Typical of most early Ameri- best novel, and a few years later saw her novel Show Boat (1926)
can women writers, Fennos preface attempts to draw attention transformed into a classic American musical. Her love of the
away from her evident ambition and sophistication as a writer. theater was further indulged through her successful collaboration
She presents an image of feminine piety and shy modesty; she with George S. Kaufman, with whom she wrote such popular
insists she avoided public exposure of her private thoughts; plays as Royal Family (1928), Dinner at Eight (1932), and Stage
and she nds in an act of Providence her excuse for such an Door (with G. S. Kaufman, 1936, lm version 1937). Royal
aggressively unfeminine act as publishing: once she had been Family was successfully revived in 1975. Ferber was seriously
39
FERBER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
disillusioned by World War II; her postwar novels were more quickly, and Ferber switches the conict from Virginian vs.
idea-laden and contrived, although she remained a popular novel- Texan lifestyles to a conict between cattle and oil. Giant
ist to her death. contains devastating portraits of wealthy Texans and acid social
criticism of their treatment of Mexican Americans.
In So Big, Selina Peake, the properly raised daughter of a
gambler, is forced to make her own way in the world after her Ferbers writing remained untouched by the innovations of
father is accidentally killed. She takes a teaching position in High her contemporaries. She was neither responsible for any innova-
Prairie, a Dutch farming community outside Chicago, and spends tions of her own, nor did her own work appreciably evolve in
the rest of her life there. After the death of her husband, Selina terms of style, content, or structure. Still, her work deserves
struggles by herself to run their truck farm and to raise her son, serious consideration for her treatment of the land, her feminism,
Dirk, nicknamed So Big. Dirks youth is the counterpoint in and her egalitarianism.
every respect of Selinas. Where she cherishes life, he cherishes
Even when Ferber writes about the land, her novels are rst
success; where she reveres beauty, he reveres money. By the
and foremost about womenstrong women, pioneer women,
novels end, Dirk is an immensely wealthy, successful, miserable
women determined to hold on to the land and to keep their families
young man.
together. The women always triumph and often survive their men;
Show Boat deals with three generations of womenParthenia the visionaries see their dreams come true, and the practical ones
Ann Hawks, Magnolia Hawks Ravenal, and Kim Ravenalbut see the present inexorably improving toward the future. Although
the novel centers on Magnolia, her bizarre childhood on her Ferber is not in the tradition of the great American literary
fathers showboat, her idyllic love affair with Gaylord Ravenal, experimenters, she is a solid member of another tradition, that of
her marital difculties as she learns that her husband is a con- the celebrators of America.
rmed gambler, and her determination to provide for her daughter
after Gaylords desertion. As in many Ferber novels, the heroines
OTHER WORKS: Buttered Side Down (1912, recording, 1995).
daughter is not nearly her mothers equal. Also as in most Ferber
Roast Beef, Medium: The Business Adventures of Emma McChesney
novels, there is a subplot concerned with racist attitudes, here
(1913). Personality Plus: Some Experiences of Emma McChesney
about the mulatto showboat actress Julie, whose role was expand-
and Her Son, Jock (1914). Emma McChesney and Co. (1915).
ed in the musical.
Fanny Herself (1917, recording, 1995). Cheerful by Request
Cimarron (1929) is Ferbers most overtly feminist novel. (1918, recording, 1995). Half Portions (1920). $1200 a Year
Sabra Venable Cravat moves with her husband Yancey to the (with N. Levy, 1920). The Girls (1921). Gigolo (1922, lm
recently opened territory of Oklahoma. Despite his many talents, version, 1926). Eldest (1925). Minick (with G. S. Kaufman, 1925;
Yancey is impractical and irresponsible and seems unable to stay lm versions, 1925, 1932). Mother Knows Best: A Fiction Book
in one place longer than ve years at a time. In addition to the (1927, lm version, 1928). American Beauty (1931, reissue,
housework and the raising of her children, Sabra nds herself 1997). They Brought Their Women: A Book of Short Stories
helping with Yanceys newspaperthe rst in Oklahomaand, (1933, Braille, 1998). Come and Get It (1935, lm version, 1936,
on those occasions when Yancey abandons her, running it her- recording, 1998). Nobodys in Town (1938). A Peculiar Treasure
self.Yancey is the dreamer; Sabra the doer. She becomes Oklaho- (1939). The Land is Bright (with G. S. Kaufman, 1941). Great Son
mas rst U.S. congresswoman. (1945). One Basket: Thirty-One Short Stories (1947). Bravo (with
G. S. Kaufman, 1949). Ice Palace (1958, lm version, 1960). A
Clio Dulaine Maroon, the protagonist of Saratoga Trunk Kind of Magic (1963). Saratoga: Roman (1993). Edna Ferber:
(1941, lm version 1945), is as close as Ferber ever came to Stories (1996). One Basket, 31 Short Stories (1996). Personality
creating an antiheroine. Clio, the illegitimate daughter of an Plus (recording, 1997).
established Creole family (the Dulaines) on her fathers side and a
series of loose women (including a free woman of color) on her
mothers, returns from France to New Orleans to avenge herself BIBLIOGRAPHY: Anderson, G. T., Edna Ferbers Showboat: As
on the Dulaines and to make her fortune by marrying a million- Literature and as Film (1991). Freytag, B. A., The Tip of the
aire. Clio realizes at the last minute that love is more important Iceberg (1988). Shaughnessy, M. R., Women and Success in
than money, but luckily Clint Maroon, a Texan adventurer who American Society in the Works of Edna Ferber (1976).
has been making his fortune among the detested railroad men Reference works: CA (1969, 1971). TCA, TCAS. Wisconsin
while Clio tries to marry one of them, can now provide both love Writers: Sketches and Studies (1974).
and money. Other references: A Christmas Sampler: Classic Stories of
the Season, from Twain to Cheever (1992). Chicagos Authors
Giant (1952) is much like Cimarron in its treatment of place: Celebrate Chicago (cassette, 1988). Chicago Jewish Forum 13.
Texas. Leslie Lynnton Benedict, genteel Virginian, who must MTJ 13. NYTBR (5 Oct. 1952). Six Prairie Authors Biographies
adapt to her amazing husband Bick (a male of mythic propor- (audiovisual, 1991).
tions), is believable and engaging, particularly as a young bride in
rebellion against the Texan gentrys lifestyle. But she matures too CYNTHIA L. WALKER
40
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FIELD
FIELD, Kate Although Field demonstrated considerable literary talent, her

importance lies less in what she wrote than in what she represent-
edthe accomplishments of an intelligent and independent Ameri-
Born Mary Katherine Keemle Field, 1 October 1838, St. Louis, can woman in the late Victorian era. Her signicance as a
Missouri; died 19 May 1896, Honolulu, Hawaii journalist stems from her views on the news, including reform
Daughter of Joseph M. and Eliza Riddle Field efforts and politics, in an era when it was unusual for a woman to
found and run a newspaper.
The daughter of an actor and newspaper publisher and an
actress, Kate Field became the ward of a millionaire uncle,
Milton L. Sanford, following her fathers death when she was OTHER WORKS: Adelaide Ristori (1867). Mad on Purpose: A
eighteen. The Sanfords nanced her education at Lasell Seminary Comedy (1868). Charles Albert Fechter (1882).
in Auburndale, Massachusetts, and took her to Italy, where she
was the darling of Anthony Trollope and other members of the
writers colony in Florence. Her support for the Union in the Civil BIBLIOGRAPHY: Beasley, M. H., The First Women Washington
War caused Sanford, a Southern sympathizer, to change his mind Correspondents (George Washington University Studies, 1976).
about making her his heir. Field, K., Kate Field: Selected Letters (1996). Moss, S. P.,
American Episodes Involving Charles Dickens (1999). Sadlier, M.,
To support herself she turned to journalism, writing travel
Anthony Trollope (1927). Trollope, A., An Autobiography (1883).
letters for the Springeld (Massachusetts) Republican and other
Whiting, L., Kate Field: A Record (1899). Woodward, H., The
newspapers. She lectured on the lyceum circuit, wrote humorous
Bold Women (1953). Telling Travels: Selected Writings by Nine-
accounts of various journeys to Europe, and undertook a mildly
teenth-Century American Women Abroad (1995).
successful theatrical career. She also did commercial publicity.
Reference works: DAB, III, 2. NAW. NCAB, 6.
The Drama of Glass (n.d.) was a slick advertisement for the Libby
Other references: NYT (31 May 1896). Records of the Colum-
Glass Company disguised as a brief history of glassmaking.
bia Historical Society (1973-74).
Although she received valuable stock for publicizing the newly
invented telephone, she lost the proceeds in an unsuccessful
MAURINE BEASLEY
dressmaking venture to promote simpler styles.
Desiring a platform for her views, she founded a weekly

newspaper, Kate Fields Washington, which lasted from 1890 to
1895. She died a year later in Hawaii, where she had gone to
regain her health after the newspaper failed. Her literary work FIELD, Rachel Lyman
reected her eclectic interests. She published scores of articles in
journals such as Atlantic Monthly; Pen Photographs of Charles Born 19 September 1894, New York, New York; died 15 March
Dickenss Readings (1868) contains attering descriptions of 1942, Beverly Hills, California
Dickenss readings on his lecture tour of America and served as Wrote under: Rachel Field
the basis of her own successful lecture on Dickens; and Planchettes Daughter of Matthew D. and Lucy Atwater Field; married
Diary (1868) presents a shallow account of her experiences with Arthur S. Pederson, 1935
the Victorian forerunner of the Ouija board.
Genuine gifts of humor and social satire characterize Hap- Descended from a distinguished family, Rachel Lyman Field
Hazard (1873), a collection of letters from the New York Tribune was educated in public schools. She attended Radcliffe College
featuring the trials of a lady lecturer and poke fun at both the and later wrote synopses for a silent lm company. For about the
British monarchy and the nouveau riche American tourists. Ten rst two-thirds of Fields writing career, she was primarily a
Days in Spain (1875) bristles with her American middle-class writer of juvenile literature for children of varying ages. Her one-
prejudices displayed on travels through Spain during a political act plays (many separately published in acting versions) in-
upheaval. clude farces, comedies, serious and poetic dramas, modern
reinterpretations of old stories, and nostalgic period pieces. Lack-
Kate Fields Washington focused on her own personality and ing literary pretension, they are nevertheless stageworthy. Fields
special interests. It featured book reviews, theatrical news, novel- juvenile poems also show her versatility, for she worked in a
ettes, and drawing-room comedies, often written by Field herself. number of forms and types, but tendencies toward sentimentality
Although slight in content, several of her plays were produced. and rhythmic monotony lessen their effectiveness.
Her kaleidoscopic opinions championed numerous causes: tem-
perance (not abstinence); the right of the rich to conspicuous The best of Fields work for young people is to be found in
consumption; cremation; prohibition of Mormon polygamy; in- three juvenile novels. Hitty: Her First Hundred Years (1929) was
ternational copyrights; the arts; and tariff and civil service reform. awarded the Newbery Medal for childrens literature. Set in the
She weakly endorsed womans suffrage. 19th century, it is the history of a wooden doll, narrated by herself.
41
FIELDS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
The parts depicting the Maine Field loved are especially vivid and Folk and Fairy Tales (edited by Field, 1929). Pocket-Handker-
evocative. Calico Bush (1931) covers one year (1743-44) in the chief Park (1929). A Circus Garland (1930). Patchwork Plays
life of a French girl indentured to an English family who settle in (1930). Points East: Narratives of New England (1930). The
Maine. Her sense of isolation, both as a foreigner and as a pioneer, Yellow Shop (1931). The Bird Began to Sing (1932). Fortunes
is well conveyed, as are the terrors and delights of frontier life. Caravan by L. Jean-Javal (adapted by Field, 1933). Just Across
the Street (1933). Branches Green (1934). Gods Pocket: The
Hepatica Hawks (1932) has as its protagonist a fteen-year- Story of Captain Samuel Hadlock, Junior, of Cranberry Isles,
old girl who is 64 tall and a member of a freak show. The novel Maine (1934). Susanna B. and William C. (1934). People from
takes her from an early acceptance of her differentness through a Dickens: A Presentation of Leading Characters from the Books of
period of desperate yearning for friends of her own age and Charles Dickens (1935). Fear Is the Thorn (1936). All Through
participation in normal society. Eventually she nds a place (as a the Night (1940). Ave Maria: An Interpretation from Walt Disneys
Wagnerian soprano) where her size is not a hindrance. Told with Fantasia, Inspired by the Music of Franz Schubert (1940).
restraint, the novel movingly conveys its message, that it is all Christmas Time (1941). Prayer for a Child (1944). Christmas in
right to be different. London (1946). Poems (1957). The Rachel Field Story Book (1958).
In her last years, Field turned to writing novels for adults. To
See Ourselves (1937), written with her husband, is a comic
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CB (May 1942). Junior Book of
Hollywood novel of little signicance. More ambitious are two
Authors (1951). NAW. Newbery Medal Books, 1922-1955 (1955).
historical novels: Time Out of Mind (1935), set in Maine, shows
TCA, TCAS.
the decline of a shipbuilding family as seen by a young woman
Other references: NYHTB (31 May 1942). NYTBR (13 Nov.
intimately connected with it. It is a story of family conict, pitting
1932, 7 April 1935, 30 Oct. 1938, 31 May 1942). SR (15 Nov.
young against old and artistic against materialistic values. All
1930, 22 Oct. 1938).
This, and Heaven Too (1938) is Fields imaginative and sympa-
thetic reconstruction of the experiences of a young Frenchwoman
MARY JEAN DEMARR
who was involved in a celebrated 19th-century murder trial and
later came to the U.S. and married Fields great-uncle.
Less substantial is And Now Tomorrow (1942), the story of a

wealthy young woman temporarily aficted with deafness; it is FIELDS, Annie Adams
played out against the contemporary background of the Depres-
sion and labor strife. The female protagonists of the three latter
novels are all forced by circumstances to nd in themselves Born 6 June 1834, Boston, Massachusetts; died 5 January 1915,
strength, endurance, and breadth of sympathy and understanding. Boston, Massachusetts
They learn, in an image Field uses several times, to become trees Wrote under: Annie Fields, Mrs. James T. Fields
and not vines. Daughter of Zabdiel B. and Sarah Holland Adams; married
James T. Fields, 1854
Fields work, in many genres, shows her concern for crafts-
manship and her broad sympathies. The single most frequently Daughter of a distinguished Boston physician, Annie Adams
occurring image in her work, the patchwork quilt, is indicative: Fields established a literary salon in her Boston home after her
peculiarly a womans image, it suggests womens creativity, marriage. Most of the literary celebrities of the day were enter-
nostalgia for the past, and the creation of something new, beauti- tained thereHawthorne, Longfellow, Holmes, Emerson, Whittier,
ful, and useful from old and heterogeneous materials. Field tended Dickensas well as theatrical stars such as Ole Bull and Charlotte
toward sentimentality, and her three major works are all old- Cushman. Fields also enjoyed the friendship of several women
fashioned romantic novels. Nevertheless, they are mature writers, who formed an informal literary circle of their own.
studies of human relationships and of suffering and growth. These Among them were Sarah Orne Jewett, Celia Thaxter, Louise
novels, with the best of her work for young people, should secure Imogen Guiney, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. In her later years,
for her a lasting, if modest, literary reputation. Fields became heavily involved in Boston charity work and wrote
a social-welfare manual, How to Help the Poor (1883).
OTHER WORKS: Six Plays (1922). The Pointed People: Verses & Fields intimate friendship with Jewett began in the early
Silhouettes (1924). An Alphabet for Boys and Girls (1926). Eliza 1880s and lasted until Jewetts death in 1909. During this time the
and the Elves (1926). Taxis and Toadstools: Verses and Decora- two women were virtually inseparable companions; their travels
tions (1926). A Little Book of Days (1927). The Magic Pawnshop: together included four trips to Europe and two to the Caribbean.
A New Years Eve Fantasy (1927). The Cross-Stitch Heart, and Jewett considered Fields Charles Street house her second home
Other One-Act Plays (1928). Little Dog Toby (1928). Polly and lived part of each year there. She dedicated The Mate of the
Patchwork (1928). The White Cat and Other Old French Fairy Daylight, and Friends Ashore (1884) to Fields, and Fields edited
Tales by Mme. dAulnoy (arranged by Field, 1928). American the Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (1911).
42
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FINLEY
Fields literary importance lies primarily in two areas: one is FINLEY, Martha
the inuence she exerted over her husband in the selection of
works to be published by Ticknor & Fields, the major publishing
house of the time. He valued her judgement as reecting a Born 26 April 1821, Chillicothe, Ohio; died 30 January 1909,
womans point of view. Second, Fields edited important collec- Elkton, Maryland
tions of letters and biographical sketches. Her subjects included Also wrote under: Martha Farquharson
James T. Fields, John Greenleaf Whittier, Celia Thaxter, and Daughter of James Brown and Maria Brown Finley
Harriet Beecher Stowe, as well as the Jewett letter collection.
While these are not critical, scholarly works (the Jewett collec- Both of Martha Finleys parents, rst cousins of Scotch-Irish
tion, especially, is heavily edited), they do provide primary descent, died before she was twenty-ve. Finley supported herself
material for the researcher. Her Authors and Friends (1896) is a by teaching and writing. Beginning in 1856, Finley published
series of sketches, the best of which are of Harriet Beecher Stowe more than 20 Sunday-school books under the name of Martha
and Celia Thaxter. Fields diaries remain unpublished, except for Farquharson for the Presbyterian Board of Publication in Phila-
excerpts published by Mark DeWolfe Howe in 1922. delphia. (Farquharson is Gaelic for Finley.)
Fields remains a somewhat puzzling gure. Her writings Popular success and nancial security came with Elsie
reect a traditional orientation toward sentimentalism and the cult Dinsmore (1867). The tremendous popularity of this book, both in
of true womanhood. However, she was a supporter of womens
America and in England, led Finley to write a series of juvenile
emancipation, and her association with Jewett, Cushman, and
novels exploring the life of her heroine from childhood to old age.
others suggests a less traditional side. She left for posterity a
In 28 volumes, Elsie captured the religious and feminine devotion
carefully polished public persona, that of the perfect hostess, the
of the 19th-century reading public. By 1876 Finley was able to
genteel lady, and it is difcult to nd the real person underneath.
buy her own home in Elkton, Maryland, where she lived out her 80
years comfortably. The Elsie books alone earned her a $250,000.
None of Finleys other works can compare in importance with the
OTHER WORKS: Ode (1863). Asphodel (1866). The Children of
Elsie Dinsmore series, which has challenged psychologists and
Lebanon (1872). James T. Fields, Biographical Notes and Per-
literary historians to dene its formula of success. Despite what
sonal Sketches (1881). Under the Olive (1881). Whittier, Notes of
critics have seen as Finleys amateurish craftsmanship, super-
His Life and of His Friendship (1883). A Week Away from Time
cial moralizing, and lame scholarship, despite even the character
(written anonymously, with others, 1887). A Shelf of Old Books
of the heroine who, in the eyes of one critic, is a nauseous little
(1894). The Letters of Celia Thaxter (edited by Fields with R.
prig, Elsie Dinsmore captured the attention of more than
Lamb, 1895). The Singing Shepherd, and Other Poems (1895).
25,000,000 readers.
Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe (edited by Fields,
1897). Nathaniel Hawthorne (1899). Orpheus: A Masque (1900). Some of the elements that attracted young readers to the Elsie
Charles Dudley Warner (1904). Memories of a Hostess (edited by books are easy to explain: This fairytale heroine is a blonde
M. D. Howe, 1922). heiress, unjustly mistreated by the relatives who take her in while
The unpublished diaries of Annie Adams Fields are at the her father is in Europe and after her beautiful mother has died.
Massachusetts Historical Society. Uncompromisingly moral, unfailingly sweet, Elsie reminds us of
Cinderella and Snow White. The fundamentalist religious values
that emerge in her meditations and the Biblical quotations render
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cather, W., Not Under Forty (1936). Davis, A. E.,
the fairytale acceptable to the Christian society of 19th-century
A Recovery of Connectedness in Annie Adams Fields Authors
America.
and Friends and A Shelf of Old Books (thesis,1998). Howe, H.,
The Gentle Americans, 1864-1960: Biography of a Breed (1965). With Elsies Southern heritage, Finley also provided a topi-
Howe, A. D., Memories of a Hostess (1922). Fields, A., Microlm cal attraction. What could be more glamorous to her predominant-
Edition of the Annie Adams Fields Papers, 1852-1912 (microlm, ly Northern audience immediately after the Civil War than the
1981). Matthiessen, F. O., Sarah Orne Jewett (1929). Nigro, C. L., echo of a lost worldthe world of plantations and delicate
Annie Adams Fields: Female Voice in a Male Chorus (the- Southern ladies such as Elsies mother had been, the world of
sis,1996). Richards, L., Stepping Westward (1931). Roman, J., black mammies such as poor old Aunt Chloe, with her heavy
Annie Adams Fields: The Spirit of Charles Street (1990). Spofford, dialect and unswerving devotion to young Elsie? Ruth Suckow,
H. P., A Little Book of Friends (1916). Tryon, W. S., Parnassus writing for an October 1927 Bookman article, goes so far as to
Corner: A Life of James T. Fields (1963). Winslow, H. M., suggest that when Elsie saves her Southern father, she is really
Literary Boston of Today (1902). saving the whole South and committing the rebels to the funda-
Reference works: AA, DAB. NAW. NCAB. mentalist religious values of her creator, Finley herself.
Other references: Atlantic (July 1915).
The father-daughter theme which permeates the Elsie books
JOSEPHINE DONOVAN has been seen as psychologically excessive. Elsie worships her
43
FISHER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
father, and even though she does marry (a friend of her fathers FISHER, Dorothea (Frances) Caneld
who is himself much older than she), after her husbands death she
is once again with her devoted parent. Some have seen this theme
as reinforcing the father knows best attitude prevalent in Born 17 February 1879, Lawrence, Kansas; died 9 November
Victorian society, but in fact, Elsie gains power over the most 1958, Arlington, Vermont
powerful person in her life, her own father, by her religious Also wrote under: Dorothy Caneld
devotion. Daughter of James H. and Flavia Camp Caneld; married
James R. Fisher, 1907
One might argue, as Suckow does, that Elsie represents the
truth that a woman craves a master, yet within the religious
framework Elsie Dinsmore controls the lives of all around her. After extensive formal education (Ph.B., Ohio State; Ph.D.,
The 19th-century woman could hardly hope to achieve more than Columbia; graduate work at the Sorbonne), Dorothea Caneld
Elsie held out to her: beauty, riches, the love of her father, a Fisher and her husband traveled widely, eventually settling in
husband, and children. Best of all, she exemplied victory after Vermont, home of Fishers ancestors. During World War I, Fisher
victory over the oppressors of the world, even over that all did relief work in France, and she remained active in public life
powerful demigod, her father. Only God was more powerful than throughout her career, serving as secretary of New Yorks Horace
Elsie Dinsmoreand He was on her side. Mann School; as the rst woman on the Vermont Board of
Education; and on the editorial board of the Book-of-the-Month
Club (1926-51).
OTHER WORKS: Cassella; or, The Children of the Valleys (1867).
Elsies Holidays (1869). An Old Fashioned Boy (1870). Wanted: Fishers interest in education and her love of the U.S. and of
A Pedigree (1870). Elsies Girlhood (1872, 1997). Our Fred; or, Vermont are steadily reected in her works, which include
Seminary Life at Thurston (1874). Elsies Womanhood (1875, textbooks, commentaries on education (A Montessori Mother,
1997). Elsies Motherhood (1876, 1998). Elsies Children (1877, 1912; The Montessori Manual, 1913), patriotic reections (Ameri-
1998). Mildred Keith (1878, 1996). Signing the Contract and can Portraits, 1946; Our Independence and the Constitution,
What it Cost (1878). Mildred at Roselands (1879, 1996). Elsies 1950), translations (Papinis Life of Christ, 1923; Tilghers Work,
Widowhood (1880, 1998). The Thorn in the Nest (1880). Mildred 1930), Vermont, poetry (Another Night for America, 1942), and
and Elsie (1881). Grandmother Elsie (1882). Mildreds Married ction.
Life (1882, 1998). Elsies New Relations (1883). Elsie at Nantuck-
et (1884). Mildred at Home (1884). The Two Elsies (1885). Elsies Perhaps Fishers most lastingly popular work, Understood
Kith and Kin (1886). Mildreds Boys and Girls (1886). Elsies Betsy (1917), is the story of a fearful, sickly little girl who, through
Friends at Woodburn (1887). Christmas with Grandma Elsie a change of guardians and environments, becomes an indepen-
(1888). Elsie and the Raymonds (1889, 1997). Elsie Yachting with dent, capable child. Written in a pleasant conversational tone, the
the Raymonds (1890, 1997). Elsies Vacation (1891, 1997). Elsie book codies some of Fishers major ideas: the importance of
at Viamede (1892, 1997). Elsie at Ion (1893). The Tragedy of Wild early training, the value of work, the necessity for self-condence,
River Valley (1893). Elsie at the Worlds Fair (1894). Elsies and the virtuesas she perceived themof the American heri-
Journey on Inland Waters (1894). Mildreds New Daughter tage. These ideas, as well as attacks on big business and material-
(1894). Elsie at Home (1897). Elsie on the Hudson (1898). ism, are central to The Bent Twig (1915), the story of Sylvia and
Twiddledetwit: A Fairy Tale (1898). Elsie in the South (1899). Judith Marshall. Tested sorely, the sisters grow from their experi-
Elsies Young Folks (1900). Elsies Winter Trip (1902). Elsie and ences, primarily through an awareness of their mothers dictum
Her Loved Ones (1903). Elsie and Her Namesakes (1905). that if life is to be good, both joys and sorrows must be accepted.
In an episode about a mulatto family passing for white, Fisher
makes a plea for racial understanding without glossing over the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brown, J. E., The Saga of Elsie Dinsmore, in biases and limitations of the period.
University of Buffalo Studies (1945). Ely, W. A., The Finleys of
Bucks (1902). Suckow, R., Elsie Dinsmore: A Study of Perfec- Seasoned Timber (1939) sets Fishers attack on anti-Semitism
tion, or How Fundamentalism Came to Dixie, in Bookman (Oct. within the narrative frame of Timothy Hulmes romance in middle
1927). Zahn, B.,On the Banks of Big Elk Creek: The Life of age. The relationship between Timothy and his Aunt Lavinia
Martha Finley, Beloved Author of the Elsie Books (1997). illustrates Fishers realism. Both characters are as capable of self-
Reference works: American Authors (1894). DAB, III, 2. delusion as they are of self-sacrice. Flashbacks based upon oral
Indiana Authors and Their Books, 1816-1916, ed. R. E. Banta tradition vivify the Vermont setting.
(1949). NAW. NCAB, II. Ohio Authors and Their Books, edited
by W. Coyle (1962). Marriages in transition are a frequent plot device. The Brim-
Other references: Baltimore Sun (31 Jan. 1909). NY (14 ming Cup (1921) compares and contrasts the marital relationships
March 1936). of Neale and Marise Crittenden and of Gene and Nelly Powers.
Both women are mothers, both are clearly at the hub of their
THELMA J. SHINN families, and both are tempted by attractive, sensual, single men.
44
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FISHER
While the resolution of the Powers difculty is melodramatic, Me a Story (1940). To School and Home Again (with E. K.
Marises decision that sexual union is valid only when it nourishes Crabtree and L. C. Walker, 1940). Under the Roof (with E. K.
personal growth is a convincing presentation of a basic Fisher Crabtree and L. C. Walker, 1941). Under the Sea (with E. K.
theme. Another theme, the importance of woodland reclamation, Crabtree and L. C. Walker, 1941). Our Young Folks (1943). Book-
appears here also, and regional customs are well drawn. Clubs (1947). Highroads and Byroads (with E. K. Crabtree
and L. C. Walker, 1948). Four-Square (1949). Something Old,
The Home-Maker (1924) vividly depicts the tensions arising Something New (1949). Paul Revere and the Minute Men (1950).
from Evangeline Knapps distaste for housework and from her A Fair World for All (1952). Dorothy Caneld Fisher on Vermont
husbands inability to succeed in business. When circumstances (1955). A Harvest of Stories (1956). Memories of Arlington,
dictate an exchange of roles, the family achieves happiness, and Vermont (1957). And Long Remember (1959). Report on Old
Fishers frequent pointthat nurturing is vital workis made Age (n.d.).
neatly and unconventionally. Fishers The Deepening Stream
(1930) traces the growth of Matey Gilbert from childhood through
motherhood. Damaged by faulty understanding of her parents BIBLIOGRAPHY: McCallister, L., Dorothea Caneld Fisher: A
awed marriage, Matey is a good example of the Fisher protago- Critical Study (dissertation, 1969). Yates, E., Pebble in a
nist whose character strengthens throughout adulthood. Integrat- Pool (1958).
ed with the story of Mateys maturation is Fishers splendid Reference works: NCAB, 44. TCA, TCAS.
evocation of World War I Paris. Other references: Educational Forum (Nov. 1950). SatR (11
Oct. 1930, 29 Nov. 1958).
Two of Fishers short story collections, Hillsboro People
(1915) and The Real Motive (1916), join with the nonction JANE S. BAKERMAN
Vermont Tradition (1953) as tributes to her home state. The latter
traces Vermont history by means of anecdotes drawn from the
states written and oral histories and stresses individual freedom.
For Fisher, this principle was the key to real maturity and crucial
to successful childrearing. FISHER, M(ary) F(rances) K(ennedy)
A woman of extraordinary energy, Fisher was one of the
Born 3 July 1908, Albion, Michigan; died 22 June 1992, Glen
most popular writers of her day and is considered particularly
Ellen, California
adroit at exploring the drama of everyday life, portraying the inner
Also wrote under: Mary Frances Parrish, Victoria Berne
growth of thoughtful, sensitive characters, and employing skillful
Daughter of Rex B. and Edith Holbrook Kennedy; married
variations of the interior monologue.
Alfred Fisher, 1929 (divorced); Dillwyn Parrish, 1939 (died);
Donald Friede, 1945 (divorced); children: Anne, Kennedy
OTHER WORKS: Emile Augier, Playwright-Moralist-Poet (1899).

M. F. K. (Mary Frances Kennedy) Fisher was two years old
Corneille and Racine in England (1904). Elementary Composi-
when she moved with her family from Albion, Michigan, to
tion (with G. B. Carpenter, 1906). Gunhild: A Norwegian Ameri-
Whittier, California, the state she would come to think of as her
can Episode (1907). The Secret of Serenity (1908). The Squirrel
native home. In Among Friends (1971), she chronicles her grow-
Cage (1912). Mothers and Children (1914). A Peep into the
ing up in Whittier, a predominantly Quaker community. Her
Educational Future (1915). Fellow Captains (with S. N. Cleghorn,
Quaker neighborsthe Friends referred to ironically in her title
1916). Self-Reliance (1916). Home Fires in France (1918). The
never accepted the Kennedys, who were Episcopalian, and she
Day of Glory (1919). Rough-Hewn (1922). What Grandmother
learned early on what it meant to be an outsider. She also learned
Did Not Know (1922). The French School at Middlebury (1923).
what it meant to survive the condition with resiliency and hu-
Raw Material (1923). Made-to-Order Stories (1925). Her Sons
morwhat she called my inner jaunty detachmenta bent of
Wife (1926). Why Stop Learning? (1927). Learn or Perish (1930).
personality that would serve her well through an eventful and
Basque People (1931). Our Children: A Handbook for Parents
often difcult life.
(edited by Fisher, with S. M. Gruenberg, 1932). Vermont Summer
Homes (1932). Bonre (1933). Moral Pushing and Pulling (1933). The reason for the move to Whittier was the purchase of the
Tourists Accommodated (1934). Fables for Parents (1937). On a Whittier News by Fishers father, a fth-generation newspaper-
Rainy Day (with S. F. Scott, 1938). The Election on Academy Hill man. Her mother also came from ve generations of journalists
(1939). A Family Talks about War (1940). Liberty and Union and was a cultured woman in her own right, having studied and
(with S. N. Cleghorn, 1940). Nothing Ever Happens and How It traveled widely in Europe before her marriage. From her parents
Does (with S. N. Cleghorn, 1940). In the City, and In the City and Fisher absorbed a love of literature and ideas. She also developed
on the Farm (with E. K. Crabtree and L. C. Walker, 1940). My an avid interest in culinary books and food preparation, which she
First Book (with E. K. Crabtree and L. C. Walker, 1940). learned from the family cook. By the age of ten, she was thinking
Runaway Toys (with E. K. Crabtree and L. C. Walker, 1940). Tell up dishes and preparing meals for the household.
45
FISKE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
After graduating from high school in 1927, she attended Friede and went with her daughters to the Kennedy ranch in
several colleges, including Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illi- Whittier, where they lived with her father. After his death in 1953
nois, Occidental College in Los Angeles, and the University of they moved to the Napa Valley, a locale that would serve as
California at Los Angeles. In 1929 she married Alfred Fisher, a Fishers home base for the rest of her life.
doctoral candidate in literature at UCLA, and they went to live in In 1958 she decided to pay a lengthy visit to Europe as a way
Dijon, France, where he was working on his dissertation. The of broadening her childrens education and helping them become
move proved to be a particularly fortunate one, since Dijon, procient in French and Italian. During the four years they lived in
regarded as the gastronomic center of France, inspired her to Aix-en-Provence and Lugano, she wrote a book of folk remedies,
pursue her interest in food more seriously and begin putting her A Cordiall Water (1961), and composed sketches and stories that
thoughts down on paper in the form of journals, letters, and would serve as a basis for later work, including many pieces
stories. published in the New Yorker.
In 1932 she returned with her husband to California and they In 1971 she moved to her nal home, a Napa Valley house
had as their neighbor the painter Dillwyn Parrish, who encouraged designed to her specications and located on the grounds of the
her writing on culinary themes. Her rst book, Serve It Forth, Bouverie ranch in Glen Ellen. For the two decades until her death
came out in 1937 and included her pieces on cooking and dining in 1992, it provided her with a congenial place to write, cook, and
experiences, along with her historical essays based on old cook- entertain fellow authors and culinary enthusiasts. Despite the
books she had researched at the Los Angeles Public Library. Serve encroachment of Parkinsons disease during her last years, Fisher
It Forth introduced the public to Fishers amalgam of food pursued her engagement with the world nearly to the end. She was
writing, personal anecdotes, and storytelling, a lively and distinc- elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1991 and
tive style she would continue to hone during the course of a is generally acknowledged to be one of the nations nest writers
long career. and also one of the most unusual, taking the humble theme of food
and casting it as a metaphor for the great mysteries of human
The friendship with Parrish had deepened by 1937 into the hunger and desire.
great love of Fishers life. She moved with him to Vevey,
Switzerland, and they were married after she obtained her divorce OTHER WORKS: Here Let Us Feast (1946). The Story of Wine in
from her rst husband in 1938. Her days in Switzerland with California (1962). Maps of Another Town: A Memoir of Provence
Parrish were lled with tending their house and vineyard, enter- (1964). The Cooking of Provincial France (1968). With Bold
taining friends, and collaborating on a romantic novel, Touch and Knife and Fork (1969). A Considerable Town (1978). As They
Go (1939), which was published under the joint pseudonym of Were (1982). Sister Age (1983). Spirits of the Valley (1985). The
Victoria Berne. The happiness of this period was cruelly disrupted Standing and the Waiting (1985). Dubious Honors (1988). An-
when Parrish was stricken with Buergers disease in 1939. They swer in the Afrmative and The Oldest Living Man (1989). Boss
returned to America and purchased a ranch in Hemet, California, Dog (1990). Long Ago in France: The Years in Dijon (1991). Stay
where Fisher cared for him. In 1941, pain-ridden and terminally Me, Oh Comfort Me (1993). Last House (1995). M. F. K. Fisher: A
ill, he committed suicide. Life in Letters (1997).
The grief that followed was made all the greater by the
suicide of her brother David a year later. As a way of contending BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ferrary, J., Between Friends: M. F. K. Fisher and
with tragedy and as a means of supporting herself, Fisher turned to Me (1991). Lazar, D., Conversations with M. F. K. Fisher (1992).
Mooney, L., ed., The Annual Obituary 1992. (1993).
her writing and produced a succession of culinary works: Consid-
Reference works: CANR (1994). CLC (1993, 1995). Oxford
er the Oyster (1941), How to Cook a Wolf (1942), The Gastro-
Companion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995).
nomical Me (1943), and An Alphabet for Gourmets (1949). These
Other references: American Scholar (Spring 1998). Biblio
four books were collected with her rst book and published in
(Feb. 1999).
1954 as The Art of Eating, a classic in its eld and a perennial
favorite with readers. MARLENE M. MILLER
In 1945 Fisher married the literary agent Donald Friede. She

had two daughters, Anne, born in 1943, and Kennedy, born in
1946. At Friedes urging, she wrote the novel Not Now But Now FISKE, Sarah Symmes
(1947), even though she did not consider extended ction to be
one of her strengths, a view that is shared by most critics. During Born 1652, Charleston, Massachusetts; died 2 December 1692,
the same period, she also produced an acclaimed translation of Braintree, Massachusetts
The Physiology of Taste (1949) by Brillat-Savarin and wrote Daughter of Williams Symmes; married Moses Fiske, 1671;
articles and stories for such magazines as Gourmet, House Beauti- children: 14
ful, and McCalls. The pressure of work, deadlines, and child care,
along with the death of her mother, contributed to the deteriora- Sarah Symmes Fiske was the granddaughter of the noted
tion of her health and her marriage. In 1949 she separated from minister Zachariah Symmes and the daughter of a justice of the
46
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FITZGERALD
peace for the county of Middlesex. Her mother, whose name is studies as her major, FitzGerald graduated magna cum laude from
unknown, died when she was very young. Her husband was Radcliffe in 1962. After graduation, during a two-year stay in
ordained minister of the Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts, Paris, she worked on a novel and published magazine articles for
congregation. He had a protable ministry, which included a the Congress for Cultural Freedom. After her return to New York
house and six acres, as well as a substantial yearly income. Fiske in 1964, she wrote a series of proles, including one about Amelia
and her husband had 14 children, which probably contributed to Peabodyher maternal grandmother who had been jailed for
her early death. participation in a civil rights demonstration at the age of seventy-
twofor the New York Herald Tribune Magazine. In 1966 she
Fiskes only published work is her spiritual autobiography, a
went to South Vietnam as a freelance journalist, publishing
document which she prepared for admission to church member-
articles on politics in Saigon during the following year for the
ship. A Confession of Faith; or, A Summary of Divinity (1704) was
Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Village
written in 1677, when Fiske was twenty-ve years old. The
Voice, and Vogue, receiving the Overseas Press Club award for
manuscript circulated among her acquaintances for many years
interpretative reporting in 1967.
after her death, until it was printed. Such posthumous publication
was common for works by early American women writers. Returning to America, FitzGerald spent the next ve years
researching and writing Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the
Whereas most spiritual autobiographies of the 17th century
Americans in Vietnam (1972, reissued 1984). Informed by study
express the inner turmoil of the writer in the struggle for salvation,
with the Indochinese scholar Paul Mus at Yale, historical research
Fiskes confession is notable for its impersonal tone and religious
at Harvard, reading in sociology and psychology, and another
erudition. Its highly structured form evidences her familiarity
ve-month trip to South Vietnam, Fire in the Lake earned
with Ramist logic, the system of reasoning used by the New
FitzGerald (among other awards) the Pulitzer Prize for contempo-
England Puritans in their theological discourses. The form and
rary-affairs writing (1973), the National Book Award (1973), and
content which Fiske chose for her confession reect intense
the Bancroft Prize for History (1973). After the books publica-
religious study. Each topic she discusses is broken into subtopics
tion, FitzGerald made a speaking tour on behalf of the Indochina
or subsets for denition and analysis; then each subset is further
Peace Campaign.
analyzed. Fiskes topics include the truth of the Bible, Gods
creation of the natural world, the Fall and its consequences, sin Since 1973 FitzGerald continued to write about American
and death, grace and predestination, and the nature of Christ. She society and culture. Most of her articles (appearing in the New
also discusses the organization of the church and the signicance Yorker, Redbook, the New York Review of Books, Ms., Harpers,
of the sacraments. She concludes with a brief but striking apoca- and the New Republic) have focused on social conicts in terms of
lyptic vision. Puritan historiographythat is, history viewed as historical and cultural origins, political leadership, and effects on
Gods redemptive schemeprovides the organizing principle for ordinary people in such areas as the Middle East, Ireland, and Cuba.
her beliefs, as she discusses events from the beginning of time to
the end of the world. Fire in the Lake was greeted with widespread critical acclaim
not simply because it was the best scholarly effort by an American
Fiskes work is not outstanding for its originality of thought to interpret Vietnamese culture and the American presence in
or style, but the purpose of the documentadmission to church Vietnam for a general audience, but also because of its superior
membershipprecluded creativity. The posthumous publication analysis of the political and social nature of the Vietnamese
of her theological discussion and review is important because it response to foreign occupation, particularly the Saigon govern-
indicates an early recognition of womens ability to contribute to ments desire for, and hostility to, the American presence.
religious subjects in an intellectual and educative manner.
Not interested in being a war correspondent attached to
the U.S. government forces, FitzGerald focuses on the political
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Pierce, F. C., Fiske and Fisk Family (1896). activity of the war and on the people and the country. Dividing her
Vinton, J. A., The Symmes Memorial (1873). study into two parts, she rst explores Vietnamese culture and
national character within a historical perspective, relyingtoo
JACQUELINE HORNSTEIN
much at timeson Western sociological and psychological modes
of analysis in explaining national behavior. Second, FitzGerald
examines the politics of leadership practiced by the National
FITZGERALD, Frances Liberation Front, the Saigon governments, and the Americans,
effectively illustrating a complete circle of self-deception.
Born 21 October 1940, New York, New York Within the double frame, FitzGerald presents a compelling
Daughter of Desmond and Mary E. Peabody FitzGerald explanation of the American sense of righteous mission in
Vietnam, an attitude originating in a denite historical and
Born into an old Boston family that included scholar and mythological perspective. At the same time she depicts the
explorer Francis Parkman, FitzGerald spent her childhood in particular effects on human lives of the American attempt to fulll
America and Europe. Her mother was an urban planner and a their mission. She carefully builds an awareness of the perspec-
former U.S. representative to the United Nations, and her father tives of both soldiers from small American towns nding them-
was a former deputy director of the CIA. With Middle Eastern selves among people with whom they could make no human
47
FITZGERALD AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
contact and the Vietnamese in isolated villages, refugee camps, in and about Vietnam by several journalists, spanning the years
and cities seeing one another separated from family, friendship, 1959 through 1975.
our manner of expressing ourselves.
On 31 January 1999, FitzGerald appeared on the C-Span
FitzGeralds prose is restrained rather than detached. Her television program, Booknotes along with Peter Kann (another
empathy for the Vietnamese is apparent, yet she does not senti- Vietnam-era journalist) to discuss Reporting Vietnam and the
mentalize. While some generalizations concerning national char- eras reporting in general. FitzGerald discussed her trips to
acter seem to have been too easily inferred, her analysis, especial- Vietnam in 1969, 1971, 1973, and 1974, and her now-classic
ly as it is supported by carefully chosen and well-drawn anecdotal book, Fire in the Lake. On the subject of reporters in Vietnam
illustrations, makes the study a major source for a deeper under- expressing biased views, Fitzgerald observed a progression or
standing of the Vietnam conict. development closely tied to the war effort itself. The journalists
who went to Vietnam in 1959 went there with assumptions formed
In 1979 FitzGerald again explored changing representations
in World War II as to the actions required of journalists report-
of American culture and national identity through a study of
ing U.S. involvement in wars. Their style was reconstructed, says
elementary and secondary American history textbooks. In Ameri-
FitzGerald, by Neil Sheehan and others who found themselves
ca Revised: History Schoolbooks in the Twentieth Century (1980),
playing the roles of critics as a result of the lies they were told by
she focuses on the special functions and traditions of schoolbooks
American representatives in Vietnam. They were unpopular with
for American children during the nineteenth and twentieth centu-
the embassy, their investigative efforts were deemed threatening,
ries, emphasizing how texts of the 1960s and 1970s were not
and they were perceived as being either Hawks or Doves when in
written but developed within a context of conict and
fact, it was the difculty in getting an accurate story that made
compromise among publishing, educational, and political institu-
them appear so.
tions. She concludes that contemporary efforts to present the
world, or the country, as an ideal construct, or a utopia of the In 1999 FitzGerald continued her work on a book about
eternal presenta place without conicts, without malice or Ronald Reagan, Star Wars, and the end of the Cold War, a project
stupidityrather than achieving the purpose of creating good shes been researching for several years and hopes to complete in
citizens may give young people no warning of the real dangers the near future.
ahead.
FitzGerald published Cities on a Hill: A Journey Through OTHER WORKS: A Reporter at Large: A Disciplined, Charging
Contemporary American Culture (1986, reissued 1987) in an Army (1981). Americas Spirit Dream, Myth and Reality (record-
effort to understand change in America since 1960 by looking at ing, 1982). School Book Banning (recording, 1983). Vietnam
four communities or cultural enclaves in which individuals Reconsidered (recording, 1984). Cultural Dimensions of U.S.
deny the power of the past by seeking to cut all ties. These Foreign Policy (audiovisual, 1993).
include the rst gay neighborhood in the country, the Castro in
San Francisco; the separatist Liberty Baptist Church minis-
tered by Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg, Virginia; the retirement BIBLIOGRAPHY: Barker, W. P., Literary Techniques Employed
community of Sun City Center in Tallahassee, Florida, radical in by Three Writers on the Vietnam War: Norman Mailer, Michael
the sense that never before in history had older people taken Herr, Frances Fitzgerald (thesis, 1981). Elwood-Akers, V.,
themselves off to live in isolation from the younger generation; Women War Correspondents in the Vietnam War, 1961-1975
and Rancho Rahneesh, an eastern Oregon New Age Commune (1988). Estrangement: America and the World (1985). Freder-
of doctors, lawyers, accountants, and the like led by an Indian ick, J., Textbook ShockA Critique of Frances Fitzger-
guru. The book studies the complexities of everyday life and aldsAmerica Revised (1980). Proceedings of Ralph Naders
moral conicts for individuals in each community and illustrates Second Annual Journalism Conference on Investigative Report-
FitzGeralds consistent focus on the role of family in the relation- ing, Mar. 19-21, 1982, Washington, D.C. (recording, 1982). The
ship of individuals and communities in American life. Vietnam Reader (1991). 1984 Revisited: Walter Cronkite Looks
at Orwells Novel, and Interviews Anthony Burgess, William
While critics saw the book as a contribution to the study of
Lutz, David Burnham, Anthony Pole, Jose Delgado, Richard
the changing American Dream, they often disagreed with her
Riel, Jonathan Sanders, Phillip Goetz, Ronald Plesser, Mal-
efforts to nd similarities among the four groups in their expres-
colm Muggeridge, James Thornwell, Inge Kempkehefke, Frances
sion of quintessentially American behavior and values, or to
Fitzgerald, Marvin Rosenbloom, Bernard Crick, and Jacobo
discover valid roots in nineteenth-century utopian social experi-
Timmerman (recording,1983). To Reason Why: The Debate about
ments. For the remainder of the 1980s and throughout the 1990s
the Causes of U.S. Involvement in the Vietnam War (1990).
FitzGerald continued to write regularly for the New Yorker, as
Reference works: CA (1974). CANR (1991). CBY (1987).
well as Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Harpers, the New York Review
WW of Writers, Editors, and Poets (1989).
of Books, the Nation, Rolling Stone, and Vogue on diverse
Other references: Journal of American Studies (1973). Life
subjects.
(27 Oct. 1972). Nation (8 March 1993). NR (16 Sept. 1972, 29
A sampling of FitzGeralds Vietnam-era journalism appears April 1985, 20 Oct. 1986). NYRB (5 Oct. 1972, 29 Jan. 1987).
in Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism (1998), a two- NYTBR (27 Aug. 1972, 12 Oct. 1986). PW (16 Oct. 1972).
volume set from the Library of America presenting pieces written Redbook (March 1975). Vogue (Jan. 1973, Oct. 1986).Who Will
48
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FITZGERALD
Protect the Family? With Reporter Frances FitzGerald (audio- descriptions are fraught with disjointed images and strained
visual, 1981). Booknotes web site: http://www.booknotes.org. C- comparisons, and the imagery is strange, even grotesque. When
Span web site: http://www.c- span.org. Alabama falls in love with David, she imagines herself crawling
into the friendly cave of his ear and stumbling hysterically
JENNIFER L. TEBBE, through the vast tortuous indentations of his medulla oblonga-
UPDATED BY REBECCA C. CONDIT ta! It is more the expression of a powerful personality, wrote
Scott Fitzgerald, than the work of a nished artist.
The novel nevertheless occupies a unique place in literary
FITZGERALD, Zelda Sayre history. Rarely has a marriage been so well documented as the
Fitzgeralds, both in biography and ction. In Tender is the Night
Born 24 July 1900, Montgomery, Alabama; died 10 March 1948, (1934), Fitzgerald presents the deterioration of a brilliant young
Asheville, North Carolina doctor as a direct result of his marriage to a beautiful madwoman,
Daughter of Anthony and Minnie Machen Sayre; married F. who saps her husbands energies as she gradually regains her
Scott Fitzgerald, 1920; children: daughter, Frances Scott equilibrium. This novel is considered, in part, to be Fitzgeralds
Scottie Fitzgerald Smith response to the oblique charges made against him through the
character of David Knight in Fitzgeralds novel, published two
Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, the youngest of six children, was the years earlier.
daughter of a distinguished legislator and judge. She attended In Save Me the Waltz, Fitzgerald reveals the agonizing
Montgomery public schools, graduating from Sidney Lanier High insecurity and the futile grasping for self-expression underlying
School in 1918. She married novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald and had the spectacle and drama of her marriage. Despite serious technical
one daughter. The Fitzgeralds lived in Europe and were part of the aws, the novel memorably recreates the searing experiences of a
expatriate group including Ernest Hemingway and Gerald and tortured soul. Fitzgerald may have fallen short of imposing artistic
Sara Murphy. From 1928 to 1930, Fitzgerald struggled to develop form upon her material, but her sensitive presentation of the
her talent in dancing, writing, and painting. Her obsessive deter- tragedy of blighted lives makes absorbing reading.
mination to become a professional dancer contributed to her rst
psychological collapse in 1930. A pattern of insanity followed by
periods of calm continued throughout Fitzgeralds life. OTHER WORKS: Bits of Paradise: Uncollected Stories of F.
In the 1920s and early 1930s, Fitzgerald wrote a number of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald (edited by S. F. Smith and M. J.
articles and short stories for various periodicals. Some of these Bruccoli, 1974).
were revised by or written in collaboration with her husband, and
some appear under a joint byline. Others were printed under Scott BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bruccoli, M. J., F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Descriptive
Fitzgeralds name alone, but in his ledger he credits Fitzgerald Bibliography (1972). Bruccoli, M. J., et al., eds., The Romantic
with the authorship. Save Me the Waltz (1932), Fitzgeralds only Egoists (1974). Callaghan, M., That Summer in Paris (1963).
published novel, was written while she was at a psychiatric clinic Colum, P., and M. Cabell, eds., Between Friends (1962). Cooper,
in Baltimore, Maryland. It is a ctional account of Fitzgeralds
D. M., Form and Function: The Writing Style of Zelda Sayre
experiences, rst as a vivacious Southern belle, then as the
Fitzgerald (thesis, 1986). Gabriel, C. A., Social and Personal
glamorous wife of a amboyant, popular writer. Fitzgerald makes
Conicts in the Lives and Works of the Fitzgeralds (undergradu-
little attempt to disguise the autobiographical elements of her
ate research paper, 1996). Hemingway, E., A Moveable Feast
novel. Her protagonist, Alabama Beggs, is determined to escape
(1964). Love Letters to Remember: An Intimate Collection of
her fathers suffocating morality and adopts a lawless philosophy.
Romance and Passion (1996). Mayeld, S., Exiles from Paradise:
She marries David Knight, a professional artist who achieves a
Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald. Milford, N., Zelda (1970). Mizener, A.,
phenomenal success, but by retreating to the citadel of his art, he is
The Far Side of Paradise (1965). Piper, H. D., F. Scott Fitzgerald:
as inaccessible to Alabama as was the impregnable fortress of her
A Critical Portrait (1965). Shafer, C., To Spread a Human
fathers idealism. Alabama feels excluded by her lack of accom-
Aspiration: The Art of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald (thesis, 1994).
plishment and therefore attempts to emulate her husbands suc-
Smith, S. F., The Maryland Ancestors of Zelda Sayre Fitzger-
cess through the medium of dance. A few days before her debut as
ald in Maryland Historical Magazine (1983). Tomkins, C.,
a dancer, Alabamas foot becomes seriously infected and she is
Living Well is the Best Revenge (1972). Turnbull, A., Scott
told she will never dance again. As the novel ends, Alabama and
Fitzgerald (1962). Vigier, R., Women, Dance, and the Body:
David, united only in their physical proximity, face a restless and
Gestures of Genius (1994). Volkert, G., An Assessment of Zelda
unfullling future together. Alabama, however, becomes at last
Sayre Fitzgeralds Novel Caesars Things (thesis, 1989).
the choreographer of her own destiny. Accepting the emptiness of
her future with her husband, she resolves to whip the broken Other references: Catalogue of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald
staccato of their lives into the ordered congurations of the dance. Manuscript Material (1982). Milford, N., Zelda (recording, 1982).
Bookman (Oct. 1932). SR (Oct. 1932).
Save Me the Waltz is not a good novel. Fitzgeralds writing is
pretentious, turgid, and sometimes unintelligible. Fitzgeralds ROSE ADRIENNE GALLO
49
FLANDERS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
FLANDERS, G. M. FLANNER, Hildegarde
Born no information found; died date unknown Born 3 June 1899, Indianapolis, Indiana; died May 1987
Daughter of Frank W. and Mary-Ellen Hockett Flanner; married
No information about G. M. Flanders life, background, or Frederick Monhoff, 1926
views has survived; only one novel, The Ebony Idol (1860,
reprinted 1969), remains of her work. The combination of senti- Sister of author Janet Flanner (Gent), Hildegarde Flanner
mental romance with biting social satire, however, makes the
attended Sweet Briar College, Virginia, from 1917 to 1918, and
novel of special interest as a literary and cultural document.
then the University of California at Berkeley until 1923. She lived
Set in a small New England town, The Ebony Idol shows how in California after her marriage to Frederick Monhoff in 1926.
the Reverend Mr. Carey divides his congregation and his commu-
Flanners rst book of poems, Young Girl (1920), published
nity by preaching militant abolitionism. His followers, mostly
when she was twenty-one, won the Emily Chamberlain Cook
women, are either impractical do-gooders or swinish Jacksonian
egalitarians. Chief among Mr. Careys supporters are Miss Dick- prize at the University of California. In addition to books of
ey, an elderly feminist schoolmarm, and Mr. and Mrs. Hicks, a poetry, she published several plays (Mansions, 1920, and The
loutish farm couple. Flanders characterizes the abolitionist posi- White Bridge, 1938), essays on poets and poetry, and articles
tion as hysterical, impractical, and uncharitable. about the Southwest.
Mr. Careys pro-slavery opponents, on the other hand, are Poems written out of Flanners own experience or about
sensible, practical, and discerning in their concern for others. other women are extraordinary but rather few in number. Two of
Represented by Squire Bryan, a wealthy lawyer and landholder, these are found in the aforementioned Young Girl. In Dianthus
the pro-slavery faction supports both a Jeffersonian democracy the narrator recalls that her grandmother, who picked Dianthus
and the orderly relations, advocated by St. Paul, between slave (commonly called Sweet William), Did Vergil into French / And
and master, man and woman, husband and wife. Like Squire then had seven children. I shall not pick you, / Dianthus, the
Bryan, the pro-slavery supporters argue the South, which is, after narrator concludes. Discovery tells of a girl whose aunts have
all, run by gentlemen and Christians, is entitled to its own customs praised her mild and gentle soul, but who nds, when
and economy. Into this turbulent controversy comes Caesar, a looking in a mirror for this phenomenon, a joyful little sina
runaway slave who is at rst idolized by Mr. Careys abolitionists. female body with sexual desires. The subtle, understated rejection
Caesars huge size and appetite and his laziness, vanity, and of traditional female roles in Dianthus and the open, honest
dishonesty lead to a series of comic episodes which illustrate that treatment of female sexuality in Discovery are rare to poetry of
abolitionists hypocritically fear and despise the blacks with whom this period; both poems portray the realistic, feminist persona of a
they profess equality. A sentimental subplot revolves around kind that Edna St. Vincent Millay and other women poets of the
Frank Stanton, a Southern dandy who is studying law with Squire 1920s were to choose.
Bryan, and Mary, the beautiful, gentle, and ladylike adopted
daughter of the loutish Mr. and Mrs. Hicks. Flanners one-act play Mansions is another feminist work.
Lydia, twenty-seven, and her younger brother Joe are dominated
As The Ebony Idol ends, the lovers are united, the North is by their Aunt Harriet, who is trying to make Lydia like herself, a
reconciled with the South, the towns pro-slavery status quo is recluse dedicated to the memory of all the old, dead men of the
restored, Caesar gratefully returns to his master, and a sadder but family, and to making Joe follow their profession. Lydia is
wiser minister learns to leave politics out of the pulpit in the resentful and rebellious in a childlike manner, until Joe, who is
interests of peace and social order. mysteriously dying, teaches her one must have ones own work
While Flanders unattering characterizations of feminists, that she must be strong and leave her aunt in order to live her
abolitionists, and blacks may be offensive to a modern reader, own life.
they illustrate an important issue in womens literature of the
If There Is Time (1942) contains successful poems involving
period: womans role as a submissive Christian allowed her
women and the female experience. In Hawk is a Woman and
spiritual beauty and transcendence, hence also spiritual authority
Rattlesnake, wild creatures are the ostensible subjects, but they
and superiority. If women (temperamentally inferior to men)
become metaphors for human behavior. The two poems are
could and should accept their lot in order to create domestic
actually attacks on certain kinds of womenthey are hate poems,
harmony, slaves (temperamentally inferior to whites) could and
revenge poemsbut they are strong and powerful. Never Ask
should accept their lot in order to create social harmony in the
Why, which uses the same metaphorical technique, is on the
South. Similar pro-slavery and antifeminist arguments appear in
surface a poem about cruelty in naturea lion killing a doebut
contemporary works by Caroline Lee Hentz, Mary Eastman, and
Caroline Rush. on another level it expresses rage and sorrow for the helpless
condition of women, for the use of them as sexual objects: the doe
KATHERINE STAPLES is gentle meat; the riding lion feeds on her soft loin.
50
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FLANNER
Flanners poetic subjects include nature, love, city and ambitious series (under her own name) on conditions in unoccu-
surburban life, patriotism, and religious faith. Her prosodic tech- pied France, on the bitter civil war of words between the
niques range from free verse to traditional forms. Critical recep- generations of the two world wars, and on the revival of the
tion of her work has been as varied as her subjects and styles; at Church in the wake of the poverty and deprivation suffered by
her best she is, as one critic put it, right and honest. postwar France. In February 1941 she broadcast a hortatory
speech to the French by shortwave radio, and in a radio address for
Columbias Lecture Hall that same year, told an audience of
OTHER WORKS: This Morning (1921). A Tree in Bloom and Other American women: There isnt a woman in France today who
Verses (1924). Times Prole (1929). In Native Light (1972). The wouldnt work herself to the bone to earn the rights which every
Harkening Eye (1979). A Vanishing Land (1980). A Christmas American woman enjoys, yet which so many of them let go to
Keepsake (1983). For A Clean House (1984). Brief Cherishing: A waste.
Napa Valley Harvest (1985). At the Gentle Mercy of Plants:
Essays and Poem (1986). Different Images: Portraits of Remem- Flanners books include a novel, The Cubical City (1926),
bered People (1987). Poems (1988). The Berkeley Fire: Memoirs which she describes as really a character sketch and not a novel
and Mementos. . . (1992). at all. Three volumesAn American in Paris (1940), Paris
Various short stories, Arrived on The Ahsahta Cassette Journal, 1944-65 (1966, reissued 1988), Paris Journal, 1965-71
Sampler (audiocassette, 1983), What Is That Sound? (broad- (1971, reissued with former volume in 1988)comprise the
side, 1986), Bamboo: An Honest Love Affair in Roots and collected New Yorker Paris Letters and represent, in many
Branches: Contemporary Essays by West Coast Writers (1991), ways, the best of Flanners achievement. She invented the formula
and A Vanishing Land in Natural State: A Literary Anthology for her Paris letters: a mixture of incisive epigram, personal and
of California Nature Writing (1998). political proles, and news, mixed with critical reviews of cine-
ma, theater, opera, and gallery openings. Flanner wrote of this
form: Because I was easily intimidated by and distrustful of
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Other references: Janet Lewis Talks to Hildegarde French ofcialdom and because, as at rst a fortnightly corre-
Flanner (video, 1995). Nation (13 Nov. 1929), NYT (23 Aug. spondent, I was in no condition to compete with daily cable New
1942). Poetry (Sept. 1942). York newspapers, in my helplessness I invented for my New
Yorker letters a formula which dealt not with political news itself
JEANNINE DOBBS but with the effect public political news had on private lives.
Always it is the characteristic blend of the personal and the
political, the temper of the times and the mood of the streets, that
marks her writing. The ripening of the mushrooms called les
FLANNER, Janet trompettes de la mort is detailed no less meticulously than the rise
and decline of General de Gaulles political fortunes. Details
Born 13 March 1892, Indianapolis, Indiana; died 7 November become signicant in a way that mere reportage is not. Current
1978, New York, New York fashions in the streets and shops, vegetables in the market, holiday
Also wrote under: Gent celebrations, and even a run of good weather signal, as stock-
Daughter of Francis and Mary-Ellen Hockett Flanner market reports could not do, Frances economic recovery from the
war. And the death of Colette, a nationally loved gure, is in
Born to Quaker parents, Janet Flanner attended preparatory Flanners hands more than the occasion for reporting the funeral
school in Tudor Hall, Indianapolis, spent a year in Germany with of a noted author; it is, quite literally, the end of an era in literary
her parents, then entered the University of Chicago in 1912. After and social history. Paris Journal exemplies, at its best, the blend
being expelled from the university as a rebellious inuence in of memoir and reportage, as well as the keen sense of irony, that
the dormitory, she returned to Indianapolis and began writing for Flanner had by then perfected.
the Indianapolis Star, becoming, in her own words, the rst
Flanners honors included the French Legion of Honor in
cinema critic ever invented.
1947 for the Letter From Paris columns as well as a Litt. D.
A trip to Greece, Crete, Constantinople, and Vienna ended from Smith College (1958) and a National Book Award (1966) for
with her settling down in Paris in 1922. Harold Ross, a former Paris Journal: 1944-1965. She died in 1978.
New York acquaintance, asked her to write a small Paris Letter
for a newly conceived magazine called the New Yorker. For 14
years Flanner wrote all of the New Yorkers Paris letters, and in the OTHER WORKS: Chri by Collete (translated by Flanner, 1929).
1930s, all of its London letters, under the pseudonym of Gent. Maeterlinck and I by G. Leblanc (translated by Flanner, 1932).
Souvenirs; My Life with Maeterlinck by G. Leblanc (translated by
When Flanner returned to the U.S. in 1939, she continued Flanner, 1932). Petain: The Old Man of France (1944). Men and
writing her proles and sketches for the New Yorker. After the fall Monuments (1957, 1990). Paris Was Yesterday, 1925-1939 (edit-
of France, her articles became more overtly political; she also ed by I. Drutman, 1972, translated into French, 1981, original
began speaking and writing extensively on France and French reprint, 1990). London Was Yesterday, 1934-1939 (edited by I.
culture and politics. She then wrote for the New Yorker a more Drutman, 1975). Janet Flanners World: Uncollected Writings,
51
FLETCHER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
1932-1975 (edited by I. Drutman, 1979, 1981). Darlinghissima: moved to Oakland (1911) and San Francisco (1925-38), Fletcher
Letters to a Friend (1985, reissued 1988). found she enjoyed running a lecture bureau. In 1944 the Fletchers
moved to historic Bandon Plantation, near Edenton, North Caroli-
na. When Bandon burned in 1963, Fletcher retired to Charleston,
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ames, K. B., American Voices in Paris: Kay South Carolina.
Boyle, Djuna Barnes, and Janet Flanner (thesis, 1985). Colette,
Cheri (1983). McWilliams, M. E.D., Janet Flanners 1945 Blue In 1928, Fletcher began her much-publicized tours of Africa,
Radio Broadcasts from Paris: This is the Time for Speaking More which she had wanted to see, she said, since she had been a child
Than for Writing (thesis, 1994). Morath, I., Photographer Inge of twelve reading about Livingstone and Burton. From those tours
Morath Comments on Her Subjects: Janet Flanner, Alexander came Fletchers rst novels: The White Leopard (1931) and Red
Calder, Arthur Miller, Marilyn Monroe, William Styron, Jayne Jasmine (1932). Both offer excellent observation of native craft,
Manseld, Lola Picasso, Eleanor Roosevelt and Adlai Stevenson culture, and ritual.
in a Double Portrait, Isaac Stern and Vladimir Horowitz Together The documents she found while researching her Tyrrel
(recording, 1987). Wineapple, B., Gent, A Biography of Janet County ancestors and the Carolina campaigns of British General
Flanner (reissue, 1994). Wineapple, B., Janet Flanner & the New Cornwallis sparked her interest in the history of eastern North
Yorker (1991). Wright, C. M., Novel Women: Literary Expatriates Carolina. Further research in Carolina libraries and extensive
of the 1920s (thesis, 1988). reading in public and private records of the period produced
Reference works: Benets Readers Encyclopedia (1987). Raleighs Eden (1940). The novel, the rst of Fletchers meticu-
CB (May 1943). Indiana Authors and Their Books, 1816-1916 lously researched Carolina series of historical ction, uncovered
(1949). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United long-forgotten cultural facts of coastal Carolina settlement: Moor-
States (1995). WA. ish architecture and Arabic residents, Oriental settlers and great
Other references: Chanteusen: Stimmen der Grossstadt (1997). estates. Many contemporary readers insisted that much of the
Lost Generation Journal (Winter 1976). New York Post (3 Oct. novels setting and events was imaginary, when in fact the novel
1941). New York World Telegram (21 Jan. 1941). Time (22 April was faithful to history. Each novel of Fletchers Carolina series
1940, 9 Nov. 1942). Women Come to the Front: Journalists, studies a specic era, beginning with the rst attempted settle-
Photographers, and Broadcasters (1985). ment in the 1580s.
VALERIE CARNES, The past provided Fletcher with plots, settings, and charac-
UPDATED BY SYDONIE BENET ters; it was also the inspiration for her themes. Through individual
characters, Fletcher articulates her recurring theme: Land repre-
sents freedom and life, especially for Americans. Fletcher was
intrigued by the possibility for altering identity that settling the
colonies offered Europeans; she also studied the complex interac-
FLETCHER, Inglis Clark tion of person and environment. The process of settlement provid-
ed a metaphor for individual experience: to attain knowledge of
Born 20 October 1879, Alton, Illinois; died 30 May 1969, land is to attain knowledge of self.
Charleston, South Carolina
Daughter of Maurice W. and Flora Deane Chapman Clark; This focus on the individual is circumscribed, however, by
married John G. Fletcher, 1909 Fletchers greater interest inand skill in using as narrative
historical detail and fact. Thus, her works are most accurately
titled historical romances; and melodramatic as some of her
Inglis Clark Fletcher was widely traveled, but the home of
stories are, they attract readers decades after rst publication,
her maternal ancestorscoastal North Carolinaprovided the
probably because they imaginatively recreate historical eventsa
stuff of her successful ction and the home of her later years. The
form of ctional verisimilitude that comforts the average reader.
eldest of three children, Fletcher grew up in Edwardsville, Illinois,
a small town populated by many displaced Southerners. As a child
she preferred reading, debating, and writing novels to other OTHER WORKS: Men of Albermarle (1942). Lusty Wind for
pastimes, but it was her drawing talent that sent her to study as a Carolina (1944). Toil of the Brave (1946). Bennetts Welcome
teenager at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts at Washington (1950). Queens Gift (1952). The Scotswoman (1954). The Wind
University. Fletcher displayed some aptitude, but frankly said she in the Forest (1957). Cormorants Brood (1959). Pay, Pack, and
was more interested in marriage than sculpture. Follow: The Story of My Life (1959). Wicked Lady (1962).
The papers of Inglis Clark Fletcher are in the manuscript
Her marriage to a mining engineer sent her directly to some collection of East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.
of the roughest of the mining camps in California, Nevada,
Colorado, and Alaska. Like many pioneer women isolated on
male-dominated frontiers, Fletcher turned to writing as a way of BIBLIOGRAPHY: Green, J. W., Inglis Fletcher: A Personal Per-
coming to terms with experience. She sold lm synopses and spective (thesis, 1984). Hester, E., ed., Cultural Change in
wrote poetry, articles, and reviews. When the Fletcher family Eastern North Carolina As Reected in Some of the Novels of I.
52
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FLEXNER
Fletcher and Ovid Pierce. Platt, H., I. Fletcher of Bandon, couples and a charming other woman, Mrs. Oliver, invited by
Chronicler of North Carolina. Walser, R., I. Fletcher of Bandon one of the husbands who didnt realize the wives would be aboard.
Plantation. Wilcox, S. K., The American Revolutionary War in Flexners air for writing good dialogue and her unhackneyed
Fiction: An Evaluation of the Works of Winston Churchill, Inglis treatment of a standard farcical situation lifted the play out of the
Fletcher, and John Jakes (research paper, 1983). Wooten, S., ordinary. It is, however, rather heavy-handed in the manner in
Identication of African Ritual in the Writings of I. Fletcher which Mrs. Oliver teaches the three wives all about marriage,
(thesis, 1976). about how they should work at their marriages as if they were jobs.
Reference works: CA (1969). CB (1947, July 1969). Aged 26, Flexners last play, was produced in 1936. In the 17
Other references: North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame years since her latest produced play, Flexner had traveled exten-
(audiovisual, 1995). North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame Proudly sively in Europe with her husband. Her abiding interest in British
Presents Inglis Fletcher, 1879-1969, Novelist, Tyrell County, literature is reected in this interpretation of the romance of John
North Carolina (1996). Keats and Fanny Brawne. The action spans the year between the
publication of Keats Endymion and his departure for Italy, where
SALLY BRETT he was to die six months later at age twenty-six. There is an
articial quality to the opening scene in which Keats, Byron,
Shelley, Gifford, Lockhart, and Fannys mother are all brought
into the reception room of Keats publisher. The audience is won
over in subsequent scenes, however, by Flexners deft characteri-
FLEXNER, Anne Crawford zation, and by dialogue in which even the incorporation of
familiar lines from Keatss poetry is made to sound natural.
Flexner departed from the traditional view of Fanny Brawne by
Born 27 June 1874, Georgetown, Kentucky; died 11 January treating her as sensitive and sincere in her love for Keats, even to
1955, New York, New York the point that she spends the night with him on the eve of their
Daughter of Louis G. and Susan Farnum Crawford; married separation. The sympathetic interpretation of her character was
Abraham Flexner, 1898; children: two daughters vindicated by the publication a few months later of Fanny Brawnes
letters to Keats sister.
After her graduation from Vassar College in 1895, Anne Flexners plays included comedy, mystery, and biographical
Crawford Flexner supported herself by tutoring for two years in drama. All Souls Eve (1920), a sentimental drama about
Louisville, Kentucky, until she had saved enough money to go to spiritualism, was enlivened by the device of having one actress
New York City. There, she attended the theater regularly and play both the role of the young mother who dies and that of the
began writing plays. After a two-year engagement, she married Irish maid into whom the mothers soul passes. Flexners plays
Abraham Flexner, a prominent educator. In his 1940 autobiogra- were audience-pleasers and might be summed up, in the words of
phy, he wrote of their union: We agreed at the outset of our one reviewer, as crisp, clean, wholesome, and refreshing fun.
married life that her interest and work were as sacred as mine; and Seven of Flexners plays were produced in New York over a 35-
for over 40 years we have tried to respect each others individuali- year period. They reveal a variety of interests and a better-than-
ty and that of our two daughters. Encouraged by Flexner, her average talent as a dramatist for the pre-World War I period.
younger daughter Eleanor Flexner also became a writer and
published books on American drama and the woman suffrage OTHER WORKS: A Mans Woman (1899). A Lucky Star (dramati-
movement in America. zation of the novel, The Motor Chaperone, by C. N. and A. N.
Williams, 1909). WantedAn Alibi (1917). The Blue Pearl (1918).
In 1901, Harrison Grey Fiske opened his Manhattan Theater
with Flexners rst professionally produced play, Miranda of the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Flexner, A., I Remember: An Autobiography (1940).
Balcony, which featured Minnie Maddern Fiske in the title role.
Other references: Nation (2 Jan. 1937). Theatre Arts Monthly
The New York Times review stated Mrs. Flexner has written a
(Feb. 1937, June 1937).
strong emotional drama of modern style and the audience of last
night was quick to recognize its value. This success enabled FELICIA HARDISON LONDR
Flexner to obtain the rights to dramatize Alice Hegan Rices Mrs.
Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch in 1904. Flexner took a number of
liberties with the original plot in order to sustain a narrative line
throughout the three-act play structure, but she preserved all the FLEXNER, Eleanor
avor of the novel in her sprightly, humorous dialogue and
characterizations. It became Flexners most frequently per- Born 4 October 1908, New York, New York; died 25 March 1995
formed play. Daughter of Abraham and Anne Crawford Flexner
The Marriage Game (1913) was set on a yacht during a three- Eleanor Flexner grew up in an intellectual world; her father
day cruise, for which Flexner brought together three married was an educator and writer, her mother a playwright. After
53
FLINT AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
graduation from Swarthmore College (1930) she spent a year at With Mary, Flexner draws a parallel between the life of the
Somerville College, Oxford (1930-31). woman she portrays and her own, having been kicked around the
job market in World War II. Thus, in feeling and in its value as
Although Flexners rst book, American Playwrights, social history, Mary Wollstonecraft emerged as one of the femi-
1918-1938 (1939), survives as a substantial piece of research and nine biographies receiving excellent reviews.
criticism, her prominence derives chiey from writings on the
womens movement. Century of Struggle: The Womens Rights Though Flexner is best known for her work as a feminist
Movement in the United States (1959), with 13 paperback printings historian, she goes beyond this denition in her writing and
followed by revised editions in 1975 and 1996 (expanded, with E. scholarly interests: she contributed, for example, to Volume I of
Fitzpatrick), is often used as a basic text for the history of the Shelley and His Circle, from which her interest in Mary
modern American feminist movement. Flexner said that in 1954 Wollstonecraft, mother of Mary Shelley, may have grown. From
she looked for a book about the womens rights movement in her home in Northampton, Massachusetts in the early 1980s, she
the U.S. and, unable to nd an adequate one, she decided to write described herself as a moderate who believes strongly in equal
one. The books dedication to the memory of her mother is apt: opportunities and equal pay for women; and, in personal terms, as
she describes Anne Crawford Flexner as one whose life was a scholar, writer, and woman who would continue, until 1995
touched at many points by the movement whose history I have when she died, to follow the affairs of women.
tried to record. . . . She marched in the New York suffrage
parades. She made her mark as a playwright at a time when such
OTHER WORKS: Womens Rights: Unnished Business (Public
an achievement was still unusual for a woman.
Affairs Committee pamphlet, 1971). Journey: Poems (1984).
Flexners Century of Struggle chronicles much that her
mother either knew or hoped for. Comparisons of the original
preface with that of the revised edition reveal both Flexners BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1974). Oxford Companion
concern with womens rights in 1959, at a time when such to Womens Writing in the United States (1995).
concerns were virtually unvoiced, as well as searching questions Other references: A Century of Struggle & Enterprising
about the status and prospects of the movement in the 1970s. Women (audiocassette, 1976).
There she speaks of a host of new issues and reects on their
LOIS FOWLER
origins and their implications for historians today and women in
the future.
As in all her work, her informal narrative style in Century of

Struggle holds the reader while she conveys a textbooks burden FLINT, Margaret (Leavitt)
of information. Early in the book, as Flexner approaches the
famous Seneca Falls Convention, her participants become a cast
Born 22 December 1891, Orono, Maine; died 27 February 1960,
of characters. The event itself comes vividly alive as these women West Baldwin, Maine
launch their new movement to leave its imprint on the lives of Daughter of Walter and Hannah Ellis Leavitt; married Lester W.
their daughters and of women throughout the world. Century of Jacobs, 1913, children: six
Struggle covers well the intellectual progress of women, the
battles and achievements of suffrage, and most impressive, wom-
Margaret Flint was educated at Tome Institute in Port Depos-
en in American labor. As Flexner says in her own bibliographical
it, Maryland, and attended the University of Maine. After raising a
summary of the six-volume History of Woman Suffrage, it stands in
family of six children, she began to write at the age of forty-four.
a class by itself; so these words apply, if more modestly, to her
Her rst novel, The Old Ashburn Place (1936), won the Dodd
own work.
Mead-Pictorial Review prize for the best rst novel of 1935.
Century of Struggle established Flexners stature as a histori-
During the 1930s there was, as in all times of serious
an of feminism; her Mary Wollstonecraft: A Biography (1972)
economic depression in America, considerable interest in return-
adds to her prestige in that area. The reader is carried through a
ing to the land. The times were right for novels about farm life and
life of struggle in the psychological study of a woman,
country values, and thus Flint began her career at a time especially
externally a feminist, internally dependent on men for love and
disposed to value her material. All of her novels, except her
approval, sometimes so beaten by circumstances that suicide
second, Valley of Decision (1937), concern rural life in the
attempts and irrational behavior seem expected; yet she is brilliant
ctional town of Parkston, Maine. Her last published work, Dress
and strong enough to rise above the turbulence of her life in order
Right, Dress! (1943), is not so much a novel as a piece of
to create what remains a classic, A Vindication of the Rights of propaganda, written for the Womens Army Corps, in the form of
Woman. Flexner portrays a living woman, Mary, as she refers to a recruits diary.
her, who struggles for independence, for love, for family life, for a
place in her society, for stability perhaps, so clear when one The Old Ashburn Place is probably Flints best novel. The
notices, as Flexner does, that she can also write Maria, a quasi- hero, Charles Ashburn, a fty-year-old bachelor, recalls his life as
Gothic work replete with the sentimentality of her times. he wonders how it happened that hes lonesome and old. There
54
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FLYNN
were six children in his family, and the chronicle of their fortunes and political issues. Her parents were both members of the
makes up this book. At the heart of the plot is Charless love for a Socialist Party, and her mother was a strong womens rights
neighboring rich girl, Marian Parks, who of course marries advocate. When the family moved to the South Bronx, New York,
someone in her own class, and his affair with his brother Morris in 1900, Flynn was introduced to city poverty and to radical
wife. This novel is a family chronicle seen from the point of view political activity. At twelve she won the prize in a Socialist Party
of the least successful of the family, a bachelor who raises Rhode debate, and at sixteen gave her rst public speech, What
Island Reds and lives by a code set down by his mother (who had Socialism Will Do for Women, at the Harlem Socialist Club.
been a schoolteacher) that all must be clean and good in his life. Later that year she was arrested in New York City (the rst of
While Flints novels do not have happily-ever-after endings, many arrests) for speaking without a public permit.
they do uphold traditional values: the land, the home, marriage, In 1906 Flynn joined the Industrial Workers of the World
children. Her best people are solid, responsible types who irt (IWW) and a year later quit school to travel throughout the U.S. as
with other ways but come back to the land. Charles Ashburn, for
one of the IWWs most effective speakers and organizers. Flynn
instance, should have married a woman like himself, but he was
had a son in 1910, and in that same year she separated from her
attracted to another type and could not compromise. In Deacons
husband (with formal divorce notice in 1920) because she was not
Road (1938), young Eph Squire should marry Lois Ashburn,
prepared to give up her political activity to settle into a more
Charless niece, but rst falls in love with her cousin Shirley
limited domestic life. Both her mother and her sister Kathie
Wells, a city girl. He comes to his senses, however, gets the family
provided an important home base for Flynn and her son after the
farm, marries Lois, and thus does not end up like Charles
separation.
Ashburn.
Two female leading characters, Thurlow Parks in Breakneck During World War I and in the postwar years, as government
Brook (1939) and Judith Squire in Enduring Riches (1942), have arrests of radical political leadership increased, Flynn was the
to face difcult decisions on whom to marry. Thurlow nally moving force in several labor defense leagues. She became
realizes that her childhood sweetheart, Henry Witham, is the man seriously ill in 1927 and for about 10 years lived in semiretirement
for her; her older, harder sister, a city person, gets the man with a friend in Portland, Oregon. Against the advice of her
Thurlow thought she wanted. Judith Squire marries at thirty-four, doctor, she returned to the East Coast in 1936, joined the Commu-
stays in her rural family home, has children, and, like Charles nist Party of the U.S., became a columnist for the Daily Worker in
Ashburn raises chickens, but has a real struggle to manage her 1937, and in 1938 was elected to the partys national committee.
impossible, exuberant husband. Flint makes it clear men are In 1952, she was arrested for subversive activities under the Smith
expected to be difcult, but a real woman doesnt want a namby- Act and served from January 1955 to May 1957 at the womens
pamby man (like the minister who falls in love with Judith). prison in Alderson, West Virginia. Upon her release she returned
to party activity and was elected to the national chair in 1959, a
The land serves as the background for the values of Flints
post she held until her death while on a visit to the USSR.
characters, but her major focus is on individuals coming to terms
with what life has brought them. Her novels do not offer the reader All of Flynns writing relates directly to her political activism
escape into pastoral retreats. She takes the country life as it is, and and focuses on the rights and problems of workers, on the status
writes about people living it. and corresponding activities of working women, and on civil
liberties in general. Underlying all these works is the attempt to
OTHER WORKS: Back o the Mountain (1940). Down the Road a acquaint future generations with the historical legacy of the
Piece (1941). October Fires (1941). workers struggle in the U.S. and with the role of working-class
leadership in this struggle. Referring to a speech made to the party
in 1945, Flynn noted that it had been partly biographical, partly
BIBLIOGRAPHY: NYT (28 Feb. 1960). confessional, and partly an evaluation of our weaknesses. The
perspective expressed in this statementcombined with a contin-
BEVERLY SEATON
ued advocacy of working-class rights and a belief in socialism as
the solution to economic, social, and political problemscharac-
terizes all of her writing. Flynns strength as a writer rested on her
ability to present ideas with clarity, simplicity, and person-
FLYNN, Elizabeth Gurley al fervor.
Born 7 August 1890, Concord, New Hampshire; died 5 Septem- In addition to numerous pamphlets, journal and newspaper
ber 1964, Moscow, USSR articles (in Political Affairs and Solidarity, for example), and
Daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn; married regular columns in the Daily Worker and Sunday Worker from
Jack A. Jones, 1908 (separated 1910, divorced 1920) 1937 to 1964, Flynn also wrote two major works that are primarily
autobiographical. I Speak My Own Piece (1955, reprinted in 1973
The daughter of rst-generation Irish immigrants, Elizabeth as The Rebel Girl, incorporating Flynns own editorial comments)
Gurley Flynn was raised in an atmosphere of concern for social describes her life, her contemporaries, and the events of radical
55
FOLLEN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
working-class history from 1906 to 1926, using amusing and 1964, Nov. 1964). Radical America (Jan.-Feb. 1975). Women
pertinent anecdotal material. At times the events and people are Who Dared: 1992 Calendar (1992).
idealized, in keeping with her purpose to insure that the heroic
struggle of those early days would not be lost to history. At the JANE SLAUGHTER
time of her death, Flynn had completed only the notes and outlines
for the sequel to this volume, to cover what she called her
second life.
The Alderson Story (1963) details the experiences of Flynns

1952 trial and the following period of imprisonment. It is of more
FOLLEN, Eliza (Lee) Cabot
than autobiographical signicance because Flynn tries to record,
in a series of prison poems, the voices and emotions of other Born 15 August 1787, Boston, Massachusetts; died 26 January
women with whom she associated in the prison. The book thus 1860, Brookline, Massachusetts
becomes a document on womens prison experience in addition to Wrote under: Eliza Lee Follen, Mrs. Follen, Mrs. C. T. C. Follen
a chapter in her life. Daughter of Samuel and Sally Barrett Cabot; married Charles T.
Christian Follen, 1828 (died 1840)
Flynns associates and friends considered her a great politi-
cal leader and a great human being. Her ability to express
complex issues in simple, unassuming, yet convincing language One of 13 children, and assured by her familys prominence
made her one of the most effective popular leaders of her time. of a stimulating social and intellectual environment, Eliza Cabot
Her autobiographical and political writings are among the best Follen early became a friend and follower of William E. Channing
sources available for the history of womens involvement in and taught in his Unitarian Sunday school. She married a German
radical U.S. politics. political refugee who, from 1830 to 1835, was professor of
German literature at Harvard. A son was born in 1830. During the
Harvard years, the couple became friends of Harriet Martineau
OTHER WORKS: Women in the War (1942). Women Have a Date and worked actively in the antislavery cause.
With Destiny (1944). Womens Place in the Fight for a Better
World (1947). The Twelve and You (1948). The Plot to Gag Because Follen had previously written two works of ction,
America (1950). Communists and the People (1953). Horizons of edited the Christian Teachers Manual, and composed poems and
the Future for a Socialist America (1959). Freedom Begins at stories for children, it was natural for her, after her husbands
Home (1961). The McCarran Act: Fact and Fancy (1963). death in 1840, to turn to her pen for a livelihood. She edited
The largest collection of Elizabeth Gurley Flynns writings Gammer Grethel (1840), the rst American edition of Grimms
and personal records is located at the American Institute for fairy tales, and the Childs Friend, a juvenile periodical, from
Marxist Studies in New York City. 1843 to 1850. In addition to writing a biography of her husband,
she composed poetry, plays, and stories for children. Until her
death she remained active in the abolition movement, working on
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Camp, H. C., Gurley: A Biography of Eliza- committees and writing numerous tracts.
beth Gurley Flynn, 1890-1964 (1984). Camp, H. C., Iron in Her
Soul: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and the American Left (1995). Cole, The rst and most popular of Follens stories for children
S. C., Elizabeth Gurley Flynn: A Portrait (thesis, 1991). was The Well Spent Hour (1827-28), in which nine-year-old
Dixler, E. J., The Woman Question: Women and the American Catherine Nelson learns through benevolence and self-control the
Communist Party, 1929-41 (dissertation, 1974). Hardy, G. J., meaning of a sermon text: Let them show their piety at home.
American Women Civil Rights Activists: Biobibliographies of 68 Although this didactic tale, suitable for the Sunday school library,
Leaders, 1825-1992 (1993). Holzkamper, C. O., Rebel Girl, substitutes conversations for action and episodes for plot, its
Radical Woman: A Biography of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1980). kindly tone and benign view of childhood are winning. The
Joyce, M. H., Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Irish Nationalism Birthday (1832) takes up the history of Catherine just before her
(thesis, 1995). Maupin, J., Labor Heroines: Ten Women Who Led fourteenth year, when her fathers nancial losses force the
the Struggle (1974). Motherland: Writings by Irish American mother and children to move to a country cottage. The ensuing
Women about Mothers and Daughters (1999). Post, D. The idyll of family life, which includes stories told during a party,
Crucible: The Heresy Trial of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Within the suffers from a contrived plot and the heavy-handed contrast of
American Civil Liberties Union (1991). Trautmann, W. E., good and evil so typical of early 19th-century childrens literature.
Direct Action & Sabotage: Three Classic IWW Pamphlets from
the 1910s (1997). Wertheimer, B. M., We Were There: The Story Simpler in content and more graceful in execution are
of Working Women in America (1977). Words on Fire: The Life Follens short tales, such as True Stories about Dogs and Cats
and Writing of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1987). (1855), The Old Garret (1855), and The Peddler of Dust Sticks
Other references: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the Rebel Girl (1855), later collected with other tales in the 12-volume Twilight
(audiovisual, 1993). Nation (17 Feb. 1926). Political Affairs (Oct. Stories (1858). In The Old Garret, where discarded objectsa
56
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FOOTE
wig, a musket, a broadsword, a tea kettlegive their biographies, FOOTE, Mary Hallock
Follen adopts the technique associated with Hans Christian An-
dersen of having inanimate objects assume a narrators role.
Born 19 November 1847, Milton, New York; died 25 June 1938,
Although her childrens poetry is now almost forgotten, Hingham, Massachusetts
Follen was a pioneer who turned from the harsh, morbid verse Daughter of Nathaniel and Anne Burling Hallock; married
characteristic of early 19th-century American childrens poetry to Arthur De Wint Foote, 1876; children: three
rhymes frankly meant to give more pleasure than instruction.
Little Songs (1833 and 1985), reprinted as the nal volume of
Twilight Stories, was intended, she tells us, to catch something The youngest child of Quakers, Mary Hallock Foote was
of that good-natured pleasantry and musical nonsense which raised on the family farm in the Hudson River valley. After
makes Mother Goose so attractive to children of all ages. Even completing her schooling in 1864, she took the step, unusual for a
though the verse in this volume lacks the vigor of traditional young lady of her era, of enrolling at New York Citys Cooper
nursery rhymes, it is remarkable both for its response to childrens Union to study art. Over the course of three years at Cooper, she
tastes and for its gentle vision of childhood. prepared herself for a career in black-and-white illustration. Her
professional debut came in 1867 with the publication of four of
Follens adult ction, The Skeptic (1835) and Sketches of her drawings in A. D. Richardsons Beyond the Mississippi.
Married Life (1838), deals ostensibly with marriage. The rst
work, however, resembles a religious tract both in the account of During the following 25 years, Foote enjoyed fame as one of
Alice Greys efforts to save her husband from the inuence of his the most accomplished of American illustrators. She executed
freethinking cousin and in Follens recommendations of Dr. drawings for many of the prominent giftbooks of the period,
Channings Unitarian writings. In the second work, a domestic including Longfellows The Skeleton in Armor, Whittiers Mabel
novel, Follen creates a heroine who demonstrates, as Helen Martin, and Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter. Her illustrations
Papashvily points out, the marked ability of women in the were published regularly in St. Nicholas and Century magazines;
practical concerns of everyday life. Pictures of the Far West, her most celebrated series, appeared
in the latter during 1888 and 1889. By the 1890s, Footes position
Follens Life of Charles Follen (1840), for which she traveled
as the dean of women illustrators was secure, and she was
to Germany to obtain additional material, is a sympathetic but
elected to the National Academy of Women Painters and Sculptors.
unsentimental treatment of her husbands life.
A woman of conviction, both in her support of religion and in Footes success as an illustrator was ultimately eclipsed by
her opposition to slavery, Follen is notable for bringing to her achievements as an author. After her marriage to a civil
American childrens literature of the pre-Civil War period a engineer, she spent much of her life in Western mining camps,
sensitive concern for the feelings and tastes of her young readers. whose picturesque aspects invited literary as well as visual
interpretation. Her rst attempt at serious prose, A California
Mining Camp, appeared in Scribners in 1878 and highlighted
OTHER WORKS: Selections from the Writings of Fnelon (edited her experiences in New Almaden, California; it was followed by
by Follen, 1829). Hymns, Songs, and Fables for Children (1831). descriptive sketches of other locales where her husbands profes-
Words of Truth (1832). Hymns and Exercises for the Federal sion took them. From a stay in Leadville, Colorado, came The
Street Sunday School (1839). Nursery Songs (1839). Poems Led-Horse Claim (1883), Footes rst novel and a modest bestseller.
(1839). Sacred Songs for Sunday Schools, Original and Selected
(1839). The Liberty Cap (1840). The Works of Charles Follen with Between 1883 and 1925, Foote published 11 more novels and
a Memoir of His Life (1841-1842). Made-up Stories (1855). four volumes of short stories; she also wrote an excellent autobi-
Poems (1855). To Mothers in the Free States (1855). Conscience ography and numerous uncollected tales and sketches. Most of her
(1858). May Morning and New Years Eve (1858). Piccolissima ction derived from material rooted deeply in her own experi-
by A. Montgoler (translated by Follen, 1858). Travellers Sto- ence: in particular, the tension between the urbane East and the
ries (1858). What Animals Do and Say (1858). Home Dramas for boisterous Westbetween the genteel security of the East Coast
Young People (compiled by Follen, 1859, reissued 1989). Our and the pioneer existence beyond the Rockiesinformed her
Home in the Marsh Land; or, Days of Auld Lang Syne (1877). writing. Foote, approaching her material more sympathetically as
her appreciation for the West grew, made the frontier a subject of
realistic interest and of romance. As Owen Wister observed, hers
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Meigs, C., A Critical History of Childrens Lit- was the rst voice lifted to honor the cattle country and not to
erature (1969). Papashvily, H. W., All the Happy Endings (1956). libel it.
Wright, L. H., American Fiction, 1774-1850 (1969).
Reference works: AA, DAB. NAW. NCAB. Footes nest writing came after 1895, once she had retired
Other references: ElemEngR 8 (1931). NEQ 38 (1965). from professional illustration and had settled comfortably with
her husband and three children in Grass Valley, California.
PHYLLIS MOE Especially noteworthy is The Desert and the Sown (1902), a novel
57
FORBES AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
inspired in part from Footes experiences in Idaho between 1884 Northwest from Coyote Tales to Roadside Attractions (1994).
and 1894. Although the plot covers only the three years between Parra, J. M., Altered Vision: Three Nineteenth-Century Western
the arrival of Emily Bogardus in Idaho and the death of her Authors: Caroline Kirkland, Mary Hallock Foote and Mary Aus-
estranged husband Adam in New York, the tale spans the family tin (thesis, 1995). Stegner, W., Angle of Repose (1971). Taft, R.,
fortunes for three generations. A biblical framework reinforces Artists and Illustrators of the Old West, 1850-1900 (1953).
the storys symbolic reconciliation of East and West, past and Reference works: DAB. NAW. NCAB.
present. Two other signicant works by Foote are Edith Bonham Other references: Colorado Magazine (April 1956). Idaho
(1917) and The Ground-Swell (1919). Both are poignant tributes Yesterdays (Summer 1976). University of Wyoming Publications
to the pastthe former dedicated to the memory of Footes best (15 July 1956). WAL (May 1975).
friend, Helena Gilder, and the latter designed as a tribute to Agnes
Foote, the authors youngest daughter, who died in 1904. LEE ANN JOHNSON
After 1919 Foote ceased to publish, although during the

1920s she undertook a project that served as the capstone to her
career. Written when she was nearing eighty, Footes Reminiscences
(1972) is a truly distinguished autobiography of interest to histori- FORBES, Esther
ans as well as to literary scholars. From the quiet milldams of
Milton to the noisy mining stamps of Leadville, from the frustra-
tion and disappointments of Idaho to the comforts and acclaim of Born 28 June 1891, Westborough, Massachusetts; died 12 Au-
the Grass Valley years, this personal account of a genteel Quaker gust 1967, Worcester, Massachusetts
irretrievably married into the West makes compelling reading. Daughter of William T. and Harriette Merrield Forbes; married
In 1932 Foote returned with Arthur to the East, living in Hingham, Albert L. Hoskins, 1926 (divorced)
Massachusetts, until her death six years later.
To her 20th-century successors Foote bequeathed a legacy of Esther Forbes was the youngest of ve children; her father
Western ction which, at its best, provided fresh perspectives, was a judge, her mother a historian. She graduated from Bradford
substituted sensitivity for sentimentality, and strove for delity. Academy in 1912 and studied at the University of Wisconsin
At a time when the West was still subject to humorous exploita- (1916-18) before serving as a farmhand in Virginia in response to
tion, Foote was the rst to achieve the stance of a discerning the war effort. Returning to New England, she became an editor
literary observer, while as a gifted illustrator she also contributed from 1920 until her marriage.
memorable interpretations of the frontier.
During her marriage, Forbes traveled extensively abroad and
continued to write. At the time of her divorce in 1933, she had
already made a literary reputation as a historical novelist with O
OTHER WORKS: John Bodewins Testimony (1886). The Last
Genteel Lady! (1926) and A Mirror for Witches (1928). The
Assembly Ball and The Fate of a Voice (1889). The Chosen Valley
height of her fame came in the 1940s when she won rst the
(1892). Coeur dAlene (1894). In Exile, and Other Stories (1894).
Pulitzer Prize in History for Paul Revere and the World He Lived
The Cup of Trembling, and Other Stories (1895). The Little Fig-
In (1942) and then the Newbery Medal for Johnny Tremain: A
Tree Stories (1899). The Prodigal (1900). A Touch of Sun, and
Novel for Young and Old (1943). Forbes was the rst woman
Other Stories (1903). The Royal Americans (1910). A Picked
member of the American Antiquarian Society and received seven
Company (1912). The Valley Road (1915).
honorary degrees.
The self-consciously historical area in which she grew up,

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bickford-Swarthout, D., Mary Hallock Foote: family legends (especially those about an ancestor named Esther,
Pioneer Woman Illustrator (1996). Cothern, L., Becoming an accused witch who died in a Salem prison), and Forbes
Western: Gender and Generation in Mary Hallock Footes Dual mothers professional interest in old gravestone inscriptions,
Career (thesis, 1997). Edwards, C., That Violent and Promis- diaries, and logs all contributed to making Forbes a novelist who
cuous BirthA History of the West in Four Voices: Roosevelt, wrote like a historian and a historian who wrote like a novelist,
Turner, Foote and Rolvaag (1995). Hatheway, D. M., The Last as the New York Times described her. All of Forbes works are set
Remove: Women, Mourning, and the American West (thesis, in New England; both her short novels and her longer ction and
1994). Johnson, L. A., Mary Hallock Foote (1980). Maguire, J. H., nonction exhibit the same meticulous attention to historic de-
Mary Hallock Foote (Boise State College Western Writers Series tailsculinary, artistic, legal, and others.
#2, 1972). Marschean, A. L., Romance and Reality on the
Mining Frontier: The Life of Mary Hallock Foote (thesis, 1985). Forbes earliest works are brief and focused upon the devel-
Milowski, C. P., Revisioning the American Frontier: Mary Hallock opment of their heroines, who are of various types and fates.
Foote, Mary Austin, Willa Cather, and the Western Narrative Several of these early novels explore the expression of female
(1996). Northwest Passages: A Literary Anthology of the Pacic sexuality and its psychological connection with the attraction to
58
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FORCH
the demonic in a repressive society that is part of, or heir to, the OTHER WORKS: Paradise (1937). The Generals Lady (1938). The
Puritan tradition. Lanice Bardeen in O Genteel Lady! is a sensual Boston Book (with A. Grifn, 1947). The Running of the Tide
and intellectual Boston editor and writer of the late 19th century (1948). Americas Paul Revere (with L. Ward, 1948).
who gives up both her passion for a Lawrence-of-Arabia type and
for writing in order to marry a staid Harvard professor. In A
Mirror for Witches, set in the late 17th century, Doll Bilby has a BIBLIOGRAPHY: Addington, L. E., Patriot Games: A Curriculum
love affair with the devil and dies in childbirth, an accused of Democratic Principles in American History as Seen in Child-
witch, in a Salem prison. The novel is purportedly written by an rens Literature (1997). Bales, J., Esther Forbes: A Bio-Bibliog-
18th-century apologist for the Salem witchcraft trials. raphy of the Author of Johnny Tremain (1998). Dobrow, V.,
Johnny Tremain:A Study Guide (1995). Forbes, E., Americas
In Miss Marvel (1935), the title character is an eccentric
Paul Revere, Esther Forbes (1991). Frazier, A. S., Johnny Tremain
spinster of Forbes mothers era; she leads an uneventful outer life
by Esther Forbes: Curriculum Unit (1997). Haack, J. L., A
and an eventful, romantic inner one, depicted in letters to an
Literature Unit for Johnny Tremain, by Esther Forbes (1994).
imaginary lover. The novel examines her total acceptance and
Kingsland, T., I Want to Know More About Good Books (audio-
romanticizing of sexual repression. Side by side with the story of
visual, 1980). Krueser, C. M., Johnny Tremain:By Esther Forbes
Miss Marvels social and emotional development is an extensive,
(1989). Power, G., Johnny Tremain: Study Guide (1993). Snodgrass,
contrasting description of physiological changes, at a cellular
M. E., Johnny Tremain: Esther Forbes (1995). Troy, A., Johnny
level, taking place in her body. The contrast between the central
Tremain (Esther Forbes): Teacher Guide (1988). Novel Guide to
Miss Marvel and her less colorful maiden sister, another Miss
Johnny Tremain, by Esther Forbes (1991). Study Guide for
Marvel, illustrates Forbes concern with the individuality of her
Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes: Strategies for Teaching the
characters. She avoids stereotypes of either historical periods or
the people who dwell in them. Novel Based on an Unabridged Version (1989).
Reference works: CA (1971, 1975). Newbery Medal Books
Johnny Tremain is the briefer, focused, and ctionalized 1922-55 (1955). SAA (1971). TCA, TCAS.
outgrowth of Paul Revere and the World He Lived In, on which Other references: LJ (15 May 1944). NYT(13 Aug. 1967).
Forbes and her mother collaborated. Both the life of the real
silversmith and the now-famous story of the silversmiths appren- LOIS R. KUZNETS
tice who adjusts to the handicap of a maimed hand and participates
in the Boston revolutionary movement, display Forbess intense
interest in the part that individuals, signicant or insignicant,
play in historical events. Both books clearly owe their immediate
inspiration to Forbes concern with the meaning and nature of
FORCH, Carolyn
human freedom in the context of World War II.
Born 28 April 1950, Detroit, Michigan
Rainbow in the Road (1954), which was made into a musical Writes under: Carolyn Sidlosky
in 1969, is Forbes last published work. It is a lyric lament for the Daughter of Michael Joseph and Louise Nada Blackford Sidlosky;
unspoiled New England countryside before the coming of the married Harry Mattison, 1984; children: Sean Christoph.
railroad, and for the ephemeral popular arts practiced by itinerant
artists, limners (portrait painters), like its hero, Jude Rebough,
Poet, translator, essayist, activist, and teacher, Carolyn Forch
and his ballad-making friend, Mr. Sharp. Although she was
working on a study of witchcraft at the time of her death, Rainbow was raised in rural Michigan and educated at Justin Morell
in the Road seems an appropriate swan song for Forbes herself, College of Michigan State University (B.A., 1972) and Bowling
whose own choice of a rather popular art form, the historical Green State University (M.F.A., 1975). She won the Yale Young-
novel, helped her to win immediate but perhaps transient er Poets Award the year of her graduation from Bowling Green,
recognition. for Gathering the Tribes (1976), a ceremonial, sometimes-cosmic
collection of lyrics about people and places, written in a densely
Even in her nonction, Forbes sole analytical thrust is simple language centered on nouns and names. She has published
psychological and somewhat Freudian. Forbes considers person- frequently and fairly steadily since thenpoems, translations,
alities and social relationships among personalities, rather than essays, reviews, interviews, and prefacesand won many prizes
broader social, political, or economic issues. She saves her sharp and fellowships, including the Lamont Poetry Selection Award
sense of irony, expressed often in wry comments, for individual for her bestselling second book of poetry, The Country Between
foibles and generally accepts learned but conventional interpreta- Us (1981). Appropriately for a distinguished translator and reader
tions of events. Perhaps only in A Mirror for Witches, with its of many languages, her own poetry has been translated into
craftily delineated narrator, and in Johnny Tremain, where the German, Swedish, Russian, Spanish, Czech, Greek, Dutch, and
problems of an adolescent and of a new society reect upon each Japanese.
other, do her talents as a novelist and a historian mesh artistically
enough to transcend the limits of her genre. Here her efforts to Forchs status as an international gure in the arts and
depict the human universal in a particular period and place will politics is based in her identication as a poet of witness: she
probably earn her longer-lasting aesthetic esteem. has lived in and written about many areas of the world where
59
FORCH AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
poverty and oppression are social norms, from the Mojave Desert authorship in 13 years, and it marked a departure from her
to Johannesburg and, perhaps most crucially for her work, El previous style. The book is divided into ve numbered sections,
Salvador. After spending the summer of 1977 on Mallorca with dealing with war in France, Japan, and Germany as well as her
the self-exiled Salvadoran poet Claribel Alegria, translating own experiences in war-torn Beirut and El Salvador. She focuses
Alegrias poems for the volume Flowers from the Volcano (1982), on Hiroshima and the Holocaust as two dening events of our
Forch was encouraged by Alegrias cousin to go to El Salvador generation and assumes that past atrocities predict current ones.
as a journalist and to bring back testimony to North America. This
she did, in many forms: in magazine articles; in speeches, radio Angel of History is placed within the contexts of history, art,
programs, panel discussions, international conferences; in her and philosophy. It reects the poets personal vision, incorporates
teaching; and in the poems of The Country Between Us. the words of characters both real and ctional, and is inuenced
by Forchs reading, taking in snatches of texts by the likes of Elie
Forchs interest in other languages and other cultures has Wiesel, Franz Kafka, Elias Canetti, Georg Trakl, and Ren Char.
been a constant, starting perhaps from the important childhood The experimental style, which received mostly favorable reviews
relationship with her grandmother Anna, an immigrant Slovak from critics, is characterized by long lines as well as a combina-
peasant about whom Forch has written regularly since her death tion of nished and unnished thoughts and a lack of closure. A
in 1968 (see especially Burning the Tomato Worms in Gather- review in Publishers Weekly noted that though Forchs previ-
ing the Tribes). Her rst book of poems includes a long section ous books have been groundbreaking works of political and moral
based on her experiences living close to Native Americans in the depth, this new volume may be the most remarkable. Don
Southwest and British Columbia. This urge toward contact and Bogged, writing in the Nation, agreed: The collection represents
empathy with those outside her own region, nation, and native a deeper and more complex engagement with her political con-
tongue, took on the focus of a mission once she began the moral cerns and a startling departure in style to achieve this. Its clearly a
and political education (El Salvador) offered by her harrow- breakthrough.
ing years in El Salvador. As she put it in a 1987 essay (Letters to
an Open City), there are. . .two human worlds and the bridges Intended not to explain but to prevent forgetting, Angel of
between them are burning. History has been described as powerful but not easily understand-
able. Despite its difculty and the horrors inherent in the subject
Two of these bridges are poetry and translation: in addition to matter, critics praise the book as poetry of exceptional beauty.
that of Claribel Alegria, Forch has also brought the poet Robert
Desnos into English (The Selected Poems of Robert Desnos, with
William Kulik, 1991) and completed an anthology, Against For- OTHER WORKS: Women in American Labor History, 1825-1935:
getting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness (1993). She has also An Annotated Bibliography (with Martha Jane Soltow, 1972).
written prefaces and forewords to a number of books by lesser- History and Motivations of U.S. Involvement in the Control of the
known poets as well as translations. Photography is another Peasant Movement of El Salvador (with Rev. Philip Whea-
important, if problematic, medium of translation. Forch, who ton, 1980).
is married to the war photographer Harry Mattison, has written Essays (selected): El Salvador: An Aide Memoire, Ameri-
prose texts for two collections of photographs, El Salvador: Work can Poetry Rev. (July-August, 1981). A Fantasy of Birches,
of Thirty Photographers (1983) and Shooting Back: Photography Singular Voices: American Poetry Today, (ed. by Stephen Berg,
by and about the Homeless (1991). Her poem, In the Garden of 1985). A Lesson in Commitment, The Writer in Our World; (
Shukkei-en, provided the text for a 1991 exhibit of photographs ed. by Reginald Gibbons, 1986). Foreword to Janet Levine, Inside
at the Arizona State University School of Art. Apartheid (1988).
Among her talents, Forch is also a teacher. Like many
contemporary poets she has held visiting positions at colleges and
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA 109 (1983), 117 (1986).
universities across the country. Since 1989 she has been a tenured
CAN 50 (1996). CLC 25 (1983), 83 (1994). Contemporary Poets 4
faculty member at George Mason University, where she teaches
(1985). DLB 5 (1980), 193 (1998). FC (1990). WWAW, 11th
the literature of witness as well as the craft of writing. In her public
ed. (1979).
life Forch has claimed every available forum for her testimony:
Other references: APR 22:2 (March/April 1993). Book Fo-
speeches, conferences, readings, classrooms, radio, television,
rum 2:3 (1976). Carolyn Forch (lm, 1990). Commonweal
lm, photography, arts journals, newspapers, and newsweeklies.
(Nov. 1977). Five Fingers Review 3 (1985). Library Journal (1
Hers is a voice apparently compelled to speak, coming from the
Feb. 1996). Ms. (Jan. 1980, Sept. 1982). Nation (May 1982, Oct.
heart of one who has seen much that is unspeakable in places
1982, Oct. 1994). Nightsun 9 (Fall 1989). NYRB (24 June 1993).
where, often enough, speech is against the law. Her Angel of
Progressive (Oct. 1993). PW (31 Jan. 1994). Rolling Stone (April
History (1994), begins with a long poem, The Recording An-
1983). Salmagundi (Spring 1984). TVAR: Literarni Tydenik 10
gel, which aptly names the function Forch has come to share
([Prague] 1990). Time (March 1982). Whole Earth Review (Spring
with other poets of witness in the global village of a genocidal
century. 1996). Witness in El Salvador (lm, 1982).
Angel of History, which won the Los Angeles Times Book MARY B. CAMPBELL,
Award for Poetry, was Forchs rst full-length book of sole UPDATED BY KAREN RAUGUST
60
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FORD
FORD, Harriet agree he writes it, or if I hit upon one that pleases us I write it. I sit
at my desk and Mr. OHiggins does a great deal of walking
around.
Born 1863, Seymour, Connecticut; died 12 December 1949, New
York, New York Ford felt her particular skill as a dramatist lay in her con-
Daughter of Samuel and Isabel Stoddard Ford; married Ford structive faculty, the power to build. Because of this technical
Morgan, 1930 acumen, producers frequently called upon her to doctor scripts
by other writers. Although 1924 was the year of her last profes-
Harriet Fords earliest goal was to become an actressnot an sionally produced play, Sweet Seventeen, Ford continued to write
entirely respectable pursuit for a young lady whose New England plays, mostly innocuous one-act comedies, published by Samu-
ancestors ran to, in her own words, theologians and college el French.
presidents, a long, grim, wonderful line of unusual men. Buoyed
by her ambition and by the conviction she too was unusual, Ford
OTHER WORKS: Audrey (with E. F. Boddington, 1902). The
left home to train at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts,
Honour of the Humble (1902). A Little Brother of the Rich
where David Belasco was one of her teachers.
(with J. M. Patterson, 1909). Dickey Bird (with H. OHiggins,
Her difculties in getting an acting engagement after gradua- 1914). Polygamy (with H. OHiggins, 1914). Mr. Lazarus (with H.
tion were later to impel her, as a successful playwright, to make OHiggins, 1916). The Land of the Free (with F. Hurst, 1917). On
protges of numerous hopeful young actresses and bring them, the Hiring Line (with H. OHiggins, 1919). Main Street (with H.
like homeless kittens, to her producers. Fords 10-year struggle to OHiggins, 1921). The Bride (1924). Where Julia Rules (with C. K.
become known as an actress culminated in a season in London, Duer, 1924). The Happy Hoboes (with A. S. Tucker, 1928). Mrs.
where she appeared in several plays by her friend William Susan Peters (1928). WantedMoney (with A. S. Tucker, 1928).
Gillette. Reviewers acknowledged the American ingenues attrac- What Imagination Will Do (1928). Christopher Rand (1929).
tiveness, but deplored her acting. Mysterious Money (1929). What Are Parents For? (1930). The
Divine Afatus (1931). Are Men Superior? (1933). Heroic Treat-
Her ambition switched to writing that year, when she won the ment (1933). Youth Must Be Served (1934).
prize in a British competition for the best poem celebrating the With no date: The Hold-up, Old P. Q., Orphan Aggie, Under
return of Henry Stanley from Africa. The poem was printed on Twenty, When a Feller Needs a Friend.
silk and read at a banquet for the heroic explorer. After her return
to New York, Fords rst produced play, The Greatest Thing in
the World (1900), brought stage stardom to Sarah Cowell LeMoyne, BIBLIOGRAPHY: Current Opinion (Nov. 1916). Green Book Maga-
for whom it was written. zine (May 1912, Aug. 1913). Strand Magazine (May 1915).
Theatre Magazine (July 1914).
Popular performers Eleanor Robson and Kyrle Bellew as-
sured the gallerys approval of A Gentleman from France (1901), FELICIA HARDISON LONDR
which Ford later ruefully described as the last of the swashbuck-
lers and the slaughter of eighteen. In 1923, Ford collaborated
on a mystery play, In the Next Room, with Eleanor Robson.
The most ourishing period in Fords quarter-century as a FORD, Sallie Rochester
produced playwright on Broadway was 1912 through 1914, when
she collaborated with Harvey OHiggins on, among their many Born 1 October 1828, Rochester Springs, Kentucky; died 1910
jointly authored plays, two murder-mystery comedy-thrillers, The Daughter of James H. and Demoretta Pitts Rochester; married
Argyle Case (1912) and The Dummy (1914). To research the rst, Samuel H. Ford, 1855; children: ve (two died in early
she and OHiggins relentlessly pursued nationally prominent childhood)
detective William J. Burns, who was at the time, said Ford, in
continual danger, as the people against whom he was working The Baptist faith and theology that inform Sallie Rochester
were particularly bitter against him. They grilled Burns in daily Fords novels were an integral part of her life from early child-
interview sessions about his real-life experiences, eking out the hood. After her mothers death, Ford, then four, was brought up by
plays improbable plot with interesting details in crime detec- her maternal grandmother, a strong farm woman who, Ford
tion, playful little bits of business with thumbmarks and the like to recalled, cherished those principles which, in orphan childhood,
pique curiosity and satisfy a craving for the unusual. I learned from her lips. Continuing her early interest in reading
and theology, Ford graduated at the head of her class from the
Ford described to interviewer Ada Patterson her methods of
Female Seminary in Georgetown, Kentucky; two years later she
work with her two major collaborators: When Mr. Patterson and
publicly professed her faith in Christ and was baptized.
I wrote The Fourth Estate we equally divided our labor. He wrote
the rst act while I was working on the second. Then he wrote the At twenty-six Ford married a Baptist minister and editor of
third while I was writing the fourth. Mr. OHiggins and I have a the monthly Christian Repository, which she began to coedit and
slower and more satisfactory method. . . . We talk over a scene in which she serialized her rst novel, Grace Truman (1857).
until we decide upon the lines. If he thinks of one upon which we Living in St. Louis, Missouri, Mobile, Alabama, and Memphis,
61
FORNS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Tennessee, where he held pastorates and she was president of two Fords religious romances are awed by her sentimental
missionary societies, they had ve children, the second and third style, wooden characterization, and weak plots. But the suspense,
of whom died in early childhood. Ford produced several more the analysis of theology, and the emotional power of Fannies
religious novels, a ctionalization of the raids and romances of baptism scene make Fords rst novel, Grace Truman, worth
a Confederate Army band, and in her old age, a memorial volume reading.
on Rochester, her rstborn son.
Grace Truman dramatizes Graces conict between her love OTHER WORKS: The Battle of Freedom, Including Seven Letters
for her Presbyterian husband and her belief in Baptist theology, a on Religious Liberty, Addressed to Bishop Spaulding (with S. H.
conict echoed in two romantic subplots. Her husbands family, Ford, 1855). Raids and Romances of Morgan and His Men (1863,
who believe in sprinkling, try to make a Presbyterian of reissued 1980). Evangel Wiseman; or, The Mothers Question
Grace, who believes in dipping, and her troubles increase (1874). The Inebriates: A Story of Love, Suffering and Triumph
when her husband begins to backslide. All ends well when the (1884). Rochester Ford: The Story of a Successful Christian
husband, his sister Fannie, the anc of Graces best friend, and Lawyer (with S. H. Ford, 1904).
even the Presbyterian minister become Baptists and are dipped in
the river.
Although Ford partially compensates for the limitations of BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Lambs Biographical Diction-
the plot by creating suspense over each stage of Graces dilemma, ary of the U.S. (1900). Living Female Writers of the South (1872).
her style is sentimental, her dialogue stilted, and the long-suffer- NCAB. Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable
ing Grace is merely a cardboard gure in both her romantic and Americans (1904). Women of the South Distinguished in Litera-
her theological trials. Fords theological arguments show an ture (1865).
analytical mind; a knowledge of scripture, doctrine, and historical
MARTHA CHEW
and contemporary scholarship; and in the homely analogies made
by Aunt Peggy, the black servant, a knack for the concrete
illustrations that characterize Puritan sermons.
What makes the novel more than a theological discourse FORESTER, Fanny
tacked onto a romance is the baptism of Fannie, who incurs her See JUDSON, Emily Chubbuck
fathers sore displeasure when she becomes a Baptist. Al-
though the occasion is one of spiritual rejoicing, Fannie is
severing herself from all of her early associations and she is
racked beneath the conict of contending emotions. The
conict between love and principle so unconvincingly treated in FORNS, Mara Irene
Graces trials is here movingly portrayed, largely because the
scene is psychologically realistic in its suggestion of the emotion- Born 14 May 1930, Havana, Cuba
al consequences of parent-child conict. The theme of happiness Daughter of Carlos L. and Carmen H. Collado Forns
mixed with pain is underlined by Fords device of ending the
novel, as it began, with a wedding, for the second bride wonders if Mara Irene Forns has been a powerful moving force in the
her life will be full of alternating joy and sorrow. experimental theater scene since the early 1960s. A major voice
Mary Bunyan, the Blind Dreamers Daughter (1860, reissued in American drama, according to Scott Cummings, and the
1990) also combines romance and religion, this time in a historical truest poet of the theater, according to Erika Munk. Born and
novel focusing on Marys devotion to her imprisoned father and educated in Cuba, Forns came to the U.S. in 1945 and became a
her romance with a dissenter, whose execution causes her to die of naturalized citizen in 1951. Since then, her work has earned her
grief. Religion and romance alike come off as sentimental and such accolades as ofcial citation as a national treasure by the
insipid; the only readable passages are the brief ones giving American National Theatre, which commissioned her to write a
biographical information about Bunyan and quotations from play. She has received awards from the Rockefeller (1971) and
his works. Guggenheim (1972) foundations, the National Endowment for the
Arts (1974, 1984, 1985), and the American Academy and Institute
Ernest Quest (1878) chronicles Ernests dual quest for salva- of Arts and Letters (1985). She has also won seven of her eight
tion and a wife. He avoids the snares of Spiritualists and Masons Obies since 1977, including one (1982) for Sustained Achieve-
to become a Baptist, and he marries Alice, whom he has rescued ment. She also won the Playwrights U.S.A. award in 1986 for her
from a divorced man. Ernest nds both the truth and all of translation of Cold Air. Forns was a founding member of the
earthly happiness in an ending ushered in by the urry of Womens Theatre Council and the New York Theatre Strategy, an
weddings climaxing the subplots. In spite of occasional moments organization of off-off Broadway playwrights; she served as
of suspense (the villainous divorced man plots with the cunning of president of Theatre Strategy from 1973 until it disbanded in 1980.
a Lovelace to trap Alice into marriage), Ernest Quest, like Mary
Bunyan, has all of the faults and none of the virtues of Grace Although never explicitly feminist, Forns plays explore
Truman. womens role in society, examining power relations inherent in
62
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FORNS
sexuality, households, and in all human relationships. Trained and discussion of her work. She also remains an active teacher of
early in American Method acting under Lee Strasberg in the the subject at home and abroad.
Playwrights Unit of the Actors Studio, Forns soon began
As interest in Forns work continues to surface in the
developing plays in collaboration with performers, often in work-
shop. She decided that it was important to direct her own works, a theatrical community, the playwright has been the subject of three
part of a natural, continuing process that she likens to cooking and books: Forns: Theater in the Present Tense by Diane Lynn
then eating the same meal. I never saw any difference between Moroff (1996), Maria Irene Forns and her Critics by Assunta
writing and directing, she said in a 1985 interview. Of course, Bartolomucci Kent (1996), and The Theater of Maria Irene
they are different things, but they are sequentially and directly Forns, edited by Marc Robinson (1999). All are noteworthy for
connected. students, directors, and actors exploring American theater and
cultural and womens studies.
The workshops Forns designs and leads are aimed at in-
ducing inspiration. As she told David Savran, I have invented Her best-known plays include Promenade (1969), Fefu and
exercises that are very effective and very profound. Her own Her Friends (1977), described by the playwright as a break-
work does not present a formulated thesis, but rather arrives as through for me, and Mud (1983), which Bonnie Marranca calls a
messages that come to her out of the inarticulate parts of her play centering on the act of a woman coming to thought.
consciousness or unconsciousness. Largely because they are products of workshops and have been
performed off-and off-off-Broadway, Forns plays are often
Forns plays do not revolve around clear plots but instead difcult to come by, many never having made it to publication.
present moments of intense engagement among characters. Fefu
and Her Friends (1977) was performed, under Forns direction,
with the audience divided into groups to move around a loft that OTHER WORKS: The Widow (produced 1961, published as La
served as theater space, seeing the scenes in different sequences. Viuda). Tango Palace (also produced as There! You Died, 1963,
From the rst, John Kuhn writes, Forns broad and playful published 1966). The Successful Life of 3: A Skit for Vaudeville
sense of attention and of verbal and visual images poked audi- (produced 1965, published 1971). The Ofce (produced 1966). A
ences with freakishly or theatrically exalted characters, both Vietnamese Wedding (produced 1967, published 1971). The
innocent and experienced. These characters are often limited by Annunciation (produced 1967). Dr. Kheal (produced 1968, pub-
constricted environments or by their inability to articulate their lished 1971). The Red Burning Light; or, Mission XQ3 (produced
experience, but even her simplest characters have a wisdom that 1968, published 1971). Mollys Dream (produced 1968, pub-
transcends these limitations. And whatever their limitations, one lished 1971). Promenade and Other Plays (published 1971,
senses in Forns a great compassion and deep respect for the includes Dr. Kheal; The Successful Life of 3; A Vietnamese
characters. Wedding; The Red Burning Light; and Mollys Dream). The Curse
of the Langston House (produced 1972). Dance (produced 1972).
Forns says her plays become crystallized when she Aurora (produced 1974). Cap-a-Pie (produced 1975). Washing
feels the presence of a character or person. . . . I get it like click. (produced 1976). Lolita in the Garden (produced 1977). In
Then she sees a picture of the set with the characters in it. Service (produced 1978). Eyes on the Harem (produced 1979).
Having begun as a painter and textile designer, she says, The Evelyn Brown (a Diary) (produced 1980). Blood Wedding (trans-
colors are very, very important for me. And the clothes that people lation and adaptation of Garca Lorca, 1980). Life Is a Dream
wear. When it nally happens, the play exists; it has taken on its (translation and adaptation of Caldern, 1981). A Visit (produced
own life. The result is a style most often described as realism, a 1981). The Danube (1982, published 1986). Sarita (1984, pub-
realism Susan Sontag says eschews both the reductively psycho- lished 1986). Abingdon Square (produced 1984). No Time (pro-
logical and sociological explanations and Bonnie Marranca duced 1985). The Conduct of Life (1985, published 1986). Cold
characterizes as emphasizing the interior lives of her characters, Air (translation and adaptation of Pinera, 1985). Drowning (1985,
not their exterior selves. published 1986). Lovers and Keepers (produced 1986). The Trial
Forns plays often present an unromanticized sexuality, raw of Joan of Arc on a Matter of Faith (produced 1986). The Mother
and violent and at the same time casual. Sexuality is rarely the (title later changed to Charley, produced 1986). Art (produced
subject, however. The subject is rather the ramications of 1986). Mara Irene Forns: Plays (1986, includes The Danube;
sexuality on human relationships, sexuality as power and as a fact Mud; Sarita; The Conduct of Life). Hunger (produced 1985).
of life, another part of her characters natural existence. Three Pieces for a Warehouse (produced 1988). Springtime
(1989, published 1991).
Her recent play, The Summer in Gossensass (produced The manuscript collection of Mara Irene Forns is in the
1998), is another piece very different from the expected. In it, the Lincoln Center Library of the Performing Arts in New York City.
two main characters play American actresses living in England
who are trying to piece together a play that they have not yet read.
Performed through the Womens Project and Productions at the BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brater, E., ed., Feminine Focus (1989). Chen, L.,
Judith Anderson Theatre in Manhattan, it received mixed reviews Violence in the Spotlight: Exploring the Violent and Violated
for its unusual perspective. College theater troupes continue to Female Characters in Selected Plays of Marsha Norman and
produce the plays of Forns, and she has been known to travel Mara Irene Forns (thesis, 1993). Kent, A. B., Mara Irene
from her home in New York to visit college campuses for lecture Forns and her Critics (1996). Moroff, D. L., Forns: Theater in
63
FORREST AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
the Present Tense (1996). Robinson, M., ed., The Theater of Kate Delaeld, a detective for the Los Angeles Police Depart-
Mara Irene Forns (1999). Redmond, J., ed., Theatrical Space ment. In addition to dealing with the challenges of investigating
(1987). Interviews with Contemporary Women Playwrights (1987). murder cases, Delaeld must keep her lesbianism a secret in order
Reference works: American Women Dramatists of the Twen- to avoid jeopardizing her career in a eld dominated by hetero-
tieth Century (1982). CA (1977, Online, 1999). CANR (1990). sexual males. Amateur City was the rst lesbian novel to be
CLC (1986, 1990). Contemporary Dramatists (1973, 1977, 1982, offered by the Century Book Club of Los Angeles, the rst book
1988). DLB (1981). FC (1990). Hispanic Writers (1990). MTCW club for gay and lesbian readers.
(1991). Notable Women in American Theatre (1989). Oxford
Although Forrest continued to write short stories and novels
in many different genres, the novels about Kate Delaeld quickly
Other references: NR (25 Feb. 1978). Newsday (9 Apr. 1998).
became her most famous works. The second novel in the series,
Newsweek (4 June 1969). New York (18 Mar. 1985). NYT (5 June
Murder at the Nightwood Bar (1987), was one of the most
1969, 14 Jan. 1978, 22 Jan. 1978, 25 Oct. 1983, 13 Mar. 1984).
popular. It has been frequently used as a text in college classes
Performing Arts Journal (1983, 1984). Studies in American
dealing with mystery ction, women writers, or gay and lesbian
Drama, 1945-Present (1989). Theater (Winter 1985). VV (25 Jan.
literature. The novel involves the murder of Dory Quillin, a young
1973, 23 Mar. 1977, 23 Jan. 1978, 29 Aug. 1986). Wisconsin State
woman who had been rejected by her family because she was a
Journal (7 Nov. 1998).
lesbian. Plans commenced in 1996 to adapt Murder at the
MARCIA HEPPS AND WILLIAM KEENEY,
Nightwood Bar into a motion picture.
UPDATED BY CARRIE SNYDER All the Delaeld novels use realistic, suspenseful mystery
plots to deal with serious social issues. In The Beverly Malibu
(1990), the long-term effects of the political repression of the
McCarthy Era of the 1950s are seen in a case involving the murder
FORREST, Katherine V. of movie director Owen Sinclair. Murder by Tradition (1991)
deals directly with homophobia as Delaeld investigates the
Born 20 April 1939, Windsor, Ontario, Canada murder of Teddie Crawford, an openly gay young man. In
Daughter (adopted) of Leland W. and Mary Gilhuly McKinlay addition to confronting the homophobia of her police partner, Ed
Taylor, Delaeld faces the possibility that her lesbianism may be
Katherine V. Forrest has written novels and short ction in a exposed. Both The Beverly Malibu and Murder by Tradition won
wide variety of genres, all dealing with lesbian protagonists and the Lambda Literary award for lesbian ction. The Beverly
intended primarily for lesbian readers. Although she is best Malibu was the rst hardcover book published by Naiad Press,
known for a series of mystery novels involving a lesbian police winning it greater attention from mainstream reviewers than
detective, she has also written science ction, erotica, and ro- previous novels in the series.
mances. Forrest is also a noted editor of lesbian ction, holding
While remaining in the suspense genre, Forrests ction took
the position of senior ction editor for Naiad Press, the largest
a new direction with the publication of Flashpoint in 1994. A
publisher of lesbian ction in the United States.
political thriller set in California in the early 1990s, this novel
Forrest was adopted as a young child. Her adoptive parents again succeeded in discussing controversial topics while enter-
both died while she was in high school. In 1957 she moved from taining readers with a fast-paced, carefully plotted story. By the
Canada to the U.S., where she attended Wayne State University in late 1990s, the popularity of Forrests novels had increased to the
Detroit, Michigan. She later moved to California and attended the point where they began to be published by mainstream publishers
University of California at Los Angeles. She eventually became in addition to Naiad Press.
an American citizen and continued to live in California, primarily As an editor, Forrest collaborated with Barbara Grier on three
in San Francisco and Los Angeles. anthologies of lesbian ction. The Erotic Naiad (1992), The
Forrest worked a variety of jobs before becoming a full-time Romantic Naiad (1993), and The Mysterious Naiad (1994) proved
writer in 1979. Within ve years, she established herself as one of there were many talented authors writing for a lesbian audience.
the most popular authors of lesbian ction in the U.S. Her rst The success of Forrests work also encouraged many writers of
novel, Curious Wine (1983), was an erotic romance detailing the lesbian ction, particularly in the genre of mystery ction.
relationship between two women, Diana Holland and Lane
Christianson. Curious Wine sold more than 100,000 copies and is OTHER WORKS: An Emergence of Green (1986). Dreams and
said to be the most widely read lesbian novel since Radclyffe Swords (1988). Liberty Square (1996). Apparition Alley (1998).
Halls early classic The Well of Loneliness (1928). In 1994 Sleeping Bones (1999).
Curious Wine became the rst lesbian novel to be recorded on
audiotape.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: CA (1991). Completely Queer (1998). Gay and
In 1984 Forrest published two more bestselling novels, in Lesbian Literature (1993). Great Women Mystery Writers (1994).
very different genres. Daughters of a Coral Dawn was a science St. James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers (1996).
ction novel in which a group of women leave Earth and establish
a lesbian utopia on the planet Materna. Amateur City introduced ROSE SECREST
64
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FORTEN
FORTEN, Charlotte L. through the streets. Yet she was so sensitive to the lack of total
acceptance in Salem that she made no friends among her school-
mates, who could not accept her wholeheartedly.
Born 17 August 1837, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; died 23 July
1914, Washington, D.C. The nal sections of the Journal are valuable for their picture
Wrote under: Charlotte Forten, Lottie of the transition of ex-slaves into free people. There are anecdotes
Daughter of Robert B. and Mary Virginia Forten; married about slave experience, about precarious escapes from masters
Francis J. Grimk, 1878; children: one, who died in infancy evacuating their homes in the face of Union advances, and
accounts of children dying from whooping cough. But the closing
Charlotte L. Forten, a member of Philadelphias most presti- entries also tell the story of Fortens appreciation of the music of
gious black family, was tutored at home until 1854, when she went the freed slaves; of her satisfaction at seeing children and adults
to live with black abolitionist Charles Lenox Remond, in Salem, learn to read and write, though their spoken language was Gullah;
Massachusetts, where she attended Higginson Grammar School. and of her pride while watching eld hands become brave soldiers
She graduated from Salem Normal School in 1856 and taught determined to defend their freedom.
white students at Epes Grammar School. Despite ill health, Forten
The language of the Journal is informal except for the
was a member of the Salem Female Anti-Slavery Society. She
convention of addressing it as dear A. It seldom lapses into
read widely, studied French and German, and wrote occasional
colloquialisms, and the only example of such freedom is in the use
poems and essays.
of Secesh for the secessionists or an occasional military
In 1862 Forten secured employment in a Port Royal, South expression. Its tone is made personal by such private observations
Carolina, school for the children of ex-slaves. She also taught as Fortens wondering if Browningor any mancould really
adults and thus contributed to the success of the Port Royal merit the devotion in Elizabeth Barrett Brownings poetry; her
Experiment, an effort to prove ex-slaves were educable and could thoughts about her ill health and its interference with her ambi-
be trained as soldiers. Forten returned to Philadelphia in 1864 and tions; and the realistic descriptions of her hospital experience,
published an account of her Southern experience in the Atlantic with her sincerely expressed response to death and injury. The
Monthly. Journal ends on 15 May 1864, when Forten made her last entry at
the Oliver Fripp Plantation in Port Royal.
Forten married a Presbyterian minister and abolitionist. They
had one child, who died in infancy. Except for a brief period in The Journal is written with candor and clarity. The New
Florida, Forten lived in Washington until her death. England entries reveal a sensitive person determined to study and
learn all that she can in order to be a living demonstration of the
Fortens poetry, sometimes published under the pseudonym capabilities of black people. The Journal is the record, as well, of
Lottie, expresses the sentimentality and piety characteristic of a talented and gracious young woman as outsiderbecause she
poetry catering to the poorest of popular Victorian tastes. Her is black.
essays generally lack literary merit. The best is Life on the Sea
Islands (Atlantic Monthly, May/June 1864), which presents
material also contained in the Journal account of her years in the OTHER WORKS: The Journal of Charlotte Forten: A Free Negro in
South. Only Fortens Journal entitles her to a place among the Slave Era (reissue, 1981). The Journals of Charlotte Forten
signicant women writers of the 19th century. Grimk (reissue, 1989). The Poetry of Charlotte L. Grimk
(database, 1995). A Free Black Girl Before the Civil War: The
Fortens dedication to the abolitionist cause brought her into Diary of Charlotte Forten, 1854 (2000).
contact with all the leading abolitionists; so the Journal contains The papers of Charlotte L. Forten are at Howard University
personal responses to Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, in Washington, D.C.
Jonathan Parker, and William Wells Brown. Her record of literary
gures whom she knew includes Whittier, who became her
valued friend, and Lowell and Emerson, whose lectures she BIBLIOGRAPHY: Barksdale, R., and K. Kinnamon, Black Writers of
attended. The rst half of the Journal is useful as a record of the America (1972). Braxton, J. M., Charlotte Forten Grimk (1837-
day-to-day activities of a genteel, young black woman of the 19th 1914) and the Search for a Public Voice (1985). Burchard, P.,
century. The entire journal is pervaded by Fortens racial aware- Charlotte Forten: A Black Teacher in the Civil War (1995).
ness. Though her family has been free for three generations, Hughes Wright, R., A Tribute to Charlotte Forten, 1837-1914
Forten identied with the slaves. For her, the Fourth of July was a (1993). Katz, W. L., ed., Two Black Teachers during the Civil War
mockery of the principle of democracy as no man, white or black, (1969). Longsworth, P., Charlotte Forten, Black and Free (1970).
could be free in a land where slavery existed. She deplored the Oden, G., The Journal of Charlotte L. Forten, the Salem-Philadel-
transatlantic telegraph because it brought England so very near phia Years (1854-1862) Rexamined (1983). Rider, J., Charlotte
this wicked land. Similarly, she preferred Salem to Philadelphia Forten and the Port Royal Mission (thesis, 1995). Rose, W. L.,
because of the indignities blacks experienced in Pennsylvania, Rehearsal for Reconstruction: The Port Royal Experiment (1964).
where they were barred from restaurants and denied seats on Wilson, E., Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the
public conveyances and where captured slaves were dragged American Civil War (1962). Inscribing the Daily: Critical Essays
65
FOSTER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
on Womens Diaries (1996). Womans True Profession: Voices mischiefs she meditates. He writes: If she will play with a lion,
from the History of Teaching (1981). let her beware the paw, I say. Sanford is condent of his powers,
Reference works: Black American Writers Past and Present but his pride is hurt by her friends warnings against him and by
(1975). NAW. her attraction to Boyer. These make him even more determined to
Other references: African-American Poetry of the Nineteenth win Eliza, which he does eventually, even though he has, in the
Century: An Anthology (1992). African American Proles in meantime, married for money.
History Volume Three (recording, 1995). Charlotte Fortens
Justice appropriate to the seduction-novel genre is meted out
Mission Experiment in Freedom (audiovisual, 1991). Half Slave,
to Eliza and Sanford, accompanied by lengthy confessions and
Half Free Part 2: Charlotte Fortens Mission (audiovisual, 1992).
moral lectures. The lessons are taught by the characters them-
Historic Black Abolitionists (audiovisual, 1996). Richard Allen
selves, however, and their contrition seems real enough, a fact
Story; Charlotte Forten (recording, 1987).
which makes The Coquette one of the better American examples
of the genre and the book went through 13 editions in its rst 40
GWENDOLYN A. THOMAS
years. The Boarding School was not so popular. It is dedicated to
the young ladies of America and demonstrates how a clergy-
mans widow, Mrs. Williams, educates young girls to fulll their
future roles as well-bred ladies, wives, and mothers.
FOSTER, Hannah Webster Lacking plot, the letters in The Boarding School can only be
read as a series of thinly disguised lectures on female education
and deportment that repeat the accepted wisdom of 18th-century
Born 10 September 1758, Salisbury, Massachusetts; died 17
America. A contemporary critic reproached Foster for having
April 1840, Montreal, Canada
failed to establish at least a model of good letter-writing, since she
Wrote under: A Lady of Massachusetts
had said nothing original in the book. The book does, however,
Daughter of Grant and Hannah Wainwright Webster; married
contain the warning, implied in The Coquette, against the accept-
John Foster, 1785
ed maxim that reformed rakes make the best husbands. Foster
argues society has been too lenient with seducers and pleads for
Little is known of either Hannah Webster Fosters childhood more tolerance for their victims.
or education, but the numerous historical and literary allusions in
her books suggest she was well-educated for her time and sex.
Foster is best known for her novel The Coquette; or, The History BIBLIOGRAPHY: Akgun, D. A., Expressions of Oppression or
of Eliza Wharton (1797). After the publication of her second book, Power?Reconsidering the Texts of Hannah Webster Forster
The Boarding School; or, Lessons of a Preceptress to Her Pupils and Tabitha Gilman Tenny (thesis, 1996). Bornstein, S., Mas-
(1798), Foster wrote only short articles for newspapers. Upon her querading as the Decrees of Fate: The Fate of Society and the Will
husbands death she moved to Montreal to live with two of her of Law in The Coquette and The Awakening (thesis, 1994).
ve children, two daughters who also wrote. Brown, H. R., The Sentimental Novel in America, 1789-1860
(1940). Groves, S. M., Machiavels in Petticoats: Feminist Mes-
The Coquette, which is founded on fact, was based on the sages in Three Didactic Sentimental Novels: Susanna Rowsons
life of Elizabeth Whitman of Hartford, Connecticut, a distant Charlotte: A Tale of Truth, Hannah Fosters The Coquette, and
cousin of Fosters husband. It is a seduction novel in epistolary Helena Wells The Step-mother (thesis, 1990). Hikel, J., Edu-
form (obviously much inuenced by the novels of Samuel Rich- cating the Republican Daughter, Early American Novels and
ardson, such as the epistolary seduction novel, Clarissa Harlowe) Conduct Literature, 1789- 1800 (thesis, 1995). Matzke, C. K. B.,
with the typical strengths and weaknesses of this genre. Incidents The Woman Writes as if the Devil Was in Her: A Rhetorical
are reported several times by different people, a technique that Approach to Three Early American Novels (thesis, 1993). Mott,
reveals character through a comparison of points of view. Many of F. L., Golden Multitudes (1947). Osborne, W. S., ed., The Power
the letters seem natural and spontaneous. Others, however, suffer of Sympathy and The Coquette (1970). Petter, H., The Early
from excessive length, didactic digressions, and an overemphasis American Novel (1971). Stern, J. A., The Plight of Feeling:
on sentiment and sensibility. Sympathy and Dissent in the Early American Novel (1997).
Tassoni, J. P., A Thousand Conversations: Genre Placement and
From the novels beginning Eliza emerges as a strongwilled Social Relations in American Sentimental Narratives (thesis,
young woman delighting in a newly found freedom from her 1992). Telfer, T. A., Writing as a Revolutionary Activity: Five
parents and a dull anc. She is convincingly indecisive about her Writers of the American Revolutionary Era (thesis, 1992).
two new suitors, the admirable Mr. Boyer, a clergyman, and Reference works: AA, DAB. NAW. Oxford Companion to
Major Sanford, who, she is warned, is a second Lovelace (the Womens Writing in the United States (1995).
seducer in Clarissa). Sanford, too, is a convincing and complex Other references: AL (Nov. 1932).
character. Seduction to Sanford is a game; he sees Eliza as a
coquette and determines to avenge [his] sex by retaliating the ELAINE K. GINSBERG
66
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FOX
FOX, Helen Morgenthau growing vegetables, Gardening for Good Eating (1943), was no
doubt encouraged by the victory-garden campaign. In both, Fox
presumes that the reader takes a scholarly interest in the subject
Born 27 May 1884, New York, New York; died 13 January 1974, and includes chapters on historical considerations and literary
Mt. Kisco, New York associations.
Daughter of Henry and Josephine Sykes Morgenthau; married
Mortimer Fox, 1906; children: three In The Years in My Herb Garden (1953), a more personal
account of her herb gardens, Fox again combines historical,
Helen Morgenthau Fox, one of Americas foremost garden horticultural, and literary material. Organized mainly by plant
writers, was the daughter of the immigrant nancier/philanthro- families (The Mints and Their Relatives), with an emphasis on
pist/politician Henry Morgenthau. Encouraged by her family to garden design, this book is an American classic for herb growers.
become involved in some serious lifework, she spent some time in Foxs last garden book, Adventure in My Garden, contains the
social work (with the Henry Street Settlement and such institu- most complete descriptions of her own gardens. To Fox, garden-
tions) after her graduation from Vassar College and marriage to an ing was a lifetime adventure that she shared with others
architect. However, as she explains in Adventure in My Garden through her books.
(1965), from the time she was fourteen she believed her vocation
was to work with plants. In my social work I learned a good deal
about human nature and human problems, but gradually I realized OTHER WORKS: Gardens by J. C. N. Forestier (translated by Fox,
this work was not for me. It did not ll me with joy, as if music 1924). The Dancing Girl of Shamakha by J. A. Gobineau (trans-
were playing in my heart, which is how I always felt when I lated by Fox, 1926). A Delectable Garden by B. Palissy (translat-
worked in my garden, she wrote. ed by Fox, 1931). Abb Davids Diary by D. Armand (translated
by Fox, 1949).
Along with raising three children, Fox studied botany at
Columbia University and worked at the New York Botanical
Garden with Dr. A. B. Stout, who encouraged her to write her rst BIBLIOGRAPHY: Morgenthau, H. All in a Lifetime (1922).
garden book, a study of lilies, Garden Cinderellas (1928). There- Other references: NYT (14 Jan. 1974).
after she devoted her life to the study of plants and the writing and
translating of garden books. Fox frequently lectured on horticul- BEVERLY SEATON
ture and appeared on radio and television broadcasts. She held
membership in many horticultural associations, receiving the
distinguished service award from the New York Botanical Gar-
den in 1960. FOX, Paula
In a 1928 article in the National Horticultural Magazine, Fox
stated that the best garden book should give one a sense of Born 22 April 1923, New York, New York
gardening as an art and make us feel its relation to the other arts. Daughter of Paul H. and Elsie de Sola Fox; married Richard
Her books do just that. A cultured woman, with a background of Sigerson (divorced); Martin Greenberg, 1962
travel, study, and work, Fox always presented gardening as one of
the popular arts, setting it in a historical and cultural context. A traveling child, Paula Fox seldom lived any place
longer than a year or two and seldom saw either of her parents.
Most of her work falls into two groups: studies of European Following high school, she worked at a variety of jobs before she
gardening (including translations from the French) and practical married, had two sons, then obtained a divorce. After attending
treatises with an informal, autobiographical emphasis. Fox trans- Columbia University, Fox taught elementary school for several
lated a book of essays and sketches by the 20th-century garden years. She began to write seriously after her second marriage.
designer Jean Forestier, who was an expert in restoring the lost
gardens of Moorish Spain. Foxs study of Spanish gardens, Patio Fox has written television scripts, short stories, and novels,
Gardens (1929), relates to his work. Yet characteristically, she but she is known chiey for her childrens books. She has
made her book more than the usual study of foreign gardens. The received a Guggenheim Fellowship (1972), an award from the
history, culture, and lifestyle of the people became part of the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1972), and the Hans
study; in addition, the book offers practical suggestions, particu- Christian Andersen Award in recognition of her entire body of
larly for the modern gardener in Americas Southwest. Andr Le writing (1978).
Notre (1962) is a biography of the landscape architect who created
Versailles, an introduction to his work, and a piece of cultural For readers under ten, Fox pictures a stable society adminis-
history. tered by solicitous adults who lavish restrictive attention on
imaginative and venturesome little boys. These stories are spiced
Fox is best known for works about her own gardens and with dry humor, witty but realistic dialogue, and fanciful but
gardening experiences. Gardening with Herbs for Flavor and improbable characters or episodes. In Maurices Room (1966), the
Fragrance (1933), an introduction to herb growing, is still in parents of a dedicated junk collector nally move to the country
print, although it has had many imitators. A similar book about after their sons possessions overcrowd his bedroom in their city
67
FOX AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
apartment. When Lewiss parents (A Likely Place, 1967) take a road, is seriously injured. In One-Eyed Cat (1984), eleven-year-old
trip to Chicago, he gains greater freedom and acquires self-con- Ned believes he has injured a wildcat when he disobeyed his
dence by helping an elderly Spanish shoemaker communicate father and red his new air rie. Fox examines how Neds
with his overly protective son-in-law. burdened conscience affects his relations with his parents, his
friends, an elderly neighbor, and the cat. On one level, the
For older juvenile readers, Fox explores the terror and discordant character in the novel is the housekeeper, but the tale
loneliness of preadolescent youths who must prove themselves in also demonstrates that a genuinely good person (Neds father,
the mysterious world outside the home. In How Many Miles to Reverend Wallis) can cause discomfort for those who exhibit less
Babylon (1967), The Stone-Faced Boy (1968), Portrait of Ivan patience and forbearance.
(1969), Blowsh Live in the Sea (1972), and The Slave Dancer
(1973), a journey of adventure and self-discovery tests ingenuity, When fteen-year-old Catherine Ames (The Moonlight Man,
courage, comprehension, or endurance and culminates in personal 1986) spends a month in Nova Scotia with her charming but
growth as well as increased understanding of, or achievement in, irresponsible alcoholic father, she gains insight into her parents
the adult world. Skillful blending of the actual and the symbolic divorce and realizes she cannot change her fathers behavior.
entices the reective reader to delve beneath the surface story and While the Corey family (Lily and the Lost Boy, 1987) is living on a
ponder such perennial puzzles as illusion and reality or the enigma Greek island, twelve-year-old Lily feels left out when her older
of human behavior. These are Foxs best books. brother becomes friends with Jack, a rootless American youth
whose father dances superbly but drinks too much. While riding
The Slave Dancer, Foxs only historical novel, won the his bicycle near the edge of a cliff, the reckless Jack causes the
Newbery Medal in 1974. Thirteen-year-old Jessie is kidnapped, death of a Greek child. Despite her dislike for Jack, Lily over-
taken aboard a slave ship, and forced to play the fe while the comes her fear and goes out alone at night to befriend him.
slaves dance for exercise. The revolting picture of the brutality of Obsessed with old family jealousies, ten-year-old Emmas ac-
the seamen and the inhumanity of the slave trade is softened id-tongued Aunt Bea (The Village by the Sea, 1988) has an unkind
slightly by Jessies compassion for the captives. word for everyone. At the climax of the novel, the elderly woman
In her adult novels, Fox portrays lonely, confused, rootless destroys the miniature village Emma and her friend have painstak-
New Yorkers ensnared in the misery of unfullling work, unre- ingly built from debris found on the beach. Emmas uncle
warding relationships, and unsatisfying marriages. She offers restrains her from immediate retaliation, and she later gains
astute, sensitive observation, but only tentative resolution and greater understanding of her unhappy aunt.
cheerless conclusion. She has been praised for her original talent, Considered one of Americas outstanding writers for young
lucid style, technical skill, incisive wit, and penetrating analysis of readers, Fox continued to receive numerous literary awards,
character. including an American Book Award for A Place Apart and
Since 1980 Fox has produced six books for young readers Newbery Honor awards in 1985 and 1989. Her sensitive treatment
and two novels for adults. Reviewers and critics have continued to of tough subjects in juvenile literature continues in The Eagle Kite
praise her ability to depict the inner life of young protagonists, to (1995), where she tackles a tremendously weighty subject for
create realistic characters and authentic settings, and to write individuals of any ageAIDS. Liams father is dying of AIDS; he
clear, graceful prose. Fox excels in portraying the emotions and is told by his family this is a result of a recent blood transfusion,
perceptions of children and adolescents as they grow in under- but the educational systems efforts at sex education have made it
standing themselves, their peers, and the adults around them. In A impossible for Liam to accept this explanation. Forced to recall an
Servants Tale (1984), Fox skillfully records the childhood expe- incident he has tried his best to forgetseeing his father embrac-
riences and relationships of Luisa de la Cueva while evoking the ing a young man on a beach several years beforehe nds his
locale and lore of the West Indies. The adult Luisa, however, is shame and anger at his familys well-intentioned lies difcult to
less interesting and less believable than the child. live with. His father withdraws to a cabin by the sea where Liam is
able to spend time alone with him and where both their wounds
In her juvenile ction, Fox never stints on complexity nor can begin to heal.
avoids difcult, even tragic, themes. The novels of this period
explore guilt, grief, divorce, alcoholism, and death. In each book, Western Wind (1993) presents the story of Elizabeth, who has
the protagonist confronts a complicated individual who exhibits been sent away for the summer to stay with her aging grandmoth-
attractive qualities but who also causes another discomfort, un- er, an artist living on a secluded island off the Maine coast.
happiness, humiliation, injury, or loss. Each carefully crafted plot Elizabeths family has recently had a new additiona baby boy
leads to a resolution in which the young person comes to terms who she is certain has become more important to her parents than
she, causing her banishment for the summer. The island, itself a
with this individual in a manner that will foster future growth and
character in this story, is brooding, stark, and inhabited only by
happiness.
Elizabeths grandmother and one other family, the Herkimers,
The difcult person in A Place Apart (1980) is a talented, who have an eccentric, overprotected son named Aaron. During
arrogant, and wealthy high school student who befriends new- her month on the island, Elizabeth learns a good deal about
comersand attempts to control their lives. Victoria Finch es- friendship, relationships in general, and the real reason for her
capes his manipulation, but another student, who tries to regain his tripto spend some nal time with her grandmother, who is
self-respect by driving up a dangerous, snow-covered mountain quite ill.
68
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FRANKAU
Radiance Descending (1997) involves a particularly painful Frankau took a job as copywriter with a London publisher. She
situation for children and an often popular subject of childrens published her rst novel at nineteen. During the war she served in
literaturethe mentally disabled sibling. Paul Colemans young- the army, entered the Catholic church in 1942, and moved to
er brother Jacob has Downs syndrome. Paul attempts to ignore the U.S. in 1945 with her husband, from whom she was di-
him, becomes an overachiever in class, and refuses to discuss his vorced in 1961.
retard brother with his friends. When he is given responsibility
Frankaus ction divides into two distinct groups, separated
for taking Jacob to the doctor for weekly allergy shots, he is forced
by the war and her conversion to Catholicism. In her literary
to work within Jacobs limitations and nds his brother has a
autobiography, Pen to Paper (1962), she ruthlessly assesses the
wonderful circle of caring friends. Paul learns compassion, begins
earlier works, describing the style as a carefully erected screen
to notice the trials of those around him, and discovers that he is not
of words, where descriptions became longer and fancier. Her
alone in his struggle to blend Jacob into his life.
extremely popular rst novel, Marriage of Harlequin (1927),
portrays a young girl trapped in role-playing relationships in the
OTHER WORKS: Poor George (1966). Dear Prosper (1967). amoral atmosphere of London in the 1920s. Subsequent novels
Hungry Fred (1969). The Kings Falcon (1969). Desperate Char- often concentrate on love affairs, with irtatious and witty dia-
acters (1970). Good Ethan (1973). The Western Coast (1973). logue, never frank sexuality. In She and I (1930) and Born at Sea
The Widows Children (1976). The Little Swineherd and Other (1932), Frankau attempts psychological complexity (split person-
Tales (1978). Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1984). The ality, neuroticism) without notable success, and in The Devil We
God of Nightmares (1990). Monkey Island (1991). Azmat and His Know (1939) her main character is a young Jewish writer strug-
Brothers: Three Italian Tales Remembered (1993). gling with feelings of inferiority and persecution. Most of these
novels have negligible plots. The best gently satirize the superci-
ality and hypocrisy of British high society, but when the satire
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Arbuthnot, M. H., and Z. Sutherland, Children fails we are left with the superciality alone. Frankau, aware of
and Books (1972). Kingman, L., ed., Newbery and Caldecott the shortcomings in her writings of this period, explains the ease
Medal Books, 1966-1975 (1975). Short Shorts: An Anthology of and enjoyment with which she wrote, and the attraction of money,
the Shortest Stories (1983). Townsend, J. R., A Sounding of encouraged her to publish prolically.
Storytellers (1979). The books written after the war and Frankaus conversion are
Reference works: CLR (1976). CA (1978). CANR (1987). stylistically and thematically different. Written in what Frankau
CLC (1974, 1978). Dictionary of American Childrens Fiction, calls straight English, they often have an overt religious
1960-1984 (1986). DLB (1986). Fourth Book of Junior Authors message, frequently portraying the emptiness of life without
and Illustrators (1978). SATA (1979, 1990). Values in Selected religious faith. Several of these novels use clumsy religious
Childrens Books of Fiction and Fantasy (1987). symbolism. The Offshore Light (1952) contrasts consecutive
Other references: Alan Review (Winter 1987). Booklist (1 chapters of third-person realism with rst-person symbolism
Feb. 1995, 1 Sept. 1997). Good Conversation! A Talk with Paula presented as the notebooks of a divorced and dying statesman. His
Fox (audiovisual, 1992). Horn Book (April 1984, Mar.-Apr. notebooks represent the religious viewpoint as an island, of
1994). Interracial Books for Children (1974). NYRB (27 June which he is The Guardian, with his close friend Peter.
1985). NYTBR (8 Oct. 1972, 20 Jan. 1974, 9 Nov. 1980, 11 Nov.
1984, 18 Nov. 1984, 5 Feb. 1989, 8 July 1990, 10 Nov. 1991). Wreath for the Enemy (1954) is the story of a young girls
Paula Fox (recording, 1993). Paula Fox (audiovisual, 1987). confused search for values in the social sophistication of the
Paula Fox Interview with Kay Bonetti (recording, 1986). PW (6 Riviera. The three parts of the book are each told by a separate
Apr. 1990, 23 Aug. 1993, 20 Feb. 1995, 21 July 1997). TLS (21 narrator attempting to interpret the same events, but these separate
Feb. 1986, 15 Jan. 1988). viewpoints are never successfully resolved. The search for spiritu-
al values is also the subject of The Bridge (1957), but again the
ALICE BELL, viewpoint, in which the main character reviews his life from an
UPDATED BY REBECCA C. CONDIT otherworldly perspective, is unconvincing.
Road Through the Woods (1961) is more successful. It
introduces a young amnesiac who, looking exactly like his father,
arrives in the Irish town where his father grew up, causing varied
FRANKAU, Pamela responses from the parish priest, the woman his father jilted, and
an old man searching for a mysterious manuscript. Through
Born 1908, London, England; died 9 June 1967, London, England mystical remembrances of events that occurred before his birth,
Also wrote under: Eliot Naylor the boy acquires a sense of Catholic heritage and decides to stay
Daughter of Gilbert and Dorothea Black Frankau; married on in the town, even after his nihilistic father comes to bring him
Marshall Dill, Jr., 1945 (divorced) home. He rights the older generations wrongs, choosing the
church and a girl from the parish.
Pamela Frankau and her older sister were raised by their Frankaus most ambitious effort, a trilogy called Clothes of a
mother, who was separated from their novelist father. At eighteen, Kings Son (1964, 1965, 1967), has a similar young man as hero,
69
FRANKEN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
distracted by worldliness but retaining a mysterious clairvoyance under the title Hallam Wives in a summer 1929 production in
and the power to heal. The three volumes trace his history from Greenwich, Connecticut, later became the very successful Anoth-
boyhood to his miraculous return home after he has been assumed er Language (1932).
dead during the war. Frankaus last novel, published posthumous-
After Sigmund Frankens death in 1933, Franken moved
ly, is her best. Colonel Blessington (1969) is a quickly paced
with her three sons to California. She married and collaborated
suspense mystery, almost Shakespearean with its riddles, dis-
with her second husband on a number of screenplays, then moved
guises, twins seemingly separated, a close father-daughter rela-
the family to a Connecticut farm. Using the pen name Franken
tionship, and even a death by water. Here Frankaus attraction to
Meloney, they regularly published novels and magazine serials, to
the occult is incorporated into a genre that uses psychological
which he contributed the plots and she wrote the dialogue.
enigmas to their best literary effect. Her work has been admired
for its wit and stylistic charm by many critics, including Noel Another Language is a comedy-drama about the dangerously
Coward and Orville Prescott. self-righteous attitudes of a middle-class family dominated by a
possessive matriarch who encourages their tasteless and material-
istic instincts. When Franken brought the same family back to the
OTHER WORKS: Three (1929). Letters from a Modern Daughter to
stage in 1948 with her sixth and last professionally produced play,
Her Mother (1931). I Was the Man (1932). Women Are So Serious
The Hallams, the characters had not changed.
(1932). Foolish Apprentices (American title: Walk Into My Parlour,
1933). Tassell-Gentle (American title: Fly Now Falcon, 1934). I Beginning with her dramatization of Claudia (1941), Franken
Find Four People (1935). Fifty-Fifty, and Other Stories (1936). directed all of her own plays. Her second husband produced her
Jezebel (1937). A Democrat Dies (American title: Appointment third Broadway play, Outrageous Fortune (1943), and all subse-
with Death, 1940). Shaken in the Wind (1948). The Willow Cabin quent ones. The latter play departed from her established style by
(1949). To the Moment of Triumph (1953). Ask Me No More (1958). raising questions about such social concerns as homosexuality,
the treatment of black servants, marital difculties in middle age,
and anti-Semitism. Despite misgivings about Frankens attempt
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Catholic Authors (1952). TCA, to handle so many themes in one play, some critics believed it to
TCAS. be her best work for the stage.
Other references: NY (29 Nov. 1958, 25 Feb. 1967). NYT (24
March 1957, 9 June 1967). NYTBR (22 Jan. 1961, 18 Feb. 1962, Her Claudia novels, begun in 1939 as a series of stories
26 Feb. 1967, 15 June 1969). SR (1 Jan. 1966). Time (29 for Redbook magazine, became the basis for a play, a radio series,
Dec. 1958). and two motion pictures, and they were widely published in
translation abroad. It was Claudia that made Frankens name
SUZANNE HENNING UPHAUS familiar to the public for two decades. Beginning with the rst
days of Claudias marriage at eighteen to David Naughton, the
series of novels chronicles, with humor and sentimental appeal,
the gradual maturation of a child-wife. Eternally artless, impul-
FRANKEN, Rose sive, and charming, Claudia comes to grips with such problems as
hiring servants, testing her sex appeal, becoming a mother,
shopping in a posh dress salon, and coping with her own mothers
Born December 1898, Gainesville, Texas; died 1988
death. Although the Claudia novels rely heavily upon illness,
Also wrote under: Margaret Grant, Franken Meloney
accidents, and death for the emotional upheavals that lead Claudia
Daughter of Michael and Hannah Younker Lewin; married
toward increasing self-awareness, they are essentially the saga of
Sigmund Franken, 1915 (died 1933); William B.
a blissful marriage.
Meloney V, 1937
Referring to her 20-year involvement with Claudia, Franken
Rose Frankens parents were separated when she was a few wrote in her autobiography, When All Is Said and Done (1963),
years old, and her mother took the four children to New York City that the sheer technical task of remaining within her conscious-
to live with Frankens grandparents and several aunts, uncles, and ness became increasingly onerous and demanding. Franken,
cousins in a large house in Harlem. She attended the Ethical however, was able to draw upon her own notably successful
Culture School, but, having failed a sewing course, did not obtain marriages. Her particular skill as a novelist and playwright is the
a high school diploma. At sixteen, she married a prominent oral ability to inject sparkle into trivial nuances of everyday life, and to
surgeon 10 years her senior. Two weeks later, they learned that he unfold a narrative action largely through dialogue. The formula is
was tubercular. Their rst year of marriage was spent in a suggested in the second chapter of Claudia: They were all
sanitarium. bestsellers, but for the life of her, Claudia couldnt see why. She
wished petulantly, that somebody would write a plain story about
To take her mind off constant worrying about her husbands ordinary people like herself, with as little description as possible,
health, Franken began writing short stories. After the publication and a lot of everyday conversation.
of a novel, Pattern (1925), her husband suggested she try play-
writing. Her rst dramatic effort, Fortnight, was optioned but As an inexperienced screenwriter in Hollywood, Franken
never produced or published. Her second play, rst presented acquitted herself honorably for several years in that rareed
70
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FREEDMAN
atmosphere, perfecting the formula for light ction from which While still a teenager, Freedman landed acting jobs, working
she later rarely deviated. The ease with which Franken achieved in summer stock in Maine during the years 1937 and 1938. She
success as a writer of popular ction and plays could well be also was granted the opportunity to act in famous plays such as Six
attributed to the spontaneity and freshness of her style. Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello under the
guidance of the great Austrian theatrical director, Max Reinhardt.
Freedman credits him for teaching her subtlety that she could
OTHER WORKS: Mr. Dooley, Jr.; a Comedy for Children (with J. apply to her style of writing.
Lewin, 1932). Twice Born (1935). Call Back Love (with W. B.
Meloney, 1937). Of Great Riches (1937). Claudia and David After attending the Chicago Art Institute, Los Angeles City
(1939, screenplay by Franken, 1946). Strange Victory (with W. B. College, and the University of Southern California, where she
Meloney, 1939). When Doctors Disagree (with W. B. Meloney, usually would not complete courses, Freedman met and married
1940, dramatization by Franken, 1943). American Bred (with W. B. Benedict Freedman on 29 June 1941. He was the son of David
Meloney, 1941). The Book of Claudia (containing Claudia and Freedman, a successful Broadway playwright. Benedict, although
Claudia and David, 1941). Another Claudia (1943). Beloved a professor of mathematics in his chosen career, followed in his
Stranger (with W. B. Meloney, 1944). Soldiers Wife; a Comedy fathers footsteps, writing for radio as well as writing novels,
in Three Acts (1944). Young Claudia (1946). The Marriage of plays, textbooks, and scholarly works.
Claudia (1948). From Claudia to David (1950). The Fragile
Freedman began to join her husband in his writing ventures
Years (also published as Those Fragile Years; a Claudia Novel,
in the early 1940s. An early success was Mrs. Mike. Set in
1952). Rendezvous (English title, The Quiet Heart, 1954). Inti-
northwest Canada, it is the story of Katherine Mary Flannigan, an
mate Story (1955). The Antic Years (1958). The Complete Book of
invalid married to a Mountie. A bestseller, the novel was translat-
Claudia (1958). Return to Claudia (1960). Youre Well Out of a
ed into 27 languages and made into a motion picture in 1949.
Hospital (1966).
Subsequent hardcover editions continued to sell well into the
1990s, and it could be found on reading lists for high school
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mantle, B., Contemporary American Playwrights students 50 years after its publication.
(1938).
Freedman continued writing novels with her husband until
Reference works: American Novelists of Today (1951). CB
well into the 1960s, when she decided to write about her family
(1947). TCA, TCAS.
history in the novel Cyclone of Silence (1969). An accident led to
Other references: NYT (8 Jan. 1933). NYTMag (4 May 1941).
her being in the hospital with a broken back. As she lay in bed with
Players Magazine (Spring 1974).
a body cast, she remembered John F. Kennedy had once broken
his back and had recovered. Encouraged, once out of bed she
FELICIA HARDISON LONDR
attended classes in genetics at the California Institute of Tech-
nology to research a novel about cloning that eventually became
Joshua, Son of None. Achieving a novel on the forefront of current
events both politically and scientically, Freedmans novel con-
FREEDMAN, Nancy cerns the cloning of the assassinated president. Exploring the
ethics of creating a being identical to another, Freedman presented
Born 4 July 1920, Chicago, Illinois the dilemma of a clone who needs to search for his identity once he
Daughter of Hatley F. and Brillianna Hintermeister Mars; mar- learns of his true origins.
ried Benedict Freedman, 1941; children: Johanna, Mi-
chael, Deborah With a daughter who, as an opera singer, wrote voluminous
letters to her mother about life backstage, Freedman felt that she
had the makings of a novel that detailed the sacrices in relation-
Nancy Freedman has written numerous books, each distinct
ships a woman must make in order to succeed in her career, and
from the others. Besides writing ve plays and several novels with
hence Prima Donna was born. Around the same time, she felt
her husband, Benedict, including the worldwide bestseller Mrs.
compelled to write a novel depicting the life of Sappho, the
Mike (1947), Freedman has also written a number of novels on her
Lesbian poet of 6th century B.C. Greece. For ve years Freedman
own. Her most famous books include Joshua, Son of None (1973),
researched for her new novel, studying archaeological evidence
a story about the cloning of John F. Kennedy, and Prima Donna
and reading history books as well as literature of the period. When
(1981), a story of the trials and tribulations of an opera star.
the book was completed, Freedman, who had never experienced
Freedmans childhood until the age of ten was a lonely one. rejection of her work before, had to face the fact that no publisher
Although a recipient of dancing lessons at the age of seven, she would take it. She placed the manuscript in the Benedict and
was a sickly child who was forbidden to go to school. A succes- Nancy Freedman collection at the Mugar Memorial Library of
sion of tutors was enlisted to teach her a variety of elementary Boston University in hopes it might be published someday. In
school subjects, but the insistent child usually persuaded them 1998 Sappho: The Tenth Muse was published. Critics have noted
only to read ction to her. The lonely child would also invent that Sapphos lesbianism is downplayed while her rebellious
stories based on children whose tombstones she discovered during nature is emphasized. The book, they claim, is mostly faithful to
visits to a graveyard with her grandmother. its era, but parts of the narrative read like modern feminist theory.
71
FREEMAN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
OTHER WORKS: Back to the Sea (with Benedict Freedman, 1942). Her best stories and novels are about New England people
This and No More (with Benedict Freedman, 1950). The Spark and deal with several themes characteristic of them: stoical
and the Exodus (with Benedict Freedman, 1954). Lootville (with endurance in the face of hopeless poverty and adversity, unshakeable
Benedict Freedman, 1957). Tresa (with Benedict Freedman, pride, and the erce ame of Calvinistic religion. A typical short
1958). The Apprentice Bastard (with Benedict Freedman, 1966). story is Calla-Lilies and Hannah, in which a girl, shielding her
The Immortals (1977). Crescendo (1980). The Seventh Stone (1992). lover, courageously bears the villagers reprobation for a theft she
has not committed. Another is A Taste of Honey, in which a
young woman denies herself everything in the way of comfort and
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CANR (1987). luxury to pay off a mortgage, even losing her anc because of the
Other references: Booklist (Nov. 1973). Booksellers (Oct. length of time involved.
1973). CSM (Feb. 1947). Commonweal (March 1947). KR (15
May 1998). LAT (Feb. 1981). NYHTBR (March 1947). NYT Of the novels, Pembroke (1894) is Freemans greatest achieve-
(1947). TLS (Aug.1947). WP (Feb. 1981). ment, a novel that deserves to be recognized as an American
classic. It is densely peopled, with every facet of the New England
ROSE SECREST character in evidence: greed, parsimony, tenacity of purpose,
industriousness, sexuality, fanaticism, unselshness, even hero-
ism. Symbolism is occasionally employed in a way that has
reminded critics of Hawthornes ction.
FREEMAN, Mary E(leanor) Wilkins An early play, Giles Corey, Yeoman (1893), is based on a true
incident in the Salem witchcraft trials. Here Freeman skillfully
tells the story of a farmer and his wife who are put to death; she
Born 31 October 1852, Randolph, Massachusetts; died 15 March
does it so well the drama, as she wrote it, may be effectively
1930, Metuchen, New Jersey
performed, though it has not often been produced on the stage.
Also wrote under: Mary E. Wilkins
Daughter of Warren E. and Eleanor Lothrop Wilkins; married As Freeman wrote more voluminously and her work ap-
Charles M. Freeman, 1902 (legally separated 1921) peared constantly in magazines, her style changed. Losing its
distinctive New England avor, it became increasingly elaborate,
Mary Wilkins Freeman was an attractive, rather introspective elegant, and, at times, unbearably precious. Although she contin-
child. In 1867 her father, a builder, moved his family to Brattleboro, ued to use New England locales and characters, she began to write
Vermont. Freeman attended the Brattleboro high school; she also also of prosperous suburban life in New Jersey. In addition, she
attended Mt. Holyoke Seminary and Mrs. Hosfords Glenwood tried to keep in step with fashions in ction, writing a historical
Seminary in West Brattleboro, for one year each. In 1883 she romance set in Virginia (The Hearts Highway, 1900), and a labor
returned alone to Randolph, her mother, father, and only sister all novel (The Portion of Labor, 1901). Both were embarrassing
having died. Here she lived with friends, the Wales family. She failures.
did not, however, conne herself to Randolph, but visited friends
in the U.S. and traveled in Europe. After her marriage, Freeman Freemans signicance lies in those of her stories and novels
settled in Metuchen, New Jersey. In 1921 Freeman obtained a portraying a deglamorized New England life. She never wrote
legal separation from her husband, who had become an alcoholic anything one could call sordid, but her early work conveys the
requiring institutionalization. The year 1926 brought honors to appalling poverty of remote New England farms and villages, the
Freeman: she was awarded the Howells medal for distinction in constriction of the lives there, the suffering, the meanness, and the
ction by the American Academy of Letters, and she was elected occasional ashes of real nobility. Granville Hicks has said that
to membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters. her stories made the record of New England more nearly
complete.
Freeman established herself as a childrens author in the
early 1880s. Decorative Plaques (1883) collected in an ornamen-
tal format 12 of her poems from the childrens magazine, Wide OTHER WORKS: The Adventures of Ann; Stories of Colonial Times
Awake. In 1882 the rst adult story she sold won a prize in a (1886). A Humble Romance, and Other Stories (1887). A New
contest sponsored by the Boston Sunday Budget. A Shadow England Nun, and Other Stories (1891). The Pot of Gold, and
Family has been lost, but Freeman said later it was quite Other Stories (1892). Young Lucretia, and Other Stories (1892).
passable as an imitation of Charles Dickens. Winning the Jane Field (1893). Comfort Pease and Her Gold Ring (1895).
contest caused her to concentrate on adult ction, and her stories Madelon (1896). Jerome: A Poor Man (1897). Once Upon a Time,
began to appear frequently in Harpers Bazaar and Harpers and Other Child-Verses (1897). The People of Our Neighborhood
Weekly. Freemans capacity for work was enormous, and in the (1898). Silence, and Other Stories (1898). In Colonial Times
years that followed she became an exceedingly popular author of (1899). The Jamesons (1899). The Love of Parson Lord, and
both adult and juvenile short stories (including some eerie tales of Other Stories (1900). Understudies; Short Stories (1901). Six
the supernatural), novels, and poetry for children. Trees; Short Stories (1903). The Wind in the Rose-Bush, and
72
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FREMANTLE
Other Stories of the Supernatural (1903). The Givers; Short FREMANTLE, Anne (Jackson)
Stories (1904). The Debtor (1905). By the Light of the Soul (1906).
Doc Gordon (1906). The Shoulders of Atlas (1908). The Fair
Lavinia, and Others (1909). The Winning Lady, and Others Born 15 June 1910, Tresserve, Savoie, France
(1909). The Green Door (1910). The Buttery House (1912). The Daughter of Frederick H. and Clara Duff Jackson; married
Yates Pride; a Romance (1912). The Copy Cat, and Other Stories Christopher Fremantle, 1930; children: three sons
(1914). An Alabaster Box (with F. M. Kingsley, 1917). Edgewater
People (1918). Anne Fremantle belonged to a prominent English family and
grew up in an atmosphere of social, artistic, and political aware-
ness. Three-Cornered Heart (1970) provides a richly detailed,
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Avila, C. M. A Study of Socio-Economic Issues affectionate account of the Victorian girlhood of Fremantles
in the Novels of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (thesis, 1980). mother and of her own Georgian childhood, with some references
Barnes, M. H., Realism in the Early Works of Mary E. Wilkins to her adult life.
Freeman (thesis, 1986). Critical Essays on Mary Wilkins Free-
man (1991). Donner, R. S. Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: Tech- Fremantle attended Cheltenham Ladies College, and was a
niques and Themes (thesis, 1989). Donovan, J., New England scholar of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she obtained
Local Color Literature: A Womans Tradition (1983). Dullea, G. J., an M.A. in history. With her artist husband, Christopher Fremantle,
Two New England Voices: Sarah Orne Jewett and Mary Wilkins she had three sons. Her career as a journalist began in 1931 in
Freeman (thesis, 1996). Ellsworth, M. E. T., Two New Eng- London, where she worked on the London Mercury and New
land Writers: Harriet Beecher Stowe and Mary Wilkins Freeman Statesman and reviewed regularly for the Times Literary Supple-
(thesis, 1981). Elrod, E. R., Reforming Fictions: Gender and ment. She was defeated as a Labour Party candidate in the 1935
Religion in the Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Rose Terry general election. At the beginning of World War II, Fremantle
Cooke, and Mary Wilkins Freeman (thesis, 1991). Evans, M. A., drove an ambulance for the London County Council and made
Deep Havens and Ruined Gardens: Possibilities of Community broadcasts in French and German for the BBC. In 1940 she came
and Spirituality in Sarah Orne Jewett and Mary Wilkins Free- to the U.S. and worked in the British Embassy in Washing-
man (thesis, 1992). Fishinger, S. M. B., The Life of Her Work ton, D.C., becoming an American citizen in 1947. Fremantle
the New Jersey Years of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (thesis, worked for 10 years at the United Nations as an editor.
1991). Foster, E., Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1956). Glasser,
L. B., In a Closet Hidden: The Life and Work of Mary E. Wilkins Fremantle combined journalism with academic positions at
Freeman (1996). Hamblen, A. A., The New England Art of Fordham University in New York (1948-61) and New York
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1966). Hicks, G., The Great Tradition University (1971-79) and was a fellow at Wesleyan University
(1935). Kendrick, B. L., The Infant Sphinx: The Collected Letters Center for Advanced Studies in Connecticut (1966). She has been
of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1985). Kim, I., The Revolt of an editor for the Catholic Book Club and Commonweal, and made
Mother: A Life of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1982). McGrew, frequent radio and television broadcasts, for NBCs The Catholic
S. E., Reweaving the Scripts: Feminist Elements in the Short Hour and CBS Invitation to Learning, among others.
Stories of Mary Wilkins Freeman (thesis, 1994). OBoyle, W. P.,
Religion has always been central in Fremantles life. She was
Objective Optimism: The Vision of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
baptized in the Church of England, became a Muslim at age nine
(thesis, 1981). Pattee, F. L., The New American Literature (1930).
under the inuence of Marmaduke Pickthall and a Catholic
Pattee, F. L., Sidelights on American Literature (1922). Quinn,
catechumen while a girl living in France. Fremantle converted to
A. H., American Fiction (1936). Reichardt, M. R., Mary Wilkins
Roman Catholicism in 1943. Her Catholic interests are reected
Freeman: A Study of the Short Fiction (1997). Reichardt, M. R., A
in two novels, Come to Dust (1941) and By Grace of Love (1957);
Web of Relationship: Women in the Short Stories of Mary Wilkins
and in Desert Calling (1949), a biography of Charles de Foucauld
Freeman (1992). Sparks, L. V., Counterparts: The Fiction of
exploring the effect of religious conviction; and in the many
Mary Wilkins Freeman, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Kate Chopin
anthologies she edited.
(1993). Terryberry, K. J., Cultural Feminism in the Works of
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (thesis, 1989). Westbrook, P.D., Fremantle early showed her skill at editing. Volumes edited
Mary Wilkins Freeman (1967). by her include selections from the Church Fathers, medieval
Reference works: DAB. Modern American Women Writers philosophy, Bible stories, papal encyclicals, Christmas stories,
(1990). NAW (1971). NCAB. Oxford Companion to Womens and Catholic thoughts, as well as selections from such diverse
Writing (1995). TCA. sources as the Protestant mystics, Mao Tse-tung, and contempo-
Other references: Atlantic (May 1899). Local ColorBret rary Latin American writers. Among her translations are two
Harte and Mary Wilkins Freeman (audiovisual, 1983). Westbrook, hagiographies, Face of the Saints (1947) and Lives of the
P. D., Mary Wilkins Freeman: Twaynes Women Authors on CD- Saints (1951).
ROM (CD, 1995).
Fremantles European background informs her writing, which
ABIGAIL ANN HAMBLEN is rich in literary and historical allusions. Widely read herself, she
73
FRENCH AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
provides easy access into many areas. Europe: A Journey with FRENCH, Alice
Pictures (1954) and Holiday in Europe (1963) introduce Ameri-
cans to complex cultures by explaining the past but emphasizing
present vitality. Fremantles knowledge of and fascination with Born 19 March 1850, Massachusetts; died 9 January 1934
the Middle Ages appears in James and Joan (1948), a semictional Wrote under: Octave Thanet
study of a 14th-century Scottish poet-king. Without sentimental-
izing, Fremantles widely disseminated The Age of Faith (1957), Alice French, writing under the pseudonym Octave Thanet,
like her collection of philosophy, The Age of Belief (1955, 1984), was widely read at the turn of the 20th century. She was one of the
convincingly argues that the European Middle Ages have signi- highest paid writers of her time. Considered to be a Midwestern
cance today. In Pilgrimage to People (1968), Fremantle combines regional writer, she wrote some of the most signicant novels and
travel information with international sympathy and Catholic short stories in the regional and local color genres. French wrote
awareness. during the post-Reconstruction era in America, a time of expan-
sion, economic prosperity, and industrial growth that included
Joining the historians grasp of detail with a delight in words, Americas Gilded Age. Populists and suffragists were the
Fremantle writes in a clear and uent style, frequently enlivened newsmakers of the day, replacing the hawks and doves of the Civil
by wit. She makes accessible to the nonspecialist complex ideas, War and Reconstruction years. The huge increase in immigrants,
attitudes, and experiences drawn from her own extensive reading coupled with black enfranchisement debates, led to new kinds of
and wide range of interests. racism. All of these issues factor into Frenchs novels and short
stories. The relationship between labor and capital also gures
often in her works. French was a modernist in terms of her writing
OTHER WORKS: Poems, 1921-1931 (1931). George Eliot (1933). as well as her contemporaries, and was well respected as an author.
Sicily by F. H. Jackson (edited by Fremantle, 1935). The Wynne
French was born in Massachusetts and later moved to Arkan-
Diaries, 1789-1820 (edited by Fremantle, 1936, 1937, 1939).
sas and Iowa, splitting her time between her homes in both states.
Loyal Enemy: The Life of Marmaduke Pickthall (1938). The
Many of her stories take place in either Arkansas or Iowa. Her life
Commonweal Reader (edited by Fremantle, 1949). The Greatest
partner, with whom she lived for 50 years, was Jane Crawford.
Bible Stories: A Catholic Anthology from World Literature (edit-
ed by Fremantle, 1951). Mothers: A Catholic Treasury of Great During World War I, French was politically active as the
Stories (edited by Fremantle, 1951). Christian Conversation: chairman of the Committee on Patriotic Meetings for the Wom-
Catholic Thought for Every Day of the Year (edited by Fremantle, ens Committee of the Council of National Defense of Iowa. She
1953). A Treasury of Early Christianity (edited by Fremantle, was also the Regent of the Colonial Dames of Iowa. She was
1953). Visionary Novels: Lilith and Phantastes by G. Macdonald instrumental in organizing meetings of German Americans in
(edited by Fremantle, 1954). Christmas Is Here: A Catholic Iowa, helping them to identify the duties of German American
Selection of Stories and Poems (1955). The Papal Encyclicals in citizens during World War I.
Their Historical Context (edited by Fremantle, 1956). Oddssh!
by R. H. Benson (edited by Fremantle, 1957). Fountain of A collection of 684 of Frenchs papers, dating from 1871 to
Arethusa by M. Zermatten (translated by Fremantle and C. her death in 1934, can be found at the Newberry Library in
Fremantle, 1960). This Little Band of Prophets: The British Chicago, Illinois. Among these papers are correspondence (in-
Fabians (1960). Mao Tse-tung: An Anthology of His Writings cluding some with Edith Roosevelt, the widow of Theodore
(edited by Fremantle, 1962). The Social Teachings of the Church Roosevelt), diaries, manuscripts of her novels, plays and short
stories, copies of her speeches, and miscellaneous souvenirs of
(edited by Fremantle, 1963). The Island of Cats (1964). The
her life.
Protestant Mystics (edited by Fremantle, 1964). A Primer of
Linguistics (1973). The Misused Love Letters and Regula Amrain The majority of Frenchs work is short story collections such
and Her Youngest Son by G. Keller (translated by Fremantle, as Knitters in the Sun (1887). Some of the stories in this collection
1974). Latin American Literature Today (edited by Fremantle, are The Bishops Vagabond, Schopenhauer on Lake Pepin,
1977). Womans Ways to God (1977). Saints Alive: The Lives of Half a Curse, A Communists Wife, and Mrs. Finlays
Thirteen Heroic Saints (1978). In Love with Love (edited by Elizabethan Chair. Stories of a Western Town (1893) includes
Fremantle, 1978). St. Basil in Saints and Ourselves (1981). The Face of Failure, An Assisted Providence, The
Besetment of Kurt Lieders, and Mother Emeritus. A Cap-
tured Dream, and Other Stories (1897), like Stories of a Western
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Censorship and Sense: Authorities Discuss Con- Town, is a collection of stories dealing with frontier and pioneer
icting Views on the Banning of Books (audiocassette, 1971). life in Iowa and Arkansas. The Missionary Sheriff (1897) was
Other references: NYTBR (22 June 1941, 29 Feb. 1948, 27 illustrated by A. B. Frost and Clifford Carleton and includes The
Nov. 1949, 6 March 1960, 29 Nov. 1970). SR (24 Feb. 1968). TLS Cabinet Organ, The Hypnotist, and The Defeat of Amos
(19 Nov. 1964). Wickliff. These are stories of an ordinary man simply trying to
do his duty. A Book of True Lovers (1897) is another collection of
VELMA BOURGEOIS RICHMOND Frenchs earlier stories with locations in Arkansas and Iowa.
74
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FRENCH
Short stories included in this book are The Judgment on Mrs. educated at home by her mother, a clever, widely read woman,
Swift and The Dilemma of Sir Guy the Neuter. The Heart of and a French tutor. During her childhood she associated almost
Toil (1898) is a book of short stories dealing with social life and entirely with adults, and in the quiet scholarly atmosphere im-
customs of the 19th century, including The Way of an Elec- posed by her father, she developed a love of reading and self-
tion, Johnneys Job, and The Conscience of a Business expression.
Man. Business themes are found in some of her writing. For
At the age of eighteen, French married a Minneapolis our
example, The Man of the Hour (1905) is historical ction about
manufacturer who was 25 years her senior. Four years later, after
the strikes and lockouts of railroads and the ensuing Chicago
the death of her infant daughter, she began her literary career by
Strike of 1894. Later works include Stories That End Well (1911)
compiling a genealogyAn American Ancestry (1894)for her
and A Step on the Stair (1913).
son, Charles.
Frenchs stories appeared in several popular magazines of the
French traveled to Europe in 1901 to experience rsthand the
time: The Canada Thistle in Midland Monthly (1894); The
places she had read about. She spent two years in Tours, France,
Defeat of Amos Wickliff in Harpers New Monthly Magazine
with her two children and published His Story, Their Letters
(Christmas 1896); and The Next Room in Harpers New
(1902). French returned to St. Paul in 1903, but nding it difcult
Monthly Magazine (November 1896).
to write there, she chose to live in Europe for the rest of her life,
Today Frenchs stories are in reprint editions. Her short story making several brief visits to America. She published novels and
My Lorelei: A Heidelberg Romance can be found in Two several collections of short stories.
Friends and Other Nineteenth Century Lesbian Stories by Ameri-
In His Story, Their Letters, an unnamed young man recounts
can Women Writers, edited by Susan Koppelman. Other books in
the conversations of himself and a young woman, identied as A.,
reprint are Heart of Toil (1969), The Missionary Sheriff (1969), A
over several days as they walk through Tours. They irt, nally
Book of True Lovers (1969), Stories of a Western Town (1972),
declare their love, and talk of marriage before he gets a telegram
The Man of the Hour (1977), My Name is Masak (1992), and The
stating he must come home because his father has lost the family
Restless Nomad (1992).
fortune in the stock market. They promise to write, but while he is
on the way home he gets word his father has made another fortune
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Dougan, M. B. and C. W. Dougan, By the Cypress and decides to marry a girl he has met on the boat. Mean-
Swamps: The Arkansas Stories of Octave Thanet (1980). Rushton, while, A.s cousin returns from a trip to Russia and she marries
L. E.,The Arkansas Fiction of Alice French (thesis, 1988). him. They both decide not to write to each other, and their
Tigges, S. A. H., Alice French, A Noble Anachronism (the- story ends.
sis, 1988). A Womans Will (1904) tells the story of a young American
Web sites: information available online at: widow traveling through Europe who is courted by a German
http://cavern.uark.edu/hbnio/speccon/brochoct.html; musical genius. In The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary (1905), Mary
http://h-net2.msu.edu/~shgape/discllist/busct.html; Watkins disinherits her carefree nephew Jack after he is expelled
http://twist.lib.uiowa.edu/8-247-f97/queries.html; from college for the second time. In an effort to reestablish
http://www.eskimo.com/~demian/famous.html; himself in his aunts good graces (and in her will), Jack and his
http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/7327/modernism.html; friends escort Aunt Mary around town. She is grateful for having
http://www.kanebooks.com/web144.html; discovered there is more to life than her old farm; Jack is
http://www.scry.com/ayer/WOM_HERO/4404819.htm; reinstated and able to marry his true love. As was true with His
http://www.traverse.com.com/people/dot.regs.html. Story, Their Letters, the dialogue in both A Womans Will and The
Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary is bright, charming, and humorous.
HEIDI HARTWIG DENLER
In 1904 French published Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs.
Lathrop. Susan Cleggs homely humor was a great success,
prompting French to write four more collections of Susan Clegg
FRENCH, Anne Warner stories. Each of the stories is a series of conversations in which
Susan relates the local gossip and the adventures and misadven-
tures of the other residents of the town to her friend Mrs. Lathrop,
Born 14 October 1869, St. Paul, Minnesota; died 3 February
who spends most of her time asleep in her rocking chair. Although
1913, Dorset, England
the plots and characterizations in these stories are slight, they are
Wrote under: Anne French, Anne Richmond Warner French,
original and amusing, and the dialogue is especially well written.
Anne Warner
Daughter of William P. and Anna Richmond Warner; married French excelled at writing light novels that successfully
Charles E. French, 1888 blended comedy with a satisfying love story, and A Womans Will
and The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary are excellent examples of her
Anne Warner Frenchs paternal and maternal family roots work. Frenchs Susan Clegg stories are a refreshing contribution
could be traced back to Massachusetts in the 1630s. French was to American humorous literature.
75
FRENCH AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
OTHER WORKS: Seeing France with Uncle John (1906). Susan The Legend of the Lost Soul, she tells of an Indian woman
Clegg and Her Love Affairs (1906). Susan Clegg and Her Neigh- whose husband leaves their child alone to look for her and both
bors Affairs (1906). Susan Clegg and a Man in the House (1907). come back to nd it gone: It is the cry of Woman, / And hers the
An Original Gentleman (1908). The Panther: A Tale of Tempta- really lost and wandering soul, / Seeking, amid the god-like, yet
tion (1908). Seeing England with Uncle John (1908). In a Mysteri- the human, / To nd her destined goal.
ous Way (1909). Your Child and Mine (1909). Just Between
Despite romantic trappings, the novel My Roses (1872)
Themselves: A Book About Dichtenberg (1910). Susan Clegg, Her
realistically explores the plight of the prostitute. The heroine,
Friend and Her Neighbors (1910). How Leslie Loved (1911).
Henriette de Hauterive, is an independent young woman who,
When Woman Proposes (1911). The Gay and Festive Claverhouse:
because of her womans faith in women, risks social condem-
An Extravaganza by Anne Warner (1914). Sunshine Jane (1914).
nation (I am content to be unnatural semi-occasionally if I only
The Taming of Amaretti: A Comedy of Manners (1915). The
can be true to nature!) by disguising herself as a man and
Tigress (1916). My Name is Masak (reissue, 1992). The Restless
entering a brothel to save a woman she doesnt know. She
Nomad (1992).
recognizes the world judges us all, and to women it is a bitter
censor, but her courage to act saves two women from a life they
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Rushton, L. E., The Arkansas Fiction of Alice have either been forced into or have chosen through disillusion-
French (thesis, 1988). Tigges, S. A. H., Alice French, A Noble ment and economic deprivation. As one of these, Marguerite,
Anachronism (thesis, 1988). Warner, L. C., and J. G. Nichols, asserts: By your womans faith, your womans courage, and
The Descendants of Andrew Warner (1919). your womans love, you have redeemed a wayward and erring
Reference works: Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in nature, although you intended it not. If ever there is any good
the United States (1995). accomplished for women like me, it will be done by women like
you.
DOMENICA BARBUTO
In Frenchs ction, the exploration of womans position
takes prominence. Frenchs sophisticated treatment calls for the
sisterhood of women to provide alternatives for women victim-
ized by society.
FRENCH, Lucy (Virginia) Smith
OTHER WORKS: Darlingtonia (1879).
Born 16 March 1825, Accomac County, Virginia; died 31 March
1881, McMinnville, Tennessee
Wrote under: L. Virginia French, LInconnue, Lucy Smith BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: DAB. LSL. The Living Female
Daughter of Mease W. and Elizabeth Parker Smith; married Writers of the South (1872). The Living Writers of the South
John H. French, 1853 (1869). NCAB, 7.
Other references: American Illustrated Methodist Magazine
Lucy Smith French was born into a wealthy and cultured (July 1900). Nashville Daily American (3 April 1881).
family. After her mothers death, she went to live with her
maternal grandmother in Washington, Pennsylvania, where she THELMA J. SHINN
was educated at Mrs. Hannahs School. She and her sister returned
to their father in 1848, but, unhappy with his remarriage, they left
within the year for Memphis, Tennessee, where both taught and
French began publishing pieces in the Louisville Journal under FRENCH, Marilyn
the name LInconnue. In 1852 French became editor of the
Southern Ladies Book, and in the following year she married
Born 21 November 1929, New York, New York
Colonel French, who had sought her out after reading her poetry.
Also writes under Mara Solwoska
Her later literary career included editing several newspapers and
Daughter of D. Charles and Isabel Hazz Edwards; married
magazines (most notably, the Crusader and Ladies Home in
Robert M. French Jr., 1950 (divorced 1967); children: Jamie,
Atlanta, Georgia), and writing poetry, one play, and two novels, as
Robert M. III
well as a collection of legends, before she died in her husbands
home town.
Marilyn French worked her way through Hofstra University
Frenchs rst collection of poetry, Wind Whispers (1856), is (in Hampstead, New York) to a B.A. and M.S. in English
romantic and sometimes sentimental. It was followed in the same (1951-64), regretting that she did not major in philosophy. While
year by a ve-act tragedy in blank verse, Istalilxo: The Lady of supporting her husband through law school, she began to write
Tula (1856), set in Mexico. Frenchs collection, Legends of the seriously. After her divorce, she returned to Harvard University
South (1867), was also written in verse for the most part, and one for her doctorate (1972) and taught at Holy Cross College in
legend reveals her interest in exploring the position of women. In Worcester, Massachusetts (1972-76).
76
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FRENCH
In The Book as World: James Joyces Ulysses (1976), draws on anthropology, philosophy, and history as well as litera-
literary criticism adapted from her dissertation, French suggests a ture to urge the creation of a new morality, based on femi-
new reading of Ulysses focusing on its deliberately diverse nisms ancient origins: A new world does not imply that we
successive styles and the role of the scandalously unreliable will invent new values. It is a jeremiad, predicting dire econom-
narrator as malevolent, contemptuously refusing to mediate the ic, environmental, and even criminal consequences unless the
events in the book for the reader who is thereby forced to engage value system is revised. A later novel, Her Mothers Daughter
in that process himself. Frenchs argument is schematic, focus- (1987), probes the experience of four generations of women over
ing on Ulysses rhetorical effect. half a century, examining the relationships of mothers and daugh-
ters and the desire to overcome fears to be autonomous. Like
Her rst political novel of ideas, The Womens Room (1977),
Frenchs more theoretical works, it calls for a reassessment of
was a bestseller, called representative of the 1970s womens
values. French also published books in Israel in 1980, 1989, and
renaissance and the major novel of the womens liberation
1991. The War Against Women (1992) continues Frenchs analy-
movement. Although a bitter, cynical, semiautobiographical c-
tion and polemic about how heterosexual relations exploit and sis of the inevitable conict between womens needs and societal
manipulate women, it touched a chord in a generation of women norms with a catalog of the religious, sociological, institutional,
disillusioned by the failure of early marriages, the suburban ideal, and physical oppression of women throughout the world.
and problems of motherhood in a changing age. In 1994 French published Our Father, a novel about four
The Womens Room details its protagonists struggle over daughters of a privileged and famous man, Stephen Upton,
four decades for identity, intellectual independence, and a career, longtime adviser to Republican presidents. The daughters, each
from the conformity and submissiveness of 1950s New Jersey by a different woman, three of whom were Uptons wives, come
suburbanites to the difculties of a divorced older woman coming together when their father suffers a debilitating stroke and discov-
to Harvard as a graduate student, struggling to be taken seriously, er that they each had been sexually abused by him in their
liberated but lonely. Mira expresses the authors own perspective: childhood. The novel continues Frenchs practice of weaving
Sometimes I get as sick of writing this as you may be in reading polemical feminism with an analysis of social evils, yet through
it. . . . I get sick because, you see, its all true, it happened, and it her characterization of the four sisters, and especially of the
was boring and painful and full of despair. The Cambridge illegitimate and lesbian youngest, Ronnie, and her exploration of
feminist Val voices a more militant feminist rhetoric informed by how they are all redeemed by learning to love each other, French
consciousness raising. Male characters are one-dimensional, reproduces a moving and powerful work.
vealing Frenchs belief that the white middle-class male is really
A fourth novel, My Summer With George, appeared in 1996.
hollow: a sort of walking uniform, making the expected jokes,
Here French again, as one reviewer put it, refuses to renounce
maintaining the expected postures. She believes there is a chasm
her insurrectionist ways, by telling the story of sixtyish Hermione
of exploitation, incomprehension, and mistrust between women
Beldame, a twice-divorced and twice-widowed successful ro-
and men; while women were expentant in the 1940s, submissive
mance novelist who has a short-lived intense relationship with
in the 1950s, enraged in the 1960s, they have arrived in the 1970s
George Johnson, a newspaper editor in his mid-fties. The book
independent but somehow unstrung, not yet fully composed after
all theyve been through. The Womens Room was made into a has an invigorating new wryness for French (so says the New
movie for television in 1980. York Times reviewer). And, accordingly, the affair ends with the
end of summer.
In Frenchs novels, the reader hopes for a happy ending
despite her powerfully stated thesis that there is little future for In 1998 came A Season in Hell, A Memoir. Six years after the
coexistence between men and women. The narrative rambles as ordeal, the book chronicles Frenchs battle with esophageal
characters appear and disappear. French deliberately loosens cancer, and how she was cured by simultaneous radiation and
control over her narrative, seeing her books as more documentary chemotherapy. Subsequently, and possibly with the treatment as
than ction, thus strengthening their political impact, making cause, she suffered a six-week coma, life-threatening kidney
them more autobiographical than creative, and confronting the infections, pneumonia, compression fractures of her back, and a
readers preconceptions mercilessly. The Bleeding Heart (1980) heart attack. At the end of the book she describes herself, not as an
is a polemical story about an affair between two Americans living invalid, but as one who has less strength, taking life very easy,
in Britain for a year, overcoming their individual barriers for with limited energies, yet happy. [I am at] a better place than I
mutual growth yet separating in the end. have been before. I am grateful to have been allowed to live long
enough to experience it. Since her illness she has completed a
French returned to literary criticism with Shakespeares work which had been in progress for more than 10 years, Womens
Division of Experience (1981), examining his horror at female History of the World for publication in 1999.
sexuality. She has also provided introductions for reprints of
novels by Edith Wharton. In Beyond Power: On Women, Men, French has been one of the important thinkers and writers of
and Morals (1985), French shifted to an encyclopedic, interdisci- the feminist movement of the last half of the 20th century. She has
plinary, feminist theoretical analysis of the demise of matriarchy, distinctive skills, including the notable one of being able to
the origins of social organization, and the rise of patriarchy lusting encapsulate in a few pages or even a few paragraphs the complete-
for power and its consequences over the last 2,400 years. French ness of a problem, as she did in Her Mothers Daughter with a
77
FRIEDAN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
lesson against racism provided by Anastasia for her children; in in to what she called the pressure of the feminine mystique, quit
Our Father with a brief but all-inclusive catalogue of good Berkeley for a nonprofessional job in New York City, and soon
manners; and in A Season in Hell with an account of a magni- married and began raising her three children.
cent period in American history when [m]y country had begun
By the mid-1950s Friedan was deeply dissatised with her
to forge a world more people could breathe in but which was
life. Approaching the resulting crisis thoughtfully, she wondered
then shattered by greed and mendacity under a succession of
if other women shared her dissatisfaction. Through a question-
Republican presidents who lazily let the new right-wing thrust
naire sent to her Smith College classmates, she discovered her
continue. Every one of Frenchs ten books is still in print, two
ailment was widespread, and she began several years of research
decades after The Womens Room was rst published.
which culminated in The Feminine Mystique. She analyzed the
post-World War II pressures that forced promising young women
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1978). CLC (1979, 1981, out of colleges and into suburbs to raise children. Its central thesis
1990). FC (1990). MTCW (1991). is that those forces supposed to be the chief enemies of preju-
Other references: Harpers (Nov. 1995). LJ (15 Nov. 1977, 1 dicethat is, education, sociology, psychology, and the medi-
May 1992, 15 Nov. 1993, Aug. 1996). Modern Language Review ahave, in effect, conned American women into believing their
(Jan. 1979). Modern Philology (May 1979). Ms. (Jan. 1978, Apr. entire identity and worth could be derived from being wives and
1979, July 1985, May 1992, Sept. 1996). NYT (17 Oct. 1977, 9 mothers. Her revolutionary book focused national attention on
March 1980, 10 Mar. 1980, 17 Jan. 1990, 9 July 1995). NYTBR the problem that has no name.
(16 Oct. 1977, 13 Nov. 1977, 5 July 1992, 21 Mar. 1993, 16 Jan. After publishing The Feminine Mystique, Friedan actively
1994, 2 July 1995, 9 July 1996, 13 July 1997). People (20 Feb. campaigned against the feminine mystique in its variety of guises.
1978). TLS (18 Feb. 1977, 21 Apr. 1978, 9 May 1980). WPBW (9 She founded NOW, the National Organization for Women, in
Oct. 1977, 9 March 1980, 28 Mar. 1993, 23 Jan. 1994). 1966. NOW has remained the largest and most visible feminist
organization in the U.S., although it has been criticized since its
BLANCHE LINDEN-WARD,
start by more radical womens groups who believe it is too middle
UPDATED BY JOANNE L. SCHWEIK
class, hierarchically structured, and conservative in its aims. After
leaving the presidency of NOW in 1970, Friedan continued her
activism through writing, lecturing, and teaching. She wrote a
column for McCalls, Betty Friedans Notebook, and contrib-
FRIEDAN, Betty uted to many magazines, including Saturday Review, Harpers,
the New York Times magazine, Redbook, Ladies Home Journal,
Born 4 February 1921, Peoria, Illinois and Working Women.
Daughter of Harry and Miriam Horowitz Goldstein; married In 1976 Friedan published It Changed My Life: Writings on
Carl Friedan, 1947 (divorced 1969); children: Daniel, Jona- the Womens Movement. In a series of essays and open letters,
than, Emily Friedan assesses the progress of the womens movement and her
relationship with it. The book provides a personal as well as a
Credited with having begun the current womens movement movement history. While arguing that women have demanded
with her earliest book, The Feminine Mystique (1963), Betty and received new opportunities and more equality, she warns that
Friedan represents a middle ground in the various ideological their gains are threatened by divisiveness among themselves.
differences in the movement since the 1970s and remains a Friedan sees that a necessary change in the womens liberation
devoted advocate for a more equitable society. She describes the movement is needed: it must transcend polarization and become
different stages of the movement as part of an evolutionary force. human liberation. She has been attacked not only as a radical
Writing in 1983 in her introduction to the 20th-anniversary edition but for not being radical enough by those who want her to speak
of The Feminine Mystique, she claims that she has become out strongly against men and in support of lesbians, and for black
increasingly convinced that the whole process [the womens and working women. Friedan feels that to denounce men and to
movement]. . .is not really a revolution at all, but simply a stage in have the issues involving homosexuals become a major concern
human evolution, necessary for survival. of the womens movement is counterproductive, that an overfocus
on sexual issues, on sexual politics, as opposed to the condition of
One of three children of parents who encouraged neither her
women in society in general, may have been accentuated by those
reading nor her feminism, Friedan attributed her later awareness
who wish to immobilize the movement politically.
of oppression partly to being Jewish. In high school Friedan
founded a literary magazine and graduated as class valedictorian. In The Second Stage (1981), Friedan further pursues the goal
At Smith College she studied psychology with noted Gestalt of human liberation. She states that the failures of the womens
psychologist Kurt Coffee and graduated summa cum laude in movement are due to our blind spot about the family. After
1942. After winning her second research fellowship at the Univer- years of activism, research, and observation of womens lives, she
sity of California at Berkeley, she realized that to go on would concludes many women are now caught in a new feminist
commit her to a doctorate and a career as a psychologist. She gave mystique, where theyre doing two demanding jobs: the work of
78
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FRINGS
the family and the work of a career. They are forced to be beyond issues of men vs. women and sexual politics if it wants to
superwomen, juggling two roles and feeling guilty about both. create a new community. Equality of opportunity, care for
The solution, she argues, is to take control of the family policy children, and economic restructuring to reduce income inequality
agenda and restructure family and work so both men and women remain cornerstones of Friedans vision for a better society, but
are freer to share roles. She insists men will become allies when she now emphasizes their importance for the American worker in
they see that changing outmoded institutions will also improve general, not solely for women. Despite the wide-ranging and often
their lives. Citing the specic issues of exible work schedules, conicting opinions shared within the seminar itself, Friedan
parental leave, and child care as the new agenda for the womens steadfastly believes a consensus on these important issues is
movement, she calls for reclaiming the family as the new necessary and possible.
feminist frontier. Reaction to her new agenda ranged from
calling her a repentant feminist to reafrming her importance
OTHER WORKS: Contributed to Anatomy of Reading (ed. by L. L.
in the movement and to recognizing, as Marilyn French did in an
Hackett and R. Williamson, 1966). Voices of the New Feminism
Esquire article in December 1983, that the afrmation of the
(ed. by M. L. Thompson, 1970). The Mystique of Age in
family in The Second Stage was a passionate plea for general
Productive Aging: Enhancing Vitality in Later Life (1989).
awareness of the inclusive nature of feminism.
The papers of Betty Friedan are in the Schlesinger Library of
In the 1983 anniversary edition of The Feminine Mystique, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Friedan angrily denies the medias pronouncements that the
postfeminist generation has abandoned feminist ideas: Of
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Dubin, M., At 75, Betty Friedan Remains an
course the postfeminist generation is in a different place. The
Independent Thinker Who Has More to Write, in Knight-Ridder/
womens movement put it there. Sounding the theme of evolu-
Tribune News Service (6 Mar. 1996). Gardels, N., The New
tionary change, she wrote, Its hard to go on evolving, as we all
Frontier of Feminism in New Perspectives Quarterly (Winter
must, just to keep up with a revolution as big as this when
1998). Janeway, E., Mans World, Womans Place (1971).
some. . .want to lock it in place forever, as an unchanging ism. In Lerner, G., The Female Experience: An American Documentary
this stage of her life, she sees the importance of linking the (1977). Ryan, M. P., Womanhood in America from Colonial
redenition of the family with issues and interests of single Times to the Present (1975). Sochen, J., Herstory: A Womans
women and older women. View of American History (1974). Sochen, J., Movers and Shak-
In The Fountain of Age (1993), Friedan urges older people to ers: American Women Thinkers and Activists, 1900-1970 (1973).
draw on their strengths and not forfeit these years with a Reference works: CANR 18 (1986). CB (1970, 1989).
preoccupation with death. She also notes her feelings of dj vu Other references: Esquire (Dec. 1983). Feminist Review
when she hears geriatric experts talk about the aged with the (Autumn 1987). LAT (26 Apr. 1992). Nation (14 Nov. 1981, 1
same patronizing, compassionate denial of their personhood Dec. 1997). National Review (5 Feb. 1982). NR (20 Jan. 1982).
she heard 20 years before when the experts talked about women. NYT (5 July 1981, 25 Apr. 1983, 27 Feb. 1983). NYTBR (22 Nov.
1981). TLS (30 July 1982).
During the 1980s Friedan saw the defeat of the Equal Rights
Amendment in Congress, but despite the setback she was hopeful BILLIE J. WAHLSTROM AND MARY GRIMLEY MASON,
about the new political power of women represented by the vice UPDATED BY JANETTE GOFF DIXON
presidential nomination of Geraldine Ferraro at the 1984 Demo-
cratic National Convention, to which she was a delegate. In
Back to the Feminist Mystique, published in the Humanist in
1991, Friedan notes that the decade of the 1980s had made it more FRINGS, Ketti
difcult to move to the second stage because the support
systems and social programs so necessary to restructure work and Born Katharine Hartley, 28 February 1909, Columbus, Ohio;
home had been almost destroyed in a political environment hostile died February 1981
to change. Daughter of Guy H. and Pauline Sparks Hartley; married Kurt
Frings, 1938; children: two
In Beyond Gender: The New Politics of Work and Family
(1997), Friedan focuses her attention on the plight of American
Ketti Frings is the daughter of a paper box salesman. During
workers. While a guest scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Institute
Frings childhood the family lived in 13 different cities, but after
in 1994, Friedan brought together in the New Paradigm Seminars
their mothers death, Frings and her two sisters stayed with an
a diverse assortment of leaders in labor, womens organizations,
aunt in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she attended Lake School
business, social movements, and other groups. Participants tack-
for Girls. Frings enrolled at Principia College for one year, then
led important issues facing American workers, including corpo-
left to take a job as advertising copywriter at a Newark, New
rate downsizing, options for exible work schedules, welfare
Jersey, department store.
reform, and changes in afrmative action programs. Using direct
quotations of seminar participants and her own commentary, After several years of writing radio scripts, movie magazine
Friedan again argues in Beyond Gender that society must go articles, and advertising copy for New York agencies, Frings
79
FRITZ AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
decided to spend a year in the south of France and write a novel. Fringss style might best be described as unpretentiously
There she met her future husband, a German-born lightweight workmanlike. It is competent, direct, and always appropriate to
boxer who gave her the nickname Ketti, a diminutive for Katharine, her material, the range of which includes suspense melodrama,
which became her professional name. ctional treatments of topical issues, fantasy, and, her staple,
romance.
The painful two-year hiatus before Frings was allowed to
enter the U.S. is chronicled ctionally in Fringss rst novel, Hold
Back the Dawn (1940). The setting is Tijuana, Mexico, where a OTHER WORKS: Let the Devil Catch You (1947).
German husband resides while waiting for an immigration quota
number. His American wife commutes between the immigrant
colony, on weekends, and her one-room Hollywood apartment, BIBLIOGRAPHY: Grubbs, J. G., The Role of Eliza Gant in Ketti
where she writes the fan magazine stories to support them both. Frings Look Homeward, Angel: A Production Thesis in Acting
The book is an early indication of Frings air for the dramatic (thesis, 1993).
because she succeeds in bringing the tension of life to an essential- Reference works: CB (Jan. 1960). Ohio Authors and Their
ly static situation. Books (1962).
Other references: Colliers (26 April 1947). Newsweek (6
Once settled in Beverly Hills, Frings husband became an
March 1944). Saturday Evening Post (20 Nov. 1943). SR (26 Feb.
actors agent and they had two children. She continued to produce
1944, 6 Sept. 1958).
numerous magazine stories, as well as screenplays. With her
second novel, Gods Front Porch (1944), Frings said she hoped
to try to dispel some of the worlds gloom, to make those who
are frightened a little less frightened. The arrival in Heavenly
Bend Junction of a young soldier killed in the war is the occasion
for Fringss sentimental fantasizing about how God might wel-
come those who have unwillingly left the world of the living and FRITZ, Jean
how He might even perform a little miracle for the war-rav-
aged earth. Born 16 November 1915, Hankow, China
Daughter of Arthur M. and Myrtle Chaney Guttery; married
Fringss rst play, Mr. Sycamore, based on a 1907 short story
Michael Fritz, 1941; children: David, Andrea
by Robert Ayre, was produced by the Theater Guild in 1942.
Critical reaction was more favorable toward leading players
Stuart Erwin and Lillian Gish than toward the young dramatist. Jean Fritz has been heralded for her work in several genres of
Brooks Atkinson, however, said of this gentle fantasy about a childrens literature, but she is best known for her lively, engaging
postman who turns himself into a tree: Give Mrs. Frings credit biographies. She has won numerous prestigious awards including
for having tried something original and having stirred up some the Childrens Book Guild Nonction Award for total body of
unhackneyed humor. Mr. Sycamore closed after 19 performances. creative writing (1978), and Boston Globe/Horn Book awards in
1984 for The Double Life of Pocahontas (1983), and in 1990 for
In contrast, Fringss next venture onto Broadway had a solid The Great Little Madison (1990).
run of 564 performances and remains her best-known work. Her
dramatization of Thomas Wolfes novel, Look Homeward, Angel, Fritz graduated from Wheaton College in 1937 and continued
opened in 1957 and was unanimously praised by the critics. with graduate studies at Columbia University. She worked as a
Richard Watts, Jr., called it a rich, beautiful, moving and full- researcher, book reviewer, and editor while her husband served in
bodied play. John McClain thought it was quite simply, one of the army during World War II. A prolic writer, Fritz began late;
the best evenings Ive ever had in the theater, and said Frings her rst book was published when she was thirty-nine. In 1952
should receive the loudest praise, for she has most ingeniously while working as a childrens librarian at her local library in New
telescoped a few chapters from the long autobiographical novel York she discovered she not only wanted to read childrens books,
into an overpowering consideration of a young mans escape from but write them as well. Fritzs rst picture book, Fish Head
adolescence. Frings has discussed (Theatre Arts, Feb. 1958) the (1954), had its genesis in the fantasies of escape she invented
difculties she experienced in paring down the overowing when feeling overwhelmed by the task of caring for her two young
images and speeches of the novel. Professional recognition for children.
Look Homeward, Angel included the Pulitzer Prize in Drama and
Fritz expected to continue writing picture books, but simple
the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and she was selected
curiosity along with her awareness of textbook inadequacies
as the Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year.
motivated her to begin writing biographies. Textbooks are so
A 1960 dramatization of Richard Wrights novel about racial often both inaccurate and dull, a place where dead people just stay
discord, The Long Dream, was poorly received. Mixed reactions dead, she told an interviewer. I think of my job as bringing
greeted Walking Happy, a 1966 musical adaptation of Harold them back to life. Critics have praised her for her success at this
Brighouses play, Hobsons Choice. In 1978 Frings collaborated task; she is noted for her ability to captivate a young audience not
with Peter Udell on a musical version of Look Homeward, Angel. only by focusing on the accomplishments of historical gures, but
80
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FULLER
also by revealing them as the idiosyncratic, imperfect, and often Fritzs American History Books (1982). Senick, G. J., ed., Child-
humorous people that they were. Fritz shares interesting anec- rens Literature Review (1988).
dotes and reveals weaknesses while still paying meticulous atten- Other references: Boston Sunday Globe (6 Jan. 1991). A Talk
tion to accuracy and maintaining the integrity of both the reader with Jean Fritz (video, 1993). A Visit with Jean Fritz (video,
and the subject. In her biographies she is always looking for out- 1987). Jean Fritz (audiocassette, 1991).
of-the-way details, for the little things that seem so trivial but
throw such light on a personality. DIANE E. KROLL
Fritzs devotion to the exploration of American history stems

from her childhood, which she shares in one of her most critically
acclaimed novels, Homesick: My Own Story (1982). Fritz lived in FULLER (MARCHESA DOSSOLI),
China with her missionary parents until the age of eleven. Despite
her loneliness and isolation during this unstable time in China, (Sarah) Margaret
Fritz was a thoughtful, often precocious child, writing once in a
letter to her grandmother, Im not always good. Sometimes I Born 23 May 1810, Cambridgeport, Massachusetts; died 19 July
dont even try. She was also extremely patriotic. On one 1850, off Fire Island, New York
occasion, she sang the words to America while all of the other Wrote under: S. M. Fuller, S. Margaret Fuller, J.
children in her British classroom sang God Save the King. Daughter of Timothy and Margaret Crane Fuller; married
Reecting on this experience in 1988, she explained: No one is Giovanni Angelo, Marchese dOssoli, 1850; children: Angelo
more patriotic than the one separated from his country; no one is
as eager to nd roots as the person who has been uprooted. Over Margaret Fullers father was a lawyer and politician; her
a long career, Fritz has translated that eagerness into biographies mother bore nine children, seven of whom survived infancy.
for children of such quintessential American gures as George Having hoped for a son, Fuller gave his oldest child a masculine
Washington, Ben Franklin, Sam Houston, and Theodore Roosevelt. education. Pushed by her fathers ambitions and by her own
growing sense that she could achieve greatness, Fuller read
Horace, Ovid, and Virgil in the original at seven and continued
OTHER WORKS: 121 Pudding Street (1955). Hurrah for Jonathan reading widely in her fathers library until she rst attended
(1955). Growing Up (1956). The Late Spring (1957). The Cabin school at fourteen. Two unhappy years at school in Groton,
Faced West (1958). Champion Dog, Prince Tom (1958). The Massachusetts, made clear the social problems caused by what
Animals of Doctor Schweitzer (1958). How to Read a Rabbit she herself considered her lack of a normal childhood. Back in
(1959). Brady (1960). Tap, Tap Lion, One, Two, Three (1962). Cambridge, she studied French, German, Italian, Greek, and
San Francisco (1962). I, Adam (1963). Magic to Burn (1964). philosophy, and made friends with future transcendentalists Fred-
Early Thunder (1967). George Washingtons Breakfast (1969). erick Henry Hedge and James Freeman Clarke. In 1833 Fullers
And Then What Happened, Paul Revere? (1973). Why Dont You father retired from public life and moved his family to a farm at
Get a Horse, Sam Adams? (1974). Where was Patrick Henry on Groton, 40 miles from Boston. For two years, Fuller took care of
the 29th of May? (1975). Whos That Stepping on Plymouth Rock? the house and of her younger brothers and sisters while teaching
(1975). Will You Sign Here, John Hancock? (1976). Whats the four of the children ve to eight hours a day. She also continued
Big Idea, Ben Franklin? (1976). Cant You Make Them Behave, her ambitious self-culture, reading widely in history, litera-
King George? (1976). Brendan the Navigator (1979). Stonewall ture, philosophy, and religion.
(1979). The Man Who Loved Books (1980). Where Do You Think
When Fullers father died in 1835, she became breadwinner
Youre Going, Christopher Columbus? (1980). Traitor: The Case
and head of the family. She taught at Bronson Alcotts school in
of Benedict Arnold (1981). The Good Giants and the Bad
Boston (1836-37) and the Greene Street School in Providence,
Pukwudgies (1982). China Homecoming (1985). Make Way for
Rhode Island (1837-39). In 1839 she moved her family to Jamaica
Sam Houston (1986). Shh! Were Writing the Constitution (1987).
Plain and began her Conversations in Boston and Cambridge,
Chinas Long March (1988). Bully for You, Teddy Roosevelt!
which continued until 1844.
(1991). George Washingtons Mother (1992). The Great Adven-
ture of Christopher Columbus (1992). Surprising Myself (1992). In 1836 Fuller had begun her friendship with Ralph Waldo
Around the World in a Hundred Years (1993). Just a Few Words, Emerson. A passage from Emersons 1837 journal typies the
Mr. Lincoln (1993). Worlds of Childhood: The Art and Craft of mixture of affection and exasperation she could arouse: Marga-
Writing for Children (contributing editor, 1990). The World of ret Fuller left us yesterday morning. Among many things that will
1492 (contributor, 1992). make her visit valuable and memorable, this is not the least that
she gave me ve or six lessons in German pronunciation never by
my offer and rather against my will, each time, so that now spite of
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bradford, H., The Move Toward Identity in the myself I shall always have to thank her for a great convenience
Juvenile Biographies of Jean Fritz, F. N. Monjo, and Milton which she foresaw. From July 1840 until July 1842, at the urging
Meltzer (thesis, 1989). Hostetler, E., Jean Fritz: A Critical of Emerson and other transcendentalist friends, Fuller edited the
Biography (1982). Pillar, A. M., A Resource Guide for Jean Dial.
81
FULLER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
In 1843 Fuller accompanied James and Sarah Clarke on a trip Horace Greeley admired the book enough to offer Fuller a job on
to Illinois and Michigan. In December 1844 she went to New his Tribune, and Evert Duyckinck wrote in his diary for 1844 that
York City as a correspondent for Horace Greeleys Daily-Trib- Summer on the Lakes was the only genuinely American book he
une. In part because of an unfortunate romantic involvement with had seen published.
James Nathan, Fuller sailed in August 1846 for Europe and
subsequently traveled in England, Scotland, and France, still Papers on Literature and Art (1846) collected Fullers criti-
acting as a Tribune correspondent. In Rome in 1847 she met her cal pieces, but the only other book she wrote was Woman in the
future husband, the Marchese dOssoli. Her son Angelo was born Nineteenth Century (1845), a revision and amplication of her
in September 1848. Ossoli supported the Roman Republic, and July 1843 Dial article, The Great LawsuitMan versus Men;
the family stayed in Rome throughout the French siege. Fuller Woman versus Women. Fullers transcendental tract endorses
directed a hospital and cared for the wounded. After the republic above all the idea that the powers of each individual should be
fell, the family went to Florence and then sailed for America. All developed through his or her apprehension of an ideal. Her
three were drowned when their ship broke up in a storm off insistence on the godlike possibilities of all humans differs little
Fire Island. from the same radical idealism in the writings of Emerson and
Thoreau, but Fuller emphasizes that the fullest possible develop-
Fuller began writing with translations of Eckermanns Con- ment of man will not come without the fullest possible develop-
versations with Goethe (1839) and the Correspondence of Frulein ment of woman. Fuller also feels that woman has so far been given
Gnderode and Bettina Von Arnim (1842); some unhappy at- fewer chances to realize her possibilities: The idea of Man,
tempts at ction; and rhapsodic, sentimental verse of little merit. however imperfectly brought out, has been far more so than that of
Her rst successful and original work, Summer on the Lakes Woman; that she, the other half of the same thought, other
(1844), used the frame of her Western visit with the Clarkes for a chamber of the heart of life, needs now to take her turn in the full
mixture of realistic reporting, autobiography, historical and philo- pulsation, and that improvement in the daughters will best aid in
sophical musings, and literary criticism. The result resembles the reformation of the sons of this age.
Thoreaus later A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Riv-
ers (1849). Fuller says that women must not wait for help from men,
continuing their old, bad habits of dependence, but must help
Using a journal she had kept on the trip, Fuller provides fresh themselves; self-reliance and independence are the best ways of
and perceptive comments on places and people from Chicago and aiding themselves and their sisters. The capacity for economic
the prairie settlements of Illinois to Milwaukee and Mackinaw. independence is prerequisite to moral and mental freedom, and
Whatever is rhapsodic or overly Romantic in her approach to the the freedom to choose celibacy over a degrading or unequal and
West usually succumbs before her own observations and her merely convenient marriage is essential. Late in her book, she
commonsense good will. Fuller admires the spirit of the new land, makes her famous statement that women should be able to do
even as she recognizes the cruelty with which the Native Ameri- anything for which their individual powers and talents t them
cans had been forced from their country. She mourns the vanished let them be sea-captains if they will.
romance and vanishing beauties, but admires the new democracy:
In the West, people are not respected merely because they are Woman in the Nineteenth Century thus mixes transcendental
old in years. . . . There are no banks of established respectability idealism and insistence on an economic basis for equality; it
in which to bury talent there; no napkin of precedent in which to discusses prostitution and property rights for women along with
wrap it. What cannot be made to pass current, is not esteemed coin the true ends and aims of the ideal marriage. Fullers broad social
of the realm. sympathies lead her to point out that the degradation of white
women in 19th-century America equals that of red and black men
Fuller pities the loneliness of the settlers, particularly the and women. But, she says, what women want is not poetic
women, whose training she feels has made them less able to bear incense, not life-along sway, not money, not notoriety, not
solitude. She observes that the desire to be fashionable can only the old badges of authority which men have appropriated to
slow progress toward adjustment and enjoyment. Educational themselves, but the freedom, the religious, the intelligent
methods copied from the education of some English Lady freedom of the universe to use its means, to learn its secret, as far
Augusta, are as ill-suited to the daughter of an Illinois farmer, as as Nature has enabled them, with God alone for their guide and
satin shoes to climb the Indian mounds. judge. Fuller is radical because she argues that Man encom-
passes both man and woman, and that both should be allowed
Fuller herself adapted admirably. In Pawpaw Grove, Illinois, equal opportunity to develop.
she slept on the supper table in a barroom from which its
drinking visitors could be ejected only at a late hour. She The myths that have grown up around Fullers brief life and
captures the incongruities and cruelties of the Western scene in her relatively small oeuvre make her contributions difcult to
vignettesthe daughter of a famous Indian ghter playing the assess. Some contemporary and many later critics have main-
piano at the window of a boarding house in Milwaukee as Native tained that the genius she displayed in conversation, whether
Americans pass by selling baskets of berries; 2,000 Chippewas natural or guided, never became fully evident in her writings:
and Ottawas encamped at Mackinaw to receive their annual Ultimately she should be remembered for what she was rather
payments from the American governmentor in a single sen- than what she did (Blanchard). The Dial has always been seen as
tence: Whenever the hog comes, the rattlesnake disappears. central to the transcendentalist movement; some contend that the
82
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FULLER
magazine reects Fuller more than it does the generality of Chevigny, B. G., The Women and the Myth: Margaret Fullers
transcendentalist thought (Rosenthal). Fullers writings for the Life and Writing (1976). Cooke, G. W., An Historical and
Dial and the Tribune gave her a chance to introduce European Bibliographical Introduction to Accompany the Dial (1961).
culture to America, to promote American literature, and to diffuse Deiss, J. J., The Roman Years of Margaret Fuller (1969). Durning,
her social ideals while contrasting them with harsh reality. With R. E., Margaret Fuller, Citizen of the World (1969). Gilman, W. H.,
Poe she must be considered Americas rst major literary critic, et al., The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph
but her reporting gives evidence of a livelier, more supple prose Waldo Emerson (1960- ). Harding, W., and C. Bode, The Corre-
that might have matured given time. Undoubtedly, she contribut- spondence of Henry David Thoreau (1958). Hudspeth, R. N.,
ed much to American Romanticism and the feminist movement. ed., The Letters of Margaret Fuller (5 vols., 1983-88). Mill-
er P., The American Transcendentalists (1957). Miller, P., The
Transendentalists (1950). Myerson, J., Margaret Fuller: A De-
OTHER WORKS: Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (edited
scriptive Bibliography (1978). Myerson, J., Margaret Fuller: A
by R. W. Emerson, et al., 1852). At Home and Abroad (edited by
Secondary Bibliography (1977). Simpson, C. M., ed., The Ameri-
A. B. Fuller, 1856). Art, Literature, and the Drama (edited by
can Notebooks (1972). Spender, D., ed., Feminist Theorists:
A. B. Fuller, 1860). Life Without and Life Within (edited by A. B.
Three Centuries of Key Women Thinkers (1983). Stern, M. B., The
Fuller, 1860). Margaret and her Friends (edited by C. W. H. Dall,
Life of Margaret Fuller (1942). Swift, L., Brook Farm (1900).
1895). Love-Letters of Margaret Fuller, 1845-1846 (1903). The
Urbanski, M. M. O., Margaret Fullers Woman in the Nineteenth
Writings of Margaret Fuller (edited by M. Wade, 1941).
The papers of Margaret Fuller, Marchesa dOssoli, are housed Century: A Literary Study of Form and Content, of Sources and
in the Boston Public Library and the Houghton Library, of Inuence (1980) Wade, M., Margaret Fuller: Whetstone of Gen-
Harvard University. ius (1940). Wilson, E., Margaret Fuller: Bluestocking, Romantic,
Revolutionary (1977).
Reference works: AA. The Female Prose Writers of America
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Blanchard, P., Margaret Fuller: From Transcen- (1855). NAW (1971). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in
dentalism to Romanticism (1978). Boller, P. F., American Tran- the United States (1995).
scendentalism 1830-1860: An Intellectual Inquiry (1974). Brown, Other references: ELN (Sept. 1970). SAQ (Autumn 1973).
A. W., Margaret Fuller (1964). Buell, L., Literary Transcenden-
talism: Style and Vision in the American Renaissance (1973). SUSAN SUTTON SMITH
83
G
GAGE, Frances Dana (Barker) feminist ones. Aunt Fannys words about practical household
matters often contained shrewd wit, especially in her reections
on the roles of men and women in daily life. As she counsels her
Born 12 October 1808, Marietta, Ohio; died 10 November 1880, readers on the making of soap, the use of practical clothing, the
Greenwich, Connecticut churning of butter, the efcient use of time, Aunt Fanny amuses
Wrote under: Aunt Fanny, F. D. Gage, Frances Gage, Mrs. herself and them with (often satiric) replies to antisuffrage male
Frances Dana Gage correspondents about female frailty.
Daughter of Joseph and Elizabeth Dana Barker; married James L.
Gage, 1829; children: eight For a time Gage also served as associate editor of both the
Ohio Cultivator and Field Notes, farmers weekly papers that
Frances Dana Gage, whose parents emigrated from New disappeared after the Civil War.
Hampshire to Ohio in 1788, was born on a farm, the fth daughter
With eight children and an ailing husband, Gages need for
and the ninth of 10 children. Although her education was limited
money grew. She wrote a novel, Elsie Magoon (1867), in which
to that of most rural children in a large, hard-working family, she
the heroine suffers as victim of an intemperate husband who,
gained the habit of independence of thought and an interest in
though he has the best of intentions, is weak and unable to sustain
reform. Her mother, daughter of an educated New England
a job. He succumbs easily to the drinking habits of his friends who
family, encouraged her to learn as much as she could under the
difcult circumstances of frontier life in Ohio; the parents aid to take him to bars (Gage, like her sisters, sees the bar as an evil
fugitive slaves underscored their concern with social issues. Gage place), and tragedy, really melodrama, results in his death and the
drew from her background a toughness that served her well in life. suffering of his family. The moral seems to be that a woman must
After her marriage to a lawyer and businessman, she managed to be careful not to marry a drunkard, but if she inadvertently
rear eight healthy children while educating herself further, gain- does, then she should have no children. She also wrote a volume of
ing respect as a prolic journalist and writer, and becoming poems in 1867sentimental verse to be sure, but they were
increasingly active in reform. accurate descriptions of farm life especially as it reects the
position of women.
Gages concern over slavery extended to the problems of
slaves freed during the Civil War. She spent some time during Gage stands as one of those active, resourceful 19th-century
1862 in a part of South Carolina controlled by the Union; here she women, whowithout the formal education of some of her
worked with freed slaves who needed help in starting new lives. contemporaries, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Susan B.
After the war, when she became better known as a journalist, she Anthonysucceeded in becoming an inuential writer and a
continued to urge northerners to give aid to the freedmen. Here, as force in the womens rights movement. She exerted her inuence
in all her speaking and writing, she drew on her vigorous homely through work in antislavery, temperance, and womens organiza-
style to make telling points and to make the unfamiliar acceptable. tions, but even more through the homely, pithy writing with which
Her impact on audiences was especially dramatic in her appeals she spread her ideas. Her work had perhaps its greatest impact on
for temperance, in which she used case histories to move women rural women, with whom she could easily establish rapport
to tears and men to new resolutions. Her spontaneous, conversa- because of her similar background.
tional manner helped her to win her audiences.
These gifts served her well in the womens rights movement. OTHER WORKS: Christmas Stories (1849). The Man in the Well: A
So eloquent was Gage at the important Akron Convention (1851), Temperance Tale (1850). Fannys Journey (1866). Fanny at
she unanimously won the election as president of the convention. School (circa 1866). Poems (1867). Gerties Sacrice; or, Glimpses
Gages reminiscences (in the National Anti-Slavery Standard, at Two Lives (1869). Steps Upward (1870).
May 1866) provide the tone and feeling of the dramatic episode in
which Sojourner Truth (a former slave, unable to read or write, but
a moving speaker) rose to speak at the Akron convention, against BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brockett, L. P., and M. C. Vaughn, Womans
the advice of some of the participants. Gages own language does Work in the Civil War (1867). Hanson, E. R., Our Woman
not lack color as she describes the importance of woman suffrage: Workers (1882). Yellin, J. F., and J. C. Van Horne, eds., An
she speaks of war cries, the advance-guarde, the rebel- Untrodden Path: Antislavery and Womens Political Culture (1993).
lion, and in a somewhat less militant tone, most unwearied Reference works: AA. AW. DAB. Eminent Women of the Age
actors. (1869). HWS. NAW (1971). NCAB. Ohio Authors and Their Books
Gage also wrote to support her large family. Under the States (1995).
pseudonym of Aunt Fanny (whose real identity was no secret) she Other references: New York Tribune (13 Nov. 1884).
wrote letters of advice to women in Amelia Bloomers Lily, Jane
Grey Swisshelms Saturday Visiter, and other papers, especially LOIS FOWLER
85
GALE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
GALE, Zona events within their framework. When Gale is successful, howev-
er, she touches a response in the reader that rises above the
sentimental.
Born 26 August 1874, Portage, Wisconsin; died 27 December
1938, Chicago, Illinois
Daughter of Charles F. and Eliza Beers Gale; married W. L. OTHER WORKS: Romance Island (1906). The Loves of Pelleas and
Breese, 1928 Etarre (1907). Friendship Village (1908). Friendship Village
Love Stories (1909). Mothers to Men (1911). Christmas (1912).
An only child, Zona Gale grew up in the sheltered smalltown Civic Improvement in the Little Towns (1913). When I Was a Little
environment that became the setting for her ction. She graduated Girl (1913). Neighborhood Stories (1914). Birth (1918; dramati-
from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1895. After zation by Gale, Mister Pitt, 1915). Peace in Friendship Village
working as a journalist in Milwaukee, Gale went on to New York (1919). Uncle Jimmy (1922). What Women Won in Wisconsin
in 1900 and began selling stories and poems. She returned (1922). Faint Perfume (1923; dramatization by Gale, 1934).
permanently to Wisconsin after winning the 1910 Delineator Preface to a Life (1926). Yellow Gentians and Blue (1927).
short story prize of $2,000. Portage, Wisconsin, and Other Essays (1928). Borgia (1929).
Bridal Pond (1930). The Clouds (1932). Evening Clothes (1932).
A longtime friend of Jane Addams, Gale was active with the Old Fashioned Tales (1933). Papa La Fleur (1933). Light Woman
Womens Peace Party, woman suffrage, La Follette Progressiv- (1937). Frank Miller of Mission Inn (1938). Magna (1939).
ism, the Wisconsin Dramatic Society, and the growing communi-
ty theater movement. Throughout the 1930s, she continued to
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Derleth, A., Still Small Voice: The Biography of
write ction and to work for social reform and peace. She saw to
Zona Gale (1940). Gard, R., Grassroots Theater: A Search for
the publication and wrote the introduction to The Living of
Regional Arts in America (1955). Herron, I., The Small Town in
Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1935.
American Literature (1939). MacDougall, P., Some Will Be
The women in Gales work are remarkable for the consisten- Apples (lm, 1974). Simonson, H. P., Zona Gale (1962). Sochen, J.,
cy of their development. Calliope Marsh, the leading personality Movers and Shakers: American Women Thinkers and Activists
of the Friendship Village stories, was based on Gales mother and 1900-1970 (1974).
represents the wisdom that Gale saw as basic to an ideal maternal Reference works: DAB. NAW (1971). NCAB. Oxford Com-
model. Hearts Kindred (1915) and A Daughter of the Morning panion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). TCA.
(1917) are declarations of Gales own feminist awareness. Other references: American Magazine (June 1921). Madi-
son (Wisconsin) Capital Times (29-31 May 1974, 3- 4 June
Her most successful novel is Miss Lulu Bett (1920), an 1974). Turn of the Century Women (Winter 1984). Yale Review
unsentimental look at family and marriage customs. Lulu Bett, (March 1987).
family beast of burden, is shown in rebellion against the life
her time and place have thrust upon her: this is a story of growth. NANCY BREITSPRECHER
There is no overt moralizing to interrupt the ow of the plot. Gale
adapted this novel herself for the stage, and in 1921 won the
Pulitzer Prize for drama. There was some controversy about the
changes Gale made in the ending of the play after a trial run, but in GALLAGHER, Tess
a letter to the editor of the New York Tribune, Gale made it clear
she understood the feelings that keep many Lulus locked in their Born 21 July 1943, Port Angeles, Washington
shells for years until a dramatic emotional event sets them free. Daughter of Leslie O. and Georgia Marie Morris; married
Lawrence Gallagher, 1963 (divorced 1968); Michael Burkard,
Gales short stories appeared in popular magazines and were 1973 (divorced); Raymond Carver, 1988 (died 1988)
then put out in book form; her novels were often serialized before
appearing in complete form. She was a regular contributor to Tess Gallagher was born and raised between the Strait of
magazines, often on feminist topics. Besides adapting some of her Juan de Fuca and the Olympic Mountains in northwestern Wash-
other novels for the theater, she wrote a one-act play, The ington, the oldest of ve children of a logger turned longshore-
Neighbors (1914), which had great success with college and man. Her early writing was born during the rise of feminist
community groups across the country. Gale published one book of awareness and the emergence of feminist literature in the United
poetry, The Secret Way (1921), which reveals her search for States. Gallaghers writing, however, moves beyond feminine
deeper-than-surface reality. words to express the journey of what it means to be merely human.
Like many authors, her poetry reects back to her childhood
Working from life as she observed it, Gale took ordinary
memories of the natural beauty of Washington and shing with
occurrences and invested these events with power to affect the
her father on the ranch the family owned.
inner lives of her characters. Gale expressed her own basic
philosophy as life is more than we can ever know it to be. Gallagher began her writing career at an early age, working
Consequently, some of her work is awed by too heavy a reliance as a reporter for the Port Angeles Daily News at the age of sixteen.
on mysticism: the stories cannot always sustain the transcendent She wanted to continue her career as a journalist and enrolled at
86
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GARBER
the University of Washington. Yet while attending a poetry ction is more like sitting in a clearing and waiting to see if the
writing class taught by Theodore Roethke, she found this kind of deer will come. . . . Poetry to me is lightning of the moment. Its
writing very satisfying. She left school to marry Lawrence second nature.
Gallagher, a sculptor, in June 1963, but the marriage ended in
1968. That part of her life sparked new poems, many of which are Gallagher has had a long, noteworthy career as both a writer
included in her most well-known collection, Instructions to the and a teacher, teaching at both St. Lawrence University and
Double (1976). Kirkland College, among others. She said, It is wonderful to be
able to go into a classroom and talk about what you love. To read
Her rst poem was published in the Minnesota Review in
poems and to listen to young people recite them from memory. In
1969. She received her B.A. in English from the University of
that way Im like the Poetry BaronI make students memorize
Washington in 1968 and her M.A. in 1970, then graduated from
poems. But they love it. The Poetry Baron is part of her short
the University of Iowas Writers Workshop with an M.F.A. in
story collection, At the Owl Woman Saloon (1997).
1974. In 1973 she married Michael Burkard, a poet, but this
marriage also ended in divorce. In 1979 she began living with Gallaghers career and life as a writer of prose and poetry has
writer Raymond Carver, whom she married shortly before his been recognized through a number of awards, including a Crea-
death in 1988. tive Artist Public Service Grant from the New York State Arts
Instructions to the Double reects a woman in transition and Council (1976), the Elliston Award (1976), National Endowments
change, just as Gallaghers own life was going through a change. for the Arts Grants (1976 and 1981), a Guggenheim Fellowship
The four sections of the book are rather autobiographical, dening (1978-79), and the Chancellors Citation from Syracuse Universi-
four distinct phases of growth in her life: her traditional upbring- ty, where she also taught.
ing, her uncertain rejection of the traditional values of her youth,
the new offerings the literary world can offer, and her new identity
as a poet. The book is divided by many doubles, the rst being the OTHER WORKS: Stepping Outside (1974). On Your Own (1978).
kind of poems: at once very literal and written in a testimonial or Dostoevsky: A Screenplay (with Raymond Carver, 1985). A
confessional manner, reecting on childhood to adulthood memo- Concert of Tenses: Essays on Poetry (1986). The Lover of Horses
ries; and later very philosophical and abstract, more surreal and (1986). Amplitude: New and Selected Poems (1987). My Black
focusing more on the inner self. Another example of a double is Horse (1995).
her use of discussing general subjects versus more real subjects
from her past. Poems such as Breasts and Black Money
explore her youth, specically her blossoming into womanhood BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bolick, K., A Conversation with Tess Gallagher,
and her relationship with her father, respectively. The title poem in Atlantic Unbound (July 1997).
of the collection, Instructions to the Double, brings the author Reference works: Contemporary Poets (1996). DLB: Ameri-
to her acceptance of her role as a poet. It is symbolic of her can Poets Since World War II, Third Series (1992). Writers
liberation from her past and a tting theme to the collection. Directory (1997).
Gallagher wrote six other volumes of poetry, including
Under Stars (1978), a further exploration of discovery through the DEVRA M. SLADICS
relationships of the writer. This volume is divided into two
sections. The rst, The Ireland Poems, nds Gallagher writing
descriptions of the Irish landscape, searching the land of her
ancestors for identity in a land she really knows nothing about.
The second section, Start Again Somewhere, lays a foundation GARBER, Marjorie
for examining her relationships with men in later poems and
collections. Born 11 June 1944
In subsequent volumes she studies the themes of morals, Daughter of Allen H. and Rhoda Kanner Garber
death (in Willingly [1984] following the death of her father),
travel, and again, family memories. Her poetry is mostly a English professor and Shakespeare scholar Marjorie Garber
reection of herself, yet it is a reection of self through the love of graduated with the highest honors from Swarthmore College in
others. In this way she is able to emphasize the human experience. 1966 and received a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1969. She
At one time Gallagher admitted, I feel most at home writing served as assistant professor of English at Yale University from
poems, but not now. She shifted to ction, short stories, and 1969 to 1975 and associate professor from 1975 to 1979. Garber
essays as a way to get out into foreign and surprising waters. then accepted a position as professor of English at Haverford
After Moon Crossing Bridge and Portable Kisses, she began to College in Haverford, Pennsylvania, and worked there for two
dig deeply into writing short stories, realizing that writing prose years before moving to Harvard Universitys English Department
has a very different tempo than writing poetry. She had to in 1981. In her current position, Garber is the William R. Kenan Jr.
become more acutely aware of human nature. And she did, and Professor of English at Harvard, the Associate Dean for Afrma-
nds she feels at ease writing both prose and poetry: Writing tive Action, and a member of the Academic Deans Council.
87
GARBER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Garber has also been the director of Harvards Center for bisexuality. Once again, she cautions against the tendency to
Literary and Cultural Studies (CLCS) since 1986. The CLCS was classify individuals into one of two categoriesin this case
founded in 1984 with an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant and heterosexual or homosexual. She does not believe, however, that
provides a place for interdisciplinary study and discussion on bisexuality is a third category on a par with heterosexuality or
topics ranging from history to philosophy to archaeology. The homosexuality. She asserts instead that bisexuality can be an
CLCS sponsors ongoing faculty-graduate student seminars as acceptable, adult way of living ones sexual life rather than a
well as lectures, conferences, and workshops for Harvard and period of confusion or experimentation, as is often supposed.
Boston-area graduate students and scholars. Among Garbers
awards and honors are a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship in 1966, a Garber believes that bisexuality reveals the continuum of
Morse Fellowship for Younger Scholars in the Humanities in sexuality from heterosexual to homosexual along which many
1972, and American Council of Learned Societies Fellowships in individuals move throughout their lives. Garber uses examples
1977 and 1989. from her own experiences as a bisexual and from the lives of
musicians, actors, artists, and writers to show the ways individuals
Garber is well known at Harvard for her popular Shakespeare can move along this continuum of sexuality. After discussing the
courses, and the Bard also formed the subject of her rst three marriage of a well-known bisexual actor, for example, Garber
books: Dream in Shakespeare: From Metaphor to Metamorpho- writes that bisexuality is not a xed point on a scale but an aspect
sis (1974), Coming of Age in Shakespeare (1981), and Shake- of lived experience, seen in the context of particular relations.
speares Ghost Writers: Literature as Uncanny Casualty (1987). Although most critics praised the accessibility of Vested Interests
Shakespeare has also been the subject of many of Garbers and Vice Versa, some complained that it presupposed a knowl-
articles, which have been published in journals and newspapers edge and experience of literary criticism beyond the laypersons
like Harpers, the New York Times, Shakespeare Quarterly, grasp. Other critics believed that Garber too easily dismissed the
Renaissance Drama, Hebrew University Studies in Literature, human tendency to categorize individuals as something that can
Yale Review, and Mosaic. Garber has also contributed essays on be easily vanquished from the readers mind.
Shakespeare and other topics to works edited by other scholars.
Garber switched gears with her next title, Dog Love (1996),
In Garbers fourth book, Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing which focuses on the cultural obsession with canines. Garber
and Cultural Anxiety (1992), she explores the practice of the owner of two golden retrieverslooks at the myths and
cross-dressing by discussing examples from lms, history, popu- misconceptions about dogs and the human-dog bond. She dis-
lar culture, music, literature, and anthropology. The vast quantity cusses the seldom-asked question of why humans spend so much
of data and her theories support her assertion that the denition money keeping their dogs healthy and happy when there is so
of the grounds of human gender will always involve more, and much suffering elsewhere that could command our attention.
less, than any clearly decidable bottom line. Garber notes that Garber also traces the dogs relatively recent rise in popularity and
cross-dressing blurs the dressers gender, challenging the natural looks at some famous canines in literature and lm. Her general
human tendency to categorize individuals as male or female. She argument is that society relies on dogs to bring out its humanity.
cautions against dwelling on the reasons for cross-dressing (eco- Although not a new argument, Garbers wit and clear prose make
nomic, social, cultural) in order to explain it away. Instead, she for enjoyable reading.
argues for a recognition of the cross-dresser as a gure that
Garbers latest work, Symptoms of Culture (1998), is yet
disrupts because it cannot always be explained with logic. As
another departure from her earlier books. Each chapter presents a
David Kaufman wrote in his review of Vested Interests in Nation:
new look at an American cultural phenomenon or symptom
Garber suggests that the transvestite is rather symbolic of an
representative of American culture. Garber writes that each symp-
Otherness, a third term with the inherent capacityif not
tom reveals a fantasy of control. . .of a powerful agency, divine
necessarily the ambitionto upset more normal or regimented
or other. . . .The political logic of this is as disturbing as its
assignments imposed by social and cultural structures as well as
psychology. Among the chapters or symptoms Garber dis-
by political systems. This is what the cultural anxiety in her
cusses are Richard Nixon, the Wizard of Oz, Charlottes Web,
subtitle alludes to and what her recurring focus on a category of
anti-Semitism, the Promise Keepers, and the theory of evolution
crisis is about.
from the Scopes trial to the present. Although too theoretical for a
Garber manages the difcult task of making her theoretical mainstream audience, Garbers light touch with these difcult and
arguments accessible to the lay reader not only through her clear touchy subjects has appeal for the scholarly reader.
prose, but through the tie-ins with popular culture. Her exam-
plesfrom Yentl to Tootsie to Phantom of the Operaare
familiar ones and ground her arguments in a way accessible to the BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Oxford Companion to Wom-
layperson. ens Writing in the United States (1995).
Other references: Boston (June 1995). Nation (24 Feb. 1992,
Garbers next work, Vice Versa: Bisexuality and the Eroticism 17 July 1995). PW (24 Apr. 1995, 23 Sept. 1996, 13 Apr. 1998).
of Everyday Life (1996), continues some of the arguments ad-
vanced in Vested Interests but focuses primarily on the concept of LEAH J. SPARKS
88
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GARDENER
GARDENER, Helen Hamilton these essays was Sex in Brain, the result of a 14-month
biological study conducted to refute the contention of Dr. W. A.
(Chenoweth) Hammond, surgeon general of the U.S., that the brains of men and
women are structurally different. Gardener originally presented
Born Alice Chenoweth, 21 January 1853, Winchester, Virginia; the conclusions reached through this research to the International
died 26 July 1925, Washington, D.C. Council of Women in Washington, D.C., in 1888.
Daughter of Alfred G. and Katherine Peel Chenoweth; married During the 1890s, when she served as contributor, associate
Charles S. Smart, 1875; Selden A. Day, 1902 editor, and, briey, coeditor of B. F. Flowers reform-oriented
magazine, The Arena, she was chiey responsible for the jour-
The initial impetus to Helen Hamilton Gardeners public nals progressive stance on a wide variety of feminist issues.
career as an author, freethinker, suffragist, and political lobbyist
came from her father, whose abolitionist activities and rejection of Gardeners two novels, Is This Your Son, My Lord? (1891)
formal Episcopalian thought instilled in Gardener a strong com- and Pray You Sir, Whose Daughter? (1892), explicitly confront
mitment to independent scientic inquiry, sociological analysis, and condemn the sexual double standard. The rst of these attacks
and concomitant activism. Gardener acknowledged this debt to the hypocritical upbringing of young American men, especially
her father in her last novel, An Unofcial Patriot (1894), a slightly with respect to the emphasis on external respectability rather than
ctionalized biography focusing on her fathers conversion to the moral convictions and independent thought. Gardeners condem-
Methodist church and on his Civil War activities. nation of institutionalized Christianity as abettor of this false
social system gures heavily in her argument.
After an extensive education at various private schools in the
Washington, D.C., area and two years of school teaching, Garden- The companion novel, Pray You Sir, Whose Daughter?,
er moved with her husband to New York City, where she studied focuses on the lives of three young women. Here Gardener writes
biology at Columbia University and lectured in sociology at the a strident but effectively argued denunciation of an attempt by the
Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. In 1884, prompted by her New York state legislature to lower the age-of-consent law; she
friendship with the prominent agnostic and skeptic, Robert G. also condemns the low wages paid to working women, and attacks
Ingersoll, Gardener gave a series of lectures devoted to the the inferior position of women in the marital relationship. The
principles of free thought and a discussion of the relationship novel is especially signicant for its memorable portrait of a
between heredity and environment. new-woman heroine, Gertrude Foster.
Her rst book-length publication, Men, Women, and Gods Although Elizabeth Cady Stantons prediction that Garden-
(1885), contains many of these lectures. It was published under ers writings would do for the womens rights movement what
the name Helen Hamilton Gardener, a name that she subsequently Harriet Beecher Stowes Uncle Toms Cabin did for the abolition-
adopted in both her personal and professional life. It is not known ist cause was not fullled, the two novels were frequently reprint-
whether she rejected her given name and her married name to ed and were the subject of widespread controversy.
further her assertion of individual independence, to shield her
family from the uproar which accompanied many of her publica- Gardener traveled extensively in Europe and Asia during the
tions, or to underscore a growing dissatisfaction with her marriage. rst six years of her marriage to Selden Day. Although she no
longer wrote for publication, after her return to Washington in
From 1885 to 1890, Gardener published numerous essays 1907 she became active in the agitation for woman suffrage and
and short stories in a wide variety of periodicals. Many of these drafted many platform papers in conjunction with her work with
pieces were collected in Pushed by Unseen Hands (1890) and A Anna Howard Shaw and Carrie Chapman Catt. In 1920, President
Thoughtless Yes (1890). In the former, Gardener describes the Wilson nominated Gardener to the U.S. Civil Service Commis-
scope of her subject matter as unanalyzed varieties of mental, sion. She was the rst woman to hold such a high federal position.
moral, social, industrial, or other aberrations of what is by
courtesy called civilized society. Here, as in all of her writings, Throughout her long and varied career, Gardeners commit-
Gardener insists that her readers formulate independent conclu- ment to feminism was a prominent aspect of her self-proclaimed
sions, conclusions invariably counterposed to their previous separation from conventional thought and action. Possibly Gar-
passivity. deners most signicant contribution lay in her attack on the
standards of propriety and respectability imposed upon the wom-
Gardener continued this work in two essay collections, an writer. In her essay, The Immoral Inuence of Women in
Pulpit, Pew, and Cradle (1892) and Facts and Fictions of Life Literature (Arena, February 1890), for example, Gardener cites
(1893). Exploring such diverse topics as insurance fraud, penal the need for an uncensored and distinctly female literary voice.
reform, labor disputes, hypocrisy in religion and philanthropy, the She claims such a voice depends upon the gains of the womens
subservient position of women, and tenement living conditions, rights movement, gains which she celebrated repeatedly and saw
these two books make Gardener one of the earliest of the Ameri- as part of an ongoing struggle, inseparable from wider social
can muckrakers. The most signicant and widely discussed of advancement and reform.
89
GARDNER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
OTHER WORKS: The papers of Helen Hamilton Gardener are in the journals and magazines as Poetry magazine, Partisan Review,
Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Paris Review, the New Yorker, Nation, and Atlantic Monthly.
There were ve books of poetry: Birthdays from the Ocean
(1955), Un Altra Infanzia (in Italy, 1959), The Looking Glass
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Flexner, E., Century of Struggle (1959). Gor-
(1961), West of Childhood: Poems 1950-1965, and posthumous-
don, L., Womans Body, Womans Right (1976). H. H. G. (Alice
ly, The Collected Poems (1985). Her work was anthologized in,
Chenoweth Day) 1853-1925 (privately printed memorial booklet,
among others, A Pocket Book of Modern Verse (1955), Imagina-
1925). Hill, V. L., Strategy and Breadth: The Socialist-Feminist
tions Other Place (1955), Erotic Poetry (1963), Eight Lines and
in American Fiction (1979). Park, M., Front Door Lobby
Under (1967), and Honey and the Gall (1967).
(1960). Putnam, S., 400 Years of Freethought (1894).
Reference works: A W. DAB HWS NAW NCAB. Sound and rhythm are crucial elements in Gardners poetry.
Other references: American Journal of Physical Anthropolo- She makes extensive use of rhyme, including internal rhyme and
gy (Oct.-Dec. 1927). Arena (Jan. 1891, June 1892, Dec. 1894). near-rhyme, and there is an exuberant musicality in her poems,
Business Woman (Jan. 1923). Free Thought Magazine (Jan. 1890, even while many of them explore death-related themes. There are
Jan. 1897, March 1901, July 1902). Independent (8 Sept. 1892). echoes of Gerard Manley Hopkins and similarities to Dylan
Literary World (13 Aug. 1892, 9 Sept. 1893). Nation (16 June Thomas, but these are not so much derivative as independently
1892). Woman Citizen (2 May 1925). original. According to one biographer, Gardners early work is
often compared to that of Dylan Thomas, particularly in terms of
VICKI LYNN HILL
her vital, unself-conscious love for words. She has also been
compared to Muriel Rukeyser and Sylvia Plath in her ability to use
words with signicant import.
GARDNER, Isabella According to Marian Janssen, author of a major biographical
article in Kenyon Review on Gardner, She controlled the chaos
Born 7 September 1915, Newton, Massachusetts; died 7 July of life by end rhyme, alliteration, assonance, and, often, strictly
1981, New York, New York metered iambic lines, as well as [in Gardners words] symbology,
Daughter of George Peabody and Rose Grosvenor Gardner; inter-relating, universal + associative, of Christianity + myth +
married Harold van Kirk, 1938 (marriage ended); Maurice magic (+ Freud). All of her poems were inspired by the
Seymour, 1943 (divorced 1947); Robert H. McCormick Jr., incidents of her lifeboth happy and tragic, as indeed her life
1947 (divorced 1957); Allen Tate, 1959 (divorced 1966); became. In her earlier years she often used formsthe sestina,
children: Rose, Dan terza rima, triolet, even the obligatory sonnet. After the breakup of
her marriage to the difcult Tate (at his instigation, not hers), she
In the poetically rich quarter century between 1950 and 1980, withdrew to a somewhat reclusive existence in the Chelsea Hotel
Isabella Gardner earned a wide-ranging and considerable reputa- in New York City and a self-imposed poetic silence of 15 years.
tion in poetry, her chosen vocation. She was raised in Boston, one Her later poems, in a slight nod to changing poetic fashions and
of six children of a wealthy society family with a strong New trends, went to longer lines and even an abandonment of the
England heritage. She was a cousin of poet Robert Lowell and was brilliant end rhyme that had been so characteristic of her.
often confused with the other Isabella Stewart Gardner, the
Boston art patron and collector, who was her great-great-aunt and From 1951 to 1956 Gardner was associate editor of Poetry,
godmother. At one time in her life she even lived in her godmoth- while Karl Shapiro was editor. There she became known for her
ers house, and, according to many, with her red hair and snub caring concern for the success of younger poets she worked with,
nose, she also looked like her. even providing monetary help in some cases. Shapiro praised her
rst volume of poetry and thought the second (The Looking Glass)
Gardners education included the Foxcroft School in was even better: Nearly every poem in the volume deserves
Middleburg, Virginia, from 1931 to 1933, the Leighton Rollins applause, he wrote in the New York Times Book Review. It is an
School of Acting in East Hampton, New York, and in 1937, the outstanding book. If I had anything to do with it, I would nominate
Embassy School of Acting in London, England. For a few years it for the Pulitzer Prize. In fact, both Birthdays from the Ocean
she pursued an acting career, specializing in character roles and The Looking Glass were nominated for the National Book
where her shy stutter would be less liable to obtrude. Award (Birthdays was runner-up in the year that W. H. Auden
After marriage and the birth of her children, she resumed the won the award), That Was Then was nominated for the 1980
writing of poetry, which she had begun in her early teens and had American Book Award, and in 1981 Gardner was selected as the
given up because she believed herself to be too facile at the rst recipient of the New York State Walt Whitman Citation of
craft. Once renewed, however, her position as a poet-contempo- Merit for Poetry.
rary of such writers as Howard Shapiro, John Logan, Richard
In The Fellowship with Essence: An Afterword to her last
Eberhardt, John Frederick Nims, William Carlos Williams,
book, Gardner wrote: If there is a theme with which I am
Marianne Moore, and Elizabeth Bishop was secured.
particularly concerned, it is the contemporary failure of love. I
Although her output was comparatively slim (about 100 don t mean romantic love or sexual passion, but the love which is
published poems), her work appeared in such prestigious literary the specic and particular recognition of one human being by
90
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GARDNER
anotherthe response by eye and voice and touch of two soli- nurses and lay people caught up in the enthusiasm for public
tudes. The democracy of universal vulnerability. health. The rst systematic treatment of the subject, it was revised
in 1924 and 1936 and was in print until 1945. In a demonstration
During her poetry years Gardner gave poetry readings through- of the worldwide inuence of American nursing methods it was
out the U.S. and in Europe. The Library of Congress has three translated into French, Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese. Although
tapes of her readings, one with John Logan. Her manuscript used in classrooms, the book served a wider audience by offering
papers are at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. advice on how to found and manage a district nursing association,
how to run a one-woman public-health program, and how to deal
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference Works: CA 97-100 (1975), 104 (1982). with lay boards of managers.
CP (1970, 1975). After she retired, Gardner published two works of ction. So
Other References: Booklist (15 Mar. 1955, 1 Mar. 1966). Build We (1942) presents episodes in the life of Mary Melton,
Carroll, P., The Poem in Its Skin (1968). Harpers (6 Aug. 1966). director of a district nursing association. Episodes inculcate
Kenyon Review (Summer 1991). LJ (1 Apr. 1955). Modern Age proper procedures and awareness of social factors, and conversa-
(Winter 1961-62). NYT (10 July 1981). NYTBR (22 May 1950, 21 tions sometimes degenerate into lifeless expositions of adminis-
Sept. 1980). Poetry (Oct. 1966). Poulin, A. Jr., ed., Contemporary trative problems, but the book transcends didacticism in its
American Poetry, 4th ed. (1951). Saturday Review (9 July 1955). portrayal of an all-female world. Melton benevolently guides her
Sewanee Review (Jan.-Mar.1956). Virginia Quarterly Review women subordinates, giving each the guidance she needs. So
(Spring 1966). Yale Review (Sept. 1955). Build We depicts a world where womens good intentions, intelli-
gence, professionalism, and nurturance sufce to create harmony.
JOANNE L. SCHWEIK The absence of conict and of more-than-eeting references to
sufferingastonishing in a study of nursingweaken the book
but suggest Gardners vision of the ideal life.
GARDNER, Mariam Katharine Kent (1946), a better book, follows a nurse from
See BRADLEY, Marion Zimmer graduation to middle age. Like Gardner, Katharine Kent is an
upper-class New Englander, a daughter and sister of lawyers who
eventually heads a public-health nursing association in her own
city. Like Gardner, she writes an inuential book while sick and
sets up a program to train public-health nurses in Italy. (Gardner
GARDNER, Mary Sewall used parts of letters she wrote after World War I when she served
with the American Red Cross Commission for Tuberculosis in
Born 5 February 1871, Newton, Massachusetts; died 20 February Italy in her account of Kents European nursing ventures.) Other
1961, Providence, Rhode Island elements in the book apparently derive less from autobiography
Daughter of William Sewall and Mary Thornton Gardner than from Gardners conception of an ideal career. This book
ends, as did So Build We, with its heroine afrming her delight in
As a girl, Mary Sewall Gardner moved with her well-to-do her chosen work.
family from Massachusetts to Providence, where she lived and
worked all her life. Gardner credited her father and half-brother, Gardners ction and many of her speeches, articles, and
both of them lawyers and judges, with teaching her to think clearly reports celebrate the value of work in womens lives. Professional
and to feel a sense of civic responsibility. In 1890, Gardner work creates cherished ties of comradeship and discipleship
graduated from Miss Porters School in Farmington, Connecticut. between women, and egalitarian relationships between women
She entered the Newport Hospital Training School for Nurses and men or women and their families. Gardner tried to portray
when she was over thirty. women who are happy as stay-at-home wives and mothers, but
they remain shadowy gures, alive only in their volunteer service
In 1905, soon after graduating, Gardner became director of to public-health nursing. In her books it is participation in nurs-
the Providence District Nursing Association, which she headed ings long war against disease and suffering and death which
until her retirement in 1931. Worried that the boom in public- makes women happy.
health work was leading to employment of poorly trained nurses,
Lillian D. Wald, Gardner, and others prodded the two national Gardners writings, although sometimes amateurish and
nurses groups to establish a standard-setting body. The result was preachy, are valuable documents in the history of nursing, profes-
the National Organization for Public Health Nursing (NOPHN), sional women, and American civic conscience. No other leader in
founded in 1912. Gardner helped draft its constitution, was active the effort to make American nursing a profession wrote so openly
on its rst board of directors, and succeeded Wald as NOPHN about her motives and rewards. Despite its wooden dialogue, its
president from 1913 to 1916. narrow, upper-class perspective, and its easy resolution of con-
icts, Katharine Kent offers a moving portrait of a woman who
Like the NOPHN, Gardners rst book, Public Health Nurs- pursues autonomy and a fundamentally maternal and Christian
ing (1916), aimed to guide, restrain, and standardize the efforts of ideal of service.
91
GARRIGUE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
OTHER WORKS: The papers of Mary Sewall Gardner are at the Deutsch, in Poetry in Our Time, wrote, Miss Garrigue nds her
Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts. subject matter in the give-and-take between the physical presence
and the ideas, or more often, the emotions that attach to it. If she
wears her feelings upon her sleeve, the embroidery can dazzle.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: American Journal of Public Health 36 (Oct.
1946). Providence Journal (22 Feb. 1961). Nursing Outlook (Dec. Garrigues earliest works were generally considered her best.
1953, Jan. 1954, March 1961). NYTBR (28 July 1946). Survey Her later collections each contained masterful individual poems
(July 1942). but were not viewed as being as solid in their entirety as past
efforts. Some critics were annoyed by her mannerisms and
SUSAN ARMENY circuitous language, which was sometimes called Jamesian or
Wordsworthian. Some felt that her strong emotions were
excessive, although all agreed that her condence in her ability to
manipulate language was warranted.
GARRIGUE, Jean Her lengthy travel poems represent some of her most highly
commended work. These include Pays Perdu from Country
Born Gertrude Louise Garrigus, 8 December 1914, Evansville, Without Maps (1964) and The Grand Canyon from Studies for
Indiana; died 28 December 1972, Boston, Massachusetts an Actress and Other Poems (1973), published posthumously.
Daughter of Allan Colfax and Gertrude Heath Garrigus. Other book-length collections include The Monument Rose (1953),
Chartres and Prose Poems (1958), A Water Walk by Ville dEste
(1959), and New and Selected Poems (1967).
Jean Garrigue was a respected poet, critic, and teacher of
poetry. Born in Evansville, Indiana, she received her B.A. from After Garrigues death, her poetry gradually went out of the
the University of Chicago and M.A. from the University of Iowa, public consciousness until two decades later, when Selected
where she subsequently taught creative writing. Iowa was just one Poems: Jean Garrigue (1992) was published and revived her
of the institutions where Garrigue instructed during her career. reputation. The book contained four previously uncollected po-
Others included Bard College, Queens College, The New School ems in addition to reprinted works from each of her earlier books.
for Social Research, the University of Colorado, the University of
Phoebe Pettingell pointed out in the New Leader that Garrigue
Connecticut, Smith College, and the University of Washington.
was a hyper-romantic who believed that an artist should be
She was poet-in-residence at both the University of California at
completely passionate in all aspects of life, even when that
Riverside and Rhode Island College during the year preceding her
passion leads to hurt. The latter is an emotion that recurs through-
1972 death, at age fty-nine, of Hodgkins disease.
out her poems. Selected Poems illustrates Garrigues evolution
Garrigue was rst published in 1941 in the Kenyon Review. from the beginning to the end of her career: in the early days she
In 1944 her initial large collection, Thirty-Six Poems and a Few focused mainly on internal issues, but she later examined some of
Songs, appeared in an anthology called Five Young American the political matters of her time. Examples include Lead in the
Poets. Her book-length debut was The Ego and the Centaur, a Water and Resistance Meeting: Boston Common, both rst
collection released in 1947. published in Studies for an Actress.
As a poet, Garriguewho changed her name from Gertrude In addition to writing her own collections, Garrigue contrib-
Louise Garrigus in 1940, both to acknowledge the French roots of uted poems to Cross-Sections, edited by Edwin Weaver (1947).
her last name and to assume what many viewed as a deliberately She was the editor of Translations by American Poets (1970) and
gender-ambiguous rst namewas known for her complicated, compiled Loves Aspects: The Worlds Great Love Poems (1975).
technically excellent works. Most centered on the themes of love She wrote a novella, The Animal Hotel (1966), and a work of
and the heart, but many also incorporated other interests, such as nonction, Marianne Moore (1965).
music, architecture, nature, and especially travel. She was reputed Garrigue was also a poetry critic, essayist, and ction review-
for her ability to craft unique phrasing from a precise choice of er, contributing to the New Leader, the New Republic, Saturday
words. She wrote in a passionate, lyrical style that drew generous- Review of Literature, Kenyon Review, and Tomorrow. Among the
ly from the inuence of poets before her, but remained her own. other publications to which she contributed poems or prose were
Botteghe Oscure, Poetry, Commentary, Arts magazine, and the
Laurence Lieberman wrote in Poetry that Garrigue was
New York Herald Tribune.
perhaps more skilled than any other poet writing today with the
power to dramatize emotional thresholds between jeopardy and During her career Garrigue won a number of awards and
renewal. . . . In poem after poem her subject is the failure of events honors, including Rockefeller Foundation, Guggenheim, Nation-
in daily life ever to measure up to her spirits esthetic craving al Academy of Arts and Letters, Hudson Review, and Radcliffe
for perfectability. In American Poetry Since 1945, Stephen Institute fellowships and grants. She also won a Union League
Stepanchev noted that although her commitment to verbal magic Civic and Arts Foundation prize, a Longview award, an Emily
sometimes draws her into a forest of rhetoric from which too much Clark Balch rst prize, and a Melville Cane award, as well as
contemporary reality is banned, she succeeds in conveying, in her being nominated for a National Book award for Country Without
best poems, a sense of the worlds danger and delights. Babette Maps.
92
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GATES
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Thompson, D. E., ed., Indiana Authors and Their Peter, but since she is a eugenist and plans to have seven perfect
Books, 1917-1966 (1974). children, she cannot love him and maintain her principles. While
Reference works: Benets Readers Encyclopedia of Ameri- acting as escort Peter discovers that Dianthas aunts secretary is
can Literature (1991). CA, 37-40 (1973). CANR 20 (1987). CLC 2 bilking her of money, reveals the crime, and, as a result, reveals
(1974), 8 (1978). World Authors 1900-1950 (1996). himself as a healthy, sound, ideal father-to-be of seven child-
Other references: LJ (15 Apr. 1992). New Leader (29 Jan. ren. We Are Seven was dramatized by the author from her short
1968, 13-27 July 1998). NR (2 Nov. 1953). NYRB (4 Oct. 1973). story Agathas Escort, contained in The Justice of Gideon (1910).
NYT (28 Dec. 1972). Parnassus (Winter 1975). Poetry (Dec.
1953, May 1960, June 1965, May 1968). SR (19 June 1948, Spring Gates was a popular novelist and dramatist in the rst
1954). YR (Autumn 1973). decades of this century, but her novels and plays can today be
characterized as little more than sentimental schlock.
KAREN RAUGUST
OTHER WORKS: The Biography of a Prairie Girl (1902). Buenas

Noches (1906). The Plow-Woman (1906). Cupid: The Cow-Punch
(1907). The Justice of Gideon (1910). Swat the Fly (1915). Apron-
GATES, Eleanor strings (1917). Phoebe (1919). Piggie (1919). Pa Hardy (1936).
Fish-Bait(n.d.).
Born 26 September 1875, Shakopee, Minnesota; died 7 March
1951, Los Angeles, California
married Richard Walton Tully, 1901; Frederick F. Moore, 1941 BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: NCAB, 15.
CYNTHIA L. WALKER
The title of Eleanor Gates most famous novel, The Poor
Little Rich Girl (1912), has become a clich. In the novel, seven-
year-old Gwendolyn is at the mercy of her servants, because her
businessman father and socialite mother have no time for her.
Midway through the novel she falls ill and hallucinates an
GATES, Susa Young
encounter in which all of her previously unanswered questions are
answered, her bullying servants banished, and her parents brought Born 18 March 1856, Salt Lake City, Utah; died 27 March 1933,
to her side. Although initially cute, the 200-page hallucination is Salt Lake City, Utah
far too long and quickly cloys. Naturally, Gwendolyns dream Wrote under: Amelia, Maggie Farnham, Mary Foster Gibbs,
comes true. Homespun, Mary Howe, Dr. Snuffbottle
Daughter of Brigham and Lucy Bigelow Young; married Alma
Ten years later, Gates attempted to cash in on her previous Dunford, 1872; Jacob F. Gates, 1880, children: 13, but only
success with The Rich Little Poor Boy (1922). Almost as good as ve survived to adulthood
The Poor Little Rich Girl is bad, the novel covers the horrid early
life of Johnny Smith/Blake, who had been kidnapped by Tom An aristocrat among the Mormons in the intermountain
Barber, a selsh brute, to provide free geriatric care for Toms West, Susa Young Gates was raised in the Lion House, polyga-
father. Johnny is forced to stay in the apartment all day, wears mous household of territorial governor and church leader Brigham
Toms made-over clothes (woefully too large for him), and is not Young. Educated beyond the usual for the time and place, at
permitted to attend school. In fact, any rotten thing that could fourteen she was editor of the University of Deseret (now Utah)
happen to a child (except child molesting) happens to Johnny, but literary magazine, and at twenty-two she established the music
he has a heart of gold, a spine of steel, and a diamond-in-the-rough department at the newly founded Brigham Young University, as
mind, which is why hes a rich little poor boy. His friends and well as instituting classes there in phonography (shorthand).
saviors are his stepsister, a one-eyed cowboy, a priest, and a Boy
Scout leader. As it turns out, Johnnys father was a hero, and A mixed career of writing and editing began in 1889 with her
because he is a heros son, Johnny has been given a large publication of the Young Womans Journal, which lasted until
scholarship by Dale Carnegie. But, a hero himself, Johnny decides 1929. In the interim she also directed the founding of the Relief
to postpone using the scholarship while his Grampa (Barbers Society Magazine. Both were monthly magazines aimed at Mor-
father) needs him. mon women. Gates contributed heavily to both, generally under
one of her several pseudonyms. She also wrote for the North
We Are Seven (1915) is typical of Gatess plays. Subtitled a American Review, the Pacic Bureau Service, and the Utah
three-act whimsical farce, it is built around Diantha Kerr, an Genealogical and Historical Magazine.
independent young woman who is writing a masters thesis in
sociology and who is forced by her aunt to accept an escort for her Her involvement with womens issues, including the suc-
research expeditions. Enter Peter Avery, a practical joker, who, cessful campaign to include universal suffrage in the Utah consti-
after one glimpse of Diantha, pretends to be deaf and dumb, a tution, 1896, took Gates as far aeld as London (1889) and
prerequisite for the escort job. Diantha begins to fall in love with Copenhagen (1902) as a speaker and participant in conventions of
93
GEARHART AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
the International Council of Women. By no means a radical OTHER WORKS: Lydia Knights History (1883). Heroines of
feminist, she reected a conservative position of human rights Mormondom (1884). History of Young Ladies Mutual Improve-
within a patriarchal hierarchy. ment Association. . . (1911). Surname Book and Racial Histo-
ry (1918).
Her early marriage ended in divorce after the birth of two
children. A subsequent marriage produced eleven more children,
whose births and deaths were interspersed among the heavy BIBLIOGRAPHY: Burgess-Olson, V., ed., Sister Saints (1978).
professional schedule Gates maintained. Of the 13 children, only Bushman, C., ed., Mormon Sisters: Women in Early Utah (1876).
ve survived to adulthood. Cracroft, R. P., Susa Young Gates (thesis, 1951).
Reference works: Latter-Day Saint Biographical Encyclope-
Her literary output is varied. Two novels, one full biography, dia, A. Jensen, ed. (1901). NCAB.
a genealogical handbook, a play, a raft of short stories, and Other references: Dialogue (1971).
countless short personal essays are in print; her papers contain
manuscripts of a history of women and several other unnished MAUREEN URSENBACH BEECHER
projects. Her commitment to the Mormon belief is the unifying
thread through all, a commitment expressed most effectively
through her characters adherence to basic 19th-century Christian
morality, or their deance thereof, with the subsequent, and GEARHART, Sally Miller
predictable, dire consequences.
Her own favorite of the novels, John Stevens Courtship Born 15 April 1931, Pearisburg, Virginia
(1909), tells of two young Mormon women of the 1850s and the Daughter of Kyle M. and Sarah Gearhart
clash with the world outside in the form of eastern soldiers
stationed in Utah. The book is often didactic, its message of A feminist utopian novelist and professor of speech and
virtue rewarded very openly acknowledged in the disgrace and communication studies, Sally Miller Gearhart describes her poli-
death of the morally careless Ellen and the happily-ever-after tics as lesbian-feminist and her religion as Philogyny. She re-
marriage of the steadfast Diantha to Mormon stalwart Stevens. ceived her B.A. in English from Sweet Briar College in Sweet
Briar, Virginia (1952) and continued her education at Bowling
Superior to the earlier work, however, is the imaginative
Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio, where she
Prince of Ur, published posthumously in 1945. Through the
received an M.A. in public address in 1953. In 1956 she was
travails of Hebrew Abram the book presents conicts of love and
awarded a Ph.D. in theater from the University of Illinois and
religion. The protagonist is a virile statesman-priest, set off
completed additional study at the University of Kansas from
against the bestial Nimrod and the cunning Mardan. Sarai is
1969 to 1970.
saintly, but markedly less interesting than the provocative, deter-
mined Ischa, whose warmth and a certain pathetic quality save her In 1974 Gearhart edited and coauthored with William R.
from a stereotyping that would have marred the book. Johnson a piece entitled Loving Women/Loving Men: Gay Libera-
tion in the Church. Her only novel, The Wanderground: Stories of
It was through her short stories, however, that Gates won her
the Hill Women, was published in 1978 and has been reprinted
reputation among her contemporaries. Didactic, moralistic pieces,
several times. Wanderground depicts a lesbian utopian society of
they often ran as serials in the journals she edited. Slanted at an hill womena group of antiviolent people who have escaped
audience immature in age or in literary sophistication, they in City in a revolt against technology and male domination.
reected nothing so much as Gatess religious conviction. Offering an essentialist portrayal of men and women as polar
More effective in the moralistic purpose for which she wrote opposites, Gearhart writes of the hill womens relationships to
were the personal essays Gates often included as editorials or each other and to the planet Earth, which is depending on them for
notes in the magazines. Often impassioned, they ranged far aeld its survival. Critic Bonnie Zimmerman calls the novel an ex-
from religious tenets, though they retained a gloss of Christian, treme example of the idealization of the lesbian myth of commu-
more specically Mormon, mores. nity. She regrets the occasional artistic lapses that result from
Gearharts idealism, but notes the strength with which Gearhart
Her dramatic writing and her poetry generally were not and those inspired by her revere the virtues of equality, balance,
signicant beyond their moment. The Life Story of Brigham harmony, and complete respect for all entities.
Young (1930), Gatess biography of her father, though no longer
standard, was appraised by contemporaries as, understandably, Gearhart has held a variety of teaching positions, including
written in the nature of a vindication, but indeed polygamy is the assistant professor of speech at the Stephen F. Austin State
only thing. . .that needs vindicating. University in Texas (1956-59) and associate professor of speech
and drama and department head at Texas Lutheran College from
Not Mormonisms nor Utahs nest writer, Gates was in 1960 to 1970. She became a lecturer and associate professor at
several aspects a worthy pioneer: as novelist, essayist, short San Francisco State University before becoming a professor of
ction writer, and editor-journalist, she set some models which speech from 1972 to 1992. She is now retired and a professor
long survived her in the mountainous West. emerita at San Francisco State.
94
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GELLHORN
Gearhart has contributed short stories and essays to numer- and divorced in 1945) and Robert Capa, and submitted an unsolicited
ous anthologies. She has also served as a member of the board of article to Colliers Weekly. From that point on, Gellhorn won
directors of the San Francisco Family Service Agency; as acclaim for her ability to convey the face of war, to render the
cochairperson of the Council on Religion and the Homosexual; as suffering of ordinary people in spare prose and powerful imagery,
lecturer and consultant for the national Sex Forum; and as a defying convention to become one of the rst female war
member of the San Francisco Womens Centers, PETA, the correspondents.
ACLU, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the San
Francisco Womens Centers. By 1939 Gellhorn had reported on Nazi encroachment into
Czechoslovakia and the Russo-Finnish war. A year later she
trekked across China with Hemingway, in all likelihood the
OTHER WORKS: A Feminist Tarot: A Guide to Intrapersonal Unwilling Companion of the often humorous recollections of
Communication (1977). Questioning Technology: Tool, Toy, or excursions to the Caribbean, Asia, and Russia published in her
Tyrant (1991). autobiographical Travels with Myself and Another (1978). During
World War II she deed military regulations and stowed away on
a hospital ship to witness the Normandy invasion and even
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Rosinsky, N., Feminist Futures: Contemporary accompanied British pilots on night bombing raids over Germany.
Womens Speculative Fiction (1987). Zimmerman, B., Safe Sea of When the Allies liberated Dachau, Gellhorn was there to record
Women (1990). the truth. During the Cold War, when the arena of combat shifted,
Reference works: CA (1976). CANR (1998). FC (1990). she reported on the Arab-Israeli conict, the Vietnam War, the
Feminist Writers (1996). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing Nicaraguan contras, and at the age of eighty-one, the U.S. inva-
in the United States (1995). sion of Panama. Only when war came to Bosnia did she admit she
Other references: Alternatives (Oct.-Nov. 1989). was too old to bear witness.
MARY E. HARVEY, Military tactics and the exploits of generals, as the title of her
UPDATED BY LEAH J. SPARKS collection of front-line dispatches, The Face of War (1959, 1988),
suggests, held little interest for Gellhorn. As a war correspondent
she focused instead on the common soldier and civilians, on the
telling details by which to make real their lives and experiences.
GELLHORN, Martha While her cool, detached prose and almost photographic delinea-
tion of person, place, and event suggested utter objectivity,
Gellhorns personal perspective was never in doubt. In fact for
Born November 1908, St. Louis, Missouri; died 15 February
Gellhorn journalism, carefully written, was a form of honorable
1998, London, England
behavior.
Daughter of George and Edna Fischel Gellhorn; married Ber-
trand de Jouvenel, 1933; Ernest Hemingway, 1940 (divorced Although she made her reputation as a journalist, Gellhorn
1945); T. S. Matthews, 1953; children: George. also achieved her goal of becoming a successful ction writer,
publishing six novels and seven short ction collections, many of
By the time she was twenty-one, Martha Gellhorn had which depicted the same events and explored the same issues
already begun the journalistic career that would, during the next covered when she was a reporter. While the lines between ction
60 years, make her an unscathed tourist of wars. Rather than and nonction were seemingly blurred in her work, ction clearly
return to Bryn Mawr College for her nal year of studies, afforded Gellhorn the freedom to transform subjects into charac-
Gellhorn began writing for the New Republic in the summer of ters, events into plot, and to invest both with her decidedly
1929 and then, following a short stint as a cub reporter for the personal perspective. Ranging widely like their author in physical
Albany Times Union, bartered her passage to Europe in February geography, Gellhorns stories, novellas (a form at which she was
1930 by writing a brochure for the Holland America Line. particularly adept), and novels examine political and personal
Returning to the U.S. during the dark years of the Depression, conicts to illustrate her recurring themes: the human cost of
Gellhorn convinced Harry Hopkins, President Franklin D. Roose- poverty and war, the necessary struggle to invest life with mean-
velts condant, to hire her as an investigator for the Federal ing, the cruelty of oppression, the delicate balance between
Emergency Relief Administration. She transformed her years freedom and responsibility.
experience in the eld reporting on the plight of ordinary people
whose industry and respectability had been debased by hunger, Gellhorns rst two novels, What Mad Pursuit (1934) and A
disease, and despair into the stories published in her rst collec- Stricken Field (1940), loosely transformed autobiography into
tion, The Trouble Ive Seen (1936). ction, dramatizing in the rst instance her three years at Bryn
Mawr and her subsequent experiences in Europes pacist youth
Gellhorn discovered her true subject, however, in 1937 when movement, and her exploits as a journalist in Czechoslovakia on
she arrived in Madrid with nothing but a knapsack and $50 during the eve of Nazi occupation in the second. The publication of Liana
the height of the Spanish Civil War. There she met veteran war (1944), however, a novel about the oppressive marriage of a
correspondents Ernest Hemingway (whom she married in 1940 powerless mulatto woman to a wealthy white man set in the
95
GEORGE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
French Caribbean, demonstrated Gellhorns ability to imagine magazine (1945-46) and as reporter-artist for the Newspaper
herself into the lives and minds of others. In 1948 she published Enterprise Association (1946-47). George married a conserva-
her most accomplished novel, The Wine of Astonishment (reissued tionist and ecologist with whom she had three children; they were
in 1989 as Point of No Return), the parallel stories of two divorced in 1963.
American soldiers involved in the Battle of the Bulge who must
In the 1960s and 1970s alone, George wrote 33 books (and
confront not only their own terror, sorrow, and prejudices but also
illustrated some of them), mostly for children. She also published
the insanity of a world at war.
many articles on nature subjects in Readers Digest, for whom she
Gellhorns mature ction is among her most artistic and was a roving editor, and in other magazines. An unusual charac-
complex. The stories collected in The Honeyed Peace (1953) and teristic of George is that, if at all possible, she lives with the
Pretty Tales for Tired People (1965), the novellas published in animals she writes about; she reports having raised at least 173
Two by Two (1958) and The Weather in Africa (1978), and the wild pets.
novel His Own Man (1961) are dramas of social, cultural, and
Vulpes, the Red Fox (1948) begins with the birth of Vulpes in
psychological dislocation that expose the complexities of modern
a chill spring rain and ends with his death. The book is steeped
life. Like her dispatches in war and in peace (collected in 1988 as
with details about the foxes lives, the seasons, and the locale; the
The View from the Ground), Gellhorns ction bears witness to
dangers and deaths that occur are handled calmly and matter-of-
the human predicament, simultaneously commanding her read-
factly as part of natures cycle.
ers sympathy and outrage. Taken together, her ction and nonc-
tion offer persuasive evidence that Gellhorn did indeed keep faith My Side of the Mountain (1959, lm version 1969) is the
with her journalistic credo to write what you see and how it is. story of adolescent Sam Gribley, who is tired of living with his
large family in a cramped city apartment and wants to go live in
the Catskills on his great-grandfathers homestead. He does so for
OTHER WORKS: The Heart of Another (1941). Love Goes to Press
13 months, where he collects and cooks his own food, makes
(with Virginia Cowles, 1947). Vietnam: A New Kind of War
himself a home inside a tree trunk, and gures out a source of heat
(1966). The Lowest Trees Have Tops (1969). The Novellas of
for protection against the cold mountain winters. He has a variety
Martha Gellhorn (1993).
of animal friends, including Frightful, a young falcon he trains.
The life is difcult and sometimes lonely, but Sam succeeds, and
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Kert, B., The Hemingway Women (1983). the story is told so realistically and with such detail it all seems
Lassner, P., Camp Follower of Catastrophe: Martha Gellhorns very credible.
World War II Challenge to the Modernistic War, in MFS 44 The conicts of adolescence are further explored in many of
(1998). Rollyson, C., Nothing Ever Happens to the Brave: The Georges books, including The Summer of the Falcon (1962), a
Story of Martha Gellhorn (1990). story that seems to incorporate some of Georges own biography.
Reference works: CA 77-80. CLC 14, 60. DLBY (1982). It is told through the cycle of a familys return, three summers in a
Other references: NYT (17 Feb. 1998). row, to the grandfathers Victorian house in the mountains. The
heroine struggles toward self-discipline; in one scene she uses her
LINDA C. PELZER
wits to complete a cave rescue only after she has admitted her
nearly overwhelming fear. Perhaps the ending is too pat, but this is
more than outweighed by the books basic strengths, including
fascinating hawk lore.
GENT
See FLANNER, Janet Julie of the Wolves (1972) is the story of an adolescent
Eskimo girl who is befriended by a wolf pack while searching for
her lost father and a lost cultural tradition. George captures the
conict of Eskimo life, the desire on the part of some to retain the
GEORGE, Jean Craighead old ways of living in harmony with the earth, and the desire of
others to enjoy some of the luxuries of civilizationsuch as
radios, rened foods, alcohol, and high-powered ries. Julie of
Born 2 July 1919, Washington, D.C.
the Wolves, with its sections of ne naturalistic writing, won the
Also writes under: Jean Craighead, Jean George
1973 Newbery Medal and was voted among the 10 best childrens
Daughter of Frank and Carolyn Johnson Craighead; married
books of the last 200 years by members of the Childrens
John L. George, 1944 (divorced 1963); children: three
Literature Association.
Jean Craighead George, writer, illustrator, and naturalist, Hook a Fish, Catch a Mountain (1975), like the earlier Who
attended Pennsylvania State University and edited its literary Really Killed Cock Robin? (1971), are ecological mysteries, but
magazine. During World War II she worked as a reporter for the like many other books by George, it is also a story of an adolescent
International News Service (1941-43) and the Washington Post trying to be accepted as an individual. Again, the protagonist is
and Times-Herald (1943-45). She worked as an artist for Pageant female, and again she is trying to shake off her lack of experience
96
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GEORGE
and her fears in order to become an able and independent Moon of the Winter Bird (1969). All Upon a Stone (1971). Beastly
outdoorsperson. Inventions: A Surprising Investigation into How Smart Animals
Really Are (1971). Everglades Wildguide: The Natural History of
Georges successful mixing of nature stories with novels Everglades National Park, Florida (1971). All Upon a Sidewalk
centering on adolescents and their concerns works to the advan- (1974). Walking Wild Westchester (1974). Hook a Fish, Catch a
tage of both genres. The adolescent concerns of learning to Mountain (1975). Going to the Sun (1976). Wentletrap Trap
manage physical danger and fear, to take responsibility, to disci- (1977). American Walk Book: An Illustrated Guide to the Coun-
pline oneself and to become a part of a group, as well as to develop trys Major Historical and Natural Walking Trails from the
independence, are set against the backdrop of the need for all Northeast to the Pacic Coast (1977). Dirty Work, Inc. (1978).
humans to be aware of the interconnectedness of all the ecosys- The Wounded Wolf (1978). River Rats (1979). Wild Wild Cook-
tems of this earth. A deep understanding of natures harmonies book (1982). The Grizzly Bear with the Golden Ears (1982). The
beautiful and death-causing alikepervades each of the books. Cry of the Crow: A Novel (1982). The Wild, Wild Cookbook: A
George is a ne writer who has chosen to write books primarily Guide for Young Wild-Food Foragers (1982). Exploring the Out-
appropriate for young people, but at her best she is equally of-Doors (1983). The Talking Earth (1983). How to Talk to Your
interesting to adults. Animals (1986). How to Talk to Your Cat (1986). How to Talk to
Still going strong in the 1980s and 1990s, George created Your Dog (1986). Water Sky (1987). Shark Beneath the Reef
several new series, like her perennially popular Moon series from (1988). One Day in the Woods (musical, 1989). On the Far Side of
the 1960s. The Moon books (The Moon of the Owls, The Moon of the Mountain (1990). The Summer of the Falcon (1990). The
the Salamanders, The Moon of the Wild Pigs, etc.) totaled 13 Missing Gator of Gimbo Limbo: An Ecological Mystery (1992).
animal-and-nature tales from 1967 to 1969, all of which were The Firebay Connection: An Ecological Mystery (1993). The
reprinted in the early 1990s. Her next large-scale series was the First Thanksgiving (1993). Dear Rebecca, Winter is Here (1993).
The Fire Bug Connection: An Ecological Mystery (1993). The
One Day books, which included journeys into a myriad of natural
Everglades (1995). Animals Who Have Won Our Hearts (1994).
settings, including One Day in the Desert (1983) and One Day in
Theres an Owl in the Shower (1995). To Climb a Waterfall
the Alpine Tundra, as well visits into the prairie, woods, and
(1995). Acorn Pancakes, Dandelion Salad, and 38 Other Wild
tropical forest, all published between 1983 and 1990.
Recipes (1995). The Wild, Wild Cookbook: A Guide for Young
Yet one of her most enduring protagonists, Julie, was also Wild-Food Foragers (1982). Exploring the Out-of-Doors (1983).
brought back in two additional books: Julie (1995) and Julies The Tarantula in My Purse (1996). The Case of the Missing
Wolf Pack (1997). Eagerly awaited, the former begins shortly Cutthroats (1996). Look to the North: A Wolf Pup Diary (1997).
after the 1972 novel left off with Julie nding her father and the Arctic Son (1997). Giraffe Trouble (1998). Dear Katie, the
loss of Amaroq; she must now deal with the realities of communi- Volcano is a Girl (1998). Gorilla Gang (1998). Elephant Walk
ty life and the breakdown of Eskimo traditions. The latter title (1998). Rhino Romp (1998). Morning, Noon, and Night (1999).
nds Julie older and wiser, with a wolf pack led by her beloved Incredible Animal Adventures (1999). Frightfuls Mountain (1999).
Amaroqs son, Kapu. Snow Bear (1999).
George has also written several cookbooks and guidebooks,

as well as her autobiography, Journey Inward (1982). Though she BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cary, A., Jean Craighead George (1996).
is now in her eighties, there is little doubt the award-winning Greenberg, M. H., and Waugh, C., eds., A Newbery Zoo: A Dozen
George will continue to produce well-written, fascinating books Animal Stories by Newbery Award-Winning Authors (1995).
for children of all ages. If and when she does slow down, her Huck, C. and D. Kuhn, eds., Childrens Literature in the Elemen-
books will remain on the shelves, for they are continually reprint- tary School (1968). Lyon, T. J. and Stine, P., eds., On Natures
ed and will entertain generations to come. Terms: Contemporary Voices (1992). Minor, W., On Illustrating
Everglades (1995). Sutherland, Z., and M. H. Arbuthnot, Child-
ren and Books (1977). Vick, D., Favorite Authors of Young Adult
OTHER WORKS: Vision, the Mink (with J. L. George, 1949). Fiction (1995). White, J., Novel Enrichment (1984).
Masked Prowler: The Story of a Racoon (with J. L. George, 1950). Reference works: Authors of Books for Young People (1964).
Meph, the Pet Skunk (with J. L. George, 1952). Bubo, the Great CA (1963). More Junior Authors (1963). SATA (1971). WW in
Horned Owl (with J. L. George, 1954). Dipper of Copper Creek Childrens Books: A Treasury of the Familiar Characters of
(with J. L. George, 1956). The Hole in the Tree (1957). Snow Childhood (1975).
Tracks (1958). Red Robin, Fly Up (1963). Gull Number 737 Other references: A Visit with Jean Craighead George (au-
(1964). Hold Zero (1966). Spring Comes to the Ocean (1966). The diovisual, 1994). Adventurous Spirit: Jean Craighead George on
Moon of the Bears (1967). The Hole in the Tree (1967). Coyote in Journal Writing (audiovisual, 1990). Good Conversation! A Talk
Manhattan (1968). The Moon of the Chickadees (1968). The with Jean Craighead George (audiovisual, 1992). Elementary
Moon of the Fox Pups (1968). The Moon of the Monarch Butter- English (Oct. 1973). Horn Book (Aug. 1973). Writers Digest
ies (1968). The Moon of the Mountain Lions (1968). The Moon of (March 1974).
the Alligators (1969). The Moon of the Deer (1969). The Moon of
the Gray Wolves (1969). The Moon of the Moles (1969). The LINDA A. CARROLL
97
GEROULD AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
GEROULD, Katharine Fullerton stories is often harsh, and so are many of the characters; but there
is tenderness, too, in The Miracle of Rosina Sayles love for
her stepchild, forced and conventional at rst, spontaneous and
Born 6 February 1869, Brockton, Massachusetts; died 27 July
genuine at last.
1944, Princeton, New Jersey
Daughter of Bradford M. and Julia Ball Fullerton; married Most often Geroulds stories are of careful lives led in
Gordon H. Gerould, 1910; children: two accordance with complex rules, or of difcult moral choices
analyzed by intelligent and detached narrators. Her characters
Educated at Miss Folsoms School and at Radcliffe College tend to be consistent and strong, whether good or evil. But she is
(B.A. 1900, M.A. 1901), Katharine Fullerton was a reader in also capable of writing about people who simply botch things, as
English at Bryn Mawr from 1901 to 1910, when she married does Sadie Lampson Chadwick in Wesendonck. She attended
Gordon H. Gerould, the distinguished medieval scholar. They what Gerould considers one of those deplorable state universities
settled in Princeton, where he was teaching, and they had two and she lacks the constructive sense. Unable to cope with
children. For many years, Gerould an extremely successful wom- giving a dinner for an eminent visiting scientisther general
an of letters. In 1900 she won the Century prize for the best short ineffectiveness is compounded by poverty and plain bad luck
story by an undergraduate, and throughout her career she wrote she abruptly and without warning ees to her Midwestern home
for Century, the Atlantic Monthly, Harpers, and Scribners. In for a visit. Upon her return she gradually draws from her now
1923 she lectured at Yale, in 1927 at the University of California uncommunicative husband the information that by her ight she
at Berkeley. Her stories were included in The Best Short Stories of delivered the coup de grace to his hope for advancement and
1917, 1920, 1921, 1922, and 1925. Geroulds 1925 story, An thereby to her own hope for a better life.
Army with Banners appeared in The Fifty Best Short Stories,
Gerould is of historical interest as a successful woman writer
1915-1939.
and as an essayist whose work reects the attitudes of a relatively
Geroulds essays perhaps deserve the obscurity which time small segment of early 20th-century society. By the mid-1930s,
brings to all but the very best of periodical literature; nor are the her work was regarded as dated. The stories, however, are another
novels entirely successful. But it is unfortunate the stories, too, go matter, for they are not dated. Their value is literary, and they
now unnoticed. Gerould worked in the tradition of James, Wharton, should be better known.
Kipling, and Conrad, and her stories display a mastery of her craft.
Gerould was from an old New England family, and her OTHER WORKS: The Great Tradition (1915). Vain Oblations
attitudes were inuenced by the clerical and academic puritanism (1915). A Change of Air (1917). Modes and Morals (1920). Lost
of the privileged classes. In the essays her style is graceful, at Valley (1922). Valiant Dust (1922). Conquistador (1923). The
times witty, always concrete and straightforward, but the too- Light That Never Was (1931). Ringside Seats (1937).
frequent displays of snobbishness repel more than the genuine
insights attract. She deplores the consequences of democracy,
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sherman, S. P., The Superior Class, in The
especially the state universities, and she nds Louisa Alcotts
Genius of America (1923).
little women under-bred. The best of Geroulds essays are in
Reference works: NAW (1971). TCA, TCAS.
Hawaii (1916) and The Aristocratic West (1925). She is better
with scenes and impressions than with criticism and argu- WILLENE S. HARDY
ments; she is more effective, nally, in ction than in exposition.
Her talent for storytelling is apparent in the novels, for they
contain memorable scenes and characters, even though they fail as
a whole. The short stories, however, are a real achievement. GERSTENBERG, Alice
Generally, they were praised for their power, sincerity, and
realism. Some critics, not surprisingly, complained they offered Born 2 August 1885, Chicago, Illinois; died 28 July 1972,
no solution, had no soul, but it is to the credit of the serious Chicago, Illinois
artist not to offer solutions where none are plausible. Gerould is Daughter of Erich and Julia Wieschendorff Gerstenberg
honest in her examination of human nature and the human
condition, as well as in her analyses of conduct. Alice Gerstenbergs grandparents on both sides of the family
were Chicago pioneers. From her father she inherited endurance,
Many of the stories hinge upon an act of sacrice. A father,
and from her mother a love of theater. She attended the Kirkland
for example, rejects a unique opportunity for success and happi-
School in Chicago and Bryn Mawr College.
ness for the sake of his son (The Bird in the Bush). There is no
joy in the act; the mother reects unhappily that the son, though Before writing plays, Gerstenberg was interested in writing
loved, will not be the man his father is, that he is not, in short, novels. Her rst full-length play, a three-act version of Lewis
worth the sacrice. Vain Oblations and The Great Tradi- Carrolls Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass,
tion, similarly, demonstrate that great acts of self-sacrice may opened in 1915 at both the Fine Arts Theatre and the Booth
be required of superior natures, even though virtue often goes Theatre in New York. Gerstenbergs next play, the one-act
unrewarded and suffering is not alleviated. The world of the Overtones, her most original and best known work, was produced
98
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GESTEFELD
in 1915 by the Washington Square Players at the Bandbox Gerstenbergs most signicant contribution to the little thea-
Theatre, New York, under the direction of Edward Goodman. It ter movement is her founding of the Playwrights Theatre of
also played in London, starring Lily Langtry. In 1922 Gerstenberg Chicago (1922-45), which was designed to offer the local play-
wrote a three-act version of Overtones which she directed herself wright an opportunity to produce plays. For her work as play-
at Powers Theater in Chicago. wright and producer, Gerstenberg won the Chicago Foundation
for Literature Award in 1938. Her articles on little theater appear
In Overtones Gerstenberg created two lines of action to tell in Townsfolk Magazine, The Little Theatre Monthly, and The
the story of Harriet and Margaret. Harriet has married for money Drama. Gerstenberg has also enjoyed a modest career as an
and longs for the man she loves, while Margaret has married for actress.
love (the same man Harriet, too, had loved) and now longs for
money. The surface action of the play, which reveals only the Gerstenbergs characters, mostly women, inhibited by out-
civilized selves of these women, is shown in conventional worn institutions and by their own fears, make choices that lead to
dramatic form, while the action below the surface reveals the honest self-expression. Needing new dramatic forms to express
subconscious selves of the two women in two characters named the daring of her unconventional characters, Gerstenberg took the
Hetty and Maggie. Harriet and Margaret exist in the present in a comic form and gave it not only a variety of structures but a
world as it appears to be; Hetty and Maggie speak of the past and modern psychological dimension as well. Gerstenbergs dramaturgy
life as they honestly feel them. The two actions placed side by side reects her own vitality as a woman and as a playwright dedicated
create not just a conventional conict between two women, but a to a new theater which placed artistic integrity as its highest goal.
compelling irony and a conict within each character, Harriet-
Hetty and Margaret-Maggie.
OTHER WORKS: A Little World (1908). Unquenched Fire (1912).
Overtones was heralded as representing a new formula in The Conscience of Sarah Platt (1915). Four Plays for Four
theater. Today it is still seen as a forerunner of later psychological Women (1924). The Land of Dont Want To by L. Bell (dramatiza-
drama by major playwrights, including Eugene ONeill, who tion by Gerstenberg, 1928). Water Babies by C. Kingsley (drama-
acknowledged its inuence on his work. This same concern for tization by Gerstenberg, 1930). Star Dust (1931). When Chicago
the dramatic representation of the subconscious is obvious in Was Young (with H. Clark, 1932). Glee Plays the Game (1934).
Strange Interlude (1928) and in Days Without End (1932), both of Within the Hour (1934). Find It (1937). London Town (dramatiza-
which use masks to draw the conict between the false outer self tion by Gerstenberg, 1937). The Queens Christmas (1939). Time
and the painfully honest subconscious self. for Romance (with M. Fealy, 1942). Victory Belles (with H.
Adrian, 1943). The Hourglass (1955). Our Calla (1956). On the
The Pot Boiler (later titled Dress Rehearsal), a comedy about
Beam (1957). The Magic of Living (1969).
the pretensions of conventional theater, and Fourteen, a light
satire on the pettiness of high society dinner parties, along with
Overtonesall appearing in Gerstenbergs second collection, BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Barlow, J., Plays By American
Ten One-Act Plays (1921)are Gerstenbergs most popular plays. Women: 1900-1930 (1981). Dean, A., Comedies All (1930).
They have appeared in numerous anthologies of one-act plays and Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United States
have been produced by little theaters all over the U.S., England, (1995). Sievers, D., Freud on Broadway (1955).
and Australia. Other references: NR (20 Nov. 1915).
In Gerstenbergs next collection of short plays, Comedies All
BEVERLY M. MATHERNE
(1930), the most forceful is The Puppeteer. In this play, the
grandmother is a Strindbergian vampire who sucks the creative
individuality out of her own family but discovers in her grandson
Walter a will stronger than her own.
GESTEFELD, Ursula N(ewell)
Most of Gerstenbergs one-act plays reect her role in the
little theater movement, which popularized the one-act experi-
Born 22 April 1845, Augusta, Maine; died 22 October, Kenosha,
mental play that could be played in the home as well as on the
Wisconsin
stage. The Puppeteer, for example, takes place on a staircase.
Married Theodore Gestefeld; children: four
Gerstenberg saw these plays, which could be produced without
much expense, as a means of fund raising for communities
Little biographical information about Ursula Newell
wanting to found little theaters.
Gestefelds early life is available. By the 1880s, Gestefeld, her
Gerstenberg was one of the original members of the Chicago husband, and four children were living in Chicago. During these
Little Theatre, the rst little theater in the U.S., which was years, Gestefeld, a survivor of many childhood illnesses and
founded by Maurice Browne in 1912. In 1921, she and Annette several difcult pregnancies, became intrigued by the principles
Washburne founded the Chicago Junior League Theatre for of Christian Science elaborated by Mary Baker Eddy in Science
children. For two years Gerstenberg was this theaters director. and Health. Gestefelds involvement with Christian Science is the
Using her early model for childrens theater, junior leagues have most signicant factor in any evaluation of her career. Not only
developed in communities all over the country. did she nd her own health markedly improved by the application
99
GIBBONS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
of this philosophy, but her writings all advocated ideas that rights movement, and it is especially signicant for its frank
developed as a consequence of her initial support of Eddys discussion of sexuality, prostitution, and marriage.
religion.
In 1884, Gestefeld studied personally with Eddy, who con- OTHER WORKS: Which Shall It Be? Mind or Medicine? A Plea for
sidered Gestefeld one of her most able students and active the Former (1886). What Is Mental Medicine (1887). The Science
supporters. In 1888, under her own authority, Gestefeld published of Christ (1889). A Chicago Bible Class (1891). A Modern
Ursula N. Gestefelds Statement of Christian Science, a book Catechism (1892). The Leprosy of Miriam (1894). And God Said
which she considered a logical explanation and continuation of (1895). The Breath of Life (1897). How We Master Our Fate
Eddys thought, omitting Eddys rhetorical embellishment. Eddy (1897). The Metaphysics of Balzac (1898). Reincarnation or
saw the book as a direct attack on her absolute and inviolable Immortality (1899). How to Control Circumstances (1901). The
authority, and she had Gestefeld dismissed from the church. Science of the Larger Life (1905). The Master and the Man (1907).
Gestefeld responded with a clever pamphlet, Jesuitism and Chris-
tian Science (1888), which attacked Eddys claim to unquestioned
spiritual and scriptural authority. Gestefelds emphasis on the BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bates, E., and J. Dittemore, Mary Baker Eddy
right and duty of individual questioning and searching became (1932). Braden, C., Spirits in Rebellion: The Rise and Develop-
central to all of her later works. ment of New Thought (1963). Dakin, E., Mrs. Eddy (1929). Hill,
V. L., Strategy and Breadth: The Socialist-Feminist in American
Gestefeld gradually codied her separation from Christian Fiction (dissertation, 1979).
Science and eventually elaborated her own system of philosophy, Reference works: American Blue-Book of Biography (1915).
which she named the Science of Being. In addition to founding NAW (1971).
the Gestefeld Publishing Company in Pelham, New York, and Other references: Arena (Dec. 1892). Catholic World (Jan.
publishing a monthly magazine, Exodus (1896-1904), she found- 1893). Literary World (11 Feb. 1893, 23 Feb. 1895). Mind (Jan.
ed the Church of New Thought, the College of the Science of 1902). Picayune (9 Oct. 1892).
Being, and her own religious, social, and educational organiza-
tion, the Exodus. The Builder and the Plan (1901) is the most VICKI LYNN HILL
signicant and fully developed of Gestefelds philosophical writ-
ings. It contains a point-by-point comparison of the key tenets of
Christian Science and the Science of Being, in which Gestefeld
demonstrates the superiority of her own system as founded upon GIBBONS, Kaye
reason and logic, independent from the absolute authority of any
individual or church. Born 5 May 1960, Nash County, North Carolina
An introduction to Gestefelds thought is most readily acces- Daughter of Charles Bennett and Alice Gardner Batts; married
sible in her novel, The Woman Who Dares (1892), an explicitly Michael Gibbons (divorced); children: Mary, Leslie, Louise.
feminist work. Gestefelds heroine, Murva Kroom, moves from
dependence upon her tyrannical father to a similar, if less painful, Born and raised in North Carolina, Kaye Gibbons attended
dependence upon her husband, a man who wants a wife to be no Rocky Mount High School and started college on a scholarship at
more than an echo of his own ideas and needs. Her manifesto-like North Carolina State University. She transferred to the University
declaration that her identity as a woman must be given precedence of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she studied American
over her identity as a wife is the catalyst for most of the action in literature with Louis Rubin and began writing her rst novel.
the novel. While she never nished her degree at Chapel Hill, she did receive
the universitys Distinguished Alumna Award. She became writ-
Eventually Murva sees womans sexual subservience as the er-in-residence at the Library of North Carolina State Universi-
most crippling aspect of her identity. She demands the right to ty in 1993.
abstain from sexual intercourse, believing the excessive emphasis
on physical intimacy impedes true union between men and All of Gibbonss novels are steeped in a sense of place and
women. She links this demand to a critique of established relig- history, revealing an understanding of womens struggles to
ions and of the economic inequality of women, and she makes shoulder extraordinary burdens and to maintain their compas-
sweeping demands for womens rights. Certain that one day her sion, humor, and self-esteem in a culture that values those
husband will accept and benet from her vision, Murva leaves his qualities very little in women. Understanding, strong, resourceful,
house and establishes a refuge for abused women. In this asylum, and independent, all the women in Gibbonss ction represent
she teaches other women the principles of freedom and self- what one critic has called a ctional oral history of female
respect she has learned, and sees in this work the beginning of a wishes [and] hopes. Generations of Gibbonss women share the
widespread program for social reform. vision of nding a place for themselves in the world without
compromising their sense of self.
This novel, more than any other text in Gestefelds generally
forgotten oeuvre, deserves renewed attention. It is among the most Ellen Foster (1987), which Gibbons herself says is emo-
vigorously argued and perceptive of the 19th-century novels tionally autobiographical, won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First
devoted to the popularization of issues important to the womens Fiction from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and
100
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GILBERT
Letters and a special citation from the Ernest Hemingway Founda- has told interviewers she wrote this story to imagine what her
tion. Its particular strength lies in the resilient character of Ellen daughters might think of her if the disease overtakes her. Gibbons
herself, who endures the suicide of her mother, her fathers sexual lack of sentimentality and tenderness toward her characters and
advances, and the meanness of her grandmother and aunt to their complex situation are typical of her work.
emerge triumphant in a happy home. Her quest for place is
determined and persistent: she will nd a safe harbor. In her In On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon (1998), narrator
search she is forced to throw off her own racial prejudice and Emma Garnet Tate sums up her life from old age. As a child she
realize that, despite her poverty, her black friend Starletta has protected her mother from her violent and racist fatherhe
something she enviesa loving family. murdered one of the familys slaves in 1842, when Emma was
twelvebut ultimately married a loving, even martyr-like, hus-
Women are the center of all of Gibbonss novels, and A band, in part to escape her father. When she departed, she brought
Virtuous Woman (1989) carefully orchestrates past and present so with her the slave Clarice. Yet after Clarice and Emma leave,
that the voice of a dead woman becomes the center of the novel. Emmas mother dies, and Emma spends the rest of her life facing
Ruby Pitt Woodrow has left her freezer stocked with food for her her guilt. On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon is vintage
husband, Blinking Jack Ernest Stokes. She knew that, while some Gibbons in its strong portrayal of a child heroine, in the way the
would think it morbid, men cannot really do all that much for narrator loses her mother and then courageously faces her difcult
themselves, and if you want to see a man afraid just put him in a life, and in the lively portrayal of Southern life.
room with a sick woman who was once strong.
Womens strength resonates throughout the pages of Gib- BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA 151 (1996). CLC 50 (1988),
bonss work, from the strength of eleven-year-old Ellen Foster to 88 (1996).
the power of Charlie Kate, medicine woman of Charms for the Other references: Christian Century (23 Sept. 1992). English
Easy Life (1992). Gibbons grounds her ction in the knowledge Journal (Nov. 1996). Entertainment Weekly (4 Aug. 1995). Ken-
that this world is built up on strong women, built up and kept up yon Review 10 (Winter 1988). LJ (1 Nov. 1996). New Yorker (21
by them too, them kneeling, stooping, pulling, bending, and rising June 1993, 21 & 28 Aug. 1995). NYTBR (30 April 1989, 12 May
up when they need to go and do what needs to get done. Women 1991, 11 April 1993, 24 Sept. 1995, 19 July 1998). People (15
talking to each other, remembering the talents of their foremothers, June 1998). PW (Feb. 1993, 29 Apr. 1998). School Library
survivingall of Gibbonss women endure and pass on their Journal (Nov. 1995). Southern Quarterly 30:2-3 (Winter/Spring
power to the next generation: Charlie Kate, midwife and healer, 1992). Time (12 Apr. 1993).
leaves her legacy of herbs and cures with her granddaughter,
Margaret, the narrator, who chooses her grandmothers calling as MARY A. MCCAY,
part of her heritage. UPDATED BY KAREN RAUGUST
A Cure for Dreams (1991), which won the Pen/Revlon

Award for the best work of ction by a writer under thirty-ve, is,
like her fourth book, Charms for the Easy Life, a generational
novel. Grandmothers, mothers, and daughters all share the same GILBERT, Fabiola Cabeza de Baca
See CABEZA de BACA, Fabiola
hopes for themselves. Their struggles to endure hard times are
given meaning by their stories. Told as gossip, recounted as
family history, and preserved as the marrow of family life, these
stories are the lives of the Randolph women. Marjorie Polly
Randolph cherishes the stories told by her mother, Betty Davies GILBERT, Sandra M(ortola)
Randolph, and her grandmother, Lottie OCadhain Davies. Mar-
jorie need only say to her mother:Tell me about your mother Born 27 December 1936, New York, New York
and you, and Kentucky and Virginia and the wild way I was born. Daughter of Alexis J. and Angela Caruso Mortola; married
Tell me about the years that made you. Then she would talk. Elliot L. Gilbert, 1957 (died 1991); children: Roger, Kathe-
Talking was my mothers life. rine, Susanna
The women in Gibbonss novels represent a large extended
Sandra M. Gilbert is a widely published and inuential
family of Southerners who have not been defeated; their stories
feminist literary critic; she is also a poet with four collections of
represent a history of the South that deconstructs the history of
poetry. Her major critical works, beginning in 1979 with Shake-
Southern womanhood and revitalizes the traditions of indepen-
speares Sisters: Feminist Essays on Women Poets and The
dence and self-reliance.
Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nine-
Sights Unseen (1995) is, like Ellen Foster, written from the teenth-Century Imagination, have been written in collaboration
perspective of a child, in this case twelve-year-old Hattie, whose with Susan Gubar. The collaboration has been a fruitful one.
mother struggles with mental illness. It deals with the central role Shakespeares Sisters marked the beginning of Gilberts wide-rang-
of the disease on the familys life, as Hattie experiences a lack of ing examination of what it has meant to be a woman writing in
mothering and endures the reactions of friends and neighbors. English in a culture whose literary values have been determined
Gibbons, who has been diagnosed as a manic-depressive herself, by men, and in which woman poet has been considered a
101
GILBERT AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
contradiction in terms. The book is a compilation of 19 essays Gilberts recent volume of poetry, Ghost Volcano: Poems
about women poets, from pre-19th-century writers to contempo- (1997), includes poems written while she was working on the
rary. The effort is to recover lost poets, to reassess womens memoir of her husbands unexpected death. The poems are
poetry, and to trace the outlines of a distinctively female poetic arranged in ve unrelated sections and appear as a series of
tradition. diary-type entries describing her widows walks, each titled
with reference to the location (Outside Saratoga Springs).
In The Madwoman in the Attic Gilbert and Gubar scrutinized
These works are peppered with descriptions she can no longer
problems of literary heritage, of women writers alienation from
share with her mate and the grief of a spirit that is, surprisingly
male predecessors who depicted women as either angels or
enough, able to go on in the face of tragedy.
monsters. They explore the anxiety of authorship that con-
fronted women novelists of the 19th century: Jane Austen, Mary Wrongful Death: A Medical Tragedy (1997) is the aforemen-
Shelley, Emily and Charlotte Bront, George Eliot, and poets tioned memoir of her husband Elliots untimely death in 1991, a
Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. As critic Wal- few short hours after routine surgery for prostate cancer. Her
ter Kendrick noted, the madwoman image serves as an emblem suspicions were raised when her questions were avoided or
of the connement inicted on Victorian women who wished to responded to with lies. Gilbert describes her feelings and actions
write. during the time following the series of medical mishaps
(including poor management of a postoperative hemorrhage) that
The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women (1985), edited
resulted in this senseless and avoidable loss. Although the case
by Gilbert and Gubar, was designed to serve as a core-curricu-
was settled out of court with admitted negligence on the part of the
lum text for courses in literature by women. While the principle
medical professionals involved, the emotions of the experience
of selection of this comprehensive and somewhat unwieldy vol-
are painfully clear in Gilberts account.
ume has been challenged by some reviewers, it is a valuable
compilation of womens work in every period and genre and Gilbert continues to write for magazines and periodicals such
provides useful editorial material. as Poetry, Times (London) Literary Supplement, Womens Review
No Mans Land: The Place of the Woman Writer in the of Books, and Novel: A Forum on Fiction. She has received
Twentieth Century continues Gilberts and Gubars reassessment numerous awards and fellowships, including an honorary D.Litt.
of the literary landscape, using the battle of the sexes metaphor from Wesleyan University in 1988, a Guggenheim fellowship in
as a way to approach changes in the modern period. A reviewer 1983, a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship in 1982, and a Nation-
described the rst volume, The War of the Words (1987), as al Endowment for the Humanities fellowship in 1980-81. She
documenting a war on womens words waged by male writers received the International Poetry Foundations Charity Randall
who felt their tradition invaded by alien female talents. The Award in 1990 and Poetrys Eunice Tietjens Memorial Prize in
second volume, Sexchanges (1989), approaches the post-World 1980. With Susan Gubar she shared the Woman of the Year
War I territory more intensively, comparing texts by men and Award from Ms. magazine in 1986.
women, and providing studies of Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton,
and Willa Cather and a chapter on Gertrude Stein and lesbian OTHER WORKS: Shakepeares Twelfth Night (1964). Two Novels
writers of the 1920s. The third volume, Letter From the Front, by E. M. Forster (1965). D. H. Lawrences Sons and Lovers
published in 1994, completed the much-anticipated trilogy. (1965). The Poetry of W. B. Yeats (1965). Two Novels by Virginia
Gilbert received a B.A. from Cornell University in 1957, Woolf (1966). Acts of Attention: The Poems of D. H. Lawrence
an M.A. from New York University (1961), and a Ph.D. from (1973, 2nd edition, 1990). In the Fourth World (1979). The
Columbia University (1968). Since 1989 she has been professor Summer Kitchen: Poems (1983). The Awakening and Selected
of English at the University of California at Davis, where she had Stories of Kate Chopin (edited by Gilbert, 1984). Emilys Bread:
taught earlier (1975-80). She held a similar position at Princeton Poems (1984). The Female Imagination and the Modernist Aes-
University from 1985 to 1989. Previously she was an associate thetic (1986). Feminism and Modernism (1987). Blood Pressure
professor at Indiana University (1973-75), where her collabora- (1988). Orlando, by Virginia Woolf (edited by Gilbert, 1993).
tive work with Susan Gubar began. From 1963 to 1972, she taught Masterpiece Theatre: An Academe Melodarama (1995). The
at colleges in New York and California. Gilbert has also published House is Made of Poetry (1996). Want: New and Selected
more than 50 essays in a wide range of scholarly and literary Poems (2000).
journals and essay collections.
Gilbert and Gubar joined forces with Diana OHehir on BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1979). CANR (1991). FC
Mothersongs: Poems for, by, and About Mothers (1996), a collec- (1990). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United
tion of poems spanning various phases of motherhood. The States (1995).
editors have collected poems covering several centuries and have Other references: American Literature (Mar. 1990). Booklist
incorporated an interesting mix of poets, including Walt Whitman, (15 Jan. 1995, 1 May 1995). British Medical Journal (19 Oct.
Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Robert Lowell, and John Donne. In the 1996). College English (Nov. 1988). Commentary (July 1988).
words of one critic, Theres no subject more personal yet more Comparative Literature (Spring 1991). Contemporary Sociology
universal than the emotional subject of motherhood, and this vital (July 1990). Criticism (Fall 1989). English Language Notes (Sept.
anthology reects that depth and variation. 1990). Journal of American Studies (Apr. 1991). Journal of
102
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GILCHRIST
Modern Literature (Fall-Winter 1989). Journal of English and subjects at war within herself: a slavocracy in which life was good
Germanic Philology (July 1989). Modern Fiction Studies (Winter for her, and her aspirations for success in a society that denied the
1988, Winter 1989). Nation (2 July 1988). National Review (28 realities of racism to which she could not have been blind. She
Oct. 1988). NYRB (31 May 1990). NYTBR (7 Feb. 1988, 19 Feb. permits one young Southerner in her rst novel, Rosehurst, to
1989, 12 Mar. 1989). Poetry (Dec. 1996). PW (27 Mar. 1995). argue that the South should have been defeated; no one speaks for
Studies in the Novel (Spring 1989, Winter 1990). Texas Studies in him in Katherine Somerville.
Literature and Language (Fall 1990). TLS (3 June 1988, 2 June
The Night-Riders Daughter (1910) is a novel of social
1989). Tulsa Studies in Womens Literature (Spring 1989).
protest. The main characters are ten-year-old Gracie Gaylor and
KINERETH GENSLER, her parents, decent, common people who become victims of
UPDATED BY REBECCA C. CONDIT ruthless economic change and uneven justice in backwoods
Samburg County, Tennessee. Developers deprive them and their
neighbors of access to the lake where they sh for a livelihood;
their lawyers betray them for bribes of land; the outraged sher-
GILCHRIST, Annie Somers men organize as night riders to counterattack. The father learns of
the destructive plans for the attack and withdraws, but is wrong-
Born 1841, Hardin County, Tennessee; died 2 February 1912, fully imprisoned, and the mother, worn down by work, fear, and
Nashville, Tennessee hopelessness, dies. Going to see her father, who has contracted a
Daughter of James and Ann McFarland Somers; married John A. fever in prison, Gracie nds him chained to a hospital bed; the
Gilchrist, 1860; children: one son chain is removed only on the morning of his death.
The impact of these events on Gracie, the resourcefulness of
Annie Somers Gilchrist grew up at The Oaks, the Somers which she is capable, the pluck and resilience that helps her
plantation, near Dresden, Tennessee, and graduated from Mary endure sorrows she cannot comprehend are depicted with re-
Sharpe College in Winchester, Tennessee. She lived with her straint. Gilchrist transforms what might have been a tearjerking
husband in New York until 1865 when they moved to Nashville tale into the characterization of a child whose admirable bearing is
where he operated a hotel. They had one son. Gilchrist was a a measure of the worth of a devastated family. This poignant
member of the Souths rst womans club, named in honor of minor novel, in which people talk like people who deserve to be
Margaret Fuller Ossoli. heard, is a testament to a mature author and woman.
Gilchrists novels depict the emotional life of heroines whose ELIZABETH PHILLIPS
histories are related to the fortunes of their families and changes in
circumstances that test and prove character. She believed in an
aristocracy of merit, often conrmed by wealth but qualied by
Christian charity. Her rst major novel, Rosehurst; or, The Step- GILCHRIST, Ellen
Daughter (1884), delineates the trauma of a rejected daughter,
Marion Lawrence, whose father prefers his son and neglects her
Born 20 February 1935, Vicksburg, Mississippi
for her stepmother. Later Marion misjudges her husbands rela-
Daughter of William G. and Aurora Aford Gilchrist; married
tionship with his cousin; when he fails to perceive her jealousy,
Marshall Walker (twice); Freddie Kullam; children: Mar-
she leaves him for a man who loves her. The husband convinces
shall, Garth, Pierce
everyone she is deranged, and Marion, in her ight, does become
disoriented. Through the help of an old friend, she recovers her
Although she calls herself a poet and philosopher, Ellen
sanity and returns, aged and scarred, to her husband.
Gilchrist is best known for her short stories and novels. The
Fusing the novel of manners and a psychological study, daughter of an engineer, Gilchrist spent some of her childhood in
Gilchrist writes with acumen. Fascinated by the costumes and Indiana during World War II, but has lived most of her life in the
consummate masks of society, she knows the stratagems by South of her ancestors and of her own creation. Her childhood is a
which people preserve the appearance of propriety and morality. series of memories of the Hopedale Plantation where her mothers
She views those pretensions and appearances in conict with the family lived and where Gilchrist was born. It is, she says, THE
true heart: better insanity than adultery. And she evokes both the RICHEST LAND IN THE WORLD and we are happy there. Gilchrist
longing and voiceless anguish of a daughter who cannot attended Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi (B.A., 1967)
become a womaneven with a husband whose enduring love and has worked as a journalist and as a weekly commentator on
should outweigh his momentary obtusenessor live unscathed National Public Radios Morning Edition.
by years of parental rejection.
Mother of three sons and several times a grandmother,
Katherine Somerville; or, The Southland Before and After Gilchrist asserts that children are much more important than
the Civil War (1906) is probably autobiographical. The subjects writing and that she would burn all her books to save one nger
indicated in the title are not effectively joined. Perhaps the point of joint of one of her children or grandchildren. It is not surprising,
the novel is that zest went out of life in the South after the war; it is then, to nd many of her stories peopled by adolescents who are
more likely that Gilchrist refused to come to grips with the large struggling to nd themselves, parents who live only to help their
103
GILCHRIST AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
children survive, and family retainers who create an optimistic outside and inside her characters. The author of one book of
perspective on the possibility of family endurance. Gilchrist poetry, The Land Surveyors Daughter (1979), she told an inter-
herself says she is a happy person and an optimist. viewer she would one day stop writing ction and return to poetry,
a way, perhaps, for her to regain the control she demonstrated in
Gilchrists rst book of short stories, In the Land of Dreamy her earlier work.
Dreams (1981), was published by the University of Arkansas
Press because Gilchrist was afraid to let her teacher give it to a In Starcarbon: A Meditation on Love (1994), Gilchrist resur-
New York agent; the underground success of the book led Little, rects the Hand family, which rst appeared in I Cannot Get You
Brown to reissue it in 1985. The stories are set among the vacuous Close Enough. Starcarbon focuses on Daniel Hands second
rich of New Orelans or the dying aristocracy of the Mississippi daughter, Olivia, a half-Cherokee who has completed her rst
Delta where Gilchrist spent much of her childhood. Stories about year in college. As usual, Gilchrists theme is love. She follows a
surviving, and sometimes not surviving, they all have a quality of number of relationships through this novel, including Olivias
vision about them. They are rampant with children whose lives are relationship with Bobby Tree, the Navajo boyfriend she left
sprinkled with moments from Gilchrists own childhood; even behind in Oklahoma to live in wealth with her father. Olivia
those who die live a rich moment in her ction. returns to her Native American family to study their ways and
rekindle her relationship with Bobby.
Two other short story collections, Victory Over Japan (1984),
which won the American Book award for ction, and Drunk with Gilchrist tackles a period piece in Anabasis: A Journey to the
Love (1986), brought Gilchrist further recognition as a writer in Interior (1995). The lyrical novel is set in ancient Greece when
control of her Southern material. In these volumes, some charac- Pericles ruled Athens. Auria, a young slave girl, is placed in the
ters from In the Land of Dreamy Dreams return and Gilchrist hands of an herbalist, Philokrates, from whom she escapes and
writes about their lives with perception and humor. Perhaps the joins a band of runaway slaves who are planning a rebellion. This
most important character in Victory Over Japan is Traceleen, a is the story of an assertive, independent heroine as found in many
black maid who, despite the fact Gilchrist often waxes too poetic of Gilchrists novels. The author began developing the story as a
about the dedication of servants, is wise beyond Gilchrists child when her mother read Greek myths to her.
own wisdom.
In Rhoda: A Life in Stories (1995), Rhoda Manning, the
The Annunciation (1983), Gilchrists ambitious but awed ctional author who appears in all of Gilchrists previous short
rst novel, features Amanda McCamey, who is too stereotypically story collections, rates her own anthology. This volume presents
New Orleans rich, too egotistical. Finally, when she retreats to all 21 Rhoda stories, an excerpt from Net of Jewels (the novel in
Arkansas to live simply and be a writer, she is simply unbeliev- which she appeared), and two new short story offerings arranged
able. The eternally dedicated Lavertis, another version of Traceleen chronologically by Rhodas age, covering her life from age 8 to
and Amandas ever faithful maid, strains the books credulity, but age 60. In The Age of Miracles (1996), Gilchrist returns to short
the effort is grand, and Gilchrist tries to deal with large issues of stories after several novels. In keeping with her previous collec-
loss (Amanda was forced, as a teenager, to give up a child for tions, these tales feature characters with strong personalities and
adoption) and creativity. Her pictures of New Orleans capture the conicting emotions.
heart of the citys richness and vacuity.
The Courts of Love (1996) includes a novella and nine short
With the publication of The Anna Papers (1988), Light Can stories. The novella and a few of the stories focus on the recurring
Be Both Wave and Particle (1989), and I Cannot Get You Close character Nora Jane, rst encountered in Light Can Be Both Wave
Enough (1990), Gilchrist began to transcribe what her characters and Particle. The novella, Nora Jane and Company, is full of
told her to and thus to lose the control she had over her best ction. action, including a brush with a terrorist, an emergency in the
There are some excellent adolescent characters in the Hand family California wilderness, and the spirit of Leonardo da Vinci. Gilchrist
who people much of The Anna Papers and I Cannot Get You Close continues to produce wonderful prose and passionate characters.
Enough, but the artist character, Anna Hand, who seems to be a
Sarah Conley (1997) is a novel with a new character, Sarah
side of Gilchrist herself, is too self-advertising and often too
Conley, a 52-year-old journalist, successful and independent in
self-absorbed to see how her actions affect her family.
true Gilchrist form. She is called back to Nashville, where her best
In Net of Jewels (1992) Gilchrist once again incorporates friend, Eugenie Moore, is dying, and encounters Eugenies hus-
pressing issues into her ction. She asks, through the character of band, Jack McAllen, whom she has always loved and who is her
Rhoda Manning, how a woman can save herself from drowning in ex-husbands brother. When Sarah ies off to Paris to write and
the limited and limiting culture of the South. A cousin of Anna Jack pursues her, she is faced with a choice between the career in
Hand, Rhoda struggles through a series of attempts to nd herself which she has submerged herself for years and her love for Jack.
in marriage, affairs, diet pills, booze, and political movements
Flights of Angels (1999) is another collection of 18 Gilchrist
none of which can help her dispel her desperate sense she is not
short stories presenting several new characters and some popular
really alive.
characters from her past works, including Rhoda and her family
Gilchrist has a ne talent for capturing the voices of rich, and Crystal and her maid, Traceleen. Throughout these tales, a
dissatised Southern ladies; she has a real empathy for her theme emerges of desire on the part of the characters to make their
adolescents; and she has a Southerners eye for the landscape lives meaningful beyond their immediate environments. The
104
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GILMAN
protagonists are largely women raised as Southern belles who contacts. She feared her husbands piety might be secondary to his
break from their controlling male relatives to move on with their interest in material well-being. A few months after her marriage,
lives in independence. Gill conded to her journal: I have been the subject of mixed
dispensations since I came to housekeeping. . .tried with lame-
ness, with froward ungovernable ungodly Servants. . .but the
OTHER WORKS: Falling through Space: The Journals of Ellen greatest trial of all is the unsettled malloncholly state of the church
Gilchrist (1987). I belong unto.
At her death in 1771, Gill was eulogized not only as a pious
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1985, 1986). CLC (1985, woman but also as a patriot. She and her husband had been part of
1988). CLCY (1984). DLB (1984). FC (1990). MTCW (1991). an intellectual circle of early republicans which included John
Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995).
Adams. Gill and her women friends formed prayer groups, to
Other references: BL (15 Jan. 1994, 1 Sept. 1994, 1 Apr.
comfort and support each other in times of trial and loneliness and
1995, 15 Oct. 1996, Aug. 1997, Aug. 1998). LJ (1 Sept. 1997, 15
to encourage each other in charitable works. Prayer groups of the
Sept. 1996). New Orleans Review (Spring 1988). New Orleans
18th century were precursors of the womens organizations of the
Times Picayune (14 Oct. 1990). PW (31 Jan. 1994, 8 Aug. 1994,
19th century involved in moral reform and abolition. More
18 Sept. 1995, 26 Aug. 1996, 7 July 1997, 14 Sept. 1998).
important, the writings of these women catalogue the frequently
Southern Quarterly (Fall 1983).
successful attempts of colonial women to dene their own talents
and activities independently of the men who ruled their social and
MARY A. MCCAY,
political world.
UPDATED BY REBECCA C. CONDIT
OTHER WORKS: The papers of Sarah Prince Gill are in the

collection of the Boston Public Library.
GILL, Sarah Prince
Born 1728, Boston, Massachusetts; died 5 August 1771, Boston, BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cott, N. F., The Bonds of Womanhood: Wom-
Massachusetts ans Sphere in New England, 1780-1835 (1977). Crumpacker, L.,
Daughter of Thomas and Deborah Denny Prince; married Moses Esther Burrs Journal 1754-1757: A Document of Evangelical
Gill, 1759 Sisterhood (dissertation, 1978). Letzring, M., Sarah Prince
Gill and the John Adams-Catharine Macaulay Correspondence,
Sarah Prince Gill grew up in an extremely religious family. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society (1976).
Her father, a champion of evangelical Protestantism, was minister Other references: Boston Evening-Post (12 Aug. 1771).
of Bostons Old South Church and was instrumental in introduc-
ing the Great Awakening to Boston in 1740. Evangelicism often LAURIE CRUMPACKER
liberated women because it maintained that graceful souls were
equal regardless of class or sex, and because evangelicals were
encouraged to share their pious reections and religious experiences.
GILMAN, Caroline Howard
Some of Gills religious meditations were published posthu-
mously as Devotional Papers (1773). Gill and Esther Edwards
Burr kept a letter-journal from 1754 to 1757, but only Burrs Born 8 October 1794, Boston, Massachusetts; died 15 September
letters survive. They encouraged each other to write and even to 1888, Washington, D.C.
publish their thoughts and experiences as models for other wom- Wrote under: Caroline Gilman, Caroline Howard, Clarissa Packard
en. Gill also kept a daily journal of thoughts and meditations, parts Daughter of Samuel and Anna Howard; married Samuel Gilman,
of which survive in manuscript form. Because few other avenues 1819; children: seven, three died in infancy
of written expression were open to 18th-century women, we must
look to these religious diaries for details of womens lives during Caroline Howard Gilmans father died when she was two,
this period. her mother when she was ten. She had an irregular education, as
the family moved from one Boston suburb to another. After her
Gills journal includes her reections on proper conduct for marriage to a Unitarian minister she moved to Charleston, South
religious men and womenshe advises industry and thrift as well Carolina. Three of her seven children died in infancy.
as pietyand provides a view of the spiritual and emotional
struggles of a colonial woman. As a Christian woman who found In 1832, Gilman began publication of the Rose-Bud; or,
it difcult not to complain of her lot in life, she was tortured with Youths Gazette, one of the earliest American magazines for
fears of backsliding. Her struggles intensied in 1759 when children. Renamed the Southern Rose-Bud in 1833 and the
she married a merchant, later the lieutenant governor of Massa- Southern Rose in 1835, it gradually became a general family
chusetts, and became mistress of a large house, mother to Gills magazine before ceasing publication in 1839. Many of Gilmans
two sons, and hostess for her husbands business and political writings appeared rst in its pages.
105
GILMAN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
In Recollections of a Housekeeper (1834), Clarissa Pack- people, but these are now of interest mostly as indications of what
ard gives a brief account of her education and then describes her Americans of the 1830s thought suitable reading for their child-
rst years of marriage. Because its rst person narrator is solidly ren. Her position as a humorous chronicler of middle-class
middle class (Mr. Packard is an attorney), Clarissa Packards domesticity, North and Southa sort of early Erma Bombeck
chronicle presents a case history of the disestablishment of became more and more difcult to sustain, as this New England-
the American woman as described by Ann Douglas in The born Unitarian gave her sympathies to her adopted South.
Feminization of American Culture. Her duties as a housekeeper
seem to consist largely of training cooks, hired girls, or nurse-
OTHER WORKS: The Ladys Annual Register and Housewifes
maids; and the domestic crises of her early marriage usually
Memorandum Book (1838). Letters of Eliza Wilkinson (edited by
involve the unexpected departure of one or more of these servants.
Gilman, 1839). Tales and Ballads (1839). Loves Progress (1840).
She emphasizes throughout that she can roast and boil, make
The Rose-Bud Wreath (1841). Oracles from the Poets (1844).
puddings and pies, sweep and dust, and she is pleased her mother
Stories and Poems for Children (1844). The Sibyl; or, New
has educated her for usefulness: My mother was proud to say
Oracles from the Poets (1849). Verses of a Life Time (1849). A
that I could manufacture a frilled shirt in two days, with stitches
Gift Book of Stories and Poems for Children (1850). Oracles for
that required a microscope to detect them. She is busy, however,
Youth (1852). Recollections of a New England Bride and a
teaching others to do her cooking, sweeping, and washing. No
Southern Matron (1852). Record of Inscriptions in the Cemetery
sooner does she train women than they tire of devoting themselves
and Building of the Unitarian. . .Church. . .Charleston, S.C. (1860).
to her and her family and want to get married and have lives of
Stories and Poems by Mother and Daughter (with C. H. Jervey,
their own.
1872). The Poetic Fate Book (1874). Recollections of the Private
Much of the humor in the Recollections of a Housekeeper is Centennial Celebration of the Overthrow of the Tea (1874). The
afforded by the vocabulary and accents of the rustic New Eng- Young Fortune Teller (with C. H. Jervey, 1874).
landers who come to serve and by their inability to grasp the forms
(and perhaps the spirit) of such service. When Gilman wrote her
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Saint-Amand, M. S., A Balcony in Charles-
chronicle of a New England housekeeper, she had already been
ton (1941).
living in Charleston for many years. The disestablishment of the
Reference works: DAB. The Living Writers of the South
middle-class housewife and the attitudes towards servants re-
(1869). NAW (1971). NCAB, 13. Oxford Companion to Womens
vealed in the rst book reach a logical culmination in its compan-
Writing in the United States (1995). Women of the South Distin-
ion piece, Recollections of a Southern Matron (1838), which
guished in Literature (1861).
depicts all for the best in that best of all possible worlds, the
Other references: NCHR (April 1934). SAQ (Jan. 1924).
Southern plantation. The rst person narrator of this second book
supplies more information on her background and early life, and a SUSAN SUTTON SMITH
romantic plot with a subplot involving a secondary heroine, but
the focus is again on scenes of domestic life. Gilman places great
emphasis on the contentment of the slaves (they are always called
servants, but they stay around once they are trained), and she GILMAN, Charlotte Perkins
claims their lot is better than that of Northern servants and
millhands. Gilmans letters to her children after the Civil War
Born 3 July 1860, Hartford, Connecticut; died 17 August 1935,
show her still unchanged in the opinion that slavery had benetted
Pasadena, California
the slaves.
Daughter of Frederick Beecher and Mary A. Fritch Perkins;
In The Poetry of Travelling in the United States (1838), married Charles Walter Stetson, 1884 (divorced 1894);
Gilman sets out to present something in the same volume which George Houghton Gilman, 1900; children: one daughter
might prove attractive to both the Northern and Southern reader
and to increase a good sympathy between different portions of Charlotte Perkins Gilmans father left the family soon after
the country. The details of the 19th-century means of travel are she was born. Although he made infrequent visits home and
often absorbing. Gilman admits that listening to members of provided meager support for his family, he was largely responsi-
Congress in Washington excites her state feelings and that a ble for Gilmans early education, emphasizing reading in the
word against Carolina is a personal offence to me, but it is still sciences and history. Her only formal education consisted of brief
20 years before Brookss attack on Sumner: Amid the clanship, attendance at the Rhode Island School of Design. Like her great
however, there is a general and beautiful courtesy, which in aunt, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Gilman was a reformer. At an early
private leads to the happiest results; a pleasant jest is the very age, she recognized the plight (particularly the economic servi-
hardest weapon used, and that sparingly. The extreme Northern tude) of her mother and many New England housewives. By age
and Southern members are on terms of the most agreeable twenty-one, she was writing poetry that described the limitations
intercourse. of being female in late-19th-century New England.
Gilman also published collections of short stories, poetry As a teenager, Gilman was a commercial artist, art teacher,
(some with her daughter Caroline Howard Jervey), and novels. and governess. Ten months after her marriage to Charles W.
She prided herself most on her writings for children and young Stetson, also an artist, their only daughter was born. Gilman
106
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GILMAN
suffered extreme depression after the birth and made a recuperative Forerunner equaled four books a year, of 36,000 words apiece.
trip to California. She moved there in 1888 and divorced Stet- The periodical contained articles on social and economic issues
son in 1894. (invariably about women) and some poetry and ction. It pub-
lished two full-length novels by Gilman: What Diantha Did
Gilman did not establish her reputation as a forceful writer (1910) and The Crux (1911). The Man-Made World (1911) was
and lecturer until the last decade of the century when she pub- also published in Forerunner. It juxtaposed male and female
lished a series of satiric poems in the Nationalist. She also began values: women, Gilman wrote, are peace-loving and concerned
lecturing on a wide variety of topics. For a time she was a member with community. Contrarily, the prevailing values in our society
of the National Movement, during which her writing and lectures are male: aggressiveness, competition, and destructiveness.
reected this groups nationalistic fervor.
His Religion and Hers (1923) was published six years after
In 1893, Gilman collected about 75 poems into a small Gilman had resigned from the Forerunner. In it, Gilman compares
volume entitled In This Our World. Gilman designed the cover, the male conception of the world (a postponement and preparation
based on Olive Screiners Three Dreams in a Desert. The book for the afterlife) with the female (heaven in the present time and
was rst published in England but enjoyed scanty success in place). She directs her argument toward current social considera-
the U.S., where, besides Gilmans family and friends, William tions, suggesting that if women controlled society, they would
Dean Howells rst recognized its greatness. He called Gilman place greater emphasis on practical issues: how to live comfort-
the only optimist reformer he ever met. The poems outline ably and peacefully from day to day.
Gilmans economic and social views and are considered by many
to be a classic statement on the womens movement. Her autobiography, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman
(1935), is an excellent source for understanding Gilmans life,
Women and Economics, originally titled Economic Relation work, and death. Suffering from cancer and surviving her hus-
of the Sexes as a Factor in Social Development, appeared in 1898 bands unexpected death in 1934, Gilman lived quite peacefully
(reprinted 1998). This books arguments in behalf of womens for a time near her daughter in Pasadena, then committed suicide
rights arise out of a rm and broad philosophical and historical by chloroform. The conclusion of her autobiography is an appro-
base. Gilman calls American society androcentric and illus- priate epitaph and was part of a letter left to her survivors: The
trates how traditionally male values have dominated almost every one predominant duty is to nd ones work and do it, and I have
aspect of American life. It is considered one of the most important striven mightily at that. The religion, the philosophy, set up so
works on the womens movement. early, have seen me through.
Written in 1890 but not published as a separate work until Interest in Gilman exploded in the 1980s and 1990s with
1899, The Yellow Wall-Paper is a ctional though partially numerous new editions of her writingsincluding her previously
autobiographical treatment of a woman artists nervous break- unpublished diariesand an outpouring of critical literature.
down. Having recently given birth, she is forced by her husband Many of these writers suggested that Gilman was a woman before
and physician to spend the summer in isolation in a Gothic-style her time: she articulated questions that seemed irrelevant to most
country estate. She is forbidden to write, which is the one thing she of her contemporaries, but are vital and unresolved a century later.
truly wants to do. The result is the womans madness, her delusion
Some critics have focused on Gilmans ction. Her short
that another woman is trapped behind the wallpaper in her attic
story, The Yellow Wallpaper, has become a classic. It is often
bedroom.
read in literature and womens studies classes as a launching point
Gilmans Concerning Children (1900) and The Home (1904) for discussing domesticity, work and activity, sanity and madness,
expand on arguments originally advanced in Women and Econo- relationships between husbands and wives, and/or the power of
mics. Both suggest childrens lives can be stunted instead of medical authority. Gilmans utopian novels, Herland (serialized
enriched by a home in which the mothers sole occupation is 1915) and With Her in Ourland (serialized 1916), explore what a
housekeeping. Gilman argues instead for day care centers where society of women might be like and how a person from such a
children are well cared for, and where they can continue to explore society might react to ours. Critics have used these novels to
the thrilling mystery of life. Gilman called The Home the deepen conversations about separatism, differences between men
most hereticaland the most amusingof anything Ive done. and women, and the role of imagination in cultural change.
In 1900 Gilman married her rst cousin, George H. Gilman, a Other peopleand sometimes the same peoplehave fo-
lawyer from New York. During their honeymoon, Gilman read cused on the more material aspects of Gilmans work. She
him the book she had been writing, Human Work (1904). It believed the root cause of womens subordination is their eco-
attempts to make the same claim for work that Cardinal Newman nomic dependence. The stand-alone single-family home, she
made for knowledge: that it is intrinsically valuable, its own end. argued, mires women in the endless tasks of cooking, cleaning,
According to Gilman, work is both a responsibility and a pleasure. and child care. In order to free women to participate in the work of
One does it because one is obligated to the human community. the world, living spaces must be redesigned to allow domestic
work to be done collectively and efciently. As feminists have
In 1909 Gilman began a seven-year editorship of her own become more aware of how economic structures and physical
monthly periodical, the Forerunner. Written entirely by Gilman surroundings shape womens lives, they have become more
and containing 21,000 words per issue, Gilman gured the interested in Gilmans insights into these issues.
107
GILMER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Gilman is a complex gure, and most of the recent scholar- conned her newspaper writing to her advice column, rst for the
ship does not attempt to address all aspects of her life and work. Wheeler syndicate and from 1923 for the Ledger syndicate.
One exception is Ann Lanes biography, To Herland and Beyond:
Between 1912 and 1914, Gilmer, a supporter of woman
The Life and Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1990), which
suffrage, wrote three pamphlets on the subject. She also published
uses a psychological analysis of Gilmans early family experi-
a number of books of advice, some ctional in technique and
ences to illuminate her later actions, motivations, and priorities.
southern in setting, like Mirandy (1914) and Mirandy Exhorts
(1922), but mostly drawn from her columns, like Fables of the
OTHER WORKS: Moving the Mountain (1911). The Diaries of Elite (1902), Hearts la Mode (1915), and How to Win and Hold a
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1994). A Journey From Within (1995). Husband (1939). In addition, she published travel books describ-
The Later Poetry of Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1996). The Yellow ing the customs and problems in the places she visited.
Wallpaper and Other Stories (1997). Unpunished (1997). The
Abridged Diaries of Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1998). Herland Best known for her column, reaching an estimated 60 million
and Selected Writings (1999). The Charlotte Perkins Gilman readers worldwide with sympathy, humor, and common sense,
Reader (1999). Charlotte Perkins Gilmans Utopian Novels (1999). Gilmer dispensed sermonettes on courtship and marriage as well
as answers to letters. She advised women to develop a positive
self-image and know how to work at a job, but also retain
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Allen, P., Building Domestic Liberty: Charlotte femininity, good nature, and adaptability. Beginning many col-
Perkins Gilmans Architectural Feminism (1988). Dell, F., Wom- umns with Men are a selsh lot, Gilmer accepted the reality of
en as World Builders (1913). Golden, C., The Captive Imagina- a sexual double standard and advised her readers how to deal with it.
tion: A Casebook on The Yellow Wallpaper (1992). Karpinski, J.,
Critical Essays on Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1992). Kessler, C., Convinced of the healthy and life-enriching power of love,
Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Her Progress Toward Utopia with Gilmer nevertheless explained how to achieve that goal with
Selected Writings (1995). Meyering, S., Charlotte Perkins Gilman: imagery taken from games, hunting, and marketing, with what
The Woman and Her Work (1989). Peyser, T., Utopia and one reviewer has called hardboiled realism that would do credit
Cosmopolis (1998). Wellington, A., Women Have Told: Studies in to a brothel keeper. For example: A young girl who lets any
the Feminist Tradition (1930). one boy monopolize her, simply shuts the door in the face of good
Reference works: DAB (Supplement 1). HWS (V, VI). NAW. times and her chances of making a better match. Few grafts are
NCAB (13). more protable than comforting a widower. But remember that
Other references: AQ (Spring 1956). Canadian Magazine fast work is required. And in a recipe book for marriage:
(Aug. 1923). Century Magazine (Nov. 1923). PMLA (1996). All wives should encourage their husbands in dough-making. It
Poet-Lore (Jan.-March 1899). Womens Studies (1989, 1991). keeps them out of mischief and promotes domestic felicity.
Utopian Studies (1995, 1997). Coexistent with the pragmatism, however, is the pride,
independence, and self-worth Gilmer advocates for all women. In
MARY BETH PRINGLE,
Womans Lack of Pride (circa 1912), she writes about how
UPDATED BY LORI KENSCHAFT
women lack sex pride when they permit themselves to be classed
politically with the offscourings of the earth [the criminal, the
idiot, the insane]. . . All of womans failures are due to her shame
GILMER, Elizabeth Meriwether of her sex, and she will never succeed until she [realizes] she is
entitled to stand side by side with man, not to have to trail along in
his wake like a humble slave.
Born 18 November 1870, Woodstock, Tennessee; died 16 De-
cember 1951, New Orleans, Louisiana Sociologists Robert and Helen Lynd in their study of middle
Wrote under: Dorothy Dix America, Middletown (1929), assess Gilmers column as the best
Daughter of William and Maria Winston Meriwether; married single available source to represent Middletowns views about
George Gilmer, 1888 marriage, and also as perhaps the most potent single agency of
diffusion from without shaping the habits of thought of Middle-
Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmers career as a newspaper col- town in regard to marriage. Gilmer dened the ideal of love and
umnist and reporter stemmed from her tragic marriage. The marriage, acknowledged the reality, and wrote pragmatic advice
daughter of impoverished Southern gentry, Gilmer had little reecting but also shaping the behavior and mores of her readers.
formal training and no work experience when, shortly after her
marriage, she had to assume nancial responsibility for herself
OTHER WORKS: Whats Sauce for the Gander Is Sauce for the
and her husband, a victim of an incurable mental disease. Reject-
Goose (circa 1912). Dorothy Dix on Womans Ballot (1914). My
ing the idea of divorce, she began working as a womans-page
Trip Around the World (1924). Dorothy Dix, Her Book (1926).
writer on the New Orleans Picayune in 1896. Successful as a
Mexico (1934).
columnist and reporter, Gilmer moved to the New York Evening
Journal in 1901, where she continued her column, Dorothy Dix
Talks, and covered sensational murder trials (usually involving BIBLIOGRAPHY: Criss, D. Eliza Nicholson, Elizabeth Gilmer,
women) and vice investigations. From 1917 until her death, she and the New Orleans Daily Picayune, 1876-1901 (thesis, 1994).
108
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GIOVANNI
Kane, H. T., Dear Dorothy Dix: The Story of a Compassionate early volume Giovanni is trying to balance her own personal
Woman (1952). Lynd, R. S. and H. M. Lynd, Middletown (1929). concerns (mostly with love) with the pressing concerns of the
McDonald, J. Dorothy Dix Speaks! Murders, Mayhem and Advice group, and she is searching for the exact role she can play in the
to the Love Lorn Housewife, Tricks and Simple Recipes for the revolution.
Novice Gourmet (1992).
Reference works: CB (1940, 1952). DAB. Oxford Compan- In Re-Creation (1970, 1973), one critic has said there is a new
ion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). lyricism, but the feelings expressed are less parochial and more
Other references: Dorothy Dix: A Symposium Sponsored by universal in their blackness. My House (1972) explores the
Austin Peay State University (videos, 1991). NYT (17 Dec. 1951). rooms inside and the rooms outside. The rst section is
Proceedings of the Contributed Papers Session of the Dorothy lled with vividly endearing reminiscences about family, friends,
Dix Symposium (1993). Time (14 Aug. 1939). and lovers. The poems are about napping, nighttime, sleeping,
cuddling, soothing hot baths, and loving. There is a groping,
HELEN J. SCHWARTZ though contented, aloneness (which is different from loneliness)
about most of the poems. In The Rooms Outside, however,
Giovanni ventures out of the sheltering cocoon of the nest into the
harsher realities of life. The poems here are disturbing, harder to
GIOVANNI, Nikki understand, the tone more impersonal and factual.
Born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni, 7 June 1934, Knoxville, Ego-Tripping, and Other Poems for Young People (1973,
Tennessee 1993) was written for adolescents. One critic found the poems
Daughter of Jones and Yolande Cornelia Giovanni; child- sly and seductive, freewheeling and winsome, tough, sure and
ren: Thomas proud. Here, as everywhere, the author reveals a boundless
enthusiasm for the essences of black life.
Nikki Giovanni did not have the kind of poverty-stricken,
Women and Men (1975) includes poems written between
uncertain childhood typical of a number of other black writers.
1970 and 1975. The section The Women consists mainly of
Hers was a close family enriched by loving relatives. While at
Fisk University, she reinstated a chapter of the Student Nonvio- startling, honest portraits that dene black womanhood. And
lent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which had been forbidden Other Places contains several short, vivid images of life in Africa.
to operate on campus. After her 1967 graduation with an honors Giovanni has also published prose. The subtitle of Gemini
degree in history, she planned the rst Black Arts Festival in her (1971), explains it all: An Extended Autobiographical State-
hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio. As an extension of her community ment on My First 25 Years of Being a Black Poet. Here
activism, with assistance from a Ford Foundation grant she Giovanni uses her incredible imagination to blend fact with
attended the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work; ction, myth with history, hindsight with perhaps no sight. As
she later enrolled in Columbia Universitys School of Fine Arts. with most of her works, the personal accompanies the impersonal
In 1968, Giovanni received a National Foundation for the Arts so that there are not only touching autobiographical chapters but
grant; she was then teaching English at Queens College and also critical and political chapters about Charles Chesnutt, as the
continuing her activist work in the black community. A year later,
father of black literature, and about the oral tradition and history
Giovanni became an associate professor at Livingston College,
of blacks.
Rutgers University.
Her book jackets call Giovanni our most widely read living
Although Giovanni desired children, she had no wish to be
black poet, and indeed her many volumes of poetry, a book of
married; in 1969, determined to succeed as a single mother, she
bore her son Thomas Watson Giovanni. Her 1971 book, Spin a essays, and several recordings attest to her continued popular
Soft Black Song (reprinted 1987), written for black American appeal. In the 1980s and 1990s her alternately provocative and
children, was dedicated to him. A subsequent book of poems for elegant speeches keep her in demand as a public speaker and have
children (Vacation Time, 1980) and poems in other books reveal helped earn her the title Princess of Black Poetry.
her intense dedication to her family life. In Sacred Cows and Giovannis close family is featured in a few sketches in
Other Edibles, she devotes a large section of an autobiographical Sacred Cows and Other Edibles (1988), and Those Who Ride the
essay to the joys and frustrations of living with her then fourteen- Night Winds (1982) is composed primarily of meditations: on
year-old son. public gures, personal friends, social injustice throughout Ameri-
Though she is best known as a revolutionary poet who writes can history, and loved relationships. The book is an innovative
poems asking, Nigger / Can you kill?, Giovanni is also a very experiment in form. The pieces are written in short paragraphs,
private, very personal poet. She had been creating stories since her punctuated with ellipses. As such, they have the telegraphic
childhood and had published a few poems in various magazines, immediacy of Emily Dickinsons dash-punctuated poems, as if
but she didnt realize a notable literary success until the publica- the poets thoughts are scribbled down as they ash across her
tion of her rst book of poetry, Black Feeling, Black Talk (1968). mind. At the same time, the form implies an uncertainty, a care
This and Black Judgement (1968) place the individual in the lest the reader miss a subtlety of thought or image. Dedicated to
middle of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Even in this those courageous people who in sonic solitude or the hazy hell of
109
GLASGOW AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
habit knowthat for all the devils and gods. . .life is a marvelous, 1996). The Sun is So Quiet (1996). Blues: For All the Changes
transitory adventure, these poems are written for Lorraine Poems (1999). Grand Fathers: An Anthology (1999).
Hansberry, John Lennon, Robert Kennedy, Billie Jean King,
Martin Luther King, Jr., and Phillis Wheatley. Of the latter,
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Carroll, R., I Know What the Red Clay Looks
Giovanni writes, The critics. . .from a safe seat in the balco-
Like: The Voice and Vision of Black American Women Writers
ny. . .disdain her performance. . .reject her reality. . .ignore her
(1994). Evans, M., ed., Black Women Writers (1950-1980): A
truths. . . . How dare she. . . . Why couldnt she. . .be more
Critical Evaluation (1984). Fowler, V., ed., Conversations with
like. . .more like. . . . The record sticks. . . . Phillis was her own
Nikki Giovanni (1992). Fowler, V. C., Nikki Giovanni (1992).
precedent.
Gaffke, C. T., ed., Poetry Criticism: Excerpts From Criticism of
In Racism 101 (1994, 1995) the poet continues to surprise the Works of the Most Signicant and Widely Studied Poets of
readers with her range of viewpoints, again in prose. Examining World Literature (1997). Georgoudaki, E., Class, Race, and
American life from her perspective as an introspective, educated, Gender Consciousness in Gwendolyn Brooks and Nikki Giovannis
independent-minded black woman, Giovanni ranges in her focus Poems for Children (1990). Georgoudaki, E., Race, Gender, and
from reminiscences on her childhood to the role of education and Class Perspectives in the Works of Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn
her dismay over the attitudes of afuent African Americans like Brooks, Rita Dove, Nikki Giovanni, and Audre Lorde (1991).
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and their rejection of the Hufnagel, J., Seeing Things as We Are: The Universal in the
afrmative action policies that enabled their success. While Poetry of Nikki Giovanni (thesis, 1992). Jago, C., Nikki Giovanni
Racism is classic Giovanni in its provocative, sometimes intimate, in the Classroom: The Same ol Danger But a Brand New
but often totally unapologetic political slant, she provides a Pleasure (1999). Lee, D. L., Dynamite Voices: Black Poets of
balance with her edited collection Grand Mothers: Poems, the 1960s (1971). Rediger, P., Great African Americans in Litera-
Reminiscences, and Short Stories about the Keepers of Our ture (1996). Smith, J. C., ed., Epic Lives: One Hundred Black
Traditions (1994, 1996). Compiled for both children and adults of Women Who Made a Difference (1993). Strickland, M. R., Afri-
many cultural and ethnic traditions and containing works by can-American Poets (1996). Tate, C., ed., Black Women Writers
authors ranging from writers Gloria Naylor and Kyoki Mori to at Work (1983). Weixlmann, J. and C. J. Fontenot, eds., Belief vs.
civil rights leader Mary Elizabeth King, the volume refrains from Theory in Black American Literacy Criticism (1986). Whitlow, R.,
the sentimentality usually bestowed upon well-loved older rela- Black American Literature: A Critical History (1973).
tives and treats grandmothers as women valuable for their person- Reference works: Black Literary Criticism (1992). CB (April
al insight and their ability to place daily traumas into a perspec- 1973). CP (1975). Crowells Handbook of Contemporary Ameri-
tive based on strong traditions. can Poetry (1973). DLB (1985). FP (1990). Oxford Companion to
Womens Writing in the United States (1995).
Whether in prose or poetry, Giovanni continues to create an Other references: African American Review (Fall 1994, Spring
honest, charming, idiosyncratic, and alert persona. Her voice now 1995). Black Issues in Higher Education (Jan. 1993). Black World
marks the pulse, not only of black America, but of the countrys (Feb. 1971). Book World (Feb. 1994). Bulletin of the Center for
diverse peoples and cultures. She has been praised highly and Childrens Books (July 1994). CLAJ (Sept. 1971). CSM (1 May
damned highly, but Giovanni lives on, ego-tripping, ying high 1974). Ebony (Feb. 1972). Essence (Mar. 1994, May 1999).
like a bird in the sky. She has the power to anger, to humor, and Harpers Bazaar (July 1972). Ingenue (Feb. 1973). MELUS
to bring tears to the readers eyes; much of her power lies in her (Winter 1982, Winter 1994). NYTBR (5 May 1975). PW (1999).
ability to negotiate distances between herself and the reader.
Giovanni is a product of the chaotic 1960s, but she manages to LISA CARL AND PAMELA SHELTON
retain her individuality, while urging others to recognize their
obligations to the black cause. She is at her best when she is
private and personal, but she is a multidimensional poet who
records the pulse of life for the benet of all.
GLASGOW, Ellen (Anderson Gholson)
Born 22 April 1873, Richmond, Virginia; died 21 November
OTHER WORKS: All I Gotta Do (1970). Poem of Angela Yvonne 1945, Richmond, Virginia
Davis (1970). Black Feeling, Black Talk/Black Judgement (com- Daughter of Francis T. and Anne Gholson Glasgow
bining the two former books, 1970, 1972). Night Comes Softly: An
Anthology of Black Female Voices (editor, 1970). A Poetic Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow was the eighth of her
Equation: Conversations Between Nikki Giovanni and Margaret parents 10 children. Her father was director of the Tredegar Iron
Walker (1974, 1983). James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni: A Works, chief armaments factory during the Civil War. His dour
Dialogue (1975). Old Thoughts, New Voices (1982). Appalachian Scotch-Irish Calvinist background instilled in her qualities of
Elders: A Warm Hearth Sampler (editor, with C. Dennison, strength Glasgow was to sum up as a vein of iron. This phrase
1992). Conversations with Nikki Giovanni (edited by V. Fowler, and the staunch values it implied occur approvingly in over half
1992). Covers (1993). Knoxville, Tennessee (1994). The Genie in her novels; yet she hated her father for his tyranny, his religious
the Jar (1996, 1998). The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni severity, and his philandering. He was, she wrote, more patriar-
(1996). Shimmy, Shimmy, Shimmy Like My Sister Kate (editor, chal than paternal. She adored her generous, long-suffering
110
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GLASGOW
mother, a perfect ower of the Tidewater aristocracy. In her of nearly all her novels; those set in New York are about uprooted
autobiography, The Woman Within (1954), Glasgow described Southerners.
her own nature as deeply divided between this gentle mother and
Glasgows rst two novels, The Descendant (1897) and
stern father.
Phases of an Inferior Planet (1898), together with The Wheel of
Glasgow acquired her learning at home. She was excused Life (1906), wrestle with, among other things, the plight of the
early from a formal education because of shyness and headaches woman as artist. All are based in New York which, to Glasgow,
at school. Considered sickly, she always thought of herself this meant intellectual Bohemia. The rst two novels both show
way. All her life she sought refuge in booksboth in reading and obvious signs of her deep reading of Darwin, Nietzsche, Henry
in writing. As a girl she loved the novels of Scott, generally George, Mill, Haeckel, Weismann, and other writers on heredity,
admired in the South. She read Fielding, Austen, the Bronts, milieu, class struggle, evolution, and survival. Gradually, the
Dickens, Hardy, Balzac, and Maupassant. Her sisters husband, social concerns of these apprenticeship novels would be more
Walter McCormack, introduced her to 19th-century historians, skillfully integrated into her Virginia novels; and Glasgows
biologists, and social philosophers. As a budding novelist, Glas- successes enabled her to drop the anxious woman artist theme.
gow immersed herself in these; she especially valued Darwin. At a While Glasgow did not choose to incorporate these novels in her
later stage of personal crisis, she sought solace in mysticism: the collected Old Dominion and Virginia editions, they are of bio-
Upanishads, the Buddhist Sutras, the Bhagavad-Gita, as well as graphical interest.
philosophers from Plotinus to Schopenhauer.
With her Virginia novels, Glasgow was breaking new ground.
Glasgow never married. Her observations of her parents She wished to correct the sentimental picture of Ole Virginia
marriage, as well as a desire to remain independent to devote perpetrated by romances of plantation life and the glorious defeat
herself to her art, probably inuenced her decision. Her writings of the Civil War. The South suffered from what Glasgow termed
reect a distrust of marriage and tend toward satire, both bitter and evasive idealism. The Battle-Ground (1902) gently satirizes
lighthearted, on the subject. Of her many male friends, the most the prewar fable: honey-voiced belles, picturesque Negroes, a
important was Henry W. Anderson, an attractive, successful crusty old major and an enlightened governor disputing the virtues
Richmond lawyer, who also served as a Red Cross colonel in of slavery by a comfortable library re. The Deliverance (1904)
Rumania during World War I. Their affection, sometimes stormy, deals with tobacco farming and the moral struggles of a destroyed
survived a broken engagement; their friendship continued for planter family in the post-Reconstruction period of 1878 to 1890.
nearly 30 years until Glasgows death. Fortunes are reversed: the once-rich Blakes live in penury in an
overseers cottage, while the shady former overseer lords it in
Friends remember Glasgow as a diminutive woman with a Blake Hall. Glasgow continues her concern with heredity: Blood
radiant smile who could charm if she chose, a witty, well-read will out, even at the dregs. But the overseers vital daughter,
conversationalist with a sarcastic edge. Outstanding among her rened by education and an imperfect marriage, will through love
literary friends was the Richmond writer James Branch Cabell. and literacy redeem the vengeful, demon-ridden younger Blake. A
There is disagreement as to how much critical assistance he gave new order of Southern society will result, Glasgow hopes, from
Glasgow, whether in her plan for a social series on Virginia, in her the joining of the two white classes.
prefaces (collected as A Certain Measure, 1943), or in her last
novel, written in the shadow of her death. Cabell at any rate felt In writing about the New South, Glasgow liked to show an
she did not acknowledge his aid sufciently. underdog hero ghting his way to personal acceptance and public
service. This pattern of action is found in several of Glasgows
Glasgow held her work and literary reputation uppermost; novels of Virginia political life. The Voice of the People (1900),
these compensated for what she called the long tragedy of my Glasgows rst Virginia novel, is one of the earliest ctional
life. An especial burden was her deafness, which assailed her in treatments of the Southern poor white. Nick Burr, a farmers son,
adolescence and worsened. It isolated her, and plunged her into strives against entrenched upper-class prejudice and snobbery. He
profound depressions. She consulted psychoanalysts and aurists. becomes governor of the state, and is known as the Man with the
Eventually her hearing devices improved, but she never ceased to Conscience, only to be murdered when he intervenes in a
complain. Allusions in the novels to a soundless tumult, a lynching. Political assassination also cuts short the career of the
rustling vacancy, apparently grow out of this afiction. hero of One Man in His Time (1922). A political novel on which
Glasgow collaborated with her anc, Henry Anderson, was The
Glasgows home life from 1911 until 1945 was spent chiey
Builders (1919). Anderson probably penned the speeches emanat-
with her companion, secretary, housekeeper, and nurse, Anne
ing from the misunderstood, patrician hero, David Blackburn, for
Virginia Bennett, sharing not so much a love of letters as a
whom he also posed as the model. A strain of pessimism perme-
capacity for coexistence and an affection for Glasgows dogs,
ates these novels.
who were treated with a human respect. Glasgow lived nearly all
her life in the big grey Greek Revival house at One West Main Glasgow celebrates Virginia heroines in Virginia (1913),
Street. She traveled often to Europe, especially in her younger Life and Gabriella (1916), and Barren Ground (1925). One of her
days; lived in New York for years at a time; and escaped the best works, Virginia traces the dawning self-knowledgetoo
Southern heat in the summer. With all her mobility, Glasgow lateand lifelong disillusionment of a Southern woman bred
remained devoted to Richmond and Virginia. Virginia is the scene conventionally and decorously to a romantic ideal of marriage.
111
GLASGOW AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Growing up in the 1880s, she is subjected to the educational his dead wife Cordelia to the winsome girl of twenty-three whose
principle that the less a girl knew about life the better she would youth leads him to overidealize her and whom he fancies he can
be prepared to contend with it. While social codes bar women please. Undaunted by sickness and the desertion of his girl-wife,
from interesting lives and work, the adventuresome male surges the Judge at the last reacts to the charms of his nurse. As a mirror
ahead. Sunk in domesticity, Virginia watches her husband our- image reproach to his way of life there is his outrageous twin
ish, professionally and sexually, at her emotional cost. Glasgows sister, the much-married and much-loved Edmonia, who lives to
writing sustains a delicate tone of irony that does not withhold please herself. Glasgows gallery of female caricatures is superb.
sympathy from the heroine. Life and Gabriella forms a compan- The word happiness recurs with ironic frequency. Glasgows
ion portrait to Virginia. Here Glasgow gives us a less malleable satiric vision is both classic and fresh in this work, whose
heroine, although, misguidedly, Gabriella marries a rake. Left aphoristic dialogue is reminiscent of theater.
with two children and no money, she carves her way out of
misfortune. Through somewhat self-righteous fortitude Gabriella The comic possibilities of youths encounters with age in a
emerges as a millinery businesswoman, while her former husband framework of sexual morality are also explored in They Stooped to
dies a vagrant alcoholic. There is even a daredevil chance of her Folly. Glasgow introduces diverse women characters, focusing on
dashing off into the future with a virile Irishman. the seduced and fallen women of three generations. These women
are observed from the perspective of the central couple, Virginius
Of Barren Ground and the novels that followed it, Glasgow and Victoria Littlepage, who are conventionally, virtuously, tedi-
wrote this was the work upon which I like to imagine that I shall ously married. Unfree themselves, their perceptions of the others
stand or fall as a novelist. The novel is among her best, and
are imperfect; their plight is subject to Glasgows overarching
probably her most renowned. Seduced, pregnant, and abandoned,
assessment. The novel counterpoints the themes of self-deceit,
Dorinda Oakley leaves her Virginia farm home. Fortuitously she
hypocrisy, and the standards of moral conduct. In her preface,
miscarries; upon her return she adjusts her nature to the demands
Glasgow refers to the woman myths. . .invented by man to
she establishes for her life: to remain aloof from love and all
atter his own self-esteem and diminish women. Women couldnt
entanglements, to labor unremittingly to control the fertility of the
have bothered with a mythology for themselves since they have
worn and wasted land as it had controlled her parents lives, and to
been so busy with planning, contriving, scheming to outwit an
prosper richly. At the last, as a strong, white-haired woman,
Dorinda watches her erstwhile lover die. For once in Southern adverse fortune, and tilling the fertile soil of mans vanity.
ction, wrote Glasgow, the betrayed woman would become The Sheltered Life observes the interaction of three genera-
the victor instead of the victim. tions of Southerners before World War I. Courtly General Archibald
The people of Barren Ground seem to grow out of the soil, reects on the polite hypocrisies that warped lives in his youth.
the rhythms of their lives paralleling those of natures blooming His own poetic temper was quashed by a barbarous upper-class
and decay. Desolate though it is to humans, the land readily training, his hope of true love thwarted by a forced, scandal-
produces a weed called broomsedge. Broomsedge ames across averting marriage. He is sedulously deferential to women, espe-
the earth, a kind of fate, however farmers may try to root it out. cially to his beautiful neighbor, Eva Birdsong. Once a belle, she
It becomes also symbolic of the smothered re of Dorindas now strains to uphold the cult of beauty, to which she has
nature. In the rst transports of despair her soul is parched and sacriced autonomy and happiness. Imprisoned by old standards
blackened, like an abandoned eld after the broomsedge is of feminine decorum, she affects to ignore her insouciant husband
destroyed. Her tormented dreams of her lover ripple with Georges indelities; she devotes her whole being to her gowns
broomsedge, a growth to be eradicated from soil and soul. As and her lovely smile, which droops only when she thinks herself
Dorinda learns to dominate the land, she also brings her womans unobserved. Evas garden continues to die while she inwardly dies.
nature under control. Oh if the women who wanted love could
only know the innite relief of having love over. As she gains in The Generals granddaughter is the ecstatic Jenny Blair.
ascendancy, the specter of rampant broomsedge gives way to the Impelled by a narcissistic sensuality, which the life of privilege
serene image of the harp-shaped pine. It is a triumph of Dorindas, has sheltered in its heedless innocence, she entices George with
as of other of Glasgows heroines, to labor, to live without furtive embraces; at the same time, she adores Eva. Tragedy peaks
happiness, to become themselves sexually barren ground while when Eva, hollow and maimed from an operation, levels her
transferring energies to their work and forcing it to ower. It may sporting husbands gun at him and brings him down amid his
be noted that in a quarter of the novels a woman nurses, survives, ducks. Family and friends close in and call it an accident.
or slays the depleted man, who languishes or dies in her house, in Pervading this crumbling world of deluded upper-class gentility is
her arms, or at her feet. a chemical reek that corrodes the quality of living. It is the new
Queenborough factory, giving off the industrial and moral nerve
Leaving the Virginia countryside, Glasgow comes indoors gas of the future.
with her Queenborough (i.e., Richmond) novels of manners: The
Romantic Comedians (1926), They Stooped to Folly (1929), and Youth and age and the insufciency of love are themes
the somber The Sheltered Life (1932). The Romantic Comedians pervading all three Queenborough novels. In this last, the General
centers on the fatuous, aged, would-be lover, Judge Gamaliel and Eva have allowed themselves to be molded by an older
Honeywell, whose withered heart urgently craves to be green morality. Jenny Blair and George are the new happiness seekers
again. He is surrounded by women, from the hovering shade of who trample on those they love, but dont mean anything.
112
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GLASPELL
Vein of Iron (1935) documents the lives of the Scotch-Irish The End of a Legend: Ellen Glasgows History of Southern
good people of Ironside, a village of the Upper Valley of the Women (1979). Godbold, E. S., Jr., Ellen Glasgow and the
James River in Virginia. The surrounding mountains loom as Woman Within (1972). Goloboy, J. L., Marrying the Future:
personal presences. Glasgow takes her much-tried heroine Ada Kate Langley Bosher, Mary Johnston, Ellen Glasgow, and the
Fincastle from girlhood to middle age, from 1901 to 1933. The Equal Suffrage League of Virginia (thesis, 1995). Harrison, E. J.,
vision produced by the novel is one of nostalgia and of perpetual Female Pastoral: Women Writers Re-Visioning the American
accommodation to necessity in the face of futility. In Vein of Iron, South (1991). Holman, C. H., Three Modes of Southern Fiction
Glasgow is best when extolling ancestral values, for she saw the (1966). Inge, M. T., ed., Ellen Glasgow: Centennial Essays
future as a dying age. (1976). Jessup, J. L., The Faith of Our Feminists: A Study in the
Despite its being awarded a Pulitzer Prize, a belated consola- Novels of Edith Wharton, Ellen Glasgow, Willa Cather (1950).
tion for the committees having passed over The Sheltered Life, In Kelly, W. W., Ellen Glasgow: A Bibliography (1964). Kraft, S.,
This Our Life (1941) is a minor achievement. The portrayals of the No Castles on Main Street: American Authors and Their Homes
elderly weary hero and his desperate daughters betray Glasgows (1979). McDowell, F. P. W., Ellen Glasgow and the Ironic Art of
declining health and her difculty in coming to grips with the Fiction (1960). Parent, M., Ellen Glasgow: Romancire (1962).
modern world. Beyond Defeat (1966), its posthumously published Raper, J. R., Without Shelter: The Early Career of Ellen Glasgow
sequel, is of academic interest only. (1971). Raper, J. R., From the Sunken garden: The Fiction of
Ellen Glasgow (1980). Raper, J. R., ed., Ellen Glasgows Reason-
Glasgows social perspectives and her thirst for realism made able Doubts (1988). Ribblett, D. L., From Cross Creek to Rich-
her a precursor of writers she failed to appreciate, notably a stylist mond: Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Researches Ellen Glasgow
like Faulkner. She was outspoken about newer writers, whom she (1986). Richards, M. K., Ellen Glasgows Development As a
characterized as amateurs and illiterates. As she grew older she Novelist (1971). Rouse, B., Ellen Glasgow (1962). Santas, J. F.,
found it difcult to cast aside the values she had once lighthearted- Ellen Glasgows American Dream (1965). Wanless, T. C., Soil
ly satirized. She saw the modern world as distraught, chaotic, and Soul: The Experience of Southern Rural Womanhood in
grotesque. . .an age of cruelty without moral indignation, of Selected Novels by Edith Summers Kelley, Ellen Glasgow and
catastrophe without courage. Her efforts to embrace the young Elizabeth Madox Roberts (thesis, 1984).
within her artistic vision, even to deal with contemporary argot,
Reference works: CB (Jan. 1946). DAB. LSL. NAW (1971).
turn out shrill and awry. Despite awards and honors during her
NCAB. Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United
lifetime, Glasgows literary reputation suffered after her death.
States (1995). TCA, TCAS.
Glasgows best writing is in the comic spirit. There are ne Other references: Ellen Glasgow Newsletter (Ashland,
humorous characterizations, many buried in the subplots of her Virginia).
novels. As an innovator, she rejected the Souths codes and
genteel fables to write about politics and industry rising up out of MARCELLE THIEBAUX
the Virginia soil. Race and stock are for her determinants of
character in the battle for survival. Work, whether of the grower,
the tycoon, or the artist, brings salvation. Manners are both valued
and criticized. Glasgow drew her chief inspirations from the land GLASPELL, Susan
that bred the vein of iron and from the tremors of society. Past and
present, the conict of generations, the uneasy commerce be-
tween an older patriciate and the new working classes, mores and Born 1 July 1876, Davenport, Iowa; died 27 July 1948, Province-
wars, ceremony and the fresh winds of changethese were the town, Massachusetts
broad concerns of Glasgows writing which she treated with the Daughter of Elmer S. and Alice Keating Glaspell; married
blood and irony she had prescribed for Southern ction. George C. Cook, 1913; Norman Matson, 1925
Susan Glaspell began her career writing numerous short

OTHER WORKS: The Freeman, and Other Poems (1902). The storiesfor popular magazinesin line with the sentimental and
Ancient Law (1908). The Romance of a Plain Man (1909). The escapist mode popular at the time, and two conventional romantic
Miller of Old Church (1911). The Shadowy Third, and Other novels. When she met and married her rst husband, George C.
Stories (1923). The Old Dominion Edition of the Works of Ellen Cook, her lifestyle and the direction of her work changed radical-
Glasgow (8 volumes, 1929-1933). The Virginia Edition of the ly. Her novel Fidelity (1915) is thematically connected to this love
Works of Ellen Glasgow (12 vols., 1938). Letters of Ellen Glas- affair. With Eugene ONeill, she and Cook became the founders
gow (edited by B. Rouse, 1958). The Collected Stories of Ellen
of and prime contributors to the Provincetown Players, an experi-
Glasgow (edited by R. K. Meeker, 1963). Beyond Defeat: An
mental group begun on Cape Cod in 1915 to provide a place where
Epilogue to an Era (edited by L. Y. Gore, 1966).
native drama could develop freely outside the fetters of commer-
cialism. The company, which moved to New Yorks Greenwich
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Auchincloss, L., Pioneers and Caretakers (1965). Village (as the Playwrights Theatre) in the fall of 1916, proved to
Carpenter, L., Haunting the House of Fiction: Feminist Perspec- be one of the most important and seminal forces in the history of
tives on Ghost Stories by American Women (1991). Ekman, B., American theater.
113
GLCK AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Glaspells rst one-act play, written with Cook, was part of and courage to the future. Because she developed a broad human-
the Provincetown Players initial season. Her second one-act play, istic viewpoint, she never became a typical Midwestern regionalist in
Tries was produced in 1916 during the second summer season. the narrow sense; she eschewed always the 20th century provin-
(Glaspells short story adaptation of it, A Jury of Her Peers, cialism, superpatriotism, and fatuousness that evolved as Main
appeared in Best American Short Stories of 1916). On a bleak Street, USA.
Iowa farm, dour farmer John Wright has been found dead in his
bed, his own rope around his neck. His wife, Minnie, who never OTHER WORKS: Glory of the Conquered (1909). The Visioning
appears onstage, is in custody pending investigation of the mur- (1911). The Road to the Temple (1927). Fugitives Return (1929).
der. The tacit agreement of two women onstage to conceal the Cherished and Shared of Old (1940).
telltale evidence of guilt implies that Wright was a man who
deserved to die as he did, and their sympathy (with that of the
audience) goes to the abused wife. After 50 years, this piece is still BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gelb, A., and B. Gelb, ONeill (1960). Gold-
deservedly cited as an example of expert craftsmanship. berg, I., Drama of Transition (1922). Gould, J., Modern American
Playwrights (1966). Hapgood, H., A Victorian in a Modern World
For the next two seasons Glaspell continued to write, act in, (1939). Lewisohn, L., Expression in America (1932). Quinn, A. H.,
and direct plays. Her rst full-length play, Bernice (1920), in History of American Drama from the Civil War to the Present Day
which again the heroine never appears onstage, was produced in (1927). Schlueter, J., ed., Modern American Drama: The Female
1919. Glaspell returned in The Inheritors (1921) to a favorite Canon (1990). Vorse, M. H., Time and the Town (1942). Waterman,
theme: the desirability of preserving the best values of pioneer A. E., Susan Glaspell (1966).
character. The only character who represents the true spirit of her Reference works: Benets Readers Encyclopedia (1991).
forefathers (the founders of a liberal college) and of America itself DAB. NAW (1971). NCAB. Oxford Companion to Womens
is the granddaughter Madeline Morton, who goes to jail for the Writing in the United States (1995). TCA, TCAS.
rights of Hindu students protesting British domination of India. Other references: Arts and Decoration (June 1931). Bookman
(Feb. 1918). Commonweal (20 May 1931). Drama (June 1931).
In The Verge (1921), Glaspell deals with a new woman
Independent Woman (Jan. 1946). Nation (3 Nov. 1920, 6 April
again. However, Claire Archer is very different from Madeline.
1921, 4 April 1923). NR (17 Jan. 1923). NYT (12 April 1931, 10
Claire is so intent on attaining her own freedoman otherness,
May 1931). Palimpsest (Dec. 1930). Review of Reviews (June
she calls itthat she is driven over the edge of sanity when she
1909). SR (30 July 1938). WLB (Dec. 1928). Womens Journal
rejects the past and present (ancestors, husband, and daughter) in (Aug. 1928, June 1931).
hopes of a new future.
EDYTHE M. MCGOVERN
Glaspell dramatizes the subject of the artists life and connec-
tion to society in her nal two plays, The Comic Artist (1928) and
Alisons House (1930). The latter, dealing with the posthumous
disposition of the poetry of a woman much like Emily Dickinson, GLCK, Louise
was produced at the Civic Repertory Theatre, with Eva LeGallienne
playing the role of the niece who favors publication. It won the
Born 22 April 1943, New York, New York
Pulitzer Prize.
Daughter of Daniel and Beatrice Grosby Glck; married John
Glaspell had only minor connections with the theater after Dranow, 1977 (divorced); children: Noah
1931. She had returned to the novel in 1928 with Brook Evans. In
Ambrose Holt and Family (1931), Glaspell clearly connects the Louise Glcks parents lost their rst child, a daughter, seven
free woman of the 20th century with the best qualities of the days after her birth. This loss irrevocably altered the family that
pioneer, as in her play The Inheritors. This novel and the follow- might have been, and in her poetry Glck examines the intimate
ing, The Morning Is Near Us (1939), have philosophical depth, dramas of family life as loss reverberates across generational
but little relevance to the time of the Great Depression. It was not lines. She treats private pain with relentless, lyrical intensity, yet
until Norma Ashe (1942) and then Judd Rankins Daughter (1945) maintains a paradoxical reticence. In Glcks work, confessional
that Glaspell took cognizance of failures inherent in Midwestern poetry meets restrained classicism; her poems are tragic in a
isolationist attitudes, appropriate though they may have been for traditional sense, yet imbued with the psychological awareness of
the original pioneers. Freud and Jung.
Because her work in the theater was of necessity much more During the years she might have been at college, she under-
took psychoanalysis. She attended Sarah Lawrence College for
experimental than her work in other genres, Glaspells main
six weeks and later took courses, almost entirely poetry work-
signicance stems from her Provincetown connection, not only as
shops, at Columbia Universitys School of General Studies. She
a playwright, but, more importantly, as an innovator instrumental
worked with Lonie Adams, Stanley Kunitz, and briey with
in changing the course of American drama forever. The most
Adrienne Rich.
striking hallmark of her best writing is her consistent emphasis on
the need for human beings to fulll their highest potential by Glck is one of the foremost American lyric poets. She has
utilizing what is desirable from the past and applying it with faith taught in a variety of institutions, including Goddard College, the
114
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GLCK
universities of North Carolina, Virginia, Iowa, Cincinnati, and In a description of the religious mind, in Glcks essay on
California (Berkeley, Davis, and Los Angeles), Columbia Univer- T. S. Eliot (1994), she reveals the transformative power of her
sity, and Williams College. She has received grants from the own poetry: Its hunger for meaning and disposition to awe, its
Rockefeller and Guggenheim foundations and from the National craving for the path, the continuum. Glcks poems explore this
Endowment for the Arts. Glcks work has been recognized with space between the material and spiritual realms. Unlike Eliots
many awards and prizes, including the Poetry Magazine Eunice tendency to ultimate beliefs, Glcks impulse is toward the
Tietjens Prize, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and paradox at the center of her poetic seeking: the continuing cycle of
Letters award in literature, the National Book Critics Circle loss and the search for meaning without end. She writes, in Hoeys
award, the Boston Globe Literary Press award for poetry, and the view, to know the world, to get closer to the mystery.
Poetry Society of America Melville Kane award. The poems in Meadowlands (1996) replay the decline of a
Firstborn, published in 1968, bears the imprint of the confes- contemporary marriage in juxtaposition with the marriage of
sional sensibility, and Glck assumes the stance of the embittered Odysseus and Penelope. These gures, with Telemachus, take on
outsider. She uses short, trenchant sentences, rhyme and off-rhyme, the characteristics of a familys struggle to come to terms with
and colloquial diction, much like Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, and conict and betrayal and the needs of the self versus the needs of
Anne Sexton. In her late twenties, Glck wrote nothing for over a relationship: husband/wife, father/son, and mother/son.
year. In the poems that follow this silence she abandons her more Vita Nova (1999) explores the loss of love and relationship in
formal approach with its implied harmony and its authorial that time and space beyond the waiting, longing, and hope
virtuosity. The hot drama of the confessional style yields to represented in Meadowlands. Dido and Aeneas, Orpheus and
increasing control and plainness of speech. Calvin Bedient says of Eurydice, and Odysseus and Penelope represent the nality of one
The House on Marshland (1975): Its ornament proved chastely kind of relationship and the subsequent confrontation with the self
limited; besides, the gurative. . .simply and hallucinatingly as- alone. The season is spring. The poet in the rst poem, Vita
serted itself as the real. The poems, authoritative, beautiful, and Nova, remembers the sounds she heard as a child: Laughter for
reticent, resemble folktale and myth. In The School Children, no cause, simply because the world is / beautiful. Later these
the mothers must offer their children to the schools, like propitia- sounds seem out of reach, perhaps lost: Crucial / sounds or
tory apples, and are helpless to keep them from hurt: And the gestures like / a track laid down before the larger themes / and then
teachers shall instruct them in silence / and the mothers shall scour unused, buried, until one morning she wakes elated, at my age /
the orchards for a way out, / drawing to themselves the gray limbs hungry for life, utterly condent. The last poem, also titled
of the fruit trees / bearing so little ammunition. Vita Nova, describes the splitting up dream gured by the
dog named Blizzard who symbolizes the breach when a relation-
In Descending Figure (1980) and The Triumph of Achilles ship ends. She addresses the dog: O Blizzard, / be a brave dog
(1985), she draws heavily on what Helen Vendler calls an this is / all material; youll wake up / in a different world. / you will
eclectic mythology to elucidate private matters. In Ararat eat again, you will grow into a poet.
(1990), a series of lyrics that composes a balanced narrative about
the death of her father, bereavement, and the surviving family, the Glcks recent honors for Proofs and Theories: Essays on
mythic references are less explicit, but the resonances remain. Her Poetry (1994) include the 1995 PEN/Martha Albrand award for
family of origin appears as the archetypical family over which rst nonction and honorary Doctors of Letters from Middlebury
looms an ancient, unalterable tragedy. In Wild Iris (1992), which College (1996), Skidmore College (1995) and Williams College
won the Pultizer Prize for Poetry, Glck explores questions of (1993). In July 1998 she became the Preston S. Parish lecturer in
faith and the place of the human in the natural order through a English at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
series of meditative poems in the tradition of Emily Dickinson and
George Herbert. Framed by the diurnal and seasonal cycles, the OTHER WORKS: The Garden (chapbook, 1976). The First Four
book locates itself in Glcks own garden, where everything has a Books of Poems (1995).
voice. Characteristically, these voices are not gentle but tough and
demanding.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brown, M. L., The Love of Form is a Love of
Poems are autobiography, but divested of the trappings of Endings: Poetic Hunger and the Aesthetic Body in Louise Glck
chronology and comment, the metronomic alternation of anecdote (dissertation, 1997). Dodd, E., Reticence and the Lyric: The
and response, wrote Glck in the introduction to The Best Development of a Personal Classicism among Four Women Poets
American Poetry (1993). Her poetry represents a quest for the self of the Twentieth Century (dissertation, 1990). Vendler, H., Part of
in its relation to domestic and natural life, and emotional and Nature, Part of Us: Modern American Poets (1980). Williamson, A.,
spiritual perception. Metaphor and myth authenticate the loss and Introspection and Contemporary Poetry (1984).
transgression that are her poetic resources while they also replicate Reference works: CA (1978). CLC (1977, 1982, 1989).
the predicament of paradox inherent in human knowledge. Her Contemporary Poets (1970, 1975, 1980, 1991). DLB (1980).
language is stark and inward yet lyrical. As Allen Hoey noted, she Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United States
is a devoted lyricist in the tradition of Hopkins and Donne. Her (1995). World Authors (1970).
questions are pragmatic and secular, essential to survival, yet Other references: APR (Jan.-Feb. 1997). Beall Poetry Festi-
ultimately unanswerable. val, Baylor University Department of English: Online, 1999.
115
GODCHAUX AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Bulletin of Bibliography (Dec. 1987). Contemporary Literature In one of Godchauxs short stories, Chains, the protago-
(Spring 1990). Hollins Critic (Oct. 1982). Literary Review (Spring nist is a poor Cajun who owns only a small patch of swampland.
1988). Mid-American Review (1994). Midwest Quarterly: Ameri- Quite different from Anton, the leading character in Stubborn
can Journal of Contemporary Thought (Summer 1983). NR (17 Roots, he is a most unusual sort of landowner in that, although he
June 1978). NYTBR (22 Dec. 1985, 2 Sept. 1990). Parnassus: loves the land, he does not actually work it. Both the Cajun man
Poetry in Review (Spring-Summer 1981). Sewanee Review and Anton, however, are indicative of many of the writers
(Spring 1976). characters, who act on their principles and become dened by
those actions, rather than by tangible rewards or achievements.
NORA MITCHELL,
UPDATED BY KAREN J. MCLENNAN Critics praised both Godchauxs novel and short stories in
her own lifetime. She believed all ordinary experience is eet-
ing. . . . Writing is something to live for. If it is your work you can
hold it with you. Everything else somehow always escapes.
GODCHAUX, Elma Unfortunately, Godchauxs writing career, although noteworthy,
was very brief. She did not begin to write until her daughter was in
Born 30 November 1896, Napoleonville, Louisiana; died 3 April college, and she died prematurely at the age of forty-four.
1941, New Orleans, Louisiana
Daughter of Edward and Ophelia Gumbel Godchaux; married BIBLIOGRAPHY: Goldstein, A., The Creative Spirit, in The Past
Walter Kahn (n.d., divorced); children: one daughter As Prelude: New Orleans 1718-1968 (1968). McVoy, L. C.,
and R. Campbell, eds., A Bibliography of Fiction by Louisianians
Elma Godchaux, daughter of a prominent Louisiana planter and on Louisiana Subjects (1935).
and granddaughter of a Jewish planter and philanthropist, was Other references: New Orleans Times-Picayune (5 April
raised at the Godchaux sugar plantation. The family owned one of 1936, 4 April 1941).
the largest sugar reneries in the world in 1938. Godchaux
attended Radcliffe College and remained in the East for a number DOROTHY H. BROWN
of years, marrying and giving birth to a daughter. The marriage
ended in divorce, and Godchaux again used her maiden name.
After living in New York City for a time, she moved to New
Orleans, where she resided until her death.
GODWIN, Gail
Godchaux published ve short stories and a novel and was at
work on a second novel at the time of her early death. In Stubborn Born 18 June 1937, Birmingham, Alabama
Roots (1936), a novel of the Old South, Godchaux describes the Daughter of Mose W. and Kathleen Krahenbuhl Godwin; mar-
operation of a sugar cane plantation in the 1800s. Her portrayal of ried Ian Marshall, 1965 (divorced)
the herculean efforts, by landowner and workers alike, to protect
the sugar cane crop from devastation by oods indicates Godchauxs
Gail Godwin received her B.A. (1959) in journalism from the
ability to realistically depict people from all classes. The novel
University of North Carolina and her M.A. (1968) and Ph.D.
was reviewed with a considerable amount of praise. The Saturday
(1971) in English from the University of Iowa. From 1967 to 1971
Review of Literature called it a remarkable novel, and the
she taught English at the University of Iowa, and she has lectured
London Times described its characters as being drawn with bold
at the Iowa Writers Workshop. Godwin worked as a reporter for
decision. The uncommon background and the vivid way in
the Miami Herald (1959-60) and as a writer for the U.S. Travel
which the author presents it were noted by the Chicago Daily
Service at the U.S. Embassy in London (1962-65). She has
Tribune.
contributed short stories to Cosmopolitan, North American Re-
Godchaux dedicated her novel to the memory of Edward view, Paris Review, and Esquire.
Godchaux, Louisiana planter, and the book was written after the
Godwins rst novel, The Perfectionists (1970), depicts the
death of her father. The focus of the novel seems to be on the
disintegration of a marriage constructed on philosophical and
planter, Anton, who is drawn from memories of her father and her
psychological theories. The perfectionists in the novel are John
grandfather. Some critics, perhaps looking for a more romantic
Empson, a British psychotherapist, and his new American wife,
gure than Anton, seemed to misread and felt the central gure to
Dane; they are an obsessively analytical couple who use Hermann
be his cruel undisciplined wife, Marie Elizabeth, but it is likely the
Keyserlings Book of Marriage as a yardstick against which to
epic quality of the story of Anton is exactly what the author was
measure their own relationship. What the novel reveals as it
seeking to portray, and what readers of the novel today may nd
explores the dynamics of their relationship is that union and
most interesting in it.
invasion are two sides of the same coin. John sees marriage as a
Godchauxs short stories were rst published by the South- union in which both of the partners reveal the internal moments of
ern Review and the Frontier and Midland, and then were included their lives; Dane wants something akin to a Victorian marriage of
in the Best Short Stories of 1935, the Best Short Stories of 1937, form and individual privacy, and regards her husbands rage for
the O. Henry Memorial Prize Stories of 1936, and other anthologies. union as a personal invasion.
116
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GODWIN
The tensions resulting from their attempts to realize not only American South. Many of her recent works open with the death or
the ideal of a perfect marriage but also some rather vague removal of a family member. This loss drives Godwins charac-
conceptions of personal transcendence are compounded by the ters to create new and more meaningful families around the
presence of Johns three-year-old illegitimate son. Dane comes to resulting void. In A Mother and Two Daughters (1982), the sisters
hate the implacable child for his refusal to contribute to the picture Lydia and Cate Strickland help their mother, Nell, through the
of the ideal family; and when, nally, she almost beats the child to aftermath of the death of their universally loved father. Cate, an
death, one part of her analytical mind is already translating the English professor teaching in the Midwest, returns to the North
cruelty into evidence of a cosmic experience which she can later Carolina town of Mountain City where Lydia has remained.
share with her husband.
Mountain City is also the setting of A Southern Family
In her second novel, Glass People (1972), Godwin again (1987); Clare Quick, a successful author in New York City, visits
explores the relationship of marriage, moving away from the her childhood home and becomes embroiled in the travails of her
representation of the wife as both victimizer and victim to a family after the violent death of her brother Theo. In the novella
portrayal of the wife as the passive possession of a remote and Mr. Bedford and the Muses (1983), another expatriate Southerner,
self-assured husband. Here Godwin evokes the boredom and Carrie Ames, attempts to build a new family in an old house in
malaise aficting Francesca Bolt, of whom her husband, Cameron, London. This story and the ve published with it address issues
requires nothing except she be his awlessly beautiful wife. surrounding familial bonding and the creation of art. Each work in
Francesca seeks emancipation from the stiing atmosphere of her this volume concerns the inspiration of the artist, and Godwin
marriage in brief affairs with chance acquaintances and a tempo- includes an authors note identifying her own inspiration for
rary job as an amanuensis to an eccentric writer until Cameron each story.
rescues her from the dismal consequences of her attempts at
independence and restores her to her place as his adored objet dart. The themes of family, art, and inspiration reappear in The
Finishing School (1985), in which Justine Stokes, a successful
Godwin returns to this depiction of the woman as frustrated actress, looks back on the summer when her fathers death caused
and powerless to act afrmatively in the collection of stories that her and her mother to move from Virginia to the suburban North.
comprises Dream Children (1976). Most of the women in these There Justine meets and is fascinated by Ursula De Vane, a
stories are victimseither of men or of their own unrealized middle-aged woman who introduces her to the beauty and treach-
expectationswho escape into the marginal world of dreams. ery of art.
Godwin appropriates from George Gissing the title of her Father Melancholys Daughter (1991) also takes the per-
third and best-known novel, The Odd Woman (1974), and relies spective of a grown woman looking back on her girlhood. In this
upon the meaning of odd in the sense of unpaired to suggest richly textured work, Margaret Gower reects on life changes
the plight of her protagonist. Armed with a Ph.D. in English precipitated by her young mothers unexpected decision to leave
literature and a collection of melodramatic family stories, Jane her and her father, an Episcopalian priest, to explore the art world.
Clifford visualizes the events of her life either in terms of ctional Margarets recollections blend religion and ritual with Godwins
plots or as a kind of mythologized family history. She nds in the ideas about art, inspiration, and family.
example of George Eliot and G. H. Lewes substantiation for her
belief in a lasting and creative love, and she sees in the tale of her In addition to her published ction, Godwin has provided the
great-aunts elopement with the villain from a traveling melodra- texts for musical compositions by composer Robert Starer and the
ma an appealing prototype of daring passion. Yet as she attempts libretto for his musical morality play, The Last Lover (1977).
to construct her life out of real materials and to give it a Since the 1980s, her work has received increasing critical atten-
comprehensive shape, she realizes that novels can have happy tion. Violet Clay and A Mother and Two Daughters both had
endings and myths can remain beautiful only because, unlike life, National Book award nominations. In 1981 Godwin received an
they omit all the loose ends and most of the mundane details. Award in Literature from the American Institute and Academy of
Arts and Letters.
Traces of The Odd Woman shadow into Godwins next
novel, Violet Clay (1978), where the protagonist who gives the An accomplished novelist, Gail Godwin is most interested in
book its title resembles Jane Clifford in gauging her own life by creating characters who operate at a high level of intelligence and
those of her relatives who gure signicantly in a family myth. feeling as they go about trying to make sense of their world. In her
Unlike The Odd Woman, however, which offers no resolution to ction she most often concentrates on depicting the choices that
the protagonists quest for order and beauty in a lasting relation- modern women make. These choices necessitate compromise,
ship, Violet Clay demonstrates the possibility of laying to rest the and rarely bring complete happiness. Godwins characters often
ghosts from the past and achieving a personal vision of balance explore their options through art as they create or analyze images
and proportion. In this signicant novel, Godwin, often viewed as that may reveal or even change reality.
a womans novelist, has achieved a satisfying picture of
Over the course of 11 novels, collections of short stories, and
a new womanone who realizes successfully her own
three plays, Godwin draws from her own experience to broaden
possibilities.
the scope of contemporary ction. The struggles of women who
Godwin has continued to examine the inner workings of the seek both an independent life and a productive connection to
family, especially those families with some connection to the others are central to her work. Godwin strives in her novels and
117
GOLDEN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
short ction to place those efforts within a larger context, espe- GOLDEN, Marita
cially within the framework of modern theories of art and
psychology.
Born 28 April 1950, Washington, D.C.
As was often true of the central characters in several of Daughter of Francis S. and Beatrice Reid Golden; child-
Godwins earlier novels, Magda Danvers is facing a transformative ren: Michael
event. At the center of Godwins complex story of loss and
mortality, Magda faces what she calls her nal examination in Marita Golden was educated in the 1960s, a time of great
The Good Husband (1994). Under the tutelage of ovarian cancer, political turmoil and change in America. The daughter of a taxi
Magda, a star professor at a college in upstate New York, faces her driver father and landlord mother, Goldens African American
death with wit and her usual amboyant and penetrating intelli- background and the tumultuous times of her schooling years
gence. She is tended by a thoughtful but unreective husband, inuenced her writing. Though originally trained as a journalist,
Francis Lake, who left the seminary at age twenty-one to dedicate she has written novels, poetry, and an autobiography. In her own
himself for nearly a quarter-century to Madga rather than God. As words, I write essentially to complete myself and to give my
Magdas condition worsens, another grieving couple is drawn into vision a signicance that the world generally seeks to deny.
her orbit: Hugo Henry, the colleges writer-in-residence, and his
second wife, Alice, formerly his editor, who have just lost their Golden entered American University in Washington, D.C., in
only child in a tragic home birth. Godwin creates a meditation on 1968, the year the black consciousness movement in America was
the nature of intimacy and inuence, and the differences between reaching its peak. After receiving her B.A. in 1972, she interned at
good matches and good mates. the Baltimore Sun newspaper. In 1973, she received a masters
degree from Columbia University School of Journalism and
Sequels, whether in books or movies, can often be a disap- worked as associate producer at WNET in New York City, from
pointment. Godwin risks the challenge in Evensong (1999). 1974 to 1975, before her marriage to a Nigerian man led her to
Margaret Gower, who rst appeared as the motherless daughter of Africa. In Lagos, Nigeria, she taught as assistant professor of mass
a smalltown Episcopal priest in Father Melancholys Daughter communication at the University of Lagos from 1976 to 1979.
(1991), returns. Margaret herself has also become a priest and is
serving All Saints High Balsam, a parish with a reputation for Upon Goldens return to the U.S., a literary agent who was
being rich and old-fashioned, nicknamed All Saints High Horse impressed with her writings about Africa encouraged her to write
by the surrounding community. Margarets life is stable though a her rst book, an autobiography entitled Migrations of the Heart
bit stale. Godwin weaves an eclectic collection of supporting (1983). While Golden found the prospect of writing an autobiog-
characters as the yeast leavening this tale of work, family, and raphy at the age of twenty-nine somewhat scary, she explains that
growing spiritual responsibility. Godwin draws upon her rich she wanted to meditate on what it meant to grow up in the 1960s,
expertise to examine the daily lives of people alive with conicts, what it meant to go to Africa for the rst time, what it meant to be a
complexities and frailties. modern black woman living in that milieu. I had to bring order to
the chaos of memory. One of the rst accounts of a contempo-
rary African urban experience by a young black American, the
OTHER WORKS: Gail Godwins papers are in the Southern Histori- book focuses on her years in Africa and on her marriage and its
cal Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. dissolution, but also tells of her relations with her family. It met
with mostly favorable reviews.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hill, J., Gail Godwin (1992). Pearlman, M., ed., Goldens rst novel, A Womans Place (1986), traces the
American Women Writing Fiction: Memory, Identity, Family, lives of three black women who meet and become friends at a
Space (1989). Pearlman, M., ed., Mother Puzzles: Daughters and prestigious American college in the 1960s. The novel explores
Mothers in Contemporary American Literature (1989). their relationships and the numerous problems and challenges that
Reference works: Bloomsbury Guide to Womens Literature confront them during 15 years of friendship. The novel was
(1992). CA (1972). CANR (1985). CLC (1978, 1982, 1985). CN widely praised, especially for its believable characters.
(1986). DLB (1980). Great Women Writers (1994). Larousse Long Distance Life (1989) illustrates the transformation of
Dictionary of Women (1996). Larousse Dictionary of Writ- black American culture throughout the 20th century by tracing the
ers (1994). lives of four generations of a black American family. Golden
Other references: Contemporary Literature (Spring 1983). traces the changes and growth of this family as they move from
Hollins Critic (Apr. 1988). Iowa English Bulletin (1987). Iowa North Carolina in the 1920s, to Washington, D.C., in mid-century,
Journal of Literary Studies (1981).Mississippi Quarterly (Winter through the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and
1988-89). NYTBR (7 June 1970, 9 Sept. 1990, 3 Mar. 1991). nally into the tragedies and promises of contemporary America.
Southern Literary Journal (Spring 1989, Spring 1995). Southern
Quarterly (Summer 1983). Golden has also written poetry and her work has been
included in many anthologies. Her writing has appeared in Ms.,
GUIN A. NANCE, Essence, National Observer, Black World, the New York Times,
UPDATED BY E. M. NIX AND CELESTE DEROCHE the Washington Post, and many other publications. Executive
118
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GOLDMAN
director of the Institute for the Preservation and Study of African GOLDMAN, Emma
American Writing from 1986 to 1987, Golden is also a founding
member of the African American Writers Guild and has been
Born 27 June 1869, Kovno, Russia; died 14 May 1940, Toron-
president of the guild since 1986. She has taught at Roxbury
to, Canada
(Massachusetts) Community College and was professor of jour-
Daughter of Abraham and Taube Bienowitch Goldman; married
nalism at Emerson College, Boston.
Jacob Kersner, 1887; James Colton, 1926
In a stunning nonction effort, Saving Our Sons: Raising
Black Children in a Turbulent World (1994), Golden paints a Born to Jewish parents in Russian-dominated Lithuania,
frighteningly clear picture of the trials facing parent raising black Emma Goldman was unwelcome to a father who made a precari-
children. Through the use of her own diaries and interviews with ous living as manager of the government stagecoach and later as
psychologists, writers, . . .and young black mencriminals and an innkeeper. Her mother, whose rst husband had died leaving
scholars both. . . Golden presents the story of her ght to raise two small daughters, had married Goldman out of economic need
her son in a world where children of color face incredible and was just as unhappy at the arrival of another childespecially
challenges. After her divorce, and 10 years in the childs native of a female, when it was her husbands fervent wish to have a son.
Nigeria, Golden took her son to the Washington, D.C. area, away After several family moves and haphazard schooling in German
from the comfort of a warm, extended family. The book, written in and Russian, Goldman was taken to St. Petersburg, where at the
four sections, details the realities of single motherhood, regard- age of thirteen she was forced by the familys poverty to work
less of race. long exhausting hours in glove and corset factories. She neverthe-
less found time to read German, French, and Russian literature
The Edge of Heaven (1997), Goldens fourth novel, is set in and to absorb the radical anticzarist ideas abroad in the Russian
Washington, D.C. and deals with the issues facing three genera- capital.
tions of black women, one of whom is on trial, and one of whom is
a law student. The story unfolds in a mixture of rst and third At seventeen she came to America, where an older married
sister had settled in Rochester, New York. In the late 1880s she
person narrative, but is primarily the story of the law student,
began to attain, as an active anarchist, a charismatic speaker, and a
Teresa. Well-developed characters and commentary on the plight
procient writer and editor, the notoriety which increased until
of black families in America mark this offering.
her deportation by federal authorities at the end of 1919. Although
Revisiting the issues of American single mothers, Goldens A her name appeared less often in American newspapers after World
Miracle Every Day: Triumph and Transformation in the Lives of War I, she continued her battles against injustice everywhere in
Single Mothers (1999) seeks to counter the often negative stereo- the world: at the time of her death she was in Canada collecting
types of families headed by single mothers. Merging her own funds for the Spanish Loyalists whose cause she espoused.
experiences in a household headed by a woman and her experi- Throughout the last decade of the 19th century and the rst
ence as a single mother with interviews of other single mothers two decades of the 20th century, Goldman ailed the society
and adults raised by single mothers, Golden creates an inspiring which knowingly espoused poverty and discrimination, and the
tribute to the adaptive skills of both mother and child and the novel state which exploited the laborer and turned women into minor
support systems they develop to survive and ourish. citizens. She could be counted on to come to the defense of
accused labor leaders and radicals, who were, in her opinion,
usually unable to get a fair trial. In her lecture tours of the country,
OTHER WORKS: Keeping the Faith: Writings by Contemporary
she spoke on such varied subjects as womens rights, birth control,
Black American Women (contributor, 1974). And Do Remember
political violence, the needs of labor, prejudice in the American
Me (1992). Wild Women Dont Wear No Blues; Black Women
courts, the somber condition of American prisons, the social
Writers on Love, Men, and Sex (editor, 1992).
signicance of the Continental and British playwrights, and the
failure of justice in America, where she had come, like so many
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Metzgar, L., et al eds., Black Writers: A Selection others, with high hopes. These are also the subjects on which
Goldman wrote hundreds of pamphlets and articles.
of Sketches from Contemporary Authors (1989).
Reference works: Black Writers (1989). CA (1984, 1999). Goldmans little monthly publication, Mother Earth, which
Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United States ran from 1906 to 1917, when it was conscated by the police, was
(1995). WW of Black Americans (1992). a gady that stung liberals into radical thinking and furnished a
Other references: Black American Literature Forum (Winter voice for anarchists from coast to coast. It was consequently
1990). Black Issues in Higher Education (26 June 1997). Book subject to harassment by various ofcials of justice departments
List (15 Nov. 1997, 15 Feb. 1999). Essence (Nov. 1989). LJ (1 who believed in the kind of law and order that disregarded civil
Mar. 1999). PW (27 Oct. 1997). WP (22 May 1983, 4 June 1983, rights. Besides espousing the cause of women, it was so heretical
30 July 1986, 5 May 1991). as to satirize the great evangelist Billy Sunday and to castigate the
puritanical Comstocks of America who interfered with personal
MARY E. HARVEY, freedom and looked at sex as obscene. Mother Earth, devoted to
UPDATED BY REBECCA C. CONDIT social science and literature, also sought to encourage the
119
GOODMAN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
various art forms in America by printing poetry, literary ex- Rebel in Paradise: A Biography of Emma Goldman (1961).
cerpts, and book reviews. Duberman, M. B., Mother Earth: An Epic of Emma Goldmans
Life (1991). Eastman, M., Enjoyment of Living (1948). Shulman,
Goldman did much personally, as well, to bring knowledge
A. K., ed., Red Emma Speaks (1972). Shulman, A. K., To the
of the contemporary unpublished foreign drama to Americans
Barricades: The Anarchist Life of E. Goldman (1971). Shulman,
through many lectures, included in The Social Signicance of the
A. K., ed., Trafc in Women, and Other Essays on Feminism
Modern Drama (1914). Her autobiography, Living My Life (1931),
(1971). West, R., Introduction to My Disillusionment in Russia
begins with what she considers the unjust execution of anarchists
by E. Goldman (1970).
following the Haymarket Riot in Chicago in 1887 and continues
Reference works: CB (Jan.-July 1940). DAB. NAW (1971).
through various instances of perversions of justice up to the
Sacco-Vanzetti case in 1920. Writing of the denial of their appeal,
Other references: Investigative Activities of the Department
she grieved: It seemed impossible that the State of Massachu-
of Justice, 66th Congress, Vol. 12, Document no. 153 (17
setts would repeat in 1923 the crime Illinois had committed
Nov. 1919).
in 1887.
Although supporting the suffragists, Goldman knew true WINIFRED FRAZER
emancipation would come only when there evolved a great race
of women who could look liberty in the face. She stressed the
need for birth control, condemned the white slave trafc, and saw GOODMAN, Allegra
marriage itself as a kind of enslavement of women, a social
arrangement not synonymous with love but actually antagonistic
to it. She claimed woman has been lulled into a trance by the Born 1967, Brooklyn, New York
songs of the troubadours. . . . And though she is beginning to Daughter of Madeleine and Lenn Goodman; married David
appreciate that all this incense has befogged her mind and para- Karger, 1989; children: Ezra, Gabriel
lyzed her soul, she hates to give up the tribute laid at her feet by
sentimental moonshiners of the past. She was many years ahead In an address given at the1994 meeting of the Modern
of her time in advocating social, economic, and sexual freedom Language Association, Allegra Goodman acknowledged that
and equality for womena cause which was embodied in her my most intimate and immediate audience comes from the
philosophy that individual liberty for all must prevail against the American Jewish community, that in many ways when I write
coercive state. Viewing all government as repressivewhether it ction I am writing not only about them but also for them. In so
be capitalistic or Marxistshe opposed the war fervor of World dening both her readership and the source of her ction, Goodman
War I by holding anticonscription meetings, for which she and her conrms her place in the evolving tradition of American Jewish
longtime friend and comrade Alexander Berkman were sentenced writers at the close of the 20th century. These writers draw equally
to two years in prison and then deported. from the legacy of Yiddish writers such as Sholom Aleichem and
I. B. Singer, who carried the burden of representation of the world
In spite of appeals from Americans as prominent as H. L. of the Eastern European Jew, and those postwar American Jewish
Mencken, Goldman was never allowed in the country again writers such as Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, Grace Paley, and
except for a brief lecture tour of 90 days in 1934. After the Cynthia Ozick, who emerged beyond ethnicity into mainstream
publication of Goldmans My Disillusionment in Russia (1923), American letters.
Mencken wrote that the U.S. sustained a loss by exiling Berkman
and Goldman. He praised their books on Russia and their ability to As an American Jewish writer whose ction is patterned on a
write simple, glowing, and excellent English, and concluded long tradition of both scriptural and secular storytelling, Goodman
America was not so rich in literary talent and honest criticism that draws from the collective memory of the past, a memory, real or
she could afford to kick them out of the country. But an exile this imagined (from One Down), to contextualize the paradoxes
heroic woman remained until her death, when the Immigration of contemporary Jewish life. Her ction resounds with the thun-
Service allowed her to be buried in Chicagos Waldheim Ceme- dering of history (The Four Questions), with Jewish history,
tery near the graves of her Haymarket comrades. a mythic, often religious, at times onerous, certainly contentious
legacy. As a result her ction turns on the complex tensions
surrounding the place of ancient Jewish law and learning in
OTHER WORKS: Anarchism, and Other Essays (1911). My Further contemporary American life and thought, tensions between old
Disillusionment in Russia (1924). My Disillusionment in Rus- and new, between orthodoxy and reform, between piety and
sia (combining the two former books, 1925). Voltairine De secularism, between Judaism and modernism, between tradition
Cleyre (1933). and change.
Goodman has so far produced three volumes of ction: the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Anderson, M., My Thirty Years War (1930). short story collections, Total Immersion(1989) and The Family
Berkman, A., Bolshevik Myth (1925). Berkman, A., Prison Mem- Markowitz(1996), and a novel, Kaaterskill Falls(1998). All re-
oirs of an Anarchist (1912). Chalberg, J., Emma Goldman: volve around the preoccupations of the American Jewish commu-
American Individualist (1991). Drinnon, R., Introduction to nity and all show the inuence of this uid tradition of Jewish
Anarchism, and Other Essays by E. Goldman (1969). Drinnon, R., letters from which she draws. In her rst collection of short
120
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GOODMAN
stories, Total Immersion, published when she was a twenty- The recipient of a Whiting Foundation Writers award in
one-year-old Harvard College undergraduate, Goodman brings 1991, the Salon magazine award for ction, and a Mellon fellow-
to the more established settings and climate of the urban American ship, Goodman received her Ph.D. in English literature from
Jewish writer a distinctive twist, the environment of the Jewish Stanford University in 1997. Her short ction continues to appear
community of Hawaii in which she was raised. For, although born in a number of journals and periodicals, including Commentary
to an Orthodox Jewish family in Brooklyn, Goodman moved at and the New Yorker. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
the age of two to Honolulu, where her parents were academics at
the University of Hawaii. Hawaii forms the exotic setting for most
of the stories in Total Immersion, a seemingly incongruous OTHER WORKS: Writing Jewish Fiction In and Out of the
backdrop for Jewish ritual and custom, in which Goodman Multicultural Context, in Daughters of Valor: Contemporary
chose to present the exotic as familiar. Jewish American Women Writers (1997).
Indeed, a sense of familiarity, of the quotidian, of daily,

recognizable attitudes and responses to contemporary life perme- BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Jewish American Women Writ-
ates Goodmans ction, whether the setting is England, Hawaii, ers: A Bio-Bibliographical and Critical Sourcebook (1994).
California, or the East Coast. In large part she draws upon the Other references: Baltimore Jewish Times (4 Jan. 1991).
familiar as a source of satiric commentary. The Family Markowitz, in Commentary 106 (Dec. 1998). Forward (8 Dec. 1989, 6 Nov.
which Goodman creates recurrent, evolving characters whose 1992). NYT (21 Aug. 1998). NYTBR 103 (30 Aug. 1998). Poets
lives are played out in interlocking, successive stories, is a kind of and Writers 26 (Sept./Oct. 1998). PW 245 (27 July 1998). Studies
postmodern epic in which three generations of Markowitzes in American Jewish Literature 11 (1992). Vogue (Aug. 1998).
from immigrant matriarch Rose to the American-born grand-
daughter Miriam, whose return to the orthodoxy mysties her VICTORIA AARONS
liberal, well-educated parents, Sarah and Ed Markowitzstrug-
gle to maintain autonomy in the midst of the constraints of family
life. Her characters and their responses to the upheavals and
vagaries of contemporary life become a source of comedy. No one GOODMAN, Ellen (Holtz)
escapes Goodmans ironic parody, not the tolerant academic, nor
the would-be converts, nor the expatriate Anglophile, and least of
all the politically correct, all targets of her satiric wit. While The Born 11 April 1941, Newton, Massachusetts
Family Markowitz gets at the heart of tensions specic to Ameri- Daughter of Jackson J. and Edith Wienstein Holtz; married
can Jews at the end of the centuryinterfaith marriages, religious Anthony Goodman, 1963 (divorced 1971); Robert Levey,
observanceit also speaks to the concerns of contemporary 1982; children: Katherine
American life in general: the place of the aged, the intrusions of
popular culture, and the possibilities for self-transformation with- Syndicated columnist Ellen Holtz Goodman has lived all but
in the politics of everyday living. a short period of her life in the Boston area and uses her family,
neighbors, politics, the daily news, and social change as her
Goodmans novel, Kaaterskill Falls, on the other hand, takes subject matter. She is an observer and commentator who tries to
us inside the conscripted and insular world of the ultra Orthodox, make sense of the world; she explores and questions, and although
the followers of the Rav Elijah Kirshner, who leave the city to she offers opinions, she does not always present answers.
summer in a small community in upstate New York. With biblical
resonance, Goodman contemporizes the struggle between two Goodmans social conscience and curiosity were honed in a
brothers vying for their fathers blessing. The tension between family that valued an individuals decisions, and political action.
pious succession and secular transgression, while located in the Her father was a lawyer and politician who served as a state
dichotomous polarizing of the brothers, permeates the Jewish legislator while in his twenties and later ran for Congress. Her
community at large, where the Rav believes there is no room for mother, a homemaker, had a strong sense of the importance of
compromise, there is no sustenance outside the community. This fostering the individual. Goodman and her sister, Jane, who
position, as Goodman so acutely and compassionately articulates, became an architecture critic and journalist, were encouraged to
inevitably is threatened by the seductions of the outside world. do whatever they wanted to do, but doing well in school was
expected.
Goodman is among the new generation of American Jewish
writers whose ction embraces the subtleties of American Goodman grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts, attended the
postmodernity while recognizing the continuing place of Jewish private Buckingham School in Cambridge, and graduated cum
history and identity. While, as Ed Markowitz concedes, the laude from Radcliffe College with a degree in history (1963). A
generations are sort of ipping over (Fantasy Rose), there is, week after graduation she married a medical student and moved to
as Andras Melish insists, nally no way to conceive, to picture, New York, where she was hired at Newsweek as a researcher. All
someone elses life. . .no way to transfer memories (Kaaterskill the researchers were women, Goodman notes. Only men received
Falls). Goodman, however, does exactly that: she recreates be- reporter jobs, a fact she found disturbing. During her two years at
lievable characters whose stories, past, present, and future, con- the magazine, she did some freelance work for the New York
verge indelibly on the pages of her ction. weeklies.
121
GOODSELL AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
When the couple moved to Michigan, Goodman became a insight, not grand pronouncement, was what was most important
reporter for the Detroit Free Press. They returned to Boston in to her. In the late 1990s she began work on a nonction book
1967, where she was hired by the Boston Globe and assigned to about women and friendship, coauthored with the novelist Patri-
the womens pages. Her daughter was born shortly after. When cia OBrien. She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts with her
she divorced in 1971, Goodmans ties with Boston, family, and husband.
friends tightened. In 1972 she began her column, At large, in
the Globe. It attracted broad readership, and by the 1990s was
OTHER WORKS: Close to Home (1979). At Large (1981). Keeping
syndicated in over 440 newspapers.
in Touch (1985). Making Sense (1989). Value Judgments (1993).
Goodman chronicles the changing society in which she lives
and tries to make sense of a complicated world. Her 750-word BIBLIOGRAPHY: Braden, M., She Said What? Interviews with
column is like a conversation with a friend whose opinions are Women Newspaper Columnists (1993). Mills, K., A Place in the
open-ended and who waits for your response. After receiving the News (1988).
Pulitzer Prize in 1980, Goodman wrote that she had a sense of Reference works: CA (1982). Biographical Dictionary of
how much things had changed. Ten years ago, what I write American Newspaper Columnists (1995). WWC (1989-90).
aboutvalues, relationships, womens issues, families, change Other references: Boston Women (Winter 1990). Chris-
would not have been taken seriously by the newspaper world. tian Science Monitor (10 Nov. 1981). Harvard Independent
Later, in the same piece she wrote that her articles deal with (9-15 Apr. 1981). Harvard (Mar.-Apr. 1979). Utne Reader
life-and-death issues in my own home and in the Congress. They (Jan.-Feb. 1999).
discuss matters which are both public and private, argued in the
bedroom and the boardroom, the kitchen and the court: love, JANET M. BEYER,
work, sexuality, children, war, peace. . . .The one constant is a UPDATED BY ANGELA WOODWARD
desire to nd a context and a meaning.
In 1973-74 Goodman spent a year at Harvard University as a
Nieman Fellow, researching the dynamics of social change in GOODSELL, Willystine
personal lives. Subsequently, between 1975 and 1978 she inter-
viewed more than 150 people. The result was Turning Points: Born 8 January 1870, Wallingford, Connecticut; died 31 May
How People Change Through Crisis and Commitment (1979), a 1962, New York, New York
book about how change affects peoples lives, particularly the Daughter of Jacob and Jennie Clark Goodsell
changes brought about by a reexamination of traditional sex roles.
It is her only publication that is not a compilation of previously Willystine Goodsell received her education at the Welch
published newspaper columns. Normal Training School, New Haven, Connecticut, and Teachers
Goodman has won a myriad of awards, including the New College, Columbia University. Her arrival at Columbia was
England Womens Press Association Woman of the Year Award shortly preceded by that of John Dewey. Goodsells early interest
in 1968, the Catherine L. OBrien Award in 1971, the Media in philosophy is evident in her masters dissertation, The Rela-
Award of the Massachusetts Commission on Status of Women in tion of the Individual to Society in the Social Theories of Rous-
1974, and the New England Womens Press Association Colum- seau (1906). The following year William James came to Colum-
nist of the Year award in 1975. In 1980 she won the Pulitzer Prize bia to give a highly successful lecture series on pragmatism.
for commentary, as well as the Distinguished Writing Award from Heavily inuenced by Dewey and James, Goodsells rst
the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Headliners book, The Conict of Naturalism and Humanism (1910), is a
Best Local Column award. In 1988 Goodman received the Hu- history of philosophy tracing its relation to educational theory and
bert H. Humphrey Civil Rights award for dedication to the cause practice in different periods. In a concise, clear style Goodsell
of equality. traces the division between humanists and natural scientists from
the Renaissance, a period dominated by the humanists, to 1910, an
Goodman continued to write her column throughout the
era when scientists were predominant in the U.S. In a nal
1990s, garnering many more awards, including the Presidents
chapter, Goodsell proposes a pragmatic solution to the conict,
Award from the National Womens Political Caucus in 1993. She
one which relates science (testing of knowledge) and the humani-
also taught at Stanford University in 1996 as the rst Lorry I.
ties (study of the past) to the appreciation of the depth and beauty
Lokey Visiting Professor in Professional Journalism. Goodmans
of everyday human life.
voice continued to be one of moderation, and she deplored what
she saw as the polarization of politics in the 1990s, which pitted Goodsells next book, A History of the Family as a Social and
extreme left against extreme right. She insisted such clear-cut Educational Institution (1915, revised 1939), established the
views were not the norm for most Americans, who were ambiva- direction the rest of her books were to take. Her interest now
lent, undecided, or open to question on many major issues. moved toward anthropological or sociological topics. With The
Goodman noted that she was often asked to participate in call-in Education of Women (1923), feminist overtones became obvious.
radio shows where she was expected to give the womens point of With the hopes that more attention would be given to the improve-
view, as if she could represent all female America. But personal ment of the education of women, Goodsell published Pioneers of
122
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GOODWIN
Womens Education in the United States: Emma Willard, Cathe- Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963-1969, was published
rine Beecher, and Mary Lyon (1931). In this volume Goodsell in 1971, yet it does not include many of the personal details
summarizes womens education before 1820, provides detailed Goodwin had discovered through her association with the former
biographical information on each woman studied, and also in- president. Many of these more intimate facts are documented,
cludes selections written by all three. however, in Goodwins rst book, Lyndon Johnson and the
American Dream, which was released in 1976. The book is typical
A History of Marriage and the Family (1935) is a meticulous-
of her work in the way it describes details from her subjects life,
ly detailed study of the family from primitive times through those
such as Johnsons relationship with his parents, and demonstrates
of the patriarchal Greeks and Romans, the Middle Ages, and the
how these traits affected his policymaking and method of governing.
Renaissance. Because of the dominant cultural inuence, the
English family is studied in detail from the 17th to the 20th In 1975 she married Richard Goodwin, an attorney, political
centuries. The greatest attention is given to the American family consultant, and former speechwriter for Presidents Johnson and
from colonial times to the present. An entire chapter outlines the Kennedy. Goodwin began to research a book on John F. Kennedy
difculties of modern marriage, but Goodsell expresses optimism in 1977, which was intended as a biography but blossomed into a
for improved family relationships. Her nal chapter deals with history of the Kennedy and Fitzgerald families that took a decade
governmental and social aid that may help in the interest of to research and write. The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An
[family] stability and happiness. American Saga, published in 1987, contains information to which
Goodwin was able to gain access partly through her husbands
Since Goodsell expresses one of her goals as being to reveal
connection to the family. She delved into a great many unpub-
existing injustices and evils in the marriage relation, she de-
lished papers and conducted interviews with John F. Kennedys
serves to be ranked as an early feminist. At the same time, the
mother, Rose. Goodwins account, which starts with the birth of
breadth and scope of her writingphilosophical, historical, and
Johns maternal grandfather and ends with the Kennedy inaugura-
criticalearn her a place among scholars in the elds of the
tion, was lauded by reviewers for its mass of background informa-
history of education and social anthropology.
tion and fascinating character studies. A 1990 ABC-TV miniseries,
CAROLE M. SHAFFER-KOROS The Kennedys of Massachusetts, was adapted from the book.
Goodwin next tackled the Roosevelts in No Ordinary Time:
Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt; The Home Front in World War
II, which came out in 1994 and won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for
GOODWIN, Doris Kearns History. It focuses on the couples private lives and especially the
relationship between the Roosevelts themselves as well as with
Born 4 January 1943, Rockville Center, New York their associates. Structured more like a novel than her previous
Daughter of Michael Alouisius and Helen Witt Miller Kearns; books and including some previously unpublished material, No
married Richard Goodwin, 1975; children: Joseph, Mi- Ordinary Time is sympathetic to its subjects, as is all of Goodwins
chael, and Richard. work, yet does not ignore the darker sides of the time or the
couples lives.
Doris Kearns Goodwin is a critically praised writer of
Goodwin is known for her objectivity, despite her obvious
historical-biographical books. She is cited for her ability to
admiration forand sometimes personal relationship withthe
capture the private details of her subjects lives, to show how their
people about whom she writes. Each book is cited for its painstak-
personal histories affected their leadership style and ultimately
ing research and inclusion of information that adds to the public
were intertwined with the events that occurred during their period
record. Critics also applaud her emphasis on her subjects rela-
of governance.
tionships with their colleagues, friends, and family, shedding light
Goodwin was born in 1943. Her father, a state bank examin- on how history unfolded at the time. Her accessible writing style
er, instilled in her a love of baseball that would later become the has made her books popular with the general public as well as
theme for her memoir of the 1950s, Wait Till Next Year (1997). In historians, and most titles became bestsellers.
1964 Goodwin received her B.A. from Colby College in Waterville,
Wait Till Next Year, Goodwins memoir of her childhood as a
Maine, and attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government
Brooklyn Dodger fan, describes the events of the 1950s as ltered
at Harvard on a full scholarship, earning her Ph.D. in 1968. In
through her recollections. Despite being a memoir of her own life,
1967 she worked as special assistant to W. Willard Wirtz, the
Goodwin bolstered her account with research, including inter-
secretary of labor, as part of a White House fellowship.
views and a review of her extensive collection of carefully lled-
While working at the White House Goodwin met President in scorecards. This book met with mixed reviews. Florence King
Lyndon Johnson, with whom she had a long and close relation- in American Spectator, for example, faulted her reliance on
ship. She soon became Johnsons special assistant and, through scorecards and interviews rather than her own remembrances,
many late-night conversations toward the end of his term, learned writing, Goodwin brings nothing to the task except the maniacal
much about him and his life. After Johnsons term ended in 1969, thoroughness of her scorecard technique. Ann Hulbert, in the
Goodwin visited him often in Austin, Texas, to assist him in New York Times Book Review, disagrees: Goodwin recounts an
writing his memoir. The resulting book, called The Vantage exemplary coming-of-age story from an often maligned era.
123
GOODWIN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Goodwin has written articles for many publications includ- courtship of Dr. Humphrey Huntoon, who ees England for
ing the New Yorker and New Republic, and contributed to Marc Virginia in the rst years of the 17th century because of a silly
Pachters Telling Lives: The Biographers Art, published in 1979. misunderstanding with his lover, Elizabeth Romney, who soon
She is a guest commentator on NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and also ees to James City. The conversation is particularly
other programs, briey appeared as a television hostess in Boston stilted and pretentious. Sir Christopher (1901) is an unfortunate
during the 1970s, and was featured in the 1994 Ken Burns sequel; but Goodwins attempt to reconcile Catholic and Protes-
documentary, Baseball. Goodwin has taught at Harvard, was tant beliefs and her honest treatments of anti-Catholic sentiment in
assistant director of the universitys Institute of Politics, and held colonial Maryland are interesting. White Aprons (1896) is a
various political posts early in her career. similar romance, set during Bacons rebellion in Virginia in 1676,
and Veronica Playfair (1909) is clearly from the same pen; set in
England during the reign of George I, the novel follows the trials
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference Works: CANR 53 (1997). CBY (1997). of a hero and heroine who are ultimately secretly married at
Other references: American Spectator (Apr. 1998). Journal Alexander Popes villa.
of American History (Sept. 1995, Dec. 1995). National Review
(21 Nov. 1994). NYTBR (26 Oct. 1997). People (31 Oct. 1994). Goodwins impressive contemporary novels reveal a sharp
wit and penetration of character, while her historical ction of the
KAREN RAUGUST same time is pedantic and formulaic. Flint (1897) is the study of a
misperceived young man, Jonathan Edwards Flint, who appears
harsh and cold but is actually generous and reective. Goodwins
treatment of the independent woman he nally marries, Winifred
Anstice, is compelling. While Flint is still slow and rough, Four
GOODWIN, Maud Wilder Roads to Paradise (1904) and Claims and Counterclaims (1905)
are accomplished novels of wit and satire. The latter is at times
Born 5 June 1856, Ballston Spa, New York; died 5 February coincidental and farfetched, but it is psychologically sound and
1935, New York, New York sprinkled with epigrammatic wit.
Daughter of John and Delia A. Wilder; married Almon
Goodwin, 1879 Four Roads to Paradise is certainly Goodwins best work.
The author studies several characters with delicate penetration,
Maud Wilder Goodwin did not begin to write until the age of and various gures come to the fore, gain the readers sympa-
thirty-three and evidently ceased to write for publication at sixty- thiesor at least understandingand then fade properly into the
three, 16 years before her death. Her 30-year literary career was background, as the most admirable characters dominate the end of
productive and varied, but her motivation remains unclear, for few the book. Thus the young, nally self-centered Episcopal priest,
details of her life are recorded. Stuart Walford, controls the rst chapters as he follows Bishop
Altons advice and defers his desire to minister to the lepers at
Goodwin clearly writes for a young or at least naive audi- Molokai; the bishop, wise in the ways of the world, tells him that
ence. Her phrasing is frequently quaint, formally correct, and Selove. . .has many forms. One of them is altruism. To learn
occasionally intimate. Her interest in the past seems in part the world he thinks he wants to reject, Walford goes to New York
nostalgic, but she is at the same time a solid if occasionally and then to Europe, where much of the novel takes place, and is
sentimental scholar. The Colonial Cavalier (1894) contains schol- attracted to Anne Blythe, the bishops niece. Initially selsh,
arly notes as well as a List of Authorities on Southern life Anne is, unlike Walford, a basically good character who befriends
before the American Revolution. The account is entertaining, by stages her dead husbands illegitimate child and nally marries
factual, and suggestive of a mind actively interpreting colonial her shy, reective, honorable lawyer, Fleming. Even Goodwins
history. Historic New York, which Goodwin edited in four vol- minor characters are realistically developed. This ne novel
umes in 1898, is also competent history and hints at a society and a reminds one most of Edith Wharton in its deft handling of
past that fascinated Goodwin in much the same way these forces characters and their society. Along with Goodwins Dolly Madi-
captivated her contemporary, Edith Wharton. son it perhaps best deserves to be read today.
Goodwins nest factual work is her biography of her

relative, Dolly Madison (1896). It is affectionate, generous, and OTHER WORKS: Open Sesame! Poetry and Prose for School Days
occasionally sentimental, but throughout Goodwin presents im- (edited by Goodwin, 1889). Dutch and English on the Hud-
pressive insights along with sound evidence and numerous quota- son (1919).
tions from Dolly Madisons letters and from those of her friends.
Despite its dated qualities, it is a penetrating study of one woman
by another and still seems the best available biography of Dolly BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: A Dictionary of American
Madison. Authors (1904). A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914). A Guide to
Historical Literature (1936).
Goodwins historical novels are generally mechanical, pre-
dictable, and forced. The Head of a Hundred (1895) chronicles the CAROLINE ZILBOORG
124
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GORDON
GORDON, Caroline innocence, while religion became a means of confronting the

abyss, a terrifying image permeating her ction.
Born 6 October 1895, Merry Mount Farm, Kentucky: died The literary milieu at Benfolly Farm appears in several
April 1981 works, particularly The Strange Children (1951), Gordons rst
Also writes under: Caroline Tate novel after her conversion to Catholicism in 1947. It traces the
Daughter of James M. and Nancy Meriwether Gordon; married search for grace in a fallen world. The central intelligence of nine-
Allen Tate, 1924 (divorced 1959); children Nancy year-old Lucy Lewis records the despair and materialism of the
skeptical intellectual world and the need for an order only relig-
Born on her mothers ancestral farm in the Kentucky tobacco ious belief can provide. As Lucy struggles with her own growing
region near Tennessee, the setting for much of her ction, religious awareness, her artist-parents Stephen and Sarah perceive
Caroline Gordon was tutored by her father until she was ten. She their own shallowness after their friend Kevin Reardon converts
then attended his all-boys classical school. In 1916 she received to Catholicism. When a compromised poet runs away with
a B.A. from Bethany College in West Virginia. After teaching Reardons mad wife, Reardons disciplined belief provides a
high school until 1920, she became a journalist for the Chattanoo- vision of the mysterious nature of grace. In the last passage,
ga News. While there she met many of the Agrarians, including Stephen Lewis recognizes in Reardons Catholicism a possible
Allen Tate. salvation for the cynical strange children of the modern South and
Gordon readily identied with the Agrarians traditional of all the desert countries.
conservative values, favoring a stable, hierarchical society based
The salvation that is possible in The Strange Children
on Christianity over an urban, technological society. Gordon
becomes real in The Malefactors (1956). Tom Claibourne, a
became deeply involved in Tates literary world; both spent much
of the late 1920s in Europe on Guggenheim Fellowships. The nonproducing poet, must reevaluate the direction of his life after
Tates raised their daughter Nancy at Benfolly Farm, Tennessee, he leaves his wife Vera for the ambitious and intellectual poet,
entertaining many artistic visitors. Although Gordon and Tate Cynthia Vail. Through the inuence of Catherine Pollard, a
were divorced in 1959, in 1960 they coedited a second edition of symbol of Christian charity, Claibourne discovers that he is bound
their successful and inuential The House of Fiction: An Antholo- nowhere unless he can return to his wife. While in her earlier work
gy of the Short Story (1950, 1960). Both this and Gordons How to the classical Greek world subtly patterned Gordons vision, in The
Read a Novel (1957) adapt many New Critical poetic principles to Malefactors it is the archetypal world of Jungian psychology that
ction. prepares for Claibournes religious conversion, reversing the
pattern of action in Gordons ction from death and destruction
Gordon has spent much of her life as professor and writer-in- to grace.
residence at various colleges. She worked on what she character-
ized as her last novel in the years before her death in 1981, a Gordons worth as a novelist has been too often ignored by
portion of which, The Glory of Hera, appeared in book form in critics. She is more frequently identied as coeditor of The House
1972. Gordons short stories and novels, long out of print, were of Fiction and as Allen Tates former wife than as a creative artist
reprinted in the early 1980s. in her own right. In addition, because her work is usually set in the
South and because of her close association with the Agrarians,
As Ford Madox Fords literary secretary, Gordon nished
her rst novel, Penhally (1931, reissued 1991), acclaimed by Ford critics have tended to dismiss her too easily as a regionalist. Her
as the best novel that has been produced in modern America. It talent for dealing with religious themes and with the themes of
chronicles one hundred years of antebellum Southern culture by male/female relationships and the possibility of creativity in a
tracing the decline of the Penhally estate and the Llewellyn wasteland world has been virtually overlooked by critics who
family. The ancient virtues violently conict with the inevitability miss the broader implications of the South in her ction. Though
of change. Gordon is enjoyed a renewal of interest in the 1980s, her novels,
particularly The Strange Children and The Malefactors, have not
In Aleck Maury, Sportsman (1934, reissued 1996), her most received the attention they deserve. She was as ne a ction writer
popular novel, an old classics teacher, modeled on Gordons as Robert Penn Warren and Allen Tate and should share equally in
father, spends every spare moment hunting and shing. Maurys the acclaim so often accorded the Agrarians and New Critics as
ritualistic, almost sacramental devotion to sport allows him a the generators of the Southern Renascence.
dignity rarely possible in the chaos of the wasteland world which
has replaced the Old South. Only the quest for loveapparent in
many of Gordons women characters, like Maurys wife Molly
OTHER WORKS: None Shall Look Back (1937, reissued 1992). The
provides a similar dignity.
Garden of Adonis (1937). Green Centuries (1941, reissued 1992).
Gordons ction of the late 1930s and the 1940s continued to The Women on the Porch (1944, reissued 1993). The Forest of the
develop her ancestral, regional material; it also reected a grow- South (1945). A Good Soldier: A Key to the Novels of Ford Madox
ing emphasis on sophisticated knowledge in contrast to primitive Ford (1957). Old Red, and Other Stories (1963). The Collected
125
GORDON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Stories of Caroline Gordon (1981, reissued 1999). The Southern whose sentences burst with metaphoric energy. Writing within
Mandarins: Letters of Caroline Gordon to Sally Wood, 1924-1937 the contexts of Roman Catholicism, the Irish-American experi-
(1984). A Literary Friendship: Correspondence Between Caro- ence, and feminism, Gordons work poses increasingly complex
line Gordon and Ford Madox Ford (1999). problems, often centering on the struggle to balance the compet-
The papers of Caroline Gordon (manuscripts and corre- ing claims of the sacred and the profane, of particular and
spondence) are housed at the Princeton University Library. universal love, of the need for personal freedom and connection.
The Church of my childhood that was so important for my
formation as an artist, she noted in 1988, is now gone.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Boyle, A. M., The Unendurable Feminine Con-
Although she regrets the loss of connections with the pastin The
sciousness: A Study of the Fiction of Caroline Gordon (disserta-
Other Side (1989) the power of the Irish immigrant experience has
tion, 1984). Brinkmeyer, R. H., Three Catholic Writers of the
been dissipated by the fourth generationshe often looks to
Modern South (1985). Chappell, C. M., The Hero Figure and the
children as the hope of the future.
Problem of Unity in the Novels of Caroline Gordon (dissertation,
1987). Fraistat R. A., Caroline Gordon as Novelist and Woman of The only child of an Italian-Irish Catholic mother and a
Letters (1984). Golden, R. E., and M. C. Sullivan, Flannery Jewish father who converted to Catholicism, Gordon attended
OConnor and Caroline Gordon: A Reference Guide (1977). Hall,
Catholic schools in Valley Stream, Long Island. Her father died
T. R., Escape from the Abyss: Order in the Fiction of Caroline
when she was seven, but his faith and commitment to the
Gordon (dissertation, 1986). Henderson, M. K. B., Network of
intellectual life were long-lasting inuences. In 1967 Gordon
Resemblances: Fictional Technique in Caroline Gordons The
entered Barnard College (B.A. 1971), where Elizabeth Hardwick
Malefactors (dissertation, 1984). Jones, P. W., The Captive:
encouraged her to write ction rather than poetry. After Barnard,
Caroline Gordons Telling of the Jennie Wiley Legend (thesis,
Gordon earned an M.A. (1973) at Syracuse University and began
1989). Jonza, N. N., A Hunger for Home: The Life and Art of
work toward a Ph.D. in English. While teaching freshman compo-
Caroline Gordon (dissertation, 1993). Jonza, N. N., The Under-
ground Stream: The Life and Art of Caroline Gordon (1995). sition at Dutchess Community College in Poughkeepsie, New
Landess, T. H., The Short Fiction of Caroline Gordon: A Critical York, she began writing Final Payments (1978), which was
Symposium (1972). Makowsky, V. A., Caroline Gordon: A Biog- accepted for publication after Hardwick suggested she change the
raphy (1989). McDowells, F. P., Caroline Gordon (University of point of view from third to rst person.
Minnesota Pamphlet, 1966). Pfohl, D. M., The Search for Identity
Gordons work often chronicles the attempt to nd a moral
in the Fiction of Caroline Gordon and Robert Penn Warren
center in a decentered age. In Final Payments, Isabel Moore, an
(thesis, 1989). Smrcka, T. S., Revisioning the South: Caroline
Irish-American woman, puts her own life aside to minister to her
Gordon and the Female Pastoral (dissertation, 1997). Stuckey,
ailing father. When he dies, she reenters the world and adapts to
W. J., Caroline Gordon (1972). Waldron, A., Close Connections:
the new sexual mores, but seeks expiation for the guilt this causes
Caroline Gordon and the Southern Renaissance (1987). Weaks,
her by taking responsibility for the care of her fathers former
M. L., A Little Postage Stamp of Native Soil in the Upper
South: The Poetry and Fiction of Caroline Gordon, Allen Tate, housekeeper, a selsh and difcult woman. Ultimately, Isabel
and Robert Penn Warren (1992). frees herself from the moral imperative of loving the unlovable
Reference works: American Women Fiction Writers, by making a less costly but hopefully nal payment.
1900-1960 (1997). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the
The demands of charity are also addressed in Men and Angels
United States (1995). Short Story Criticism (1994). TCA, TCAS.
(1985) but with greater complexity and outside the Catholic
Other references: Criticism (Winter 1956). Renascence (Fall
context. Anne Foster, who is not religious, hires Laura, a funda-
1963). SR (Summer 1946, Autumn 1949, Spring 1971, 1980).
mentalist Christian, to care for her children while she works on an
Southern Quarterly (1990).
exhibition catalog. Anne tries to like Laura, but cannot; Laura, out
SUZANNE ALLEN of affection, plots Annes religious conversion. The chapters
alternate between Annes and Lauras points of view, providing a
compelling counterpoint between and among the requirements of
the esh and the spirit.
GORDON, Mary Catherine Gordons characters are also faced with the social expecta-
tions of women in a patriarchal society. Anne struggles to balance
Born 8 December 1949, Far Rockaway, New York motherhood with scholarship, Isabel to escape the grudging
Daughter of David G. and Anna Gagliano Gordon; married self-sacrice of the caretaker role. In The Company of Women
James Brain, 1974 (annulled); Arthur Cash, 1979; children: (1980) ve women are united in friendship by their devotion to a
Anna, David conservative priest, Father Cyprian, who grooms Felicitas, the
daughter of one of the women, to be his intellectual heir. At
Described as a humane, masterly novelist, Mary Cathe- college, however, Felicitas joins another company, also led by a
rine Gordon combines a rich moral imagination with a prose style male guru, a professor who believes in free love. When Felicitas
126
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GORDON
becomes pregnant, she returns to the company of women, though among those she nds dispensable. Although a few critics nd
no longer an acolyte, and her child becomes the groups hope for some of her plotting a bit contrived, some of her characters
the future. lacking in development, and some of her prose uneven, Gordons
Good Boys and Dead Girls (1991), a collection of more than intelligence, her deep and passionate moral sense, and her keen
two dozen reviews, essays, and journal entries written between eye for nuance and detail have earned her a large following among
1978 and 1989, manifests clearly what the Economists reviewer the reading public. She received the Janet Kafka Prize for Fiction
called Gordon s erce intelligence and her own struggle to in 1979 and 1982 and her books have been widely translated. She
dene the moral life. Her ambivalence toward Catholicisma is currently the Millicent C. McIntosh Professor of English at
rejection of authoritarianism and patriarchy but an acceptance of Barnard College and teaches there three times a week, stating that
mysteryas well as her insights into contemporary social and her students give her hope.
literary issues are evident here. The title essay extends Leslie
Fiedlers observation that in literature by American males, men
avoid domesticity by heading for the frontier in the company of
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cooper-Clark, D., ed., Interviews with Contem-
other men. In a review, Wendy Martin pointed out antinomianism,
porary Novelists (1986). Day, F., ed., Mary Gordon (1996).
the conviction that subjective experience is as important as
Reference works: CA (1981). CBY (1981). DLB (1980).
religious doctrine, not only explains this phenomenon more
fully but also reects Gordons own tendency to trust experience DLBY (1981). FC (1990). Oxford Companion to Womens Writ-
over dogma. Gordon has also written introductions for reprints of ing in the United States (1995).
writings by Virginia Woolf, Stevie Smith, and Edith Wharton. Other references: America (14 May 1994, 15 Aug. 1998).
Christian Century (20 Nov. 1985). Commentary (June 1985).
Gordons short ction, most of it collected in Temporary Commonweal (12 Aug. 1988, 17 May 1991). Critique (Summer
Shelter (1987), has been received somewhat less enthusiastically 1986). Cross Currents (Summer/Fall 1987). Economist (15 June
than her novels and criticism. Several of the short stories, includ-
1991). Essays in Literature (Spring 1990). Literary Review (Fall
ing the title story, are memorable, however, as are the three
1988). Newsweek (1 Apr. 1985). NYTBR (31 Mar. 1985, 28 Apr.
novellas included in The Rest of Life (1993).
1991, 8 Aug. 1993). Ploughshares (Fall 1997). Poets and Writers
The Shadow Man: A Daughters Search for Her Father (July-Aug. 1997). PW (8 Aug. 1994). Sewanee Review (Spring
(1997) presents Gordons quest to know her father, who died 1979). Signs (Autumn 1988). Time (27 May 1996). TLS (1
when she was seven years of age. The book details the results of Sept. 1978).
the authors agonizing journey and the surprising results of her
research. The man with whom Gordon had spent most of her rst
ANGELA DORENKAMP,
seven years (father and daughter were inseparable) was not the
UPDATED BY REBECCA CONDIT
Harvard-educated intellectual she believed him to be, but rather a
high school dropout and rabid anti-Semite who had been support-
ed almost exclusively by his disabled wife, a victim of polio.
Gordon summarizes her feelings: I confronted that ghost, and he
is both more terrible than I had thought and not as terrible as I had
feared. And I think in giving up an idealized father, I stopped GORDON, Ruth
being, most importantly, a daughter.
Praised by critics as erotic and highly intelligent, Spend- Born 30 October 1896, Wollaston, Massachusetts; died Au-
ing: A Utopian Divertimento (1998) takes the protagonist, Monica gust 1985
Szabo, on a ride to the heights of the art world. Szabo, a painter in Daughter of Clinton and Anna T. Ziegler Jones; married Grego-
her fties, jokingly laments in a public lecture that female artists ry Kelly, 1927 (died); Garson Kanin, 1942
are rarely the beneciaries of a museone who offers physi-
cal and nancial support to the career artist. When a handsome,
wealthy audience member challenges her statement and offers his An only child, Ruth Gordon grew up in a small New England
services, she is launched into the most productive period of her town. At eighteen, she went to New York hoping for a career on
career. True to the religious overtones of Gordons work, Szabos the stage and the next year won her rst professional role as Nibs
rise to fame results from a set of eight paintings that depict in Maude Adamss 1915 production of Peter Pan. Several years
Christs condition after removal from the cross as postcoital rather of playing ingenues in touring companies followed, until Guthrie
than dead. In order to create her subject in realistic terms, Szabo McClintic cast her as the shy spinster, Bobbie, in the 1927
enthusiastically embarks on appropriate research. If there is a Broadway production of Saturdays Children. This was succeed-
message here, it is that despite her lifelong quest to experience ed by a long series of varied roles. After the death of her rst
the REAL thing in life, Szabo ultimately learns that the real husband she married Garson Kanin, with whom she wrote and
things in life are some of the simplest.
produced plays. The two of them also coauthored scripts for three
Mary McCarthy, Ford Madox Ford, J. F. Powers, and Virgin- lms: A Double Life (1947), The Marrying Kind (1952), and Pat
ia Woolf are among the writers Gordon admires, John Updike and Mike (1952).
127
GORNICK AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Her writing is largely based on autobiographical material and OTHER WORKS: Years Ago (1946). Ruth Gordon: An Open Book
reects a strong theatrical sense. Her plays are comic in structure, (1980). Shady Lady (1981, 1983). Children of Darkness: A True
revealing a good ear for the clever line, but the total effect evolves Story (1988).
more from situation than from witty dialogue. Over 21 (1944) was
derived from her early marital experience with Kanin, when he
served in the army during World War II. The leading characters BIBLIOGRAPHY: Groutt, K. M., A Metahealth Analysis of the
Gordon herself, Kanin, Herbert Bayard Swope, and a number of Lives of Gwendolyn Brooks, Dorothy Day, Ruth Gordon, Anas
army acquaintanceswere easily recognized by New York audi- Nin, and Georgia OKeeffe (dissertation, 1986).
ences. Topical references, amusing situations, and her own highly Reference works: CB (April 1943, April 1972).
stylized characterization combined to make it a Broadway Success. Other references: Cinema (1976). NYTM (12 Jan. 1947,
In 1939 Gordon found a diary she had kept as a stagestruck 5 Oct. 1969). Ruth Gordon: My Side (audiocassette, 1970, 1979).
high school girl and at the suggestion of Edward Sheldon, used it Ruth Gordon Talks About Greta Garbo and Her Own Life
as the basis for several articles published in Forum and the (audio, 1977).
Atlantic Monthly. She returned to the material again for another
successful comedy, Years Ago (1946). In this play, the setting is HELENE KOON
Wollaston, the characters are called by their actual names, and the
only alteration of fact is in the compression of time to t the
dramatic form.
Gordons third play, The Leading Lady (1948), written with GORNICK, Vivian
Kanin, was not as popular as the other two. Here, too, she utilizes
events from her own life to demonstrate a favorite thesis, namely,
the necessity for an individual to be self-sufcient. The plot, Born14 June 1935, Brooklyn, New York
however, is thin, the scenes so romanticized as to lack substance, Daughter of Bess and Louis Gornick; married (divorced)
and, except for a nostalgic portrait of Alexander Woollcott, the
characters are sentimental recreations of companions she knew in Vivian Gornick earned a B.A. from the City College of the
her years of touring companies. City University of New York in 1957 and an M.S. from New York
University in 1960. Like many of her female writing colleagues,
Gordon wrote several autobiographical books, including
she began her career as a teacher, as an instructor in English at the
Myself Among Others (1971) and My Side: The Autobiography
State University of New York at Stony Brook (1966-67), then at
of Ruth Gordon (1976, reissued 1986), are collections of
Hunter College of the City University of New York (1967-68).
reminiscences, mostly of persons and events connected with
Periodically throughout her career she has had one-year guest
Gordons professional life. The rst, written in a rapid-re,
teaching appointments, such as one at Yale University, where she
staccato style, is a series of brief sketches, personal glimpses of
taught literature from a feminist perspective. Her writing career
well known people, descriptions of places, and comments on the
began with a position as staff writer for the Village Voice in New
world at large, punctuated with observations directed to the
York City from 1969 to 1977; since then she has worked freelance.
reader. It is essentially a self-portrait revealing an energetic
She is a member of P.E.N. and the Authors Guild.
woman who unashamedly enjoys the fact she has achieved her
ambitions and has no intention of retiring into a comfortable Gornicks rst book, Women in Sexist Society: Studies in
oblivion. Power and Powerlessness (1971), was coedited with Barbara K.
My Side is a vivid recounting of Gordons life, although not Moran. She collaborated on the introduction and contributed the
in chronological order. The emphasis is almost entirely on her article Woman As Outsider, which became one of the two
professional experience, and the personal elements are related most widely read books from the early years of feminisms
only as they relate to the theater. She is frank, almost brutally second wave (beginning in the 1960s and, in some ways, still
honest in discussing her early struggles and failures, her marriage continuing). Along with the Sisterhood is Powerful anthology,
to Kelly, her abortions, and her love affairs with Arthur Hopkins edited by Robin Morgan, Women in Sexist Society formed a
and Jed Harris. It is an uneven, at times confusing story, but it is a framework from which early womens studies courses were
unique view of a kaleidoscopic and genuinely theatrical personality. launched.
Gordons work is neither profound nor timeless, but it is Gornick and Morans book included such famous essays as
amusing, distinctly theatrical, and representative of an important Psychology Constructs the Female by Naomi Weisstein, The
as well as fascinating era of American drama. Yet she is probably Paradox of the Happy Marriage, by Jessie Bernard, and Why
best known as Maude from the quirky lm Harold and Maude, Are There No Great Women Artists? by Linda Nochlin. Gornicks
rst released in 1971, which on to become a cult classic and was feminism has continued to fuel her writing. She had an essay in the
released on home video in 1994. rst regular (July 1972) issue of Ms. and continued to write for it.
128
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GORNICK
She was a regular contributor to the Nation and the New York [of women in science]. . .and that recently some of those lives
Times Magazine, where her Who Says We Havent Made a have started. . .beating time to a new tune.
Revolution? (about the feminist movement) was the cover story
on 15 April 1990. Other venues for her critical or analytical pieces Since 1983 Gornick has published Fierce Attachments: A
have been the American Scholar, Utne Reader, and the New York Memoir (1987), Approaching Eye Level (1996), from which her
Times Book Review. essay on fearing loneliness was published in Utne Reader, and
The End of the Novel of Love (1997), a series of critical essays on
Gornick is the author of seven other books. In Search of Ali novelists (Kate Chopin, Jean Rhys, Willa Cather, Grace Paley,
Mahmoud: An American Woman in Egypt (1973) resulted from a George Meredith, Raymond Carver, Jane Smiley, and others) that
sojourn in Egypt, where Gornick lived with the family of a close aim to prove Gornicks thesis that romantic love can no longer be
Arab friend of hers. The book, according to reviewer Sara the center of a novel, that today, love as a metaphor is an act
Blackburn in Ms., is about a society in which family relation- of nostalgia, not of discovery.
ships and personal friendships take precedence over the acquisi-
As the range of her publication indicates, Gornick is proof
tion of material goods, success, and the abundance of leisure
again that those who want to be writers, if they pursue it with
activities that some other cultures nd so appealing. Gornick
discipline and without distraction, can succeed. By her own
observes and describes the sexism that locks Egyptian women
testimony, she was not immune to the distraction and lack of focus
into a denition of themselves only in relation to their male
that so many women writers testify to, but she apparently had two
counterparts. Yet, as an outsider, Gornicks chief interest during
means of salvation: rst, she did not have the responsibilities of
the Egyptian visit was the male society where she, as an American
marriage and motherhood that seem to frequently hobble wom-
journalist, could be and was. . .eagerly accepted.
ens career pursuits, and second, she was and is passionate about
In The Romance of American Communism (1977), Gornick ideas.
reported on a year of interviewing Americans who had been In an interview in Publishers Weekly she said her Yiddish
involved with American Communism, either as card-carrying teacher told her: Ideas, dolly, ideas. Without them, life is
members, fellow-travelers, sympathizers, or simply interest- nothing. With them, life is everything. The explosion of an
ed observers. Gornicks interest in the subject came from the fact idea inside you, that sudden consciousness, is everything, she
that her parents had been sympathizers and that she herself had continued. In addition, she apparently found her lifes passion in
been a member of the Labor Youth League, and from her sudden feminism, which, in turn, helped to fuel the ideas which have
realization in the mid-1970s that the subject fascinated her. I driven her writing commitments.
wanted to show how human they [her interviewees] were and how
varied their experiences had been, Gornick said. The great
thing about them all was their tremendous vitality. They were OTHER WORKS: Essays in Feminism (1978). Women in Science:
people who cared very deeply about living and about living 100 Journeys into the Territory, revision of the 1983 book, with a
serious lives. It wasnt until the 1980s that the subject of the new title (1990). Fierce Attachments (1988, reprinted 1997).
dearth of women in the scientic professions moved to the front
consciousness of feminists and others concerned with the exclu-
sion of talent from sex-biased workplaces. Gornick stepped in BIBLIOGRAPHY: American Literary History (Spring 1998). Ameri-
with a signicant book, Women in Science: Portraits from a can Scholar (Winter 1999). Atlantic (June 1979). CA 101 (1981).
World in Transition (1983). Drawing on both careful research and Commonweal (23 Apr. 1982, 13 Feb. 1998). Ms. (July 1979, Apr.
interviews with 100 women of all ages who have pursued or are 1982, Oct. 1983, June 1987). Nation (23 Sept. 1978, 18 Nov.
trying to pursue scientic careers in a variety of disciplines, 1978, 6 Nov. 1995, 21 Oct. 1996, 22 Sept. 1997, 26 Jan. 1998).
Gornick produced a book that Ruth Schwartz Cowan in the NYTBR (16 Jan. 1983, 2 Oct. 1983, 22 Nov. 1987, 16 Sept. 1990,
Quarterly Review of Biology said was not a sociological study of 31 July 1994, 13 Oct. 1996). NYT Magazine (10 Jan. 1971, 14 Jan.
women scientists, in the sense that the sample is not random, and 1973, 15 Apr. 1990, 2 Mar. 1997). New Yorker (9 Sept. 1996).
the questionnaire not standardized. . . .Yet it is sensitive, insightful, Physics Today (Sept. 1984). Quarterly Review of Biology (June
stimulating, and thought-provoking. . . . 1991). Utne Reader (Sept.-Oct. 1989, Nov.-Dec. 1996). Yale
Review (Oct. 1998).
Women in Science is full of sobering statistics on the low
percentages of women earning science degrees at all academic
JOANNE L. SCHWEIK
levels, on the high unemployment rate of those same women, and
on the inequity in promotion and tenure for women in science.
Because of these statistics and the stories of the women them-
selves, Cowan recommended that the book be assigned to students
to read, because it is career counseling of the most salient sort: GOTTSCHALK, Laura Riding
reminding us that there are living, breathing, painful, joyous lives See JACKSON, Laura
129
GOULD AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
GOULD, Hannah Flagg Goulds work: Alone I walked the ocean strand; / A pearly shell
was in my hand: / I stooped and wrote upon the sand / My name
the yearthe day. / As onward from the spot I passed. / One
Born 3 September 1789, Lancaster, Massachusetts; died 5 Sep- lingering look behind I cast; / A wave came rolling high and fast, /
tember 1865, Newburyport, Massachusetts And washed my lines away. Simple and moral, these poems
Daughter of Benjamin and Griselda A. Flagg Gould have a gentle charm in which the didacticism is mellowed by the
authors unassuming tone.
Hannah Flagg Gould lived most of her life in Newburyport,
as the housekeeper and companion of her widowed father. A quiet
and retiring person, she was nevertheless a central gure in the OTHER WORKS: The Golden Vase: A Gift for the Young (1843).
intellectual life of the community. She contributed poems to Gathered Leaves (1846). New Poems (1850). The Diosma (1851).
periodicals which her friends collected and published as Poems The Youths Coronal (1851). The Mothers Dream, and Other
(1832). After the unexpected success of this book, she published Poems (1853). Hymns, and Other Poems for Children (1854).
several more volumes of poetry. Although her poems were fairly Poems for Little Ones (1863). Poems for Children (1870).
popular, her reputation did not endure.
Gould was best known for her short, simple poems about the BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gould, B. A., The Family of Zaccheus Gould of
childs world. She wrote about children because she saw them as Topseld (1895).
closest to the spirit of God. In her poems, children express moral Reference works: Career Women of America, 1776-1840
truth, and their innocence makes them receptive to the Divine (1972). Daughters of America (1883). NCAB. Oxford Companion
Will. Goulds interest in the childs spiritual sensibility may have of Womens Writing in the United States (1995). Poets of Essex
been stimulated by the work of William Blake. She copied into her County, Mass. (1889). Womans Record (1853).
commonplace book his poems about children, most notably The Other references: Baltimore Literary Monument (Nov. 1838).
Chimney Sweeper and The Tyger. She quoted admiringly New England Historical and Genealogical Register (Jan. 1866).
Blakes remark that my business is not to gather gold, but to North American Review (Oct. 1835). Southern Literary Messen-
make glorious shapes expressing God-like sentiments. But ger (Jan. 1836).
where Blakes children show A world in a grain of sand / Heaven
in a wild ower, Goulds children express conventional pieties.
MAUREEN GOLDMAN
She lacked Blakes imagination, power, and skill, and so the
children in her poems are often merely pathetic rather than
visionarytheir insights sentimental and didactic rather than
profound.
Gould also wrote about the American past, contemporary GOULD, Lois
manners, and nature. The historical poems are mostly about the
American Revolution or Americas religious and ethnic minori- Born New York, New York
tiesthe Quakers, the Native Americans, and others. The most Also writes under: Lois Benjamin
famous was The Rising Monument (1840), a poem commemorat- Daughter of Jo Copeland; married Robert E. Gould (divorced);
ing the battle of Bunker Hill, which in dignied iambic pentame- another marriage (divorced); children: two
ter tells of the Patriot souls / That from thy native spot arose to
God. . . / This last high place by freedoms martyrs trod.
Lois Goulds nonction is both graceful and biting. A
The poems about the contemporary scene focus on manners feminist who operates effectively both inside and outside the
and morals. While the patriots of the historical poems were establishment, Gould celebrates the womens movement with
virtuous and valued honor, Goulds contemporaries, she thought, insight and without parochialism. A collection of her magazine
were caught up with progress and preoccupied with wealth. As pieces, Not Responsible for Personal Articles (1978), refutes the
with most of her works, those poems about American history and charge that feminism lacks humor; it surveys many aspects of the
contemporary manners are marred by excessive sentiment and contemporary scene (such as charge accounts, health club addic-
didacticism. tion, burglary) with penetrating insight, thoughtfulness, and wit.
The best of Goulds poems are the nature poems, many of Goulds ction depicts urban women and their feelings about
which were written for the entertainment and instruction of themselves, often capturing them in moments of crisis. Using both
children. The most attractive are The Frost, The Pebble and realistic and fabulistic styles, Gould effectively conveys the
the Acorn, The Ground Laurel, and A Name in the Sand. ambience of slick people leading slick lives. The typical protago-
The latter illustrates the quiet gentleness which marks the best of nist often struggles against this fakery. Gould is not afraid of
130
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GOULD
happy endings; a note of restrained optimism underscores the was Jorge Luis Borges description of the power of Juan and Eva
difculty of achieving fully realized humanity in an essentially Pern over Argentina. Referencing this observation and reecting
inhumane society. the magic realism of contemporary Latin American ction, in La
Presidenta (1981) Gould follows the progress of an impover-
Julie Messinger in Such Good Friends (1970) must face the
ished, beautiful girl detailing her power over the media, her life
end of the marriage that served her as a symbol of emancipation
with the president, her hold over her country, her untimely death.
from a self-loathing traceable to one of ctions most damaging
Corruption, sex, abuse, intrigue, and violence play against a
mothers. As her husband lies in a comathe result of medical
background of poverty and wealth, hope and despair. Goulds rich
miscalculation during purportedly simple surgeryJulie is forced
use of language and imagination and of history that borders on
to reevaluate their relationship and their corps of glib friends.
fantasy and her vivid characterizations make it possible to put
Discovering Richards secret record of extramarital affairs, she
truth at a distance without judgement. We know we are not meant
learns many of the women in their circle have been his partners.
to take the story literally.
Once deciphered, the diary is childishly explicit, and it symbolizes
the false code of their union, which has caused her to blame Subject to Change (1988) is entirely myth; least like Goulds
herself for Richards failures as husband and father. In the course other novels, it was accurately called by one critic an adult
of the novel, Julie struggles through stages of self-pity, disbelief,
fairytale. A childish king, a childless queen, an aging mistress, a
retaliation, and anger toward self-sufciency and understanding.
mystical dwarf, and a wandering sorcerer inhabit a medieval
She is at least partially successful. Full of blunt sexuality, pain,
kingdom. The marks of a classical fairy tale are here: magical
humor, and truth, Such Good Friends is a remarkable book.
herbs, potions, secret gardens, labyrinths, foolish battles, stolen
The Lowen sisters, protagonists of Necessary Objects (1972), property, and a mysterious birth. The pope and a heretical cult
never seek genuine understanding; instead, they collect posses- play a mysterious role. The dwarf MorgantinaA tiny monster.
sions, counting among them husbands and children. Each of the A gargoyleis sent to the queen as a gift: Morgantina is the
four sisters was once potentially capable and productive, but the queens toy and she is cruelly treated. Her limbs are severed by the
society about them, symbolized by their father, has transformed queen in sport, and grow back. Morgantina also has the signicant
them into cold champion consumers, destructive to themselves power and great cunning of a sorceress. Goulds language and
and to others. Less successful than Such Good Friends, this novel syntax add to the intrigue. Questions are asked and not answered.
nevertheless offers some fascinating characterizations (Alisons The ending, the last line tells us, is subject to change.
husband, Chad Batchelder, for instance) and some memorable
scenes, including the staff conferences at Lowens department store. Medusas Gift (1991) combines the styles of La Presidenta
and Subject to Change. Fame, sex, power, history, and myth are
Goulds Final Analysis (1974) takes its unnamed protagonist again the means Gould uses to tell the story. Marilyn Monroe
through therapy, which includes a long-term affair with her could, but might not be the lead character, Magdalen. Medusa, the
equally troubled analyst. Each of the lovers must achieve some coldly beautiful Gorgon, swims in the waters off an Aegean
valid sense of self before the relationship can become healthy, and island; her poisonous sting can be fatal. The island is the reality
their struggle to do so is touching and funny. Goulds central where playboys, power brokers, has-beens, artists, and writers
character suffers Dr. Foxxs immaturity a bit longer than is wholly live and where Magdalen comes seeking privacy. Or is it Magdalen?
believable, but she remains convincing largely through the telling Filmmakers and movie historians follow, pursuing the rumor and
passages depicting the writer coming to terms with her real work. her legend or myth. Sex, mystery, and carefully placed hints are
the tools she uses to keep them interested. Medusa, the myth,
A Sea-Change (1976) is a commanding and powerful fable
strikes and apparently destroys the vulnerable Magdalen. Gould
tracing Jessie Watermans transformation from photographers
model and model wife into the founder of a new family living a again asks questions that have no answers, plays with syntax,
vastly different life. As Jessie comes to understand social and illuminates and hides through lush language.
sexual power as it is used against her, she also learns to use it
Goulds eighth novel No Brakes (1995) is set at a car rally in
herself. Couched in mythic terms, making vivid use of sexual and
the dark countryside of Northern Ireland. The protagonist, an
name imagery, the book depicts the emergence of the new Jessie
American woman named MaryJo, joins her sons best friend,
from the eye of Hurricane Minerva. It is a stunning variation of the
Ludo, as navigator for the event. She is fascinated by the charis-
maturation novel. Jessies strength and determination also effect
matic Ludo. Unable to resist the chance to spend several days with
profound changes in her daughters, Robin and Diane, and in her
him, she embarks on an adventure that slowly reveals itself to be
friend and lover, Kate.
fraught with more danger than simply that supplied by speed. One
In her novels since 1980, Goulds style has continued to of the participants is Princess Victoria, a rebellious British royal
move toward the fanciful, a mix of reality and fantasy. As she who may be the target of terrorists, or who may herself be
turns to historical gures and mythical kingdoms, her language hatching a plot to terrorize the family she hates. It also appears
becomes rich and sensuous, her imagery deeper and more ob- Ludo may not only be part of the plot but may be carrying
scure. Mythology acted out for the love of the lower middle class explosives in his car.
131
GRAFTON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Gould is the daughter of Jo Copeland, Americas rst famous her fathers inuence on her literary life, telling a 1995 People
fashion designer. Sixteen years after her mothers death, Gould reporter she had regrets that she had never, as an adult,
wrote Mommy Dressing: A Love Story, After a Fashion (1998), a discussed writing techniques with him. Shes also been open
retrospective of her life as the daughter of the noted designer. about her parents alcoholism and her feeling that she coped with
Brought up in wealth and with the best of everything, Goulds it by becoming self-reliant.
parents were divorced when she was three. Her mother had a
Before Grafton turned to the detective genre, she wrote two
difcult time with intimacy, which comes through loud and clear
published novels, Keziah Dane (1967) and The Lolly-Madonna
in this tale. Gould was often lonely, her parents never attending a
War (1969). The rst was reviewed as promising; the second was
school function or birthday party. She describes Mommy Dressing
panned. It led, however, to a spot in Hollywood adapting The
as an account of my mother; of her mysterious, splendid life in
Lolly-Madonna War to a screenplay for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
fashion; of my own sad childhood at the dark fringes of that
From there, Grafton moved on to further screenplay writing. Over
shining world. It is done with applaudable equanimity in
the next 12 years, she scripted episodes for a variety of television
Goulds stunning prose, and is an interesting, honest read, regard-
series, including the popular situation comedy Rhoda.
less of whether the reader is familiar with its characters.
Grafton never liked working in Hollywood, telling a 1998
Gould is an able writer with a ne mastery of detail and
Publishers Weekly interviewer she hated the democratic process
dialogue; her observations are cogent and worthy of continuing
[of the industrys writing collaborations] where everybody got a
close attention.
vote. She especially hated the fact that nonwriters had clout over
her scripts. Nevertheless, while in Hollywood, she accrued nu-
OTHER WORKS: Sensible Childbirth (with W. L. Fielding, 1962). merous screen credits, including Sex and the Single Parent (1979)
So You Want to Be a Working Mother! (1966). X: A Fabulous and a television movie adaptation of Agatha Christies Caribbean
Childs Story (1978). Mystery (1983).
In 1978 one of her teleplay cowriters, Steven F. Humphrey,
became her third husband. She had married the rst time while
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1990). CANR (1990).
still an English major at the University of Louisville; from this
MTCW (1991). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the
marriage, she has one child. She married a second time in 1961,
United States (1995). WW in Writers, Editors and Poets (1989).
moved to California the next year, and has two children from that
Other references: Book World (21 June 1970). Chicago
marriage.
Tribune Book World (19 September 1976). LJ (15 Feb. 1997). Ms.
(Feb. 1978, July 1981). NYTBR (15 Oct. 1972, 14 Apr. 1974, 19 She wrote A Is for Alibi while working through the rage of a
Sept. 1976, 26 Feb. 1978, 31 May 1981, 10 July 1988, 27 Oct. six-year child custody battle with her second husband. Routing
1991). People (7 July 1997). PW (3 Feb. 1997). Time (4 July her anger through the novel, she created a hero fashioned after
1988). WPBW (24 May 1981, 17 July 1988). herself, a twice-divorced, brunette Southern California woman.
At the time, with little knowledge of the real world of a private
JANE S. BAKERMAN, eye, she built her alphabetical world, instead, around the charac-
UPDATED BY JANET M. BEYER AND REBECCA C. CONDIT ter. Being female was the one area where I felt I knew what I was
talking about, Grafton said in a 1990 Publishers Weekly inter-
view, and what I did in essence was to make myself my prime
character. At the end of A, Kinsey Milhone emerges from a
GRAFTON, Sue garbage can and, at point-blank range, shoots the bad guy, who is
modeled after Graftons second husband.
Born 24 April 1940, Louisville, Kentucky Though Kinsey Milhone has aged only one year every
Daughter of Cornelius W. and Vivian Harnsberger Grafton; two-and-a-half books, beginning at age 32 in 1982, the character
married twice and divorced; Steven F. Humphrey; child- has evolved. In fact, one of Graftons goals for her hero, she told
ren: three the New York Times, was to let her grow and change. And she
has, with new relationships and situations being informed by
Sue Grafton changed the face of ctional hardboiled private those in previous books. At the same time, her deepening expert-
eyes with the introduction of Kinsey Milhone, a Southern Califor- ise is fueled by Graftons aggressive research into guns, self-de-
nia private investigator who is savvy, irreverent, and female. For fense, and police procedure.
this heroic adaptation of the previously male-centered genre,
Grafton has been called a pioneer, and her book A Is for Alibi Grafton has portrayed her belief that detective genre heros
(1982) a landmark novel. can be more than light entertainment. She told Publishers Weekly
she sees the ctional private eye as an observer. . .who com-
Grafton grew up amidst detective stories in a book-lled ments on society and on family relationships and on the state of
household. Her mother, a high school chemistry teacher, was a justice. Indeed, as her hero moves through Santa Teresa, a town
voracious reader; and her father, an attorney, wrote one novel and based on Santa Barbara, California, she sees the underside of
three detective mysteries. Grafton has frequently acknowledged society and does her utmost to clean it upa heros efforts.
132
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GRAHAM
Grafton has won numerous awards for her alphabetical series, Antigua in 1772, leaving Graham with three daughters under ve
including at least ve Doubleday Mystery Guild awards (DMGA). years and a son who was born shortly after his fathers death.
The series includes A Is for Alibi (Mysterious Stranger award), B Returning to Scotland, Graham taught and successfully adminis-
Is for Burglar (Shamus and Anthony awards, 1985), C Is for tered a large boarding school in Edinburgh. It was upon the
Corpse (1986), D Is for Deadbeat (1987), E Is for Evidence recommendation of Dr. Witherspoon that Graham moved to New
(DMGA, 1988), F Is for Fugitive (DMGA, Falcon award, 1989), York City and in 1789 established a school for young women.
G Is for Gumshoe (DMGA, Shamus and Anthony awards, 1990), Other institutions in New York for which she was instrumental in
H Is for Homicide (DMGA, American Mystery Award, 1991), I Is founding and supporting were the Society for the Relief of Poor
for Innocent (DMGA, 1992), J Is for Judgment (1993), K Is for Widows with Small Children (1797), the Orphan Asylum Society
Killer (Shamus award, 1994), L Is for Lawless (1995), M Is for (1806), the Magdalen Society (for the mentally ill, 1811), the
Malice (1996), N Is for Noose (1998), and O Is for Outlaw (1999). Society for the Promotion of Industry Among the Poor (1814),
and the Sunday School for Adults (1814).
Graftons detective books have nanced a lifestyle she
herself characterizes as simple but that includes a home near Santa Grahams works do not have a consciously literary purpose;
Barbara on the California coast as well as one in Louisville, they chronicle the events of her life in the context of revolutionary
Kentucky. By 1998 Publishers Weekly was reporting close to 10 America. The Power of Faith (1817), edited by Grahams daugh-
million copies of her books in print and translations into 26 ter, Joanna Graham Bethune, includes correspondence, medita-
languages. Her publisher, Holt, announced a one million-copy tions, journal entries, and a small number of religious poems. The
rst printing for M Is for Malice, a rst for the publisher as well as volume went through four editions; the nal one contains the
the author. narrative which Graham composed on her husbands death. Her
daughter also edited a second volume, The Unpublished Letters
One of the most common questions asked of Grafton is what
and Correspondence of Mrs. Isabella Graham (1838).
will happen when she reaches Z? That day is projected to come
at about 2018; Kinsey Milhone will be 40; Grafton will be 78. All of Grahams works appear to serve the purpose of
Echoing the manner of her hero, Grafton answered the question on furthering her own understanding of her faith in the practical and
her web site in 1999: Your guess is as good as mine on this one. pressing concerns of her life. Grahams approach to humanity and
to God is clear; she sees her service to God primarily as service to
others. In both devotional materials and correspondence there are
BIBLIOGRAPHY: signs of her familiarity with the Scriptures. Fragments of Psalms,
Reference works: CA (1997). CBY (1995). WW in Ameri- Proverbs, Letters, and Gospels are intermingled consistently,
ca (1998). creating a kind of biblical stream of consciousness.
Other references: NYTBR (28 July 1991, 17 May 1998).
People (30 Oct 1995). PW (13 Apr. 1990, 20 Apr. 1998). WSJ (18 Grahams correspondence with her husband between 1767
May 1998). and 1772 constitutes an important body of the collected letters.
Web site: http://www.suegrafton.com. Here Graham deals with a strong sense of dependence on her
husband. She appears to live in the shadow that John would die, at
JUDITH HARLAN which time she felt her life would be insupportable. The
correspondence after 1772 is Grahams record of the slow process
of accepting death and resolving to make the remainder of her own
life worthwhile. Another large segment of correspondence con-
GRAHAM, Isabella Marshall cerns Grahams activity in initiating her work for the poor and
oppressed in New York. The rationale, plans, and organization of
a variety of institutions are submitted to local public ofcials to
Born 29 July 1742, Lanarkshire, Scotland; died 27 July 1814,
enlist the needed funds and support.
New York, New York
Daughter of John and Janet Hamilton Marshall; married John One of Grahams most engaging pieces is a meditation
Graham, 1765 (died 1772); children: three daughters and a son entitled My Last Journey through the Wilderness. After sum-
marizing the journeys of the Israelites and of the early Christian
During Isabella Marshall Grahams early years her intense community, she sees herself as part of this history in her present
interest in religion brought her to study under John Witherspoon, struggle. This theme of the journey is also present in her poetry,
pastor of the Presbyterian congregation of Paisley, Scotland, and which is strongly reminiscent of 19th-century hymns. The lan-
later president of the College of New Jersey (Princeton). By age guage, style, and imagery in Grahams writings are similar to
seventeen, Graham had arrived at rm religious convictions and those of the preachers and religious personalities of her period, but
was admitted to the Lords Supper, which she considered to be a her work provides a unique view into one womans faith and
full commitment to her church and those it served. experience.
Two years after her marriage to a physician, a move was

made to Canada due to her husbands appointment as surgeon of BIBLIOGRAPHY: Belden, E. P., New York: Past, Present, and
the Royal American Regiment. John Graham died on a mission in Future (1849). Bethune, J. G., The Life of Mrs. Isabella Graham
133
GRAHAM AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
(1839). Lamb, M. J., History of the City of New York, Vol. 2 signs for an inability to speak, an accurate failure (Some
(1881). Mason, J. M., Christian Mourning: A Sermon Occasioned Notes on Silence), or for what escapes languageconscious-
by the Death of Mrs. Isabella Graham (1814). Scott, A. F. Natural ness, the world. Each __ may also be read as a line, in much
Allies: Womens Associations in American History (1991). the same way that her algebraic variables may be puns (y on
Reference works: NAW (1971). NCAB. Oxford Companion why and x as ex- or cross ), though they also function as
to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). markers (and disruptions) of the schematic nature of narrative.
Other references: New York Evening Post (27 July 1814).
These signs, like the dashes and ellipses that permeate and
VIRGINIA KAIB RATIGAN end some of her poems, also function as an acknowledgment of
silence, into and against which the poet speaks. Graham denes
silence as existing in consciousness and the world, as doubt,
madness, fear, or awe or astonishment, and as all forms of
GRAHAM, Jorie death and mystery. This idea is suggested by the poems
synaesthetic gures, where sound (including the poetic line) is a
fabric, tapestry, scrim, or shroud that she weaves and sees woven
Born 9 May 1950, New York, New York (by Penelope, for example) and, more importantly, sees cut, torn,
Daughter of and Curtis Bill and Beverly Stroll Pepper; married or unraveled to reveal the silence all around it. Because Graham
James Galvin, 1983; children: Emily perceives the most important task of poetry as enacting a struggle
with silence, her imagery of gaps, rents, wounds, and openings is
Jorie Graham grew up in Europe; she attended the Sorbonne, invested with sacred language and an oracular tone. Silence is her
New York University (B.F.A. 1973), Columbia, and the Universi- Kali, her Great Mother, giving birth to and destroying the line
ty of Iowa (M.F.A. 1978). She has taught at Murray State, (Imperialism, The End of Beauty), her homes inaudible voice-
Humboldt State, and Columbia universities; since 1983 she has over keeping on (come in, in) to a pair of juncoes who may die
been on the faculty of the Writers Workshop, at the University of trying to escape, aiming for the brightest spot, the only clue, a
Iowa. Her rst book, Hybrids of Plants and of Ghosts (1980), won sunlit window or white space (The Phase After History,
the Great Lakes Colleges Association Award, and her work has Region of Unlikeness).
generally been well received; John Ashbery describes her as one
of the nest poets writing today. Grahams work has been In Materialism: Poems (1994) Graham brings together dis-
compared to that of Laura Jensen, Wallace Stevens, and Rainer parate topics into a unied, albeit difcult, whole. The work
Maria Rilke, and her poems have won prizes from the Academy of incorporates texts by other writers, including Emerson, Wittgenstein,
American Poets, Poetry Northwest, the American Poetry Review, and Dante, as well as social imagery and themes ranging from
and the Pushcart Press. She has been awarded grants from the Tiananmen Square to a gun-toting New York subway passenger.
National Endowment for the Arts, from the Guggenheim, Whit- All of this allows the reader to encounter a thinking poets
ing, Ingram Merrill, and MacArthur Foundations, and a fellow- thought, according to Commonweals Suzanne Keen.
ship from the Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College (1982). Gra-
In 1995 Grahams work was discussed in two books (In the
hams poems have been frequently anthologized and appeared in
Given and the Made and The Breaking of Style) by Harvard
such journals as the Iowa Review, the Nation, New Yorker, Paris
professor Helen Vendler, who particularly appreciates Grahams
Review, and Ploughshares.
rhythms. That same year Graham published her Pulitzer Prize-
Grahams study of philosophy and her love of art are central winning Dream of the Unied Field, Selected Poems 1974-1994,
to her poetry, which is both imagistic and abstract, rejecting the an anthology featuring 10 poems from each of her previous ve
confessional for the metaphysical and rhyme and meter for books. The following year, 1996, Graham edited a collection
variable length lines whose enjambment stresses and fractures called Earth Took of Earth: 100 Great Poems of the English
syntax but creates the shapes of stanzas. Her subjects range from Language.
quotidian experiences (sewing, drawing, gardening, looking in a
Many critics consider The Errancy: Poems (1997) Grahams
mirror) to investigations of historical violence and complicity,
most rewarding and challenging work. Concerned with the rela-
from explorations of identity through mythical gures to medita-
tionship of the subjective and the objective, it has been called
tions about saints, artists, and philosophers. But her true focus is
intellectually and emotionally deep, as well as beautiful. Gra-
always the spiritual questing of writing itself, which gives her
hams work has historically attracted mixed reviews, with each
poetry the ascetic passion of the visionary or mystic. Images
critic coming up with his or her own unique interpretation of the
fragment into ideas; specic details and words are transcended in
poetry. The Economist said of Dream of the Unied Field, It is
visions of light, of innity, of what cannot be said. Consequently,
self-consciously obscurantist; written in open form, it lacks any
these insights must be felt or intuitedher language is simultane-
ously attened and allusive or, like T. S. Eliots, interwoven with sense of containment that some adherence to metrical rules gives;
others words. and its subject matter is so nebulous and shifting, so to do with the
inner logic of the poets own deeply complicated and oppressively
In The End of Beauty (1987) she incorporates _____s, serious life, that it scarcely ever emerges into the clear daylight of
underlined spaces that may be blanks the reader is to ll in, or discourse of any kind.
134
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GRAHAM
The opposite view is taken by James Longenbach in the came from a long line of Lutheran ministers. From each parent
Nation. Of The Errancy he wrote, Jorie Graham stands among a Graham received a passion for learning, ideas, strength, and
small group of poets (Dickinson, Hopkins, Moore) whose styles leadership. Her father was a millionaire investor and her mother
are so personal that the poems seem to have no author at all: they an intellectual and writer. Graham received an elite education. She
exist as self-made things. Each of her books has interrogated the attended Madeira, a private high school for girls in Virginia,
one preceding it, and The Errancy feels like a culmination. It is her outside Washington, D.C., where her family resided. She went on
most challenging, most rewarding book. Graham has not simply to Vassar College and received her undergraduate degree from the
forged a style; she is exploring the very notion of what it means for University of Chicago in 1938.
a poet to have a stylean exterior mark of an interior vision.
Rather than starting right away at the Washington Post,
which her father bought in 1933 for $825,000, Graham worked in
OTHER WORKS: Erosion (1983). Some Notes on Silence New San Francisco for a year. In 1939 she returned to Washington and
American Poets of the Golden Gate (ed. by Philip Dow, 1984). began her tenure with the Post as an editorial-page employee. As
Pleasure, Singular Voices: American Poetry Today (ed. by the most junior member of the editorial team, Grahams assign-
Stephen Berg, 1985). The Best American Poetry, 1990 (editor ments were on the least important issues of the dayso-called
with David Lehman, 1990). Region of Unlikeness (1991). light editorials. The titles themselves revealed just how light: On
Being a Horse, Brains and Beauty, Mixed Drinks, and
Spotted Fever. But work at the Post brought her into contact
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA 111 (1984). CANR 63 with experienced reporters. Through these developing friend-
(1998). CBY (1997). CLC 48 (1988). Contemporary Poets (1985). ships, Graham became involved in an increasingly lively social
FC (1990). life with women and men whose life experience and backgrounds
Other references: APR (Jan.-Feb. 1982, Nov.-Dec. 1983). were quite different from her own. A pivotal introduction was to
American Imago (Winter 1995). Black Warrior Rev. (Spring Philip Graham, who was then a law clerk for Supreme Court
1989). Boston Review (Aug. 1983). Commentary (Jan. 1992). Justice Stanley Reed while waiting to clerk for Felix Frankfurter
Commonweal (2 Dec. 1994). Economist (13 July 1996). Georgia the following year. Phil Graham had been editor of the Harvard
Review (Winter 1983). Hollins Critic (Oct. 1987). Literary Re- Law Review and was seen as brilliant, charismatic, and fascinating
view (Spring 1988). Nation (5 Sept. 1987, 21 July 1997). NR (27 by this extended circle of determined young people. After a brief
Jan. 1992, 11 July 1994). New Yorker (27 July 1987). NYRB (21 and intense courtship, Katharine and Phil married on 5 June 1940.
Nov. 1991). NYTBR (17 July 1983, 26 July 1987, 31 July 1994, 5
May 1996). Parnassus (Spring/Summer 1983). People (5 May From the start, Phil Graham was apprehensive about his
1997). Poetry (April 1982, July 1998). Southwest Review (Sum- father-in-laws enormous wealth. He was determined that he and
mer 1982). his new wife would live on his salary. Eugene Meyer was eager to
have his bright and capable son-in-law employed at the Post and
DANA SONNENSCHEIN, nally convinced him to come on board as associate publisher in
UPDATED BY KAREN RAUGUST 1946. After a few months, Meyer promoted him to publisher. In
1948 Meyer sold the paper to Katharine and Phil for a token sum.
But believing a man should not be his wifes employee, Meyer
gave Phil Graham three times the amount of Post stock held by
GRAHAM, Katharine Katharine. The newly formed Washington Post Company, with
Philip as its president, began to enlarge in circulation and inu-
ence. Katharines role during these years was behind the scenes
Born 16 June 1917, New York, New York
and clearly subservient to Phils leadership and direction. Her life
Daughter of Eugene and Agnes Ernst Meyer; married Philip L.
changed dramatically when Phil began suffering from mental
Graham, 1940 (died 1963); children: Elizabeth, Donald,
illness and committed suicide in August of 1963.
William, Stephen
Fresh from this tragedy, Graham became president of the
As a reporter for the San Francisco News, Katharine Gra- Posts parent company. She felt unprepared for the challenge.
hams rst serious assignment was to lure delegates attending the Its hard to describe how abysmally ignorant I was, she related
convention of the Womens Christian Temperance Union to a bar in her memoir Personal History (1997). I was also uneducated in
with the simple proposition that they visit the scene of the crimes even the basics of the working world. Nevertheless, she was
they railed against. They agreed and she got her story. Years later, knowledgeable enough to surround herself with a capable staff.
as publisher of the Washington Post, she was instrumental in She built the Post into a competitor of the New York Times. She
enabling other reporters to get the story of the Pentagon Papers named Benjamin C. Bradlee as managing editor in 1965, and he
and Watergate. was instrumental in luring talented journalists away from oth-
er papers.
Grahams father, Eugene Meyer, came from a distinguished
Jewish family with roots going back many generations in As publisher and chairperson of the board during these years,
Alsace-Lorraine, France, while her mother, Agnes Ernst Meyer, Graham was instrumental in guiding the decisions that determined
135
GRAHAM AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
the role the Post assumed. Two years after she became the papers station for runaway slaves. Graham and her four brothers grew up
publisher; the Post became involved in the ght to publish the in a variety of citiesNew Orleans, Colorado Springs, and
Pentagon Papers. The New York Times had been ordered by Spokanein which their father, an African Episcopal minister,
the U.S. government to refrain from publishing any more of the received pastoral assignments. Graham married a year after
documents. Despite the risk of a restraining order on themselves completing high school, but within three years she became a
as well as a violation of the injunction that had restricted the widow with two sons to support.
Times, Graham and the Post decided to publish the papers.
Graham later pointed out: The decision had to be made quickly. Graham studied music theory and composition at the Sorbonne.
There had never before been prior restraint of the press. Weighing While there, she also learned about African music from West
all factors, it seemed like the right thing to do. And I still feel the African students studying in France. In 1931, Graham matriculat-
same. The Post did go to court for its action, but the Supreme ed at Oberlin College, where she received both the B.A. and M.A.
Court eventually ruled in favor of the two newspapers and their degrees. Her years there marked the beginning of her career as a
right to publish. dramatist and composer. Grahams one-act play, Coal Dust, and
her three-act comedy, Elijahs Ravens, were performed during
Graham and the Post regained national attention with cover-
this period; both had been written in 1930. A musical drama, Tom-
age of the Watergate scandal. Two Post reporters, Carl Bernstein
Tom (1932), was based upon Grahams knowledge of African
and Bob Woodward, were the foremost investigators of the crimes
rhythms; it was later revised into an opera for which Graham
of the Nixon administration. Despite threats from the White
wrote the libretto and music.
House and warnings and criticism from her friend Henry Kissinger,
Graham supported the reporters throughout. In 1973 the Post Appointed head of ne arts and drama at Nashvilles Tennes-
received a Pulitzer Prize for public service in uncovering the see State College in 1935, Graham continued to write plays and
Watergate conspiracy. compose music. Between 1935 and 1938, she was afliated with
Graham turned her journalistic skills to her own life in her the Chicago Federal Theater as supervisor of the Negro Unit.
autobiography Personal History. In a volume described as dis- Her major works during this period were Little Black Sambo
armingly candid and immensely readable, she chronicles her (1937), a childrens drama for which she wrote music, and The
personal transformation. She also provides an invaluable inside Swing Mikado (1938), a jazz adaptation of the Gilbert and
glimpse of some of the most critical turning points in American Sullivan opera and her most successful musical composition.
journalism. Graham describes her personal and professional growth
Awarded a Julius Rosenwald fellowship in 1938, Graham
with charm, intelligence, and grace, much the same way she lived
studied at the Yale School of Drama, where two of her plays were
her life. Personal History received a Pulitzer Prize for biogra-
presented: Its Morning (1940), the tragedy of a slave mother who
phy in 1998.
kills her daughter rather than have her sold away, and Dust to
Earth (1941), a three-act drama about the futile efforts of a coal
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Davis, D., Katharine the Great: Katharine Gra- miner to rescue his son from a mining accident.
ham and the Washington Post (1979). Felsenthal, C., Power,
Privilege, and the Post: The Katharine Graham Story (1993). Although she was a successful dramatist, Grahams major
Reference works: CA (1982, 1999). Larousse Dictionary of literary contribution was made in the eld of biography. Her
Women (1996). Whos Who in America (1999). Whos Who in the decision to research and record the lives of signicant black
East (1997-1998). people was inuenced indirectly by her cultural and political
Other references: Time (1997). activities with the NAACP, which appointed her a national eld
secretary in 1942, and directly by the death of her son Robert, who
CELESTE DEROCHE because of his race, was mistreated in an army camp and denied
proper hospital care.
Grahams biographies combine history and ction in cele-

brating black life during a period of general neglect. They are
GRAHAM, Shirley primarily popular books recognizing the contributions made by
blacks to American culture and preserve the history of black
Born 11 November 1907, Evansville, Indiana; died 27 March achievement for the world. Because Grahams biographies de-
1977, Peking, China lineate heroic qualities for emulation and seem especially suited
Also wrote under: Shirley Graham DuBois for young adults, they have become categorized as juvenile
Daughter of David A. and Lizzie Bell Graham; married literature and have not received the critical attention they deserve.
Shadrach T. McCanns, 1921 (died); W. E. B. DuBois, 1951
Grahams ctional biographies are lyrical, rather than ana-
Shirley Graham, a lifelong advocate of human rights, was lytical, in technique. They derive their power from her control
born on the farm of her great-grandfather, a freed slave and over form and dramatic structure. Graham has explained her
blacksmith who used his home as an Underground Railroad method in these works as that of a storyteller constructing a
136
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GRAHN
narrative within the framework of little known true facts, by (1953). Booker T. Washington: Educator of Hand, Head, and
documenting dates and main events, but also by creating probable Heart (1955).
incidents in order to illustrate character, reveal trends, or bring The papers of Shirley Graham are housed in the W. E. B.
actual facts into juxtaposition so as to emphasize them. Unfortu- DuBois Manuscript Collection at the University of Massachusetts
nately, her achievement has been obscured by a wider familiarity in Amherst, as well as at the Washington Conservatory of Music
with black history among contemporary readers, and her effort Collection at Howard University in Washington D.C.
has been overshadowed by more scholarly works.
Graham wrote 12 biographies. Among the most successful is

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bedini, S. A., The Life of Benjamin Banneker
Paul Robeson, Citizen of the World (1946), which traces the life of
(1972). Hamalian, L. and J.V. Hatch, eds., The Roots of African
the famous singer from his boyhood through his forty-sixth
American Drama (1991). Miller, E., ed., The Negro in America
birthday. Graham uses the musical patterns of a classical concerto
(1970). Perkins, K. A., Black Female Playwrights: An Anthology
and modern blues to orchestrate the details of Robesons life. In
of Plays Before 1950 (1989).
There Was Once a Slave: The Historic Story of Frederick Doug-
Reference works: Afro-American Encyclopedia (1974). Black
lass (1947), Graham relies on an association between the North
American Writers: Bibliographical Essays (1977). Black Play-
Star and liberty as the controlling metaphor for her poignant
wrights, 1823-1977: An Annotated Bibliography of Plays (1977).
narrative. Your Most Humble Servant (1949), the rst book-length
CB (Oct. 1946). DLB:AAW (1988). Negro Almanac (1976).
treatment of Benjamin Banneker, a late 18th-century astronomer,
mathematician, and surveyor, is Grahams major work on a
Other references: Crisis (Aug. 1932). NYT (5 June 1973, 5
historical gure.
April 1977).
Graham married the famous Harvard-trained social scientist,
Dr. W. E. B. DuBois, four days after his eighty-third birthday and THADIOUS M. DAVIS
on the eve of his indictment as an agent of a foreign principle.
Their marriage culminated a 30-year friendship during which
Graham was guided by DuBois emphasis on Beauty, Accom-
plishment, and Dignity as the criteria of Black art. Throughout
the years of her marriage, Graham devoted much of her attention GRAHN, Judy
to political work against oppression and to cultural activities for
peace. She was also her husbands companion-helpmate on his Born 28 July 1940, Chicago, Illinois
nal project, a massive Encyclopedia Africana, yet she did not Daughter of Elmer August and Vera Davis Grahn
live in his shadow; she helped to found Freedomways, a magazine
on the African-American freedom movement, and was selected its
rst editor. Her last three books, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Son of the For over three decades, Judy Grahn has helped forge a new
Nile (1972), Zulu Heart (1974), and Julius K. Nyerere: Teacher of tradition of lesbian feminist literature in the United States. Adrienne
Africa (1975), reect Grahams international perspective after a Rich wrote in her introduction to Grahns The Work of a Common
decade of living on the African continent. Woman (1978) that more than any other poet today, Grahn has
accepted the challenge to ask questions that never occurred to a
His Day Is Marching On: A Memoir of W. E. B. DuBois Donne or a Yeats, or even to an Elizabeth Barrett Brown-
(1971) is essentially Grahams own biography. In it, she emerges ing. . .questions about taboo, integrity, the fetishization of the
as the exemplar of the values and virtues dening the heroic men female body, the world-wide historical violence committed against
and women of her biographies. The book is notable for its quiet women by men, what it means to be true to one another when we
celebration of love, loyalty, conviction, and courage. Sensitive are women, what it means to love women when that love is denied
and vivid in language, Grahams memoir documents a personal reality, treated as perversion, or, even more insidiously accepted
experience and outlines a cultural history. as a mirror-image or parallel to heterosexual romance.
In her nal years, Graham was acclaimed for her contribu- After being discharged from the army in 1961 for lesbianism,
tions as writer, scholar, teacher, and activist to black and third- Grahn began her career as a poet, writing openly and proudly
world cultures. Her life and her art stand as testimony to the about lesbian themes. In 1965 she wrote Edward the Dyke, a satire
vitality of DuBois ideals of Beauty, Accomplishment, and about a lesbian and the psychoanalyst who diagnoses her as
Dignity. deviant. Since no publisher would print the work, Grahn was
inspired to cofound the Womens Press Collective in Oakland,
California, in 1969, which eventually published Edward in 1971.
OTHER WORKS: I Gotta Home (1939). Track Thirteen (1942). Dr.
George Washington Carver, Scientist (with G. D. Lipscomb, Grahn has said she thinks of her work as one long thought
1944). The Story of Phillis Wheatley (1949). Jean Baptiste Pointe that has many facets and methods for developing itself. Indeed,
de Sable, Founder of Chicago (1953). The Story of Pocahontas her writing has taken a wide variety of forms: poetry, prose, audio
137
GRAU AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
recordings, plays, and nonction. Her earliest published work, Singing the End of the World Again (1983). Descent to the Roses
The Common Woman Poems (1969), consisted of seven poems of the Family (1986). Mundanes World (1988). Butch/femme
describing regular, everyday women without making us look (contributor, M. G. Soares, ed., 1995).
either superhuman or pathetic. In A Woman is Talking to Death
(1974), for which she was awarded the 1979 American Poetry
Review Poem of the Year award, Grahn reects on witnessing a BIBLIOGRAPHY: Case, S., Judy Grahns Gynopoetics: The Queen
fatal motorcycle accident and on the issues of racial, gender, and of Swords, in Studies in the Literary Imagination (Fall 1988).
class injustice it evokes. Donnelly, N., A Conversation with Judy Grahn, in Harvard
Gay and Lesbian Review (Spring 1995). Grimstad, K., and S.
Grahns work as a writer and publisher had a profound effect
Rennie, eds., The New Womans Survival Sourcebook (1975).
on the nascent womens movement. With the publication of The
Yalom, M., ed., Women Writers of the West Coast: Speaking of
Common Woman Poems and Edward the Dyke, her name quickly
Their Lives and Careers (1983).
spread among womens rights activists. Her words were memo-
Reference works: CA (1986, 1988). Gay and Lesbian Litera-
rized, set to music, and reprinted on posters, pamphlets, and
ture (1994). The Gay 100: A Ranking of the Most Inuential Gay
t-shirts. She, along with other pioneering writers such as Adrienne
Men and Lesbians, Past and Present (1995).
Rich and Audre Lorde, paved the way for the genre of contempo-
Other references: LJ (1 Nov. 1993). Ms. (May 1975). PW (18
rary lesbian-feminist literature.
Oct. 1993).
With The Queen of Wands, winner of a 1982 American Book
award, Grahn began an ambitious four-part cycle of poems LAURA BRAHM
inspired by the four queens of the tarot deck. Based upon the
mythic story of a queen who has been stolen. . .a lamentation for
a female power gone, the Queen of Wands is represented in
gures from Helen of Troy to Marilyn Monroe. The second book
of the series, a poetic play entitled The Queen of Swords, ap- GRANT, Margaret
peared in 1987. See FRANKEN, Rose
Grahn continued to expand the scope and form of her work,

embarking on her vocation as a renegade scholar of gay life
with Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words, Gay Worlds (1984), a
nonction genealogy of the history of gay culture. With The GRAU, Shirley Ann
Highest Apple: Sappho and the Lesbian Poetic Tradition (1985),
which traces the connections between Sappho and modern lesbian
Born 8 July 1929, New Orleans, Louisiana
poets, Grahn ventured into literary theory and criticism. In a
Daughter of Adolph E. and Katherine Onions Grau; married
similar vein, Really Reading Gertrude Stein: A Selected Antholo-
James K. Feibleman, 1955; children: Ian, Nora, William,
gy (1989), pairs writings by Stein with Grahns commentary.
Katherine
Blood, Bread, and Roses (1993), her most recent book of nonc-
tion, presents a provocative feminist reinterpretation of the devel-
opment of culture and history, placing menstruation at its center. Daughter of a dentist, Shirley Ann Grau describes her family
Drawing from mythology and anthropology, Grahn argues that as ordinary middle class. White. Protestant. She also admits,
the practices that evolved from menstruation rituals gave birth to however, family members were well enough set nancially that
mathematics, astronomy, cosmetics, and even cooking utensils. they could choose not to work. Her mother was in her middle
forties when Grau was born, yet she had another daughter even
In addition to writing, Grahn has been involved as a political later. Grau attended the Booth Academy in Montgomery, Ala-
activist (in the early 1960s she was a member of the Mattachine bama, until she transferred to the Ursuline Academy in New
Society and later in the decade helped to organize the West Coast Orleans as a senior. She attended Sophie Newcomb, the girls
Lesbian Feminist Movement); instructor of writing, womens wing of the all-male Tulane University, where she took many of
literature, and gay and lesbian studies; and editor of several her classes and met her future husband, a philosophy professor 26
literary anthologies, as well as on the board of the Lesbian Review years her senior. They were married in New York City, where
of Books. Grau had moved to pursue her writing career, and lived in New
Orleans with their four children.
OTHER WORKS: She Who: A Graphic Book of Poems with Graus rst collection of short stories, The Black Prince
Fifty-Four Images of Women (1972). Elephant Poem Coloring (1955), won immediate acclaim and was compared in its impor-
Book (1972). True to Life Adventure Stories, Vol. I (contributor tance to J. D. Salingers Nine Stories and to Eudora Weltys A
and editor, 1978). True to Life Adventure Stories, Vol. II (con- Curtain of Green. These stories reveal concerns and characters
tributor and editor, 1980). Spider Websters Declaration: He is that would dominate her later ction. The rst of these are her
138
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GRAU
primitives, livinglike young Joshua in the story of that name Graus next set of novels, The Condor Passes (1971) and
in tune with nature, sharing its creative violence and heroically, if Evidence of Love (1977), as well as many of the stories from her
hopelessly, defying its destructive forces. rst collection The Wind Shifting West (1973), continue her
interest in family and social heritage, but they concentrate more
These primitives burst forth in her rst novel, The Hard Blue than ever on character studies. Each novel opens with an old man
Sky (1958), a awed work but with moments of great power. The and ends with his death, in between examining the people and
Louisiana island shermen of the novel take on mythic propor- experiences of his life. Each also explores the interactions of love
tions, similar to the Aran Islanders in Synges plays, owing to and money. The economic security of the central characters
Graus simple and realistic dialogue, her vivid recreation of their allows Grau to touch only lightly on the social context except in
daily struggles with nature, and her concentration on their aware- ashbacks; the characters struggle instead with the complexity of
ness rather than on their innocence. Synges characters are aware human relationships and of personal identity.
of the human condition and accept it; Graus primitives are aware
of it and rebel, even when the only rebellion possible is symbolic: The 1980s brought another collection of stories called Nine
Cecile throwing a half-brick at that hard blue sky. Women (1985). Grau departed somewhat from her concentration
on the South to describe the lives of nine very different characters.
The early short stories also introduce Graus concern with the One critic noted that almost every woman is on the verge of great
city-bred Southerners, individuals locked away from nature with- change and is looking back on the memories of her life. Some
in the articiality of society, unaware that nature in all its violence reviewers expressed disappointment with the womens fatalistic
is within as well as outside. Two of the short stories particularly and hopeless attitudes, while others contended that they were
focus on women trapped between the stereotypes of the past and simply overcome by fate. In either case, the compilation was not
the confusion of the present. The anachronism of the Southern as well received as Graus previous work.
lady appears twice, in mother and daughter, in The Girl with the
Flaxen Hair. The excessive fragility and eventual destruction of It would be almost 10 years before Graus next publication,
the daughter, Rose, reect the inadequacies of the stereotype, at this time the novel Roadwalkers (1994). The novel tells the story
least today. Contrasted to this are the modern mother and daughter of Baby, a young orphaned black girl living in the South in 1934.
in Fever Flower, but society still has little to offer its daughters. Baby grows up in an orphanage but escapes poverty as a young
The pleasure-loving mother is described as a superb animal. But adult by becoming a fashion designer. The prose then veers to the
she was not quite human. She did not need anyone. Rose tale of Nanda, Babys daughter, as an adult. The sudden shift in
Ramond may have been a dying blossom, but Maureen Fleming, narration puzzled many, as did the emotional distance employed
the fever ower, the blossoming of her parents sickness, by Grau. Most, however, continue to admire Graus control and
scarcely improves the garden. mastery of language, and her narrative abilities are frequently
praised.
The modern woman steps forth again in Graus next novel.
Graus most recent writing was as a contributor to Clarence
Trapped in The House on Coliseum Street (1961) is Joan Caillet,
John Laughlins pictorial account of New Orleans, published as
who oats into an abortion only to be tossed and torn by its
Haunter of Ruins (1997). She has also contributed to journals and
psychological aftermath. The emptiness within reects the empti-
magazines including Atlantic, New Yorker, Redbook, Mademoi-
ness outside, and Joans growing awareness of this emptiness, this
selle, and Reporter.
lack of values within the surviving shell of Southern society
perhaps of American society as a wholeleads her to destructive Grau displays throughout each novel her consummate skill at
violence. Grau seems to argue that unless individuals live in tune manipulating point of view, and her unique ability to empathize
with nature, as do her primitives, their violence will destroy rather with each character. Above all, she is a superb storyteller, creating
than recreate the world. her Louisiana world in rich detail and letting her characters live,
speak, and argue for themselves. She has been criticized for her
A similar violence is produced by Abigail Tollivers discov-
traditional style, but her symbolic realism, with its roots in the
ery of hypocrisy in The Keepers of the House (1964). This Pulitzer
Louisiana bayous of Kate Chopin, still rises far above imitation.
Prize-winning novel combines Graus primitives with her South-
Her originality is evident in her consistent philosophy of nature
ern lady and blacks with whites, as she traces the heritage of a
and in her uniquely female imagery, from the caverns of empti-
family that rises above the prejudices of the stereotypes to assert
ness which haunt Joan in The House on Coliseum Street to the
the integrity of the individual. Abigail has been taught the role of
vivid description of his own birth offered by Edward Milton
the Southern lady, but her grandfather, William Howland, has
Henley as the rst scene of Evidence of Love.
given her an even more important legacy. The evidence of his love
for his black housekeeper, Margaret, a hardy primitive reminis-
cent of the folk-heroine Alberta in The Black Prince, destroys BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gossett, L. Y., Violence in Recent Southern
Abigails illusions of safety, thus exposing her to the violence of Fiction (1965).
life itself. But William has also provided in his actions an example Reference works: CA (1967). CA Online (1999). CB (1959).
of humanity that keeps Abigail from being destroyed by her own Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995).
rebellious violence, which enables her to be born again into a new Other references: Crit. (1963, 1975). Insula: Revista
awareness of life. Bibliograca de Ciencias y Letras (Madrid) (1966). KR (15 May
139
GREEN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
1994). NR (18 Apr. 1964, 24 Nov. 1973). NYRB (2 Dec. 1971). Mr. Leavenworth is found murdered in his locked study. The
NYTBR (22 Mar. 1964). SR (1962, 21 Mar. 1964). suspects include his servants, employees, and two nieces. The
sleuth is Ebenezer Grycea kind, rheumatic man and Greens
THELMA J. SHINN, most frequently used detective. The Leavenworth Case was very
UPDATED BY CARRIE SNYDER popular; the Pennsylvania Legislature even debated its author-
ship, consensus being that the story was manifestly beyond a
womans powers.
Miss Hurd: An Enigma (1894) is a powerful mystery-

GRAVES, Valerie melodrama in which the woman is the mystery to be solved.
See BRADLEY, Marion Zimmer Vashti Hurd had wanted a broad, free life. Instead, she was
forced to marry the rich Mr. Murdoch. The murder puzzle that
eventually develops is a subplot to the greater problem of Vashtis
hatred for her husband and her need for freedom. Contemporary
male critics found Miss Hurd an unsympathetic character. But
GRAY, Angela feminist readers will nd Vashti both sympathetic and heroic.
See DANIELS, Dorothy Despite its rather sensational plot elements, the novel transcends
its identity as a mystery novel and becomes a womens novel.
That Affair Next Door (1897) introduces Greens prototype

spinster sleuth, Miss Amelia Butterworth. A sharp, independent
GREEN, Anna Katharine woman, Miss Butterworth works both with and against the police,
as personied by the now-elderly Mr. Gryce. Amelias own,
Born 11 November 1846, Brooklyn, New York; died 11 April rather satirical, narration makes the book a delight. It is also one of
1935, Buffalo, New York Greens most challenging mysteries. Miss Butterworth would
Daughter of James W. and Catherine Whitney Green; married make two more appearances: a starring role in Lost Mans Lane
Charles Rohlfs, 1884; children: three (1898) and a cameo appearance in The Circular Study (1900).
The Golden Slipper, and Other Problems for Violet Strange

Anna Katharine Green was the youngest child of a lawyer (1915) is a short story collection featuring a professional woman
father and a mother who died when Green was three. She received detective. Violet Strange is worthy of respect both as an investiga-
a B.A. from the Ripley Female Seminary in Poultney, Vermont, tor specializing in womens problems and for her motivation in
and began publishing poetry in Scribners, Lippincotts, and other becoming an investigatorto support a dearly loved but disinher-
journals. ited older sister.
Although not the rst American detective novel, The Green brought detective ction to a more cultured reading
Leavenworth Case (1878) has been our most famous early mys- public. She frankly and proudly wrote for a popular audience, but
tery. Because of the decided success of The Leavenworth Case, her books were published in hardbound editions by respected
Green gradually turned away from poetry writing. Only two of her houses. No longer was the American mystery relegated to dime-
40 books are not mysteries: a volume of verse, The Defense of the novel status; prime ministers, presidents, and honored writers
Bride, and Other Poems (1882), and a verse drama, Risis were avowed fans.
Daughter (1887).
Greens long and prolic career spanned from the infancy of
In 1884 Green married a tragedian turned furniture designer. the genre to its golden age. But changing tastes within this
They made their home in Buffalo, New York. Over the next eight fast-growing ction formula dealt harshly with Green at the end of
years, Green produced three children and eight books. The last her career. Soon her poetic touches, her fondness for melodrama,
two decades of the century were her most fertile writing years. She her Victorian verbiage were judged worthless by the jaundiced
produced 22 published volumes between 1880 and 1900 for an eye of the interwar reading public. The genre became rigidly
ever-widening audience. Greens popularity grew with each new formularized, lean, and cynical. By the 1940s, Greens work was
published thriller. She soon became the grande dame of the forgotten, or remembered only to ridicule.
American mystery novel; her global fame made her an effective
lobbyist for international copyright. Green is worthy of reexamination, both as a female forerun-
ner in a largely male genre and as a writer with a real respect for
The Leavenworth Case was, for many years, considered both women. Her female characters are strong, brave, and resolute
the rst American detective novel and the rst detective novel by against evil and largely male violence. There is a recurrent theme
a woman, although it is neither. It is, however, a well-plotted, of sisterhood in her works among women who pool their energies
vastly entertaining murder puzzle of a type now classic. The rich for survival. Green gave us some of the rst female sleuths, both
140
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GREEN
amateur and professional. Unlike many 20th-century mystery her Southern ancestry. She and Julian passed the war years
writers who think of women only as victims or secondary charac- (1940-45) with Baltimore relatives. She became a Catholic con-
ters, Green portrayed women as characters of primary importance vert in 1947. The Greens circle included many celebrated artists
who refused to be victimized. and intellectuals.
A translator and a correspondent for American and English

OTHER WORKS: A Strange Disappearance (1880). The Sword of magazines, Green also wrote comic/romantic novels, autobiogra-
Damocles (1881). Hand and Ring (1883). X Y Z: A Detective Story phy, and historical ction. Her novels usually focus on the family
(1883). The Mill Mystery (1886). 7 to 12: A Detective Story life of American expatriates in France and incorporate her moth-
(1887). Behind Closed Doors (1888). The Forsaken Inn (1890). A ers nostalgia for the South. This nostalgia surfaces in memories,
Matter of Millions (1890). The Old Stone House (1891). Cynthia dreams, or visits to and from American relatives. Childhood is a
Wakehams Money (1892). Marked Personal (1893). The Doc- pervasive theme. Her autobiography, With Much Love (1948),
tor, His Wife, and the Clock (1895). Dr. Izard (1895). Agatha shows that her ctional families are based on Greens ownthe
Webb (1899). A Difcult Problem (1900). One of My Sons (1901). gauche and sprightly sisters, the obedient little brother who, like
Three Women and a Mystery (1902). The Filigree Ball (1903). Julian, displays an early interest in the devil, and the harried,
The Amethyst Box (1905). The House in the Mist (1905). The loving parents just scraping by. Green represents the adult brother-
Millionaire Baby (1905). The Woman in the Alcove (1906). The sister bond ctionally by siblings who seem to be lovers, in 16
Chief Legatee (1906). The Mayors Wife (1907). The House of rue Cortambert (1937)in fact an address of the Greens; by the
Whispering Pines (1910). Three Thousand Dollars (1910). Ini- married couple who seem to be siblings, in The Delamer Curse
tials Only (1911). Dark Hollow (1914). To the Minute/Scarlet and (1940); and by the fated heroine of Marietta (1932), her thoughts
Black (1916). The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow (1917). The Step on like hothouse owers, who loves her brother-in-law.
the Stair (1923). Greens heroines are occasionally vulnerable but determined
The papers of Anna Katharine Green are housed in the to grasp at happiness and self-sufciency. They are young women
Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin. who read Cosmopolitan, smoke to stay thin, rip and twist their
clothing into ropes for escaping from high bedrooms, rouge their
cheeks, carry their own latchkeys, engage in unhappy love affairs,
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Harkins, E. F., and C. H. L. Johnson, Little get jobs selling books or drudging as companions to the tyrannical
Pilgrimages among the Women Who Have Written Famous Books rich, whistle American spirituals in taxis, write notes in lipstick,
(1901). Overton, G., The Women Who Make Our Novels (1928). and plan their novels. The sense of being truly not so scatter-
Reference works: Detecting Women (1994). Encyclopedia brained as one is willing to appear is ruefully expressed by one
Mysteriosa (1994). St. James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writ- heroine playing the pixie role: Men will only love me for what
ers (1996). they think I am. Greens archly innocent modern girl of the
Other references: Bookman (1929). Reading and Collecting 1930s appears in such novels as The Selbys (1930), Reader, I
(1938). Writer (1888). Married Him (1931), Fools Rush In (1934), and That Fellow
Perceval (1935).
KATHLEEN L. MAIO
Green writes about French families in A Marriage of Conven-
ience (1933), Just Before Dawn (1943), and Paris (1938). The
heroine of Paris is a poor, lame, but lovely girl, dedicated to her
milliners art, who hesitates between yielding to the mans control
GREEN, Anne and becoming a light eager soul, obliged to create. Here as
elsewhere Green indulges her taste for decor: the primrose and
Born 11 November 1891, Savannah, Georgia; died circa 1975 white boudoir with its Venetian mirrors and ebony bed, a boat to
Daughter of Edward Moon and Mary Hartridge Green carry the milliner into a sea of dreams. In her French novels of the
1950s and 1960s, Green reverts to the material of these and other
earlier works in English. La Porte des songes (1969), for example,
Taken to France in 1893 after her fathers nancial ruin, sets the action of Paris in an American city.
Anne Green grew up in Le Havre and in Paris. Of the seven
bilingual Green children the youngest was Julian, who became a Atmosphere deepens menacingly in The Delamer Curse. The
noted French writer. Greens mother wrote Letters from a curse on the Southern family, living now as Parisian expatriates,
Housekeeper in France for a newspaper, and spun visions of her descends from their slaveholding days and is transmitted through
Savannah girlhood that would haunt Greens and Julians writing. African beads soldered into a vermeil family coffeepot. The curse
She and her sister served as nurses during World War I; angels in lifts, once these have been pried out and cast into the Seine and the
their uniforms, wrote Julian, they were awarded the Mdaille heroine has expiated the ancestral guilt through her infants
des pidmies. After their fathers death in 1927 Green and Julian deaths. Greens psychic fantasies, her summoning of evil pres-
lived together. Green traveled to America in 1922 to rediscover ences, resemble her brothers literary preoccupations. Where
141
GREENBERG AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Julian narrowly probes the anguished mind, however, to lay bare GREENBERG, Joanne
authentic nightmares of the spiritually and sexually tormented,
Greens hallucinations are temporary, depending upon theatrical
props and scenery. True horror is absent in Green, who, moreover, Born 24 September 1932, Brooklyn, New York
cannot keep the comic spirit from breaking through the fabric. For Wrote under: Hannah Green
example, in the earlier Fools Rush In, the heroines troubled quest Daughter of Julius and Rosalie Bernstein Goldenberg; married
for a demented father and the death of her mother are events Albert Greenberg, 1955; children: David, Alan
interspersed with uncontrollable whimsy.
Formerly an elementary school teacher, Joanne Greenberg is
Greens difculties are with plotting and pacing, with even-
a successful novelist and short story writer who also happens to be
ness of tone and the creation of convincing characters. She
a professor of anthropology and creative writing at the Colorado
succeeds as a social documentarian of the milieu and manners she
School of Mines. Born in Brooklyn, Greenberg graduated from
knows. Her works show a liking for the comic, the spontaneous,
American University in Washington, D.C., where she had ma-
and the incongruous, and also reveal an interest in childhood and
jored in anthropology and literature. She continued her studies at
the lives of women at different periods. Love is often treated with
the University of London and the University of Colorado. Yet the
ambivalence. Her characteristic subject matterAmericans abroad
most pivotal years of her life may be from 1948 through 1951,
at their provincial worst, or the expatriate Paris family whose
when she was treated for schizophrenia by the famous psychoana-
history belongs to the American Southis, as she has said, largely
lyst Frieda Fromm-Reichmann. Greenberg had planned to write a
autobiographical.
book with her before the analysts sudden death in 1957. Five
years later, Greenberg began writing (alone) I Never Promised
You a Rose Garden (1964), publishing it under the pseudonym
OTHER WORKS: A Crime by G. Bernanos (translated by Green,
Hannah Green. Only when she realized, four years later, there was
1936). Winchester House (1936). The Silent Duchess (1939).
another Hannah Green, also a writer, did Greenberg acknowledge
France Speaking by R. de Saint Jean (translated by Green, 1941).
authorship of the book.
The Lady in the Mask (1942). Basic Verities by C. Pguy
(translated by Green, with J. Green, 1943). Men and Saints by Greenbergs rst book, The Kings Persons (1963), is a
C. Pguy (translated by Green, with J. Green, 1944). The Old Lady historical novel exploring the causes of the conict resulting in the
(1947). Le Goret (1954). Adeline (1956). A Certain Smile 1190 massacre of the Jews of York. The books theme is the
by F. Sagan (translated by Green, 1956). La Lanterne magique danger of creeds as a source of misunderstanding. Her second
(with D. Mesnil, 1956). God Is Late by C. Arnothy (translated by novel, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, is Greenbergs most
Green, 1957). The Transgressor by J. Green (translated by Green, successful. A sensitive study, not overly sentimental or melodra-
1957). Le Vestiaire des anges (1958). Each in His Darkness by matic, of a psychotic teenage girl, the book appealed to a wide
J. Green (translated by Green, 1961). Wonderful Clouds by F. Sagan range of readers and became something of a cult classic. Both the
(translated by Green, 1961). LOr et largent (1962). Diary: girl, with her strange, troubled fantasy world, and her doctor, a
1928-1957 by J. Green (translated by Green, 1964). La Fille du woman with great patience and understanding, are carefully
grand marais (1964). La Bonne aventure (1966). Corinne et le drawn. Greenberg avoids easy answers, carefully depicting the
prince persan (1967). To Leave Before Dawn by J. Green (trans- world of the mentally ill, but her nal prognosis is optimistic.
lated by Green, 1967).
In The Monday Voices (1965), Greenberg uses a case-history
format to follow the day-to-day professional life of Ralph Oak-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gaddis-Rose, M., Julien Green: Gallic-American land, a caseworker at a state department of rehabilitation
Novelist (1971). Green, J., Diary: 1928-1957 (translated by Anne (Greenbergs husband was a vocational rehab counselor, often
Green, 1964). Green, J., Memories of Happy Days (1942). Green, J., working with hearing-impaired clients). Oaklands cases repre-
Personal Record: 1928-1939 (translated by J. Godefroi, 1939). sent a cross-section of societys ills. Following his failures and
Saint Jean, R. de, Julien Green par lui-meme (1967). successes, the reader can empathize with the pressures that drive
Reference works: Catholic Authors (1952). NCAB. TCA, the best people from such work, as Oakland struggles against
TCAS. despair, guilt, and an ulcer.
Other references: Bookman (Aug. 1932). Time (26 April 1948).
Alienation and lack of communication arise from a physical
MARCELLE THIEBAUX
disability in Greenbergs novel, In This Sign (1970), an insightful
depiction of the world of the deaf. This carefully researched,
painfully accurate narrative follows a deaf couple, the Ryders,
from the early stages of their marriage through their roles as
grandparents facing retirement. Exploited by the hearing world,
GREEN, Olive shut out by themselves as much as by others, they nevertheless
See REED, Myrtle persist and survive.
142
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GREENBERG
In Summering: A Book of Short Stories (1966), Greenbergs ordinary human interaction. Attempts at xing one meaning to an
favorite themes of isolation and imperfect communication are event or person prove as fruitless as nding the incinerated
especially apparent. In You Can Still Grow Flowers, a woman pictorial documentation of Sanborns work. Yet the plotting of
is recording a dying dialect she herself cannot speak. Similarly this intricate novel is so tidy as to conict with the complexity of
isolated is the mild, white librarian of Gloss on a Decision of the the characters and events. Another perhaps overly plotted but
Council of Vicea, jailed with a group of militant blacks, with richly textured novel is The Far Side of Victory (1983), which
whom she sympathizes but cannot reach. In Greenbergs second constructs itself around two focal pointsthe car accidents that
collection of short stories, Rites of Passage (1971), the reader is mold Eric Gordons life.
introduced to an extraordinarily varied assortment of characters.
Only the element of changesometimes painful, sometimes Of Such Small Differences (1988) departs from Greenbergs
welcome, always inevitablelinks these narratives, whose sub- other works in its creation of a different language, appropriate for
jects range widely within the scope of the 12 stories. the reality experienced by the deaf-blind. Greenberg returns here
to an old concernhow unfamiliar worlds intersect with,
Greenbergs novel Founders Praise (1976) is a return to her conict with, and question other realities. The poet John, deaf-blind
original subject, for it, like her rst novel, recognizes the dangers and independent, falls into a relationship with the hearing and
of creeds. The religious phenomenon she explores here is the birth sighted Leda.
and growth of a sect based on the unique vision of a farmer, Edgar
Bisset. He does not live to see the religion, founded on his Isolation, disability, and even the self as static, limpid
personal experience, institutionalize his vision and turn it into categories have no place in Greenbergs ction, which always
something he would not have recognized. Like The Kings Per- nds people striving among others, choosing among conicting
sons, Founders Praise underscores the irony inherent in allowing ideas of duty and fulllment. The extraordinary inheres in both
love of God to create hatred and conict among people. everything and nothing in works that treat the oddest and most
normal of characters and events not from a stance of wonder or
Greenberg chooses themes of isolation and loneliness, of the condescension but from the perspective of familiarity.
difculties in overcoming countless obstaclesphysical, spatial,
temporal, emotional, psychologicalin order to realize ones best Greenberg uses a series of letters written between family
self and to know and communicate with others. The problem of members to construct her novel Where the Road Goes (1998). Tig
understanding is central to Greenbergs books, and she is espe- Warriner is a sixty-two-year-old grandmother and environmental
cially adept in her ability to show that much of our failure is due to activist who is on a year-long, cross-country walk to evaluate the
our own preconceptions and the barriers we construct out of our nations feelings on environmental issues. While she is gone, she
fears. Greenberg does not opt for simple answers, but she raises corresponds with her husband, Marz, her daughters, Justice and
questions which must be faced if society is to survive. Solidarity, and her granddaughter, Hope, Justices daughter. The
distance and resultant correspondence brings the family closer
Greenberg is also a master of making the extraordinary than they had been when living together in Colorado and provides
accessible. Although she has been criticized on occasion for the foundation and format for the book.
lacking in art, or seen as merely a special-interest author (like in
her most famous novel, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden), In her letters, Tig describes the walk across the U.S. in detail.
Greenbergs consistently understated style lends a matter-of-fact The letters she receives provide not only the issues and relation-
quality to characters and experiences far from the ordinary read- ships on which the stories are based, but the different perspectives
ers experience. However odd her characters, they exist within found when more than one person tells the same tale. Hope
complex networks of interpersonal relationships; families, espe- becomes pregnant and marries Larry, who is of Native American
cially, are never far from the center of her stories. Her books are as heritage and has a drinking problem. Marz writes of challenges,
much about connections as about isolation, as much about rich new beginnings, and introspection brought about by his relation-
identities as about fractured selves. ship with his grandson, Ben. The theme of the tribe weaves
throughout Where the Road Goes as it relates to communities in
While her prose hesitates to announce itself, Greenbergs generalfamilies, gays, activists, idealists. As always, Greenberg
plotting and narrative devices are prominent. In Simple Gifts presents a good story through complex characters and simple,
(1986), Greenbergs use of multiple points of view is appropriate elegant prose for a truly memorable offering.
for a novel that explores the endless emotional and moral valences
of a family who nd themselves transformed when a government Greenberg is the recipient of a myriad of awards, including
program turns their dilapidated farm into a vacation spot for jaded the Community Grange Award for Citizenship, the H & E Daroff
yuppies. A Season of Delight (1981) also examines the dynamics Memorial Award for ction (1963), William and Janice Eppstein
of competing family values. Fiction Award (1964), Fromm Reichmann Award (1967), Kenner
Award (1971), Rocky Mountain Womens Institute Award (1983),
Vivian Sanborn in Age of Consent (1987) embarks on a and the Denver Public Library Bookplate Award (1990). Greenberg
pilgrimage to nd out about the life of her adopted, recently has also been awarded several honorary degrees, from Gallaudet
assassinated brother, Daniel, healer, saint, and a man incapable of College, Western Maryland College, and the University of Colorado.
143
GREENE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
OTHER WORKS: High Crimes and Misdemeanors (1979). Leah but with greater sophistication. The tale concerns the beautiful
(with Seymour Epstein, 1987). With the Snow Queen (1991). No Vesty, whose strength and good sense make her a quiet center of
Reckning Made (1993). the isolated Basin community. Loved by three men, she marries
one, the simple and devoted Gurd, to save another, the rich Notely,
from his own folly. After Gurd has died trying to save Notely in a
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1969). CANR (1985, 1991). storm, and after Notely (married to another) dies as well, Vesty
CLC (1977,1984). SATA (1981). nally acknowledges the love of Major Henry. Henry, a lamed
Other references: Booklist (1 Jan. 1998). LJ (Jan. 1998). and scarred summer visitor to the Basin, narrates most of the
Psychology Review (1972). PW (23 Sept. 1988, 8 Dec. 1997). action. His point of view effectively serves to reveal his silent love
for Vesty and to provide a distanced commentary on the Basin
NYTBR (27 Dec. 1987, 30 Oct. 1988).
lifestyle. When Greene introduces an omniscient narrator to
delineate other relationships, however, the alternation of view-
JANETTE S. LEWIS,
point is sometimes strained.
UPDATED BY FAYE HALPERN AND REBECCA C. CONDIT
Several of Greenes characters are skillfully drawn. Vesty,
for example, despite some idealization, is an appealing woman in
her quiet strength. The Basin folk are distinguished by a broad
even slapstickhumor and by a somewhat self-conscious dialect.
GREENE, Sarah (Pratt) McLean Nevertheless, the story is true to the complexity of emotion and
catches the avor of a rural New England community. In later
novels, such as Lastchance Junction, Far, Far West (1889) and
Born 3 July 1856, Simsbury, Connecticut; died 28 December Leon Pontifex (1890), Greene tried the West as a setting, but she
1935, Lexington, Massachusetts was always most attuned to the quirks and language of New
Daughter of Dudley B. and Mary Payne McLean; married England, and novels like Towhead and Flood-Tide (1901), despite
Franklin L. Greene, 1887 (died 1890) faults of exaggeration, exhibit Greenes talent most effectively.
Greenes gift was for humor and the exact rendering of the
The second youngest of ve children, Sarah McLean Green manners of her New England country men and women. Her
grew up on a Connecticut farm. Taught by her mother and in local characters often verge on vivid caricature, a quality winning her
schools, she attended Mt. Holyoke College for two years and then the private praise of Mark Twain, and a skill by which she
accepted a teaching appointment at Cedarville, Massachusetts, on frequently captures the essence of her region.
Cape Cod. Intrigued by the eccentricity of Cape Cod life, she set
down her impressions of it. When a Boston relative who had noted
the quality of her correspondence urged her to publish something, OTHER WORKS: Stuart and Bamboo (1897). The Moral Imbeciles
she submitted these recollections to a Boston publisher. Her (1898). Winslow Plain (1902). Deacon Lysander (1904). Power
writing career began with the publication of Cape Cod Folks Lot (1906). The Long Green Road (1911). Everbreeze (1913).
(1881), followed by Towhead: The Story of a Girl (1883) and
Some Other Folks (1884), a collection of stories. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Howe, J. W., Representative Women of New
England (1904). Smith, H. N., and W. Gibson, eds., Mark Twain-
Greene married a former Annapolis midshipman. The couple Howells Letters (1960).
lived rst near Chihuahua, Mexico, where Greene was involved in Reference works: NAW (1971).
a silver mining operation; later they lived in the Washington Other references: Boston Globe (30 Dec. 1935). Boston
Territory and in California. In 1890, when her husband died, Transcript (30 Dec. 1935). Harpers (Nov. 1881). Harvard Gradu-
Greene moved back to New England to write. Greenes literary ates Magazine (June 1931). Nation (22 Sept. 1881, 14 July 1892).
career was based largely on the notoriety of her rst novel, Cape New Orleans Picayune (8 Jan. 1882, 4 June 1893).
Cod Folks. Essentially personal reminiscences of a community
that had fascinated her, the book has for its plot a set of romantic BARBARA C. EWELL
involvements and is characterized by a perceptive rendering of
local humor and by vivid depictions of Codder life and mores.
Some of the accounts were a little too realistic, however, since
Greene had described certain characters under their real names GREENFIELD, Eloise
and a series of lawsuits ensued, some culminating in settlements
against her. Nevertheless, published at a point when regionalism Born 17 May 1929, Parmele, North Carolina
was all the rage, the novel went through 11 printings in its rst two Daughter of Weston W. and Lessie Jones Little; married Rob-
years and established Greene as a local-color writer. ert J. Greeneld, 1950 (separated); children Steven, Monica
Vesty of the Basins (1892), Greenes second most successful Passionate about language and the rhythms of words, Eloise
work, also employs the themes and techniques of Cape Cod Folks, Greeneld has devoted her career to writing childrens books
144
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GREENFIELD
offering African American children a positive and self-afrming beginning of her life. As a creator, she thrilled to the sentence
view of the minority experience. Greeneld writes: I want to be Home is where the music is, and continues to feel a mission to
one of those who can choose and order words that children will celebrate those words. Home and music continue as constant
want to celebrate. I want to make them shout and laugh and blink themes, anchors to which she and her characters return. Her rst
back tears and care about themselves. Her extensive list of book of poetry, Honey, I Love: and Other Love Poems (1978), a
prestigious awards is one indication that she has succeeded in this Reading Rainbow selection, includes the music of skipping rope
goal. After what Greeneld describes as a childhood she looks and the rhythm of riding trains; all poems are home bound, safe
back on with pleasure, she attended Miner Teachers College from and secure. Nathaniel Talking contains the literal music of bones
1946-49. She then began a career as a clerk typist at the U.S. and blues.
Patent Ofce (1949-56). From 1956 to 1960, Greeneld was a
Most of Greenelds picture books address everyday trau-
supervisory patent assistant, after which she worked in a variety of
mas and delight: the arrival of a new sibling, parent separation, a
capacities in the Washington D.C. area until 1968.
grandmothers sadness about moving, buying a present for a
In the 1970s Greeneld became involved in the District of mothers birthday. Sometimes the resolution seems too easy and
Columbia Black Writers Workshop, where she started as the predictable, but Greenelds determination that children feel
codirector of adult ction (1971-73) and then became director of good about themselves transcends these considerations. Two
childrens literature (1973-74). She served as the District of novels for young readers, Sisters (1974) and Talk About a Family
Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities writer-in- (1978), record the anger and sadness of their young female
residence for 1973 and 1985-86. She continues to write and protagonists as they try to make sense of their fears and confusion.
participate in numerous school and library programs and work- Both novels conclude realistically: with a potential for a better
shops for both children and adults, striving to address realistic future, but with no facile solution to present difculties.
childhood issuesAfrican American issues in particularby
Her commitment to providing good role models for African
stressing the importance of family and positive alternative meth-
American children has drawn Greeneld toward biography. Lu-
ods of solving problems.
cid writing and artful selection of detail makes her books on heroic
Early in her career, Greeneld commented on how it has Americans Mary McLeod Bethune, Rosa Parks, and Paul Robeson
been inspiring. . .to be part of the struggle to create quality accessible to young readers, and she has won numerous awards
books for African American children. In picture books, novels for for these documents of resilience and courage. They are an
young readers, biographies of famous African Americans, mem- important part of Greenelds share in building a signicant body
oirs of childhood, and poetry, Greenelds work has been infused of excellent literature for all children.
with warmth, hope, and joy. Her vision has always pointed in two
directions: back to a past rich with strength and courage and
OTHER WORKS: Sister (1969). The Last Dance (1971). Love, Oh
forward to a future brimming with possibilities.
Love (1972). Bubbles (1972, reissued as Good News, 1977). Rosa
Greenelds young protagonists are often dreamers whose Parks (1973, 1995). She Come Bringing Me That Little Baby Girl
quiet time spent imagining and dreaming is growing time. In (1974). Me and Nessie (1975). Paul Robeson (1975). First Pink
Nathaniel Talking (1989), her third Coretta Scott King Award Light (1976, reissued 1991). Africa Dream (with L. J. Little,
winner, young Nathaniel B. Free raps philosophically about his 1977). Mary McLeod Bethune (1977). I Can Do It Myself (with
family, his friends, his life. Despite losing his mother, Nathaniel Lessie Jones Little, 1978). Darlene (1980). Grandmamas Joy
feels strongly connected to his father and his extended family. (1980, 1999). Daydreamers (1981). Alesia (with Alesia Revis,
Familial connections are always important in Greenelds writ- 1981). Grandpas Face (1988). Under the Sunday Tree (1988).
ing, and she lovingly explores alternatives to the traditional My Doll, Keshia (1991). Night on Neighborhood Street (1991,
nuclear family. 1996). Big Friend, Little Friend (1991). Daddy and I (1991). I
Make Music (1991). Koya Delaney and the Good Girl (1992).
Family provided Greeneld with personal strength as she William and the Good Old Days (1993). Aaron and Gaylas
faced societal hostility and rejection. With her mother, Lessie Counting Book (1993). Sweet Baby Coming (with J. S. Gilchrist,
Jones Little, she wrote Childtimes: A Three Generational Memoir 1994). On My Horse (1995). Easter Parade (1997). For the Love
(1979) dedicated to the memory of her grandmother who had of the Game: Michael Jordan and Me (1997). Kia Tanisha (1997).
dictated material for the book. This autobiography, which many Kia Tanisha Drives Her Car (1997). Angels (1998).
consider Greenelds best work, traces the history of the three
women against the landscape of their times. An intimate personal
history shapes the books quiet theme that childhood can and BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Black Authors and Illustrators
should be happy, a time of building self-esteem supported by a of Childrens Books (1992). CA (Online, 1999). Childrens Books
caring family and community: a childtime is a mighty thing. and Their Creators (1995). Childrens Literature Review (1996).
The book received the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for TCCW (1983, 1989). SATA (1990). CLR (1982).
nonction and the Carter Book Award for outstanding merit. Other references: Horn Book (Dec. 1975).
Greeneld created her rst book, a scrapbook put together SUSAN P. BLOOM,
with household paste, when she was three and views this act as the UPDATED BY JULIET BYINGTON
145
GRIFFIN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
GREENWOOD, Grace women. Despite their differences, the characters share underlying
See LIPPINCOTT, Sara Jane fears and frustrations; at the conclusion of the play, speaking in
chorus they identify themselves with womankind, from slave to
socialite. Only Rosalinde, the youngest, seems not to share the
others feelings of suppression, but to remain apart she must
GRIFFIN, Susan employ tactics of deliberate avoidance. Her exaggerated life-
sketch and her impassioned rejection of the emotions of the others
only underscore realitys threat, which she subconsciously recog-
Born 26 January 1943, Los Angeles, California nizes. The women nally reject death-suicide-endless sleep, and
Daughter of Walden and Sarah Colvin Grifn; married John the vitality of the plays poetic form emphasizes the resilience and
Levy, 1966
renewal of the womens spirits.
A self-dened radical feminist, Susan Grifn graduated from Uniting feminism and ecology, Woman and Nature: The
San Francisco State University (B.A. 1965, M.A. 1972). She has Roaring Inside Her (1978) is an elegant prose poem, and its
been variously employed as a waitress, switchboard and teletype design allows for both continuous reading and random sampling.
operator, house painter, teacher, assistant editor of Ramparts, In the four sectionsMatter, Separation, Passages, and
artists model, and an actor and director in San Francisco. She is a Her VisionGrifn blends science, literature, history, relig-
supporter of the Feminist Writers Guild. ion, myth and more, to reexplore the limitations of patriarchy and
the limitlessness of the woman-centered universe. Matter
In Like the Iris of an Eye (1976), which includes her three
compares and contrasts patriarchal judgements about nature and
earlier volumes of poetry, Grifn writes in a rst-person, conver-
women with ludicrous and absurd conclusions; Separation
sational style underscoring the intensity of the poems emotional
focuses attention on the enforced distance between humans and
content. The rst sectionEarly Poems (1967-73)includes
nature. Moving through Passages to Her Vision, Grifn
the title poem, Love Should Grow Up Like a Wild Iris in the
describes a new way of seeing a woman-identied view of nature
Field and it deliberately and ironically rejects the romantic
stereotype to locate love in the iris of an eye, which is probably and women which challenges and encompasses the reader.
watching out for a child, checking a cooking dinner, and seeing The power of Grifns works comes from the clarity of her
the tame, familiar, and restricted life that is the antithesis of a perceptions of the role, conditions, existence, and aspirations of
wildower. Most of the poems in this section are concerned with ordinary women. The domestic details, the historical stereotypes,
contradictions either between stereotypes and reality or between and the contemporary dilemma are carefully integrated in her
expectations and reality. The woman whose feelings Grifn
well-crafted, fully accessible poetry, drama, ction, and essays.
identies recognizes her afnity with the black American slave
She neither excuses nor accuses; she investigates with sympathy
(I like to think of Harriet Tubman), Native American (White
and understanding, and she speaks for the experience of us all.
Bear), war protesters (To Gather Ourselves), and political
revolutionaries (Letter to the Revolution, Poem in the Form Grifns career has included a range of genres: poetry, plays,
of a Letter). She is an outsider whose search for power leads her stories, and essays. By 1980, after almost a decade of publication,
into conict with unaware men who wont know the half of it, she had garnered such awards as the Ina Coolbrith Prize in poetry
not in a million years (An Answer to a Mans Question, What and a National Endowment for the Arts grant, as well as her
Can I Do About Womens Liberation?). Emmy for Voices. Her work in the 1980s and 1990s engaged with
The second sectionFamily (1967-76)is a verbal por- subjects of a global naturerape, pornography, and war.
trait album; descriptions are almost visual in the ordering of Emphatically feminist in politics and writing, Grifn has
heretofore insignicant details that assume mythic proportions in increasingly become a theorist and interpreter of womens condi-
linking four generations of women and some of the men who tion. This trend is especially clear in Rape: The Power of Con-
shared their lives. The six poems of section threeThe Tired-
sciousness (1979), a collection of essays, and Pornography and
ness Cycle (1973-74)reect disappointment and disillusion-
Silence: Cultures Revolt Against Nature (1981). Rape includes a
ment, which are allowed neither to deepen into despair nor to
version of her well-known 1971 essay, Rape: The All-American
vanish through avoidance (I dwell on the line). Structurally
Crime, in which, like Susan Brownmiller, Grifn analyzes rape
more varied than the earlier sections, the works of the nal
as the chief tool of patriarchy in maintaining power: a crime
groupNew Poems (1973-76)focus primarily on self-
carried out by a few men on behalf of many. Calling it a male
discovery and acceptance; on evolving a vivid understanding of
protection racket where a woman is made to feel unsafe and
the woman-self. Though varied, the experiences examined are
therefore dependent on her man, she also connects the crime of
central to womens existence and awareness; Grifns works bear
rape with national aggressions, such as American imperialism,
witness to the common base of womens real lives.
particularly in Vietnam. Her other essays look at encouraging
Grifns Emmy award-winning radio drama Voices (1975) changes in the attitude toward the prosecution of rape since the
presents ve women whose ages (nineteen to seventy) and experi- womens movement in the 1970s but warn the crime of rape is still
ences span 20th century American lifeas it is allowed to statistically increasing. In Consciousness she closes on a hopeful
146
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GRIFFITH
note, choosing hope over dread, with a vision of the possibility Constructing and Reconstructing Gender: The Links Among
of change for women when they learn to confront and overcome Communication, Language, and Gender (1992). Howe, R., ed. No
fears keeping them from full self-realization: I have tasted More Masks!: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century American
freedom from fear, a world we imagine, and this small taste means Women Poets (1993). Shima, A., Skirting the Subject: Pursuing
more to me than large fears. Language in the Works of Adrienne Rich, Susan Grifn, and
Beverly Dahlen (dissertation, 1993). Ysunza, A., Embracing
In Pornography and Silence, a groundbreaking work, Grifn Chaos: A Literary Analysis of Susan Grifns Women and
denies the conventional notion women are subservient and enjoy Nature (thesis, 1989).
subservience and argues forcefully that women do not welcome Reference works: CA 49-52 (1975). CANR (1981, 1989).
dominationa necessary message at the time. She also interprets Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United States
the male psyche, perceiving it as separated from emotion and, (1995). Women Writers of the West Coast (1983).
ultimately, from women. This disassociation, as well as the belief Other references: NYTBR (22 Nov. 1992). PW (10 Aug.
in the subservience of women, creates the environment for por- 1992). Whole Earth Review (Summer 1989). LJ (July 1987).
nography. Although some critics argued the ferocity of Grifns
tone and language diminished the impact of her message, her KATHLEEN GREGORY KLEIN,
work was prophetic, opening the way to a feminist analysis of UPDATED BY LINDA BERUBE AND NELSON RHODES
pornography.
A Chorus of Stones: The Private Life of War (1992, reissued

1994) is a moving and profoundly multilayered meditation on
historyespecially the history of war and weapon making, on GRIFFITH, Mary
family secrets and the connections between public and private,
and on the destructiveness this silence and denial create, both in
war and in families. Firmly joining the personal to the global, Born date unknown; died 1877
Grifn ranges over wars and countries to demonstrate connection. Wrote under: The Author of Our Neighborhood, Mrs. Grifth
As social concepts, war and gender evolved together, Grifn
once told an interviewer. To change either, we have to change Very little is known of Mary Grifths life. Records of the
both. The stones of the title are a paradoxical symbol: though Massachusetts Horticultural Society show that she became an
silent, they reveal traces from res suffered thousands of years honorary member of the Society in 1830 and that she died in 1877.
ago. So, too, human beings carry our own history and the In response to Grifths gift of her rst volume the editor of the
history of the world embedded in us, we hold a sorrow deep within New England Farmer tells a little more about her. Grifth had
and cannot weep until that history is song. long been distinguished for her extensive, interesting, and
valuable experiments as a practical cultivator of the soil. She
Grifn has also published essays on such topics as chronic was known also for her contributions to horticultural literature,
fatigue syndrome. In addition to writing, she sought a doctorate although he does not tell us what they were. He does call her, in
degree at the Starr King School of Ministry. light of Our Neighborhood (1831), the rst female author on
tillage. About her personal life he tells us only that she was left a
widowed mother in the prime of life and boldly attempted to
OTHER WORKS: Dear Sky (1971). Let Them Be Said (1973). support herself at the practice of agriculture. She signs her address
Letters (1974). The Sink (1974). Made from This Earth: An simply Charlies Hope, New Jersey, a place which does not appear
Anthology of Writings (1983). Unremembered Country (1987). in modern atlases.
Gourmet Expose: Revealing Favorite Restaurant Recipes of the
Wasatch Front (1994). The Eros of Everyday Life: Essays on Grifths published books number four, one of which, Dis-
Ecology, Gender and Society (1995, reprint 1996). Bending coveries in Light and Vision (1836, reprinted in 1993 by the
Home: Selected & New Poems, 1967-1998 (1998). What Her Classics in Opthamology Library), testies to her interest in
Body Thought: A Journey into the Shadows (1999). science. Her other three books are ction, throughout which she
Has contributed to the following books: Reweaving the often stops for a scientic observation about light, soil, or
World: The Emergence of Ecofeminism (1990); Revisioning Phi- phrenology. Our Neighborhood and The Two Defaulters (1842)
losophy (1992); Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature (1997); are novels, while Camperdown; or, News from Our Neighbor-
Women on Hunting (1994); Images of Women in Literature hood (1836) is a collection of tales. All three works are lightly
(1991); Transforming a Rape Culture (1993); Issues in Feminism: interconnected, being supposedly about the same neighbor-
An Introduction to Womens Studies (1995); and Readings in hood, although there is only slight mention of people who
Ecology and Feminist Theology (1995). appear in other stories to connect the works. Horticulture is not
really a major feature of her stories, except as infrequent asides in
Our Neighborhood, in which she tells how to plant grapes or
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Freedman, D. P., Writing in the Borderlands: potatoes while devoting most of the book to a silly romance
The Poetic Prose of Gloria Anzaldua and Susan Grifn in between the narrator and a mysterious girl.
147
GRIMES AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Grifths writing style is weak in plot and organization; for GRIMES, Martha
instance, some of the tales in Camperdown are not at all clear, in
plot or meaning, except as vehicles for her social concerns. One of
the tales, The Little Couple, tells of two very short people who Born Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (birthdate not available)
marry and who are given money by a rich uncle who expects (and Daughter of D. W. and June Dunnington Grimes; married and
gets) the privilege of ridiculing their size and naming their rst divorced; children: Kent Van Holland
daughter Glumdalclitch. The punch line is that they have a happy
life and six normal-sized daughters. Another story caricatures a The popular English-mystery series Martha Grimes has
man who has no regard for his 13 daughters and is bitterly written features Scotland Yard Inspector Richard Jury and his
disappointed not to have any sons.
sidekick, amateur sleuth Melrose Plant. Inspired by the name of a
Probably the most interesting story in Camperdown is Three British pub for her debut mystery novel (The Man with a Load of
Hundred Years Hence, a utopian story in which her main Mischief, 1981), Grimes continued the theme with all of the
character is frozen in a block of ice and awakens 300 years later in Richard Jury novels that followed. The pub names serve not only
the same place. He nds all sorts of marvels: Grifths 22nd- as the title but also as part of the setting in each book. In 1983
century America is powered by a mysterious sort of engine Grimes told a reporter, Unless I have the pub name rst, I cant
invented by a woman. Among other reforms, dogs are extinct, write the book. She has also said she often doesnt know who the
ending the threat of massive outbreaks of hydrophobia. Men are murderer is until shes halfway through writing the book.
educated for business life, while women have the right to earn
money and control their own property. Her mystery novels are truly a series in that the characters
continue from one book to the next with relatively little introduc-
Grifth was very concerned with the economic security of tion, and previous events are frequently alluded to. Grimes main
women. She had no interest in politics or public life for women, characters, Richard Jury, the tall, cultured and quiet professional,
only asking such things as they be allowed to clerk in retail stores and Melrose Plant, the agreeable, aristocratic amateur, have been
and do tailoring. In Our Neighborhood she devotes pages to a called an unusual duo. Plants American-born, interfering Aunt
lecture on Woman given by one of the characters who is Agatha is another recurring character.
obviously voicing Grifths own opinions. Various other of her
works show her constant concern with respect due to women and Commended for her sense of humor and graceful writing
the needs of women to be economically independent. She was style, Grimes has been described as a literary descendant of
both a critic of the business community for its treatment of women Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie. But unlike her native-Briton
and its dishonest practices, and a true believer in the opportunities predecessors, Grimes, a devout Anglophile, relies on research and
offered by the American way. frequent trips to England to gather material for her settings and
A woman of strong opinions, Grifth despised dogs, bank- characters backgrounds. While her plots have been described as
ers, society doctors, and any man who let women work to support complex and convoluted, the depth of plot and the strong emotion-
him, such as young men who allow church women to raise al appeal of her eccentric characters have made Grimes a favorite
scholarships for them to study for the ministry. Womens work, in America. There are those, however, particularly British readers,
she felt, should benet women. Her ction gives a fascinating who take pleasure in pointing out factual errors in her books, such
picture of contemporary life highly colored by her earnest solicita- as trains leaving from the incorrect London station. These errors,
tion of the readers opinion. The three works of ction by Grifth however, have decreased as the series has progressed.
are well worth the attention of a student of early American ction,
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where her father was the
especially her utopian romance. But perhaps the most interesting
city solicitor, Grimes spent summers at her mothers hotel in
aspect of her work after all is its critical comment on womans
place in the business world. Mountain Lake Park, Maryland. Her favorite memories of that
time include the theatrical productions her brother staged in the
garage behind the hotel. She earned her B.A. and M.A. at the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Adkins, N., Introduction to Three Hundred Years University of Maryland and went on to teach English at the
Hence by M. Grifth (1950). Jones, L., F., and S. W. Goodwin, University of Iowa and at Frostburg State College in Maryland,
eds., Feminism, Utopia, and Narrative (1990). Rohrlich, R. where she was an assistant professor. In the late 1990s Grimes was
and E. H. Baruch, eds., Women in Search of Utopia (1984). an English professor at Montgomery College in Tacoma Park,
Reference works: Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in Maryland, and on occasion she also teaches detective ction at
the United States (1995). Johns Hopkins University. She has residences in both Washing-
Other references: History of the Massachusetts Horticultural ton, D.C., and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Society (1880). New England Farmer (May 1831). Transactions
of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society (1876, 1877). Wom- After introducing readers to Richard Jury in The Man with a
ens Studies (1982). Load of Mischief, discovered in an unsolicited manuscripts pile by
an editor at Little, Brown in 1979 and published with a rst
BEVERLY SEATON printing of three thousand copies, Grimes published The Old Fox
148
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GRIMK
Deceivd in 1982. The following year, 1983, Grimes third novel Grimks rst pamphlet was Appeal to Christian Women of
in the series, The Anodyne Necklace, earned her the Nero Wolfe the Southern States (1836). In the Appeal she attacked the
award for best mystery of the year along with critical acclaim. The traditional religious justications of slavery and focused instead
Five Bells and Bladebone put Grimes on the New York Times on the God-given equality of the slave as human being. The most
bestseller list in 1987. Her next two books in the series, The Old powerful and original part of the Appeal was her call to Southern
Silent (1989) and The Old Contemptibles (1991), also made the women to take action against slavery. Though women lacked
bestseller list. political power, they could free slaves who were their own
property, ameliorate the conditions for other slaves, and petition
In 1992 Grimes broke from her fans beloved Jury series with
legislatures for emancipation. Such actions might lead to nes or
The End of the Pier, which combined a serial-murder mystery in
imprisonment; nevertheless, she called women to civil disobedi-
Maryland with the touching exploration of a mother and son
ence. She contended: If a law commands me to sin, I will break
relationship. Though it was praised by critics, Richard Jury fans
it; if it calls me to suffer, I will let it take its course unresistingly.
felt betrayed and reacted much more negatively. In 1993 Grimes
told a reporter, Perhaps I should have published under a Grimks Appeal was the only abolitionist message by a Southern
pseudonym. woman addressed specically to Southern women. As such it
aroused violent opposition in the South.
Twice during the 15-book Jury series, Grimes brought her
Scotland Yard inspector to America. The Horse You Came In On Grimks second pamphlet, An Appeal to the Women of the
(1993) was titled after a pub she came across in Baltimore. I Nominally Free States (1837), stressed womens particular re-
knew I would have to gure out some way to get Jury and Melrose sponsibility to their fellow women in bondage. Female slaves are
to come over [to America], Grimes said in 1993, purely on the in fact our countrywomen. . .our sisters. Both free and slave
basis of the name of this pub. Fan reaction was so positive that women suffered from discrimination; because of alleged mental
her characters crossed the Atlantic again in Rainbows End (1995). inferiority, both were denied educational opportunities. Grimk
denounced not only slavery but also Northern race prejudice. She
In 1999 Grimes published Biting the Moon, the rst in a condemned segregation patterns as a wicked absurdity in a
series of novels that explores animal welfare, a topic of keen republic. Such prejudice, she contended, radically limited North-
interest to her, with most of her royalties going to animal charities. ern inuence on the South.
On why she wrote Biting the Moon, Grimes says, While the
characters are ctional, the practices are not. This is my way of Letters to Catharine E. Beecher (1838) came in response to
reaching people. So many people can be reached through ction. Beechers Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism with Reference to
the Duty of American Females (1837). Beecher had attacked
Grimk both for advocating abolition and for urging womens
OTHER WORKS: The Dirty Duck (1984). Jerusalem Inn (1984).
involvement therein. In the Letters, rst published serially in the
Help the Poor Struggler (1985). The Deer Leap (1985). I Am
Liberator and the Emancipator in 1837, Grimk concentrated
the Only Running Footman (1986). Send Bygraves (1989).
primarily on a detailed defense of the efcacy of immediate
Hotel Paradise (1996). The Case Has Altered (1997). The
abolition. She condemned the gradualism Beecher advocated and
Stargazey (1998).
called for a program of immediate abolition including equal rights
to education and equal protection under the laws. Such a program,
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Book Review Digest 1997 (1998).CA (1986). she acknowledged, would bring major changes in Northern socie-
Heising, W., Detecting Women 2 (1996). Swanson, J., and D. ty as well as Southern. And Grimk welcomed the prospect.
James, By a Womans Hand (1994).
In the two letters which dealt specically with Beechers
KATHY HENDERSON concept of womens limited sphere, Grimk developed a strong
feminist argument based on a doctrine of human rights. According
to Grimk, human beings have rights because they are moral
beings. As moral beings, women no less than men must act
GRIMK (WELD), Angelina (Emily) publicly on moral issues. As human beings, women should
participate in making all laws concerning their own condition. She
saw a new cause emerging out of the abolitionist controversy, a
Born 20 February 1805, Charleston, South Carolina; died 26 broad drive to reclaim the usurped rights of all disadvantaged
October 1879, Hyde Park, Massachusetts persons, including women and slaves.
Also wrote under: A. E. Grimk, Angelina Grimk Weld
Daughter of John F. and Mary Smith Grimk; married Theo- When she married Theodore Weld, her career as a writer
dore D. Weld, 1838 came to an end. She collaborated with him and her sister, Sarah, in
compiling American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand
An abolitionist and womens rights pioneer, Angelina Grimk Witnesses (1839). Some speeches and a letter on womens rights
launched her meteoric career in the abolitionist movement in a were later published. But it is upon the three works written
letter to William Lloyd Garrison published in The Liberator (1835). between 1836 and 1838 that her reputation rests.
149
GRIMK AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
As a writer, Grimk has a forceful and clean-cut style. Her inherent conict between slavery and Christianity, basing her
arguments are lucid and cogent, and she writes with ease and argument against slavery on the premise that God had created all
directness. She utilizes 18th-century reformist ideas to support her men equal. Referring to state laws and practices, she effectively
arguments, drawing heavily on environmentalist theories to ex- demonstrates how the law kept ministers from meeting religious
plain the perversion of original equality. She also draws on obligations to slaves, and she calls on the Southern clergy to act as
18th-century republican ideology with its stress on the imperative moral leaders against slavery.
necessity for moral virtue among citizens if the republic is to
Grimks second publication came out of an antislavery
survive. Above all, however, as a 19th-century evangelical re-
lecture tour of New England in 1837 and 1838. Because Grimk
former, she relies on religious arguments. The Bible offered the
and her sister Angelina lectured publicly on abolition to both men
standard of judgement by which to determine the evils of slavery.
and women, they were sharply criticized, especially by the Con-
It offered the religious-historical role models for women under-
gregationalist Ministerial Association of Massachusetts. Grimk
taking responsible moral action against slavery. In her religious responded with 15 letters, rst published serially in 1837 in the
convictions, Grimk found the basis for the formulation of the New England Spectator and later collected as a book.
doctrine of human rights. In so doing, she nally fused the two
causes with which her private life and her public career became In the Letters on the Equality of the Sexes (1838), Grimk
identied, abolition and womens rights. rejects indignantly the contention that women should not speak
publicly on moral issues, asserting that as morally responsible
individuals, they cannot do otherwise. She further argues women
OTHER WORKS: The papers of Angelina Grimk Weld are housed should themselves become ministers. She went on to develop a
in the Moorhead-Springarn Research Center of Howard Universi- full-edged argument for womens equality. Again, she started
ty in Washington, D.C. with the religious premise. God had created man and woman with
equal moral rights and duties; original equality and responsibility
remained unaltered by the Fall. Nor did Christ distinguish be-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Barnes, G. H., and D. L. Dumond, eds., Letters of tween male and female virtues. The biblical message is clear:
Theodore Dwight Weld, Angelina Grimk Weld, and Sarah Grimk: Whatever is right for man to do, is right for woman.
1822-1844 (2 vols., 1934). Birney, C., The Grimk Sisters, Sarah Grimk contrasted this original equality with the oppression
and Angelina Grimk: The First Women Advocates of Abolition women historically have endured around the world. Throughout
and Womans Rights (1885). Ceplair, L., ed., The Public Years of history man has imposed his authority over woman. In non-
Sarah and Angelina Grimk: Selected Writings, 1835-1839 (1989). Western countries, he treats woman as a slave or a toy to amuse
Hull, G. T., Color, Sex, and Poetry: Three Women Writers of the himself. In America and Europe, male dominance is generally
Harlem Renaissance (1987). Lerner, G., The Grimk Sisters from cloaked in terms of protection, but the oppression is no less real.
South Carolina: Rebels Against Slavery (1967). Lumpkin, K. Du The weight of inequality varies according to womens social
Pre, The Emancipation of Angelina Grimk (1974). Miller, E. M., status. In America, Grimk argued, working women felt econom-
The Other Construction: Where Violence and Womanhood Meet ic consequences most keenly; for middle class women, legal
in the Writings of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Angelina Grimk Weld, disabilities and intellectual deprivation were the crucial problems.
and Nella Larsen (1999). Weld, T. D., In Memory: Angelina
Grimk Weld (1880). After the Letters, Grimk largely withdrew from writing. She
Reference works: HWS, I. NAW (1971). NCAB. Oxford collaborated with her sister and brother-in-law in compiling
Companion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses
(1839); she wrote occasionally for newspapers and did a transla-
tion of Alphonse de Lamartines Joan of Arc (1867).
INZER BYERS
Of the two publications of 1836-38, the Epistle to the Clergy
of the Southern States is essentially a minor work. It added little to
the antislavery argument, and the often turgid style of writing
further limited its appeal. The Letters on the Equality of the Sexes,
GRIMK, Sarah Moore on the other hand, is a signicant pioneering work written with
power and originality. In it her style is forthright and lucid, the
Born 26 November 1792, Charleston, South Carolina; died 23 tone grave and dispassionate. Her arguments are lit with occasion-
December 1873, Hyde Park, Massachusetts al ashes of ironic humor and anger.
Daughter of John F. and Mary Smith Grimk In explaining womens historical inequality, Grimk particu-
larly stressed the environmentalist argument. She contrasted the
Sarah Moore Grimk made her impact upon American role women in general were allowed to play with the role women
history and literature as an abolitionist and advocate of womens in authority showed themselves capable of fullling. Especially
rights. Her rst publication was a pamphlet, An Epistle to the she denounced the deliberate efforts to debase and enslave
Clergy of the Southern States (1836). In it, Grimk stresses the womens intellect. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their
150
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GRUENBERG
feet from off our necks and permit us to stand upright. Only then America; Gruenberg was named director, a post she held until her
can the validity of male assumptions about womens nature and retirement in 1950. She taught parent education at Teachers
abilities be tested. Grimk also used the American revolutionary College and New York University between 1928 and 1936.
tradition of protest against usurpation of rights. She thus offered a
basis for attacking inequality that the women of Seneca Falls In her rst book, Your Child Today and Tomorrow (1913),
would utilize in 1848. Gruenberg exhibited her talent for synthesizing the best sources of
child development information and translating them into language
Above all, Grimk recognized the importance of putting the parents could understand and trust. The combination of conven-
argument for equality in religious terms, which were the terms tional wisdom and a willingness to experiment with new ideas
most crucial for her own generation. She boldly staked out the which characterizes this book is also representative of Gruenbergs
claim that equality itself was Gods will, built into creation. As style throughout her work. Sons and Daughters (1916), in a
Gods gift, this equality could and must be reclaimed. The Letters similar format, addressed itself to the training of older boys and
on the Equality of the Sexes stands as a major achievement, the girls. Here she drew from innovative psychological theories that
rst signicant defense of womens rights by an American woman. isolated adolescence as a unique stage of development.
We, the Parents (1939), written in the shadow of World War

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Barnes, G. H., and D. L. Dumond, eds., Letters of II, won the Parents Magazine award in 1940 as the outstanding
Theodore Dwight Weld, Angelina Grimk Weld, and Sarah Grimk: publication of that year. In addition to advice on child rearing, an
1822-1844 (2 vols., 1934). Bartlett, E. A., ed., Sarah Grimk: important theme of this book and throughout her work is the
Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and Other Essays (1988). ambivalence inherent in women on the subject of work vs. family.
Birney, C., The Grimk Sisters, Sarah and Angelina Grimk: The Gruenberg recognizes the complex needs of modern women and
First Women Advocates of Abolition and Womans Rights (1885). warns mothers to prepare for a number of life stages. We have to
Ceplair, L., ed., The Public Years of Sarah and Angelina Grimk: choose not once, but many times and at each stage with the same
Selected Writings, 1835-1839 (1989). Hull, G. T., Color, Sex, and degree of uncertainty. She felt women need no longer be martyrs
Poetry: Three Women Writers of the Harlem Renaissance (1987). to their families and suggested marriage does not necessarily
Lerner, G., The Grimk Sisters from South Carolina: Rebels entail parenthood, but she also discussed a vast range of possi-
Against Slavery (1967). bilities for working out a balance between parenting and person-
Reference works: DAB. NAW (1971). NCAB. Oxford Com- al growth.
panion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). Gruenberg and her daughter, Hilda Krech, continue examin-
ing the problem of womens choices in The Many Lives of Modern
INZER BYERS Women (1952). They confront the intellectual and physical isola-
tion of modern housewives and the conicts involved in being
educated but unable to pursue a career. Gruenbergs own ambiva-
lence is expressed in a picture of women both as victims of
conicting social expectations and yet personally responsible for
GRUENBERG, Sidonie Matzner nding their own appropriate solution.
Born 10 June 1881, Vienna, Austria; died 11 March 1974, New Gruenberg and her biologist husband coauthored The Won-
York, New York derful Story of How You Were Born (1952), a masterful book of
Daughter of Idore and Augusta Bassechs Matzner; married sex education for children. It is told in story form with illustra-
Benjamin C. Gruenberg, 1903 tions, explaining not only the entire reproduction process but also
the unique complex of emotions parents feel toward the birth of
their child. The book went through several printings; it was
The oldest of four girls and two boys, Sidonie Matzner revised in 1970 and translated into several languages.
Gruenberg was raised in a large family villa outside Vienna. In
1895, her father brought the family to New York, where they Her major editorial work, climaxing years of parent educa-
began a lifelong association with Felix Adlers Ethical Culture tion work, is The Encyclopedia of Child Care and Guidance
Society, a religious society, imbued with the spirit of religion but (1954). She was able to draw together in this 1,000-page compen-
without the dogmas. dium a massive quantity of facts and ideas on child rearing, by
such experts as Margaret Mead and Benjamin Spock. Gruenberg
After studying at the Ethical Culture schools, Gruenberg took also edited several anthologies of childrens stories.
graduate courses at Teachers College, Columbia University. In
1907 she began her association with the Federation of Child Gruenbergs writing represents a social history of the rst
Study, a group of Ethical Culture women encouraged by Felix half of the 20th century, in that it reects the evolution of attitudes
Adler to study new ideas in child development. In 1924, the and conventions toward the child, the family, and women. Fur-
federation expanded and became the Child Study Association of ther, the whole of her work chronicles child development theories
151
GRUMBACH AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
as they were interpreted and popularized in journals and maga- The characters in the academic (The Spoil of the Flowers,
zines. Gruenberg had an intuitive ability to absorb changes and 1962; The Short Throat, the Tender Mouth, 1964) and semiacademic
ideas and was skilled at communicating in clear, persuasive (Chamber Music, 1979) settings of Grumbachs novels are a
language, although she was less successful when attempting a dimension of her concern with the mind at work, for these are
personal or philosophical analysis. While some of her writing has often men and women who for all their intelligence and learning,
become outdated, the childrens anthologies, many of the child reect but gain little pleasure from reection, think but cannot act
rearing topics, and her insights into family relations remain effectively on their thoughts, and create but cannot share. The
contemporary and instructive. rivalries in The Spoil of the Flowers, the frustrated lives in The
Short Throat, the Tender Mouth, and the unhappy marriages in
Chamber Music all speak to the fragmentation characterizing the
OTHER WORKS: Our Children: A Handbook for Parents (edited lives of many of Grumbachs characters.
by Gruenberg, with D. C. Fisher, 1932). Parents, Children, and
Money (with B. C. Gruenberg, 1933). Parents Questions (edited In Chamber Music, one nds composers who have no desire
by Gruenberg, 1936; revised edition, 1947). The Use of Radio in to share with their wives the old talk, the old making of music
Parent Education (1939). The Family in a World at War (edited together, four hands at the same keyboard, four hands and two
by Gruenberg, 1942). Favorite Stories Old and New (edited by mouths and our whole beings engaged in the same loving act.
Gruenberg, 1942; revised edition, 1955). More Favorite Stories Only in the extraordinary loving relationship of Caroline and
Old and New (edited by Gruenberg, 1948; revised 1960). Your Anna, sketched so economically and sensitively in this introspec-
Child and You (1950). Our Children Today: A Guide to Their tive novel, does the reader nd an integrated, unied relationship.
Needs (edited by Gruenberg, with the CSAA, 1952). Children for Yet even this relationship is continually in the process of being
the Childless (with B. C. Gruenberg, 1954). Lets Read a Story reshaped and redrawn by Caroline. At the works conclusion, she
(edited by Gruenberg, 1957). Guiding Your Child from Five to notes, I think the historians view always superimposes itself
Twelve (1958). Parents Guide to Everyday Problems of Boys and upon history. Asked to write the history of her famous composer
Girls (1958). Lets Read More Stories (edited by Gruenberg, husband, Caroline managed to produce merely a sketch of the
1960). The Wonderful Story of You (with B. C. Gruenberg, 1960). chamber of one heart and continues to live only because her
Lets Hear a Story (edited by Gruenberg, 1961). Stories for Little memory of Anna has grown, reached up, covered, and supported
Girls and Little Boys (edited by Gruenberg, 1961). All Kinds of the rest of [her] life.
Courage (edited by Gruenberg, 1962). Your Child and Money
Grumbachs exposure to socialism as a student surfaces both
(Public Affairs Pamphlet #370, 1965).
The papers of Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg are at the Library in The Short Throat, the Tender Mouth and in a sensitive essay on
of Congress, Manuscript Division in Washington, D.C. McCarthyism, and her memory of a nun in an undergraduate class
appears as a vignette in a novel and as a touchstone in an essay on
her own conversion to Catholicism. This is not to imply Grumbach is
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Wollons, R. L., Educating Mothers: Sidonie primarily a biographically inspired writer. Rather, it is to say her
Matzner Gruenberg and the Child Study Association of America, works, as diverse as they appear to be, are of one piece and reect
1881-1929 (dissertation, 1983). upon each other in terms of themes and techniques. One watches
Reference works: CA (1975). CB (May 1940). Grumbach as an essayist explore the relationship of the experi-
Other references: Child Study Magazine (Spring 1950, Fall ence to the written word, as a biographer study the bond between
1956). NYT (9 June 1962, 13 March 1974). the life and the work of Mary McCarthy (a woman who, like
herself, was also a novelist and outstanding critic), as a novelist
ROBERTA WOLLONS show awareness of the reviewer, and as a literary critic analyze the
works of others.
Grumbachs literary concerns initially seem unrelatedthe

Catholic laypersons role in the Church, the academicians scruti-
GRUMBACH, Doris ny of the teaching profession and the Modern Language Associa-
tion, the feminists consideration of women writers, the biogra-
phers perspective on her subjectbut the primary and unifying
Born 12 July 1918, New York, New York
thrust behind all of Grumbachs work is that of reection. An
Daughter of Leonard W. and Helen Oppenheimer Isaac; married
experience is considered and transformed in the retelling so that a
Leonard Grumbach, 1941 (divorced); children: Barbara, Jane
continual sense of evaluation and reevaluation informs Grumbachs
ction as well as her nonction.
Doris Grumbach, retired professor of literature at the Ameri-
can University in Washington, D.C., has written several novels, Grumbachs roles gather their shape from her varying re-
literary biography, numerous critical articles, and hundreds of sponses to the printed word, as teacher, critic, reviewer, essayist,
book reviews for the New York Times Book Review, Common- and novelist, and it is possible to see in her literary production her
weal, New Republic, America, and Saturday Review. own contention that a good teacher lets students see her mind in
152
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GRUMBACH
the process of grappling with an idea. In The Art of Teaching: bright, teaches the shy, unlettered Sarah; as Eleanor becomes
Some Minor Heresies, Grumbach notes that the student sees crotchety and loses her sight, Sarah is increasingly in charge.
that learning is a continuous process, not a matter of authority or While some critics argue that the novel is an admirable departure
imposition of views (Catholic World, Oct. 1964). In the con- from more pessimistic lesbian novels, others see it as predeter-
trolled, evocative language and characterization of Chamber mined, placing joy where it may not have existed.
Music, Grumbach best illustrates the active, reective spirit that
The Magicians Girl (1987) tells of three college roommates
characterizes her own literary production.
in the 1940s. The title is taken from a line by Sylvia Plath: I am
Grumbachs active, reective spirit is especially obvious in the magicians girl who does not inch. Grumbach is acutely
Coming into the Endzone (1991), a memoir and a reection on the aware of the pains endured uninchingly by young women:
seventieth year of her life. Growing old means abandoning the Maud, poor and unattractive, Minna, middle class and overprotected
rituals of ones life, not hardening into them as some people but haunted by fears, and Liz, whose parents were Communist
think, she writes. And so, in the summer of 1989, the year sympathizers, scofng at the world outside their apartment. This
following her seventieth birthday, Grumbach and her longtime is the rst direct use of autobiographical material in Grumbachs
companion, Sybil Pike, moved from Washington, D.C., to work. Liz, the photographer who does not inch, who survives,
Sargentville, Maine. has Grumbachs socialist, Jewish, New York childhood. She is the
survivor, recording the world through her lens.
Her active mind is not hardened against new ideas. The
computer provides both assistance and simile: My memory is In addition to her work as a novelist, Grumbach has had a
diminished, like a hard disk that suddenly fails to deliver. . . . I distinguished career as a teacher and a critic. In 1972 she became
operate with oppy intelligence. She continues to believe that to literary editor for the New Republic, a position that occasioned her
help students learn, you hold their coats while they go at it. move to Washington from upstate New York where she had
taught at the College of St. Rose. After two magical years at the
Grumbach collects, she says, metaphors for deathcaged New Republic, she returned to teaching, becoming professor of
lions, a dead goldsh. Young friends are dying of AIDS, older literature at the American University. Grumbach retired from
ones are becoming frail. She is starting a new life, this time on the teaching in 1984, but remained very active as a reviewer for both
ocean, much as she and Sybil Pike did in 1972 when they moved print and radio. From 1982 to 1990, her distinctive voice and
to Washington to start their life together. Reecting the freedom carefully considered reections on books were familiar to listen-
of form that memory enables, the book moves through sad- ers of National Public Radio.
ness and loss to afrmation in a voice that is distinctively
Grumbach has completed a second volume of memoirs,
Grumbachs own.
Extra Innings, published in 1993. Extra Innings: A Memoir has
During the 1980s, Grumbach published three novels. The been said to be more of a hodgepodge than Endzone, but
Missing Person (1981) traces, through second-person references, whatever it is, it is the recollections of a woman who has lived her
the life of Franny Fuller, a movie queen much in the Jean Harlow long and speckled life through words. Fifty Days of Solitude
and Marilyn Monroe molds. Although reviewers frequently as- (1994) explores what Grumbach did when left alone while her
sume that the subject is Monroe, Grumbach has said, I really was companion went on a book-buying tripshe listened to music, sat
not writing about Marilyn Monroe, as everyone assumed, but in silence, and looked inside herself, what Gerard Manley Hop-
simply about someone who might have been almost anyone. I kins calls the inscape, the deep meandering landscape of an
erred in staying too closely to the biographical facts. The interior life. Again in Life in a Day (1996), she writes introspec-
missing person is a Hollywood star, manipulated, used, abused, tively about solitude and her gratitude for everyday, common
things, as the reader follows her through a day in her seventy-
supercial, and enormously beautiful. We do not hear her speak,
seven-year-old life.
but see her only through narrators, just as we see movie stars only
through their pictures; she is a prototype for all people who are The Book of Knowledge (1995) takes a turn to study four
missing, especially to themselves. central characters, teens during the stock market crash of 1929,
and follows them through to adulthood. The book deals head-on
The Ladies (1984) ctionalizes historical gures. Two
with sexuality issues, which some critics have attacked, but others
Irish-born women, Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby,
feel followed closely the tragedy of that generation.
move to a small Welsh village so they can live as they wish to, as a
married couple, rather than as society wishes them to. The women Grumbachs The Presence of Absence: On Prayers and
become renowned for their independence, and their visitors Epiphany (1998) explores a subject many explore in their later
include such people as William Wordsworth, who dedicated a years: God. Grumbach specically reects on her ongoing search
poem to them, Edmund Burke, and Walter Scott. Lonely, they are for God, sparked by a revelation that occurred over 50 years ago.
forbidden by Eleanors father to step foot inside Ireland again; She delves into the works of writers and philosopherssuch as
they farm their land, make friends with and enemies among the Simon Weil, Thomas Merton, and Kathy Norrisas she does in
local townfolk, become sick, aged, and die. Their marriage has all her other works, to make sense of her thoughts. She is waiting for
the incumbent difculties and pleasures. Eleanor, tutored and God to return to her life, to come back to her spiritually.
153
GUERNSEY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
OTHER WORKS: The Company She Kept: The Fiction of Mary philanthropy. She tries to train her younger sister by bullying her
McCarthy (1967). to give up sewing for her dolls and to take up sewing for the poor,
though of course Elmira herself does not sew. She tries to
entertain and comfort their invalid mother by carrying on intel-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Arnold, K., The Presence of Absence: On Prayers lectual conversation, but succeeds only in giving her mother a
and Epiphany (Mar. 1999). lecture and a headache. Finally, she adopts a child whose mother
Reference works: CAAS (1985). CA (online, 1999). CANR has just died, but nds herself incapable of managing either its
(1983). CLC (1982; 1991). Gay & Lesbian Literature (1994). care or education. It is not until her youthful foolishness allows the
Other references: Key Reporter (Autumn 1991). WRB childs neer-do-well father to rob a house and kidnap the child
(Dec. 1991). that Elmira realizes her limitations and sees she must learn before
she can teach.
SUSAN CLARK, The major weakness of Elmiras Ambitions is that it is too
UPDATED BY JANET M. BEYER AND DEVRA M. SLADICS long, rambling, and repetitious for the slight plot. Every episode
makes the same point about Elmiras pride, so that the theme is
much too mechanically tacked onto the action. The strengths of
the novel are present in the cleverly sketched supporting charac-
tersthe younger sister, the grandmother, the adopted child and
GUERNSEY, Clara F(lorida) her motherand in the natural-sounding dialogue, Guernseys
most effective means of creating character.
Born 1 October 1836, Pittsford, New York; died 20 June 1893, Clearly didactic in purpose and rather limited in their literary
Rochester, New York achievement, Guernseys novels are perhaps most important as
Daughter of James T. and Electa Guernsey reections of the values and attitudes the American Sunday
School Union and its supporters wished to inculcate in American
children in the latter years of the 19th century.
Clara F. Guernsey, sister of Lucy Ellen Guernsey, lived all
her life in the Rochester area of upstate New York. Her father was
well known in the area as a friend of the Seneca, including chiefs OTHER WORKS: The Drifting Boat (1860). Lucy and Her Friends
Red Jacket and Corn Planter. When the Senecas traveled east from (1865). The Silver Cup (1865). Bertys Visit (1867). Chip and
their homes, they would often spend the night at the Guernsey Kitty (1867). The Coveted Bonnet (1867). The Hem-Stitched
place in Pittsford. Guernsey followed her father in befriending the Handkerchief (1867). Marks Composition (1867). Stingy Lewis
Senecas, and she is remembered for organizing wagonloads of (1867). The Stone House (1867). The Sunday School Picnic
food to be taken to the reservation during a period of famine. She (1867). Theodoras Trouble (1867). Dulcies Lonesome Night
also wrote many articles for periodicals about the Senecas and was (1868). Out of the Orphan Asylum (1869). Perverse Pussy (1869).
eventually adopted as a member of the tribe. Out in the Storm (1870). Scrub Hollow Sunday School (1870).
Alice Fenton (1871). Boys of Eaglewood (1872). The Mallory
Guernsey wrote initially for periodicals. Her rst publication Girls (1875). A Spirit in Prison (1875). Washington and Seventy-
was in Gleasons Pictorial of 1850, and she was later a contributor Six (with L. E. Guernsey, 1876). Betseys Bedquilt (1878). Sibyl
to the Atlantic, Lippincotts, and Cosmopolitan. Her book-length and the Sapphires (1879). The Trying Child (1886).
publications include collections of fairytales (Christmas Greens,
1865; The Merman and the Figure Head, 1871), domestic ctions
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: NCAB.
(Aunt Priscillas Story, 1867; Elmiras Ambitions, 1875), and
Other references: Rochester Democrat (21 June 1893). Roches-
adventure stories (The Silver Rie, 1871; The Shawnee Prisoner,
ter Union Advertiser (22 June 1893).
1877). All of the aforementioned are for children and almost all of
them were published by the American Sunday School Union. KATHARYN F. CRABBE
One tends to think of American Sunday School Union

publications as pamphlets, but Guernseys form is most often the
novel, and her books usually run to about 200 pages. The dening
characteristic of ASSU publications, whether short or long, is the
GUERNSEY, Lucy Ellen
turning of the story so that it illustrates a clearly enunciated
spiritual principle, i.e., they are clearly didactic. Born 12 August 1826, Pittsford, New York; died 3 November
1899, Rochester, New York
Elmiras Ambitions is representative of both Guernseys Daughter of James T. and Electa Guernsey
strengths and her weaknesses in this form. It is primarily a story
about spiritual pride. Elmira, about fteen, has learned at school Lucy Ellen Guernsey was the fth daughter of a Rochester-
to think of herself as superior and as called to a life of area businessman and philanthropist and the sister of Clara
154
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GUINEY
Florida Guernsey. Her fathers philanthropic bent was reected in reects the values and attitudes a signicant segment of the
Guernsey, who was an active member of the Episcopal church and community wished to inculcate in children of the time.
who for 11 years (1888-99) edited a religious publication, the
Parish Visitor, intended for distribution in prisons, homes, and
hospitals. OTHER WORKS: Irish Amy (1854). Duty and Inclination (1856).
Ready Work for Willing Hands (1856). The Sign of the Cross
In the 30 years that were her most productive (1855-85), (1856). Sophie Kennedys Experience (1856). Upward and On-
Guernsey wrote more than 60 books, most of them published by ward (1856). Jenny and the Insects (1857). Kitty Maynard (1857).
the American Sunday School Union (ASSU). Often the ASSU Meat-eaters, with Some Account of Their Haunts and Habits
publications were no longer than pamphlets, but Guernseys were (1858). The Christmas Earnings (1859). Straight Forward (1859).
juvenile novels, frequently running to more than 200 pages. The Jenny and the Birds (1860). The Straight Path (1860). The Blue
speed with which she wrote took its toll on her work; most of her Socks (1862). The Tattler (1863). Charlie (1866). Milly (1866).
novels are loosely plotted at best. However, she does have a good Abbey (1867). Lolla (1867). Nelly (1867). Opposite Neighbors
ear for natural-sounding dialogue, and her novel The Chevaliers (1867). The Twin Roses (1868). Cousin Deborahs Story (1869).
Daughter (1880) was praised in the Saturday Review for its Lady Lucys Secret (1869). Mabel (1869). Winifred (1869). The
accurate portrayal of the manners and customs of the people. Childs Treasure (1870). The School Girls Treasury (1870). The
Dark Night (1871). Ethels Trial in Becoming a Missionary
Tabbys Travels (1858) provides a good example of Guern-
(1871). The Fairchilds (1871). The Langham Revels (1871). Only
seys ability to combine accurate observation and didacticism.
in Fun (1871). Lady Bettys Governess (1872). On the Mountain
Tabby is a heedless and disobedient kitten who thinks she is
(1872). Percys Holidays (1872). The Red Plant (1872). The
mistreated, although in fact she is only spoiled. She runs away
Sunday School Exhibition (1872). Claribel (1873). Rhodes Edu-
from home and, as she travels from house to house and from
cation (1873). The Tame Turtle (1873). Lady Rosamonds Book
family to family, she sees her own faults reected in the people
(1874). Benny the Beaver, and Other Stories (1875). Grandmoth-
about her. Through Tabby, the child reader learns the value of
er Browns School Days (1875). The Heiress of McGregor (1875).
being good-natured, hard-working, self-respecting, and obedient.
School Days in 1800 (1875). Guy Falconer (1876). Washington
What makes the book interesting and almost overcomes its
and Seventy-six (with C. F. Guernsey, 1876). The Story of a
didactic spirit and episodic plot is Guernseys eye for the physical
Hessian (1877). Cubs Apple (1878). The Mission Box (1879). No
behavior of cats.
Talent (1880). The Old Staneld House (1880). Phils Pansies
Most of Guernseys novels are best described as domestic (1880). Lovedays History (1885). Oldham (1885). Through Un-
ctionsstories about contemporary young people and their known Ways (1886). A Lent in Earnest (1889). The Soldiers of
families and the problems of reaching responsible maturity. The Christ (1889). The Hidden Treasure (1890).
ASSU novels characteristically conclude with an apt biblical
quotation to reinforce the moral point. Guernsey also wrote,
however, many historical ctions, including the multivolume BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: NCAB.
Stanton Corbet Chronicles. Other references: Rochester Democrat (4 Nov. 1899). Roch-
ester Union Advertiser (4 Nov. 1899). Parish Visitor (Dec. 1899).
Like the ASSU novels, the historical ctions are episodic,
but they are redeemed to some extent by a richness in subject and KATHARYN F. CRABBE
character reminiscent of Sir Walter Scott. In The Foster-Sisters
(1882), two English girls, raised in a French convent, return to a
Church of England household just in time to meet Charles Wesley
and become Methodists. At their ancestral home they discover
that their relatives, although English, are avid Jacobites, and they GUINEY, Louise Imogen
escape harm and forced marriages by eeing to the Scots house-
keeper, a Presbyterian. Religion is the most important theme, but
Born 7 January 1861, Boston, Massachusetts; died 2 November
the successful feature of the book is the characterization, especial-
1920, Chipping Camden, England
ly of the narrator, Lucy Corbet, who is at once devout, witty, and
Also wrote under: Roger Holden, P.O.L.
capable of being acerbic. After quoting St. Ignatius on the decay
Daughter of Robert P. and Janet Doyle Guiney
of the physical body (You will become that for which there is no
name in any language!), Lucy Corbet observes in a footnote:
Bossuet has the same phrase. I dont know who stole it. An Irish Roman Catholic and daughter of a Civil War
general, Louise Imogen Guiney was something of a literary
A prolic writer, Guernsey is most distinguished by her close novelty in late 19th-century Boston, yet she was warmly received
observations of people and animals, her natural dialogue, and her into the by then well-established literary circle of Annie Adams
wit. Her books are marred, however, by the looseness of the plots. Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett. Fields eventually bequeathed a
Yet especially in those novels published by ASSU, she clearly large portion of her estate to Guiney
155
GULLIVER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Guineys health was never excellent; she had a hearing (1894). Lovers Saint Ruths, and Three Other Tales (1895).
impairment which grew steadily more severe. She collapsed twice Robert Louis Stevenson (with A. Brown, 1896). England and
from overwork, once in 1896 and again in 1897. These break- Yesterday (1898). The Martyrs Idyl, and Shorter Poems (1900).
downs were partially precipitated by the hostile reception she Hurrell Fronde (1904). Letters (2 vols., 1926).
received after her appointment as postmistress of Auburndale, Many of Louise Imogen Guineys unpublished letters are
Massachusetts, in 1894. A combination of anti-Irish, anti- housed at the Dinand Library of Holy Cross College, Worcester,
Catholic, and antifemale sentiment led local citizens to organize a Massachusetts, and at the Library of Congress.
boycott to force her resignation. Later she was employed in the
Catalogue Room of the Boston Public Library. Guiney emigrated
to England in 1901 and devoted her later years to scholarly BIBLIOGRAPHY: Adorita, Sister M., Soul Ordained to Fail: Lou-
research at Oxford. At the same time, she moved toward a more ise I. Guiney, 1861-1920 (1962). Brown, A., Louise I. Guiney
reclusive lifestyle, as her religious dedication deepened. Her (1921). Fairbanks, H. G., Louise I. Guiney: Laureate of the Lost
closest friends included Fred Holland Day, with whom she (1973). Guiney, G. C., Letters of Louise I. Guiney (1926). Tenison,
uncovered some important Keats material, Grace Denslow, and E. M., Louise I. Guiney; Her Life and Works (1923).
Alice Brown, with whom she traveled abroad. Brown dedicated Reference works: AW. DAB. NAW (1971). NCAB. TCA,
her The Road to Castaly (1896) to Guiney and wrote her biogra- TCAS.
phy. They also collaborated on a book on Robert Louis Steven-
son (1896).
JOSEPHINE DONOVAN
Guiney published her rst lyrics under pseudonyms (P.O.L.
and Roger Holden) in 1880. Her rst collection of poems,
Songs at the Start, appeared in 1884; and her rst collection of
essays, Goose-Quill Papers, in 1885. She considered A Roadside
Harp (1893) her best poetical effort, while critics estimate Patrins: A
GULLIVER, Julia Henrietta
Collection of Essays (1897) to include her most important critical
work. Especially signicant are the essays On the Rapid versus Born 30 July 1856, Norwich, Connecticut; died 25 July 1940,
the Harmless Scholar and Wilfull Sadness in Literature, in Eustis, Florida
which she rejects Arnoldian disinterestedness as a proper Daughter of John P. and Frances W. Curtis Gulliver
critical attitude. Her collected lyrics, Happy Endings, were pub-
lished in 1909 and reissued in 1927.
A member of the rst graduating class of Smith College in
Guiney was also a dedicated biographer and scholar. Robert 1879, Julia Gulliver received her Ph.D. from Smith in 1888. Two
Emmet (1904) is about an Irish nationalist, and Blessed Edmund years later she was appointed head of the department of philoso-
Campion (1908) is about an English Jesuit martyr. She also put phy and biblical literature at Rockford Female Seminary, prede-
forth several important critical editions of relatively minor g- cessor of Rockford College, in Rockford, Illinois. In 1892 and
ures, such as Katherine Philips, The Matchless Orinda (1904). 1893, by special permission because she was a woman, she
One volume of her magnum opus of scholarship, an anthology of studied under the noted Wilhelm Wundt at the University of
Catholic poets from Thomas More to Alexander Pope, entitled Leipzig; in 1898 her translation of Part I of his Ethics was
Recusant Poets, was published posthumously in 1938. published. From 1902 to 1919 she served as president of Rockford
College, and during her tenure helped to shape the course of
Guiney favored the cavalier rather than the puritan spirit; her
American womens education by creating a curriculum that fused
letters suggest a lively, engaged personality. In her works, she was
liberal studies with a program of home economics, which Gulliver
attracted to amboyant gypsy-like women such as Carmen. In
saw not as limiting women to the home but as enabling them to
1896 she wrote a critical preface to Merimes short story, and
work for the health and well-being of the entire society.
Martha Hilton, a vivacious Cinderella gure drawn from
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, history, was Guineys contribution Gullivers essay The Substitutes for Christianity Proposed
to Three Heroines of New England Romance (1896), which also by Comte and Spencer (New Englander, 1884) represents some
included sketches by Harriett Prescott Spofford and Alice Brown. of the work done in fulllment of her doctorate. In it she defends
Some consider that Guineys unpublished letters contain her Christianity against the cosmic theism of Herbert Spencer and the
nest writing. Two volumes of her letters were published in 1926. positivism of Auguste Comte by using a test that Spencer himself
Yet even among her published works the consensus is that her had proposed, that progress is the change from a lower level of
religious lyrics are among the nest American contributions to the differentiation and integration to a higher one. In Gullivers view,
genre, and that her criticism contains much that is still of value. positivism fails because by nding divinity in the collective
existence of humanity it offers a unity without difference. Spencers
cosmic theism, on the other hand, offers difference without unity,
OTHER WORKS: Brownies and Bogles (1887). Monsieur Henri: A since no true union seems possible between the human person and
Footnote to French History (1892). A Little English Gallery an impersonal unknowable Deity. Christianity alone exhibits the
156
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS GUY
progress Spencer outlines, and it brings to perfection what is good GUY, Rosa
in positivism and cosmism: the love of neighbor and the rejection
of anthropomorphism.
Born 1 September 1925, Trinidad, West Indies
Gullivers commitment to Christian principles characterizes Daughter of Henry and Audrey Gonzales Cuthbert; married
all her writings, and hers was a religion that went far beyond mere Warner Guy, 1941; children: Warner
piety. Religious maxims often became metaphors of current social
issues, as when she applied the notion that no man liveth unto
himself and no man dieth unto himself to the issue of infectious A powerful writer who makes delight out of difculties in
diseases, and when she expressed hope that some day the work of life, Rosa Guy has written numerous insightful childrens books.
men and women would be like the seamless cloak of Jesus. She She is a native of Trinidad who left the island as a child with her
saw the incarnation as continuing through human action, and sister to join their parents in Harlem. The adjustment from island
exhorted women to take an active role in social reform, since life to city life was difcult for them. Although black and of
God himself fails of fulllment unless you fulll your destiny. African Caribbean culture, Guy found herself set apart by black
In praising the economic, civic, and legislative advances wrought and white children because of her West Indian dialect and
by American women, she rejoiced at how grandly. . .the tran- customs. When her mother became ill shortly after her arrival,
scendent God of the 18th and even of the 19th century [has] Guy was sent to the Bronx to stay with cousins. Here she was
become the immanent God of the 20th century through these introduced to Marcus Garveys fervent views extolling the dignity
devoted efforts of the women of our country! of all blacks and his belief in black nationalism, themes that
proved to be major forces stimulating Guy intellectually and
Gullivers educational philosophy rested on a conviction that
politically.
the human personality is an organic whole, and that therefore the
liberal arts should not be isolated from practical or vocational The premature deaths of their parents left Guy and her sister
courses. She felt that the forte of Midwestern women is for orphans. Experiences in a series of institutions and foster homes
executive achievement, and she departed from the practice in intensied her feeling of being an outsider. By fourteen Guy had
eastern womens colleges of emphasizing cultural subjects dropped out of school and had become a factory worker. At
exclusively, believing that women should not so much be sixteen she married Warner Guy.
accomplished as be able to accomplish.
A number of Gullivers essays in psychology, philosophy, In searching for ways to enrich her life and to express her
and literature were published in the New Englander, the Andover creativity, Guy found herself drawn to the American Negro
Review, the Philosophical Review, and New World. Theater, then to the Committee for the Negro in the Arts. Experi-
ences with the latter group led Guy to write and to become a
In her book Studies in Democracy: The Essence of Democra- cofounder of the Harlem Writers Guild. Afliation with the guild
cy, the Efciency of Democracy, American Womens Contribu- deepened Guys commitment to black affairs by giving her the
tion to Democracy (1917), consisting of three addresses given on opportunity to meet and work with inuential members of the
various occasions, Gulliver argues democracy is not founded on community.
equality in the sense of uniformity but on the opportunity of each
individual to reach his or her full potential; the great democratic Guys response to the waste of bright minds being chan-
ideal is that everyone should have the chance he is capable of neled into a life of crime and self-destruction by the crushing
availing himself of. In discussing womens contribution to connement of prejudice and poverty inspired her rst book,
democracy, Gulliver points out the ways in which women have Bird at My Window (1966). Then, wanting to know how the death
incarnated the spirit of democracy and shaped the social con- of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the turmoil of the 1960s
science of America. affected Southern black children, Guy collected taped interviews
Gullivers most lasting contribution is no doubt her pioneer- and essays that became Children of Longing (1971). This work,
ing work in womens education. While insisting that the role of cited as bringing together Guys activism and writing interests,
homemaking must be reinterpreted to embrace the welfare of advanced her writing skills to a new level.
the entire society, she at the same time helped provide the means
Guys theme of trying to nd ones place in a hostile envi-
by which women could prepare for such a role. She thus incorpo-
ronment while struggling for self-identity and self-afrmation
rated in herself that which she always advocated, the union of the
arises from her early childhood and adolescent experiences. Her
theoretical and the practical.
forte is her compassionate ability to portray the adversity ghetto
children face. In her acclaimed trilogy The Friends (1973), Ruby
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: NAW (1971). (1976), and Edith Jackson (1978), Guy insightfully presents the
Other references: American Political Science Review (May lives of three adolescents as they mature ghting the odds in a
1917). Boston Transcript (29 May 1917). Springeld Republican deteriorating community.
(29 July 1917).
The Disappearance (1979), which won Guy the American
HELENE DWYER POLAND Library Association award for best book for young adults, and its
157
GUY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
sequels, New Guys Around the Block (1983) and And I Heard a are regularly published in paperback or reprinted. Her acute
Bird Sing (1987), complete a second trilogy, each with a mystery sensitivity to issues faced by inner-city children has made her a
involved. The protagonist, Imamu Jones, is a young man deter- timeless and successful young-adult author who gives hope and
mined to vindicate himself and escape the hopelessness of a books to a readership too frequently overlooked.
now-corrupt Harlem.
In her rst picture book, Guy translated the Senegalese
folktale Mother Crocodile (1981), successfully dipping into the
richness of African folklore. She has also written two juvenile OTHER WORKS: Venetian Blinds (1954). Mirror of Her Own
books, Paris, Pee Wee, and Big Dog (1985) and The Ups and (1981). A Measure of Time (1983). Billy the Great (1991). The
Downs of Carl Davis III (1979), which conrm the need for Music of Summer (1992).
parental acceptance.
Guys tightest and most poignant story, however, is one
written for a general readership, My Love, My Love; or, The BIBLIOGRAPHY: Norris, J., Presenting Rosa Guy (1988).
Pheasant Girl: A Fable (1985). In this short tale, Guy expresses Reference Works: Black American Fiction: A Biography
all the mystique of her West Indian heritage while carefully (1978). Black American Writers Past and Present (1975). Black
showing the impenetrable barriers of color and caste. This book
Writers 2. CA 17-20R. CANR 14, 34. Childrens Literature
was the basis for a musical by Lynn Ahrens, Once on This Island,
Review (1999). CLC (1983). DLB 33. Feminist Companion (1990).
which opened in New York in 1990. Guys ventures into African
tradition, which ow with a special warmth and seamlessness, add SATA 14, 62.
a new depth and dimension to her writing. In 1999 the musical was Other references: Essence (Oct. 1979). Horn Book (Mar./
performed at the Cab Calloway School of Performing Arts in Apr. 1985). NYTM (16 Apr. 1972). Top of the News (Win-
Wilmington, Delaware, as a tribute to the legendary entertainer. ter 1983).
Guy published The Sun, the Sea, a Touch of the Wind (1995)
in the year of her seventieth birthday, and most of her early books SANDRA RAY AND ELIZABETH COONROD MARTINEZ
158
H
H. D. speaker and her lover, in the section titled The Last Time and
See D(OOLITTLE), H(ilda) in the nal sequence of sonnets from which the book takes its title.
Hackers growing feminism is apparent in both works, though

the personal commitment never overwhelms her art. The tone
changes distinctly in her second collection, in After Catullus,
HACKER, Marilyn and in Two Farewells: Try to turn / boys into men, Circe
said, / and they behave like pigs. The feminist statement is
even more clear, however, in The Regents Park Sequence, a
Born 27 November 1942, New York, New York sonnet sequence published in the American Poetry Review (1976).
Daughter of Albert and Hilda Rosengarten Hacker; married Exploring again the pain of separation and of womens own
Samuel R. Delany, 1961 (divorced); life partner, Karyn J. solitude, the persona tells us, in the coda: It was not my mother
London; children: one daughter or my daughter / who did me in. Women have been betrayed / by
history, which ignores us, which we made / like anyone, with
Marilyn Hacker attended the Bronx High School of Science, work and words, slaughter / and silver.
New York University, and the Art Students League in New York In an important article discussing recent work by younger
City. She has taught for a short time, sorted mail at a post ofce, American poets, Stanley Plumly begins with Hackers work,
and was an antiquarian bookseller in London for four years. Two using her as an example of those poets who write out of an
interests, however, have dominated: editing and writing poetry. emotional imperative rather than from emblematic commitment.
Hacker has edited paperback novels, a mens magazine, engineer- To Plumly and others, Hacker had become one of the major voices
ing trade journals, and a poetry magazine. At present she is one of in contemporary American poetry.
the editors of the Little Magazine. She and her husband, a noted
science ction writer from whom she is divorced, founded and Hackers Taking Notice (1980) continues the formal and
coedited Quark, a speculative ction quarterly. She has one thematic concerns of her earlier work. Utilizing various tradition-
daughter. al forms, particularly the sonnet sequence, and often using a
colloquial diction, Hacker investigates private relationships of
She has published in numerous literary journals, including love, the semiprivate relationship of mother and daughter, and the
Poetry, Poetry Northwest and the American Poetry Review. Her public relationships among women in society. In this book Hacker
rst collection of poetry, Presentation Piece (1974), was chosen begins clearly to articulate a lesbian eroticism that becomes an
as the 1973 Lamont Poetry Selection and was the winner of the increasingly important part of her later works.
1975 National Book Award. Most recently, Hacker has published
in Conditions and Chrysalis, both feminist publications, afrming Hackers fourth collection, Assumptions (1985), again con-
her strong feminist commitment. siders questions of family, love, sexuality, and the place of
a woman among other women in the world. The section
Presentation Piece, as the awards indicate, is an impressive Inheritances deals specically with the poets history and her
collection of poetry. Hackers work is characterized by a strong legacy to her daughter and from her mother, as well as her
command of traditional forms (the villanelle, the sestina, and the daughters inheritance from her fathers family. Open Win-
sonnet, among others); by an equally strong control of rhetoric, dows is a sequence of love sonnets to other women. The book
from the very formal to the most colloquial; and by a total ends with Ballad of Ladies Lost and Found, which invokes a
commitment to emotional accuracy, whether rendered by imagistic repressed history of women, recalling the losses and erasure of
detail or through the intensity of rhetoric or tone. Presentation women ranging from the gym teacher, the math department
Piece is a book of discoveries that probes many kinds of relation- head to such important writers as H. D. [Hilda Doolittle] and
shipsbetween persons and times or places, between private and Zola Neale Hurston.
public selves, between art and life.
Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons (1986, reprint-
Hackers second collection, Separations (1976), is dened ed 1995) is a verse novel describing a love affair between two
by its title: it is largely about learning to cope with the many kinds women. This sonnet sequence is rooted in the mundane events of
of distances one must endure. The rst long sequence, The lifeeating, drinking, shoppingas transformed by romantic
Geographer, presents the intense reactions of the speaker to the longing and anxiety. Going Back to the River (1990), a largely
death of someone very close. Though there are moments of joy autobiographical collection of poems, traces the poets departure
and tenderness in this collection, the strongest impressions are left from the U.S. and her return to confront her often difcult past and
by the poems chronicling the growing separation between the present as an American. This journey is perhaps best epitomized
159
HADAS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
by the rst poem, Two Cities, where for the rst three sections HADAS, Rachel
the poet in Paris is the inventor / of my own life, / an old plane
tree in new leaf, / a young woman almost forty-ve. In the nal
section, the poet and her daughter sit in a New York restaurant Born 8 November 1948, New York, New York
watching a scene of seemingly random street violence, a cry of Daughter of Moses and Elizabeth Chamberlayne Hadas; married
despair addressed to nobody in particular. Stavros Kondilis, 1970 (divorced); George Edwards, 1978;
children: Jonathan
Hacker pays tribute to French writer Malraux through her
translations of his poems in Edge: Contemporary French Poetry
A poet, essayist, translator, critic, and professor of literature,
in Translation (1996). She compiled the pieces from various
Rachel Hadas grew up in a literate and intellectual setting. Her
sources and provides the French and English phrasing.
father was a classical scholar and professor at Columbia Universi-
Hacker has been recognized often for her works. Winter ty, her mother a Latin teacher. Hadas relationship with her father,
Numbers: Poems (1994) won the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize in with whom she spent many hours reading Latin texts and learning
1995. She was the fth woman to receive the award. Selected the Greek alphabet, was of particular importance in the formation
Poems, 1965-1990 (1994) won the Poets Prize. She received the and development of her writing. When her father died, Hadas was
Lambda Literary Award for Winter Numbers: Poems; Love, seventeen; this loss gured early, and lastingly, in the focus and
Death, and the Changing of the Seasons; Assumptions; Taking themes of her work. The themes of loss, memory and legacy, the
Notice; and Going Back to the River. Hacker also won the ways in which knowledge is passed from generation to genera-
Bernard F. Conners Prize from the Paris Review, the John tion, particularly in consideration of the uses of art, appear,
Maseeld Memorial Award of the Poetry Society of America, and transmute, and evolve throughout her poetry and essays.
Presentation Piece was the Lamont Poetry Selection of The
Academy of American Poets and a National Book Award winner. After receiving her B.A. from Harvard University in 1969,
Hadas traveled to Greece on fellowship. There she rst met,
Hacker was editor of the Kenyon Review from 1990 to 1994. among others, poet James Merril, whose presence as friend and
She has contributed works to the Yale Review, Paris Review, inuence can be felt in Hadas later work, and her rst husband,
Poetry, Epoch, Feminist Studies, and London Magazine. She has with whom she lived on the Greek island of Samos for some years.
won fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Ingram After returning to the U.S., she studied at Johns Hopkins, received
Merrill Foundation. an M.A. in poetry, and later her Ph.D. from Princeton, going on to
teach literature at Rutgers University.
Like Adrienne Rich, whose work serves as epigraph for
many of Hackers poems, Hacker surveys the emotional and Hadas rst two collections of poetry have as their subject
social terrain of women who love women. She skillfully mixes and setting her years in Greece. In the chapbook Starting from
traditional, or even archaic, poetic forms with various levels of Troy (1975), the poems have a fragmentary feel, and the images
diction from the most formal to the colloquial, producing one of and references, for all their debt to the classical, are very personal.
the most powerful voices of contemporary poetry. The poem That Time, This Place, starting with the image of
Troy and the fossils of families and fates of war, goes on to
consider whether we must build what was by tearing down /
OTHER WORKS: The Terrible Children (1967). Highway Sand- what is, beat down our celebrated towers / to our own stature, shut
wiches (with T. M. Disch and C. Platt, 1970). The Hang-Gliders our eyes, and sing? This poems repeated refrain, the shell
Daughter: Selected New Poems (1990). Squares and Court- remains, the softer parts decay, and nal two lines, All
yards (2000). ghters, fathers, all departed heroes, / our house cries out for
you, address Hadas absorption with loss and legacy. Already
present, as well, is her command of poetic form and structure.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1979). CLC (1983). CP
(1985, 1991). FC (1990). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing In Pass it On (1989), Hadas names the impulse found in her
in the United States (1995). previous work: to pass on what we inherit from others, whether
Other references: American Poetry Review (Jan.-Feb. 1978). fathers, mothers, friends, or long-dead writers. That inheritance
Denver Quarterly (Autumn 1976, Summer 1985). Dispatch (Fall includes the memories, feelings, and legacies of their work in life,
1988). Frontiers (1980). Hudson Review (Summer 1987). LJ (15 the complex lens of an individuals experience and perceptions as
Apr. 1990). Ms. (Apr. 1975). Midwest Book Review. Nation (21 it endures for those who continue on after their death. The poems
Jan. 1991). New Review (7 Sept. 1974). NYTBR (21 June 1987, 12 range from what is passed on by an individual poets work to the
Jan. 1975). Poetry (Apr. 1975, July 1991). TLS (10 July 1987). passing on of legacy in more physical form, through Hadas son,
WPBW (26 May 1974). to the larger passing on of language: Not light but language
shocks us out of sleep (The End of Summer). Using a variety
M. L. LEWANDOWSKA, of meters and stanzaic forms, the poems in this volume, most
UPDATED BY JAMES SMETHURST AND NICK ASSENDELFT particularly those that rely on a strict meter and rhyme, are
160
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HAHN
effective, sustained meditations on large and abstract themes as Georgia Review (1984). NYTBR (6 May 1990). Poetry (Feb.
they are found within the milk and carpentry of everyday life. 1997). Progressive (Feb. 1999).
Living in Time (1990) came out the same year in which Hadas JESSICA REISMAN
was given a literature award by the American Academy and
Institute of Arts and Letters. The book is a triptych, one long poem
bracketed by two sections of prose essays. Each section examines
the meaning of time and the ways in which artin this case,
writing and the poetic imaginationaffects and changes our
HAHN, Emily
experience of it. The central poem, The Dream Machine, a
sustained reection on the nature of reality and our need for Born 14 January 1905, St. Louis, Missouri; died 18 February 1997
stories with which to understand our passage through it and time, Daughter of Isaac N. and Hannah Hahn; married Charles R.
stems from a question posed by Hadas son about whether a story Boxer, 1945
she read him was real. Among the essays in the rst and third
sections there is The Lights Must Never Go Out, which relates As a child, Emily Hahn developed an adventurous spirit and
Hadas experiences leading a poetry writing workshop for men an independent mind. Scorning custom and convention, she
with AIDS. The essay illuminates how writing poetry became a became the rst woman to enroll in and earn a degree from the
way of slowing down the time the men had left to live. University of Wisconsins College of Engineering. She also
studied mineralogy at Columbia University, New York City, and
In 1995 Hadas came out with The Empty Bed, a series of anthropology at Oxford, England. Later, many Americans would
elegies for her recently deceased students and for her mother, be scandalized when Hahn openly introduced her lovers to her
poems which explore the emotional landscape of loss with some readers.
thoroughness. Hadas motif of art and its place in our lives threads
through the elegiac explorations, as in these lines from Benet Her rst book, Seductio ad Absurdum: The Principles and
Night, New York City Ballet: For as we raptly gaze / at limbs Practices of Seduction; a Beginners Handbook (1928), had a
in cool blue light / sculpting a carnal maze / of intricate delight, / of mixed reception. Some critics did not nd her rules and regula-
passions sketched on air, / it is ourselves we see, / divested of tions very interesting or very subtle and others were astonished by
despair. Halfway Down the Hall (1998) collects selections from the gossipy episodes, but most readers found the book delightfully
Hadas previous volumes, including her translations of poems by entertaining. Having begun her writing career, Hahn took on a
Beaudelaire, Valry, Hugo, and Karyotakis, along with 33 new wide variety of projects, including documentary reports, histories,
poems in the opening section. The new poems probe Hadas usual novels, biographies, childrens books, a guide book, a cookbook,
subjects, while exhibiting a ner, more exquisite balance than and several autobiographical works.
ever between adherence to formal constraints and an acute com-
munion with the familiar and everyday. She addresses the minutia In 1930 Hahn began a two-year stay, the rst of several, in
of visceral reality in an assured voice, giving the thoughts drawn Africa. She lived with a tribe of Pygmies in the Ituri Forest of the
from particular images a graceful strength. Belgian Congo, where she worked with a doctor at a medical
mission. Congo Solo (1933) was based on her diary. Although her
With each successive volume, Hadas, who is acknowledged vocabulary and expression often seem too rough, her informal and
as one of our best technical poets, has gained depth and resonance. amusing style proved appealing to many readers. Also based on
Her work is literate and nely honed, reaching gently profound her rst African experience, With Naked Foot (1934) is a story of
insights through a lyric conversation with the everyday. She has an African woman and her various white masters. In it Hahn
received numerous awards and been a Guggenheim fellow in poetry. sought to interpret the native viewpoint with sympathetic un-
derstanding; the scenes and the characters seem both realis-
tic and picturesque. Africa to Me: Person to Person (1964),
OTHER WORKS: Trelles by Stephanos Xenos (translated by Hadas,
based on a later trip when she visited Jomo Kenyatta and Tom
1978). Slow Transparency (1983). Form, Cycle, Innity: Land-
Mboya, addresses the problems accompanying Africas emergent
scape Imagery in the Poetry of Robert Frost and George Seferis
nationalism.
(1985). A Son from Sleep (1987). Unending Dialogue: Voices
from an AIDS Poetry Workshop (1991). Poetry: Mirrors of In 1935 Hahn set off on a world tour. She was to remain in
Astonishment (1992). Other Worlds Than This: Translations China for nine years, settling in Hong Kong and beginning a
(1994). The Double Legacy: Reections on a Pair of Deaths (1995). career as the New Yorkers China Coast correspondent. Her
experiences amidst war and revolution had dramatic effects on her
literary career, as well as on her personal life.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Collier, M., ed., The Wesleyan Tradition: Four
Decades of American Poetry (1993). The Soong Sisters (1941) is about Ching-ling, Mei-ling, and
Reference works: American Poets Since World War II (1992). Ai-ling (Madame Sun Yat-sen, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, and
DLB 120. Madame Kung, wife of Chinas nancial wizard), with whom
Other references: American Book Review (Aug. 1992). Bul- Hahn became intimate while in China. It tells of their fathers
letin of Bibliography (June 1994). Denver Quarterly (Fall 1998). association with America, of his involvement with Sun Yat-sen,
161
HALE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
and of the key roles played by the family in the Chinese revolu- HALE, Lucretia Peabody
tion. Intended as an entertaining narrative, the book also reveals
her strong sympathy for the familys controversial political activities.
Born 2 September 1820, Boston, Massachusetts; died 12 June
Hahns support of Chiang Kai-shek is unmistakable in China 1900, Boston, Massachusetts
to Me (1944, reissued in 1988), a partial autobiography in Daughter of Nathan and Sarah Everett Hale
which she recounts the dramatic political events as well as the
trivial daily incidents that lled her days in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Lucretia Peabody Hale came from a distinguished New
and Chungking. Although she undoubtedly tried to be objective in England literary family. Her mother was a writer; her father,
the biography Chiang Kai-shek (1955), her admiration for her nephew of the famous revolutionary-war patriot, was owner and
subject resulted in a very defensive account of the corruption in editor of the Boston Daily Advertiser. Among Hales six brothers
his government and his lack of inspirational leadership. She and sisters were Edward Everett, Unitarian clergyman, abolition-
admits he could be stubborn and narrowminded, but she describes ist, and writer, best known for his A Man without a Country
him primarily as a Christian crusader and gallant allyconsistent, short story; Charles, consul general to Egypt at the time of the
faithful to his principles, and brave. opening of the Suez Canal; and Susan, writer and traveler.
Hahn continued to write on diverse topics. Animal Gardens Hale gained a reputation as a bright student at the highly
(1967, reissued 1990) is a history of zoos from the pre-Christian regarded George B. Emerson School for Young Ladies, the
era in China and Egypt to the construction of the Milwaukee Zoo. graduates of which had the equivalent of a contemporary Bachelor
Breath of God (1971) examines world folklore. Once Upon a of Arts degree. There she and four other girls comprised a group
Pedestal (1974) is an account of prominent women in art and called the Pentad, maintaining their friendship for many years.
literature from colonial times to the present. In Lorenzo: D. H. When the Pentad visited one another, Hale often made up stories
Lawrence and the Women Who Loved Him (1975), she depicts the for amusement when they were in bed at night. After her school-
writer as a neurotic, self-centered genius, to whom a great number ing, Hale remained at home helping with the housework, sewing,
of women were eager to dedicate themselves. Like so many of attending cultural events, and writing. The only one of her
Hahns earlier books, it is intriguing, gossipy, readable, and immediate group never to marry, she became known as Aunt
entertaining. In the charming and informative treatise, Look Lucretia to the children of her friends. She often visited their
Whos Talking (1978), Hahn examines ways in which animals homes, telling stories to their children as she had to their mothers
communicate with each other and with humans. when she and they were children.
After the deaths of her parents, Hale traveled in 1867 with her
OTHER WORKS: Beginners Luck (1931). Affair (1935). Mr. Pan sister Susan to Egypt to visit Charles, then consul general. After
(1942). Hong Kong Holiday (1946). Picture Story of China enjoying the sights for some months, the two took a horseback trip
(1946). Rafes of Singapore: A Biography (1946). Miss Jill through Palestine before returning home. In 1869 Hale settled
(1947). England to Me (1949). Purple Passage: A Novel about a again in Boston, where she involved herself in public affairs and
Lady Both Famous and Fantastic (1950). A Degree of Prudery in various educational and charitable causes. In 1874 she became
(1950). Francie (1951). Love Conquers Nothing: A Glandular the rst woman elected to the Boston School Committee, a
History of Civilization (1952). Francie Again (1953). James position she held for two years. She ran a dame school with Susan
Brooke of Sarawak: A Biography of Sir James Brooke (1953). for a time, taught in correspondence school, promoted kindergartens
Mary, Queen of Scots (1953). Meet the British (1953). The First and vacation schools, and introduced sewing and cooking into the
Book of India (1955). Diamond (1956). Francie Comes Home public school curriculum.
(1956). Leonardo da Vinci (1956). Kissing Cousins (1958). Aboab:
First Rabbi of the Americas (1960). Around the World with Nelli A prolic writer, Hale began wielding a pen at a very early
Bly (1960). June Finds a Way (1960). Tiger House Party (1960). age, because the Hale children were often called upon to help out
China Only Yesterday, 1850-1950: A Century of Change (1963). with editorials, book reviews, and translations. Although much of
Indo (1963). Romantic Rebels: An Informal History of Bohemianism her work consisted of editorials and llers for the journals her
in America (1967). The Cooking of China (1968, reprinted 1981). brothers published, she wrote texts and Sunday-school books,
Zoos (1968). Time and Places (1970). Fractured Emerald: Ire- edited collections of games and needlework, and produced several
land (1971). On the Side of the Apes (1971). Mabel: A Biography novels and books of short stories, sometimes in conjunction with
of Mabel Dodge Luhan (1977). Love of Gold (1980). The Islands: other writers. After the death of her father in 1863, Hale supported
Americas Imperial Adventure in the Philippines (1981). Eve and herself by her writings.
the Apes (1988, 1989). Her rst venture into ction, Margaret Percival in America
(1850), written in collaboration with Edward, was a well-received
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cuthbertson, K. Nobody Said Not to Go: The Life, religious novel and had modest sales. The rst of her independent
Loves, and Adventures of Emily Hahn (1998). writings to attract attention was The Queen of the Red Chess-
Reference works: Authors of Books for Young People (2nd men (Atlantic Monthly, 1858), a short, fanciful tale in which a
edition, 1971). CA (1967). CB (July 1942). NCAB. TCAS. strong-willed red chess queen comes alive. A novel, Six of One by
Half a Dozen of the Other (1872), a six-way collaboration with
PATRICIA LANGHALS NEILS Harriet Beecher Stowe and Edward, among others, is an amusing
162
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HALE
comedy of manners, and in The New Harry and Lucy (1892), Embroidery (1879). Point-Lace: A Guide to Lace-Work (1879).
another novel done with Edward, Harry and Lucy write letters The Peterkin Papers (1880). The Art of Knitting (1881). Fagots
home about how they spend their time in the big city and how they for the Fireside (1888). Stories for Children (1892). Sunday
come to meet and marry. Although they did not last, these tongue- School Stories (with B. Whitman, n.d.). An Uncloseted Skeleton
in-cheek lightweights are vivid with lively details of the times. (with E. L. Bynner, n.d.).
Hales claim to literary distinction, though she never knew it,
came through her stories about the Peterkin family. The rst one, BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hale, E. E., A New England Boyhood (1893).
The Lady Who Put Salt in Her Coffee (1868), was made up to Hale, N., Introduction to The Complete Peterkin Papers (1960).
amuse Meggie, the daughter of Hales old school friend, Mrs. Reference works: AA. DAB. Junior Book of Authors (1934).
Lesley. One summer vacation, when Meggie was sick and forced NAW (1971). NCAB. Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in
to miss the family fun, Hale sat down by her bedside and on the the United States (1995). WW of Childrens Literature (1968).
spot created the story about Mrs. Peterkins problems with her cup Other references: Horn Book (Sept.-Oct. 1940, April 1958).
of coffee. She later published it in the periodical Our Young Folks. PW (28 Oct. 1957).
Five more Peterkin stories were printed there, and still others
followed in St. Nicholas, its successor. Some two dozen stories ALETHEA K. HELBIG
were rst put out in book form in 1880, and 1886 saw a sequel of
eight more, The Last of the Peterkins, with Others of Their Kin.
The stories were called after Mr. Lesley, whose rst name was
Peter, his children forming the kin, while Mrs. Lesley herself HALE, Nancy
was the wise Lady from Philadelphia.
Born 6 May 1908, Boston, Massachusetts; died 24 September 1988
The rst signicant nonsense done for children in the U.S.,
Daughter of Philip L. and Lilian Wescott Hale; married Fredson
the Peterkin stories became immensely popular throughout the
Bowers, 1942
nation, not only with children but with adults as well. Their gentle
satire on American attitudes and ways tickled the national funny
The only child of two painters, Nancy Hale attended the
bone and helped people laugh at themselves. The lovable, fool-
Winsor School in Boston and the School of the Boston Museum of
ish Peterkins of Boston consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Peterkin;
Fine Arts. She placed her rst short story at the age of eleven with
Agamemnon, who had been to college; Elizabeth Eliza; Solomon
the Boston Herald and at twenty went to New York, the setting for
John; and the three little boys, always nameless, but never without
her rst novel. For ve years Hale worked in New York as a
their India rubber boots.
journalist, rst as assistant editor of Vogue (1928-32) and then as
The stories concern the familys efforts to cope with every- assistant editor of Vanity Fair (1932-33). In 1935 she became the
day problems, all of which develop into crises of major propor- rst woman reporter for the New York Times. In 1937 Hale moved
tions because of their blundering attempts to deal with them. to Charlottesville, Virginia, and this piedmont area, with its
When the Peterkins get their new piano into the parlor, they historic traditions and aura of southern gentility, provides both the
discover the only way Elizabeth Eliza can play it is by sitting ambience and the central motif for several of Hales short stories
outside on the porch. The milk from the Peterkins new cow and novels.
develops a queer taste after they decide the best place to keep it is
The three locales that gure prominently in Hales life
by the kitchen chimney. They raise the parlor ceiling to accommo-
New England, New York, and Virginiaalso furnish the back-
date their too-tall Christmas tree, get lost repeatedly at the
drop and often create the tensions in her ction. Her rst novel,
Philadelphia Centennial, and never have enough plates and cups
The Good Die Young (1932), depicts the sophisticated Manhat-
to serve the large groups they enthusiastically invite to their home.
tan types of the 1930s with the attention to detail also given to
The humor of the stories arises from the absurdity of their
the Southern types of Hales later novels. Her most popular
predicaments and the familys roundabout ways of attempting to
novel, The Prodigal Women (1942, reissued 1988), follows the
come to grips. They are often assisted in extricating themselves
lives of three womentwo of them Southern and one a New
from their dilemmas by the sensible and practical advice of the
Englanderfrom childhood through the course of their love
Lady from Philadelphia.
affairs and marriages. Categorized at the time of its publication as
Although the stories reect the manners and attitudes of their a womans book because of its concern with the viciousness
period, in their revelation of character they ring true yet today, and in men, the novel portrays the warfare between men and women
it is upon the droll, whimsical adventures of this winning family of waged in the name of love. The scenes are laid in Boston,
bumblers, still favorites with children, that Hales reputation as a Virginia, and New York, and Hale deftly captures the sense of
writer rests. place and the inections of speech that point to the geographical
origins of her characters.
OTHER WORKS: Seven Stormy Sundays (1859). Struggle for Life In the novel Dear Beast (1959), and in the title story of her
(1861). The Lords Supper and Its Observance (1866). The collection of short stories The Pattern of Perfection (1960), Hale
Service of Sorrow (1867). The Wolf at the Door (1877). Designs in exhibits especially well her considerable talent for evoking re-
Outline for Art-Needlework (1879). More Stitches for Decorative gional differences and for portraying the antagonism between
163
northern and southern manners. In The Pattern of Perfection, her time. Her enormously successful career as editor, novelist,
Hale creates the climate of opposition between a Virginia matri- poet, and essayist is the more remarkable for having commenced
arch and her New Jersey daughter-in-law; and with a restraint that at the age of forty.
avoids moral judgement, she highlights in Dear Beast the foibles
of both southern provincialism and Yankee sophistication. In the years before she began her editorial work, Hale lived a
quiet life in rural New Hampshire. She was educated at home by
For all the social implications of these regional tensions, her mother, who, Hale later said, encouraged her predilection for
however, Hale is essentially concerned with the individual in literary pursuits, and by her older brother, who shared his
these settings. She shows the personal pretensions that render real college studies when on vacation from Dartmouth. Hale conduct-
communication between a New England wife and her Virginia ed a private school for children from 1806 until 1813, when she
husband almost impossible, and the private insecurities which married a lawyer. By her own account, Hales married life was a
cause a woman from Rochester to feel displaced in her new model of domestic bliss. She admired her husband greatly and
suburban home in Virginia. In her ction of manners, Hale creates spent idyllic evenings with him in reading and study. In 1822,
conicts essentially personal but are accentuated by the differ- however, just before the birth of their fth child, Hale died,
ences in the outward trappings of everyday life from one region to leaving his wife in nancial distress. She soon turned to writing
another. and, with the assistance of her husbands Masonic friends, pub-
In her most recent novel, Secrets (1971), Hale moves from lished The Genius of Oblivion (1823), a thin volume of poetry.
her use of regional tensions as a correlative for personal conict to Although the poems are undistinguished, they contain the
portray a womans conict in integrating her own world within. seeds of themes Hale was later to developthe superiority of
The middle-aged narrator tells how she grew from a lonely, American character, the need for higher education for women, and
sensitive child into a mature adult, capable of coping with both the the differing roles of the sexes (man rides the wave and rules
past and the present. the ame, while woman is the star of home). In addition, the
Hale has written that she has purposely attempted to conceal rst line of the book, No mercenary muse inspires my lay, is
the seriousness of her work with the light touch. Yet in more Hales rst pronouncement to the world of the self-image which,
than 50 years of publishing novels and short stories, she revealed as skillful advertiser of herself and her magazines, she was to
herself to be a penetrating observer of the human scene. promote for the rest of her life. She claimed repeatedly that
although she had published a few poems during her husbands
lifetime, she had never intended to become an authoress: her
OTHER WORKS: Never Any More (1934). The Earliest Dreams chief aim was to prepare reading material for their reside. She
(1936). Between the Dark and the Daylight (1943). The Sign of turned to writing and editing neither for nancial gain for herself
Jonah (1950). The Empresss Ring (1955). Heaven and Hardpan nor for fame or ego satisfaction, but only for funds to educate her
Farm (1957). A New England Girlhood (1958). The Realities of children.
Fiction: A Book about Writing (1962). Black Summer (1963). New
England Discovery: A Personal View (edited by Hale, 1963). The Hales career was launched in 1827 with the publication of
Life in the Studio (1969, 1980). Secrets (1971). Mary Cassatt her rst novel. Northwood is usually represented as one of the
(1975, 1987). Birds in the House (1985). Wags (1985). earliest novels to contrast American life in the North and South;
however, the subtitle, A Tale of New England, more accurately
describes Hales intent. Southern scenes and characters are intro-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Peden, W., The American Short Story: Continuity duced, like British ones, to point up the characteristics of Yankee
and Change, 1940-1975 (1975). life. Hale describes at great length the domestic customs and
Reference works: NCAB. Oxford Companion to Womens manners of the postcolonial period in New England. Food, cloth-
Writing in the United States (1995). TCAS. ing, and architecture receive detailed attention; pages are devoted
to the description of a Thanksgiving dinner. There is little plot,
GUIN A. NANCE
except for a frenzied effort at the end, but much preaching. Moral
homilies on subjects ranging from the proper education of child-
ren to the sins of greed and vanity are interspersed with speeches
HALE, Sarah Josepha (Buell) defending life in New England against typical foreign criticisms.
Despite its aws Northwood was original and became an
Born 24 October 1788, Newport, New Hampshire; died 30 April instant popular success. Its renown brought Hale an offer to edit a
1879, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania new magazine, and the year after the publication of her novel she
Also wrote under: Cornelia, Mrs. Hale, A Lady of New Hampshire found herself in Boston, the editor of Ladies Magazine. Each
Daughter of Gordon and Martha Whittlesey Buell; married issue contained stories, poems, essays, household hints, book
David Hale, 1813 (died 1822); children: ve reviews, and sketches of American life, the latter often written by
Hale herself. In forming her editorial policy Hale simply brought
As editor for many years of Godeys Ladys Book, one of the together elements that had been present in her early work:
leading periodicals of the 19th century, Sarah Josepha Hale was emphasis on America, attention to domestic detail, and frank
perhaps the most widely known and most inuential woman of didacticism, particularly on the subject of women.
164
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HALE
In contrast to the current editorial practice of lifting entire version, slavery was mentioned as a temporary evil which should
articles from other (usually British) magazines, Hale sought not disturb the harmony of North and South; in the later version
original articles by Americans on national subjects. She dedicated Hale advances the view that slaves should be taught Christianity,
the magazine to female improvement, promising to cherish whereupon they might be freed and sent to Africa to plant Free
the effusions of female intellect and educate women in domestic States and organize Christian civilization. This theory is further
skills. Typically, while she reassured men nothing in the magazine developed in her didactic novel, Liberia; or, Mr. Peytons Experi-
would cause their wives and daughters to encroach on the ments (1853).
prerogatives of men, she included a large amount of material on
education for womendetailed notices of existing schools and While Hale has been criticized for her views on slavery,
seminaries and editorials advocating teaching as a profession for Northwood and Liberia have also been called antislavery novels.
women and the establishment of infant schools. Interpretation of Hale has always varied widely. Some of her
biographers claim she was a militant feminist, others a true
Although there had previously been female editors and conservative. Actually her philosophy, expressed repeatedly in
periodicals for women, Ladies Magazine was the rst one of her works, was internally consistent and explains many seeming
quality and the rst to last more than ve years. It attracted the contradictions. She believed God created women morally superi-
attention of Louis Godey, an enterprising publisher who was or to men. Eves sin was less than Adams, as she fell because of
editing an inferior magazine in Philadelphia. Godey offered to desire for spiritual truth and he from sensual appetite. Eve did sin,
buy out the Ladies Magazine and unite it with his Ladys Book however, and womans punishment is to be subordinate to her
under Hales editorship. Hale accepted and began an association husband. She is required to work through him, elevating him and
which lasted from 1837 until 1877. She edited Godeys Ladys transforming his nature in order to save humanity. In America she
Book until she was in her ninetieth year. is particularly to restrain his materialism and greed to save the
nation. Womans sphere is restrictedshe must use her inuence
Because Godey was able to nance the novel practice of
only in the domestic realm because if she entered public affairs
paying contributors, Hale could attract better writers, such as
Edgar Allan Poe. She also expanded the number of domestic she might be contaminated.
departments begun in Ladies Magazine. In Godeys can be found Thus Hale spoke against womens rights and attacked those
the forerunners of most departments existing in todays home leaders who wanted the vote. However, because women had to be
magazines: cooking and recipes, sewing and patterns, domestic educated in order to use their moral powers effectively, she
architecture, interior decoration, etiquette, health advice, garden- campaigned vigorously for higher education for women and
ing, child psychology, beauty, and fashion. Godeys was famous supported educators like Mary Lyon, Emma Willard, and Mat-
for its hand-colored fashion plates and steel engravings, the thew Vassar. Similarly, although Hale believed slavery was
number of which increased rapidly through the years. wrong, she thought the slaves should not be freed until their moral
Missing from Godeys were essays on the political, econom- sense was developed (by female teachers, of course). Addition-
ic, and religious questions of the day. Hales advocacy of educa- ally, women could not properly support abolition because in their
tion for women and other reforms was carried on principally in her role as spiritual guardians they should cultivate only peace and
editorial columns, for Godey, with an eye on circulation, forbade harmony.
any controversial articles. Incredibly, the Civil War was never Hales philosophy also explains the major contradiction in
mentioned within the pages. The magazine was successful, how- her life. She thought of herself as a reformer and indeed was an
ever, as circulation climbed from 10,000 in 1837 to 150,000 by energetic and outspoken supporter of many causes. Yet apart from
1860, an astounding gure for the time. Godeys was the arbiter of her advocacy of education for women, the causes for which she
American taste and manners, and Hales name became literally a labored were essentially trivial ones, such as eliminating the use
household word. of female as a noun, having Thanksgiving declared a national
During her career as editor, Hale continued to produce her holiday, and raising money to complete the Bunker Hill Monu-
own work. She published collections of her sketches; she comment. Hale wielded tremendous inuence and could unite large
piled recipe books and household handbooks; she edited gift numbers of women. She used her power to promote, in her words,
books, anthologies of verse and letters by women, and works for womens happiness and usefulness in their Divinely appointed
children. In her Poems for Our Children (1830) is Mary Had a sphere.
Little Lamb, the poem for which she is best known today,
although her authorship of the rst stanza has been disputed.
OTHER WORKS: Sketches of American Character (1829). Conver-
Hales major work is Womans Record; or, Sketches of All
sations on the Burman Mission (1830). Floras Interpreter; or,
Distinguished Women from The Beginning till A.D. 1850 (1853).
The American Book of Flowers and Sentiments (edited by Hale,
This monumental biographical encyclopedia, still useful today,
1832, revised edition, Floras Interpreter, and Fortuna Flora,
took her several years to write and contains some 2,500 entries.
1849). The School Song Book (edited by Hale, 1834, reissued as
Hale also continued to write ction. In 1852 the fth edition My Little Song Book, 1841). Tales for Youth (edited by Hale,
of Northwood appeared, with revisions by Hale. She changed the 1835). Traits of American Life (1835). The Ladies Wreath
subtitle to Life North and South: Showing the True Character of (compiled by Hale, 1837, revised edition, 1839). The Good
Both and added lengthy discussions of slavery. In the original Housekeeper; or, The Way to Live Well and to Be Well While We
165
Live (1839, reissued as The Way to Live Well, and to Be Well Hales education was conducted under various tutors until
While We Live, 1847). My Cousin Mary; or, The Inebriate (1839). 1849, when she entered George B. Emersons prestigious school.
The Juvenile Budget Opened: Being Selections from the Writings She began teaching in 1850, when her family was experiencing
of Doctor John Aiken (edited by Hale, 1840). The Pleasures of nancial difculties, and continued to teach for the next decade.
Taste, and Other Stories Selected from the Writings of Miss Jane At thirty-two, following the deaths of her father and mother, Hale
Taylor (edited by Hale, 1840). Things by Their Right Names, and began to experience a degree of independence. She took up
Other Stories. . .Selected and Arranged from the Writings of Mrs. painting and traveled extensively, making trips to Europe, Algiers,
Barbauld (edited by Hale, 1840). The Ladys Annual Register, California, Mexico, and Jamaica in the next two decades. During
and Housewifes Almanac, for 1842 (edited by Hale, 1842). The the 1870s she began to travel around the country giving literary
Little Boys and Girls Library (10 vols., edited by Hale, circa readings to womens groups.
1842). Alice Ray: A Romance in Rhyme (1845). Keeping House
and House Keeping (1845). Modern Cookery, in All Its Branch- Hales published writings include the Family Flight series
es. . .by Eliza Acton (edited by Hale, 1845). Boarding Out: A of travel books, coauthored with her brother, Edward Everett
Tale of Domestic Life (1846). Harry Guy, the Widows Son Hale. The travel books, such as The Story of Mexico (1889),
(1848). Three Hours; or, The Vigil of Love, and Other Poems authored solely by Hale, demonstrate an interest in the many
(1848). Aunt Marys New Stories for Young People (edited by strands that make up a national character. History, Hale apparent-
Hale, 1849). The Poets Offering: For 1850 (edited by Hale, 1850, ly believed, is a continuous process, with the past always in part
reprinted with revised preface as A Complete Dictionary of present in today. She sets the scene of her rst view of Vera Cruz
Poetical Quotations, 1850). The Ladies New Book of Cookery with the thought of Cortez looking over her shoulder.
(1852, revised as Mrs. Hales New Cook Book, 1857; English
Men and Manners of the Eighteenth Century (1898) appears
edition, Modern Household Cookery, 1863). The New Household
Receipt Book (1853, revised as Mrs. Hales Receipts for the to be her series of literary readings. No clear connections exist
Million, 1857). The Bible Reading Book (compiled by Hale, between its ten parts except the desire to know what man was
1854). The Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (edited by like in the century before our own. The writers she discusses
Hale, 1856, revised 1869). The Letters of Madame de Svign to among them Pope, Charlotte Lennox, Addison, Richardson, Field-
Her Daughter and Friends (edited by Hale, 1856, revised 1869). ing, Goldsmith, and Anne Radcliffeare frequently grouped with
Manners; or, Happy Homes and Good Society All the Year Round another writer, male or female, to show their relationship.
(1868). Love; or, Womans Destiny (1870). The section Mrs. Radcliffe and Her Followers is the best.
In it she discusses Radcliffes ability to describe places she had
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Albertine, S., ed., A Living of Words: American never been, noting evidently she was a diligent reader, and wrote
Women in Print (1995). Entrikin, I. W., Sarah Josepha Hale and with the map before her. It is clear Radcliffe, the nontraveler,
Godeys Ladys Book (1946). Finley, R. E., The Lady of Godeys intrigued Hale, the traveler: I imagine her sitting comfortably in
(1931). Fryatt, N. R., Sarah Josepha Hale (1975). The Story of London and writing about crags and ravines in Southern France
Mary and Her Little Lamb (commissioned by H. Ford, 1928). without any real knowledge of landscape outside England.
Taylor, W. R., Cavalier and Yankee (1961). Wright, R., Forgotten
The essay, however, contains far too many long quotations
Ladies (1928).
and apparently was intended to be read aloud to an audience
Reference works: AA. CAL. DAB. NAW (1971). NCAB.
totally unfamiliar with the work. The other sections suffer from
the same faulttoo much original text and too few ideas. The
Other references: Historian (Feb. 1970). Legacy (1985).
advantage of the authors unifying personality during an oral
NEQ (Jan. 1928, 1990).
presentation is missing in the written text.
BARBARA A. WHITE
In his introduction to the edition of her letters, Edward
Everett Hale attempts to assess the personality of the real
Susan. His assessment is contradictory. On the one hand, he
writes of her restraintin her invariable sympathy and interest
HALE, Susan in others there was frequent reserveand suggests her letters
have rather more of her real self. On the other hand, he adds:
Born 5 December 1833, Boston, Massachusetts; died 10 Septem- She wrote a good deal in various wayssometimes travel-
ber 1910, Matunach, Rhode Island letters to the papers, sometimes booksbut though there was a
Daughter of Nathan and Sarah Everett Hale good deal of herself in these, they never impressed people as she
did herself. Similar comments have been made about Margaret
The youngest of eight children, Susan Hale was born into a Fuller, a woman whose brilliance, it is claimed, was never
literary family. Her father and brothers were successively editors captured for posterity.
of the Boston Daily Advertiser. Her mother, a sister of Edward
Everett, the well-known Unitarian clergyman, orator, author, and Like Fuller, Hales method and focus were dictated by the
public ofcial, was an author herself. Her sister Lucretia and her social structurethe nation in her books of travel and her interac-
brother Edward Everett Hale were also writers. tion with her audience in her readings and with friends and family
166
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HALL
in her letters. But unlike Fuller, what is left is insubstantial, a husk, with a history of her mothers poem, The Story of the Battle
and the personality within has vanished. Hymn of the Republic (1916). In Julia Ward Howe and the
Woman Suffrage Movement (1913), Hall selected documents and
recounted events that would secure for her mother a place as a
OTHER WORKS: A Family Flight Through France, Germany,
prominent suffragist.
Norway, and Switzerland (with E. E. Hale, 1881). A Family Flight
Over Egypt and Syria (with E. E. Hale, 1882). A Family Flight Memories Grave and Gay (1918) is an account of her own
Through Spain (with E. E. Hale, 1883). A Family Flight Around life. Although Hall abandoned the technique of quoting from
Home (with E. E. Hale, 1884). Life and Letters of Thomas Gold letters and journals in this book, she continued to base her
Appleton (1885). Self-Instructive Lessons in Painting (1885). A memoirs on the lives of her family and famous friends. Her
Family Flight Through Mexico (with E. E. Hale, 1886). The Story simple, direct, and anecdotal style of writing, combined with
of Spain (with E. E. Hale, 1886). Young Americans in Spain glimpses into her own personal and professional life, explain the
(1899). Inklings for Thinklings (1919). Letters of Susan Hale wide appeal of this book of reminiscences.
(edited by C. P. Atkinson, 1919).
The papers of Susan Hale, part of the Hale Family Papers, are Social Customs (1887) established Hall as a successful writer
housed in the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College in in the eld of manners. It differed from other etiquette books in
Northampton, Massachusetts. several respects. Hall tackled a broader range of topics than most
writers, touching on the behavior of children at home, for exam-
ple, as well as the behavior of adults in various social situations.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Atkinson, C. P., ed., Letters of Susan Hale (1919).
Furthermore, Hall was amusing. She never hesitated to use a
Clement, C. E., and L. Hutton, Artists of the Nineteenth Century
humorous anecdote or to poke fun at an outdated mode of
and Their Works (1879). Hale, E. E., Jr., The Life and Letters of
behavior, and this boosted the popularity of her book. Thirdly,
Edward Everett Hale (2 vols., 1917).
Hall opened her book with a brief discussion of the origin of
Reference works: AA. NAW (1971). Oxford Companion to
manners. Although her sociological and anthropological informa-
Womens Writing in the United States (1995).
tion is limited, the chapter does provide insight into the value of an
JULIANN E. FLEENOR explicit code of manners from the point of view of the upper
middle class.
Hall hoped her work would enable people to see the justica-
tion for different social classes. She believed, too, that etiquette
HALL, Florence (Marion) Howe lled the gaps left by legislation, thus preserving order in a society
where immigration, urbanization, and industrialization were chal-
Born 25 August 1845, Boston, Massachusetts; died 10 April lenging old social arrangements. Manners, in short, could provide
1922, High Bridge, New Jersey a subtle form of social control that would strengthen the hand of
Daughter of Samuel G. and Julia Ward Howe; married David P. the middle class and upper middle class.
Hall, 1871; children: three sons, one daughter
The Correct Thing in Good Society (1888) provided a con-
Florence Howe Hall was educated at home and in a variety of venient handbook of proper behavior. Halls brief and amusing
private schools. Because her husbands legal practice ourished directions were accessible to people without much leisure who
only intermittently, Hall went to work lecturing and writing for needed information quickly. It extended the usefulness of the
magazines. Her income enabled her three sons to attend college etiquette book as an instrument of social control by providing a
and her daughter to pursue advanced artistic training. Hall was means for the upwardly mobile to identify and adopt the forms of
also widely respected as an active suffragist and club woman. behavior considered correct by the existing elite.
Halls writing falls into three categories: stories for children, Hall continued to expand her career as an authority on
memoirs and reminiscences, and etiquette books. She began her etiquette well into the 20th century. She revised her books to take
career as a writer for children, but her stories sold poorly, and she into account both the changing tastes in entertainment (automo-
gradually abandoned the genre. Hall found an interested audience bile trips, for example) and the emergence of the new woman.
for her books of reminiscences, however. As the daughter of two For the benet of the latter, Hall included advice on how to behave
inuential reformers, she could call on memories of people, at college, how to handle business correspondence, and how to
places, and events that were landmarks of American cultural and establish a womans club. Hall also added new titles covering the
political life. She collaborated with her sisters on a prizewinning same general issues but with a different emphasis.
biography of their mother. They also wrote a biography of their
fathers most famous pupil, Laura Bridgman, a blind deaf-mute Although Hall was aware of the varieties of class and region
whose education was a model for Helen Kellers. Both volumes in American society, she never revealed any awareness of the
use the technique of quoting extensively from family letters and impracticality of her advice for many ethnic groups or for rural
diaries, with the authors providing background information, tran- and working-class people. Fundamentally a conservative, she
sitional material, and occasional anecdotes from personal memo- limited herself to describing social arrangements of the upper
ry. Hall further exploited the public interest in her famous family middle class. She never questioned them, and she never advocated
167
HALL AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
any change; instead, she employed her direct and amusing style to rst book, Curtains (1921), the poems from the title section use
strengthen and extend the values she shared with the elite of her day. immediate objectsdoor, window frame, stairwaysymbolical-
ly. The objects lead to the wider world, which is denied the
speaker. The mood of these poems is a mixture of resignation and
OTHER WORKS: Little Lads and Lassies: Stories in Prose and longing. Unsentimentally, the poems reveal ashes of Halls
Verse about and for Them (1898). Laura Bridgman; or, Howes struggle to accept connement bravely and without resentment.
Famous Pupil and What He Taught Her (1903). Flossys Play-Days
In the needlework section, Hall used her occupation in a
(1906). Social Usages at Washington (1906). A Handbook of
variety of ways. In the poem Monograms, she juxtaposes the
Hospitality for Town and Country (1909). Boys, Girls, and
details of a seamstresss workthe cold linen, the repetitive
Manners (1913). Good Form for All Occasions: A Manual of
nature of the sewing and its long durationwith small, warm
Manners, Dress, and Entertainment for Both Men and Women
details of a brides experienceJune, real owers. . .like esh
(1914). Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910 (with L. Richards and M.
to create a poignant sense of the barrenness of the speakers life, a
Elliott, 1915). ABC of Correct Speech and the Art of Conversa-
life that has been representative of many womens. In Instruc-
tion (1916).
tion, she makes a direct correlation between herself and All the
tired women, / Who sewed their lives away. Hall created fresh
and original analogies between nature and the seamstresss world:
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hall, F. H., L. R., and M. Elliott, Julia Ward The wind is sewing with needles of rain (Two Sewing);
Howe, 1819-1910 (1915). the dawn unfolds like a bolt of ribbon (Heavy Threads).
Reference works: CB (Aug. 1943). DAB. NCAB.
The subjects of Walkers (1923) are sometimes seen from a
MARY H. GRANT window, sometimes only heard. These passersby reveal them-
selves in the way they walk. They are perceived as being con-
cerned with their individual, temporal matters and as being
unaware of how they resemble each other, how ultimately each is
moving toward the same destiny. While they are always seeking
HALL, Hazel a road, the one who observes them is always seeking a word; yet
the goal for all is to strive to give the understanding wings / And
to make the brilliant ight of it enough (Summary).
Born 7 February 1886, St. Paul, Minnesota; died 11 May 1924,
Portland, Oregon Hall knew she was dying when she composed some of the
Daughter of Montgomery G. and Mary Garland Hall poems found in Cry of Time (1928), published posthumously.
There is a restlessness here, but there is awareness, too, that
As a child, Hazel Hall was taken by her parents to Portland, reection and perception and song have been wrought from pain
Oregon, where she remained throughout her short life. At twelve, and silence. These poems are less personal and more varied. Hall
she became permanently conned to a wheelchair as a result of more clearly portrayed herself as a representative of other women,
either a fall or an attack of scarlet fever; thus her formal public sharing with them hands never still (Woman Death), sor-
school education terminated with the fth grade. She contributed row, and a search for peace and repose. In Tract on Living,
to her own support by doing needlework; she also wrote poetry Hall approached total reconciliation to life and death with her
and prose under a pseudonym. By thirty, failing eyesight led her to recognition that the only answer is the call.
devote herself more to writing, and her poetry began to appear
Halls verse was usually traditional in form, but occasionally
under her own name. She continued pseudonymous publication,
she experimented with newer techniques. She used a subtle
however, perhaps because she felt, as she wrote, that my poetry
juxtaposition of images to good effect, and she spoke to more
should be given more attention than my life. Her pseudonym
modern sensibilities than do many of her contemporaries. Al-
remains undisclosed.
though her work is fairly limited in range, it is slight only in terms
Halls contemporaries regarded her highly both as a person of quantity.
and as a poet. The individuality of her poetry was frequently
noted. Her poems were sought after by the leading periodicals,
and many of them were anthologized. She won several prizes BIBLIOGRAPHY: Franklin, V. P., A Tribute to Hazel Hall (1939).
including, in 1921, a rst prize from Contemporary Verse and the Reference works: DAB. NCAB.
Young Poets Prize from Poetry magazine. Other references: Bookman (Feb. 1929). NYHTB (3 Mar.
1929). Oregon Daily Journal (12 May 1924). Overland Monthly
Hall never mentioned her afiction explicitly, but she used (Aug. 1924).
her connement and the repetitive, monotonous domestic em-
ployment as subject and metaphor in many of her poems. In her JEANNINE DOBBS
168
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HALL
HALL, Louisa (Jane) Park BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hanaford, P. A., CAL, Daughters of America
(1882). Read, T., The Female Poets of America (1851).
Reference works: NCAB.
Born 2 February 1802, Newburyport, Massachusetts; died 8
September 1892, Cambridge, Massachusetts KATHERINE STAPLES
Daughter of John Park; married Edward B. Hall, 1840
Louisa Park Hall began to compose verse at an early age,

publishing it anonymously in newspapers around 1820. The rst
HALL, Sarah Ewing
part of her verse drama Miriam (1837) was read at a literary
gathering in Boston in 1825 and highly praised. Shortly after she Born 30 October 1761, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; died 8 April
and her family moved to Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1831, she 1830, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
developed an eye condition that almost completely blinded her for Wrote under: Constantia, Florepha, Mrs. Sarah Hall
several years. Her disability, however, did not prevent her from Daughter of John and Hannah Sargent Ewing; married John
enjoying literature; her father read aloud to her several hours a day Hall, 1782; children: eleven (two died young)
and helped to record her own work.
Although she was not formally educated, Sarah Ewing Halls
When she recovered her vision, Hall married a Unitarian active and inquisitive mind absorbed a great deal from conversa-
minister and moved to Providence, Rhode Island. The Cross and tions with her father, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in
the Anchor (1844), a collection of religious verse, was written to Philadelphia and provost of the University of Pennsylvania from
benet a mission for sailors there. Hall also wrote three pieces of 1779 until his death in 1802. Her favorite subject was astronomy,
prose ction: Alfred (1836) and The Better Part (1836), both in which her father was expert. She acquired an extensive knowl-
didactic moral tales, and The Sheaves of Love (1861), a sentimen- edge of Greek and Latin while listening to her brothers recite.
tal romance tracing the friendships and courtships of schoolgirls. In 1782 Hall married the son of a wealthy Maryland planter.
They retired to the family estate for eight years, but returned in
Halls two verse plays, Miriam and Hannah, the Mother of
1790 to Philadelphia, where John served as secretary of the land
Samuel the Prophet and Judge of Israel (1839), show that religion
ofce and a U.S. marshal. Although they moved to New Jersey in
is the chief motivating force in life, and both illustrate the
1805 and later were forced by nancial reverses to move back to
importance of women as teachers and examples of faith. Miriam Maryland, the family returned to Philadelphia in 1811.
depicts the doomed love between the son of a proud Roman
governor and a devout young Christian girl ready to die for her Throughout her life, Hall continued her self-education through
faith, while Hannah shows the inuence of the mother of a reading. In the midst of rearing 11 children (nine reached adult-
biblical prophet upon her son. Halls blank verse reects her hood), she found little free time, so she borrowed the hours
reading in 18th-century tragedy. which are usually appropriated for repose, staying up until
midnight or later. She wrote primarily for periodicals such as Port
The Memoir of Miss Elizabeth Carter (1844) is a carefully Folio, edited for 10 years by her eldest son, John. Another son,
documented and lucidly written biographical tribute to Samuel Harrison, collected Selections from the Writings of Mrs. Sarah
Johnsons scholarly friend. It was actually composed before Hall Hall (1833). He included extracts from letters, book reviews,
regained her sight, at about the same time as the historical drama poems, prayers, and essays.
Joanna of Naples (1838). The latter, based on Jamesons Lives of
Halls views on the role of women were quite conventional.
the Female Sovereigns, is a orid romance with lavish passages of In an essay On Female Education, she argues against another
description. womans plea that she be allowed to learn Greek and Latin. The
end of education, says Hall, is to qualify people to act with
Several of Halls works were reprinted in her lifetime. Her
propriety the part assigned to us by Providence. Hall sees in the
short lyric poems were perhaps the most widely circulated of all
wise and beautiful order of created being a different destina-
her writings, since they were regularly printed in newspapers
tion of man and woman. While they share common moral duties,
throughout the country. Her favorite themes in these poems are
the superior strength of the man declares that he is designated to
children, scenes in nature, and settings and situations dramatizing
wrestle with the world. As for woman, retirement is her
religious faith. Halls last works, My Body to My Soul (1891) and element, domestic and social life is her proper sphere.
Verses (1892), express her love of nature, her full life, and her
religious faith, as well as her calm acceptance of death. In another essay, On the Extent of Female Inuence, she
accepts the traditional view that obedience in a wife is a
Halls large and varied body of work reects her lifelong scriptural doctrine. A womans proper sphere of inuence is as
pleasure in reading and writing and her ability to discuss religion, wife and mother; those without children can raise money for
the heart, and the home, all favorite subjects of domestic litera- missions, distribute tracts, or write, as did British educator Han-
ture, in a variety of different ways. nah More. Hall did assert, however, that no talent should be
169
HAMILTON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
wasted; and she sensed that times were changing. In the poem degenerative diseases that prevailed among the workers she
Line for an Album, she claims that while women have been treated.
denied the exercise of intellect, Now, men are wiser grown
they see. . .that she may read and write, like man, / And every form In 1910 Hamiltons work won the recognition of the gover-
of being scan. nor of Illinois, who made her the rst managing director of the
states Commission on Occupational Diseases. Hamiltons report
A frequent subject of Halls writing was religion. Through- for the commission concerning the effects of phosphorus and lead
out her life, she studied the Bible, and at age fty she began to fostered the legislation of the states workers compensation laws.
learn Hebrew in order to more accurately research her only In 1912 Hamilton and her sister Edith studied in Germany. The
book-length publication, Conversations on the Bible (1818). The new insights Hamilton gained there led to a series of articles for
365-page volume went through one British and three American the U.S. governments Womens Bureau. This research is still a
editions in her lifetime. It is actually a commentary on the Old valuable introduction to the study of industrial medicine.
Testament and the Gospels, but since it would have been unusual
for a woman and a nonscholar to write such a work, Hall styled Hamilton became Harvards rst woman professor of indus-
hers as a series of conversations between Mother, Catharine, trial medicine in 1919, and she was the only woman to serve as
and Fanny. ofcial delegate to the U.S.S.R. on a League of Nations health
commission (1924). She continued her research and published her
Mother begins with an interesting introduction to each book, rst book, Industrial Poisons in the United States, in 1925. The
and then, in response to questions, offers comments about the 590-page work summarized the rst 40 years of Hamiltons long
probable authorship; explanations of unusual words, places, or and productive career by drawing upon case histories for both the
customs; a summary of the plot or argument; and sometimes a diagnosis and treatment of industrial poisoning. Industrial Toxi-
contemporary application or parallel. Under the heading Song of cology (1934) was a concise statement of the principles of
Moses and Miriam (Exod. 15:1-21), Fanny offers her own industrial health and fundamental concerns of the eld; it is
poem-paraphrase of the text. Although Conversations on the regarded as an important primary text for medical students
Bible represents precritical biblical scholarship, it is well researched even today.
and presented in a lively, cogent, clear, and careful manner.
At the same time that Hamiltons elder sister, Edith Hamil-
ton, published The Great Age of Greek Literature, Hamilton
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hale, S. J., Womans Record (1853). published her autobiography, Exploring the Dangerous Trades
Hanaford, P. A., Daughters of America (1882). (1943). The book also featured illustrations by her sister Norah.
Reference works: AA. DAB. NCAB. Ironically, this book, the least technical of Hamiltons works,
received the greatest notoriety. The autobiography tells of Hamil-
NANCY A. HARDESTY tons pioneering work in industrial medicine, her research in
Munich and at Johns Hopkins University, and her residence at
Hull House. Hamiltons interesting life is discussed in a colorful,
forthright manner. She candidly describes, for example, the
HAMILTON, Alice trauma of being the only female student in the German universi-
ties, and how she was politely reminded that female faculty
members were not seated at Harvards graduation exercises. She
Born 27 February 1869, New York, New York; died 22 Sep- also gives touching accounts of her visit to the U.S.S.R. in 1924
tember 1970 and her return to Germany after World War I.
Daughter of Montgomery and Gertrude Pond Hamilton
Hamilton was honored after her retirement by numerous
A pioneer of American industrial medicine, Alice Hamilton womens organizations and medical societies. She continued to
was the second of four daughters in a family of ve children. The lecture in public until her death at the age of 101 years.
familys idealism and humanitarian interests led each of the sisters
to pursue a professional career. Hamilton graduated from the
University of Michigan Medical School in 1893. In her autobiog- BIBLIOGRAPHY: U.S. Dept. of Labor (Dec. 1977).
raphy, she writes that she chose medicine because as a doctor I Reference works: CB (May 1946, Nov. 1970). NCAB. Oxford
could go anywhere I pleased, to far-off lands or to city slums, and Companion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995).
be quite sure that I could be of use anywhere. Other references: American Journal of Public Health (Oct.
1925, Aug. 1943). Booklist (15 Apr. 1943). Bookmark (16 May
In 1897 Hamilton became the rst woman professor at the 1943). Book Week (2 May 1943). Nature (24 Oct. 1925). NR (19
Womens Medical School of Northwestern University. During Apr. 1943). NY (17 Apr. 1943). SR (8 May 1973). Survey (1 Nov.
her time there, she resided at Hull House, a facility designed to 1925, July 1943). TLS (13 July 1925). Weekly Book Review (11
give professional care and advice to the poor in Chicagos slums. Apr. 1943).
It was at Hull House that Hamilton rst became aware of the
problems of occupationally caused lead poisoning and other ILISE LEVY
170
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HAMILTON
HAMILTON, Edith intelligent, nonscholarly reader, and for high school and college
humanities students.
Born 12 August 1867, Dresden, Germany; died 31 May 1963, Her best-known work, Mythology (1942), recounts with
Washington, D.C. authority and charm the stories of the (mainly Greek) gods,
Daughter of Montgomery and Gertrude Pond Hamilton goddesses, heroes, and nymphs. One wishes she had made a
greater effort to situate the myths historically and analytically.
In the record of Edith Hamiltons work as an educator and Cultural bias prevented her from looking beneath the outermost
writer, one glimpses strong models and an abiding condence in layer to determine possible sources, earlier forms, and cultural
herself and her traditions. Born abroad, Hamilton was only six signicance. Not surprisingly for her time, Hamilton subscribed
weeks old when her parents returned with her to Fort Wayne, to the early science and primitive literature theories of
Indiana, where her Irish grandfather had settled in the early 1800s. mythmaking. To her credit, she sensed these theories do not carry
There, in an afuent and cultivated atmosphere, she was early one very far.
introduced to the classics. After attending Miss Porters School in Witness to the Truth (1948) separates the experience of
Farmington, Connecticut, she received her B.A. and M.A. (1894) Christ, likened unto Socrates, from history, theology, and the
from Bryn Mawr College, majoring in Latin and Greek. She was a church. Hamilton eliminates all religious phenomenology save
fellow in Latin at Bryn Mawr the next year, and received a faith in order to focus upon the ethics and the metaphysics of
one-year fellowship to study in Leipzig and Munich, where she Christ-likeness. In her view, the gospel of love breaks through
was the rst woman ever admitted. all restrictions, family, nation, race.
From 1896 to 1922, Hamilton was headmistress of the Bryn Among other awards, Hamilton received the Golden Cross of
Mawr School in Baltimore, which set new standards for the the Order of Benefaction from King Paul of Greece in 1957, at
intellectual potential and achievement of young women. Personal ceremonies on the stage of the ancient theater of Herodes Atticus
magnetism, an unquestioned faith in the value of classical learn- in Athens, and was proclaimed an honorary citizen of Athens. A
ing, and the determination that all 400 of her girls would succeed member of many professional organizations and a well-known
made the school popular. Many of her former students remained woman of letters in her own time, Hamilton is unjustiably
her devoted disciples. ignored by critics of ours.
After retirement, Hamilton published a series of articles on

Greek theater later collected in The Ever-Present Past (1964), a OTHER WORKS: The Klubwoman (1925). The Roman Way (1932).
posthumous volume including a prologue by her friend and The Prophets of Israel (1936). Three Greek Plays (1937). Spokes-
companion, Doris Fielding Reid. Hamilton maintained she had men for God: The Great Teachers of the Old Testament (1949).
been bullied into writing; urged by friends to record thoughts that The Echo of Greece (1957).
had crystallized over decades of studying and teaching, Hamilton
proceeded with an almost evangelical fervor to produce volume
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cole, R. W., Mythology: A Critical Commen-
after volume of materials relating to the ancient world, especially
tary (1966).
Greece, but also Rome, the prophets and teachers of the Old
Reference works: CB (Apr. 1963, July 1963). NCAB. Oxford
Testament, and nally the world of Jesus Christ.
Companion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). TCA,
Although aspiring to the objectivity of positivism, these TCAS.
works never question the supremacy of Western culture or the
ALICE PARKER
elitist conception of progress that is its underpinning. In The
Greek Way (1930) and its updated version, The Great Age of
Greek Literature (1943), Hamilton attempts to recreate the Greek
miracle through the words of her favorite authors. (There is no
mention of Sappho.) The question she does not pose is how to
HAMILTON, Gail
See DODGE, Mary Abigail
march forward from perfection.
Readers may be disturbed by cross-cultural comparisons:

The English method is to ll the mind with beauty; the Greek
method was to set the mind to work. Her generalizing tendency, HAMILTON, Jane
however, forces one to make interesting and provocative connec-
tions, and it is offset by copious textual examples. Normative Born 1957, Oak Park, Illinois
implications remain a problem: comparing the amplication of Daughter of Allen B. and Ruth Hubert Hamilton; married Robert
Hebrew prose with the brevity of Greek, she merely cites as proof Willard, 1982; children: two.
Pericles statement that we are lovers of beauty with economy.
Hamilton neglects scholarly apparatus, but her works retain their Jane Hamilton writes of small-town, Midwestern Americans
validity as a general introduction to the ancient world for the who face extraordinary challenges. While her three novels are set
171
HAMILTON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
in the sort of environment where Hamilton was raised and still section jumps to the 1990s, when the protagonist, now HIV-
livesrural hamlets in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesotaher positive, confronts regrets over how he spent his youth. He returns
characters lead lives very different from her own, which she from New York to a town near his familys summer home to teach
describes as ordinary. Despite these divergent paths, Hamilton high school and a surprise ending involves his redemption.
has said in interviews that she can relate to her characters
emotionally, particularly their feelings of alienation. Though known for her strong female characters, Hamilton
was applauded for her depiction of a gay man. As Robert Plunket
After graduating in 1979 with a B.A. from Carleton College wrote in The Advocate, a publication written for a gay and lesbian
in Northeld, Minnesota, Hamilton planned to move to New York audience, It is quite a surprise to discover that in her new novel,
for a position with a publishing house. On the way, she took a job The Short History of a Prince, Jane Hamilton paints a very
at a Wisconsin apple orchard, where she decided to remain, credible and sympathetic portrait of not just a man but a gay
eventually marrying one of the businesss owners. In 1982 she man. As with her previous characters, Hamilton was compli-
began writing, winning grants from the National Endowment for mented for her compassion and her use of believable detail to
the Arts and the Wisconsin Art Board and submitting autobio- describe her characters and their lives. Hamilton has an amazing
graphical short stories to publications such as Harpers. way with the varieties of human pain, wrote Laura Shapiro in
Newsweek. Her characters live with ordinary and sometimes
Hamiltons rst novel, The Book of Ruth (1989), won the
extraordinary torment, yet her writing remains buoyant and her
Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award from the PEN American
sensibility full of light.
Center (Hamilton and Hemingway share the same birthplace, Oak
Park, Illinois.) The book (published in England under the title The
Frogs Are Still Singing) focuses on Ruth, a resilient woman who is BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference Works: CA 147 (1995).
emotionally abused by her husband, Ruby, and his domineering, Other references: Advocate (26 May 1998). English Journal
live-in mother. The story and its violent and inevitable conclusion (Sept. 1996). LJ (15 Sept. 1997). Newsweek (13 Apr. 1998). New
were inspired by a newspaper article about a man in a town near Yorker (15 Aug. 1994). NYTBR (26 Apr. 1998). People (30 May
Hamiltons who murdered his mother-in-law. In its rst seven 1994). PW (2 Feb. 1998). Time (27 June 1994). Writers Digest
years, The Book of Ruth sold steadily, accruing sales of 75,000 (Oct. 1990).
copies. Sales jumped to over a million, however, when the
book became the third selection of Oprah Winfreys televised KAREN RAUGUST
Book Club.
A Map of the World (1994), Hamiltons second novel, is
about Alice and Howard, a married couple who move to a rural
community to follow Howards dream of becoming a dairy HAMILTON, Kate W(aterman)
farmer. The pair are viewed as outsiders, a perception compound-
ed by the fact that they once entertained a dreadlocked African Born 1841, Schenectady, New York; died 28 November 1934,
American houseguest. When a friends young child drowns under Bloomington, Illinois
Alices watch and another subsequently accuses Alice of sexual Also wrote under: Fleeta
abuse at the elementary school where she is a nurse, the couples Daughter of Farwell H. and Ruth A. Cady Hamilton
lives change drastically and Alice ends up in jail.
A Map of the Worldlike The Book of Ruth, was inspired by Kate Waterman Hamilton resided in New Jersey and Massa-
real-life events, including a documentary about a couple falsely chusetts, although her childhood was spent in Steubenville, Ohio,
accused of child abuse and a neighborhood child who drowned in and she spent much of her life in the Midwest. She began writing
his family swimming pool. The novel garnered somewhat mixed at an early age, and her rst publications were Sunday school
reviews, although it was praised for its use of telling details, books, the majority of them published by the Presbyterian Board
perceptive emotional currents, innovative manipulation of point of Publication and written under the pseudonym Fleeta. Unlike
of view, and moving and involving story. This highly observant many women writers who began as Sunday school writers and
author articulates what is poetic in children, in the natural world, then wrote for commercial rms, Hamilton continued to publish
and in the rigors of farm life, stated a review in the New Yorker. works in the 20th century for juvenile readers by the religious
But there are mixed signals and blurs in her depiction of publishers, even though she occasionally wrote for commercial
character which nally rob this otherwise lovely story of its full companies. Aside from publishing at least 42 books, Hamilton
impact. John Skow, reviewing the book for Time, added, This also wrote short stories and poetry for Harpers, Youths Compan-
would be soap opera if the author were not unusually good at ion, Hearth and Home, Golden Hour, and St. Nicholas.
transforming acute, intuitive perceptions into sentences.
Two of Hamiltons best-known works are The Parsons
Hamiltons third book, The Short History of a Prince (1998), Proxy (1896) and Rachels Share of the Road (1882). In the
is about a 1970s suburban Chicago teenager who loves ballet but former, the new minister from the city, Reverend John Sterling,
lacks talent. He is also dealing with his own homosexuality and has a rude introduction to his new parish in the country. After
his brothers battle with terminal cancer. The books second ofciating at a wedding in the back hills, he breaks his leg from a
172
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HAMILTON
fall suffered when a drunken wedding participant, Nate, kicks him Service; or, The Kings Seal (1887). The Hand with the Keys
down a hill. Nate repents and offers to ll the pulpit while the (1890). Dick and His Cousins (1891). Giving and Keeping (with
parson recuperates; Nates conversion is one aspect of the story. E. M. Hamilton, 1891). Nellies Red Book (1891). Tommy and
Millie (with E. M. Hamilton, 1891). Two and a Half (1891). What
The most interesting characters in The Parsons Proxy are
Dolly and Robbie Did (1891). Dr. Lincolns Children (1892).
the ministers sister, Nelson Sterling, and Granny Slocum. Nelson Billys Motto (with E. M. Hamilton, 1894). Calendar of the Days
is an intelligent and independent young woman who befriends the (1894). Dollys Quest (1894). Dots Christmas (with E. M.
country people. She wonders whether her real self is the morn- Hamilton, 1894). How Billy Helped the Church (with E. M.
ing girl who made mud pies with the poor children or the Hamilton, 1894). In Search of a Fortune (with E. M. Hamilton,
afternoon girl who dressed in nery. And at the end of the story 1894). Like a Story (1894). Recitations and Exercises for Child-
she chooses to marry the man who says that a womans sphere is rens Day and Other Occasions (1895). How Donald Kept Faith
what she needs to do, wants to do, and can do. Nelsons ideas (1900). The Kinkaid Venture (1900). Mothers Day: An Order of
may be noteworthy, but Granny Slocum is a far more interesting Service Arranged (1915). Thanksgiving Ann (n.d.).
character. Hardly more than a stereotypical country hick at the
novels beginning, she develops into a character of wit and wisdom.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: A Supplement to Allibones
Rachels Share of the Road presents another woman who is Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and Ameri-
willing to relinquish her wealth and status to help the country can Authors (1891). NCAB. A Dictionary of North American
people of her town. Rachel is the daughter of the powerful and Authors Deceased before 1950 (1951). Appletons Cyclopaedia of
wealthy railroad magnate, Judge Lyndal. Hamilton emphasizes Bibliography (1900).
that unlike her father and her two city cousins, Rachel sees people
as individuals rather than as classes. Initially, she convinces her AMY DYKEMAN
father to hire a man who is responsible for a family and unable to
nd work. Later she supports a strike (both verbally and nancial-
ly) at a foundry owned by her father. Rachels social conscious-
ness is far more interesting than her romance, the outcome of HAMILTON, Virginia
which is certain from the beginning.
Born12 March 1936, Yellow Springs, Ohio
Hamilton is a bit of a mystery. Many of her works are Daughter of Kenneth J. and Etta Belle Perry Hamilton; married
currently inaccessible. She wrote primarily for children, and these Arnold Adoff, 1960; children: one son, one daughter
are precisely the most difcult works to locate. Her adult works
were well received, but to todays reader, her attempt to reproduce Virginia Hamiltons heritage gives her an excellent perspec-
the vernacular speech of both upper- and lower-class people tive from which to view black history. She is only two generations
seems condescending; nonetheless, her characters do emerge as removed from slavery; her maternal grandfather, born a slave,
convincing people. Her writings suggest an interesting, but by no escaped with his mother to Ohio. Hamiltons father experienced
means unusual, view of religion; she believes that true spirituality discrimination in nding a job suited to his business-college
lies in everyone and is best expressed by those furthest from education. Hamilton herself, born in a place that once served as a
organized religion. Hamiltons scenes depicting those involved in station on the Underground Railroad, attended the African Meth-
organized religion are often the most humorous or sarcastic odist Episcopal Church as a child.
passages of the novels. On the other hand, her overt religious
messages and the inclusion of quotations (often in conversation) Hamilton studied at Antioch College on a full scholarship
from hymns and scripture make her work badly dated. Hamiltons and later at Ohio State University and the New School for Social
tendency toward complicated plots with hasty last-chapter resolu- Research. Hamilton went to New York City to further her career
tions also detracts from her work. and, shortly after her twenty-fourth birthday, married a well-known
white anthologist of black poetry. After living in New York for
several years, the couple settled, with their son and daughter, in a
OTHER WORKS: Mina Grey (1863). Frederick Gordon; or, Princi- rural home in Hamiltons native Yellow Springs.
ple and Interest (1864). Norah Neil; or, The Way by Which He Led
Of the 10 books for children Hamilton has published, three
Thee (1864). The Old Brown House; or, Mothers Birthday
are nonction: highly praised biographies of black activists W. E. B.
(1865). The Blue Umbrella (1866). The Shadow of the Rock
Du Bois and Paul Robeson and a collection of Du Bois writings.
(1866). Brave Heart (1868). Greycliff (1870). Chinks of Clannyford
Two of Hamiltons ction books, the Jahdu tales, are intended for
(1872). Robin Hood and Another Hood (1877). We Three (1877).
the younger reader. Although these stories of the powerful crea-
Old Portmanteau (1878). Prues Pocket Book, and Other Stories
ture Jahdu have been viewed as a portrayal of the growth of black
(with E. F. Pratt, 1878). The House That Jack Built (1880).
consciousness in America, they lack a consistently developed
General Peg and Her Staff (1880). How the Buttoned Boots
mythic dimension.
Marched (1880). Vagabond and Victor: The Story of David
Sheldon (1880). Peg of the Royal Guard (1881). Tangles and Hamiltons most successful novels portray a childs in-
Corners in Kezzie Driscolls Life (1882). Unity Dodge and Her creased awareness of self and of the childs heritage. Zeely (1967),
Patterns (1883). Wood, Hay, and Other Stubble (1886). The Royal which received the Nancy Block Memorial award for promoting
173
HANAFORD AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
interracial understanding, traces the maturing of 11-year-old (1988). Anthony Burns: The Defeat and Triumph of a Fugitive
Elizabeth Perry, who in her search for identity assumes the name Slave (1988). Bells of Christmas (1990). The Dark Ways: Stories
Geeder. She becomes Elizabeth again through the wisdom of the from the Spirit World (1990). Cousins (1990). All Jahdu Storybook
beautiful and proud black woman, Zeely, who teaches her an (1991). Drylongso (1992). Many Thousand Gone: African Ameri-
important lesson about their African heritage. cans from Slavery to Freedom (collection, 1993). Plain City
(1993). Looking for America (1994). Her Story: Marican Folktales
The House of Dies Drear (1968) is a very successful, (1995). When Birds Could Talk (1996). A Ring of Tricksters
somewhat gothic mystery, which received the Edgar award in (1997). Second Cousins (1998).
1968. Hamilton utilizes the setting, a small Ohio town where the
abolitionist Dies Drear operated a station on the Underground
Railroad, and the protagonist, 13-year-old Thomas Small, to BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1971). MTCW (1990).
communicate an important aspect of the history of blacks in Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995).
America. Other references: A Teleconference with Virginia Hamilton
(video, 1993). CA (video, 1991 & 1993). English Elementary
Hamiltons most highly acclaimed novel is M. C. Higgins, Reader (Apr. 1971). Horn Book (Dec. 1972, Aug. 1975). In Print:
the Great (1974), which in 1975 received the Newbery Medal, the Maurice Sendak, Virginia Hamilton (video, 1984). Instructor
National Book award, and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. (February, 1994). Meet Virginia Hamilton (video, 1988 & 1998).
In this novel, set in the hills of Appalachia, Hamilton skillfully NYTBR (13 Oct. 1968, 22 Sept. 1974, 31 Oct. 1976). Virginia
uses point of view to explore the consciousness of a maturing Hamilton (audiocassette, 1992). Virginia Hamilton (videos, 1978
teenager who comes to understand his relationship to his family, & 1991).
its past, and Sarahs Mountain, where his runaway-slave ancestor
settled with her child. The element of black history is very MARTHA E. COOK
signicant; equally important, however, is Hamiltons portrayal
of the destruction of the mountain by strip miners and the
subsequent effect on the hill people.
Hamiltons other novels are more experimental in theme and HANAFORD, Phebe (Ann) Cofn
technique. In The Planet of Junior Brown (1971), set in New York
City, Hamilton enters the world of the street-wise Buddy Clark Born 6 May 1829, Siasconset, Massachusetts; died 2 June 1921,
and his friend, Junior Brown, a 300-pound musical prodigy who Rochester, New York
nally retreats into his own private world of madness. Arilla Sun Wrote under: Phebe A. Hanaford, Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford
Down (1976) utilizes the complexities of the stream-of-con- Daughter of George W. and Phebe Barnard Cofn; married
sciousness technique to mirror the confused identity of the Joseph H. Hanaford, 1849; children: two
part-black, part-Indian girl, Arilla Adams. The novel, however, is
sometimes difcult to follow. Phebe Cofn Hanafords father, a merchant and shipowner,
In the 1980s and 1990s, Hamilton continued to produce well- traced his descent from Tristram Cofn, a founder of Nantucket,
written and well-received biographical and ctional books; in and her mother was descended from Gregory Priest, pilot of the
addition she published the phenomenally popular picture book, Mayower, and Peter Folger, grandfather of Benjamin Franklin.
Jaguarundi in 1994. She stands at the forefront of childrens Hanafords mother died soon after she was born; her father then
literature. In her many and varied works, she never condescends to married Emmeline Barnard Cartwright, who brought a son, older
her child reader in style, tone, or theme. These books will continue than Hanaford, and then bore seven younger children.
to appeal to adults and children because of the truth Hamilton Raised a Quaker, Hanaford was accustomed to hearing
sensitively and perceptively presents through her characters, women preach. The men of Nantucket were frequently away from
settings, and creative storylines. home on whaling and mercantile trips, and women were important
gures in the Nantucket community. Among the women preach-
ers who inspired the young Hanaford to her ministerial vocation
OTHER WORKS: The Time-Ago Tales of Jahdu (1969). W. E. B. Du
were Mary Farnum, Elizabeth Coggeshall, and her cousin, Lucre-
Bois: A Biography (1972). Time-Ago Lost: More Tales of Jahdu
tia Mott.
(1973). Paul Robeson: The Life and Times of a Free Black Man
(1974). Illusion and Reality (lecture, 1976). The Justice Cycle: Hanaford studied in both public and private schools on
Justice and her Brothers (1978). Dustland (1980). The Gathering Nantucket and studied Latin and higher mathematics privately.
(1980). Jahdu (1980). Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush (1982). The She was undoubtedly a very serious, dedicated person: she signed
Magical Adventures of Pretty Pearl (1983). Willie Bea and the the temperance pledge at eight, published her rst piece at
Time the Martians Landed (1983). A Little Love (1984). Junius thirteen, and began to teach in Siasconset at sixteen. In 1849
Over Far (1985). The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales Hanaford married a homeopathic physician and teacher 10 years
(1985). The Mystery of Drear House (1987). A White Romance older than she. She had two children, and later served in her
(1987). In the Beginning: Creation Stories from Around the World capacity as minister at the marriage of her daughter, Florence, and
174
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HANSBERRY
at the ordination of her son, Howard, to the Congregational Rome, and Greece. The bulk of the book consists of biographical
ministry. sketches of both major and minor American women, arranged by
vocational categories such as lawyers, reformers, inventors, and
Hanaford became a Baptist after her marriage but joined the journalists. It is a valuable and readable source of information.
Universalist church after a crisis brought about by the death of a
sister and brother. After marriage, she continued to teach and
edited the religious magazines The Ladies Repository and The OTHER WORKS: Stories about Egypt (1856). The Best of Books
Myrtle from 1866 to 1868. In 1865 at her fathers request, she and Its History (1857). Leonette; or, Truth Sought and Found
preached her rst sermon in the Siasconset schoolhouse. With the (1857). Frank Nelson, the Runaway Boy (1865). The Soldiers
urging and support of the Reverend Olympia Brown of South Daughter (1866). The Captive Boy of Tierra del Fuego (1867).
Canton, Massachusetts, Hanaford entered the ministry, becoming Field, Gunboat, Hospital, and Prison (1867). The Young Captain
ordained in 1868. She served as minister to congregations in (1868). George Peabody (1870). The Life of Charles Dickens
Hingham and Waltham, Massachusetts, New Haven, Connecti- (1870). From Shore to Shore, and Other Poems (1871). Our
cut, and Jersey City, New Jersey, apparently leaving her husband Home Beyond the Tide (1872).
to take the pulpit in New Haven in 1870. She was a popular
speaker, known for her clarity of expression and well-modulated
voice. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Douglas-Lithgow, R. A., Nantucket: A History
(1914). Hanson, E. R., Our Woman Workers (1882). Harper, I. H.,
Writing her memoirs of 20 years of pastoral service in The The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (1898). Services at the
Womans Journal (27 December 1890), Hanaford listed among Ordination and Installation of Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford (1870).
her accomplishments preaching four different sermons on one Reference works: AW. DAB. HWS. NAW. NCAB.
Sunday in four different towns, and riding in a carriage twen- Other references: Nantucket Historical Association Proceed-
ty-eight miles to do it, citing this as evidence of womans ings (1929).
capacity to undertake responsibilities as demanding as those of
men. She was proud of being the rst woman ordained in New KAREN F. STEIN
England and the rst woman to serve as chaplain in a state
legislature (the Connecticut House in 1872 and the Connecticut
Senate in 1872).
Hanaford was active in the temperance and womens move- HANSBERRY, Lorraine
ments as well. In 1869 she participated in the American Equal
Rights Association Convention, helped organize the conservative Born 19 May 1930, Chicago, Illinois; died 12 January 1965, New
American Woman Suffrage Association, and served as vice York, New York
president of the Association for the Advancement of Women. Her Daughter of Carl A. and Nannie Perry Hansberry; married
church in New Jersey divided on the woman question, and Robert Nemiroff, 1953
Hanaford continued to serve as minister of the more radical
branch. She preached at the funerals of her friends Elizabeth Cady
Youngest of four children in a prosperous Republican, black
Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. At the age of eighty-nine, Hanaford
family, Lorraine Hansberry spent two years at the University of
drove eight miles to cast her rst vote.
Wisconsin, then went to New York City, where she studied
After retiring from the ministry in 1891, Hanaford lived in African history under W. E. B. Du Bois and worked on a radical
New York City with her friend, a Sunday school teacher and hymn monthly, Freedom, published by Paul Robeson. In her words, her
writer, Ellen E. Miles. She had hoped to live to 100 years of age, editor, Louis E. Burnham, taught her all racism is rotten, black or
but died at ninety-two of hardening of the arteries and endocarditis white, that everything is political, and that people tend to be
at the home of a granddaughter. indescribably beautiful and uproariously funny, tenets that are
themes of her entire oeuvre.
Hanaford was a prolic writer of inspirational ction, biog-
raphies, and light verse for adults and children. In 1852 she wrote By 1959 she had attained fame as the youngest American and
My Brother, a miniature volume of poems and essays addressed to the only black dramatist to win the Best Play of the Year award,
brothers of different types: the orphan, the student, etc. Lucretia, for A Raisin in the Sun (1959). Hansberry continued to write and
the Quakeress (1853) was an abolitionist novel. Her Life of work until her untimely death from cancer during the run of The
Abraham Lincoln (1865) sold 20,000 copies and was translated Sign in Sidney Brusteins Window (1964). In addition to her
into German. dramatic works, essays, and journals, she made a signicant
contribution to the black movement by writing the text for a
Hanafords work of most enduring value is an American photographic journal, The Movement: A Documentary of a Strug-
centennial celebration of womens accomplishments, Women of gle for Equality (1964), published shortly before she died.
the Century, 1877, reissued in expanded form in 1882 as Daugh-
ters of America. The introduction stresses the importance of A landmark in American theater, A Raisin in the Sun ran for
freedom and equality and describes heroines of the Bible, ancient 530 performances, toured extensively, and has been published and
175
HARAWAY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
produced in over 30 countries. Its title and theme are based on a scenes are forerunners of those done on television in such pro-
poem by Langston Hughes that questions, What happens to a grams as Alex Haleys Roots.
dream deferred? The play derives its power from the inevitable
Throughout her life, Hansberry kept diaries, journals, and
conicts arising because each member of the Younger family has
letters and wrote many essays for newspapers and magazines. Bits
a different dream, an individual plan for escaping the dreary
and pieces of these, along with scenes from her plays, are well
life of the Chicago ghetto in which they live. To Beneatha, the
blended by Robert Nemiroff in To Be Young, Gifted, and Black
daughter, this means becoming a doctor. For Walter Lee, the son,
(1969), a two-act drama. It was published as a book with extensive
the dream is to own his own business. But for Lena, the matriarch,
background notes and an introduction by James Baldwin.
the rst order of business is to move out of their stultifying
environment so the family may live and grow in dignity. The This playwrights inuence in the theater in terms of black
wherewithal to fulll these dreams is a $10,000 insurance policy performers, as well as black audienceswho saw themselves
left by Lenas husband, who had literally worked himself to truthfully presented onstage for the rst time in A Raisin in the
death. Sunwas far greater than it might seem from the number of her
works. Actually, since her death, there has been a growing interest
After putting part of the money down on a house in a white
in this woman whose philosophy was summed up in her address to
neighborhood because its a good value, Lena entrusts the young black writers. She said: What I write is not based on the
remainder to her sonhalf to be banked for Beneathas educa- assumption of idyllic possibilities or innocent assessments of the
tion, half for his business venture. Walter Lee, however, is bilked true nature of life, but, rather, on my own personal view that,
out of the entire sum by a black partner and so almost accepts the posing one against the other, I think that the human race does
white welcoming committeemans offer to pay the Youngers command its own destiny and that that destiny can eventually
for staying out of their neighborhood. Ultimately shamed by Lena, embrace the stars.
he decides against this cowardly solution, and the play ends as the
family prepares to move.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Abramson, D. E., Negro Playwrights in the
Two facts are noteworthy. Hansberry doesnt assert it will be American Theatre, 1925-1959 (1969). Bigsby, C. W. E., Con-
any easier for the Youngers to live in their new neighborhood than frontation and Commitment: A Study of Contemporary American
it was in fact for the Hansberrys to live in Englewood, Illinois, Drama, 1959-1966 (1968). Carter, S. R., Hansberrys Drama:
after they moved out of the Chicago ghetto. Nor does she arrange Commitment Amid Complexity (1991). Cheney, A., Lorraine
matters to make the white men the only villains. As in all her work, Hansberry (1984). Brown-Guillory, E., Their Place on the Stage:
Hansberry shows that despite special feelings for her own people, Black Women Playwrights in America (1988).
she remains objective about race, with good and bad people Reference works: CA (1971). CB (Sept. 1959, Feb. 1965).
in a spectrum totally unrelated to color. Black Theatre USA (1974). Oxford Companion to Womens
Hansberrys second commercially produced play, The Sign Writing in the United States (1995).
in Sidney Brusteins Window, features a white protagonist, an Other references: Ebony (18 Sept. 1963). Freedomways
engag whose statements that he has always been a fool who (issue devoted to Hansberry, 1979). Newsweek (20 Apr. 1959).
believes that death is waste and love is sweet and that hurt is New York Amsterdam News (29 Jan. 1972). NY (9 May 1959).
NYT (29 Nov. 1970). SR (31 Dec. 1966). Time (10 Jan. 1969).
desperation and desperation is energy and energy can MOVE
Vogue (June 1959). Lorraine Hansberry: The Black Experience in
things sound like the playwrights voice verbatim. Criticism by
the Creation of Drama (video, 1975).
some reviewers on the basis that the characters are merely
personications of conicting ways to view the world meant early
EDYTHE M. MCGOVERN
closure, before giving the public a chance to estimate its value.
Through Herculean effortsdonations and advertisements spon-
sored by distinguished people in the American theaterit re-
mained open until over 80,000 people had seen the production. At HARAWAY, Donna
Hansberrys death, the sign came down in New York, but the play
was successful on tour and has had subsequent productions in a
dozen countries, including a particularly distinguished one in Born 6 September 1944, Denver, Colorado
Paris with Simone Signoret as translator and producer. Daughter of Frank O. and Dorothy Maguire Haraway; mar-
ried B. Jaye Miller, 1970 (divorced)
To Hansberry, her most important play was Les Blancs
(1972), an accurate foretelling of what has happened in Africa in Donna Haraway is a science historian whose works range
terms of black revolution. When produced posthumously (1970), from treatises on the study of primate behavior to thoughtful
there were cries of antiwhite bias, despite the fact it deals as fairly expositions on the inuence of technology in our daily lives.
with opportunistic blacks as with white capitalists. In a similar Haraway has also written extensively on the concept of the cyborg
vein, Hansberrys 90-minute television drama, The Drinking and contributed to the cyberpunk culture. Her writings have
Gourd (1960), commissioned by NBC for the Civil War centenni- inuenced science ction writers like Philip K. Dick and
al, was shelved as too controversial, although many of its Octavia Butler.
176
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HARDING
Haraway attended Catholic schools in her hometown of purposes. She points to the androgynous status of the cyborg as a
Denver and received a Boettcher Foundation scholarship to study victory for femininity.
at Colorado College. She graduated from college in 1966 with a
major in zoology and philosophy and went to Paris on a Fulbright Haraway describes Modest Witness @ Second Millennium:
scholarship to study different theories of evolution. She received a Femaleman Meets Oncomouse: Feminism and Technoscience
Ph.D. from Yale University in 1972 for an interdisciplinary (1996) as a landscape of cyborgs, patented lifeforms, comput-
dissertation on the functions of metaphor in shaping research in er-mediated representations, reproductive technologies, genetic
developmental biology in the 20th century. Haraway was an engineering and nuclear research. These essays explore the
assistant professor of general science at the University of Hawaii far-reaching cultural associations in the information and life
at Honolulu from 1970 to 1974 and an assistant professor of the sciences and question the boundaries between what we call
history of science at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore from nature and science and culture as well as the boundaries
1974 to 1980. Since 1980 she has been a professor in the history of between scientists and laypersons. Along the way, she discusses
consciousness department at the University of California at Santa such diverse aspects of science and technology as biology text-
Cruz. In addition to teaching feminist theory and science studies books, computer simulations, science ction, the Human Genome
in her own department, she is also afliated with the wom- Project, the ability of science to effectively cloak racism in
ens studies, anthropology and environmental studies depart- technical language, and the origins of copyrights and trademarks.
ments at UCSC.
Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of OTHER WORKS: Crystals, Fabrics, and Fields: Metaphors of
Modern Science (1990) stems from Haraways ten-year investiga- Organicism in Twentieth-Century Developmental Biology (1976).
tion of the various studies of monkeys and apes that have been
conducted in the 20th century. In this monumental and loosely
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1978). Oxford Companion
chronological account of the history of primatology, Haraway
to Womens Writing in the Untied States (1995).
notes the evolution of scientic views toward primates. She
Other references: Futures (Nov. 1991). Nation (5 Nov.
asserts monkeys and apes, which were once seen as nonhuman
1990). PW (11 Jan. 1991). Science (18 May 1990). Technical
primates, are now viewed as our ancestors in part because of our
Communication (Aug. 1998). Zygon (June 1996).
embarrassment in claiming marginalized others, like primitive
African tribesmen, as ancestors. She asserts the commercial and
LEAH J. SPARKS
scientic trafc in monkeys and apes is a trafc in meanings, as
well as in animal lives. This complex theoretical argument is
grounded in case studies of American, British, Japanese, and
Indian researchers and their differing methods and philosophies.
Haraway also discusses the concept of feminist primatology and HARDING, Mary Esther
the ways in which women researchers have taken a different
approach from their male counterparts. The concluding chapter, Born 5 August 1881, Shrewsbury, England; died 4 May 1971,
Reprise: Science Fiction, Fictions of Science, and Primatology, London, England
includes a reading from Octavia Butlers Xenogenesis series.
Simians, Cyborgs, and Women (1992) is a partly autobio- Mary Esther Harding came from an educated Shropshire
graphical account of what Haraway describes as the transforma- family. At the University of London, she experienced a typical
tion of a socialist-feminist, white, female, hominid biologist rebuff to women medical students of the time as she was prevent-
into a multiply marked cyborg feminist. The 10 essays com- ed from interning in any but the Royal Free Hospital. She received
prising the book were adapted from various articles published her M.D. in 1914 and served in hospitals during World War I.
between 1978 and 1989. The essays in the rst and second parts of In the 1920s, Harding devoted herself to the practice and
this collection explore the denition and role of gender in scientif- study of Jungian psychoanalysis. Jungians (and even Jung him-
ic discovery and the ways in which the concept of both nature and self) credit her more than any other person with having brought
the human body has been invented, altered, and redened during analytical psychology to America. She (with the help of two other
the last several decades. The third section consists of The doctors, Kristine Mann and Eleanor Bertine) founded the rst
Cyborg Manifesto, arguably Haraways best and certainly her American Jungian Society in New York in 1936. She was also the
most infamous piece of writing. A Cyborg Manifesto dis- rst head of the training branch of the New York Institute for
cusses the problems contemporary men and women face as a Analytical Psychology. Her rst two books on psychology, The
result of their skewed perspective on society. Her solution, which Way of All Women (1933) and Womens Mysteries (1935), are her
she calls cyborg embodiment, is to be found in the dual most original. The former has been translated into ve languages,
perspective earned by a psychic melding of man and machine, the and both have come out in revised editions.
organic and the inorganic. Haraway insists that understanding the
signicance of technology in shaping our lives and identities is the Womens Mysteries is almost a catalogue of myths and
only way to mold technological change for worthy and emancipatory dreams that link womans psyche to the moon. Harding argues
177
HARDING AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
modern woman is out of touch with the deepest, most instinctual, at woman from a womans own point of view, as Harding
and positive roots of her own feminine principle (as distinguished experienced her in analysis as well as in myth, dream, and art. It is
from the feminine principle of the male psyche), and that she has necessary to concede, however, Harding does echo the male
given her allegiance too exclusively to masculine forces of Jungian ideology that thinking is less natural to a woman, though
supposed reason and destructive dominion over nature and peo- she must develop the faculty, and Harding holds to the idea that
ple. Harding concludes that our future depends on the balance relatedness is more endemic to the feminine psyche than the
between the feminine Eros and the masculine Logos. The book masculine. She reects her era as well as transcending it on some
also reconstructs the Moon-Goddess and the nonrational, dark, yet crucial concepts.
redemptive side of life that she represents, making the book
important also for religious studies on the goddesses or feminine OTHER WORKS: The Circulatory Failure of Diphtheria (1920). A
godhead left out of the Christian concept of trinity. Another Short Review of Dr. Jungs Article Redemptive Ideas in Alche-
important point in the book is her analysis of the sacrice of the my (1937). The Parental Image (1965).
son (the weaning of all children from the nest and the mothers
psyche) from the mothers point of view so she may develop as
a person. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Journal of Analytical Psychology (1972). Quad-
rant (Fall 1971).
Womens Mysteries is undoubtedly Hardings most impor-
tant work but is also her most difcult stylistically because the STEPHANIE ANN DEMETRAKOPOULOS
archetypal, mythic, and dream materials are not integrated grace-
fully into her own thoughts about their meaning and application.
Jung himself asked Harding to assimilate the material more before
publishing the book. In response, she rst published The Way of
HARDING, Sandra
All Women, which extrapolates in lucid and compassionate terms
the meaning of her feminine archetypes in the lives of real women. Born circa 1950; no other biographical data available
Throughout both these books she emphasizes that women must
Sandra Harding is an accomplished professor, philosopher,
grow beyond the image society has projected for them, that they
writer, and editor. For 20 years she taught at the University of
must develop their minds to become persons, to individuate.
Delaware and then joined UCLA in 1996. She currently is a
In most of her later works, Harding emphasizes her concern professor of education and womens studies for the graduate
with a predominantly Jungian construct, the religious urge as it school at UCLA, where she lectures theories and philosophies on
surfaces in the latter half of life. Most important of her works for womens issues concerning science, feminism, sociology, and
the dissemination of Jungian thought in America was the widely philosophy.
read Psychic Energy: Its Source and Its Transformation (1947), Dedicated to lecturing and writing, Harding has a countless
which emphasizes the introversion of the second stage of life in list of accomplishments. She is the author or editor of 10 books
realizing the mandala and other symbols of psychic wholeness and special journal issues including: Can Theories Be Refuted?
that connect the human psyche to the transpersonal. The I and the (1976), Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Episte-
Not-I (1965) and Journey into Self (1956) are also graceful, mology, Metaphysics, Methodology and Philosophy of Science
remarkably jargon-free introductions to Jungian thought. (1983), The Science Question in Feminism (1986), Sex and the
Scientic Inquiry (1987), Feminism and Methodology: Social
Hardings work has been neglected because her emphasis on
Science Issues (1987), The Process of Science (1987), Whose
the religious impetus of the older person is antithetical to Ameri-
Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Womens Lives (1991),
can schools of psychology, mostly dominated by behaviorism and
The Racial Economy of Science: Toward a Democratic Future
Freudian thought, and because her writings on women counter the
(1993), and Is Science Multicultural? Postcolonialisms, Feminisms
bias of feminist thought of the 1960s and 1970s, which holds that
and Epistemologies (1998). She has lectured at over 200 universi-
all psychic differences between men and women are enculturated. ties and conferences in North America, Europe, South Africa,
Moreover, women in the Jungian school have tended to be South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Central America. She
disciples rather than thinkers, and Harding was an independent has been a visiting professor at the University of Amsterdam, the
thinker, attracting from other Jungians such labels as ani- University of Costa Rica, and the Swiss Federal Institute of
mus-bound (a woman with an overdeveloped masculine side), Technology (ETH) at Zurich. She has also been a consultant to
opinionated, dogmatic, and assertive. several United Nations organizations, including the Pan Ameri-
Yet her popularizing Jungian books are perhaps the most can Health Organization, UNESCOs World Science Report, the
gracefully written and elegant (even urbane) of all those that United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), and
the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for
attempt to make Jungs circumlocutory style and thought accessi-
Development.
ble to the layperson. Her studies on women reintroduced the
feminine godhead lost under Judeo-Christianity; they systema- Harding focuses on the connection between women and
tized and synthesized myths about womans special biology and science in her lectures and writings. In lectures for the World
psyche; and they are among the rst psychological studies to look Health Organization, she concerned herself with womens health
178
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HARDWICK
and science issues pertaining to research and clinics. In the OTHER WORKS: Contributor to: Beyond Domination: New Per-
ministries of health, they think of women as uteruses with feet, spectives on Women and Philosophy (1984), The Process of
she said. If the feet can get the uterus into the clinic, they dont Science: Contemporary Philosophical Approaches to Under-
care what happens to the woman. Theyre only concerned with standing Scientic Practice (1987), Feminism & Science (1989),
reproductive issues. Harding was particularly concerned about Feminist Theory in Practice and Process (1989), Feminism/
this scientic research issue because women tend not to come to Postmodernism (1990), (En)gendering Knowledge: Feminists in
clinics because of this dehumanization, and their health, as well as Academe (1991), Inventing Women: Science, Technology, and
the community as a whole, suffers. Its women who deliver Gender (1992), The Centennial Review (1992), Signs (1992),
health on an everyday basis, she said. Not only to their children Social Research (1992), American Feminist Thought at Centu-
but to the elderly and sick. rys End: A Reader (1993), Feminist Epistemologies (1993),
Multiculturalism: A Critical Reader (1994), Isis (1995), Missing
Harding explores science and the differences in feminist Links: Gender Equity in Science and Technology for Development
theory. According to Harding, there are two feminism theories: (1995), Synthese (1995), Women Writing Culture (1995), Knowl-
multicultural feminism and global feminism. Multicultural femi- edge, Difference, and Power: Essays Inspired by Womens Ways
nism studies cultural differences in American women compared of Knowing (1996), Reviews in Anthropology (1996), Radical
to histories, cultures, concerns, and lives led by other women. Philosophy (1996), Science Wars (1996), Social Text (1996),
Global feminism, on the other hand, focuses on how women are Feminism, Science, and the Philosophy of Science (1997), Men
located in the global political economy and questions what the Doing Feminism (1998), editor with U. Narayan of two special
relationship is like between American womens lives and the lives issues, Hypatia (Spring, 1998; Summer, 1998).
of women all over the world. We need to develop in our science
studies a more suitable multicultural global context, Harding
comments as she stresses the importance of the effect of women BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bulletin of the History of Medicine (Spring 1990).
on science and the effect of science on women. Contemporary Sociology (July 1992). Gender & Society: Ofcial
Publication of Sociologists for Women in Society (June 1993). Isis
The Process of Science discusses the same issues presented (September 1992). Library & Information Science Research
in The Science Question in Feminism. However, The Process of (January 1993). Philosophical Review (April 1993). Philoso-
Science is more condensed. Harding states the feminism in phy of Science (September 1990). Sociology (August 1992).
science problem as seen by traditional science. She acknowledges Zygon (1995).
feminism as a political movement for social change. Taking the
scientic approach of the pursuit of value-neutral, objective, KIMBALLY A. MEDEIROS
dispassionate, and disinterested scientic method, political femi-
nism does not t or belong in science. That is, according to the
objectivity of the scientic method. Science is supposed to be
protected from politics, according to Harding. To argue this, she HARDWICK, Elizabeth
presents the problem of male bias in scientic research just as
science could claim feminist bias in research due to the political Born 27 July 1916, Lexington, Kentucky
agenda of feminism. Harding is presenting, in essence, a two-way Daughter of Eugene A. and Mary Ramsay Hardwick; married
political agenda affecting science as a whole. The claims she Robert Lowell, 1949 (divorced); children: one daughter
makes in The Process of Science is that science and politics truly
affect one another in regard to the feminism and nonfeminism Novelist and essayist Elizabeth Hardwick, still vigorous and
movements. opinionated at 83, writes in the New York Review of Books (22
April 1999) about the gripping drama which dominated national
In Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?, Harding insists on
and international news during that winter. Her review of the
sexual equality in the sciences, but not only for ethical reasons of
specious book, Monicas Story by Andrew Morton, displays a
equal opportunity between men and women. She sees feminism as
characteristically mordant wit and distaste for the vulgar and
a way to make science more truthful and resourceful in regard to
indecorous: The shabby history of the United States in the last
the specic criteria and needs for women. We can hold that our
year can be laid at the door of three unsavory citizens, she
own account also has social causes, she wrote. She believes that
writesdescribing one as shallow and reckless, another as
research should begin with the lives of women rather than of men,
aggressive and exhibitionist and the third as a pale, obsessive
who are the dominant group. She also adds that women should
Pharisee. It is signicant that Hardwick can and does make
take into consideration other oppressed groups when conducting
sweeping political statements in her Head over Heels column
scientic research and not listen to all dominant groups. Harding
with complete condence in both her own judgement and her
believes focusing on dominant classes creates a distortion in
audience.
scientic theory and research. They are the powerful tide against
which women must swim, she wrote. Finally, Harding empha- As founding partner at the New York Review of Books in
sizes that feminism in science is not the complete answer to truth 1963, as an advisory editor there still, a distinguished and respect-
in science. She believes that the most objective research realm ed woman of letters for more than 60 years, Hardwick is central to
would be submitted in an egalitarian society, one without domi- the literary and social commentary of the 20th century. Her
nant and oppressed societal classes. undisputed position as Critic, in an age when fashionable criticism
179
HARJO AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
comes and goes, makes the appearance of a new book by her a that Whatever her subject, Hardwick has a gift for coming up
cause for rejoicing. Joyce Carol Oates, no slouch of a writer with descriptions so thoughtfully selected, so exactly right, that
herself, has written that Hardwicks most recent collection of they strike the reader as inevitable.
essays, Sight-Readings: American Fictions (1998), contains com-
Hardwick combines this intense critical scrutiny and what
mentary on literary biographies [that] is, quite simply, brilliant,
she herself has described as a passion for ideas with the roles of
the most reasoned and responsible thinking on the subject the
devoted mother to Harriet Lowell and of supportive wife to Robert
general reader is likely to encounter. . .without ostentation or
Lowell (despite their divorce and his subsequent remarriage) until
polemics.
the last moments of his life, (when he died in a taxi returning with
Hardwick was born into a family of 10 brothers and sisters in her to her apartment in New York City). She is most gracious still
Kentucky. She was educated at local schools, including the in answering the hundreds of questions about her more famous
University of Kentucky where she earned both B.A. and M.A. husband (winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for poetry), but in outliv-
(1939) degrees in English literature. When she moved to New ing him by two decades has surely inuenced more writers, more
York City shortly after, and enrolled at Columbia University, her often and more fully than he did.
orbit of friendship and inuence grew to include the leading
writers and critics of the era. With her marriage to the dashing but
OTHER WORKS: Selected Letters of William James (edited by
deeply disturbed poet Robert Lowell in 1949 she entered a family
Hardwick, 1961).
of American intellectual aristocrats, and the intimate company of
the best poets and writers in the world. Together the Lowells
traveled to meet Elizabeth Bishop in Brazil, to James Merrill in BIBLIOGRAPHY: Pinckney, D., Elizabeth Hardwick in Writers
Greece, to writers conferences and colonies. They lived in at Work: The Paris Review Interviews (1986).
Boston while he taught at Harvard. She later lived and taught in Reference works: CA (1969). CANR (1991). CLC (1980).
New York as an adjunct professor of English at Barnard College. DLB (1980). Modern American Women Writers (1991). WA.
Hardwick has won many awards and honors: an early Guggenheim Other references: Manchester Guardian Weekly (18 Sept.
Fellowship in Fiction (1948), was followed by the George Jean 1983). Nation (5 May 1945). NR (14 Feb. 1955). NYRB (24
Nathan Award for outstanding drama criticism (1967), a nomina- September 1998). NYT (24 May 1983, 17 Aug. 1986). NYTBR (29
tion to the National Book Critics Circle (1980), and election to the April 1979, 12 June 1983). Newsweek (30 May 1983). WPBW (29
American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1989). May 1983).
If Lowell was brilliant and prolic; Hardwick was equally so. KATHLEEN BONANN MARSHALL
Her novels The Ghostly Lover (1945), The Simple Truth (1955),
and Sleepless Nights (1979) emerge as a series of ctions that
attempt to explain the dilemma of human emotional development.
In the last of these she succeedsthrough a judicious blending of HARJO, Joy
semiautobiographical material and stream-of-consciousness mo-
tif (explored in the rst novel)to realize the promise of her own Born 9 May 1951, Tulsa, Oklahoma
narrative line. The reective nature of Hardwicks immature work Daughter Allen W. and Wynema Baker Foster; children: Phil,
becomes the foundation of an explicit and comprehensive view of Rainy Dawn
the human individual in her mature stories and essays. She was
praised early and often for the quality of her prose as well as her Joy Harjo is a poet, screenwriter, and musician, and is a
gift for the nuances of casual discourse and a air for description. member of the Muskogee (Creek) tribe. Raised in Oklahoma
until leaving to attend high school at the Institute of American
Her literary and social criticism and her short stories are
Indian Arts in Sante Fe, New Mexico, she received her B.A. from
widely admired as quirky, compelling, and very smart. The
the University of New Mexico (1976) and an M.F.A. from the
amount of writing she has produced is substantial, its range
University of Iowa (1978). Harjos love of the language is
enormous: three serious collections of essays including A View of
inuenced by her mother, who wrote songs, and her fathers
My Own: Essays on Literature and Society (1962), Seduction and
grandfather, who was a full-blooded Creek and a Baptist minister.
Betrayal: Women and Literature (1974), and Bartleby in Manhat-
tan and Other Essays (1983) precede Sight-Readings (1998). Harjos Creek identity is central to her poetry. Her work is
These volumes include book reviews, social criticism, political based on a duality she argues is distinctly Native American: to be
commentary, biographical sketches, and trenchant remembrances Native American is to experience acutely the banality and injus-
that appeared, along with many short stories, in the New Yorker, tice of the present and, at the same time, to have privileged access
Harpers, Partisan Review, New Republic, Sewanee Review, and to the mythic world and its resources for empowerment and
other varied periodicals. Two of her most successful endeavors survival. Harjo beautifully indicates these resources in Javelina,
remain relatively unknown: 18 volumes of Rediscovered Fiction where she gives voice to herself at seventeen: I was born of a
by American Women: A Personal Selection (1977) which she blood who wrestled whites for freedom, and I have lived danger-
carefully compiled and edited; and an edition of the letters of ously in a diminished system. She consoles this earlier desperate
William James. These texts emphasize her range of mind, her woman with a prediction of a future already achieved: The
breadth of interest and of knowledge. Anne Tyler has exclaimed mythic world will enter with the subtlety of a snake the color of
180
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HARPER
earth changing skin. . .you who thought you could say nothing, stories. In his review for Booklist, Pat Monaghan wrote: Harjo
write poetry. Poetry directs self-destructive dangerous living melds the present with the mythic past, seeing through time and
into creatively dangerous struggle, dissent, and survival. space into a timeless, spacious abode of spirit.
In her rst book, What Moon Drove Me to This? (1980), Notable among Harjos numerous awards are the American
Harjo demonstrates a variety of understandings of the mythic Book Award, Before Columbus Foundation (1991); the William
world in relation to present experience. Her palpable sense of the Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America for
mythic both unites and separates her from the community of the best book of poetry (1990); the American Indian Distin-
Indian peoples. Whereas much of Harjos early poetry labors on guished Achievement in the Arts Award (1990); the Oakland PEN
behalf of a social community, her later poetry nds her listening to Josephine Miles Award (1990); the Delmore Schwartz Memorial
the voices of those who also experience the power of myth, and Award for In Mad Love and War, the Lifetime Achievement
needing that community for consolation and survival. Award from the Native American Writers Circle of the Americas
and from the Arizona Commission on the Arts (1989).
She Had Some Horses (1983) is a successful exorcism of
personal, poetic, and historical fears that she describes intensely at Harjo plays tenor saxophone in her band, Poetic Justice,
the books opening. Harjo drives her duality or doubleness whose music fuses rock and jazz with tribal sounds and rhythms.
inward, into an intense vacillation between hope and despair that She is working on three books: The Good Luck Cat is a childrens
she indicates by the doubling of her poetic endings. The survivor book, A Love Supreme is a compilation of personal essays, and In
poem, The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Win- the Beautiful Perfume and Stink of the World is a book of poetry.
dow, ends with the woman both falling to her death and pulling Harjo also edits the literary journals High Plains Literary Review,
herself off the ledge into life. By the books end, Harjo embraces Tyuonyi, and Contact II.
doubleness and argues that the triumph and tragedy of her
personal and collective history are inseparable: She had some
horses she loved. / She had some horses she hated. / These were OTHER WORKS: Furious Light (audiocassette, 1986). Reinventing
the same horses. the Enemys Language: Contemporary Native Womens Writing
of North America (1998). Spiral of Memories: Interviews (1999).
In Mad Love and War (1990) tells the story of powerful
womenmythic and realand their struggle to bring the world
out of its current diminished state. The mythic deer dances naked BIBLIOGRAPHY: Balassi, W. et al., eds., This Is about Vision:
in a bar, transforming the tawdry moment with the promising Interviews with Southwestern Writers (1990). Harris, M. et al.,
presence of the ancestors. In elegies extolling the transformative eds., A Gift of Tongues: Critical Challenges in Contemporary
power of memory, Harjo (who renamed herself after her grand- American Poetry (1987). Norwood, V., and J. Monk, eds., The
mother) keeps alive the work of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, a Desert Is No Lady: Southwestern Landscapes in Womens Writ-
woman active in the American Indian movement who was mur- ings and Art (1987). Survival This Way: Interviews with American
dered in 1976, and Jacqueline Peters, a writer and activist lynched Indian Poets (1987).
in California by the Ku Klux Klan in 1986. Being a part of a Reference works: CA (1985). CANR (1992). FC (1990).
community of women is as central to Harjo as her Creek identity, Other references: American Indian Quarterly (Spring 1983).
and she counts among her mentors Audre Lorde, Leslie Marmon American West (Dec. 1989). Booklist (15 Nov. 1994). Christianity
Silko, Meridel LeSueur, June Jordan, Simon Ortiz, Galway Kinnell, and Crisis (22 Oct. 1990). MELUS (Spring 1989). Ms. (July
and Leo Remero. 1983). WRB (Oct. 1983, July 1990). World Literature Today
(Winter 1991).
Harjo has written a series of prose poems on the Southwest- Web sites: Academy of American Poets, Voices from the
ern landscape, Secrets from the Center of the World (1989), which Gaps: Women Writers of Color (23 Nov. 1996, available online at
accompany photographs by Stephen Strom, and several screen- www.poets.org), and www.hanksville.org.
plays. A teacher of poetry and Native American literature, she has
taught at the Institute of American Indian Arts (1978-79), Arizona DARIA DONNELLY,
State University (1980-81), the University of Colorado (1985-88), UPDATED BY NICK ASSENDELFT
and the University of Arizona at Tucson (1988-90). She joined the
English Department of the University of New Mexico in 1991.
Harjo has served as a writer and consultant for the Native
American Public Broadcasting Consortium, the National Indian HARPER, Frances Ellen Watkins
Youth Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts (1980-83).
Many of Harjos writings deal with what she calls mythic Born 24 September 1825, Baltimore, Maryland; died 22 February
space. She denes mythic space as that which is not easily 1911, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
explained, yet cant be ignored. Many poems in The Last Song Wrote under: Frances E. W. Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins
(chapbook, 1975) deal with mythic space, and she returns to that married Fenton Harper, 1860 (died 1864); children: one daughter
theme in The Woman Who Fell from the Sky (1994). In The
Woman Who Fell from the Sky, she juxtaposes the present with the Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, the author of the rst novel
past to weave modern-day tales with ancient Native American published by an African American woman, was the most popular
181
HARPER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
black poet of her day. She was a sought-after lecturer, as well, Iola Leroy is not a well-written work; its weaknesses to a
speaking on behalf of abolitionism, temperance, and womens large degree are those of the sentimental novel, the literary genre
rights. Born to free parents, Harper was orphaned at an early age, to which it belongs. The plot is often confused and incredible, and
then reared and educated by an aunt and uncle active in the the characters overly idealized. The novel is nevertheless valuable
antislavery movement. She became self-supporting at age thirteen. for its historical insights, especially its portrayal of the bravery of
black soldiers during the war and of the sacrices made by the
After working at various occupationsincluding nursemaid, black community during Reconstruction. In its Christian human-
seamstress, and teacherHarper found her true calling on the ism and its dedication to the principle of equality, Iola Leroy
lecture platform. She gave her rst speech in 1854 in New dramatizes the ideals to which Harper devoted her life.
Bedford, Massachusetts; her subject was The Education and the
Elevation of the Colored Race. Few women in the abolitionist
movement traveled so widely or spoke to so many audiences. OTHER WORKS: Moses: A Story of the Nile (1869). Sketches of
Southern Life (1872). The Martyr of Alabama, and Other Poems
Apparently no copies of Forest Leaves (circa 1845), an early (circa 1894).
book of poetry by Harper, are extant. Poems on Miscellaneous The papers of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper are located at
Subjects (1854), with an introduction by William Lloyd Garrison, the Springarn Research Center of Howard University and the New
went through some 20 editions by 1874. Her dramatic readings of York Public Library.
her verse were highlights of her lectures, and according to
William Still, with whom she worked on the Underground Rail-
road, more than 50,000 copies of her books were sold. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Campbell, J., Mythic Black Fiction: The Trans-
formation of Hisotry (1986). Carby, H., Reconstructing Woman-
Harper married in 1860; she was the mother of one daughter. hood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist
After her husbands death in 1864, Harper resumed her career as a (1987). Christian, B., Black Women Novelists: The Development
lecturer. With the end of the Civil War, Harper carried her of a Tradition, 1892-1976 (1990). Foster, F. S., ed., A Brighter
message of education and moral uplift to the Southern states. Here Coming Day: A Frances E. W. Harper Reader (1990). Gra-
she took the greatest interest in meetings called exclusively for ham, M., ed., The Complete Poems of Frances E. W. Harper
black women, whose needs she felt were more pressing than those (1988). Lerner, G., Black Women in White America: A Documen-
of any other class. Like many other 19th-century feminists, tary History (1973). Montgomery, J. W., A Comparative Analysis
Harper believed in the temperance cause; for many years she held of the Rhetoric of Two Negro Women OratorsSojourner Truth
the ofce of superintendent of colored work in the Womens and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1968). Robinson, W. H.,
Christian Temperance Union. She was also active in the National Early Black American Poets (1971). Sillen, S., Women against
Association of Colored Women, of which she was a founder and Slavery (1955). Still, W. G., The Underground Railroad (1872).
vice president until her death. Reference works: AAW (1991). Black American Writers Past
and Present (1975). DLB (1986). NAW (1971). Oxford Compan-
Harpers poems are of a piece with her oratory, determinedly ion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995).
propagandistic and emotional. In poems such as The Slave Other references: Black World (Dec. 1972).
Auction and The Slave Mother, Harper presents the horrors
of slavery from a female point of view. These poems are CHERYL A. WALL
unabashedly sentimental but undeniably effective. Her frequently
anthologized poem, Bury Me in a Free Land, derives its
considerable strength both from its powerful theme and its balladlike
simplicity. Harpers is very much an oral poetry; it needs to be HARPER, Ida Husted
heard, not merely read. By all accounts, Harper herself was an
outstanding performer, rendering her lines with dramatic voice Born 18 February 1851, Faireld, Indiana; died 14 March 1931,
and gesture, with sighs and tears. Her stage presence reected her Washington, D.C.
oratorical skill, but it was clearly derived as well from her Daughter of John A. and Cassandra Stoddard Husted; married
profound commitment to the freedom struggle. Thomas W. Harper, 1871 (divorced 1890); children: one
daughter
The rst novel by a black author to depict the Reconstruction,
Iola Leroy; or, Shadows Uplifted (1892), drew heavily on Harp-
Ida Husted Harper was a prolic writer and journalist and an
ers experiences in the South after the Civil War. Iola Leroy also
active feminist. A suffragist of international reputation, Harper
contains frequent ashbacks to earlier periods and thus embraces
traveled throughout the U.S. and Europe with Susan B. Anthony,
the whole of 19th-century black experience. The main characters,
who asked her to become her ofcial biographer. She handled
Iola Leroy and Robert Johnson, are mulattoes whose actions are
publicity for the National American Woman Suffrage Association
motivated specically by their desire to reunite their families after
when Carrie Chapman Catt served as president.
emancipation and generally by their desire to uplift the race. As
mulattoes they enjoy certain privileges not shared by other blacks, After leaving Indiana University to become principal of a
notably access to education, but they are steadfast in their refusal high school in Indiana, Harper began her writing career at twenty
to set themselves apart from their fellows. by sending articles under a male pseudonym to the Terre Haute
182
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HARRIS
Saturday Evening Mail. Under her own name she then wrote a Though close to her daughter, who continued her mothers
column, A Womans Opinions, for that same newspaper for 12 work in the womens movement, Harper remained independent,
years. She simultaneously edited weekly discussions of womens spending her last years working in the headquarters of the Ameri-
activities in the Locomotive Firemans Magazine, the ofcial can Association of University Women in Washington, D.C. Using
organ of the union of which her husband was chief counsel. After her journalistic talent to good effect, Harper served the suffrage
her divorce in 1890, she joined the staff of the Indianapolis News. movement well. The extent and variety of her writing is impres-
From then on she devoted her life to her daughter, to writing, and sive; 14 large indexed volumes of her writings stand in the Library
to her activities in the woman suffrage movement. of Congress.
Her career in journalism led her from Indiana to New York,

where she wrote a column for the New York Sun (1899-1903) and, BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lutz, A., Susan B. Anthony (1959).
best known, a womans page in Harpers Bazaar (1909-1913). Reference works: AW. DAB. Indiana Authors and Their
She devoted most of this writing to the suffrage movement; her Books, 1816-1916 (1949). NAW. NCAB.
interests, unlike those of Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Other references: Indianapolis News (16 Mar.1931). NYT (17
Lucy Stone, centered on the primary importance of the vote for Mar. 1931). Terre Haute Star (17 Mar. 1931).
women. She offered detailed reports about the status of women
and their right to vote in countries all over the world. Her insight LOIS FOWLER
into international politics gave to her work the standards of
accurate social history. In Harpers Bazaar, she reported on
working women demanding suffrage, on women as ofceholders
in states with the vote, on the deaths of her friends who had lived
HARRIS, Bernice Kelly
for the Movement, and on the joys of seeing her dreams become
a reality: Yes, woman suffrage is becoming fashionable and it is Born 8 October 1893, Mt. Moriah, North Carolina; died 13
all very amusing to veterans of the cause. They understand fully September 1973, Seaboard, North Carolina
that, underlying the fashion, are years of hard and persistent work Also wrote under: Bernice Kelly
yet ahead before a universal victory. Daughter of William Haywood and Rosa Poole Kelly; married
Herbert Harris, 1926
Her spirit is striking as she writes that women of today who
are not helping in the effort for the franchise do not know the joy Born the third of six children in an established farming
they miss. . .so vital, so compelling, so full of the progressive family, Bernice Kelly Harris spent her childhood and adult years
spirit of the age. This same vigor appears in her two volumes of in the coastal plains region that dominated her novels. Like other
the History of Woman Suffrage, that monumental compilation writers, including Carson McCullers, Harris rst writing efforts
begun by Anthony and Stanton. Harper helped Anthony edit were childhood plays performed for family and friends. Her
volume four, and she alone edited volumes ve and six, dealing subsequent attempts at poetry and novel writing were short-lived.
with state and national activities from 1900 to 1920. While the She attended Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina, ex-
History contains records rather than interpretations of documents, pressly to train as a teacher of English. After graduation, Harris
speeches, and state and national activities, it nevertheless forms a taught for three years at an academy in the foothills of western
coherent pattern of immense value for historians. North Carolina, instructing rural Baptist preachers in the rudi-
ments of grammar. She then took a post with the Seaboard, North
Harper was Susan B. Anthonys Boswell: to her we owe a
Carolina, public schools and remained in Seaboard the rest of
detailed study of Anthonys life and activities in two long volumes
her life.
published in 1898. During later life she continued her work on the
Anthony biography; volume three was published in 1908. The In 1919, a summer-school class introduced Harris to folk
searcher for psychological insight will be disappointed by The drama. Although she used her skills in drama primarily for
Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony. Its deepest penetration in pedagogical purposes, the years 1920 to 1926, when she encour-
explaining Anthonys personality and motivation is through its aged students to write and to produce folk plays, provided an
astute description of Anthonys Quaker family background and of intense period of story collection and writing apprenticeship for
the encouragement in her education given by both parents. herself. Her marriage and the obligatory retirement from teaching
prompted her to write her own plays rather than to encourage
Otherwise, the biography remains largely a chronicle, dull at
others to write. From 1932 to 1938 she wrote folk drama, drawing
times and burdened with detail. Stylistically, it belongs to the
from actual people and events in the North Carolina towns around
tradition of sentimental 19th-century prose. Yet no historian
her. Seven of the better plays were published collectively in 1940;
concerned with Anthonys role in the 19th-century womens
almost all were produced at regional drama festivals.
movement can ignore the intimate details of social history in
Harpers story: Anthonys role as teacher, her support of both Harris novels grew out of her feature stories written on a
temperance and Amelia Bloomer, her acceptance of hydropathic free-lance basis for Raleigh and Norfolk newspapers. Encouraged
medicine, and her relationships and correspondence with leaders by her editor, Harris began in 1937 the work which became
of social reform, such as Garrison, Stanton, Stone, and Antoi- Purslane, published by the University of North Carolina Press in
nette Brown. 1939. Also in 1939, Harris interviewed tenant farmers for four
183
HARRIS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
pieces appearing in These Are Our Lives, the Federal Writers East Carolina University and at the University of North Carolina
Project publication. at Charlotte, where she was also acting head of the Creative
Writing Sequence from 1970 to 1973. After she returned to New
The nostalgic rst novel impressed critics, but Harris second York in 1973, she coordinated Womens Studies at the College of
novel, Portulaca (1941), a realistic portrait of the rural and small- Staten Island of the City University of New York. She also served
town middle class, won even more support from the literary as a part-time editor for Daughters, Inc., a womens press located
establishment on both sides of the Atlantic. It also necessitated the in Houston, Texas.
change to a commercial publisher, since the university press
feared such blunt themes would offend southern readers. Harriss rst novel, Catching Saradove (1969), is a brilliant
portrayal of what it is like to be young, a woman, and lacking
All of Harris novels have related characters and draw from direction. The book begins with Saradove Racepath, who is
real-life experiences of Harris and those she knew. She is the raising a child by herself on the Lower East Side of New York
narrator of a region, with a thorough understanding of its people City. Succeeding chapters move between Saradoves memories of
and mores; as such she can be compared to Cather or Faulkner in a childhood with lower-class parents in the South and a confused,
her ability to evoke time and placeto produce social history in almost desperate, young adulthood in New York. Following a
novel form. So skillful is she at delineating character from life that nonlinear pattern of time, Harris emphasizes the workings of
reviewers of her one novel dealing exclusively with black farmers Saradoves mind, reecting the frailties of the human psyche.
(Janey Jeems, 1946) failed to understand that the characters were Events in the main characters life correspond closely to those of
not white because the depiction did not follow accepted stereo- the authors, giving the plot an autobiographical quality. Harriss
types. The characters of her seven novels encompass all classes, characterization of Saradove is, however, much more than a
races, ages, and personalities of the region. The strength of her ctionalized self-portrait. From Saradoves isolation through the
novels clearly lies in their vivid characterization, which evokes moment in which she realizes her capacity for self-actualization,
not only a sense of regional identity and folkways but also of Harris encompasses both the despair and the hope of the world.
dynamic humanity.
In her second novel, Confessions of Cherubino (1972), Harris
tracks an elusive love through the lives of her characters while
OTHER WORKS: Folk Plays of Eastern Carolina (1940). Sweet satirizing the American South with a warm humor. Cherubino is
Beulah Land (1943). Sage Quarter (1945). Hearthstones (1948). the embodiment of romantic love and is found throughout the
Wild Cherry Tree Road (1951). A Southern Savory (1964). book but is especially focused in the characters of Ellen and
Margaret. These two young women nd themselves enwrapped in
the innocent aura of infatuation and eventually, through their
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Walser, R., B. K. H.: Storyteller of Eastern
struggles, experience what is perhaps loves perfection. Harris is
Carolina (1955).
able to examine love as a romantic myth while simultaneously
Reference works: American Novelists of Today. CA. CB.
showing it as a very real force effecting signicant changes.
Other references: WLB (Jan. 1949).
Her third novel, Lover (1976), is an experiment of sorts, in
SALLY BRETT that Harris gives fact and ction an equal validity. At the begin-
ning of each chapter, she places anecdotes about women saints,
some of which she fabricated and others she found in a hagiography.
Unique to Lover is Harriss constant changing of perspectives.
HARRIS, Bertha Moving from rst- to third-person narrative, Harris gives a whole
(and more objective) view of the women in her book. With them,
Harris dips into the subconscious world and then moves back out
Born 17 December 1937, Fayetteville, North Carolina
to express the reality that remains forever changed, once integrat-
Daughter of John H. and Mary Z. Jones Harris; married Mr.
ed with the archetypal essence from the subconscious.
Wyland, 1963 (ended 1964); children: one daughter
Harris is an artist with words; her ction gives a patterned
Bertha Harris, born and raised in North Carolina, moved to depth to something that was once shallow and at. Her emphasis
New York City in 1959, immediately after completing a B.A. on the lives of women is probably related to her involvement with
degree in English at the Womens College of the University of the womens movement, in which she became active in 1972.
North Carolina. In New York, she worked for about ve years at Soon after, she began to apply movement principles and ideology
essentially clerical jobs and explored the city, nding a particular to the study of literature and to her own writing. Harris has written
fascination with the Metropolitan Opera. When her marriage several essays exploring literary history with a scholarly preci-
disbanded in 1964, she supported herself and her daughter by sion. As certainly as her ction guides one through the realm of an
proofreading, editing, and ghostwriting. During this time, Harris evocative imagination, her essays unveil to the logical mind ideas
also began and nished her rst novel, which she used as the of philosophical originality, and both essays and novels prove
thesis for an M.F.A. degree in writing when she returned to the themselves to be part of the freshly broken ground of femi-
University of North Carolina in 1967. Harris taught literature at nist theory.
184
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HARRIS
The 1980s and 1990s were a quiet time for Harris in terms of established here was to devise a plot that served merely as a frame
publishing. She wrote a biographical piece, Gertrude Stein (1996), as on which to hang her observations about people, life, love, and
part of the Lives of Notable Gay Men & Lesbians series. The morality. The novel tells of Mary Thompsons life as a struggling
work, however, is no longer in print. Similarly, none of Harris clergymans wife. Generously interspersed throughout are Harris
earlier novels are currently in print, with the exception of Lover. long digressions about the social responsibilities of a rural minis-
This book, certainly her best known, was republished in 1993 with ters wife and about the moral irresponsibility of the church
a new lengthy introduction by Harris criticizing Daughters, Inc., hierarchy. This novel was so popular that Harris later wrote two
the original publishers, and provides much in-depth information sequels, A Circuit Riders Widow (1916) and My Son (1921). As
about the book. The author herself notes in the Amazon.com web the circuit riders widow, Mary Thompson fondly remembers her
page for Lover some of the cultural context of the early 1970s life with William and comments about the townspeople of rural
when the novel was written. Berton, Georgia. In My Son, Mary is the housekeeper and critical
observer in the home of her son Peter, a successful Methodist
Harris works lack widespread appeal, but many appreciate minister. These novels about Mary Thompson were Harris most
her storytelling and writing skills. She is without a doubt better successful because Mary caught and held the popular imagination
known within the homosexual community than among the gener- with her down-to-earth wisdom and sprightly comments about
al public. both congregation and church hierarchy.
With her second novel, Eves Second Husband (1911), Harris
OTHER WORKS: Traveller in Eternity (1975). The Joy of Lesbian established another of her major plot lines, namely, a wifes
Sex (with E. Sisley, 1977). efforts to deal with a problem husband. In this novel, as well as in
Happily Married (1920), The Eyes of Love (1922), and The House
of Helen (1923), the wife solves problems with an unfaithful or
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Leonard, M., Battling Bertha: A Biography of unstable husband, to the accompaniment of Harris digressions on
Bertha Harris (1975). Leonard, M., The Lesbian in Literature: A women, marriage, and husbands. In all these novels, the wifes
Bibliography (1975). resourcefulness and steadfastness win the day.
Reference works: Booknews, Inc. (1 Feb. 1994). CA (1972).
CA (Online, 1999). The Recording Angel (1912), Harris third novel, was the
Other references: Nation (19 May 1969). NYTBR (9 Mar. 1969). rst of her satires. Ruckersville, Georgia, comes under the barbed
attack of Amy White, who amuses herself by chronicling the
LISA TIPPS, activities of its socially prominent citizens. Another satirical
UPDATED BY CARRIE SNYDER work, The Co-Citizens (1915), deals with the corrupt politics of a
small town, against which the co-citizens must battle in order
to win woman suffrage.
In Search of a Husband (1913) introduces yet another of
HARRIS, Corra May (White) Harris themesthe taming and eventual domestication of a wild,
misguided young woman by a strong, self-made man. As in this
Born 17 March 1869, Farm Hill, Georgia; died 9 February 1935, novel, the young women in Making Her His Wife (1918), A
Atlanta, Georgia Daughter of Adam (1922), and Flapper Anne (1926) all learn that
Also wrote under: Mrs. L. H. Harris the social values of a large city are inferior to the values of rural
Daughter of Tinsley R. and Mary Matthews White; married Georgia, and in each case it is the strong man who stabilizes the
Lundy H. Harris, 1887 ighty girl.
With My Book and Heart (1924), Harris began a series of
Corra May Harris childhood was spent in rural Georgia. books that were more or less autobiographical. The underpinning
After her marriage to a minister, her experience widened rst to of autobiography is, however, all that distinguishes these books
the world of a Methodist circuit riders wife and then to that of a from her ction. Harris followed My Book and Heart with As a
college professors. The security of these worlds collapsed in Woman Thinks (1925) and The Happy Pilgrimage (1927). In all
1898 when her husband suffered a mental breakdown and Harris these books, fact forms a loose base for the personal observations
had to assume responsibility for the support of the family. She and prejudices of a highly opinionated woman.
tried teaching but gladly abandoned that when the publication in a
New York magazine, the Independent (18 May 1899), of a letter All of Harris writing was heavy with personal opinion. What
defending the Southern white position on lynching launched her would otherwise be interminable digressions within trite plots is
career as a prolic writer of articles, stories, and reviews for made readable by her frequently witty style, her ironic humor, and
periodicals. her knack for aphoristic turns of phrase. It was this pungent
expression of what her readers regarded as her great wisdom that
Her rst novel, A Circuit Riders Wife (1910), established sold her writings. In the last years of her life, as public taste began
both her publishing method and writing style. It was rst pub- to change and her conservative morality and moralizing no longer
lished in serial form and then as a book. The style Harris spoke to the mass audience of the periodicals for which she wrote,
185
HARRIS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Harris lost popularity and found it more difcult to publish. The and masochism experienced by an unusual variety of 19th-century
papers of Harris are at the University of Georgia. heroines: teenagers in Rutledge and in its juvenile counterpart,
loosely based on Harriss schoolgirl days, Louies Last Term at St.
Marys (1860); unhappily married heroines in Frank Warrington
OTHER WORKS: The Jessica Letters (with P. E. More, 1904). (1863) and A Perfect Adonis (1875); a young widowed mother in
From Sun-up to Sun-down (with F. H. Leech, 1919). Happy-Go-Lucky (1881); and middle-aged mother-wives in Phoebe
(1884) and An Utter Failure (1891).
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Blackstock, W., Writers and Their Critics: Stud- Harris frequently resolves her plots by transforming her
ies in English and American Literature (1955). Talmadge, J. E., rebellious heroines into self-abnegating women who exemplify
Corra Harris: Lady of Purpose (1968). the authors religious beliefs about renunciation of self and the
Reference works: LSL. NAW (1971). NCAB. world of vanity. Yet Harriss mixed feelings about her humbled
Other references: Georgia Review (1951, 1963). Mississippi heroines can be seen in the conclusion of A Perfect Adonis: the
Quarterly (Fall 1972, Fall 1974, Fall 1975). new bride asserts, I cant see what I was created for, to which
her bridegroom replies, I cant either, except to make people
HARRIETTE CUTTINO BUCHANAN want to possess you. To have and to hold you. Then he silences
all further questions with an all-absorbing kiss, a romantic conclu-
sion that is immediately undercut by the authors nal remark: It
is a blessing that when you are a failure, you can forget it
HARRIS, Miriam Coles sometimes for a while. But the fact remains the same. Her last
novel, The Tents of Wickedness (1907), interweaves a love story
with a defense of the Roman Catholic Church.
Born 7 July 1834, Glen Cove, New York; died 23 January 1925,
Pau, France Although melodramatic incident mars portions of her love
Wrote under Author of Rutledge; Mrs. Sidney S. Harris plots, Harriss use of topical subjects also marks her as a forerun-
Daughter of Butler and Julia Weeks Coles; married Sidney S. ner of realism. The Sutherlands (1862) is a proslavery novel,
Harris, 1864 (died 1892); children: two while Richard Vandermarck (1871) contains one of the earliest
literary portraits of the Wall Street businessman hero. A murder
A descendant of Robert Coles of Suffolk, England, who trial, realistically depicted, makes up a major segment of Hap-
accompanied John Winthrop to America in 1630, Miriam Coles py-Go-Lucky, which also covers prejudice against Irish immi-
Harris attended religious and exclusive private schools in New grants and lower-class poverty. Her last three novels treat daring
Jersey and New York City. After writing for periodicals and sexual issues such as premarital sex, resentment of maternal
producing a bestseller at age twenty-six, Harris married a New duties, near-adultery, and divorce, as well as other topical subjects
York lawyer, raised two children, and continued to produce such as tenement conditions, racial violence, politics, and
popular novels, as well as travel and devotional books. Widowed alcoholism.
in 1892, she spent most of her remaining years in Europe. Harris minor place in literary history has depended solely on
Harris rst novel, the bestseller Rutledge (1860), has been her most romantically sensational novel, the best-selling Rutledge,
called the rst fully American example of the gothic romance. but all of her ctions contain perceptive, slightly ironic studies of
It is narrated by the unnamed orphan heroine, a passionately a particular type of feminine psychology, portraits which, in their
resentful teenager who, in Jane Eyre fashion, falls in love with own limited ways, contributed to the development of the realistic
Rutledge, the older brooding heroher temporary guardian tradition.
whose ancestral home hides a dark family secret. After being
introduced to fashionable society by her worldly permanent OTHER WORKS: St. Philips (1865). A Rosary for Lent; or, Devo-
guardian, the rebellious heroine becomes involved in a series of tional Readings (1867). Roundhearts, and Other Stories (1867).
jealous misunderstandings, including a rash engagement to a Dear Feast Lent: A Series of Devotional Readings (1874). Missy
handsome social climber who turns out to be a murderer and who (1880). A Chit of Sixteen, and Other Stories (1892). A Corner of
commits suicide after the heroine hides him in the secret room at Spain (1898).
the Rutledge estate where he discovers he is Rutledges illegiti-
mate nephew. A period of penitence completes the education of
the humbled heroine, who is nally reunited with the masterful BIBLIOGRAPHY: Baym, N., Womans Fiction: A Guide to Novels
Rutledge. by and about Women in America (1978). Cole, F. T., The Early
Genealogies of the Cole Families in America (1887). Mott, F. L.,
Like Rutledge, Harriss other ctions are characterized by Golden Multitudes: The Story of Best Sellers in the United
psychological studies of negative feminine attitudes, religiously States (1947).
didactic themes, and sensational incidents. Anticipating in some Reference works: AA. DAB. NCAB.
ways the psychological realism of Henry James, Harris probes,
with surprising honesty, the degrees of hostility, powerlessness, KATHLEEN L. NICHOLS
186
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HART
HARRISON, Constance Cary as no end of a swell, and nds that his pretensions to fashion
are the object of ridicule rather than envy. Jenny, the Debu-
tante, Harrisons version of the Cinderella tale, illustrates how
Born 25 April 1843, Lexington, Kentucky; died 21 November
kind, courteous Jenny wins fame, fortune, and a husband, while
1920, Washington, D.C.
her nasty, more fashionable sister does not.
Daughter of Archibald and Monimia Fairfax Cary; married
Burton Harrison, 1867 (died 1904) Harrisons best novel, both in style and content, is A Bache-
lor Maid (1894), which explores the problems of young women
Constance Cary Harrison was a second child and only who choose not to rush into marriage. Marion Irving rejects a
daughter. Her family moved to a plantation in Arlington, Virginia, proposal from Alec Gordon, leaves her fathers house when he
and later to Cumberland, Maryland, where her father practiced remarries, takes an apartment with another unmarried woman, and
law. Harrison received her elementary education rst at a day goes to work for the woman suffrage movement. Harrison em-
school in Cumberland and then at the girls boarding school of ploys the typical 19th-century convention of incorporating pas-
Hubert Lefebre in Richmond. When her father died in 1854, the sages from feminist tracts in the guise of speeches and letters
family returned to Vaucluse, the plantation. delivered by the characters. In this novel, however, the characters
After war broke out in 1861, Harrisons mother volunteered are nely drawn and believable. Eventually, Marion and Alec do
as a nurse, serving primarily at Camp Winder near Richmond. marry, but the reader assumes that Marion is a better person for
Harrison went to the Confederate capital to live with relatives and, having been on her own.
with her cousins Hetty and Jennie Cary of Baltimore, became one Despite the uneven quality of her ction, Harrison will be
of the most famous belles of the day. Here she met Burton remembered for her autobiography, Recollections Grave and Gay
Harrison, Jefferson Davis private secretary. The couple moved to (1911). It is a valuable source of information about life in the
New York City, where her husband practiced law. There Harrison highest circles of Confederate society. While Recollections lacks
became active in charitable and civic organizations. After her the impact of a diary kept during the war and is clouded by a
husbands death in 1904, Harrison moved to Washington, D.C., to tendency to romanticize the Confederate experience, it is nonethe-
be near her sons. less a fascinating historical document. Through Harrisons eyes,
Harrison began writing short articles and verses for the the reader sees Lee, Davis, and others as men with all their human
Southern Illustrated News and the Magnolia Weekly during the sorrows and failures, not as remote historical gures. Harrisons
Civil War. Her most famous piece, published in the News in 1864, recollections provide a valuable complement to those of Mary
was the Blockade Correspondence, a series of letters between Boykin Chesnut and Virginia Clay-Clopton.
Refugitta and Secessia, comparing wartime conditions in
Richmond and Baltimore. After her marriage, Harrison translated
OTHER WORKS: Womans Handiwork in Modern Times (1881).
and adapted several French plays to be performed for charity. One
The Old-Fashioned Fairy Book (1884). Bar Harbor Days (1887).
of these adaptations, A Russian Honeymoon, was so success-
The Anglomaniacs (1890). The Well-Bred Girl in Society (1898).
ful it was performed professionally. Harrison also wrote articles
on George Washington and Colonel William Byrd for Century
Magazine, a history of New York City, and a piece on social life in BIBLIOGRAPHY: De Leon, T. C., Belles, Beaux, and Brains of the
Richmond for Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. Sixties (1907). Williams, B. A., ed., A Diary from Dixie (1949).
A great deal of Harrisons ction can be dismissed as pulp. Reference works: AA. AW. DAB. LSL. NAW (1971). NCAB.
Her novels and stories dealing with Southern life before the Civil
War were, for the most part, poorly written. Filled with stock JANET E. KAUFMAN
characters, predictable plots, and phony dialogue, works such as
Flower de Hundred: The Story of a Virginia Plantation (1890)
and The Carlyles: A Story of the Fall of the Confederacy (1905)
were little more than mass-market teasers. Postwar readers were HART, Carolyn G(impel)
fascinated by anything dealing with the antebellum South, per-
haps wanting to know why a social system they found repugnant Born 25 August 1936, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
had exercised such a hold over the imaginations of those who had Daughter of Roy W. and Doris Akin Gimpel; married Philip D.
lived under it. Therefore, Harrison and countless other writers Hart, 1958; children: Philip, Sarah
found a ready market for otherwise undistinguished writing.
More signicant, and better written, however, are Harrisons Carolyn G. Hart is an extremely popular and prolic author
works dealing with the late 19th century. These novels and stories of mystery novels. Her work appeals mostly to fans of the
examined the socially conscious world in which Harrison lived, traditional murder mystery, in which the reader matches wits with
and found it wanting. Usually Harrison was faintly amused by her an amateur detective as a series of clues are presented that
surroundings, but occasionally her style became cruelly satiric. In eventually reveal the identity of the murderer. Hart is best known
Mr. Clendenning Piper, one of the stories in A Daughter of the for a series of novels in which the investigator is the owner of a
South, and Shorter Stories (1892), the title character is described mystery bookstore.
187
HART AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Hart earned a bachelors degree in journalism from the references to other mystery writers. The two series also differ in
University of Oklahoma at Norman in 1958. She worked as a the fact that the Death on Demand books take place in a limited
newspaper reporter for the Norman Transcript from 1958 to 1959 geographical area, while the investigations of Henrie O take her to
and as editor of Sooner Newsmakers, a newsletter for University locations ranging from Hawaii to the Caribbean. Dead Mans
of Oklahoma alumni, from 1959 to 1960. She became a freelance Island was later adapted into a television movie.
writer in 1961.
Hart has won numerous awards for her novels. She won the
Hart began her career as an author of ction by writing Agatha Award for Something Wicked (1988), Deadly Valentine
mystery and suspense novels for young adults. Her rst novel, The (1990), Southern Ghost, and Dead Mans Island. She won An-
Secret of the Cellars (1964), won the Calling All Girls Prize thony awards for Something Wicked, Honeymoon with Murder,
from publisher Dodd Mead. Encouraged by this success, Hart The Christie Caper, and Southern Ghost. She won Macavity
wrote more juvenile novels, often involving serious themes. No awards for A Little Class on Murder (1989), Deadly Valentine,
Easy Answers (1970) dealt with the Vietnam war, and Danger! The Christie Caper, and Southern Ghost.
High Explosives! (1972) involved the controversy over the pres-
Hart has also been active as an editor of anthologies of
ence of the military on college campuses.
mystery stories and as national director of the Mystery Writers of
After publishing two novels for adults and a history of the America. In 1986 she was one of the founding members of Sisters
University of Oklahoma, Hart went through a time when her work in Crime, an organization for women who read, write, publish,
went unpublished in the United States. Although she had ve sell, or review mysteries. She served as president of the organiza-
novels published in the United Kingdom from 1982 to 1984, four tion from 1991 to 1992.
of these books were never reprinted in the U.S. She worked as an
assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Commu-
nication at the University of Oklahoma from 1982 to 1985. OTHER WORKS: Dangerous Summer (1968). Rendevous in Vera
Cruz (1970). Flee from the Past (1975). A Settling of Accounts
Hart returned to freelance writing in 1986 with the publica- (1976). The Sooner Story, 1890-1980 (with Charles F. Long,
tion of The Devereaux Legacy. Originally planned as a mystery 1980). Escape from Paris (1982). Castle Rock (1983). Death by
novel, it was rewritten as a romance novel at the suggestion of Surprise (1983). The Rich Die Young (1983). Skulduggery (1984).
Harts agent. At a time when publishers were purchasing very few Brave Hearts (1987). Design for Murder (1988). Scandal in Fair
mysteries by American women but the popularity of romances Haven (1994). Mint Julep Murder (1995). Death in Lovers Lane
was at its height, the agents strategy worked. However, Hart 1997). Death in Paradise (1998). Yankee Doodle Dead (1998).
would soon win great popularity with mystery novels that were Crime on Her Mind (1999). Death on the River Walk (1999).
not disguised as other types of ction. White Elephant Dead (1999).
In 1987 Hart published Death on Demand, the rst in a series

of humorous, traditional murder mysteries designed to appeal to BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CANR (1997). Detecting Wom-
avid readers of the genre. The series, set on a resort island off the en (1994). Encyclopedia Mysteriosa (1994). Great Women Mys-
coast of South Carolina, deals with the amateur investigations of tery Writers (1994). St. James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writ-
Annie Laurence, owner of the Death on Demand bookstore. The ers (1996).
novels are full of references to classic mystery stories. Hart also
adds a touch of romance to the series with the relationship ROSE SECREST
between Laurence and Max Darling, who are married in Honey-
moon with Murder (1989).
Hart reveals her knowledge and love of traditional mysteries

throughout the series. The Christie Caper (1991) takes place HART, Frances Noyes
during a conference on Agatha Christie, the epitome of the classic
British mystery writer. Hart lls the novel with references to
Born 10 August 1890, Silver Springs, Maryland; died 25 October
Christie and even includes a treasure hunt with clues based on
1943, New Canaan, Connecticut
Christies works, with answers included at the end of the book.
Wrote under: F. N. Hart, Frances N. Hart, Frances Newbold Hart
Southern Ghost (1992) is an affectionate tribute to and parody of
Daughter of Frank B. and Janet Newbold Noyes; married
traditional Gothic mysteries.
Edward H. Hart, 1921; children: two daughters
Hart began a new series with the publication of Dead Mans
Island in 1993. This series deals with the adventures of Henrietta Born on a farm outside Washington, D.C., with tiger skins on
ODwyer Collins, known as Henrie O, who is a retired journalist. the oors and books on the shelves, Frances Noyes Hart was sent
Although the Henrie O series is similar to the Death on Demand to a number of different private schools in the U.S. and in Europe.
series in its lighthearted tone, it differs from it in lacking the Her father was a longtime president of the Associated Press and
188
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HASBROUCK
editor and proprietor of the Washington Star. A YMCA canteen entirely competent with English prose, and excellent with the
worker in France and a translator with the Naval Intelligence telling detail. Her stories and novels remain entertaining, sophisti-
Bureau from 1917 to 1919, Hart made use of the experience in her cated light reading.
rst popular work, My A.E.F.: A Hail and Farewell (1920). Hart
and her husband, a lawyer, had two daughters. Her death at OTHER WORKS: Mark (1913).
fty-three was unexpected.
My A.E.F. was rst published in McClures magazine in BIBLIOGRAPHY: Haycraft, H., Murder for Pleasure (1972).
1919 and then in book form a year later. Written as a second-per- Symons, J., Mortal Consequences: A History from the Detective
son narrative, the short tribute honors the average American Story to the Crime Novel (1972).
serviceman but is critical of his ungratefulness to organizations Reference works: Encyclopedia Mysteriosa (1994). St. James
like the YMCA, which served him abroad, and is doubly critical of Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers (1996). TCA, TCAS.
forgetful and ignorant people on the home front after the war. Other references: NYT (26 Oct. 1943). PW (23 May 1931).
Written with appealing detail, the book is moving but not grossly Saturday Evening Post (28 Jan. 1928).
sentimental.
CAROLYN WEDIN SYLVANDER
Following the publication of many short stories in Scribners
magazine, the Saturday Evening Post, the Ladies Home Journal,
and a collection of them titled Contact and Other Stories (1923), HASBROUCK, Lydia Sayer
Hart became famous for The Bellamy Trial (1927), which was
serialized in the Saturday Evening Post, published in book form,
Born 20 December 1829, Warwick, New York; died 24 August
and later dramatized. According to Julian Symons, the original
1910, Middletown, New York
publication of this book marked the start of serialized novels
Wrote under: Lydia Sayer
replacing short crime stories as commercial articles. Based loose-
Daughter of Benjamin and Rebecca Forshee Sayer; married
ly on the sensational 1922 Hall-Mills murders in New Brunswick, John Hasbrouck, 1856
New Jersey, for which Mrs. Hall and three others were brought to
trial and acquitted ve years later, the novel is set entirely in a Raised on a farm, Lydia Sayer Hasbrouck was educated at the
smalltown courtroom during eight days of testimony in the trial of Elmira High School and Central College in upstate New York.
Susan Ives and Stephen Bellamy, accused of murdering Bellamys She attended a three-month course on hydropathic medicine at the
wife. The point of view is primarily that of a writer reporting on Hygeio-Therapeutic College in New York City, afterwards prac-
the trial, reacting to its principals and its revelations. Reviewers in ticing medicine, writing, and lecturing in the East. Shortly before
1927 and todays readers alike agree The Bellamy Trial is enter- her marriage to an editor and publisher, he established the Sibyl, a
taining, spirited, and clever. feminist journal, for her. Hasbrouck edited the Sibyl for nine
years, producing two eight-page issues a month for the rst six
Harts subsequent mystery novelsHide in the Dark (1929) years and one a month thereafter.
and The Crooked Lane (1934)while entertaining and suspense-
ful, do not have the interesting form of The Bellamy Trial. In addition to promoting womens rights through Sibyl,
Combining love stories with intrigue, the two books are notable Hasbrouck lived according to her feminist principles. Her special
for their female murderers, who are simultaneously self-pos- wedding vows included the sentiment: Yet while in this cove-
nant I ignore that part of the accustomed marriage ceremony
sessed, clever, and lovable. Harts Pigs in Clover (1931, British
which demands of woman undue subjection and obedience, I
title Holiday) is a travel record of a motor trip through France
promise equally with you to walk by your side through life,
made by Hart and her husband; it is outstanding for its culinary
meeting the duties and requirements devolving upon us in every
descriptions.
sphere of action, not renouncing my individuality in yielding unto
In reply to an attack on womens popular literature, Hart you the true wifes love and duty. In 1859 she refused taxation
wrote an article (Bookman, September 1921) that effectively without representation, whereupon a tax collector entered her
summarized her literary philosophy. She contended that not only home and levied upon, and advertised a pair of Bloomer pants.
In 1863 she worked on a local road crew rather than pay a road tax.
were female readers for the most part more open to contemporary
When New York State enacted school suffrage in 1880, she was
literature than male readers of the time, but they also were more
elected to the Middletown Board of Education. Still later she
fully educated in cultural matters. Calling herself a great reader
became a real estate developer in downtown Middletown.
and small writer, Hart defended not only the work of women
writers such as Willa Cather and Zona Gale, but also the wom- Although Sibyl promoted most womens rights causes, such
ens magazine and the popular forms in which some womens as increased educational opportunities and suffrage, it primarily
work was published. advocated Hasbroucks favorite cause, dress reform. Hasbrouck
had adopted the short skirt worn over pantaloons, the Bloomer
It is clear Hart never thought of herself as a deep or profound dress, in 1849; and she had been denied admission to the Seward
writer. She was, however, widely educated, widely traveled, Seminary in Florida, New York, because she refused to abandon
189
HASTINGS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
the outt. Her editorials in Sibyl reveal her beliefs that womens womens writing, thus deserving consideration, if only for its
equality and womens health depended upon liberation from the historical and cultural value.
dictates of fashionfrom the conning, deforming corsets and
Lacking either the religious or propagandistic purposes of
stays and the heavy, unwieldy hoops and crinolines. She describes
earlier captivity narratives, Hastings reads like an adventure
the ease with which the reform dress allowed her to perform her
story, evidencing a conscious desire to entertain through recount-
daily choreswhether she was picking strawberries, cultivating
ing hardships and unusual occurrences among Native American
her orchard, or cutting grass for the cow.
and French captors in New Hampshire, Quebec, and Montreal.
Hasbrouck used Sibyl to promote a club among like-minded Eighteenth-century American preoccupations with sentimentali-
women, printing reports of the convention proceedings of the ty, sensibility, the noble savage, and national history provide the
National Dress Reform Association, which she served as presi- ideological foundations for her reconstruction of experiences in
dent from 1863 to 1864, and listing names of Sibyl subscribers New England forests, Native American camps, French-Canadian
(mostly from New York and the Midwest) who in spite of scorn homes, and prisons. With its neat chapter divisions and carefully
and ridicule, wore the reform dress. salted moments of suspense, the narrative becomes in part a late
18th-century sentimental romance.
Hasbroucks relationship to the readers of Sibyl was intense
and intimate. She encouraged them to correspond with Sister Notable among the attitudes Hastings emphasizes are her
Lydia about their problems, and she shared with them, through belief in the natural benevolence of the Native Americans (she
the pages of her paper, her own personal life. She was perhaps the shows how a Native American family of the royal blood adopts
only one of the early dress reformists who did not backslide: she her and treats her as a true member of their group) and her strong
wore the Bloomer outt until her death. feelings of patriotism for the young American republic. Her
criticism of the causes and events of the French and Indian War
serve as oblique criticism of the British in general and of British
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: DAB. NAW (1971). rule in America.
Other references: AHR (July 1932). Lily (15 Sept. 1856).
To enhance her nationalistic themes, Hastings uses a histori-
JEANNINE DOBBS
cal perspective to show that the courage and perseverance of the
American forefathers, as they faced the perils of settling the
wilderness frontier, ensured a progressive culture in Ameri-
ca. Through an artfully worded conclusion, she depicts the
prerevolutionary period as the dark, uncivilized past moving
HASTINGS, Susannah (Willard) inevitably into the sunshine of a civilized republic because of the
Johnson moral strengths of the American colonists. Thus in her narrative
Hastings carefully combines the personal and the national to
create a simplistic presentation of a currently popular historical
Born 13 July 1730, Harvard, Massachusetts; died 1810
theory. Ultimately, her work becomes a vehicle to exhibit civiliza-
Daughter of Josiah and Hannah Willard; married James John-
tion thriving under the care of independent Americans, and a
son, 1747; Mr. Hastings, n.d; children: four
further example of the often ambitious nature of American wom-
ens writing in the 1790s.
With her rst husband, Susannah Johnson Hastings had four
children, a son and two daughters and a fourth, unnamed child,
who was born and died during her captivity among the Native BIBLIOGRAPHY: Davis, W. A., Records of the Town of Lunenburg,
Americans. The Johnsons were a farming family; in 1750, they Massachusetts, 1719-1764 (1896). Nourse, H. S., History of the
moved to the backwoods of New Hampshire, to a sparsely Town of Harvard, Massachusetts, 1732-1893 (1894).
inhabited pioneering settlement near the Connecticut River, in
order to increase their land holdings. In 1754, during one phase of JACQUELINE HORNSTEIN
the French and Indian War, Hastings (along with her sister,
Miriam, and her children) was captured in a Native American raid
on the poorly secured settlement. She spent about ve months in HATCH, Mary R. Platt
captivity, traveling north as far as Quebec, before she was
ransomed. Hastings became a widow when her husband was
killed at the battle of Fort Ticonderoga and later married an Born 19 June 1848, Stratford, New Hampshire; died 28 Novem-
unidentied Mr. Hastings. Beyond these scant personal details, no ber 1935, Santa Monica, California
facts are available about the life of Hastings, her education, or her Wrote under: M. R. P. Hatch, Mary R. P. Hatch, Mabel Percy
domestic circumstances. Daughter of Charles G. and Mary Blake Platt; married Antipas M.
Hatch, 1871 (died 1896); children: two sons
Hastings only extant work is A Narrative of the Captivity of
Mrs. Johnson (1796). Although the style, organization, and prefa- Mary R. Platt Hatch was born and raised in the fertile
tory material indicate the heavy hand of an editor, the narrative Connecticut River valley of northern New Hampshire. She was
contains attitudes and ideas central to late 18th-century American educated at home and in the Stratford public schools; at fteen,
190
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HAVEN
she entered advanced classes at the Lancaster Academy. By Hatch was a modest writer. Yet the inventiveness with which
seventeen, Hatch was publishing widely in various journals and she approached the mystery story is impressive. And her strong
papers, rst using the pseudonym Mabel Percy and later using her and unusual women characters still have the power to delight
own name. Marriage, in 1871, transformed Hatch from a farmers feminist readers.
daughter to a farmers wife. Her busy, demanding life soon
included the care of two sons. Still, during the last two decades of
OTHER WORKS: Mademoiselle Vivine (1927).
the century, Hatch became an increasingly energetic and versatile
writer. She published poems, temperance pieces, essays, and
stories of local color about northern New England. In 1892 she BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: AW.
and Celia Thaxter edited the New Hampshire section of A Woman Other references: Granite Monthly (1889).
of the Century, Frances Willard and Mary A. Livermores refer-
ence work. KATHLEEN L. MAIO
The Upland Mystery (1887) was rst serialized in the Por-

tland (Maine) Transcript; it is a murder mystery based on fact
the Bugbee arsenic murders of nearby Lancaster. Hatch next HAVEN, Alice Bradley
wrote The Bank Tragedy (1890), which features a locked-vault
murder and a brave heroine/sleuth. The Missing Man (1892), a Born Emily Bradley, 13 September 1827, Hudson, New York;
mystery involving impersonation and e.s.p., proved to be Hatchs died 23 August 1863, Mamaroneck, New York
most popular novel, but The Strange Disappearance of Eugene Wrote under: Cousin Alice, Clara Cushman, Alice B. Haven,
Comstocks (1895) is perhaps her most compelling mystery. In the Alice G. Less
latter the missing bank teller is really a lesbian transvestite and the Daughter of George and Sarah Brown Bradley; married Jo-
heroine is a gun-toting adolescent daughter of a Robin Hood-style seph C. Neal, 1846 (died); Samuel L. Haven, 1853; child-
bandit leader. The work is not only a mystery puzzle but also a ren: ve
fantasy ction of a decidedly female character. Hatchs The
Berkeley Street Mystery, an 1895 serial, was published in book Alice Bradley Haven lost her father when she was three and
form in 1928. was adopted by her uncle J. Newton Brown, a Baptist minister.
While a student at the seminary in New Hampton, New Hamp-
Hatchs mystery-writing career was inuenced by that of
shire, her classmates challenged Haven to submit one of her
Anna Katharine Green, with whom she formed a strong and
stories to a newspaper. Using the pseudonym of Alice G. Less, she
enduring friendship early in life. Hatch dedicated one of her
sent her story to Joseph C. Neal, the Philadelphia editor of Neals
novels to Green and wrote perhaps the nest biographical sketch
Saturday Gazette and Ladys Literary Museum. Neal accepted
of her friend in The Author of The Leavenworth Case (The
Havens story and enthusiastically encouraged her literary talent.
Writer, 1888).
Widowed seven months after her marriage to Neal, Haven
After the death of her husband in 1896, Hatch sold the family
worked for the next six years as an editor of the Gazette and wrote
farm in Northumberland and dedicated herself to the education of
stories for children under the name of Cousin Alice. After her
her sons and to her writing. She continued to write essays, poems,
second marriage, Haven retired from editing and had ve child-
and short stories for serial publication. In 1905 Hatch published
ren, dying a month after the birth of the fth.
her Gossiping Guide to Dartmouth and to HanoverDartmouth
being the alma mater of both of her sons. Her rst novel, Helen Mortons Trial (1849), concerns the
ordeal of a young girls temporary blindness, a condition Haven
Hatch later moved to the Boston area, where she became an
herself had periodically experienced as a child. Her best-known
active and enthusiastic clubwoman. She was a member of the
work, The Gossips of Rivertown: Sketches in Prose and Verse
Boston Authors Clubalong with women like Elizabeth Stuart
(1850), reveals that beneath her saccharine surface, Haven pos-
Phelps Ward and Mary Wilkins Freemanand was one of the
sessed a gift for sarcastic ridicule of the religious hypocrisy and
founders of the Harvard Womans Club.
provincialism of the small town. The book includes a novel
At the age of sixty-three, Hatch went back to college. She detailing the persecution of a pretty and lively girl who becomes
attended Radcliffe classes between 1911 and 1913, taking part in the target of maliciously jealous gossips. The sketches that follow
Dr. George P. Bakers famous 47 Workshop (a school for play- expose the same jaundiced view of domestic life, one being
wrights). The rst meeting of the Harvard Womans Club (in June entitled Ideal Husbands; or, School-Girl Fancies.
of 1913) featured a presentation of one of Hatchs plays, The
Haven followed this novel with a series of Home Books
Dreamer. Few of her plays were published, but many were
for children, each presenting a moral embodied in the title, such as
performed in Boston and Washington, and several were made into
Out of Debt, Out of Anger (1856) and A Place for Everything and
lms. One example, Mrs. Brights Visitor (1927), tells of a
Everything in Its Place (1857).
womans capable handling of a potential burglary. During the
1920s, Hatchs civic and publishing activities gradually slacken- Haven was eulogized by the Godeys Ladys Book for being a
ed, and in 1929 she moved to the home of her son, Jared Platt, in member of the Sensible School, in the tradition of Jane Austen.
Santa Monica, California. She has not adopted the vulgar and pretentious maxim that it is
191
HAWTHORNE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
better to do a great thing badly than a little thing well. . . . [She] little wit and a great desire of showing it. Deeply interested in
trusts to nature to be interesting. politics and history, she was unswervingly convinced of Ameri-
can superiority. Alexander Hamilton, her long essay in the
May issue, is a eulogistic discussion of Hamiltons early military
OTHER WORKS: No Such Word As Fail (1852). Alls Not Gold career and his distinguished contribution to the American
That Glitters (1853). Contentment Better Than Wealth (1853). Revolution.
Patient Waiting No Loss (1853). Nothing Venture, Nothing Have
(1855). The Coopers (1858). Loss and Gain (1860). The Good The tone and attitudes of much of the writing in American
Report: Morning and Evening Lessons for Lent (1867). Home Magazine are repeated in Peter Parleys Universal History on the
Studies (1869). Basis of Geography (1837). Her brother, originally commissioned
by editor Samuel Goodrich to write the history, offered Haw-
thorne the $100 fee to do the work, and it is probable the writing is
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: AA. CAL. DAB. NAW (1971). entirely hers. Immediately successful, the book went through
NCAB. countless editions, was used in schoolrooms throughout the 19th
century, and made its publishers a fortune.
DIANE LONG HOEVELER
World history, from Eden to America, is narrated in an
intimate, rst-person manner and a lively, story-telling mode by
Peter Parley, staunch Christian and American. Entertainingly and
HAWTHORNE, Elizabeth Manning morally instructive, the narrator combines biblical myth, histori-
cal events, and geographic description to instruct young minds on
Born 7 March 1802, Salem, Massachusetts; died 1 January 1883, the nature of good and evil in the progression of the world.
Beverly, Massachusetts
A prime example of 19th-century American orthodoxy, the
Daughter of Nathaniel and Elizabeth Manning Hawthorne
history integrates Christian ideology and American chauvinism.
Through anecdotes about famous leaders in history and through
Except for three and one-half years spent in the remote, generalizations, the Peter Parley text molded American minds for
wooded area of Raymond, Maine, the older sister of Nathaniel more than half a century.
Hawthorne lived all of her eighty-one years in Salem or in
Beverly, a small community near Salem. A precocious child,
Elizabeth Manning Hawthorne walked and talked when she was OTHER WORKS: The papers of Elizabeth Manning Hawthorne are
nine months old and read Shakespeare when she was twelve years in the Hawthorne collections at the Bancroft Library of the
old. She studied under a number of preceptoresses in Salem, University of California at Berkeley, the Beinecke Library at Yale
including Mrs. Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, only until she was University, the Boston Public Library, the Bowdoin College
about thirteen. She was essentially self-educated. Library (Brunswick, Maine), the Essex Institute (Salem, Massa-
chusetts), the Huntington Library (San Marino, California), and
Hawthornes letters allow spontaneous unfettered revelation
the New York Public Library.
of a many-faceted woman; they record her fervent responses to
political events, her perceptive and often acid literary comments,
her personal philosophy, her candid self-assessments and whimsi- BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hawthorne, J., Nathaniel Hawthorne and His
cal observations, her love affair with the woods. Most of Haw- Wife (1888). Lathrop, R. H., Memories of Hawthorne (1897).
thornes literary efforts, however, were abortive ones. She wrote Loggins, V., The Hawthornes: The Story of Seven Generations of
poetry in her youth but published only a poem or two in newspa- an American Family (1951).
pers. She translated Bon Jardinierfor her uncle, a pomologist Other references: AL (Jan. 1945). Colophon (1939). Essex
and Cervantes Tales, but neither was ever published. She men- Institute Historical Collections (Oct. 1964). NEQ (June 1947).
tions in her letters her desire to review books for the Atlantic
Magazine, but she never got the opportunity. There is ample JANE STANBROUGH
evidence she would have liked a literary career, but the reality and
pathos of her existence are epitomized in her acknowledgment: I
am utterly destitute of the ability to earn.
Hawthornes major pieces of published writing were un-
HAWTHORNE, Hildegarde
signed and have been generally unrecognized. When her brother
edited the American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowl- Born 25 September 1871, New York, New York; died 11
edge (March-August 1836), Hawthorne was his only contributor. December 1952, Ridgeeld, Connecticut
Written entirely by the two of them, the six issues contain essays, Daughter of Julian and Mary Amelung Hawthorne; married
extracts, and notes from other published material. While it is not John M. Oskison, 1920
always possible to distinguish her contributions from Nathaniels,
much of the magazines writing reects attitudes, interests, and Granddaughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hildegarde Haw-
expressions typical of Hawthorne: Nothing is so intolerable as a thorne was the rst of nine children and the one who seemed most
192
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HAZLETT
clearly destined to inherit the family impulse to earn literary York (1911). Old Seaport Towns of New England (1916). Girls in
recognition. She had little formal educationan occasional tutor Bookland (1917). Rambles Through College Towns (1917). May-
or term of school as the family moved from New York to Dresden be True Stories (1926). Deedahs Wonderful Year (1927). Mys-
to England to Long Island to Jamaica during her childhood. tery at Star C. Ranch (1929). Mystery of Navajo Canyon (1931).
Spirited and apt, Hawthorne capitalized on these moves by putting Street of Rancho del Sol (1931). Wheels Toward the West (1931).
the family experiences into several of her numerous books. For Riders of the Royal Road (1932). Lone Rider (1933). Tabitha of
example, Makeshift Farm (1925) describes their life on Long Lonely House (1934). Enos Mills of the Rockies (with E. B. Mills,
Island, and Island Farm (1926) tells of their Jamaica experiences. 1935). Youths Captain: The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1935). On the Golden Trail (1936). Poet of Craigie House: The
During World War I, Hawthorne volunteered for war work in
Life of Longfellow (1936). Phantom King: The Life of Napoleons
France for the YWCA and the Red Cross, sending back to the New
Son (1937). Rising Thunder: The Life of Jack Jouett (1937). The
York Times and the Herald Tribune accounts of her observations
Happy Autocrat: A Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes (1938). The
of Paris under siege. She was a prolic book reviewer for both
Miniatures Secret (1938). Romantic Cities of California (1939).
newspapers from 1917 to 1925. After her marriage, Hawthorne
Concords Happy Rebel: The Life of H. D. Thoreau (1940). No
lived in California for many years and became an expert hiker and
Road Too Long (1940). Williamsburg, Old and New (1941). The
camper, seeking out remote spots of California wilderness and
Long Adventure: Churchills Life (1942). Ox-Team Miracle: The
making friends with Natvie Americans and backwoodsmen. These
Life of Alexander Majors (1942). Matthew Fontaine Maury, Trail
experiences provided background for further literary ventures;
Maker of the Seas (1943). Give Me Liberty: The Story of Patrick
she wrote several western novels and three books on California.
Henry (1945). Westward the Course: The Story of the Lewis and
Hawthornes youthful productions were published in St. Clark Expedition (1946). Born to Adventure: The Story of John
Nicholas magazine. She established herself as a serious writer Charles Frmont (1947). His Country Was a World: The Life of
with A Legend of Sonora, a story appearing in Harpers Thomas Paine (1949).
magazine when she was twenty. Throughout her life she pub-
lished many poems, stories, articles, and book reviews, and more
than 40 books. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Junior Book of Authors (1951).
Hawthornes numerous biographies of famous meninclud- JANE STANBROUGH

ing one of her grandfather, Romantic Rebel: The Life of Haw-
thorne (1932)were imaginatively written with interesting dia-
logue designed to appeal to the adolescent audiences for whom
they were published. She was effective in this genre, whether she HAZLETT, Helen
wrote of Hawthorne and his friends Longfellow, Emerson, and
Holmes, or of Western explorers such as Frmont, or of gures
from the American Revolution such as Patrick Henry and Thomas Born circa 1820s; death date unknown
Paine. She was clever at interweaving biographical data and Wrote under H. M. Tatem, M. H. Tatem
conversation, which she no doubt based on research in letters and
journals. An intensive search failed to reveal any biographical infor-
mation about Helen Hazlett. Works listed in secondary sources
Her six western novels, pitched to her usual adolescent are contradictory regarding titles and dates of publication. Since
reader, are in the style of Zane Grey narratives. Open Range all Hazletts works were published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
(1932), a typical example, is lled with western novel clichs, records of this city were investigated, but without results.
idealizing the life of her cowboy hero, Slim, and his noble
horse, Feathers. In contrast to Hawthornes informative and Hazletts works are sentimental novels, replete with frail
well-researched biographies, these westerns are supercial and female characters who faint at any slight emotional agitation.
hackneyed. Each follows the same formula, opening with a dialogue between
two characters who are revealed indirectly through the conversa-
The travelogues, such as Corsica (1926), are highly description. Descriptive and narrative passages are minimal throughout
tive, personal accounts of Hawthornes travels. Of her histories, the novels. Each of Hazletts novels has a unifying themethe
Californias Missions (1942) is a very interesting and directly
Christian religion.
related account of those missions and the men who founded them.
It is a well-written work that still deserves to be read. In her rst novel, The Cloud with a Golden Border (1859),
the Nesbit family laments the fact that their friend Solomon
Hawthornes simple, straightforward, and unaffected style
Mordecai, a rich banker, is Jewish. As Hazlett states in the
gave her work a popular appeal. Both her biographies and her
introduction, she feels that in regard to the Hebrew race. . .the
histories show evidence of greater artistic potential than she ever
chosen people of the Almighty will surely take their station among
actually realized.
the Christian nations of the earth. . .and if the footsteps of one
wanderer from the fold be led to recognize his own Shepherd in
OTHER WORKS: A Country Interlude (1904). Poems (1904). Him who hung on Calvary by means of this little work, she will
Essays (1907). The Lure of the Garden (1911). A Peep at New feel her time has not been misspent. The faith of Nellie Nesbit, a
193
HEILBRUN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
doubter who was to marry Mr. Mordecais son, is strengthened at editorial boards of Signs, Twentieth Century Literature, and
the moment of death. Needless to say, one by one, all the members Columbia University Press; and adviser to several radio and
of the Mordecai family nd the golden border and convert to television productions. Heilbruns work ranges from scholarly
Christianity. books and articles to witty, leisurely, intellectual mysteries writ-
ten under her pseudonym, Amanda Cross.
The setting of The Heights of (H)Eidelberg (1870) is a Swiss
Protestant and Catholic community. Since Hazletts purpose is to In her rst book, The Garnett Family (1961), Heilbrun
lead a misguided Romanist to seek truth as it is in Jesus, the presents the history of a literary family in England, particularly
priest is portrayed as the devil himself, who holds tyrannical the three generations beginning with Richard Garnett (1835-1906).
sway under the mask of holy counsel. Young Vanclive is Richards son, Edward (1868-1937), and his wife, Constance,
publicly accused of possessing a Bible, and he admits to being a (1862-1946) are the key characters in this biography. As a
Protestant. Vanclives premature death leads to his fathers con- publishers reader, Edward encouraged many of the literary
version to Protestantism at the moment of his own death. When talents from the 1890s to the time of his death, including Joseph
the priest attempts to gain access to the fathers money, he is Conrad and D. H. Lawrence. Constance, about whom Heilbrun
beaten as a scoundrel by a Protestant. writes with enthusiasm, was an independent woman who translat-
ed many of the major Russian novelists into English and who,
Glennair (1869) deals with Hazletts Scottish ancestry. While after becoming a wife and mother, traveled alone to Russia to see
the purpose of the novel is not to convert any denite group of the country for herself. Her education at Newnham College,
nonbelievers, religion plays an enormous role in the book. When Cambridge, is reminiscent of Virginia Woolfs description of a
the matriarch, Mrs. Graeme, dies, her soul winged its way to the womans education in A Room of Ones Own. Woven through the
home where Jesus was waiting with hosts of angels, to welcome book are other suggested parallels to Woolf: the elder Garnett is
it. Again, dialogue, this time in Scottish dialect, is the principal compared with Woolfs father and family gatherings with those
form. Lord Glennair, whose faith has lapsed, is aroused to true described by Woolf.
religion (The Great I AM) under the pressure of difcult times.
Heilbruns interest in Woolf found greater expression in her
The religious overtones of Hazletts novels no doubt made very important work, Toward a Recognition of Androgyny (1973).
her one of the less-read sentimental novelists of her day. Despite Heilbrun believes our future salvation lies in a movement away
her intolerance toward nonbelievers, it is unfortunate no one cared from sexual polarization and the prison of gender toward a world
to record her biographical data. in which individual roles and the modes of personal behavior can
be freely chosen. Divided into three sectionsThe Hidden
River of Androgyny, The Woman as Hero, and The
OTHER WORKS: The Pastors Widow (Son); or, The Contract
Bloomsbury Groupher book concentrates on the novel, after
(1865). A Ray from the South
tracing the history of androgyny in myth and early literature. A
wide-ranging critical study, it perceptively reexamines the works
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: A Supplement to Allibones of many of our major novelists. Heilbrun asks for a new approach,
Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and Ameri- one that recognizes the woman hero as distinct from the
can Authors (1891). Wright American Fiction 1851-1875. Re- heroine. She notes that in the late 19th- and early 20th-century
search Publication Microlm, No. 1147. novels, it is the women who speak against the antiandrogynous
vision. She differentiates between the feminist novel and the
CAROLE M. SHAFFER-KOROS androgynous novel. In Jane Eyre, an example of the former, one
identies only with the woman hero. In Wuthering Heights, an
example of the latter, one is aware of the human waste because of
sexual polarization.
HEILBRUN, Carolyn G. In the essay, Marriage Perceived (1977), Heilbrun contin-
ues to explore the meaning of the womans role. She seeks to tear
down the facade, to destroy the shibboleths that say that marriage
Born 13 January 1926, East Orange, New Jersey
is the desired state. She believes that much of the criticism written
Also writes under: Amanda Cross
between 1932 and 1960 misinterprets the writers intentions. As
Daughter of Archibald and Estelle Roemer Gold; married James
an example, she cites those critics who believe that Henry James
Heilbrun, 1945; children: Emily, Margaret, Robert
supported the old ideas of marriage, when in fact he noted its
painfulness and the close connection between economics and
An only child, Carolyn G. Heilbrun went to private schools marriage.
and graduated from Wellesley College. After earning an M.A. and
Ph.D. from Columbia University, she taught at Brooklyn College As Amanda Cross, Heilbrun won the Scroll of the Mystery
and at Columbia, where she became a full professor in 1972. Writers of America for In the Last Analysis (1964). Here Heilbrun
Known for her position on feminist issues, Heilbrun has been created Kate Fansler, a professor from a large urban university, as
president of the Virginia Woolf Society; consultant for the Uni- the amateur sleuth. In a later work, The James Joyce Murder
versity of Michigan Press Series on Women; a member of the (1967), the protagonist professor spends the summer sorting the
194
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HEILBRUN
papers of the American publisher of James Joyce, when a crime is of essays, beginning with her rst published essay, The Charac-
committed and a manuscript disappears. In these works, Heilbrun ter of Hamlets Mother (1957), Heilbrun reveals that from the
weaves her academic background into the story, either through beginning she was writing and thinking as an opposing self
plot devices or by creating intellectual, sophisticated characters. opposed to the male-centered culture of the university. All the
other pieces were written between 1972 and 1988, during her life
In 1983 Heilbrun was coeditor of The Representation of as a declared and dedicated feminist. They thus record her own
Women in Fiction, a collection of papers from the rst English history in the womens movement as well as the spirit of the
Institute program (1981) devoted to feminist criticism. Her own revolution in its earlier years. Most central in her literary
work at this time began to focus on womens lives and particu- criticism are the essays on Woolf, in one of which she argues that
larly womens autobiographies and biographies. In an impor- Woolf is a more revolutionary gure in modernism than James
tant article, Womens Autobiographical Studies: New Forms Joyce. Heilbrun includes two essays given at formal professional
(1985), she argues that until the 1960s women had written only occasions, one her presidents address to the Modern Language
preautobiography, where the individual. . .does not feel [her]self to Association and the other a University Lecture at Columbia. The
exist outside of others. This interest culminated in Writing a two were, collectively and separately, the bravest acts of my
Womans Life (1988). In her characteristic combination of critical professional life, because in them she confronted the male
and textual analysis with autobiographical and biographical mate- academic culture and spoke as a woman and not as a genderless
rial, her essays focus on the necessity for women to write about member of the profession. In The Politics of the Mind,
their lives or to record the lives of others who have not been heard Heilbrun argues that much of what passes for the life of the mind
of before. She credits women poets, such as Denise Levertov, Jane is, in fact, no more than the politics of the mind, which has
Cooper, Maxine Kumin, Adrienne Rich, and Sylvia Plath, born wasted the energies of women by too often silencing or hamper-
between 1923 and 1932, with transforming the autobiographies ing them.
of womens lives, and notes that Rich, writing in prose, actually
practiced the new female autobiography directly in her essay Heilbruns continuing promotion of feminist scholarship and
on her father, a subject Heilbrun argues women must write about the discussion of womens issues particularly pertaining to the
in order to confront the patriarchal world. Other new forms and academic world was a central reason for her decision to retire from
plots of womens lives must be established, she argues, especially the faculty of Columbia Universitys Department of English in
around marriage patterns and the story of friendship and love 1992. Feminist critic Nancy Miller called Heilbrun a woman
between women. ahead of her generation and noted her passion for the life in
texts and from the beginning. . .has been writing the biography
Heilbrun, additionally, points out that in writing detective of literature.
stories under a pseudonym, she was creating another identity for
herself and another possibility of female destiny. Fansler was Whether writing under her real name or under Amanda
unmarried (though she later married the district attorney) and Cross, Heilbrun continues to earn widespread respect for her
without children (Heilbrun has three children). She was also, feminist theories. According to Nikki Lee Manos in Belles Lettres,
Heilbrun notes, unconstrained by the opinions of others, rich and Heilbrun has chosen to interpret womens literature from a
beautiful. womans perspective and thus to illustrate a critical means for
validating female experience. Los Angeles Times correspondent
Heilbrun produced ve Fansler mysteries between 1981 and Kay Mills called Heilbrun a pioneering mystery writer, not to
1990. Death in a Tenured Position (1981), set at Harvard Univer- mention one of the premiere translators of academic feminist
sitys English Department and featuring a victim who is the rst concepts into language the rest of us can grasp and use. Shes
tenured woman in the department, is characteristic of her novels in inuenced a generation of readers and writers with her belief that
that it combines sharp social commentary with detective work and its vital to history to have women telling and honestly analyzing
often solves the mystery through an analysis of literary texts. No the stories of women.
Word from Winifred (1986), more than earlier novels, focuses on
the effects of feminism on womens lives, while The Players In the decade since it was published, Writing a Womans Life
Come Again (1990) features literary detective work in the service (1988) has become essential reading in feminist literary theory.
of revealing a womans role in the work of a famous male writer. One reader who admired it was Gloria Steinem; when Steinem
In her nonction Writing a Womans Life (1988), Heilbrun notes needed someone to write her authorized biography, she turned to
that alter ego Amanda Cross is no longer a fantasy gure but an Heilbrun. The result was The Education of a Woman: The Life of
aging woman who battles despair and who uses wit and humor Gloria Steinem (1995). Steinem gave Heilbrun full cooperation
and the analysis of our ancient patriarchal ways to nd a on the manuscript but did not have the nal say. The resulting
reason to endure. In all of her writing, Heilbrun offers much work, according to Washington Post Book World contributor
more than mere endurance: she celebrates the lives and work of Grace Lichtenstein, is an intriguing and unconventional portrait
women who have the courage to live beyond convention and to of this intriguing, unconventional and, above all, beloved leader.
tell their own stories. That the Steinem who emerges from this biography remains an
admirable enigma in no way diminishes the books importance.
In the foreword to Hamlets Mother and Other Women Other reviewers found the results of Heilbruns treatment of
(1990), Nancy Miller notes that Heilbrun has always identied Steinem more uneven. Wini Breines in the Womens Review of
with Virginia Woolfs Society of Outsiders. In this collection Books found the story Heilbrun tells is strangely transparent, an
195
HEJINIAN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
unmessy narrative of Steinems admirable life with little attention HEJINIAN, Lyn
to depth, complications, or contradictions. Florence King, writ-
ing in the National Review, was blunt: The only enjoyable parts
of this book are the quoted passages by other writers. Miss [sic] Born 17 May 1941, Alameda, California
Heilbrun is maddening. Several reviewers felt a biography on Daughter of Chaffee Hall Jr. and Carolyn Erskine Andrews;
Steinem was premature. married John P. Hejinian, 1961 (divorced); Lawrence M.
Ochs, 1977; children: Paull, Anna
The intellectual integrity Heilbrun has developed over a
scholarly career serves her well when the subject is herself. In The Lyn Hejinian is a contemporary poet and translator and a
Last Gift of Time: Life Beyond Sixty (1997), she reects on life member of the language writing movement. As the founder
after sixty. Her essays examine the unexpected pleasures of and longtime editor of Tuumba Press and editor of Poetics
e-mail, her love for her dogs, a declaration of freedom from Journal, she has also been an inuential publisher of poetry,
dresses and heels, the perils of nally getting a longed-for room especially the early work of the language writers.
of ones own, her relationship with poet May Sarton, apprecia-
tion for the wisdom of the young, and the company of men. Hejinian graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in
Rebecca Pepper Sinkler in the New York Times Book Review 1963. She began to write poetry seriously in the early 1970s,
found that one of the many honesties here is that Heilbrun makes starting with the self-publication of a gRReat adventure (1972), a
the hard parts look hard. Suitably reective, this collection bears mixed-media creation of which Hejinian destroyed most copies.
the clarity, humor, and deeply held feminist convictions that mark In the late 1970s, she became part of a group of San Francisco
Heilbruns earlier works. poets and writers among whom language writing began to evolve.
Much of their poetry was published in journals such as This,
As Amanda Cross, Heilbrun continues to allow Kate Fansler Tottel, Ou, and Miam, as well as presses such as Berkeley-based
to stretch and grow. Fanslers most recent challenge involved the Tuumba, which was founded by Hejinian in 1976. She remained
kidnapping of her husband in The Puzzled Heart (1998). This was editor until 1984, releasing a total of 50 books.
preceded by An Imperfect Spy (1995) and The Collected Stories of
Amanda Cross (1997). As is typical of language writing, Hejinians work requires
resistant readingas it is disruptive, demanding participation
Heilbruns major contribution is as scholar and feminist, by the reader and rejecting the authority of the writer. It is
overthrowing some of the sacred theories of an earlier generation deliberately unpredictable and seemingly out of control, and
and insisting on the inuence of cultural bias in evaluations of avoids poetic conventions. The primary technique used by Hejinian
literature. She has been criticized for her derogatory references to and other language writers to create disruptions in their poetry is
Freud and for the broadness of the eld she covers. An articulate the new sentence, a type of prose poem containing sentences
and original critic, Heilbrun brings a fresh perspective to litera- without denite transitions to connect them. It moves from
ture. An encouraging teacher and generous colleague, she offers subject to subject and is open to interpretation by individual
inspiration to women struggling to express their ideas in the readers. Hejinians essay The Rejection of Closure (1985)
academic world. develops her theory of an open text, which helps explain and
dene her previous and later work.
OTHER WORKS: Christopher Isherwood (1970). Poetic Justice Writing Is an Aid to Memory (1978) is Hejinians rst
(1970). The Theban Mysteries (1972). The Question of Max book-length collection, composed of 42 sections of ve- to
(1977). Reinventing Womanhood (1979). Sweet Death, Kind eight-word phrases spread out over the page. Its eclectic content
Death (1984). A Trap for Fools (1989). Womens Lives: The View includes scientic references, bits of memory, and details of
from the Threshold (1999). everyday life. The narrative voice that connects the sections
focuses the reader on how the poem is constructed. One of the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Kress, S., Carolyn G. Heilbrun: Feminist in a books themes is restlessness, a major concern throughout Hejinians
Tenured Position (1997). Reddy, M., Sisters in Crime (1988). work, especially as it relates to the mass media images that
Reference works: CA (1974). CANR (1990, 1997). CLC inundate the contemporary world.
(1983). Detecting Women (1994). Encyclopedia Mysteriosa (1995). Hejinians poem Gesualdo (1978) reects the autobio-
FC (1990). Feminist Writers (1996). Great Women Mystery graphical and biographical themes that are central to much of her
Writers (1994). St. James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writ- work. It is an annotated prose poem that incorporates aspects of
ers (1996). the life of the 16th- and 17th-century composer Don Carlo
Other references: Chronicle of Higher Education (11 Nov. Gesualdo. As is typical in Hejinians poetry, the biographical
1992). Clues: American Journal of Detection (Fall/Winter 1982). details form the context for exploring sexual and literary passion.
Designs of Darkness (1983). LJ (15 Mar. 1997). National Review
(29 Jan. 1996). NYTBR (6 Apr. 1997). NYTM (15 Nov. 1992). My Life (two versions, 1980 and 1987) is one of Hejinians
WRB (Dec. 1986, Dec. 1995). best-known and most-studied works. The rst edition was written
in 1978 when Hejinian was thirty-seven and contained 37 sections
IRENE DASH, with 37 sentences each. The revised edition, written when she was
UPDATED BY MARY GRIMLEY MASON AND CELESTE DEROCHE forty-ve, integrated eight additional sentences into each section
196
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HELLMAN
and featured eight new sections. Each section begins with a phrase 1998). Sight (with L. Scalapino, 1999). A Border Comedy (1999).
or sentence that is repeated in the same or a slightly revised form The Language of Inquiry (1999).
later in the book. The work is autobiographical yet multiplicitous
and ever changing, forcing the reader to use his or her powers of
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1997). DLB (1996).
interpretation. A Library Journal reviewer wrote of My Life: A
Other references: LJ (15 Dec. 1980, Dec. 1987). PW (10 May
language poet, [Hejinian] captures experience in discrete, brilliant
1991, 7 Dec. 1992, 28 Mar. 1994, 29 Aug. 1994, 29 Mar. 1999).
bits of imagery and sound. The result is an intriguing journey that
both illuminates and perplexes, teases and challenges, as it reveals KAREN RAUGUST
an innovative artist at work.
In 1983 Hejinian traveled to Leningrad and Moscow, learned
Russian, and began friendships with Russian poets who inu- HELLMAN, Lillian
enced her subsequent work. Leningrad (1991) is the result of one
of her trips to Russia and is a collaborative effort, typical of
Born 20 June 1905, New Orleans, Louisiana; died 30 June 1984,
language writing. In alternating voices, the poets describe their
Marthas Vineyard, Massachusetts
travels and add political and cultural commentary.
Daughter of Max B. and Julia Newhouse Hellman; married
Two of her next works, Oxota (1991) and The Cell (1992), Arthur Kober, 1925 (divorced), lived with Dashiell Hammett
are often considered, along with Leningrad, as a trilogy. Some
stories appear in all three in different forms. Oxota is somewhat in Lillian Hellman, an only child, was both repelled and fasci-
the form of a novel, although it, like The Cell, uses the device of nated by the vital obsession with money of her mothers family,
the new sentence. It also contains autobiographical elements, in who had become wealthy through shrewd and often unscrupulous
some ways extending the poetry of My Life. business dealings; she had warmer feelings for her fathers family,
particularly his two sisters. Hellman spent her childhood in New
The Cell is a book-length collection of poems containing York City and New Orleans. After two years at New York
ve-word lines. Like much of Hejinians work, it combines University from 1922 to 1924 and a brief stint at Columbia
observations of everyday life with global and political concerns University, she accepted a position as manuscript reader for
and contains sexual undercurrents. Publishers Weekly wrote of Horace Liveright, Inc., a New York publisher. She worked as a
The Cell: The poet breaks up syntax until form becomes content, theatrical playreader in New York from 1927 to 1930 and a
yet she works from a self-referential base, laying bare a life so scenario reader for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1930 to 1931
disjointed that readers are left to piece it together. . . . Clearly, this before returning to New York in 1932.
is an American answer to the French criture fminine, or body as
Hellman met her future husband, press agent Arthur Kober,
text. As such, it is successful and provocative.
and became acquainted with the literary world while working in
The Cold of Poetry (1994) is a collection of shorter poems New York. Kober and Hellman also lived in Paris and Germany
that had gone out of print. It follows many of the tenets of for several months, and Hellman later made extensive visits to
language poetry and includes social and cultural concerns. The Spain and the Soviet Union. Hellmans observations of the
work contains ten long poems written over two decades, but holds political situation in Europe, coupled with her own Jewish faith,
together as if meant as a whole. Publishers Weekly noted: contributed to the dislike of fascism and anti-Semitism apparent in
Hejinians poems are philosophical reveries, matter-of-fact in her later political works.
their occasions and wryly meditative in tone. Reading her, we After she and Kober got an amicable divorce, Hellman lived
watch thoughts in formation as she rummages around in her mind with Dashiell Hammett, the detective-ction writer. An honest
to see what odds and ends she can turn up. The book, PW and severe critic, he read all Hellmans work in progress and kept
continued, reects Hejinians characteristic interest in the con- after her to rewrite it until it met his exacting standards. With the
sistency and inconsistency of memory and self, and the role that prots from her early plays, Hellman bought a large working farm
writing plays in preserving and transforming these. . . . Hejinian is in New York, where she spent her happiest years with Hammett.
certainly an intellectual and self-conscious poet, but her work is After both she and Hammett were investigated in the 1950s by the
also appealingly alert to daily life in these penetrating, instructive House Un-American Activities Committee, and were blacklisted,
and thoroughly enjoyable poems. they lost their major sources of income and had to sell their farm.
Hammett guided her to the source for her rst produced play,
OTHER WORKS: A Thought is the Bride of What Thinking (1976). The Childrens Hour (1934), an account of an actual libel suit in
A Mask of Motion (1977). The Guard (1984). Redo (1984). 19th-century Scotland. It tells the story of Karen Wright and
Individuals (with K. Robinson, 1988). The Hunt (1991). Jour de Martha Dobie, owners of a successful girls school, who are
Chasse (translated by P. Alferi, 1992). Two Stein Talks (1996). ruined by a charge of lesbianism. Extremely successful, partly
Wicker (with J. Collom, (1996). The Little Book of a Thousand because of its then shocking theme, the play ran for 691 perform-
Eyes (1996). Guide, Grammar, Watch, and the Thirty Nights (in ances on Broadway. The Childrens Hour is a skillfully wrought
Australia, 1996). A Book from a Border Comedy (1997). A melodrama deepened by psychological penetration and moral
Traveler and the Hill and the Hill (collaboration with E. Clark, signicance.
197
HELLMAN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
The Childrens Hour was one of a number of Hellmans his irresponsibility to others. He does not mean to hurt people; he
plays made into highly successful lms in the 1930s and 1940s. just cannot resist the temptation to win their affection by charming
She received Academy Award nominations for her adaptation of compliments and well-intentioned but ill-considered interference.
The Little Foxes in 1941 and her original screenplay The North Since his own life is emptyhis wife despises him, and he has not
Star in 1943. Her other lmed plays include The Searching Wind, nished a portrait for 12 yearshe has to ll it by establishing
lmed in 1946. Among Hellmans theatrical awards are the New intimacy with others, yet he is too shallow and selsh for
York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1941 and 1960, a Gold emotional commitment. Despite inadequate plotting, Hellman has
Medal from the Academy of Arts and Letters in 1964 for Distin- powerfully developed her theme of people stalemated in middle age.
guished Achievement in the Theatre, and election to the Theatre
Hall of Fame in 1973. Perhaps the most obvious characteristic of Hellmans writing
is her rst-rate craftsmanship: the neat plotting of the Hubbard
The Little Foxes (1939) is a gripping drama about the plays, where thrilling melodramatic climaxes are meticulously
Hubbards of Alabama, who display the greed and driving egotism prepared for, as hints are dropped in the beginning, every one to be
Hellman saw in her mothers family. Ben and Oscar Hubbard and picked up by the end; the relief from this suspenseful melodrama
their sister, Regina Giddens, form a partnership with a Northern through pathos or comedy; the sharp characterization and vividly
industrialist to set up a protable cotton factory in their town, but authentic speeches, which at the same time economically move
they cannot secure a controlling interest without obtaining money the plot along.
from Reginas husband, Horace, which he refuses to advance
because he is disgusted by the Hubbards ruthless greed. Through- In her last two original playsThe Autumn Garden and Toys
out the play, mastery shifts between the brothers and their sister, in the Attic (1960), which also present middle-aged people who
depending upon who seems more likely to get control of Horaces come to recognize the bleakness of their lives but nd they cannot
money. In the end, Regina gains control by deliberately provoking change themHellmans artistry appears more in character de-
him into a fatal heart attack. The Little Foxes is even better velopment. Instead of presenting lively sketches of villainy or
constructed than The Childrens Hour. Throughout the play, pathos, she probes the motivation of a shallow charmer like Nick
every speech advances the action; the climactic scene in which Denery. Instead of presenting straightforward relationships of
Regina drives Horace into heart failure is both psychologically love or domination, she examines ambivalent ones of mutual
prepared for and superbly effective theatrically. dependency. She sacrices neatness to subtlety: dialogue no
longer proceeds so briskly, but it expresses more precisely the
Because the Hubbards are intended to be human beings as feelings between people. She relaxes her tight plotting to give her
well as monsters of selshness, Hellman decided to look into characters more room to develop, though she unfortunately re-
their family background and nd out what it was that made them tains some jarring melodramatic elements. Hellman is surely right
the nasty people they were. In Another Part of the Forest (1947), in considering The Autumn Garden her nest play.
she went back 20 years to show Ben, Oscar, and Regina as young
people dominated by their father, Marcus. Hellman found humor Well made and popular as her plays have been, they are all
as well as evil in people like the Hubbards, and made this more redeemed from commercialism by their strong moral commit-
obvious in her second play about them. ment. Hellman constantly makes the point, equally applicable to
private and public affairs, that it is immoral to remain passive
In Watch on the Rhine (1941), Hellman turned to the current when evil is being done. She believes that a clear moral message
political situation in order to awaken Americans to the growing is only a mistake when it fails to achieve its purpose, and I would
menace of fascism. The play is set in 1940, just before this country rather make the attempt, and fail, than fail to make the attempt.
entered World War II. Its title, from a German marching song, Only in a few cases, such as the anticlimactic discussion after
suggests Nazism must be watched and fought not only in Europe Marthas death in The Childrens Hour and the antifascist plays,
but in the United States. Accordingly, Hellman brings the antifascist does the moral message become obtrusive. Generally, it is organi-
struggle into an upper-class American home. Her moral point cally part of her artistic structure and characterization. Hellmans
overshadows artistic interest and realism, but her rather simplistic works consistently demonstrated responsibility, courage, and
message was eagerly welcomed by a nation on the brink of war. integrity.
Like Watch on the Rhine, The Searching Wind (1944) focused on
the innocence of Americans and their inability to comprehend the Hellman turned from writing plays to teaching at various
growing power of fascism and anti-Semitism in the 1930s. New England and New York universities in the 1960s. She taught
and conducted seminars in literature and writing at Yale Universi-
The Autumn Garden (1951) is unlike Hellmans earlier plays ty, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard Universi-
in emphasizing character over plot. In a handsome but shabby ty, Hunter College, and the City University of New York. In the
Southern resort hotel, she gathers 10 people who lack purpose, 1970s, Hellman gained considerable fame through the publication
joy, and love. Hellmans characterization here shows a notable of her memoirs, the rst of which was released in 1969 as An
advance in subtlety, as she views her people with more sympathy Unnished Woman, and won a National Book Award. This vivid
and less simple judgement. General Griggs, who wants a divorce autobiography runs from her childhood in New Orleans to the
from the wife with whom he is desperately bored, is a touching death of Hammett in 1961. The whole book is characterized by
portrait of a decent, intelligent man trapped with a woman who painstaking honesty, as Hellman analyzes her rebellions and
cannot grow. The artist Nick Denery is no simple villain, despite conicts, her ambivalent attitudes toward money and the theater,
198
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HENDERSON
and the tensions of her relationship with Hammett. Often she 1926-1978 (1980). Rollyson, C., Lillian Hellman, Her Legend
renders her experience in dramatic dialogues. The second volume and Her Legacy (1988). Shannon, D. D., Mothers and Daugh-
of her memoirs, Pentimento (1973) is Hellmans reconsideration ters: The Quest for Psychological Wholeness in the Plays of
of certain themes in her life not developed in An Unnished Lillian Hellman and Marsha Norman (thesis, 1994). Triesch, M.,
Woman. It consists mostly of portraits, of which the most memo- The Lillian Hellman Collection at the University of Texas (1968).
rable is that of her beloved girlhood friend, Julia, a passionate Wright, W., Lillian Hellman: The Image, The Woman (1986).
anti-Nazi who involved Hellman in the mission (especially peril- Reference works: American National Biography (1999).
ous for a Jew) of carrying $50,000 into Berlin to ransom political Benets Readers Encyclopedia of American Literature (1991).
prisoners. Hellmans innocence, played against the elaborate CANR (1991). CB (May 1941, June 1960). Encyclopedia of World
subterfuges undertaken to safeguard her mission, makes for taut Biography (1998). NCAB. Oxford Companion to Womens Writ-
suspense. Scoundrel Time (1976) describes Hellmans experience ing in the United States (1995). TCA (1942).
of political persecution in the 1950s. These three memoirs were Other references: Contact (1959). Modern Drama (1960).
republished together as Three in 1979 with new commentary by Paris Review (1965, Spring 1981). Lillian Hellman: The Great
Hellman. Her last volume of memoirs, Maybe: A Story, was Playwright Candidly Reects on a Long, Rich Life (record-
published in 1980. ing, 1977).
With the publication of Three and Maybe came controversy, KATHARINE M. ROGERS,
when Hellman was called a liar by Mary McCarthy in a televised UPDATED BY LEAH J. SPARKS AND NELSON RHODES
interview (Hellman later sued her), while Martha Gellhorn assert-
ed that Hellman had ctionalized parts of An Unnished Woman.
In addition, another woman, psychoanalyst Muriel Gariner, who
wrote Code Name Mary (1983), said Hellman appropriated her HENDERSON, Zenna
past as the basis of her Julia recollections in Penitmento. None
of the charges or allegations were ever settled and Hellman died
Born 1 November 1917, Tucson, Arizona; died 11 May 1983
before her libel suit against McCarthy went to court. A lm based
Daughter of Louis R. and Emily Rowley Charlson; married 1947
on the relationship of Hellman and Hammett was produced by the
Arts & Entertainment (A & E) network in 1999, appropriately
titled Dash and Lil. Zenna Henderson was born and educated in Arizona and has
spent much of her life there. After being educated at Arizona State
University (B.A. 1940, M.A. 1954), Henderson taught in schools
OTHER WORKS: Dear Queen (with L. Kronenberger, unpublished throughout Arizona, including Eloy, where she lived until her
and unproduced play, 1931). Days to Come (1936). The North death. She also taught at the Seaside, a tuberculosis sanitorium for
Star: A Motion Picture About Some Russian People (1943). children in Waterford, Connecticut.
Candide by Voltaire (dramatization by Hellman, with music by L. In the early 1950s, Henderson began her career as a writer by
Bernstein and lyrics by R. Wilbur, J. LaTouche, and D. Parker, publishing her short stories. Her short ction has appeared in
1957). Four Plays (1942). Six Plays (1960). Collected Plays periodicals such as the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction,
(1972). Eating Together: Recollections and Recipes (with P. S. Galaxy, and Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine. In her early
Feibleman, 1984). collections of short stories, The Anything Box (1965) and Holding
The Lillian Hellman Collection is housed in the Humanities Wonder (1971), typical characters are the schoolteacher (often the
Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin. narrator), the child with extraordinary gifts, the youngster who
observes supernatural happenings and accepts them as natural,
and persons who encounter the rst alien arrivals to Earth.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bryer, J. R., ed., Conversations with Lillian
Pervasive themes include the notion of a universal quasi-Christian
Hellman (1986). Dick, B. F., Hellman in Hollywood (1982).
morality throughout time and space, the importance of children as
Estrin, M., Lillian Hellman: Plays, Films, MemoirsA Reference
a new generation of Homo superior, and the tentativeness of the
Guide (1980). Estrin, M. W., ed., Critical Essays on Lillian
worlds survival.
Hellman (1989). Falk, D. V., Lillian Hellman (1978). Feibleman, P.,
Lilly (1988). Feibleman, P., Cakewalk (1993). Foster, K., Typical of these short stories is The Anything Box, in
Detangling the Web: Mother-Daughter Relationships in the which the narrator, an elementary schoolteacher, notices that Sue-
Plays of Marsha Norman, Lillian Hellman, Tina Howe, and lynn, one of her students, is always looking at something con-
Ntozake Shange (thesis, 1994). Heilman, R. B., The Iceman, the cealed in her hands. It is the anything box in which one can see
Arsonist, and the Troubled Agent (1973). Heilman, R. B., Tragedy anything that is the most attractive or the most important to the
and Melodrama: Versions of Experience (1968). Holmin, L. R., person looking. The teacher recognizes out of (Sue-lynns) deep
The Dramatic Works of Lillian Hellman (1973). Lederer, K. need she had foundor created it and no rational or scientic
Lillian Hellman (1979). Luce, W., Lillian (1986). Moody, R., explanation is offered. It is Sue-lynns only source of solace after
Lillian Hellman: Playwright (1972). Nelson, R., Sensibility and her father is convicted of robbery, because in the box she can see a
Sense (1989). Riordan, M. M., Lillian Hellman: A Bibliography: happier world of the past. The teacher takes away the box because
199
HENLEY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
the child tries to escape into it, but after looking into it herself, the Women (1995), and The Anything Box in A Magic Lovers
teacher realizes the power of the box will destroy her because she Treasury of the Fantastic (1998).
was not meant to have it. Later, she sees the child changed by a
maturity born of. . .sorrow and loneliness, and she returns Sue-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Calkins, E., and B. McGhan, Teaching Tomor-
lynns property. The two become friends, for they recognize each
row: A Handbook of Science Fiction for Teachers (1972).
others strengths and failings.
Sargent, P., Women of Wonder (1974). Sheets, A. J. and L.
Although all of her work has didactic overtones, some of it, Trudeau, eds., Short Story Criticism: Excerpts from Criticism of
like The Closest School, is decidedly satirical. The characters the Works of Short Fiction Writers (1998).
are faced with an extraterrestrial version of school integration. Reference works: CA (1967). Oxford Companion to Wom-
Because the law states children can attend the closest school ens Writing in the Untied States (1995). St. James Guide to
regardless of their color, a school board is forced to deal with the Science Fiction Writers (1996).
new family in town, the Powdangs, who are purple and fuzzy, and
BILLIE J. WAHLSTROM,
with their daughter Vannie, who is a youngster by their terms
UPDATED BY NELSON RHODES
although she was born on 12 October 1360.
Henderson is most widely known for her series of stories

about the People, who are humanoid aliens forced from their
home because of a natural disaster and who have settled in various HENISSART, Martha
isolated communities on Earth. The stories are collected in See LATHEN, Emma
Pilgrimage: The Book of the People (1961) and The People: No
Different Flesh (1967). Although they are a gentle people, their
gifts and talentsthe ability to levitate, mind-read, heal, and
experience others sensations empatheticallymark them as dif-
HENLEY, Beth
ferent, and their Earth history is one of persecution and destruc-
tion. They are forced to live in hiding, holding back the gifts they Born Elizabeth Becker Henley, 8 May 1952, Jackson, Mississippi
could use for all humanity, because they know from bitter Daughter of Charles B. and Lydy B. Caldwell Henley
experience that those without the gifts would destroy them.
The eldest of three daughters of an attorney and an actress,
Hendersons creation of people who are more than human, Henley started out as an actress before beginning to write plays
yet who are moral, kind, and thoughtful, and who might offer during a dry spell in her acting career. She is one of the rst
solutions to the worlds problems of illness and distress if they women to have been acknowledged as a playwright on the
were allowed, makes a striking commentary on real life. Hender- national level since Lillian Hellman and Lorraine Hansberry.
son is, moreover, a good storyteller, for by focusing on the Henleys plays, often described as Southern gothic or grotesque,
personal and family lives of her aliens, she brings to science are set in the Mississippi in which she was raised; they portray
ction a dimension it often lacks. Science ctionespecially in women and men and their complex, tragicomic relationships both
the 1950s, when Henderson began writingtook adventure as its within a family and between the family and the outside society
primary subject matter. Stories dealt with monstrous aliens, space that frequently disapproves of it. Her female characters are at their
warfare, and adolescent male heroes; women were absent. Also indecorous best when they gleefully or grimly sabotage societal
missing were the details of everyday lifealien or notthat expectations, and when they manage not to harm themselves
make all ction moving and signicant. Hendersons contribution too much.
to science ction is her integration of philosophy and the more As a Southern writer whose characters are frequently gro-
mature concerns of the family into the adventure narrative. tesque and obsessive, Henley has been frequently compared with
Henderson died in May of 1983, and a her People books were Eudora Welty, Flannery OConnor, and William Faulkner. Sever-
collected into one volume in 1991, aptly titled The People al sources note Henley rst read the work of OConnor only after
Collection. To her loyal fans from decades past as well as more the resemblances between their work had been commented upon
recent admirers, Hendersons works were gathered into a compre- by reviewers.
hensive new book, Ingathering: The Complete Stories of Zenna Henley achieved early success with Crimes of the Heart
Henderson, released in 1995. Throughout the decade, Hender- (produced 1979, published 1981), which won the Pulitzer Prize
sons stories continued to receive new acclaim and interest, with and was later made into a movie. Crimes introduces several
many appearing in anthologies and new books, including As themes and characters that appear in Henleys later work: the
Simple As That in the Norton Book of Science Fiction: North Magrath sisters, although they argue among themselves, bond
American Science Fiction, 1960-1990 (1993), Subcommittee together to defend themselves ercely against all comers. Their
in New Eves: Science Fiction About the Extraordinary Women of social-climbing cousin, Chick, is mortied by Lenny, Meg, and
Today and Tomorrow (1994), Through a Glass-Darkly in Babes family skeletons (including suicides, false pretenses, and
Masters of Fantasy (1992, reprinted 1994), Walking Aunt illicit sexuality); the sisters themselves are busy trying to recoup
Daid in Angels of Darkness: Tales of Troubled and Troubling lost chances. Crimes has been compared to plays of Chekhov for
200
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HENRY
its realism, its mixture of tragedy and comedy, and its portrayal of older sister, Flora, who is unhappy with her own situation
the force of the family against outsiders. pregnant and feeling smothered by her narcissistic husband
plots to stop the marriage and is encouraged to do so by the girls
That Henley began her career as an actress may in part mother. Pandora is marrying an older man, whose son shows up
account for the liveliness of her characters and dialogue and for unannounced, also wishing to prevent the wedding in order to
the ensemble quality of many of her plays. Her characters onstage save his mother, who has threatened to throw herself from a
are obsessive, identied by their quirkiness. We see them at window if the nuptials take place. The play courses with Henleys
awkward or unpleasant moments (at a wake, having lost a beauty slightly hysterical characters but with an underlying philosophical
contest), and we see them inicting pain on themselves senseless- bent. Henley comments, All these women are cursed with the
ly, while imparting to their actions a kind of logic (such as in ability to see the truth, if not live the truth.
Debutante Ball [1985, 1988] when Teddy stabs her face and legs
repeatedly with any sharp object at hand). Henleys characters Henleys projects at the turn of the century have included
also tell stories of revelatory moments or formative experiences. collaborating with the plays director on the casting of Impossible
In The Miss Firecracker Contest (1980, 1985), for example, Marriage for its New York off-Broadway production and com-
Popeye tells the story of her nickname, which is also the story of pleting a screenplay about Canadian bank robbers.
her partial blindness and the beginning of her ability to hear voices
in her eyes. Sometimes the grotesquerie or absurdity seems
unfounded or unexplored, or to be only a hint at an unstated truth OTHER WORKS: Am I Blue? (1982). Beth Henley: Four Plays
beneath the surface, as when Babe in Crimes explains she shot her (1992). Control Freaks (1992). Monologues for Women (1992).
husband because I didnt like his looks. The Revelers (1994). The L Play (1995). Collected Works, Volume
I (1999). Collected Works, Volume II (1999).
Efforts by characters to change societys disapproval of them
and their attempts at self-redemption recur in several of Henleys
subsequent plays. Carnelle in Miss Firecracker tries to restore her BIBLIOGRAPHY: Betsko, K., and R. Koenig, Interviews with Con-
bad reputation with the locals by winning a beauty pageant. temporary Women Playwrights (1987). Jones, J. G., ed., Missis-
Debutante Ball focuses on a woman who is determined to distract sippi Writers Talking (1982). Schlueter, J., ed., Modern American
the town from her reputation as a murderess by providing her Drama: The Female Canon (1990). Smith, L., Women Who Write:
awkward mist daughter, Teddy, with the ideal debut night. The From the Past and Present to the Future (1989).
Wake of Jamey Foster (1983, 1985) is another ensemble piece in Reference works: CANR (1991). CLC (1983). Contemporary
which each character is looking for love and disappointed at his or Dramatists (1988). DLBY (1986). Notable Women in the Ameri-
her inability to live up to others expectations. can Theatre (1989). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in
the United States (1995).
Henleys later plays, The Lucky Spot (1986, 1987) and Other references: American Theatre (Nov. 1998). Back Stage
Abundance (1990, 1991), further her interest in characters lost (24 Mar. 1995). Conference of College Teachers of English
loves and broken dreams while moving her focus to settings Studies (Sept. 1989). Southern Quarterly (Summer 1984; Spring
beyond Mississippi and the New South, and to characters in 1987). Studies in American Drama (1988; 1989). Variety (19 Oct.
circumstances not solely brought about by family commitments. 1998). Women and Performance: American Journal of Feminist
Several of Henleys plays have been turned into movies, and she is Theory (1986).
the author of both unproduced and produced screenplays, notably
as coscreenwriter with David Byrne and Stephen Tobolowsky of KATHRYN MURPHY ANDERSON,
True Stories (Warner Brothers, 1986) and 1988s Nobodys Fool. UPDATED BY REBECCA C. CONDIT
Signature, written in 1990 but not produced until 1995,

involves four characters who go into business with each other but
end up at each others throats. The main character nally decides
he can save his life by changing his signature. Henley wrote the HENRY, Alice
play after having her handwriting analyzed while she was in the
midst of a depressive state. The graphologist recognized this in Born 21 March 1857, Richmond, Australia; died 14 February
her handwriting, which led her to develop the character. 1943, Melbourne, Australia
Also wrote under: Alice Henry
Henley appears to have changed perspectives to some degree
Daughter of Charles F. and Margaret Walker Henry
in Impossible Marriage (1999). In contrast to the emotional
disorder and confusion that marked the characters in her work of
the 1980s, those in this tale of modern marriage have grown Alice Henrys Memoirs of Alice Henry (1944), in which she
up. One critic termed the shift in Henleys style to be in the realm describes her childhood in the Beaconseld District at the edge of
of Wildean satire. the Australian bush, reveals her close and loving relationship with
the natural world around her. While she was still very young, her
Impossible Marriage revolves around two sisters, the young- family moved to Melbourne, where she was educated both in
est of whom (Pandora) is fast approaching her wedding day. The private schools and at home, and formally exposed to the
201
HENRY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Swedenborgian religion. From her earliest life, Henry was expect- BIBLIOGRAPHY: Boone, G., The Womens Trade Union Leagues in
ed to earn her own living; she also received, during her growing Great Britain and the U.S.A. (1942).
years, instruction in physical training, a discipline new to women. Reference works: Biographical Cyclopedia of American
Women (1924). DAB. NAW (1971).
Henry rst supported herself by teaching, but soon began to Other references: Life and Labor Bulletin (Apr. 1943).
write for the daily Melbourne Argus and for its weekly edition, the
Australian. Her reading of Thomas Hares Representative Gov- VIRGINIA R. TERRIS
ernment convinced her of the importance of active democratic
involvement. When both parents died, Henry sailed for England
as Melbournes representative to a charity organization confer-
ence. In Britain, she interested herself deeply in womens issues HENRY, Marguerite
and became close friends with feminist leaders Christobel Pankhurst
and Annie Kennedy. Born 13 April 1902, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; died 26 November
Unable to support herself in England while working for the 1997, Rancho Santa Fe, California
womens cause and the poor, in 1906 Henry left for the United Daughter of Louis and Anna Kaurup Breithaupt; married Sid-
States. She soon embarked on speaking tours where she discussed ney C. Henry, circa 1924
the social conditions in Australia. She frequently joined such
well-known gures as Edwin Markham, Susan B. Anthony, Daughter of a printer, Marguerite Henry was set up as a
Harriet Stanton Blatch, Julia Ward Howe, and Thomas Wentworth kitchen-corner writer at age ten and published her rst sketch the
Higginson on the lecture platform. Jane Addams invited her to next year. She took a degree in journalism at Milwaukee State
live at Hull House and work for the municipal vote; during her Teachers College. Her husbands interest in animals may have
residence there, Henry also supported the many programs devoted encouraged Henry to develop, years later, her strongest genre:
to bringing the arts to working-class women. animal-centered books for children. At rst, Henry worked as a
technical writer and journalist, perfecting her straightforward
In Chicago, Henry took over the position of ofce secretary prose style. This talent for clear prose, her ability to see dramatic
of the National Womens Trade Union League and was soon in conict, and her indefatigable energy as a researcher served
charge of the leagues column on womens affairs in the Union Henry well when she turned to writing for children.
Labor Advocate. Between 1911 and1915, she edited Life and
Labor, the leagues journal, which she expanded to include Henry read, interviewed, and traveled to gather material,
information on suffrage and homemaking, as well as short stories which she then led in boldly marked manila folders, giving her a
and poetry. exible outline and easy access to information as she wrote her
books. This efcient approach may explain how, between 1940
The Trade Union Woman (1915), a pioneering work, was and 1946, Henry could produce not only 12 geography books, but
conceived by Henry as a handbook to inform the public about the also nine other books, including what Henry considers her rst
economic and biological vulnerabilities of the American working serious work, Justin Morgan Had a Horse (1945), one of many
woman. She viewed industrial organization and suffrage as the books that grew out of her notes for An Album of Horses (1951).
two major issues facing the women of her day. She believed trade This story of the rst Morgan horse won the Junior Scholastic
unionism to be the most viable means of strengthening working Gold Seal Award and the Award of the Friends of Literature and
womens relationships with their brothers in the labor movement. was made into a Walt Disney movie in 1972. It also brought Henry
Tracing the history of labor organizing in this country from the together with illustrator Wesley Dennis for a longtime collabora-
early 19th century, the volume includes discussions of such topics tion producing some of the most beautiful and worthwhile books
as immigrant women in industry, major strikes, conicts facing ever published for children.
working women when they marry, and vocational training. Wom-
en and the Labor Movement (1923) expands and updates the Henry has written well on many subjectsher works include
material in the earlier volume. biographies of Robert Fulton and Benjamin West, albums on birds
and dogs, several dog stories, and one book on a talking fox named
After returning to Australia in 1933, she wrote the Memoirs Cinnabarbut she has gained the greatest popularity and acclaim
of Alice Henry, and thereafter devoted herself to medical projects, for her horse books. King of the Wind (1948), a ctional account
the education of bush children, and the compilation of a bibliog- of Godolphin Barb, the Arabian ancestor of Man-o-War, won the
raphy on Australian women writers. Newbery Medal. The book reads like romantic fantasy, but is
based on copious research, a whole horse van of letters. The
Henry was a woman devoted totally to the social causes she
mute stableboy, Agba, in his devotion to Godolphin, is typical of
espoused, her personal life being inseparable from her profession-
Henrys young protagonists.
al dedication. An idealist, she lived in the fervent belief that the
peace following World War I would offer opportunities for both Born to Trot (1950) tells the true story of Gibson White, the
the labor movement and the womens movement to come into boy who owned and trained Rosalind, the Queen of Trotters.
their own. In her vision, and in the energies she invested in trying One critic has noted this type of story succeeds because of the skill
to realize her vision, lies her major contribution to the improve- with which Henry spins a narrative of triumph mixed with
ment of the lives of working women. tragedy. Another young real-life hero, Giorgio Terni, was the
202
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HENTZ
basis of Gaudenzia: Pride of the Palio (1960), which describes his HENTZ, Caroline (Lee) Whiting
surprising victory in the hair-raising horse race tearing through the
streets of Siena once a year.
Born 1 June 1800, Lancaster, Massachusetts; died 11 February
The most famous horse in Henrys books appeared in Misty 1856, Marianna, Florida
of Chincoteaque (1947) and introduced readers to the legend and Daughter of John and Orpah Danforth Whiting; married Nico-
modern reality of the wild ponies herded once a year on Pony las M. Hentz, 1824; children: ve (one died as a child)
Penning Day on this Virginia island. Misty, who played herself in
a 1961 movie, is the type of plucky, intelligent horse every child Caroline Whiting Hentz was the eighth and youngest child of
hopes to own, and young readers must envy Paul and Maureen an old New England family directly descended from the Reverend
Beebe, who actually shared the adventure of capturing and Samuel Whiting, who settled in Massachusetts in 1636. Her father
training Misty. Further events in the lives of these two and the served as a colonel in the Revolutionary War. Two years after
equally well-portrayed Grandma and Grandpa Beebe are followed Hentzs marriage to a French entomologist, her husband became
in Sea Star: Orphan of Chincoteaque (1949), which tells of the chairman of modern languages and belles lettres at the University
saving of an abandoned foal, and in Stormy, Mistys Foal (1963), of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. This move was the rst of many
in which the ooding of Chincoteaque, Mistys stay in the the family made following his erratic teaching career. Hentz bore
Beebes kitchen during the catastrophe, and her eventual success- ve children; the oldest son died when he was two years old. In
ful foaling are vividly recounted. In these Chincoteaque books addition to rearing the children, running the household, supervis-
Henry is at her best, using keen observation, careful recording and ing boarding students, and helping her husband with teaching and
selection, and enough imagination to make the true stories ow insect collecting, Hentz wrote verse, drama, tales, and novels.
like ction. Reputedly, she could write easily in the midst of household
distractions.
Henry brought loving research to each of her many books.
She showed her respect for children by maintaining high stan- Her rst novel, Lovells Folly (1833), was suppressed by her
dards of journalism; and her young audience, who voted her many family as too personal. Some accounts say it was libelous.
of the awards she held, repays this respect with its enthusiasm. Her While in Kentucky, Hentz wrote a prize-winning play, DeLara;
books remain in print; they are in demand at libraries, perhaps or, The Moorish Bride (1843). The ve-act drama, set in a Spanish
because, as Rudyerd Boulton said of Henry: The author has castle during the Moors conquest of Spain, was produced in
happily chosen to present factual information in a joyous way. Philadelphia and Boston. Of her poems written for special occa-
sions, perhaps the most important one was composed for the visit
of Andrew Jackson to Florence, Alabama, in 1836. Her husband
OTHER WORKS: Auno and Tauno: A Story of Finland (1940). Dilly
read the poem for President Jackson.
Dally Sally (1940). Birds at Home (1942; revised 1972). Geral-
dine Belinda (1942). Their First Igloo on Bafn Island (1943). A Although she began writing as a girl, Hentz did not become a
Boy and a Dog (1944). Robert Fulton: Boy Craftsman (1945). well-known writer until the Philadelphia Saturday Courier serial-
Always Reddy (1949). Little or Nothing from Nottingham (1949). ly published a domestic tale in 1844. It was later published in book
Portfolio of Horses (1952). Brighty of Grand Canyon (1953; lm form as Aunt Pattys Scrap Bag (1846). When her husband
version, 1966). Wagging Tails: Album of Dogs (1955). Cinnabar: became chronically ill in the late 1840s, Hentz, out of nancial
The One OClock Fox (1956). Black Gold (1957). Muley Ears, necessity, began the most prolic period of her writing at the age
Nobodys Dog (1959). All About Horses (1962). Portfolio of of fty. Her novel Linda; or, The Young Pilot of the Belle Creole
Horse Paintings (with W. Dennis, 1964). White Stallion of Lipizza (1850) became a bestseller. Seven more domestic novels and six
(1964). Mustang: Wild Spirit of the West (1966). Dear Readers collections of stories were published in rapid succession. Her
and Riders (1969). San Domingo: The Medicine Hat Stallion books remained popular after her death until the end of the
(1972). The Pictorial Life Story of Misty (1976). One Mans Horse century. Two novels, Eoline; or, Magnolia Vale (1852) and The
(1977). The Marguerite Henry Misty Treasury: Three Complete Planters Northern Bride (1854), were reprinted in the 1970s.
Novels in One Volume (1998).
While living in Cincinnati, Hentz knew Harriet Beecher
Stowe. Both women belonged to a literary group, the Semi-Co-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Collins, D. R., Write a Book for Me: The Story of lons. Although they might have shared cultural interests, the issue
Marguerite Henry (1999). of slavery separated them. Hentzs novel The Planters Northern
Reference works: Authors and Illustrators of Childrens Bride was written as an answer to Uncle Toms Cabin. It is
Books: Writings on Their Lives and Works (1972). CA (1976). CB proslavery propaganda. In Marcus Warland (1852), probably
(1947). Junior Book of Authors (1951). Newbery Medal Books, composed before she had read Stowes work, Hentz made only a
1922-1955 (1955). partial defense of slavery, but the later novel is a full-blown
Other references: Horn Book (Jan. 1950, Feb. 1954). Library counterstatement to abolition. With other writers of antebellum
Bulletin (Nov. 1947). Life (10 June 1955). NYTBR (22 Dec. 1957) novels, Hentz helped create and perpetuate an image of ideal
PW (26 March 1949, obituary, 1997). plantation life. This ctional world of pious belles, gallant gentle-
men, and happy slaves appeals so strongly to the popular mind
CELIA CATLETT ANDERSON that the myth persists.
203
HERBST AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
OTHER WORKS: Mob Cap (1848). Rena; or, The Snow Bird favorite sister died from an abortion. The pain from these two
(1851). Helen and Arthur; or, Miss Thusas Spinning Wheel events was devastating for Herbst.
(1853). Wild Jack; or, The Stolen Child, and Other Stories (1853).
The Victim of Excitement (1853). Robert Graham (1855). The Unable to resume her life in New York, she left her job as a
Banished Son (1856). Courtship and Marriage (1856). Ernest reader for H. L. Menckens magazines and went to Europe to
Linwood (1856). The Lost Daughter (1857). Love After Mar- write. There she met and fell in love with John Herrmann, an
riage (1857). expatriate writer, whom she later married. The farm they bought
in Erwinna, Pennsylvania, continued to be Herbsts home for the
rest of her life. During the rst 10 years at Erwinna, Herbst
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ellison, R. C., Introduction to The Planters produced ve novels. Herrmann, never as ambitious a writer as
Northern Bride (1970). Papashvily, H. W., All the Happy Endings Herbst, began to write less and to increase his involvement in the
(1956). Williams, B. B., A Literary History of Alabama: The Communist Party. Although Herbst never formally joined the
Nineteenth Century (1979). Communist Party, her beliefs and activities were sympathetic to it.
Reference works: AA. CAL. DAB. NAW (1971). NCAB. Ohio The trilogy Pity Is Not Enough (1933, reprinted 1998), The
Authors and Their Books (1962). Oxford Companion to Womens Executioner Waits (1934, 1985), and Rope of Gold (1939, 1984,
Writing in the United States (1995). 1986) tells the story of the Trexler and Wendel families and
Other references: AL (1950). Alabama Review (1951). reveals the development of Herbsts ideas. Walter Rideout point-
ed out that she views the families decline as a tiny part of the
LYNDA W. BROWN dialectical process of world history, and juxtaposes the deterio-
ration of capitalism with the possibility of power for the proletari-
at. The political message is carried mainly in vignettes about
farmers and workers, which give added breadth and force to the
main story.
HERBST, Josephine
Most of Herbsts ction is strongly autobiographical. The
Born 5 March 1892, Sioux City, Iowa; died 28 January 1969, family of the trilogy is her own, thinly disguised. Two of the
New York, New York characters, Victoria and Jonathan Chance, closely resemble Herbst
Daughter of William B. and Mary Frey Herbst; married John and Herrmann, and sometimes events in the authors life were
Herrmann, 1925 (divorced, 1940) being written into the book almost as soon as they occurred. In
Rope of Gold, Victoria and Jonathan are growing apart, as were
Herbst and Herrmann, and the novel records the pain of their
Josephine Herbst, a proletarian writer, is a major gure in the deteriorating relationship, which for Herbst and Herrmann result-
history of 20th-century literature and radicalism. Although less ed in divorce in 1940.
well known than her friends Ernest Hemingway, Katherine Anne
Porter, and John Dos Passos, she is often regarded as their peer. During the 1930s, Herbsts reports from crisis areas of the
Her most important work is a trilogy, a sweeping reconstruction of world were widely published. She talked with farm pickets in
the life of an American family from the Civil War through the Iowa, reported on the sit-down strike in Flint, Michigan, went to
1930s. Other works include four more novels, reports from the Nazi Germany shortly after Hitler took power, was in Spain with
crisis areas of the 1930s, and numerous short stories and criti- the Loyalists in 1937, and visited Cuban radicals in their mountain
cal essays. hideout. Fired from a wartime job in Washington for political
reasons, Herbst spent much of the 1940s and early 1950s at
Herbst grew up in Sioux City, Iowa, where her father sold Erwinna, alone and suffering privately over the outcome of her
farm implements. Neither of her parents had much formal educa- marriage. The two novels published during this period were not
tion, but her mother, a strong inuence in Herbsts life, imparted a given the attention of her previous books. Gradually, she renewed
love of books to her four daughters, and the stories she told about old friendships, and Erwinna became a gathering place for writers
her ancestors formed the beginning of Herbsts trilogy. The and intellectuals. A lesbian relationship with poet Jean Garrigue
family was always poor; consequently, Herbsts college educa- began during this period.
tion was spread out over nine years and four different institutions,
as she alternated periods of work with periods of study, eventually From the mid-1950s until the time of her death, she was
receiving her degree from the University of California at Berke- preoccupied with her memoirs, which were never completed
ley in 1919. because she could not arrive at a portrait of her times that was
satisfying to her. Elinor Langers excellent biography is titled
After graduation, she moved to New York City and there Josephine Herbst; The Story She Could Never Tell.
became a part of the intellectual and political ferment of the
1920s. Maxwell Anderson, then a socialist journalist and poet,
was her rst serious lover; a pregnancy resulted, and at Ander- OTHER WORKS: Nothing Is Sacred (1928, 1977). Money for Love
sons insistence, Herbst had an abortion. A few months later, her (1929, 1977). Satans Sergeants (1941). Somewhere the Tempest
204
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HERSCHBERGER
Fell (1947). New Green World (1954). The Starched Blue Sky of in over 30 national and literary magazines, including the feminist
Spain: And Other Memoirs (1991, 1999). magazines Aphra and Feelings, and in more than a dozen antholo-
Josephine Herbsts papers are housed in the Beinecke Li- gies. Her feminist lyrics for The Battle Hymn of the Republic
brary at Yale University, as is A Bibliography and Checklist of were sung on Walter Cronkites show in 1969 and at the 1970
Josephine Herbst, prepared by Martha Elizabeth Pickering in 1968. Statue of Liberty sit-in. A Sound in the Night, rst published in
Harpers Bazaar, is included in Best American Stories, 1949.
Herschberg has received some well-known critical awards.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bevilacqua, W. F. Josephine Herbst (1977).
Herschberg is a multifaceted author, who writes plays, po-
Gourlie, J. M., The Evolution of Form in the Works of Josephine
ems, and feminist essays with equal vigor. She is not primarily an
Herbst (dissertation, 1975). Cleppe, J., Down Yesterdays Road:
academic writer, does not depend heavily on learning, but neither
The Radical Spirit and Revolutionary Novels of Josephine Herbst
is she a lazy or emotionally self-indulgent writer. She uses strong
(dissertation 1991). Cleppe, J., Josephine Herbsts Trilogy: A
rather than restrained tones, but she is not ashy or supercial. In
New Look (thesis 1987). Davis, P. J., Brokenwing Ellen
A Day in Autumn, she goads herself to be forthright,
Glasgow, Josephine Herbst, and the Creation of Mourning (dis-
unsentimental, and energetic, an active combination of mind and
sertation 1997). Kempthorne, D. Q., Josephine Herbst: A Critical
body. She asks the Lord to dissatisfy her because merely to accept
Introduction (dissertation, 1973). Langer, E., Josephine Herbst:
the goodness of bodily nature might anesthetize: Dissatisfy me,
The Story She Could Never Tell (1984, 1994). Rasmussen, M. A.,
Lord, / . . .Make me all muddy / . . .Make me unwieldy, / . . .What
Feminist Representation and Radical Ideology: The Writings of
is to be done, how can we/ Simplify what is already / Simplied?
Josephine Herbst, 1917-1939 (dissertation 1991). Rideout, W.,
Ah intellect, / . . .Get to work. The body and its pleasures are but
The Radical Novel in the United States (1966). Roberts, N. R.,
slightly earned and therefore not enough. Mind must discipline
Three Radical Women Writers: Class and Gender in Meridel Le
feeling and use it.
Sueur, Tillie Olsen, and Josephine Herbst (1996). Roehrig, E. L.,
Josephine Herbst and George Orwell: Two Lives, Two Political Herschbergs subjects are as varied as experience, especially
Journeys (1996). Wiedemann, B., Josephine Herbsts Short Fic- female experience. Her overriding theme seems to be that the poet
tion: A Window to Her Life and Times (1998). should celebrate all lifes contradictions by means of the full range
Reference works: DAB (1988). DLB (1981). FC (1990). of contradictory emotions available to her natureexcept self-
NAW (1980). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the pity. The resulting tone of her writing is as various as her subject
United States (1995). matter and often complextender and at the same time repulsed
Other references: Great Plains Quarterly (Spring 1998). and horried (A Sound in the Night); playful and macabre (A
NYT (29 Jan. 1969). NYRB (27 Mar. 1969). Dream Play); and angry yet somehow sympathetic (Is Rape a
Myth?). Her most frequent tone is satiric, and she ejaculates
MARY E. FINGER rather than whispers.
Herschbergs diversity of genres makes one hesitate to give

her only the label of poet, although two books of published
poetry, several awards for poetry, and a number of verse plays
HERSCHBERGER, Ruth have certainly earned her the title. Nevertheless, compared to
poets who have concentrated solely on verse, her technical skills
are somewhat underdeveloped. She seems to feel most comfort-
Born 30 January 1917, Philipse Manor, New York
able with end-stopped iambic pentameter lines, often rhymed
Also writes under: Josephine Langstaff
couplets, or four-line stanzas with alternate rhymes. In other
Daughter of Clarence B. and Grace Eberhart Herschberger
words, though not unskilled, she has done nothing adventurous in
prosody. Her diction is often poeticand not always for the
Daughter of two academic parents, Ruth Herschberg was sake of humorand there are at lines and awkward inversions.
educated at the University of Chicago and Black Mountain But at her best, when she writes epigrammatically, as in the
College, and later took courses at the University of Michigan and sharply satiric sonnet Americans All, she fuses diction, rhythm,
at the New School for Social Research and Union Theological and metaphor into an intense and successful whole: Zebras we, a
Seminary, both in New York City. For years, she lived in New plait of black and lighter, / Running through woodlands like the
York and summered on Washington Island, Wisconsin. horse and ass, / With buff for background and jet stripes that pass /
Over our sides in camouage.
Herschbergs career as a writer in both verse and prose has
brought her considerable public attention. Her plays have been Though Herschberg will probably be most easily remem-
produced on radio and on stage. Her book of feminist essays, bered as an energetic feminist, chiey because of her book of
Adams Rib (1948), was published under the pseudonym Josephine feminist essays, Adams Rib, she should also be remembered as a
Langstaff, rst in England, then in Finland, Norway, and Sweden; poet whose voice is most often more eager than irate, and more
and parts of it have been anthologized. Her poems have appeared hearty than shrill.
205
HEWITT AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
OTHER WORKS: A Way of Happening (1948). Nature and Love about shermen on the Ionian sea. In Myth Hewitt at-
Poems (1969). tempts, through the use of a chorus, an invocation, and several
alternating voices, to create the atmosphere of a Greek drama
within a poem.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1973). TCAS.
Other references: Chicago Sun (28 March 1948). LJ (1 Jan. Heroines of History (1856) is a series of prose sketches. In
1970), NYHTB (16 May 1948). NYT (9 May 1948, 1 Aug. 1948, 30 the preface, Hewitt says she wishes to present women rendered
Nov. 1970). San Francisco Chronicle (13 June 1948). SR (25 illustrious by their heroism and their virtues. The prose style of
Sept. 1948). these tales is unremarkable, and the subjects seem to have been
chosen because they had violent, unhappy lives; they include
ALBERTA TURNER
Semiramis, Zenobia, Beatrice Cenci, Anne Boleyn, Joan of Arc,
and Charlotte Corday.
Hewitts writing is characterized by her love of drama and
HEWITT, Mary E(lizabeth) Moore her intense feeling, as evidenced most often by her use of the
exclamation point and a short emphatic line. Praised for her
Born 1808, Malden, Massachusetts; died death date unknown impassioned heart, her lyrical power, and (by Poe) for her
Wrote under: Mary Elizabeth Hewitt, Ione, Jane poetic fervor, Hewitt was valued more for her emotions than
Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Moore; married James L. Hewitt, circa her poetry even in her day, and may today be appreciated
1827; Mr. Stebbins, n.d. primarily for the variety of her subject matter and a certain
innocent intensity in some of her poems.
Mary Elizabeth Moore Hewitt was born in a suburb of
Boston. Her father, a farmer, died while she was quite young, and
she and her mother moved closer to the city. In 1829 she and OTHER WORKS: The Gem of the Western World (1850).
James L. Hewitt, a music publisher, moved to New York City,
where Mary Elizabeth continued to live for most of her life.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Poe, E. A., The Literati of New York (1860).
Known primarily as a poet, Hewitt published her rst verses in
Reference works: American Female Poets (1848). CAL. A
Knickerbocker magazine under the pseudonyms Ione and Jane;
Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and Ameri-
most of her work appeared in magazines in the 1840s and 1850s.
can Authors (1870). FPA. Womans Record (1853).
She became acquainted with many of the popular writers of her day.
The Songs of Our Land, and Other Poems (1845), her rst JULIA ROSENBERG
collection, was made up primarily of poems that had appeared in
various publications; it was reissued, almost unchanged, as Po-
ems: Sacred, Passionate, and Legendary (1853). Hewitts poetry
has little to recommend it save perhaps an interesting variety in HEYWARD, Dorothy (Hartzell) Kuhns
subject matter. In her collections, one nds fervently nationalistic
poems as well as some translations from French poets and poems Born 6 June 1890, Wooster, Ohio; died 19 November 1961, New
drawn from Greek and Norse legends. The poems deal with love York, New York
and loss, with historical events, and with secular and relig- Wrote under: Dorothy Heyward, Dorothy Kuhns
ious themes. Daughter of Herman L. and Dora Hartzell Kuhns; married
The Songs of Our Land is a long poem that echoes the DuBose Heyward, 1923
mood of the nation in the mid-19th century. Taking her inspiration
from the optimism and sense of achievement then existing in Although best known for two plays written in collaboration
America, Hewitts theme is that the songs of her land, although with her husband, Dorothy Kuhns Heyward established herself as
not based on ancient traditions, are all one superior song, that of a dramatist and novelist in her own right. Her commitment to
Liberty. Many verses on the American pioneer experience writing for the stage began shortly after her marriage, when Nancy
such as A Thought of the Pilgrims, about the early experience Ann (1924), a prize-winning play she wrote for George Pierce
on the lonely Mayower, and The Axe of the Settler Bakers 47 Workshop, was produced on Broadway. Instructed to
reect the literary and political mood of Hewitts time. write about what she knew, Heyward lled the three-act comedy
with aunts, debuts, and theatrical waiting rooms.
Titles such as Loves Pleading, Alone, A Wifes
Prayer, and The Lady to Her Glove characterize Hewitts Heyward attended the National Cathedral School in Wash-
love poetry, which too often shows no originality or imagination. ington, D.C., Columbia University, and Radcliffe College, where
I pine, my cherished one! for Thee! for Thee!a line from A she took the famous Harvard playwriting course. On the strength
Voice of the Heartis typical of her sentimental verse. She is of her writing for this class, she was invited to the MacDowell
more successful when dealing with natural forces, such as the sea. Colony for Artists in Petersboro, New Hampshire, during the
A series of poems about mariners and the sea was praised by Poe. summer of 1922. There she met her future husband, who was also
The ambitious Myth, one of her most interesting failures, is spending his rst summer at the colony. During the following
206
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HEYWOOD
year, Heyward toured as a chorus girl in a musical to gain wrote alone, demonstrate the overambitiousness of her approach
rsthand experience in the theater. and the compassion for human situations she brought to her
collaborative efforts.
Similarities of taste, temperament, and appearance were
frequently noted in Heyward and her husband by their acquain-
tances: both were tall, slender, fair, brown-eyed, and fragile-look- BIBLIOGRAPHY: Durham, F., Dubose Heyward, the Man Who
ing. DuBose Heyward was an insurance salesman who had Wrote Porgy (1954). Miller, J. Y., American Dramatic Literature
published two volumes of poetry; Heyward persuaded him to (1961). Nadel, N., A Pictorial History of the Theatre Guild (1969).
become a full-time writer, and they went to live in a cabin in the Reference works: Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in
Great Smokies. Drawing upon his youthful experience as a cotton the United States (1995).
checker among the Gullah-speaking blacks on the waterfront of Other references: NYT (1 Apr. 1924, 30 Dec. 1943, 14 Nov.
his native Charleston, South Carolina, DuBose wrote his rst 1948, 20 Nov. 1961).
novel, Porgy (1925).
Heyward suggested a dramatization of Porgy, but DuBose
was already working on his second novel, Angel (1926). Letting
him think she was writing a mystery story, Heyward alone
prepared a rough draft of the play, which he then helped to polish HEYWOOD, Martha Spence
for production. For both of their collaborative dramatizations,
Heyward supplied the technical knowledge of theater while her Born 8 March 1812, Dublin, Ireland; died 5 February 1873,
husband contributed his sense of local color and poetic language. Washington, Utah
Porgy, produced by the Theatre Guild, opened 10 October 1927 Wrote under: Martha Spence
for a run of 217 performances; the following season, a revival ran Married Joseph L. Heywood, 1851; children: two
for 137 performances. The folk-opera version, Porgy and Bess,
was scored by George Gershwin and adapted by DuBose and Ira Martha Spence Heywood emigrated to the U.S. in 1834,
Gershwin in 1935. supporting herself by sewing, making hats, and teaching. Keenly
interested in religion, she traveled as an Advent preacher before
Mambas Daughters (1939), the Heywards dramatization of joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in 1849. A
DuBoses 1929 novel, was again set among the Gullah blacks of year later, she made the overland journey to Utah and became the
South Carolina. The play is melodramatic and awkwardly con- third wife of a polygamist. Mormon leaders sent the couple to
structed. There are intervals of several years between some of the settle Nephi in central Utah, where Heywoods two children were
10 short scenes. It was a popular success largely because of the use born. In 1861 Heywood relocated in southern Utah. She continued
of Negro spirituals and the stirring performance of Ethel Waters teaching and hat-making until her death at age sixty.
as Hagar.
Heywood wrote poetry and letters and kept a diary. She was
Heyward was less fortunate in her collaborations with other also active in the founding of several literary and cultural organi-
dramatists. Jonica (1930), Cinderelative (1930), and South Pacif- zations. Although the few extant examples of her poetry show
ic (1943) all reached Broadway, but were unfavorably reviewed. little talent, her diary and letters reveal her as a keen observer
South Pacic, written with Howard Rigsby and with incidental capable of rare frankness and introspective insight. Her diary for
music by Paul Bowles, is unrelated to the later Rodgers and 1850-56 demonstrates her ability to place events in perspective.
Hammerstein musical. Heywards South Pacic maroons a black
American seaman on a Japanese-held island, where an improb- Traveling to Utah after her conversion to the Mormon
able encounter with native blacks helps him to appreciate the church, which was controversial at the time, she wrote: Liberty
positive values of the American society that had exploited him. of conscience and action I have had for years and it has placed me
The play closed after ve performances. where I am. In embracing Mormonism I followed the dictates of
my own judgment, in opposition to that of my best and dearest
In 1948 the Theatre Guild presented Set My People Free, a friends. Independent of mind, Heywood chafed at the suggestion
historical drama Heyward had written seven years earlier, based of Joseph Heywoods rst wife that she remain in Salt Lake City
upon an aborted Charleston slave rebellion of the 1820s. The following her polygamous marriage to Joseph and called it an
insurrection was led by a former slave named Denmark Vesey, but interference in my affairs. The unusual social relationships and
the focus of the play is on the dilemma of George Wilson, who is conditions created by polygamy on the Western frontier, such as
torn between loyalty to his race and devotion to his master. long absences from a spouse and the self-sufciency of women,
Despite encouraging reviews, the play had only 36 performances. are well documented in Heywoods writings. So too is her
intellectual hunger for plays, lectures, readings, conversation, and
Heywards two novels, like her plays, are uneven. The
classes, which she considered a higher order of amusement than
Pulitzer Prize Murders (1932), a haunted house mystery, is
Balls.
rambling and predictable. Three-a-Day (1930) is more engaging;
this romance set in a theatrical milieu has a standard plot enliv- Her eyewitness accounts of historical events are highly
ened by the local color and jargon of the world of vaudeville in the valued. To a well-known incident of the Walker War (1853-54) in
1920s. These two novels and Set My People Free, the last play she Utah she brought another view, differing from the ofcial account
207
HIGGINS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
asserting the slain Native Americans acted aggressively and were Tribune named her Berlin bureau chief. During the Korean War,
killed in self-defense during a skirmish. Heywood wrote: Higgins was the Tokyo bureau chief and was with the rst
Nine Indians coming into our Camp looking for protection and reporters who made their way into Korea on returning evacuation
bread with us, because we promised it to them and without planes, the only woman correspondent in Korea.
knowing they did the rst act in that affair [the earlier murder of
After her second marriage and the birth of two children,
three whites] or any other, were shot down without a minutes
Higgins settled down to a less peripatetic schedule as a roving
notice. Present-day historians give Heywoods account greater
reporter for the Tribune and as a freelance writer for many
credence.
periodicals. In the mid-1950s, Higgins reopened the Tribunes
For the early years of Utah Territory, Heywoods diary Moscow bureau, and in 1956 she returned to Washington to cover
remains one of the richest sources of information on social the diplomatic beat. From then on, her competition claimed
conditions, polygamy, the difculties of communal living, life in Higgins could be counted on to show up wherever a crisis
isolated towns, and the indispensable role of women in Mormon occurred, from the Congo to the Dominican Republic. In 1963
settlements. Higgins resigned to become a syndicated columnist for Long
Islands Newsday.
OTHER WORKS: Not by Bread Alone: The Journal of Martha Out of her experiences covering the Korean conict came
Spence Heywood (1978). War in Korea: The Report of a Woman Combat Correspondent
The papers of Martha Spence Heywood are in private posses- (1951), which also appeared in a condensed form in Womans
sion of family members in Holbrook, Arizona. Home Companion in 1951. The book was a bestseller, and
Higgins became an overnight sensation, touring and lecturing
throughout the country. In Report of a Woman Combat Corre-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ursenbach, M., Three Women and the Life of spondent, Higgins recounted her experiences on the front in Korea
the Mind, in Utah Historical Quarterly (Winter 1975). with a lively style and the sense of adventurous excitement she
felt. Although the book tends to provide an unbalanced view of
MIRIAM B. MURPHY history, reviews were favorable, and it enjoyed a wide readership.
In 1954 Higgins received a Guggenheim Fellowship, allow-
ing her to make a 10-week tour of Russia. Her experiences and
reactions to life in Cold War Russia during the 13,500-mile trek
HIGGINS, Marguerite are detailed in Red Plush and Black Bread, published in 1956.
Born 3 September 1920, Hong Kong; died 3 January 1966, Higgins and her longtime personal friend, the late newsman
Washington, D.C. Peter Lisagor, together wrote and published Overtime in Heaven:
Daughter of Lawrence D. and Marguerite Godard Higgins; Adventures in the Foreign Service (1964), a series of be-
married Stanley Moore, 1940; William E. Hall, 1952; child- hind-the-scenes true stories of 10 Foreign Service incidents. A
ren two highly entertaining set of adventure vignettes, the series won
credits for its carefully researched and documented materials,
although one critic noted they had created a composite portrait
Marguerite Higgins was born in the British Crown Colony of
of the Foreign Service man who looks suspiciously like a more
Hong Kong to a globetrotting businessman and his French war
moral James Bond.
bride. Marguerite was educated in France and England, and when
the Higgins family returned to the U.S., she was enrolled in an Higgins became increasingly interested in Vietnam as the
exclusive private school in Oakland, California. After graduating country opened up into one of the worlds most controversial hot
from the University of California at Berkeley, with honors in spots, and she made 10 trips there. In late 1965, she was air
1940, she went to work as a cub reporter for the local Vallejo ambulanced home, the victim of leishmaniasis, a disease brought
Times-Herald. She was hired by the New York Herald Tribune on by the bite of a tropical sandy, and within six weeks she
after receiving her masters degree from Columbia Universitys was dead.
Graduate School of Journalism; she worked for the paper for the
next 21 years. Her Vietnam study, Our Vietnam Nightmare (1965), present-
ed her research and conclusions on what was actually happening
After three routine years on the Tribune reporting city in Vietnam as a result of U.S. foreign policy and actions, covering
visitors, suburban res, and visiting royalty, Higgins won a the period from the Buddhist revolt and Diems fall in 1963 to the
coveted spot in the London bureau. Shortly thereafter, she trans- changing political tactics of the Viet Cong in the summer of 1965.
ferred to the Paris bureaulargely because of her prociency in Herman Dinsmore, former New York Times international edition
Frenchand soon found herself reporting the wartime liberation editor, called it superb. He said, She was not the most popular
of Europe. She made the front page regularly and built up a correspondent for one excellent reason: she was so brilliant she
respected name for herself among the most experienced foreign outshone every writer around her, men and women: and, of
correspondents in the world. She was twenty-ve when the course, she was industrious, clever, and, of all things, patriotic.
208
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HIGGINSON
OTHER WORKS: News Is a Singular Thing (1955). Jessie Benton Century, Harpers Weekly, Cosmopolitan, Short Stories, New
Frmont (1962). Peterson, McClures, and Colliers. Higginsons stories were
collected in several volumes. Her stories of common people of the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Army Times editors, American Heroes of Asian Far West were praised by the Overland Monthly as unpreten-
Wars (1968). Fleming, A. M., Reporters at War (1970). Forese, A., tious tales. . .told simply and naturally, yet so vivid and graphic
American Women Who Scored Firsts (1958). Jakes, J., Great War are they, that they charm the reader from the rst to the last. The
Correspondents (1967). Kelly, F. K., Reporters Around the Outlook described her as one of the best American short story
World (1957). writers, while the Chicago Tribune noted: Mrs. Higginson has
Reference works: CA (1969, 1971). CB (June 1951, Feb. shown a breadth of treatment and knowledge of the everlasting
1966). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United human verities that equals much of the best work of France.
States (1995).
Higginsons poetry appeared in magazines such as Atlantic,
Other references: Life (2 Oct. 1950). NYHT (16 Feb. 1946, 19
Harpers, and Scribners and in the columns of many Pacic
Oct. 1950, 8 May 1951). NYT (8 May 1951). Time (25 Sept. 1950).
Coast and Eastern newspapers. Two of her most popular poems
KATHLEEN KEARNEY KEESHEN were Gods Creed and Four Leaf Clover. Many of her
poems were set to music and performed by singers such as Caruso,
McCormack, and Calve. The vivid imagery and singing quality of
her poetry were achieved through diligenceshe often rewrote a
HIGGINSON, Ella Rhoads dozen timesand keen observation of nature. Many poems deal
with the theme of the Pacic Northwest, and several, such as
Born circa 1860, Council Grove, Kansas; died 29 December The Grande Ronde Valley and The Evergreen Pine, are
1940, Bellingham, Washington specically about Oregon.
Wrote under: Ella Higginson, Ella Rhoads
Higginsons only published novel, Mariella, of Out West
Daughter of Charles and Mary Ann Rhoads; married Russell C.
Higginson, circa 1880 (1904), presents a young girl facing a hard frontier farming life,
the economic boom of 1888-89, and the proposals of men who
In the early 1860s, Ella Rhoads Higginsons family crossed represent a variety of social backgrounds. The novel conveys a
the plains from Kansas to the Grand Ronde Valley of Oregon. In strong feeling for nature coupled with a sense of piety and
1870 they moved to Portland and then to a farm eight miles from spirituality. Alaska, the Great Country (1908), Higginsons last
town. Later they lived in Oregon City, where Higginson received book, is a combination of guide book, history, and romance.
her few years of education in a public school. The youngest of
As a writer of poetry, short stories, travel articles, songs, and
three children, Higginson enjoyed freedom from punishments and
one novel, Higginson achieved prominence in the ranks of Pacic
farm chores. Although the family was poor, their home was lled
Northwest authors and earned national and international recogni-
with good books, visitors, and conversation. Her fathers ability as
tion for several of her works. The states of Oregon and Washing-
a storyteller and her mothers poetic sensitivity to the beauty of
ton both claimed her as a daughter, and she was honored in 1931
nature enriched Higginsons childhood experiences.
as Washingtons poet laureate. Higginson realized her lifes
At the age of eight, Higginson wrote her rst poem and was ambition based on what she termed the consuming desire to
encouraged to continue writing by her mother and her sister, write. As she explained, It is the only thing I ever really
Carrie Blake Morgan, who later became known as a poet in her wanted to do.
own right as the author of Path of Gold. Her father and her brother
laughed at her early poetic attempts, but at fourteen Higginson
published a love poem in the Oregon City paper. At sixteen she OTHER WORKS: A Bunch of Western Clover (1894). The Flower
joined the newspaper staff to learn everything from typesetting to That Grew in the Sand (1896). The Forest Orchid (1897). From
editorial writing. Early stories were contributed to the West Shore, the Land of the Snow Pearls (1897). When the Birds Go North
a Portland literary magazine, and to the Salem Oregon Literary Again (1898). The Voice of April-Land, and Other Poems (1903).
Vidette. The Vanishing Race, and Other Poems (1911).
The papers of Ella Rhoads Higginson are housed at the
In 1888 Higginson moved to Whatcom (now Bellingham),
Oregon Historical Society in Portland, Oregon.
Washington, with her husband. A druggist from New York, he
possessed charming Eastern manners but, according to
Higginson, did not sufciently encourage or appreciate her liter-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Horner, J. B., Oregon Literature (1902). Pow-
ary work. From Bellingham she edited a department entitled
ers, A., History of Oregon Literature (1935). Smith, H. K., ed.,
Fact and Fancy for Women for the weekly West Shore. Her
With Her Own Wings (1948). Turnbull, G. S., History of Oregon
rst column, in 1890, presented advanced views on the controver-
Newspapers (1939).
sial subject of divorce.
Reference works: AW.
For 25 years after the demise of the West Shore in 1891,
Higginson contributed ction to national magazines such as JEAN M. WARD
209
HIGHAM AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
HIGHAM, Mary R. in women the active qualities it values in its males. The novels
thus chart and underscore, through their negative portrayal of the
role of bright women in the mid-19th century, the need for social
Born circa 1850; died death date unknown change; for while Highams plots afrm the current order, her
most vividly crafted characters and her own authorial intru-
Veried biographical information on Mary R. Higham is sions do not.
unavailable, but it is likely she was born sometime around 1850
and was a Northerner. SUSAN CLARK
In addition to works of juvenile literature, Higham published

several novels in which initially impetuous young women learn to
bend their wills to the men they will ultimately marry. The process
by which Highams heroines change on their way to the altar most
HIGHET, Helen MacInnes
See MacINNES, Helen
often goes hand in hand with religious conversions or mission-
ary zeal.
In Cloverly (1875), rash Barbara Fox learns to read Thomas
Kempis and to like parish work, at Reverend Aymars instiga- HIGHSMITH, Patricia
tions, before she weds the clergyman. The heroine of Agatha
Lees Inheritance (1878) is led, with frequent reference by semi- Born Mary Patricia Plangman, 19 January 1921, Fort Worth,
narian Paul Endicott to Bunyans Pilgrims Progress, to pledging Texas; died 5 February 1995
her monetary resources to further Christian foreign missions, at Also wrote under: Claire Morgan
which point Paul nally proposes. The Other House (1878) charts Daughter of Jay B. and Mary Coates Plangman
the love affairs of the Gallantin sisters, one of whom sweetly
supports her family until she marries a clergyman, while her
Both of Patricia Highsmiths natural parents were artists, as
younger sister rages against a doctor until she sees and participates
was her stepfather, Stanley Highsmith, whom her mother married
in his Christian witness to the poor. Athols (1873) Atholinda
when Patricia was three. By the time Highsmith graduated from
Derwint spends six months in a convent before seeking out,
Barnard in 1942, she had decided to put her creative energy into
nursing, and marrying her guardian, a Civil War amputee bur-
writing rather than painting. But she still sees with a painters eye;
dened with a secret past and mercurial moods.
the landscapes and cityscapes of her crime novels are cleanly
Highams heroines advance toward matrimony at an irregu- drawn and evocative. By 1949 she was able to travel to Europe,
lar pace that is keyed directly to their spiritual development. They where she eventually settled, rst in England, later in France.
cannot be wives until they have subordinated themselves to divine
It has been recognized for some time, especially in Europe,
will as manifested in their immediate circumstances, and Higham
that Highsmith writes crime novels of great psychological acuity.
describes divine power in terms of the limitations that it places
In 1964 Brigid Brophy ranked her with Georges Simenon, and
upon humans freedom and sense of control of their own lives.
critical opinion has increasingly conrmed Brophys judgement.
Her heroines are uniformly women who chafe under restraint only
Highsmiths rst novel, Strangers on a Train (1950), introduced a
to the point where they adapt to their restrictions, so they view and
plot twist of considerable originality: an innocent, decent man
proclaim them not as curbs on their freedom but rather as
meets a man who is evil, or mad, or both, and through this meeting
necessary bridles on their sinful natures. Accordingly, the hero-
and the collusion of events, the innocent becomes a murderer. The
ines nd themselves in the roles of perpetual daughters and
Blunderer (1954) repeats this conguration of main characters
children.
and lays heavy emphasis on the power of rumor and sensational
Highams novels allow for temporary assertiveness and publicity in modern society. The court of public opinion convicts
rebellion on the part of her heroines, but all, like Athol, come Walter Stackhouse of a murder he has twice resisted the tempta-
around to acknowledging the manly vigor that one instinctively tion to commit.
liked and recognized as superior. These women are thus por-
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955) won the Mystery Writers of
trayed as marrying older men who are often explicitly father
America Scroll and the Grand Prix de Littrature Policire in
gures or implicitly spiritual fathers. The unmitigated slavery of
1957. It introduced a genuinely fascinating character, Tom Ripley,
childhood is an ongoing process, as Higham portrays it with
who also stars with chilling blandness in two later novels. Rarely
considerable irony, for her heroines never progress beyond the
has an amoral murderer been so likeable, had such good inten-
state of being constantly instructed, chastised, and led to what
their future spouses paternalistically feel is best for them. tions, projected such pathos. Tom, having met Dickie Greenleaf, a
man who has or is everything Tom wants, kills Dickie and then
Highams novels, while they are typical of the period in their becomes him. Tom wears Dickies clothes and personality until
somewhat orid style, are atypical with respect to both the irony he has acquired sufcient condence to reassume his own name.
the author injects into her treatments of the subjection of young Toms story is a sort of unholy rite of passage. These three novels
women and her subtle indictment of a society choosing to ignore introduce the main themes Highsmiths crime novels explore and
210
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HIGHSMITH
the central plot device on which she rings a number of variations. With Ripley Under Water (1992), Highsmith returned to the
Several of her novels revolve around an increasingly compulsive Ripley stories begun in 1955. In this novel, almost the entire
relationship between a good and an evil man. emphasis is on psychological one-upmanship as Pritchard, a
full-blown sadist, torments Ripley about the one crime Tom
Highsmith never exploits this device for the same thematic
wishes he had not committed, the murder of Dickie Greenleaf.
purposes twice. In The Cry of the Owl (1962), the former mental
The emphasis on weakness and power again displaces the conict
patient and voyeur turns out to be the beleaguered innocent, and
between good and evil, as Tom Ripley (remembered from the
the clean-cut American boy is revealed as a natural killer, waiting
earlier books) is far more charming and sympathetic than Pritchard.
for the right combination of circumstances to trigger his violence.
While this latest Ripley novel is not nearly so satisfying as the
In The Two Faces of January (1964), which was the Crime
earlier ones, it does create a sense of menace and psychological
Writers Association of Englands novel of the year, and Those
anxiety. The Ripley stories are, according to Julian Symons,
Who Walk Away (1967), it is the innocent who attach themselves
Highsmiths most popular because contemporary readers feel
to the guilty and, for their own psychological purposes, haunt
that crime is more interesting than its detection, and that
them. The main theme of A Dogs Ransom (1972) is the break-
intelligent criminals are to be congratulated or at least admired.
down of the social institutions meant to protect the decent from
predators. Other books include two collections, Slowly, Slowly in the
Wind (1979), a series of stories including tales of revenge, murder,
In Tom Ripley, Highsmith created the rst of several charac-
and muggings, and Black House (1981), comprised of tales
ters who unite terrible innocence and terrible guilt in one person-
focusing on violence and the seemingly ordinary people who
ality. Vic Van Allens well-earned reputation for being the most
commit bizarre and outlandish acts. A novel, People Who Knock
long-suffering of upright citizens protects him long enough to
at the Door (1983), shifts her focus from crime to religion and
commit murder twice, in Deep Water (1957). In This Sweet
analyzes the behavior, often malignant, of a fundamentalist relig-
Sickness (1960), when David Kelsey retreats into an imaginary
ious colony.
life and personality in order to enjoy the success in love that reality
has denied him, he begins a slow deterioration into dangerous Highsmiths last novels returned to the gay and lesbian
madness. theme. She had dealt with the topic in her 1952 lesbian novel, The
Price of Salt, which was republished in 1991 with a new title,
One of Highsmiths major themes, then, is the ease with
Carol. It is about a department store worker who initiates a
which a decent man can cross the line into criminality, or a sane
relationship with a customer and eventually becomes her lover.
one slip into insanity. In her world, society can be counted on to
Highsmith had originally published the book under the pseudo-
accelerate these disasters in a variety of ways: by protecting the
nym Claire Morgan but acknowledged she was the author when
guilty, harassing the innocent, brutalizing prisoners, enjoying
the book was reprinted. Found in the Street (1986) is set in New
innuendo, wallowing in sensationalism, and tolerating terrorism.
York and is the story of a married couple, Jack and Natalia
As the 1980s approached, Highsmith continued to write Sutherland, and their daughter, Amelia; Elsie Taylor, a waitress
psychological crime ction. Yet it was increasingly not only the who is taken up by the Sutherlands and later murdered; and Ralph
criminal mind that attracted her; rather, it was the mind of the Linderman, a puritanical security guard. In this novel, too, gay and
person battling against stronger enemiesthe shift in emphasis lesbian homosexuality is a strong issue.
from good and evil to weakness and strength is an important one in
Her last novel, Small g: A Summer Idyll (1995), takes place in
much of her later ction. Ediths Diary (1977) and Little Tales of
Switzerland and has both homosexual and heterosexual charac-
Misogyny (1977, published in German in 1974) both focus on the
ters. Russell Harrison called it her most plotless creation. It
lives of women who are trapped by circumstances and by their
was published in England, Germany, and France. Knopf rejected
own unwise choices. In Ediths case, powerlessness is compound-
the manuscript in the U.S.; Highsmith felt they did so out of fear of
ed by the characters need to pretend. Edith escapes into her diary
offending conservatives.
in which she creates a happy family with a successful and loving
son. The diary becomes more ctitious as the events and the Highsmith had moved permanently to Europe in 1963 and
people in Ediths life become more and more disappointing. Many spent her last years in Switzerland, living quietly with her cats and
of the sketches of women in Little Tales of Misogyny also declining most interviews. Although many people know her as the
highlight the failure of characters to look at reality squarely and to author of Strangers on a Train, her work as a whole has been
take control of their lives. better known and honored in Europe than in her native Unit-
ed States.
The stories, in Andrew Macdonalds words, seem medieval
misogynist tracts, but they are also examinations of how women In February of 1995 Highsmith died in Switzerland of lung
who are already socially stereotyped accept and abet their limited cancer and aplastic anemia. She left her $3 million estate to
and limiting classications. The two books illustrate Highsmiths Yaddo, the artists community in Saratoga Springs, New York,
clear eye for the ways in which power is used to entrap and destroy where she completed Strangers on a Train, her rst and most
women, and the authors sense of menace, a hallmark of much of famous novel. According to Yaddo president Michael Sundell,
her earlier ction, is present sometimes in physical, but mostly in quoted in Publishers Weekly, Highsmith felt that she had gained
psychological brutalization. her identity as an artist at Yaddo, and she wished by her gift to
211
HILL-LUTZ AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
provide the same opportunity for future generations of Yaddo her mother as an individual, Hill-Lutz published three novels
guests. under her mothers given name, Marcia Macdonald. Hill-Lutzs
father, a Presbyterian minister, also did some writing, exclusively
Highsmith should not be approached as a mystery or sus- on theological topics. His inuence is reected in Hill-Lutzs
pense novelist, since there are very few mysteries and little establishment and direction of a mission Sunday school in
suspense in her books. At her best, however, she was a sensitive Swarthmore. Perhaps the strongest of all family inuences was
chronicler of psychological stress and deterioration and a clear-eyed that of her aunt, Isabella Macdonald (Pansy) Alden, an author
observer of social tragedy.
who not only encouraged Hill-Lutz to write but persuaded her
own publisher to print the youngsters rst effort, The Esseltynes;
OTHER WORKS: A Game for the Living (1958). Miranda the or, Alpsonso and Marguerite.
Panda is on the Veranda (with D. Sanders, 1958). The Glass Cell Hill-Lutzs rst husband, also a Presbyterian minister, died
(1964). The Story-Teller (English title, A Suspension of Mercy, after seven years of marriage. Hill-Lutz was forced to publish
1965). Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction (1966, 1983, re- enough to support herself and her two daughters. She began with
vised 1990). The Tremor of Forgery (1969). Ripley Under Ground Sunday school lessons in a column syndicated by 10 local
(1970). The Snail Watcher, and Other Stories (English title, newspapers, but soon turned to ction. By 1904 she was success-
Eleven, 1970). Little Tales of Misogyny (in German, 1974; in ful enough to build herself a comfortable home in Swarthmore.
English, 1977). Ripleys Game (1974). The Animal Lovers Book Hill-Lutzs second marriage was unhappy and soon led to separa-
of Beastly Murder (1975). The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980). tion, although she remained adamant in her opposition to divorce.
Mermaids on the Golf Course (1985). The Mysterious Mr. Ripley She was active as a writer until the end of her life, her nal novel
(1985). Found in the Street (1986). Tales of Natural and Unnatu- being completed by her daughter Ruth for posthumous publication.
ral Catastrophes (1987). The Talented Mr. Ripley; Ripley Under
Ground; Ripleys Game; The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1994). Hill-Lutz worked in a wide range of genres, specializing in
the adventure story and contemporary romance but also including
fantasy (her rst novel, A Chautauqua Idyll, 1887), nonction
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brophy, B., Dont Never Forget (1966). (The War Romance of the Salvation Army, 1919), historical
Cavigelli, F. and F. Senn, eds., ber Patricia Highsmith (1980). romance (Marcia Schuyler, 1908), and mystery (The Mystery of
Harrison, R., Patricia Highsmith (1997). Mary, 1912). She wrote 107 books, which sold over three million
Reference works: Concise Survey of Short Fiction (1991). copies during her lifetime.
CANR (1987). CLC (1974, 1975, 1980, 1987). CN (1976, 1991).
Detecting Women (1994). Encyclopedia Mysteriosa (1994). FC Hill-Lutz was especially successful at writing fast-paced
(1990). MTCW (1991). St. James Guide to Crime & Mystery adventures featuring intelligent and resourceful heroines. A good
Writers (1996). example is The Red Signal (1919), set during World War I. When
Other references: Armchair Detective (Fall 1981). Clues the German truck farm where young Hilda Lessing works turns
(Spring/Summer 1984). London (June 1969, June-July 1972). out to be swarming with German spy activity, Hilda shows herself
Midwest Quarterly (Apr. 1984). NYTBR (29 Jan. 1989, 18 Oct. to be both brave and lucky as she saves the U.S. from a major
1992). TLS (24 Sept. 1971, 4 Oct. 1991, 17 Apr. 1992). Vanity disaster and wins a presidential medal. She also wins the reward
Fair (Mar. 1999). reserved for all of Hill-Lutzs nest heroinesmarriage with a
handsome and afuent young man. Although the historical per-
CAROL CLEVELAND, spective is simplisticWorld War I is explained as the result of
UPDATED BY MARY A. MCCAY AND KAREN LESLIE BOYD Germanys forgetting Godand although the plot turns on
some very unlikely coincidences, the narrative is compelling
enough to have thrilled many a reader.
Hill-Lutzs most popular books were contemporary romanc-

HILL-LUTZ, Grace Livingston es, such as Matched Pearls (1933), Beauty for Ashes (1935), and
April Gold (1936). The most widely read of all, The Witness
Born 15 April 1865, Wellsville, New York; died 23 February (1917), brought her thousands of letters of gratitude. In it as in
1947, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania most of her books, she utilizes one-dimensional characterization
Also wrote under: Grace Livingston Hill, Grace Livingston, in which Christian believers are sincere, brave, and atruistic while
Marcia Macdonald unbelievers are selsh and corrupt. Paul Courtland is the typical
Daughter of Charles M. and Marcia Macdonald Livingston; Hill-Lutz hero: rich, handsome, popular, athletic, a Phi Beta
married Frank Hill, 1892 (died); Flavius J. Lutz, 1916 Kappa man. A rich girl, who parallels the biblical scarlet
(separated); children: two daughters woman by attempting to seduce Paul away from his faith,
possesses a nasty little chin with a Satanic point. She is
Grace Livingston Hill-Lutzs mother published four romanc- contrasted with a poor orphan girl who, because of her modesty
es under the name of Mrs. C. M. Livingston, but devoted herself and integrity, wins the prize of marriage to the hero. Hill-Lutz
primarily to being a preachers wife. Apparently in order to honor manifests a lively sense of social justice by having Paul refuse a
212
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HIRSHFIELD
lucrative management position in a company that exploits its Crimson Mountain (1942). The Girl of the Woods (1942). The
factory workers in unsafe conditions. The novels theme is the Street of the City (1942). The Sound of the Trumpet (1943). The
actual presence of Christ in any life devoted to human concern and Spice Box (1943). Through These Fires (1943). More Than
justice. As one character puts it, Its heaven or hell, both now Conquerer (1944). All Through the Night (1945). A Girl to Come
and hereafter. Home To (1945). Bright Arrows (1946). Where Two Ways Met
(1947). Mary Arden (completed by R. L. Hill, 1948).
Hill-Lutz knew how to wring human emotion and enlist
current events to enliven her novels while she was making fairly
overt attempts to convert her readers to Christ. For instance, a BIBLIOGRAPHY: Karr, J., Grace Livingston Hill: Her Story and
1944 novel, Time of the Singing of Birds, features an attractive Her Writings (1948).
ofcer who returns wounded from World War II. When he Reference works: DAB. NAW (1971). Readers Encyclope-
eventually marries the most deserving of his Christian girlfriends, dia of American Literature (1962). TCA, TCAS.
an observer comments, Heavens! If I thought I could have a Other references: Book News Monthly (Oct. 1915).
marriage like that it would be worth-while trying to be a Christian.
VIRGINIA RAMEY MOLLENKOTT
Improbable coincidence, avoidance of moral ambiguity, un-
conscious sexism, and almost exclusive use of stock characters
work together to keep Hill-Lutzs ction lightweight. But her
fast-paced upbeat style has refreshed and relaxed many people. HIRSHFIELD, Jane
And there can be little doubt Hill-Lutz provided a shining ideal for
younger readers by featuring so many heroines of unshakable Born 1953, New York, New York
standards and determined, triumphant integrity.
Attentiveness, writes Jane Hirsheld in the preface to her
OTHER WORKS: A Little Servant (1890). The Parkers-town Dele- collection of essays, only deepens what it regards, and if
gate (1892). Katharines Yesterday, and Other Christian Endeav- Hirshelds opus is about anything, it is about this power of
or Stories (1895). In the Way (1897). Lone Point; a Summer attentiveness and the resultant clarication of being. Her case for
Outing (1898). A Daily Rate (1900). The Angel of His Presence poetry is that words are a path into concentration, a state that is
(1902). An Unwilling Guest (1902). According to the Pattern penetrating, unied, focused, yet also permeable and open; that
(1903). The Story of a Whim (1903). Because of Stephen (1904). writing begins when willed effort drops away, when the writer
The Girl from Montana (1908). Phoebe Deane (1909). Dawn of (and then the reader) enters the ow, the effortless effort. Jane
the Morning (1910). Aunt Cretes Emancipation (1911). The Best Hirshelds poems are records of such attentiveness, intimacy,
Man (1914). The Man of the Desert (1914). Miranda (1915). The immersion, the self meeting the Self.
Finding of Jasper Holt (1916). A Voice in the Wilderness (1916). Hirshelds work came to national prominence beginning in
The Enchanted Barn (1918). The Search (1919). Cloudy Jewel the mid-1980s. During this time, she lived in residence at Yaddo,
(1920). Exit Betty (1920). The Tryst (1921). The City of Fire McDowell, and Djerassi, and was awarded both Guggenheim and
(1922). The Big Blue Soldier (1923). Tomorrow About This Time Rockefeller fellowships. Her poems written in free verse, Ameri-
(1923). Re-Creations (1924). Ariel Custer (1925). Not Under the can diction, have appeared in journals from Agni to ZYZZYVA,
Law (1925). Coming Through the Rye (1926). A New Name and in all notables between.
(1926). The Honor Girl (1927). Jobs Niece (1927). The White
Flower (1927). Blue Ruin (1928). Crimson Roses (1928). Found In rst grade, the poet wrote on a large sheet of unlined paper,
Treasure (1928). Duskin (1929). Out of the Storm (1929). The I want to be a writer when I grow up, and, fatefully, the rst
Prodigal Girl (1929). The Gold Shoe (1930). Ladybird (1930). book she ever bought, at age nine, was a collection of haiku. An
The White Lady (1930). The Chance of a Lifetime (1931). Kerry undergraduate at Princeton, she created a dual major: creative
(1931). Silver Wings (1931). Beggarman (1932). The Challengers writing and literature in translation, and though she won the
poetry contest of Nation for work written while still an under-
(1932). Happiness Hill (1932). Her Wedding Garment (1932).
graduate, she did not pursue an M.F.A. Instead, she began to study
The House Across the Hedge (1932). The Story of the Lost Star
Zen, entering an eight-year monastic practice, and including three
(1932). The Beloved Stranger (1933). The Ransom (1933). Amorelle
years at Tassajara, a rural Zen community in Northern California.
(1934). The Christmas Bride (1934). Rainbow Cottage (1934).
The Strange Proposal (1935). White Orchids (1935). Mystery After leaving formal Zen training, Hirsheld published two
Flowers (1936). The Substitute Guest (1936). Brentwood (1937). collections of poetry, Alaya (1982) and Of Gravity & Angels
Daphne Deane (1937). Sunrise (1937). The Best Birthday (1938). (1988). She also returned to work begun as an undergraduate, the
The Divided Battle (1938). Dwelling (1938). Homing (1938). The translation of Japanese womens poetry. The poets third col-
Lost Message (1938). Maria (1938). Marigold (1938). The Minis- lection, The October Palace (1994), evoked this description
ters Son (1938). Patricia (1939). The Seventh Hour (1939). from Womens Review of Books: These imagistically precise,
Stranger Within the Gates (1939). Head of the House (1940). celebratory poems reveal the interconnections between interior
Partners (1940). Rose Galbraith (1940). Astra (1941). By Way of and exterior worlds, and this comment, A radiant and passion-
the Silverthorns (1941). In Tune with Wedding Bells (1941). ate collection, from the New York Times Book Review. These
213
HITE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
poems owe much to Hirshelds commitment to both Buddhist Ashamed, not at my tears, / or even at what has been wasted, / but
meditation (a student of Zen since 1974) and to her practice of to have been dry-eyed so long.
moving poetry forward with the fundamental energy of passion.
The opening section, What the Heart Wants, announces this Published in the same year, 1997, but written during the
collections deep structure. Titles praise presence and mutability, previous decade, Hirshelds book of essays on poetry, Nine
the serene and the sensual: Each Step, History as the Painter Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry, is described as, doing for
Bonnard, Floor, A Sweetening All Around Me As It poetry what Pound intended to do at the turn of the century:
Falls. These opening lines from The House in Winter reveal through juxtaposition of the familiar and the unknown, it
the writers rhetorical stance, musicality, image and voice, the reinvigorates our thinking about the possibilities of the art. The
transforming arc of attention: Here in the years late tide-wash, / nine essays of this volume explore particular strategies of lan-
a corner cupboard suddenly wavers / in low-ung sunlight, / guage and thinking, the ways a poem can illumine the circuitous
cupboard never quite visible before. / Its jars of last summers passage between the inner and outer worlds and thus awaken
peaches / have come into their native gold / not the sweetness of consciousness. These essays are not abstract, not essays about
last summer, / but todays, / fresh from the tree of winter. / The criticism, but writing discoveries shared with the reader: Meta-
mouth swallows peach, and says gold. phor isnt embellishment; its way of thinking came rst and was
followed by abstract thought. Freedom from the words of the
Jane Hirsheld has been honored with a Pushcart Prize, the original combined with a deep love of its words lies at the heart of
Commonwealth Club of Californias Poetry Medal, the Poetry translation. No matter how the reader (or writer) concentrates,
Center Book award, and, with the publication of The Ink Dark a poem can never be completely entered or known. It is the task
Moon: Poems by Ono no Komanchi and Isumi Shikibu (1988), of the writer to become permeable and transparent; to become, in
Columbia Universitys Translation Center award. In all her work, the words of Henry James, a person on whom nothing is lost.
the poet pays tribute to her colleagues (translator Mariko Arantani, The poet, Jane Hirsheld, is just such a writer.
editor Hugh Van Dusen), her teachers (Lewis Hyde, Ono no
Komanchi, Gary Snyder), her muses (Giotto, Novalis, Wu Feng,
cucumber, egret, poppy), and those whose voices have been BIBLIOGRAPHY: Other references: Atlantic Unbound (1997). LJ
lost. To read her poems is to encounter not only the poet but the (1997). Ploughshares (Spring 1998).
lives and hearts of others.
ANN STALEY
Hirshelds inclusiveness, her spiritual and intellectual reach,
led her to edit the anthology Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43
Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women (1994). A record of
intimacy with the sacred, this book includes texts from Enheduanna
(the earliest identied author of either sex in world literature), HITE, Shere
Makeda, Queen of Sheba, the Tamil saint Antal, Mechtild of
Magdeburg, Mirabai, Anna Akhmatova, Nelly Sachs; each text is Born 2 November 1942, St Joseph, Missouri
a reminder that the numinous does not discriminate, that spiritual Daughter of Paul and Shirley Hurt Gregory, later adopted by
experience is fundamental to human life. In her essay The stepfather Raymond Hite; married Friedrich Horicke, 1985
Question of Originality (from Nine Gates), Hirsheld writes,
Originality requires an aptitude for exile, and the ability to Shere (pronounced Share) Hite burst onto the scene with The
become invisible, to offer oneself to the Other. She reminds us Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality in 1976. In
that it is no accident that we speak of a body of knowledge because it she challenged traditional theories about womens sexuality and
language begins in the facts of physical life. Like Yeats, she entered upon a life of controversy. Her subsequent work has
believes When I write it is myself that I remake. continued on this path, questioning current views on male sexuali-
Lives of the Heart (l997), with its 80 poems, is surely ty, womens satisfaction with their roles, and family life.
blueprint and map, a daybook of the poets remaking. A sequence From the beginning, Hites work has met with criticism
of 20 opens the volume: Secretive Heart, Heart Stopped in aimed at her feminist politics and her methodology. She is,
Panic and Grace, Heart Pressing Further. Among the 80, as indeed, a feminist, having embraced the movement in the late
well, a series of spells, Spell for Inviting-in the New Soul, 1960s when the National Organization for Women (NOW) pro-
poems that celebrate the concrete and illusory now, A Thinking tested an advertisement featuring her posing as a typist. The
Stillness, and, as always, Hirshelds lyric reckonings, White caption read: The typewriter is so smart she doesnt have to be.
Curtain in Sunlight and Wind. The reader recognizes in these Hite joined NOWs protest.
word-journeys that the real activity of poetry, as Hirsheld says, is
to discover wholeness and create wholeness, including the Response by women to The Hite Report was tremendous.
wholeness of the fragmentary and the broken as in A Month of The book, based on anonymous interviews of approximately
Days and NightsDays that could have / been anything, / 3,000 women, revealed how female sexuality from a womans
nights that could have been anything, / turned with the leaves. / point of view was quite different from what was considered the
Then, someone played / the piano / halting, unpracticed, and norm. Clitoral stimulation, not sexual intercourse itself, was the
perfect. / I listened to pity / and lowered my head in shame. / key to orgasm for most women, according to the study. This was
214
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HOBART
cataclysmic news at the time. What made the book hold even In addition to The Hite Reports, essays, and an early book on
greater impact and interest were the intimate details and anecdotes womens sexuality, Hites books include a ctionalized autobiog-
from the survey respondees. raphy, The Divine Comedy of Ariadne and Jupiter (1994), and an
autobiography, The Hite Report on Hite: A Sexual & Political
Through her survey, Hite explored the political, cultural, and
Autobiography (1996). She has often lectured at prestigious
biological contexts of sexuality and concluded that heretofore
universities, including Harvard, Oxford, and the Sorbonne. In
womens sexuality had been seen essentially as a response to
1998 she was a visiting professor at Nikon University in Japan.
male sexuality and intercourse. The book was a bestseller
nationally and internationally and it provoked heated discussions.
Hite responded to some of her critics in an article for the Journal BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: ANR (1990). CB (1988). Jour-
of the American Society of Sex Educators, Counselors and Thera- nal of the American Society of Sex Educators, Counselors and
pists. Her methodology, she explained, was indeed innovative. Therapists (Winter 1978). NYT (7 Apr. 1996). People (4 July
It sought to provide a large forum in which women could speak 1994). Time (12 Oct 1987). WSJ (13 Nov. 1987). WWAW (1998).
out freely and readers could decide for themselves how they
felt about the answers. In this, it was reective of the feminist JUDITH HARLAN
culture of the early 1970s, one of open forums and egalitarian
formats.
Hites second report, The Hite Report on Male Sexuality, was HOBART, Alice (Nourse) Tisdale
published in 1981. Her methodology here was the same as for her
book on women: questionnaires distributed through magazines Born 28 January 1882, Lockport, New York; died 14 March
and organizations. She reported men were deeply frustrated, 1967, Oakland, California
angry, or disappointed with their emotional relationships with Also wrote under: Alice Tisdale
women but also treasured them. She attributed much of Daughter of Edwin H. and Harriett Beaman Nourse; married
mens dissatisfaction to a patriarchal culture that limited them to Earle Tisdale Hobart, 1914
the role of being emotionally reserved, in control at all times.
Criticism for this book, the second in the Hite Report trilogy, was Alice Tisdale Hobart grew up near Chicago, Illinois, and
similar to that of the rst book, and the books popularity as a attended the University of Chicago. She then worked as a YWCA
bestseller was similar as well. secretary, later joining her elder sister, a teacher, in China. She and
her husband, an oil company executive, lived in China until 1927.
Hites nal book in what is considered her trilogy, The Hite
The Hobarts later made their home in California. Despite frequent
Report: Women and Love; A Cultural Revolution in Progress
ill health, the result of childhood meningitis aggravated by a fall,
(1987), used the same approach and methodology of the rst two.
Hobart loved travel and adventure. Her autobiography, Gustys
It immediately had the critics gnashing their teeth, according
Child (1959), gives a full account of her travels and literary career.
to Time magazine. And Time itself reported this new survey
often seems merely to provide an occasion for the authors own Hobart reported on her experiences in China in her rst three
male-bashing diatribes. On the other hand, Times next sentence books. Although she returned to China only for brief visits after
adds that Hite has tapped into a deep vein of female dissatisfac- 1927, it was the setting for much of her ction. She was fascinated
tion with love relationships. by the effects on both Chinese and Westerners of their contacts
with each other, as well as by the great difference between their
In 1994 Hites book, The Hite Report on the Family: Grow-
cultures. Pidgin Cargo (1929; reissued in 1934 as River Supreme,
ing Up Under Patriarchy, was published in the U.S. after having
Hobarts preferred title) tells the story of a steamboat builder so
rst been published in Great Britain. In this work, Hite anticipated
determined to conquer the Yangtse River that he sacrices his
her critics and took care to explain her methodology in the book:
family to his obsession. Western afnity for machinery is con-
My research methods can best be seen as a combination of
trasted with Chinese indifference to it, but both the Chinese and
sociology, psychology, and cultural history, together with innova-
the Westerners are changed by their meeting.
tions relating to feminist methodology, she wrote. She also
confessed it was becoming more and more difcult. . .to work In Oil for the Lamps of China (1933), Hobarts great bestsell-
and publish in a climate of media hostility and suspicion. er (lmed twice, in 1935 and again in 1941 as Law of the Tropics),
the subject is business, the experiences of Stephen and Hester
The controversy over Hites ideas, examinations of patriar-
Chase being loosely based on those of Hobart and her husband.
chy as an underlying factor in relationships, and her revelations
Important themes are the relationship between the two alien
about sexuality had often forced her into a defensive posture.
cultures and the companys exploitation of its employees. Yang
Personal threats, she reported, had caused her to move to Europe
and Yin (1936) studies the effect of cultural contact in the area of
in the early 1990s. She had married Friedrich Horicke, a German,
ideas; central characters are an American doctor and his proteg, a
in 1985, and in 1996 she relinquished her American citizenship to
young Chinese aristocrat. The chasm between the two cultures is
become a German citizen. In that year, 1996, the New York Times
also dramatized by other characters, particularly the women.
reported, The hunted look she had during her last years in the
United States has long gone, and she has regained her sense of When, much later, Hobart returned to her Chinese materials,
humorbut only because she is, at last, being taken seriously. she examined recent Chinese history and the new communist
215
HOBSON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
society. Venture into Darkness (1955), a study in guilt, responsi- the hero of her 1964 novel First Papers, closely resembles her
bility, and expiation, describes the experiences of an American father, who felt he must earn the right to his naturalization papers
banker who makes an ill-fated, illegal journey into communist as a liberal editor of a Yiddish newspaper and an adamant labor
China. The Innocent Dreamers (1963) centers on an interracial leader. The warm portrait of the Ivarin family is simultaneously
marriage, tracing the history of 20th-century China and the accurately detailed and sentimental in its evocation of the lower
divergent forces at work in it through the establishment and East Side life as it moved from the relative calm at the turn of the
dissolution of the family. century to the exciting, overcrowded pre-World War I period.
With one exceptionThe Peacock Sheds His Tail (1945), Hobsons background in advertising and publishing greatly
which is set in MexicoHobarts remaining novels deal with inuenced her ction. She worked as an advertising copywriter,
American themes and problems. Their Own Country (1940), a as a reporter with the New York Evening Post, and until 1940 as
sequel to Oil for the Lamps of China, brings Stephen and Hester promotion director of Time, as well as writing short stories for
back to the U.S. and describes their attempts to build a new life popular magazines such as Colliers, Ladies Home Journal,
during the Depression. An important subplot shows the struggle McCalls, and Cosmopolitan. With her husband, Thayer, Hobson
of several women musicians to achieve success while maintaining wrote two westerns. Divorced in 1935, she lived with her adopted
integrity. The Serpent-Wreathed Staff (1951) centers on a family sons Michael and Christopher in New York City, where she
of doctors; it implicitly attacks the American Medical Association continued to contribute to popular magazines and newspapers as
and argues for prepaid group preventive health care. Two other well as to publish short ction throughout her career as a novelist.
novels are specically Californian: The Cup and the Sword (1942;
lmed as This Earth Is Mine) centers on the wine country during Hobsons rst adult novel written on her own, The Trespass-
and after Prohibition. In The Cleft Rock (1948), set in the Central ers (1943), establishes the liberal tone and controversial subject
Valley, much of the action deals with the vexed question of water matter of all of her work. The double plot involves both a love
rights and the conicts between small and large farmers. story and a moral stand on the part of a strong, successful woman
and a powerful radio tycoon. Hobson is quite adept at presenting
The central theme in Hobarts work is social change. She also the minutia of the well-to-do New York liberal, including the
consistently dramatized a need to break with tradition, though she psychological intricacies of the male/female relationship as the
often sympathetically depicted old values. She saw hope for social lovers take opposing sides on the issue of the quota system that
amelioration through united action (in cooperatives and the like). prevented refugees from immigrating to the United States. One of
Her central characters often include both those who bring change the fascinating aspects of Hobsons ction is the consistent
and those who resist it most strongly; their interactions create the appearance of a strong-willed liberal female career woman who
dramatic tension in her work. Hobart perceived change as painful endangers her love relationship by supporting a causein this
and the results seldom totally desirable, but she always stressed as case the liberalization of the immigration laws.
most important the need for improvement in the lot of ordinary
people, be they Chinese, Mexican, or American. Gentlemans Agreement (1947) analyzes the social and eco-
nomic effects of anti-Semitism by tracing the experience of Phil
Green, a Gentile magazine writer, pretending hes a Jew to gather
OTHER WORKS: Pioneering Where the World Is Old: Leaves from material for a series on anti-Semitism. Hobson dramatizes so
a Manchurian Note-Book (1917). By the City of the Long Sand: A sharply the pain caused by anti-Semitism in the lives of Phil and
Tale of New China (1926). Within the Walls of Nanking (1928). those involved in his research that the reader identies with and
understands the subtle permeation of prejudice throughout the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: TCA. TCAS. American culture, particularly in the liberal Eastern establish-
Other references: NR (20 Sept. 1948). NYHTB (22 Aug. ment. The weakest element of the novel is the formulaic melodra-
1948, 4 Nov. 1951). NYT (15 Mar. 1967). NYTBR (8 Oct. 1933, 8 ma of the love relationship between Phil and Kathy Lacey, his
Nov. 1936, 31 Mar. 1940, 6 Sept. 1942). Saturday Review (20 editors niece.
Oct. 1945). Her most successful novel, Gentlemans Agreement sold
millions of copies and was translated into many languages. The
MARY JEAN DEMARR
lm version received the New York Film Critics Award and the
Academy Award for best picture of 1947. The effects of the
notoriety surrounding the literary success, including the Holly-
HOBSON, Laura (Keane) Z(ametkin) wood ordeal, supplied much of the subject matter and insight for
Hobsons 1951 novel, The Celebrity.
Born 18 June 1900, New York, New York; died 1986 Hobsons Consenting Adult (1975) manifests the same opti-
Also wrote under: Peter Field mistic liberal philosophy as her other work, and thereby allows for
Daughter of Michael and Adella Kean Zametkin; married Thayer the same personal identication with the protagonist, Tessa Lynn,
Hobson, 1930 (divorced 1935); children: Michael, Christopher the mother of a homosexual son, Jeff. After extensive attempts to
change Jeff, Tessa discovers she is the one who must change.
Most of Laura Z. Hobsons childhood was spent on Long Consenting Adult, however, does not have the powerful impact of
Island with her mother and father, a Russian migr. Stefan Ivarin, Gentlemans Agreement. The reader can readily empathize with
216
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HOFFMAN
Tessa and marvel at the exhausting research she does to publish a may be suspended for a time and even the most painful or
book for gay people and their parents. But Hobsons style, the objectionable subject can be contemplated.
slick prose of popular magazines, still tends toward righteous
passion, a sentimental if sincere cry for tolerance that might sear In Property of, set in the depths of the New York under-
the conscience if it were not for the necessary pat ending: ground of drugs and gangs, Hoffman introduces a theme that
Consenting adults, she thought, and a fullness rushed to her recurs in subsequent novels: the outsider searching to belong in
heart. To consent, to assent, to be in harmony, to give your impossible situations. The narrator, a 17-year-old girl in love with
blessing. I give my blessing, all my blessings. Then I am a a gang leader, tries initially to resist him and his world, where all
consenting adult too. the girlfriends are designated as property. Falling under the spell
of violence and of heroin, she succumbs but ultimately extricates
Hobsons ctional concerns reect her personal zeal for
herself from this primitive and chaotic atmosphere. Hoffmans
tolerance and understanding. Her novels are for the most part
second novel, The Drowning Season (1979, 1989), takes the
propaganda novels and suffer artistically from the strength of the
reader to the other end of the social spectrum. Its 18-year-old
message overpowering the style. But Hobson is an effective
storyteller, and Gentlemans Agreement, though somewhat dated, protagonist, Esther the Black, struggles for identity and connec-
still succeeds in creating a sharp awareness of the insidiousness tion against the forces of her wealthy Long Island family, and
and pain of bigotry. specically against her formidable grandmother, Esther the White.
Hoffman explores irony in plot and setting in Angel Landing

OTHER WORKS: Dry Gulch Adams (with T. Hobson, 1934). (1980, 1999), a romance about love in the face of destruction set at
Outlaws Three (with T. Hobson, 1934). A Dog of His Own (1941). a nuclear power plant. Like Property of, White Horses (1982)
The Other Father (1950). Im Going to Have a Baby (1967). The places an outsider in pursuit of an impossible person in an
Tenth Month (1971). Over and Above (1979). impossible situation. Teresa Connors waits, as her mother had, for
a savior, an Aria (her mothers term) to lift her out of the
uneventfulness of her life. She believes her brother, the odd and
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1976). CB (Sept. 1947).
elusive Silver, is her Aria; the novel traces the dangerous attrac-
TCAS.
tion between them. The feeling of suspension, so dominant in
Other references: Chicago Sun Book-Week (2 Mar. 1947).
Teresas life, is pursued through Fortunes Daughter (1985,
Life (27 Nov. 1964). NYHTB (9 Mar. 1947, 8 Nov. 1964).
Saturday Review (27 Feb. 1965). Time (29 May 1950, 9 Nov. 1953). 1994). Tracing the stages of womens lives on both a literal and
symbolic level, Hoffman again explores the relationship between
SUZANNE ALLEN two women.
Illumination Night (1987, 1994) focuses on the inner work-

ings of the family and the stresses from outside that threaten it.
HOFFMAN, Alice Hoffman uses agoraphobia to symbolize not only the powerless-
ness of Vonny, the novels primary female character, but also the
other characters loss of control in their lives.
Born 16 March 1952, New York, New York
Married Tom Martin; children: Jake, Zack In At Risk (1988, 1998), her most realistic novel to date,
Hoffman recounts the isolation and fragmentation of her family
Alice Hoffman grew up in Franklin Square, New York, that results when Amanda, an 11-year-old star gymnast, contracts
where she began writing at an early age. Her parents, who AIDS from a blood transfusion. Making use of a social issue that
divorced when she was eight years old, worked in real estate and comes complete with its own power of myth, Hoffman transforms
social work. She attended Adelphi University in Garden City, AIDS to the level of metaphor, detailing the stress not only to the
New York (B.A., 1973), received a fellowship to the writing family but also to the community.
program at Stanford University (M.A., 1975), and shortly thereaf-
ter began to publish stories. In 1976 she was awarded a fellowship The community struggling against what is foreign is also
at Breadloaf; her rst novel, Property of, appeared in 1977 explored in Seventh Heaven (1990, 1992). Turtle Moon (1992)
(reprinted in 1985, 1998). In addition to writing ction, Hoffman moves away from this pattern to assemble what seems to be an
is also a scriptwriter and reviewer. entire town of outsiders, some new to Verity, Florida, some who
Hoffman is particularly noted for infusing her realistic stories have lived all their lives there. Hoffman again presents the readers
with the mythical, lyrical, and metaphorical. Settings, even the with a surreal settinga town in the grips of excruciating heat, its
most ordinary, take on a surrealistic, dreamlike atmosphere where roads littered with fallen fruit and dying turtles following the
the reader is prepared for anything to happen. And almost any- moonlightwhere anything might happen. It is not a total shock
thing does, for Hoffman has tackled a wide range of issues in her when a young mother is murdered, her baby daughter is missing,
novels: gangs, incest, AIDS, suicide, promiscuity, aging, agora- and Keith, a troubled adolescent boy, disappears. The novel
phobia, cancer. Her mystical treatment of emotionally charged follows the search of Keiths mother for her son, a search that
issues allows the reader a measure of distance where judgement reveals both the truth of the dead womans past and of her own.
217
HOFFMAN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Second Nature (1994, 1998) is Hoffmans most surreal and HOFFMAN, Malvina
fantastical novel to date. The story itself resembles an allegorical
tale. Its central premise is based, in large part, on ancient myth: a
Born 15 June 1885, New York, New York; died 10 July 1966,
wild man raised by wolves, living in the woods of northern
New York, New York
Michigan, is caught by trappers and sent to the city where he is
Daughter of Richard and Fidelia Lamson Hoffman; married
incarcerated, the source of medical study and observation, soon to Samuel Grimson, 1924 (divorced 1936)
be transferred to the state hospital, a place that would hold him
forever. In many ways, this story is a nature myth: the mystical, Daughter of a celebrated German-born concert pianist, Malvina
lyrical texture of the wilds, where one is free, unbounded, symbi- Hoffman studied at the Brearley School and the Art Students
otic with nature, as opposed to the connes of the civilized world, League in New York. In 1910 she was accepted as a student by
where one is chained, bound to the distractions and unnatural acts Auguste Rodin and was associated with him until his death in
of domesticated, cultured life. But the two environs meet in 1917. This was the most formative inuence upon her work as a
Hoffmans tale of fantasy when Robin, a woman running from a sculptor; on his advice she studied anatomy and dissection for
bad marriage and her own disaffection and disappointment, three winters at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New
rescues the Wolf Man, only later to be rescued by him. York. Hoffman married a musician in 1924 and was divorced in
1936; there were no children.
Practical Magic (1995), Hoffmans 11th novel, establishes
the strength and enduring power of a matriarchy, generations of In 1930 Hoffman received what is believed to be the largest
women who pass along the secrets of living and loving through an commission ever given a sculptor: over 100 bronzes depicting the
array of psychological lters and interpretations. The novel tells races of mankind to be placed on exhibition at the Field Museum
the central story of two sisters, Gillian and Sally Owens, who are of Natural History in Chicago. This project, which opened in
raised by their two elderly and exotic aunts. The sisters escape the 1933, established Hoffmans reputation as a leading gure in
perceived threat of the mysterious and potentially dangerous American art. Other widely known pieces include a World War I
world of their aunts, women for whom love itself poses unseen but memorial entitled The Sacrice (1922), in Memorial Chapel at
not unexpected peril, only to return, women bound together Harvard, and portrait heads of Wendell Wilkie (1944) and of
by magic. Teilhard de Chardin (1948). Various individual works received
numerous prizes and awards. Hoffman was a fellow of the New
Hoffman has described the predominant theme of many of York Historical Society and a Chevalier of the Legion dHonneur.
her novels as the search for identity and connection. By raising
Heads and Tales in Many Lands (1937) is Hoffmans ac-
this quest to the mythical and metaphorical level, Hoffman allows
count of her around-the-world trip collecting and modeling ra-
the reader to look into the deepest fears and problems that are
cial types for the Field Museums Hall of Man. The collection
obstacles in the search.
was conceived as an artistic as well as scientic record of
mankind, especially the primitive races which seemed to be
endangered by the rapid diffusion of Western culture. Although
OTHER WORKS: Independence Day (screenplay, 1983). Fireies
she was assisted by ethnographers and anthropologists, each piece
(1997). Scribners Best of Fiction Workshops (1997). Here on
of sculpture was nally a record of the artists vivid impression.
Earth (1998). Local Girls (1999). I have tried, she wrote, both by the gestures and poise of the
various statues, as well as by the characterization in the facial
modeling, to give a convincing and lifelike impression. I watched
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Fiffer, S. S. and Fiffer, S., eds., Family: American the natives in their daily life. . . .Then I chose the moment at
Writers Remember Their Own (1997). Houston, P., ed., Women on which I felt each one represented something characteristic of his
Hunting (1994). race, and of no other.
Reference works: CA (1979). CANR (1991). CLC (1989).
MTCW (1991). Although a contemporary scientist praised her enthusiastic
Other references: Architectural Digest (1997). Boston Maga- portrayal of Africans, the collection has been criticized both for
zine (Oct. 1988). Book World (Jan. 1994, June 1995). Boston the conception of racial type and for the glorication of the Nordic
Review (Sept. 1985, Oct. 1987, April 1995). Critique (1997). type. Curiously, the statue representing the Nordic is based
Glamour (Dec. 1994). Ms. (2 Aug. 1979, 8 Feb. 1981). Newsweek upon a man Hoffman found in New York who had the best and
(20 Aug. 1979, 12 April 1982, 1 Aug. 1988). New Yorker (15 May most evenly developed physique she had ever seen. The Field
1985). NYT (14 July 1977, 25 July 1987). NYTBR (10 July 1977, Museum no longer displays the collection as a whole, but indi-
15 July 1979, 28 Mar. 1982, 24 Mar. 1985, 9 Aug. 1987, 26 Apr. vidual pieces are effective and reveal Hoffmans gift for portraiture.
1992). Observer (29 May 1983). TLS (21 Apr. 1978). WP (21 This project, which occupied Hoffman for most of ve years,
Dec.1980, 19 May 1985, 2 Aug. 1987). Yale Review (Win- is again discussed in her autobiography, Yesterday Is Tomorrow
ter 1978). (1965), which also treats the years of study with Rodin, and the
inuence of distinguished contemporaries such as sculptor Ivan
LINDA BERUBE, Mestrovic, pianist Paderewski, surgeon Dr. Harvey Cushing, and
UPDATED BY VICTORIA AARONS dancer Paul Draper and his sister Ruth, a monologist. There is an
218
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HOGAN
account of her friendship with the dancer Pavlova, which pro- at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis (1982-84) and at
duced a major work, Hoffmans 26 bas-relief panels depicting the Colorado College (1980-84). She was awarded both the Pushcart
Bacchanale (1924). Her textbook, Sculpture Inside and Out Prize and a National Endowment for the Arts grant in 1986. She
(1939), intended for beginning and amateur sculptors, shows her has also been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and of the
interest in the techniques of her art. Five Civilized Tribes Museum Playwriting award (1980) for A
Piece of Moon. She was the DArcy McNickle Fellow at the
As a sculptor Hoffman excelled in portraiture. Despite inter-
Newberry Library in 1981, a faculty fellow at the University of
est in modernism and exposure to Rodin, Hoffmans work is
Minnesota (1985), and the recipient of state arts grants from both
essentially realistic, often sentimental. Many individual pieces
Colorado (1984) and Minnesota (1985).
have charm, and all her work is strengthened by her mastery of
anatomy. Hoffmans prose, like her sculpture, is restrainedly Hogans rst book of poetry, Calling Myself Home (1978), is
genteel. The two biographical volumes provide useful documen- about discovering herself. In her introduction she wrote, These
tation of her social and artistic milieu, the lively New York- rst poems were part of that return for me, an identication with
London-Paris circuit of the rst half of this century. my tribe and the Oklahoma earth, a deep knowing and telling how
I was formed of these two powers, called ancestors and clay.
Home is in the blood, and I am still on the journey of calling
OTHER WORKS: Heads and Tales (1936). A Sculptors Odyssey
myself home. In Heritage she deals with the painful and
(1936). Map of Mankind (1946). Malvina Hoffman (1948).
also inescapable reality and knowledge of being mixed. A later
volume of poems, Seeing Through the Sun (1985), received an
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Field, H., The Races of Mankind (1933). American Book award for poetry from the Before Columbus
Reference works: CB (1940, Sept. 1966). NCAB. Foundation in 1986.
Other references: American Magazine of Art (Feb. 1934). Art
In That Horse (1985), a collection of notable short stories,
Digest (15 Oct. 1936, 15 March 1937). Art News (Sept. 1966).
Hogan incorporates both her own and her fathers story about the
JANE BENARDETE
same horse, pointing out that they are very different stories. Her
goal is to show the history of the time: That Horse deals with the
historical fact of ction and whats happened with Chickasaw
people and whats happened in my own family particularly. Red
HOGAN, Linda Clay: Poems and Stories (1991) brings together work previously
published in Calling Myself Home and That Horse.
Born 16 July 1947, Denver, Colorado Mean Spirit (1990), Hogans rst novel, received the Okla-
Daughter of Charles C. and Cleona Florine Bower Henderson; homa Book award for ction (1990) and the Mountains and Plains
married Pat Hogan (divorced); children: Sandra Dawn Booksellers Association Fiction award. In this long, sad, histori-
Protector, Tanya Thunder Horse cal novel, set in the early 1920s, Hogan chronicles the experience
of two Osage Indian families during a time when oil barons and
Poet and novelist Linda Hogan centers herself and, conse- government agents in Oklahoma swindle oil-rich, landowning
quently, her readers on what nature has to teach human beings and Indians out of their land and rights. Her writing style is spare and
on the regenerative female forces that shape the world. A writer of compact but rich in detailed descriptions of Native American
Chickasaw heritage, Hogan draws from the matrilineal and rituals and customs. To write this novel, Hogan drew again from
matrilocal precontact history of her ancestry. In her works, Hogan the history of her family. Like many Chickasaw and Choctaw
seeks to restore the balance between male and female power people in the 1930s, her family lost everything when the govern-
altered by the domination of Christian Europeans. She offers ment and the banks foreclosed on their land. When Hogan was
ancient wisdom about nature in mythological yet contempo- growing up, she was very conscious of the land her family had lost
rary terms. and points out that the Ardmore Airport in Oklahoma was my
familys ranch land.
Although born in Colorado, Hogan has her Chickasaw roots
in south central Oklahoma; she is descended from a family of Hogan re-creates Native American history and stories in her
storytellers, who inuence her writing. Poet, novelist, and essay- ction; starting from this spiritual foundation, her poems seek
ist, she writes and tells her story from a Native American images to embody its understanding of life and nature. Just as
perspective. Hogan began to write in her late twenties while horses, turtles, birds, and small insects are prominent carriers of
working with orthopedically handicapped children. Reading Ken- her poetic images, so too are pollen blowing off the corn or
neth Rexroths work during her lunch hours gave her condence yellow owers or the yellow sun, as well as red clay,
to start writing. For her the process of writing tapped into her own and brown earth. Her poetry, with its distinctive drive and
life; she told an interviewer, I write because the poems speak rhythm and life, is constantly manifesting its respect for the
what I cant say in my normal language. natural world.
Hogan received an M.A. from the University of Colorado at Hogan volunteers at wildlife rescue clinics to rehabilitate and
Boulder (1978), where she is currently a member of the faculty. to care for eagles, owls, and other birds of prey. She considers
Previously she taught American Studies/American Indian Studies caretaking the basic work of living on earth and sees a direct
219
HOLDING AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
relation between how we care for the animal-people and the plants Survival This Way: Interviews with American Indian Poets (1987).
and insects and land and water, and how we care for each other, Smith, P. C., Linda Hogan, in This Is About Vision: Interviews
and for ourselves. with Southwestern Writers (1990). Swann, B. and A. Krupat, eds.,
I Tell You Now: Autobiographical Essays by Native American
A recipient of the Lannan award in 1994, her Book of
Writers (1987).
Medicines (1993) was a National Book Critics Circle nalist. This
Reference works: CA (1987). CANR (1995). DLB (1997).
volume of poetry is divided into two long sections, Hunger and
Book of Medicines. The poems lay out a plan, much as the Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United States
New Testament gospels do, in which a new vision of the world (1995). Whos Who of Writers, Editors, Poets (1989).
takes shape. In Hogans poem, however, God resides not above, Other references: American Indian Quarterly (Fall 1991).
but within nature. A woman-centered environmentalist view Journal of Ethnic Studies 16 (Spring 1988). LJ (1 Nov. 1990).
emerges in Hogans poetry. NYTBR (24 Feb. 1991). Prairie Schooner (Fall 1983). Studies in
American Indian Literature (Winter 1990). WRB (Apr. 1991).
Two books appeared late in 1995. Dwellings: A Spiritual
History of the Living World gathers 17 essays that express SHARI GROVE,
Hogans belief in the interconnectedness of all life forms. In the UPDATED BY CELESTE DEROCHE
preface she says that she writes out of respect for the natural
world, recognizing that humankind is not separate from nature.
In the novel Solar Storms, she engages the story of ve genera-
tions of Native American women and their struggle to preserve HOLDING, Elisabeth Sanxay
their way of life. Solar Storms won the Colorado Book award for
ction. It is at once a Native American coming-of-age story and a
moving depiction of the ties that bind people to their roots and Born 8 June 1889, Brooklyn, New York; died 7 February 1955,
their land. Bronx, New York
Daughter of Charles S. and Edith Hollick Sanxay; married
Hogan is one of three editors for a multihued collection of George E. Holding, 1913 (died 1943); children: one daugh-
writings by women on their kinship with animals. Through ter, one son
poems, reports from the eld, ruminations, interviews, short
stories, and formal essays, a variety of women nature writers and After her marriage, Elisabeth Sanxay Holding lived in South
scientists examine the dialogue between species. Intimate Nature: America, the West Indies, and Bermuda, settings used in her
The Bond Between Women and Animals (1999) gives readers the ction. Known primarily as a mystery writer, Holding also wrote
opportunity to glimpse the personal yet profoundly universal
romantic social criticism and short stories, two of which were
impact of animals on womens lives.
lmed as The Price of Pleasure (1925) and The Bride Comes
Many reviewers highlight Hogans eye for detail and the Home (1936).
Native American rituals and customs depicted in her poems and
In both her rst and last novels, Holding examines mother-
novels. She approaches her characters with reverence and brings
hood as a limiting factor in a womans life. Invincible Minnie
them to life with quick, spare phrases. Hogan says, My writing
comes from and goes back to the community, both the human and (1920) is the story of Minnie and Frances Defoe, young orphans
the global community. I am interested in the deepest questions, reared in a tradition of genteel poverty that forms Minnies
those of spirit, of shelter, of growth and movement toward peace destructive personality. Her determination to marry and her
and liberation, inner and outer. corrupt concept of motherhood excuse any untruth, even bigamy.
Tillie MacDonald in Widows Mite (1953) hides facts in a murder
Since 1989 she has taught in the American Indian Studies case, using the welfare of her fatherless son as an excuse.
Program and the English Department at the University of Colo- Discussions contrasting detective ction with the novels reali-
rado at Boulder. In addition, she gives lectures, readings, and ty lend effective irony.
workshops at other universities, in Native American communi-
ties, and for Native American organizations. She is committed to Two nonmysteries denounce social attitudes rendering wom-
environmental preservation and has worked as a volunteer in en useless and unproductive. Rosaleen Monahan and Nicholas
wildlife rehabilitation clinics in Minnesota and Colorado. Landry in Rosaleen Among the Artists (1921) avoid marriage
because of class differences only to learn, years later, that love
rooted rmly in sexual desire is a stronger force than social
OTHER WORKS: Daughters, I Love You (1981). Eclipse (1983). standards. The brisk portraits of Dorothy Mell and Enid Bainbridge,
The Stories We Hold Secret: Tales of Womens Spiritual Develop- successful, self-supporting painters, and sound discussions of the
ment (coeditor, 1986). Savings (1988). Wind Leans Against Those
genesis of real art subdue the plots sentimentality. The Unlit
Men (1990). From Womens Experience to Feminist Theology
Lamp (1922) recounts the story of Claudine Mason Vincelles
(1996). Power (1998).
upwardly mobile marriage, which transforms her from a clever,
independent girl into a dependent, ineffectual woman. Slowly
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Branger, J., LIci et lailleurs: Multilinguise et paced, the novels are nevertheless successful because of sound
Multiculturalisme en Amrique du Nord (1991). Bruchac, J., ed., characterizations.
220
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HOLLANDER
Holdings mystery novels are suspenseful personality studies to Murder, 1943). Kill Joy (1942, retitled Murder is a Kill-Joy,
rather than detective stories, and they often incorporate gothic 1946). The Innocent Mrs. Duff (1946). Miss Kelly (1947).
elements. Dark Power (1930) is wholly gothic: the story of
penniless Diana Leonard, isolated in a dreary country house, at the
mercy of dangerous relatives. Traditionally, Diana is courted by BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Encyclopedia Mysteriosa (1994).
two young men, and justice triumphs. In Miasma (1929), howev- Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection (1976). St. James Guide
to Crime & Mystery Writers (1996).
er, Holding inverts the subgenre, for the isolated innocent is a
Other references: Ladies Home Journal (Sept. 1925). Mys-
young physician, Alexander Dennison, who is attractive to two
tery Fancier (Sept. 1977). NYTBR (3 May 1942, 3 June 1951).
very different girls.
A repeated and effective Holding motif is the self-examina- JANE S. BAKERMAN
tion and reevaluation to which middle-aged women are forced
when violence erupts into the domestic scene. The Old Battle-Ax
(1943) depicts widowed Charlotte Herriott, who must sort out
both damaging and enhancing self-concepts and separate false HOLLANDER, Nicole
friends from true, all in the midst of a murder investigation. Lucia
Holley of The Blank Wall (1947; lmed as The Reckless Moment) Born 25 April 1939, Chicago, Illinois
perceives herself only as wife and mother until she must try to Daughter of Henry and Shirley Mazur Garrison; married Paul
conceal a murder and cope with unsought love. Lucia does not Hollander, 1962 (divorced)
forsake her traditional attitudes, but she does alter them. Vividly
rendered difculties caused by the generation gap contribute to One of the few female cartoonists whose work has been
the success of both portraits. featured in comic pages throughout the U.S., Nicole Hollander is
best known for the comic strip Sylvia. Complete with her trade-
Some of Holdings strongest novels explore damaged per-
mark feather boa, cigarette, and open-heeled bedroom slippers,
sonalities and make splendid use of extended interior mono-
Sylvia rst began appearing in Hollanders work in 1979 when
logues. Net of Cobwebs (1945, reprinted in London 1952) tells of
her rst collection of cartoons, Im in Training to Be Tall and
Malcolm Drakes faltering return to mental health after the
Blonde was released by St. Martins Press.
sinking of his merchant ship and his subsequent collapse. In
contrast, Montfort Duchesne of The Virgin Huntress (1951) ghts Sylvia has changed the way women are portrayed in main-
a losing battle against guilt and cowardice. The tension in both stream comic strips. Sylvia, a ftyish wisecracking woman,
books arises primarily from the characterization of the protagonists. scrutinizes politics and society from her bathtub, her easy chair, a
barroom stool, or lunch table. Her foils are conventional Beth
Another basic Holding plot device sets murder against the Ellen, her lunch partner; Harry, the cynical bartender; Rita, her
background of a failing marriage, focusing on protagonists who patient, health-conscious daughter; and her all-knowing pets.
have married unwisely but try to keep their bargains. Honey Ritas father is away; where and why varies. She casts a critical
Stapleton in Lady Killer (1942) has married disagreeable Weaver eye on most men and on the occasional female such as conserva-
Stapleton for security and has lost almost all will of her own until tive spokeswoman Phyllis Schlay.
she sets out to prevent a murder. Hack writer James Brophy in Too
Many Bottles (1951, reprinted London 1952, retitled The Party Although newspaper editors were wary of publishing this
Was the Pay-Off in 1953) has also traded independence for hefty woman in bathrobe, backless mules, and dyed hair, the
security, only to nd himself accused of the murder of his public recognized a folk heroine. Unlike other women in comics,
unsuitable wife. Both Honey and James are realistic, tough-mind- Sylvia is neither glamorous nor upwardly mobile. Her wardrobe is
ed characters whose self-evaluation and personal growth provide limited, her tastes tend to pizza and beer, and her politics are
subplots. Too Many Bottles analysis of the writing process is liberal; she casts a jaundiced eye on the world and says so in 10
fascinating. words or less. Sylvia is not an analyst; she is an observer and
commentator. In one strip, a television announcer notes: Studies
An early practitioner of the psychological mystery, Holding show that women with sexy names like Dawn and Cheryl are
is considered a solid craftsperson particularly good at characteri- less likely to be promoted to managerial jobs than women with
zation and sustained suspense. She is noted for her treatment of a names like. . . Bill or Roger, Sylvia comments from the
continuing character, police-lieutenant Levy, generally not the bar stool.
protagonist but rather a symbol of sanity, order, and justice.
The strips characters also include a cast of Cops who have
their own sets of rules and y about the country trying to inict
OTHER WORKS: Angelica (1921). The Shoals of Honour (1926). them on other people; a fairy godmother, who anticipates wom-
The Silk Purse (1928). The Death Wish (1934). The Unnished ens needs; Gernif the Venusian, who questions the habits of earth
Crime (1935). The Strange Crime in Bermuda (1937). The Obsti- people; bright-eyed Patty Murphy, a fallible television commen-
nate Murderer (1938, in Britain as No Harm Intended, 1939). The tator; Alien Lover, a sensitive male; the Devil, who bargains for
Girl Who Had to Die (1940). Whos Afraid? (1940, alternate title souls; angels who determine who will enter heaven based on their
Trial by Murder). Speak of the Devil (1941, alternate title Hostess behavior in the neighborhood supermarket and taste in movies;
221
HOLLEY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
and Grunella, a fortune-teller whose crystal ball forecast can OTHER WORKS: Hi, This Is Sylvia; Ma, Can I Be a Feminist and
change to accommodate the listener. Sylvias cats, who do not Still Like Men? (1980). That Woman Must Be on Drugs (1981).
speak, but listen, think, write, and act, play a large role. In 1992 My Weight Is Always Perfect for My HeightWhich Varies
Hollander published a book of their advice to cat owners, Every- (1982). Mercy, Its the Revolution and Im in My Bathrobe (1982).
thing Here Is Mine: An Unhelpful Guide to Cat Behavior. Sylvia on Sundays (1983). O.K., Thinner Thighs for Everyone
Hollander was educated in Chicago public schools. She (1984). Never Tell Your Mother This Dream (1985). The Whole
received a B.F.A. from the University of Illinois (1960) and Enchilada (1986). Never Take Your Cat to a Salad Bar (1987).
an M.F.A. from Boston University (1966). Growing up in a You Cant Take It with You, So Eat It Now (1989). Tales from the
working-class Chicago neighborhood where the women had all Planet Sylvia (1990). Everything I Learned About the Rat Race I
the funny lines, she learned to read, she says, because she wanted Learned from My Cat (1999). Also: yearly calendars, the Sylvia
to read the comics. As an adolescent, Hollander realized the Book of Days, mugs, dolls, and greeting cards.
comics were not relevant to her life because they were written by
men and lled with male characters. Her rst comic strip was
published in Spokeswoman, a national feminist newsletter. The BIBLIOGRAPHY: Alley, P. W., Hokinson and Hollander: Female
mainstream press resisted: men held decisionmaking positions in Cartoonists and American Culture, in Womens Comic Visions
most newspapers and Sylvia was too feminist, too outrageous; she (1991). Cantarow, E., Dont Throw Away That Old Diaphram,
did not speak to or for the male point of view. in Mother Jones (June-July, 1987). O Sullivan, J., The Great
American Comic Strip: One Hundred Years of Cartoon Art
As feminist humor began to command a wider audience, St. (1990). Walker, N., and Zita Dresner, eds., Redressing the Bal-
Martins Press printed the rst book of Sylvia cartoons in 1979 ance: American Womens Literary Humor from Colonial Times to
and continued as her publisher until 1991. Hollander was rst the 1980s (1988).
syndicated by the Toronto Syndicate in 1979 and by Field Reference works: CA (1998). SATA (1999).
Syndications in 1981. She has been self-syndicated since then,
doing both administrative and creative work for the strip. In the JANET M. BEYER,
late 1980s Sylvia appeared in over 50 newspapers. UPDATED BY CELESTE DEROCHE
Hollander was given a national Wonder Woman Award in
1983, an honor given to women over 40 who have advanced the
cause of women. In 1985 she received a Yale University Chubb
Fellowship for Public Service. Hollander was one of four cartoon- HOLLEY, Marietta
ists featured in the lm Funny Ladies: A Portrait of Women
Cartoonists by Pamela Briggs. Sylvias Real Good Advice, a
musical comedy, rst performed in 1991 in Chicago, won a 1991 Born 16 July 1836, Jefferson County, New York; died 1 March
Joseph Jefferson Award and a Chicago After Dark Award. 1926, Jefferson County, New York
Wrote under: Samantha Allen, Jemyma, Joshia Allens Wife
Hollander remains a keen observer and commentator. In Daughter of John M. and Mary Taber Holley
recent years, she has taken a break from putting out books about
Sylvia and issued books with a cat focus. As illustrator, Holland- The youngest of seven children, Marietta Holley was born on
ers projects included 101 Reason Why a Cat is Better Than a Man the family farm where she lived her entire life. Financial difcul-
(1992), Women Who Love Cats Too Much (1995), 101 Reasons
ties ended her formal education at fourteen, but she maintained a
Why Cats Make Great Kids (1996), and 101 More Reasons Why a
lifelong fondness for reading. In the 1870s she augmented her
Cat is Better Than a Man (1997). With author Allia Zobel,
familys modest income by teaching piano lessons. Always inor-
Hollander offers irreverent advice for the cat lover in all of us.
dinately shy, she was fty years old before she left Jefferson
Hollander expounded on her own inscrutable felines impeccable
County for the rst time. Her shyness eventually prevented her
taste in My Cats Not Fat, Hes Just Big-Boned (1998). Her cats
from accepting invitations to read her work in public or to address
think too much, hypnotize their owners, plot dastardly deeds but
get distracted, and are obsessed with food, food, food. the leading feminist reformers of the day. After the death of her
parents, she lived alone with her unmarried sister, Sylphina, who
But Hollander has not forgotten the acerbic and often femi- died in 1915. Nothing about her private life reects the fact that
nist humor that created her passionate readers. In Female Prob- she was a celebrated humorist whose popularity rivaled Mark
lems: An Unhelpful Guide (1995) and Getting in Touch with Your Twains.
Inner Bitch (1997), she provides provocative and funny commen-
tary on being female. Female Problems offers reections and Although she initially wrote and published poetry under the
cartoons on visits to gynecologists, hair problems, and identifying pseudonym Jemyma, her contributions to the American vernacu-
with the Evil Queen rather than Snow White. Getting in Touch lar humor tradition began with My Opinions and Betsey Bobbets
recognizes that the Inner Bitch is the Bette Davis in every (1873). Holley created in Samantha Allen, her commonsensical
womanthat integral, powerful part which often goes unrecog- persona, an ideal spokesperson for her primary theme: womens
nized. Hollander writes for the woman who wants to laugh out rights. Holley made relatively unpopular feminist ideas more
loud and speak her mind. acceptable by grounding them in the domestic perspective of a
222
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HOLLINGWORTH
farm wife and stepmother. Even Samanthas nom de plume, for furthering the womens rights movement. She gave to Ameri-
Josiah Allens Wife, served as an ironic comment on womens can literature one of its strongest and most eloquent heroines of
subordinate social, political, and economic status. the 19th century, and she was inuential in making feminist
principles acceptable to a wide audience of women.
Two antagonists to Samanthas feminism appear in the
novel: Josiah Allen and Betsey Bobbet. Josiahs views are suf-
fused with sentimentality and male egoism, while Betsey, an OTHER WORKS: Betsey Bobbet: A Drama (1880). The Lament of
aging spinster, holds that womans only sphere is marriage. the Mormon Wife: A Poem (1880). Miss Richards Boy, and Other
Although Betsey soon disappeared from Holleys work, Josiah Stories (1883). Miss Jones Quilting (1887). Poems (1887).
continued as a comic foil to Samanthas feminism and com- Samantha Among the Brethren (1890). The Widder Doodles
mon sense. Courtship, and Other Sketches (1890). Samantha on the Race
Problem (1892). Tirzah Anns Summer Trip, and Other Sketches
For her second novel, Josiah Allens Wife as a P.A. [Public (1892). Samantha at the Worlds Fair (1893). Samantha Among
Advisor] and P.I. [Private Investigator]: Samantha at the Centen- the Colored Folks (1894). Josiahs Alarm, and Abel Perrys
nial (1877), Holleys publisher, Elisha Bliss, supplied her with Funeral (1895). Samantha in Europe (1895). Samantha at the St.
extensive material about the Centennial Exposition in Philadel- Louis Exposition (1904). Around the World with Josiah Allens
phia. Thus began the practice that became characteristic of Wife (1905). Samantha vs. Josiah: Being the Story of a Borrowed
Holleys humor; she wrote realistic descriptions of places she Automobile and What Came of It (1906). Samantha on Childrens
never visited in person. The travel motif gave Samantha increased Rights (1909). Josiahs Secret: A Play (1910). Samantha at Coney
opportunity to expound upon a variety of feminist issues, includ- Island and a Thousand Other Islands (1911). Samantha on the
ing womens right to privacy, and to celebrate the wide range of Woman Question (1913). Josiah Allen on the Woman Ques-
talents displayed in the Womans Pavilion at the Exposition. tion (1914).
In My Wayward Pardner; or, My Trials with Josiah, Ameri-
ca, the Widow Bump, and Etcetery (1880), inspired by an open BIBLIOGRAPHY: Blair, W., Horse Sense in American Humor:
letter from the women of Utah to the women of the U.S., Holley From Benjamin Franklin to Ogden Nash (1962). Blyley, K. G.,
responded to another contemporary issue, polygamy. She drama- Marietta Holley (dissertation, 1936). Curry, J. A., Women As
tized the abuses of polygamy by having Josiah, under the inu- Subjects and Writers of Nineteenth-Century American Humor
ence of a Mormon deacon, irt with a widow. Although we never (dissertation, 1975). Curry, J., ed., Samantha Rattles the Woman
seriously believe Josiah will take a second wife, Holley came Question (1983). Morris, L. A. Women Vernacular Humorists in
perilously close to destroying the strong family unit that served as Nineteenth-Century America: Ann Stephens, Frances Whitcher,
the basis for Samanthas domestic feminism. and Marietta Holley (dissertation, 1978). Winter, K. H., Marietta
Holley: Life with Josiahs Wife (1984).
Holleys fourth novel, Sweet Cicely (1885), dramatized the
Reference works: AA. AW. DAB. NAW. NCAB. Oxford
plight of women who married intemperate men. The novel was
inuenced by Holleys correspondence with Frances Willard,
Other references: Critic (Jan. 1905).
head of the Womens Christian Temperance Union, and it echoed
the sentimental tone of temperance tracts. Because it dealt exten-
LINDA A. MORRIS
sively with womens legal status, it was a great favorite of the
feminist leaders; Susan B. Anthony wrote Holley to tell her of the
pleasure the novel gave her. It was not, however, a popular
success. HOLLINGWORTH, Leta Stetter
In contrast, her next novel, Samantha at Saratoga; or, Racin
after Fashion (1887), was Holleys most popular work. It features Born 25 May 1886, Chadron, Nebraska; died 27 November 1939,
Samantha and Josiah vacationing at the countrys most fashion- New York, New York
able resort, Saratoga. There Holley attacks, through humor, socie- Daughter of John G. and Margaret Danley Stetter; married
tys preoccupation with the genteel values that were antithetical to Harry L. Hollingworth, 1910
her goals of full political and economic equality for women.
Leta Stetter Hollingworth graduated with highest honors in
Between 1887 and 1914, Holley wrote 14 more humorous
1906 from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln in preparation
novels that addressed a variety of social issues, ranging from
for a teaching career. After teaching high school for a short period
womens role in the Methodist church to American foreign policy.
of time, she accompanied her husband to New York, where she
None of these, however, enjoyed the success of Samantha at
attended Columbia University and received her Ph.D. in 1916
Saratoga, and in many the quality of her humor declined. None-
from its Teachers College. She was an instructor of educational
theless, Holley made important contributions to the American
psychology at Teachers College for the remainder of her career.
vernacular-humor tradition and to the feminist movement. No
other humorist made the opponents of feminism the targets of her While attending graduate school, she had an opportunity to
humor, and no other feminist used humor as her primary weapon replace Emily T. Burr in administering newly devised mental tests
223
HOLMES AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
in a clinic for the mentally decient. When Burr, an early worker contributions in the development of the eld. In 1938 the Univer-
in this eld, returned to her post, Hollingworth was also retained, sity of Nebraska awarded her an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.
due to her excellence in carrying out this work. In 1914 Hollingworth In 1940 a Conference on the Education of the Gifted was held in
was the rst psychologist to be appointed under the newly formed her honor by Teachers College. A volume entitled Education and
Civil Service supervision. the IndividualIn Honor of Leta S. Hollingworth was issued at
the same time.
Early in her career, Hollingworth expressed a concern with
problems connected with the social status of women. The subject
of her doctoral dissertation was an experimental inquiry into the OTHER WORKS: Special Talents and Defects: Their Signicance
alleged limitations of womens abilities. Many of her early for Education (1923). The Psychology of the Adolescent (1928).
writings, published primarily in the American Journal of Sociolo- Public Addresses (1940).
gy and Medical Record, were concerned with sex differences at
birth, variability in achievement as related to sex, sex differences
as related to mental deciency, and social control over the role of BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hollingworth, H. L., Leta S. Hollingworth: A
women. Functional Periodicity (1914) resulted from these early Biography (1943).
studies of women. She became an active and lifelong member of Reference works: DAB. NAW.
Heterodoxy and in 1917 was designated as a Watcher for the
Womans Suffrage Party. SANDRA KUENHOLD
Hollingworth was also an early writer in the area of the

relationship between intelligence level and delinquency. She
continued her association with Bellevue Hospital in New York HOLM, Saxe
throughout her career; in 1921 she was appointed psychologist of See JACKSON, Helen Hunt
the classication clinic.
Hollingworth is known for her innovative work in three
major educational experiments. The rst experiment was an
analytic and remedial program with children having problems in HOLMES, Mary Jane Hawes
particular school subjects. The Psychology of Special Disability in
Spelling (1918) resulted from her work on this project. The second Born 5 April 1825, Brookeld, Massachusetts; died 6 October
experiment, which involved children who were highly endowed 1907, Brockport, New York
mentally, was known as the Special Opportunity Class. It was Daughter of Preston and Fanny Olds Hawes; married Daniel
concerned with providing the best educational opportunities pos- Holmes, 1849
sible and provided much of the material for Gifted Children (1926).
Mary Jane Hawes Holmes was the author of 39 novels and
The Speyer School project involved both slow learners (but
numerous stories and essays published in periodicals. Her uncle,
excluding the mentally decient) and exceptionally bright child-
Joel Hawes, was a well-known New England essayist and preach-
ren; through this program the adaptation of the school to the needs
er whose inuence may have contributed to the moral tone of her
and capacities of the individual was greatly enhanced. For the
books. Encouraged by both parents in intellectual and literary
ve-year experiment, Hollingworth was designated representa-
pursuits, Holmes entered school at the age of three and at thirteen
tive of Teachers College in charge of research and educational
was teaching in a district school. She published her rst story
adviser for the two classes of exceptionally bright students; the
before she was sixteen. With her husband, a Brockport, New
school quickly became referred to as Leta Hollingworths school
York, attorney, Holmes moved to Versailles, Kentucky, for a
for bright children, even though they comprised a small minority
short period; later that area provided the Southern rural back-
of the classes. The school attracted much public attention not only
ground of her rst novel, Tempest and Sunshine (1854). The
in the U.S. but in foreign countries as well.
couple then made their permanent home in Brockport.
Hollingworth was a prolic writer, who contributed over 80
Childless, Holmes spent her years writing and traveling.
articles and numerous reviews, reports, and summaries to the eld
While producing novels at the rate of about one a year, she visited
of educational psychology. Materials from her courses taught at
such distant places as England, France, Russia, the Mediterrane-
Teachers College were coordinated and published in a volume
an, and the Far East, gathering statuary, paintings, tapestries, and
used as a standard text in her eld, The Psychology of Subnormal
furniture on her travels. Generous with both her time and her
Children (1920). In addition to scholarly works, a collection of
money, she entertained young girls of the neighborhood with talks
poetry of an autobiographical nature was written by Hollingworth
on her travels and on the art she collected; she also taught Sunday
and published in Prairie Years (1940).
school, built the parish house for her church, was active in the
Hollingworth was world renowned for her work in education temperance movement, gave nancial aid to dependents of Civil
and educational psychology, particularly in the area of the educa- War veterans, and paid for the education of two young Japa-
tion of the gifted. Her many publications in this area were major nese girls.
224
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HOLMES
Though now depreciated for being a writer of mawkishly Experiment (1904). The Abandoned Farm (1905). Connies Mis-
sentimental, simplistically didactic domestic tales, Holmes was an take (1905).
author whose works had enormous appeal for the unsophisticated
reader of her time. Some individual titles sold over 50,000 copies
and during her lifetime her book sales totaled more than 2,000,000 BIBLIOGRAPHY: Papashvily, H. S., All the Happy Endings (1956).
copies. In 1870 a writer in Appletons Journal claimed Holmes Pattee, F. L., The Feminine Fifties (1940).
had an immense constituency outlying in all the small towns and Reference works: AA. AW. DAB. LSL. NAW (1971). NCAB.
rural districts. Indeed, small-town and rural life was what she Other references: Bookman (Dec. 1907). Nation (19 Oct. 1907).
knew best, and it was this life that provided the background for
ELAINE K. GINSBERG
most of her stories.
Typical of her work is her rst, and most popular, novel,
Tempest and Sunshine. The central characters are two young
sisters, Julia and Fanny Middleton, who live on a farm about 12 HOLMES, Sarah (Katherine) Stone
miles from Frankfort, Kentucky. The plot revolves around the
courtship complications of several young people, including the Born 8 January 1841, Hinds County, Mississippi; died 28 De-
sisters, and is lled with such contrivances as intercepted letters, cember 1908, Tallulah, Louisiana
coincidental relationships, and long-lost brothers newly found. Wrote under: Kate Stone
The emphasis, however, is upon the contrast of the personali- Daughter of William and Amanda Ragan Stone; married Hen-
ties of the sisters. Fanny, the angelic Sunshine of the title, ry B. Holmes, 1869
named after Holmes own mother, is all purity and kindness, while
Julia, Tempest, is hot-tempered, deceitful, and cruel. When Sarah Stone Holmes was the oldest daughter of seven child-
Fanny becomes engaged to a New Orleans doctor whom Julia ren. Her father died in 1855, leaving his widow with substantial
wants for herself, Tempest intercepts their letters and forges debts. On her own, her mother bought a new plantation, Brokenburn,
others, which destroy the relationship. Finally, in true domestic in Madison County, Louisiana, engaged slaves, and produced
novel fashion, goodness and justice triumph, and all the young enough cotton to settle the debts. In 1869 Holmes married the Lt.
people are happily paired off except the repentant Julia, who Holmes of her journal. They settled in Tallulah, Louisiana,
where Sarah became a leader in social and civic affairs.
remains at home to care for her aged father. Although both
Fannys angelic nature and Julias conversion strain the modern Holmes began her journal in May 1861. It was published in
readers credulity, the portraits of some of the minor characters, 1955 as Brokenburn: The Journal of Kate Stone, 1861-1868,
especially the girls roughhewn father, are picturesque and vivid. edited by John Q. Anderson. She was a rabid secessionist and
Furthermore, the portraits of the two sisters echo the light-maiden, condently predicted an early Southern victory. Like most people
dark-maiden motif identied by many critics in the works of living in the Gulf and Trans-Mississippi states, the Stones did not
Cooper, Hawthorne, and other 19th-century American writers. immediately feel the horrors of war. Life for Holmes and her
family continued as it had before secession; parties, household
Holmes 1856 novel, Lena Rivers, was second to Tempest
duties, and church were their usual activities. The Stones compla-
and Sunshine in sales. Other popular titles were Meadow Brook
cency, however, was shattered in 1862 when Holmes two young-
(1857), Marian Grey (1863), and Ethelyns Mistake (1869). Many
er brothers joined the Confederate army. Both were dead within
of her novels were issued as serials in the New York Weekly.
the year. In addition, the Union army began its rst assault on the
Though her stories were derivative and the situations contrived, Mississippi River; the campaign failed, but the following year
Holmes strength as a writer lay in her portraits of rural domestic brought its return and new problems. Yankee raiders roamed
life and in the straightforward simplicity of both her style and her throughout northern Louisiana, stealing horses and food and
moral code. threatening to burn plantations. In March 1863, the Stones left
Brokenburn for Texas.
OTHER WORKS: The English Orphans (1855). The Homestead on Holmes diary provides a vivid account of the refugee
the Hillside, and Other Tales (1856). Dora Deane (1858). Maggie experience. Literally pursued by Union soldiers, Holmes and her
Miller (1858). Cousin Maude (1860). Rosamond (1860). Hugh family crossed the bayous by boat at night and then drove
Worthington (1863). Darkness and Daylight (1864). The Cameron overland to safety. The journey in a rickety wagon, under blazing
Pride (1867). Rose Mather (1868). Millbank (1871). Edna Browning heat, was unpleasant, and was made more so by the hostility of the
(1872). West Lawn (1874). Edith Lyle (1876). Mildred (1877). Texans and their refusal to shelter the refugees. Once settled in a
Daisy Thornton (1878). Forest House (1879). Chateau DOr rented house in Tyler, the Stones found goods scarce and prices
(1880). Red Bird (1880). Madeline (1881). Queenie Hetherton high. Though refugees in general were resented, Holmes did make
(1883). Bessies Fortune (1885). Gretchen (1887). Marguerite friends with local girls and was courted by the men. The family
(1890). Dr. Hatherns Daughters: A Story of Virginia, in Four remained in Texas until the end of the war, returning to Louisiana
Parts (1895). Paul Ralston (1897). The Tracy Diamonds (1899). in November 1865. Brokenburn, however, had been partially
The Cromptons (1902). The Merivale Banks (1903). Renas destroyed by war and oods.
225
HOOKS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
How I wish I could write well so that this old life could live Woman: Black Women and Feminism (1981), is a self-proclaimed
in the imagination of my children, but I never had the gift of book of the heart, expressing the deep and passionate longing for
expression with my pen, Holmes wrote in her 1900 retrospective change in the social status of black women, for an end to sexist
to the journal. Her modesty is charming, but certainly unwarrant- domination and exploitation. A political gesture toward liberat-
ed. While Holmes writing was unsophisticated, it was literate and ing the colonized mentality that fosters racism and sexism, this
striking. Her descriptive passages are so vivid that the reader feels book provoked much critical commentary and debate and (al-
the water through which the Stones had to wade in their escape though it took seven years to nd a publisher) launched her
from Louisiana and the heat of the Texas sun at midday. Inter- prolic writing career as a cultural worker and social critic.
spersed with the narrative are ashes of humor and Holmes wry
In Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984), hooks
observations of her somewhat eccentric neighbors and friends.
articulates the need for a feminist theory that addresses the
Brokenburn is one of the nest published Confederate dia- mechanics of marginalization. Her consciousness of the impact of
ries. Holmes herself was a charming and perceptive narrator, able marginalization upon groups who exist outside of the center of
to convey without false pride or sentiment the trials and accom- white, middle-class, heterosexual feminism emerged from her
plishments of her family. Unlike many Civil War diaries and own experience of the dividing railroad tracks in the small
memoirs, Brokenburn is unself-conscious in its depiction of Kentucky town where she grew up. There, the tracks were a
Southern life. Holmes made no attempt to glamorize herself or her daily reminder of [her] marginality from the afuent world of
surroundings for posterity. Rather, we see life in the Trans-Missis- the white middle class. The book articulates the need to bring
sippi Department of the Confederacy as it was: somewhat raw and women who have existed only marginally in the feminist move-
unnished and lacking the polish of the older Eastern states. For ment into dialogue with those in the center.
its charm and realism, Holmes diary deserves a place in the
Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black (1989)
libraries of historians and literary scholars alike.
articulates African American womens struggle to emerge from
silence: Moving from silence into speech is for the oppressed,
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Massey, M. E., Refugee Life in the Confederacy the colonized, the exploited. . .a gesture of deance that heals,
(1964). Wilson, E., Patriotic Gore (1962). that makes new life and new growth possible. The essays in this
book talk back by addressing the politics of domination in
JANET E. KAUFMAN institutions of cultural production. The politics of cultural produc-
tion is also hooks subject in Yearning: Race, Gender, and
Cultural Politics (1990). The essays in this collection range across
lm, television, music, the consumer culture, the community, and
HOOKS, bell postmodernism; hooks locates a yearning for radical social change in
postmodern representations of race, class, gender, and sexual
Born Gloria Jean Watkins, 25 September 1952, Hopkinsville, practice.
Kentucky
A dialogue with the philosopher Cornel West, published as
Daughter of Rosa Bell Watkins
Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life (1991), is an
intense and wide-ranging discussion of black intellectuality and
Born in Kentucky to a Southern black working-class family,
the crises of both African American women and men. With their
Gloria Jean Watkins grew up talking backchildhood punish-
discussion, hooks hopes to create a community of comrades who
ments left her feeling exiled from the adult community and thus
are seeking to deepen our spiritual experience and our political
she turned to books and discovered an imaginary community. In
solidarity. In Black Looks (1992), a series of essays about
Black Is a Womens Color, she says she began writing poetry,
identity, hooks extends her critical interest in representations of
using the poems to keep on living. She has transformed the
blackness in the media, particularly in lm.
paradigm of talking back into an empowering metaphor for
speech: It is that act of speech, of talking back, that is no mere A prolic public speaker who has lectured all over the
gesture of empty words, that is the expression of our movement country, hooks is also an accomplished teacher and a member of
from object to subjectthe liberated voice. Watkins maternal the faculty at Oberlin College. She demonstrates in her writing,
great-grandmother, a sharp-tongued woman who talked back, speaking, and teaching an activism that testies to her engage-
was named Bell Hooks, and it was this name she chose as a ment with the community of whom she speaks so eloquently
pseudonym, in lower case because claiming this name was a whenever she talks back.
way to link [her] voice to an ancestral legacy of women speak-
Throughout the rest of the 1990s, hooks continued to write
ing. Demonstrating her own ability to talk back with authori-
prolically and to lecture, addressing a widening range of subjects
ty and eloquence, hooks has published several volumes of social,
and rening her positions on race, feminism, and culture. Killing
cultural, and autobiographical criticism, a book of poetry, and
Rage (1995) is an argument for creating dialogue on difcult
numerous critical articles.
subjects. Subtitled Ending Racism, the book emphasizes a liberal
Educated at Stanford, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, approach to ongoing racial divisions. I understand rage to be a
and the University of California, Santa Cruz (where she received necessary aspect of resistance struggle, she wrote. Art on My
her Ph.D. in 1983), hooks rst and most polemical book, Aint I a Mind, from the same year, contains essays on Alison Saar, Jean
226
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HOOPER
Michel Basquiat, Carrie Mae Weems, and Lorna Simpson, along poems, and illustrations, but she died of pulmonary consumption
with polemic, personal recollections, and interviews. In it she before its publication.
wrote, Art constitutes one of the rare locations where acts
Hoopers more serious poems develop religious themes.
of transcendence can take place and have a wide-ranging
The Daughter of Herodias, selected by William Cullen Bryant
transformative impact.
for inclusion in his volume of American poetry, recounts Salomes
If her position as one of the premiere African American sorrow and remorse on bearing the head of John the Baptist to her
intellectuals has enabled hooks to be seen and heard in more unpitying mother. Salomes horror of death, her loss of innocence,
places than her 1960s counterparts might have been, it has also and her forlorn desire for forgiveness are conveyed through the
exposed her to the criticism of conservatives who dismiss her distraught voice of a young woman recounting wild dreams of
social critique as outdated and liberals who want her to stop judgment and offended Heaven. The skillful mixture of pen-
focusing on such popular culture topics as Madonna and to make tameter and trimeter lines and the unconventional rhyme pattern
better use of the attention she commands. Nevertheless, hooks enhance this strange vision. In The Queens Petition, Hooper
book on the movies, Reel to Real, hardly ts into the category of effectively uses blank verse to retell the story of Esther. Here the
conventional entertainment journalism. narrator abandons the pages of old romance to turn to the
inspired volume where love between a man and a woman can
Two of her more recent books, Wounds of Passion and
become the means of a peoples salvation.
Remembered , tread the familiar ground of writers writing about
writing, but hooks revitalizes some of the old questions by Along with these two poems, contemporaries tended to favor
incorporating her contemporary take on race and gender. such pieces as Time, Faith, Energy, It is Well, The
Summons of Death, and Life and Death, all of which assure
the reader that, in time, death will offer comfort and retribution for
OTHER WORKS: And There We Wept (1978). Sisters of the Yam:
the hardships and sorrows of life.
Black Women and Self-Recovery (1992). A Womans Mourning
Song (1999). Happy to Be Nappy (1999). Too often Hooper allows her poetry to fall to the level of
Important articles include: Black Womens Sexuality in the conventionally inconsequential romantic verse. Her editor recalls
New Film, Sage (1985). Writing the Subject: Reading The that she rarely revised, but her gift for easy meters and rhymes is
Color Purple, Modern Critical Views: Alice Walker (edited by not always a happy one. Her frequent use of variations on the
Harold Bloom, 1987). Black Is a Womans Color, Callaloo ballad stanza relegates much of her output to light verse. She is too
(Spring, 1989). Essentialism and Experience, American Liter- content to settle for facile rhymes such as light/night and
ary History (Spring, 1991). Democracy, Inc.: The Hill-Thomas bloom/doom, and tends to rely on trite refrains, such as Lady,
Hearings, Artforum (January, 1992). twas a dream, to hold together her poems of knights and their
ladies, of death and faithful love.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Florence, N., bell hooks Engaged Pedagogy Hoopers prose is usually overtly didactic. Scenes from
(1998). Feminist Review (Autumn 1989). Signs (Summer 1986). Real Life, for instance, is devoted to revealing the folly of such
sins as pride and greed and to praising the attributes of loyalty,
LISA MARCUS,
good taste, and reverence. One tale does show promise of a more
UPDATED BY MARK SWARTZ
original imagination. Reminiscence of a Clergyman presents
the interesting moral dilemma of a man who, presumed lost at sea,
returns after many years to nd his wife now happily married to
HOOPER, Lucy his brother. Having established this situation, however, Hooper is
satised to have the man nd peace by relying on the future
happiness guaranteed in the next world.
Born 4 February 1816, Newburyport, Massachusetts; died 1
August 1841, Brooklyn, New York A contemporary critic evaluated Hoopers work in what still
Wrote under: L. H. appear to be valid terms. He wrote: She was known to be capable
Daughter of Joseph Hooper of much more than she had ever accomplished. She chose,
however, to make no struggle for fame; but preferred to sing
From an early age, Lucy Hoopers educational and creative occasionally a spontaneous song, and scatter owers by the
development was supervised and encouraged by her father. She wayside. Regretting that she did not make more effort, this critic
was educated in botany, chemistry, French, Spanish, Latin, and continues: What she left will be enough for memory with us,
English literature. In 1831 after her fathers death, the family even if her fame was not matured for the worlds wider circle.
moved to Brooklyn, where Hooper soon began contributing to the
Long Island Star and the New Yorker. A devoted member of the
OTHER WORKS: Scenes from Real Life, and Other American Tales
Episcopal church, she wrote a prize-winning essay, Domestic
(1841). The Complete Poetical Works (1848).
Happiness, and two other pieces on religion and virtue for
Dunnings collection, Domestic Happiness Portrayed (1831).
Hoopers last year was spent editing The Ladys Book of Flowers BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: The American Female Poets
and Poetry (1842), a compendium of botanical information, (1848). Appletons Cyclopedia of American Biography (1887). A
227
HOOPER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and Ameri- vigorous defense of the American system of education, which,
can Authors Living and Deceased (1863). The Female Poets of unlike the European, allowed women to have at least a modicum
America (1851). of freedom. In addition, the detailed descriptions of life in St.
Petersburg in winter give an authentic and interesting picture of
PHYLLIS GOTTLIEB aristocratic life in 19th-century Russia.
Sentimental themes of melancholy and death are prominent
in Hoopers poems, but her poetry is most successful when she is
HOOPER, Lucy (Hamilton) Jones able to maintain a tough-minded stance toward romantic clichs.
A poem such as The Duel deftly conveys the faade of ippant
Born 20 January 1835, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; died 31 bravado assumed by a man who has just killed another and is now
August 1893, Paris, France trying to quiet his wifes fears as well as his own. The rhyming
Daughter of Bataile Muse Jones; married Robert E. Hooper, 1854 iambic pentameter line is smoothly colloquial throughout. Simi-
larly, Gretchen uses a simple four-line stanza and refrain to tell
Born into a prominent Philadelphia family, Lucy Jones the story of a young woman who drowns her illegitimate baby to
Hooper began her literary career as an extension of her social maintain her spotless reputation.
obligations. At the Great Central Sanitary Fair in Philadelphia, she
helped edit the daily chronicle and presented 100 copies of her Hooper had a sharp eye for contemporary issues and social
rst book of poems and translations from the German. A reverse mores, a sound knowledge of the arts, an honest wit, and a
in her husbands nances, however, compelled Hooper to make clear-headed intelligence. When she allows these qualities to
her literary dabbling into a source of additional revenue. From dominate, her work still commands attention. Unfortunately, she
1868 to 1870, she was both a contributor and assistant editor of too often succumbs to using sentimental conventions to defend the
Lippincotts magazine, and a second book of poems was pub- platitudes of proper moral behavior.
lished in 1871.
In 1874 her husband was appointed vice-consul general in OTHER WORKS: Poems with Translations from the German of
Paris. There Hooper found herself a central member of the Geibel and Others (1864). Poems (1871). Those Pretty St. George
American colony and an active participant in literary, artistic, and Girls (1883).
intellectual circles. She maintained a regular correspondence with
numerous American periodicals, among them the Post-Dispatch
of St. Louis and Appletons Journal. Her column in the Philadel- BIBLIOGRAPHY: Scharf, J. T., and T. Westcott, eds., History of
phia Daily Evening Telegraph, where she reported on the fashion, Philadelphia, 1609-1884 (1884).
art, and politics of Europe, ran without interruption for 20 years. Reference works: AA. Appletons Cyclopedia of American
Biography (1887). AW. CAL. DAB. NCAB.
In addition to her journalistic work, Hooper wrote two Other references: Philadelphia Evening Telegraph (31 Aug.
playsone, Her Living Image (1886), with French dramatist 1893, 12 Sept. 1893).
Laurencin, and another, Helens Inheritance, which was produced
in Paris in 1888, and in New York, as Inherited, in 1889. PHYLLIS GOTTLIEB
She also wrote three novels. The rst, Under the Tricolor; or,
The American Colony in Paris (1880), raised quite a stir, as
various publications attempted to identify the ctional characters
with living Americans. Without this element of gossip, however, HOPE, Laura Lee
the plot, which involves a romance between two insipid young See ADAMS, Harriet Stratemeyer
people of good family but inadequate nances, is extremely dull.
The characters are not allowed to develop beyond their stock roles
as cruel father, ighty widow, uncultured provincial, or benevo-
lent patron. Hooper does not have sufcient control over the tone HOPKINS, Pauline (Elizabeth)
of the book, which swings from sentimental pathos to what seem
to be aborted attempts at satire. Born 1895, Portland, Maine; died 23 August 1930, Cambridge,
The Tsars Window (1881), on the other hand, is still rather Massachusetts
engaging. The story is told primarily through the journal of Dorris Also wrote under: Sarah A. Allen
Romilly, a device employed less consistently and less successful- Daughter of William A. and Sarah Allen Hopkins
ly in Under the Tricolor. While the romantic plot at times verges
on the melodramatic, Dorris confusion over the character and Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins was educated in the public schools
motives of various suitors awakens the readers curiosity. Moreo- of Boston. Before she graduated from the Girls High School, she
ver, her straightforward intelligence, her independence, her wit, had won a prize of $10 in gold, offered by the Congregational
and her ability to laugh at herself all gain immediate sympathy. Publishing Society of Boston, for the best essay on The Evils of
Without unnecessary preaching, Dorris character provides a Intemperance and Their Remedies. Initially, she aspired to be a
228
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HOPPER
playwright, and in 1879 wrote the musical drama Slaves Escape; Du Bois designated the African American middle class of his day.
or, The Underground Railroad, also known as Peculiar Sam. Hers were not explicitly novels of protest, of which there were
Another play, One Scene from the Drama of Early Days, based on none at the turn of the century; she writes only of the black middle
the biblical story of Daniel, was also written in this period. class and its problems. Her descriptive prose is often excessively
orid, and when writing in dialect she falls short of authentic
From 1892 to 1985, she worked as a stenographer and reproduction. Nonetheless, she occupies a unique place in the
eventually won a civil service appointment to the Bureau of African American literary heritage as a woman who did no less
Statistics on the Massachusetts Decennial Census, where she herself than what she expected of her readers.
worked from 1895 to 1899. In May 1900, she resumed her literary
career with a short story in the inaugural issue of the Colored
American magazine. OTHER WORKS: The papers of Pauline Hopkins are housed at the
Fisk University Library in Nashville, Tennessee.
By May of 1903, she had become the literary editor of the
magazine and contributed many short stories and essays, one
series of 12 biographical articles on Famous Men of the Negro BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bone, R., The Negro Novel in America (1965).
Race, and another series on Famous Women of the Negro Campbell, J., Mythic Black Fiction: The Transformation of Histo-
Race. Two of her novels, Winona: A Tale of Negro Life in the ry (1986). Carby, H. V., Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emer-
South and Southwest and Of One Blood; or, The Hidden Self, were gence of the Afro-American Women Novelists (1987). Gloster, H.,
serialized in the magazine in 1902. Another serialized novel, Negro Voices in American Fiction (1948). Loggins, V., The Negro
Hagars Daughter, was apparently also written by Hopkins, under Author: His Development in America to 1900 (1964). Pryse, M.
the pen name Sarah A. Allen. and H. J. Spillers, eds., Conjuring: Black Women, Fiction, Liter-
ary Tradition (1985).
Because of ill health, in 1904 Hopkins left the Colored
Reference works: Black American Writers Past and Present
American, which had moved to New York, and returned to the
(1975). Dictionary of American Negro Biography (1982). DLB
stenographic profession, this time at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology. Her only literary endeavor after this was a series
States (1995).
of articles, Dark Races of the Twentieth Century, which
Other references: Colored American (Jan. 1901). Phylon
appeared in the Voice of the Negro from December 1904 through
(Spring 1972).
July 1905.
Contending Forces (1900), Hopkins only novel published in MARILYN LAMPING
book form, is a romance written in the typical genteel style
common at the turn of the century. The plot centers on four young
people in Boston who fall in love and, in spite of calamities,
tragedies, and a complicated series of events, end up happily HOPPER, Hedda
married and in possession of a lost family fortune. The contend-
ing forces in the novel are those problems and injustices African Born Elda Furry, 2 May 1885, Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania; died
Americans encountered both in the North and in the South after 1 February 1966, Los Angeles, California
the Civil War, such as the lack of political power, the difculty in Daughter of David E. and Margaret Miller Furry; married
obtaining jobs, and most serious, the lynchings that were such a DeWolf Hopper, 1913 (divorced 1922); children: one son
common occurrence in the South. In her frequently didactic style,
she refers often to the inevitable and desirable mixing of the races The fth of nine children, Hedda Hopper grew up in Altoona,
through marriage. Mysticism and other psychic phenomena are Pennsylvania, where she left eighth grade to help at home and in
important in the novel, existing concurrently with staunch, tradi- her fathers butcher shop. She ercely resented her autocratic
tional Christianity. In the preface, she speaks of herself as one of father and grandfather and envied her brothers freedom. After
the proscribed race and frequently uses the terms inferior and seeing Ethel Barrymore on stage, Hopper vowed to become an
superior when referring to the black race and the white race, actress. She studied music in Pittsburgh, then joined a road
respectively. company in New York. In 1908, appearing in the chorus of The
Pied Piper, she met actor DeWolf Hopper, 27 years her senior; she
The serialized novels and numerous short stories share a
became his fth wife and changed her name to Hedda.
similar style and subject matter; almost all have a strong mystical
element, and many deal with interracial love and marriage. Many After the birth of her son in 1915, Hopper followed her
of her essays are biographical with an obvious didactic tone, and husband to Hollywood, where he was to make a lm. Although
she invariably points out that perseverance and hard work have she had given up her career at marriage, she now accepted minor
resulted in the various individuals success. In an essay in the stage and screen roles offering her a security her husband could
Colored American of June 1900, she advocates limited suffrage not. In 1922 Hopper divorced him on the grounds of adultery.
for women.
In 1938 Hopper began a news column, later syndicated as
As one of the rst black women writers, Hopkins has a secure Hedda Hoppers Hollywood. Her background in lms and
niche among the Talented Tenth of the Negro race, as W. E. B. theater provided excellent contacts; her innate sense of fashion
229
HORNEY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
helped her establish her personal trademark, the elaborate hat. She HORNEY, Karen (Danielsen)
emerged as an awesome rival for gossip queen Louella Parsons
movie stars, with few exceptions, trod softly to avoid her wrath.
She and Parsons became the Scylla and Charybdis of Hollywood. Born 16 September 1885, Hamburg, Germany; died 4 December
Columnist Hoppers politics grew increasingly conservative, her 1952, New York, New York
morality sterner. She campaigned vigorously against communism Daughter of Berndt and Clothilde Danielsen; married Oscar
in Hollywood and her personal feuds were legion. At her peak she Horney, 1909 (divorced 1939); children: three daughters
claimed 35 million readers. Death came suddenly from complica-
tions of viral pneumonia. Karen Horney developed an early interest in foreign peoples,
their cultures and customs, when in her teens she made several
Hopper is frequently charged with having a ghostwriter for ocean voyages with her father, a devoutly religious Norwegian
her column; in fact, she did not write it herself. The column was sea captain. Because of his long absences, however, it was
dictated to her staff (a rewrite woman, two secretaries, and two Horneys free-thinking Dutch mother who exerted the stronger
legmen), who then revised and typed it for her nal approval. She inuence and encouraged her to attend medical school at a time
could not spell, did not know grammar, and cared less. Hoppers when professions were virtually closed to women. Horney re-
style is breezy and colloquial (Boy! Heck! ). Sunday feature ceived her medical degree from the University of Berlin in 1913.
articles are generally more focused and coherent; daily columns She married a Berlin lawyer, with whom she had three daughters
are breathless bits and pieces, with occasional acidic allusions to before conicting interests and her growing dedication to psy-
those currently out of her favor (such as Charlie Chaplin, Orson choanalysis resulted in separation in 1926 and divorce in 1939.
Welles, and Joan Bennett).
After teaching for 12 years at the Berlin Psychoanalytic
Hoppers From Under My Hat (1952) has been called an Institute, Horney emigrated to the U.S. in 1932 and became a
amorphous autobiography. Hopper ofcially eliminates ve citizen in 1938. Horney codirected the Chicago Institute for
years from her life, omits dates, and ignores chronology wherever Psychoanalysis (1932-34), taught at the New York Psychoanalyt-
possible; thus her book becomes anecdotal and totally confusing. ic Institute (1934-41), helped found the Association for the
The Whole Truth and Nothing But (1963) resembles a dramatized Advancement of Psychoanalysis and the American Institute for
gossip column bridging the years between the two books. Hop- Psychoanalysis, served on the teaching staff at the New School for
pers organization is much tighter (perhaps because of her coau- Social Research, lectured at the New York Medical College, and
thor). The book also includes considerable grade-B dialogue, as was founding editor of the American Journal of Psychoanalysis.
Hopper offers counsel to erring lm stars. There is an incredible
Horneys most signicant works include The Neurotic Per-
scene in which Hopper summons Elizabeth Taylor and Michael
sonality of Our Time (1937), which stresses the impact of culture
Wilding to her home for prenuptial advice. (Wilding subsequently
and environment on character development. New Ways in Psy-
sued Hopper and her publisher for $3 million.)
choanalysis (1939) claries Horneys position in relation to
Hoppers real inuence came not through her books but Freud. Our Inner Conicts (1945) emphasizes the interpersonal
through her column and her presence in a Hollywood now dynamics of neuroses. Neurosis and Human Growth (1950), the
vanished. She recaptures some of that nostalgia, but the writing is most comprehensive explication of Horneys mature ideas, focus-
frequently dull. Her view of women is not attering; she praises es on the intrapsychic dynamics of neuroses.
Joan Crawford by writing that she thinks like a man. Hopper
Horneys break from Freud marks the beginning of her
calls herself The Bitch of the World, delighting in her feuds,
important contribution to the development of both psychological
yet there is little of the well-turned phrase, the quick wit, in her
theory and therapy. It was triggered by her repudiation of Freuds
work. At her best, Hopper recounts anecdotes; at her worst, she
instinctivistic and male-oriented psychology. In a reversal of
insinuates. She is no writer, but a talker, a gossip (albeit a
Freuds concepts, Horney contends that neuroses may originate in
powerful one), and too frequently a minor actress starring at last in
adulthood as well as in childhood, that they are not an outgrowth
her own books.
of normal processes but a perversion of them, and that the
dynamics of male and female neuroses are identical.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Eells, G., Hedda and Louella (1972). Horneys theory postulates a real self is the central
Reference works: CB (Nov. 1942, Mar. 1966). motivating force of the psyche. It generates a morality of
Other references: Chicago Sunday Tribune (24 Aug. 1952). evolution whereby man, by his very nature. . .strives toward
NYT (14 Sept. 1952, 2 Feb. 1966). Time (28 July 1947, 15 self-realization, and. . .his set of values evolves from such striv-
Feb. 1963). ing. It is the blockage of the real self Horney considers the
rst move toward neurosis.
JOANNE MCCARTHY
A disturbance in ones relation to self and to others,
neurosis results from a lack of love, security, belonging, and
self-esteem. In an attempt to allay anxiety and cope with life, the
HORLAK, E. E. individual develops a pseudo-solution. This solution generates
See TEPPER, Sheri S. a complex system of defense mechanisms and a unique worldview
230
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HOUSTON
with a corresponding system of values, needs, and taboos. The develop her human potentialities for strength, creativity,
three types of solutions include the self-effacing solution, which and growth.
puts a premium on love, the expansive solution, which exalts
mastery, and the resigned solution, which idealizes detachment. On the basis of Horneys great achievements and the future
Every neurosis incorporates all three solutions; but for the sake of possibilities offered by her work, she not only holds a place of
inner harmony, the individual makes one solution predominant distinction in American psychologyto which the Karen Horney
and represses the others. Psychoanalytic Institute in New York City stands as testimony
but she also claims an international reputation, as indicated by the
One of the most important functions of the solution is its translation of her books into 13 languages.
compensation for a lack of healthy self-esteem by creating an
idealized image in which the individual takes an unhealthy Although she is a scientist, Horney also made an impact on
pride. Indeed, one makes an unconscious bargain with fate by the world of literature. Her style blends the imaginative ideas,
which all wishes will be fullled and pride reinforced if one can easy ow of language, and intriguing sense of humor that lend it
become the idealized self. Thus, one abandons the real self and the beauty of art with the precision, documentation, and explica-
begins to develop in self-alienated ways in the course of this tion that give it the authority of science. In addition to the pleasure
search for glory. and self-understanding to be derived from Horneys work, it is an
invaluable tool to the student of literature. Because it deals with
Far from solving problems, however, the solution generates a enduring elements in human experience, Horneys theory is
host of difculties on both intrapsychic and interpersonal levels. congruent with a great many characters from Western literature of
Problems arise on an intrapsychic level because the needs of the many periods and cultures. By providing a means to explain the
solution are compulsive and take on the authority of shoulds conicts, inconsistencies, and contradictions of these characters,
that produce self-hate if the individual fails to live up to them. it can lead to a deeper understanding of complex characterization
Since the standards of the idealized self are superhuman, self-hate than criticism has hitherto afforded.
is inevitable. It is exacerbated, moreover, when circumstances
bring the repressed solutions to the surface. Since the three Horneys work holds open the doors to the self, to others, and
solutions are incompatible, the surfacing of a repressed tendency to literature. Through these doors can be found a fuller life of
involves the individual in a conict by which the fulllment of ones own and a place in the human struggle for communication,
one set of needs violates a contradictory set. Instead of becoming understanding, and empathy that will make life richer for everyone.
the idealized self, the individual is forced by self-hate to identify
with its counterpartthe despised self.
OTHER WORKS: Self-Analysis (1942). Feminine Psychology (1964).
Interpersonal problems are caused by the individuals dis-
torted view of others, seen according to the individuals needs.
Lacking self-esteem, the neurotics false pride depends totally BIBLIOGRAPHY: Alexander, F. A. et al., eds., Psychoanalytic
upon the opinions of others. To avoid inner conict, shoulds Pioneers (1966). Kelman, H., Helping People: Karen Horneys
are externalized and become claims on others. To allay self-hate, Psychoanalytic Approach (1971). Paris, B. J., A Psychological
the neurotic projects it either directly in the form of vengeance or Approach to Fiction (1974). Rubins, J. L., Developments in
passively by seeing himself or herself as victimized. In all these Horney Psychoanalysis (1972). Rubins, J. L., Karen Horney:
ways, the neurotics vulnerability, dependency, and hostility are Gentle Rebel of Psychoanalysis (1978).
augmented. Reference works: CB (Aug. 1941, Jan. 1953). DAB. Oxford
Ultimately, the neurotic solution does not provide salvation Companion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995).
but becomes a monster by which the individual is enslaved to TCAS.
inner dictates, snarled in unreconcilable conicts, and tormented Other references: American Journal of Psychoanalysis
with self-hate. Horney compares the neurotics bargain with fate (1954, 1961).
to a pact with the devil, who promises him glory but makes him
KAREN ANN BUTERY
go to hellto the hell within himself. In spite of this great
tragedy, Horneys theory is optimistic. It is possible to free the
real self from its crippling shackles, to recover the individu-
als actual capabilities, and to revive spontaneous wishes and
wholeheartedness so that once again one can head in the right HOUSTON, Jean
direction on the road to self-realization.
Not only is Horneys work notable for its description and Born 10 May 1939, Brooklyn, New York
etiology of neuroses and for its advancement toward a theory of Daughter of Jack and Maria Todaro Houston; married Robert
healthy self-actualization, but it is also notable for the great strides Masters, 1965
it has made in feminine psychology. It has contributed to the
liberation of woman from the image of virgin/mother/goddess and Jean Houston, scholar, researcher, author of more than 17
to the recovery of her humanity, together with the challenge to books, calls herself a midwife of the spirit. Her work involves
231
HOUSTON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
the study, collection, and application of human capacities devel- on enlarging health and discovering the joy, mystery, and life-wis-
oped around the world under different environmental and social dom of the unconscious.
conditions. Her books expand our understanding of human possi-
bility through the examination of states of consciousness, sensory A protg of Margaret Mead, with a matching sense of
imageries, self-regulation of experiential time, and the explora- curiosity, independence, and mettle, Houston learned the work-
tion of the personal and collective unconscious. ings of organizations and power structures Mead had observed in
her work as an anthropologist. Go out and make the money [for
A hybrid of hybrids, Houstons genetic background mar- the foundation] yourself, Mead advised Houston. Then the job
ries Scottish-Sicilian on her mothers side with her fathers Texan you want to do gets done and you are beholden to no one. Both
and Cherokee heritage. Her father, a descendent of Texas hero Campbell and Mead served on the Foundation Advisory Board, as
Sam Houston, wrote comedy sketches for such notable personali- did Israeli physicist Moshe Feldenkrais, artist Leo Katz, and
ties as Henny Youngman, Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Edgar Bergen, philosopher Alan W. Watts.
and others on the Hollywood scene of the 1940s and 1950s.
Gianuzza, as her maternal grandmother called her, had a In 1972 the Foundation moved to Pomona, New York, where
nomadic childhood, moving from one city and school to another it has become a center for ongoing classes, seminars, and work-
as her fathers career moved them across the country. Rather than shops. As founder of the Mystery School, which meets nine times
becoming the shy and reticent new kid, she learned to walk a year in upstate New York, Houston remains dedicated to
into the schoolroom and command control. teaching history, philosophy, the new physics, psychology, an-
thropology, and myth as well as the many dimensions of our
Houstons formidable talents as an evocateur of human human potential.
capacities advance her vision of the highest achievement of
individual potential, a key theme in the eld of humanistic Houstons range of accomplishments is prodigious; awards
psychology. What makes Houstons work unique is her ability to and citations include the distinguished Leadership Award from
inspire individuals to see their own lives in terms of the larger the Association of Teacher Education (1985); the Gardner Mur-
world stage. Her experiential workshops, integrating imagery and phy Humanitarian Award and the INTA Humanitarian of the Year
creativity studies with exercises originally aimed at developing award (1993); the Lifetime Outstanding Creative Achievement
exible body movement, result in improved memory, and the Award from the Creative Education Foundation (1994); and the
ability to think simultaneously on several tracks and reconnect Joseph Campbell Award for Contributions to the Understanding
with the mythic and symbolic realms of the deep self. The process of Mythology (1996).
contributes to both psychological and physical healing. During her 30-year career, she has lectured and taught at
In 1965 Houston and her husband, Robert Masters, started Hunter College of the City University of New York, the New
the Foundation for Mind Research in New York City to study School for Social Research, Marymount College, the University
methods of exploring human consciousness. She was among a of California at Santa Cruz, and gave the William James Lecture
team of experts who had grant money to study the effects of LSD at the Harvard Divinity School. Her work has fostered hundreds of
on personality. When legalized tests of the substance ended, they teaching/learning communities throughout the U.S., Canada, Eu-
focused on nondrug methods for exploring human consciousness, rope, Asia, South America, and Australia. In 1984 she founded the
developing a sensory deprivation chamber, an audiovisual over- Possible Society, a nonprot organization that encourages the
load chamber, and an Altered States of Consciousness Induction solution of societal problems. She chaired the United Nations
Device (ASCID). That same year, they published their rst book Temple of Understanding Conference of World Religious Lead-
together, The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience, elaborating on ers in 1975, served as president of the Association for Humanistic
their mutual and separate studies. The book, featured on the Psychology in 1977, and chaired the 1979 U.S. Department of
cover of the New York Times Book Review under the headline Commerce symposium for government policymakers. As an
Psychedelicious or Psychedelirious? launched Houstons ca- adviser to UNICEF, she works to implement programs in educa-
reer as a speaker on college campuses and talk shows. For the tion and health, primarily in Myanmar (Burma) and Bangladesh.
remainder of the 1960s she became a maverick against the Most recently, Houston made cross-cultural studies of education-
indiscriminate use of psychedelic drugs, a proponent of controlled al and healing methods in Asia and Africa. The world is set for a
nondrug mind-expanding experiences, and an ersatz drug coun- whole-system transition wherein all cultures have something of
selor trying to talk students on bad trips back to earth. supreme value to offer the whole. This holographic vision of the
future speaks to the salvation of the planet and the human race.
Mind Games (1972) addresses much of Houstons and Mas-
ters work in the 1960s, describing their attempts to utilize altered
states of consciousness for educational purposes. The late my- OTHER WORKS: Listening to the Body (with Robert Masters,
thologist Joseph Campbell, with whom Houston conducted semi- 1978). Life Force: The Psycho-Historical Recovery of the Self
nars and workshops, wrote that Houston and Masters had broken (1980). The Possible Human (1982). The Search for the Beloved:
through to a new understanding of the. . .disciplines of in- Journeys in Sacred Psychology (1987). Godseed: The Journey of
ward-turned contemplation, leaving behind Freudian techniques Christ (1988). The Hero and the Goddess: The Odyssey as
of the day. Their focus, he argued, was not on curing disease but Mystery and Initiation (1992). Public Like a Frog: Entering the
232
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HOWARD
Lives of Three Great Americans (1993). Manual for the Peace- opposing commitments of Howards parents). A New England
maker: An Iroquois Legend to Heal Self and Society (with professor on sabbatical decides to stay in Perugia, while his wife
Margaret Rubin , 1994). The Passion of Isis and Osiris: The Union returns home, maintaining her quietly controlled demeanor. But
of Two Souls (1995). A Mythic Life: Learning to Live Our Greater she sends their daughter to bring her father home. At rst the
Story (1996). A Passion for the Possible (1997). Erwachen daughter prefers the father as she nds him in Italy, extroverted
(German, 1997). and appetitive; but when she discovers his affair with a plump
signorina, she stages a suicide scare to manipulate her father into
returning home. He is, in any case, now bored with his poverty, his
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Jean Houston website: www.JeanHouston.org mistress, his role. His return marks the resumption by the whole
family of the reticent and controlled lives of their past.
MIRIAM KALMAN HARRIS, PH.D.
Howards second novel is far more challenging both in form
and subject matter. Bridgeport Bus (1966) is presented as the
notebooks of Mary Agnes Keely, a 35-year-old Catholic virgin
HOWARD, Maureen who lives with her demanding and obese mother in a tacky
Bridgeport duplex. Mary Agnes runs off to New York, and in the
Born 28 June 1930, Bridgeport, Connecticut permissiveness of that society the notebooks style becomes as
Daughter of William S. and Loretta Burns Kearns; married experimental as the heroine. Half the book deals with the personal
Daniel Howard, 1954; Daniel J. Gordon, 1968 histories of Mary Agnes roommate and cousin, but an attempt to
focus the novel comes at the end, which returns us to the
Maureen Howard attended Smith College (B.A., 1952) and beginning, when Mary Agnes goes back to Bridgeport as the new
was briey employed in publishing. She is a novelist and has also Fat Momma of a baby girl. There is, it seems, no bus out of
been a frequent reviewer, particularly for the New York Times Bridgeport, no escape from the past.
Book Review. Howard teaches at Columbia University. She has This is the pattern again repeated in Before My Time (1975),
been a nalist for the PEN/Faulkner award three times: in 1983, where Jim Cogan arrives at the beginning and leaves at the end of
1987, and 1993. the novel, with Laura Quinn left standing at the airport having
Howard is one of the most important female novelists in thought a lot but changed little. Jim is the 17-year-old son of
America today, yet she goes largely unrecognized by feminists Lauras cousin, sent to stay with Laura and her husband while
and by the general public, probably because her work is neither awaiting arraignment on drug-possession charges. As Laura and
didactic nor fast-paced. Instead, the action is almost entirely Jim trade memories, she begins to envy his freedom from a past
cerebral, with events perceived indirectly, often ltered through that has committed her to inescapable patterns of behavior. Jim is
the consciousness of the main character. Howards characters are able to shrug off the past, saying it is before my time, but she
searching for liberation; they attempt to free themselves, not carries burdens: a dead older brother to live up to, a pattern of
politically but psychologically, from a past to which they are tied orderly repression (revealed by her journalism), her tasteful
by memories and commitments too strong to escape completely. suburban home, and the man she married. Jim Cogans anarchy
exposes her restraints, yet when she offers him money to escape
Howards memoirs demonstrate the power of the past in her entirely from the law, from his family, and from his past, he
personal life. Facts of Life (1978) is oblivious to chronology; it refuses and takes up the commitments that she nds so restrictive.
circles and recircles Howards past in an attempt to unravel its
mysteries, creating a cumulative effect. The product of a mid- Howards novels consistently show a skillful, yet unpreten-
dle-class family, her parents were so strictly Catholic that when tious and unobtrusive, stylistic sensitivity, with a ne sense of
little Maureen inadvertently broke her fast with orange juice descriptive monologue conveying subtle nuances of meaning.
before her rst communion, her white dress and veil were packed Reviewers compare her to Henry James and Virginia Woolf, and
away for a later date and the family celebration was canceled. Her while she has not reached the artistry of either, she may yet do so.
mother had an unfocused admiration for the arts, sending Howard She writes in a way that calls readers attention to her works as
off to piano, dancing, and elocution lessons, while her father written texts, documents of life. It is not just that she often writes
ridiculed art as unrealistic and pretentious, purposefully discomting both about writing and writersMargaret Flood, protagonist of
his family with coarse ostentation. As a little girl, Howard, like her Expensive Habits (1986) is a writer; Jack, a character in Natural
mother, did not want art confused with real life, so it is to her History (1992), is a would-be screenwriter; and almost all of the
credit that her novels have overcome this separation. characters of her recent novels are compilers and editors of their
own memories. It is also Howards round, sometimes-jagged,
The conjunction of art and life came gradually. Howard often-poetic narrative structures and prose augment our under-
herself describes Not a Word About Nightingales (1961) as standing of the setbacks, start-ups, and rich, enigmatic moments
mannered and academic; it demonstrates the formal and of her characters lives.
thematic belief that our passion must be contained if we are not
to be fools. This rst novel juxtaposes the cultural reticence of Almost all of Howards more recent critics see her as a superb
New England with the emotional effusion of Italy (not unlike the craftsperson, and many of them cite her precision of perception,
233
HOWE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
her abundance of feeling, and occasionally, her tendency to judge. Lark & My Antonia (1998); Cabbage and Bones: An Anthology of
Her few negative reviews stem from what the critics see as her Irish-American Womens Fiction (1997).
excessive ellipses and her penchant for leaping from person to Numerous articles and book reviews in such publications as
person (both in terms of character and narrative point of view) and Yale Review, NYTBR, the Nation, and the Virginia Quarterly.
from story line to story line. In an interview, Howard commented,
The most exciting thing in the world to me is the idea of
audience. The knowledge that someone has had to do some work BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1975). CANR (1990). CLC
on the other sideto understand what youve implied, to imagine (1988). CN (1991). DLB (1983, 1984). MTCW (1991). Oxford
something in a new way. Companion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995).
Grace Abounding (1982) features Maude Dowd, widow, Other references: Booklist (1 Jan. 1998). LJ (Dec. 1997).
childlike mother of Margaret, fantasizer, and nally, child psy- Newsweek (20 Jan. 1975). NR (4 Oct. 1982). NYTBR (19 Jan.
chologist. Maudes character remains as unxed as Howards 1975, 26 Sept. 1982, 21 Nov. 1982, 8 June 1986, 18 Oct. 1992).
narrative, which alights on Margaret, the eccentric LeDoux sis- PW (27 Aug. 1982, 15 Oct. 1982, 13 Oct. 1997).SR (Winter 1975).
ters, and an abused little boy, among others. Seattle Times (11 Feb. 1998).
Expensive Habits centers on, but hardly restricts itself to,

SUZANNE HENNING UPHAUS,
another multifaceted, intelligent, struggling woman. Margaret
UPDATED BY FAYE HALPERN AND NICK ASSENDELFT
Flood battles, perhaps tritely, an injured heart. The novel chroni-
cles her attempted rewritings of her life, which are beautifully
crafted and perceptive, but can never tell the whole story. In this
and her other novels, Howard creates the paradox of adding more
and more details that increase our understanding of the novel
while simultaneously expanding the parameters of what we have
HOWE, Florence
to understand.
Born 17 March 1929, Brooklyn, New York
Natural History is Howards biggest novel, both in scope and
Daughter of Samuel and Frances Stilly Rosenfeld; married Paul
ambition. It chronicles the development of Bridgeport, Connecti-
Lauter, 1967
cut, and some of its inhabitants, especially the Bray family. One
critic names Howards native Bridgeport as the protagonist, a
good choice for those who insist that every good, big novel have Raised in Brooklyn in an orthodox Jewish family, Florence
one. The novels lack of a main character, and of linear chronol- Howe received a B.A. from Hunter College (1950), an M.A. in
ogy and a consistent mode of storytelling (it includes prose English from Smith College (1951), and did further graduate work
narrative, screenplay, and civic diary), challenges notions about at the University of Wisconsin (1951-54). A teacher at Goucher
the necessities of novel writing. Howards experimentalism is not College in Baltimore, Maryland, from 1960 to 1971, Howe found
merely for its own sake: her characters are also experimenting the direction of her thinking and teaching altered by work in a
adding meaning to the mystery of their lives and vice versa. Mississippi Freedom School during the summer of 1964; by
participation in the anti-Vietnam War and student movements of
Howards seventh novel A Lovers Almanac (1998) is the
rst of a proposed trilogy of stories set in the year 2000. Howard the late 1960s and early 1970s; and by the desire to apply what she
follows Louise Moffett, born and raised on a Wisconsin farm, and had learned from these experiences to writing and teaching,
her boyfriend, Artie Freeman, a Park Avenue-raised computer particularly to writing and teaching about women.
geek. On the dawn of the new millennium, the two break up and
A national leader in the eld of womens studies and one of
Howard traces their feelings and subsequent reunion using the
its best-informed historians, Howe taught as a professor of hu-
style of an almanac. As she charts the lives of the main charac-
manities at the State University of New York at Old Westbury,
tersand a secondary relationship between Arties widowed
and has been visiting professor of womens studies at institutions
grandfather and a woman from his past with whom he begins a
here and abroad. She also served as editor of the Womens Studies
relationshipHoward weaves predictions from the Old Farmers
Almanac to make her points. She also adds biographical tidbits Newsletter, president of the Feminist Press, and coordinator of the
about Alexander Graham Bell, Virginia Woolf, Bill Gates, facts Clearinghouse on Womens Studies; she has been chairperson of
about astronomy and ancient Egypt, and bits of astrology. Near- the Modern Language Associations commission on the status of
ly every culture has created an almanac of some kind, trying to set women and division of womens studies, as well as the associa-
some patternlike a calendaron the chaos of our emotions, tions president.
Howard explained to the Seattle Times in a review of her lat-
Howes essays and books are marked by several general
est work.
characteristics: a recognition of the interrelationships between
education, politics, and the teaching and writing of literature; a
OTHER WORKS: The Penguin Book of Contemporary American tendency to move from personal experiences (her own or those of
Essays (editor, 1984). Contributor to: O Pioneers!, The Son of the others) to more general social analysis and then to the working out
234
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HOWE
of practical strategies for change; and a willingness to speak to a have been deeper and more provocative, missing an opportunity
wide variety of audiences both within and without the womens to delve deeper into areas only touched upon by earlier works. Yet
movement and the educational establishment. Oktenberg still believes No More Masks! is a work worth reading
nonetheless.
In essays on contemporary British novelist Doris Lessing,
Howe comments on the ways in which Lessing links the growth of Howes Feminist Press marked its 25th anniversary in 1995.
her characters and their struggles with freedom and madness, with The books we have brought to light are essential if our daughters
larger struggles against racism and war, and with the breakdown and their daughters are to continue to live in a society that values
of Western culture. Similarly, her introduction to No More Masks! and esteems not only women writers, but also the history and
(1973), an anthology of modern American women poets, empha- culture their books record, Howe remarked. The press publishes
sizes connections between the personal and the political in poems 15-20 books a year.
in which these writers explore their identities as writers and
In 1993 the Feminist Press published Women Writing in
as women.
India: 600 BC to the Present. The 1,200-page, two-volume work
In more general essays on the connections between feminism distills the most critically conscious writing from one of the
and literature, Howes principal assumption is that there are longest traditions of womens literature in the world, according to
importantindeed crucialconnections of class, race, sex, and the Press. Its next project is Women Writing in Africa, a series of
ethnicity between literature and the lives of those who write and volumes of African womens writings never before available.
read it. Pointing to our ignorance of women writers of the past, of Other ongoing projects of the press include the Cross-Cultural
feminist polemical writing, and of womens history, she asks us to Memoir series and the Helen Rose Scheuer Jewish Womens Series.
search for what has been left out of the literary canon and to ask in Howe was the recipient of the Mina Shaughnessy Award
what ways rediscovered works by women force upon us a revised Fund for Improvement of Post-Secondary Education in 1982-83.
sense of the value and function of literature. She argues that if In addition, she was an NEH fellow, 1971-73; a Ford Foundation
women, blacks, or others whose viewpoints are absent from works fellow, 1974-75; Fulbright fellow in 1977; Mellon fellow at
deemed great by the literary establishment are exposed to a Wellesley College in 1979; and a U.S. Department of State
vision of the power of language and idea in literature expres- grantee in 1983 and 1993.
sive of their own experience, a growth in self-respect and self-aware-
ness and a desire for social change will result.
OTHER WORKS: The Conspiracy of the Young (with P. Lauter,
In detailing the extraordinary growth of womens studies 1970). Womens Studies: Evaluation and Impact on Institu-
during the late 1960s and early 1970s, Howe has dened its goals tions (1979).
as raising the aspirations of women as individuals and as a group
working for social change, compensating for the omission of
women from the curriculum, encouraging the development of BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: WW in America (1998).
research tools and skills, and working to discover the lost or Other references: Choice (Nov. 1973). Critic (May 1971).
neglected history and culture of women. Further, Howe insists the Harvard Educational Review (Feb. 1977). Kenyon Review (Sum-
perspective of womens studies must be brought to the elementary mer 1994). Political Science Quarterly (Spring 1976). Radical
and secondary schools, where perceptions of self and society are Teacher (Dec. 1977). Saturday Review (19 June 1971). WHR
formed, if feminist goals for education and society are to be (Winter 1974). Womens Review of Books (Nov. 1993).
achieved.
JANET SHARISTANIAN,
On their broadest level, these recommendations stem from UPDATED BY NICK ASSENDELFT
Howes conception of power, as described in Women and the
Power to Change (1975), not as a nite commodity through
which one person or group controls another, but as an instrument
for social change that can be diffused throughout a group when HOWE, Julia Ward
those with the capacity to lead use their talents to energize others
rather than to control them. Seeing women not simply as victims
of socialization and discrimination, but as potential agents of their Born 27 May 1819, New York, New York; died 17 October 1910,
own deliverance. Newport, Rhode Island
Daughter of Samuel and Julia Cutler Ward; married Samuel G.
Howe followed up her No More Masks! with a revised and Howe, 1843; children: six
expanded edition in 1993, compiling selected works from more
than 100 women poets. As editor, Howe compiled an anthology Julia Ward Howe was born into a wealthy New York City
which represents culturally diverse poetry. Both the former and family. A combination of tutors and private schools provided her
the new anthologies have met with critical praise from experts and with an excellent education in literature and the Romance lan-
fans for highlighting little-known female writers. But critic Adri- guages. She later taught herself German and studied the German
an Oktenberg of the Kenyon Review says the revised edition could philosophers. During her sheltered childhood and youth, her only
235
vent for her emotions was the writing of religious poetry. Howes Howes feminist theory pervaded her lectures, articles, and
life of seclusion ended when she married Samuel Gridley Howe, even her occasional sermons. It was an articulate blend of conven-
the director of the Perkins Institute for the Blind. She bore six tional notions about womens natural domesticity and moral
children in 16 years. superiority with more radical views concerning womens spiritual
and intellectual equality with men. She saw traditional femininity
Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, Howe struggled to estab- as a power base that women should strengthen by broader educa-
lish a literary career despite her husbands disapproval. She felt tion and work experience. As a means to these ends, she advocated
required to publish her rst book of verse, Passion Flowers a better distribution of power within the family and the state,
(1854), anonymously. The poems, regular in meter and rhyme, opportunities for higher education for women, support for work-
vary in theme and purpose. Passion Flowers contains a number of ing women, and access to the professions. Howe believed that
powerful emotional poems with themes of conict, disappoint- America would achieve the glory to which she aspired during the
ment, and inadequacy. Although some of the poems in Words for 19th century only when women had received the opportunities
the Hour (1857) continue to reect Howes inner turmoil and and respect they deserved.
unhappiness, most of the verses are conventional in tone. Later
Lyrics (1866) introduces what was to become Howes primary As her sermons and lectures gained renown, Howe came to
poetic form: commemorative verses designed to celebrate a public see herself as a guardian of American virtue. Two of her published
event or notable personality. Howes nal book of poetry, From lecturesModern Society (1881) and Is Polite Society Polite?
Sunset Ridge (1898), reprinted some of her early poems in (1895)reect her convictions concerning the manners and
addition to publishing new commemorative verse. morals of the New England elite, combined with a new emphasis
on womans role in maintaining these values.
Other writing ventures included articles for the abolitionist
newspaper Commonwealth, a brief stint as editor of Northern When, in the 1890s, old age limited Howes mobility, she
Lights, two travel books, travel letters to the New York Tribune, began a new career as an essayist for popular and religious
two wordy and unsuccessful plays, and a series of philosophical magazines. She wrote about everything from The Joys of
essays designed to be read as parlor lectures. Howes one substan- Motherhood to Lynch Law in the South. The exposure that
tial literary success was the publication of her Battle Hymn of these publications provided built up a new, gratifying reputation
the Republic, in Atlantic Monthly (February 1862). The poem for Howe as Queen of America and Americas Grand
gained increasing popularity as the century progressed, but Howes Old Lady.
publishers forced her to recognize that the audience for her poetry
was dwindling. By 1870 Howe was casting around for other ways Although Howes writings for public consumption were
to express herself. numerous, very few of them were published by a commercial
establishment. The small fraction of her work that was published
In 1868 Howe embarked on two new projects that departed is not her best writing. The reams of articles and lectures that were
dramatically from the literary salonire image she had cherished never published, however, contain lively images and vigorous,
for so long. She helped found the new American Woman Suffrage convincing arguments. Howes major contribution was her ability
Association (AWSA). She was an ofcer of the AWSA and its to galvanize thousands of women into cooperative action on
successor, the National American Woman Suffrage Association, behalf of their sex. Her air for nding the right word, as she
for 41 years. Howe also helped found the rst womans club in the put it, helped improve the status of women for generations, long
Northeast, the New England Womans Club, and served as its after her poems and plays were forgotten.
president for 38 years.
In the early 1870s, Howe added to her list of causes by

OTHER WORKS: The Worlds Own (1857). A Trip to Cuba (1860).
initiating a womens campaign for world peace. She made speech-
From the Oak to the Olive (1868). Memoir of Dr. Samuel Gridley
es, wrote letters, and circulated brief addresses that she composed
Howe (1876). Margaret Fuller, Marchessa Ossoli (1883).
herself. None of this material found favor with any publisher, but
Reminiscences, 1819-1899 (1899). At Sunset (1910).
it helped establish Howes reputation as a woman activist, her
The papers of Julia Ward Howe are housed in the Schlesinger
vocation for the rest of her life.
Library of Radcliffe College, the Houghton Library of Harvard
During the decades of the 1870s and 1880s, Howe wrote University, and the Library of Congress.
prodigiously. She wrote personal letters, increasing the bonds
between womens organizations and encouraging the founding of
new clubs. She took extended lecture trips several times a year, BIBLIOGRAPHY: Clifford, D., Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A
during which she spoke extensively on womens issues. In 1873 Biography of Julia Ward Howe (1979). Elliott, M., The Eleventh
she helped found the Association for the Advancement of Wom- Hour in the Life of Julia Ward Howe (1911). Grant, M. H., Private
en, a forerunner of the General Federation of Womens Clubs. In Woman, Public Person: An Account of the Life of Julia Ward
connection with her presidency of this organization, she wrote Howe from 1819-1868 (1994). Gray, J. and C. W. E. Bigsby, She
numerous papers on topics of concern to women. Wields a Pen: American Women Poets of the 19th Century (1997).
236
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HOWE
Hall, F., The Story of the Battle Hymn of the Republic (1916). and re hung up by threads. Secret History includes such
Johnson, W. D., Serious Sentimentalism: A Rhetoric of Antebellum nontraditional elements as line drawings, appropriated text frag-
American Womens Verse (dissertation, 1995). Kane, P., Poetry of ments, and typographical idiosyncrasies, all of which would
the American Renaissance: A Diverse Anthology from the Roman- proliferate in later work, but this poem also has its traditional,
tic Period (1995). Kelly, M., ed., Womans Being, Womans even lyrical moments: Flakes of thick snow / fell on the open
Place: Female Identity and Vocation in American History (1979). pages. Howe has been grouped with the Language Poets, a
Mead, E., Julia Ward Howes Peace Crusade (1910). Richards, L., designation that brings out her self-conscious use of words, but
and M. Elliott, Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910 (1915). Richards, L., she never sacrices feeling for form.
Two Noble Lives: Samuel Gridley Howe and Julia Ward Howe Howes prose preface to Frame Structures deals obliquely
(1911). Schriber, M. S., Telling Travels: Selected Writings by with the autobiographical, familial, literary, and historical sources
Nineteenth-Century American Women Abroad (1995). Tharp, L., of her early poetry, swooping from Nigeria to Niagara and
Three Saints and a Sinner (1956). Williams, G. Hungry Heart: Egyptian tombs, to memories of her father and mother, to medita-
The Literary Emergence of Julia Ward Howe (1999). Zink- tions on the intimacy of archives and antiquarianism.
Sawyer, B. A., The Preachers and the Suffragists: The Role of
Preachers in the Ideological Transformation of the Woman Defenestration of Prague (1983) begins with a 17th-century
incident that set off the Thirty Years War and shifts to Ireland,
Suffrage Movement in the United States (dissertation, 1998).
where the poet proceeds to mingle personal history, the ongoing
Reference works: AA. AW. CAL. DAB. FPA. NAW (1971).
sectarian conict that proves how little progress has been made in
NCAB. Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United
three centuries, and the person of Esther Johnson. Better known as
States (1995).
the Stella gure in Jonathan Swifts love poems, Johnson is an
elusive, compelling muse, and Howe collages 18th-century texts
MARY H. GRANT with Shakespeares Cordelia and other works into a personal
meditation on female identity miles away from pop psychology or
historical romance.
My Emily Dickinson followed, and the New England poet
HOWE, Susan took Stellas place, allowing for a wide-ranging study with a
paradoxically narrow focus on a single poem, My Life had
stooda Loaded gun. She built a new poetic form, wrote
Born 1937, Ireland Howe, from her fractured sense of being eternally on intellectual
borders. The book offers not only a reevaluation of Dickinsons
Susan Howes poetics are in some respects the opposite of place in literary history but a virtuosic explication of the poem
Walt Whitmans. Where Whitman sought to mythologize Ameri- around which the study is based. According to Marjorie Perloff,
ca by celebrating Abraham Lincoln, the common worker, and, Howes aim is not so much to explain Dickinsons meanings as
most famously, himself, Howe has questioned American my- to relive them. In another nonction work, Birth-Mark (1993),
thologies, digging up the roots of Americana and struggling to Howe explores the concept of wilderness in American literature,
nd a place for herself. Whitmans poems demand to be read surveying a number of writers to determine how wilderness ts
into American mythology.
aloud; Howes ask to be seen arranged on the page.
In revisiting and interrogating quintessentially American
Howe was born in Ireland, and though her subject matter voices, Howe has developed one of her own. Bypassing Whitman,
remains centered on America, she draws on Irish literature in the she takes on not just Dickinson but Thoreau, Emerson, and such
context of the immigrant experience, and her harsh, minimal modern counterparts as Hart Crane and John Cage. Sometimes
language has been compared to that of Samuel Beckett. But she even collides her own voice against itself. The nal page of
another harsh, minimal voice has inspired Howe to a far greater Scattering As Behavior Toward Risk, from her Singularities
extent. She explores and reinterprets this voice in a work of poetic (1990), is a dizzying vortex of diagonal lines, where Freak inside
criticism, My Emily Dickinson (1985), demonstrating Dickinsons the heart and Secret fact a title given literally intersect and
intense engagement with American social and intellectual cur- overlap.
rents and therefore rescuing her from the kid gloves of critics who
insist on treating her like an effete hermit.
OTHER WORKS: A Bibliography of the Kings Book or, Eikon
Frame Structures (1996) anthologizes Howes early poems, Basilike (1989). The Europe of Trusts (1990). The Nonconform-
drawing on chapbooks published between 1974 and 1979. Chant- ists Memorial (1993). Pierce-Arrow (1999).
ing at the Crystal Sea (1975) touches on the history of the Quincy
family (descendants of President John Adams) and the ruination BIBLIOGRAPHY: Quartermain, P., Disjunctive Poetics: From Ger-
of American Indian culture, testing their congruity with the poets trude Stein and Louis Zukofsky to Susan Howe (1992).
personal history and an assortment of jarring images: children
coiled like hedgehogs; blankets congealed / into icicles; MARK SWARTZ
237
HOWE, Tina favorite, the characters huddle around a bonre inside a restaurant
puried of their collective civilization and private grief as they
feast and the curtain falls. And in Approaching Zanzibar (1990), a
Born 21 November 1937, New York, New York young girl bouncing on a trampoline (made up to look like a bed)
Daughter of Quincy and Mary Post Howe; married Norman chants, Paradise. . .paradise, as she bounces higher and higher,
Levy, 1961; children: Eben, Dara until she looks like a reckless angel challenging the limits of
heaven.
Born in New York City to a family of writers, Tina Howe Howes plays have been produced around the country and
writes plays stretching dramatic forms and evoking her self- abroad and have premiered in such prestigious venues as the Los
professed obsession with art. While these plays often feature Angeles Actors Theatre, the New York Shakespeare Festival, the
artists as characters, their concerns are the integration of art and Kennedy Center, and the Second Stage. She has also received a
daily life, her themes the renewal and regeneration only art and Rockefeller grant, two National Endowment for the Arts fellow-
children provide. ships, a Guggenheim fellowship, an American Academy of Arts
and letters award in literature, and received two honorary degrees.
After graduating from Sarah Lawrence College (B.A. 1959),
Although her family has its roots in the Boston area, Howe has
where she wrote her rst play, Howe spent a year in Paris where
spent most of her life in and around New York City. She teaches
she wrote around the clock. . .and the infatuation [with playwrit- playwriting at Hunter College and New York University, as well
ing] began. After returning, she earned her teaching credentials as at the Sewanee Writers Conference, University of the South,
at Columbia Teachers College and Chicago Teachers College, Tennessee. Howe has served since 1990 on the council of the
then began teaching high school rst in Monona Grove, Wiscon- Dramatists Guild.
sin, and later in Bath, Maine. There, she says, she learned her craft
while running the drama department, a task she took on with the Howes plays continue to document how the public perceives
agreement that only her plays be produced. The Nest (1970) was and interprets art and the arts. She acknowledges that women
Howes rst professionally produced play. playwrights are often treated with disdain by what remains the
largely male domain of the theater but continues to enjoy making
Often innovative and even experimental, Howes most criti- the act of writing plays as difcult as possible via her selection of
cally successful works to date have been Painting Churches, unexpected and untraditional situations and settings. Howe truly
which won the Outer Critics Circle Award for best Off-Broadway pushes the envelope more than the traditional, conservative
play, 1983-84, and was produced by PBS American Playhouse playwright.
series in 1986, and Coastal Disturbances, which received a Tony
nomination for best play, 1987. In 1983 Howe received an Obie Her absurdist comedy, One Shoe Off (1993), explores mar-
for distinguished playwriting. riage, delity, and courage while also paying homage to the
theatrical clich that the show must go on no matter what else is
Howe has always claimed an afnity with the absurdists. Her happening. Her most recent offering is Prides Crossing (1997),
work, however, in its playful exploration of the absurd in a produced at the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre of Lincoln Center.
realistic setting, more resembles the early absurdists Pirandello Called by most critics the best new play of the 1997-98 season,
and especially Giraudoux, than it does later, more minimalist Prides Crossing is the story of Mabel Tiding Bigelow. The play
absurdists such as Beckett and Genet. Her plays typically work opens when Mabel is ninety years old, as she tells the story of her
through theme and variation based on musical forms rather than failed attempt to escape from her upper-class Boston upbringing.
linear plot development. She moves her characters to epiphany Mabel moves from age ninety to ten, to thirty-three, to fteen, to
incrementally, through accretion, in a series of large and small sixty, and nally back to ninety.
moments that build into a nal, resonant image. This led to some The complex lead character of Mabel has clashed with
unfounded accusations of formlessness in early reviews by critics society as she tried to make a place for herself in a world not quite
more used to obvious moments of crisis and resolution. Howes ready for her feminist tendencies. Howe created the character of
plays develop a rhythmic energy that carry them beyond the Mabel by blending her own eighty-nine-year-old Aunt Maddy
ordinary and into a heightened realism bordering on the fantastic with Gertrude Ederle, who at age nineteen swam the English
or absurd, ending in a release: unexpected silliness, poignant Channel in 1924. The renegade Mabel of Prides Crossing,
ecstasy, what she calls the amboyant in everyday life. Massachusetts, swam the English Channel at the age of twenty-
ve, but rather than focusing on the swim, debated a marriage
Howes plays are notable as well for their imaginative use of
proposal instead.
settings, from a full working kitchen in Art of Dining (1978) to the
complete art exhibit of Museum (1983). Perhaps inuenced by her Prides Crossing was one of three plays nominated for the
mothers work as a watercolorist, Howes stage directions often 1997 Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Yet the 1997 jury believed none of
provide visual tableaux, as in the strikingly pictorial Coastal the three had lled all the criteria for the Pulitzer and no award
Disturbances, and an emphasis on the nal image in the stage was given. Prides Crossing, however, did receive the 1998 New
directions of each play. In The Art of Dining, Howes personal York Drama Critics Circle Award for best American play.
238
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HOWES
OTHER WORKS: Closing Time (1960). Birth and After Birth domestic subject matter and of place, and her distrust of the
(1974). Swimming (1991). snarling little ego, her aversion to writers who give in to
The following pieces in: Birth and After Birth in The New violence and spite.
Womens Theatre (edited by H. Moore, 1977); Antic Vision,
American Theatre Magazine (Sept. 1985); Stepping Through The constants in Howes poetry are a detached, restrained
the Frame, Art and Antiques (Jan. 1987); Teeth, in Best tone that carries considerable tight-lipped intensity; an intellectual
American Short Plays (1990), and in Antaeus Plays in One Act concern with physical and human nature and with the patterns and
(edited by D. Dalpern, 1991); The Reluctant Exhibitionist, principles that underlie and relate their behavior; and a technique
Allure Magazine (Sept. 1991); One Shoe Off (produced 1993), that is exible, controlled, and relatively traditional. Unlike so
and others. many contemporary postmodernist poets, she did not write social
protest about the womens movement or the Vietnam War, and
she was neither confessional nor surrealistic. Also unlike them,
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brown, J., Feminist Drama, Denition and Criti- she manipulated rather than abandoned conventional prosody.
cal Analysis (1979). Hart, L. ed., Making a Spectacle: Feminist
Howes chose many traditional subjects, such as still-life;
Essays on Contemporary Womens Theatre (1989). Brater, E.,
mythological personages; objects dart; specic persons (To W.
ed., Feminine Focus: The New Women Playwrights (1989).
Howes Auden on His Fiftieth Birthday), places (On a
Betsko, K., and R. Koenig, Interviews with Contemporary Women
Bougainvillaea Vine at the Summer Palace, Views of Oxford
Playwrights (1987). Di Gaetani, John L., A Search for a Post-
Colleges), and occasions; and nature interpreted by and for
Modern Theatre (1991). Foster, K., Detangling the Web: Moth-
civilization: a deer in hunting season dropped like a monu-
er-Daughter Relationships in the Plays of Marsha Norman, Lillian
ment, a dead toucan described as a beak with a panache /
Hellman, Tina Howe, and Ntozake Shange (thesis, 1994).
chucked like an old shell back to the Caribbean.
Schlueter, J., ed., Modern American Drama: The Female Can-
on (1990). Howes most insistent theme is that unrestricted emotion
Reference works: CA (1983). CLC (1988). CD (1988). CBY blinds and imprisons if allowed to dominate either life or art. In
(1990). FC (1990). Notable Women in the American Theater The New Leda, Howes speaks of the woman dedicated to the
(1989). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United god, whether Zeus or Christ: Her / limbo holds her like a y in
States (1995). amber, / Beyond the reach of life. In For an Old Friend, she
Other references: New York (28 Nov. 1983, 22-29 Dec. imagines the friend thinking This hullabaloo about life / is not
1986). NYT (1 May 1983, 28 Nov. 1983, 16 Nov. 1986, 30 April my forte; in Radar and Unmarked Cars, she writes, our /
1989, 7 May 1989). Newsday (11 Jan. 1998). Otherstages (27 Jan. Radar / Will hold us True: / We need / Love / At a constant
1983). Studies in American Drama, 1945-Present (interview, speed. Her aesthetic credo matches the personal one in Portrait
1989).Theatre Week (12 June 1989). of the Artist: For dear life some do / Many a hard thing, / Train
the meticulous mind / Upon meaning, seek / And nd, and yet
MARCIA HEPPS AND WILLIAM KEENEY, discard / All that is not of realitys tough rind / . . .To be / Ascetic
UPDATED BY HEIDI HARTWIG DENLER for lifes sake, / Honest and passionate.
The effect of this personal and aesthetic credo on her work is

both her poems strength and their weakness. In a poem like
Still-life: New England, the tone of restrained disgust and
HOWES, Barbara assumed indifference is deliberately and successfully used to
create horror, the ironic opposite of indifference. But when, in
Born 1 May 1914, New York, New York; died 24 February 1996 Dream of a Good Day, Howes puts all the action of the poem
Daughter of Osborne and Mildred Cox Howes; married Wil- into conventional romantic dreams of sailing and discovering
liam J. Smith, 1947 (divorced); children: two sons (i.e., making a poem), which are quite separate from reality, and
then uses only the last line to state but not to experience reality
After graduating from Bennington College in Vermont, (Then in the colloquial evening to come back to love), the
Barbara Howes lived in Italy, England, France, and Haiti; she poem suffers because the honesty is there without the passion.
lived the remainder of her life in Vermont, with frequent visits to
the West Indies. She had two sons and was divorced. Howes was Yet it was passion that made her such a disciplined craftsperson.
the recipient of many fellowships and awards. Her professional Howes speaks of the need to train the eye to notice and the ear to
activities were literary rather than academic; she was editor of listen, to recognize the necessity of form (language must have
Chimera magazine from 1943 to 1947. discipline to have meaning), and to distinguish between the
forms of art and journalism. It is this disciplined passion that
In her essay in Poets on Poetry, Howes discussed the poets enabled her to make her poetry a way of life, not just an
who have inuenced her, her interest in translation and in adapt- avocation, a way in which one orders and deepens ones
ing Old French and other literary forms to contemporary con- experience, and learns to understand what is happening in oneself
cerns, her purpose in writing, the importance in her work of and in others.
239
HOWLAND AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Overall, Howes poetry strongly continues the Apolloni- community in Topolobampo, Mexico. Her involvement was di-
an strain of Eliot, Stevens, and Wilbur, rather than the Dionysi- rectly instrumental in changing Owens initial plans for sin-
an strain of Whitman and Williams. But though she has not quite gle-family dwellings to architectural designs stressing collective
Eliots dramatic compression, nor Stevenss mercurial imagina- arrangements organized to reduce the domestic work of women,
tion, nor Wilburs classical balance, her depth of perception, rm thus freeing them for more direct participation in the government
ironic tone, and technical control make her a worthy member of of the community. In her studies of American women architects
their company. and social reformers, the historian Dolores Hayden has discov-
ered and made public many of Howlands original designs. They
include resident hotels, row houses linked to communal kitchen,
OTHER WORKS: The Undersea Farmer (1948). In the Cold and picturesque suburban houses with cooperative kitchen
Country: Poems (1954). Light and Dark: Poems (1959). Looking facilities.
Up at Leaves (1966). The Blue Garden (1972). A Private Signal: Financial and administrative mismanagement prevented the
Poems New and Selected (1977). construction of these buildings, but the plans were published in
The papers of Barbara Howes are at the Yale University Integral Cooperation: Its Practical Application (1885). The book
Library in New Haven, Connecticut. was originally released only under Owens name, but Robert
Fogarty, in his introduction to the 1975 edition, revealed Howlands
substantial participation. Howland lived at the Pacic Colony for
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bogan, L., Selected Criticism (1955). Friedman, N., several years but eventually left because of hostility to certain
Contemporary Poets (1975). Nemerov, H., ed., Poets on Poetry aspects of her feminism, primarily her advocacy of free love. She
(1966). Untermeyer, L., ed., Modern American Poetry (1962). subsequently lived in a Fairhope, Alabama, single-tax communi-
Reference works: CA (1974). Contemporary Poets (1975). ty, where she served as a librarian.
WA.
Working with her husband, Howland for a brief period edited
Other references: Choice (Apr. 1978). NYHTB (15 Nov.
two journals devoted to the propagation of the principles of
1959). NYT (4 Apr. 1954). SR (19 Mar. 1949). TLS (10 Feb. 1978).
economic cooperation: the Credit Foncier of Sinaloa and Social
Solutions. Howlands 1873 translation of J. A. B. Godins Social
ALBERTA TURNER Solutions, an in-depth presentation of the political philosophy
responsible for the founding of the Social Palace in Guise, was
serialized in 1887 in the Howland journal, Social Solutions. She
also publicized the principles of utopian socialism in essays and
short ction written for Harpers, Galaxy, Lippincotts, and the
HOWLAND, Marie Overland Monthly.
In her only novel, Papas Own Girl (1874), Howland de-
Born 1836, New Hampshire; died September 1921,
scribes the establishment of a Fourieristic community in rural
Fairhope, Alabama
Massachusetts. According to a contemporary reviewer, No
Married Edward Howland
novel has yet appeared so comprehensive in its range, bearing
upon the great social questions of the day: the position of woman
Marie Howland was employed as a millworker in Lowell, and the condition of labor. Today the novel is regrettably a
Massachusetts, and then after a normal-school education, as a forgotten classic in the tradition of political ction written by
school principal. Her career as an author, political propagandist, American women.
and pioneering architect began as a result of her involvement with
In the rst half of the novel, Howland describes how two
followers of the utopian socialist Charles Fourier in New York
women, Clara Forest and Susie Dykes, are converted to feminism.
City in the 1850s. Through these associations, Howland became
The two womenone separated from her still socially respectable
convinced of the necessity of economic and industrial reform; she
husband and the other a mother unapologetic about her conspicu-
also was a champion of the combined household and free love.
ous lack of any husbandset up housekeeping, survive commu-
During the 1860s, Howland lived in the Familistre, or Social nity ostracism, and operate a protable greenhouse and nursery,
Palace, a Fourieristic community in Guise, France. While there, an establishment that often serves as a refuge for other women.
she became especially inspired by architectural reforms that Howland is not content, however, with such a highly individual-
greatly reduced and collectivized domestic work traditionally ized resolution. In the novels second half, her analysis extends
ascribed to women. Most signicant of these reforms were beyond the immediate problems faced by the two women and
centralized facilities for cooking, laundry, and childrens day care. toward a reformation of the entire social organization, based on a
utopian socialism that sees industrial reform and feminism as
Hoping to effect similar reforms in her own country, Howland
inseparable.
returned to the U.S. in 1866. During the 1870s and 1880s, she
worked with Albert Kimsey Owen and John J. Dewey in organiz- In her work on Howland, Dolores Hayden has already
ing the Pacic Colony, a self-sufcient, communitarian socialist established how Howland, like 19th-century women committed to
240
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HULL
domestic and economic reform, was attracted to communitarian daughter of an unhappily married college teacher, chronicling her
socialism as a concept which at once domesticated political discoveries in sex and in childbirth. Labyrinth (1923) depicts with
economy and politicized domestic economy and which held understanding the lack of supportive models for a woman combin-
special appeal for feminists because of their strategies to change ing marriage, career, and parenthood. My mind is coated with
traditional concepts of power and property. A revival of interest fat, my thoughts creek. . . . The loneliest person in the world is a
in Howlands writings should prove benecial to anyone interest- devoted mother, laments an at-home Catherine. After she begins
ed in the history of the ongoing study of the relationship between rewarding work, however, she is realistically faced with crises
the social and sexual self-denition of American women. such as working when a child is sick.
In one of her best books, Islanders (1927), Hull recognizes
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Douglas, A. Feminization of American Culture the isolation to which women have been relegated through three
(1977). Hill, V., Strategy and Breadth: The Socialist-Feminist in generations and presents a strong alternative to being enisled
American Fiction (dissertation, 1979). Ransom, E., Utopus in the sea of life in Ellen Dacey, whose anc left for the gold
Discovers America, or Critical Realism in American Utopian elds when she was 18, who farmed the land of her absent father
Fiction, 1798-1900 (dissertation, 1946). Reynolds, R., Cats for 18 years, who lost unexpected wealth to her brother, land to her
Paw Utopia (1972). Stern, M., The Pantarch (1968). Torre, S., father and brother. Finally, years later, having her nephews
ed., Women in American Architecture (1977). daughter Anne to raise, she succeeds in breaking through Annes
Reference works: NCAB. mothers frail teaching, through nishing-school pretentions, to
Other references: AL (Jan. 1944). Chrysalis (1977). Fairhope create in the young World War I suffragist a whole woman,
(Alabama) Courier (23 Sept. 1921). Godeys (Aug. 1874). New capable of both essential love and essential independence.
Orleans Picayune (14 June 1874, 26 Aug. 1894). SR (29 Aug.
1874). Signs (Winter 1978). Social Solutions (28 May 1886). The Asking Price (1930) presents the negative possibilities
of a strong but misguided woman, who dominates, represses,
VICKI LYNN HILL and organizes her husbands life. Heat Lightning (1932), which
gave Hulls readership a large boost by being chosen as a
Book-of-the-Month, reafrms the loving and independent female
model in Grandmother Westover, who is able to reinspire a
HULL, Helen (Rose) granddaughter eeing from a disintegrating Eastern marriage.
Moving from the Midwestern setting of this book to the New York
Born 1888, Albion, Michigan; died 15 July 1971, New apartment of the Prescotts in Hardy Perennial (1933), Hull
York, New York presents a woman who is the strength during the Depression of
Daughter of Warren C. and Louise McGill Hull thosesons, daughter, husbandwho surround her in the imper-
sonal man-made city.
Born of teachers, Helen Hull spent an early smalltown Studies of various family relationships seem to culminate in
Michigan life dominated by books and brothers. She attended The Hawks Flight (1946), which looks at four kinds of marriages.
Michigan State College, the University of Michigan, and the Throughout, the background hero is Gilbert Moore, a psychiatrist
University of Chicago, where she received a Ph.B. degree in 1912 who sees and brings out the best in other characters.
and later did postgraduate work. Her subsequent teaching career
included three years at Wellesley College, one at Barnard College, In departure from her previous work, A Tapping on the Wall
and 40 years at Columbia University, where she began as an (1960) and Close Her Pale Blue Eyes (1963) are entertaining,
extension teacher in 1916 and retired as emeritus professor of light, sophisticated mysteries. The former won the Dodd Mead
creative writing in 1956. Faculty Prize Mystery award.
Hull did much of her novel writing during her summers in a One cannot but be impressed by Hulls literary productivity
renovated farmhouse, Bayberry Farm, in the Blue Hill region and her insight into human relationships. Emerging from her
of Maine. Her interests in owers, boats, and dogs and her lack of ction, most of it favorably received, is a rm, healthy, and
interest in politics and publicity are reected in her writing. She mature morality, unbuttressed by religious dogma or societys
was active as teacher and creative writer in the literary currents of moral codes. It is a morality opposed to possessiveness, domineer-
her time. At the time of her death, she had nearly nished her ing, condemning, and lack of recognition of others feelings, no
21st novel. matter where those negative qualities are foundin men, women,
children, career women, housewives, professors, professors wives,
Hulls 20 novels and two collections of short stories and or novelists. Hulls books can lend wisdom to many everyday
novelettes (many of which appeared in popular magazines) ex- experiences.
plore in sensitive detail the ordinary, daily family and work-
ing-world relationships of children, parents, and spouses. Taken
cumulatively, her novels are thematically Ibsenesque in exploring OTHER WORKS: The Surry Family (1925). Creative Writing (with
several sides to questions of marriage, divorce, remarriage, par- M. L. Robinson, 1932). Morning Shows the Day (1934). The Art
enting, and career choices for women. Her rst novel, Quest of Writing Prose (with R. S. Loomis and M. L. Robinson, 1936).
(1922), moves through the childhood and young adulthood of the Candle Indoors (1936). Uncommon People (1936). Frost Flower
241
HULME AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
(1939). Experiment: Four Short Novels (1940). Through the International Refugees Organization eld teams in the years
House Door (1940). A Circle in the Water (English title, Darken- following World War II. In this capacity she helped organize
ing Hill, 1943). Mayling Soong Chiang (1943). Octave (1947). Wildecken in Bavaria, a camp for Polish displaced persons.
The Writers Book (1950). Landfall (1953). Wind Rose (1958). Though she never shies away from describing the harsh reality she
witnessed, The Wild Place is, nevertheless, about the triumph of
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Overton, G. M., Women Who Make Our Nov- human dignity over lifes injustices.
els (1931). Characters appear and reappear in Hulmes work, but no one
Reference works: American Novelists of Today (1951). CA so often as a Belgian nurse, whom we catch a glimpse of, as a
(1972). CB (May 1940, 1971). TCA. TCAS. fellow-traveler, in Look a Lion in the Eye and again in The Wild
Other references: Bookman (May 1932). NYT (17 July 1971). Place and in Undiscovered Countries. The Nuns Story (1956),
Saturday Evening Post (1 June 1935). WLB (Oct. 1930). which won numerous awards and critical acclaim and was made
into a lm, is Gabrielle Van der Malsor Sister Lukes
CAROLYN WEDIN SYLVANDER
extraordinary story of obedience and inner struggle of conscience.
Framed on one side by a tyrannical father and on the other by
Hitler, with a debonair Italian doctor in the middle, The Nuns
HULME, Kathryn Cavarly Story might never have been told had Hulmes own personal
struggle not been attuned by faith.
Born 6 January 1900, San Francisco, California; died August 1981 Besides Gabrielles real-life counterpart and the beloved
Daughter of Edwin P. and Julia Cavarly Hulme Gurdjieff, the most important person in Hulmes life was her
mother. Annies Captain (1961) is the ctional story of Hulmes
Kathryn Cavarly Hulme is one of those rare writers who parents, their marriage and courtship. It describes a typically
write from self-knowledge, real knowledge, informed by truth sexist marriage, the sexism heightened by the fact that the
and by universal realities of human behavior. The deep spirituality seafaring captain was absent more than most husbands, and by
that marks her work derives to a large degree from her relationship Annies obsession about giving him a son, but Hulmes talent for
with the mystic-philosopher Gurdjieff, a relationship that is detail and accuracy transforms the typical into the archetypal: the
described in detail in Undiscovered Countries: A Spiritual Adven- truth of family life, of the patriarchal mode of existence that
ture (1966), set in the exciting Paris of the 1930s. Writing and cripples women and makes them lost to themselves, is all there.
thinking came together for Hulme in the company of such writers
But there is no anger: Hulme has consistently been concerned with
as Janet Flanner, Solita Solano, Djuna Barnes, Jane Heap, Marga-
inner change, with self-knowledge as a precondition to under-
ret Anderson, and Georgette Leblancmany of whom were
standing. In all this she has been highly successful.
involved in the Gurdjiefan ideas and methods of self-study.
Hulme credits Gurdjieff with having taught her, among other
things, how to unroll the reels and look at the shadows of OTHER WORKS: Hows the Road? (1928). Desert Night (1932).
forgotten selves buried in the unconscious memory. Without
this, We Lived As Children (1938), a ctionalized autobiography, BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: The Book of Catholic Authors.
might never have been writtenor, at any rate, might not have CA (1975). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United
been so poignantly written. The self (or selves) evoked is States (1995).
androgynous by nature, a wise childas children tend to be Other references: America (15 Sept. 1956, 8 Dec. 1956).
before life dulls themdevastated by an elusive father. To sum up
Atlantic (Nov. 1953). Commonweal (7 Sept. 1956). NYTBR (1
Gurdjieffs inuence, Hulme wrote: He taught me. . .how to
Nov. 1953, 20 Nov. 1966). Saturday Review (8 Sept. 1956). WLB
believe.
(Nov. 1962).
Travel, the discovery of unknown countriesboth visible
and invisibleis meaningful for Hulme, and is the basis for two LINDA LUDWIG
books. Arab Interlude (1930) is a collection of North African
sketches, a travelogue, and an amplication of her letters home.
Look a Lion in the Eye (1974) describes a safari through East
Africa Hulme took with two friends. But whereas Arab Interlude, HUME, Sophia
which is pre-Gurdjieff, describes the places and atmosphere, Look
a Lion in the Eye is distinguished by a deeper dimension of feeling Born 1702, Charleston, South Carolina; died 26 January 1774,
and thinking, by Hulmes conscious self. London, England
In contrast to the harmony evoked in Look a Lion in the Eye is Daughter of Henry and Susanna Bayley Wigington; married
the disharmony (caused by human misery) in The Wild Place Robert Hume, 1721 (died 1737); children: two
(1953), for which Hulme won the Atlantic Nonction Prize. The
account grew out of her experience as a deputy director of the Born to a prosperous landowning family, Sophia Hume was
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and the raised in the Anglican tradition of her father and educated for a life
242
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HUNT
of elegance in high society. She married a lawyer and prominent The principal theme of Humes writing is the call to repent-
citizen of Charleston; they had two children. After her husbands ance and nonworldliness which she found exemplied in Quaker
death in 1737 and a series of illnesses, she became increasingly life. Through rejection of worldly pleasures, one came to enjoy the
preoccupied with religion and the necessity to convert to Quakerism, fruits of the spiritjoy, love, and peacethe highest of all
the religious tradition of her mother and her maternal grandmoth- pleasures. The rewards of simplicity, the universality of Gods
er, Mary Fisher (ca. 1623-1698). She subsequently moved to grace, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in each person are
England and joined the Society of Friends. emphasized in her work. While she maintained a very traditional
attitude toward womans role, her Christian belief spurred her to
In 1747 Hume returned to Charleston, where in a series of
write and speak publicly in defense of religion.
public meetings she reproached the inhabitants for their sinful
lives and called them to a life of simplicity as exemplied in
Quakerism. In order to spread her concern for their salvation, she OTHER WORKS: The Justly Celebrated Mrs. Sophia Humes
published, with the help of fellow Quakers in Philadelphia, An Advice (1769).
Exhortation to the Inhabitants of the Province of South Carolina
(1748). This forcefully written but poorly organized appeal ad-
monished Charlestonians to repent, to give up their diversionary, BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bowden, J., The History of the Society of Friends
prideful, and ostentatious lives, and to seek good forms of in America (1850). Gummere, A. M., ed., The Journal and Essays
recreation, live simply, and dress modestly. She made a special of John Woolman (1922).
plea that females cease neglecting their children in their quest for Reference works: NAW (1971).
diversion.
DANA GREENE
Cognizant that others perceived her as a heretic and a
deluded, ridiculous madwoman, Hume argued that her case car-
ried the authority of God and reason. Although she was a woman
subordinate to man, she was a feeble instrument of God who was
used as He saw t. Her statements of faith were bolstered with HUMISHUMA
numerous scriptural and literary references that demonstrated her See MOURNING DOVE
erudition. Hume described her own conversion from a life of
forgetfulness of God to the life of greater holiness. As a
Christian, she had compassion for fellow sinners, but she was
obligated to call their sinful conduct into question. She pleaded HUNT, Irene
with Charlestonians and all Christians not to deny their eternal
happiness for the momentary pleasures of this life.
Born 12 May 1901, Pontiac, Illinois; died August 1979
Returning to England, Hume became a Quaker minister and Daughter of Franklin P. and Sarah Land Hunt
wrote A Caution to Such As Observe Days and Times (1763). In
this piece, she warned formal Christians, those who observe Irene Hunt grew up on the farm in southern Illinois that
days and times, that God may bring them suffering as He did the provided the setting for her Civil War novel, Across Five Aprils
Jews in order that they learn that His power was in the heart and (1964). After her father died when she was seven, Hunt lived with
not the world. Believing that the world would be reformed when her grandparents for ve years. Her grandfather told many stories
the hearts of the mighty were changed, she appended to this work which later inuenced her writing. For many years, Hunt taught
An Address to Magistrates, Parents, Mistresses of Families, etc. French and English in Illinois public schools; she taught psy-
In this she urged magistrates not only to witness Christ in their chology briey at the University of South Dakota. In her later
actions, but to restrain both the lower orders and higher ranks in years, she retired and moved to Florida.
society. Parents, masters, and mistresses who in their homes had
roles analogous to magistrates should set a good example, provide Hunts rst novel, Across Five Aprils, was published when
for the physical and spiritual welfare of their charges, and ac- she was fty-seven, after she had worked many years at her
knowledge Christ. She warned that her advice should not be writing and accumulated many rejection slips. The novel received
dismissed because it came from a woman. high critical acclaim, winning the Follett Award and being named
the sole Newbery honor book of 1965 by the American Library
In an attempt to reform the Society of Friends and help stave Association. It was followed by Up a Road Slowly (1966), which
off the decline in membership, Hume published Extracts from received the Newbery Medal, among other honors.
Divers, Antient Testimonies (1766), a collection of early Quaker
writings. In her introduction addressed to ministers, elders, and A story of great emotional appeal, Across Five Aprils was
members of the Society, she urged them not to conform to the suggested by family letters and records and the stories of Hunts
ways of the world but to become the foundation for the church of grandfather, who was a boy of nine at the beginning of the Civil
Christ. In 1767 Hume went back to Charleston in an attempt to War. Based on extensive research, it spans the ve Aprils of
revive Quakerism there. Unsuccessful, she returned to England, 1861-65 to take the Creightons, a Southern Illinois farm family,
where she died in 1774. through the war. Told from the point of view of nine-year-old
243
HUNT AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Jethro, this tightly knit novel with its convincing, well-developed 1966-1975 (1975). SAA (1971). Third Book of Junior Au-
characters relates the problems the family faces when the sons thors (1972).
enlist, one of them on the side of the South. Through experience Other references: LJ (15 March 1967).
and conversation, Jethro learns what the issues of the war are, and
what it means to live in border country and be suspected of rebel ALETHEA K. HELBIG
leanings. Over the years, he gains in maturity and independence of
judgement as he comes to realize there are two sides to every
problem and that war is heartbreaking and divisive. Although no
actual historical gures appear and historical events are recounted HUNT, Mabel Leigh
secondhand through letters and newspaper articles, Hunt conveys
a good sense of the conict and its effect on ordinary people.
Born 1 November 1892, Coatesville, Indiana; died 3 September
Hunts second novel, Up a Road Slowly, is a warm, sensitive, 1971, Indianapolis, Indiana
girls growing-up story, taking Julie Trelling from her seventh to Daughter of Tighlman and Amanda Harvey Hunt
her seventeenth years. After the death of her mother, Julie goes to
live with her Aunt Cordelia, a schoolteacher who has never Daughter of a smalltown doctor, Mabel Leigh Hunt enjoyed a
married. She learns to cope with the loss of her mother, jealousy, happy childhood as one of eight children in a closely knit,
rst love, her aunts strictness, and schoolgirl snobbishness as she book-loving Quaker family. She invented her rst story when she
matures into a gracious young woman, condent that she is ready was about three years old and throughout her childhood cherished
for college and for whatever difculties life may bring. The the ambition of becoming an author. While Hunt was in high
narrative is handled with restraint, and with the exception of the school, her father died and the family moved to Indianapolis,
unconvincing Brett, Julies temporary love, characters are deep which remained her home for the rest of her life. After study at
and memorable, particularly the dignied, egotistical, alcoholic DePauw University and training in library science at Western
Uncle Haskell and the dirty, underprivileged, learning-impaired Reserve University, Hunt served as a librarian until 1938, when
Aggie Kilpin. The story is ction, but Up a Road Slowly, like she decided to devote herself full time to writing.
Hunts rst novel, rose out of Hunts own personal experiences.
Although she was in her forties when she wrote her rst
Hunts next novels, although direct and unpretentious in style book, Hunt published 30 volumes for juvenile readers and con-
like the rst two books, are judged by critics to be thin in plot and tributed numerous stories, articles, and poems to magazines and
supercial in characterization. Better received critically was anthologies. Have You Seen Tom Thumb? (1942) and Better
William (1977), a moving, compassionate story set recently on the Known As Johnny Appleseed (1950) were Newbery Medal honor
Gulf Coast of Florida about three orphaned black children who are books, while Billy Buttons Butterd Biscuit (1941) and The
cared for by a young white girl, the four together forming a warm, Peddlers Clock (1943) received awards in the New York Herald
closely knit family group. Tribunes childrens book festivals.
Although Hunts earliest books are her best ones, all of them Hunt wrote for juvenile readers of various ages, but children
represent serious attempts to confront the problems of life in story from eight to twelve years old were her favorite audience. She
form. They hold out the old-fashioned virtues of hard work, aptly described her books as pleasant stories of family relation-
courage, compassion, integrity, and responsibility and stress the ships, ideal, yet real. She usually pictured a stable, affectionate
importance of education. In her Newbery acceptance speech, family with four or ve children surrounded by grandparents,
Hunt spoke of her motivations as a writer, gained from years of cousins, and friends. Stories that drew upon her Quaker back-
experience as a teacher and counselor. She has watched books ground were special favorites. Hunts books reveal her interest in
bring new dimensions of happiness, of condence and enlighten- nursery rhymes, folk songs, and poetry.
ment, to young people from the age of three up. . . . Children are
not created fully equipped with such values as courage, compas- Lucinda, a Little Girl of 1860 (1934), Hunts rst novel, is
sion, integrity, and insights into the motives and needs of them- based on her mothers Quaker childhood in central Indiana.
selves and others. These attributes are often learned from the Routine activities of the farm family are punctuated by events of
behavior of the characters who people the books they read. . . A the Civil War and by the arrival of a runaway slave, a fugitive
ne book that mirrors life accurately and honestlythere is the soldier, and an elderly man who is searching for the grave of his
effective substitute for. . .ineffective [adult] sermons. little sister who died while the family was moving northward in a
covered wagon.
OTHER WORKS: A Trail of Apple Blossoms (1968). No Promises in Her fathers childhood in North Carolina provided back-
the Wind (1970). ground material for Benjies Hat (1938), the tale of a lively Quak-
er boy whose thrifty family expects him to wear hand-me-down
headgear. Tomorrow Will Be Bright (1958) recounts the adven-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1976). More Books by tures of a Quaker girl whose family moves from North Carolina to
More People (1974). Newbery and Caldecott Medal Books: Ohio sometime before 1860. In each of these preemancipation
244
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HUNTER
stories, Hunt pictures free blacks living as part of the Quaker by her paternal grandparents because of a neglectful mother and
community. an abusive stepfather. She grew up in a strict Mormon home, a
very loving home, in the semirural mountain valley town of
Conversations with her own private fairy who visited
Heber, Utah.
Hunt during childhood illnesses may have been the inspiration for
the delightful but imaginary playmate of the heroine of Sibby Papa, Hunters grandfather, beloved of family and towns-
Botherbox (1945). In John of Pudding Lane (1941), a printer in people alike, believed education for women after high school
Boston collects and publishes the nursery rhymes with which unnecessary. Under his persuasion, Hunter declined offers of
Grandmother Goose entertains his children. Benjamin Franklin scholarships to three Utah universities, instead attending high
appears as a minor character. Ladycake Farm (1952) depicts the school an extra year so she could take every English, literature,
struggles and successes of a contemporary black family that and journalism class available. She subsequently entered nurses
moves from the city to a small farm and overcomes initial training for the college credits, and much later, after marriage and
prejudice to gain acceptance in the new community. the birth of three daughters, at the age of thirty-six, entered the
For older readers, Hunt wrote narrative biographies of Tom University of Utah.
Thumb, the famous midget, and John Chapman, Better Known as From 1958 until 1967, Hunter edited and wrote for the Utah
Johnny Appleseed, as well as three novels. Beggars Daughter Fish and Game magazine. For months at a time she edited the
(1963), Hunts only historical novel with a British setting, records magazine alone but was never allowed the title of editor because
the life of Quakers living under the threat of persecution, loss of
she was a woman. Each monthly issue contained one of her
property, and imprisonment during the reigns of Charles II and
Read-Aloud Stories or a segment of the Babes in the Woods
James II. Their religious faith, simplistic practices, and hard work
series for young readers, for which she won local and national
set them apart from the excitement and violence of village
awards. The back covers carried her poetry linked to a photograph.
activities as well as from the comfortable, leisured existence of the
landed gentry. While claiming to know nothing about poetry, Hunter
somehow, sometimes, manages to match words exquisitely in
Hunts work shows careful research, exacting craftsmanship,
and a sincere respect and affection for both her material and her various poetic forms. At least 200 poems have been published.
audience. Her themes are of the Western land and people, the old West and
the new West. In The Jubilant Desert, for example, the reader
is invited to participate in an intimate historical review as the Salt
OTHER WORKS: The Boy Who Had No Birthday (1935). Little Girl Lake Basin awaits and then receives her destiny. And the wind
with Seven Names (1936). Susan, Beware! (1937). Little Grey swirled her sands like mists. / She knew only the claws of the
Gown (1939). Michels Island (1940). Corn Belt Billy (1942). scurriers / And the bellies of the crawling ones. Until, The
Peter Pipers Pickled Peppers (1942). Young Man of the House sound of feet. . .the sounds of steel, / The sounds of suffering, and
(1944). Double Birthday Present (1947). Such a Kind World the silence of dying. . . / And the desert knew that she was not
(1947). Matildas Buttons (1948). Wonderful Baker (1950). The barren.
Sixty-Ninth Grandchild (1951). Singing Among Strangers (1954).
Miss Jellytots Visit (1955). Stars for Cristy (1956). Cristy at Hunters rst book, A House of Many Rooms (1965, reissued
Skippinghills (1958). Cupola House (1961). Johnny-Up and John- 1981), is a family memoir told in rst-person narrative style. It is
ny-Down (1962). the most successful of her early major works. It charms the reader
into taking another look at a less complicated era, when family
and church were all-important. This particular family was not
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Eakin, M. K., Good Books for Children, uncommon in the way they lived, loved, disagreed, hurt, helped,
1948-61 (1962). cried, and laughed with one another. They were amazing because
Reference works: CA (1975). CB (1951). Indiana Authors
there were so many of them. Nine born and ve borrowed
and Their Books, 1917-1966 (1974). Junior Book of Authors
brothers and sisters lived in the house which did with wood and
(1951). SATA (1971).
plaster what the loaves and shes did for the multitude. In spite
ALICE BELL SALO of what seems like a life of poverty and hardship, Papa convinced
his children they were blessed with a heritage of going with-
out. This is a work that in compelling and simple prose leaves us
an accurate imprint of a people and a set of values well worn but
HUNTER, Rodello perhaps never discardable.
Wyoming Wife (1969) is an entertaining account of Hunters
Born 23 March 1920, Provo, Utah middle-aged marriage and move to Freedom, Wyoming. Though
Daughter of Thomas R. and Venus Harris Hicken; married Ross witty and well written, it lacks the impact and substance of her
Hunter, 1938; Frank J. Calkins, 1965; children: three daughters prior and subsequent books.
Rodello Hunter was born two months after her father was Dubbed critic by her family, Hunter is continually prob-
killed in a mine accident. When eight years old, she was adopted ing, prying, questioning, wondering, and making simple yet
245
HUNTER-LATTANY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
profound observations. While loving her Mormon people and her early childhood, commenting later: I believe these circumstanc-
pioneer heritage, she is not blinded to their idiosyncrasies and esonliness, loneliness and resultant fantasizing and omnivorous
shortcomings. An iconoclast of sorts, she campaigns for the readingare the most favorable for producing writers. Hunt-
removal of blindfolds from all those who would seek to know the er-Lattany wrote poetry and articles for school publications, and
truths of things for themselves. A Daughter of Zion (1972, in 1946, at fourteen, she began a teenage social column for the
reissued in 1999) is the superb unraveling of Hunters own Philadelphia edition of the Pittsburgh Courier. Continuing as a
blindfold, a courageous standing at the mirror of the past, eyes columnist and feature writer for the Courier until 1952, she later
open, ready for reckoning. drew on her coverage of a story on the annexation by the city of
Camden, New Jersey, of the all-black town of Lawnside to
Hunter is signicant beyond the intermountain region as a provide the basis for her novel The Lakestown Rebellion (1978).
refreshing voice in the present, chronicling a not-so-distant past The novel depicts a black communitys unied resistance to the
already out of reach. She writes rapidly and rarely revises. In her construction of an interstate highway that is to run through
prose, this creates a charming spontaneity; in her poetry, an their town.
uneven quality. She is not a trendsetter, nor does she consciously
strive for effect. Her prose is characterized by homely diction and Hunter-Lattany received a B.S. in education from the Uni-
plain, sharp images. Hunter is an unself-conscious, if slightly versity of Pennsylvania in 1951. At her parents request, she
sentimental, writer. Not a leader, not a follower of literary style, taught elementary school but quit in less than a year to pursue a
she reects the archetype of the questioner facing the dogma, the writing career. In 1952 she began working as an advertising
skeptic weighing the moral values. copywriter with the Lavenson Bureau of Advertising in Philadel-
phia, the rst of several similar positions that allowed her enough
stability and spare time to continue to write. In 1955 she won a
OTHER WORKS: The Soul of Jackson Hole (1974). national competition for a television documentary produced by
CBS, entitled A Minority of One. This recognition launched
her career.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Calkins, J., Jim and Rodello Hunter Calkins
Interview (audio recording, 1973). Hunter-Lattany began her rst novel, God Bless the Child
Other references: Book Week (4 July 1965). LJ (July 1965). (1964), while she was still at Lavenson. A poignant tale of a young
PW (28 Apr. 1969). black womans struggle to raise herself and her family out of
poverty, it establishes many themes for Hunter-Lattanys later
CHERYL K. HUDSPETH works, particularly the importance of inner strength and self-
sufciency. As in much of her later ction, Hunter-Lattany
explores the dangers and vitality of the city and the complex social
and economic forces that oppress families there. The novel won
HUNTER-LATTANY, Kristin the prestigious Philadelphia Athenaeum award in 1964, went into
a third printing within a month of its publication date, and had
subsequent softcover printings throughout the 1970s.
Born 12 September 1931, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Daughter of George L. and Mabel Manigault Eggleston; married While working as an information ofcer for the city of
Joseph Hunter, 1952; John I. Lattany, 1968; children: two sons Philadelphia, Hunter-Lattany produced The Landlord (1966), her
most successful novel at the time. In this comical story about a
One of the most prominent writers for the often-neglected young white landlord of an inner city tenement building and his
audience of African American youth, Kristin Hunter-Lattany relationships with his tenants, Hunter-Lattany uses slapstick,
provides a message of optimism and hope in her stories of inner caricature, and parody to explore class distinctions and racial
city black life. From a middle class background herself, Hunt- tensions. The lightness with which she treats serious issues
er-Lattany was greatly inuenced by the poorer inhabitants of here, along with her exaggerated, seemingly stereotypical portrayals
Philadelphia among whom she grew up in the 1930s and 1940s; it of blacks, led to mixed reviews. Hunter-Lattany was praised
is they who later became the focus of most of her ction. Known nonetheless for her uniqueness of expression, and in the book was
for their realism and vitality, Hunter-Lattanys novels and short adapted into a well-received lm starring Joe Pesci.
stories for both adolescents and adults celebrate the positive
values of black culture and encourage unity, self-reliance, inge- The success of Hunter-Lattanys witty, comic style in The
nuity, and courage in the face of adversity. In the tradition of the Landlord prompted her publishers to suggest she write books for
women writers of the Harlem Renaissance, Hunter-Lattany ex- children and adolescents. The Soul Brothers and Sister Lou
plores particularly the African American female experience and (1968), inspired by young street singers who performed in an alley
provides new instruction and inspiration for contemporary black below Hunter-Lattanys apartment, tells the story of a young
women writers. singing groups struggle for survival and success. With honesty
and compassion, Hunter-Lattany tackles such issues as police
The only child of a school principal father and a schoolteach- violence, gang warfare, and racial injustice as her protagonists
er mother, Hunter-Lattany became an avid reader and writer in demonstrate courage and strength of character. Widely praised for
246
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HUNTINGTON
its afrmation of black culture and for providing hopeful alterna- present and the future for African Americans who are struggling
tives to the violence and deprivation of the ghetto, Soul Brothers to succeed. She was also working on a screenplay for a comedy
received many honors including the National Council on Interra- and was considering another novel. Urban America, however,
cial Books for Children award (1968) and the Lewis Carroll Shelf may no longer be her focus as she feels there is so much bad news
award (1971). emanating from the ghetto, and she prefers her writing to be
optimistic.
Hunter-Lattany married for the second time in 1968 (chang-
ing her name from Kristin Hunter to its current hyphenated state)
and became a stepmother to her husbands two sons. She credits OTHER WORKS: Boss Cat (1971). The Pool Table War (1972).
them with greatly inuencing her understanding of children and Uncle Daniel and the Raccoon (1972). The Survivors (1975).
encouraging her works for young people. Among these are Guests
in the Promised Land (1973), a collection of short stories that won
several awards, and the critically acclaimed Lou in the Limelight BIBLIOGRAPHY: Harris, T., From Mammies to Militants: Domestics
(1981), a sequel to Soul Brothers. in Black American Literature (1982). Tate, C., ed., Black Women
Writers at Work (1983).
Since early in her career, Hunter-Lattanys poems, short Reference works: Black Writers (1989). CANR (1984). CLR
stories, book reviews, and articles appeared in such publications (1978). Contemporary Novelists (1991). DLB (1984). FC (1990).
as Philadelphia Magazine, Philadelphia Bulletin, Nation, Es- Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United States
sence, Rogue, Black World, Good Housekeeping, and Seventeen. (1995). SATA (1977, 1990). TCCW (1989). Writers Directo-
She was writer in residence at Emory University in 1979 and ry (1990).
taught English and creative writing at the University of Pennsyl- Other references: Black Literature Forum (Winter 1986).
vania from 1972 to 1995, when she retired; she held the title of Philadelphia Inquirer (24 Nov. 1974). Philadelphia Tribune (2
senior lecturer in English at that university from 1983 to her Mar. 1996, 15 Apr. 1996).
retirement. Web sites: http://www.alternet.com/dunnovelhtm, Donnette
Donbars Novel Ideas (2 July 1999). http://www.bookpage.com/
Hunter-Lattanys more recent work includes the novel Kin-
ala/9702bp/blackhistory/womenction.html (3 July 1999). http:/
folks, published in 1996. She continues to create realistic and
/www.english.upenn.edu/~wh/archive96/11readers.html (3 July
optimistic depictions of African American urban life, similar to
1999). http://www.release2-0.com/BB/readerscircle/lattany/
Terry McMillans Waiting to Exhale. Kinfolks, written for adults,
guide.htm (2 July 1999).
is the story of two African American women who, when their
children meet, fall in love, and decide to marry, discover that the MARY E. HARVEY,
intended bride and groom are really sister and brother, sharing the UPDATED BY HEIDI HARTWIG DENLER
same father. This circumstance was brought about by the political
statement both mothers made in the 1960s when they chose to
become single mothers as a show of support for the Black Power
movement. The rest of the novel deals with African American life HUNTINGTON, Susan (Manseld)
after the Civil Rights movement. The Charlotte (North Carolina)
Post called Kinfolks a black First Wives Club. There are many
Born 27 January 1791, Killingworth, Connecticut; died 4 Decem-
lessons to be learned from the humorous yet touching novel, but
ber 1823, Boston, Massachusetts
the most weighty is the importance of fatherhood, as she believes
Daughter of Achilles Manseld; married Joshua Huntington,
this theme reects her lack of close family ties and subsequent
1809; children: six
search for substitutes for her family. Hunter-Lattany likes to think
of her young adult readers as an extended family.
Daughter of a minister and descended on her mothers side
In 1996 the Philadelphia Congress of the National Political from the noted native American apostle John Eliot, Susan
Congress of Black Women presented Hunter-Lattany with the Huntington was a worthy heir to generations of Puritan sensibili-
Chisolm award (named for the National Political Congress of ty. She was educated at home, at the Killingworth common
Black Womens president, Shirley Chisolm) in honor of her school, and for a short season at a classical school. Huntington
contributions in literature and the arts. She also won the 1996 married the junior, later senior, pastor at Old South Church,
Moonstone Lifetime Achievement award. She won the 1981 Boston; they had six children. Her husband died in 1819, and
Drexel Childrens Literature Citation, and fellowships from the before her own death four years later, she lost two of her children.
New Jersey State Council on the Arts (1981-82 and 1985-86) and
After Huntingtons death, the new pastor of Old South
the Pennsylvania State Council on the Arts (1983-84). Hunt-
Church, Benjamin Wisher, wrote a biography of her, including
er-Lattany is a member of the Authors Guild, the Authors League
copious quotations from her letters and from her journal, which
of America, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the
she kept for years. Huntington published a few poems in the
University of Pennsylvania Alumni Association.
Boston Recorder. Little Lucy; or, The Careless Child Reformed
In 1999 Hunter-Lattany was collaborating with her husband, (1820) is a book of moral instruction for children. A Short Address
John Lattany, on a memoir of successful lives of African Ameri- to Sick Persons Who Are Without Hope (n.d.) is a tract of the kind
cans in the rural South. They hoped to offer suggestions for the widely distributed door-to-door by devout church members and
247
HURD-MEAD AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
professional staff members of the tract society. These latter works New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston. In
are not easily available to scholars. 1889-90, she studied in Paris, Stockholm, Berlin, and London.
To the modern reader, Huntingtons religion might seem In 1890, Hurd-Mead became medical director of the Bryn
morbid and negative. In a letter to her son at Andover, she wrote Mawr School in Baltimore and founded the Evening Dispensary
that young people always imagine that religion will make them for Working Women and Girls of Baltimore City in 1891. After
unhappy; attempting to convince him to join the church, she her marriage to William E. Mead, a professor of early English at
argued that Christ is true happiness. The contents of her letters and Wesleyan University, she moved to Middletown, Connecticut,
journals, however, do not reveal a very positive point of view. She where she set up practice. In 1895, Hurd-Mead was an incorpora-
was tortured with her own sins and inadequacies, at one time tor of Middlesex County Hospital, where she served as a consult-
crying out, Oh, my leanness, my leanness! She brooded on her ing gynecologist from 1907 to 1925.
attitudes, her thoughts, and on the danger of worldly contamina-
Hurd-Mead was active in many womens medical organiza-
tion by such things as the Unitarian church and the Waverley
tions and was president of the Medical Womens National Asso-
novels of Scott. In keeping with her concentration on states of
ciation (MWNA) from 1922-24. In 1925, Hurd-Mead gave up
mind, there is remarkably little about action and event in her
practice to devote herself to full-time research and writing on the
letters and journals.
history of women in medicine. She traveled extensively in Eu-
In a letter to a friend, which was published in a local rope, Asia, and Africa, gathering information about women in
newspaper at the time, Huntington argued that women should not medicine.
be treated as frivolous, silly persons, or they might become just
Medical Women of America (1933), Hurd-Meads rst book,
that. Resting her case on the Bible, she argued that intelligent
was dedicated to the MWNA and was published only after the
women could reason out for themselves the place of women in the
press received 200 advance subscriptions. The book was oversub-
home and family, if treated as reasonable adults. But treated as
scribednot because it had a wide audience but because many
less, their authority in the home would be destroyed and the
readers ordered more than one copy. Hurd-Mead records the
management of the family disrupted.
history of medical women in America from the early midwives
In his funeral sermon for her, preached on Romans 8:28 who practiced in the colonies to the women physicians who served
(And we know that all things work together for good to them that in various capacities during World War I.
love God, to them who are called according to His purpose),
Wisner characterized Huntington as a bright, well-educated wom- Hurd-Mead traces the careers of the rst American women
an who graced the important position in society to which God had medical students and physicians, relating the achievements of
called her. However, he pointed out that the joy she felt in her these women in founding dispensaries, hospitals, and medical
religion as a young girl had to be rened by suffering, and it was. schools. She shows that women physicians did well as private
The trials of her life, her morbidity of temperament, and her practitioners, as teachers and professorswhen given a chance,
steadfast humility in face of these afictions no doubt gave her a as researchers, and even as surgeons. Hurd-Mead insists that
good return according to her thinking and Wisners. But the medical women fall short of men only in writing about their
modern Christian tends to look for a peace of mind that seems achievements. As a result, the world does not realize the extent of
lacking in such religious thinkers. women physicians abilities and accomplishments. Hurd-Meads
book is an attempt to remedy that situation.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Wisner, B., Memoirs of the Late Mrs. Susan A History of Women in Medicine from the Earliest Times to
Huntington (1828). the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century (1938) is Hurd-Meads
Reference works: Daughters of America (1883). magnum opus. The task that Hurd-Mead set for herself was great:
to write the most complete history of women in medicine possible.
BEVERLY SEATON Hurd-Mead spent two years doing research at the British Museum
library and several more years consulting original manuscripts in
many parts of the world. The result is an impressive compilation
of facts presenting the story of women in medicine from 4000 B.C. in
HURD-MEAD, Kate C(ampbell) Egypt through the end of the 18th century in Europe. Volume II,
still unpublished at Hurd-Meads death, was to have continued the
Born 6 April 1867, Danville, Quebec, Canada; died 1 January story of women in medicine through the 20th century.
1941, Haddam, Connecticut
This volume demonstrates convincingly that restrictions
Also wrote under: Kate C. Mead, Kate C. H. Mead
against women in medicine are relatively recenta product of the
Daughter of Edward Payson and Sarah Campbell Hurd; married
Christian era and the founding of universities in the Middle Ages.
William E. Mead, 1893
From ancient times until about the 13th century, women were
active in all aspects of medical care, surgery as well as midwifery.
Born in Canada, Kate C. Hurd-Mead moved with her family
The book is extremely detailed; in fact, it is tedious to read.
to Newburyport, Massachusetts, where she graduated from high
school in 1883. She received her M.D. from Womans Medical Hurd-Meads accomplishment in discovering and preserving
College of Pennsylvania in 1888 and interned the next year at the facts about women in medicine in many countries throughout
248
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HURST
many centuries is extraordinary. She has restored to medical In Imitation of Life, Beatrice Fay Chipley, widowed mother
women their proper heritage. of a young daughter, sells maple syrup door-to-door with the help
of Delilah, a black woman who also has an infant daughter.
Beatrice becomes one of the most prominent businesswomen in
OTHER WORKS: The papers of Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead, in- America, but the novel ends with her realization that she must
cluding the unpublished manuscript of Volume II of her History of continue to live an imitation of life without a man to love.
Women in Medicine, are at the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Imitation of Life, in rough outline, is a womans version of the
College. timeless rags-to-riches American success story. But the specic
type of irony evident at the conclusion, as well as its stereotyped
characterization of the black mammy gure, places it solidly
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: NAW (article by G. Miller).
in its time. Feminists would be outraged at its underlying philoso-
Other references: Bulletin of the History of Medicine (July
phythat, regardless of professional achievements, life must be
1941). Journal of the American Medical Womens Association
worthless without what Delilah terms manlovin. Hursts
(April 1956). Nation (28 May 1938). NYT (15 May 1938). Women
audience, however, was attracted by the novels sympathetic
in Medicine (April 1941). YR (Summer 1938).
today we would call it sentimentaldepiction of the heroine; by
ANNE HUDSON JONES
its handling of the touchy matter of race relations; and by its
bittersweetness, still one of the recognizable marks of the
popular novelist.
Hurst wrote for women and, accordingly, her books focus on
HURST, Fannie women. These characters tend to be inarticulate and enigmatic,
types whom she termed artists without an art. They are
Born 18 October 1889, Hamilton, Ohio; died 23 February 1968, concerned most signicantly with the need for a man. Profession-
New York, New York al success, when women achieve it, is regarded as compensation
Daughter of Samuel and Rose Koppel Hurst; married Jacques S. for the lack of male companionship and, thus, in emotional terms,
Danielson, 1915 a poor replacement for true happiness. The novels are replete with
women who sacrice themselves for men and with women who
long to do so. They are ministers of mercy to the weak, egocentric,
Fannie Hurst, daughter of American-born Jews of German
even cruel male gures. Because the female characters, in con-
descent, was raised and educated in St. Louis, Missouri (B.A.
trast, are always presented positively, when they are hurtwhich
1909, Washington University). In 1910, eager to observe the
is often the casethey retain the sympathy of the audience. The
working people of whom and for whom she wrote, Hurst moved to
women, we are made to feel, are too good for the objects of their
New York City. There she took assorted jobs as saleswoman,
desire. In her time, Hurst was very popular with readers and was
actress, and waitress, and started bombarding publications with
scarcely taken seriously by critics. Today she retains our interest
her ction. Her marriage to a Russian-born pianist, in which they
primarily because her works are accurate gauges of her contempo-
both pursued separate careers, endured successfully until her
rary audiences beliefs.
husbands death in 1952. Hurst became an established writer
while still in her twenties. She began as a short story writer, but
she is best remembered for her bestselling novels, especially Back OTHER WORKS: Just Around the Corner (1914). Every Soul Hath
Street (1931) and Imitation of Life (1933). Her works have been Its Song (1916). Land of the Free (1917). Gaslight Sonatas
widely translated, and many became successful lms. (1918). Humoresque (1919). Back Pay (1921). Star Dust (1921).
The Vertical City (1922). Lummox (1923). Appassionata (1926).
Back Street is about the beautiful Ray Schmidt, who is
Mannequin (1926). Song of Life (1927). A President Is Born
mistress to a married man and for over 20 years is conned to the
(1928). Five and Ten (1929). Procession (1929). Anitras Dance
back streets of his life. After her lovers death, Ray spends her
(1934). No Food with My Meals (1935). Great Laughter (1936).
last few years penniless at a European spa, surviving on the few
Hands of Veronica (1937). We Are Ten (1937). Lonely Parade
francs that winners at the casino throw to her; she dies alone in her
(1942). Hallelujah (1944). Any Woman (1950). The Man with One
room. The novels enormous popularity was due largely to two
Head (1953). Anatomy of Me: A Wonderer in Search of Herself
factors: It appeared during the Depression, when escapist enter-
(1958). Family! (1959). God Must Be Sad (1961). FoolBe
tainment was assured a large following, and it deals with the
Still (1964).
especially titillating subject of sex, which Hurst handles most
The papers of Fannie Hurst are primarily housed in the Harry
cleverly. She avoids graphic description, knowing that the lack of
Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at
it would afford greater excitement for her audience and, therefore,
Austin; other manuscripts and letters can also be found at both
greater readership for her. Although we remain uncertain why the
Brandeis University and Washington University.
selsh and immature lover is even attractive to the lovely Ray, this
is calculated; we are not meant to focus on the relationship, but on
Ray, her feelings and responses. She is dominated, used, and BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brandimarte, C., Fannie Hurst and Her Fic-
ultimately destroyed, yet throughout, the reader, perhaps recalling tion: Prescriptions for Americas Working Women (1980).
similar trials, identies and empathizes profoundly. Koppelman, S., ed., Fannie HurstThe Woman, the Writer:
249
HURSTON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
A Collection of Essays (1994). Koppelman, S., A Fannie Hurst which constituted a daily issue in the livelihood of blacks in the
Anthology: Stories Selected and Introduced by Susan 1930s and 1940s. Hurston wrote in her autobiography that what
Koppelman (1994). she wanted to write was a story about a man, but from what she
Reference works: CA (1971). NCAB. Ohio Authors and Their had read and heard, Negroes were supposed to write about the
Books (1962). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the Race problem. My interest lies in what makes a man or woman do
Untied States (1995). TCA, TCAS. such-and-so regardless of his color.
Other references: Arts and Decoration (Nov. 1935). Bookman
(May 1929, Aug. 1931). Mentor (Apr. 1928). NYTBR (25 Jan. Hurstons second novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God
1942). Saturday Review (Oct. 1937). (1937), also set in Eatonville, is frequently acclaimed her best
novel. It is the story of Janie, a young black woman who searches
ELLEN SERLEN UFFEN for happiness, self-realization, and love; she is a woman who
refuses to settle for less than her own realistic appraisal of what
love should be. After the death of her second husband, when Janie
is forty years old, she marries a man much younger than she who is
unpretentiously one of the folk, who loves and wants her
HURSTON, Zora Neale without imposing restrictions on her. In the Florida Everglades
where Janie and Teacake move after their marriage, they experi-
Born 7 January 1891, Eatonville, Florida; died 28 January 1960, ence a few years of happiness working in the elds together, and
Saint Lucie County, Florida Janie is serenely content being a part of the folk culture. Some-
Daughter of John and Lucy Hurston what melodramatically, the novel ends, after a hurricane destroys
the Everglades community and Teacake is bitten by a mad dog.
Born in the rst incorporated black town in America, Zora Janie is forced to shoot and to kill Teacake because, mentally
Neale Hurston was the only writer in the 1920s and 1930s from a deranged by rabies, he tries to kill her. The characterization of
Southern background who evaluated her Southern exposure, Janie is excellent, and plot structure, depiction of the folk culture,
realized the richness of her racial heritage, and built her ction on and the use of black dialect are all equally ne.
it. At a young age, Hurston lost nearly all of her childhood security
when her mother died, and she had to live from relative to relative, Her last novel, Seraph on the Suwanee (1948), the only one in
deprived of formal schooling, drifting through several domes- which a Southern white woman is the protagonist, has received
tic jobs. little critical attention. Nevertheless, Arvay Henson is the second
of Hurstons fully delineated protagonists. More than any other
Supporting herself, Hurston completed two years at Morgan woman in her ction, Arvay offers a psychologically complete
College in Baltimore and enrolled at Howard University, where view of the complex entanglement of forces which impinge on the
her rst short ction was published in a literary journal there. She Southern rural woman and make her life, both externally and
moved to New York, became secretary to the popular novelist internally, a continuous struggle.
Fannie Hurst, and earned a scholarship to Barnard College, where
she studied anthropology under Franz Boas. When she graduated Both before her marriage to Jim Meserve and for some 20
in 1928, Dr. Boas had arranged a fellowship for Hurston to go years afterwards, Arvay Henson is plagued with feelings of
south to collect folklore. The result of this Southern expedition insecurity, inferiority, and self-worthlessness. At sixteen she had
was Mules and Men (1935). Throughout the 1920s Hurston had accepted that happiness, love, and normal relationships were not
continued to write short ction which had been published in meant for her; she had publicly denied the world, dedicated her
Opportunity. Her best efforts were Spunk, Sweat, and life to foreign missionary service, and begun having hysterical
The Gilded Six-Bits. spasms. Finally, Array realizes she cannot depend on her husband
to dene her self for her, and Jimalso aware of this
Hurstons rst novel, Jonahs Gourd Vine (1934), a narrative abruptly gives her this opportunity when he leaves her. Arvay
loosely based on the lives of her parents, chronicles the life of returns to her hometown in a symbolic trip, for she realizes that
John Pearson, an itinerant preacher. Incorporating her knowledge neither her gloried image of her family nor her image of herself
of folklore into her ction, Hurston depicts Johns second wife as as someone no man would want has been realistic. True to the
a character reliant on conjure to speed the rst wife to an early authors incurable penchant for romantic love, Arvay and Jim are
death and to snare the protagonist quickly into marriage, a reunited.
marriage which crumbles once he discovers her tactics.
From the early autobiographical story, Drenched in Light
Hurston is lauded for her utilization of folklore, the ripeness (1924), to Seraph on the Suwanee, Hurston based her ction on
and realism of black dialect, the poetic sermon, and the distinct her own personal experiences and wrote about the kind of life of
racial avor of Jonahs Gourd Vine. However, critics have faulted which she had rsthand knowledge. Although her ction is lled
plot construction, characterization, and dialogue. Additionally, with an assortment of characters, her female protagonists all
much of the criticism of Hurstons ction is the result of her possess an inner strength which helps them survive the most
choice of settingEatonville, Florida, a black town. Hurstons adverse situations. All of Hurstons novels focus on character and
critics accuse her of neglecting to confront the problems of racism suggest that maturity is necessary before one can reach an
250
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HUTCHINS
understanding of true values. Noteworthy in Hurstons ction is Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom (1998). Wall,
that escape to an urban environment is never suggested as a C. A., Women of the Harlem Renaissance (1995). Witherspoon-
solution to any problem. Walthall, M. L., The Evolution of the Black Heroine in the Novels
of Jessie Fauset, Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison,
The fact that Hurston chooses to place her characters in a and Alice Walker (1988). Yates, J., Zora Neale Hurston: A
Southern, rural, all-black setting suggests, also, that she wished to Storytellers Life (1993). Young, J., Black Writers of the Thir-
depict them as black men and women, not merely as reactors to ties (1973).
racism. The additional inclusion of folk elements gives a uniquely Reference works: CB (May 1942, April 1960). Norton Book
Southern avor to character and setting. As a writer who had of Womens Lives (1993). Oxford Book of Womens Writing in the
grown up in the South, Hurston recognized the aesthetics of this United States (1995). Short Story Criticism (1990). TCA, TCAS.
particular setting and culture and utilized them as no other black Other references: Black World (Aug. 1972). NYHTB (22
writer of the 1920s or 1930s did. Nov. 1943). NYT (2 Feb. 1960). SBL (Winter 1974).
JOYCE PETTIS
OTHER WORKS: Tell My Horse (1938). Moses, Man of the
Mountain (1939). Dust Tracks on a Dirt Road (1942, 1995 and
1996). I Love Myself When I Am Laughing. . .and Then Again
When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston HUTCHINS, Maude (Phelps) McVeigh
Reader (1979). Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings (1995).
Sweat (the original story and critical essays, edited by C. A. Wall, Born 4 February 1902 (?), New York, New York
1997). Go Gator and Muddy the Water: Writings (1999). Daughter of Warren R. and Maude Phelps McVeigh; married
Robert Maynard Hutchins, 1921 (divorced 1948)
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bloom, H., Major Black American Writers Through Maude McVeigh Hutchins was educated at St. Margarets
the Harlem Renaissance (1995). Bone, R., The Negro Novel in School in Waterbury, Connecticut, and received a B.F.A. degree
America (1958). Carson, W. J. Zora Neale Hurston: The Early from Yale University in 1926. Divorced in 1948, Hutchins settled
Years, 1921-1934 (dissertation, 1998). Carter-Sigglow, J., Mak- in Connecticut with her children. Talented not only in writing but
ing Her Way with Thunder: A Reappraisal of Zora Neale Hurstons also in the plastic arts, Hutchins published poems and short stories
Narrative Art (1994). Crawley, L.K., Zora Neale Hurston: Re- in the New Yorker, the Kenyon Review, Accent, Mademoiselle,
cordings, Manuscripts, and Ephemera in the Archive of Folk Nation, Epoch, Poetry, and the Quarterly Review of Literature;
Culture and Other Divisions of the Library of Congress (1992). and her sculpture was exhibited in one-woman shows in St. Louis,
Cronin, G. L., ed., Critical Essays on Zora Neale Hurston (1998). Chicago, San Francisco, and New York.
Davis, R. P., Zora Neale Hurston: An Annotated Bibliography A Diary of Love (1950), originally banned by British customs
and Reference Guide (1997). Edwards, J. A. C., Creative as well as by the police censor board in Chicago, is a three-part
Reverence: Self-Dening Revisionary Discourse in the Fiction of recollection of a young girls initiation into adulthood. The diarys
Jessie Fauset, Nella Larsen, and Zora Neale Hurston (thesis, exordium explains that the entries are ex post facto, written years
1998). Gates, H. L. and A. Appiah, eds., Zora Neale Hurston: after the events took place. The gap in time allows Noels
Critical Perspectives Past and Present (1993). Harrison, I. E. and sophisticated and knowledgeable perspective to enhance and
F. V., eds., African-American Pioneers in Anthropology (1999). deepen her adolescent experiences. The rst part presents the
Hemenway, R., Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography (1977). earliest stimuli and those persons who provide negative lessons in
Huggins, N., Harlem Renaissance (1971). Howard, L. P., ed., sensitivity. The second part takes place in a sanitarium in the
Alice Walker and Zora Neale Hurston: The Common Bond desert, where Noel convalesces for a number of years from
(1993). Lowe, J., Jump at the Sun: Zora Neale Hurstons Cosmic tuberculosis. Here, too, the propriety and routine do not preclude
Comedy (1994). Meisenhelder, S. E., Hitting a Straight Lick with erotic undercurrents, and the more imminent death appears to the
a Crooked Stick: Race and Gender in the Work of Zora Neale patients, the more important sensuality and eroticism become.
Hurston (1999). Nathiri, N. Y., Zora! Zora Neale Hurston: A After Noel returns home, in the nal part, she falls in love with
Woman and Her Community (1991). OBanner, B. M., A Study Dominick and they share an intimate awareness of sensual experi-
of Black Heroines in Four Selected Novels (1929-1959) by mentation. Their near-perfect relationship continues until the
Four Black American Women Novelists: Zora Neale Hurston, honeymoon night, when Dominicks unconscious desires are
Nella Larsen, Paule Marshall, Ann Lane Petry (thesis, 1985). revealed. As he cries out, in his sleep, his mothers mythical name,
Plant, D. G., Every Tub Must Sit On Its Own Bottom: The Leda, Noel immediately understands his incestuous feelings.
Philosophy and Politics of Zora Neale Hurston (1995). Rascher, Neither she nor Dominick can alter the spontaneous direction of
eroticism, and she silently acknowledges the permanence of
S. R., The Neo-Slave Narratives of Hurston, Walker, and Morrison:
her rival.
Rewriting the Black Womans Slave Narrative (dissertation, 1998).
Royster, B. H., The Ironic Vision of Four Black Women Novelists: Noels remark, I imagined love as a pie, a slice for each,
A Study of the Novels of Jessie Fauset, Nella Larsen, Zora Neale provides the title for Hutchins collection of short stories, sketch-
Hurston and Ann Petry (1980). Smith, B., The Truth That Never es, plays, and monologues. Love Is a Pie (1952) is somewhat
251
HUXTABLE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
uneven in quality. A more sustained work is the novel Victorine HUXTABLE, Ada Louise
(1959), which, like A Diary of Love, presents a young womans
journey from innocence to experience. Various persons emerge
from a multitude of impressions to guide Victorine through Born circa 1920s, New York, New York
successive passages to maturity. Daughter of Michael L. and Leah Rosenthal Landman; mar-
ried L. Garth Huxtable, circa 1942
Honey on the Moon (1964), like A Diary of Love, is written
from the rst person, Hutchins most successful point of view. Ada Louise Huxtable was born and raised in Manhattan,
Sigourney, a twenty-year-old girl from Connecticut, marries where her passion for cities and buildings ourished. She edited
Derek, a forty-year-old suave bachelor from New York City. the student newspaper at Wadleigh High School, Manhattans
Lonely for the simplicity of her single life, Sigourney discovers on high school for music and arts. At Hunter College, she majored in
her honeymoon that Dereks graciousness and lan are tempered ne arts, was elected Phi Beta Kappa in her junior year, and
by his aloofness from her and his fascination with haute fashion, graduated magna cum laude. Huxtable has said she never chose
homosexuals, and transvestites. Once she realizes that he has a career. I began as a scholar, writing and researching for my own
married her for her astonishing resemblance to a former lover, pleasure and enrichment in a eld that was of great interest to
Sigourneys sanity deteriorates. Aiming a pistol at her husband, me. She has always found immense personal satisfaction in that
Sigourney res too late, and when a second shot is red, the reader academic research.
cannot be sure if Sigourney has killed herself or merely hallucinated.
In 1946 she became assistant curator for architecture and
Most of Hutchins novels trace the emerging sensuality of a design at New Yorks Museum of Modern Art. She worked there
young and acutely sensitive female protagonist. A Diary of Love until accepting a Fulbright scholarship in 1950 (and in 1952) for
opens as Noel delicately and deliberately crushes ripe raspberries study and advanced research in architecture and design in Italy.
against her tongue, relishing their sweet disintegration. Simi-
larly, the protagonist of Honey on the Moon feels the physical Her writing on art and architecture has been published in Art
vibrations down through her limbs from repeating the word Digest, Progressive Architecture (where she was a contributing
husband. As the sensibilities of these women develop, random editor for almost 10 years), Art in America (again, a contributing
objects are supplanted by specic individuals, both male and editor for a decade), Interiors, Arts, and Architectural Review. Her
female, who stimulate and rene new experiences and sensations. work has also appeared in popular magazines such as Consumer
In Victorine, for example, the young girl is guided by her Reports, Holiday, Horizon, and Saturday Review.
half-witted friend, Fool Fred, to share his vision of a magni-
cent white stallion, a vision poised ambiguously between their One of the many publications carrying her bylined articles in
fantasies and reality. In Hutchins work, such epiphanies are the 1950s was the New York Times magazine. In 1963, as her
crucial, but only intermittent, during the maturation process. articles appeared with greater frequency, she was asked to take the
newly created and prestigious post of architecture critic for the
Hutchins balances her heroines perceptions between fantasy New York Times.
and the real, but sometimes they are too weak to maintain that
balance; they are nevertheless consistently sensitive and appeal- Inuential in the founding of New Yorks Landmarks Preser-
ing. It is through their ingenuous perceptions that Hutchins vation Commission in 1965, she denes preservation as the
manages to combine a frank eroticism with succinct and elegant retention and active relationship of the buildings of the past to the
language. She was praised highly by Anas Nin (in The Novel of communitys functioning present. The director of New Yorks
the Future) for her vivid and cinematic love scenes and for her ofce of midtown planning and development has said he would
attention to the senses and the emotions. Hutchins is at her best consciously go out of my way to get her advice on issues. . .she
when suggesting evanescent moments of sensual apprehension has such a keen understanding of the politics, the money, and the
that mark the transition from childhood to womanhood. For her realities involved in any given situation that I can treat her as
honesty, subtlety, and graceful style, Hutchins deserves greater a peer.
study from readers and critics.
Her books include Four Walking Tours of Modern Architec-
ture in New York City (1961), published by the Museum of
OTHER WORKS: Diagrammatics (with M. J. Adler, 1932). Modern Art, and Classic New York: Georgian Gentility to Greek
Georgiana (1946). My Hero (1953). Memoirs of Maisie (1955). Elegance (1964). Both were intended as part of a six-volume
The Elevator (1963). series and represent years of painstaking research and personal
reections.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Nin, A., The Novel of the Future (1968). Will They Ever Finish Bruckner Boulevard? (1970, 1972) is a
Reference works: CA (1976). WA. collection of her articles from the Times. In one edition, her
Other references: Book Week (15 Mar. 1964). Commonweal publishers labeled it a primer on urbicide as no one is immune
(3 Apr. 1964). NR (8 Dec. 1952). NYTBR (9 Feb. 1964). from her caustic evaluations. She called the Pan Am building a
prime example of a New York specialty: the big, the expedient,
MIRIAM FUCHS and the deathlessly ordinary.
252
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS HUXTABLE
Huxtable is an outstanding authority on urbanism. Besides Secrets (1971). Lloyd, J., Ada Louise Huxtable: A Case Study
being a member of the New York Times editorial board and (1975). Papadakes, A., Architecture of Today (1997). Papadakes, A.,
winning the rst Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism, she has A Decade of Architectural Design (1991). Williams, H. M., ed.,
received many signicant awards from professional and cultural Making Architecture: The Getty Center (1997). Wodehouse, L.,
organizations and more than a dozen honorary degrees. The Wall
Ada Louise Huxtable, An Annotated Bibliography (1981).
Street Journal has noted her ability to get everyonethe build-
Reference works: CB (1973). Oxford Companion to Wom-
ers includedeating out of her hand and telling her everything
she wants to know. Then she retreats behind a closed door and out ens Writing in the United States (1995).
comes this very gutsy critique. Other references: Architectural Record (Apr. 1993, May
1993). ARTnews (1997). CSM (9 Apr. 1969, 11 Nov. 1973).
Huxtable has no fear of attacking big city interests, such as
Harpers Bazaar (Aug. 1972). House Beautiful (Sept. 1970).
building speculators and real estate developers, when the occasion
warrants. Her work has been both praised and damned by the Interior Design (Feb. 1993). Metropolis (1998). New York (3 Nov.
reading public; it is trenchant, lively, precise, andclearly 1975). Newsweek (23 Aug. 1965). NY (17 Dec. 1973). NYT (5
inuential. May 1970, 26 Sept. 1973, 2 Jan. 1975, 13 Mar. 1977, 29 Sept.
1977). Opera News (July 1999). WSJ (7 Nov. 1972).
OTHER WORKS: Pier Luigi Nervi (1960). Kicked a Building
Lately? (1976, 1988). Goodbye History, Hello Hamburger: An KATHLEEN KEARNEY KEESHEN
Anthology of Architectural Delights and Disasters (1986). Archi-
tecture Anyone? (1988). The Tall Building Artistically Reconsid-
ered (1992). Inventing Reality: Architectural Themes and Varia-
tions (1993). The Unreal America: Architecture and Illusion (1997).
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Angeletti, M., The Architectural Criticism of HYDE, Shelley

Ada Louise Huxtable (thesis, 1995). Diamondstein, B., Open See REED, Kit
253
I
IRELAND, Jane and sister, Irwin began writing ction that addressed the issues
See NORRIS, Kathleen Thompson with which she is now most often associatedthose underlying
the suffrage movement. Of her feminist ction, The Lady of the
Kingdoms (1917) has been undeservedly forgotten. This long
novel presents two young heroines, the beautiful and self-assured
Southward and the plain and self-effacing Hester. Irwin uses both
IRWIN, Inez Haynes heroines to examine the conventional moralities women have
been forced into, as well as the unconventional, even immoral,
Born 2 March 1873, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; died 30 Sep- ones women have chosen for themselves. Though Irwin may
tember 1970 disapprove of the latter roles, she never condemns the women who
Daughter of Gideon and Emma Jane Hopkins Haynes; married choose them.
Rufus H. Gillmore, 1897 (died); William H. Irwin, 1916
Irwin published two books dealing with divorce, Gideon
(1927) and Gertrude Havilands Divorce (1925). The heroine of
Inez Haynes Irwin was educated in Boston schools and
the latter work is a fat, dull, sloppy woman who has further
attended Radcliffe College from 1897 to 1900. At the turn of the
alienated her husband by being overly absorbed in her children.
century, Radcliffe was a center of suffragist sentiment. Deter-
The book begins as Gertrude receives her husbands request for a
mined to extend this feeling to college alumnae, Irwin and Maud
divorce, follows her through mental illness, watches her recover
Wood Park founded the Massachusetts College Equal Suffrage
as she realizes she is pregnant, and witnesses her transformation
Association in 1900. This group expanded into the National Col-
into a woman of resolution, intelligence, self-reliance, and new
lege Equal Suffrage League, an active force in the enfranchisement
beauty. Her nal triumph occurs when she rejects her husbands
campaign.
offer of remarriage; however, this victory is mitigated by the fact
Irwins other feminist activities centered around the more that Gertrude now realizes she loves and will marry another man.
radical wing of the suffrage movement, the National Womans Also troubling is the assertion that having a baby is enough to end
Party. Led by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, the party was patterned a womans suffering, an attitude no doubt affected by Irwins
after the British suffrage movement in its militancy and political failure to have children of her own.
tactics. Irwin was a member of the partys advisory council; she
In the 1930s and 1940s, Irwin returned to sentimental,
wrote for the partys publications and was the partys biographer.
descriptive novels and wrote upper-class-murder mysteries and
The Story of the Womans Party (1921) is awed by its lack of moralistic childrens books. The strongest indictment to be made
objectivity and the failure to mention the other wing of the against Irwin comes from these books, the last she wrote. She had
suffrage movement, but it is the only record of the partys run out of good ideas, and no longer had the ability to write
activities, other than the stories repeated in Irwins more ambi- strongly, to state issues clearly, and to imagine vital characters.
tious work on the history of American women, Angels and Irwin apparently decided that those qualities of authorship she still
Amazons (1933). possessed were good enough for childrens books. She was a
Irwins rst ctional work was published in Everybodys in prolic writer whose nest works came early and whose mediocre
1904. She then became a regular contributor to British and later works have so thoroughly reduced her reputation as a writer
American magazines and devoted herself to writing short stories of adult and childrens ction that she is virtually forgotten in
and novels. Other than her feminist chronicles, Irwins only these elds. Between 1917 and 1927, however, she wrote several
digressions from these genres occurred during World War I. impressively direct novels about divorce and womens roles.
Having become the wife of newspaperman Will Irwin after the
death of her rst husband, Inez visited the European fronts with OTHER WORKS: June Jeopardy (1908). Maidas Little Shop
Will. Her accounts of these visits were printed in the magazines of (1910). Phoebe and Ernest (1910). Janey (1911). Phoebe, Ernest,
three countries. and Cupid (1912). Angel Island (1914). The Ollivant Orphans
The Spring Flight was the O. Henry Memorial award rst (1915). The Californians (1916). The Happy Years (1919). The
prize winner in 1924, a puzzling choice, for the story is a Native Son (1919). Maidas Little House (1921). Out of the Air
quasibiographical sketch of William Shakespeare trying to over- (1921). Maidas Little School (1926). P. D. F. R. (1928). Confes-
come writers block before composing The Tempest. It is ironic sions of a Businessmans Wife (1931). Family Circle (1931).
Irwin received the highest acclaim for this story, so far removed Youth Must Laugh (1932). Strange Harvest (1934). Murder
from her eld of expertise. Masquerade (1935). The Poison Cross (1936). Good Manners for
Girls (1937). A Body Rolled Downstairs (1938). Maidas Little
After a few ventures with highly sentimentalized and sim- Island (1939). Maidas Little Camp (1940). Many Murders (1941).
plistic novels about orphaned children and an idealized brother Maidas Little Village (1942). Maidas Little Houseboat (1943).
255
ISAACS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Maidas Little Theatre (1946). The Women Swore Revenge (1946). Isaacs second novel, Close Relations (1980), also focuses on
Maidas Little Cabins (1947). Maidas Little Zoo (1949). Maidas a witty Jewish woman, although one remarkably different from
Little Lighthouse (1951). Maidas Little Hospital (n.d.). Maidas Judith Singer. In Close Relations, Marcia Green is a divorced
Little Farm (n.d.). Maidas Little House Party (n.d.). Maidas speechwriter working for an Italian New York gubernatorial
Little Treasure Hunt (n.d.). Maidas Little Tree House (n.d.). candidate. During the campaign, Marcia becomes involved with
both an Irish Catholic campaign manager and an eligible Jewish
lawyer. The novel has been called a modern fairy tale and a
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: NCAB. TCA, TCAS. hilarious satire of ethnic stereotyping.
LYNNE MASEL-WALTERS AND HELEN LOEB Isaacs next novel Almost Paradise (1984), is a contempo-
rary Cinderella story with a twist. As in the majority of Isaacs
work, the protagonist is a strong, independent female who never-
theless has trouble nding love. Jane Heissenhuber, who is poor
ISAACS, Susan and from an abusive home, falls in love with and marries hand-
some and wealthy Nicholas Cobleigh, who becomes a Hollywood
superstar. Yet the couples story does not end happily. Critics
Born 7 December 1943, Brooklyn, New York
reviews were mixed. Shining Through (1988), fared better with
Daughter of Morton and Helen Asher Isaacs; married Elkan
critics and became a successful motion picture in 1992 with
Abramowitz, 1968; children: Andrew, Elizabeth
Michael Douglas and Melanie Grifth. Its main character is
feisty, intelligent, half-Jewish Linda Voss, a working girl who
Susan Isaacs was born in Brooklyn, New York, on 7 Decem- falls in love with her boss, handsome attorney John Berringer. The
ber 1943 to Morton Isaacs, an electrical engineer, and Helen couple marry, but the marriage is not a happy one, and Linda
(Asher) Isaacs, a homemaker. Isaacs was raised in New York eventually becomes an Allied spy working undercover in Nazi
except for a brief period when her family lived in Ohio. She Germany. Unlike Almost Paradise, however, Shining Through
entered Queens College (now Queens College of the City Univer- has a Hollywood-style ending in which Linda nds the love and
sity of New York) after graduating from high school. She switched happiness she deserves.
majors from pre-med to economics and nally to English.
Magic Hour, Isaacs 1991 novel, features one of her few male
Although Isaacs worked on the school newspaper, she did not protagonists, Long Island homicide detective Steve Brady. A
consider becoming a professional writer until much later. She Vietnam vet with a troubled past, Brady falls in love with a
dropped out of Queens College in her senior year and became an suspect in the murder of a movie producer. This novel has the
editorial assistant in the reader mail department of Seventeen same wickedly funny dialogue and eye for details that character-
magazine in 1966. She married Elkan Abramowitz, a lawyer, two ize Isaacs writing. Isaacs stuck with a mystery but returned to a
years later and was eventually promoted to senior editor, but quit female protagonist in After All These Years (1993). This novels
in 1970 to stay home with her rst child. heroine, Rosie, nds her husband murdered just after he an-
Isaacs worked briey as a freelance writer for various nounces hes leaving her for a younger woman. She becomes the
journals and had a brief stint as a speechwriter for local Democrat- primary suspect and sets out to nd the killer to clear herself of
ic politicians, but was dissatised with her career. It was when her suspicion.
second child was in nursery school that she thought of writing a Critics loved After All These Years but many didnt care for
novel. Although she put the idea off at rst, she eventually settled 1996s Lily White. The title character of the latter is a criminal
into a schedule of writing for three hours every morning. Her rst defense attorney who defends a con man accused of murdering his
book, Compromising Positions (1978), was nished a year later. latest victim. The book tells of Lilys efforts to free her client
A friend of her husbands was an executive editor at Simon & while simultaneously presenting her family history in ashbacks.
Schuster, and he introduced Isaacs to an agent who sold the book Some reviewers complained the two tales didnt mesh and that
to Times Books for its new ction list. Isaacs should have eliminated Lilys history.
Compromising Positions centers on upper-middle-class In Red, White, and Blue (1998), Isaacs explores the questions
Long Island homemaker Judith Singers amateur investigation into of what it means to be an American by focusing upon an unlikely
the brutal murder of Bruce Fleckstein, the local periodontist. In pairs investigation of a radical Wyoming militia group. Charlie
explaining her choice of her victims occupation, Isaacs said, I Blair, an FBI agent, and Lauren Miller, a New York reporter, are
just gured dentists cause pain, so they deserve to die. Judith drawn together by their immigrant Jewish ancestry and American
quickly nds herself entangled with the Maa, an attractive values. Tension escalates as Charlie inltrates the hate group, but
policeman, and her suburban neighbors dirty secrets as she tries all ends well. Isaacs turns her writing skills to nonction with her
to solve Flecksteins murder. The book sold moderately well in latest book, Brave Dames and Wimpettes (1999). This title is part
hardback but received favorable reviews and was a Book of the of the Library of Contemporary Thought series, in which popular
Month Club main selection. The paperback and movie rights sold authors write about intellectual subjects for a general audience.
for large sums and the paperback version shot to the top of the Isaacs examines the roles of women as depicted in books, televi-
bestseller lists. sion, and movies, dividing female protagonists into one of the two
256
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS IVINS
title categories and offers candid opinions on popular lms and frequent ts of hysterical laughter in those years. She left the
fellow novelists from Thomas Harris (Silence of the Lambs, Observer in 1976 to become the Denver-based Rocky Mountain
Hannibal) and James Patterson (Along Came a Spider, Kiss the bureau chief for the New York Times, a position she held until
Girls) to Terminator 2 and the Alien movies. 1982. She described this position by stating that for three years,
she covered nine mountain states by herself and was often tired.
Isaacs has a remarkable eye for detail and a way with witty
dialogue that make her novels come alive for readers. From After leaving the New York Times in February 1982, she
Wyoming to Long Island and from contemporary Manhattan to became a columnist for the Dallas Times Herald until 1991, when
Nazi Germany, her books are remarkably diverse in scope and she accepted her present position as columnist for the Fort Worth
setting. Quirky heroines and an occasional quirky hero are all Star-Telegram. Ivins once commented that her return to Texas
ordinary people who encounter extraordinary situations that re- may indicate a masochistic streak, [but Ive] had plenty to write
veal their hidden strengths. As Isaacs herself once stated, I like about ever since.
to show ordinary people reacting to ordinary circumstances. Its
an opportunity for adventure, and I like women to have adven- The title of Ivins rst book, Molly Ivins Cant Say That, Can
tures. Theres been far too little of it with women. She? (1991), grew out of one of her columns for the Dallas Times
Herald. Ivins commented that if a state representatives IQ slips
any lower, well have to water him twice a day. Offended by this
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CANR 20 (1987), 65 (1998). remark, some members of the Dallas business community tried to
CBY (1993). force the Times Herald into censuring Ivins. The Times Herald
Other References: People (30 Apr. 1984). PW (1 Feb. 1999). refused and plastered Dallas billboards with the question Ivins
Writer (Feb. 1997). later took as her rst book title. Molly Ivins Cant Say That, Can
She? was on the New York Times bestseller list for over a year.
LEAH J. SPARKS
Ivins second book, Nothin But Good Times Ahead (1993),
continues her coverage of Texas politics, which she once called
the nest form of free entertainment ever invented. In addition
to the 1992 presidential campaign, she wrote about Queen Eliza-
IVES, Morgan beths visit to Texas and the Clarence Hill-Anita Thomas hear-
See BRADLEY, Marion Zimmer
ings. Publishers Weekly noted in its 23 August 1993 review of this
book that Ivins has a B.S. detector as sensitive as an electron
microscope and a vocabulary that, when she is riled, goes beyond
earthy.
IVINS, Molly
In February, 1994, Ivins wrote an article in the Nation
explaining why she had declined, against the urging of some, to
Born Mary Tyler Ivins, 30 August 1944, Monterey, California
enter the U.S. Senate race in Texas. Later that year she battled
Daughter of Margot (Milne) and Jim Ivins
charges of plagiarism when staunch conservative Florence King,
author of nine volumes on Southern humor, accused Ivins of
Molly Ivins is one of Americas most well-known syndicated copying from Kings 1975 title, Southern Ladies and Gentleman.
political columnists. She writes for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Ivins had cited King throughout her work, but apologized for
but her hilarious accounts of Texas and national politics may be
some passages in which she failed to adequately acknowledge the
found in over 100 other newspapers throughout the country. Her
other author. In 1996 Ivins began a short-lived position on
three bestselling books bring together collections of her wittiest
televisions 60 Minutes as the third member of a trio that included
and most scathing columns, essays, and magazine articles on
Stanley Crouch and P. J. ORourke. The three offered differing
politics and journalism.
opinions in a point/counterpoint segment that was eventually
Ivins was born Mary Tyler Ivins on August 30, 1944, in dropped.
Monterey, California, but she grew up in Houston, Texas, with her
Ivins third book, Youve Got to Dance with Them That
brother, Andy. She graduated from Smith College in 1966 and
Brung You: Politics in the Clinton Years, was published in 1998 to
studied briey at the Institute of Political Science in Paris before
the same critical acclaim as her previous titles. In this latest work,
earning a masters degree in journalism from Columbia Universi-
Ivins comments on the 1996 presidential campaign, the Oklahoma
ty in 1967. While still in school, she worked as a reporter for
City bombing, and the O. J. Simpson case, in addition to her usual
both the Houston Chronicle and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune
newspapers. hilarious discourse on politics in her native Texas. The last section
of this book, which Ivins dubs Tributes to Souls Passing, are
In 1970 she became a reporter and eventually coeditor of the farewells to the famous and the infamous. Particularly poignant
liberal monthly Texas Observer. She covered the Texas legisla- and poetic is Ivins farewell to her own mother, which begins
ture for the Observer, which accounts, as she puts it, for her My mother died the other day. Her latest work, in progress and
257
IVINS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
scheduled for a January 2000 publication, is a biography of Texas her and that she was once banned from the campus of Texas
governor and Republican presidential hopeful George W. Bush. A&M.
The books tenative title Shrub derives from an article Ivins wrote,
in which she stated Bush had all the charisma of a shrub.
OTHER WORKS: Contributed to: The Edge of Texas and Other
In addition to her regular column, Ivins is a frequent con- Texas Stories (1990).
tributor to such periodicals as the Nation, Esquire, Harpers,
Progressive, and Mother Jones and a frequent guest on network
radio and television shows. Unabashedly liberal, Ivins is active in BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CANR 138 (1993). Whos Who
the Amnesty International Journalism Network and the Reporters in America (1998).
Committee for Freedom of the Press. She also writes about press Other References: About Molly Ivins, at http://crea-
issues for the American Civil Liberties Union. tors.com/opinion/bio/bio-ivin.htm. A Lifetime Prize for an Un-
der-50 Writer, in Editor & Publisher (16 July 1994). Good
Ivins has been a Pulitzer Prize nalist three times and has Golly, Miss Molly, in Entertainment Weekly (24 Nov. 1995).
won numerous journalism awards, including Columbia Universi- Molly Ivins to Bring Her Left-wing Populist Take to 60
tys School of Journalism Outstanding Alumna award in 1976. Minutes, in Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service (19 Feb. 1996).
She also served as a member of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize Jury. Yet, My Friends, the Time Is Not Yet, in Nation (7 Feb. 1994).
appropriately enough for Ivins, she wrote her two greatest honors
are that the Minneapolis police force named its mascot pig after LEAH J. SPARKS
258
J
JACKSON, Helen (Maria Fiske) Hunt Mine (1878), Jackson incorporated her rst impressions of Colo-
rado into her story of unrelievedly good and resourceful Nellie
and her somewhat petulant twin brother. The didactic asides
Born 15 October 1830, Amherst, Massachusetts; died 12 August prevalent in these works overwhelm Jacksons Bits of Talk in
1885, San Francisco, California Verse and Prose for Young Folks (1876).
Also wrote under: H. H., Saxe Holm, Helen Jackson, Marah, No
Name, Rip Van Winkle In 1879 Jackson heard Suzette Bright Eyes LaFlesche, an
Daughter of Nathan Welby and Deborah Vinal Fiske; married Omaha Native American, describe the wrongs suffered by Native
Edward Bissell Hunt, 1852; William Sharpless Jackson, Americans. Aroused by a righteous passion for justice for Native
1875, children: two, both of whom died young Americans comparable to abolitionist fervor, Jackson produced
her most memorable works, and abandoned her pseudonyms to
The elder and more impetuous of two surviving children of a speak her mind. In A Century of Dishonor (1881), Jackson also
minister-turned-professor and his devout and educated wife, abandoned ction, writing impassioned history documenting sev-
Helen Hunt Jackson was raised in an atmosphere of learning, eral heinous examples of governmental perdy practiced upon
piety, and enforced propriety. Although her parents both suc- Native American tribes. Jacksons strong indictment of the U.S.
cumbed to tuberculosis while Jackson was a teenager, she contin- government and, by extension, its acquiescent populace, delight-
ued to attend private schools until 1850. Jackson then married ed reformers and enraged some critics who believed Jacksons
Lieutenant Hunt and began the restless life of an army wife and lack of objectivity damaged her case.
mother of two sons, only one of whom survived infancy. In 1863 Jackson was most appalled by the wrongful treatment inict-
Jacksons husband was killed testing his newly invented torpedo. ed upon Californias Mission Native Americans. She and Abbot
When, two years later, Jacksons son died, she turned to writing Kinney served as ofcial investigators, producing a Report on the
poetry as an outlet for her grief. Conditions and Needs of the Mission Indians (1883). Jackson was
Jacksons early poems won her recognition from the inuen- determined to publicize the situation of Californias natives and,
tial Thomas Wentworth Higginson; her subsequent prolic peri- since government documents reach few, she wrote Ramona
odical publications gathered a wide popular audience and critical (1884), a romance involving a half-Native American girl raised on
praise, even from Emerson. Jackson supported herself and trav- a Spanish hacienda who elopes with a Native American, and
eled widely on the prots of her pen. Her generally pious and subsequently shares his life as victim of land fraud and prejudice.
sentimental treatments of death, love, and nature themes date Ramona enjoyed continuing popularity in over 300 reprintings,
much of her poetry, but many of her Verses (1870) and Sonnets but unfortunately had little real impact upon Native American
and Lyrics (1886) can still be appreciated for their skillful policy. Perhaps the outrage Jackson intended to arouse was lost in
technique and use of language. local color and drowned in tears, the very elements of Ramonas
story that have encouraged its frequent retelling in local pageants
Jacksons rst prose efforts were travel pieces, enriched by and national media productions.
her air for observation of detail in interior decoration and natural
scenery. Her descriptions of unconventional people encountered Ramona rst reached the screen in a three-hour photoplay in
along the way reveal the lingering inuence of Jacksons narrow- 1916. A modied happy ending was added to the popular 1928
ly proper upbringing. While wintering in Colorado Springs in version, but in 1936, when a technicolor Ramona was released,
1873 she met William Sharpless Jackson, a Quaker banker and one critic found the story a piece of unadulterated hokum far
railroad promoter, whom she married two years later. Jackson too sentimental for these heartless days.
continued writing and experimented in prose ction. Her passion In spite of the sentimentality of much of her work, Jackson
for anonymity continued; Saxe Holm aroused popular curiosi- was widely respected in the literary and Native American reform
ty as the author of two series of Jacksons short stories (1874 and circles of her era, and her death from cancer in 1885 was sincerely
1876), and she wrote two novels, Mercy Philbricks Choice mourned. Her posthumously published stories return to eastern
(1876) and Hettys Strange History (1877), for her publishers themes, and while they lack the re of her Native American
No Name series. These works, set in New England, focus upon works, remain interesting for their powerful, independent women
strong women characters dealing with complications wrought by characters such as Sophy Burr in Zeph (1885), Victorene and
love, death, family responsibility, and illness. For example, Draxy Little Bel in stories included in Between Whiles (1887), and Pansy
Miller, a memorable Saxe Holm heroine, arranges her sick Billings and Popsy (1898).
fathers retirement, marries a minister, and takes over his pulpit
after his death, all to the approval of the small-town community. Although most modern critics fault Jacksons obvious senti-
mentality, her works are important, both as an index for the taste
Jacksons love of children, undiminished by the deaths of her of her times as well as for their focus upon women who act to
own, emerges in her childrens books. Her cat stories, particularly determine their destiny. Marriage is not the end of their stories;
Letters from a Cat (1879), remain entertaining. In Nellies Silver Jackson shows them coping with widowhood, poverty, indelity,
259
JACKSON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
and work. The presentation of Native Americans in her works America, where Laura met and married Schuyler Jackson (poet,
deserves some criticism for its noble savage inclination and farmer, and contributing editor of Time). For almost 30 years, she
implications of Indian passivity, but the aim of her writing, to and Jackson worked on a reference work called the Dictionary of
reach and arouse a white audience susceptible to such stereotypes, Exact Meaning. Schuyler Jackson died in 1970, and the work was
must be considered in any evaluation. Readers may weep at nally published as Rational Meaning: A New Foundation for the
Ramonas plight, but must still be subconsciously impressed by Denition of Words, and Supplementary Essays in 1997.
her strength of purpose.
During the dozen years of Jacksons association with Graves,
the two collaborated on literary criticism and on one odd satirical
OTHER WORKS: Bathmendi: A Persian Tale (1867). Bits of Travel novel, No Decency Left (1932). A Survey of Modernist Poetry
(1872). Bits of Talk about Home Matters (1873). Saxe Holms (1927) is a perceptive discussion of innovative techniques in
Stories (Series 1, 1874). The Story of Boon (1874). Bits of Travel poetry, such as those practiced by e.e. cummings, Ezra Pound, and
at Home (1878). Saxe Holms Stories (Series 2, 1878). Mammy T. S. Eliot. It analyzes the shortcomings of temporary fads
Tittleback and Her Family (1881). The Training of Children such as Imagism and Georgianism and argues that modern experi-
(1882). Easter Bells (1884). Glimpses of Three Coasts (1886). mental poetry, some of which they condemn to an early death, has
The Procession of Flowers in Colorado (1886). My Legacy been inuenced by nonrepresentational art. Poets have too often
(1888). A Calendar of Sonnets (1891). Poems (1891). Cat Stories simply abandoned coherent statement, creating abstract arrange-
(1898). Father Junipero and the Mission Indians (1902). Glimpses ments of emotionally laden phrases and sounds. Jackson also
of California and the Missions (1902). shared with Graves an interest in the Greco-Roman world and the
Many of the papers of Helen Hunt Jackson are at the status of women in ancient times, as evidenced by her novel A
Huntington Library, San Marino, California. Trojan Ending (1937, reprint 1984) and her biographical sketches
of famous women, Lives of Wives (1939, reissued 1995).
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hardy, G.J., American Women Civil Rights Activ- Most of Jacksons poetry is free verse, with a sensitive use of
ists: Bibliographies of 68 Leaders, 1825-1992 (1993). Higginson, assonance and repetition and relatively little concern for rhyme.
T. W., Contemporaries (1899). Higginson, T. W., Short Studies of Each poem is a different problem, and each seeks to match sound
American Authors (1906). Odell, R., Helen Hunt Jackson (1939). to sense. In this Jackson has been compared with Gertrude Stein.
Reference works: Appletons Cyclopaedia of American Bi- Her poetry is often simultaneously playful and serious; sometimes
ography, Vol. 3 (1887). Authors at Home (1886). DAB, IX. theres a trace of condescension toward nonpoetic thinking. In the
Herringshaws National Library of American Biography, Vol. 3 rst stanza of Further Details, for example, the poet, who
(1914). NAW. Notable Women in History (1913). Twentieth presumably arrives at the higher truth intuitively and holistically,
Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Vol. speaks to the analytical, rational pursuer of knowledge: The
6 (1904). reward of curiosity / In such as you / (Statistician of doubt) / Is
Other references: American Literary Realism (Summer 1969, increased cause of curiosity. / And the punishment thereof, / To be
Summer 1973). AL (Jan. 1931). American Scholar (Summer
not a cat.
1941). Common Ground (Winter 1946). NYT (6 April 1916, 15
May 1928, 7 Oct. 1936). SR (Spring 1959). Jackson is concerned with mental experience more than with
sense experience. She favors philosophical subjectsthe coexist-
HELEN M. BANNAN ence of multiplicity and sameness, the mysterious transformations
of life and death, the ambiguous relationship between body and
mind, the nature of love. Some readers nd her poems obscure,
but she implies this is the readers fault, not hers: Doom is where
JACKSON, Laura (Riding) I am and I want to make this plain because I know there are people
to whom it can be plain (preface to Poems: A Joking Word,
Born Laura Reichenthal, 16 January 1901, New York, New York; 1930). She sometimes combines humor with metaphysical fanta-
died 1991 sy, as in the delightful creation story, The Quids. Other poems,
Also wrote under: Laura Riding Gottschalk, Barbara Rich, Lau- like the enigmatic Lucrece and Nara, convey some eerie
ra Riding insight quite beyond rational explanation. In 1943 Graves referred
Daughter of Nathaniel S. and Sarah Edersheim Reichenthal; to Jackson as writing in the supreme female I, the original Triple
married Louis Gottschalk, 1920; Schuyler Jackson, 1941 Muse, who in her original Olympian mountain was mother of
(died 1970) Apollo, not his chorus-girl troupe.
Laura Riding Jackson, raised in a nonreligious Jewish house- Her poetry has never achieved widespread popularity with
hold actively espousing socialism, is best known for her strikingly general readers, but it is an important part of the modern ight
original poetry, although she has also written criticism, novels, from the conventions of 19th-century romanticism. Her diction
and biographical sketches. She attended Cornell University, mar- shows a deliberate avoidance of traditional sentiments, a bare
ried Louis Gottschalk (divorced, 1925), then spent 13 years minimum of imagery and metaphor, a tendency to abstraction.
abroad. She and Robert Graves were companions, establishing the The vocabulary is often deceptively simple, yet the reader must
Seizin Press in 1927 in Majorca. In 1939 they came back to intuit meaning from limited clues. At its worst, this may require
260
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS JACKSON
sheer guesswork. At its best, it achieves a delicate precision and religious visionary writer. Though an important example of
economy in the expression of complex meanings. African American female religious leadership and spirituality in
the 19th century, she was virtually unknown from her death until
the rediscovery and publication of her spiritual autobiography;
OTHER WORKS: The Close Chaplet (1926). Voltaire: A Bio- Gifts of Power, in 1981. Virtually all that is known of her life is
graphical Fantasy (1927). Anarchism Is Not Enough (1928). recorded in this autobiography and in Shaker archives.
Contemporaries and Snobs (1928). Love As Love, Death As Death
(1928). Twenty Poems Less (1930). Laura and Francesco (1931, As the result of the powerful religious awakening experience
with R. Graves, 1932). The Life of the Dead (1933). Poet: A Lying in a thunderstorm in 1830 with which her spiritual autobiography
Word (1933). Four Unposted Letters to Catherine (1933, 1993). begins, Jackson became active in the early Holiness movement
Americans (1934). Progress of Stories (1935, 1994). Collected and came to challenge the African Methodist Episcopal (AME)
Poems (1938). Selected Poems (taken from 1938s Collected church of her upbringing. She moved from leadership of praying
Poems, 1970). The Telling (1970). Description of Life (uncorrected bands to public preaching, stirring up controversy within AME
proof, 1980). How a Poem Comes to Be: A Poem for James F. circles not only as a woman preacher, but also because she had
Mathias (1980). A Poem (1980). Some Communications of Broad received the revelation that celibacy was necessary for a holy life.
Reference (1983). The Poems of Laura Riding (1980, 1986). She criticized the churches, including the AME church and its
Experts Are Puzzled (reissue, 1985). The First Awakenings: The leaders, for carnality. Her insistence on being guided entirely
Early Poems (1992). A Selection of the Poems of Laura Riding by the dictates of her inner voice led ultimately to her separation
(1994). Laura Riding: Selected Poems in Five Sets (reissue, from husband, admired older brother (Joseph Cox, an AME
1995). A Short Sentence for Private Reection on the Universal preacher with whom she had lived since her mothers death),
Length of Meaning (1995). The Word Woman and Other Related and church.
Writings (reissue, 1994).
After a period of itinerant preaching in the later 1830s and
early 1840s, in June 1847 Jackson joined the United Society of
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Adams, B. B., The Enemy Self: Poetry and Believers in Christs Second Appearing (the Shakers), at Watervliet,
Criticism of Laura Riding (1990). Baker, D., In Extremis: The Life New York. She was attracted to their religious celibacy, their
of Laura Riding (1993). Graves, R. P., Robert Graves: The Years emphasis on spiritualistic experience, and their dual-gender con-
with Laura, 1926-1940 (1990). Seymour, M., The Telling (reis- cept of deity. With her younger disciple and lifelong companion,
sue, 1999). Van Hook, B. A., The Use of Myth in Laura Ridings Rebecca Perot, Jackson lived at Watervliet until July 1851.
Selected Poems (1993). Wexler, J. P. Laura Ridings Pursuit of Increasingly disappointed in the predominantly white Shaker
Truth (1979). Wexler, J. P., Laura Riding, A Bibliography (1981). communitys failure to take the gospel of their founder, Ann Lee,
Reference works: Benets Readers Encyclopedia (1987). to the African American community, Jackson left Watervliet on
CAA (1944). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the an unauthorized mission to Philadelphia, where she and Perot
United States (1995). TCA, TCAS. experimented with sance-style spiritualism. They returned to
Other references: American Literature (1992). Critical In- Watervliet for a brief second residence in 1857, and at this time
quiry (Spring 1992). CQ (Spring 1971). Poetry (Aug. 1932, May Jackson won the right to found and head a new Shaker outfamily
1939). Guide to the Laura (Riding) Jackson and Schuyler B. in Philadelphia. This predominantly black and female Shaker
Jackson Collection at Cornell University (1998). Laura (Riding) family survived her death by at least a quarter of a century.
Jackson and the Promise of Language: Catalogue of an Exhibi-
Like several other African American women preachers in the
tion, October 1998-January 1999 (1998).
19th century, Jackson achieved her religious leadership role
largely through visionary experience and her ability to communi-
KATHERINE SNIPES
cate such experience to others, at rst solely through oral testimo-
nial. Illiterate into her middle agethe only child of my mother
that had not learningshe depended immediately after her
conversion on her literate elder brother to help her religious
JACKSON, Rebecca Cox correspondence. Her autobiography records her increasing frus-
tration with this dependency and her joy when she prayed for
literacy and received it by divine gift.
Born 15 February 1795, Hornstown, Pennsylvania; died 24 May
1871, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Gifts of Power records her spiritual journey as a woman with
Daughter of Jane (Cox), later Wisson or Wilson; fathers name a divine calling, from her awakening through her discovery of
unknown; married Samuel S. Jackson (date unknown, be- Shakerism and the founding of her own community. She describes
fore 1830; separated 1836) a wide variety of visionary experiences, including mysterious
prophetic dreams and supernatural gifts of power (such as the
Rebecca Cox Jackson was a charismatic itinerant preacher, ability to control the weather by prayer). The dream visions give
the founder of a religious communal family in Philadelphia, and a access to a world in which laws of nature are violated with ease.
261
JACKSON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
The physical body left behind, the dreamer soars into the air, and JACKSON, Shirley
is given ashes of understanding about both the physical universe
and the spiritual world. Jacksons visionary dreams also show her
Born 14 December 1919, San Francisco, California; died 8
confronting fears of racial and sexual violence; working out an
August 1965, North Bennington, Vermont
understanding of the mother aspect of the godhead; and even
Daughter of Leslie H. and Geraldine Bugbee Jackson; married
resolving conicts that arose in her relationships with brother,
Stanley Edgar Hyman, 1940; children: Laurence, Joanne,
husband, spiritual companions, and Shaker leaders.
Sarah, and Barry
Alice Walker has described Gifts of Power as an extraordi-
nary document, which tells us much about the spirituality of Shirley Jackson began to compose poems and short stories
human beings, especially of the interior spiritual resources of our almost as soon as she could write. She won her rst literary prize
mothers. Writing of Jacksons relationship to Perot, Walker at the age of twelve when her poem The Pine Tree won a
coined the term womanism to distinguish a specically black contest sponsored by Junior Home magazine. Two years later her
feminist cultural tradition that includes womens love for other family, which by this time included younger brother Barry, moved
women but is not separatist. from Burlingame, California, to Rochester, New York. The fol-
lowing year she graduated from Brighton High School at the age
of fteen in the top quarter of her class. She enrolled in the liberal
OTHER WORKS: Gifts of Power: The Writings of Rebecca Jackson, arts program at the University of Rochester in September 1934 but
Black Visionary, Shaker Eldress (reissue, 1987). withdrew two years later.
Manuscript writings include an autograph version of her
Jackson then spent a year at home in a self-imposed appren-
incomplete autobiography in the Berkshire Athenaeum at the
ticeship in writing in which she kept to a strict regimen of
Public Library, Pittseld, Massachusetts. A short booklet contain-
writing at least 1,000 words per day. By the end of the year, she
ing Perots dream accounts dictated to Jackson, a few of Jacksons
was ready for more formal education and entered Syracuse
dreams, and a rough draft anthology of all Jacksons extant
University in September 1937. Although she began her studies as
writings, produced by her Shaker historian, Alonzo Hollister, are
a journalism major, she eventually transferred to the English
in the Shaker Collection, Western Reserve Historical Society,
Department and graduated with her B.A. in 1940.
Cleveland, Ohio. A fair copy of this anthology is in the Library of
Congress Shaker manuscript collection. During her time at Syracuse she wrote 15 pieces for the
campus magazine. She met her future husband, Stanley Edgar
Hyman, while at Syracuse when they both joined the magazines
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Braxton, J., Black Women Writing Autobiography staff. A lifelong champion of civil rights, Jackson used her
(1989). Gates, H. L., Jr., The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of position as editor on the magazine to write editorials questioning
African-American Literary Criticism (1988). Williams, R. E., the lack of black students at Syracuse and the poor condition of
Called and Chosen: The Story of Mother Rebecca Jackson and the student living quarters. She did not get along well with the
Philadelphia Shakers (1981). Duclow, G., The Philadelphia administration at Syracuse because of its desire to exercise what
Shaker Family, in The Shaker Messenger (1994). Evans, J. H., she considered excessive control over the campus magazine. She
Spiritual Empowerment in Afro-American Literature: Frederick consequently refused to donate her papers to Syracuse later in life,
Douglass, Rebecca Jackson, Booker T. Washington, Richard and Hyman instead gave them to the Library of Congress three
Wright, Toni Morrison (1987). Humez, J. M., Visionary Ex- years after her death.
perience and Power: The Career of Rebecca Cox Jackson,
in Black Apostles at Home and Abroad, D. M. Wills and R. After their marriage on 3 June 1940, Jackson and Hyman
Newman, eds. (1982). McKay, N. Y., Nineteenth Century Black moved to New York City, where he took an editorial assistant
position with the New Republic and she wrote in between working
Womens Spiritual Autobiographies: Religious Faith and Self-
at various clerical jobs. A job at Macys during the Christmas
Empowerment, in Interpreting Womens Lives: Feminist Theo-
season became the subject of a witty short story, My Life
ry and Personal Narratives, the Personal Narrative Group, ed.
with R. H. Macy, which was published the following year in the
(1989). Sasson, D., Life as Vision: The Autobiography of
New Republic. Another short story, After You, My Dear
Mother Rebecca Jackson, in The Shaker Spiritual Narrative
Alphonse, was published in the New Yorker in January 1943 and
(1983). Walker, A., Gifts of Power: The Writings of Rebecca
concerned prejudice and misperceptions of black Americans.
Cox Jackson, in In Search of Our Mothers Gardens (1983).
More short stories were subsequently published by the New
Williams, R. E., Called and Chosen: The Story of Mother Rebecca
Yorker, including Come Dance With Me in Ireland, which was
Jackson and the Philadelphia Shakers (1981).
selected for inclusion in Best American Short Stories, 1944. Other
Reference works: NBAW (1991). Black Women in the United
stories were sold to American Mercury, Mademoiselle, and a short
States: An Historical Encyclodpedia. Encyclopedia of African
story collection called Cross-Section.
American Culture and History. ANB.
Other References: Jackson of Feminist Studies in Religion After several years as a staff writer for the New Republic and
(Fall 1989). Tulsa Studies in Womens Litertaure (Fall 1982). the New Yorker, Jacksons husband accepted a position as profes-
sor at Bennington College and the family moved to North Ben-
JEAN MCMAHON HUMEZ nington, Vermont. Their second child was born shortly after the
262
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS JACKSON
move to Vermont in 1945 and Jackson worked as a substitute got the idea, which focuses on psychology and the inner workings
creative writing teacher at the college while continuing to write of the mind, from reading a case study on multiple personality
daily. The Road Through the Wall, Jacksons rst novel, was disorder.
published in 1948 shortly before her most famous short story,
Jacksons short stories continued to be well received, and
The Lottery, was published in the June 26 issue of the New
One Ordinary Day with Peanuts was chosen for the Best
Yorker. It has been said that if Shirley Jackson had written nothing
American Short Stories, 1956. Her longtime fascination with
more for the rest of her life, she would still be famous for The
witchcraft and the supernatural led her to accept an offer to write a
Lottery.
nonction book for young people about the Salem witch trials.
This much-anthologized and -dramatized short story tells of The Witchcraft of Salem Village (1956) is highly regarded as an
interesting, accurate, and simplied history of witchcraft. In
an annual ritual in a small New England town in which local
addition to this nonction title, Jackson also experimented with
residents draw names to see who among them will be stoned to
writing childrens plays. The Bad Children, originally written for
death by the others. Reader reaction was intense; the story
her two daughters, with songs written by her son Laurence, was
generated more mail than anything the New Yorker had published
published in 1958 as a spoof on witchcraft. Jacksons other
to date. Jacksons dark view of human nature and her belief in its
deviations from her adult novels and short stories include Nine
inherently greater capacity for evil than for good is a theme not
Magic Wishes (1963), a childrens picture book, and Famous
only of The Lottery but of much of her ction. In The Road
Sally (1966), a juvenile novel written for her daughter Sarah.
Through the Wall, for example, Jackson wrote of the ctional
families on Pepper Street in the Burlingame, California, of her The Haunting of Hill House (1959) was a return to the world
youth. This rst novel explores the twisted relationships between of gothic horror Jackson had successfully explored in The Sundial
the individuals and households on the block and culminates in the (1958) and to some extent in The Lottery. The Haunting of Hill
murder of a three-year-old girl and suicide of a thirteen-year-old boy. House focuses on an investigation of an old estate house by a
group of researchers who believe the building may be haunted.
The Lottery was included along with a number of Jack- One of the women invited to participate becomes obsessed with,
sons other short stories in a collection published a year later in and perhaps obsessed by, the house. Unlike most gothic ction
1949 and titled The Lottery, or The Adventures of James Harris. writers, however, Jackson made the haunting real and the evil
Jackson continued to sell several short stories to womens maga- triumphant in the end. Though The Haunting of Hill House was
zines, particularly Good Housekeeping and Womens Home Com- made into an early black-and-white lm (considered a master-
panion. These pieces tended to be light, humorous tales based on piece), a new variation was offered in 1999 with a big screen
her familys exploits and without the ironic twists and black remake, complete with host of state-of-the-art special effects.
humor characterizing The Lottery and similar works.
Jacksons last adult novel, We Have Always Lived in the
Jackson and her family moved to Westport, Connecticut, in Castle (1962), was the second of her works to be named one of the
1950, in part because of her and her husbands desire to be closer years 10 best novels by Time magazine. The plot focuses on two
to the literary world of New York City. Hyman was himself a sisters, Merricat and Constance Blackwood, who have survived
well-respected critic and author of nonction, and the two often the arsenic poisoning which killed four family members. Al-
critiqued each others work. Jackson and her family soon missed though Constance was acquitted of the murder, the sisters still
face suspicion and hostility from townspeople. Cousin Charles
Vermont, however, and moved back to Bennington after only two
arrives in the hope of wedding Merricat and controlling the family
years in Westport.
fortune. She rejects him and sets re to the house, which the
Jackson published several short stories in 1950 and her townspeople help Charles destroy. It is only at the novels close,
second novel, The Hangsaman, in 1951. The Hangsaman, which when the two sisters return to live in the hulking ruin, that the
received a favorable response from both critics and the public, reader learns a chillingly unrepentant Merricat is the poisoner.
was hailed by some as one of the outstanding books of the year. Jacksons personal life and professional career are both
The novel centers on the slow mental breakdown of Natalie starkly separate and intertwined. She presents portraits of bleakness,
Waite, a bright seventeen-year-old who, unable to cope with being despair, and humanitys inherent banality in her modern gothic
away from home during her rst year in college, invents a friend ction The Lottery, The Haunting of Hill House, and We Have
named Tony. Always Lived in the Castle. Yet she also wrote of her childrens
humorous exploits in her family chronicles Life Among the
Life Among the Savages (1953, 1997) and Raising Demons Savages and Raising Demons. Although the latter may represent
(1957) are hilarious accounts of Jacksons family and include the real Jackson, it is the former, with her ability to point out the
most of her magazine articles on the exploits of her growing blackness in every heart, who will always be remembered.
brood. These family chronicles were often excerpted in maga-
zines or published in condensed form by Readers Digest. Jackson
continued to write ction, however, and her third novel, The OTHER WORKS: Special Delivery (contributor, 1960). The Magic
Birds Nest, was published in 1954 to very good reviews. Jackson of Shirley Jackson (edited by S. E. Hyman, 1966). Come Along
263
JACOBI AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
with Me (edited by S. E. Hyman, 1968). The Lottery and Other JACOBI, Mary Putnam
Stories (1991). The Masterpieces of Shirley Jackson (1996).
Born 31 August 1842, London, England; died 10 June 1906, New
York, New York
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Aldridge, J. W., After the Lost Generation: A Also wrote under: Mary Putnam
Critical Study of the Writers of Two Wars (1958). Argenziano, G., Daughter of George Palmer and Victorine Haven Putnam; mar-
Existentialism in Shirley Jacksons Last Novels (thesis, 1983). ried Abraham Jacobi, 1873
Burrell, D. L., Shirley Jackson: Contexts, Intertexts, and New
Conclusions (thesis, 1993). Caminero-Santangelo, M. M., The The descendant of American Puritan families and the eldest
Madwoman Cant Speak: Feminist Debates and American Wom- of 11 children, at fteen Mary Putnam Jacobi traveled to the rst
ens Writing, 1945-1993 (1995). Delea, C., Feminists Have public high school for girls in Manhattan, where her writing
Always Lived in the Castle: Shirley Jackson and the Feminist received critical attention. Her story Found and Lost was
Gothic (thesis, 1991). Friedman, L., Shirley Jackson (1975, published in the Atlantic Monthly when she was seventeen, while
1980). Hall, K. J., The Lesbian Politics of Transgression: another, Hair Chains, appeared there in 1861. The family
Reading Shirley Jackson (thesis, 1991). Lape, S. V., Hostage expected Jacobi to be a writer, but she tended toward medicine.
of The Lottery: The Life and Feminist Fiction of Shirley
In 1863 Jacobi was the rst woman to receive a degree from
Jackson (thesis, 1994). Levy, B. Ladies Laughing: Wit as the College of Pharmacy in New York City. Since no male
Control in Contemporary American Women Writers (1997). medical school would accept women, Jacobi attended the Female
Metcalf, L. T., Shirley Jackson in Her Fiction: A Rhetori- Medical College of Pennsylvania. Believing that only in Paris,
cal Search for the Implied Author (thesis, 1989). Nardacci, where no woman had ever studied medicine, could she nd proper
M. L., Theme, Character, and Technique in the Novels of training, Jacobi went there and fought to enter the cole de
Shirley Jackson (thesis, 1980). Noack, J. Shirley Jackson Mdicine. She supported herself by writing sketches, stories, and
Escaping the Patriarchy Through Insanity (thesis, 1994). even a short novel for the New Orleans Times, the New York
OCallaghan, C. M., Reclaiming Women and Race in World Evening Post, and both Putnams and Scribners magazines.
War II Society: Shirley Jacksons Fiction (thesis, 1996). Because she felt writing ction took more from her and left her
Oppenheimer, J. Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson poorer, she began her prolic medical writing (printed in medical
(1989). Reinsch, P. N., A History of Hauntings: A Critical journals and collections) with a series of charming, literate
Bibliography of Shirley Jackson (thesis, 1998). Varner, D., A medical letters from Paris.
Feminist Analysis of Shirley Jacksons Hangsaman and We Have
Jacobi won a bronze medal for her thesis and graduated in
Always Lived in the Castle (thesis, 1988). Warren, R. J., An 1871. Returning home one of the best-prepared physicians in
Overview of Recurring Themes and Concerns and Usage of Genre America, she was ready to teach at the edgling womens medical
Conventions Within the Fiction of Shirley Jackson (thesis, 1992). school of the New York Inrmary, to practice medicine, and to
Reference works: Benets (1991). Best Short Stories of the continue scientic research. From this point forward, Jacobi
Modern Age (1982). First Fiction: An Anthology of the First wrote no more ction.
Published Stories by Famous Writers (1994). Granta Book of the
American Short Story (1992). CANR (1992). Oxford Companion Jacobi married a prominent physician and had two children,
to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). TCA, TCAS. but continued her profession. In 1896 came the onset of Jacobis
Other references: Explicator (March 1954). Great Short nal illness. Brain tumors had been a subject of her medical
writing, and she was the rst to diagnose her own condition. Her
Stories About Parenting: Stories by Jessamyn West, Ray Bradbury,
description of her symptoms, published after her death, is a classic
Shirley Jackson, D. H. Lawrence, and Other Great Writers of the
of medical literature.
World of Children (1990). Great Short Tales of Mystery and
Terror (1982). Great Women Writers: The Lives and Works of 135 All but one of Jacobis magazine pieces were republished in
of the Worlds Most Important Women Writers, from Antiquity to Stories and Sketches (1907). The writing is graceful and lucid,
the Present (1994). The American Short Story: A Collection of the with incident and character captured in concrete images. Found
Best Known and Most Memorable Short Stories by the Great and Lost is a philosophical adventure story about a German who
American Authors (1994). has found the source of the Nile, but loses it again when an
American, seeking to commercialize it, goes with him. The best of
LEAH J. SPARKS
this early writing, Some of the French Leaders, presents
incisive portraits of ineffectual politicians. A critic considered it
one of the ablest ever printed in an American magazine, with
intellectual grasp and grim and elucidating wit.
One of Jacobis many interests was improving primary
JACKSON, Ward education. She taught her own daughter, afterward writing Physio-
See BRAUN, Lilian Jackson logical Notes on Primary Education and the Study of Language
264
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS JACOBS
(1889). She believed experiments in geometry and science came OTHER WORKS: De la graisse neutre et de les acides gras (1871).
rst, then languagedirect contact with things before symbols of The Value of Life: A Reply to Mr. Mallocks Essay, Is Life Worth
things. Languages were to be taught three at once. The description Living? (1879). On the Use of the Cold Pack Followed by
of her experience is pertinent and interesting, but the rest is dated. Massage in the Treatment of Anaemia (with V. A. White, 1880).
A rare attempt at popularizing scientic material was her expan- Essays on Hysteria, Brain-Tumor, and Some Other Cases of
sion in 1874 of her husbands book, Infant Diet. She felt the Nervous Disease (1888). Uffelmans Manual of Dietetic Hygiene
material deserved wider distribution, believing women wanted for Children (edited by Jacobi, 1891). Found and Lost (1894).
explanations as well as directions. Although some critics felt From Massachusetts to Turkey (1896). Mary Putnam Jacobi, M.D.:
Jacobis material was too unsparing of detail, demand for Infant A Pathnder in Medicine (1925).
Diet required annual editions for many years. The papers of Mary Putnam Jacobi are at the Schlesinger
Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The remarkable Question of Rest for Women During Men-
struation (1877), which won the prestigious Boyleston Prize from
Harvard University, reects classical background, research into BIBLIOGRAPHY: Emerson, R., Journal of Ruth Emersons Travels
medical literature, and questionnaires to women in all walks of in Greece, 1895- 1896 (1995). Hume, R. F., Great Women of
life. Prepared with Jacobis thorough, commonsense approach Medicine (1964). Hurd-Mead, K. C., Medical Women of America
and literary air, it should have forever retired the belief that (1933). Irwin, I. H., Angels and Amazons: A Hundred Years of
women must inevitably withdraw from ordinary activity during American Women (1934). Marks, G., and W. K. Beatty, Women in
menstruation. In the excellent historical overview, she points out White (1972). In Memory of Mary Putnam Jacobi (1907).
that only in women have normal functions been considered Putnam, R., ed., Life and Letters of Mary Putnam Jacobi (1925).
pathological. Beliefs in temporary insanity, instability, or inabili- Reed, E.W., American Women in Science Before the Civil War
ty to make decisions during menstruation are demolished. Some (1992). Stille, D. R., Extraordinary Women of Medicine (1997).
of the medical theory is no longer valid, but the conclusions and Truax, R., The Doctors Jacobi (1952). Creative Couples in the
recommendations are sensible, still pertinent, and thoroughly Sciences (1996).
convincing. Reference works: DAB (Volume 1). NAW.
Other references: Jour. Hist. Med. (Autumn 1949). Med. Life
Jacobis writings about womens roles began with an article
(July 1928).
in the North American Review (1882), Shall Women Practice
Medicine? In surveying the history of women in medicine, she
CAROL B. GARTNER
noted it was not an innovation at all. Women practiced freely
when medicine was unpaid. Her contribution to Centurys sympo-
sium on women in medicine (1891), part of the successful
campaign to open the Johns Hopkins medical school to women,
was followed by the extensive Woman in Medicine, in Annie JACOBS, Harriet
Nathan Meyers pioneer compilation, Woman s Work in America
(1891). An erudite factual history, it is full of original views, such Born Autumn 1813, Edenton, North Carolina; died 7 March
as her comparison of the arguments against male midwives and 1897, Washington, DC
those against women physicians. Wrote under: Linda Brent
Daughter of Deliah Horniblow and Daniel Jacobs; children:
Common Sense Applied to Woman Suffrage (1894) com-
Joseph, Louisa Matilda
bines history, clear dissection of the current situation, and incisive
argument. No one expected the vote to raise womens wages or
drastically reform the social order, she wrote, but what is. . .very The brief facts of Harriet Jacobs lifethe date and place of
seriously demanded, is that women be recognized as human her birth; the names of her parents and children; the year of her
beings. Her letter on Modern Female Invalidism (1895) deathgenerate as many questions about the former slave, aboli-
comments: Too much attention is paid to women as objects tionist, and author as they answer. Despite scholarly research into
while they remain insufciently prepared to act as independent her life, it remains unclear how and when her last name became
subjects. established as Jacobs. Her mother, Deliah, was a slave owned by a
tavern keeper named John Horniblow. Jacobs father was reputed
Despite her talent for imaginative literature, Jacobi wrote to be a carpenter named Daniel Jacobs, himself a slave owned by a
little ction and stopped entirely before she was thirty. She was a Dr. Andrew Knox. It is unusual Harriet carried the name of her
pioneer in medicine, both as a woman and simply as a physician, father; a slave was not characteristically given his or her fathers
while successfully combining marriage and a profession and last name as paternity was often disputed or disregarded altogeth-
doing humanitarian social work. Commenting on her Paris thesis, er. Her naming, then, proved as extraordinary as her life,
a French medical journal noted her poetic form, which does not conforming neither to the prevailing convention nor to the con-
detract from the value of the statement. She excelled in clear, vention of self-naming common to such black men as Freder-
incisive writing on controversial topics. The voluminous medical ick Douglass upon undertaking literary excursions into slave
writings are characterized by wit, clarity, and literate style. narratives.
265
JACOBS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Like 1845s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass slavery, her ight to the North in 1842 and her settlement in
Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself Rochester, New York, where she was active in abolitionist poli-
(1861) utilizes standard abolitionist rhetoric to provide an account tics. After the publication of Incidents in 1861, she and her
of her life as a slave, her efforts to resist the advances of her daughter, Louisa Matilda, participated in Civil War relief efforts,
master, and her eventual achievement of freedom for her children bringing much needed supplies to soldiers stationed in Alexan-
and for herself. Unlike male-authored slave narratives that tend to dria, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Savannah, Georgia, and even
frame a cause-and-effect relationship between the attainment of Edenton, until 1868. Several years after the war she moved to her
literacy and the desire for freedom, Jacobs workwritten almost daughters home in Washington, D.C., dying there in 1897 at the
two decades after its authors escape to the Northern states in age of 84.
1842simply documents the chronology of such activities: her
rst mistress taught the young black girl to read, write, and sew as OTHER WORKS: Letter from a Fugitive Slave, New York
a matter of practicality. She represents her desire for freedom as Tribune (21 Jun. 1853). The Deeper Wrong (British edition of
stemming from her experiences as a slave woman rather than from Incidents, edited by Lydia Maria Child, 1862).
an enlightenment gained from an exposure to book learning. Letters from Harriet Jacobs to Amy Post are in the Isaac and
An attractive, light-skinned black woman who was subjected Amy Post Family Papers collection at the University of Roches-
to the unwanted advances of her owner from the time she was an ter, Rochester, New York.
adolescent, Jacobs presents herself in Incidents as a sexual object
as well as a mother, but even more signicantly as a protofeminist BIBLIOGRAPHY: Andrews, W. L., To Tell a Free Story: The First
when she writes: Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more Century of Afro-American Autobiography, 1760-1865 (1988).
terrible for women. In the writings of Jacobs we are granted a Baker, H., Blues Ideology and Afro-American Literature (1984).
rare perspectivea womans perspectiveon a condition most Blassingame, J., The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the
commonly presented from the point of view of men. While Jacobs Antebellum South (1979). Braxton, J., Black Women Writing
relates her story using the conventions of the sentimental wom- Autobiography: A Tradition within a Tradition (1993). Carby, H.,
ens ction of the 19th century, she breaks new ground in her Reconstructing Womanhood (1987). Davis, A., Women, Race,
candid portrayal of human sexuality and in expressing a personal and Class (1981). Johnson, Y., The Voices of African American
fortitude, perseverance, and instinct for survival that was a far cry Women: The Use of Narrative and Authorial Voice in the Works of
from the feminine ideal of the day. Hers, indeed, is a story of Harriet Jacobs, Zora Neale Hurston, and Alice Walker (1995).
rebellion, not only against her powerlessness at the hands of a Smith, V., Self-Discovery and Authenticity in Afro-American
white owner, but also as a woman against a patriarchal society that Narrative (1987). American Literature (Nov. 1981).
equates a womans virtue with physical and emotional weakness. Reference works: FC (1990). Feminist Writers (1996).
Matter of factly, Jacobs recounts her attempts to ward off continu-
ous and unwanted sexual advances, her dispassionate selection of BEVERLY HORTON AND PAMELA SHELTON
a white lawyer named Samuel Tredwell Sawyer as a proper father
for her offspring, and her attempts to procure her two childrens
freedom as exercises both of her agency and the collective agency
of the African American community she was part of. JACOBS, Jane
As black feminist scholars such as Hazel Carby and Valerie Born 4 May 1916, Scranton, Pennsylvania
Smith have noted, Jacobs adoption of many of the conventions of Daughter of John and Bess Robinson Butzner; married Rob-
popular ction caused several male literary critics and historians ert H. Jacobs, Jr., 1944; children: two sons and one daughter
to challenge the authenticity of Incidents as a slave narrative.
Fortunately, biographical details about Jacobs and her authorship After graduating from high school, Jane Jacobs worked on
were veried in 1980 through the research of Jean Fagan Yellin. the Scranton Tribune, where she exhibited a special interest in the
Prior to the publication of Yellins discoveries, authorship of problems of working-class districts. As a freelance writer in New
Jacobs narrative had been attributed to Linda Brent, the rst York City, she continued her study of the problems of urban
person narrator who claimed the autobiographical Incidents had centers. In interviews, Jacobs has often stated that her husband, an
been written by herself. architect, has been a major inuence upon her work. They have
two sons and a daughter.
In addition to establishing the authenticity of Jacobs narra-
tive in her introduction to recent editions of Incidents, Yellin In 1952 Jacobs joined the staff of Architectural Forum as
traces the books complex historyJacobs juggled work on her associate editor and specialized in analyzing the problems of cities
narrative with full-time work caring for the children of a white such as Washington, Baltimore, New York, Chicago, and San
family and supporting the abolitionist cause in the years prior to Francisco. Jacobs contributed to Columbia University Forum, the
the Civil Warand details the intricate editorial relations be- Reporter, and Harpers. She also contributed to the new approach
tween Jacobs and prominent antislavery activists and writers Amy towards the study of city life in The Exploding Metropolis (1958).
Post, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lydia Maria Child, and Frederick Jacobss essay entitled Downtown Is for People foreshadowed
Douglass. She also documents Jacobs years as a fugitive from her future works in the study of urban affairs.
266
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS JACOBS
In her rst book, The Death and Life of Great American extremes of urban ideology. It is her courage in the face of
Cities (1961), Jacobs sought to overturn the more conventional overwhelming superblocks that has brought Jacobs recogni-
attitudes of urban planners and regional developers in the interest tion for her ideas. Her works have been characterized as spunky
of preserving the vitality of cities, which she believes makes them and informative cautionary documents, and they remain, for this
both interesting and safe for their inhabitants. Jacobss fresh reason, invaluable to the student of the modern city.
approach to the subject brings into focus the uses of parks,
sidewalks, and diversity on city streets. She stresses the impor-
tance of mixing residential and commercial needs in the same area BIBLIOGRAPHY: Apolinsky, S. J., Reweaving the Fabric Jane
and decries the urban planners desire to change the character of Jacobs at East Lake Meadows (thesis, 1993). Ethics in Making a
urban communities by cleaning them up, instead of rehabilitat- Living: The Jane Jacobs Conference (1989). Glaeser, E. L., Cities
ing old buildings. Jacobs correctly assesses the result of demoli- and Ethics: An Essay for Jane Jacobs (essay, 1998). Hill, D. R.,
tion of old buildings followed by the construction of massive Jane Jabobs Ideas on Big, Diverse Cities: A Review and Com-
housing projects as a loss of goods and services which undermines mentary (journal, 1988). Ideas That Matter: The Worlds of Jane
both the comforts and commerce of the city. Jacobs perceives both Jacobs (1997). Zotti, E., Eyes on Jane Jacobs (1986).
vandalism and decreased domestic spirit as a direct offshoot from Other references: Architectural Forum (July 1969). Atlantic
the blank walls of the projects. (July 1969). Book World (18 May 1969). CSM (26 June 1969).
Commentary (Aug. 1969). Commonwealth (5 Sept. 1969). LJ
The problems at the heart of American cities are the lack of (1 June 1969). NR (7 June 1969). NY (14 June 1969). NYRB (1 Jan.
interest and understanding on the part of the theorists who control 1970). NYTBR (1 June 1969). SR (5 July 1969).
the future of the cities. Jacobs objects to the contemporary
situation of urban planning, where actual programs derive their ILISE LEVY
conceptual foundation from utopian cities, not found in the
streets of the real world.
Jacobss work is subjective, but although it avoids the

stereotypical urbanologist jargon, it remains painfully aloof. It
JACOBS, Sarah Sprague
seems to some readers that Jacobs is trying to impose her own
upper class values on the cities. Ultimately, her contribution to the Born 1813, Pawtuxet, Rhode Island; died death date unknown
contemporary eld of urban studies remains imaginative, but Daughter of Bela and Sarah Sprague Jacobs
represents no great progress over the work of her predecessors.
Her portrayal of what she believes is the real life of cities Born while her father was minister to a Baptist congregation
appears sensationalist when juxtaposed against scholarly works; it in Pawtuxet, Sarah Sprague Jacobs grew up in Massachusetts,
is articial and indeed almost a work of ction when compared to where her father became pastor of the First Baptist Church in
other real life perceptions of the city. Cambridge. One of the reasons for the move seems to have been
the parents concern for the childrens education, Pawtuxet hav-
In The Economy of Cities (1969), Jacobs modies her tone to
ing no adequate schools. A few remaining details of Jacobs life
present a historical account of the growth of cities. She maintains
are gleaned from a careful reading of her fathers letters and
that cities are not a mere outgrowth of an expanded rural econo-
journals, which she edited with decorously impersonal commen-
my, but were nourished on manufacturing and trade, which
tary in 1837, the year after his death.
brought further growth to agricultural communities. Industrial
growth is reliant upon innovation and a variety of types of work The Reverend Bela Jacobs was apparently a demanding yet
within a geographic area. Jacobs attempts to reverse the tradition- indulgent father in the Congregational New England tradition.
al approach to the study of urban areas by setting forth her belief Frequently ill, deeply concerned with providential matters and his
that industry originated not in the household crafts, but in the own spiritual estate, he evidently expected reection, control,
cities, and then spread to the countryside. She uses the example of personal and social responsibility, and intellectual achievement
electrical power, which is sent to the city from the rural areas, but from his daughter; she seems not to have disappointed him.
was rst used in the city.
Throughout what is nally a traditional spiritual biography of
As in the case of The Death and Life of Great American her fatherthe Memoir of Rev. Bela Jacobs, A.M. (1837)
Cities, Jacobs portrays a far nicer fantasy than the utopian City Jacobs agrees with his judgements and thus suggests her own
Beautiful of other urbanologists, yet there is insufcient evi- personality. She notes, for example, his disapproval of Letters of
dence for her claims that cities are diverse and original for the Charlotte, the Beloved of Werther: He was always decidedly
reasons she sets forth. As one critic has written, her analysis of opposed to the reading, even occasionally [of] novels of this class,
urban growth is limited by its admiration for the innovative on account of the absolute waste not only of the time employed in
entrepreneur and its inattention to the role of corporations and their perusal, but of the sensibilities they so uselessly excite. He
government. Jacobss work accurately describes the other half approved of Jacobs religious work, however, and praised her
of the current urban plight, which has been overlooked by experts, lengthy trips (in 1832-34) to the South, where she attended Bible
yet she has made little effort to provide a bridge between the two classes and became in her fathers eyes completely Southernized.
267
JACOBSEN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Jacobs was certainly aware of religions role in mid-19th-centu- them and, by making it their own, rise above it. Other criticism
ry America, and her biography reveals a restrained and pious New includes discerning poetry reviews and essays on contemporary
England mind in its elegant formality. The precise, concrete, writersLowell, Frost, Cummings, Williams, and Salinger.
anecdotal but factual work is Latinate and discreet in style and
The ve volumes of Jacobsens poetry span nearly 40 years
suggests the caring duty of a ministers daughter. Nonantum and
and explore the themes with which she contends the best poetry
Natick (1853), reissued as The White Oak and Its Neighbors in
must dealfrustration, helpless pain, betrayed integrity, and a
1869, is an informal, nostalgic, and occasionally conjectural
desolate and piercing sense of dislocation. Never shirking the dark
history of the Massachusetts Native American tribes. The works
side of human experience, Jacobsen nds that a lack of communi-
intimate tone suggests the author is directing her remarks to
cation and the isolation of individuals are responsible for the
children. The account is divided into three parts: the rst focuses
misery of humanity. The poems insist people face up to mortality,
on Nonantum, the Christian Native American settlement near
recognize their animal nature, struggle to communicate, and
Newton; the second section focuses on Natick, a settlement 18
mourn the sadness of old age and distress as much as the loss of
miles southwest of Boston, to which the Christian Native Ameri-
childhood and innocence. Still, Jacobsen remains a steady poet of
cans moved in 1651; the nal part includes details of King Philips
afrmation; she insists on our moral obligation to humankind and
War (1675-76) and concludes in the present as Jacobs notes the to nature, and she undergirds her poetry with vigorous religious
few Native American names still extant in Massachusetts. convictions.
Despite some sentimental phrasing, Nonantum and Natick A 1975 National Book Award nominee, The Shade Seller
reveals scholarly and disciplined erudition as Jacobs details the (1974) contains 42 new poems as well as generous selections from
life of the Puritan minister John Eliot (1601-90), a successful the previous volumes and represents Jacobsens best work. Sub-
missionary to the Native Americans and the rst translator of the jects are drawn from history, from travel, from nature, from
Bible into their tongues. She draws heavily and explicitly on religion, and from an analysis of the relation of the poem to the
primary sources, quoting for example Roger Williams, John reader and of the poem itself. Particularly effective are her poetic
Winthrop, John Endicot, Thomas Shepard, Cotton Mather, John vignettes, such as My Small Aunt and The Shade Seller. In
Wilson, and Eliot himself. The work ranges from history to Birdsong of the Lesser Poet and When the Five Prominent
biography to anthropology as Jacobs amasses and organizes with Poets, Jacobsen examines the power of the Muse who inexplic-
apparent ease a great deal of disparate material and ends each ably visits the lesser poet and who should never be summoned
chapter with an evidently original if standard poem. It is nally casually (they dropped the Muses name. / Who came. / It was
Jacobs good mind that impresses the modern reader and that awful. / The door in shivers and a path / plowed like a twister
places her rmly in the tradition of reective New England through everything. . .)
scholars.
Jacobsens short stories are set primarily in the city (Balti-
more), in the Caribbean Islands, in Mexico, or in Morocco. All of
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CAL. Daughters of America the stories with foreign settings share a Jamesian theme of the
(1882). FPA. Womans Record (1853). American away from home (as one character remarks, We are,
after all, strangers). On the Island (1965), The Jungle of
CAROLINE ZILBOORG Lord Lion (1969), and The Gesture (1976) present violent
deeds (murder, betrayal, threatened execution) juxtaposed against
the beauty of exotic birds, lush ora, and island animals. The lives
and sufferings of the natives, however, remain alien domains the
JACOBSEN, Josephine visitors cannot enter. A Walk with Raschid (1972), Jacobsens
most successful story, is set in Morocco; against the symbolic call
of the muezzin, Jacobsen writes an agonizing story of betrayed
Born 19 August 1908, Cobourg, Ontario, Canada integrity.
Daughter of Joseph Edward and Octavia Winder Boylan; mar-
ried Eric Jacobsen, 1932 The city stories, particularly The Taxi (1967), Help
(1971), Nel Bagno (1974), and A Stroll around the Square
(1974) center on radically different women who face epiphanies
Although born in Canada, Josephine Jacobsen lived in Balti-
of imminent danger, injustice, temporary isolation, or an unex-
more, Maryland, and Whiteeld, New Hampshire; frequent and
pected kinship with the past. Rich imagery and detail abound:
extensive travel enriched her poetry and ction. Her interest in the
Mrs. Birdsong runs to answer the telephone that was ripping the
drama has produced two critical studies with William R. Mueller:
hot night silence; Violet throws away her accusing note and
The Testament of Samuel Beckett (1964) and Ionesco and Genet:
watches it splinter with a ne, mild contempt, pity,
Playwrights of Silence (1968). Written for the intelligent lay
reader, the volumes give keen insight particularly into these Jacobsens short stories have been included among the O.
dramatists position regarding mans loss of faith in traditional Henry prize stories (1967, 1971, 1973, 1975), as well as in Fifty
values: Becketts protagonists lament the loss; Ionescos either Years of the American Short Story (1970). Poetry consultant to the
lament it or are oblivious to it; most of Genets clasp the loss to Library of Congress (1971-73), Jacobsen was one of four women
268
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS JAMES
so honored in the history of that post. As critic, poet, and short The difculty about all this dying is that you cant tell a fellow
story writer, Jacobsen herself evinces the trait she praised in Julia anything about it, so where does the fun come in? But James
Randall: a quality of underlying radiancea sort of receptive explicitly offers the accomplishment of her death as the hardest
joy under the full recognition of suffering and even horror. family task of all in the year her brother William published
Principles of Psychology and her brother Henry published The
Tragic Muse and saw his adaptation of The Americans onto
OTHER WORKS: Let Each Man Remember (1940). For the Unlost the stage.
(1946). The Human Climate (1953). The Animal Inside (1966). A
Walk with Raschid, and Other Stories (1978). Prize Stories of Although she is often ironic, James obviously relishes her
1985: The O. Henry Awards (1989). Prize Stories of 1993: The O. strength of mind and will. Perhaps since her twenties, when she
Henry Awards (1993). The Instant of Knowing: Lectures, Criti- rst knew that she, too, sensitive in that masculine family of
cisms and Occasional Prose (1997). "The Poet and the Poem, at strong sensibilities, James continued to be grateful for her power
the Library of Congress (recording, 1990). What Goes Without truly to see. . .the quarter of an inch that came under her eye.
Saying: Collected Stories of Josephine Jacobsen (1996). World She speculates that a formal education would probably have
Up Baltimore: A Poetry Collection (recording, 1997). deprived her of her sense of power and promise by substituting for
the reality of dreams mere relative knowledge. She was
also aware, however, that humor, common sense, and her refusal
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ivey, J. E., Notes Toward Time: Mezzo-Soprano, to live on the cry sustained her against the deep sea of
Flute/Alto Flute Harp (musical score, 1984). Prettyman, E. S., depression, which she had experienced terribly when she was thirty.
Josephine Jacobsen: Commitment to Wonder (thesis, 1985).
Laurels: Eight Women Poets (1998). Poetry Baltimore: Poems As a diarist, James adopts several guises: a frail, reclusive
about a City (1997). Truthtellers of the Times: Interviews with woman seeking to nd her intellectual place in a distinguished
Contemporary Women Poets (1998). family; a student of the minute events. . .illustrative of the
Other references: NR (4 Jan. 1975). NYTBR (11 Dec. 1966). broadest facts of human nature; a comic ironist building a hedge
Poetry (May 1975). Winston-Salem Journal (13 Aug. 1978). The against loneliness and apparent failure; a rebel against tyranny
Writing Life: Roland Flint and Josephine Jacobsen (audiovisu- social, political, and psychological.
al, 1995).
James quotes Henrys loyal response to some critics of
Williams mental pirouettes and. . .daring to go lightly amid the
ELIZABETH EVANS
solemnities in Principles of Psychology: They cant under-
stand intellectual larking, James could. Lacking her brothers
trained discipline and knowledge, she nevertheless offers in the
Diary an intellectual lark. Though closely acquainted with the
JAMES, Alice night, she could laugh at herself and at us, asking which of us has
not a red nose at the core of her being which dees all her
Born 7 August 1848, New York, New York; died 6 March 1892, philosophy? Much of her correspondence and William James
London, England copy of Alices Diary, were privately printed by Katharine
Daughter of Henry and Mary Walsh James Loring, around 1894, and are at the Houghton Library of Harvard
University.
The fth and last child and only daughter of the elder Henry
James, the theologian and Swedenborgian, Alice James educa-
tion was desultory. She spent some childhood years living in OTHER WORKS: Alice James, Her BrothersHer Journal (edited
Europe with her family. Prior to the Civil War, the family settled by A. R. Burr, 1934). Alice James: Her Life in Letters (1996).
in Newport, Rhode Island, and at the wars end moved to
Cambridge, Massachusetts, where James neurasthenia became
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bewley, M., Masks & Mirrors: Essays in Criti-
apparent. She did some charitable work in Boston; then, in 1882,
cism (1970). Cargill, O., Toward a Pluralistic Criticism (1965).
after her mothers death, she cared for her ill father, who died
Edel, L., Henry James (1962). Grant, S., Rewriting the Body
within the year. In 1884 James joined her friend Katharine Loring
Politic: The Art of Illness and the Production of Desire in the
on a trip to Europe. James spent her remaining years abroad, living
Diaries and Journals of Alice James and Achsa Sprague (thesis,
for the most part with Loring, in various places in England. Her
1993). James, H., Autobiography (1956). Edel, L., ed., Henry
diary (The Diary of Alice James, reprinted on many occasions,
James Letters (1974, 1975). Lewis, R. W. B., The Jameses: A
most recently in 1999) on which her literary reputation rests, was
Family Narrative (1993). Matthiessen, F. O., The James Family
kept from May 1889 until she died from a breast tumor.
(1947). Misra, K., A Look at the Patriarchal Background of the
Limited as she was by ill health and the connes of her room, Diary of Alice James (thesis, 1993). Perry, R. B., The Thought
her reading, and her visitors, James chief subject, inevitably, is and Character of William James (1935). Strouse, J., Alice James:
herself. Her dying was long and, at the end, painful. Still, a spirited A Biography (1980, 1992). The Sweetest Impression of Life: The
and outward-looking woman comes through the self-absorption: James Family and Italy (1990). Wylie, B. J., A Native of the James
269
JAMISON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Family (1990). Yeazell, R. B., The Death and Letters of Alice foreign soil. She was particularly fond of France (and French
James (1981, 1999). phrases); in A Crown from the Spear (1872), she seems intent on
Reference works: NAW (1971). Oxford Companion to Wom- recreating Victor Hugos The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The
ens Writing in the United States (1995). novel incorporates many of Hugos conventions, characters, names,
Other references: Virginia Quarterly Review (Winter 1976). and settings; the end result, as Jamison admitted, is an unsatis-
factory endeavor. She is obsessed in her adult novels with
BARBARA A. WELCH maintaining a pure love between a man and a woman that by
denition survives all calamities.
Jamisons last ve works display considerable talent for

JAMISON, Cecilia Viets childrens literature. Her most popular work, Lady Jane (1891),
was reprinted several times and was translated into French,
German, and Norwegian. This tale about the adventures of an
Born 1837, Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada; died 11 April 1909,
orphan girl, nicknamed Lady Jane, is both fantastic and believ-
Roxbury, Massachusetts
able. The plot and style of the story are much more restrained than
Wrote under: Mrs. C. V. Hamilton, Mrs. C. V. Jamison
Daughter of Viets and Elizabeth Bruce Dakin; married George in Jamisons earlier books, and Lady Janes neighborhood friends
Hamilton, circa 1860; Samuel Jamison, 1878 in New Orleans are an engaging and lively set of people of all
ages, races, and classes. Lady Jane resembles the protagonist of
the well-known work by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Little Lord
When Cecilia Viets Jamison was in her mid-teens, her family
Fauntleroy (1886); although both books are well written, they
moved to Boston; she was educated in private schools in Canada,
now share the same problem: the story of a beautiful and pam-
New York, Boston, and Paris. Her rst ambition was to be an
artist, and shortly after her rst marriage she went to Rome to pered child who wins the approval and affection of everyone
study art for three years. (What became of George Hamilton or of seems too sugary. Jamisons earlier works, whose plots prompt
their marriage is unknown.) While in Rome, she met Longfellow, only yawns and pity, can be ignored. Her later works for children
who encouraged her writing and arranged for the publication of deserve a reappraisal.
her book, Woven of Many Threads (1872). Throughout her life,
she pursued careers in both painting and writing.
OTHER WORKS: Ropes of Sand, and Other Stories (1873). My
Her second marriage was to a New Orleans lawyer. Her later Bonnie Lass (1877). The Lily of San Miniato: A Story of Florence
novels take place in the South, and her use of this setting (1878). The Story of an Enthusiast (1888). Toinettes Phillip
established her as a local-color writer. She attended the famous (1894). Seraph, the Little Violiniste (1896). Thistledown (1903).
literary salon of Mollie Moore Davis in New Orleans, along with The Penhallow Family (1905).
George Washington Cable and Lafcadio Hearn. Jamison contrib-
uted to Harpers, Scribners, Appletons Journal, St. Nicholas,
and the Journal of American Folklore. After her husbands death BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: AA. DAB. LSL.
in 1902, she returned to Massachusetts and remained there until Other references: Boston Transcript (13 April 1909). New
her death. Orleans Daily Picayune (13 April 1909). St. Nicholas (April 1894).
Jamisons literary output can be divided into two groups: AMY DYKEMAN
those works published in the 1870s, and those published in the
later 19th and early 20th centuries. Her earlier works were written
for adults, and it is easy to nd fault with them. Something to Do:
A Novel (1871) begins as an interesting story of two sisters, JANEWAY, Elizabeth
Cecilia and Alice Wilding. They are well-educated women who
must work for a living and, as they acknowledge, to give meaning
to their lives. The Wildings conversations with each other and Born 7 October 1913, Brooklyn, New York
with their suitors are lively discussions of womens rights, corrupt Daughter of Charles H. and Jeanette F. Searle Hall; married Eliot
politicians, and Darwinism. Nonetheless, midway through the Janeway, 1938; children: two sons
book, the story becomes bogged down in owery prose and in a
plot of lost loves, unrequited loves, and false loves. Cecilias The daughter of middle-class parents, Elizabeth Janeway
behavior epitomizes the erratic course of the plot as she continual- attended Swarthmore College and graduated from Barnard Col-
ly changes her job, her whereabouts, and her identity in order to lege in 1935. She married a well-known economist and author and
avoid her husband. His transgression (which prompts her behav- had two sons. The Janeways lived in New York City.
ior) seems minor in comparison to the agony suffered in the
Janeways rst novel, The Walsh Girls (1943), is a psycho-
name of love.
logical study of two sisters living in a New England town during
Jamison seemed to nd her sentimental tales better suited to the Depression. The younger, widow of a German intellectual
the European continent, and most of her adult books are set on killed at Dachau, experiences conicting feelings about her new
270
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS JANVIER
husband, a businessman, and about the institution of marriage. next work, however, Powers of the Weak (1981), studied power as
The elder, both prudish and independent, is committed to remain- a process of interaction and used women as a paradigm of all weak
ing single. The Walsh Girls is typical of Janeways novels in its groups, dealing in an original way with issues that have engrossed
focus on a small group, often a family, whose members are Janeway since the beginning of her writing career.
struggling with a crisis or through a period of transition, their
personal dilemmas and relationships intersecting with events in a
carefully delineated social and historical milieu. OTHER WORKS: Daisy Kenyon (1945). The Vikings (1951, 1981).
The Early Days of Automobiles (1956). Angry Kate (1963).
For instance, The Question of Gregory (1949), set partly in Ivanov Seven (1967). The Twentieth Century Woman (recording,
Washington, D.C., and New England, studies the effects of a 1983). Cross Sections from a Decade of Change (reissue, 1984).
young mans death in wartime upon his parents and their mar- The Future of Difference (reissue, 1985). A Language for Women
riage. Leaving Home (1953, reissued 1987) follows two young and What That Doesnt Mean (recording, 1985). Improper Behav-
sisters and a brother as they make their way into the world during ior (1987). Making the Most of Aging (recording, 1990).
the years 1933 to 1940. In The Third Choice (1959), an elderly and
crippled woman, once a reigning beauty, and her niece, who is
unable to substitute satisfaction in motherhood for satisfaction in BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: TCAS.
marriage, struggle to salvage the past and come to terms with the Other references: Harpers (Sept. 1971). MR (1972). Nation
present and future. And in Accident (1964), a complacent young (6 Nov. 1943, 2 Aug. 1975). New Republic (12 Oct. 1974).
man, his mother, and his self-made father are forced to reassess NYHTB (21 Aug. 1941). NYT (29 Sept. 1974). NYTBR (17 Oct.
their lives by an accident involving the son and a friend, now 1943, 21 Aug. 1941, 3 May 1964, 20 June 1971). Saturday Review
paralyzed for life. (31 Oct. 1953). TLS (8 April 1960). YR (1946).
The strengths of Janeways best novelsThe Walsh Girls, JANET SHARISTANIAN

The Question of Gregory, and The Third Choiceare subtle and
lucid handling of psychology, clean-cut writing, and precise
depiction of milieu. Her treatment of relationships among women
is particularly noteworthy. Her works have sometimes been
criticized, however, for lacking a unifying theme or point of view.
JANVIER, Margaret Thompson
Unable to deal with some of the large social issues of the Born February 1844, New Orleans, Louisiana; died February
1960s in the kind of ction she writes, in which theme is carried 1913, Moorestown, New Jersey
by character, Janeway turned to nonction in her best-known Wrote under: Margaret Vandegrift
work, Man s World, Womans Place: A Study in Social Mytholo- Daughter of Francis de Haes and Emma Newbold Janvier
gy (1971). The book, much praised for its clarity and undogmatic
thoughtfulness, is based upon wide reading in history, philosophy, Born into a literary family of Huguenot descent, Margaret
and the social sciences, as well as upon considerable personal Thompson Janvier was educated at home and in New Orleans
experience. Janeways focus is the assertion that a womans place public schools, but she lived most of her life in Moorestown, New
is in the home. She treats this from a contemporary perspective, Jersey. Consistently using her pseudonym, she wrote childrens
showing it no longer describes the experience of most women in literature, stories, and verse from 1879 until near her death. Her
the U.S., and from a historical one, showing its association with work appeared in popular magazines such as St. Nicholas, Harp-
the development of the nuclear family. The books most important ers Young People, Youths Companion, Wide Awake, Century,
contribution, however, is its scrupulous and well-developed treat- Atlantic, and Scribners.
ment of the ways in which this concept functions as a myth, a
complex of feeling, fact, and fantasy that satises emotional and Janviers verse appealed to adults as well as to children. The
social needs despiteand because ofits historical inaccuracy. popular title poem of The Dead Doll, and Other Verses (1889) is a
babytalk lament of a child for her doll. One of her best poems is
Between Myth and Morning: Women Awakening (1974) is a To Lie in the Lew (Scribers, April 1913).
collection of 13 essays, originally addressed to various audiences,
on public and private aspects of womens lives. Janeway regards Her prose work includes sentimental family tales and adven-
the womens movement as irrevocable because it is rooted in ture stories of teenage protagonists, as well as more whimsical
reality, and reality has changed formidably. Partly because of tales of fairies and princesses for younger children. The family
this certitude, the book looks toward the future; it also suggests stories include Clover Beach (1880), about the activities of a
that the most signicant aspect of womens past is the notions and family of children at a summer resort, and Rose Raymonds Wards
limitations that have been applied to them, not the actions of (1885), a story of New England family life. The Queens
women themselves. Individual essays are good, particularly on Body-Guard (1883) chronicles how the widowed and nancially
the difculties both sexes experience in dealing with changes in destitute Mrs. Stanley decides, with her seven children, to live on
the relationship between private life and work, but the book as a an old farm in Delaware. The invariably good-natured and moral-
whole does not represent a new stage in Janeways thinking. Her ly upright family members mature and some marryhappily, of
271
JERAULD AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
courseeven with the queen, Mrs. Stanley, as a live-in after the birth of her son (born late in July 1845 and dying on
mother-in-law. 1 August) as well as a severe postpartum depression (Bacon
writes that within days of her childs birth she became a raving
Doris and Theodora (1884) is a curious combination of a
maniac) contributed to her early death.
teenage maturation story and a historical adventure. From the
fteen-year-old Doris jealousy of her baby sister, Janvier pro- Jeraulds many letters to her close friend Sarah C. Edgarton
gresses predictably to teenage romance and marriage, but the Mayo reveal a sharp wit and sensitive eye for detail not often
background setting of Santa Cruz is enlivened with a melodramat- found in her poetry and abundant only in her later prose. This
ic handling of the slave revolt, the subsequent nancial failure and friendship produced dual poetic sequences and provided Jerauld
fatal illness of Doris father, and the entrepreneurship of Doris and with a condant for the more personal reections that were
her young friends in coping with economic mishap. frequently absent from her published writings.
Stories for younger readers include fantasies such as Umbrel- Jeraulds poetry does not reveal the increasing facility and
las to Mend (1905), an allegorically oriented romance of princes acuity of her prose, but some of her efforts are clearly tighter and
and princesses, and The Absent-Minded Fairy (1884), which fresher than those of many of her contemporaries. Her subjects,
charmingly shows the moral education of Dulcintentia (good forms, and themes are conventional, but the poems rise above the
intentions) as she meddles in human affairs. In the realistically set conventional when she assumes a voice different from her own (as
Little Helpers (1889), the young children of the lively and in The Meccas of Memory), when she experiments with form
affectionate Leslie family learn moral lessons for character devel- (No More and Isabel echo Poes rhymes and rhythms), or
opment, such as being independent but listening to parents and when she adheres to the discipline of a strict form (her sonnets are
following Gods law. Janviers books are often sentimental and generally better than her other poems, and those she writes with
unrealistic for modern readers; they succeed best with whimsy Mayo on alternate lines of The Lords Prayer are good poems).
and fantasy. Thematically, her verse tends to be dull: She stresses heaven as a
peaceful home where lifes problems are resolved; longs nostalgi-
cally for a happy childhood that will never return; and bewails
OTHER WORKS: The Original Chatterbox Album of Animals
sentimentally lifes tragediesill-fated lovers, general loss, and
(1879). Under the Dog-Star (1881). Holidays at Home: For Boys
the cycles of nature.
and Girls (1882). Little Bell, and Other Stories (1884). Santa
Clauss Picture Gallery (1886). Ways and Means (1886). Jeraulds early prose is much like her poetry; however, her
later prose, as she moves away from heroines who die young and
plots based on series of disasters, reveals a talented writer begin-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: AA. DAB. NCAB. ning to nd herself. Her nal prose sketches comprise two groups
of talesLights and Shadows of Womans Life and Chroni-
HELEN J. SCHWARTZ
cles and Sketches of Hazelhurst. In the rst group, Jerauld
explores different womens lots. In each story the author uses a
distinct toneOur Ministers Family is essentially gay; The
Mothers Heart is grim but relatively unsentimental; The Irish
JERAULD, Charlotte A(nn Fillebrown) Daughter-in-Law is light and witty. Jeraulds concern with her
characters inner lives dominates these tales. In The Mothers
Born 20 April 1820, Old Cambridge, Massachusetts; died 2 Heart, she examines the jealous and obsessive personality of
August 1845, Boston, Massachusetts Isabel Sommers, who is unable to have a child until her 12th year
Also wrote under: Charlotte A. Fillebrown of marriage. In Caroline, the protagonist becomes insane when
Daughter of Richard and Charlotte Fillebrown; married J. W. forced to give up her daughter. Jeraulds characters also grow
Jerauld, 1843; children: one more realistic in appearance: Hannah in The Auld Wife is
rustically attractive if not beautiful by the standards of the 1840s;
The daughter of working-class parents, Charlotte A. Jerauld thus, Jerauld notes her well-developed gure, which gave ample
received her education in Bostons common schools. Although evidence that it had never suffered from compression or whale-
she left school at fourteen to work in a bookbindery, she read bone, or any other bones, save those which Nature had given her.
widely and was familiar with Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton,
The conversational and intimate relationship Jeraulds narra-
while particular favorites were Byron, Scott, and Wordsworth.
tor creates with the reader pervades the tales of the rst group and
Jerauld soon began to publish poetry in the Universalist magazine,
becomes a unifying element in Chronicles and Sketches of
the Ladies Repository, and later her work appeared in the annual
Hazelhurst. These connected stories pregure in delicacy and
Rose of Sharon. Not until 1841, however, did she start to publish
her prose sketchesthe real beginning of her literary life, as her tone Sarah Orne Jewetts Country of the Pointed Firs, as Jeraulds
editor Henry Bacon notes. unsentimentally nostalgic speaker invites the reader to join her on
a walking tour of the village and to gossip. . .about people and
Jerauld had suffered for most of her life from a determina- events, past and present. Jeraulds nal prose suggests she might
tion of blood to the brain, but it seems likely that complications have attained a high level of literary artistry.
272
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS JEWETT
OTHER WORKS: Poetry and Prose by Mrs. Charlotte A. Jerauld, never betrays her secret, even to the young man who wins her
with a Memoir by Henry Bacon (1850). hand in the nal pages of the novel. Its plot is weaker and even
more dependent on coincidence than that of Vernon Grove, and is
further marred by overly melodramatic and clichd scenes. But
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Douglas, A., The Feminization of American Cul-
Helen Courtenays Promise is saved by its heroine. Helen is a
ture (1977). Mayo, S. C. E., Selections from the Writings of Mrs.
brave and steadfast young woman with superior intellect and
Sarah C. Edgarton Mayo, with a Memoir by Her Husband (1849).
judgment; still, she and the hero both agree with Miltons dictum:
Reference works: Daughters of America (1882).
He for God only, she for God in him.
CAROLINE ZILBOORG
During the four years in which Helen supports herself and
earns enough money to make up the difference between the two
fortunes, she studies acting and goes on the stage. Although she
JERVEY, Caroline (Howard) Gilman gives up her career, her exemplary character and actions convince
the hero that his denunciations of the stage are in error. In allowing
the heroine to become an actress, in describing her interpretations
Born 1823, Charleston, South Carolina; died 1877, Charleston,
of her roles, and in emphasizing the physical and emotional
South Carolina
dangers of acting, Helen Courtenays Promise may have been
Wrote under: Caroline Howard, Mrs. Lewis Jervey
inuenced by the life and novels of Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie.
Daughter of Samuel and Caroline Howard Gilman; married
Wilson Glover, 1840; Lewis Jervey, 1865; children: four Jerveys poems, a dreadful play for childrenThe Lost
Children (1870)and some anemic fairy tales hardly merit
Caroline Gilman Jervey was the eldest of four surviving resurrection, but her two novels can still hold a readers interest.
children of author and magazine editor Caroline Howard Gilman
and a Unitarian clergyman. Jervey married a South Carolina
planter in 1840 and was left a widow with three children in 1846. OTHER WORKS: Stories and Poems by Mother and Daughter
She returned to her family, began teaching, and ran a successful (with C. Gilman, 1872). The Young Fortune Teller (with C.
school for many years. She had one daughter by her second Gilman, 1874).
marriage to a Charleston admirer of many years. With the excep-
tion of several years in Greenville, South Carolina, during the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Wright, L. H., American Fiction 1851-1875 (1957).
Civil War, Jervey spent her entire life in Charleston.
Reference works: The Living Writers of the South (1869).
Although her mother disclaimed any ambition to write a Women of the South Distinguished in Literature (1861). The
novel, Jervey wrote two fully developed novels. Vernon Grove; Living Female Writers of the South (1872). Southland Writ-
or, Hearts As They Are (1859) tells the story of Richard Vernon, a ers (1870).
wealthy man blinded by a fever, who moves from the city to the Other references: Atlantic Monthly (Jan. 1859).
country. Near his country home lives a 10-year-old girl, Sybil
Gray, who grows up to reform his character, fall in love, and SUSAN SUTTON SMITH
marry him. A contemporary critic found it an interesting story,
of marked but not improbable incidents, but modern readers
may dispute the probability of some incidents, especially those
that seem too obviously designed to demonstrate the selshness or JEWETT, Sarah Orne
piety of various characters.
Although Vernon Grove rst appeared as a serial in the Born 3 September 1849, South Berwick, Maine; died 24 June
Southern Literary Messenger (January-August 1858), a magazine 1909, South Berwick, Maine
whose every cover proclaimed it alone among the monthly Also wrote under: Caroline, A. C. Eliot, Alice Eliot, Sarah O. Sweet
periodicals of America, in defence of the Peculiar Institutions of Daughter of Theodore H. and Frances Perry Jewett
the Southern Country, it is carefully devoid of any specic
background. Indeed, the poor living near the heros country seat Sarah Orne Jewetts life and works are rooted in the southern
are described as cottagers, so the setting seems a novelistic tier of Maine. Her own life was a favored one: born into relative
never-never land. Atlantic Monthly (Jan. 1859) approves this lack wealth, she was educated at Miss Rayness School and at Berwick
of realism, noting that a leading characteristic of Vernon Academy in South Berwick. She was, however, a somewhat
Grove is the extremely good taste with which it is conceived and listless student and later remarked that her real education came
written. from her father, a country physician whom she often accompanied
on house calls. He imparted his extensive knowledge of nature
In Jerveys second novel, Helen Courtenays Promise (1866) and literature to her, and it was to some extent through these house
is made to her dying father, who demands that his 18-year-old visits that she came to know the people of her region so intimately.
daughter swear to protect his lifelong reputation for probity by
secretly substituting her own fortune for the one that he has Jewett earned success and modest fame as a writer at an early
embezzled, although it was left him in trust for a friends son. She age. When she was eighteen, her story Jenny Garrows Lovers
273
JEWETT AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
was published in a weekly Boston periodical, The Flag of Our This story expresses several of Jewetts central themes. One
Union. Jewett was sustained throughout her life by a group of is the clash between urban and rural values. In posing the clash as
intimate female friends. In her earliest diaries (1867-79) she a male-female confrontation, she suggests what was a fairly
describes her intense emotional attachment to several young common 19th-century notion, namely, that women are more in
women. Her most important liaison was with Annie Adams Fields tune with life than men and are repulsed by killing, guns, and
of Boston. Jewett lived part of each year at Fieldss Charles Street violence. The popularity of the story continues. A lm version
home, and the two traveled extensively together. Hundreds of was produced in 1978 by Jane Morrison Productions, New York.
letters remain to document the signicance of this friendship; it
seems likely many of Jewetts stories were written at least in part In the decade following A White Heron Jewett put forth
for Fieldss amusement. Jewett also knew and corresponded with several further collections, and her best work is to be found among
an extensive circle of artists, including Marie Thrse Blanc, these. The Country of the Pointed Firs, generally considered
Violet Paget, Sara Norton, Sarah Wyman Whitman, Louisa Dresel, Jewetts masterpiece, is difcult to classify by genre. It is more
Louise Imogen Guiney, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Celia Thaxter, unied than a collection of sketches but much looser than the
Thomas Bailey Aldrich, and John Greenleaf Whittier. traditional novel. Like Deephaven it uses the structural device of
the relationship between two women, which anchors the character
In her later years Jewetts reputation was rmly established. sketches to a continuing narrative event. The power of the work
Younger writers sought her advice, which she generously sup- resides in the sense of mysterious personal depth many of the
plied. Her face was one of the few women writers on the characters seem to possess. The protagonist, Mrs. Almiry Todd,
Authors card deck of the time, which is supposedly where the one of Jewetts enduring characters (preguring in many ways
young Willa Cather learned of Jewett. Some of Jewetts most Willa Cathers Antonia), is the town herbalist. She has a singular
perceptive and poignant advice may be found in her letters to capacity for healing spiritual as well as physical ills, and is one of
Cather, who later acknowledged the inuence of her mentor by the prime sustainers of a sense of communication and of commu-
dedicating O Pioneers! (1913) to her, noting that in Jewetts nity among the scattered residents of the coastal settlement.
beautiful and delicate work there is the perfection that endures. Jewetts own extensive knowledge of herbs is seen in this and
Cather estimated Jewetts The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896, other works.
latest reissued 1997) as one of three American works guaranteed
immortality. The Country of the Pointed Firs includes several vignettes of
characters who have lost touch with the mainstream of human
Deephaven (1877), Jewetts rst book-length collection of relationship. Jewetts tone is elegiac; the lament is for these failed
stories, deals with a series of experiences and characters met by lives, and perhaps ultimately, as many critics have suggested, for
two young women during a summer vacation on the coast of the general economic and social decline of New England in the
Maine. The relationship between the two is handled somewhat latter half of the century. There is, moreover, a sense of the
sentimentally, but the character sketches display Jewetts genius fragility and eetingness of human bonds, seen in the poignant
for the genre, although she later regarded this work as juvenile. parting scene between Mrs. Todd and the narrator, a thinly
Contemporary reviews were slight and mixed. Reviews were disguised persona for Jewett. But the work is not a tragedy, nor
increasingly favorable for three subsequent story collections. does it espouse the pessimism and fatalism of contemporary
naturalistic novels. Rather, it conveys a sense of celebration, a
Jewetts rst novel, A Country Doctor (1884, latest reissue sense of the triumph of the human community against the forces of
1999), perhaps her most feminist work, is semiautobiographical. spiritual destruction.
It is a classic bildungsroman concerning the growth to maturity of
a young woman whose ambition is to become a doctor. The Jewetts last major work, a historical novel, The Tory Lover
woman faces considerable prejudice and discrimination in her (1901), was by far her most popular (it went into ve printings in
pursuit. Eventually she rejects a suitor and resolves to pursue its rst three months), but it has received the least critical
her career. approbation. Jewett also wrote some verse published in her
lifetime, a few selections of which were collected in a posthumous
A White Heron, and Other Stories (1886, 1997) marks the volume, Verses (1916). One of these lyrics, Boat Song, was set
beginning of Jewetts mature phase. Her mastery of style and a to music. She also wrote several works for children.
sophisticated sense of craft are quite evident in several of these
stories, including the much-anthologized title story, Marsh Jewett was writing in the heyday of realism (the critical
Rosemary, and The Dulham Ladies. The title story, A principles of her editor at the Atlantic Monthly, William Dean
White Heron is set in rural Maine and reects Jewetts intimate Howells, were those of the realists), but she can be classied as a
awareness of the natural environment. It concerns the dilemma a realist only with qualications. In her own critical comments she
young country girl, Sylvia, faces when an ornithologist arrives at rejected slice-of-life objectivity as an artistic ideal and insisted
her farm looking for a rare white heron for his collection of stuffed personal point of view was an essential ingredient of competent
birds. Sylvia is for awhile tempted to reveal the birds location, as ction. Jewett wrote about ordinary people with gentle humor,
she is swayed by the sophistication and authority of the urban respect, and compassion. Her mastery of styleher ability to fuse
visitor. However, she remains loyal to her woodland friend and technique and content with her personalityhas ensured her work
preserves the secret of its whereabouts, as well as the sanctity of will survive for years to come (many of her titles were reprinted
her pastoral world. again in the late 1990s).
274
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS JOHNSON
OTHER WORKS: Play Days (1878). Old Friends and New (1879). Weber, A Bibliography of the Published Writings of Sarah Orne
Country By-Ways (1881). The Mate of the Light, and Friends Jewett (1949). Westbrook, P. D., Acres of Flint, Writers of Rural
Ashore (1884). A Marsh Island (1885). The Story of the Normans New England 1870-1900 (1981).
(1887). The King of Folly Island, and Other People (1888, Reference works: AA. AW. American Short Story: A Collec-
reissued 1998). Betty Leicester: A Story for Girls (1890). Strang- tion of the Best Known and Most Memorable Short Stories by the
ers and Wayfarers (1890). Tales of New England (1890, reissued Great American Authors (1994). DAB. Great American Short
1997). A Native of Winby, and Other Tales (1893). Betty Leicesters Stories I (1995). Great Women Writers: The Lives and Works of
Christmas (1894, reissued 1990). The Life of Nancy (1895). The 135 of the Worlds Most Important Women Writers, from Antiqui-
Queens Twin, and Other Stories (1899). The Letters of Sarah ty to the Present (1994). Modern American Women Writers
Orne Jewett (edited by A. Fields, 1911, reissued 1994). Sarah (1993). NAW (1971). NCAB. Oxford Companion to Womens
Orne Jewett Letters (edited by R. Cary, 1967). The Uncollected Writing in the United States (1995). Rediscoveries: American
Short Stories of Sarah Orne Jewett (edited by R. Cary, 1971). The Short Stories by Women, 1832-1916 (1994).
Dunnet Landing Stories (1996). The Irish Stories of Sarah Orne Other references: Sarah Orne Jewett Conference (1986).
Jewett (1996). Novels and Stories (latest reissue, 1996). The Sarah Orne Jewetts Best Short Stories (recording, 1994). Stories
Country of the Pointed Firs; and, The Dunnet Landing Stories of New England, Then & Now (recording, 1996).
(latest reissue, 1997). The Complete Poems of Sarah Orne
Jewett (1999). JOSEPHINE DONOVAN
The most extensive collection of Sarah Orne Jewetts papers
is housed in the Houghton Library of Harvard University.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Auchincloss, L., Pioneers and Caretakers: A JOHNSON, Diane

Study of Nine American Women Novelists (1965). Baum, R. M., A
Descriptive Catalogue of the Sarah Orne Jewett Collection: The Born 28 April 1934, Moline, Illinois
Parkman Dexter Howe Library (1983). Bicksler, M. R., Women Daughter of Dolph and Frances Elder Lain; married B. Lamar
in the Fiction of Sarah Orne Jewett (thesis, 1995). Blanchard, P., Johnson, Jr., 1953; John F. Murray, 1968; children: four
Sarah Orne Jewett: Her World and Her Work (1994). Buchanan,
C. D., Sarah Orne Jewett: Stories (1994). Buseman, L. J., The Diane Johnson has been published as a novelist, biographer,
Realism of Sarah Orne Jewetts Characterization of Men (thesis, journalist and essayist. She grew up in the Midwest, received
1993). Cary, R., ed., Appreciation of Sarah Orne Jewett (1973). her B.A. from the University of Utah, and both M.A. and Ph.D.
Cary, R., Sarah Orne Jewett (1962). Donovan, J., Sarah Orne from the University of California at Los Angeles. In her novels,
Jewett (1980). Dullea, G. J., Two New England Voices: Sarah she often writes of the conicts that attractive and intelligent
Orne Jewett and Mary Wilkins Freeman (thesis, 1996). Evans, women face when they confront cultural ideals of femininity. In
M. A., Deep Havens and Ruined Gardens: Possibilities of her essays she has chosen topics from travel to politics, often
Community and Spirituality in Sarah Orne Jewett and Mary
presenting them with a sharp eye for the satiric or comical in
Wilkins Freeman (thesis, 1992). Ferris, R. M., Pure or Per-
people or situations.
verse? Womens Romantic Friendships and the Life and Fiction
of Sarah Orne Jewett (thesis, 1996). Fields, A., ed., Letters of Her rst three novelsFair Game (1965), Loving Hands at
Sarah Orne Jewett (1911). Frost, J. E., Sarah Orne Jewett (1960). Home (1968), and Burning (1971), are dominated by the satiric
Gale, R. L., A Sarah Orne Jewett Companion (1999). Hoff- impulse and a comic vision of society. Each heroine tries to
man, P. E., The Search for Self-Fulllment: Marriage in the measure up to societys abstract ideals of womanhood and/or
Short Fiction of Kate Chopin, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and personhood, or just to survive. Her next two novels, The Shadow
Sarah Orne Jewett (thesis, 1991). Hulme, C., Sarah Orne Knows (1974) and Lying Low (1978), are a marked departure from
Jewett: A Great, and Greatly Underestimated, Writer (thesis, this early work: the capacity for reection and the talent for richly
1988). Harkins, E. F., and C. H. L. Johnston, Little Pilgrimages inventive symbolic detail remain, and the themes are the same.
Among the Women Who Have Written Famous Books (1902). But the later work comes to grips with feminine survival in
Matthiessen, F. O., Sarah Orne Jewett (1929). McCauley-Myers, circumstances more horrendous and for stakes more nal than any
J. P., The Silent Inuences in the Works of Sarah Orne Jewett in her rst books. The satire grows sharper and the comedic turns
(thesis, 1991). McGuire, M. A., Sarah Orne Jewett (thesis, of plot can no longer effect a complete rescue of the heroine from
1995). Nagel, G. L. and J. Nagel, Sarah Orne Jewett: A Reference the tragic possibilities of her situation.
Guide (1978). Sargent, R. S., Always Nine Years Old: Sarah Orne
Jewetts Childhood (1985). Sherman, S. W., Sarah Orne Jewett, Lying Low was nominated for a National Book Award, and in
an American Persephone (1989). Silverthorne, E., Sarah Orne 1979 won a Rosenthal Foundation Award. In it, one of the three
Jewett: A Writers Life (1993). Sparks, L. V., Counterparts: The heroines is wanted on a capital charge by the F.B.I. and another is
Fiction of Mary Wilkins Freeman, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Kate a fully credentialed refugee from the Third World. For both the
Chopin (1993). Stoddart, S. F., Selected Letters of Sarah Orne fugitive and the refugee, every moment of every day is a test of
Jewett: A Critical Edition with Commentory (thesis, 1988). resolve and resourcefulness. Like all of Johnsons novels, it is full
Thorp, M. F., Sarah Orne Jewett (1966). Weber, C. C., and C. J. of victories that are breathtaking when perceived, but are for the
275
JOHNSON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
most part invisible to a society that denes success in very (1991). MTCW (1981). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in
simple terms. the United States (1995).
Other references: Booklist (1 Dec. 1996). Clues (Spring
While Johnson continues this theme in her ction, her work Summer 1991). Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction (1974). LJ
has lightened in tone. Persian Nights (1987) set in Iran just before (15 Nov. 1996). NYTM (22 Feb. 1998). NYRB (6 Feb. 1997).
the shahs fall, demonstrates both her characteristic rich use of Modern Fiction Studies (Winter 1985). Partisan Review (Fall
symbol and an incisive humor toward her heroine and the other 1988). Sewanee Review (Fall 1984).
characters who are perplexed by both political and personal
revolutions. Persian Nights was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. JUDITH HARLAN
Health and Happiness (1990) relies on a triple focus to
include the perspective of a male physician along with those of the
two heroines. Humorous and graceful, it offers a softened satire on
individual integrity, contemporary California culture, and the JOHNSON, Georgia Douglas (Camp)
politics of the medical profession. Le Divorce (1997) follows two
American women to Paris where one seeks a divorce and the other Born 10 September 1886, Atlanta, Georgia; died May 1966,
seeks both adventure and direction for her life. The novel was Washington, D.C.
called sexy, graceful, and funny. . .a witty two-way Franco- Also wrote under: Paul Tremaine
American guide to manners and attitudes by the New York Daughter of George and Laura Jackson Camp; married Henry L.
Review of Books. The New York Times Review of Books declared it Johnson, 1903
a genuinely wise and humane novel.
Johnson has also written two biographies. Lesser Lives: The Little is known about Georgia Douglas Johnsons early
True History of the First Mrs. Meredith, published in 1973, childhood or her parents. She studied at Atlanta University
explores the life of Mary Ellen Peacock Meredith, who divorced (through the Normal program) and Oberlin College, Ohio. In 1909
George Meredith, the famous novelist, and was much maligned by she moved to Washington, D.C., with her lawyer husband. While
him. Dashiell Hammett: A Life (1983), Johnsons second biogra- living in the capital, Johnson wrote lyrics, poetry, short stories,
phy, received mixed reviews. The biographical story was declared and plays. She established the Literary Salon, a weekly Saturday
excellent, but its depth was questioned. In writing it, Johnson had night meeting place for a burgeoning group of young poets,
access to Hammetts personal papers, but also had to work in including many of the Harlem Renaissance writers. Johnson was
cooperation with author Lillian Hellman, Hammetts executrix, active in several literary organizations, the Republican party, the
whose desire was to perpetuate the myth of their larger-than-life pan-African movement, and human rights groups connected with
union and exploits. the Congregational church. Following her husbands death in
1925, she became a commissioner of conciliation with the Depart-
Johnson has also worked in other genres. In 1980, she ment of Labor (1925-34), held other government positions, re-
collaborated with Stanley Kubrick on the screenplay of Stephen mained active in racial and political organizations in New York
Kings The Shining. She has been a frequent contributor to the and Washington, and continued to publish individual poems
New York Times Book Review and writes regularly for the New sporadically.
York Review of Books, San Francisco Chronicle, and Washington
Post; many of her essays from the late 1970s and early 1980s were Johnson was the rst black female to receive national recog-
collected in Terrorists and Novelists (1982). She has also coauthored nition as a poet since Francis Harper, an abolitionist writer.
articles on the medical profession and on AIDS with her physician Although her three major volumes were published within a
husband; and she authored Natural Opium (1991), a collection of 10-year span, each represents a distinctly different period in her
travel essays and what Johnson calls auto-ction. life, owing from the naive inquiry found in The Heart of a
Woman (1918), through the pain and deprivation of being black
She has received an impressive number of literary prizes and recorded in Bronze (1922), to the mature acceptance of grief
grants: a Woodrow Wilson Foundation grant in 1965, an Ameri- expressed in Autumn Love Cycle (1928). Johnson received many
can Association of University Women grant in 1968, and a awards not only for her poetry but for her plays and short stories.
Guggenheim Fellowship for 1977-78. In 1987 she was a recipient Although Johnsons literary strength is found in her poetry, her
of a ve-year Mildred and Harold Strauss Livings grant. plays and short stories remain signicant to the development of
black American literature from a literary as well as from a political
and a historical perspective.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hargrove, A. C., and M. Magliocco, eds., Por-
traits of Marriage in Literature (1984). LeClair, T., and L. The 62 poems in The Heart of a Woman are four-, eight-, and
McCaffery, Anything Can Happen: Interviews with Contempo- 12-line queries regarding the nature of womanhood. While many
rary American Novelists (1983). Yalom, M., ed., Women Writers of these poems are trite, Johnson expresses a haunting sensitivity
of the West Coast: Speaking of Their Lives and Careers (1990). toward womens unfullled aspirations in The Dreams of the
Reference works: CA (1974, 1980). CANR (1986, 1998). Dreamer and Dead Leaves. Although sadness prevails in this
CLC (1988). DLBY (1991). WW of Writers, Editors, and Poets volume, Johnson does not paint a bleak picture of womanhood.
276
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS JOHNSON
She nds solace in nature (Peace and When I am Dead) and JOHNSON, Helen (Louise) Kendrick
fulllment in requited love (Mate). Johnson apparently be-
lieved that women were destined to the life of a voyeur
declaring that they lacked the freedom to express themselves Born 4 January 1844, Hamilton, New York; died 3 January 1917,
openly, that they lacked the means of fullling their dreams, and New York, New York
that only through their lovers could they fully experience life. Also wrote under: Mrs. Rossiter Johnson
Daughter of Asahel C. and Anne Hopkins Kendrick; married
Bronze is an energetic expression of the pain, humiliations, Rossiter Johnson, 1869
and fears of a 1920s black woman. The 65 poems in this volume
are grouped under nine headings. Johnsons greatest literary Helen Kendrick Johnson grew up in an academic environ-
contribution to an understanding of womanhood and of her era is ment and from girlhood was interested in writing. A visit to
found in the 10 poems in the Motherhood section. Materni- Georgia soon after the Civil War provided the material for her rst
ty expresses a mixture of emotions as a child is awaited: pride is publication, A Night in Atlanta (1867), which appeared in the
coupled with fear that, at worst, the child would be lynched and, at New Hampshire Statesman, a newspaper edited by her future
best, rejected by the world. Black Woman implies that it is husband.
cruel to bring black children into this world.
Johnsons earliest publications were childrens stories. Her
In Autumn Love Cycle, an obvious stylistic and thematic rst book, Roddys Romance (1874), was written for a prize
maturity is displayed. Johnsons dominant theme is the depth of competition. Although it did not win the prize, it was successfully
mature love, as expressed in I Want to Die While You Love published and was followed by Roddys Reality (1875) and
Me, Autumn, and Afterglow, but there is the fear that lost Roddys Ideal (1876), the series of childrens books known
youth can result in indelity or in impotency. Many of these collectively as the Roddy Books. Tears for the Little Ones (1878)
poems were probably written during the period when her husband is a collection of verses from which Johnson had drawn solace
suffered three strokes and eventually died. A dozen of the poems after the deaths of her rst two children and which she published
describe her adjustment to life without the physical presence of love. in order to help other parents through similar periods of grief.
Johnson, together with other black writers after World War I, In the late 1870s, Johnson began Our Familiar Songs and
was responsible for bringing black poetry out of the bonds of Those Who Made Them (1881), a popular success that went
dialect and into the realm of a high art form. The poets of her through numerous editions. The contents are a combination of
period eventually were overshadowed by the writers of the ancient and current ballads, sentimental songs, and nonsense
Harlem Renaissance, but their importance to the movement songs. The writers include Robert Burns, Stephen Foster, and
should not be underestimated. Johnsons signicance as both a contemporary writers now forgotten; some writers are anony-
black and a woman writer cannot be denied. mous. Johnson divided the anthology thematically and gave
biographical information about the writers, histories of the songs,
OTHER WORKS: Blue Blood (1927). Plumes: Folk Tragedy (1927). and piano arrangements of the music. She included all the known
verses and frequently indicated variant tunes for the songs. The
completeness of her biographical and historical material varies
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bontemps, A., ed., American Negro Poetry (1974). greatly because her methods of gathering materials were not
Bontemps, A., The Harlem Renaissance Remembered (1972). systematic. Her book does, however, have the virtue of present-
Henderson, D. F., Georgia Douglas Johnson: A Study of Her ing, in useful form, the words and music for popular songs
Life and Literature (thesis, 1995). Hull, G. T., Color, Sex, and of the day.
Poetry: Three Women Writers of the Harlem Renaissance (1987).
Johnson, J. W., The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922). King, Johnsons next literary endeavor was the compilation of a
E. C., The Construction of the South by Southern Woman series of small books called the Nutshell Series (1884). These
Playwrights (thesis, 1996). Locke, A., The New Negro: An were collections of sayings of famous men published under the
Interpretation (1968). Martin-Liggins, S. M., Georgia Douglas titles Philosophy, Wisdom, Sentiments, Proverbs, Wit and Humor,
Johnson: The Voice of Oppression (thesis, 1996). Mays, B., The Epigram and Epitaph. All were subsequently collected into a
Negros God As Reected in His Literature (1968). Shockley, A. A., single volume, Short Sayings of Famous Men (1884).
Afro-American Women Writers (1988). White, N., and W. Jack- Johnsons only novel, Raleigh Westgate (1889), is a humor-
son, eds., An Anthology of Verse by American Negroes (1924). ous account of the development of a romantic young man into a
Whitmore, W., Georgia Douglas Johnson: An Artist Out of pillar of his community. Westgates search for himself and the girl
Time (thesis, 1981). of his dreams takes him through the Maine countryside and
Reference works: Black American Writers Past and Present provides Johnson with ample opportunities for local-color depic-
(1975). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United tions of the Maine people and for satire of modern commercial
States (1995). methods and nouveau-riche pretensions. The plot works on stock
Other references: Crisis (Dec. 1952). Journal of Negro sentimental devices, but Johnsons satire is humorously effective.
History (July 1972). Obsidian (Spring/Summer 1979).
Johnson was editor of the American Womans Journal from
LINDA S. BERRY 1894 to 1896. In this capacity, she became involved with the
277
JOHNSON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
woman suffrage issue and published several articles favoring Relations Board lawyer, only perpetuated her growing sense that
woman suffrage. Further consideration of these articles convinced (as she said in her autobiography, Seven Houses: A Memoir of
Johnson of the error of their positions, and she began actively Time and Places, 1973), I seemed to be waiting to begin to
participating in the antisuffrage movement. This led to her most live. Later in Grant Cannon she found a partner whose hopeful
signicant work, Woman and the Republic (1897), in which she nature temporarily dispelled her own profound pessimism. With
analyzes the arguments of the suffragists, refuting each point by Cannon, an editor of Farm Quarterly, she raised three children.
point. Johnson scorns all of their arguments concerning womens His death in 1969 took from her one who, in her words, made no
equality with men on the grounds that women are already superi- lifelong truce with despair as I have made.
or to men.
Although her work covers many decades and genres, the
In Woman and the Republic, Johnson argues that women do important themes almost all appear in the early ction. Now in
not need, and in fact should not have, the vote because the November celebrates the land and the self-sufcient farm family
enforcement of laws depends on the power implied in the support even while it deplores the Depression and the tyranny of weather.
of law and order by men who have the physical strength to The work is lit by occasional set pieces of nature description and
provide police action. She also declares that woman suffrage is by a clear attention to the limited point of view of the narrator, the
antidemocratic because in the American republic the social order middle daughter on a small Missouri farm, as she remembers her
has been established according to Gods wishes with women as childhood and her growing understanding of her sisters mental
the moral force, building human character through Christian illness. The private drama of sister Kerrins suicide and the
mothering, and with men as the physical force, building the social mothers death is played out against the social background of
bodies that protect order. nancial disaster for small farmers during the 1930s. Although
Johnson was a conscientious editor, a writer of witty ction, the novel betrays the inuence of the social protest ction of
and an ardent supporter of womens work in traditional areas. Her Sinclair and Steinbeck, much of it is more reminiscent of the
arguments against suffrage are carefully structured. However, for naturalism of Hardy or Zola.
the modern woman, her premises seem to be in gross error. Her Johnsons second novel, Jordanstown (1937), about a
conviction that women do not need the vote because they already small-town newspaperman and community organizer during the
have all of the necessary rights and perquisites demands accept- Depression, is less successful because the didactic ideology of
ance of the view that womans place is in the home and beside socialist realism is too little camouaged. Still, Jordanstown has
the cradle. memorable elements: Stefan, the baker, whose obstinate hope
buoys the protesters as much as his hot breads do; the stiing July
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Johnson, R., Helen Kendrick Johnson (Mrs. Rossiter death of the child whose sick, malnourished mother does not even
Johnson): The Story of Her Varied Activities (1917). realize the girl has died. Johnsons third and fourth novels,
Reference works: AA. DAB. NCAB. Wildwood (1945) and The Dark Traveler (1963), are disappoint-
Other references: NYTBR (10 July 1897). ing. Slips into omniscience only remind us of the strength of the
earlier limited point of view. The anguish surfacing in the earlier
HARRIETTE CUTTINO BUCHANAN ction is here completely unrelieved, and the loss of the idealism
of the socialist movements of the 1930s is reected in the
agnostics cry in Wildwood: A voice mocking and mechanical,
nal and unanswerable: and the Lord said, Let there be no light.
JOHNSON, Josephine Winslow
Johnsons short ction, however, shows that more compact
Born 20 June 1910, Kirkwood, Missouri; died 27 February 1990 forms better display both her descriptive talents and her facility
Daughter of Benjamin and Ethel Franklin Johnson; married with surprise endings. Gedacht, her rst published short story,
Thurlow Smoot, 1939; Grant G. Cannon, 1942 (died 1969); is the best of the Winter Orchard (1935) collection. It concerns a
children: three World War I veteran who, having lost his sight from poison gas,
regains it briey. Johnsons early poetry incorporates the themes
Josephine Winslow Johnson was reared on a 100-acre farm of her ction: social protest, loss of religious faith, love of nature,
in south-central Missouri. Reecting on her mothers lineage, and the struggle with cynicism.
Johnson has noted the long dominance of Franklins, i.e., Anglo-
A publishing hiatus of almost 20 years occurred in Johnsons
Saxon freeholders, untitled agrarians with a fervent attach-
mid-career, and when she resumed publication, some very differ-
ment to specic pieces of land. The strength of this passion is
ent genre preferences manifested themselves. She produced es-
intensied in Johnson.
says, memoirs, and diaries instead of ction. Johnsons vision
At the age of eight, Johnson wrote a poem to mark the end of became quieter, more introspective, more ameliorated by the
the war and glimpsed her vocation as a writer. Her rst novel, Now natural world, although social concerns and pessimism are still
in November (1934 reprinted in 1991), brought her the Pulitzer there. Thus The Inland Island (1969, reprinted 1996), a kind of
Prize. Another novelas well as poems and short storiessoon nature journal in the style of Walden, laments the Vietnam War
appeared, for in these years, Johnson says she wrote, if not and promotes the environmental movement in the midst of
endlessly, then enormously. Her rst marriage, to a Labor solitary meditations and exquisite observations on the natural
278
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS JOHNSON-MASTERS
year. With The Circle of Seasons (1974), the text for a book of psychology of sexual function. They cofounded the Masters
nature photographs, Johnson reiterates the themes begun in Now Johnson Institute in 1970.
in November. It is both an ode and an elegy that celebrates and
Educated in music, Johnson-Masters studied at Drury Col-
questions: Will there be any rhythm and difference of season
lege in Springeld, Missouri, from 1940 to 1942 and the Universi-
left, any feeling of the great circular ow of living things [for our
ty of Missouri in Columbia from 1944 to 1946. She continued
children]?
with graduate study in voice directed toward operatic singing at
Johnson has contributed brilliantly to the proletarian Washington University in St. Louis from 1964 to 1965. Following
tradition in American letters. Indeed, one is frequently tempted to her studies, she worked for the St. Louis Daily Record as an
rank her with the great shapers of that tradition, London, Sinclair, administrative assistant and editorial writer, and for radio station
Norris, and Steinbeck. But Johnsons activity displays other KMOX in St. Louis in the advertising department.
dimensions that make her difcult to categorize, for she is also a
Though she had no formal training whatsoever, from her
writer of naturalistic ction, a didactic poet, a Thoreauvian
position as a research assistant for Masters in reproductive biolo-
essayist, and an anguished contemplative decrying militarism and
gy in the obstetrics and gynecology department at the Washington
the inhumanity of modern technology. In a time when the of-
University School of Medicine, she advanced to research instruc-
ten divided currents of agrarianism, radical trade unionism,
tor and lecturer. She held the positions of research associate, then
conservationism, and militant pacism seem about to form a
assistant director when the Reproductive Biology Research Foun-
curious new merger, Johnsons lifelong nurturing of these con-
dation was established in 1964. The Foundation became the
cerns may prompt a rediscovery of her achievement.
Masters and Johnson Institute, with her as cofounder. She was
codirector, then director and president, and then cochairman of the
OTHER WORKS: Unwilling Gypsy (1936). Years End (1937). Board of Directors until 1994. Since 1983 she has been the
Paulina: The Story of an Apple-Butter Jar (1939). The Sorcerers president of MVM Enterprises, Inc., a video production company.
Son, and Other Stories (1965).
As a scientist, she received two honorary Doctor of Science
The manuscripts and papers of Josephine Winslow Johnson degrees from the University of Louisville in 1978 and the Univer-
are housed in the Rare Books Collection at Washington Universi- sity of Rochester in 1987 and several awards, including the
ty in St. Louis, Missouri. Paul H. Hoch award from the American Psychopathological
Society in 1971; the SIECUS Citation award in 1971; the Distin-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Carter, Q. R., Josephine W. Johnson and the guished Service award from the American Association of Mar-
Pulitzer: The Shaping of a Life (thesis, 1995). riage and Family Counselors in 1976; the Modern Medicine
Reference works: CA (1971). CN (1976). NCAB. TCA. Award for Distinguished Achievement in 1977; the Biomedical
TCAS. Research award from the World Association of Sexology in 1979;
Other references: Nation (21 Aug. 1935). NYHT (13 Sept. she was named one of the Twenty-Five Most Inuential Women
1934, 13 Aug. 1935). NYT (16 Sept. 1934, 11 April 1937). NYTBR in the American World Almanac for 1975, 1978, 1979, and 1980;
(2 Mar. 1969, 13 May 1973). Saturday Review (3 Apr. 1937, 15 and a Paul Harris Fellow from Rotary International in 1976.
Feb. 1969). As coauthor with Masters, Johnson-Masters wrote the major
textbooks in the study of human sexuality. Based on research in
MARGARET MCFADDEN-GERBER
behavioral science and psychology, Human Sexual Response
(1966) describes the sexual response cycle of men and women
during intercourse and masturbation. A bestseller, the book took
its place alongside the works of Sigmund Freud, Havelock Ellis,
JOHNSON-MASTERS, Virginia and Alfred Kinsey in its breakthrough in understanding human
sexuality and in securing its study as a distinct discipline. Their
Born 11 February 1925, Springeld, Missouri next book, Human Sexual Inadequacy (1970), launched the eld
Daughter of Harry Hershel and Edna Evans Eshelman; married of sex therapy.
George Johnson, 1950 (divorced 1956); William H. Masters,
Their later research and publications focused on the role of
1971 (divorced 1993); children: Scott, Lisa
love and commitment, homosexuality, ethical issues, safe sex,
AIDS, addictions, and aging. Although their work has received
Virginia Johnson-Masters, scientist and psychologist, con- criticism for its masculinist bias, their inuence in view of the
tributed to the study of human sexuality in her work and writings presently extensive eld of sexual research, therapy, and advice is
with William H. Masters. Johnson-Masters began working with evident in a remark by Johnson-Masters in a 1994 interview about
William H. Masters as a research assistant in 1957. They became their teamwork: We are like Kleenex to tissue.
the team known as Masters and Johnson, who pioneered the
development of research methods, treatment of sexual dysfunctions,
training of therapists, treatment of sexual offenders, and text- OTHER WORKS: Coauthored with William H. Masters and others:
books. Using a behavioral science approach, they dened human The Pleasure Bond: A New Look at Sexuality and Commitment
sexuality by extending knowledge about the physiology and (1975); Ethical Issues in Sex Therapy and Research, Volume 1
279
JOHNSTON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
(1977); Homosexuality in Perspective (1979); Textbook of Sexual Colonel, starring Shirley Temple as Lloyd and Lionel Barrymore
Medicine (1979); Ethical Issues in Sex Therapy and Research, as old Colonel Lloyd. The story of the conict of pretty, spunky
Volume 2 (1980); Crisis: Heterosexual Behavior in the Age of Lloyd with her crusty old grandfather, who severed relations with
AIDS (1988); Heterosexuality (1994). his only daughter, Elizabeth, when she eloped with a Yankee, was
a perfect vehicle for Temples talents.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bullough, V. L., Science in the Bedroom (1994). Johnstons work was commercially successful, and her pub-
Fisher, W., and Azy Barak, Bias and Fairness in the Diagnosis lisher clearly took advantage of the popularity of the Little
of Primary Orgasmic Dysfunction in Women, in American Colonel books. For example, in 1909 the Page Company issued
Psychologis 44 (July 1989). Irvine, J. M., From Difference to The Little Colonels Good Times Book, with blank pages for
Sameness: Gender Ideology in Sexual Science, in Journal of Sex children to record their good times, as Betty Lewis did in The
Research 27 (Feb. 1990). Schwartz, M. F., The Masters and Little Colonels House Party (1900). Many of the legends and
Johnson Treatment Program for Sex Offenders: Intimacy, Empa- tales in Johnstons books were subsequently published as separate
thy and Trauma Resolution, in Sexual Addiction and Compul- volumes, such as The Legend of the Bleeding Heart (1907) and
sivity 1 (1994). Tiefer, L., Historical, Scientic, Clinical, and The Road of the Loving Heart (1922), both of which rst appeared
Feminist Criticisms of the Human Sexual Response Cycle in The Little Colonels House Party.
Model, in Annual Review of Sex Research 2 (1991).
Johnstons works have the aws of many childrens books of
Reference works: Complete Marquis Whos Who Biogra- the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The characters are ideal-
phies (1995). NYT (24 Mar. 1994). Virginia Johnson-Masters ized; the conicts, resolved too easily; the themes, simplistic and
Web Page (1999). naive. The typical world of Johnstons ction is one of wealth and
aristocracy, in which separation of the races and the inferiority of
KAREN J. MCLENNAN
blacks are assumed. But, interestingly, it is a world in which
women are not automatically relegated to the life of wife and
mother or to unfullled spinsterhood. Especially through the
experiences of Lloyd Sherman and her friends, Johnston empha-
JOHNSTON, Annie Fellows sizes the importance for women of education in academic sub-
jects; likewise, she allows her young women the option of
Born 15 May 1863, Evansville, Indiana; died 5 October 1931, independence, through characters such as unmarried Joyce Ware,
Pewee Valley, Kentucky pursuing her career as a commercial artist in an apartment in
Daughter of Albion and Mary Erskine Fellows; married Wil- New York.
liam L. Johnston, 1888; children: three A strong moral code underlies every work by Johnston.
Through legends and tales, some traditional and others original,
Annie Fellows Johnston grew up on a farm outside Evans- she cleverly makes points her young characters are never allowed
ville, Indiana. Although her father, a Methodist minister, died to miss. Readers of an earlier, simpler day took these lessons to
when she was only two, Johnston was inuenced by him, through heart and were inspired to model their lives after Lloyd, Betty,
his theological books, and by her mother, who had strong ideas Joyce, and other characters; contemporary readers in our complex
about the importance of education for women. Johnston attended age often nd Johnstons stories more didactic than inspiring or
public schools in Evansville and the University of Iowa (for a entertaining. These tales, are nonetheless, still popular today with
year). After teaching for several years and working for a time as a Johnstons original The Little Colonel reissued once again in 1998.
private secretary, she married her cousin, a widower. After his
death in 1892, Johnston turned to writing as a career. Eventually,
she and her three stepchildren settled in Pewee Valley, Kentucky, OTHER WORKS: Big Brother (1894). Joel: A Boy of Galilee
which Johnston ctionalized as Lloydsboro Valley in her popular (1895). The Little Colonels Holiday (1901). The Little Colonels
Little Colonel series. In 1899 Johnstons stepdaughter Rena died; Hero (1902). The Little Colonel at Boarding School (1903). The
two years later Johnston moved to Arizona for her stepson Johns Little Colonel in Arizona (1904). The Little Colonels Christmas
health, and then on to Texas, where they lived until his death in 1910. Vacation (1905). The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor (1906). The
Little Colonels Knight Comes Riding (1907). The Little Colonels
As a childrens author, Johnston was both prolic, with over Chum: Mary Ware (1908). Mary Ware in Texas (1910). Mary
40 volumes, and popularreportedly, at her death her books had Wares Promised Land (1912). Miss Santa Claus of the Pullman
sold over 1 million copies. Some readers today are still familiar (1913). Georgina of the Rainbows (1916). It Was the Road to
with Johnstons 13-volume Little Colonel series, which began Jericho (1919). The Land of the Little Colonel: Reminiscence and
with the publication of The Little Colonel (1896). Unlike many Autobiography (1929).
authors of series books, Johnston allows her characters to mature.
For example, we see Miss Lloyd Sherman rst as a ve-year-old,
impetuous and stubborn, and last as a young married woman, BIBLIOGRAPHY: Browne, R. B., et al., eds., Challenges in Ameri-
lovely and vivacious. Many people know Johnstons most famous can Culture (1970). Duin, J. Waiting for True Love: And Other
character only through David Butlers 1935 Fox lm, The Little Tales of Purity, Patience, and Faithfulness (1998). McGuire, S. L.,
280
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS JOHNSTON
The Little Colonel: A Phenomenon in Popular Literary Cul- Volume Two: Paper Daughter (1985), the second of her
ture (1991). autobiographical series in search of a father, begins with an
Reference works: Arizona in Literature: A Collection of the account of her rst nervous breakdown and commitment to
Best Writings of Arizona Authors from Early Spanish Days to the Bellevue Hospital. The book depicts her journey to gain control
Present Time (1971). DAB. Indiana Authors and Their Books, over her life, and the experience of another breakdown, as she tries
1816-1916 (1949). Junior Book of Authors (1934). NAW (1971). to move in new directions. In 1973 Lesbian Nation: The Feminist
NCAB. Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United Solution had brought Johnston into the feminist/womens move-
States (1995). TCA. ment. This collection of journal entries and stories tracks her
Other references: St. Nicholas (Dec. 1913). evolving consciousness as a political lesbian. Her attempts to
force the issue of lesbianism into the public forum resulted in
MARTHA E. COOK establishment portrayals of her as an anarchist outcast. Her next
publication, Gullibles Travels (1974) reects Johnston after her
second breakdown, in motion, open to revolutionary ideas. Femi-
nism and lesbianism create the backdrop for a mixture of ction
JOHNSTON, Jill and true stories. An experimental style is used to disrupt the
readers preconceived ideas about ction, sex, and reality.
Born 17 May 1929, London, England
Also writes under: F. J. Crowe Between 1984 and 1991, Johnston wrote a review column for
Daughter of Olive Margaret Crowe and Cyril F. Johnston; Art in America, covering artistic events and books on the arts.
married Richard J. Latham, 1958 (divorced); children: Throughout the years, she has also contributed to other periodi-
Richard, Winifred cals, including Ballet Review, as well as books on dance (particu-
larly the Judson Dance Theater). In this vein, she published Secret
Jill Johnstons mother, an American nurse, and her father, an Lives in Art: Essays on Art, Literature, Performance (1994),
English bell founder, lived together for four years but never followed by a trek away from dance into the art world with Jasper
married. Raised in England, Johnston was educated in an exclu- Johns: Privileged Information (1996). Her most recent work goes
sive Episcopalian boarding school. In Autobiography in Search of back to themes present in 1973s Lesbian Nation, with Admission
a Father: Motherbound (1983), the rst of two autobiographical Accomplished: The Lesbian Nation Years (1970-75) (1998).
volumes, Johnston details the pain of her early life. As a result of
her fathers failure to marry Olive Crowe, her mother lived a life
of deception and lies to hide her daughters illegitimacy. Led by OTHER WORKS: Twentieth Century Sappho (audio cas-
her mother to believe that he had died years before, Johnston sette, 1979).
never met her father. Her perception of reality shifted in 1950
when she read of his death that year. By then he had married and
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Getz, L., Dancers and Choreographers, A Select-
had other children. From this moment on Johnston focused on
ed Bibliography (19995). Hapgood, S., Neo-Dada: Redening
discovering an identity, yearning to ll the paternal void.
Art, 1958-1960 (1994). Jowitt, D., Jill Johnston: The Critic
Johnston attended college in Massachusetts and in Minneso- Deconstructed by Art? (1993). Roy, S., Jill Johnstons Marma-
ta, and received an M.F.A. (1954) from the University of North lade Me (1998). Tomko, L., ed., Of, By, and For the People:
Carolina before making her home in New York City. She went to Proceedings (1993). Thorne, B., et al eds., Language, Gender,
Columbia University to study dance, and, she says, worked in the and Society (1983).
female slave market to support herself. Trying to ght the Reference works: CA (1975). FC (1990). Oxford Companion
desire she felt for women, Johnston conceded to societal pressure to Womens Writing in the United States (1995).
and married in 1958. The marriage did not last because of her Other references: New York (24 May 1971). Art in America
resistance to convention and her husbands indelity. (Jan. 1986, Feb. 1993).
The Village Voice launched Johnstons career as a writer and SUZANNE GIRONDA,
public gure, publishing her weekly Dance Journal column UPDATED BY NELSON RHODES
from 1960 to 1970; Marmalade Me (1974, reprinted 1998) is a
collection of the columns. One of the original free spirits of the
1960s, Johnston used the column as a medium to celebrate
nonconformity. Her debut article was the rst review of the new
avant-garde dance and choreography group at the Judson Memo-
JOHNSTON, Mary
rial Church. Gradually, she reviewed less dancing and more of her
private life, using the column one week to come out as a Born 21 November 1870, Buchanan, Virginia; died 9 May 1936,
lesbian and increasingly converting it to an open theater of the Warm Springs, Virginia
wild behavior and public disturbances that by then had come to be Daughter of John W. and Elizabeth Alexander Johnston
expected of her. Johnstons writing took on a confessional,
fractured style eventually leading to the termination of her career Mary Johnston was the eldest of six children. Her father was
as a critic. She was later hospitalized for an emotional breakdown. a lawyer, a member of the Virginia Legislature, and a major in the
281
JOHNSTON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Confederate Army. Because her frail health precluded her attend- Some reviewers complained that the book was too much of a
ing school (except for a few months in Atlanta), she was educated tract, but others hailed it as the Uncle Toms Cabin of the
at home, rst by her Scots grandmother and later by extensive womens movement. This was the rst of Johnstons socio-
reading in her fathers large library. Her mother died when logical novels, and it not only argued for the emancipation of
Johnston was sixteen, and she took the responsibility of managing women but also pointed out other social problems. A later
the large household. Her family moved to New York City, but in feminist work by Johnston, The Wanderers (1917), consists of 19
1902 Johnston returned to Virginia. Although she traveled in sketches that trace the changing relations between men and
Europe and the Middle East, she lived in Virginia the rest of her women in history from the early days of humanity to the French
life. With proceeds from her bestselling novel, To Have and to Revolution.
Hold (1900), she built a large, beautiful country home in Warm
Springs, Virginia, where she resided with three of her sisters and Johnston is almost forgotten today, and she has received little
brother. All four of these Johnston siblings remained single. serious critical attention. Critics generally agree that her reputa-
tion is based on the historical novels. Beginning with her socio-
Johnston is remembered as an ardent feminist and popular logical works in 1913, her readership fell off. The later mystical
novelist of romantic historical ction. As one of the founders, in and transcendental works perplexed reviewers and did not sell
1909, of the Equal Suffrage League in Richmond, she generously well. Johnstons characters are limited and stilted, her plots
used her talents for the cause. In The Womans War (Atlantic melodramatic, her themes overused, and her metaphysics and
Monthly, April 1910), she clearly stated her beliefs in the rights of politics often intrusive. Despite valid criticism of her style and
women. She was a serious woman who was a diligent student of plots, she was a good storyteller, and she knew well the history on
the history that formed the background for many of her novels. which her novels were based; her depiction of setting and land-
scape has been praised. Her most enthusiastic critic, Lawrence
Johnston published 23 novels, a volume of history, Pioneers
Nelson, has called her perhaps the most distinctive and valuable
of the Old South (1918), and a blank verse drama set during the
American historical novelist after Cooper and Simms.
French Revolution, The Goddess of Reason (1907). The novels
are generally divided into ve categories: Virginia historical
romances, European romances, realistic Civil War novels, socio- OTHER WORKS: Prisoners of Hope (1898). Audrey (1902). Sir
logical novels, and mystical novels. She also contributed poetry Mortimer (1904). Lewis Rand (1908). The Witch (1914). The
and short stories to periodicals. Fortunes of Garin (1915). Foes (1918). Michael Forth (1919).
Sweet Rocket (1920). 1492 (1922). Silver Cross (1922). Croatan
To Have and to Hold is Johnstons best-known novel. Set in
(1923). The Slave Ship (1924). The Great Valley (1926). The
Jamestown in 1621, during the time of Governor Yeardley, it is a
Exile (1927). Hunting Shirt (1931). Miss Delicia Allen (1933).
swashbuckling romance. Jocelyn Leigh, the ward of King James I,
Drury Randall (1934). The Collected Short Stories of Mary
refuses to marry Lord Carnal and escapes from England disguised
Johnston (1982).
as Patience Worth. She joins a group of women coming to
America to be sold as brides for the settlers. Jocelyn is pur-
chased by Captain Ralph Percy for 120 pounds of tobacco. The BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cella, C. R., Mary Johnston (1981). Goloboy, J. L.,
novel tells the story of Jocelyns developing love for Ralph Percy. Marrying the Future: Kate Langley Bosher, Mary Johnston,
The language is orid, the dialogue stilted, and the plot melodra- Ellen Glasgow, and the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia
matic, but the novel has narrative power. It was the number one (thesis, 1995). Hubbell, J., The South in American Literature:
bestseller of the year. 1607-1900 (1954). Longest, G., Three Virginia Writers: Mary
The Long Roll (1911) and Cease Firing (1912) constitute a Johnston, Thomas Nelson Page, and Amlie Rives Troubetskoy: A
two-volume account of the Civil War and of the fortunes of two Reference Guide (1978). Patterson, M. H., Survival of the Best
Virginia families, the Carys and the Cleaves. Stonewall Jackson is Fitted: The Trope of the New Woman in Margaret Murray
the central gure in the rst volume. The books are epic in vision Washington, Pauline Hopkins, Sui Sin Far, Edith Wharton and
and attempt to document in realistic detail the campaigns of the Mary Johnston, 1895-1913 (thesis, 1996). Quinn, A. H., Ameri-
war. One reviewer of the time questioned whether the books were can Fiction: An Historical and Critical Survey (1937). Rubin, L.
ction or were indeed military history. Lawrence Nelson has Jr., ed., A Bibliographical Guide to the Study of Southern Litera-
called the books a massive epical romance in prose, an extended ture (1969). Simonini, R. C. Jr., ed., Southern Writers: Appraisals
ode or elegy for the dead Confederacy and the completest and in Our Time (1961). Stone, P. S., Mary Johnston: A Bibliog-
most authentic embodiment of the Southern Myth. raphy of Primary and Secondary Works (thesis, 1981). Votes for
Women! The Woman Suffrage Movement in Tennessee, the South,
Hagar (1913) is a feminist novel with a contemporary and the Nation (1995).
Southern setting. Hagar, aesthetic and intellectual, is frail in Reference works: Cavalcade of the American Novel (1952).
health. As a small child she observes the inequities in life and is DAB. LSL. NAW (1971). NCAB. TCA.
punished when she is caught reading Darwin. She becomes a Other references: Richmond Quarterly (1981). SR (Apr.-June
successful writer, rejects the proper Virginia suitor, and goes to 1937). Virginia Cavalcade (Winter 1956).
New York. When she agrees to marry Ralph Cottsworth, she
reminds him she will continue to work for the rights of women. DOROTHY M. SCURA
282
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS JONES
JONES, Amanda Theodocia While working on her inventions, Jones continued to write
and publish collections of her poetry. A Prairie Idyl (1882)
demonstrated her extensive knowledge of the wildowers of the
Born 19 October 1835, East Bloomeld, New York; died 31 Midwest. Rubaiyat of Solomon, and Other Poems (1905) included
March 1914, Brooklyn, New York a popular series of poems, Kansas Bird Songs, which revealed
Daughter of Henry and Mary Mott Jones her knowledge of Midwestern wildlife.
Amanda Jones father was a master weaver; her mother was Jones life and poetry reected the dynamic character of
an avid reader. Both of them considered books to be more 19th-century America. Her interests ranged from food preserva-
necessary than daily bread, and introduced Jones, at an early tion and woman suffrage to wildlife and psychic phenomena. She
age, to Jane Austen, Bunyan, Dryden, Pope, and Scott. Jones traveled extensively around the eastern half of the U.S. and
attended the local district school and after the family moved to seemed determined never to succumb to poor health. Her poetry
Black Rock, near Buffalo, New York, the East Aurora Academy. not only reects her strong sense of patriotism, but reveals Jones
At fteen she began teaching school. to be a sensitive woman, aware of and engaged in the society she
lived in, and always hopeful of eternal salvation.
Four years later she gave up teaching when the Ladies
Repository of Cincinnati accepted one of her poems. During the
next decade she contributed a series of poems to the Repository. In OTHER WORKS: Poems and Songs: Written in Spare Moments
1859 Jones developed tuberculosis and spent six months at the (1890). Poems, 1854-1906 (1906).
Clifton Springs (New York) Water Cure. She never fully regained
her health and periodically resorted to similar cures.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Barker, N. G., Kansas Women in Literature (1915).
Jones rst volume of poetry, Ulah, and Other Poems (1861), Reference works: AA. AW. DAB. NAW (1971). NCAB.
was dedicated to her father, who had died six years earlier. The
title poem, based on an ancient Native American legend, tells the DOMENICA BARBUTO
story of the Native American maiden Ulah and her lover. Death
and the hope of eternal salvation are popular themes in the other
poems. Her second volume, Poems (1867), was dedicated to the
Nameless Club, a mens literary society of which Jones was an JONES, Edith
honorary member. The rst poem in this collection, Atlantis, See WHARTON, Edith
describes the disappearance of the kingdom of Atlantis. The next
20 poems are classied as patriotic and are concerned with the
Civil War. Several of them commemorate important battles; most
glorify the Northern cause. One of the poems, Forest Lawn, is JONES, Gayl
an especially moving tribute to Jones brother Porter, who died in
battle at the age of eighteen. In these poems, once again, death is a
Born 23 November 1949, Lexington, Kentucky
recurring theme as are love, God, and the triumph of good
Daughter of Franklin and Lucille Jones
over evil.
The spiritualist movement was gaining popularity at this Gayl Jones grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, a setting that is
time; by 1854, Jones believed she was a medium and that her clearly inuential in her novels. She earned a B.A. in English from
actions were governed by her spiritual guardian. She saw in Connecticut College in 1971. While there, she received the
spiritualism the hope of salvation she sought after the sudden colleges award for the best original poem in both 1969 and 1970
death of her brother. Among her powers as a medium was the and the Frances Steloff Fiction award for The Roundhouse, a
ability to heal, and during the 1850s and 1860s this ability secured short story that establishes the themes that dominate Jones
for her the hospitality of other spiritualists. These long visits workthe problems and possibilities of relationships between
allowed her ample time to continue to write poetry. Her spiritual black men and women, the uniqueness of women, and the com-
guardian led her to Chicago in 1869, where she found work as a plexities of communication. Jones received graduate degrees in
writer with the Western Rural, Interior, and a juvenile periodical, creative writing from Brown University.
Bright Sides. Years later she collected many of her psychic
experiences in her Psychic Autobiography (1910). Corregidora (1975, reprinted 1988) is a lean book narrated
by Ursa, the descendant of slaves and their Portuguese owner, in a
Just as she had been affected by the spiritualist movement, dialogue style that Jones describes as ritualized. Despite the
Jones was affected by the great pace of invention characterizing spareness of its presentation, the story is complex. At one level, it
19th-century America. Over the years, she developed a vacuum is an account of Ursas matrilineal heritage and her relationship to
process to preserve food, patented an oil burner, established a a line of female ancestors who are preoccupied with perpetuating,
working womens home, and founded the Womans Canning and and perhaps redeeming, their oppressive history in new genera-
Preserving Company. tions. This background illuminates Ursas attempts to create a
283
JONES AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
constructive and loving relationship with a man despite centuries The Hermit-Woman: Poems (1983), which also develops
of misunderstanding between the sexes accentuated by profound voices from colonial Brazil, includes two self-referential pieces.
social and economic injustice. Because an accident early renders One of these, Stranger, closes the book with a couples
Ursa incapable of producing her generation of children, the blues love-making, erce / strong / soaring, so that the joy of sexual
she sings and the tale she tells become her testimonialher union heals an African past of sundered relationships. The theme
generationfor ultimately the novel itself passes the story on. of tenderness in all three books is a departure from the brutality
between black women and black men that critics had objected to
Jones has said Corregidora is a Blues Novel and in doing
in her ction. While that tenderness exists often only in memory
so compared it to her moving poem Deep Song. Stylistically,
and is experienced through the pain of recollection, it closes the
the book depicts the black female experience in terms of the
gap between women and men and locates violence in racist
unique language and oral tradition of the blues. Jones denes
atrocities. By exploring memorys painful burden as a necessity
Blues Art as that which expresses the simultaneity of good and
for the survival of the African race, Jones alters the feminist
bad feelings; she says that she often creates blues relationships
polemic many had noted in her novels to a dialogue of racial unity.
between men and women. Critics have praised her for her skill in
adapting the linguistic, cultural, and emotional perspective of the Jones has received a number of literary awards, including
black woman to the form of the traditional novel. fellowships from Yaddo (1974) and from the National Endow-
ment for the Arts (1976), and the Henry Russell Award from the
Evas Man (1976, 1987), Joness second novel, is the story of
University of Michigan (1981), where she was professor of
Eva Medina Canada, a so-called savage woman who murders
English from 1975 to 1983. In the later 1990s, Jones continued to
her lover by dental castration. Eva narrates the story from her cell
write and travel.
in a psychiatric prison. Although the novel shares much in theme
and setting with Corregidora, the emphasis here is more social
than personal, as it points to the terror and squalor of Evas past, OTHER WORKS: Liberating Voices: Oral Tradition in African
the destructiveness inherent in male-female relationships, and the American Literature (1991). The Healing (1998). The Healing;
violent nature of sexuality. Relationships between men and wom- Corregidora; Evas Man (bound together, 1998). Mosquito (1999).
en in Corregidora mingle tenderness and brutality, but cultural
and emotional brutality triumph in Evas Man. Jones says, In
many ways, Evas Man is a horror story. It really is. . . . Their BIBLIOGRAPHY: Allen, D. E., The Role of the Blues in Gayl
ritual isnt a blues ritual. I dont know what it is. Jones Fiction (thesis, 1993). Baker, H. A., and P. Redmonds,
eds., Afro-American Literary Study in the 1990s (1989). Bell, R. P.,
Jones has published excerpts from another novel and a et al., eds., Sturdy Black Bridges: Visions of Black Women in
collection of short stories, White Rat (1977, 1991). Her powerful Literature (1979). Bloom, H., Black American Women Fiction
title story, White Rat, is being included in collections of short Writers (1995). Bloom, H., Contemporary Black American Fic-
ction. Jones, a versatile and prolic writer, has also written tion Writers (1995). Broome, L. J., Sex, Violence, and History:
several plays and numerous poems, but her major works are the Images of Black Men in the Selected Fiction of Gayl Jones, Alice
two novels. Although her writing is neither polemical nor explicit-
Walker, and Toni Morrison (thesis, 1990). Burwell, S. L., The
ly political, it reveals a central concern with the issues of racism
Soul of Black Women: The Hermeneutical Method of Analysis as
and feminism. Admirers of Jones novels of the 1970s assert that
Applied to the Novel Corregidora (thesis reissue, 1981). Coser, S.,
her construction of black women questions the naturalness of
Bridging the Americas: The Literature of Paule Marshall, Toni
racist and sexist attitudes. Others, however, have faulted what
Morrison, and Gayl Jones (1995). Dubey, M., Winged, But
they see as her lack of positive images of African American
Grounded: A Contextual Study of the Fiction of Toni Morrison
characters, especially of black men.
and Gayl Jones (thesis, 1989). Flora, J. M. and R. A. Bain,
In the 1980s, Jones work changed substantially, although it Contemporary Fiction Writers of the South: A Bio-Bibliographi-
is unclear whether the transformation stemmed from criticism of cal Sourcebook (1993). Fossett, J. J., and J. A. Tucker, Race
her novels. Her three collections of poetry have received little Consciousness: African-American Studies for the New Century
attention. Still interested in the slave history of colonial Latin (1997). Gottfried, A. S., Confessions and Accusations: Violence
America, Jones continues to use mutilation themes as well as the and Redemption in Contemporary U.S. Womens Fiction (the-
richness of the oral tradition to create accounts of female subjec- sis, 1994). Intemann, C., The Blues Ache in Corregidora
tivity and the continuity of history. Set in 17th-century Brazil, (thesis, 1988). Kerr, L. A., You Are My Face; You Are Me:
Song for Anninho (1981, reissued 1999) tells of the atrocities Kristevas Semiotic as Site of Self-Erasure in Gayl Jones
committed by the Portuguese in their attacks on Palmares, an Corregidora and Toni Morrisons Beloved (thesis, 1995). Kester,
independent settlement of escaped African slaves. The poem is G. T., Writing the Subject Structure, Tropes, and Doubleness in
told by a young African woman who also relates others stories. Five African-American Novels (thesis, 1991). McKoy, S. S.,
Similarly, the title poem in Xarque and Other Poems (1985) Insanity and Creativity: The Psychic Trauma of Women in Texts
weaves the voices of three women into a history told by a single by Gayl Jones and Gloria Naylor (thesis, 1991). Murphy, C. M.,
female, the granddaughter of Almeyda from Song for Anninho. Shaping Space: Quilting Aesthetics and Black Feminist Writ-
Thus tales of survival and oppression become a matrilineal ers (thesis, 1990). Porter, S. D., The Search for Whole-
heritage that nds its voice in song. ness is Completed: Gayl Jones Corregidora as a Rewriting of
284
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS JONES
Jean Toomers Cane (thesis, 1991). Richards, C. S., The with the capability of publishing longer works. Following her
Empowerment of Orality in the Novels of Gayl Jones (thesis, divorce, Jones supported herself with freelance work as a clerk,
1992). Robinson, S., Engendering the Subject: Gender and Self-Rep- proofreader, and eventually as an organizer for the Mobilization
resentation in Contemporary Womens Fiction (1991). Stallings, L., for Youth program, where she founded educational after-school
Creating a Bodily Text: Orality and Sexuality as Means of programs, working also in day care and as a substitute teacher.
Empowerment in Gayl Jones Corregidora and Evas Man (the-
sis, 1998). Tate, C., ed., Black Women Writers at Work (1983). From 1970 on, as a freelance writer she published poems,
Walker, S., Stories from the American Mosaic (1990). Wilcox, J., stories, and several childrens books. Her compilation of Ameri-
Constructed Silences: Voice and Subjectivity in the Resistant can Indian songs, The Trees Stand Shining, was chosen as a
Texts of Gayl Jones, Alice Walker, and Toni Cade Bambara notable childrens book by the American Library Association in
(thesis, 1995). 1971 and was included in the American Institute of Graphic Arts
Reference works: Black American Writers Past and Present Childrens Book Show (1971-72). Longhouse Winter: Iroquois
(1975). Black Writers: A Selection of Sketches (1989). DLB Transformation Tales was chosen for the American Institute of
(1984). FC (1990). Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the Graphic Arts 50 Books of the Year in 1972. Her own acknowl-
United States (1995). Whos Who in Black Americans (1992). edged favorite, Big Star Fallin Mama (biographies of ve
Other references: American Poetry Review (Sept.-Oct. 1976). women jazz musicians), was featured by the New York Public
Ariel (1992). Callaloo (Winter 1984). CLAJ (1984, 1986). MELUS Library as a young adult best book in 1975 (a revised edition was
(Winter 1980). MR (1977). New Republic (28 June 1975, 19 June published in 1997). About her writing, Jones has said: Since
1976). Studia Africana (1977). YR (1976). 1957 Ive been involved with literature and writers one way or
another. . . .When I have time I like to write short stories for slow
JUDITH P. JONES, readers, textbook stories for kids. I write novelizations to sup-
UPDATED BY JOELLEN MASTERS port my children and my writing habit. Have been totally self-
employed since 1970, but am POOR. What she likes about
writing for children, she said, is that its a challenge to simplify
and clarify.
JONES, Hettie In her autobiography, which was reissued in paperback in
1998, Jones delineates her struggle to get from wanting to write to
Born 16 July 1934, Brooklyn, New York nished and published writinga struggle common to women
Daughter of Oscar and Lottie Lewis Cohen; married LeRoi who nd marriage and motherhood and their accompanying
Jones (now Amiri Baraka, divorced 1966); children: responsibilities to be insurmountable obstacles to creative fulll-
Kellie, Lisa ment (as Tillie Olsen so movingly documented in the famous
Silences, published in 1965). Jones also, echoing the theme of her
Perhaps Hettie Jones chief distinction as a writer is as the title, describes her unremitting journey from a middle-class Jew-
author of a superbly written autobiography, How I Became Hettie ish childhood in suburban New Jersey through her marriage to the
Jones (1990), which, in chronicling her own story, also gives a self-realization that nally culminated in the autobiography.
discerning and loving portrait of LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka). Throughout she is nonjudgmental of all the others whom she
This book describes the lively bohemian artistic life in Greenwich loved-her parents, her husband, her mostly unorthodox friends-all
Village during the 1950s, when writers Allan Ginsberg, Jack the while she is seeking to dene the self she always instinctively
Kerouac, Frank OHara, Joel Oppenheimer, and artists and musi- recognized but came to terms with only after heartbreak and
cians were friends and cohorts, and portrays the conict of difculty. Her writing is beautifully simple, though intense
Baraka, especially, and for herself as the Black Power movement and moving.
escalated in the 1960s. In addition, however, Jones is also an
Assessing what happened with her father and her husband,
acclaimed and prizewinning writer of books for children.
Jones wrote: Both these men, Cohen then Jones, rst loved me
She earned a B.A. from the University of Virginia (1955), for myself, and then discarded me when that self no longer t their
attended Columbia University (1955-56), and has lived since in daughter/wife image. If I hadnt been myself all along I might
New York City. She began her career as a staff writer for the have been left next to nothing. Still, while they loved me they
Columbia University Press Center for Mass Communication, sometimes saw in me more than I did, and for those times I
then became subscription manager for the Record Changer, a jazz owe them.
magazine. When this journal met nancial difculties, Jones
Later, years after her divorce, she encountered an old ac-
answered a New York Times advertisement from the Partisan
quaintance who obviously recognized her but could not quite
Review and eventually became its managing editor.
place who she was. She wrote: He wanted to recognize
As the Beat poets-Beat generation gained status and me. . .though it was hard to get past my intent withdrawal. . . .Are
celebrity, Jones and her husband founded a new journal, partly to you. . . he asked, and I waited, caught. Are you still. . . he tried
showcase the writing and visual art of the Beat circle. Yugen, the again. . . .He was searching out a name for me and rejecting all the
magazine, debuted in spring 1958, followed soon by Totem Press, choices. Is she Cohen? No, she was Jones. Is she yet that, or is the
285
JONES AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
name removed like the man from whom she got it?. . .But then he rst Pan American Labor Conference in 1921. Before she died,
came out with it, what hed decided to askand it was a smash! shortly after claiming her 100th birthday, Jones had attained the
Are you still. . .Hettie? he said. By all means, I said laughing. status of labors guardian angel, able to unify workers with ery
By all means. rhetoric emphasizing principles that transcended union politics.
Jones was primarily an activist and orator; her recorded
OTHER WORKS: Aliens at the Border: The Writing Workshop, speeches and testimony before Congressional committees reveal
Bedford Hills Correctional Facility (edited and with an introduc- the power of her unminced words and orid metaphors. Her
tion by Hettie Jones, 1997). Coyote Tales (1974). Drive (1998). writings retain an oratorical quality; compelling calls to action,
Grace the Table: Stories and Recipes from My Southern Revival memories of earlier struggles, denunciations of capitalist ogres,
(by Alexander Smalls with Hettie Jones, 1997). How to Eat Your and forthright statements of principle are loosely organized and
ABCs: A Book about Vitamins (1976). I Hate to Talk about Your dramatically presented.
Mother (1980). Jones articles in the International Socialist Review paint a
horrifying picture of life in Southern mills and coal mines, and
denounce church and legislative complicity supporting such con-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Authors of Books for Young People (1979). Belle ditions. Child labor aroused her maternal wrath; she warns of its
Lettres (Summer 1990). Booklist (15 Jan. 1990, 15 Feb. 1995). CA dire consequences for the health of the children and the nation.
81-84 (1979). Essence (May 1994). LJ (15 Feb. 1990, Mar. 1995). Although she calls for the replacement of oppressive capitalism
Native Peoples (Spring 1994). New Directions for Women (Sept. with socialism, her articles lack any theoretical strategies for
1990). New York (4 June 1990). NYTBR (11 Mar. 1990, 21 July social reconstruction.
1991). Review of Contemporary Fiction (Fall 1990). SATA 27, 42
(1982, 1986). In her Autobiography of Mother Jones (1925, edited by M. F.
Parton), Jones elaborates upon these themes, while presenting
JOANNE L. SCHWEIK herself as the tireless, roving champion of the oppressed, conven-
iently disguised as an old woman more readily suspected of
knitting mittens for the heathens of Africa than fomenting
workers revolts. Although disorganized and inaccurate in details
and chronology, Jones provides readers with graphic personal
JONES, Mary Harris reminiscences of most major labor upheavals of her era and
reveals her genius for dramatic strategies to publicize her cause.
Born 1 May circa 1830, Cork, Ireland; died 30 November 1930,
Silver Spring, Maryland Jones class consciousness is paramount in her autobiogra-
Wrote under: Mother Jones phy and explains her negative evaluations of prohibition and
Daughter of Richard and Helen M. Harris; married George woman suffrage. Although a feminist in her personal assertive-
Jones, 1861 (died 1867) ness, her denunciation of the lady, and her insistence that the
militancy of miners wives determines a strikes success, Jones
criticizes the concept of careers for women. She sees factory
A descendant of Irish freedom ghters, Mary Harris Jones
work, the career open to women of her class, as less satisfying than
attended public schools in Toronto, where her father had found
raising a family and states as her ultimate goal a society that
railroad work. Her early career alternated between teaching and
provides amply for family welfare. Espousing no consistent
dressmaking in the U.S. and Canada. In 1867 her husband (an iron theoretical dogma, she chooses her stands on all issues according
molder and union organizer) and four children perished in a to her convictions.
yellow fever epidemic, and Jones began a new life as a Chicago
dressmaker. Tragedy again intervened: the Chicago Fire de- Selessly eschewing nancial rewards for her work, Jones,
stroyed her business in 1871. in her autobiography, criticizes those union leaders who enrich
themselves in the cause. She does not similarly reject the rewards
Jones lifework arose from the ashes when she became of notoriety; seeing herself as an agitator in the tradition of Jesus
involved with the Knights of Labor. Her career as union gady, and the American heroes of 1776, she takes pride in her designa-
wandering wherever workers needed organizing, renewed com- tion by her foes as the most dangerous woman in the country.
mitment, or publicity, began with a Pittsburgh railroad strike in
1877. Jones expended her greatest efforts on behalf of miners, Jones provides us with one of the foremost American exam-
particularly in the bitter struggles in West Virginia and Ludlow, ples of the worldwide phenomenon of the power of postmenopausal
Colorado, where she was jailed for her organizing work. She also women, who, exempt from the demands of childbearing, use
exposed abusive child labor, conducting undercover investiga- maternal qualities in a new leadership role. Her importance as a
tions in Southern mills and organizing a march of child strikers. union organizer and reputation as indomitable unionism personi-
ed have been undeservedly forgotten. Joness autobiography
She helped establish the radical labor publication An Appeal forces us to remember her and her philosophy, womens activity
to Reason in 1895 and the Industrial Workers of the World in in the developing labor movement, and the relationship of class to
1905, supported the Mexican Revolution in 1910, and spoke at the feminism.
286
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS JONG
OTHER WORKS: Excerpt from The Autobiography of Mother Fear of Flying is about a womans discovery of her selfhood,
Jones in Motherland: Writings by Irish American Women About through discarding cultural stereotypes and accepting responsi-
Mothers and Daughters (1999). bility for dening herself, rst as a Jew, then as a womanwith
The papers of Mary Harris Jones are at the Department of all the vulnerability that this entailsand nally as a writer.
Manuscripts and Archives, Catholic University, Washington, D.C. Through strategically juxtaposed ashbacks, the rst half of the
novel provides the psychological motivations behind Isadoras
dilemma as she debates whether to leave her husband and go off
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ashby, R. and D. G. Ohrn, eds., Herstory: Women with another man. Although she feels restless and frustrated,
Who Changed the World (1995). Downing, C. A., An Examina- Isadora depends on her husband, as she always has depended on
tion of Rhetorical Strategies Utilized by Mary Harris Mother men for security. But Adrian, her new lover, awakens the part of
Jones Within the Context of the Agitative Rhetoric Model Devel- her that loves to be wanton and carefree and not feel guilty.
oped by John Waite Bowers and Donovan J. Ochs (dissertation,
In the second half of the novel, Isadora and Adrian begin an
1987). Felder, D. G., The 100 Most Inuential Women of All Time:
erratic odyssey across Europe, zigzagging their way from Vienna
A Ranking Past and Present (1996). Fetherling, D., Mother Jones,
to Paris. Away from time and social conventions, it becomes a
the Miners Angel (1974). Goldfarb, R. L., A Rhetorical Analy-
journey of self-discovery for Isadora, as she describes in rambling
sis of Selected Speeches of Mary Harris Mother Jones
conversations her past relationships with men. A pattern emerges:
(thesis, 1966). Mikeal, J. E., Mother Jones: The Labor Move-
she has allowed them to exploit her, and they have never proved
ments Impious Joan of Arc (thesis, 1965). Nies, J., Seven
satisfying both physically and emotionally. By the end of the
Women (1977). Raffaele, Sister J. F., Mary Harris Jones and the novel, abandoned by Adrian and waiting for her husband in his
United Mine Workers (thesis, 1969). Rolka, G. M., 100 Women London hotel room, she has come to realize she cant nd
Who Shaped World History (1994). Scholten, P. C., Militant fulllment through another person, but only through achieving
Women for Economic Justice: The Persuasion of Mary Harris her own authenticity as a human being. Most of the controversy
Jones, Ella Reeve Bloor, Rose Pastor Stokes, Rose Schneiderman, this novel stirred up focuses on its explicit sexuality. But such
and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (dissertation, 1986). Thompson, F., criticism overlooks its solid literary qualitiesits use of allusions
Introduction and Bibliography to The Autobiography of Mother and symbols, as well as other imagery, to underscore its theme; its
Jones (1976). Tonn, M. B., Effecting Labor Reform Through robust humor; and most of all its freshness, honesty, and abundant
Stories: The Narrative Rhetorical Style of Mary Harris (Moth- vitality.
er) Jones in Constructing and Reconstructing Gender: The
Links Among Communication, Language, and Gender (1992). How to Save Your Own Life (1977) picks up Isadoras story
Tonn, M. B., The Rhetorical Personae of Mary Harris Mother in New York, after she has written a bestselling novel and become
Jones, Industrial Labors Maternal Prophet (dissertation, 1989). even more estranged from her husband, and takes her through her
Truman, M., Women of Courage (1977). disenchantment with the Hollywood producer for whom she is
Reference works: DAB. Encyclopaedia of the Social Sci- writing a lm version of her novel to her decision to leave her
ences (1937). NCAB. NAW. husband and take up residence with Josh Ace, a struggling young
writer in Hollywood. Both the style and themes of How to Save
Other references: Labor Hall of Fame (1996). NR (20 Feb.
Your Own Life indicate Jongs strengthening command of the
1915). NYT Magazine (1 June 1913).
novel form. The second book relies less on wisecracks and has a
more lucid structure than the rst. Also, in dramatizing her
HELEN M. BANNAN
protagonists change from dependency to womanhood and her
rejection of self-destruction in favor of life, Jong breaks away
from traditional literary treatment of female characters by not
eroticizing pain or making her free woman pay for her sins.
JONG, Erica
Jong has also published several volumes of poetry. Fruits &
Vegetables (1971), which treats a variety of experiences, is most
Born 26 March 1942, New York, New York notable for its experiments in style, such as its botanical imagery
Daughter of Seymour and Eda Mirsky Mann; married Michael and the intermingling of prose and poetry. Half-Lives (1973) is
Werthman, 1963; Allen Jong, 1966; Jonathan Fast, 1977; more consistent in subject matter and tone. The main themes are a
Kenneth David Burrows, 1989; children: Miranda (Molly) womans sexual and emotional longings; the tone predominantly
wistful or angry. Loveroot (1975) announces a change in the
The second of three daughters, Erica Jong grew up on authors attitudea joyous embracing of life, with all of its pain
Manhattans Upper West Side. While an undergraduate English and uncertainty. These three volumes were highly praised and
major at Barnard, Jong was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and won won several awards. Here Comes & Other Poems (1975) is a
Woodrow Wilson and George Weldwood Murray fellowships, as compilation of previously published poems and essays. At the
well as the Academy of American Poets prize and other awards at Edge of the Body (1979) has received little critical attention;
Columbia. She earned an M.A. in 18th-century literature from however, it reects the authors deepening maturity. The quality
Columbia in 1965. Jong spent 1966-69 in Heidelberg, Germany. of Jongs reviews and articles about writing places her in the front
Her rst novel, Fear of Flying (1973), made her a celebrity. ranks of feminist literary critics. Jongs ction and poetry, with its
287
JONG AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
willingness to take risks and experiment, demonstrates continuing early unpublished poems, poems included in other prose works,
growth and self-condence. and more recent poems.
Jongs work since 1979 has been prolic and varied. The In the early 1990s, Jong added yet another genre to her
travels and travails of Isadora, heroine of Fear of Flying and How portfolio with Fear of Fifty: A Midlife Memoir (1994), an autobio-
to Save Your Own Life, are continued in Parachutes & Kisses graphical blend of personal history coupled with biting social
(1984) and Any Womans Blues (1990). The rst takes Isadora criticism. The book sheds additional light on Jongs earlier works
through the breakup of her marriage to Josh Ace, her recovery and reveals a broader picture of the author. She offers her insight
from the divorce, and rediscovery of loveall while raising her into the world of women while investigating her own roles as
toddler daughter. The next begins with the breakup of the love daughter, sister, wife, mother, writer, feminist, and Jew. Jong
affair begun at the end of the previous novel. Any Womans Blues classies her generation of women as the whiplash generation
diverges from its predecessors by continuing Isadoras saga from because of the roller coaster of changing expectations through
a one-step removed point of view. The novels conceit is that which theyve lived, and includes her thoughts on the past,
another author has organized and nished the semiautobiographical present, and future of feminism. Above all, though, the book is
novel Isadora had been working on shortly before her death. The hailed as honest and frank. Jong even addresses the disenchantment
authors voice now interacts with the character she bases on liberal feminists have felt with her previous work and argues that
herself. This structure reects Jongs new interest in experiment- women who insist on political correctness only foster separatism
ing with the borders between ction and reality. Fanny: Being the and sexism.
True History of the Adventures of Fanny Hackabout-Jones (1980)
Jongs following work, Inventing Memory: A Novel of Moth-
and Serenissima: A Novel of Venice (1987) represent her work in
ers and Daughters (1997), goes back to novel form with the story
this vein. The genesis of Fanny is Jongs imagined response to
of four generations of Jewish women struggling with the chal-
Clelands heroine in Fanny Hill; or, Memoirs of a Woman of
lenges of their time. The founding woman, Sarah, escapes Russia
Pleasure. Fanny responds by writing her own version of her life to
as a 15-year-old and makes her way to the U.S. to nd a better life.
reclaim it for herself. In this way, Jong confronts the issues not
She successfully navigates these trials and later bears a daughter,
addressed at the time, of incest, prostitution, and womans power-
Salome. Salome becomes a freewheeling writer and moves back
less position in society, and does so from within, by giving the
to Europe. She has a daughter, Sally, who grows up in the 1960s in
very source of Clelands novel a voice. In Serenissima (later
the U.S. and becomes a popular singer. Sally delves into the world
reissued as Shylocks Daughter: A Novel of Love in Venice in
of drug and alcohol abuse, and when she gives birth to a daughter,
1995), Jong continues to appropriate and rework older styles and
Sara, the father is soon granted permanent custody. This woman is
language. The heroine is an actress at a Venice lm festival who is
the nal generation featured, and pulls the story together in search
about to play Jessica in a new lm production of The Merchant of
of her heritage. The early characters in the novel, particularly
Venice. Becoming feverishly ill, she begins to hallucinate and
Sarah, are the most popular with critics. The story tends to drag,
dreams she is a Jew in Venice around Shakespeares timein
becoming more bogged down with each generational layer, and
fact, the very woman who will inspire Shakespeare to write The
most do not consider it one of Jongs best works. The topics she
Merchant of Venice. Accidents of fate bring her together with
deals with (Jewish immigration to America, challenges for female
Shakespeare and, naturally, adventures ensue. Jongs attempts to
artists, and womens spirituality), says one critic, are better
meld and confuse the border of time greatly test her readers
addressed in her autobiography.
suspension of disbelief. Serenissima could have used more of the
renement of Fanny in concept as well as structure; and the Jongs more recent work, What Do Women Want? Bread,
contrast between the critical and popular receptions of the two Roses, Sex, Power (1998), is a collection of her essays on a variety
novels reect these discrepancies. of topics. She deals with issues ranging from censorship to Bill
and Hillary Clinton to her second home in Italy. While the book
Jong has also ventured into two other genres: nonction and
doesnt answer the question posed in the title, the compilation is
childrens literature. Witches (with Joseph Smith, 1981), a book
almost like a conversation between Jong and the reader. Criticism
about witches and witchcraft, utilizes poetry and illustrationsin
of the book varies depending on the essay, but most agree that
addition to the expected proseto educate its readers. Clearly the
Jongs characteristic honesty once again shines through on eve-
result of much research, it even includes a few spells and rites one
ry topic.
might practice, if one dared. Megans Book of Divorce (1984),
a self-proclaimed kids book for adults, takes on divorce,
presumably from Jongs daughters point of view. The view, OTHER WORKS: The Devil at Large: Erica Jong on Henry
however, seems a little unrealistically rosy. The book was reissued in Miller (1993).
a less candid title in 1996 as Megans Two Houses: A Story of
Adjustment.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Packard, W., ed., The Craft of Poetry (1974).
Jong considers herself primarily a poet. She has published Reference works: CA (Online, 1999). Contemporary Po-
Ordinary Miracles (1983) and Becoming Light: Poems New and ets (1975).
Selected (1991). The rst covers the themes of motherhood and Other references: Booklist (19 July 1994). Boston Review
divorce, while the second is a comprehensive compilation, includ- (March 1992). Denver Quarterly (Winter 1983). Harpers Bazaar
ing poems from each of her previous collections as well as some (May 1977). KR (1 May 1997). LAT (27 May 1979). LATBR (24
288
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS JORDAN
Nov. 1991). Nation (28 June 1971, 12 Jan. 1974). NR (2 Feb. In the fall of 1960, with the presidential campaign heating up,
1974). Newsweek (5 May 1975). NY (17 Dec. 1973). NYTBR (12 she went down to the local Kennedy-Johnson campaign headquar-
Aug. 1973, 5 June 1988). Novel (Winter 1987). ReadersNdex ters to volunteer her services. She started out licking stamps and
Online (6 Apr. 1999). University of Dayton Review (Winter stufng envelopes, and it was almost by accident that her greatest
1985-86). gift was discovered. One night there was a speech at a black
Web site: www.ericajong.com. church in the Fifth Ward. . .and the speaker who usually gave the
pitch was sick and couldnt show up. I was selected to do the pitch,
VIRGINIA COX, and I was startled with the impact I had on people. Jordans days
UPDATED BY GINA BIANCAROSA AND CARRIE SNYDER of stufng envelopes ended and she was assigned to the speaking
circuit.
Once on the speaking circuit, rallying mostly African-Ameri-
JORDAN, Barbara C. can groups, Jordan came to be noticed by some of Houstons most
prominent black citizens. And by the time the Kennedy-Johnson
Born 21 February 1936, Houston, Texas; died 17 January 1996, campaign ended successfully, Jordan was bitten by the political
Austin, Texas bug. She recalled, My interest, which had been latent, was
Daughter of Benjamin M. and Arlyne Patten Jordan sparked. I think it had always been there, but that I did not focus on
it before because there were certain things I had to get out of the
Congresswoman, orator, educator, and author Barbara Jor- way before I could concentrate on any political effort.
dan rst came to national attention as a member of the House During the early 1960s Jordan campaigned twice on her own
Judiciary Committee charged with determining impeachment behalf for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives, but lost
proceedings against then President Richard M. Nixon for his both times. In 1966, however, she received 80 percent of the votes
connection with the break-in of the Democratic National Commit- cast in her successful bid for election to the Texas Senate. She
tee headquarters at Watergate Apartments. Jordan called for served from 1966 to 1972, initiating and supporting much social
impeachment on 25 July 1974. A fellow committee member, reform legislation. During her second term, she was directly
Charles B. Rangel, was quoted as saying in an article by Fran- responsible for two major changes in Texas law: the states rst
cis X. Clines in the New York Times, Barbara wasnt really that minimum wage law and the rst increase in benets in 12 years
concerned about the guilt or innocence of Nixon. She was most for workers injured on the job. The liberal Texas Observer called
concerned that the Constitution not be distorted for political the passage of the minimum wage by the Texas Legislature a
reasons. As a defender of the Constitution, Jordan dedicated near miracle.
herself to a career in public service.
Social issues remained a focus for Jordan after she was
Jordan was the great-granddaughter of Edward A. Patton of elected to the U.S. Congress. She backed proposals to increase the
Evergreen, Texas. He was the only black man among the 150 minimum wage, to extend social security benets to housewives,
members of the Texas Legislature in 1891. A Republican, he was to provide free legal services for the indigent, and to expand
one of the despised holdovers from what whites called the nigger existing programs to benet the aged and ill. Jordans reputation
party of the radical reconstruction of the Southern states after the for inspired oratory was conrmed in 1976 with her keynote
Civil War. Like her great-grandfather, Jordan embodied rst address to the Democratic National Convention, when she was the
and only when she became the rst black female state senator rst woman and the rst African American to serve as party
in Texas history. Elected from District 11 in Houston, Jordan was
keynoter. In her oft-quoted remarks, she proclaimed, We cannot
sworn in on 10 January 1967.
improve on the system of government handed down to us by the
Jordan was raised in a cocoon of respectability in the heart of founders of the Republic, but we can nd new ways to implement
Houstons Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church. She attended that system and realize our destiny. She went on to issue a call
Roberson Elementary and Phyllis Wheatley High School, where for a national community with everyone sharing in the
she was a member of the Honor Society and excelled in debating. American dream. Jordan was reelected to the House and contin-
She graduated in 1952 in the upper ve percent of her class, then ued to serve her constituents from the 18th District in Texas
attended Texas Southern University, graduating magna cum laude through 1978, when she retired from Congress after serving three
in 1956 with a double major in political science and history. Her terms as a representative.
law degree came from Boston University in 1959.
She explained her decision to leave politics in her autobiogra-
Houston was booming when Jordan returned in the fall of phy, Barbara Jordan: A Self-Portrait (1979): I felt more of a
1959. It was hard for her to believe, but Houstons phenomenal responsibility to the country as a whole, as contrasted with the
population growth in the 1950s made it a larger city than Boston. duty of representing the half-million people in the Eighteenth
When Jordan passed the Texas bar exam in the late fall of 1959, Congressional District. I felt some necessity to address national
she was only the third female African-American attorney licensed issues. I thought my role now was to be one of the voices in the
to practice law in Texas. Little by little, Jordan began to build a country dening where we were, where we were going, what the
law practice: she used her parents dining room table and the policies were that were being pursued, and where the holes in
family telephone to conduct her law business. those policies were. She therefore accepted a teaching post at the
289
JORDAN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of was exposed to the scriptural concept of the Word and the
Texas at Austin. congregations belief that by declaring the truth, you create
the truth.
In an interview published in Ms. in 1985, Jordan spoke about
her career as an educator: Now that I am teaching I think my Mildred also conded to her daughter that she had once
future is in seeing to it that the next generation is ready to take wanted to be an artist. In the Reid Lecture at Barnard College in
over. Until her death in 1996, Jordan committed her formidable 1975, and later in the introduction to Civil Wars (1981), Jordan
talents and skills to her students. She wanted her students to be the honored the wish to be an artist as an inheritance from her mother
premier public servants and guided by a core of principles. Jordan and recognized the extent of her mothers sacrice in giving up
taught the way she legislated, with courage, tenacity, vision, and not only her calling but also her very life when she committed
compassion. In 1996, 131 years after the end of slavery, 30 years suicide in 1966.
after she entered the Texas Senate, and 24 years after she became
the rst African-American woman elected to Congress from the After spending her childhood in a black environment, Jordan
South, Barbara Jordan became the rst black person to be buried began her secondary education with a commute of one hour and
in the State Cemetery in Austin, Texas. twenty minutes to Midwood High School, where she was the only
African-American in a student body of 3,000. The following year
she went to Northeld School for Girls, a prep school in Massa-
OTHER WORKS: Local Government Election Systems (1984). chusetts, and found herself once again in a white universe. When
she entered Barnard College in 1953, the pattern continued with a
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bryant, I. B., Barbara Charline Jordan: From the program centered around only those thinkers and artists who were
Ghetto to the Capitol (1977). Rogers, M. B., Barbara Jordan: white and male. She drew upon her experiences as a studentand
American Hero (1998). also upon her experiences as an educator in such projects as The
Reference works: Black Women in America (1993). CA Voice of the Children workshop in the mid-1960sto formulate
(1988, 1996). her ideas about the promotion of Black English and African-
American art, and the inclusion of women along with men as
CELESTE DEROCHE subjects of study in school.
During her sophomore year at Barnard, she met Michael
Meyer, a white student in his senior year at Columbia University.
JORDAN, June (M.) They married in 1955 and had a son, Christopher David, in 1958.
At the time, interracial marriage was a felony in 43 states, and they
often found themselves the object of insults and slurs. The
Born 9 July 1936, New York, New York situation within the larger society, part of which was the strife
Daughter of Granville Ivanhoe and Mildred Maude Fisher Jor- during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, put enormous
dan; married Michael Meyer, 1955 (divorced 1965); child- stress on their relationship, and the marriage ended in 1965.
ren: Christopher
As a single parent, Jordan supported herself and her son
Prolic and expansive in her interests and subject matter, initially through freelance journalism, a eld in which she has
June Jordan works in a variety of literary forms including poetry, continued to be active as a columnist for The Progressive since
essays, drama, ction, and childrens literature. She combines 1989. Her long and varied career as a teacher began in 1967 with a
writing with her roles as political activist, teacher, composer, and position at the City College of New York. She subsequently
urban planner. Her parents, Granville and Mildred Jordan, emi- taught at Sarah Lawrence College and Yale University, and from
grated from Jamaica to New York City, where Jordan, their only 1978 to 1989 at the State University of New York at Stony Brook,
child, was born on 9 July 1936 in Harlem. When she was ve, the where she also directed the Poetry Center and Creative Writing
family moved to a brownstone on Hancock Street in the Bedford- Program. In 1986 she was the Chancellors Distinguished Lectur-
Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, and it was there she began er at the University of California at Berkeley and joined the
writing poetry at the age of seven. faculty at Berkeley in 1989 as Professor of Afro-American
Studies and Womens Studies.
Her parents were working people who struggled to make
ends meet, and both eventually went on the night shift to earn a Her rst book, Who Look At Me, appeared in 1969, and since
little more pay, her father as a postal clerk and her mother as a then there has been a steady stream of work that includes theater
nurse. The many difculties of trying to survive took a toll on the and performance pieces and books for young people and major
family, and Jordan has written that her parents strictness and her collections of poems and essays. Written in Black English, her
fathers excessive use of physical punishment caused her a great novel His Own Where (1971) reects her interest in urban
deal of suffering and anger. Nevertheless, she has acknowledged planning and her collaboration with R. Buckminster Fuller in
her love for them and her gratitude for a home where poetry and rethinking the design of Harlem to foster black life. It was the
the creative spirit were a part of everyday life. Her father intro- basis for her winning the Prix de Rome in environmental design
duced her to the Bible, Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, and the (1970-71), for which Fuller had recommended her. From the
dialect poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar. Her mother took her at an beginning, Jordans work has fused poetic expression and politi-
early age to services at the Universal Truth Center, where Jordan cal statement as she balances her moral outrage with her belief in
290
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS JORDAN
love and the transformative power of language. In recent years her producing plays, novels, a long list of stories in popular maga-
concerns have become increasingly international in scope. She zines, and one childrens book, The Happifats and the Grouch
has addressed issues in such countries as Angola, Lebanon, and (1917). A world traveler, Jordan lived for long periods in England
Nicaragua. She was presented the PEN Freedom-to-Write award and France, joining writers clubs in London and New York. After
in 1991 and the decade has seen a rich output of her political her husband died, Jordan, failing in health and unable to nish the
thinking in the collections Technical Difculties: African-Ameri- novel she had been working on, committed suicide by tak-
can Notes on the State of the Union (1992) and Afrmative Acts: ing poison.
Political Essays (1998).
In A Circle in the Sand (1898), Anne Garrick is a talented
woman determined to succeed as a journalist and novelist. Her
OTHER WORKS: Some Changes (1971). Dry Victories (1972). romantic life is less smooth than her professional life, but she
Fannie Lou Hamer (1972). New Days: Poems of Exile and Return ultimately turns down the man she once wanted to marry (who had
(1974). New Life: New Room (1975). Things that I Do in the Dark: fallen for her scheming cousin) and rushes to Brazil to join his
Selected Poetry (1977). Passion: New Poems, 1977-1980 (1980). half-brother, redeemed from a dissolute life by her faith in him. A
Kimakos Story (1981). Living Room: New Poems (1985). On Circle in the Sand comments on current feminism when Anne
Call: Political Essays (1985). Lyrical Campaigns: Selected Po- insists that she is not the new woman, whom she hates, but the
ems (1989). Moving Towards Home: Political Essays (1989). awakened woman, who wants progress but believes that
Naming Our Destiny: New and Selected Poems (1989). Haruko/ marrying the man she loves. . .is the culmination of the purpose
Love Poems (1994). I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw for which she was created. Despite melodramatic use of coinci-
the Sky: the Libretto and Lyrics (1995). Kissing God Goodbye: dences, Jordan holds her reader with well-drawn scenes, skillfully
poems 1991-97 (1997). created characters, and just enough suspense.
Much of Jordans work involves vast swings of fortune and
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bowles, J., ed., In the Memory and Spirit of other ctional staples. In The Next Corner (1921), Jordan devel-
Frances, Zora, and Lorraine: Essays and Interviews on Black ops character more fully than in some of her other work and
Women and Writing (1979). Davenport, D., Four Contemporary produces ne local color, but the plot, though engrossing, is full of
Black Women Poets: Lucille Clifton, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, marvelous coincidence. It includes murder just before an elope-
and Sherley Ann Williams (dissertation, 1985). Smith, V., ed., ment, the devastating effect of war on the wifes attempt at
African American Writers (1991). self-support, and her life of dread while awaiting a mysteriously
Reference works: CANR (1989). Contemporary Poets (1991). overdue letter.
CLC (1976, 1979, 1983). DLB (1985).
Jordans plays were less successful than her novels. Theatre
Other references: African American Review (Fall 1998).
mgazine considered The Masked Woman (1922) well construct-
Callaloo 9 (Winter 1986). DAI (Jan. 1987). Essence (April 1981).
ed. . .save for long and tedious portions of conversation, but Life
Feminist Review 31 (Spring 1989). High Plains Literary Rev.
felt it might just as well never have been brought out. Among
(Fall 1988).
her popular plays, apparently unpublished, were A Luncheon at
MARLENE M. MILLER
Nicks (1903), The Pompadours Protg (1903), and The Right
Road (1911).
The plots of Jordans novels and stories are melodramatic
and manipulative but enhanced by deft characterization, convinc-
JORDAN, Kate ing psychological development, and good dramatic sense. The
Boston Transcript gracefully described her in 1921 as a born
Born 23 December 1862, Dublin, Ireland; died 20 June 1926, storyteller who can touch the veriest trie and turn it out, not a joy
Mountain Lakes, New Jersey forever, but a pleasure in the moment. This summary is still valid.
Daughter of Michael J. and Katherine Jordan; married Freder-
ic M. Vermilye, 1897
OTHER WORKS: The Kiss of Gold (1892). The Other House
(1892). Time, the Comedian (1905). The Creeping Tides (1913).
Kate Jordan came to New York from Dublin at the age of
Against the Winds (1919). Trouble-the-House (1921).
three, when her professor father accepted a position at an Ameri-
can college. Always imaginative, she told classmates she was
born on the high seas in a pirate ship, causing her teacher to warn BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: DAB.
Jordans mother that either she will one day write ction or she Other references: Bookman (June 1913).
is one of those natural liars to whom truth is unattractive.
Jordans father so successfully converted her to ction that her CAROL B. GARTNER
rst story was published when she was twelve.
Stories like the popular The Kiss of Gold (1892) brought
Jordan recognition as a short story writer. After her marriage to a JORDAN, Laura
New York broker, she continued writing under her own name, See BROWN, Sandra
291
JUDSON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
JUDSON, Emily Chubbuck The third phase of Judsons career began when she left the
imaginary world of Alderbrook and entered into missionary life,
marrying the Reverend Adoniram Judson, who was nearly 30
Born 22 August 1817, Eaton, New York; died 1 June 1854,
years her senior, and going to Burma with him and three of his
Hamilton, New York
children from his second marriage. In this phase, she published a
Wrote under: Emily Chubbuck, Fanny Forester, Mrs. Emily Judson
Memoir of Sarah B. Judson (1849, reissued several times, includ-
Daughter of Charles and Lavinia Richards Chubbuck; married
ing 1980), her husbands second wife. This volume by its popu-
Adoniram Judson, 1846; children: three
larity furthered the cause of the missionaries. Printed in both
London and New York, it was reprinted several times for a total of
Emily Chubbuck Judsons self-taught skills enabled her to
over 30,000 copies. Less popular, The Kathayan Slave (1853) is a
teach in local schools from 1832 to 1840. Enrolled at the Utica
defense of missionary activity and maintains that the barbarism of
Female Seminary for one year, she remained there as a teacher of
the natives of Burma and India can only be alleviated through
English composition from 1841 to 1846. She rose from poverty
Christianity.
eventually to nd fame and wealth with her early childrens
books. With the income from those books, she was able to buy her It is clear from The Kathayan Slave that Adoniram Judsons
family a home and to make their lives comfortable. Judsons short pioneering efforts in missionary work were not always supported
life span of 36 years was a full and varied one. Her writing career by his contemporaries; their attacks after his death in 1850
divides into three clearly dened phases; in each she wrote under a prompted Judsons defense. Although she never became a legend-
different name. ary heroine on the order of Ann Hasseltine Judson, Adoniram
Publishing under the name Emily Chubbuck, Judson wrote Judsons rst wife, or of Sarah Boardman Judson, his second, she
several successful childrens books between 1841 and 1844. Like did much to further their fame and to support, by her writing, the
other mid-19th-century writers, Judson writes consciously as an work of her husband after his death.
American and as a republican. Her ction is for young
Her life and work indicate some of the tensions and contra-
Americans, and all the stories are heavily moralistic and didactic.
dictions inherent in mid-19th-century America, its commercial-
For example, the stories in Charles Linn; or, How to Observe the
ism and also its idealism. Perhaps these tensions led her to frame
Golden Rule (1841) have the theme of self-sacrice. In The
her literary answer to them by assuming three different identities.
Selsh Girl, Julia has to cripple her schoolmate Sally before she
These three different literary personalities, the didactic Emily
realizes how selsh she is. Sally is, however, even improved by
Chubbuck, the frivolous and charming Fanny Forester, and the
her accident; her brother thought his sweet sister could scarcely
be as lovely if she were not a cripple. The Mothers Story defensive Mrs. Emily Judson, need not coalesce into one person-
describes a vain little girl who has to contract smallpox to be ality, although the prevailing opinion is that identity is such a
taught humility. synthesis. In some writers the paradoxes of their cultures cause
them to produce ambiguous and morally contradictory works. In
Publishing under the name of Fanny Forester, Judson wrote others these same paradoxes produce moral absolutism in the
stories with a completely different tone, changing from the writing and ambiguity in the identity of the writer herself. Judson
previously moral tone to one of irony and fancy. The sketches was such a writer.
gathered into Trippings in Author-Land (1846) reveal a writer
enjoying the world she was creating and perhaps enjoying the
recreation of herself as Fanny Forester, a character in that world. OTHER WORKS: The Great Secret; or, How to Be Happy (1842).
Two more volumes continued to construct the village of Alderbrook, Allen Lucas: The Self-Made Man (1843). John Frink; or, The
Lilias Fane, and Other Tales (1846) and Alderbrook (1846), Third Commandment Illustrated (1844). How to Be Great, Good,
which contained some of the same tales from Lilias Fane. and Happy (1848). A Mound is in the Graveyard (ca. 1851). An
Simplicity and unpretentiousness is praised; village life is Olio of Domestic Verses (1852). My Two Sisters (1854).
uncomplicated and contains a community unknown to the larger,
sprawling urban scene.
Fanny Forester returned several times to the character Ida BIBLIOGRAPHY: Douglas, A., The Feminization of American Cul-
Ravelin, a genius, a poet, an angel (all synonyms in these stories), ture (1977). Hartley, C. B., The Three Mrs. Judsons: The Cele-
as she created her vision of the poet who is not like them but brated Female Missionaries (reissue, 1980). Kendrick, A. C., The
who can live completely in the ideal. By the time a revised edition Life and Letters of Mrs. E. C. Judson (1860). Pattee, F., The
(1847) of Alderbrook was published, Judson wished to suppress Feminine Fifties (1940). Stuart, A. W., The Lives of Mrs. Ann H.
Ida Ravelin and substitute Angels Pilgrimage, a very different Judson and Mrs. Sarah B. Judson, with a Biographical Sketch of
story of human greed, murder, and cruelty, in which the angels try Mrs. E. C. Judson (1851). Wyeth, W. N., Emily C. Judson: A
to change the world by continuing the holy mission begun by their Memorial (1980).
prototype, Christ. The work published under Fanny Forester Reference works: AA. CAL. DAB. FPA. NAW (1971). NCAB.
continued to bring Judson money and fame. Alderbrook went
through at least 11 editions. JULIANN E. FLEENOR
292
K
KAEL, Pauline biography. A storm of controversy followed her attack upon the
long-standing legend of Orson Welles as the animating genius
behind the lm.
Born 19 June 1919, Petaluma, California
Daughter of Isaac P. and Judith Friedman Kael; children: Gina Concerned that movies should be a great popular democrat-
ic art form, of social and mythic as well as aesthetic interest,
Pauline Kael grew up in California and attended the Univer- Kaels authority as the Great Pop Critic is the hallmark of her
sity of California at Berkeley, majoring in philosophy. She began leadership of a eld which has rapidly become the newest
her critical career as a freelance lm reviewer for various month- preserve of hip intellectual snobbery, pretentiousness, and a new
lies, along with experimental lmmaking and playwrighting. Her wave of cultural elitism. In an age of the popular arts of the mass
work appeared in the San Francisco City Lights, Sight and Sound, media, it is tting that, as the leading critic of lm, Kael should
Partisan Review, Kulchur, Film Culture, and Moviegoer, with a
have command of both the strictly aesthetic vision and a wider,
regular series in Film Quarterly. She was manager of the Berkeley
holistic, and interdisciplinary vision of lm. She offers a promis-
Cinema Theatres through the early 1960s, inaugurating one of the
ing model, a synthesis of the elite and the popular, for the study of
rst programs of lm revivals, which featured W. C. Fields, Mae
contemporary life.
West, and the Busby Berkeley musicals, supplying her own
program notes. Kael was also a frequent lecturer on lm at various It is unlikely that anyone in the world has reviewed more
California universities. She has received a Guggenheim fellow- movies than Pauline Kael, William Shawn noted. The
ship (1964), and several awards (a National Book Award, the San quintessential movie lover retired in 1991 at the age of seven-
Francisco International Film Festivals Mel Novikoff Award, the ty-one after a long and distinguished career. Kaels announcement
Newswomens Club of New York Front Page Award, and others), she would be leaving the New Yorker after 24 years as its lm
as well as eight honorary doctorates from colleges and universities critic was a shock to the movie industry.
across the nation.
Kael raised expectations for criticism as well as moviemaking.
With her rst collection of reviews, the best-selling I Lost It
She was the primary advocate of the cinematic pleasure princi-
at the Movies (1965), Kael began her rapid ascendancy to dean of
ple, as she called it, and she truly believed that moviegoers
American lm critics, her reputation already well on its way in
should not settle for mediocrity. Her reviews bashed the Holly-
lm circles. Film critic for McCalls (1965-66) and New Republic
(1966-67), she soon found a more prominent association with the wood cloning process where lmmakers try to sell the same
New Yorker. lm over and over again under a different title.
Kael is indisputably the most inuential and innovative lm In the 1970s, many lms had risen to Kaels heightened
critic of the 1960s and 1970s, one of the new breed of lm critics expectations of them. She praised bright young innovators such as
led by a contingent of articulate women writers, which emerged Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola in her book of collect-
with the coming of age of lm as an intellectual as well as popular ed reviews, When the Lights Go Down (1980), as directors who
art form. From the beginning of her writing career, she was hailed werent afraid to excite your senses. If the 1970s proved anyone
as one of the most articulate and sensible in the eld, although was listening to Kael, the 1980s seemed to prove no one was
some fellow critics dissent. Her witty, candid, caustic, and opin- listening but everyone was making money.
ionated style and encyclopedic knowledge of lm history and of
the lm industry as a social institution gave her work immediate Kaels reviews during the 1980s responded to the lm
appeal and authority and served as a dominant model for the standards of the decade. She criticized Hollywood for trying no
succeeding generation of young critics. bold undertakings, instead producing only cheap imitations of old
clichs with overexposed actors regurgitating mass-produced
In her embrace of movies as part of popular culture, rather messages. Four books assembling her 1980s reviews reect her
than as a rareed cult of ne lm, Kaels opinions are often at disgust, while noting the occasional successes. Taking It All In
odds with those of more conservative reviewers working out of (1984) and State of the Art (1985) cover the early 1980s. Hooked
the tradition of drama criticism. Her very personal approach to (1989) includes reviews from 1985 to 1988, a period occasioning
lmas a dynamic between art and audiencedisturbs those some of her most congratulatory comments. In the authors note,
who consider the art a more objective matter of aesthetic standards. she comments that the lms began rather lamely, and then
The Citizen Kane Book (1971) is perhaps her crowning suddenly theres one marvelous movie after another, citing as
achievement. In this intensive case study, the depths of her examples Blue Velvet and The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
historical and analytical powers are shown to greatly exceed the Movie Love (1991), incorporating her reviews from the late 1980s
conventional limits of lm criticism. Here her style, a compound to her retirement, contains only a few complimentary reviews and
of what one critic recognized as journalism, biography, autobi- many examples of her distaste for the lms of the 1980s. Although
ography, gossip, and criticism, created a new model of lm she was criticized for overbashing the popular lm about Native
293
KEITH AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Americans, Dances with Wolves, her response to it is a good KEITH, Agnes Newton
example of her attractive irreverence and intolerance for lms
made simply to be do-gooders.
Born 6 July 1901, Oak Park, Illinois; died March 1982
Although many viewers have disagreed with Kaels opin- Daughter of Joseph G. and Grace Goodwillie Newton; married
ions, her reviews have had an important impact on the way movies Henry G. Keith, 1934
are viewed. She has forced moviegoers to react instead of merely
to watch. Kaels contributions to the movie industry will continue Reared in California, Agnes Newton Keith graduated from
to affect both moviemakers and moviegoers. the University of California at Berkeley in 1924. Her brief career
For Keeps (1994, 1996) is a monumental anthology includ- with the San Francisco Examiner ended when she was brutally
ing the best of Kaels 10 volumes of reviews and essays published attacked by a frenzied drug addict. A prolonged incapacitation,
between 1965 and 1991. A compendium of arguably the best and including the loss of eyesight, followed. Surgery eventually
most thoughtful (if often irreverent and politically incorrect) restored her to health. Married to an English tropical forestry
criticism of a generation of lmmaking, Kael never fails to expert, she found the materials for her sensitive and evocative
approach lm as an art form to be dealt with on its own terms and books about Asia and Africa in their subsequent travels.
within its own framework. She causes readers to consider the From 1934 to 1952 the Keiths lived in North Borneo and four
manner in which movies interface with life, the culture at the time, books are based on this experience. Land Below the Wind (1939),
and the psyche of the populace. Kael has announced this is her last a brides sunny report on her Eden, examines the life of westerners
book because she is in her seventies and in failing health. in an outpost of Empire, describes her experiences there, and
In a 1998 interview with Newsweek reporter Ray Sawhill, characterizes her native friends. Like most of Keiths books, it is
seventy-eight-year-old Kael discussed the changes she has ob- illustrated by her own sketches. Three Came Home (1947) is the
served in the lm industry over the years. When asked what critics story of imprisonment by the Japanese during World War II. Keith
are guilty of, she remarked, We tend to exalt the works that and her young son were interned together, her husband in a
were emotionally and intellectually ready for and noted that neighboring camp. Despite its subject, the book is strangely
what appeals to the critic may not be what appeals to the audience. afrmative: she shows brutality and humanity in both jailers and
Regardless of the critics feelings, Kael says, Only a twerp prisoners, stressing that war, not race, has dehumanized them all.
would castigate an audience for its enjoyment of something. . . . Her depiction of the heroism of many prisoners and their Asian
The most a critic can do is to try to understand the audiences friends outside the camp is moving, and throughout she stresses
responsesand maybe enlarge them a teeny bit. the courage and endurance enabling them to bring all 34 interned
children through alive.
White Man Returns (1951) rounds off this series by showing

OTHER WORKS: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (1960). Going Steady
the return to North Borneo after the war; the beginning of the
(1970). Deeper into Movies (1973). Reeling (1976). 5001 Nights
process of rebuilding is central to this book. Similar to Land
at the Movies (1982, expanded, 1991).
Below the Wind in approach and structure, it lacks the happy
idealism of the rst book; the war experience had destroyed
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1974). CB (Mar. 1974). Keiths Eden. Much later came yet another work based on the
Other references: American Scholar (Winter 1989). Book Borneo years, this time a novel, Beloved Exiles (1972). Only
World (23 Feb. 1969). Boston Globe (8 Sept. 1991). Commentary loosely autobiographical, it is less successful than the nonc-
(April 1995). Kaleidoscope (Apr. 1989). Mirabella (Aug. 1992). tion works.
Newsweek (18 Mar. 1991, Summer 1998). New York (5 Aug.
Having retired from his governments service, Keiths hus-
1974, 14 July 1975). Post (11 May 1966). PW (24 May 1971, 22
band was, in 1953, prevailed upon to go to the Philippines for the
Aug. 1994). SR (Apr. 1973). Time (12 July 1968).
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Bare
Feet in the Palace (1955) resulted. Like her rst and third Borneo
MARGARET J. KING,
UPDATED BY SARAH E. MASON AND REBECCA C. CONDIT
books, it is a mixture of personal experiences, sketches of people,
and information about the society and its history. A central theme
is the creation of democracy in Asia; the title refers to the coming
of poor natives to the 200-year-old former palace of Spanish
governors, now the residence of a democratically elected president.
KAVANAUGH, Cynthia
See DANIELS, Dorothy Children of Allah (1966), Keiths only non-Asian book, tells
of their following assignment in Libya. Keith used her previously
successful formula here, and this work is particularly notable for
its studies of Libyan Moslem women in various stages of subser-
KEENE, Carolyn vience to and liberation from the veil and all that its wearing
See ADAMS, Harriet Stratemeyer implies.
294
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS KELLER
A more recent book, Before the Blossoms Fall (1975), must Kellers rst book was The Story of My Life (1902, several
be paired with Three Came Home, which had been widely reissues, including 1988), rst published serially by the Ladies
admired in Japan. In 1973 she was sent by the Japan Foundation Home Journal. The book contains, in addition to her early
on a six-week visit to Japan, the goal being to write something to autobiography, her letters from 1887 to 1901, passages from Anne
increase understanding between Japan and the U.S. Important Sullivans reports about Kellers education, and comments by
themes here are the young, the aged, and womens changing status John Albert Macy. Keller describes the terrible isolation of the
and attitudes. Like her other books, it is a perceptive and sympa- blind and deaf mute as a twofold solitude in which one can
thetic study, though Keith admits she is unable completely to know little of the. . .affections that grow out of endearing words
understand or trust these people, whom she nevertheless loves. and actions and companionship. She tells about an incident of
unconscious plagiarism, which happened in 1892, and about the
Throughout her career, and hinging on her imprisonment
fear that grew from this disgrace, saying even now I cannot
experience, Keiths attitude toward her Asian subjects altered
be quite sure of the boundary line between my ideas and those I
subtly. While she was always sympathetic and even admiring, the
earliest book also sometimes seems patronizing, and the idea of nd in books. I suppose that is because so many of my impres-
the white mans burden is not totally absent. The later books sions come to me through the medium of others eyes and ears.
reveal a truer sense of equality and a surer stress on the values of The Story of My Life is lively and interesting to read, and it
alien cultures, along with a more open admission of inability contributed signicantly to the body of knowledge about educat-
thoroughly to understand them. All of the works, however, are ing the deaf-blind.
both informative and absorbing. Midstream: My Later Life (1929) brings up to date the story
of this remarkable woman and her teacher. It also gives the reader
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1967). TCAS. a lively picture of life in America during the rst three decades of
Other references: Atlantic (March 1966). NYHTB (6 April this century. Keller recounts vividly a long visit in the early 1900s
1947, 5 Aug. 1951). NYTBR (12 Nov. 1939, 26 March 1972). SR with Mark Twain at his home. During the visit, she told Twain
(5 April 1947, 13 Dec. 1955). about her friend W. S. Booth having discovered that the
literature usually attributed to Shakespeare was actually written
MARY JEAN DEMARR by Francis Bacon. Twain was at rst skeptical, she says, but less
than a month later he brought out a new book attempting to
destroy the Shakespeare legend.
In Midstream, Keller seems to delight in using images of
KELLER, Helen (Adams) sight and sound, perhaps because some critics had questioned the
honesty of this aspect of her style. Surely she had experienced in
Born 27 June 1880, Tuscumbia, Alabama; died 1 June 1968, some physical way the scene she describes thus: Out of the big,
Westport, Connecticut red, gaping mouths of the furnaces leaped immense billows of
Also wrote under: Helen Adams Keller re. Such vivid sensory images enliven this entire book in a
Daughter of Arthur H. and Katherine Adams Keller degree that would be noteworthy even in a writer without handicaps.
Teacher: Anne Sullivan Macy (1955) is certainly, as the title
Helen Keller was nineteen months old when illness left her
page proclaims, a tribute by the foster-child of her mind. Keller
deaf and blind. She soon became wild and unmanageable, locked
inside a dark, silent world no humanizing inuence seemed able memorably describes the incredible difculties faced by Sullivan
to penetrate. In the 1890s almost no hope existed for educating in introducing Keller to language. Once the child discovered
people both deaf and blind, but Kellers parents turned to the things have names, her education proceeded with astonishing
Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston for help. The institution rapidity. Sullivan is presented as a human being with more than
sent Anne Sullivan, a new graduate who had recently had her own her share of human problems and foibles, but when compared
sight partially restored, to educate the child to whatever extent with Kellers earlier clean, concrete writing, the book seems
proved possible. Undreamed of success followed, and Keller somewhat repetitious and sentimental. Her many other books
eventually, in 1904, earned a B.A. cum laude from Radcliffe include poetry (Double Blossoms, 1931) and social criticism
College. (Helen Keller, Her Socialist Years: Writings and Speeches, 1967).
But her best work is found in her autobiographical books.
Keller became friends with many of the worlds greatest
people, including Alexander Graham Bell, Mark Twain, William
Dean Howells, Charlie Chaplin, and Andrew Carnegie. At least OTHER WORKS: Optimism, an Essay (1903). The World I Live In
nine presidents received her, and a half dozen of the most (1908). The Song of the Stone Wall (1910). Out of the Dark:
prestigious universities in the world bestowed honorary degrees Essays, Letters, and Addresses on Physical and Social Vision
upon her. From 1924 until her death in 1968, Keller was associat- (1913). My Religion (1927). We Bereaved (1929). Peace at
ed with the American Foundation for the Blind, traveling to every Eventide (1932). Helen Keller in Scotland (edited by J. K. Love,
state in the U.S. and to every continent in the world, working to 1933). American Foundation for the Blind, 1923-1938: A Report
enlarge the possibilities for disabled people. from Helen Keller to the Blind People of America (1938). Journal,
295
KELLERMAN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
1936-1937 (1938). Let Us Have Faith (1940). Open Door (1957). woman whose introduction to the very secular world of crime
Light in My Darkness (1994). occurs in Kellermans rst mystery novel in the series, The Ritual
Bath (1986), which received a Macavity award for best rst novel.
Since the publication of The Ritual Bath, in which Rina Lazarus
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Barnett, G., Inspiration and Innovation: Helen (at this point in the developing saga, a young widow with two
Keller and the American Foundation for the Blind (1996). Benge, J., children) assists the police in their investigation of a brutal rape
Helen Keller: Facing Her Challenges, Challenging the World that takes place at the mikvah (the womens ritual bathhouse) in
(2000). Benjamin, A., Young Helen Keller: Woman of Courage the orthodox community in which she lives, Kellerman has
(1992). Braddy, N., Anne Sullivan Macy: The Story Behind Helen published nine sequential mysteries involving Decker and Laza-
Keller (1933). Brooks, V. W., Helen Keller: Sketch for a Portrait rus: Sacred and Profane (1987), Milk and Honey (1990), Day of
(1956). Cush, C., Women Who Achieved Greatness (1995). Einhorn, Atonement (1991), False Prophet (1992), Grievous Sin (1993),
L. J., Helen Keller, Public Speaker: Sightless but Seen, Deaf but Sanctuary (1994), Justice (1995), Prayer for the Dead (1996), and
Heard (1998). Felder, D. G., The 100 Most Inuential Women of Serpents Tooth (1997).
All Time: A Ranking Past and Present (1996). Gibson, W., The
Miracle Worker: A Play for Television (1957). Graff, S., and P. A. The narrative conceit and dramatic plots of Kellermans
Graff, Helen Keller: Toward the Light (1965). Harrity, R., and J. G. detective novels alone are compelling evidence of her mastery of
Martin, The Three Lives of Helen Keller (1962). Hedin, L., Voices the mystery genre. Most of the action takes place in Los Angeles
of Light and Grace: Reections on the Lifework of Helen Keller or the surrounding areas (although she does move out into New
and Anne Sullivan Macy (1991). Herrmann, D., Helen Keller: A York and Israel for an occasional foray), and the situations she
Life (2nd edition, 1999). Hickok, L. A., The Touch of Magic describes are timely. In fact, Kellerman captures the drama of
(1961). Hunter, N., Helen Keller (1985). Klages, M. K., More American life in the latter part of the 20th century with a
Wonderful Than Any Fiction: The Representation of Helen recognizable and often chilling intensity and accuracy. The impe-
Keller (thesis, 1989). Logue, M., Trust: The Story of Helen tus for the central action of each novel always stems from the
Keller (1999). Macdonald, F., Helen Keller: The Deaf and Blind American scene, from family dramas, to the moral vacuity and
Woman Who Conquered Her Disabilities and Devoted Her Life to despair and desperate acts that both dene and reect American
Campaign for Other People (1992). Markham, L., Helen Keller culture: domestic violence, women targeted by uncontrollable
(1993). Morgan, N., Helen Keller (reissue, 1995). Nicholson, L., rage, children as victims of neglect and abuse, gang aflia-
Helen Keller: Humanitarian (1998). Peare, C. O., The Helen tion, drugs, gratuitous sex, an ever-growing wayward sense
Keller Story (1959, 1992). Polcovar, J., Helen Keller (1988). of hopelessness, unanchored lives, the pathologies of our age.
Rolka, G. M., 100 Women Who Shaped World History (1994). The dialogue that unleashes the action in her novels is terse,
Sabin, F., The Courage of Helen Keller (1998). Santrey, L., Helen uncompromised by the jargon that often impairs the movement of
Keller (1985). St. George, J., Dear Dr. BellYour Friend, Helen such typical crime scenarios that compete on the mystery-detec-
Keller (reissue, 1994). Sullivan, G., Helen Keller (2000). Tames, R., tive market.
Helen Keller (1991). Waite, H. E., Valiant Companions: Helen Kellermans plots are consistently realistic and at the same
Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy (1959). Wepman, D., Helen time unconventional. The unconventionality is created by a par-
Keller (1987). Woodhouse, J., Helen Keller (reissue, 1999). ticular aspect of Kellermans work that differentiates it from
Zonderman, J., Helen Keller & Annie Sullivan, Working Miracles others in the mystery genre and gives her work its idiosyncratic
Together (1984). appeal: while the central plot in all her work captures the drama of
Reference works: CB (Dec. 1942, July 1968). LSL. NCAB. life on the streets of Los Angeles and the police investigation that
Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). brings it to its close, each novel works through a secondary plot,
often a series of subplots involving the richly nuanced and
PEGGY SKAGGS complex life of the orthodox Jew attempting to maintain a life of
traditional Jewish values and rituals in the midst of an increasingly
secular world of contemporary America.
Kellermans work deftly and engagingly introduces the prac-
KELLERMAN, Faye tices, rituals, the very life of Orthodox Judaism into her ction.
And she does so framed within the evolving attraction, romance,
Born 1952, St. Louis, Missouri and marriage of her two main characters, Peter and Rina. Peter,
Daughter of Oscar and Anne Steinberg Marder; married Jona- raised a Baptist by his adoptive parents, in the rst novel of the
than Seth Kellerman, 1972; children: Jesse, Rachel, series is held off initially by Rina, who is forbidden by her
Ilana, Aliza religious principles from a romantic involvement with someone
outside the faith. The romantic tension is resolved when, in a
Faye Kellerman is best known for her mystery-detective subsequent novel, Peter discovers that his birth parents were
series involving the recurring characters Peter Decker and Rina Jewish, and so, by Jewish law, he too is Jewish. By the third novel
Lazarus. Decker, a Los Angeles Police Department detective, in the series, Milk and Honey, Peter embraces Orthodox Judaism
teams up, rst professionally and then romantically, with a most and ofcially converts. The two protagonists, in the novels that
unlikely crime-solving partner, Rina Lazarus, an orthodox Jewish follow, go on to marry and have a child of their own.
296
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS KELLEY
While such a narrative conceit might otherwise seem con- degree in languages from the University of Toronto, the nine-
trived, the plot too easily resolved in favor of the religious lessons teen-year-old Edith moved to New York and began working on
it purports, Kellerman handles the unfolding romantic mystery Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary project.
and her clear interest in maintaining and celebrating Jewish
culture and traditional values unobtrusively and smoothly. In 1906 Kelley became secretary to Upton Sinclair and part
Kellerman works into her novels a range of issues from interfaith of the staff at Helicon Hall, Sinclairs socialist commune (inspired
marriages and religious adherence to what it means to keep kosher by Charlotte Perkins Gilmans plans for municipal housing,
and study Talmud. Her novels themselves reect the revisions advanced in 1904). At the Hall, she met two other aspiring writers-
that Judaism has seen in contemporary America, such as the cum-janitors, Sinclair Lewis and Alan Updegraff. Both Sinclair
changing roles of women in Judaism and the ever-increasing and Updegraff (to whom she was engaged) remained lifelong
necessity for a balance between the constraints of the religious and correspondents. The marriage to Updegraff produced two child-
the freedom of the secular worlds. ren; Kelley apparently was primary breadwinner as a teacher in
the Hells Kitchen area of New York City. After her divorce, she
Kellerman achieves such a mingling of plots and subplots
became the common-law wife of Claude Fred Kelley. The Kelleys
because her protagonists as well as the minor characters who
pursued a series of mostly unprotable jobs from 1914 to 1945:
reoccur throughout the seriessuch as the two Lazarus children,
tenant tobacco farming in Kentucky; boardinghouse management
Deckers daughter from his rst marriage, his partner in the
in New Jersey; alfalfa and chicken ranching, and bootlegging in
LAPD, the rabbi who oversees their congregation, and others
are all so likable, all such complex and realistic characters. California. Thus unlike Sinclairs journalistic ction, Kelleys
Kellermans readers end up caring as much if not more about the novels reect her own experiences and observations as an eco-
fate of her characters as they do about the unfolding and resolution nomically depressed rancher.
of the crime investigation. Whodunit competes in Kellermans
In Weeds (1923, reissued 1972 and 1996), Judith Pipinger is
ction with the developing psychologies and relationships among
different from other members of her tenant tobacco farming
the characters who scrutinize and often stand at the margins of the
community in Kentucky because she is a throwback to purer
typically gruesome crimes she describesthus Kellerman broad-
pioneer stock, an exception to the usual results of inbreeding and
ens the genre of the mystery-detective novel.
poor nutrition. Her early repugnance to traditional female chores
Kellerman has written two other novels that depart from the and her preference for mans (outdoors) work isolate her from
Peter Decker-Rina Lazarus series: a historical romance, The the closely knit female subculture. This isolation is underlined by
Quality of Mercy (1988), set in England during the reign of imagery linking Judith with natural (as opposed to societal)
Elizabeth I, and Moon Music (1998), a novel mixing mystery with objects, and by a character double, Jabez Moorhouse, an
fantasy. Kellerman is married to the psychologist-writer Jonathan iconoclastic ddler who shares Judiths intuitive grasp of beauty
Kellerman, also the author of a popular detective series featuring and meaning in life. With her marriage and subsequent mother-
the psychologist-turned-sleuth, Alex Delaware. hood, Judith is trapped in the very role she has despised; when
Moorhouse dies, her death in spirit concludes the novel.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: St. James Guide to Crime and Encouraged by a monetary award from a civil liberties group,
Mystery Writers (1996). Kelley began work in 1925 on a second novel, a study of the
Other references: ANR 60. Atlanta Journal-Constitution (7 Imperial Valley in Southern California and the life it harbors.
July 1991, 13 Sept. 1992, 2 Nov. 1995, 29 Aug. 1996). Booklist From 1925 through 1929, Kelley wrote and revised as her
(15 Apr. 1990, 15 June 1991, 15 June 1992, July 1993, Aug. 1995, knowledge of California development and the International Workers
July 1996). Judaism 46 (Winter 1997).
of the World increased, but The Devils Hand was not published
until 1974, 18 years after her death (and reissued in 1982).
VICTORIA AARONS
Marriage proves to be a spiritual death for Rhoda Malone, an
acknowledgment of defeat closing The Devils Hand. Tempted by
her friend Kate Baxter to leave her passive and orderly life as an
KELLEY, Edith Summers ofce clerk in Philadelphia, Rhoda takes on a partnership with
Kate in a California alfalfa farm. Because Rhodas is the central
Born 1884, Ontario, Canada; died 1956, Los Gatos, California consciousness through which the story is told, focus is equally on
Also wrote under: Edith Summers what she sees and who she becomes. Her awareness of the
Married Allan Updegraff, 1908 (divorced); Claude F. Kelley, exploitation of people like herself, and the Hindu, Mexican, and
1915; children: two Oriental laborers, by rapacious realtors and big landowners gradu-
ally intensies; two male friends serve (as did Moorhouse in
Like the protagonists of her two novels, Edith Summers Weeds) as examples of the individual freedom that Rhoda, as a
Kelley struggled much of her adult life for nancial security and woman, cannot achieve. Disheartened by the loss of these friends,
for realization of her dream to be a writer. After taking an honors the drudgery of protless farming, and her realization that to
297
KELLOGG AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
challenge the economic system is to suffer social and material KELLOGG, Louise
martyrdom, Rhoda marries the very realtor who initially took
advantage of her ignorance.
Born 12 May 1862, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; died 11 July 1942,
Madison, Wisconsin
In both novels the central character is sensitively drawn, but
Daughter of Amherst W. and Mary Phelps Kellogg
equally effective are the local-color sketches of California and
Kentucky farmers, customs, and community life in general. The A historian and editor, Louise Kellogg served for nearly 40
function of these characterizations is not, however, strictly for years as a researcher and executive for the Wisconsin State
background interest. In Weeds, such material serves to heighten Historical Society. Her focus of concern was the Northwest
Judiths alienation. Especially in the depiction of the other passive through the Revolutionary War era. Kelloggs earliest work was
(and vicious) women, Judiths behavior and emotions are seen as The American Colonial Charter (1903), for which she received
different and unnatural. It is an ironic contrast since Kelleys point the Justin Winsor Prize of the American Historical Association.
is that Judith is the sole natural person. She served rst as editorial assistant to Reuben Gold Thwaites,
executive director of the Wisconsin Society; together they edited
Kelley is among several American women writers of the three volumes from the Lyman Coleman Draper Collection.
1920s, such as Josephine Herbst, Frances Newman, Evelyn Scott,
After Thwaites death, Kellogg continued the editing of the
and Ruth Suckow, who have been rediscovered after being
Draper Collection and published Frontier Advance on the Upper
long forgotten or ignored. Kelley is also emerging as a master of
Ohio, 1778-1779 (1916) and Frontier Retreat on the Upper Ohio,
ction in the Dreiser, Garland, Howells vein. She does not limit 1779-1781 (1917, reissued 1993). In the introductions to these
her work to tedious cataloguing of realistic detail, but her work is two volumes she reveals herself to be a historian writing with
rmly rooted in everyday experience. Although the imagery of clarity and force, as well as an editor of high scholarly ability. She
her novels underlines the forgotten connection of men and women shows keen insight into the mixture of motives on both sides and
to nature, her ction is oriented more toward sociological (even incisively analyzes the factors that brought the British and the
socialist) study; time and again she emphasizes the effect of social revolutionists into conict. She saw the 15 crucial months from
environment on individual fate. Thus, the feminist concerns grow May 1778 to July 1779 as the most momentous events of the
naturally out of her realistic approach to life and ction. Revolution in the West. In Frontier Retreat on the Upper Ohio,
1779-1781, she portrays with sympathy the most critical years
of the Revolution in the West and East alike.
OTHER WORKS: Selected papers of Edith Summers Kelley are in A third major editing work by Kellogg was Early Narratives
the Special Collections of the Morris Library at Southern Illinois of the Northwest, 1634-1699 (1911, reissued and recorded in
University in Carbondale. Her letters to Sinclair Lewis and to 1987), in J. Franklin Jamesons Original Narratives of Early
Upton Sinclair are in collections of the Lilly Library at Indiana American History series. Kelloggs introductions are written in a
University. uid and dramatic style, and she shows keen appreciation of the
role of French explorers, missionaries, and Canadian recruits.
In The French Regime in Wisconsin and the Northwest
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ammons, E., Conicting Stories: American Women (1925), Kelloggs major work as a historian, she concentrates on
Writers at the Turn into the Twentieth Century (1991). Irvin, H., the interaction of the French and Native Americans in the North-
Women in Kentucky (1979). Miller, D., Wingless Flights: Appala- west, arguing that the history of the Native Americans forms the
chian Women in Fiction (1996). Powderly, C., Learning the warp of the story, of which the coming of the French forms the
woof. A major purpose of her work is to reassess the impact of
Land: Survival of the Self in a Hostile World (thesis, 1996).
the French missionaries; her rereading of original sources con-
Samuelson, J. W., Patterns of Survival: Four American Women
vinced her that they had received an undue share of credit for
Writers and the Proletarian Novel (thesis, 1982). Schorer, M.,
opening the West to civilization. The real impact upon the
Sinclair Lewis: An American Life (1961). Toth, E., ed., Regional- Native Americans, she argues, came through the traders. As a
ism and the Female Imagination (1985). Wanless, T. C., Soil Native American acquired new needs from the traders, he lost
and Soul: The Experience of Southern Rural Womanhood in the proud independence of a son of the forest. Although she
Selected Novels by Edith Summers Kelley, Ellen Glasgow and devotes half the book to the 18th-century experience, her real
Elizabeth Madox Roberts (thesis, 1984). focus is the 17th-century world. She does not portray in depth the
Reference works: Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in fall of New France.
the United States (1995).
In The British Regime in Wisconsin and the Northwest
Other references: Frontiers (1980). Michigan Papers in
(1935), Kellogg argues that British domination in the area contin-
Womens Studies (June 1975). Regionalism and the Female ued from 1761 to 1816. Although there was only one two-year
Imagination (Spring 1977). period (1761-63) during which a British army occupied a Wiscon-
sin post, a British regime did in fact exist. Kellogg denes it as a
SALLY BRETT social system built around the regime of the fur trade. She
298
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS KELLOR
analyzes with skill the ways in which Britain nullied the terms of 1897. The following year, she went to the University of Chicago,
the Treaty of Ghent and how they later circumvented Jays treaty. where she spent four years but never nished her doctorate. Most
people at the time believed criminal behavior was caused by
As a historian, Kellogg had a rm grasp of the long-range
biology and heredity, though some sociologists were beginning to
issues and was insightful in her judgements. She wrote easily and
consider psychology and social environments as well. Kellors
with a sense of drama. Although at times her phrasing tended
rst publications were articles in the American Journal of Soci-
toward extravagance, on the whole she was even-handed and
ology (1900) comparing the physical, psychological, and socio-
balanced in her portrayals. This evenness gave particular strength
logical characteristics of female prisoners and female college
to her handling of the problems the Native Americans encoun-
students. This was the rst study ever done to compare female
tered from their exposure to French culture. As an editor and as a
criminals and noncriminals, and Kellor concluded that their
historian in her own right, Kellogg provided a masterly treatment
similarities made biological explanations of crime implausible.
of her chosen area of concern: the Northwest, and Wisconsin in
particular. After taking a year to travel around the country and study
prisons and prisoners, Kellor published her observations under the
uninspiring title, Experimental Sociology: Descriptive and Ana-
OTHER WORKS: The Fox Indians During the French Regime
lytical Delinquents (1901). In this book Kellor decried the un-
(1908). Organization, Boundaries, and Names of Wisconsin Coun-
equal treatment of Southern blacks and the dangerous conditions of
ties (1910). Remains of a French Post near Trepealeau (1915).
Southern jails. She reiterated that crime was correlated with
The Tercentennial of the Discovery of Wisconsin (1934). Report
poverty, not heredity, and called for nationwide reforms to guar-
of the Daniel Boone Bicentennial Commission to the 1936 Gener-
antee prisoners opportunities for exercise, education, and relig-
al Assembly of Kentucky (1936).
ious observances, eliminate corporal punishment, and scienti-
cally study how to prevent recidivism. For the rest of her life,
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cole, H. E., Stagecoach and Tavern Tales of the Kellors writings would combine sociological analysis with poli-
Old Northwest (reissue, 1997). Nettels, C., Louise P. Kellogg (Ms. cy recommendations.
in University of Wisconsin Archives).
Kellors next bookOut of Work (1904, expanded 1915)
Reference works: NAW (1971). Wisconsin Lives of National
was her most signicant. She and her associates posed as work-seek-
Distinction (1937). Wisconsin Writers: Sketches and Studies (1974).
ers and employers to expose the ruthlessness of private employ-
Other references: AHR (July 1926, Oct. 1936, Oct. 1942).
ment agencies. Unemployment, Kellor concluded, was not usual-
INZER BYERS ly a result of personal laziness or character aws, but of exploitative
systems. Women seeking positions as domestic workers, immi-
grants, and migrants from the South or rural areas were particular-
ly likely to encounter fraud, entrapment into prostitution, or
quasi-slavery. Each state, Kellor concluded, should set up Bu-
KELLOR, Frances (Alice) reaus of Information to help reputable employers and employees
nd each other. She founded the National League for the Protec-
Born 20 October 1873, Columbus, Ohio; died 4 January 1952, tion of Colored Women, an interracial organization to help black
New York, New York women migrating from the South nd decent housing, employ-
Daughter of Daniel and Mary Sprau Kellor; partnered Mary ment, and social services.
Dreier, 1905
Shocked by the suffering of poverty-stricken immigrants,
Frances Kellor grew up in Coldwater, Michigan, where her especially women, Kellor began to study immigration. New
mother worked as a laundress and domestic servant. Her father immigrants, she concluded, need information about American
left the family before she turned two and her only sister, 27 years laws and customs, instruction in English, and assistance in nding
older, married and left town at about the same time. Kellor helped employment. With these resources they can rapidly become
her mother by collecting and delivering laundry, hunting rabbits valuable members of the American public, but without them they
and other fur animals, and doing laundry herself when she got often end up in squalid tenements. Arguing against the rising
older. She dropped out of high school for lack of money, but after nativism of her time, Kellor wrote numerous books and articles
a gun accident was informally adopted by the towns librarians, urging state and federal governments to set up programs to help
Mary and Frances Eddy. The sisters encouraged Kellors love of immigrants adjust to life in America.
learning, gave her a home during the two years she worked as a
President Theodore Roosevelt was very impressed with Out
reporter for the local newspaper, then helped her attend Cornell
of Work and followed Kellors later work closely. When Roose-
University.
velt broke with the Republican party in 1912 to run for president
At Cornell, Kellor studied sociology and law. Encouraged by on the Progressive party ticket, Kellor became an at-large member
her professors to investigate practical social problems, she of the Progressives National Committee. She used her position to
decided to study crime and criminals and received an LL.B. in press for womens suffrage, federal programs for the poor, and
299
KELLY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
government-funded studies of social problems such as unemploy- 1993). New York State Department of Labor Industrial Bulletin
ment, poverty, exploitation of workers, inadequate housing, and (Mar. 1952). Reviews in American History (1991).
racial injustice. Experts, she hoped, would nd solutions to these
problems, and politicians would follow the experts advice. As LORI KENSCHAFT
director of the Progressive partys research bureau, the National
Progressive Service, Kellor fused research, education, and poli-
tics into a comprehensive program for economic, gender, and
racial justice. She was dismayed when the Progressive Service,
and then the Progressive party, collapsed. KELLY, Eleanor Mercein
World War I focused Kellors attention on the international
arena. She was a rm supporter of internationalism and the Born 30 August 1880, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; died 11 October
League of Nations and lobbied for American participation in the 1968, Louisville, Kentucky
Court of International Justice. International dispute resolution by Daughter of Thomas R. and Lucy Schley Mercein; married
impartial experts, she believed, would prevent the world from Robert M. Kelly Jr., 1901
descending again into war.
Eleanor Mercein Kelly was born into a prominent and
Kellor also applied these ideas about arbitration to domestic
wealthy family of Scottish French ancestry. After a childhood in
problems. In 1926 she helped found the American Arbitration
Milwaukee, she graduated with honors in 1898 from the George-
Association (AAA) to settle commercial and industrial labor
town Convent of the Visitation in Washington, D.C. After her
disputes through mediation. Jurors, Kellor felt, were often igno-
marriage, she settled in Louisville, Kentucky. Kellys rst novel,
rant, and litigation could be both lengthy and expensive. Arbitra-
Toya the Unlike (1913), was not well received by the critics, but
tors, in contrast, were informed and impartial and enabled busi-
she followed this failure with a trilogy of novels depicting life in
nesses to regulate themselves rationally. In 1931 Kellor published
Kentucky: Kildares of the Storm (1916), Why Joan? (1918), and
the much-used Code of Arbitration, which outlined procedures for
The Mansion House (1923).
dispute resolution.
After this apprenticeship, Kelly wrote her most successful
For the rest of her life, Kellor devoted herself to the AAA and
novels, another trilogy, this time set in the Basque country of
promoted arbitration as a solution to commercial, civil, and
Spain. Basquerie (1927), considered by most critics as her best
international conicts. She greatly enjoyed her home life with
novel, chronicles the romantic adventures of Emily Weldon, a
Mary Dreier (with whom she became partnered in 1905), and
frivolous apper who meets her true love in Esteban Urruty, a
refused to retire even when her health deteriorated. Only her nal
Basque nobleman. Kelly perpetuates those popular romantic
illness took her away from the AAA ofces.
stereotypes of the wealthy suitor disguised as a poor man, the
strong-willed woman tamed by the dominating man, and the
ennobling effect of childbearing on the ighty heroine. Basquerie,
OTHER WORKS: The Immigrants in America Review (1915).
like her previous works, also explores the destructive effects of
Straight America, A Call to National Service (1916). Americani-
jealousy and suspicion on a marriage. The two other novels in the
zation of Women (1918). Neighborhood Americanization (1918).
trilogy, The Book of Bette (1929) and Nacio, His Affairs (1931),
Immigration and the Future (1920). The Federal Administration
concern the adventures of Estebans younger sister and brother,
and the Alien (1921). The United States of America in Relation to
both of whom gure in Basquerie.
the Permanent Court of International Justice of the League of
Nations and in Relation to the Hague Tribunal (1923). Security Kelly wrote one biographical study, The Chronicle of a
Against War (1924). The United States Senate and the Interna- Happy Woman: Emily A. Davison (1928), but the majority of her
tional Court (1925). Protocol for the Pacic Settlement of Inter- works are romantic womens ction, set in such exotic locales
national Disputes in Relation to the Sanction of War (1925). as Syria, Ragusa, Corfu, and Moorish Africa. During the 1940s,
Arbitration in the New Industrial Society (1934). Arbitration in she continued to travel throughout the world and wrote travel tales
Action (1941). Arbitration in International Controversy (1944). for a number of publications, including the Ladies Home Journal,
American Arbitration: Its History, Functions, and Achievements Colliers, and the Saturday Evening Post.
(1948). Arbitration and the Legal Profession (1952).
Kelly returned to novel writing with Richard Waldens Wife
(1950). Dedicated to her grandparents and based on family
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Fitzpatrick, E., Endless Crusade: Women Social diaries, the novel is a family saga of settlers in Wisconsin during
Scientists and Progressive Reform (1990). the late 1850s. The chief characters are Walden and his spirited
Reference works: DAB Supplement 5. NAW:MP. wife, Aurora Fairmont, an archetypal Southern belle; the couples
Other references: Gustafson, M., Partisan Women: Gender, estrangement is brought about by divided loyalties during the
Politics, and the Progressive Party of 1912 (Ph.D. dissertation, Civil War and by jealousy and suspicion. Overly sentimental, the
300
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS KELLY
novel nonetheless presents a vivid portrait of the ambivalence Little Citizens is a collection of Kellys earliest stories about
inherent in the woman who would play the Southern belle role. As the children in Constance Baileys rst-reader class, boys and
a popular woman writer, writing primarily for women, Kellys girls primarily from poor Jewish immigrant families but including
strength lies in depicting a wide variety of strong women who the son of the local Irish policeman for contrast and occasional
engage her readers interest and concern. conict. Kelly wrote that she was not the model for Constance
Bailey. What I aspired to be and was not Constance Bailey
was. Only her mistakes are mine and her very earnest effort.
OTHER WORKS: Arabesque (1930). Spanish Holiday (1930). Sea
The stories were intended as educational, but have the
Change (1931). Sounding Harbors (1935). Mixed Company (1936).
charms of novelty and originality, although verisimilitude suffers
Proud Castle (1951).
in both incidents and dialogue. The humor that tempers the
message is usually at the immigrants expense and is often
condescending, but it sometimes touches on the teachers embar-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: TCA, TCAS.
rassment as she realizes the limitations of her knowledge or
experience.
DIANE LONG HOEVELER
Wards of Liberty (1907) contains more stories of Miss
Baileys 58 students. There are disruptive inuences like the
nine-year-old Boss who is running his late fathers cellar
garment shop. Kelly believed the schools played a crucial role in
KELLY, Myra helping immigrants get along in America, but the Boss story
shows that she recognized the systems limitations. The Boss has
Born 26 August 1875, Dublin, Ireland; died 30 March 1910, previously avoided all schooling and other Americanizing inu-
Torquay, England ences, but comes to school when he decides learning to read will
Daughter of James and Annie Morrogh Kelly; married Allan bring better-paid work for his shop. Discouraged by the slow pace
MacNaughton, 1905 and unessential busy work, he disappears. His life has no room for
childhood activities. He lives in a world the schools could not
reach. Although Kelly continues to emphasize the fun, under it
Myra Kelly came to New York City with her family when she rages revolt against conditions among the poor.
was a child; they lived on the East Side, where her physician father
developed a large practice. Educated rst at convent schools, she After several less critically successful novels, Kelly returned,
attended Horace Mann High School and then Teachers College of as her critics hoped she would, to the world of her schoolchildren
Columbia University, receiving a diploma in 1899 as a teacher of in Little Aliens (1910). There is still humor and pathos but with a
manual training. Her experience at East-Side Public School 147, deeper understanding of children and the nature of alienation.
where she taught from 1899 to 1901, provided material for her Games in Gardens shows how immigrants can misinterpret the
popular stories about Baileys Babies. bits of America that lter into their ghetto world, as the children
try to don proper costume for track and eld events. Miss Bailey
Kellys long stream of published stories began with the takes her share of the satire for her inadequate communication.
sentimental A Christmas Present for a Lady, which she had Whereas earlier Kelly had saved discussion for her essays, here
sent to two magazines, thinking both would reject it. When both she explains how natural these misunderstandings are with child-
accepted it, Kelly had complicated adjustments to make. She told ren alien to every American custom, and prejudiced by religion
friends later that no manuscript of hers was ever rejected. The and precept against most of them.
story was included in her rst book, Little Citizens: The Humours
of School Life (1904). Although generally unknown now, Kelly achieved tremen-
dous popular success, publishing frequently in mass-circulation
Little Citizens caught the attention of Allan MacNaughton, magazines like McClures. Even President Theodore Roosevelt
president of Standard Coach Horse Company, who arranged to sent her a letter of appreciation. She exaggerated both characters
meet her. They were married in 1905; their one child, a boy, died and incidents, looked for sentiment, and created wry humor
in infancy. The MacNaughtons lived briey at Oldchester Vil- always on the verge of pathos, but she was honest in her approach,
lage, Orange Mountain, New Jersey, while working to establish a often touching on serious issues such as the values of Americani-
literary colony there. zation and the clash between immigrant and American traditions.
Writing with warmth, sympathy, and as much understanding as
In her scant 35 years, the prolic Kelly produced not only she could muster, Kelly did much to acquaint the reading public
three books of East Side stories but popular romantic tales as well. with the harsh conditions of ghetto life and to suggest that
She also wrote essays about educational methods and effects, Americans learn to know their immigrants before thoughtlessly
some of which appeared in collections with her stories. Kelly died attempting to Americanize them. When she left the narrow area of
from tuberculosis in England, where she had gone in hope of a the East Side schools, her stories were less well received and less
cure. Her last books were published posthumously. signicant.
301
KEMBLE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
OTHER WORKS: The Isle of Dreams (1907). Rosnah (1908). The novel at the age of 80). She developed friendships with a number
Golden Season (1909). New Faces (1910). Her Little Young of literary gures and died where she was bornin England.
Ladyship (1911).
Written 22 years before the outbreak of the Civil War and
published in the same year the slaves were emancipated, Journal
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Fine, D. M., The City, the Immigrant, and Ameri- of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation, 1838-1839 (1863)
can Fiction (1977). Friedman, L. M., Pilgrims in a New Land describes the condition of the slaves in brutally realistic terms.
(1948). Lieberman, E., The American Short Story: A Study of the Among many of the inhuman aspects that Kemble denounces, the
Inuence of Locality in Its Development (1912). painful life of women slaves is carefully detailed. Decrying their
Reference works: DAB. NCAB. oppressed state of manual labor and continual childbearing,
Other references: American Mercury (Feb. 1926). American Kemble speaks of the females sorrow-laden existence and
Studies (Spring 1978). their endurance of sufferings that appeared to be all in the days
work. The book was well read during Kembles day, although its
CAROL B. GARTNER stark realism was disconcerting to the Victorian readership.
While posterity tends to remember Kemble as an actress,
perhaps her place as a chronicler of the American experience
KEMBLE, Fanny should be reevaluated. Her autobiographical works, especially
Journal of a Residence in America and Journal of a Residence on
a Georgian Plantation, have a particular psychological and his-
Born Frances Anne Kemble, 27 November 1809, London, Eng-
torical signicance as documents that reveal the struggles and
land; died 15 January 1893, London, England
challenges facing a 19th-century woman critical of national and
Also wrote under: Frances Anne Butler, Mrs. Butler, Frances
regional narrowness.
Anne Kemble
Daughter of Charles and Maria Kemble; married Pierce Butler, The memoirs, bestsellers of their day, also contain keen
1834 (divorced); children: two daughters insights into the enormous changes transforming the nation;
Kemble recognized and evaluated the movement away from
Born into Londons leading theatrical family, Frances Anne Victorian America toward the modern age. Criticized by some
Fanny Kemble was an actress who became one of the most reviewers for her racy language and for her subjective judg-
articulate Victorian women of letters in both America and Eng- ments of particular individuals, Kemble nonetheless had the rare
land. Daughter of an actor who was also manager of Covent ability to write vivid and insightful observations of places, people,
Garden Theatre, Kemble received all her formal education at and historical changes she witnessed. Her journals are neither
boarding schools in France. Kembles rst stage performance, as carefully crafted nor totally consistent pictures of life in early
Shakespeares Juliet at Covent Garden in 1829, was a phenomenal America, but they are rich psychological and cultural documents
success that transformed her life. She became the pinup girl of the because of their authors complex personality, interests, and skills
London stage, enjoying admiration from people in England and of observation. Perhaps Henry James evaluation is the best
the provinces. In 1832 she toured America. assessment of Kemble: There was no convenient or handy
formula for Mrs. Kembles genius, and one had to take her career,
Her marriage to a wealthy Philadelphian initiated a period of
the juxtaposition of her interests, exactly as one took her disposi-
emotional upheaval. Kemble gave up her acting career for mar-
tion, for a remarkably ne cluster of inconsistencies.
riage, but she never became the model 19th-century woman.
Instead of accepting the role of subservient wife, she demanded
equality. Furthermore, instead of accepting and approving of her OTHER WORKS: Francis the First: A Tragedy in Five Acts (1832).
husbands homeland, she was quite critical of it. The record of her The Star of Seville: A Drama in Five Acts (1837). A Year of
experiences, Journal of a Residence in America (1835), publicly Consolation (1837). Poems (1844). Poems (1859). On the Stage
announced her negative attitudes, much to the chagrin of her (1863). Records of a Girlhood (1878). Notes upon Some of
husband. A particularly crucial issue for him, as the owner of large Shakespeares Plays (1882). Records of a Later Life (1882).
Georgian plantations and hundreds of slaves, was Kembles Poems (1883). Adventures of John Timothy Homespun in Switzer-
passionate and outspoken opposition to the peculiar institu- land (1889). Far Away and Long Ago (1889).
tion. After the birth of her two daughters, two return visits to
England, and numerous attempts to sever her relationship with
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Armstrong, M., Frances Kemble: A Passionate
Butler, Kemble left her husband and daughters in 1844.
Victorian (1938). Bobbe, D., Frances Kemble (1931). Driver, L.,
Kemble returned to England, published a volume of poetry, Frances Kemble (1933). Furnas, J. C., Fanny Kemble (1982).
and resumed her acting career. When Butler led for divorce in Gibbs, H., Yours Affectionately, Fanny (1947). James, H., Essays
1848, she came back to America and spent her nal years in public in London and Elsewhere (1992). Marshall, D., Frances Kemble
readings of Shakespeare, frequent visits to Europe, and, nally, in (1977). OGrady, D. L., Frances Anne Kemble: Actress to
devoting herself to her lifelong ambition: writing. She wrote more Abolitionist (thesis, 1995). Ransome, E., ed., The Terric Kemble:
memoirs, a critical work on Shakespeare, poetry, a comedy, and a A Victorian Self-Portrait from the Writings of Fanny Kemble
novel (Henry James noted that not many people published a rst (1978). Scott, J. A., Fanny Kembles America (1973). Thompson,
302
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS KENNEDY
J. C., Everything in The Garden and Other Plays (1996). statues are as alive in her writing as her own memories of
Wister, F. K., Fanny, The American Kemble: Her Journals and childhood, her own rooms, her neighborhood. Commenting on the
Unpublished Letters (1972). Wright, C. C., Frances Kemble and Wolf Man in her People Who Led to My Plays (1987), she writes,
the Lovely Land (1972). Soon the characters in my plays and stories would be changing
Reference works: AA. British Authors of the Nineteenth personae at an alarming rate. The strange, blinding vividness of
Century (1936). DAB. LSL. NAW (1971). Oxford Companion to her stage imagesanimals, people who turn into animals, people
Womens Writing in the United States (1995). She Wields a Pen: with smashed heads, people with worms in their hair, exploding
American Women Poets of the 19th Century (1997). body parts, blood pouring out of a fractured moonimages
of violent brilliance unleash the possibilities of imaginative
MARJORIE SMELSTOR juxtapositions on the stage, the complex beauty and horror of
dreams, the power of memory, and the transforming magic of the
movies, theater, art, beauty, and fame.
KENNEDY, Adrienne Kennedys later plays seem more directly concerned with the
lmic properties of her work. In A Movie Star Has to Star in Black
Born 13 September 1931, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and White (1976) a black woman named Clara is partly spoken for
Daughter of Cornell W. and Etta Haugabook Hawking; married by the female stars of classic Hollywood movies. In An Evening
Joseph C. Kennedy, 1953 (divorced 1966); children: Jo- with Dead Essex (1973) a group of performers rehearses a
seph, Adam production based on Mark Essexs life and death, using music and
photographs exhibited by a projectionistthe only white charac-
Adrienne Kennedy had a middle class upbringing in Cleve- ter in the play, and the only one dressed in black.
land, Ohio, and what she has described as an excellent public Kennedys insistence on images of black on white, and her
school education. After high school (Glenville, 1949) she went to blazing use of color, are typical in more ways than one: race is
Ohio State University, where she briey studied social work (her
both visual and felt in her work as the image and the tone of
fathers profession) before majoring in elementary education (her
identity and conict, which she suggests are complementary
mothers). A few weeks before graduation (1953) she married,
impulses. Her adaptations from Euripides, Electra and Orestes
eventually moving with her husband and rst child to New York
(1980), like her Theatre Mystery Deadly Triplets (1990),
City. There she studied writing at Columbia University (1954-56),
dramatize these tensions in somewhat more linear works about
the New School for Social Research, the American Theatre Wing,
family loyalty and sibling rivalry. In The Alexander Plays (1992),
and Circle in the Square (1962), where she was a member of
Kennedys alter ego from Deadly Triplets, Suzanne Sand. . .
playwright Edward Albees workshop and saw her rst play
playwright, seems to reappear as Suzanne Alexander, a Writ-
performed, Funnyhouse of a Negro. This play won an Off-
er. These plays continue her exploration of narrative, while also
Broadway Obie Award in 1964; she followed it with The Owl
experimenting with sound in their use of radio, offstage noise, and
Answers (1965), her favorite among her works. By this time she
music. The Film Club is a monologue by Suzanne, and The
had developed her own intense one-act style, among whose
Dramatic Circle is a radio play. Meanwhile, the mise-en-scne in
literary inuences she credits, besides Albee, Tennessee Williams
She Talks to Beethoven and The Ohio State Murders is less violent
and Federico Garca Lorca.
than in Kennedys early work, and the narrator, Suzanne, seems
Since the 1970s Kennedy has taught at universities around more in control of the events she remembered. Kennedys Ameri-
the country, among them Yale, Princeton, Brown, Berkeley, can Eurocentric inuencesfrom Charlotte Bront to Bette Da-
Rutgers, and Harvard. She has been on the PEN board of directors, viswere released into her plays, interestingly, after she visited
and was a founding member of the Womens Theatre Council Africa in 1960. There she discovered the place of my ances-
(established 1972). Kennedy has been commissioned to write for, tors, bought an African mask, a woman with a bird ying
among others, the Juilliard School of Music, the Royal Court through her forehead, listened to the owls at night and was
Theatre in London, the New York Shakespeare Festival, the Alvin afraid, and thought about herself as a separate person: The
Ailey Dance Company, and the Empire State Youth Theatre solitude under the African sun had brought out a darkness in me. I
Institute. Her many awards include Rockefeller and National wanted to be more separate. This journey was a turning point in
Endowment for the Arts grants, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a her writing and its inuences are clear in the works that followed.
Yale Fellowship. In March 1992 Kennedys work was celebrated
in a month-long Adrienne Kennedy Festival organized by the
OTHER WORKS: Cities in Bezique (1969). The Lennon Play: In His
Great Lakes Theatre Festival in her hometown of Cleveland.
Own Write (with John Lennon and Victor Spinetti,1969). Adrienne
Her work has been described as gothic, expressionist, and Kennedy in One Act (1988). Sleep Deprivation Chamber: A
surrealist, but Kennedys writings are also, as her interviews and Theatre Piece (1996).
autobiographical writings demonstrate, personal and introspec- Plays included in: Poet Lore (1965), Collision Course (1968),
tive. It is difcult to keep the writer and her writing separate; and New American Plays (1968), New Black Playwrights: An An-
the absence of boundaries for establishing separate identities is a thology (1968, 1996), Best Short Plays of 1970, Black Drama: An
common theme and tactic in her work. Movie stars, dreams, her Anthology (1970), Black Theater (1971), Scripts One (1971),
mothers scrapbooks, political gures, paintings, music, and More Plays from Off-Off-Broadway (1972), Broadway Book
303
KENYON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
(1972), Spontaneous Combustion (1972), Kintu Drama (1974), fact that when I was introduced to poetry, which was not till junior
Woman as Writer (1978), Wordplay Three (1984), Moon Marked high school, I was terribly drawn by strong emotions that I could
and Touched by Sun: Plays by African-American Women (1994), see were the stuff of poetry.
Black Theatre USA: Plays by African Americans 1847 to Today
Kenyon attended the University of Michigan, where she
(1996), Plays for the End of the Century (1996), and others.
obtained her B.A. and then M.A. It was during her time there that
she met Hall, a poet and teacher at the university. She and Hall
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brown, E. B., Shackles on a Writers Pen: married in the spring of her graduation in 1972. In 1975 Donald
Dialogism in Plays by Alice Childress, Lorraine Hansberry, took a year leave from teaching, and the couple moved to New
Adrienne Kennedy, and Ntozake Shange (1997). Martin, H. H., Hampshire to live in his family house. At the end of their year
Adrienne Kennedy: An Annotated Secondary Bibliography and there, they decided to stay on in rural New Hampshire to write full
Essay (thesis, 1993). Page, J. A. Selected Black American time. Kenyon felt in moving to New Hampshire, she was regain-
Authors: An Illustrated Bio-Bibliography (1977). Peterson, B. L., ing some sense of the life of her childhood. And it was here that
Contemporary Black American Playwrights and Their Plays: A Kenyon began, as she told Bill Moyers (interview 1993), to
Biographical Directory and Dramatic Index (1988). Robinson, M., work seriously as a poet. Also in her interview with Bradt she
The Other American Drama (1994). Singh, Y. Stages in the said, Moving here has been critical for both of us in our
Funnyhouse: The Dramaturgy of Adrienne Kennedy (disserta- development as artists. This is the vale of soul-making, as Keats
tion, 1998). Thomas, C. The Daughter and Her Journey of says. This place has made us both considerably different people.
Self-Denition in the Familial Plays of Adrienne Kennedy
Kenyon published her rst book, Room to Room, in 1978,
(thesis, 1985).
only three years after their move. This rst book is a poetic record
Reference works: Black Writers (1989). CA (1982, Online
of her transition from life in Ann Arbor and the Midwest to life in
1999). CANR (1989). Contemporary Dramatists (1988). Diction-
rural New England and of the difculties of making a place for
ary of the Black Theatre (1983). DLB (1985). Notable Women in
herself as a woman and wife in a house with many ghosts: Here
the American Theatre (1989). Oxford Companion to Womens
in this house, among photographs / of your ancestors, their
Writing in the United States (1995). Women in American Thea-
hymnbooks and old / shoes. . . / I move from room to room, / a
tre (1981).
little dazed, like the y. I watch it / bump against each window
Other references: American Literature (Sept. 1991). Ameri-
(From Room to Room).
can Theatre (1988). College Language Association Journal (1976).
Drama Review (1977). MELUS (Fall 1985). Modern Drama (Dec. Kenyon published in journals and small magazines, but the
1985, March 1986, March 1989). Negro American Literature next book of her own poems, The Boat of Quiet Hours, didnt
Forum (1975). NYT (reviews of rst productions: 14 Jan., 20 June, come out for another eight years. In the late 1970s, at Robert Blys
9 July, 14 July 1964; 13 Jan., 19 Jan., 1 Nov. 1969; 11 March urging, she began reading Anna Akhmatovas poetry, and for
1976; 21 May 1980; 20 Sept. 1985). Studies in American Drama, pleasure and also because she was frustrated with the translations
1945-Present (1989). Studies in Black Literature (1975). Theatre she was able to nd, she began translating the Russian poets
Journal (March 1992, 1996) Theatre Southwest (April 1989). poems. When Bly read some of these translations, he asked her to
do a book for his Eighties Press. These excellent translations came
ANNE FLECHE out in 1985 as Twenty Poems of Anna Akhmatova and are
reprinted in the posthumously published A Hundred White Daffo-
dils (1999). Kenyon felt working on the translations greatly
impacted her own work; in the Bradt interview she said she
KENYON, Jane struggled not to change [Akhmatovas] images. . . . Then I
would turn to my own poems with this tremendous sense of
Born 23 May 1947, Ann Arbor Michigan; died 23 April 1995, freedom, and I would begin to feel some power in my own work
Wilmot, New Hampshire for the rst time. . . . I saw that there was nothing to limit me but
Married Donald Hall, 1972; children: Philippa, Andrew my own imagination.
The Boat of Quiet Hours, like all her volumes, draws from
Jane Kenyon was born and raised in the rural Midwest,
life in rural New Hampshire. She looks outward at the seasons and
outside Ann Arbor. She attended a one-room school until she was
cycles of nature in order to evoke and name what is inward. Her
in the fth grade, when she went into the Ann Arbor school
inward life lived in close proximity to the natural world is the
system. Though Kenyon grew up in the country, her father was a
ground of much of Kenyons work. Her lyric poems have a quiet
musician, not a farmer, and as Donald Hall, her husband, said in an
force and are what she hoped would be short, intense, musical
interview with Marian Blue (1993), Her father and mother made
cries of the spirit.
a union of opposites: a sophisticated house and life in a country
setting. As there were few neighbors and children, this country Kenyon suffered from depression throughout her life but was
setting provided Kenyon with the chance to create a rich interior not properly diagnosed until she was in her late thirties. She
life in conjunction with the natural world. She has said her struggled to keep her depression in check, but was not always able
childhood solitude may have contributed to her becoming a to and many of her poems come out of her experiences of deep
poetthat and, as she told David Bradt in a 1993 interview, the melancholy. Poetry was a refuge for her, a safe place, and also
304
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS KERBER
a way of making something constructive and hopeful out of Poetry (July 1997). The Poetry of Jane Kenyon, Ai, Lawrence
painful and enervating experiences: Nothing but whitethe air, Kearney and Kathleen Spivak (video, 1978). Virginia Quarterly
the light: / only one brown milkweed pod / bobbling in the gully, (Winter 1979). WP (25 Apr. 1995).
smallest / brown boat on the immense tide. / A single green
sprouting thing / would restore me. (February: Thinking of GLYNIS BENBOW-NIEMIER
Flowers).
In addition to her gardens giving her hope in winter, they
were a much tapped resource for her poetry and for a column she KERBER, Linda Kaufman
wrote for the local paper, the Concord Monitor. Kenyon was a
great gardener, and during gardening season she spent mornings
writing and afternoons in the gardena balance of time and Born 23 January 1940, New York, New York
activities she loved. Daughter of Harry H. and Dorothy Haber Kaufman; married
Richard Kerber, 1960; children: Ross, Justin
Writing poetry was also a place to work through the spiritual,
to exclaim and wonder about the world and all it can throw at one. In April 1997, Linda Kerbers dazzling career was recog-
In 1986 Kenyon had her rst struggle with cancer, and then her nized by her election to the prestigious American Academy of
husband was diagnosed with cancer of the liver. Kenyon drew Arts and Sciences for her seminal historical research on the place
strength from her faith, as well as from the act of writing. She told of women in American history. Then, in April 1999, Kerber
Bill Moyers, Its odd but true that there really is consolation became the rst recipient of a new Radcliffe Award for Distin-
from sad poems, and its hard to know how that happens. There is guished Academic Scholarship given by the Radcliffe College
the pleasure of the thing itself, the pleasure of the poem, and Board of Trustees. Radcliffes award honored Kerber for her
somehow it works against sadness. The title poem of her next research in areas of women, gender, and society. For nearly three
volume, Let Evening Come (1990), evokes this spiritual strength: decades, historian Kerber has been teaching, by example, precise-
To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop / in the oats, to the air in the ly the history she writes about. In her professional life as author of
lung / let evening come / Let it come, as it will, and dont / be a number of important books on American history (an area of
afraid. God does not leave us / comfortless, so let evening come. scholarship dened by men in every sense of the word until
Kerber came along) and professor at a major research university,
Kenyons work has received critical recognition over the and in her personal life as wife to cardiologist Richard Kerber and
years: she won the Avery and Julia Hopwood Award for poetry at mother to Ross and Justin, she has lived and competed in public
the University of Michigan, was awarded a fellowship from the and private worlds dominated by males.
National Endowment for the Arts (1981) and from the New
Hampshire Commission on the Arts (1984), and received a Kerber has experienced rsthand the conicts dominating
Guggenheim fellowship for 1992-93. She was New Hampshires the personal lives of every woman who wishes to have a produc-
poet laureate when she died of leukemia at the age of forty-six in tive and meaningful career as well as children to nurture. She has
the prime of her writing life. Two books have come out since her written with considerable skill about the dilemma of the Revolu-
death: Otherwise: New and Selected Poems (1996), which has tionary woman juggling the world of intellect and the world of
been a bestseller (unusual for any book of poetry), and One domesticity. She refers often to the language of Tocquevilles
Hundred White Daffodils (1999), a collection of her prose as well Democracy in America, which describes as separate spheres
as some poetry. Unfortunately, we wont know what more Ken- the areas of interest and responsibilities belonging to men and
yon would have produced as a poet in her prime; what we do have women. She employs eloquent and complex strategies to untangle
are six volumes of exquisitely crafted lyric and prose that tug at this simple linguistic device that has served to subjugate women
our souls and hearts with the weight of her lived life. for centuries. In all her books and essays, she makes one point
repeatedly and denitely: One day we will understand the idea
of separate spheres as primarily a trope, employed by people in the
OTHER WORKS: Constance: Poems (1993). past to characterize power relations for which they had no other
words and that they could not acknowledge because they could
not name, and by historians in our own times as they groped for a
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hall, D., Without: Poems (1999). Kinnell, G.,
device that might dispel the confusion of anecdote and impose
How Could She Not: For Jane Kenyon (1947-1995) (1998).
narrative and analytical order on the anarchy of inherited evi-
Moyers, B. D., The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets (1995).
dence, the better to comprehend the world in which we live.
Reference works: CA. Contemporary Women Poets. DLB.
Other references: Bright Unequivocal Eye: Poems, Papers, In 1985 Kerber was named May Brodbeck Professor in
and Remembrances from the First Jane Kenyon Conference, 1998 Liberal Arts at the University of Iowa. She has been on the faculty
(forthcoming, 2000). Hall, D., Poets Read Their Work: Donald of the history department at Iowa since 1971. Her academic
Hall and Jane Kenyon (video, 1977). Jane Kenyon (audiocassette, background includes Barnard College, where she earned a B.A.
1987). Jane Kenyon (video, 1989). Jane Kenyon: A Memorial (1960), New York University, where she took an M.A. (1961),
Tribute (video, 1996). A Life Together (video, 1993, 1994). and Columbia University, where she earned a Ph.D. (1968). Her
Nation (Apr. 1996). NYTBR (June 1987, Mar. 1991, Jan. 1997). teaching posts before Iowa were at Stern College for Women, San
305
KERR AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Jose State College, and Stanford University. She has successfully KERR, Jean (Collins)
integrated a teaching and scholarly career of great distinction with
a long, happy marriage and two wonderful sons.
Born 10 July 1923, Scranton, Pennsylvania
In Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolu- Daughter of Thomas J. and Kitty ONeill Collins; married
tionary America (now in its third edition since 1980), Kerber has Walter Kerr, 1943
presided over a reassessment of American history that has been
described as radical re-thinking. Published for the Institute of Jean Kerr earned an M.A. in theater from the Catholic
Early American History and Culture, this book looks at the University, where she met her husband, a dramatics professor who
American Revolution through the eyes of women. Kerber de- later became the New York Times theater critic. Kerr regards
scribes womens history in America as the effort to gain for herself principally as a playwright and her essays as a diversion,
themselves what the Revolution did not accomplish. If most but it is the latter that have gained vast popularity. The typical
people would agree history describes human nature and events, it style of her plays and essays is the carefully polished imitation of
seems abundantly clear that history should include the experience easy conversation.
of women along with that of men. Yet, for a very long time, it
Kerr wrote three plays for her husbands direction at the
didnt. Kerber argues that womens history is American history.
Catholic University. The third, Jenny Kissed Me (1948), opened
She has been a central gure in establishing the disciplines we
on Broadway, starring the famous comic actor Leo G. Carroll.
understand today as feminism and womens studies. What seems
Collaborating with her husband and the musician Jay Gorney,
obvious to us now at the end of the 20th centurythat the
Kerr won praise for energy and intelligence in the revue, Touch
language spoken by women reects the economic and social
and Go (1949). In the successful Broadway production John
realities experienced by womenis comparatively recent as an
Murray Andersons Almanac (1953), Kerrs sketch Don Browns
understood phenomenon. Kerbers essays in Toward an Intellec-
Body uses the violent, sexually suggestive style of Mickey
tual History of Women (1997) were published together as one
Spillanes detective stories to lampoon orchestrated readings of
volume but written over more than two decades. These essays
Stephen Vincent Benets Civil War poem.
have not simply redirected the history of women in America but
revised it. Gender is no longer a term of exclusion. She has In her most successful play, Mary, Mary (1961), the title
addressed this issue directly in U.S. History AS Womens History: character discovers her true, timid nature through a new admirers
New Feminist Essays (1995, a collection edited with Alice eyes but returns to her rst love just before he can divorce her for a
Kessler-Harris and Kathryn Sklar), which examines specic less disarming wife. Kerrs urbane wit is not only richly decora-
historical events from a feminist perspective. In an essay The tive but integral to character: Mary antagonizes her husband not
Obligations of Citizenship, Kerber writes, Skepticism of the with her superior insight into his publishing business but with the
state, however, has never been and should not be limited by hilarious sarcasm that masks her personal insecurity. Mary draws
gender; if public life is to be an arena of human freedom, men and audience sympathy for her clever vulnerability, but she wins her
women will have to nd ways to make it so. She maintains that man because she learns to demonstrate sophistication.
obligation is not duty, not a social contract, more than a political
Kerr again reveals troubled characters through witty repartee
order or law: it is a fundamental right; it is a fundamental right of
in Poor Richard (1964), an intense romantic comedy featuring a
women. Her arguments about obligation have evolved recently
self-doubting, wisecracking widowed poet, whose internal con-
into a much longer work, No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies:
ict with grief overwhelms the ubiquitous love-triangle plot. As a
Women and the Obligations of Citizenship (1998). The central
thin disguise for the sensitive poets anguish, Kerrs bright
drama of womens rights becomes their absolution from public
clowning is less satisfying than the feeling poetry evident in
service and corresponding obligation to family life. Democracy,
Richards best monologues.
equality, citizenship, responsibility, loyalty coalesce into a
historiography out of which womens history, in particular, can be A self-denigrating woman is the protagonist in Finishing
understood and explained. Touches (1973), a predictable drawing-room comedy that briey
challenges middle-aged self-righteousness with modern sexual
freedom. Central characters face their own smugness but end up
OTHER WORKS: Federalists in Dissent: Imagery and Ideology in celebrating it. Kerrs humorous, perfectly paced, comic dialogue
Jeffersonian America (1970). suggests an unspoken and unresolved uneasiness over contempo-
rary social change.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Rethinking Political Histo- Her most successful book, Please Dont Eat the Daisies
ry (1996). (1957), collects 15 humorous sketches written for popular maga-
Other references: Iowa City Press-Citizen (8 Apr. 1999). zines. Intelligent literary allusion and stylish satire enliven the
Journal of American History (June 1988). University of Iowa familiar essay form, making spirited fun of an alert womans
Literature, Science and the Arts Culture Diversity and Identity irritations with rambunctious sons, slick-magazine advice, and a
Seminar (1997). celebrated husband. Phrasing motherly boasting as complaints,
Kerr idealizes family affections. She burlesques the distressingly
KATHLEEN BONANN MARSHALL clichd 1950s prescriptions for glamorous or maternal feminine
306
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS KEYES
behavior by opposing them with precise details. In 1965 Kerr KEYES, Frances Parkinson (Wheeler)
adapted her sketches for a two-season NBC situation comedy
about a suburban freelance writer, a college dramatics professor,
and their four sons. Born 21 July 1885, Charlottesville, Virginia; died 3 July 1970,
New Orleans, Louisiana
The best pieces in The Snake Has All the Lines (1960) portray Daughter of John H. and Louise Johnson Wheeler; married
Kerr less as a homemaker than as an author revising a play in a Henry W. Keyes, 1904; children: three sons
rehearsal or growing cynical over mixed critical reviews. Tributes
to her determined Irish mother and her awkward Catholic school
An only daughter, Frances Parkinson Keyes received but
days show Kerr learning the value of her generous verbal wit.
seven years of formal schoolingin Boston, Switzerland,
In the best essay of her collection Penny Candy (1970), Kerr Berlinas was appropriate for a gently born girl. Her hus-
combines her two personae of a mother and a student of literature band, more than 20 years her senior, with whom she had three
to recall her success in bringing her sons to share her love of sons, was governor of New Hampshire and served three terms in
poetry. Unfortunately, the made-to-order sketches for Family the U.S. Senate. She describes her role as hostess in Capital
Circle and the Ladies Home Journal, which outnumber the more Kaleidoscope (1937).
original work, force Kerr to act the housewife ustered by
babytalk, wilting houseplants, cocktail parties, and her weight. Always a rapid and omnivorous reader, Keyes wrote as a
child but was not encouraged. She began publishing after her
In her introduction to How I Got to Be Perfect (1978), a new marriage because of desperate nancial need. Soon a regular
edition of her essays published over 20 years, Kerr condes a contributor to Good Housekeeping, she was widely known for
humorous disorientation with her problems of lengthened memo- monthly Letters from a Senators Wife, which ran for 14 years,
ries, self-acceptance, and occasional isolation of middle age. Alert and for other political analyses. A contributing editor from 1923
to nuances in popular taste, she deftly updates her punch lines and to 1936, Keyes wrote about her world trip in 1925-26 and another
topical references, but contemporary reviews praised the collec- to South America in 1929-30. These formative years are described
tion less for its craft in portraying common absurdities than for its in All Flags Flying (1972), an incomplete autobiography pub-
momentary glimpses of poetic perceptiveness.
lished posthumously. Keyes contributed to other magazines, was
Humorously alert to absurd trivialities, the strong female editor of the Daughters of the American Revolutions National
character who dominates Kerrs essays and plays saves herself Historical Magazine from 1937 to 1939, and was a frequent
from selsh insignicance by her own generous instinct. During lecturer.
the 30 years of her writing career, Kerrs essays have grown loose
and self-revealing while her stage comedies have faced increas- Keyes fame rests upon her extraordinary career as a bestsell-
ingly difcult social issues within constricting dramatic unities. ing novelist. Her rst novel, The Old Gray Homestead, was
Wary of intimidating her readers, Kerr rarely mentions the strains published in 1919. Not until Honor Bright (1936) did she have a
her writing and successful marriage place on each other. With bestseller, but she was seldom without one throughout the next
merry charm, in the early 1960s, she seemed to synthesize the decades.
careers of Larchmont homemaker and Broadway playwright and In spite of frequent and severe illness and a crippling back
thus unexpectedly became an American ideal, without being
injury, Keyes was a person of great vitality and enthusiasm, many
forced to scrutinize the difference between the values she held and
interests, extraordinary dedication to work, and an urgent need for
those she represented.
fulllment. She produced very long and uent novels that reect-
ed careful and diligent research to ensure correctness of setting
OTHER WORKS: The Big Help (1947). King of Hearts (with E. and circumstance. She reveled in descriptions of rich foods,
Brooke, 1954; lm version, That Certain Feeling, 1956). Goldilocks elegant clothes, gay parties, and exotic locales. Older civilizations
(with W. Kerr and L. Anderson, 1958). Lunch Hour (1982). fascinate, but also evidence decay; in her novels promise in the
modern world lies in simplicity and hard work.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Kearns, C., Motherland: Writings by Irish Ameri- Keyes favored accounts of a familys fortunes through sever-
can Women About Mothers and Daughters (1999). Owens, E. S. B., al generations. The rst novels are set in New England, Washing-
The Changing Image of Women as Seen in Plays of Jean Kerr ton, and Europe. Perhaps the most lavish is Crescent Carnival
(thesis, 1983). (1942), sumptuously detailing complex New Orleans traditions
Reference works: Best Plays of 1980-1981: The Burns Man- through three generations. After its enormous success, she spent
tle Yearbook (1981). CA (1969). CB (July 1958). Oxford Compan- her winters in Louisiana and developed a pattern in which she
ion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). WA. wrote Louisiana books alternatively with other novels. The highly
Other references: New York Theatre Critics Reviews (1946- successful Dinner at Antoines (1948) added mystery to her
73). NYT (18 Feb. 1973). Saturday Review (30 Nov. 1957). customary romance.
Theatre Arts (Mar. 1961). Time (14 Apr. 1961).
The typical Keyes heroine is young, beautiful, naive, and in
GAYLE GASKILL love with an older experienced man who is ennobled by passion
307
KILMER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
for her. Temptations abound, but high principle triumphs, though KILMER, Aline Murray
the rule that a Keyes heroine is never seduced altered in the later
novels. Her women are competent, loyal, and stoic in their
Born 1 August 1888, Norfolk, Virginia; died 1 October 1941,
acceptance of hardships. Some have personal careers, but usually
Stillwater, New Jersey
their lives are shaped by marriage, and fulllment comes in
Wrote under: Aline Kilmer, Aline Murray
motherhood, womans triumph for Keyes. Daughter of Kenton and Ada Foster Murray; married Joyce
Religion was important to Keyes. Though her family was Kilmer, 1908 (died); children: ve
Congregational, she was attracted to formal ritual and was con-
Among the literary members of Aline Murray Kilmers
rmed at fourteen in the Episcopal church. In Along a Little Way
family were her father, an editor; her stepfather, Henry Mills
(1940), she describes her gradual growth to Catholicism and
Alden, the editor of Harpers magazine; and her husband, one of
recent conversion. She wrote about a number of saints lives and
the more famous poets of the day and the poetry editor of the
often described religious practice in her novels. Literary Digest. Two of her sons were published poets. Kilmer
Her novels had a large audience in England and were also was educated at Rutgers Prep and at the Vail-Deane School in
Elizabeth, New Jersey. In 1913 both she and her husband entered
translated into several languages. Keyes received many awards
the Roman Catholic church. They were the parents of ve
and honorary degrees. Although resigned to not receiving critical
children. In 1918 Sgt. Joyce Kilmer of the Fighting 69th was
acclaim, she made a strong case for her craft in The Cost of a
killed in action in France.
Best-Seller (1950). Admittedly sentimental and often rhetorical,
her high romance is strengthened by common sense and diversi- Although she had published a few poems before her mar-
ed incidents. Keyes exposition of political and social circum- riage, selling her rst poem to St. Nicholas magazine at age
stances and concern with international relations challenged Ameri- eleven, Kilmer was always overshadowed by her husband, both
can provincialism. professionally and socially. Most critics concede, however, that
she was the better poet. After his death, her reserve lessened, and
she occasionally made lecture tours to help with expenses. She
OTHER WORKS: The Career of David Noble (1921). Queen Annes served as vice president of the Catholic Poetry Society of Ameri-
Lace (1930). Silver Seas and Golden Cities (1931). Lady Blanche ca. The death of her husband had been preceded by the death of
Farm: Senator Marlowes Daughter (1933). The Safe Bridge one child from polio and was followed in a few years by the death
of another. Both the subject matter and the tone of her work were
(1934). The Happy Wanderer (1935). Written in Heaven (1937).
largely determined by these events and her task of bringing up a
Parts Unknown (1938). The Great Tradition (1939). Fieldings
family alone.
Folly (1940). The Sublime Shepherdess (1940). All That Glitters
(1941). The Grace of Guadalupe (1941). Also the Hills (1943). In Candles that Burn (1919), Kilmer presents intensely
The River Road (1945). Came a Cavalier (1947). Once on personal poems, most of them about children, and many of these
Esplanade (1947). All This is Louisiana (1950). Joy Street (1950). dealing with the still-raw pain of personal bereavement or the fear
Therese: Saint of a Little Way (1950). Steamboat Gothic (1952). of loss. In some of these she is unable to transcend the experience,
Bernadette of Lourdes (1953). The Royal Box (1954). Frances yet already in this rst volume one can occasionally see the note of
Parkinson Keyes Cook-book (1955). Mother of Our Saviour gentle irony that pervades her best mature poetry.
(1955). The Blue Camellia (1957). Land of Stones and Saints Vigils (1921) continues Kilmers emphasis on personal pre-
(1957). Victorine (1958). Frances Parkinson Keyes Christmas occupations. A mere two strings of her instrument sufce, she
Gift (1959). Mother Cabrini: Missionary to the World (1959). writes in The Harp: One is for love and one for death. . . . I
Station Wagon in Spain (1959). The Chess Players (1960). Roses play on the strings I know. Although the cry of pain reappears in
in December (1960). The Third Mystic of Avila (1960). The Rose many of these poems, the poet has learned to transmute her
and the Lily (1961). Madame Castels Lodger (1962). The Rest- material and to choose more evocative imagery. The rhythms
less Lady, and Other Stories (1963). Three Ways of Love (1963). A have become her own. Literary subjectsthe Lady of Shalott and
Treasury of Favorite Poems (1963). The Explorer (1964). I, the Sapphoappear.
King (1966). Tongues of Fire (1966). The Heritage (1968).
In The Poor Kings Daughter (1925), Kilmer has perfected
her distinctive tone of gentle but unrelieved disillusionment, of
irony delicate but never bitter. The intimacy remains, but a
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1969, 1971). Catholic reticence disciplines it. The poet has now learned to maintain
Authors: Contemporary Biographical Sketches (1948). TCA, distance and to detach the poetic process from the experience. In
TCAS. Favete Linguis, the poet admires the plum tree heavy with
Other references: Catholic World (Jan. 1943). CSM (28 Nov. blossom but warns: You lift your lute to celebrate its beauty /
1950). NYHTB (19 Nov. 1939). NYTBR (8 Nov. 1936, 8 Nov. And all its petals utter to the ground. The theme of enforced
1942, 9 Dec. 1945). Time (26 Dec. 1960). silence emerges again in the ne poem Against the Wall. Here
the irony of the parent calmly mending armor for the sons ghts,
VELMA BOURGEOIS RICHMOND while silently lamenting the emptiness of victory and glory,
308
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS KIMBROUGH
achieves tragic overtones by Kilmers use of conversational Were Young and Gay in rapid succession. At one time, Kimbroughs
language and rhythms. Kilmers prose works include two child- travel books were standard guides to England, Italy, Portugal,
rens books and Hunting a Hair Shirt (1923), a collection of brief Greece, France, and Ireland; that they have fallen out of currency
personal essays similar in theme and tone to her verse. is our loss. Full of Michelin-type restaurant and hotel lore, news of
vistas and sights far beyond the guidebooks, and chatty stories of
the people behind the walls and doors forming the boundaries of
OTHER WORKS: Emmy, Nicky, and Greg (1927). A Buttonwood most tourists experiences, they were the guiding tour lights of an
Summer (1929). Selected Poems (1929). entire generation. Kimbrough does more than recount the sights
seen or merely detail the humorous adventures of four middle-
aged women who no speaka da languageshe takes the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Catholic Authors: Contempo- reader into the atmosphere of the places she visits, and throughout
she provides the reader with the most intimate historical details.
rary Biographical Sketches, 1930-1947 (1948). CB (Dec. 1941).
Other references: America (18 Oct. 1941). Bookman (Dec. But it is not only for her travel books that Kimbrough
1921, May 1925). Catholic World (June 1929). Commonweal (17 deserves to be remembered. Through Charleys Door (1952) is an
July 1929, 14 Aug. 1929). intimate biography of Marshall Field & Co. and takes the reader to
the heart of Chicagos venerable department store. Equally good
ARLENE ANDERSON SWIDLER are her stories of her childhood. How Dear to My Heart (1944,
reissued most recently in 1991) introduces six-year-old Emily
about to begin school. The innocence and imagination of child-
hood are recreated in this story of her extended family (including
Indiana Senator Charles M. Kimbrough), of the birth of her baby
KIMBROUGH, Emily brother, and of her growing understanding of the world. In The
Innocents from Indiana (1950), 11-year-old Emily moves from
Muncie to Chicago and learns to love the big city in a series of
Born 23 October 1899, Muncie, Indiana
adventures that includes playing catch unawares with Douglas
Daughter of Hal C. and Charlotte Wiles Kimbrough; married
Fairbanks and driving around and around the block in an electric
John Wrench, 1926 (divorced); children: two daughters
car that cannot be stopped because its clutch is stuck. In Now and
Then (1972), Kimbrough goes back, through her twins childhood
Emily Kimbrough graduated from Bryn Mawr College in experiences, to more of her own. These delightful, low-key books,
1921, studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, and in 1923 began a career reminiscent of James Thurber, should be included among adoles-
in advertising copywriting for Marshall Field & Co. that was to cent reading selections, for they reproduce the puzzlement and
lead, four years later, to the managing editorship of the Ladies triumph of a child growing into herself.
Home Journal, a position she held until 1929. In 1929 she gave
Kimbroughs writing has a simplicity and directness that
birth to twin daughters; she was divorced after only several years
immediately attracts. Her own naive pleasure at what she has seen,
of marriage. By 1934 Kimbroughs articles had begun to appear in
heard, and experienced is communicated directly to the reader. Of
various national magazines, including Country Life, House and
course, such simplicity dates the travel books; they could hardly
Garden, Travel, Readers Digest, and Saturday Review of Litera-
be written in these days of jet travel, ination, and mass education.
ture. Even a reader of Parents magazine would have come across
It is for this reason that Kimbrough is an important mid-20th-
her down-to-earth advice about raising twins. By 1968 she had
century writer, for she manages to reproduce the wonderment of
devoted herself to accounts of her frequent travels to Europe and
which the American, particularly the sophisticated American
around America.
matron, is no longer capable.
Emily Kimbrough used to be a household name. Oh, I In addition to a sharp sense of the times, Kimbroughs books
LOVED Our Hearts Were Young and Gay is the inevitable cry present a great deal of information, even if much of it is dated, that
of almost anyone old enough to read in 1942. Kimbroughs rst provides the sort of rich historical background lately recognized in
and most famous work, written jointly with Cornelia Otis Skinner, the writings of such regionalists as Jewett and Chopin. Kimbroughs
was a chronicle of their 19th summer, spent in Europe contracting readers can hardly help but experience an otherwise unrecapturable
measles on an ocean liner, overnighting in an unsuspected brothel, past. Each book ends before we want it to and dances around the
lunching at the Ritz in Paris, and generally charming one conti- edges of our memories. It is little wonder Our Hearts Were Young
nent with their exploits and another with the reminiscences of and Gay (most recently reprinted in 1983), remains beloved to
them. Kimbroughs next volume, We Followed Our Hearts to this day.
Hollywood (1943), describes the summer she and Skinner spent
writing a lm script for Our Hearts.
OTHER WORKS: Forty Plus and Fancy Free (1954). So Near and
Amusement and satisfaction remain with the reader of any of Yet So Far (1955). Water, Water Everywhere (1956). And a Right
Kimbroughs subsequent books, which followed Our Hearts Good Crew (1958). Pleasure by the Busload (1961). Forever Old,
309
KINCAID AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Forever New (1964). Floating Island (1968, reissued 1984). Time mother becomes a lizard, yet she also makes her daughter a mat
Enough (1974). Better Than Oceans (1976). from her own hair. The book is both a childs nightmare and a
vision of bliss and innocence. As in all of Kincaids writing the
sense of place and the rhythms and colors of the Caribbean are
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ball, E., A Suite of Poems (1984). Cavanaugh, K.,
powerful.
Design Review Guidelines for the Emily Kimbrough Historic
District (1990). Annie John, a penetrating look at a perceptive and vulnerable
Reference works: CA (1976). CB (Mar. 1944). Indiana adolescents world, recollects similar childhood images and themes,
Authors and Their Books, 1917-1966 (1974). Oxford Companion but is written in a simpler, more narrative style. The intimacy ten-
to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). year-old Annie feels with her mother evolves into anger and fear
Other references: Atlantic (Dec. 1942). NYTBR (22 Nov. as Annie is told by her mother that she can no longer be a little
1942). Saturday Review (11 Dec. 1943). me. She rebels, trying on new forbidden relationships, decid-
ing nally to depart from her island home. The end of the novel
LORALEE MACPIKE
nds her on a boat headed north.
Antigua is seen from a different, and far more bitter perspec-
tive in A Small Place (1988), a work of nonction. The reader is a
KINCAID, Jamaica tourist, the you of the essay who plucks the beauty of the
island, yet remains blind to the reality of its poverty and foreign
Born Elaine Potter Richardson, 25 May 1949, St. Johns, Antigua domination. Kincaid describes Antigua as a prison of beauty
Daughter of Annie Richardson; married Allen Shawn, 1979; where, despite the end of slavery and the departure of the English
children: Annie, Harold criminals, political corruption persists. She sees little hope for
positive change.
Until she was sixteen, Jamaica Kincaid spent her life on the
nine-by-twelve-mile island of Antigua. Her father was a carpen- Kincaids anger continues to ferment in her second novel,
ter; her mother ran the household and became the dominant gure Lucy (1990), told through the eyes of a young woman newly
in Kincaids childhood. Kincaid excelled in her government arrived from an island and now an au pair to four blond sisters.
schools and was an avid reader and library user. However, she felt Lucys penetrating observations of the familys white world
stied and isolated on her small island, and at sixteen she left for relentlessly uncover their mirages and self-deception. She sees the
New York City as an au pair. Realizing she would need a high familys white culture as domineering, both within their home and
school diploma, she obtained one in New York and subsequently as far-reaching as the domination of her own island, and suffers as
attended Franconia College for one year. She then moved back to she discovers she is just as detached from this family as she was
New York City and began writing. With the publication of her from her own. Lucy remains critical and separate. Her mothers
rst story in 1973, she changed her name from Elaine Potter letters are unopened, and even after her fathers death, she chooses
Richardson to Jamaica Kincaid. to stay away from her mother. At novels end, she begins to write.
In the mid-1970s Kincaid became a staff writer for the New Kincaids career has developed and expanded into new forms
Yorker, where editor William Shawn provided immense help and in the early 1990s, including an adaptation of a Chekhov short
support. Ten of the stories she wrote for the magazine became her story for public television. She has also written for the newly
rst book, At the Bottom of the River (1983). Kincaid married revamped journal Transitions and continues to publish frequently
Shawns son Allen and in 1985 the couple moved to North in the New Yorker.
Bennington, Vermont. They have two children, and Kincaid Whereas her previous novels portrayed a mother who was
divides her life between her family, writing at home, and giving cruel, selsh, willful, and only sporadically capable of maternal
lectures and readings. love from the daughters point of view, in Autobiography of My
Kincaids books closely reect her island culture and experi- Mother (1996), the mother tells her own story. The title, however,
ence, and are a blend of ction and autobiography. Her ctional is somewhat misleading; the narrators mother died in childbirth,
style has progressed from the dreamlike images in her early stories and though that mother is endlessly grieved, it is not her story.
to a more linear narrative form in the novels Annie John (1985) Rather it is Xuela Claudette Richardsons story, the story of a
and Lucy (1990). Her voice, however, remains uniquely lyrical fertile woman who chooses not to bear children. Kincaid has
and exotic. Often her sentences repeat phrases in musiclike explained that although she is glad to have been born, she believes
cadences, lulling the reader into Kincaids very special poetic her own mother should never have had children, and with this
rhythms. Critics have heard in her work the voices of Caribbean book Kincaid created an alternate life story for her mother.
folktales.
As she recounts her anguish and loss-lled childhood in
At the Bottom of the River begins with her most frequently Dominica, her colonial schooling, and her rst sexual experi-
anthologized story, The Girl, a one-page sentence of combat- ences, the only emotion Xuela allows herself is contempt. Exer-
ive dialogue between mother and daughter. This love-hate rela- cising her incredible will, Xuela creates herself, but the act of
tionship continues in others of these stories and throughout creation is one of negation as she denes what she wont do or be.
Kincaids work. Fantastic folklike images appear and disappear: a Her pivotal act of self-denition is a messy, painful, self-inicted
310
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS KING
abortion. Autobiography ends with Xuela in her 70s; she has of New Orleans by her Protestant mother and staunchly Confeder-
surmounted all obstacles, submitted to no one, and her hatred is ate lawyer father. A member of the state legislature prior to the
unabated. Civil War, he was barred for a time from practicing law for
refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the Union. Kings
In My Brother, her 1997 memoir tracing the life and death of memories of antebellum life and view of Southern defeat and
her brother in Antigua, Kincaid embraces a much wider range of Reconstruction were shaped by her youthful experiences of ight
emotions. This is another story of family and its inescapable pull, from New Orleans, loss of the family home, and years of relative
and at the center, once again, is a formidable mother gure. Again privation. Only gradually did her father reestablish a thriving law
Kincaid expresses her ambivalence toward the Caribbean, its practice. Like other cultivated upper-class whites who had lost
beauty, poverty, and distorted sexuality. And of course the storys most in the war, King became a conservative.
familiar heroine, the daughter who ees, is Kincaid herself.
Upon the familys return to the city at the end of Union
Critics welcomed the emotional breadth of My Brother and occupation, King attended the Institut St. Louis and graduated
praised Kincaids unsparing honesty. As Kincaid follows the arc with a prize in French at age sixteen, after which she continued her
of her brothers life, she examines her emotions with scientic studies at the school of Heloise Cenas, where she developed an
precision, seeking to identify and name each one. Love always interest in writing. Her skill in French led her to Maupassant and
feels better than not-love, she says, but she decides her own other French authors from whom she learned techniques of
intense feelings for her brother, disguised by anger, are nally less realism inuential in her treatment of regional subjects. In 1904,
than love. Kincaids language continues to dazzle. Corresponding with a brother and two unmarried sisters, King purchased a
to the nonlinear nature of memory, she writes long, lyrical, permanent home in New Orleans, their residence for the remain-
looping sentences whose rhythm and tone are most often de- der of their lives. She made three trips to Europe, nding Paris
scribed as incantatory. My Brother is ultimately Kincaids own most congenial to her writing, interest in theater, and friendships
story of what might have been. As she compares her life to her with women.
brothers, she recognizes how her own ruthlessness in cutting
herself off from the life of her childhood was what saved her. Her criticism of what she considered George Washington
Cables negative portrayals of Creole society in a conversation
In recent years Kincaid has turned her obsessive attention to with the Century magazine editor in 1885 led to his challenge that
gardening. In 1998 she edited the anthology My Favorite Plant: some local author might try producing better work. From this
Writers and Gardeners on the Plants They Love. She is also stimulus grew her rst story, Monsieur Motte, published in
working on a book about her own garden. 1886 through the efforts of a family friend and respected advisor,
Charles Dudley Warner, editor of Harpers. At Warners invita-
tion she visited Connecticut in 1887 and met, among others of the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Perry, Donna, An Interview with Jamaica Nook Farm group, Samuel Clemens and his wife Olivia, who
Kincaid, in Reading Black, Reading Feminist, Henry Louis became her longtime condant. On the whole she detested the
Gates, Jr., ed. (1990). North, nding affection for only a few admirable exceptions.
Reference works: CA 125 (1989). CLC (1987, 1991). Con-
temporary Novelists (1986). CB (March 1991). FC (1990). Minor praise in the northern press led to the acceptance of
Other references: Bennington Banner (27 April 1991). Com- other stories in monthlies such as Century. To Monsieur Motte
monweal (4 Nov. 1988). Missouri Review (1992). Nation (18 Feb. she added three stories and published them as a rst collection in
1991). NYT (7 Oct. 1990, 16 Jan.1996). NYTBR (4 Feb. 1996, 19 1888. Her stories centered on womens experiences. Later, she
Oct. 1997). Salon (13 Jan. 1996). Slate (21 Oct. 1997). WRB wrote articles for Harpers Bazaar, introducing the French intel-
(Nov. 1985). lectuals she met in Paris to American readers, and contributed a
number of short pieces about such gures as Baudelaire, Mrime,
SUSAN SWAN, and Paul Desjardins to Warners Library of the Worlds Best
UPDATED BY VALERIE VOGRIN Literature (1896-97).
From 1893 to 1898, King turned her attention to writing

historical works about the territory and state of Louisiana, follow-
ing the example of Charles Gayarr, a distinguished conservative
KING, Grace Elizabeth Southern historian and beloved family friend. Jean Baptiste le
Moyne (1892) is a biography of the Canadian founder of Mobile
Born 29 November 1851, New Orleans, Louisiana; died 14 and New Orleans. With H. R. Ficklen, a Tulane University
professor, she wrote A History of Louisiana (1893), primarily a
January 1932, New Orleans, Louisiana
school text. New Orleans: The Place and the People (1895), a
Daughter of William W. and Sarah Miller King
model municipal history, is her best historical work.
The eldest of four girls in a family of eight children, Grace King wrote few stories and articles and only two novels in the
Elizabeth King was raised in the French-speaking Creole society last 20 years of her life. The Pleasant Ways of St. Mdard (1916) is
311
KING AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
an autobiographical work dealing with the economic struggle and KING, Laurie R.
humiliation of the Reconstruction period; and La Dame de Sainte
Hermine (1924), a historical romance set in 18th-century New
Orleans. Creole Families of New Orleans (1921), an interesting Born 19 September 1952, Oakland, California
interpretive history, is based on the lives of French and Spanish Daughter of Roger R. and Mary Dickson Richardson; married
families who contributed to the development of the citys culture Noel A. King, 1977; children: Nathanael, Zoe
in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Laurie R. King is an acclaimed mystery writer who won both
The past is our only real possession in life begins Kings the Mystery Writers of Americas Edgar Allan Poe award and the
Memories of a Southern Woman of Letters, published posthu- British John Creasey award for her debut book, A Grave Talent
mously in 1932. More a study of Kings friendships than a (1993). Her two primary seriesone consisting of three psycho-
detailed picture of her life, it recalls in an overly rened manner logical thrillers starring K.C. (Kate) Martinelli, a present-day
the genteel society King sought to reestablish after her familys lesbian detective, and the other of four historical mysteries
misfortunes. centering on Mary Russell, who matches wits with and ultimately
marries a retired Sherlock Holmesare very different in setting
King was a competent realist at her best. Her ction offers and tone.
instructive contrast with that of Cable and Kate Chopin; her most
notable efforts can be found in Balcony Stories (1893), several Despite their dissimilarities, the two series have many attrib-
uncollected stories, New Orleans, and in sections of her Memories. utes in common. These include their focus on strong, multifaceted
female protagonists, their attention to detail, and their realistic
treatment of complex relationships. Both are also distinguished by
OTHER WORKS: Tales of a Time and Place (1892). DeSoto and the authors compassion for characters that would often be written
His Men in the Land of Florida (1898). Stories from Louisiana as two-dimensional villains.
History (with J. R. Ficklen, 1905). A Splendid Offer: A Comedy Kings father was a furniture restorer and her mother a
for Women (1926). Mount Vernon on the Potomac (1929). librarian and curator. In addition to receiving a B.A. from the
University of California at Santa Cruz in 1977 and a 1984
postgraduate degree from the same institutions Graduate Theo-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bush, R., Grace King: A Southern Destiny (1983). logical Union, King raised two children, worked as a coffee
Bush, R., Grace King of New Orleans: A Selection of Her roaster, and held several volunteer positions. She launched her
Writings (1973). Civil War Women: The Civil War Seen Through writing career in 1987, at age thirty-ve, as her second child
Womens Eyes in Stories by Louisa May Alcott, Kate Chopin, entered preschool.
Eudora Welty, and Other Great Women Writers (1990). Elfenbein,
A. S., Women on the Color Line: Evolving Stereotypes and the A Grave Talent introduced Martinelli, a San Francisco police
Writings of George Washington Cable, Grace King, Kate Chopin inspector who grows professionally and emotionally from book to
(1989). Gehman, M. E., The Creole Controversy Between book. Its not until page 180 of this work that readers discover
George Washington Cable and Grace King: A Thesis (thesis, Kate is a lesbian (whose lover is a paraplegic psychotherapist). In
1987). Heidari, M. W., Grace King in Her Journals, 1886-1910 addition to a page-turning mystery, the book focuses on Kates
(thesis, 1991). Kirby, D. K., Grace King (1980). Lyles, E. R., A relationship with her older, male partner and the trust that gradual-
Transitional Generation: Grace Kings World, 1852-1932 (the- ly grows between them. Although a Publishers Weekly reviewer
sis, 1991). Ripples of Dissent: Womens Stories of Marriage in the pointed out cracks in the plot and felt the two main characters were
1890s (1996). Shannon, A. W., Women on the Color Line: less developed than they should be, the book garnered primarily
Subversion of Female Stereotypes in the Fiction of Cable, King, positive reviews (as did future King works). For example, Library
and Chopin (thesis, 1984). Signet Classic Book of American Journal wrote of A Grave Talent, Kings intricate plotting,
Short Stories (1985). Slayton, G. C., Grace E. King: Her Life intriguing characters, and eye for detail make this an outstanding
and Works (dissertation, 1974). Sneller, J. E., Man-Figs and mystery and a great start to the series.
Magnolias, Ladies and Lariats Humor and Irony in the Writings of The second title in the Martinelli series is To Play the Fool
Three New Orleans Women, 1865-1916 (thesis, 1993). Wil- (1995), in which the detective enlists the help of the dean of
liams, C. A., A Southern Writers Retrospective: Betrayal, Rage Kings real-life alma mater, the Graduate Theological Union.
and Survival in the Reconstruction Fiction of Grace King Critics applauded the books sharply drawn characters, particular-
(thesis, 1986). ly the homeless Brother Erasmus, who speaks only in scripture
Reference works: DAB. NAW (1971). NCAB, 2. and literary allusions. Publishers Weeklys stated, Like the holy
Other references: AL (March 1972). Louisiana Historical fools whose purposes frame her latest modern mystery, King
Quarterly (Oct. 1934). SLJ (Fall 1974). Southern Review practices her own magic here, conjuring up, after a slowish start,
(April 1977). an indelibly affecting narrative from unexpected material. The
third Martinelli book, With Child (1996), again highlights the
THEODORA R. GRAHAM protagonists compassion, as well as her intelligence.
312
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS KING
Mary Russell, a scholarly, young, would-be detective grow- Sept. 1995, 5 Jan. 1997, 23 Nov. 1997). PW (28 Dec. 1992, 2 May
ing up in World War I England, is introduced as a 15-year-old in 1994, 12 Dec. 1994, 18 Nov. 1996, 17 Nov. 1997, 21 Dec. 1998).
The Beekeepers Apprentice; or On the Segregation of the Queen School Library Journal (June 1997).
(1994). Although written before A Grave Talent, its publication
was delayed, in part due to copyright issues involving Sir Arthur KAREN RAUGUST
Conan Doyles creation. Russell meets the retired detective, who
is busy keeping bees, and becomes his apprentice, matching him
in intelligence and temperament as they solve the case of a U.S.
senators kidnapped daughter. According to Booklist, Every- KING, Louisa Yeomans
thing about this book rings true, from the ambience of World War
I England to the intriguing relationship between Holmes and Mary Born 1863, Washington, New Jersey; died 16 January 1948,
to the surprising nal confrontation between Holmes and Moriartys Milton, Massachusetts
daughter. Wrote under: Mrs. Francis King
Daughter of Alfred and Elizabeth Ramsay Yeomans; married
In the second Mary Russell mystery, A Monstrous Regiment Francis King, 1890; children: three
of Women (1995), Russell and Holmes fall in love, and in A Letter
of Mary (1996) they become husband and wife. While the New A well-known garden writer in her time, Louisa Yeomans
York Times Book Review called the latter a smartly researched King was an inuential and active supporter of the Garden Club
and thoroughly enjoyable historical mystery, many reviewers movement and many horticultural societies. The daughter of a
were most taken with the relationship between the two characters. Presbyterian clergyman, she was educated at private schools. She
As Publishers Weekly noted, Kings achievement is her depic- was the mother of three children and lived for many years in
tion of the complex relationship between two individualists. Alma, Michigan, but moved to South Hartford, New York, in
In 1997 came The Moor, a retelling of the classic Holmes 1928. She was a founder of the Womens National Farm and
story The Hound of the Baskervilles, in which Holmes and Russell Garden Association, belonged to various horticultural societies,
revisit the case 20 years after Holmes rst encounter. The work and served as a vice president of the Garden Club of America. In
expertly combines the evolving relationship between the two 1921 she was awarded the George Robert White medal by the
characters and key elements of the original story, while adding Massachusetts Horticultural Society and in 1923 the Garden Club
historical gures such as the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould into of America Medal of Honor.
the mix. Publishers Weekly called it a captivating story and All of her garden books are concerned with the practical
King a uent writer, although the publication also noted that aspects of gardening and garden planning. While she often
this effort is slightly hobbled by the slow coalescence of its referred to her own gardens, she did not write the sort of personal
subplots. The fth Russell and Holmes adventure, O Jerusalem garden books associated with writers like Gertrude Jekyll and
(1999) takes the couple back to 1919, revisiting occupied Pales- Elizabeth Lawrence. Her work belongs to the large group of books
tine where they had visited in The Beekeepers Apprentice. by American women for American women encouraging their
King introduced a new protagonist, Anne Waverly, in A active participation in the art of gardening. Illustrated with photo-
Darker Place (1998). A university professor and FBI operative, graphs of elaborate garden schemes, most of Kings works
her involvement with a cult nearly two decades ago cost her her chronicle the gardening possibilities of the prosperous middle-
husband and young daughter. In this psychological suspense class American. While her advice is sound and her writing style
novel, her experiences give her unique insight as she inltrates a admirable, much of her work is dated because she devotes much
religious cult called Change, but also cause personal complica- space to discussing particular named varieties available at that time.
tions. The story is typical of King in that it deals with difcult Her rst book, The Well-Considered Garden (1915), went
emotional issues and intricate characters evenhandedly and com- through many editions. Basically, it is an introduction to garden-
passionately. King presents Changes leaders as neither simplis- ing on a somewhat rich scale, with chapters on Color Harmony
tic opportunists nor frenzied maniacs, but rather as methodical and A Small Spring Flower Border. In The Question of the
true believers who inhabit an ambiguous and dangerous middle Gardener she writes, A book on gardening in its varying
ground, wrote Publishers Weekly. Anne is equally hard to aspects could hardly omit mention of that man who must be
pigeonhole, a feisty, independent woman whose guilt about her constantly in sight of those who garden, the gardener, the paid, the
family tragedy leads to a misplaced sense of responsibility toward earnest, and almost always the friendly, assistant in our labors
two of the communes young wards. From this description, it with owers. Among other advice she gives in this chapter on
can be seen that Anne shares many of the attributes of Kings the gardener is to pay him well, at least $100 a month.
previous heroines.
Two of her very popular books, The Little Garden (1921) and
Variety in the Little Garden (1923), were, however, less remote
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference Works:CA 140 (1993). CANR 63 (1998). from the average American gardener. The premise behind these
SATA 88 (1997). two books is that the usual in gardening with taste is a large
Other references: Booklist (1 Feb. 1993, 1 Feb. 1994). LJ garden, so the small garden requires special attention. In The Little
(Jan. 1993, 15 May 1994, Jan. 1997). NYTBR (19 Feb. 1995, 17 Garden , she mourns the rise of the automobile, partly because a
313
KINGSOLVER AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
garage is now needed with most homes, taking up valuable garden biology at the University of Arizona. Her work as a journalist and
space, and partly for social reasons: I see sometimes the deterio- political rights activist has been the source of many of the themes
ration of the family, physical and mental, brought about by the of her poetry and ction, but her central concern in all of her
Ford and its kind. writing is the way women relate to the world.
King wrote extensively for garden magazines and for news- The 12 stories of Homeland and Other Stories (1989) depict
papers like the New York Times, and often her chapters rst enduring women who seek to reconcile their quest for individual
appeared elsewhere. One of her most interesting pieces is a fulllment with their sense of responsibility to the community.
chapter in Pages from a Garden Note-Book (1921), originally Their progress is often thwarted by political, social, or economic
read at the opening of a dormitory for women agriculture students circumstances. Magda of Island on the Moon is a woman who
at Massachusetts Agricultural College (now the University of would have been an artist if her life had been better. Instead,
Massachusetts). In Vocations for Women in Agriculture, she she just has to ooze out a little bit of art in everything she does.
tells of the founding of the Womens National Farm and Garden
Kingsolvers novels focus on women seeking their place in
Association in 1913. The goal of the organization was to encour-
community while developing a sense of self. In her rst, The Bean
age women to seek jobs on the land and to serve as a sort of
Trees (1988), protagonist Taylor Greer ees rural Kentucky and
information bureau about such work. Centered in Chicago, the
entrapment in what happens to all her friendspregnancy. Her
association had members who raised such things as poultry, bees,
odyssey includes nding a Cherokee baby, whom she names
petunia seed, and Poland China hogs. This association was part of
Turtle, in her car. They settle in Tucson, nding a place in the
the growing consciousness of womens ability to do physical
Jesus Is Lord Used Tire Shop, whose proprietor offers sanctuary
work outside the home. King looked forward to an extension of
to Central American refugees. In that world, Taylor and Turtle
such opportunities for women.
nd their own sanctuary and become a family.
Kings nine books, published over a short period of 15 years,
In Pigs in Heaven (1993), the sequel to Bean Trees, the
were among the most widely read garden books of her day. While
community Taylor and Turtle have forged is under threat. Annawake
lacking the scope and inuence of Louise Beebe Wilder and the
Fourkiller, a Cherokee lawyer dedicated to returning Native
scholarship of Helen M. Fox and Elizabeth Lawrence, King was
American children to the custody of the tribe, starts proceedings to
probably closer than any of these women to the average middle
gain custody of Turtle. The struggle for the child sends Taylor on
class reader.
another odyssey to escape her responsibility to Turtles people.
Finally, she returns to the reservation and nds that, because of a
OTHER WORKS: Chronicles of the Garden (1925). The Beginners Cherokee great-grandmother, it is also her tribe.
Garden (1927). The Flower Garden Day by Day (1927). The
Animal Dreams (1990) combines the personal quest for
Gardeners Colour Book (1929). From a New Garden (1930).
identity with the larger quest for human rights. Codi Noline, a
medical doctor turned high school teacher, returns to Grace,
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: NAW (1971). Arizona, to understand her familys past. Her sister, Hallie,
Other references: NYT (18 Jan. 1948). chooses commitment to the politics of the future and goes to
Nicaragua while Codi retreats into herself to try to understand her
BEVERLY SEATON place in the cosmos of Grace.
The balance of the personal and the political is a hallmark of
Kingsolvers ction and has parallels in her poetry. Another
KINGSOLVER, Barbara America (1992), a dual-language text with Spanish translations by
Rebeca Cartes, captures womens entry into the arena of politics,
violence, and survival. Kingsolvers poems chronicle the struggle
Born 8 April 1955, Annapolis, Maryland
for community that keeps women strong.
Daughter of Wendell R. and Virginia Henry Kingsolver; mar-
ried Joseph Hoffman, 1985 (divorced 1993); Steven Hopp; Throughout her work, Kingsolver seeks a dialogue among
children Camille, Lily women of the many cultures of the U.S.Native American,
Latino, Angloas they encounter each other and nd ways to
Barbara Kingsolver, working as a journalist in 1983, drove establish community in difference. Among these women is the
into the mining town of Clifton, Arizona, to cover the strike Cherokee great-grandmother who appears again and again in
against the Phelps Dodge Copper Corporation. Her book, Holding Kingsolvers work and who, like the Great Mother, watches the
the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983 (1989), unfolding history of all her children.
was Kingsolvers tribute to the women who kept the strike alive. It
Kingsolver writes about family, community, and the natural
was also her introduction to the way politics work for women
world. Her exploration of these themes continue in both the ction
down and dirty.
and nonction of two recent works. High Tide in Tucson: Essays
Born in Maryland, Kingsolver grew up in eastern Kentucky from Now or Never (1995) is a collection of 25 essays the author
and subsequently moved to Arizona. She graduated from DePauw said gave her the opportunity to step from behind her mask of
University (B.A., 1977) and later completed a masters degree in ction and to say, I, Barbara Kingsolver, believe this. The
314
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS KINGSTON
essays include her comments on motherhood, property, the place advanced degree in education. In 1967 she moved to Honolulu
of humans in the animal kingdom, the effects of the Gulf War, her and from then until 1977 taught English at the Mid-Pacic
attitude toward housework, the art of ction writing, as well as her Institute, a private coeducational high school. In 1977 Kingston
stint as a keyboard player in a band of bestselling authors that was a visiting assistant professor at the University of Hawaii,
included Stephen King and Amy Tan. Her honest and witty where she taught creative writing. She has contributed many
personal and political observations cover the deance of her articles and reviews to popular and literary magazines.
two-year-old daughter, the ethics of a wild pig who eats up her
garden, and the experience of buying a love fetish in a West Winner of the 1976 National Book Critics Circle Award for
African market. nonction, her rst book, The Woman Warrior, has been various-
ly viewed as a novel, a memoir, and an autobiography. In it
In the early 1960s Kingsolver lived in the Congo when her Kingston recreates in ve sketches the imagined life of a Chinese
parents were health care workers. Out of this experience came The aunt who committed suicide after bearing a child out of wedlock;
Poisonwood Bible (1998), a symbolic parallel to the Congos the training and exploits of a legendary Chinese woman warrior;
struggle for independence, this novel is the story of a minister who the disjunctively similar training and exploits of Kingstons own
comes to a small African village in 1959 to convert the natives. mother, rst as a doctor in China and then as the mother of six
There he not only fails to deliver his message of Christianity children born after she arrived in America at the age of forty-ve
because he mispronounces basic words in the tribal language, but
to run a Chinese laundry; the failure of another of Kingstons
he also refuses to seek help from the village community in times of
aunts to adapt to modern life after the husband she came from
ood, drought, malaria, and ant attacks. Ultimately, he and his
China to reclaim after 30 years rejected her in favor of his modern
family are ejected from the village when the villagers decide their
American wife; and, nally, the authors own struggles with all
traditional gods are better than Jesus. As always in Kingsolvers
the ghosts of her past as she balances the Chinese heritage, largely
books, the story unfolds from the perspective of the female
unarticulated, and the American life which impinges so painfully
charactersthe preachers wife and four daughters.
and immediately upon her childhood.
Kingsolvers powerful and simple writing style addresses the
problem of getting on with the business of living. While political Throughout the book move ghosts. There are the shrouded
issues such as race, sex, wealth, poverty, greed, and justice appear villagers who terrorize the no-name aunt; the old-young cou-
as driving forces, her emphasis is on probing into how personal ple who trains the woman warrior in their fantasy mountain
relationships t into the overarching picture. She continues to fastness. We confront our everyday selves in the multitude of
enlighten her readers as she delves into this question by express- ghosts who populate the world of the young Kingston: garbage
ing her views in her own words and in the words of her women ghosts, meter-reader ghosts, newsboy ghosts, half-ghosts of
characters. Chinese immigrant children raised in America, and nally the
unnamed but insistent ghost of Kingstons own Americanized self
as she torments a remnant of her past who, like her, refuses to
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: ANR 60 (1998). CA 129 speak in public. It is these ghosts that unite the ve sketches
(1989). CLC 55 (1992). ghosts of the past, of otherness, of a larger, corporeal world which
Other works: Ms. (April 1988). NYTBR (10 April 1988, 5 only gradually merges with emotional reality.
June 1988, 11 June 1989, 7 Jan. 1990, 2 Sept. 1990, 28 July 1991).
The Progressive (Dec. 1998, Feb. 1996). Time (24 Sept. 1990, 9 It is only by attempting to retrace the legends told by her
Nov. 1998). Trachtman, P., High Tide in Tucson, in Smithsoni- family and to remake them into her own life that Kingston comes
an (June 1996). WRB 5:8 (May 1988). Wootten, S., In a State of to uneasy terms with them. And yet she is beset by difculties: her
Hopefulness: Barbara Kingsolver Swims At High Tide, in mother will not tell what is truth and what desire, and the child
Sojourners (May/June 1996). cannot often distinguish. I dont see how [the Chinese] kept up a
continuous culture for ve thousand years, she remarks. May-
MARY A. MCCAY, be they didnt; maybe everyone makes it up as they go along.
UPDATED BY PAULA C. MURPHY But her attempt to shape the world through her own legends
proves insufcient too, and she ees from the spectre of forcing
another shy Chinese girl into the legend Kingston would, but
cannot quite, create. With maturity comes the inevitable question-
KINGSTON, Maxine Hong ing: Perhaps the ghosts have nothing to do with the struggle;
perhaps what I once had was not Chinese-sight at all but child-
Born 27 October 1940, Stockton, California sight that would have disappeared eventually without such strug-
Daughter of Tom and Ying Lan Chew Hong; married Earll gle. Oneself becomes the ultimate elusive ghost.
Kingston, 1962
Kingston crosses the ultimate cultural barrier into the mind,
Maxine Hong Kingstons parents immigrated from China in where cultural patterns are but archetypes. The unheroic, vulner-
the 1930s, eventually setting up a laundry in Stockton, where able American-born child both embodies and is descended from
Kingston worked as a child. She received a degree in English from the woman warrior, invulnerable symbol of heroism from whom
the University of California at Berkeley and studied toward an all of us are descended and whose blood, both heroic and ghostly,
315
KINGSTON AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
runs in all veins. The Woman Warrior is short and elliptical. It and stereotypes that can sometimes seem completely different and
sounds like a Chinese translation, with simple sentences and at at other times strangely conated. He frequently invokes and
direct statements. As in poetry, much is left to the reader. identies with the trickster King of the Monkeys of Chinese
The book achieves through style and tone a force of pure folklore, which becomes an American Monkey by the end of
incontrovertibility which in large part creates its aura of universality. the book.
Since the publication of The Woman Warrior (1976), Kingston Kingston has been criticized by some for promoting a fake
has become one of the most critically praised and best known exotic Asian-American image or for catering to mainstream
contemporary writers in the U.S. and by far the most studied tastes at the expense of ethnic authenticity. It is precisely the
Asian-American writer. Devoting herself wholly to her writing notion of authenticity that Kingston questions while she af-
since the late 1970s, she won the 1981 nonction American Book rms the existence and signicance of tradition and history. She is
Award for her narrative China Men and the American Academy one of the premiere interpreters of the uctuating and persistent
and Institute of Art and Letters Award for literature in 1990. nature of those racial and ethnic categories in the U.S. that are
impossible both to escape and to x with any certainty.
A series of biographical/autobiographical narrations, China
Men recounts the encounters of several generations of Kingstons Kingston was awarded the National Humanities Medal in
male ancestors with the U.S. and graphically examines the dif- 1997. Since the publication of Tripmaster Monkey, she has been at
cult questions of race, ethnicity, and nationality in America. These work on a number of projects. She has also remained active in the
men often work in menial or marginal jobsas a farmworker literary community, participating on various panels throughout
clearing land in Hawaii, as a laborer building the transcontinental the country. Kingstons method of writing has changed in recent
railroad, as the owner of a small laundry. Yet these jobs are often years. Following the re that destroyed her home (and her manu-
at the foundation of the communities in which these men and their script in progress), Kingston decided she no longer wanted to
families live. The men whose stories are told remain outside work alone. Thus her stage adaptation of The Woman Warrior
mainstream U.S. society in many respects, victims of virulent and China Men (combined into one work) was the result
racist discrimination, culturally enforced silence, and violence. of a decade-long collaboration with a number of producers,
Their identication as Chinese is also called into question, screenwriters, playwrights, actors, editors, and musicians. The
however: one uncle, deranged by dreams of the U.S. and the play opened at the Berkeley Repertory Theater in 1994.
Communist Revolution in China, goes there, to a home he may
never have previously seen, and disappears; the narrators father Kingston has also been working on a new full-length piece,
is cheated by his Chinese partners in a laundry. As in Kingstons The Fifth Book of Peace. Like much of her work, it will be difcult
earlier work, dreams of China and American dreams collide with to categorize as ction or nonction, combining stories of her
American racial constructions and the actual conditions of immi- own experiences with those of invented characters. The Fifth
grant life in the U.S., producing an unstable story of hope, Book of Peace is being created in her new collaborative mode;
disappointment, and disquiet in which neither side of the hyphen Kingston has been working extensively with a group of war
in Chinese-American can be either erased or made to re- veterans discussing and writing about their ideas of war and peace.
main xed.
Kingstons rst novel, Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book OTHER WORKS: Hawaii One Summer (1987, originally published
(1989), also deals with the unstable and inescapable categories of 1978). Through the Black Curtain (1987). Cultural Mis-
race and nationality in the United States. The protagonist of the readings by American Reviewers, in Asian and Western Writers
novel, Wittman Ah Sing, is a fth-generation Chinese-American in Dialogue (edited by Guy Amirthanayagam, 1982).
living in San Franciscos Chinatown during the 1960s. He can
speak, though not read much Chinese, as well as recognize and
speak a number of Chinese-American vernaculars produced by BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brown Ruoff, A. L. and J. Ward, eds., Redening
various Chinese encounters with American English in U.S. American Literary History (1990). Duke, M. S., ed., Modern
Chinatowns. He is also familiar with Chinese folklore and Chinese Women Writers: Critical Appraisals (1989). Eakin, P. J.,
traditional culture. At the same time Wittman (named for Walt Fictions in Autobiography: Studies in Self-Invention (1985).
Whitman) is a poet, storyteller, and graduate in English at the Kessler-Harris, A. and W. McBrian, eds., Faith of a (Woman)
University of California at Berkeley, familiar with both the Writer (1988). Yang, M. C. From Ethnicity to a Wider World:
high literary culture of Rilke and Joyce and the counterculture The Education of Kate Simon and Maxine Hong Kingston
that seems on the cusp of the transformation from the period of the (thesis, 1992).
Beats, especially Jack Kerouac, to the hippies. He is also saturated Reference works: CANR (1987). FC (1990). Modern Ameri-
and obsessed with American popular culture, particularly the can Women Writers (1991).
images of Asians and Asian-Americans promoted in such movies Other references: American Literary History (1990). Asian
as Flower Drum Song and The World of Suzie Wong. The son of Week (17 June 1994, 31 Mar. 1995). Biography (Winter 1983,
Chinese-American vaudevilleans who traveled the country per- Spring 1986, Spring 1989). Humanities (1 Nov. 1997). MELUS
forming largely African American music, Wittman is at home, if (Winter 1982, Winter 1983, Fall 1985, Spring 1987, Spring 1988).
not exactly comfortable, with theatrics, illusion, and ethnic types Ms. (June 1989). Michigan Quarterly Review (1987). NYRB (3
316
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS KINZIE
Feb. 1977). NYTBR (7 Nov. 1976, 23 April 1989). PMLA (1988). Kinneys best writings now seem to be her accounts, in letters and
Seven Days (28 Feb. 1977).VVLS (May 1989). journals, of Italy and of the people she knew there. Her journal
records a revelatory dispute between the Brownings, whom the
LORALEE MACPIKE, Kinneys knew in Florence, and Kinney over George Sands
UPDATED BY JAMES SMETHURST AND VALERIE VOGRIN morality or immorality, and many comments on Elizabeth Barrett
Brownings dabblings in spiritualism.
Most of Kinneys works published during her lifetime are
KINNEY, Elizabeth (Clementine) now of interest chiey as indices of mid-19th-century American
popular taste; her letters, Journal, and Personal Reminiscences
Dodge retain more lasting charm and power to please.
Born 18 December 1810, New York, New York; died 19 Novem-

ber 1889, Summit, New Jersey OTHER WORKS: Elizabeth Dodge Kinneys Journal and Per-
Wrote under: Mrs. E. C. Kinney, Mrs. E. Clementine Kinney, sonal Reminiscences are in the Columbia University Library in
Mrs. E. C. Stedman New York City.
Daughter of David and Sarah Cleveland Dodge; married Ed-
mund B. Stedman, 1830 (died); William B. Kinney, 1841
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Woodress, J., ed., Essays Mostly on Periodical
Elizabeth Dodge Kinneys father was a prosperous New Publishing in America: A Collection in Honor of Clarence
York merchant. Her rst son was Edmund C. Stedman, American Gohdes (1973).
anthologist, literary critic, and poet. After her rst husbands Reference works: AA. The American Female Poets (1854).
death at sea in 1835, she became a regular contributor of poems CAL. DAB. The Female Poets of America, (1850). The Female
and articles to popular magazines such as Grahams, Sartains Prose Writers of America (1857). NCAB.
and the Knickerbocker. In 1841 she married William B. Kinney, Other references: BIS (1976).
the leading political writer in the state of New Jersey and
SUSAN SUTTON SMITH
owner and editor of the Newark Daily Advertiser, and combined
work on essays and criticism for his paper with her duties as
mother of a growing family. Her husband was appointed charg
daffaires at Sardinia in 1850. For three years, the Kinneys lived in
Turin, and then, for more than 10 years, they lived in Florence,
KINZIE, Juliette (Augusta) Magill
before returning to New Jersey in 1865.
Born 11 September 1806, Middletown, Connecticut; died 15
Felicit: A Metrical Romance (1855), Kinneys rst work, is September 1870, Amagansett, New York
the supposedly true story of an unfortunate young French girl who Daughter of Arthur and Frances Wolcott Magill; married John H.
is sold as a slave by her miserly father. It is long on bad rhymes Kinzie, 1830; children: seven
and strained meters but short on credible characters or motives.
Bianca Cappello: A Tragedy (1873), set in Venice and Florence in Born to a wealthy and established Connecticut family, Juliette
the latter part of the 16th century, is based on historical sources Magill Kinzie was the eldest child and an only daughter. She was
and told in blank verse, complete with comic scenes. The leading educated at home by her mother and an uncle, and then, in 1821,
character, Bianca, is both desirous of power (she is involved in the attended the Emma Willard Female Seminary in New Haven.
murders of three people) and very much in love, and therefore her Married to an Indian agent at Fort Winnebago, Wisconsin, Kinzie
motives are often unclear.
later used Winnebago as the scene for her novels. She and her
So prolic was Kinney that even her collection of Poems husband settled in Chicago in 1834, where she quickly became the
(1867) omits many of her contributions to magazines and newspa- early settlements social force. She assisted in founding St. Lukes
pers from the 1830s through the 1850s. In 1854 critic Caroline Hospital and St. James Church, the rst Episcopalian church in
May wrote of Kinneys poems, There is much genuine feeling, a the settlement. The Kinzies were parents of seven children, only
delicate perception of the beautiful, and an honest love for the three of whom survived their parents.
simple and true, in her effusions, which cannot fail to please. To
Narrative of the Massacre at Chicago, August 15, 1812, and
modern tastes, her verses mix bromide and saccharin, and only a
of Some Preceding Events (1844) records the memories of eye-
few rise above the general mediocrity. The Infants Miniature
witnesses of the events. It contains a detailed description of the
(Knickerbocker, July 1842) manages to suggest some particulari-
raid of Chicago conducted by the Pottowattamie Nation, the
ty and freshness, as does the topographical poem Mount Hope
Ottawas, Shawnees, Winnebagoes, and Calumets. Kinzie claims
Cemetery, Rochester (Knickerbocker, Sept. 1840).
her Narrative was made simply for the purpose of preserving to
Her tales, like her poems, suffer today because they suited all the children of the writer a faithful picture of the perilous scenes
too well the popular taste of her era. Kinneys journalism and through which those near and dear to them had been called to
travel pieces such as A Sabbath Among the Mountains of pass. Focusing on personal incidents as remembered by mem-
Pennsylvania (Grahams, July 1845) retain far more interest. bers of the Kinzie family, the Narrative utilizes conversation and
317
KIRBY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
an anecdotal style. It was considered factual enough, however, to she returned to London, where she obtained employment with the
be used two years later by Henry Brown in his History of Illinois. family of the Reverend E. S. Gannet, who brought her to Boston.
Kinzies second work, Wau-Bun: The Early Day in the In 1841 Kirby joined the Brook Farm community at West
Northwest (1856), is generally considered her best novel. A long Roxbury, Massachusetts, as pupil and teacher, initially to develop
work about the activities and experiences of settlers in the sufcient mathematical skills to obtain a teaching certicate.
Midwest, it describes Kinzies journeys through Wisconsin and Eventually she took over the direction of the Infant School. Kirby
Illinois and includes pictures of domestic life and experience. readily embraced the liberal religious views of Brook Farm,
As described in her introduction, her technique depends on the use where no formal religion was imposed. A rebel from early
of journals and letters written during the period, for her goal was childhood, she found it difcult to respect a Diety who had made
to write with an air of truth and reality. Wau-Bun is also very such a botch of his universe. in her autobiography, Years of
much concerned with the Native Americans, and Kinzie alternate- Experience (1887), she wrote: How much I wished that the
ly portrays their Acuteness and Simplicity. She reprints her Almighty had been a mother, an innite mother! She would never
vivid description of the massacre of the Chicago settlement, and have planned an endless hell.
the Battle of Lake Erie and the rebuilding of Fort Dearborn are The radical social views of Brook Farm also appealed to
prominently featured. Kirby. She enjoyed the intimate friendships, aesthetic pleasures,
and intellectual contacts with people like Margaret Fuller, Ralph
Walter Ogilby (1869) is a departure from the scene and style
Waldo Emerson, W. H. Channing, and Theodore Parker. She
of Kinzies earlier works. Set in New England during the 1820s,
developed an interest in mesmerism, hydropathy, and phrenology
the novel is a sort of imitation of Jane Austens Pride and
and espoused abolition, womens rights, and Fourierist reforms.
Prejudice. It concerns the romantic adventures of Alice Morton,
Ultimately, she became so radicalized she believed revolution
who nally marries the Byronic Ogilby.
alone could effect social change.
Kinzies nal novel, Mark Logan, published posthumously When Kirby decided to leave Brook Farm, Margaret Fuller,
in 1871, returns to the subject matter of Wau-Bun. Set in Detroit at who had become her closest friend, arranged for her to meet
the turn of the 19th century, the novel depicts the experiences of Eliza W. Farnham, the matron of the womens prison at Sing Sing.
English and French settlers, military families, and Native Ameri- Farnham welcomed Kirby as her assistant, but, unable to endure
cans as they interact on the frontier. The plot revolves around the the tensions of the work, Kirby left after a year. She endeavored to
heros disguise as an Native American, the surrender of Red Bird, obtain a teaching assignment in the Midwest in order to help
and the Winnebago War. Though her writing is lled with the young blacks, but her strong abolitionist views made it impossible
aws of popular writingstereotyped heroes and heroines, con- for her to keep a position. In 1850 Kirby moved to Santa Cruz,
trived plots, and stilted dialogue her best work captures the California, where, after living with Farnham for some time, she
everyday experiences of men and women struggling to survive on married R. C. Kirby.
an alien frontier.
A decade after her marriage Kirby began to write for publica-
tion. Her initial piece, My First Visit to Brook Farm, appeared
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: NAW (1971). in the Overland Monthly in 1870. The narrative recreates the
idyllic atmosphere of the early days at the farm. Kirbys use of
DIANE LONG HOEVELER ctional names and her alteration of some events lessens the
historical value of the work. Later publications concerning Brook
Farm also ctionalize the life to some extent. Kirby also wrote at
least one short story, A Tale of the Redwoods (1874).
KIRBY, Georgiana Bruce Transmission; or, Variation of Character Through the Moth-
er (1879), Kirbys most unusual work, consists of what Kirby
Born December 1818, Bristol, England; died 27 February 1887, calls self-evident propositions concerning the power which the
Santa Cruz, California pregnant woman exercises over the fetus. Drawing on observa-
Daughter of Francis and Mrs. Stradwick Bruce; married R. C. tions made during nearly 40 years, Kirby refutes the notion that
Kirby, 1850 the woman merely nourishes the germ given by the father. She
demonstrates, with many examples, that the mothers occupations
and attitudes during gestation strongly benet or impair the
The second daughter of her mothers rst marriage, Georgiana
childs temperament and later actions.
Bruce Kirby was born three months after the death of her seaman
father. Her childhood was a mixture of one happy year in the Kirbys most extensive work is her autobiographical narra-
country, two years of formal education, and a number of years of tive Years of Experience, which recounts her life from her youth
deprivation in a small English seaport town. At fourteen Kirby up to the point of her departure for the West. Although partially
became a governess for an English family who took her to France ctionalized, the work as a whole gives a good account of her life
and later to Melbourne, Canada, where she taught school and and thought. The book provides ample evidence for the remark of
learned the skills necessary for survival on the frontier. In 1837 one Brook Farmer that Kirby was the most radical of them all.
318
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS KIRK
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Codman, J. T., Brook Farm: Historical and ctionalized, and overly attering, account of the life of the writer
Personal Memoirs (1894). Curtis, E. R., A Season in Utopia: The Katharine Sherwood McDowell (1849-1883), it relates the trav-
Story of Brook Farm (1961). Farnham, E. W., California In- ails of a young author trying to support herself and her daughter
Doors and Out (1856). Stern, M. B., Two Letters from the after having been deserted by her weak, spendthrift husband.
Sophisticates of Santa Cruz, in Book Club of California Quar- Many of the complications in the novel arise when Margaret is
terly News-Letter (Summer 1968). Swift, L., Brook Farm: Its courted by several suitors who presume that she is a widow.
Members, Scholars, and Visitors (1961). Margaret is the most complicated, realistically portrayed, and
continually intriguing of Kirks many heroines. Her struggles to
LUCY FREIBERT earn an independent income and wrestle with the conicting
demands of passion and propriety are of lasting interest. Even the
contrived death of her husband, which frees her to marry the
worthy Dr. Walton and conveniently resolves the moral ambigui-
KIRK, Ellen Warner (Olney) ties surrounding divorce and delity, does not seriously undercut
the novels worth. Kirk was less successful when she repeated the
Born 6 November 1842, Southington, Connecticut; died 1928, plot of a noble heroine married to the wrong man in a later novel,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Walford (1890).
Wrote under: Henry Hayes, Ellen Olney Kirk, Ellen W. Olney
Another of her better novels is Queen Money (1888). The
Daughter of Jesse and Elizabeth Barnes Olney; married John F.
focus is on the misadventures that befall Otto March, a naive
Kirk, 1879
young college graduate apprenticed to a prominent Wall Street
nancier and living with relatives involved in the publishing
Even in her childhood, Ellen Warner Kirk enjoyed a famili-
industry. The setting provides Kirk with a wide range of possible
arity with the publishing world. Her mother was the sister of the
intrigues, humorous anecdotes, and social commentary upon
New York publisher A. S. Barnes, and her father, in his time a
which to capitalize. Although many of these complications arise
well-known geographer and educator, was the author of numerous
as a result of the numerous characters attempts to heed the
textbooks including Geography and Atlas (1828), a standard work
dictates of materialistic and overly fashionable society, Kirks
widely used in American schools that went through nearly 100
motive seems less social criticism than entertainment. The menu
printings. Although Kirk evidenced a love of literature and a
at a dinner party and the program at an opera receive as much
penchant for creative writing throughout her extensive private
narrative attention as the vagaries of the stock market; events
education at schools in Connecticut and Boston, she did not
provide the background for the revelation of and interplay be-
actively try to get her work published until after the death of her
tween characters. A calamitous stock market crash does solve
father in 1872. The serialized publication of her rst novel, Love
most of the romantic complications, and the essentially unscathed
in Idleness, in Lippincotts (1876-77), brought her an immediate
Otto escapes with the idealized heroine, Lucy Florian. Kirk
fame, which she enjoyed throughout her prolic career. She
repeated this examination of the follies that befall the Mammon
published 29 book-length works of ction as well as numerous
worshippers of New York in two subsequent novels, A Daughter
essays and short stories for various periodicals, primarily Atlantic
of Eve (1889) and Ciphers (1891). Of the two, A Daughter of Eve
Monthly. Following her marriage to an author of historical studies
is the more interesting.
and editor of Lippincotts, she lived in the Germantown area of
Philadelphia. The novels Kirk wrote during the second half of her career
are strikingly less memorable than her earlier novels. Her critics
In Love in Idleness (1877), Kirk traces the adventures and
often bemoaned that she did not live up to the promise she initially
misadventures of several characters spending a vacation together
demonstrated. The clever style and denitive ability to capture
at the Connecticut country home of a wealthy bachelor. Nearly
characters through their conversations becomes less controlled,
everyone falls in love, but almost never with each other. There is
the repetition of plots more tedious, and the powers of observation
no actual plot other than that provided by the conversations that
less acute. Although widely read in her own time, most of Kirks
reveal the inevitable unraveling and recoupling. The novel ends
works will probably strike the modern reader as ephemeral. Only
happily, if predictably, with at least half a dozen marriages.
The Story of Margaret Kent and Queen Money seem to deserve
Kirk repeated these basic elements in her second novel, His any genuine resurrection.
Hearts Desire (1878). Here the setting is a stately old Knicker-
bocker family mansion, comfortably overlooking the Hudson
OTHER WORKS: Clare and Bebe (1879). Through Winding Ways
River. The various complications originating from the tangled
(1879). A Lesson in Love (1881). Fairy Gold (1883). A Midsum-
lives of the many characters are resolved only through an equally
mer Madness (1884). In City and Camp (1886). All in the Wild
complicated series of misunderstandings, trysts, deaths, suicides,
March Morning (1887). Sons and Daughters (1887). Better Times
and blackmail schemes. This interest in combining a variety of
Stories (1889). Maidens Choosing (1890). A Superuous Woman
characters in revealing social situations was to prove the mainstay
(1892). Wooing of the Two Mr. Benedicts (1892). The Story of
of Kirks popularly received ction throughout her prolic career.
Lawrence Garthe (1894). The Revolt of the Daughter (1897).
Kirks most favorably reviewed and nancially successful Dorothy Deane: A Childrens Story (1898). A Revolutionary Love
novel was The Story of Margaret Kent (1886). Rumored to be a Story, and the High Steeple of St. Chrysostoms (1898). Dorothy
319
KIRKLAND AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
and Her Friends (1899). Our Lady Vanity (1901). A Remedy for the process of the transformation of the diverse aspects of pioneer
Love (1902). Goodbye Proud World (1903). The Apology of life into a less precarious existence. Integrating her impressions,
Ayliffe (1904). Marcia (1907). Kirkland comments on the scene in retrospect and with accumu-
lated insight.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hill, V., Strategy and Breadth: The Socialist-Femi- Kirkland returned to the East in 1843, where her husband
nist in American Fiction (dissertation, 1979). Logan, J., The Part would have better professional opportunities and their four child-
Taken by Women in American History (1912). Taylor, W., The ren (Joseph Kirkland, the eldest son, later became a well-known
Economic Novel in America (1942). novelist) could get proper schooling. After her husbands death in
Reference works: Appletons Cyclopaedia of American Bi- 1846, Kirkland immediately took up his responsibilities at the
ography (1900). A Critical Dictionary of English Literature Christian Inquirer, operated her school for girls, reviewed for
(1863). A Dictionary of American Authors (1904). NCAB. Oxford Duyckincks Literary World, and shortly thereafter undertook the
Companion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). editorship of the Union Magazine of Literature and Art. In its
Other references: Atlantic (June 1888). Epoch (Feb. 1888). earliest days under Kirklands leadership the Union was consid-
Galaxy (May 1877). Harpers (Apr. 1886). Independent (30 May ered one of the best family magazines of its kind.
1889). Literary World (6 Feb. 1886, 5 Jan. 1889). Nation (13 Mar. A New HomeWholl Follow? brought immediate populari-
1879, 19 Mar. 1891, 11 Feb. 1892). Overland Monthly (Aug. 1887). ty; Forest Life followed to enthusiastic reviews. Poe thought
Western Clearings (1845), a collection of sketches leaning toward
VICKI LYNN HILL
the short story form, the best of all. Though best known for this
Western writing, Kirkland also completed a travel book, a biogra-
phy of Washington, a novel, and three collections of essays. But
the work of the last 20 years of her life remains unexplored and
KIRKLAND, Caroline M(atilda) unevaluated.
Stansbury Though never identied with the womens rights movement,
Kirklands introduction to Reids A Plea for Women (1845)
Born 11 January 1801, New York, New York; died 6 April 1864, appeared three years before the rst womens rights convention at
New York, New York Seneca Falls. Kirkland advocated equal legal and political rights,
Also wrote under: Mrs. Mary Clavers, Aminadab Peering and was especially bitter on the problem of womens nancial
Daughter of Samuel and Eliza Alexander Stansbury; married dependence. She was also deeply concerned about the slavery
William Kirkland, 1828 (died 1846); children: four issue and by 1856, after completing her Washington biography,
wrote a friend, I am terribly low-spirited about public affairs. I
Caroline Kirkland, an eldest child, came from a literary see nothing but civil war and disunion before us. Though a
family (her mother was a writer and her great-grandfather was a pacist, she supported and worked for the Union.
Tory poet during the American Revolution). In the Quaker school In the early 1850s, her short stories and essays were brought
of her aunt Lydia Mott she received an unusually good education out as gift-book collections: The Evening Book (1852); A Book for
for a girl born at the beginning of the 19th century. After her the Home Circle (1853); and Autumn Hours (1854). The major
marriage to Kirkland the couple settled in Geneva, New York, topic in each was the correction and improvement of American
where they established a school. In 1835, they crossed overland to manners and morals, which she managed to urge with sophisticat-
Detroit, an already thriving metropolis on the edge of the ed, disarming simplicity quite different from the saccharine and
frontier to direct the newly established Detroit female seminary. somber utilitarianism that characterized most literature on the
The land fever and get-rich schemes circulating through Detroit same topics. In one essay, Literary Women, a spirited defense
engaged their imagination, and two years later they located 60 of women authors, Kirkland with tongue in cheek suggests
miles west, in the tiny hamlet of Pinckney. shopkeepers not sell pens to women who write, and that women
should be excluded from schoolat least till they are over forty.
The pioneering experience was the impetus for Kirklands
writing career. A New HomeWholl Follow? (1839), written by At a time when popular literature consisted of moralizing
Kirkland under the pseudonym Mrs. Mary Clavers, an Actual essays on self-improvement and sentimental tales, Kirkland, in
Settler, gives her slightly ctionalized account of the early years contrast, expressed herself clearly, concisely, and humorously.
of a new community on the frontier. Loosely constructed of Her themes, settings, characters, and moral vision were a realists.
character sketches, brief essays on events unique to frontier life, Her range of female characters gives a more complete picture of
tales, and a few mild adventures, the book covers the development the nature and condition of women than can be derived from the
of the town from the log cabin to the community. Though work of the rst-ranking American authors of the period. Kirkland
Kirkland claims that nothing very adventurous happens, the life wrote, It has been thought necessary to dress up and render
she describes is, in fact, eventful and arduous. In her second book, conspicuous a certain class of events, while another class, perhaps
Forest Life (1842), the device of a tour of Michigan allows far more efcient in producing the real features of the age, are
Kirkland to comment on the developing institutions of the fron- unnoticed and forgotten. Kirkland, with her realists perspec-
tier, to generalize on events, and to describe the natural terrain and tives, makes a signicant contribution to our own times.
320
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS KIZER
OTHER WORKS: Principles of Morality by J. Dymond (edited by much praise for her interpretations of Chinese poetry, she
Kirkland, 1847). Spenser and the Faery Queen (edited by Kirkland, remarked that her mother (credited in YIN: New Poems, 1984, as
1847). Holidays Abroad (1849). The Book of Home Beauty her muse) had read Arthur Waleys translations to her when she
(1852). Garden Walks with the Poets (1852). The Helping Hand was as young as eight. High-minded and intense, Kizer missed
(1853). Memoirs of Washington (1857). The School-Girls Gar- other children, but her childhood and her remarkably individual
land (1864). Patriotic Eloquence (1866). education suggest the freedom available to many important crea-
Some of Caroline Kirklands papers are housed within the tive personalities. Living in the western U.S. may also have
Chicago Historical Society. contributed to the sense of possibility essential to becoming a
writer. In a valuable brief autobiography, Kizer captures the
bravery and the variety of her ancestors achievements as they
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Dondore, D. A., The Prairie and the Making
struggled toward the far edge of the continent. Similar pride might
of Middle America: Four Centuries of Description (1926).
have also inspired her rst public success: a patriotic poem
Keyes, L. C., Caroline M. Kirkland: A Pioneer in American
published in the Ladies Home Journal and set to music for radio
Realism (dissertation, 1935). Kolodny, A., The Land Before
when she was just fteen.
Her: Fantasy and Experience of the American Frontiers, 1630-
1860 (1984). Leverentz, D., Manhood and the American Renais- Looking for a college far from home to match the seriousness
sance (1989). Osborne, W. S., Caroline M. Kirkland (1972). and eccentricity of her upbringing, Kizer settled on Sarah Law-
Parra, J. M., Altered Vision: Three Nineteenth-Century Western rence, a school that challenged her self-image but also provided
Authors: Caroline Kirkland, Mary Hallock Foote and Mary Aus- encouragement for her writing. When the New Yorker published
tin (thesis, 1995). Riordan, D. G., The Concept of Simplicity in one of her poems, the seventeen-year-old author received over
the Works of Mrs. Caroline M. Kirkland (dissertation, 1973). 500 letterspublic endorsement for an unsure commitment.
Roberts, A. J., The Letters of Caroline M. Kirkland (disserta- Going on to Columbia University after graduation to study
tion, 1976). Stickney, G., Oh, the Troubles Weve Seen: Wom- comparative literature on a Chinese Cultural Fellowship, Kizer
ens Pioneering Portrayals of Hardship in the Development of subsequently continued her studies in China. But her poetic
American Literature (thesis, 1993). inspiration remained more imaginative than linguistic. Waleys
Reference works: AA. CAL. DAB. NAW (1971). NCAB. translations suggested the imitations included in her second
Oxford Companion to Womens Writing in the United Stat- collection of poems, Knock Upon Silence (1965). Praising her
ed (1995). sensitivity to the spirit of the Chinese poems, critics admired her
Other references: Godeys Ladys Book (August 1846). Legacy ability to include many perspectives in her work. Comparisons
(Fall 1991). MichH (Sept. 1956, March 1958, Dec. 1961). with Waley suggest entirely new dimensions of psychological
insight.
AUDREY ROBERTS
It was, Kizer said, her study of the craft with Theodore
Roethke at the University of Washington in the early 1950s that
nally turned her into a self-assured poet. The Ungrateful Garden
KIZER, Carolyn (1961, reissued 1999), her rst volume, was a polished offering
reective of the highly valued stress on workmanship characteriz-
Born 10 December 1925, Spokane, Washington ing the earlier decade. Poems like The Great Blue Heron and
Daughter of Benjamin H. and Mabel Ashley Kizer; married The Death of a Public Servant hold up as elegantly crafted
Charles S. Bullitt, 1948 (divorced); John M. Woodbridge, artifacts. Perhaps reacting to Roethkes mocking hostility to
1975; children: Ashley, Scot, Jill women poets as much as she admired his teaching techniques,
Kizer also began to record the range of womens sensibilities
In the second half of the 20th century, Carolyn Kizer emerges nally included in her assembled poems for women, Mermaids in
as one of a powerful group of women poets for whom motherhood the Basement: Poems for Women (1984). But the idea that women
is a crucial aspect of identity. These women, Adrienne Rich, writers were the custodians of the worlds best-kept secret,
Denise Levertov, Audre Lorde, Anne Sexton, and Sylvia Plath, merely the private lives of one-half of humanity, has always
among others, helped expand the range of metaphor and the depth been with her. A protofeminist, as were many of her gifted
of meaning for all poets and for all women. Not simply a feminist contemporaries (women poets trained by men), she early saw
poet, a gifted translator, a committed internationalist, Kizer has an beyond the college English Department into life. With the Pro
inclusive generous intellect that offers a strong stand against the Femina sequence in Mermaids, she distinguished herself as a
petty visions attributed to women poets of the past. pioneer in forging new traditions in American womens writing.
Born when her politically active biologist mother was in her The roles Kizer has played as poet are various and interna-
forties and her distinguished planner-lawyer father fty, Kizer tional. In 1959 she became an editor and founder of Poetry
ourished on the attentions afforded an only child with extraordi- Northwest, which she served until 1965. She acted as cultural
nary parents. Her father introduced her to a parade of accom- ambassador to Pakistan in 1964-65 and continued a life of public
plished friends such as Lewis Mumford, Percy Grainger, and service as the rst director of Literary Programs for the National
Vachel Lindsay, and her mother gave up her own work to Endowment of the Arts, where good sense distinguished her
encourage her daughters talents. When Kizer later garnered choices. During these years, she managed to raise three children
321
KNAPP AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
who make their presence felt in a number of moving poems. And special interest in archetypal criticism, but she has written in
she has continued to share her knowledge of poetry as a teacher: several genres on a wide range of literary, theatrical, and religious
from North Carolina to Ohio to Iowa to Stanford to Arizona gures. She has stated that, through her study of an individual
and Princeton, young writers have proted from her critical ad- writer, she attempts to explore the deeper levels of the mind and
vice. Fellow professionals have appreciated her talents enough psyche in an effort to approach the collective unconscious.
to award her a Pulitzer Prize in 1985 and a Robert Frost Indeed, her books are an engaging combination of biography and
medal in 1988. literary criticism viewed from Jungian, mythic, or mystical
What we continue to value most highly in Kizers work is her perspectives.
deep sense of engagement with life on every level, personal, Knapps most courageous and, she says, most painful work is
political, and aesthetic, an involvement that makes all readers
Cline: Man of Hate (1974), in which Knapp, a Jew, frankly and
more human by sharpening our awareness of the possibilities in
intelligently studies Clines anti-Semitism. Characteristically,
every kind of experience.
Knapp approaches her subject armored with historical and bio-
graphical facts, makes sense of Clines art with psychoanalytic
OTHER WORKS: Midnight Was My Cry: New and Selected Poems insights, forces our attention on the universality of his malady
(1971). The Nearness of You (1986). Carrying Over: Translations with a passionate rhetoric, and pushes the reader toward healing
from the Chinese, Urdu, Macedonian, Yiddish, and French Afri- perspectives with the sheer weight of her conviction. For Knapp,
can (1988). The Shattered Mirror: Poems from the Chinese Cline is an example of a man who was unable to confront his
Democracy Movement (with D. Finkel, 1991). Proses: Essays on shadow, unable to establish a rapport between his conscious
Poets and Poetry (1993). The Essential Clare (edited by Kizer, and his unconscious selves. This failure resulted in eruptions,
1993). Picking and Choosing: Essays on Prose (1995). Election Knapps term for Clines novels. Cline, she argues, is a symbol
Day, 1984 (1996). Harping On: Poems 1985-1995 (1996). On a of a similar failure in the larger world, as evidenced by the
Line from Valery (1996). 100 Great Poems by Women: A Golden cataclysms that have rocked the century. His usefulness is as a
Ecco Anthology (1998). guide to help us peer. . .into our own. . .depths, so that we
can develop the means for our own self-transformation.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Howe, F., ed., No More Masks! An Anthology of Perhaps Knapps most ambitious work is Dream and Image
Twentieth-Century American Women Poets, Newly Revised and (1977). Highly praised by reviewers, it analyzes from the point of
Expanded (1993). North, A. F., Carolyn Kizer: Contemporary view of psychoanalysis and myth various aspects of the relation-
Feminism (thesis 1988). OConnell, N., At the Fields End: ship between dreams, as expressions of the unconscious, and
Interviews With 22 Pacic Northwest Writers (1998). Rigsbee, D.,
creativity in 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century French gures from
ed., An Answering Music: On the Poetry of Carolyn Kizer (1990).
Descartes to Mallarm. She coins the term oneirosphere to
Schumock, J., Story, Story, Story: Conversations with American
describe that region of the mind in which the personal and
Authors (1999). Simic, C. and D. Lehman, eds., The Best Ameri-
collective unconscious converge and in which dreams and
can Poetry, 1992 (1992).
images become discernible to the individual.
Reference works: CAAS (1987). CA (1977, 1999). CANR
(1988). CLC (1980, 1986). DLB (1980). FC (1990). Oxford Her method is to allow the writer or work being analyzed to
Companion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995). suggest the pattern she describes: the Great Female Archetype in
Other references: Carolyn Kizer, 17 November 1987 (video,
Racine, the battle with Thanatos in Mallarm, the conict be-
1987). The Writing Life. A Conversation About the Writing Life
tween Christian and pagan values in Gautier. Yet the unifying
Between Lucille Clifton . . . and Carolyn Kizer (video, 1985).
emphases are on the way dreams inuence, inspire, and enrich the
EUGENIA KALEDIN
creative process, and on the way creative works express or resolve
the eternal struggles of the psyche.
The Prometheus Syndrome (1979) is a provocative work

studying the Promethean impulse: that force, endemic to Occiden-
KNAPP, Bettina Liebowitz tal man, compelling him to create, to surpass limits, and to outdo
the achievements of former centuries. Knapp divides the Prometheus
Born 9 May 1926, New York, New York myth into several stages: Prometheus fashioning of the human
Daughter of David and Emily Gresser Liebovitz; married Rus- race, stealing of re, being punished for his crime, and reintegration
sell S. Knapp, 1949; children: two sons with dignity into the society he rejected.
Bettina Liebowitz Knapp, the mother of two sons, is a Each stage in the myth corresponds to the efforts of ctional
prolic writer and has taught Romance languages and compara- and real gures representative of a certain age. The rst section,
tive literature at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the Man as Creator, studies gures who strained against the
City University of New York. She is the author of a score of books ordinary limits of their time but who were nevertheless in harmo-
and the recipient of a number of coveted awards. Knapp has a ny with their world. In the second section, The Ordeal of
322
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS KNIGHT
Reason, Knapp deals with the Promethean hubristhe increas- KNIGHT, Sarah Kemble
ing overvaluation of human powers to understand and control the
universein Voltaire, Balzac, Hesse, and others. This hubris
Born 19 April 1666, Boston, Massachusetts; died 25 September
results in a feeling of alienation that has pervaded the modern
1727, New London, Connecticut
sensibility.
Daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Trerice Kemble; married
It is perhaps the last section, Toward Integrationin Richard Knight, 1689; children: one daughter
which Promethean man, still determined and searching, is recon-
When Sarah Kemble Knight was born, her family had
ciled to but not subdued by his place in the worldthat expresses
already been in New England for a generation. Her husband was
the essence of Knapps stand on life and literature. She is a critic
by some accounts a shipmaster, though a more recent study
with a clear vision, who writes lucidly, feels comfortable in any
suggests he may have been the Richard Knight listed in two
century, in the Occident as well as the Orient, and among a variety
records as a publican. Upon her fathers death, Knight inherited a
of psychological and religious systems. house on Moon Street in Boston, where she maintained a large
By the end of the 20th century, Knapp was still going strong, household including her mother, her daughter, and several lodgers,
some of whom may have been relatives. Knight herself was active
publishing at least one of her now nearly trademarked style of
in the copying and witnessing of legal documents and in the
historical or psychological insighted studies per year, while also
settling of estates. She kept a shop in the Moon Street house and is
contributing to other works with a similar bent.
said to have run a writing school, though this has not been veried.
In the fall and winter of 1704-05, in order to settle an estate
OTHER WORKS: Selected: Louis Jouvet: Man of the Theatre for one of the relatives in her household, Knight traveled on
(1957). Louise Lab (1964). That Was Yvette: A Biography of horseback from Boston to New York and back. She was the rst
Yvette Guilbert (1964). Cymbalum Mundi (1965). Aristide Bruant: A woman to accomplish such a feat, securing guides and stopping at
Biography (1968). Jean Genet: A Critical Study of His Writings various post-houses, inns, and occasionally homes in the towns
(1968). Antonin Artaud: Man of Vision (1969, 1993). Jean Cocteau: she passed through.
A Critical Study of His Writings (1970). Jean Racine: Mythos and There remains no further record of Richard Knight after
Renewal in Modern Theatre (1971). Georges Duhamel: A Critical 1706. In 1713, when Richard and Sarahs daughter married,
Study of His Writings (1972). Anthology of Modern French Knight sold the Boston house and moved to Norwich and New
Theatre (1974). Maurice Maeterlinck (1975). Off-Stage Voices London, Connecticut. There she speculated in Native American
(1975). French Novelists Speak Out (1976). Anas Nin (1978). lands, ran several farms, and kept a house of entertainment.
Fernand Crommelynck (1978). Grard de Nerval: The Mystics
During the journey from Boston to New York, Knight kept
Dilemma (1978, 1980). Emile Zola (1980). Theater and Alchemy
notes, which upon her return she fashioned into a journal. At this
(1980). Sacha Guitry (1981). Paul Claudel (1982). Andre Chedid
time, overland travel between the colonies was difcult; there
(1984). French Theatre: 1918-1939 (1985). Alfred Stieglitzs
were no main roads, and a traveler had to secure local guides to get
Letters to David Liebowitz, 1923-1930 (1985). Word, Image, from one town or posting place to another. The colonies were
Psyche (1985). Women in 20th Century Literature: A Jungian separate in government and customs; there were as yet no newspa-
View (1987). Liliane Atlan (1988). The Reign of the Theatrical pers; it was only through letters or travelers tales that colonists
Director: French Theatre 1887-1924 (1988). Music, Archetype, learned about events and customs elsewhere. Knights racy narra-
and the Writer: A Jungian View (1988). Machine, Metaphor, and tive describes the difculties of travel, the inconveniences of inns,
the Writer: A Jungian View (1989). Emily Dickinson (1989). and the people she met, ranging from the governor of Connecticut,
Gertrude Stein (1990). Exile and the Writer: Exoteric and Esoter- with whom she supped, to the poor family who allowed her refuge
ic ExperiencesA Jungian Approach (1991). Images of Chinese in their drafty hut. Her perceptive, sharp wit spares no one, not
Women: A Westerners View (1992). Images of Japanese Women: even herself. The narrative is a series of episodes pulled together
A Westerners View (1992). Walt Whitman (1993). Nathalie by the vitality and strength of character of its author.
Sarraute (1994). French Theatre Since 1968 (1995). Manna &
Brief as it is, and though it remained in manuscript until
Mystery: A Jungian Approach to Hebrew Myth and Legend
1825, the journal is a landmark in our literature for several
(1995). Women in Myth (1997). Women, Myth, and the Female
reasons. Along with the journal of Samuel Sewall, it represents the
Principle (1998). Gambling, Game, Psyche (1999).
lay view as opposed to that of the ministers, who until this time
dominated American letters. As Knights account rushes along,
she displays several of the types of humor and characters that were
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1975). to develop as typically American: the pompous judge making a
Other references: AR (Winter 1979). Choice (Mar. 1976). FR fool of himself, the laconic master of understatement, the country
(May 1978). MLJ (Feb. 1970, Nov. 1975). NYTBR (5 Aug. 1969). bumpkin who later may be seen as Yankee Doodle, and a
Saturday Review (24 May 1969). succession of other tobacco-chewing yokels. Her use of generic
names for characters, such as Bumpkin Simpers, Joan Taw-
ELLEN FRIEDMAN dry, and Gaffer, perhaps based on a reading of Pilgrims
323
KNOX AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
Progress, presages the use of stereotyped characters in the news- Knox wrote four novels, all of which appeared rst as serials
papers soon to be started in England and America. In one passage in magazines. She contributed numerous stories to Scribners
where Knight is riding at night, she imagines the towers of towns magazine. Her works, originally written for adults, continued to
and palaces, displaying a longing for Europe that recurs in much have popular appeal with adolescent readers into the 20th century.
of American literature through Henry James and later expatriates, Three of her works were reprinted in the American Girl series.
and her descriptions of the terrors of night resemble the Gothic
Knoxs rst book, An American Girl Abroad (1872), is
effects later used by Irving.
apparently an account of a European trip that the author took as a
Her journal indicates throughout that its author was well young woman. In a chatty rst-person narrative, this guidebook
versed in the popular literature of the day. Its prose is interlaced presents the travels of a young woman (unnamed) and her
with poems in a variety of current styles; in one poem she uses the chaperone. The narrator describes the various countries of
kind of couplets in vogue in England but not in America at the Europe, most often observing scenic landscapes and comic or
time. Her journal represents an early movement toward the satire quaint local customs. This work ends with a list of recommenda-
and other forms that were used throughout the 18th century and tions to would-be women travelers: that women can travel alone
presents an unusual and vivid series of pictures of the ordinary and safely through Europe, that they should bring little baggage, dress
extraordinary people of New England. warmly, and be equipped with an abundant supply of patience
and good nature.
The heroine in Katherine Earle (1874) is an upright, indepen-

OTHER WORKS: The Journal of Madam Knight, and Rev. Mr.
dent young girl who at one point even harbors a fugitive slave in
Buckingham (1825, reprinted with an Introduction by M. Freiberg,
her home. As she matures, she fancies herself in love with Dacre
1971). The Private Journal of a Journey from Boston to New York
Home, a man she had hated as a child. He returns her affections
in the Year 1704 Kept by Madam Knight (1865).
initially; nevertheless, after she accepts a teaching job away from
home, he becomes a negligent suitor. Dacres possible role in a
bank robbery and the discovery of his unfaithfulness cause
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Andrews, W., ed., Journeys in New Worlds: Early
Katherine much unhappiness, with the impending Civil War, a
American Narratives (1990). Levernier, J. A., and D. R. Wilmes,
nasty colleague, and her stern supervisor, Professor Dyce, aggra-
eds., American Literature Before 1800 (1983). Spengemann, W. C.,
vating the situation. Through the treachery of another, Katherine
The Adventurous Muse: The Poetics of American Fiction, 1789-
and Dyce lose their way in the woods overnight and, to save their
1900 (1977). Springer, M., ed., What Manner of Woman (1977).
reputations, get married. After a shaky beginning, the marriage
Reference works: AA. DAB. NAW (1971). Oxford Compan-
proves to be a happy one.
ion to Womens Writing in the United States (1995).
Other references: Bostonian Society Publications (1912). Dorothys Experience (1890) is Knoxs most moralistic tale.
CLAJ (Mar. 1964, Dec. 1966). Papers of the Bibliographical It uses a familiar theme of 19th-century popular ction: the
Society of America (1964). afuent, well-educated woman who nds herself and religion in
unselsh work for others. Dorothys work involves the establish-
ANN STANFORD ment of a mission home for women who work in a shoe factory by
day and have too much free time at night. The idea is a noble one,
although to the modern reader Knoxs description of the work-
ing-class people will seem both condescending and naive.
KNOX, Adeline Trafton Adeline Trafton is a name few now recognize. It is doubtful
her works made an impression on (or were even read by) the better
Born 8 February 1845, Saccarappa, Maine; died date unknown writers of her time. Her plots, by modern standards, seem con-
Wrote under: Adeline Trafton trived and sentimental, yet she wrote lively, interesting stories.
Daughter of Mark and Eliza Young Trafton; married Samuel Since she was more intent on providing entertainment than a
Knox Jr., 1889 (died 1897) moral message, Knox remained popular with young readers for at
least a few decades.
Adeline Trafton Knox was educated in private and public
schools in Massachusetts. She married a lawyer from St. Louis, OTHER WORKS: His Inheritance (1878).
where they apparently resided until her husbands death in 1897.
Knoxs last-known residence was Springeld, Massachusetts.
Although biographical information on Knox is sketchy, material BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: Appletons Cyclopaedia of
on the life of her father, a Methodist clergyman, is not. He was a American Biography (1900). AW. A Dictionary of American
one-term congressman, an author, and a temperance and antislav- Authors (1904).
ery advocate. These are themes that his daughter uses in her
ction. AMY DYKEMAN
324
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS KOHUT
KOCH, Adrienne engaged in a study of the Grimk family and its place in Ameri-
can life.
Born 10 September 1912, New York, New York; died 21 August As a historian of ideas, Koch brought to bear on her work a
1971, New York, New York disciplined mind and nely sharpened powers of critical analysis
Daughter of John D. and Helen Koch; married Lawrence R. and judgement. Though sympathetic to the liberal democratic
Kegan, 1947 philosophy, she explored cogently and persuasively the diverse
strands woven into the American political tradition. She sought to
Adrienne Koch began her career in philosophy, but became convey with objectivity and fair-mindedness the differences in
in time one of Americas leading historians. She took as her angles of vision of the philosopher-statesmen. In her writing
particular province the era of American Enlightenment, dened as Koch displayed clarity and wit and an elegance of style reective
the period from 1765 to 1815, concentrating on political philoso- of the Enlightenment. She saw the American Enlightenment as a
phy. Her rst work was her doctoral dissertation, The Philosophy glorious time of thought and human constructive activity and
of Thomas Jefferson (1943), for which she won the Woodbridge wrote of it, as she said, con amore. With acuteness of vision
prize at Columbia University. In it she explores the major inu- and lucidity of expression, she sought to lay open the values and
ences on Jeffersons thought and tries to establish his originality achievements of that age and their continuing relevance to the
and signicance as a philosopher. darker contemporary age.
Kochs next two works were The Life and Selected Writings
of Thomas Jefferson (1944) and The Selected Writings of John OTHER WORKS: Power, Morals, and the Founding Fathers:
Adams and John Quincy Adams (1946). Although she is basically Essays in the Interpretation of the American Enlightenment
more sympathetic to Jeffersons position, both works reveal her (1961, reissued 1984). Adams and Jefferson: Posterity Must
keen appreciation of these shapers of early American political Judge (1963).
thought, to her the heart of American Enlightenment.
In Jefferson and Madison: The Great Collaboration (1950,
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Jefferson, T., The Life and Selected Writings of
reissued 1987), Koch explores their personal friendship, intellec-
Thomas Jefferson (reissue, 1998).
tual changes, and political cooperation over a 50-year span.
Other references: AHR (Feb. 1972). Annals of the American
Drawing heavily on unpublished primary sources, she under-
Academy of Political and Social Science (Jan. 1944). Journal of
scores the impact of Madisons strongly, logical mind on Jeffer-
American History (June 1965). Maryland Historian (Spring 1972).
son. The collaboration, she concludes, was of mutual weight, and
NR (4 Sept. 1950). SR (20 Feb. 1960). Virginia Quarterly Review
they shared equally in formulating early American democratic
(Summer 1966).
philosophy.
In 1959, Koch published Philosophy for a Time of Crisis, a INZER BYERS
work reecting her deep concern over the postwar threat to
Western civilization and its crisis in values. In response to the
felt universal need. . .for an answer to nihilism, she drew on the
writings of 15 modern thinkers, among them Einstein, Buber, and KOHUT, Rebekah Bettelheim
Sartre, men concerned with the root values of man and society.
Koch edited The American Enlightenment (1965), in which Born 9 September 1864, Kaschau, Hungary; died 11 August
she focuses on the work of ve major philosopher-statesmen: 1951, New York, New York
Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, and Hamilton. Brilliant Daughter of Siegfried and Henrietta Weintraub Bettelheim;
individually, they shone with increased splendor as a constella- married Alexander Kohut, 1887
tion, she concludes. She stresses the importance of their intertwin-
ing roles as theorists and activists, meeting the historical impera- Rebekah Bettelheim Kohut was the second daughter of a
tive of their time. . .the advancement of human freedom. rabbi and physician father, and her mother was the rst female
Jewish schoolteacher in Hungary. In 1874, the family emigrated
The Whig-Clio lectures Koch gave at Princeton were pub-
to America, nally settling in San Francisco, where Kohut attended
lished as Madisons Advice to My Country (1966). In this
the University of California. After the death, in 1895, of her
short, cogent analysis, she sums up a lifetime of thought on
husband, a renowned Hebrew scholar and rabbi, she founded a
Madison, tracing the threads of three major concerns: liberty,
school for girls that she headed for ve years. Her major interest
justice, and union. With thoughtful intensity she traces the evolu-
revolved around the newly developing Jewish womens organiza-
tion of his thought and the relevance of his stance to contemporary
tions; she served as rst president of the National Council of
society.
Jewish Women and of the World Congress of Jewish Women.
Her last work was Jefferson (1971), edited for the series Concern for the problems of working women led her to investigate
Great Lives Observed. She draws on autobiographical material, the opportunities available to them, and to create and to serve on
observations of contemporaries, and the views of historians to numerous local and national employment commissions. During
provide perspective on his life. At the time of her death, Koch was World War I, she was active in mobilizing womens participation,
325
KONIGSBURG AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
and after the war she surveyed the refugee problems for the throughout her life she followed the injunction that while
overseas relief organizations. womans interests ought to begin at home and ought to end there,
they need not necessarily conne themselves to it alone.
Kohuts rst book, My Portion (1925), written when a long
illness limited her community activities, is a description of her
early years in Hungary, her rst experiences in America in war-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Askowith, D., Three Outstanding Women (1941).
devastated Richmond, and her coming to maturity in the exciting
Baum, C. et al., The Jewish Woman in America (1976).
atmosphere of post-Gold Rush San Francisco. Despite consider-
Reference works: NCAB, E.
able restraint in discussing personal affairs, she nonetheless
Other references: American Jewish Yearbook, Vol. 46
chronicles her spiritual crisis as an adolescent, the trials of being a
(1944-45).
rabbis wife and stepmother to eight children, and her sorrowful
adjustment to widowhood. The bulk of the story, however, is
CAROL B. SCHOEN
bound up with her activities in Jewish organizations and the
difculties of transforming womens groups from sewing circles
and ladies auxiliaries into signicant philanthropic organizations.
As I Know Them: Some Jews and a Few Gentiles (1929)

provides an informal history of Jews in the U.S. Kohuts main KONIGSBURG, E. L.
concern in this work, which is essentially anecdotal, is to explain
the aims and attitudes of American Jews, the differences between Born 10 February 1930, New York, New York
the early Spanish, mid-19th-century German, and late-19th- Daughter of Adolph and Beuhlah Lobl; married David
century East European immigrants, and their common anxiety Konigsburg, 1952; children: three
over the rising anti-Semitism. She is particularly concerned with
detailing the tensions within the Jewish community between the
Reform and Orthodox sectors, and the conicting needs of Jews to E. L. Konigsburg grew up in a small town near Pittsburgh,
retain traditional values while adapting to American customs. She Pennsylvania. She received a B.S. from Carnegie Institute of
reveals an acute awareness of womens peculiar position both in Technology, and did graduate work in chemistry at the University
America and within Judaism, and though she eschews radical of Pittsburgh. Before starting to write, she taught science at a
changes, she strongly supports suffrage and career training private girls school, married, and had three children. Konigsburg,
for women. feeling that there were few books geared to suburban children,
started writing to ll this gap, and culled ideas from her own
In His Fathers House (1938) is Kohuts moving tribute to childrens experiences and imagination.
her stepson George Alexander Kohut, who died after becoming a
leader in American education, a prolic writer, and a philanthro- Konigsburg writes for children between the ages of eight and
pist. A warm relationship between stepmother and stepson under- 12, and believes that by the time children reach this stage in their
lies the story. development, they should be able to recognize their inner selvesor
consciencesand be answerable to them. Konigsburgs books,
Kohuts last book, More Yesterdays (1949), written when she however, are not of the sort that hold together thinly developed
was an invalid, was intended as a supplement to her earlier plots only to proclaim morality; her plots are intricate and her
autobiography but covers much of the same material. Kohut characters disarmingly real. She is principally concerned with
describes the pleasures of cosmopolitan life, the horrors of the telling a good story and says, When you write for children, they
severe economic depression of the 1920s and 1930s, the rising do not have any self-consciousness about putting down a book
fascism and its companion, anti-Semitism, and her conversion to that is boring.
Zionism by Theodore Herzl.
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Despite her four essentially autobiographical books, the (1967, reprinted more than 50 times), a Newbery winner, is
dynamic quality of Kohuts life remains untold. The formal, probably Konigsburgs best-known work. It is the story of two
somewhat pedantic tone of her writing is partially responsible for upper middle-class children who run away from their suburban
this, but more signicant is her attitude towards herself emphasiz- Connecticut home to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They
ing her role as a member of a group rather than as an achieving become involved in solving a mystery and return home, having
individual. Her extraordinary accomplishments in social work, in grown in the sense that they have gained an inner secret to cherish
education, and in the development of public unemployment and have taken an admirable rst step toward adulthood.
agencies are presented primarily as external events rather than the
struggles of a particular person. Her contributions to womens Konigsburg considers Fathers Arcane Daughter (1976),
rights lie more in her assumption of responsibilities than in which deals with the problems of handicapped children, her best
advocacy, yet she never lost the focus of an earlier tradition. For book. By comparison with many others of this genre, it is
her the family was a sacred and hallowed responsibility, and distinctive in that the reader does not nd out until the middle of
326
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS KROEBER
the book that Heidi, the protagonists little sister, is not clumsy KROEBER, Theodora
and awkward simply because she is the pesky little sister but
because she has a physical disability. The childs mother had been
disguising all of the childs problems under a veil of cuteness. Born 24 March 1897, Denver, Colorado; died 1960
Unable to admit that a problem existed, the mother had virtually Daughter of Charles E. and Phebe Johnston Kracaw; married
forced it to disappear. It is only after Heidi admitted that she Clifton S. Brown, 1920 (died 1923); Alfred L. Kroeber,
needed help and underwent physical therapy that she was able to 1926; children: three sons, one daughter
lead a satisfactory lifealthough not one without bitterness
toward the overprotective mother. Theodora Kroeber grew up in the mountains of Colorado, an
environment permeated by Native American cultures. She attend-
Konigsburg has also written two historical novels for child- ed the University of California at Berkeley, receiving an M.A. in
ren, one delving into the mystery of the Mona Lisa, and the psychology in 1920. Kroebers husband, with whom she had two
other bringing to life Eleanor of Aquitaine, whom Konigsburg sons, died three years after their marriage. She later married the
depicts as a strong-willed, highly intelligent woman who, anthropologist Alfred Kroeber and had two more children, a son
Konigsburg claims, is everything the womans movement is. and a daughter, Ursula K(roeber) LeGuin, the science ction
Here Konigsburg has one of her characters state: True simplicity writer. Kroeber died in 1960.
is elegance. This philosophy permeates Konigsburgs writing,
which is candidly simple and unpretentious, yet not without depth From her early interests in ethnology and art and from her
and elegance. Konigsburg treats her material with sophistication, access through Alfred Kroeber and his associates to Native
trusting that her readers have the capacity to consider complex American informants, Kroeber drew the inspiration for her rst
ideas. Like the characters in her books, Konigsburgs readers book, The Inland Whale (1959), a retelling of nine California
grow after having been exposed to the intellectual stimulation of Native American legends with notes on the literary, cultural, and
her books. psychological implications of each tale. In this book, Kroeber
balances commitments to ethnological authenticity and to the
demands of literary form. In its simplicity and directness, the style
OTHER WORKS: Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, of The Inland Whale is remarkable for its evocation of the oral
and Me, Elizabeth (1967, recorded 1992). About the BNai Bagels style of its sources: The rst people were the Wog. The world
(1969). George (1970). Altogether, One at a Time (1971). A was the same in Wog time as it is today; it has always been the
Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver (1973). The Dragon in the same. The nine tales are of many literary typesmorality tale,
Ghetto Caper (1974). The Second Mrs. Giaconda (1975). Talk, masque fantasy, lyric, idyll, epicbut they are unied by origin
Talk: A Childrens Book Author Speaks to Grown-Ups (1995). and by the recurrent gure of an enigmatic woman.
Kroebers next two books drew heavily on the life of one
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Barrett, P. A., To Break the Silence: Thirteen particular Californian, Native American Ishi, who walked out of
Short Stories for Young Readers (1986). Greenberg, M. H. and the Mount Lassen foothills in 1911. Ishi in Two Worlds: A
Waugh, C., eds., A Newbery Christmas: Fourteen Stories of Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America (1963)
Christmas by Newbery Award-Winning Authors (1998). Greenberg, provides an ethnologists careful account of the life of the Yahi
M. H., Waugh, C. and Alexander, L., eds., A Newbery Halloween: people from the Stone Age through the days of the gold rush and
A Dozen Scary Stories by Newbery Award-Winning Authors an account of Ishis life among his 20th-century scholar friends,
(1998). Hanks, D. T., E. L. Konigsburg (1992). Smith, S. N., including Kroebers husband Alfred. At the time of its appear-
Father Doesnt Know Best Anymore: Realism and the Parent in ance, the book was hailed as a contribution not only to our
the Junior Works of Judy Blume, E. L. Konigsburg, and Richard history but to our literature. A year later, Kroeber produced a
Peck (thesis, 1981). childrens book, Ishi, Last of His Tribe (1964), in which Ishis
Reference works: CA (1969). Childrens Literature Re- story is seen through his own eyes. The alternation of a limited
view (1976). third-person as well as a rst-person point of view is handled
Other references: Book List (June 1995). Commonweal (23 without confusion, and Kroebers characteristic cadenced prose,
May 1969, 20 Nov. 1970). CSM (2 Nov. 1967, 1 May 1974). E. L. coupled with the impressive command of material, justies the
Konigsburg (audiovisual, 1983). E. L. Konigsburg Interview books immediate acceptance as a classic.
(audio, 1980). Good Conversation! A Talk with E. L. Konigsburg
(audiovisual, 1995). Horn Book (Apr. 1967, Aug. 1968, Dec. In both Ishi books, Kroebers greatest achievement is the
1970, Aug. 1971, Oct. 1973, Oct. 1975). New Statesman (4 June creation of the character of her hero. The portraits of Ishi, both as
1971). Newbery/Caldecott Medal Acceptance Speeches (record- boy and as man, catch his humanity, his dignity, and his essential
ing, 1997). NYTBR (5 Nov. 1967, 30 Mar. 1969, 8 Nov. 1970, 30 kindness, gentleness, and competence. Some contemporary re-
May 1971, 14 Oct. 1973, 5 Oct. 1975, 7 Nov. 1976). Proles in viewers objected to the violence in the description of the massacre
Literature [E. L. Konigsburg] (audiovisual, 1983). SR (22 Apr. of the Yahi, but Kroebers history is accurate on this point. And
1967, 21 Oct. 1967, 9 Nov. 1968, 22 Mar. 1969, 4 Nov. 1970). though the level of violence in Ishi, Last of His Tribe may have
seemed high at the time of its publication, we can now appreciate
RISA GERSON by comparison Kroebers refusal to sensationalize.
327
KBLER-ROSS AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
A Green Christmas (1967), also a childrens book, is a prose Kbler-Ross travels throughout the world, giving hundreds
poem about two children celebrating their rst California Christ- of lectures, seminars, and workshops on death and dying. She has
mas, fearing that Santa Claus will not be able to nd them because served on the advisory boards of more than 20 hospices and
there is no snow for his sleigh. Again, the cadenced language is institutes on grief and dying and has received honorary degrees
present, as is the psychological/ethnological motive. The book has from 17 colleges and universities as well as numerous other
an attractive gentleness about it, but the slight plot and the books awards. In 1976 Kbler-Ross founded Shanti Nilaya, a nonprot
awkward stance between fantasy and realism undercut its organization dedicated to the promotion of physical, emotional,
effectiveness. intellectual, and spiritual health. She served as president of the
board of directors. She married another physician and they had
Carrousel (1977), also a childrens book, is a more fully
two children before divorcing. Kbler-Ross holds both U.S. and
realized depiction of the elements of classical mythology in
Swiss citizenship.
collision with the prosaic realism of the modern world, represent-
ed by the Inspector of Strange and Foreign Objects desire to Although she does not administer medication or perform
cement the winged horse, Pegason, to the ground. Kroeber draws surgery, few people have Kbler-Ross power to heal. On Death
on mythological motifs and details, but reforms them to create a and Dying (1969, reprinted numerous times, including 1991,
new story of her own making. 1997), her groundbreaking book, and her subsequent lectures,
writings, and workshops, have helped, as Anne Hudson Jones
Kroebers three books on Native American themes establish
noted, to revolutionize the way Americans think about death and
her literary reputation. She has said, When I write, I turn most
dying, and consequently, about living as well. In On Death and
often to something Indian. This is not because I am an Indian
Dying, Kbler-Ross reports on her work with terminally ill
specialist, or feel that I have anything novel to say about Indians,
patients at the University of Chicago, where for several years she
but because I nd their stories beautiful and true and their way of
taught an interdisciplinary seminar on death and dying. She
telling a story to be also my way. That way includes a celebra-
begins by outlining the changes occurring in the last few decades
tion of each persons individual humanity, a love of naming and
in the treatment of the dying. Instead of dying among family and
detailing features of the environment (Manzanita berries and
friends, most people now die in impersonal institutional settings
acorns, and hazel nuts and pine nuts were ripe. The brown-red of
surrounded by medical personnel who are trained to prolong life
ripe buckeye nuts shown through their husks), and an overriding
but who do not know how to manage dying patients humanely.
commitment to pattern, expressed in the cadences of her prose and
Kbler-Ross has identied ve stages dying patients go through:
in the structures of her stories.
denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Not all
patients go through all stages, but those who reach acceptance die
OTHER WORKS: Almost Ancestors (with R. Heizer, 1968). Alfred more peacefully, according to Kbler-Ross. The book includes
Kroeber: A Personal Conguration (1970). Drawn from Life (1978). some interviews with patients as well as a chapter assessing the
reactions of the medical staff and students to her seminar.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reference works: CA (1969). In Questions and Answers on Death and Dying (1974,
Other references: AA (Aug. 1969). American Scholar (Sum- reprinted with two other titles, 1992), Kbler-Ross attempts to
mer 1968). Horn Book (Dec. 1964). NYHTB (3 May 1959, 29 Oct. answer the questions most frequently asked of her by audiences.
1961). Saturday Review (20 June 1959). Spectator (1 June 1962). Although she reviews the material in her earlier work, there is
useful new information about suicide and terminal illness, eutha-
KATHARYN F. CRABBE nasia, caring for the dying at home, the familys problems,
funerals, problems of the medical staff, and beliefs in life af-
ter death.
KBLER-ROSS, Elisabeth Death: The Final Stage of Growth (1975), an anthology

edited by Kbler-Ross, includes essays, poems, and letters, many
of them written especially for this collection by former patients,
Born 8 July 1926, Zurich, Switzerland colleagues, and her students. Selections address the psychological
Also writes under: E. Kbler-Ross, Elisabeth K. Ross difculties of patients dying in institutions, tell how other cultures
Daughter of Ernst and Emma Williger Kbler; married Emanual R. handle death, and insist that death can be the nal stage of
Ross, 1958 (divorced); children: two personal growth. Of special interest is an autobiographical essay
by Kbler-Ross, relating her early experiences with death, both in
Elisabeth Kbler-Ross, one of a set of tiny triplets, lived in her community and in Europe during World War II, which she
Europe until after receiving her M.D. from the University of believes led her to her work with death and dying.
Zurich in 1957. She came to the U.S. in 1958 as an intern at
Community Hospital in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York. She To Live Until We Say Goodbye (1978) is a volume of
spent the next three years in residency in psychiatry at Manhattan photographs by Mal Warshaw with text by Kbler-Ross. The rst
State Hospital, Monteore Hospital, and Colorado General Hos- part of the book has photographs and interviews with three dying
pital. She has taught at the University of Colorado School of patients. The second part presents alternative settings for care of
Medicine and at the University of Chicago. the dyinghospices, homes for the dying, and personal homes of
328
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS KUMIN
the dying. The photographs are haunting; the text is informative. Their Parents Can and Do Cope with Death (1983, 1997).
In this volume, Kbler-Ross says more about the death of children Psychoimmunity and the Healing Process: A Holistic Approach to
than she does in any of her other works. The nal chapter tells of Immunity and AIDS (1987). On Life After Death (1991). On Death
her teachings about life, death, and transition at Shanti Nilaya and Dying; Questions and Answers on Death and Dying; On Life
(Sanskrit for home of peace). In Working It Through: An After Death (bound in one volume, 1992). Death is of Vital
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross Workshop

American Women Writers

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

American Women Writers

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Second Edition

Glynis Benbow-Niemier, Associate Editor

Kristin G. Hart, Project Coordinator

Laura Standley Berger, Joann Cerrito, Dave Collins,

Peter M. Gareffa, Managing Editor, St. James Press

Mary Beth Trimper, Composition Manager

Cynthia Baldwin, Product Design Manager

Ronald D. Montgomery, Data Entry Manager

All rights to this publication will be vigorously defended.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

American women writers : from colonial times to the present : a

Printed in the United States of America

St. James Press is an imprint of Gale Group

Roger Blackwell Bailey, Ph.D. Kathleen Bonann Marshall

Aarons, Victoria Antler, Joyce

Banner, Lois W. Benet, Sydonie

Baruch, Elaine Hoffman Berke, Jacqueline

Blair, Karen J. Brooker-Gross, Susan R.

Burns, Melissa Challinor, Joan R.

Butery, Karen Ann Chew, Martha

Cook, Martha E. Dash, Irene

Denler, Heidi Hartwig Donnelly, Daria

Dobbs, Jeannine Evans, Elizabeth

Ferguson, Mary Anne Friedman, Ellen

Fish, Virginia K. Galanter, Margit

Fleenor, Juliann E. Gartner, Carol B.

Ginsberg, Elaine K. Grifth, Susan

Green, Carol Hurd Hamblen, Vicki Lynn

Harlan, Judith Hill, Vicki Lynn

Howard, Lillie Jones, Judith P.

Hudspeth, Cheryl K. Kaledin, Eugenia

Humez, Jean McMahon Kaufman, Janet E.

Kelleghan, Fiona Koengeter, L. W.

Langsam, Miriam Z. Ludwig, Linda

Loeb, Helen Mallett, Daryl F.

Marks, Elaine McCarthy, Joanne

Mayer, Elsie F. McKay, Mary A.

McLennan, Karen Mollenkott, Virginia Ramey

Neville, Tam Lin Peterson, Margaret

Radtke, Barbara Anne Rhodes, Nelson

Reisman, Jessica Roberts, Elizabeth

Reuman, Ann E. Rogers, Katharine M.

Rosenberg, Julia Schoenbach, Lisi

Rudnick, Lois P. Schweik, Joanne L.

Secrest, Rose Shostak, Elizabeth

Smith, Susan Sutton Sparks, Leah J.

Stanford, Ann Swartz, Mark

Thompson, Ann Vogrin, Valerie

Tipps, Lisa Wahlstrom, Billie J.

Townsend, Janis Waldron, Karen E.

White, Barbara A. Yee, Carole Zonis

Williams, Lynn F. Young, Melanie

Abbott, Edith Auerbach, Hilda See Morley, Hilda

Betts, Doris Broner, E. M.

Chandler, Elizabeth Margaret Cooper, Susan Fenimore

Deland, Margaret Campbell Earle, Alice Morse

Flanner, Hildegarde Gilbert, Sandra M.

Gulliver, Julia Henrietta Hewitt, Mary E. Moore

Ireland, Jane See Norris, Kathleen Kennedy, Adrienne

Lea, Fannie Heaslip Macdonald, Marcia See Hill-Lutz, Grace Livingston

McPherson, Sandra Morris, Clara

Offord, Lenore Glen Perkins, Frances

Reed, Myrtle St. Claire, Erin See Brown, Sandra

Tiernan, Frances Fisher Walker, Margaret