Posted on by Clara Love

Anne Weston Whitney

Anne Weston Whitney was an extremely active Club member from 1892 to 1908. Over the course of her years in the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, she held many roles. She was (at different times) chairman of the committees on fiction, the study of the English language, ethnology, and anthropology, an elected Club director, the longtime corresponding secretary, and, towards the end of her time in the Club, the second Vice President alongside Ellen Duvall under the leadership of Mrs. John C. Wrenshall. As a committee chairman and general member, she was also a frequent presenter of mostly informational pieces, but occasionally also works of fiction. Her membership ended when she moved to New York in 1908.

Anne, or Annie, was born to Milton and Ann Whitney in 1849 in Massachusetts, and moved to Baltimore with her family sometime between 1850 and 1860. Alongside the WLCB, Anne was also the secretary for the American Folklore Society, which was founded in 1888. She is also credited in some news articles as the secretary of the Baltimore Folklore Society, but these may be the same organization. Mrs. Waller Bullock was also a member of the American Folklore society with her, and one Baltimore Sun article describes a presentation they did together on common superstitions. Some of the wisdom they imparted on the society included: “Never walk in the middle of the road, the dead walk there,” “If a horse’s mane gets tangled at night, it’s because the witches have tangled it,” and “A leather shoestring knotted five or nine times and worn around the neck will cure the whooping cough.”

Only one of her publications in the Journal of American Folklore seems to survive today, an article she wrote titled “Items of Maryland Belief and Custom.” It details various superstitions and odd customs of Maryland inhabitants, and is available here. Though this seems to be the only piece penned by her that is accessible, there are also Baltimore Sun articles chronicling her work with the Folklore Society that include excerpts from her research. One such article includes her descriptions of a Maryland estate haunted by a pair of invisible clippers that can be heard snipping away all day and night, and causing cuts and gashes to appear in clothing, curtains, plants, and other materials. She writes that the estate was possessed by an evil spirit, or wizard, and the problem was solved by having a priest exorcise the grounds. Even though a lot of her fiction and other writings seem to be lost, it’s clear that she had a fascination with the supernatural as well as for the literary, and was a respected member of both communities.

Posted on by Clara Love

Louise Clarkson Whitelock

Louise Clarkson Whitelock (née Sauerwein) was born in Baltimore in 1851. She was a founding member of the WLCB in 1890, and remained a member until 1897. She married George Clarkson, a Baltimore lawyer, in December of 1878. They had a daughter, Roberta, and a son, William, who both grew up to be writers! Roberta also became an illustrator like her mother, and she contributed to and illustrated her brother’s book Britanny With Bergere. Louise died in 1928.

Louise was both an author and illustrator, and published most of her works under the name L. Clarkson. She was active from 1877 to around 1898. Many of her publications are books of children’s verse, which she illustrated herself. Her most famous work appears to be Violet, with Eyes of Blue—almost all of her other publications refer to her as its author. She also published collections of poems for more grown-up audiences, including Heartsease and Happy Days, a novel titled The Shadow of John Wallace, and two collections of short stories, called A Mad Madonna and How Hindsight Met Provincialis.

Source: The Publishers Weekly, volume 14, 1878. Page 767.

The 1878 Christmastime volume of The Publishers Weekly advertises her collection of poems The Rag Fair as “The most remarkable book of the year” and “the gift book of the season.” Other publications, including an 1884 volume of Literary News, also refer to her works as ‘gift books.’ The same Publishers Weekly volume advertises one of her children’s books, Little Stay-at-Home and Her Friends, as “a charming gift book for the little ones.” The full advertisement for The Rag Fair, however, does more than simply advertise–it praises her poetic prowess.

The Rag Fair is a poetic rumination on death and the redemptive power of Christ. Each page is illustrated by Louise herself, like most of her poetic publications. Below is an example page from the collection:

Clarkson Rag Fair
L. Clarkson, The Rag Fair, page 43. Archive.org

Her poetry for children has a very different style from her poetry for adults. Some poems in her children’s verse collections take on an infantilized voice, imitating a sort of children’s dialect. For instance, her poem “Just Born,” from Little Stay-at-Home and her Friends is written from the perspective of a freshly hatched chick,

Not had nuffin’
Since I’s born!
–Wonder if zat sing
Might be torn.

‘Fraid it’s most too
Big for me;
Fink my mamma
Might tum see.”

The childlike voice is an…interesting choice. It appears in many poems across all her works for children, though some “normally” voiced poems also populate these collections.

L. Clarkson, Buttercup’s Visit to Little Stay-at-Home. University of Florida Digital Collections.

Her children’s poetry focuses on magical portrayals of natural beauty–flower fairies, personifications of flowers or other natural items like seashells, and poems about and “by” animals, like the aforementioned baby chick, sometimes with  religious themes.

Louise Clarkson Whitelock is an interesting Club member because of her diversity of publications for readers of all ages, and her prowess as an illustrator for both her own and others’ works. It is also notable that she chose to publish under the name ‘L. Clarkson,’ which would not betray her womanhood, even when writing books of verse for small children. There seem to be no known photographs of her, but photos of her rich illustrations are available.

Posted on by Clara Love

Grief’s Intimacy

‘I am your friend,’ replied Miss Grief. Then, after a moment, she added slowly, ‘I have read every word you have ever written'” (Woolson 318).

This excerpt from Constance Fenimore Woolson’s story “Miss Grief” highlights the intersection for women of literacy and intimacy that Gere explores in the first chapter of her book Intimate Practices: Literacy and Cultural Work in U.S. Women’s Clubs, 1880-1920. Miss Grief, or Crief, feels close to the male narrator of the story because she has read all of his work—she feels close enough to him through his writing alone to reveal all of her own writings to him in return. By taking a chance on a potential relationship based solely on literacy, she makes herself very vulnerable to him, since the disparity of their powers both in the literary world and in society at large is vast. He says himself that her writing abilities are not what he would expect from a woman, and throughout the piece he constantly calls attention to her gender and how odd it is for him to acknowledge her literary superiority. When he does recognize her talents, he begins to reciprocate (somewhat) the feelings of admiration she feels toward him. Of course, this relationship is different from those of club women since it is between a powerful man and a destitute woman, but this story still highlights the way that a woman’s shared literacy can create unique and intimate relationships. These characters would never have associated with one another were it not for this link of literacy, and if this pretentious, chauvinistic man can bear to read Miss Grief’s work, we can only imagine how prosperous a relationship she could have had with a fellow woman writer.

Works Cited

Gere, Anne Ruggles. “Literacy and Intimacy.” Intimate Practices. University of Illinois, 1997, pp. 17-53.

Woolson, Constance Fenimore. “Miss Grief.” Wielding the Pen, edited by Anne E. Boyd. Johns Hopkins University, 2009, pp. 315-332.

Posted on by Clara Love

Bmore Historic Unconference!

This past Friday, September 29th, Dr. Cole and I attended the Bmore Historic Unconference at the Baltimore Museum of Industry. The Unconference’s mission is dedicated to “people who care about public history and historic preservation in and around Baltimore.” The group of people who fit this description and attended the unconference covered a wide range of ages and professions. I had never heard of an ‘unconference’ before, and the democratic system behind it was very interesting. Any participant could propose their own session and pitch it to all the other attendees at the start of the conference. Then, everyone had the chance to vote for whichever proposed sessions they were most interested in, and based on the results of the voting process, the conference organizers and leaders set up the session schedule that included the most voted-for programming. Each session also designated a note-taker, so the information discussed in each could be shared with all the attendees.

The main hall where the Unconference was held. Image from the Baltimore Museum of Industry’s website: http://www.thebmi.org/exhibitions-collections/permanent-exhibitions/

Dr. Cole proposed the session we wanted to give: “Scripto Transcription Session: Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore (1890-1920),” and it made it onto the schedule! Our initial plan was to spend the first few minutes of the 50-minute session giving an overview of the Aperio project, what we accomplished and learned over the summer, and our goals for the project moving forward. Then, we wanted to have attendees try their hand at transcribing a file containing some WLCB meeting minutes through the Scripto plugin on our Omeka site. Unfortunately, technical issues with the museum’s wifi made it difficult for everyone to do this, and we ended up talking a lot more about the details of the WLCB and the project than we had initially planned. Luckily, the people who came to our session were interested in more than just the process of transcription—we got a lot of great questions regarding the goals, demographics, and inner workings of the Club itself! Despite the internet issues, we were able to get people up and running and transcribing for us, and questions and discussion regarding the Club continued throughout this process.

A photo from the Bmore Unconference’s twitter (@bmorehistoric) of the transcription session we gave!

We also attended a very useful session right before ours about easy digital mapping techniques with Google Maps that will prove relevant in our own digital endeavors as we map Club members’ addresses over time. The final session we attended was an interesting discussion on how to best go about (if there is a ‘best way’) memorializing the sites in Maryland where lynchings occurred. There were also a myriad of other sessions we were unable to attend, covering topics including the recent removal of Baltimore’s Confederate monuments, Civil War history in general, Baltimore neighborhoods and their history, and museum and archival strategies. Overall, the Unconference was a fascinating experience! We got to share our own research and learn a great deal about others’ as well.

Posted on by Clara Love

Peaceful Politics?

As I continue to work on the 1900-1901 season surrounding the January 8th meeting I discussed in my last post, I’m still on the lookout for hints of reflection or change with regards to the turn of the century. The most notable minutes I came across the week before our Omeka workshop in the context of this particular concern were more about the state of the nation than the state of the Club.

The November 27th, 1900 meeting of the Club, led by the Committee on Current Topics, opened with an article by Mrs. Frederick Tyson on the 1900 presidential election. This presentation begins with some brief, pointed remarks on the progress made in America, and the world, in the closing century. She told the Club that reports about current events of this season in particular should be more comprehensive than they’ve ever been in the past, because now,

Events pass quickly, and we hear of them immediately. People know more, see more, travel far more rapidly and care for more things than they ever did before. In the olden times people going on what are now insignificant journeys, made their wills, and then took leave of their friends as if they did not expect to see them again.

While this is not the explicit declaration of change I was still holding out for, it’s at least something. It’s also reflective of the priorities and interests of the Club members–namely, travel advances, and being able to learn and see more through the collection of shared knowledge created by members with the privilege to travel (so, all of them).

These remarks led into Mrs. Franklin’s “comprehensive” breakdown of the recent US election, which was between Republican William McKinley and Democrat William Jennings Bryan. Her main focus was on how peacefully the election results (McKinley as victor) were accepted by the general public.

She thought that considering the excited feeling and intense interest that preceded it, it was gratifying to know that there was almost no disorder or trouble on the eventful day itself; and that the result was calmly accepted by both parties as the will of the people.

Again, this brief quotation reflects the ideals of the Club, and what aspects of current events they are interested in: consistency. McKinley entered his second term as President after this election, and that kind of calm retention of old power as the new century rolled in mirrors the Club’s own apparent attitudes. The rest of the article, instead of mentioning any kind of campaign or platform details, touched on how both candidates were “good Christian men” in their private lives. Mrs. Tyson closed her presentation on the election by mentioning the changes of the Democratic party; she said that though it used to be pro-expansion, in recent years it had become anti-expansionist, the most explicitly political statement in her entire speech.

While I’m sure the women of the Club had their own particular political leanings and opinions, Mrs. Tyson’s speech, despite touching upon major developments in information sharing, travel, and the presidency, seems fairly disinterested in actual politics. I’m wondering if this lack of discussion of election specifics during an allegedly “comprehensive” presentation has to do with the fact that these women could not vote. We’ve been talking a lot about the governing body of the Club recently, specifically about the idea that they were “practicing” governing and voting in their own setting since women of their time couldn’t vote or really participate in politics outside of the spaces they created for themselves. With that in mind, it’s odd to me that a segment of time set aside specifically to talk about current politics would not contain more in-depth discussion. So much of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore’s work seems to be about establishing and proving themselves as capable, well-read, literary women with a solid governing body, so I would expect their political discussions to try to do the same work.

Posted on by Clara Love

Consistency, Thou Art a Jewel

In my last post, I looked at the lack of emphasis the Club placed on the transition between the years 1899 and 1900. Now, I’ve transcribed the minutes of the Club’s first meeting of 1901, since their first meeting of 1900 implied that they would view this point in time as the true ‘turning of the century.’ And this is true! Mrs. Wrenshall acknowledges the new century at the beginning of the January 8th, 1901 meeting.

The President in greeting her fellow members on this first regular meeting of the year, —and the century—congratulated us on the work done in the past, and on the prospects of the future; especially on our continued adherence to the aims which have form the beginning of the Club claimed our allegiance.

So, now they profess to enter the 20th century, a year later than we thought they would. However, just like the last time, the hoopla surrounding the new era ends there. No proclamations of upcoming goals or changes, no discussion of development or anything of the sort. The most important part of the President’s statement is about sticking to the Club’s original, steadfast aims and policies. For the Club members, the turning of a new century is more about preserving what they’ve already established than creating something new.

I noticed this same sentiment during the minutes of the Club’s prior tenth anniversary meeting on March 27th, 1900. The meeting opens with a reading of the minutes of the Club’s very first meeting, and the President’s address includes a similar urging to the Club to stay close to its original roots,

For ten years we have followed the lines marked out at the formation of the Club, never making novelty our loadstone, never deserting our original aims–nor giving up our allegiance to them.

As the world changes around these women, they retain these old values from ten years ago, and never seek to grow or change their Club except to add new members who fit within their preset boundaries. The President’s address at this anniversary meeting ends with the motto, ” Consistency, thou art a jewel.” The Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore so treasures their original aims and borders that, it seems, it will continue to retain them without addition or adaptation for the new century.

Posted on by Clara Love

A Moment in Time/What Kind of Legacy?

This week, I began transcribing my first set of minutes. Previously, I had been working on the typed programs, so working with the handwritten, far more detailed minutes has been an exciting and interesting shift, especially since I’m getting more information about talks and readings whose titles I’ve already seen on the programs.

I’m transcribing the minutes for the 1899-1900 season, a season chosen because of its potential for discussion about the turn of a new century and what that could mean for the club, for women, or for the world. The women do take note of this important moment in time, but not quite in the way we had hoped. An excerpt from the minutes of the Club’s January 2nd, 1900 meeting reads,

The President then made a few remarks as to where we do, or do not stand, with regard to the Burning question, “Is this the 19th or 20th Century?” and read from the Sun of Jan. 2nd a short notice of Flammarion the astronomer’s decision, that we are in the closing year of the nineteenth century.

There is no further discussion on the topic beyond this brief mention, either in this meeting or subsequent ones. It seems that the Club members do not see their present moment as a significant change-over. Maybe the minutes of the 1900-1901 season contain the kind of declarations of intention and importance regarding a new century that these minutes, unfortunately, do not.

Despite my disappointment on that front, there is still a great deal of fascinating content in these minutes. I’ve transcribed through the meeting of February 6th, so I still have a couple of months left, but even in the incomplete season I’ve read so far, I’ve noticed what seems to be a great frequency of race-centric presentations that I didn’t quite catch on to when I was only working with the programs. A lot of this type of programming sounds, as you’d guess, unsettling at best.

The first talk that caught my eye was part of the October 7th, 1899 meeting. The Club welcomed a series of “Book Notes,” or individual members’ reviews of books they’ve read on their own. Miss Ellen Duvall presents on two books, one of which is titled Anglo-Saxon Superiority: To What It Is Due, by Edmond Demolins, published that year. Miss Duvall says of the book,

The treatment of this question in this book from a French point of view, is, she said, something almost miraculous,–and there is a sweet a reasonableness in it also.

After some cursory research, this book (originally published, as Duvall mentions, in French) seems to focus on the “originality and superiority” of Anglo-Saxon-based society in England and America. A full-text version of this book can be found here.

Later, a talk by Miss Anne Weston Whitney on the “Art in Doll-Making” at the January 7th, 1900 meeting also makes a point of highlighting how dolls not specifically modeled after the “Anglo-Saxon type” are undesirable.

The final piece of programming in this vein (that I’ve seen so far) is a talk by Mrs. Walter Bullock on January 23rd, 1900, titled “Anglo-Saxon Character,” which gives “a clean and comprehensive account of the two most prominent theories with regard to the origin of the Aryan race,” and uses some very particular language that I find very, how do I put this? Indicative of someone with what I’d in our current day call white-supremacist leanings. Mrs. Bullock says in her talk,

There, it has been said, was the white race first found in its greatest purity.

I guess reading about Mrs. Bullock’s talk about when and where the white race came to be its “purest” isn’t totally surprising given all our recent discussion and concern with how to reconcile the legacy of this club with Confederate legacies and the brutal racism that accompanies them, as well as non-Confederate-specific racist conceptions and attitudes of the time.  But even in that context, this kind of programming being shared among the elite and powerful is…Not Good. At the end of this particular talk, Miss Brent proposes that it be type-written and placed in the Club library so others can read and revisit it. Again, these attitudes aren’t shocking in context, but this kind of content is still something that we have to process and/or expose as part of the Club’s legacy, whatever that legacy may be.