Posted on by Katie Kazmierski · 4 Comments

Mary Noyes Colvin, PhD

As I write this, my head is spinning with so much information on the woman, the myth, the legend, Mary Noyes Colvin, and yet also, so many questions left frustratingly unanswered. Let’s start from what I consider the beginning. I only found two published works by Colvin: one, an edited translation of “The Siege and Conqueste of Jerusalem”, by William of Tyre from way back in 1130-approximately 1190, complete with an extraordinarily detailed introduction and notes, index, and vocabulary by Colvin. The other, her dissertation for her PhD… in German. Think she’s cool yet? Yeah, it gets better.

After studying at Mount Holyoke College and teaching thereafter for a few years, Colvin enrolled in the University of Zurich. There, in 1888, she became the first woman in the university’s history to be awarded a PhD. I found this information from an article about her being appointed professor of romance languages at the Western Reserve University in Ohio in 1893. Interestingly enough, I came across more or less the same blurb in countless newspapers from the time in January 1893: The Indianapolis Journal in Indiana, Galena Weekly Republican in Kansas, the Lafayette Gazette in Louisiana, Buffalo Evening News in New York, the list goes on. Mary Noyes Colvin was appointed a professor at a college in Ohio, and cities around the country told her story. She was, it seems, kind of a big deal.

That particular article goes on to tell that since 1889 Colvin was secretary of the Bryn Mawr Preparatory School, a Baltimore girls school that still exists today. That’s where Baltimore comes in, and with it, our WLCB. According to our membership list, Colvin was only a member of WLCB in its first season, 1890-91, but I think she must’ve been a member from 91-92 as well, as her and the Club in 1892 played a big role in fighting to improve Baltimore schools, specifically girls schools. In an article sub headlined “Many of the Defects Pointed Out by the Committee of the Woman’s Literary Club Have Been Remedied Since the Committee Made Its Investigation”, Mary Noyes Colvin is credited as having reported on the areas in which Baltimore schools were failing. Professor Wise, the Superintendent, supposedly takes Colvin’s advice, and it is announced that the several changes to schools have been made, including “raising the curriculum of the female grammar schools to an equality with male grammar schools”. You go, Mary.

And yet, while I can find information like all of this, I can’t find Mary Noyes Colvin’s birthday. She might’ve grown up in New York, as the earliest information I can find about her is from 1882 in an article announcing her previous work experience as a teacher in Dansville, New York, and appointment of another position at Genesco State Normal School. The same article credits her as being the daughter of Judge Noyes and “possessing rare accomplishments”… lol. Maybe if I had Judge Noyes’s full name I could find him, and in turn, find Mary Noyes’s date of birth and death, but alas, for once, it has proven difficult to find even a man from this time period. I guess I can’t complain, considering I’ve found more about Mary Noyes Colvin than her judge father or even her husband, who must exist, because of the whole, “Mrs. Colvin” thing but he’s MIA too.

So, I still have questions. But I’ve got a good amount of answers, too. Mary Noyes Colvin was nothing short of a badass. And to further solidify that, check out these people who knew her vouch for it in this compilation of letters of reference of hers, circa 1882-88.

*Mic drop.*

Posted on by Katie Kazmierski

Ellen Duvall: A look at the whole person

During our summer research, the name “Ellen Duvall” began to be tossed around always accompanied by a sort of painful giggle in response to whatever problematic (see: racist) thing she had done in the meeting minutes next. I didn’t know much about her, but I began to hate Ellen Duvall. And when I was assigned to research and read her published works, that same painful giggle came back. I already knew what I’d find: Ellen Duvall writing a lot of problematic things that would be difficult to get through reading. I expected I’d continue to hate her.

I think you can see where this is going. It turns out, I don’t hate Ellen Duvall. I hate the racist things she’s done and said, and this isn’t me giving her a get out of jail free card. I think she’s teaching me, though, that it’s important to see the whole person: not just someone’s flaws. And these women are all deeply flawed, just as we are.

Looking at Duvall’s work, I was surprised at how good some of her stuff is. By some, I do mean some though. I read five pieces and I really only liked two. I found “A Point of Honor” and “Estelle” gripping and actually very wise and relatable. “A Point of Honor” is a short story involving a young woman, Adela, who seeks out the advice of her aunt, Miss Miriam Hatley. Basically Adela likes this dude who she’s been close friends with for ages, and then her friend Ethel comes along and her and the guy end up hitting it off. Adela begins to resent Ethel, and Miriam helps her to look at the situation more rationally, and also simply to not let a man come between a female friendship. Duvall writes,

“I know how prone we all are to think that love in itself constitutes some sort of claim; but it does not. It simply gives the right to stand aside or to serve, as the case may be.”

The story is written really well and touches beautifully on themes of jealousy, pride, and love.

A quote from the beginning of “A Point of Honor” perhaps sheds some light on Duvall’s own thoughts toward her ‘responsibility’ as a writer:  

“For she thinks that the reader has no responsibility toward the author, but the author has every responsibility toward the reader.”

Duvall clearly loved to write. She has countless published works, mostly fictional short stories and the occasional article. She was fond of Shakespeare and wrote about him a lot too, as is mentioned a lot in the meeting minutes.

It was difficult to find Duvall’s birth and death dates, and to my shock I couldn’t find a single short biography about her. I kind of expected her to have a Wikipedia page at the very least, just because of the extent of how much she’s been published. I thought I’d found her on Find a Grave, which is, I think, the source Sydney had originally used to find her age back during our summer research, but it turns out that’s the wrong Ellen Duvall, though they were buried in the same cemetery. It doesn’t help, of course, that she doesn’t have an uncommon name.

A newspapers.com and ancestry.com free trial later, I found out that Ellen Duvall was born in Delaware in (I think) 1854. According to ancestry.com, she died in 1943, but according to her obituary, she died in 1944, so I’m going to go with 1944– which means she was an astounding 90 years old when she passed. 

When I set out searching on newspapers.com, I knew finding an obituary would be key to finding other biographical information. It wasn’t easy though– Ellen Duvall was mentioned in The Baltimore Sun hundreds of times. Usually, it was in conjunction with a mention of the WLCB which was mentioned a lot, or her doing a reading somewhere, or she was even highlighted in a spread of Baltimore women writers, which many of our ladies were showcased in as well.

A spread of Baltimore women writers, many of whom were members of the WLCB. Drawings of Lizette Woodworth Reese, Lucy Meacham Thruston, Mrs. Myra Gross, Miss Louise Malloy, and Miss Virginia Woodward Cloud.
Duvall’s highlight in the Sun’s “Baltimore is the Home Of Many Conspicuous Woman Writers”, February 14, 1909. Source: newspapers.com

I couldn’t find her obituary for a while precisely because she was everywhere. And when I did, it was by mere chance because I almost missed it in its sparsity. After years of mentions like those above, here is Duvall’s obituary in the same paper:

obituary
Ellen Duvall’s obituary is surprisingly sparse. Notice also, how her age isn’t listed.

Perhaps the highlight is that she’s credited as being one of the founders of WLCB and an ‘associate of’ Cloud and Reese, but wow– no mention of her ‘notable works’ from the mini-biography published in the Sun years prior; no mention of her being a published author even.

Duvall spent most of her life as a single boarder. It’s mentioned in her obituary that she died in the home of her nephew, Philips F. Lee, the son of her younger sister, Laura Duvall. She had five siblings total, and seemingly alternated between living with one of them or her parents over the years. I wonder what her relationship with her family was like– I wonder if she ever longed to live on her own, or if she was content.

As I read and find more of Duvall’s work, I look forward to finding out more about her. Despite her high status in the Club, countless publications, and single status and therefore easily google-able name, even she, it seems, has fallen somewhat through history’s cracks.

 

Posted on by Katie Kazmierski

“Writing a War Story”

“Writing a War Story” by Edith Wharton is shocking—and it isn’t. Spending weeks crafting a war story for a magazine for soldiers, Ivy Spang is particularly proud of herself when she completes it. She buys copies of the magazine for the soldiers she looks after in the hospital, nervous but excited for them to read it. The men are outwardly impressed— but not by her story, but rather her portrait on the cover page. Reading this I was disgusted but unsurprised. In an age where things like last Saturday’s Women’s March are still very much needed, I see truth in Wharton’s short story even today.

What troubled me even more though was Spang’s conversation with Harold Harbard, another solider and famous novelist. Nervous for his opinion on her work, Spang enters his room to find him laughing at her story. When she works up the courage to ask him the reason for his laughter, their conversation goes like this:

“…But it’s queer—it’s puzzling. You’ve got hold of a wonderfully good subject; and that’s the main thing, of course—‘ Ivy interrupted him eagerly. ‘The subject is the main thing?’ ‘Why, naturally; it’s only the people without invention who tell you it isn’t.’ ‘Oh,’ she gasped, trying to readjust her carefully acquired theory of esthetics.”

Earlier in the story Spang experiences intense writer’s block. What helps her essentially is a magazine that insists that a ‘subject’, in fact, is not the most important part of a story, but rather the delivery and art form of it. What we see above is Harbard turning that logic on its head, and Spang not only resigning her own thoughts on the matter, but also preparing to reshape her entire mindset on it. She is hurt and disrespected by Harbard and yet, because he is a successful man in literature, she takes what he says as ultimate truth, disregarding all that she thought she knew.

Posted on by Katie Kazmierski · 2 Comments

Lydia Crane: Uncovering a Legacy and a Grave

As the rest of the team knows, Lydia Crane, the Club’s dedicated Recording Secretary for over 15 years, has held a special place in my heart over the course of our transcribing. There’s something about her tireless devotion to the Club and her attention to detail in recording minutes. Every detail, that is, other than clues to who she was herself.

I’ve been looking more into Lydia and seeing what I could find about her. I was thrilled when Sydney found her memorial on Find a Grave, which tells me she was born on July 22, 1833 (happy 184th birthday, Lydia!), and died May 4, 1916. This also showed me who her father was, William Crane. Crane founded Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society in 1815, opposed slavery, but also did not call himself an abolitionist, as he criticized them as harshly as he did secessionists. I’ll probably write more about him later, as he was a fascinating figure.

And of course, endless information is available about him, while nearly nothing can be found about Miss Lydia Crane.

Yesterday, when we visited Green Mount Cemetery I was particularly excited to find her grave. We had the location of William Crane’s grave from findagrave.com, and I was confident that Lydia would be right there with him.

The grave of William Crane (1790-1866), father of Lydia Crane (1833-1916).

But, as Sydney mentioned, we couldn’t find her. Or maybe we did, but her grave is weathered arguably beyond recovery.

What might be Lydia Crane’s grave. The writing is completely illegible, though we’re pretty sure we can make out a ‘Crane’ in the top right corner. It’s located in the Crane family plot at Green Mount Cemetery.

I was disappointed, to say the least. I tried fiddling with that photo over and over again in Photoshop, and so far this is the best I could do:

The black and white and dark contrast makes the ‘Crane’ a tiny bit easier to decipher, but even then it’s a shot in the dark. I wont give up on this though–I’ve already asked my dad, a photographer, to come with me to the cemetery with his DSLR camera and off-camera flash, which supposedly will help make the shadows work more in our favor to decipher the inscription. I’d also like to do an etching.

I might seem crazy for the lengths I’m going to to try to uncover Miss Crane’s memorial, especially considering we already do know her first name along with her birth and death dates, which is more than we know about many of the Club’s women. But it troubles me that someone as vital to the Club’s history as her could nearly disappear herself from history. A woman with such detailed accounts of something should at least have a legible gravestone.

Sydney suggested I also contact the woman who published Lydia’s memorial on Find a Grave, which I did this afternoon. Her profile on the site boasts an astonishing 992 memorials added to the database, almost 100 of them with the surname ‘Crane’. I’m interested to know what her connection with the Crane family is, and if all 100 of these Cranes, spanning various generations and locations, might be her ancestors or simply people she’s intrigued in. Lydia Crane could just be a name to her, or maybe she knows something more.

 

Posted on by Katie Kazmierski

What was the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Association?

At a certain point in my transcribing, I started to notice that the minutes often mentioned the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Association–a club which, the minutes explain, boasts nearly the same Board of Management as the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore. From the 1908 minutes, I got the feeling that the Club was becoming more invested in the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Association than the original woman’s club– meetings were few in the beginning of the year and at one point an ‘informal meeting’ was held simply to cancel another Club meeting in favor of an event for the EAPMA. I started to wonder what the deal was with this other club.

I found that in 1907, the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore decided to create the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Association. Their original goal was to erect a monument for Poe to be completed by 1909 for the centennial of his birth. I was surprised that I read nothing of this sort in the Club minutes, though I guess this would be discussed in the minutes of the EAPMA, if there are any. Its omission also might be due to the fact, though, that the statue didn’t end up making its way to Baltimore until 1921– some time after its 1909 goal. The monument had, well, what can be politely described as a series of mishaps.

The artist, Moses Jacob Ezekial, finished the first sculpture in 1913 but it was destroyed in a fire. The second model was also destroyed, this time in an earthquake. The third was done by 1916 but World War I delayed its shipment across the Atlantic by 5 years. Despite the bizarre delays, the tribute got to Baltimore eventually, and today it sits in Gordon Plaza at the University of Baltimore, thanks to our ladies from the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore. 

Another interesting thing I found was a book entitled “Edgar Allan Poe: A Centenary Tribute” which was published in 1910, on account of, again, the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore and the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Association.

A page from the beginning of the text. The Board members were almost identical at this time.

The book is a published account of the Centenary Celebration–the lectures/speeches given by the speakers at the January 1909 tribute were recorded and bound together in the text, along with an introduction explaining the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Association, written by, I’m assuming, Mrs. Wrenshall.

From the introduction I found out that the WLCB had originally talked about forming the Association in 1904, and in 1907 they officially formed it with the goal of, “erecting in Baltimore a monument to the poet worthy of his genius”. The introduction also boasts that the birth of this association and its goal was received enthusiastically among other women’s clubs in the state, and also in the press. Apparently the Association received support across state lines, all of this being completely voluntary with respect to the importance of honoring the poet. Even through all this support, though, it’s mentioned that in June of 1907 the efforts had to be halted due to the “financial stringency”. That explains why the first statue wasn’t completed until 1913, then.

As I read the introduction praising the Association and also the speakers who “graciously permitted” to record their tributes in the text, Miss. Reese was in the back of my mind–the source of the drama regarding her poem’s inclusion in the celebration. I was surprised, and delighted to see that the very first tribute in the book, right after the introduction, was Lizette Woodworth Reese’s poem. I can’t help but wonder if her poem was included first for a reason, maybe as a way to make up for its apparent omission at the celebration itself.

From my understanding, the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Association served not only as a tribute to the infamous poet, but also as a way for the women involved to engage in a community bigger than themselves. Through it, they worked with prominent, if entitled, men from Johns Hopkins and other Poe fans across state lines to come together to form a monument for a comment interest. Where the Woman’s Literary Club seems to have been a means for sharing art and literature with each other while straying from state or national woman’s clubs, through the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Association those same women seemed to extend themselves outward, while creating a monument that stands to this day.

Posted on by Katie Kazmierski

It’s 1909 and I smell drama

In my last post I mentioned how that week I found a lot in the Board of Manager’s minutes that stuck out to me. The main story I wanted to tell happens to be one that Dr. Cole has asked me to share, too, about a bit of drama that’s recorded in May of 1909.

The entry is from May 8th, 1909, but it refers to events that happened in late December 1908/early January 1909. What struck me initially was that the minutes were supposedly taken by the President, not Miss Lydia Crane, the Recording Secretary. It’s weird though because it all appears to be written in the same handwriting but then there are notes supposedly differentiating between who was writing what; Crane or Wrenshall. Why Wrenshall would be writing as opposed to the Secretary at all, I don’t know and I probably never will know–but I almost get the feeling that she wanted to make sure the story was relayed the way she wanted it to be told.

The matter actually concerns the Edgar Allen Poe Association, the Executive Board of which was, at the time, nearly identical to that of the WLBC. I’ll go into that in a later post–what’s important now is just to know that the Board members of the two groups are almost exactly the same, and so they took up affairs of the EAPA in the WLBC meeting.

The Edgar Allen Poe Association took part in the Centenary of Edgar Allen Poe, a celebration commemorating the 100th anniversary of Poe, held at Johns Hopkins University. The ladies worked closely with a few very important men at the time to organize the event, including the president of the university, Dr. Remson, and a man referred to as Professor Bright, who Wrenshall says Remson appointed as his “representative”. Wrenshall, in a lengthy statement to the Club, tells of three visits she had with Bright, the first two in December planning the program for the celebration. The speakers included the university’s pick, Dr. W. P. Trent, who was designated 40 minutes to speak, and two selections by the EAPA ladies, Dr. Huckel and Mr. Poe, who were to have 20-30 minutes each.

Wrenshall then explains how on their Janaury 6th meeting, Bright insisted that she cut Dr. Huckel’s time speaking to eight to ten minutes, and to reduce Mr. Poe’s to only four to five minutes. So to reiterate: the two speakers chosen by the EAPA were given less time to speak than the Hopkins choice to begin with, but then Bright had the nerve to try to compel Wrenshall to shorten her speakers’ time to nearly nothing.

The minutes read, “To do this Mrs. Wrenshall positively declined,–with difficulty maintaining the position of the speakers as asked by the Association.”

Already, this sounds like an uncomfortable position for Wrenshall to be in, especially for a woman at this point in time. Saying no to a prominent man was considered taboo, so I was impressed with Wrenshall in this moment for standing her ground. But then it gets more complicated.

Apparently, this whole time, Wrenshall was supposed to ask about incorporating a poem, written by Miss Reese, in the celebration. Because the meeting didn’t exactly go swimmingly, she didn’t end up bringing it up. This is ultimately why Wrenshall makes the whole statement on May 8th to begin with: to put it bluntly, Miss Reese is pissed off.

At this point, minutes from the meeting of January 11th are read to the group, recalling that Miss Reese was unhappy with the way matters stood so she insisted on going to Dr. Bright herself to ask permission to read her poem. After some back and forth over whether Wrenshall thought that was “suitable”, it was decided that the President would write a letter to Bright on the Board’s behalf, politely asking for the poem’s inclusion. She did so that night, she insists. After some more trivial commentary in the statement, it’s clear that Wrenshall means business:

In concluding Mrs. Wrenshall said she wished to emphasize the facts: First, that Miss Reese’s poem was not written when the poem was decided on, in Dr. Bright’s two visits of December 15th and 20th. Second, that after hearing from Miss Reese that she had a poem, (this in the last week of the year,) she was willing to forego her own judgment, and ask Dr. Bright for Miss Reese to be placed on the programme, according to the letter asking him to call before the programme was finally arranged.

Thirdly, that when he came on the evening of that day, the situation was so uncomfortable and strained that she could not consistently with the dignity of the Association ask for any further addition to the programme from the Association.”

That third ‘fact’ is what got me. From Wrenshall’s initial description of the encounter with Dr. Bright, I knew it was unpleasant, but that last sentence says it all. It sounds to me like Wrenshall felt helpless. I get the feeling that she did want to support her fellow Club member by including her poem, but the position she was put in with this awful man made it, she felt, impossible to push for it. It would be ‘inappropriate’. It also strikes me how she speaks of how doing so would sacrifice the ‘dignity of the Association’.

At the end of her statement, Wrenshall is met with a chorus of loving expressions of gratitude from her colleagues. They “agreed that [their] President had done all that she could have done under trying circumstances; and more than could have been asked or expected.” The strength of their affectionate response is interesting– in one way, it shows the Club’s dedication and appreciation for their President. But it also might show an underlying understanding–maybe these women reacted as strongly as they did to this particular story because they’d all been there, in one way or another. They’d all had their ideas and passions stifled by a man. Some of them, so much so, that their names have vanished from history in favor of “Mrs.” slapped onto their husband’s full names.

Posted on by Katie Kazmierski

Motives behind giving

This past week, I continued working on transcribing the Board of Management meeting minutes from 1908 onwards. A lot caught my interest this week, and I found myself footnoting things with my own comments. I think I’ll write about these in a later post, but for right now, Clara’s post about philanthropy actually got me thinking about the character of the ladies of the Club– or the character they seemed to have wished to portray. As Clara puts it, they almost seemed “more concerned with crafting the image of the spirit of giving rather than the spirit itself.”

While I haven’t stumbled upon in my share of the minutes any talk of philanthropy (which, I guess, serves to prove Clara’s point even more) yet, when I read Clara’s post a particular point in the minutes stood out in my mind.

Basically, in February of 1910 a valued member of the Club, Mrs. Tait, decided to resign her membership after the death of her husband. As a parting gift to show her appreciation of the Club and the women in it, she offers them a bust of Sidney Lanier, an author and poet (who just so happened to also serve in the Confederate army). After some deliberation, the Board agrees that Tait must not know how expensive the bust is, as it’s estimated to be $25, (roughly $610 today!) so they offer to pay for it. Mrs. Tait happily accepts the Board’s offer, and the matter’s closed.

A month later in March, Mrs. Tait dies. Someone suggests that the Club send flowers to her funeral as a tribute, and after some very calculated deliberation on what is “acceptable”, it was deemed “unsuitable” to do this for “one no longer a member”. This is a month after Mrs. Wrenshall writes a lengthy poem to honor another deceased past member, Mrs. Whitney, mind you. But here’s the kicker:

It was recalled that the Board had very lately done a graceful action with regard to Mrs. Tait’s offer to give the Club her bust of Sidney Lanier,–by accepting it only with the condition of returning to her its full value; and having done so while she was living, and able to express–though only verbally–her grateful appreciation of the favor,–a floral tribute was of little consequence now.

This is where Clara’s notion of, are they doing good deeds to be good or to be perceived as good? comes in. It seems like they spent more time sitting and weighing how their actions would make them look than what the actions actually meant. Their treatment of this situation just strikes me as very inauthentic–especially the notion of “oh, well, we did this for her a month ago, so we’re good”. It makes me wonder how much of what the Club does is chosen because of how it will make them appear, not necessarily for its intrinsic value.

Regardless, it boggles my mind that they’d deemed it inappropriate to give flowers to a past member because a) she wasn’t a current member and that somehow made her unworthy and b) they had just done her a favor anyway, so basically they’re off the hook.

Not to mention, Mrs. Tait had only resigned a month before her death. I guess once you resign, you’re good as dead to the Club–they might as well have just given her a bouquet in February.