Posted on by Katie Shiber

The Life and Work of Elizabeth Lester Mullin

Mistress Brent’s Bluff, The Baltimore Sun November 7, 1915

Elizabeth Lester Mullin was born around the year 1874. Her father, Michael A. Mullin was a well-known lawyer in Baltimore, leader within the Catholic church, and graduate of Loyola College. Her mother, Elizabeth C. Mullin (born Josephine Cluskey) was also a prominent member of the Catholic church and founded the Fuel Guild. Miss Mullin had one brother who tragically died in 1906 after falling ill during his service in the Spanish-American war. According to census records it appears that Mullin never married, living with her mother until Mrs. Mullin’s death in 1919.

Elizabeth Lester Mullin was a member of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore from 1899 until 1914, serving as the treasurer from 1904 until 1914. Mullin was also accepted as a member of the Maryland Historical Society in 1916 and served as the secretary of the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Association.

Miss Mullin was fluent in French and served as a translator for several publications from French to English. Some of these titles included “The Codicil” by Paul Ferrier and “Atalanta” by Edouard Rod. She was also the author of her own works of short fiction. Her story “Mistress Brent’s Bluff” was published in the Baltimore Sun in 1915, and another work of short fiction is mentioned in the Woman’s Literary Club Meeting Minutes of October 2, 1901, but was not called by a title and is currently unrecovered.

Although Miss Mullin seemed to publish little of her own work, her translations made French works accessible to foreign audiences, making her an integral part of their literary production.

Sources:

“Edgar Allan Poe: A Centenary Tribute.” Baltimore: Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Association, 1910.

“Maryland Historical Magazine.” The Maryland Historical Society, vol. XI, Baltimore, 1916.

“Michael A. Mullin Dead.” The Baltimore Sun, 1915 Jun. 10, p. 12.

“Mrs. Elizabeth C. Mullin.” The Baltimore Sun, 1919 Jun. 7, p. 6.

Mullin, Elizabeth Lester. “Mistress Brent’s Bluff.” The Baltimore Sun, 1915 Nov. 7.

Posted on by Katie Shiber · 1 Comment

Work to remember, Fast to Forget: The Life of Lizette Woodworth Reese

Although today few may know her name, Miss Lizette Woodworth Reese may very well have been one of Baltimore’s most gifted writers. H. L. Mencken, Baltimore writer, critic and scholar, said of Reese upon her death, “I believe, that of all the women who have ever lived in Baltimore, she will be remember the longest, just as Poe will be remembered the longest among men.”

Miss Reese and her twin sister Sophia were born on January 9, 1856 to Louisa Gabler and David Reese, a former confederate soldier, in what is now Waverly, Maryland. Waverly, a still pastoral suburb of Baltimore, served as one of Reese’s favorite subjects of poetry.

After her education in the Baltimore Public schools, Miss Reese began her teaching career at the age of seventeen. She began at St. John’s Episcopal Church’s parish school, but soon moved on to the Number Three School, a German-English school, which largely served immigrant families. Reese than continued her career at City High School, an exclusively African-American school, where she was exposed to the hardships her students faced at the hands of poverty and racism. She finished her teaching career at her alma mater, Western High school.

Reese was widely praised for her passion and dedication to teaching, but found her truest talent and purpose in writing. From poetry to short fiction to memoir, Reese had a gift for eloquence and profound insight. In 1874, her first piece, a poem titled “The Deserted House,” was published in Southern Magazine. She found a fruitful platform in magazines, and continued publishing regularly until the release of her first poetry collection, A Branch of May, in 1887. Reese proceeded to published 15 volumes of her work, two of which were autobiographies and a novel. Reese’s work was not only locally recognized, but nationally. In 1914, a New York Times Poll, asked current well-known writers, “What is the best short poem in the English language?” In response, the writers named 68 poems by 10 different authors, Reese being one, ranking her beside poets like Keats and Wordsworth. Miss Reese’s most famous and critically acclaimed poem, “Tears,” was published by Scribner’s Magazine in November of 1899. In response to its publication H. L. Mencken called it, “one of the imperishable glories of American literature.”

In 1931, Reese was elected the poet laureate of Maryland by the General Federation of Women’s Clubs and received an honorary doctorate from Goucher College. She also served as the honorary president of the Poetry Society of Maryland, the honorary president of the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, and a co-founder of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, where she served as chair of the modern poetry committee from 1890 until her death in 1935.

Reese wrote until the day she died, passing before the completion of her novel, Worley’s. She was deeply dedicated to her craft, both education and poetry, manifesting this passion in her work with the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore. Miss Reese’s life embodied everything the club sought to achieve, the engaged study of literature, the production of literary art and the advancement of women writers.

Reese died in the year 1935 at the Church Home and Infirmary, the same location of her beloved idol, Edgar Allan Poe, who passed decades before her. Although her biographical information is easily accessible and most of her texts available digitally online, I am still left to ponder if Miss Reese is remembered these 83 years later. Certainly more than her fellow club members, but not so in comparison to the poets of her time to which she was compared. Her name rarely appears in popular history of the period or anthologies of 18th century poets, and I certainly never heard her name in my literary education.

Lizette Woodworth Reese

A woman, once considered a world famous poet, is now stuck in a niche corner of literary history, and though there may be myriad reasons why, I am more interested in the undoing of the dust collected on this poet’s history.

 

Sources:

“Lizette Woodworth Reese and the Poetry of Spring.” Underbelly, The Maryland Historical Society, 16 Apr. 2015, www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2015/04/16/lizette-woodworth-reese-and-the-poetry-of-spring/.

“Lizette Woodworth Reese.” Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lizette-woodworth-reese.

“Lizette Woodworth Reese.” The Baltimore Literary Heritage Project, baltimoreauthors.ubalt.edu/writers/lizettereese.htm.

“Miss Reese, Poet, Dies in Hospital.” The Evening Sun, 17 Dec. 1935, p. 44.

“What is the Best Short Poem in the English Language.” Baltimore Sun, 12 July 1914, p. 16.

Posted on by Katie Shiber

The House Not Made with Hands

In transcribing minute meetings, it is easy to get lost in the technicalities of accurate replication, distracting one from content that seems, at times, mundane. However, in my transcription of the 805th Meeting of the Women’s Literary Club of Baltimore held on October 27th 1914, a sentiment was put forth that piqued my interest. The meeting was conducted by the committee on poetry, led by chairman Miss Lizette Woodworth Reese, who began by reading a poem entitled “Ghosts.” However, it was not Miss Reese that brought forth this reflection, but a musing from the secretary herself that caught my eye. She wrote, “Every house where men live and die is haunted. The house not made with hands is the one we really live in. This is the modern touch, taking the place of cruder apparitions of earlier times. Our ghosts have been turned inward.”

I was immediately struck because, unlike other minutes I had encountered, the minute keeper was not simply relaying the conversation of the group, but weighing in herself. She was so moved by the topic of ghosts and apparitions that she felt it necessary to document her thoughts. It is clear that the “house not made with hands” she is referring to is the kingdom of God, quoting from 2 Corinthians 5:1. It is a religious sentiment, but perhaps a social commentary too. These minutes were taken in October of 1914, shortly after the beginning of the first world war, a time in history when the world faced the grim reality of brutal intercontinental conflict, and Americans feared their nation’s entry into the war. Death was no longer a topic easily ignored, but one in the forefront of civilian minds. Perhaps the minute keeper’s words were just a belief that religion had taken precedent over old-fashioned superstition, but maybe she was instead struck by the reality that war was raging and death looming, finding solace in her divine belief in heaven.