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.
Guest blogger Cynthia Requardt is a volunteer transcriber and researcher for this project. In addition to transcribing several entire seasons of the Club meeting minutes, she also has contributed a Club history to the WLCB Archive. She is currently transcribing the 1913-1914 season, which spurred her to share:
Reading through the Woman’s Literary Club minutes has reminded me how easy it is to misjudge the members if I look at them with a 21st century perspective.
There is consistency in the Club meetings and it lulled me into complacency. Often members read their own compositions, poems, stories, novel chapters or plays. Or they delve into analysis, usually praise, of well-known authors; Browning and Shakespeare being popular topics. Other times members wrote reviews of music, art, or historical events. When I would read that the Committee on Fiction or the Committee on Art and Artists of Maryland was presenting the program, I thought I knew what to expect. But the program presented by the Committee on Current Literature, December 2, 1913, came as a surprise.
Mary Johnston c. 1909. Full image available at Wikipedia.org.
Harriet Lummis Smith wrote short stories, and by 1913 had some success with her standard formula of a young woman overcoming obstacles in her search for a happy marriage. At the December meeting, Smith chose to review the new novel Hagar by Mary Johnston. Johnston had been successful writing historical romances. This novel was a departure for her, and many of her readers, like Smith, found it unsatisfactory. Today, Hagar is considered one of the first feminist novels, with a heroine struggling to lead an independent life as an author. Smith alluded to the feminist tone of the work but seemed most concerned with poor character development noting that “the reader resents the marriage of the heroine to a lover with whom they hardly feel acquainted.”
Rabindranath Tagore, 1913 Nobel Prize winner. nobelprize.org.
The following paper on the program was by poet Virginia Woodward Cloud. She also was disappointed in what she saw as new trends in poetry. The 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature had been awarded to Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore which Cloud thought undeserved. He may be revered by his countrymen, stated Cloud, but he would never appeal to the “Anglo-Saxon mind” and his lack of concrete ideas meant his poetry would never be universal.
I was disappointed that both Smith and Cloud seemed to dismiss new ideas in their craft. They seemed to want to hold on to traditional forms and measures of success. It then occurred to me that I needed to remember who these women were and judge them for what they achieved, not what I would like them to have done.
To be completely truthful, I was not extremely excited when faced with the task of transcribing meeting minutes. I knew that it had some historical significance, and I do believe that making historical documents accessible is a fantastic project, but I thought it would be a mindless activity. I had done some transcription of files for a summer job, and it was absolutely soul-sucking. However, as I began to read the minutes from the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, I became fascinated with their activities.
Some of the most fascinating minutes I have transcribed thus far came from the 78th meeting. This meeting was noted to be directed by the Committee on Fiction, so I expected the minutes to include short stories or excerpts from novels written by club members. Instead, the first work presented was actually a presentation on scientific hypotheses. Mrs. Fabian Franklin presented an article titled “The Sensation of Color,” explaining the different ideas about sensation and perception of light and color. What was most interesting was what the secretary recorded about Mrs. Franklin’s presentation: “Mrs. Franklin advanced to a new theory of her own, differing from those mentioned,– and supported it with skill and ability.” This line, though short, absolutely astonished me. I had not expected to read that the women in a literary club were presenting their own original scientific theories! I wish the secretary had included more information about the theory, besides saying that it was well presented. I can only hope that this theory was published and will be recovered by one of my classmates as we continue on with this project. Otherwise, her ideas will be lost in history.
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.
With many topics that arise in the minutes and histories of women literary clubs, the theme of culture runs deep. In the minutes of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore from October 7, 1902 the members announced courses offered in art and then played music and sang. The following week, the meeting of October 14, 1902, was much more packed. Not only had a couple members discussed their newly published books, but also current events.
Much attention was paid to what was occurring within the country, the United State’s impact elsewhere and other countries’ histories. For example there was mention of the Coal Miner’s strike in the US, which then led to conversation about miner strikes in both France and England. Debate over the Panama and Nicaragua Canals, the relationship between the US and President Diaz, and the history of France, Germany and England in that area. Roosevelt, Cuba and the Prince of Siam were also brought up. There is no limitation to the US or Europe, but an intrigue in countries spread across the world.
The women of this era were so interested and invested in being as knowledgeable as possible. Gere makes the point in her novel Intimate Practices that by a woman “acknowledging her own background, she nods toward international travel and the reading of literature as vehicles for achieving the desired cultivation” (182). During these minutes, the President Mrs. J. C. Wrenshall, was abroad. And in the minutes from October 14th after discussion of current events, the conversation returned to the best selling novel of the month and the growth of newspapers. No matter the subject of conversation, these women move around numerous topics, giving thought out and knowledgeable opinions. There is an evident strive to improve themselves individually, but also raise each other up by sharing literature the knowledge.
Since finding out about the existence of the Woman’s Literary Club half a decade ago, I’ve been wondering what members of the club thought of one of my great literary heroes (I’m not going to call her a heroine), Edith Wharton.
As a jaded grad student in the 1990s, Wharton’s novel The House of Mirth (her first, published in 1905) was the only book I read that actually brought me to tears.
It was also a novel that challenged American literary history as it was viewed at the time. Back then, when people talked about American literature of the 1890s, they talked about the “Age of Realism” and “the big three”– Mark Twain, Henry James, and William Dean Howells–who supposedly exemplified its principles.* Entire courses were titled “Twain, James, Howells,” focusing just on these three writers. During the 1990s, Wharton muscled her way into this stalwart triumvirate. Now she is usually paired off with James on American literature syllabi; both are represented as novelists of consciousness and as prose stylists who bridged the divide between realism and modernism.
What, I wondered, did the women of the Club—elite, educated, and cultured contemporaries of Wharton—think of her? Were they scandalized by the fact that she divorced her husband? Or did they admire her for abandoning her stifling society life in New York for a life among fellow intellects in Europe? Did they wish to emulate her as a stylist? Did they recognize her as one? Did they share her ironic ambivalence about what Thorstein Veblen described in 1890 as the “leisure class”? Did they share her desire to validate female independence, female intellect? So many questions.
So imagine my delight when, in the midst of transcribing the 1905-1906 minutes (and slogging through the Recording Secretary Mrs. Philip Uhler’s curlicued handwriting), I encountered a review of The House of Mirth, offered as part of the program from the Committee on Current Criticism (Mrs. Percy M. Reese, Chairman) on Feb. 13, 1906. It was reviewed by Club member Miss L. M. Kirk. Mrs. Uhler wrote,
Miss Kirk spoke of the power and strength of the book and of the interest of its conversations. We were told of a young girl, who chiefly for want of money, drops out of the pale of society, loses her courage, and even, innocently, her reputation. There is much shown of weakness, of the want of moral training and self-control. After reading it, we were reminded that we can be glad that the “Smart Set” is a small set. But Mrs Wharton’s subjects do not run away from her, as Mrs [Humphrey] Ward’s sometimes do. “The House of Mirth” is called the book of the year, and has a great sale. Miss Kirk quoted a review of it from “Life,” which considered its heroine as not well-balanced, and not a cause for tears. Miss Kirk treated “The House of Mirth” as literature, rather than as pleasing or satisfactory.
Yep– that’s it. A rather cursory review of the so-called “book of the year.” But there are a couple of interesting things to be said. One is the obvious distance Miss Kirk places between the “Smart Set” (the cosmopolitan elite centered in New York City) and the women of the Club. Based on the tone, Kirk rather dismisses this group, known in the press as “The Four Hundred” (sort of like the Fortune 500, but primarily including the social elite rather than the elite of the business world).
It’s also significant, I think, that Kirk focuses on Lily Bart’s “weakness,” her “want of moral training and self-control.” Clearly, Miss Kirk did not read Lily’s demise as the result of societal forces, as the novel is predominantly read now. Kirk faults Lily for her demise; she finds nothing wrong with society itself. This complacency is in keeping with what we’ve seen with the Club throughout its early years.
But most of all, I’m intrigued by Miss Kirk’s judgment of the novel “as literature, rather than pleasing or satisfactory.” These distinctions– between literature, pleasure, and satisfaction– are ones that continue to differentiate those who consider themselves scholars, and those we might call “lay readers,” people who read for fun. Clearly, this Club saw themselves as litterateurs, not dabblers or pleasure readers.
And—based on her comments—it looks like The House of Mirth may have made Miss Kirk cry, too.
(As a side note, which may become the subject of a future post, the 38th annual convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association was occurring just a few blocks away at exactly the same hour that the Club was meeting, but they made no mention of it in the minutes.)
* Note. In retrospect, it seems to me that the only reason why Twain was classified as a realist at all is because he was held up as one by his good friend Howells. Howells, too, was never able to fully adhere to realist principles, even though he played a large part in defining them.
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.
