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Letitia Humphreys Yonge Wrenshall

Mrs. John C. Wrenshall was born in Georgia, married to John C Wrenshall, and was elected president of the “Woman’s Literary Club” of Baltimore in May, 1898. She was re-elected each year as she was the center of activity in this literary sphere of the club and was gifted with knowing how to organize, administrate, produce, and guide/support her fellow peers. She has been a key force in the forming of other clubs such as Maryland Folk Lore Society, the Aubudon Society, and the Quardriga Club in which she held the office of vice-president in all. She was also the organizer of the “Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Association in 1907 and has been it’s only president.  She was a member of the “Royal Asiatic Society of London” and has been a contributor to its journal.
 She wrote a series of essays in the Baltimore Sun Paper from April 1908 to July 1908 navigating her travel abroad to Italy :
Traveling in the Radiant Old Mediterranean
This was not interesting and rather boring. As like the other essay’s she was very descriptive. She painted a picture so that the reader would have a visual of the time, place and people in the essay.  As she traveled throughout the city, she described the city in its entirety.  From  the church’s white tower, to the Portuguese lady who  spoke many languages with a full description of her attire and how the town on the water edge was like a rock on the mound of the Mediterranean.
A Drive Out from Beautiful Naples to Dead Cities and Lakes of Fire
“A Drive Out from Beautiful Naples to Dead Cities and Lakes of Fire”, by Letitia Yonge Wrenshall is a descriptive essay of a trip aboard.  The essay makes the reader feel as if he/she is accompanying her on the trip. Her words described the fragrance in the air while she outlined the shape and depths of the mountains.  At one point, I felt like I opened the car door and sat in the back seat as she describe the silence as the volcano grumbled like an empty stomach.
Along the Two Gulfs of Naples and Salerno: II–The Drive Down to Amalfi
This essay was the last letter of Mrs. Wrenshall’s trip aboard.  This series read like poetry.  She describes her trip from morning as the crimson sun rise to the scent of the flowers along the path. She closed the series with, “Each place has individual features of natural beauty and the daily incidents give us insight.” Mrs. Wrenshall created a vivid description of her trip.  I enjoyed being there with her.
 She also took part in the writing of A Sketch of the Life of Edgar Allan Poe from the Testimony of His Friends in Edgar Allan Poe: A Centenary Tribute. This is a book where several of Poe’s dearest friends and family wrote a book on the public and private relations of Poe’s life, which causes me to believe her and Poe must have had close ties with each other for her to know such information.
Posted on by Marina Fazio

Florence Trail

Florence Trail (who is also published under the name Florence Traill) was born in Frederick, Maryland on September 1, 1854.  She was born into a prominent Maryland family, which afforded her a lot of opportunities in her life.  When an illness at age 10 caused impaired hearing, Miss Trail did not let it slow her down. In an interview with the Baltimore Sun in 1928, she said that the support of her mother allowed her to live a normal life.  Her mother had a very active role in her life- she approved all of Miss Trail’s reading, going so far as to BURN books she did not approve of!!!

Image from A Woman of the Century, p. 732.

The same article gives a lot of details about that life, although it seems to be rather extraordinary.  She attended the Frederick Female Seminary, where she graduated at the top of her class and later went on to teach philosophy, evidences of Christianity, and modern history.  She also studied at the Mount Vernon Institute and Peabody Conservatory—obviously, Miss Trail was highly educated. She used her education to help others, teaching at Daughters College in Kentucky, and at another unnamed school in Tarboro, North Carolina.

“Music is an expression of objectless, limitless desires”—from “Music in a Psychological Light” in Trail’s Meanings of Music

The fact that there was a full page of the Baltimore Sun dedicated to her  indicates that she was a prominent writer in her day.  She certainly was active in her community: she was president of the Frederick Female Seminary Alumnae Association, and a member of the Society to Encourage Studies at Home.  In addition to this, she was a member of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore and the Frederick Literary Association according to some articles from the Frederick paper, The News.  Her immersion in literature and education likely led to her interest in writing analytical and historical essays.

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 Hunter Flynn

Louisa C. O. Haughton

Louisa C. O. Haughton, founding member and eventual president of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, certainly left her mark on a few distinct aspects of the city’s history. In spite of this, I’ve been able to find practically nothing about her private life.

Born to Henry Osburne Haughton and Sophie Alricks of Connecticut, her family moved to Baltimore around the turn of the 20th century. Her father’s obituary refers to him as an exporter of cattle and an “anti-vivisectionist.” Her full name was Louisa Courtauld Osburne Haughton—exactly her grandmother’s. She and her sister Maud formed Haughton and Haughton, and together they ran a successful business as dressmakers. She died in 1951.

But Haughton is primarily remembered for her involvement in the WLCB. Following the death of the celebrated poet Lizette Woodworth Reese, she (co-)founded the Lizette Woodworth Reese Memorial Association, which collected much of her materials that would eventually be donated to Enoch Pratt.

She wrote stories and plays. So far I’ve recovered two stories: “Ever-Ready Edgar,” published in the Ladies’ Home Journal, and “The Malachite Collar,” in the New York Tribune. Dr. Cole and I have located copyrights for two plays of hers: The Dancing Delilah, and The Decisions; or The Vacillations of Amelia.

I can’t speak for her plays, but her stories seem fairly standard for the popular fiction of her day, albeit both stories I’ve located feature strong, female protagonists.

Illustration by George d’Arcy Chadwick, prefacing “The Ever-Ready Edgar” in The Ladies’ Home Journal, December 1906.

“Ever-Ready Edgar” is a revenge story, in which four women team up against a playboy. Edgar Morris courts and seduces three women in the U.S., France, and England. All of them—Ethel, Elsie, and Eva—have the same initials. He gives each of them souvenirs—a match-box, a set of tablets, and a cardcase.

A fourth, Eleanor, who he meets on a ship coming back from England, almost falls for him. She holds out until she makes it back to the East Coast, and reconvenes with her group of friends—a group that consists, of course, of Ethel, Elsie, and Eva. They all conspire against him.

They invite him to a party, and Eleanor rejects his advances. Here’s the final moment of revenge:

He tried to take her hand, but with a swift movement she drew it away and switched on the piano lamp. On the music-desk in a row before him were the gold match-box, a set of gold tablets, a gold cardcase, and slowly she drew from her belt a gold pencil and put it beside them.

“This is my answer,” she said, rising.

 

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 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 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.