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 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.