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 Marina Fazio

Stickers, Sewing, and Sex Work: A Day at the Maryland Historical Society

This past weekend, our class took a trip to the Maryland Historical Society to get a better understanding of the context that the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore was writing in.

I LOVE field trips and museums, so I was looking forward to spending the day in a historical society.

Being able to learn about what kind of world these women were writing in has allowed me to better understand what may have motivated women to be writers during this period.  One of the larger exhibits in the Historical Society was dedicated to examples of needlepoint.  The ability to sew was considered a very important skill for women to have, so many spent their time learning how to make needlepoint samplers.  Along with the ability to sew, learning languages, such as French, was also considered a valuable educational pursuit for young women.  Elizabeth Bonaparte, who is the focus of an exhibit at the historical society, had a tutor from France so that she could learn French.  This interest in foreign languages can also be seen in the works of club members, like Florence Trail, who translated Italian poetry for anthologies in English. These pursuits represented what was considered culturally relevant and important for the women of the club, but in different ways.  Needlepoint followed traditional gender roles as an acceptable task for women.  Languages, while also traditionally acceptable, were being used by the women of the club to become more engaged in literacy practices that were often reserved for men, thus going against the cultural norms.

Picture courtesy of Jill Fury

The interest in educational advancement for women was apparent when we had the opportunities to examine some documents from the period.  A course catalogue from the Lutherville Female Seminary included a list of students enrolled at the institution.  I was surprised to discover that some of the students had come from as far away as Florida and Iowa.  The fact that they would travel such a long distance shows that the educational opportunities for women of the period were severely lacking.

 

Picture courtesy of Katie Kazmierski

One of the more interesting and entertaining things that I learned about the work of women in the period came in the form of a bordello map.  Women’s groups of the period worked towards social reform, promoting a more moral society with better life choices.  In an effort to lead sailors to a pure moral path, they handed out maps of known bordellos near the docks where the sailors worked.  Unfortunately, this plan backfired and essentially gave the sailors a map of where to find prostitutes in the city.  This provided an interesting example of the work being done by women in the period, and also of how that work was received by the general public.

Picture courtesy of Jill Fury

 

Finally, to fully explain the title of my post, I must mention the best part of the day at the Maryland Historical Society: the stickers. I have loved stickers since I was a child (I collected them!), so getting one of the stickers that are given out for visitors brightened up my rainy day.  It is now displayed proudly next to my Maryland crab sticker on my laptop.

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Snippets from Nine Years of Club Programs

Over the past week, I’ve transcribed programs from the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore spanning from October of 1890 to June of 1899. While it’s often been difficult to glean more than surface-level information from these documents, like names and general topics, a few things that I’ve noticed have piqued my interest. For instance, I’ve made note of each time a woman with a doctorate spoke to the club, or was listed on a program–so far, nine times in nine years. There have also been a handful of non-doctor professors or instructors who have been noted as such. Many women appear to be sharing their own written works, like short stories or poems, with the club, or reading aloud the projects of their peers. There are also meetings dedicated entirely to music performed by club members. I think this sharing of personal accomplishments amongst the presentations and discussions with loftier, academic titles is lovely–though I don’t have any more information from the program itself beyond the fact that a woman is sharing her work, it’s clear that these women gather to both spread knowledge and support each other in creative endeavors.

It’s also been interesting just to see how little the formatting of the programs themselves has changed over almost a decade. There are small discrepancies in phrasing from each to the next, but overall the largest change I’ve noticed has been the design of the decorative trim. Every program is printed in purple, and I’ve seen a handwritten note on stationary stamped with the club’s crest, also in purple, and I wonder why that specific aesthetic choice was made from the very beginning.  Later on in the years I’ve transcribed, though, there have been some programs that do stand out from the rest. A handful of programs document a club debate, and list the topic, key question, and who will argue for each side, and also note that after such debates, the entire rest of the club was invited to share their own thoughts. Another part of this that I found notable was the rigor with which these debates were laid out; in some programs, it’s specified that a member of the general body of the club will have a maximum of two minutes to speak.

The instance when I received the most personal information about members of the club occurred while reading the the ‘program’ for October 30, 1894. There is no program for this date, just a handwritten note that was likely posted on a door to the meeting-place announcing that there would be no meeting that day since a woman who had been a member since the club’s conception, Mrs. Easter, had died, and encouraging club members to attend her funeral instead. A few weeks later, the club had an entire meeting dedicated to memorializing Mrs. Easter, with a eulogy of sorts and readings from her poems and critiques. It was so nice to see within these seemingly straightforward programs the kind of care that goes on behind the scenes of this organization, and I’m looking forward to similar types of revelations.