Posted on by Megan Hultberg

In the Pursuit of Knowledge

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.

Posted on by Jean Lee Cole

Taking names

As Sydney’s posts have documented, one of the challenges we’ve faced is the difficulty of finding even super-basic information– like, names–of the members of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore.

Today, I happened to stumble upon a treasure trove of a document that had passed under the radar of our summer researchers. I was checking and verifying the names and addresses of the membership, which Sydney has painstakingly transcribed over about half of the summer. Names, we have all discovered, are very difficult to transcribe.

In the middle of a large, mostly empty, unlabeled book in the “Memberships” box of the WLCB, I ran across a few pages where the WLCB Constitution had been painstakingly copied, followed by an undated pledge signed by the membership.

Pledge
Pledge signed by officers, Board of Management, and members, probably 1898. MD Historical Society, MS988.vii.

We’ve been trying to find some of these names for some time. Mrs. George K. McGaw (Margaret!). Mrs. R. K. Cautley (Lucy!). If we had realized how momentous this document was when we’d run our eyes across it earlier in the summer, we’d have saved ourselves a lot of work– many of the most active members of the Club, unsurprisingly, appear on this list.

Page 2 of signatures. MD Historical Society, MS988.vii.

I was able to date this document tentatively to the 1898-1899 season. Part of my logic was that Mrs. John C. Wrenshall (Letitia!) took over the presidency of the Club from Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull (Francese!). I also referred to the lists of officers and Board of Management that Sydney & Clara have compiled this summer– and while the signatories here most closely resemble those listed in the programs for 1898-1899, they don’t match exactly.

So, an answer raises more questions: how stable was the Board of Management in the Club? Did people switch in and out after being elected? But for now, I am very happy that we now have first names for about 15% of the Club.

It is one of the few “public” documents of the Club in which the women made a concerted effort to use their first names. Now that I’ve become more familiar with the documents, I’m seeing first names scattered about here and there, including in the title page of the membership dues book from 1890 (which lists Mrs. Christine Ladd Franklin as treasurer). They also sign their first names when elections are being held (They are the ones voting, after all, not their husbands!) Their first names also appear in the minutes, perhaps because those are more “private” documents.

On this pledge, there are only 2 or 3 instances where a signee has used her “married” name (Mrs. Thomas Hill), or used initials rather than writing out their full names. I find these hesitations both sad and touching.

If only they had written their names. With their names, we can start fleshing out their histories.

Posted on by Hunter Flynn

What we lost in the fire

This past week, I finished the transcriptions for a Club season I’d been greatly looking forward to: 1903-1904. The reason for my interest: the Baltimore fire of 1904, thought to be the third most devastating fire in United States history. (Dr. Cole already touched on it briefly in an earlier post.)

Amazingly, the Club met the very day after the fire ended: Tuesday, February 9th. The fire had hardly been under control for twenty-four hours. “Few members were present,” the recording secretary wrote. “But the president decided that the record of our meetings should be kept unbroken.” Only a portion of the program was therefore given.

Aftermath of the conflagration. This photograph could have been taken the very day the Club met.

But what shocks me about the minutes from this time period is that, save this one meeting, there is not a single other reference to the devastation in the season. Here’s what they do have to say about it, though:

In a few strong words, [Mrs. Wrenshall] alluded to the great financial loss, from which we must all suffer; but pointed out the comfort that was ours, in the dauntless spirit shown by the people. Especially, she thought, should we unite in thanks, to the press which had risen so wonderfully above the difficulties of the time, to give the public information and cheer. The magnitude of the loss Baltimore had sustained, was almost incredible. The city had been laid low; but we had been spared the worst and greatest agony, in that, there had been no sacrifice of human life, except in one instance. Had the fire begun on any day but Sunday, what horrors would have been added. There could be no shadow of doubt that much of the great misfortune, must be laid to the charge of building those high structures which helped to carry the force of the fire beyond all human reach.

That’s it—one paragraph. What interests me most in this account is the reference to the loss of life “in one instance.” I’m from Baltimore, sort of. My elementary and middle school allegedly owes its existence to the fire. But the narrative of the fire I’d grown up with held that not a single person perished in the fire.

So I did some poking around. In his volume, The Great Baltimore Fire, Peter B. Petersen notes that no one challenged this claim until 2003, when an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins University by the name of James Collins, dug up a story in the February 17th issue of The Sun, entitled “One Life Lost in Fire.” The story reported that the charred remains of an African American man were pulled out of the basin—that is to say, the harbor. We don’t know his name.

The story slipped under the radar, and went practically unnoticed. Peterson theorizes, “Officials may not have deemed a single black life sufficient in 1904 to warrant undercutting the supposed—and astounding—lack of deaths related to the fire.” But not even Afro-American reported it.

And the women of the Club couldn’t have been referencing it either. The body was found a full week after their meeting. Whose death they were referencing is beyond me. It could have only been hearsay. But, more likely, this only supports my longstanding hunch that we lost more in the fire than we think.

Posted on by Clara Love

Consistency, Thou Art a Jewel

In my last post, I looked at the lack of emphasis the Club placed on the transition between the years 1899 and 1900. Now, I’ve transcribed the minutes of the Club’s first meeting of 1901, since their first meeting of 1900 implied that they would view this point in time as the true ‘turning of the century.’ And this is true! Mrs. Wrenshall acknowledges the new century at the beginning of the January 8th, 1901 meeting.

The President in greeting her fellow members on this first regular meeting of the year, —and the century—congratulated us on the work done in the past, and on the prospects of the future; especially on our continued adherence to the aims which have form the beginning of the Club claimed our allegiance.

So, now they profess to enter the 20th century, a year later than we thought they would. However, just like the last time, the hoopla surrounding the new era ends there. No proclamations of upcoming goals or changes, no discussion of development or anything of the sort. The most important part of the President’s statement is about sticking to the Club’s original, steadfast aims and policies. For the Club members, the turning of a new century is more about preserving what they’ve already established than creating something new.

I noticed this same sentiment during the minutes of the Club’s prior tenth anniversary meeting on March 27th, 1900. The meeting opens with a reading of the minutes of the Club’s very first meeting, and the President’s address includes a similar urging to the Club to stay close to its original roots,

For ten years we have followed the lines marked out at the formation of the Club, never making novelty our loadstone, never deserting our original aims–nor giving up our allegiance to them.

As the world changes around these women, they retain these old values from ten years ago, and never seek to grow or change their Club except to add new members who fit within their preset boundaries. The President’s address at this anniversary meeting ends with the motto, ” Consistency, thou art a jewel.” The Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore so treasures their original aims and borders that, it seems, it will continue to retain them without addition or adaptation for the new century.

Posted on by Sydney Johnson

Update to Names

As my last posts have shown, it has been quite the challenge to try to find who some of these women really are. Notably the married women. I was particularly surprised to find that Mrs. John C. Wrenshall, the long lasting president of the Club, was one of these people that was almost impossible to find.

Or so it seemed.

With the help of Hunter we were able to figure out that Mrs. John C. Wrenshall is ACTUALLY Mrs. Letitia Humphreys Yonge Wrenshall. It is definitely a mouthful but also really exciting to find out another lady’s real name.

Her husband, John C. Wrenshall was actually a captain in the Confederate army. John and Letitia were wed November 22, 1866 in Savannah, Georgia.

Another thing to add to the search is the information that we found while on our tour of the Green Mount Cemetery. All of the team was present for our search which we feared might be fruitless from the get-go. Fortunately we were able to find more than we thought. We were able to find the graves of Miss Caroline Barnett (1871-1957), Miss Virginia Woodword Cloud (d. 1938), Miss Eveline Early (1868-1933) and Mrs. John D. Early (otherwise known as Maud Graham Early 1842-1905), Mrs. Charles W. Lord (otherwise known as Alice Emma Lord 1848-1930), Mrs. William M. Powell (otherwise known as Emma B. Powell 1852-1952), and Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull (otherwise known as Francese Litchfield Turnbull 1844-1927).

Just being able to figure out a few more of these names and years keeps the search going. Another interesting thing that we found was that Sidney Lanier’s grave was in the same plot as the Turnbull’s plot. There was the grave for Sidney Lanier but not for Mrs. Sidney Lanier who was a honorary member of the club. We did not know of a connection between the Laniers and the Turnbulls, but we are aware that Mrs. Turnbull was always a big fan of Sidney Lanier and on her grave is a quote of his.

We also are fairly sure that we found the grave of Lydia Crane since we were able to find most of her family but were unable to determine which one was hers due to the weathering of the tombstones. But I know that Katie is going to want to do more hunting to find the truth.

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.

Posted on by Jean Lee Cole

Let’s not go this route

I thought I’d do a little digging on “Mrs. Wrenshall,” the longtime President of the Women’s Literary Club of Baltimore, and found out that Mrs. Wrenshall’s husband, John C. Wrenshall, served as an engineer for the Confederate Army; and that the Wrenshalls had lived in Atlanta (remember Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind– “As God is my witness, I’ll never go hungry again”?) for some years before the decimation of the South during the war forced them north– apparently to Baltimore.

So, yes, the connection between this Club and Confederate sympathies is not only present– I think we will need to address it in a substantive way. Focusing on gender issues and empowerment of women represented by these women’s organizing around intellectual activities should not be a smokescreen for troubling and, speaking frankly, damnable attitudes some? many? all? of these women had about racial minorities, as well as other marginalized groups.

However we decide to present their work, let’s not employ the strategy that Sofia Coppola apparently has adopted in her just-released film about “Confederate wives” during the Civil War, The Beguiled: make it “just about gender.” As I said in our meeting last week, the difficulty will be in doing justice to the entirety of the history, the people, popular/cultural memory, and helping to bend the arc of history toward justice.