Category: Civil War Women

Pioneer Author in Realistic Fiction Rebecca Harding Davis (1831-1910) was a journalist and author who began writing realistic fiction more than two decades before the height of American literary realism. Her most important work, the novella Life in the Iron Mills, was published in the April 1861 edition of the Atlantic Monthly, which quickly made her an established female writer. Throughout her lifetime, Davis sought to effect social change for blacks, women, Native Americans, immigrants and the working class by writing about the plight of these marginalized groups. Rebecca Blaine Harding was born on June 24, 1831, the oldest of five children of Richard and Rachel Wilson Harding. The couple lived in Huntsville, Alabama; yet, Rachel traveled to her sister’s…

American Feminist Author and Social Reformer Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844-1911) was an American author and an early advocate of clothing reform, urging women to burn their corsets. She wrote fifty-seven volumes of fiction, poetry and essays. In 1868 Phelps’ story “The Tenth of January” about a tragic fire that killed scores of girls at the Pemberton Mill in Lawrence, MA established her reputation as a writer, and her novel The Gates Ajar became a national bestseller. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps was born Mary Gray Phelps in Boston on August 31, 1844, to Elizabeth Wooster Stuart Phelps and Reverend Austin Phelps. Her father was pastor of the Pine Street Congregational Church until 1848, when he accepted a position as the Chair of…

Poet and Writer in the Civil War Era Susan Arnold Elston Wallace was an American author and poet who wrote six books that were published in her lifetime: The Storied Sea (1883), Ginevra (1887), The Land of the Pueblos (1888), The Repose in Egypt (1888), Along the Bosphorus and Other Sketches (1898) and The City of the King (1903). The wife of author and Civil War General Lew Wallace, she completed his autobiography after his death. Early Years Susan Arnold Elston was born on December 25, 1830 in Crawfordsville, Indiana to wealthy and influential parents, Isaac Compton and Maria Eveline (Aken) Elston. Susan had eight siblings, three brothers and five sisters. In 1835, Isaac Elston built an impressive, two-story brick…

Breast Cancer Awareness Month Biography Born into a wealthy and intellectually active family – sister of novelist Henry James and psychologist and philosopher William James – Alice James soon developed the psychological and physical problems that would end her life at age 43. Alice never married and lived with her parents until their deaths. She is known mainly for the diary she kept in her final years. Alice James was born August 7, 1848 in New York, the only daughter of Henry James, Sr. and Mary Robertson Walsh James. Henry James, Sr. had high hopes for his four sons, but his only expectation for Alice was that she stay at home and be a companion to her parents until she…