Ten American Women Writers
INTRODUCTORY
This popular program is given for those clubs who wish something light and attractive for their year's work. The subject is taken up topically, and the leading writers only are given; to those names may be added as many more as are desired. To enlarge the field, add the names of women poets, essayists, and miscellaneous writers, and take Woman in American Literature for the subject. See R. P. Halleck's recent book on American Literature. Or use the one topic of Our Short-Story Writers, and have that cover as many meetings as programs are needed.
I—HISTORICAL NOVELS
Jane G. Austin used the theme of Colonial days most successfully. She was saturated with the spirit of the time, and no one can read Standish of Standish, or Betty Alden without feeling in sympathy with the Puritans, their romance and hardships. Read from either of these, or from David Alden's Daughter.
Maud Wilder Goodwin writes, in a delightfully breezy style, of life among the Colonial Cavaliers, and her White Aprons and The Head of a Hundred are fascinating; they follow well the books just suggested for the first meeting. Read from either of the two named.
Amelia E. Barr, though born in England, belongs among American writers. She has no less than sixty novels to her credit. Her theme has been largely of the early days in New York, and The Belle of Bowling Green, The Maid of Maiden Lane, and The Bow of Orange Ribbon are all excellent. Among her other books are Jan Vedder's Wife and The Black Shilling. Read from The Bow of Orange Ribbon.
Mary Johnston has covered a large historical field. Beginning in the early days of Virginia, she took the settling of Jamestown in Prisoners of Hope and To Have and To Hold; both these are of absorbing interest, and have remarkable pictures of the Indians of the time. Then comes Lewis Rand and the settling of the Northwest, and then The Long Roll, about our Civil War. All her work is done in a careful painstaking way, and is distinctly dramatic. Read from To Have and To Hold.
Add to these the books of Mary Catherwood, about Canada, and those of Beulah Marie Dix, who has used the wars of Cromwell largely as her theme; both writers are among our best.
II—STORIES OF ROMANCE AND MYSTERY
Bertha Runkle's The Helmet of Navarre may perhaps stand at the very head of our romantic novels, for its wonderfully vivid representation of life and adventure in Paris under her famous hero. It is all the more remarkable because it was the author's first book, and written when she was only a girl. Read the closing chapter.
Amélie Rives, now the Princess Troubetzkoy, has several romantic novels, notably The Quick or the Dead and A Brother to Dragons, both written in an intense, dramatic way; her Virginia of Virginia, while different, is no less fascinating. Her books have the setting of the South. Read from the last.
Molly Elliot Seawell has written a great number of books, all carefully done and of great variety of subjects. Her Sprightly Romance of Marsac, which took a three-thousand-dollar prize and is as gay as its title indicates, has for its foils the more serious The House of Egremont and Midshipman Paulding. Read from the first.
Anna Katherine Green has many books about the detection of crime, with complicated plots. Her The Leavenworth Case is her best book; others are The Mill Mystery, Behind Closed Doors, and The Filigree Ball. Read from The Leavenworth Case.
III—STORIES OF LIFE PROBLEMS
The greatest problem novel ever written by a woman was Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Clubs should give at least one meeting to this book, studying the times, the character of the author and her training, as the causes which led to its writing; notice also the effect of the book upon the nation. It has passed into many other languages than ours, and has a world-wide fame.
Mrs. Stowe also wrote another book with a great theme, The Minister's Wooing, of early Colonial days and the power of Calvinism in the lives of the people. Read from both these books.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (Mrs. Ward) began her work at nineteen with The Gates Ajar, suggested by the sorrow of the Civil War; this had a phenomenal success. From that time on she wrote steadily, and each novel had a problem to present, set out with strong emotion. A Singular Life is one of her best, and The Story of Avis, Doctor Zay, and The Confessions of a Wife are all deeply interesting. Read from the first two.
Margaret Deland has taken up the problems of life in her books with sympathy, humor and a certain wise and tender philosophy. Her stories of Old Chester, its delightful people, with their strongly marked characteristics, and the rector, Dr. Lavendar, who is one of the most charming delineations ever drawn, are all known to-day to women readers. Her best novels follow the lines of her other stories, but there is a power in The Awakening of Helena Richie and in The Iron Woman not in the short stories. Read from Old Chester Tales.
IV—STORIES OF SOCIETY AND ITS PROBLEMS
Edith Wharton studied the problems of society in a great city in her The House of Mirth, drawing a faithful if somewhat painful picture. The Fruit of the Tree and The Valley of Decision present other phases of social life. Her books are well planned and well written, with a noticeably subtle touch. Read from The House of Mirth.
Gertrude Atherton also writes of society's problems, but in quite another manner. The Aristocrats and Ancestors have a distinctly satiric flavor. In addition to these she has others in quite another vein, The Doomswoman, and The Conqueror notably.
John Oliver Hobbes (Mrs. Craigie) has some exquisite little books, read by few, perhaps, because of their peculiar style. She wrote The School for Saints, The Herb Moon, and The Flute of Pan. Her problems are rather involved and somewhat attenuated, but on the whole beautifully done. Read from The Herb Moon.
V—STORIES OF HUMOR AND PATHOS
Ruth McEnery Stuart's early life was spent in Louisiana, and there she learned to know the plantation negro at first hand. No one has equaled her in her presentation of his character, with its dependence and childlike drollery. Her appreciation of his humor is no less marked than of his unconscious pathos. Read from A Golden Wedding, Moriah's Mourning, and The River's Children. In Sonny, one of her loveliest books, she has taken a poor white as her hero.
Alice Hegan Rice made a large place for herself when she wrote Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch. She found that unusual thing, a new setting for a story, and drew a unique heroine in Mrs. Wiggs. Read from this and its sequel, Lovey Mary.
Kate Douglas Wiggin (Mrs. Riggs) has several gay stories, a brief series about Penelope in England and Scotland, and A Cathedral Courtship, quite as amusing. Her Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm is also full of bright sayings. In The Birds' Christmas Carol she mingles humor and pathos. Read from Penelope's Progress.
Myra Kelly found in a public school among the poor foreigners of New York's East Side material for her best book, Little Citizens. It is written with a keen appreciation of their amusing ways and sayings, and of sympathy with them. A chapter taken at random will prove delightful reading.
Carolyn Wells is well known as the author of the wittiest of verses; but she has also some books no less attractive. A Matrimonial Bureau, At the Sign of the Sphinx, and The Gordon Elopement (collaborated) are filled with freakish situations and clever sayings. Read from the first.
In addition to these, clubs may read Anne Warner's The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary, Margaret Cameron's The Involuntary Chaperon, and others; see also the humorist of several decades ago, Marietta Holley, and her books on Samantha Allen.
VI—STORIES OF DOMESTIC LIFE
Mary Stewart Cutting has been a most successful writer of short stories about ordinary home life. She is marvelously true to facts, but puts them in a fresh and humorous way. Her Little Stories of Courtship and Little Stories of Married Life show us people we all know. Her longer stories, The Unforeseen and The Wayfarers, have the same good sense, the same bright way of treating difficulties. Choose selections from her first two books.
Ellen Olney Kirk writes in a quiet style of delightful people who lead uneventful lives. Her books are not new to-day, but they are always interesting. Select from The Story of Margaret Kent or Marcia.
Alice Brown depicts home life in New England, but always introduces the element of the unusual, either in plot or characters. There is a certain strength about all she does. Read from Meadow-Grass or The Country Road.
Kathleen Norris has written a deeply moving story called Mother; it tells the story of a family of ordinary parents and children with marvelous fidelity to the commonplaceness of their lives, but it is a picture of tenderness and an appreciation of what a real mother is and does.
Margaret E. Sangster's Eastover Parish is a charming study from real life.
VII—STORIES OF CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE
Louisa M. Alcott's Little Women is a masterpiece. No one has ever been able to write anything so fresh, so natural, and so wholesome. Her later books, especially Little Men and Old-Fashioned Girl, are rather in the same vein, though not the equal of Little Women. Read any favorite chapter.
Mary Mapes Dodge's greatest literary success was a book for boys, Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates, a fascinating story of Holland. It has been translated into five languages. Read the "race" from it.
Frances H. Burnett had written excellent books for grown people, like That Lass o' Lowries, and others, before her Little Lord Fauntleroy appeared and had instant popularity. Her other children's books were mostly fairy-tales and simple stories. Read from Fauntleroy.
Laura E. Richards has many books for girls, written with humor and much sensible suggestion, the latter well hidden. The Three Margarets, Margaret Montfort, and the Hildegarde stories are all attractive, but Captain January is most original; read from this.
Josephine Daskam Bacon writes amusingly of both children and parents. Her Memoirs of a Baby and When Caroline Was Growing are both worth reading.
Elizabeth Jordan has struck a new note in her stories of convent life. May Iverson, Her Book and its sequel are full of the absurdities of growing girls. Read any of the amusing chapters.
Clubs should make a special study of some of the older writers for girls, especially Sophie May, Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, and Susan Coolidge. Notice also the excellent work of Annie Fellows Johnston, Kate Bosher, and Inez Haynes Gilmore, and read from their books.
VIII—STORIES OF LOCAL TYPES
Some of our women writers have used the people of one locality only, or at least principally; this group may be divided into two programs.
Helen Hunt Jackson, known best as a poet, or as the author of little essays, has one strong book, Ramona. It is notable not only for its plea for justice to the Indians, but also for its description of life in Southern California on remote ranches.
Constance Fenimore Woolson wrote largely of Florida, its everglades, its orange-groves, its pine barrens. Read from East Angels.
Mary Hallock Foote used the scene of the early mining-camps as her theme, and has vivid pictures of life and romance there. Read from The Led Horse Claim or The Chosen Valley.
Charles Egbert Craddock (Mary Murfree) has laid her plots in the Tennessee mountains. Her heroes are sturdy, uncouth, picturesque mountaineers, and her books are noted for the descriptions of scenery. Read from The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountain or In the Clouds.
Grace E. King writes of the life of the Creoles in New Orleans. In her Balcony Stories and Monsieur Motte we have the fragrance and the languor of the South. Read a Balcony story.
Sarah Orne Jewett was one of the first to choose New England as her field of work. Her style is peculiarly delicate and refined. She wrote of the people with truth and sympathy, without a touch of satire. A White Heron and The Country of the Pointed Firs are among her beautiful stories; read from the latter.
Ellen Glasgow has laid the scenes of her stories in the South, largely in Virginia. Her themes are unusual and worked out in a broad, unhurried way. The Voice of the People, The Deliverance, The Battle-Ground, and Ancient Law are all worth reading. Select from The Deliverance.
Helen Martin in Tillie, A Mennonite Maid and Elsie Singmaster in several stories have both taken the quaint Pennsylvania Dutch to write of, with their remoteness of life from the world.
IX—SHORT STORIES
Of late years, short stories, largely written by women, have crowded our magazines. It is impossible to choose more than a few for a program, but club-women may add to those suggested all their favorites, and bring in short stories to read at one meeting. In addition to the older writers, Rebecca Harding Davis, Harriet Prescott Spofford, and others, take the following:
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, though the author of several novels, is perhaps our greatest short-story writer. Her characters, especially those drawn from New England rural life, are reproduced with marvelous fidelity. She understands their foibles, their oddities, and writes of them with fidelity and humor. A New England Nun is called her best book; read any story from it.
Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews, the author of The Perfect Tribute as well as many stories of a lighter character, writes charmingly.
Margarita Spalding Gerry in The Toy Shop has something really unusual, both in theme and treatment.
Octave Thanet (Alice French) vivaciously represents plain people; her Missionary Sheriff and Stories of a Western Town are well known; read from either.
Add to these names those already given under other heads for this outline: Sarah Orne Jewett, Alice Brown, and Mrs. Cutting.
As has already been suggested, the year's work may be expanded into a complete study of American women writers. If this is done, begin with those of early years: Lydia Maria Child and Margaret Fuller; add to them our essayists, Helen Hunt Jackson, Agnes Repplier, Vida Scudder; our poets, the Cary sisters, Julia Ward Howe, Lucy Larcom, Emily Dickinson, Edith Thomas, Celia Thaxter, May Riley Smith, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Emma Lazarus, Helen Hunt Jackson, and Josephine Preston Peabody, and Anna Branch, and our miscellaneous writers, who have written biography, essays, stories, and practical books: Alice Morse Earle, Marion Harland, Kate Upson Clark, Mary Heaton Vorse, and Margaret E. Sangster. Women journalists might also be an additional subject, and women editors, to cover the entire field of women in letters.