The most eminent Swedish novelist of the 19th Century was Frederika Bremer. Her “Sketches of Every Day Life” attracted immediate attention. But this success was far surpassed by the novels “The H—— Family” and “The Neighbors.” Both manifest the author’s purity, simplicity, and love of domestic life. These books as well as almost all of the author’s later works have been translated into English, German and French.
Another Swedish author of note was Anne Charlotte Edgren. Of Emily Carlen’s novels “The Rose of Thistle Island” and “The Magic Goblet” are most appreciated. Anna Maria Lenngren belongs likewise to the most popular Swedish writers. The Swedish Academy ordered a medal cast in her honor. And of the Swedish authors of the 20th Century Selma Lagerloef was in 1909 awarded the Nobel Prize for her beautiful modern saga “Goesta Berling.”
Finland and Poland too have noteworthy women-writers. Finland, “Country of the thousand lakes,” was the birth-place of Sarah Wacklin, Wilhelmina Nordström and Helen Westermark. The literature of Poland was enriched by the poems and novels of Elizabeth Jaraczewska, Lucya Rautenstrauss, Narcyza Zwichowska and Comtesse Mostowska.
Spain has produced in modern times several remarkable woman authors: Gertrudis de Avellaneda, Maria de Pinar-Sinues, and Angela Grassi. Italy has the excellent novelists Rosa Taddei, Francesca Lutti, Matilda Serao, Grazia Pierantoni-Mancini, Fanny Zampini-Salazar, and the Marchesa Vincenza de Felice-Lancellotti. Furthermore Ada Negri, one of the most powerful poets of all times.
Having glanced at woman’s part in world’s literature, a few words should be said about women journalists. During the middle of the last century the publishers of several leading newspapers of England and America, desiring to infuse new life into their papers, added a number of women to their staffs. The complete success of this experiment was confirmed by the rapid increase in the number of such women journalists. Whereas in 1845 England had only 15 of them, this number grew to more than 800 in 1891. In the United States the number increased from 350 in 1889 to 2193 in 1910. Many of these women journalists received careful training in the special schools of journalism at the universities of New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere.
Jeannette Gilder, herself a journalist, writes about her profession: “Woman as a mere fashion writer is a thing of the past. To-day she expects to rank with the man writer. In the future she will expect to be his superior, for a woman is not stationary in her ambitions, she likes variety. A man is wedded to his old clothes. He sighs when he has to throw aside the old and comfortably fitting coat for a new one not so comfortably fitting. A woman sighs when she has to wear an old dress. She would like fashions to change every week instead of every three months, as they do now. This love for variety in personal matters is carried into her professional life. If she reports a Salvation Army meeting to-day she hails with glee an opportunity to report an automobile race to-morrow. With boundless ambition, with adaptability, energy and a pleasing style, there is nothing to keep women from monopolizing the journalistic profession if they put their minds to it. The only trouble is they are apt to marry and leave the ranks. But, then there are others standing ready to fill the vacant places. In the next hundred years why may we not see all newspapers owned by women, edited by women, written by women, with women compositors and women pressmen. Already there is one such in France.”
WOMEN IN MUSIC AND DRAMA.
The prejudice which excluded women for centuries from the realms of science, interfered likewise with their participation in music and art. Up to the midst of the 19th Century almost all European conservatories and art academies were closed to female students. Previous to 1876 no women students of the violin were allowed at the High School in London, and for a long time they could not compete for prizes or receive diplomas. When Elizabeth Sterling presented her beautiful CXXX Psalm for five voices and orchestra to the university at Oxford for the degree of Mus. Bac., the degree, although the work was accepted and its merits acknowledged, could not be given for want of power to confer this degree upon a woman!