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Letitia Humphreys Yonge Wrenshall

Mrs. John C. Wrenshall was born in Georgia, married to John C Wrenshall, and was elected president of the “Woman’s Literary Club” of Baltimore in May, 1898. She was re-elected each year as she was the center of activity in this literary sphere of the club and was gifted with knowing how to organize, administrate, produce, and guide/support her fellow peers. She has been a key force in the forming of other clubs such as Maryland Folk Lore Society, the Aubudon Society, and the Quardriga Club in which she held the office of vice-president in all. She was also the organizer of the “Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Association in 1907 and has been it’s only president.  She was a member of the “Royal Asiatic Society of London” and has been a contributor to its journal.
 She wrote a series of essays in the Baltimore Sun Paper from April 1908 to July 1908 navigating her travel abroad to Italy :
Traveling in the Radiant Old Mediterranean
This was not interesting and rather boring. As like the other essay’s she was very descriptive. She painted a picture so that the reader would have a visual of the time, place and people in the essay.  As she traveled throughout the city, she described the city in its entirety.  From  the church’s white tower, to the Portuguese lady who  spoke many languages with a full description of her attire and how the town on the water edge was like a rock on the mound of the Mediterranean.
A Drive Out from Beautiful Naples to Dead Cities and Lakes of Fire
“A Drive Out from Beautiful Naples to Dead Cities and Lakes of Fire”, by Letitia Yonge Wrenshall is a descriptive essay of a trip aboard.  The essay makes the reader feel as if he/she is accompanying her on the trip. Her words described the fragrance in the air while she outlined the shape and depths of the mountains.  At one point, I felt like I opened the car door and sat in the back seat as she describe the silence as the volcano grumbled like an empty stomach.
Along the Two Gulfs of Naples and Salerno: II–The Drive Down to Amalfi
This essay was the last letter of Mrs. Wrenshall’s trip aboard.  This series read like poetry.  She describes her trip from morning as the crimson sun rise to the scent of the flowers along the path. She closed the series with, “Each place has individual features of natural beauty and the daily incidents give us insight.” Mrs. Wrenshall created a vivid description of her trip.  I enjoyed being there with her.
 She also took part in the writing of A Sketch of the Life of Edgar Allan Poe from the Testimony of His Friends in Edgar Allan Poe: A Centenary Tribute. This is a book where several of Poe’s dearest friends and family wrote a book on the public and private relations of Poe’s life, which causes me to believe her and Poe must have had close ties with each other for her to know such information.
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Harriet L. Smith: A “Conspicuous Woman Writer”

Image via The Baltimore Sun.
Image courtesy of The Baltimore Sun’s article on “WHEN GIRLS OF TODAY TAKE UP READING,” published 09.19.1915.

Over the weekend, I did some extended research on one of my favorite assigned authors – Mrs. Harriet Lummis Smith. According to a 1909 issue of The Sun, Mrs. Smith (also recognized as Mrs. William Mulligan Smith) was born in Auburndale, Massachusetts and was the daughter of Jennie Brewster Lummis and Dr. (and Reverend) Henry Lummis who had been the head of the Greek department at Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisconsin. She was also the sister of Harry Brewster Lummis and a half-sister of Charles Fletcher Lummis (who had been an author, adventurer and early advocate of multiculturalism). Charles F. Lummis’s mother had passed away at an early age, and his father (Reverend Henry Lummis at the time) remarried to Jennie Brewester (who also happened to be his teacher at the time of his father’s re-marriage who he had not established a warm rapport with. I found this to be a very interesting discovery… family drama!

Harriet Lummis Smith went on to study graduate at the University of Wisconsin after her mother and father had moved to Sheboygan, Wisconsin, where she went on to become a teacher of mathematics and Latin. After receiving a letter one day from a publisher who accepted a story of hers said that she was ‘wasting [her] time teaching,’ Mrs. Smith was given a final push to officially end her teaching career and pick up writing as a full-time profession. When she departed from teaching, she took up writing “merely for amusement” (The Sun, 1915).

Some time between the catalyst that sparked her career into writing and her time living on Calvert Street in Baltimore, Mrs. Smith received her A.B. (Bachelor of Arts) degree in 1886, and went on to accept a position at David Cook Publishing Company in 1894. Her sister Katherine went on to receive her A.M. degree (Master of Arts) at Stanford University in 1890 and then went on to study at the American School of Classical Studies in Rome (now known as the American Academy in Rome). Katherine later moved to Calvert Street also and lived close to her sister Harriet. Thank goodness for the Lawrence College Alumni Records! It is difficult to place when exactly Harriet had decided to go to move to Chicago. According to the February 14th, 1909 Baltimore Sun article, she had moved from Wisconsin to Chicago for some time where she then gained more of a reputation for her short stories to McClure’s Magazine, the Youth’s Companion, the Independent, Lippincott’s, and many more. I can only assume that she joined the WLCB by 1909 and ended her time at the WLCB soon after 1915 (according to club records), which means she must have moved to Calvert Street in Baltimore by 1909 since the Baltimore Sun biographical article had been published in 1909. Filling in the puzzle pieces is quite exciting!

While browsing the Minutes, I noticed that because she was referenced by her husband’s name, she would have gone by Mrs. William Mulligan Smith (she married her husband in Wisconsin in 1905) – but the Minutes label her as Mrs. William Milligan Smith in the 1909-1910 minutes! She had sat as Chairman and Judge of an election in 1909, and her name had been labeled properly as Mulligan at this time within the Minutes. During some instances, Mrs. Smith had been a substitute as the recording secretary in the 1910-1911 Minutes, and within the 1911-1912 Minutes, she continued to be a substitute Secretary for the Minutes. At the 779th Meeting on November 13th of 1913, as active Chairman, she had stated that, “while an autobiography is a man’s picture of himself as he likes to imagine he looks, his letters really reveal himself. The simple, almost stupid, letters of certain great men sometimes give us a feeling of affection for them not called out by their profundities” (“Other People’s Letters,” 779th Meeting); I found this comment by her to be particularly amusing as she opens up the Meeting with this comment. 1915 seemed to be the liveliest time for Mrs. Smith, as she went on to review many works within the club meetings, culminating with her election as President of the WLCB at the end of the season. After 1915, references to Mrs. Harriet Lummis Smith begin to taper off. With the 832nd Meeting’s text missing, it is difficult to try to understand what happened to Mrs. Smith from 1915-1916. Because these specific minutes are currently being transcribed, I will have to halt my research on the elusive and “Conspicuous” Harriet Lummis Smith!

..To be continued?!

Works Cited

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Ideology Trapping Women Behind “The Yellow Wall-Paper”

Shining a light on the gender ideology “trapped” within Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper” is what I intend to do in this blog post. The domain in which women were apart of in 19th century America is described through the doctrine of separate spheres. This created a constraining form of gender ideology that both sexes were forced to comply to because of the way society treated them. The doctrine of separate spheres is an old common law principle, that depicts men living out their lives in the public eye. They are at “home” in the workplace and take pride making changes in the government and in general community life. Females on the other hand are living in their own private sector. Where women belong is in the home keeping all opinions to themselves while making life easier for everyone around them, no matter what their own personal feelings towards the matter are. This type of segregated society causes women live by certain unwritten rules and regulations. Gilman uses many words and symbols to help further prove her point of gender ideology trapping women behind wall paper. I admire the symbolic nature of this text and thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

The use of the word sin to describe the wall paper helps prove that it symbolizes gender ideology. The main character gives a detailed account of the wall paper by saying it “commits an artistic sin” (Gilman 487). The ideal characteristics of women in the 19th century are purity, piety, and domesticity. Purity and piety are both terms that are often associated with religion, the word sin also shares that same correlation. Here Gilman uses an interesting choice of language. The wall paper represents ideology; this specific form of ideology is closely related to a woman being angelic. Therefore, relating the wall paper to a sin is strongly contradicting the ideas behind a woman’s role in the doctrine of separate spheres society. The use of sin shines an extremely negative light upon participating in the ideology, epically since these women of the 19th century pride themselves on fitting the criteria of someone who is pious and pure.

The color of the wall paper is a symbol for how old and outdated the doctrine of separate spheres is regarding women’s position in society. Yellow, which is the color of the wall paper, represents something that is old and decaying. Jane speaks about the color by saying how it is “repellent, almost revolting” (Gilman 487). She also says it is “unclean” (Gilman 487) and “faded” (Gilman 487). Yellowing of the skin happens when a human is becoming old. Paper also yellows over time. The wall paper being yellow represents how the idea that women must be confined to the household and have no position in the public domain is outdated. This old world common law is something that needs to be changed. The yellow wall paper needs to be stripped and a fresh coat of paint needs to replace it.

The yellow wall paper being studied, actualized, and finally torn down symbolizes the journey that women are going to have to go through to break from the 19th century gender ideology. The wall paper entrapping women behind it displays the sovereignty that the doctrine of separate spheres had over the women of 1893. These females felt trapped and the only way to break from the vicious cycle of being a housewife is to band together and stand up for your own rights. The inspiring message behind this story conveyed through descriptive symbolic language motivated the women of the 19th century to take a stand and break the mold.

Works Cited:

Stetson, Charlotte Perkins. “The Literature of Prescription.” The Yellow Wall-Paper, www.nlm.nih.gov/theliteratureofprescription/exhibitionAssets/digitalDocs/The-Yellow-Wall-Paper.pdf.

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Trapped within Wallpaper.

There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will” (Stetson, 652).

For this week’s blog post, I wanted to discuss Charlotte Perkins Stetson’s story, “The Yellow Wall-Paper.” The above excerpt is what I believe to be the focal point of Ms. Stetson’s psychological horror tale. The story itself not only acts as a critique of the role of women in marriage but also suggests a rigid distinction between an active working male and a ignored, patronized and misjudged female.

I do not believe it is a coincidence that the woman who the narrator believes is trapped within the wallpaper is also trapped behind a pattern; this is because the narrator is trapped as well. Before the merge between the woman behind the sickly-looking paper and the narrator, both characters are trapped within their own type of prison – whether it be the yellow-patterned wallpaper or the prison-like cycle that women were trapped within in the 19th Century. The lives of women during this time were tailored to a rigid lifestyle such as being domestic wives to a family. The gender division shown between the husband John and his wife keeps the narrator contained within a child-like state of ignorance that withholds her from developing herself beyond the strict trajectory she is forced to follow day in and day out.

The wallpaper itself is an object that drives the narrator to analyze it as something which needs to be interpreted. At the start of the story, it is apparent that the narrator simply finds it  “dull” and “revolting.” The pattern itself is what provokes study and constantly irritates her. Further within the story, the narrator discovers a second, underlying pattern within the wallpaper which is interpreted as a woman who is desperately trying to escape from her own prison. The wallpaper itself seems to be portraying many qualities of the structure of 19th Century lifestyle such as tradition and a cycle of patterns that were meant to be followed. The domestic and vicious cycle that women were to follow during this time is cleverly portrayed by a grotesque, psychological horror tale that creates an affinity between the narrator and the “unclean yellow” wallpaper.

Works Cited:
Stetson, Charlotte Perkins. “The Literature of Prescription.” The Yellow Wall-Paper, www.nlm.nih.gov/theliteratureofprescription/exhibitionAssets/digitalDocs/The-Yellow-Wall-Paper.pdf.