Posted on by Monica Malouf

Margaret Sutton Briscoe: Honorary Yet Extraordinary

Photo found at: https://consecratedeminence.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/margaret_sutton_briscoe_hopkins.jpg

Margaret Sutton Briscoe was a prolific writer and an honorary member of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore. Although she published numerous texts, her greatest contribution to the Club appears to be her reputation. As I researched Briscoe, I kept finding short-story after short-story, as well as poems and essays; however, I barely found mention of her within the WLCB’s meeting minutes. Sure, she was in the meetings, but she only played a minor role. I found this very curious, but as I’ve learned more about the club, her honorary status has become less and less surprising.

Briscoe wrote and worked as a publisher in New York City, where she met and married her husband, Arthur Hopkins. She moved with him to Amherst, MA where they both served as faculty and influential individuals at Amherst College. She was involved in numerous philanthropic and women’s clubs, as expected of a society woman of the time. In fact, she checks off all of the expected boxes in my mind. She wrote, worked, traveled, devoted her time to social activities and clubs, knew Mark Twain, allegedly used the pseudonym “Travers Hopkins”, and boasted a high reputation. She possessed interesting anecdotes about her life, identifying as a true southern woman (in what I assume she would consider a sea of Yankees), was shipwrecked in the Adriatic Sea, and had a text written about her by a student. She opposed suffrage, a fact that is disappointing but not surprising for the traditional, southern Christian woman. She was a successful writer, counselor, and socialite, and although I imagine her southern sympathies would prove problematic (her family owned a plantation on the Chesapeake Bay), there remains something likable about her.

Briscoe still proves a bit of a mystery to me, even though biographical information is widespread thanks to Amherst College’s archives and Five College Archives & Manuscripts (asteria). I still wonder how much involvement she had with the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, and I hope to unearth some hidden minutes or mention of Briscoe. I enjoy her writing; it’s no surprise that she gained such popularity in periodicals like Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, Harper’s Bazar, Century Magazine, etc. Her language, work, and biography mirror the witty and sassy look in the eyes of the woman whose photo accompanies this text. She is charming and challenging, and for this reason I keep hoping she will surprise me with more involvement in WLCB.  I expect she will remain a mere influential individual, bringing to the Club prestige and clout, but some part of me will hold out for a new discovery while continuing my research.

 

Biographical information found at The Consecrated Eminence: The Archives and Special Collections at Amherst College and Five College Archives & Manuscripts Collections (hyperlinked above).

Posted on by Jean Lee Cole · 2 Comments

Alice Emily Sauerwein Lord

A woman, with the name longest name ever I might add, Alice Emily Sauerwein Lord was called “the literary life of Baltimore” in her obituary published in the Baltimore Sun. Her father’s name was Peter G. Sauerwein. She spent most of her adult life residing in her home on 1728 St. Paul street with her husband Charles.

Charles W. Lord as I previously mentioned was Alice’s husband. Born in Newberry Port Massachusetts, he moved to Baltimore in 1848. He worked for his own firm, not so ironically named Charles W. Lord. Alice was his second wife, he chose to marry her after his first wife’s passing in 1876. Charles seemed like a good fit for Alice, a very accomplished man to compliment a very accomplished woman. He was very generous to many churches, was the head of his own firm, and also was the director in the Baltimore and Cuba Coffee Company, the Maryland Fire Insurance Company and the Peabody Heights Company. Overall he was an extremely active member in the Baltimore community and had many positive impacts on it. I mean we all know that behind every great man is a great woman, right? I’m guessing that Alice was that woman. Charles was 81 year’s old when he passed. Alice stated in his obituary in the Baltimore Sun that this was due to a brief illness caused by extreme stress at work.

Lord was known throughout her life as being strongly related to literature. She was a member of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore (duh), long with the Woman’s Club of Roland Park, an honorary member of the Lend-a-Hand Club of Mount Washington, and also was a member of the Woman’s Club of Mount Washington. This was one busy lady. She was a pretty well known writer. Some of her most famous and influential works include A Symphony in Dreamland and The Days of Lamb and Coleridge.

Her funeral service was held on March 18th 1930 and was conducted at a funeral parlor near Orchard and McCulloh street. The Reverend who held this service was named R.S. Litsinger, who belonged to Lord’s parish of St. John’s Protestant Episcopal Church located in Mount Washington. She is buried in the Green Mount Cemetery, which is conveniently located 11 minutes from Loyola’s campus… oh I feel closer to her already.

Overall finding out information about Mrs. Lord’s life has presented me with a pretty difficult task. Despite this, I will keep searching for more information and hopefully will post again about her again soon.

 

Posted on by Tara Brooky

Mrs. [Catherine B.] James Casey Coale

Very little is recorded about Mrs. James Casey Coale or her husband outside of the one instance she was mentioned in the Club’s minutes. In the minutes her two novels, The Cottage by the Sea and Lelia the Hindoo Girl, were inducted to the library making her an honorary member on Meeting of April 9th, 1901.

My research began with her husband, Mr. James Casey Coale. I discovered his Ancestry.com page and found out he was an Insurance Agent married to an illusive “Catherine B.” Catherine B.’s Ancestry.com page had even less sources than her husband’s, making it very hard to tell if this is the woman I have been searching for. Since both James and Catherine lived in Baltimore the same time time frame as the club, I assume this was the right couple.

Mrs. Coale was born in Maryland, 1823. Mr. Coale was born in 1826, making him 3-4 years younger than his wife. Mrs. Coale gave birth to one and only child, a daughter by the name of Elizabeth Coale in 1849. Mr. Coale died April 13th, 1891.

On the census Mrs. Coale’s occupation is listed as “Keeping House” rather than “At Home” as most women have listed at the time. On the same census, three Irish immigrants are listed as “servants” in the Coale’s household. This indicates the Coale’s were most likely well-off. Because they were wealthy, it bugs me that this was the extent of information I could find on the Coale family.

Posted on by Jill Fury

Clara Newman Turner: A Glimpse of her Life

While I’ve been unable to find any published works of Clara Newman Turner, more frequently referred to as Mrs. Sidney Turner, this member of the WLCB has proved to be quite fascinating. Namely, because she was a cousin of the famed and beloved Emily Dickinson.

Mrs. Turner was born Clarissa Badger Newman in the year 1844. At the age of eight, Clara’s parents died, and she and her three sisters, Anna, Sara, and Catherine, became wards of Mr. Edward Dickinson, father of Emily. Clara grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts, alongside Emily. She went on to marry Sidney Turner in October of 1869.

Turner was from Norwich, Connecticut, and documents indicate that the couple lived there for part of their lives, as well as in Baltimore. While there are no records to indicate that they had children, it appears that the couple had dogs. Mr. Turner served as the Chairman of the Committee of the Kennel Club, and Clara was, for a time, the vice-Chairman of the Ladies’ Branch of the Kennel Club.

Besides being involved with the Kennel Club and the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, Clara acted as a vice-president of the Young Women’s Christian Association of Baltimore, was a member of the Woman’s Auxiliary of the National Civil Service Reform League, as well as a member of the Women’s Civic League. Turner was also, like several of her WLCB peers, on the executive board for the Edward Allen Poe Memorial Association. Additionally, Mrs. Turner was a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Baltimore.

While, as mentioned, there are no works of Turner presently available, it is known that she wrote an essay called “My Personal Acquaintance with Emily Dickinson,” and shared it at a WLCB meeting. This personal piece was later edited by Clara Newman Pearl, niece of Clara Newman Turner, and then included in The Life of Emily Dickinson. The writing of Turner indicates that the two women were very close and fond of one another.

Clara Newman Turner passed away in 1920, and a copy of The Civic Courier, distributed by The Women’s Civic League, indicates that she was living The Cecil, a hotel in Baltimore, before her death.

Portrait of Clara Newman Turner, courtesy of The Kennel Club: A History and Record of Its Work

Posted on by Marina Fazio

Florence Trail

Florence Trail (who is also published under the name Florence Traill) was born in Frederick, Maryland on September 1, 1854.  She was born into a prominent Maryland family, which afforded her a lot of opportunities in her life.  When an illness at age 10 caused impaired hearing, Miss Trail did not let it slow her down. In an interview with the Baltimore Sun in 1928, she said that the support of her mother allowed her to live a normal life.  Her mother had a very active role in her life- she approved all of Miss Trail’s reading, going so far as to BURN books she did not approve of!!!

Image from A Woman of the Century, p. 732.

The same article gives a lot of details about that life, although it seems to be rather extraordinary.  She attended the Frederick Female Seminary, where she graduated at the top of her class and later went on to teach philosophy, evidences of Christianity, and modern history.  She also studied at the Mount Vernon Institute and Peabody Conservatory—obviously, Miss Trail was highly educated. She used her education to help others, teaching at Daughters College in Kentucky, and at another unnamed school in Tarboro, North Carolina.

“Music is an expression of objectless, limitless desires”—from “Music in a Psychological Light” in Trail’s Meanings of Music

The fact that there was a full page of the Baltimore Sun dedicated to her  indicates that she was a prominent writer in her day.  She certainly was active in her community: she was president of the Frederick Female Seminary Alumnae Association, and a member of the Society to Encourage Studies at Home.  In addition to this, she was a member of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore and the Frederick Literary Association according to some articles from the Frederick paper, The News.  Her immersion in literature and education likely led to her interest in writing analytical and historical essays.

Posted on by Katie Shiber

The Life and Work of Elizabeth Lester Mullin

Mistress Brent’s Bluff, The Baltimore Sun November 7, 1915

Elizabeth Lester Mullin was born around the year 1874. Her father, Michael A. Mullin was a well-known lawyer in Baltimore, leader within the Catholic church, and graduate of Loyola College. Her mother, Elizabeth C. Mullin (born Josephine Cluskey) was also a prominent member of the Catholic church and founded the Fuel Guild. Miss Mullin had one brother who tragically died in 1906 after falling ill during his service in the Spanish-American war. According to census records it appears that Mullin never married, living with her mother until Mrs. Mullin’s death in 1919.

Elizabeth Lester Mullin was a member of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore from 1899 until 1914, serving as the treasurer from 1904 until 1914. Mullin was also accepted as a member of the Maryland Historical Society in 1916 and served as the secretary of the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Association.

Miss Mullin was fluent in French and served as a translator for several publications from French to English. Some of these titles included “The Codicil” by Paul Ferrier and “Atalanta” by Edouard Rod. She was also the author of her own works of short fiction. Her story “Mistress Brent’s Bluff” was published in the Baltimore Sun in 1915, and another work of short fiction is mentioned in the Woman’s Literary Club Meeting Minutes of October 2, 1901, but was not called by a title and is currently unrecovered.

Although Miss Mullin seemed to publish little of her own work, her translations made French works accessible to foreign audiences, making her an integral part of their literary production.

Sources:

“Edgar Allan Poe: A Centenary Tribute.” Baltimore: Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Association, 1910.

“Maryland Historical Magazine.” The Maryland Historical Society, vol. XI, Baltimore, 1916.

“Michael A. Mullin Dead.” The Baltimore Sun, 1915 Jun. 10, p. 12.

“Mrs. Elizabeth C. Mullin.” The Baltimore Sun, 1919 Jun. 7, p. 6.

Mullin, Elizabeth Lester. “Mistress Brent’s Bluff.” The Baltimore Sun, 1915 Nov. 7.

Posted on by Hunter Flynn

Louisa C. O. Haughton

Louisa C. O. Haughton, founding member and eventual president of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, certainly left her mark on a few distinct aspects of the city’s history. In spite of this, I’ve been able to find practically nothing about her private life.

Born to Henry Osburne Haughton and Sophie Alricks of Connecticut, her family moved to Baltimore around the turn of the 20th century. Her father’s obituary refers to him as an exporter of cattle and an “anti-vivisectionist.” Her full name was Louisa Courtauld Osburne Haughton—exactly her grandmother’s. She and her sister Maud formed Haughton and Haughton, and together they ran a successful business as dressmakers. She died in 1951.

But Haughton is primarily remembered for her involvement in the WLCB. Following the death of the celebrated poet Lizette Woodworth Reese, she (co-)founded the Lizette Woodworth Reese Memorial Association, which collected much of her materials that would eventually be donated to Enoch Pratt.

She wrote stories and plays. So far I’ve recovered two stories: “Ever-Ready Edgar,” published in the Ladies’ Home Journal, and “The Malachite Collar,” in the New York Tribune. Dr. Cole and I have located copyrights for two plays of hers: The Dancing Delilah, and The Decisions; or The Vacillations of Amelia.

I can’t speak for her plays, but her stories seem fairly standard for the popular fiction of her day, albeit both stories I’ve located feature strong, female protagonists.

Illustration by George d’Arcy Chadwick, prefacing “The Ever-Ready Edgar” in The Ladies’ Home Journal, December 1906.

“Ever-Ready Edgar” is a revenge story, in which four women team up against a playboy. Edgar Morris courts and seduces three women in the U.S., France, and England. All of them—Ethel, Elsie, and Eva—have the same initials. He gives each of them souvenirs—a match-box, a set of tablets, and a cardcase.

A fourth, Eleanor, who he meets on a ship coming back from England, almost falls for him. She holds out until she makes it back to the East Coast, and reconvenes with her group of friends—a group that consists, of course, of Ethel, Elsie, and Eva. They all conspire against him.

They invite him to a party, and Eleanor rejects his advances. Here’s the final moment of revenge:

He tried to take her hand, but with a swift movement she drew it away and switched on the piano lamp. On the music-desk in a row before him were the gold match-box, a set of gold tablets, a gold cardcase, and slowly she drew from her belt a gold pencil and put it beside them.

“This is my answer,” she said, rising.