Catharine Brown (1800? 1823) became Brainerd Mission School s first Cherokee convert to Christianity, a missionary teacher, and the first Native American woman whose own writings saw extensive publication in her lifetime. After her death from tuberculosis at age twenty-three, the missionary organization that had educated and later employed Brown commissioned a posthumous biography, Memoir of Catharine Brown, which enjoyed widespread contemporary popularity and praise.
In the following decade, her writings, along with those of other educated Cherokees, became highly...
Catharine Brown (1800? 1823) became Brainerd Mission School s first Cherokee convert to Christianity, a missionary teacher, and the first Native Am...
The well-educated daughter of a minister, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844 1911) was introduced to writing at a young age, as both her mother and father were published writers. In 1868 she published her first major novel, The Gates Ajar. An international success, the novel sold more than six hundred thousand copies, making it one of the best-selling American works of the nineteenth century. Through the next four decades Phelps published hundreds of essays, tales, and poems, which appeared in every major American periodical, while also writing novels, including Beyond the Gates...
The well-educated daughter of a minister, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844 1911) was introduced to writing at a young age, as both her mother and fath...
A scathing critique of the legal status of women and their property rights in nineteenth-century America, Rebecca Harding Davis s 1878 novel A Law Unto Herself chronicles the experiences of Jane Swendon, a seemingly naive and conventional nineteenth-century protagonist struggling to care for her elderly father with limited financial resources. In order to continue care, Jane seeks to secure her rightful inheritance despite the efforts of her cousin and later her husband, a greedy man who has tricked her father into securing her hand in marriage.
Appealing to...
A scathing critique of the legal status of women and their property rights in nineteenth-century America, Rebecca Harding Davis s 1878 novel A L...
The practice of plural marriage, commonly known as polygamy, stirred intense controversy in postbellum America until 1890, when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints first officially abolished the practice. Elder Northfield s Home, published by A. Jennie Bartlett in 1882, is both a staunchly antipolygamy novel and a call for the sentimental repatriation of polygamy s victims. Her book traces the fate of a virtuous and educated English immigrant woman, Marion Wescott, who marries a Mormon elder, Henry Northfield. Shocked when her husband violates his promise not to take a...
The practice of plural marriage, commonly known as polygamy, stirred intense controversy in postbellum America until 1890, when the Church of Jesus Ch...
Married or Single?, published in 1857, was Catharine Maria Sedgwick s final novel and a fitting climax to the career of one of antebellum America s first and most successful woman writers. Insisting on women s right to choose whether to marry, Married or Single? rejects the stigma of spinsterhood and offers readers a wider range of options for women in society, recognizing their need and ability to determine the course of their lives.
Sedgwick s touching, witty, and shrewdly observant novel centers on Grace Herbert, a New York City socialite who must...
Married or Single?, published in 1857, was Catharine Maria Sedgwick s final novel and a fitting climax to the career of one of antebellum Am...
