Isabella’s Books – Page 18

Pansy’s Most Controversial Book

Published on June 1, 2015July 18, 2015 by Isabella Alden2 Comments

In 1902 Isabella Alden published her most controversial book, Mara.

Mara is the story of a young woman who unknowingly marries a Mormon man with multiple wives. What made Mara controversial wasn’t the plot. Novels with similar themes of an innocent young woman duped into marrying a polygamous Mormon husband had been published for over 50 years.

Ann Eliza Young-19th Wife of Brigham Young ca 1875 age 31 — An 1875 photo of Ann Eliza Young, the 19th wife of Brigham Young, at the age of 31.

Author Metta Victor created the sub-genre with her book Mormon Wives, published in 1856. In the book two women, life-long friends, find themselves married to and betrayed by the same Mormon man.

Cover of the 1890 edition of A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle

After that book’s success, an estimated fifty novels were published by 1900, vilifying the Mormon religion. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s book, A Study in Scarlet depicted Mormon President Brigham Young as a villain and the Mormon Church steeped in kidnapping, murder and enslavement of its women.

An 1899 photograph of seven of Brigham Young's Wives — An 1899 photograph of seven of Brigham Young’s Wives

So what made Isabella’s novel Mara different from all the others?

In 1902 when Mara was published, the topic of polygamy was at the forefront of American consciousness. Only a few years before, Americans believed, polygamy had been abolished; they believed plural marriages did not exist because the Mormon Church had assured the Federal Government the practice had been abolished. That assurance had been required of Utah as part of its transition from territory to state.

An 1873 cartoon shows a Union soldier prodding a Mormon man and his wives into the divorce court: "Come, come, get on into the divorce court. This polygamy business is played out. Hereafter you chaps can have only one Polly apiece." — An 1873 cartoon shows a Union soldier prodding a Mormon man and his wives into the divorce court: “Come, come, get on into the divorce court. This polygamy business is played out. Hereafter you chaps can have only one Polly apiece.”

Utah’s transition had been a long and contentious process. The Federal Government had tried numerous ways of outlawing polygamy in the past through the 1862 Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, and again in the 1882 Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act. But the LDS Church defied the laws and continued to sanction plural marriage. Under President Grover Cleveland the Federal Government tried to enforce the laws by arresting and imprisoning men who could be proven to be polygamists.

Polygamists in the Utah Penitentiary 1885

But the Federal Government’s only effective weapon was blocking statehood, and residents of Utah keenly felt the effects. They couldn’t vote in Federal elections and their territory was ruled by a governor, secretary and judges appointed by the President of the United States.

In 1890 the LDS Church appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing the Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act was unconstitutional because it prohibited Mormons from practicing their religion, of which plural marriage was an essential part. The U. S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Edmunds Act.

Mormon Church President Joseph F. Smith with his wives and children, circa 1900

In 1890 Mormon Church president Wilford Woodruff published his “Manifesto,” which declared an end to the practice of polygamy in the Church. Doing so paved the way for Utah to become a state; and six years later Utah joined the Union. Protestants in America breathed a sigh of relief.

But almost immediately after the Manifesto was issued, certain members of the Mormon Church resumed the practice of polygamy clandestinely. Ranking members of the Church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and other members of the Church entered into plural marriages—and sanctified plural marriages of others—in direct defiance of the Manifesto.

The rest of the country felt it had been duped and a wave of outrage swept across America. Some believed there was a great Mormon conspiracy to take over the U.S. government. Concern deepened when the Utah Legislature chose Reed Smoot—a member of the Church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles—to be the State’s new Senator.

Protestant churches organized massive petitions against allowing Mr. Smoot a seat in the Senate; and the U.S. Senate responded by conducting a multi-year investigation into the Mormon Church and its influence in the state of Utah.

Mara was written in the climate of that time. Like other anti-polygamy novels before, Mara’s plot centered around a young woman who married a successful and gentlemanly man from Utah, only to later discover she was his latest in a string of wives. Mara was also a reminder to readers that America had to remain vigilant in ensuring polygamy as a practice was removed from American society.

Newspaper illustration of Mormon President Joseph F. Smith (seated in the white chair on the right) giving testimony to Senator George Frisbie Hoar during the Reed Smoot Senate Hearing.

Today some might think Mara’s plot is simply sensational fiction; but Isabella Alden’s novels were always rooted in a common truth: her characters lose their way only when their relationship with God wanes. She used the story to show how easy it was for a young woman to fall under a wrong influence in a time of weakness in her life.

In Mara Isabella also displayed some sympathy for the wives and children of the plural unions, which may have been one reason the book came under scrutiny. Some public libraries, including the library in Isabella’s town of Palo Alto, California, banned the book because it dealt with the topic of polygamy, which library trustees considered an immoral practice.

Article in the San Francisco Call on August 1, 1910

America, for the most part, did not share Isabella’s pity. Their abhorrence for polygamy (and all who engaged in the practice, including the wives) reached new heights during the four years it took the U.S. Senate to conduct their investigation into practices of the Mormon Church. In the end, the Mormon Church submitted to pressure and outlawed polygamy once and for all, and established a new practice of excommunicating Church members who entered into plural marriages.

Headline about Mormon President Joseph F. Smith's Senate testimony reads "I have five wives, many children, and know that I am violating the laws." — Headline about Mormon President Joseph F. Smith’s Senate testimony from The Salt Lake Tribune, March 4, 1904. His honest, straight-forward testimony shocked America.

Reed Smoot was eventually seated as a United States Senator from the State of Utah. He served his state and his country honorably for almost thirty years, and, by his conduct, helped force a profound shift in America’s perception of Mormonism.

Eventually, Mara was returned to the shelves of the Palo Alto Public Library, but many libraries and stores considered the book too controversial to stock.

Discover more about the events in this post:

Read about Utah’s Road to Statehood

Read Mara for free.

Click on the book cover to read an unabridged edition of the book.

Pansy’s Banned Books

Published on May 28, 2015November 9, 2016 by Isabella Alden2 Comments

When you think of “banned books” what comes to mind? Books that encourage radical or treasonous ideas? Fiction filled with descriptions of salacious sex or horrific violence?

Imagine, then, what must have been Isabella Alden’s first thought when she discovered her books were banned in some public libraries across the United States.

Banning (or “debarring”) books from circulation in public libraries was something of a regular practice in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Libraries often questioned whether they were justified in giving shelf space to “common novels.” It was even a topic of extensive discussion at the American Library Association meeting of 1894.

With only so much shelf space and limited dollars with which to purchase books, library trustees often wondered if resources should be restricted only to books that offered “instruction, or culture, or taste.”

Boston Banned Books San Fran Call 17 March 1901 headline — Headline in the San Francisco Call newspaper on March 17, 1901

The City of Boston Public Library devised a solution. They established a reading committee in 1895. The committee of 15-20 people was tasked to read all the fiction books the Boston Public Library was considering buying, and report their findings.

The Boston Public Library was always careful to say that the reading committee did not select books for the library; they merely gave an opinion about whether a book was “worthy.” But thanks to the reading committee’s reports, the Boston Public Library passed on most of the best-selling fiction books of the time. Jules Verne’s An Antarctic Mystery didn’t make the cut; neither did David Harum by Edward Noyes Westcott, even though it was the best-selling novel of 1899.

Where the Boston Public Library led, other libraries followed. The New York Public Library implemented a similar plan, and libraries in small and large cities across the country followed suit.

Unhappy readers complained, arguing that libraries should supply books the public wanted to read, but their complaints made little difference. Instead, the Boston Public Library added members to the reading committee and increased the number of books they reviewed each year.

Adding fuel to the fire: libraries refused to give reasons books were banned or removed from circulation. Newspapers, publishing houses, and writers who deplored the practice were left to guess at the reason a particular book was banned.

In 1901 Isabella Alden’s books fell under the scrutiny of the Boston Public Library’s reading committee. Here’s an excerpt of an article that ran in the San Francisco Call on March 17, 1901:

Excerpt from the New York Times, March 2, 1901

In their annual report for that year the Boston Public Library didn’t specifically mention Isabella Alden’s books, but it did give some insight into the reading committee’s reports about books they reviewed. Here’s what the reading committee said about these fiction books:

To Have and to Hold, the best-selling novel of 1900, by Mary Johnston would have been better “if some of the agony had been reserved for another occasion.”

Unleavened Bread by Robert Grant was characterized as a “very disagreeable and excellent story against women’s clubs.”

The Soft Side by Henry James was “an interesting puzzle for one who cares to see how a clever writer can hide plot, expression, style, clearness and force under a rubbish heap of senseless words.”

Blennerhasset, the 1901 best-selling historical novel by Charles Felton Pidgin, was rejected because “the author conveys the impression that Aaron Burr was a gay Lothario, and nowhere indicates reprobation of his conduct.”

The annual report summed up what the committee believed made a good novel:

“People generally want something which is restful, interesting and will take their thoughts away from themselves, and something that ends well.”

That guiding principle of the reading committee may have influenced the library’s decision to ban Isabella’s books from their shelves. Unfortunately for Isabella, she wrote books that made readers think, search their hearts and examine their own actions. And sometimes Isabella’s books didn’t necessarily end on a happy note.

Interior of the Boston Public Library, 1896

By 1902 The Boston Public Library gave up trying to hide the fact that they were not interested in stocking works of fiction:

“The trustees … are of the opinion that most of the books of this character now published have little permanent or even temporary value.”

In other words, reported the Daily Sun on November 1, 1902:

“The library is no longer attempting to meet the demand, where the demand is for trash, and the word trash has been made to include a considerably larger class of stories than formerly.”

Because many libraries took their lead from the Boston Public Library, authors like Isabella Alden had good cause to be concerned.

In 1910 Isabella was living in Palo Alto, California when the local public library took exception to one of her books (that had been published eight years earlier).

From the San Francisco Call, August 1, 1910

It must have been shocking for Isabella to have one of her books labeled as “immoral” when the message of God’s love and plan for salvation was a strong and consistent theme throughout her novels.

We can only guess what action Isabella might have taken. Two weeks later, however, the Palo Alto Library reversed their decision and Isabella’s books were once again on the library’s shelves.

But Isabella had to remain vigilant to ensure her books, including her most controversial book, remained available in libraries for everyone to read.

Next Post: Pansy’s Most Controversial Book

A Palace Built for God

Published on May 19, 2015May 19, 2015 by Isabella AldenLeave a comment

“Girls, don’t you think our church is just dreadful?”

That’s the question Claire Benedict asked the students in her music class at Mrs. Foster’s academy. As the new music teacher in town, Claire was appalled when she saw the condition of the church for the first time.

Bare floors, faded red curtains, smoke-covered walls, cobwebs, and a table covered with dust that did duty as a pulpit—that’s what greeted Claire when she first took a seat in one of the hard, un-cushioned pews.

Claire knew the town residents were poor and had little to look forward to, but she didn’t believe that justified abandoning the care of their church.

She had seen at least the outside of several of the homes in South Plains, and nothing like the disorder and desolation which reigned here was permitted about those homes. How could Christian people think they were honoring God by meeting for his worship in a place that would have made the worst housekeeper among them blush for shame had it been her own home?

“A palace built for God!” her heart said in disdain, almost in disgust. “It isn’t a decent stopping-place for a respectable man.”

Her students agreed with her.

“Dreadful? It is just perfectly horrid! It fairly gives me the blues to go to church. Girls, mother has almost spoiled her new cashmere sweeping the church floor with it. She says she would be ashamed to have our wood-shed look as badly as that floor does. I don’t see why the trustees allow such slovenliness.”

“It is because we cannot afford to pay a decent sexton,” sighed one of the others.

“We are so awful poor! That is the cry you always hear if there is a thing said. I don’t believe we deserve a church at all.”

Claire had partially turned back to the piano, and she touched the keys softly, recalling a long-forgotten strain about “Girding on the armor,” before she produced her next startling sentence.

“Girls, let us dress up that church until it doesn’t know itself.”

If the first words had astonished them, this suggestion for a moment struck them dumb. They looked at one another, then at the resolute face of the musician. Then one of them gasped out:

“Us girls?”

“You don’t mean it!” from two dismayed voices.

“How could we do anything?” from a gentle timid one.

But the girl who had found courage to speak before, and to volunteer her opinion as to the disgraced church, sounded her reply on a different note:

“When?”

From that tentative beginning, Claire and her students marshaled their wits and their resources to take on the responsibility for maintaining the church. In fact, they became the new sextons.

The Sabbath following the installation of the new sextons marked a change in the appearance of the old church. The floors had been carefully swept and cleansed.

Not a particle of dust was to be seen on that Sabbath morning anywhere about the sanctuary. From force of habit, the men carefully brushed their hats with their coat-sleeves as they took possession of them again, the service over; but the look of surprise on the faces of some over the discovery that there was nothing to brush away, was a source of amusement to a few of the watchful girls.

When they took on the project, Claire and her students wanted nothing more than a respectable and pleasant place to worship God. But their efforts resulted in changes they didn’t anticipate. Soon others joined their work group to make even more church improvements, and their minister found renewed inspiration for his sermons. People who hadn’t attended church in years began to show up on Sunday mornings, and the community took notice.

Before long, the little church in a poor area became a beacon of hope for the entire town.

The photos of church interiors in this post were taken between 1900 to 1911 and show what Claire’s church might have looked like. Click on each image to see a larger version.

You can find out more about Claire Benedict’s story and the way God used her to change her neighbors’ hearts and souls. Click on the book cover to read more.

Kitty Cobb by James Montgomery Flagg

Published on May 14, 2015May 14, 2015 by Isabella AldenLeave a comment

James Montgomery Flagg was an American artist whose illustrations and paintings appeared in newspapers, magazines, and books in the early 20th century. At the same time Isabella Alden wrote about women making their way in the world, James Montgomery Flagg told similar stories through his art.

In 1912 James Montgomery Flagg published “The Adventures of Kitty Cobb,” a serial story told in pictures. For 25 weeks the serial ran in the Sunday edition of major newspapers across the U.S. Each individual illustration told a chapter of Kitty Cobb’s story, as she struggled to make a new life for herself in the big city.

Kitty’s story began when she left her home town of Pleasant Valley for New York, where she hoped to find a job:

Soon after arriving in New York, Kitty learned how vulnerable a woman alone can be as she looked for a job and a place to live.

Like Constance Curtiss in Isabella’s book Pauline, Kitty had to fend off the unwanted attentions ill-intentioned men:

Since laws at the time favored employers, a woman like Claire Benedict in Interrupted could be denied a job based simply on her looks or the employer’s prejudice. James Montgomery Flagg illustrated the same situation in Kitty Cobb:

“The Adventures of Kitty Cobb” proved so popular with readers, advertisers rushed to tie their products to Kitty’s story.

And two years later, Flagg repeated his Kitty Cobb success by publishing another serial story in pictures about pretty Dorothy Perkins.

You can view all 25 installments of “The Adventures of Kitty Cobb” on Isabella Alden’s Pinterest page.

Click here to read more about Isabella Alden’s books mentioned in this post.

Do You Know the Chautauqua Salute?

Published on May 12, 2015May 14, 2015 by Isabella AldenLeave a comment

There were many beloved traditions at Chautauqua Institution, and Isabella Alden often described them in her books.

“Do you know the Chautauqua salute?”

Burnham Roberts asked the question of Hazel Harris in Four Mothers at Chautauqua.

“Then you understand what a strange effect is produced by the simultaneous flutter of countless white handkerchiefs. Can you imagine what it would be to see at least five thousand of them held aloft motionless for a single solemn minute, the only sound in the great assembly coming from the great organ softly tolling out a requiem? That is the way they paid tribute to the Bishop’s co-laborer, and to other great souls who put their shoulders to the wheel in the early days of the enterprise. I never saw a more impressive sight in my life.”

And in The Hall in the Grove, Carolyn Raynor was enchanted upon seeing the Chautauqua salute for the first time:

“Oh, look!”

Well she might exclaim. To one like her who had never seen it before, the sight was simply glorious; and to one who has never seen it at all, the effect is indescribable; yet the cause was simple enough. A flutter of what looked like millions and millions of white handkerchiefs!

“The Chautauqua salute,” said Mr. Masters composedly, his eyes shining their satisfaction. “Isn’t it a singular scene?”

“A summer snow-storm down among the flowers and the grasses and the full-leaved forest trees,” said Caroline.

In The Story of Chautauqua, Jesse Lyman Hurlbut told how the salute came to be.

On the 1877 program was a speaker named Mr. S. L. Greene from Ontario, Canada. Mr. Green was deaf and mute. Reverend Hurlbut described how Mr. Greene addressed the great audience in pantomime in the Auditorium under the trees:

He spoke in the sign-language, telling several stories from the gospels; and so striking were his silent symbols that everyone could see the picture. We were especially struck with his vivid representation of Christ stilling the tempest.

When Mr. Greene finished, the audience of “at least two thousand” burst into enthusiastic applause; but Dr. Vincent stopped them.

“The speaker is unable to hear your applause. Let us wave our handkerchiefs instead of clapping our hands.”

In an instant the grove was transformed into a garden of white lilies dancing under the leaves of the trees. Then and there the Chautauqua salute of waving handkerchiefs was adopted as a token of special honor, used only when called for by Dr. Vincent in person.

And Dr. Vincent insisted that the salute—which was a distinct and rare honor—“should be of the whitest, purest, intensest kind.” He likened the salute to lilies, and soon the gesture came to be known as The Blooming of the Lilies.

In later years, as Chautauqua Institution grew, the size of the Amphitheatre audience grew as well. By 1884, it wasn’t unusual to have six thousand people gathered in the Amphitheatre to give the Chautauqua salute to some distinguished individual:

“Six thousand lily-white handkerchiefs waving a salute of honor, vigorously expressing the joy of the Chautauqua hearer, is a sight long to be remembered by those who participate therein,” wrote Reverend Hurlbut.

A crowd of ten thousand greeted Theodore Roosevelt with the Chautauqua salute when he arrived on August 19, 1899 to “preach the gospel of intelligent work” in the vast Amphitheater.

Poet May M. Bisbee was so enthralled seeing the Chautauqua Salute for the first time, she wrote a lovely poem about the experience. Click on the image to see a larger version you can read and print.

Follow these links to learn more about Isabella’s books The Hall in the Grove and Four Mothers at Chautauqua.

Rebecca’s Thread

Published on May 5, 2015May 15, 2015 by Isabella AldenLeave a comment

When Rebecca Harlow married Frank Edwards in the book Links in Rebecca’s Life, she moved from the home of a loving, patient mother, into the home of a critical and resentful mother-in-law. From the moment of their acquaintance, Rebecca and her mother-in-law did not get along.

Even before the wedding took place, Rebecca found herself dwelling “on each particular little slight, or what had looked like a slight, that she could call to mind. There were many of them, and she had treasured them well; so, long before she had reached the end, she felt as if she were doomed to be a martyr to the petty persecutions of Mrs. Edwards.”

Rebecca had a choice: she could respond to Mrs. Edwards with indignation and show “that she had a will and ways of her own, and that they must not be interfered with.”

Or she could take another path and pray for her mother-in-law, who was a “nominal Christian, at best,” and be a loving daughter-in-law and Christian witness.

“She dropped on her knees; and in the prayer that came from her heart’s innermost hiding-place she gave herself again to the Lord Jesus who had called her, and chosen her, and she entreated that she might feel the hand, the powerful hand with her always.”

Later in the book, when Mrs. Edwards became ill and had to remain in bed, Rebecca surprised her with a visit to her bedroom. Rebecca brought along her sewing, and managed to bite her tongue when her mother-in-law criticized her stitches.

Hearing her mother’s teaching pronounced wrong, and her handiwork awkward in the extreme, she made the healthful discovery that with a sufficient end to be gained, she could bridle her tongue. She even essayed to change her manner of putting the thread over the needle, and brought the result for inspection, which so mollified Mrs. Edwards that she agreed that as the work was so nearly done it would be a pity to change now, especially as she did the other so wretchedly. She even added that it certainly looked better made in that way than she should suppose it could.

So Rebecca stitched on in peace, putting the thread serenely in the way she had always put it, and heroically refrained from saying, “I think it is the only right way, and the other always looks horrid.”

After that they had a pleasant talk, but the good mood was “decidedly periled once by a spool of thread.”

Mrs. Edwards had brought out her sewing, and was taking very small stitches in a bit of cambric, when she said: “This is miserable thread. I thought I would try Clark’s once, as I heard you say that you always used it, but I shall never be so foolish again. It was very rough, and it costs a cent more a spool than Coates’.”

Now, neither of these ladies cared a pin’s worth whether thread was six or seven cents a spool, and yet Rebecca instantly said:

“Oh, no, you are mistaken in that. Clark’s can be had for half a cent less on a spool than the other kind, and I think it is much less likely to be rough. I never had a bit of rough thread of Clark’s in my life.”

“Your life is not a very long one and I dare say you have not used a very large quantity of thread. Young ladies situated as you were are not apt to. I suppose your mother did your little sewing while you did housework. But as to the price, of course, I convinced myself that I was correct before I said anything about it. Clark’s costs one cent more a spool than Coates’ does. I always get Coates’ for six cents, and this was seven.”

How exasperated Rebecca felt! She not use much thread! Had she not sewed by the hour, swift, even stitched many a time when Mrs. Edwards was sleeping or riding in her carriage? And didn’t she buy all the thread that was used in the family; and didn’t she know perfectly well that Clark’s thread was but six cents a spool? How was it possible for her to sit quietly by and endure such dreadful provocation as this! Talk about Jonah! His trials were nothing to hers.

But this very reference to Jonah calmed her. What sort of weakness was it that could not keep one’s temper with that mother over a spool of thread! Instantly she resolved to ignore the whole subject of thread, and with rare tact asked, suddenly:

“Oh, did you know how to make that lace-work that they used to have on French embroidery? Then will you show me how to do it some time? I always thought it was so pretty, and I never had a chance to be with anyone who knew how to do it before.”

In short, with constant care, and many references to Jonah and his trials, Rebecca got through with that afternoon, and heard the dinner-bell ring, and heard her husband’s step on the stair, and rolled up her embroidery, which she began to hate, with a little sigh of satisfaction.

She was just a little nearer to feeling as if she might, sometime, feel at home in her mother’s presence. She had a little bit of comfort, too, in that lady’s exclamation:

“Is it possible that it is dinner time? I hadn’t an idea that it was so late.”

So, as a result of a spool of thread, a tentative truce was struck between Rebecca and Mrs. Edwards.

As Rebecca went down to dinner, she realized a deeper insight into the depth of their own heart than she ever had before. She realized she was stronger because she had recognized her own weakness; and because she had not relied on herself to keep her temper with her Mrs. Edwards, but had relied the Rock of Strength.

And Rebecca continued to rely on that Rock of Strength as she built a relationship with her mother-in-law throughout the story.

Click here to read a post by Victoriana Magazine about ladies’ sewing baskets.

Click here to visit the Coats & Clark website to read the history of their companies.

Pansy’s now on Pinterest!

Click this link to see more vintage sewing and thread advertisements on Pansy’s Pinterest board.

Click here to learn more about Links in Rebecca’s Life by Isabella Alden.

I’m No Infidel

Published on April 28, 2015April 28, 2015 by Isabella AldenLeave a comment

In the book Interrupted, Claire Benedict asked Louis Ansted if he was a Christian. When he said he was not (in a round-about way), Claire asked if he believed Christ “once lived in person on this earth, and died on a cross, and went back to heaven, and is to come again at some future time?”

Louis replied:

“Oh, yes; I have no particular reason for doubting prophecy or history on those points. I’m rather inclined to think the whole story is true.”

“Do you think his character worthy of admiration?”

“Oh, yes, of course; it is a remarkable character. Even infidels concede that, you know; and I am no infidel. Bob Ingersoll and his follies have no charm for me. I have had that disease, Miss Benedict. Like the measles and whooping-cough, it belongs to a certain period of life, you know, and I am past that. I had it in a very mild form, however, and it left no trace. The fellow’s logic has nothing to stand on.”

She ignored the entire sentence, save the first two words. She had not the slightest desire to talk about Bob Ingersoll, or to let this gay young man explain some of Bob’s weak mistakes, and laugh with her over his want of historic knowledge. She went straight to the center of the subject.

“Then, Mr. Ansted, won’t you join His army, and come over and help us?”

Bob Ingersoll wasn’t just a character in Isabella’s book. He was a living, breathing person and a very well-known figure of the time. Born in 1833 in New York, he had a reputation for being extremely intelligent. He educated himself and was admitted to the bar at the age of 21; his gift of oratory earned him a reputation as a brilliant lawyer.

But it was his talent for speech-making that gained him fame. He lectured across the country on free speech, women’s rights and, most notably, Christian doctrine. At a time when there were laws in some States that made it a crime to deny Christianity, Bob Ingersoll openly argued for a separation of church and state. He expounded on what he considered to be inaccuracies and fallacies of the Bible, and published several books that outlined his agnostic position. He had political aspirations, but his stance on religion made both the Republican and Democratic parties leery of nominating him for any elected office; however, at the age of 33 he was appointed Attorney General of Illinois.

When Interrupted was published in 1885, Ingersoll’s book The Mistakes of Moses was very popular. In the book, he collected passages from the Pentateuch that contradicted scientific thinking of the time, and even contradicted each other. He used those passages to build a case against the Pentateuch, which Ingersoll called “a record of a barbarous people, in which are found a great number of the ceremonies of savagery, many absurd and unjust laws, and thousands of ideas inconsistent with known and demonstrated facts.”

So when Louis Ansted mentioned Bob Ingersoll, Claire knew exactly who he was talking about. He was known as The Great Agnostic and one newspaper characterized his growing school of followers as “light minded [people] whom brilliant oratory can persuade to most anything while the voice lasts and who are as easily dissuaded by the next fluent speaker.”

When Robert Ingersoll died in 1899, an obituary in The Courier (Lincoln, Nebraska) described him as:

neither better nor worse than the ordinary man. In his youth he became convinced that the Bible was a lie and he hated … the God whose existence he denied.

He was not a saint, neither was he an incorrigible sinner, but just an ordinary man who had lost his bearings in the relations of God to man and overestimated the significance of his own opinion of God and man.

Robert Ingersoll’s writings have found new life on the Internet; several sites make electronic versions of his lectures and books available for free. You can follow this link to The Huffington Post to read more about Robert Ingersoll’s life.

This YouTube link provides an audio recording of Ingersoll’s book, Why I am an Agnostic:

Pansy’s Public Readings

Published on April 21, 2015April 28, 2015 by Isabella AldenLeave a comment

Photo of Isabella Alden about 1880 (age 39)

Isabella Alden was a busy woman. She had full-time duties as a minister’s wife, visiting members of the congregation, leading ladies’ prayer meetings, organizing mission bands, and teaching Sunday school classes. She wrote stories for and edited The Pansy magazine every month—all this at a time when she was producing an average of two books a year!

Somehow, she also found the time and energy to lecture before large audiences at Sunday School conventions, Chautauqua Assemblies, and women’s groups. She regularly addressed members of local CLSC chapters and traveled the country to meet with devoted readers of her books and The Pansy magazine.

This notice of one of Isabella’s lectures appeared in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (New York) on January 14, 1882:

And this announcement for one of Isabella’s addresses before a Sabbath-school convention appeared in The Bloomfield Record (New Jersey) on March 11, 1882:

When she could, Isabella combined her speaking engagements with visits to family and friends. That was the case in 1878 when she visited her home town of Gloversville, New York.

Years before (in 1866) Isabella married Reverend Gustavus “Gus” Alden and moved away from Gloversville; but her family remained in the area and she visited them as often as possible. In that late summer of 1878, she was able to visit her family in combination with an author speaking tour.

Isabella had just finished writing a short story she called, “People Who Haven’t Time.” The story was not yet published but she was ready to share it with her fans.

On Friday, September 20, 1878, she appeared at the Gloversville Baptist Church to give a public reading of the story.

The Baptist Church in Gloversville, New York — Undated photo of the Baptist Church in Gloversville, New York

The local paper, The Gloversville Intelligencer, announced the event and encouraged attendance:

In the next edition, the newspaper gave a full account of the evening and proudly listed the many accomplishments of Gloversville’s favorite home-town girl. Here’s the full 1878 article from The Gloversville Intelligencer:

The story Isabella read at the church that night would eventually be given a final edit and named “People Who Haven’t Time and Can’t Afford It.” In 1880 the story was published in a volume that included another Pansy short story, “What She Said … and What She Meant.”

Cover_What She Said — Original cover of Isabella’s book What She Said, published in 1880

There are other accounts of Isabella reading her stories before audiences. For example, in 1879 she appeared before a Sunday-School convention in New York to read an original story:

And in 1895 she read her story “Miss Priscilla Hunter” to an audience at the Presbyterian church to help raise funds for the Young Ladies’ Missionary society:

From the Gloversville, New York "Daily Leader," September 18, 1895 — From the Gloversville, New York “Daily Leader,” September 18, 1895

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If you haven’t yet read Isabella’s story, “What She Said . . . and What She Meant,” you can read it for free. Click here to begin reading the stories mentioned in this blog post.

Lady Entrepreneurs

Published on March 25, 2015April 30, 2015 by Isabella AldenLeave a comment

The heroine in an Isabella Alden book was a strong woman. She may not have known how strong she really was; but when trouble struck, it was the heroine of the story who stepped up and took action in order to save the family.

That’s what Claire Benedict did in Interrupted. She bravely took on the responsibility of supporting her mother and sister by taking a job as a music teacher in a far-away city.

Ad in The Daily Pioneer, Bermidji, MN, December 4, 1903

In Four Mothers at Chautauqua, Isabel Bradford also decided to teach. She opened a School of Expression where she taught physical exercise techniques and grace of movement to women in New York City.

And in Pauline, Constance Curtiss supported herself (after rashly running away from her husband) by offering a variety of homemaking services, from laundering cuffs and collars to canning fruits and vegetables for busy housewives.

At the time Isabella’s books were written, women, as a rule, weren’t trained to take their place in the business world. They couldn’t vote and in many states they couldn’t own property. It was unusual for a woman to own her own business and even more unusual for her business to succeed.

Buffalo NY Courier 1892 — A news item in an 1892 edition of the Buffalo Courier, expressing surprise that a woman could 1) own a business, and 2) be successful at it

Starting a business that involved working in other people’s homes—as Constance Curtiss did—or opening an exercise studio—which was Isabel Bradford’s plan—may have been viable for some women; but for a few Alden heroines, working outside the home posed a problem. For starters, opening a shop or renting studio space required investment capital, as this ad in a 1908 edition of The Delineator magazine shows:

In other instances the heroines lacked marketable skills or they had unique family responsibilities that demanded they remain at home.

That was the case with Joy Saunders in Workers Together. Her very protective mother didn’t want to see her lovely daughter toil for wages out in the world; but with hard work and clever management, Joy and her mother ran a flourishing boarding house.

In Household Puzzles and its sequel, The Randolphs, Maria Randolph supported her entire family by running a laundry business out of her kitchen.

Constance Stuart did laundry, too. In the book Pauline, Constance specialized in laundering women’s delicate lace collars and cuffs, and she had a knack for laundering worn curtains and old linens so they looked almost brand new.

Illustration of Ladies' Collar and Cuff. From Myra's Threepenny Journal, March 1882 — Illustration of a ladies’ collar and cuff. From Myra’s Threepenny Journal, March 1882

And in Her Associate Members, Mrs. Carpenter earned a living by ironing other peoples’ clothes in her sparse little kitchen.

Doing laundry and ironing as a way to earn money was fairly common for women in Isabella Alden’s time. That’s because doing the laundry was such time-consuming work, even for small families, that homemakers across the country struggled to accomplish the task on their own. Modern conveniences, like wringers and ironing machines did little to ease the load.

“Monday is the washing day of all good housekeepers,” declared The Household, A Cyclopaedia of Practical Hints for Modern Homes. This book, published in 1886, promised to make washing day easier by setting out step-by-step instructions for accomplishing every phase of the task: from making starch to eradicating fruit stains and bleaching white goods.

The volume of laundry to be done was often staggering. In Victorian-age America people wore layers of clothing, beginning with long drawers and undershirts for men; corset covers, chemises, drawers and petticoats for women. Often these items were made of wool, which made them extremely heavy once they were wet.

1882 magazine ad showing the detail and trimmings on underclothing. Click on the image to see a larger version.

Over these layers they wore shirts and shirtwaists, trousers and skirts, jackets and coats. Collars and cuffs gave the finishing touch to every outfit, but because collars and cuffs were easily soiled, they were changed a minimum of two or three times a day. Collars and cuffs also required the most care and skill in laundering.

An 1882 ladies' magazine Illustration — Illustration of a ladies’ collar in an 1882 fashion magazine.

Men’s collars and cuffs were heavily starched until they could stand on their own. This paragraph from The Household instructed homemakers on how to make and apply the starch:

With such heavy starch, the best laundresses knew that men’s collars and cuffs had to be ironed over a rounded form; otherwise, if ironed flat, they were likely to crack when they were fitted around the throat or wrist.

Women’s collars and cuffs were just as challenging to launder and finish. Fluted fabric was a popular detail in ladies’ fashion, and it was difficult to keep the flutes crisp and well-shaped after washing.

A Chemisette with Lace and Fluting, ca. 1882 — Illustration of a Chemisette with lace and fluting, from a 1882 ladies’ magazine.

Laces were easily scorched if an iron was too hot and they were just as easily discolored if they were pressed with an iron that wasn’t perfectly clean.

An 1882 illustration of a linen and lace collar

With so much preparation required and a good deal of heavy lifting, it usually took two women working all day to get the laundry done in an average household. And if the lady of the house didn’t have a family member or neighbor to help her, she often hired a portion of the work out.

But finding a good laundress was a challenge. Isabella Alden commented on that fact in The Randolphs:

While the world seems to be full of people who are willing to teach our children to strum on the piano, to draw impossible-looking trees and people, to jabber in a dozen different tongues, the lamentable fact remains that in every town and city it is really a difficult matter to get one’s collars and cuffs starched and ironed decently without paying a fabulous price for it.

The need for an extra pair of hands on laundry day opened the door for talented and hard-working women like Constance and Maria to earn a living.

To promote her new business, Constance Curtiss washed and mended the curtains that were “just falling to pieces before our eyes” in her landlady’s house, much to the landlady’s amazement:

“The girl darned them and washed them and rinsed them in starch water and stretched them till they looked as though I had put my hand in my pocket and paid for them out of the store, as I expected to. She does beat all!”

The landlady was so impressed she told her friends and neighbors of Constance’s skill. In very short order, Constance had more work than she could handle and had to write polite notes every evening to decline any new engagements.

In Household Puzzles, Maria Randolph started her laundry business after her brother Tom told her that his co-workers admired his clothes:

Tom needed assistance in the matter of a button and was glad to find Maria at liberty for a minute to sew it on. During the operation he laughed outright at his own thoughts, and then proceeded to explain.

“One of my brother drivers came to me last night for a confidential chat. I wish you could have seen his puzzled and important face. He is that Jerry that you think is so good-natured. What do you think he wanted?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. This button has split in two, Tom.”

“Well, here’s another. I couldn’t imagine what he was coming at. He called me aside and looked so important. He begged my pardon for troubling me—they are all remarkably polite to me—and he said that four or five of them had been having a time with their washerwoman because she didn’t use starch enough. They’re wonderfully particular fellows on Sunday. She ironed in wrinkles, too, he said; and then, after considerable stammering, he managed to get out that a number of them had been talking over the immaculateness of my linen, and had decided to get me to negotiate with my washerwoman, whoever she was, to see if she would do their work. The poor fellow was utterly crestfallen when I told him that my laundress was my sister.”

Industrious Maria saw an opportunity to earn money to pay for the medicine and medical care her father needed.

So she washed and ironed for the street-car drivers exactly as she had planned to do. They had few clothes to spare for the wash, but it must have been a delight to them to see the smoothness and whiteness of those few. Maria took great pains with them for two reasons: one, because she liked to hear Tom tell of their exclamations of delight, and the other, that she had a habit of doing well what she did at all. This new way of earning money was very helpful, and added not a little to the comfort of the invalid who was slipping away from them in such a quiet fashion. Sometimes it took all her resolution and a fond remembrance of how much her father enjoyed the oranges and strawberries to keep her heart in the work.

Doing a family’s laundry alone was a strenuous task and in Maria Randolph’s case, the hard, physical labor of the work took a toll on her health. But the work also had its rewards.

As Maria had a great deal of pride of execution, and an indomitable determination, and a secret plan to make herself and her father independent thereby, she worked with a will.

Before long, Maria’s business expanded enough so she could hire several “hard-working girls who were glad to be taught that which she had worked out by her own wits and the help of her eyes when she visited certain famous laundries.”

A 1910 Laundry Class for Girls — A 1910 laundry class for girls

As part of their laundry duties, Maria probably taught her employees the proper way to fold clothes for customers. These plates from a laundry manual published in 1900 illustrate the correct procedure for folding drawers, shirts, and night clothes:

And though her family and friends were appalled when Maria decided to advertise her business, she was proud to hang a small sign outside her home, “tacked in a conspicuous spot, and the letters on it were unmistakably clear and plain:

Would you like to know more about sad irons and how they were used? Click here to view an article at Collectors Weekly.

Read our previous post about The School of Expression that inspired Isabel Bradford in Four Mothers at Chautauqua.

Click here or return find out more about Isabella’s Books mentioned in this post.

This Woman’s Work

Published on March 17, 2015March 17, 2015 by Isabella Alden9 Comments

Many of the women in Isabella Alden’s books had to earn a living to support themselves or their families. That was the case with Maria Randolph in Household Puzzles, who took in laundry so she could buy medicine for her father and pay the family’s bills.

And in Miss Dee Dunmore Bryant, Mrs. Bryant supported her children by sewing late into the night, when she wasn’t working long hours at the local canning factory.

Women working at the Endicott Johnson tanning factory in New York

Earning a living wage wasn’t an easy thing for women to do in the years between 1880 and 1920. Competition for jobs was fierce, as more and more women entered the job market and took over low-paying, repetitive jobs that men once held—and they earned considerably less than men did for performing the same work.

Women working at the Anheuser Busch Bottling Company — Women performing manual labor at the Anheuser Busch Bottling Company

The majority of jobs open to women were manual factory work and service employment. Both were physically demanding. If a woman was lucky enough to find a position, she could count on working long hours in often poor conditions.

In factories there were few breaks in the long work day. Employers commonly boarded up windows to keep employees from being distracted; and they blocked doors to discourage workers from leaving their posts before the workday was done.

Seamstresses at Eaton's Department Store, Toronto — Seamstresses at Eaton’s Department Store, Toronto

Those were some of the conditions that lead to one of the worst work-place disasters in American history: the 1911 Triangle shirtwaist fire. A New York clothing manufacturer, The Triangle Waist Company, locked its workers inside their assigned work areas so they couldn’t leave. Most of the workers were young women and girls as young as fourteen. When a fire broke out, their only means of evacuation was a dilapidated fire escape that collapsed under the weight of the first few workers who scrambled to safety.

Click on the image to view a pdf of the full page.

The fire took a horrific toll: 147 people burned to death or died as a result of jumping or falling from the upper floors of the burning building.

Work in private service had its own set of challenges. Women worked long hours as house maids, cooks, and charwomen (women who clean other women’s houses).

The work was physically demanding and they were often treated poorly. Isabella Alden gave an example of such treatment in her book, Pauline. In the story, Constance Curtiss had to fight off the unwanted advances of her employer’s eldest son because he thought a working woman wasn’t due the same level of courtesty as a lady who was his social equal:

She had always taken the position that no self-respecting young woman need fear being treated other than respectfully by men; that girls probably had themselves to thank for carelessness when any man attempted familiarity. Yet the only excuse that she had given Mr. Emerson was the fact that she had chosen to make herself useful, on occasion, in his mother’s kitchen, and accept payment in money. This, it seemed, not only shut her out from Mrs. Emerson’s parlor as a caller, which she had expected, but made the son feel privileged to call her “Ellen” and treat her with a familiarity that could have been justified only by long and intimate acquaintance. She felt that such a state of things was a disgrace to American civilization.

For a woman who was lucky enough—and had the financial means—to afford an education, she could go to school and be trained to work in a more skilled capacity as a teacher or nurse.

Newspaper ad for a New York nursing school

Summer residents at Chautauqua Institution could take advantage of courses in stenography, teaching and library science—training that opened up new job opportunities for women. (Click here to read more about courses at Chautauqua Institution.)

But that kind of training cost money. Women who had to support themselves and their families often took whatever work they could get, leaving them at the mercy of their employers’ whims and wage structures.

As Constance Curtiss discovered in Pauline, she had to put up with long hours and some embarrassing mistreatment if she wanted to keep her job.

She meant to be brave and true, and to demonstrate that the religion of Jesus Christ was of sufficient strength to bear any weight; but in order to do this she need not accept the attentions and take pleasure in the scenes that other women of her age would naturally accept and enjoy. God did not ask this of her; she was thankful that she felt sure of it. How, then, was she to ward off such attention?

On her knees that night she gave herself solemnly to the work; and the sense of humiliation that Henry Emerson’s treatment of her had induced, passed. It had come to her that she might in this way have been permitted a glimpse of his true character for a purpose.

Constance’s prayers were answered. With patience and God’s help, she found a solution to the dilemma of her employer’s son, and in the process, she became God’s agent in saving a young soul.

Next week’s post: Lady Entrepreneurs in Isabella’s Books

Want to learn more about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire? This brief video from CBS marked the 100 year anniversary of the tragedy:

And this documentary video provides a more comprehensive look at the fire and its aftermath:

Click on the book covers to read more about Isabella’s books mentioned in this post.

Discover more about the events in this post:

Read Mara for free.

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Next Post: Pansy’s Most Controversial Book

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“Girls, don’t you think our church is just dreadful?”

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Pansy’s now on Pinterest!

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If you haven’t yet read Isabella’s story, “What She Said . . . and What She Meant,” you can read it for free. Click here to begin reading the stories mentioned in this blog post.

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Next week’s post: Lady Entrepreneurs in Isabella’s Books

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