Mathews: a new generation

"We are a new generation, for good or evil," said Cornelius Mathews in a speech before the Eucleian Society at New York University on June 30, 1845. This new generation, according to him, was poised to create the defining culture of the still-young United States. In his speech, in fact, Mathews coined the term already floating in his circle for this movement: "Young America." As he said:

Whatever that past generation of statesmen, law-givers and writers was capable of, we know. What they attained, what they failed to attain, we also know. Our duty and our destiny is another from theirs. Liking not at all its borrowed sound, we are yet (there is no better way to name it,) the Young America of the people: a new generation; and it is for us now to inquire, what we may have it in our power to accomplish, and on what objects the world may reasonably ask that we should fix our regards.

In particular, novelist/editor Mathews believed the generation should fix upon literature and other cultural arts in order to create an American identity. "I therefore, in behalf of this young America of ours," he said, "insist on nationality and true Americanism in the books this country furnishes to itself and to the world."

Though the sentiment was not particularly unusual in this period, Mathews and others (including  anthologist Evert Augustus Duyckinck and John L. O'Sullivan, editor of the Democratic Review) gave a name to an idea: that America was young, but growing, and that it was ready to achieve maturity.

*Much of this information is owed to Edward L. Widmer's Young America: The Flowering of Democracy in New York City (2000).

Chopin: prostrate with grief

Kate Chopin had a difficult life. For one, her four siblings all died before reaching adulthood. Her husband died young and, in financial difficulty, she moved back to St. Louis at the insistence of her mother, Eliza Faris O'Flaherty. Her mother, however, died of cancer shortly thereafter on June 28, 1885. Kate Chopin was "literally prostrate with grief."

Eliza O'Flaherty had a substantial influence on her daughter Kate Chopin. Perhaps most importantly, O'Flaherty was Creole (the "O'Flaherty" name came from her Ireland-born husband) and she retained a French accent which inspired her daughter's writing. But her death left the 35-year old Chopin, as biographer Emily Toth wrote, "at the head of a generational chain." All of her siblings were dead, as were both her parents and her husband. She moved to the other side of the city, far away from her childhood home. A family friend and doctor urged Chopin to write to overcome her grief — an occupation which also resulted in an income and allowed her to provide for her own six children. Her first published work was music: a polka for piano (1888) she originally composed for her daughter:

*My sources for this post are Unveiling Kate Chopin (1999) by Emily Toth and Kate Chopin's Private Papers (1998) edited by both Emily Toth and Per Seyersted.

Lo! the immortal idea!

Walt Whitman's fame waxed and waned throughout his life and career, and his writing remained controversial in many circles. However, one of the highest points came when Dartmouth College in New Hampshire invited Whitman to deliver a poem at their commencement on June 26, 1872. In fact, the invitation came from the graduating students, without the explicit approval of faculty or administration.

Whitman was certainly a strange choice for Dartmouth, such that scholar Bliss Perry later speculated that the invitation had been a prank. Nevertheless, for his reading on that rainy day, Whitman was paid $35. Accounts differ on the level of success: one report said the poet spoke in monotone and could not be heard well, while another referred to his "clearness of enunciation." The poem he read was "As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free," which begins:

As a strong bird, on pinions free,
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving,
Such be the thought I'd think to-day of thee, America;
Such be the recitative I'd bring to-day for thee.

The conceits of the poets of other lands I bring thee not,
Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long,
Nor rhyme — nor the classics — nor perfume of foreign court or indoor library;
But an odor I'd bring to-day as from forests of pine in the north, in Maine—or breath of an Illinois prairie,
With open airs of Virginia, or Georgia or Tennessee — or from Texas uplands or Florida's glades;
With presentment of Yellowstone's scenes or Yosemite;
And murmuring under, pervading all, I'd bring the restling sea sound,
That endlessly sounds from the two great seas of the world.

And for thy subtler sense, subtler refrains, O Union!
Preludes of intellect tallying these and thee — mind-formulas fitted for thee — real and sane and large as these and thee;
Thou, mounting higher, diving deeper than we knew — thou transcendental Union!
By thee Fact to be justified—blended with Thought;
Thought of Man justified — blended with God:
Through thy Idea — lo! the immortal Reality!
Through thy Reality — lo! the immortal idea!

*My introduction to this event came from Jerome Loving's biography Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself.

Harte, Washington, and a simple, patriotic act

"I have been to [George] Washington's Headquarters, at Morristown," begins an account by Bret Harte dated June 24, 1873 under the title "Washington in New Jersey: An Old Homestead." "The adult American who has not at some time stood beneath the same roof that once sheltered the Father of his country is to be pitied and feared." The visit, Harte writes, is a "simple, patriotic act" which would only be avoided by those guilty of "moral turpitude." Further, he notes, that "the number of roofs that Washington has slept under" shows he made a strong effort to make the shared experience "within the easy reach of every American citizen."

What inspired Harte to visit this particular roof of Washington's was the word that it would be sold at public auction. Walking up to the home "on that bright day of yellow June," he was immediately taken by what he saw. Speculating on what remained from Washington's time (the looking-glass, he assumed, was a notable artifact, as Washington undoubtedly used it while shaving). The home, he determined, was modest though dignified, and "far unlike the Cambridge Headquarters" he had previously visited in Massachusetts and referred to as a "precious jewel." Nevertheless, that humble, quiet, home in New Jersey affected Harte deeply: "Even in this gracious June sunlight you shiver and turn cold."

Harte, unsurprisingly, was concerned about the future of this historical spot. Worried what would happen when the auctioner finally slammed down his hammer: "Going, going. There is a glory on its roof for a moment, and it is Gone." The good news? A society of historians purchased the home and began its preservation. Some 60 years later, it became a unit of the National Park Service.

Cooke: daily, hourly, loving and giving

The graduation exercises for Smith College on June 22, 1881 included the reading of an original poem by Rose Terry Cooke. Cooke, a Connecticut-born poet and short story writer, did not read the poem herself; that honor was performed by elocution professor John Wesley Churchill. The poem, "The Flower Sower," features a young woman who approaches a priest with the simple question, "What shall I do?"

The young woman in the poem has become so troubled by the world, overwhelmed by its "earthly strife," that she has begun to isolate herself from it. The priest, an older man who has had his own share of difficulty, is first stunned into silence before finally answering:

Softly he spoke: —
                                "I give to thee
A daily service for God to do:
Work that shall keep thee safe and true,
Whatever evil shall walk abroad.
When loss and passion beset thy road,
And prayer and penance have no avail,
This shall hold thee with bands of steel..."

The task that the priest assigns to the young woman is simple: plant flowers on a daily basis.

"Scatter them daily up and down,
In the dirty lane and glittering town,
By every path where the children play,
By every road where the beggars stray,
By the church's door, and the market stall,
By peasant's hut, and by castle wall:
Let not one sun go down and say
'She hath not planted a flower today.'"

Sure enough, Cooke writes, she plants lavender, violets, poppies, larkspurs, and more. The effort not only brings happiness to the woman's life, but also to the lives of many others, "for toil and trouble were all forgot." The poem concludes with another question, "Is there a moral?" Simply, Cooke writes, sadness is offset by happiness, no matter how small the effort:

Not to every soul is given
To do some great thing under heaven.
But the grass-blades small and the drops of dew
Have their message to all of you,
And daily, hourly, loving and giving,
In the poorest life make heavenly living.

*For the text of this poem and some additional information, I am grateful to Nanci A. Young, College Archivist at Smith College.

Where Knowledge and Science are known!

When the University of Virginia turned 150 years old, alumnus Daniel Bedinger Lucas wrote a long dedicatory poem. He read the poem, "Semi-Centennial Ode," in front of the Society of Alumni on June 20, 1875. After referring to the school's founder Thomas Jefferson as "The Greatest American" and "Apostle of Reason" who had previously written the "Charter of Treason" (better known as the Declaration of Independence), the Virginia-born Lucas poetically claims that Jefferson was moved by a spirit which commanded him:

Build me a Temple of Learning, said she,
   Build me a Temple of stone —
Build for all ages: assuredly,
   Build for a man's Reason a throne;
For Freedom and Truth shall prosper
   Where Knowledge and Science are known!

That same spirit dictates the study not only of science but also of languages, philosophy, and more. Lucas also includes a very Americanist stance by calling for "Reason" as "the weapons of native power" and demands students never "bow to the alien pen!" He references only a couple of famous alumni, including fellow author Edgar Poe ("the harp of our Poe is unstrung"). Ultimately, Lucas claims that the 150-year old school is still young ("As this is her youth, I sing of her birth... For an Hundred years is a day upon earth, / And Fifty a morning in time"). The poem concludes:

From pillar, rotunda, arcade,
   From lecture-room, statue, and fane,
And landscape, and scholarly shade,
   And comrades saluted again,
And professor, and classmate and friend,
   And library, tome upon tome —
The beams of old memories lend
   New light as they welcome us home:
O, Mother! Fair Mother! refresh us,
   In the scope of thy bounteous dome!

James Fenimore Cooper: Upside Down

By the end of his life, James Fenimore Cooper was securely established as one of the most important writers in American history to date. His novels were international best-sellers, and his transition to historical works left him equally respected. Perhaps his greatest literary experiment, however, came in the year before his death when he wrote and staged a play.

Upside Down; or, Philosophy in Petticoats premiered on June 18, 1850 at the New York theater owned by sometime actor/magazine editor William Evans Burton. The play was staged for three nights before it closed; it was not published or staged again during Cooper's lifetime — or in the century. The three-act comedy, according to Cooper, was meant in "ridicule of new notions." In fact, it was a farcical critique of socialism ("Horace Greeley of course will not like it," predicted one review).

Though many members of the public knew the play was Cooper's, it was never officially announced as such — per Cooper's request. Perhaps this was the reason it was not successful: the theater's seats were mostly empty, even on opening night. Burton, who also played a role in the play, closed the show after its third performance, saying that it drew less than $100 a night.

No complete script of the play remains extant. One acquaintance of Cooper who attended on opening night admitted that the second and third acts dragged, though the audience seemed to like the ending judging by their "warm applause." One reviewer criticized that the play was "upon the whole a little too conventional or clossetty." This fault, it continued, would be corrected by the "judicious curtailment" of the performance: "and then the comedy of Upside Down will be right side up."

Dunbar graduates: The wind is fair

The graduation ceremony for Central High School in Dayton, Ohio was held in the Dayton Opera House on June 16, 1891. Included in the day's exercises was the singing of the class song, which happened to be written by the sole black student among the 43 graduates. His name was Paul Laurence Dunbar. Among the words were:

The wind is fair, the sails are spread,
Let hearts be firm, "God Speed" is said;
Before us lies the untried way,
And we're impatient at the stay.

Dunbar's lyrics, written to a tune composed by a teacher was well received. Fellow graduates boasted that it was the school's greatest class song. Dunbar himself had reason to be proud: his high school career included ranking roles in the school debate team and editorship of the student newspaper. By then, he was also a published poet. Yet, he "the untried way" before the new graduate would prove difficult. His father had died only a few years earlier, and his struggle to earn a living for himself and his mother led him to take several odd jobs.

Before the end of the century, however, he would be recognized as one of the most celebrated African American authors. His life was never easy, nonetheless, and he died fifteen years after his high school graduation.

*Recommended: The Collected Poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar, edited with an introduction by Joanne M. Braxton.

Birth of Bartlett: the degree of familiarity

"It is not easy to determine in all cases the degree of familiarity that may belong to phrases and sentences which present themselves for admission," wrote John Bartlett in his fourth edition of Familiar Quotations, "for what is familiar to one class of readers may be quite new to another." Bartlett was born on June 14, 1820 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, but his claim to fame did not occur until he moved to Cambridge to run a book store next to Harvard University. Bartlett was soon recognized for his seemingly limitless memory and his ability to track down obscure trivia made him a frequently sought after member of the community.

Bartlett, in fact, began answering so many questions that he began compiling a book - an early sort of "Frequently Asked Questions." In 1855, he privately published the first edition of his Familiar Quotations, a dictionary of quotes from the Bible to Shakespeare, and from politicians to British poets. After the Civil War, for which he served in an administrative role with the Navy, he joined the publishing company of Little, Brown, and Company, which soon issued a fourth edition. In fact, by the end of his life he had overseen nine editions of his book of quotations, as well as a major book on words used or coined by Shakespeare.

Some of the quotes in Bartlett's collection include:

Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teaching.
          from "Thanatopsis" by William Cullen Bryant

Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
          from "Concord Hymn" by Ralph Waldo Emerson

One of the few, the immortal names,
That were not born to die.
          from "Marco Bozzaris" by Fitz-Greene Halleck

The Almighty Dollar.
          from "The Creole Village" by Washington Irving

Earth's noblest thing, a woman perfected.
          from "Irene" by James Russell Lowell

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
          from "Home Sweet Home" by John Howard Payne

Taylor: share also in those adventures

"I am over head and ears on my Journey to Central Africa," Bayard Taylor wrote to his publisher James T. Fields on June 12, 1854. He also promised that the book would include "a map and fifteen to twenty illustrations, and I am obliged to be my own illustrator." True to his word, Taylor's book was illustrated by himself (including the image of his companion Achmet, seen here).

In his preface to the over 500-page book, Taylor called it "the record of a journey... over fresh fields, by paths which comparatively few had trodden before me." It was not a book featuring serious study, but entertainment, he said, showing the "rich, adventurous life" he led in an effort to restore himself after being "exhausted by severe mental labor." His travels took him to Egypt, Ethiopia, and beyond. Most importantly, Taylor lived, as he described, as an Arab; the day after his letter to Fields, he reported that he had been photographed in traditional dress, an image which was later turned into an engraving (see image at left).

Though Taylor had already traveled extensively around the globe, he was smitten with Africa from the very beginning: "For no amount of experience can deprive the traveller of that happy feeling of novelty which marks his first day on the soil of a new continent. I gave myself up wholly to its inebriation." The book concludes with Taylor leaving Cairo:

I took the steamer for Alexandria, and two or three days afterwards sailed for fresh adventures in another Continent. If the reader, who has been my companion during the journey which is now closed, should experience no more fatigue than I did, we may hereafter share also in those adventures.

Simms: left all his better works undone

William Gilmore Simms knew he would die in 1870. "I am rapidly passing from a stage where you young men are to succeed me, doing what you can," he wrote to his friend Paul Hamilton Hayne two days into the new year. "My last days would be cheerless in the last degree but for numerous good friends, who will hardly allow me to suffer... but I am weary, Paul, and having much to say, I must say no more." Simms's health improved slightly in the coming months, but quickly reverted to the point where he was often bound to his couch and rarely left his home — sometimes for weeks at a time. Making matters worse, one of his final stories had been rejected by a magazine, which never returned his incomplete manuscript.

Simms rallied long enough in early May to offer a final public appearance, delivering an opening address for a flower show in his native Charleston. A month later, the poet/novelist/editor wrote his last letter to Hayne, noting his "long and exhausting malady" was overtaking him and that his illness had left him emaciated "to such diminutive proportions" that he would no longer be recognized by his friends. It was 5 p.m. on Saturday, June 11, 1870 that William Gilmore Simms died, likely from liver disease. Nine years later to the day, the people of Charleston unveiled a memorial to him. Simms had asked that his epitaph note that "he has left all his better works undone."

His "Sonnet—Resignation":

His eye was tearless, but his cheeks were wan;
There sorrow long had set her heavy hand;
Yet was his spirit noble, and a bland
And sweet expression o'er his features ran!
Care had not tutored him to sullenness—
The world's scorn not subdued the natural man:
The sweet milk of his nurture was not less,
Because the world had met him with its ban;
He is above revenges, though he drinks
The bitter draught of malice and of hate;
And still, though in the weary strife he sinks,
They can not make him murmur at his fate;
He suffers, and he feels the pang, but proves
The conqueror, though he falls, for still he loves.

Genuine expression of an American mind

"She may readily be supposed to have that characteristic which is so rarely found among us, Americanism," wrote Rufus Wilmot Griswold in his preface to The Poetical Writings of Elizabeth Oakes Smith, dated June 10, 1845. "Her writings in their department may be regarded as the genuine expression of an American mind." Oakes Smith, according to Griswold, wrote to express her thoughts, not for notoriety. Even so, she published essays, tales, and criticism in addition to her poetry — all to the praise of Griswold, one of her greatest supporters. Through all her writings, he says, lies "the same beautiful vein of philosophy," which Griswold ultimately concludes is morality.

Among the most well-known poems in the collection are "The April Rain," "The Acorn," and the nearly 80-page The Sinless Child, which is broken into seven parts (and a section of notes). Indeed, Griswold (a licensed Baptist clergyman) would have approved of the religious message prevalent in most of the collection. Yet Oakes Smith was not as conventional or conservative as might first be presumed from his support. At 16 years old, she married a man nearly twice her age, a fellow poet and author named Seba Smith, but refused to use only his name. Even her children were named "Oakes Smith" (or "Oaksmith") rather than merely Smith. Five years after Griswold's endorsement/preface, she began a series of articles promoting women's rights (published by Griswold's some-time mentor Horace Greeley). At one point, she was considered for a leadership role among a group of women, but was denied the opportunity simply for wearing a dress that too fully exposed her neck and arms.

One particular poem in this collection expresses some of her frustration with life, "The Unattained":

And is this life? and are we born for this?—
To follow phantoms that elude the grasp,
Or whatsoe’er secured, within our clasp
To withering lie, as if each earthly kiss
Were doomed death’s shuddering touch alone to meet.
O Life! hast thou reserved no cup of bliss?
Must still THE UNATTAINED beguile our feet?
THE UNATTAINED with yearnings fill the breast,
That rob for aye the spirit of its rest?
Yes, this is Life; and everywhere we meet,
Not victor crowns, but wailings of defeat;
Yet faint thou not: thou dost apply a test,
That shall incite thee onward, upward still:
The present cannot sate, nor e’er thy spirit fill.

Lucas: like the ebbing tide

Daniel Bedinger Lucas was born in the area of Virginia which later incorporated into the Union as West Virginia, though he himself fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. He wrote poetry throughout most of his life, often about the Southern cause, earning him the nickname "The Poet Laureate of the Lost Cause" (a nickname offered to others as well).

One such poem, "In Memoriam," was used to dedicate a memorial to Confederate soldiers buried at Edge Hill Cemetery in the capital city of Lucas's home state. It is dated June 9, 1888:

And shall we then forget these heroes? Never!
    The Southern heart that boasts their memory not
    Shall be itself deservedly forgot,
While they in fame live on forever!

The sceptre, like the ebbing tide, departs,
    While like the granite cliff, whose stable form
    Hurls back the breakers, and resists the storm
Great deeds outwear all human arts!

And when some laggard age shall lack the light
    Of high achievement, or sublimer mood,
    Heroic travail, or great fortitude,
Here shall example serve the right!

Praised be their overtures to Liberty,
    Their courage, and their unbought sense of wrong!
    Sublimely faithful, and in patience strong,
Their deeds remain our legacy!

The genuine book critic was so rare a bird

After the publication of her book Bayou Folk, Kate Chopin was dismayed by critical response — not based on whether the reviews were positive or negative, but if they offered legitimate critique. In a diary entry dated June 7, 1894, she wrote:

In looking over more than a hundred press notices of "Bayou Folk" which have already been sent to me, I am surprised at the very small number which show anything like a worthy critical faculty. They might be counted upon the fingers of one hand. I had no idea the genuine book critic was so rare a bird. And yet I receive congratulations from my publishers upon the character of the press notices.

For one, Chopin was worried she would be labeled as a "dialect writer" or local color author, thereby dismissing the additional merits of her work. Either way, 1894 made the St. Louis-born Chopin a nationally-known writer. In addition to the collection of stories in Bayou Folk, she published several other in several periodicals throughout the country. The variety of reviews further spread her fame.

Bayou Folk included the story "Beyond the Bayou," about a black woman named "La Folle" who had, according to locals, lost her senses and confined herself into an imaginary circle around her cabin and farm. She befriended a local boy whom she calls Chéri, who offers to hunt squirrels for her supper. The boy, however, accidentally shoots himself instead and La Folle must take him to find help:

She had reached the abandoned field. As she crossed it with her precious burden, she looked constantly and restlessly from side to side. A terrible fear was upon her, — the fear of the world beyond the bayou, the morbid and insane dread she had been under since childhood. When she was at the bayou's edge she stood there, and shouted for help as if a life depended upon it... Then shutting her eyes, she ran suddenly down the shallow bank of the bayou, and never stopped till she had climbed the opposite shore.

*This information in this post, particularly the dated diary entry, was found in Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography (1980) by Per Seyersted, University of Louisiana Press.

Stowe and Lady Byron: like mist before the sun

Perhaps the strangest of literary friendships was that of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Anne Isabella Noel Byron, the wife of the British poet Lord Byron. The two had met during Stowe's European visit in 1853 (the year after the publication of her book Uncle Tom's Cabin). Stowe, in fact, was quickly enamored with the widow, nearly twenty years her elder. After continuing her travels, she wrote a letter to her new friend, dated June 5, 1853:

Dear Friend, — I left you with a strange sort of yearning, throbbing feeling; you make me feel quite as I did years ago, a sort of girlishness quite odd for me...

I often think how strange it is that I should know you — you who were a sort of legend of my early days; that I should love you is only a natural result. You seem to me to stand on the confines of that land where the poor formalities which separate hearts here pass like mist before the sun, and therefore it is that I feel the language of love must not startle you as strange or unfamiliar. You are so nearly there in spirit that I fear with every adieu that it may be the last; yet did you pass within the veil I should not feel you lost.

I have got past the time when I feel that my heavenly friends are lost by going there. I feel them nearer, rather than farther off. So good-by, dear, dear friend, and if you see morning in our Father's house before I do, carry my love to those that wait for me, and if I pass first, you will find me there, and we shall love each other forever. 

The two women maintained a friendship until Lady Byron's death. In those years, she had revealed the truth about her relationship with Lord Byron and his affairs. After Lady Byron's death, rumors spread about her sins and Stowe rose to her defense in a book, appropriately titled Lady Byron Vindicated: A History of the Byron Controversy (1869). In it, Stowe painted Lord Byron as a licentious, immoral man who had an affair with his half-sister. Lady Byron, Stowe wrote, was innocent of wrongdoing. The book was not well-received and Stowe was soon piled into her own controversy.

James on Calvert: no general attention

On June 3, 1875, the Nation published a review by Henry James of the Baltimore-born editor and author George Henry Calvert. Calvert was particularly known for his biographies of literary figures including Goethe and Shakespeare. By 1875 and the publication of his Essays Aeshetical, however, he had become obscure. "Mr. Calvert occasionally puts forth a modest volume of prose or verse which attracts no general attention," James (pictured at right) began his review, "but which, we imagine, finds adequate appreciation among scattered readers."

In this case, however, James happily recommended this particular book collecting "essays on subjects connected with art and letters."  The author is a perfect scholar, he writes, and his writing has "an aroma of genuine culture." His biggest critique is that Calvert is vague and offers judgments which are "a trifle too ethereal and to a style considerably too florid." The result, however, is a mix of both taste and leisure, James concludes.

Calvert's book also includes a section condemning grammatical and literary "vulgarities" that have crept into the English language. James, however, disagrees: "We share Mr. Calvert's extreme enmity with regard to none of these phrases." Nevertheless, Calvert's essay is interesting today as the language continues to evolve (one wonders what he would think of the internet). As Calvert writes:

Word are the counters of thought; speech is the vocalization of the soul; style is the luminous incarnation of reason and emotion. Thence it behooves scholars, the wardens of language, to keep over words a watch as keen and sleepless as a dutiful guardian keeps over his pupils. A prime office of this guardianship is to take care lest language fall into loose ways; for words being the final elements into which all speech resolves itself, if they grow weak by negligence or abuse, speech loses its firmness, veracity, and expressiveness.

* This essay is available in the collection Henry James: Literary Criticism (1984) published by the Library of America.

Fern: the transparent mask of neutrality

The popular Fanny Fern (formerly known as Sarah Payson Willis) wrote nothing in her column about Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860, nor did she acknowledge the secession of a few Southern states from the Union. When shots were fired on Fort Sumter, however, she acknowledged the crisis at hand. Finally, on June 1, 1861, she published an article titled "The Time to Speak Out":

When timidity creeps into its hiding place, or measures its stealthy pace under the transparent mask of neutrality, then—God be thanked for the man of bold utterance! He refreshes us like the quick thunder storm, when the air grows too thick for breath.

Fern, perhaps upset at her own delay in speaking out as Civil War loomed, claimed that silence on important issues was unforgivable: "There be things worse than death." The italics are original. She continued:

When men walk with closed mouths, and averted eyes, nor dare look into the mirror of their own souls, and face the marring of God's image there... When with iron heel they crush out like so many insects, the soul's breath from thousands, and impiously say, "Am I not doing God's service?" Is it a time when the smoke of the pit ascends to the very nostrils, for men to coin pretty phrases?

Through her writings, Fern established herself quickly as a pro-Unionist. More importantly, she railed against apathy, implying that unconcern was the bigger cause of the problems of the United States (whether it was slavery, the Civil War, or the role of women in society). In a strange twist, when Lincoln called for more volunteers to enlist, the feminist Fern said that young men who refused to join should be given petticoats and sewing machines.

*The best source of information on Fern is Fanny Fern: An Independent Woman (1992) by Joyce Warren, from which I found the above information.