a biography of the day--marietta holley (american humourist)
(for those of you unfamiliar with her work, I urge you to read "samantha on the woman question" . note: do so in private, laughing out loud could earn you some funny looks in public)
Marietta Holley
Marietta Holley (1836-1926), was an American humorist who used satire to comment on U.S. society and politics. Holley was frequently compared to Mark Twain and Edgar Nye.
Holley was born on to John Milton and Mary Tabor on July 16, 1836. She was the youngest of seven children. They lived on a small farm in Jefferson County, NY. [1] At the age of 14, she ended her formal education to make a decent living and help support her family by giving piano lessons to students. When she was 17, she converted to baptists and joined the Adams Village Baptist Church. Her father died when she was 25, and Holley took charge of the farm and care of her sick mother and sister. After she became successful as a writer from her novels, she built a mansion called "Bonnie View" near her family's home in Pierrepont. Holley never married. She died on March 1, 1926 at the age of 89.
Holley enjoyed a prolific writing career, and was a bestselling author in the late 19th-century, though she was widely forgotten by the time of her death. Her first poems were published locally in the Adams Journal, which lead to later successes in more prominent periodicals, such as Peterson's Magazine. In 1872, her first novel, My Opinions and Betsey Bobbet's, was released by the American Publishing Company. In total, Holley wrote over 25 books, including one collection of poems, two dramas and one long poem between 1873 and 1914. Included in her works was a series of ten books that revolved around a character named Samantha and her husband Josiah Allen as they journey outside of Samantha's rural hometown, similar to her home in Jefferson County, NY. Holley spent most of her life close to her family's farm, rarely leaving. Aside from Saratoga and Coney Island, Holley never actually visited the places she wrote about in her Samantha series. She depended on maps, guidebooks and descriptions and to write her narratives based on the learned knowledge. [2]
Many of Holley’s writings share the common themes of women’s rights and prohibition. She was well regarded by many contemporary writers and suffragists. Her famous friends included Susan B. Anthony, Twain and Clara Barton. Anthony frequently asked Holley to give speeches at suffrage conventions due to the strong stand Holley took in support of women's suffrage, though Holley refused public appearances.
Holley is remembered as one of America's most significant early women humorists, along with Frances Miriam Whitcher and Ann S. Stephens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marietta_Holley
Marietta Holley
Best Selling Writer
A North Country woman who achieved fame and a certain notoriety in her satirical books about women's rights and a woman's proper place in marriage never actually was married, but spoke with the voice of experience through her fictional heroine, Samantha Allen.
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Her style of writing was often compared both in content and popularity with that of the famous Mark Twain. She used wit and gentle satire to prose questions concerning women's lack of rights in a then male-dominated world. her fictional spokeswoman Samantha, wife of Josiah Allen, speaks in a rustic dialect to poke fun at all sorts of claims and pretensions. For example, Samantha cannot understand why men are trying so hard to protect women from the effort it takes to walk to the polling booth and slip a piece of paper in a box. She has noticed that these same protective instincts do not apply to churning butter, baking bread, and washing clothes, which she observes take considerably more effort.
Samantha Allen challenged the status quo of social and political reality of the times and planted herself squarely on the side of sensible women's rights. She raised questions concerning history's treatment of women and their powerlessness before the law. She insisted that a woman, upon marriage, gave up control of her body, her property, her wages, even her personal possessions. She was not allowed to testify in court, sue, contract, hold title to property, sign papers as a witness, or establish businesses. A wife's will had to be signed by her husband in order to be legal. Husbands, even proven drunkards, had control of children after a divorce and were generally able to secure a divorce on broader grounds than were women.
Recognition as a writer and financial independence were slow incoming to Marietta Holley. It was not until 1872 that she received $600 (a substantial sum in those days) for her first book, entitled My Opinions and Betsy Bobbet's. This launched a series of Samantha Books - ten in all - which were widely read throughout the world. Some were published in England; some were translated into French. In all these she used humor spoken by Samantha to cover all the issues that stirred women to extricate themselves from second-class citizenship and to struggle for equality. She received large advances from her publishers, and sales of at least one of her books, Samantha at Saratoga put her on the better-seller list for the decade of the 1880s.
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http://www.northnet.org/stlawrenceaauw/holley.htm