Glad you enjoyed meeting her. I have come to appreciate her more and more since I first came across her old editions in an upstate NY bookstore years ago.
Love the passage listing all of the rigorous work that women do while being thought too "feeble" for the vote. Echoes of Franklin's "The Speech of Polly Baker"? If I ever return to my Am Lit series, Franklin's short fiction will get a nod.
You're also making me think of the late Patrick McManus, an outdoor humorist who I read aloud to my daughters (while squinting at some very outdated gender tropes). He was a favorite of my grandmother's, also the most resilient person I've ever known, also a homemaker who could have been an executive.
I love that passage, too! Maybe you can tell. ;-) Polly Baker is a good comparison to Samantha Allen. Both of them deliver their messages with a straight face - extravagant yet realistic and plain spoken.
I have chuckled at some McManus sketches. He's a unique voice, too. Your grandmother must have been a formidable force.
I have hired people with MBAs and I once hired a homeschooler mom as project managers. I’ll let you guess who was the better manager. No, I won’t let you guess. The homeschool mom was a far better networker, absorbed the subject matter quickly and thoroughly, worked through difficult personality issues without a lot of fire and brimstone, and always met deadlines.
Managing a household of four children (five including the husband) taught her management skills that were project ready. Just a mom or just a stay at home wife, they are called. I call them people who know how to get things done under combat conditions.
It took and takes writers like Marietta Holley to educate the world and to free people from the chains of stereotypes. Tara Westover made an observation in her book “Educated” that I often think about:
“I carried the books to my room and read through the night. I loved the fiery pages of Mary Wollstonecraft, but there was a single line written by John Stuart Mill that, when I read it, moved the world: "It is a subject on which nothing final can be known." The subject Mill had in mind was the nature of women. Mill claimed that women have been coaxed, cajoled, shoved and squashed into a series of feminine contortions for so many centuries, that it is now quite impossible to define their natural abilities or aspirations.
Blood rushed to my brain; I felt an animating surge of adrenaline, of possibility, of a frontier being pushed outward. Of the nature of women, nothing final can be known. Never had I found such comfort in a void, in the black absence of knowledge. It seemed to say: whatever you are, you are woman.”
No wonder slaves weren’t allowed to learn to read. Any time a person thinks outside the box they were packed into, their minds are freed.
It's a fun side note that writing like she did, is how we know how ancient languages sounded like. When we see intentional, and unintentional misspellings, we can use those to get a better idea of how words were spoken.
I've always been terrible at spelling, the fact that misspelling things adds to our understanding of the world makes me feel better.
Tara - thanks for the introduction to this author. I had never heard of her previously. Always amazed at the number of phenomenal writers that we never get to know! I enjoyed reading about her.
Great question! Thank you for asking. University of Illinois Press issued a collection of her stories in 1983, edited by Jane Curry. It's been digitized on Amazon. (The link here is going to look beastly, but I'll add it at the end of the note.) In the 1980s, the American Women Writers Series from Rutgers University Press would have been a good series for a reprint, but as far as I know she did not appear in that series. Her books are episodic, like, say Twain's Connecticut Yankee or Roughing It, and hard to read now from end to end for this reason, but a pleasure to read a few chapters at a time. This would keep her from being taught in many university classes, except in shorter works like those Jane Curry collected. The market for her books is likely to be a small one for a publisher.
Here's the link to the Amazon version of the 1983 collection:
I've seen these books in vintage stores and never known what they were! This was so interesting; thank you for taking the time to share all of this. Now hoping I come across another one soon.
I'm thinking of one place in particular where I know I've seen them. I might have to go by there today and see if there are any there now. I'll let you know if I find one!
Yes! I think the sources linked in my notes mention a few other humorists who preceded her. Frances Miriam Whitcher's name appears often. I'm glad you read this one. I thought you might enjoy Holley, such a close contemporary of Harte and Twain.
You've introduced us to such a gem in Marietta Holley. Her first noel - "My Opinions and Betsey Babbet's," needs to find its way to the top of my book pile.
" Holley’s persona used humor for a new end: it made accessible and palatable the ideals of the temperance and suffrage movements . . . . Whereas the earlier comedians had made the woman, particularly the woman’s rights advocate, the butt of their comedy, Holley created characters of both genders who embodied the absurdities of intemperance and antisuffrage.7"
I just did some browsing online and the first place I found a paperback listed in a used storefront was one of those digital reprint publishers that may or may not be legit. I saw the length of the book was listed as 90 pages. That would not be the whole book. AbeBooks has used copies of the real book. I'd look there. Thank you for restacking!
Beautifully illustrated early editions (there were many editions of most books) turn up in used bookstores. Abe Books is a good place to find some online. (I wouldn't trust any of the modern reprinters who claim to sell recent paperback editions.) My copies all came from a bookstore in central New York state quite a few years back.
Marietta Holly was no Emily Dickinson but her poetry is still worth reading. Thanks for the link.
Women’s history is of enduring interest, as is the history of suffrage, given the conscious development by the Enlightenment of classical thought on governance and the development of representative legislatures. Despite the geographically different pace of emerging mass urban populations, a lot of different nations seem to have ended up in a similar place at roughly the same time (1). America it seems was largely a rural population for longer, an agrarian medley of certain kinds, but 1926 was close to my mother getting the vote in 1928 Britain. (We are still 'subjects', by the way.)
A few thoughts came to mind before I fell asleep last night. There were until recently remnants of different rural cultures having more collective work patterns. I think of 'sisterhoods of work’ in the Gaeltacht of Scotland. The songs seem very different from the 'work songs' in American history. Neighbours, men and women, shared farming activities without the jurisdiction of an employer, and the function of a landlord remained different for a while. I am no anthropologist, but the balance between men and women seems an enduring matter beyond our personhood?
1. Google discovered for me a conversation the Clayman Institute had with Karen Offen in 2020.
Thank you for reading, Philip. It's not hard to see why Elisha Bliss thought Holley's prose voice as Samantha Allen was more distinctive in 1872. I appreciate the lesson that sometimes we may not be the best judges of our own work (or at least, what others will find appealing). Speaking of work songs, I don't know if you're familiar with Louise Haynes's Substack "Social Issues in Song," but if you know some old work songs, she might be interested (or may know of them, too). Her Stack is here: https://louisehaynes.substack.com/. Thank you for these thoughts!
The voices of America? I first heard Dickinson while still a young man having fallen asleep in a chair from tiredness with the radio on and woke to 'The doom’s electric moccasin That very instant passed'. and to the prickle on the back of my neck. Thanks for the further link. We are very social animals.
That's a wonderful memory about Emily Dickinson! Thank you for the good chuckle.
I agree with you about Holley's poetry. She wasn't wrong about herself as a poet, but she would not have attracted the same audience for a book of poems. Things are not so changed today. I'd still rather have as many of us writing poems as possible, even if the audience is small.
Wonderful! Glad you enjoyed them. Subscribed to you, too. How has it taken me so long? I love what you're doing with your family history and the history of your mother's home place.
Prompted an interesting thought exercise for me. Obviously writing needs some structure, but it's fairly remarkable how little control we have over what actually comes out, which is pretty cool.
Thank you for commenting, Kevin. I love that mysterious part about writing, too. As often as it happens, there's still some surprise every time a work starts in one place and ends in another.
These books sound amazing Tara, thank you so much for sharing Marietta with us. Interestingly these books would still be very relevant in some areas today with the contrast of opinions on women's rights. A most appropriate topic Dr. Penry, well done!
Thank you, Donna! I agree. I can just see Samantha taking a pregnant niece across a state line for medical service (Josiah driving the horses, of course) and giving a piece of her mind to the officer at the border who tries to arrest her for transporting a minor across state lines now that such things are being policed down here. Marietta Holley needed to train successors in her craft.
This is brilliant! Thanks for sharing your knowledge here about this inadvertently best selling author. It's all part of the ongoing inquiry about publishing trends from the past and how they relate to the present day - and I love it!
Yay! Thank you, Rachel. I'm enjoying this approach to authors, too, and especially enjoying that it rejuvenates characters from the past for more people than just me. :-)
This is fascinating, Tara! I'd never heard of Marietta Holley before.
Glad you enjoyed meeting her. I have come to appreciate her more and more since I first came across her old editions in an upstate NY bookstore years ago.
Love the passage listing all of the rigorous work that women do while being thought too "feeble" for the vote. Echoes of Franklin's "The Speech of Polly Baker"? If I ever return to my Am Lit series, Franklin's short fiction will get a nod.
You're also making me think of the late Patrick McManus, an outdoor humorist who I read aloud to my daughters (while squinting at some very outdated gender tropes). He was a favorite of my grandmother's, also the most resilient person I've ever known, also a homemaker who could have been an executive.
I love that passage, too! Maybe you can tell. ;-) Polly Baker is a good comparison to Samantha Allen. Both of them deliver their messages with a straight face - extravagant yet realistic and plain spoken.
I have chuckled at some McManus sketches. He's a unique voice, too. Your grandmother must have been a formidable force.
I have hired people with MBAs and I once hired a homeschooler mom as project managers. I’ll let you guess who was the better manager. No, I won’t let you guess. The homeschool mom was a far better networker, absorbed the subject matter quickly and thoroughly, worked through difficult personality issues without a lot of fire and brimstone, and always met deadlines.
Managing a household of four children (five including the husband) taught her management skills that were project ready. Just a mom or just a stay at home wife, they are called. I call them people who know how to get things done under combat conditions.
It took and takes writers like Marietta Holley to educate the world and to free people from the chains of stereotypes. Tara Westover made an observation in her book “Educated” that I often think about:
“I carried the books to my room and read through the night. I loved the fiery pages of Mary Wollstonecraft, but there was a single line written by John Stuart Mill that, when I read it, moved the world: "It is a subject on which nothing final can be known." The subject Mill had in mind was the nature of women. Mill claimed that women have been coaxed, cajoled, shoved and squashed into a series of feminine contortions for so many centuries, that it is now quite impossible to define their natural abilities or aspirations.
Blood rushed to my brain; I felt an animating surge of adrenaline, of possibility, of a frontier being pushed outward. Of the nature of women, nothing final can be known. Never had I found such comfort in a void, in the black absence of knowledge. It seemed to say: whatever you are, you are woman.”
No wonder slaves weren’t allowed to learn to read. Any time a person thinks outside the box they were packed into, their minds are freed.
Eloquentia! Yes!
Love a sneaky proto-feminist
Sneaky was just the word I had in mind but didn't use! Thank you for setting things right. :-)
It's a fun side note that writing like she did, is how we know how ancient languages sounded like. When we see intentional, and unintentional misspellings, we can use those to get a better idea of how words were spoken.
I've always been terrible at spelling, the fact that misspelling things adds to our understanding of the world makes me feel better.
Good point! Like Mark Twain, Marietta Holley had the gift of writing dialect in a way that reveals character. They both made it an art form. :-)
Tara - thanks for the introduction to this author. I had never heard of her previously. Always amazed at the number of phenomenal writers that we never get to know! I enjoyed reading about her.
I agree. The old bestsellers offer a window on what mattered to readers of the past. Glad you enjoyed meeting Marietta Holley.
Have any of her books been reprinted recently?
Great question! Thank you for asking. University of Illinois Press issued a collection of her stories in 1983, edited by Jane Curry. It's been digitized on Amazon. (The link here is going to look beastly, but I'll add it at the end of the note.) In the 1980s, the American Women Writers Series from Rutgers University Press would have been a good series for a reprint, but as far as I know she did not appear in that series. Her books are episodic, like, say Twain's Connecticut Yankee or Roughing It, and hard to read now from end to end for this reason, but a pleasure to read a few chapters at a time. This would keep her from being taught in many university classes, except in shorter works like those Jane Curry collected. The market for her books is likely to be a small one for a publisher.
Here's the link to the Amazon version of the 1983 collection:
https://www.amazon.com/SAMANTHA-RASTLES-QUESTION-Marietta-Holley/dp/0252010205/ref=sr_1_6?crid=2EGIUW1DEQ9QC&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.pYC0yob6nUTulJxOskowep9S9IDiWJpvhN0i9OgytZbpR_C9MK-xPo8EFgjOitijOerYHESpBeEotlAVXFovhXAofKlrurMXnCeFNBrPrapOD9LzVHxCQB---fenkggH0bcqkTXFieQKWk5HoxEYBlpJarZUJWxRZxpLQYJsiMfYTjcsYhez3dEwPQTmjus2rX2Kvhnlc0ojy5zQ5Om31bk5pM2-eLop4TdPaaITl3w.2IdACWjbFDxWv1G8XgkdxzqDDnfU_u4rTUwrlp3IQZo&dib_tag=se&keywords=marietta+holley&qid=1712677077&sprefix=marietta+holle%2Caps%2C202&sr=8-6
I've seen these books in vintage stores and never known what they were! This was so interesting; thank you for taking the time to share all of this. Now hoping I come across another one soon.
I first came across Holley's illustrated volumes decades ago in an upstate New York bookstore. Let me know if and where you find her books!
I'm thinking of one place in particular where I know I've seen them. I might have to go by there today and see if there are any there now. I'll let you know if I find one!
Ooo, exciting. My Bret Harte collection came from a used bookstore in Cannon Beach. :-)
Thank you. At least now I know there was something of a precedent for some aspects of female written humor in the 20th and 21st centuries in the 19th.
Yes! I think the sources linked in my notes mention a few other humorists who preceded her. Frances Miriam Whitcher's name appears often. I'm glad you read this one. I thought you might enjoy Holley, such a close contemporary of Harte and Twain.
You've introduced us to such a gem in Marietta Holley. Her first noel - "My Opinions and Betsey Babbet's," needs to find its way to the top of my book pile.
" Holley’s persona used humor for a new end: it made accessible and palatable the ideals of the temperance and suffrage movements . . . . Whereas the earlier comedians had made the woman, particularly the woman’s rights advocate, the butt of their comedy, Holley created characters of both genders who embodied the absurdities of intemperance and antisuffrage.7"
I just did some browsing online and the first place I found a paperback listed in a used storefront was one of those digital reprint publishers that may or may not be legit. I saw the length of the book was listed as 90 pages. That would not be the whole book. AbeBooks has used copies of the real book. I'd look there. Thank you for restacking!
You're welcome Tara , and thanks for the guidance.
What a great profile. Are her books still in print anywhere? I vote we change the spelling of "women" to "wimmin."
Glad you enjoyed meeting Marietta Holley. The only "recent" (1980s) edition that I know of is a collection of her short works edited by Jane Curry, "Samantha Rastles the Woman Question" (1983). Here is the amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/SAMANTHA-RASTLES-QUESTION-Marietta-Holley/dp/0252010205/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3P60O0GKL9YKN&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.QhOA0sximaCAM9oseA-in8HgOEPt4fE2B1e7hRQgRUc.tgwheGnF3doBGVHyI2Z8qXeYPlUA8HTYqgjJqXDI_YQ&dib_tag=se&keywords=marietta+holley+jane+curry&qid=1712876549&sprefix=marietta+holley+jane+curry%2Caps%2C126&sr=8-2.
Beautifully illustrated early editions (there were many editions of most books) turn up in used bookstores. Abe Books is a good place to find some online. (I wouldn't trust any of the modern reprinters who claim to sell recent paperback editions.) My copies all came from a bookstore in central New York state quite a few years back.
"I'm gonna spend my summer swimmin with some wimmin." Makes sense to me. :-)
Great read Tara. I love learning about these unknown to me writers from back in the day.
Thank you, Kim! Glad you enjoyed another one. :-)
Marietta Holly was no Emily Dickinson but her poetry is still worth reading. Thanks for the link.
Women’s history is of enduring interest, as is the history of suffrage, given the conscious development by the Enlightenment of classical thought on governance and the development of representative legislatures. Despite the geographically different pace of emerging mass urban populations, a lot of different nations seem to have ended up in a similar place at roughly the same time (1). America it seems was largely a rural population for longer, an agrarian medley of certain kinds, but 1926 was close to my mother getting the vote in 1928 Britain. (We are still 'subjects', by the way.)
A few thoughts came to mind before I fell asleep last night. There were until recently remnants of different rural cultures having more collective work patterns. I think of 'sisterhoods of work’ in the Gaeltacht of Scotland. The songs seem very different from the 'work songs' in American history. Neighbours, men and women, shared farming activities without the jurisdiction of an employer, and the function of a landlord remained different for a while. I am no anthropologist, but the balance between men and women seems an enduring matter beyond our personhood?
1. Google discovered for me a conversation the Clayman Institute had with Karen Offen in 2020.
Thank you for reading, Philip. It's not hard to see why Elisha Bliss thought Holley's prose voice as Samantha Allen was more distinctive in 1872. I appreciate the lesson that sometimes we may not be the best judges of our own work (or at least, what others will find appealing). Speaking of work songs, I don't know if you're familiar with Louise Haynes's Substack "Social Issues in Song," but if you know some old work songs, she might be interested (or may know of them, too). Her Stack is here: https://louisehaynes.substack.com/. Thank you for these thoughts!
I applaud the poet nevertheless.
The voices of America? I first heard Dickinson while still a young man having fallen asleep in a chair from tiredness with the radio on and woke to 'The doom’s electric moccasin That very instant passed'. and to the prickle on the back of my neck. Thanks for the further link. We are very social animals.
That's a wonderful memory about Emily Dickinson! Thank you for the good chuckle.
I agree with you about Holley's poetry. She wasn't wrong about herself as a poet, but she would not have attracted the same audience for a book of poems. Things are not so changed today. I'd still rather have as many of us writing poems as possible, even if the audience is small.
I'm captivated by this portrait of a Marietta Holley! I had never heard of her or Bliss, but this is truly fascinating.
Wonderful! Glad you enjoyed them. Subscribed to you, too. How has it taken me so long? I love what you're doing with your family history and the history of your mother's home place.
Prompted an interesting thought exercise for me. Obviously writing needs some structure, but it's fairly remarkable how little control we have over what actually comes out, which is pretty cool.
Thank you for commenting, Kevin. I love that mysterious part about writing, too. As often as it happens, there's still some surprise every time a work starts in one place and ends in another.
These books sound amazing Tara, thank you so much for sharing Marietta with us. Interestingly these books would still be very relevant in some areas today with the contrast of opinions on women's rights. A most appropriate topic Dr. Penry, well done!
Thank you, Donna! I agree. I can just see Samantha taking a pregnant niece across a state line for medical service (Josiah driving the horses, of course) and giving a piece of her mind to the officer at the border who tries to arrest her for transporting a minor across state lines now that such things are being policed down here. Marietta Holley needed to train successors in her craft.
Absolutely! Samantha would do that.
This is brilliant! Thanks for sharing your knowledge here about this inadvertently best selling author. It's all part of the ongoing inquiry about publishing trends from the past and how they relate to the present day - and I love it!
Yay! Thank you, Rachel. I'm enjoying this approach to authors, too, and especially enjoying that it rejuvenates characters from the past for more people than just me. :-)