As I mentioned in my last post, one reason Eliza Anderson undertook the editorship of a weekly publication in Baltimore was to raise the level of culture in her hometown, which she appears to have considered a backwater of tackiness and bad taste. (I'm not even going to speculate on what she would think of John Waters!)
So here we have one of those paradoxes that history often presents us with: On the one hand, Anderson is a feminist pioneer, probably the first woman in the United States to edit a magazine. But on the other hand, she's a reactionary defender of "high culture," ridiculing the nouveau riche merchants who don't know their Corinthian columns from their Ionic. As I've discovered in the course of researching other historical figures, actions that we moderns consider "progressive" don't always go hand-in-hand with opinions we ourselves would embrace. The past is complicated, and the people who lived there have to be seen in the context of their times--not through the prism of our 21st-century assumptions.
Anderson's efforts to raise Baltimore's cultural tone, heavily laced with her acid brand of sarcasm, frequently got her in trouble. She started out optimistically enough, writing in the February 7, 1807, issue of The Observer that she planned to "awaken taste ... convinced that our sensible readers will welcome instruction though in the garb of severity." Uh huh.
A couple of weeks later, she's ridiculing a Baltimore builder who admired the new Gothic chapel built by St. Mary's College (and designed by Anderson's future husband) and said that he planned to build one just like it, "but that he would not have pointed windows." (For those who never took art history, pointed windows are a hallmark of the Gothic style.)This solecism was still bothering her in November, when she brought it up again. But, she laments in another column, such things are only to be expected in a place like Baltimore, where "you see columns placed in niches like statues" and "fine houses with steps like a hay loft."
The sins of the tasteless nouveau riche were perhaps most evident in architecture, but Anderson carried her culture crusade into other branches of the arts as well. In June she weighed in on the relative merits of two artists who were having a sort of joint exhibition in Baltimore. While she bemoaned the fact that both artists had been reduced to the indignity of selling their paintings by lottery (one of her frequent themes was the lack of support for starving artists in Baltimore), she made it clear that she thought William Groombridge, who had been formally trained, was far superior to Francis Guy, a self-taught working man whose background was as a tailor and dyer. Anderson lamented that Guy “from want of encouragement reduced to the necessity of making coats and pantaloons ... has not had it in his power to cultivate his talent, nor has he made a single striking step in the art.” Whereas Groombridge, she thought, was a true artist. In fact, the judgment of history has been quite the opposite: Groombridge has been forgotten, while Guy has been praised for his vigorous American primitivism--his paintings of Brooklyn were the subject of a special exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum a few years ago.
But Anderson was, as I have hinted, something of an elitist. Indeed, Anderson's scoffing at Guy and those of his ilk has earned her the dubious honor of a mention in Gordon Wood's magisterial new history of the early Republic, Empire of Liberty. "Anderson," writes Wood, "could not get over the American tendency to believe that mere artisans--tailors and carpenters--could pretend to a taste in painting." Quoting something Anderson wrote in the leading Baltimore newspaper of the time, Wood ridicules her short-sightedness: "Apollo is somewhat aristocratic," Wood has her claiming, "and does not permit of perfect equality in his court ... The Muses are rather saucy, and do not admit of workmen to their levees." Guy, she wrote, should return to his "soul-inspiring avocation of making pantaloons." And just to top things off, Anderson referred to Baltimore as "the Siberia of the arts." (Wood mentions that Anderson was "a female editor," but doesn't seem to find anything remarkable about that fact.)
As we shall see, that "Siberia" remark raised the hackles of some Baltimoreans (or should I say,as Anderson might, "Baltimorons"?)--as did Anderson's scathing criticism of some local musical performances.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Torn in Pieces by Merciless Hounds
Should any reader of this blog want to read the story of Eliza Anderson and "The Observer" in a less staccato--and more scholarly--format, I'd like to announce that an article I wrote about her will be published in the Summer 2010 issue of Maryland Historical Magazine, a publication of the Maryland Historical Society. Alas, while back issues are online, current issues are available online only to subscribers. But I imagine interested non-subscribers could procure a hard copy version. And if you wait long enough, even you non-subscribers should be able to see it online.
So, where were we? Ah yes, Eliza has recently come out of the closet as a female editor, albeit under the pseudonym "Beatrice Ironside." Towards the beginning of her year-long tenure as editor of "The Observer," Anderson treats the issue of her gender lightly, and she seems to expect her readers to do so as well. In her February 28, 1807 column, which she uses as an opportunity to introduce some of her regular contributors--all pseudonymous, of course, and some probably entirely fictional--she describes one of the functions to be filled by a "Reverend Mr. Supple" in the following terms: “That a little Latin and Greek, now and then giving dignity to our lucubrations, may not alarm the bucks and bloods, who abhor learned women, we will inform them, that all such scraps are supplied by our able coadjutor, the Rev. Mr. Supple.” In fact, a little Latin did find its way into "Beatrice Ironside's Budget" on occasion--so it's possible that Anderson was simply being satirical here, as was her wont. Still, the tone is jocular. And who knows, perhaps the Reverend Mr. Supple was actually none other than Anderson herself.
But by April 4, we begin to hear an edge in Anderson's tone: "In a community like this," she writes, as Beatrice, "where the nobler sex are almost entirely engrossed, by parchments, pulses, or price currents, the attempt of a female to promote the cause of taste, literature and morals, by undertaking the arduous employment of editor to a weekly paper, would it should seem, have been cherished with respect, and forwarded with assistance and encouragement... Such were the expectations of Beatrice, such the flattering prospect with which she entered on her new avocation..."
But NO... "Alas! luckless dame, not long were the illusions of thy fancy to deceive thee ... not long e'er the futility of thy hopes was demonstrated, and vexation usurped their empire in thy spirit."
Given the flowery nature of the prose here--even more flowery than usual for "Beatrice"--we can probably safely assume that this is still meant to be somewhat comical. But I detect more than a grain of sincere resentment here. After all, she's been working her tail off, for--as she sees it--the benefit of the citizenry. Whether or not she actually expected to be "cherished with respect," she apparently expected better than what she's getting.
And what is that, exactly? Well, given the passage of time--and the disappearance of contemporary rival publications that may or may not have contained vicious attacks on Anderson--it's hard to tell. Apparently Benjamin Bickerstaff--her erstwhile star columnist, who went off in a huff shortly after the inception of the publication when Eliza, tired of waiting for his copy, ran a different column under his byline--has launched a campaign against her. To hear her tell it, she is being "torn in pieces by ... merciless hounds," who have been egged on, or perhaps led, by Bickerstaff. Now, she says, he has not only given up writing for "The Observer," he has pronounced its doom.
Interestingly, given that Anderson herself is a woman, Bickerstaff--at least according to Anderson--had a good deal of female support. As observant readers will recall, the column that set off Bickerstaff's departure--which was ostensibly written by one "Tabitha Simple," but which was almost certainly penned by Anderson herself--included some remarks critical of Baltimore's female population, singling out certain ones, although not by name. Bickerstaff, in his response, leapt to the defense of these women, who he thought he could identify. Now Anderson describes him sardonically as "the gallant, the benevolent, the magnanimous Benjamin, the oracle of half the little Misses of the city."
But it's clear even from reading Anderson's April 4 column that her gender isn't the only issue inspiring the attacks against her. It's also her penchant for satire, evident even in her description of Baltimore's merchant princes ("the nobler sex") as being "almost entirely engrossed" in grubby monetary pursuits--leaving her, a female, to try to save Baltimore's cultural soul. There's more than a little snobbery evident in Anderson's attitude towards her fellow residents of Baltimore--then a fast-growing mercantile city that, compared to older urban centers such as New York and Philadelphia, was lacking in both landed gentry and the resident artist class that might have been supported by them. As we'll see, in some ways Anderson was fighting against the tide, seemingly nostalgic for an almost feudal time, when the idle rich had what she considered taste and breeding, as well as a sense of their cultural obligations. Or, to put it more sympathetically, she decried the wretched excesses of the nouveau riche and championed the cause of "true," and usually impoverished, artists.
In her column Anderson recognizes that her acid tongue, and not just her gender, is part of the basis for the opposition she sees arrayed against her. But she remains defiant. Sure,she says, she could have published nothing but boring "dissertations on morality"--and gone out of business. She makes it clear that she'd rather publish a lively paper that employs ridicule to combat what she sees as folly, even if she ends up being "torn in pieces" (at least figuratively) as a result. She seems to have believed, as some journalists may today, that it's better to offend people and attract readers than to be careful and polite--and ignored.
So, where were we? Ah yes, Eliza has recently come out of the closet as a female editor, albeit under the pseudonym "Beatrice Ironside." Towards the beginning of her year-long tenure as editor of "The Observer," Anderson treats the issue of her gender lightly, and she seems to expect her readers to do so as well. In her February 28, 1807 column, which she uses as an opportunity to introduce some of her regular contributors--all pseudonymous, of course, and some probably entirely fictional--she describes one of the functions to be filled by a "Reverend Mr. Supple" in the following terms: “That a little Latin and Greek, now and then giving dignity to our lucubrations, may not alarm the bucks and bloods, who abhor learned women, we will inform them, that all such scraps are supplied by our able coadjutor, the Rev. Mr. Supple.” In fact, a little Latin did find its way into "Beatrice Ironside's Budget" on occasion--so it's possible that Anderson was simply being satirical here, as was her wont. Still, the tone is jocular. And who knows, perhaps the Reverend Mr. Supple was actually none other than Anderson herself.
But by April 4, we begin to hear an edge in Anderson's tone: "In a community like this," she writes, as Beatrice, "where the nobler sex are almost entirely engrossed, by parchments, pulses, or price currents, the attempt of a female to promote the cause of taste, literature and morals, by undertaking the arduous employment of editor to a weekly paper, would it should seem, have been cherished with respect, and forwarded with assistance and encouragement... Such were the expectations of Beatrice, such the flattering prospect with which she entered on her new avocation..."
But NO... "Alas! luckless dame, not long were the illusions of thy fancy to deceive thee ... not long e'er the futility of thy hopes was demonstrated, and vexation usurped their empire in thy spirit."
Given the flowery nature of the prose here--even more flowery than usual for "Beatrice"--we can probably safely assume that this is still meant to be somewhat comical. But I detect more than a grain of sincere resentment here. After all, she's been working her tail off, for--as she sees it--the benefit of the citizenry. Whether or not she actually expected to be "cherished with respect," she apparently expected better than what she's getting.
And what is that, exactly? Well, given the passage of time--and the disappearance of contemporary rival publications that may or may not have contained vicious attacks on Anderson--it's hard to tell. Apparently Benjamin Bickerstaff--her erstwhile star columnist, who went off in a huff shortly after the inception of the publication when Eliza, tired of waiting for his copy, ran a different column under his byline--has launched a campaign against her. To hear her tell it, she is being "torn in pieces by ... merciless hounds," who have been egged on, or perhaps led, by Bickerstaff. Now, she says, he has not only given up writing for "The Observer," he has pronounced its doom.
Interestingly, given that Anderson herself is a woman, Bickerstaff--at least according to Anderson--had a good deal of female support. As observant readers will recall, the column that set off Bickerstaff's departure--which was ostensibly written by one "Tabitha Simple," but which was almost certainly penned by Anderson herself--included some remarks critical of Baltimore's female population, singling out certain ones, although not by name. Bickerstaff, in his response, leapt to the defense of these women, who he thought he could identify. Now Anderson describes him sardonically as "the gallant, the benevolent, the magnanimous Benjamin, the oracle of half the little Misses of the city."
But it's clear even from reading Anderson's April 4 column that her gender isn't the only issue inspiring the attacks against her. It's also her penchant for satire, evident even in her description of Baltimore's merchant princes ("the nobler sex") as being "almost entirely engrossed" in grubby monetary pursuits--leaving her, a female, to try to save Baltimore's cultural soul. There's more than a little snobbery evident in Anderson's attitude towards her fellow residents of Baltimore--then a fast-growing mercantile city that, compared to older urban centers such as New York and Philadelphia, was lacking in both landed gentry and the resident artist class that might have been supported by them. As we'll see, in some ways Anderson was fighting against the tide, seemingly nostalgic for an almost feudal time, when the idle rich had what she considered taste and breeding, as well as a sense of their cultural obligations. Or, to put it more sympathetically, she decried the wretched excesses of the nouveau riche and championed the cause of "true," and usually impoverished, artists.
In her column Anderson recognizes that her acid tongue, and not just her gender, is part of the basis for the opposition she sees arrayed against her. But she remains defiant. Sure,she says, she could have published nothing but boring "dissertations on morality"--and gone out of business. She makes it clear that she'd rather publish a lively paper that employs ridicule to combat what she sees as folly, even if she ends up being "torn in pieces" (at least figuratively) as a result. She seems to have believed, as some journalists may today, that it's better to offend people and attract readers than to be careful and polite--and ignored.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
O Brave New Editors
Is there any headier experience than running your own publication when you're still in your twenties? Perhaps it isn't everyone's cup of tea, but for those of us bitten by the journalism bug, it may well be the best time of our lives. And having been on both ends of the journalism transaction--writer and editor--I know that it's way more fun to be in the driver's seat than to be the hitch-hiker by the side of the road watching the cars fly past.
When I was in college, I wasn't exactly running a publication, but I did have responsibility for filling the features page three times a week--and that was plenty of responsibility, as far as I was concerned. I got to think up story ideas, assign them to others or (more often than I planned) write them myself, come up with clever headlines and graphics, design the layout ... in short, wield journalistic power. Of course, there were frequent crises: writers that were MIA as deadlines approached, stories that came in with serious problems, photos that got lost somewhere in the darkroom (yes, in those days we had a darkroom) ... whatever. But even the crises were exhilarating. And the cameraderie born of sharing all this joy and angst with my colleagues was--while temporary and situational--genuine and memorable.
My son (who is the most faithful, if not the only, reader of this blog) has just come off what I presume is a similar experience editing his own college publication--where, as editor-in-chief, he had way more responsibility than I did, and was far more innovative and thoughtful in his approach. He may well go far in journalism, which, despite the fact that the industry seems to be imploding, is his chosen field of endeavor, at least for now. But I wonder if he'll ever have as much fun again. (Sam: I know it wasn't ALL fun, but believe, me, it will seem more and more like nonstop fun as the years go by.)
So I think I (and perhaps my son) can relate to the enthusiasm with which Eliza Anderson, at the age of 26, must have approached her new post as editor of a fledgling magazine in 1807. We don't know exactly how her rise to this position came about, but she probably started out by submitting articles, under pseudonyms of course, to a publication called the Companion. The editors of the Companion--all men, and all apparently busy with their studies or occupations and hard pressed to find the time to edit this magazine they'd launched--may well have recognized her talent (perhaps without recognizing her true gender) and begun publishing her submissions regularly. At some point they appear to have taken advantage of her enthusiasm and availability and started transferring some editorial responsibilities to her, because she appears to have functioned as a sort of associate or deputy editor in the final months of the Companion's run.
Then, at last, she elbows her way out of the shadows--or, perhaps, the men who have been out in front of her all trickle away, distracted by other pursuits--and emerges as editor-in-chief of a new successor publication, one that conforms to her own ideas of what a magazine should be (that is: tart, satirical, and critical of absurdity, pretension and folly). A dream come true! And she takes a new pseudonym, one that is forthrightly female: Beatrice Ironside.
A few weeks after taking the helm of this new magazine, the Observer, she introduces herself under the heading, "Beatrice Ironside's Budget: Speak of Me As I Am." Acknowledging that "much curiosity [has] been excited to know, what manner of woman our female editor may be," she proceeds to describe herself. She seems to be trying to reassure her readers that she is not a creature of extremes, but rather will function as an understanding and moderating presence. She is, she says, "old enough to have set aside some of the levities of youth, and young enough to remember, that she has had her share of them," and she proclaims herself "neither a misanthrope nor an optimist." Nevertheless, her optimism--indeed, her exuberance--fairly leaps off the page.
What she doesn't dwell on, at least not explicitly, is the fact that she's female--perhaps the first female in the country to edit a publication of this sort. But, like the proverbial 800-pound gorilla, it's a fact that can't be entirely ignored. She apparently feels the need to describe her appearance, something a male editor might have chosen to omit ("neither ugly enough to frighten a fiery courser from his repast, nor handsome enough for the Parson of the Parish to turn aside from his discourse whilst he admires her beauty"). And she assures her readers that her particular experience renders her more qualified for this editorial position than most members of her sex: "Accident having thrown her much more in the busy throng, than generally falls to the lot of woman, she has thereby acquired a knowledge of human nature which will assist her much in prosecuting this her work."
But what she seems most intent on explaining is that her prime subject will be "the vices and follies that fall beneath her notice," which she intends to "lash with the utmost force of satire she can command." With the memory of the recent "Tabitha Simple" debacle still sharp in her mind--a contretemps that led to the departure of her star columnist--she protests that she won't be targeting any particular individuals, but she acknowledges that she may "touch a picture with such lively strokes, that folly perceives its likeness, and is enraged at the dexterity of the artist."
True dat, as they say these days (and having just penned a satirical novel myself, I'm well aware of the possibility of outrage). But Eliza--or "Beatrice"--claims that she couldn't care less how enraged people get: "She happens to have been so luckily constructed, that she can turn an iron-side to the proud man's contumely (or woman's either)."
As it turned out, Beatrice wasn't quite as iron-sided as she thought. But she was right about one thing: "Mistress Beatrice, if publicly attacked, will not fail to defend herself, and Porcupine-like, she will always have a quill [i.e., a pen] ready to dart at those who may assail her."
When I was in college, I wasn't exactly running a publication, but I did have responsibility for filling the features page three times a week--and that was plenty of responsibility, as far as I was concerned. I got to think up story ideas, assign them to others or (more often than I planned) write them myself, come up with clever headlines and graphics, design the layout ... in short, wield journalistic power. Of course, there were frequent crises: writers that were MIA as deadlines approached, stories that came in with serious problems, photos that got lost somewhere in the darkroom (yes, in those days we had a darkroom) ... whatever. But even the crises were exhilarating. And the cameraderie born of sharing all this joy and angst with my colleagues was--while temporary and situational--genuine and memorable.
My son (who is the most faithful, if not the only, reader of this blog) has just come off what I presume is a similar experience editing his own college publication--where, as editor-in-chief, he had way more responsibility than I did, and was far more innovative and thoughtful in his approach. He may well go far in journalism, which, despite the fact that the industry seems to be imploding, is his chosen field of endeavor, at least for now. But I wonder if he'll ever have as much fun again. (Sam: I know it wasn't ALL fun, but believe, me, it will seem more and more like nonstop fun as the years go by.)
So I think I (and perhaps my son) can relate to the enthusiasm with which Eliza Anderson, at the age of 26, must have approached her new post as editor of a fledgling magazine in 1807. We don't know exactly how her rise to this position came about, but she probably started out by submitting articles, under pseudonyms of course, to a publication called the Companion. The editors of the Companion--all men, and all apparently busy with their studies or occupations and hard pressed to find the time to edit this magazine they'd launched--may well have recognized her talent (perhaps without recognizing her true gender) and begun publishing her submissions regularly. At some point they appear to have taken advantage of her enthusiasm and availability and started transferring some editorial responsibilities to her, because she appears to have functioned as a sort of associate or deputy editor in the final months of the Companion's run.
Then, at last, she elbows her way out of the shadows--or, perhaps, the men who have been out in front of her all trickle away, distracted by other pursuits--and emerges as editor-in-chief of a new successor publication, one that conforms to her own ideas of what a magazine should be (that is: tart, satirical, and critical of absurdity, pretension and folly). A dream come true! And she takes a new pseudonym, one that is forthrightly female: Beatrice Ironside.
A few weeks after taking the helm of this new magazine, the Observer, she introduces herself under the heading, "Beatrice Ironside's Budget: Speak of Me As I Am." Acknowledging that "much curiosity [has] been excited to know, what manner of woman our female editor may be," she proceeds to describe herself. She seems to be trying to reassure her readers that she is not a creature of extremes, but rather will function as an understanding and moderating presence. She is, she says, "old enough to have set aside some of the levities of youth, and young enough to remember, that she has had her share of them," and she proclaims herself "neither a misanthrope nor an optimist." Nevertheless, her optimism--indeed, her exuberance--fairly leaps off the page.
What she doesn't dwell on, at least not explicitly, is the fact that she's female--perhaps the first female in the country to edit a publication of this sort. But, like the proverbial 800-pound gorilla, it's a fact that can't be entirely ignored. She apparently feels the need to describe her appearance, something a male editor might have chosen to omit ("neither ugly enough to frighten a fiery courser from his repast, nor handsome enough for the Parson of the Parish to turn aside from his discourse whilst he admires her beauty"). And she assures her readers that her particular experience renders her more qualified for this editorial position than most members of her sex: "Accident having thrown her much more in the busy throng, than generally falls to the lot of woman, she has thereby acquired a knowledge of human nature which will assist her much in prosecuting this her work."
But what she seems most intent on explaining is that her prime subject will be "the vices and follies that fall beneath her notice," which she intends to "lash with the utmost force of satire she can command." With the memory of the recent "Tabitha Simple" debacle still sharp in her mind--a contretemps that led to the departure of her star columnist--she protests that she won't be targeting any particular individuals, but she acknowledges that she may "touch a picture with such lively strokes, that folly perceives its likeness, and is enraged at the dexterity of the artist."
True dat, as they say these days (and having just penned a satirical novel myself, I'm well aware of the possibility of outrage). But Eliza--or "Beatrice"--claims that she couldn't care less how enraged people get: "She happens to have been so luckily constructed, that she can turn an iron-side to the proud man's contumely (or woman's either)."
As it turned out, Beatrice wasn't quite as iron-sided as she thought. But she was right about one thing: "Mistress Beatrice, if publicly attacked, will not fail to defend herself, and Porcupine-like, she will always have a quill [i.e., a pen] ready to dart at those who may assail her."
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Beatrice Ironside
The January 31, 1807 issue of the Observer--the one that carried Benjamin Bickerstaff's resignation and the riposte of the editor, Eliza Anderson--was also the first one to introduce the name "Beatrice Ironside." Like Benjamin Bickerstaff, this was a pseudonym--in this case, a pseudonym for Anderson herself. But in the January 31 issue, it appeared only as a name under the masthead, which for the first time carried the words "by Beatrice Ironside."
It wasn't until the following week that the pseudonym appeared in the body of the magazine, under an editorial note addressed to "Readers and Correspondents" (who were, in many cases, one and the same). In a way, this is Anderson coming out of the closet, so to speak: it's both a description of the magazine and an invitation to prospective contributors, something that you might expect to find in a magazine's first issue or prospectus. The fact that this editorial didn't appear until after Bickerstaff went off in a huff leads me to suspect that, although Anderson was referred to as editor while he was still there, he was actually exerting quite a bit of editorial control. In any event, the rift between the two was decidedly bitter, judging from some editorial jousting later in the year.
In the note, "Ironside" catalogued the subjects the Observer would touch on--and a pretty exhaustive catalogue it is: the fine arts, history, poetry, fiction, even politics (although "Ironside" says that she herself "has never so much attended to the subject of politics as to entitle her to an opinion," and makes it clear that the publication will be nonpartisan). In this eclecticism, the Observer was similar to other "literary miscellanies" of the day.
And like its contemporary periodicals, the Observer relied on submissions from unpaid contributors, many of which apparently came in over the transom. Aside from Bickerstaff, who had now departed, Anderson appears to have been the only writer on staff, as it were. In her note to readers and contributors, Anderson thanked some of those who had sent in articles and poems and encouraged them to write more. (This included a writer she names as "Judith O'Donnelly," but then refers to as "he"--an indication, perhaps, that she knew the pseudonym was being used by a man.) Other contributors, however, were actively discouraged, including one who had sent "two or three pages that must be the production of some moon-struck brain ... We beg this gentleman henceforth to address us only in his lucid intervals."
One problem was that contributors were sending their submissions with postage due--so that Anderson had to pay for the privilege of reading these offerings, some of which "immediately found their way from our fingers to the fire." This was, as she put it, very expensive fuel, and she announced that henceforth all submissions must arrive with their postage paid.
It wasn't until a couple of weeks later, though, that Anderson, in the guise of Beatrice Ironside, would undertake the task of satisfying public curiosity about, as she put it, "what manner of woman our female editor may be"--and explaining the derivation of her pseudonym.
It wasn't until the following week that the pseudonym appeared in the body of the magazine, under an editorial note addressed to "Readers and Correspondents" (who were, in many cases, one and the same). In a way, this is Anderson coming out of the closet, so to speak: it's both a description of the magazine and an invitation to prospective contributors, something that you might expect to find in a magazine's first issue or prospectus. The fact that this editorial didn't appear until after Bickerstaff went off in a huff leads me to suspect that, although Anderson was referred to as editor while he was still there, he was actually exerting quite a bit of editorial control. In any event, the rift between the two was decidedly bitter, judging from some editorial jousting later in the year.
In the note, "Ironside" catalogued the subjects the Observer would touch on--and a pretty exhaustive catalogue it is: the fine arts, history, poetry, fiction, even politics (although "Ironside" says that she herself "has never so much attended to the subject of politics as to entitle her to an opinion," and makes it clear that the publication will be nonpartisan). In this eclecticism, the Observer was similar to other "literary miscellanies" of the day.
And like its contemporary periodicals, the Observer relied on submissions from unpaid contributors, many of which apparently came in over the transom. Aside from Bickerstaff, who had now departed, Anderson appears to have been the only writer on staff, as it were. In her note to readers and contributors, Anderson thanked some of those who had sent in articles and poems and encouraged them to write more. (This included a writer she names as "Judith O'Donnelly," but then refers to as "he"--an indication, perhaps, that she knew the pseudonym was being used by a man.) Other contributors, however, were actively discouraged, including one who had sent "two or three pages that must be the production of some moon-struck brain ... We beg this gentleman henceforth to address us only in his lucid intervals."
One problem was that contributors were sending their submissions with postage due--so that Anderson had to pay for the privilege of reading these offerings, some of which "immediately found their way from our fingers to the fire." This was, as she put it, very expensive fuel, and she announced that henceforth all submissions must arrive with their postage paid.
It wasn't until a couple of weeks later, though, that Anderson, in the guise of Beatrice Ironside, would undertake the task of satisfying public curiosity about, as she put it, "what manner of woman our female editor may be"--and explaining the derivation of her pseudonym.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Sister Editors
When I first came across the fact that Eliza Anderson had founded and edited a magazine at the age of 26 in 1807, I thought: hmmm, that seems unusual. But at that point I didn't realize how unusual it really was.
I started doing some research into the history of women editors and journalists, and I was startled to discover that (a) nobody knew about Eliza Anderson, and (b) the secondary sources that talked about 19th-century women editors identified another woman--a woman who came after Anderson--as the first women to edit a magazine. For example, an online database identifying 65 women who edited periodicals or served as printers before 1820 doesn't mention Anderson. And her name doesn't appear in a list of over 600 female editors of the 19th century that appears as an appendix to a book called Our Sister Editors, by Patricia Okker.
That book identifies a woman named Mary Clarke Carr as probably the first woman to edit a magazine in the United States, as does an amazing book about Clarke Carr called Dangerous to Know, by Susan Branson. (Clarke Carr was the ghostwriter for a scandalous memoir by a woman who tried to rescue her lover from the gallows and kidnapped the governor of Pennsylvania; Branson's book reads almost like a novel.) Clarke Carr began editing and publishing a women's magazine with the charming name of the Intellectual Regale, or Ladies Tea Tray, in Philadelphia in 1814.
Not to take anything away from Clarke Carr's achievement, but here's the thing: Clarke Carr, and almost all the women editors of the 19th century who came after her, edited magazines for women. These women editors embraced their peculiarly female role, preferring to call themselves "editresses" rather than editors. But not only did Anderson predate them, her magazine didn't confine itself to what were considered women's concerns (cooking, fashion, household advice--along with some fiction and poetry). On the contrary, Anderson clearly saw the Observer as a general-interest magazine, taking on any and all cultural issues of the day--and she never referred to herself as an editress. And while the Observer wasn't primarily political--politics being a preserve that was seen as exclusively male--it invited and sometimes published pieces that touched on political issues.
In her book Our Sister Editors, Okker mentions that a woman named Frances Wright edited a general-interest magazine called the New Harmony Gazette in 1825--possibly the next instance of this after Anderson's one-year stint as editor of the Observer. But New Harmony was a utopian socialist community in the wilds of Indiana--presumably a more receptive locale for this sort of thing than conservative, merchant-dominated Baltimore.
Okker does quote a woman who had an experience similar to Anderson's own: Jane Grey Swisshelm, who was the editor and publisher of an antislavery periodical in Pittsburgh in 1848. Characterizing a male editor's reaction to her undertaking, Swisshelm wrote: "A woman had started a political paper! A woman! Could he believe his eyes! A woman!”
As we'll see, forty-one years earlier Eliza Anderson was moved to voice sentiments that echoed--or should I say presaged--Swisshelm's almost word for word.
I started doing some research into the history of women editors and journalists, and I was startled to discover that (a) nobody knew about Eliza Anderson, and (b) the secondary sources that talked about 19th-century women editors identified another woman--a woman who came after Anderson--as the first women to edit a magazine. For example, an online database identifying 65 women who edited periodicals or served as printers before 1820 doesn't mention Anderson. And her name doesn't appear in a list of over 600 female editors of the 19th century that appears as an appendix to a book called Our Sister Editors, by Patricia Okker.
That book identifies a woman named Mary Clarke Carr as probably the first woman to edit a magazine in the United States, as does an amazing book about Clarke Carr called Dangerous to Know, by Susan Branson. (Clarke Carr was the ghostwriter for a scandalous memoir by a woman who tried to rescue her lover from the gallows and kidnapped the governor of Pennsylvania; Branson's book reads almost like a novel.) Clarke Carr began editing and publishing a women's magazine with the charming name of the Intellectual Regale, or Ladies Tea Tray, in Philadelphia in 1814.
Not to take anything away from Clarke Carr's achievement, but here's the thing: Clarke Carr, and almost all the women editors of the 19th century who came after her, edited magazines for women. These women editors embraced their peculiarly female role, preferring to call themselves "editresses" rather than editors. But not only did Anderson predate them, her magazine didn't confine itself to what were considered women's concerns (cooking, fashion, household advice--along with some fiction and poetry). On the contrary, Anderson clearly saw the Observer as a general-interest magazine, taking on any and all cultural issues of the day--and she never referred to herself as an editress. And while the Observer wasn't primarily political--politics being a preserve that was seen as exclusively male--it invited and sometimes published pieces that touched on political issues.
In her book Our Sister Editors, Okker mentions that a woman named Frances Wright edited a general-interest magazine called the New Harmony Gazette in 1825--possibly the next instance of this after Anderson's one-year stint as editor of the Observer. But New Harmony was a utopian socialist community in the wilds of Indiana--presumably a more receptive locale for this sort of thing than conservative, merchant-dominated Baltimore.
Okker does quote a woman who had an experience similar to Anderson's own: Jane Grey Swisshelm, who was the editor and publisher of an antislavery periodical in Pittsburgh in 1848. Characterizing a male editor's reaction to her undertaking, Swisshelm wrote: "A woman had started a political paper! A woman! Could he believe his eyes! A woman!”
As we'll see, forty-one years earlier Eliza Anderson was moved to voice sentiments that echoed--or should I say presaged--Swisshelm's almost word for word.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
An Openly Female Editor
It has been suggested by an astute reader of this blog that Eliza Anderson, confronted with Benjamin Bickerstaff's revelation in the pages of the Observer that its editor (Eliza herself) was a "she," could simply have edited out the indiscreet pronoun.
Indeed, she could have -- and one might have expected her to, given the effort to conceal her gender in the first few issues. But in fact, Anderson not only failed to edit out the pronoun, she actually used it herself in the very same issue in which Bickerstaff's swansong appeared, in a notice headed "To Readers and Correspondents." In keeping with the convention of the time, this unsigned editorial referred to the editor in the third person,and it's replete with instances of "her" and "she." Defending her decision to publish the "Tabitha Simple" letter that had appeared in the previous issue, for example, Anderson wrote that "the Editor, conscious of the innocence of her intentions, and persuaded as she still is, that the letter ... contained nothing that in the eye of impartiality could be deemed reprehensible, ... she ventured without hesitation to commit it to the hands of the printer."
What prompted Anderson to drop the mask at this point? I haven't found any explanation, but it's possible that everyone (or everyone who mattered) already knew who the editor of the Observer was anyway. Baltimore, despite being the third largest city in the country in 1807, was still in some ways a small town. The group of literati that was likely to be reading the Observer (some of whom were publishing their own magazines) was probably fairly ingrown. Certainly by October the editor's identity was an open secret -- there's an article in the local paper identifying her as "Mrs. E.A." Whether that was true in January, when the Tabitha Simple debacle occurred, isn't clear.
Another possibility is that Anderson didn't think revealing her gender would be such a big deal. While it doesn't seem to have been at first, within a few months things would change rather dramatically.
In any event, in Anderson's first foray as, shall we say, an openly female editor, she revealed many of the characteristics that would mark--for better or worse--her editorial tenure. Although she may well have been upset that Bickerstaff had been moved to announce his resignation from the Observer, she clearly wasn't about to grovel before him; the most she would admit was that publishing the letter, under his byline, without his prior approval "may possibly require apology." She defended herself with vigor and relish, a happy warrior--and defended "Tabitha" as well, who, it was now obvious, was none other than Anderson herself (she explained that she was taking up the cause because "Tabitha is prevented, by imperious circumstances, from appearing at present in her own defence").
But what really marked Anderson's editorial was her gleeful use of satire in order to skewer what she saw as folly and affectation. In an ostensible effort to mollify the young woman who had assumed she was the model for the writhing young lady who had been compared to an eel in the letter, Anderson only twisted the knife further. That young woman hadn't been her target, Anderson asserted: she had actually been thinking of another female who was in fact far superior, one to whom the mistaken young woman was no more than "as a twinkling star to a resplendent sun." Moreover,the woman she had actually been describing was now in "the cold and silent grave"--not an entirely plausible claim, since the letter published the week before had mentioned seeing her just "the other evening."
Obviously, Anderson wasn't too concerned about hurting people's feelings. This was a trait that would come back to haunt her in the months to come.
Indeed, she could have -- and one might have expected her to, given the effort to conceal her gender in the first few issues. But in fact, Anderson not only failed to edit out the pronoun, she actually used it herself in the very same issue in which Bickerstaff's swansong appeared, in a notice headed "To Readers and Correspondents." In keeping with the convention of the time, this unsigned editorial referred to the editor in the third person,and it's replete with instances of "her" and "she." Defending her decision to publish the "Tabitha Simple" letter that had appeared in the previous issue, for example, Anderson wrote that "the Editor, conscious of the innocence of her intentions, and persuaded as she still is, that the letter ... contained nothing that in the eye of impartiality could be deemed reprehensible, ... she ventured without hesitation to commit it to the hands of the printer."
What prompted Anderson to drop the mask at this point? I haven't found any explanation, but it's possible that everyone (or everyone who mattered) already knew who the editor of the Observer was anyway. Baltimore, despite being the third largest city in the country in 1807, was still in some ways a small town. The group of literati that was likely to be reading the Observer (some of whom were publishing their own magazines) was probably fairly ingrown. Certainly by October the editor's identity was an open secret -- there's an article in the local paper identifying her as "Mrs. E.A." Whether that was true in January, when the Tabitha Simple debacle occurred, isn't clear.
Another possibility is that Anderson didn't think revealing her gender would be such a big deal. While it doesn't seem to have been at first, within a few months things would change rather dramatically.
In any event, in Anderson's first foray as, shall we say, an openly female editor, she revealed many of the characteristics that would mark--for better or worse--her editorial tenure. Although she may well have been upset that Bickerstaff had been moved to announce his resignation from the Observer, she clearly wasn't about to grovel before him; the most she would admit was that publishing the letter, under his byline, without his prior approval "may possibly require apology." She defended herself with vigor and relish, a happy warrior--and defended "Tabitha" as well, who, it was now obvious, was none other than Anderson herself (she explained that she was taking up the cause because "Tabitha is prevented, by imperious circumstances, from appearing at present in her own defence").
But what really marked Anderson's editorial was her gleeful use of satire in order to skewer what she saw as folly and affectation. In an ostensible effort to mollify the young woman who had assumed she was the model for the writhing young lady who had been compared to an eel in the letter, Anderson only twisted the knife further. That young woman hadn't been her target, Anderson asserted: she had actually been thinking of another female who was in fact far superior, one to whom the mistaken young woman was no more than "as a twinkling star to a resplendent sun." Moreover,the woman she had actually been describing was now in "the cold and silent grave"--not an entirely plausible claim, since the letter published the week before had mentioned seeing her just "the other evening."
Obviously, Anderson wasn't too concerned about hurting people's feelings. This was a trait that would come back to haunt her in the months to come.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
"The Lucubrations of Benjamin Bickerstaff"
It was a pretty extraordinary thing for a woman to found and edit a magazine in 1807. Hence, I suppose, the subterfuge masking the true sex of the editor of the Observer in its very early days. Benjamin Latrobe, who clearly knew he was writing for the magazine edited by "Mrs. Anderson," nevertheless addressed the editor as "my dear Sir." And a columnist known to us by the pseudonym "Benjamin Bickerstaff"--an allusion to "Isaac Bickerstaff," a pseudonym used by the writer Richard Steele in the 18th-century publication The Tatler--referred to his "friend" the editor as "he."
But it was a dispute with this very Bickerstaff that soon led to the surprisingly casual revelation that the editor was not a "he" but a "she"--perhaps the first "she" to edit a magazine in the United States. In what was only his second or third column--headed "The Lucubrations of Benjamin Bickerstaff"--Bickerstaff undertook to praise the females of Baltimore. The following week, under the same heading, there appeared an article that was clearly not written by Bickerstaff. It was signed "Tabitha Simple," and it purported to be a letter that took issue with some of Bickerstaff's praise. While Simple declared herself charmed by Bickerstaff's admiration for Baltimore girls, she suggested that they were just a tad affected. To prove her point, she zeroed in on "a lovely creature" she had seen "the other evening at the assembly," who had been so intent on "displaying the perfect symmetry of her form" that she had "writhed her person about like an eel in the ruthless grip of a cook."
The following week's issue carried an indignant response from Bickerstaff--who said that the Tabitha Simple letter had been printed, under his "byline," as it were, without any advance notice to him. (The editor admitted as much, but implied that the situation was desperate because Bickerstaff was late with his copy.) Apparently a number of young women in Baltimore had concluded that Tabitha Simple's criticism was directed at them, and the gallant Bickerstaff sprang to the defense of them all. He even went so far as to argue that Tabitha Simple could not really be a woman, because "no woman could have written such a letter."
In the course of defending the female population of Baltimore against this perceived attack, Bickerstaff--perhaps inadvertently--revealed that the editor of the Observer was in fact a member of that very population. "The subject of this lucubration," he wrote, "may probably be unpleasant to the editor of this miscellany, but I am compelled to declare, that I have suffered more pain than she can possibly experience." (I added the italics.)
So pained was he, in fact, that he declared that "nothing shall hereafter, appear in the Observer, EITHER FROM THE PEN OR UNDER THE NAME OF BENJAMIN BICKERSTAFF." (The italics--and the capital letters--are in the original.)
Which suddenly left our editor not only unmasked, at least in terms of her gender, but without her star writer ... What was she to do?
But it was a dispute with this very Bickerstaff that soon led to the surprisingly casual revelation that the editor was not a "he" but a "she"--perhaps the first "she" to edit a magazine in the United States. In what was only his second or third column--headed "The Lucubrations of Benjamin Bickerstaff"--Bickerstaff undertook to praise the females of Baltimore. The following week, under the same heading, there appeared an article that was clearly not written by Bickerstaff. It was signed "Tabitha Simple," and it purported to be a letter that took issue with some of Bickerstaff's praise. While Simple declared herself charmed by Bickerstaff's admiration for Baltimore girls, she suggested that they were just a tad affected. To prove her point, she zeroed in on "a lovely creature" she had seen "the other evening at the assembly," who had been so intent on "displaying the perfect symmetry of her form" that she had "writhed her person about like an eel in the ruthless grip of a cook."
The following week's issue carried an indignant response from Bickerstaff--who said that the Tabitha Simple letter had been printed, under his "byline," as it were, without any advance notice to him. (The editor admitted as much, but implied that the situation was desperate because Bickerstaff was late with his copy.) Apparently a number of young women in Baltimore had concluded that Tabitha Simple's criticism was directed at them, and the gallant Bickerstaff sprang to the defense of them all. He even went so far as to argue that Tabitha Simple could not really be a woman, because "no woman could have written such a letter."
In the course of defending the female population of Baltimore against this perceived attack, Bickerstaff--perhaps inadvertently--revealed that the editor of the Observer was in fact a member of that very population. "The subject of this lucubration," he wrote, "may probably be unpleasant to the editor of this miscellany, but I am compelled to declare, that I have suffered more pain than she can possibly experience." (I added the italics.)
So pained was he, in fact, that he declared that "nothing shall hereafter, appear in the Observer, EITHER FROM THE PEN OR UNDER THE NAME OF BENJAMIN BICKERSTAFF." (The italics--and the capital letters--are in the original.)
Which suddenly left our editor not only unmasked, at least in terms of her gender, but without her star writer ... What was she to do?
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