EARLY WOMEN WRITERS & Finding the Time to Write

Many of us who post on this blog are writers. We are constantly researching, working to promote our work, keep up with our readers, work outside the home and try to find time to tell the stories that are in our hearts and minds. We work in a world of constant distraction. But what of the women who wrote books in the early years.?

Helen Hunt Jackson wrote not only poetry, but essays and romance novels. Sara Jane Lippencott aka Grace Greenwood not only wrote essays,poetry, worked as a correspondent and also booked speaking engagements. And who can forget Isabella Bird, who traveled the world and then combined letters to her sister to create the books "A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains" and "The Yangtze Valley and Beyond: An Account of Journeys in China" to name a few.

Sara Jane Lipencott
from Wikepedia

But what of the 'professional' women? One doctor, Geneveive Tucker, wrote a book titled "Mother, Baby, and Nursery: A Manual for Mothers" which was published in 1896. I found the subject and information fascinating. Here from the preface is the gold of the author for the book.

 The object of the author in presenting this work is to furnish a practical summary of the infant's hygiene and physical development. The aim of the book is to be a guide to mothers, particularly young and inexperienced ones. It purposes to teach and help a mother to understand her babe, to feed it properly, to place it in healthful surroundings, and to watch its growth and development with intelligence, and thus relieve in a measure the undue anxiety and nervous uncertainty of a new mother. The book is not intended in any measure to take the place of a physician, but rather to aid the physician in teaching the mother to care properly for her babe when well, that she may better nurse it when sick.

Then of course there were the autobiographies.

Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell wrote: "Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women; Autobiographical Sketches"

Harriot Kesia Hunt wrote: "Glances and Glimpses: or, Fifty Years Social, including Twenty Years Professional Life"

Helena Modjeska wrote: Memories and Impressions of Helena Modjeska: An Autobiography"

Helena Modjeska
from Wikepedia

So who were these 'profesional' women? Most have heard of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in the United States to graduate from a medical school. But, Harriot Kesia Hunt was a doctor in Boston in the 1830s who  acquired her skills by studying with a male doctor. She had applied to Harvard medical school in 1847, the first female to apply, and was turned down. She was later granted an honorary degree from the Female Medical College in Philadelphia in 1853.

Helena Modjeska was an actress of some fame in the late 1800s who had been a star in Poland, but moved to the United States and began performing here. When she first arrived her performances were done somewhat phonetically, but she persevered and became one of the top Shakespearean actresses of her time.

Dr. Genevieve Tucker, who was appalled at infant mortality rate, stated “Decrease in infant mortality will be brought about more by strict hygiene and prevention of sickness then by any treatment of disease already begun, no matter how skillfully applied.” Dr. Tucker had a  practiced in Pueblo, Colorado, and in 1898 she was elected president of the Colorado Homeopathic Medical Society. 

Were the writings of these women best sellers? Who knows? But most of these works are still available either in print or in the public domain and give an insight into the world of the late 1800s and early 1900s. 

We can only hope our works, be they fiction or non-fiction, bring knowledge and joy to our readers. We truly love telling our stories for you. As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, know we are thankful for all of you.

Speaking of babies and women doctors, here is an excerpt from my book "Josie's Dream", a story about a women who wanted to be a doctor more than almost anything.

Josie was exhausted and it showed in her walk and stance. The day had been one full of one emergency after another. The day started with Homer and his lessons, but quickly dissolved into a couple of broken bones, the Fresch boy, who had gotten his cast wet, and cuts and scrapes. Just when things looked like they would slow down, she’d had to go out to the Kruger homestead to assist Mrs. Kruger, who had gone into labor early and was having difficulty.

Josie was pleased that mother and baby were doing fine. Still, she’d had a bit of trouble convincing Mrs. Kruger and her husband that ‘laying in’ was not the best for mother and child. When she’d had Mr. Kruger, who was nervous about his first child, start to boil water, he’d no idea it was to wash the sheets. But wash them she had, after enlisting the poor father’s help. In the end, when she explained about cleanliness and the way it would help with Mrs. Kruger getting better more quickly, he fell right in. The love and pride the two had for each other and their son gave Josie hope for the future. She knew she would probably not get married for she knew most men wouldn’t want such an independent woman who had her own job. She also knew she’d never get a quilt that her grandmother made for the grand children who married. That thought made her sad. But she’d made her choice.

It was on days such as this, when she was tired but pleased with her day, that Josie wondered what the world would be like in another fifty years. Would doctors still be visiting patients, or would there be hospitals where those same patients could stay if there were complications. What would her life be like? The world continued on and, Josie knew, advances were being made in so many areas.

Thinking of Mrs. Packham, and her problems with the twins and their struggle to thrive after getting the poisoned food, Josie dreamed of a time when medicine would be able to help speed recovery or eradicate disease altogether. When the science had advanced enough, doctors would be able to tell if people like Mrs. Kruger were going to have complications. 

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Doris Gardner-McCraw -

Author, Speaker, Historian-specializing in
Colorado and Women's History

Member of National League of American Pen Women,

Women Writing the West,

Pikes Peak Posse of the Westerners

Western Fictioneers

Angela Raines - author: Where Love & History Meet

For a list of Angela Raines Books: Here 

Photo and Poem: Click Here 

Angela Raines FaceBook: Click Here

LYRICAL DESCRIPTION #WomenAuthors #SweetAmericanaSweethearts

For many writers description can be painful or enjoyable. For me, it's a bit of both. When I read a beautiful passage I think, will I ever paint a picture as beautiful as that?

As I continue to research women from the 1800s I find myself transported by the writing of those early women. Is is verbose? Sometimes it is, yet there is a beauty to those words I admire. This post is composed of examples that have stuck a chord in me. All were written in the early 1870s as these women traversed the area between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean. I hope you  enjoy them as well.

From Isabella Bird in her book "A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains"

There was a most curious loneliness about the journey up to that time. Except for the huge barrier to the right, the boundless prairies were everywhere, and it was like being at sea without a compass. The wheels made neither sound nor indentation as we drove over the short, dry grass, and there was no cheerful clatter of horses hooves. The sky was cloudy and the air hot and still. In one place we passed the carcass of a mule, any number of vultures soared up from it, to descend again immediately. Skeletons and bones of animals were often seen. A range of low, grassy hills, called the Foot Hills, rose from the plain, featureless and monotonous, except for streams, fed by the snows of the higher regions, had cut their way through them. Confessedly bewildered, and more melancholy than ever, the driver turned up one of the wildest of these entrances, and in another hour the Foot Hills lay between us and the prairie sea, and a higher and broken range, with pitch pines of average size, was revealed behind them.

Grace Greenwood from her book "New Life in New Lands: Notes on Travel"

I suppose these lands of the Platte Valley can hardly be called "plains"; but though not arid and desolate, they are sufficiently lonely and somber. We learn that this was the very "Valley of the Shadow of Death" to thousands of poor immigrants in the early days of California emigration, and in the fearful cholera times. It may be that before the locomotive came to invade with irreverent noise and hurry this haunted ground, to mock at poor perturbed spirits, and whistle them down the wind, a seer might have beheld, any dreary, starlit night, ghostly trains, moving silently, slowly along by this low, dark river. Might have seen white, still faces looking out of ghostly wagons, drawn by ghostly horses and oxen, noiselessly treading over the old track — over the lonely graves.

Helen (Hunt) Jackson from her book "Bits of Travel at Home"

As I looked up the ford to the mouth of the canyon, I was reminded of some of the grand old altar-pieces of the early centuries, where, lest the pictures of saints and angels and divine beings should seem too remote, too solemn and overawning, the painters used to set at the base, rows of human children, gay and mirthful, leaping and laughing or playing viols. So lay this sunny belt of sparkling water, glistening sand, and joyous blue blossom, at the base of the picture made by the dark mouth of the canyon, where two great mountains had recoiled and fallen apart from each other, leaving a chasm, midway in which rows a smaller mountain of sharp rocks, like a giant sentry disputing the way. Forests of pines fill the rift on either side of this rock, and their dark line stretch high up, right and left, nearly to the top of each mountain. Higher and ruggeder peaks rise beyond, looking as if they must shut the canyon sharply, as a gate closes an alley; but they do not. Past them, among them, in spite of them, the creek took its right-of-way, the mountains and rocks yielded, and the canyon winds.

Each of these authors has a unique style, yet, you get the sense of being there with them. While most would find the excerpts too wordy, they each have a beauty of their own. For more about the amazing lives of these women, you can read about them here. Isabella Bird  Grace Greenwood  Helen (Hunt) Jackson

While perhaps not as lyrical, here is an excerpt from the novella "Angel of Salvation Valley", the story of a man who has made a deal to get out of prison, only to have second thoughts.


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Now here he was, looking at a piece of heaven. If he'd had something like this, he wouldn't have been riding around searching, in the wrong place at the wrong time, and ended up in prison. He'd do anything to have a place like this. Maybe someday, when all this was over he thought.

Moving back from the entrance, he headed for higher ground to get a better view of the whole valley. If he didn't strain too much, Drew knew he's make it to the top. A slow five days since leaving prison as they traveled over the mountains, avoiding towns and people. Drew puzzled over that, but figured Luke knew what he was doing. Fortunately the additional time gave Drew the chance get most of the poison Old Harold had given him out of his system. The intervening hours between the ingestion of the poison and his leaving prison, were one remaining mystery. Drew was not sure he'd ever know the truth. The pieces of memory didn't make sense. Luke, telling Harold that he's might have wrecked everything by his actions. The bump of his head against the walls. Harold screaming he was sorry as he burst into flame. None of these made any sense and only made the pain in Drew's head worse. Drew finally gave up trying to remember, and putting a damper on those thoughts when they surfaced.

Doris Gardner-McCraw -

Author, Speaker, Historian-specializing in
Colorado and Women's History

Member of National League of American Pen Women,

Women Writing the West,

Pikes Peak Posse of the Westerners and

Western Fictioneers

Angela Raines - author: Where Love & History Meet

For a list of Angela Raines Books: Here 

Photo and Poem: Click Here 

Angela Raines FaceBook: Click Here