Desarrollo de mejoras en la herramienta

Spring brought another crop of distinguished visitors, including two men who would guide the career of aspiring local writer, Grace King. One was Charles Dudley Warner, editor and proprietor of the Hartford Courant; the other was Richard Watson Gilder, the young and “brilliant” editor-in-chief of Century Magazine. On Warner‟s first visit to “the extreme South,”

the Times-Democrat thought him well suited “to give the North and the world a dispassionate and liberal view of the South and its present social, material, and political condition.”Warner did give write a glowing report of the event, but as with so many other positive reviews, it was too late to help gate receipts at the Cotton Centennial Exposition. He also lectured on “Prison

190

Discipline” for Howe‟s Twelve O‟Clock Talk No. 12. Both editors, Warner and Gilder, were in demand among local elites and were widely entertained.2

Because Julia Ward Howe knew both men, she was often included in social events honoring them. She also hosted several gatherings at which they were among the guests. Through these soirees, Grace King met the men who would mentor her work. At last, this

ambitious young woman saw a way out of her cramped financial straits. Writing fiction had long been a path to financial stability for northern women, like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Louisa May Alcott, and the Howes, but since publishers were mainly in the Northeast, southern women‟s access had been cut off during the Civil War and beyond. Now Warner and Gilder had come south in part to find southern local color writers, especially since George Washington Cable had done so well for Gilder‟s Century Magazine. The editors brought an unexpected potential for

women to work from home.3

Using her position as head of the Woman‟s Department, Julia Ward Howe continued to

fulfill many requests for her presence and, as the Picayune asserted, fully exercised her “rare ability and culture.” On Thursday, April 16, 1885, Howe and twenty Lady Commissioners joined

2

For the desire for Warner to treat New Orleans favorably, see the Times-Democrat, April 6, 1885; for Warner‟s report that “the war is over in spirit as in deed” and his collected impressions of the South, of society in the “New South,” and other recollections of 1885 New Orleans as a charming, glowing city with a fascinating, diverse population, see Charles Dudley Warner. Studies in the South and West with Comments on Canada (New York: Harper and Bros., 1889), 3-63. For Warner‟s Twelve O‟Clock lecture, see the Times-Democrat, April 21, 1885. Unless otherwise noted, all references are from columns titled “World‟s Exposition.”

3

For Howe entertaining Warner and other friends at dinner April 9, 1885, see “Society Bee” Picayune, April 12, 1885. Warner was listed at some six home gatherings where Gilder and/or Howe were among the guests. For how Grace King met Warner and Gilder and

“grabbed” Warner‟s attention away from other belles, see Grace King to May McDowell, April 17, 1885 and April 26, 1885, Grace King Papers (MSS 1282), Louisiana State University Libraries Special Collections, Baton Rouge; for the two editors‟ influence on her first published stories, see Grace King, Memories of a Southern Woman of Letters (New York: McMillan, 1932), 58-69.

191

Louisiana Governor McEnery and distinguished American and Mexican guests on a diplomatic trip to the capital city, Baton Rouge. According to the Picayune, the special train of four coaches left the Mississippi Valley Railroad depot on Poydras Street in New Orleans at 7:30 a.m. At the State House in Baton Rouge, the governor talked of woman‟s work and what he had seen in the Woman‟s Department, and he “bestowed a meed of praise upon Mrs. Julia Ward Howe.” She responded, as she always did, that she was “glad that the idea of this unity was recognized.”

Whenever Howe had a chance, she counteracted rumors of squabbles and turmoil in the Woman‟s Department and accentuated the harmony and accord among participants.4

She claimed that the South had received the Lady Commissioners and visitors with “open arms and open heart.” Making no distinction between the atypical city of New Orleans and the rest of the region, Howe said she was glad women were “so well loved in the South.” However, she pointedly told how “[i]n some portions of the country women were allowed to come to their full moral and intellectual stature. The stone of tradition was taken off their heads.”5

Her

comments recall May Wright Sewall‟s earlier remonstrance to a mixed audience at the Woman‟s

Club, that men‟s fine sentiments about protecting women did not replace fair and equal treatment. Howe nudged her hearers in a similar direction.

Women who had come from elsewhere, as advocates of women‟s advancement,

apparently realized that they would have to tackle the opinions men held if their women were to be free to seek professions, higher education, and the ballot. As they no doubt saw it, to drag chivalric notions into a progressive “New South” was crippling to women‟s advancement. Yet,

for southern men and women still enamored of Sir Walter Scott‟s tales, performing the gallantry,

4

“A Trip to Baton Rouge,” Picayune, April 17, 1885.

5