Many thanks to the scholarship of
Lisa
Bompiani for
generating all the materials on this page.
I. Biographical Information About Ruth McEnery
Stuart
II. Characteristics of Her Writing
V. Chosen Stories of Ruth McEnery Stuart
B. "The Widder Johnsing"
C. "Weeds"
D. "The Women" VI. Bibliography Used for This Information
VIII. Bibliography of Ruth McEnery Stuart
IX. Websites Related to Ruth McEnery
Stuart
I. Biographical Information
About Ruth McEnery Stuart
Mary Routh McEnery was born at Avoyelles Parish, Marksville, in
Louisiana on February 19, 1852; however, this date is
questionable, with most critics placing it between 1849 and 1860.
She was the daughter of a wealthy family of planters and
slaveholders, as well as lifelong residents of Louisiana. The
oldest of eight children born to Mary Routh Stirling McEnery (a
Scot) and James McEnery (an Irishman), she was educated at private
and public schools in New Orleans. These experiences provided the
information for her tales about Creoles and Italians. After the
war, the financial burden caused her to work as a school teacher
at Loquet-LeRoy Institute, a finishing school for ladies. She
remained in New Orleans until she married Alfred O. Stuart, a
three-time widower with eleven children, in 1879. Twenty-eight
years her senior (she=30, he=58), he moved his wife to his cotton
plantations in Washington, Arkansas. This town became the
inspiration for Stuart's Simpkinsville. Remaining there from
1879-1883, E.F. Harkins quotes Stuart as saying, "We lived right
among them -- there were hundreds of Negroes to one white person"
(258). Not surprisingly, these Negroes formed her character
studies for her writing.
In 1883, a son Stirling was born to the Stuarts. Sadly, Alfred
died on August 5, 1883, of a stroke, and Stuart moved to New York
with Stirling and her sister Sarah. Stanhope Sams described him as
"a fine-looking, athletic, young fellow" who was worthy of
Stuart's devotion and repays it with the gentle consciousness of a
Southern gentleman (205).
She began writing after her husband's death. According to
several interviews, she wrote before breakfast and afterwards
until lunch, then exercised in the afternoon. She did not write at
night because she could not sleep. Of course, she used a
typewriter. Her first story, "Uncle Mingo's Speculations," was
published in February 1888 in New Princeton Review, with
"Lamentations of Jeremiah Johnson" following in May 1888.
Stuart travelled to such places as Chicago, Denver, and New
Orleans to give public readings of her stories and monologues
until she became ill as a result of poor health and hard work. In
an interview with Sams, she said that there was nothing keener
than having a story developing under her brain and hands, and she
always hoped to do better work.
She died in 1917.
Mary Johnston
Ellen Glasgow
Kate Chopin
Francis Hodgson Burnett
Sarah Barnwell Elliot
Grace King
Sarah Orne Jewett
Mary Wilkins Freeman
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Louisa May Alcott
Julia Ward Howe
Sherwood Bonner
Thomas Page Nelson
Joel Chandler Harris
Charles Dudley Warner
Richard Watson Gilder
W.D. Howells
Hamlin Garland
Mark Twain
George W. Cable
Irwin Russell
Herbert Spencer
Bronte sisters
Harriet Monroe
II. Characteristics of Her
Writing
Judy E. Sneller writes that a contemporary journal of Stuart,
Bookman, proposed that Stuart was more widely known and read than
other female writers, and had a further reaching personality. As
Sams notes, "her characters are real, and she touches the hearts
of readers because she writes from the heart" (203). As for her
work, Stuart wrote picturesque Southern Literature, and about "the
simple folk because they please her more" (Sams 204). Her work
appears in three major forms: 1) Lyrics based on Southern songs,
2) Local Color sketches of blacks or whites, and 3) Extended
stories that are not quite novels. Within these forms, her writing
can be grouped into three categories: 1) New Orleans with
influences from the cosmopolitan Southern cities, 2) The
plantations of Southern and Central Louisiana with the black
slaves and displaced ex-slaves, 3) The imaginary Arkansas town of
Simpkinsville, a rural farm and plantation village of impoverished
white folks.
The plots of her stories revolved around sentimental reunions,
middle-aged courtships, pathetic struggles for survival, Christmas
Time, marriages, and a lot of family life and activities. Stuart
enjoyed the story-telling tradition, using dialogue and situations
to develop character. Also, she wrote with an intriguing humor and
dialect. Her tales about blacks are domestic and realistic,
include no interracial conflict, and have no vicious blacks.
However, controversy arises over her depiction of the
stereotypical illiterate, happy-go-lucky, good-natured Negro of
the South. Regardless, most critics spoke positively of her style.
Joan Wylie Hall states that her tales provide a detailed picture
of post-Civil War life, and according to Sams, her "Negroes have
always the genuine Negro humor, which is unconscious, while her
po' white trash are equally amusing and pathetic in their
plentiful lack of humor" (203).
Harkins claims that her writing shows an appreciation of the
"curious rhythm of the plantation song" (257), but he appears
non-politically correct by saying that her writing's faithfulness
to these songs stamps it as "truthful expositions of those
unintellectual and simple minds that few Americans know well
enough to interpret" (257). On the other hand, Edwin Lewis Stevens
believes Stuart was the first to show the Negro apart from the
white man, in his independent home life, and not hold him up for
ridicule. Nonetheless, as did many writers of the time, Stuart
appears caught between the Northern desire for the "happy darky"
and her Southern lifestyle. Hall notes that she had her own
reasons for preserving the pre-Civil War folklore; however, Helen
Taylor's work focuses on Stuart's writing as being written to
please her Northern audience, and presenting the Louisiana
regional identity as marginal to a national culture. On the whole,
Charles Dudley Warner sums up the general opinion of Stuart by
saying that her reproductions of Louisiana are the best we have.
Hall states that Stuart's most successful stories are those
that focus on a strong woman in times of personal and societal
upheaval. Stuart has been given greater attention recently because
critics are looking at what these women say in her stories, not
how they say it. Hall believes Stuart's The Cocoon: A Rest-Cure
Comedy, written in standard dialect and epistolary format, to be
closer to Gilman's "Yellow Wallpaper," rather than local color
fiction. This becomes a more solid statement once the subjects of
Stuart's story -- marriage, divorce, eugenics, and infertility --
are realized.
Taylor examines the links between weak white women and
feminized black men in Stuart's work. The black male, by nature of
being economically powerless, dependent, and often sick and dying
demand the same sympathy as does the white bourgeois woman. Also,
women equate marriage to slavery, furthering the black man/white
woman tie. Taylor reminds readers, though, that the black woman
was not protected from the exploitations of work and domestic life
as were the white women. Nevertheless, the connections between the
two arise from helpless dependency, lack of autonomy, and
confederate humiliation.
Generally, although a supporter of women's rights, Stuart's
attitude towards race clashed with that towards gender, which is
evident in her writing.
In the 1880's, black comic figures took over the cultural
scene, with animal-like portrayals replacing the earlier
human-like depictions. Replacing the Irishman as the butt of
jokes, the black was laughed at with good humor, but no
sensitivity. Taylor writes that Stuart's blacks are loyal,
affectionate, and desexualized, making them celebrities in female
discourse of the period. However, Sneller points out that Stuart
reinforced and challenged existing ideologies simultaneously since
"the paternalistic impulses of slavery had been placed within the
framework of emancipation" (216). She continues by writing that
"Stuart's humor not only reflects the deteriorating social,
economic, and political relationship between Southern blacks and
white bourgeois society after the end of Reconstruction in 1877
and into the new century, but also provides images and stereotypes
which contribute to the increasing pressure to exclude blacks from
the good life of the reconstructed south" (217). Taylor summarizes
that the blacks are marginalized because the culture that is
reinforced is bourgeois white supremacy, and the stories which
race and gender intersect are those dealing with black women.
V.
Chosen Stories by Ruth McEnery
Stuart
Since Stuart's work is unknown to most and recently being
rediscovered, I centered this page around the two greatest issues
of her work: race and gender. Below, I highlight four stories that
are great starting points for study concerning Stuart and these
two topics.
A. "Moriah's Mourning." from Moriah's Mourning and Other
Half-Hour Sketches. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1969.
Originally 1898.
This sketch deals with widowhood from the perspective of a
black plantation widow. She has been the picture of mourning, and
is now explaining to her mistress how she managed to rope in
another husband within a month of her husband's passing. The tale
is being related to the reader by this mistress. In her relation,
the reader can identify certain rules for mourning, motives for
remarriage, and stereotypes, especially with the illustration.
B. "The Widder Johnsing." from A Golden Wedding and Other
Tales. ?: Harper & Brothers, 1893.
This tale also deals with widowhood from the view of a black
plantation woman, but with a decidedly different approach. This
sketch opens with the death and funeral of Jake Johnson. His
widow, Liza Ann, has quite a reputation for stealing husbands, and
already has seen three husbands to the grave. However, at Jake's
funeral, the sight of his abandoned wife and child sets her into a
deeper mourning; she vows only to go after unattached men. Shocked
by her change in behavior, the people of the town watch her
closely and wait for her deviltry to appear. She begins to attend
church, and, in a way similar to Moriah's catching her new
husband, ends up snagging the young and available minister!
C. "Weeds." from In Simpkinsville Character Tales. Freeport,
NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1969. Originally 1897.
This tale looks at widowhood from the angle of a white women,
as well as the widowhood of a white male. It takes place in the
cemetery in which Elijah Tomkin's wife and Miss Christian's
husband are buried. Through their interactions, the differences in
rules and behavior related to mourning and remarriage can be
identified and compared to that of the first two tales. Elijah
promised his dying wife that he would plant a rosebud on her grave
each morning. Miss Christian discovers this fact, and Elijah fears
she will blab it to the entire town, leading to his being
ridiculed for being a sentimental fool. However, as he learns,
Miss Christian proves to be a very trustworthy friend.
D. "The Women." from Sonny's Father. NY: The Century Co., 1915.
This is the only sketch/tale in which Stuart's avid support for
the upsurge in women's rights is apparent. However, the views are
shared by Sonny's father, an aging man who is talking to his
Doctor about his belief in the women getting what they want.
Throughout the sketch, Sonny's father explains his views on what
he has witnessed at the women's meetings, to which he has been
admitted because of his age and donation of some money. At the
close, he expresses his support for the women, seemingly
validating their cause.
Bassett, John. Southern Writers: A Biographical Dictionary. Ed.
Robert Bain, Joseph M. Flora, and Louis D. Rubin, Jr. Baton Rouge,
LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1979. 437-39.
Hall, Joan Wylie. "Ruth McEnery Stuart." Legacy: A Journal of
American Women Writers. 10.1 (1993): 47-56.
Harkins, E.F., and Johnston, C.H.L. "Ruth McEnery Stuart."
Little Pilgrimages Among the Women Who Have Written Famous Books.
Boston, MA: L.C.Page, 1902. 255-265.
Lemons, J. Stanley. "Black Stereotypes as Reflected in Popular
Culture, 1880-1920." American Quarterly. 29.1 (Spring 1977):
102-116.
Sams, Stanhope. "Ruth McEnery Stuart in New York City." Women
Authors of Our Day in Their Homes. Ed. Francis Whiting Halsey. NY,
NY: James Pott & Company, 1903. 201-208.
Simpson, Ethel C. "Introduction." Simpkinsville and Vicinity:
Arkansas Stories of Ruth McEnery Stuart. Fayetteville, AK: The
University of Arkansas Press, 1983. 1-20, 213-14.
Sneller, Judy E. "Bad Boys/Black Misfits: Ruth McEnery Stuart's
Humor and the 'Negro Question' ." Images of the Child. Ed. Harry
Eiss. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular
Press, 1994. 215-228.
Taylor, Helen. "Introduction." Gender, Race, and Region in the
Writings of Grace King, Ruth McEnery Stuart, and Kate Chopin.
Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1989. 1-27.
---------. "Ruth McEnery Stuart." Chapter 2. Gender, Race, and
Region in the Writings of Grace King, Ruth McEnery Stuart, and
Kate Chopin. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press,
1989. 84-137.
"Brief Outline Guide to Forms of Nineteenth-Century American
Fiction." English 413. Internet. November 15, 1997.
http://www.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl413/forms.htm. January
22, 1998.
Dike, Donald A. "Notes on Local Color and Its Relation to
Realism." College English. 14.1 (October 1952): 81-89.
Harmon, William, and Holman, C. Hugh. "Local Color Writing." A
Handbook to Literature. 7th Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice Hall, 1996. 295.
"Local Color Fiction 1865-1895." English 413. Internet.
November 15, 1997.
http://www.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl413/lcolor.html.
January 22, 1998.
Brown, Dorothy H. "Ruth McEnery Stuart: A Reassessment."
Xavier-Review. 7.2. (1987): 23-36.
The Comic Imagination in American Literature. Ed. Louis D.
Rubin, Jr. Forum Series. Washington, D.C.: Voice of America, 1974.
Fletcher, Mary Frances. "A Biographical and Critical Study of
Ruth McEnery Stuart." Diss. Louisiana State University, 1955.
Frisby, James R., Jr. "New Orleans Writers and the Negro:
George Washington Cable, Grace King, Ruth McEnery Stuart, Kate
Chopin, and Lafcadio Hearn, 1870-1900." Dissertation Abstracts
International. Ann Arbor, MI: 1972, 33, 2890A (Emory).
Simpson, Ethel C. "Ruth McEnery Stuart: The Innocent
Grotesque." Louisiana Review: A Review of Literature and
Humanities. 4.1. (Spring 1987): 57-65.
Sneller, Judy. "Old Maids' and Wily 'Widders': The Humor of
Ruth McEnery Stuart." American Humor: New Studies, New Directions.
Ed. David Sloane. University of Alabama Press.
Sneller, Judy. "Transforming 'the undesirable gift': The Power
of Women's Humor." Silver Anniversary Anthology. Ed. Thomas J.
Gasque. Brookings, SD: South Dakota Humanities Council, 1997:
147-158.
Sneller, Judy. " 'Sambo' and 'The Southern Lady': Humor and the
(Re)Construction of Identity in the Local Color Fiction of Ruth
McEnery Stuart." in Race, Class, and Gender. Eds. Craig Barrow,
et. al. Chattanooga, TN: Southern Humanities Press, 1993: 237-245.
Starke, Catherine Juanita. Black Portraiture in American
Fiction: Stock Characters, Archetypes, and Individuals. NY: Basic
Books, Inc., Publishers, 1971.
Stevens, Edwin Lewis. "Ruth McEnery Stuart." Library of
Southern Literature. XI. (1907): 5145-5161.
Tutwiler, Julia R. "The Southern Woman in New York." The
Bookman. 18. (February 1904): 624-634.
Wheeler, Candace. "American Authoresses of the Hour: Ruth
McEnery Stuart." Harper's Bazar. 32. (December 16, 1899): 1083-84.
VIII. Bibliography of
Ruth McEnery Stuart (stories noted when known)
"American Backgrounds for Fiction: VI - Arkansas, Louisiana,
and the Gulf Country." Bookman. 39. (August 1914): 620-30.
Aunt Amity's Silver Wedding and Other Stories. NY: The Century
Co., 1903.
Carlotta's Intended. NY and London: Harper & Brothers
Publishers, 1891.
The Cocoon. NY: Hearst's International Library Co., 1915.
Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles. NY: The Century Co., 1916.
George Washington Jones. Philadelphia: Henry Altemus Company,
1903.
Gobolinks or Shadow Pictures for Young and Old. With Albert
Bigelow Paine. NY: The Century Co., 1896.
A Golden Wedding and Other Tales. NY and London: Harper &
Brothers, 1905.
The Haunted Photograph; Whence and Whither; A Case in
Diplomacy; The Afterglow. NY: The Century Co., 1911.
Holly and Pizen and Other Stories. NY: The Century Co., 1899.
In Simpkinsville: Character Tales. NY and London: Harper &
Brothers Publishers, 1897.
Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches. NY and London:
Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1898.
Napoleon Jackson, the Gentleman of the Plush Rocker. NY: The
Century Co., 1901.
Plantation Songs and Other Verse. NY: D. Appleton and Co.,
1916. The River's Children: An Idyl of the Mississippi. NY: The
Century Co., 1904. The Second Wooing of Salina Sue and Other Stories. NY: Harper
& Brothers, 1905.
Snow-cap Sisters. NY and London: Harper & Brothers
Publishers, 1901. Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales. New York and
London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1896.
Sonny, a Christmas Guest. NY: The Century Co., 1894.
Sonny's Father. NY: The Century Co., 1910.
The WomenThe Story of Babette: A Little Creole Girl. NY: Harper
& Brothers Publishers, 1894.
The Unlived Life of Little Mary Ellen. Indianapolis:
Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1910."Value of Folklore in Literature." New
York Times Review of Books. (October 12, 1913): 544-45.
Woman's Exchange of Simpkinsville. NY and London: Harper &
Brothers, 1899.
IX. Websites Related to
Ruth McEnery Stuart A listing of Stuart's work found in the LSU
Libraries Special Collections.
http://www.lib.lsu.edu/la/s.html
The home page for the University of Warwick's Centre
for the Study of Women and Gender; Helen Taylor is a faculty
member. http://www.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/cswg/staff.htm
A description of the Old
Washington Historic State Park in Arkansas, the site of the
Stuarts' plantation home.
http://www.gorp.com/gorp/location/ar/parks/old.htm
A listing of the Tulane
Manuscripts Department's holdings of Stuart.
http://www.tulane.edu/~lmiller/Literature.html
A link set up to automatically let you search
for Stuart by using specific search engines.
http://www.plgrm.com/history/women/list1.HTM
A list of some
of Stuart's work.
http://www.coe.uca.edu/ArkansasAuthorsIndex/stuart.html
The E-text version of In
Simpkinsville: Character Tales, complete with illustrations.
http://www.sunsite.unc.edu/docsouth/stuart/stuart.html
A general overview of "Literature
of the American South," a part of the Digitized Library of
Southern Literature: Beginnings to 1920.
http://www.sunsite.unc.edu/docsouth/Literature.html
The introduction to the series for "Generations:
A Cultural and Oral History of Lesbian and Gay Southern Life"
by James T. Sear, PhD. Although it came up in my search, I could
not find Stuart's name on the site.
http://www.jtsears.com/genintr.htm
A listing for Ruth McEnery Stuart by Hall, ISBN 0805745890 in
the
Open Group Books page.
http://www.opengroup.com/open/lxbooks/o80/0805745890.shtml
A selection from "Contructions
of Race" discussion thread in which Stuart is mentioned.
http://www.georgetown.edu/tamlit/collab_bib/race_thread.html
A short write-up about Crescent
City Literature that mentions Stuart in the midst of other New
Orleans writers. http://www.neworleanscvb.com/nawp2004.html
The preceding sources were used when compiling information
about Stuart for this page which is based on an American
Literature presentation in March 1998. If you have any questions,
please contact me at: bompi@westol.com This site graciously hosted in Traverse City, MI
19th-century
Regional Writing in the United States
(1852-1917)A. "Moriah's Mourning"
A. Ruth McEnery Stuart
* Aunt Amity's Silver Wedding
* "Petty Larceny"
* The Hair of the Dog
* Thanksgiving on Crawfish Bayou* Carlotta's Intended
* Bud Zunt's Mail
* Christmas Geese"
* Caesar
* Aunt Delphi's Dilemma
* Duke's Christmas
* Poems - Rose
- Winnie
- Voices* A Golden Wedding
* Lamentations of Jeremiah Johnson
* Uncle Mingo's "Speculations"
* The Widder Johnsing
* Christmas Gifts
* "Blink"
* Jessekiah Brown's Courtship
* Crazy Abe
* Queen Anne
* Camelia Riccardo
* The Woman's Exchange of Simpkinsville
* "Oh, Shoutin's Mighty Sweet"
* Lucindy* Holly and Pizen
* Queen o' Sheba's Triumph
* A Note of Scarlet
* Uncle Still's Famous Weather Prediction
* Picayune: A Child Story* An Arkansas Prophet
* Weeds
* The Unlived Life of Little Mary Ellen
* The Dividing Fence
* The Middle Hall
* Miss Jemima's Valentine
* A Slender Romance* Moriah's Mourning
* An Optical Dilemma
* The Second Mrs. Slimm
* Apollo Belvedere. A Christmas Episode of the Plantation
* Nearest of Kin (on the Plantation)
* The Deacon's Medicine
* Two Gentlemen of Leisure
* The Reverend Jordon White's Three Glances
* Lady. A Monologue of the Cow-Pen
* A Pulpit Orator
* An Easter Symbol. (A Monologue of the Plantation)
* Christmas at the Trimbles'
* A Minor Chord
* Tobe Taylor's April Foolishness
* Duke's Christmas
* Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets
(This is by no means a complete list, but the ones that
I have checked out as far as Internet searches:)
Midwest | West
| Northeast
Who's Who | Context
| Quarrels | Table
of Contents
"Nineteenth-century Regional Writing in the United States" is the
work of Dottie Webb. For
suggestions, complaints, cattle-rustling schemes or gossiping over
the fence in neighborly fashion, send your e-correspondence to
drdotwebb@traverse.net
by the great folks at Traverse
Internet