Eliza Calvert Hall
Encyclopedia
Eliza Caroline "Lida" Obenchain (née Calvert), (February 11, 1856 - December 20, 1935) was an American
author, women's rights advocate and suffragist from Bowling Green, Kentucky
. Lida Obenchain, writing under the pen name
Eliza Calvert Hall, was widely known early in the twentieth century for her short stories
featuring an elderly spinster woman, "Aunt Jane," who plainly spoke her mind about the people she knew and her experiences in the rural south.
Lida Obenchain's best known work is Aunt Jane of Kentucky
which received extra notability when United States President Theodore Roosevelt
recommended the book to the American people during a speech, saying "I cordially recommend the first chapter of Aunt Jane of Kentucky as a tract in all families where the menfolk tend to selfish or thoughtless or overbearing disregard to the rights of their womenfolk."
Lida's mother, Margaret Younglove, was from Johnstown, New York
.
. She pursued two of the careers acceptable for a single women in her era, teaching school and writing sentimental poetry. She began her professional writing career in order to help support her mother and siblings. Scribner's Monthly magazine accepted two of her poems for publication in 1879 and paid her the equivalent of $600 USD. She continued writing and had at least six more poems published before age thirty.
veteran who in 1883 became president of Ogden College, a small men's school in Bowling Green. Lida and William had four children: Margery, William Alexander Jr. (Alex), Thomas Hall and Cecilia (Cecil). Her family responsibilities left her with limited time to write. Her frustration as an unpaid housewife motivated her to support the cause of women's suffrage and to work with the Kentucky Equal Rights Association
.
. She envisioned a time when "woman's growing self-respect made her rise in revolt, and out of her conflict and her victory came a higher civilization for the whole world."
published "Sally Ann's Experience." The story was reprinted in the Woman's Journal
, the Ladies' Home Journal
, and in international magazines and newspapers, making the story familiar to people around the world. "Sally Ann's Experience
" became the first story of Aunt Jane of Kentucky, a collection of short stories
published in 1907. She followed up with The Land of Long Ago in 1909 and Clover and Blue Grass in 1916. Lida published a short novel, To Love and to Cherish, in 1911.
, called a "double narrative," was a common form of storytelling in this era. A collection of short stories, Obenchain's first published book, featuring Aunt Jane, was released in 1907 under the title Aunt Jane of Kentucky
.
Women's concerns Through Aunt Jane and the other characters in her stories, Lida tells of the problems facing women of her time with imagery and symbolism taken from the domestic arts of sewing, cooking, and gardening.
Quilting Lida portrays the social fabric of her rural southern region by using quilting
metaphor
s in her stories. At the end of Aunt Jane's Album, the unnamed narrator concludes,
, Virginia
, North Carolina
, and Kentucky
called "A Book of Hand-Woven Coverlets". The book, one of the first of its kind, detailed the designs and colors of the coverlets which aided in elevating the coverlet
s to be an art form.
Family responsibilities caused her to move to Dallas, Texas
to care for her daughter Margery, who had contracted tuberculosis
. She continued to write, but her most productive years as a writer were past. After the death of her daughter in 1923, she stayed in Texas, where she died on December 20, 1935.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author, women's rights advocate and suffragist from Bowling Green, Kentucky
Bowling Green, Kentucky
Bowling Green is the third-most populous city in the state of Kentucky after Louisville and Lexington, with a population of 58,067 as of the 2010 Census. It is the county seat of Warren County and the principal city of the Bowling Green, Kentucky Metropolitan Statistical Area with an estimated 2009...
. Lida Obenchain, writing under the pen name
Pen name
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
Eliza Calvert Hall, was widely known early in the twentieth century for her short stories
Short Stories
Short Stories may refer to:*A plural for Short story*Short Stories , an American pulp magazine published from 1890-1959*Short Stories, a 1954 collection by O. E...
featuring an elderly spinster woman, "Aunt Jane," who plainly spoke her mind about the people she knew and her experiences in the rural south.
Lida Obenchain's best known work is Aunt Jane of Kentucky
Aunt Jane of Kentucky
Aunt Jane of Kentucky is a collection of nine short stories written by American author Eliza "Lida" Calvert Obenchain. Obenchain wrote the book under the pen name Eliza Calvert Hall, a pseudonym that she frequently used when writing her fictional works...
which received extra notability when United States President Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
recommended the book to the American people during a speech, saying "I cordially recommend the first chapter of Aunt Jane of Kentucky as a tract in all families where the menfolk tend to selfish or thoughtless or overbearing disregard to the rights of their womenfolk."
Family and early life
Eliza Caroline Calvert, daughter of Thomas Chalmers Calvert and Margaret (Younglove) Calvert, was born in Bowling Green, Kentucky on February 11, 1856. She was known as "Lida" throughout her life.Family history and influence
Lida's father Thomas Chalmers Calvert was born in Giles County, Tennessee to Samuel Wilson Calvert, a Presbyterian minister, and his wife Eliza Caroline (Hall) Calvert.Lida's mother, Margaret Younglove, was from Johnstown, New York
Johnstown (city), New York
Johnstown is a city and the county seat of Fulton County in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2000 Census, the city had population of 8,511. Recent estimates put the figure closer to 8,100. The city was named by its founder, Sir William Johnson after his son John Johnson...
.
Childhood and early adult years
Lida attended a local private school, and then Western Female Seminary in Oxford, OhioOxford, Ohio
Oxford is a city in northwestern Butler County, Ohio, United States, in the southwestern portion of the state. It lies in Oxford Township, originally called the College Township. The population was 21,943 at the 2000 census. This college town was founded as a home for Miami University. Oxford...
. She pursued two of the careers acceptable for a single women in her era, teaching school and writing sentimental poetry. She began her professional writing career in order to help support her mother and siblings. Scribner's Monthly magazine accepted two of her poems for publication in 1879 and paid her the equivalent of $600 USD. She continued writing and had at least six more poems published before age thirty.
Marriage and domestic life
On July 8, 1885 Lida married 44-year-old Major William Alexander Obenchain. Obenchain was a Virginia native and American Civil WarAmerican Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
veteran who in 1883 became president of Ogden College, a small men's school in Bowling Green. Lida and William had four children: Margery, William Alexander Jr. (Alex), Thomas Hall and Cecilia (Cecil). Her family responsibilities left her with limited time to write. Her frustration as an unpaid housewife motivated her to support the cause of women's suffrage and to work with the Kentucky Equal Rights Association
Kentucky Equal Rights Association
Kentucky Equal Rights Association was the first permanent statewide women's rights organization in Kentucky. Founded in November 1888, the KERA voted in 1920 to transmute itself into the to continue its many and diverse progressive efforts on behalf of women's rights.Inspired by Lucy Stone during...
.
Women's rights advocate
Lida was a passionate advocate of suffrage and women's rightsWomen's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
. She envisioned a time when "woman's growing self-respect made her rise in revolt, and out of her conflict and her victory came a higher civilization for the whole world."
Writer
Lida used her talent as a writer to draft original articles to advocate for women's rights. In 1898 CosmopolitanCosmopolitan (magazine)
Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...
published "Sally Ann's Experience." The story was reprinted in the Woman's Journal
Woman's Journal
Woman's Journal was a women's rights periodical published from 1870-1931.Woman's Journal was founded in 1870 in Boston, Massachusetts by Lucy Stone and her husband Henry Browne Blackwell as a weekly newspaper. The new paper incorporated Mary A...
, the Ladies' Home Journal
Ladies' Home Journal
Ladies' Home Journal is an American magazine which first appeared on February 16, 1883, and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century in the United States...
, and in international magazines and newspapers, making the story familiar to people around the world. "Sally Ann's Experience
Sally Ann's Experience
Sally Ann's Experience is a short story written by American author Eliza "Lida" Calvert Obenchain under the pen name Eliza Calvert Hall.-Aunt Jane:...
" became the first story of Aunt Jane of Kentucky, a collection of short stories
Short Stories
Short Stories may refer to:*A plural for Short story*Short Stories , an American pulp magazine published from 1890-1959*Short Stories, a 1954 collection by O. E...
published in 1907. She followed up with The Land of Long Ago in 1909 and Clover and Blue Grass in 1916. Lida published a short novel, To Love and to Cherish, in 1911.
Aunt Jane
"Aunt Jane," an elderly spinster, was a reoccurring character in Lida Obenchain's short stories who told the experiences of the people in a rural southern town, named Goshen, to a younger woman visitor who relayed them to the reader. This type of rhetorical deviceRhetorical device
In rhetoric, a rhetorical device or resource of language is a technique that an author or speaker uses to convey to the listener or reader a meaning with the goal of persuading him or her towards considering a topic from a different perspective. While rhetorical devices may be used to evoke an...
, called a "double narrative," was a common form of storytelling in this era. A collection of short stories, Obenchain's first published book, featuring Aunt Jane, was released in 1907 under the title Aunt Jane of Kentucky
Aunt Jane of Kentucky
Aunt Jane of Kentucky is a collection of nine short stories written by American author Eliza "Lida" Calvert Obenchain. Obenchain wrote the book under the pen name Eliza Calvert Hall, a pseudonym that she frequently used when writing her fictional works...
.
Rural southern dialect
In the era after the Civil War, magazines featured writers that told stories with regional dialects in local setting. Lida frequently utilized this style of storytelling in her writing. She was successful using this technique: The New York Times stated in their review of Aunt Jane of Kentucky that "Aunt Jane is not false, nor cheap, nor shallow, and the stories that are put in her mouth exhale the very breath of old gardens and county roads and fields."Interests and themes
Women's relationships Melody Graulich in the Prologue to the 1990 reprint of Aunt Jane of Kentucky notes that Lida Obenchain has women's relationships as a major theme of her writing. The significance of female relationship is further reflected in her choice of her grandmother's maiden name and her own maiden name as her pen name.Women's concerns Through Aunt Jane and the other characters in her stories, Lida tells of the problems facing women of her time with imagery and symbolism taken from the domestic arts of sewing, cooking, and gardening.
Quilting Lida portrays the social fabric of her rural southern region by using quilting
Quilting
Quilting is a sewing method done to join two or more layers of material together to make a thicker padded material. A quilter is the name given to someone who works at quilting. Quilting can be done by hand, by sewing machine, or by a specialist longarm quilting system.The process of quilting uses...
metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
s in her stories. At the end of Aunt Jane's Album, the unnamed narrator concludes,
- "I looked again at the heap of quilts. An hour ago they had been patchwork, and nothing more. But now! The old woman's words had wrought a transformation in the homely mass of calico and silk and worsted. Patchwork? Ah, no! It was memory, imagination, history, biography, joy, sorrow, philosophy, religion, romance, realism, life, love, and death; and over all, like a halo, the love of the artist for his work and the soul's longing for earthly immortality."
Other works
In 1912, Lida wrote a book about the mountain weavers of TennesseeTennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
, Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, and Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
called "A Book of Hand-Woven Coverlets". The book, one of the first of its kind, detailed the designs and colors of the coverlets which aided in elevating the coverlet
Coverlet
A coverlet is a fabric covering, usually for a bed.Specifically, the term "coverlet" may refer to a:*Woven coverlet, a bed covering used in the United States from the colonial period to the mid-19th century*Quilt...
s to be an art form.
Later life and death
William Obenchain died on August 17, 1916 after an extended illness.Family responsibilities caused her to move to Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
to care for her daughter Margery, who had contracted tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
. She continued to write, but her most productive years as a writer were past. After the death of her daughter in 1923, she stayed in Texas, where she died on December 20, 1935.
Further reading
- Crandall, Charles Henry. (1891) Representative sonnets by American poets: With an Essay on the Sonnet, Its Nature and History, Including Many Notable Sonnets of Other Literatures. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co. (Book contains two poems by Eliza Calvert Hall).