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Elizabeth Oakes (Prince) Smith
Encyclopedia
Southern Literary Messenger
The Southern Literary Messenger was a periodical published in Richmond, Virginia, from 1834 until June 1864. Each issue carried a subtitle of "Devoted to Every Department of Literature and the Fine Arts" or some variation and included poetry, fiction, non-fiction, reviews, and historical notes...
in 1842, her reputation today rests on her feminist writings, including "Woman and Her Needs," a series of essays published in the New York Tribune
New York Tribune
The New York Tribune was an American newspaper, first established by Horace Greeley in 1841, which was long considered one of the leading newspapers in the United States...
between 1850 and 1851 that argued for women’s spiritual and intellectual capacities as well as women’s equal rights to political and economic opportunities, including rights of franchise and higher education.
Biography
Smith was born August 12, 1806 near North Yarmouth, MaineNorth Yarmouth, Maine
North Yarmouth is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States. The population was 3,565 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Portland–South Portland–Biddeford Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:...
to David Prince and Sophia née Blanchard. After her father died at sea in 1808, her family lived with her maternal and paternal grandparents until her mother remarried and moved with her stepfather to Cape Elizabeth, Maine
Cape Elizabeth, Maine
Cape Elizabeth is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States. The town is part of the Portland–South Portland–Biddeford, Maine metropolitan statistical area...
then Portland, Maine
Portland, Maine
Portland is the largest city in Maine and is the county seat of Cumberland County. The 2010 city population was 66,194, growing 3 percent since the census of 2000...
. In her autobiography (parts of which were published in the 1860s and 1880s), she recalls being a precocious student, and at age twelve taught in a Sunday School for black children. Despite her wishes to attend college like her male cousins, however, she was married in 1823 at the age of sixteen to a thirty-year-old magazine editor and later humorist, Seba Smith
Seba Smith
Seba Smith was an American humorist and writer. He was married to Elizabeth Oakes Smith, also a major writer and feminist....
, best known for his “Jack Downing” series.
Descendants and family businesses
Between 1824 and 1834 she bore six sons, Benjamin Oaksmith (1824), Rolvin (1825–1832), Appleton OaksmithAppleton Oaksmith
Appleton Oaksmith , of Carteret County, North Carolina, was the son of Seba Smith and Elizabeth Oakes Smith....
(1828–1887), Sidney (1830–1869), Alvin (1832–1902) and Edward (1834–1865), and thus for the first decade of her marriage, Smith managed a growing household, which included not only her own sons but also, at times, apprentices and printers of her husband’s newspaper ventures. What she wrote for her husband’s newspaper, The Eastern Argus, or later his Portland Daily Courier is unclear, but in her husband’s absence in 1833, Smith assumed editorial responsibilities for the Courier. By the late thirties, Smith had begun to contribute regularly to the newspapers her husband edited as well as other magazines, anonymously or over the signature “E.”
New York literary world
Caught up in the fever of land speculation during the 1830s, Smith’s husband invested in a tract of land near Monson, MaineMonson, Maine
Monson is a town in Piscataquis County, Maine, United States. As of the 2000 census, the town had a population of 666. The town is located on Route 15 which is a somewhat major route north to the well known Moosehead Lake Region, to which Monson is sometimes considered a gateway...
, known in correspondence between Smith and her husband as “Number 8.” When land values plummeted in the Panic of 1837
Panic of 1837
The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis or market correction in the United States built on a speculative fever. The end of the Second Bank of the United States had produced a period of runaway inflation, but on May 10, 1837 in New York City, every bank began to accept payment only in specie ,...
, Smith lost much of his fortune and attempted to recover his losses by backing an invention designed to clean Sea Grass Cotton in South Carolina. After briefly removing to Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...
, Smith and her husband moved their family to New York City in 1838 and began to pursue tandem literary careers. On their arrival, Smith and her family boarded with cousins of the Princes, Dr. Cyrus and Maria Child Weeks, but they soon moved to Brooklyn, where Smith emerged as a recognized name in the New York literary world. In their new home, both Smith and her husband contributed to literary magazines such as Godey's Lady's Book
Godey's Lady's Book
Godey's Lady's Book, alternatively known as Godey's Magazine and Lady's Book, was a United States magazine which was published in Philadelphia. It was the most widely circulated magazine in the period before the Civil War. Its circulation rose from 70,000 in the 1840s to 150,000 in 1860...
, the Snowden's Ladies' Companion, among other journals and gift book
Gift book
Gift books, literary annuals or a keepsake, were 19th century books, often lavishly decorated, which collected essays, short fiction, and poetry. They were primarily published in the autumn, in time for the holiday season and were intended to be given away rather than read by the purchaser...
s, and soon Smith published her first novel, Riches Without Wings, a children’s story that appealed to victims of the Panic of 1837
Panic of 1837
The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis or market correction in the United States built on a speculative fever. The end of the Second Bank of the United States had produced a period of runaway inflation, but on May 10, 1837 in New York City, every bank began to accept payment only in specie ,...
with a moral message favoring spiritual over material wealth. Smith received her first wide literary notice with narrative poem entitled "The Sinless Child," published serially in the Southern Literary Messenger January and February 1842, and a first edition of her collected poems, The Sinless Child and Other Poems, was published by John Keese
John Keese
John Keese was a United States auctioneer, publisher and editor of books.-Biography:...
later that year, with introductions by Keese, John Neal
John Neal
-External links:* * * -Selected Works Available online:* * * * * and * and * * *...
and H.T. Tuckerman. Throughout the 40s, she would continue to write poetry and fiction for other popular magazines and gift books, but she also found time for two novels, The Western Captive, which appeared in a “supplement” edition (really the model of the early paperback novel) to Park Benjamin's New World in 1842, and The Salamander, a highly allegorical story based on the history and legends of iron workers in the Ramapo Valley, in 1848.
Women's Rights Movement
Smith was not a member of the select group at the Seneca Falls ConventionSeneca Falls Convention
The Seneca Falls Convention was an early and influential women's rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York, July 19–20, 1848. It was organized by local New York women upon the occasion of a visit by Boston-based Lucretia Mott, a Quaker famous for her speaking ability, a skill rarely...
assembled to discuss the rights of women in 1848, but by that time she had for some years written occasionally on the subject of woman’s social, political and economic situation. As she recorded in her autobiography, her attendance at the first National Women's Rights Convention
National Women's Rights Convention
The National Women's Rights Convention was an annual series of meetings that increased the visibility of the early women's rights movement in the United States. First held in 1850 in Worcester, Massachusetts, the National Women's Rights Convention combined both male and female leadership, and...
in October, 1850 in Worcester inspired her to focus her efforts specifically on woman’s rights, and she began a series of ten articles on woman’s rights and capacities for Horace Greeley's New York Tribune
New York Tribune
The New York Tribune was an American newspaper, first established by Horace Greeley in 1841, which was long considered one of the leading newspapers in the United States...
entitled "Woman and Her Needs" (Nov. 1850 – June 1851), published in pamphlet form by Fowler and Wells in late 1851. In June 1851, she began lecturing publicly on the same subjects from New York and into New England, becoming the first woman to lecture regularly on the Lyceum movement
Lyceum movement
The lyceum movement in the United States was a trend in architecture inspired by Aristotle's Lyceum in ancient Greece....
circuit. In 1852, her tours extended west to St. Louis and Chicago. In September of that year, she was nominated by a select committee to serve as President of the National Women’s Rights Convention in Syracuse but was rejected for that position when she and her friend Paulina Wright Davis arrived in dresses which exposed the neck and arms.
Through the first half of the 1850s, Smith continued her work on behalf of women, expanding her lecture tours into the midwest as far as Chicago. She circulated a prospectus for a feminist journal, The Egeria, and collected several subscriptions, but she abandoned the idea when fellow activist Paulina Wright Davis began The Una in February 1853. In 1854, she published two novels, Bertha and Lily; or the Parsonage at Beech Glen, which presented many of her woman’s rights positions (sometimes drawn directly from her lectures) in the words of its title character, and The Newsboy, a novel which exposed the conditions of poverty and child labor in New York. In addition to these extended works, both of which were reprinted in several editions, Smith edited and contributed to several of her husbands new ventures in journalism, including The Weekly Budget (1853–54) and a series of newspaper ventures combined in the mid-fifties under the title Emerson’s Monthly and United States Magazine. In 1855, Smith and her family moved back to New York City for the first time since their arrival in the area in the late 30s, placing a down payment of eleven thousand dollars on a home near St. Mark’s Place. In November 1858, Smith and her family purchased Emerson’s Monthly, which continued for a year as The Great Republic, published by Oaksmith and company. (From this time, and perhaps earlier, her sons legally adopted the name Oaksmith as their own.) In 1859, Smith and her husband retired to a large home in rural Patchogue Long Island which they named “The Willows.”
Son Appleton's arrest
Given the difficulties of their publishing ventures, Smith and her family’s removal to Patchogue after only four years in their New York City residence seems to indicate a kind of social retrenchment, but the political upheaval of the 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...
may have played an equal role. During the 1850s, Smith’s son Appleton Oaksmith
Appleton Oaksmith
Appleton Oaksmith , of Carteret County, North Carolina, was the son of Seba Smith and Elizabeth Oakes Smith....
had ventured into the shipping business, eventually purchasing several ships of his own. He had also, however, involved himself in the filibuster (military)
Filibuster (military)
A filibuster, or freebooter, is someone who engages in an unauthorized military expedition into a foreign country to foment or support a revolution...
campaigns of General William Walker (filibuster) in Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
, actually accepting the office of secretary in Walker’s new “government” and helping arrange for the supply of Walker’s small military force. When Walker’s bid for U.S. recognition failed and his militia was ousted from the country, there is mounting evidence that Appleton began to employ his ships in support of the Confederate states, at least in gun-running if not by allowing his ships to be used in the transport of slaves. In December 1861, Appleton was captured on Fire Island, New York
Fire Island, New York
Fire Island is one of the outer barrier islands adjacent to the south shore of Long Island, New York. It is approximately long and varies between broad. Fire Island is part of Suffolk County. It comprises a number of hamlets, census-designated places , and villages, all of which lie within the...
and indicted for equipping a slave ship. With Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus in effect, he was quickly jailed, and the entire family was placed in a compromised political and social position. Thus, the Civil War years were especially difficult for Smith’s family, who vehemently maintained Appleton’s innocence.
Smith would spend literally years seeking audiences with government officials in New York and finally with the President of the United States to procure her son’s innocence. (He later did receive a Presidential pardon.) Even so, with her husband advancing in age and infirmity, she continued to write to make a living, placing her work in a variety of journals and lecturing where she could. With the nation’s attention focused on the war and issues of slavery, her popularity and prominence in the cultural conversation were challenged, but in 1865 she began a series of “autobiographic notes” in Beadle's Monthly Magazine, later continued in the 1880s in The Home Journal. The autobiography was never published in complete form, but is available in manuscript form at the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
.
Spiritual years
Challenged and stigmatized by Appleton’s arrest and exile to London during the war, Smith experienced more misfortune as the 1860s decade came to a close with the death of her son Edward from yellow fever in 1865, the death of her now aged husband in 1868, and the death by drowning of her son Sidney in 1869. She sold her own home in Patchogue in 1870 and began living with her son Alvin in nearby Blue Point, New YorkBlue Point, New York
Blue Point is a hamlet in Suffolk County, New York, United States. The population was 4,407 at the 2000 census. Blue Point is in the Town of Brookhaven...
on Long Island.
When Appleton returned to the United States in the 1870s, purchasing a property in Beaufort, North Carolina
Beaufort, North Carolina
Beaufort is a town in Carteret County, North Carolina, United States. Established in 1709, it is the third-oldest town in North Carolina.The population was 4,189 at the 2008 census and it is the county seat of Carteret County...
, Smith lived alternately between the two sons' homes. Undaunted by her reverses, she continued to publish poetry and articles in both popular and religious journals. In 1877, she served as pastor of The Independent Church in Canastota, New York
Canastota, New York
Canastota is a village located inside the Town of Lenox in Madison County, New York, United States. The population was 4,425 at the 2000 census.The Village of Canastota is in the south part of the Town of Lenox.- History :...
, and she continued to attend conventions on Women's Suffrage
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
. In January, 1879, she delivered a lecture entitled "Biology and Woman's Rights" at 11th Woman's Suffrage Convention, in Washington D.C.
As fragments of her personal journal from the late 1880s demonstrate, Smith turned increasingly to a traditional religious faith in her later years. She outlived all of her immediate family, save her youngest son Alvin. By the time of her death in 1893 her fictional works had suffered the fate of all outmoded popular styles and themes, while her feminist works would have to await the renewed interest of activists and scholars in the 1970s and 80s. She was buried beside her husband Seba, and son Edward, in the Lakeview Cemetery, in Patchogue, New York.