Jean Webster
Encyclopedia
Jean Webster was an American writer and author of many books including Daddy-Long-Legs
and Dear Enemy
. Her best-known books feature lively and likeable young female protagonists who come of age intellectually, morally, and socially, but with enough humor, snappy dialogue, and gently biting social commentary to make her books palatable and enjoyable to contemporary readers.
. She was the eldest child of Annie Moffet Webster and Charles Luther Webster. She lived her early childhood in a strongly matriarchal and activist setting, with her great-grandmother, grandmother and mother all living under the same roof. Her great-grandmother worked on temperance issues
and her grandmother on racial equality and women's suffrage
.
Alice's mother was niece to Mark Twain
, and her father was Twain's business manager and subsequently publisher of many of his books by Charles L. Webster Publishing, founded in 1884. Initially the business was successful, and when Alice was five the family moved to a large brownstone in New York
, with a summer house in Long Island
. However, the publishing company ran into difficulties, and increasingly the relationship with Mark Twain broke down. In 1888, her father had a breakdown and took a leave of absence, and the family moved back to Fredonia. He subsequently committed suicide in 1891 from a drug overdose.
Alice attended the Fredonia Normal School and graduated in 1894 in china painting.
From 1894 to 1896, she attended the Lady Jane Grey School in Binghamton
as a boarder. During her time there, the school taught academics, music, art, letter-writing, diction and manners to about 20 girls. The Lady Jane Grey School inspired many of the details of the school in Webster's novel Just Patty
, including the layout of the school, the names of rooms (Sky Parlour, Paradise Alley), uniforms, and the girls' daily schedule and teachers. It was at the school that Alice became known as Jean. Since her roommate was also called Alice, the school asked if she could use another name. She chose "Jean", a variation on her middle name. Jean graduated from the school in June 1896 and returned to the Fredonia Normal School for a year in the college division.
as a member of the class of 1901. Majoring in English and economics, she took a course in welfare and penal reform and became interested in social issues. As part of her course she visited institutions for "delinquent and destitute children". She became involved in the College Settlement House
that served poorer communities in New York, an interest she would maintain throughout her life. Her experiences at Vassar provided material for her books When Patty Went to College
and Daddy-Long-Legs
. Webster began a close friendship with the future poet Adelaide Crapsey
who remained as her friend until Crapsey's death in 1914.
She participated with Crapsey in many extracurricular activities, including writing, drama, and politics. Webster and Crapsey supported the socialist
candidate Eugene V. Debs
during the 1900 presidential election, although as women they were not allowed to vote. She was a contributor of stories to the Vassar Miscellany and as part of her sophomore year English class, began writing a weekly column of Vassar news and stories for the Poughkeepsie Sunday Courier. Webster reported that she was "a shark in English" but her spelling was reportedly quite eccentric, and when a horrified teacher asked her authority for a spelling error, she replied "Webster", a play on name of the dictionary of the same name.
Webster spent a semester in her junior year in Europe, visiting France
and the United Kingdom
, but with Italy
as her main destination, including visits to Rome
, Naples
, Venice
and Florence
. She traveled with two fellow Vassar students, and in Paris met Ethelyn McKinney and Lena Weinstein, also Americans, who were to become lifelong friends. While in Italy, Webster researched her senior economics thesis "Pauperism in Italy". She also wrote columns about her travels for the Poughkeepsie Sunday Courier, and gathered material for a short story, "Villa Gianini", which was published in the Vassar Miscellany in 1901. She later expanded it into a novel, The Wheat Princess. Returning to Vassar for her senior year, she was literary editor for her class yearbook, and graduated in June 1901.
, in which she described contemporary women's college life. After some struggles finding a publisher, it was issued in March 1903 to good reviews. Webster started writing the short stories that would make up Much Ado about Peter, and with her mother visited Italy for the winter of 1903–4 including a 6-week stay in a convent in Palestrina
, while she wrote the Wheat Princess. It was subsequently published in 1905.
The following years brought a further trip to Italy and an eight month world tour to Egypt
, India
, Burma
, Sri Lanka
, Indonesia
, Hong Kong
, China
and Japan
with Ethelyn McKinney, Lena Weinstein and two others, as well as the publication of Jerry Junior
in 1907 and The Four Pools Mystery in 1908.
An increasing intimacy and a secret engagement developed between Webster and Ethelyn McKinney's brother, Glenn Ford McKinney. A lawyer, he had struggled to live up to the expectations of his wealthy and successful father. Mirroring a subplot of Dear Enemy, he had an unhappy marriage to an unstable woman, Annette Reynaud, who was frequently hospitalized for manic-depressive episodes. The McKinneys had a child, John, who also showed signs of mental instability. McKinney responded to these stresses with frequent escapes on hunting and yachting trips as well as alcohol abuse. He entered sanatoriums on several occasions as a result. The McKinneys separated in 1909, but in an era when divorce was uncommon and difficult to obtain, were not divorced until 1915. After his separation, McKinney continued to struggle with alcoholism, but had his addiction under control in the summer of 1912, when he traveled with Webster, Ethelyn McKinney and Lena Weinstein to Ireland
.
During this period, Webster continued to write short stories and began adapting some of her books for the stage. In 1911, Just Patty
was published, and Webster began writing the novel Daddy-Long-Legs
while staying at an old farmhouse in Tyringham, Massachusetts
. Webster's most famous work was originally published as a serial in the Ladies' Home Journal
and tells the story of a girl named Jerusha Abbott, an orphan whose attendance at a women's college is sponsored by an anonymous benefactor. Apart from an introductory chapter, the novel takes the form of letters written by the newly-styled Judy to her benefactor. It was published in October 1912 to popular and critical acclaim.
Webster dramatized Daddy-Long-Legs during 1913, and in 1914 spent four months on tour with the play, which starred a young Ruth Chatterton
as Judy. After tryouts in Atlantic City
, Washington
, Syracuse
, Rochester
, Indianapolis
, and Chicago
, the play opened at the Gaiety Theatre
in New York City in September 1914 and ran until May 1915. It subsequently toured widely throughout the US. The book and play became a focus for efforts for charitable work and reform. "Daddy-Long-Legs" dolls were sold to raise money to fund the adoption of orphans into families.
Webster's success was overshadowed by her college friend Adelaide Crapsey's battle with tuberculosis
, leading to Crapsey's death in October 1914. In June 1915, Glenn Ford McKinney was granted a divorce, and he and Webster were married in a quiet ceremony in September in Washington, Connecticut
. They honeymooned at McKinney's camp near Quebec City
, Canada
, and were visited by former president Theodore Roosevelt
, who invited himself, saying "I've always wanted to meet Jean Webster. We can put up a partition in the cabin."
Returning to the US, the newlyweds shared Webster's apartment overlooking Central Park
and McKinney's Tymor farm, in Dutchess County, New York
. In November 1915, Dear Enemy
, a sequel to Daddy-Long-Legs, was published, and it too proved to be a bestseller. Also epistolary in form, it chronicles the adventures of a college friend of Judy's who becomes the superintendent of the orphanage in which Judy was raised. Webster became pregnant and according to family tradition, was warned that her pregnancy might be dangerous. She suffered severely from morning sickness
, but by February 1916 was feeling better and was able to returned to her many activities: social events, prison visits, and meetings about orphanage reform and women's suffrage. She also began a book and play set in Sri Lanka
. Her friends reported that they had never seen her happier.
, arrived ninety minutes before Webster gave birth at 10:30 p.m to a six-and-a-quarter-pound daughter. All was well initially, but Jean Webster became ill and died of childbirth fever
at 7:30 am on June 11, 1916. Her daughter was named Jean (Little Jean) in her honor.
and education for women. She participated in marches in support of votes for women, and having benefited from her education at Vassar, she remained actively involved with the college. Her novels also promoted the idea of education for women, and her major characters explicitly supported women's suffrage.
movement was a hot-topic when Jean Webster was writing her novels. In particular, Richard L. Dugdale's 1877 book about the Juke family
as well as Henry Goddard
's 1912 study of the Kallikak family
were widely read at the time. Webster's Dear Enemy mentions and summarizes the books approvingly, to some degree, although her protagonist, Sallie McBride, ultimately declares that she doesn't "believe that there's one thing in heredity," provided children are raised in a nurturing environment. Nevertheless, eugenics as an idea of 'scientific truth'— generally accepted by the intelligentsia of the time— does come through in the novel.
s. In Dear Enemy she names as a model the Pleasantville Cottage School, a cottage-based orphanage that Webster had visited.
Other
Daddy-Long-Legs (novel)
Daddy Long-Legs is a 1912 epistolary novel by the American writer Jean Webster. It follows the protagonist, a young girl named Jerusha "Judy" Abbott, through her college years. She writes the letters to her benefactor, a rich man whom she has never seen....
and Dear Enemy
Dear Enemy (novel)
Dear Enemy is the sequel to Jean Webster's novel Daddy-Long-Legs. First published in 1915, it was among the top ten best sellers in the US in 1916. The story is presented in a series of letters written by Sallie McBride, Judy Abbott's classmate and best friend in Daddy-Long-Legs...
. Her best-known books feature lively and likeable young female protagonists who come of age intellectually, morally, and socially, but with enough humor, snappy dialogue, and gently biting social commentary to make her books palatable and enjoyable to contemporary readers.
Childhood
Alice Jane Chandler Webster was born in Fredonia, New YorkFredonia, New York
Fredonia is a village in Chautauqua County, New York, United States. The population was 11,068 as of 2009.The Village of Fredonia is in the Town of Pomfret south of Lake Erie...
. She was the eldest child of Annie Moffet Webster and Charles Luther Webster. She lived her early childhood in a strongly matriarchal and activist setting, with her great-grandmother, grandmother and mother all living under the same roof. Her great-grandmother worked on temperance issues
Temperance movement
A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
and her grandmother on racial equality and 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...
.
Alice's mother was niece to Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
, and her father was Twain's business manager and subsequently publisher of many of his books by Charles L. Webster Publishing, founded in 1884. Initially the business was successful, and when Alice was five the family moved to a large brownstone in New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, with a summer house in Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
. However, the publishing company ran into difficulties, and increasingly the relationship with Mark Twain broke down. In 1888, her father had a breakdown and took a leave of absence, and the family moved back to Fredonia. He subsequently committed suicide in 1891 from a drug overdose.
Alice attended the Fredonia Normal School and graduated in 1894 in china painting.
From 1894 to 1896, she attended the Lady Jane Grey School in Binghamton
Binghamton, New York
Binghamton is a city in the Southern Tier of New York in the United States. It is near the Pennsylvania border, in a bowl-shaped valley at the confluence of the Susquehanna and Chenango Rivers...
as a boarder. During her time there, the school taught academics, music, art, letter-writing, diction and manners to about 20 girls. The Lady Jane Grey School inspired many of the details of the school in Webster's novel Just Patty
Just Patty
Just Patty is Jean Webster's sixth novel, published in 1911. Prequel to When Patty Went to College book.- External links :*...
, including the layout of the school, the names of rooms (Sky Parlour, Paradise Alley), uniforms, and the girls' daily schedule and teachers. It was at the school that Alice became known as Jean. Since her roommate was also called Alice, the school asked if she could use another name. She chose "Jean", a variation on her middle name. Jean graduated from the school in June 1896 and returned to the Fredonia Normal School for a year in the college division.
College years
In 1897, Webster entered Vassar CollegeVassar College
Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...
as a member of the class of 1901. Majoring in English and economics, she took a course in welfare and penal reform and became interested in social issues. As part of her course she visited institutions for "delinquent and destitute children". She became involved in the College Settlement House
Settlement movement
The settlement movement was a reformist social movement, beginning in the 1880s and peaking around the 1920s in England and the US, with a goal of getting the rich and poor in society to live more closely together in an interdependent community...
that served poorer communities in New York, an interest she would maintain throughout her life. Her experiences at Vassar provided material for her books When Patty Went to College
When Patty Went to College
When Patty Went to College is Jean Webster's first novel, published in 1903. It is a humorous look at life in an all girls college at the turn of the 20th century. Patty Wyatt, the protagonist of this story is a bright, fun loving, imperturbable girl who does not like to conform. The book...
and Daddy-Long-Legs
Daddy-Long-Legs (novel)
Daddy Long-Legs is a 1912 epistolary novel by the American writer Jean Webster. It follows the protagonist, a young girl named Jerusha "Judy" Abbott, through her college years. She writes the letters to her benefactor, a rich man whom she has never seen....
. Webster began a close friendship with the future poet Adelaide Crapsey
Adelaide Crapsey
Adelaide Crapsey was an American poet. Born in Brooklyn, New York, she was raised in Rochester, New York, daughter of Episcopal priest Algernon Sidney Crapsey, who had been transferred from New York City to Rochester, and Adelaide T...
who remained as her friend until Crapsey's death in 1914.
Social Democratic Party (United States)
The Social Democratic Party of America was a short-lived political party in the United States, established in 1898. The group was formed out of elements of the Social Democracy of America , and was a predecessor to the Socialist Party of America, established in 1901.-Forerunners:Following the...
candidate Eugene V. Debs
Eugene V. Debs
Eugene Victor Debs was an American union leader, one of the founding members of the International Labor Union and the Industrial Workers of the World , and several times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States...
during the 1900 presidential election, although as women they were not allowed to vote. She was a contributor of stories to the Vassar Miscellany and as part of her sophomore year English class, began writing a weekly column of Vassar news and stories for the Poughkeepsie Sunday Courier. Webster reported that she was "a shark in English" but her spelling was reportedly quite eccentric, and when a horrified teacher asked her authority for a spelling error, she replied "Webster", a play on name of the dictionary of the same name.
Webster spent a semester in her junior year in Europe, visiting France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, but with Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
as her main destination, including visits to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
and Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
. She traveled with two fellow Vassar students, and in Paris met Ethelyn McKinney and Lena Weinstein, also Americans, who were to become lifelong friends. While in Italy, Webster researched her senior economics thesis "Pauperism in Italy". She also wrote columns about her travels for the Poughkeepsie Sunday Courier, and gathered material for a short story, "Villa Gianini", which was published in the Vassar Miscellany in 1901. She later expanded it into a novel, The Wheat Princess. Returning to Vassar for her senior year, she was literary editor for her class yearbook, and graduated in June 1901.
Adult years
Back in Fredonia, Webster began writing When Patty Went to CollegeWhen Patty Went to College
When Patty Went to College is Jean Webster's first novel, published in 1903. It is a humorous look at life in an all girls college at the turn of the 20th century. Patty Wyatt, the protagonist of this story is a bright, fun loving, imperturbable girl who does not like to conform. The book...
, in which she described contemporary women's college life. After some struggles finding a publisher, it was issued in March 1903 to good reviews. Webster started writing the short stories that would make up Much Ado about Peter, and with her mother visited Italy for the winter of 1903–4 including a 6-week stay in a convent in Palestrina
Palestrina
Palestrina is an ancient city and comune with a population of about 18,000, in Lazio, c. 35 km east of Rome...
, while she wrote the Wheat Princess. It was subsequently published in 1905.
The following years brought a further trip to Italy and an eight month world tour to Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Burma
Myanmar
Burma , officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar , is a country in Southeast Asia. Burma is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, and the Andaman Sea on the south....
, Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
with Ethelyn McKinney, Lena Weinstein and two others, as well as the publication of Jerry Junior
Jerry Junior
Jerry Junior is Jean Webster's third novel, published in 1907.- External links :*...
in 1907 and The Four Pools Mystery in 1908.
An increasing intimacy and a secret engagement developed between Webster and Ethelyn McKinney's brother, Glenn Ford McKinney. A lawyer, he had struggled to live up to the expectations of his wealthy and successful father. Mirroring a subplot of Dear Enemy, he had an unhappy marriage to an unstable woman, Annette Reynaud, who was frequently hospitalized for manic-depressive episodes. The McKinneys had a child, John, who also showed signs of mental instability. McKinney responded to these stresses with frequent escapes on hunting and yachting trips as well as alcohol abuse. He entered sanatoriums on several occasions as a result. The McKinneys separated in 1909, but in an era when divorce was uncommon and difficult to obtain, were not divorced until 1915. After his separation, McKinney continued to struggle with alcoholism, but had his addiction under control in the summer of 1912, when he traveled with Webster, Ethelyn McKinney and Lena Weinstein to Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
.
During this period, Webster continued to write short stories and began adapting some of her books for the stage. In 1911, Just Patty
Just Patty
Just Patty is Jean Webster's sixth novel, published in 1911. Prequel to When Patty Went to College book.- External links :*...
was published, and Webster began writing the novel Daddy-Long-Legs
Daddy-Long-Legs (novel)
Daddy Long-Legs is a 1912 epistolary novel by the American writer Jean Webster. It follows the protagonist, a young girl named Jerusha "Judy" Abbott, through her college years. She writes the letters to her benefactor, a rich man whom she has never seen....
while staying at an old farmhouse in Tyringham, Massachusetts
Tyringham, Massachusetts
Tyringham is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 327 at the 2010 census.- History :...
. Webster's most famous work was originally published as a serial in 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 tells the story of a girl named Jerusha Abbott, an orphan whose attendance at a women's college is sponsored by an anonymous benefactor. Apart from an introductory chapter, the novel takes the form of letters written by the newly-styled Judy to her benefactor. It was published in October 1912 to popular and critical acclaim.
Webster dramatized Daddy-Long-Legs during 1913, and in 1914 spent four months on tour with the play, which starred a young Ruth Chatterton
Ruth Chatterton
Ruth Chatterton was an American actress, novelist, and early aviatrix.- Early life :Chatterton was born in New York City, on Christmas Eve 1892, to Walter Smith and Lillian Reed Chatterton...
as Judy. After tryouts in Atlantic City
Atlantic City, New Jersey
Atlantic City is a city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States, and a nationally renowned resort city for gambling, shopping and fine dining. The city also served as the inspiration for the American version of the board game Monopoly. Atlantic City is located on Absecon Island on the coast...
, Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, Syracuse
Syracuse, New York
Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...
, Rochester
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
, Indianapolis
Indianapolis, Indiana
Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...
, and Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, the play opened at the Gaiety Theatre
Gaiety Theatre (New York)
The Gaiety Theatre was a Broadway theatre at 1547 Broadway in New York City from 1909 until 1982, when it was torn down.An office building above the theatre has been called the Black Tin Alley.It was designed by Herts & Tallant and owned by George M. Cohan...
in New York City in September 1914 and ran until May 1915. It subsequently toured widely throughout the US. The book and play became a focus for efforts for charitable work and reform. "Daddy-Long-Legs" dolls were sold to raise money to fund the adoption of orphans into families.
Webster's success was overshadowed by her college friend Adelaide Crapsey's battle with 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...
, leading to Crapsey's death in October 1914. In June 1915, Glenn Ford McKinney was granted a divorce, and he and Webster were married in a quiet ceremony in September in Washington, Connecticut
Washington, Connecticut
Washington is a rural town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, in the New England region of the United States. The population was 3,596 at the 2000 census. Washington is known for its picturesque countryside, historic architecture, and active civic and cultural life...
. They honeymooned at McKinney's camp near Quebec City
Quebec City
Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and were visited by former 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...
, who invited himself, saying "I've always wanted to meet Jean Webster. We can put up a partition in the cabin."
Returning to the US, the newlyweds shared Webster's apartment overlooking Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
and McKinney's Tymor farm, in Dutchess County, New York
Dutchess County, New York
Dutchess County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York, in the state's Mid-Hudson Region of the Hudson Valley. The 2010 census lists the population as 297,488...
. In November 1915, Dear Enemy
Dear Enemy (novel)
Dear Enemy is the sequel to Jean Webster's novel Daddy-Long-Legs. First published in 1915, it was among the top ten best sellers in the US in 1916. The story is presented in a series of letters written by Sallie McBride, Judy Abbott's classmate and best friend in Daddy-Long-Legs...
, a sequel to Daddy-Long-Legs, was published, and it too proved to be a bestseller. Also epistolary in form, it chronicles the adventures of a college friend of Judy's who becomes the superintendent of the orphanage in which Judy was raised. Webster became pregnant and according to family tradition, was warned that her pregnancy might be dangerous. She suffered severely from morning sickness
Morning sickness
Morning sickness, also called nausea gravidarum, nausea, vomiting of pregnancy , or pregnancy sickness is a condition that affects more than half of all pregnant women. Related to increased oestrogen levels, a similar form of nausea is also seen in some women who use hormonal contraception or...
, but by February 1916 was feeling better and was able to returned to her many activities: social events, prison visits, and meetings about orphanage reform and women's suffrage. She also began a book and play set in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
. Her friends reported that they had never seen her happier.
Death
Jean Webster entered the Sloan Hospital for Women, New York on the afternoon of June 10, 1916. Glenn McKinney, recalled from his twenty-fifth reunion at Princeton UniversityPrinceton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, arrived ninety minutes before Webster gave birth at 10:30 p.m to a six-and-a-quarter-pound daughter. All was well initially, but Jean Webster became ill and died of childbirth fever
Puerperal fever
Puerperal fever or childbed fever, is a bacterial infection contracted by women during childbirth or miscarriage. It can develop into puerperal sepsis, which is a serious form of septicaemia. If untreated, it is often fatal....
at 7:30 am on June 11, 1916. Her daughter was named Jean (Little Jean) in her honor.
Themes
Jean Webster was active political and socially, and often included issues of interest in her books.Women's issues
Jean Webster supported women's suffrageWomen'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...
and education for women. She participated in marches in support of votes for women, and having benefited from her education at Vassar, she remained actively involved with the college. Her novels also promoted the idea of education for women, and her major characters explicitly supported women's suffrage.
Eugenics and heredity
The eugenicsEugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
movement was a hot-topic when Jean Webster was writing her novels. In particular, Richard L. Dugdale's 1877 book about the Juke family
The Jukes family
The Jukes family was a New York hill family studied in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The studies are part of a series of other family studies, including the Kallikaks, the Zeros and the Nams, that were often quoted as arguments in support of eugenics, though the original Jukes study, by...
as well as Henry Goddard
Henry H. Goddard
Henry Herbert Goddard was a prominent American psychologist and eugenicist in the early 20th century...
's 1912 study of the Kallikak family
The Kallikak Family
The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness was a 1912 book by the American psychologist and eugenicist Henry H. Goddard. The work was an extended case study of Goddard's for the inheritance of "feeble-mindedness," a general category referring to a variety of mental...
were widely read at the time. Webster's Dear Enemy mentions and summarizes the books approvingly, to some degree, although her protagonist, Sallie McBride, ultimately declares that she doesn't "believe that there's one thing in heredity," provided children are raised in a nurturing environment. Nevertheless, eugenics as an idea of 'scientific truth'— generally accepted by the intelligentsia of the time— does come through in the novel.
Institutional reform
From her college years, Webster was involved in reform movements, and was a member of the State Charities Aid association, including visiting orphanages, fundraising for dependent children and arranging for adoptionAdoption
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting for another and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities from the original parent or parents...
s. In Dear Enemy she names as a model the Pleasantville Cottage School, a cottage-based orphanage that Webster had visited.
Biography
External links
Sources- Works by Jean Webster at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
Other