Sara Jane Lippincott was better known by the pseudonym Grace Greenwood. She was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 author, poet and lecturer. One of the first women to gain access into the Congressional

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

 press galleries

Press gallery

The press gallery is the part of a parliament, or other legislative body, where political journalists are allowed to sit or gather to observe and then report speeches and events...

, she used her questions to advocate for social reform and women's rights.

Biography

Sara Jane Clarke was born on September 23, 1823 at Pompey, New York

Pompey, New York

Pompey is a town in the southeast part of Onondaga County, New York, United States. The population was 6,159 at the 2000 census. The town was named after the Roman general and political leader Pompey by a late 18th-century clerk interested in the Classics in the new federal republic.- History :The...

 to parents Deborah Baker Clarke (c. 1791–1881) and Dr. Thaddeus C. Clarke (1770–1854). Her family moved to New Brighton, Pennsylvania

New Brighton, Pennsylvania

New Brighton is a borough in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, United States, located along the Beaver River northwest of Pittsburgh. There are deposits of coal and clay in the vicinity. In the past, articles produced here included pottery, bricks, sewer pipe, glass, flour, twine, lead kegs,...

, where her father practiced as a physician. There she attended the Greenwood Institute, a ladies' academy, from which she may have taken her pseudonym. On October 17, 1853 she married Leander K. Lippincott, and they had a daughter, Annie Grace, born October 3, 1855. Her husband left the country in 1876 after indictment for land fraud. Later she lived with her daughter in New Rochelle, New York

New Rochelle, New York

New Rochelle is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the southeastern portion of the state.The town was settled by refugee Huguenots in 1688 who were fleeing persecution in France...

, where she died of bronchitis

Bronchitis

Acute bronchitis is an inflammation of the large bronchi in the lungs that is usually caused by viruses or bacteria and may last several days or weeks. Characteristic symptoms include cough, sputum production, and shortness of breath and wheezing related to the obstruction of the inflamed airways...

 on April 20, 1904. Grace Greenwood is buried in the Civil War section of Grove Cemetery in New Brighton.

Career

Grace Greenwood's earliest writing was poetry and children's stories, which she published in local papers. In 1844, she drew national attention, at age 21, with a poem published in the New York Mirror

New York Mirror

The New-York Mirror was a weekly newspaper published in New York City from 1823 to 1842, and again as a daily newspaper renamed The Evening Mirror from 1844 to 1898.-History:...

. She wrote under both her given name and her pseudonym. In the February 14, 1846 issue of the Home Journal

Town & Country (magazine)

Town & Country, formerly the Home Journal and The National Press, is a monthly American lifestyle magazine. It is the oldest continually published general interest magazine in the United States.-Early history:...

, The Wife's Appeal, a poem by Miss Sara J. Clarke, is published just above Tit-for-Tat, a story by Grace Greenwood. Her work was published frequently in the widely-read magazines of the day. Her poetry received significant critical attention. She became a prominent member of the literary society of New York along with Anne Lynch Botta

Anne Lynch Botta

Anne Charlotte Lynch Botta was an American poet, writer, teacher and socialite whose home was the central gathering place of the literary elite of her era.-Early life:...

, Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

, Margaret Fuller

Margaret Fuller

Sarah Margaret Fuller Ossoli, commonly known as Margaret Fuller, was an American journalist, critic, and women's rights advocate associated with the American transcendentalism movement. She was the first full-time American female book reviewer in journalism...

, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...

 and Horace Greeley

Horace Greeley

Horace Greeley was an American newspaper editor, a founder of the Liberal Republican Party, a reformer, a politician, and an outspoken opponent of slavery...

, Richard Henry Stoddard

Richard Henry Stoddard

Richard Henry Stoddard was an American critic and poet.-Biography:Richard Henry Stoddard was born on July 2, 1825, in Hingham, Massachusetts. His father, a sea-captain, was wrecked and lost on one of his voyages while Richard was a child, and the lad went in 1835 to New York City with his mother,...

, Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, and entrepreneur who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century...

, Mary Mapes Dodge

Mary Mapes Dodge

Mary Mapes Dodge was an American children's writer and editor, best known for her novel Hans Brinker.-Biography:...

, Julia Ward Howe

Julia Ward Howe

Julia Ward Howe was a prominent American abolitionist, social activist, and poet, most famous as the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic".-Biography:...

, Charles Butler

Charles Butler

Charles Butler KC was an English Roman Catholic lawyer and miscellaneous writer.-Biography:Charles Butler was born in London, the son of James Butler, a nephew of Alban Butler. He was educated at Douai. In 1769 he became apprenticed to the conveyancer John Maire, and subsequently to Matthew Duane...

, Fitz-Greene Halleck

Fitz-Greene Halleck

Fitz-Greene Halleck was an American poet notable for his satires and as one of the Knickerbocker Group. Born and reared in Guilford, Connecticut, he went to New York City at the age of 20, and lived and worked there for nearly four decades. He was sometimes called "the American Byron"...

, Delia Bacon

Delia Bacon

Delia Bacon was an American writer of plays and short stories, a sister of the Congregational minister Leonard Bacon...

, and Bayard Taylor

Bayard Taylor

Bayard Taylor was an American poet, literary critic, translator, and travel author.-Life and work:...

, among others. By October 1849, 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...

listed her as an assistant editor and she was also editor of Godey's Dollar Newspaper. Her published collection Poems (1851) included passionate poetry and references to her intimate friendship to Anna Phillips, indicating an acceptance of intimate same sex friendships.

She became a highly respected journalist and consistently argued for the reform of women's roles and rights. In 1852, she went to Europe on an assignment for the New York Times. Greenwood was the first woman reporter on the Times payroll. She joined the National Era, a weekly abolition

Abolitionism

Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...

ist newspaper, and copy edited the serialized original version of Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was a depiction of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom...

's Uncle Tom's Cabin

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman....

as well as writing columns, travel letters and articles. Her staunch abolitionist views contributed to the ongoing national controversy. Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...

 criticized her travel letters, calling her an "ink stained woman" and claiming he could do as well. Despite this, Greenwood seems to have gotten along amiably with Hawthorne's family. She dedicated her children's book Recollections of My Childhood, and Other Stories to Julian

Julian Hawthorne

Julian Hawthorne was an American writer and journalist, the son of novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody. He wrote numerous poems, novels, short stories, mystery/detective fiction, essays, travel books, biographies and histories...

 and Una Hawthorne. She also became a correspondent for the Saturday Evening Post.
In 1853, Greenwood and her husband started The Little Pilgrim

The Little Pilgrim

The Little Pilgrim was a periodical for children in the United States. It was published monthly in Philadelphia by Leander K. Lippincott, and edited by his wife, Sara Jane Lippincott, working under the pseudonym Grace Greenwood. Rebecca Sophia Clarke was a regular contributor with her "Little...

, an American children's magazine. She was soon producing magazine articles and essays. After her husband fled the United States in 1876 to escape prosecution for misappropriation of government funds, Greenwood continued her writing and resumed lecturing in order to support herself and her daughter.

Greenwood lectured extensively before and during the Civil War

American 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...

, giving particular attention to her abolitionist stance and to other social issues, such as prison and asylum reform, and the abolition of capital punishment

Capital punishment

Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...

. President Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

 referred to her as "Grace Greenwood the Patriot". However, women's rights became the focus of her speeches, particularly after the war. Her writings from this period were republished in Records of Five Years (1867). By the 1870s, Greenwood wrote primarily for The New York Times. Her articles focused mainly on women's issues, such as advocating for Fanny Kemble

Fanny Kemble

Frances Anne Kemble , was a famous British actress and author in the early and mid nineteenth century.-Youth and acting career:...

's right to wear trousers, Susan B. Anthony

Susan B. Anthony

Susan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...

's right to vote and all women's right

Women'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...

 to receive equal pay for equal work.

Greenwood and her daughter moved to Europe around 1882. She worked for the London Journal

London Journal

James Boswell's London Journal is a published version of the daily journal he kept between the years 1762 and 1763 while in London. Along with many more of his private papers, it was found in the 1920s at Malahide Castle in Ireland, and first published in 1950. In it, Boswell, then a young Scotsman...

, and also wrote a biography, Queen Victoria: Her Girlhood and Womanhood (1883). In 1887 she returned to the United States and continued to work until 1900. Her obituary was on the front page of The New York Times, "proving her importance as a literary figure in the nineteenth century".

Works

• Greenwood Leaves (1850)
• History of my Pets (1851)
• Poems (1851)
• Recollections of my Childhood, and other stories (1852)
• Haps and Mishaps of a Tour in Europe (1854)
• Merrie England (1855)
• Forest Tragedy, and other tales (1856)
• Stories and Legends of Travel and History (1857)
• Stories from Famous Ballads (1860)
• Bonnie Scotland (1861)
• Records of Five Years (1867)
• Stories and Sights of France and Italy (1867)
• Stories of Many Lands (1867)
• Summer Etchings in Colorado (1873)
• New Life in New Lands (1873)
• Heads and Tails: studies and stories of pets (1875)
• Emma Abbott, prima donna (1878)
• Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood (1883)
• Stories for Home-folks, young and old (1884)
• Stories and Sketches (1892) (with Rossiter W. Raymond)
• Treasures from Fairyland (1879)

External links