Ella Rhoads Higginson

Abstract

Ella Rhoads Higginson (b. 1862?–d. 1940) was born in Council Grove, Kansas, a launching point for westward movement of settler colonialists. When she was a child, her family moved to Oregon, traveling in a wagon train following the old Oregon Trail. The family eventually settled in Oregon City, where she was educated in private school. Ella’s strong interests in reading and writing began early. Her parents possessed a substantial library that included books by Irving, Longfellow, Shakespeare, and Tennyson. Ella began writing when she was eight. Her first publication, the poem “Dreams of the Past,” appeared in The Oregon City newspaper when she was fourteen. The following year she began work on The Oregon City Enterprise newspaper, learning typesetting and editorial writing. She also started publishing fiction. In 1885, she married Russell Carden Higginson, a businessman who was a cousin to New England author Thomas Wentworth Higginson. The couple moved north to Whatcom (later Bellingham), Washington, where Higginson lived for fifty-two years until her death. There she devoted herself to writing. She soon became the first influential Pacific Northwest author. People around the world were introduced to the region when they read Higginson’s award-winning writing. Her descriptions of majestic mountains, vast forests, and the scenic waters of the Puget Sound presented the then-remote, unfamiliar Pacific Northwest to eager readers. Her characterizations of white women and men who inhabited the region revealed what life was like in this part of the nation as opposed to regions such as New England. Higginson’s celebrated writings were the first to place the Pacific Northwest on the literary map. Her talent was widely recognized. The prestigious Macmillan Company, which became her publisher, approached her seeking to print her work. She was awarded prizes from magazines such as Collier’s and McClure’s. Her poems were set to music and performed internationally. She published over eight hundred works in her lifetime. However, World War I altered the means of production, resulting in books going out of print and diminishing reputations of well-known authors, especially writers of color and women. Most of Higginson’s books went out of print. After the war, new editors, mostly white men, managed US newspapers, periodicals, and publishing companies. Largely uninterested in prewar authors, they sought writing from nascent literary movements such as Modernism while also promoting works by overlooked white male authors such as Melville. Higginson’s reputation faded in the last decades of her life. By the time she was chosen first Poet Laureate of Washington State in 1931, she and her work were largely remembered only in the Pacific Northwest. When she died in 1940, she was almost completely forgotten. In the 21st century, Higginson and her writings are returning to literary distinction.