From the Periodical Archives: Susan Warner's "How May an American Woman Best Show Her Patriotism?"

Abstract

After January 1851 release of her first and most popular novel, Susan Warner (known by her pen name, Eliz abeth Wetherell) spent rest of her literaiy career being identified as the author of The Wide, Wide World. Her literaiy career before this in cluded just one published piece: an essay in Ladies' Wreath for De cember of 1850 by an Elizabeth Witherell, an early version of her future pseudonym, entitled How May an American Woman Best Show Her Patriotism? This essay and circumstances surrounding its appearance provide an important context for understanding Warner's aspirations as a female literary professional, her excessive concern with personal anonymity, and personal goals that would shape her texts and guide her literary career. The Ladies' Wreath was founded in 1846 as a monthly women's magazine. Between 1846 and 1851, Wreath was published prima rily by New York firm of Martyn & Ely (though magazine would circulate among multiple publishers during its years in print) and ed ited by Sarah Towne Smith Martyn. a Congregationalist, temperance activist, and prolific author of religious pamphlets for American Tract Society. Martyn retired from her reform work to edit monthly and continued in this role until 1852, when editorship passed to Helen Dodge Irving, her co-editor of several years.1 The Wreath, with an annual subscription cost of one dollar, boasted of its very healthy circulation of 25,000 in its 1851 subscription renewal notice to its readers. Each issue was thirty-six pages long and contained several colored illustrations, samples of sheet music, and a collection of varied written pieces, over half of which were attributed. Individual volumes of magazine were also republished at end of year as Ladies' Wreath: An Illustrated Annual by J. M. Fletcher & Co, and with magazine's miscellaneous contents and emphasis on fine illustra