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This is the eighteenth in a series
highlighting the best gay and lesbian authors from the 20th century
(with a few before and after that period) who have recorded in fiction,
and nonfiction, the history of gay people telling what life is, and was,
during an important time of history.
Though
I had read "O Pioneers" I wasn't aware that Willa was the prolific
writer that she was and I may have to start reading some of her otehr
works.
Willa Sibert Cather (December 7, 1873[–
April 24, 1947) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author who achieved recognition for her
novels of frontier life on the Great Plains, works such as
O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Song of the
Lark. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer for One of Ours (1922), a novel set during World War I. Cather grew up in
Nebraska and graduated from the
state university; she lived in New York for most of her adult life and writing
career.
Early life and
education
(See Willa Cather Birthplace) She was
born Wilella Siebert Cather in 1873 on her maternal grandmother's farm in the Back
Creek valley near Winchester, Virginia. Her father was
Charles Fectigue Cather (d. 1928), whose family had lived on land in the valley
for six generations. Her mother was Mary Virginia Boak (d. 1931). Within a year
they moved to Willow Shade, given to them by her paternal grandparents. The
senior Cathers moved on to Nebraska. Mary had six more children after Willa:
Roscoe, Douglass, Jessica, James, John, and Elsie.
The family moved to Red Cloud, Nebraska in 1884 to join
Charles' parents when Cather was nine years old. Her time in the western state,
still on the frontier, was a deeply formative experience for her. She was
intensely moved by the dramatic environment and weather, and the various
cultures of the American and immigrant families in the area.
While in college at the University of Nebraska, Cather became a
regular contributor to the Nebraska
State Journal. She graduated in 1894 with a B.A. in English.
Career
In 1896, Cather moved to Pittsburgh after being hired to write for The
Home Monthly.She lived in
Pittsburgh until 1906. In Pittsburgh, she
taught English first at Central High School for one year and then at Allegheny
High School, where she also taught Latin and became the head of the English
department. She also worked as a telegraph editor and drama critic for the Pittsburgh
Leader and frequently contributed to The Library, another local
publication.
She moved to New York City in 1906 upon receiving a job offer on the
editorial staff from McClure's
Magazine.
Cather and Georgina M. Wells were co-authors of a critical biography of Mary Baker Eddy, the
founder of Christian
Science. It was serialized in McClure's in 1907-8 and published the
next year as a book. Christian Scientists were outraged and tried to buy up
every copy. (The work was reprinted by the University of Nebraska Press in
1993.)
McClure's serialized Cather's first novel, Alexander's
Bridge (1912). The work showed her admiration for the style of Henry James. While recognizing
her potential, the author Sarah Orne Jewett advised Cather to rely less
on James and more on her own experiences in Nebraska.[citation needed] Cather
left McClure's in 1912 and began to write full time.
Cather returned to the prairie as a setting for inspiration for most of her
novels; she also used experiences from her travels in France. Such deeply felt
works became both popular and critical successes. Cather was celebrated by
national critics such as H.L. Mencken for writing in plainspoken language
about ordinary people. When the novelist Sinclair Lewis won the Nobel
Prize in Literature in 19xx, he paid homage to Cather by declaring that she
should have won the honor.
Later critics tended to favor more experimental authors. During the 1920s,
critics treated Cather in a condescending manner. In the 1930s, during the Great Depression and
a time of social ferment, critics attacked Cather for her lack of interest in
economics and for her conservative politics. Discouraged by the negative
criticism of her work, Cather became reclusive, burned letters, and forbade
anyone from publishing her letters.
Personal life
As a student at the University of Nebraska in the early 1890s, Cather
sometimes used the masculine nickname "William" and wore masculine clothing.A photograph in the
University of Nebraska archives depicts Cather dressed like a young man and with
"her hair shingled, at a time when females wore their hair fashionably
long."[
Throughout Cather's adult life, her most significant friendships were with
women. These included her college friend Louise Pound; the Pittsburgh socialite Isabelle
McClung, with whom Cather traveled to Europe; opera singer Olive Fremstad; and most
notably, the editor Edith
Lewis. Cather's sexual identity remains a point of contention amongst
scholars. While many argue for Cather as a lesbian and interpret her work through a lens of "queer theory," a highly vocal
contingent of Cather scholars adamantly oppose such considerations.
The scholar Janet Sharistanian has written, "Cather did not label herself a
lesbian nor would she wish us to do so, and we do not know whether her
relationships with women were sexual. In any case, it is anachronistic to assume
that if Cather's historical context had been different, she would have chosen to
write overtly about homoerotic love."
Cather's relationship with Edith Lewis began in the early 1900s. The two
women lived together in a series of apartments in New York City from 1912 until
the writer's death in 1947. From 1913 to 1927, Cather and Lewis lived at No. 5
Bank Street in Greenwich Village. They moved when the
apartment was scheduled for demolition during construction of the Seventh Avenue subway line. Cather selected Lewis as the literary trustee for her estate.
Born into a Baptist family, in 1922 Cather joined the Episcopal
Church. She had been attending local Episcopal services since her first year
in New York in 1906.
In her later life, Cather spent summers on Grand Manan Island, in New Brunswick, Canada. She owned a cottage in Whale Cove,
on the Bay of Fundy.
Cather died on April 24, 1947 in New York City of a cerebral hemorrhageJaffrey, New
Hampshire. and was buried in
A resolutely private person, Cather had destroyed many old drafts, personal
papers, and letters. Her will restricted the ability of scholars to quote from
those personal papers that remain. Since the 1980s, feminist and other academic
writers have explored Cather's sexual orientation and the influence of her
female friendships on her work. Most recently, her work has been viewed at the
vanguard of "Ecocriticism," a contemporary theoretical approach to the analysis
of art that seeks out ecological awareness.
Legacy and honors
Willa Cather half-ounce gold
coin.
- 1955, The Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial and Educational Foundation (now the
Willa
Cather Foundation) was founded to support the study of her life and work,
and to maintain many sites in her hometown of Red Cloud, Nebraska. - 1973, the United States Postal Service honored Willa Cather by issuing a stamp with her image. * 1981, the U.S. Mint created
the Willa Cather medallion, a half-ounce gold coin.[16] - Cather was elected to the Nebraska Hall of Fame.
- 1986, Cather was inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum
and Hall of Fame. - The University of Nebraska, named residence halls after both Cather and her
friend and scholar Louise Pound. Pound had a lifelong career as professor of
English at the university; she was the first woman president of the Modern Language Association.[17]
Bibliography
[ Nonfiction
- Willa Cather and Georgine Milmine, The
Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science (1909,
reprinted U of Nebraska Press, 1993) - Not
Under Forty (1936, essays) - On
Writing (1949, reprint U Nebraska Press, 1988, ISBN 978-0803263321 )
Novels
- Alexander's Bridge (1912)
- "The Prairie Trilogy":
- O Pioneers! (1913)
- The
Song of the Lark (1915) - My Ántonia (1918)
- One of Ours (1922)
- A Lost Lady (1923)
- The
Professor's House (1925) - My Mortal
Enemy (1926) - Death Comes for the
Archbishop (1927) - Shadows
on the Rock (1931) - Lucy Gayheart (1935)
- Sapphira
and the Slave Girl (1940)
Collections
- April
Twilights (1903, poetry) - The
Troll Garden (1905, short stories) - Youth
and the Bright Medusa (1920, short stories) - Obscure
Destinies (1932, three stories) - Not
Under Forty (1946, essays) - The Old
Beauty (1948, three stories) - Willa
Cather: On Writing (1949, essays)
Wonder why she was in NH.Is this where she suffered her illness?or I am not reading something right?