Then as now New York was known for its art exhibitions. What follows are Woolson’s reactions to the art world of 1871. Not particularly trained in art history or criticism, she tended to react personally—and humorously—to paintings. She knew what she liked . . . The Academy of Design, opposite the magnificent building of the Young Men’s Christian Association on Twenty-third street, is…
Woolson loved to find those places in America that revealed traces of a forgotten past. As Henry James said of her, “She stays at home, and yet gives us a sense of being ‘abroad’; she has a remarkable faculty of making the New World seem ancient.” She particularly liked old church yards, whose gravestones were intriguing remnants of a world long vanished. In…
So, the question has been posed, what did Woolson think of New York women? Here you go . . . “Joining the stream of ladies flowing up Broadway and Fifth avenue on a pleasant afternoon, a stranger is struck by the profusion of fur in which they are wrapped, and immediately withdraws all he has ever said against our new acquisition, Alaska, where…
Henry James was born today in 1843. He was, arguably, Constance’s closest friend during her fourteen years in Europe. Henry in the 1880s, when Constance knew him After they lived under the same roof in the Villa Brichieri on the hill of Bellosguardo outside Florence, Constance started calling him “Harry.” That was a family name, just as she was called “Connie.” Although no…
Some of Woolson’s first literary work was for the Cleveland newspaper the Herald, owned by her brother-in-law and his father, who helped her to start her career. She moved to New York (as so many writers and artists continue to do) in the winter of 1870-71 and began sending home witty letters about her observations. Here is an excerpt from her first letter,…