Eliza Calvert Hall facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Eliza Caroline Obenchain
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | Eliza Caroline Calvert February 11, 1856 Bowling Green, Kentucky |
| Died | December 20, 1935 (aged 79) Wichita Falls, Texas |
| Pen name | Eliza Calvert Hall |
| Education | Western Female Seminary |
| Genre | Short stories |
| Notable works | Aunt Jane of Kentucky |
| Spouse | William Alexander Obenchain (m. 1885) |
Eliza Caroline "Lida" Obenchain (born Calvert) lived from February 11, 1856, to December 20, 1935. She was an American writer and a strong supporter of women's rights. She also worked as a suffragist, which means she fought for women to have the right to vote. Lida was from Bowling Green, Kentucky.
She was famous in the early 1900s for her short stories. She wrote these stories using the pen name Eliza Calvert Hall. Her most popular stories featured an older widow named "Aunt Jane." Aunt Jane was known for speaking her mind about people and her experiences in the rural southern United States.
Lida Obenchain's most famous book is Aunt Jane of Kentucky. This book became even more well-known when Theodore Roosevelt, who was the President of the United States, suggested it to the American people. He said the first chapter was great for families where men might not always respect women's rights.
Contents
About Eliza Caroline Obenchain
Eliza Caroline Calvert was born in Bowling Green, Kentucky, on February 11, 1856. Her parents were Thomas Chalmers Calvert and Margaret (Younglove) Calvert. Everyone called her "Lida" her whole life. Her father's family was from Giles County, Tennessee. Her mother was from Johnstown, New York.
Lida went to a local private school. Later, she attended Western Female Seminary in Oxford, Ohio. When she was young and single, she worked as a teacher and wrote poems. She started writing professionally to help her mother and siblings. Scribner's Monthly magazine published two of her poems in 1879. They paid her about $600, which was a lot of money back then. She continued writing and had at least six more poems published before she turned thirty.
On July 8, 1885, Lida married William Alexander Obenchain. He was 44 years old and from Virginia. He had fought in the American Civil War. In 1883, he became the president of Ogden College, a small school for men in Bowling Green. Lida and William had four children: Margery, William Alexander Jr. (Alex), Thomas Hall, and Cecilia (Cecil).
Having a family meant Lida had less time for writing. She felt frustrated as a housewife who wasn't paid for her work. This feeling made her want to support women's suffrage, which was the movement for women to get the right to vote. She worked with the Kentucky Equal Rights Association to help this cause.
Fighting for Women's Rights and the Right to Vote
Lida was very passionate about women's rights and the right to vote. She believed that when women gained more self-respect, they would stand up for themselves. She thought this would lead to a better world for everyone. She even wrote an article in 1892 called "Why Democratic Women Want the Ballot." She used the pen name "A Kentucky Woman" for this article.
Lida had been involved in the suffrage movement since 1897. She wrote papers and helped with the Kentucky Equal Rights Association (KERA) meetings every year. She often wrote for the Woman's Journal in 1899. She also worked as a secretary for the Bowling Green association. She handed out information and traveled to Nashville, Tennessee, to give speeches.
In 1899, the National American Woman Suffrage Association asked KERA to find someone to lead their press work. In 1900, Laura Clay, the president of KERA, asked Lida to take on this role for Kentucky. Lida was already the president of the Bowling Green KERA chapter. As the press superintendent, Lida sent ready-to-print articles about women's suffrage to newspapers. Many of these articles were her own thoughts and opinions.
In 1901, Lida published over 500 articles in Kentucky newspapers. The only newspaper where she couldn't get her articles published was The Courier-Journal. Its editor, Henry Watterson, was against women getting the right to vote. By 1905, Lida's press work grew even more. She sent out 1,974 articles and pamphlets to newspapers. She also wrote fifteen special articles for national newspapers.
State press leaders like Lida also wrote articles for the national press leader. Lida sent so many pieces to Elnora Babcock, the national superintendent, that she asked for more help to keep up with the demand. At a national meeting in 1908, Laura Clay praised Lida for her hard work.
Lida also used her writing skills to support women's rights in other ways. In 1898, Cosmopolitan magazine published her story "Sally Ann's Experience." This story was reprinted in the Woman's Journal and the Ladies' Home Journal. It was even published in magazines and newspapers around the world, including New Zealand. This made the story famous globally.
"Sally Ann's Experience" became the first story in Aunt Jane of Kentucky, which was a collection of short stories published in 1907. She then published The Land of Long Ago in 1909 and Clover and Blue Grass in 1916. Lida also wrote a short novel called To Love and to Cherish in 1911.
In 1912, Lida wrote a book about mountain weavers from Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky. The book was called "A Book of Hand-Woven Coverlets." It was one of the first books of its kind. It described the designs and colors of these woven blankets. This helped people see the coverlets as a true art form.
Aunt Jane: A Character with a Message
In the world of books, Lida was known by her pen name, Eliza Calvert Hall. Besides writing about women's right to vote for Kentucky newspapers, she also included her ideas about suffrage in many of her short stories.
When people read Aunt Jane of Kentucky in 1907, they enjoyed Aunt Jane's simple wisdom. Many didn't fully realize that the stories also contained hidden messages about politics and women's rights. President Theodore Roosevelt even publicly praised this collection of short stories. Aunt Jane was an elderly widow who shared her experiences about people in a small southern town called Goshen. A younger woman visitor would listen to Aunt Jane and then share her stories with the reader. This way of telling a story, using two different voices, was common back then.
Rural Southern Dialect in Stories
After the Civil War, magazines often featured writers who told stories using regional dialects. These stories were set in local places. Lida often used this style in her writing. She was very good at it. The New York Times said about Aunt Jane of Kentucky that "Aunt Jane is not false, nor cheap, nor shallow." They also said her stories "exhale the very breath of old gardens and county roads and fields." This means her stories felt very real and true to the southern countryside.
Themes in Aunt Jane's Stories
Melody Graulich, who wrote an introduction for a 1990 reprint of Aunt Jane of Kentucky, noted that Lida Obenchain often wrote about women's relationships. This focus on female connections is also seen in her choice of pen name. She used her grandmother's maiden name and her own maiden name.
Through Aunt Jane and other characters, Lida showed the problems women faced in her time. She used images and symbols from everyday home activities like sewing, cooking, and gardening.
Lida used quilting as a metaphor to describe the social life of her rural southern region. At the end of "Aunt Jane's Album," the person telling the story says:
I looked again at the heap of quilts. An hour ago they had been patchwork, and nothing more. But now! The old woman's words had wrought a transformation in the homely mass of calico and silk and worsted. Patchwork? Ah, no! It was memory, imagination, history, biography, joy, sorrow, philosophy, religion, romance, realism, life, love, and death; and over all, like a halo, the love of the artist for his work and the soul's longing for earthly immortality.
This quote shows how quilts, made from many different pieces, could represent memories, stories, and the whole of life.
Later Life and Passing
William Obenchain, Lida's husband, passed away on August 17, 1916, after being sick for a long time. Lida moved to Dallas, Texas, to take care of her daughter Margery, who had become ill with tuberculosis. She continued to write, but her most active years as a writer were behind her. After her daughter passed away in 1923, Lida stayed in Texas. She died there on December 20, 1935.
