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Pen and ink drawing of Fanny Fern (Sara Willis Parton)
by her daughter, Ellen Eldredge Parton, n.d.
Sara Payson Willis Parton, author and newspaper columnist better known as Fanny Fern, was born in Portland, Maine on July 9, 1811 to Nathaniel Willis and Hannah Parker. The fifth of nine children, Sara was educated in Boston and at Catharine Beecher's seminary in Hartford, Connecticut. While still in school she occasionally contributed to her father's periodical for children, Youth's Companion. Willis married Charles Eldredge in 1837. The couple had three daughters, Mary, Grace, and Ellen. After the death of Eldredge in 1846, Willis married Boston merchant Samuel P. Farrington, whom she divorced three years later. After several dismal employment ventures, in 1851 she began writing under the name Fanny Fern for several small Boston magazines. Numerous newspapers soon picked up her humorous pieces. A collection of her writings was published in 1853 as Fern Leaves from Fanny's Port-Folio, an immediate bestseller. She married historian and biographer James Parton in 1856. Fanny Fern's other publications include two novels, Ruth Hall (1855) and Rose Clark (1856); and six collections of her columns including Fresh Leaves (1857), Folly as It Flies (1859), Ginger-Snaps (1870), and Caper-Sauce (1872). Her astounding success led to a regular weekly column in the New York Ledger, making her America's first women columnist. Fern's works incorporated wit and impudence, dealing with such topics as domestic problems, equality between the sexes, the double standard of morality, the need for parents to respect willful children, and tomboys. She deplored excessive housework and too large families, encouraged women to seek wider fields of endeavor, poked fun at the august male, and criticized conventional religion. A suffrage supporter after 1858, Fern was a co-founder of New York City's pioneer woman's club, Sorosis, in 1868. Fanny Fern died of cancer in New York on October 10,1872.
Ethel Parton was born in New York on December 1,1862 to Mortimer Thomson (whose pen name was Q. K. Philander Doesticks) and Grace Eldredge, daughter of Sara Payson Willis Parton (Fanny Fern). Fanny Fern (her grandmother) and James Parton adopted her after the death of her mother. After Fanny Fern's death in 1872, James Parton married Ethel's aunt, Ellen Willis Eldredge, and the couple cared for Ethel along with their own children. Ethel was educated at home by James Parton, at the school of Jane Andrews, and at the Putnam Free School in Newburyport, Massachusetts. After high school Ethel worked for James Parton as "secretary, literary assistant, and occasional collaborator." She changed her surname to Parton on attaining her majority. After James Parton's death, Ethel was a correspondent for Youth's Companion (founded by her great-grandfather, Nathaniel Willis) and contributed verses and stories to St. Nicholas. At age 70, she began writing children's books. These included 6 titles, popularly known as "The Newburyport Chronicles" which were set in early 19th-century Newburyport: Melissa Ann (1932), Tabitha Mary (1933), Penelope Ellen (1936), Vinnie Applegay and Minnie Applegay (1937), Runaway Prentice (1939), The Lost Locket (1940), and The House Between (1943). Ethel Parton died in 1944.
The Fanny Fern and Ethel Parton Papers contain 7 linear feet and consist primarily of biographical data, including photographs, and material pertaining to the two women's writings. The collection is actually two separate but related sets of papers and have been arranged as such, beginning with the Fanny Fern Papers (SERIES I -IV), and continuing with the Ethel Parton Papers (SERIES V - IX). Types of material include correspondence, photographs and daguerreotypes, typescripts, printed matter, books, artwork, and memorabilia. The bulk of the papers date from 1850 to 1944, although many of Ethel Parton's typescripts are undated and it is unclear how many of them ever reached publication. Items that may be of particular interest to researchers include Fanny Fern's correspondence; photographs and drawings of Fanny Fern and members of her extended family; early editions of books by Fanny Fern; typescripts of all of Fanny Fern's New York Ledger articles (1856-72), compiled by Florence Bannard Adams, as well as a run of original issues of the New York Ledger (1871-72) containing pieces by Fanny Fern; "Popular Pundit: Fanny Fern and the Emergence of the American Newspaper Columnist," a paper by Smith College senior Elaine Gelles Breslaw '56; and typescripts of two unpublished biographies of Fanny Fern: "Fanny Fern: An Informal Biography" by Ethel Parton and "Who on Earth Was Fanny Fern?" by Ruth Sexton Sargent.
This collection is organized into nine series:
The papers are open to research according to the regulations of the Sophia Smith Collection.
The copyright owner of unpublished works by Fanny Fern and Ethel Parton is unknown. Elaine Gellis Bradshaw has retained rights to "Popular Pundit: Fanny Fern and the Emergence of the American Newspaper Columnist;" copyright to "Who on Earth Was Fanny Fern?" has been retained by Ruth Sexton Sargent; and the Parton family have retained literary rights to "Fanny Fern: An Informal Biography" by Ethel Parton. It is the responsibility of the researcher to identify and satisfy the holders of all copyrights. Permission to publish reproductions or quotations beyond "fair use" must also be obtained from the Sophia Smith Collection as owners of the physical property.
Please use the following format when citing materials from this collection:
Fanny Fern and Ethel Parton Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.
James Parton II donated the Fanny Fern Papers in 1951. He added to the collection on numerous occasions, most recently in 1992, and arranged for the Newburyport (MA) Public Library to donate the Ethel Parton Papers in 1978. Ruth Sexton Sargent gave the manuscript of her unpublished biography, "Who on Earth Was Fanny Fern?," to the Sophia Smith Collection in 1978.
Processed by Burd Schlessinger, 2000.
The papers of James Parton (1822-1891), Fanny Fern's third and last husband, and of James Parton II (b. 1912), her great-grandson, are in the Houghton Library at Harvard University and in the Harvard University Archives, located in the Nathan Marsh Pusey Library. The Olive Branch and the Boston True Flag, both of which Fern wrote for until she signed an exclusive contract with the New York Ledger in 1856, are located at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts.
This series contains correspondence; legal documents, including those relating to Fern's divorce from Samuel Farrington and to the situation with the family of her first husband, Charles Eldredge; a genealogy and a family history; and articles, clippings and typescripts. There correspondence, legal documents, and articles and clippings pertain to Fanny Fern and her family; the typescripts are of the unpublished biography of Fanny Fern by Ruth Sexton Sargent and the senior thesis by Elaine Gelles Breslaw.
[See also SERIES VIII. ETHEL PARTON WRITINGS]
The series includes correspondence with Catharine Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Major Benjamin F. Butler, as well as with members of Fern's family.
This series consists of sketches; a memo book and a school album; a ceramic tile; and gloves lace, and fabric samples from Fern's wedding gown.
This series contains photographs, daguerreotypes, and a tintype of Fanny Fern and her family.
The series consists of contracts, financial statements, typescripts, newspapers, and books by Fanny Fern and by others. The books are early editions and are very fragile.
The series has in it correspondence pertaining to Ethel Parton material in the Newburyport (MA) Public Library, legal documents, photographs, clippings, memorabilia, and printed matter, as well as information about artist Nike Parton.
This series contains correspondence with family, friends and acquaintances and is limited in scope.
This series consists of royalty statements, book reviews, contracts, correspondence, draft manuscripts and typescripts, notes, and fragments of writings. It includes a draft manuscript and a typescript of Parton's unpublished biography of Fanny Fern, "Fanny Fern: An Informal Biography."
The series contains sketches by Parton, and drafts of hand made Christmas cards she created based on Dutch tile designs.
(Oversize box)