The record-union., 1891-03-15
CLEVER WOMEN OF AMERICA,
From the East, West, North and
South.
Mrs. LanRford OF Brooklyn, Miss Law
son of New York, Mrs. Sewall of
of Washington.
Regular Correspondence of the SUNDAY
UNION. Copyright, 1871

UNION. Copyright. 1871
NEW YORK, March 9, 1891.
Brooklyn and New York have each q
brilliant coterie of newspaper, musical
and artistic women who were born in
the Southern States.
These fair daughters of the '.Sunny
South" with their mellow voices and
liquid accents, are found at every gather
ing of society and literary people here.
A gentleman at the home of we'll
known literary woman the other evening
asked me why SO many Southern women
take to literature and journalism. ''The
silver lining" in the great war cloud
which once overshadowed this nation is
this array of bright women who so
bravely undertook TO retrieve the family
fortunes with their pens. Imaginative,
susceptible, by nature sympathetic and
persevering, it is no wonder so many of
them succeeded. While the Southern
women writers, as whole, have neither
tho originality nor breadth of style of
their Northern sisters or English women,
their delineations of character strongly
appeal to and hold the sympathies of
their readers. In Brooklyn no Southern
woman is better known or more highly
w
Langford, the President of the Seidl So
ciety. Her petite and graceful figure is Il
familiar one At musical and literary gath
erings. No one who sees this 'clever"
and YivaciouS little woman viii believe
that she has been writing for eighteen
years. She doesn't look day over 35.
Indeed, few women of 30 possess her
buoyancy and sparkling wit. As an after
dinner speaker no woman has surpassed
and few have equaled her. The prosper
ity of the sSeidl Society is largely due to
the life and enthusiasm which she in
fuses into it. Her most successful book,
The Ladies of the White House," has
had the phenomenal sale OF over one
hundred thousand copies.
Mrs. Langford is the daughter of the
Hon. Samuel Jefferson Carter, of Vir-
ginia, q descendant, so the traditions say
of ''Old King Carter" 4 contemporary
pays her this just tribute: Exception
ally fortunate III that her career COM
menced with strong friendly influence,
proved her right to do, by her taithtui-
ness, industry, sweet temper. devotion
and generosity to women, justice to men
and desire TO think well of human beings,
and the courage to uphold her opinions
in the face of all opposition. She has a
gentle personality, a vivid intelligence, a
loyable soul, an indomitable spirit which
opinions of ala woman for whose life
all womanhood is better and richer.''
Marion Harland Mrs. Terhune) a resi-
dent of this city, is also u native of Vir-
ginia.l Mrs. Burton HARRISON, the author
of 1.-The Anglomaniacs," was a Miss
Cary, of Virginia. Miss Frances Will
Jams, of the Herald, is a Georgia girl.
Mary X. Bryan, one of the very best paid
literary women i'll New York, used to
edit the Sunny South. She, too, claims
Georgia as her native State. And "Bab,"
she OF the caustic and free lance pen, is
a Baltimorean. The Bisland sisters are
natives of New Orleans. Elizabeth is in
Europe at present, where she is writing
] industriously for the Cosmopolitan and
other periodicals. Mary conducts the
woman's department of the illustrated
American. Emma Moffit Tyng's excel
lent articles in the Housewife prove that
all the good housekeepers were not born
this side of Mason and DiXon's line.
MISS LOUISE LAWSON.
| a woman who will come in for a share
of the country's praise this summer is
| Miss Louise Lawson, the sculptor. She is
| is worthy successor of Winnie Ream
Hoxie and Harriet Hosmer.
! Hiss Lawson has just completed the
letter-carrier's statue of the late Samu el
| Sullivan Cox. Those who were most
intimately acquainted with Mr.. Cox are
warmest in their praises of Miss Law
| sons work.
The statue is niue feet high. The ped
estal is to be twelve feet high. The un-
yelling will take place next Fourth of
July. A site in Central Park has been
chosen for it.
| Miss Lawson, outside Of her profession,
| is young woman of marked Individual
| ity. Almost anyone would pick her out
of group of women as a woman who
would some day do something out of the
ordinary.
/ Like SO many of her sisters in the lit
erary profession in New York, she is a
Southern girl. Her parents came from
Virginia, and she was born in Cincinnati.
Her conversation and ideas of art are
most entertaining, and, to Americans,
very encouraging. Although she studied
| she says she received her best training in
this country. Her teachers on the other
side told her that she had been well
taught. The young lady's first master
was Thomas S. Noble, of the Cincinnati
| Art School. Noble was pupil of Cou-
ture, in Paris. After leaving Ohio, Miss
Lawson studied some years in the Boston
| Art Museum. Grundemann was her
teacher there.
Ward of New York also was her master
for some time. This gifted woman reads
and writes and converSeS in German,
French and Italian. With all these gifts
I she is as simple and lovable as q little
child. 1t was her lovely manners TO the
| letter-carrier in her district which caused
her to be selected to model this statue o.
Mr.. Cox. When you consider the i'm
portant position which her subject held
in the hearts of the people, and that the
statue will cost in the neighborhood OF
5000, you must conclude that the honor
conferred upon her as the sculptor is by
no means trivial. The carrier who
| brought her letters would often stop to
admire the models in her studio, and
when she found he was interested in art
! she took pains to show him anything
new that she CHANGED to have around
After Mr.. Cox died and the letter-carri-
erS decided to raise money to build this
memorial, it so happened that the young
man who brought Miss Lawson's letters
was put on the committee. When the
money began to flow in he advised her tc
write to the Chairman. The rest of the
story needs no telling.
MRS. MAY WRIGHT SEwALL.
AS you. look South for your women
writers and to New England for women
mathematicians, you must travel West
for women of executive ability. There
were some silly and intiammatory
| speeches made at the Woman's Council
| last month; there were also some wise
and able ones delivered. One of the ablesi
was by May Wright Sewall. of Indianapo-
| lis. The council redeemed some of its
mistakes by electing her President at the
close. Mrs. Sewall, although born in
Milwaukee, had good fortune to receive
that priceless thing in girls life, good
education. She graduated with honor
from the Northwestern University, al
Evanston, Ill. Three years after gradu-
| alton the degree of a. NJ. was conferred
on her. As this was in 1870, about the
only thing that a girl with good educa-
ton could get to do was position as
teacher. For some years she was the
| Princiral of the Hirh School of Plain,