Contents

Collection Overview

Biographical Note

Scope and Contents of the Collection

Organization of the Collection

Search Terms

Fanny Fern and Ethel Parton Papers, 1805-1982

Finding Aid

Finding aid prepared by Burd Schlessinger.

Encoding funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

2003

Biographical Note

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.

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Scope and Contents of the Collection

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.

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Search Terms

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Organization of the Collection

This collection is organized into nine series:

• I. Fanny Fern Biographical Material
• II. Fanny Fern Correspondence
• III. Fanny Fern Memorabilia
• IV. Fanny Fern Photographs
• V. Fanny Fern Writings
• VI. Ethel Parton Biographical Material
• VII. Ethel Parton Correspondence
• VIII. Ethel Parton Writings
• IX. Ethel Parton Artwork

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SERIES I. FANNY FERN BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL (1805-1982) .5 linear feet

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.

SERIES II. FANNY FERN CORRESPONDENCE (1829-1870) .25 linear feet

The series includes correspondence with Catharine Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Major Benjamin F. Butler, as well as with members of Fern's family.

SERIES III. FANNY FERN MEMORABILIA (n.d.) .25 linear feet

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.

SERIES IV. FANNY FERN PHOTOGRAPHS (n.d.) .25 linear feet

This series contains photographs, daguerreotypes, and a tintype of Fanny Fern and her family.

SERIES V. FANNY FERN WRITINGS (1850-1884) 1.25 linear feet

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.

SERIES VI. ETHEL PARTON BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL (1884-1980) .5 linear feet

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.

SERIES VII. ETHEL PARTON CORRESPONDENCE (1885-1945) .25 linear feet

This series contains correspondence with family, friends and acquaintances and is limited in scope.

SERIES VIII. ETHEL PARTON WRITINGS (1896-1943) 2.75 linear feet

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."

SERIES IX. ARTWORK (1891-1943) .25 linear feet

The series contains sketches by Parton, and drafts of hand made Christmas cards she created based on Dutch tile designs.

SERIES I. FANNY FERN BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL

SERIES II. FANNY FERN CORRESPONDENCE

SERIES III. FANNY FERN MEMORABILIA

SERIES IV. FANNY FERN PHOTOGRAPHS

SERIES V. FANNY FERN WRITINGS

SERIES VI. ETHEL PARTON BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL

SERIES VII. ETHEL PARTON CORRESPONDENCE

SERIES VIII. ETHEL PARTON WRITINGS

SERIES IX. ARTWORK