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Phoebe Cary

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Phoebe cary portrait in cary cottage

1850 portrait of Phoebe Cary in New York City which hangs in her childhood home, Cary Cottage. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Phoebe Cary (September 4, 1824 - July 31, 1871) was an American poet, and the younger sister of poet Alice Cary (1820-1871). The sisters co-published poems in 1849, and then each went on to publish volumes of her own. After their deaths in 1871, joint anthologies of the sisters' unpublished poems were also compiled.

Life[]

Phoebe Cary was born on September 4, 1824,[1] in Mount Healthy, Ohio near Cincinnati. She and her sister Alice were raised on the Clovernook farm in what is now North College Hill, Ohio.[2] While she and her sister were raised in a Universalist household and held political and religious views that were liberal and reformist, they often attended Methodist, Presbyterian, and Congregationalist services and were friendly with ministers of all these denominations and others.[3]

While they occasionally attended school, the sisters were often needed to work at home and so were largely self-educated. The sisters' mother died in 1835, and two years afterward their father married again. The stepmother was wholly unsympathetic regarding their literary aspirations. For their part, while they were ready and willing to aid to the full extent of their strength in household labor, the sisters persisted in a determination to study and write when the day's work was done. Sometimes they were refused the use of candles to the extent of their wishes, and the device of a saucer of lard with a bit of rag for a wick was their only light after the rest of the family had retired.[4]

More outgoing than her sister, Phoebe was a champion of women's rights and for a short time edited The Revolution, a newspaper published by Susan B. Anthony.[3] In 1848, their poetry was published in the anthology Female Poets of America edited by Rufus Wilmot Griswold and, with his help, Poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary was published in 1849.[2] Poet John Greenleaf Whittier had been invited to provide a preface but refused. He believed their poetry did not need his endorsement and also noted a general dislike for prefaces as a method to "pass off by aid of a known name, what otherwise would not pass current".[5]

The sisters' anthology garnered much acclaim, and in 1850 they moved to New York City. There, they often hosted evening receptions on Sundays, some of which were attended by well-known figures such as P.T. Barnum, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.[2] While in New York, Phoebe published 2 volumes of exclusively her own poetry: Poems and Parodies and Poems of Faith, Hope, and Love. Additionally, her lyrics appeared in many church hymnals, on Sunday School cards, and in household scrapbooks. Her hymn "Nearer Home" was often sung at funerals, including Alice's and her own.[3]

In the joint housekeeping in New York, Phoebe took, from choice (Alice being for many years an invalid), the larger share of the household duties, and hence found less leisure for literary labor. She wrote very little prose, and her poetry was so different in style, so much more buoyant in tone and independent in manner, that the verses of either sister were rarely ascribed to the other.[4]

Cary cottage 3380

Cary Cottage, North College Hill, Ohio. Photo by Rick Dikeman. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Alice died in 1871 from tuberculosis; Phoebe died 5 months later of hepatitis,[2] on July 31, 1871, in Newport, Rhode Island.[6] Both were buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

Recognition[]

Cary Cottage, the Cary sisters' childhood home, stands today on the east side of Hamilton Avenue (US 127), on the campus of the Clovernook Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired in North College Hill. Cary Cottage became the 1st home in Ohio for blind women. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

Publications[]

Poetry[]

  • Poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary. Philadelphia: Moss & Brother, 1849.
  • Poems and Parodies. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields, 1854.
  • Poems of Faith, Hope, and Love. New York: Hurd & Houghton, 1867.
  • From Year to Year: A token of remembrance. New York: G.A. Leavitt, 1869.
  • A Memorial of Alice and Phoebe Cary; with Some of their later poems (edited by Mary Clemmer Ames). New York: Hurd & Houghton, 1873; London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low, & Searle, 1873.
  • Last Poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary (edited by Mary Clemmer Ames). New York: Hurd & Houghton, 1873.
  • The Poetical Works of Alice and Phoebe Cary. Boston: Houghton Osgoode, 1876; New York: Hurd & Houghton, 1879; Boston: Houghton Mifflin (Household Edition), 1880.
  • Poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary (edited by Katharine Lee Bates). New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1903.
  • Flowers from Alice and Phoebe Cary. Boston: DeWolfe & Fiske, 1905.

Juvenile[]

  • Ballads for Little Folks (by Alice and Phoebe Cary; edited by Mary Clemmer Ames). New York: Hurd & Houghton, 1875; Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1970

Edited[]

  • Hymns for all Christians (edited by Charles Force Deems & Phoebe Cary). New York: Hurd & Houghton, 1866; 6th edition, New York: W.B.Ketcham, 1888.
Jacob_by_Phoebe_Cary

Jacob by Phoebe Cary


Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[7]

See also[]

References[]

  • Mary C. Ames, Memorials of Alice and Phœbe Cary (26th edition, 1885).

Notes[]

  1. ↑ Ehrlich, Eugene and Gorton Carruth. The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982: 297. ISBN 0195031865
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Kane, Paul. Poetry of the American Renaissance. New York: George Braziller, 1995: 297. ISBN 0-8076-1398-3
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 June Edwards. "The Cary Sisters". Accessed Nov. 29, 2007.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1  Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John, eds. (1900) "Cary, Alice" Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography New York: D. Appleton  Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "appletons" defined multiple times with different content
  5. ↑ Woodwell, Roland H. John Greenleaf Whittier: A Biography. Haverhill, Massachusetts: Trustees of the John Greenleaf Whittier Homestead, 1985: 232
  6. ↑ Ehrlich, Eugene and Gorton Carruth. The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982: 69. ISBN 0195031865
  7. ↑ Search results = au:Phoebe Cary, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Mar. 19, 2017.

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