Between the Covers | A Peek into Classic Books | Fanny Fern: Columnist and Early Feminist Writer

Fanny Fern, whose real name was Sara Payson Willis (1811-1872), achieved remarkable success as a writer in the mid-19th century. Her newspaper columns were famous for their humor, social commentary, and general success. Fern’s success helped prove that writing could be a lucrative career as an early feminist writer and that women could succeed in journalism.

Her novel Ruth Hall (1854), a semi-autobiographical work, became a key text in feminist literary studies. It follows the life of Ruth, a young woman who faces hardship after becoming a widow. The story is in three phases: her happy marriage, her struggles as an impoverished widow, and her rise to fame as a newspaper columnist.

In the following excerpt, Ruth speaks about her in-laws.

Chapter 6. A Bit of Family History

Like many other persons, who revolve all their life in a peck measure, the doctor’s views of the world in general, and its denizens in particular, were somewhat circumscribed. Added to this, he was as persevering as a fly in the dog-days, and as immovable as the old rusty weather-cock on the village meeting-house, which for twenty years had never been blown about by any whisking wind of doctrine. “When he opened his mouth, no dog must bark;” and any dissent from his opinion, however circumspectly worded, he considered a personal insult. As his wife entertained the same liberal views, occasional conjugal collisions, on this narrow track, were the consequence; the interest of which was intensified by each reminding the other of their Calvinistic church obligations to keep the peace. They had, however, one common ground of undisputed territory—their “Son Harry,” who was as infallible as the Pope, and (until he got married) never did a foolish thing since he was born. On this last point, their “Son Harry” did not exactly agree with them, as he considered it decidedly the most delightful negotiation he had ever made, and one which he could not even think of without a sudden acceleration of pulse.

Time wore on, the young couple occupying their own suite of apartments, while the old people kept house. The doctor, who had saved enough to lay his saddle-bags with his medical books on the shelf, busied himself, after he had been to market in the morning, in speculating on what Ruth was about, or in peeping over the balustrade, to see who called when the bell rang; or, in counting the wood-pile, to see how many sticks the cook had taken to make the pot boil for dinner.