LETTER: Autograph letter signed to Mr. Ives, regarding publishing matters
Rare Letter
On Publishing Matters
Woodhull, Victoria. ALS, “Victoria Woodhull Martin” to “Mrs. [Alice Emma] Ives,” December 4, 1895; two leaves of stationery, four pages; creased where folded.
Woodhull responds to Ives’s pitch to publish her article, “Domestic Purse Strings,” in The Humanitarian. Woodhull turns Ives down due to the article “already appear[ing] in The Forum.” Woodhull writes, “I did not know that at the time I thought of publishing it but…I made inquiries & I found apart from questions of copyrights, it would be a grave breach of editorial etiquette for one leading [journal] to copy from another, even with the permission of the owner of the article.” She concludes, “I sincerely hope we may have the pleasure of seeing you when you come to London again. Believe me…”
“Domestic Purse Strings” was Alice Emma Ives’s most famous article, addressing the financial role of a woman, and how inaccessibility to money (her husband’s or her own) created a void in properly understanding responsibility, and potentially leading to animosity, envy, and even crime. Ives, who began her career as an art critic, wrote plays, magazine articles, and literary criticism for a living; “The Domestic Purse-Strings” was published in “The Forum” in September 1890, and later reprinted in several other newspapers and journals.
Woodhull letters are genuinely scarce.
(#13312)
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