Southwold.
The First Novel by an Early Practitioner of Civil Disobedience
Blake, Mrs. Lillie Devereaux Umsted. Southwold. New York: Rudd & Carleton, 1859.
8vo.; brown cloth, elaborately stamped in blind; covers rubbed, spine lightly cocked, faded; else good.
First edition of Blake’s first novel, the story of a beautiful heroine endowed with a mind “almost masculine in its depth of thought and capability of analytical inquiry.” The novel’s heroine becomes bitter after she is rejected by the man she loves; the work ends with her madness and eventual suicide.
Lillie Devereaux Umsted Blake (1833-1913)—nicknamed “Tiger Lily”—was a New York society belle who began publishing stories and sketches as a means to relieve domestic boredom, and became a daring and eloquent advocate of women’s rights. Blake was educated at a girl’s school in New Haven and tutored by Yale professors. In 1855 she married the lawyer Frank Umsted and the couple moved to New York.
Her novel, Southwold, enjoyed wide public admiration despite a tepid critical reception. Her pleasure in its success was fleeting: within a few months her husband committed suicide in the face of financial mishaps that eviscerated the family’s monies. Now forced to support herself and her daughter, Blake became Washington correspondent for the New York Evening Post and the World, as well as churning out, with more ease perhaps than skill, stories to magazines and newspapers.
Remarriage in 1866 to Grinfill Blake did not markedly ease her financial situation and she continued to pursue a career. A few years later, however, Mrs. Blake got involved in the woman suffrage movement; it became the principal motivation of her life henceforth. Intelligent, attractive, and charming, Mrs. Blake quickly came to prominence within the movement. She found she enjoyed addressing public audiences and appeared at numerous NWSA (and NAWSA) conventions and gatherings. She served as the president of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association (1879-1890) and of the New York City Woman Suffrage League (1886-1890). Blake secured some very real reforms: woman suffrage in school elections; laws requiring woman doctors in mental institutions and matrons in police stations; and pensions for Civil War nurses.
On July 4, 1876, Blake participated in a dramatic act of civil disobedience when she—along with Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Sara Andres Spencer, and Phoebe Couzins—interrupted a national centennial celebration in Independence Square to present a declaration demanding civil and political rights for women. From 1879-1890 Blake was President of the NY Woman Suffrage Association; she ran the NYC Woman Suffrage League concurrently. However, Mrs. Blake increasingly found herself at odds with Susan B. Anthony. Anthony looked upon Mrs. Blake’s attempt to woo socially prominent women with some disdain. She disliked Blake’s tendency to pursue issues not strictly pertinent to woman suffrage; and perhaps, too, Blake’s personal attractions and flamboyance simply rubbed Anthony the wrong way. When Anthony decided to step down from the NAWSA presidency, Blake was a possible successor; in fact, Elizabeth Cady Stanton encouraged Blake to put herself forward. Anthony, however, made it clear that Carrie Chapman Catt was her choice and Blake withdrew. It effectively ended her association with the NAWSA.
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