Isabella Macdonald Alden (Pansy)
Isabella Macdonald Alden's life was a literary one, shaped first by
her father and then by her religion. The daughter of well-educated
parents,
she was born November 3, 1841, in Rochester, New York. She
was the
sixth of seven children, and was initially home-schooled
by her father,
who also gave her her nickname. She developed her
writing skills early:
as a child, she kept a daily journal, which
her father critiqued, and
had her first story, "Our Old Clock,"
published in the village paper when
she was only ten. Later, she attended school in New York, at the Oneida
Seminary, the Seneca Collegiate Institute, and the Young Ladies Institute.
The Oneida Seminary played a pivotal role in her life, for it was
there that she first met Theodosia Toll (Faye Huntington), the woman
with whom she later co-authored several works -- and who helped
start
Alden's writing career through the publication of her first
book,
Helen Lester, in 1865. As Alden explained in her
autobiography, "Docia" had encouraged her to enter the manuscript
in a competition. Alden replied "I'll do no such thing. If I can't
write a better story than that, it it proves I ought never to write at all. Tear the thing into bits and throw it into the grate with the other rubbish." Instead, Docia submitted the manuscript without telling Alden, who learned of it only when she was awarded first prize in the competition.
Alden also met her husband, Reverend Gustavus Rossenberg Alden
(a descendant of John Alden), while teaching at Oneida Seminary; the
two married on May 30, 1866. Rev. Alden's work took the couple to
various parts of the country, including New York, Indiana, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, and Washington D.C. After her marriage, Alden divided
her time among writing, participating in church activities, teaching
at several of the Chautauqua sessions, and raising her son Raymond,
who was born in 1873. (According to one source, Rev. Alden also had
a daughter, Anna, from his first marriage, who
lived with Docia Toll's
family.) By 1900, the Aldens had three
residences: a home in
Philadelphia (near their son, who was then an
instructor at the
University of Pennsylvania), a summer residence in
Chautauqua, New
York, and a winter home in Winter Park, Florida.
Throughout her life, Isabella Alden combined her writing and her
religion. She did much work with Christian periodicals, writing
serialized stories for the Herald and Presbyter from about
1870
until 1900; editing The Pansy, a Sunday juvenile, from
1874-1894;
editing the Primary Quarterly and producing the
primary grade
Sunday School lessons for the Westmister Teacher
for twenty years;
and working on the editorial staff of Trained
Motherhood and
The Christian Endeavor.
From 1865 to 1929, Alden also authored approximately 100 books,
coauthored 10 more, and edited or coedited several others. Most of
her
works are didactic fiction, heavily salted with religious
principles,
which concentrate on translating Biblical precepts into
acceptable
Christian behavior in a modern world. Several of her
books, such as
Ester Ried (her most popular work),
were based
on personal experiences;
others, such as the
Chautauqua Girls series, were
motivated by
her interest in the Chautauqua movement (and the first
volume,
Four Girls at Chautauqua "is said to have given an
important
impetus to the success of [the Chautauqua] experiment".)[1]
Pansy and her niece, Grace Livingston Hill, even make a brief appearance
in the final chapter of the last book in the series,
Four Mothers at Chatauqua.
Other elements in the
Chautauqua books may also have been
semi-autobiographical; for example, one of the girls
writes articles for
the paper, marries a minister, and works with the primary grades in
the
Sunday School.
Alden's books were enormously popular during
the late nineteenth
century; in 1900, sales were estimated at around
100,000 copies
annually. Some titles were translated into several
languages, including French and Japanese. None too surprisingly,
her books were
also a staple in many Sunday School
libraries. [2]
After the deaths of her husband and son in 1924,
Alden moved to
Palo Alto, California, where she made her home with
her daughter-in-law.
She continued writing until shortly before her
death on August 5, 1930,
leaving an unfinished autobiography,
Memories of Yesterday, which
was completed and edited by her niece, Grace Livingston Hill.
In the 1990s, edited and abridged editions of some Alden's works
have appeared in two series issued by Christian publishers, The Pansy
Collection, published by Creation House, and the Grace Livingston Hill
Library ("Novels by the mentor of America's favorite storyteller"),
published by Living Books.
Notes
[1]"Alden, Isabella Macdonald." Notable American Women 1607-1950.
Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 1971.
[2] For an illustration of the popularity of Alden's work with
nineteenth-century readers -- and of the methods used in Sunday School
libaries --, see Norman J. and Angela E. Williamson, "Mamie Pickering's
Reading," Children's Literature Association Quarterly 9.1-2
(Spring - Summer 1984). Most of the titles mentioned in the article are
by Alden, though not always identified as such.
Biographical Sources
Alden, Isabella M. [Pansy] Memories of Yesterday. Edited by
Grace Livingston Hill. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1931.
"Alden, Isabella Macdonald." Dictionary of Literary Biography.
Vol 42.
"Alden, Isabella Macdonald." National Cyclopedia of American Biography.
Vol. 10. 1900; rpt. University Microfilms, 1967.
"Alden, Isabella Macdonald." Notable American Women 1607-1950.
Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 1971.
"Alden, Isabella (Macdonald.)" Yesterday's Authors of Books for
Children.
"Alden, Mrs. Isabella Macdonald." A Woman of the Century. Ed.
Frances E. Willard and Mary A. Livermore. Charles Wells Moulton, 1893.
Coddington, Annie HanChett. Home School for Girls. Speakers, NY:
Chicadee Down Press, 1996.
Cole, Deborah. "About the Author." [Introduction.] In The King's
Daughter by Isabella Macdonald Alden. Lake Mary, FL: Creation House,
1992.
"Isabella M. Alden, Noted Author, Dies." [obituary] New York Times,
August 6, 1930.
"Isabella MacDonald Alden." American Women Writers: A Critical
Reference Guide from Colonial Times to the Present. Ed. Lina Mainero.
New York: Frederick Ungar, 1981.
"Understanded [sic] of the People." [editorial] New York Times,
August 7, 1930.
