Annah Robinson Watson (1848–1930) was an American author, the founding member and president of the Nineteenth Century Club, and a collector of

American folklore American folklore encompasses the folklores that have evolved in the present-day United States since Europeans arrived in the 16th century. While it contains much in the way of Native American tradition, it is not wholly identical to the tribal ...

Early life

Watson was born Annah Walker Robinson on the Taylor homestead, "Springfields", near

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

, to Mary Louise Taylor Robinson and Archibald Magill Robinson., she was the granddaughter of Hancock Taylor, a brother of President Zachariah Taylor. Watson was described as a "romantic, poetic, imaginative child". After some years in the countryside, her family moved to Louisville, and Watson received an education there and later in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Written works

After completing her studies, she entered society as a poet. She continued to write, publishing "Baby's Mission", which received widespread popularity and was published in the London journal ''Chatterbox''. She also won a contest in the New York ''Churchman'' for best lullaby. In addition to publishing many poems and prose works under her own name, she also extensively published unsigned work, including reviews and editorials. In 1870 Watson married James H. Watson, the son of

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

judge John William Clark Watson. She later settled with her family in

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

, where her husband practiced law. She published tales and superstitions collected from African-American peoples, apparently in the dialect of the teller, and speculated on a type of

ethnographic Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject ...

racialism Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.. "Few tragedies can be more ...

. Her works include ''Some Notable Families of America'', ''Of Sceptred Race'', ''Passion Flowers'' and a paper—"Comparative Afro-American Folk-Lore"—read at the International Folk-Lore Congress of the

World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, hel ...

of 1893. In Memphis, Watson was a founding member and third president of the Nineteenth Century Club, the largest woman's club in the South. At the time, clubs were viewed as schools where women were able to extend their intellectual endeavors. The club was tied to the Women's suffrage movement, though the members made it clear that theirs was a very feminine brand of activism, often justified with explanations of how it helped women to become better in family life. Although Watson cautioned against pursuing activism at the expense of the family, she noted "a new sense of power and capacity among American women", and published ''The New Woman of the New South & the Attitude of Southern Women on the Suffrage Question'' with

suffragist Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...

Josephine Henry in 1895. In 1913, General James Grant Wilson submitted Watson's poem titled "The Siege of Vicksburg, a Battle of the Bluffs" on her behalf for the 43rd reunion of the Society of the

Army of the Tennessee An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

. In 1914, Watson published ''Golden Deeds on the Field of Honor: Stories of Young American Heroes'', which focuses on the Civil War, primarily from the Southern perspective.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Watson, Annah Robinson American ethnologists Women ethnologists Writers from Tennessee American folklorists Women folklorists 1848 births 1930 deaths