Frances Miriam "Berry" Whitcher (1811–1852) was an American humorist, born in

Whitestown, New York Whitestown is a town in Oneida County, New York, United States. The population was 18,667 at the 2010 census. The name is derived from Judge Hugh White, an early settler. The town is immediately west of Utica and the New York State Thruway (Inte ...

. Whitcher may have been the first significant woman

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...

humorist in the United States.

Family life

Frances was born November 1, 1811, in Whitestown,

Oneida County, New York Oneida County is a county in the state of New York, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 232,125. The county seat is Utica. The name is in honor of the Oneida, one of the Five Nations of the Iroquois League or ''Haudenos ...

. She was the daughter of Lewis Berry. She lived a fairly sheltered life, and was very close to her family. She was often ill, but managed to find the ridiculous in everyday life. On January 6, 1847, at the age of 35, she married Rev. Benjamin Williams Whitcher, and in the Spring of that year moved with her new husband to

Elmira, New York Elmira () is a city and the county seat of Chemung County, New York, United States. It is the principal city of the Elmira, New York, metropolitan statistical area, which encompasses Chemung County. The population was 26,523 at the 2020 cens ...

, where he became the Rector of Trinity Church in April 1847. She had to put herself more into the public eye as a minister's wife. She died January 4, 1852, in

Material

Whitcher's keen observations of those around her were an unending source of materials for her sketches. Those she wrote about soon saw themselves in her prose, and this caused friction with her husband's parishioners. This may have caused him to lose his position in the church.

Characters

She contributed poems to the ''Saturday Gazette'' and '' Godey's Lady's Book'' during the 1840s. Her humorous creation, ''The Widow Bedott'', made her a celebrity. The characters she developed helped her satirize gentility, including issues such as fashion, social status, courtship, and hypocrisy. In 1855, ''The Widow Bedott Papers'', was gathered from her writings and published in book form, featuring her chief character, the comic fool The Widow Bedott. Afterwards, David R. Locke fashioned a coarsely amusing play from it. Consult the memoir by M. L. W. Whitcher in Frances M. Whitcher's ''Widow Spriggins'' (New York, 1867).

External links

Frances Miriam Whicher's Widow Bedott story, 'The Widow Trades With A Peddler' is read in Mister Ron's Basement
Podcast {{DEFAULTSORT:Whitcher, Frances Miriam 1811 births 1852 deaths American humorists People from Whitestown, New York