Josephine White Bates (8 July 1862 – 20 October 1934) was a Canadian-American author who preferred to use her married name Mrs. E. Lindon Bates. She was the author of several works including ''A Blind Lead'' (1886), ''Bunch-Grass Stories'' (1892), and ''Mercury Poisoning in the Industries of New York City and Vicinity'' (1912).

Early years and education

Josephine White was born 8 July 1857 at

Portage-du-Fort Portage-du-Fort is a village municipality in the Pontiac Regional County Municipality in the southwest corner of the Outaouais region of Quebec, Canada. The village lies across the Ottawa River from Chenaux, Ontario and Horton, Ontario. At Por ...

Canada East Canada East (french: links=no, Canada-Est) was the northeastern portion of the United Province of Canada. Lord Durham's Report investigating the causes of the Upper and Lower Canada Rebellions recommended merging those two colonies. The new ...

near

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

, Canada West, the daughter of George E. and Mary White. She was a student in

Lake Forest, Illinois Lake Forest is a city located in Lake County, Illinois, United States. Per the 2020 census, the population was 19,367. The city is along the shore of Lake Michigan, and is a part of the Chicago metropolitan area and the North Shore. Lake Forest ...

, and at the

Lake Forest College Lake Forest College is a private liberal arts college in Lake Forest, Illinois. Founded in 1857 as Lind University by a group of Presbyterian ministers, the college has been coeducational since 1876 and an undergraduate-focused liberal arts inst ...

, 1876–80.

Career

She married Lindon Wallace Bates (born 1858), a

hydraulic Hydraulics (from Greek: Υδραυλική) is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counter ...

engineer, of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, on April 6, 1881, becoming a U.S. citizen by marriage. The couple lived in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

for a number of years. She was active in the

Preparedness Movement The Preparedness Movement was a campaign led by former Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, Leonard Wood, and former President Theodore Roosevelt to strengthen the U.S. military after the outbreak of World War I. Wood advocated a summer training sc ...

; in 1916, she published a pamphlet "Keep America Safe". In 1908, she became a member of the Lyceum Club, having been sponsored by

Lou Henry Hoover Lou Hoover (née Henry; March 29, 1874 – January 7, 1944) was an American philanthropist, geologist, and First Lady of the United States from 1929 to 1933 as the wife of President Herbert Hoover. She was active in numerous community organizatio ...

. She was also a member of Colony (New York); as well as Fortnightly, and Friday (Chicago). Bates visited with

Herbert Hoover Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gr ...

and his wife at their Red House in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

for several weeks in 1911.

Personal life

Bates' summer home was at Lebanon Park, in Mount Lebanon, New York, while the rest of the year, her address was 615

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...

, in New York City. Her son Lindon Bates, Jr. also became an engineer; he later perished in the sinking of the RMS ''Lusitania''. Bates died in

Yorktown, New York Yorktown is a town on the northern border of Westchester County, New York, United States. A suburb of the New York City metropolitan area, it is approximately north of midtown Manhattan. The population was 36,569 at the 2020 U.S. Census. Histo ...

Selected works

* ''A Blind Lead: The Story of a Mine'' (1888) * ''A Nameless Wrestler'' (1889) * ''Armaïs and others'' (1892) * ''Bunch-grass Stories'' (1895)

References

Bibliography

* * *

Attribution

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bates, Josephine White 1862 births 1934 deaths 19th-century American novelists 19th-century American women writers 19th-century Canadian novelists 19th-century Canadian women writers American women novelists Canadian emigrants to the United States 19th-century pseudonymous writers Writers from Portland, Oregon