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Marion Hamilton Carter (1865-1937) was an American
Progressive Era The Progressive Era (late 1890s – late 1910s) was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States focused on defeating corruption, monopoly, waste and inefficiency. The main themes ended during Am ...
educator, psychologist, children’s literature editor, short story writer, and artist. In her prime, she worked as a
muckraker The muckrakers were reform-minded journalists, writers, and photographers in the Progressive Era in the United States (1890s–1920s) who claimed to expose corruption and wrongdoing in established institutions, often through sensationalist publ ...
journalist, magazine editor, women’s suffrage advocate, and novelist. She was an early member of the Authors League of America (now the
Authors Guild The Authors Guild is America's oldest and largest professional organization for writers and provides advocacy on issues of free expression and copyright protection. Since its founding in 1912 as the Authors League of America, it has counted among ...
), and published short fiction and nonfiction in popular magazines of the day. She is best known today for her suffrage novel, ''The Woman With Empty Hands: The Evolution of a Suffragette.''


Early life

Marion Hamilton Carter was the eldest of three children born into a comfortable upper-middle-class family in Philadelphia at the end of the Civil War. Her
Dutch American Dutch Americans ( nl, Nederlandse Amerikanen) are Americans of Dutch descent whose ancestors came from the Netherlands in the recent or distant past. Dutch settlement in the Americas started in 1613 with New Amsterdam, which was exchanged with ...
father, Dr. Charles Carter (1837-1898) of Binghamton, New York, graduated from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1861, and served as a Surgeon in the U.S. Navy 1861–1863, before marrying Mary Nelson Bunker (1841-1908) of Fairfield, Connecticut. Marion’s grandfather Captain John Bunker (1796-1852) died at sea and left his Fairfield house (formerly the colonial Sun Tavern) to Marion’s Irish-born grandmother, Fanny Hamilton McOrin (Bunker) (1816-1897)."Sun Tavern Through the Years," Fairfield Museum and History Center, Facebook, April 30, 2020.
/ref> In 1867 Marion’s father purchased the home from his mother-in-law and the Carter family spent the next eighteen years summering in Connecticut. After selling the Fairfield house and sending their children to college, Marion’s parents spent winters in their mountain-top cottage in
Blowing Rock, North Carolina Blowing Rock is a town in Watauga and Caldwell counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. The population was 1,397 at the 2021 census. The Caldwell County portion of Blowing Rock is part of the Hickory–Lenoir– Morganton Metropolita ...
where Marion’s mother organized benevolent societies, a Sunday school, and a public library. In addition to her community work, Mary Nelson Carter published a collection of seventeen first-person sketches of western North Carolina local life, written in rural dialect, and including stories of the Civil War and its aftermath in
Appalachia Appalachia () is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ca ...
. Her book was well received throughout the United States.


Education

Marion Carter and her younger sister Kathleen received a science-based education in Philadelphia that prepared them for acceptance into elite east-coast women’s colleges. Kathleen attended
Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...
(BSc 1892) and the
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
(PhD in Psychology 1895). Marion attended and probably taught at Miss Van Kirk's Philadelphia Training School for Kindergartners c1883-1887 and served in 1886 as Secretary to the school's fundraising Society of Kindergarten Helpers. She attended
Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely follo ...
1887-1889 as a "Collegiate Special" and went on to complete a four-year course in Biology at the Boston Institute of Technology in 1893 (now
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
), followed by a year there as a "Special.""Manhattan Training School," ''The Brooklyn Daily Eagle'', March 19, 1899: 21. Newspapers.com. In 1892 Carter applied to study psychology under philosopher and psychologist
William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...
at Harvard University but she did not get in because the university did not accept women. Instead, she attended
Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...
for the first of two years of non-graduate study."Carter, Marion Hamilton," Non-Graduate Students, Radcliffe College Alumnae Register, 1879-1955: 92.
/ref> Carter’s application for a passport suggests that she might have travelled abroad in the fall of 1894. In 1895–1896, while officially registered at Radcliffe, Carter studied at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
in the Education Seminary (then a sub-department of the Philosophy Department). Working under the direction of Paul Henry Hanus and
William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...
, she patented seventy-five paper dolls for use in schools to stimulate creative writing abilities in children.Carter, Marion Hamilton. "Educational Paper Dolls." ''Journal of Pedagaogy'', Vol.11 (1898): 134.
/ref> In 1896-1897 she took her paper doll experiments into the Willimantic State Normal School. She received a BSc from
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
in 1898 and worked towards a PhD in Philosophy at Cornell the following year.


Teaching career

By the time she was thirty-four, Carter had taught children for eleven years while simultaneously attending institutions of higher learning. In 1899, during her first year of teaching at the New York Teacher Training School (affiliated with
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
), she gave a lecture series at the school entitled "The Psychical Significance of Fear: Its Relation to Other Emotions and Its Influence on Development." By 1902 Carter was also serving as Superintendent of
Nature Studies The nature study movement (alternatively, Nature Study or nature-study) was a popular education movement that originated in the United States and spread throughout the English-speaking world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Nature study ...
in the public schools of Greater New York and lived as a "Special Student" at
Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...
. She had applied in early 1902 for the position of Supervisor of Boston Schools but was unsuccessful. Carter’s 1904 ''
McClure's ''McClure's'' or ''McClure's Magazine'' (1893–1929) was an American illustrated monthly periodical popular at the turn of the 20th century. The magazine is credited with having started the tradition of muckraking journalism (investigative journ ...
'' article, "The Parent," recounts her years of teaching by categorizing various types of problematic parents: indifferent, inconsiderate, meddlesome, fond, proud, troublesome, irate, ignorant, and enlightened. In each anecdote Carter’s dislike of teaching shines through, and she ends the piece with the admission that "the Gordian knot of the parent problem was beyond untying. I have cut it." After she left teaching in 1904 to pursue a career as a writer and journalist, Carter wrote a letter to the editor of ''The New York Times'' about the New York Teacher Training School’s unhealthy air quality and the numerous absences and deaths of students who suffered from "quick consumption," as rapid onset tuberculosis was known then. During her transition from teaching to journalism, Carter published seven books: a
nature study The nature study movement (alternatively, Nature Study or nature-study) was a popular education movement that originated in the United States and spread throughout the English-speaking world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Nature study ...
teaching manual, with her own hand-drawn illustrations of common flowers, fruits, and vegetables, and six editions of children’s animal stories previously published in St. Nicholas Magazine.


Influence of William James

During the early 1900s Carter corresponded with her former professor
William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...
, founder of the
American Society for Psychical Research The American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) is the oldest psychical research organization in the United States dedicated to parapsychology. It maintains offices and a library, in New York City, which are open to both members and the gener ...
. She saw herself as his "gentleman" colleague in a friendship marked by "sacred delicacies" such as not capitalizing on his fame.Skrupskelis, Ignas K. and Elizabeth M. Berkeley. ''The Correspondence of William James, 1905-1908'', ''Vol. 11''. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2003: 479. Before she had become disillusioned with kindergarten pedagogy, she had attempted to "convert" James to the kindergarten "Philosophy of Philosophies." Carter suffered from serious depression throughout her life, and she credited James’ essay "Is Life Worth Living?" and his ''Varieties of Religious Experience'' for having saved her life during two particularly dark episodes. James' intellectual influence is apparent in Carter's later mature work.


Investigative journalism

Carter’s journalism career coincided with the height of early twentieth-century
muckraker The muckrakers were reform-minded journalists, writers, and photographers in the Progressive Era in the United States (1890s–1920s) who claimed to expose corruption and wrongdoing in established institutions, often through sensationalist publ ...
journalism. She published in ''
McClure's ''McClure's'' or ''McClure's Magazine'' (1893–1929) was an American illustrated monthly periodical popular at the turn of the 20th century. The magazine is credited with having started the tradition of muckraking journalism (investigative journ ...
'' ''Magazine'' (1904-1910) and funneled other investigative work through magazines, newspapers, and letters to newspaper editors. Although Carter expressed progressive views with regards to education, science, psychology, and women's rights, some of her investigative journalism was
contrarian A contrarian is a person who holds a contrary position, especially a position against the majority. Investing A contrarian investing style is based on identifying, and speculating against, movements in stock prices that reflect changes in th ...
or
reactionary In political science, a reactionary or a reactionist is a person who holds political views that favor a return to the ''status quo ante'', the previous political state of society, which that person believes possessed positive characteristics abse ...
in nature. Pedagogy Carter published a controversial piece in 1899 in ''
The Atlantic Monthly ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'', "The Kindergarten Child – after the Kindergarten," which drew strong criticism from the teaching profession as a "remarkably inaccurate article" that depicted kindergarten as "a machine for turning out prigs, children sentimentalists, and infant poseurs."Review by Samuel T. Dutton, "The Kindergarten Child As Pictured in ''The Atlantic Monthly''," "Conflicting Testimony," ''The Kindergarten for Teachers and Parents'', Vol. 11 (1899): 527-530, 545-46.
/ref> The article stirred heated debate in the following months. Years later Carter revisited the subject in an article for ''The Housekeeper'' series on "The Truth About Public Schools" in which she described kindergarten as "Infant Vaudeville," "Joy Saloon," and "one of the most insidiously immoral institutions in the country.""The October Housekeeper," ''The Bismarck Tribune'', October 4, 1908: 3. Newspapers.com. In another critique of kindergarten Carter poked fun at "Child Study," her sister Kathleen’s academic specialty, and cited a "fond mama’s" journal record of her child’s development that parodied her sister’s work. Still obsessed about kindergarten in 1911, Carter gave a speech to the Iowa Press and Authors Club in which she denounced it as "the country's greatest menace to prosperity, not barring liquors or drugs." Prohibition Journalism In late 1905, Carter wrote a letter to the editor of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' appealing to women to protest the anti-canteen law of 1901, an early measure of
Prohibition in the United States In the United States from 1920 to 1933, a Constitution of the United States, nationwide constitutional law prohibition, prohibited the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages. The alcohol industry was curtai ...
that banned the sale of liquor in Army canteens and was supported by the
Women’s Christian Temperance Union The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international Temperance movement, temperance organization, originating among women in the United States Prohibition movement. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social ref ...
. She took an anti-suffragist and pro-liquor lobby stance and argued, "when the underlying motive of such laws is largely spite against a sex in general on the part of a few disgruntled woman suffragists it is shocking to every sense of decency." She urged "every woman whose ethical standards have risen above those of the common or garden toad ... to add her name to the list of supporters of the canteen." Legal Journalism Carter established her reputation as a muckraking journalist through her months-long coverage of the sensational 1906
Josephine Terranova Josephine Pullare Terranova (April 21, 1889, in San Stefano, Sicily, Italy – July 16, 1981, in Marin County, California) was the defendant in a sensational murder trial in New York City in 1906. After years of alleged sexual abuse at the han ...
murder trial.Knapp, Krister Dylan. ''William James: Psychical Research and the Challenge of Modernity.'' Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2017: 295, 351-2.
/ref> Seventeen-year-old Terranova had killed her uncle and aunt after enduring five years of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse under their care. ''The Brooklyn Daily Eagle'' reported that the girl’s story "was worse than anything heard before in a New York court room" and ''The Washington Post'' called it "a story so brutal in its details, as the girl told it, that there were men in the courtroom who felt uncomfortable because they had to be there to listen to it." Terranova herself participated in the jury selection process and chose twelve fathers who, after being instructed by the judge to weigh in on the side of the prosecution, took less than fifteen minutes to acquit her. Carter, having spent years of scientific research on aural hallucinations and trance phenomena, focused her coverage on Terranova's psychological state and the fact that the murder case was the first in legal history to present hallucinatory voices as part of the defense. She did not have a byline for her news stories on the trial and so it is not known which New York City newspaper employed her. Journalism about the Occult Carter believed she had psychic abilities and connected
William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...
to a number of mediums in New York City for his own investigations into psychic phenomena.Skrupskelis, Ignas K. and Elizabeth M. Berkeley. ''The Correspondence of William James, 1905-1908, Vol. 11''. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2003: 230, 309-10. She started writing an article about the medium
Eusapia Palladino Eusapia Palladino (alternative spelling: ''Paladino''; 21 January 1854 – 16 May 1918) was an Italian Spiritualist physical medium. She claimed extraordinary powers such as the ability to levitate tables, communicate with the dead through he ...
for ''
McClure's ''McClure's'' or ''McClure's Magazine'' (1893–1929) was an American illustrated monthly periodical popular at the turn of the 20th century. The magazine is credited with having started the tradition of muckraking journalism (investigative journ ...
'', but she told James that her editor had "snatched" it away at the last moment, hoping that James would write it instead. Years later, known for her working relationship with James on psychic phenomena, Carter was asked to investigate the mediumship claims of Eunice Winkler, a sixteen-year-old Brooklyn girl who claimed to have channeled dictation from writer and humorist
Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...
. Science/Medical Journalism In 1909 ''
McClure's ''McClure's'' or ''McClure's Magazine'' (1893–1929) was an American illustrated monthly periodical popular at the turn of the 20th century. The magazine is credited with having started the tradition of muckraking journalism (investigative journ ...
'' ''Magazine'' commissioned Carter to spend a summer in South Carolina and write investigative pieces on two epidemics raging among the poor:
pellagra Pellagra is a disease caused by a lack of the vitamin niacin (vitamin B3). Symptoms include inflamed skin, diarrhea, dementia, and sores in the mouth. Areas of the skin exposed to either sunlight or friction are typically affected first. Over t ...
and
hookworm Hookworms are intestinal, blood-feeding, parasitic roundworms that cause types of infection known as helminthiases. Hookworm infection is found in many parts of the world, and is common in areas with poor access to adequate water, sanitation, an ...
. Carter presented an exhaustive history of pellagra, linking the disease among poor peasants in Italy to a primarily corn-based diet. She also reported the most recent scientific research on pellagra in the United States, which was first noticed in South Carolina in 1902, broke out as an epidemic in 1906, and by 1912 had resulted in 30,000 cases and a death rate of 40%. Five years after Carter’s article was published, epidemiologist
Joseph Goldberger Joseph Goldberger ( sk, Jozef Goldberger, hu, Goldberger József) (July 16, 1874 – January 17, 1929) was an American physician and epidemiologist in the United States Public Health Service (PHS). As a public health official, he was an advocate ...
conducted experiments that would shift scientific investigations of pellagra from germ theory to the problem of diet and poverty in the South, a social issue denied by southern politicians for many years. The cause of pellagra, niacin nutrient deficiency, would not be discovered until 1937. Carter’s story on hookworm focused on the two million sick
poor white Poor White is a sociocultural classification used to describe economically disadvantaged Whites in the English-speaking world, especially White Americans with low incomes. In the United States, Poor White (or Poor Whites of the South for ...
people in the South whom she described as "shiftless, ignorant, poverty-pinched, and wretched ... as purely Anglo-Saxon as any left in the country." Backed by strong historical, medical, and scientific research, the article presented the problem of hookworm in considerable detail but also reflected the deeply held racist attitudes of the scientific community. Carter, after reporting the "relative immunity of the negro race" from hookworm disease, concluded her piece with this surprising statement: "Ignorant of his own condition, oblivious to the white man’s common decencies, the negro is thus the great reservoir and spreader of the hookworm disease in the States that harbor him.... But if the negro brought the hookworm in the beginning, it is the white man who has let him spread it—has let him continue his jungle habits and has not taught him better."Carter, Marion Hamilton. "The Vampire of the South." ''McClure’s Magazine'', October, 1909: 617, 631. Child Labor Journalism In 1913 Carter published a pro
child labor Child labour refers to the exploitation of children through any form of work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful. Such e ...
letter to the editor of ''The New York Times'', "The Child Toilers," based upon an unpublished investigation she had conducted in 1909.Skrupskelis, Ignas K. and Elizabeth M. Berkeley. ''The Correspondence of William James, 1908-1910, Vol. 12''. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2004: 299-300. The letter received scathing responses. She had toured South Carolina cotton mills and concluded, un-ironically, that "compared with the dreadful, eye-straining, nerve-exhausting, fad and frilly child labor of the New York schools and kindergartens, child labor in the Carolina cotton mills seemed to me a privilege and a blessing." Mill children, she claimed, were better fed, housed, educated, dressed, and mentally engaged than their rural counterparts. The ''Buffalo Inquirer'' responded sarcastically: "Horror of child labor in the southern cotton mills, it seems, is a misplaced emotion. The mills are really sanitariums for children. They are grand agencies of uplift. Work in them is a daylong delight. For physical and moral betterment they have few equals and no superiors among the country’s institutions. This remarkable information is the result of the investigation of Mrs. Marion Hamilton Carter."


Magazine editor

Carter worked as associate editor of ''
McClure's ''McClure's'' or ''McClure's Magazine'' (1893–1929) was an American illustrated monthly periodical popular at the turn of the 20th century. The magazine is credited with having started the tradition of muckraking journalism (investigative journ ...
'' from late 1909 through 1910."Programme for Annual Club Banquet is Outlined," ''Des Moines Tribune'', February 28, 1911: 7. Newspapers.com.Carter, Marion Hamilton. "The Book Not Written By Human Hands." ''Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette'', March 17, 1918: 43. Newspaperarchive.com. Her time at ''McClure's'' overlapped with that of author
Willa Cather Willa Sibert Cather (; born Wilella Sibert Cather; December 7, 1873 – April 24, 1947) was an American writer known for her novels of life on the Great Plains, including ''O Pioneers!'', '' The Song of the Lark'', and ''My Ántonia''. In 1923, ...
who contributed to the magazine as well as serving as managing editor beginning in October 1908. Cather had full responsibility for running the magazine from fall 1909 to 1911. Like Cather, Carter, in her editorial capacity, wrote numerous pieces during her professional career either anonymously or under assumed names. Little of her unsigned and pseudonymous work has been recovered. After she resigned from ''McClure's'' in late 1910 or early 1911 Carter gave invited presentations about women in the press. At the Iowa Press and Authors' Club in Des Moines she spoke on "Woman and Magazine Work." She promoted her newly acquired women's magazine, ''The Woman's Era'', to be launched in October (not to be confused with the African American magazine
The Woman's Era ''The Woman's Era'' was the first national newspaper published by and for black women in the United States. Originally established as a monthly Boston newspaper, it became distributed nationally in 1894 and ran until January 1897, with Josephine S ...
). The previous short-lived ''Woman’s Era: A Magazine of Inspiration for the Modern Woman'', had been founded by New Orleans suffragist and clubwoman Inez M. Myers in 1910 and edited by education professor Margaret Elsie Cross, a graduate of Columbia University and its affiliated New York Teacher Training School. The magazine functioned as the official organ of the Louisiana Federation of Women’s Clubs, featured well-known feminist authors
Charlotte Perkins Gilman Charlotte Perkins Gilman (; née Perkins; July 3, 1860 – August 17, 1935), also known by her first married name Charlotte Perkins Stetson, was an American humanist, novelist, writer, lecturer, advocate for social reform, and eugenicist. She wa ...
,
Alice Moore Hubbard Alice Moore Hubbard (June 7, 1861 – May 7, 1915) was a noted American feminist, writer, and, with her husband, Elbert Hubbard was a leading figure in the Roycroft movement – a branch of the Arts and Crafts Movement in England with which i ...
, and
Florence Kelley Florence Moltrop Kelley (September 12, 1859 – February 17, 1932) was a social and political reformer and the pioneer of the term wage abolitionism. Her work against sweatshops and for the minimum wage, eight-hour workdays, and children's rig ...
, and published a special issue on "Votes for Women" in May 1910 with a contribution from suffrage leader
Anna Howard Shaw Anna Howard Shaw (February 14, 1847 – July 2, 1919) was a leader of the women's suffrage movement in the United States. She was also a physician and one of the first ordained female Methodist ministers in the United States. Early life Shaw ...
. When the magazine failed in the spring of 1911, an organization of New York women, including Carter, purchased ''The Woman's Era'' with the goal of producing a high-quality magazine "by women for women.""''The Woman’s Era''," ''The Times-Democrat'' (New Orleans), May 14, 1911: 36. Newspapers.com. Carter intended her ''Woman's Era'' magazine to be "a sort of Woman's McClure" and, as editor-in-chief, she planned to hire "women prominent in the field of literature." Her proposed staff included suffragist, journalist, and novelist Mary Holland Kinkaid; Carter's sister Kathleen Carter Moore; N. Parker Willis from the ''New York Journal of Commerce'' as associate editor (not to be confused with editor
Nathaniel Parker Willis Nathaniel Parker Willis (January 20, 1806 – January 20, 1867), also known as N. P. Willis,Baker, 3 was an American author, poet and editor who worked with several notable American writers including Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfello ...
); art director
Joseph Cummings Chase Joseph Cummings Chase (May 5, 1878 – January 15, 1965) was an American artist who made portraits during World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. He also painted leading figures from non-military society. The National Portrait Gallery at t ...
; and former lecturers from Cornell University, Louise Sheffield Brownell Saunders and Alexander Buel Trowbridge."Will Launch The Woman’s Era," ''The Des Moines Register'', May 13, 1911: 7. Newspapers.com. The new magazine, however, does not appear to have materialized.


Fiction

Short fiction Carter was contracted in 1909 to write fiction for a new syndicated children’s page, "For Every Boy and Girl," alongside other noted American authors such as
Henry Cabot Lodge Henry Cabot Lodge (May 12, 1850 November 9, 1924) was an American Republican politician, historian, and statesman from Massachusetts. He served in the United States Senate from 1893 to 1924 and is best known for his positions on foreign policy. ...
,
L. Frank Baum Lyman Frank Baum (; May 15, 1856 – May 6, 1919) was an American author best known for his children's books, particularly ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' and its sequels. He wrote 14 novels in the ''Oz'' series, plus 41 other novels (not includ ...
,
Clara Morris Clara Morris (1846-9 – November 20, 1925) was an American actress. Early life Actress Clara Morris was born in Toronto, the eldest child of a bigamous marriage. Sources disagree on the year of her birth, writing it as any of the years from 18 ...
,
Charles Battell Loomis Charles Battell Loomis (1861–1911) was an American author. Biography Loomis was born in Brooklyn, New York, and educated at the Polytechnic Institute An institute of technology (also referred to as: technological university, technical univers ...
,
Carolyn Wells Carolyn Wells (June 18, 1862 — March 26, 1942) was an American mystery author. Life and career Born in Rahway, New Jersey, she was the daughter of William E. and Anna Wells. After finishing school she worked as a librarian for the Rahway Li ...
, and
Edmund Vance Cooke Edmund Vance Cooke (June 5, 1866 – December 18, 1932) was a 19th- and 20th-century poet best remembered for his inspirational verse "How Did You Die?" Cooke was born in Port Dover, Canada West. In 1898 he married Lilith Castleberry, wit ...
. She published numerous short stories between 1905 and 1922 in popular magazines: ''
The Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely c ...
'', ''
Collier's Weekly ''Collier's'' was an American general interest magazine founded in 1888 by Peter Fenelon Collier. It was launched as ''Collier's Once a Week'', then renamed in 1895 as ''Collier's Weekly: An Illustrated Journal'', shortened in 1905 to ''Colli ...
'', ''
The Century Magazine ''The Century Magazine'' was an illustrated monthly magazine first published in the United States in 1881 by The Century Company of New York City, which had been bought in that year by Roswell Smith and renamed by him after the Century Associatio ...
'', ''
Woman's Home Companion ''Woman's Home Companion'' was an American monthly magazine, published from 1873 to 1957. It was highly successful, climbing to a circulation peak of more than four million during the 1930s and 1940s. The magazine, headquartered in Springfield, O ...
'', '' Everybody’s Magazine'', ''
The Delineator ''The Delineator'' was an American women's magazine of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, founded by the Butterick Publishing Company in 1869 under the name ''The Metropolitan Monthly.'' Its name was changed in 1875. The magazine was publis ...
'', and ''
The Youth's Companion ''The Youth's Companion'' (1827–1929), known in later years as simply ''The Companion—For All the Family'', was an American children's magazine that existed for over one hundred years until it finally merged with ''The American Boy'' in 1929. ...
''. Many of those written in the 1910s are set in Wyoming where she had travelled in 1911 to interview
New Woman The New Woman was a feminist ideal that emerged in the late 19th century and had a profound influence well into the 20th century. In 1894, Irish writer Sarah Grand (1854–1943) used the term "new woman" in an influential article, to refer to ...
Judge Mary A. Garrett, believed at the time to be the first woman justice of the peace in the United States.Carter, Marion Hamilton. "A Woman Justice of the Peace." ''The Saturday Evening Post'', Vol. 184, No. 27, December 30, 1911: 9.
/ref> Carter's cousin, Judge Herman V.S. Groesbeck of Laramie, Wyoming had written her a letter of introduction to Garrett and instructed her, "Go and see how women's_suffrage_in_Wyoming_.html" ;"title="women's_suffrage_in_Wyoming.html" ;"title="women's suffrage in Wyoming">women's suffrage in Wyoming ">women's_suffrage_in_Wyoming.html" ;"title="women's suffrage in Wyoming">women's suffrage in Wyoming works out here." Combining interviews she had conducted with Judge Garrett and a young Wyoming school teacher, Carter wrote "The Autobiography of a Wyoming School Teacher" and pitched it to her ''Century Magazine'' editors as a piece in the "confession" genre that should be published anonymously. She published at least two other anonymous "autobiographies" based upon personal interviews that she had conducted. These articles blur the line between
literary realism Literary realism is a literary genre, part of the broader realism in arts, that attempts to represent subject-matter truthfully, avoiding speculative fiction and supernatural elements. It originated with the realist art movement that began with ...
and
creative nonfiction Creative nonfiction (also known as literary nonfiction or narrative nonfiction or literary journalism or verfabula) is a genre of writing that uses literary styles and techniques to create factually accurate narratives. Creative nonfiction contra ...
and are difficult to categorize. Novels ''The Remittance Man'' Carter pitched her serialized novel ''The Remittance Man'' to a ''Century Magazine'' editor in 1912 as "the real goods on life as I have lived it and seen it lived. I don't know any other novel on Rocky Mountain life that is." Like her ''Saturday Evening Post'' non-fiction article with the same title, the novel would likely have been published anonymously or with a pen name if it was published. ''The Woman With Empty Hands: The Evolution of a Suffragette'' ''The Woman With Empty Hands: The Evolution of a Suffragette'', published anonymously in 1913 and dedicated to British suffragette
Emmeline Pankhurst Emmeline Pankhurst ('' née'' Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was an English political activist who organised the UK suffragette movement and helped women win the right to vote. In 1999, ''Time'' named her as one of the 100 Most Impo ...
and her daughters, is a work of fiction presented as autobiography and supposedly penned by "a well-known suffragette." Written in the first person, it tells the story of an elite widowed woman from Richmond, Virginia—feeling hopeless, devastated, and purposeless after the deaths of her husband and only child—who converts to the
women’s suffrage Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to gran ...
cause after meeting a young suffragette distributing pamphlets on the street. Carter quoted from her friend
William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...
’ ''Memories and Studies'' to argue for the narrator’s inner growth—from grieving widow to suffragist to militant suffragette. The narrator bears a slight resemblance to an unnamed black-clad Virginian suffragist in journalist Mary Alden Hopkins’ contemporaneous account of the May 4, 1912 New York suffrage parade. In a condensed version of Carter’s story, first published in ''
The Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely c ...
'', the inclusion of May 4, 1912 parade photographs of suffrage leaders
Inez Milholland Inez Milholland Boissevain (August 6, 1886 – November 25, 1916) was a leading American suffragist, lawyer, and peace activist. From her college days at Vassar, she campaigned aggressively for women’s rights as the principal issue of a wide ...
, Josephine Beiderhase, and
Harriot Stanton Blatch Harriot Eaton Blatch ( Stanton; January 20, 1856–November 20, 1940) was an American writer and suffragist. She was the daughter of pioneering women's rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Biography Harriot Eaton Stanton was born, the sixth ...
confirms that Carter’s parade scene refers to the same historical event, suggesting to readers that they are reading a true story. Carter never married and was neither a well-known suffragette nor a genteel southern woman. She may have put current suffrage debate into the mouth and mind of an anonymous narrator to personalize that debate and persuade readers, or, as a journalist, she might have interviewed a suffragette and decided to ghost-write, quote, or appropriate that account to promote women's suffrage. As with Carter's previous "autobiographies," it is possible that this narrator is a
composite character In a work of media adapted from a real or fictional narrative, a composite character is a character based on more than one individual from the story. Use in film *Several characters in the movie '' 21''. *The character Henry Hurt in the docudra ...
. ''The Woman With Empty Hands'' functions as testimonial suffrage propaganda that argues against
anti-suffragism Anti-suffragism was a political movement composed of both men and women that began in the late 19th century in order to campaign against women's suffrage in countries such as Australia, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States. T ...
views—held by northerners and southerners, men and women, alike. As suffrage scholars Mary Chapman and Angela Mills note, the story is part of a suffrage literature tradition that privileges dialogue "over individual utterance" and that dialogue plays out within a
conversion narrative Broadly speaking, a conversion narrative is a narrative that relates the operation of conversion, usually religious. As a specific aspect of American literary and religious history, the conversion narrative was an important facet of Puritan sacred a ...
. According to anti-suffragists, women like the narrator at the beginning of Carter's story were already equal to men in their God-given role as mothers and wives in the private sphere, a world characterized by piety, purity, submission and domesticity (defined in the late twentieth century as the
Cult of Domesticity The Culture of Domesticity (often shortened to Cult of Domesticity) or Cult of True Womanhood is a term used by historians to describe what they consider to have been a prevailing value system among the upper and middle classes during the 19th cen ...
). Chapman and Mills recognize that ''The Woman With Empty Hands'' "invites women to imagine themselves as members of collectives other than those provided by marriage and motherhood." ''Souls Resurgent'' Carter published her second novel, ''Souls Resurgent'', to favorable reviews in 1916. Guided by her early reading of
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
and his friend evolutionary biologist
George Romanes George John Romanes FRS (20 May 1848 – 23 May 1894) was a Canadian-Scots evolutionary biologist and physiologist who laid the foundation of what he called comparative psychology, postulating a similarity of cognitive processes and mechanis ...
, and influenced by contemporary ideas about
eugenics Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...
and
evolutionary psychology Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regards to the ancestral problems they evolv ...
, Carter explores the narrow concept of race-mixing within a hierarchy of whiteness that places Anglo-Saxons as morally and intellectually superior to other racial/ethnic groups. Setting the story in Wyoming ranch country, she argues that the mixture of races between the protagonist Dora’s parents—her Scottish-Norwegian New England father and Irish Catholic mother— has resulted in the children (Dora’s brother and sister) growing up, like their warm-hearted but "slovenly" mother, with no sense of duty or discipline. Dora realizes at the end of the novel that "long breeding and spontaneous selection among like-minded people had produced those ideals of duty, honor, obligation, and responsibility so dear to her and her father; cross breeding eliminated those ideals from both strains of the blood." This evolutionary rhetoric is echoed in the description of another of the novel’s characters, "the offspring of a German immigrant girl" and an Englishman, who exemplifies "the worst in both strains of blood...." Similarly, Carter's
antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...
influences her stereotypical portrayal of Dora’s brother’s tragic "mixed marriage." As in her earlier work, Carter cites
William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...
. She dedicated ''Souls Resurgent'' to her mother who had passed away eight years earlier.


Later years

In the summer of 1920, Carter, now fifty-five, lived in the Pennsylvania home of her sister Kathleen and brother-in-law zoologist
John Percy Moore John Percy Moore (1869–1965) was an American zoologist specialising in leeches. He was born at Williamsport, Pa. and was educated at the Central High School of Philadelphia (A.B., 1886) and at the University of Pennsylvania B.S., 1892; Ph.D., ...
to help care for Kathleen who was dying of tuberculosis. By 1922 Carter had moved to Christiantown, Massachusetts, an unoccupied Native American reservation on the northwest side of
Martha’s Vineyard Martha's Vineyard, often simply called the Vineyard, is an island in the Northeastern United States, located south of Cape Cod in Dukes County, Massachusetts, known for being a popular, affluent summer colony. Martha's Vineyard includes the sm ...
that she had loved since she was a child. She had known
Wampanoag The Wampanoag , also rendered Wôpanâak, are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands based in southeastern Massachusetts and historically parts of eastern Rhode Island,Salwen, "Indians of Southern New England and Long Island," p. 17 ...
families in the area before the town was wiped out by smallpox in 1888, held fond memories of those earlier years, and felt spiritually connected to the land and the dead. She purchased an old gray-shingled house in the woods and lived alone there until the end of her life.
Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
-winning journalist Henry Beetle Hough visited her on her last day in the cottage shortly before her death and he reflected afterwards on the place she left behind, "the record of years lived differently, valiantly, and to a particular taste and interest."


Death and legacy

Carter died on March 12, 1937, a month short of her 72nd birthday. She left her Christiantown property to Cornell University with a provision that it remain intact for thirty years for family use, and she bequeathed her art, including
J. M. W. Turner Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbulen ...
watercolors,
Max Klinger Max Klinger (18 February 1857 – 5 July 1920) was a German artist who produced significant work in painting, sculpture, prints and graphics, as well as writing a treatise articulating his ideas on art and the role of graphic arts and printmak ...
etchings, Chinese paintings, bronzes, jades and other objets d'art, to Vassar College . Her recovered oeuvre represents a cross-section of early twentieth-century American popular literature that traces a typical trajectory, like the paths that journalism scholar Jean Lutes explores, of women journalists who became novelists.


Published works

Books *''Nature Study with Common Things: an Elementary Laboratory Manual''. New York: American Book Company, 1904.
Woman with Empty Hands: The Evolution of a Suffragette''. New York: Dodd Mead and Company, 1913.Resurgent''. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1916.
Editions
''About Animals: Retold from St. Nicholas Magazine''. New York: D. Appleton Century Company, 1904.''Bear Stories: Retold from St. Nicholas Magazine''. New York: D. Appleton Century Company, 1904.''Stories of Brave Dogs: Retold from St. Nicholas Magazine''. New York: D. Appleton Century Company, 1904.''Lion and Tiger Stories: Retold from St. Nicholas Magazine''. New York: D. Appleton Century Company, 1904.''Cat Stories: Retold from St. Nicholas Magazine''. New York: D. Appleton Century Company, 1904.
*''Panther Stories: Retold from St. Nicholas Magazine''. New York: D. Appleton Century Company, 1904. Journals and Magazines Scholarly
"Chromogenic bacteria." Letter to the Editor, ''New York Medical Journal'', 59 (1894): 372.

"Agar." ''Journal of Applied Microscopy and Laboratory Methods,'' Vol. I (Rochester, NY: Bausch & Lomb Optical Company, 1898), 62-63."Educational Paper Dolls." ''The Journal of Pedagogy'', Vol.11 (April 1898): 133-144."Darwin’s Idea of Mental Development." ''The American Journal of Psychology'', Vol. 9, Issue 4 (July 1898): 534-559."Romanes' Idea of Mental Development." ''The American Journal of Psychology'', Vol. 11, Issue 1 (October 1899): 101-118.
Summaries of articles
''Evolution and Consciousness'' by Oliver H.P. Smith, ''The Philosophical Review'', Vol. 8 (1899): 321-322. ''Evolution Evolved'' by Alfred H. Lloyd, ''The Philosophical Review'', Vol. 8 (1899): 321-322.

''Vitalism'' by C. Morgan Lloyd, ''The Philosophical Review'', Vol. 8 (1899): 321-322.''Das Bewusstsein Des Wollens'' by A. Pfander, ''The Philosophical Review'', Vol. 8 (1899): 75-77.
Opinion
"As To The Canteen: Another Voice for a Woman’s Movement Distinct from the W.C.T.U." Letter to the Editor, ''The New York Times'', December 1, 1905."Death-Dealing Ventilation: Foul Air Forced Through School Buildings by New Process." Letter to the Editor, ''The New York Times'', January 23, 1906."The Child Toilers: Southern Mills Don’t Grind Them, Marion Carter Says." Letter to the Editor, ''The New York Times'', February 4, 1913.
Nonfiction *"The Kindergarten Child – after the Kindergarten." ''The Atlantic Monthly'', March 1899: 358-365. *"The Parent." ''McClure’s Magazine'', November 1904: 90-101. *"One Man and his Town." ''McClure’s Magazine'', January 1908: 275. *" he Juvenile Joy Saloon " ''The Housekeeper'' (Minneapolis, Minnesota), October 1908. *"The Conservation of the Defective Child." ''McClure’s Magazine'', June 1909: 160-171 *"The Vampire of the South." ''McClure’s Magazine'', October 1909: 617-632 *"Pellagra: the Medical Mystery of To-day." ''McClure’s Magazine'', November 1909: 94-103. *"Preventable Blindness." Co-written with Carolyn Conant Van Blarcom, ''McClure’s Magazine'', April 1910: 619-628.
"The Confessions of a Sometime Kindergartner." ''Collier's: The National Weekly'', September 24, 1910: 22, 28-29.
*Anonymous. "The Autobiography of a Small Wyoming Homesteader." ''The Saturday Evening Post'', November 25, 1911.
"A Woman Justice of the Peace." ''The Saturday Evening Post'', December 30, 1911: 9.

Anonymous. "The Autobiography of a Remittance Man." ''The Saturday Evening Post,'' October 19, 1912: 13.
ref name=Century
Letter from Marion Hamilton Carter to ''Century Magazine'', October (14-19), 1912, New York Public Library Digital Collections.
/ref>
"The Book Not Written By Human Hands." ''Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette'', March 17, 1918: 43.
* ttp://reader.library.cornell.edu/docviewer/digital?id=hearth1891092_105_4#page/19/mode/1up "Have You Had Your Iodin?" ''The Delineator'', Vol 105, No. 4, October 1924: 19. Short fiction
"The Deciding Silence." ''Everybody’s'', November 1905: 589."An Elopement." ''The Delineator'', February 1908: 272.
* "The Bond." ''The Housekeeper'', January 1909.Mentioned in "Our Library Table," ''Burlington Hawk Eye'' (Iowa), January 10, 1909: 13. Newspaperarchive.com.
"Just Because." ''Cincinnati Commercial Tribune'', March 21, 1909: 25. (republication of "An Elopement" with 1909 copyright.)"Grasshopper Green." ''Woman’s Home Companion'', June 1909.
*"The Little Harmonizer of his Three-fold Nature." ''McClure’s Magazine'', July 1909: 294-301.
" ‘Taters.’" ''The Saturday Evening Post'', March 30, 1912: 12."The Proving of Kinky Larkin." ''Colliers: The National Weekly'', April 6, 1912: 17."The Gentleman Doll." ''Woman’s Home Companion'', August 1912: 40."The Wooing of ‘Holy Calm.’" ''The Century Magazine'', December 1912: 218.Anonymous. "The Woman With Empty Hands: The Evolution of a Suffragette." ''The Saturday Evening Post'', January 25, 1913: 13-15, 53-58."Pie-Colored Horse." ''The Century Magazine'', February 1913: 517."Starlight." ''The Youth’s Companion'', February 9, 1922: 96.
Poetry *"In Lighter Vein: The Cricket." ''The Century Magazine'', January 1911: 479.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carter, Marion Hamilton 1865 births 1937 deaths Writers from New York City American children's writers 20th-century American novelists American educators American columnists American suffragists American women columnists American women children's writers American women novelists 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American journalists American women non-fiction writers Investigative journalism Journalism occupations Progressive Era in the United States American magazine writers Novelists from New York (state) Journalists from New York City Radcliffe College alumni Cornell University alumni Vassar College alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni