Sunday, March 17, 2024

Ruth deForest Lamb and the FDA's Chamber of Horrors

Good morning, dear readers. I have such a great guest for you today! Lucy Santos has extensively researched the history of cosmetics and some of the dangerous products people have used in the quest for beauty. If you were touched by the story of the radium girls in Luminous, you won't want to miss this story of a woman who was working at the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to protect consumers from dangerous, unregulated products - like cosmetics infused with radium. I confess that I had not previously heard of Ruth deForest Lamb, so I appreciate Lucy sharing her story with us as part of the Women's History Month celebration.

Welcome, Lucy!

~ Samantha

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Ruth deForest Lamb and the FDA's Chamber of Horrors

Guest Post by Lucy Santos

I am a beauty historian specialising in the ways in which cosmetics intersect with science and technology. A lot of my work is around the toxicity of ingredients – I even wrote a book which examined (amongst other aspects of the elements uses) the ways in which radium was used in cosmetics. 

And because of this fascination I do a lot of research into the various ingredients, beauty companies, places you can buy these products and deep dives into the ways they were marketed. 

When Samantha kindly asked me to do a post for Women’s History Month I knew there was only one person I wanted to write about – so let me introduce you to Ruth deForest Lamb.



Born in 1896 in Hallstead, Pennsylvania Ruth graduated from Vassar College and was one of the first women working in advertising – which, in the years after the First World War was an emerging industry. A bit off topic but if you haven’t read Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L Sayer I highly recommend it for a flavour of what it was like to work in advertising during this period. 

By 1933 Ruth was working for the U.S Food and Drug Administration as their first Chief Educational Officer and one of her initial huge projects was to put together a display for the 1933 Century of Progress International Exposition, held in Chicago during 1933 and 1934.

The FDA’s contribution to this massive exhibition was an exhibit of 100 products that they considered ‘dangerous, deceptive or worthless’ but had no legal authority to ban. The products encompassed dodgy medications, foods with unlabelled substitutions and cosmetics with dangerous ingredients. 

This was actually a huge problem at the time because, despite some progress via the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, the US consumer was largely unprotected and the FDA largely powerless to change the situation. Even worst cosmetics were not covered by the regulations at all. 

This name, shame and educate campaign was carried out across seventeen display boards illustrated with ‘large, vivid pictures coupled with spare, terse prose’ – detailing the problems and the effects of these unregulated products. So Othine, a cream made with ammoniated mercury which promised to lighten the skin was highlighted as was dinitrophenol, a chemical that was sold as a weight loss tool but could cause fatal blood disorders. 



But two of the most shocking products were produced by the companies – Lash-Lure Laboratories, Inc of LA and Koremlu Inc of New York. Lash Lure was a synthetic aniline dye (a component of coal tar) that was designed for dying eyelashes and eyebrows. Koremlu was a hair removal product made from the toxic element Thallium.

Both of these products were widely available in beauty salons and Koremlu was even sold in the biggest department stores in New York City. 

They had been popular products until their users started to fall ill, and it was these victims that were featured heavily in Ruth deForest Lamb’s ‘Chamber of Horrors’ exhibit in Chicago. The stories of the suffering caused by these products were particularly gruelling – especially that of Mrs Brown, a woman who had been persuaded into dying her eyelashes by a beautician and ended up with her ‘laughing blue eyes’ being ‘blinded forever.’



Koremlu’s panel exposed Kora B Lublin, a beauty salon owner, who had begun manufacturing her hair removal cream after reading an article about how thallium acetate prevented the regrowth of hair. Ignoring the warning about the dangerous nature of the ingredient (which is a poison) Lublin had her assistants make up jars of product by hand with no controls in place to even achieve a standard dose.

When users began to fall ill with thallium poisoning it was at an inconsistent rate as some batches of the cream were more dangerous than others. Hospitals throughout the US began seeing patients presenting with symptoms including paralysation of lower limbs, nausea, blindness and loosening of their hair on other parts of the body that hadn’t been treated. 

It were these types of products that the FDA were powerless to stop and deForest Lamb in particular felt the injustice of a law with so many loopholes and the frustration of working for a toothless regulatory organisation. By drawing attention to specific products at such a prominent event as a World’s Fair, deForest Lamb’s intention was to expose the companies that made them and, ultimately to change the laws surrounding their manufacture and sale. 

After the exposition finally finished on 12 November 1933 the exhibition was packed up and returned to Washington D.C where it went on display at the Department of Agriculture. Again deForest Lamb made sure that the spotlight remained on the horrors they were exposing and there was another flurry of publicity when the First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited it. Time magazine reported on her reaction when presented with photographs of the women blinded by Lash-Lure: ‘I cannot bear to look at them.’



A few years later deForest Lamb went on a leave of absence from the FDA and turned the exhibition into a book, The American Chamber of Horrors. Whilst this used all the material from the exhibit as well as other sources from the FDA’s archives she stated that she wanted to write the book as a private citizen rather than an employee as it would make the argument more powerful. 

Not only did she make the case for the strengthening of a law that left Government officials with ‘no real power’ to prevent tragedies caused by products currently on the market but she dedicated the book to the other organisations that were fighting for change. In effect she was advocating for a new type of consumerism – one where users were not just passive victims and officials were given the power of real regulation. 

It took a few more years but deForest Lamb’s advocacy and awareness raising helped to ensure the passing of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) of 1938. And whilst this wasn’t by any means perfect it was the first time that cosmetics had been regulated at a federal level and gave much more protection to consumers.

Under this law Lash-Lure was taken off the market as well as action taken against other, non toxic but misleading products. For example the FDA ordered Elizabeth Arden to change the name of their ‘Skin Food’ to ‘Skin Cream’ because the ingredients were not nutrients and the company had been advertising that they would ‘furnish nourishment to the skin.’

There was, however, no need to take Koremlu off the market – consumer action had already done that when users started to sue Cora Lublin. By the time she removed Koremlu from sale in 1932 she been sued for $2.5 million and closed her beauty salon shortly after.

Ruth deForest Lamb left the FDA in 1942 and died in 1978.

Connect with Lucy Santos

Specialising in the late 19th and early 20th century Lucy Jane Santos is a freelance historian examining the crossroads of health, leisure and beauty with science and technology.

Lucy has appeared as a contributor on TV and radio, and her historical research has been featured by History Today, BBC History Revealed, Jezebel, LitHub, New York Post, Vogue, and on the BBC2 documentary, Makeup: A Glamorous History. Her most recent project is as Creative Consultant for the documentary Obsessed With Light a film that tells the story of the performance artist Loïe Fuller.

Lucy’s debut book was Half Lives: The Unlikely History of Radium (Icon: 2020, Pegasus: 2021). Half Lives was shortlisted for the BSHS Hughes Prize in 2021. Her next book, which is a history of the element uranium, will be published in 2024.

Connect with Lucy through her website, substack, or Instagram.



COVER REVEAL! The cover for Lucy's newest book has just been revealed, so you are among the first to see the new cover art for Chain Reactions: A Hopeful History of Uranium

Tracing uranium's past—and how it intersects with our understanding of other radioactive elements—Chain Reactions aims to enlighten readers and refresh our attitudes about the atomic world.



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Friday, March 15, 2024

Friendships in the Early Republic: Lafayette and Eleanor Custis Lewis

I hope everyone is enjoying Women's History Month! Today, another wonderful guest joins me with a glimpse of a friendship you might not have heard too much about. I love these bits of history that give us a peek into the personal lives of historical figures and help them feel "real" to us. If you enjoy learning about Lafayette, you'll want to pick up a copy of Elizabeth Reese's new book, Marquis de Lafayette Returns for more stories of his American travels and relationships.

Welcome, Elizabeth!

~ Samantha

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Friendships in the Early Republic: Lafayette and Eleanor Custis Lewis

Guest Post by Elizabeth Reese


Throughout his tour of America in 1824-1825, the Marquis de Lafayette’s visits with important men were thoroughly documented. Newspaper accounts, correspondence, and private journals list Lafayette’s name alongside those of the most powerful men in the country. Less has been said about Lafayette’s friendships with women during his trip. Women not only played a major role in Lafayette’s tour by organizing social gatherings and welcome ceremonies, but Lafayette’s convivial personality earned him the friendships of many women throughout his life.

Although George Washington had died in December 1799, Lafayette remained close with the first president’s extended family. The Custis children, Martha Washington’s grandchildren from her first marriage, were an almost constant presence in Washington social circles during Lafayette’s National Tour. Although Eliza Custis Law, Martha “Patty” Custis Peter, Eleanor “Nelly” Custis Lewis, and George Washington Parke Custis were not the heirs to Washington’s estate, they were seen as the heirs to his legacy and responsible for the preservation of his memory.

In 1784, Lafayette had previously spent two weeks with Washington and his extended family, where he had the opportunity to get to know the young Custis children. When Lafayette sent his son to live at Mount Vernon during the terror of the French Revolution, the friendship between the families was extended into the next generation. Lafayette and the Custises continued to write to each other after Washington died, and during Frenchman’s visit in the Washington, D.C. region, he spent the majority of his spare time with them.

All four children frequently welcomed Lafayette as a guest in their respective homes and attended gatherings with him, but the relationship between Lafayette and Nelly was one of particular fondness. Nelly Custis Lewis had been raised at Mount Vernon and was said to be the favorite of her grandparents. She moved with the Washingtons to New York and Philadelphia during the presidency and married George Washington’s nephew, Lawrence Lewis in 1799. As George and Martha had no biological children of their own, the marriage of Lawrence and Nelly joined the Custis and Washington families together.


Nelly was among the crowd of 50,000 citizens waiting to greet Lafayette when he arrived in New York in August 1824. The two had an emotional reunion before spending time together in the city, dining and enjoying theater. Nelly relished in Lafayette’s affection, viewing him as an extension of the step-grandfather she had loved. In October 1824, Nelly was likely present when Lafayette visited Mount Vernon to pay his respects to the deceased Washington.

It was not until December 1824 that Nelly would have the honor of hosting Lafayette at her home, Woodlawn, and she was thrilled to have the opportunity to have the Guest of the Nation all to herself. Throughout the tour, Lafayette had spent much time with his friend Frances Wright, a free-thinking feminist writer who was vocal on issues of abolition. Nelly, who viewed Wright as a sort of social nemesis, did not look to the friendship with much kindness. Perhaps she was intimidated by Wright’s views, which were far more progressive than the social structure of the Virginia plantation class Nelly was raised in. Regardless, Lafayette’s visit to Woodlawn on the cusp of the Christmastide season was a pleasant one for Nelly and her family. Nelly wrote to her friend Elizabeth Bordley Gibson of her joy in having the opportunity to have Lafayette under her roof, stating: “I felt as if my own great adopted Father was in my house.” After the four days came to a close, Nelly presented Lafayette and his son with several parting gifts including relics of Washington, Martha Washington’s recipe for lip balm, and several poems.

In September 1825, as Lafayette boarded the steamboat which would carry him down the Potomac to the Brandywine, the frigate that would take him back to France, Nelly was noted as being by his side to see him off. Alongside elected officials and other important men, Lafayette and Nelly bade their final farewells to each other.

The time Lafayette spent with Nelly during his tour was a physical reminder of her relationship with Washington. As Lafayette’s boat sailed into the horizon, the finality of his visit sunk in; Washington was gone, Lafayette was heading back to France, and the Americans like Nelly were left to chart the course of the nation on their own.


Read Marquis de Lafayette Returns


Walk in the footsteps of the Marquis de Lafayette as he makes a final trip through the young United States. Against the backdrop of a tumultuous election, a beloved hero of the American Revolution returned to America for the first time in forty years. From August 1824 to September 1825, the Marquis de Lafayette traveled throughout the United States, welcomed by thousands of admirers at each stop along the way. Although the tour brought him to each state in the Union, the majority of his time was spent in Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Maryland. Public historian Elizabeth Reese traces Lafayette's route throughout the National Capital Region, highlighting the locations and people the famous General held closest to his heart.

Available on Amazon


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Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Women of the Wars of the Roses

 


I know my readers will be thrilled with today's Women's History Month guest! Judith Arnopp joins us with a fantastic post about women of the Wars of the Roses, including Elizabeth of York, who is near and dear to my heart. Judith has written prolifically about this era, so check out her published works!

~ Samantha

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Women of the Wars of the Roses

Guest Post by Judith Arnopp

For the last four years I have been writing a trilogy from the perspective of Henry VIII, but my first love is giving a voice to medieval and Tudor women. I have written fifteen novels that trace events through the eyes of women and give voice to those who have been unheard for centuries. When you consider that females make up half the population, their experiences should be allowed to impact on the traditional record. In the past, they have been written off as inconsequential, but I’d dare you to tell that to Margaret Beaufort.

Margaret stands shoulder to shoulder with the most influential men of her time. Like her or not, her actions impacted on the world and they still do. Had Margaret not fought to restore her son, Henry VII’s rights and enabled him to take the crown of England, we’d have had no Henry VIII, no restoration, no Church of England. Hurrah, I hear some of you cry but whatever your religious persuasion, nobody can claim that Margaret made no difference.

I studied Margaret in depth for years while I wrote The Beaufort Chronicle, a trilogy tracing her life from the nursery to the grave, and I found nothing to account for the negative manner in which she is viewed today. She was pious, determined, charitable, kind and deeply mourned on her passing. Today however, largely due to negative portrayals on television and fiction, she is despised by many. In these enlightened days female strength is usually applauded, but in Margaret’s case, it seems not. 


Margaret is often blamed for the disappearance of the princes from the Tower, but there is nothing in the record to prove it; there are plenty of other candidates who could be held equally as culpable. Unauthorised entry to the Tower was just not possible; whatever the fate of the boys, it must have been carried out with either the knowledge of the king or the Constable of the Tower. 

When the war of the roses began, Margaret was a small insignificant child, yet she emerged as the ultimate victor – it never ceases to amaze me that this fact is uncelebrated. Perhaps it isn’t due to her gender at all, perhaps it is an age thing. Her portrait shows an old nun-like figure; she is praying, her hands clasped, her expression pious – she does not provide material for a romantic heroine and so she is defamed instead. We should not overlook the fact that as the victor in the conflict, Margaret had some control over contemporary public opinion, but even the records from overseas reveal nothing of detriment.

There are parallels between Margaret Beaufort and the historical figure I am currently working on, Marguerite of Anjou. The contemporary record holds plenty of negative criticism of her. Like Margaret Beaufort, she too fought for the rights of her son, but Marguerite emerged a failure from the struggles. When York assumed control of King Henry VI and ultimately took the throne, Marguerite, a dispossessed queen, did not retire genteelly from the battle – instead she fought tooth and nail for the sake of her son – like a ‘she-wolf’ according to Shakespeare. But I have to ask myself if I would not do the same for my sons. 

Her surviving letters are evidence that she did indeed fulfil her duties as queen, supporting her household, responding to requests for help, managing her estates, arranging diplomatic marriages and supporting religious houses. In 1448 she was active in founding Queens’ College, Cambridge. Yet even from the early days she was criticised for failing to provide an heir (no mention that the fault might not lie with her) yet once she gave birth to a strong son, York spread propaganda that the king was not the father.

Attrocities have been laid at Marguerite’s door, atrocities that were not ordered or carried out by Marguerite personally but committed by the men under her control. Since she was not even present, the most she can be accused of is losing control of her army. We hear much about the beheading and subsequent mock crowning of Richard of York and his son Edmund before their heads were raised on the city of York’s Micklegate bar, or Lancaster’s pillaging and looting of towns, yet the many offences York committed are often overlooked. 

The war of the roses was a military mess, with crimes and carnage on both sides and it is impossible to choose which side was justified. We still tend to view the war as a man’s game, but women were involved. Marguerite of Anjou, Cecily Neville, Anne Beauchamp, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, Elizabeth Woodville, Margaret Beauchamp, Margaret Beaufort, Anne and Isabel Neville, Elizabeth of York; they didn’t sit at home knitting while their husbands fought a bloody war. They may not have wielded a sword, but they were there, intriguing, negotiating, brokering peace deals, protecting their sons, guarding their property and in some cases leading armies. I never take sides in the war of the roses, but I enjoy the spectacle and I have learned that if the men fighting these battles were lions, then the women were tigers.


Connect with Judith

Award winning historical fiction author, Judith Arnopp, holds a Batchelor’s degree in English/Creative writing and a Masters in Medieval Studies. She lives on the coast of West Wales where she writes both fiction and non-fiction. She is best known for her novels set in the Medieval and Tudor period, focussing on the perspective of historical women and more recently from the perspective of Henry VIII himself.

Judith is also a founder member of a re-enactment group called The Fyne Companye of Cambria which is when she began to experiment with sewing historical garments. She now makes clothes and accessories both for the group and others. She is not a professionally trained sewer but through trial, error and determination has learned how to make authentic looking, if not strictly historically accurate clothing. Her non-fiction book about Tudor clothing How to Dress Like a Tudor was published by Pen and Sword in 2023.

Connect with Judith on her website or blog, and find her books here!

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Friday, March 8, 2024

Catharine Littlefield Greene: A Revolutionary Life


As my dear readers know, women of the American Revolution era have a big place in my heart, so I am pleased to have Salina Baker join us on the blog today with some brilliant insight into the life of Catharine Littlefield Greene, wife of General Nathanael Greene. Like Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, and countless others, Catharine saw her life and her marriage transformed by war.

Welcome, Salina! Thanks for celebrating Women's History Month with us!

~ Samantha

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Catharine Littlefield Greene: A Revolutionary Life

Guest Post by Salina Baker

Catharine Littlefield Greene was a product of the feminine sphere of women during the colonial period. Marriage was considered a critical event in the life of the early American woman. It raised her status socially but it also moved her from dependency on her family to dependency on her husband. When she married Nathanael Greene, a former Quaker and iron forage owner with a limp, asthma, a smallpox scar on his right eye and who hailed from a fairly well-to-do family, she believed that she would be settling down to a life of domestic tranquility. But as we shall see, things were different for Caty. An American Revolution was on the horizon and her husband’s direct and important influence in that revolution changed her domestic circumstances.

Convivial and beautiful with few women friends, poorly trained in domestic skills, and without her own home to settle down in, Caty found her own path that often led to history’s criticisms of her that may have been based in jealousies, misunderstandings, and Caty’s own struggle to be a part of the social whirl that accompanied the officers’ corps during the Revolutionary War. Caty Greene, unlike many of her colonial sisters, was not freed by the American Revolution. Only a personal tragedy could free a woman who defied the narrow perception of acceptable behavior.

Note: Caty burned all her letters to Nathanael therefore their relationship was interpreted through Nathanael’s letters and responses to her.

Catharine Littlefield Greene (Miller) circa 1809 artist unknown. Caty was mortified when she saw this painting of her.


May 1761, six-year-old Caty Littlefield watched her mother’s burial on Block Island off the coast of Rhode Island, an isolated place where her ancestors had lived since the 1660’s free from Massachusetts dogma, formal social rules, a hurried sense of time, and organized religion and schooling. Two years later, Caty was taken in by her namesake, her mother’s sister Catharine Ray Greene, a dark-haired violet-eyed beauty who Caty resembled. Aunt Catharine had once had a relationship with Benjamin Franklin who wanted more than the platonic handholding she was willing to offer. Now, she was married to William Greene, Jr. a Rhode Island politician who was distantly related to Nathanael Greene.

General Nathanael Greene. Painted by Charles Willson Peale 1783


Nathanael was a frequent visitor to the house in East Greenwich. Lacking a formal education as she did, the Caty he met there was comfortable in the society of men and her “power of fascination was absolutely irresistible.”  She was born on February 17, 1755, thirteen years younger than her future husband. Nathanael and Caty wed on July 20, 1774. They settled into Spell Hall his home in Coventry, Rhode Island, but those early days of tranquility were short lived.

Spell Hall, the Greene family homestead in Coventry, Rhode Island today.



The events in Massachusetts on April 19, 1775 when the British fired on civilians in Lexington and Concord changed all that. Nathanael, a private in the Kentish Guards a Rhode Island militia company, left to attend the siege of Boston. His militia company was sent home initially. Rhode Island then formed the Army of Observation. Nathanael had previously been denied officer status due to his limp that “was a blemish to the company.” Suddenly, the man the Kentish Guards considered to be a blemish incapable of cutting a physically shining figure was a brigadier general. He went home and showed Caty his commission. He and his men were sent to Roxbury, Massachusetts where they settled in with the Provincial Army.

General George Washington arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts on July 2, 1775. The Continental Congress had appointed him commander-in-chief of the newly formed Continental Army of which the Provincial Army became a part. Washington saw in Nathanael Greene a man who loved his country, cared about his troops, was a strict disciplinarian, and an active soldier. Within the year, Nathanael was a major general in the Continental Army.  Caty was suddenly thrust into the role of a major general’s wife.

A whimsical drawing of Nathanael and Catharine Greene. Artist unknown.



She was determined to spend time with her husband at camp no matter where that was. Pregnant with their first child a son they named George Washington Greene, she initially traveled to Nathanael’s headquarters west of Boston in 1775. When she returned to Coventry, her lack of domestic skills, fear for Nathanael’s safety and pregnancy led to personal anxieties. She squabbled with her female in-laws who lived in her household in Coventry and those living in Nathanael’s childhood home in Potowomut.

Caty visited her husband at his headquarters as often as possible, with or without her children. As a general’s wife, she was naturally made the center of attention. She became close friends with Martha Washington and Lucy Knox. Her vivacious behavior elicited a spontaneous response from admiring gentlemen. She listened with genuine interest to stories told by men like General Israel Putnam. Young aides became smitten with her looks and playfulness, and Nathanael was delighted by their admiration. Even General Washington asked that she come to camp for her convivial nature brightened the hardest of winters. During an officers’ party in February 1780 at the Morristown, New Jersey encampment, Caty danced with General Washington for three hours straight without sitting down. Nathanael commented that they had “a pretty little frisk.”



In late spring 1776, whispers about Caty’s behavior circulated among her family members. In the winter of 1777, although they were very much in love, jealousies and insecurities surfaced between Caty and Nathanael. His admiration for Lady Stirling and Kitty, General Lord Alexander Stirling’s wife and daughter, and his reminder to watch her spelling when writing to the scholarly Lucy Knox lured Caty’s doubts about how much Nathanael loved her. His subsequent letters were an oxymoron of adoration or designed to make her jealous especially after he heard about the many parties Caty attended in Rhode Island:

“In the neighborhood of my quarters there are several sweet pretty Quaker girls. If the spirit should move and love invite who can be accountable for the consequences?” 

Yet many times he soothed her fears:

“Let me ask you soberly whether you estimate yourself below either of these ladies. You will answer me no, if you speak as you think. I declare upon my sacred honor I think they possess far less accomplishments than you, and as much as I respect them as friends, I should never be with them in a more intimate connection. I will venture to say there is no mortal more happy in a wife than myself.” 

Leaving her children with in-laws, Caty arrived in Valley Forge in 1778 where she met men like the Marquis de Lafayette, Baron von Steuben, and Alexander Hamilton while her jealousy simmered over the Stirling ladies. It was here she met General Anthony Wayne. An incurable ladies man, his wife never came to camp. Caty was stimulated by the company of this charming man. The whispered gossip began yet Nathanael remained unconcerned.

General Anthony Wayne


By the summer of 1780, she was back in Coventry. Nathanael’s new post was uncertain. Then, he was sent off to command the Southern Army to replace the disgraced General Horatio Gates. The Greene’s had no cash; only land in Rhode Island. While Nathanael bore the horrors of the Southern Campaign, forbidding Caty to join him, she was enjoying the social life in Newport among French soldiers.

After the British surrender in Yorktown, Virginia in October 1781, she traveled to South Carolina to join Nathanael at his headquarters near Charleston. She witnessed the devastation Nathanael had warned her of. After a twenty-three month separation, she found her husband much changed and worn down from the war and debt. Only land grants for his service in the Southern campaign stood between their family and utter financial ruin—Mulberry Grove plantation and holdings on Cumberland Island off the coast of Georgia. Anthony Wayne was granted the plantation adjacent to Mulberry Grove.

In 1785, Caty gave birth to their sixth child, Catharine. The infant died of whooping cough. Caty lay despondent for weeks. Nathanael hired a tutor for the children, a twenty-one year old graduate of Yale, Phineas Miller. The family moved to Mulberry Grove in November. Caty was pregnant again. Tragically in April 1786, she fell and gave birth to a premature daughter who died soon after.

By then, the Mulberry Grove plantation was thriving. The Greenes had a promising new start which came to an abrupt end on June 19, 1786, when Nathanael died of sunstroke at age 43. Caty soon learned the worst. Her husband died before he had made the barest beginning toward paying off the huge debts he owed to his creditors after borrowing money to equip his Southern Army. She would have to make a claim of indemnity to the government for reimbursement.

She poured her heart out to Jeremiah Wadsworth, one of Nathanael’s business partners and a man she had been attracted to for years. Wadsworth was married and had past indiscretions. Jealousy ignited between Miller and Wadsworth for Caty’s affections and Wadsworth’s support in settling her estate in Congress began to wane.

Jeremiah Wadsworth and his son Daniel. Painted by John Trumbull 1784.


In 1791, she stood before Congress with her indemnity claim that Alexander Hamilton had helped her prepare. Anthony Wayne held a seat in Congress and fought furiously for her settlement. On April 27, she was awarded $47,000 and for the first time since the war, her family was solvent. Soon after, Wayne disappeared from her life. He went west to join the military there. He died of complications from gout on December 15, 1796 during a return trip to Pennsylvania from a military post in Detroit.

By this time, Caty and Phineas Miller had drawn up a legal agreement concerning their relationship and prospective marriage. All five of her children were living at Mulberry Grove, but her oldest child, George, drowned in 1793 soon after coming home from France where he was attending school. In his late teens, George’s body was found on the banks of the Savannah River near Mulberry Grove. His body was taken down the river to the colonial cemetery in Savannah and was placed in the vault beside that of his father’s.

Enter Eli Whitney, a graduate of Yale who came south to accept a teaching position. Caty invited Eli to live in her home so he could read law and work on his new cotton gin invention. Phineas and Eli formed a business partnership with Caty as a silent backer to finance Whitney’s cotton gin invention.  However, the venture needed more capital than Caty could provide. Caty and Phineas invested in a land scheme—the Yazoo Company. The company collapsed and Caty once again faced poverty. She married Phineas later that year much to Eli’s chagrin for he was in love with her.

Eli Whitney


In 1800, Mulberry Grove was sold and the family moved to Cumberland Island at Dungeness where Nathanael, fourteen years before, had begun construction of his family’s future home. The island yielded everything the family needed to survive. Three years later at age thirty-nine, the gentle and faithful Phineas died of blood poisoning after pricking his finger on a thorn.

Caty was faced with selling Phineas’ part of the Miller estate which was tied up in his company with Whitney. There were also the settlements against her estate for legal fees, loans, etc. For a time, she sold live oaks to a lumber company in an effort to salvage the cotton gin company.

Eli Whitney returned to his home in New Haven, Connecticut yet he was tormented by his love for Caty. She was now past childbearing age and he wanted a family. She wrote him letters, cajoling him to come to her side, offering her sentiments on his health and his aloofness. She made a failed attempt at matching him with her youngest daughter, Louisa. On a trip to New York to endeavor to settle her final legal affairs with Nathanael’s and Phineas’ estates, she begged him to visit her. When he came at last, she recognized the final hopelessness of her dream of marriage with this man she badgered, pitied, worried over, and loved with all her heart. She often asked him to come back to Georgia to visit her, but he never returned.

On July 5, 1814, Caty wrote her last letter to Eli Whitney:

“We have a party of eighteen to eat Turtle with us tomorrow. I wish you were the nineteenth. Our fruit begins to flow in upon us—to partake of which I long for you… ”

She had grown and found as Nathanael once suggested, that self-pity made a sad companion. In the last week of August, Caty was struck with a fever. The same week the capital city of Washington lay in ruins, burned by the British. Caty never knew. She died on September 2, 1814.

Greene-Miller Cemetery on Cumberland Island at Dungeness


Despite history’s proverbial finger pointing about what she may have done during her marriage to Nathanael, Caty was a women whose strengths and weaknesses allowed her to face the consequences of war and meet them head on the rest of her life.

Resources:

Stegeman, John F. and Janet A. Caty A Biography of Catharine Littlefield Greene Athens, Georgia University of Georgia Press, 1977. Print.

Carbone, Gerald M. Nathanael Greene A Biography of the American Revolution, 2008. Print.

Thayer, Theodore. Nathanael Greene Strategist Of The American Revolution New York: Twayne Publishers, 1960. Print.

https://www.eliwhitney.org/7/museum/about-eli-whitney/inventor




Read more about Caty in Salina's novel, The Line of Splendor!


Connect with Salina Baker on her website to learn more about her writing and read more fascinating articles about the American Revolution!



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Saturday, March 2, 2024

Woman on a Mission: Sophia Sawyer

Welcome to the first guest article of my 2024 Women's History Month celebration! I am pleased to welcome Leslie Simmons here today. You might remember her from my January What I'm Reading feature of Red Clay, Running Waters. Christian missionaries played an important role in the Cherokee Nation in the 19th century, and I thank Leslie for shining a spotlight on one of them for us today. You've never heard of Sophia Sawyer? Well, read on. You're in for a treat!

~ Samantha

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Woman on a Mission: Sophia Sawyer

Guest Post by Leslie Simmons

Fayetteville, Arkansas Female Seminary - 1850

Roles in society are most often dictated by the times we live in. In America, woman coming of age in the first half of the 19th Century had opportunities to define themselves in ways denied to many previous generations. Dominant social trends in Antebellum America exerted a powerful and lasting influence over what a woman should or could be and what was acceptable, leaving a paradoxical legacy that women today are still burdened by. 

While their Revolutionary mothers and sister paved the way, the social norms of the early 1800’s - such as the democratization of education, the impact of the Second Great Awakening, and the concept of separate spheres of influence for men and women - brought about opportunities for the development of expanded roles for women, while at the same time continuing to narrow what was acceptable, and constraining women’s voices within sharply defined parameters. Concerned with its own progress toward ‘civilization’ along with its new role in the world as a beacon of enlightenment principles, the new American Republic also watched the rise of moral dilemmas at odds with the perfection implied in the countries founding. 

America’s perception of itself as a righteous, Christian nation, combined with an increasing educated and worldly female population, gave rise to an expansion of women’s engagement in the spread of Christianity, benevolent societies, charitable activities, and occupations leveraging what was believed to be women’s power to influence on the character of the nation through children. Few women were ‘allowed’ to step outside of these norms. Increasingly, to gain more independence (of a sort) women took up positions as teachers, missionaries and authors during this time period. 

For unmarried women, the role of the missionary teacher proved to be an option outside the support of their families or a husband, combining religious, intellectual, and the ‘female’ virtues of emotional care with their desire for independence, while also participating in shaping the world.  Missions overseas were common, but a growing desire to ‘civilize’ America’s Native Americans brought a heightened interested in ‘Christianizing the heathen’, inspiring other women like Sophia Sawyer, the missionary teacher in Red Clay, Running Waters, to seek positions as teacher to the Cherokee.

As an orphan with no siblings, Sophia had few options. Impoverished, she had gained an education and a teaching certificate from Byfield Academy in Massachusetts, one of the many female seminaries in New England. Fostered by the efforts of Jeremiah Evarts, the American Board of Commissioner to Foreign Missions, and several President’s administrations, Sophia joined several other New England women in a network of small mission stations in what today are the States of Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina, though at the time they were considered to be part of the Cherokee Nation.

Sophia was ‘a woman of indomitable energy and perseverance’ with strong unconventional views about education, as well as about Cherokee and female capabilities, often unsettling her fellow missionaries with her opinions and actions. Her ‘unpredictable and unconventional’ mood swings put her at odds with many of the male missionaries who oversaw the mission stations. Nevertheless, she was well-loved and respected by her students and their families.

While teaching among the Cherokee she championed her own rights as well as those of the Cherokee by defying the State of Georgia for teaching African-American enslaved children, owned by Cherokee individuals who had sent them for instruction at her schools. Asserting to the Georgia Officer attempting to arrest her for instructing Black children (against the law in Georgia) that Georgia had no jurisdiction over who she taught within what remained, at the time, the Cherokee Nation. She remained teaching there until the Cherokee were ultimately forcibly removed from their homeland. Later, faithful to the Cherokee, she chose to join them in their exile  in the West and was supported in her efforts by the family of John and Sarah Ridge, the family at the center of Red Clay, Running Waters, who were leading advocates for education.

When tragedy struck the Ridge family, Sophia accompanied Sarah Ridge and her children to the neighboring frontier town of Fayetteville, Arkansas, just outside of Indian Territory, where she quickly gained support for her efforts to establish a school for young ladies, primarily Cherokee females at first, than later taking daughters of local residents. 

Her Fayetteville Female Seminary (shown in the engraving) would become one of the first institutions of higher learning in the newly formed State. While the school) was a victim to the ravages of the Civil War, Sophia Sawyer’s Seminary established the foundations for the town’s reputation for higher education excellence that ultimately led to the establishment of the University of Arkansas in the same Northwest Arkansas town.

Sophia would not live to see the ultimate impact of her dedication and work in Fayetteville, Arkansas, or with the Cherokee, but she left behind a legacy of commitment to education that informs the culture of the Northwest Arkansas and Cherokee communities to this day. Her reputation for fearless commitment to her principles, and her belief in the equality of the races was unflappable. While on her deathbed she lamented for what lay ahead, her life demonstrated that the actions of one individual, even a woman confined to her ‘sphere’ could indeed positively affect the lives of many.


Red Clay, Running Waters is the little-known story of John Ridge, a Cherokee man dedicated to his people, and his White wife, Sarah Northrop, a woman forfeiting everything to join him.

A timely saga of one family’s search for justice, this story of profound love, sacrifice, and the meaning of home weaves the complex strands of politics, race, religion, and love into the tapestry of the turbulent times before the Trail of Tears. Readers will be propelled on a stunning journey across true events that leads to a haunting and moving conclusion.




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Stay tuned for my celebration of Women's History Month! 

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