@legacy1984
In print since 1984, Legacy is the only scholarly journal to focus specifically on American women’s writing, broadly defined, from the seventeenth through the mid-twentieth century. Tag us if you need a re-skeet!
And as it was also Zitkala-Ša's birthday on February 22, here's a little extra!
- Ruth Spack's "Zitkala-S̈a, The Song of Hiawatha, and the Carlisle Indian School Band: A Captivity Tale": muse.jhu.edu/pub/4/articl...
- Neill Matheson's "Constance Fenimore Woolson's Anthropology of Desire": muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic... 3/3
-Georgia Kreiger's "East Angels : Constance Fenimore Woolson's Revision of Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady": muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic...
- Christina Healey's "The Antiquary and Literary Criticism in the Short Stories of Constance Fenimore Woolson": muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic... 2/3
Today belongs to Constance Fenimore Woolson, born on March 5, 1840 📔
Here are some great pieces for you 🤓
- Stephanie Byttebier's 'Grief's Theatrical Tutelage: Drama, Recitation, and a Collaborative Sociability in Constance Fenimore Woolson's 'Miss Grief'": muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic... 1/3
- "Not Feeling Right: Queer Encounters with American Women's Writing" by Sari Edelstein: muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic... 2/2
Who was born on February 17, 1827? 🔎 🤔 Rose Terry Cooke!
Here's some recommended birthday reading: ✨
- "'When it ceases to be silly it becomes actually wrong': The Cultural Contexts of Female Homoerotic Desire in Rose Terry Cooke's 'My Visitation'" by K.M. Comment: muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic... 1/2
Many believed the story had since been destroyed, but Bonnie James Shaker and Angela Gianoglio Pettitt recovered it, and it was then republished in Legacy in 2013! Read all about their recovery process here: muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic....
Happy Kate Chopin Day!
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Today we celebrate a Southern dame: Kate Chopin 🎈 (born on this day in 1850)
Have a look at "Her First Party", a story by Kate Chopin published posthumously by Youth Companion in 1905: muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic.... 1/2
Her work has been supported by fellowships from the Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada, the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, and the Harry Ransom Center. 5/5
@dark-stars.bsky.social
and the University of Toronto, which seeks to advance Black Studies in Canada at the graduate level. She is the editor of Insensible of Boundaries: Studies in Mary Ann Shadd Cary (2025), the first collection of scholarly essays about radical Black feminist editor and activist Mary Ann Shadd Cary.4/5
Moriah was the 2022 recipient of the American Studies Association’s Yasuo Sakakibara Prize. She was a 2022 Visiting Fellow at the Pennsylvania State University Center for Black Digital Research. She was one of the founders of the Black Studies Summer Institute, a joint initiative between 3/5
Kristin Moriah is an Associate Professor of English at Queen’s University in Kingston, On. She is a member of the American Antiquarian Society and a Canada Research Chair in Black Feminist Technologies and Artistic Praxis. 2/5
We are thrilled to announce that Kristin Moriah will be joining the Legacy editorial team as Book Review Editor! Please join us in welcoming her! 1/5
He joined the editorial team as Book Review Editor in 2024. We are thrilled that he will continue at Legacy in this new role.
If you have ideas for any of our Features—Profiles, Reprints, From the Archives, or On Culture—please email Travis at travis.foster@villanova.edu! ✉️ 2/2
Travis, Associate Professor of English at Villanova University, is stepping into Eric Gardner’s shoes as Features Editor for Legacy! Travis has worked closely with Legacy since 2020, when he coedited a special issue of the journal on “American Women’s Writing and the Genealogy of Queer Thought.” 1/2
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s Civil War and Reconstruction, published in October 2025 from Oxford University Press. Don’t miss it! 📖 4/4
his expertise in African American literature and print culture to the journal, most recently editing a fabulous On Culture forum on the 200th birthday of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. We all know Eric as a meticulous researcher and a generous scholar. Next steps include publicizing his new book, 3/4
s editor, he expanded our On Culture feature, publishing work by Pat Okker and Joycelyn Moody that speaks to our current political and cultural movement and worked with authors on Reprints and Profiles, facilitating the (re)introduction of forgotten texts and authors. Eric also brought 2/3
Eric Gardner, professor and chair of English at Saginaw Valley State University, is stepping down from his role as Features Editor for Legacy. He joined us in 2022, after having served as a Legacy consultant for nearly ten years. 1/3
#new The Margaret Fuller Society is inviting submissions for a panel titled “Teaching in Difficult Times” at the 2026 American Literature Association annual conference, to be held in Chicago on May 20-23
▶️ Submissions are due by January 24
Also, learn more about Miza and Mimi, Wharton's dogs, with The Mount: edithwharton.org/at-the-mount... 🐾
“'New and Crazy Social Schemes': The Nineteenth-Century Free Love Movement in Edith Wharton’s Fiction" by Jennifer Haytock muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic...
"The Limits of the Cosmopolitan Experience in Wharton’s The Buccaneers" by Melanie Dawson - muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic...
"'Other People's Clothes': Homosociality, Consumer Culture, and Affective Reading in Edith Wharton's Summer" by Meredith Goldsmith - muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic...
"Death to Lady Bountiful: Women and Reform in Edith Wharton's The Fruit of the Tree" by Mary V. Marchand - muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic...
"Marriage and Modernism in Edith Wharton's Twilight Sleep" by Jennifer Anne Haytock - muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic...
"'The Queer Feeling We All Know': Queer Objects and Orientations in Edith Wharton's (Haunted) Houses" by Shannon Brennan - muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic...
'Exploring Contact: Regionalism and the 'Outsider' Standpoint in Mary Noailles Murfree's Appalachia" - muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic...
- Second... she needs no introduction: Edith Wharton, born in 1862!
Take your pick from this fabulous list of readings:
We have two birthdays to celebrate today!!
- First, Mary Noailles Murfree, born in 1850! 🎉
I found only one article about Murfree... we need more! Please, Murfree adepts and devotees, send your pieces our way 😊
Still, here's a great article by the incredible Marjorie Pryse:
The Society for the History of Women in the Americas (SHAW) has extended the deadline of the #cfp for their 2026 conference. You now have until 30th January to submit your abstract!
-"Pirates, Bloodhounds, and White Heirs: Catharine Maria Sedgwick’s Fictions of Haiti," M.Kelley: muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic...
-"'A Tyrannically Democratic Force': The Symbolic and Cultural Function of Clothing in Catharine Maria Sedgwick's Hope Leslie," D.Q.Miller: muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic...
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edgwick's The Linwoods and Other Writings," Jordan L. Von Cannon: muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic...
- "Theorizing Democratic Feelings, Disagreement, and the Temporal Child in Catharine Maria Sedgwick's The Linwoods," Marissa Carrere muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic...
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"Science in Catharine Maria Sedgwick's Hope Leslie," S.R. Block and E.M. Madden: muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic...
- "Catharine Sedgwick and the Circles of New York," C.Avallone: muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic...
- "Leaving Giants Unslain: Idle Activism in Catharine
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