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By Tara Mae Edna St. Vincent Millay enjoyed the position of being a popular poet during her lifetime. Millay’s ability to convey modernist themes through traditional forms, such as sonnets, enabled her to speak to and of the new world while remaining rooted in the old. As a woman of the 20th century, she was outspoken and unrepentant about her opinions on love, life, and liberty. Raised in a matriarchal household, Millay’s experiences, especially in New York, permitted her to access the tantalizing freedom of artistic expression, as she strove to be unencumbered by a patriarchal society. Some of Millay’s struggles came from the conflict of reconciling the opportunities afforded by her “unconventional” upbringing with the restrictions imposed on young women’s expected behavior in public. Born on February 22, 1892 in Rockland, Maine, Millay’s parents were Cora Lounella Buzelle, a nurse, and Henry Tolman Millay, a schoolteacher. Millay’s middle name was a tribute by Cora to St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City, where her brother’s life had been saved by its dedicated staff. As a child, Millay insisted on being called Vincent, a demand that caused strife between her and at least one teacher. When Millay was eight, Cora divorced Henry, reportedly due to his gambling and inability to support a family. She then moved with Millay and her two younger sisters, Norma and Kathleen, to Camden, Maine. Lacking proper funds, Cora worked tirelessly to support her daughters. Because she was a visiting nurse, Cora often had to leave the girls to fend for themselves, relying on them to be self-sufficient. Money was always scarce, but access to creative pursuits was plentiful: Millay, Norma, and Kathleen took music lessons and had a robust library. Millay contemplated becoming a concert pianist, but chose to pursue her writing. Cora provided a well-rounded education, introducing her children to the works of William Shakespeare, John Milton, Charles Dickens, and George Eliot. Millay’s writing frequently incorporated classic forms as it encompassed contemporary concepts. Independent and outspoken in an era when children (and women) were expected to be seen and not heard, Millay refused to conform. Offended by her self-assured attitude, her grade school principal refused to call her Vincent, deigning to address her by any girl’s name that started with the letter “V.” Although she graduated in 1909, her family did not have the money at the time to send her to school. As a young teenager, Millay had poetry published in St. Nicholas children’s magazine and in high school she submitted poetry to the literary magazine and served as its editor. Further opportunities and their potential monetary benefits were discovered by Cora, who saw an advertisement for a poetry contest. The winning selections would be published in an anthology, The Lyric Year. Millay’s submission, “Renacence” was a long form poem that consisted of traditional couplets. Initially entitled “Renaissance,” she changed the name at the suggestion of one of the contestant’s judges, Ferdinand Earle, who recognized Milay’s prowess with a pen and posited that she would win first place. Millay won fourth. Published in the collection, her poem garnered positive attention, with critics lauding her as a bright new talent. She first came to New York to go to Barnard College, then transferred to Vassar College and attended on scholarship. Studying languages and literature, Millay learned about literary history, knowledge that benefitted her throughout her career. She published poems and plays, also starring as the lead in her play The Princess Marries the Page. Even as she thrived, Millay again felt constrained by the rigid social norms enforced by the school. Her home life had been permissive, tolerating smoking, drinking, playing cards, flirting with boys. Vassar was not nearly as lax, wanting its students to behave as proper young ladies. Still, Millay cultivated a social life, enjoying several friendships and relationships with women. Moving to New York City after graduating in 1917, Millay settled in Greenwich Village and published her first book of poetry, Renascence and Other Poems. Millay fully embraced the social scene, immersing herself in the artistic culture. She was well-known for her dramatic readings and recitations. Living with Norma, she eked out a living by publishing her writing and working as an actress as well as occasional playwright and director with the Provincetown Players, an experimental theater troupe. Finally able to enjoy the independence she had sampled growing up, Millay immersed herself in all the neighborhood had to offer. This atmosphere influenced her writing. She began composing short stories and experimenting with different styles of poetry, frequently employing brevity as a way of punctuating the underscored impact of her words, such as in “First Fig,” from her second volume of poetry A Few Figs from Thistles, published in 1920. “My candle burns at both ends;/It will not last the night;/But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends-/It gives a lovely sight!” The poem alludes to her merry escapades New York City, while acknowledging her awareness that these good times, which she is enjoying on her own terms, are unsustainable. The book was somewhat controversial, given Millay’s explorations of feminism and female sexuality. Unlike other writers, T.S. Eliot and e.e. cummings among them, Millay did not abandon standard forms for free form poetry. Instead, evocative language and passionate ideas were encased in established patterns of meter and rhyme. This gives her poetry a singular power, allowing her sometimes bold, sometimes subtle, but always deftly vibrant language to render these parameters tools of emphasis and pointed meaning. Millay’s writing style reflected her lifestyle: expressing free thought within more conventional constraints. Using her pen to promote feminism and other causes, Millay was increasingly socially active. Frank in her beliefs, she opposed American involvement in World War I, but fervently supported the country’s intervention in World War II. The unapologetic way she lived her life was in itself a femnist act. Her work explored topics that were still considered unseemingly, like a woman’s sexual desire and empowerment. On the advice of W. Adolphe Roberts, the editor of the pulp magazine Ainslee’s, Millay began crafting short stories under the nom de plume Nancy Boyd. These tales were geared to the magazine reading audience, and explored the salacious elements of the Greenwich Village environment: the disregard for convention and the determinedly carefree nature of the Jazz Age. Her female protagonists grapple with the choice of pursuing love and marriage or cultivating a career. Millay enjoyed love affairs and eventually married, but remained fully committed to her career. Her husband, Eugen Jan Boissevain was the widower of famed suffragist Inez Milholland. Boissevain nurtured and encouraged both Millay and her work. They each took lovers outside their nearly 30 year relationship, but remained committed to each other. Marrying in 1923, they moved upstate in 1925 to a rundown, sprawling farm near Austerlitz. Steepletop, as Millay dubbed it, would be their home for the rest of their lives. Having won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923 for The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver, only the third woman to claim such an honor, Millay continued to expand the dimensions of her oeuvre. She composed a libretto for an opera commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera and composed by Deems Taylor, who she had met on a trip to Paris. Four years were spent writing, restoring Steepletop, and settling into married life. Millay did not relinquish the courage of her convictions. On August 22, 1927, she was one of many people arrested for picketing at the Boston State House in protest of the pending executions of Italian anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Convicted of murder, they were put to death the next day. Millay later cited this incident as a catalyst for centering her social conscience and explored her resulting political disillusionment in the article “Fear” for Outlook magazine and The Buck in the Snow, and Other Poems, another anthology. 1936 provided life-altering trials. Millay lost the existing manuscript of her book Conversations at Midnight to a hotel fire in Florida. While recreating the work from memory, Millay was badly injured in a car accident when the door of her station wagon flew open and she was flung from the car. The pain from the injuries she sustained to her back and arm became frequent, if not constant, companions, leading to a morphine addiction. She suffered a period of diminishing returns with her work, contending with her mentally-ill sister Kathleen, her own medical woes, and a nervous breakdown in 1944 that left her unable to write for a period. Millay resumed writing, but Boissevain’s death in 1949 sent her into a tailspin of too much drinking, and she was hospitalized. Back at Steepletop, she completed a book of poems. Mine the Harvest was posthumously published. On October 19, 1950, Millay was found dead. She had apparently suffered a heart attack and fallen down a flight of stairs. Millay is buried next to Boissevain at Steepletop. Male modernist poets dominated aspects of popular culture during the 1960s, but the rise of the feminist movement revitalized interest in Millay and her writing. Comfortable in her own skin, open about the joys of spiritual and physical engagement, Millay was both a product of her upbringing and a force unto herself. Her writing is at once expansive and intimate, exposing the audience to the world as she encounters it and offering the promise of untapped possibilities.

By Tara Mae Florence Kelley was a warrior for the working class who championed progressive social reforms such as minimum wage, eight hour work days, and child labor laws. She established outreach programs in Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York City. Kelley’s legacy is reflected in the ongoing fight for fair wages, economic mobility, and worker protections. Her access to and implementation of outreach networks allowed her to greatly impact labor laws and policies. Born in Philadelphia on September 12, 1859, Kelley’s mother Caroline Bartram Bonsall Kelley was from an established Quaker family. Her father William D. Kelley, a self-made man, was an abolitionist, judge, cofounder of the Republican Party, and member of the House of Representatives. He exposed Kelley to the harsh realities of child labor at a young age, reading her book on the subject, and taking her to see children work in hazardous conditions at glass and steel factories. Sarah Pugh, Kelley’s great aunt, was another strong influence on her cultural awareness. A Quaker, Pugh was a prominent abolitionist and a staunch women’s rights advocate. She reportedly chose not to use sugar and cotton because of their ties to slavery. Pugh introduced Kelley to the networks of female advocacy groups and organizations. She acted on her principles, teaching Kelley about the power of protest and the possibilities of change. Kelley first came to New York when she was 16 to attend Cornell University. Illness forced her to withdraw from her studies for two years. She resumed her education and did her thesis on underprivileged children. Upon her graduation in 1882, she returned to Philadelphia. Kelley wanted to study law at the University of Pennsylvania but was denied entry because of her gender. So, she instead both developed and attended courses at the New Century Guild, a committee for working women. These evening classes were created to help working women learn vocations. After a year, family obligation made Kelley leave the city and her position to become companion and caregiver to her ailing brother as he traveled through Europe. While abroad, she was able to resume her studies. The University of Zurich allowed women to matriculate, and was the first European university that gave degrees to women. It was there that Kelley encountered the works of Karl Marx and befriended Friederich Engles. In 1887, she published a translation of his work The Condition of the Working-Class in England; it is still used today. Having married Russian medical student Lazare Wischnewetzky in 1884, she and her husband moved to New York City in 1886 and had three children. The couple separated in 1889. Citing his physical abuse and substantial debt, yet unable to obtain a divorce on the grounds of “non-support” Kelley fled with her children to Chicago. A judge granted her a divorce and full-custody. She resumed using her maiden name. Making a new life for herself and her family, Kelley did not abandon passions. From 1891-1899, she worked for Hull House, a settlement house. Here, she was able to expand her social outreach and solidify her career as a social reformer, work Kelley continued when she returned to New York. She connected with Hull House cofounder Jane Addams and social reformer Julia Lanthrop. They shared a common background: each of them were from upper-middle class families and had fathers who were social reformers. Together, they sought to improve the living and working conditions of the impoverished and working poor; Kelley was particularly focused on the plight of child laborers. One of Kelley’s biggest professional platforms was her quest to make it illegal for children under the age of 14 to work and to limit the number of hours worked by children under the age of 16. She lobbied for children to have the right to education. Kelley inspected local factories and sweatshops, observing deplorable work environments and children as young as three years old performing dangerous tasks. She convinced members of the state legislature to tour these job sites, and became the first woman in Illinois to hold state office when the governor appointed her chief factory inspector.  Kelley was later named Special Agent of the Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics. She kept working with women’s organizations. Although Kelley had worked with other women’s groups, Hull House provided her with the most consistent opportunities to engage with women-led initiatives. Through Addams’ sponsorship, Kelley developed an association with the Chicago Women’s Club and formed a Bureau of Women’s Labor. The connections she made enabled Kelley to expand the scope and influence of her reform efforts, and enabled her to align with allies. Kelley realized that alliance building as a necessary tool for achieving change. Since women lacked the social, economic, and political clout enjoyed by their white male counterparts, fostering relationships through female driven community organizations was among the only resources available to them. Consolidating this power allowed the women to strive towards bettering their own status as well as the standing of different causes. Kelly is recognized as having coined the term and defined the concept of social justice feminism. This is the practice of identifying issues of oppression as pertaining to race, class, citizenship, sexuality, and challenging these inequities through action. Kelley remained dedicated to the tenets of social justice feminism. She earned a law degree from Northwestern University in 1894 and was able to open a school for working girls. Her inclusionary values were further honed when she returned to New York. In 1899, Kelley moved back to the Empire State, where she remained for the next 30 years. Kelley lived and worked at the Henry Street Settlement and became the general secretary of the National Consumers League (NCL). The organization was started by Addams and Josephine Shaw Lowe; it denounced sweatshops and encouraged consumers to only buy goods from businesses that met its minimum wage and working condition requirements. Kelley was frequently charged with engaging legislators and persuading them to join the cause. Her experience in New York was the culmination of all her previous endeavors. She spearheaded campaigns that led to the promise of national advancement, like the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, and laws that standardized the number of hours in a work day and the rate of minimum wage. Kelley’s resolute persistence eventually led to child labor being effectively outlawed in 1938 with the help of her friend Frances Perkisn, who, as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration, became the first female cabinet member in American history. Forging new relationships, Kelley immersed herself in activist enclaves. In 1905, with Upton Sinclair and Jack London, she helped establish and run the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. She joined up with Addams again to participate in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and was invited by Mary White Ovington and William English Walling to be a founding member of the NAACP. Working on its behalf, Kelley studied how the federal government disbursed funds for education. She discovered the deeply inequitable distribution to white and Black schools, favoring the former over the latter. Kelley’s findings led her to launch the Sterling Discrimination Bill, a scathing rebuttal against the Sterling Towner Bill, which suggested that for 15 schools in the South and Washington, D.C., a federal sanction of of $2.98 per capita for teachers of Black children and $10.32 per capita for teachers of white children. Kelley’s proposal called for states to use population as the measure for distributing the federal funds. Kelley’s approach to improving the status of women caused her to come into conflict with the goals of the NAACP over the Sheppard-Towner Act. The bill gave aid to mothers and babies during pregnancy and infancy. But, it did not include any language that prohibited discrimination against Black mothers. Kelley did not want the NAACP to oppose the legislation because she feared it would not be passed with the additional language. Led by board member W.E.B. Du Bois, the NAACP vehemently disagreed. Kelley was eventually able to garner the NAACP’s support when she vowed to monitor the bill if it became law. She marched in the Silent Parade in New York City on July 28, 1917. It was organized by the NAACP, church, and community leaders. It consisted of 10,000, mainly Black, participants marching in protest against racist violence, such as lynchings. Kelley worked on anti-lycnhing campaigns, and in 1922, solicited the assistance of the National Women’s League of Voters to pressure Congress into passing the Dryer Anti-Lynching Bill. The group did not take up the mantle, but Kelley kept pushing, encouraging newspaper editors to speak out against lynching, and compling her own data on the murders. The bill failed to pass. To this day, there is no federal anti-lynching law. Due in part to her persistence, the National Association of Colored Women was accepted into the Women’s Joint Congressional Committee in 1924, four years after Kelley began lobbying for its inclusion. Kelley was successful in many of her pursuits, but she did not always win her cases. Fully devoted to her causes, Kelley’s determination occasionally led her to the Supreme Court. She witnessed certain state labor reforms be overturned by the court, but did not relinquish her desire to see social justice prevail. Spending the last years of her life back in Pennsylvania, Kelley died on February 17, 1932. She devoted her life to social reform, accomplishing much and resolutely continuing on despite failures. Beyond the tangible results achieved in her lifetime, hers is a living legacy, as the ideals and ideals Kelley championed continue to be advanced.

A lawyer, banker, photographer, adventurer, and author, Edward Larocque Tinker was born 12 Sept. 1881 in New York City. Probably best remembered for his love of the people and culture of Latin America he “was very influential in bringing about a better understanding of the history, art, and culture of Mexico and South America” (Tinker’s Home in the Village of Poquott)) and established a foundation in 1959 to this end. Tinker Foundation The Tinker Foundation’s mission “To promote the development of an equitable, sustainable, and productive society in Latin America. Tinker realizes its mission by providing funding to organizations working to address the region’s most pressing challenges” https://tinker.org/ “For more than sixty years, the Tinker Foundation has promoted economic and social development in Latin America by supporting “people, projects, and ideas. Tinker realizes its mission by providing funding to civil society organizations – among them nonprofit entities, research institutes, and universities – working to address the region’s most pressing challenges. The organizations we support use Tinker resources to test promising ideas, extend the impact of proven models, and bring together stakeholders to solve problems in new ways.” As one of a small number of private foundations focused on the entire region, we believe Tinker has a particular responsibility and opportunity to support the exchange of knowledge and approaches within and beyond Latin America. For that reason, we encourage comparative and collaborative work, and support grantees to learn from others’ experiences. https://tinker.org/about-us/ What spurred Tinker’s interest in Latin culture and history? Known locally as the founder of Tinker National Bank many today may not realize what an interesting life E. L. Tinker led. He was the son of Louise Larocque and Henry Champlin Tinker, businessman and partner in a New York City brokerage firm. In 1890 Henry acquired property on the northern point of Dyer’s Neck (Poquott) for a summer home. He would eventually build two additional houses on Tinker’s Point, one for his daughter Annie the other for his son Edward. “Early in his life, Edward developed an inquiring mind, a thirst for adventure, a fondness for Latin America-especially Mexico-and a love of dogs and horses.” (An Inquiring Mind) Edward graduated from Columbia in 1902. After receiving his law degree from the New York Law School in 1905 he served as assistant district attorney of New York City and in 1911 he opened his own law practice in New York. During this period Tinker who was a proficient horseman, met Buffalo Bill and was able to get a place for himself riding in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show at Madison Square Garden. “The next night I had one of the grooms at the Riding Club saddle White Chicken [Tinker’s horse] with a Texas saddle that I had had made at Sliver City and lead the horse down to Madison Square Garden,. I took my chaps and cowboy regalia in a suitcase and went down and dressed with the cowboys. Then came the first grand entry…The whole thing was lots of fun. I rode every night for a week until Buffalo Bill’s publicity man wrote an article which appeared on the front page of the New York Times, saying that a young Assistant District Attorney was riding in Buffalo Bill’s show, so I had to quit.” (New Yorker Unlimited) Tinker in Mexico When he was 11 years old his parents returned from Mexico with a chamois leather charro suit, a saddle, a bridle, and a pony. This wet Edward’s appetite and in 1912 his restless nature and love of adventure led him to leave his law practice in New York and head to El Paso, Texas. Tinker recounts in his memoirs “El Paso, Texas, which in 1912 was a most exciting place. It was right on the border, the Mexican Revolution was in full swing and the town swarmed with spies, gunrunners, racing touts, adventurers and Secret Service men.” (New Yorker Unlimited). Tinker got work as a time keeper for the El Paso & Southwestern Railroad and was later involved in setting up a railway safety organization. The time was the days of the Mexican Revolution and while working for the railroad he traveled into Mexico where he met Alvaro Obregon, a lieutenant colonel in the Mexican Army. He got to know Obregon and stayed with his troops through the battle of Cabullona taking and developing photographs and tending to the wounded. He also traveled as an observer in Pancho Villa’s train at the battle of Celaya. (The Memoirs of Edward Larocque Tinker) In his published memoirs, Tinker recounts in great detail his experiences during this time in Mexico. "I had one final experience with the Mexican Revolution. Coming back to Douglas some few weeks after I had left Obregon, I heard that a Colonel Salvador Alvarado had come into Aqua Prieta in command of 150 Yaqui Indians. This tribe comprised the most indomitable fighters in all Mexico who for generations had battled the entire government in an attempt to hold the land in Sonora that was rightfully theirs....It was a cruel and relentless war and the punishments meted out to the captured Indians were barbarous...Knowing this background of the Yaquis, I was curious to see them, so I went over to Aqua Prieta and asked Colonel Salvador whom I had met when I was with Obregon if I could travel with him for a while. He said he would be delighted to have me...At night I would place my bedroll next to Alvarado's and we would talk in the moonlight. He told me he had been a schoolteacher and had joined the Madero party in planning a revolution, because he thought that only by ousting Diaz and the rich and powerful cientificos surrounding him would the common people of Mexico ever get their rights and a fair share of the country's wealth..." (New Yorker Unlimited) Tinker as an Author and Diplomat Edward enlisted in the Navy Ordinance Department in Sept. 1918. He served as an Assistant Inspector of Ordinance in the Fourth Naval District achieving the rank of Lieutenant, Senior Grade. He was discharged July 1919. His sister Annie also served in W.W.I as an Army Nurse (sources: Dept. of the Navy, Naval Historical Center and W.W.I Service Record, Huntington Historical Society) His first marriage ended in divorce. Edward married his second wife, Frances McKee, of New Orleans, on the 16th of January 1916. Tinker’s first book Lafcadio Hearn’s American Days was written in 1924. He and Frances authored several books on Louisiana and Creole culture. Together they also collected Latin American art, including books, prints, paintings, and artifacts and made donations to various museums. Tinker also wrote several books on the history of the gaucho, the charro and the cowboys of Argentina, Mexico and the United States. From 1937-1942 he wrote a weekly column for the New York Times Book Review. Frances died in 1958. Edward Larocque Tinker died 6 July 1968 at his home in Poquott and is buried in the Caroline Churchyard. The home they built in 1923 in Poquott was torn down ca 1987 for a subdivision after efforts to save it failed. Tinker received a number of awards and honors during his lifetime for his works on Latin American and Creole cultures from governments and universities in France, Mexico, Spain, and Argentina. On several occasions he represented the U.S. and hosted dignitaries from these countries. His dissertation on the study of the Creole culture in Louisiana, Les Ecrits de Langue Francaise en Louisiane au xix Siecle, earned him the degree of Docteur de l’Universite de Paris in 1933. In that same year, the French Government conferred on him the Palmes Academiques. In 1934 and 1937 he received gold medals from the French Academy and in 1939 was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. Under the Auspices of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace he spent 1943 as Profesor Extraordinario at the National Universite of Mexico and in 1954 the State Department sent him to Argentina and Uruguay as an exchange lecturer. In 1955 he received the degree of Doctor of Filosofia y Letras from the Univeritay of Madrid. In 1949 Middlebury College awarded him the Doctorate of Laws, honoris causa. His work toward furthering cooperation between the countries of the Americas was recognized again by the Argentine Government in 1959 when he was awarded the decoration La Orden de Mayo al Merito. (from Foes of Friendship). In 1963 he received an honorary degree from Columbia “Doctor of Letters, for grace and style of authorship and always finding in man the charm and dignity of the common things men share.” (New York Times, June 5, 1963) In 1959 E. L. Tinker donated his collection of cowboy artifacts including books, pictures and cowboy gear from North and South America to the University of Texas at Austin. Concerning the donation to be housed in the Hall of the Horsemen of the Americas in a new library “Dr. Tinker said he hoped the new hall would serve as “a link, as a kind of bridge” to better understanding between North and South Americans and their common defense of, and search for, liberty and justice” (New York Times, 13 Sept. 1959, p. 124 col. 3). Additional items from his collection of material on Louisiana and Latin America including art, books, prints, paintings, and artifacts has been donated to various institutions. Additional repositories of E. L. Tinker material include: The Tinker Foundation, New York City; American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, MA; Columbia University; and several repositories in Louisiana. The Three Village Historical Society has in its collection over 500 images taken by Edward Tinker over his lifetime including such topics as New York City, Mexico, New Orleans, Poquott, Setauket, the North Atlantic Fleet anchored off Tinker Point and Port Jefferson in 1917, etc. The June 1953 issue of Think magazine featured an article by Edward Tinker “Spanish Art in New York”. The article described the “invaluable collection of art treasures, representing every period of Iberian culture” of The Hispanic Society of America (New York City) founded and endowed by Archer Milton Huntington. Today, known as the The Hispanic Society Museum & Library, located between 155th and 156th Streets west of Broadway, “The Museum and Library collections, which cover nearly every aspect of art and culture in Spain, as well as Portugal, Latin America, and the Philippines into the 20th century, are unparalleled in their scope and quality outside of Spain.” Visit the society at https://hispanicsociety.org/ Works by Edward L. and Frances Tinker Bibliography of the French Newspapers and Periodicals of Louisiana (1933) Centaurs of Many Lands (1963) Corridos and Calaveras (1961) Creole City: Its Past and Its People (1953) The Cult of the Gaucho and the Birth of a Literature (1948) Foes of Friendship Gombo, the Creole Dialect of Louisiana (1936) The Horsemen of the Americas and the Literature They Inspired (1953) Lafcadio Hearn’s American Days (1924) Les Cenelles (1930) Les Ecrits de Langue Francaise en Louisiane au xix Siecle (1932) Life and Literature of the Pampas (1961 ) Los Jinetes de las Americas y la Literatura por Ellos Inspirada (1953) The Machiavellian Madam of Basin Street & Other Takes of New Orleans Martin Fierro, Don Segundo Sombra, Ambassadors of the New World New Yorker Unlimited: The Memoirs of Edward Laroque Tinker Old New Orleans-- The Sixties: Widows Only (1930) Old New Orleans-- The Seventies: Strife (1930) Old New Orleans-- The Eighties: Closed Shutters (1930) Old New Orleans-- The Nineties: Mardi Gras Masks (1930) The Palingenesis of Craps (1933) The Splendid Spectacle of Portuguese Bull Fighting Toucoutou (1928) Sources: New Yorker Unlimited: The Memoirs of Edward Larocque Tinker, University of Texas at Austin, 1970.) Tyler, Beverly C., An Inquiring Mind-Thirst for Adventure, The Three Village Herald. Tyler, Beverly C., Tinker’s Home in the Village of Poquott, The Three Village Herald. Tyler, Beverly C., The Memoirs of Edward Larocque Tinker, The Three Village Herald.

Gabriela Mistal’s poetry, deeply rooted in her Chilean identity, was universal in its understanding and appeal. Her influence on the language of love, heartbreak, joy, and pain, transcends cultural barriers. Mistral was the first Latin American writer to win a Nobel Prize in Literature. Born Lucile Godoy Alcayaga in Vicuña, Chile, on April 7, 1889, she was raised in the Andean village of Monte Grande. Her father, a schoolteacher, abandoned the family when she was three years old. Mistral attended a primary school run by her sister Emelina Molina, who was an educator. Money was constantly lacking, and by the age of 15, Mistral was working as a teacher’s aide in a seaside town to support her mother, Petronila Alcayaga, who was a seamstress. Before she was known as a poet, Mistral was nationally recognized as an innovative, even controversial educator. She drew the attention of Minister of Education Pedro Aguirre Cerdo, the future president of Chile, after she had a story and some poetry published in a Paris literary magazine. He named her the principal of Liceo de Niñas (High School for Girls.) Mistral wrote while also arranging social outreach initiatives like organizing classes for the poor and evening classes for laborers. Mistral first published poetry in 1904, under different pen names and variations of her given name. Upon being transferred to a school in Chilean Indigenous territory, Mistral witnessed the mistreatment of its population, and wrote "Poemas de la madre más triste" (“Poems of the Saddest Mother”.) An article Mistral published while teaching, “La instrucción de la mujer,” (“The Education of Women''), explored the restrictions imposed on women’s education. Much of her oeuvre would address the emotional, social, and economic vulnerabilities of women in a patriarchal society. Early writings were featured in local newspapers. These works apparently expressed such misery that readers reportedly wrote the newspapers, expressing concern about Mistral’s mental state. In 1906, she met and fell in love with Romelio Ureta. In 1909, he killed himself. This tragedy became part of the tapestry of her work, weaving its way into recurring themes and explorations. Mistral’s melancholic musings about love and her mistrust of marriage gained notice. She took her pen name from her two favorite poets, Gabriela D’Annunzio and Frédéric Mistral. Processing her pain through writing, the result of this emotional labor was Sonetos de la muerte (Sonnets of Death). The examination of life and death is a refrain in her writing. Mistral probed the longing for a person who has died. A translated excerpt reads “From the cold niche where they put you/I will lower you to the humble and sunny earth./They did not know I would fall asleep on it,/and that we would dream together on the same pillow.” This loneliness was a theme she revisited in other poetry. Published in 1914, it won first place in Juegos Florales, a national literary contest in Chile. Many Chilean scholars consider this collection to be the beginning of modern Chilean poetry. Mistral grew more interested in spiritual and religious writings through her association with the Chilean Theosophical Society. She continued to work as an educator as her writing became more popular. She moved often, working as an administrator at different girls schools, among them a prestigious new girls school in Santiago. While there, she published poems, articles, and educational compositions. A controversial figure because of her writing, her appointments and promotions were scrutinized by the public. She accepted an invitation to work in Mexico with Minister of Education José Vasconcelos; Mistral was a member of a team who, while striving to create a public education system, reformed schools and libraries. She is credited with helping develop public school models in both Chile and Mexico. Her efforts in academics and literature as well as her public speaking engagements brought Mistral international acclaim. Mistral’s book of poetry, Desolación, was published by Carranza and Company in New York City in 1922. This was the beginning of an ongoing and fruitful association with the state. The volume was released with the assistance from the Director of the Hispanic Institute of New York, Frederico de Onís. A Spanish writer and literary critic, Onís championed her writing. In Desolación (Desolation), Mistral explored motherhood, religion, love of children, morality, and other topics. The book solidified her literary reputation. “Sonetos de la muerta” is featured in it; many of the poems were written a decade prior to publication. Infused with strains of a bitter lament, the poetry reflects Mistral’s sadness and despair. A slightly expanded version was published in 1923, but it was not fully translated into English until 2014. Lecturas para mujeres (Readings for Women) was published the following year. Edited by Mistral, the anthology of prose and poetry features selections from classic and modern writers. She contributed 19 pieces to the text. The collection explores the Americanist perspective that took hold as a result of the Mexican Revolution. Traveling from Mexico, Mistral visited Texas, Washington, D.C., and New York. She then embarked on a European tour; her book, Ternura (Tenderness), was published in Madrid and examined aspects of childhood. Briefly returning to Chile to officially retire from her job in education, Mistral collected her pension and went to Europe, where she lived for a couple of years. Chosen as Chile’s cultural representative to the League of Nations, Mistral maintained that position until she was appointed consul for life in 1935. During this period, she held a visiting professorship at Barnard College and taught at Middlebury College, Vassar College, and the University of Puerto Rico. Tala (Felling), published in 1938, was Mistral’s next volume of poetry. It contains poems that address the death of her mother, compositions that identify and embrace the beauty of the world, and reflections on the hopes of the heart. It contains examples of her children’s poetry, a genre that Mistral enjoyed. Proceeds of the work went to displaced children and orphans of the Spanish American War. In addition to the collections and anthologies, Mistral kept producing articles and essays. Notable figures such as Eleanor Roosevelt and Pablo Neruda were fans of Mistral’s writing. Mistral met Neruda when he was still a student and she was a school director in Chile. She personally supported and encouraged him. The death by suicide of her 17 year old nephew Juan Miguel Godoy, to whom she was very close, devastated Mistral. This death followed the suicides of Jewish friends, writer Stefan Zwieg and his wife, who reportedly ended their lives in response to the rise of Nazism. She once again expressed her grief through her writing. This outpouring contributed to the last volume of poetry published in her lifetime, Lagar (Winery), which was released in 1954. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1945 “for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world,” Mistral was the first Latin American writer to receive the honor. Six years later, she received the National Literature Prize in Chile. It was the last time she would visit her home country. Having traveled extensively and lived in different European countries and parts of the United States, Mistral’s final home was on Long Island. She settled in Roslyn Harbor and served as Chilean representative to the United Nations, where she was an active participant in the “Subcommittee on the Status of Women.” Mistral began writing a long form narrative poem, Poema de Chile (Poem of Chile.) Although unfinished, it has the cadence of a lullaby and continues in the tradition of children’s poetry. At times, Mistral adapts a maternal tone as evidenced in this translated excerpt: “We are walking together/Thus, like brothers in a story,/Yours is the shadow of a boy,/Mine barely resembles the shadow of a fern.” At another point, Mistral envisions herself a ghost returning to Chile for one final visit before meeting her creator. On January 10, 1957, Mistral died of pancreatic cancer in a Hempstead hospital. Grieved across the world, Chilean president Carlos Ibañez declared three days of national mourning. The United Nations honored her, with more than 20 delegations including the United States, paying tribute. Mistral’s literary legacy is unrestrained by language barrier or time; the emotions she conveyed and the connections she forged are borderless.

The following account of the life of Count de Teixeira was written by Dr. R. Sherman Mills It is the stuff of which fairy tales are made, but without a fairy tale ending. It is a tale a novelist would tell, but it is true in all known details. A debonair man of reputed wealth and royal lineage meets and marries a young lady of common birth. Together, they return to her hometown and begin to build a castle named Diamond Hill. Their life knows near triumph and near tragedy and most of it unfolds right here in East Setauket. The young lady was Leona Hand of Setauket and around 1900, she went to New York City to live with her friend and relative, Ella Hand Small, the wife of George Small. Why Miss Hand went to the city is not known, nor are the social circles in which she and her future husband revolved and eventually met. But we might imagine that in nineteenth century New York City, this young woman from a small town may have felt as if Prince Charming himself had arrived in her life. Actually, he was not a prince at all, but a count - Count Eugenio Goncalves de Teixeira of Brazil. The Count was dapper, distinguished, and the professed owner of 25 square miles of the richest mines in the world. These mines were located in Brazil on properties discovered in 1640 by the Count's ancestor, Don Pedro (de) Teixeira of Portugal. Before coming to New York in 1896, the Count ran a clay products factory in Brazil with his father, civil engineer Don Antonio machado da Camara Goncalves de Teixeira. He was also a husband and father. In fact, his three daughters, Carolina, Jenny, and Georgina, were living in New York City at the time of his second marriage. The Count's first wife, a member of Portuguese nobility, was apparently left behind in Brazil, with or without the courtesy of a divorce. We cannot say if Leona Hand was aware of all these details at the time of her marriage, but if they were a secret, they did not remain so forever. On January 27, 1917, The Port Jefferson Echo reported that Georgina accused her father and sister Carolina of cheating her out of her mother's inheritance. As a result of the charges, Georgina said her father kept her as a virtual prisoner in his home and asked local doctors Dildine and Many to examine her regarding her sanity. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Exact details are sketchy but at some point after their marriage, the Count and the new Mrs. Teixeria (apparently she was not called a Countess, at least by the locals) moved to East Setauket. They lived first in a small house on Shore Road which belonged to Captain Benjamin Jayne. By 1920, they had moved to the first house on the northwest side of Bayview Avenue. Shortly thereafter, they acquired property on Carleton Avenue which extended through to Bayview. Originally, this land had belonged to George Small (Ella's husband), but when he drowned, his house was moved to Main Street. The Teixeiras built a large home, which is still occupied today, and extensive outbuildings which the Count referred to as his factory. On the Bayview Avenue side of the land, the Count began construction of his castle, Diamond Hill. Aside from the Count and Leona (and perhaps a captive Georgina), the property was home to at least three others. In 1920, the Count's daughter Carolina brought a baby girl to East Setauket who was subsequently raised by the Teixeiras. The Count rescued his ex-cook, Henry Smith, from the Bowery in Manhattan and brought him out to be the caretaker. (Local residents dubbed Smith "No Account" but were touched nonetheless by his devotion to the little girl.) Finally, there was a sculptor named Estivo who lived and worked in the factory. Surely the most remarkable resident was the Count himself. His personal papers reveal a man of intelligence, ambition, accomplishment and eccentricity, perhaps bordering on genius. His professed degrees were in physics, chemistry, metallurgy, architecture, law, sculpture, religion, mineralogy, and civil engineering. His 125 inventions included clay products, tools, medications, armor, and forest products. In addition, he claimed to have written several scientific and technical books. The volume containing the Count's business proposals, organizations, and correspondence is four inches thick. It contains maps of his family's Brazilian holdings dating back to their discovering in 1640. If a picture in the December 1981 edition of The Port Jefferson Echo is any indication, the Count's claims of wealth appear to have been true. The picture a five pound, 24-carat gold nugget embedded by nature with a four carat diamond and said to have been found in one of the Teixeira's mines. In addition to that gem, the yield handled by Teixeira Productions, Inc., included 33 minerals, 38 forest products, 57 timber, 13 "cultivated" and 24 animal and insect products. article Port Jefferson Echo, December 11, 1915 In addition, his factory in East Setauket contained his tile and brick experiments, architectural models, and sculptures. Port Jefferson Echo, August 23, 1919 In spite of all his reputed credentials and accomplishments, success and renown eluded the Count. In January 1928, a fire destroyed the factory and killed Estivo. A grandiose plan to dig a tunnel to Setauket Harbor was stopped for unknown reasons. (Rumors abounded as to the Count's intentions since the harbor was a regular site of rum-running during Prohibition.) Even Diamond Hill remained unfinished until it was torn down in the 1940s. Most likely, both projects fell victim to financial troubles. Troubles of some sort led the Count away from East Setauket in 1930. True to his precedent, he left behind his wife and children. Little is known about his later activities although during World War II he was back in New York City, actively trying to raise $20 million to export his Brazilian products for the war effort. The Count's story ends in 1950 in New Hampshire where he died of cancer at the age of 86. Interestingly enough, he is buried in the St. James Roman Catholic Churchyard here in Setauket. Next to him is Leona, who died in 1946, and his son Peter and his wife. The pieces of this story are gathered for the first time here. It is perhaps a tragedy of unfulfilled promise and potential, or a mystery fueled by rumors and speculation. However we choose to classify if in the end, one thing is certain: It is a tale as intriguing and enigmatic as "the Count" himself.

By Tara Mae Isabel González did not initially intend to become an advocate. In defining and defending her right to claim American citizenship as a Puerto Rican, she forced the government to consider her legal status and caused a reckoning for how she and other Puerto Ricans were perceived. Her journey through Ellis Island and her fight in the Supreme Court reflect ongoing discussions about immigration and personhood. When González was born to a comfortable family in San Juan, Puerto Rico on May 2, 1882, the island was still part of the Spanish empire, which rendered her a citizen of Spain. The country went to war with the United States, which invaded and annexed Puerto Rico. She was nearly 17 when the Treaty of Paris was signed on April 11, 1899, ceding the island to the United States. This transfer of power theoretically transferred the allegiance of the citizens. It also enforced new trade restrictions, caused a shift in the economy, and neglected to apply democratic principles to the new acquisition. Following a Supreme Court case, Downes v. Birdwell, Puerto Rico was designated an “unincorporated territory.” Its residents did not have an automatic right to the protections assured by the Constitution. In certain circumstances Congress had the ability to enact law in its territories, particularly ones pertaining to revenue. Doing this in states would be prohibited by the Constitution. The island endured further upheaval when the San Ciriaco hurricane, the longest-lived such storm in recorded history, ravaged Puerto Rico. Still a teenager at the time, González married a man 12 years her senior; 16 months later he was dead of tuberculosis, leaving her a widowed mother to a small child. By 1902, she was apparently engaged and had a child on the way. Intending to reunite with her betrothed and lacking practical possibilities for supporting her family, she decided to immigrate to the United States. A pregnant González left her daughter with her mother, and boarded a steamship, the SS Philadelphia, bound for the Port of New York. From there, she intended to join her family on Staten Island. She sent them a telegram, announcing her intended arrival. As González moved towards the promise of her future, the United States government arrested that potential. En route to the country, the government changed how it viewed Puerto Ricans. Under the direction of the United States Treasury Department’s Immigration Commissioner General F. P. Sargent, new guidelines went into effect: while at sea, González (like all other Puerto Ricans) was classified as an alien, changing her eligibility of entry into the country. Upon arriving in New York City, instead of disembarking, she and the other passengers were transferred to Ellis Island. Once there, she was subject to the enhanced scrutiny of the policies of the new commissioner of immigration. William Williams was a former lawyer and stickler for stringently enforcing immigration laws. He was especially aggressive about expelling persons who might be perceived as potential “public charges.” Unwed mothers and their children were automatically categorized as such, despite the fact that many, even most, of these women had some form of employment awaiting them. Single women were only released if family showed up to claim them. Unmarried and pregnant, González was seen as an “alien immigrant” and identified as a likely “public charge.” Two marks against her. Although her relatives did go to Ellis Island to retrieve her, she was not released. A special inquiry into her eligibility was launched, and a hearing was held the next day. González’s brother Luis González and uncle Domingo Collazo came to support her. Collazo was a Puerto Rican politician, activist, and journalist with connections in the community. Immigration officials misspelled her name as Gonzales. González’s conventionally respectable position as a widow was hampered by the fact she was pregnant. Her mother was destitute and few opportunities existed for González in Puerto Rico. Her uncle, aunt, and brother advocated for allowing her into New York. The inspectors’ grievances focused on whether she was morally fit to be a good mother, regardless of legitimate family relationships. Immigration regulations were preoccupied with the family structures and sexual morals of immigrants. Officials found González lacking in these regards, and thus a liability. At the hearings, her relatives repeatedly assured the court that they had the economic capacity to support González and she would thus not become reliant on the state’s welfare system. Her fiancé did not attend these hearings and the court used that against her, denying González entry into the country. Collazo had prominent allies and acquaintances, such as Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, who he called upon in support of González’s defense. Collazo swore a habeas corpus petition on González’s behalf. A friend of hers shared her story with a lawyer, Orrel A. Parker, whose partner, Charles E. Le Barbier, developed an interest in her case. Le Barbier filed the petition with the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York. It ruled in favor of the government, stating that González was an alien and thus subject to deportation. Unaware of González’s plight, Frederico Degetau, first Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico and expert in international law, wrote to the Secretary of State, denouncing the legislation that rendered Puerto Ricans aliens as opposed to citizens. The complaint was forwarded to the Treasury Department, and Degetau contacted Parker and Le Barbier, who told him of their plans to take González’s case to the Supreme Court. Degetau was excited by this prospect. González’s situation was a prime “test” case to determine the legal status of Puerto Ricans who were alive when Spain annexed the island to the United States. This predicament drew Frederic René Coudert, Jr. to the cause. An international lawyer based in New York, in Downes v. Birdwell, he had represented clients who opposed tariffs levied on goods shipped between Puerto Rico and the United States.  Another lawyer, Paul Fuller, was also part of the legal team. González had her own plan and strategy. She was not just a passive participant in her legal fight, but an architect of its meaning and mastery. Rather than target the “public charge” identification, González centered her case on the idea that all Puerto Ricans were citizens and therefore should not be detained or refused entry into the country. Out on bond, she got married, which legally entitled her to stay in the country. González kept her marriage secret so as not to distract from or undermine the effort. On December 4 and 7, 1903, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Gonzáles v. Williams (the official title uses the incorrect spelling of González’s name.) The case garnered national attention and inspired legal, administrative, and media speculation about the legal status of Puerto Ricans. It raised questions about immigration and the country’s treatment of its citizens, specifically women and people of color. González and her lawyers explored themes of gender, race, and morality. The Solicitor General of the United States, Henry M. Hoyt, concentrated on what he perceived as the issue of failed parents: individuals raising children outside the realm of “moral,” financially self-sufficient homes. The Supreme Court ruled in González’s favor, declaring that she was not an alien and could remain in the United States. It did not acknowledge her as a citizen. Whether Puerto Ricans were legally recognized as citizens continued to be a confusing, vague, and contested concept. They came to be known as “noncitizen nationals.” Seeking to fully restore her reputation, González launched a very targeted media campaign. Through letters published in The New York Times, she revealed that she was married and rebuked immigration officials’ claims that she would need public assistance. Criticizing the country’s role as colonizer, González posited that since Puerto Ricans had their Spanish citizenship abrogated, the United States was obligated to give them American citizenship. González noted that she did not see the court’s ruling as a victory, because Puerto Ricans existed in a citizenship limbo: “the actual incongruous status - neither ‘Americans nor foreigners,’ as it was vouchsafed by the United States Supreme Court apropos of my detention at Ellis Island for the crime of being an ‘alien.’” She wed Juan Francisco Torres in 1915 and raised five children. González’s work was part of the larger undertaking to resolve the uncertainty about the legal standing of Puerto Ricans. The Jones-Shafroh Act, signed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1917, reformed the Puerto Rican government and granted citizenship to anyone born in Puerto Rico on or after April 11, 1899. In June of that same year, he signed a compulsory military act which enabled the United States government to draft Puerto Ricans for service during World War I. González and Torres eventually moved to New Jersey, where she died in 1971.

By Beverly Tyler A small leather-bound journal, kept by a Setauket farmer reveals details in the life of an African American laborer. Silas Brewster worked for Walter Smith, an Old Field farmer and merchant, who kept a daily record of Silas’ work. According to census records Silas lived next to Smith, in a house on Smith’s property. Before the discovery of the journal and its purchase at auction by the Three Village Historical Society we knew very little about a man named Silas Brewster - but which Silas Brewster? My interest in the journal first came from my research into the lives of the shipyard workers along Shore Road in East Setauket. In the 1860 census Silas Brewster is listed as a boatman, but where exactly he lived, what he did and the details of his life were missing. Discovering a journal that gave information about his life would help me tell the story of one Setauket African American seaman. Unfortunately this was not the right Silas Brewster. In fact I cannot even establish a relationship between Silas Brewster, boatman and Silas Brewster, laborer. Research into seven decennial censuses, gravestones and burial records, historic newspapers, maps, genealogical and archival records have helped identify which Silas Brewster was which; there were three in the Setauket area. Silas Brewster, boatman, lived in the Dyer’s Neck shipbuilding area of East Setauket. He was born between 1823 and 1825 and about 1850 he married Laura, last name unknown, who was born in 1828 or 1829. Between 1856 and 1858, Silas and Laura had a son Cyrus who, in 1870, age 12, was working and living in the Miller Place household of Erastus Brown. Cyrus disappears from known records by 1880. This Silas Brewster, listed as a seaman in 1870 and a laborer in 1880 at the age of 51, died on 22 December 1897 and is buried in the Laurel Hill Cemetery in Setauket. Silas Brewster, the African American laborer of the leather-bound journal, who worked for Walter Smith, was born between 1806 and 1810. By the time of the journal, which covered the period from January 1865 to October 1869, Silas had a wife Phebe whose maiden name was probably Tobias. The couple had one child and possibly two. Silas Junior, born about 1842 and Aner born between 1857 and 1859. The family lived in a cottage on Smith’s land, along the shore of Conscience Bay as a structure on the 1896 Hyde & Company map labeled “W. Smith Est.” was probably, according to Smith’s descendants, the same cottage that exists there today. By 1860 Silas Jr. was living and working in the household of Charles Conklin and the census lists seven people living in Silas Brewster’s home. Silas 45, his wife Phebe, 45, another Phebe 24, Charles 31, Aner 5, Frances 3, and William T. 3/12. In 1865, the first year of the journal, the New York State Census lists only Silas 59 , Phebe 50, and Aner 8. Aside from the error in Silas’ age, was Aner their child or the child of Charles Brewster? Were the other two also children of Charles and the other Phebe? Was Charles Silas’ brother? Since Charles and his family don’t appear in any other local census records from 1850 through 1900 why is Aner listed with Silas and Phebe in 1865 and also mentioned in the journal a number of times? The journal, labeled “Help’s Book” details Silas’ work and pay, listed as credit, on the left side and what he owes to Smith, his debit, on the right side of each page. Every day is accounted for including Sundays when Silas is most often listed as “home all day” or “no work.” Silas’ day included a wide variety of farming activities including plowing, mowing, splitting wood, planting as well as seasonal activities such as killing, salting and cutting up hogs. It appears that Silas also did considerable work carting items to and from the farm and transporting Smith’s family, friends and neighbors to and from the Stony Brook railroad station, out to the Old Field lighthouse, to weddings and funerals, as well as on sleigh rides. Silas was paid (credited) with 25, 50 or 75 cents a day, most days. On the debit side, entries show that Silas bought all kinds of items from Smith’s general store and paid house rent of $25 every May 15th.. Debit entries also including Aner’s school bill, clothing and shoes, a Christmas shawl for Phebe and a bill from Dr. Bates. The journal notes on June 23, 1869 that Aner was sent to Riverhead, the county seat, for “stealing Brows watch.” On July 12, Smith gave Silas $7 cash to go to Riverhead. We don’t know the outcome for Silas and Aner but court records in Riverhead may tell us more of the story. We do know that Aner is not listed in the 1870 Federal census and that she died 5 May 1873 according to Setauket Presbyterian Church records as unmarried, but mother of two. Some of the most interesting journal entries are for deaths in the community, both white and African American. In most cases, the entries include the last name for white folk but only the first name for black folk making it more difficult to identify many of the African Americans listed. The entry for Monday, 25 October 1869, for example, says simply, “old Sam died.” On 18 September 1868, “S.A. [Shepard Alonzo] Mount died” and 19 November 1868, only two months later, “W.S. [William Sidney] Mount died. There is no entry for a funeral for Shepard Mount but there are many for transporting Smith family members to funerals. It appears that Silas was trusted with transporting Smith family and friends despite a number of entries where Silas is noted as “got drunk” or “tight.” There is a great deal more research that can be done to bring more of the story of the Help’s Book to light. We need to learn more about Silas Brewster and his family, more about Walter Smith and his family, about his general store and his business running a stagecoach carrying passengers from the Setauket Railroad Station to Old Field. Acquiring this wonderful journal was just the first step. So far there is very little here that tells us about their lives; these men and women are still shadows, still one-dimensional beings who should have more interesting stories to tell.

“Hebrews and Christians from this and neighboring villages turned out in large numbers to attend the dedication. The new house of worship stands on the main street and a short distance from the rubber works, where the greater number of members are employed…The new building, known as the A Goodes Acherm [sic] synagogue of Setauket, was built by the society of that name, organized about five years ago. The building is not yet fully completed, but will be by another week. It is very plain, of simple design and costs about $1,500 complete. It is 24 x 36 feet and of frame. The interior is ceiled with pine and has a gallery extending across the end. It has sittings for about three hundred persons. Its members now number fifty-two…” Dr. James H. Darlington, pastor of Christ Church in Brooklyn and a summer resident of Old Field, presented a “generous contribution” and addressed those attending. “I come here to-night on your invitation, twice declined in person, to greet you as a neighbor and friend. Not that I agree with you in all your views or am any less a Christian minster and sincere believer of the Christian faith, but I respect your venerable and most ancient belief as all Christians must who remember that the New Testament sprang out of and is based upon the books of Moses…We differ as widely as possible on many points of belief, but there are equally as many we hold in common…” “And We’re Still Here” by Helene Gerard “More than two million Jews left Eastern Europe and came to America between 1880 and 1914. Before 1900, some of them found their way to Eastern Long Island as peddlers, farmers and factory workers. Those who settled in the little rural villages struggled through the early years, establishing families, businesses and religious communities in an area where no Jews had lived for 250 years. By the 1930s, they were financially established and were accepted as respected, contributing members of their villages. In many ways, their stories are typical of other immigrant groups who arrived during the same period, yet they are different, for these people maintained their Jewish identity.” “In the 1870s and 1880s, Long Island reflected the rest of the country as railroads threw sparks across formerly peaceful farmlands and flat landscapes were suddenly broken by the three and four story factory buildings of small industry. These companies advertised for help in New York’s foreign language newspapers, emphasizing clean air and healthy living conditions. Recruiters also went to Ellis Island, bringing families directly to factory towns by train or steamship.” Ms. Gerard’s words are reflected in the history of Setauket and the roots of the Jewish community in the Three Villages. The Setauket Rubber Factory The Setauket rubber factory, located on Chicken Hill, opened in the 1870s and attracted a labor force of new immigrants arriving at New York. Initially the factory employed many Irish and German immigrants. Factory owner J. W. Elberson also recruited workers through the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. Jewish immigrants arriving in New York from Eastern Europe (Russia, Poland, Lithuania, etc.) were offered jobs in Setauket. Jewish families relocated from the city to the “country” where factories were being built or to establish businesses to serve those communities. By 1887 the local rubber factory employed some 500 workers, the majority were people of the Hebrew faith. Multiple members of the same family, both adults and children, would be employed. The factory employed so many Jewish workers that the factory closed for the High Holy Days. As the population grew businesses such as a Kosher butcher, general store, etc. were opened which supported the Jewish community. In the late 1870s and early 1880s the Golden family, David Pinnes and 15 other Jewish families, started holding religious services in their homes. By 1892 there were some 100 Jewish families in Setauket. Elias Golden is considered the founder of the Setauket congregation and was the congregation’s first president when Agudas Achim was incorporated on Nov. 28, 1893. Marc Stern states “Samuel Golden…recalled in a 1980 interview that his grandfather [Elias], father [Isaac], mother, and sisters all worked in the rubber factory, on and off, from the late 1880s, before his father established a saloon for rubber workers. They came to Setauket at the beginning of Jewish migration to the area. Sam’s father, a young man peddling dry-goods from a sack, learned of a need for workers and brought this family to Setauket. Whether these workers supplanted or supplemented the original laborers, Jewish hands soon figured prominently for the firm and town.” Soon a synagogue was needed to serve the Orthodox congregation. Herman Pinnes donated land on Main St. north of the Methodist Church for a synagogue. The shul of the Society of Agudas Achim (Brotherly Association) was constructed by John Deckman, a local carpenter and builder. This would be the first synagogue in Suffolk County and services were performed by members and an itinerant Rabbi. A cemetery was also established at Ridgeway Ave. and Mud Rd. founded by The Workman’s Circle, a benevolent organization, and given to the congregation. This house of worship would serve the growing local Jewish community, but its future existence would be dependent on the local economy. As the labor movement grew and the local rubber industry suffered bankruptcies, mergers and several fires, by 1900 much of the workforce was leaving the area. The main rubber factory was destroyed by fire in 1904. With no employment in the area the remaining families looked elsewhere for work and moved out of the area, often back to the city. The Golden, Pinnes, and several other families stayed in Setauket and operated their own businesses-a general store, butcher, saloon, etc. By 1914 with so few congregants the synagogue was closed and services were offered in private homes. With the outbreak of WWI the synagogue would reopen for several years to serve the sailors based in Port Jefferson and the soldiers at Camp Upton. Afterwards, the synagogue building was closed again. In 1921 the Torah scrolls were loaned by Isaac Golden to a congregation in East Northport. The cemetery was sold to Temple Israel in Riverhead with the provision that the families of Agudas Achim retained the right to be buried there. It wasn’t until the mid-1940s that the synagogue would then look to serve the community. Samuel Golden recalls the history of the synagogue Sam Golden, Elias’ grandson, reflected on the history of the synagogue in a 1967 interview conducted when the congregation of the North Shore Jewish Center planned for the construction of a new synagogue on Old Town Road. The interviewer summarized Sam Golden’s comments. Sam recalled that his grandfather [Elias], father [Isaac] and uncle helped build the synagogue. At the time of the interview, in 1967, he described that the temple on Main St. had not changed very much…the walls have never been repainted...still there was the balcony for the women of the congregation when this was an Orthodox Synagogue…the original pews in place…a cellar was added in the 1940s and used as a meeting room. “The congregation dwindled away because there is no labor market here. Before the rubber factory burned down, around 1904, there were between 150-200 Jewish families here and on High Holy Days they used Mechanics Hall [now a wing of the Methodist Church] to take care of the overflow. Each year after about 1910 or 1911 there were so few Jewish families that the synagogue was only used on High Holy Days and they would ask someone from another town to conduct services. Finally only three or four families were left and the synagogue closed. Up to 1904 the Temple was active and crowded. As it closed down World War I broke out. At Port Jefferson there as a barracks there, an old building at the bottom of Fort Hill and the Synagogue was again opened for week-end services for the sailors. It stayed open until 1919. Mr. Golden’s dad kept it in good shape, painting, etc. until the weather and other elements took their toll. The locust poles on which the synagogue stood, rotted and the building fell over on its side and the cupola broke off. In 1942 or 43 Mr. Samuel Golden got a group of fellows together...they received money from the bank to restore a good part of the building. The building is forward about 12 feet from original place, closer to the road, and so it stands today…The Pinnes family presented a new Torah as a memorial to their father. Original Torah came from Russia; it is very old, possibly 200 years old…” North Shore Jewish Center In 1946 Samuel Golden looked into reopening the synagogue. Funds were raised to repair the old synagogue. On May 2, 1948 a new Conservative congregation was formed named the North Shore Jewish Center and membership was served by a part-time Rabbi and Sam Golden as president. The original Torah scrolls, which had been loaned to East Northport, were located at a congregation in Springfield Gardens, the East Northport congregation having disbanded, and were returned to Setauket. In 1958 the Pinnes store and butcher shop, located on the south side of the synagogue, was purchased for a Hebrew school. Marvin Bash was hired as the synagogue’s first fulltime Rabbi and Religious School Principal from July 1961-Sept. 1965. In the mid-1960s with the university and the housing development boom in the area the small synagogue on Main St. could no longer serve the growing congregation and alternative locations were used. Plans were made for a new building. Property was acquired on Old Town Rd. and ground was broken for a new North Shore Jewish Center in September 1968. “The last religious service at the “small shul” in Setauket took place on August 29, 1971. Rabbi Lebeau, Cantor Rosenbloom, and Morris Remz led 300 members of the congregation in a processional march along Old Town Road. Singing and dancing, the congregants carried the Sifrei Torah under a huppa for the two and a half mile route to the newly completed sanctuary.” (see full article at the bottom of the blog) The original synagogue was sold to the Methodist Church. It was renamed “Shalom Hall” (Hall of Peace) and was used as a Sunday School and social hall and later by other organizations. The original synagogue building still stands, now home to the II Acts Thrift Shop of the Methodist Church. The next time you drive by, are stopped waiting for the traffic light, or are in the thrift shop look around and think of the history and the fellowship and the families this building served. Temple Isaiah Temple Isaiah, a reformed synagogue, has served the Three Village community since 1965. The first service was held at the Suffolk Museum and then the Stony Brook Community Church. In 1967 ground was broken on Stony Brook Road for their first building. Visit https://tisbny.org/about-ti/our-history/ and https://tisbny.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2011/10/history.pdf to learn about the history of Temple Isaiah. Further reading and blog resources Celebrating 110 Years of Torah: A History of the North Shore Jewish Center 1893-2003. North Shore Jewish Center, Port Jefferson Station, New York: 90 Proud Years : an Historical Perspective, 1982. Gerard, Helene, "And We're Still Here" : 100 Years of Small Town Jewish Life :/ an exhibition sponsored by the East End Arts and Humanities Council; Hier Publications, 1982. Stern, Marc J., The Social Utility of Failure: Long Island’s Rubber Industry and the Setauket Shtetle, 1876-1911, Long Island Historical Journal, Vol. 4, No 1 p15-34 https://dspace.sunyconnect.suny.edu/handle/1951/51301 Three Village Herald, September 2, 1971

By Tara Mae Mary Grace Quackenbos Humiston was the first female Assistant United States Attorney. She was appointed to the position before women were legally allowed to vote in the country. A skilled attorney, later in her career she became a highly sought investigator, earning the nickname “Mrs. Sherlock Holmes.” Quackenbos Humiston was born Mary Grace Winterton on September 17, 1869, to a wealthy New York family. Her father was a successful merchant and established in the lay work of the Baptist church. Her grandfather, Henry S. Hull, was the partner of renowned abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. After attending Hunter College, Quackenbos Humiston briefly taught at Collegiate School. Invested in protecting her independent fortune, she studied at New York University Law School to learn how to best manage her estate. This introduction inspired her to pursue a degree and career in law. Impressed by her aptitude, the dean of the school urged Quackenbos Humiston to take evening classes, which enabled her to graduate in three years, ranked seventh in her class. She received her Bachelor of Laws in 1903, worked for Legal Aid Society for one year, and was accepted to the bar. In 1905, she founded the People’s Law Firm. Primarily focused on cases involving immigrants and the working poor, within two years, Quackenbos Humiston had opened a pair of offices: one on Broadway and one on Madison Avenue. Her reputation was growing. One case in particular, the defense of Mrs. Antoinette Tolla, an Italian woman in New Jersey, drew media attention. Tolla had been convicted of the murder of Joseph Sonta and scheduled to be hanged when Quackenbos Humiston took her case at the request of the Italian Consul-General, who offered her a substantial fee. Instead she worked pro-bono, as she did for many cases, noting she “would prefer to take the case without remunera as woman for woman.” By the time Quackenbos Humiston took up the cause, her firm had 550 pending cases and employed four attorneys and two stenographers. She and her team worked quickly and worked well. Seven days after officially taking the case, Quackenbos Humiston convinced the board of pardons of New Jersey to commute Tolla’s death sentence to a prison term of seven and a half years. She successfully argued that Tolla had killed Sonta in self-defense and that her previous testimony had not been properly translated. It was March 9th. Tolla was scheduled to be hanged on March 12th. Uninterested in notoriety, Quackenbos Humiston did not rest on her laurels but rather continued to build her practice. She strove to assist anyone who needed her expertise, stating in an interview “‘We give the same attention to all our clients, but we charge each according to his means...If our clients are rich we charge them regular level rates. Of course, that is why we can ask low fees from the poor.’” This policy drew the downtrodden and desperate to her. They came to her when the police could not or would not help. During the first years of the law firm, Quackenbos Humiston saw several clients who were searching for friends or relatives who had gone South for work opportunities and vanished. Rather than hire an investigator, she looked into it herself. Initial inquiries uncovered a network of New York City recruitment agents who lured laborers to the South, where they were ensnared in peonage. Although it was most rampant in turpentine camps, Quackenbos Humiston discovered it was a fairly common practice in a variety of industries. Traveling alone, she began a clandestine examination, donning disguises and stowing away on supply wagons to infiltrate the camps. Quackenbos Humiston posed as an old woman selling scissors and a magazine writer. Her first trip yielded a fever and 46 affidavits against perpetrators of the peonage system. This caught the attention of the Department of Justice, which opened an investigation. Assistant Attorney General Charles Wells Russell personally traveled through the South to conduct an inquiry. The Justice Department was so impressed by Quackenbos Humiston’s work that it appointed her Special Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. She was the first woman to have this job, thirteen years before women gained the right to vote. Her responsibilities centered around identifying and prosecuting peonage schemes and industry trust-busting. The peonage probes took Quackenbos Humiston abroad. She journeyed through Europe and part of the Middle East, pursuing leads and building her case. Quackenbos Humiston unearthed an extensive exploitation ring that ran through different countries. It enticed individuals to immigrate to the United States where they were trapped in peonage. Baron Edmondo Des Planches, the Italian ambassador to the United States, asked her to specifically look into the treatment of Italians working on the cotton plantations in Mississippi. Quackenbos Humiston targeted the Sunnyside Plantation, owned by the O. B. Crittenden Company, for her investigation. She dispatched an undercover investigator to sneak into the plantation at night. Quackenbos Humiston spent time in the shacks that housed the immigrants, drinking the polluted water and gathering evidence. With the proper motivation, threat of prison, one of the labor agents divulged the company’s dubious labor practices, and implicated LeRoy Percy. A cotton planter, lawyer, and local political leader, Percy fancied himself untouchable. In an effort to assert dominance, he arranged for Quackenbos Humiston’s case notes to be stolen from her hotel room and later dispatched an associate to return them. In response, Quackenbos Humiston had his partner, O.B. Crittenden, arrested and planted stories in the national press that detailed the plantation’s abysmal working conditions. In addition to her legal expertise, Quackenbos Humiston was known for her sharp investigative skills. Her career triumphs and professional ascent were featured in the New York newspapers, but she was uninterested in celebrity. The media, enamored with her procedural prowess and striking physical presence, was a useful ally when needed. Percy appealed to his friend, President Theodore Roosevelt, for relief. Quackenbos Humiston was removed from the investigation at Sunnyside, but the press had already gotten the story, and her report was published. The Italian government started to warn its citizens against moving to the Delta region. Accused by some of negatively impacting immigration to the South, Quackenbos Humiston posited that it would be improved by bettering working conditions. Percy and other plantation owners endeavored to smear Quackenbos Humiston, disparaging her on the basis of her gender. This was not the only time that she was denigrated simply for being a woman, but Quackenbos Humiston benefitted from the relative security of having her own money, education, and employment. It was a fairly uncommon protection for a woman of that era, and it enabled her to take on formidable opponents. Through her efforts with the People’s Law Firm and the Department of Justice, Quackenbos Humiston proved a fierce foe to injustice. With the firm, she successfully sued an insurance company on behalf of a group of widows owed benefits. Unafraid to call out corruption in her profession, Quackenbos Humiston got an immigration lawyer disbarred for over charging persons fighting deportation orders. According to the law, lawyers could charge no more than $10 for filing an appeal to send to Washington, DC. Caesar B.F. Barra charged several times that amount. When Quackenbos Humiston took the case, Barra dared her to “crack the whip.” And so she did, recouping the extra money he had taken and successfully charging that his license be revoked. No stranger to tangling with the police department while advocating for a client, Quackenbos Humiston exposed scandals within the NYPD. She represented a man on death row at Sing-Sing, and eventually won his release by proving that his conviction had been based on falsified evidence. Henry Cruger, a wealthy businessman, hired her to find his daughter, Ruth; he suspected that the cops had not done their due diligence. Cruger was frustrated by the inertia of the NYPD’s nvestigation into Ruth’s disappearance. It let the case grow cold, initially suggesting that Ruth was a loose young woman who had run away from home. Newspapers ran alarmist stories about white slavery, suggesting that this attractive white teenager had been kidnapped for nefarious intent. This sensationalism played into nativist propaganda about foreigners invading the country and stealing its pure caucasian women. Refusing any payment, Quackenbos Humiston dedicated up to 15 hours a day to the case. Dubbed “Mrs. Sherlock Holmes” for her dogged determination and tireless sleuthing, she and an associate found Ruth’s body in the basement of Alfredo Cocchi’s motorcycle shop. He was already a person of interest to the Crugers. Having fled to Italy, which refused to extradite him, Cocchi was arrested in Bologna and confessed to the crime. Dissatisfied with the police department’s behavior, Quackenbos Humiston publicly accused it of negligence. Police Commissioner Arthur Woods ordered an investigation into the matter. It divulged a long-term kickback arrangement between Cocchi and the local police. Quackenbos Humiston was named a special investigator to the NYPD and tasked with finding missing girls. She formed the Morality League of America, an organization dedicated to locating, recovering, and supporting girls and women who had been forced into prostitution. Quackenbos Humiston died in 1948, at the age of 77. Twice married, first to Major Henry Forrest Quackenbos and then Howard Donald Humiston, she dedicated her life to the fight for justice. “Mrs. Sherlock Holmes” left a notable legacy as a groundbreaking female lawyer and impactful social reformer.

By Tara Mae Ann Lowe was an in-demand designer to high society. But even as she was sought out by eminent families, Lowe was neither properly compensated nor recognized for her work. In fact, at the height of her career, she was nearly destitute. Lowe faced a problem many other women, especially Black women encountered: she was in danger of being erased from her own narrative. Born in Clayton, Alabama, in 1898, Lowe was the great-granddaughter of an enslaved woman and the plantation owner. Raised under the racist oppression of Jim Crow laws, both her grandmother and mother were seamstresses to the first families of Montgomery, sewing gowns for the governors’ wives and female relatives as well as other members of the upper class. Growing up, Lowe took scraps from her mother’s work to make fabric flowers, which later became a signature detail of her designs. When she was sixteen, her career was inadvertently launched by the unfortunate death of her mother. She completed the four gowns that her mother had been working on for the wife of the governor of Alabama. Married for the first time at around 14 years old, Lowe’s husband was 10 years her senior and wanted her to focus on being a wife and mother. Initially, Lowe complied. She left him after being hired to design a wedding dress for a woman in Florida and offered a position as an in-house seamstress. Later married a second time, Lowe also attributed the breakup of that marriage to her husband’s inability to cope with her career. In 1918, Lowe and her son Arthur Lee headed North, coming to New York so Lowe could study at the S.T. Taylor Design School, a particularly impressive feat since she had not graduated from high school. Apparently, she surprised school staff when she arrived. They were, until that point, reportedly unaware that she was a Black woman. Lowe was subsequently segregated: she was forced to take classes alone in a room. However her work was so remarkable that it was shown to other students as an example of excellence, and Lowe graduated early. Following her graduation in 1919, Lowe and her son relocated to Tampa, where she opened her first dress salon in 1920. Catering to high society, the shop was a fast success, and by 1928, Lowe had saved $20,000 and returned to New York City, where she began building her brand. Having arrived on the cusp of the Great Depression, Lowe worked on commission as a seamstress and designer at some of the top department stores: Neiman Marcus, Chez Sonia, Henri Bendel, and Saks Fifth Avenue, yet was consistently unrecognized for her labor. In 1946, Olivia de Havilland wore a dress by Lowe to accept her Best Actress Oscar for her performance in To Each His Own. Lowe received no credit for the design; the name on the gown was Sonia Rosenberg. Being snubbed both in name and payment was a chronic problem for Lowe throughout  much of her career. She was not alone. Her situation was unfortunately all too common, but Lowe was resourceful. She and Arthur Lee opened a new dress shop, Ann Lowe’s Gowns, on Lexington Avenue in 1950 with the express goal of bolstering her reputation as a designer and seamstress. Wealthy clients soon became loyal customers, but Lowe was not a well-known name beyond that circle. While the general public may not have been familiar with her work, other designers certainly appreciated her creations and women of high society sought her outfits. New York World, a leading Black newspaper, sent Lowe to France in 1947 to cover Paris’ first Fashion Week. Christian Dior, who she met in the city, was a fan of hers. Dressmaker for families such as the Du Ponts, Rockefellers, Lodges, Biddles, and Auchinclosses, Lowe’s work was in demand. Lowe had created Janet Auchincloss’ dress for her second marriage in 1942. When Auchincloss’ eldest daughter was getting married, she hired Lowe to make the wedding dress. She and her younger daughter, Lee, had ordered a wedding dress for Lee’s nuptials, but canceled the order because they thought a gown by Pauline Trigère would be less expensive. It ended up costing more and so, when it was daughter Jackie’s turn to plan her wedding, Auchincloss commissioned Lowe to make the bride’s and bridal party’s dresses. Jackie Bouvier married John F. Kennedy on September 12, 1953, wearing a Lowe original creation. Lowe’s experience was not without its challenges. Bouvier was not a big fan of her design and days before the wedding, there was a flood in the workroom, destroying 10 of the 15 dresses. Bouvier’s wedding dress, having originally taken eight weeks to construct, was duplicated in 5 days. Repurchasing the fabric and working all hours turned a projected profit into a $2,200 loss for Lowe. Upon arriving in Newport to deliver the dresses, the house staff would not let her enter through the front door. Lowe declared that she would leave and take the dresses with her. She walked through the front door. Although the wedding was picked up in national papers and the wedding dress was described in detail in the New York Times and other publications, Lowe received no credit for her work. HIghly selective about her clientele, the Saturday Evening Post once called Lowe “society’s best kept secret.” Her patrons were frequently reluctant to share the name of the Black designer who made their beautiful clothes. And Lowe was a self-described “snob,” purposely courting members of the social register. She offered lower prices than her competition and was too frequently persuaded by customers to sell her luxurious designs at a fraction of their costs. Once she had paid her staff for their efforts, Lowe often did not make a profit. As a result, while business boomed, Lowe was deeply in debt. Arthur Lee, who had become her business partner, unfortunately died in a car accident in 1958. Her daughter Ruth Alexander, who she adopted at an undisclosed time, continued to work with her. Lowe received the Couturier of the Year award in 1961, but bills continued mounting and the IRS came to collect. She was forced to declare bankruptcy the following year. Lowe then had her right eye removed due to complications from glaucoma. While she was recovering, an anonymous benefactor paid off her debt and Lowe was able to fully resume her career. Six years after Lowe nearly lost her business, she opened a new store, Anne Lowe Originals, on Madison Avenue. She retired in 1972. Lowe died at the age of 82 on February 25, 1981. The Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art possesses five of Lowe’s designs. Three of her designs are displayed at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, a Smithsonian Institution museum.

By Tara Mae Frances Hodgson Burnett was already a well-known author when she wrote The Secret Garden. Although the novel takes place on the grounds of an English estate, the lush hidden fortress of flora that the main character Mary Lennox creates was written, in part, from Burnett’s Planedome Park home. It was here that Burnett found the peace that Lennox discovered in her secret garden. By the time Burnett settled into her Long Island residence, Fairseat, she had divorced two husbands and buried one child. She weathered scandals and tragedies and drew comfort from the quiet beauty of her summer home. Construction was completed in 1908, three years after she became an American citizen and six years after her stay in a US sanatorium due to a physical collapse. Independently wealthy from the success of her books and plays, Burnett enjoyed an international lifestyle, crossing the Atlantic 33 times in her life and making multiple trips between England and New York. Born in England on November 24, 1849, her father died when she was three, and the family moved to Tennessee to live near other relatives. Burnett began writing as a means to support the household, selling stories to magazines such as Harper’s and Scribner’s Monthly. Within 12 months, she had earned enough money to move her family into a better house. In 1870, her mother died, and in 1872, she married Swann Burnett, an aspiring doctor and childhood friend. He proposed several times over a seven year period. Perhaps acquiescing to societal pressure that she marry, Burnett eventually accepted. They had two children and divorced in 1898. Wanting to get out of Knoxville, Burnett’s earnings allowed them to travel and move to Paris, where Swann studied medicine. Their sons, Lionel and Vivian, were born there. They then returned to the United States, settling in Washington, D.C. Burnett was the primary breadwinner; she enjoyed popularity and recognition for her writing during her lifetime. To better manage their money, she made clothing for herself and her sons, creating frilly, highly embellished outfits for the three of them. She was renowned for her affection for Victorian attire, and Vivian was the inspiration for Little Lord Fauntleroy. First published as a serial in St. Nicholas, a children's magazine based out of New York, the novelization solidified her status as a successful writer. Living in Washington, D.C., Burnett continued to build her profile. She was inspired to write children’s fiction after meeting Louisa May Alcott and Mary Mapes Dodge, editor of St. Nicholas. Her contributions to this genre would bring her lasting acclaim. She hosted salons that were attended by politicians and literary celebrities. Swann’s practice, although successful, did not garner the income generated by her writing, and so Burnett continued to compose short stories, novels, and plays. An unconventional woman for the time, with financial and personal independence, Burnett endured aspersions against her character. It was still very rare that a woman worked outside the home. Burnett did not live her life within the constraints of strictly domestic matters: while she was a devoted mother, she was a professional author. She faced public criticism for her unconventional lifestyle, but did not bow to societal norms. In 1887, Burnett and her two sons journeyed to England. She continued to host salons and met her future ex-husband Stephen Townsend. They became business partners, but that arrangement disintegrated before the end of their marriage. While wintering in Florence, Italy, she composed Sara Crewe or What Happened at Miss Minchin's, which was published in the United States. It would develop first into a stage play and then, in 1905, into the beloved children’s novel A Little Princess. Lionel died of tuberculosis in 1890. The press was critical of her as a mother. A grieving Burnett, who had developed an interest Christian Science, Theosophy, and Spiritualism in the 1880s, sought solace in her beliefs. And, she continued to write. In the mid 1890s, concerned about her financial state, she published The One I Knew Best, a memoir of her childhood, and The Lady of Quality, thought to be one of her best plays. By the time she and Swann divorced, they had been living apart for years. Burnett waited for Vivian, whose education she financed, to graduate from Harvard before filing for divorce. This procedure was orchestrated by her and Swann; he took his own apartment so that she could seek a dissolution of their marriage for desertion. Two years later, she married Townsend, a choice she soon regretted. Mainly living at Great Maytham Hall in England, Burnett moved Townsend into the home before they were married. The vicar, at least, was aghast. Within a few years, the marriage was over and she suffered a physical collapse. Burnett sailed back to America and entered a sanatorium. She informed Townsend that she wanted a divorce, returned to England, and lived at Maytham for approximately two years before making Long Island a primary residence. After years of private trials and public scrutiny, Burnett wanted a reprieve from the spotlight. Burnett had generally not adhered to society’s view of how a woman should behave. She made her own money, provided for her family, and traveled independently, even sailing the Atlantic with different male companions, sans chaperone. Burnett bucked tradition and her reputation, and sales of her work, occasionally suffered for it. Fairseat was a sanctuary. Like so many of her affluent contemporaries, Burnett primarily enjoyed Long Island as a summer retreat. For many, the area represented the best of both worlds: immersed in the beauty of nature and the allure of the sea, yet close to the business and hustle of New York City. Monied people, from writers to bankers, flocked to the seaside, where they constructed lavish homes. These estates showcased expansive, resplendent gardens. Fairseat’s proximity to the water appealed to Vivian, an avid sailor. The sprawling grounds enabled Burnett to add her own luxurious garden. She continued to travel, but consistently returned home to Planedome Park. As Burnett got older, she summered at Fairseat and wintered in Bermuda. The house’s proximity to New York City allowed her to be closer to the publishing firms of Manhattan and to Vivian, who worked in the business. At Vivian’s request, she became an editor for Children’s Magazine. She had numerous short pieces published in it. The Secret Garden was published in 1911. Burnett started the book while living in England but presumably wrote or rewrote at least some of it on Long Island. In the novel, Mary is a lonely orphan who makes “herself stronger by fighting with the wind.” She seeks and finds consolation in the neglected, overgrown garden that she brings back to life. Drawing inspiration from either the garden of her childhood home or Great Maytham Hall, Burnett infused the book with her own love of gardens. In England, she frequently wrote in her garden. In Planedome Park, she oversaw the development of a sprawling rose garden that included over 300 plantings of Laurette Messimy, her favorite variety. Surrounded by a stone wall, the garden and its enclosement were modeled after those in The Secret Garden. From Fairseat, Burnett wrote her last three novels: The Lost Prince (1915), The Head of the House of Coombe, and its sequel, Robin. Fairseat offered Burnett calm and respite. Having struggled with bouts of depression and periods of illness, she led a less public existence. Burnett died on October 29, 1924, having spent the last 17 years of her life on Long Island. A fire later destroyed Fairseat, sparing only the stucco carriage house and garden balustrades. She is buried in Roslyn Cemetery.

“The first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.” https://www.dol.gov/general/laborday/history “In the late 1800s, at the height of the Industrial Revolution in the United States, the average American worked 12-hour days and seven-day weeks in order to eke out a basic living. Despite restrictions in some states, children as young as 5 or 6 toiled in mills, factories and mines across the country, earning a fraction of their adult counterparts’ wages. People of all ages, particularly the very poor and recent immigrants, often faced extremely unsafe working conditions, with insufficient access to fresh air, sanitary facilities and breaks. As manufacturing increasingly supplanted agriculture as the wellspring of American employment, labor unions, which had first appeared in the late 18th century, grew more prominent and vocal. They began organizing strikes and rallies to protest poor conditions and compel employers to renegotiate hours and pay.” https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/labor-day-1 With the growth of the trade and labor unions the movement to celebrate labor began in the later part of the 1800s. Although the exact origins and the official founder of Labor Day is debated, its purpose was, and is, to recognize and celebrate this country’s laborers. Perhaps inspired by Canada’s annual May “labour day” celebration it is generally credited to one of two US labor leaders. Some credit Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, who on May 8, 1882 first suggested a day to honor those "who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.". Most credit Matthew Maguire who proposed the holiday later in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York. The CLU adopted a Labor Day proposal and appointed a committee to plan a demonstration and picnic. Whether it was Maguire or McGuire who first proposed the day, the first Labor Day celebration took place in 1882. In NYC, during the meeting of the General Assembly of the Knights of Labor, the Central Labor Union organized a “working men’s parade” and picnic to take place on September 5th. Over 10,000 persons participated in the parade although 30-40,000 marchers were anticipated. "The parade...was conducted in an orderly and pleasant manner...Nearly all were well clothed, and some wore attire of fashionable cut...the working men were determined to show their numerical strength in order to satisfy the politicians of this City that they must not be trifled with...the orderly appearance of the men in line bore testimony to the fact that they demanded recognition as law abiding , peaceable citizens..." With the event considered a success Maguire proposed making this an annual event to be held on the first Monday in September and is generally considered the founder of Labor Day. In 1887, Oregon became the first state to declare Labor Day a holiday followed by Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York. With labor unrest in the country several events led to the recognition of Labor Day as a federal holiday. The Haymarket riot was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago which began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour work day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair On May 11, 1894, employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago went on strike to protest wage cuts and the firing of union representatives. The American Railroad Union called for a boycott of all Pullman railway cars, crippling railroad traffic nationwide. To break the Pullman strike, the federal government dispatched troops to Chicago, unleashing a wave of riots that resulted in the deaths of more than a dozen workers. https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/labor-day-1 To read more about the Pullman strike visit https://www.history.com/news/labor-day-pullman-railway-strike-origins By 1894 thirty of the 44 states had adopted the holiday. On June 28, 1894, President Grover Cleveland made Labor Day a federal holiday, to be celebrated on the first Monday in September. There were some who felt that May 1 should be the holiday. President Grover Cleveland was one of those concerned that a labor holiday on May 1 would tend to become a commemoration of the Haymarket Affair and would strengthen socialist and anarchist movements that backed the May 1 commemoration around the globe. In 1887, he publicly supported the September Labor Day holiday as a less inflammatory alternative. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Day What about that “fashionable” statement “you can’t wear white after Labor Day?” Checkout this article from Marie Claire magazine https://www.marieclaire.com/fashion/news/a22483/white-after-labor-day/ Sources and further reading: https://www.dol.gov/general/laborday/history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Day https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/labor-day-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair https://www.history.com/news/labor-day-pullman-railway-strike-origins