Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, Jenny June by Various

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Caroline M. Morse, editor

JANE CUNNINGHAM CROLY
"JENNY JUNE"

1904

[Illustration: Portrait]

[Illustration: Facsimile of signature
"With sincere affection
yours-ever
J.C. Croly"]

Memories of
Jane Cunningham Croly
"Jenny June"

TO THE
GENERAL FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS
IN AMERICA
THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

BY

THE WOMAN'S PRESS CLUB

OF
NEW YORK CITY

Foreword

On January 6, 1902, a Memorial Meeting was called by Sorosis jointly
with the Woman's Press Club of New York City, and a month later the
Press Club formally authorized the preparation of a Memorial Book to
its Founder and continuous President to the day of her death, Jane
Cunningham Croly.

In addition to a biographical sketch to be prepared by her brother,
the Rev. John Cunningham, this book, so it was planned, should contain
such letters, or excerpts from letters, as would illustrate her
lovable personality and her life philosophy.

A Committee of Publication was appointed, consisting of Mrs. Caroline
M. Morse, Chairman, Mrs. Mary Coffin Johnson, Mrs. Haryot Holt Dey,
Mrs. Miriam Mason Greeley, Miss Anna Warren Story and Mrs. Margaret W.
Ravenhill. These began their work by sending a printed slip to club
members and to Mrs. Croly's known intimates, asking for her letters.
But the response came almost without variation: "My letters from Mrs.
Croly are of too personal a nature for publication." A few, however,
were freely offered, and these it was decided should be used,
depending for the bulk of the Memorial upon copious extracts from
Mrs. Croly's "History of the Woman's Club Movement in America," from
her editorial work on _The Cycle_, and from her miscellaneous
writings. To this characteristic material her long cherished friends,
Mr. and Mrs. Thaddeus B. Wakeman, added an account of the "Positivist
Episode," that objective point in her career, with which her husband
was closely identified.

With these are: Mrs. Croly's Club Life, a sketch by Mrs. Haryot Holt
Dey; the Sorosis-Press Club Memorial Meeting; the Resolutions of the
Woman's Press Club of New York City, the General Federation of Clubs,
and the Society of American Women in London; tributes from London
clubwomen; Essays and Addresses; Letters and Stray Leaves and Notes,
written by Mrs. Croly; tributes from many of her friends, and my own
recollections.

CAROLINE M. MORSE,
Chairman.

Contents

"JENNY JUNE."--Ethel Morse

A BROTHER'S MEMORIES.--John Cunningham, D.D.

SOROSIS-PRESS CLUB MEMORIAL MEETING ADDRESSES:
Dimies T.S. Denison
Charlotte B. Wilbour
Phebe A. Hanaford
Orlena A. Zabriskie
Carrie Louise Griffin
Cynthia Westover Alden
May Riley Smith
Fanny Hallock Carpenter

RESOLUTIONS AND TRIBUTES FROM CLUBS:
Resolutions of the New York State Federation
From the Croly Memorial Fund of the Pioneer Club of London

THE POSITIVIST EPISODE.--Thaddeus B. Wakeman

MRS. CROLY'S CLUB LIFE.--Haryot Holt Dey

ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES BY JANE CUNNINGHAM CROLY:
Beginnings of Organization
The Moral Awakening
The Advantages of a General Federation of Women's Clubs
The Clubwoman
The New Life
The Days That Are
A People's Church

NOTES, LETTERS, AND STRAY LEAVES.--Jane Cunningham Croly

THE TRIBUTES OF FRIENDS:
Miriam Mason Greeley
Marie Etienne Burns
Izora Chandler
Janie C.P. Jones
Catherine Weed Barnes Ward
Sara J. Lippincott--"Grace Greenwood"
Jennie de la M. Lozier
Genie H. Rosenfeld
S.A. Lattimore
Ellen M. Staples
Margaret W. Ravenhill
T.C. Evans
St. Clair McKelway
Laura Sedgwick Collins
Mary Coffin Johnson
Caroline M. Morse
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Illustrations

JANE CUNNINGHAM CROLY (JENNY JUNE) AT THE AGE OF 61

MRS. CROLY AT THE AGE OF 40 (ABOUT THE TIME
SOROSIS WAS INAUGURATED)

FACSIMILE OF RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED BY THE
WOMAN'S PRESS CLUB OF NEW YORK, JANUARY
11, 1902

FACSIMILE OF RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED BY THE
SOCIETY OF AMERICAN WOMEN IN LONDON,
MARCH 24, 1902

DAVID GOODMAN CROLY

FACSIMILE OF A PORTION OF A LETTER WRITTEN
BY MRS. CROLY, OCTOBER, 1900

MRS. CROLY AT THE AGE OF 18

Jenny June

The South Wind blows across the harrowed fields,
And lo! the young grain springs to happy birth;
His warm breath lingers where the granite shields
Intruding flowers, and the responsive Earth
Impartially her varied harvest yields.
Through long ensuing months with tender mirth
The South Wind laughs, rejoicing in the worth
Of the impellent energies he wields.

Within our minds the memory of a Name
Will move, and fires of inspiration that burned low
Among dead embers break in quickening flame;
Flowers of the soul, grain of the heart shall grow,
And burgeoned promises shall bravely blow
Beneath the sunny influence of Her fame.

ETHEL MORSE.

A Brother's Memories

_By John Cunningham, D.D._

The most interesting and potent fact within the range of human
knowledge is personality, and in the person of Jane Cunningham Croly
(Jenny June) a potency was apparent which has affected the social life
of more women, perhaps, than any other single controlling factor of
the same period.

Jane Cunningham was born in Market Harborough, Leicestershire,
England, December 19, 1829. She was the fourth child of Joseph H. and
Jane Cunningham, and though small in stature and delicate in organism,
was full of vivacity, and abounding in natural intelligence. Her rich
brown hair, blue eyes and clear complexion proclaimed her of
Anglo-Saxon origin. She was the idol of her parents and the admiration
of her school teachers. Her comradeship with her father began early in
life and was continued to the time of his death. The family came to
the United States in 1841, making their home at first in Poughkeepsie,
and afterwards in or near Wappinger's Falls, where the father bought a
large building-lot and erected a neat and commodious house, which
remained in the possession of the family until sold by Mrs.
Cunningham after the death of her husband. The lot was soon converted
into a garden by its owner who tilled it with the spade and allowed no
plough to be used in his little Eden. It was characteristic of his
generous spirit, too, that none of the surplus product was ever sold,
but was freely given to less favored neighbors. Happy years were spent
by Mr. Cunningham in his shop, in his garden, with his books, and in
visiting his daughter Jennie in New York after her marriage when she
became established there. It was as nearly an ideal life as a modest
man could desire. He lived respected by the best people in the
community, and died in peace, with his children around him.

As I remember my sister in early life, the sunniness of her nature
is the first and prevailing characteristic that I call to mind;
occasional moods of reverie bordering on melancholy only made brighter
the habitual radiance and buoyancy of a nature that diffused happiness
all around her. She was a perfectly healthy girl in mind and body. A
sound mind in a sound body was her noble heritage. She was always
extremely temperate in food and drink, fastidious in all her tastes
and personal habits, indulgent never beyond the dictates of perfect
simplicity and sobriety. Proficient in all branches of housekeeping,
her apparel was mostly of her own making. Good literature was a
passion with her, and while never an omnivorous reader, she had a
natural instinct for the best in language. A spirit of indomitable
independence, courage and persistence in purpose characterized her
from childhood. She must think her own thoughts, and mark out and
follow her own path. Suffering from a degree of physical timidity that
at times caused her much pain, she possessed a spirit that sometimes
seemed to border on audacity in the assertion and maintenance of her
own convictions. From childhood she developed a personality which
charmed all with whom she came in contact. Persons of both sexes,
young and old, the sober and the gay, alike fell under the influence
of her magnetic power. Living for a time in the family of her brother,
to whom she proffered her services as housekeeper when he was pastor
of a Union church in Worcester County, Mass., she drew to her all
sorts of people by the brightness and charm of her personality.
Self-forgetful and genuine, interested in all about her, she lived
only to serve others, valuing lightly all that she did. Here it was
that her remarkable capacity for journalism first developed itself.
One of the means by which she interested the community was the public
reading of a semi-monthly paper, every line of which was written by
herself and a fellow worker. The reading of that paper every
fortnight, to an audience that crowded the church, was an event in her
history.

Jennie was no dreamer. She was no speculative theorist spinning
impossible things out of the cobwebs of her brain. She was no Hypatia
striving to restore the gods of the past, revelling in a brilliant
cloudland of symbolisms and affinities. If she was caught in the mist
at any time, she soon came out of it and found her footing in the
practical realities of daily life. Never over-reverential, she never
called in question the deeper realities of soul-life. She was no
ascetic: she would have made a poor nun. But she was a born preacher
if by preaching is meant the annunciation of a gospel to those who
need it. Jennie was always an ardent devotee of her sex, and whatever
else she believed in, she certainly believed in women, their instincts
and capacities.

In the year 1856, on February 14th, St. Valentine's Day, my sister
Jennie was married to David G. Croly, a reporter for the New York
_Herald,_ and they began life in the city on his meagre salary of
fourteen dollars a week. The gifted young wife, however, soon found
work for herself on the _World_, the _Tribune_, the _Times_, _Noah's
Sunday Times_ and the _Messenger_. The first money she received for
writing was in return for an article published in the New York
_Tribune_. Their joint career in metropolitan journalism was
interrupted however by a short term of residence in Rockford,
Illinois, where Mr. Croly was invited to become editor of the Rockford
_Register_, then owned by William Gore King, the husband of our
sister Mary A. Cunningham. Mr. Croly was aided in the editorial
management by his wife, and while the work was agreeable and
successful, it was due to Mrs. Croly's ardent desire for a larger
field, that at the end of a year they decided to return to New York.
The results for both abundantly justified the change. As managing
editor of the daily _World_ for a number of years, afterwards of the
New York _Graphic_, and later of the _Real Estate Record and Guide_,
Mr. Croly won an honorable position in New York journalism. He was a
conservative democrat of the strictest sort, a radical in religion,
and had but little appreciation of the deeper forces at work in
society and in national life. But he was able and honest, and enjoyed
the respect of his fellow-craftsmen.

"Jenny June" was a person of very different mental and moral mould.
Her work soon revealed a new, fresh, vigorous force in journalism. An
examination of her editorial contributions to the _Sunday Times_ from
March to December, 1861, suggests her mental vivacity, vigor, breadth
of view, and uniform clearness and power of expression. The title
of the whole series is unpretentious enough: "Parlor and Sidewalk
Gossip." All through her journalistic career similar qualities of
originality characterized her pen. She was editor of _Demorest's_
magazine for twenty-seven years, and was both editor and owner of
_Godey's_ magazine and _The Home-Maker_. _The Cycle_ was her own
creation and property. In each of these publications the dominating
thoughts are those which make for social elevation, the honor of
womanhood and home comfort and happiness. In addition to this
editorial work she was a regular contributor to several leading
newspapers in Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, Baltimore and other
cities. She inaugurated the system of syndicate correspondence, and
was the author of several books--"For Better, For Worse"; "Talks on
Women's Topics"; "Thrown on Her Own Resources"; three manuals; and
"The History of the Woman's Club Movement," a large volume of nearly
twelve hundred pages.

During the most active years of my sister's literary life, she had
also the care of a large household, and her home was always bright and
hospitable. The Croly Sunday evening receptions were one of the social
features of New York City.

Five children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Croly. Minnie, the eldest, was
happily married to Lieutenant Roper of the U. S. Navy; her early death
was a grief hard to bear. The second child, a boy, died in infancy.
The surviving children are: Herbert G. Croly, a man of letters in New
York City; Vida Croly Sidney, the wife of the English playwright,
Frederick Sidney, lives in London; and Alice Gary Mathot, the wife of
a New York lawyer, William F. Mathot, resides in Brooklyn Hills, Long
Island.

Mrs. Croly, one of the founders of Sorosis, perhaps the most noted
woman's club in existence, was its President for many years, and its
Honorary President at the time of her death. The cause which led to
the founding of Sorosis is an open secret. Women were ignored at the
Charles Dickens reception; this was not to be tolerated, and in
consequence of this affront Sorosis came into being, an effectual
protest against any similar indifference in all time to come. Of the
growth of the club movement in the United States, in Great Britain,
France, Russia, and in far-off India, I do not propose to enter into
detail. Suffice it to say that it is one of the marvels of the modern
social and intellectual life of women.

What was the secret of Jenny June's charm and power? Not
scholarship--let this be said in all sincerity. How greatly she
appreciated the scholar's advantages was well known to her intimate
friends. But these advantages did not belong to her. Nor did it
consist in inherited social rank or wealth; her earnings by her pen
were large, but her patrimony was small. It should have been said
before, that she received the degree of Doctor of Literature from
Rutgers Women's College, and was appointed to a new chair of
Journalism and Literature in that institution. She was also a
lecturer in other women's schools of the first rank.

Nor did Jenny June pattern her work according to the advice or after
the example of any one man or woman. There was no example by which she
could be guided. Woman was a new factor in journalism, and Jenny June
was a new woman, a new creation, if I may so speak, fashioned after
the type of woman in the beginning, when God created man and woman in
His own image. I cannot too fully emphasize the fact that she was a
new and original personality in journalism. No one understood this
better than her husband. In matters of detail his counsel was of value
to her, but the spirit and character of her work were her own; and
happily for her and for womankind she could never be diverted from her
chosen path. This, indeed, was one chief secret of her success. She
was unalterably true to her divine womanly ideals of woman's nature,
place in society and redemptive work. I say redemptive work, for it
was one of her deepest convictions that woman's function, was to be
the saving salt of all life. Sorosis was founded upon this idea;--not
a literary club merely or mainly; not a political, social or religious
club; but one founded on womanhood, on the divine nature of women of
every class and degree.

Jenny June's recognition of this vital truth brought her into sympathy
with a world-wide movement. The new woman is no monstrosity, no
sporadic creature born of intellectual fermentation and unrest, but
the rise and development of a better, nobler type of womanhood the
world over. Jenny June's eminent distinction was that she was a leader
in this movement. It made her what her husband once said in my
hearing: "a wonderful woman." Of course there was the capacity for
bursts of feeling on occasion, which those who knew her best seldom
cared to provoke. "I am not an amiable woman," she once said to the
writer. Radiant as she was, there was a volcanic force in her nature
which could be terrific against folly, frivolity and wrong.

Thousands of gifted women are now making themselves heard in poetry,
dissertation, fiction and journalism because Jenny June opened the
path for them. Womanhood was her watchword, and God, duty, faith and
hope the springs of her life. It may surprise even those who knew her
well to learn that her physical timidity was great, and at times
painful. But her moral and intellectual courage impelled her at times
almost to the verge of audacity, and was held under restraint only by
conscience and good sense. Humor and wit can hardly be said to have
been marked traits in her mentality. There was something delphic and
oracular often in her familiar conversation. Sentimentalism had no
place in her nature, her reading or literary work. A soul full of
healthy and noble sentiment left no room for sentimentalism.

Was Jenny June a genius? Well, if a boundless capacity for good
original work is genius, then she was a genius. Magnanimity was a
marked trait in her character. Envy or jealousy of the gifts of
another were foreign to her. Love of nature, and especially of fine
trees, was one of her most noticeable characteristics. "There will be
trees in my heaven," she once said to the writer. But works of art, of
the chisel, the brush, the pencil and the loom were her delight. She
loved the city, its crowding humanity, its stores and its galleries.
She loved London even more than New York. Continental travel was her
chief pleasure and diversion. A long period of physical suffering,
caused by an accident, cast a cloud over the last years of my sister's
honorable life. She sought relief from pain and weakness, at Ambleside
in Derbyshire, England, and at a celebrated cure in Switzerland, but
was only partially successful. The final release came on December 23,
1901, and her remains were laid by the side of her husband in the
cemetery at Lakewood, New Jersey.

Noble Jenny June! Shall we ever see her like again!

Sorosis-Press Club Memorial Meeting

A memorial meeting, called by Sorosis jointly with the Woman's Press
Club, was held at the Waldorf-Astoria on January 6, 1902, a fortnight
after the death of Mrs. Croly. It was attended not alone by the
members of these two clubs but also by representatives from every
woman's club in New York and the vicinity. Letters from many clubs
belonging to the General Federation were read, and from the
secretary's report of the meeting have been gathered the following
tributes of notable clubwomen to the beloved founder of both clubs.

Address by Dimies T.S. Denison, President of Sorosis

We have met this afternoon to pay a loving tribute to one of the
departed of Sorosis, who was for many years its President, and for
years its Honorary President.

The loss is not ours alone, for our sorrow is shared by all clubwomen,
from Australia around the world to Alaska. Her position will always
remain unique. Whenever there comes a time for a great movement there
has always been a leader. The Revolution had its Washington; the
abolition of slavery its Lincoln; and so, when the time came for such
a movement among women, there were also leaders. Mrs. Croly remained,
throughout her life, an advocate of everything which was for the
betterment of women, and she died in the heart of the movement.

Her perception of the value of unity, of the advantage of organized
effort, was remarkable. Perhaps the generations beyond ours will think
of her most in that quality, but the women of our time will remember
her, as they loved her, for her ready sympathy and her unfailing
helpfulness to all women. Though departed, she is still with us, and
the beauty of her life remains, in that its influence is imperative.

Mrs. Croly had that particular sense of fellowship among women most
unusual. If you will stop to think, in our language you will find that
there are no words to express that thought, except those that are
masculine--fellowship, brotherhood, fraternity. Mrs. Croly, perhaps
more than any other woman in the world, had the sense of what
fellowship or fraternity meant in women, and although she sometimes
may have been called an idealist or sentimentalist, it is recognized
by many women that this thought must be abiding, for in a federation
it is the spirit that is current through it that keeps the federation
alive.

The last afternoon it was my privilege to be with Mrs. Croly we had a
long talk, and it seems to me, in looking back, that Mrs. Croly was
then leaving a message with me for all clubwomen. I never heard her
speak so eloquently. We talked of some of the problems of the General
Federation--its possible disruption. Mrs. Croly said: "It does not
matter; if anything happens that the General Federation should be
disrupted, another will be formed at once." She had absolute faith, if
not in a Divine Providence, that there was a possibility it was part
of the human scheme of development that must be carried on through the
Divine Will. So, if she left any message for the General Federation,
it was this: that whatever our personal opinions are, whatever we
think of any question, we are to think first of the life of the
General Federation; because in it is the great thought of the
fellowship and fraternity among women that is to bring us closer and
closer to the millennium.

[Illustration: MRS. CROLY at the age of 40. (About the time Sorosis
was inaugurated)]

Address by Charlotte B. Wilbour

When a soul that has worn out its frail body in the work of the world
crosses the threshold of eternity, the darkness that gathers around
our hearts has in it a relief of light. Nature has suffered no
violence; the power of the body has been exhausted in good service,
and the tired spirit is set free from the encasement that can no
longer serve it. A fond look backward, a hopeful look forward, and the
portals close with our benediction.

"A life that dares send
A challenge to the end,
And, when it comes, say
'Welcome, friend,'"

inspires the wish that we may so fill the measure of our days with
usefulness.

The departure of such a spirit would be fittingly commemorated by the
grand marches of Chopin and Beethoven, or the majestic requiems of
Mozart, rather than by our simple words. And yet they are our hearts'
testimony to her in whose name we are assembled and, let us hope, made
worthy. To us who believe that life reels not back from the white
charger of Death towards the gulf of inanity and oblivion, there is a
vivid realization that our words may be spoken to the conscious
spirit; and we desire that, in the sacred name of truth, and with the
love that comprehends and overcomes, we may speak simply as "soul to
soul."

One of the most beautiful lessons I have learned of death is that
after the departure of a friend, or even of an acquaintance, our
memories retain and cherish their best and noblest qualities and
deeds. We repeat their finest words and recount their generous works.
The sunshine falls clear on their virtues, and the shadow lies kindly
on their faults. It exalts our nature that our minds elect only the
lovely and beautiful characteristics of the lost friend. This sublime
power in us breaks the force of the bitter criticism of the obituary,
the eulogy, and the epitaph--that they are false notes in a hymn of
praise. And to us yet living, there is sweet comfort in the thought
that our best and higher selves shall remain with those we love and
honor. And so shall the good we do live after us. These purified
remembrances are links of the chain that binds the humblest to the
highest.

In my early womanhood I knew our honored president, a fair, happy,
healthy, active English woman; and she appeared to me (sobered by the
loss of most of my family) to rejoice in a fulness of life. We were
maidens, and her interests and activities were in domestic and social
life. I have not lost the fresh memory of her in those days.

She was our president for ten years, and afterwards our honorary
president. The activity of her life has made the deepest impression
upon me. Every member of our association and of sister associations
will agree with me, that never a woman brought a more cheerful and
willing spirit to her official duties than did she. She rejoiced in
her place, delighted in her privilege, and fully enjoyed the
recognition and good fellowship of other clubs. This cheerful service,
rendered for years, made her widely known in the club world. She
responded to personal influence and suggestions made directly to her.
She was most receptive to practical ideas, and adopted methods
readily, and her liberal service brought to her just recompense.

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