Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, Jenny June by Various
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Various >> Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, Jenny June
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For years it required sacrifice on her part to attend the regular
meetings of Sorosis, for she had daily occupation, and a lost day must
be redeemed. But when an officer she made the sacrifice cheerfully.
She was social and hospitable. Freely her house was given to us for
lectures, receptions to distinguished guests and business meetings.
For years the Positivists held their meetings at her home. She found
her pleasure in pleasing, and in helping others gave herself joy. She
loved her work for clubs, and you will remember that she had several
business enterprises connected with them, during the years that she
was an active clubwoman.
I was in this country while she was preparing her history of clubs
(not the history of Sorosis), and she brought the interest and
enthusiasm of a young woman to the work; with a satisfied pride she
showed me the material she had collected for the history. Nothing else
to her mind was more important, or to be thought of until that was
accomplished. I believe that her usefulness to clubs has been
commensurate with the interest and gratification she had in the
service.
During the years of our acquaintance our intercourse was genial and
concordant, and the results of our early work in Sorosis cannot equal
the sweet satisfaction that came with its performance.
In the early life of the club many of us were young mothers, and our
domestic duties had strong claims upon us, and one prominent thought
in connection with the formation of Sorosis was that the attention of
a large class of thinking women, directed in concert towards important
domestic and social questions, could be secured; and, while the
character of the club should be pre-eminently social, we hoped to
quietly bring in important reforms, or at least some effective action
on these questions, and, above all, to secure an intelligent social
intercourse without increasing our domestic duties and responsibilities.
Have we not accomplished this?
As the smallest consoling thought is greater than the most eloquent
expression of sorrow, so do we find some consolation in the fact that
fate was kind to our friend, and led her away when she could no longer
enjoy life, and that she went while with us whose hearts were warm
with an active sympathy and tender helpfulness.
Our kind purpose to her name lifts our acts above criticism, and
fortifies them by our love and worthiness of intention. Let us live to
live forever--so shall we never fear death; let our warm human love be
the prophet of a union for greater benefits; and let us have faith in
the love that lives in human bosoms still:
"Lives to renovate our earth
From the bondage of its birth,
And the long arrears of ill."
Address by the Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford, Vice-President of the Woman's
Press Club of New York City
I am requested to speak of the excellent work done by its departed
president, in and for the Woman's Press Club of New York City. To
others is assigned the testimony in reference to the career and work
of our departed president as a press woman, and her place in
literature.
We are not here to analyze her character, or to chronicle her work.
Nor are we here to dwell on those biographical details which belong to
the pen rather than the voice; to the book and the reader rather than
the address and the hearer. We are here to testify our regard for one
whose busy pen is laid aside, but whose example of industry we may
well imitate; though in the journalistic field the women of to-day
will never have opportunity to emulate her perseverance and
fearlessness, since her entrance in times long gone by on this
untrodden path bore an important part in opening the way and obtaining
results for women with whom the pen to-day is a power.
Mrs. Croly was the founder of this club in 1889, and for twelve years
and to the day of her death, its only president. It started (as she
tells us in the large quarto volume relating to clubs--which was the
closing, if not the crowning, effort of her busy pen) with an
invitation sent out by herself in November, 1889, to forty women, a
number of whom were then engaged upon the press in New York City, to
meet at her residence, and consider the advisability of forming a
Woman's Press Club. It was eminently fitting that one who had been
stirred in former years by the absence of social recognition in
journalism as within woman's province, on the part of the men of the
press, and moved to take a prominent part in the formation of Sorosis,
should organize a club of women writers--women journalists
especially--which should be known everywhere as distinctly a Woman's
Press Club.
The response to her call was most gratifying. Her ability as an
organizer, and her social qualities which could attract and hold women
together in strong bonds of mutual esteem and fellowship, were again
evident, and on November 19, 1889, the organization was effected and a
provisional constitution adopted.
At first the literary features of the new club were considered
secondary to the social and beneficiary, but gradually they grew to
their present importance.
In its early days, like most clubs this one was migratory, and its
work incidental. Gradually it came to have a more permanent home, and
its monthly programmes which, as Mrs. Croly herself stated, "are more
in the form of a symposium than of a question for debate," came to be
so attractive and varied, and in every way so excellent, that they are
often declared to be unsurpassed in interest by any woman's club. This
was a matter of exceeding satisfaction to its founder, who saw the
club grow from its membership of fifty-two to two hundred. She was
never weary of recounting its successes, literary, musical, artistic
and social. The Press Club was her joy and pride from its organization
to the very day when she last met with its members, devoting on that
day her failing strength to a cause that was beyond expression dear to
her heart. I think I shall only be saying very feebly what the members
of the club, especially those who have been members from its
organization, now feel--that they regard her presence with them on the
recent day of installation of new officers as a benediction, though
they little knew that in her feebleness she was bidding them a loving
farewell. When the news of her departure reached them it was received
with surprise and deep sorrow. By prompt action the officers at once
came together, and immediate measures were taken for appropriate
expression of the Press Club's loyalty and love.
Its members are here to-day not only to express their own high regard
for their departed founder and president, but also to unite with
Sorosis, the London Pioneer Club, and other clubs in the State
Federation, who, by their presence, speech, or song, indicate the
sympathy they have with those who will hold in fadeless remembrance
their ascended president, who has learned ere this, that
"Life is ever Lord of Death,
And Love can never lose its own."
As members of the club she, who has now passed into the eternal light,
founded may we seek earnestly to walk in the light of Truth, strenuous
for that more than royal liberty of conscience, which means liberty
under righteous law and seeking for the Unity which obeys the Golden
Rule, and thus binds heart to heart. So shall the Woman's Press Club
of New York City truly honor the memory of its founder and first
president, Jane Cunningham Croly.
Address by Orlena A. Zabriskie, President of the New York Federation
That the New York State Federation should be called upon to attest its
love, devotion, and admiration for Mrs. Croly and her wonderful work
among women, is a privilege we appreciate, and I shall try in a few
simple, honest words, to explain a little of what her influence has
been to the New York State Federation. We all know she was an
organizer and founder, but it is well to repeat those words, although
I think there is little danger that we shall ever forget them. From
all over the State have come messages to me from different members of
the federation, expressing their love and obligation to Mrs. Croly for
what she has done for them individually, and for the State. One letter
said:
"I shall think of her always as that lovely, sweet-tempered
woman who, under the most trying circumstances, never lost
her temper, or felt she was at all aggrieved. She took it in
the right way, and was just as lovely and kind at the close
as at the beginning."
I saw her at Friendship, a little town in the northwestern part of the
State, before the meeting at Buffalo, and there we had a long talk
about matters of Federation interest. She gave me some good advice in
her own gentle way, that I shall never forget, and I am only too glad
to have this opportunity of saying it helped me to carry through that
convention as I could not have done otherwise.
What was the secret of her power as an organizer? I think this--she
saw the little spark of good in each woman, every woman she came in
contact with, and even in those she did not come in personal contact
with. She knew it was there and she had the ability to call it forth,
and that magnetic influence drew them together, so that they realized
that they could do more in large numbers than they could as
individuals. Knowing our power, she urged and encouraged us to do our
best. When with her we did not feel as though we had a "specked" side.
I think it was just that that gave her power and influence in the
clubs she founded, to make them live and be a greater power than ever
they could have been without her memory and example set before them.
She has done good work, and started us on a task that she saw had
practical possibilities, and now we can carry out those ideas of hers,
and give them force in years to come. It may take a long time, but we
will keep on being patient, cheerful, kind-hearted, and considerate,
as she was. Let us therefore be grateful we had her as long as we did.
She was for us a grand inheritance, and let us appreciate it.
Address by Carrie Louise Griffin, President of the Society of American
Women in London
If I could only command that physical self as I would like to, I would
tell you how grateful I am to be privileged to speak, and how much I
think we have to be thankful for to-day, in the life of our dear one,
which was given us.
I am new in this club, and, as most of you know, my friendship with
Mrs. Croly is not yet three years old, but I have been singularly
privileged and honored in loving her, and in the love which she gave
me.
She came into my life (I must be just a little personal for a moment)
as our first luncheon, in our little Society of American Women in
London, was about to be given. The president of Sorosis had written to
London saying: "Do you know that Mrs. Croly and Mrs. Glynes are to be
in London, and I think they would help you?" Bless her, and Mrs.
Croly: she came as a benediction to the few of us who were then
novices in what we were doing. I can never tell you what a benefit she
was to us in the difficult work we had undertaken. You have given me
exceptional privileges in coming among you, and I am grateful for the
help you have been to me, but I would say to you--and you have given
me this privilege--I have never met a woman who seemed to have
recognized the birthright in women as the birthright in men, to create
that link which binds our powers to our intellect. It seems to me that
it was with Mrs. Croly as it was with our late Majesty, Queen
Victoria, that she was an influence, perhaps, rather than a power. She
conceived great ideas and passed them on for the executive work of
others to fulfil. I can assure you she was everything to us. Her
English birth gave her an instinctive insight into English character.
English women seemed to know and understand her, as she knew and
understood them, and there has been no finer link between the women of
America and the women of the Old World than Mrs. Croly. It was my
privilege to be with her personally a great deal while in London, not
only when she stayed in my own house, but when I have gone back and
forth with her as her guide to the many functions we attended
together. We can all be proud of her. Wherever she went she was not
only hailed as the pioneer woman, but also as one who did honor and
credit to the name of American womanhood, for, although born in
England, she still claimed that she was an American woman, as you
know.
I shall never forget a little picture she gave of herself one day.
She told us of her life in her home in a little town in the north of
England. Her father was a Unitarian, and often had classes in his
house for teaching the working people. His views, as you may imagine,
were quite contrary to the views of the orthodox Church of England,
and the people there rebelled, stoned the house, and wanted to turn
them out of the town. The mother said to the father: "I wish you would
take little Jennie by the hand, in her white frock, and lead her out
to the people; perhaps when they see her they will not throw stones."
That was her earliest memory of that little English town. Later, I
believe, they left in the night and came to America, in order that
they might live out the courage of their faith.
At our luncheon Mrs. Croly said: "I want English and American women to
love each other. I remember with pride and honor my English birth. I
can see my little room now--a small room with a lattice window over
which the roses grew, and as I stood at the window on tiptoe, I could
look into the old-fashioned garden below. I stood on an old chest. In
the winter my summer frocks were kept there, and in the summer my red
woollen dress. I loved it; it was beautiful, and it made me love
England. When I am in England and I hear anything not quite kind about
America, I am sorry and my heart aches, and if, when I am in America,
I hear something not quite kind about England, my heart aches again,
because I love it all."
In talking with Mrs. Croly, she said to me, "I hope some day you will
come to a General Federation." Quoting Matthew Arnold, she said: "If
ever the world sees a time when women shall come together, purely and
simply for the benefit and good of mankind, it will be a power such as
the world has never known." And she said, "There you will find it." We
had talked about it and looked forward to seeing it together, but that
will never be. It was her hope and dream that there should be such a
General Federation of clubs as to bring in the women of the Old World
with the Federation of Clubs in the New, that we might stand hand in
hand together. She said to me, "I think you are narrow in your
society--its members are only Americans." We have often talked this
over, and have decided that in order to strengthen our centre we must
keep it, at present, to American woman; but it may be possible to have
an associate membership--the thin edge of the wedge looking toward the
realization of her dreams.
Address by Cynthia Westover Alden, Vice-President of the Women's Press
Club, and President of the International Sunshine Society
Mrs. Croly has left us. Yet I cannot think of her work as ended, of
her mission as closed. You may go over every line she ever wrote, you
may recall with, microscopic exactness every word she ever spoke,
without finding one single grain of bitterness towards any human
creature. Her active life was such as must find the ripe continuance
of its activity in the better country whither she has preceded us. I
feel that there is no hyperbole in applying to her memory the striking
words of Lowell's Elegy on Dr. Channing:
"I do not come to weep above thy pall
And mourn the dying-out of noble powers;
The poet's clearer eye should see in all
Earth's seeming woe, seed of immortal flowers.
"No power can die that ever wrought for truth;
Thereby a law of Nature it became,
And lives unwithered in its blithesome youth,
When he who called it forth is but a name.
"Therefore I cannot think thee wholly gone;
The better part of thee is with us still;
Thy soul its hampering clay aside hath thrown,
And only freer wrestles with the ill.
"Thou art not idle; in thy higher sphere
Thy spirit bends itself to loving tasks,
And strength to perfect what it dreamed of here
Is all the crown and glory that it asks."
The women of America owe much to Jenny June. By example she showed
them that the career of letters was open to them. Her style, cheerful
and vivid, sometimes epigrammatic, always entertaining, was her own.
It could not be copied, it could not be imitated, it stood by itself;
her career, filled with a large measure of the courage of her success,
belonged in the broadest sense to women as women. How many worthy
ambitions that career has stimulated to fruition we know not, and
never shall know. One thing, however, is certain--that if you deduct
from the literature of America the names of women who have followed
Mrs. Croly's example and have been cheered by the fact that she did
not fall by the wayside, you leave a void that never could be filled.
How consciously they have been affected by Mrs. Croly's blazing path I
cannot tell; but the influence has been none the less real and none
the less powerful.
Woman's battle for literary recognition will not have to be fought
over again: it belongs to the past. The old contempt of editors and
publishers, aye, and of readers as well, has gone to join slavery and
polygamy and human sacrifices in the chamber of horrors. But we can
never forget the woman who braved that contempt, and faced it down by
achievement that could not be ignored. Mrs. Croly belonged to the
period of that early struggle. In her sweetness of temper she lent to
its very asperities the charm of a tournament, overcoming evil with
good, and triumphing at last over prejudice which thousands of women
had feared to face. We loved her for herself. We are sad in spite of
ourselves that she has gone. But we shall only remember her as one of
the greatest benefactors of woman in literature; one of the most
delightful of all the delightful characters that we have ever known.
"This laurel leaf I cast upon thy bier;
Let worthier hands than these thy wreath entwine;
Upon thy hearse I shed no useless tear--
For us weep rather thou, in calm divine."
In the Silence
_By May Riley Smith_
They are out of the chaos of living,
The wreck and debris of the years;
They have passed from the struggle and striving,
They have drained their goblet of tears.
They have ceased one by one from their labors,
So we clothed them in garments of rest,
And they entered the chamber of silence;--
God do for them now what is best!
We saw not the lift of the curtain,
Nor heard the invisible door,
As they passed where life's problems uncertain
Will follow and burthen no more.
We lingered and wept on the threshold--
The threshold each mortal must cross,--
Then we laid a new wreath down upon it,
To mark a new sorrow and loss.
Then back to our separate places
A little more lonely we creep,
A little more care in our faces,
The wrinkles a little more deep.
And we stagger, ah, God, how we stagger
As we lift the old load to our back!
A little more lonely to carry
Because of the comrade we lack.
But into our lives whether chidden
Or welcome, God's comforters come;
His sunshine waits not to be bidden,
His stars,--they are always at home.
His mornings are faithful,--His evenings
Allay the day's fever and fret;
And night--kind physician--entreats us
To slumber and dream and forget.
O Spirit of infinite kindness
And gentleness passing all speech!
Forgive when we miss in our blindness
The comforting hand them dost reach.
Thou sendest the Spring on Thine errand
To soften the grief of the world;
For us is the calm of the mountain,
For us is the rose-leaf uncurled.
Thou art tenderer, too, than a mother,
In the wonderful Book it is said;
O Pillow of Comfort! What other
So softly could cradle my head?
And though Thou hast darkened the portal
That leads where our vanished ones be;
We lean on our faith in Thy goodness,
And leave them to silence and Thee.
Jenny June
_By Fanny Hallock Carpenter_
A beautiful soul has journeyed
Out from the Now into Then.
Her voice echoes back to us, waiting,
The sound of the great Amen.
Her life was a song so winsome
It sung itself night and day
Into the hearts of the people
Who met her along the way.
Her life was a flower so fragrant
That every one passing her, knew
By the perfume from it exhaling,
The love out of which it grew.
Her life was a book so vivid
That all, though running, could read
The story of earnest endeavor
Written for woman's need.
Her life was a light whose radiance
Brightened all woman-kind,
As sunshine wakens the flowers,
Or genius illumines the mind.
Her life was a poem so tender
It thrilled with its cadence sweet
Many a life prosaic,
Which caught up the rhythmic beat.
Her life was a bell whose ringing
Gave no uncertain sound,
Its chiming rang out to the nations
And girdled the world around.
Her life was a deed so holy,
So noble, so brave, so true,
That it set all womanhood noting
The good one woman could do.
Her life was a brook, that swelling
Grew to a river wide,
That freshened the souls of the many
Touched by its flowing tide.
The song has trilled into silence,
The flower is faded and gone,
The book's strong story is ended,
The light is lost in the dawn.
The poem's sweet rhythm is ended,
The chiming has ceased to be,
The deed is fully accomplished,
The river has joined the sea.
She dropped the pebble whose ripples
To the shores of all time shall extend,
She has spoken the word into ether
Whose sound-waves never shall end.
She has started a light on its journey
Out into limitless space,
She has written a thought for women
Eternity cannot erase.
A wonderful soul has journeyed
Out from the Now into Then,
Her voice echoes back to us, waiting,
The sound of the great Amen.
Resolutions and Tributes From Clubs
[Illustration: Fac-simile of resolutions adopted by the Woman's Press
Club of New York, January 11, 1902.]
Resolutions of the New York State Federation of Women's Clubs
In Memoriam
_Mrs. Jane Cunningham Croly_
We have tenderly laid away to rest our beloved honorary president,
Jane Cunningham Croly, to sleep the blessed sleep that knows no waking
in this toilsome, troublous world.
Her gentle soul is at peace, her personal work is accomplished, her
useful life is ended. She has been taken from further pain and further
labor, to that existence where all is perfect peace, perfect rest,
perfect rhythm.
We wish to place upon our records, therefore, our appreciation of the
fact, that this New York State Federation of Women's Clubs has
suffered such a loss as can come but once to any, a loss like that of
a loving mother to an affectionate child.
We shall miss her at our meetings, at our larger gatherings, and at
our conventions.
We shall hold her, and the desires of her heart in relation to us, in
loving and constant memory.
And we purpose to take up her work, where she laid it down, and carry
it on with the same unselfish aims, high ideals, and unremitting
patience with which she labored, until we shall reach the goal upon
which her farseeing eyes were fastened, and her great heart was set.
FANNY HALLOCK CARPENTER.
February 13, 1902.
[Illustration: Resolutions adopted by The Society of American Women in
London, March 24th, 1902.]
The Croly Memorial Fund of the Pioneer Club of London
_First Annual Report_
In July, 1900, a fund was raised by the exertions of Mrs. E.S.
Willard, to present a life membership of the Pioneer Club to Mrs. Jane
Cunningham Croly, known to all who are interested in woman's work as
"Jenny June."
Mrs. Croly had a special claim to this distinction, for she was the
originator of women's clubs. The first woman's club was founded by her
in New York, March, 1868, under the name of "Sorosis." The example was
quickly followed elsewhere, and when, in 1889, Sorosis, to celebrate
its majority, called a convention of women's clubs, ninety-seven were
known to exist in the United States. This convention led to a
Federation with biennial meetings. In 1896, the Federation included
one thousand four hundred and twenty-five dubs. The Pioneer is the
only English woman's club which belongs to the Federation.
Mrs. Croly's activities were not confined to clubs, although up to the
time of her death the movement owed much to her wisdom and energy. She
was a journalist, a writer, an admirable critic, and all her life a
devoted worker for every movement that could raise the position of
women.
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