Representative women of New England/May Alden Ward

by Mary H. Graves

MAY ALDEN WARD

MAY ALDEN WARD, author and lecturer, residing in Boston, is now (1903) serving her second year as president of the Massachusetts Federation of Women's Clubs. A native of Ohio, born at Milford Centre, near Columbus, March 1, 1853, as the daughter of Prince William and Rebecca (Neal) Alden she rightfully inherits the traditions of the Commonwealth founded by the Pilgrim Fathers and the Puritans of the Bay Colony. The first paragraph of her family history was penned by Governor Bradford more than two hundred years ago:—

"John Alden was hired for a cooper at Southampton, where the ship victualed; and being a hopeful young man, was much desired but left to his own liking to go or stay when he came; but he stayed and married here."

From John¹ Alden and the ready-witted Priscilla (whose parents, William and Alice Mullins, and their son Joseph, died the first winter) the line was continued through Captain Jonathan,² Andrew,³ Major Prince,⁴ Andrew Stanford,⁵ Prince William,⁶ to May⁷ (Mrs. Ward).

Captain Jonathan Alden married Abigail, daughter of Andrew Hallet, Jr.² Andrew Alden, their eldest son, married Lydia Stanford. Major Prince Alden married Mary Fitch, daughter of Adonijah Fitch, of Montville, Conn. Her father was a grandson of the Rev. James¹ Fitch, of Saybrook and Norwich, Conn., and his second wife, Priscilla Mason, daughter of Major John Mason, famous military leader of the Connecticut Colony.

A year or two before the beginning of the Revolutionary War, Major Prince Alden migrated with his family from Connecticut to Wyoming County, Pennsylvania, where he became a large land-owner. In 1816 Andrew Stanford Alden, with his wife, Elizabeth Allington, and their children, removed from Tioga County, New York, to Ohio.

Prince William Alden, Mrs. Ward's father, a merchant and banker, born in 1809, died February 27, 1893. He married in 1844 Rebecca, daughter of Henry Neal, of Mechanicsburg, Ohio, and his wife, Catherine Bigelow, who was a daughter of Isaac Bigelow, of Dummerston, Vt., and a descendant of John Biglo, of Watertown, the founder of the Bigelow family of New England. Mrs. Rebecca Neal Alden, born in 1823, died April 12, 1898. Mr. and Mrs. Alden had three children—Henry, Reuben, and May (now Mrs. Ward).

From her father May Alden inherited a taste for history and literature. She began to study and to use her pen very early, contributing articles to the Cincinnati Commercial before she was sixteen. She was educated at Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio, and after her graduation in 1872 she studied some years abroad, devoting herself to French, German, and English literature, later taking up Italian. On June 1, 1873, she was married to William G. Ward, since 1898 professor of English literature at the Emerson College of Oratory, Boston, formerly holding the same chair at Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y., and at an earlier date President of Spokane College. Professor Ward is the author of several books, among them "Tennyson's Debt to Environment" and "The Poetry of Robert Browning."

Since she came to New England, twelve years ago, the rise in club life of Mrs. May Alden Ward has been constant and rapid. At Franklin she organized a club of which she was the first president, and which was afterward named for her the Alden Club. Later while living in Cambridge she was for four years president of Cantabrigia, one of the largest and most energetic clubs of the country. At the same time Mrs. Ward became a member of the famous New England Woman's Club, in which she is still one of the most valued workers. For two years she was president of the New England Woman's Press Association, and she is strong in its councils at the present time. She is also a charter member and director of the Authors' Club of Boston. She was the first vice-president of the Massachusetts State Federation for two years before becoming its president. She also has interest in various public affairs, and has been appointed one of the Commissioners for Massachusetts at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis.

Mrs. Ward began lecturing about twelve years ago, responding to the request of some ladies who asked her to give parlor talks on French literature. As a lecturer and teacher she now does an enormous amount of work, her accuracy, her pleasing address, her directness, and the large amount of information crowded into her lessons and lectures making her one of the most popular club lecturers in New England. Of her efforts in that field the New York Times has this to say: "Mrs. Ward has the historian's instinct, and gives her facts without feeling the necessity of breaking into ejaculations over their picturesqueness. Her good training as a writer tells, as it always ought to tell; and her papers on subjects connected with our colonial history are written in a style both reticent and lively." Kate Sanborn's comment on her lectures is both true and adequate: "At the close of each course the audience feels acquainted with the men and women analyzed, and familiar with their best achievements; for she has the power to vitalize a subject, throwing around it the fascination felt by herself — a rare gift and akin to genius."

Aside from the prestige which the advancement in club circles may lend to her name, Mrs. Ward has won a reputation as a writer that rests on the firm foundation of merit. Among her books are a Life of Dante, Life of Petrarch, "Old Colony Days," and "Prophets of the Nineteenth Century." These have received great praise from literary critics. Her "Dante" and "Petrarch," it is freely conceded, each met the need of a concise life in English never before filled. William Dean Howells .says of the former: "While we are still upon Italian ground, we wish to speak of Mrs. May Alden Ward's very clear, unaffected, and interesting sketch of Dante and his life and works. The effort is something comparable to those processes by which the stain and whitewash of centuries is removed, and the beauty and truth of some noble fresco underneath is brought to life again. Mrs. Ward has wrought in the right spirit, and she shows a figure, simple, conceivably like, and worthy to be Dante, with which she has apparently not suffered her fancy to play."

Of the "Petrarch" Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton says: "Mrs. Ward has done her work admirably; and from this one book you may glean all that is of real value in the hundreds of volumes of which Petrarch has been the theme. His love, his friendship, his ambi- tions, his greatness, and his follies, . . . they are written here."

No less an expert than John Fi.ske thus pro- nounced upon the merits of "Old Colony Days": "The sympathy and breadth of treatment make it a charming series of essays." One of the best of the appreciations of the book is that of the Chicago Times-Herald: "Plain history in fascinating guise is so rare a gift to the per- functory seeker for knowledge that attention must be called to a charming new book, 'Old Colony Days,' written in the sprightliest of easy styles for young or old, and displaying the high lights of the history of the New Eng- land colonies. It is not that the story is new: it as old as love to Puritans and their descend- ants. It is on account of a crisp, brisk, and ringing style, and on account of the taste with which the historian discriminates in subject matter, that we like the book so well. The half-satirical, half-serious manner in which all our ancestral worthies are memorized is indeed attractive. There are never too many words, there is always a simple style, and there are invariably points of interest lighted upon." Mrs. Ward's latest book, "Prophets of the Nineteenth Century," is in a sense her most important one, and into it she has put more of her own personality. The "Prophets," Carlyle, Ruskin, Tolstoi, stand for humanity. We are sure that the expression of their convictions in the book voices Mrs. W^ard's own feelings; that their theories of life have largely influenced her own; that she herself is not only in sympathy with the great movement which her prefatory note says is sweeping over the world, but is a part of it, as her connection with the clubs gives her the opportunity and the right to be. "The Prophets of the Nineteenth Century" has received warm endorsement. Caroline H. Dall, in the Springfield Republican, thus commends it: "The sketches of Carlyle and Ruskin are masterly. They seize the essential points with a true comprehensipn, ant^ neither the two volumes of Froude nor any that concerns Ruskin give as clear an idea of the men they celebrate." Several of Mrs. ^'ard's books have already been translated into other languages, amongthem being the "Prophets", which has made its appearance in Japanese.

It will be seen that Mrs. Ward's work gives her a right to distinction. Yet the woman behind it is more than any expression of herself in her writings and lectures. The sketch of her written by Kate Sanborn for a Boston paper a few years ago is so exact a portrait that one does not like either to add to or take away from the picture. Miss Sanborn says: "Mrs. Ward possesses a simphcity of manner that comes only with sinc(>rity of purpose, the best breeding, and a hacking of desirable ancestry; an executive ability that is never marred by its too frecjuent accompaniment—a domineering spirit and a desire for control; a straight, clear outlook from eyes that hide no secrets, a hand-grasp that is cordial, without being effusive. One is impressed by the apparent ease with which she accomplishes great tasks. She does not talk of her work, nor take herself too seriously, and is delightfully free from pedantry. What she has done for other women, spiring a scholarly spirit, giving history and literature in condensed and attractive talks, lifting them above the narrow interests, petty jealousies, and the gossipy habit, cannot be told in this brief outline." Of her part in the clubs Miss Sanborn adds: "She is impartial, well poised, never capricious in manner or opinion. She follows the middle path. As hostess, teacher, author, friend, she is always natural, kindly, thinking of others. And so love and appreciation and the truest friendship are given to her by all who are so fortunate as to know her and her work."

To this might be added just one thing more—that Mrs. Ward has the art of drawing from her friends the heartiest and most loyal service. When a piece of work is to be done to which she cannot give time or attention, she knows on whom to call; and those who know and love her feel it a privilege to do her behest, being assured that when they in turn need help she will more than repay their services, or that they have been more than repaid already. It is in such a woman that the Massachusetts clubs have placed their confid(>nce, in her hands The direction of the Federation at present is held.

Her report to the Massachusetts State Federation of the biennial meeting at Los Angeles in June, 1902, is a model of clearness and brevity, and is the best exposition of her spirit under the trying circumstances of the convention. This is its conclusion: "The best gift that can be given to any of us is the privilege of being of some use in the world. . . . The reward is in the work itself, even though we may have to wait years for the tangible results. Let us hope that in this co-operation, with the women of the East and the West, the North and the South, working side by side for the same object, unworthy prejudices and antagonisms may be outgrown and cast aside, so that eventually we shall all stand together for the good of humanity."