We would like to call your attention to an article recently written by researcher and member of the Cambridge Black History Project, Leslie Brunetta. In her piece “A Subject of Unique Interest: Mary Freeman Heuston Lewis and William Dean Howells” Brunetta focuses on an obscure essay by Howells, a white writer later known as the Dean of American Letters. Brunetta writes:
Howells published “Mrs. Johnson” in The Atlantic in 1868. “Mrs. Johnson” was the pseudonym Howells gave to his family’s Black housekeeper, Mary Lewis (1816-1868), whom he called “a subject of unique interest.” But it seems neither Howells nor his wife fully understood just how uniquely interesting Mary Lewis was.”
Brunetta notes that W.D. Howells and his wife, Elinor Mead Howells (1837-1910), moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1866 as Howells took up his position as assistant editor at The Atlantic. “Mrs. Johnson,” also the first essay in Suburban Sketches, published in 1871, relates the history of the Howells’ hiring of Mary Lewis and their increasing familiarity with each other.”
In this article, Brunetta explores the questions of: what was life like for someone in Mary Lewis’ situation, that is, a well-educated Black woman with close family ties, married to an entrepreneurial intellectual activist, mother of a large family, living in New England? How did she see the world?
The article was originally published on Commonplace, a destination for exploring and exchanging ideas about early American history and culture. Read the piece in full here: https://commonplace.online/article/a-subject-of-unique-interest/.