Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff | |
|---|---|
 Blanche Wagstaff, painted by Théobald Chartran . | |
| Born | Blanche LeRoy Shoemaker July 10, 1888 |
| Died | December 15, 1967 (aged 79) |
| Spouses | Alfred Wagstaff III (m. 1907;div. 1920)Donald Carr (m. 1921;died 1961) |
| Children | Alfred Wagstaff IV |
| Parent(s) | Henry Francis Shoemaker Blanche Quiggle Shoemaker |
| Relatives | Henry W. Shoemaker (brother) |
Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff ( née Shoemaker, later Carr) (July 10, 1888 – December 15, 1967) was an American poet.
Blanche was born in Larchmont, New York, on July 10, 1888, but spent much of her life in New York City. She was the only daughter of Henry Francis Shoemaker (1843–1918), a railroad magnate and close confidante of future vice president Charles W. Fairbanks, and Blanche ( née Quiggle) Shoemaker (1853–1928). Among her siblings were Henry Wharton Shoemaker and William Brock Shoemaker, who married Ella Morris De Peyster (a daughter of Frederic James De Peyster) in 1905, [1] but died tragically in an elevator accident a few months after his wedding in 1906. [2] [3] Her mother was the sole daughter of railroad magnate and diplomat Col. James W. Quiggle of Philadelphia and Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. [4]
She began writing at age 7, and had sold her first poem, to Town & Country , by age 16. [5] In 1905, her portrait was painted by the French artist Théobald Chartran. After she made her debut in New York City, she was presented at the Court of St. James and later had a private interview with Pope Pius. [6]
Blanche served for a time as the associate editor of The International, [7] a magazine founded by her close friend George Sylvester Viereck, whose sensual, decadent verse mirrored Wagstaff's. She praised his work, although the two had a falling out over Viereck's support of Germany in the first World War, later reconciling in 1924. [5] Her verse often dealt with sensual and classical themes, and twelve of her poems were anthologized in T. R. Smith's 1921 erotic verse collection Poetica Erotica. [8] [9] Her 1944 book for children, The Beloved Son, was a life of Jesus in verse. [10] [11] [12]
H. L. Mencken praised Wagstaff's poetic drama Alcestis for its "constant novelty and ingenuity of epithet", though he thought at times she let "her adjectives run riot". [13]
In 1907, she married Alfred Wagstaff III (1881–1930), the eldest son of Alfred Wagstaff Jr. [14] Before their divorce in 1920, they were the parents of: [15]
After their divorce, she married well known real estate broker and amateur golf player Donald Carr on July 30, 1921, at Bide-a-Wee, her country place in Manchester, Vermont. [6] During the ceremony, the officiating clergyman read one of her new poems entitled Marriage. [6] Carr, who owned Cedarcliff in Riverside, Connecticut, was the son of Henry Shaler Carr and Tamzin ( née Shaler) Carr (a daughter of Civil War Gen. Alexander Shaler). [6]
In 1934, she sold two business buildings, 24 and 26 East 54th Street, adjoining the southwest corner of Madison Avenue, in midtown Manhattan for $400,000. [17] The five-story building at 24 East 54th Street was a wedding gift from her father upon her marriage to Wagstaff. She had acquired the adjoining five-story building at 26 East 54th Street in 1921 and had them renovated for commercial use and leased to single tenants. [17]
Carr died in 1961. [18] Blanche died on December 15, 1967, in Virginia Water in the Borough of Runnymede in Surrey, England. She was interred at the Shoemaker Mausoleum in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.
Henry Louis Mencken was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, and contemporary movements. His satirical reporting on the Scopes Trial, which he dubbed the "Monkey Trial", also gained him attention. The term Menckenian has entered multiple dictionaries to describe anything of or pertaining to Mencken, including his combative rhetorical and prose style.
Alcestis or Alceste, was a princess in Greek mythology, known for her love of her husband. Her life story was told by pseudo-Apollodorus in his Bibliotheca, and a version of her death and return from the dead was also popularized in Euripides's tragedy Alcestis.
Elinor Morton Wylie was an American poet and novelist popular in the 1920s and 1930s. "She was famous during her life almost as much for her ethereal beauty and personality as for her melodious, sensuous poetry."
John Robinson Jeffers was an American poet known for his work about the central California coast.
George Sterling was an American writer based in the San Francisco, California Bay Area and Carmel-by-the-Sea. He was considered a prominent poet and playwright and proponent of Bohemianism during the first quarter of the twentieth century. His work was admired by writers as diverse as Ambrose Bierce, Theodore Dreiser, Robinson Jeffers, Sinclair Lewis, Jack London, H. P. Lovecraft, H. L. Mencken, Upton Sinclair, and Clark Ashton Smith. In addition, Sterling played a major role in the growth of the California cities of Oakland, Piedmont, and Carmel-by-the-Sea.
Alcestis is an Athenian tragedy by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides. It was first produced at the City Dionysia festival in 438 BC. Euripides presented it as the final part of a tetralogy of unconnected plays in the competition of tragedies, for which he won second prize; this arrangement was exceptional, as the fourth part was normally a satyr play. Its ambiguous, tragicomic tone—which may be "cheerfully romantic" or "bitterly ironic"—has earned it the label of a "problem play." Alcestis is, possibly excepting the Rhesus, the oldest surviving work by Euripides, although at the time of its first performance he had been producing plays for 17 years.
The American Language; An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States, first published in 1919, is a book written by H. L. Mencken about the English language as spoken in the United States.
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. is an American publishing house that was founded by Blanche Knopf and Alfred A. Knopf Sr. in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers in addition to leading American literary trends. It was acquired by Random House in 1960, and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group division of Penguin Random House which is owned by the German conglomerate Bertelsmann.
Blanche Marie Louise Oelrichs was an American poet, playwright, and theatre actress. Oelrichs first used the masculine pen name Michael Strange to publish her poetry in order to distance her society reputation from its sometimes erotic content, but it soon became the name under which she presented herself for the remainder of her life.
George Sylvester Viereck was a German-American poet, writer, and pro-German propagandist. He worked on behalf of Nazi Germany. He preferred to use the name Sylvester.
Benjamin De Casseres was an American journalist, critic, essayist and poet. He was born in Philadelphia and began working at the Philadelphia Press at an early age, but spent most of his professional career in New York City, where he wrote for various newspapers including The New York Times, The Sun and The New York Herald. He was married to author Bio De Casseres, and corresponded with prominent literary figures of his time, including H. L. Mencken, Edgar Lee Masters, and Eugene O'Neill. He was a distant relative of Baruch Spinoza and was of Sephardic descent.
Wagstaff may refer to:
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: The Intimate Diary of a Professional Lady (1925) is a comic novel written by American author Anita Loos. The story follows the dalliances of a young blonde gold-digger and flapper named Lorelei Lee "in the bathtub-gin era of American history." Published the same year as F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Carl Van Vechten's Firecrackers, the lighthearted work is one of several famous 1925 American novels which focus upon the carefree hedonism of the Jazz Age.
John Myers O'Hara (1870–1944) was an American poet.
Alfred Wagstaff Jr. was an American lawyer and politician from New York. He was president of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals from 1906 until his death in 1921.
Frederic James de Peyster was an American soldier, lawyer, and member of New York Society during the Gilded Age.
Henry Francis Shoemaker was an American railroad magnate and financier.
James Williams Quiggle was an American railroad magnate, politician and diplomat.
Katherine Ruth Willoughby Heyman, nicknamed "Kitty", was an American pianist and composer. She was a proponent of the music of Alexander Scriabin, and she gave several recitals consisting solely of his music.
Queenie Scott-Hopper was the pen name of Mabel Olive Scott-Hopper, an English author of children’s stories, poetry, and devotional literature.
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