Helen M. Chesnutt to Charles W. Chesnutt, 5 March 1900
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3-5-1900
[1]
SMITH COLLEGE.
NORTHAMPTON, MASS.
Dear Papa;
We read the Critic article,1 it is very fine indeed. Also saw Youth's Companion story2 but will read it later. What is the novel that you sent off "Rena"3 or "Rainbow Chasers"?4 You haven't been keeping us posted. Are you coming out this way
[2]
soon again?5
We have been pretty busy lately. Had to have a Lit paper on Rasselas in yesterday afternoon. That is my second paper in four weeks. I am teaching some Frenchmen at the Home Culture Club.6 Mr. Cable7 is at the head of it and he asked me about you the other day.
Miss Moffat8 is
[3]
the acting head of it and she said something about having had a correspondence with you. What did she mean
We are going to have an entertainment down there and I expect to be in some tableaus.
Our house is going to have a play and I am the coachman it. I have to practice English dialect and it is hard.
There is going to be a French lecture tomorrow and I am going to see if I can understand it. I hear you are quite social this winter—push[?] it along! We have had an ice-storm just like yours, but it is beautiful today. We walked five miles today.
The check was not enclosed.
Lovingly, HelenCorrespondent: Helen Maria Chesnutt (1880–1969) was Chesnutt's second child. She earned degrees from Smith College and Columbia University, taught Latin (including to Langston Hughes) at Cleveland's Central High School for more than four decades starting in 1904, co-authored a Latin textbook, The Road to Latin, in 1932, and served on the executive committee of the American Philological Association in 1920. She became her father's literary executor and first biographer.
1. Helen probably refers to the article about Chesnutt in The Outlook ("Two New Novelists," The Outlook 64 [February 24, 1900]: 440–441). In his letter to Helen and Ethel of March 3, 1900, he asked if they had seen this article. [back]
2. The reference is to "Aunt Mimy's Son," (The Youth's Companion [March 1, 1900]: 104–105. In his letter to Helen and Ethel of March 3, 1900, he asked if they had seen the story. [back]
3. "Rena Walden" was a short story Chesnutt worked on intermittently over ten years, ultimately becoming the novel The House Behind the Cedars (1900). In 1889 and 1890, Chesnutt shared several drafts with George Washington Cable. It was rejected by The Century and the Atlantic Monthly in 1890, and in 1891 by Houghton Mifflin as part of a collection Chesnutt proposed and wanted to title "Rena Walden and Other Stories." [back]
4. The Rainbow Chasers was not published in Chesnutt’s lifetime. He references working on the novel in a letter to Walter Hines Page in October 1899. The novel was rejected by Houhgton on Mifflin March 24, 1900, when the firm accepted The House Behind the Cedars. Almost immediately Chesnutt sent the novel to Robert U. Johnson, associate editor at The Century. He declined it in a May 2, 1990, letter. Then Chesnutt sent it to Walter Hines Page, who acknowledged receipt on May 8. 1900. In a July 19, 1900, letter, Page reported that the readers had recommended against acceptance. [back]
5. Chesnutt was in Northampton by mid-March. He had readings and meetings in Massachusetts, and a meeting in New York in late March with Robert U. Johnson of The Century. [back]
6. The Home Culture Clubs were launched by George Washington Cable in Northampton, Massachusetts, with the assistance of Mary A. Moffat in 1886. They began as small meetings in private homes to bring together people from different economic classes for reading, study, and culture. By 1900 there were several dozen clubs in Northampton and a handful in other Massachusetts towns; and Northampton had a dedicated clubhouse. Offerings included evening school for adults, courses in domestic arts, an afterschool program for children. In 1905, the Club erected their own building, and in 1909 it was renamed the Northampton People's Institute, remaining in operation until 1970. [back]
7. George Washington Cable (1844–1925) was a White reporter, novelist, and critic. He began his career at the New Orleans Times-Picayune, writing nearly one hundred columns in two years. After working on a collection of journalistic essays based mostly on historical accounts, Cable turned to writing short stories, novellas, and novels, typically set in New Orleans. In the 1880s, Cable began lecturing, writing essays, and forming organizations focused on social reform, specifically in the areas of Black rights and prison conditions, and in 1885 he moved to Northampton, Massachusetts. Cable and Chesnutt met for the first time in Cleveland, on December 21, 1888, at the Congregational Club's Forefather's Day celebration, where Cable was the principal speaker. They began corresponding immediately, and in mid-1889 Cable offered to employ Chesnutt as his secretary in Northampton; Chesnutt declined. Cable visited the Chesnutt home in the fall of 1889, and for two years, their correspondence was frequent, typically about Cable's political efforts on race issues, Chesnutt's writings, or recent publications. After 1891, they corresponded only occasionally. [back]
8. Mary Adelene Moffat (1862–1956) was George Washington Cable's personal secretary and then co-worker in his Home Culture Club headquartered at Northampton, Massachusetts. She began working with Cable in 1888 after hearing him lecture, and continued until 1907. [back]
