Author: Ellet, Elizabeth Fries
Biography:
ELLET, Elizabeth Fries, formerly Lummis (1818-77: WBIS)
She was born at Sodus Point, NY, to Dr. William Nixon Lummis and his second wife Sarah Maxwell. (Virtually all sources give her birthdate as 1818 but a few say 1812.) Educated at the Female Seminary in Aurora NY, she began to contribute verse to the American Ladies' Magazine in her teens. In 1835 or 1836 she married William Henry Ellet, a professor of chemistry at a college in Columbia SC; they had no children. About 1850 the couple moved to New York, where he worked for the Manhattan Gas Company until his death in 1859. Elizabeth Ellet was interested in foreign languages; she read French, German, and Italian, and her first book had been a translation of Pellico's Euphemio of Messina (1834). After 1835 she wrote fiction and essays for young readers, but she is remembered chiefly for her work on American history from the point of view of women, especially The Women of the American Revolution (1848)--an approach that she extended later to the history of society and history of art. Late in life she converted to Catholicism. (RPW; Appleton; ANBO 18 Oct. 2018) HJ
Other Names:
- Mrs. E. F. Ellet