Ruth McEnery Stuart (1849–1917) was an American author.
Early life and marriage
She was born Mary Routh McEnery Stuart, child of James and Mary Routh (Stirling) McEnery in
Marksville, Louisiana.
(She changed the spelling of her name to "Ruth" after she began her career in literature.) Stuart's true date of birth is not known with certainty. In addition to the date shown here in 1849, Stuart's date of birth is also shown as 19 February 1852 on her marriage certificate.
When she was three, Stuart moved to
New Orleans, Louisiana.
Stuart taught school there until she married Arkansas farmer Alfred Oden Stuart on 6 August 1879.
Alfred Oden Stuart was a widower with eleven children;
he died in 1883 and she returned to New Orleans.
Ruth and Alfred Oden Stuart had one son, but he died in 1904
or 1905.
Stuart was born to a wealthy and politically powerful family; one biographer writes that "it has been said that the Rouths and the McEnerys owned more slaves than any other two families in the United States."
She was the first cousin of
John McEnery, who claimed to have been elected governor of Louisiana in 1872 — massive voter fraud on his behalf led to his "win" being thrown out — and
Samuel D. McEnery
Samuel Douglas McEnery (May 28, 1837 – June 28, 1910) served as the List of Governors of Louisiana, 30th Governor of the U.S. state of Louisiana, with service from 1881 until 1888. He was subsequently a United States Senate, U.S. senator f ...
, who served as Louisiana governor from 1881 to 1888 and as a U.S. senator from 1897 to 1910.
She was also related to Louisiana governors
Isaac Johnson and
Robert Wickliffe; another cousin was the state's first lady as the wife of
Murphy J. Foster
Murphy James Foster (January 12, 1849June 12, 1921) was the 31st Governor of the U.S. state of Louisiana, an office he held for two terms from 1892 to 1900. Foster supported the Louisiana Constitution of 1898, which effectively disfranchised ...
.
Writing career
Stuart first published in February 1888 in the ''
New Princeton Review
''The Princeton Theological Review'' is an annual academic journal published by students of Princeton Theological Seminary. It was first published with the title ''Biblical Repertory'' in 1825 by the Princeton Seminary graduate and professor, Char ...
''. She sold a second story to
Harpers New Monthly Magazine shortly thereafter; in the early 1890s she moved to New York City.
Stuart was active in her literary career from 1888 until 1917, producing some 75 works.
Between 1891-97 she produced "20 books, short stories, sketches, and reprinted verses she had originally published in magazines".
She was known not just for her writing, but also for oral performances of her work.
Her most famous work is said to be ''Sonny'' (1896).
She was also occasionally a sub-editor at Harpers.
Stuart has been characterized as belonging to the school of "American local color writing that emphasizes regional characteristics in landscape, way of life, and language."
Stuart's treatment of blacks forms a significant portion of her corpus and, if potentially troublesome today, "contemporary critics acclaimed her as providing an authentic representation of African Americans."
Her work is said to be of the same school as
Kate Chopin.
Stuart's work was appreciated in England. She became a member of the Lyceum Club there in 1904. In 1915 she was granted an honorary Litt.D. in 1915 by
ulane University Also in 1915 a literary club, Ruth McEnery Stuart Clan, was founded and named in her honor.
Stuart died in New York City in 1917 and was buried in New Orleans.
Works

*''Jessekiah Brown's Courtship'' (1892) (Short Story in Harper's Monthly)
*''A Golden Wedding and Other Tales'' (1893) (Her first collection)
*''The Story of Babette'' (1894)
*''Carlotta's Intended and Other Tales'' (1894)
*''Sonny: A Christmas Guest'' (1896) (Her most popular work)
*''Solomon Crowe's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales'' (1896)
*''Gobolinks; or Shadow Pictures for Young and Old'' Collaborated with Albert Bigelow Paine)
(1896) From the Collections at the
Library of Congress
*''The Snow-Cap Sisters; a Farce'' (1897)
*''In Simpkinsville; Character Tales'' (1897)
*''Moriah's Mourning and other half-hour sketches'' (1898)
*''The Second Wooing of Salina Sue and Other Stories'' (1898)
*''Holly and Pizen, and other stories'' (1899)
*''Napoleon Jackson, the Gentleman of the Plush Rocker'' (1902)
*''George Washington Jones, a Christmas gift that went a-begging'' (1903)
*''The River's Children: an Idyll of the Mississippi'' (1904)
*''Aunt Amity's Silver Wedding, and Other Stories'' (1909)
*''Sonny's Father'' (1910) (Sequel)
*''The Unlived Live of Little Mary Ellen'' (1910)
*''The haunted photograph, whence and whither, a case in diplomacy, the afterglow'' (1911)
*''Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles'' (1913)
*''The Cocoon; a Rest-Cure Comedy'' (1915) (Last novel)
*''Plantation Songs and Other Verse'' (1916) (Last work)
References
Further reading
* Joan Wylie Hall, "'White Momma ... Black Mammy': Replacing the absent mother in the works of Ruth McEnery Stuart" in ]
* Judy E. Sneller, "Bad boys/black misfits: Ruth McEnery Stuart's humor and 'the negro question'" in
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Stuart, Ruth Mcenery
1849 births
1917 deaths
19th-century American novelists
20th-century American novelists
American women novelists
Writers from Arkansas
Novelists from Louisiana
Writers from New York City
20th-century American women writers
19th-century American women writers
Novelists from New York (state)