{{short description|American novelist}} {{redirect|Ruth Stuart||Ruth Stewart (disambiguation)}} {{Infobox person | name = Ruth McEnery Stuart | image = Ruth McEnery Stuart 001.jpg | alt = | caption = | birth_date = {{Birth date|1849|05|21}} | birth_place = Marksville, Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana | death_date = {{Death date and age|1917|05|06|1849|05|21}} | death_place = New York City | resting_place = New Orleans, Louisiana | other_names = Mary Routh McEnery Stuart | known_for = Sonny (1896) | occupation = Writer | spouse = Alfred Oden Stuart }}
'''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.<ref name="ark" /><ref name="dab" /> (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.<ref name=" ark" /> When she was three, Stuart moved to New Orleans, Louisiana.<ref name="dab" /> Stuart taught school there until she married Arkansas farmer Alfred Oden Stuart on 6 August 1879.<ref name="dab" /> Alfred Oden Stuart was a widower with eleven children;<ref name="ark" /> he died in 1883 and she returned to New Orleans.<ref name="dab" /> Ruth and Alfred Oden Stuart had one son, but he died in 1904<ref name="dab" /> or 1905.<ref name="anb" />
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."<ref name="digi_">{{Cite web |title=A Biographical and Critical Study of Ruth McEnery Stuart |author=Mary Frances Fletcher |date=1955 |access-date=11 August 2021 |url= https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=9145&context=gradschool_disstheses}}</ref>
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, who served as Louisiana governor from 1881 to 1888 and as a U.S. senator from 1897 to 1910.<ref name="digi_" /> 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.<ref name="digi_" />
==Writing career== Stuart first published in February 1888 in the ''New Princeton Review''. She sold a second story to Harpers New Monthly Magazine shortly thereafter; in the early 1890s she moved to New York City.<ref name="ark" /> Stuart was active in her literary career from 1888 until 1917, producing some 75 works.<ref name="ark" /> Between 1891 and 1897 she produced "20 books, short stories, sketches, and reprinted verses she had originally published in magazines".<ref name="dab" /> She was known not just for her writing, but also for oral performances of her work.<ref name="dab" /> Her most famous work is said to be ''Sonny'' (1896).<ref name="dab" /> She was also occasionally a sub-editor at Harpers.<ref name="dab" />
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."<ref name="ark" /> 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."<ref name="ark" /> For example, she is believed to have transcribed a black spiritual song now known as "Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow." 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. by Tulane University.<ref name="ark" /> Also in 1915 a literary club, Ruth McEnery Stuart Clan, was founded and named in her honor.<ref name="anb" />
Stuart died in New York City in 1917 and was buried in New Orleans.<ref name="ark" />
== Works == thumb|Ruth McEnery Stuart *''Jessekiah Brown's Courtship'' (1892) (Short Story in Harper's Monthly)<ref>Harper's Monthly Magazine May 1892, Volume 84 Number 504, Pages 933 to 941.</ref> *''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)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/juv.17793|title=From the Rare Book and Special Collections Division}}</ref> (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 Life 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 == <!--- See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Footnotes on how to create references using tags which will then appear here automatically --> {{Reflist |refs= <ref name="ark"> {{Cite encyclopedia | last = Simpson | first = Ethel C. | title = Mary Routh McEnery Stuart (1852–1917) | encyclopedia = The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture | publisher = Butler Center for Arkansas Studies | date = 2 April 2010 | url = http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=1777 | access-date = 5 February 2011}} </ref>
<ref name="dab"> {{Cite book | title = Dictionary of American Biography IX (Vol. 2) | publisher = Charles Scribner's Sons | location = New York | pages = 177 }} </ref>
<ref name="anb"> {{Cite book | title = American National Biography 21 | pages = 80 }} </ref> }}
== Further reading == * Joan Wylie Hall, "'White Momma ... Black Mammy': Replacing the absent mother in the works of Ruth McEnery Stuart" in {{Cite book | last = (ed.) Warren | first = Nagueyalti |author2=Sally Wolff | title = Southern mothers; fact and fictions in Southern women's writing | publisher = Louisiana State University Press | year = 1999 | pages = 64–80 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=ixdQovlgdHUC&q=ruth+mcenery+stuart&pg=PA64 | isbn = 0-8071-2400-1}}] * Judy E. Sneller, "Bad boys/black misfits: Ruth McEnery Stuart's humor and 'the negro question'" in {{Cite book | last = (ed.) Eiss | first = Harry | title = Images of the child | publisher = Bowling Green State University Popular Press | year = 1994 | pages = 215 | isbn = 0-87972-653-9}}
== External links == * {{Gutenberg author |id=3831| name=Ruth McEnery Stuart}} * {{FadedPage|id=Stuart, Ruth McEnery|name=Ruth McEnery Stuart|author=yes}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Ruth McEnery Stuart}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Stuart, Ruth Mcenery}} Category:1849 births Category:1917 deaths Category:19th-century American novelists Category:20th-century American novelists Category:Novelists from Arkansas Category:Novelists from Louisiana Category:Novelists from New York City Category:20th-century American women novelists Category:19th-century American women novelists