SONNET: THE DEATH OF THE DEBUTANTE IN THE NEW CENTURY

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06/27/2009

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Creative Writing>Poetry

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At the turn of the last century (termed The New Century), sex and social position constrained young girls. A child in Victorian-era Wilmington, D... (More) At the turn of the last century (termed The New Century), sex and social position constrained young girls. A child in Victorian-era Wilmington, Delaware, Marion Gause Canby defied expectations when tragedy and opportunity presented themselves. An older brother Harry Courtland Gause died of appendicitis at Yale University, a few days past Christmas, 1899. The pre-teen-aged Marion founded, in his memory, a primary fund-raising children’s medical charity (later to become the Junior Board of the Delaware Hospital). She was a hands-on helper among the sick. In adulthood, she formed a literary alliance with spouse Henry Seidel Canby, Yale professor, editor and critic. A published poet (the volume High Mowing and poems published in Scribner’s, The Yale Review, and The New Yorker) Marion Gause Canby conducted the Children’s Bookshop department of the Saturday Review of Literature. She came from a philanthropic and noted Wilmington family, but managed to surmount expectations placed on women of the period by wielding her own passion and creativity. (Less)