Selected works . . .

Bertha and Lily, or, The Parsonage of Beech Glen: A Romance. (1854)
The Dandelion (1845)Jack Spanker and the Mermaid (1843?)The Newsboy (1854)Old New York: or, Democracy in 1689. A tragedy, in five acts. (1853)

The Poetical Writings of Elizabeth Oakes Smith (1845)

Riches Without Wings: or, The Cleveland Family (1838)

The Salamander: A Legend for Christmas, Found Amongst the Papers of the Late Ernest Helfenstein. (1848)*

The Sinless Child, and Other Poems. (1843)

The True Child. (1845)

Woman and Her Needs (1851)

*Edited by E. Oakes Smith

Elizabeth Oakes Prince Smith (1806-1893), a writer and reformer, was born in North Yarmouth and grew up in Portland where she attended Rachel Neal’s school. Somewhat of a child prodigy, she learned to read at the age of two. When she was only sixteen, she married Seba Smith, the editor of the Eastern Argus. He was nearly twice her age and soon became famous for his “Major Jack Downing Letters,” humorous comments about Jacksonian politics.

Meanwhile the Smiths had five sons and she insisted that her sons’ last names be changed to Oaksmith to honor her family name.

Under the influence of Rachel Neal and his son, John Neal, Elizabeth began to write on her own for local periodicals. She developed a strong belief in greater opportunity and freedom for women demonstrated in her becoming the first woman known to climb Mt. Katahdin in 1849.

By the 1840’s after the family moved to New York City, she was contributing poetry and prose to national publications. She was admired by critics N. P. Willis and Edgar Allan Poe and became a major player in the “Feminine Fifties.” Elizabeth went on to write four novels, many poems and stories produced in magazines.

Her reformist instincts led her to publish Woman and Her Needs in 1851 leading her to join the national lyceum circuit. The thrust of her argument was that women should be free to develop their own talents. She became a charter member of New York’s first woman’s club, Sorosis, in 1868. A scholar in religion, she served as pastor of the Independent Church in Canastota, New York in 1877.

She eventually moved to Hollywood, North Carolina, to live with her eldest son and his family but continued to be active in woman’s suffrage by representing North Carolina at the annual conventions of the National Woman Suffrage Association. Although she died in North Carolina, she always upheld lifelong ties with her native Maine.

Additional resources

Barry, William David. “Elizabeth Oakes Smith: Crusading Author,” Maine History 34 (Fall 1994): 154-156.

Carroll, Aileen M. Gentle Rebel: Elizabeth Oakes Smith. Thesis (M.A.) in English–University of Maine, 1968.

Maine Memory Network. “Umbazooksus and Beyond: Katahdin and Ragged Lake.” (Online exhibit) http://www.mainememory.net/bin/Features?fn=198&fmt=list&n=1&supst=Exhibits&mr=all (accessed May 28, 2008).

Richards, Eliza. Gender and the Poetics of Reception in Poe’s Circle. Cambridge; New York. Cambridge University Press, 2004

Smith, Elizabeth Oakes Prince. Selections from the Autobiography of Elizabeth Oakes Smith. Edited by Mary Alice Wyman. Lewiston, Me. Lewiston Journal Company. c1924.

Tyler, Alice Felt. “Elizabeth Oakes Prince Smith” in Notable American Women. Cambridge, Ma. Harvard University Press, 1971, vol. 3, pp. 309-310.

University of New England. Mane Women Writers Collection. “Elizabeth Oakes Smith Collection, 1842-2006.” http://www.une.edu/mwwc/research/featuredwriters/smithe.cfm (accesssed June 5, 2012)

Wyman, Mary Alice. Two American Pioneers: Seba Smith and Elizabeth Oakes Smith. New York. Columbia University Pres., 1927.

Text contributed by Jannene Bidwell, Lisbon Falls, Maine, 2008.

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