Mary Clemmer Ames
Mary Clemmer Ames, born on May 6, 1831, in Utica, New York, was a notable American writer and journalist known for her contributions during the 19th century. The eldest child of Abraham and Margaret Clemmer, she exhibited literary talent from a young age, with her work first published by the Springfield Republican, similar to her contemporary, Emily Dickinson. Ames married Daniel Ames, a Methodist minister, but their marriage was troubled, leading to extended periods of separation. Her experiences during the Civil War, particularly witnessing the bombardment of Harper's Ferry and being briefly captured by Confederate forces, significantly influenced her writing and commitment to justice for freed slaves.
Ames is best remembered for her journalism, particularly her series of "Woman's Letters from Washington," which began in 1866 and garnered widespread acclaim. Despite facing gender-based restrictions in her career, such as being confined to the ladies' gallery in Congress, she continued to persevere in her work. In addition to her journalistic endeavors, she authored three novels, a poetry collection, and a biography of the Cary sisters, with the latter recognized as her finest work. After a tragic accident in 1878, her writing diminished, but she eventually remarried journalist Edmund Hudson in 1883. Ames passed away on August 18, 1884, leaving behind a legacy as a pioneering woman in journalism.
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Mary Clemmer Ames
Journalist
- Born: May 6, 1831
- Birthplace: Utica, New York
- Died: August 18, 1884
- Place of death: Washington, D.C.
Biography
Mary Clemmer, who wrote as Mary Clemmer Ames, was the eldest child of Abraham and Margaret Clemmer, She born in Utica, New York on May 6, 1831. Her father was an impractical man who failed in several business ventures; her mother, though proper and Victorian in a number of ways, had a competitive nature that may have encouraged Ames to seek outlets for her literary ambitions. A teacher at the Westfield Academy in Westfield, Massachusetts, (where the famliy moved early in her life) sent one of her poems to Samuel Bowles, the editor of the Springfield Republican. Thus, like her great contemporary, Emily Dickinson, she first saw her work published in that newspaper.
At the age of twenty, Mary Clemmer, by then a slender and graceful woman with blue eyes and light brown hair, married Daniel Ames, a Methodist minister turned Presbyterian. It turned out to be an unhappy union, and the two lived apart much of the time. When she began to seek outlets for her writing in the late 1850’s, her first choices were the newspapers in the two towns she knew from her early years, Utica and Westfield, but it would be some years before she found her niche as a Washington reporter.
Meanwhile, a wartime experience helped turn her attention to the possibilities of writing about public life. Living in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, where her husband was working during the Civil War, she witnessed the bombardment of the town and became for a short time the prisoner of Confederate forces, an experience that probably contributed to her later championing of the cause of justice for freed slaves. She wrote three novels, a book of poems, and a biography of the sisters Alice and Phoebe Cary, described in The Nation as her best work, but she is most famous as a journalist. Her first “Woman’s Letter from Washington,” which appeared in the March 4, 1866, edition of The Independent, inaugurated a series that made her famous. From 1869 to 1872 she also wrote for the Brooklyn Daily Union.
Though she was separated from her husband in 1865, Ames did not obtain a divorce until 1874. With her career as a practicing journalist established, she purchased a brick mansion on Capitol Hill in 1876 and brought her elderly parents to Washington to live with her. Although a practicing journalist, she was not allowed into the reporters’ gallery in Congress but had to watch proceedings from the ladies’ gallery. No feminist, she simply accepted this limitation and went about her work. In 1877 she wrote an account of the inauguration of President Rutherford B. Hayes that included references to the “first lady.” Although not the first recorded reference to the term, it was the one that established its popularity as the designation for a president’s wife.
Ames wrote little after sustaining a fractured skull in a carriage accident in 1878, but there was one more event of importance in her life: her marriage to another Washington journalist, Edmund Hudson, on June 19, 1883. She died a little more than a year later in Washington, on August 18, 1884.