What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge

First published: 1872

Type of work: Domestic realism

Themes: Coming-of-age, family, friendship, and health and illness

Time of work: The mid-nineteenth century

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: Burnet, a small U.S. town

Principal Characters:

• Katy Carr, an irresponsible, fun-loving, and untidy tomboy, who is the oldest of her five siblings
• Dr. Carr, Katy’s levelheaded and kind father
• Aunt Izzie, Dr. Carr’s sister, who comes to manage the Carr household and children after their mother dies
• Cousin Helen, an invalid for life by an early injury, who is ever cheerful

The Story

What Katy Did is almost plot-free, and, indeed, the first half of the novel has no plot at all. Rather, the beginning is a series of episodes meant to show young readers how blissful and delightful life for the Carr children has been. True, the children’s mother has died, and Aunt Izzie, who seems fussy and stern, has come to care for them. Also, Katy, the eldest, who had been admonished at her mother’s death to care for her five younger siblings, has not been living up to her mother’s wish but is instead always getting herself and her brothers and sisters into trouble at school and at home with Aunt Izzie because of her untidiness and careless behavior. In these early chapters, the author paints a wonderful portrait of how the six carefree children, totally self-sustaining, entertain themselves in a small town in the mid-nineteenth century, just as the author did with her four brothers and sisters in Cleveland, Ohio.

The plot begins when Helen comes to visit on her way to a health spa. Beautiful, neat, and tidy, generous and well dressed despite her illness, Helen, disabled for life from an accident, instantly becomes the children’s great friend. After she leaves, however, Katy, angry at one of her sisters, spitefully disobeys her aunt, plays on a swing that has not been secured well, falls, and becomes lame from some mysterious spinal “disease.” In pain and unable to frolic with her brothers and sisters or even go to school, Katy becomes listless and sullen and more untidy than ever—not a pleasant person to be near. This state of affairs is remedied only by another visit from Helen, who explains to Katy that she must use this time to good advantage. From misfortune, good can come; by going to what Helen calls “the School of Pain,” Katy can learn to be patient, cheerful, and hopeful, and not to be selfish or mean to her brothers and sisters. Furthermore, by cleaning up her room and making herself look more attractive, Katy will begin to feel better about herself and others. She is able to put this advice into practice almost immediately when Aunt Izzie suddenly dies, and Katy, at age fourteen, must take on the role of housekeeper and surrogate mother from the confines of her bedroom.

In the end, after four difficult but ultimately rewarding years, Katy regains her ability to walk and, when she walks downstairs for the first time, Helen, whom the children have invited as a celebration surprise, is there to share not only Katy’s physical triumph over her illness but also her more important psychological triumph over her emotions.

Context

What Katy Did was the first of five books in the “Katy series” (followed by What Katy Did at School, 1874; What Katy Did Next, 1886; Clover, 1888; and In the High Valley, 1891). Sarah Woolsey (who wrote under the pseudonym Susan Coolidge), though born in Cleveland, Ohio, moved to New England when she was twenty, and she lived and wrote there all of her life. Her work can best be understood in context when it is compared to the work of three other important, contemporary New En gland women writers of domestic children’s fiction: Susan Bogert Warner’s The Wide, Wide World (1850), written under the pseudonym Elizbeth Wetherell; Martha Farquharson Finley’s Elsie Dinsmore (1867); and Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (1868-1869).

Elsie Dinsmore and The Wide, Wide World are both in the tradition of what is called the “lachrymose” novels, books in which the heroines are extremely religious, highly moralistic, and thoroughly good. These novels are termed “lachrymose” because the heroines are often in tears. Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women differs and, in fact, is a landmark book in the history of children’s literature; though subtly didactic, its aim was not to preach but to portray a happy family in its New England setting, its members living a rather routine existence.

Although the heroine in What Katy Did does, in fact, shed copious tears (mostly of remorse), the novel is more in the tradition of Little Women than the other two books. The main character and her sisters and brothers (all of whom are skillfully portrayed as distinct human beings) are depicted as imperfect, somewhat flawed (until they “grow up”), and happily engaged in childlike games, pranks, and mischief. This (what one critic in 1872 called) “fidelity to average child-life,” the portrayal of six children at play and enjoying one another, makes What Katy Did historically significant and also continues to keep it readable.

Sarah Woolsey’s book is in part informed by the period and place in which she wrote it, by the New England Puritan ethic which cherished hard work, selflessness, and responsibility. Nevertheless, despite the currently unpopular reformatory message of the book, reflecting those values, which says in effect that Katy has to slough off her tomboy ways to be happy and fulfilled, What Katy Did is noteworthy and still readable as a fresh, unsentimental, and sometimes humorous, detailed study of a “real” family in small-town, mid-nineteenth century America.