Marietta Holley's literary creation, Samantha Smith Allen, was a philosopher
of sound country stock whose ideas on various issues are grounded in an
affection for common sense and faith in its applicability to problems.
Through her 19th century brand of horse sense American humor, she challenges
the status quo of social norms regarding women's issues and plants herself
squarely on the side of sensible women's rights. She "rastles" with
questions concerning history's treatment of women, rights denied by the
church, women's powerlessness before the law, the need for women's suffrage,
social status, role assumptions, and more.
Samantha appeared in more than twenty books written by Holley between 1873
and 1914, among them My Opinions and Betsey Bobbet's, Samantha
at the World's Fair, Samantha Among the Brethren, Samantha
at Saratoga, and Samantha on the Woman Question. Holley's
books were enormously popular when they were published; Samantha Allen
was said by one critic to have entertained as many people as had Mark Twain.
She received large advances from her publishers, her works were dramatized
by popular comedian Neil Burgess, and sales of at least one of her books
-- Samantha at Saratoga -- put her on the better-seller list for
the decade of 1880-1889.
Marietta Holley was born on the family farm in Jefferson County, New York,
in 1836. She ended her formal education at age fourteen and made
a modest living thereafter by teaching piano to local students. Always
scribbling verses on whatever paper she could find, Holley first introduced
Samantha in "Peterson's Magazine" in 1869, and subsequently never lacked
a publisher. Though she eventually became famous and financially
comfortable, Holley lived in or near her ancestral home until her death
in 1926.
For further reading on Holley and Samantha, see Samantha
Rastles the Woman Question,
edited with an introduction by Jane Curry, (University of Illinois
Press, 1983); Marietta Holley: Life with Josiah Allen's Wife, by
Kate Winter, (Syracuse University Press, 1984); and Marietta Holley
by Jane Curry, (Twayne Publishers United States Authors Series, 1996).
