Martha Haines Butt

American novelist

Nathan Ives Bennett

(m. 1865)

Martha Haines Butt (after marriage, Bennett; November 22, 1833 – February 9, 1871) was an American proslavery author primarily known by her maiden name. She was a contributor to various periodicals and magazines, in both the North and South.^[1] At the age of 19, she published Antifanaticism: A Tale of the South, an 1853 plantation fiction novel.^[2] Though she had written anti-woman's rights editorials in the 1850s, by 1870, she supported women's suffrage.

Biography

Martha Haines Butt was born in Norfolk, Virginia, November 22, 1833.^[3] She was an only child.^[4] Her father, Francis Butt, was of English ancestry; her mother, Mary Ann Morriss Butt, a milliner, was of French ancestry.^[3]

During the period of 1847–50, Butt was educated at Patapsco Female Institute in Ellicott's Mills,^[3] near Baltimore, and received her diploma there. She was presented with a gold medal and the degree of A. M. (Artium Magister) by Harrisburg Female College.^[4]

Butt's first appearance in print was at the age of fourteen, although she had written for several years before that time.^[4] Her 1853 novel, Antifanaticism: A Tale of the South, was a proslavery response to Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery book, Uncle Tom's Cabin.^[5]^[6] Butt's volume of Leisure Moments was a collection of her short stories, essays, and sketches. Pastimes with Little Friends was published in 1866.^[1]^[4] Butt was an occasional contributor to the periodical press of the country, and a frequent writer to the Ladies' Home Journal.^[7]

On July 6, 1865, in Norfolk, she married Nathan Ives Bennett, of Bridgeport, Connecticut. They lived in Bridgeport before removing to New York City.^[4]^[3] After marriage, she continued to be primarily known by her maiden name.

In 1870, Butt served as vice president of the Virginia State Woman Suffrage Association.^[3]

Death and legacy

Martha Haines Butt died of pneumonia at the Grand Central Hotel, New York City, February 9, 1871.^[3]^[7]

Butt's arm and hand were copied as a model by the artist William Randolph Barbee, of Virginia, for the statue of the Fisher Girl.^[4]

Selected works

Antifanaticism: A Tale of the South, 1853
The Leisure Moments of Miss Martha Haines Butt, A.M., 1860
Pastimes with My Little Friends, 1866

References

^ ^a ^b Davidson 1869, pp. 42.
^ Larson 2008, p. 75.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f "Butt, Martha Haines (1833–1871)". www.encyclopediavirginia.org. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Tardy 1870, p. 806.
^ Wallace-Sanders 2008, p. 24.
^ "Collective Biographies of Women". cbw.iath.virginia.edu. The Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, University of Virginia. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
^ ^a ^b "Personal". The Buffalo Commercial. 11 February 1871. p. 2. Retrieved 11 January 2021 – via Newspapers.com.

Attribution

This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Davidson, James Wood (1869). The Living Writers of the South (Public domain ed.). Carleton. ISBN 9780608428185.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Tardy, Mary T. (1870). Southland Writers: Biographical and Critical Sketches of the Living Female Writers of the South. With Extracts from Their Writings (Public domain ed.). Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger.

Bibliography

Larson, Kerry (20 November 2008). Imagining Equality in Nineteenth-Century American Literature. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-32121-2.
Wallace-Sanders, Kimberly (2008). Mammy: A Century of Race, Gender, and Southern Memory. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-11614-0.