Impertinences

Selected Writings of Elia Peattie, a Journalist in the Gilded Age

Elia Peattie, Susanne George Bloomfield

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN: 9780803237483
• eBook ISBN: 9780803205079
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Feminist Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Impertinences: Selected Writings of Elia Peattie is a collection of articles, editorials, and narratives by Elia Peattie written during her tenure at the Omaha World-Herald from 1888 to 1896, richly illustrated with photographs from the period. Elia (Wilkinson) Peattie (1862–1935) was born during the Civil War and came of age at the advent of the era of the New Woman. In many ways Peattie embodied this new age of independence for women, writing both fiction and journalism and becoming one of the first Plains women to write editorial columns in a major newspaper that addressed public issues. Not shy with her opinions about current events in the state of Nebraska in the late nineteenth century, Peattie tackled subjects such as the Wounded Knee Massacre, capital punishment and lynchings, prostitution, the Omaha stockyards, beet-field workers in Grand Island, schools and child rearing, the need for orphanages, shelters for unwed mothers, charity hospitals, and the New Woman. Editor Susanne George Bloomfield includes a biography of Peattie, who is described as "tall, dignified, and kindly, and possessing a wicked sense of humor." Peattie's work now stands as a rare and valuable history of Nebraska, showing us a lively frontier society through the eyes of a woman engaged in the life of her community and her own struggle to balance her family and career

Table of contents

• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• Elia Wilkinson Peattie Chronology
• Introduction
• 1. Early Omaha
• “A Word with the Women” – Defending Omaha
• “Seen with One’s Eyes Open: What Is to Be Seen from an Open Motor Car in Omaha”
• “How They Live at Sheely: Pen Picture of a Strange Settlement and Its Queer Set of Inhabitants”
• “A Sociological Soliloquy: Some Thoughts Suggested by the Proposed Exodus from the Bottoms”
• “Mrs. Peattie in Rebuttal: Just a Word or Two in Passing Concerning the Society Question”
• “Work of the Day Nursery: The Creche and What It Does for Women Who Must Work”
• “The Working Girls’ Home: A Description of the Place on Seventeenth Street, between Douglas and Dodge”
• “With Works of Charity: St. Joseph’s Hospital and the Good Sisters Who Do Its Work”
• “Omaha’s Black Population: The Negroes of This City – Who They Are and Where They Live”
• “Killing, Yet No Murder: A Day at the Stock Yards in South Omaha”
• 2. Fact and Fiction
• “No Need of Prostitution: Mrs. Peattie Refuses to Accept the Claim That the Wanton Is a Necessity”
• “Leda”
• “Lovely Woman and Indians”
• “The Triumph of Starved Crow”
• “A Word with the Women” – Francis Schlatter, Faith Healer
• “A Word with the Women” – For the Sake of Love
• “The Law and the Lynchers”
• 3. Community Concerns
• “Stand Up, Ye Social Lions: Mrs. Peattie Arraigns the Sickly Forms That Sin from Nature’s Rule”
• “What Women Are Doing” – The Art of Shopping
• “All Fuss and Feathers: Wedding Ceremonies Which Are Almost Grotesque Because of Their Flummery”
• “The Mockery of Mourning: Thoughts upon Outward Signs of Inward Grief Prescribed by Convention”
• “Want to See a Knock-Out: Americans Seem to Feel That Way in Spite of Their Civilization”
• “The Work of the Worker: Qualities in Evangelist Mills That Give Him Success in Soul Winning”
• “A Salvation Army Funeral”
• “Brains in the School Room: Some Pertinent Remarks Regarding the Needs of the Public Schools”
• 4. A Word with the Women
• “Ties Which Do Not Bind: The Matrimonial Knot and the Ease with Which It Is Broken”
• “How Not to Treat Babies”
• “Where Are the Children? A Lay Sermon Suggested by Chief Seavey to Colonel Hogeland”
• “The Women on the Farms: A Chapter of Advice for Them Which City Women Need Not Read”
• “Barriers against Women: They Are Mostly Erected by the Women Themselves through Blind Superstition”
• “What Women Are Doing” – Protection for Working Women
• “The Woman’s Club: It Will Be Distinctively Feminine and Run to Please Women”
• “A Word with the Women” – Stromsburg’s Woman’s Club
• “No Distinction as to Color: Chicago Woman’s Club Abolishes the Prohibitory Rule at Its Last Meeting”
• 5. People and Places
• “A Bohemian in Nebraska: A Peep at a Home Which Is a Slice Out of Bohemia”
• “A Word with the Women” – Willa Cather
• “Some Pigs and a Woman: Mrs. A. M. Edwards and Her Herd of Poland China Porkers”
• “The Lady of the Cloister”
• “A Woman Doctor”
• “A Singular Institution: The Christian Home of Council Bluffs and Its Founder”
• “Grand Island and Its Beets: The County Seat of Hall and What Beet Cultivation Has Done”
• “The State Fish Hatchery: Where the Rivers of Nebraska Get Their Stock of Gamey Fish”
• “A Word with the Women” – The Hunting Mania
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Works Cited
• A Bibliography of the Works of Elia Wilkinson Peattie
• Index