Alice French and Jane/Jennie Allen Crawford Collection

Alice French was born in Andover, Massachusetts, on March 17, 1850, to George and Frances Wood French. Alice was the oldest of several siblings: Morton, Nathaniel, George, and Frances, who was the only one of Alice’s s four sisters who survived infancy. Alice’s family was well-to-do, and lived among several literary neighbors, including Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom’s Cabin) and the family of Louisa May Alcott (Little Women, etc.).

In 1856, the French family, concerned with the epidemic of tuberculosis, accepted the invitation of Reverend Henry Washington Lee, the first Episcopalian Bishop of Iowa and the brother-in-law of Frances, to move to Davenport, Iowa. George began a lumber business, French & Davis, and was awarded the contract to help build Camp McClellan. By 1861, George had been elected mayor of Davenport, and would be reelected the following year. In 1866, the French family helped to establish Davenport’s first Unitarian Church.

Alice attended the local Davenport schools until the age of sixteen. She then enrolled in a new private girl’s school in Poughkeepsie, New York, which later became the prestigious Vassar College. However, Alice found the school’s curriculum and policies to be too restrictive, and after completing her first year, she transferred to the Abbott Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. She studied composition and English literature, and began writing stories, though she did not consider writing as more than a pleasant pastime until several years later.

After graduating, Alice returned to her family in Davenport. There, she resumed old friendships with Celestine Fejervary, daughter of Count Nicholas Fejervary, and other well-known Davenport citizens. She traveled to Europe with her family, meeting other persons of means and high social standing. While in England, she met and became good friends with Andrew Carnegie.

The first of Alice’s short stories was published in a local newspaper in 1871 under the pen name “Frances Essex.” Other stories followed, but it was not until 1878 that her first ‘notable’ story, titled “Communists and Capitalists” was published in Lippencott’s Magazine, under the name Octave Thanet. “Octave” was the male version of the name of her Abbott Academy roommate, Olivia Putnam, and ‘Thanet’ was a word Alice had once seen written on the side of a freight car.

In 1887, Alice’s first collection of short stories, Knitters in the Sun, was published and received rave reviews. The New York Sun stated that Octave Thanet had “no superior and very few peers.” Alice’s first novel, Expiation, set on a plantation after the Civil War, was published in 1890 to equally glowing press: the Boston Beacon stated that “Miss French has with the work taken her place among the very foremost of American writers of fiction.” The next year, she released her second story collection, Otto the Knight. Between 1896 and 1900, Alice had over fifty short stories and five books to her credit.

Alice wrote about social issues of her time, including labor and business practices, social responsibility, personal relationships, and religious issues. A product of her time and upbringing, she held decided views, most appearing to support the status quo. One of her most acclaimed works, Man of the Hour (1905), attacked the movement towards organized labor and vilified communism. Her most recognized anthology, Stories From a Western Town, was set in a fictionalized Davenport, and followed the Lossing family and those connected to them through several of her familiar themes. The collection extolled the societal benefits and personal rewards, including marital happiness, of strong, honest, compassionate business and political leadership. Stories From a Western Town was one of Theodore Roosevelt’s favorite books -- one of the few, it is reported, that he brought with him on African safari.

It is interesting to note that Alice French, despite excelling in an occupation that tended to favor men, and writing equally well from the Points of view of either gender, was not in favor of the women’s movement. Like Annie Wittenmyer, another influential Iowa woman, she believed that the ability to vote was irrelevant to the natural talents of women. She felt that learning to cook would be a far better and more practical use of a suffragette’s time. Alice herself was a superior cook, and preferred to give cooking lessons than writing advice to her young literary protégés. In this way, as some literary critics believe, Alice was following the Victorian ideal of womanhood, which counseled a separate but equal circle of influence. The women in her novels used their intelligence, good sense, patience, and other innate virtues for the benefits of their families. They could certainly be assertive and powerful, and exhibit other ‘manly’ traits when forced by circumstance, but resumed their own ‘natural’ habits and personalities once a man arrived on the scene.

Although Alice held the institution of marriage in high esteem in her stories, she never married, and was quoted as saying that she did not think marriage would suit her. Instead, she set up household with her childhood friend Jane (called Jennie) Crawford, who had been widowed after a brief marriage. Alice and Jane divided their time between the French family home in Davenport and a country plantation in Arkansas called Clover Bend. It was in Arkansas that Alice began to dabble in photography, setting up a lab for developing her own pictures.

Alice was a founding member of the Davenport Writers Club, the membership of which boasted local authors George Cram Cook, Susan Glaspell, Arthur Davison Ficke, Floyd Dell, and Harry Harrison. Her Davenport home was the site of many dinner parties and impromptu readings, as well as meetings of the literary society that she also helped establish. By 1914, she and several of her peers formed the Society of Midland Authors, of which Alice was the Iowa representative.

Alice did not limit her community involvement to the literary. She was active in club work, and served for several years as president of the Iowa Society of Colonial Dames. During World War I, she organized Red Cross relief efforts and participated in many patriotic organizations, using her popularity to urge Americans to join the war.

A few years later, the Great Depression caused Alice’s bank to fail, leaving her virtually penniless. But the most devastating blow came in 1932, when her companion and friend Jenny Crawford died. Her health already poor, she caught a respiratory infection in December of 1933. Falling into a coma for two days, Alice French passed away on January 9, 1934.

To learn more about Alice French life and works, please visit the Richardson-Sloane’s Special Collections Center’s Research Guide link here: https://libguides.davenportlibrary.com/French

Jane (Jennie) Allen Crawford was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts on November 12, 1851 to William Allen and Augusta Dorrance Seabury. She had several siblings, including Richard, Mary Larned, William Larned, Thomas, Louis Lee, and Ernest Dorrance. The Allen family came to Davenport around 1855-1856. Her father was active in the development of the city. He was a partner in the firm Mandeville and Allen, railroad contractors. Jane was educated in Boston, Massachusetts.

On June 19, 1872, Jane was married to Joseph/Josiah A. Crawford in Rockingham township by Bishop Henry W. Lee. Jane’s husband passed away between the years 1875 and 1883 (no obituary or death record has been found). Jane lived with her mother, Augusta, until the latter's 1899 death.

Alice and Jane became close friends and life-long companions. They spent their winters at the Allen Plantation at Clover Bend, Arkansas. The last three winters of her life they spent with the late Mrs. Nathaniel French at Tucson, Arizona.

Jane was a member of the Trinity Episcopal cathedral of Davenport. She was a member of the Colonial Dames of Davenport, on the board of managers of St. Luke’s Hospital for many years, and she was active in Red Cross work in Davenport.

Alice and Jane spilt their time between Clover Bend, Arkansas and Davenport, Iowa where they entertained family and friends. They decided to join households in Davenport and found a house at 1003 Perry Street. Later, in 1907, they moved to a home on East Tenth Street. Jane suffered from angina pectoris from 1921 until her death on October 17, 1932.

The information from this bibliographical and historical note was researched using periodical articles, genealogical materials, and a paper written about Alice French in the RSSC Center's collection.