Georgia Willis Read

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Georgia Willis Read
A white woman, with dark hair in a bouffant updo, wearing a striped top with a white collar, and glasses
Georgia Willis Read, from her 1918 passport application
BornFebruary 3, 1881
New Brighton, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedNovember 3, 1965 (age 84)
Lebanon, New Hampshire, U.S.
Occupation(s)Editor, historian, writer, weaver
RelativesElizabeth Fisher Read (sister)

Georgia Willis Read (February 3, 1881 – November 3, 1965)[1] was an American editor, historian, writer, and weaver. She worked as an editor at Columbia University Press, and wrote and edited works on the American West.

Early life and education[edit]

Read was born in New Brighton, Pennsylvania, the daughter of George Willis Read (who died in 1880, before she was born) and Henrietta A. Miner Read. Her father was a physician. She attended Smith College,[2] following her older sister Elizabeth Fisher Read.[3]

Career[edit]

Read served in the Smith College Relief Unit in France during World War I.[4][5] She worked at Columbia University Press, and wrote and edited books with her partner and fellow Smith alumna, Ruth Louise Gaines.[2] In addition to their shared projects, she published Gaines's book, City Royal: A Memory of Kyoto (1953), after Gaines's death in 1952. Read and Gaines became weavers in their later years. They grew flax for linen and bred Angora rabbits for wool, to use in their spinning, dyeing, and weaving according to traditional methods.[2][6]

Personal life[edit]

Read and Ruth Gaines lived together on a 100-acre farm in Meriden, New Hampshire.[7] They bought a house together in Frederick, Maryland, in 1948.[2] Gaines died in 1952,[8] and Read returned to Meriden the next year.[9] She died in 1965, at the age of 84. They share a gravestone in New Hampshire. There is a large collection of their papers in the Huntington Library.[10]

Publications[edit]

  • Médoc in the Moor (1914, novel)[11]
  • "Apiculture in the Time of Virgil" (1914)[12]
  • The Village Shield: A Story of Mexico (1917, with Ruth Gaines; a novel for young readers)[13][14]
  • A pioneer of 1850: George Willis Read, 1819-1880: the record of a journey overland from Independence, Missouri to Hangtown, California (1927)[15]
  • "The Chagres River Route to California in 1851" (1929)[16]
  • "Diseases, Drugs, and Doctors on the California-Oregon Trail in the Gold Rush Years" (1944)
  • "Women and Children on the California-Oregon Trail in the Gold Rush Years" (1944)[17]
  • Gold Rush: The journals, drawings, and other papers of J. Goldsborough Bruff (1944, co-edited with Ruth Gaines)[18][19]
  • "Bruff's Route in Eastern California" (1960)[20]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Birth and death dates as given on her gravestone in New Hampshire, via Find-a-Grave; the dates match other documents, including her New Hampshire death certificate, via Ancestry.
  2. ^ a b c d Crawford, Mary (July 22, 1951). "Frederick's Real Yarn Spinners". The Baltimore Sun. p. 57. Retrieved March 7, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ "Meriden (news item)". Vermont Journal. December 23, 1943. p. 10. Retrieved March 7, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ "Smith College Relief Unit records, 1917-1997". WorldCat. Retrieved March 7, 2024.
  5. ^ "Happenings in Brief Throughout Vermont". Rutland News. May 29, 1919. p. 2. Retrieved March 7, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ Hosford, Bowen (March 16, 1952). "Reviving a Lost Art". Evening star. pp. 191, 192. Retrieved March 7, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ "Miss Ruth Gaines New Librarian at Ludlow". Vermont Journal. October 15, 1942. p. 1. Retrieved March 7, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ "Gaines Collection Given to UNM". Albuquerque Journal. August 29, 1952. p. 9. Retrieved March 7, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ "Plainfield (news item)". Vermont Journal. May 7, 1953. p. 5. Retrieved March 7, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ "Georgia Willis Read Papers: Finding Aid". Online Archive of California. Retrieved March 6, 2024.
  11. ^ "New Books and Periodicals". Word and Way. October 22, 1914. p. 15. Retrieved March 7, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ Read, Georgia Willis. "Apiculture in the Time of Virgil" Popular Science Monthly 85(1914): 167-179.
  13. ^ "Review of The Village Shield: A Story of Mexico". The Journal of Education. 85 (23 (2133)): 638. 1917. doi:10.1177/002205741708502325. ISSN 0022-0574. JSTOR 42752980. S2CID 220777469.
  14. ^ "With Authors and Publishers". The New York Times. May 13, 1917. p. 80. Retrieved March 7, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ^ Parish, John C. (1928). "Review of A Pioneer of 1850: George Willis Read, 1819-1880". The Mississippi Valley Historical Review. 14 (4): 550–551. doi:10.2307/1897166. ISSN 0161-391X. JSTOR 1897166.
  16. ^ Read, Georgia Willis (1929). "The Chagres River Route to California in 1851". California Historical Society Quarterly. 8 (1): 3–16. doi:10.2307/25177981. ISSN 0008-1175. JSTOR 25177981.
  17. ^ Read, Georgia Willis. "Women and Children on the California-Oregon Trail in the Gold Rush Years" Missouri Historical Review 39(1)(October 1944): 1-23.
  18. ^ "Gold Rush: The Journals, Drawings, and Other Papers of J. Goldsborough Bruff, Captain, Washington City and California Mining Association, April 2, 1849–July 20, 1851". The American Historical Review. October 1944. doi:10.1086/ahr/50.1.148. ISSN 1937-5239.
  19. ^ Bruff, Joseph Goldsborough (1944). Gold Rush: The Journals, Drawings, and Other Papers. Columbia University Press.
  20. ^ Read, Georgia Willis (1960). "Bruff's Route in Eastern California". California Historical Society Quarterly. 39 (3): 263–266. doi:10.2307/25155339. ISSN 0008-1175. JSTOR 25155339.
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