Jennnie Juneiana: Talks on Women’s Topics. By Jennie Juneiana.
Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1864. First edition. OCLC lists only three copies of the 1864 edition held worldwide (two in the UK and one in Canada). Minor shelfwear. Yellow coated endpapers, though front free endpaper is missing. Minor cracking to interior of front hinge. Bright boards and generally bright pages. A very good copy. Publisher’s green cloth. Title in gilt on spine. Top edges gilt. Octavo. 240 pp. Item #17931
Jane Cunningham Croly (1829 – 1901) was a journalist, editor, and feminist organizer who published under the pseudonym Jennie June. Croly founded multiple women’s clubs in her lifetime, including Sorosis, which was said to be “the most influential early women’s club in post-Civil War America,” and whose members included the likes of Maria Mitchell, Alice Cary, Phebe Hanford, and Louisa May Alcott. In 1890, Croly founded the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, allying 2,300 extant organizations under the motto “Unity in Diversity.” (See Croly in ANB.).
The present work compiles columns that Croly initially published in the New York World, a paper where she served as the director of the Women’s Department. The columns are here organized by topics, including perennial subjects like “courtship,” “matrimony” and “the household.” However, the book also contains a section devoted to each season, with more poetical musings about, say, “the first snow,” or “summer evenings.” Throughout Jennie Juneiana, Croly encourages women to pursue personal fulfillment within and beyond the domestic sphere.
Price: $600.00