KROUT, MARY HANNAH: 1851-1927.
Indiana was the home of two of America's leading feminists–Frances Wright, for the brief period of page: 185[View Page 185] Robert Owen's New Harmony Community experiment in the 1820's, and Mary Hannah Krout , during her childhood, girlhood and declining years. Frances Wright was beautiful, erratic and ineffectual; Mary Hannah Krout was plain, blunt and, by her years of writing and speaking in its favor, a great contributor toward the success of the movement which won equal rights for women.
To understand the forces which shaped the career of Mary Hannah Krout it is necessary to know of her parentage, particularly of her father (his life and his character are outlined in the biography of his second, but alphabetically first, daughter, Caroline Virginia Krout). Into the peculiar home life there described Mary Hannah, eldest daughter, was born on Nov. 3, 1851.
Mary Hannah Krout was sent to a subscription school in Crawfordsville. She continued at a public school after the efforts of Prof. Caleb Mills, a neighbor of the Krouts across the Wabash College campus, had made such a radical departure possible in Indiana , and her progress was rapid.
It was so rapid, indeed, that she had a poem published in a newspaper–and reprinted in others, at that –before her twelfth birthday; and in her fifteenth year she contributed another, "Little Brown Hands," which was not only bought and paid for by a juvenile periodical but which also swept the country and was to be incorporated into most grade school readers during the next half century. It created an immediate demand for her work (an order of things not at all common among budding poets).
So great was the impression made by "Little Brown Hands" that the young author was invited, the next year, to address an audience at Lafayette, Ind., twenty-six miles north. She appeared and spoke well, her subject being a very daring appeal for the vote for women. Her welcome was so enthusiastic that she decided to stay a while, but her mind was changed by her father who, as soon as the time of her expected return had passed with no Mary Hannah in evidence, went to Lafayette and, to the great chagrin of the young advocate of the emancipation of women, brought her back to Crawfordsville.
Next year she taught at Bunker Hill School and after that year's experience, began to teach in Crawfordsville, where she continued for eleven years.
Meanwhile she wrote for various newspapers, and about 1879, deciding that she could make a living in that field, she applied for, and got, a job on the CRAWFORDSVlLLE JOURNAL, padding her income by contributions to Indianapolis and Cincinnati papers. Besides regular reporting she conducted what would now be a gossip column, under the name of "Heinreich Karl," and her reports of Crawfordsville affairs to Indianapolis papers were lively–and frequently libelous. So much did she add to the JOURNAL that in 1881 she was made associate editor and, in the following year, was hired by the TERRE HAUTE EXPRESS as editor. This was a radical departure for the day, but Mary Hannah Krout was apparently waging her campaign for emancipating women by first emancipating herself.
She says, however: "During this time I worked almost incessantly from 9 A.M. to I I P.M. and, as you may suppose, my health gave way." Susan Elston Wallace, her sponsor for several years before, came to her rescue: Mrs. Wallace sent some money–enough to make work unnecessary for a while–with instructions to the effect that her protegee was to rest, and to pay back the loan as convenient.
Writing continued, but there was no steady employment for some time. Then, says Miss Krout: "In 1888 I came to Chicago . I was willing to do anything in the line of newspaper work only to gain a foothold. I was confident of my ability to work my way up to the tiptop of my desires. Finally I obtained a position as society reporter on the CHICAGO INTER-OCEAN."
She spent ten years on the staff—until the paper was sold to the CHICAGO TRIBUNE–and in its service she made her reputation.
The INTER-OCEAN sent her to Hawa11 to report the installation of the provisional government, and the trip resulted in her first book, Hawa11 and a Revolution, and eventually in two biographies of prominent women of Hawa11.
From then on Mary Hannah Krout specialized in the world-shaking events of her day; Nelly Bly, her contemporary but in no way her equal, had adventures not comparable to hers. She called upon the Boxers in China , alone except for a single missionary; she covered Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee; and she visited any out-of-the-way spot to which her current employer could be persuaded to send her. There was never the appearance of the daring woman traveler: Miss Krout favored alpaca jackets with braid, boned collars on her shirt-waists and plenty of petticoats.
Always, when the opportunity offered, she lectured on women's suffrage–in the States, in England , in New Zealand New Zealand, in China , in Hawa11. Far from a beautiful woman, she was still a handsome one and she had suitors enough–one distinguished colonel spent twenty-five years in hopeless courtship–but she never quite had page: 186[View Page 186] time for marriage. There were too many other things to be done first.
In 1906, after a trip to Australia, she tired of travel and retired to the family home in Crawfordsville, kept meanwhile by three of her unmarried sisters and her bachelor brother, and devoted the remainder of her life to writing and study. She completed General Lew Wallace's dutobioyraphy–with the assistance of his widow and her friend, Susan Elston Wallace–and it is possibly true that the work of these two ladies (both facile with the pen) helped to make this the most readable of Wallace's books. Miss Krout also wrote some of the best of her essays during this period. Gradually, however, she withdrew from public contact (as one of her sisters had done upon finishing high school and as her sister Caroline did as soon as her writing brought in a little income) and her literary production ceased after 1910. After an extended illness she died on May 31, 1927.
Information from the scrap books and ms. of Mary Hannah Krout and from her youngest sister, Miss Roberta Krout.
- Hawa11 and a Revolution. New
York, 1898.
- A Looker-On in London. New York,
1899.
- Alice's Visit to the Hawallan Islands.
New York, 1900.
- Two Girls in China. New York,
1903.
- Memoirs of General Lew Wallace. (Completed byMary Hannah Krout and Susan Elston Wallace.) 1906.
- Memoirs of Hon. Bernice Pauahi Bishop. New
York, 1908.
- Reminiscences of Mrs. Mary S. Rice. Honolulu, 1908.
- Platters and Pipkins. Chicago,
1910.
