_By John Cunningham, D.D._
The most interesting and potent fact within the range of human
knowledge is personality, and in the person of Jane Cunningham Croly
(Jenny June) a potency was apparent which has affected the social life
of more women, perhaps, than any other single controlling factor of
the same period.
Jane Cunningham was born in Market Harborough, Leicestershire,
England, December 19, 1829. She was the fourth child of Joseph H. and
Jane Cunningham, and though small in stature and delicate in organism,
was full of vivacity, and abounding in natural intelligence. Her rich
brown hair, blue eyes and clear complexion proclaimed her of
Anglo-Saxon origin. She was the idol of her parents and the admiration
of her school teachers. Her comradeship with her father began early in
life and was continued to the time of his death. The family came to
the United States in 1841, making their home at first in Poughkeepsie,
and afterwards in or near Wappinger's Falls, where the father bought a
large building-lot and erected a neat and commodious house, which
remained in the possession of the family until sold by Mrs.
Cunningham after the death of her husband. The lot was soon converted
into a garden by its owner who tilled it with the spade and allowed no
plough to be used in his little Eden. It was characteristic of his
generous spirit, too, that none of the surplus product was ever sold,
but was freely given to less favored neighbors. Happy years were spent
by Mr. Cunningham in his shop, in his garden, with his books, and in
visiting his daughter Jennie in New York after her marriage when she
became established there. It was as nearly an ideal life as a modest
man could desire. He lived respected by the best people in the
community, and died in peace, with his children around him.
As I remember my sister in early life, the sunniness of her nature
is the first and prevailing characteristic that I call to mind;
occasional moods of reverie bordering on melancholy only made brighter
the habitual radiance and buoyancy of a nature that diffused happiness
all around her. She was a perfectly healthy girl in mind and body. A
sound mind in a sound body was her noble heritage. She was always
extremely temperate in food and drink, fastidious in all her tastes
and personal habits, indulgent never beyond the dictates of perfect
simplicity and sobriety. Proficient in all branches of housekeeping,
her apparel was mostly of her own making. Good literature was a
passion with her, and while never an omnivorous reader, she had a
natural instinct for the best in language. A spirit of indomitable
independence, courage and persistence in purpose characterized her
from childhood. She must think her own thoughts, and mark out and
follow her own path. Suffering from a degree of physical timidity that
at times caused her much pain, she possessed a spirit that sometimes
seemed to border on audacity in the assertion and maintenance of her
own convictions. From childhood she developed a personality which
charmed all with whom she came in contact. Persons of both sexes,
young and old, the sober and the gay, alike fell under the influence
of her magnetic power. Living for a time in the family of her brother,
to whom she proffered her services as housekeeper when he was pastor
of a Union church in Worcester County, Mass., she drew to her all
sorts of people by the brightness and charm of her personality.
Self-forgetful and genuine, interested in all about her, she lived
only to serve others, valuing lightly all that she did. Here it was
that her remarkable capacity for journalism first developed itself.
One of the means by which she interested the community was the public
reading of a semi-monthly paper, every line of which was written by
herself and a fellow worker. The reading of that paper every
fortnight, to an audience that crowded the church, was an event in her
history.
Jennie was no dreamer. She was no speculative theorist spinning
impossible things out of the cobwebs of her brain. She was no Hypatia
striving to restore the gods of the past, revelling in a brilliant
cloudland of symbolisms and affinities. If she was caught in the mist
at any time, she soon came out of it and found her footing in the
practical realities of daily life. Never over-reverential, she never
called in question the deeper realities of soul-life. She was no
ascetic: she would have made a poor nun. But she was a born preacher
if by preaching is meant the annunciation of a gospel to those who
need it. Jennie was always an ardent devotee of her sex, and whatever
else she believed in, she certainly believed in women, their instincts
and capacities.
In the year 1856, on February 14th, St. Valentine's Day, my sister
Jennie was married to David G. Croly, a reporter for the New York
_Herald,_ and they began life in the city on his meagre salary of
fourteen dollars a week. The gifted young wife, however, soon found
work for herself on the _World_, the _Tribune_, the _Times_, _Noah's
Sunday Times_ and the _Messenger_. The first money she received for
writing was in return for an article published in the New York
_Tribune_. Their joint career in metropolitan journalism was
interrupted however by a short term of residence in Rockford,
Illinois, where Mr. Croly was invited to become editor of the Rockford
_Register_, then owned by William Gore King, the husband of our
sister Mary A. Cunningham. Mr. Croly was aided in the editorial
management by his wife, and while the work was agreeable and
successful, it was due to Mrs. Croly's ardent desire for a larger
field, that at the end of a year they decided to return to New York.
The results for both abundantly justified the change. As managing
editor of the daily _World_ for a number of years, afterwards of the
New York _Graphic_, and later of the _Real Estate Record and Guide_,
Mr. Croly won an honorable position in New York journalism. He was a
conservative democrat of the strictest sort, a radical in religion,
and had but little appreciation of the deeper forces at work in
society and in national life. But he was able and honest, and enjoyed
the respect of his fellow-craftsmen.
"Jenny June" was a person of very different mental and moral mould.
Her work soon revealed a new, fresh, vigorous force in journalism. An
examination of her editorial contributions to the _Sunday Times_ from
March to December, 1861, suggests her mental vivacity, vigor, breadth
of view, and uniform clearness and power of expression. The title
of the whole series is unpretentious enough: "Parlor and Sidewalk
Gossip." All through her journalistic career similar qualities of
originality characterized her pen. She was editor of _Demorest's_
magazine for twenty-seven years, and was both editor and owner of
_Godey's_ magazine and _The Home-Maker_. _The Cycle_ was her own
creation and property. In each of these publications the dominating
thoughts are those which make for social elevation, the honor of
womanhood and home comfort and happiness. In addition to this
editorial work she was a regular contributor to several leading
newspapers in Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, Baltimore and other
cities. She inaugurated the system of syndicate correspondence, and
was the author of several books--"For Better, For Worse"; "Talks on
Women's Topics"; "Thrown on Her Own Resources"; three manuals; and
"The History of the Woman's Club Movement," a large volume of nearly
twelve hundred pages.
During the most active years of my sister's literary life, she had
also the care of a large household, and her home was always bright and
hospitable. The Croly Sunday evening receptions were one of the social
features of New York City.
Five children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Croly. Minnie, the eldest, was
happily married to Lieutenant Roper of the U. S. Navy; her early death
was a grief hard to bear. The second child, a boy, died in infancy.
The surviving children are: Herbert G. Croly, a man of letters in New
York City; Vida Croly Sidney, the wife of the English playwright,
Frederick Sidney, lives in London; and Alice Gary Mathot, the wife of
a New York lawyer, William F. Mathot, resides in Brooklyn Hills, Long
Island.
Mrs. Croly, one of the founders of Sorosis, perhaps the most noted
woman's club in existence, was its President for many years, and its
Honorary President at the time of her death. The cause which led to
the founding of Sorosis is an open secret. Women were ignored at the
Charles Dickens reception; this was not to be tolerated, and in
consequence of this affront Sorosis came into being, an effectual
protest against any similar indifference in all time to come. Of the
growth of the club movement in the United States, in Great Britain,
France, Russia, and in far-off India, I do not propose to enter into
detail. Suffice it to say that it is one of the marvels of the modern
social and intellectual life of women.
What was the secret of Jenny June's charm and power? Not
scholarship--let this be said in all sincerity. How greatly she
appreciated the scholar's advantages was well known to her intimate
friends. But these advantages did not belong to her. Nor did it
consist in inherited social rank or wealth; her earnings by her pen
were large, but her patrimony was small. It should have been said
before, that she received the degree of Doctor of Literature from
Rutgers Women's College, and was appointed to a new chair of
Journalism and Literature in that institution. She was also a
lecturer in other women's schools of the first rank.
Nor did Jenny June pattern her work according to the advice or after
the example of any one man or woman. There was no example by which she
could be guided. Woman was a new factor in journalism, and Jenny June
was a new woman, a new creation, if I may so speak, fashioned after
the type of woman in the beginning, when God created man and woman in
His own image. I cannot too fully emphasize the fact that she was a
new and original personality in journalism. No one understood this
better than her husband. In matters of detail his counsel was of value
to her, but the spirit and character of her work were her own; and
happily for her and for womankind she could never be diverted from her
chosen path. This, indeed, was one chief secret of her success. She
was unalterably true to her divine womanly ideals of woman's nature,
place in society and redemptive work. I say redemptive work, for it
was one of her deepest convictions that woman's function, was to be
the saving salt of all life. Sorosis was founded upon this idea;--not
a literary club merely or mainly; not a political, social or religious
club; but one founded on womanhood, on the divine nature of women of
every class and degree.
Jenny June's recognition of this vital truth brought her into sympathy
with a world-wide movement. The new woman is no monstrosity, no
sporadic creature born of intellectual fermentation and unrest, but
the rise and development of a better, nobler type of womanhood the
world over. Jenny June's eminent distinction was that she was a leader
in this movement. It made her what her husband once said in my
hearing: "a wonderful woman." Of course there was the capacity for
bursts of feeling on occasion, which those who knew her best seldom
cared to provoke. "I am not an amiable woman," she once said to the
writer. Radiant as she was, there was a volcanic force in her nature
which could be terrific against folly, frivolity and wrong.
Thousands of gifted women are now making themselves heard in poetry,
dissertation, fiction and journalism because Jenny June opened the
path for them. Womanhood was her watchword, and God, duty, faith and
hope the springs of her life. It may surprise even those who knew her
well to learn that her physical timidity was great, and at times
painful. But her moral and intellectual courage impelled her at times
almost to the verge of audacity, and was held under restraint only by
conscience and good sense. Humor and wit can hardly be said to have
been marked traits in her mentality. There was something delphic and
oracular often in her familiar conversation. Sentimentalism had no
place in her nature, her reading or literary work. A soul full of
healthy and noble sentiment left no room for sentimentalism.
Was Jenny June a genius? Well, if a boundless capacity for good
original work is genius, then she was a genius. Magnanimity was a
marked trait in her character. Envy or jealousy of the gifts of
another were foreign to her. Love of nature, and especially of fine
trees, was one of her most noticeable characteristics. "There will be
trees in my heaven," she once said to the writer. But works of art, of
the chisel, the brush, the pencil and the loom were her delight. She
loved the city, its crowding humanity, its stores and its galleries.
She loved London even more than New York. Continental travel was her
chief pleasure and diversion. A long period of physical suffering,
caused by an accident, cast a cloud over the last years of my sister's
honorable life. She sought relief from pain and weakness, at Ambleside
in Derbyshire, England, and at a celebrated cure in Switzerland, but
was only partially successful. The final release came on December 23,
1901, and her remains were laid by the side of her husband in the
cemetery at Lakewood, New Jersey.
Noble Jenny June! Shall we ever see her like again!