Marion Hamilton Carter (April 9, 1865 – March 12, 1937) was an American Progressive Era educator, psychologist, children's literature editor, short story writer, and artist. In her prime, she worked as a muckraker journalist, magazine editor, women's suffrage advocate, and novelist. She was an early member of the Authors League of America (now the Authors Guild),"Carter, Marion Hamilton," Yearbook of The Authors' League of America, 1913: 26The Authors' League Bulletin, Vols. 3-4, 1915: 6 and published short fiction and nonfiction in popular magazines of the day. She is best known today for her suffrage novel, The Woman With Empty Hands: The Evolution of a Suffragette.
Early life
Marion Hamilton Carter was the eldest of three children born into a comfortable upper-middle-class family in Philadelphia at the end of the Civil War."Marion Carter," 1870 U.S. Census, Philadelphia Ward 22, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Ancestry.com"Marion H. Carter," 1900 U.S. Census, Manhattan, New York, New York. Ancestry.com. Her Dutch American father,Dr. "Charles Carter," 1850 U.S. Census, Sullivan, Madison, New York; "Bulah Carter Ogden," "Alida Groesbeck," North Carolina Death Certificate, July 6, 1925. Ancestry.com Dr. Charles Carter (1837-1898) of Binghamton, New York, graduated from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1861, and served as a Surgeon in the U.S. Navy 1861–1863, before marrying Mary Nelson Bunker (1841-1908) of Fairfield, Connecticut."Charles Carter," Directory of Deceased American Physicians, 1804-1929. Ancestry.com."Charles Carter," Assistant Surgeon, October 1, 1861, resigned February 6, 1863, Navy Officers 1798-1900, Naval History and Heritage Command. Ancestry.com."Dr. Charles Carter," Marriage Notice, New York Times, March 19, 1863: 5. Marion's grandfather Captain John Bunker (1796-1852) died at sea and left his Fairfield house (formerly the colonial Sun Tavern) to Marion's Irish-born grandmother, Fanny Hamilton McOrin (Bunker) (1816-1897)."Sun Tavern Through the Years," Fairfield Museum and History Center, Facebook, April 30, 2020."Mary Nelson Carter," Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Church and Town Records 1669-2013, Burial Certificate, January 9, 1908. Ancestry.com."Fanny Bunker," Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Death Certificates Index, 1803-1915, FHL film 1011826, October 18, 1897. Ancestry.com."Fanny H. Bunker," Will Papers, Pennsylvania Wills and Probate Records, 1683-1993, No 1635b-1663, 1897. Ancestry.com. In 1867 Marion's father purchased the home from his mother-in-law and the Carter family spent the next eighteen years summering in Connecticut. After selling the Fairfield house and sending their children to college, Marion's parents spent winters in their mountain-top cottage in Blowing Rock, North Carolina where Marion's mother organized benevolent societies, a Sunday school, and a public library."Mrs. Mary Nelson Carter," obituary notice in The Lenoir Topic (Lenoir, NC), February 11, 1908: 2; "Death of Mrs. M. N. Carter," The Raleigh News and Observer, January 12, 1908: 10. Newspapers.com. Buxton, Barry M. A Village Tapestry: The History of Blowing Rock. Appalachian Consortium Press, 1989: 113, 145. In addition to her community work, Mary Nelson Carter published a collection of seventeen first-person sketches of western North Carolina local life, written in rural dialect, and including stories of the Civil War and its aftermath in Appalachia.Carter, Mary Nelson. Sketches of North Carolina: Phases of Life Where the Galax Grows. Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co., 1900. Her book was well received throughout the United States.Reviews: "North Carolina Sketches," The Indianapolis News, December 10, 1900: 4; "North Carolina Sketches," Chicago Tribune, December 17, 1900: 7; "McClurg & Co,'s New Books," Detroit Free Press, October 27, 1900: 11; "North Carolina Mountain Sketches," Chattanooga Daily Times, August 12, 1900: 10; "Notes of Recent Books," The Baltimore Sun, December 25, 1900: 6; "North Carolina Mountain Sketches," The New York Times, August 11, 1900; "North Carolina Mountain Sketches," San Francisco Chronicle, December, 1900: 24; "North Carolina Mountain Sketches," The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 23, 1900: 37. Newspapers.com.
Education
Marion Carter and her younger sister Kathleen received a science-based education in Philadelphia that prepared them for acceptance into elite east-coast women's colleges. Kathleen attended Barnard College (BSc 1892) and the University of Pennsylvania (PhD in Psychology 1895)."Kathleen Carter," University of Pennsylvania Yearbook, 1894: 466. Ancestry.com.John Percy Moore biography, finding aid to John Percy Moore Papers, University of Pennsylvania. Marion attended and probably taught at Miss Van Kirk's Philadelphia Training School for Kindergartners c1883-1887 and served in 1886 as Secretary to the school's fundraising Society of Kindergarten Helpers."Kindergarten Teachers," Philadelphia Inquirer, June 2, 1885: 3. Newspaperarchive.com."Dolls For Poor Children," Philadelphia Times, October 24, 1886: 3. Newspaperarchive.com; "Publisher's Notes," Journal of Education, Vol. 18, No. 10 (Boston University, 1883): 174. She attended Vassar College 1887-1889 as a "Collegiate Special""Carter, Marion Hamilton," Vassar College Yearbook, 1889. Ancestry.com."Carter, Marion Hamilton," Annual Catalogue, Vassar College, 1881/82-1889-90: 11 (1887-88), 12 (1888-89). and went on to complete a four-year course in Biology at the Boston Institute of Technology in 1893 (now Massachusetts Institute of Technology), followed by a year there as a "Special.""Manhattan Training School," The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 19, 1899: 21. Newspapers.com."Carter, Marion Hamilton," Technique, Vol. 8, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1894: 211. In 1892 Carter applied to study psychology under philosopher and psychologist William James at Harvard University but she did not get in because the university did not accept women."Too Patient," The Woman's Column, Vol. 5, No. 29, July 16, 1892. Instead, she attended Radcliffe College for the first of two years of non-graduate study."Carter, Marion Hamilton," Non-Graduate Students, Radcliffe College Alumnae Register, 1879-1955: 92. Carter's application for a passport suggests that she might have travelled abroad in the fall of 1894."Marion Hamilton Carter," U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925, Roll 431, 3 October 1894. Ancestry.com. In 1895–1896, while officially registered at Radcliffe, Carter studied at Harvard University in the Education Seminary (then a sub-department of the Philosophy Department). Working under the direction of Paul Henry Hanus and William James, she patented seventy-five paper dolls for use in schools to stimulate creative writing abilities in children.Carter, Marion Hamilton. "Educational Paper Dolls." Journal of Pedagaogy, Vol.11 (1898): 134. In 1896-1897 she took her paper doll experiments into the Willimantic State Normal School. She received a BSc from Cornell University in 1898 and worked towards a PhD in philosophy at Cornell the following year."Marion Hamilton Carter," The Cornellian, 1898/99: 60.
Teaching career
By the time she was thirty-four, Carter had taught children for eleven years while simultaneously attending institutions of higher learning. In 1899, during her first year of teaching at the New York Teacher Training School (affiliated with Columbia University), she gave a lecture series at the school entitled "The Psychical Significance of Fear: Its Relation to Other Emotions and Its Influence on Development.""New York Training School," The Brooklyn Eagle, June 11, 1899: 21. Newspapers.com. By 1902 Carter was also serving as Superintendent of Nature Studies in the public schools of Greater New York and lived as a "Special Student" at Barnard College."Carter, Marion Carter," Courses of Instruction in the Sage School of Philosophy, Cornell University (1891, updated 1902): 7. She had applied in early 1902 for the position of Supervisor of Boston Schools but was unsuccessful."Candidates for Supervisor," Boston Post, February 18, 1902: 4. Carter's 1904 McClure's article, "The Parent," recounts her years of teaching by categorizing various types of problematic parents: indifferent, inconsiderate, meddlesome, fond, proud, troublesome, irate, ignorant, and enlightened. In each anecdote Carter's dislike of teaching shines through, and she ends the piece with the admission that "the Gordian knot of the parent problem was beyond untying. I have cut it."Carter, Marion Hamilton. "The Parent." McClure's Magazine, November 1904: 90,101. After she left teaching in 1904 to pursue a career as a writer and journalist, Carter wrote a letter to the editor of The New York Times about the New York Teacher Training School's unhealthy air quality and the numerous absences and deaths of students who had "quick consumption," as rapid onset tuberculosis was known then.Carter, Marion Hamilton. "Death-Dealing Ventilation: Foul Air Forced Through School Buildings by New Process," letter to the editor of The New York Times, January 23, 1906: 8. During her transition from teaching to journalism, Carter published seven books: a nature study teaching manual, with her own hand-drawn illustrations of common flowers, fruits, and vegetables, and six editions of children's animal stories previously published in St. Nicholas Magazine.
Influence of William James
During the early 1900s Carter corresponded with her former professor William James, founder of the American Society for Psychical Research. She saw herself as his "gentleman" colleague in a friendship marked by "sacred delicacies" such as not capitalizing on his fame.Skrupskelis, Ignas K. and Elizabeth M. Berkeley. The Correspondence of William James, 1905-1908, Vol. 11. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2003: 479. Before she had become disillusioned with kindergarten pedagogy, she had attempted to "convert" James to the kindergarten "Philosophy of Philosophies."Carter, Marion Hamilton. "The Confessions of a Sometime Kindergartner." Collier's: The National Weekly, 46, Part 1, September 24, 1910: 29. Carter had serious depression throughout her life, and she credited James' essay "Is Life Worth Living?" and his Varieties of Religious Experience for having saved her life during two particularly dark episodes.Skrupskelis, Ignas K. and Elizabeth M. Berkeley. The Correspondence of William James, 1902-1905, Vol. 10. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2002: 268-69. James' intellectual influence is apparent in Carter's later mature work.
Investigative journalism
Carter's journalism career coincided with the height of early twentieth-century muckraker journalism. She published in McClure's Magazine (1904-1910) and funneled other investigative work through magazines, newspapers, and letters to newspaper editors. Although Carter expressed progressive views with regards to education, science, psychology, and women's rights, some of her investigative journalism was contrarian or reactionary in nature.
Pedagogy