Links to Oakes Smith related sources on the Web

• The Sinless Child and Other Poems 1843 see also this link
  The FULL TEXT of The Sinless Child and Other Poems(1843), ed. John Keese, produced as part of the "Making of America" collection, University of Michigan
• The Poetical Writings of Elizabeth Oakes Smith
  Oakes Smith's second collection of poems is available here (scanned) in its entirety. While "The Sinless Child"'s earlier edition is available with some of these poems in the above links, and a handful of other Oakes-Smith poems are available on several sites here and there on the internet, this "Open Library" edition provides the most complete collection of Oakes-Smith poems available to scholars.
• "The Sinless Child" (1842)
  This link, from Stephen Railton's page, Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture at the University of Virginia acknowledges "Eva" from Oakes Smith's "The Sinless Child" as a model for Stowe's Eva in Uncle Tom's Cabin. Either Railton or Chadwick Healey's transcription (the source of Railton's link) misdates the poem, which was originally printed in The Southern Literary Messenger in 1842.
• Loren Christie's Site
  Loren Christie's independent work on Elizabeth Oakes Smith is worth reading through. Short essays are here on "The Drowned Mariner," The Sinless Child collection, Woman and Her Needs, two of the novels, and Shadowland, or The Seer.
• Christine Ladd-Franklin by Samantha Ragsdale
  This biography of Christine Ladd Franklin (1847-1930) indicates Oakes Smith's influence on the next generation of feminist thinkers:
  Even as a toddler, Christine was attending women's rights lectures with her mother, such as one given by Elizabeth Oakes Smith. In a letter to her sister, Riar, Augusta once wrote of Elizabeth Oakes Smith's lecture, saying "women belonged not only in the pulpit, a place for which they were peculiarly suited, but also every place where a man should be
• Elizabeth Oakes Smith's Account of Climbing Mr. Katahdin, 1849
  There are sources documenting this adventure in other internet newspaper sources (Littel's Living Age among others reported the feat), but here we have the original four-part document Oakes Smith wrote for the Portland Daily Advertiser from September 12, 15, 26 and October 8, 1849. Wow.

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  Biography and Criticism

  • Jaroff, Rebecca. "'I Almost Danced Over My Freedom': Elizabeth Oakes Smith's Liberation from the Marketplace," in Popular Nineteenth-Century Women Writers and the Marketplace. Ed. Earl Yarrington. Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007.

  • Richards, Eliza. "Elizabeth Oakes Smith's Unspeakable Eloquence" in Gender and the Poetics of Reception in Poe's Circle (Cambridge UP, 2004)
  • Margrave, Veronica.  "Elizabeth Oakes Smith (1806-1893) in Knight, Denise D. (ed. and preface) Writers of the American Renaissance: An A-to-Z Guide. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2003.

  • Rose, Jane E.. "Expanding Woman's Sphere, Dismantling Class, and Building Community: The Feminism of Elizabeth Oakes Smith." CLA Journal. 45 (2): 207-30. 2001 Dec.

  • Woidat, Caroline. "Puritan Daughters and 'Wild' Indians: Elizabeth Oakes Smith's Narratives of Domestic Captivity." Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers 18.1 (Spring 2001): 21-34.

  • Belasco-Smith, Susan. "Elizabeth Oakes Smith" Dictionary of Literary Biography 235: American Literary Renaissance in New England, 4th Series. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 2000.

  • Kete, Mary Louise. "Gender Valences of Transcendentalism: The Pursuit of Idealism in Elizabeth Oakes-Smith's 'The Sinless Child.'" Separate Spheres No More. Ed, Monika Elbert. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama Press, 2000.

  • Scherman, Timothy H.. "Elizabeth Oakes Smith." Dictionary of Literary Biography 239: American Women Prose Writers, 1820-1870. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 2000. 222-30.

  • Prins, Yopie. Victorian Sappho. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1999. (chapter on American poets has a substantial section on EOS)

  • Prins, Yopie and Virginia Jackson. "Lyrical Studies." Victorian Literature and Culture 27.2 (1999):521-30.
  • Kirkland, Leigh.  "Elizabeth Oakes Smith, 1806-1893,"  in Knight, Denise D. (ed. and preface); Nelson, Emmanuel S. (ed.) Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Westport, CT: Greenwood; 1997. 324-30.
  • Kirkland, Leigh.  "A Human Life: Being the Autobiography of Elizabeth Oakes Smith" (a critical edition).  Diss.  Georgia State University, 1994.

  • Nickels, Cameron and Timothy H. Scherman. "Elizabeth Oakes Smith: The Puritan as Feminist." de conscience: aspects du feminisme americain (1848-1875). Eds. Susan Goodman and Daniel Royot. Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1994). (available full text under the collection title at Google Books)

  • Walker, Cheryl, ed. American Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century: An Anthology. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1992.

  • ----. The Nightingale's Burden: Women Poets and American Culture Before 1900. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1982.

  • Wiltenburg, Joy. "Excerpts from the Diary of Elizabeth Oakes Smith." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (1984) 9/3: 534-48.
  • Geissler, Kathleen M..  "Literacy and Literary Ambition," in "Needles and Pens: The Social Meaning of Women's Literacy in Nineteenth-Century America," Diss.  1987.

  • Richards, Wynola L..  "A Review of the Life and Writings of Elizabeth Oakes Smith" Diss.  Ball State University, 1981.

  last updated 12/3/09

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