Martha Haines Butt

Martha Haines Butt

Martha Haines Butt (November 22, 1833 – February 9, 1871) was an American proslavery author primarily known by her maiden name. She was a contributor to various periodicals and magazines, in both the North and South.^[1] At the age of 19, she published Antifanaticism: A Tale of the South, an 1853 plantation fiction novel.^[2] Though she had written anti-woman's rights editorials in the 1850s, by 1870, she supported women's suffrage.

Biography[]

Martha Haines Butt was born in Norfolk, Virginia, November 22, 1833.^[3] She was an only child.^[4] Her father, Francis Butt, was of English ancestry; her mother, Mary Ann Morriss Butt, a milliner, was of French ancestry.^[3]

During the period of 1847–50, Butt was educated at Patapsco Female Institute in Ellicott's Mills,^[3] near Baltimore, and received her diploma there. She was presented with a gold medal and the degree of A. M. (Artium Magister) by Harrisburg Female College.^[4]

Butt's first appearance in print was at the age of fourteen, although she had written for several years before that time.^[4] Her 1853 novel, Antifanaticism: A Tale of the South, was a proslavery response to Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery book, Uncle Tom's Cabin.^[5][6] Butt's volume of Leisure Moments was a collection of her short tales, essays, and sketches. Pastimes with Little Friends was published in 1866.^[1][4] Butt was an occasional contributor to the periodical press of the country, and a frequent writer to the Ladies' Home Journal.^[7]

On July 6, 1865, in Norfolk, she married Nathan Ives Bennett, of Bridgeport, Connecticut. They lived in Bridgeport before removing to New York City.^[4][3]

In 1870, Butt served as vice president of the Virginia State Woman Suffrage Association. She died of pneumonia at the Grand Central Hotel, New York City, February 9, 1871.^[3][7]

Legacy[]

Butt's arm and hand were copied as a model by the artist William Randolph Barbee, of Virginia, for the statue of the Fisher Girl.^[4]

Selected works[]

Antifanaticism (1853)

• Antifanaticism: A Tale of the South, 1853
• The Leisure Moments of Miss Martha Haines Butt, A.M., 1860
• Pastimes with My Little Friends, 1866

References[]

Attribution[]

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Davidson, James Wood (1869). The Living Writers of the South (Public domain ed.). Carleton. ISBN 9780608428185.
• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Tardy, Mary T. (1870). Southland Writers: Biographical and Critical Sketches of the Living Female Writers of the South. With Extracts from Their Writings (Public domain ed.). Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger.

Bibliography[]

• Larson, Kerry (20 November 2008). Imagining Equality in Nineteenth-Century American Literature. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-32121-2.
• Wallace-Sanders, Kimberly (2008). Mammy: A Century of Race, Gender, and Southern Memory. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-11614-0.