Georgia Willis Read
{{short description|American historian}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Georgia Willis Read
| image = GeorgiaWillisRead1918.png
| alt = A white woman, with dark hair in a bouffant updo, wearing a striped top with a white collar, and glasses
| caption = Georgia Willis Read, from her 1918 passport application
| birth_name =
| birth_date = February 3, 1881
| birth_place = New Brighton, Pennsylvania, U.S.
| death_date = November 3, 1965 (age 84)
| death_place = Lebanon, New Hampshire, U.S.
| other_names =
| occupation = Editor, historian, writer, weaver
| years_active =
| known_for =
| notable_works =
| spouse(s) =
| relatives = Elizabeth Fisher Read (sister)
}}
Georgia Willis Read (February 3, 1881 – November 3, 1965)Birth and death dates as given on her gravestone in New Hampshire, via Find-a-Grave; the dates match other documents, including her New Hampshire death certificate, via Ancestry. was an American editor, historian, writer, and weaver. She worked as an editor at Columbia University Press, and wrote and edited works on the American West.
Early life and education
Read was born in New Brighton, Pennsylvania, the daughter of George Willis Read (who died in 1880, before she was born) and Henrietta A. Miner Read. Her father was a physician. She attended Smith College,{{Cite news |last=Crawford |first=Mary |date=July 22, 1951 |title=Frederick's Real Yarn Spinners |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-baltimore-sun-fredericks-real-yarn/142840431/ |access-date=March 7, 2024 |work=The Baltimore Sun |pages=57 |via=Newspapers.com}} following her older sister Elizabeth Fisher Read.{{Cite news |date=December 23, 1943 |title=Meriden (news item) |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/vermont-journal-meriden-news-item/142841386/ |access-date=March 7, 2024 |work=Vermont Journal |pages=10 |via=Newspapers.com}}
Career
Read served in the Smith College Relief Unit in France during World War I.{{Cite web |title=Smith College Relief Unit records, 1917-1997 |url=https://search.worldcat.org/title/52253821 |access-date=March 7, 2024 |website=WorldCat |language=en}}{{Cite news |date=May 29, 1919 |title=Happenings in Brief Throughout Vermont |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/rutland-news-happenings-in-brief-through/142842601/ |access-date=March 7, 2024 |work=Rutland News |pages=2 |via=Newspapers.com}} She worked at Columbia University Press, and wrote and edited books with her partner and fellow Smith alumna, Ruth Louise Gaines. In addition to their shared projects, she published Gaines's book, City Royal: A Memory of Kyoto (1953), after Gaines's death in 1952. Read and Gaines became weavers in their later years. They grew flax for linen and bred Angora rabbits for wool, to use in their spinning, dyeing, and weaving according to traditional methods.{{Cite news |last=Hosford |first=Bowen |date=March 16, 1952 |title=Reviving a Lost Art |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/evening-star-reviving-a-lost-artbowen-h/142842083/ |access-date=March 7, 2024 |work=Evening star |pages=191, [https://www.newspapers.com/article/evening-star-gaines-and-read-continued/142842033/ 192] |via=Newspapers.com}}
Personal life
Read and Ruth Gaines lived together on a 100-acre farm in Meriden, New Hampshire.{{Cite news |date=October 15, 1942 |title=Miss Ruth Gaines New Librarian at Ludlow |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/vermont-journal-miss-ruth-gaines-new-lib/142842749/ |access-date=March 7, 2024 |work=Vermont Journal |pages=1 |via=Newspapers.com}} They bought a house together in Frederick, Maryland, in 1948. Gaines died in 1952,{{Cite news |date=August 29, 1952 |title=Gaines Collection Given to UNM |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/albuquerque-journal-gaines-collection-gi/142842875/ |access-date=March 7, 2024 |work=Albuquerque Journal |pages=9 |via=Newspapers.com}} and Read returned to Meriden the next year.{{Cite news |date=May 7, 1953 |title=Plainfield (news item) |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/vermont-journal-plainfield-news-item/142843573/ |access-date=March 7, 2024 |work=Vermont Journal |pages=5 |via=Newspapers.com}} She died in 1965, at the age of 84. They share a gravestone in New Hampshire. There is a large collection of their papers in the Huntington Library.{{Cite web |title=Georgia Willis Read Papers: Finding Aid |url=https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8p273wz/admin/#bioghist-1.2.5 |access-date=March 6, 2024 |website=Online Archive of California}}
Publications
- Médoc in the Moor (1914, novel){{Cite news |date=October 22, 1914 |title=New Books and Periodicals |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/word-and-way-new-books-and-periodicals/142841803/ |access-date=March 7, 2024 |work=Word and Way |pages=15 |via=Newspapers.com}}
- "Apiculture in the Time of Virgil" (1914)Read, Georgia Willis. [https://books.google.com/books?id=IfoKAAAAYAAJ&dq=Georgia+Willis+Read&pg=PA167 "Apiculture in the Time of Virgil"] Popular Science Monthly 85(1914): 167-179.
- The Village Shield: A Story of Mexico (1917, with Ruth Gaines; a novel for young readers){{Cite journal |date=1917 |title=Review of The Village Shield: A Story of Mexico |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/42752980 |journal=The Journal of Education |volume=85 |issue=23 (2133) |pages=638 |doi=10.1177/002205741708502325 |jstor=42752980 |s2cid=220777469 |issn=0022-0574|url-access=subscription }}{{Cite news |date=May 13, 1917 |title=With Authors and Publishers |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-new-york-times-with-authors-and-publ/142841542/ |access-date=March 7, 2024 |work=The New York Times |pages=80 |via=Newspapers.com}}
- A pioneer of 1850: George Willis Read, 1819-1880: the record of a journey overland from Independence, Missouri to Hangtown, California (1927){{Cite journal |last=Parish |first=John C. |date=1928 |title=Review of A Pioneer of 1850: George Willis Read, 1819-1880 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1897166 |journal=The Mississippi Valley Historical Review |volume=14 |issue=4 |pages=550–551 |doi=10.2307/1897166 |jstor=1897166 |issn=0161-391X|url-access=subscription }}
- "The Chagres River Route to California in 1851" (1929){{Cite journal |last=Read |first=Georgia Willis |date=1929 |title=The Chagres River Route to California in 1851 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25177981 |journal=California Historical Society Quarterly |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=3–16 |doi=10.2307/25177981 |jstor=25177981 |issn=0008-1175|url-access=subscription }}
- "Diseases, Drugs, and Doctors on the California-Oregon Trail in the Gold Rush Years" (1944)
- "Women and Children on the California-Oregon Trail in the Gold Rush Years" (1944)Read, Georgia Willis. "Women and Children on the California-Oregon Trail in the Gold Rush Years" Missouri Historical Review 39(1)(October 1944): 1-23.
- Gold Rush: The journals, drawings, and other papers of J. Goldsborough Bruff (1944, co-edited with Ruth Gaines){{Cite journal |date=October 1944 |title=Gold Rush: The Journals, Drawings, and Other Papers of J. Goldsborough Bruff, Captain, Washington City and California Mining Association, April 2, 1849–July 20, 1851 |url=https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/50.1.148 |journal=The American Historical Review |doi=10.1086/ahr/50.1.148 |issn=1937-5239|url-access=subscription }}{{Cite book |last=Bruff |first=Joseph Goldsborough |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uI7UwAEACAAJ |title=Gold Rush: The Journals, Drawings, and Other Papers |date=1944 |publisher=Columbia University Press |language=en}}
- "Bruff's Route in Eastern California" (1960){{Cite journal |last=Read |first=Georgia Willis |date=1960 |title=Bruff's Route in Eastern California |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25155339 |journal=California Historical Society Quarterly |volume=39 |issue=3 |pages=263–266 |jstor=25155339 |issn=0008-1175}}
References
{{reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Read, Georgia Willis}}
Category:People from New Brighton, Pennsylvania