Final Years and Legacy

This is an IiHart podcast Guaranteed human. Living with a rare autoimmune condition brings uncertainty, but it can also create community. In season six of Untold Stories, Life with a severe autoimmune coondition, they go beyond MG and CIDP, as host Martine Hackett welcomes stories from other conditions like myositis and IGN into the conversation. Untold Stories is produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenics. Listen to Untold Stories, Life with a severe Autoimmune condition on the iHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts Hey everybody, we are getting ready to go on a trip. We're not packed yet, but our brains definitely are because we have a trip to Bajamar on the horizon. and it's kind of all I can think about. I'm so excited about the food. There are amazing restaurants and lounges there that I'm gonna sample everything I possibly can. I'm going to gaze into the water and mostly I am gonna watch the daily fllamingo parade which might be the thing I'm most excited about. There's also an incredible spa and I know Tracy's going to be takaking advantage of that. There is excited and then there is Bahamar excited. Start planning at bahamar. comot Alienwar's Back to schoolchool event is the perfect time to score top gaming gear with incredible features and advanced engineering to go beyond performance Start your Alienware journey with the Alienware fifteen gaming laptop featuring Intel core processors, game, live stream and multitask for hours on end. Pair your incredibly smooth gaming experience with immersive visuals and sound by saving on sleek alienware monitors, headsets and more. This limited time sale awaits you now at alienware dot com slash deals We know that week nights are not for the week But are you gonna throw in the kitchen towel and order takeout? No way. You've got Landa Lake's butter, a skillet, and a plan Landa Lakes Eat it like you own it Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of IiHart Radio Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and I'm Holly Frery. When I was working on our episode about Elizabeth Bisland back in March, I stumbled across the name Viola Roseboro. And that last name was spelled R O S E B O R O with an apostrophe at the end and then nothing A the apostrophe. That's not something that happens in English language names very much unless it's a name that ends at an S and that apostrophe is making it possessive. So I wondered who this person was And why her name was spelled that way cursory look into it landed her on the shortlist Vila Roseborough is not well known today, but she played a big behind the scenes role in the careers of a lot of American writers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including several writers who continue to be staples in English and English literature classes in the United States. By extension, she helped shape what is thought of as the American literary canon Viola Roseborough was born on december third, eighteen fifty seven in Pulaskei, Tennessee That's in a south central part of the state, roughly fifteen miles from the border with Alabama. Pelaski is named for Kazimir Polaski, a Polish soldier who fought in the American Revolutionary War Tracy has had him on her shortlist for quite a while Viola was the only surviving child of the Reverend Samuel Reed Roseborough, known as Reid, and Martha Coller Roseborough, who, after their marriage insisted that she was Mrs Martha Cole Yard Roseborough, not Mrs. Samuel Reed Roseborough. Yeah, I also read an account that said that she refused to have the part about obey in their marriage vows. She seems like she had very solid opinions The Roseboroughros were abolitionists and that put them at odds with a lot of their neighbors. Pulaski is also where the original Ku Klux Klan was founded And it put them at odds with some of their family members This was a factor in their moving to Missouri when Viola was only a baby From there, they moved to Illinois. And that's where they were when the Civil War started when Viola was four. Yola's father became a chaplain in an Illinois regiment of the U.S. Army. and his parents disowned him for that While Reid was in the army, Martha supported herself and her daughter by teaching sewing and working at a hotel The Civil War ended when Viola was seven Martha took her back to Tennessee and visited her family while they waited for Reid to be discharged from the army He joined her in Tennessee, but before long They went back to Missouri after he got a position as a minister at a congregationalist church there After they moved, Martha invested some of the money that she had saved during the war in a small farm. When that farm started to struggle, that took the family finances with it. And she took Viila to Tennessee to get the advice of her brother Arthur St. Clair, Callier. He was a Democrat and had been a slaveholder before the Civil War And she found him embroiled in an effort to unseat Augustus E. Alden, who was the radical Republican mayor of Nashville Martha and her brother were really on opposite sides politically, and he seems to have thought that associating with his abolitionist sister would damage his reputation and any attempt that he might make to run for office. So Martha wound up going back to Missouri without getting a lot of help from him. Back in Missouri, Reed had some kind of dispute with some of the more influential members of his church congregation. And by the time Martha returned, it had started to seem like they would need to move again Martha really loved the area of Tennessee where she had grown up and thought she had gotten an exceptional education there, and that's what she wanted for her daughter So when she was offered a job at a school in Shelbyville, she went with Viola while Reed stayed behind in Missouri. But this didn't last long either. While Martha was waiting for the school year to start, she talked about a plan to spend her free time teaching black children to read That was something else that threatened her brother's political aspirations Then she started trying to integrate the schools in Shelbyville and that led to her being branded Meddlesome Maddie. She wound up taking Viola back to Missouri The family was not reunited there for very long Reid went to work in Nevada and then to California Several years passed, and in eighteen seventy four, when Viola was sixteen Her mother took her back to Tennessee again so she could attend Fairmount College, which is a private women's college Her father eventually got a job at a church in Tennessee, although not close enough to the college for them to all live together While she was in college, Pil had developed an interest in performing, starting out with giving dramatic readings A write up in the Winchester, Tennessee Home Journal describes a night of entertainment that was arranged for Karrick Academy, which was a boys' school That write up ends, quote, We regret not getting there in time to hear the beautiful and intelligent Miss Roseborough who never fails to deserve and elicit applause. By late eighteen seventy eight, Viola had gone beyond doing recitations at schools and was performing in public, including traveling to other states to do so Eventually, she enrolled in theater classes in Cincinnati, Ohio ickly it became clear that her parents did not have the money to pay for these classes, she started writing articles for her uncle's newspaper, The Daily American, which was headquartered in Nashville She made her acting debut now in a staged play rather than a recitation or reading in Nashville in May of eighteen seventy nine. Over the next few years, Roseboro tried to earn a living by both freelance writing and performing The parents really did not approve of this, especially the performing part And it raised some questions among her father's church congregations. They did not think this was an appropriate career path for their minister's daughter At the same time, her father was always on the lookout for positions at churches that would allow them to be closer to her So Martha continued to move around with him as he tried to just stay near their daughter Allegedly, this combined career of writing and performing is where Roseborough's unusual name spelling came from She used the name Roseborough with the ending O UGH for the stage, while the shorter Roseborough ending in the O apostrophe was for her published work It does seem like later in her life she insisted on that apostrophe spelling, but her name appears with and without those last three letters in various publications and documents across the whole course of her life Sometimes there's an assumption that the original spelling of her name was the longer one But her father's name also appears as Roseborough minus that UGH at the end, and with no final apostrophe than a lot of official records, including his marriage license and his entry in the deeath index from the New York State Department of Health Avila and her parents are all buried at Clifton Springs Village Cemetery in New York And their markers all use that same shorter spelling, although with no apostrophe But it's hard to draw a conclusion from that since we don't really know who made the arrangements for those engravings on their markers T return to Viola, for a while, she moved to Nashville to work for her uncle's newspaper She was also in theatrical touring companies, with starring roles in at least two melodramas One called Two Orphans, which was set during the French Revolution, and another called the Litzo London In eighteen eighty two, Roseborough moved to New York City, and she continued to divide her time between writing and performing. But in eighteen eighty seven, when she was about thirty, she developed pneumonia There are references to Roseborough being sick a lot in her own letters and in the accounts of people who knew her. and she also had trouble with her eyesight This bout of pneumonia put an end to her time on stage, possibly because it affected her voice. From this point on The Ola Roseborough's career was a literary one. We'll talk more about that after a sponsor break Living with a rare autoimmune condition can bring a lot of uncertainty, but it can also bring people together in powerful ways. Tune in for season six of Untold stories, Life withith a severe Autoimmmune condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenics. This season, host Martine Hackett brings you fresh stories from people living with MG and CIDP and expands the conversation to people living with other rare conditions, like myositis and IGN Through their stories, you'll learn what it's like to participate in clinical trials seeking new treatments, how connection fuels hope, and how people can support one another along the way. Because living with a rare disease isn't about getting through it, it's about moving forward together. Listen to Untold stories, life with a severe autoimmune condition on the IiHart radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and turned off news altogether I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything It's the range bait It feels like it's trying to divide people We got clear facts, maybe we can calm down a little NBC News brings you clear reporting Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there NBC News. reporting for America Summer is a gift. the gift of days that last a little longer, a brighter state of mind So giveift yourself a new Kia at the KIA Summer Sticker Sales event, Epecially taged vehicles including the Sornto, Sportage, Carnival, as well as the Nuro Hybrid. All backed by a ten year one hundred thousand mile limited powertrain warranty. So the gift of summer can keep on giving for summers to come. Kia Movement that inspires Call eight hundred three three threety four K for Details host Joseafree event and seven hundred six twenty six to dealer for warranty details Hey, I'm Hoda Cotty, host of the podcast, Joy one hundred one with Hoda Cotney. Okay, if you know me, you know this. I'm always searching for inspiration, for support and useful tools to help maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover all of that together. We're gonna have these meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating L when actress Olivia Mun shared how she overcame fierce health challenges that she never saw coming. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartum depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Olympic champ Seaan Johnson revealed why she had no choice but to be a gymnast. There was something about gymnastics that was intoxicating to me. It's given me a belief that we all have one of those treasures inside of us. We just have to find it. Listen to Joy one hundred one with Hodicoty on the IHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts From eighteen eighty seven until about eighteen ninety three, Viola Roseborough made a living as a freelance writer, selling stories and essays to publications like The Cosmopolitan and the Century Magazine. She also did some of the kind of stunt journalism that we talked about in our episode on Elizabeth Bisland and Past hosts episode on Nelly Bly. For example, she published an article in the New York World on december eleventh, eighteen eighty seven, titled Begging as an avocation, an adventurous woman goes out asking for alms in the street It's probably unsurprising based on that title that this article came off as cluelessly insensitive It starts with a discussion of how hard it is to find appropriately ragged clothes to pretend to be a beggar Later on, she talks about how every time anyone gave her anything, she would immediately jam it into her pocket and quote to possess a pocket seemed indicative of fraud A couple of people were kind to her, but many just ignored her, and only women seemed to be willing to give her money She wound up with sixty three cents Unfortunately, I'm not sure what she did with that money becausecause the one scan I was able to find of this article is completely illegible at the bottom So she wrote that she was going to give this money to charity. But then the text becomes completely unreadable as she's sort of overthinking whether any of the people who gave it to her might be opposed to churches. or might be Protestant or Catholic, or might just hate institutional charities Roseborough's first book, a collection of stories called Old Ways and New, came out in eighteen ninety two, and it included work that had originally been published in Century Magazine She dedicated this book to her mother, quote, My earliest and still my best companion in the Bessed world of letters. This was in spite of increasing tension between the two women. They were both proud and stubborn Vola has been described as arrogant And Martha was apparently prone to clipping out Viola's published articles, writing corrections on them, and then sending those corrections to her Martha Roseborough died of cancer the year after the book came out, and Reed Roseborough died in eighteen ninety two By that point, Samuel Siddney McClure had hired Roseborough as a reader. That happened in eighteen ninety three This started with a writing contest. McClure realized he had way too many manuscripts from those contest entries for him to read just by himself And he brought Roseborough on because he already knew her From there, she started working for McClure's magazine and for his other publishing ventures McClure wrote of her in his autobiography, quote, Miss. Roseborough was of great service to the magazine in discovering promising material by unknown writers. She had a singularly open mind toward the manuscript bag, a natural attitude towards stories, which is rare in professional readers who, like everybody else, in time become the victims of their own tastes and their own successes and are therefore always hunting for the thing they themselves like best Instead of for the thing that new writers are writing best, Miss. Roseborough seized upon the early stories of O. Henry, Jack London, Rex Beach, Myra Kelly, and the Emmy Lou stories when their writers were unknown, with as much shness and conviction as if she had known what the end was to be in each case and exactly how popular each of these riders was to become Ida Tarbell's work at McClure's magazine overlapped with Roseborough's. We talked about Tarbo and her Epose of Stard oil which was published in McClure's in a two part episode in November of twenty twenty one Tarbell and Roseborough were friends, and Tarbell had similar things to say about her in her own autobiography.e By good fortune, McClures in this period happened on a reader of real genius, Viola Roseborough, the only born reader I have ever known I found her in the office after one of my frequent jaunts after material It was as a talker that I first learned to admire and love her Her judgments were unfettered, her emotions strong and warm Her expressions free, glowing, stirring, and she loved to talk, though only when she felt sympathy and understanding She loved to share books, of which she read many, particularly in the biographical field She wanted none but the best. No imitation, no mere fact finding. Her eagerness to let no good things slip Her consciousness of the all too little time a human being has in this world to explore its riches made her rigid in her choice. An unsleeping eagerness to find talent and give it a chance and secondarily, she said, to enrich the magazine, made everyday's work with the unsifted manuscripts and adventure If she found exceptional merit that was also suited to McLlures, she might weep with excitement And she stood to it till faith grew in those less sure of the untried about McClure and that magazine more in the context of muck raaking journalism Mazine also developed a reputation for publishing very high quality fiction And a lot of that credit goes to Roseborough. She was the first person to read every fiction manuscript that arrived at the magazine Cultivating of unknown talent included people like William Syidney Porter, who published most of his work under the pen name O Henry Roseborough started corresponding with Porter while he was in prison for embezzlement and offered him her feedback over the course of about two years Finally, she purchased his story Whistling Dick's Christmas stocking in eighteen ninety nine, and that was the first story that he ever published under that pen name We did an episode on O Henry that came out on december twenty first of twenty twenty According to Ida Tarbell, when Roseborough first read a submission from Booth Tarkington She went into SS McClure's office in tears, exclaiming, quote, Here is a serial sent by God Almighty for McClure's magazine That serial was Tarkington's first novel, The Gentleman from Indiana, which was published starting in May of eighteen ninety nine The gentleman from Indiana was later published as a book and became a bestseller for McClure, and Tarkington went on to be one of only four writers to earn the Pulitzer Prize for fiction Twice The other three in that group are William Faulner, near dear to my heart, John Updke and Collson Whitehead A lot of sources credit Roseborough with discovering Jack London, who's most well known for books like Call of the Wild and White Fang in the short story to Build A Fire Roseborough did accept some of his early stories for McLlure's and McLlure commissioned London's first novel, a Daughter of the Snows Jack London's work was already appearing in other publications, including Overland Monthly, which published really a pile of his stories before anything appeared in McClure's. SS McCLlure's interest in Jack London started after he read a piece that had been published in the Atlantic Monthly and that was a piece that Roseborough had read and rejected She had also rejected other early submissions of Londons's, although some of those rejections also included her very thoughtful feedback and advice about how to improve the stories structurally McClure's magazine did play a role in London's early career an important role, but it just it doesn't seem like Roseborough really pulled him out of the slush pile even though McClure himself made it seem that way in his autobiography. Roseborough definitely played a role in the literary career of Willa Cathor McClure published Cathar's first volume of short stories, The Troll Garden in nineteen oh five And Roseboro's influence included helping to decide which stories to include Later on, Catheror went through rounds of rejections on her nineteen eighteen novel, My Antonia. She finally sent it to Roseborough, who read it and told her she'd written the whole thing through the point of view of the wrong character, that it needed to come from the perspective of Jim Burden Cathera rewrote it and today, My Antonia is considered to be her first masterpiece. Later on, she earned a Pulitzer prize for her novel, One of Oours. Rosebergh was sixteen years older than Cathather and had been working for McClure's magazine for more than a decade when Catherather was hired for a staff position in nineteen oh six A lot of accounts give Roseborough a lot of the credit for this hiring decision. At firstirst, Catherar seems to have really admired and respected Roseborough as somebody with talent and experience and wisdom. shift it somewhat as they work together at the magazine Roseborough had a reputation for being generous and kind, but she could also be extremely blunt with her feedback paraphrased by a friend, she told Cathar that she was, quote, pouring out one dead pretentious story after another that nobody could read and she got published only because Mr. McClure knew she had genius. Bro also advised Cathar to quote write something she had some feeling about. When Catherine became managing editor of McLlure's magazine, Roseborough suspected that she was publishing her own work without running it by anybody else, except maybe McCLlure himself They didn't become enemies by any means. Their discussions around my Antonia were a decade after this But it definitely became less of a mentor menty relationship. nineteen oh six was a tempestuous year to be working at McClure's About a month after Cathar started, most of the staff quit They were dissatisfied with McClure's business and editorial decisions and with his ongoing womanizing including having affairs with young women whose work he then published This included his taking a trip across the Atlantic with both his wife Hattie and one of the other women on board, and Ida Tarbell who was friends with Hattie Cathather remained at the magazine after this mass exodus at McClure's She had moved to New York to take the job. And as a newcomer, she probably didn't have the same emotional involvement in the situation as a lot of the people who had been there longer. publicly supported McClure and dismissed the various allegations of womanizing. And Roseborough stayed as well This may have been partly due to a sense of loyalty to McClure and to the magazine where she had worked so many years But it's also possible that she was just shielded from a lot of that drama because she was almost never in the office She would have manuscripts delivered to her at her apartment in New York, or during the summers to her cottage on the coast of Massachusetts or Connecticut. Then she'd take the manuscripts outside and she would read them there. Sounds like a pretty dreamy working scenario. When she was in New York, she was particularly fond of working from Madison Square Park. If she needed to have a face to face meeting with someone, she would usually meet them there or at her home Viola Roseborough was quite a character, which we will talk about more after a sponsor break Living with a rare autoimmune condition can bring a lot of uncertainty, but it can also bring people together in powerful ways. Tune in for season six of Untold Stories, Life with a severe autoimmune condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenics. This season, host Martine Hackett brings you fresh stories from people living with MG and CIDP and expands the conversation to people living with other rare conditions like myositis and IGAM Through their stories, you'll learn what it's like to participate in clinical trials seeking new treatments, how connection fuels hope, and how people can support one another along the way. Because living with a rare disease isn't about getting through it, it's about moving forward together. Listen to untold stories, life with a severe autoimmune condition on the IiHart radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts turned off news altogether I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything It's the range bait feels like it's trying to devise people If we got clear facts, maybe we can calm down a little NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there NBC News orting for America Hey, I'm Hoda Cotby, host of the podcast, Joy one hundred one with Hoda Cotney. Okay, if you know me, you know this. I'm always searching for inspiration, for support and useful tools to help maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover all of that together. We're gonna have these meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating likeike when actress Olivia Mun shared how she overcame fierce health challenges that she never saw coming. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartum depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Olympic champ Seaan Johnson revealed why she had no choice but to be a gymnastist. There was something about gymnastics that was intoxicating to me. It's given me a belief that we all have one of those treasures inside of us. We just have to find it. Listen to Joy one hundred one with Hodak Koty on the IHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts S sure My first guest is Paris Hogen, Shakita, Luke and Yarin. Samira Gacy. I'm so excited. I a bncy bed. You have surprises? M surprises. Welcome to Seite three hundred five where the good chat comes to life. What up We no Ass do and was Mus is saving S M aante. O You're the only person I know that loves the yellow Starburst.. This is Sweet three hundred five. Listen to Sweite three hundred five with Lter Ps as part of my Gura podcast network on the iHart Radio A app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts Fela Roseborough certainly was not unique for preferring to be outside on a park bench rather than cooped up in an office all day What was fairly unique was that she actually made it work She relentlessly tried to live her own way, and she's been described as a female bachelor. She never married and if she ever had a romantic relationship with anyone, it's not mentioned in anybody's surviving writing, at least not that I could find did seem to like the idea of having a child though, or more specifically a son While she was still acting, she and one of her castmates took in a boy who had run away. And later in her life, there were young men that she would describe as godsons or as almost like her adopted sons For a while, Roseboro did well enough financially that she was able to afford her apartment in New York and at least one cottage near the ocean She also traveled around the United States and she made a series of trips to Europe But while she was making her own life and having a career, she was opposed to the suffrage movement She viewed feminists with suspicion This was another difference between her and her mother who was a passionate advocate for women's rights Roseborough smoked constantly, swore, and refused to wear a corset She also loved Shakespeare and went to every play that she could. She carried around a gin bottle with the label still on it, which she filled with water so that she could have a drink whenever she got thirsty seems to have been about not just shocking people by appearing to drink gin out in public in the middle of the day, just spontaneously. But also because she was really fixated. I'm staying well hydrated She was also into yoga and eating raw foods, although that last part might have been mostly because she hated to cook, not for any phhilosophical reason other than the hatred of cooking. Roseborough's friends called her VR, and her colleagues at McClure's called her Rosie. In both circles, she had a reputation for both talking very quickly and for being a witty and absorbing conversationalist SS McClure said of her quote, When George Meredith talked, the air was full of flaming swords. When Robert Lewis Stehvenson talked, it was like the play of the Aurora Borealis. But I can't find any expression to describe that woman's talk. It is too varied. He also called her the greatest conversationalist of her time One friend is quoted as saying, quote, anybody who does not acknowledge that something is happening when Viola Roseborough is talking is Stupid. Her friend Frances Perkins said of her, quote, Of course I remember her vividly. herer conversation, her attitudes, her courage, Mr. Roseborough was essentially an expressive person She couldn't bear to enjoy things alone. and that is why she would ask me to go along with her because she said, I like to go with you because you enjoy having me talk about it Another of Roseborough's contradictions is that while she was friends with Francces Perkins, who was a labor advocate and secretary of labor under President Franklin D Roosevelt, Roseborough was opposed to social reform and she denounced Roosevelt's New deeal Roseborough's conversations that she was famous for were not necessarily nice A friend once said she characterized the greatest defect of modern civilization as, quote, the absence of any place where one could adequately insult people Either you were in the relationship of guest and hostess or you were both guests of someone else. And when you chanced upon each other at the Grand Central Station, there was no time for you were dashing for a train For her own part, Roseborough liked to say, quote, When conversation grows dull, take charge of it To return to her career, Roseborough wrote a novel called The Joyous Heart, which was published by McClure Phillipson Company in nineteen oh three McMillan published her short story collection Players and Vagabonds the following year And she continued to work for SS McCLlure until nineteen eleven when he lost control of McClure's magazine The magazine at that point Although her work had been focused on the magazine's fiction, she had also convinced McClure to publish a set of essays by her friend, John Lafarge artists who worked in a range of media, including stained glass His work at Boston's Trinity Church came up in our episode on The History of sppray paint last August In addition to freelancing, Roseborough supported herself as a writer's consultant. kind of like an editor offering writers feedback on their work and how to get it published Two years after Roseborough left McLures, rival magazine Collier started running ads, announcing that they had a new price of only five cents a copy down from ten They had a new publishing day of Tuesday rather than Thursday, a new distribution method, being that people could buy it at newsstands rather than having to subscribe and a quote new story editor Pauliers has engaged Miss Viola Roseborough, whose ability to choose stories needs no mention to the story loving public L's final book, Storms of Youth was published by Scribners in nineteen twenty In nineteen twenty one, McClure returned to his magazine and Roseborough went back to work at it as well. While Roseborough seems to have had a gift for recognizing and nurturing the talent of writers She did not have the same ability with money She had a series of financial difficulties and lost her summer cottages and her ability to travel abroad Things became increasingly difficult until nineteen twenty eight when one of her former clients, Elizabeth M. Chamberlain died and left Roseborough some money This got Roseborough back on stable financial footing, and she did take at least two more trips to Europe after this. In the early nineteen forties, Roseborough had a falling out with Willa Cathor