Photograph of Ellen MacKay Hutchinson Cortissoz, ca. 1870. 76.61.2
Songs and Lyrics book, 1881. 76.61.1
On the Village Green at the GCV&M sits a two-story white house with green shutters. MacKay house was built in 1814 by John MacKay who was Ellen’s grandfather. Ellen lived in this house for some time before she was old enough to be sent away to school. Ellen was born in 1848 in Caledonia, New York, to Joslyn Hutchinson and Jennet MacKay. Joslyn had long been a friend and business acquaintance of the MacKay family and at various points lived with members of the MacKay family, or they lived with him.
In 1881, Ellen published a book of poetry titled Songs and Lyrics. The GCV&M has a copy of this book that is inscribed “Cousin Amanda K. Greene”, and it was in this book that this photo of Ellen Hutchinson was found. In 1888 she coedited the eleven-volume set, A Library of American Literature. Ellen worked for some time as a literary editor for the New York Tribune and it is there that she met her husband Royal Cortissoz, an art critic for the Tribune. They were married in London in April of 1897.
Here is where Ellen’s vital statistics get interesting. From that point on census records list her as having been born anywhere from 1864-1866. Her death certificate lists her as having been born in 1868. Several things disprove this date including census records from 1850-1870 that list her as being born in 1848, and the fact that her book was published in 1881, presumably when she was 33 not 13. The other clue is the photograph itself. I consulted Brandon Brooks, Curator, of the John L. Wehle Gallery at the GCV&M, and historic clothing expert, and he stated that based on the hair and clothing the photo taken in the very early 1870’s. It seems that Ellen had begun to match her age closer to her much younger husband who was born in 1869.
Ellen’s life and contributions to the literary field have, over time, been overshadowed by that of her husband. An incredibly popular and well know art critic and writer, it was he who penned the epithet that is written behind the statue of President Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. He even featured prominently on the cover of Time magazine in March of 1930. However, Ellen, who passed away in 1933, was a force to be reckoned with in her own right and the impact and strides she made not only in the literary field, but that of women working in journalism, should not be forgotten.
“According to a 1916 career guide for girls ‘editors, the reporters, and the men who rewrite stories, must be able to work under the pressure in a way that is beyond the power of most women.”1 Ellen Hutchison Cortissoz most certainly proved this statement wrong with her career at the New York Tribune that spanned over twenty-five years. Throughout her literary career she insisted upon being treated and valued for her work in a way that was equal to men. She published her own work of poetry, Songs and Lyrics in 1881, which was very well received, and she worked her way up to the title of literary editor at the Tribune. “In 1887, Ida M. Tarbell’s “Women in Journalism” identified Hutchinson as one of the ‘representative women of the day,””2 and she was listed in the Woman’s Who’s Who of America, 1914-15. She traveled in high social circles and that included at least one visit to the White House. In her article about Ellen published in Legacy, Karin L. Hooks says that through the letters of Hutchinson and her acquaintances, “Hutchinson emerges as a capable and intelligent woman who moved confidently in the male-dominated world of journalism and in the highest journalistic and political circles of her era.”3
In 1882 Ellen agreed to coedit the enormous 6,000 page, eleven volume set of A Library of American Literature, “the most massive collection of American literature theretofore completed” that “for more than forty years it remained a standard reference work for readers, editors, and historians of US literature.”4 Columbia University and Harvard University have a collection of letters from Ellen to her coeditor Edmund Clarence Stedman, where she makes it known many times that they are equal partners. And they were. In some regards. They received equal pay, and he treated her not only as an equal but was also quite vocal about it. He stated in a letter he wrote to her, “As for the public idea about the basis of success for the work, it will more naturally, I suspect, be as follows: That Miss Hutchinson’s labor and abilities are the real factors, & that Mr. Steadman is superadded, as a sort of Joss or Figurehead. Wait, & see if I am not correct.”5 However, instead of his prediction coming true she became a footnote for her efforts. Literally. In a review for the Library published in The Atlantic magazine in 1888 she is mentioned as an editor in a footnote while the opening sentence reads, “The first three volumes of Mr. Stedman’s Library of American Literature…”6 She has largely been forgotten today, except for being known as Cortissoz’s wife. That is part of the reason why the story of this object is so important. Ellen is an important part of the MacKay family history and should be recognized as so.
- Lyndsey Claro, “Women in the Gentleman’s Career of Publishing,” Princeton University, March 6, 2020, https://press.princeton.edu/ideas/women-in-the-gentlemans-career-of-publishing. ↩︎
- Karin L. Hooks, “Ellen Mackay Hutchinson ([1851]–1933),” Legacy 30, no. 2 (2013): 369–81, https://doi.org/10.5250/legacy.30.2.0369. ↩︎
- Hooks, 373. ↩︎
- Hooks, 370. ↩︎
- Hooks, 378. ↩︎
- “A Library of American Literature,” The Atlantic, 1888, https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1888/01/61-363/131865946.pdf. ↩︎