Helen Stuart Campbell

Anne Bradstreet and her time, By Helen Stuart Campbell

Anne Bradstreet was the first American female writer as well as the first American female poet to have her works published. Anne Bradstreet (March 20, 1612 - September 16, 1672), née Dudley, was the most prominent of early English poets of North America and first writer in England's North American colonies to be published. She is the first Puritan figure in American Literature and notable for her large corpus of poetry, as well as personal writings published posthumously. Born to a wealthy Puritan family in Northampton, England, Bradstreet was a well-read scholar especially affected by the works of Du Bartas. A mother of eight children and the wife of a public officer in the New England community, Bradstreet wrote poetry in addition to her other duties. Her early works read in the style of Du Bartas, but her later writings develop into her unique style of poetry which centers on her role as a mother, her struggles with the sufferings of life, and her Puritan faith...... Helen Stuart Campbell (born Helen Stuart; pen name, "Mrs. Helen Weeks"; July 5, 1839 - July 22, 1918) was a social reformer and pioneer in the field of home economics. She wrote several important studies about women trapped in poverty, and the role that effective home economics could play in lifting women and families out of poverty. Biography: She was born in Lockport, New York to Jane E. (née Campbell) and Homer H. Stuart. (She later changed her surname to favor her mother's maiden name.) She studied in Warren, Rhode Island and Bloomington, New Jersey. She worked as a professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin from 1893-96, and then as a professor of domestic science at Kansas State Agricultural College from 1896-97. Publications: In the 1860s and 70s, she wrote stories and children's books under the name "Mrs. Helen Weeks". In later life, divorced from husband Dr. Grenville Weeks, Campbell - her new pen name - wrote novels and nonfiction works dealing with home economics and relationships between the individual, the home, the workplace, physical well-being, and childhood. She was active in many organizations that advocated female empowerment and associated with many intellectuals and original thinkers, including writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Much of her writing was engaging and vigorous. Her pieces exposed Gilded Age social inequities and public health failures. She was the author of a biography of 17th century colonial American poet, Anne Bradstreet.