Press History at The Woodlands

Internationally, May 3rd is known as  World Press Day . It was created by the UN and is observed to raise awareness of freedom of the press and freedom of expression. Andrew Hamilton, Grandfather of our own William Hamilton, was the Philadelphia Attorney who represented  John Peter Zenger in the New York City libel case  which led to freedom of the press in 1735. However on this tour, we will be telling you the story of another notable person from press history. Anne Hampton Brewster was an author and journalist, and was one of the first American female correspondents to work abroad. Her life took her from Philadelphia to Europe to New Jersey and back again to Italy, and her story finally ends here at The Woodlands in Section D, Lot #120.

Anne Hampton Brewster was born on October 29, 1818. She was the second child of Maria Hampton and Francis Enoch Brewster, along with older brother Benjamin, and younger sister Carroll. Their long Philadelphia family history and colonial era connections to people like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Harris meant that the Hampton Brewster family were part of 19th century “society.” Anne was primarily taught at home and her desire to write came primarily from the broad teachings of her mother, who encouraged her to use her writing as a form of self expression. Brewster began her career by writing poetry as a young woman. Despite her brother's disapproval, she started publishing short stories under the pseudonym Enna Duval in 1845. (Enna is Anne spelled backwards.)

The Hampton Brewster family encountered problems early on when Anne’s father, Francis Brewster, left his wife and had two illegitimate sons with a mistress. It then fell on Anne's brother Benjamin to support the family. Anne remained close with her mother, and when she passed in 1853, she received her mother’s entire estate in her will. Unfortunately, her father died a year later and instead left all of his, and his wife Maria’s estates to his illegitimate sons, taking the rights away from Anne. 

Anne’s brother, Benjamin Brewster was a prominent attorney and later became the Attorney General in the cabinet of President Chester A. Arthur. He was able to convince his half brothers to share their father’s estate with him, but neglected to include Anne. She went to court to sue her brother for her share of their mother’s estate, and vowed to be independent and self-sufficient from then on. She felt that “Intellectual toil [was] the only secure way of real happiness and if needed the most pleasant way of support.”

Anne never married, and after her parents' death, she became estranged from her brother over the control of her inheritance. Throughout her adult life she defied familial and social conventions by converting to Catholicism, suing her brother for her share of their mother’s estate, supporting herself financially, and not marrying. She published over 50 short stories, which encouraged women to become economically independent through hard work, morality, and social responsibility. 

She had a close relationship with the actress Charlotte Cushman in the 1840s describing it as a “glorious beam of sunshine in my existence.” Her brother disapproved of the relationship and they eventually separated. Cushman is often referenced in Anne’s diaries from this time, and she later donated a portrait of Cushman that was painted by Thomas Sully to the Library Company of Philadelphia. 

Starting in 1857, Anne spent 15 months in Switzerland and Italy, and then returned to the U.S., where she supported herself by writing and teaching music and French. In the 1860s, she abandoned her pseudonym and published two novels based on her experiences traveling around Europe. Brewster moved to Rome in 1868 and began writing for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and the Newark Courier. For the following 19 years, she wrote articles on political, religious, artistic, and scientific events in Rome for 12 American papers including the New York World and the Chicago Daily News. She also established a weekly salon attended by artists, musicians, and writers, including Frank Liszt and Sarah Jane Lippincott. 

In the 1880s, she began to lose her newspaper engagements. Journalism in America was changing, and her contributions as well as her writing style were becoming antiquated. She moved from Rome to Siena where the cost of living was lower. Always the self-sufficient woman, she moved in order to continue supporting herself. Upon her death, it was her wish that her “library and everything appertaining to it… be kept intact and called The Maria Hampton Brewster Library… in honour of the memory of my beloved mother.” Anne died in Siena, Italy in 1892, and was later buried in The Woodlands, next to her brother, Benjamin.

To learn more about notable burials at The Woodlands, please visit our website:  http://woodlandsphila.org/notables 

References: 

Much of the information in this tour was gathered from the  Library Company of Philadelphia ,  Historical Society of Pennsylvania , and the  UPenn Libraries . 

Larrabee, Denise M.  Anne Hampton Brewster: 19th Century Author and “Social Outlaw” . Philadelphia: Library Company of Philadelphia, 1992.