Alice MacGowan
Alice MacGowan, from a 1908 publication
Alice MacGowan, from a 1908 publication
BornDecember 10, 1858
Perrysburg, Ohio, US
DiedMarch 10, 1947
Los Gatos, California, US
OccupationWriter

Alice L. MacGowan (December 10, 1858 – March 10, 1947) was an American writer. She and her sister Grace MacGowan Cooke wrote over 30 novels, about a hundred short stories, and some poetry. Alice produced several best sellers, including Two by Two, that was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post and was published in 1922 in New York under the title The Million Dollar Suitcase.[1]

Early years

She was born in Perrysburg, Ohio, the daughter of John Encil MacGowan and Malvina Marie Johnson.[2] The family moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee,[3] where her sister Grace was born.[4] Alice was educated in public schools in addition to being home schooled by her father,[2] a Colonel with the Union Army[5] during the American Civil War and editor of the Chattanooga Times from 1872–1903.[6]

Grace married William Benjamin Cooke on February 16, 1887 in Hamilton, Tennessee. They had two children, Helen M. and Katharine (or "Kit").[7] Harry Leon Wilson married Helen Cooke in 1912. They had two children and divorced in 1927.

Alice was living with her sister at Upton Sinclair's Helicon Home Colony in 1907 when it burned to the ground. Both were taken to Englewood Hospital to recover.[8]

Career

Alice became a writer of short stories and novels, while collaborating with her sister Grace on most of her works.[9] Together they would write over 30 novels, about a hundred short stories, and some poetry.[6] The subject matter of their writings included Westerns, mysteries, historical novels, and social novels.[5] Briefly married to a much older man,[5] Alice lived in Texas working as a governess.[3]

In December 1908, the MacGowan sisters, with Helen and Katherine, and their mother moved to the semi-remote colony of artists and literati at Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, which included such influential figures as Mary Hunter Austin, Jack London, Upton Sinclair, George Sterling, Francis McComas, Xavier Martinez, Sinclair Lewis, and Nora May French.[1]

In 1908, the sisters moved into a large, Tudor-style two-story house on 13th Avenue, the second house northeast of San Antonio Avenue, built in 1905 by architect Eugenia Maybury, one of Carmel's first female architects.[10] The house is listed on the Carmel Inventory Of Historic Resources.[11]

The sisters apparently avoided the more lascivious activities of this Bohemian enclave because a satirical commentator from the Los Angeles Times placed Alice and Grace in the "social faction" known as the "Eminently Respectables".[12] As if to reinforce this image the Times described a 1911 Carmel Christmas party where Jack London, the MacGowan sisters, and the “diminutive dog” Fluffy Ruffles sat at the same table eating lady fingers.[13] Alice actively supported various local charities as well as the Carmel Arts and Crafts Club, and fought the removal of village trees, the paving of the quaint gravel streets and all “encroachments ... of an advancing civilization.”[1]

The two sisters stopped writing together around 1910.[3] Alice collaborated with Garnet Holme on a dramatization of her novel The Sword in the Mountains, titled Chattanooga.[5] Grace wrote the children's book, Son Riley Rabbit and Little Girl (1908) with her daughter Kit posing for the book's illustrations. She wrote The Power and the Glory (1910), a novel set in Appalachia.[10]

In May 1914, just two months before the start of the highly publicized William Merritt Chase summer school of art in Carmel, the San Francisco press and the New York Times reported that Alice had been intentionally poisoned at her home.[14][15] The respected Carmel artist Jennie V. Cannon recounted that there had been several previous attempts to murder Alice, who “was popular with everybody.”[1] The perpetrators were never caught.

Carmel proved to be a writer's paradise and Alice produced several best sellers. She co-authored five detective stories with the one-time mayor of Carmel, Perry Newberry (see Bibliography below). Their runaway success, “Two by Two”, was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post and was published in 1922 by Stokes in New York under the title “The Million Dollar Suitcase.”[1][16] In April 1922 she lectured with Newberry on the "thriller in literature" at Paul Elder's Gallery in San Francisco.[17]

Alice MacGowan--Sole author of at least a dozen books. A worker for many years in the life of Carmel.
Grace Mac Gowan Cooke--She helped make Carmel history and kept young doing it by turning out a string of children's books. Besides writing to make children happy she is the author of novels and mystery tales, some in collaboration with her sister, Alice MacGowan. Her verse has also been published. One of Carmel's most prolific writers. One of the few who came here to write and DID--we should add: and DOES! Mrs. Cooke came to Carmel in 1908, was first President of the Tennessee Woman's Press Club in 1897 and 1898. She has also given us Kit Cooke for which we are grateful!

— Carmel Pine Cone
December 14, 1928[18]

Alice and Grace resumed collaboration with The Straight Road (1917) and The Trail of the Little Wagon (1928).[5][19] But the sisters novels became less popular during the Great Depression, and in 1935 they sold their house in Carmel and moved to Los Gatos, California with Grace's younger daughter, Katherine.[20]

Death

Alice died in Los Gatos on March 10, 1947. She was a Los Gatos resident for ten years. Funeral services were held from the Melvin Mortuary and at St. Mary's Catholic Church on Bean avenue, where a requiem low mass was celebrated. She was buried at the Los Gatos Cemetery.[21][5][20]

Selected works

  • The Last Word[19] (1903)
  • Return[2]
  • Judith of the Cumberlands[19] (1908)
  • Wiving of Lance Cleaverage[19] (1909)
  • The Sword in the Mountains[19] (1910)
  • The Million-dollar Suitcase[19] (1922) with Perry Newberry
  • A Girl of the Plains Country (1924)
  • The Mystery Woman[19] (1924) with Perry Newberry
  • Shaken Down[19] (1925) with Perry Newberry
  • The Seventh Passenger (1926)
  • Who Is This Man? (1927) with Perry Newberry

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Edwards, Robert W. (2012). Jennie V. Cannon: The Untold History of the Carmel and Berkeley Art Colonies, Vol. 1. Oakland, Calif.: East Bay Heritage Project. pp. 50, 56, 63, 68, 135, 137–38, 143–144, 183, 197–98, 548. ISBN 9781467545679. A facsimile of the entire text of Vol. 1 is posted on the Traditional Fine Arts Organization website (http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/10aa/10aa557.htm Archived April 29, 2016, at the Wayback Machine).
  2. 1 2 3 Leonard, John William (1914), Woman's Who's who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada, 1914–1915, American Commonwealth Company, p. 520, ISBN 0252093135.
  3. 1 2 3 Baym, Nina (2011), Women Writers of the American West, 1833–1927, University of Illinois Press, p. 289, ISBN 978-0252093135.
  4. ↑ "Well Known Daughters of Famous Men: Mrs. Grace MacGowan Cooke", The Milwaukee Sentinel, p. 6, October 4, 1910.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Dramov, Alissandra (2013), Carmel-by-the-Sea, the Early Years (1903–1913), Author House, pp. 154, 215, ISBN 978-1491824146.
  6. 1 2 Hartzell, John Calvin (2005), Switzer, Charles I. (ed.), Ohio Volunteer, Ohio University Press, p. 16, ISBN 0821416065.
  7. ↑ "Cooke-MacGowan. The Marriage of Wm. B. Cooke and Miss Grace MacGowan". The Chattanooga Commercial. Chattanooga, Tennessee. February 18, 1887. p. 8. Retrieved October 15, 2022.
  8. ↑ "Sinclair Colony to try Tent Life", The New York Times.
  9. ↑ Alderman, Edwin Anderson; Harris, Joel Chandler; Kent, Charles William (1910), Library of Southern Literature: Biographical dictionary of authors, The Martin & Hoyt Company, p. 282, ISBN 0252093135.
  10. 1 2 Dramov, Alissandra (2012). Carmel-by-the-Sea, The Early Years (1803-1913). Blomington, Indiana. pp. 160–161. ISBN 9781491824146. Retrieved March 7, 2023. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  11. ↑ "Carmel Inventory Of Historic Resources Database" (PDF). The City of Carmel. Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. Retrieved April 9, 2023.
  12. ↑ Los Angeles Times, 22 May 1910, pp. II-1, 8.
  13. ↑ Los Angeles Times, 7 January 1911, p. I-5.
  14. ↑ San Francisco Examiner, 10 May 1914, pp. 1, 60.
  15. ↑ New York Times, 21 March 1914, p. III-1.
  16. ↑ Carmel Pine Cone, 24 May 1935, p. 8.
  17. ↑ Carmel Pine Cone, 20 April 1922, p. 10.
  18. ↑ "Who's Who-and Here". Carmel Pine Cone. Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. December 14, 1928. pp. 9–15. Retrieved October 17, 2022.
  19. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Smith, Geoffrey D. (1997), American Fiction, 1901–1925: A Bibliography, Cambridge University Press, p. 432, ISBN 0521434696.
  20. 1 2 Connie Wright (2014). "Those MacGowan Sisters and the Carmel Bunch". Stories of Old Carmel: A Centennial Tribute From The Carmel Residents Association. Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. p. 18. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  21. ↑ "Alice MacGowan, 87, Is Called By Death". Los Gatos Times-Saratoga Observer. Los Gatos, California. March 14, 1947. p. 1. Retrieved July 6, 2023.
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