Katharine Lee Bates Autograph Letter on Authorship, Public Performance, and Academic Life at Wellesley, 1917

Katherine Lee Bates

Manuscript & Autographs

Bates, Katharine Lee autograph letter signed, April 9, 1917, documents the private intellectual and emotional position of Katharine Lee Bates as a poet, educator, and social activist working within early twentieth-century academic culture. Writing from Wellesley College, Bates addresses the circulation of her poetry in print while firmly rejecting public recitation, stating that it would be “against all my instincts and principles to stand upon a platform and read them anywhere, least of all in college.” The letter provides direct evidence of her relationship to authorship, performance, and institutional expectations, and records her reliance on trusted colleagues to prevent such appearances, offering insight into the boundaries she maintained between literary production and public display.

Bates, Katharine Lee. Autograph letter signed. Wellesley, Massachusetts, April 9, 1917. Two pages, typed on Wellesley College letterhead, signed in ink. The letter discusses her reluctance to read her poetry publicly, despite its printed circulation, and includes the request that correspondents intervene to prevent a proposed college reading. She writes: “…I depend on you and Martha Hale to nip in the bud any attempt…to give a college reading of my verses…You know you wouldn’t do it yourself, and it would be entirely against nature for me to do it, even if the verses were better than they are,” concluding with the plea, “don’t let my trench be bombed.”

Composed in 1917, the year the United States entered World War I, the letter’s language reflects both personal and cultural pressures, with Bates invoking wartime imagery to describe the defense of her professional boundaries. As a longtime faculty member at Wellesley College and an established literary figure, her refusal to engage in public readings contrasts with the increasing visibility expected of writers within academic and public spheres. The document contributes to research in women’s literary history, higher education, and the negotiation of authorship and public identity, particularly among women writers balancing institutional roles and creative work. Two horizontal folds with strong, clear text and signature. Overall near fine condition.

Item #16293

Price: $550.00