biography of the day--helen hunt jackson
Helen Hunt Jackson
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Helen Hunt Jackson, born Helen Fiske, was a United States writer who became an activist on behalf of improved treatment of Native Americans by the U.S. government. She detailed the adverse effects of government actions in her history A Century of Dishonor (1881). Her novel Ramona dramatized the federal government's mistreatment of Native Americans in Southern California and attracted considerable attention to her cause, although its popularity was based on its romantic and picturesque qualities rather than its political content.
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Helen Hunt Jackson
Helen Maria Hunt Jackson, born Helen Fiske (October 18, 1830 – August 12, 1885 ), was a United States writer who became an activist on behalf of improved treatment of Native Americans by the U.S. government. She detailed the adverse effects of government actions in her history A Century of Dishonor (1881). Her novel Ramona dramatized the federal government's mistreatment of Native Americans in Southern California and attracted considerable attention to her cause,[1][2] although its popularity was based on its romantic and picturesque qualities rather than its political content. It was estimated to have been reprinted 300 times, and contributed to the growth of tourism in Southern California.
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In 1879 her interests turned to Native Americans after hearing a lecture in Boston by the Ponca Chief Standing Bear. He described the forcible removal of the Ponca from their Nebraska reservation and transfer to the Quapaw Reservation in Indian Territory, where they suffered from disease, climate and poor supplies. Upset about the mistreatment of Native Americans by government agents, Jackson became an activist. She started investigating and publicizing government misconduct, circulating petitions, raising money, and writing letters to the New York Times on behalf of the Ponca.
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One year after her death the North American Review called Ramona "unquestionably the best novel yet produced by an American woman" and named it, along with Uncle Tom's Cabin, one of two most ethical novels of the 19th century.[17] Sixty years after its publication, 600,000 copies had been sold. There have been over 300 reissues to date and the book has never been out of print.[18]
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Her novel was adapted as a film by the same name, released in 1910. It was directed by D. W. Griffith and starred Mary Pickford. In a review of the film, a journalist wrote about the novel, calling it "the long and lugubrious romance by Helen Hunt Jackson, over which America wept unnumbered gallons in the eighties and nineties," and complained of "the long, uneventful stretches of the novel."[25] In reviewing the history of her publisher, Houghton Mifflin, a 1970 reviewer noted that Jackson typified the house's success: "Middle aged, middle class, middlebrow."[26] The novel was adapted for films by the same name in 1928 and 1936 as well, and starred leading actresses
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Hunt_Jackson