Clara Doty Bates

Clara Doty Bates
"A Woman of the Century"
Born	Clara Doty December 22, 1838 Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.
Died	October 14, 1895(1895-10-14) (aged 56) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Resting place	Forest Hill Cemetery, Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.
Occupation	author
Language	English
Nationality	American
Genre	poetry, juvenile literature
Notable works	Aesop's Fables in Verse
Spouse	Morgan Bates ​ (m. 1869)​

Clara Doty Bates (née, Doty; December 22, 1838 – October 14, 1895) was a 19th-century American author who published a number of volumes of poetry and juvenile literature. Many of these works were illustrated, the designs being furnished by her sister. Her work was published in St. Nicholas Magazine, The Youth's Companion, Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Wide Awake, Godey's Lady's Book, and Peterson's Magazine.^[1] During the World's Columbian Exposition, she had charge of the Children's Building.^[2] Bates died in 1895.

Clara Doty was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, December 22, 1838.^[3] She was the second daughter of Samuel Rosecrans Doty and Hannah Lawrence, who were among the pioneers of Michigan. Bates was of Dutch and English ancestry. Her great-grandfather, a Rosecrans, was ninety years old when he died, and the legend goes that at the time of his death "his hair was as black as a raven's wing." Another ancestor was with George Washington at Valley Forge. She was also a descendant of Ethan Allen.^[4] On the mother's side were the Lawrences, and Hannah Lawrence, the great-grandmother, was remembered for her gift of story-telling. Her siblings included a brother, Duane, and a sister, Helen Ann.^[2]

The homestead in Ann Arbor, "Heart's Content," was well known for its books and pictures. Bates had a rhyming talent from her earliest days. She wrote verses when she could only print in big letters. Her first poem was published when she was nine years old.^[5]

The location of the State University in Ann Arbor gave better facilities for education than were offered in the usual western village. It was before the admission of women to equal opportunities with men, but it was possible to secure private instruction in advanced studies. This the Doty daughters had in addition to private schools, while the son attended the university.^[5]

The majority of Bates' published work was fugitive, although she wrote several books, chiefly for children. Among these were Æsop's Tables Versified, Child Lore, Classics of Babyland, Heart's Content, and several minor books, all published in Boston.^[5] Her work was not wholly confined to writing for children: occasionally she contributed to periodicals. But it was as a writer of stories and sketches to please children that Bates was best known. She was a frequent contributor to St. Nicholas, The Youth's Companion, and Golden Days, and a regular contributor to Wide Awake. Her literary ability was first recognized by Charles G. Leland while he was editor of Graham's Magazine. Her efforts frequently appeared in the pages of Godey's Lady's Book and Peterson's Magazine. The first book published by Bates was a work for children, Blind Jakey. It was a Sunday school book and had a wide sale. Aesop's Fables in Verse was her most successful work. Heart's Content, another of her books, was so called in honor of her childhood home in Ann Arbor, the name of which was "Heart's Content". Her last published volume was a collection of verse, From Heart's Content.^[2]

Two years previous to the opening of the World's Columbian Exposition, Bates worked to gather together a model children's library and succeeded in doing far more than she expected. She installed the library herself, and at her solicitation nearly every publishing house in the world contributed to it.^[2]

On September 2, 1869, she married Morgan Bates, a newspaper man and the author of several plays. They made their home in Chicago, Illinois. They had no children. She was a member of the Fortnightly literary club, and served on the literary committee of the Woman's Branch of the World's Congress Auxiliary. Her manuscripts and notes were destroyed by the burning of her father's house. Among them were a finished story, a half-completed novel and some other work.^[5][2]

After suffering severe physical pain for five years, Bates died on October 14, 1895,^[3] at the Newberry apartments in Chicago.^[2] She was buried at Forest Hill Cemetery, in Ann Arbor.^[6]

Prior to 1860, Graham's Magazine was considered one of the best literary magazines of the United States, and one of its most valued contributors was Bates, then Miss Clara Doty. The following comments and quotations are from that magazine in 1858:—

"There is no young writer of poetry at present before our public whose lyrics are more decidedly characteristic than those of Miss Clara Doty, of Ann Arbor, Michigan. If the reader will imagine a clear, yet sensitive mind, which has perfectly appreciated the purest and most sparkling flashes of German poetry, in the deepest and sweetest lyrics of Heine, and which has then, forgetting all models, studied nature, retaining no more of art than is found in our Indian legends, he will have an accurate idea of the impression which her songs convey. There are many sweet little poems of the present day which look like Clara Doty's, but hers have the peculiarity that they are based on a deep, generally a semi-mythologic, thought. They are never rococo.^[7]

• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Chas. C. Chapman & Company (1881). History of Washtenaw County, Michigan : together with sketches of its cities, villages and townships, educational, religious, civil, military, and political history ; portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens : history of Michigan : embracing accounts of the pre-historic races, aborigines, French, English and American conquests, and a general review of its civil, political and military history (Public domain ed.). Chas. C. Chapman & Company.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Doty, E. A. (1897). The Doty-Doten Family in America (Public domain ed.). E. A. Doty. ISBN 978-5-87564-099-5.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Willard, Frances Elizabeth; Livermore, Mary Ashton Rice (1893). A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life (Public domain ed.). Moulton. ISBN 9780722217139.

• Hall, Donald (13 December 1990). The Oxford Book of Children's Verse in America. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-028174-8.

• Works related to Woman of the Century/Clara Doty Bates at Wikisource
• Works by or about Clara Doty Bates at the Internet Archive