Born: 5 November 1850, United States
Died: 30 October 1919
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
From Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women. Written by Joseph Adelman, published 1926 by Ellis M Lonow Company:
Ella Wheeler Wilcox, an American writer of popular verse, born at Johnstown Centre, Wisconsin.
She was married to Robert M. Wilcox in 1884, and then moved to New York, where she became a successful contributor to magazines, and wrote many short essays for the New York Journal and Chicago American.
Her principal books were: Poems of Passion (1883), Poems of Pleasure (1888), Men, Women and Emotions (1896), and The Story of a Literary Career (1905).
Though many critics refused to take Mrs. Wilcox’s work seriously, she found a large public for her writings in both verse and prose.
The following is excerpted from “400 Outstanding Women of the World and the Costumology of Their Time” by Minna Moscherosch Schmidt, published in 1933.
She was the daughter of sturdy New England parents, who had moved to the middle west to better their financial possibilities. Her youth and early girlhood were spent in writing bits of poetry in an effort to relieve the burdens and hardships of her family. She became recognized, first, in her immediate locality for her exceptional talents and in 1882 became well-known through the publication of Maurine, a novel. In 1884 she was married to Robert Wilcox and moved to New York. Here she was heralded as a disciple of the “New Thought,” and gained great popularity.
Mrs. Frank Leslie, at whose salon she made a successful debut, was one of the first to publish her poems in her magazine. Beside being a poetic genius she was also an accomplished linguist and very fond of travelling. While in England she was presented at court and made many friends among British nobility. After the death of her husband, in 1916, she spent most of her time travelling, and her poems from this time became more spiritual in feeling.