Outstanding Women of New Brighton: Sarah Jane Clarke Lippincott
Sarah Jane Clarke Lippincott (Grace Greenwood) was born on September 23rd, 1823, and died April 20th, 1904. Sarah Jane Clarke, one of the first women in the United States to work as a newspaper reporter on a regular basis, was born in Pompey, New York. She was the daughter Dr. Thaddeus C. Clarke and Deborah Baker Clarke. She became an advocate for women’s rights, the antislavery movement, and prison reform. Clarke also wrote poetry and several volumes of moralistic children’s stories. This article will deal primarily with her antislavery activities.
How did Sarah Jane Clarke come up with the Nome de plume of Grace Greenwood? In an 1896 interview for The Times of Philadelphia, she tells how she became Grace Greenwood. “The name given by her mother was Grace Ingersoll and was chosen in honor of an intimate friend, who afterward figured at the Court of Napoleon. This selection, however, did not please her father, who wished her to be called for two maiden ladies of his acquaintance — Misses Sarah and Jane Stewart. Accordingly, when she was 3 years old, he carried her one morning to church, and there in baptism, the not very euphonious combination was formally bestowed upon her. The ladies in question were possessed of large means, and it was thought that their little namesake would inherit a fortune.
“But I did not become an heiress, “Mrs. Lippincott says. “My father’s friends discharged their obligations by making me handsome presents now and then, and as these were never very useful, I’m afraid I did not appreciate them.”
As to her mother’s choice, even-handed justice was eventually meted out to her by destiny. The time came for her gifted daughter to make her debut in the world of letters, and a name under which to appear must be fixed upon. Grace Ingersoll, the appellation of her babyhood, was suggested, but Grace Ingersoll was still living — a distinguished member of court circles in France. There could be no objections to Grace, however, and because of her love for forest rides and rambles, Greenwood was fixed to it. And so, it turned out that the name by which she was most widely known was not her baptismal name, but one which her mother had originally designed for her.
In 1844 under the pseudonym Grace Greenwood, Sarah Jane began to publish poems, children’s stories, and political essays for the Saturday Evening Post, Harper’s Monthly, Ladies Home Journal and the New York Times. She was hired as an editorial assistant for Godey’s Lady’s Book in 1849 but was fired for writing an antislavery article. She moved to Washington, D.C. where she worked for the antislavery periodical National Era, the Saturday Evening Post, the New York Tribune and the New York Times, writing and publishing anti-slavery essays as well as collections of letters and literary sketches.
In Frederick Douglass’s Life and Times, he referred to Clarke as “one of America’s brilliant literary ladies…young and as brave as she was beautiful.”
She first met Douglass in August 1846 when he was lecturing in New Brighton, where she and her parents were living. Along with William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass and Clarke spent about an hour discussing her interest in the antislavery movement. Douglas also noted that while aboard a steamer traveling the Ohio River, he encountered a situation where he was refused dinner and compelled to leave the cabin. According to Douglass, Clarke and her sister witnessed the encounter when Clarke “arose from her seat at the table, expressed her disapprobation, and with her sister, moved majestically away to the upper deck. Her conduct seemed to amaze the on-lookers, but it filled me with grateful admiration.”
Clarke married Leander K. Lippincott in 1853 in the Christ Episcopal Church next to her New Brighton childhood home, and together they began Little Pilgrim, one of the first magazines for children in the United States. During the Civil War, Clarke went on the lecture tour to help raise money for the Union cause. Her lectures, filled with patriotic rhetoric, drew significant crowds; President Lincoln dubbed her “the little patriot” for her efforts. However, Grace Greenwood’s marriage proved an unhappy one. Lippincott, who was a clerk in the General Land Office, was dismissed in 1876 under charges of fraud. He later left the United States in order to avoid trial, abandoning Grace and her daughter.
By the 1870s, Greenwood wrote primarily for The New York Times. Her articles focused mainly on women's issues, such as advocating for Fanny Kemble's right to wear trousers, Susan B. Anthony's right to vote, and all women's right to receive equal pay for equal work.
Greenwood and her daughter moved to Europe around 1882. She worked for the London Journal and also wrote a biography, Queen Victoria: Her Girlhood and Womanhood (1883). In 1887 she returned to the United States and continued to work until 1900.
In 1904, Sarah Jane Clarke Lippincott died from bronchitis in New Rochelle, New York at the home of her daughter. Her body was transported by train to New Brighton where it was met by her brother, Albert H. Clarke, and a number of friends who knew her when she lived in New Brighton. The Hon. C.C. Townsend, Mr. E.P. Townsend, Joseph Mayer, and J. Frank Miner, four of New Brighton’s most prominent men tenderly lifted the casket into the hearse. The hearse proceeded to Grove Cemetery. The coffin was lowered into the grave at once when the cemetery was reached.
Her front-page New York Times obituary attests to her importance as a literary figure in the 19th century; particularly as the “first woman journalist in Washington, D.C.”