A marriage of minds in twentieth-century America: Henry Beston and Elizabeth Coatsworth

Henry Beston (1888-1968) and Elizabeth Coatsworth (1893-1986) were both successful writers of twentieth-century America. They were also married to one another. Beston specialised in writing about the natural world, achieving fame with his book The Outermost House published in 1928. Coatsworth was equally acclaimed as a children’s novelist and poet of great creativity and productivity who published over ninety books and won the Newbery Medal in 1931 from the American Library Association for The Cat Who Went to Heaven (1930).

A PhD study of these two authors examining the context in which they developed their respective careers as writers, their literary outputs and reception of those works, and their marriage, social backgrounds and professional networks, would make a contribution to the fields of twentieth-century cultural history, American studies, and the history of family life and childhood. Although the two writers and their works are quite well known there has not yet been an in depth academic study of their careers with attention to how each writer negotiated the gendered expectations upon men and women in the social, literary, and publishing worlds in which they moved.

There are extensive archives in various libraries of the United States containing letters, photographs and manuscripts. The majority of sources are in English, although Beston sometimes wrote in French and his book A Volunteer Poilu (1916) reflects his experience as a soldier in France during the First World War. Supervision expertise in gender and literary history as well as the cultural histories of twentieth-century America and France would support this PhD. The successful applicant would also benefit from well developed resources on American history in the Sir Duncan Rice Library at the University of Aberdeen and from academic contacts and seminar opportunities in the gender history networks of Scotland.