"Plucking Roses from a Cabbage Patch": Class Dynamics in Progressive Era Louisville as understood through the Contested Relationship of Mary Bass and Alice Hegan Rice

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Hardman, J. (2016). "Plucking Roses from a Cabbage Patch": Class Dynamics in Progressive Era Louisville as understood through the Contested Relationship of Mary Bass and Alice Hegan Rice. Unc Charlotte Electronic Theses And Dissertations.
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Abstract

In 1901, Alice Hegan Rice, a wealthy socialite reformer, published the novel Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch which dealt her experiences working with the poor. By the end of 1902 her novel had become a national phenomenon and finished the decade as one of its five bestselling books. Though the novel was fictional in nature, the book’s heroine, Mrs. Wiggs, was based on the life of a real woman, who inhabited the one of the poorest neighborhoods in Louisville, Kentucky at the turn of the twentieth-century, a slum known as the Cabbage Patch. Shortly after the book’s publication it became well-advertised that Mary Bass, a widowed mother of five children living in poverty in the Cabbage Patch, was the prototype for the beloved character of Mrs. Wiggs and subsequently and quite undesirably became fetishized by an overenthusiastic public. Mary Bass would end up suing Alice Hegan Rice for libel. The Bass/Rice story supplies an uncommon historical opportunity to analyze the portrayal of poverty in popular fiction in the Progressive Era United States and the classist values behind those representations.

Details
Author

Hardman, James

Title

"Plucking Roses from a Cabbage Patch": Class Dynamics in Progressive Era Louisville as understood through the Contested Relationship of Mary Bass and Alice Hegan Rice

Physical Description

1 online resource (186 pages) : PDF

Date

2016

Degree Granting Institution

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Abstract

In 1901, Alice Hegan Rice, a wealthy socialite reformer, published the novel Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch which dealt her experiences working with the poor. By the end of 1902 her novel had become a national phenomenon and finished the decade as one of its five bestselling books. Though the novel was fictional in nature, the book’s heroine, Mrs. Wiggs, was based on the life of a real woman, who inhabited the one of the poorest neighborhoods in Louisville, Kentucky at the turn of the twentieth-century, a slum known as the Cabbage Patch. Shortly after the book’s publication it became well-advertised that Mary Bass, a widowed mother of five children living in poverty in the Cabbage Patch, was the prototype for the beloved character of Mrs. Wiggs and subsequently and quite undesirably became fetishized by an overenthusiastic public. Mary Bass would end up suing Alice Hegan Rice for libel. The Bass/Rice story supplies an uncommon historical opportunity to analyze the portrayal of poverty in popular fiction in the Progressive Era United States and the classist values behind those representations.

Genre

masters theses

Subjects--Topics

American literature
History

Subjects--Places

America

Degree

M.A.

Keywords

Alice Cladwell Hegan
Alice Hegan Rice
Cabbbage Patch
Class
Louisville
Mary Bass

Subject Area

History

Advisor(s)

Hicks, Cheryl

Committee Members

Shapiro, Aaron
Ramsey, Sonya

Degree Note

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2016.

Rights Statement

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Rights Holder Information

Copyright is held by the author unless otherwise indicated.

Identifier

Hardman_uncc_0694N_11273

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13093/etd:1523