Michael B. Bateham and Sullivan D. Harris and me

The problem with spring cleaning is you stop to look things up.  When I found two copies of Ohio Farmer, July 1998, in the laundry room, I decided to look up my article in that journal, "A passion for writing agriculture" (I think the editor supplied the title). But that search also brought up, The Serials Librarian: From the Printed Page to the Digital Age, Issue 2, 1999, Norma J. Brace [misspelled my name], A Commitment to Women— The Ohio Cultivator and The Ohio Farmer of the Nineteenth Century.  Serials Librarian used to combine articles into special issues, maybe still does if it exists today. Both men had successful careers in publishing and I had a lot of fun researching their lives.  What is shocking is they want $41 for the article, or $162 for the issue! Really, if you need this, try Interlibrary Loan. Or, I probably have a hundred or so stashed somewhere.

From 1845 to 1865 the editors of two Ohio agricultural periodicals encouraged women authors, editors and poets by publishing their fiction, essays, poetry and household advice. Thomas Brown of The Ohio Farmer a weekly family newspaper out of Cleveland, and Michael B. Bateham and Sullivan D. Harris of The Ohio Cultivator a semi-monthly journal published in Columbus, offered discussions of woman's suffrage, female higher education, domestic issues and temperance in the columns of Josephine Bateham, Frances Dana Gage, Anna Hope, Hannah Tracy Cutler and Metta Fuller Victor, among others.