Carrying the Torch: Maud Howe Elliott and the American Renaissance

Carrying the Torch: Maud Howe Elliott and the American Renaissance by Grinnell, Nancy Whipple. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9781611684957.

Maud Howe Elliott (1854–1948), the daughter of Julia Ward Howe, was a Pulitzer Prize–winning writer and a tireless supporter of the arts, particularly in her adopted city of Newport, Rhode Island. An art historian and the author of over twenty works of fiction and nonfiction, including countless articles and short stories, Elliott is perhaps best known for co-writing a biography of her mother—a major figure in the political and cultural world of New England, a woman’s suffrage leader, and a leading progressive political voice. Elliott sought to enhance community and regional life by founding the Art Association of Newport in 1912 (now the Newport Art Museum), which she saw as the culmination of her life’s work. Nancy Whipple Grinnell has written an informative and inspiring biography that will appeal to a broad regional readership, finally securing Elliott’s place in the pantheon of American cultural benefactors.