Anne W. Armstrong | |
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 Anne W. Armstrong (1924) | |
| Born | Anne Audubon Wetzell[1] (1872-09-20)September 20, 1872 Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States |
| Died | March 17, 1958(1958-03-17) (aged 85) Abingdon, Virginia, United States[2] |
| Occupation | Businesswoman, novelist |
| Education | Mount Holyoke College[2] University of Chicago[2] |
| Notable works | The Seas of God (1915) This Day and Time (1930) |
| Spouse | Leonard T. Waldron[1] Robert F. Armstrong[1] |
| Children | Roger Waldron[1] |
| Relatives | Adelia Armstrong Lutz (sister-in-law) |
Anne Wetzell Armstrong (September 20, 1872 – March 17, 1958) was anAmerican novelist and businesswoman, active primarily in the first half of the 20th century. She is best known for her novel,This Day and Time, an account of life in a ruralAppalachian community. She was also a pioneering woman in business management, and was the first woman to lecture before theHarvard School of Business andDartmouth'sTuck School of Business in the early 1920s.[2]
Armstrong was born Anne Audubon Wetzell inGrand Rapids, Michigan, in 1872.[1] In the 1880s, her family moved toKnoxville, Tennessee, where her father operated a lumber company.[1] She attendedMount Holyoke College, where she wrote for the school's newspaper,[3] and later attended theUniversity of Chicago. She had returned to Knoxville by 1892, when she married Leonard T. Waldron. They had one son before divorcing in 1894.[1] In 1905, she married Robert F. Armstrong.[1] She renamed her son Roger Franklin Armstrong. He graduated from the Naval Academy in the Class of 1918, and he died in a plane crash in 1922.[4]
Armstrong published her first novel,The Seas of God, in 1915. In 1918, she was hired as a personnel director for the National City Company of New York.[2] She later gave an account of her early days with this company in her article, "A Woman in Wall Street by One," which was published inThe Atlantic Monthly in 1925.[5] In 1919, Armstrong was hired as the Assistant Manager for Industrial Relations forEastman Kodak, and continued in this position until 1923.[2] During the latter half of the decade, she published several articles inHarper's Monthly andThe Atlantic Monthly that focused on the emerging role of women in business.[6]
In the late 1920s, Armstrong retired and moved to the Big Creek community in ruralSullivan County, Tennessee, which would provide the inspiration for her 1930 novel,This Day and Time.[2] During this same period, she began a correspondence with authorThomas Wolfe, and began writing her autobiography,Of Time and Knoxville, a portion of which was published as "The Branner House" inThe Yale Review in 1938.[2] Three of Wolfe's letters to Armstrong were published in the 1956 collection,The Letters of Thomas Wolfe.[6]
In the 1940s, theTennessee Valley Authority completedSouth Holston Dam, effectively inundating the Big Creek community, which straddled the South Fork Holston just upstream from the dam. Armstrong moved to various places around theSoutheast before settling inAbingdon, Virginia.[2] She lived in the Barter Inn in Abingdon until her death in 1958.[2]
Armstrong's first novel,The Seas of God, tells the story of a young woman, Lydia Lambright, and her struggles to survive as an unwed mother amidst the moral constraints of Victorian society. The story opens in Kingsville, a fictional Southern town (based on Knoxville)[1] where Lydia's dying father, a professor, has been ostracized for teaching theTheory of Evolution.[7] Bitter over her father's treatment, she leaves Kingsville, and eventually winds up in New York. An illicit affair with a married man leaves her pregnant, and she gradually sinks into poverty. Unable to find gainful employment, she becomes a prostitute, and while her financial situation drastically improves, she struggles with what she deems a pointless existence.[8]
Armstrong's second novel,This Day and Time, takes place in an early 20th-century rural Appalachian community based primarily on the Big Creek area of Sullivan County, Tennessee.[2] The story focuses on Ivy, a mountain woman who returns to a life ofsubsistence farming after spending several distasteful years as a wage-earner in a nearby city. Armstrong's characters speak in a localAppalachian dialect, and the book discusses many aspects of life in early-20th century rural Appalachia, including funerary and agricultural customs, and life in a logging town.[9]
Armstrong's business writings typically focused on the status of women in the business world. Her 1927 article, "Are Business Women Getting a Square Deal," traces the gradual acceptance of women in the workplace, from the 1880s through the post-World War period.[10] In the 1928 article, "Have Women Changed Business," Armstrong complains that businesswomen have failed to make business more ethical, falling short of goals set forth by women's movement leaders such asNellie Ross.[11] In "Seven Deadly Sins of Women in Business," she advises women not to try to imitate men in dress and manners, but instead focus on what their feminine nature can bring to the workplace.[12]
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