Constance Cary Harrison

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Constance Cary Harrison (April 25, 1843-November 21, 1920), was an American writer. She was also known as Constance Cary, Constance C. Harrison, and Mrs. Burton Harrison. She was married to Burton Harrison, and they were the parents of Francis Burton Harrison (1873-1957), who served as a Governor-General of the Philippines.

[edit] Life

Constance Cary was born into an aristocratic family on Vaucluse Plantation in Virginia. She lived in Richmond, Virginia during the American Civil War and moved in the same set as Varina Davis, Mary Boykin Chesnut, and Virginia Clay-Clopton.

In September, 1861, Constance Cary and her cousins, Hetty Cary and Jennie Cary, sewed the first examples of the Confederate Battle Flag following a design created by William Porcher Miles and modified by General Joseph E. Johnston. She later met Burton Harrison (1838- 1904), who was a private secretary for Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

In 1866 Harrison had settled in New York City. After they were married in 1867, she joined him there. He held various public offices and she wrote and was active in the city’s social scene. Among her other contributions to Americana, Constance Cary Harrison persuaded her friend Emma Lazarus to donate a poem to the fundraising effort to pay for a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty.

Sometime in the 1880s, Mr. and Mrs. Harrison commissioned Arthur Rotch of the architectural firm, Rotch & Tilden, to build a seaside "cottage" called "Sea Urchins" at Bar Harbor, Maine. This property is now owned by the College of the Atlantic. Sea Urchins was the center of hospitality during the "Gilded Age" in Bar Harbor and she entertained many noted visitors there, including friend and neighbor, James G. Blaine.

Noted actress Minnie Maddern Fiske appeared in the 1901 production of Harrison’s play The Unwelcome Mrs. Hatch.

Constance Cary Harrison died in Washington, DC in 1920 at the age of 77.

[edit] Works

The works of Constance Cary Harrison include:

  • Anglomaniacs, The - 1890
  • Bachelor Maid, A - 1894
  • Belhaven Tales; Crow’s Nest; Una; and King David - 1892
  • Bric-a-Brac Stories - 1885
  • Carlyles: A Study of the Fall of the Confederacy, The - 1905
  • Circle of a Century, The
  • Count and the Congressman, The - 1908
  • Daughter of the South and Shorter Stories, A - 1892
  • Edelweis of the Sierras; Golden-Rod, and Other Tales - 1892
  • Errant Wooing, An - 1895
  • Flower de Hundred - 1890
  • Golden-Rod - 1880
  • Good Americans
  • Latter-Day Sweethearts - 1906
  • Little Centennial Lady, A - 1876
  • Merry Maid of Arcady, The
  • Old-Fashioned Fairy Book - 1884
  • Princess of the Hills, A - 1901
  • Recollections Grave and Gay - 1911
  • Russian Honeymoon, A - 1883
  • Story of Helen of Troy, The - 1881
  • Sweet Bells out of Tune - 1893
  • Sylvia’s Husband - 1904
  • Unwelcome Mrs. Hatch, The
  • A Virginia Cousin and Bar Harbor Tales - 1895
  • Well-Bred Girl in Society, The
  • Woman's Handiwork in Modern Homes - 1881

[edit] Sources and External Links