The Legacy of American Environmentalist Susan Fenimore Cooper (1813-1894)

FAIN: FB-57624-14

Rochelle Johnson
College of Idaho (Caldwell, ID 83605-4432)

I seek a fellowship to fund completion of six sections of a biography of Susan Fenimore Cooper (1813-1894), a woman who made extraordinary contributions to nineteenth-century America. Now known merely as the daughter and literary executor of James Fenimore Cooper and the author of the increasingly significant Rural Hours (1850), in her own day Cooper was widely celebrated as a gifted author of fiction, essays, and history; a noted naturalist (by Thoreau and Darwin, among others); and an unstinting philanthropist. She labored tirelessly to provide a legacy that challenged that of her ancestors by centering on social justice, Native American rights, and environmental preservation. Based on materials gathered in the last dozen years from the Cooper family collection and British and U.S. archives, my biography contributes to transatlantic landscape studies, studies in domesticity, and Native American history, while uncovering the severe challenges Cooper faced amid her remarkable success.

Associated Products

Imagined Communities and Lost Manuscripts: Reconstructing Susan Fenimore Cooper’s "The Shield" (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Imagined Communities and Lost Manuscripts: Reconstructing Susan Fenimore Cooper’s "The Shield"
Author: Rochelle Johnson
Abstract: Keynote address at the 20th International James Fenimore Cooper/Susan Fenimore Cooper Conference & Seminar, “Imagined Frontiers/Imagined Communities,” SUNY, College at Oneonta, June 1-4, 2015.
Date: 06/03/2015
Conference Name: Imagined Frontiers/Imagined Communities: 20th Annual James Fenimore Cooper Seminar

Henry David Thoreau and the Literature of the Environment (Article)
Title: Henry David Thoreau and the Literature of the Environment
Author: Rochelle L. Johnson
Abstract: This essay, a chapter in A Companion to American Literature: Volume II: 1820-1914 (2020), introduces Susan Fenimore Cooper as a central figure in nineteenth-century proto-ecological thought, situating her work within the Thoreauvian tradition of environmental writing in the United States.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/title/companion-to-american-literature-and-culture/oclc/1131800721&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: A Companion to American Literature: Volume II: 1820-1914, First Edition. General Editor: Susan Belasco. Volume Editors: Theresa Strouth Gaul, Linck Johnson, and Michael Soto.
Access Model: open access
Format: Other
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Materialities of Thought: Botanical Geography and the Curation of Resilience in Susan Fenimore Cooper and Henry David Thoreau (Article)
Title: Materialities of Thought: Botanical Geography and the Curation of Resilience in Susan Fenimore Cooper and Henry David Thoreau
Author: Rochelle L. Johnson
Abstract: This essay discusses the proto-ecological understandings of botanical distribution held by Henry David Thoreau and his contemporary in environmental writing, Susan Fenimore Cooper.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/title/thoreau-beyond-borders-new-international-essays-on-americas-most-famous-nature-writer/oclc/1225632991&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: Thoreau Beyond Borders: New International Essays on America's Most Famous Nature Writer. Edited by Francois Specq, Laura Dassow Walls, and Julien Negre. Collection of new scholarly essays.
Format: Other
Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press

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