Daviess, Maria Thompson, 1872-1924

Maria Thompson Davies (1872–1924); Writer; Born: November 25, 1872 in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, USA; Died: September 3, 1924 (age 51) in New York City, New York, USA

Maria Thompson Daviess, artist and author; born in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, in 1872 to an upper-middle-class family; her mother moved the family to Nashville after the death of Maria's father and sister when she was eight years old; Daviess became active in Nashville society and studied art at Peabody College; she traveled to Europe and continued her artistic endeavors, concentrating on photography and miniatures; she displayed her miniatures at a Paris salon; returned to America to teach art, 1904; developed an interest in literature and eventually put aside visual art for writing; wrote thirteen novels and an autobiography during her fifteen-year career; her most famous novel, Miss Selma [sic] Lue, typifies her style; she later adapted her novels for the stage; also dedicated to woman suffrage; Daviess was a charter member of the Nashville woman suffrage organization and founded the Madison organization after moving to Sweetbriar farm in 1915; wrote her autobiography, Seven Times Seven (1923) in Madison; Daviess died from articular rheumatism in 1924

U.S., Passport Applications, 1795-1905: Passport application for Maria Thompson Daviess (1902): birthplace: Harrodsburg, Kentucky; birth date: November 25, 1873

U.S., Find a Grave Index, 1600s-Current: Birth Date: 1872; Death Date: 1924; Cemetery: Spring Hill Cemetery

1900 United States Federal Census: Mariah Daviess; Age: 27; Birth Date: Nov 1872; Birthplace: Kentucky, USA; Home in 1900: Nashville Ward 10, Davidson, Tennessee

Maria Thompson Daviess; born: November 28, 1872 in Harrodsburg, Kentucky; sometimes "Marie" Thompson Daviess; parents: John Burton Thompson Daviess and Leonora Hamilton Daviess; father died when she was eight; family subsequently relocated to Nashville, Tennessee; paternal grandmother also named Maria Thompson Daviess, was a columnist and lecturer; died September 3, 1924 (aged 51) in New York City; novelist (feminist author) and artist; best known for popular novels written in the early 20th century, with a "Pollyanna" outlook, as well as several short stories; was affiliated with the Equal Suffrage League in Kentucky and was co-founder and vice-president of the chapter in Nashville and an organizer of the chapter in Madison; studied one year at Wellesley College; then travelled to Paris to study art; returning to Nashville, she continued to paint and also took up writing; first novel, Miss Selina Lue and the Soap-box Babies was published in 1909; The Melting of Molly, (1912), was one of the top best-selling books for the year; published sixteen novels between 1909 and 1920; resided in Nashville, Tennessee in 1910; moved to New York City in 1921, where she died in September 1924; did not marry and had no children



Davies c. 1911
Davies c. 1911

Co-founder of the Nashville Equal Suffrage League, 1911; Vice-President of the Nashville Equal Suffrage League, 1911—1915; organizer of the Madison, Tennessee Equal Suffrage League, 1915; feminist novelist; born in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, on November 28, 1872; parents: John Burton Thompson Daviess and Leonora Hamilton Daviess; named for her paternal grandmother Maria Thompson Daviess, an independent woman who wrote a regular column for the local Harrodsburg newspaper and lectured at a local academy; spent the first eight years of her life with her parents in Harrodsburg; moved to Nashville to the home of her mother's mother and uncle, following the death of her father; attended Price's Seminary (also known as the Nashville College for Young Ladies); developed a passion for novels while still at school; also took art classes; enrolled in the Science Hill School, in Shelbyville, Kentucky at age 13; spent a year at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, but then returned home; after her mother died in 1895, she returned to Kentucky for a brief time; she returned to Nashville and enrolled at Peabody College's School of Art when her grandmother and namesake died the following year; then left Tennessee for Europe and enrolled in art classes in Paris, where she won a Salon des Beaux Arts award for her miniature painting; returned to Nashville in 1904 at the age of thirty-one; her apartment became a salon for the city's young female artists and writers; accepted a faculty position in art at Belmont College, a women's college owned and run by Susan Heron and Ida Hood; also began to write short stories for young people, which she was able to sell to the Baptist Sunday School Publishing House, located in Nashville; published her first novel, Miss Selina Lue and the Soap-Box Babies, 1909; the first of fourteen novels with strong female protagonists that Daviess published; two of her novels were adapted into Broadway plays; Daviess was a feminist and the characters in her novels reflect her ideas about complete equality between women and men; also became interested in the woman suffrage movement; organized the Nashville Equal Suffrage League with Ida Clarke, 1911; as a result of the success of her novels, Daviess became a wealthy woman and divided her time between the Sweetbriar Farm, a Grammercy [sic] Park apartment in New York City, and a vacation home on a Canadian island; she suffered from severe arthritis during the last five years of her life and died of a heart attack in New York City on September 3, 1924, at the age of fifty-two; she was cremated and her ashes buried with her parents in the Daviess family plot in the Spring Hill Cemetery in Harrodsburg, Kentucky; she left no papers