In 1873, Hartwell sold at least 13 stories to literary magazines. Sufficiently encouraged by her success, she left teaching. In 1875, she published her first novel, moved to Cincinnati, wrote articles for several magazines including Golden Hours and The Ladies’ Repository, and paid off her college bill.
At the center of many of her stories are young women with determination. She developed a literary style depicting Midwestern small town life that anticipates Sherwood Anderson. Her characters are recognizable, as neighbors, plain in their manners and speech, sometimes sympathetic and sometimes not.
“In those days neighborhoods were intensely local. The people knew what historians have not yet learned about the value of isolated bits of human life.”
-from “The Stirring-Off” in The Queen of the Swamp and Other Plain Americans. Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., 1899.
Mary left Cincinnati for Illinois and married James Steele Catherwood in 1877. She became friends with the “Hoosier Poet” James Whitcomb Riley and together with other regional authors, they formed the Western Association of Writers.
Mary Hartwell Catherwood’s later works moved away from small town realism toward more florid historical romance, but they continued to feature ambitious and independent women. She died in Chicago in 1902.
“About her she found all manner of young girls-working; girls-some of whom drooped, some of whom strutted defiantly; girls without homes, groping fearfully around the world; girls whose parents had given them nothing but life, and of them demanded all things; girls hiding peculiar talents for fear of custom. These she drew toward herself.”
- from A Woman in Armor. New York, NY: G. W. Carleton & Co., 1875.