Lillie Devereaux Blake
| Lillie Devereux Blake | |
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| Born |
Elizabeth Johnson Devereux August 12, 1833 Raleigh, North Carolina |
| Died | December 30, 1913 (aged 80) Englewood, New Jersey |
| Other names | Tiger Lily (pen name) |
| Spouse(s) | Frank Geoffrey Quay Umsted (June 1855 - May 1859) Grinfill Blake (1866) |
| Children | Katherine Devereux Blake |
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Lillie Devereux Blake (August 12, 1833 – December 30, 1913) was an American woman suffragist and reformer, born in Raleigh, North Carolina, and educated in New Haven, Connecticut.
She was born Elizabeth Johnson Devereux to George Pollock Devereux and Sarah Elizabeth Johnson in Raleigh, North Carolina. Elizabeth spent much of her early childhood in Roanoke, Virginia. It was George Devereux who called his daughter "Lilly," giving her the name she would later adopt as her own. Her father, a plantation owner in North Carolina, died in 1837. At this point, Sarah Elizabeth Johnson took her two daughters and moved back to her family in Connecticut. Lillie grew up in New Haven, Connecticut where she studied at Miss Apthorp's school for girls before receiving further education from Yale tutors.
Lillie’s close connection to Yale turned into a minor scandal. Lillie Devereux was a renowned belle, who at 16 wrote that she intended to redress the wrongs done to her sex by trifling with men’s hearts. Although she abandoned this particular formulation of feminism, the difficulties of expressing her independence within the limited roles allowed by her social station would prove a continuing theme in her life. In this case, Yale undergraduate William H.L. Barnes was expelled for being involved with her in what was called a disgraceful affair. The student was an admirer whose affections were too serious. She rejected him and he retaliated with stories implying a sexual relationship. He was punished by the college for impugning her character. In her autobiography, Lillie Blake denied that a disgraceful affair had taken place and expressed regret that the student had been expelled. She also noted that the story was not taken very seriously in social circles as she still received offers of marriage.
In 1855 she married Frank G. Q. Umsted, a Philadelphia lawyer. Her first daughter. Elizabeth, was born in 1857; her second daughter, Katherine, was born the following year. Her husband died in 1859 (after he apparently committed suicide) leaving her with two children to support. Blake began to write feverishly to support herself and her daughters: she wrote short stories, novels, newspaper and magazine articles. Her first story, A Lonely House, appeared in the Atlantic Monthly. In the next few years, she produced two successful novels, Southwold (1859) and Rockford (1862). What generated the most money and fame for Blake, however, was her job as a correspondent in Washington, D.C. during the Civil War. She was contracted as a correspondent for several publications, including the New York Evening Post, New York World, Philadelphia Press, and Forney's War Press.
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