Bonny Miller, Author at Bonny Miller

Katherine Quail Pearson, Washington, DC Organist

On March 15, 2021

When I attend concerts at the Church of the Epiphany in Washington, DC, I feel that I have entered Augusta Browne’s world. She would have known the church well, and its organist, Mrs. Q. A. Pearson. This profile of Kate Pearson focuses on a lesser known but significant player in the musical life of Washington, DC, during the Reconstruction era and her connections to Augusta Browne.

Kate Quail was just twenty when she assumed the post of organist at DC’s Church of the Epiphany (Episcopal). Barely three years later, the Washington Evening Star paid a handsome compliment to the young woman in its preview of music planned for Easter morning, April 7, 1871, noting that her “ability as a musician is well known.”

Church of the Epiphany chancel and altar (Photo: the DC Bike Blogger on WordPress.com)

Finding Your Path into Print

By Bonny Miller

On February 2, 2021

In Posts

During fall 2020, I had the pleasure of presenting a Zoom session, “Finding Your Path into Print,” for graduate students at my alma mater, Washington University in St. Louis.

A Room of Her Own in Nineteenth-Century America

By Bonny Miller

On December 5, 2020

In Posts

Virginia Woolf wrote “A Room of One’s Own” to deliver in 1929 at Cambridge University for attendees of the two women’s colleges: Girton (est. 1869) and Newnham (est. 1871).

Colored photograph of Girton College, Cambridge — Girton College, Cambridge, England, ca. 1890–1900. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002696455/

Woolf expanded the seven thousand-word essay into a monograph that remains a touchstone of the feminist movement. [see http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200791.txt]. Her argument asserted that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” The formula was much the same for a nineteenth-century female author, i.e., a woman needed to find money (have it, get it, or earn it) and a room of her own to enable her to write.

To paraphrase Virginia Woolf, American composer and author Augusta Browne (ca. 1820–82) did have a room of her own, although—like Emily Dickinson (1830–86)—it was in her parents’ residence.

Broadway, Brooklyn, and Augusta Browne

By Bonny Miller

On September 24, 2020

In Posts

When people pick up Augusta Browne: Composer and Woman of Letters in Nineteenth-Century America for the first time, they immediately express pleasure with the look and feel of the handsome book. Next, they ask about the image on the front cover: Where is that? What city is it? The caption for the vivid illustration is on the back cover, but many will ask before they turn the book over to look for the details. The image “Broadway, New York” Front Cover of Augusta Browne was the work of Thomas Hornor (1785–1844), an English surveyor, artist, and inventor.

Music, History, Women, and Heritage

Author: Bonny Miller Page 4 of 6

Katherine Quail Pearson, Washington, DC Organist

Finding Your Path into Print

A Room of Her Own in Nineteenth-Century America

Broadway, Brooklyn, and Augusta Browne