Alyse Gregory

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Alyse Gregory (July 19, 1884 Norwalk, Connecticut, United States – August 27, 1967 Morebath, Devon, England) was an American-British suffragist and writer.^[1]

Gregory was born in Norwalk, Connecticut on July 18, 1882.^[2] Gregory's father, James G. Gregory, was a doctor and the two had a close relationship.^[2] Dr. Gregory was supportive of his daughter even in her most non-conformist ways, which she started displaying at an early age.^[3] She showed musical talent at an early age and was sent to Paris in 1899 to receive a musical education with famous concert singer Katherine Tanner Fisk.^[4][5] For four years she took singing lessons in Paris and in New York City.^[6]

In 1912, Gregory became the leader of the Norwalk Civic League and became involved with worker's rights.^[7] Through her experiences in the league came to feel that women's suffrage would help promote labor reforms.^[8] Gregory went on to become a key leader in the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association through which she directed activities such as meetings, plays, and parades alongside Cromwell native Emily Miller Pierson.^[9] In 1913, Gregory teamed up with Pierson for a Connecticut state automobile speaking tour to support women's suffrage.^[10] She later worked as assistant state organizer for the New Jersey Woman Suffrage Association during a referendum on woman suffrage in 1915 and was also active for the cause in the State of New York.^[9] Gregory was involved with the National Woman's Party protests (NWP) in New York City.^[9] In July of 1916, she published a national article about women laborers in The Woman Voter, entitled, "Women and the Garment Workers."^[11] In working on the article, she used her abilities to speak Italian and French fluently in order to connect with immigrant labor workers.^[12] Gregory also used her fluency with languages during Connecticut woman's suffrage campaigns.^[13] She would translate speeches given by Pierson into Italian, French or German.^[14] From April to October 1915, Gregory worked with Pierson on suffrage campaigns in New Jersey.^[15] In 1919, Gregory protested in Washington, D.C. in favor of woman's suffrage with the National Woman's Party (NWP) and Elsie Hill.^[16]

Gregory lived in New York City starting in 1916.^[17] Early in 1918, Gregory opened her own tea shop in Greenwich Village and the shop became a gathering place where writers and artists would gather.^[18] During this time, Scofield Thayer was recruiting Gregory for The Dial.^[19] Also in 1918, Gregory visited Denmark and Scotland, staying in Glasglow with Florida Scott-Maxwell.^[20] Gregory moved to Patchin Place in 1921.^[17] Around this time, she began contributing articles to such publications as The Freeman, The New Republic and The Dial.^[21] From 1923 to 1925, Gregory worked as the first woman managing editor of The Dial.^[22]

In 1921, she met writer Llewelyn Powys.^[23] Gregory helped expand Powys' literary network and he also relied on her advice as an editor.^[24] In 1924, Gregory married Powys.^[25][26] In April 1925, Gregory retired from The Dial to move to England with her husband.^[27] Gregory continued to write literary reviews for The Dial through 1929.^[22]

She and her husband visited Palestine in 1928 so Powys could do research for an upcoming book.^[28] They spent the winter of 1930 in a house in the Berkshire Hills lent to them by Edna St. Vincent Millay and Eugen Boissevain. From there, they paid a visit to the West Indies. On their return to England, Llewelyn Powys suffered a relapse from an old illness, and in the winter of 1936, they went to Switzerland, where she wrote a book of essays, Wheels on Gravel (1938). In 1956, Alyse presented the author Rosemary Manning with a copy of Wheels on Gravel inscribed with a quotation from George Santayana: 'To understand oneself is the classic form of consolation, to elude oneself is the romantic'.^[29]

After Llewelyn Powys' death from tuberculosis in 1939, she continued to live on the Dorset coast in England.^[30]

In 1957, Alyse Gregory moved into Velthams Cottage, Morebath, Devon, as the tenant of Mrs Rosamund Mary Rose (née Rosamund Mary Trafford), at a rent of "one peppercorn a year (if demanded)". After the sudden death of her landlady on May 12, 1958, Velthams was bought at auction in 1960 by the writer Oliver Stonor, who had known Alyse previously; they were both present at local celebrations in East Chaldon on 7 or 8 May 1945, for the end of the Second World War in Europe, which took the form of a large bonfire near the Five Marys, a local group of prehistoric barrows. In her last years, many friends visited her, in spite of the rural isolation of Morebath, which had a railway station until 1966. Alyse had long been an advocate of voluntary euthanasia, and planned her own. She took a lethal overdose on 27 August 1967, and was cremated in Taunton, Somerset. Her last visitor on the day of her death was the author Rosemary Manning who described the visit in her autobiography A Corridor of Mirrors.^[31]

Gregory helped turn The Dial into "a first rate magazine of the fine arts," according to E. E. Cummings.^[32] As an editor at The Dial, Gregory was considered a "powerful arbiter of literary style."^[18] During World War II Gregory had trouble publishing her work while she lived in England.^[33]

Gregory's book, Hester Craddock, uses many of her own personal experiences to create the two main characters.^[34]

The Day is Gone is Gregory's autobiography, published in 1948.^[30] In 1973, selections from her journals were published under the title The Cry of a Gull 1923-1948.^[35]

• She Shall Have Music (1926) OCLC 6924533
• King Log and Lady Lea (1929) OCLC 27732505
• Hester Craddock (1931) OCLC 770050
• Wheels on Gravel (1938) OCLC 3473640
• The Day Is Gone (1948) OCLC 676790

• Bennewitz, Kathleen Motes (Fall 2020). "Alyse Gregory: Finding Her 'Voice' through Woman's Suffrage". Connecticut History Review. 59 (2): 72–108. doi:10.5406/connhistrevi.59.2.0072 – via EBSCOhost.
• Kuhl, Nancy (2003). Intimate Circles: American Women in the Arts. University Press of New England – via Internet Archive.
• Malcolm, Elwin (1953). Life of Llewellyn Powys. Great Britain: Macdonald and Co. (Publishers) Ltd. – via Newspapers.com.
• Ozieblo, Barbara (Winter 2002). "Alyse Gregory, Scofield Thayer, and the 'Dial'". Twentieth Century Literature. 48 (4): 487–507. doi:10.2307/3176044 – via JSTOR.

• Alyse Gregory Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.