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TOWNSEND, Mary Ashley : THE WORLD'S COTTON CENTENNIAL EXPOSITION POEM

TOWNSEND, Mary Ashley. THE WORLD'S COTTON CENTENNIAL EXPOSITION POEM. New Orleans: L. Graham & Son, 1885. 10 pp. 8vo., stapled pale blue wrappers printed in gilt. The 1884 World's Fair was held in New Orleans, Louisiana. At a time when nearly one third of all cotton produced in the United States was handled in New Orleans and the city was home to the Cotton Exchange, the idea for the Fair was first advanced by the Cotton Planters Association. (The name World Cotton Centennial referred to the earliest surviving record of export of a shipment of cotton from the United States to England in 1784.) Mary Ashley Townsend (1836-1901) was an American poet and writer. She was born in Lyons, New York; her maiden name was Van Voorhis. She was educated in her native town and married Gideon Townsend, of New Orleans. She began to write for publication about 1856, and under the pen-name "Xariffa" made a reputation as the author of QUILLOTYPES, a series of humorous papers that appeared in the New Orleans publication DELTA and were widely copied by the Southern and Western press. Her other works are THE BROTHER CLERKS (New York, 1859); POEMS (Philadelphia, 1870); THE CAPTAIN'S STORY (1874); and DOWN THE BAYOU, AND OTHER POEMS (Boston, 1884). Her most important short poems are "Creed," "A Woman's Wish," "The Bather," and "The Wind." She was officially appointed to deliver the World's Cotton Centennial Exposition Poem on the opening of the New Orleans Exposition in 1884, and then at the unveiling of the statue of General Albert Sidney Johnston in 1887. Spine slightly chipped with a few closed tears. Light soil, pencil initials to rear cover; corners of wrappers slightly chipped. Text has several small closed tears to bottom edge, not affecting printed portion of page.

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