Mary Dezember

Helen Gray Cone, Nineteenth-Century American Scholar-Poet

By Mary Dezember, Ph.D.
Helen Gray Cone Scholar

Hidden in Plain Sight, Emerging into the Light: The Poems of Nineteenth-Century American Scholar-Poet Helen Gray Cone (1859 - 1934)

Helen Gray Cone was a prominent American poet and scholar of the nineteenth century, a pioneer in American poetry and in women's college education.

Helen Gray Cone was among the first to advocate women's voices as literary voices in America.

She was the first woman professor of Hunter College in New York City, appointed English department chair at the same time.

I publicly released my Helen Gray Cone research on October 10, 2024 when I presented at the 2024 Rocky Mountain Modern Language Associate Convention, American Nineteenth Century Literature panel (entitled “The ‘Other’ Woman Poet of the Nineteenth Century”), a version of what I have posted below in an introductory/overview essay of this amazing scholar-poet, entitled “There is Another — Nineteenth-Century American Poet with ‘Dramatic Force’” Helen Gray Cone.”

I am excited to share my research with you in my essay posts that begin 10/11/24, below, and with this page dedicated to Helen Gray Cone.

There is one essay post at present, an overview essay. I will be adding shorter essays on topics introduced in the overview essay.

Please sign up for my newsletter (at the bottom of this page) if you wish to be notified of when these essays are posted. You will also receive information about my other writing projects and events in the newsletter.

I invite you to read my essays to find out more about this amazing poet who has been hidden in plain sight — the "secret" poet of American nineteenth-century poetry is a "secret" no more.

I believe that the nineteenth-century poetry and the life of Helen Gray Cone (March 8, 1859 to January 31, 1934) merits ever-increasing recognition.

This page compiles my dedicated research to this purpose.

Acknowledgments:

I wish to offer my most sincere gratitude to two researchers who, when I began my research in 1997/1998 and over several years, gave generously of their time and help on my continuous but often-interrupted quest to learn about Helen Gray Cone: Jeffrey Graf, Reference Associate at the Herman B. Wells Library, Indiana University and Professor Julio Hernandez-Delgado, Hunter College Libraries Archives and Special Collections. For more about their wonderful help to my research, please read my essay (below) of October 11, 2024, entitled “There is Another — Nineteenth-Century Poet of ‘Dramatic Force’: Helen Gray Cone.”

I wish to thank New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology for my sabbatical leave during the fall semester of 2016 so that I could continue my research of Helen Gray Cone and her poetry.

Timeline of Events in the Life of Helen Gray Cone
by Mary Dezember

This is an ongoing timeline that I will continue to update as I find more information.

1815 to 1861 Antebellum America time period.

1830 to 1870 Gothic Revival architecture — a movement for American colleges.

1855 July 4. Leaves of Grass published by Walt Whitman.

1859 March 8. Helen Gray Cone born in New York City.
Parents are Julia Gray Cone and John Carpenter Cone.
Called Nellie instead of Helen.
Uncle (mother’s brother) is artist Henry Peters Gray (1819-1877), whose art is in the Metropolitan Museum of
Art. Some information about Gray and his art can be found here:
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/10966https://www.spellmangallery.com/artists/henry-
peters-gray
Time Period is Antebellum America (1815 to 1861).
The United States of America is 82 years old.

1861 April 12. United States Civil War begins. HGC is age 2.

1863 January 1. Emancipation Proclamation. HGC is age 4.

1865 April 9. Civil War unofficially ends. General Lee surrenders. HGC is age 6. 

1865 April 15. President Abraham Lincoln murdered. HGC is age 6.

1865 June 19. Juneteenth. HGC is age 6.

1865 to 1877 Reconstruction Era.

1866 August 20. Civil War officially ended by President Andrew Johnson. HGC is age 7.

1870 February 14. Normal College/Hunter College of the City University of New York opens.
All women’s public college.

1870 to 1890/1900 The Gilded Age time period in America.

Helen Gray Cone Career: First Period — Literary Beginnings — 1872 to 1876 — HGC Ages 12/13 to 17

1872 HGC writes a poem entitled “The Rival Painters” and signed Nellie G. Cone. [To date, my understanding is that this
was an unpublished poem. This is a handwritten poem that is the the property of The Hunter College Library
Archives and Special Collections.] HGC is age 12/13. .”

1873 HGC (known as Nellie Gray Cone) begins education at Normal/Hunter College of New York City. HGC is age 13/14.

1875 Mock Debate at Normal/Hunter College: “Resolved, that Bacon wrote Shakespeare.”
Affirmative: N. G. Cone and L. C. Pettengell
Negative: Adelaide Duff and Carrie G. Roberts
[This information is from my private collection — the private collection of Mary Dezember. On a printed Programme,
a handwritten note that says “about 1875.” Handwritten note might have been made in 1930 by Evelyn Mellen.]
HGC is age 15/16.

1875. Writes “The House of Loyal Hearts (From Birthdays, a poem read in the College Chapel, February 14, 1875).”
[Published in 1899 in The Ivy Leaf.”] HGC is age 15/16.

1876 June. Helen “Nellie” Gray Cone graduates from Normal/Hunter College. HGC Age 17.
Writes “The Good Ship Alma Mater, (Commencement Song, 1876).” [Published in 1899 in The Ivy Leaf.”] HGC is age
16/17.

Helen Gray Cone Career: Second Period — Professional Poet Years — 1877 to 1891 — HGC Ages 17 to 32 

1876 Becomes known as Helen after graduation or upon professional publication, which beings in 1883 or before.

1883 Writes notes to three Shakespeare plays. HGC is age 23/24.
Twelfth Night; Hamlet; McBeth (All three New York: Riverside Edition of Houghton Mifflin.)

1885 Debut book of poetry published. HGC is age 25/26.
Oberon and Puck: Verses Grave and Gay (New York: Cassell & Company, limited, 1885.)

1886 Publishes story story: “A Summer Mood” in The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, Volume XXXII, #6, October,
1886. HGC is age 27.

1887 Publishes landmark woman’s biographical anthology: Pen Portraits of Literary Women (New York: Cassell &
Company, Limited); co-edited with Jeanette Wilder. HGC is age 27/28. 

1888 Publishes short story “Hercules: A Hero,” a character sketch. The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine. March,
1888, p. 671-680. HGC is age 28/29.

1889 Appointed instructor at Hunter College to teach literature and history. HGC is age 29/30.

1889 Publishes One, Two,Three, Four. New Illustrations in colors and in monotint by Maud Humphrey; New
Verses by Helen Gray Cone. (New York: Frederick A. Stokes & Brothers, 1889). HGC is age 29/30.
Includes: “A Song of Changeless Seasons,” “The Dandelion Chain,” “Hidden Pearls,” “Fairy Wine-Skins,” “A Soldier
of the Snows,” “A Rhyme of Changing Children.” [Maude Humphrey was an acclaimed children’s book illustrator.
Her maiden name was Humphrey and her married name was Bogart — and, yes, her son was Humphrey Bogart.]

1889 Associate member of the board to start the new Barnard College at Columbia for “a new
department devoted to the higher education of women, and in which they will have all the rights and privileges of
their brother collegians…” Described as “the authoress.” (“The Girls of Columbia, Work Laid Out for the New
Department, How Coeducation Will Be Tested At Barnard College—Columbia To Receive a Generous Gift,” New
York Times Sept. 21, 1889, p. 9). HGC is age 30.

1890 (to 1920 or 1929)   Collegiate Gothic architecture and Gothic Age of American Colleges time period in
America

1890 Onset of the Gothic Collegiate Mystique

1890 (to 1920) The Progressive Era time period in America

1890 Publishes “Woman in American Literature,” The Century [Illustrated Monthly] Magazine, October 1890, Vol. XL., pp.
921-930.  HGC is age 31.

1890. November 12. Publication of Poems by Emily Dickinson, edited by Mabel Loomis Todd and T. W. Higginson
[Thomas Wentworth Higginson with a preface by Thomas Wentworth Higginson], (Boston: Roberts Brothers).

1890 Publishes with illustrator Maud Humphrey Bonnie Little People. New Illustrations in Outline and in Color by Maud
Humphrey. New Verses by Helen Gray Cone. (Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1890). HGC is age 30/31.
Includes: “A Christmas Stocking,” “The First Foreboding,” “One, Two, Three — Miss!”, “Lily,” “Little Butterflies,”
“November Plumes.”

1890 Publishes with illustrator Maud Humphrey Tiny Toddlers. New Illustrations in Outline and in Color by Maud
Humphrey. New Verses by Helen Gray Cone. (Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1890). HGC is age 30/31.
Includes “Spring Wonder,” “The May Basket,” “Bo-Peep,”  [A partial list. I will update as I learn what other poems
are included in this collection.]

1890 Publishes with Maud Humphrey Baby Sweethearts. New Illustrations in Outline and in Color by Maud Humphrey.
New Verses by Helen Gray Cone. (Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1890). HGC is age 30/31.
Includes “Under the Mistletoe,” “The First Foreboding,” “Spring Wonder,” “One, Two, Three—Miss!”, “The May
Basket,” “Secrets,” “Lily,” “Bo-Peep,” “Little Butterflies,” “A Lecture,” “November Plumes,” “A Christmas Stocking.”

1891 Publishes The Ride to the Lady and Other Poems (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, The
Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1891). [Uncredited cover design by renowned book cover designer Sarah Wyman
Whitman.] HGC is age 31/32.

1891 Receives praise [probably via letter] for “The Ride to the Lady” and invitation to the Drawing Room Club from
Colonel Thomas W. Higginson.

1891 February 16. Thanks Higginsion for praise of '“A Ride to the Lady” and for invitation to the Drawing Room Club on
the 26th. Declines, stating: “I live alone with my mother, in a suburb sadly remote from everywhere; and have
long since settled to resigned, hard-working evenings.” States that his letter “has put new spirit into the tired
wings of that daring Hope of mine, — something tamed of late with the school-room atmosphere” (Cone, Helen
Gray. “Helen Gray Cone autograph letter signed to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, [New York], 16 February 1891,”
MS P.91.37, 2-72 (Box 1, Folder 25), Boston Public Library Archives & Special Collections).
https://archives.bpl.org/repositories/2/digital_objects/5079
HGC is age 31.

1891 February 26. Higginson speaks on “How to Study History” at the Drawing-Room club’s reception at 501 Fifth
Avenue as reported in the New York Times on February 27. (“How to Study History, Some Valuable Suggestions
from Col. T. W. Higginson,” New York Times, February 27, 1891.)
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1891/02/27/103297071.html?pageNumber=4

[If Helen Gray Cone could have attended, would she have read poems or spoken also? Or been not a speaker
but an attendee as Higginson’s guest?] HGC is age 31.

Helen Gray Cone Career: Third Period — Professional Service, Social Consciousness & Commemorative Poetry Years — 1892 to 1934 — HGC Ages 32/33 to 74

1893 Apparent second printing of HGC’s debut book Oberon and Puck by Houghton-Mifflin with new cover design —
apparent uncredited cover design by Sarah Wyman Whitman as her first two books now have the same cover
design to appear as a “set.” They are her two nineteenth-century poetry books that do merit recognition for their
exceptional literary skill.] HGC is age 33/34.

1894 May 22.: NYT: “Petitioners for Equal Suffrage. The Volunteer Committee on Equal Suffrage mailed yesterday to
each of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention a circular containing the first installment of the signatures
to the petition for the granting of the suffrage to women. Among the 358 signatures appended to the circular
are those of … Helen Gray Cone…” (New York Times, May 22, 1894.) [Thus, HGC a suffragette — a petitioner in
the women’s suffrage movement during the First Wave of Feminism.] HGC is age 35.

1894 Poems included in A Treasury of Stories, Jingles and Rhymes with One Hundred and Forty Vignette Illustrations
in Half Tone after Maud Humphrey; Short stories; Fairy Tales; Mother Goose Jingles; Verses by Edith M.
Thomas, Elizabeth S. Tucker and Helen Gray Cone. (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1894). HGC is age
34/35.

1895 Poem’s included in “German and Jewish Notes,” A book that “includes poems by …. Helen Gray Cone…”
(“German and Jewish Notes,” New York Times, December 8, 1895, p. 8). HGC is age 36.

1899 Appointment Professor and Chair of the English Department at Hunter College. HGC is age 39/40.

1899 NYT, June 23, p. 5, title with subtitles for article: “Young Women Graduated: Normal College Holds Its Thirtieth
Annual Commencement: Four Hundred Get Diplomas: Helen Gray Cone, Who Succeeds the Late A. H. Dundee,
First Woman to Hold A Professorship.” HGC is age 40.

1899 Publishes The Ivy Leaf: A Book of College and Alumnae Poems (New York: The Knickerbocker Press, limited
edition of 500 copies, 1899).  HGC is age 39/40.

1900 Writes notes for Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice (New York & Chicago: Globe School Book Co.) HGC is age
40/41.

1908 Awarded degree of L.H.D. (Doctor of Humane Letters) from New York University. HGC is age 48/49.

1911 Soldiers of the Light (Boston: Richard G. Badger, The Gorham Press, 1911). HGC is age 51/52.

1911 Words by Helen Gray Cone for The Spring Beauties (Trio) by G. W. Chadwick, “To the Eurydice Chorus of
Philadelphia.” HGC is age 51/52.

1914 Normal College of New York renamed to Hunter College of the City (University) of New York.

1914. July 28. The Great War (WWI) begins. HGC is age 55.

1915 Publishes A Chant of Love for England and Other Poems (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1915).  HGC is age
55/56.
[Title poem written in response to the German poem “Hymn of Hate” by Ernst Lissauer, which was a German |
nationalistic hate message to England.]

1916 April 21 in NYT, pg. 9: “The students of Hunter College will present a play by Professor Helen Gray Cone, entitled
‘Judith Shakespeare’ … next Thursday night.” (“Hunter Play Is ‘Judith Shakespeare’”, New York Times, April 21,
1916, p. 9.), HGC is age 57.

1917. April 6. United States enters WWI.  HGC is age 58.

1917 Poets of America raise funds for the American Ambulance in Italy. (“Poets of America Would Aid Italy, Organize
a Campaign to Raise $100,000 for an Ambulance Fund, Need Now Is Urgent, Italian Commander Approves
Work of Americans—Writers Issue a Nation-Wide Appeal for Money,” New York Times, September 3, 1917, p. 6).
The article states: “Many writers have already entered into active co-operation with this committee, among
them being…Helen Gray Cone…”.

An American ambulance for the Italian front during the Great War (World War I) named for her with funds raised
by Hunter College (Cone, “For Italy, Hunter Bulletin, 1934, p. 6.), which was part of the American Poet’s
Committee efforts for ambulances for Italy (New York Times, “War Fund is $164,369, American Poets' Committee
Announces More Ambulances for Italy,” December 17, 1917, p. 12).
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1917/12/17/96280763.html?pageNumber=12

December 1917, Vol. XXII No. 8, The Alumnae News of Hunter College of the City of New York reported: “The
Fellowship of Goodwill Concert for the Helen Gray Cone Ambulance Fund was an event.”

1917 Publishes “For Italy,” a poem in English by Helen Gray Cone and translated into Italian by Dalma Toledo
(New York: Fred Scarlno Printer). HGC is age 58.

1919 Publishes The Coat Without A Seam and Other Poems (New York: E. P. Dutton & Company, 1919). HGC is age
59/60.

1920 Awarded Doctor of Literature from Hunter College. HGC is age 60/61.

1920s — The Roaring Twenties.

1920 August 18, 1920. Nineteenth Amendment — Women’s Right to Vote — Ratified. HGC is age 61.

1922 From the NYT, Feb. 26: “In the collection of ‘Modern Poetry,’ edited by Guy N. Pocock [King’s Treasuries of
Literature], appear selections of many of those who are writing now or who, if they have died, are representative
of the modern spirit. Among them are Kipling, Noyes, Rupert Brooke, Masefield, Stevenson, Walt Whitman,
Drinkwater, Yeats, Bliss Carman, Helen Gray Cone, W. E. Henley, Thomas Hardy, Sir Henry Newbolt/Newholt?,
James Stephens, Robert Bridges, Robert Nichols and a score or more of others.” (“King’s Treasuries,” New York
Times, February 26, 1922). HGC is age 62 (almost 63).

1923 Presents on “American Literature” panel at Columbia University. (“Columbia is Ready for Big Conference, British
and American Professors of English to Meet Here on Tuesday, Noted Educators on List, University’s Trustees
and Faculty Complete Program—Entertainments Planned,” New York Times, June 10, 1923, pg. E5). HGC is age
64.

1924 Dedicated to HGC: A Half Century of Song. Hunter College Anthology dedicated to Helen Gray Cone. HGC is
age 64/65.

1926  Retires. HGC is age 67.

1927 Professor Helen Gray Cone Fellowship for graduate studies in English established. (“Hunter ‘Dreams’ Realized,
College Getting New Home, English Scholarship, Graduate Board,” New York Times, Februalry 27, pg. 10). HGC
is age 67 (almost 68).

1928 Writes with more than 50 women “engaged in literature and the arts” to Republican National Committee “to aid
the Hoover campaign.” (“Women Artists Aid Hoover,” New York Times, October 29, 1928, p. 8). HGC is age 69.

1929 October 24. Stock market crash. The Great Depression begins. HGC is age 70.

1930 Publishes Harvest Home: Selected Poems of Helen Gray Cone (New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1930). HGC
is age 70/71.

1932 Donates to contributions for the Relief of Unemployed (“Contributions for Relief of Unemployed,” New York
Times, November 17, 1932, pg. 3). HGC is age 73.

1934 January 31. Dies.  HGC is age 74 [would have been 75 on March 8, 1934].

March 8. Hunter College publishes a multi-page tribute edition of The Hunter Bulletin dedicated to Professor
Emeritus Helen Gray Cone of March 8, 1934, which would have been her 75th birthday. [This edition can be
found in the Hunter College Library Archives and Special Editions collections.]

Leaves her personal library of 1200 books to Hunter College. (“Hunter Gets 1,200 Books. College Accepts
Gift From Library of Professor Cone.” New York Times, March 21, 1934, p. 19).