Local History

Above photo courtesy of Library of America.

In honor of March being Women’s History Month, we are highlighting a handful of important women who made strides in the social, political, and economic climates of our region. 

Born on February 22, 1892, Edna St. Vincent Millay was born in Rockland, Maine. Holly Peppe, the literary executor for the Edna St. Vincent Millay Society at Steepletop, Millay’s home in Austerlitz, NY, explains that the poet was raised by a single mother, Cora Buzzell Millay, from the age of eight alongside her two sisters. 

Despite economic hardship, Millay’s mother worked as a practical nurse after her divorce and ensured that her daughters were encouraged to actively engage with the arts, including poetry, literature, and music. According to the Poetry Foundation, “Cora Millay strongly promoted the cultural development of her children through exposure to varied reading materials and music lessons, and she provided constant encouragement to excel.”

With this upbringing, explains Peppe, it’s no surprise that Millay focused much of her energy on writing from an early age, in tandem with her passion for nature. The Poetry Foundation adds that St Nicholas, a famous children’s magazine at the time, published Millay’s poems from 1906 to 1910, and Current Opinion reprinted one of her prize poems in 1907. “New England traditions of self-reliance and respect for education, the Penobscot Bay environment, and the spirit and example of her mother helped to make Millay the poet she became,” observes the Poetry Foundation.

A rise to poetic fame

After high school, having stayed in her hometown of Camden, ME, Millay ended up submitting some of her poems, including “‘Renascence’—107 rhyming couplets describing a life-altering spiritual awakening—in a poetry contest under the name ‘E. Vincent Millay,’” according to Peppe. Although the poem didn’t win the contest, it was well-loved once published in The Lyric Year in 1912. The assumption, Peppe points out, because of the appearance of her name, was that “the author was both older and male.”

Having taken courses at Barnard College in 1913, Millay eventually ended up at Vassar College to continue her studies. Here, as the Poetry Foundation explains, “she received the education that developed her into a cultured and learned poet.” Peppe adds that she delved into the craft of acting during this time, too, composing her own plays and pageants.

Upon her graduation from Vassar, an education she helped pay for thanks to school director Caroline Dow, Millay moved to Greenwich Village, New York. Throughout her time in the city, she had the opportunity to give poetry readings, publish her poems in popular magazines, act alongside her sister Norma in the Provincetown Players, and even direct her own play, Aria da Capo, with the company in 1919. Peppe adds that the play opened to rave reviews, and Millay began publishing her poetry collections at this time. She also wrote stories under a pen name, Nancy Boyd, for additional income.

Eventually, in 1921, she sailed to Europe for two years, continuing her work for Vanity Fair as a foreign correspondent. Her collections and volumes from this timeframe include Renascence, and Other Poems (1917), A Few Figs from Thistles (1920), Second April (1921), and The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems (1923). According to the Poetry Foundation, she also wrote a five-act play in 1921 for the Vassar College Alumnae Association, The Lamp and the Bell.

A Pulitzer Prize winner—and wife—at Steepletop

In 1923, not only was Millay awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, but she married her husband, Eugen Jan Boissevain, in July. The poet had been dealing with illness and health issues at this time, but fortunately, Boissevain “assumed full responsibility for the medical care the poet needed and took her to New York for an operation the very day they were married,” explains the Poetry Foundation. And according to Peppe, “Before the procedure, referring to her Pulitzer Prize, she quipped, ‘If I die now, at least I’ll be immortal.’”

The couple returned from reading tours—which could be difficult for Millay but memorable for crowds—and a long honeymoon trip around the world at the end of 1924, and the Poetry Foundation explains that by early 1925, Millay had been asked to write a libretto for Deems Taylor’s English opera composition for the Metropolitan Opera. The Poetry Foundation also clarifies that Millay completed this work, The King’s Henchman, despite suffering severe headaches and altered vision at this time. Peppe writes that “there were 17 curtain calls at the premiere and 10,000 copies of the libretto sold over the next few weeks” following the opera’s opening night.

Also around this time, in March 1925, Millay and Boissevain quickly acquired an abandoned, hilltop berry farm in Austerlitz, including over 700 acres of land, a farmhouse, and other barns and structures. Peppe shares that as they transformed their new home, Steepletop, it developed “into an elegant country estate with flower, herb and vegetable gardens; guest houses; a tennis court overlooking the Berkshire hills, and a sunken garden area in the foundation of an old barn (‘the ruins’) consisting of seven garden rooms separated by stone walls and arborvitae hedges.”

The couple owned livestock, Millay enjoyed horse riding and gardening, and Boissevain focused on the responsibilities of a farmer, hiring a handyman and other men to work the land, on which they grew a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Peppe notes that they also enjoyed hunting, fishing, and wine making, as well as entertaining guests and relatives, hosting luxurious parties, and going through the motions of operating their own estate. Millay also designated a small building on the property as her own writing cabin, which she surrounded by 31 white pines in memory of her mother, as well as poet’s daffodil on the hill leading up to the cabin. She used a small library in their house, as well as her bedroom, as places for study, writing, and contemplation, too. 

Additionally, the poet enjoyed spending time watching birds from a living room window, a scene which is described by Peppe: “Opposite the bird window were two pianos placed across from one another under the careful watch of a life-size marble bust of Sappho set on a marble column in the corner. Millay delighted in playing and singing songs she had written, practicing classical pieces she’d learned in early childhood, and inviting other musicians to join her in a duet, trio, or quartet.”

Peppe also lists the numerous collections Millay put together during her time at Steepletop, including The Buck in the Snow (1928), Fatal Interview (1931), Wine From These Grapes (1934), Conversation at Midnight (1936), Huntsman, What Quarry? (1939), Make Bright the Arrows (1940), and other extensive projects and works.

Turmoil, grief, & a legacy

Both Peppe and the Poetry Foundation emphasize the struggles of the 1930s for Millay and Boissevain. Millay, deeply affected by the progression of World War II, began writing anti-pacifist propaganda verse, which, being written rather hastily, “alienated even her most supportive critics,” according to Peppe. The Poetry Foundation adds that following “the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor she produced propaganda verse upon assignment for the Writers’ War Board.”

Furthermore, the Poetry Foundation explains that Millay suffered a decline in physical health because of an accident, where “the door of Millay and Boissevain’s station wagon flew open, [and] Millay was thrown into a gully, injuring her arm and back,” in 1936. Because of this, the organization states, “She endured hospitalizations, operations, and treatment with addictive drugs, and she suffered neurotic fears.” For a while, she could not write following a deadline- and strain-induced nervous breakdown in 1944. In this timeframe, many of her close companions passed away, including her sister Kathleen, and in 1949, her husband died suddenly of a stroke after being diagnosed with lung cancer.

Millay spent a solemn period living at Steepletop alone following Boissevain’s passing, coping with the grief, and as Peppe interprets it, hoping “to rebuild her life and live on her own.” Millay died on October 18, 1950, at just 58, with Mine the Harvest, her latest book of poems, not releasing until 1954.

Millay’s importance as a voice for women during her time cannot be overlooked. Peppe examines that in her generation, it could not have been more meaningful that she explored topics that were traditionally seen as taboo, all with a curious and compelling attention. 

“For the disillusioned post-war youth who considered her their spokesperson for women’s rights and social equality, Millay represented the rebellious spirit of their generation,” says Peppe. “Indeed, though she favored traditional poetic forms like lyrics and sonnets, she boldly reversed conventional gender roles in poetry, empowering the female lover instead of the male suitor, and set a new, shocking precedent by acknowledging female sexuality as a viable literary subject.”

The Poetry Foundation further underscores that Millay’s legacy is tied not only to her captivating body of work, which evolves parallel to her own life, but to the way her writing reflects her own values, passions, and opinions. Although she is remembered as undoubtedly skillful—indeed, one of the most skillful—sonnet writers in the 20th century, the organization writes, “Millay’s popularity as a poet had at least as much to do with her person: she was known for her riveting readings and performances, her progressive political stances, frank portrayal of both hetero and homosexuality, and, above all, her embodiment and description of new kinds of female experience and expression.”

To learn more about Edna St. Vincent Millay, Steepletop, and her poetry, please visit millay.org and poetryfoundation.org/poets/edna-st-vincent-millay.