Anne Lynch Botta

Infobox Person
name = Anne Charlotte Lynch Botta


image_size = 200px
caption = Painting of Anne C. Lynch Botta, c. 1847
birth_date = birth date|1815|11|11|mf=y
birth_place = Bennington, Vermont
death_date = death date and age|1891|3|23|1815|11|11|mf=y
death_place = New York City
occupation = writer, poet, socialite
spouse = Vincenzo Botta
(1818-1894)
parents =

Anne Charlotte Lynch Botta (November 11 1815 - March 23 1891) was an American poet, writer, teacher and socialite whose home was the central gathering place of the literary elite of her era.

Biography

Early life

She was born Anne Charlotte Lynch in Bennington, Vermont. Her father was Patrick Lynch (?-1819), of Dublin, Ireland, who took part in the United Irishmen Rebellion of 1798. For this, he was imprisoned and then banished from Ireland. He came to the United States at the age of 18, eventually making his way to Bennington where he set up a dry-goods business. There he met his future wife, Charlotte Gray (1789-1873),cite web|url=http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=markged&id=I3029|title=Anne C. Lynch Page|work=RootsWeb|accessmonthday=January 29|accessyear=2007] the daughter of Revolutionary War veteran Lt. Col. Ebenezer Gray (1743-1795). Patrick Lynch and Charlotte Gray married in 1812. Along with their daughter Anne, they also had a son, Thomas Rawson Lynch (1813-1845).

Lynch's father died in 1819, shipwrecked off the coast of Puerto Principe, in the West Indies.cite web|url=http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=moa;idno=ABX9247|title=Memoirs of Anne C. Botta|work=Making of America Books|accessmonthday=January 29|accessyear=2007] After the death of her father, the family moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where Anne and her brother were sent to the best schools. When she was sixteen she was sent to the Albany Female Academy, where she graduated with high honors in 1834 and stayed there as a teacher for a few years.

Literary society

She moved to Providence, Rhode Island with her mother in 1838, where she continued to teach. In 1841, she compiled and edited "The Rhode Island Book",cite web|url=http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/collections/exhibits/bobst/washsq/voices/alb.html|title=Memoirs of Anne Lynch Botta|work=New york University Archives|accessmonthday=January 29|accessyear=2007] a collection of poems and verse from the best regional writers of the time, including two poems of her own. She also began to invite these writers to her home for her evening receptions. It was said in 1843, that "the very best literary society of Providence could be found in the parlor of Miss Lynch".

In 1845, Miss Lynch met the famed actress Fanny Kemble, who became very attached to her and introduced her to a wider circle of literary friends". In the same year she moved to Manhattan with her mother. She began teaching English composition at the Brooklyn Academy for Young Ladies;cite web|url=http://www.librarycompany.org/women/portraits/botta.htm|title=Anne Botta|work=Library company|accessmonthday=January 28|accessyear=2007] she continued her writing and was published in periodicals such as the "New-York Mirror", "The Gift", the "Diadem", "Home Journal", and the "Democratic Review". In New York, she also continued her literary receptions which she held every Saturday evening. It was at one of these receptions that she introduced the unknown Edgar Allan Poe to the literary society of New York. In 1848, her book "Poems" by Anne C. Lynch, was published by George P. Putnam. Edgar Allan Poe said of her: "She is chivalric, self-sacrificing, equal to any fate, capable even of martyrdom, in whatever should seem to her a holy cause. She has a hobby, and this is, the idea of duty."

Marriage

Miss Lynch traveled to Europe in 1853, where she met Vincenzo Botta (1818-1894).citeweb|url=http://www.picturehistory.com/find/p/4245/mcms.html(image|title=Vincenzo Botta|work=Picture History|accessmonthday=February 1|accessyear=2007] He was an Italian professor of philosophy in Turin. Mr. Botta then traveled to New York, on an assignment from the Sardinian government, and decided to settle there. He taught philosophy and Italian at the University of the City of New York. They were married in 1855. Mrs Botta told an intimate friend of her marriage, "it satisfied her judgement, pleased her fancy, and, above all, filled her heart".

Evening receptions

For many years she was a well-known and popular leader in society. She hosted intellectual gatherings, seemly without the least bit of effort or pretension, at her home on West 37th Street. Unlike other salons, which had more to do with seeing and being seen by the high society of New York, her receptions provided a creative space in which artists could meet and collaborate. It was said of her salons that no one was either neglected or treated like a celebrity, and every one went away feeling stimulated, refreshed, and happy. At Mrs. Botta's receptions every Saturday night, attendees would find the most well-known writers, actors and artists, such as Poe, Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Horace Greeley, Richard Henry Stoddard, Andrew Carnegie, Mary Mapes Dodge, Julia Ward Howe, Charles Butler, Fitz-Greene Halleck, Delia Bacon, Grace Greenwood, Bayard Taylor, William Cullen Bryant, Helen Jackson, actress Fanny Kemble, Daniel Webster, and many more. Said a Boston writer: "It was not so much what Mrs. Botta did for literature with her own pen, as what she helped others to do, that will make her name a part of the literary history of the country."

Later life

In 1860, Mrs. Botta published the "Handbook of Universal Literature", which contained concise accounts of authors and their work. She wrote: "This work was begun many years ago, as a literary exercise, to meet the personal requirements of the writer."cite web|url=http://www.bookrags.com/biography/anne-charlotte-lynch-botta-dlb/|title=Anne C. Botta Biography|work=Book Rags|accessmonthday=January 28|accessyear=2007] This book was used as a text book in many educational institutions.cite web|url=http://www.nd.edu/~wcawley/botta.htm|title=Anne C. Lynch|work=biography|accessmonthday=January 27|accessyear=2007]

She was also a sculptor of portrait busts. Her sculpture of Charles Butler, done in marble, was donated to New York University. She said: "Beauty in art, in my opinion, does not consist in simply copying nature, but in retaining the true features of the subject, and breathing on them a breath of spiritual life, which should bring them up to their ideal form."

An example of her poetry which showed her interest in literature:

::IN THE LIBRARY

::Speak low, tread softly through these halls;
::Here genius lives enshrined,
::Here reign, in silent majesty,

::The monarchs of the mind.
::A mighty spirit-host they come
::From every age and clime;

::Above the buried wrecks of years
::They breast the tide of Time.
::And In their presence-chamber here

::They hold their regal state,
::And round them throng a noble train,
::The gifted and the great.

Anne Charlotte Botta died of pneumonia at age 75. She is buried at the Woodlawn Cemetery in New York.

Mrs. Botta refused to write an autobiography of her life, so after her death, her husband collected correspondence, poems, and biographical information and had a book published, in 1893, called the "Memoirs of Anne C. L. Botta: Written by Her Friends". A quote by her friend, Mrs. L Runkle: "Life was the material with which she wrought."

References

External links

*gutenberg author| id=Anne+C.+Lynch+Botta | name=Anne C. Lynch Botta
* [http://www.nd.edu/~wcawley/botta.htm Works of Anne C. Lynch] at Notre Dame
*University of Michigan bibliography [http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/b/bib/bibperm?q1=aaW5417 entry] for her book "The Rhode-Island book"
* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A0CE7DC113BEF33A25752C3A9649D94629ED7CF Review] of "Memoir of Anne C. L. Botta. Written By Her Friends. With selections from her correspondence and from her writings in prose and poetry."

Persondata
NAME=Botta, Anne Charlotte Lynch
SHORT DESCRIPTION=writer, poet, socialite
DATE OF BIRTH=November 11 1815
PLACE OF BIRTH=Bennington, Vermont
DATE OF DEATH=March 23 1891
PLACE OF DEATH= New York City, New York