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AUGUST 7: Alice James (1848-1892)

The name Henry James is legendary in the literary world, but a lesser known name is that of his sister – Alice James – who was born on this day in 1848. Today, Alice is famous for her published diaries and her tragedy-riddled life story.

Alice James is photographed lying in bed, where she spent the majority of her last years. In her own words, she had become “an appendage to five cushions and three shawls” (x).

Alice was born on August 7, 1848 in New York City. She was the youngest out of 5 children to be born to the wealthy and intellectual James family; most notable of her siblings were, of course, Henry James the novelist and also William James the psychologist. From the early age of 12, Alice began to show signs of what was then called “hysteria.” The only daughter of the James family and thus the only James child whose intellect was snuffed out instead of encouraged, she ended up having her first nervous breakdown at the age 19. A lifetime struggle with mental illness and sporadic physical ailments would follow. While her older brothers were being sent to Harvard one after another, Alice was at home taking care of their father and writing in her diaries that illness was to be her life’s work.

A rare photo shows Alice (bottom left) posing with friends (x).

A gay man himself, Alice had a special relationship with her brother Henry. Whereas most members of the family resigned Alice to a life of misery in their minds, Henry was consistently writing letters to his little sister encouraging her to “look for the little good in each day as if life were to last a hundred years” and even to take opium if it would help with her physical pain. Alice, for her part, was in a “Boston marriage” with a journalist named Katharine Loring. During the 19th and early 20th century, “Boston marriage” was a term used to describe two women who lived together without any financial dependency on a man. While the public often treated these women as simple “old maids” who lived together platonically, the reality is that many of them were in romantic relationships. Alice and Katharine were no exception, rather they were one of the most famous “Bostonians” of their day – as the two were the inspiration for the protagonists of Henry James’s 1886 novel of the same name.

Katharine Loring reads to Alice in bed. According to one of Alice’s many biographers, Katharine acted as “man and woman, father, and mother, nurse and protector, intellectual partner and friend” for Alice from the day they met in 1873 until her death (x).

When she was 43, it was discovered that Alice had breast cancer. After dealing with depression and suicidal ideation her whole life, she was ecstatic about her diagnosis. She would die a year later on March 9, 1892. One of the last entries in her diary would read, “I am working away as hard as I can to get dead as soon as possible.” Although ignored during her lifetime, the publishing of her diary in the 20th century would drag the name Alice James right alongside those of her brothers’ in the history books.

-LC

losing your skills and abilities to physical disability can be so scary. especially when you don't know where it's going to end. where the same day a year ago you could walk unaided and now you can't cook while standing. it's okay to be afraid, to mourn what you used to do and what you might have done. nobody is allowed to tell you that you have to be positive, be a "warrior" of your condition, or that you can't mourn.

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