March 11, 2004

Boise State Adds Mary Hallock Foote Letter To Its Special Collections

Boise State University has acquired an important letter written by Idaho author Mary Hallock Foote. The letter has been added to the Idaho Writers Archive in the Albertsons Library in time to celebrate both Women’s History Month and the 30th anniversary of Boise State’s university status. The full text of the letter and a digital image of the original are available at http://library.boisestate.edu/special/footeletter.htm. Foote (1847-1938) was a successful novelist, essayist and illustrator who came to Idaho in 1884 to join her husband Arthur, an engineer who designed some of the early irrigation works in the Treasure Valley. They lived in Boise for 11 years, most of that time in a stone house in the Boise River Canyon not far from the present site of Lucky Peak Dam. Foote’s time in Idaho was one of the most productive periods of her literary career. Though a native Easterner, she tried to portray the West realistically, insisting, “the West is not to be measured by homesick tales from an Eastern point of view.” Throughout her novels, her fascination with the “social genesis” of Western society is evident. She often emphasized a woman’s point of view, particularly regarding the hardships involved in settling in a rough country. As an accomplished and popular author, Foote was called upon to support women’s causes. In the letter just acquired by Boise State, however, she expresses some misgivings about the campaign for women’s suffrage and declines to have her writings and drawings exhibited as examples of “woman’s work,” declaring that they were “not put in the market on that basis.” The letter was written from Boise in 1887 to Alice B. Stockham, a prominent feminist and social reformer. “The Foote letter is significant because it reveals her view of the women’s movement of her era,” said Boise State English professor Jim Maguire, author of a Western Writers Series book on Foote. Maguire noted that Foote is important to Boise because she was the first author with a national reputation to live here and write stories and novels about Boise and other places in Idaho. Besides her novels, Foote wrote extensively for magazines, and brought her stories alive with her own illustrations. Her life story was, in part, the inspiration for Wallace Stegner’s popular novel, Angle of Repose (1971). After more than a decade in Boise, Foote and her husband moved to Grass Valley, Calif., in 1895, where they spent most of their remaining lives. -30- Contact Alan Virta Albertsons Library Special Collections 208 426-3958 Media Contact Kathleen Craven communications and marketing 208 426-3275