Historical fiction is generally defined as a made-up story set in a real time and place that existed over fifty years ago—from the Precambrian Period (wouldn’t that be an interesting story!) to the 1970s. Some of the characters might be based on real people, but others might be created by the author.
The word in publishing circles is that historical fiction is out of style. But do you wish such a wonderful genre were more popular--telling good stories while opening windows into past realities? If you do, here’s a way to spread the word. To celebrate the first year of Women of Glass and Steel in print, we’ll use the newsletter to briefly review and recommend historical novels that are suitable for a wide audience including young-adult readers. Please sign up to join the conversation and recommend your favorites. But first a few words about how I came to write Women of Glass and Steel.
Why Della?
At the beginning of the story, Della is a 16-year-old who thinks love and joy are only for rich, beautiful women. She works a mind-numbing six days a week in a knitting mill. Della reminds me of so many of us who want more from our lives but don’t know how to get it, including my mother (Della is named after her) and myself. She could have lived at any time or in any place, but in my imagination, she lived in the early 20th century, during World War I. And I thought she should have lived in the real town of Seneca Falls.
And Why Seneca Falls?
Well, Seneca Falls is a beautiful village in the Finger Lakes region of Western New York. It's been the scene of an astonishingly rich history for a small town. For just a few examples, in the nineteenth century, progressive thinkers in the area worked to abolish slavery and promote women’s rights. In fact, Seneca Falls claims the honor of being the birthplace of the women’s rights movement. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other advocates held the first Women’s Rights Convention there in 1848. In Della’s fictional story, her mother is a suffragist devoted to helping win the right of women to vote. Although today we take women's voting rights for granted, Della is embarrassed by her mother’s political views, which were still considered radical at the time. Later in the twentieth century, Seneca Falls is believed to have been the inspiration for the town of “Bedford Falls” in Frank Capra’s classic 1946 film, It’s a Wonderful Life.
Today you can visit the Women’s Rights Historical Park, the National Women’s Hall of Fame, and the Seneca Falls Historical Society, among other historical sites. You can learn more in the book Images of America: Seneca Falls by Frances T. Barbieri and Kathy Jans-Duffy (Charleston, SC, Chicago, IL, Portsmouth, NH, San Francisco, CA: Arcadia Publishing, 2009) or at https://senecafalls.gov/history/history-of-seneca-falls/
I hope you enjoy the story of Della and her friends and family from 1916 to 1920. I’ll be in touch in September with our first newsletter.