Caroline Dale Snedeker

Caroline Snedeker
Born	Caroline Dale Parke (1871-03-03)March 3, 1871 New Harmony, Indiana, U.S.
Died	January 22, 1956(1956-01-22) Bay St. Louis, Mississippi
Pen name	Caroline Dale Owen
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	American
Period	1911–1956
Genre	Children's historical fiction
Notable works	Downright Dencey

Caroline Dale Snedeker née Parke (March 3, 1871 – January 22, 1956) was an American writer, primarily of children's historical novels. Two of her books, Downright Dencey and The Forgotten Daughter, were runners-up for the Newbery Medal. On occasion she used the pen name Caroline Dale Owen.

Personal life

She was born on March 23, 1871 in New Harmony, Indiana, to Charles A. Parke and Nina Dale Owen.^[1] Her great-grandfather was Robert Owen, one of Britain’s first social reformers and industrialists.^[2] She grew up near Mount Vernon, Indiana, in a family with three sisters. They later moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where she attended the College of Music. She and her sisters performed instrumental concerts to support the family after her father died. Caroline was the pianist in the group and later became a music instructor. She married Charles H. Snedeker in 1903, and they moved to Hempstead, New York. Eventually she moved to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and died on January 22, 1956, at the age of 84. Her body was buried at Live Oak Cemetery in Harrison County, Mississippi.^[3]

Career

Snedeker's writings consist of 12 or 13 novels for older children or teens and two or three books for adults, along with a handful of other articles, stories and poems. The majority of her novels were inspired by her love for the ancient world and are set in Greece or the Roman Empire.^{[lower-alpha 1]} She also based a series on American history.^{[lower-alpha 2]} The morals of her time can be found throughout her novels, especially in the texts aimed at young adults.^[4]

Snedeker's first book,The Coward of Thermopylae, appeared for adults in 1911. It gained popularity in 1912 when it was reissued for young adults and re-titled The Spartan.^[4] The novel is about an Athenian soldier named Aristodemos, who travels to Sparta and trains to fight in Thermopylae. At first considered a coward, he acquits himself with a noble death.^[5] The great response to these novels sparked requests for a children's version. In 1924 Snedeker published Theras and His Town (1924). Theras is an eleven-year-old boy who moved from Athens to Sparta where he experiences a brutal life under Spartan control and attempts to escape back to Athens.^[6] The Forgotten Daughter (1933) is also set in Ancient Rome, and is a Newbery Honor Book.^[7]

Snedeker also wrote novels based on American history.^{[lower-alpha 2]} The best known is Downright Dencey, a 1928 Newbery Honor Book,^[7] which tells of a friendship between a Quaker girl and a waif in Nantucket at the early 19th century. In the sequel, The Beckoning Road (1929), Dencey's family moves to New Harmony.

Snedeker also wrote and published several successful romance novels.^[4] As a result of her popularity, some of her novels were translated into other languages, including Dutch and German.^[1]

Influences

Snedeker's mother and grandmother were influences on her career. She grew up listening to her mother's singing and to her grandmother's stories of New Harmony. This sparked Snedeker's interest in history, writing and music at an early age. Having a close relationship with her mother and grandmother led Snedeker to write Town of the Fearless (1931), about the history of her family and their relation with New Harmony.

Cultural impact

The works of Caroline Dale Snedeker are not popular in today's modern world due to the speed of the stories and "olde world" prose, but they were appreciated in their time. Ongoing themes in Snedeker's novels include nobility and "good, old-fashioned values", most likely due to the era in which they were written and having her grandmother as a huge influence in her life. Caroline Snedeker was exceptionally interested in history, literature and classical music, which is evidently shown throughout her earlier works.

Works

Novels

• The Coward of Thermopylae (Doubleday, Page & Co., 1911)^[8]
• The Spartan (Doubleday, 1912)^[9] – reissue of The Coward of Thermopylae by imprint Country Life Press with decorations by Leon V. Solon, OCLC 4583775
• Seth Way: A Romance of the New Harmony Community (Houghton Mifflin, 1917) – as by Caroline Dale Owen (Mrs. Charles H. Snedeker), LCCN 17-31029
• The Perilous Seat (Doubleday, 1923)
• Theras and His Town, illus. Mary Whitson Haring (Doubleday, 1924); 1961 edition illus. Dimitris Davis LCCN 61-13330
• Downright Dencey, illus. Maginel Wright Barney (Doubleday, 1927)
• The Beckoning Road, illus. Manning de Villeneuve Lee (Doubleday, 1929) – sequel to Downright Dencey
• The Black Arrowhead: Legends of Long Island, illus. M.V. Lee (Doubleday, 1929)
• The Forgotten Daughter, illus. Dorothy P. Lathrop (Doubleday, 1933)
• Uncharted Ways, illus. M.V. Lee (Doubleday, 1935) – Authors note: "Margaret Stevenson in these pages is an attempted copy of Mary Dyer" (1611–1660), OCLC 1579009
• The White Isle, illus. Fritz Kredel (Doubleday, 1940)
• Luke's Quest (Doubleday, 1947)
• A Triumph for Flavius, illus. Cedric Rogers (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1955)
• Lysis Goes to the Play, illus. Reisie Lonette (Lothrop, 1962)^[1][4][10]

Nonfiction

Snedeker's two non-fiction books in the LC online catalog both carry the Library of Congress Subject Heading "New Harmony (Ind.)—History".

• The Town of the Fearless, by Snedeker "with pictorial supplement and illustrations by Manning de V. Lee" and 6-page bibliography (Doubleday, 1931), LCCN 31-31203
• The Diaries of Donald MacDonald, 1824–1826, ed. and introduced by Snedeker (Indiana Historical Society, 1942), LCCN 42-20629

Two of her novels also feature New Harmony, Indiana: Seth Way and the sequel to Downright Dencey, The Beckoning Road.

Notes

References

External links

• Works by or about Caroline Dale Snedeker at Internet Archive
• Caroline Dale Snedeker at Library of Congress Authorities, with 20 catalog records