Maud Howe Elliott moved to Rhode Island in 1910 after the death of her mother, the legendary Julia Ward Howe. Co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Howe, Elliott was a prolific author of novels and biographies, a journalist, as well as an advocate for American art. She also left her mark in politics, becoming president of the Newport County Woman Suffrage League and founder of the women’s branch of the Rhode Island Progressive Committee.
Born and raised in Boston, Elliott summered in Portsmouth, Rhode Island with her family and later lived in Rome with her artist husband, John Elliott. She wrote art criticism for the Boston Transcript before becoming a nationally syndicated newspaper correspondent, reporting on life in Rome. She lectured on American art and edited the book on the Woman’s Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In 1912, Elliott organized an exhibition of local artists at the YMCA in Newport, which led to the formation of the Art Association of Newport, now the Newport Art Museum. In her official capacity as secretary, Elliott essentially served as curator, director of education, and development officer of the Art Association for decades, always striving to be inclusive. In addition to her leadership on woman’s suffrage and progressive politics, in 1916 Elliott joined a cross-country campaign train, speaking on behalf of presidential candidate Charles Evans Hughes. An early “snowbird,” Elliott visited and wrote descriptively about the American South and Southwest, Panama and Jamaica. She died at home in Newport at the age of ninety-three.
Biography and image provided by Nancy Whipple Grinnell
Built with Shorthand