Jones, Amanda Theodocia

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JONES, Amanda Theodocia

Born 19 October 1835, East Bloomfield, New York; died 31 March 1914, Brooklyn, New York

Daughter of Henry and Mary Mott Jones

Amanda Jones' father was a master weaver; her mother was an avid reader. Both of them considered books to be "more necessary than daily bread," and introduced Jones, at an early age, to Jane Austen, Bunyan, Dryden, Pope, and Scott. Jones attended the local district school and after the family moved to Black Rock, near Buffalo, New York, the East Aurora Academy. At fifteen she began teaching school.

Four years later she gave up teaching when the Ladies' Repository of Cincinnati accepted one of her poems. During the next decade she contributed a series of poems to the Repository. In 1859 Jones developed tuberculosis and spent six months at the Clifton Springs (New York) Water Cure. She never fully regained her health and periodically resorted to similar cures.

Jones' first volume of poetry, Ulah, and Other Poems (1861), was dedicated to her father, who had died six years earlier. The title poem, based on an ancient Native American legend, tells the story of the Native American maiden Ulah and her lover. Death and the hope of eternal salvation are popular themes in the other poems. Her second volume, Poems (1867), was dedicated to the "Nameless Club," a men's literary society of which Jones was an honorary member. The first poem in this collection, "Atlantis," describes the disappearance of the kingdom of Atlantis. The next 20 poems are classified as "patriotic" and are concerned with the Civil War. Several of them commemorate important battles; most glorify the Northern cause. One of the poems, "Forest Lawn," is an especially moving tribute to Jones' brother Porter, who died in battle at the age of eighteen. In these poems, once again, death is a recurring theme as are love, God, and the triumph of good over evil.

The spiritualist movement was gaining popularity at this time; by 1854, Jones believed she was a medium and that her actions were governed by her spiritual guardian. She saw in spiritualism the hope of salvation she sought after the sudden death of her brother. Among her powers as a medium was the ability to heal, and during the 1850s and 1860s this ability secured for her the hospitality of other spiritualists. These long visits allowed her ample time to continue to write poetry. Her spiritual guardian led her to Chicago in 1869, where she found work as a writer with the Western Rural, Interior, and a juvenile periodical, Bright Sides. Years later she collected many of her psychic experiences in her Psychic Autobiography (1910).

Just as she had been affected by the spiritualist movement, Jones was affected by the great pace of invention characterizing 19th-century America. Over the years, she developed a vacuum process to preserve food, patented an oil burner, established a working women's home, and founded the Woman's Canning and Preserving Company.

While working on her inventions, Jones continued to write and publish collections of her poetry. A Prairie Idyl (1882) demonstrated her extensive knowledge of the wildflowers of the Midwest. Rubaiyat of Solomon, and Other Poems (1905) included a popular series of poems, "Kansas Bird Songs," which revealed her knowledge of Midwestern wildlife.

Jones' life and poetry reflected the dynamic character of 19th-century America. Her interests ranged from food preservation and woman suffrage to wildlife and psychic phenomena. She traveled extensively around the eastern half of the U.S. and seemed determined never to succumb to poor health. Her poetry not only reflects her strong sense of patriotism, but reveals Jones to be a sensitive woman, aware of and engaged in the society she lived in, and always hopeful of eternal salvation.