Edith Wharton Confronts The Great War

Join us for a lively and informative discussion with Wharton scholars Julie Olin-Ammentorp, Alan Price, and Irene Goldman-Price. They will share Wharton’s responses – including poems, talks, and stories – to the turbulent war years in Paris and the arrival of American soldiers.

During World War I, Edith Wharton became a passionate humanitarian who directed her energies into organizing massive war relief efforts. She launched four major charities and used her influence as a public figure to exert pressure on America to come to the aid of France. She was made a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor (France’s highest accolade) and received the Medal of Queen Elizabeth from the King of Belgium in recognition of her efforts.

Julie Olin-Ammentorp is the author of Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, and the Place of Culture (University of Nebraska Press, 2019) and Edith Wharton’s Writings from the Great War (University Press of Florida, 2004). She has also authored chapters in The New Edith Wharton Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Edith Wharton in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2012), and Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country: A Reassessment (Pickering and Chatto, 2010), as well as more than twenty articles on Wharton, Cather, and Henry James. These include essays in Cather Studies 8: A Writer’s Worlds; Cather Studies 9: Willa Cather and Modern Cultures; Studies in American Fiction; The Edith Wharton Review; The Willa Cather Newsletter & Review; and Letterature d’America: Rivista Trimestrale, published by the University of Rome. Her 1994 essay in The Henry James Review was reprinted in the Norton Critical Edition of The Wings of the Dove (Second Edition, 2004). She is a member of the Board of Governors of the Willa Cather Foundation and a past president of the Edith Wharton Society.

Alan Price is a Professor Emeritus of English at Penn State University, Hazelton. An accomplished Edith Wharton scholar, he is a past president of the Edith Wharton Society and the author of several books, chapters, and articles on Wharton including The End of the Age of Innocence: Edith Wharton and the First World War (St. Martin’s Press, 1996)  and co-editor of Wretched Exotic: Essays on Edith Wharton in Europe (Peter Lang Publishing, 1993).

Irene Goldman-Price has taught English and Women’s Studies at Boston University, Penn State University, Hazleton, and Ball State University, where she also chaired the Women and Gender Studies Department.  A life-long interest in the works of Edith Wharton has led her to publish several articles about the writer, to be a member of the Edith Wharton Society, to sit on the editorial board of the Edith Wharton Review, and to become a trustee of The Mount.  She is the editor of My Dear Governess: The Letters of Edith Wharton to Anna Bahlmann (Yale University Press, 2012), and most recently of Selected Poems of Edith Wharton (Scribner, 2019).

The Mount is a Massachusetts Cultural Council UP designated organization welcoming participants of all disabilities. Please contact The Mount at 413-551-5100 or by email, info@edithwharton.org, to discuss accommodations needed to participate fully in this event. Caregivers are admitted free-of-charge.