“Taken from Their Self-found Paths”: Captivity and Creation in Mary Hallock Foote’s Idaho Fiction

What is it about?

This essay argues that the fiction written (and often illustrated) by Mary Hallock Foote while she lived in Idaho during the 1890s be considered alongside the many gothic short stories and novels published by women during the same period.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

Reimagining Foote as a writer trafficking in gothic tropes complicates readings of her work as being overly romantic and favoring American expansion. This essay suggests that Foote's fiction in Idaho is more complicated than it initially seems and betrays her own anxieties about being "exiled" to the American West and her husband's work designing dams and irrigation projects in an arid land.