At the 2025 Society for the Study of American Women Writers conference in Philadelphia, the Edith Wharton Society organized a panel entitled Edith Wharton: Idea and Institution, chaired by Justine S. Murison from University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana. The panel brought up intriguing topics related to institutionalization and higher education in connection to Wharton’s writing. In addition, there were presentations on additional panels that largely focused on Wharton, including Lisa McGunigal’s paper called “Edith Wharton, Mount Vernon, and the Perils of Female House Museum Curatorship” and Ashley Palmer’s presentation entitled “Edith Wharton, Instagram Influencers, and Late Capitalism: Adapting The Glimpses of the Moon for Gen Z.”The Edith Wharton Society panel raised relevant discussions around educational institutions. Meredith Goldsmith focused on Wharton’s lack of enthusiasm about higher education, pointing out how her critique is reflected in her fiction, including The House of Mirth, The Glimpses of the Moon, and Hudson River Bracketed. As became clear from comments throughout this panel, Wharton still very much supported education, but she thought education was more successful when done outside of institutional spaces in other forms such as with individual tutors. This makes sense considering her general skepticism of institutions and her reproaches of the rigid social structures that dominated the period. These conversations about educational institutions are especially timely considering current issues surrounding education in the United States.This topic on institutionalization was also brought up in Donna Campbell’s paper that focused on the unsuccessful 1906 play adaptation of The House of Mirth. Campbell explained that as Wharton began to rise to fame, she started to be perceived as an institution herself with audience members more interested in Wharton and her fame than the actual play. Arielle Zibrak’s paper similarly touched on the idea of writers and their writing becoming institutions. Zibrak explained that Wharton’s Gilded Age novels have turned institutional and, as a result, have become pertinent to many aspects of life today in the twenty-first century. She specifically referred to Newland Archer from The Age of Innocence as an example of personal desire in conflict with the rigid social customs of the period.Another through line among the papers focused on Wharton’s ambivalence. Margaret Jay Jessee’s paper on The Valley of Decision suggested how Wharton seems to treat the Enlightenment ideas in the book with ambivalence, a position that aligned with Goldsmith’s thoughts on Wharton’s hesitations about higher education. Wharton’s fluctuation in opinion about larger social structures, including ways of thinking and educational institutions, can perhaps be explained by the conflict she feels about her own background and the restrictive societal expectations for women at the time. Analyzing Wharton’s ambivalence can help us better understand the historical period within which she lived. As Jessee explained, in The Valley of Decision, Enlightenment views of equality are running up against stubborn history. It seems that this might be a reflection of Wharton’s thought process being pulled between different perspectives on social and political issues. Her conflicting experiences and thoughts on the world may be at the root of her ambivalent treatment of them.Bridging history and viewing the past in a different way was also discussed during the conference. Zibrak’s paper on Wharton’s Gilded Age made connections with the current rise of extremism. Zibrak also discussed the Gilded Age as an imaginary concept that is coming back into American popular culture in the twenty-first century with figures like Donald Trump and Kim Kardashian. Looking at Wharton’s work through the perspective of twenty-first-century life provides new bridges to the past. Lisa McGunigal from Missouri Southern State University discussed women’s participation in the curation and survival of museums, which largely impacts depictions of history. Because history has often been written by men, it is compelling to think about how women had taken over the responsibility of restoring and opening houses to be used as museums. In this way, the traditional space of the home being coded as feminine is flipped into a historical space that comes along with financial benefits. McGunigal brought up a new way to look at women’s history alongside Wharton’s writing.Another paper that made connections between shifting views of history and Wharton’s work was Ashley Palmer’s presentation on the recent release of Amazon Audible’s Glimpses of the Moon adaptation by Sam Freilich and Tavi Gevinson. Palmer explained how this adaptation has updated Wharton’s 1922 novel to be attractive to a new, younger audience. In the audiobook, the original plot is transformed into a transhistorical piece by including musicians, artists, and writers from many decades. This adaptation brings about new ways for younger audiences to engage with Wharton’s work and other relevant historical figures on a broader level.During the conference, there were very productive conversations about the current state of the work and preservation of women’s writing. A roundtable series on Friday afternoon, focused on women author societies, was cosponsored by the Emily Dickinson International Society, the Margaret Fuller Society, and the Elizabeth Madox Roberts Society. The first part was called Organizing, Networking, and Counteracting: The Pasts and Futures of Author Societies and American Women Writers. Among the presentations on this panel multiple key points included the significance of collaboration across author’s societies, making scholarship more accessible, and the importance of avoiding echo chambers in this field. The second part of the roundtable series was entitled A Conversation about Coalition Building: The Role of Women Author Societies in Times of Political Crisis. There was an online form that was shared with questions about the current obstacles and challenges surrounding work in women author societies and requests for suggestions as to how to attempt to build community and how to strengthen and improve the societies in the current time of political upheaval and fiscal restraint. Some obstacles that attendees pointed out and were discussed included communication through lines and issues with funding, which include travel restrictions, that partly explain recent lulls in society activities. In addition, there were conversations around generational differences when it comes to communication and representation on social media and the recent rise in grad students choosing to focus on broad categories of literature rather than specific authors.As mentioned above, the roundtables on the current state of women author’s societies largely addressed how to continue to do work within the current world we are living in. Underfunding of the humanities that affects everything from support of graduate students, through hiring, to the cancellation of entire programs curtail the study of women writers. Conference discussions acknowledged that in a time of great social and political change, like the present, new focal points of women writers and their writing are needed to take on the future and keep the work of women authors alive.Jessee framed her paper around Wharton’s first published novel, The Valley of Decision. She explained that although the book featured aspiring historical and moral representations alongside Enlightenment ideas, Wharton responded to them with ambivalence. The main character of the book, Odo, is represented as both a benevolent leader and an exile. Through the inclusion of this character, Jessee suggested, Wharton was arguing that when reform is attempted before true understanding has been reached, it is often unsuccessful. In her paper, she explains that Wharton’s first book represents how Wharton was starting to become uncertain of the American Dream and was beginning to critique cosmopolitanism in 1902 when this book was first published. Jessee pointed out that this can be seen through her balancing act between nineteenth-century moralism and twentieth-century irony. Ultimately, this book should continue to be looked at in relation to the context within which it was written by Wharton.Zibrak focused on Wharton’s writing within the period of Gilded Age America. She explained that much of Wharton’s writing is largely and accurately representative of the period. Zibrak situated the Gilded Age as a concept that is reflected in Wharton’s characters and mentioned modern contemporaries like Donald Trump and Kim Kardashian. Wharton’s writing in the 1920s shifted from her writing during the late 1800s and she began focusing her critiques on eugenics rather than the issues of the Gilded Age. Zibrak specifically focused on Twilight Sleep and Pauline Manford’s character as an example of the ways in which support for eugenics and the rise of New Thought were becoming intertwined. Zibrak argued that for those who lack structural power, like Pauline Manford, the power of the mind can turn into an intriguing concept. She finished her paper by pondering whether we are currently having our own twilight sleep moment in the United States.Campbell considered the aftermath of when The House of Mirth was adapted into a play by Clyde Fitch and Wharton in 1906. The play was a very close reproduction of the novel with minimal changes. The reviews started out positive with the opening night being successful, but as the play continued, out of town reviews were slightly critical. When it came time for the true test of a New York audience, brutal reviews were reported. Wharton’s reputation was largely what brought people into the play, so many people were more interested by her presence than the play itself. Campbell discussed the varying reactions to the play and contemplated what went wrong. Clyde Fitch claimed that it shouldn’t have been adapted into a play to begin with, whereas Wharton argued that the bad reviews could be explained by insufficient rehearsal practices. Campbell suggested that, whatever the explanation, it is clear that this backlash hindered Wharton’s confidence when it came to adapting her writing in the future stages of her career.Goldsmith’s paper revolved around Wharton’s personal views on higher education institutions and how these views were reflected in her writing. Although Wharton was not overly in favor of higher education, she did interact with many educated intellectual figures of the period. Goldsmith argued that in The House of Mirth the focus on marriage can be seen as a metaphor for institution and Lilly herself can be seen as a metaphor for higher education institutions and the way they are often lacking funds. She went on to argue that in The Glimpses of the Moon, there is a message about higher education that lies beneath the plot with there being a debate over whether Nick is an indolent academic. Goldsmith also focused on Hudson River Bracketed, which can be seen as a critique of higher education by representing true education being taught through engaging with cultural capital. As Goldsmith pointed out, Wharton’s ambivalence about higher education and knowledge is revealed through her novels.Museums, Photographs, and Archaeological Sites: Bridging Past and Present Friday, 7 November 2025McGunigal focused her paper on the curation history of Mount Vernon, along with Wharton’s Angel at the Grave. She explained the impact of Ann Pamela Cunningham, the founder of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, the organization that saved and restored Mount Vernon. McGunigal described similarities between Paulina’s interest in preserving history in Angel at the Grave and Cunningham’s preservation work. She pointed out that Wharton’s own house, The Mount, became a museum and pondered over how a house museum is a space that is both domestic and not domestic. McGunigal raised interesting questions about Wharton’s engagement with house museums in her writing and women’s involvement in museum work and house restoration. Her paper made clear the importance of women’s longstanding attempts to write and rewrite history.Editor’s Note: Ashley Palmer’ scholarly article on the same topic as the SSAWW conference paper appears in this issue of the journal.
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