The Best of Friends

An amazing historical biography based on real people that were in the center of the New York City art and literary scene in the 1870's. Helena de kay Gilder was part of a close knit group of women artists who attempted a graphic art education at Cooper Union and then at the National Academy of Design. She was bisexual in a time when there was little acceptance, but had two serious relationships with women before allowing men to court her. The first was Henry James' cousin Minnie Temple...
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An amazing historical biography based on real people that were in the center of the New York City art and literary scene in the 1870's. Helena de kay Gilder was part of a close knit group of women artists who attempted a graphic art education at Cooper Union and then at the National Academy of Design. She was bisexual in a time when there was little acceptance, but had two serious relationships with women before allowing men to court her. The first was Henry James' cousin Minnie Temple and then with Mary Hallock Foote, who was a classmate. Helena was courted by Winslow Homer, the famous painter, and then by Richard Gilder, a poet and the editor of Scribner's Magazine. Her life was appropriated by the leading artists and writers of her day. Winslow Homer, Henry James, John La Farge, Helen Hunt Jackson, her own husband, and later after she was gone, Mary Hallock Foote and Wallace Stegner. Her endeavors for a career are set in the sexist and misogynist era when the artistic society were driven by men like Henry Ward Beecher and Stanford White both of whom were famous for their philandering. She was also an eyewitness to some of the violent disasters of the time, the Draft riots and the Orange Parade debacle.