Alma Routsong

Background

Routsong was born on November 26, 1924, in Traverse City, Michigan, to Carl John Routsong and Esther Miller Routsong. Her father was a police sergeant and her mother a nurse. She grew up in Michigan and attended Traverse City Senior High School before continuing her education in Kalamazoo and East Lansing. Her later literary identity preserved a connection to her family: Miller was her mother's maiden name, while Isabel was an anagram of Lesbia. In her 1975 interview with historian Jonathan Ned Katz, she explained that adopting a different name marked a departure from her earlier fiction and also reflected concern for her young children.

Education

Routsong attended Traverse City Senior High School and studied at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo from 1942 to 1944. Following her naval service, she completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in art at Michigan State University in East Lansing in 1949. Her first novel, A Gradual Joy, subsequently used the setting of married-student housing at Michigan State, linking her early fiction with the postwar university environment.

Career

Routsong served in the United States Navy's WAVES in 1945–1946, at the end of the Second World War and during its immediate aftermath. She trained at the Farragut Naval Training Center in Idaho and worked as a hospital apprentice. WAVES was the women's reserve organization of the Navy, rather than a vehicle or combat unit. Her first novel, A Gradual Joy, appeared through Houghton Mifflin in 1953. Its account of a young couple establishing married life while attending Michigan State drew on the postwar domestic world that also informed her second novel, Round Shape, published in 1959. Both books appeared under the name Alma Routsong and preceded the explicitly lesbian fiction for which she became best known. After publishers rejected her historical novel about two women establishing a life together, she issued 1,000 copies herself through Bleecker Street Press in 1969. Published as A Place for Us under the name Isabel Miller, the novel drew inspiration from the early nineteenth-century folk painter Mary Ann Willson and her companion, Miss Brundage. Routsong and Elizabeth Deran helped distribute it through lesbian community networks, including Daughters of Bilitis meetings. McGraw-Hill published it under the title Patience and Sarah in October 1971. Its affirmative treatment of love between women distinguished it from fiction that presented lesbian lives primarily through tragedy or pathology. Alongside her writing, Routsong worked as an editor at Columbia University in New York from 1968 to 1971. From the mid-1970s until 1986, she was a proofreader for Time magazine. Her later books appeared through Naiad Press, an independent lesbian publisher. They included The Love of Good Women in 1986, Side by Side in 1990, A Dooryard Full of Flowers: And Other Short Pieces in 1993, and Laurel in 1996. These works extended her treatment of women's relationships across historical and contemporary settings; the short-piece collection also returned to the characters of Patience and Sarah. Routsong died of ovarian cancer in Poughkeepsie, New York, on October 4, 1996, aged 71. Her manuscripts, correspondence, and diaries are preserved in the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College.

Achievements

• Her novel A Place for Us, subsequently titled Patience and Sarah, became the first recipient of the American Library Association's Gay Book Award in 1971, establishing its place at the beginning of the award program now known as the Stonewall Book Awards.

• Self-published an initial edition of 1,000 copies of A Place for Us in 1969 and reached readers through lesbian community networks before the novel gained commercial publication.

Works

• historical novel

  • Patience and Sarah

    (Written as Isabel Miller and first self-published as A Pl...)

    1969

• novel

  • Laurel

    (Routsong's final novel, published as Isabel Miller by Nai...)

    1996
  • A Gradual Joy

    (Published under the name Alma Routsong by Houghton Miffli...)

    1953

  • Round Shape

    (Published by Houghton Mifflin under the name Alma Routson...)

    1959
  • The Love of Good Women

    (Published as Isabel Miller by Naiad Press. Set during the...)

    1986
  • Side by Side

    (Published as Isabel Miller by Naiad Press. Patricia and S...)

    1990

• story collection

  • A Dooryard Full of Flowers: And Other Short Pieces

    (Published as Isabel Miller by Naiad Press. The volume bri...)

    1993

Membership

Routsong was an officer in the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis and became active in the gay liberation movement in 1970. Founded in 1955, the Daughters of Bilitis combined social support, education, and advocacy for lesbians; its publication, The Ladder, also provided an important forum for lesbian writing. Routsong was arrested during a police raid connected with the organization. Her activism intersected with her literary recognition. At the American Library Association convention in Dallas in 1971, she joined Barbara Gittings at a kissing booth intended to challenge prejudice against gay people. Their public kiss was photographed by Kay Lahusen.

• Served as an officer.

  Daughters of Bilitis, New York chapter , United States of America

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• Jonathan Ned Katz interpreted Patience and Sarah as a contribution to lesbian resistance through literature, emphasizing its connection with the developing lesbian-feminist consciousness of the 1960s. He also noted that Routsong described her original intention as writing a love story rather than pursuing a consciously political program.

Interests

• Routsong kept diaries from her early teens and later prepared typed transcriptions of them.

Connections

Routsong married Bruce Brodie in 1947. They had four daughters, Natalie, Joyce, Charlotte, and Louise, and divorced in 1962. In 1962 she began a relationship with Elizabeth Deran, an economist. They lived together in Greenwich Village, New York, and Deran helped her bring A Place for Us to readers. Their relationship also exposed them to employment discrimination: Deran was forced to leave her position at the United States Treasury Department after their relationship became known. Although their romantic partnership ended, their friendship resumed, and Routsong's inscriptions in her later books acknowledged Deran's encouragement and assistance with her writing. Later in life, Routsong's partner was artist Julie Weber. In 1997 Weber participated in a Smith College event honoring Noel Phyllis Birkby and read from Routsong's work.

Father:

Carl John Routsong

Worked as a police sergeant.

Mother:

Esther Miller Routsong

Worked as a nurse. Her maiden name supplied the surname in the pseudonym Isabel Miller.

husband:

Bruce Brodie

Married Routsong in 1947; their marriage ended in divorce in 1962.

Daughter:

Natalie Brodie

Daughter:

Joyce Brodie

Daughter:

Charlotte Brodie

Daughter:

Louise Brodie

Partner:

Elizabeth Deran

An economist who shared Routsong's Greenwich Village home and helped distribute A Place for Us. Routsong acknowledged her encouragement in inscriptions in several later books.

Partner:

Julie Weber

An artist who read from Routsong's work at a Smith College event in 1997.

Collegue :

Barbara Gittings

Joined Routsong in a public kissing-booth demonstration at the American Library Association convention in Dallas in 1971.

References

• Isabel Miller — Michigan Authors and Illustrators Library of Michigan biography documenting her family, birth and death dates, education, naval service, editorial employment, books, and literary awards.
  2018
• Interview with Alma Routsong Jonathan Ned Katz's interview of January 20, 1975, discussing the origins, writing, publication, and reception of Patience and Sarah and Routsong's choice of pseudonym.
  1975
• Alma Routsong Interview, January 20, 1990 Lesbian Herstory Archives oral-history interview covering coming out, relationships, her writing career, and the Daughters of Bilitis.
  1990
• Isabel Miller Papers — Collections at Smith Smith College Libraries' account of her diaries, correspondence, research, and manuscripts in the Sophia Smith Collection.
• Stonewall Book Awards List American Library Association record identifying A Place for Us as the inaugural 1971 winner and specifying its publication by McGraw-Hill as Patience and Sarah in October 1971.
• Alma Routsong and Elizabeth Deran Residence NYC LGBTQ Historic Sites Project account of Routsong's Greenwich Village residence, relationship with Deran, publishing activities, employment, and activism.
• First Place Awards, 1948 to Present Friends of American Writers' award history confirming Routsong's 1954 award for A Gradual Joy.
• After the G.I. Wedding Review of A Gradual Joy published in The New York Times on August 23, 1953.
  1953
• When Mother Moved In Review of Round Shape published in The New York Times on September 6, 1959.
  1959
• Their Love Was a Thing Apart Review of Patience and Sarah published in The New York Times on April 23, 1972.
  1972