From “Mrs. Devereux’s Blue Book” 1894 Page 49
Before Madame Clara Anna Rich Devereux stuck her nose into things around 1880, Cincinnati’s polite society was an embarrassment of disorganization. A half-century earlier, Frances “Fanny” Trollope had lambasted the local gentry in her scandalous 1832 book, “Domestic Manners of the Americans,” in which she states:
“All animal wants are supplied profusely at Cincinnati, and at a very easy rate; but, alas! these go but a little way in the history of a day’s enjoyment. The total and universal want of manners, both in males and females, is so remarkable, that I was constantly endeavouring to account for it.”
In a thoroughly typical Queen City response, the local pinkies-up crowd pretended Trollope’s book did not exist, spoke no more of it, and carried on obliviously.
Mrs. C.A.R. Devereux was not amused. Born into a family of authentic Boston brahmins, she married General Arthur F. Devereux, who distinguished himself for bravery during the Battle of Shiloh. He was a ranking officer in the Army Corps of Engineers and was based at Cincinnati. The Devereuxs and their five children occupied a house in the fashionable East Fourth Street neighborhood, almost next-door to Murat Halstead, the publisher of the Cincinnati Commercial newspaper. Halstead recruited Mrs. Devereux to add some life and color to his newspaper’s society columns.
It is a considerable stretch to describe any of the pages in any of Cincinnati’s dozen daily newspapers (five were in German) back then as offering “society” news. What the newspapers published was a “personals” page in which tidbits provided by nearly any subscriber appeared in print. To pick one random example, the 5 March 1882 Cincinnati Enquirer’s “Random Notes” column featured a sick bill collector, a talented woman cobbler, and a traveling haberdasher along with reports of social gatherings among the wealthy tribes atop Walnut Hills and Clifton.
The upper crust was so appalled at finding themselves lumped indiscriminately with tradesmen and parvenus that they considered any mention of anyone’s name in any newspaper as something of a social embarrassment. As a result, Mrs. Devereux endured years of tribulation as she endeavored to convince the city’s blue bloods to provide her with any printable tidbits. According to Alvin F. Harlows’ “The Serene Cincinnatians,”
“Mrs. Devereux, when she called at some of these ultraconservative homes for items, was not even seated in the parlor, but had to wait in the hall until the lady of the house chose to go down and speak to her.”
The tables turned after 1892, when Mrs. Devereux published the first of her annual “Blue Book” directories of Cincinnati society. Overnight, she became the final arbiter of social standing in the Queen City. Any grande dame who dared confront “Madame” Devereux risked banishment from the now-official social register.
Just how influential was the annual Blue Book? In that inaugural issue, Mrs. Devereux announced a new schedule for “at home” days. Etiquette in the 1890s required a strict schedule of “calling,” in which the socially conscious made the rounds of their peers. Whole books were written about the proper distribution of “calling cards.” Anyone who was “at home” for callers on the wrong day faced social ostracism. Appalled by the seemingly random schedule of visitations in Cincinnati, Mrs. Devereux decreed a new schedule, totally fabricated by herself:
“The first two Fridays in the month are Clifton at home days, the last two are set apart for Mt. Auburn. The first two Thursdays of the month are at home days for Avondale, the last two for West Sixth and Fourth Streets. The first two Mondays for East Walnut Hills, the second two for the West Hill. Tuesday, the Burnet House, St. Nicholas, East Fourth and Pike, Broadway and the East End generally. Wednesday, Dayton Street and Covington.”
Cincinnati’s societal matrons fell sharply in line. They had no choice. Mrs. Devereux herself (often referred to as “Madame” because her surname appeared to be French) was quite pleased with herself. In the fourth (1896) edition, she bragged:
“The Blue Book has become as indispensable a requisite for the escuitoire of the woman of fashion as her silver-mounted writing utensils and her crested seal. To the man of business it is almost as useful, for it tells him ‘who’s who’ at a glance and where he or she may be found.”
In addition to her annual directory and her unsigned contributions to the Cincinnati Commercial, Mrs. Devereux published her own occasional newsletter, called “Tips” in which she passed along the really good stuff to her subscribers.
Throughout the mid-1890s, Mrs. Devereux’s columns in the Commercial often jostled against saucy squibs penned by an ambitious young writer named Mary C. Francis, who provided gossipy material to several Cincinnati papers. So long as they shared space in the same newspaper, Mrs. Devereux held her tongue and her pen. When Miss Francis relocated to New York and published a few successful novels, Mrs. Devereux spread all sorts of calumny.
Mary Francis sued for libel based on an item in Mrs. Devereux’s Tips which implied that Miss Francis had escaped to New York because she had engaged in behavior unbecoming a lady, published salacious material and had been barred as a consequence from the best Cincinnati homes. Further, Mrs. Devereux claimed that Miss Francis had attempted to “hoodoo” money under false pretenses from a Cincinnati artist.
From Cincinnati Enquirer 26 March 1897, Image extracted from microfilm by Greg Hand
In court, Miss Francis’ attorneys demolished the Devereux defense, awarding the plaintiff $500 in damages. Mrs. Devereux, with typical chutzpah, immediately devoted an entire issue of her Tips newsletter to attack the judge, the jury, the plaintiff’s legal team and Miss Francis and her witnesses. Mrs. Devereux lamented the injustice of a judicial system in which a fine woman such as herself could be vanquished by rabble of such inferior social standing. Miss Francis sued again and appears to have been settled out of court.
Shortly after her courtroom defeat, Mrs. Devereux retired from journalism for a couple of years. When the Cincinnati Enquirer acquired the Commercial in 1900, the new publishers enticed her into resuming her duties at the society desk and she remained in that position until her death in 1910. In its obituary, the Cincinnati Times-Star recognized her influence:
“She achieved remarkable success, and it has been said of her that she was personally familiar with more prominent lives than any other individual in the city. Her acquaintance was as wide as society’s limits, and her knowledge of affairs embraced everything needful to the conscious newsgatherer and polished writer.”
Notably, throughout her final stint at the Cincinnati Enquirer, Mrs. Devereux was assisted by her daughter Marion, who assumed her mother’s duties for the next 30 years and escalated her family’s stranglehold on the city’s moneyed classes. While Clara may have been an arbiter, there were more than a few who saw Marion as nothing short of a dictator.
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