Jessie Belle Rittenhouse
American poet (1869–1948)
Jessie Belle Rittenhouse Scollard (December 8, 1869 – September 28, 1948), daughter of John Edward and Mary (MacArthur) Rittenhouse, was an American literary critic, compiler of anthologies, and poet. She was a founding member of the Poetry Society of America and its secretary for 10 years.
Life
After graduating in 1890 from Genesee Wesleyan Seminary in Lima, New York, Rittenhouse taught school in Cairo, Illinois, and Grand Haven, Michigan. Her literary career began with book reviews in Buffalo and Rochester, New York, and led to a year as a reporter for the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle in 1894. In 1899, she moved to Boston to begin her literary career in earnest. From 1905 to 1915, Rittenhouse lived in New York City, where she was poetry reviewer for the New York Times Review of Books. From 1914 to 1924 she conducted lecture tours. In 1914, Rittenhouse helped to found the Poetry Society of America, of which she was secretary for 10 years.
On March 20, 1924, Rittenhouse married fellow poet Clinton Scollard in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.
In the course of her career, Rittenhouse corresponded with numerous contemporary poets, such as John Myers O'Hara, Margaret Widdemer, and Arthur Guiterman.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Jessie Belle Rittenhouse” as american poet (1869–1948). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american poet (1869–1948). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6187617. VIAF identifies the subject as 133145857811523020311. The Library of Congress control number is n50054867. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1869, 1948, 1890 and 1894.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jessie Belle Rittenhouse” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.