Lucy Temple Latané (1866-1948)
Lucy Temple Latané was a teacher who joined the Club later in her life, but soon became an enthusiastic participant. She was born in Virginia to a family that traced its heritage to the earliest days of colonial settlement and the French Huguenots. She moved to Baltimore in 1880 when her father James Allen Latané, a bishop in the Reformed Episcopal Church, became the rector of the Church of the Redeemer on Lanvale Street. The family took up residence at 1412 Park Avenue, where Latané lived until her mother’s death in 1922.
Latané was a good student; soon after arriving in Baltimore, won a place in the Western Female High School, where she excelled. Latané taught at private schools for most of her career. One was the Randolph-Harrison School located across the street from the Latané home, where she taught English and Mathematics in the 1890s.
The Latané family was proud of their Southern heritage and actively participated in the “Lost Cause” movement at the end of the nineteenth century, which sought to characterize the antebellum South and the Confederacy as the pinnacle of American civilization, the Civil War as the “War of Northern Aggression,” and slavery as a fundamentally benign institution. Lucy’s uncle William was the subject of “The Burial of Latané,” a painting that was one of the most famous symbols of the Lost Cause. Many of Lucy’s female relatives were members of the Daughters of the Confederacy, and her brother John often lectured to the group. That said, Lucy’s name is conspicuously absent from press coverage of the “Lost Cause Latanés.”
Latané’s historical and genealogical research resulted in the publication of two books, Parson Latané (1936) and A Short Sketch of James Alan Latané, 1832-1902, which paint an “overly rosy description of the lives of the Latané slaves,” yet nevertheless illustrate the importance of the Latané family in the early history of Virginia. Historian Ryan N. Danker vividly described her as she “spent painstaking hours in the archives of the local courthouse, trudged across now overgrown or demolished family lands and houses, and dug in many a Latané attic to trace the family history.”
Latané joined the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore in the early years of the twentieth century. With her training as an English teacher, it is not surprising she was soon selected to chair the Current Criticism committee. She often presented reviews of books of fiction and history as well as papers on historical topics, including one described by the Committee on Folklore as a “spicy paper on Rhyme and Reason.” Lucy was active in sustaining the Club, often presenting new candidates for membership and reading papers for absent members. She served two years as Corresponding Secretary from 1914 to 1916.
Sources
Danker, Ryan N. “The Propaganda of Martyrdom: The Latanés and Confederate Nationalism.” Essex County Museum and Historical Society Bulletin 53 (Sept. 2009): 1-5.
“The Western Female High School.” Baltimore Sun June 26, 1885, p. 4.
Latané, Lucy Temple. Parson Latané, 1672-1732. Charlottesville, VA: Michie Company, 1936.
“Burial of Latané, The.” Encyclopedia Virginia.
Contributor: Cynthia Requardt