Fields, Annie Adams (1835-1915). Literary hostess, author, and social reformer. At age 20, Annie Adams married James T. Fields, partner in the Boston publishing house of Ticknor & Fields. Both before and after her husband’s death in 1881, Fields often entertained important American, British, and European authors at her home at 148 Charles Street in Boston, MA. After James’ death, Sarah Orne Jewett, whose books were published by Ticknor & Fields, began sharing Annie’s homes at 148 Charles Street and Manchester-on-the-Sea, MA. Cather met Fields in Boston in 1908, a meeting Cather described in "The House on Charles Street," an essay reviewing Memories of a Hostess (a volume of selections from Fields' journals, 1922). A revised version of this essay, retitled "148 Charles Street," appeared in Not Under Forty (1936). After Jewett’s death in 1909, Fields edited The Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (1911), which included several letters to Cather. Fearing that 148 Charles Street would become a museum after her death, Fields requested that it be torn down.

Greenslet, Ferris (1875-1959). American editor and writer. Born in Glens Falls, NY, Ferris Greenslet earned a BA (1897) from Wesleyan University and a PhD (1900) from Columbia University. He served as associate editor at the Atlantic Monthly from 1902 to 1907, and married Ella Stoothoff Hulst in 1903; they had two children, Marguerite (born 1904) and George (born 1906). As an author he specialized in biography. He became literary editor at Houghton Mifflin, the Boston publisher of the Atlantic, c. 1908 and was socially and professionally acquainted with Annie Adams Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett, who may have introduced him to Cather. He evidently solicited Cather to submit Alexander’s Bridge (1912), her first published novel, to Houghton Mifflin. In 1910, when Greenslet became editor in chief of the trade department, Roger Scaife divided his shares as a director of the company with him, and the two presented themselves to authors as partners, with Scaife handling book advertising and format and Greenslet negotiating contracts and supervising editing; when Greenslet was absent from the office, Scaife handled correspondence with Cather. Greenslet became a director of Houghton Mifflin in 1919 and manager of the trade department in 1933. Cather left Houghton Mifflin as a publisher for Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., because she became dissatisfied with the production and advertising of her books. However, she remained on cordial terms with Greenslet and undertook several projects for him after her departure. Her extant letters to him constitute one of the largest groups to a single correspondent.

Aldrich, Charles Frost (1868-1904). American businessman. Charles Aldrich was born in Boston, MA, along with his twin brother Talbot, to Mary Elizabeth Woodman and Thomas Bailey Aldrich. In 1888 he began attending Harvard University, but after his first year he left school and began working at the Walter Baker chocolate mills, and when the company became Walter Baker & Company he served as one of its directors. In 1900 he married Maria Louisa Richards, with whom he had one child. Charles began suffering from tuberculosis less than a year after being married, leading him and his family to relocate to the cure cottages at the Saranac Lake treatment center, where he eventually succumbed to the disease three years later.

Aldrich, Talbot Bailey (1868-1957). American businessman and politician. Talbot Bailey Aldrich was born in Boston, MA, along with his twin brother Charles, to Mary Elizabeth Woodman and Thomas Bailey Aldrich. He graduated from Harvard in 1892, and after graduation he served as aid-de-camp to Governors Curtis Guild and Eben S. Draper. In 1918 he joined the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where he held the fourth Norfolk District seat until 1921. He also participated in a number of Harvard clubs in New York and Boston, was a member of the New York City Union Club, and served as President for the Sons of the Revolution.

Ward, Mary Augusta Arnold (1851-1920) (“Mrs. Humphry Ward”). British writer. Born in Tasmania in 1856, Mary and her family left for England, where she was educated at boarding schools. While living in Oxford, England, she met and married Humphry Ward, a tutor and fellow of Brasenose College. She continued to educate herself in languages and contemporary religious issues, which play an important part in her first popular novel, Robert Elsmere (1888). Her many novels often combine serious issues with aristocratic love stories and were very popular in both England and the U.S. Ward, who always published under the name Mrs. Humphry Ward, worked for the betterment of the poor and was a founder and first president of the Women’s National Anti-Suffrage League in Great Britain. As editor of McClure’s Magazine, Cather corresponded with Ward about the serialization of Marriage à la Mode (1909). Their correspondence is not extant, but Cather mentions the work in letters to Ward’s friends Sarah Orne Jewett and Annie Adams Fields.