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“Collier’s,” February 28, 1925. Cover art by George Wright for the story “Gone to Glory” by Robert Ernest MacAlarney.
lhboudreau posted a photo:
The heroine of the story, Gloriana Grant, whose portrait is on the cover, inherited an ancient clipper ship from her father, a former shipping tycoon. The square rigger, named Guinevere, is docked on a cushion of muck in the East River and serves as a “Ship Shelter for Working Girls.” It houses fifty women wage earners carefully handpicked by a charity organization, and there is a phenomenally long waiting list.
Gloriana visits the shelter frequently. She knew how to mix and she liked doing it. Her father had achieved his place in the shipping business by knowing how to do it. The gangplank was no ordinary ship carpenter’s handiwork: “It was a fairy bridge that Gloriana had spun. Over it one walked from a day of headachy toil straight into the realm whence had come the Guinevere’s name.” [From the story]
By the 1920s, the great age of American sail was long over, and many once majestic clippers and barques were laid up in harbors, mudflats, or riverbanks. Some were used as storage hulks, training ships, museum curiosities, or floating restaurants. But purpose built social shelters aboard old ships were rare. The specific concept of a “Ship Shelter for Working Girls” is a literary invention rather than a documented social practice.
Wright gives us Gloriana Grant in full upward gazing radiance. It’s the perfect face for a heroine who inherits a clipper ship and promptly turns it into a sanctuary for working women. The Guinevere — a once proud square rigger now resting in East River muck — becomes a floating refuge, a kind of maritime boarding house with better lineage than most Fifth Avenue families. And Gloriana, who “knew how to mix,” strides across her fairy tale gangplank like a benevolent captain of industry. Wright’s portrait catches that blend of privilege, pluck, and theatricality that made 1920s magazine heroines so irresistible.
For a reader in 1925, the idea of a once glorious clipper turned into a haven for wage earning women would have felt slightly eccentric but not impossible. It’s a perfect example of how “Collier’s” fiction often blended social realism with romanticized Americana.
[Source: Microsoft Copilot]
