RIAMCO

Rhode Island Archival and Manuscript Collections Online

For Participating Institutions

Anne Charlotte Lynch Botta Papers (Ms.Botta)

Brown University Library

Box A
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: Manuscripts: 401-863-3723; University Archives: 401-863-2148
Email: Manuscripts: hay@brown.edu; University Archives: archives@brown.edu

Biographical/Historical note

Anne Charlotte Lynch Botta was born in Bennington, Vermont on November 11, 1815. She graduated from Albany Female Academy in 1834, and from 1835-1845 she conducted a school for girls in Providence, Rhode Island. She then taught at the Brooklyn Academy for women from 1845-1850. In 1855 she married Vincenzo Botta, a noted Italian educator and naturalized American citizen.

Anne Lynch Botta, an active member of the literary community of the northeast, was herself a poet of some distinction. The first edition of her Collected poems appeared in 1849. She was a frequent contributor to the Democratic Review and in 1860 authored A Handbook of Universal Literature. During the 1850s and 1860s her home in New York City became a gathering place for artists and writers. Among others, she entertained Bryant, Emerson, Greeley, Willis, and Poe.

She died in New York City on March 23, 1891.