WAGSTAFF, Blanche Shoemalcer, Amer ican editor and author: b. New York City, 10 July 1888. She is a daughter of the late Henry P. Shoemaker (b. 28 March 1842; d. 2 July 1918), the pioneer railroad man, who laid out 3,000 miles Of western railways and became chairman of the board of directors of the Cin cinnati, Hamilton and Dayton. He served in the Civil War as lieutenant of the 27th Pennsylvania Volunteers and subsequently organized the Har riman National Bank and the Trust Company of America. The earliest paternal American ancestor of Mrs. Wagstaff was Peter Shoe maker, a Quaker, who came to America from Holland in 1680 and settled in Germantown, Pa. Her mother was Blanche Quiggle, daugh ter of Col. James William Quiggle, LL.D., some time deputy attorney-general of Pennsylvania and State senator. On 29 April 1907 Miss Shoemalcer married Alfred Wagstaff, Jr., and has one son, Alfred Wagstaff, 3d. She was edu cated at the Brearley School and Miss Spence's School, New York. Mrs. Wagstaff is a promi nent critic on the New York Times Book Re view; is a contributor to Harper's, Hearses, The Smart Set, the New York Herald and other periodicals, contributing editor of the Van Nor den Magazine and the international Magazine, and editor of the Poetry Journal, Boston. In 1910 her Greek drama, (Alkestis,' was s at the Hudson Theatre, New York, by. thetat burn Company, and was later played before col leges, etc. Among her public services during the late war vrere the following: Chairman of the National Woman's Service League, 1917; desk lieutenant of the War Camp Community Service; volunteer in the Second Federal Re serve District; Liberty Loan writer and member of the Vigilantes Association (Authors' Amer icanization Propaganda).
Mrs. Wagstaff's publications include (Song of Youth,' poems (1906) ; (Woven of Dreams' poems (1907 ) ; (A tys ' ( 1909) ; (Alkestis,' drama (1911) ; (Eris,) drama (1913) ; 'Nar cissus' (1917) ; (Book of Love' (1917) ; 'Leaves in the Wind,' poems (1920) ; the songs, 'I Never Knew' ; (Mother' ; (Adoration' ; (Hope); 'You Took the Spring) ; also epi grams, sociological essays and government treatiseson the Liberty Loans during the war. She has contributed also to the anthologies: (Gar den of Life' ; (Lyric Year' ; 'Young Idea) ; 'Fifes and Drums' ; (World and Democracy) ; and to the volume of war poems issued for the blind by the Board of Education, New York, and verses recited for Y. M. C. A. hospitals with the American Expeditionary Forces.
Mrs. Wagstaff is a member of the Pen and Brush Club, the Poetry Society of America, the Authors' League, the Pennsylvania Society, vice-president of the Dante League, the Hugue not Society, the Badminton, Colony, Sound Leach Golf Club and of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. She is the possessor of an admirable collection of Shelle yana.