January 21

She was a non-conformist before that became stylish.

Eliza Frances “Fanny” Andrews was born in Washington, Georgia, in 1840. Among the first students to attend LaGrange Female College, she was fluent in both Latin and French.

She was fiercely independent. Though her father was a staunch Unionist, Andrews was an equally strong secessionist. As her father predicted, the war destroyed the family fortune, and the unmarried Andrews set out to support herself.

Andrews’ account of the Civil War home front, the War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl, is one of the best ever published. She published three novels to widespread critical acclaim, taught literature and French at Wesleyan College in Macon, worked as a correspondent for the Augusta Chronicle, authored several textbooks on botany, and eventually embraced socialism. In 1926, Andrews become the only American woman in the International Academy Of Literature and Science.

The path-breaking Andrews died at age 90 on January 21, 1931, Today in Georgia History.