Born on December 8, 1869, in Mount Morris, New York, Jessie Rittenhouse attended schools in nearby Conesus and Nunda and in 1890 graduated from Genesee Wesleyan Seminary in Lima. While teaching in private schools in Cairo, Illinois, and then in Grand Haven, Michigan, she began writing articles for newspapers. Some book reviews published in papers in Buffalo and Rochester attracted attention, and in 1894╨1895 she was a reporter for the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. In 1895 she moved to Chicago and resumed free-lance writing. Four years later, deciding to specialize in writing about literature, she moved to Boston, where she soon became a member of Ellen Louise Moulton╒s literary salon and an accepted member of the city╒s literary set. In 1900 she published a variorum edition of Omar Khayyçm╒s Rubçiyçt and in 1904 a volume of selections from that poem under the title The Lover╒s Rubçiyçt. In the latter year she also published her first book of criticism, The Younger American Poets, which was well received. In 1905 she moved to New York and became poetry reviewer for the New York Times Review of Books, a post she held for ten years. She also reviewed for The Bookman until 1920. She helped found the Poetry Society of America in 1914 and served as its secretary for ten years. From 1914 to 1924 she made frequent lecture tours on which she spoke mainly on contemporary poets.
Rittenhouse edited The Little Book of Modern Verse, 1913, The Little Book of American Poets, 1915, The Second Book of Modern Verse, 1919, The Little Book of Modern British Verse, 1924, and The Third Book of Modern Verse, 1927, which were widely popular and effectively shaped popular acceptance of contemporary poetry. She also published several volumes of her own verse, including The Door of Dreams, 1918, The Lifted Cup, 1921, The Secret Bird, 1930, and Moving Tide: New and Selected Lyrics, 1939, the last of which was awarded the gold medal of the National Poetry Center. With Clinton Scollard, whom she married in 1924, she edited The Bird-Lover╒s Anthology, 1930, and Patrician Rhymes, 1932. In 1934, two years after Scollard╒s death, she edited his selected verses as The Singing Heart. Her own autobiography, My House of Life, appeared in the same year. In 1930 the Poetry Society of America awarded her a medal for distinguished service to poetry. Jessie Rittenhouse died in Detroit on September 28, 1948.
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