Editor | Frances E. Willard and Mary A. Livermore |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Subject | American women's biographies |
Published | 1893 |
Publisher | Charles Wells Moulton |
Media type | |
Pages | 830 |
A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred Seventy Biographical Sketches, Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women, in all Walks of Life is a compendium of biographical sketches of American women. [1] It was published in 1893 by Charles Wells Moulton. The editors, Frances E. Willard and Mary A. Livermore, [2] were assisted by a group of contributors.
The biographical dictionary had 830 pages measuring 8 by 11 inches (200 mm × 280 mm). It was printed from a full-face brevier type on heavy paper. The typography was by Charles Wells Moulton, the engravings and electrotypes by the Buffalo Electrotype and Engraving Company, the press work by the Kittinger Printing Company, the paper by the S. Worthington Paper Company, and the binding by Wm. H. Bork. The work contained 1,470 biographies, and 1,330 engravings. [3]
The publication of A Woman Of The Century was undertaken to create a biographical record of notable 19th-century women. It included biographies of women considered noteworthy because of their actions in the church, at the bar, in literature and music, in art, drama, science and invention or in social and political reform philanthropy. [3] [4] It was noted that the title was incorrect as it mostly included women from the late 19th century. Sarah Josepha Hale had created a similar work in 1853 [5] titled Woman's Record: Sketches of All Distinguished Women, from the Creation to A.D. 1854. [6] That work was not limited to 19th century American women but did include 2,500 biographies, with an index running for twenty pages. [6] : xv–xxxiv
The biographies in this work were intended to include all facts worth mentioning to create an educational record of the lives of American 19th century women. They were meant to include "the secret of her success", how the women had progressed and their ideas. The editors intended that the book would entertain and educate the readers about important women and their role in America's history. [3] More than half of the entries are of women who had either never married or had become widowed at a young age and did not remarry. [7]
The biographical sketches are accompanied by thirteen hundred half-tone engravings, made from photographs. [3] The images are all out of copyright due to their age.
Mary Ashton Livermore was an American journalist, abolitionist, and advocate of women's rights. Her printed volumes included: Thirty Years Too Late, first published in 1847 as a prize temperance tale, and republished in 1878; Pen Pictures; or, Sketches from Domestic Life; What Shall We Do with Our Daughters? Superfluous Women, and Other Lectures; and My Story of the War. A Woman's Narrative of Four Years' Personal Experience as Nurse in the Union Army, and in Relief Work at Home, in Hospitals, Camps and at the Front during the War of the Rebellion. She wrote a sketch of the sculptor Anne Whitney for Women of the Day and delivered the historical address for the Centennial Celebration of the First Settlement of the Northwestern States in Marietta, Ohio on July 15, 1788.
Frank Leslie was an English-born American engraver, illustrator, and publisher of family periodicals.
Rebecca Ruter Springer was an American author. She began to publish verses shortly after finishing school, and thereafter contributed to leading periodicals. Among her works is the Christian book Intra Muros, better known today as My Dream of Heaven. As the modern name implies, Springer claimed to have a vision of a Christian heaven, and she recounts this vision in her book as well as some personal insights.
Carlotta Perry, the pen name of Charlotte Augusta Perry, was an American writer of poetry and prose. She was among a group of premier women poets of the late 19th century. Her poems, children's stories, and short stories were published in many of the most read publications of the time including Harper's Magazine, Godey's Lady's Book and Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. Some of her verse can still be found today in Christian newsletters and even in an ad for a paint company describing their shades of white. Known mostly for her poetry, she was also a journalist and was active in many of the journalism and women's organizations during her working life.
The Flag of Our Union (est.1846) was a weekly story paper published in Boston, Massachusetts, in the mid-19th century. In addition to news it featured works of fiction and poetry including contributions from notable writers such as Louisa May Alcott and Edgar Allan Poe. Publisher Frederick Gleason began The Flag in 1846, a "miscellaneous family journal, containing news, wit, humor, and romance -- independent of party or sect." Original stories, verse, and illustration appeared in the paper, as well as brief news items on local, national and international current events. Maturin Murray Ballou served as editor. In 1849, Gleason's office was located "on the corner of Court and Tremont Streets" in Boston.
The Boston True Flag (1851-1908) or True Flag was a weekly fiction periodical published in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 19th century. Contributors included Francis A. Corey, Susan E. Dickinson, Fanny Fern, Louise Chandler Moulton, Oliver Optic, and John Townsend Trowbridge. Publishers William U. Moulton, J. R. Elliott, Martin V. Lincoln, and J. W. Nichols produced the paper from offices on School Street, Bromfield Street, and Arch Street.
Esther Saville Allen was an American author of the long nineteenth century. In her day, Allen was likely the author of more works, both in prose and verse, than any other woman in Arkansas. She died in 1913.
Nancy H. Adsit was a 19th-century American art lecturer, art educator, and writer. A graduate of Ingham University, she contributed for half a century to art literature. Adsit was the first woman to enter the insurance field in the United States, and, as far as is known, in the world. She was possessed of an unusual combination: great literary ability and excellent business sense. At the age of 13, she assumed charge of her own affairs and her future education. Some of her early writings aroused great antagonism, and her identity was withheld by her editor. It was not until many years later that she acknowledged their authorship. On the death of her husband, Charles Davenport Adsit, of Buffalo, New York in 1873, she assumed the entire charge of his business and general insurance agency. After a very successful career in this line, she sold the business and resumed her writing. She contributed to the London Art Journal, writing an interesting series of articles for them on "The Black and White in Art" or "Etching and Engraving". This brought demands for lectures and parlor talks on art, and she began a course of classes for study. For many years, she delivered these lectures in the principal cities of the U.S., and her name was prominently connected with art education both in the U.S. and abroad. Adsit died in 1902.
Cynthia S. Burnett was an American educator, temperance reformer, and newspaper editor. She passed her early life in Ohio, but her first temperance movement work was done in Illinois, in 1879, later answering calls for help in Florida, Tennessee, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. In 1885, she was made state organizer of Ohio, and the first year of this appointment, she lectured 165 times, besides holding meetings in the daytime and organizing over 40 unions. Her voice failing, she accepted a call to Utah as teacher in the Methodist Episcopal College, in Salt Lake City. While living there, she was made territorial president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and eight unions and 15 legions were organized by her. Each month, one or more meetings were held by her and the work was further endorsed in a column of a Mormon paper which she edited. Later, she spent a year as state organizer in California and Nevada, and for these efficient services in the West she was made a national organizer in 1889. She spent later years as preceptress of her alma mater, which has become Farmington College. In 1929, she was recognized by the Florida Newspaper News as Florida's oldest active newspaper woman. Burnett died in 1932.
Jessie Wilson Manning was an American author and lecturer. She was an active worker and eloquent speaker on literary subjects and for the cause of temperance. Manning died in 1947.
Harriet Pritchard Arnold was a 19th-century American writer.
Helen Vickroy Austin was an American journalist and horticulturist.
Libbie Riley Baer was an American poet. She was the author of In the Land of Fancy and other works.
Mary Foot Seymour was a 19th-century American businesswoman and journalist. In 1879, in New York City, she started the Union School of Stenography, the first women's secretarial school in the United States. She also published a magazine devoted to the interest of women. Seymour served as president of the Union Stenographic and Typewriting Association, commissioner of the United States Court of Claims, commissioner of deeds of New Jersey, and notary public of New York County, New York. She served three different terms in as many offices, and handled a large proportion of the writing done for the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Though she preferred journalistic work, she carried on her stenographic establishment as it paid better than correspondence or reporting. She was a member of the Woman's Press Club of New York City and Sorosis. Seymour died in 1893.
Sarah Dyer Hobart was an American author of poetry, prose, and songs. Some of her more notable poems included, "The Record of Company B", "The Legend of St. Freda", and "Hector's Recompense". Her sonnets are perhaps her best work. She died in 1921.
Augusta Harvey Worthen was an American educator and author of the long nineteenth century. She taught school, and wrote poetry and prose. Her greatest work was the history of her town, Sutton, published in two volumes in 1890; it was the first town history in the state of New Hampshire prepared by a woman.
Esther T. Housh was a 19th-century American social reformer, author, and newspaper editor. She was the President of the Vermont State Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). While serving as press superintendent of the National WCTU, she instituted the National Bulletin. She was the editor of The Woman's Magazine, as well as the author of many temperance leaflets, and poems.
Minnie Mary Lee was a pen name of Julia Amanda Sargent Wood, a 19th-century American sentimental author, of poems, stories, sketches and novels, who sometimes also wrote as Mrs. Julia A. A. Wood. She began writing very early in life, but did not publish in book form until she was in her forties. The Heart of Myrrha Lake, Or, Into the Light of Catholicity ; Hubert's Wife: a Story for You ; The Brown House at Duffield: a Story of Life without and within the Fold ; and The Story of Annette and her Five Dolls: Told to dear little Catholic Children were her published works. A convert to Roman Catholicism, Wood's novels were on Catholic themes.
Amanda L. Aikens was an American editor and philanthropist. During the American Civil War, she was one of the noted women workers, and it was through her public appeals that the question of the national soldiers' homes was agitated. She raised money in Wisconsin for the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore for the purpose of having women admitted on equal terms with men. She took an active interest in all charity and educational work in her state. Aikens was instrumental in founding the Wisconsin Industrial School for Girls, and was a member of the Humane Society, the Woman's Club, and the Athenaeum. In 1887, she began to edit the "Woman's World" section in the Evening Wisconsin.
Mary Galentine Fenner was an American poet and litterateur. She wrote for the Rural New Yorker before becoming a prolific versifier. She was also involved in the temperance and suffrage movements.