William Mordecai Graydon, Mary Ellen Graydon Sharpe
Jane Chambers McKinney Graydon (July 16, 1802-March 30, 1891)[1] was an abolitionist who served as a nurse during the American Civil War. In collaboration with Catharine Merrill, she organized a charitable society in 1867 that founded the Indianapolis Home for Friendless Women, the predecessor to the Indianapolis Retirement Home.
McKinney, who was born in Wilmington, Delaware in 1802,[2] became an abolitionist as an adult. She married Alexander Graydon, an iron manufacturer, in 1822 and they moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1843.[3] She was also involved with the Presbyterian Church.[2] During the American Civil War, she served as a nurse in Tennessee.[4] With Catharine Merrill, who also served as a nurse during the war, Jane McKinney Graydon organized the charitable group that established the Indianapolis Home for Friendless Women in 1867. This Indianapolis women's shelter provided refuge to homeless women, as well as orphans and widows of soldiers.[5] By the end of the nineteenth-century, it was caring for an estimated 400 to 500 people annually. The facility was renamed the Indianapolis Home for the Aged in 1936 and reorganized so that it could accept male residents; its name was changed to the Indianapolis Retirement Home in 1976.[6]
As an abolitionist, her home was also reported to be a station in the Underground Railroad.[2]
↑ "Biographical Sketch" in "Jane Chambers McKinney Graydon Papers, 1863, Collection Guide". Indiana Historical Society. April 22, 1996.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
↑ Richard F. Nixon and Stephen E. Towne eds. (2010). Indiana's War: The Civil War in Documents. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press. pp.75–77. ISBN9780821418475.{{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
↑ Jeanette Vanausdall, "Indianapolis Retirement Home," in Bodenhamer, David J., and Robert G. Barrows, eds. (1994). The Encyclopedia of Indianapolis. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. p.806. ISBN0-253-31222-1.{{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
↑ Jeanette Vanausdall (Fall 1992). "A Worthy History: The Indianapolis Retirement Home". Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society. 4: 40–43.
Butler University is a private university in Indianapolis, Indiana. Founded in 1855 and named after founder Ovid Butler, the university has over 60 major academic fields of study in six colleges: the Lacy School of Business, College of Communication, College of Education, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, and Jordan College of the Arts. Its 295-acre (119 ha) campus is approximately five miles (8.0 km) from downtown Indianapolis.
Samuel Merrill, a native of Peacham, Vermont, was an early lawyer and leading citizen of Indiana, who served as state treasurer from 1822 to 1834. Merrill attended Dartmouth College, and in 1816 settled in Vevay, Indiana, where he established a law practice and served in the Indiana General Assembly as a representative from Switzerland County (1821–22). Merrill resigned his position as state treasurer in 1834 to become the president of the State Bank of Indiana (1834–44); he also served as the president of the Madison and Indianapolis Railroad Company (1844–48) and head of the Merrill Publishing Company, which later became the Bobbs-Merrill Company. In addition to his government service and business ventures, Merrill was the second president of the Indiana Historical Society (1835–48), a founder and trustee of Wabash College, and an elder in the Second Presbyterian and Fourth Presbyterian churches in Indianapolis.
Catharine Merrill was an American educator, writer, and American Civil War nurse from Indiana who became the second female university professor in the United States. She is best remembered as a talented educator and admired for her modesty and kindness. In 1869 Merrill accepted the appointment as the first Demia Butler Chair of English Literature at North Western Christian University, now known as Butler University, and began her fourteen-year career as a university professor during the 1869–70 academic year. Merrill resigned the professorship in 1883, but continued to offer private instruction at her home until shortly before her death. In addition to becoming a teacher, Merrill was a published author, although it was not her primary goal. Articles describing her travels in Europe from 1859 to 1861 were published in Indiana newspapers. She also anonymously wrote The Soldier of Indiana in the War for the Union. The Man Shakespeare and Other Essays (1902) was published posthumously. Merrill is buried at Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis.
Jane Currie Blaikie "A. K." Hoge was a welfare worker, fund raiser, and nurse during the American Civil War. She was a founder of a homeless shelter in Chicago before the war. After the war, she raised funds, helped organize and served on the board of trustees of the Evanston College for Ladies. She served as head of the Woman's Presbyterian Board of Missions of the Northwest for thirteen years.
Zerelda Gray Sanders Wallace was the First Lady of Indiana from 1837 to 1840, and a temperance activist, women's suffrage leader, and inspirational speaker in the 1870s and 1880s. She was a charter member of Central Christian Church, the first Christian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. Her husband was David Wallace, the sixth governor of Indiana; Lew Wallace, one of her stepsons, became an American Civil War general and author.
George Washington Julian was a politician, lawyer, and writer from Indiana who served in the United States House of Representatives during the 19th century. A leading opponent of slavery, Julian was the Free Soil Party's candidate for vice president in the 1852 election and was a prominent Radical Republican during the American Civil War and the Reconstruction era.
Originating in New England, one particular Beecher family in the 19th century was a political family notable for issues of religion, civil rights, and social reform. Notable members of the family include clergy, educators, authors and artists. Many of the family were Yale-educated and advocated for abolitionism, temperance, and women's rights. Some of the family provided material or ideological support to the Union in the American Civil War. The family is of English descent.
Indiana, a state in the Midwest, played an important role in supporting the Union during the American Civil War. Despite anti-war activity within the state, and southern Indiana's ancestral ties to the South, Indiana was a strong supporter of the Union. Indiana contributed approximately 210,000 Union soldiers, sailors, and marines. Indiana's soldiers served in 308 military engagements during the war; the majority of them in the western theater, between the Mississippi River and the Appalachian Mountains. Indiana's war-related deaths reached 25,028. Its state government provided funds to purchase equipment, food, and supplies for troops in the field. Indiana, an agriculturally rich state containing the fifth-highest population in the Union, was critical to the North's success due to its geographical location, large population, and agricultural production. Indiana residents, also known as Hoosiers, supplied the Union with manpower for the war effort, a railroad network and access to the Ohio River and the Great Lakes, and agricultural products such as grain and livestock. The state experienced two minor raids by Confederate forces, and one major raid in 1863, which caused a brief panic in southern portions of the state and its capital city, Indianapolis.
May Wright Sewall was an American reformer, who was known for her service to the causes of education, women's rights, and world peace. She was born in Greenfield, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. Sewall served as chairman of the National Woman Suffrage Association's executive committee from 1882 to 1890, and was the organization's first recording secretary. She also served as president of the National Council of Women of the United States from 1897 to 1899, and president of the International Council of Women from 1899 to 1904. In addition, she helped organize the General Federation of Women's Clubs, and served as its first vice-president. Sewall was also an organizer of the World's Congress of Representative Women, which was held in conjunction with the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. U.S. President William McKinley appointed her as a U.S. representative of women to the Exposition Universelle (1900) in Paris.
During the American Civil War, Indianapolis, the state capital of Indiana, was a major base of supplies for the Union. Governor Oliver P. Morton, a major supporter of President Abraham Lincoln, quickly made Indianapolis a gathering place to organize and train troops for the Union army. The city became a major railroad hub for troop transport to Confederate lands, and therefore had military importance. Twenty-four military camps were established in the vicinity of Indianapolis. Camp Morton, the initial mustering ground to organize and train the state's Union volunteers in 1861, was designated as a major prisoner-of-war camp for captured Confederate soldiers in 1862. In addition to military camps, a state-owned arsenal was established in the city in 1861, and a federal arsenal in 1862. A Soldiers' Home and a Ladies' Home were established in Indianapolis to house and feed Union soldiers and their families as they passed through the city. Indianapolis residents also supported the Union cause by providing soldiers with food, clothing, equipment, and supplies, despite rising prices and wartime hardships, such as food and clothing shortages. Local doctors aided the sick, some area women provided nursing care, and Indianapolis City Hospital tended to wounded soldiers. Indianapolis sent an estimated 4,000 men into military service; an estimated 700 died during the war. Indianapolis's Crown Hill National Cemetery was established as one of two national military cemeteries established in Indiana in 1866.
Rhoda Coffin (1826–1909), was a Quaker social reformer, author, temperance crusader, and women's rights advocate who is best known for her efforts in prison reform. She held an integral role in establishing the Indiana Reformatory Institution for Women and Girls in 1869. It became the first female-controlled women's prison in the United States. She also served as president of the reformatory's board of managers. Coffin’s efforts on behalf of prison reform made her a leading figure in the national prison reform movement, and she traveled widely, wrote articles, and delivered speeches on the topic. She was also a champion of other causes that assisted women and children.
Lawson Moreau Harvey was an American lawyer, politician, and judge who served as a justice of the Indiana Supreme Court from January 1, 1917 to June 25, 1920.
Grace Julian Clarke was a clubwoman, women's suffrage activist, newspaper journalist, and author from Indiana. As the daughter of George Washington Julian and the granddaughter of Joshua Reed Giddings, both of whom were abolitionists and members of the U.S. Congress, Clarke's family exposed her to social reform issues at an early age. She is credited with reviving the women's suffrage movement in Indiana, where she was especially active in the national campaign for women's suffrage in the early twentieth century. She is best known for founding and leading the Indiana State Federation of Women's Clubs, the Legislative Council, and the Women's Franchise League of Indiana. Clarke was the author of three books related to her father's life, and was a columnist for the Indianapolis Star from 1911 to 1929.
Mary F. Thomas (1816–1888) was a pioneer American woman physician, abolitionist, and temperance and women's rights leader who advocated for women, as well as those in need. Born into a Quaker family, she grew up in Ohio and spent most of her life in Indiana. Thomas was an active member of the women's suffrage movement and a founding member of the Woman's Rights Association of Indiana, serving as a vice president and president of the Indiana organization. In 1859 she became the first woman to present a petition before the Indiana General Assembly, calling for passage of laws to provide property rights for married women and a women's suffrage amendment to the Indiana Constitution. At the national level she served a one-year term as president of the American Woman Suffrage Association. In the mid-1850s she was a coeditor of Mary Birdsall's national woman's rights magazine, The Lily, and later an associate editor of the Mayflower with Lizzie Bunnel and a contributor to Woman's Journal.
Grand Body of the Sisters of Charity was founded by Celeste Allen, Eliza Goff, Ada Goins, Beulah Wright Porter and Hulda Bates Webb in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1874 in response to the large number of African Americans moving to central Indiana from the South after the American Civil War. From its inception, the mission of the organization was to provide for those in need. The charitable organization, which disbanded around 1980, worked to provide healthcare to new Indiana residents. The Grand Body of the Sisters of Charity assisted the poor by providing at-home nursing care, raised funds to funds to pay for medical treatments, and distributed clothing and food. In the early 1910s the women raised funds to establish a small, fourteen-bed hospital for African Americans; however, it closed for financial reasons after ten years of operation. The Grand Body of the Sisters of Charity encouraged the development of other African American women's clubs in the city. Subsequent clubs that followed their lead in Indianapolis included the Alpha Home Association and the Women's Improvement Club, among others. After 1900, the Grand Body of the Sisters of Charity funded its philanthropic projects through a group of lodges the organization established around the state, but the number of lodges began to decline in the 1920s and during the Great Depression. The Sisters of Charity disbanded around 1980. During a 1989 interview, President Rubie Potter stated that the organization consolidated down to one Lodge in 1980 after members disagreed about selling state headquarters and discontinuing operations. That building still stands at 1034-1036 Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Harriette Bailey Conn was an American lawyer and politician. A civil rights activist who became known for her efforts to assist minorities, women, and defendants in Indiana's criminal justice system, Conn became the first woman and the first African American to serve as Indiana's state public defender in 1970. She also served as Indianapolis' assistant city attorney from 1968 to 1970, and twice won election to the Indiana House of Representatives as a Republican until she resigned her legislative seat to become the state public defender.
Katharine Merrill Graydon was an American classical scholar who specialised in teaching Greek and Latin literature, as well as a professor of English Literature.
William Alexander Ketcham was an American lawyer, soldier, and politician who served as the sixteenth Indiana Attorney General from November 22, 1894, to November 22, 1898. Ketcham also served as Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic from September 24, 1920, to September 29, 1921.
Mary Ellen Graydon Sharpe was an American writer.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
