# The Part Taken by Women in American History/Women in Business

Women in Business.
NETTIE L. WHITE.
Born near Syracuse, New York. She is descended from old Revolutionary stock of Massachusetts. About 1876 she began her first regular work with Henry G. Hayes, one of the corps of stenographers with the House of Representatives, Washington, D. C, at a time when very few women were engaged in practical stenography in Washington. She was engaged in this work for thirteen years. After several years of the most difficult work in the Capitol, she desired to work as official stenographer for one of the Congressional Committees and decided upon the Committee on Military Affairs, of which General Rosecrans was the chairman. Her first work was a report on heavy ordance which was being made to the committee by General Benet. When finished her report was accepted by the committee, and she had no furthr difficulties to overcome because she was a woman. Miss White served with Clara Barton in the Red Cross work for the relief of the flood sufferers in Johnstown, and while here she received her appointment to the Pension Bureau as an expert workman gained through civil service examination.
MARY AVERILL HARRIMAN.
Wife of the late Edward Henry Harriman, the great railroad magnate. She takes a position among men through her ability as a business woman. During her husband's life she was his constant adviser and shared in all his great enterprises. He frequently spoke of the regard which he had for her judgment and ability, and after his death it was found that his will in a few simple words had placed most of his great estate in her hands, and directed that she should have control and management of more than one hundred million dollars. Mrs. Harriman was the daughter of a wealthy financier of Rochester, New York, and before her marriage her name was Mary Averill. The management, not only of this vast estate, is in the hands of Mrs. Harriman, but the completion of their home at Arden, on the crest of the Ramapo Hills, an estate half in New York and half in New Jersey, of forty-six thousand acres. Mr. Harriman wished to give employment to the country people and he had laid out this estate on the most extensive plans. This is being carried out in strict accordance to his wishes. Mrs. Harriman is essentially a woman of sound common sense and judgment. The tasks that confront her she is handling with energy and courage. She is devoting much of her time to the shaping of the career of her only son, Walter, a student at Yale, whom his father had already apprenticed to the railroad. ​
INA SHEPHERD.
Miss Ina Shepherd, of Birmingham, Alabama, is the only woman who holds the place of secretary to a clearing-house association in this country. She has held this position for the city of Birmingham for over five years, handling the clearings of eight banks, amounting to between ten and fifteen million dollars a month. She is a fine musician and a most accomplished woman.
THE GILLETT SISTERS.
One of the most noted, cultivated and clever families of women in Illinois is that of the late John Dean Gillett and his wife, Lemira Parks Gillett, of Elkhart, Illinois, who were among the oldest settlers of Logan County (1842). The family consists of seven daughters, who were reared in the lap of luxury up to the day of their father's death. At that time each took charge of the estate left her by her father, and has since managed it personally in an intellectual, business-like and successful manner. As girls, these daughters were carefully educated along classical lines, their only business training having been that given by their father. It is therefore somewhat unusual that they should one and all have taken upon themselves the care of their vast estates, and with the result that to-day each personally directs her entire estate and business interests in the most successful manner.
The eldest daughter, Emma Susan Gillett, educated in New Haven, Connecticut, was married in 1867, when quite young, to Hiram Keays, of Bloomington, Illinois. She was left a widow after three years of married life, with one son, Hiram G. Keays. In 1873 she married Richard J. Oglesby, three times elected Governor of Illinois, and once to the United States Senate. The issue of the second marriage was three sons and one daughter. Her second son, John Gillett Oglesby, was elected Lieutenant-Governor of Illinois at the age of twenty-nine, being the youngest Lieutenant-Governor ever elected in the state. Mrs. Oglesby came into her inheritance after Governor Oglesby had retired from politics, and within a quarter of a mile of the village of Elkhart, Illinois, erected her beautiful home called "Ogleshurst." For seven years she lived there, organizing and putting into shape her property, and since the death of her husband, Governor Oglesby, she has lived in Rome, Italy, her home being one of the most interesting and she being one of the most popular entertainers of the American colony at Rome.
The second daughter, Grace Adeline Gillett, Jacksonville, Illinois, was married in 1885 to Hon. Stephen A. Littler of Springfield, Illinois, one of the most indefatigable political workers of the day. Their handsome and well appointed home was the scene of many magnificent banquets given by Mr. Littler to his political friends. Mrs. Littler's presence, personal charm and grace of manner, as well as her beauty, won her many friends. Her love and personal care and munificent gifts to the suffering infants and children of her tenants, and the working classes about her, won for her the love, respect and admiration of all ​ those fortunate enough to be within her sphere of influence. Mrs. Littler lived only a few years after her father's death to enjoy her share of his fortune, but up to that time was interested in keeping her consignment of the cattle, so well known as the "Shorthorn Herd of John Dean Gillett" up to its well-known reputation, farming and leasing her lands, raising oats, corn, wheat and clover. At her death she left her estate not only intact, but greatly increased in value.
The third daughter, Nina Lemira Gillett, was educated in a convent, and is one of the best read women of her time—a woman of fine business ability who, after placing her land and property in shape, turned her attention and time to the buying of stocks and bonds, being clever enough in the panic of 1903 to throw her enormous savings which she had in readiness to invest, into stocks and bonds at the opportune moment, holding them several years and disposing of the same, thereby realizing a handsome profit, thus showing her ability to be as great in financial foresight as in farming. She has also made a great success socially and financially in Paris, where she now resides. She has circled the globe more than once in her extensive travels, and is a fluent French and Italian scholar.
Katherine Gillett Hill, fourth daughter of the late John Dean Gillett, was educated in a convent at Springfield, Illinois, and was married in 1874 to James E. Hill, a cousin of the late John A. Logan. To them four children were born, two sons and two daughters, the two sons living to manhood and one daughter to womanhood. Edgar Logan Hill, the eldest son, is a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and holds a prominent position with the American Steel & Wire Company, at Worcester, Massachusetts. John Dean Gillett Hill is a graduate of Harvard Law School, and Lemira Gillett Hill is a graduate of Miss Chamberlain's School in Boston.
Mrs. Gillett Hill, at the death of her father, took entire charge of her farming lands, not even requiring the assistance of an overseer. She has for twenty years managed as capably and as systematically as any business man her five thousand acres of farm land in and about Lincoln, Illinois, having about fifty tenants under her supervision. She is a woman of varied qualifications and interests, being artistic and musical, a splendid mother and likewise is greatly interested in the woman suffrage movement. Farming with her is not amateurish, and not the fad of a rich woman, but with Mrs. Gillett Hill it is at once an art and a science, and a very remunerative business, which has made her one of the best known farmers in America. She is none the less womanly for her business capabilities. From her childhood she has been a fine horsewoman, and having been gifted with a beautiful voice, she has done much charitable work with her musical voice. With her fine intellect, she has become a writer of some note and is withal a splendid entertainer, possessing great natural wit and repartee. She has been much sought after in the social world. Mrs. Gillett Hill in the year 1910 purchased a charmingly artistic home in Washington, and this home, once a studio, has proved to be one of the most unique and picturesque residences in the city.
Amaryllis T. Gillett, fifth daughter, was educated in Kenosha, Wisconsin. During her school years she devoted herself to the study of history particularly, and was always a referee for dates and historical events. She held in trust the ​ money presented by her mother, Lemira Parke Gillett, to the Library at Elkhart, Illinois, and selected and bought all of the books for this library for about twenty years. After superintending her farms in and about the town of Cornland for many years, she removed to the City of Washington, in 1908, and bought up a great deal of real estate, building handsome houses and selling them at a great profit. With keen foresight she realized that real estate at the capital was sure to advance. Miss Gillett is one of the prominent women of Washington, and entertains lavishly in her handsome home during the winter season. She is a member of the best clubs of Washington, viz: Chevy Chase Club, Archaeological Club, Aviation Club and the Riding Club, and was elected Librarian-General of the Daughters of the American Revolution at the last National Congress, on the ticket with Mrs. Matthew T. Scott. President-General. By the latter, she has been placed on many special commissions to further the improvement of the grounds and surroundings of Memorial Continental Hall.
Jessie D. Gillett is the sixth daughter of John Dean Gillett. A woman who runs a 3000-acre farm, takes a prominent part in the management of a National Bank and is the founder of a public library, which she presented to the village of Elkhart, Illinois, in memory of her mother, in addition to being a shrewd financier, and expert stock grower and an accomplished horse-back rider—all of which is Miss Jessie D. Gillett—has taken a long step in the direction of proving that no nook or corner of what was once the exclusive domain of man is now secure against feminine invasion. After taking hold of "Crowhurst," her home farm, located near the village of Elkhart, Illinois, she soon showed the surrounding farmers what a woman could do with a farm, and the result has caused her male competitors not only to envy, but also to adopt many of her improvements. "Crowhurst" is now one of the most inviting and attractive country residences in the middle west. Miss Gillett believes that if one would be a successful farmer the latest and most progressive agricultural principles must be applied. She has converted this once old-fashioned farm into a model producing possession, and her surroundings are of the most up-to-date character. Her lands being tilled and drained in the best manner known to-day, she produces crops that are seldom equalled in the state; she makes a great specialty of corn and her farm has been made famous in this, the great corn-belt of Illinois. Added to her ability as a farmer, Miss Gillett's personality is most charming. She is a very beautiful woman, with great tact and a most fascinating manner; is one of the women the state of Illinois may well be proud of.
Charlotte Gillett Barnes was seventh and youngest daughter. She inherited her property when quite young, and married the following year, 1891, Dr. William Barnes, one of the most-noted surgeons of central Illinois. Her beautiful home is in Decatur, Illinois, where she interests herself most enthusiastically in musical circles.
Mrs. Barnes' land lies in and about the cities of Elkhart and Alt. Pulaski. She inherited a talent for describing lands and could repeat off-hand and without notes, rapidly and without error, proper descriptions of her lands that numbered up into the thousands of acres.
While an interested and enterprising business woman, she has let music be ​ her principal work in life, and her talent for music has made her one of the most noted pianists of the Middle West. She has two children, Gillette Joan Barnes and William Barnes.
ELLEN ALIDA ROSE.
Born June 17, 1843, in Champion, New York. In December, 1861, she married Alfred Rose, and in 1862 they moved to Wisconsin, where her life has been spent on a farm near Broadhead. She is one of the first and most active members of the Grange. Through Mrs. Rose's efforts and the members of the National Grange Organization, the anti-option bill was passed. She was a prominent member of the Patrons of Industry and by her voice and pen has done much to educate the farmers in the prominent reforms of the day, in which the advancement of women is one which has always claimed her first interest. Mrs. Rose has been an active worker in the Woman's Suffrage Association, and in 1888 was appointed District President of that organization.
MARY A. SAUNDERS.
Born January 14, 1849, in Brooklyn, New York. Her father, Dr. Edward R. Percy, settled in Lawrence, Kansas, where he became so interested in the study, growth and culture of the grape and the manufacture of wine, that he gave up his practice as a physician. Miss Percy became the wife of A. M. Saunders. Being left a widow after two years with a child to support, she endeavored to earn her living as an organist in one of the churches in Lawrence, Kansas. While on a visit to her husband's relatives in Nova Scotia, she decided to return to New York and pursue her musical studies. At this time her attention was drawn to a new invention, the typewriter. She was introduced to G. W. N. Yost, the inventor of typewriters, who promised that as soon as she could write on the typewriter at the rate of sixty words a minute he would employ her as exhibitor and saleswoman. In three weeks she accomplished this task, and in January, 1875, was given employment with the company and was one of the first women to step into the field at that time occupied solely by men. She assisted in arranging the first keyboard of the Remington typewriter, which is now the keyboard, with slight alterations, used on all typewriters. Mrs. Saunders traveled as the general agent of this company throughout the West and inaugurated the use of the first typewriter in St. Louis, Cincinnati, Chicago, Indianapolis, Detroit and other cities. Later she resigned from this position and became corresponding clerk in the Brooklyn Life Insurance Company. While here she studied stenography and two years later, when the head bookkeeper died she applied for the vacancy, which was given her at an advanced salary, she attending to all the correspondence, book-keeping, examination of all policies and had charge of the real estate accounts. In 1891 the Yost Typewriter Company, Limited, of London, England, was about to be formed. They offered her a fine position with them in London, as manager and saleswoman, which she accepted. Her position as manager of a school enrolling more than one hundred pupils gave her ample scope to carry out her long-desired scheme of aiding women to be self-supporting in the higher walks of life, ​ and she was able to secure positions for men and women. At the expiration of her contract she returned to New York to undertake the management of the Company's office in that city.
MARY SOPHIE SCOTT.
Born October 17, 1838, in Freeport, Illinois. Her father Orestes H. Wright, was a native of Vermont, her mother, Mary M. Atkinson, of England. In 1863 Miss Wright became the wife of Colonel John Scott, of Nevada, Ohio. In 1875 she was invited to collect and exhibit the work of Iowa women at the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia. Later she performed a like service for the Cotton Exposition in New Orleans. Her most useful work was the publication of her book "Indian Corn as Human Food."
MARY D. LOWMAN.
Was born January, 1842, in Indiana County, Pennsylvania. In 1866 she became the wife of George W. Lowman, and removed to Kansas. In 1885 she served as Deputy Register of Deeds in Oskaloosa, and was elected mayor of that city in 1888, with a Common Council composed entirely of women and they were again re-elected in 1889. During her administration the city was freed from debt and many public improvements were brought about.
MISS C. H. LIPPINCOTT.
Was born September, 1860, at Mount Holly, New Jersey. In 1891 she entered a new field for women, opening a seed business and issuing a circular which in two years brought her twenty thousand orders. She originated the plan of stating the number of seeds contained in each packet, which compelled all prominent seed houses to follow her example.
IDA HALL ROBY.
Was born March 8, 1867, in Fairport, New York. She graduated from the Illinois College of Pharmacy in the Northwestern University of Evanston, Illinois. Her father's death occurred one year before she graduated, which necessitated her providing for her own support. Having a natural fondness for chemistry, she held a position in a drug house for several years, then started a pharmacy in Chicago, attending the college on alternate days. She is the first woman to graduate from the Pharmaceutical Department of that institution, and has won a unique reputation as a successful woman in a line of business generally left to man.
ANNIE WHITE BAXTER.
Mrs. Baxter was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on the second of March. 1864. After graduating from the public schools in 1882, she went to work as an ​ assistant in the County Clerk's office of Jasper County, Missouri. She performed these duties with such satisfaction to everyone that in 1885 she was appointed and sworn in as Deputy Clerk of the County Court, with authority to affix the clerk's signature and the county seal to all official documents, and performed other official acts. The duties of this office embraced the tax levy and extension in a county of five hundred thousand people, the custody, computation and collection of interest on public school funds of over two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, keeping of the accounts and making settlements with the State-Treasurer, State Auditor, County Treasurer, County Collector, and of the County township officers entrusted with the collection and custody of State and County revenues, the keeping of the records, and the executing of the acts and orders of the County Court. She was found equal to all of these arduous labors and demonstrated so high a standard of mental ability, that she was soon appointed and qualified as principal deputy. At the time of her marriage in 1888, she withdrew from all public work, but owing to the ill health of the County Clerk she was persuaded to again resume the duties and in 1890 was nominated for County Clerk by the Democrat County Convention and was elected in what had always been a strong Republican district. She was the first woman in the United States elected by the people and qualified under the law to fill the office of the Clerk of Court. Notwithstanding her long occupancy of public office she is a modest, refined and retiring woman, and has the respect and admiration of all those who know her.
ELLA MARIA BALLOU.
Miss Ballou was born in Wallingford, Vermont, November 15, 1852. She was educated in the Wallingford schools and commenced life as a teacher, but finding the compensation for women in this vocation so small, she took up the study of shorthand and became so proficient that she went into the courts and wrote evidence and arguments until she became noted among attorneys, and in 1885, upon the numerous applications of the Rutland County Bar, Judge W. G. Veazey in the Supreme Court of that state appointed her Official Reporter of the Rutland County Court. She was the first woman to hold such a position in the state of Vermont, and it is believed, in the United States. She has done some work in the line of literature, but her particular claim to distinction is in the line of her profession.
MRS. L. H. PLUMB.
Mrs. Plumb was born June 23, 1841, in Sand Lake, New York, but has been a resident of Illinois since 1870. Her husband was a prominent business man and politician of Illinois, at one time a member of the Legislature of that State. Her husband's death occurred in 1882, when Mrs. Plumb took the active management of his large estate. She was elected vice-president of the Union National Bank of Streator, Illinois, of which her husband had been president for years. In 1890 she moved to Wheaton, Illinois, to give greater advantages of education to her children. Mrs. Plumb is a woman of liberal education, sound business judgment, great tact and wide experience in practical affairs. She has always been one of ​ the foremost workers for the cause of Temperance in her state, being one of the charter members and originators of the Temperance Hospital in Chicago, Illinois.
ELLA MAYNARD KELLY.
Miss Ella Maynard Kelly was born in 1857 in Fremont, Ohio. She began telegraphy at the age of fourteen, having been given charge of a night office in Egg Harbor on the Lake Shore Railroad. Here for four years she worked as a railroad operator and was responsible for the safe running of the trains on that road. Later, she was engaged in commercial telegraphy in Atlantic City, N. J., Detroit, Michigan, and Washington, D. C., and in the Western Union Office in Columbus, Ohio. She has won unique rank as a woman distinguished in active telegraphy in the United States, and had charge of the first wire of the Associated Press circuit. She was the first woman to use the vibrator in the telegraph service.
HARRIET WHITE FISHER.
Harriet White Fisher was born in Crawford County, Pennsylvania. Daughter of Oscar A. and Hannah Fisher White. Her first American ancestor was Peregrine White, whose parents were passengers on the Mayflower in 1620, from whom the line of descent is traced through his son, who married Frances Clark.
In London, July 20th, 1898, she was married to Clark Fisher, who was formerly chief engineer in the United States Navy, afterward proprietor of the Eagle Anvil Works, Trenton, New Jersey. During the first year of her married life, Mrs. Fisher was engrossed in social duties. She first became interested in her husband's factory during a severe illness of her husband, and her interest continued after his recovery and return to the factory, so that before and after his death she was conversant with many of the business details. On October 8, Mrs. Fischer and her husband were injured in a railroad wreck which occurred in Menlo Park, as a result of which Mrs. Fisher was in the hospital for months, and the doctors were unanimous in the opinion that she would never again be able to walk, and, in fact, for weeks it was thought that she could not live. Her husband, Clark Fisher, died as a consequence of the injuries he received at that time, and it was while she was partially paralyzed and unable to leave her bed that she continued the management of the Fisher & Norris business, and kept it going until she was able to walk without the aid of crutches. Afterward, through the help of able physicians, she regained the use of her limbs, so that now one would scarcely believe that she had passed through such an ordeal, and except for the injury to her back and spine, she would perhaps forget it herself.
At her husband's death, instead of turning the plant over to the care of a manager, she herself took up the reins and has become one of the best-known business women in the United States. The Eagle Anvil Works are now, and always have been run under the firm name of Fisher & Norris. Mrs. Fisher is the only woman member of the National Association of Manufacturers. She is a member of the Geological Society, the Numismatic Society and of the Civic Federation. She has received a large amount of notice from the newspapers on account of her ​ recent trip around the world in an automobile, which successful trip brought forth hundreds of press notices the world round. She was royally entertained on this trip, and has written a book since her return, giving a full account of her experiences, which book is called "A Woman's Tour in a Motor." Her business necessitates her living in Trenton, New Jersey, during part of the year, but she spends the summer months in her beautiful Villa Carlotta, Brio, on Lake Como, Italy.
MRS. WILLARD A. LEONARD.
Mrs. Leonard, who was for forty-seven years an expert for the United States Government in detecting counterfeit money in the United States Treasury Department, has just retired, owing to ill health, at the age of seventy-one years. She is a woman of strong character, who has devoted the best years of her life to the government, and has done this to educate and place well in life her only son, Major Henry Leonard, United States Marine Corps, who lost his arm at the siege of Pekin during the Boxer troubles.
As chief of counterfeit detectors, Mrs. Leonard's position in the Treasury Department was one of the most exacting in the service. For thirty-five years thousands of dollars a day passed through her hands, bills and bank notes of suspicious appearance, and during that time not a mistake has occurred. She left the service with a clean record. Mrs. Leonard was the "court of last resort." According to the system in the department, should the make-up of a thousand dollar bill arouse suspicion, it would be forwarded to the counterfeit detecting division. Here it passed under the scrutiny of one of the detectors. Should the subordinate be in doubt regarding the genuineness of the bill, it was passed on to Mrs. Leonard.
She was born in Perry County, Pennsylvania. Mrs. Leonard was a wife, a mother and a widow in less than two years. Her first husband was killed during the Civil War. In 1864 she came to Washington and was given a position in the Treasury under General Spinner, Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury. Later, she married Hiram D. Leonard, of New York, also employed in the Treasury Department. Mr. Leonard died soon after, of wounds received in the war.
MARGARET V. KELLY.
CHARLOTTE FOWLER WELLS.
Born August 14, 1814, in Cohockton, New York. Her father, Horace Fowler, was an able writer. Her brothers, O. S. and L. N. Fowler were among the first to study and believe the doctrines of Gall and Spuzsheim, and to develop an interest in the science of phrenology. Their sister Charlotte became deeply interested in this subject, teaching the first class in phrenology in this country, and joining her brothers in New York City they established the Fowler-Wells Publishing House. O. S. Fowler entered the lecture field, and L. N. Fowler established a branch of their house in London, leaving Charlotte to manage the large and complicated business in New York. In 1844 she became the wife of Samuel R. Wells, one of the partners in their business. On her husband's death, in 1875, she was left sole proprietor and manager, and later when this business was made a stock company, she was its president. She was vice-president and one of the instructors of the American Institute of Phrenology, which was incorporated in 1866. She was one of the founders and later one of the trustees of the New York Medical College for Women, which was founded in 1863.
HARRIETTE M. PLUNKETT.
Harriette M. Plunkett was a pioneer in the work of sanitary reform in the United States. She was born Harriette Merrick Hodge, February 6, 1826, in Hadley, Massachusetts, and this town, though a community of farmers, had the unusual advantage of an endowed school, "Hopkins Academy," which afforded exceptional opportunities to the daughters of the town, and there Miss Hodge received her early education. Her great interest in sanitary matters did not develop until after she became the wife of Honorable Thomas F. Plunkett, who in 1869 had a very important share in the establishment of the Massachusetts State Board of Health, the first state board established in this country. Mrs. Plunkett became convinced that if the women of the country would inform themselves what sanitary reform was needed in housing and living, and see that it was put in practice, there would be a great saving and lengthening of lives, and making lives more effective and happy during their continuance. To promote that cause she wrote many newspaper articles, and in 1885 published a valuable book, "Women, Plumbers, and Doctors," containing practical directions for securing a healthful home, and though interrupted in her work by the necessity of reading the studies of a college course to her son, who had become totally blind, this accomplished, she at once resumed her pen and returned to subjects of sanitation, though at the same time producing other articles, educational, aesthetic, and political, for various magazines and journals. One article, on the increasing longevity of the human race, entitled, "Our Grandfathers Died Too Soon," in the Popular Science Monthly, attracted wide attention. Her great interest in the prevention and healing of diseases also brought her before the public, and she is probably most widely known in connection with the establishment and growth of a cottage hospital in Pittsfield, Mass., called the House of Mercy, started in 1874, and of which she was the president. It was the first ​ one of its clas to be supported by contributions from all religious denominations in the country. Mrs. Plunkett always spoke of her own work with extreme modesty, remarking at one time, that she merely belonged, "to the great army of working optimists."
ALZINA PARSONS STEVENS.
The history of Mrs. Stevens, industrial reformer, born in Parsonfield, Missouri, May 27, 1849, is, in many of its phases, an epitome of women's work in the labor movement in this country during her life. Mrs. Stevens fought the battle of life most bravely. When but thirteen years of age she began work as a weaver in a cotton factory. At eighteen years of age she had learned the printer's trade, at which she continued until she passed into other departments of newspaper work. She was compositor, proofreader, correspondent, and editor. In all these positions she acquitted herself well, and it was in the labor movement that she attracted public attention. In 1877 she organized the Working Women's Union of Chicago, and was its first president. Removing from that city to Toledo, Ohio, she threw herself into the movement there and was soon one of the leading members of the Knights of Labor. Later, she was instrumental in organizing a Women's Society, the "Joan of Arc Assembly, Knights of Labor," and was its first master workman, who went from that body to the district assembly. In 1890 she was elected district master workman, becoming the chief officer of a district of twenty-two local assemblies of knights. She represented the district in the General Assemblies of the hour and the conventions held in Atlanta, Denver, Indianapolis, and Toledo. She represented the labor organizations of Cleveland, Ohio, in the National Industrial Conference in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1892, and in the Omaha Convention of the People's Party that same year. She was always an ardent advocate of equal suffrage, and a capable organizer and untiring worker for the cause. For several years she held a position on the editorial staff of the Toledo Bee, later became sole owner and editor of the Vanguard, a paper published in Chicago, in the interests of economic and industrial reform through political action.
CASSIE WARD MEE.
Much has been written in recent years of the relative rights and wrongs of capital and labor. But there have been few people who could discuss in private or from the platform these matters in an unprejudiced way. Yet such a platform speaker was Mrs. Cassie Ward Mee, labor champion. She was born in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, October 16, 1848. Her parents and ancestors belonged to the Society of Friends, and many of them were prominent accredited ministers of the society. She came with her husband, Charles Mee, to the United States in 1882 and settled in Cortland, N. Y., where she gained considerable prominence by her writings. She first appeared on the public platform in the ​ cause of temperance. It was in August, 1885, that she first spoke on the labor question. On the twelfth of August, 1886, she addressed ten thousand people on Boston Common, and she received a splendid illuminated address from the Knights of Labor, in token of their appreciation of an address made by her in March, 1887. After lecturing extensively among the miners of Pennsylvania, she finally settled to her life work, which is the education of the members of that powerful organization, "The Knights of Labor."
EVA McDONALD VALESH
Born of Scotch-Irish parentage, in Orono, Maine, September 9, 1866, Mrs. Valesh's interest in the welfare of working women sprang from her own experience. After leaving school she learned the printer's trade, and here she had supplied to her object lessons to prepare her for the work before her. She was employed on the Spectator, and in due time she became a member of the Typographical Union, and by a chance recommendation from the district master workman of the Knights of Labor of Minnesota, she secured a position on a newspaper and began the writing and working which was to occupy the rest of her life. A shop girl's strike was in progress, and many of the girls who were engaged in making overalls, coarse shirts, and similar articles, applied to the Ladies' Protective Assembly, Knights of Labor, into which Miss McDonald had been initiated but a short time. So, while not personally interested in the strike, she attended all the meetings of the strikers and repeatedly addressed them, urging the girls to stand firm for wages which would enable them to live decently. This strike was only partially successful, but it opened an avenue for the talent of the young agitator. In March, 1887, she began a series of letters on "Working Women" for the St. Paul Globe, which were continued for nearly a year and attracted wide attention. She began to make public speeches on the labor question, about that time making her maiden effort in Duluth, 1887, when not quite twenty-one years of age. After the articles on the "Working Women of Minneapolis and St. Paul" ceased she conducted the labor department of the Globe, besides doing other special newspaper work. She continued her public addresses, and was a member of the executive committee that conducted the street car strike in Minneapolis and St. Paul in 1888, and subsequently wrote the history of the strike and published it under the title of "The Tale of Twin Cities." During the political campaign of 1890 she lectured to the farmers under the auspices of the Minnesota Farmers' Alliance, and she was elected state lecturer of this society on the first of January, 1891, going on the 28th of the same month to Omaha, where she was elected assistant national lecturer of the Minnesota Farmers' Alliance. Her marriage to Mr. Frank Valesh, a labor leader, occurred in 1891. During later years Mrs. Valesh had turned her attention more especially to the educational side of the industrial question, lecturing throughout the country for the principles of the Farmers' Alliance and in the city for trade unions. By invitation of President Samuel Gompers, she read a paper on "Women's Work," in the National Convention of the American Federation of Labor, in Birmingham, Alabama, December, 1891, and was strongly recommended by that assembly for ​ the position of general organizer among the working women. Her strong, sane point of view has been kept before the public through her editorship of an industrial department for the Minneapolis Tribune, and through her occasional magazine contributions on industrial matters.
JEANNETTE DU BOIS MEECH.
Daughter of Gideon du Bois, was born in Frankford, Pa., in 1835. She is well known as an evangelist, who married a Baptist clergyman. Her work as an industrial educator is as practical and effective as that wrought by any other educator in America. In 1869, during her husband's pastorate in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, she opened a free industrial school in the parsonage with one hundred scholars, boys and girls. She provided all the materials and sold the work when it was finished. In 1870 a larger opportunity to develop her ideas came to her when her husband was chosen superintendent of the Maryland State Industrial School for Girls. Afterwards in 1887, Mrs. Meech was appointed by the trustees of the High School of Vineland, N. J., to superintend a department of manual education where the boys were taught to make a variety of articles in wood and wire work, and the girls to cook and make garments. This was the first introduction of industrial education into public schools. In March, 1891, the South Vineland Baptist Church granted Mrs. Meech a license to preach, and thereafter she held a number of meetings on Sunday evenings in Wildwood Beach, N. Y., and in Atlantic City. She had held aloof from temperance up to this time, but realizing from her work at these shore resorts the great increase of intemperance she joined the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in 1889, and she was made superintendent of narcotics the first year. Two years later she received an appointment as national lecturer for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and she continued in active service, at the same time maintaining her interest in industrial education, as well as supporting her family by a successful business career.
LUCY STEDMAN LAMSON.
In defiance of the tradition of women's inefficiency in money and business matters, the career of Miss Lucy Stedman Lamson stands out as a woman educator and business woman. Born in Albany, N. Y., June 19, 1857; in 1886 she was graduated from the state normal school in Albany, N. Y., and in the following years she studied with special teachers in New York City. In September, 1888, she accepted a position in the Annie Wright Seminary, Tacoma, Washington, but during 1888-89, much excitement prevailed in regard to land speculations, and Miss Lamson borrowed funds and purchased city lots, which she sold at a large profit. In March, 1889, she filed a timber claim and a pre-emption in Skamania County, Washington, and in June, at the beginning of her summer vacation from school, she moved her household goods to her pre-emption and, accompanied by a young Norwegian woman, began the six months' residence required by the government to obtain the title to the land. Having complied with ​ the law and gained possession of the timber claim and pre-emption, Miss Lamson sold both at an immense advantage, investing the proceeds in real estate. On this, as Tacoma advanced, she also realized handsomely, and the home of this shrewd business woman became one of the landmarks in that prosperous, western city.
MINNA E. SHERMAN.
Among the names of the many remarkable women which America has produced must be enrolled that of Mrs. Minna E. Sherman, the owner and manager of eleven hundred acres of land in California. She came in possession of her original farm in rather a unique way. Her father, becoming disgusted with the Raw Hide Mining Company's affairs in which he held stock, one day, in a fit of anger, threw the stock certificates into the fire. Minna rescued these, and later, when this mine was developed and paying, her father received as his share fifty-four thousand dollars, on the presentation of the certificate which had been rescued by his daughter. He very generously divided this between his two daughters, each receiving twenty-seven thousand dollars. With this sum, Minna Sherman purchased an unimproved ranch of 688 acres in the San Joaquin Valley of California. To this she has constantly added from her profits until now her farm exceeds eleven hundred acres. On this ranch she has a herd of the finest Holstein cattle, sixty head of blooded Percherons, a piggery of registered Berkshires, twenty-five hundred rose bushes in thirty varieties, forty acres of olive groves; magnificent vineyards. It is said that her vineyards yield the palm to no ranch in California, whether managed by man or woman. Assisting her are two school teachers—Miss Austin and Miss Hatch.
Mrs. Sherman's practical common sense has proven her greatest aid and brought about her wonderful success. She has frequently gone in direct opposition to the advice given her by men of experience. Her first venture in this connection was the bringing of sixty head of Arizona cattle to her ranch when the prices about her were prohibitive for dairy cows. She sent to Arizona, paid but twelve dollars a head, and eventually established one of the finest milk ranches in that part of California from these cattle. In other ways she has proven that practice is far better than theory, and has frequently demonstrated also that the theory held by some of her masculine neighbors are absolutely incorrect. She manages personally this great farm, emanding the best results from each crop. She owns none but the best animals and plants none but the best seeds, trees, and shrubs.
VIVIA A. MOWAT.
Mrs. Vivia A. Mowat deserves mention as one of the self-made women of America. She has demonstrated her ability by the success which she made of a small farm in the San Joaquin Valley, California. On this she has grown the grapes which have established for her a large raisin business. The women of this valley are among the controllers of this product in our country.
JESSIE WATERHOUSE.