The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1884-08-08
DEATH OF MRS. SwISSHELM
Remark able Career of the Famous Fe
male PhfIantbrOpist.

Remar X able Career of the Famous Fe-
male PhfIantbropist.
Mrs. Jane Grey Swisshelm died at Swiss
vale, Pa. on July %. She was born III
Williamsburg, Pa, in 1916 and passed the
first few years of her life quietly at home
unknown TO the world. and giving no
signs of the prominent position she was to
hold before men III the near future In
1888 she paid a visit to Louisville. Ky.
and there, for the first time, observed the
system of human slavery in its practical
workings. The gentle-minded woman had
conceived a hatred for the institution in
childhood from accounts which she had
read and recitals which she had heard but
when brought face to face with the reality
she was Mortified and determined at once
to do whatever she could to put an end to
the terrible crime against humanity. 1t was
several years before her opportunity to do
effective work came, and in the meantime
a field was opened by her own domestic
troubles. She was married quite early in
life to a man who proved to he a tyrant.
who exercised his power under the authority
given by law to a husband, and her life
with him was most bitter experience.
AT the death of her aged mother. after
long illness, during which Mrs. Swisshelm
had watched with her ceaselessly and tended
to her wants carefully, the husband was
enraged because the mother had left her
little property to the daughter instead of
to him. He demanded that his wife should
transfer it to him, and when she Indignantly
refused he threatened. as Mrs Swisshen af-
terward expressed in herown autobiography,
that, being the owner of my person and
services, he had a right to the time spent in
nursing mother. and he would file his claim
against her executors. p" This brutal threat
opened Mrs. Swisshelm's eyes to the miser-
able condition of women before the law,
and from this time she had am object in
life, the abolition not only of negro but of
woman slavery.
She began her appeals for freedom through
the press, in 1874, with contributions to
the Spirit Of Liberty and the Commercial
Journal, publishing in the latter paper a
series of letters on the right of married
woman to hold property. In the Spirit #
Liberty she appealed earnestly and ably for
the freedom of the negro slave and of the
white wife. Her articles We're copied far
and WIDE and she sprang at once into an
honorable fame. In January, 1915, she
began the publication of the Pittsburg
Saturday Visitor, taking complete editorial
charge of it, and sending it forth each week
fairly ringing with passionate arguments
forliberty. The Fisttor was successful from
the beginning and in 1850 its editor had
gained such a reputation that Horace
Greeley secured her as "a correspondent to
write letters to the Tribune from Washington.
She was the first woman who had ever
been regularly engaged in this business.
and she opened the way for woman reporters
by inducing Vice President Fillmore to
open the reporters galleries in the Senate
for her. Meantime she did not neglect her
1852 into the Faa,ilg Jenr@at aed Vssitor,
of which she became associate editor and
retained this position until 1857 when She
resigned and moved to Minnesota. intending
to retire to private life. She was induced,
however, to take charge of the st. Cloud
Vtsiter in January, 1858, and in July of that
year she assumed control of the st. Cloud
Dtm0crdt. The anti-slavery agitation,
which was soon to result in secession and
the war, was then at its height i'll Minnesota.
and Mrs. Swisshelms vigorous editorials
came very near making a sacrifice of her
at the hands of a mob at one time. She
was not woman to be frightened, however,
and she continued the fight until January ,,
1863 when she resigned her position and
Went to Washington, where she engaged III
hospital work until the war closed. Since
then she had lived quietly in Pittsburg.
Mrs Swisshelm i'll addition to her journal
istic work, published an autobiography
under the title of ''Half Century, which
is vivid history of the stirring times pre-
ceding and during the war of the rebellion
Her Letters to Country Girls. which
she began publishing in 1916, We're also
collected in book form and issued in 1858.
-Philada, Record,