St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-08-02
A VIVID SKETCH.
The Late Jane ORGY s,essshclm.

The Late Jane Grey S,cSSShetn
The following sketch contains some new
points and incidents in the career of this
extraordinary and distinguished woman,
and especially in regard to her tyranuical,
close-fsted and pathising husband.
He had violent antiparhy to her editing
newspapers, and savagely deprecated the
public notoriety and widespread fame of the
plucky and talented little lady. She rightly
cast Off, through divorce, such uncongenial
companlonship; and gave full play to her
genius and enterprise, unobstructed, for the
amelioration and enlargement of the sphere
of her sex.
She was born and died, after long, varied
and indeed, illustrious career in Swewickly,
a suburb of Pittsburg at the age of 6S years.
She revealed in her own writings some of the
circumstances which must have caused her
intensity of utterance mingled sometimes
with bitterness upon the subject of slavery
a nd the subsection of woman:
In 1888, at the age of 90. she went to Louis
vile, KY, and there seeing slavery in all its
horror, increased her hatred of the system
and no doubt neryed her pen in her grand
warfare against it few years later. Her
domestic experience with tyrant husband
was more bitter and must have been the Sc
cret spring which nOurished her intense
hatred Of the wrongs heaped upon women by
custom and law. At the death of her mother
| after an illness of several mouths, durin g
| which Mrs. Swisshelm nursed her with
| daughters affection, her husband was high
| ly incensed that the mother had not
| left her little property to him instead of Mrs.
| Swisshelm. On her refusal to transfer the
property to him, he threatened in her own
! graphic words:
| being the owner of my person and serv-
| ices, he had a right to the time spent in
nursing mother, and he would file his claim
against her executors In her outraged
womanhood she thus speaks:-sI do not
know why l should have been so utterly
law passed by Christian Legislators for the
which had never been questioned by any
nation, state or church, and was in full
| force all over the world" Mrs. Swisshelm
after such experience with despotic hus-
| band, devoted all her energy to the over
throw of this localized injustice. She wrote
most passionately, but with rare ability, for
the freedom of the negro slave and of the
white wife in the Spirit of Liberty, and espec-
tally in the Commercial Journal in 1874, Sc
| ries of letters on married women's rights to
hold property. January Goth, 1913, started
the Pittsburg Saturday Visitor, which was de-
| voted to the abolition of the slave traffic
In the winter of 1850 she COM
menced writing letters from Washington for
the New York Tribune and was the first
woman engaged in that capacity.
Anotheroffice Mrs. Swisshelmp erforme ed for
her sex was their recognition as newspaper
reporters. She says: ''No woman had ever
had place in the Congressional reporters
gallery. This door / wanted to open to them
and asked for seat there and secured the
consent of Vice President Willard Fillmore. -
Her series of "Letters to Country Girls, :"
were commenced in 1S49 and in 1854 were
collected in book. After a serious railway
| accident occurred the Visitor suggested red
light on the rear of every train. The sug-
gestion was accepted Immediately and was
the origin of the red light signal. In 1862
the Visitor merged into the Family Journal
and Visitor and Mrs. Swisshelm was associate
editor on it till 1867. Then she resigned her
position to retire to private life, and migrat-
ed to Minnesota. But she was persuaded to
take charge of the st. Cloud Visitor and after
wards the st. Cloud Democrat. These were
stormy times in Min nesota, and Mrs. Swiss
helms editorial bombshells brought mob
violence upon her at one time. On January
2, 1853, she resigned her position and went
to Washington, and during the rest of the
war did heroic hospital work. Blessed by
the love of one daughter and the reverence
of humanity, she said to her friend Mrs.
Burleigh, in reviewing the shadow and
struggle and triumph of her eventful life =
''Oh, but it is good to have lived and suffer-
ed and worked, to know that nothing can go
wrong with us If only we are right"