- Title:
- The domestic and social effects of the higher education of women; Read before the Western Association of Collegiate Alumnӕ, at Ann Arbor, Mich., Dec. 10, 1887.
- Author:
- Sewall, May Wright, 1844-1920.
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SEWALL, MRS. MAY WRIGHT (MRS. THEODORE L.): 1844-1920.
"May Eliza Wright Sewall (May 27, 1844-July 22, 1920), feminist, was born in Milwaukee, Wis., the daughter of Philander Montague and Mary Weeks (Brackett) Wright. A precocious child, she was reading Milton at the age of seven. After studying in the public schools and with her father she taught in Waukesha, Wis., to earn money for a college education. Graduated from Northwestern University in 1866, she taught in Corinth, Miss., Plainville, Mich., and Frankfort, Ind. In Frankfort she married Edwin Thompson, the principal of the school, and with him removed to Indianapolis, where both of them taught in the high school until Mr. Thompson's death, about 1876. On Oct. 30, 1880, she married Theodore Lovett Sewall, a graduate of Harvard who had established a classical school for boys in Indianapolis. Not long after, she established with him the Girls' Classical School; after his death she was its principal for many years.
"A feminist from the beginning of her life, she began as soon as she went to Indianapolis to gather groups together to work for public purposes. She was a charter member of many Indianapolis clubs and a founder of the Indiana Association for Promoting Woman's Suffrage. Following the visit of Pundita Ramabai to America, she formed the Ramabai Circle to assist in freeing the women of India from their ancient bondage. One of the first members of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae when it was organized in 1882, she helped in 1883 to organize the Western Association of Collegiate Alumnae, which later joined with the older association. From the outset of her association with these university women she had a vision of a world federation which in 1919 came to completion. From 1883 to 1912 she assisted in suffrage campaigns from Nebraska to Wisconsin and was for many years chairman of the committee which arranged and carried through the first meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, where she presented a plan for forming an International Council as well; from 1888 to 1899 she held various offices in the National Council. In 1891-92 she traveled abroad to awaken an interest in the World's Congress of Representative Women, at which she presided, held in Chicago in 1893 as a part of the program for the Columbian Exposition. From that time she was a prominent figure in the International Council of Women. She had been a delegate to its meetings in 1889 and in 1899 she became its president, succeeding Lady Aberdeen. She assisted in the formation of fifty women's clubs of various sorts; in 1889, when the Federation of Women's Clubs was formed, she rightly became its first president… Soon after her husband's death in 1895 she became profoundly interested in psychical research. In 1920 she published Neither Dead Nor Sleepiny, an account of her personal experiences …"
Condensed from L. K. M. R., Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. XVI.
- The Domestic and Social Effects of the Higher Education of
Women. 1887.
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Francisco, 1915.
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Close X - Genesis of the International Council of Women, and the Story
of Its Growth, 1888-1893. Indianapolis, 1919.
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Tarkington. Indianapolis, 1920.
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- The Domestic and Social Effects of the Higher Education of
Women. 1887.
- Publication Year:
- 1887?
- Source:
- s. l.: s. n., 1887?.
- Bookmark:
- https://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/iudl/inauthors/VAB1846
THE DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL EFFECTS
OF THE
HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
Read before the Western Association of Collegiate
Alumnӕ,
at Ann Arbor, Mich., Dec. 10, 1887.
BYMAY WRIGHT SEWALL,
(Northwestern University) Principal of the Girls' Classical School,Indianapolis, Ind.