Mary Morton Kehew
Mary Morton Kehew led the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union from 1892 until her death in 1919.
Category Archives: Activism > Social Reform
Continue reading
Pauline Agassiz Shaw
In 1881, when Pauline Agassiz Shaw founded the North Bennet Street School to train primarily European Jewish and Italian immigrants in skilled trades, Boston’s North End was home to thousands of recent immigrants who crowded into the neighborhood’s tenement houses in search of a better life.
Emily Greene Balch
Balch won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 for her indefatigable work for peace, in particular with the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).
Frances Stern
One of the first nutritionists in the United States.
Annie Adams Fields
Annie Adams Fields hosted an influential literary salon in Boston and supported many women writers and engaged in significant charitable work.
Although the home of Annie Adams Fields (1834-1915) and her husband, publisher James T. Fields, at the end of Charles Street, does not survive, it was the site of their important literary salon. After his death in 1881, Annie Fields continued to support the work of many women writers, including Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909) who spent winters with her, poet Louise Imogen Guiney (1861-1920) and Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-96). Fields was also active in charitable works. She spent many hours at the Charity House on Chardon Street and co-founded the Cooperative Society of Visitors, a case review agency that made recommendations to the central administration of Boston’s relief organizations for aid disbursement. The Society was absorbed into the Associated Charities of Boston. Fields’ book How to Help the Poor (1884) served as an unofficial guide to the programs and policies of Associated Charities.
Edna Brush Perkins
Social reformer, women’s rights activist, painter and poet
Bel Marie Gardner
Bel Marie Williams Gardner was a teacher, police matron, and social worker who made child welfare her primary purpose and legacy.
Alice Locke Park
Park became a key member of the influential network of socialist-feminist women in California and fought for women’s emancipation.
Flo Ware
Florasina Ware was the quintessential activist, known in Seattle for raising a strong and logical voice on behalf of children, the elderly, and the poor.
Harriet E Bishop
Harriet Bishop, best known as the founder of St. Paul’s first public and Sunday schools, was also a social reformer, land agent, and writer.