Jane
Addams (1860-1935) A pacifist, suffragist, an advocate of social
reform and, in 1931, the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace
Prize. She turned her prize winnings over to the Woman's International
League for Peace and Freedom, of which she was president.
Hannah
Adams (1755-1831) Historian and the first professional woman
writer in the United States, publishing A Summary History of New
England in 1799.
Louisa
May Alcott (1832-1888) - A servant, seamstress, teacher and Civil
War Nurse, Alcott's fame came as an author. Born on November 29, 1832 in
Germantown, Pennsylvania, Louisa was one of four daughters. She
moved with her family to Boston when she was just two years old. As a
young girl, the family moved again to Concord, Massachusetts.
Growing up in a Transcendentalist household, the environment was both
intellectual and non-conventional, fostering her love of writing.
Receiving her education primarily from her father, Bronson Alcott, it was
furthered by her father's friends, people such as Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Margaret Fuller.
Louisa May Alcott is widely known as the
writer of Little Women, a self reflective children's book
published in 1868. The success of this book led to other books based
on Alcott's life such as Little Men and Jo's Boys, the money
from which helped to support her sisters and parents.
As she grew older, she developed as both an
abolitionist and a feminist. She volunteered
to be a nurse in an army hospital in
Washington, D.C. during the civil War, where she contracted typhoid fever.
Later she would become an advocate of
women's suffrage, and was the first woman to register to vote in Concord,
Massachusetts.
As she grew older, her health worsened, but
she continued to write up until the end. She finally died of mercury
poisoning which she contracted when she received calomel treatments for
the effects of typhoid. She died in Boston on March 6, 1888 at age 56, and
was buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, in Concord.
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