BROWN, Mrs. Harriet A., inventor, born in Augusta, Maine, 20th February, 1844. She is of Scotch parentage and early in life was thrown upon her own resources. By contact with working girls she learned of the long hours, hard work and small wages of which most of them complained, and her ardent desire was to alleviate their distress. Mrs. Brown conceived the idea of establishing a
HARRIET A. BROWN.
regular school of training for women who desired to make themselves self-supporting, and, on the solicitation of many prominent and philanthropic women of Boston, she opened the Dress-Cutting College in that city on 17th October, 1886. In opening her college, she had the cooperation of those who induced her to establish such a school in Boston, but the underlying ideas, the scientific rules for dress-cutting, the patented system used, and all the methods of instruction, are her own. It is to her judicious wisdom and practical experience the college owes its success. The chief aim of the institution is to be one in which girls of ability and taste, who are now engaged in stores, workshops and kitchens, may find employment for which they are better adapted. Mrs. Brown's system of cutting is the result of years of study. All its points she has thoroughly mastered, and has succeeded in patenting rules for cutting, and also obtained the only patent for putting work together. She has received numerous medals and diplomas as testimonials of the superiority of her methods, and her system is being used the leading industrial schools and colleges of the country. Delegates from the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N. Y., after investigating all the principal European methods, adopted Mrs. Brown's system, and it has been in use for two years in that institution. It is one of the regular features of the Moody Schools, Northfield. Mass., where young women are educated for missionary work. Mrs. Brown is ah occasional contributor to the newspaper press.