Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/719

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Part Taken by Women in American History


superintendent of the work among foreigners one of the most onerous of the forty departments of the national organization of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and by her effort and interest she brought that department up to a thoroughly organized, wide-reaching and flourishing condition. She published leaflets and tracts on all the phases, economic, moral, social and evangelistic of the temperance question and in seventeen languages. At the rate of fifty editions of ten thousand each, per year, these were distributed all over the United States. She established a missionary department in Castle Garden, New York City, through which instructions in the duties and obligations of American citizenship were given to immigrants in their own tongue as they landed. She also served long as president of the Kansas Woman's Temperance Union.

Mrs. Anna Marie Nichols Hammer's connection with the work of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union was as superintendent of three departments, work among the reformed, juvenile work, and social or parlor work. In all these branches she was eminently successful. She was also vice-president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union for the state of Pennsylvania, and ranked high as a clear, forceful and ready speaker.

Mrs. Sarah Carmichael Harrell was a member and the secretary of the educational committee among the World's Fair managers of Indiana. Her greatest work was the origination and carrying to successful completion the plan known as the "Penny School Collection Fund of Indiana" to be used in the educational exhibit in the Columbian Exposition. From this work came to her the idea of temperance work among school children, and she was made superintendent of scientific temperance instruction for Indiana, and was moreover responsible for the enactment of a law to regulate the study of temperance in the public schools.

Mrs. Mary Antoinette Hitchcock was living with her husband, Rev. Alfred Hitchcock, in Kansas, when the Civil War cloud hung over the country, and being imbued by nature and training with Union and anti-slavery sentiments, she was all enthusiasm for the cause and ready to lend her aid in every way possible. At that time many of the leaders passed through their town to Osawatomie to form the Republican party and she housed and fed fifty of them in one night, among them Horace Greeley. Later in her life having moved to Fremont, Nebraska, where her husband accepted a pastorate, she became an enthusiastic member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and impressed with the idea that a state organization was necessary for its lasting influence she, in 1874, started the movement that resulted in the state organization. She was called to Sioux City, Iowa, on account of the death of her cousin, George G. Haddock, the circumstances of whose untimely murder at the hands of a drunken ruffian caused general indignation and horror. Over his lifeless body she promised the sorrow stricken wife to devote the remainder of her life to the eradication of the terrible liquor evil, and she fulfilled her promise. She accepted the state presidency of the Nebraska Temperance Union and for years traveled continually over the state, organizing unions and attending conventions.

Mrs. Emily Caroline Chandler Hodgin was one of the leaders in the temperance crusade of Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1872, and was a delegate to the convention in Cleveland, Ohio, where the crusading spirit was crystallized by the