Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/792

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Women in Professions
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dictionary, and a catalogue of the Ancient Manuscripts. Her mother, Susan MacDonell, was the only daughter of Colonel Alexander MacDonell, member of a famous Irish family. Miss O'Reilly has won great success in decorative work and applied design, being a student of the South Kensington School, and has received several awards and prizes for leather work design and painting, as well as a special prize for the studies from the ancient Irish manuscript. These she obtained at the great Irish festival, Oireacthais, which is held in Dublin under the auspices of the Gaelic League. In 1900 Miss O'Reilly became first superintendent of the house founded by the Dominican families in Dublin for a residence house for the business girls in that city. She opened a branch house, and originated and established a summer home, managed a large non-residential club in connection with this house, and edited a magazine called The Star for the girls. In 1905 while spending the summer in the county of Galway, she did some splendid work among the fisher folk of this section in the line of hygiene and the betterment of their condition. She has acted as honorary secretary for the Galway Branch of the Irish Industrial Association. In 1907 she came to America and has since contributed to the daily press of this country and the leading magazines.

ALICE CORDELIA MORSE.

Was born June 1, 1862, in Hammondsville, Jefferson County, Ohio. After a common school education she took her first lessons in drawing in an evening class started by the Christian Endeavor Society of Doctor Eggleston's Church. That little class of crude young people was the beginning of the art education of some of the noted competitors to-day in New York Art Circles. Miss Morse submitted a drawing from this class to the Woman's Art School, Cooper Union and was admitted for a four years' course, which she completed. Entering, later, the studio of John La Farge, the foremost artist of stained class designing in this country, she studied and painted with great assiduity, under his supervision. Later she sent a study of a head, painted on glass, to Louis C. Tiffany and Company, which admitted her into the Tiffany studio to paint glass and study designing. While there, she was a successful contestant in several designs for book covers, which aroused interest in this comparatively new art in this country, and she decided to take up this field of designing. She made many covers of holiday editions and fine books for well known publishing houses. This she has carried on in connection with glass designing, until her name is familiar to the designing fraternity and the annual exhibitors in the New York architectural League. She was the designer of the glass window in the Beecher Memorial Church, of Brooklyn.

ISABEL ELIZABETH SMITH.

Miss Isabel Elizabeth Smith was born in Clairmont County, Ohio, in 1845. After studying abroad for three years, Miss Smith opened a studio in Washington, District of Columbia, where she met with marked success, painting portraits of many prominent persons. She has won quite an enviable reputation as a miniature painter and is now doing work on the Pacific coast.