BASCOM, Mrs. Emma Curtiss, woman suffragist and reformer, born in Sheffield, Mass., 20th April, 1828. She w as the second daughter of Orren Curtiss. From earliest childhood she found occasion for that domestic watchfulness and care-taking that have marked her later life. New England ancestry and New England associations gave the in distinct quality and color to her childhood. She was, through her mother. Caroline Standish Owen, a direct descendant of Miles Standish. Her early education was received in the Great Barrington Academy, in Pittsfield Institute, Massachusetts, and in Patapsco Institute, Mary land. Entering at once the one open vocation for women, that of instruction, she became a teacher in Kinderhook Academy, New York, and later in Stratford Academy, Connecticut. In 1856 she was married to John Bascom, at that time professor in Williams College, For years her husband was wholly deprived of the use of his eyes, and she thus had occasion, during a long period, to share his studies and render him daily assistance in reading and writing. She became the mother of five children and cherished a lively interest in all that pertained to the discipline, amplitude and pleasure of the home. My native tendency and life-long habit she has been an interested observer and eager advocate of those marvelous changes which have, in the rapid movement of recent years, opened the doors of opportunity to woman in the social, economic and political world. Her sense of the inner fitness and reconstructive power of this transformation of sentiment concerning the true relation of man and woman to each other has been deep, untiring and most sanguine. She was a charter member of the Association for the Advancement of Woman and for many years was one of its board of officers. She has been an officer of the National Suffrage Association.
EMMA CURTISS BASCOM.
She was secretary of the Woman's Centennial Commission for the State of Wisconsin. A zealous white-ribboner, she has been active in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union almost from its first organization. While she has been especially earnest in claiming for woman a full participation in the larger outer circle of political action, this feeling has in no way weakened her loving hold on the center of life in the family. The two have been one in her thought.