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Louisa May Alcott, author, born in Germantown, Pa., November 29, 1832, on anniversary of her father's (A. Bronson Alcott, "the sage of Concord") birthday, and died at Boston, Mass., March 6, 1888, two days after her father's death. Her father was a distinguished lecturer and teacher, residing at Concord, Mass., Louisa being the second of his four daughters. She began to write poems" when eight years old. Her teacher aside from her father, was that eccentric genius, Henry Thoreau. At sixteen she began to teach a school,and during a period of fifteen years continued at it, varying it by serving as nursery governess, and anon sewing for a living, helping in the support of her parents. Wrote stories for various publications, but, like many other authors, found her work discouraging. In 1862 she served in army hospital at Washington, D. C., and came near dying from overwork and a fever she contracted. In 1863, she went to Europe as companion to an invalid lady, traveling in Germany, Switzerland, France, and England. The several volumes she published met with poor reception, until, in 1868, she published her "Little Women" (two volumes), a story founded on incidents in the lives of her sisters and herself at Concord. This work made her famous, it reaching a sale of over 87,000 copies in three years. Her "Little Men (1871) had orders in advance of publication from dealers for 50,000 copies, and more than a half million of her numerous works have been, sold in the United States.

Susan Brownell Anthony, reformer, born at South Adams, Mass, February 15, 1820. Her father, Daniel Anthony, was a cotton manufacturer and a Friend, who, having married a Baptist lady and wearing on the occasion a comfortable coat was disciplined therefor, which proceeding naturally alienated the family. Susan received a good education, and at seventeen, her father having failed in business, she began to make her own way by teaching school for $1.50 a week and board around. For thirteen years she followed teaching with evergrowing indignation at seeing men who had but a tithe of her qualifications getting three times as much as she for the same work, and at length made her first public speech at the New York State Teachers' Association, where they were discussing the question, "Why the profession of the teacher was not considered as honorable as that of the minister, the doctor, and lawyer?" Asking permission to speak, she put to them this pointed question, “Do you not see that so long as society says a woman has not brains enough to be a lawyer, a doctor, or a minister, but has ample brains to be a teacher, that every man of you who

condescends to teach school tacitly acknowledges before all Israel and the sun that he hasn't any more brains than a woman?" In 1849 she began to publicly lecture for the temperance cause, but after two years of effort she became convinced that if the cause succeeded woman must have the ballot, and from that time to the present she has constantly advocated the cause of woman's legal emancipation. From 1856 to the overthrow of slavery she gave her time largely to lecturing against that crime, and circulated and presented petitions to Congress against it. For two and a half years she was editor and proprietor of The Revolution, published weekly at New York, and though an able journal, through the prejudices of the time it failed and she was $10,000 in debt, which sum with interest she paid by public lectures, speaking during 1870-80 five to six times a week in all parts of the country, constantly advocating equal political rights for woman. In 1872 she voted at presidential election in order to test the validity of the statutes; was arrested, and her counsel, wishing to save her from imprisonment, gave bail and so lost her opportunity to carry her case to the United States Supreme Court, a proceeding she always after regretted; at the time she was simply fined, but has steadily refused to pay it. In 1880 she made her plea for equal suffrage before the United States Senate judiciary committee, a plea that Senator Edmunds pronounced unanswerable and a credit if given before the Supreme Court; and though she has not yet realized the fulfillment of her desires, she has lived to see many of the wrongs of women abolished and her right to the ballot conceded in part by several of the states of the Union, and in full by a few, and a constantly developing sentiment in favor of woman suffrage, especially among all intelligent communities.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the first of female poets, born at Burn Hall, Durham, England, March 6, 1809; died at Florence, Italy, June 30, 1861. Was eldest daughter of Edward Moulton, who afterward took the name of Barrett, and removed to his country house at Hope End, Herefordshire. She was educated with great care, and began to write for periodicals at a very early age. When fifteen, trying to saddle her pony alone in the field, she fell and injured her spine, having thereafter to remain for years lying upon her back. In 1838 her delicate health was further impaired by rupture of a blood vessel and soon after a brother accidentally drowned while on a visit to her, and then for years she never left her room, but lay hovering between life and death. In 1843 she wrote the "Cry

of the Children," so often quoted, and the next year the collected edition of her poems appeared in two volumes and contained "Lady Geraldine's Courtship" with its graceful compliment to the poet, Mr. Robert Browning, whom she did not personally know. Mr. Browning called to express thanks, the acquaintance ripened into love, and in 1846, her health being improved, they were married and went to the Continent and soon to Italy and settled in Florence, where their boy was born in 1849. Her beautiful idyls, "Sonnets from the Portuguese," due to her husband's calling her "his Portuguese," appeared in the second edition of her poems in 1850. In 1851 she published "Guidi's Windows" and in 1856

Aurora Leigh." The "Poems Before Congress" appeared in 1860, and "The Last Poems" were published (after her death) in 1862. Of her person Hawthorne said after visiting her: "It is wonderful to see how small she is, how pale her cheeks, how bright and dark her eyes. There is not such another figure in the world, and her black ringlets cluster down into her neck and make her face look whiter." After her death her husband and son resided in London. Mr. Browning, who was born at St. Giles, London, May 7, 1812, and who began to write poems when but eight years of age, and was an extensive writer of great merit, in drama and lyric, died in Venice, Italy, December 12, 1889.

Clara Louise Kellogg, opera singer, born in Sumterville, South Carolina, July 12, 1842. Her father, George Kellogg, was inventor, and her mother a fine musician and a clairvoyant physician, Clara being only child. Her childhood was spent in Birmingham, Conn. Her musical talent seems to have been an inheritance like many another's genius, for when nine months old she could hum tunes correctly. She was given a good education, and, on the removal of her father to New York in 1856, she applied herself to the study of music, both French and Italian methods, and in 1860 made her debut as 44 Gilda in the Academy of Music of that city. In 1864 she won much renown as Marguerite in Gounod's Faust, and after singing in various cities of United States, she went to London, where her rendering of Marguerite at once placed her in the front rank of famous singers. On her return in 1868 she made, with Max Strakosch, a concert tour of the United States, and afterward spent three seasons in Italian opera, in New York city. She then organized a company to sing in English during 1874-5, singing in a single season one hundred and twenty-five nights. In 1880 she sang in Italian in Austria and Russia with a German company, and in 1889 gave her last concert She was the first American singer to gain renown in Europe, and has amassed a

tour.

large fortune; her list of operas including some forty-five casts. Her voice in youth was high soprano, with range from C to E flat. Is wife of Carl Strakosch.

Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt, singer, born in Stockholm, Sweden, October 6, 1820; died Wynd's Point, Malvern, England, November 2, 1887. When three years old she delighted her friends by her fine singing, and when nine years of age was admitted by Count Puke to the musical academy at Stockholm, and made such progress that in a year she appeared on the stage in juvenile parts, and for two years performed to the delight of Stockholm audiences at the Court Theater. Then the upper notes of her voice became harsh and clouded and her friends abandoned the idea of fitting her for grand opera. For four years she was forbidden to exercise her voice, but when sixteen was called on to take a small part in Meyerbeer's opera, and discovered that her voice had returned to her, and then she was for some years the prima donna of the Stockholm opera. In 1841, feeling that her naturally harsh and unbending voice was not under her control, she went to Paris for study under Garcia, then the first singing master in Europe. He gave her but little encouragement, but for nine months she bent herself unswervingly to reach her ideal, and then Meyerbeer went to hear her; was delighted, and predicted a brilliant career for her. In August, 1844, she went to Berlin and studied German, and in September sang in Stockholm at the crowning of King Oscar, and returned the next month to Berlin, singing there and in Hamburg, Cologne, and Coblentz, Leipsic, Copenhagen, and Vienna. May 4, 1847, she made her first appearance in London at Her Majesty's Theatre in Robert le Diable and in Alice, to immense and wildly enthusiastic audiences, and reappeared there for each of the next two years, and on May 18, 1849, abandoned finally the stage for the concert room. In 1850, she was engaged by P. T. Barnum to make a most memorable tour of the United States, and arrived there in 1850, and remained for near two years; and on February 5, 1852, married at Boston, Mass., Mr. Otto Goldschmidt, the pianist and composer. On her return to Europe, she traveled through Holland and Germany, and to London, England, in 1856, where she continued to reside till her death, becoming the mother of a family and appearing frequently in oratories and concerts, and maintaining to the last her interest in music, her last public services being from Easter, 1883, to Easter, 1886, when she served as professor of singing at the Royal College of Music (London). Her voice was a remarkable, bright, sympathetic, and rich soprano, having a compass of somewhat over two and one-half octaves, ranging generally from D

to high D, and at times two notes above, and which voice she had so trained as to be able to execute some most marvelous passages in oratorio, E in alt, and which made her one of the most remarkable singers the world has ever known. Mrs. Goldschmidt was attractive in person and manner, and a woman of rare purity of spirit, and of great benevolence, having built at her expense a hospital at Liverpool and part of another in London, besides endowing many art-scholarships, and other charities in her native land, the whole of the vast proceeds of her American tour going toward the last enterprise.

Christine Nilsson, operatic singer, born in Wexio, Wederslof, Sweden, August 20, 1843. Her father was poor, and conducted a small farm on the estate of Count Hamilton. (The little farm called Sjoabal she bought, after the death of her parents, with her first professional earnings, and gave to her eldest brother.) She early showed great aptitude for music, and while a small girl became proficient on the violin and flute, and visited fairs and other gatherings, singing for a living, and while at a fair at Ljungby, in June, 1857, her extraordinary voice attracted the attention of Mr. F. G. Tornerhjelm, a gentleman of influence who was instrumental in rescuing her from her vagrant life, and she was given some lessons by Baroness Leuhusen, herself a singer of note, and went to school at Halmstad and then studied at Stockholm under Franz Berwald, and in six months was able to sing before the Court of Sweden. She then went to Paris, France, with the Baroness Leuhusen, and studied under M. Masiet and M. Martel, and made her debut at the Theatre Lyrique, October 27, 1864, as Violetta, in a French version in La Traviata, and was then engaged at the Lyrique for nearly three years, and afterward went to England, appearing at Her Majesty's Theatre, June 8, 1867, as Violetta, and subsequently as Lady Henrietta, Elvira, Don Giovanni, and as Margaret in Faust, singing also in the Crystal Palace and Birmingham Festival. The following year she sang in Italian opera in England and then went to Baden-Baden, and Paris. In 1870-72 she first appeared in the United States, singing in concert and Italian opera, under M. Strakosch, and netting her $150,000 the first year. In 1872, she returned to Drury Lane, London, and on July 27 of that year was married at Westminster Abbey, to M. Auguste Rouzand, an eminent merchant of Paris, France. In 1873 and 1874, she was again in the United States, and in 1876 made her first professional tour of her native land, meeting with extraordinary success, and has frequently appeared at St. Petersburg, Moscow, Vienna, Berlin, and other capitals of Europe. Her first

husband, M. Rouzaud, dying at Iris, Feb ruary 22, 1882, she was again married in March, 1887, to the Count Casa de Miranda, and the following year gave her farewell concert and retired to private life. Mme. Nilsson is charming in manner and appearance, of slight physique, and her voice, while of moderate power, is one of great sweetness, evenness, and brilliancy in all its register, having a compass of two and one-half octaves from G natural to D in alt.

Alice Elvira Freeman Palmer,educator, born in Colesville, N. Y., February 21, 1855, being eldest of five children. During her childhood her parents lived on a farm, but her father's health being delicate and farm work uncongenial, he went to Albany and studied medicine, her mother carrying on the farm. After his graduation and when Alice was ten years old Dr. Freemar went to Windsor, N. Y., to practice his profession. Here the daughter studied diligently and when seventeen entered Michigan University, graduating in 1876. She became professor of history in Wellesley College, Massachusetts, in 1879, its acting president in 1881, and accepted the presidency of that institution in 1882, continuing till 1888. Was given the degree of Ph.D. by Michigan University in 1882 and of Doctor of Letters by Columbia College in 1887, marrying that year, Prof. George Herbert Palmer of Harvard University, and then resigned her most active and public duties. She was the Massachusetts commissioner of education to World's Fair, Chicago, president Woman's Educational Association, member Massachusetts State Board of Education, trustee of Wellesley College for women, and president of Collegiate Alumna. Her home is in Cambridge, Mass.

Mrs. Bertha Palmer, wife of Potter Palmer, born in Louisville, Ky., where her girlhood was spent. She was given a fine education, and after study in her native city, took a course in the convent school at Georgetown, D. C. Her maiden name was Bertha Honore. Shortly after her graduation she became the wife of Mr. Potter Palmer of Chicago, Ill., where she has since resided, her home being a marvel of luxury, and she a leader of fashion in her city, her husband a man of great wealth. Mrs. Palmer was chosen president of the Board of Lady Managers of the Women's Department of the Columbian Exposition, and in 1891 visited Europe in its interest, and to her was largely due the great success of that department of that notable World's Fair. She is slight in person, tall, having dark eyes and hair, is a fine musician and an accomplished linguist, of good executive abilities, of beautiful form and features, and a woman of many personal graces.

Lucy Stone-Blackwell, woman suffrage reformer, born in West Brookfield, Mass., August 13, 1818; died in Boston, Mass., February, 1894. Her father was an enterprising, prosperous farmer, who, while sending his sons to college, refused in accord with the prejudice of the times to send his daughter, because women did not need an education, that boon being reserved to men only. So this girl in summer picked berries, cherries, and chestnuts, and sold them to buy her books, and studied at night, and, as soon as able, she taught a public school until twenty-five, to earn the money to go to Oberlin College, Ohio, then the only one admitting women. She earned ber way through college by teaching in the primary department, and doing work in the ladies' boarding hall at three cents an hour, and cooked her own food in her room and boarded herself at fifty cents a week, and had but one new dress, a cheap print, during her college course, and did not go home once during the four years. She graduated as an honor student and was requested by the faculty to write a graduating essay, they insisting that it be read by one of the faculty, inasmuch as it would be contrary to Scripture for a woman to publicly read her own essay. So Lucy refused to write. In year of her graduation she gave her first lecture on woman's rights in her brother's pulpit at Gardner, Mass., and same year was engaged by Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society as their lecturer, and consented on condition that she be allowed also to speak on her own chosen reform, and they compromised by allowing her to speak on woman's rights week evenings, and on anti-slavery on Saturdays and Sundays. So she arranged her own meetings, tacked up her own hand-bills, and took her own collections. She beaded the first call for a National Woman's Rights Convention, and in 1855 was married to Dr. Henry Blackwell, of Cincinnati, they having to send thirty miles to Worcester, Mass., in order to get a clergyman, Rev. T. W. Higginson, better known as Colonel Higginson, who was willing to omit the word "obey' from the marriage ceremony. With her husband's approval, she retained her own name. While they lived in New Jersey she let some property be sold for non-payment of taxes, and with her child her knee wrote her pamphlet against "Taxation Without Representation." In 1870 she became associate editor of the Woman's Journal, Boston, and two years later its editor, writing and lecturing constantly, and taking most active part in many suffrage amendment campaigns throughout the Union. Was a woman of many attractions of intellect and person, and a born leader.

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Harriet Elizabeth Stowe, author, born at Litchfield, Conn., June 14, 1811. She was the sixth of her father's (Rev. Dr. Lyman Beecher) children, her mother dying when Harriet was four years old. When ten years old was a student in Litchfield Academy, where she wrote notable compositions for one of her years, "and read everything she could lay her hands on." In 1832 her father removed to Cincinnati, O., as president of Lane Theological Seminary, and while living there she became greatly interested in the slave by her visits to Kentucky. In 1836 she was married to Prof. Calvin E. Stowe of Lane Seminary. When the anti-slavery paper, The Philanthropist, established and conducted by James G. Birney of Alabama, and Dr. Gamaliel Bailey, was destroyed by a mob set on by Kentucky slave owners, she began to write against slavery. From 1840-50 she passed through severe trials and much poverty, her husband's health being very precarions, and he obliged to leave his family. On his return from Europe he became professor in Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me., whither she removed. The fugitive slave law was just enacted, and stopping at Boston on her journey to Maine she was urged to action against it, and on getting an urgent letter from a sister-in-law entreating her to write she was stirred in spirit and determined to do something, and in April, 1851, sent the first chapter of her great story, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," to the National Era, an anti-slavery paper at Washington, D. C., edited by Dr. Gamaliel Bailey and John G. Whittier, and it appeared in the issue of June 5, 1851, and continued to April 1, 1852, she receiving $300 for it, it being then pronounced the most powerful production that had ever appeared in magazine literature, and its author was put in the front rank of writers. Meanwhile John P. Jewett, publisher, of Boston, contracted with her to bring the story out in book form, she to have ten per cent. royalty on all sales. The first edition appeared in the latter part of March, 1852, 3000 copies being sold on day of issue; the next week a second edition followed, and the next week a third; 120 editions appearing within a year, aggregating 300,000 copies, she receiving in first four months $10,000 as royalty, and was the most famous woman in America. In August of that year it was dramatized, and continues to win popularity. In that same year eighteen publishing houses in London were kept busy supplying the demand for it there, more than a million and a half copies having been sold in England and colonies up to 1889. Next to the Bible it is perhaps the most widely read book of the world, having been translated and published in Armenian, Bohemian, Danish, Dutch, Fin

nish, Flemish, French, German, Hungarian, Illyrian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Roman, Greek, Russian, Servian, Spanish, Wallachian, and Welsh languages. in 1853 Mrs. Stowe went to Europe and had a remarkable reception. On her return she published her "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," giving

facts on which it was founded. Then till 1863 lived at Andover, Mass., where her husband was professor in Theological Seminary, at which time he took a position at Hartford Seminary, and in which city he died in 1886. Mrs. Stowe's publications embrace a list of thirty-two volumes.

Emma Abbott Wetherell, opera singer, born in Chicago, Ill., December 9, 1849; died in Ogden, Utah, January 4, 1891. Her father was a music teacher in poor circumstances, and when she was a child trained her to play on guitar and sing at entertainments he gave in the region about Peoria, whither he had removed. Her education was derived at the public schools of that place, and at sixteen she taught school to aid the family living, and on Saturday sang in the synagogue at that place. The next year she joined a concert company, to gain the family's support and traveled through the West, and when the company disbanded was left moneyless and friendless at Grand Rapids, Mich., and with her guitar began to give concerts in hotels and elsewhere alone and so worked her way to New York city, hoping for a musical education, but failing of notice, she went to the West again, touring it with her guitar, and at Fort Wayne pawned her guitar to get to Toledo to see Clara Louise Kellogg; at a private interview told her ambition to Miss Kellogg, who gave her money to pay her fare to New York, and gave her a letter to Professor Errani and Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, who gave her admission to his choir and she soon learned to read music for the first time. She then obtained a situation in Madison Avenue Baptist Church at $600 a year, and later at Dr. Chapin's church at $1,500 a year, and there met her future husband, Mr. Eugene Wetherell. In 1872 Mr. Lake, Mr. Beecher, and others raised $10,000 to send her to Europe for a musical education. At Paris she made the acquaintance through her instructor, Wartel, of the Baroness Rothschild, who on hearing her sing gave her $2,000 and offered to pay her bills for tuition. After studying under Wartel and Sadie at Paris and also Don Giovanni at Milan she made an engagement with Manager Gyr to sing in London, but refused on moral grounds to appear in the opera "La Traviata," and being supported in the refusal by her husband, whom she had privately married in Europe, she canceled her London engagement and returned to the United States in 1876, and organized a company under the direction of her husband and Charles Pratt and sang throughout this country, and at length amassed a fortune of several millions of dollars, by her great industry, perseverance,

and good temper under storms of ridicule and abuse. After providing for her relatives by her will, she distributed her estate to various charities and gifts to those who befriended her in her early struggles, Plymouth and Madison Avenue churches, devoting her gift to them in remodeling their organs and putting up memorial plates to her memory.

Mary Anderson, Mrs. Antonio F. De Navarro, actress, was born at Sacramento, Cal., July 28, 1859. In 1860 her parents removed to Louisville, and the father entered the Confederate service, dying at Mobile, Ala., in 1863, aged twenty-nine. When the daughter was eight years old, Mrs. Anderson married Dr. Hamilton Griffin of Louisville. Mary was educated at the Ursuline Convent and the Academy of the Presentation Nuns. Began to read Shakespeare and other dramatic authors, before ten years of age; saw Edwin Booth act, and was filled with ambition to go on the stage. Her stepfather realized the genius hidden under a retiring manner, and promoted it in every possible way. Her naturally fine mind was trained by diligent study; and in November, 1875, she made a successful debut at the principal theater in Louisville, in the part of "Juliet." From that time on success was assured. First appearance in New York was in November, 1877, at the Fifth Avenue Theater, where she played "Parthenia," "Juliet," "Bianca," and other leading parts. In 1878 made a European tour, appearing in the great capitals and in Stratford and Verona. Her great beauty and blameless life made her a great favorite in society, but she continued modest and retiring. June 17, 1890, was married in Hampstead, to Antonio de Navarro; and spent the following winter in Venice. In March, 1891, abandoned the stage, having sold all her stage dresses, theatrical scenery, and stage properties.

Phineas Taylor Barnum, showman, born in Bethel, Conn., July 5, 1810; died in Bridgeport, Conn., April 7, 1891. His father kept a country store and tavern, and died poor when Phineas was fifteen. After the father's death the son, who had an ordinary district school education, wandered about for a few years, trying his hand at various things in New York, Brooklyn, and elsewhere, and having saved a little money he returned to