Women of the Week

Poet Rose Hartwick Thorpe and  journalist and horticulturalist Helen Vickroy Austin are this week's Women of the Week.  

•  To learn about them by viewing their items, please click on their images.  

• To read their biographical sketches in A Woman of the Century, please click on the highlighted page(s) number to the left of their images.

Rose Hartwick Thorpe was born in Mishawaka, Indiana on July 18, 1850, and she spent her teenage years in Litchfield, Michigan.

She became famous for her poem "Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight," which was published in the Detroit Commercial Advertiser in 1870. 

Rose married  Edmund C. Thorpe in 1871.  Their family expanded to include a daughter, and the Thorpe family lived in Chicago, Illinois.

She became the editor of three monthly periodicals, Temperance Tales, Well-Spring, about the home, and Words of Life, a Sunday School monthly, all published by Chicago publisher Fleming H. Revell.  

Later, while she was living in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1883, Rose was awarded an honorary M.A. degree from Hillsdale College. The same year, "Curfew Must Not Ring To-Night" was published as a book.  

Due to Mr. Thorpe's health issues, the family then moved to San Antonio, Texas and resided there for four years.  In the late 1880s, Rose and her family moved again, this time to San Diego, California.  She kept writing, and Ringing Ballads, including Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight made its debut in 1887.

During her long and successful career, Christian Science Journal, Detroit Free Press, Happy Days, Our Continent, St. Nicholas, Wide Awake, and Youth's Companion published Rose's work.

In 1895, "Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight" was published as a song, with music by Stanley Hawley.  During the same year, Rose wrote the "Introduction" to As Others See Us, or, The Rules and Customs of Refined Homes and Polite Society.  She published The Poetical Works of Rose Hartwick Thorpe, Compiled by the Author in 1912.

When Litchfield, Michigan celebrated its anniversary in 1934, Rose wrote the Centennial Theme Song. In addition, July 21 was designated Rose Hartwick Thorpe Day and the Rose Hartwick Thorpe Memorial was dedicated.  

Rose passed away in 1939.

Helen Vickroy Austin was born in Miamisburg, Ohio on July 19, 1829. She later lived in Ferndale, Pennsylvania, Richmond, Indiana, and Vineland, New Jersey.  Helen married William W. Austin in 1850 and became the mother of three children.

She was a horticulturalist, journalist, philanthropist, reformer, temperance worker, and suffragist.

On May 18 and 19, 1870, Helen, her sister Louise Esther Vickroy Boyd, her brother-in-law S.S. Boyd, and other local women and men led the Mass Convention in the Lyceum Hall in Richmond, Indiana to discuss women's rights.  By June of 1872, she was serving as corresponding secretary  of the Indiana Womans' Suffrage Association. Helen also served as Secretary for the Woman's Christian Association in Richmond during that decade. By 1874, she was a correspondent for The Daily Independent.

Helen was a member of the Daughters of Temperance, the National Woman's Indian Rights Association, the Indiana Woman's Suffrage Association, the Woman's Christian Associaiton, and The Travelers' League.

She passed away on August 1, 1921.