May 24 - May 30
Women of the Week
Ella Bagnell Kendrick, who was a temperance, education, and women's rights reformer, as well as a journalist, and Clara Louise Burnham, whose writing career included novels, articles, and lyrics, are this week's Women of the Week.
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To learn about them by viewing their item records, please click on their images.
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To read their biographical sketches in A Woman of the Century, please click on the highlighted page number(s) to the left of their images.
Ella Bagnell Kendrick, a native of Plymouth, Massachusetts, graduated from Plymouth High School when she was just sixteen. After she married, she moved to Meriden, Connecticut and lived in that state for the rest of her life. Having a keen interest in science, she was very involved with the Meriden Scientific Association.
While her A Woman of the Century profile heading lists Ella as a temperance worker, she was involved in many activities and causes.
Just as she had worked with her husband's business when she lived in Meriden, Ella became associate editor of her husband's periodical, New England Home, when they settled in Hartford. She utilized her editorial experience in 1899 when she became editor of Talks and Tales, "a monthly magazine composed as to text and type entirely by the blind" (Evening Star, December 28, 1899).
An education advocate, Ella wrote to Woman's Journal in 1896 about the many Connecticut women involved on educational boards in the state.
Also a supporter of women's rights, she was an active member of the Equal Rights Association and was corresponding secretary of the Connecticut Woman's Suffrage Association. In 1896 and 1897, Ella was very involved with the movement by the Equal Rights Association to erect a statue in Hartford in honor of Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Her work for the temperance cause involved being a member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and a leader of the Prohibition Party in Meriden, New Haven, and Hartford. Ella spoke about temperance at the 1907 New Haven County W.C.T.U. meeting and about "Women As Citizens" at the 1922 meeting. In addition, she was Superintendent of the Demorest Medal Contests.
Ella combined her interests in women's rights and temperance by speaking on "How to Use the Ballot" at the W.C.T. U. Institute in June, 1916. The Norwich Bulletin reported: "She gave a most interesting talk, citing instances to show the way it has been used for good in many places."
She also joined with women of her Unitarian faith, being a member of the Connecticut Valley Associate Alliance of Unitarian Women and speaking at its 1922 conference.
As Ella's A Woman of the Century profile notes, "She is a woman of active habits and strong character, and she makes her influence felt in any cause that enlists her sympathies" (434).
Sometimes known as "Edith Douglas," Clara Louise wrote for Wide Awake early in her career. Her works also appeared in St. Nicholas and Youth's Companion.
Her early fiction from the 1880s was published by Chicago’s Henry A. Sumner and Company, while her later work was published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company of Boston and New York and by Grosset & Dunlap of New York. May O. Root, Clara Louise's sister, illustrated her 1884 novel Dearly Bought.
Literary World reviewed eight books by “Edith Douglas,” while Critic reviewed seven of her works. In addition, Clara Louise's books were noticed in Atheneum (London), Atlantic Monthly, Catholic World, Chautauquan, Dial, New Orleans Daily Picayune, and Overland Monthly.
While she lived in Chicago, Clara Louise spent the summer months at her home, the Moorings, on Bailey Island, Maine. In 1915, she hosted actor Robert Dempster, her collaborator on an upcoming novel, at the Moorings.
Female screen director Lois Weber adapted Jewel: A Chapter in Her Life, Clara Louise's 1903 Christian Science novel, as the film Jewel in 1915 and later as A Chapter in Her Life in 1923.
In 1926, Clara Louise was one of many women honored at a breakfast during the Woman's World Fair in Chicago. The next year, she was honored at a dinner by the Society of Midland Authors.
Clara Louise passed away on Monday, June 20, 1927, at the Moorings. She was buried in Harmony Vale Cemetery, North Reading, Massachusetts.