Women of the Week

Frances Elizabeth Willard, the co-editor of A Woman of the Century, Bessie Agnes Dwyer, a journalist, and Agnes Booth, an actress, celebrated birthdays this 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 numbers to the left of their images.

Frances Elizabeth Willard, whose lengthy biographical sketch lists her as an "educator, reformer and philanthropist," was one of the editors of A Woman of the Century.  She was born on September 28, 1839, in Churchville, New York.  Frances graduated from North-Western Female College, where she later taught and served as an administrator.  

She became very active in the temperance movement and served as president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).  In addition, Frances was a leader of the National Woman's Council.  She was a frequent lecturer and prolific writer, publishing books and contributing to numerous periodicals.  

During her very productive life, Frances Willard touched many lives, including those of Julia A. Ames, Matilda B. Carse, Jennie Casseday, Mary Helen Peck Crane, Sarah Doan La Fetra, Zerelda Gray Wallace, and Mary A. Brayton Woodbridge.

Frances passed away on February 17, 1898, and was buried in Chicago's Rosehill Cemetery and Mausoleum.

Bessie Agnes Dwyer, the youngest daughter of Judge Thomas A. Dwyer, was born on September 29, 1866, in Nueces County, Texas. The multi-talented Bessie became the first woman of Texas to earn a legal degree, the first woman to enter the library services at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and the first woman to present the name of the presidential candidate to a Party convention.  Bessie passed away from a cerebral hemorrhage at the Santo Tomas Internment Camp in the Philippines during World War II.

Agnes Booth, then known as Marion Agnes Land Rookes, was born in Sydney, Australia, on October 4, 1843.  She was a dancer as a young woman and came to the United States to dance in San Francisco.  However, a heart condition required a change in Agnes's career path from dancing to acting. 

Over the course of her life, she also resided in New York, New York, Boston, Massachusetts, and Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts.  Agnes was a very popular actress who married Junius Brutus Booth, of the famous Booth family of actors.  Her connections within the theatre world included theatre luminaries such as Kate Bateman, John Sleeper Clarke, Augustin Daly, Edwin Forrest, Tom Maguire, and Matilda Charlotte Vining Wood.

In addition to her life as an actress, Agnes was the mother of Junius Brutus Booth, Algernon G. Booth, Sydney Barton Booth, and Barton J. Booth.  Unfortunately, she lost Algernon at the age of seven in 1877, and then Barton, her youngest son, in 1879, when he was just four years old.  Four years later, the family mourned the passing of Agnes's husband, Junius Brutus Booth, Jr.

Agnes married theatre manager John B. Schoeffel in 1885, but she continued to use the name Agnes Booth in her acting career.

Agnes passed away in Brookline, Massachusetts, on January 2, 1910, and was buried in the Booth family plot in Rosedale Cemetery, Manchester-by-the-Sea.