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Part of the American
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May Wright Sewall 1844 ~ 1920
May Wright Sewall
Mrs. May Wright Sewall's life work has
been founded on the conviction that all avenues of culture and
usefulness should be opened to women, and that when that result
is obtained the law of natural selection may safely be trusted
to draw women to those employments, and only those to which they
are best fitted. This is the theory she has striven to propagate
in her educational work as well as on the suffrage platform.
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, May 27, 1844, she is descended on
both sides from old New England stock and her father. Philander
Wright, was one of the early settlers of Milwaukee.
Miss Wright entered the Northwestern University in Evanston,
Illinois, and was graduated in 1866. She received the Master's
Degree in 1871. After an experience of some years in the common
schools of Michigan she accepted the position of principal of
the Plainwell High School and later was principal of the High
School in Franklin, Indiana. From that position she was called
to the Indianapolis High School as teacher of German, and
subsequently engaged to work in English literature. That was in
the year 1874, and since that date she has resided in
Indianapolis. In 1880 she resigned her position in the
Indianapolis High School, receiving the unprecedented compliment
of a special vote of thanks for her conspicuous and successful
work.
In October of the same year she became the wife of Theodore L.
Sewall and Mr. and Mrs. Sewall opened a classical school for
girls making the course identical with the requirements of the
Harvard entrance examinations, A private school for girls, which
made Latin, Greek and mathematics through trigonometry a part of
its regular course, was then a novelty in the West, but the
immediate success of this girls school showed that the public
was quick to appreciate thorough work in the education of girls.
This school established by Mr. and Mrs. Sewall now has an annual
enrollment of several hundred pupils. In spite of all her public
work for suffrage and civic welfare Mrs. Sewall continues to
give much time to the details of supervising her school. The
girls in the school are taught to dress plainly and comfortably,
to which end they wear a school uniform, and above all they are
encouraged to believe that all departments of knowledge are
worthy of their attention and of right ought to be open to them.
About the 'time of her removal to Indianapolis, Mrs. Sewall
became prominent in various lines of women's work. She soon
became known as a lecturer and as a delegate to conventions
called to the interest of higher education of women and the
promotion of the cause of women's equality before the law. She
edited for two years a women's column in the Indianapolis Times,
and she has written largely in the line of newspaper
correspondence. She is the author of the Indiana chapter in the
"History of Women's Suffrage," edited by Miss Anthony,
Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Gage, and of the "Report on Women's
Industries in Indiana," "Work of Women in Education in
the Western States" and of many slighter essays. Her first
public appearance in the reform work outside of local letters
was as a delegate from the Indianapolis Equal Suffrage Society
to the Jubilee Convention in Rochester, New York, in 1878. Since
that time she has been one of the mainstays of the cause of
women's advancement and has enjoyed the fullest confidence and
unqualified support of its leaders. She has delivered addresses
before most of the suffrage organizations all over the country
and also before committees of the Indiana legislature,
committees of the United States Senate, and the National
Teachers' Association.
In 1889 Mrs. Sewall was the delegate from the National Women's
Suffrage Association and from the Women's National Council of
the United States to the International Congress of Women
assembled in Paris by the French Government in connection with
the Exposition Universally. In that congress she responded for
America when the roll of nations was called and later in the
session gave one of the principal addresses, her subject being;
The National Women's Council of the United States." Her
response for America, which was delivered in French, was highly
praised for its aptness and eloquence, by M. Jules Simon, who
presided over the session.
Mrs. Sewall's writings and addresses are characterized by
directness, simplicity and strength. Her extemporaneous
addresses are marked by the same closeness of reasoning,
clearness, and power as her written speeches and they display a
never-failing tact. She is conspicuously successful also as a
presiding officer, a position in which she has had a long and
varied experience.
Women of
America
Source: The Part Taken by Women in
American History, By Mrs. John A. Logan, Published by The Perry-Nalle
Publishing Company, Wilmington, Delaware, 1912.
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