Part of the American History & Genealogy Project

Hannah J. Bailey 1839 ~ 1923

Philanthropist and reformer. Mrs. Bailey was born in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, July 5, 1839. In her early youth she taught school. She became very much interested in the work among the criminal institutions of New England. Her father had been a member of the Society of Friends, and she attended the yearly meeting of this sect.

While attending one of these she met Moses Bailey, to whom she was married in October, 1868. In 1882 his death left her with one son, twelve years of age, and her own health very much impaired. She took up her husband's business, an oilcloth manufactory, and also a retail carpet store in Portland, Maine, and carried these on with success, selling them in 1889 most profitably.

She is a woman prominently connected with all the missionary societies and the work of her religious faith, the Friends; is a strong advocate for peace, and in 1888 she was made the superintendent of that line of work for the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and has carried on the publishing of two monthly papers, the Pacific Banner and the Acorn, besides the distribution of a great deal of literature on this subject. She has worked diligently in the interest of a reformatory prison for women in her own state, and her name is found among the first in all philanthropic work for the church and schools and for young men and women who are trying to earn an education.

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.