Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/721

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Part Taken by Women in American History


she secured a series of resolutions from hat body concerning the evil nature and effects of alcoholic beverages. These resolutions were made the text for her successful appeals before legislative bodies. She superintended this work in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the world, bringing the people to see the need of compulsory temperance education. Her work meant years of journeying from state to state addressing audiences almost continually, but it also meant victory in thirty-five states, in the national military and naval academies and in all Indian and colored schools under national control. It meant the creation of a new school of literature, the revision of old text-books, and the actual creation of new ones covering the entire course of instruction concerning the welfare of the body. All in all Miss Hunt's work has been of extremely practical benefit to the cause of temperance.

Mrs. Henrica Iliohan was born in Vorden, province of Gelderland, kingdom of the Netherlands, but the love of liberty and independence seemed to have been instilled in her from birth, and when she had come to America and was obliged to earn her living, the disability of sex became of more and more importance as she thought and studied over her situation. In trying to read English she noted for the first time an article on woman suffrage in the Albany Journal. In 1871, when Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake addressed the assembly and asked the question: "Whom do you think, gentlemen of the committee, to be most competent to cast a ballot, the mother who comes from the fireside or the father who comes from the corner saloon?" Mrs. Iliohan again pondered deeply. This was a query that struck home to this young foreign woman, living at that time in Albany, and she made inquiries as to why women did not and could not vote in this land of the free. Very much interested she read all that was accessible on the subject and when, in 1877, the first Woman's Suffrage Society of Albany was organized she became an earnest member. With the remembrance of woman's share in the brave deeds recorded in Dutch history, she gained courage and enthusiasm and began to express her views publicly. Her first appearance on the lecture platform was a triumph. She was a foreigner no longer, but an American woman working for the rights of all American women. Encouraged by many she gained in experience and became one of the acknowledged leaders of the society. She was elected four times a delegate from her society to the annual convention in New York City and worked during the session of the legislature to obtain the consideration of that body. Mrs. Iliohan has also done some good work in translation. "The Religion of Common Sense," from the German of Professor L. Ulich, was one of her valuable contributions. In 1887 she moved to Humphrey, Nebraska, and thereafter became identified with Nebraska and the subjects of reform in that state and as she had done in the East, she endeared herself to the leaders and to the public.

Mrs. Ella Bagnell Kendrick, of Hartford, Connecticut, has always been an earnest advocate of temperance. When in 1891 her husband became a business manager of the New England Home, one of the leading prohibition newspapers of the country, she accepted the position of associate editor and through the columns waged a systematic campaign against all liquor traffic. She was an efficient member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and served through several terms as assistant secretary of the Hartford Prohibition Club.