Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/940

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Women in Business
897


her principal work in life, and her talent for music has made her one of the most noted pianists of the Middle West. She has two children, Gillette Joan Barnes and William Barnes.

ELLEN ALIDA ROSE.

Born June 17, 1843, in Champion, New York. In December, 1861, she married Alfred Rose, and in 1862 they moved to Wisconsin, where her life has been spent on a farm near Broadhead. She is one of the first and most active members of the Grange. Through Mrs. Rose's efforts and the members of the National Grange Organization, the anti-option bill was passed. She was a prominent member of the Patrons of Industry and by her voice and pen has done much to educate the farmers in the prominent reforms of the day, in which the advancement of women is one which has always claimed her first interest. Mrs. Rose has been an active worker in the Woman's Suffrage Association, and in 1888 was appointed District President of that organization.

MARY A. SAUNDERS.

Born January 14, 1849, in Brooklyn, New York. Her father, Dr. Edward R. Percy, settled in Lawrence, Kansas, where he became so interested in the study, growth and culture of the grape and the manufacture of wine, that he gave up his practice as a physician. Miss Percy became the wife of A. M. Saunders. Being left a widow after two years with a child to support, she endeavored to earn her living as an organist in one of the churches in Lawrence, Kansas. While on a visit to her husband's relatives in Nova Scotia, she decided to return to New York and pursue her musical studies. At this time her attention was drawn to a new invention, the typewriter. She was introduced to G. W. N. Yost, the inventor of typewriters, who promised that as soon as she could write on the typewriter at the rate of sixty words a minute he would employ her as exhibitor and saleswoman. In three weeks she accomplished this task, and in January, 1875, was given employment with the company and was one of the first women to step into the field at that time occupied solely by men. She assisted in arranging the first keyboard of the Remington typewriter, which is now the keyboard, with slight alterations, used on all typewriters. Mrs. Saunders traveled as the general agent of this company throughout the West and inaugurated the use of the first typewriter in St. Louis, Cincinnati, Chicago, Indianapolis, Detroit and other cities. Later she resigned from this position and became corresponding clerk in the Brooklyn Life Insurance Company. While here she studied stenography and two years later, when the head bookkeeper died she applied for the vacancy, which was given her at an advanced salary, she attending to all the correspondence, book-keeping, examination of all policies and had charge of the real estate accounts. In 1891 the Yost Typewriter Company, Limited, of London, England, was about to be formed. They offered her a fine position with them in London, as manager and saleswoman, which she accepted. Her position as manager of a school enrolling more than one hundred pupils gave her ample scope to carry out her long-desired scheme of aiding women to be self-supporting in the higher walks of life,