Woman of the Century/Caroline Julia Bartlett

BARTLETT, Miss Caroline Julia, Unitarian minister, born in Hudson, St. Croix county. Wis., 17th August, 1858. She is a daughter of Lorenzo Dow and Julia A. Brown Bartlett When she w as sixteen years old, she heard a sermon which led her to make the liberal ministry her life-work. After she was graduated at Carthage College, in Illinois, the disapproval of her relatives and friends kept her from entering the ministry at once, and she turned her attention to newspaper work, For about three years she was on the Staff of the Minneapolis "Tribune," and later was city editor of the Oshkosh "Daily Morning Times," As a newspaper writer and editor Miss Bartlett was a success. After spending a short time in special Study, Miss Bartlett entered on her new calling as pastor of a little Unitarian flock in Sioux Falls, S. Dak. During the three years she remained there, her efforts were greatly prospered. A handsome stone church was built, and the membership increased to many times the number that made up her charge when she undertook the work. The fame of her labors at Sioux Falls brought her an urgent call from the First Unitarian Church of Kalamazoo, Mich., which she was induced to accept, as it would give her better opportunity for Special study than she could have in South Dakota. Miss Bartlett has been in Kalamazoo three years, and the church of which she is pastor has flourished greatly during that time. Study clubs have been formed under her direction, and the church is an active and important factor in all good work in the community, Miss Bartlett spent the summer of 1891 abroad and preached in many of the Unitarian churches in Engand. She was received with great kindness, but a woman preacher was such a novelty that it was only CAROLINE JULIA BARTLETT. by showing the portraits of a dozen other women ministers that she could get the people there to realize that she was not solitary in her vocation. By special invitation she visited the great philosopher and theologian, Dr. James Martineau. in his Scottish highland home. When looking into different lines of philanthropic work while she was abroad. Miss Hartlett went about with the slum officers of the Salvation Army. Miss Hartlett is a fluent orator. Her conversion to the cause of woman's political enfranchisement did not come until after some years of public work, but she had only to be convinced in order to become an ardent supporter of the political, as well as the social, educational and legal advancement of women. She preached the senium before the National Woman Suffrage Convention in Albaugh's Opera House, in Washington, in March, 1891.