Woman of the Century/Elizabeth C. Bunnell Read

READ, Mrs. Elizabeth C. Bunnell, journalist and woman suffragist, born on a farm in Dewitt township, near Syracuse, N. Y., on Christmas eve, 1834, the fifth child in a family of four boys and five girls. Her father, Edmund Harger Bunnell, was born in Connecticut, the son of Nathan Bunnell and Currence Twitchell, his wife. Her mother was Betsey Ann Ashley, daughter of Dr. John Ashley, of Catskill, N. Y., and his wife Elizabeth Johnstone, of the Johnstones of colonial fame. Her paternal grandfather was a soldier of 181 2, and his father was a Revolutionary hero. One of her brothers, Nathan Bunnell, enlisted at the age of ELIZABETH C. BUNNELL READ. seventeen, in Company A, Twentieth Indiana Infantry, was wounded at Gaines' Mill, taken prisoner, and died in Libby prison, Richmond, Va., 12th July, 1862. When Elizabeth was fourteen years old, her parents removed from New York to Indiana, where, within six weeks after their arrival, her mother died. Business ventures proved unfortunate, and the family circle was soon broken. Before she was sixteen, Miss Bunnell began to teach school. Having an opportunity to learn the printing business, she determined to do so, and found the occupation congenial, though laborious. She served an apprenticeship of two years, and then accepted the foremanship of a weekly paper and job office in Peru, Ind. That post she filled four years. At the end of that time, in January, 1861, she commenced the publication of a semi-monthly journal called the "Mayflower," devoted to literature, temperance and equal rights. That paper had a subscription list reaching into all the States and Territories. On 4th March, 1863, she became the wife of Dr. S. G. A.- Read. In 1865 she removed with him to Algona, Iowa, where they now live. There she began the publication of a weekly county paper, the "Upper Des Moines," representing the interests of the upper Des Moines valley, which at that time had no other newspaper. She commenced to write for the press when about twenty, and has continued as a contributor to several different journals. A series of articles in the "Northwestern Christian Advocate." in 1872, on the status of women in the Methodist Church, led to their more just recognition in subsequent episcopal addresses. In church membership Mrs. Read is a Methodist, and in religious sympathy and fellow ship belongs to the church universal. She is deeply interested in all social and moral problems. The unfortunate and criminal classes have always enlisted her most sympathetic attention. She is now associate editor of the "Woman's Standard," of Des Moines, Iowa, a journal devoted to equal rights, temperance and literature. She was vice-president of the Indiana State Woman Suffrage Society, while residing there, and has been president of the Iowa State Society, and one of the original members and promoters of the Woman's Congress. She has lectured occasionally on temperance, education and suffrage. She is generally known in literature as Mrs. Lizzie B. Read.