Woman of the Century/Sarah Ellen Blackwell

BLACKWELL, Miss Sarah Ellen, artist and author, the youngest daughter of Samuel and Hannah Lane Blackwell, born in Bristol, England, in 1828. She came to America with her parents at four years of age. Her father dying shortly afterwards, she was educated by her older sisters in Cincinnati, Ohio. She began to teach music at a very early age, while pursuing her studies. When nineteen years old, she went to Philadelphia to pursue the study of art in the newly opened School of Design, and while there received her first literary encouragement. "Sartain's Magazine" having advertised for ten prize stories, to be sent in under fictitious names, Miss Blackwell sent in a story of her own under the name "Brandon," and another by one of her sisters that happened to be in her possession. She received an award of two out of the ten prizes. That led to further literary work. Concluding to continue the study of art in Europe, she secured an engagement for weekly letters for two leading Philadelphia papers. She spent four years in Europe. She entered the government school of design for girls in Paris, then under the care of Rosa Bonheur and her sister, Mme. Julie Peyrol, and afterwards entered the studio of Mr. Leigh in London, and painted in the National Gallery, spending the summer on sketching from nature in Wales, Switzerland and the Isle of Wight. Returning to New York, she opened a studio and established classes in drawing and painting, but finally gave up her studio to assist her sisters, the Doctors Blackwell, then greatly burdened with work connected with the New York Infirmary for Women and Children, and the medical college established by them. For several years she was occupied with domestic duties and the care of children in whom she was interested. As these duties lightened, she resumed artistic and literary work, writing occasional articles for magazines and newspapers and republishing the writings of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, then in England. A SARAH ELLEN BLACKWELL. series of letters written by her for the "Woman's Journal," of Boston, concerning Miss Anna Ella Carroll, author of the plan cf the Tennessee campaign, having excited much interest, it was followed by an open letter on the same subject published in the "Century" for August, 1890. That increased the interest, and in the Woman's Council and suffrage meetings in the early spring of 1891, in Washington, D. C., a large number of subscribers were obtained, and Miss Blackwell was deputed to write a biography of Miss Carroll and an account of her remarkable work. After careful research, she printed, 21st April, 1891, the biography and sketch entitled "A Military Genius: Life of Anna Ella Carroll, the Great Unrecognized Member of Lincoln's Cabinet." Miss Blackwell spends her summers in an old farm-house at Martha's Vineyard, and her winters in New York or Washington, engaged in literary work. Her especial subjects of interest are land and labor reform, woman's suffrage and anti-vivisection, sympathizing as she does with Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell in her opposition to all cruel and demoralizing practices