Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/416

 EDGREN

EDISON

EDQREN, August Hjalmar, t.Hliuator, was born in Wennlauil. Sweden. Oct. \b, l!S4U; sun of Axel and Mathilda (Berger) Ed;,'ren. He was pre- pared fur college at Carlstad, Sweden, was grad- uated from the Lyceum of Stockholm to the Uni- versity of Upsala, 1858; from the Royal military school of Sweden in 1800; from Cornell univer- sity. New York. Ph.D.. in 1871, and from Yale, Ph.D., in 1874. He was -id lieutenant in the OOth N.Y. volunteers, 18Gl--2; 1st lieutenant and stalf ofticer, 18G'2-63; 2d lieutenant, Royal regiment of Wermland, Sweden, 1868-70; adjutant. 1869-70; teacher of modern languages. St. Quentin, France. 1867-68; instructor in French and German at Yale, 1873-80; acted as W. D. Whitney's sub- stitute at Yale, 1878-79. in teaching Sanskrit and linguistics; was docent in Sanskrit, University of Lund, Sweden, 1880-85; professor of modern languages, University of Nebraska, 188.5-91 ; pro- fessor of Germanic languages and rector, Uni- versity of Gothenburg, Sweden, 1891-93; and professor of romance languages and dean of the graduate school, University of Nebraska, from 1893. He was elected to membersliip in the American oriental society in 1876 : in the Ameri- can pliilological association in 1880 ; in the Amer- ican modern language association in 1886 ; in the Royal society of arts and sciences, Gothen- burg, in 1890. and was chosen president of the society in 1893. He was married in 1880 to Marianne Steendorff of Copenhagen. His pub- lished works consist of numerous contributions to Sanskrit, Indo-European, and special Romance and Germanic philology; various text-books on Sjinskrit, German, English, French, Italian and Spanish; works (in Swedish) on American litera- tui'e, with translations, Longfellow, translated, American Schools and Colh(/es ; Mexican Travels and Antiquities; Poems (2 vols.); and many literary essays and translations from Sanskrit.

EDHOLM, Mary Qow Charlton, reformer, ■was burn in Frecpurt, 111., Oct. 28, 1854; daughter of James Bovard and Lucy (Gow) Charlton, and granddaughter of Jolm Loudon and Mary (Mur- dock) Gow. She was gi-aduated at Monmouth (III. ) college in 1874, and at once began to con- tribute articles on woman .suffrage and temper- ance to periodicals. In 1878 she was married to Osbom L. Edholm, a journalist. She continued her work, writing for the Phrenoloyical Journal, the Chrixllnn Instrnrior and other papers, and editing a daily temperance column in the Omnha Xews. In 1886 she removed to Oakland, Cal., and shortly afterward was elected official reporter and suy>erintfndont of the California "Woman's Chri.stiiin Temperance Union. At the Boston con- vention of the World's W.C.T.U., in 1891, she was appointed sujierintendent of pre.ss, and in less than two years published several hun-

dred columns of original matter in over 1000 uewsi)apers. In 1891 she was appointed reporter of the Florence Crittenden inLssions. At the in- ternational federation of women's press clubs at Boston, Mass.. in 1891, Mrs. Edholm was made secretary. At the World's W.C.T.U. convention in London in 1895 she was appointed by Frances W ilhird and Lady Henry Somerset as the super- intendent of the newly created department Flor- ence Crittenden mi.ssions. After that time she prosecuted rescue mission work, mostly by pub- lic addresses, throughout the United States and in parts of England, France. Switzerland, Ger- many, Holland and Canada. She was for some time editor of The Christian Home, Oakland, Cal., and is the author of: Traffic in Girls, and Florence Crittenden Missions, wliich had a large sale. In 1894 Mrs. Edholm began to speak on The Traffic in Girls and in three j-ears her meetings resulted in raising 825.000 for rescue mission work.

EDISON, Thomas Alva, inventor, was born in Milan, Erie county, Ohio, Feb. 11, 1847; son of Samuel and Nancy (Elliott) Edison. On the paternal side he descended from Dutch ancestors, wiio came from Amsterdam to the new world in 1737, and settled in New York where John Edi- son, the great- grandfather of Thomas was a banker. His ma- ternal ancestry WHS Scotch. He attended school for a few months only, being edu- cated at home by his mother, a women of superior ability and attain- ments. The boy was

an apt scholar, showing preference for historical and scientific subjects. In 1854 his father re- moved to Port Huron, Mich., where at the age of twelve the son engaged in various commercial enterprises in which he employed other boys, working himself as newsbo}' on a train running to Detroit. He occupied his leisure hours while in Detroit in reading and in studjing qualitative analysis, making his experiments in a baggage car of the Grand Trunk railway, in which he also established a miniature i)rinting-ofhce, where he set up and j)rinted 77i( Wcekhj Iftrald, the fjaper being written and i.s.sued by him without assist- ance. The Herald had been i)ublished for forty weeks, and had a subscription list of nearly five hundred, when the young experimenter upset a bottle of phosphorus and set the car on fire. He

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