Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/948

Rh the position of general organizer among the working women. Her strong, sane point of view has been kept before the public through her editorship of an industrial department for the Minneapolis Tribune, and through her occasional magazine contributions on industrial matters.

Daughter of Gideon du Bois, was born in Frankford, Pa., in 1835. She is well known as an evangelist, who married a Baptist clergyman. Her work as an industrial educator is as practical and effective as that wrought by any other educator in America. In 1869, during her husband's pastorate in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, she opened a free industrial school in the parsonage with one hundred scholars, boys and girls. She provided all the materials and sold the work when it was finished. In 1870 a larger opportunity to develop her ideas came to her when her husband was chosen superintendent of the Maryland State Industrial School for Girls. Afterwards in 1887, Mrs. Meech was appointed by the trustees of the High School of Vineland, N. J., to superintend a department of manual education where the boys were taught to make a variety of articles in wood and wire work, and the girls to cook and make garments. This was the first introduction of industrial education into public schools. In March, 1891, the South Vineland Baptist Church granted Mrs. Meech a license to preach, and thereafter she held a number of meetings on Sunday evenings in Wildwood Beach, N. Y., and in Atlantic City. She had held aloof from temperance up to this time, but realizing from her work at these shore resorts the great increase of intemperance she joined the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in 1889, and she was made superintendent of narcotics the first year. Two years later she received an appointment as national lecturer for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and she continued in active service, at the same time maintaining her interest in industrial education, as well as supporting her family by a successful business career.

In defiance of the tradition of women's inefficiency in money and business matters, the career of Miss Lucy Stedman Lamson stands out as a woman educator and business woman. Born in Albany, N. Y., June 19, 1857; in 1886 she was graduated from the state normal school in Albany, N. Y., and in the following years she studied with special teachers in New York City. In September, 1888, she accepted a position in the Annie Wright Seminary, Tacoma, Washington, but during 1888-89, much excitement prevailed in regard to land speculations, and Miss Lamson borrowed funds and purchased city lots, which she sold at a large profit. In March, 1889, she filed a timber claim and a pre-emption in Skamania County, Washington, and in June, at the beginning of her summer vacation from school, she moved her household goods to her pre-emption and, accompanied by a young Norwegian woman, began the six months' residence required by the government to obtain the title to the land. Having complied with