Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/132

Rh of her work drew her to Boston, Mass. She now resides in Newton Highlands. The education of the schools, though good, was of less value than that of the home, where the father's greatest pleasure was in opening to his daughters the treasures of his choice library. If from her father she inherited a love of good reading, of pictures and pre-eminently of nature, she was no less indebted to her mother for a certain executive ability, indispensable to success, while from both parents she received constant help and encouragement in her early efforts. During her school-days she sent to the Concord "Monitor" a poem. That was the first of many contributions to various literary and religious newspapers, the "Atlantic Monthly," "Aldine," the "Living Age," and other magazines. Her only volume of poems is a brochure entitled "A Hundred Years Ago" (Boston, 1876), written with an insight and enthusiasm worthy the descendant of a Minute Man who gave his life at Lexington. Six volumes of the "Spare Minute Series" are of her compiling, and five of the "Biographical Series" are of her writing. Her Sun- day-school books are "From Night to Light" (Boston, 1872), a story of the Babylonish Captivity, and "The Child Toilers of the Boston Streets" (Boston, 1874). One of Miss Brown's charms is the power of throwing herself into her subject

BROWN, Mrs. Harriet A., inventor, born in Augusta, Maine, 20th February, 1844. She is of Scotch parentage and early in life was thrown upon her own resources. By contact with working girls she learned of the long hours, hard work and small wages of which most of them complained, and her ardent desire was to alleviate their distress. Mrs. Brown conceived the idea of establishing a

regular school of training for women who desired to make themselves self-supporting, and, on the solicitation of many prominent and philanthropic women of Boston, she opened the Dress-Cutting College in that city on 17th October, 1886. In opening her college, she had the cooperation of those who induced her to establish such a school in Boston, but the underlying ideas, the scientific rules for dress-cutting, the patented system used, and all the methods of instruction, are her own. It is to her judicious wisdom and practical experience the college owes its success. The chief aim of the institution is to be one in which girls of ability and taste, who are now engaged in stores, workshops and kitchens, may find employment for which they are better adapted. Mrs. Brown's system of cutting is the result of years of study. All its points she has thoroughly mastered, and has succeeded in patenting rules for cutting, and also obtained the only patent for putting work together. She has received numerous medals and diplomas as testimonials of the superiority of her methods, and her system is being used the leading industrial schools and colleges of the country. Delegates from the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N. Y., after investigating all the principal European methods, adopted Mrs. Brown's system, and it has been in use for two years in that institution. It is one of the regular features of the Moody Schools, Northfield. Mass., where young women are educated for missionary work. Mrs. Brown is ah occasional contributor to the newspaper press.

BROWN, Mrs. Martha McClellan, born near Baltimore, Md., 16th April. 1838. On the father's side she is descended from the McClellans, Covenanters of Scotland, and on the mother's side from the old Maryland families of Many-penny and Hight. At the age of about two years she was taken by her parents to eastern Guernsey county, Ohio, where, before she reached her eighth year, both parents had died. The little girl and an only older sister were admitted to full family privileges in the home of neighbors, Thomas and Nancy Cummings Cranston, the husband a Protestant Irishman, and the wife of the old Quaker Cummings family, of Philadelphia, Pa. At the age of twenty years Martha made the acquaintance of Rev. W. K. Brown, of the Pittsburgh Methodist Episcopal Conference, and on 15th November, 1858, they were married. The young people were imbued with a strong purpose of educating and projecting woman personally along religious lines, n the fail of 1860 Mrs. M. McClellan Brown was a pupil in the Pittsburgh Female College, and in 1862 was graduated at the head of her class. In 1863 she became the mother of a son; who at nineteen was professor of sciences in Cincinnati Wesleyan College, and who in his twenty-second year founded and became president of Twin Valley College. Germantown. Ohio. In 1864 Mrs. Brown appeared in a public lecture in support of the Civil War in the court-house hall of the strong Democratic county of Westmoreland, Pa., where her husband was pastor. That movement was followed by public lectures in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and many smaller places. In the summer of 1865 her oldest daughter was born, who became vice-president of the college with her brother before she had completed her twentieth year. In 1866 Mrs. Brown, owing to the unexpected death of the principal of the public schools in the county-seat of Columbiana county, Ohio, where her husband had been appointed pastor, was engaged as associate principal with her husband. She was elected superintendent of the Sunday-school, although the Methodist Church had not at that time arranged its law to admit women to such responsibility. She delivered temperance and literary lectures. In 1867 she was elected to a place in the executive committee of Ohio Good Templary, and immediately founded