Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/528

Rh where her three suns are prominently identified with the growth and progress of the new State. She is justly regarded as the mother of woman suffrage in Wyoming, having inaugurated the movement there. She was the first woman who ever administered the office of justice of the peace. It has been sometimes said that the law giving equal rights to women in Wyoming was passed as a joke and as a means of advertising the new Territory of Wyoming, but Colonel Bright, who is now a resident of Washington, asserts that it was no joking matter with him, that he favored it because he believed it was right The condition of Wyoming at that time is of interest. With an area greater than all of the New England States combined, Wyoming, in 1869, had a population of less than ten-thousand, mostly scattered in small frontier villages along the line of the newly-constructed Union Pacific Railroad. The northern portion of the Territory was given over to roving tribes of wild Indians, with here and there a few mining camps held by adventurous gold-seekers. Several hundreds of those miners had penetrated into the country known as the Sweetwater mines, the chief town of which was South Pass City, and contained about two-thousand people. There Governor Campbell commissioned Mrs. Morris to hold the office of justice of the peace.

MORSE, Miss Alice Cordelia, artist, born in Hammondsville, Jefferson county, Ohio, 1st June,

1862. She removed with her parents to Brooklyn, N. Y., two years later, w here she has since resided. She traces her origin back on her father's side to the time of Edward III, of England. She is descended from Samuel Morse, one of seven brothers who came to America between 1635 and 1644, and settled in Dedham, Mass. Her ancestors on her mother's side, Perkins by name, were among the early settlers of Connecticut. Seven of her great-grandfather's brothers lost their lives in the assault on Fort Griswold by Benedict Arnold. Her great-grandfather, Caleb Perkins, afterwards removed to Susquehanna county, Pa., which was then a wilderness. Being a sturdy, fearless child, of great perseverance and determination, she was sent to school at the age of five years. After a common-school education she took' her first lesson in drawing in an evening class started by the Christian Endeavor Society of Dr. Eggleston's Church. Her drawing at that time has been described by a friend as conspicuously bad. Evidently no Hash of inspiration revealed her genius in her first attempt to immortalize a model. That little class of crude young people builded better than it knew, for a number of its members are to-day doing creditable work among the competitors in New York art circles. Miss Morse submitted a drawing from that class to the Woman's Art School, Cooper Union, and was admitted to a four years' course, which she completed. Entering the studio of John LaFarge, the foremost artist of stained-glass designing in this country, she studied and painted with great assiduity under his supervision. Later, she sent a study of a head, painted on glass, to Louis C Tiffany & Company, and went into the Tiffany studio to paint glass and study designing, and accomplished much in the time devoted to her work there. Having been the successful contestant in several designs for book covers, and the awakened aesthetic sense of the public requiring beauty, taste and some fitness to the subject in the covering of a book, she then decided to take up that field of designing. She made many covers of holiday editions and fine books for the Harper, Scribner, Putnam, Cassell, Dodd, Mead & Company and other publishing firms. That, with glass designing, a window in the Beecher Memorial Church of Brooklyn testifying to her skill, has made her name familiar to the designing fraternity, and the annual exhibits of her work in the New York Architectural League have called forth high praise from the press. She won the silver medal in the life class m Cooper Institute in 1891, and is now studying with a view to combine illustration with designing. She is a very clear, original thinker. with an earnestness relieved by a piquant sens° of humor, a fine critical estimate of literary style and a directness of purpose and energy which promise well for her future career.

MORSE, Mrs. Rebecca A., club leader, born on Manhattan Island, N. Y., on the Gen. Rutgers estate, in 1821. She is a descendant of the well-known Holland-Dutch family, the Bogerts, one of the pioneer families of New York. She received the educational training usual among the substantial families of those days. She became the wife of Prof. M. Morse in 1853. She was known as a correspondent in New York City for newspapers and magazines in 1846. Her work consisted of notes on society, descriptions of costumes, art notes, art gossip from studios, and similar features of metropolitan life. She wrote under the pen-names "Ruth Moza." "R. A. Kidder" or the initials " R. A. K." In youth she imbibed the principles of the anti-slavery agitators, and she was always the fearless advocate of the colored people. In the home of her sister, Mrs. M. E. Winchester, which was headquarters then for worn in suffragists, Mrs. Morse met Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and other leaders. During twenty-five years she has spent her summers in Nantucket, where she has a home. She w as one of the earliest members of Sorosis, and was vice-president for several terms. She has filled other offices in that society. She was one of the originators of the Woman's Congress, and has always been an earnest