Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/7

2 fields, calling for so widely differing powers, she has been equally at home. Her work is distinct in character, in outline and tone in shades and lights, and her proud position among the painters of the United States is a one legitimately won and successfully held.   ABBOTT, Mrs. Elizabeth Robinson, educator, born in Lowell, Mass., 11th September. 1852. Her maiden name was Elizabeth Osborne Robinson. She is the youngest daughter of William S. and Harriet H. Robinson. Through the writings and conversations of Miss Elizabeth P. Peabody she became interested, in her girlhood, in the kindergarten method of teaching, and would gladly have taken up that branch of educational work at the time when the death of her father made it necessary for her to become self-supporting. But circumstances prevented, and she therefore sought other ways of earning her living. Successively, she taught a district school in Maine and "boarded round," kept a little private school of her own, tried bookkeeping and learned to set type. After giving three months to learning type-setting, she hardly earned enough to pay her board out of the low wages given to women compositors. About that time two positions were open to her, one to "tend store" and the other as "second assistant" in Mrs. Shaw's charity kindergarten and nursery at the North End in Boston. The latter position meant simply to be the kitchen-maid or cook, and nothing more; but, preferring this position to that of shop-girl, and thinking it might eventually lead or open the way into higher kindergarten work, she accepted the offer. While there. Miss Phœbe Adam, the manager, became interested in the "second assistant" and, knowing her desire to become a kindergartner, with money helped her to carry on her studies, and kindly allowed her the privilege of taking time for her lessons out of the afternoon hours of her work. She was one of the early pupils of Miss Lucy H. Symonds, of Boston, and was a graduate of the class of 1883. So, after waiting seven years for the fulfillment of her cherished desires, Mrs. Abbott began her work as a kindergartner. Her first teaching was done in a summer charity-school in Boston. She then went to Waterbury, Conn., and introduced this method into the Hillside Avenue school. There she taught until her marriage, in 1885, to George S. Abbott, of that city. After her marriage Mrs. Abbott did not lose her interest in kindergarten work, but continued her class until most of her little pupils were graduated into primary schools. Since that time she has encouraged and helped others to keep up the work she so successfully began, having for two years given part of her home for use as a kindergarten. Thus Mrs. Abbott has created and maintained in the city where she now lives a lasting interest, and she may be considered a pioneer of kindergarten work in Connecticut. She is now secretary of the Connecticut Valley Kindergarten Association, an association of kindergartners embracing western Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Mrs. Abbott is not well known as a writer or speaker, but she is interested in and works for all that relates to the advancement of women. She is chairman of the correspondence committee for Connecticut of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, one of the founders of Old and New, the woman's club of Maiden. Mass., and the chief founder of the Woman's Club of Waterbury. Conn.

 ABBOTT, Emma, prima donna, born in Chicago, Ill., in 1850. Her father was a music teacher, and he encouraged her and her brother George to develop the musical talents that each showed at a very early age. Emma was a singing child, and under her father's training she sang well and became a proficient performer on the guitar. Professor Abbott moved from Chicago to Peoria, Ill., in 1854. There his patronage was so small that his family was in straitened circumstances. He gave a concert in 1859, in which the young Emma was prima donna and guitar player, and her brother was her support. The entertainment was a success, and Professor Abbott and his two talented children gave a large number of concerts in other towns and cities, with varying fortunes. In 1866 the finances of the family were at a low ebb, and Emma took a district school to teach in order to assist in supporting the household. Emma's early lessons on the guitar and her brother's on the violin were not entirely paid for until she had become a successful concert singer in New York. At the age of thirteen she taught the guitar with success. Her education was acquired in the Peoria public schools. When she was sixteen years old she sang in the synagogue in Peoria. At that age she joined the Lombard Concert Company, of Chicago, and traveled with them in Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin. When the company disbanded Emma found herself in Grand Haven, Mich., friendless and moneyless. With her guitar she started out alone and gave concerts in Michigan and the neighboring States, and thus worked her way to New York City, where she gave parlor concerts in the hotels in which she staid, and in that way earned the money for her expenses. Failing to gain notice in New York, she borrowed money and returned to the west. She tried a concert season in Chicago and Milwaukee, but was unsuccessful. She then tried a number of smaller towns and ended her tour in a failure in a hotel in Toledo, Ohio. Among her hearers in that slimly attended concert was Clara Louise Kellogg, who recognized her merit and gave her money enough to go to New York, with a letter to