Arthur, Timothy Shay (06 June 1809–06 March 1885), editor, temperance crusader, and novelist, was born in Orange County, New York, the son of William Arthur and Anna Shay, occupations unknown. He was named for his maternal grandfather, Timothy Shay, an officer in the revolutionary war. By his mid-twenties, Arthur had yet to identify a profession or receive an education. In the 1830s, however, he began an intense program of self-education as well as a writing career as a journalist in Baltimore, where he quickly became a well-known and articulate champion of numerous social causes including temperance, Swedenborgianism, feminism, and socialism. In 1836 he married Eliza Alden; they had seven children....
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Arthur, Timothy Shay (1809-1885), editor, temperance crusader, and novelist
Claudia Durst Johnson
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Bloomer, Amelia Jenks (27 May 1818–30 December 1894), temperance and women's rights reformer and editor
Kathleen Feeney
Bloomer, Amelia Jenks (27 May 1818–30 December 1894), temperance and women's rights reformer and editor, temperance and women’s rights reformer and editor, was born in Homer, New York, the daughter of Ananias Jenks, a clothier, and Lucy Webb. She received a basic education in Homer’s district schools and by the age of seventeen was teaching in Clyde, New York. After a year of teaching, Bloomer became a governess and tutor for a Waterloo, New York, family....
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Crothers, Thomas Davison (1842-1918), pioneer physician in the medical treatment of inebriety, temperance advocate, and editor
Sarah W. Tracy
Crothers, Thomas Davison (21 September 1842–12 January 1918), pioneer physician in the medical treatment of inebriety, temperance advocate, and editor, was born in West Charlton, New York, the son of Robert Crothers and Electra Smith. Members of Crothers’s family had taught surgery and medicine at Edinburgh University since the eighteenth century, and, with this influence, after attending the Fort Edward Seminary, he enrolled in Albany Medical College in 1862. With the outbreak of the Civil War Crothers signed on as a medical cadet at the Ira Harris Military College. Awarded his M.D. in 1865, Crothers continued his studies at Long Island College Hospital until he began his medical practice in West Galway, New York, in 1866. Four years later Crothers left West Galway for Albany, where, at his alma mater, he became assistant to the chair of the practice of medicine, lecturer on hygiene, and instructor in physical diagnosis. In 1875 he married Sarah Walton; the couple had no children. He also took a new position in Binghamton, New York, home of the nation’s first hospital for inebriates, the New York State Inebriate Asylum. There Crothers received his formal introduction to the medical treatment of inebriety. In 1878 he established his own private inebriate asylum in Hartford, Connecticut, the Walnut Hill Asylum (known after 1880 as the Walnut Lodge Hospital)....
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Everett, Robert (1791-1875), Congregational minister, publisher, and reformer
Maldwyn A. Jones
Everett, Robert (02 January 1791–25 February 1875), Congregational minister, publisher, and reformer, was born in Gronant, North Wales, the son of Lewis Everett and Jane Parry. The manager of a lead mine, Lewis Everett was also a Congregational lay preacher who raised his eleven children in a deeply religious atmosphere. Having decided at eighteen to enter the ministry, Robert studied theology at the Independent College at Wrexham and in 1815 was ordained pastor of the Swan Lane Welsh Congregational Church at Denbigh....
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Funk, Isaac Kauffman (1839-1912), publisher and reformer
Lloyd J. Graybar
Funk, Isaac Kauffman (10 September 1839–04 April 1912), publisher and reformer, was born near Clifton, Ohio, the son of John Funk and Martha Kauffman, farmers. Funk graduated from Wittenberg College in 1860 and from its theological seminary the following year. He subsequently held pastorates at Lutheran churches near Moreshill, Indiana, and in Carey, Ohio, before moving to St. Matthews’ English Lutheran Church in Brooklyn, New York, where he remained the longest. In 1863 he married Eliza Thompson; they had two children. The year after his wife’s death in 1868 he married her sister, Helen G. Thompson. The couple had one son....
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Goodell, William (1792-1878), religious reformer
Douglas M. Strong
Goodell, William (25 October 1792–14 February 1878), religious reformer, was born in Coventry, New York, the son of Frederick Goodell and Rhoda Guernsey. Goodell’s parents were Connecticut natives who became pioneer settlers in upper New York State. During his childhood Goodell suffered a “crippling disease” that kept him bedridden for several years; this confinement resulted in his cultivating a lifelong interest in religious reading and writing. After the death of his parents, Goodell went to live in Pomfret, Connecticut, with his paternal grandmother, a convert of evangelist ...
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Hasbrouck, Lydia Sayer (1827-1910), dress reformer and editor
Marilyn Elizabeth Perry
Hasbrouck, Lydia Sayer (20 December 1827–24 August 1910), dress reformer and editor, was born in Warwick, New York, the daughter of Benjamin Sayer, a farmer and distiller, and Rebecca Forshee, a farmer. Lydia grew up in comfortable surroundings as the farm prospered and the family grew in social prominence. The spirited and daring Lydia developed into a skilled horsewoman who had a penchant for reading. Her desire for a superior education led her to leave the Warwick district school and enter Miss Galatian’s Select School. She then attended high school and Central College in Elmira, New York....
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Shilts, Randy Martin (1951-1994), journalist
Ralph E. Luker
Shilts, Randy Martin (08 August 1951–17 February 1994), journalist, was born in Davenport, Iowa, the son of Bud Shilts, a salesman of prefabricated housing, and Norma (maiden name unknown). Neither of his parents graduated from high school. They raised four sons in a politically conservative Methodist family. Young Randy Shilts grew up in Aurora, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, where he organized a local chapter of Young Americans for Freedom and graduated from a public high school. Shilts entered the University of Oregon in 1969. Two years later he openly acknowledged his homosexuality and became a leader in the Gay People’s Alliance in Eugene. In his senior year Shilts ran unsuccessfully for student body president on the slogan “Come Out for Shilts.” After completing requirements for graduation with honors in English literature, Shilts decided that he “didn’t know how to write.” Changing his major to journalism, he learned that he could write well, won several journalism awards, and served as managing editor of the campus newspaper. In 1975 Shilts graduated at the top of his class with a B.S. in journalism....
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Stoddard, Cora Frances (1872-1936), temperance educator and writer
Marilyn Elizabeth Perry
Stoddard, Cora Frances (17 September 1872–13 May 1936), temperance educator and writer, was born in Irvington, Nebraska, the daughter of Emerson Hathaway Stoddard and Julia Frances Miller, farmers. Her parents moved the family from their farm in Nebraska to their native East when Cora was a child. In East Brookfield, Massachusetts, her mother and father joined the temperance movement, and Julia Stoddard soon rose in prominence to become the president of the local Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Her mother’s dedication to temperance, coupled with her writing and editing skills, served as a model for Stoddard’s activism in the temperance movement and her writing proficiency. Stoddard received a public school education and then went on to receive her bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College in 1896. She taught high school for one year in Middletown, Connecticut, then was employed for two years in the business field....
