HILL, Mrs. Eliza Trask

Eliza Trask Hill (2).jpg
Eliza Trask Hill New England Helping Hand.jpg
Eliza Trask Hill Tremont Temple Education Rally.jpg
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Eliza Trask Hill Indianapolis.jpg

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Description

Eliza Trask Hill, a native of Warren, Massachusetts, was born on May 10, 1840.  Her profile lists her as a woman suffragist and journalist, but she also was a wife, a mother, a teacher, and a supporter of several different causes.

With a father and grandfather who were ministers and parents who were both active in reform efforts, Eliza was raised in an atmosphere with people who gave back to their communities.  She followed their lead early in her life, presenting a flag to the Fifteenth Regiment of Massachusetts and speaking at that event.  She also taught for ten years, including time teaching in Pittsburgh, beginning a career of passionate engagement with education.  Eliza married John Lange Hill in 1866 and became a mother to three children.  

Despite her domestic responsibilities, Eliza found time to toil for the many causes she believed in.  As her A Woman of the Century profile explains, Eliza "labored earnestly for the redemption of abandoned women, but, believing that preventive is more effectual than reformatory work, she has identified herself with the societies that care for and help the working girls" (380).  An 1887 article in the St. Johnsbury Caledonian discussed how she and Ellen M. H. Richards led the New England Helping-Hand Society's efforts to establish a home for working women in Boston.

Eliza also contributed as a public speaker, an early member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (especially its committee on prison reform), a political activist, and a member of the Prohibition Party.

An ardent advocate of public education, Eliza was the founder and editor of Woman's Voice and Public School Champion.  She was elected to membership in the New England Woman's Press Association in 1890.   The next September, Eliza joined Julia Ward Howe, Mary A. Livermore, and Susan S. Fessenden on the speaking platform at Tremont Temple for a rally related to the upcoming school committee election.

Eliza also continued to advocate for reforms.  In late November of 1898, The Indianapolis Journal announced her upcoming talk, "Glimpses of Prison Life."  Two days later, the newspaper published a lengthy review of her speech, an article that reveals Eliza's style of combining logos and pathos, sharing statistics while also touching audiences with emotional stories of individuals whose lives led them to crime.

She passed away at her home in Somerville, Massachusetts on March 29, 1908, and was buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

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This Item member Item: New England Woman's Press Association
Item: BISHOP, Mrs. Mary Agnes Dalrymple knows This Item