Women of the Week

Scientist and doctor of medicicne Rachel L. Bodley, Anti-Slavery agitator and reformer Elizabeth Buffum Chace, prima donna Emma Abbott, and journalist Helen Morton Smith are this week's Women of the Week.

• To learn about them by viewing their items, please click on their images.  

• To read their biographical sketches in A Woman of the Century, please click on the highlighted page number(s) to the left of their images.

Dr. Rachel L. Bodley was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on December 7, 1831. She later lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

A graduate of Wesleyan Female College and Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, Rachel became a scientist, doctor of medicine, and professor. 

By the late 1860s, she was Professor of Chemistry and Toxicology at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, and later she served as Dean. Her colleagues included Ann Preston, Mary J. Scarlett Dixon, Elizabeth Catharine Keller, and Grace Babb, "the first woman graduate of a college of pharmacy" (The Columbus Journal). Rachel also served as a member of a district school board in Philadelphia. 

Rachel belonged to many organizations, including the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, the Cincinnati Society of Natural History, the New York Academy of Sciences, the American Chemical Society of New York, the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the Educational Society of Philadelphia. 

She passed away on June 15, 1888.  In 1891, Emma H. Palmer,  her friend and former student, proposed a Dean Bodley Memorial Fund for the Sharada Sadan school in India.  This fund was to honor Rachel for her work in support of the efforts by Ramabai Sarasvati, a "high-caste Hindu widow," to establish this school for Hindu wdows in India (Emma H. Palmer to Eliza J. W. Armitage).

Elizabeth Buffum Chace, who toiled for the Anti-Slavery and women's suffrage causes, was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on December 9, 1806.  Elizabeth married Samuel Buffington Chace in 1828 and the couple were parents to many children.

Her personal network included Samuel May, Jr., the celebrated minister and Anti-Slavery reformer of Leicester, Massachusetts, Susan B. Anthony, Ednah Dow Cheney, Frederick Douglass, Rowland Gibson Hazard, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

In October of 1868, Elizabeth was selected as one of the Rhode Island delegates for the first meeting of the American Woman Suffrage Association (ASWA) in 1869.  She also served as president at the Rhode Island Woman's Suffrage Convention that December.  By 1874, she was one of the AWSA's Vice Presidents.  In 1882, she was the Rhode Island vice-president of the Association for the Advancement of Women, a position she held for several years.  She became one of the vice-presidents of The Free Religious Association of America in May of 1889.

Elizabeth recalled her life and work in her 1891 book Anti-slavery Reminiscences.  She wrote about "Old Quaker Days in Rhode Island" for the August 1897 volume of New England Magazine.

She passed away on December 12, 1899, and was buried in Swan Point Cemetery in Providence.

Prima Donna Emma Abbott was born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 9, 1850.   Sophia Curtiss Hoffman, Clara Louise Kellogg, and Dr. Edwin Hubbell Chapin were early supporters of Emma's career.  

She trained in Europe and later became wealthy by touring throughout the United States with her Emma Abbott Grand Opera Company.  Julie Rosewald also toured with Emma's Company.

Emma passed away in Salt Lake City, Utah, on January 5, 1891.  She was buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Helen Morton Smith was born in Sullivan Harbor, Maine, on December 12, 1859.  After she was educated at a convent in Michigan, Helen returned to Maine and became a teacher.  By 1888, Helen was teaching at her own private school in Bar Harbor, Maine.

Desiring to become a journalist, she changed her career course. Helen moved to Boston, Massachusetts, and became a reporter for the Bar Harbor Record, as the Boston correspondent, and Boston's Saturday Evening Gazette. She was an early member of the New England Woman's Press Association, serving as the recording secretary until April of 1891. (Lord, 54)  At that time, she returned to Maine to become managing editor of the Bar Harbor Record, but her tenure there came to an end when the new owner fired her.  She moved back to Boston and wrote for the Boston Home Journal (Vandenberg and Shettleworth).  Helen was a determined journalist.  As the Savannah Courier of January  14, 1892, noted: "MISS HELEN SMITH, who edited the Bar Harbor Record last summer, is said to be the only editor who succeeded in procuring an interview with Mr. Blaine" (1).

In 1893, Helen returned to Sullivan Harbor, bought the Bar Harbor Record, and became managing editor of the newspaper (Vandenberg and Shettleworth).  In addition, she was manager of the Bar Harbor Press Co., a  job printing establishment tied to the Bar Harbor Record.  By 1897, Helen was catering to, and making a profit off of, the many wealthy people who flocked to the area during the warm weather by issuing semi-weekly editions of The Society Journal of Mt. Desert Island. Helen retired from the Bar Harbor Record in November of 1904 (Maine Press Association Report, 33).  She became publisher of Bar Harbor Life in 1918, continuing in this position for several years.  While spending the winter in Boston in 1923, Helen wrote “Jottings from Boston” for The Bangor News. Later that year, she was run over while in Boston and suffered serious injuries.  Helen passed away on December 16, 1923, and was buried in Sullivan Harbor’s York Hill Cemetery.