Jane Swisshelm
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, abolitionist, and women's rights
Women's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
advocate.
Life
Swisshelm was born Jane Grey Cannon in PittsburghPittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, USA, daughter of Thomas Cannon, a Presbyterian merchant and real estate speculator. When she was eight years of age, her father died, leaving the family in straitened circumstances, and Jane worked at manual labor and teaching. A teacher at age 14, she married at age 21; she moved with her husband, James Swisshelm, to Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
, where she first encountered slavery. It made a strong impression on her. Jane was strong-willed, and her marriage was difficult. In 1839, she moved to Philadelphia, against her husband's wishes, to care for her ailing mother. After her mother's death, she headed a seminary
Seminary
A seminary, theological college, or divinity school is an institution of secondary or post-secondary education for educating students in theology, generally to prepare them for ordination as clergy or for other ministry...
in Butler, Pennsylvania
Butler, Pennsylvania
The city of Butler is the county seat of Butler County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, situated north of Pittsburgh. The population was 15,121 at the 2000 census.- History :...
. She rejoined her husband two years later on his farm, which she called Swissvale, east of Pittsburgh. (Today the area is Edgewood, Pennsylvania
Edgewood, Pennsylvania
Edgewood is the name of some places in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania:*Edgewood, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania*Edgewood, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania...
).
During this time, she began writing articles against capital punishment
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
and stories, poems, and articles for an anti-slavery newspaper, the Spirit of Liberty, and others in Pittsburgh. When the Spirit of Liberty went out of business, Swisshelm founded her own called Saturday Visitor in 1848. It eventually reached a national circulation of 6,000, and in 1856 was merged with the Pittburgh Journal. She wrote many editorial
Editorial
An opinion piece is an article, published in a newspaper or magazine, that mainly reflects the author's opinion about the subject. Opinion pieces are featured in many periodicals.-Editorials:...
s advocating women's property rights.
In 1857, she divorced her husband and moved west to St. Cloud, Minnesota
St. Cloud, Minnesota
St. Cloud is a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the largest population center in the state's central region. The population was 65,842 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Stearns County...
, where she controlled a string of papers, promoting abolition and women's rights by writing and lecturing. Writing in The Saint Cloud Visitor, Swisshelm waged a private war against General
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....
Sylvanus Lowry
Sylvanus Lowry
General Sylvanus P. Lowry was a slave owning Southern aristocrat from Kentucky who reigned as the political boss of Saint Cloud, Minnesota. He is well known in Minnesota folklore for his personal war with Abolitionist newspaper publisher Jane Grey Swisshelm....
, an aristocratic Southerner who had settled in the area and reigned as Saint Cloud's political boss
Political boss
A boss, in politics, is a person who wields the power over a particular political region or constituency. Bosses may dictate voting patterns, control appointments, and wield considerable influence in other political processes. They do not necessarily hold public office themselves...
. Swisshelm was especially infuriated that Lowry owned slaves in the free territory of Minnesota. Writing in The Visitor, she accused General Lowry of swindling the Indians, ordering vigilante
Vigilante
A vigilante is a private individual who legally or illegally punishes an alleged lawbreaker, or participates in a group which metes out extralegal punishment to an alleged lawbreaker....
attacks on suspected claim jumpers, and torturing his own slaves. After a particularly fiery editorial, Lowry formed a "Committee of Vigilance," broke into the newspaper's offices, smashed the printing press
Printing press
A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...
, and threw the pieces into the nearby Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
. She soon raised money for another press and raised her attacks to a fever pitch. General Lowry, who was being groomed for the post of Lieutenant Governor
Lieutenant governor
A lieutenant governor or lieutenant-governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction, but is often the deputy or lieutenant to or ranking under a governor — a "second-in-command"...
, was forced to watch the destruction of all his influence over Saint Cloud politics. He died in obscurity in 1865.
When Abraham Lincoln was nominated for the presidency, she spoke and wrote in his behalf. When the civil war began and nurses were wanted at the front, she was one of the first to respond. After the Battle of the Wilderness
Battle of the Wilderness
The Battle of the Wilderness, fought May 5–7, 1864, was the first battle of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's 1864 Virginia Overland Campaign against Gen. Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Both armies suffered heavy casualties, a harbinger of a bloody war of attrition by...
, she had charge of 182 badly wounded men at Fredericksburg
Fredericksburg, Virginia
Fredericksburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia located south of Washington, D.C., and north of Richmond. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 24,286...
for five days, without surgeon or assistant, and saved them all.
In 1862, when a Sioux
Sioux
The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
Indian uprising
Dakota War of 1862
The Dakota War of 1862, also known as the Sioux Uprising, was an armed conflict between the United States and several bands of the eastern Sioux. It began on August 17, 1862, along the Minnesota River in southwest Minnesota...
in Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
resulted in the deaths of hundreds of white settlers, it prompted her to demand punishment by the federal government
Federal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...
against the Indians. She toured major cities to this end and, while in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, met her Pittsburgh friend Edwin M. Stanton
Edwin M. Stanton
Edwin McMasters Stanton was an American lawyer and politician who served as Secretary of War under the Lincoln Administration during the American Civil War from 1862–1865...
, then Secretary of War
United States Secretary of War
The Secretary of War was a member of the United States President's Cabinet, beginning with George Washington's administration. A similar position, called either "Secretary at War" or "Secretary of War," was appointed to serve the Congress of the Confederation under the Articles of Confederation...
, who offered her a clerkship in the government. She sold her Minnesota paper but worked as an army nurse during the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
in the Washington area, until her job became available. She became a friend of Mary Todd Lincoln
Mary Todd Lincoln
Mary Ann Lincoln was the wife of the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, and was First Lady of the United States from 1861 to 1865.-Life before the White House:...
.
After the war, Swisshelm started her final newspaper, the Reconstructionist, but her blasts against President Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson was the 17th President of the United States . As Vice-President of the United States in 1865, he succeeded Abraham Lincoln following the latter's assassination. Johnson then presided over the initial and contentious Reconstruction era of the United States following the American...
led to her losing the paper and her government job. In 1872, she attended the Prohibition Party
Prohibition Party
The Prohibition Party is a political party in the United States best known for its historic opposition to the sale or consumption of alcoholic beverages. It is the oldest existing third party in the US. The party was an integral part of the temperance movement...
convention as a delegate. As well as being a prolific writer for newspapers and magazines, she published Letters to Country Girls (New York, 1853), and an autobiography entitled Half of a Century (1881).
Swisshelm died in 1884 at her Swissvale home and is buried in Allegheny Cemetery
Allegheny Cemetery
Allegheny Cemetery is one of the largest and oldest burial grounds in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.It is a nonsectarian, wooded hillside park located at 4734 Butler Street in the Lawrenceville neighborhood and bounded by Bloomfield, Garfield, and Stanton Heights...
. The city of Pittsburgh neighborhood of Swisshelm Park
Swisshelm Park
Swisshelm Park is a neighborhood located in the southeast corner of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is represented on by Douglas Shields. The neighborhood is notable for being almost unreachable by road within the city limits. As a result, it's often mistaken for a suburban neighborhood...
, adjacent to Swissvale, is named in her honor.