Elizabeth Glendower Evans (February 28, 1856 – December 12, 1937) was an American

social reformer A reform movement or reformism is a type of social movement that aims to bring a social or also a political system closer to the community's ideal. A reform movement is distinguished from more radical social movements such as revolutionary move ...

and

suffragist Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...

Life

Evans née Gardiner was born on February 28, 1856, in New Rochelle, New York. She inherited a significant amount of money when she turned 26 in 1882. The same year she married Glendower Evans who died four years later, in 1886. Evans traveled to England in 1908. There she became involved in understanding the issues of industrialized society including hazardous working conditions and unemployment. There she was introduced to socialism. When Evans returned to the United States she took up the cause of

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

and the associated problems of tenements and factory work arising from disenfranchisement. Evans pursued social reform, serving in a variety of positions. She was a trustee of the Massachusetts State Reform Schools from 1886 through 1914. She was a member of the

Women's Educational and Industrial Union The Women's Educational and Industrial Union (1877–2006) in Boston, Massachusetts, was founded by physician Harriet Clisby for the advancement of women and to help women and children in the industrial city. By 1893, chapters of the WEIU were estab ...

of Boston as well as the Boston

Women's Trade Union League The Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) (1903–1950) was a U.S. organization of both working class and more well-off women to support the efforts of women to organize labor unions and to eliminate sweatshop conditions. The WTUL played an important ...

, the Massachusetts Minimum Wage Commission, and the Massachusetts Consumers' League. In 1915 Evans served as a delegate to the International Congress of Women at the Hague. She was the first National Organizer of the

Woman's Peace Party The Woman's Peace Party (WPP) was an American pacifist and feminist organization formally established in January 1915 in response to World War I. The organization is remembered as the first American peace organization to make use of direct acti ...

.Eleanor Barr
"Woman's Peace Party, 1915-20 Finding Aid: Historical Introduction,"
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Collection DG043, Swarthmore College Library, Swarthmore, PA. From 1920 until 1937 she served as a national director of the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

. Evans died on December 12, 1937, in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Legacy

Evans papers are housed at the

Schlesinger Library The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America is a research library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. According to Nancy F. Cott, the Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Director ...

in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Life

Legacy

See also

References

Further reading