Susan J. Swift Steele (December 25, 1822 – September 4, 1895) was an American social reformer. She was affiliated with the
,
Woman's Christian Temperance Union
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international temperance organization, originating among women in the United States Prohibition movement. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program th ...
(WCTU), and the
Newton, Massachusetts
Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is approximately west of downtown Boston. Newton resembles a patchwork of thirteen villages, without a city center. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the population of Ne ...
Wesleyan Home, among other organizations.
Biography
Susan Jane Swift was born in
Provincetown, Massachusetts
Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States Census, Province ...
, on December 25, 1822. Her parents were Capt. John and Lydia Swift.
[ ] She was a student at
Wilbraham Wesleyan Academy Wilbraham Wesleyan Academy was one of the oldest educational institutions of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It was established by Methodist clergy of New England in 1818. Originally located in New Market, New Hampshire, before moving to Wilbraham, ...
, where she was graduated in 1850, as valedictorian. At about the age of eighteen, she joined the
Methodist Episcopal Church
The Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) was the oldest and largest Methodist denomination in the United States from its founding in 1784 until 1939. It was also the first religious denomination in the US to organize itself on a national basis. In ...
.
After the completion of her course of study, she engaged for a time in teaching -the longest period being in connection with her alma mater- both before and after her marriage.
On July 1, 1852, she married Rev.
George McKendree Steele, one of the teachers at the Academy.
Twelve years a most effective and devoted worker, she shared in the pastorates of her husband at
Warren, Massachusetts;
Fitchburg, Massachusetts
Fitchburg is a city in northern Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The third-largest city in the county, its population was 41,946 at the 2020 census. Fitchburg is home to Fitchburg State University as well as 17 public and private e ...
;
Lowell, Massachusetts
Lowell () is a city in Massachusetts, in the United States. Alongside Cambridge, It is one of two traditional seats of Middlesex County. With an estimated population of 115,554 in 2020, it was the fifth most populous city in Massachusetts as of ...
;
Watertown, Massachusetts
Watertown is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, and is part of Greater Boston. The population was 35,329 in the 2020 census. Its neighborhoods include Bemis, Coolidge Square, East Watertown, Watertown Square, and the West End.
Waterto ...
;
Lynn, Massachusetts
Lynn is the eighth-largest municipality in Massachusetts and the largest city in Essex County. Situated on the Atlantic Ocean, north of the Boston city line at Suffolk Downs, Lynn is part of Greater Boston's urban inner core. Settled by E ...
; and
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
.
In the year 1865, her husband was called to the presidency of
Lawrence University
Lawrence University is a private liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Appleton, Wisconsin. Founded in 1847, its first classes were held on November 12, 1849. Lawrence was the second college in the U.S. to be founded as a coeducati ...
at
Appleton, Wisconsin
Appleton ( mez, Ahkōnemeh)
is a city in Outagamie, Calumet, and Winnebago counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. One of the Fox Cities, it is situated on the Fox River, southwest of Green Bay and north of Milwaukee. Appleton is the c ...
, serving for fourteen years. Mrs. Steele, as secretary for the State, organized many of the auxiliaries of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church in
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
.
The temperance reform also enlisted Steele's effort. In 1873–74, she marched with the ranks of the historic
Women's Crusade
The Woman's Crusade was a temperance campaign in the United States in 1873-1874. It was a series of non-violent protests fighting against the dangers of alcoholism.
Background
Many women in Cleveland, Ohio were inspired by a speech given by Dio ...
, and in October 1874, Steele was elected president of the Wisconsin Women's Temperance Alliance. At
Chautauqua
Chautauqua ( ) was an adult education and social movement in the United States, highly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Chautauqua assemblies expanded and spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s. The Chautauqua br ...
, Steele was involved with the
First Woman's National Temperance Convention. The presidency of the National WCTU, conferred upon
Frances Willard
Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard (September 28, 1839 – February 17, 1898) was an American educator, temperance reformer, and women's suffragist. Willard became the national president of Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1879 an ...
in 1878, had been previously offer to Steele, who refused the nomination.
She organized many WCTU societies, and was for years
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
State president of the body. As a platform lecturer and a parliamentary leader, she was at this period in as constant service as her home duties would permit.
In 1877, she traveled in Europe, visiting England, France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany. She also delivered frequent addresses on missionary and temperance themes.
In 1879, her husband having accepted a call to the principalship of Wesleyan Academy, she returned to the East and resided again at
Wilbraham, Massachusetts
Wilbraham is a town in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb of the City of Springfield, and part of the Springfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 14,613 at the 2020 census.
Part of the town comprises ...
. From this time, she found herself less capable of working. She declined many nominations to offices, including the state presidency of
Massachusetts
Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...
for the WCTU,
with the remark, “It requires greater wisdom to know when to leave off than when to begin.” Still, in a circle that by most women would have been thought a wide one, she continued for more than a decade to show her interest in all the forms of missionary and temperance work to which her earlier life had been given.
In 1892, she came with her husband to live in
Auburndale, Massachusetts
Auburndale is one of the thirteen villages within the city of Newton in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It lies at the western end of Newton near the intersection of interstate highways 90 and 95. It is bisected by the Massachu ...
when Dr. Steele accepted a professorship at Lasell Seminary (now
Lasell University).
Even here, though seventy years of age, she identified herself with many forms of Christian work. Two days before her death, she presided over a meeting of the committee on the Newton Wesleyan Home. Her last conversation before she died was in the interest of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. She died on September 4, 1895. At her death, she was president of the Wesleyan Home for missionaries' children at
Newton, Massachusetts
Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is approximately west of downtown Boston. Newton resembles a patchwork of thirteen villages, without a city center. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the population of Ne ...
; vice-president of the
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...
branch of the Woman's Foreign Missionary society; and president of the auxiliary at Auburndale.
Of Steele's children two daughters died in childhood. Her son, George Francis, of
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, and four grandchildren survived her.
Selected works
* Wisconsin state chapter, ''History of the Women's Temperance Crusade'' (Philadelphia: Office of the Christian Woman, 1878)
References
Attribution
*
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Bibliography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Steele, Susan J. Swift
1822 births
1895 deaths
People from Provincetown, Massachusetts
Woman's Christian Temperance Union people
American social reformers
American temperance activists
19th-century American non-fiction writers
Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church