Ida M. Eliot (October 9, 1839 – 1923) was an American writer, educator, philosopher, and entomologist who published one of the first books on caterpillars, Caterpillars and Their Moths (1902) with Caroline Soule.
Ida M. Eliot | |
|---|---|
| Born | Ida Mitchel Eliot October 9, 1836 |
| Died | 1923 |
| Occupation(s) | Educator, feminist |
| Parent | Thomas D. Eliot |
Early life and career
editEliot was born in October 9, 1839 in New Bedford, Massachusetts to Congressman Thomas D. Eliot. Eliot graduated from the Salem Normal School (now Salem State University) in Salem, Massachusetts. Eliot then moved to St. Louis, Missouri where her uncle, William Greenleaf Eliot was a prominent minister and philanthropist. In St. Louis after the Civil War, Eliot founded a school for freed African America students in a church basement.[1] She served as assistant principal of the St. Louis Normal School (Harris-Stowe State College) under her close friend, Anna Brackett. Eliot and Brackett associated with the St. Louis Hegelians, and both later published philosophical works.[2] In 1872, when Anna Brackett resigned as principal, Eliot moved with Brackett to New York City. With Brackett, Eliot adopted a three-year-old daughter, Hope Davison, in 1873 and a second daughter, Bertha Lincoln, in 1875. In New York, Brackett and Eliot started The Brackett School for Girls, located at 9 West 39th Street, and they hired female teachers such as Mary Mitchell Birchall, the first woman to receive a bachelor's degree from a New England college.[3] Eliot's adopted daughter, Hope, went on to graduate from college.[4] By 1900, Ida had moved back to New Bedford with her daughter, Ida, and sister Edith.[5] Eliot died in 1923.
Notable works
edit- Poetry for Home and School (1876)
- Caterpillars and Their Moths (1902)
References
edit- ^ Scharf, John Thomas (1883). History of Saint Louis City and County: From the Earliest Periods to the Present Day: Including Biographical Sketches of Representative Men. L. H. Everts.
- ^ Rogers 2005, p. 73-74.
- ^ The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, Volume 44, edited by Richard Watson Gilder, p.980
- ^ America's First Women Philosophers: Transplanting Hegel, 1860–1925 By Dorothy G. Rogers, pg. 82
- ^ 1900 Census accessed on https://www.familysearch.org
Bibliography
edit- Rogers, Dorothy G. (2005). America's First Women Philosophers: Transplanting Hegel, 1860–1925. Continuum. ISBN 978-1-84714-300-6.