ADAMS, Mary Newbury

Family History: http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=parsons2012&id=I6000000001865811824

Mary Adams (Photo: Iowa Commission on the Status of Women)

ADAMS, Mary Newbury. (Peru, IN, Oct. 17, 1837--Dubuque, IA, Aug. 5, 1901). The daughter of a prominent New England family which included five governors, Mary Newbury received her early education from her mother. Upon moving to Cleveland, Ohio she was enrolled in the classes of the well-known educator, Emerson E. White. She graduated from the Emma Willard Seminary at Troy, New York at the age of eighteen and married Austin ADAMS the following year. (1)

In 1868, Mary Adams established the Conversational Club of Dubuque, her first study club. Topics prepared in advance included education local progress, political science and economy, mental and moral philosophy, the fine arts, political revolutions, ecclesiastical history, natural philosophy, and physical sciences. (2) After hearing Elizabeth Cady Stanton lecture, she became active in the women's suffrage movement as a speaker and organizer of state, regional, and national meetings.(3) One of the founders of the Northern Iowa Woman Suffrage Society, Adams and her friends called for Dubuque's first suffrage meeting in 1869 after a planned state convention in Des Moines failed to be held. (4)Shortly afterward, she became the chief letter-writer for the Suffrage Society.

Adams believed women needed education before gaining the right to vote. An early member of the Iowa Federation of Women's Clubs, Adams believed the right to vote would be useless to uneducated women unable to comprehend complex political and social events. (5) Living in predominantly Catholic Dubuque, she was especially concerned about the clergy's great influence over women.

Adams was also associated with the Woman's Suffrage Association, Dubuque Ladies Literary Association, General Federation of Women's Clubs, National Science Foundation, Association for the Advancement of Women, Anthropological Society, and the Social Science Association. (6) She chaired the Historical Committee of the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893. (7) To further education of children, she gave her own books to country schools that eventually resulted in the creation of the County Library.

An active member of the Transcendentalist movement, Mary Adams traveled and lectured on reform topics, woman suffrage and human potential. In her later years, she studied theosophy--a mixture of science, philosophy, and spirituality. (8)

In 1981, Mary Newbury Adams was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame. (9)

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Source:

1. Gue, B. F. History of Iowa From the Earliest Times To The Beginning of the Twentieth Century, Volume IV, Iowa Biography. Online: www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~iabiog/iastbios/hi1903/hi1903-a.htm

2. Hudson, David; Bergman, Marvin; Horton, Loren. The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2008 p. 3

3. Ibid.

4. "Mary Newbury Adams," Iowa Commission on the Status of Women, http://www.women.iowa.gov/about_women/HOF/iafame-adams.html

5. Ibid.

6. Adams Family Papers: Online:http://www.lib.iastate.edu/spcl/manuscripts/MS010.html

7. Hudson, The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa, p. 3

8. Hudson, The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa," p. 4

9. Iowa Commission on the Status of Women. http://www.women.iowa.gov/about_women/HOF/iafame-adams.html