Since writing the sketch for the _ANB_, I received copies of some family records from a member of the Forsyth family in Western Australia (Ron Forsyth). I wrote up these family records as a short article; Scott Haine will publish it in the _SHAR_ sometime when he has the space to spare. At 08:13 AM 12/2/1999 -0500, you wrote: >American National Biography entry penned by our very own David M. Fahey. > >Return-Path: <[log in to unmask]> >Approved-By: [log in to unmask] >Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 02:00:01 -0500 >Reply-To: [log in to unmask] >Sender: "Oxford University Press: Biography of the day" ><[log in to unmask]> >From: [log in to unmask] >Organization: Oxford University Press >Subject: ANB - Bio Of The Day >To: [log in to unmask] > >The following biography is from the American National Biography, >published by Oxford University Press. Copyright 1999 ACLS. > > >Forsyth, Jessie (29 Apr. 1847-18 Sept. 1937), temperance reformer, >was born in London, England, the daughter of Andrew Forsyth, a >baker, and Eliza Maria Kitteridge, both of Scottish origin. The >caricaturist and illustrator George Cruikshank was her great-uncle. >Ill health left her with a skimpy formal education. She was a >devout, lifelong member of the Church of England. Orphaned in her >teens, Forsyth found her sense of belonging in a fraternal >temperance society, the militantly prohibitionist Independent (later >International) Order of Good Templars. According to her memoirs, she >had not been a teetotaler when her desire to make new friends and >enjoy sociable weekly lodge meetings persuaded her to become a Good >Templar in 1872. Late in 1874 she sailed to the United States to >take a job as a bookkeeper for a printing company in Boston, >Massachusetts. Within a few months she joined an American lodge of >the Templar Order. > >Organized in central New York in 1852, the IOGT endorsed the >equality of women as members and officeholders. This universalist >ideology embraced all teetotalers who advocated prohibition. In 1868 >the Order claimed over 500,000 members in North America (a figure >that quickly shrank) and later added hundreds of thousands in >Britain (and its empire) and Scandinavia. Most members were young, >often from working- or lower middle-class families, and, even when >they remained abstainers, they tended to drift quickly out of the >organization. Forsyth's lifelong commitment was exceptional. > >In 1876, quarreling over the rights of blacks in the American South >who wanted to become members, the Good Templars split into two rival >international organizations. Americans and Canadians accused the >British of seeking to take over the Order and made the retention of >white Southern members their highest priority. At a time when the >IOGT was losing members in most American states, membership was >growing among Southern whites. Forsyth belonged to a small minority >of Massachusetts Good Templars who supported the predominantly >British party in condemning racism as contrary to the Good Templar >principle of universal brotherhood and sisterhood. She was an >admirer of William Wells Brown, a Boston physician, who was the >leading African American in her Good Templar organization. > >In 1883 Forsyth was elected Right Worthy Grand Vice Templar in her >faction's international organization and was appointed the editor of >its monthly newspaper, Temperance Brotherhood. She also became the >American agent for the British committee that financed the campaign >to recruit blacks. Once shy, she became an effective organizer and >speaker and, in 1885-1886, traveled to Britain, Germany, and >Scandinavia. She also wrote prolifically, including memoirs, >didactic essays, biographical sketches, stories for children, and >verse. After the Order reunited in 1887 on what amounted to a >segregated basis, Forsyth remained Vice Templar until 1889. > >At this time interested in socialism, Forsyth became a charter >member and secretary of the Second Boston Nationalist Club in 1889, >inspired by Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888). She was a >staunch advocate of women's suffrage and occasionally criticized the >Good Templars for failing to live up to their ideals of gender >equality. > >Beginning in 1893 Forsyth led the Good Templar international work >for children. By the time that an Englishman defeated her for >reelection, in 1908, Good Templar juvenile auxiliaries claimed >nearly 240,000 members. The triumph of state prohibition contributed >to the virtual disappearance of Good Templary in the United States, >and the weakness of the Order in its birthplace helped explain >Forsyth's defeat. Europeans dominated the membership, so Britons, >Swedes, and Norwegians won election to most of the international >offices. Forsyth's editorship of the monthly International Good >Templar, begun in 1901, also ended in 1908, when a Scotsman defeated >its American owner for reelection as international secretary. In >1911 she retired from the printing shop where she had worked all her >American days, and which for the last eight or nine years she had >owned. She then emigrated to Australia. > >In January 1912 Forsyth arrived in Freemantle, Western Australia, >where her sister lived. Although she briefly held office in the >local Grand Lodge of the IOGT, she devoted most of her energy to the >Woman's Christian Temperance Union, which she served as state >president for Western Australia from 1913 to 1916. In 1917-1918 she >was organizing secretary of the Australian National Prohibition >League in Melbourne. She then returned to Western Australia where, >in 1919, she founded the Dawn, a newspaper for women reformers, and >resumed work for the state WCTU. In 1922 ill health forced her to >curtail her service to temperance, although she continued to write, >notably a newspaper column for children. > >In her memoirs, published in Good Templar periodicals, Forsyth said >almost nothing about her life outside the Order. She never married, >although she loved children and cherished friendships with many men >and women. She said that without the Good Templars her life would >have been colorless and lonely. > >Until her death in Leederville, a suburb of Perth, Western >Australia, Forsyth remained committed to her Order. She regarded its >program of total abstinence and prohibition, combined with universal >brotherhood and sisterhood, as a moral crusade that offered a >foundation for other social reforms, such as women's rights, racial >justice, and the conquest of poverty. > >Bibliography >Letters from Forsyth are in the George F. Cotterill Papers in the >University of Washington libraries and in the Grand Lodge of >Wisconsin, IOGT, papers at the State Historical Society of >Wisconsin. Her principal memoir, "Thirty Years of Good Templary," >was published in the International Good Templar (1903-1904), >reprinted in The Collected Writings of Jessie Forsyth, 1847-1937: >The Good Templars and Temperance Reform on Three Continents, ed. >David M. Fahey (1988), with an editorial introduction, "One Woman's >World." See also Ernest Hurst Cherrington, ed., Standard >Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, 6 vols. (1925-1930). > >Written by David M. Fahey > > >Note: This email has been sent in plain text format so that it may be >read with the standard ASCII character set. Special characters and >formatting have been normalized. > >Copyright Notice >Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of the >American National Biography of the Day and Sample Biographies provided >that the following statement is preserved on all copies: > > From American National Biography, published by Oxford University > Press, Inc., copyright 1999 American Council of Learned Societies. > Further information is available at http://www.anb.org. > >American National Biography articles may not be published commercially >(in print or electronic form), edited, reproduced or otherwise altered >without the written permission of Oxford University Press which acts as >an agent in these matters for the copyright holder, the American Council >of Learned Societies. Contact: Permissions Department, Oxford University >Press, 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016; fax: 212-726-6444. > >To unsubscribe please send an email message to >[log in to unmask] and copy the following text into the text of >the message (NOT the subject line): SIGNOFF ANB-BIO-L > > >Mike Dorn >Department of Geography >1457 Patterson Office Tower >University of Kentucky >Lexington, KY 40506-0027 >USA > >Office tel: (606) 257-2931 >FAX: (606) 323-1969 > >Home tel: (606) 233-9712 >e-mail: [log in to unmask] >http://www.uky.edu/ArtsSciences/Geography/grads/dorn.htm >