parlor conversation on the topics which so absorbed her induced Mrs Adsit to open her home to groups of ladies and gentlemen, who cared to take up the study in earnest. The field of her labor gradually broadened, and during the last thirteen years she has given her lecture courses in nearly all the principal cities east and west. Her name is now prominently identified with art education, both in this country and abroad. While Mrs. Adsit disclaims being an artist, she is yet a most competent and thorough critic and elucidator of art. Her criticisms of prints, especially, are sought by connoisseurs and collectors. The secret of her success lies in the fact that her work is simply the expression of her own personality. Her abounding enthusiasm carries her audiences on its forceful tide. In a recent report of its Wisconsin secretary to the Association for the Advancement of Women, of which Mrs. Adsit is one of the vice-presidents, the writer says: "To Mrs. C. D. Adsit's work is due, directly or indirectly, most of the art interest in our State as well as the entire West." Her own adverse experiences have quickened and enlarged her sympathies toward all working women, to whom she gives not only wholesome advice, but also substantial aid. Her pleasant home in Milwaukee is a center of art and of delightful social interchange.
AGASSIZ, Mrs. Elizabeth Cabot, naturalist. She is the daughter of Thomas Graves Cary of Boston, Mass. She was married to Professor Louis Agassiz in 1850. She accompanied her husband on his journey to Brazil in 1865-6 and on the Hassler expedition in 1871-2; of the second she wrote an account for the "Atlantic Monthly," and was associated with him in many of his studies and writings. She has published "A First Lesson in Natural History" (Boston, 1859) and edited "Geological Sketches" (1866). Her husband died in 1873, and Mrs. Agassiz edited his "Life and Correspondence" in two volumes (Boston, 1885), a very important work. Mrs. Agassiz resides in Cambridge, Mass, and has done much to further the interest of the Harvard "Annex."
AHRENS, Mrs. Mary A., lawyer and philanthropist, born in Staffordshire, England, 29th December, 1836. When she was fifteen years of age her father, the Rev. William H. Jones, brought his family to America and settled in Illinois. Mary was a pupil in the seminary in Galesburg for several years, and a close student until her first marriage, in 1857. Two sons and a daughter were born to her from this union. For eighteen years she was engaged in home duties and horticulture, and in the seclusion of this home she took up the study of medicine and earned her diploma. She felt impelled to labor for the elevation of the recently emancipated colored race, and was the first woman teacher in southern Illinois for that ignorant and long-neglected people. For years after her removal to Chicago Mrs Ahrens devoted herself largely to the lecture field, for which she is well qualified. Soon after her marriage to Louis Ahrens, an artist of ability, this woman of many talents entered the Chicago Union College of Law, and was graduated with honors in 1889. Her success as a practitioner has been marked. True to a high womanly standard, she adopted as a principle of action that, so far as the interests of her clients allowed, her aim should be to adjust differences outside of the courts. Naturally, many of her clients were women, poor and friendless. As vice-president of the Protective Agency for Women and Children. Mrs Ahrens has been of great service to that benevolent organization. Recently, at the annual banquet of the State Bar Association held in Springfield, Ill., Mrs. Ahrens responded to the toast, "Woman in the Learned Professions." Mrs. Ahrens was made chairman of the Woman's School Suffrage Association, of Cook county, and her efforts to secure to the women citizens their legal right to vote at school elections entitle her to the gratitude of every woman in the State. She is a
MARY A. AHRENS.
member of the Illinois Woman's Press Association, and a paper prepared for the club, in 1892, entitled "Disabilities of Women before the Law," was a masterful presentation of the need of the ballot-power for woman. She has been a suffrage advocate for more than twenty years. Her home is in Chicago.
AIKENS, Mrs. Amanda L., editor and philanthropist, born in North Adams, Mass., 12th May, 1833. Her father's name was Asahel Richardson Barnes. Her mother's maiden name was Mary Whitcomb Slocum. Mrs. Aikens was reared under deeply religious influences. Much of her education was received in Maplewood Institute. Pittsfield, Mass. Since her marriage to Andrew Jackson Aikens she has lived in Milwaukee, Wis., where she has been for many years a leader in local charities, church work and efforts for the intellectual development of women. She has one daughter, Stella, who is a poet of wide reputation. In November, 1887, Mrs. Aikens began to edit "The Woman's World," a special department of "The Evening Wisconsin." of which her husband is one of the proprietors, published in Milwaukee. Up to that time she was best known for her active interest in, and intimate connection with, numerous benevolent societies. She was at one time president of the Board of Local Charities and Corrections, two years president of the Woman's Club of Milwaukee, two years chairman of the Art Committee, and has been vice-president of the Wisconsin Industrial School for Girls, and for ten years the chairman of its executive committee. During the Civil War she was an indefatigable worker. It
