Woman of the Century/Emma Shaw
SHAW. Miss Emma, author and traveler, born in Thompson, Conn., 3rd September. 1846. She was educated in a private school until 1862, when she became a teacher of country schools. She taught until 1872. when she made her home in Providence, R.I. There she became a teacher, and she has risen to a high position. In 1881 she began her literary work. She went in that year on a trip to the Northwest, for the purpose of regaining her strength. Her tour of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi she made the subject of a series of brilliant sketches in the Providence " Press." She made other trips in the following years, and each time she described her journeys in an entertaining manner. In 18S4 she published a series of illustrated articles in the "Journal of Education," continuing from February till June, after which she visited Alaska, and she has delivered a lecture on that country before clubs and lyceums. In 1885 she revisited Alaska, returning via the Yellowstone National Park. She traveled in the West extensively in 1886-87, and in 1888 she extended her journeys into Canada, penetrating the Hudson Bay Company's country, where no other reporter had ventured. Her articles on that, as well as her wanderings for the next five years, have made her name well known to the readers of the Boston "Transcript." The years 1889, 1891 and 1892 found her exploring unfrequented nooks in British America and the (Jueen Charlotte Islands. In 1890 she visited all the Hawaiian Islands, the wonders of which furnished material for a long series of articles as well as for several illustrated lectures of exceeding interest. Her lectures were entitled "Up the Saskatchewan," "Through Hawaii with a Kodak" and " From Ocean to Ocean." She published her first poem, "New Year's Eve," in 1883. She has since then written much in verse.