Life and Career
Born in Sandy Springs, Ohio (across the Ohio River from Vanceburg, Kentucky) she attended a seminary for girls, then married merchant William Wittenmyer at age 20. In 1850, they moved to Keokuk, Iowa, and she started a tuition-free school for underprivileged children in 1853. She also developed a Methodist congregation from these children and wrote several hymns. Three of her four children died before reaching adulthood, and her husband died in 1860.
During the American Civil War, she cared for wounded soldiers and joined the Keokuk Ladies' Soldiers' Aid Society. She traveled to military hospitals and described the horrible conditions, prompting local support. In 1862, Wittenmeyer became the first woman mentioned by name in an Iowa legislative document when she was appointed as a Sanitary Agent for the Iowa State Sanitary Commission. In 1863, she began advocating for war orphans, helping to create several new Iowa orphanages, including the Iowa Soldiers' Orphans' Home, which was later renamed the Annie Wittenmyer Home. She resigned her position in 1864 to work on her dietary system for hospitals.
Following the war, she helped found the Woman’s Home Missionary Society and served as their first corresponding secretary in 1871. She edited the periodicals The Christian Woman and The Christian Child, and she wrote several more hymns and the book Woman's Work for Jesus.
During Wittenmyer's tenure as first president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the group grew to over 1,000 local chapters. She edited their periodical Our Union and published two books on the topic: Her book History of the Women's Temperance Crusade in 1878, and Women of the Reformation in 1884. She was succeeded by Frances Willard when the organization began to focus on women's suffrage.
Wittenmyer then returned to medical advocacy for veterans and nurses. In 1889 she was elected President of the Woman's Relief Corps and focused on providing retirement living for nurses and war widows. She lobbied for pensions for retired military nurses, leading to legislation passed in 1892.
She published her autobiography Under the Gun in 1895 and received her own pension in 1898. Wittenmyer died of an asthma attack following a lecture and was buried in Sanatoga, Pennsylvania.
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union's Annie Wittenmyer White Ribbon Award is named in her honor, and the Iowa Soldiers and Sailors Orphanage was renamed The Annie Wittenmyer Complex in her honor. It previously housed a branch of the Davenport Public Library and currently houses The Parks and Recreation Department and several children's organizations.
Read more about this topic: Annie Turner Wittenmyer
Famous quotes containing the words life and, life and/or career:
“I would like you to understand completely, also emotionally, that I’m a political detainee and will be a political prisoner, that I have nothing now or in the future to be ashamed of in this situation. That, at bottom, I myself have in a certain sense asked for this detention and this sentence, because I’ve always refused to change my opinion, for which I would be willing to give my life and not just remain in prison. That therefore I can only be tranquil and content with myself.”
—Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937)
“A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips;Mnot be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself. The symbol of an ancient man’s thought becomes a modern man’s speech.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)