Margaret Ashmore Sudduth

Margaret Ashmore Sudduth (June 29, 1859 – September 21, 1957) was an American educator, editor, and temperance advocate. She was the senior editor upon the staff of the Woman's Temperance Publishing Association, overseeing The Union Signal.

Margaret Ashmore Sudduth
Born	Margaret Ashmore June 29, 1859 Mason County, Illinois, U.S.
Died	September 21, 1957(1957-09-21) (aged 98) Los Angeles County, California, U.S.
Resting place	Olivewood Memorial Park, Riverside, California, U.S.
Occupation	educator, editor, temperance advocate
Alma mater	Illinois Wesleyan University, Wellesley College

Sudduth was called in July 1887 to a position as editor of Oak and Ivy Leaf, organ of the Young Woman's Christian Temperance Union (Y. W. C. T. U.), and soon became associate editor of The Union Signal also. In 1892, on her appointment as managing editor of The Union Signal, she resigned her connection with the young woman's paper.

Early life and education

Margaret Ashmore Sudduth was born on a farm in Mason County, Illinois, June 29, 1959. Her parents were Dr. James McCreary Sudduth (1827–1895) and Amanda Elizabeth Sudduth (1828–1898). She had two siblings, a brother, Dr. William Xavier Sudduth, and a sister, Alice Sudduth Byerly. Her father had built up an extensive practice in Central Illinois before giving up the practice of medicine to become a banker and stock raiser.

Sudduth received a B.S. degree in 1880 from Illinois Wesleyan University.

Career

During the year 1880, she was assistant principal of the high school at Dwight, Illinois, and in the fall of 1881, she entered Wellesley College for a teacher's special course of literature and history, where she remained but a few months, being compelled to give up study on account of failing eyesight. Having traveled extensively with members of her family in the South and West, she went abroad in May, 1886, and spent fourteen months in Europe, traveling through England, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Switzerland, making special study of the German language.

Margaret A. Sudduth

Interested since before her graduation in the temperance movement, she spent considerable time while abroad in investigating the cause of drunkenness in the countries visited, and as a special correspondent to Bloomington, Illinois papers and the Union Signal, she displayed literary ability. In 1887, upon her return to the United States, she accepted the editorship of the Oak and Ivy Leaf, a publication projected by Mary Allen West.

In 1890, her name first appeared as an editor of the Union Signal, to which her services had been rendered from the time of her arrival in Chicago, and in January, 1892, she assumed the managing editorship, where her journalistic ability and cultured mental and literary qualifications were called into requisition.

Death

Margaret Ashmore Sudduth died in Los Angeles County, California, September 21, 1957, and was buried at Olivewood Memorial Park, Riverside, California.

References

Attribution

• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: American Medical Association (1895). "Necrology". JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association. Vol. 25 (Public domain ed.). American Medical Association.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Chapin, Clara Christiana Morgan (1895). Thumb Nail Sketches of White Ribbon Women (Public domain ed.). Woman's temperance publishing association. p. 68.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Wild, Azel Washburn (1895). Historical Discourse at the One Hundredth Anniversary of the General Convention of Congregational Ministers and Churches of Vermont, at Bennington, June 11, 1895 (Public domain ed.). Free Press Association.

Bibliography

• Cherrington, Ernest Hurst (1929). Standard encyclopedia of the alcohol problem. Vol. 6. American Issue Publishing Company.