Flora E. Strout
Born
Flora Effie Strout

April 28, 1867
Mechanic Falls, Maine, U.S.
DiedNovember 5, 1962
Arlington, Massachusetts, U.S.
Burial placeMount Auburn Cemetery, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupations
  • teacher
  • social reformer
  • missionary

Flora Effie Strout (April 28, 1867 – November 5, 1962) was an American teacher and social reformer. Early on, she taught at Lyman School for Boys in Massachusetts and then at Morgan College (now Morgan State University), where she also served as principal. As an organizer of the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), she served as a foreign missionary and temperance movement worker,[1] for three five-year periods in various parts of Asia.[2] She was also involved in the social purity movement and was active in supporting women's suffrage. She wrote occasional articles on temperance issues and the lyrics for Morgan College's school anthem.

Biography

Flora Effie Strout was born in Mechanic Falls, Maine, April 28, 1867.[3] She was educated in the public and normal schools of Maine. Later, she took courses at Johns Hopkins University and two courses at Harvard University.[4]

Strout began her career as a teacher. In 1889, she taught for 24 weeks at West Harpswell, Maine.[5] For the following two years, she taught at Lyman School for Boys, a state reform school in Westborough, Massachusetts.[6][7]

Strout taught various subjects at Morgan College (geology and astronomy, 1893–94; 18th-century literature, 1905) and also served as principal.[8][9] She wrote the university's alma mater (official song).[10]

Representing Maryland, Strout was a delegate at the American Woman Suffrage Association's 25th annual convention held in Washington, D.C., 1893,[11] and was a member of the Program Committee for the 37th annual convention held at Portland, Oregon, in 1905.[12] She was also a delegate representing Maryland at the National WCTU's 34th Annual Convention held at Nashville, Tennessee, in 1906.[13]

On behalf of the World's WCTU, Strout was commissioned to serve in Japan, 1907–1911.[14][4] There, she published and circulated several leaflets on temperance. She also addressed large meetings for soldiers, at one, fully a thousand people present.[15] In 1918, she was at Singapore in Straits Settlements, Malaysia, lecturing on behalf of the social purity campaign. This five year commission was largely on behalf of organizing and educational work along scientific temperance lines. Her service area extended to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Burma (now Myanmar). Strout returned home on furlough to Baltimore, Maryland in July 1924 after stop-overs in India, Egypt, and England.[1][16] [17] [18] On behalf of the World's WCTU, in 1926, she was in Brazil;[19] and in 1940, she was in Cape Town, South Africa and then Trinidad.[20] Her success came from having the ability to absorb the cultures of the foreign countries she visited while working for the World's WCTU (1910–42) as an official round-the-world missionary. She was able to put Christianity aside and focus on the promotion of temperance societies among other religions.[21]

She died in Arlington, Massachusetts, November 5, 1962, and was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery, Middlesex, Massachusetts.[3]

Selected works

Articles

Lyrics

References

  1. 1 2 "NOTED W. C. T. U. WORKER HERE AFTER FIVE YEARS IN FOREIGN SERVICE". Stockton Daily Evening Record. 26 July 1924. p. 9. Retrieved 27 February 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ↑ "MISS FLORA E. STROUT W. C. T. U. ORGANIZER TO SPEAK AT E. CORINTH". The Bangor Daily News. 4 October 1924. p. 6. Retrieved 27 February 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. 1 2 "FamilySearch: Sign In". ident.familysearch.org. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  4. 1 2 "COUNTY W. C. T. U. CONVENTION. MISS FLORA E. STROUT, WHITE RIBBON MISSIONARY, PRINCIPAL SPEAKER". St. Albans Daily Messenger. Saint Albans, Vermont. 9 May 1911. p. 1. Retrieved 27 February 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ↑ Purington, George C. (1889). History of the State Normal School, Farmington, Maine: With Sketches of the Teachers and Graduates. Press of Knowlton, McLeary & Company. p. 163. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  6. ↑ California State Board of Prison Directors (1890). Report of Robert T. Devlin, President of the State Board of Prison Directors of California, on Various Reformatory and Penal Institutions of the United States. J.D. Young. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  7. ↑ Massachusetts State Auditor's Office (1891). Annual Report, Fiscal Year Ended... The Office. p. 353. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  8. ↑ United States Office of Education (1896). Report of the Commissioner of Education. U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 858, 872. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  9. ↑ Harvard University (1905). The Harvard University Catalogue. University. pp. 178, 182. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  10. ↑ "The Alma Mater". www.morgan.edu. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  11. ↑ National American Woman Suffrage Association (1893). The Hand Book and Proceedings of the ... Annual Convention. National American Woman Suffrage Association. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  12. ↑ National American Woman Suffrage Association Convention (1905). Proceedings of the Thirty-Seventh Annual Convention, Held at Portland, Oregon, June 28th to July 5th, Inclusive, 1905. National American Woman Suffrage Association. p. 173. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  13. ↑ Woman's Christian Temperance Union (1906). Report of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union ... Annual Meeting. Woman's Temperance Publishing Ass'n. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  14. ↑ "TEMPERANCE LEADER RECALLS STRANGE WAYS OF FAR PLACES". The Baltimore Sun. 31 August 1936. p. 18. Retrieved 27 February 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ↑ World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union Convention (1906). Report of the ... Biennial Convention and Minutes of the Executive Committee Meetings of the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union. White Ribbon Company. pp. 157, 163. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  16. ↑ "W.C.T.U. ORGANIZER SPEAKS HERE TOMORROW. PUBLIC IS INVITED". The Ithaca Journal. 16 April 1925. p. 5. Retrieved 27 February 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ↑ Willard, Mary Bannister; Willard, Frances Elizabeth; Ames, Julia A.; West, Mary Allen; Stevens, Lillian M. N. Ames; Boole, Ella Alexander; Smith, Ida Belle Wise; Colvin, Mrs D. Leigh; Hays, Mrs Glenn G.; Edgar, Mrs Kermit S. (5 December 1918). "FLORA E. STROUT, WORLD'S W. C. T. U. REPRESENTATIVE, ADDRESSES MEN'S MEETING IN SINGAPORE". The Union Signal and World's White Ribbon. National Woman's Christian Temperance Union. p. 7. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  18. ↑ George, Anna Pritchard (April 1919). "ALL ROUND THE WORLD". Social Service Review. The Bureau. p. 19. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  19. ↑ Methodist Episcopal Church, South Board of Missions (1926). Annual Report of the Board of Missions of the M.E. Church, South. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  20. ↑ "RISKS SEA PERILS; BREAKS NOSE HERE. MISS FLORA E. STROUT FALLS ON PAVEMENT AFTER EXCITING TRIP". The Baltimore Sun. 8 January 1940. p. 10. Retrieved 27 February 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. ↑ Tyrrell, Ian (19 March 2014). Woman's World/Woman's Empire: The Woman's Christian Temperance Union in International Perspective, 1880-1930. UNC Press Books. pp. 90, 100. ISBN 978-1-4696-2080-0. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  22. ↑ "The Temperance Outlook in Japan". Mission News. D.C. Greene. XII (2): 33–34. 1906. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  23. ↑ Yasutake, Rumi (August 2004). Transnational Women's Activism: The United States, Japan, and Japanese Immigrant Communities in California, 1859-1920. NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-9703-7. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  • "W.C.T.U. Notes" - Excerpts taken from an address delivered by Flora E. Strout regarding the three fields of work she supervised: Malaya, Ceylon, and Burma. Nashville Banner, Nashville, Tennessee, December 21, 1924, p. 48.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.