The Propylaeum - Our History

May Wright Sewall (1844-1920), was born in Milwaukee, and was the daughter of Philander W. Wright, a teacher, and Mary W. Wright. In 1866 she earned a bachelor's degree and in 1868 she earned her master's degree, from Northwestern Female College (Northwestern Female College was later absorbed by Northwestern University).

In 1872 she married Edwin W. Thompson and moved with him to Indianapolis. He died in 1875. She became interested in woman suffrage and attended a national convention in 1878. In 1880 she married Theodore Lovett Sewall who was the head of a Boys Classical School in Indianapolis. With him she founded and then headed the Girls Classical School. For years the school was one of the three leading girls schools in Indianapolis.

She was a prominent supporter of suffrage leaders Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She helped found the Indianapolis Equal Suffrage Society in 1878, and in 1881-83 she led a campaign that narrowly failed to secure woman suffrage in Indiana. From 1882 to 1890 she was chairman of the executive committee of the National Woman Suffrage Association. In 1888 Sewall and Frances Willard took charge of a convention held in Washington, D.C., to mark the 40th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention. From that meeting emerged the National Council of Women (of which Sewall was president in 1897-99) and the International Council of Women (of which Sewall was president from 1899 to 1904). In 1889 she joined in organizing and was elected first vice president of the General Federation of Women's Clubs. During 1891-92 she traveled extensively in Europe to build support for the World's Congress of Representative Women, of which she was chairman, to be held in conjunction with the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Sewall's later years were devoted principally to the cause of peace.

In 1907 she sold the Girls Classical School to Anna Weaver. However, the sale did not sustain her and she depended for income mainly on lecturing for women's rights, for peace and arbitration, and for psychic research. In 1920 she wrote a book on her psychic experiences, Neither Dead Nor Sleeping. In the introduction to the book, Booth Tarkington wrote that the "three most prominent citizens" of Indianapolis in their day were Benjamin Harrison, James Whitcomb Riley and May Wright Sewall.

She also wrote The Higher Education of Women, The Woman's Suffrage Movement in Indiana, and Women, World War and Permanent Peace.

A month after her death
the nineteenth Amendment was ratified.

You may read more about May Wright Sewall and her life in her correspondences,
The May Wright Sewall Papers.

The above information was collected from the following sites:
IndianaHistory.org IN.Gov IMCPL.org

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Presidents 1888 - 2010.

Mrs. May Wright Sewall

Mrs. Henry D Pierce

Mrs. Edward F. Hodges

Mrs. James T. Barrett

Mrs. John N. Carey

Mrs. Thomas B. Kackley

Mrs. Arthur V. Brown

Mrs. Augustus Coburn

Mrs. J. Raymond Lynn

Mrs. Fletcher Hodges

Mrs. Hugh Carpenter

Mrs. Lawrence Sheridan

Mrs. Walter Montgomery

Mrs. Andrew W. Hutchison

Mrs. George V. Falkenberg

Mrs. Robert Loomis

Mrs. James L. Miller

Mrs. DeForest O'Dell

Mrs. Frederick W. Steiger

Mrs. George P.Ryan

Mrs. Raymond Norton

Mrs. Clark J Barrett

Mrs. F. Noble Ropkey

Mrs. Clifford C. Taylor

Mrs. George T. Gifford

Mrs. Cloyd J. Julian

Mrs. S. Douglas Bash

Mrs. George E. Vickery, Jr.

Mrs. Henry O. Hebert

Mrs. Morris Conly

Mrs. Ralph W. Husted

Mrs. George Ober

Mrs. Vincent T. Adams

Mrs. Terrell G. Hudson

Mrs. Robert B. Barnett

Mrs. John Richard Adams

Mrs. Vincent B. Alig

Mrs. Tom C. Huston

Mrs. William J. Peeler

Mrs. Gerald E. Wahls

Mrs. Michael deLara

Ms. Jane Howard

Ms. Marianne Randjelovic

Ms. Michelyn Gallagher

Mrs. Niels P. Lyster

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Officers and Board Members 2009-2010
President - Patricia Lyster
Vice Pres. - Nancy Haldrup
Vice Pres. - Joanne Solomon
Vice Pres. - Jane Browne
Rec. Sec. - Marilyn Pescok
Treas. - Sue Hetherington
Board Members
Norma Commorato, Penny Conner,
Suzanne Cronin, Michelyn Gallagher,
Libby Grueninger, Debby Holton,
Suzanne Kenny, Sherry King
Nancy Norrick, Georgie Perkins
Karen Pfeiffer, Sharon Reynolds,
Jan Wahls, Jackie Warne
Advisory Committee
Richard Carlen, Othmar Grueninger,
John Long, Niels Lyster,
Jack Pecsok, Randy Shields,
Andy Shields
Bulletin Editors
Penny Conner
Karen Pfeiffer
Georgia Perkins
Club Manager
Linda Carlen
Assistant Club Manager
Nancy Showalter
Caretaker
Janice Radford

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