Background
She was born on May 27, 1844 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, the daughter of Philander Montague and Mary Weeks (Brackett) Wright.
A precocious child, she was reading Milton at the age of seven.
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She was born on May 27, 1844 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, the daughter of Philander Montague and Mary Weeks (Brackett) Wright.
A precocious child, she was reading Milton at the age of seven.
She studied in the public schools. She graduated from Northwestern University in 1866.
With her father she taught in Waukesha, Wisconsin, to earn money for a college education. After graduation she taught in Corinth, Plainville, and Frankfort.
With her husband she removed to Indianapolis, where both of them taught in the high school until Mr. Thompson's death, about 1876. With her second husband she established the Girls' Classical School; after his death, she was principal for many years.
A feminist from the beginning of her life, she began as soon as she went to Indianapolis to gather groups together to work for public purposes. She was a charter member of many Indianapolis clubs and a founder of the Indiana Association for Promoting Woman's Suffrage. Following the visit of Pundita Ramabai to America, she formed the Ramabai Circle to assist in freeing the women of India from their ancient bondage.
One of the first members of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae when it was organized in 1882, she helped in 1883 to organize the Western Association of Collegiate Alumnae, which later joined with the older association. From the outset of her association with these university women she had a vision of a world federation which in 1919 came to completion.
From 1883 to 1912 she assisted in suffrage campaigns from Nebraska to Wisconsin and was for many years chairman of the executive committee of the National Suffrage Association. In 1888 she was chairman of the committee which arranged and carried through the first meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, where she presented a plan for forming an International Council as well; from 1888 to 1899 she held various offices in the National Council.
In 1891-92 she traveled abroad to awaken an interest in the World's Congress of Representative Women, at which she presided, held in Chicago in 1893 as a part of the program for the Columbian Exposition. From that time she was a prominent figure in the International Council of Women. She had been a delegate to its meetings in 1889 and in 1899 she became its president, succeeding Lady Aberdeen.
In 1894 she edited The World's Congress of Representative Women, and in 1915 she published Women, World War, and Permanent Peace. Soon after her husband's death in 1895 she became profoundly interested in psychical research. In 1920 she published Neither Dead nor Sleeping, an account of her personal experiences.
She died in 1920.
Together with her husband she founded the Girls' Classical School in Indianapolis. Her greatest contributions to reform came through her efforts to organize and lead the National Council of Women in the United States and International Council of Women at the turn of the twentieth century, in all, she assisted in the formation of fifty women's clubs of various sorts. Sewell also helped to establish several civic organizations, most notably the Indianapolis Woman's Club, the Indianapolis Propylaeum, the Art Association of Indianapolis, the Contemporary Club of Indianapolis, and the John Herron Art Institute. Sewall was the author of the famous book, Neither Dead Nor Sleeping. In 1893 the U. S. government presented Sewall an award for her work in organizing the World's Congress of Representative Women at Chicago. In 2005 the Propylaeum Historical Foundation established the May Wright Sewall Leadership Award to recognize other Indianapolis women for their community service.
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In Frankfort she married Edwin Thompson, the principal of the school. He died in 1876. On October 30, 1880, she married Theodore Lovett Sewall, a graduate of Harvard who had established a classical school for boys in Indianapolis.
