Background
She was born on September 26, 1798 in Philadelphia.
Mira was the daughter of Jesse and Joanna (Townsend) Sharpless, both descendants of early Pennsylvania settlers.
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Mira Sharpless Townsend
Edit ProfileEducation
She was educated at the Select School.
Career
A talent for writing became evident in her youth. Her poems were published in contemporary newspapers and magazines; letters written in her early twenties to her cousin, Edward Darlington, showed shrewd observation and a sense of humor; while the journal kept in her later years is a valuable commentary on the experiences of a public-spirited woman in the middle of the nineteenth century.
For some years she devoted herself to her family and her hospitable home where, during Yearly Meeting Week, as many as fifty Friends would be entertained. As time passed, however, she developed a strong sense of duty toward the unfortunate and the friendless. In 1847 she helped promote a public meeting of women to consider the abolition of capital punishment. At a later meeting of this group, she proposed a plan that led to the formation of the Rosine Association, which founded the Rosine Home, a place for the reformation, employment, and instruction "of unfortunate women who had led immoral lives" (Public Ledger, Philadelphia, May 10, 1931). This is said to have been the first institution of the kind run entirely by women . The project attracted wide attention and soon led to the establishment of similar homes in other cities. As she came to believe that this charity was more than local in its character, she took the extreme step of going to Harrisburg in 1854 with a friend, Mrs. Sophia Lewis, and petitioning the legislature for an appropriation of $3, 000 for the aid of the Rosine Association. The charm of manner of the two women and their sincere devotion to their cause impressed the legislators so favorably that the bill was easily passed. Until her death Mira Townsend remained treasurer of the Rosine Home and a member of its board of managers.
A result of her experiences was a volume entitled Reports and Realities from the Sketch Book of a Manager (privately printed, 1855).
Ssome of her verse appeared in its semi-monthly publication, the Advocate and Family Guardian. Together with her sister, Eliza Parker, she founded the Temporary Home, still (1936) in existence, of which she became secretary and a manager. This was "a transient boarding house for respectable women out of employment and where also destitute children can be taken care of until suitable homes can be procured. " She was instrumental in bringing the House of the Good Shepherd to Philadelphia, for she believed that Catholic girls could be better cared for by their own church.
Among other movements that enlisted her sympathies were those concerned with inebriety and slavery. A room in her home was set aside for those whose friend-lessness seemed to require her hospitality, while girls needing such encouragement were employed in her service. She seems to have been indefatigable in her care for the wretched, whether these were suffering from misfortune, oppression, or moral unfitness.
She died at Philadelphia in 1859 and was buried in Fair Hill Cemetery.
Achievements
Views
Quotations: "The prison and alms houses, " she wrote, "houses of ill-fame and the Rosine and Temporary Homes are my familiar haunts. "
Membership
She served as vice-president of the American Female Guardian Society of New York.
Personality
She did not wear plain dress. Doubtless the dignity and distinction of her personality were enchanced by the handsome silks and fine laces in which her taste found expression.
Connections
On January 23, 1828, Mira Sharpless married Samuel Townsend, a prosperous and philanthropic merchant of Philadelphia. They had six children, of whom four died in infancy.
