(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
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Sara Louisa Oberholtzer was an American poet and activist.
Background
Sara Oberholtzer was born on May 20, 1841 in Uwchlan, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Paxson and Ann (Lewis) Vickers. Her father's ancestors were Quakers who came from England to Eastern Pennsylvania about the time of William Penn's second visit to Philadelphia. Her great-grandfather and grandfather, Thomas and John Vickers, were owners of earthenware potteries in Chester County.
Education
Sara Oberholtzer was educated by private tutors, at the Friends' Boarding School, and at the Millersville State Normal School.
Career
Having from an early age shown considerable literary talent, Sara Oberholtzer contributed articles to magazines and other periodicals and published hymns, letters of travel, pamphlets, and several volumes of verse, including Violet Lee (1873); Come for Arbutus (1882); Daisies of Verse (1886); and Souvenirs of Occasions (1892). She was also the author of Hope's Heart Bells (1884), a novel of Quaker life in Pennsylvania. She wrote the "Burial Ode" for the funeral services of Bayard Taylor at Longwood, verses for the dedication of the monument at Antietam Bridge, and many other commemorative poems.
While John Greenleaf Whittier was engaged in anti-slavery work in Philadelphia he formed a close friendship with her that lasted until his death. Mrs. Oberholtzer devoted much time to social and philanthropic as well as literary activities. Organizing the Anti-Tobacco Society in 1881 and the Longport Agassiz Microscopical Society in 1884, she served as president of both organizations for several years. She was president of the Pennsylvania Woman's Press Association, 1903-05, and took a prominent part in the World's and in the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
Becoming interested in 1888 in methods of thrift teaching used in the public schools of Europe, especially in France and Belgium, she became an ardent advocate of school savings banks. She wrote letters, articles, and pamphlets, spoke in nearly every state in the union urging women's organizations to promote the idea and teachers to undertake the work, and labored with banks and trust companies to persuade them to receive the small deposits. For many years she edited School Savings, published from 1907 until 1923 under the name of Thrift Tidings, a periodical devoted to the promotion of the project. In 1929 there were 15, 598 schools using the system in forty-six out of the forty-eight states, with 4, 222, 935 depositors, while it had the support of legislators, teachers, and bankers.
Mrs. Oberholtzer died at her home in Philadelphia.
(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
Membership
Sara Oberholtzer organized and was president of the Anti-Tobacco Society and the Longport Agassiz Microscopical Society. She also was president of the Pennsylvania Woman's Press Association (1903-05), and took a prominent part in the World's and in the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
Connections
On January 1, 1862, Sara Vickers married John Oberholtzer of Chester County, who became a merchant in Philadelphia. Their son Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer became a noted historian and biographer.