Ainsworth, Sarah F. Anderson (1849-1932)

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Rockford College

Jane Addams to Sarah Anderson Ainsworth, May 6, 1901

Sarah F. Anderson Ainsworth to Jane Addams, [April, 1910]

Sarah F. Anderson Ainsworth to Jane Addams, April 30, 1922

Jane Addams to Emily Greene Balch, February 18, 1919

Comments

Birth Date

1849-03

Death Date

1932-05-17

Birthplace

Bucyrus, OH

Biographical Text

Sarah Anderson Ainsworth was born in 1849 in Ohio, and was raised in Geneseo, Illinois. Her father, John Anderson, was a businessman, real estate developer, and farmer, and her other relatives were abolitionists, Congregationalists, and supporters of temperance. Ainsworth studied at Rockford Female Seminary and then worked as a teacher of calisthenics and as an administrator at the Seminary after graduating in 1869. She worked there while Jane Addams was a student, and the two became close friends. Ainsworth was also secretary and treasurer of the Society of Mission Inquiry, and later secretary for the seminary's Executive Committee, and financial secretary for the Board of Trustees. She later became the principal of the seminary, which is when the school changed its name to Rockford College.

Ainsworth retired in April 1896 after having served as the first official president of Rockford College beginning in 1890, and married widower Henry A. Ainsworth, whose first wife had been her aunt, Sarah Andrews Ainsworth. They had two children. She died in 1932.

Jane Addams and Ainsworth were very close friends, and even traveled to Europe together. They were also both active members of the Chicago Rockford Female Seminary Reunion Association.

Occupation

Educator

Teacher

Collection

People

Map

Edited By

Hajo, Cathy Moran

Lichon, Sara Catherine

Rights

Public domain

Gender

Female

First appears

1901

Bibliography and Links

Annual Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Rockford Seminary, Rockford, Illinois, 1903, page 6

Bryan, Mary Lynn, and Barbara Bair. The Selected Papers of Jane Addams: vol. 1: Preparing to Lead, 1860-81. University of Illinois Press, Nov 4, 2002, pp. 490-2.

Find a Grave

Sarah F Ainsworth, 1900 United States Federal Census

Citation

“Ainsworth, Sarah F. Anderson (1849-1932),” Jane Addams Digital Edition, accessed July 26, 2024, https://digital.janeaddams.ramapo.edu/items/show/183.