Augusta Jane Chapin


Augusta Jane Chapin was an American Universalist minister, educator and activist for women's rights. She was born in Lakeville, New York, the eldest of eleven children, to Almon Morris Chapin and Jane Pease. She was of only a few women's speakers at the Parliament of the World's Religions that took place at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. She had a long preaching and teaching career around the Midwest, Pennsylvania, New York, Oregon, and California.

Education

In 1852, at the age of 16, she began to attend the Olivet College. In December 1864 in Lansing, Michigan, she became one of the first women to be ordained as a minister. In 1893 Chapin was conferred a Doctor of Divinity degree by Lombard University; the first ever awarded to a woman in America. In 1893, she chaired the Woman's Committee of the Parliament of the World's Religions as part of the World's Columbian Exposition that took place in Chicago from May 1, 1893 – Oct 30, 1893. She was a charter member of the American Woman Suffrage Association.

Career

Chapin served many congregations during her ministerial career: itinerancy in Michigan, 1859–63; Bennington, Michigan, 1864–67; Mount Pleasant, Iowa, 1868; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1869; Iowa City, Iowa, 1870–73; Allston, Massachusetts, 1874; San Francisco, California and Oregon, 1874; Lansing, Michigan, 1875; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1875–76; Blue Island, Illinois, 1876–77; Chicago, Illinois, 1878; Aurora, Illinois, 1878–79; itinerancy in Michigan, 1880–83; Hillsdale, Michigan, 1884–85; Oak Park, Illinois, 1886–92; Omaha, Nebraska, 1894–95; and Mount Vernon, New York, 1897-1901.