Mary Wood-Allen


Mary Augusta Wood-Allen was an American doctor, social reformer, lecturer, and writer of books on health and self-improvement for women and children. Through her lectures and writings she was a voice for the social purity movement.

Biography

Mary Augusta Wood was born in Delta, Ohio, the daughter of George Wood and Sarah Wood. She attended Ohio Wesleyan Female College, graduating in 1862.
After teaching for a time at the Battleground Collegiate Institute in Battle Ground, Indiana, she married Chillon Brown Allen, a lawyer, and took the surname Wood-Allen.
After three years studying in Vienna, Austria, Wood-Allen earned a medical degree from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1875. She went into practice in Newark, New Jersey. In 1883 she was appointed "Lecturer of Heredity and Hygiene" for the National Women's Christian Temperance Union at the suggestion of Frances Willard and lectured widely on these subjects. In 1892 she became superintendent of the WCTU's Purity Department, and in 1897 she became Superintendent of Purity for the World WCTU.
In 1895, Wood-Allen started a series of monthly leaflets titled Mother's Friend, which was co-edited by Estelle M. H. Merrill. This was expanded into the monthly magazine The American Mother, which continued publication until 1919. Wood-Allen published the magazine herself with the assistance of her son and daughter. She also published a number of books. Her poem "Motherhood" was well known in its day.

Family

Wood-Allen and Chillon Brown Allen married on April 15, 1863, and had separated by 1880. Wood-Allen's children were Mario Chillon Wood-Allen and Rose Wood-Allen Chapman. Rose wrote articles and books of advice on child-rearing and in 1907 took her mother's place as the National Superintendent of Purity for the WCTU.
Wood-Allen died in Washington, D.C., in 1908.

Publications

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