Edith G. Stedman

Edith Gratia Stedman OBE (December 29, 1888 - July 16, 1978) was an American social worker, educator, writer and volunteer. She is best known for her vocational programming created at Radcliffe starting in the Great Depression and also for her help in restoring Dorchester Abbey.

Biography Stedman was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the family later moved to Belmont, Massachusetts, where she attended high school. Stedman enjoyed high school, writing, "I think I worked harder and got more academic pleasure out of some of my work in high school than I ever did in college." She went on to Radcliffe College where she graduated in 1910.

After school, she worked for a time at the Framingham Reformatory for Women until her brother convinced her to quit in order to run the family's candy store, a job she later discovered she hated. After two years, she quit and went to Europe with the YMCA to help the war effort there in 1917. She stayed until 1927, returning to Boston, where she started working as an executive secretary for the Judge Baker Foundation. She created and directed the Training Course in Personnel Administration and supported professional training for women. Stedman worked as the director of the Training Course until 1941. She also created the Radcliffe Publishing Course, which has launched the careers of many editors and still continues today as a part of Columbia University. Stedman stayed at Radcliffe until 1954, when she retired. She was given the award at the British embassy in Washington, D.C. A stone carving of Stedman is located above the west door of the Abbey.

Selected bibliography "The House of the Merciful Saviour: A Training School for Social Workers" (1924)