Elizabeth Augusta Russell

Elizabeth Augusta Russell (, Sawtell; known in the press as Mrs. E. A. Russell; 1832–1911) was an American philanthropist, reformer, and restaurateur. She served as National Superintendent of coffee house work for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and was the founder of the Russell Coffee House in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which, in its day, was the largest coffeehouse in the city.

Early life and education Elizabeth Augusta Sawtell was born in Mason, New Hampshire, on October 3, 1832. Her father and mother were Yankees, the father from Rindge, New Hampshire, and the mother from Ashburnham, Massachusetts.

She was educated in the common schools of her town and later, paid her own way through school at the New Ipswich Academy in New Ipswich, New Hampshire.

Post-war At the close of the war, she was employed as a teacher in New Orleans by the Freedmen's Bureau. During the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, she was in charge of the management of the World's Fair Temperance Hotel, located in Harvey, Illinois.

Personal life

In Worcester, Massachusetts, on November 24, 1854, she married Dexter Russell (1826–1861). All her married life was spent in Ashburnham, Massachusetts. Her husband and many of her family are buried there.

From 1905, she made her winter residence in Miami, Florida where she sustained a severe fall in the spring of 1910 from which she never recovered. Elizabeth Augusta Russell died January 7, 1911 in Minneapolis.