Helen H. Gardener

Helen Hamilton Gardener (1853–1925), born Alice Chenoweth, was an American author, rationalist public intellectual, political activist, and government functionary. Gardener produced many lectures, articles, and books during the 1880s and 1890s and is remembered today for her role in the freethought and women's suffrage movements and for her place as a pioneering woman in the top echelon of the American civil service.

Biography

Early years

Alice Chenoweth, best remembered by her pen name, Helen Hamilton Gardener, was born near Winchester, Virginia, on January 21, 1853. She was the youngest of six children born to Rev. Alfred Griffith Chenoweth, an Episcopalian minister who had become a Methodist circuit rider, and his wife, the former Katherine A. Peel. The Chenoweth family traced its American antecedents back to a certain Arthur Chenoweth who had arrived in the fledgling Province of Maryland in 1635 to receive a grant of land for honorable service to Lord Baltimore.

The Chenoweth family subsequently made their way to Virginia, where Alice's father had inherited slaves. This material has been microfilmed by University Publications of America.

Footnotes

Works Men, Women, and Gods, and Other Lectures. Introduction by Robert G. Ingersoll. New York: The Truth Seeker Company, 1885. "Sex in Brain," paper delivered to the International Council of Women, 1888. A Thoughtless Yes. New York: R.F. Fenno and Company, 1890. Pushed by Unseen Hands. New York: R.F. Fenno and Company, 1890. Is This Your Son, My Lord? A Novel (1891). Boston: Arena Publishing Company, 1894. Pray You Sir, Whose Daughter? Boston: Arena Publishing Company, 1892. Pulpit, Pew, and Cradle. New York: The Truth Seeker Company, 1892. Facts and Fictions of Life. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1893. An Unofficial Patriot. Boston: Arena Publishing Company, 1894. "Philosophers Afloat," The Arena, August 1895, pp. 480–485. Have Children a Right to Legal Protection? Boston: Arena Publishing Company, 1896. Plain Talk: A Pamphlet on the Population Question and the Moral Responsibility of Woman in Maternity. Chicago: G.E. Wilson, n.d. Woman Suffrage, Which Way? New York: National Woman Suffrage Publishing Co., n.d. [c. 1915]