20 Facts About Jane Swisshelm

Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm was an American Radical Republican journalist, publisher, abolitionist, and women's rights advocate.

Jane Swisshelm was one of America's first female journalists hired by Horace Greeley at his New York Tribune.

Jane Swisshelm was active as a writer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and as a publisher and editor in St Cloud, Minnesota.

Jane Swisshelm's published criticism of Johnson led to her losing her job and the closing of the paper.

Jane Swisshelm's father was a merchant and real estate speculator.

In 1823, when Jane Swisshelm was eight years of age, both her sister Mary and her father died of consumption, leaving the family in straitened circumstances.

Jane Swisshelm worked at manual labor, doing lace making and painting on velvet, and her mother colored leghorn and straw hats.

Jane Swisshelm's mother had already lost four of her children to illnesses.

Jane Swisshelm moved with her children to Wilkinsburg, a village outside Pittsburgh, and started a store.

Jane Swisshelm wrote in her autobiography of some of the sights she saw and stories she heard.

In 1857, Jane Swisshelm divorced her husband and moved west to St Cloud, Minnesota, where she controlled a string of newspapers.

Jane Swisshelm promoted abolition and women's rights by writing and lecturing.

Jane Swisshelm was especially infuriated that Lowry owned slaves, as Minnesota was a free state.

Jane Swisshelm started a rival paper, The Union, to offset her influence.

Jane Swisshelm soon raised money for another press and raised her attacks to a fever pitch.

In 1862, when a Sioux Indian uprising in Minnesota resulted in the deaths of hundreds of white settlers, Jane Swisshelm was among those demanding the federal government punish the Indians.

Jane Swisshelm toured major cities to raise public opinion about this issue and, while in Washington, DC, met with Edwin M Stanton, a friend from Pittsburgh and then Secretary of War.

Jane Swisshelm sold her Minnesota paper and continued to work as an army nurse during the Civil War in the Washington area until her job became available.

Jane Swisshelm published Letters to Country Girls, a collection of newspaper columns she had launched in 1849, and an autobiography entitled Half of a Century.

Jane Swisshelm died on July 22,1884, at her Swissvale home and is buried in Allegheny Cemetery.