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Part of the American
History & Genealogy Project |
Minona Stearns Fitts Jones 1855 ~ 1926
Mrs. Minona Stearns Fitts Jones was born
in Abington, Massachusetts, July 5, 1855, of New England
ancestry. Her ancestors settled Walpole, Wrentham and Mansfield,
Mass. She is the daughter of Dr. I. H. Steams and Catherine M.
Guild Steams. Attended the New England public schools; New
Vineyard, Maine, and Oak Grove Seminary, Vassalboro, Maine,
finishing her education at Milwaukee Female College. She studied
medicine and assisted her father. Dr. Stearns, in the Milwaukee
National Soldiers' Home where he was surgeon.
Married Robert C. Fitts, of Leverett, Massachusetts, at
Milwaukee, on December 6, 1879. She engaged in business in
Milwaukee for six years. She became interested in politics
through the street-car strike in Milwaukee in 1896, and was the
only woman writer and speaker for the strikers and became
converted to woman suffrage at that time and spoke for the
populists in their campaign in Wisconsin.
Upon the discovery of rich deposits of mica in Park and Fremont
Counties, Colorado, by her son, Roy Fields Fitts, Mrs. Fitts
visited Colorado and bought the mines and milling property and
began the mining of mica, assisted by her son, who was a boy of
eighteen years. Mrs. Fitts returned to Chicago and organized the
United States Mica Mining and Milling Company, and was elected
secretary and treasurer of same, which position she held for six
years. Mrs. Fitts married for the second time. Senator Frank W.
Jones, of Massachusetts, May 29, 1905. Mrs. Fitts Jones founded
the "No Vote No Tax" League of Illinois. This league was
established for the purpose of bringing together all who would
refuse to pay taxes until they could vote, since "Taxation
without representation is tyranny." Mrs. Fitts Jones is one of
the incorporators of the "Public Policy League" of Illinois, and
also incorporated the National Race Betterment League, and was
elected the first president of this world-wide movement for race
betterment.
Women of
America
Source: The Part Taken by Women in
American History, By Mrs. John A. Logan, Published by The Perry-Nalle
Publishing Company, Wilmington, Delaware, 1912.
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