Part of the American History & Genealogy Project

Rose Wood-Allen Chapman

Mrs. Wood-Allen Chapman, born at Lakeside, near Toledo, Ohio, is the only daughter of Dr. Mary Wood-Allen, the noted lecturer, author and editor. She attended various schools, including what is now known as Lake Erie College, and the Ann Arbor High School, from which she graduated in 1895. The following fall she entered the University of Michigan. Being unable, because of threatened ill-health, to finish the year's work, she accompanied her mother on a trip and made her first appearance on the lecture platform. Two years of college followed, when failing health on the part of her mother called her from her studies to take up the duties of acting editor of the magazine owned and edited by her mother, then known as "The New Crusade," still being published under the name of "American Motherhood." With this she remained associated both in the business management and editorially until her marriage, in 1902, to Mr. William Brewster Chapman, of Cleveland, Ohio.

For several years following this event her home was in northern Michigan, from whence she began to contribute to such periodicals as The Congregationalist, The Ladies World, The Union Signal, The Christian Endeavor World, etc.

In 1905 New York City became her home and she at once joined The Woman's Press Club, The Mother's Club, The Woman's Forum, The Pen and Brush Club, and The American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis. In August, 1905, her only child, a son, was born. In October, 1907, she was appointed national superintendent of the Purity Department of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. In this capacity she wrote a large number of articles and leaflets, including her book "The Moral Problem of the Children."

In April, 1910, she became editor of a department in the Ladies Home Journal, and in June of the same year, was appointed associate superintendent of the Moral Educational Department of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. This position, however, together with her national superintendency she resigned in the spring of 1911 on account of threatened ill-health, and in order to devote herself more exclusively to her literary work.

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.