Helen Stuart Campbell (July 5, 1839 – July 22, 1918) was a prominent American author, editor, home economist, and social reformer.Queer Places:
Mount Pleasant Cemetery, 1155 State Rd, Eliot, ME 03903, United States
Helen Stuart Campbell (July 5, 1839 – July 22, 1918) was a prominent American author, editor, home economist, and social reformer.
Born Helen Campbell Stuart in Lockport, New York, the daughter of lawyer Homer H. Stuart. She began her career writing children’s literature, eventually gaining recognition for her social investigative journalism and advocacy for women's labor rights.
She married surgeon Grenville Mellen Weeks at the age of 20. Following their divorce, she adopted her mother’s maiden name and began a prolific writing career.
She was closely associated with Charlotte Perkins Gilman—with whom she lived, worked, and co-edited the journal Impress between 1894 and 1912. The historical records describe this as a professional and personal association during their period of collaboration in Chicago and New York.
Campbell is best known for her investigative work into the lives of working-class women, most notably in her 1887 book Prisoners of Poverty and its sequel, Prisoners of Poverty Abroad. These works exposed the harsh conditions and low wages faced by female wage-earners, leading to the establishment of consumers' leagues in the 1890s.
She was a pioneer in the field of home economics, writing influential texts such as Household Economics (1897), which sought to apply scientific and efficient management principles to domestic life.
Later in her life, she became a follower of the Baha'i religion and had attended a retreat at Eliot, Maine where her remains were taken after her death. She passed away in 1918 in Dedham, Massachusetts.
References:
 Women, Peace and Welfare: A Suppressed History of Social Reform, 1880-1920 by Ann Oakley |
Other references:
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