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Jane Grey Swisshelm
1815 - 1884
BiographyA native of Pittsburgh, Jane Grey Swisshelm was a prominent abolitionist and used the power of the press to fight for causes she believed in. She pioneered the role of women in journalism and became one of the first female newspaper editors in America. She started her first abolitionist paper, The Pittsburgh Saturday Visitor, in 1848 and her last, The Reconstructionist, in 1861. In 1850, while working for the New York Tribune, she became the first woman to enter the press gallery of the U.S. Senate. Swisshelm moved across the nation many times, living in Kentucky, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C., as well as Philadelphia. But she always returned to Pittsburgh, and she fought for married women’s property rights in Pennsylvania throughout her life. Today the Swissvale neighborhood bears the name of her farm.
