Edith G. Stedman

Did You Know?

• A stone carving of Stedman is located above the west door of Dorchester Abbey.
• She was awarded the OBE at the British embassy in Washington, D.C.

Biography

Stedman was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and later moved with her family to Belmont, Massachusetts, where she attended high school. She wrote that she worked harder and derived more academic pleasure from high school than from college. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1910. Afterward, she worked at the Framingham Reformatory for Women until her brother persuaded her to leave and manage the family candy store, a job she came to dislike. After two years she quit and went to Europe in 1917 with the YMCA to assist the war effort, serving as a canteen worker in France and Germany until 1919. Returning to the United States, she found no work that interested her. Back in Boston, she became executive secretary for the Judge Baker Foundation. Ada Louise Comstock invited Stedman to join the Appointment Bureau at Radcliffe in 1930. There she developed vocational programs for women during the 1930s, helping both undergraduates and graduate students find employment. She created and directed the Training Course in Personnel Administration and supported professional training for women, serving as its director until 1941. She also founded the Radcliffe Publishing Course, which continues today as part of Columbia University. Stedman remained at Radcliffe until her retirement in 1954. As a retiree, she volunteered at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital from 1955 to 1959. In 1959 she began spending half the year with friends at the Manor House, Dorchester. She founded the American Friends of Dorchester Abbey, which raised funds for the Abbey and its gardens. She also wrote during retirement. Her final years were spent at Sherrill House, a nursing home in Boston run by the Episcopal church. She lived with Ménière's disease and experienced deafness. Stedman died in Boston on July 16, 1978.