SHAW 



5339 



SHAW 



ANNA HOWARD SHAW 



SHAW, ANNA HOWARD (1847-1919), an 

 American physician, minister, lecturer and 

 writer, active in many fields, but especially 

 identified with the woman suffrage movement. 

 Though born in England, at Newcastle-on- 

 Tyne, she has re- 

 sided in America 

 from early child- 

 hood, and was 

 educated in that W 



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country at Al- 

 bion (Mich.) Col- 

 lege and at the 

 Boston University 

 schools of the- 

 ology and medi- 

 cine. She holds a 

 degree of doctor 

 of medicine, and 

 is a regularly or- 

 dained minister, 

 having received ordination from the Protes- 

 tant Methodist Church in 1880. Dr. Shaw was 

 pastor of Methodist Episcopal churches in 

 Massachusetts for a number of years, but the 

 rules of that denomination forbade her receiv- 

 ing ordination to its ministry. From 1886 to 

 1904 she was national lecturer for the National 

 American Woman's Suffrage Association, and 

 was its president from 1904 until 1915. In the 

 latter year she resigned that she might devote 

 her energies to an active campaign for the en- 

 franchisement of women. 



After the entrance of America into the War 

 of the Nations she announced her disapproval 

 of the "heckling" tactics adopted by the mili- 

 tant leaders of the suffrage movement, and gave 

 her loyal support to the government, becom- 

 ing chairman of the Woman's Advisoiy Com- 

 mittee of the Council of National Defense. Dr. 

 Shaw has the unique distinction of being the 

 only woman who has preached in the state 

 church of Sweden, the Gustav Vasa Cathedral, 

 and she was the first ordained woman to preach 

 in the various European capitals. Her auto- 

 biography, The Story of a Pioneer, was pub- 

 lished in 1915. 



SHAW, GEORGE BERNARD (1856- ), a Brit- 

 ish dramatist, novelist and critic, born at Dub- 

 lin, Ireland. He attended school in his native 

 city, but his education was not very extensive, 

 for by his fifteenth year he had begun to earn 

 his own living. In 1876 he went with his family 

 to London, where he did office work of various 

 kinds until able to support himself by literary 

 work. Shaw was much interested in socialism 



and used his talents in every way possible to 

 advance it, speaking on street corners, con- 

 tributing articles to magazines, and making it 

 the central theme of his novels. There were 

 four of these The Irrational Knot, Love 

 Among the Art- 

 ists, Cashel By- 

 ron's Profession 

 and An Unsocial 

 Socialist ; they 

 met with only a 

 fairly favorable 

 reception. His 

 dramatic and 

 musical articles 

 for various Lon- 

 don journals were 

 more successful, 

 however, and his 

 defense of Ibsen GE O R E BERNARD SHAW 

 and of Wagner in The Quintessence of Ibsen- 

 ism and The Perfect Wagnerite attracted wide 

 attention. 



Shaw's first play, Widowers' Houses, was pro- 

 duced in 1892. It was followed by a series 

 of plays, including Mrs. Warren's Profession, 

 The Philanderer, Arms and the Man, You 

 Never Can Tell, Candida, The Devil's Disciple, 

 Caesar and Cleopatra, The Shewing-up of 

 Blanco Posnet and Fanny's First Play, which 

 have perhaps aroused more, discussion than 

 those of any other author. Shaw is always 

 clever and usually satirical, and his satire on 

 the shams and hypocrisies of society is often 

 stinging. Nevertheless, he is so fond of para- 

 dox that he is often taken for a mere humor- 

 ist rather than a satirist. 



Consult Henderson's Shaw: His Life and Work; 

 Howe's George Bernard Shaw. 



SHAW, HENRY WHEELER (1818-1885), an 

 American humorist, more familiarly known by 

 his pen name JOSH BILLINGS, was born at 

 Lanesborough, Mass. He attended Hamilton 

 College for a year, but left school to go West, 

 where he engaged in various occupations for 

 twenty-five years. Returning in 1858 to Pough- 

 keepsie, N. Y., he became an auctioneer, and 

 wrote several humorous articles for newspapers 

 in that city, but for some time received little 

 attention as a writer. When, however, he be- 

 gan to use his queer, "backwoods" diction, 

 spelling words to sound just as he pronounced 

 them, his articles became immensely popular. 

 For many years the New York Weekly pub- 

 lished Shaw's contributions, and in 1863 he 

 went on the public platform, where, with his 



