Title: Lurana Faustina Leavitt Whitaker Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1841-1905

Creator:

• Whitaker, Lurana Faustina Leavitt, 1837-1915

Call Number: River Falls Mss DG

Quantity: 0.6 c.f. (2 archives boxes)

Repository:

Housed at the University Archives and Area Research Center, Chalmer Davee Library, University of Wisconsin-River Falls, ; owned by the Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

UW-River Falls, Chalmer Davee Library / River Falls Area Research Ctr. (Map)

Abstract:

Papers of Lurana Whitaker, a one-time Maine mill worker and a speaker and writer on behalf of women's rights. A teacher in Prescott, Wisconsin, in 1861, Mrs. Whitaker then farmed with her husband in Point Douglas, Minnesota until 1904. Documenting her personal life and her opinions on women's rights, the collection consists largely of letters from family and friends in Maine, Prescott (Wis.), and St. Anthony (Minn.). Also present is one 1865 letter from William Lloyd Garrison, family memorabilia, and a notebook from her lectures on women's rights.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-rf00dg

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Lurana Faustina Leavitt was born in North Turner, Maine on May 9, 1837, to Orren Henry Leavitt and Abigale Boles Leavitt.

Faustina taught a term of school at age 15. She alternately worked in the Lewiston, Maine mills and attended school in Lewiston from 1853 to 1855. In 1855 she read “Home Scene” at a lyceum. From about 1855 she wrote and submitted several articles to the Lewiston Journal and the Advocate. By 1856 she had left mill work permanently. In January 1856 she gave the first of several lectures on women's rights. During this time she was teaching and continued her writing.

Faustina arrived in the Prescott, Wisconsin area in November 1861 where she taught school one term. She was married to Ephraim H. Whitaker at Prescott, April 8, 1862, then took up residence on a Point Douglas, Minnesota farm. She continued her writing by corresponding with The Hastings Gazette and other newspapers in the area. She was a member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. She gave birth to seven children, two of whom died while young. Mr. Whitaker died February 6, 1904. Faustina married R.C. Thompson June 12, 1905 and they lived on a farm in Town of Denmark, Washington County, Minnesota until moving to Hastings in 1910. She died May 24, 1915. (Obituary information and marriage to R.C. Thompson verified by The Daily Gazette, Hastings, MN, May 25, 1915.)

The Lurana Faustina Leavitt Whitaker collection includes 27 folders of letters received by her or her family from 1841 to 1905. Most of the letters are from friends and family (especially her father Orren and sister Lurenda Beal) in and near Lewiston, Lewiston Falls, Turner and North Turner, Maine. There are also letters from cousin Sarah Small and her husband Samuel from Prescott, Wisconsin; several letters from S.H. Haskell, a school teacher who wrote to her from several locations in Maine and Minnesota (close to and from St. Anthony) from 1859 to 1862; correspondence from Robert Thayer and J.M. Staples in Maine; Sabina Ricker from Sumner, Maine; Rachel Parlin from Paris, Maine; and Lucy Hibbard, M.D., Lewiston, Maine. There is also a letter to cousin Emma Small from William Lloyd Garrison in 1865.

The other folders in the collection include genealogical information, graduation announcements for two of her children, her lecture notebook (incomplete) on women's rights, school papers, and photographs.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Donald Taplin, Hastings, Minn., 1987 and 1992; and by Edith Kaiser, Hastings, Minn., for Donald Taplin, 1992.

Processing Information

Processed by Kathleen A. Luedtke, UW-River Falls Area Research Center, 1990 and 1993.

	Correspondence
Box   1 Folder   1	1841
Box   1 Folder   2	1852 Note: Father Orren on her first teaching job.
Box   1 Folder   3	1853
Box   1 Folder   4	1854
Box   1 Folder   5	1855 Note: Descriptions of Prescott, Wis.
Box   1 Folder   6	1856
Box   1 Folder   7	1857
Box   1 Folder   8	1858
Box   1 Folder   9	1859, January-June
Box   1 Folder   10	1859, July-December
Box   1 Folder   11	1860, January-June
Box   1 Folder   12	1860, July-December
Box   1 Folder   13	1861, January-June Note: S.H. Haskell at Fort Snelling, Minn.; Lucy Hibbard, M.D.
Box   1 Folder   14	1861, July-December
Box   1 Folder   15	1862
Box   1 Folder   16	1865 Note: To Emma Small from William Lloyd Garrison.
Box   1 Folder   17	1872
Box   1 Folder   18	1875
Box   1 Folder   19	1877
Box   1 Folder   20	1884
Box   1 Folder   21	1886
Box   1 Folder   22	1898
Box   1 Folder   23	1901
Box   1 Folder   24	1902
Box   1 Folder   25	1904
Box   1 Folder   26	1905
Box   1 Folder   27	undated
Box   2 Folder   1	Genealogical Information
Box   2 Folder   2	Graduation Announcements, 1896-1897
Box   2 Folder   3	Lecture Notebook, undated
Box   2 Folder   4	Miscellaneous Papers, 1857, 1918, undated
Box   2 Folder   5	Photographs