Virginia C. Meredith. No name figures more conspicuously or is mentioned with greater honor on the pages of the history concerning the connection of women with the great World's Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893, than that of Mrs. Virginia Claypool Meredith, yet her wide and brilliant reputation comes not alone from her association with that triumph of American skill and ingenuity. She is always found taking an advanced stand in favor of higher and broader education and of great business possibilities for women, and is today one of the most competent authorities on agricultural, and especially stock raising, interests in the entire country. Thus leading an advance movement that cannot fail to prove of permanent benefit to the race, she may well be termed a public benefactor, for her broad missionary spirit and her splendid intellectual attainments have combined to engrave her name enduringly on the history of the world's progress.
Mrs. Meredith was born November 5, 1848, in Fayette County, Indiana, a daughter of Austin B. and Hannah A. (Petty) Claypool, who are still residents of that place. She completed her school course by her graduation in Glendale College, but to such a woman as Mrs. Meredith education is never completed this side of the grave. She is a student and reader, and experience, observation and thought have continually broadened her knowledge. She was married April 28, 1870, to Henry Clay Meredith, and they spent the greater part of their married life on Oakland Farm, adjoining Cambridge City, Indiana. Upon her husband's death, in 1882, she assumed the management of the farm, for which work she was well fitted, for during his active business career she was closely associated with him and had become an expert in the history and pedigrees of shorthorn cattle. She continues the breeding of blooded stock and has sold into every part of the United States representatives from her fine herd of shorthorns and from her Southdown flock of sheep.
When the state authorized the holding of farmers' institutes and placed the management of the same with Purdue University, Mrs. Meredith was invited to address these meetings, and within the course of four years, from 1889 until 1892, inclusive, visited almost every county in the state, returning by special invitation again and again to various counties. She has been invited to speak on farm and stock topics in Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, and also in England, and at the special request of the state commissioners, in 1893, she prepared for the Columbian Exposition a monograph upon the live stock of Indiana. In the winter of 1896-97 she delivered a special course of lectures upon cattle at Purdue University. She has been a paid contributor to the leading agricultural and stock papers in the United States, and some of her articles have been copied in every English speaking country. In 1897, at the request of the regents of the University of Minnesota, she inaugurated and organized the department for young women in the school of agriculture. This work had no precedent, and has been laid out on new and independent lines. In the second year sixty-three young women were enrolled, with most pronounced expressions of confidence in this new practical department of education.
In 1891 Mrs. Meredith was appointed a member of the national board of lady managers, charged with the care of all the interests of women in the World's Columbian Exposition. In Chicago, in November of that year, at the first meeting of this board of more than one hundred members, representing each state in the Union, Mrs. Meredith demonstrated her grasp of the possibilities and formulated what afterward proved to be the policy of the board. She was elected vice-chairman of the executive committee --- with Mrs. Potter Palmer, president of the board, chairman ex officio --- and in that position had a large share in formulating the plans and methods which at last embraced the extensive interests of women all over the world. Later she was appointed chairman of the committee on awards, and in that capacity had charge of the selection of the women judges --- one hundred or more --- from all the several countries participating as exhibitors. Women had never before had representation in an international board of judges, although their industrial importance was well known and widely acknowledged. Mrs. Palmer and Mrs. Meredith were invited to meet the senate and house committees on appropriations of congress, and were able to make such a presentation of the merits of this new feature of the exposition as to secure an appropriation of one hundred thousand dollars to be expended by the committee, of which Mrs. Meredith was chairman, in payment of judges and for other expenses which must be incurred in that connection. The difficulty of finding in the various countries women expert in particular lines and possessing also the other qualifications entitling them to membership in such an important international body, was very great; and that the one hundred lady judges served with ability, even distinction, is highly creditable to the administration of Mrs. Meredith, as chairman of the committee on awards.
In addition to the above original feature of the Columbian Exposition there was another, also originated by the board of lady managers --- that was the bestowal of diplomas of honorable mention upon artisans who had assisted in the production of an article that received an award. Indeed this feature is by some thought to be the finest thing originated by the Columbian Exposition. Congress especially authorized these diplomas by a resolution, which, by the way, was drafted by Mrs. Meredith and passed as she phrased it. The work of discovering to whom these diplomas --- recognition of the man or woman who labors --- should go, their proper engrossing, signatures, etc., was placed in charge of Mrs. Meredith, and eighteen thousand of these "Honorable Mentions" were sent out to inventors and artisans in Europe, Asia, and North and South America. It is certainly a great honor that the only two really new, original, unprecedented features of the exposition should have fallen to the administration of one woman --- Mrs. Meredith.
In another way Mrs. Meredith was also honored in connection with the important international events of 1893. Governor Hovey had construed the Indiana law authorizing him to appoint a certain number of "citizens" to constitute the state commission, to include women, and he therefore made Mrs. Meredith a member of the commission. On the occasion of the dedication of the Indiana building, in Jackson Park, she made an address, following Governor Matthews and ex-President Harrison.
She has always been interested in progressive work for women, and was the first, and for nine years continued, president of the Helen Hunt Club, of Cambridge City, a literary organization of high standing. In 1895 she was elected president of the Indiana Union of Literary Clubs, a strong state federation of about two hundred clubs, which is doing much to advance the literary taste in this commonwealth. She is also one of the stockholders of the Propylaeum, at Indianapolis, a notable building unique among the undertakings of women; and on the occasion of its dedication she made the congratulatory address. In religious belief she is a Presbyterian, and has long been a member of the church and a teacher in the Sunday school.
Having no children of her own, she has adopted into her home two children left orphans by the death of one of her friends, securing thereby the love and home ties that brighten a busy life. She has a mind above all personal considerations, concerned with those large, loving interests that belong to humanity, and her true womanly qualities of mind and heart, her sympathy and kindly purpose indicate that she has the spirit of Him who came to minister unto others.
