Letter of Ednah Dow Cheney, undated

Writer, reformer, and philanthropist Ednah Dow Littlehale Cheney was born in Beacon Hill in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1824, the daughter of Sargent Smith Littlehale and Ednah Parker Dow Littlehale. She had seven siblings, only three of whom lived to adulthood. Cheney attended three seasons of the "Conversations" instituted by journalist and women's rights advocate Margaret Fuller. These conversations were intended to encourage women's independent thinking and self expression and they had a formative influence on Cheney's life. She was one of the founders of the Boston School of Design for Women in 1851 and served as the school's secretary until 1854. She married Seth Wells Cheney, an engraver and portraitist noted for his work in black and white crayon, in 1853; they had one daughter, Margaret, born in 1855. Seth Cheney died in 1856 and Margaret died in 1882. (Margaret was a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the time of her death; the Margaret Cheney Room, designed exclusively for the use of women students, was established soon after her death.)

Cheney was one of the founders of the New England Hospital for Women and Children and served as hospital president from 1887 to 1902. She also worked for the rights of freedmen before and after the Civil War, and for women's rights after the Civil War. She was one of the founders and financial backers of the New England Women's Club, one of the earliest women's clubs in the United States. Her published works include Hand-Book for American Citizens (1864); Patience (1870), Social Games (1871), Faithful to the Light (1872), Child of the Tide (1874), Life of Susan Dimoch (1875), Gleanings in Fields of Art (1881), Memoir of S. W. Cheney (1881)Selected Poems of Michael Angelo (1885), Memoir of John Cheney, Engraver (1888), Memoir of Margaret S. Cheney (1888)Children's Friend, A Sketch of Louisa M. Alcott (1888), Biography of L. M. Alcott (1889), Nora's Return (1890), Stories of Olden Time (1890), and a number of articles in books and journals. She died in 1904.