Nettie Leila Michel

Nettie Leila Michel (later known as, Jeannette Champion Roake; September 26, 1863 — June 29, 1912) was an American business woman, author, and magazine editor. Michel was the first woman commercial traveler (traveling salesperson) in the United States and early in life traveled through Michigan for the N. K. Fairbank Company, of Chicago. She later gave up traveling and became the first editor of a strictly literary magazine, being associated with Charles Wells Moulton in Buffalo, New York on The Magazine of Poetry, and with Mary Livermore in literary work.[1]

Nettie Leila Michel, "A woman of the century"

Biography

Jeannette (nickname, "Nettie") Leila Champion[2] was born in Oswego, New York, September 26, 1863.

She was descended from several of the most prominent early Colonial families, and was a lineal descendant of Joseph Jenckes Jr., who cut the dies for the pine tree shilling's used in Massachusetts, and from Joseph Jenckes, his son, who for twenty years, was governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Her great-grandfather, Samuel Tefft, was a member of the Rhode Island General Assembly that on May 4, 1776, two months before the Declaration of Independence, voted to sever all political relationships with the home country of Great Britain. Her father was Mortimer A. Champion, who was a lineal descendant of Henry Champion, one of the early settlers of the Connecticut Valley and whose son, Mehitable, carried despatches for George Washington's army.[1] Michel's mother was Cecelia Penny Champion, a descendant of the Clark family, of central New York.[3]

Michel received her early education in the public schools of Syracuse, New York, and later in the public schools of Oswego.[3]

Career

She married Mr. Michel, March 29, 1882, but the marriage lasted for less than one year. Being obliged to support herself, she went out as an advertising agent for a large wholesale house of Chicago, Illinois, and was the first woman in the U.S. to fill such a position. She then became a "drummer" (traveling commercial salesman), visiting the drug trade in the interests of an Eastern supply house. She was one of the first, if not the first, women sent out as an agent for staple articles, traveling from place to place with her trunk of samples. Her territory includes the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. As a drummer, she was very successful, but left the road at the end of two years. She then took a course in stenography in Prof. Augustus J. Warner's Elmira Business and Shorthand College in Elmira, New York, in 1888, and was graduated in three months, one of the best qualified students sent out by that school during a term of 25 years.[3]

In the fall of 1888, she entered the office of The Magazine of Poetry in Buffalo, New York, and took charge of the correspondence as an expert stenographer. The following year, she became the business manager of the magazine, a position she resigned in 1891 to become its editor (through 1896).[3][4][5] She also wrote prose articles and biographies for it.[6][7] She was intimately acquainted with the prominent poets and writers of her day.[1]

St. John's-Grace Episcopal church

Michel was interested in all movements for the advancement of women, and she represented business interests in various conventions throughout the country.

Later life and death

Michel was a member of the National Woman's Press Association of Washington, D.C., and the King's Daughters.[3][1] She was a communicant of St. John's Episcopal Church, Buffalo,[3] as well as an Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[1]

Michel owned the homestead on Tug Hill, west of Peekskill, New York, the house on which was built from logs cut on the farm in the early 1850s.[1] She had been ill for several years in later life. She died at the Seney Hospital in Brooklyn following an operation for appendicitis on June 29, 1912.[1] Her husband, Elijah L. Roake, accompanied Michel's body to Oswego, New York for the funeral,[2] with interment at that city's Rural Cemetery. Michel was also survived by a half-brother, Adelbert Foster, and a half-sister, Ella Skineer; George Wilson and his mother, Emmery, who live on the old homestead on Tug Hill; Mrs. Lena Helig; and Mrs. Thomas B. Gates.[1]

References

Citations
  1. "Mrs. Jeannette Champion Roake" (Public domain ed.). Peekskill, New York. The Highland Democrat. 6 July 1912.
  2. "Mrs. Jeannette C. Roake". Newspapers.com (Public domain ed.). Brooklyn, New York. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 1 July 1912. p. 13. Retrieved 14 June 2020.
  3. Willard & Livermore 1893, p. 502.
  4. Okker 2008, p. 200.
  5. Moulton 1892, p. 1.
  6. "The second editor of the January (initial) number of the Magazine of Poetry is now in press". Newspapers.com (Public domain ed.). The Abilene Weekly Chronicle. 21 March 1889. p. 7. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
  7. Russell (ed.) 1891, p. 504.

Attribution

Bibliography
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