Amanda Lovina Barnes^[3] was born in North Adams, Massachusetts, May 12, 1833. Her father was Asahel Richardson Barnes. Her mother's maiden name was Mary Whitcomb Slocum. Aikens was reared under deeply religious influences. Much of her education was received in Maplewood Institute, Pittsfield, Massachusetts.^[4]

She married Andrew Jackson Aikens, January 4, 1854. They lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where for many years, she was a leader in local charities, church work and efforts for the intellectual development of women. They had four children, including Mary Lydia Aikens, and Stella Cramer,^[5] a poet.^[4]

In November 1887, Aikens began to edit "The Woman's World", a special department of The Evening Wisconsin, of which her husband was one of the proprietors, published in Milwaukee. Up to that time, she was best known for her active interest in, and intimate connection with, numerous benevolent societies. She was at one time president of the Board of Local Charities and Corrections, two years president of the Woman's Club of Milwaukee, two years chairman of the Art Committee, and served as vice-president of the Wisconsin Industrial School for Girls, and for ten years the chairman of its executive committee.^[4]

During the American Civil War, she made public appeals and announcements through the press when the question of a National Soldiers' Home was agitated. In the History of Milwaukee, published in 1881, there is a long account of her work helping the injured during the Civil War.^[6]

Aikens traveled extensively in Europe, and published newspaper letters of art criticism. She raised money in Wisconsin for the Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore, for the purpose of admitting women on equal terms with men. She helped to organize the first Woman's Republican Club of Wisconsin,^[7] and was a State delegate to the National Conference of Charities when it met in Baltimore. In 1891, she read a paper before the State Conference of Charities in Madison, Wisconsin.^[6]

Aikens had much to do with the introduction of cooking into the public schools of Milwaukee. For 15 years, she was an officer or director with the Art Science Class,^[7] a literary organization with a purpose of developing a taste in architecture, painting, sculpture, and science. One-hundred and fifty women belonged to this class.^[6]

Aikens contracted influenza in January 1892, but although sick in bed, she continued to conduct the editorial department until three weeks before her death. She died at her home in Milwaukee, May 20, 1892,^[1] after the long illness.^[2]

Attribution edit

•   This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Campbell, John A. (1902). A Biographical History, with Portraits, of Prominent Men of the Great West. (Public domain ed.). Western biographical and engraving Company.
•   This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Herringshaw, Thomas William (1904). Herringshaw's Encyclopedia of American Biography of the Nineteenth Century: Accurate and Succinct Biographies of Famous Men and Women in All Walks of Life who are Or Have Been the Acknowledged Leaders of Life and Thought of the United States Since Its Formation ... (Public domain ed.). American Publishers' Association.
•   This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Logan, Mrs. John A. (1912). The Part Taken by Women in American History (Public domain ed.). Perry-Nalle publishing Company. p. 528.
•   This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Willard, Frances Elizabeth; Livermore, Mary Ashton Rice (1893). "Amanda L. Aikens". A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life (Public domain ed.). Charles Wells Moulton.

• Works by or about Amanda L. Aikens at Internet Archive
•   Works related to Woman of the Century/Amanda L. Aikens at Wikisource