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A Newsletter by the City of Saco, Maine	November, 2007	Return to newsletter index

Two new portraits hang on City Hall walls

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Two distinguished local woman have joined the men on the walls of City Hall Auditorium. Sarah Fairfield Hamilton led the Women's Educational and Industrial Union, which in turn led many social reforms efforts in Saco, and Dr. Laura Black Stickney, who many still remember as a physician on Cutts Avenue and as a promoter of public health, will now have a permanent presence at City Hall. Historic research into the two women's lives was undertaken by local historian Sally Huot. The portraits grew out of the graphics created for Saco Museum's Main Street walk, a series of historic interpretive panels installed along Main Street.

It a ceremony at a recent City Council meeting, Marion Stickney, the daughter-in-law of Dr. Stickney, helped to unveil the portrait. Sally Huot and Beverly Loring, president today of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union, helped to unveil the Hamilton portrait.

Dr. Laura Black Stickney, 1879-1961, promoted public health, women's suffrage, and ran for mayor during her 50 years of Saco civic leadership. Born in 1879 in Porter, Laura May Black learned to read in a one-room school house. In 1900, Laura Black enrolled in the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Boston. After graduation, Dr. Black spent the next two years interning at the North End Dispensary and Hospital in Boston.

She opened her first practice in Saco with an office on the second floor of the Odd Fellows Building on Main Street. She was the first woman City Physician in Saco, and served in that capacity for many years, and worked for women's suffrage. When the 19th amendment became law, she worked diligently for the Republican Party, locally and statewide. In 1922 she was nominated as the Republican candidate for Mayor of Saco. "It should be a prominent duty to maintain the highest efficiency in our schools - Nothing is more important," she said a campaign speech. She lost narrowly.

As City Physician, she had the responsibility of caring for poor local farmers who were often unable to pay. She was also in charge of managing care during various epidemics that swept through Saco.

She joined the Women's Educational and Industrial Union, an organization with widespread influence in social reforms. This group of distinguished women instituted many "first" programs in the city - kindergarten, day care, summer programs for children, industrial arts classes, home economics classes and adult education. When Dr. Laura Black joined this dynamic group of women, she stressed the need for medical exams in schools, pointing out that many physical afflictions, if recognized and treated promptly, would enable the young learners to be educated to the best of their abilities. If ignored, these students could fail. For five years, Dr. Black conducted these exams, under the sponsorship of the E. & I. Union, until the city assumed the responsibility.

After she married Joseph Stickney, they purchased and renovated a house at 10 Cutts Avenue, creating a doctor's office on the first floor and an architectural office for her husband above. She became a charter member of the Equal Suffrage Club of Saco.

Dr. Frank Trull, a well-known and respected physician in the area, died the same year she lost the mayoral election. It was he who, twenty years earlier, had purchased a mansion on May Street in Biddeford and turned it into the area's first hospital. After much consideration, Dr. Paul Hill Sr. and Dr. Laura Black Stickney purchased Trull Hospital. After Dr. Hill's death, Dr. Stickney became the sole owner of that facility, which she managed until she died, May 4, 1961. In 1954, Saco Mayor Harry Warren presented her with the "Angel of Mercy" award in recognition of her half-century's faithful service to the community.

Sarah Fairfield Hamilton, 1831- 1909, was a founder of the local chapter of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union, and led that organization to create Saco's first kindergarten, a nursery for mill workers' children, summer park programs, and other progressive reforms in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Today, many of the services initiated by Sarah Hamilton and the energetic and innovative E & I ladies are considered essential services now offered by the city government or the schools, but they originated in the front parlor of Sarah Fairfield Hamilton's Main Street home.

Her father, John Fairfield, was frequently away from home, serving first as Congressman, then Governor and eventually U.S Senator. When he died unexpectedly in Washington D.C., Sarah assumed the role of second-in-command to her mother regarding her six younger brothers and sisters. Sarah attended Thornton Academy, which was named for her grandfather, Thomas Thornton. She was a student there when it burned in 1848, a year after her father died.

She married Benjamin Franklin Hamilton, supervisor of the Unitarian Sunday School where she taught. The Hamiltons purchased half of the Leland mansion at 329 Main Street, now named Thornton Hall, where they remained their entire lives.

On a trip to Boston, Sarah encountered Mrs. Abbey Diaz on a horse trolley and introduced herself to the well-known speaker on domestic issues and promoter of women's reading clubs. Sarah invited her to speak in Saco. Her lecture at City Hall was an instant success. From this initial encounter, the Diaz Union was formed by a group of Saco women, and after a later visit, they joined the Woman's Educational and Industrial Union, an active benevolent association based in Boston. The first program was a kindergarten class, held in a room at the rear of City Hall called Froebel Hall after the German kindergarten originator.