APARA 9PAR@ ` ╤TEXT ` ├Peter, Sarah Anne Worthington King1800╨1877charity worker and philanthropistBorn near Chillicothe, Ohio, on May 10, 1800, Sarah Worthington was the daughter of a wealthy father who later served in Congress and the Senate and in 1814╨1818 as governor of Ohio. She was educated in private girls╒ schools in Frankfort, Kentucky, and Baltimore, and she supplemented her formal schooling by wide reading on her own. In May 1816 she married Edward King, son of Senator Rufus King. She continued her private studies after her marriage and later became active in various charitable organizations in Cincinnati, whence they removed from Chillicothe in 1831. In particular she was a founder of the Cincinnati Protestant Orphan Asylum (now the Children╒s Convalescent Home) in 1833. After her husband╒s death in 1836 she moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where her two sons were attending Harvard. Her studies there included reading German under the tutelage of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In October 1844 she married William Peter, the British consul in Philadelphia. In that city she again took an interest in various charitable enterprises. It occurred to Peter that the production of commercial design for wallpaper, carpeting, textiles, utensils, and the like, then commonly obtained abroad, could provide a fruitful source of employment for women otherwise without support, and in 1848 she established the Philadelphia School of Design in her home to teach wood engraving, lithography, and other practical arts. Through publicity in Godey╒s Lady╒s Book, edited by her friend Sarah J. Hale, the school attracted wide attention, and in 1850 it became affiliated with the Franklin Institute. It was the first school of industrial arts in America. (it continued in operation until 1932, when it was absorbed by the Moore Institute of Art, Science, and Industry.) After her husband╒s death in 1853 Peter returned to Cincinnati. In that year she founded and became first president of the Ladies╒ Gallery of Fine Arts, the first public art collection in Ohio and the forerunner of the Cincinnati Academy of Fine Arts. After her conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1855 Peter devoted herself to the establishment of convents in Cincinnati and through them to the care of widows, orphans, female prisoners, and prostitutes. She solicited support among fellow Cincinnatians and in Europe to finance the establishment of convents of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd in 1857, the Sisters of Mercy and the Order of the Poor of St. Francis in 1858, and the Little Sisters of the Poor in 1868. She also helped Mother Mary Aloysia Hardey establish the convent and school of the Order of the Sacred Heart in 1869. During the Civil War she was a frequent visitor to military hospitals and prisons. She lived her last years in an apartment of her former home, which she had given to the Franciscan nuns along with the proceeds of her art collection and furniture. She died in Cincinnati on February 6, 1877. &styl ` ! ¬ # 5¬ - 5¬ P !I | 5¬ } !I !I !I 3 !I ▐ @ !I P 5¬ Q !I
