1870-1949
Augusta Parsonnet was president of the Women’s Political Union of New Jersey. She was the first President of the League of Women Voters of Newark. She was also first President of the Ladie’s Guild of Beth Israel, a founder of Haddasah’s Newark Chapter and first President the Newark Council of Jewish Women. She also served as President of the Contemporary Club. In 1927, the Jewish Chronicle called her “one of the busiest women in Newark.”
Augusta attended Tufts Medical School and the New York Medical School. Her husband Victor, who later became a prominent gynecologist, was also studying at the time. The obituary states, financial difficulties made it impossible for both of them to continue studying, so Augusta quit her studies and worked for Singer Sewing Machines to fund her husband’s schooling. She was married in 1893, and her husband died in 1920.
According to her obituary, Augusta helped her husband to organize Beth Israel Hospital.
Augusta lived in Weequahic and Lincoln Park, and early in her marriage at 177 Court St. She was the mother-in-law of Rose Danzis. She was born in Poland and came to Newark with her parents in 1886. At the time of her death she was living at 39 Lincoln Park.
[See also, attached Suffrage Biography by George Robb.]
Bibliography
Robb, George. Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists.
John James Scannell, New Jersey’s First Citizens, vol. 2 (Paterson: Scannell Publishing, 1920), pp. 351-52.
“Woman Civic Leader Dies,” Newark Evening News, November 18, 1949.
P-04 Parsonnet, Augusta, Newark News Morgue, Newark Public Library
“Local Leaders in the Communal World” Jewish Chronicle Sept 30, 1927
“Was Leader in Community” Jewish News Nov 25, 1949
“Letter to a Friend” Jewish News Sept 28, 1978
Ancestry.com including US Family Photo Collection and Censuses
“Oil Stove Exploded” Newark News Aug 29, 1899