Peters, Mabel Phoebe

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Susan E. Markham, “PETERS, MABEL PHOEBE,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 14, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/peters_mabel_phoebe_14E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Hotel proprietor and social reformer; b. 12 June 1861 in Saint John; d. 30 Aug. 1914 in Boston and was buried 4 September in Saint John.
    • Mabel Peters’s family were loyalists from New York who contributed substantially to the business and political life of New Brunswick. Her mother, Martha Hamm Lewis, was the first woman to be admitted to the provincial Normal School. She taught for six years before marrying Alexander Nevers Peters, a Saint John newspaper manager turned retail grocer who later became a hotel proprietor. From such educated, entrepreneurial, middle-class roots came many social reformers such as Miss Peters.
    • Much of her early adult life appears to have been spent helping to operate her father’s hotel, the Clifton House in Saint John. After Mrs Peters died in 1892, Mabel and her elder sister Mary Evelyn gradually took it over from their ageing father, becoming proprietors in 1897; following his death in 1901 they managed it for two more years. Another elder sister, Mrs Clara Arthurs, was a leader in the development of playgrounds in Detroit, and a younger sister, Sarah L., had moved there after their mother’s death. There were frequent visits to and from Detroit, Saint John, and Westfield, N.B., the location of the family’s summer home. This travel provided Mabel Peters with ideas which she used in the pursuit of social reforms.
    • Her influence at the national level began in 1901 when she prepared a paper promoting vacation schools and playgrounds for the annual meeting of the National Council of Women of Canada. It was read by Mrs Arthurs, seen as a way to “overcome the evils of enforced idleness” by providing children with opportunities for “rational activity and healthy play.” The work thus initiated gained momentum in 1902 when the council formed a standing committee on vacation schools and supervised playgrounds and made Mabel its convenor. 
    • It was not until 1906, however, that the first playground was initiated in Saint John. Mabel Peters had led the way as convenor of playgrounds for the Local Council of Women. For two months before its opening she supplied two local newspapers with articles extolling the benefits of playgrounds and worked in fund-raising and in gathering contributions of goods from city merchants.
    • Both before and after she and Evelyn sold the family hotel, Mabel travelled widely promoting playgrounds. In one year alone, 1912–13, she visited Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, London, Walkerville (Windsor), Ont., and Moncton, N.B., and attended the annual meeting of the National Council of Women in Montreal. Her travels in the United States brought her into contact with Jane Addams, a key social activist in Chicago, and with members of the Playground Association of America, of which she was an early member (1907) and a member of the national council (1907–8).
    • Mabel Peters promoted women’s suffrage with comparable zeal. A member of the Saint John Women’s Enfranchisement Association, founded in 1894, she travelled, gathered information for local groups, and spoke at conferences such as the Washington National Suffrage Conference in 1902.
  • Second Great Granddaughter of Proven Loyalist in Loyalist Directory –https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=6556
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/274063919/mabel-phoebe-peters