Angel of the Lighthouse: Elizabeth Whitney Williams

Publication
The Northern Mariner / Le marin du nord (St. John's, NL), Jan 2008, p. 29-38
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Angel of the Lighthouse: Elizabeth Whitney Williams


Elizabeth Whitney Williams grew up on Beaver Island in northern Lake Michigan. She became guardian of the lighthouse of the port of this island in 1872, following the death of her husband, lighthouse keeper himself, during an attempt to rescue sailors shipwrecked. After twelve years of service on Beaver Island, she secured another position as a keeper in Harbor Springs, Michigan at Harbor Point Light, where she served for twenty-nine years. Elizabeth Williams earned a modest notoriety with the publication of her autobiography, A Child of the Sea, in 1905. Elizabeth William's biography is striking, in part, because few women held the position of Lighthouse keeper. This caretaking, however, was a socially acceptable occupation for a small number of women in the 19th century because their functions were often compatible with notions of female domesticity in the middle classes.