Graham, Isabella (1742–1814)

Scottish-American educator and philanthropist. Born Isabella Marshall on July 29, 1742, in Lanarkshire, Scotland; died in New York City on July 27, 1814; married Dr. John Graham (an army surgeon and local widower), in 1765 (died 1773); children: five, including Joan Graham Bethune.

Isabella Graham was born in 1742 in Lanarkshire, Scotland, and married Dr. John Graham in 1765. In 1767, she accompanied her husband to Canada where he was a physician with a British army regiment. Five years later, the couple moved to Antigua when he was transferred. When her husband died a year later (1773), Graham was left penniless and pregnant with her fifth child. She returned to Scotland to live with her father, opening a school in their home in Paisley which expanded into a girls' boarding school in Edinburgh.

Coming to New York in 1789, Graham established a successful seminary for young ladies. In November 1797, along with Elizabeth Ann Seton and other women, she organized the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children and was its "First Directress." Through her efforts and that of her daughter Joan Graham Bethune , the Orphan Asylum Society was founded in March 1806. The Society for Promoting Industry among the Poor and the first Sunday School for Ignorant Adults were also established in New York. Graham systematically visited the inmates of hospitals, as well as the sick female convicts in the state prison, and distributed Bibles to hundreds of families.