SCOTT GRIFFITHS, JENNIE (1875-1951), journalist and political activist, was born
on 30 October 1875 near Woodville, Texas, United States of America, daughter of
Stephen Randolph Wilson, cotton-farmer, and his wife Laura, née Nettles, who had
been born in France. Apparently a precocious child, Jennie recalled—in a memoir
written at the end of her life—busking in the 1880s at town fairs as 'The Baby
Elocutionist of Texas', studying Charles Darwin, T. H. Huxley, Henry George,
Thomas Paine and Edward Bellamy with a tutor at home, and bungling an elopement
with the tutor at the age of 15. She also claimed that she entered the school of
law at the University of Texas at Austin in 1890; she probably acquired her
knowledge of law while attending classes with her elder half-brother Tom Cowart.
When not mixing in student circles, she wrote a column for children in a local
newspaper and visited prisons with her father. She then trained as a stenographer
and worked as a court reporter.
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