Lowell, Josephine (1843–1905)

US charitable worker. Influenced by her family's progressive leanings, she raised funds for freedmen's welfare after the Civil War, in which she was widowed, and reported on social conditions for the New York Charities Aid Association. Her treatise, Public Relief and Charity (1884), reflected a belief that low wages were a root cause of social problems. She cofounded the Consumers League of New York in 1890and the Charity Organization Society in 1902. Lowell was born Josephine Shaw in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.