Hulda Barker Loud
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Hulda Barker Loud was born in East Abington (now Rockland), Massachusetts, to Reuben Loud and Betsey (Whiting) Loud.[1][2] She went to public schools until, at eighteen, she became a schoolteacher.[1] She taught in her home town the next twenty-two years, and for fifteen years she was the principal of a grammar school.[2] A strong advocate for equal rights and pay for women, she convinced the school board that she should be paid the same salary as a man.[2]
In 1884, a local paper was founded and she became editor-in-chief.[1] She named the paper The Independent.[1][3] Five years later, she bought the business, which encompassed both the newspaper and a job-printing shop.[1] She used the paper to champion equal rights for women and labor rights.[1]
Loud served on the school board for three years (1887–90) and addressed the town meetings on local issues.[1] She represented the Knights of Labor at the 1888 International Council of Women meeting in Washington, D.C.[1][3]
Loud died in Rockland on April 6, 1911, at the age of 66.[4]