On the maternal side, Keyser was a descendant of John Gedney, who came from Norfolk, England, in 1603, and settled in Westchester County, New York.

These and other questions of importance were freely discussed by him and his guests, at the family dinner table where young Harriette heard the varied opinions.

[1] Her prescribed education was brief — some years at a public school in New York City, and then at Ellenville Academy, which she left at fourteen, followed by some private instruction in elocution, French, German and music.

[2] During her years there, she wrote two novels, one, On the Borderland, expounding the then little considered theory of the use of music in the treatment of insanity, and second, Thorns in Your Sides, with a labor theme, laid in New York and Ireland.

While there, she was deeply interested in the missions in the East End of London, and was so impressed by their work that on her return to the U.S., she gave a series of lectures on this subject in a number of parish houses.

A meeting was held where a joint committee, of which Keyser was an active member, was appointed to prepare a white list of employers of fair dealing, and from this, in a short time, grew the Consumers' League.

During the convention, she also made addresses in the smaller halls opening on the corridors, thus reaching many strollers who would not have taken the trouble to go to a meeting of this sort at home.

She had been watching its development with great interest, and at the convention, she had seen many people converted, almost in passing, by the compelling talks of Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others.

After she had worked successfully, though under difficulties, for a time, she was called to wider fields, and later was appointed organizer for the New York City Suffrage League.

The campaign failed, however, and at the close of the convention, the New York City Suffrage League continued its work in many assembly district clubs, and sent Keyser to them for the purpose of giving political instruction.

During her suffrage work, she had joined the woman’s Law class at New York University, graduating in 1896,[4] and was well fitted to instruct others along these lines.

This was the beginning of many years of strenuous labor and she kept herself fit for the arduous tasks she was called upon to perform, by her ability to relax when the occasion demanded, spending her vacations in Maine with a congenial group of friends, many of them C.A.I.L.

Men and women in industry were denied the barest rights of human beings in many cases, and organization, then beginning to make itself felt, was the only means by which they could protect themselves from the greed and selfishness of employers.

In 1899, Keyser won the attention of the President to Sunday rest for actors, and, bringing the matter before the executive committee of C.A.I.L., the new society was formed the same year.

Bishop Henry C. Potter presided, Dr. Peters and Keyser, two representatives from the Cloakmakers' Union, and others spoke from the chancel with the result that a sweatshop committee was formed, which consistently and vigorously worked to abolish that abuse.

's policy, formulated in a motion made by Keyser, was extended to the effort for abolition of manufacturing in tenement houses, the last refuge of the sweating system.

Keyser lent her efforts to preaching the economic waste of industrial war, and promoting the interests of arbitration, as some help in the prevention of labor conflicts.

[1] In 1901, at the Episcopal Triennial Convention at San Francisco, a Commission of Capital and Labor was established with Bishop Potter as chair.

had become well known by this time as a champion of fair conditions and the clerks in the department stores of Harlem asked its assistance in obtaining shorter hours Saturday nights.

's campaign to aid the grocer clerks to close the stores in Greater New York at 7 P. M. instead of late in the evening, and she was untiring in conferring with union representatives, and making addresses on the subject, until the fight was won.

[1] Keyser was an ardent admirer of the bishops of her church, for in her work, she always found them a democratic and open minded body of men.