Robert Gould Shaw was an American officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Born into a Boston upper class abolitionist family, he accepted command of the first all-black regiment in the Northeast. Supporting the promised equal treatment for his troops, he encouraged the men to refuse their pay until it was equal to that of white troops' wage.

Josephine Shaw Lowell was a Progressive Reform leader in the United States in the Nineteenth century. She is best known for creating the New York Consumers League in 1890.