University of South Florida Scholar Commons

FORUM : the Magazine of the Florida Humanities Florida Humanities

1-1-1996

Forum : Vol. 18, No. 03 (Winter : 1995/1996)

Florida Humanities Council.

Nancy F. Cott

Linda Vance

Doris Weatherford

Nancy A. Hewitt

See next page for additional authors

Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/forum_magazine

Recommended Citation Florida Humanities Council.; Cott, Nancy F.; Vance, Linda; Weatherford, Doris; Hewitt, Nancy A.; Vickers, Sally; McGovern, James R.; Dughi, Donn; and Ridings, Dorothy S., "Forum : Vol. 18, No. 03 (Winter : 1995/ 1996)" (1996). FORUM : the Magazine of the Florida Humanities. 60. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/forum_magazine/60

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Florida Humanities at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in FORUM : the Magazine of the Florida Humanities by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Authors Florida Humanities Council., Nancy F. Cott, Linda Vance, Doris Weatherford, Nancy A. Hewitt, Sally Vickers, James R. McGovern, Donn Dughi, and Dorothy S. Ridings

This article is available at Scholar Commons: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/forum_magazine/60 WINTER 1995/1996

The Magazine of the FIo.ida Humanities Council FROM

TO

WOMEN AND P01111 RTICIATION 1900-1982 FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FLORIDA HUMANITIES For Women, Two Paths COUNCIL to Political Action BOARD OF DIRECTORS LESTER ABBERGER MERCY DIAZ-MIRANDA Tallahassee Miami

ELAINET. AZEN WILLIAM T. HALL, JR. hen I moved to Florida ten years ago, I began to hear about an Fort Lauderdale Niceville

organization that reminded me of another generation, the League BETTIE BARKDULL THOMAS J. HEGARTY of Women Voters. My grandmother, always ahead of her time, Coral Gables Tam pa MARGARET L. BATES FRANK HELSDM helped to organize in the 1920s a local chapter of the League of Sarasota Palm Death

Women Voters and later served as state president. My grandmother was typ SAMUEL P. BELL MILDRED A, HILL-LUBIN Tallahassee Gainesville ical of the League’s membership back then - white, college educated, com PHYLLIS BLEIWEIS ARTHUR H, JAFFE mitted to bringing women’s "social housekeeping" to the service of the coun Miami Boca Raton try JAN M, BROWN GINNY D. MYRICK Jacksonville In any conversation with a politician, sooner or later, the League would Ears Myers CECILIA BRYANT SARAH H,PAPPAS be mentioned. I was curious to know if my conversations were just anecdo Jacksonville Daytona Beach tal, or whether we could generalize: the stepping stone to political office in NANCY W. BULLEN GORDON M, PATTERSON Longbost Key Melbourne this state was a leadership position in the League of Women Voters. In 1991, JOAN S. CARVER ALZO REDDICK the Florida Humanities Council organized a conference on the participation Jacksonville O’laedo of women in Florida’s political life with the National Coalition of 100 Black LLOYD W. CH.IN SALLY COLLINS WALLACE St. Petersburg St. Petersburg Women and the League of Women Voters of Hillsborough County. Former State Senators Mary Grizzle and Jeannie Malcolm; Sadie Martin, former STAFF Mayor of Plant City and President of the League of ANN HENDERSON Florida Cities; State Representative Cynthia Chestnut; Executive Director and historians Joan Carver and Doris Weatherford SUSAN LOCKWOOD JANINE FARVER participated. The conference gave me the opportu Associate Director Development Direclor nity to hear from others how decisive a role the JOAN BRAGGINTON LAURIE BERLIN Program Director Administrative Assistant League had played in the careers of Florida’s women PHYLLIS MoEWEN KATHY DAUGHTRY politicians. Resource Center Director Secretary/Receptionisl The answer was a clear cut "yes and no." For white women whose TINA GUREVITCH ANN BOOKS Finance Director Adminietralive Consultant careers began in the 1960s and 1970s, the League was clearly the arena where women learned and refined political skills. For African American women and Editor Latin women, their communities and its institutions the church, school orga RICK EDMONDS nizations were all important. Frequently, a woman had become an advocate Design & Production for a cause and members of the community asked her to carry on her advo RUSS KRAMER cacy from public office. © 1995 NC When FORUM editor Rick Edmonds and I began to talk about this issue last summer, our biggest problem was to decide how to focus this topic so we would publish a magazine, not a book. Early on we agreed to limit the FHC FORUM articles to women’s political participation between 1900 and the defeat of the Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Winter 1995/1996 ERA, but our authors/scholars stretched even that definition. What is clear The magazine of THE FLORIDA HUMANITIES COUNCIL is that there is definitely a book waiting to be written on Florida’s women, 1514 1/2 East Eighth Avenue, and several talented scholars who could write it. We hope that until that book Tampa, Florida 33605-3708 appears, this issue of the FORUM makes a valuable contribution to the his Phone 813 272-3473 tory of Florida’s women. E-mail address: H-IC @ acomp.usf.edu This issue of FORUM is also intended to celebrate the Florida The florida Humanities Council is a non profit organization, funded by the National Sesquicentennial. Women’s suffrage came in 1920-exactly half way through Endowment for the Humanities, the state Florida’s 150-year span as a state. We have enlisted a number of scholars of of Florida and privute contributors. FHC Forum is published twice a year and distrib women’s history to join our Speakers Bureau. If your organization is inter uted free of charge to the friends of the ested in speaker Florida Humanities Council and interested a who can talk about the history of women’s political par Floridians. If you wish to be added to the ticipation in Florida, please call our office. * mailing list, please request so in writing. Views expressed by contributors to the Forum are not necessarily those of the - Ann Henderson Florida Humanities Council. r FORUM The Magazine of the Florida Humanities Council

INSIDE 44 PAGE 16 4 From Then to NOW By Nancy F. Cott

10 May Mann Jennings She was a power even before women won the vote By Linda Vance 16 Last Instead of First Florida bungled its chance to be a leader in ratfying the Nineteenth Amendment By Doris Weatherford 22 Varieties of Wom&s Suffrage In union halls and churches and clubs, dfferent kinds of women were winning d4fferent kinds of votes By Nancy A. Hewitt 28 Ruth Bryan Owen She was the first woman elected to Congress in the post- reconstruction South By Sally Vickers 34 Helen Hunt West For this feminist, suffrage was just a start on equal rights By James R. McGovern 40 The Long Hard Climb Full participationfor women took years; the ERA never did make it Photos by Donn Dughi PAGE 40 48 Of Big Gains and Unfinished Business NationsBank joins the By Dorothy S. Ridings Florida Humanities Council in celebrating the 75th anniversary 51 Suggested Readings of women’s suffrage and the proud heritage of Florida women. COVER: May Mann Jennings, Ruth Bryan Owen and Betty Castor. 0

z > z 0

-o 0 r

-I I n

-j - r C -o C’. > INTROD NANCY F. COTT

y the 1910s woman suffrage was a platform on which diverse people and organizations could com Nancy F. Con, one of the nation’s leading scholars in fortably, if temporarily, stand. The nine women’s history, is Stanley Woodward professor of history teerith-century view of the ballot as rep and American studies at Yale University. resenting the self-possessed individual The story of women’s polit cal participatbn in florida and had been joined by new emphasis on the the battle for the right of suf frage are variations on a national story-one that was ballot as the tool of group interests. City largely unchronicled until Con and her generation of histori and state machine politics unmistakably ans began digging into the sub ject 25 years ago. conveyed the message that votes enabled These extracts from her writ ngs discuss the surprising self-identified groups to have their needs continuity of women’s growLng political participation pre- and answered or their intents manipulated. post-suffrage, the early emer gence of distinctly women’s issues like social welfare and Population growth and immigration, the unusual role the South and rceihis race issues played in the thdustrialization and the rise of great cities movement. The essay is drawn with were compelling people to re-envision the Cott’s permission from her 1987 book, The Grounding of state as the arena in which differing group American Feminism, and from Women were voting in ‘The South and the Nation in New York and a few the History of Women’s interests might be calculated and concili other states in 1918, even Rights," her contribution to a I 1989 symposium sponsored ated. Americans turned to political reforms before the ratification of I! by the Virginia Foundation for the 19th Amendment. the Humanities. in the 1910s to address the conditions

R TICIP’AT ION 1900-1982 brought on by industrialization, immigration, and urban I N T R 0 D UCTI 0 N ization: dissident Republicans produced the Progressive Party, and the Democrats the "New Freedom"; the Socialist Party made unparalleled electoral gains. The political arena was seen as the forum in which the com peting wants of differing economic, eththc, and region al groups might be accommodated, in which coopera tion on concrete reforms could be engineered without groups losing their particular identities. In synchro nous parallel, voting appeared as a more pressing need for women, and diverse kinds of women could see the vote as a concrete goal around which to form a coalition. Since both male and female reformers had been push ing for more than a decade for government investigation and regulation of housing, factory conditions, and com munity health and safety suifragists could argue that modern conditions bridged the chasm between the realm of politics aid woman’s conventional realm of the Drawn by Nina E. Atlender home. Where in the mid-nineteenth century the proposal Any good suffragist tIw morning ther ratification. of female enfranchisement profoundly threatened the ide ology of woman’s sphere, by the 1910s the need as well as right to vote in order to ensure domestic welfare could be persuasively presented as part of women’s duties as Carrie Chapman Catt, wives, mothers, and community members. By that time, president of the National suffragists were as likely to argue that women deserved American Woman the vote because of their sex-because women as a group Suffrage Association, had relevant benefits to bring and interests to defend in offered two kinds of rea the polity-as to argue that women deserved the vote sons for giving women despite their sex. the vote. They deserved It Because the vote was recognized as a tool of group as a matter of fairness, interests as well as a symbol of equal access of citizens and they had special tal to self-government, the demand for equal suffrage could ents. different from men. be brought frito accord with the notion that women dif A 1920 political cartoon fered from men. In fact, the more that women’s partic above reflects how long ular interests were stressed-so long as the premise of and difficult the struggle was. equal access was sustathed-the better the argument for woman suffrage. Thus, when Carrie Chapman Catt summed up "Why Women Want to Vote" early in 1915, she gave two kinds of reasons. The first had to do with justice, rights, women’s sameness to men, and democ racy: since women are people and in America the peo ple are supposed to rule, she wrote, the vote is woman’s right, and disenfranchisement on the basis of sex is unjust. Her second, equally emphatic line of reasoning had to do with women’s duties, talents, and difference from men: the vote was woman’s duty because the United States government, competent in areas where men shone such as business, commerce, and the development of natur al resources, was inadequate in areas where mothers’ skills were needed, such as schooling, caring for crimi nals, or dealing with unemployment. The vote harmonized the two strands in foregoing woman’s rights advocacy: it was an equal rights goal that enabled women to make special contributions; it sought BETTMANN ARCHIVES to give women the same capacity as men so they could express their differences; it was a just end in itself, but it was also an expedient means to other ends. "Sameness" and "difference" arguments, "equal rights" and "special contributions" arguments, "justice" and "expediency" arguments existed sideby side. Although the gender dif ferences marked out were conventional-defining women as mothers, housekeepers, and caregivers- turning these stereotypes to serve goals of equal access and equal rights minimized their constraints. Not sim ply accommodationist or conservative in its willingness to point out the need for political representation of women’s differences from men, the suffrage movement of the 1910s encompassed the broadest spectrum of ideas and participants in the history of the movement.

Most histories of the woman’s rights movement in the United States say little or nothing about the South.... There are many reasons for this relative eclipse of the South in the history of woman’s rights-not the least of which is the general tendency in U.S. historiography, not only in women’s history, to take the case of the Northeast region as the "general" national case and to see other regional developments as sideline stones or divergences. Rather than dwell here on the possible reasons for this neglect I want to propose a reversal of the common view. I want to propose that the South, because of its charac ter as a biracial society and its "peculiar institution" of black slavery, has crucially shaped the woman’s rights movement in the U.S. through its history.... A cynic might observe that the woman suffrage movement did not become reinvigorated nationally until the question of black voting in the South was fully settled in the negative. The years of the doldrums in the woman suffrage movement were also the years when southern legislatures controlled by white Democrats were inventing legal and constitutional methods-voter reg istration, literacy tests, poll taxes, and so on-to exclude black men from the polls, as a more respectable and per manent sequel to the force and fraud used in the 1870s an iSSOs. It was when the new southern apparatus was fully in place that the woman suffrage movement nation ally, as in the South, took off. Whether there was a causal or only a coincidental link here I am not prepared to say. In any case, newly numerous contingents of white southern women and of black women from the North and South, contributed importantly to the decade’s mass campaign leading to passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Some prominent white southern activists had greatly influenced the national woman suffrage lead ership in the 1890s, as I menfioned, but it was in the 1910s that southern white participation burgeoned at the local level. Atlanta, Georgia, for instance, harbored two white woman suffrage groups in 1910 and eighty-one in 1917. And although the suffragists since the Civil War had never been without some black colleagues, it was after 1910 that black women’s organizations spoke up for woman suffrage in increasing numbers. Black suf fragists were not unaware of the southern argument that giving the ballot to women would enable white women’s votes to out-number the votes of all blacks in the South. Nonetheless they mobilized as a matter of race progress as well as gender justice, believing that votes for black women would somehow help to redress the disenfran chisement of black men. The influence of white southern women remathed strong through the last decade of the national suffrage campaign. In the mainstream National American Woman Suffrage Association, their influence helped keep the states’ rights approach to suffrage in force until 1916. In the militant National Woman’s Party whose financial angel Mrs. O.H.P. Belmont was southern-born, concern for what were assumed to be southern white predilec lions meshed with the leadership’s general unwilling ness to assert or defend black women’s rights. To point the finger at white southern suffragists for white suprema cist attitudes is misplaced blame, however. These atti tudes were virulent nationwide. Among Southerners, as some recent research on the upper South has shown, sW fragists were least likely to raise "the race issue" in ways Suagists took to detrimental to black women’s, or men’s, interests: that the streets in New was an anti-suifragists’ ploy, to which suffragists were York City after the forced to respond. More frequently than not former suf- amendment’s fragists are the women whom one finds in interracial vol- approval in 1920. untary work, for instance arth-mchirtg efforts in the 1920s A 1970s picket and 1930s. One must notice too, that while legal disen- from the National franchisement of black men was proceeding apace in the Organization for southern states, no white women gained the ballot Women right there. demonstrates against Florida’s The Nineteenth Amendment is the most obvious anti.ERA stance. benchmark in the history of women in politics in the United States, but it is a perplexing one for the viewer who wants to include more than electoral events in the category of politics. To neglect 1920 as a political water shed would be obtuse and cavalier. Not only was the sex barrier to the ballot eliminated; but a’so the women’s movement to gain the vote was ended. Leaders of the suffrage movement perceived the change in generational experience as well as political status: "Oh, how I do pity the women who have had no share in the exultation and the discipline of our army of workers!" Carrie Chapman Catt exclaimed itt 1920. "How I do pity those who have felt none of the grip of the oneness of women struggling, serving, suffering, sacrificing for the righteousness of woman’s emancipation." Nonetheless, too great focus on I NTR 0 DUCT z o N the achievement of the Nineteenth Amendment can obscure surrounding continuities in women’s political behavior 2md the situation of that behavior in broader political and social context. Sfriking continuities tend to be overlooked if 1920 is supposed to be the great divide and onlyelectoral pol itics its sequel. The most important is women’s favor ing the pursuit of politics through voluntary associations over the electoral arena. Since the early nineteenth cen tury women had influenced what took place in electoral and legislative halls from outside, not only by seeking suffrage but also by inquiring So a wide range of health, safety, moral, and welfare issues. Women had built a tra ditiori of exercising political influence and efficacy- admittedly hard to measure-through voluntary orga nizations. In 1919, as ifpredicting the release of such ener gies long tied up in the suffrage campaign, several new women’s organizations were founded, and others blos somed after the suffrage was gained. huez Haynes Irwin noted in her 1933 history Angels and Amazons, that con temporary women were possibly over organized. Her book ended with a staggering list of associations, from the American Home Economics Association, with 9,000 members, to the United Daughters of the Confederacy, with 2,OOO branches and 70,000 members, and the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America, with 52 branches and 3,020 members. In the prevalence of the voluntarist mode stemming from women’s organiza lions, the use of lobbying to effect pohtica influence, and the kinds of interestspursued that is, health, safety, moral amd welfare issues. There was much more similarity than difference in women’s political participation before and after 1920.

In fitting historical sequel to the early 20th-century disenfranchisement of blacks and enfranchisement of white women th the South, the next major push for south- em black civil rights established the context and model for a new wave of women’s activism on their own behalf. The women’s movements in the 1960s began with two different streams. One was peopled mainly by employed and professional women of middle-age, themselves legatees of longstanding voluntary organizations of women, accustomed to operating in the institutiona’ structures of government, unions, the media, and busi ness. The other was the infusion of younger women, stu dents and near-students, riding the crest of expansion iii higher education of the 1960s and politically bred in the civil rights, anti-war, and countercultural student movements. For the former as well as the latter, the steady rise in civil rights activism by black Southerners which took place from the mid-1950s zmd early 1960s was a goad, an avenue, and an inspiration. *

FLORIDA STATE ARCHIVES FROM IHEN TO NOW * WOM,EN AND V / S V 94 Before women had won the vote, this pioneer learned how to cultivate clout By rda "ance ay Mann Jennirtgs was financial institution and moved to & a powerful political Jacksonville, his political career effec player in Florida-and lively ova But for his confident, Intel became one several years ligent and politically seasoned wife, a before women won the career in public life was about to be Jright to vote. She was the first key fig launched-from the genteel base of ure in pioneering a place for women The Jacksonville Woman’s Club. in this state’s public life and to many historians is still foremost. She lived In 1906 the Jacksonville club sup 90 years, and her extraordinary pub ported a pure food and drug exposi lic career proceeded, with only the tion by arranging a parade of deco briefest periods of rest, from advoca rated baby coaches and "goat car cy of welfare issues in the early 1900s riages" on Bay Street. A women’s to the dedication of Everglades lounge was opened lit the club build National Park of which she was the ing for downtown shoppers and true founding mother in 1947. How female employees to use as a "haven she cultivated her clout is an exem of rest," and the clubwomen protest plary tale of what one woman could ed to city hall about the cows roam do-with the vote or without. irig free throughout residential neigh Jennings came to her break borhoods. They also petitioned the through role with every conceivable events. Through him she met, and a Board of Public Works to provide advantage. Born in 1873 to a well-to- few years later married, William playgrounds in the parks. The club do family, she spent her early years in Sherman Jennings, a lawyer, busi became so successful at getting things the lap of luxury near Crystal River- nessman and aspiring politician ten done that Claude L’Engle editorialized insofar as luxury was possible in fron years her senior. In 1900, Jennings in the Jacksonville Dixie that tier Hemando County. Tragedy visit plunged into a crowded Democratic "Women’s Clubs with the wonderfully ed the family when her mother died field for governor and after many bal feminine energies underlying them, of tuberculosis in 1882. But that, in lots at a wild convention emerged the have the levers in their possession like turn, encouraged her father to send winier. So as the new century began Old Atlas to move Mother Earth off of May to St. Joseph’s boarding school in Jennings was governor; he and his its pegs." St. Augustine-by all accounts a first- young wife were the toast of May Jennings was interested and class convent school for young ladies. Tallahassee society active in many things durthg her life May’s father, Austin Mann, was a Jennings was an energetic, pro time, and through carefulorganization successful businessman and promot gressive and effective governor. But he of her time she was able to involve her er and for ten years an influential made tough decisions, lost populari self in many types of civic, club, and state legislator. As a teenager, she ty along the way and failed in a 1904 political projects at the same time. served as corresponding secretaiy for bid for the U.S. Senate. Jennings agreed While involved in the many activities his campaigns and hostess at his social to become general counsel to a new of the Friday Musicale she could also

Unda Vance wr[tes on women’s hrstory in Austin, Texas. This article is excerpted with permission from her book, May Mann Jennings: Rorida’s Genteel Activist.

10 FHC FORUM poLlTIcAvpAEIcIpATIoN 1900-1982

I I V w I A

*0

‘I. Nit,, Mani Ienni ns U t

g WILL LL tilL gurcii ‘Jr tt e this p’gr 901

solicit funds for an orphanage, lead a petition drive, organize political tac tics for a lobbying effort on the legis lature, and maintain a full entertain ment and travel schedule. Her inter ests and her ability to work assidu ously for disparate movements reveal a woman with an active mind and a high level of physical energy. She retained this energetic and peripatet ic life-style all of her life. Occasionally she would narrow her vision to con centrate on one project, but it was usu ally just for long enough to get a favorite project started or terminated. The pace she set for herself was aston ishing. Few women were able to match the number of projects she pro moted, the number of clubs she belonged to, the many people that she knew on a first-name basis, or the intensity of effort which she brought to her work. Her name appeared fre quently in the newspapers and on the rosters of scores of clubs and organi zations. By 1910 she was well known to the general public, and four years later when she was elected president of the Florida Federation of Women’s Clubs she was easily identified as the most prominent woman in the state.... Her first statewide project began in 1906, when the Jacksonville Woman’s Club members decided that the city’s old railroad station needed renovating. Jacksonville was known as the "gateway to Florida," through which hundreds of thousands of tourists passed each year, most of

FLORIDA STATE ARCHLVES them traveling by train. The local depot was a decrepit and uncomfort able building, an unsightly introduc tion to both Jacksonville and Florida. As chairman of a committee formed to look into the situation, May argued that the women should not limit their efforts to Jacksonville. The problem was statewide; most of Florida’s depots were antiquated and uncom fortable. The women passed a reso lution, the first of many such docu ments bearing May’s signature, call ing for a statewide campaign to repair, clean, and beautify every depot in the state. Local citizens in each commu nity were called upon to lead the about the conditions there and called gave progressives the ammunition effort. May mailed a copy of the res for a memorial to the legislature they thought they needed to convince olution to every town government, vil endorsing Broward’s request. The the legislature that the school was a lage improvement association, women stated that they "heartily disgrace. May, now chairman of the woman’s club, newspaper, and rail agreed that the institution should be Jacksonville club’s legislation com road official in the state. The made a real reformatory school [with mittee, again submitted a resolution on Jacksonville officials who received industrial training] and not be a behalf of the school to the 1911 legis copies also received a personal lecture Juvenile Prison." Signed by May and lature. She published a small pamphlet from her and her committee members 173 Jacksonville clubwomen, the entitled Plea for the Marianna Reform on the problem.... memorial was sent to the governor, the School, which was mailed to all leg By 1907, the Jacksonville club had cabinet, and each legislator. Telegrams islators, women’s clubs, and newspa 215 members. As chairperson of the and letters poured in from the women, pers. Speakers traveled throughout civics committee, May had begun and the 1907 legislature, one of the the state to lobby among citizen’s working on behalf of child welfare, a state’s most progressive, not only groups on behalf of the bill. cause that was to consume much of heeded the governor’s request con The women’s 1911 resolution to her energy over the next decade, On cerning the reform school but also the legislature urged the lawmakers to her agenda was the State Reform passed Florida’s first comprehensive fund the Mariaima school adequate School at Marianna, in which club- child labor law. Mrs. C. H. Raynor, ly, but it also called for enactment of women had shown an interest since its president of the Florida Federation of other progressive laws, including com establishment in 1897. Facilities were Women’s Clubs, was presented the pulsory education, a child labor law, inadequate, and the inmates were pen with which Broward signed this zmd the prohibition of horse racing and often mistreated. The majority of chil bill. May was pleased for she had all kinds of bookmaking and betting dren were black boys; only three were written and talked to every official that in the state. The women worked hard girls. Medical attention was lacking, she knew urging support of the bills.... to get the legislation enacted, but the the mortality rate was high, and the The federation’s legislative com effort was for naught; their bills failed inmates received little formal educa mittee devoted 1910 and 1911 to fur to pass. lion and no religious or moral teach ther study of the reformatory. The When the 1913 legislative session ing. Boys as young as ten years were committee was now headed by Susan convened, May and other clubwomen observed working the school’s farm B. Wight of Sanford, an aggressive were ready. The p]atform they sub with their feet shackled by chains. leader. The school was still under mitted was no timid document; it The clubwomen’s publicizing of funded, and the women believed that included a list of fifteen demands that conditions at Marianna paid off for a special legislative committee of 1909 the women wanted the legislators to both the child welfare movement in had whitewashed its report on con act upon. The women called for general and the Marianna children in ditions there. One morn rig soon after amendments to strengthen the 1911 particular. In 1907 Governor Broward the lawmakers had issued this report, juvenile court law; an annual $25,000 called for doubling the appropriation Mrs. Wight and Mrs. William B. Young appropriation for the reform school; to the school to $10,000 per annum. "put on their hats, and, unirwited and creation of a state board of charities; May supported this action and made unannounced and unexpected and enactment of a comprehensive child the improvement of the Marianna evidently unwanted, arrived at the labor bill; a prohibition against news school the major objective of her com Reformatory for a spend-the-day papers printing gory details of mur mittee. She read a paper to the visit." The report these women issued ders, executions, and suicides; estab Jacksonville club that she had written created a sensation in Florida, and it lishment of a hospital for the feeble-

12 EI-1C FORUM WOMEN AND POL I CA AR C PAT ON ‘9001982

LI Lfl,.rd JI’ ‘rri 14 II ‘Ii I II

lU’ MPkIL z c, Mann Jennings never wrote mem oirs or an autobiography. Her wrilten for In addition minded; a law prohibiting placement bonds public education. reports tended to be nuts and bolts-num of advertising signs on trees, tele to these progressive measures it enact ber of speeches given, number of miles trav phone poles, fences, and other struc ed conservation laws that established eled-rather than philosophical or intro tures along public highways; a bill a game and fish commission and pro spective. She was an ardent Floridian, animals. allowing women to be elected to tected wild birds and through and through. At times it showed. school boards; a law giving women May was elected president of the When the family moved to a spacious in under her guidance the right to enter into contracts relat FFWC 1914 and home in outlying Jacksonville, she chose as ing to their own property; a law mak the federation increased in numbers the house’s number 1845, as a sentimental ing wife and child desertion a felony; and in political strength. During her honia9e to the date of Florida’s entry into and law that would establish certi three-year tenure 59 new clubs joined a the union. The number worked fine as iorig fication of nurses. the federation, bringing its member as the house was in the country, but evenlu The results of their efforts were ship to 9,163. The federation became oily the city grew out to where the Jennings gratifying. The 1913 legislature voted one of the state’s largest organiza lived and the number became a monurnen a sizable two-year appropriation of tions. During May’s first month as Ial headache to the postal service. Threats for the reform school and president one goal was quietly added $65,000 and cci ding gave way to negotiations, but reorganized the facility, fired the man to those that had been determined at May was determined to keep the address- agement, and renamed the place the the Lakeland convention: on the fed 1845 Main Street-and did so for many Florida Industrial School for Boys. It eration’s books since 1905, the con yeas more. passed the most comprehensive child servation resolution called for the She showed her Florida colors even labor laws that had ever been enact preservation of Royal Palm Hammock more plainly in a letter to a friend after ed in the state, a wife and child deser on Paradise Key, an Everglades islet Sherman Jennings’ death in February 1920: tion bill, and a measure authorizing twelve miles southwest of Homestead "I expect to dedicate the rest of my life women to serve as county probation it Dade County.... From travels with to the development of our beloved state to officers. It enacted laws regulating her husband to inspect the dredges which my dear husband devoted so much the certification of nurses, strength and drainage canals, May realized oF his time and thought, and I hope to be ened the state’s pure food and drug that the construction of roads frito the instrumental in bringing to reahzation 5ome law, created the office of rural school interior would probably destroy much of the great things he started and dreamed thspector, raised the standards lead of the wildness and serenity of the for Florida. ing to teacher certification, and autho Everglades. Her decision only hours rized special taxing districts to issue after her election as federation presi

W!NTER 1995/1996 13 U dent to make the preservation of Paradise Key one of her administra tion’s main goals was to have historic and far-reaching consequences for Florida, launching her upon a politi cal, economic, and public relations struggle that would span 33 years. During May’s tenure as federation president, many of the organization’s major goals would be achieved. Under her guidance the federation would wield effective political power by cap italizfrig on its imique old-girl net work, a web of statewide friendships among the clubwomen, many of whom were related to the state’s most powerful male business, political, and civic leaders. During May’s presi dency the federation would use its only real political weapon-these fam ily and friendship connections-to mer governors, one U.S. senator, nine YWCA. She had also been appointed gain access to the state’s highest cir teen state legislators, six prominent state chairperson of the Belgian Relief cles of power. journalists, two state supreme court Committee with the responsibility of An aggressive and perceptive fed justices, one state railroad commis raising money and goods for war- eration president had only to call sioner, two members of the state Board stricken European refugees, and she upon the network to gain entry to the of Control, three state judges, a private was laboring tirelessly to promote the governor’s mansion, the legislature, secretary to two governors, and three club movement and to bring even the courts, state boards and commis college presidents. hi addition to this more women into civic work. She sions, county commissions, and town core, there were hundreds of members wanted the women of Florida to and village councils in a roundabout who were related to prominent local become better educated fri practical but effective way Many, though not businessmen, bankers, civic leaders, politics and civic service. She wrote a all, men seemed to be more receptive and city and county officials. In 1915, paper about the federation and its to the urgings of female relatives- May got the Flagler estate and the State work and her views md feelings about mothers, wives, sisters, and daugh of Florida to donate 900 acres each for women’s clubs and mailed a copy to ters-than to demands of nameless the establishment of Royal Palm Park. each unaffiliated club in the state. clubwomen. These first family con It would be years more of campaign May was often asked to solve tacts often smoothed the way for May ing, though before she succeeded in domestic problems stemming from and her lobbyists. Even the cult of winning appropriations to run it as family opposition to her colleagues’ southern womanhood occasionally Florida’s first state park. club work. When one woman wrote worked hi the federation’s favor, dis Beyond the group’s legislative pro May that her husband was demand posing men to give the women gram, May had many other federation ing that she stop her club work, May respectful, if grudging, audiences. But business matters to attend to during wrote back, "1 do not think a man has it was the network-a device well her first year as president. The volume any right to ask a woman to stay known to men for so long-that May of her correspondence continued to home and do everything for him. It relied upon the most often to gain the grow; she was the leader of an Orga takes a good deal of conceit to imag ears of Florida officials and politi nization with twenty departments, ine he is so complete that he can sat cians. ninety-one clubs, and 9,000 members. isfy anybody all in himself.. .1 am not During her years as federation She employed a second part-time going to give you up without a strug president, May called upon the ser stenographer to help not only withher gle, husband or no... I am very be! vices of perhaps a hundred of the federation correspondence but also ligerent just now." organization’s most prominent mem that relating to her duties as president During 1915 May took no vaca bers. Among the women’s families of the Springfield Improvement tion. In July she spoke before the State were one sitting governor, three for- Association, and of the DAR and the Board of Control on behalf of the

14 FHC FORUM WOMEN AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION 1900-1982

suffrage was just one of her "pro jects" during the period, war relief seeming at times to occupy equal or greater attention. And her pace didn’t siow nor her method of operating change much once the franchise was won in 1920. Though a woman of her times who believed itt the traditional Southern arrangements that separated races, she early on made common cause with Mary McLeod Bethune, hercoun terpart as leader of Florida’s network of Negro women’s clubs. Jennings mix of issues through the 1920s con tinued eclectic-including new ver sions of the child welfare and educa tion causes with which she began, and which some would still consider issues on which women politically bring special force and authority. May could advocate with equal vigor caus es which are now merely quaint-cat An organizer instructs tle-fencing, for instance, which in its on getting organized time was taken as a serious problem of health and public safety. -. son organizer, May Mann But she had her priorities and, Jennings was what we would call unlike some political figures, a fabu these days action-oriented. Usually she ious staying powet First among her was patient and reflexively polite too. countless projects was Royal Palm But very occasionally her frustration at Park on the east edge of the those less energetic and talented would Everglades. The movement to create surface. girls’ industrial school. In August she a larger national park, stretcltg west She on the task oF organizing took held a federation board meeting at Fort ward from that base, started in the mid all 54 Florida counties for the FIorda Lauderdale. By September she was 1930s and culminated after the Second Women’s Commiftee in Liberty Loan back on the club circuit. One friend World War. When President Truman 1917. Even with her statewide network wrote her, "Your energy is colossal, traveled from his winter retreat in of contacts, it was trying to get the surpassed only by your ability" To Key West to dedicate the park effort staffed up quickly. To one recalci on trant group she wrote: lighten her burdens Governor Jennings December 6, 1947, May Jennings was surprised her in September with a front and center among the prominent "I must confess that it is quite a new Welch automobile that he pur Floridians on the platform. surprise to me that none of you chased while on a business trip to New Her hometown newspaper, the Fernandine women seem to realize the York City. Thrilled, May wrote to a Florida Times-Union, ran a long edito great importance of financing the friend, "The president is going to ride rial that morning, commenting: war.. When women are giving their in style from now on, if she has sense "All who are familiar with the sons to the trenches, it does not seem enough to run the machine." It would work of Mrs. Jennings will agree that possible to me that anyone should feel be many years more though, before a large measure of the credit for the they have a right to refuse a request May Jennings had time to learn to park is due to her determination and from their goverrirtient as l0n9 as they drive. In the meantime she converted persistence which at times bridged have the strength to hold out. Will you Benny, her houseman and gardener to wide gaps of disappointment in the kindly say to the women who you have a chauffeur as well. progress of the program. Today Mrs. consulted about this work that I more Jennings, who is attending the dedi often than not work until two o’clock at May }ennings was the informal cation at Everglades City, declared night. - The soldiers have in a way sac leader of a network of Florida suf that ‘It has been a longhard fight, but rificed their lives uselessly, while sonic fragists that battled-ultimately the final outcome is very gratifying’; women have stood idly by, unwilling to unsuccessfully in Florida-for leg with that there will be general agree assist. islative approval of their full rights as ment."U citizens. See following story. But

WINTER 1995/1996 15 FROM LNQW WOMEN AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION 1900-1982 Last Instead of First

C ‘ PC

loridians, like other to ratify, for our legislature was one of Americans, have been pat Florida had a the few still in session on June 4. ting our collective backs Instead, we were dead last, not rati this fall, as we celebrate suffrage movement, fying until 50 years later. Florida’s the 75th anniversary of the legislature distinguished itself by Nineteenth Amendment being the only one in the nation to take that-we usually simplistically say- but a reluctant no action at all on the Nineteenth gave women the vote. The complexi Amendment. And our lawmakers ty of this enfranchisement is seldom could have-except that they wanted detailed, but in fact, 15 states had fol legislature balked to go home at noon. lowed Wyoming’s 1869 example and granted women full suffrage by 1920. at ratification. Atlanta decked itself out in 1895 Others offered variants of partial suf to greet the Yankees who came down frage that allowed some women to for the annual convention of the vote on particular races or issues, but Resolution No. 82, introduced in 1915, National American Woman Suffrage not on others. which stripped the vote from anyone Association NAWSA. Though such It was the West that pioneered ineligible on January 1,1867, aM from conventions had been held for almost female enfranchisement, with the their "lineal descendants." This was a half-century, this was their first foray Midwest and Northeast slowly fol intended to take the ballot from those into the South, and even Georgians lowing. In the South-and Florida few Florida blacks who dared to vote. who disagreed with the ladies’ plat was very much a southern state prior While American women bad form were eager to prove their south to its World War II population explo worked in literally hundreds of state ern hospitality. A local preacher who sion-only Arkansas and Texas campaigns for the vote from 1848 used his pulpit to sermonize against offered any ballot rights. Women there onwards, they also pushed for a fed the arriving women found his bad achieved the vote in 1917 and 1918, eral constitutional amendment that manners roundly condemned in the respectively, but only for primary would apply to all states. Finally, on week’s newspapers, and his admoni elections. This form of partial suf May 21, 1919, the House of tion backfired, instead building atten frage was candidly designed to allow Representatives passed the proposed dance. "Every chair that could be white women to vote in the only elec Nineteenth Amendment by the req found had been utilized," one partic tion that mattered, the Democratic uisite two-thirds majority, and on June ipant recalled, and "many prominent primary Blacks, who almost always 4, the Senate followed. As mandated professional and business men were considered themselves to belong to the by the Constitution, the amendment standing on the stage." Republican "Party of Lincoln," went on to the states for the essential Sitting in one of those chairs was remained effectively barred. ratification by three-quarters of the leg Floridian Eleanor McWilliams Legislators did not bother to hide islatures. Chamberlain of Tampa, the president their racism in this era. One example It was then that Florida stum of some one hundred members in of many is that of Florida House bled. We could have been the first state Florida’s two-year old NAWSA affil

Doris Weatherford, historian ot the florida CommJsson on the Status of Women, lives Jn Tampa. She wrote this piece orrginally fcr this issue of EQIIJrU.

6 FHC FORUM tsr- ad - the spe4.t*I. .*kb Md S ....s.s .4 ffio .1kb IS plve. Z* wv.. It sIfl* Is tin aS 1AWWNI t *4, - lbs tt. 1 S EZPIthJ Put $tflM, j Es4.. . lair SM n-ta that aIflt 1* SdivS SflI h Ike IaM.ft., is ea. Ifl dstla .3tt4* their hMdS. WOWAES SCWRS41K S tbe te .f t. ad se flitS S..*. V be do.. ‘S eI ztes of all IS MR - Em sad - etit SSn nt ‘1

"na I. Tfl Nes...., .HMM., ben s hv M be dItn.,it I Ian k tbn whn n. It IaelIa.rks. Ion

iate. Susan Anthony, eager to showcase ila Chamberlain’s leader evidence of activism in the South, ship had been crucial, and introduced Efla Chamberlain warmly: for 15 years, Florida drifted "For several years a big box of oranges along without a suffrage has come to me from Florida," association. The 1913 inau Anthony said. "Not long ago, I got guration of President home [to Rochester] on one of the cold Woodrow Wilson, however, put suf est nights of the year, and found a frage within reach. He had been elect box... . Next morning the papers ed th a three-way race: The incumbent reported that all the oranges in Florida Republican was defeated when were frozen, but the president of the Theodore Roosevelt split from the association saved that boxful for me." Republicans to form the Progressive When Chamberlain moved to the Party, which openly advocated woman Midwest in 1897, however, Florida’s suffrage. The result was the first suffrage association died. Though Democratic victory since Grover Anthony and her NAWSA protégé, Cleveland won the presidency in 1892, Rev. Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, spent and suffragists from all over the nation February and March of 1905 in the St. greeted Wilson with a giant march. Augustine area, even these top nation The enthusiasm reached to al leaders exhibited the attitude of Florida, and Jacksonville-the state’s many, both then and now: Florida is other big, blue-collar port city- the perennial place to relax, not to replaced Tampa as the center of work. Anthony simply rested; Shaw activism. A group of Jacksonville wintered in Polk County’s Florence women participated in the national mIT Sidlw-s .1 Guts sent u .sfx’dd messuge urging Villa for many years but spoke only a march, and the next month, they few times at suffrage events. moved on to state action. Just as uctuni rni u Nr,wtenitli mntdnteiir n jlow 19 9

WINTER 1995/1996 17 0, iJJ Washington had never seen anything > r like the militant parade of March, C-,

1913, so Tallahassee had never seen z anything like the women who C addressed the legislature in April. 0 Roselle C. Cooley, president of the Equal Franchise League of Jacksonville, wrote of the excitement in the Capitol: The House of Representatives decided to hear us itt a Committee of the Whole, at an evening session. In this case, it meant the whole House, the whole Senate and the whole town. Seats, aisles, the steps of the Speaker’s rostrum were filled, windows had people sitting in them and in the hail as far as one could see people were standing on chairs to hear the first call for the rights of women ever uttered in the Capitol of Florida. The crowd was generally well- last few days in Tallahassee." The edi the senate by challenging... [senators] behaved arid asked no heckling ques torial concluded optimistically, "If the to a joint debate." The paper printed lions at the end. Cooley was one of five two houses will give those women the the women’s detailed debate plans and women and three men who spoke freedom of the floor arid allow them added its own bit of goading by say briefly, but the speaker whom suf to discuss the question the resolution lug that if the senators refused, "it will fragists found most memorable was will carry through both chambers and not be the first time that a man ‘beat not well-recognized by the press. The will be submitted to the people-just it’ when so challenged." Tampa Morning Tribune gave her no what ought to be done with it." The debate did in fact take place first name, calling her merely "Miss the next day, though under less formal Rankin," and the Jacksonville Times- uffragists’ eloquence clear circumstances than the women pro Union, in an article written a week ly converted many legisla posed: The two senators the women after the speeches, muffed her name tors to the cause, but their had targeted, reported the Tampa as "Miss Ruskin"-while carefully House resolution had been Morning Tribune, were "compelled to recording that she "was dressed in a introduced "by request"- accept a challenge to appear in open pannier draped gown of lavender a legislative device that debate.. .when the overflow of the charmouse, leghorn hat and white more sophisticated women would fair sex appeared in the corridor of the plume." She was in fact NAWSA orga have known meant that its alleged Senate." The tactic got them some nizer Jeanette Rankin of Montana, sponsor, ML. Bussey of Palm Beach, favorable publicity, and the senate and just three years later, she would was actually disavowing it to his col committee soon issued a favorable become the first woman elected to leagues. hi fact, Bussey did not even recommendation for their bill. Finally, Congress. move his bill, leavthg that to W.A. on May 28, after more waiting and ff1- The Tribune was also careless in MacWilliams of St. Johns County who ibustering, the matter was tabled listing Dr R.C. Safford of Orlando as became a faithful friend to suffragists. indefinitely by a 16-15 vote. a speaker, for this was Dr. Mary A. After appreciable parliamentary Senate records indicate James E. Safford, a Unitarian minister who had maneuvering, the final House vote Calkins of Femandina, long a sup a doctorate in theology. Safford’s came on May 2, and the resolution lost porter of the cause, switched sides on Tallahassee speech was sufficiently 26-39. the last roll call. The vote, the women impressive that suffragists elected her As the disappointed women were felt, had been lost to "the corporation to the league’s presidency in leaving for their homes, they were told, members and the whiskey men." December, and except for 1917, when "If you will come into the Senate we Several legislators used less candid Ivy Stranahan of Broward County will show those men how to treat arid more florid language to explain served, Safford would be Florida’s ladies." Fred P. Cone of Lake City away their votes. That they found it suffrage league president for most of took up their cause; the women stayed necessary to write their reasoning into the issue’s existence. on, and even took a daring move the the record makes clear that-much The Tampa Times ran no news next week: "The prominent Florida though they disliked the thought- story as such, but did speak editori women who are making a brilliant they knew this issue was not going ally of "feminine eloquence" and of fight. .. for woman suffrage," enthused away. Like W.J. Epperson of Levy the "striking exemplification of the the Tallahassee Daily Democrat, "this County, their thoughts were often tor influence of women given within the morning sprang a decided surprise on tured; he began explicating his nega

18 FHC FORUM previous year, endorsed it by an over whelming margin in the 1915 con Marjory Stoneman Douglas vention. This attitudinal change was goes to Tallahassee due mostly to FFWC president May Mann Jennings, the wife of former In 1917, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, governor William Sherman Jennings, writer Miami Herald, made then a for the whose leadership on suffrage became a trip to Tallahassee to lobby for women’s suffrage. Her companions were Mary of inestimable importance. She turned Bryan, wife of William Jennings Bryan; the 10,000 women in the federation’s May Mann Jennings and Annie Broward, 175 clubs from their traditional civic both wives of former governors and vy aims to agitation for their own rights: Stranahan. Dou9las 9ives this account n When, for example, the FFWC sub her autobiography, Voices of the River mitted its platform to be read into the 1919 legislative record, suffrage was e went to Tallahassee by Pullman first in a 22-item agenda. train. I remember the red dust of The other important event of 1915 those red hills beyond the Suwannee seep was, in fact, the state’s first enfran ing in around the joints of the Pullman car. chisement of women. The town of In Tallahassee we stayed in the old Leon Hotel, which was full of lobbyists where large room with men sitting around on Iwo Fellsmere in St. Lucie County whose you’d expect to see them, down in the sides with their backs propped up against 1920 population was 898, compared lobby discussing politics all night long. the walls and large brass spittoons with Palm Beach’s 113 applied for its Mrs. Broward was sick and had to stay in between every other one of them. Talking municipal charter, and because bed, but she’d go over and speck to the to them was like talkin9 to graven images. women had played an active role in legislators and return to bed as soon as They never paid attention to us at all. They establishing the community its men she got back. We’d sit on her bed and weren’t even listening. This was my first included a provision allowing women she’d tell about the days when her hus taste of the politics of north Florida. to vote. It passed the legislature with band was governor and when be was run These were the so-called "wool-hat out notice, along with dozens of other ning guns to Cuba in the Spanish- boys in the red hills beyond the Suwannee" local bills that are not traditionally American War. Mr. Broward was a canny of them, and they ran the state. Because debated. Other municipalities fol old pirate, and he’d smuggled guns down was the last state in the union to Florida lowed. By the time that the Nineteenth the Florida coast. I liked Mrs. Broward ratify the suffrage amendment. Even Amendment was in and her stories even though my father was though our testimony was i9norecl, it was finally ratified her husband’s greatest enemy in the valuable for me to work with women 1920, women had the right to vote in dredging of the Everglades. who’d struggled in this political arena. it 23 Florida municipalities. Theirballots, Mrs. Jennfrigs was younger than Mrs. was a long time before you began to feel of course, were accepted only in city Broward, and Mrs. Stroncihan and I were that the legislators from north Florida even races, but they had elected some younger still. All four of us spoke to a joint knew there was a south Florida. That was women mayors and commissioners. committee, wearing our best hats. It was a also a thing I had to learn. 1 Sidney J. Catts, a populist who became governor in 1916, was all over the map on suffrage. While capable of declaring himself "unequivocally and five vote by saying that he was actu attracted 1,400 people. Men’s suffrage eternally for the enfranchisement of ally positive: leagues were also formed; the first was women" in front of a favorable audi I am in favor of women voting on in Orlando, and the president was ence, he vetoed some municipal char moral, temperance, and educational ques the city’s mayor. Perhaps the biggest ters with suffrage provisions. The tions, also being allowed to become mem encouragement came early in the year: result was a confused record that bers of Sc/tool Boards.. bitt lam opposed The January convention of the Florida opened itself to cynicism. to giving women the full ballot, as it Federation of Labor surprised every Catts did not mention the issue would draw them down from the high one by taking up the AFL’s recom when he made his first speech to the pedestal upon which Southern men have mendation and endorsing women’s legislature in 1917, nor was he among placed them... To stand with men at the suffrage without waiting for the state’s the prominent men who welcomed polls.. would possibly lower their morals. women to ask. Mary Baird Bryan to town that spring. In that era-when Florida’s pop Though 1915 was a session year, Mrs. William Jennings Bryan, as she ulation was about 14 times smaller it yielded little legislatively for the suf was always termed in the era’s docu than it is today-the legislature met for fragists. But other important changes ments, had a lifetime of political expe the same 60-day session that it does were occurring outside of the legisla rience: Not only did she play a role in now, but these were held only in odd- ture. her husband’s three presidential cam numbered years. Suffragists therefore The Florida Federation of paigns, but she was independent devoted 1914 to organization-building, Women’s Clubs FFWC, which had enough to pass the Nebraska bar exam including a Jacksonville rally that voted down a suffrage resolution the in 1888-when her daughter Ruth,

WINTER 1995/1996 19 who would become Florida’s first congresswoman in 1928-was three. ,ight caung, the After Williams Jennings Bryan F1o,ida &gislaEIni served as President Wilson’s first sec retary of state, the Bryans retired to finallY uti fled he Miami, where partly through their family kinship with former Governor Jennings and his activist wife, they quickly became part of Florida’s polit ical life. The respect that legislators had for Mrs. Bryan is dear: The 1917 House Journal featured seven separate entries concerning arrangements for her speech. The Senate adjourned to join them, and on April 18, she held their attention in the same way that her hus band’s famous oratory spellbound crowds. The Tampa Morning Tribune called her forceful hour-and-a-half speech "the opening of the real cam paign that will be waged to pass bills already introduced to grant equal suf frage in Florida to women." "The real campaign" did in fact begin immediately, as other south Florida women also came to Tallahassee to lobby. They included not only such luminaries as former first ladies May Mann Jennings and Annie Broward, but also Ft. Lauderdale founder Ivy Stranahan- and a young Miami newswoman on her way to decades of Florida fame, Marjory Stoneman Douglas. In the face of such feminine power, the House committee unanimously rec ommended the suffrage resolution, while only two senators mustered up the courage to vote no in committee. The majority held when it reached the floor-but a simple majority was not enough. The resolution, which had been drafted by ex-governor Jennings for his FFWC president wife, called for amending the state consti tution, and that required a three-fifths majority. After much parliamentary maneuvering and energetic debate, 40 House members voted for the res olution and 27 against, 1eaving it five votes shy. A motion to reconsider failed by an even greater margin, though the male legislators spent most of another day expounding their thoughts on the status of women. The suffrage leaders understand ably decided not to test the limits of their legislative allies by introducing the subject when the governor unex FLORIDA STATE ARCHIVES pectedly called a special session in

20 FHC FORUM December 1918. Into the vacuum words, if a woman did not vote, she Therefore, as governor of our great rushed Helen Hunt, a Jacksonville would be counted as having voted state, I earnestly recommend that you rat attorney who led the tiny number of negatively! Mercifully, the bill was fj this action.. and add an imperishable Floridians associated with the laid on the table, where it died quiet thu ret to your state, which can never die; National Woman’s Party. These 1y. the fact of being thefirst state of the Union women emulated the law-breaking Suffragists had reason to believe to recognize women as an equal wit/i her style of British suffragists, and their that they were at last on their way to brother man. political strategy was based on the victory in Florida when their pro His language was stirring, but British method of holding the party posed constitutional amendment final the legislature, the Tribune reported, that holds the executive branch ly received a three fifths majority vote paid "no attention to the governor’s responsible for everything. They thus in the Senate on April 18th. The ela message." This was not surprising, but opposed President Wilson even after tion was short-lived, however, for on most observers were taken aback he endorsed suffrage and were proud the 22nd, the House voted for it 40 to when women did not rush to push the of their record in the 1914 congres 33-still four short of the required question on to the final-day agenda. sional elections, when they targeted three-fifths. This turned out to be the After years of disappointment, suf and helped defeat 20 Democratic con frage leadership had become wary gressmen-who supported suffrage. enough to see that extraordinary Naturally, May Mann Jennings majority rules would trip them up warned that the Woman’s Party rep again: While their head count showed resented Republicans, who could do 73IEr :‘FhLD that they could pass the measure, nothing in Democratic Florida except they could not get the two thirds run up still another defeat. Perhaps r a . majority to waive the rules and intro unaware of these internal divisions duce new business this late in the ses jflfl - ‘C between women, Rep. Edgar W. L sion. The Tampa Daily Times summed Waybright introduced his Jacksonvifie - 1 up the situation best in a headline that constituent’s resolution. Even Coy. TI read: "FLORIDA WILL NOT BE FIRST Catts sent a message to the legislature STATE TO RATIFY SUFFRAGE approving this new approach, for the ATFW AMENDMENT; Women Leaders Not Woman Party’s resolution differed .i -I:.a1- Willing to Take Chance on Putting from earlier versions in that it was a Land of Flowers In Line as the First to petition to the state’s congressmen, 3MiE LILRPfl :1f’ C Turn It Down." asking them to vote for the federal The women had shown political amendment. Waybright was wise to r-’ ‘in sagacity once more, for they dismissed - a iLr point out within his resolution that the possible glory rather than risk the National Democratic Committee disaster of having the amendment endorsed the federal amendment, and lose its first state in its first test. Given he even added, "Whereas, President the legislators’ propensity for double- Wilson has personally urged its pas last vote that Florida would cast on the dealing, and knowing well how they sage -but that was not enough. It enfranchisement of women. rush out of Tallahassee like schoolboys failed 31-37. The legislature took up other mat set loose for vacation, May Mann The final act in this legislative ters but was still in session on Jennings made the right judgment drama began only a few months later, Wednesday, June 4, when the U.S. call in choosing not to cast women’s in April 1919. Suffragists introduced Senate emulated the House’s May hard won pearls before them. a bill to allow the vote in primaries, action and passed the proposed No vote was taken. The legislature as well as a state constitutional amend Nineteenth Amendment by the req adjourned at noon on Friday, June 6th, ment to grant full suffrage. Senator uisite two-thirds majority. Gos’. Catts, 1919, and on Tuesday, the 10th, WI-I. Malone of Key West came up whose commitment to suffrage had Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan all with still another bright idea: His bill seemed so equivocal, quickly swung finalized their ratification on the same would have settled "the great conflict into action. He immediately sent a day. By the time that Florida’s next ses of opinions on whether the woman message to the legislature: sion rolled around in 1921, not only hood of Florida desires the ballot or While this office has not received ver had the Nineteenth Amendment been not" by calling on the Democratic fication from... Washington, still The added to the Constitution, but Florida Executive Committee to arrange an Associated Press would not dare publish women had already voted in a presi opportunity for women to express something of so vast importance as this, dential election year under its pro their view during the general election if it were not true. tection. Finally, in 1969, to celebrate the of 1920-except that "only such The legislature., will adjourn tomor 50th anniversary of the League of women, who desire the electorate row and it has an opportunity, while now Women Voters, the legislature belat franchise in Florida, be requested to in regular... [session I to be the first state edly ratified the Nineteenth vote.. and those who do not.. .be in the sisterhood of states to ratfig tinS great Amendment. No one voted against ascertained by refraining." In other movement... it.

WINTER 1995/1996 21 In the 1 920s, women won the vote in associations and union halls as well the civic ballot VARIETIES OF WOMEN’S SuFFRAGE

TI: hether professional historians or inter .YI: ested citizens, we tend to think of the

-. achievement of women’s suffrage as an Y 1sJ. event, a national event that occurred with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. We can pinpoint that event to a day The critical vote was cast by a male legislator in Tennessee on August 26, 1920; on November 5, women went to voting booths across the country to cast their first ballots iii a presidential election. Seventy-five years later, we celebrate this moment as emblematic of women’s long and difficult struggle to gain Antonio to Seattle, from Chicago to Tampa. As I examined first-class citizenship itt the United States. these fragments more closely, I saw a new story taking shape, When I became a women’s historian in the 1970s, it was one th which gaining the right to vote was less an event than this image-of women’s suffrage as an event-that kept me a process. The process culminated in a constitutional amend from focusing my attention on the topic. The story had been ment, but it was the paths to and from that amendment that told and retold many times and seemed clear in both its out formed the real legacies of women’s struggle. line and its outcome. Over the past decade, however, as I Struggles for the right to vote occurred in many arenas- read powerful portraits of African Americans fighting to gain in churches, union halls, and voluntary associations as well access to the ballot and watched the moving footage of Eyes as in city, state, and federal legislatures. Women often dis on the Prize, which documents the modern struggle for vot agreed with each other as well as with men about theft prop ing rights among blacks, I came to see the potential for a er place in politics. In some locales, women voted in school different history of women’s suffrage. board, city council, and statewide elections years before the The fragments of that historywere all around me, emerg Nineteenth Amendment was ratified; in others, federally- ing from dozens of community-based studies of women’s mandated suffrage offered women the first opportunity to activism. These studies sketched local and national move cast ballots in any electoral contest. And for still others- ments from the 1820s through the 1920s and stretched from women living in the territory of Puerto Rico, African Richmond, Virginia to Rochester, New York, from San American women in the South, and recent immigrants in any

22 FHC FORUM FROM NQW WOMEN AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION 1900-1982

JSF Special Collecoons Library area of the country-the Nineteenth Amendment removed only one of several barriers to voting rights. Thus even as campaigns for the ballot sought to mute distinctions of sex, they often intensified differences of region, race, class, and nationality. If we look across a rattge of communities and regions, we find in most that forceful women leaders were critical in shaping local campaigns and that suffrage almost always emerged from or was grafted onto other social movements. Despite these shared characteristics, there were important differences in the timing of local movements, the network of causes in which they were embedded, the racial, ethnic, and class composition of local suffrage advocates, and the roles played by male civic leaders. It is through the explo ration of these complex community-based stories that we can re-imagine the meanings women attached to suffrage Nancy A. Hewitt is a professor of history at Duke University. She previously taught seventy-five years ago and thereby gain some insights into at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

WINTER 1995/1996 23 its legacy for our own day. ly at the Tribime’s journalistic rival, the In Florida, the city first and most Tampa Daily Times, which supported closely identified with the campaign the existing system of ward politics. for women’s votes was Tampa. The Stovall granted that the registration of story there illuminates the ways that women to vote was newsworthy, but race, ethnicity, and class shaped the he cried foul when the Times embar significance of suffrage for women and rassed socially prominent and "home for the city as a whole. It also reminds loving" ladies by making fun of their us that even where women cam anxiety at the registration office, ridi paigned vigorously for access to the culing them as "potential amdidates," ballot box, they did not necessarily and, worst of all, printthg "the age of control the conditions under which it those offering to register." would be granted. Perhaps recogniz Such actions are "certainly indica ing that fact, they did not give up well- tive," argued Stovafl, "that among a honed but non-electoral forms of pub certain class the old-time chivalry, lic activism once suffrage was secured. deference and honor, reverence and Florida legislators, to the bitter protection, which the Southern gen end, refused to ratify the Nineteenth tlemen throw about woman has Amendment to the Constitution, and decayed most lamentably." In explain thus it was their counterparts in ing the ill treatment of white women Tennessee who finally assured that registrants, Stovall pointed to the women in the Sunshine State would opposition’s concomitant deference gain the right to vote. When the news to potential black voters. As evidence, of the woman suffrage victory broke he noted, "Not one Negro woman of in August 1920, Tampa politicians Tampa has been embarrassed or were in the midst of a heated contest humiliated by having cheap fun poked over the merits of replacing a ward- at her" in the Times. "Can it be," he based system of city government with concluded, "that the opposition knows a commission system. Ward voting it can count on Negro women’s vote supposedly heightened the power of to help defeat the charter.. adoption ethnic and racial minorities to achieve of which means a cleaier Tampa, a bet a voice in local government; a com ter governed Tampa, a Tampa such as mission system, in which city officials we have dreamed of?" were elected at large, favored the These racist diatribes echoed sen white majority. Yet white men who timents expressed by whites across the had achieved power under the exist former Confederacy, yet Tampa was as ing ward system-often through graft closely fled to the Caribbean as to the and corruption-were reluctant to Cotton South and was home to as give it up. Despite disagreements many Cuban and Italian immigrants among themselves, white male civic as African Americans. Moreover, there leaders on both sides of the city char were women advocating suffrage in ter fight hoped to keep women from Tampa long before 1920. We cannot entering the fray. The state attorney understand the events of that fall by soon informed them, however, that examining only the rhetoric of white women must be allowed to register male partisans. We must look as well and vote. to those circles of women-Anglo, Overnight, Tampa civic leaders African American, and Latin-whose traded ii their anti-suffrage posturing efforts prepared a path to the polls at for paeans to "intelligent" woman this crucial moment in Tampa’s history. hood. They also immediately infused Until 1880, Tampa was a sleepy women’s entry into electoral politics village of 800 residents. With the estab with racist overtones. On September lishment of the cigar industry in 1886, 21, Wallace Stovall, the editor of the thousands of men and women poured Tampa Morning Tribune, decried the into the city from Cuba, San Stefano, "unexpected and uncouth treatment the Canary Islands, Spain, and the of the white women of Tampa" by Bahamas. Though few became citi opponents of the proposed city char zens-largely as a result of the poll ter. His attack was aimed most direct- taxes and literacy tests instituted in the

24 FHC FORUM MEN’S SUFFRAGE

Mary McLeocl Bethune, a suffragist too ary Mcleod Bethune is famous first as and their agenda at times overlapped with an educator. Taught to read surrepti May Mann Jennings’ effective advocacy for tiously in rural South Carolina, she com the Florida Federation of Women’s Clubs. pleted her schooling at Moody Institute in Bethune and Armwood Beatty also were out Chicago, thanks to a benefactor. She ded spoken advocates of anti-lynching laws n icated her professional life to education, the 1920’s. 1890’s to disfranchise the state’s black striking out to establish a small school for In fact, African American historian male residents-immigrants were cen Negro girls in Daytona Beach ri 1904. Maxine D. Jones argues that Bethune, Bethune is shown with a row of her siudents Becifly and other activists of the period "were tral to city life. They formed the back in the background in the accompanying pic perceived as less of a threat than black men bone of the cigar industry, battled to hire. by the power structure and were allowed liberate Cuba from Spanish rule, and The little school went on to combine to say things that might have goiten a black engaged in periodic industry-wide with another into what is now Bethune man lynched or run out of town." Bethune strikes. Even as native-born Tampans Cookman College. Bethune became well- did not pull punches in talks like ‘The High joined battle over commission versus known late in life as a national political fig Cost of Keeping the Negro Inferior," stress ward-based government, they also ure. She served first for President Hoover ing how much t cost Florida in dollars and had to contend with a six-month strike and later for President Roosevelt on a sense to keep the Negro ri his place. by cigarworkers. series of commissions that marked the Said the New York Times of one of her And Latin labor militancy was beginning of inclusion of African Americans speeches, Bethune "went straight to the heart not the work of men only. In fact, in the federal government. of the race problem, pleaded for social jus women workers were so central to the But Bethune was also a suffragist and tice, pointed out injustices being practiced strike of 1920 that on the very day a political activist back home in Florida. She upon her race, and did it with such sincerily Tennessee legislators ratified the and that served from 1 924 to 1 928 as president of zeal her remarks were followed by Nineteenth Amendment, cigar man applause instead of the derogatory comment the National Association of Colored Women ufacturers resolved to hire "American that usualiy follows when a Negro speoks NACW. She and Blanche Armwood girls"-that is, native-born women.- with such candor." BeaDy were both active Negro clubwomen, as the best means to break the union. In response, Latin women and chil

WINTER 1995/1996 25 ‘I *I F - ‘I’ dren led the biggest labor parade ever wield ballots in his behalf. Instead, the seen in Tampa. How had these immi ladies of Tampa focused their collec grants gained such clout in local 1r ‘t.r.tr tive efforts on aid to orphans, immi LI L ‘u affairs, and what was their relation to grants, and the impoverished. arguments over women’s suffrage AJ’ As white women’s associations couched in the rhetoric of race and multiplied in the early 1900s, black white supremacy? cc1 ‘C%* r’’. ;r’ women also gained public visibility U.J ‘‘L First, we know that Tampa’s Latin They established the Clara Frye women were aware of the suffrage Hospital in 1908, the School of campaign. In 1912, Luisa Capetillo, an Household Arts in 1915, and a city - advocate of workers’ rights and wide federation of colored women’s women’s rights in her native Puerto clubs a year later. By the 1910s, the " Rico, settled in the cigar city of South r, I-i, E most famous clubwoman in Tampa Florida. She was notable on a number was Blanche Armwood Beatty. She of accounts: she was an experienced I I ‘v Y had graduated at age 15 from labor organizer; she was divorced a Atlanta’s Spelman Seminary, returned status unusual for any woman in to Tampa to teach, founded a School 1912, but especiallyfor a Catholic, now of Household Arts in the city in 1915, an ex-Catholic; she wore men’s cloth since the 1890s. Native-born white and participated in several women’s ing and cut her hair short; and she was women had supported the work of clubs and mutual benefit associations. elected to the prestigious position of Cuban women’s revolutionary clubs By 1916, the National Association of lector by local cigarworkers. A lector and had established charitable asso Colored Women had recruited was an individual, selected and paid I ciations, medical facilities, orphan Armwood Beatty to lecture across the by the workers, who sat on a stage in ages, and temperance and moral South on behalf of domestic education the middle of the factory and read out reform societies-all for Anglos only. and women’s suffrage. During her loud as the cigars were rolled. Then in 1892, Mrs. Ella C. extended absences, a small circle of Capetillo, the only woman known to Chamberlain, returning to Tampa from African American educators and entre have gained the reader’s chair in a suffrage convention in Des Moines, preneurs took the lead in community Tampa, undoubtedly read suffrage Iowa, founded Florida’s first woman organizing, including teachers pamphlets along with the usual dose suffrage association. Over the next Christine Meacham and Inez Alston of newspapers and novels. five years, she and a small band of sup and hairdressers Gertrude Chambers, Though Capetillo’s call for suf porters formed a small state-wide Lila Robinson, and Annie House. frage fell on deaf ears in Tampa’s organization, headquartered in Tampa, Tampa’s white women activists Latin Quarter, her call for working whose members distributed litera were rethinking their political poten women’s rights resonated with both ture, petitioned the legislature, and Hal by this time; and hi 1916, they sup older and younger Latinas. Older presented lectures. Mrs. Chamberlain, ported the candidacy of Mrs. Alice women recalled their youthful par for instance, spoke to the Tampa Snow for a seat on the school board. ticipation in revolutionary clubs that Carpenters’ Union and the Adventists’ A year earlier, the Florida state legis supported the overthrow of Spanish Camp Meeting in the winter of 1895. lature passed a Municipal Reform tyranny in Cuba during the 1890s Mrs. Chamberlain argued for suf Act, that allowed for local option on and their ongoing contributions to frage on the basis of both justice and a number of electoral matters. labor agitation, especially during the prejudice. On the one hand she took Neighboring cities, including St. prolonged strikes of 1899, 1901, and as her slogan the mvolutionary maxim, Petersburg, had taken the opportuni 1910. Younger women were inspired "no taxation without representation." ty to institute municipal suffrage for by Capetillo to demand gender equal One the other, she claimed, "1 am a free women; Tampa officials did not, so ity in union ranks, and in 1916, a born American woman... .How can I, women remained dependent on male group of these Latin "new women" with the blood of heroes in my heart, voters to make their case. Under the staged a wildcat strike. When male and with the free and independent existing ward system, Alice Snow ran comrades refused to follow them out spirit they bequeathed me, quietly in the Thor City district, which housed the factory doors, they called the men submit to representation by the alien Tampa’s Latin population. She lost at work "women" and offered them i and the negro?" In 1897, the by 15 votes of 4,000 cast, the margin their skirts. Yet by 1920, the women Chamberlains left Florida, and soon of defeat provided by a set of contested wildcatters made common cause with thereafter, the state society disbanded. ballots th a district long considered their Latin brothers as they struck for By 1900, when the newly-formed corrupt. higher wages and better working con Tampa Woman’s Club hosted a visit by Anglo women in the city were ditions. Democratic presidential candidate clearly disappointed, but they did not Tampa’s Anglo and African William Jennings Bryan, none of its retreat. Instead, they hosted a American women had also been active leaders suggested that women should statewide meeting the very next year

26 FHC FORUM 1iEN S JprTAiE

cast their first ballots in a city election, clubs and social welfare institutions. on the special city charter referen African Americans in Tampa faced dum, and the commission plan won serious obstacles to voter registration, by 270 votes. White women were though they never entirely relin praised as providhg the margin of vic quished the ballot box as a vehicle for I Ui outnumbered Latins the city-women z tory, having black change. in U women registrants 2,100 to 1,300. and men-had one of the lowest reg g Though we know that some in this istration rates of any immigrant com 0 = group, most notably civic leader Kate munity in the country into the 1930s, Jackson, supported ward politics, it a result of discriminatory legislation, does appear that most white women disinterest in acquiring U.S. citizen 0 z voted for reform. "Tampa women," a ship, and the corrupt character of C Tribune reporter concluded, "have local elections even after charter C 0 shown they are able to rock the cradle reform. Yet they continued to vote 0 and the politicians at the same time." with their feet-by leaving miscreant =0 That same week, some 3,000 cig employers and by leading militant = C 0 arworkers rocked the city economy. strikes.

0 Packing the Centro Asturiano club Given this brief history of suffrage U house, cigarworkers-"about 50 per in one Florida community, what lega = cent of them women"-voiced their cies have been left by the suffrage unwavering support for continuing movement for our own time? First, the strike. fri February 1921, when women participate in politics in a ii it uti EL’ WIL El J7J strikers finally voted to return to work, variety of ways. In celebrating the rnILI.* id U t’L Latin women cast their ballots along 75th anniversary of the Nineteenth side men. They still may not havebeen Amendment, we must not let the to form an Equal Suffrage League. convinced of the benefits of suffrage, glow of constitutional change over Alice Snow was one of 21 charter since at least some women workers shadow the efforts of women who members. The Florida Suffrage League claimed they would stay out on strike struggled to gain power through vol envisioned itself as socially respectable regardless of the outcome of the vote. untary associations, mutual benefit but, within the context of southern Their male coworkers responded by societies, boycotts, petitions, demon society, politically radical. Still, the assuring them that they would not strations, and strikes. Second, even leaders of the association explicitly accept a settlement that failed to meet voting takes a variety of forms. For denied membership to their African women’s demands. instance, women had to fight for vot American neighbors and never invit Over the next decade, Anglo, ing rights within unions and church ed any Latin women to join. African American and Latin women councils as well as within municipal As we have seen, however, black continued to pursue power in Tampa, ities, and these battles should form women had already organized on and their paths began to cross with part of the history of women’s suf their own. When suffrage was ratified greater frequency Anglo clubwomen frage. In fact, given the restrictions on and Tampa women entered the battle invited more affluent Latin women to many women’s right to vote even over municipal reform, Inez Aiston join in fundraising activities and after 1920, these other histories are moderated a series of debates at black opened the Children’s Home to a few especially significant in providing churches and invited white club- immigrant orphans. African American women with a sense of political legit women to participate. One such women founded the Helping Hand imacy. Third, women are as diverse as speaker was Mrs. Julia Norris, the Day Nursery and invited Afro-Cuban men in terms of class, race, religion, former president of the local United mothers to send their children-and and ethnicity, and therefore as divid Daughters of the Confederacy, who some did. The Urban League, Tampa’s ed in their political loyalties. Thus it spoke in favor of commission gov first interracial organization, was is unlikely that they will vote as a bloc ernment. That she was invited at all founded in 1921 and attracted support even on so-called "women’s" issues. was remarkable since she had previ from progressive white clubwomen The history of women’s struggle ously urged white women to register and outspoken black activists, women to gain political clout in one city-on to offset the heavy registration of as well as men. the school board, in the union hail, and Negro women. Most African For most of these women, electoral in municipal, state and national poli American speakers, women and men, politics did not replace older forms of tics-offers rich legacies for the present supported the existing ward system as voluntarism as the primary vehicle for generation. By recognizing the corn did a few white women reformers, affecting social change. Anglo women plex and varied ways that women of most notably those whose husbands were able to register and vote, but different communities sought access held office under the old regime. most continued to wield their greatest to power in the past, we gain multi- On October 19, Tampa women influence through associated action in pie models for battles in the present*

WINTER 1995/1996 27 I

A t ‘II. The Spirit of Florida By Sa ly V ckers

uth Bryan Owen was 1932, Owen had caught the Potomac one of only a dozen fever bug, moving on to a career in women who served in Washington and as an ambassador, the U.S. Congress from never to return to her adopted state. L O 1920 to 1930. She was not Notwithstanding her intimate only9Florida’s first congresswoman, knowledge of the American political she was the first female Democratic process, Ruth Bryan Owen had a path member elected from the post-recon to victory in the 1928 election that was struction South. To be a woman and neither direct nor without anguish. to be elected to Congress in Florida in The political climate toward women 1928 hi a district that spanned from was still frosty. hi the South the exdu Key West to Jacksonville obviously sion was particularly rigid. Congress took some doing. But Owen was an had remained the exclusive domain of extraordinary person with a mixture men until 1917 when Montana elect of talent, political savvy, fame, and grit ed Jeannette Rankin to the House of that carried her to a pioneering role for Representatives. Three years later women in this state’s politics. came the Nineteenth Amendment, She was, for a start, first-born giving women ballot power and the daughter arid a prodigy of William apparent means to begin their politi Jennings Bryan-"the Great cal integration. Commoner," three-time presidential was an accomplished public speaker Yet the suffrage victory did not candidate, secretary of state for a professor of speech at the University immediately transform women’s posi Woodrow Wilson, and legendary ora oi Miami, able to support herself on tion or the cultural barriers affecting tot In retirement in Florida, he was the Chautauqua tour. them. Public opinion still often por one of the state’s and the nation’s As a politician too, Owen was trayed women as illogical and illsuit most famous men, giving Owen a skilled and curiously modern. She ed for the rigors of political life. The status similar to the younger genera- was compelling, charmingly courteous more extreme holdouts were predict lion of Kennedy’s today. Owen’s moth to her opponents, arid at times stu ing scenarios from the destruction of er, Mary Elizabeth Baird was a strong diously vague on the issues in stump home and family to anarchy and com and intelligent woman who attended speeches. She emphasized new forms munism as women began to vote md law school at night and was one of the of citizen participation and constituent hold office. first women admitted to the Nebraska service. She even had a campaign In the South women had to con bar. Ruth traveled the campaign cir gimmick a forerunner to Walkin’ tend with the archaic southern belle cuit with a father and sewed with her Lawton, perhaps, touring her vast dis mentality plus a lack of economic mother as a corresponding secretary. trict in a Ford coupe, driving and power, political experience, and solid She entered the University of changing the flat tires herself. And by organization. Florida’s anti-suffrage Nebraska at age 16. As an adult she the end of her congressional service in attitudes severely hmdicapped female

Sally Vickers is a law student at Florida State University in Tallahassee and has taught at Jacksonville University. She adapted this piece far fjurn from a doctoral thesis on Owen she did while a graduate student at FS!J.

28 FHC FORUM p A V As’r,Açr>y At’A V

1’ ‘--I

Ruth 13i !w

SIUflLl] L Ii YOILflE RmIuIfl ‘opposite rage

tol Ioigfle tie Stall! En

a I md ci ut in 92 cIumguig tkc tirec hi self triM n etA be

0 LI! > r U C

0

political aspirants. In 1922, the first involvement hi Florida politics came Never content with behg idle, Democratic primary in which women by a circuitous route, her travels com the thirty-year-old took a course in could either vote or seek office was a menced h 1910 with her marriage to nursing and joined the British disaster for women candidates. Yet Reginald Aitham Owen, a British army Volunteer Aid Detachment in Cairo. women gradually triumphed over the officer. With the outbreak of World Owen served for three years as a ward disappointments. They began to orga War I in 1914, Captain Owen was nurse, operating-room nurse, and sur nize, to educate one another and the assigned to the Gallipoli Peninsula. As gical nurse in Egyptian war hospitals. public, and to employ traditionally the war raged in Europe, Ruth grew Ironically her husband became one of male political techniques to gain access restless in London. After eight months her patients. Reginald Owen con to the system. These included net of separation, she wanted to be near tracted Bright’s Disease, an acute arid working, lobbying, political patronage, er her husband. Just before civilian chronic inflammation of the kidneys. special interest groups, fund raisers, travel was halted, Ruth and her two Although he continued to serve in the publicity stunts, and personal appear year-old son left for Alexandria, Egypt, war effort, he never fully recovered. A ances. the closest city to the mi1itaiy base of subsequent case of scarlet fever further In Ruth Bryan Owen’s case, supply. weakened him. Prescribing a warm cli-

WINTER 1995/1996 29 mate and rest, doctors gave him only began her second campaign for the ten more years to live. Heeding that Rouse. The race presented familiar advice, in 1919 the Owen family obstacles: incumbent William J. Sears Candidate Owen: A few moved to Coral Gables, Florida, wheit and the electorate’s traditional dis Ruth’s parents had retired three years dain for female candidates. Owen words about my opponent earlier. designed her campaign strategy to uth Bryan Owen was the sort of In addition to joining the faculty overcome both. Ruth knew that she politician who stressed her own of the University of Miami as a mem had to arouse and to mold public qualifications and stepped lightly ber of the Speech Department, Owen opinion if she was to defeat an around negative characterizations of immersed herself in Miami’s com entrenched veteran. She also under her opponent. When a voter pressed munity affairs. She also began to trav stood the power of the press. her in the 1 928 campaign to criticize el on the national Chautauqua speak Accordingly, Owen met with each of Congressman Sears, she adroitly ing circuit to help ease the financial the 90 newspaper editors in the district resorted to a Socratic method. "Have responsibilities of supporting her to convince them of her congression you been a resident here for some invalid husband and four children. al qualifications and her dedication to She became one of Chautauqua’s most the people of Florida. time?" she asked. When the person popular speakers, reaching an audi answered affirmatively, Owen replied, ence of more than one million per tout To meet the voters personally, "Then if you haven’t heard, Iwon’t Owen, still in her early 40s, took Owen campaigned in every precinct spoil the secret." her first step into Florida politics in the Fourth District. Larger than when, on April 8, 1926, she announced some states, it included 588,286 resi Once a dry, always a dry her candidacy for the Democratic dents-more than half of the state’s nomination to the United StatesHouse total population. To cover such dis uth Bryan Owen’s congressional of Representatives, Fourth tances, the candidate purchased a career was cut short at four years Congressional District. Despite the green, 1928 Ford coupe and chris by her defense of prohibition in 1 932 odds, Ruth believed that her adopted tened it "The Spirit of Florida." as public sentiment was turning state was ready for a congresswoman Wherever she visited itt the car, Ruth against the experiment. Though a and leapt at the challenge. The Fourth drew a crowd automatically. in true nimble politician otherwise, Owen Congressional District, one of the Chautauqua fashion, Owen logged had a formidable family tradition on nation’s largest, stretched over 500 16,000 miles and delivered over 600 this particular issue. Her father WQS miles from Jacksonville to Key West speeches in three months. Often she an adamant "dry" throughout his arid contained eighteen counties. made as many as seven speeches a day career. Wifliam Jennings Bryan’s Ruth’s opponent was William J. Sears, and routinely covered 250 miles or biographer, Charles Morrow Wilson, a popular eleven-year incumbent. more. On a typical campaign day, relates that once on the Chautauqua Owen waged a strong campaign Owen addressed seven meetings in circuit on a chilly night in Nebraska against Sears, in a race that drew par five East Coast counties, with a total in 1916, a heavy rain bellied the tent ticular interest because of her gender audience of 4,500. Ruth igiiored fatigue top and a canvas seam gave way. and her father’s legacy. After travel and its cumulative effect, boasting Barrelfuls of cold water came splash ing throughout the district, giving proudly that she never once broke a ing down on the stage. Ruth, who of engagement or was late for speeches, and meeting thousands speaking was seated on the platform, drew citizens, Ruth lost the primary by 776 an appointment. One editor credited laughs and applause when she votes. Ruth and her vigorous campaigning quipped, "This is the first time Bryan A year after the first real defeat in with wiping out the "weaker sex" from a her professional life, personal tragedy stereotype. ever spoke wet pIatform." struck. On December 12, 1927, Owen discussed a myriad of top Reginald Owen succumbed to the lin ics in her speeches but made only gering effects of kidney damage he two concrete campaign promises. She politicians who recited broad plat had suffered in World War I. Her hus vowed to visit each of the 18 counties forms without the actual means to band’s death devastated Ruth. every year, not only to report on her deliver on them. Agriculture, citizen Without Reginald’s support, she congressional actions but to explain ship, and economic recovery emerged wavered in her political aspirations. political developments in Washirgton as the main planks of her campaign. Owen turned to her youngest daugh as they influenced the Fourth District. Large and enthusiastic audiences ter, Helen Rudd, and to her mother, Additionally, she pledged to take two greeted Ruth across the state. On one Mary Baird Bryan, for comfort. young people from each county to the occasion, the crowd drove their cars up Gradually, they helped her overcome nation’s capital and expose them to the to the speaker’s platform, honking a debilitating melancholy character of their government and the their horns in approval when the can Two-and-a-half months after responsibilities of citizenship. Owen didate delivered her proposals. Reginald’s death, Ruth Bryan Owen did not differ too much from other Another time at a construction site

30 FI-1C FORUM WOM N AND O TCAL PARTiCIPATION 1900-1982

tory, Owen left for her annual Chautauqua lecture tour of the Northeast and Midwest. In the inter im the Florida Republican state con vention nominated William C. Lawson to run against her in the November general election. Lawson, a Virginia native, had lived in the Orlando area for 20 years but had lost badly to Sears in 1926. The state papers took lit tle notice of Ruth’s opponenL They appeared to be caught up in Ruth Bryan Owen fever and did not give Lawson much of a chance in the elec tion. Several publicationseven claimed not to know his name. In the fall of 1928, Owen returned to Florida to begin her campaign for Congress in earnest. Ruth’s primary nomination assured her a general elec tion victory in the solidly Democratic district, but she set a frenetic pace, con tinuing the themes of helping agri culture, economic recovery, and moti vational citizenship. Then, South Florida experienced a devastating hurricane on September 16, 1928. Property damage was massive, with over 1,800 people killed. A freeze in December destroyed many of the crops that survived the hurricane. These disasters gave credence to Ruth’s calls for federal government aid to agriculture. She reiterated her sup port of a tariff to protect Florida grow ers from foreign competition. Owen’s message was taken to heart by the Florida voters. On November 6, 1928, the people gave their new "First Lady of the South" an

ii, ufti Ifii4gh rqflpaflrolls, vbx U lfl Ut sj,tak rik J!:iIh war.c fl tU nulctaitquxi ron, overwhelming victory. Ruth Bryan Owen carried all the district’s counties other than Orange, which she lost by where there was no platform available, eled the district, but not as intensely. 178 votes. Although Democrats took Owen spoke suspended above the He seemed confident of victory, sim Florida’s statewide offices, Republican ground on a large crane. In addition ply on the strength of his years of polit presidential candidate Herbert Hoover to these campaign rallies, the candi ical experience. Instead, the voters carried traditionally Democratic date’s female supporters formed Ruth rewarded Owen’s energetic, passion Florida. Bryan Owen clubs all along the state’s ate, and ceaseless work on the cam The Bryan family legacy had come Atlantic seaboard. Besides champi paign trail with a Democratic prima full circle. The "Great Commoner’s" oning her bid for Congress,club mem ry victory on June 5, 1928. Ruth car daughter was prepared to embark on bers set up voter registration booths ried all the Fourth District counties a political adventure of her own. at courthouses and lobbied civic orga except for Duval and Osceola, where Capitol Hill acknowledged nizations on her behalf. They even Sears’ margin of victory was only Representative Owen’s engaging per wrote a campaign song, "Florida Is about 750 votes. The results reflected sonality, compelling oratorical skills, Calling," in her honor. the largest voter turnout itt history for and strong sense of political purpose. In response to Owen’s campaign the district’s Democratic primary. Within a few months she was hailed tactics, Congressman Sears also tray- A few weeks after her primary vic as the best speaker among the women

WINTER 1995/1996 31 ______

/ ‘p / r 1 ‘/,‘!

Representatives. In recognition of her popularity, the one committee on which Owen desired to serve enlarged its membership to make room for her. The House voted unanimously to increase the number of members on the Committee on Foreign Affairs. The appointment was a significant honor for the first-year representative and an early recognition of her exper tise in international affairs. Once the clamor of her arrival in Washington settled, Ruth began ful filling her two campaign promises of congressional accourttabillty and moti vational citizenship. In addition to sponsoring high school citizenship contests, which rewarded winners with a week in Washington, D.C., she created a resident secretary post in the geographical center of the Fourth District. Ruth’s liaison attended meet ings, answered inquiries, and con ducted questionnaires to inform the congresswoman about her con stituents’ concerns. At the adjourn ment of each congressional session, Ruth also visited every county in her district by trailer with her youngest daughter, Helen Rudd. Owen often spoke to more than 40,000 people on these trips. The congresswoman’s accom plishments were substantial. When the Mediterranean Fruit Fly threat ened widespread disaster to Florida’s fragile fruit industry, Owen success fully sponsored a $4 million appro priations bill. The federal support offered an important financial prop for farmers, providing money to help ter UI tree, tItl w a diplnruu flu pU LL fli ‘t 71 pay for experts, quarantine proce dures, and educational programs on programs accounted for a series of Congress. eradicating the fly. In addition, grow floodway channels, control gates, and Despite these victories, ers were reimbursed 75 cents per field levees that maintained the water level Congresswoman Owen failed to box of unmarketable produce. of Lake Okeechobee. secure enactment of two of her more Owen additionally backed a mea Mindful of Florida’s maritime visionary bills: the creation of a sure to establish a flood disaster pro economy, Representative Owen also Department of Home and Child in the gram for farmers in the southeastern secured a total of $8 million in feder President’s Cabinet; and the preser states. The law authorized federal al appropriations for developing vation of the 2,000 square mile loans totaling $6 million for flood Florida’s rivers and harbors. Her Everglades as a national park. In an era stricken regions. In Florida, it created efforts included the approval of Port of national depression, both propos drainage programs for eleven South Everglades, the continuation of als were considered too costly and Florida counties and initiated the Okeechobee flood control, and the gave way to legislation for economic Okeechobee Flood Control District to improvement of the Miami River. survival. prevent future destruction similar to These programs led to her reputation In June 1930, Representative that caused by two recent hurricanes. as one of the most successful advocates Owen ran for re-election. Her oppo Eventually, federal-state cooperative of river and harbor legislation in nent in the Democratic primary,

32 ENC FORUM WOMEN AND POLITICAL PARUCtPATION 1900-1982

Dewitt T. Dean, campaigned as a Nazi fascism, and world-wide depres American relations, Ruth suffered a "wet." He favored repealing or sion. In 1945, President Harry Truman fatal heart-attack. She was sixty-eight amending the Eighteenth Amendment added further honor and recognition years of age. which mandated national prohibition of her abilities by appointing Owen as Not only was Ruth Bryan Owen of alcohol. In response, Owen special assistant to the San Francisco Florida’s first congresswoman, she promised to uphold the law and the Conference to create the United made a tangible difference as a legis Fourth District’s wishes concerning Nations. She later served as an alter lator, then broke more barriers as a Prohibition. She defeated Dean in a nate delegate to the fourth United woman diplomat. Owen challenged landslide. Owen won every county- Nations General Assembly. In 1954, social restrictions and opened new even Dean’s home county of Volusia- while in Copenhagen to receive frontiers to women. She proved that and was unopposed in the general Denmark’s Medal of Merit for her women and politics were a comple election. Several state newspapers role in strengthening Danish- mentary mix. W hinted that her next election should be for the United States Senate. Dean’s prohibition theme came one campaign too early when a majority of voters in the District still supported the "noble experiment." Two years later prohi bition became the definitive campaign issue. INEAPeLE. During the next election cycle, Congresswoman Owen announced her bid for renomination early, in August1931. Already the "wet" polit ical forces were gaining support to revise or repeal Prohibition. Ruth dis regarded the threat, stating that unem ployment would be the issue in the campaign because most people in the country were hungry, not thirsty. Her announcement ended persistent rumors that she would run for the Senate or the Florida governorship. Florida Place Names Historic Homes of Florida A guide lo The following spring Mark From Ah,chuo to Zo!pho Springs 74 notable dwellings open to he public I. Morris 1-56164-084-C Stewart and hupp 1-5o164-085-9 Wilcox, a West Palm Beach lawyer, 292 pp. $21.95 216 pp. $14.95 announced his decision to seek the A relerence that reods like a history Homes tell a personal history of FLorida Democratic nomination. Wilcox aggressively campaigned on a plat form advocating the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment, which he considered a failure. In contrast, Owen upheld her "dry" stand. That proved to be a serious miscalculation as Wilcox successfully galvanized the "wet" sentiment and won the prima ry by 1,200 votes. Although initially devastated by the defeat, Owen soon found herself once again in a position of political Murder in the Tropics Florida in Poehy The Fior;do Chrcn,Ies, Vol. 2 A Hstocy of the moginaton prominence. In 1933 President Mclver 1-56164-079-4 Jones and OSulivon, eds. Franklin Roosevelt appointed her 240 pp. $17.95 1-56164-083-2 320 pp. $24.95 United States Minister to Denmark, A collection of true crime horn An anthology of poetrj about Florida Horidos eciorfut past making her the first woman to repre since the 1 500s sent the United States in a foreign country as the head of a diplomatic PINEAPPLE PRESS books arc found in good bookstores around the state. 800-PINEAPL 746-3275 for free legation. From 1933 to 1936 she sewed Call a catalog. Pineapple Press, P0. Box 3899, Sarasota, FL 34230 in that position during the tumul tuous era of European nationalism,

WINTER 1995/1996 33 A

V ¼. L For Florida’s first feminist, suffrage was just a step toward equal rights

By Ja nes R. Iv cGovern

,e%/,f / hen women won the 1917. Alice Paul, whose speech in / right to vote in 1920, the Jacksonville in May 1917 had influ split in the two main fac enced Ms. West to join the NW!’, later tions advocating suffrage observed: "We got one of the best became a true fork in the road. members we ever had in the whole Mainstream suffragists flowed into Woman’s Party history, Helen the newly formed League of Women West.. .never faltered. She dedicated Voters and continued club work of her life to this [ERA] campaign.. she other kinds. May Mann Jennings is was a born feminist." exemplary of that group’s upper crust West was a member of the intre roots and focus on effective work pid NWP group that demonstrated in within the system. But there was a front of the White House that year. more militant group-Alice Paul’s When Alice Paul realized Helen’s National Woman’s Party, which superb organizing talents, she asked regarded suffrage as just one aspect of her to try to change the anti-suffrage women’s liberation. By 1923, the NW!’ positions of Florida Senators Duncan had shifted its focus to advocacy of an Fletcher and Park Trammell and to Equal Rights Amendment ERA-a assess attitudes toward suffrage in platform and organizational lineage the Florida legislature. Paul wanted to that runs straight through to the know whether Florida might possibly National Organization of Women and ratify the suffrage amendment even the mass drive for the ERA in the early though other key states failed to pro 1970s. Florida Bar. She settled in Jacksonville vide support. Hunt secured signa Though Florida was hardly a cra and took up a career as a newspaper tures on a petition for suffrage from dle of radical feminism in the early writer, mainly of society columns. She 38 members of the House and from 17 part of the century, it was home to one and May Jennings were social friends, senators. She declared later that if of the stalwarts of the movement- collaborators on the push for suffrage. Tennessee had not cast the decisive Helen Hunt West. She was born in Both continued their career into the vote for the Nineteenth Amendment, 1892 in Oakland, Florida-then a 1940s and lived till the early 1960s. But Florida would have done so. country town, now on the city edge of Helen Hunt West advocated quite a The effort to get florida legislative Orlando, out toward Winter Garden. different set of causes in the post-suf support failed, but it did not deter She was educated at Stetson Academy, frage years. Helen West from becoming the first graduated from the Florida State West, described as "a very pretty Duval County woman to register to College for Women now Florida State little thing with bright brown eyes," vote on August 19, 1920. She told an University and in 1917 was among became a leading member of the inquiring reporter from the Florida the first women admitted to the National Woman’s Party in Florida in Times-Union "of course we don’t

James R. McGovern is professor of history at the University of West florida in Pensacola. This story is adapted, with permission, from an article he wrote for the F/orida Historical Quarterly in 1978.

34 FHC FORUM I

a,A’

-, A’ A A A V ‘ A V A,AY I /4" 0/

expect the millennium by any means.. but we hope now that we are represented in politics to make a bet ter county for all." After the suffrage amendment passed, some of its members won dered whether there was any reason for NWP to continue to exist, but a determined faction argued that there was much more work that needed doing: suffrage was not freedom but only a first step. Women like Helen West wanted to eliminate every ves tige of inequality between the sexes. They resolved at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1923, to work for an equal rights amendment to the Constitution Alice Paul stated their goal: ‘1Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction." Later itt 1923, NWP representa tives were startled to find themselves alone among women’s organizations supporting ERA at the Senate’s judi ciary committee hearings. Opposition came from the League of Women Voters and the Women’s Division of the United States Department of Helen Hunt Wa,t is Labor, both of which espoused pro tective legislation. NWP found itself ,icturedin 1911 relatively isolated with only a small - - national organization that averaged Mthemidl93Os. about 8,000 members in the 1920s. There were approximately 50 mem bers in Florida. Helen Hunt West married Bryan West, city editor of her newspaper, in 1927. But her militant political activ ity didn’t skip a beat. In talks before women’s clubs in Florida, she reiter ated the necessity for justice for mod ern women, hence equality under the law, for which women would will ingly exchange a few deceptive social amenities. In a speech before the

SCHLESPNSER LIBRAF Florida Federation of Women’s Clubs It merely means that the law applies of her time was taken up in her posi in Lake City in 1935, she set forth that the same to one citizen as it does to tion as society editor of the view: "Women who are smug in their another. It makes no attempt to chartge Jacksonville Florida Times-Union, she contentment in comfortable homes the laws of nature-of course two also served as editor of the Southern with husbands, brothers, and sons of persons are not equal-either men or Club Woniati. This magazine, pub unreproachable characters, who min women-but the law applies equally lished in Jacksonville, was more con ister to their every need, seldom pause to both. In addition, she argued, many cerned with the political activities and to think that their own daughters and women lived in sheltered domestici legal status of women than social granddaughters have to look to an ty aM failed therefore to identify with affairs. Articles bore such titles as entirely different set of men for justice. the disadvantages experienced by "Legal Disabilities of Married Women Generation after generation passes. working and professional women. in Florida," "Florida Woman Power is The only measure of security comes They did not see the need for equali Mobilized," and "A Gallery View of through the fundamental law of the ty because, as housewives, the issue the Florida Legislature by a Mere land, and that is the reason women did not seem to touch them personally Woman." See separate article, page need an Equal Rights Amendment to And men would not jump on the 38. West’s remarks about the Florida the Constitution of the United States. ERA bandwagon either because, legislature had a touch of H. L. By the accident of birth we are women, according to West, they were generally Mencken to them. and we are dissatisfied with our inher adverse to giving up their superior sta As a lawyer, West assumed spe itance of injustice and inequality By tus and power. cial responsibility to acquaint Florida the same accident of birth our broth Despite prevailing indifference or women with "the equal rights we ers are men and they have inherited hostility to ERA in Florida and else women only think we have." She dili both. All we ask is the right to share where, West believed that the NWP gently researched inequities of state that inheritance." could bring about effective change. law affecting women and often wrote West conceded a major obstacle to She called it "an organization of high- and spoke on the subject. Florida’s the success of ERA in the state was that powered persons" and chided those laws, she noted bitterly in 1934, too 11fi Florida the women were notreal who believed the group too small to often prohibited women from the ly aroused over Equal Rights." Much effect its objective by asserting, "I exercise of adult prerogatives. of this indifference stemmed from a hope you all believe as I do-that it is Contemptuous attitudes toward misunderstanding of the intent of not the size of the dog in the fight, but women were responsible equal rights legislation. "The greatest the size of the fight in the dog that for laws that stated difficulty in putting over the idea of counts." they could not enter the Equal Rights Amendment with Helen West successfully imple a contract, except women," she declared, "is that some mented both the educational and lob in specific women do not understand what it byhig tactics of the Woman’s party in instances, sue or be means and what it proposes to do.... Florida. During the l920s when most sued, manage prop-

DELEGATE WOMEPijj CUMMITTJ FOR HANDSOFF, THE SUPREME :

- - I WOMEN AND POLMHCAL PARTICIPATION 1 9OO 1982

erty after being married, or even sign she believed they were designed by Her analysis of the relationship of a promissory note, which was ruled by men not to protect, but restrict housewives to the labor movement is one judge as equivalent to a blank women’s labor. Legislation regulating typically feminist: "They belong to piece of papa Whereas a husband the hours of work or working condi those unprotected women whose could collect damages when his wife tions for women were particularly hours in the home cover a period of was injured "for the loss of services threatening to Helen West; she feared twenty-four hours a day and include and society of his wife," wives had not these laws might lead to a curtail not only the dishwashing, cooking, corresponding redress. Helen West ment of employment opportunities sewing, scrubbing, garden work and also cited Florida’s discriminatory for women. West contended that pro the thousands of nerve-trying and laws on illegitimate children. tective laws should be based on the back-breaking tasks of the homes, but According to West, these freed males type of work done, not the sex of the the training of little minds, the guid from virtually all responsibility for worker. For West, sexism explained the ing of little feet, the molding of char paternity, while establishing the seemingpreferential treatment of acter and pointing the way to that ‘far woman’s responsibility despite iriad women in industry; no one cared- off divine event toward which the equate provision for child support. whether housewives were protected whole creation moves.’ Those women, West also took umbrage at pro because they did not compete with whose reward is only ii achievement, tective labor laws for women because men. poetry and song, are seldom the sub-

shock coming to me. To say that I found a married." "Suffrage is all right," he said Confessions of a lobbyist humorous side to lobbying would be gravely, "but lots of times we have to expressing it mildly. I found a ludicrous compromise with right." This piece from Helen Hunt West’s side. While I met many able and intelli Representative Heflin of Alabama papers is not dated or identified by gent men I was appalled and chagrined was most interesting. He was ornamented source. It describes a lobbying trip she to find that many let with a full-blown rose the size of an ordi made had not the weight to Washington for the suffrage of their positions weigh very heavily on nary corsage bouquet and was for "giv cause, probably about 7917. their shoulders. in the women anything they wanted"- The very first day one Representative except suffrage. He pleaded states’ rights. had believed if women went to told me that women were too easily influ I told him that that phrase had been I Congress in a dignified way, and in a enced by men, that a woman would worked overtime and that child labor and business-like manner put their case before always be more or less influenced by "the good roads and a dozen other federal that body of law-makers, they would be persuasion of good-looking man." His measures have been passed, but he could received in the same spirit and that in a consideration repre final contradictory remark was, "If you not see any parallel between such bills of the fact that they people want to gain votes tell them to and federal suffra9e. sented a rather large proportion of the I am of my own state, country’s population, their question would send all of you young girls to lobby!" This proud Florida, same man argued at 9reclt length about in spite of the fact that I am only a pas receive serious attention. I hod quite a the "protecting chivalry" of Southern men. senger when it comes to electing con Representative J. F. Byrnes gressmen. Most of the Florida dele9ation of South Carolina told me that believe in women enjoying the privileges he had hod innumerable letters of citizenship, and they considered the :llE1N iluNi WEST from women of his district asking subject with the dignity and care which it c.aiiJsf.. for suffrage, but that since he deserves. One Floridian told me that be CONGRESS 2nd Plodda Coast teasl Disthet was opposed to the measure he had been so closely assodated with had given orders to his secretary women in educational work that he knew LILy LEOISLATION -- Square with the that rio more of these communi they would be as helpful in politics... NOT .flON of the U.S. cations be turned over to him, I feel about our lobby in Congress Pk.ne Chic ‘a. yosr VOTE in 0.. but that they be consigned to the that it is the right of eYeryone to present May pdaavin wastebasket, Of course he is not his cose. There can be nothing more dig e ‘9 representing the women oi South nified than the request of a serious-mind Carolina; but I thought it rather ed woman for serious consideration of an too bad that they could not even injusfice that has been allowed to stand Ms. Wsws Sfbitunmm reach him. too long. While the men of this country

to vqisttr to wte it Duud Three men in succession whom I are asking for emergency legislation to Qazy Lupjictin. Her interviewed ejaculated, "Good Lord!" assist in righting the wrongs of other when I broached the of suffrage. I nations, I worked with all my small might aaw sublect was at a ioss. Did they consider it a in the hope that I might help to make our uSc, .fikL-. w prayerful subject, or what meaning exact careless Representatives feel that there RootaS, aid i wlsuas ly did the exclamation carry with it? One are wrongs here in America that need frânmfrCaigras. of thei-n told me to "go home and get asfention.U

‘QESrNGEH LIBRARY WINTER 1995/1996 37 A Gallery View of of the Legislature By a Mere Woman

Helen Hunt West wrote this impression nights learning it by heart. I remembered my know just what they have to do with it but of the Florida le9islature for her magazine, own High School days when I had to do such they were there. There were editors, who I The Southern Club Woman, in 1929. The things and my heart ached for him. One time heard were not there to write-just specta publication, under her editorship, had more he hesitated and I feared he was lost, but he tors. There were railroad officials, who never political bite than one might have expected. remembered it all right and steered for port. missed a session. There were representatives Not knowing the inside of Florida poli from numerous corporations and women found that I could return to my gallery seat tics there were lots of things in the speech I who were also representing business con when the Governor delivered his message, did not understand, but I wondered a lot cerns as well as various activities. All were fl got there early enough. I was there when when I saw some of those Ie9islators winking mingled in a hodgepodge about the le9isla- they opened the doors-in fact they had just at each other, nodding approval or disap tive mill, which began its grind after the first about finished sweeping out when I arrived. I proval and smirking over certain passages. week.... was determined on this point. I would hear One legislator, in the corridor, after the ses I’m going back some day. I hove fin- one Governor deliver a message. After sion seemed to be expatiating on the subject, shed the kindergarten and am ready for numerous preliminaries someone announced so I sidled over to hear what it was about. more. Iam sophisticated after the initiation in a loud voice "The Governor", and the All I could gather was "he hasn’t a and the next visit will not hold such surprises. Speaker answered "Let him in." It did seem Chnaman’s chance". As this was Greek to I may be a mere woman, but I got a new to me they might have done it more ceremo me I closed in on another huddle. The leader slant on a lot of things. The woman member niously, but maybe that is the way to receive was saying "a masterpiece". Another boldly of the house did not appear ill at ease and a Governor. stated "he’ll crack up in sixty days".... the things you learn in the corridors clarify to Anyway-he accepted what sounded to I couldn’t see everything at once, but I a large degree, the things you see in the me like a sort of doubtful invitation and spent some time in the Senate, where a man Senate and House. mounted the Speaker’s stand. I guess his named Parrish had been caucused into the Some people tray prefer vaudeville, the speech was a good one, but I got so nervous presidency and a traveling salesman named zoo or other forms of amusement, but for for fear he would forget it that I am afraid I Bill Phillips, had been "railroaded" into the me, I will fake a legislature, and I think they lost much of the content. That new Governor office of president protem. And that reminds were right when they tried to poss that anti- of Florida did not read his message, as I me-the corridors were filled with people monkey low. Everybody believes in self-pro hear is customary. He must have sat up someone told me were lobbyists. I don’t tection. ject of legislation. But let one of those course, had the right to be elected to he was running for governor in 1932, mothers cross her threshold on unlim all party committees along with men, gave her real clout in the legislature. ited working hours and set foot into but they seldom succeeded in winning She won immediate endorsement of a manmade world to earn a living for these races. Viewing the women’s the Duval County women’s organi herself and her brood-she is imme vote as critical to the outcome of the zationn and then obtained promises of diately the target for protective legis 1936 national and state elections, support from Governor Sholtz, the lation-of laws enacted to limit her Dewson was able to convince James president of the Florida Senate, and hours and her wages for her own Farley, the Democratic party’s nation the speaker of the House, by stressing good, while those of her male com al chairman, that the fifty-fifty for the increased strength that would petitor are left subject to his own bar mula, if adopted widely throughout accrue to the Democratic party if gainings. He is then free to underbid the country, would assure a greater women were added equally to the her and get the job." turnout of Democratic women voters. party’s leadership. Reformists of West’s ilk are some Carolyn H. Wolfe, director of women’s The "50-50" bill appeared side times criticized as impractical. activities in the Democratic party, then tracked in the House when, just one However, she made a major contri called upon women to lead the fight day before it was to reach the floor, bution to Florida politics itt the 1930s for fifty-fifty representation in their Chairman S. P. Robineau of Dade as sponsor and supporter of the bill respective states. Helen West accept County inaugurated a special order that amended the state’s election laws ed responsibility for Florida. She was calendar, requiring unanimous sup to guarantee that women be placed li an apt choice since she was a member port to introduce a bill. Sensing par equal numbers with men on the exec of the Duval County Democratic liamentary subterfuge, West swung utive committees of its political par Women’s Club and as a reporter for into action. In the best lobbying style ties. Mary W. Dewson, chairman of the the Jacksonville Florida Times-Union of the NW]?, she contacted her friends woman’s division of the Democratic and the Pensacola Journal she had cov and professional acquaintances in party in the early 1930s, noted that ered the legislature for five years. As other women’s groups supporting women had little standing in politics a colleague in the Jacksonville Bar ERA and asked them to write letters except in states where they held exec Association and another old friend to members of the Florida House of utive positions on a mandatory fifty- noted, her political contacts, including Representatives. She also contacted fifty basis with men. Women, of campaigning for David Sholtz when James Farley who immediately pres

38 FHC FORUM WOMEN AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION 1900-1982

Helen West was the NWP’s most useful lobbyist with the judiciary com mittees of the United States Senate arid House between 1935 and 1939. She exerted leverage on legislators through her friends in the Democratic party, a result of her work irL the "50-50" cam paign in Florida. Indeed, Alice Paul once suggested, "since you have more access to those in authority in the Democratic Party than most of us, you could have a real discussion of the equality program with Mrs. Roosevelt". There were hearings on ERA and other hopeful signs in the period, but ultimately proposals for the amend ment did not advance. In West’s view, opposition from the White House was largely to blame for that disappoint ment. The New York Times quotes her in 1936 as saying President Roosevelt had let women down: "Patted on the back and slapped in the face." In 1940 she switched parties and was among speakers who convinced the platform committee of the Republican conven L’SE I1t sI OiI’JI UI$ flCtI I e tvd Uhf? LI IIC4 Ii uffi L4gTStS ho tfli. ted th VIuu 3m cc tn I 9 tion that year to support ERA. West continued as second vice sured Democratic legislative leaders to chairman were a man, a woman auto chairman of NWP for 13 years after the place the "50-50 bill" on the special cal matically became a vice-chairman and war and never took her eye off the endar. Finally, when the bill still vice-versa. West happily summarized prospect of women’s progress. ffi 1958, appeared to be buried, she went direct the import of the new law: "By virtue she predicted, "1 think we will see a ly to the chairmen of powerful com of the bill becoming a law, about 1,400 woman in the Supreme Court before mittees seeking their intervention. Florida women take their places in the too much time elapses." Of her lifelong When one of them suggested her best ranks of the Democratic party in passion, the ERA, she declared in the technique might be to "vamp" the Florida on an equal footing with men. 1930s, "Before long the amendment chairman of the rules committee, she This is the most revolutionary thing in will be part of the constitution.. and understandably was irritated. Her Florida politics since the passage of the those who fail to support it will be just legislative friends finally managed to Suffrage amendment and is the great as anxious to forget their failure as bring the bill to the floor of the House est gain for Florida women since that were the men and women who a gen when Robineau was temporarily epochal event." Mary Dewson con eration ago lagged in supporting the absent from deliberations. Telegrams cuned when she wrote her Florida col suffrage amendment." In that, she between Helen West, Mary Dewson, league that the "50-50 plan" was "the Carolyn Wolfe tell the outcome: next necessary step after suffrage." But was mistaken. But in her broader and more prominent and "Our bill just passed House, 75 to 8. she warned, "Don’t expect too much, advocacy of a Love, H&en" "Congratulations, you for the men will still try to get the most equal place for women in business, are a peach. We appreciate greatly easily manipulated of our sex on to the political affairs, and before the law, the help you have been. Mary W. committees." Helen Hunt West has been more than Dewson, Carolyn H. Wolfe." West also became a major figure vindicated by time. Viewed through The new election law, signed by in the equal rights movement at the the lens of 1995, she had a remarkably Governor Sholtz on May 24, 1935, national level during this period. From contemporary feminist agenda. And required equal participation by December 1935 to October 1938, West she continued to put those ideas for women at all levels of state party served as acting chairman of the ward in her speeches and writings organization and established equal Congressional Committee, the NWP’s with wit and steadfast dedication fri opportunity for women to be elected executive board, and from 1937 to an era when they were a bit too mod as chairmen or vice-chairmen on state 1940, as editor of its national maga ern and advanced for a majority of and county politIcal committees. If the zine, Equal Rights. Floridians.S

WINTER 1995/1996 39 Photos are courtesy Donn Dughi, of the Florida House and the Florida State Archives. Text is adapted from articles n the florida Historical Quatterfy by Joan S. Carver, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Jackson

FROM fll’ NQW S ra he Nineteenth Amendment settled the Photos question of the vote for women once and by for all. Achieving full civil rights and par Do nn Dughi ity in political participation did not fol low smoothly on the heels of the vote, however. It has been a bumpy road-bumpier in Florida than most places. In an eerie replay of the state’s fail- r - ure to ratify the suffrage movement, - SflEMBER30197, Floridabecame a major battleground in the 1970’s fight to win approval for the Equal Rights Amendment ERA. And with a similarly disappointing result. While ERA started strongly in Florida in its first test before the * t1* - Florida House in 1972, it was then *0, - - repeatedly voted down or proce -, Y * *W *S4 -- aq "my tha dt..t T*JI n.m ??ac durally tabled in the decade that fol -. 1w - t * tfl m*c a k of 1* h.Oos lowed until the time allotted for Jr Mn. OW! VO%Th MJ*Nm AND MMfly YW* WIT R**y. approval finally expired. The pho OUtAVE 0.. *OMM000 DAY b t*@,,, Ir.ir Th SI* Mt a * tographs on these pages chronicle a rn the prolonged and highly visible struggle. At least by the early 1970s Florida had a com ERA activists and plement of energetic and effective legislators-Gwen opponents made Flohda a prime battle Cherry, the first African American elected to the ground. The issue House, Elaine Gordon of Miami, Betty Castor of rekindled cons extra tive celebration of tra Tampa among others. Even getting that far took some ditional roles for doing, over 50 years, as one of the brief stories fol women. lowing recounts. Florida also had a rough transition with the League of Women Voters-its first chapter was expelled in a conflict heavy with overtones of regional rivalry. And the long ERA fight itself was an occasion for mobilizing conservative and tradi tional forces-suggesting that some of the attitudes that held off suffrage for so long have an afterlife that continues into our times. vile University and Allen Morris, historian of the Florida House. gt-LUCT Gwen Cherry and Dade activist Roxcy Bolton above lead an ERA march. Elaine Gordon and Cherry, both of Miami, vied for legislative leadership of the movement. Note that Gordon has taped over the R" on her nameplate so that it reads Ms. Betty Castor of Tampa later Commissioner of Education and now President of the University of South florida was the first woman elected presi dent pro tempore of the Senate. Senator Loñ Wilson dabs awayteats after a 1974 ERA defeat.

Women enter legislature, slowly here were women candidates for public office in the years just after passage of the Nineteenth T Amendment, but at first few were successful. Among the trailblazers was Myrtice McCaskil of Taylor County, a campus leader at Florida State College for Women who had studied "expression" and gave popu lar platform readings. She campaigned from the back of a pickup truck driven by her father or a cousin. Whether because of the prejudices of the limes or her advocacy of an unpopular cattle-dipping program, McCaskill lost her election bid 197 to 835. In 1928, the same year Florida elected Ruth Bryan Owen to Congress, the state elected its first woman leg islator. She was Edna Fuller, an Orange County widow of substantial means whose uncle had been Orlando’s mayor. Her own experience was extensive including heading a state commission formulating welfare policy and serving as assistant food administrator in Florida for Herbert Hoover that year’s presidential winner during World War I. It was not until 1942 that Florida elected its second woman legislator-Mary Lou Baker of Pinellas County, a widow and lawyer, who opted to use her maiden name during a brief political career. Participation in the legislature increased steadily from then on. By the end of the 1970s, Florida was among the leading southern states in the proportion of state legislators who were women. Betty Castor of Tampa became senate president pro tempore and Elaine D Gordon of Miami became house speaker pro tempore. Florida’s first League of Women Voters gets ‘disaffiliated’

rganization of the Ieague of Women nent strata of women in the state. There were Voters followed hard on the passage of the some mixed successes in lobbying efforts. But as QNineteenth Amendment. And the Ieague the depression set in, it became harder and harder remains today a leading vehicle for mainstream to collect dues and meet the financial require political participation, lobbying on a range of ments of the national league. issues and sponsoring non-partisan efforts at Some of the league’s individual members and improving citizenship like voters’ guides arid local leagues ran afoul of the national league’s debates. strict non-partisanship standards. National lead florida followed the pattern to a point. Three ers were unsympathetic to the notion that differ prominent Palm Beach women had started a ent rules should apply in the essentially one party league chapter in 1920, and a Florida State League system that prevailed in the South. The conflicts was organized the following year. Its chairman of came to a head in 1936-37 when the Florida legislation and a driving force in trying to get league was suspended and then disaffiliated one precinct-by-precinct organization was who else of six state leagues so disciplined. May Mann Jennings.The league continues active Within two years the national organization throughout Florida today had established a new Florida Non-Partisan But there was an awkward break in the 1930s. League of Women Voters, under the leadership of Organization and participation began to wane. Catherine Poynter, wife of the publisher of the St. Florida’s size and the time of travel from place to Petersburg Times. Orderly growth resumed. But place made it difficult to coordinate league activi early troubles, if a footnote to history, epitomize ties. The dominance of Mrs. Jennings’ federation some of the difficulties women in Florida faced in of women’s clubs made it hard in later years to carving out a political role in the 1920s and get consistent participation from the most promi 193Us. ThE LONG HAR -á

‘I LRA. GW. RE? I * ELRINE A ALAN Las t GORDON A1 I I NOW. & .OW. tj 3i4.rn - PARADE

de

The pro-ERA campaign was a series of marches and celebrity appear ances. Note actor Alan ThE STATE at center 1975 NAUONAL OR Alda of ?"ATICN FO* march and actress Mario Thomas in a 1972 appearance. Marchers top left crowd Tailahassee’s Apalachee Parkway.

‘c* DGuMB How the ERA faltered

lorida in 1970 had less than half the population of Florida today 6.8 million then, about 14 mil F lion now. But the state was beginning to take on some of those characteristics that make it Southern with an asterisk. Forty percent of the population was born elsewhere. There was a mix of liberal political culture, in Southeast Florida especially, with the more traditional conservative Democrats in Jacksonville and the Panhandle. So ERA backers were optimistic that Florida could be a bellwether new-South supporter of the amendment. In parallel to the final act of the suffrage debate 53 years before, the Florida House considered ERA just two days after its authorization by the U.S. Senate, in March 1972, the final days of that year’s session. The bill’s chief sponsor, Gwen Cherry of Miami, said simply, "1 urge you please to vote for this resolution." Her confidence was well-placed. It was approved by a vote of 91 to 4. A vote in the Senate might have had similar results, making Florida first to approve the ERA. But Senate leadership cited a disputable constitutional that barred immediate consideration. provision ERA Democratic Governor Bob Graham above support was dead for that year. ed the ERA and so did Republican Senator Edward By the 1973 session, lobbying had grown intense Gurney letter, below. on both sides. Opponents mobilized effectively at the grass roots, brought busloads of anti-ERA women to Tallahassee, and de’uged members with mail. Closing the opponents’ debate on the floor, West Honda rep resentative Billy J. Rish said, "My mail is running 18 to 1 against this amendment....It may not be the right thing to do, but I have taken the approach, the right in a democracy is the right to make a mistake, if it be j4 t.atn ttb ‘- lP t n.n * S** one, but to do those things which a majority of our "- - I wifl 1 - *S!I .1 tNS people tltk should be done." fl sn.M *t. hi April 1973 the amendment failed in the House eItt I fl 54 to 64. Opponents dished up a mixed bag of argu 4411. -tag- ments including state’s rights, a recast version of "the woman on the pedestal" rhetoric of early in the cen Wry the claim that ERA was largely redundant, and the forecast of "horrible consequences" such as women being drafted. In 1973 and the years that fol lowed, ERA proponents brought a host of celebrities to the state-the National Organization of Women’s Gloria Steinhem, First Lady Betty Ford, and sensitive guy Alan Alda. But in four subsequent votes arid informal consideration other years, the amendment never mustered a majority of both houses. By the early 1980s, the Senate, under Dempsey Barton’s leadership, had taken on a markedly more conservative cast. So in 1982, as extended authoriza lion expired, Florida could claim the dubious honor of being a key state in ERA’s defeat. ThE mr The ERA demonstrators were still in front of the Capitol in 1982; but opponents like Rep. Jim" ftooper" Foster had hard ened the resistance. Despite conferences like this one around Speaker Raiph Haben, ERA never emergeda winner AStoryofBigGains and Unfinished Business

y mother was a teen-ager when women in the All these, from ERA to national security, were "women’s United States won the constitutional right to vote issues" as defined more comprehensively by many of us in Min 1920. And I was a teen-ager when my mother’s the women’s movement. There is a strong feeling yet today name was drawn as the first woman juror of West Virginia, that the more usually labeled "women’s issues" are far too in 1956. narrow to be an accurate description of those issues that both I remember my excitement when I arrived at my after- interest women and have far-reaching impact on our lives. school job at the Charleston W. Va. Daily MaÜ to learn that Certainly that has been my observation since moving to my mother was on that evening’s front page, marking an end Florida in 1988. The continuing battle against gambling casi to the state’s prohibition against women serving on juries. nos, debates overcrime statistics, shortfalls in education fund To me, my mother was exceptional. But it was a reminder ing, radical changes in health delivery systems-these, too, that the women who make history often are relatively con are "women’s issues" to which women bring different and ventional women who find themselves in circumstances that important perspectives. elevate them to historical stature. There is, of course, a great deal of unfinished business That observation was personally relevant in in the realm of what would be more traditional June of 1982, on my first day in Washington as ly considered issues of major concern to women. the newly-elected president of the League of The debate is far from over on the entire range Women Voters of the U.S. A newspaper clipping of reproductive choices, and if anything, it’s even of an interview with the Washington Post point more heated than it has been. Pay equity is still ed out that I was the 11th successor to Carrie a major concern, with U.S. women earning 76 per Chapman Catt, the founder of the League and cent of men’s wages. One of the great shames of an early-twentieth-century leader in the women’s this nation is our low priority on child care out suffrage movement. side the home. And there is indeed still a "glass The clipping rested on my office desk, which ceiling" for women despite some noteworthy had belonged to Marguerite Welles when she was exceptions. WOMEN AND the League president in the 1930s. On the writ POLITICAL PARTICIPATIONI Florida is no exception to this pattern. Just ing table was a pen that had been presented to 1900-1982 read the yearly report on the state of Florida’s chil the League’s first president, Maud Wood Park- dren that is put out by the Florida Center for the pen used to sign the Act for Independent Citizenship of Children and Youth, and you’ll come away ashamed at our Married Women, legislation the League had championed. lack of attention to our future. Look at the list of Directors of On the walls of my new office were plaques acknowl Florida’s largest corporations and you’ll find few women help edging the League’s role in events such as passage of the ing make policy at most of them. Social Security Act and child labor laws, and pictures of But there’s an active evolution of attention in all of this. League activists like Eleanor Roosevelt and Frances Perkins. Women’s networks have become activated all over the state In the bookshelves were handwritten documents of early suf in the past decade or so, in recognition that women warithig fragist leaders. to change things need a supportive environment, valuable con What was this conventional woman from West Virginia tacts, and the power that is magnified by group cohesion. I doing in a place like that! suspect we will see even more growth of these important The answer is that this is the heart and soul of the alliances. women’s movement, as I see it: ordinary women with pas I welcome that. I also welcome the open debate that sionate convictions finding themselves with challenges to accompanies that, since these networks traverse the political which they rise. During my own two terms as League pres spectrum. My own bias is toward progressive change thdt ident, those challenges were the happy passage of the allows women to control their own destinies, recognizing that Voting Rights Act of 1982, the sad end to the fight for an Equal those destinies are very different for different women. Not Rights Amendment to the Constitution how well I remem every woman, nor every women’s network, shares that view. ber our frustration with events in Florida!, the League’s entry What we do share is grounded in the history of the recog into the controversy over reproductive choice, negotiating nition that women have a place at the ballot box, helping make and hosting the Presidential and Vice Presidential debates the decisions that shape our lives. For that, we have thousands of 1984, and the increasingly fractious debate over national of women to thank-conventional women who rose to the security issues. challenges that faced them. *

Dorothy S. Ridings is publisher and president of the Bradenton Herald and a former national president of the League of Women Voters.

48 FHC FORUM IN 88 YEARS, WFVE LEARNED ENOUGH ABOUT WEALTH MANAGEMENT TO GIVE SOME OF IT AWAY

ver the past 88 years, we have successfully shepherded some ofAmerica’s great family fortunes through every type of market and economic cycle, several wars, and a maze of changing tax and estate law. We remain focused and com mitted to this single endeavor. As a result, we have garnered a unique body of experience that allows us to speak with some authority. You can learn more

about Bessemer and our philosophy from our booklet entitled "A Guide to - Investing for the Wealthy." Bessemer offers an unusual combination of investment management capa bilities along with trust, tax, generational planning and other services for individuals and families with over $5 million to invest. To learn more about Bessemer and our unique capabilities, or to receive a copy of our booklet, please call one of our offices.

Bessemer Trust ENHANCING PRIVATE FORTUNES FOR GENERATIONS

Palm Beach Miami Naples 222 Royal Palm Way 801 BrickeIl Avenue 850 Park Shore Drive Palm Beach, Florida 33480 Miami, Honda 33131 Naples, Florida 33940 407 655-4030 305 372-5005 941 435-0034

The Bessemer Trust Companies: Offices in New York, Palm Beach, Miami, Naples, Washington, DC, Chicago, London, Woodbridge, NJ, Grand Cayinan --

Granting Again! During 1996 grants will be considered for funding at three board meetings Preliminary Final And we wi/I For projects lorida Humanities Council’s Board application application notify you expected to of Directors has re-opened our is due by... is due by... by... begin after... grants program. FE-IC considers funding proposals Jan.23 Feb. 23 AprU 23 May 1 for a project or program designed to April 8 May 8 July 8 Aug. 1 involve the public in discussion of the insights and perspectives of the disci Oct. 7 Nov. 6 Jan. 5, 1997 Feb 1, 1997 plines of the humanities. We are particularly interested in proposals responding to our five-year For more information, call Joan Braggington at 813-272-3473. initiative, "Making Honda Home."

A Florida Gathering at Lake Okeechobee ome immerse yourself in the Known as one of the world’s Indians are among those making C legend, lore and literature of richest agricultural regions, Lake this area home. Lake Okeechobee at FHC’s first Okeechobee is also rich in history FHC will assemble writers, annual F1orda Gathering. We and culture. First inhabited by historians, anthropologists, and will gather on the shores of Lake prehistoric people, the lake com community residents to help us Okeechobee, one of Florida’s last munities are now as culturally explore the environment, litera frontiers and the second largest diverse as many urban areas. ture, and history of the "Big freshwater lake in the continental Caribbean Islanders, Latin Water." U.S. Americans, Asians, and Seminole -I Please send information on the Join our Campaign to Save the Cultural Life of Florida. Florida Gathering. enty years ago the FHC began as the state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Our sole purpose was to distribute federal dollars through Name competitive grants. Address Today we are much more than a grant-making organization. Through a variety I of programs and services, we have become the stewards of Florida culture. Our mis I City/State/Zip * Phone sion is to safeguard our cultural heritage and to encourage the cultural vitality of our L J state. Today we can no longer depend on support from Washirgton or Tallahassee. It’s time to depend on you. Become a member of the FHC arid you become a steward of Florida culture. Take a stand with other Floridians who believe that florida’s future depends as much on its cultural life as on its economic well-being.

For your You will And thanks to you, r donation of... FHC will be able to... Quarterly newsletter, Forum magazine Send 4 FHC exhibits to a U $30 community center Literary Map of Florida, and the above Send a senior cUizen to t:i $60 reading & discussion series Lights, Camera, Florida A history of Provide 50 copies of Forum Long beFore "natural became a marketing $120 Florida filmmaking and the above to a Florida history class buzz word, Aubrey Organic? was a natural company. Our labels have always carried Fl-IC book bag, and all the above Send a noted scholar to $250 the message loud and clear, Nc, chemical speak to a civic group - additives. No mineral oils. No artificial Invitation to an author-reception at Underwrite an FHC $500 ingredients üf any kind. Over 140 hanclc:raft LI the Florida Gathering, and the above radio program ed products-shampoos, conditioners Teacher scholarship donated in your Sponsor a teacher at cleansers, astringents, moistuizers, makeup, t:i name, and the above Florida Center for Teachers baby products and more-all completely natural and preserved wfth citrus seed All members extract and vitamins A, C and E. receive an invi I want to support culture and education. For nearly 30 years our products have car tation to our YeS! ried the Aubrey Organic? goarantee-.100°/o Rodda Name [as you wish to be listed in F/IC publications synthetic-free and never tested on aniniats. Gathering, March 22-24 at Address Look k,r us in better health food stores everywhere, Lake I or cal/ l.800-AUBRFY H 1-800-282-7394 to Cily/State/Zip Phone - our full-color cata/og. Okeechobee. - I order E Check enclosed. Please make payable to Florida Humanities Council. I &LflREY® Mail to: il-IC 1514 1/2 East Eighth Avenue, Tampa, FL 33605-3708 ORGANICS L J 4419 N. Manhattan Ave., Tampa, FL 33614

50 FHC FORUM SUGGESTED READINGS he history of women’s studies in the avaflable resources on Florida and the ject by the official historian of the House. American academia is a story in btgger national picture: Linda Vance, May Mann Jennings: T itself. It wasn’t so many years ago Florida’s Genteel Activist. 1985, University around World War II that a noted Duke Nancy F. Cott, The Groundinu of of Florida Press, Gainesville. The longer University historian couldn’t get her work American Feminism. 1987, Yale University version of a well-done study of the state’s on women published. Her colleagues were Press, New Haven. Comprehensive, thor premier woman activist, condensed in this indifferent to the topic, regarding it as ough and well-written, this book looks issue. more a hobby than a legitimate field of back to the eariy roots of feminist thought Doris Weatherford, A History of study. Suffrage was a natural first subject and action with a contemporary viewpoint. Women in Tampa. 1991, The Athena once American history finally began to Nancy A. Hewitt and Suzanne Lebsock, Society, Tampa. Observant and detailed take note of women, with Eleanor eds., Visible Women: Essays on American on women’s varied roles and struggles in .Flexner’s Century of Struffle, the classic Activism. 1993, University of Illinois one Florida city. in the field. Duke made up for its initial Press, Urbana, III. A second generation indifference during the long tenure of lock at historical issues surrounding Readers with a general interest in Anne Frior Scott, recently retired. She was women’s political participation. Florida history should be aware of two a specialist in social history and the Particularly strong are the contributions of new books from the University of Florida South. Her students include many of the the two editors, William H. Chafe of Duke Press: current leaders in the field of women’s and Sara M. Evans of the University of studies. Minnesota. David Ft Colburn and Jane L. Landers, As Nancy Hewitt notes in the introduc Florida Historical Ouprterly has run eds., The African-American Heritae of tion to her piece in this issue, suffrage numerous essays through the years on Florida, 1995. Wide-ranging. Maxine 0. got so much treatment in the early years women’s issues. Jones essay on black women 1920 to that it seemed to scholars a twice-told Priscilla Cortelgon Little and Robert C. 1950 is of particular interest. tale. Studies shifted to women’s role in Vaughn, eds., A New PersDective: Michael Gannon, ed., A New History of the home! the workplace and in arts and Southern Women’s Cultural History from Florida, due Spring 1996. The first com letters. More radical feminists tended to The Civil War to Civil Rights. 1989, prehensive history of the state since write off conventional political participa Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Charlton Tebeau’s 25 years ago. Modern tion for ideological reasons as a form of Charlottesville. An opening shot in reviving and well-written patriarchy." Only in recent years has suf scholarship on the topic. frage r&emerged for a second generation Allen Morris, Women in the IN MEMORIAM of scholarly attention. LeisIature. 1995, Florida House. Velma Pate Josephine So the shelf of relevant writing on Tallahassee. Anecdotal, well-illustrated Thomas Davidson women and political participation remains and entertainingly told, this book sub Benefactor Fomwr board member a relatively short one. Here are same of sumes two earlier ones on the same sub-

Among our offerings: Bik Cypress Gallery Seeing the light bio on Clyde published by Random House Florida Landscape phothgraphy by Portfolio I collection of Florida Clyde and Niki Butcher Located in the heart of the Everglades 52388 Tamiami Trail, Hwy. 41 Original B&W photographs Ochopee, FL 33943 Original handpainted photographs 941 695-2428 Fax 941 695-2670 Posters and Note Cards

WINTEfl 1995/1996 51 FROM

NQW

WOMEN AND POLITICAI PARTICIPATION 1900-1982

Ruth Blyan OIten, elected to Congress in 1928, toured Florida in a Ford coupe and changed her oa,i Üre. See sto,y on Page 28. FLORIDA STATE ARCHIVES

THE FLORIDA HUMANITIES COUNCIL Nonprofit 1514 1/2 East Eighth Avenue . Tampa, Florida 33605-3708 Organization ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED U.S. Postage PAID Tampa, FL Permit No. 2093