ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: MARYLAND WOMEN AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF POLITICS, 1890s-1930 Diane E. Weaver, Doctor of Philosophy, 1992 Dissertation Directed by: George H. Callcott Professor Department of History This is a study of the involvement of Maryland women in politics from the 1890s to 1930. It builds on previous studies to support an expanded conceptualization of politics. Elite white activists in the late nineteenth century, building on their concern for the home, extended their interests as wives and mothers to their interests as citizens, and both reflected and shaped the rising Progressive movement in Maryland. They formed local and then statewide organizations, and they worked to replace traditional politics with activist, efficient, and expanded government . As they brought their concerns to the public agenda, they created an increased public role for themselves, choosing at the same time to work cooperatively with male leaders . Black women activists were reformers in their communities as well, and while for the most part segregated from white women's organizations, created and participated in cooperative ventures with white women . The suffrage movement in Maryland grew out of this activism and also extended it. White suffragists differed over strategy and tactics, but they maintained unity in an agenda that combined social goals with the advancement of women. World War I offered white women activists, already part of a statewide network, the opportunity to assume a greatly expanded role in the burgeoning wartime government. During the war, black women activists expanded their influence as well, but they also expanded and their independence from white women's organizations. After the adoption of women's suffrage in 1920, white women activists continued to pursue an agenda that combined social reform and women's advancement. Black women remained apart as they formed the base for the civil rights movement of a later day. White activists, meanwhile, continuing their practice of cooperation, established a conscious partnership with political parties and local and state governments, and tailored their agenda to conform to their perception of political reality. While their continuing cooperation resulted in losses as well as gains, this study supports others that have concluded that the activism of white women resulted in a new politics of interdependence, with an expanded citizenry and an expanded social consciousness. MARYLAND WOMEN AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF POLITICS, 1890s-1930 by Diane E. Weaver Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Maryland in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 1992 \ . \ , ...' ;,= .\ ( . •. '- ·I1 ·'I. .'' ' Advisory Committee: Professor George H. Callcott, Chairman/ Advisor Professor James B. Gilbert Associate Professor David A. Grimsted Professor Loui s R. Harlan Professor Claire G. Mose s Assistant Professor Robyn Muncy i i TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ........... V CHAPTER ONE "PRACTICAL WORK FOR DEFINITE RESULTS": WOMEN'S ACTIVISM AND REFORM, 1890s-1910 ............. 1 CHAPTER TWO "WE PARTICIPATE IN EVERY PROGRESSIVE CAUSE": CIVIC ACTIVISM, 1910-1917 . ... 29 1910 and 1911: Systematic Activism The Foundation of the Agenda: "The State Must Send for the Doctor and Pay His Bill" Individual Advancement of Women Black Women Activists' Agenda: "It is Up to You Mothers to Get the Ba 11 a Ro 11 i ng" Establishing a Statewide Network Setbacks, Successes, and Outcomes CHAPTER THREE "LET US GET POWER FIRST": THE SUFFRAGE CAMPAIGN, 1910 -1918 87 The Suffrage Movement to 1910 Connecting Suffrage and Community Activism The Struggle for Unity Strategy and Tactics Reaching Out to Women Wage Earners Suffrage and Black Women The Opposition to Suffrage i i i CHAPTER FOUR "THE WOMAN POWER OF THE STATE IS MOBILIZED AND ORGANIZED": WORLD WAR I, 1917-1918 ..... 141 Opportunities for New Activists, Individual Development, and Organizational Challenges Suffrage and World War I The Women's Section of the Maryland Council of Defense Black Women and World War I The National Connection Working Within the Council of Defense CHAPTER FIVE "WE WANT TO BE ABLE TO COOPERATE, BUT WE CANNOT RUN THE RISK OF AMALGAMATING": 1919-1925 198 Women's Suffrage Organization of the Maryland League of Women Voters Working Within Political Parties Independence or Amalgamation? Women's Voluntary Organizations Black Women Activists CHAPTER SIX 11 A FACTOR TO BE RECKONED WITH": WOMEN'S ACTIVISM, COLLABORATION, AND EXPANDED GOVERNMENT, 1919-1925 . ...... 247 Developing a Public Agenda Albert C. Ritchie and the Expansion of State Government The Sheppard-Towner Act "You Are a Real Politician" Mary E.W. Risteau iv CHAPTER SEVEN "WE HAVE A GOOD LONG TIME BEFORE US TO LIVE WITH THESE MEN": WOMEN ACTIVISTS AND POLITICAL REALITY, 1926-1930 . 292 Cooperation: Advantages Cooperation: Drawbacks Black Women's Political Activism: Working Against the System Cooperation: A Synthesis of Advantages and Drawbacks CHAPTER EIGHT "HE WANTS US TO HELP HIM GET A SANITARY INSPECTOR": MARYLAND WOMEN'S ACTIVISM AND INTERDEPENDENCE, 1890S-1930 359 ESSAY ON PRIMARY SOURCES 373 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY .. 380 V LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AAUW American Association of University Women AME African Methodist Episcopal CCHS Carroll County Historical Society cu Congressional Union JGL Just Government League MCD Maryland Council of Defense MCHS Montgomery County Historical Society MHR Maryland Hall of Records MHS Maryland Historical Society MLWV Maryland League of Women Voters MSN Maryland Suffrage News NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People NACW National Association of Colored Women NAWSA National American Woman Suffrage Association NWP National Woman 's Party WTUL Women's Trade Union League YMCA Young Men's Christian Association YWCA Young Women 's Christian Association .. 1 CHAPTER ONE "PRACTICAL WORK FOR DEFINITE RESULTS": WOMEN'S ACTIVISM AND REFORM, 1890s-1910 In recent years, historians have begun to challenge the traditional view of politics as merely party organizations and the outcome of elections. As historian Paula Baker has formulated it, politics and political behavior include "any action, formal or informal, taken to affect the course or behavior of government or the community." This definition assumes a broader, more inclusive definition of politics, one more in line with, for example, the changing political behavior of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The definition also enables historians to examine ways in which individuals and groups influenced political life outside electoral politics. Increasing numbers of historians are using an expanded conception of politics to explore women's political culture, to measure the political contribution of women, and to integrate women's leadership into the transformation to modern liberalism and its accompanying changes in political behavior. Women's efforts both led and supported a government of increased social responsibility, managed through efficient bureaucratic structures. Viewed from this perspective, women and their organizations became agents for political change , expanding their own role as citizens and also expanding the role of government . 1 2 This fresh approach to the past has yielded valuable interpretations, both of the creation of the modern, activist state, and of women's role in that creation. From the perspective of an expanded conception of politics, women activists were political actors, politicians. This study accepts that definition and characterization of women's behavior, and proceeds from that premise in an examination of civic and suffrage activism. At the same time, however, it is important to recognize that most women reform activists of the late nineteenth and early decades of the twentieth centuries did not envision that their work would alter or expand the parameters of politics. Indeed, they and their male allies fervently hoped and believed that their efforts would help destroy the politics of graft, corruption, and the backroom, and replace them with efficient, objective, knowledgeable, and, especially, clean government. What women reform activists felt and did, as opposed to the results of their work, contributed to a paradox that has followed women activists to the present. Women's political actions helped to change the public agenda, but those actions also changed their relationship to the new system they helped to create. Historian Sarah Deutsch has noted that women activists did not operate in a vacuum, that their interaction with the existing system shaped both the new system and their organizations. Deutsch further argued that successful women's organizations "negotiated a middle ground between destruction of women's separate vision through co-optation and the triumph of that vision. The compromise represented the interaction of their ideas with political and social realities."2 3 In responding to political reality, as well as in creating a new political reality, women changed politics and themselves. This study explores those dual changes as they affected women activists and the political life of Maryland, set against the backdrop of the reform-era decades of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While the concept and reality of political, economic, and social reform are in fact continuing phenomena, as opposed to distinct, timebound events, most historians recognize the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries