Author: David Dismore

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

Clara Shortridge Foltz was sworn in today in Los Angeles, California, as the first female Deputy District Attorney in U.S. history.

Her road to the prosecutor’s office has been a long one. When left to raise her five children alone in San Jose, she also wanted to study law with one of the local attorneys. Initially, she met with a series of rejections, such as one that said:

My dear young friend: Excuse my delay in answering your letter asking permission to enter my law office as a student. My high regard for your parents, and for you, who seem to have no right understanding of what you say you want to undertake, forbid encouraging you in so foolish a pursuit, wherein you would invite nothing but ridicule if not contempt. A woman’s place is at home, unless it be as a teacher. If you would like a position in our public schools, I will be glad to recommend you, for I think you are well qualified. Very respectfully, Francis Spencer.

Eventually she did succeed in being allowed to study law in a local attorney’s office, and after a while felt prepared to take the bar exam. But the California Bar admitted only qualified “white male citizens” at the time, so she drew up a bill that would change that to admit any qualified “citizen or person,” and found a sympathetic State Senator to introduce it. The removal of the racial restriction caused little controversy, but allowing women to practice law was seen as an extremely radical step.

Thanks to her lobbying, Senate Bill 66 survived a vigorous debate in both houses of the legislature, as well as the Governor’s reluctance to sign it. On September 5, 1878, she became the first woman admitted to the California Bar.

But Foltz knew that informal study of the law was not equal to a formal college education, so she applied to the Hastings College of Law, which had no specific ban on women’s admissions. This seems to have been because the school’s founders had never considered the possibility that a woman might apply. The school “conditionally” admitted her, but this was just the beginning of the battle. She encountered hostility from the start.

She had a bad cold on her first day at school, and every time she coughed, the entire class broke out in a fit of coughing. Whenever she turned a page in her notebook, all the boys did as well. And if she moved her chair, every chair in the room suddenly and quite noisily shifted.

The next day the school’s Board of Directors voted unanimously against having women students, formally rejecting her application and that of Laura de Force Gordon as well. They sued, Foltz argued the case herself, and won.

In a speech at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, Foltz launched her fight for “Public Defenders,” whose full-time job will be to defend the rights of those who are accused of a crime and cannot afford a lawyer. Indigent defendants presently get court-appointed private counsel – usually the youngest and most inexperienced – who see this duty as an inconvenience, and have few resources to conduct a thorough investigation even if they want to do so. Though not yet adopted anywhere, many States and counties have expressed an interest in her excellent idea. Foltz also came up with another novel innovation, this one accepted and implemented in California almost two decades ago: a parole system.

Clara Shortridge Foltz has been an active suffragist for over thirty years. She was an early president of the California Woman Suffrage Association, and shortly after moving to this city in 1906 was elected president of one of the most active and vocal suffrage groups, the Los Angeles Votes for Women Club.

She has long criticized District Attorneys’ offices in general for overzealous prosecutions due to a system that rewards prosecutors for convictions, regardless of how they are obtained. But her goal will be justice, not public acclaim. Though it is assumed she will be assigned cases dealing with women and children, she says that she is perfectly willing to take up cases involving men if the District Attorney assigns them to her, and that she can successfully make the transition from defense attorney to prosecutor:

“I believe that it is true that a woman can better find out the truth when unfortunate women or girls get into trouble. There are times where there is a real good excuse for them being in trouble and if they do not deserve punishment it will be my duty to look into such cases as these and find if they are worthy of sympathy and lenience. I say spare the innocent, but prosecute the guilty. I do not believe that because a woman is a woman she should not be amenable to the laws …. If I find a woman who should pay the penalty for her acts, you will find that I will be a vigorous prosecutor.”

Today marks an advance for the rights of women and an improvement in the local criminal justice system as well. District Attorney Fredericks should be applauded for his appointment of a highly qualified, dedicated, and uniquely experienced attorney as a Deputy D.A., and her example should pave the way for many more women with similar legal ambitions.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

Today was a busy one for the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

Before the morning was over, convention delegates re-elected Rev. Anna Howard Shaw as their leader, and had begun a procession of almost 50 automobiles to Capitol Hill.

The motorized parade carried petitions signed by over 404,000 citizens who want the Susan B. Anthony (nationwide woman suffrage) Amendment passed by Congress then sent to the 46 States for ratification. Approval by 3/4 (35) would make the Anthony Amendment the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (unless the Income Tax Amendment, already submitted to the States on July 12th of last year is ratified first, in which case the Anthony Amendment would become the 17th Amendment.)

The caravan got off to a bit of a late start due to a change of plans. Originally, the petitions were all together in one huge and quite impressive roll in a large express wagon. But at the last minute it was decided to unroll them and divide them up so that each State leader could arrive with the petitions from her State. It took about a half hour to do this, but once that was accomplished, a wonderfully colorful procession of automobiles and taxicabs began to roll down Pennsylvania Avenue, each carrying a banner from one of the States, with other cars for NAWSA officers.

After being given a warm reception at the Capitol steps, the petitioners then descended on Congress, making sure each member was given a petition from his District or State, and was then urged to officially present that petition to Congress. Everyone went into the galleries to see who would follow through on this request. A number of members of both House and Senate did as they had been asked, but the enthusiastic reaction to the speeches presenting the petitions almost got the NAWSA members booted out of the Senate.

The most popular presentation was made by Senator Robert “Fighting Bob” LaFollette, Republican of Wisconsin, who said he hoped Congress would bring the ballot “into the hands of an intelligent part of our citizenship that should have received it long ago.” This caused an understandable burst of cheers from the gallery, so Senator John Kean, Republican of New Jersey, who was presiding, called for order.

Decorum lasted until Senator Moses Clapp, Republican of Minnesota, made his presentation. His speech sparked a well-deserved round of applause, to which Senator Kean responded: “No applause allowed in the United States Senate.” Three applauders laughed, and then Senator Kean said: “If there is a repetition, the Sergeant-At-Arms will be ordered to clear the galleries.” Not wanting to miss any of the kind words of supportive Senators, everyone in the galleries then quietly enjoyed hearing the cause promoted on the Senate floor.

In the House, no speeches were permitted during the presentation of petitions, but visitors were allowed to applaud as each pro-suffrage member went up to the Speaker’s desk to deposit his petition. The largest number of signatures, 72,000, came from New York, with Utah, an equal-suffrage State, contributing the next-highest total of 40,000.

Today was the culmination of a year-long effort to gather signatures by NAWSA’s State chapters. Some of the more prosperous ones would rent out booth space at county fairs and other events, while in other States, NAWSA members would simply walk around soliciting signatures from crowds at various public events.

It is hoped that this presentation will be enough to get the Anthony Amendment out of Congressional Committees, where it has been bottled up for the past 14 years. Tomorrow, “Votes for Women” advocates will appear before the Senate Committee on Woman Suffrage and the House Committee on the Judiciary to make the case for nationwide woman suffrage.

Though no State has been won for suffrage since Idaho in 1896, the fact that President Taft personally greeted the NAWSA convention delegates this year, the launching of massive, nationwide petition drives, the emergence of new and energetic organizations such as Harriot Stanton Blatch’s “Equality League of Self-Supporting Women,” and the use of public spectacles, such as the League’s suffrage parade in New York City planned for May 21st are clear proof that the movement has been revitalized, and that new victories to match this new enthusiasm should soon follow.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

Victory for the woman suffrage movement – and equal pay for equal work – must rapidly be approaching if today is any example of the momentum that’s now being generated in their favor.

There were three suffrage meetings held in the New York City area, with enthusiasm running high at all three. The largest meeting was held at the home of Dr. Egbert Guernsey, 528 Fifth Avenue, with Lillie Devereux Blake as the principal speaker. She sees a direct connection between unequal pay and political inequality, and believes that women must become more militant on both fronts: “Woman is the great unpaid laborer … men would be running over each other to see that women had equal pay if they had the privilege of voting.”

Blake then noted that “women should be companions for men,” and couples should discuss the important legislation of the day together. Especially critical are those bills that pertain to household issues: “Give us reason to be interested in these things and you will see that we understand them.”

John D. Townsend gave personal testimony that the suffrage campaign is being waged with all the vigor that its supporters could hope for:

There is no doubt that woman will succeed in obtaining the amendment to the State Constitution which she seeks. You cannot go anywhere now but someone meets you with a woman suffrage petition and asks you to sign it – and every one does sign.

However, Townsend called for tact in regard to lobbying the men who can put a suffrage referendum on the November 6th ballot as part of a package of Constitutional reforms to be put before the State’s voters:

I would suggest to the women that they deal very gently with the men who are going to the Constitutional Convention. Treat them well and feed them well. They will do everything in the way of right laws; if they do not, then will be the time to speak.

Theodore Sutro received a warm round of applause when he said:

That women do not have the privilege of the ballot seems to me contrary to all ideas of justice in this free country. It is only in accordance with principles of logic – and I might say grammar – that the word ‘male’ should be stricken from the Constitution.

The New York State Constitution currently grants the right to vote to “every male citizen of the age of 21 years.”

The Brooklyn Woman Suffrage Association also held a well-attended meeting, and there was a pro-suffrage gathering at the home of the Torries, at 64 West 55th Street.

After nearly 46 years of continuous struggle since the first Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, woman suffrage – at least in New York State – could be only 7 months away if a suffrage referendum is put on the ballot and a majority of the State’s male voters approve it. With such a victory in the nation’s most populous State, the largest State delegation in Congress would then be accountable to women voters, and could clearly be a major force in pushing the Susan B. Anthony (nationwide woman suffrage) Amendment through Congress. The proposed 16th Amendment would then be sent to the 44 States for ratification, with approval by 2/3 (30) needed.

But even without a Federal amendment, this could be a landmark year for woman suffrage if the Empire State joins the States of Wyoming and Colorado in guaranteeing equal suffrage for women. Just over five months ago, on November 7th, Colorado became the first State whose voters approved a woman suffrage referendum, so male voters can clearly be persuaded to support “Votes for Women.”

With the ballot guaranteeing women’s political equality, equal opportunity and equal pay in all professions should logically follow. So though long overdue, the end of political, legal and economic inequality for women appears to be within sight, but certainly not attainable without a good deal more work, and the same level of dedication to equality that has brought the movement so far in less than half a century.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

It was announced today that a list of New York City law firms which hire women is being prepared by Kappa Beta Pi, a legal sorority, so female graduates of law schools will not have to waste their time applying to local firms that will automatically reject their applications.

Emily Marx, Secretary of the sorority’s New York Chapter said: “We are cataloging the city’s law firms where embryo Portias are welcome on the same terms as their fellows. It is hoped that graduates with good scholastic records will thus be saved weeks of weary job hunting.”

Marx’s project will be extremely valuable to the new graduates, who won’t have to repeat her experience. When she canvassed 175 law firms while looking for a job after graduation, all but 25 said they didn’t want a woman lawyer in the office, and though the rest held out some hope, they had no vacancies.

Marx’s first interview was with the somewhat bemused senior partner of a well-known law firm who was quite astonished to see a woman applying for a job. But she was encouraged when he said that he would never want to be accused of turning down a Yale graduate who was a member of the Law Review just because she was a woman. After consulting with the other senior partner, however, he came back and told her: “No girls.”

After weeks of similar rejections, Marx did finally get hired, and says that there are more such open-minded law offices in New York, but women need to know which ones they are.

There are about 35 chapters of Kappa Beta Pi, mostly in the West, because many Eastern law schools do not admit women. About 250 members now hold positions in New York City law firms, but the problem is to find work for the 100 new graduates who come to the city looking for jobs each year. Kappa Beta Pi was the first legal sorority, founded in 1908 at the Chicago-Kent College of Law to promote high standards among women law students and practicing attorneys.

The number of women lawyers has been increasing rapidly, though they still constitute a small percentage of the profession. According to the 1870 Census, only five women were actively practicing law at that time. By 1900 that number had increased to 1,010, and stood at 1,738 as of the latest Census in 1920. Hopefully, projects similar to the one outlined today will be tried in other cities as well, and will help that number continue to increase in the future.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

The Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau’s clinic was raided this morning by New York City police, who arrested two doctors and three nurses, then seized massive amounts of “evidence,” including confidential patient records.

Dr. Hannah Mayer Stone, medical director, Dr. Elizabeth Pissoort, assistant director, and nurses Antoinette Field, Sigrid H. Brestwell, and Marcella Sideri were charged with violation of Section 1142 of the New York State Penal Code, which bans birth control devices and contraceptive information as obscene materials.

The raid was as surprising as it was outrageous, because it has been 11 years since State Appeals Court Judge Frederick Crane ruled that though New York State’s ban on birth control and the dispensing of birth control information was valid, an exception must be made for doctors prescribing contraception to their married, adult patients, if they do so “for the cure or prevention of disease.”

The clinic has operated since January 2, 1923, and was the first to legally provide birth control services in the United States. The nation’s first birth control clinic was opened by two nurses on October 16, 1916, was raided 10 days later, then shut down permanently when it tried to re-open. The clinic raided today has been operated in such a way as to carefully conform to the law, as interpreted in 1918 by Judge Crane, in that only licensed physicians dispensed birth control and only to married women whose health would be endangered by a pregnancy.

In an ironic note, just moments before the raid occurred, a visiting out-of-State physician was talking to one of the members of the staff and asked if they had any trouble with the authorities. He was told: “No, those days have passed.”

But almost immediately after that conversation, eight police officers came in, pushed the clinic’s many women patients and their children out into the street, took the women’s names, then began arresting the doctors and nurses. They confiscated practically everything in sight, from forceps used to handle instruments being sterilized to confidential patient files that are the personal property of the doctors.

All those arrested were taken to the police station, where they were booked, then released on bail pending trial.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

President Taft discovered today that suffragists can sometimes be a tough audience.

He came to greet the delegates to the National American Woman Suffrage Association convention, and though he was given a standing ovation as he entered the room, as well as at the end of his speech, the President was hissed at at one point by some listeners.

Taft said that he had been a bit unsure whether to come to the convention, since his views are not entirely in harmony with N.A.W.S.A., “but I consider that the movement represents a sufficient part of the intelligence of the community to justify my coming here and welcoming you to Washington.” He said that he was “always more impatient with those who go only half way with me than those who oppose me,” so he must have known that there might be a rough spot ahead.

He said that he was a strong and “orthodox” advocate of woman suffrage when he was in high school, and that his father favored it as well. Needless to say, this caused great cheers from the audience, accompanied by the waving of white handkerchiefs. But next he did something odd for a politician by telling his audience something different from what he knew they would want to hear. He said that actual experience had modified his enthusiasm. Though woman suffrage seemed to work reasonably well in sparsely populated Western States, that might not be the case if it was won in densely-populated Eastern States:

“If I could be sure that women as a class would exercise the franchise, I would be in favor of it. At present time there exists in my mind considerable doubt.”

He said his hesitation about endorsing universal woman suffrage had to do with the possibility that the vote would not be exercised by the vast majority of women, but used only by “that part of the class least desirable as political constituents and may be neglected by many of those who are intelligent and patriotic and would be most desirable as members of the electorate.”

That brought out the hisses, and a retort by the President: “Now, my dear ladies, you must show yourselves equal to self-government by exercising in listening to opposing arguments that degree of restraint without which successful self-government is impossible.”

The rest of the speech went smoothly, and after being given a hearty round of applause as he finished speaking, he assured a somewhat embarrassed Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, President of N.A.W.S.A., that his feelings had not been injured in the least by the brief incident of hissing.

Senator Robert Owen, Democrat of Oklahoma, America’s newest and 46th State, followed the President. His remarks were enthusiastically received by the audience. He endorsed the suffrage movement “without apology,” and told the cheering crowd: “I face the prejudice of men of ten thousand years in advocating suffrage for women. Even if the entire race of men contradicts me, I still assert that woman is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Following the speeches, Dr. Shaw announced that there would be an open-air suffrage demonstration tomorrow, with Harriot Stanton Blatch in charge. Considering the large number of delegates who are here at the convention from all around the country, it should certainly impress upon Congress the growing power and new militance of this almost 62-year-old movement.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

Just five weeks after overcoming the riotous conditions which beset their parade and pageant on March 3rd, suffragists from all around the nation were back in Washington, DC, today, for another impressive event demanding a Constitutional amendment enfranchising women nationwide.

Though this event was only about one-tenth the size of the previous one, and consisted of only 531 “Votes for Women” advocates, that number was appropriate to the event’s purpose. Since each State has two Senators, there were two marchers from each of the 48 States, plus one from each of the nation’s 435 Congressional Districts. It was the largest delegation of suffragists ever to call on Congress.

After being given a welcoming speech on the Capitol steps by a U.S. Senator, they entered the Capitol, where they were greeted by Representative James W. Bryan (Progressive Party, Washington State). Bryan said that “there were enough men in the Senate and House to make certain that the flag of woman suffrage never would be pulled down in the United States.”

The delegation then filed into the Rotunda, where nine Senators and an equal number of Representatives from the nine States where women already vote received them. Those Members of Congress shook hands with each of the women as they dropped their petitions into a box specially prepared for the occasion, putting one petition in the box for each Member of the House and Senate. The women then went to the galleries, where they could see the suffrage amendment resolutions introduced on the floor by Senator George Chamberlain, Democrat of Oregon, and Representative Frank Mondell, Republican of Wyoming.

The day began with a large meeting in the Columbia Theater, in which rousing speeches were made by well-known suffragists such as Alice Paul, Harriet Burton Laidlaw, Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale, and Janet Richards. Those present for the event, which was organized by Alice Paul and her National American Woman Suffrage Association Congressional Committee, then took to the streets. Led by two marching bands, there was no trouble this time as they made their way from the theater to the Capitol accompanied by adequate police protection, something totally lacking 35 days ago.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

There was a packed house on hand this evening for a meeting of Harriot Stanton Blatch’s “Equality League of Self-Supporting Women” at New York City’s Cooper Union.

The meeting was every bit as enthusiastic and ambitious as it was crowded. There were three main issues on the agenda, and the audience overwhelmingly endorsed taking strong action on all three.

Winning the vote is, of course, the organization’s top priority, so a number of speakers called for woman suffrage. One of them, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, may have been the only one in the room who had been able to vote for equal suffrage in a State referendum. He did so while rabbi of Temple Beth Israel in Portland, Oregon, before recently returning to New York to found the Free Synagogue. He said that we would never have democracy in America until women in all States vote.

Rose Schneiderman, though primarily here to speak of the plight of women workers, offered an observation about anti-suffragists:

I found out while I was in Albany something that I had not known before, that you have such things as anti-suffragists. These fine ladies stand up and say: ‘Gentlemen, save us from ourselves. We don’t want to vote. We have more womanly work to do. We have charity.’ Charity! I hate that word. They are the ones who live on charity – they never work. We who provide everything that they have are too nice about it.

Though it had been hoped to add Anne Cobden-Sanderson to the list of speakers who roused the crowd to its endorsement of woman suffrage, she was unable to attend due to still being imprisoned for her activities in England. But the gathering approved a cablegram of support to be sent to those jailed there for their militant actions on behalf of suffrage.

The next issue to be addressed was unionization and equal pay for teachers. Speakers demanded that women no longer be paid 30 or 40 percent less than men for the same work. After Linda Gano noted that despite the pay discrepancy, women are not given cheaper theater tickets or discount fares on public transit, Joseph Barondess spoke of the need for more assertiveness and unionization by teachers:

It is not fair to expect women teachers to live on $22.50 per week, but at the same time we should not forget that there are 25,000 girls in this city who are ready to work long hours at anything that will pay them $5 a week.

Women have the habit of asking too little. An employer said to me once that they were satisfied to take home a couple of dollars to buy a feather for their hats. The women teachers should do as they have done in Chicago, form an organization and get a charter from the Central Federated Union. Yet each time we have tried to organize the teachers they were too proud to go in with the common men. The men said they were gentlemen. The women said nothing and did nothing. Organized labor would, I believe, rise to demand equal pay for women teachers.

With only one dissenting male voice, the equal pay resolution for New York teachers was adopted.

The third issue was that of war and peace. Anna Garlin-Spencer noted:

The one great product that women have to nourish and protect is the human being. It costs something to produce human life, and all over the land at all times women are at the same old job at the same old stand. But the time has come when women are tired of producing cheap cannon food. No man has the right to speak for himself and a woman on the question of peace. He can speak for himself, but he must let the woman speak for herself.

The resolution giving the League’s respects to the upcoming Peace Congress, and expressing the hope that women would have a voice in questions of peace and war was quickly adopted.

Harriot Stanton Blatch, the League’s president, has good reason to be pleased with tonight’s turnout and enthusiasm, and so more such meetings should be expected in the future.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

Over 88% of New York State’s women earn less than the $16.13 a week the Federal Government considers the minimum income needed to cover basic living costs.

Seventy-one percent receive less than $14 a week, while only 11.6% get $16 a week or more. Less than 5% earn $20 a week or more.

These facts were contained in a report made public today by the Consumers’ League of New York entitled “Women’s Wages Today.” They surveyed 500 women in various locations around the State, and came up with a number of findings.

Though they were distributed across a variety of industries, the largest group of women workers, 23%, were saleswomen or cashiers in department stores, with the clothing industry coming in next at 17%. They found that most of the women worked 48 to 54 hours a week, though 5% worked more than 54 hours, while 6% worked less than 44 hours, most of those clerical workers.

There is a popular notion that women work for ‘pin money’ and therefore should be paid less than men, but this was not supported by the data. Of the 500 women surveyed, 377 contributed their entire wages or a large part of them to the family income. Fifteen percent did not live at home and were entirely dependent upon their own incomes. Of this group, ten received $8 a week, twenty-one got $10, eleven received $11 a week, seventeen got $12, seven earned $13, and ten got $15 a week.

Though it might be supposed that low wages are a reflection of youth and inexperience, this was not the case. Only 26.8% of those surveyed were under the age of 18, and 40% were twenty-one years of age or older. Even among those over 30, a majority earned less than $14 a week. Wages have not even been keeping up with inflation. In 1919, 39% of women reported no increase in their pay, and there were few cases where wages kept up with the 14.5% increase in prices last year.

The gap between what women are paid and what they need results in undernourishment, unpaid bills, clothes bought on the installment plan, extra work at night or the acceptance of charity, according to the Consumers’ League. It is because of facts like those presented today that it is calling for the establishment of a State Minimum Wage Commission.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig struck out today, felled by a teenager who needed only seven pitches to earn herself a place in baseball lore.

Jackie Mitchell, signed for the season on March 28th by Tennessee’s “Chattanooga Lookouts,” a Class AA minor league team, pitched her legendary “sinker” in an annual exhibition game with the New York Yankees, on their way home from Spring Training in Florida. The contest always attracts a good deal of attention from the local press, and comments made yesterday by the “Sultan of Swat” only increased the public’s interest.

According to Ruth: “I don’t know what’s going to happen if they let women play in baseball. Of course, they never will make good. Why? Because they are too delicate. It would kill them to play ball every day.” Despite his confidence, he did seem concerned enough to ask a reporter: “By the way, how big is she?” When told she was five feet eight inches tall, he simply said: “Well, I don’t know what things are coming to.” He found out today.

After the starting pitcher gave up a double and a run-scoring single, Mitchell was sent in just as it became Ruth’s turn at bat. Her first pitch was a ball, but the next two were right on target. Though the Bambino gave them his best swings, it was to no avail. He then demanded that the umpire inspect the ball. It was found to be in perfectly legal condition, so whatever tricks it was playing on the Babe were due solely to the pitcher’s skill.

Mitchell then shot another pitch, which Ruth apparently thought wasn’t quite in the strike zone, and he ignored. But the umpire saw it as a third strike, and the Home Run King, who hit 49 round-trippers last year and had a .359 batting average, vigorously disputed the call, then flung away his bat, and trudged to the bench.

Next up was Lou Gehrig, who hit 41 home runs and batted .379 last year against the American League’s best pitchers. But he proved no match for Mitchell. The “Iron Horse” went down swinging at all three pitches.

Taught to play ten years ago by neighbor Dazzy Vance, who now plays for the Brooklyn Dodgers, this wasn’t Mitchell’s first time pitching against males. Last year, when she played for the Engelettes, a girls’ team from Chattanooga, she threw nine strike-outs in seven innings against a boys’ team. Though she only pitched 2/3 of an inning today, relieved after letting Tony Lazzari walk, it was a great day for baseball fans – and for women in sports.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

Women-only cars on the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad’s “Hudson Tube” route through the McAdoo Tunnel from 23rd Street in Manhattan to Hoboken, New Jersey, are proving popular.

Today’s ridership is up by 50% (3,000 vs. 2,000) over yesterday’s test run. Already being referred to by passengers as “Suffragette Cars” (a derisive term local suffragists dislike) or “Merry Widow Cars,” they are the last in each train during rush hours, from 7 to 9 in the morning and 4:30 to 7:00 in the evening.

Whether the special cars will be adopted by the five-year-old Interborough Rapid Transit Company’s subway system and be established on New York City routes is still unknown, though it seems doubtful. Hearings were held two weeks ago and with the exception of the Womens’ Municipal League, which hosted the discussion, there was strong opposition.

Ida Husted Harper, author of “The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony,” acknowledged that there were substantial problems for commuters: “It is an outrage for people to be subjected to what they have to endure in the way of transportation in New York.” But she also said:

I am opposed to the plan principally because by setting apart one car for women, men would consider that all the rest of the train belonged to them. Then, when the overflow from this segregated car tried to get into the others, the men would put up the cry that women were encroaching on their domain. We are hearing entirely too much nowadays about ‘women’s invasion.’

Harper said that she was “constantly surprised at the number of men who do give up their seats and try to help women both in the subway and surface cars,” and that the only hope is to rely on the “kindness and consideration” of the majority of men in the cars.

Lillie Devereaux Blake, veteran suffragist and president of the Legislative League, said of the proposal:

I am opposed to it. I don’t think our New York men are such beasts that we can’t sit in the same car with them. I like men. Of course, they don’t give us all we want them to. They don’t let us vote, for instance, but they will in good time, and even now they’re pretty good to us. I think it would be most unpleasant if we had a car to ourselves.

Florence Kelley, Secretary of the National Consumers’ League, testified: “The last thing in the world women want is to be segregated.”

The experiment will continue to see if its popularity lasts.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

Today, Alice Paul’s “Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage” became a national organization, adopted a constitution, and launched a suffrage campaign that puts it into direct competition with another effort by the more conservative National American Woman Suffrage Association (N.A.W.S.A.).

The result of this all-day meeting of the Congressional Union’s Advisory Council makes it clear that there are two very different philosophies among national suffrage groups in regard to attaining their common goal of nationwide woman suffrage. But the willingness to work for that goal is reassuringly high in both groups.

The Congressional Union was formed two years ago by Alice Paul as a local Washington, D.C. organization to help support N.A.W.S.A.’s Congressional Committee, which she led at the time. Congressional Union activists have always taken a more aggressive and flamboyant approach to the battle for the ballot than N.A.W.S.A. officers felt advisable. The C.U. has engaged in activities ranging from colorful parades, pageants, motorcades and other spectacles to public confrontations with Democratic Party candidates over their party’s failure to use its majority status in Congress to pass a nationwide suffrage amendment.

Though both N.A.W.S.A. and the C.U. have the same goal of enfranchising women nationwide, N.A.W.S.A. still favors a State-by-State approach, while the C.U. sees a Federal amendment as the only realistic solution. The primary goal of the new organization is to pass the Susan B. Anthony (nationwide woman suffrage) Amendment, sometimes called the Bristow-Mondell Amendment after its current sponsors in Congress. If approved by 2/3 of both Houses of Congress and ratified by 3/4 of the states, it would immediately enfranchise women in every State on the same basis as men.

N.A.W.S.A. favors State campaigns, and currently endorses the Shafroth-Palmer Amendment, which if it became part of the Constitution would mandate a State referendum on woman suffrage if 8% of the registered voters of a State signed petitions requesting it. It would obviously be less controversial, and therefore easier to get Congress to pass, and the States to ratify, but it would directly enfranchise no one. N.A.W.S.A. sees nationwide suffrage coming about only after women have won the vote in a large number of States, and have enough power to directly influence members of Congress.

As might be expected, relations between the two rival suffrage groups have not been cordial since Alice Paul was ousted from leading N.A.W.S.A.’s Congressional Committee after refusing its demand that she resign from the Congressional Union. An attempt at reconciliation in early 1914 failed, and the two organizations have been engaging in a kind of “family feud” ever since.

N.A.W.S.A. has referred to the C.U. as an “unruly child” for its work against Democrats during last year’s midterm elections. Democrats have the Presidency, and majorities in both House and Senate, but have failed to advance the Anthony Amendment. Like the British militants, Alice Paul believes that the party in power should be held responsible for keeping women disenfranchised.

Today, N.A.W.S.A., gearing up for a campaign to pass a suffrage referendum in New York State in November, issued a scathing letter signed by Katherine Dexter McCormick, its VIce President, denouncing the C.U.’s actions:

The officers of the National American Woman Suffrage Association agree with Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt and Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch that this is not the time nor is New York a place for reopening of the discussion as to the best way to bring about a Federal amendment for suffrage.

It would have shown more imagination, more consideration from the women in New York, had the conference, with its appeal for funds and help, been held in some other State, but perhaps that is asking too much of an organization which is interested only in Federal suffrage. We see, usually, only what we are interested in.

But I do want to say, in all generosity, that the Congressional Union is to be heartily congratulated on giving up its policy of attacking the Democratic Party as the sole obstacle to suffrage. This was a short-sighted policy which we all deplored. It was based upon a romantic desire to imitate English tactics rather than upon a realization of the political situation in this country. We are glad to learn that the union has abandoned it, and we only wish that step had been taken before the union’s policy had misled and antagonized thousands of Democratic voters last Fall in Nebraska, Ohio, Missouri, and the two Dakotas.

In response, Lucy Burns advised fellow C.U. members who might still be in N.A.W.S.A. to resign and stop supporting it in any was as long as it favors the Shafroth-Palmer Amendment.

After a vigorous discussion, it was decided that the new group’s membership will be composed of women only, though men are welcome at the meetings, and the work of Marsden J. Perry, in attendance today, was praised.

The main work of the day was planning how to expand the group’s presence into every State, though no Congressional Union meeting would be complete without a discussion of plans for some massive public event. The one presently being planned is the Susan B. Anthony Pageant, scheduled just before the opening of the next Congress, and it is hoped it will be the biggest suffrage event ever staged.

Despite the obvious friction between the two suffrage groups, the movement is now more powerful than it has ever been, and all suffragists are united and committed to the goal of “Votes for Women” everywhere. Though the “how” and “when” of victory cannot be predicted, a major step in that direction was taken today.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

According to a poll released today, American women are becoming much more supportive of the feminist movement and its goals, though many still remain skeptical.

Just a year ago, women who were surveyed for the Virginia Slims Women’s Opinion Poll by Louis Harris and Associates opposed efforts “to strengthen and change women’s status in society today” by 42% to 40%. But in this year’s survey, Harris found support had increased dramatically, with 48% in favor and just 36% opposed.

Though the women’s rights groups responsible for this changing of consciousness are not yet supported by a majority of women, opposition has decreased significantly. Last year 51% thought “few or none of these organizations” were helpful, while 34% thought they were. This year, 43% found them useful and 44% did not, with the 1% gap well within the poll’s margin of error.

Of course, there are still attitudes that need to be changed, especially in regard to women in political life. Sixty-three per cent of the women surveyed thought men were more emotionally suited to politics, though seventy-four percent believed women in public office can be as logical and rational as men. If given a choice between a male and a female candidate with identical qualifications and views, about 40% of women would be more likely to vote for the male candidate, while only 17% would prefer the female, and 37% said that a candidate’s gender would make no difference.

But political inequality is now being noticed, and hopefully will be challenged. By 40% to 34%, those surveyed thought there were too few women delegates at the Presidential nominating conventions, and 32% thought half the delegates should be women. As for attaining the Presidency itself, 27% said the country will never be ready to elect a female President, but 37% believed it will happen in the next ten years.

According to Harris, women’s political views will become increasingly decisive, especially if they vote differently from men. Women voters almost tipped the 1968 election to Hubert Humphrey, and would have done so if they had cast a majority of the votes. In that election, 46% of women voted for Democrat Hubert Humphrey, 43% for Republican Richard Nixon and 11% for American Independent Party candidate George Wallace. Forty-four percent of men voted for Nixon, forty percent for Humphrey, and sixteen percent for Wallace. At a press conference yesterday, Harris said: “It is entirely likely that women will continue to be a majority of the voting constituency for the rest of the century.”

In the words of the pollsters:

A feminist ‘pro-change’ constituency is solidifying among specific groups of women. The most conspicuous increases in support for efforts to change women’s status have occurred among women who are single (from 53% last year to the present 67%), in the 18-29 age group (from 46% to 56%), college graduates (from 44% to 57%), and suburban residents (from 41% to 51%). Strong support for status-changing efforts persists among Blacks (62%), the divorced and separated (57%) and city residents (52%). Strongest opposition to change is found among women who are widows, over 40 and residents of rural areas. But even among these groups, opposition to feminist ideas is diminishing.

Among the more encouraging signs the survey found were that 48% of women now agree that: “It’s time they protested the real injustices they’ve faced for years,” with 43% disagreeing. Last year 52% rejected this view, and only 38% supported it. But actual protesting still seems to be unpopular. Any question that involved the word “liberation,” “picket,” or “protest” drew unsympathetic responses, with only about a third favoring protests and picketing as a way to win equality, though this would still represent tens of millions of women who could potentially be recruited for actions.

The pollsters concluded their survey results with an optimistic prediction validating the impression that feminists have made a good deal of progress, and that there will be more to come if we continue our efforts: “It is highly probable that women of the future will have vastly different pictures of themselves from women of today. According to the Virginia Slims study, younger women are rejecting many cherished stereotypes of their sex and frequently express opinions and life-style preferences quite different from older women.”