Spinsters and Lesbians: Independent Womanhood in the United States (The Cutting Edge : Lesbian Life and Literature) by Trisha Franzen

Author:Trisha Franzen [Franzen, Trisha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: NYU Press
Published: 1995-12-01T05:00:00+00:00

Communities

This group of women built their public and private lives with women they met through education, politics, or work. Alice Hamilton, Mary Anderson, and Frances Kellor were linked through Hull House in Chicago (Sicherman 1984; Anderson 1951; O’Connell 1980). Through Hull House they knew and were influenced by this organization’s important leaders: Jane Addams, Florence Kelley, and Julia Lathrop. Florence Kelley became Molly Dewson’s boss within the National Consumer’s League after she moved to New York City (Ware 1987). While Mary Elisabeth Dreier, Frances Kellor, and Leonora O’Reilly had all been involved in settlement-house work in New York City, their most important links were through the Women’s Trade Union League (Moore 1980; Shively 1971; Montgomery 1980; Newman Papers SL). Mary Anderson, Frances Kellor, Frieda Miller, and Pauline Newman were also part of this organization nationally, which was under the leadership of Margaret Dreier Robins, Mary Elisabeth’s older sister, during its most active and influential years.

While Hull House and the Women’s Trade Union League connected the most women, other significant formal and informal memberships extended out from these hubs. Among them were Jo Baker’s memberships in Heterodoxy and the College Women’s Equal Suffrage Association (Schwarz 1986; Baker 1939); Lura Beam’s employment with the American Association of University Women (Beam Papers SL); Frances Kellor’s involvement with the Chicago Women’s Club (O’Connell 1980); Leonora O’Reilly’s founding of the Working Women’s Society and the NAACP (Shively 1971); and Edith Stedman’s affiliation with the YWCA during World War I (Stedman Papers SL). Connie Guion held a position at the New York Infirmary for Women and Children beginning in 1925 and had numerous connections with other women physicians (Guion 1958, 1972). Edith Hamilton was part of the Bryn Mawr College network. Although Mary Ellicott Arnold left no evidence of formal homo-social connections from her early years, in retirement she worked for the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (Arnold Papers SL).

The ties and claims these women had broken with their families of birth were replaced by their work-related communities. Where family connections may have eased young men’s entries into professions, women-centered organizations served similar functions for these new women. Such organizations not only provided links among women doing similar work, they also helped locate and create employment or opportunities for advancement for many of the women in this group. These functions were limited to Euro-American women (Gordon 1994).

Mary Anderson’s rise within the federal government was discussed in chapter 3. Anderson chose Frieda Miller, who had long been active in the WTUL, to succeed her as head of the Women’s Bureau, just as Frances Perkins had suggested Miller follow her as head of the Division of Women in Industry of the New York State Department of Labor earlier. Molly Dewson’s training, gained through the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, the National Consumer’s League, and the Red Cross, prepared her to move into Democratic party politics with invaluable experience and contacts. After Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s election to the presidency in 1932, she headed the Women’s Division of

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