Los Angeles
County
Biographies
ALICE
STEBBINS WELLS
The
life history of Alice Stebbins Wells is an interesting one. She has been the leader in many movements of
importance to the human race and a pioneer in some, notably in the policewoman
movement. The position she has occupied
for the past twenty-four years, that of policewoman in
Los Angeles, requires talents which she possesses to a high degree. She has a strict sense of justice, a keen
intellect, is guided by high ethical standards, and above all else has a desire
to be of real service to mankind. She
seems to have an intuitive knowledge of human beings, and has a genuine
interest in them irrespective of station, race or creed. In reviewing her life work she seems to have
a real desire to help as many as possible and to bring them to a realization of
their latent possibilities. She firmly
believes there is a little spark of virtue in every human being only waiting to
be strengthened. No situation can daunt
her courageous soul.
Alice
Stebbins Wells was born in Manhattan, Kansas, a daughter of Homer Pease and
Sarah (Kinney) Stebbins, both of whom were descendants of notable New England
families and early graduates of Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, where Mrs.
Sarah Stebbins’ father, Dean Daniel Kinney, was known for fifty years to all
Oberlin students. Homer P. Stebbins
taught Latin in the Oberlin schools, and later established and edited the first
newspaper in Hiawatha, Kansas, a file of which is in the state capitol at
Topeka.
Alice
Stebbins Wells was educated at Atchison, Kansas, graduating from the high
school there. After leaving school she
devoted several years to a business career in the Middle West, New York, and
New England. About 1900 she became
pastor’s assistant for Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis in
Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, made famous by Henry Ward Beecher, and following
that she spent two years at the Hartford, Connecticut, Theological Seminary,
specializing in Old Testament history with the intention of giving lectures on
“The Message of the Prophets for Today.”
While attending the seminary she spent two vacations filling summer pulpits
in Congregational Home Missionary churches in Maine, thereby becoming the first
woman preacher in that state. She then
gave her lecture course on the prophets with their civic message for our day at
Chautauqua, Bible schools, and many churches throughout the East and Middle
West, including Oklahoma. She accepted a
pastorate for a short time near Perry, Oklahoma. While in that state she married Frank Wells,
a member of a pioneer Wisconsin family, whose eventual ill health necessitated
her return to the professional field. Mr. and Mrs. Wells have three children: Ramona, who married Carl Horack,
of Berkeley, California; Raymond Stebbins, who married Vera VanValer;
and Gardner Stebbins, who married Carmen Modie. Both sons live in Los Angeles.
In
May, 1910, having moved to Los Angeles, Mrs. Wells conceived the idea and
undertook the work of securing the enactment of legislation creating the office
of policewoman in this city. This
undertaking was successfully concluded on August 13 of that year, and on this
date she took the office, thus becoming the first regular policewoman in the
United States and, so far as is known, the world. This was such an innovation and a widening of
the field for women, as well as helpful in character building for women and
children, that interest was immediately aroused and in response to many appeals
she lectured in scores of cities in the United States and Canada. Foreign countries were also deeply impressed
with the movement and inquiries flooded her office. As the result of this agitation Mrs. Wells
was able, in May, 1915, to call a conference for the purpose of organizing an
international association of policewomen in Baltimore, Maryland, coincident with
the National Conference of Charities and Corrections, now known as the National
Conference of Social Work. She was
elected president and served for five years.
The movement had grown so rapidly that she was enabled to invite
policewomen from fourteen states to this organizing convention. At the conference less than one year later
the association membership represented twenty-two states, Canada and
England. Their publications are
interesting even to the layman, especially Mrs. Wells’ first presidential
address which was published in the annual conference proceedings, and
Publication No. 1, which was printed and distributed the following year by the
new policewomen’s association. In this
she fixed the status of the word policewoman originally chosen by her as a
distinct term pertaining only to regularly appointed city officers. Because of the novelty every woman given
police power for any reason whatever was being called a policewoman; an
erroneous appellation often caused confusion and at times unjust
criticism. She also urged training
facilities in established centers because small cities were writing: “If we get the appropriation for a policewoman,
can you recommend a trained woman officer who will come to us?” Mrs. Wells, in 1917, conducted the first
university training class for policewomen at the first summer session held by
the University of California in Los Angeles.
Mrs.
Wells is a Republican and a Prohibitionist. She is the founder and the extension director
of the Pan-Pacific Association for Mutual Understanding. She organized this association in 1924 and it
has held interesting travel dinners featuring Pacific Coast counties ever since. She is a member of the Friday Morning Club,
which club was among the signers of her petition to create the office of
policewoman. During 1927 – 1928 she was
organizing chairman and first president of the Women’s Peace Officers
Association of California, which during its first year enrolled membership
extending from San Diego to Humboldt County, and published as a yearbook the
first compilation of women peace officers of the state. (Policewomen, police
matrons, deputy sheriffs and deputy constables.) Within the last twenty years more than two
hundred fifty cities in the United States appointed policewomen, and the number
in Los Angeles increased to thirty-two.
Mrs. Wells has held her position continuously since her appointment in
1910. Her latest activity is that of
curator of the Los Angeles Police Department, appointed by James E. Davis at
her request in order that she might establish a museum within the police
department. Here are
being gathered photographs, clippings from newspapers, pamphlets, equipment,
etc., dating from the earliest days of the department down to the present time.
Since
the policewoman movement is a notable contribution from southern California to
world welfare, the reception of this first policewoman and her message by the public
is revealed by excerpts from a few of the newspapers of those times of which we
give a few of interest. Ottawa Citizen
(Ottawa, Canada), January 17, 1913:
“Mrs. Wells is no academic speaker and speaks from a fund of knowledge
acquired through actual experience and she is so earnest and of such a sweet
and attractive personality as she presents her message concerning several grave
problems and why there should be policewomen that sooner or later the civilized
world must answer.”
Chicago
Daily Tribune, January 22, 1913:
“Resolutions were adopted by the Woman’s City Club yesterday calling for
the appointment of policewomen in Chicago.
Mrs. Alice Stebbins Wells has just told the meeting of her work as
policewoman in the police department of Los Angeles. Mrs. Wells urged the Chicago department to
appoint women for patrol duty, for censors of public amusements and advisers of
women.”
Lexington
(Ky.) Herald: “Womanly and winning, the
first policewoman, Mrs. Wells, of Los Angeles, in her appearance in Lexington’s
afternoon at the courthouse under the auspices of the Civic League, the Moral
Improvement League, the Advisory Board of the Juvenile Court and the Associate
Charities, more than justified the commendatory things that have been said and
written of her work.”
Church
Life, Toronto, Canada: “I fancy Mrs.
Alice Stebbins Wells on her recent visit, has dispelled a good many illusions
which some of us probably cherished. She
is not large or vigorous but a gentle little figure endowed with a sweet smile,
a sweet voice, not loud or strong, but clear and penetrating and altogether an
appealing personality. I think the whole
conception of the police department and its administration must be regarded
with a new insight and appreciation by everyone who has heard this most gifted
woman describe some of its general functions and
uses.”
Herald,
Washington, D. C.: “Mrs. Alice Stebbins
Wells gave an address last night on ‘The Need of Policewomen and Their Work’ in
the Unitarian Church. Dr. U. G. B. Pierie, pastor and Chaplain of the Senate, introduced
Commissioner Rudolph as chairman of the evening. The necessity of women police officers was
explained. It behooves every
municipality to provide women officials who can render help in many ways when
man would be powerless. The
policewoman’s work is largely preventive.
Mrs. Wells is small, and we who heard her talk in a low sweet voice
would be apt to hazard a guess that she was a college professor or a
litterateur.”
Among
the written testimonials are these:
University
of Pittsburgh, January 13, 1913: “I wish
to express my appreciation of the address you delivered last night. It was most able, forceful, effective and
convincing. The audience was delighted
and instructed. The subjects you
presented are fundamental to social well-being and you presented them in such a
way as at once to disarm criticism and compel attention. The address cannot fail to bring about good
results in Pittsburgh.
Very
sincerely,
S.
B. McCormack, Chancellor.”
Toronto,
January 14, 1913. “Not in many years of
social work and interest in social problems have I heard an address so
comprehensive, so intelligent and so full of 1913
common sense as that to which we listened last evening.
There
is in this day no lack of speakers who critize, but
there is a dearth of speakers who are able to suggest as you did the preventive
and educational measures which are practical.
I am sure that your visit will prove of much benefit to our city.
Faithfully
yours,
Transcribed
by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: California of the South
Vol. V, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 380-384,
Clarke Publ., Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 V.
Gerald Iaquinta.
GOLDEN NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES
BIOGRAPHIES