WHO’S WHO AMONG
THE WOMEN OF CALIFORNIA
1922
____________
Page 167
Image of Kathleen
Norris
IS WOMAN’S
PLACE IN THE HOME?
I never know whether to
laugh or to cry when women ask me this – and women do ask it, all the year
round, and through all the years, and many times a week. Our particular generation represents the
transition stage between the clinging woman of the ‘Nineties, with her
five-gored, bell skirt sweeping the street on all sides as she walked, and her
prettily-confident request to Papa, or Brother Bob, or John, dear, for money,
and the coming woman – with her profession or trade instilled into her as a
matter of course, with her confident voice, and her trim office suit, and her
financial responsibilities, and her vote.
And there is humor, and pathos in the insistent, consciencious
inquiry; “Ought I stay at home? Ought I go out into the world?”
My answer to this question is contained in
one world – with a post-script. The word
is “Yes.” “And the post-script is … and
never forget that the whole wide world, with its books, its politics, its
galleries and slums, its sins and its virtues, is your home.”
Because one of the things that we working
women learn with most surprise is that there is nothing mysterious, nothing
sacred and cryptic and essentially undiscoverable, about all these hitherto
solely masculine things; that lawyers and politicians and broker and bridgebuilders are just solving the same old problems of
family living – on a slightly larger scale.
And when your little house and mine, and your little block
and mine, and your little village and mine have solved a few riddles, like
divorce and wages and the relationship of capital and labor, and public health
and morals and educations, and fair taxation, and the financial rights of a
wife, just as these things touch us and our families; then your little house,
street and village and mine will have done what all the big government
officials at Washington have failed to do.
If there was a village of three
thousand souls in America where the
girls and boys were growing up straight and clean to high ideals, where the
mothers demanded honest school-boards and town trustees where kitchens were
sanitary, and decent movies alone were admitted, where idle, prosperous
childless women felt themselves morally and patriotically bound to stand beside
struggling little impecunious mothers, where simplicity and hospitality and the
safety of childhood were the first considerations – then that village would be
the most important place in the entire union.
Page 168
And these things are in women’s hands:
these are women’s jobs – the greatest in the world, and the smallest in the
world. Some of them will take her out of
her home – out, that is, of the five rooms and the front garden that she
considers her home. But none of them can
possibly take her out of the sphere in which she rightfully moves as the bearer
and the teacher of the race, no national problem is so great that it does not
touch the lives and the ideals of men.
And those ideals, and those lives, were
given them by woman.
Kathleen Norris
Page 170
TO CHILD WELFARE IN SAN FRANCISCO
The Sick Child made the appeal to the
pioneer women physicians.
In 1875 they started the first training
school for nurses and the Hospital for Children. The beautiful buildings of the Children’s
Hospital and the far reaching service throughout the city of this work by woman
physicians for children attest the fact that the San Francisco citizens love, honor and support their work for suffering childhood.
To
KEEP the CHILD WELL is the new slogan in the HEALTH CRUSADE. The college women of the American Association
of University Women in 1909 undertook to supervise medically and furnish milk
(Certified) to the Babies boarded out by the Associated Charities. This work has grown to include educational
work in the care and feeding of infants for mothers with their own babies. So that now over a thousand mothers are
enrolled at the Haight Street Center and the work has
been extended to include the pre-school child.
This work has been carried on and developed under the women physicians
who give the guidance needed in the educational work.
The Health Center idea has been taken over
by Hospitals, Medical Schools and the City Board of Health so that today, no
mother in San Francisco need lack guidance and assistance in learning to care
for her baby, for wherever she may live, a Health Center is fairly accessible.
Thus both the sick and the well child have
enlisted the scientific and the civic contribution of the women physicians of
the city and this work for both well and sick children has been inaugurated by
them.
Adelaide Brown, M. D.
PHYSICIANS FOR
FEDERAL RECOGNITION
Dr. Adelaide Brown is president of the
California Organization of Women Physicians for Federal Recognition. Gail Laughlin is the attorney: Dr. Louise B.
Deal, secretary-treasurer; Dr. Anna MacRae, Dr. S. K.
Kewitt, Dr. Ethel Owen; Dr. Olga Bridgman, Dr. Ruby
Cunningham, Dr. Elsie Mitchell, Dr. Florence Scott; and Dr. Eleanor Seymour of
Los Angeles, Directors.
Members residing in Northern California
are: Dr. Rachel I. Ash, Dr. Olga
Bridgman, Dr. Mary A. Breen, Dr. Maraiana Bertola, Dr. Adelaide Brown, Dr. Isabel Boeske,
Dr. M. E. Botsford, Dr. Lily Boldeman,
Dr. Edith Bronson, Dr. G. C. Boalt, Dr. Emma Budeley, Dr. Mary W. Cain, Dr. H. Crabtree, Dr. Millicent Cosgrave, Dr. Mary P. Campbell, Dr. M. B. Cleveland, Dr.
Mary Cavanaugh, Dr. Monica Donovan, Dr. Henrietta Damkroeger,
Dr. Henrietta Dugan, Dr. Lillie D’Ancona, Dr. Louise
B. Deal, Dr. Mary A. Dangel, Dr. C. R. Deckelman, Dr. Lolita D. Fenton, Dr. Matilda Feeley, Dr. Anna M. Flynn, Dr. E. B. Field, Dr. Mary
Glover, Dr. Alice Goss, Dr. Amelia Gates, Dr. Vera S. Goldman, Dr. K. I.
Howard, Dr. Florence Holsclaw, Dr. Maud U. Havens,
Dr. Mary Harris, Dr. S. K. Hewitt, Dr. Madeline E. Johns, Dr. Malvine Judell, Dr. Elizabeth
Keys, Dr. A. Kopeiowski, Dr. Lillie Koerber, Dr. Frieda Kruse, Dr. E. A. C. Lafontaine,
Dr. Anna Lyle, Dr. Esther Lynn, Gail Laughlin, Dr. Margaret Mahoney, Dr. Anna
D. MacRae, Dr. Mary J. Mentzer,
Dr. E. S. Merritt, Dr. Mary Mylott, Dr. Alice
Maxwell, Dr. Mary T. Murphy, Dr. Jean Martin, Dr. Ann Mosgrove,
Dr. Myrl Morris, Dr. Marion B. McAuley,
Dr. Ethel D. Owen, Dr. C. Palmer, Dr. Zilda T.
Pettis, Dr. Pearle P. Penfield, Dr. Hane Parkhurst, Dr. Eva C. Reid, Dr. L. A. Rethwilen,
Dr. Esther Rosencrantz, Dr. Natalie Selling, Dr. Blanche Sanborn, Dr. Ellen Stadtmuller, Dr. Bertha Wagner Stark, Dr. E. B. Siebe, Dr. Grace Simon, Dr. Ann E. Sweet, Dr. Gertrude A. Spriggs, Dr. Florence Scott, Dr. Leila Trimmer, Dr. Mary
Turnbull, Dr. Agnes Walker, Dr. Laverne C. Wright, Dr. Ethel M. Watters, Dr.
Emma K. Willitts, Dr. L. M. Wanzer,
Dr. Edith H. Williams, Dr. Pauline M. Wicksteed, Dr.
Dorothy A. Wood, Dr. Florence Dunlop Strickler, of
San Francisco; Dr. M. L. Abbott, Dr. Alice Bush, Dr. Fay Jewell, Dr. Katherine McClurg, Dr. Anna W. Small, and Dr. Amy F. Temple, of
Oakland; Dr. Elizabeth W. Bailie, Dr. E. S. Brownsill, Dr. Ruby Cunningham, Dr. Kate Gompertz, Dr. F. Green, Dr. Marian Hooker, Dr. Louise
Hector, Dr. Stella Lehr, and Dr. M. H. Sampson, of Berkeley; and Dr. Kate P.
Van Orden of Alameda.
Dr. L. Etta Farmer of Folsom; Dr. Anna W. Williams of Haywards; Dr. Nellie Ford of Mills College; Dr. Berta Saunders of North Palo Alto; Dr. Alice Woods Fiddes of Pacific Grove; Dr. Grace McCosky
and Dr. Margaret Smyth of Stockton; Dr. Martha T. Giannini
of Ukiah; Dr. Lulu J Beebe of Woodland; and Dr. Louise Morrow, who is with the
Y.W.C.A. in China.
Southern California is equally represented
by a similar group of prominent women physicians as members of this
organization.
Page 171
HOSPITAL IN
RELATION TO
MEDICAL WOMEN
The foundation of the Children’s Hospital
was made by women physicians. Dr. Martha
Bucknall and Dr. Charlotte Blake Brown in 1875 called
on seventy women in San Francisco to secure a board of directors of eight
women. Women’s boards were then a new
idea. No Y.W.C.A. existed, no Associated
Charities, no Fruit and Flower Mission.
Social service was confined to the boards managing orphanages.
This first organization was incorporated as
the Pacific Dispensary for Women and Children, and was one of a chain of
hospital s run by and for women physicians across the United States.
The purposes of the institution are
defined: “To provide for women the medical aid of competent women physicians
and to assist in educating women for nurses and in the practice of medicine and
kindred professions.” Note the vision of
“kindred profession”, which can include technicians, medical social workers,
X-ray workers, physiotherapists, etc., and this was the vision of women
physicians in 1875.
The financial straits of the institution
during the first ten years of its life can best be shown by these two
incidents. Dr. Ellen Sargent,
who was graduating from the University Medical School and had become interested
in the Hospital as a medical student, gave up her commencement black silk dress
and deposited the money with the Hospital to pay the rent to keep it open for
another month. At another time of
crisis, Dr. Lucy M. Wanzer and Dr. Charlotte Blake
Brown took out their life memberships to avert the same catastrophe.
Mrs. Jessie Astredo
Smith was the first graduate; her brother is now the head of the Juvenile Court
in San Francisco, and two of her children are on the faculties of
universities. Mrs. Smith died a year
ago. The second-class
graduate four nurses, three of whom are still in the service.
Of the women members of the staff from the
beginning to the present date, one can say that a deep devotion to the
individual patient, to the Hospital, and to the cause of women in all its
ramifications, has characterized them.
They have had vision and ideals always before them, and have
consistently carried out their purpose.
The Children’s Hospital may, perhaps, in an
academic analysis have been short in scientific output, but it has been long
in the intelligent and personal care and attention it has given suffering
humanity. After all, when one is
cataloged and analyzed and defined by the many laboratory analyses of the
present date, or has been dissected and analyzed by group medicine, is not the
personal help of the patient to recovery often lost sight of?
An institution is judged by three
things: Its scientific output, its
pupils, and the developing of assistants and new lines of work. Up to 1918 – 475 nurses have graduated.
A resume of the graduate nurse would be
rich in human attainment. In their homes
as daughters, wives and mothers, and in the community as private and public
health nurses, they are busy, helpful, able women. A few names and what they are doing will help
you to see the group and emphasize the pioneers among them. Miss Ethel Sherman, at the Students’
Infirmary of the University of California, has been a path blazer in college
nursing and health work among college students.
Miss Eleanor Stockton, at the San Francisco Board of Health, has
developed her work as a pioneer and today has four nurses in her department,
Miss Edna Shuey, of the Berkeley Dispensary, is a
real contributor to the public health nursing course at the University of
California, and the public health nursing group of Hawaiian girls working in
tuberculosis, leprosy, and general public health work in the Islands, was a
most inspiring sight to me in a recent visit.
Miss Boye, as executive of the Training
School, is making a steady contribution to the education of nurses.
The other group of pupils is the intern
group. Where do they come from, and
whither do they go? During the first
period from 1875 to 1885, the interns were called residents, several of them
serving two years or more at the Hospital.
General practice was their occupation later and Dr. Kate Post Van Orden, whose name appears in the Hospital Report of 1880,
is still in active practice. Institution
work has claimed Dr. Fletcher and Dr. Mary B. Rittler
made the pioneer contribution in the teaching of hygiene to the University
Women Students at Berkeley. Form 1885 to
1915, during the development of the Hospital as a permanent institution,
interns sought the training from the local medical schools of Stanford and
University of California, from the Medical Department of the University of Southern
California, the University of Minnesota, Rush, Michigan, the P. and S. in
Chicago, the Women’s Medical in Philadelphia and John Hopkins. Total number of interns 117
– Stanford 42, University of California 27, Southern California 12, Woman’s
Medical 7, John Hopkins 3. The
contribution these women are making is best illustrated by some individual
records.
They have settled in New Bedford to India,
five are missionary physicians; Dr. Margaret Smythe
has been for sixteen years connected with the State Hospital at Stockton, and
is now first assistant and in charge of the woman’s department of over 1,000
patients. She is a general surgeon and
able executive. In public health Dr.
Anna E. Rude is the Director of the Child Hygiene Division of the Children’s
Bureau in Washington. Dr. Ethel Watters
is Director of the Bureau of Child Hygiene of the California State Board of
Health, Dr. Viola Russell is acting assistant surgeon in United States Public
Health Service. Dr. Appel
is at the head of the Vocational and Work Certificate Department of Chicago
Board of Education, and is making an extensive contribution to the health
improvement of the working child.
Page 172
In anesthetics Dr. Mary Botsford
will always have the name of leader and developer of this work for
physicians. It is now a legally defined
specialty of medicine in California. She
has always been extremely generous in educating younger women in this
specialty, and her group is too well known to need special mention.
In pediatrics, the interns who have gone
into general practice has always excelled.
In tuberculosis, Dr. Martha Patrick of Los Angeles, is working under the Board of Health. In pathology,
Dr. Agnes Walker has held both city and State positions, and Dr. Macrae, after serving the Hospital for many years as Chief
of Laboratory, is now in charge of the Laboratories at the San Francisco
Hospital.
Since the period of affiliation, although
six years have elapsed, pioneer work has not characterized the interns. Whether this is due to lack of encouragement
is difficult to say. Dr. Mary Cain has
served as executive of the San Francisco Tuberculosis Association. Dr. Myrl Morris is
now on the staff of the Children’s Hospital, Dr. Dorothy Atkinson is in charge
of the Health Centers of the San Francisco Board of Health, Dr.
Nell Ford is resident physician at Mills College and in charge of twelve health
centers in the Oakland public schools.
The support of the Hospital is from
endowment, patient’s board, laboratory, surgical, and X-ray service. The gap between funds earned interest from
endowment, and expenses is bridged by the activity of the managers – soliciting
gifts and donations and by the Auxiliary in entertaining the public yearly at
the Mardi Gras Ball. The point is that
the public supports the work of the Hospital over and above the degree to which
it can be self-supporting.
In September, 1920, the re-organization of
the staff took place, and the staff stands today as follows: There are four women on surgery, including
the general surgery of women and children and no men; two women on obstetrics
and no men; three women on pediatrics and no men; three women in medicine and
no men; one woman on the eye and ear service, the senior on the service and one
man; four women in anesthetics. There
are three men and no women in the orthopedic service, and no women physicians
in the department of pathology; one man and one woman on contagious
service. The Hospital staff thus
consists of seventeen women and six men.
In a hospital organized by women physicians, with a purpose that has
never changed, and depending upon a public which has always supported it, this
division is as it should be.
You may ask me, why hold the Children’s
Hospital for women? And I ask you where else you as women will get a chance at
heading a service. Assistants’ positions
are waiting at every turn for women, but a chance to rise, to be chief after
ten years of such service, does not materialize. Men pass over your heads or pass on to other
chief positions. As illustration, I will
cite Dr. Florence Sabin, Associate Professor of
Anatomy at Johns Hopkins. I have yet to
see a women in America attain a clinical head position and hold it. Competition is too severe and man’s mind fixed
on the idea that a women’s place is to serve, not lead. Therefore, to have this type of experience we
must perpetuate the hospital we have created and preserve it for the advanced
opportunities of women physicians.
Without leaders, we will be allowed to serve by our professional
brothers, but the experience of running a power in dealing with interns and nurses, we will get very little of except in hospitals we
create. The value of such opportunities,
we certainly all realize.
The interns of the period since the affiliation
are the women who must carry on the institution. The first group of women physicians during
the years of struggle and establishment of permanency gave ideals, vision, and
daily labor to the Hospital. In the
revolution of 1914, out of which came the affiliation, when the idea was
fostered that the purposes of the Hospital had been fulfilled and it looked to
be a financial asset to the University of California, the women physicians of
the staff rallied and saved the position of women physicians in
the institution, as well saved the entity of the Hospital for the city of
San Francisco.
The light affiliation which resulted
with the University instead of absorption, defined the purposes of the
Hospital clearly; but for the first
five years the affiliation has been a negative rather than a positive influence
in the Hospital. As one of the
University of California medical men expressed it, “he could not see that the
affiliation had done any harm.”
Since the rearrangement of the staff in
1920, the lines are well marked out for a wonderful development of women in
medicine. Against the full development
is the great lack of adult free or part-pay beds, and the tendency, subtle
perhaps, but nevertheless present, to discourage service patients in the adult
and obstetrical department.
A first generation of women physicians has
passed through this Hospital. Another
group is at the zenith of its career.
Are the younger women being prepared to carry on?
Producing, nurturing, and fighting for the
very life of what this Hospital stands for has been hard work. The women physicians now in the positions of
leaders owe much to their predecessors, and much to you, younger women, to give
you the chance that was given them, a chance the Board of Managers and the
friends who yearly contribute of their abundance, all help to secure for
you. But the real thing, yourselves, you
must give.
The Hospital needs a loyal Nurses’ Alumnae
Association, it needs a loyal group of old interns, it needs a steady feeding
in of younger women physicians to the clinics and assistant positions, to hold
for women in medicine what two generations of women physicians have created and
developed.
Perhaps this historical survey of the
situation may help you to realize what the Children’s Hospital has meant and
can mean to women in medicine.
Adelaide Brown, M. D.
Page 173
Image of Mab Copland Lineman
WOMEN
IN THE LEGAL PROFESSION
Women, today, being engaged in every line of
endeavor, having come to be recognized as a factor in the business world, and
having been approved as proper participants in every important phase of
commercial life, practice of law by women becomes almost a matter of necessity. The practice of the law is based absolutely
on the theory of representation. Under
our system of Jurisprudence, stamped with the approval of many years, a person
understands the law, and maintains his right thereunder
only through his representative – his attorney.
Moreover, our judges and many of our legislators are recruited from the
ranks of the legal profession.
The advent of women into commerce, it is
conceded, has added thereto a new, a different point of view – the woman’s way
of looking at things – which it is difficult and sometimes impossible for the
man to understand or represent. It
therefore becomes necessary that we have in the legal profession, not only
minds trained in represent, but minds which have the woman’s point of view,
themselves.
The woman’s point of view having been added
to, and become a salient factor of our commercial life, it must be represented
in the Court Room, on the Bench and in our Legislative Halls, for thus only can
our existing laws be construed to reconcile and harmonize so-called unessential
yet keenly felt differences, and thus only can this added viewpoint find safe
and proper expression, and deserved recognition. So also, not only will systems introduced by
man have been filled out and brought nearer to perfection, but there will be
created an understanding between men and women, which has never existed before,
for heretofore the security of our institutions has been considered the Home,
because there alone was a community of interest and understanding. How much then shall we add to this security
by having this community of interest made universal.
Who then can better represent woman than
woman herself? She alone can be the
proper representative of the woman’s view, for she knows without learning and
understands without mediation.
Thus can women aid in the advancement of
that principle which we hold to be self evident, that every woman has a
God-given, inherent right to develop herself for Good – the good of herself and
of her country.
Mab Copland Lineman,
President,
Women
Lawyers Club.
The other officers of the
Women Layers Club of Los Angeles include:
Constance Leitch, vice-president; F. Josephine
Stevenson, corresponding secretary; Lois Webb, recording secretary; Grade Brinck, treasurer; Armelia F.
Johnson, auditor; and Elizabeth I. Kenney, parliamentarian.
Page 174
WOMEN
IN LAW
Law for women is still a field for
pioneers. However, within the last five
years there has been a highly gratifying acceleration in the expansion of
opportunities for preparation, application, and advancement. This was in some measure due to the
war-created demand for young women to replace the young men called from their
desks, but inasmuch as the demand diminished appreciable upon the declaration
of the Armistice, it cannot account for the continued interest which women are
manifesting in the profession. Suffrage
does not account for it. It is a part
of the larger effort of women to become oriented in the modern society, a
society in which, whether praised or condemned, the profession of law plays one
of the vital parts.
It is fifty years since women first entered
the law schools of this country. The
earliest record found of admission of any woman to the practice of law is that
of Myra Bradwell, who was admitted by examination to
the Illinois Bar in 1869. Now women are
eligible for admission in every state except Delaware.
In the fifty-one years since the date of
the earliest record, the total number of women admitted to the Bar as far as
can be ascertained is 1,599, of whom a proximately less than one half are in
the practice. There have been one
hundred and thirty women admitted to the practice of law in California up to
the present time.
The following are the names of the women
attorneys, who are engaged in the practice of law in San Francisco, Oakland,
and the northern part of the state: Mrs.
Annette Abbott Adams, Grade Arnold, Edna May Bayless,
Mary A. Blass, Suzanne V. Bolles, Marion Weston Cottle, Ada Harvey, Mabel Dorn Hirst, Jane Hoyle, Mrs. W. Kahlert,
Helen Kaufman, Gail Laughlin, Ethel Linney, Geraldine
McCown, Charlotte McGregor, Theresa Meikle, Lucy Mount, Alma Myers, Caroline Nunlist, Esther Phillips, M. A. Ross, Frances Smith, Christena A. Turner, and Harriet P. Tyler of San Francisco;
Lucile Bradley, Arline Cavins,
Enid Childs, Helen Harris, Frances Jersen, Frances
Wilson Kidd, Calla Matheson, Rosamond Parma, and Marguerite Shipman of
Berkeley; Eloise Cushing, Anne Golver, Agnes Polsdorfer, and Bird Wilson of Oakland; Hedwig Engle, of
Santa Cruz; Esta Broughton of Modesto; and Carol Rehfisch of Palo Alto.
Theresa Meikle
Secretary
“The Queens Bench.”
Gail Laughlin, of San
Francisco, is president of the Queens Bench.
Dr. Theresa Meikle is secretary and treasurer.
Page 175
Image of Margaret Mary Morgan
THE
BUSINESS WOMAN
The business of being a woman is precisely
the same as the business of being a man.
A woman in business brings to it all the discernment, all the subtlety
of attack endowed by her sex.
In every business nowadays some branch,
great or small, is left entirely in the hands of women. This must be a wise provision, because today
represents the utmost perfection in the history of business. A few years ago a woman lawyer or a doctor
was a matter for publicity. Nowadays
women take a hand in the politics of their community.
Women lawyers are in almost every city and
women doctors are legion. Whether it be a change in the times or a change in the women, or both,
we can not deny that the self-supporting woman is no small factor in the fabric
of things.
Then there is the side of what the woman
gets out of it. She gets a broader
outlook of practical life. She gets a
confidence in her powers given a successful man – without, possibly, his
arrogance. She gets a philosophy of life
to carry her through. It never fails to
dissect out her little narrowness --- never fails to overcome her shrinking
lack of courage – never fails to endow her with an understanding of both sexes
which cannot but help her in her own evolution and thus infinitely broaden her
life.
“There is no past that we need long to
return to, there is only the eternally new”; the evolution of Mother Eve, of
Helen, of Ruth, of Griselda, of Joan of Arc, or Priscilla, or of Becky Sharp
finds expression in the modern professional woman, the woman of business.
Margaret Mary Morgan
Page 176
CALIFORNIA
FEDERATION OF BUSINESS
AND
PROFESSIONAL WOMEN’S CLUBS
The largest organization that we have is
the Los Angeles County Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs
with Miss Lloy Galpin as
President. That club is one of the
biggest forces in the community there and has been largely instrumental in
putting through the Women’s Athletic Club.
Miss Jane Humphreys who was the first President of our State Federation
of Business Women’s Clubs, was the real organizing factor and it is through her
influence that the Club has remained a strict democratic organization open to
all the women of the city. By the sheer
force of her personality and will, she finished getting the necessary financial
support during the year when the difficulties seemed almost
insurmountable. The financial
depression, the last winter’s freeze, and the influenza gave it a terrible set
back, but she succeeded in accomplishing what she set out to do, and Los
Angeles has a splendid athletic club.
The personnel of the various clubs are very
interesting and varied. In our local
club we have farmers, lawyers, secretaries, librarians, teachers, and a number
of women who own their own business such as the Peerless Ice Cream Company, the
Leipsic Shoe Company, the Portable Garage Company,
the Gift Shop, and Millinery. The
Stockton Club under the presidency of Dr. Goodman is increasing is membership
very rapidly and this year they are emphasizing the support of a municipal camp
at Silver Lake in the mountains. They
are giving a cottage to the camp and are not only contributing to its financial
support, but helping build it as well.
The Chico Club is just a new organization that started last fall, but it
is already a factor in the accomplishments of the town. The Business Men’s organizations gave a day
to planting trees on the highway and the Business Woman’s Club was called upon
to serve lunch and cold drinks through out the day. The Oakland Club has devoted most of its
energy to securing and finishing clubrooms.
The Bakersfield Club which is also a new one to join our State
Federation, is made up of younger business women and is largely social in nature;
something that was very much needed in Bakersfield. Each club has its own particular problems to
work out, according to the locality and the community, but the spirit and
enthusiasm is wonderful and will develop into a power for the advancement of
the younger business girls in a very short time.
Clubs affiliated with the California
Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs and the number of members enrolled, respectively, including May 1922 are:
Los Angeles Business Women’s Civic Club………………………………120
Los Angeles Business Women’s Association……………………………… 80
Pasadena Business and Professional Women’s
Club………………………147
Business Women’s Club of Sacramento…………………………………...109
San Diego Business and Professional Women’s
Club……………………..200
Woman Lawyers’ Club of Los Angeles…………………………………… 46
Business and Professional Women’s Club, Oakland…………………..…..160
Woman’s Forum, San Francisco…………………………………………...100
Woman’s Osteopathic Club, Los Angeles………………………………… 57
Business and Professional Women’s Club, San
Francisco…………………330
Women’s Advertising Club, Los Angeles…………………………………. 40
Long Beach Business and Professional Women’s Club…………………… 42
Faculty Women’s Club of University of California,
Southern Division…. .. 50
Adelphian Club of the Y.W.C.A.
of Los Angeles………………………….. 50
Schoolwomen’s Time to Time
Club….…………………………………….132
Business Woman’s Forum, Oakland……………………………………….. 26
Business and Professional Women’s Club of 1st
Baptist Church of
San Francisco…………………..…………………………………… 30
Business and Professional Women’s Club of
Stockton….…………………. 54
Business and Professional Women’s Club of Bakersfield.…………………. 84
Business Women’s Club of Chico……………………..…………………… 77
Secretarial Association of Los Angeles……………..……………………… 30
______
Total, 21 clubs, with a total
membership of ………………. 1964
Susan T. Smith,
President
Page 177
Image of Clotilde Grunsky
BUSINESS
AND PROFESSIONAL WOMEN’S
CLUB
San
Francisco
Officers
Miss Clothilde
Grunsky, 531 Rialto Building………………………….……..President
Miss A. M. Alexander,
Bank of California……………………………...Vice-President
Mrs. Estelle V. Walker,
1207 Hobart Building……………………………….Secretary
Miss Grace H. Sweeney,
710 Hearst Building………………………..………Treasurer
Miss Ida J. Lord,
Wellington Sears Co., Postal Telegraph Building………….Auditor
DIRECTORS
Miss Fail Laughlin Miss Lenore Dolcini Mrs.
W. D. Kohwey
Miss Lillian Palmer Miss
Z. Clements
The Business and Professional Women’s Club
of San Francisco was started in 1916, by a small group of business women who
believed that there was need in San Francisco for such an organization, devoted
to the interests of women in business.
For some time the club met weekly at luncheon at some one of the
restaurants of the city, listening to speakers on topics of interest or
transacting business as the case may be.
Miss Lillian Palmer, proprietor of the Palmer Shop, San Francisco, was
the first president and one of the founders.
Under her leadership the club greatly increased its membership and in
1919 secured its own quarters at 54 Kearny Street, where for some time the
weekly luncheons were served and the club quite happily carried on its
activities. It soon outgrew its
headquarters, however, and in 1920 moved to its present commodious rooms at 575
Market Street. Miss Margaret M. Morgan,
Manager of Walter N. Brunt, printers, was the second president of the club,
leaving the chair at the end of her second term under the pressure of her
outside duties as the first woman supervisor of San Francisco.
The club at the present time has a
membership of nearly three hundred and fifty.
Daily luncheons are served to members and their guests at the clubrooms,
where also the weekly meetings are held, either at dinner or lunch, at which
speakers of prominence are enjoyed.
Study classes formed from among the membership have the use of the rooms
on other evenings. A recent activity
undertaken by the club is the formation of vocational groups made up of women
in similar lines of business who meet together regularly to discuss topics of
common interest. A survey of women in
San Francisco in executive positions in various business and professional
fields is now under way. Believing that
upon the businesswomen of the community must fall the burden of advising those
who think of entering similar work, vocational placement work has been
initiated in a small way. Under the
leadership of the club, a Business Girls’ Club has been formed to meet the needs
of the office worker and now meets regularly in the clubrooms. Study sections are now being formed under
leading businesswomen to undertake the study of problems of civic interest
particularly affecting women. Among the
subjects to be taken up are: Legislation of Interest to Women; The Housing
Problem for the Business Woman, Social Service and Employment. The club has been most active in the support
of charitable work, being responsible for the adoption of fourteen babies
during the recent campaign of the Associated Charities, as well as making
substantial contributions in money to this and other worthy causes.
Any business woman of San Francisco, either
in independent business or service in an executive capacity in the company with
which she is employed, is eligible to membership, pending her acceptance by the
club. The organization is a member of
the State Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs.
Clotilde Grunsky
Page 178
FEDERATION
OF BUSINESS AND PROFES-
SIONAL
WOMEN’S CLUBS
Los
Angeles
Mrs. Lloy
Galpen, 314 W. Adams………………………………………..……President
Florence Shindler, Baker Apartments……………………………….…..Past President
Alice Quill, 740 S.
Broadway…………………………………………….…….Secretary
Clara J. Erickson, H. W. Hellman Bldg., care J. Harvey McCarthy……….Treasurer
Lulu Hove Stephson, City Hall, Pasadena……………………………….……..Auditor
DEPARTMENT HEADS
Jane C. Humphreys,
Federation Estension Elizabeth
Hill, Legislative
Elizabeth Hill,
Entertainment Winifred
Hausom, Vocational
The Los Angeles County Federation of
Business and Professional Women’s Clubs has developed cooperation among women
heretofore largely unorganized.
Unwittingly, man has been taking away woman’s individual work, thereby
lessening her responsibility in the home.
He has placed a commercial value on what heretofore has been measured by
love and duty. The centralizing of work
has had its economic and social advantages far beyond the hardships it has
caused the few who have not been able to adjust themselves to the rapid
changes. Necessity caused women to go
out of the home to work. The more daring
ones sacrificed public opinion and ventured into new occupations and
professions. As the few succeeded, the
many crowded into the new-old occupations and professions. The economic changes have been so great, that
both men and women, in their effort to pile up worldly goods have lost sight of
their civic and social responsibility.
Money seems to be the medium of measurement of every vision.
To the pioneers of early club life among
business and professional women, the constant measurement by money values was
very discouraging and the only way to change this point of view was to bring
together women of all occupations and professions on a common ground of human
needs – human needs which each and every woman could understand and take to
herself and use for the good of all.
This was tried out in a small way in the
Business Woman’s Civic Club, which has a club presidents’ council as an advisor
for its executive board.
In the spring of 1919, a proposed National
Federation was presented to business and professional women’s clubs throughout
the country. The clubs in Los Angeles
were ready for a bigger field of cooperation and were glad of the opportunity
presented.
It seemed to the pioneer clubwomen here
that the best way to serve a National Federation was to organize a County
Federation. This feeling of greater
cooperation locally spread and resulted in the Los Angeles County Federation of
Business and Professional Women’s Clubs.
From a beginning of six club members, it
has extended to fourteen and at present includes the following clubs: Adelphian Club of Los Angeles, Jessie C. Skewes, president; Business Woman’s Civic Club of Los
Angeles, Dr. Maud Wilde, president; Home Economics Association of Pasadena,
Ruth Dickey, president; Los Angeles Business Women’s Association, Docia A. Conley, president; Professional Women’s Club of
Los Angeles, Ida Viola Wells, president; Progressive Household Club of Los
Angeles, Hattie Kirbis, president; Time to Time Club
of Los Angeles, Ethel Masters, president; Women’s Advertising Club of Los
Angeles, Mrs. L. E. Eckels, president; Women Lawyers
Club of Los Angeles, Mab C. Lineman, president;
Women’s Faculty Club of Los Angeles, Orabel Chilton,
president; Women’s Osteopathic Club of Los Angeles, Dr. Daisy D. Hayden,
president; Glendale Business and Professional Women’s Club, Mrs. M. I. Biggs,
president, Long Beach Business and Professional Women’s Club, Maomi Tompkins, president; Pasadena Business and
Professional Women’s Club, F. Josephine Stevenson, president.
The launching of the Women’s Athletic Club
is the accomplishment of its first two years of work and it is now promoting a
Vocational Alliance as a clearing house for all women’s vocational activities.
Organization is typically American as a
procedure for the accomplishment of social progress and this new group hopes to
be of service to the larger community of which it is a part to the end that
southern California may enrich and ennoble its life.
Lloy Galpin
Page 179
Image of Dr. Gwladys Morgan
BUSINESS
AND PROFESSIONAL WOMEN’S
CLUB
San
Diego
OFFICERS
Dr. Gwladys
Morgan, 3768 Eighth Street………………………...…………..President
Mrs. Jeanette P.
Townsend, 1136 Twenty-second street…..…...….First
Vice-President
Nellie C. Parsons, 1038
Second Street………………………..…Second Vice-President
Theresa E. Kruse, 2740
Granada Avenue…………….….………Recording Secretary
Mrs. Lillian M. Gabbs, 1463 Tenth Street………………..…Corresponding Secretary
Lena M. Port, 4239
Cleveland Avenue……………………………...………..Treasurer
DIRECTORS
Margaret E. O’Connell Jennie Sherk Mrs. David A. Fraser
The Business and Professional Women’s Club
of San Diego is, as its name indicates, an association of business and
professional women. It has about two
hundred and forty members. Its
membership represents a great variety of professions and lines of
business. It is proud to number among
its members, women who stand at the top in their chosen work. There are nurses, doctors, librarians,
bookkeepers and accountants, musicians, stenographers, clerks, buyers, teachers
and welfare workers. All of these women
are “actively and primarily engaged in a profession or in the management or
pursuit of a business.”
The club meets at luncheon on the first and
third Wednesdays of the month and at dinner on the second and fourth
Wednesdays. When a fifth Wednesday
occurs, an evening party is given. These
parties, as well as other smaller functions, give the members and opportunity
for the social companionship which is essential for the busy women who is
employed all day. At the luncheons and
dinners varied programs are provided. It
is not possible for the members to live all lives, as Shakespeare is said to
have done, but they, through the speakers, can vicariously enjoy and appreciate
all lives. They can see through other
eyes, the beauties of all lands; they can feel the thrill of adventure of the
traveler, the glow of accomplishment of the portrait painter or the musician. They can feel the charm of the writer and the
inspiration of the earnest worker in the common work of every day. The club tries to establish, through its
programs, the line of contact with business and professional women of the
world. It seeks to broaden the horizon
that even the busy woman may find happiness and enrichment in her own life as
well as in the development of a consciousness of world life. The club is hoping to have its own rooms so
that there will be a greater comradeship among the members. It hopes also, to establish a Vocational
Placement Bureau, which will be of great interest to the club and of great
service to the community.
The club stands for the biggest and best
for women and its women try to be worthy of that standard.
Gwladys Morgan,
President
Page 180
Image of Miss Geneve Shaffer
OBSERVATIONS
OF A WOMAN IN BUSINESS
Whether the passing of
women suffrage chronicled the advent of a vast increase in the number of women
in business. I would hesitate to
say, but certainly women are holding executive positions hitherto considered
the exclusive and inalienable province of man.
They are here to stay.
Perhaps it is woman’s singleness of
purpose, her concentration, and the fact that, in most cases, she works harder
that pushes her ahead in spite of opposition.
We have heard over and over again that some girl takes the place of two
or more male office help, who have unexpectedly left, before she is even
noticed as other than a bit of office machinery. Then the head of the firm cannot fail to
appreciate that she is an important member of the office force, usually in
spite of his unwilling belief. He is
forced reluctantly to admit that it would be cheaper to keep her and pay her a
trifle more than to keep on “hiring and firing” the usual run of restless, and
undependable male clerks.
She is like an unnoticed understudy to a
big star. One day some vital transaction
comes up, the executive is out, no one knows what to do. Consternation reigns, loe
and behold, without any fuss or feathers “Miss Jones” has done it so well that
everyone gets to depending upon her. Now
what thing, feminine, could resist the stimulation of her innate mother
instinct of having someone who needs her help, depending upon her?
Soon it is found “good business” to relieve
her of the detail that has been heaped upon her (and it is put off on the
shoulders of some slavey who needs the heat of work
to bring her out of the chrysalis) while she does the work that she can do
better than anyone else in the office.
Why? Because she knows more about it than anyone else
in the office and is truly and completely interested.
Let me here dispel an illusion that has
been with us ever since the days of Adam.
Let me whisper it, as it is dangerous to tell a big truth out loud. It makes such a noise to explode an old
theory. “Women can keep a secret.” Yes, I have it from many big officials and
men of affairs. Just ask any executive
about his faithful private secretary, or confidential office woman, who has
been with the firm for years.
To be sure, on the other hand, no doubt, it
is woman’s long training in gossip, used primarily to entertain and hold the
changeable male, that makes her so successful in the field of novel and
scenario writing, journalism and advertising, but when she is put in a position
of trust, the right kind of woman, never goes back on those who believe in her.
Many social leaders have made a success in
business because they have given themselves (unconsciously to be sure)
wonderful training in the right way of meeting people, the remembering of names
and faces, and they have schooled themselves to think quickly in any emergency.
I thought all the women who did not want to
be actresses wanted to be real estate operators, but after my experience in
journalism I found out that there were just as many who wanted to be
journalists, so it is merely woman’s demand for self-expression. Whether she is carrying out this thought
quietly by creating a home and being a mother, or by building up a business and
mothering her ideas to fruition, the quality of self-expression is
paramount. It is part of her very being
and she cannot help but be successful – it is born in her.
Miss Geneve
Shaffer
Page 181
Image of Mrs. May A.
Fitzpatrick
WOMEN
AS AD MEN
When a moving picture director wishes to
show a conference of business executives, he invariably gathers a number of
imposing gentlemen (of the golf-course age and breadth of waistcoat) about a
well-polished and spacious table.
As a matter of fact, a modern assemblage of
business executives is not complete without a fair representation of the
“gentler sex.” The modern “ad man,” at
least, is usually a woman!
Today in San Francisco and Los Angeles
women executives expend practically all the advertising appropriations of the
larger stores. Every kind of business is
coming gradually within the scope of the woman-advertising manager.
Miss Mary B. Ennis, “ad man” of the
Emporium, San Francisco, was one of our first and most picturesque examples of
woman’s success in the advertising field.
Miss Ennis also had the unique distinction of being the first woman
director of an Advertising Club in America.
Mrs. B. F. Woerner,
formerly of Sacramento, is advertising manager of the White House, Mrs. Georgie Ashford has charge of the City of Paris publicity,
Miss Helen Coleman of Magnin’s, Miss Louise Norvell of Livingston Bros., Mrs. Gertrude Brady-Murphy of
Willard’s, Mrs. Allie Harris of O’Connor, Moffatt
& Co., Mrs. M. Blynn of H. Liebes
& Co., Mrs. Christine Acker of Sterling Furniture Company; Mrs. Emily
Harvey of Rosenthal’s; and Mrs. E. K. Finch of S. & G. Gump & Co.
In Los Angeles there are nearly half a
hundred women advertising writers and many directors. Miss Florence Shindler
has written the advertising for Desmond’s Men ‘s
Furnishing House for a number of years.
Mrs. Lulu Echels and Miss Bayly
share the responsibility of Hamburger’s Publicity – and, in fact, many other
prominent Los Angeles stores, and at least one bank, have placed women in
charge of their publicity departments during the last few years.
A successful advertising manager must have
thorough knowledge of the basic principles of business – as well as a workable
understanding of art, typography, and human nature. The fact that women are proving themselves so
well qualified as advertising directors is conclusive evidence that they can
and will succeed in any field toward which they may direct their energies.
Mrs. May A. Fitzpatrick
Page 183
Image of Mrs. Lulu Eckels
WOMEN’S
ADVERTISING CLUB
Los
Angeles
The Women’s Advertising Club of Los Angeles
is one of the pioneer professional women’s clubs of the city. It began in the earlier days of the city’s
business life with a very small nucleus of members and with the advent of more
and more women into the advertising field, the growth of the city and its
commercial activities, the club has rapidly expanded. Statistics show that a large percentage of the
workers connected with advertising in Los Angeles – directly or indirectly –
are women.
Perhaps to a further degree than in other
cities, Los Angeles has been extremely generous to women in the unusual
branches of advertising. Among the
members of the club are women who hold enviable positions as bank publicity
advisors – as directors of advertising for churches – as advertising managers
of some of the largest specialty and department stores of the city. One of the members was instrumental in compiling
statistics of inestimable value regarding the “pulling power” of certain
national advertising campaigns for the Carnegie Institute.
Other advertising women have originated and
have kept together by their ingenuity and personality “shopping” columns for
the various newspapers. One of the
country’s few advertising agencies composed exclusively of women is a
prosperous and growing concern in Los Angeles.
Not only in the way of copy preparation, but also along art lines, women
are closely allied to the city’s most successful advertising campaigns.
The club’s business meetings are held
bi-monthly with club dinners once a month at which time prominent men and women
are speakers.
Many of those who have appeared as speakers
before the club are nationally famous in the advertising world and their
addresses have been both enlightening and stimulating. The club is on a co-footing with the Men’s
Advertising Club of Los Angeles. In
welcoming famous men and women who come to Los Angeles the two clubs often act
as joint host and hostess. Numbering
advertising women exclusively as members, the club endeavors in every way to
bring before the meetings every factor that will mean the growth of each and
every member along advertising lines.
Lulu E. Eckels
Page 184
Image
of Fannie H. McG. Williams, D. D. S.
SOROPTIMIST
CLUB
San
Francisco
The Soroptimist
Club of San Francisco is an organization comprising active business and
professional women, the membership being limited to one representative from
each profession or business. Charter members
numbering one hundred and five from the varied business and professional fields
launched the club under auspicious beginnings at the initial dinner given at
the St. Francis Hotel.
Mrs. Jack Holt, one of the founders of the
club, was the toastmaster introducing as speakers: Annie Laurie, Victor
Herbert, Edward Rainey and William Levings, of the
Chamber of Commerce. Musical numbers
were given by Madame Louise Brehany who introduced
her pupil Harriet Bennett, brilliant singer.
Mrs. Margaret Medbury, secretary of the Soroptimist Club, Miss Ester Robinson, Miss Jean Parker
McEwen, Mrs. James Wilkins, Madame Jouillin, Mrs.
Marie A. Burtchaell, Mrs. Daisy Prechtel,
Mrs. Mary E. Stewart, Miss Eva Robinson, Miss Geneve
Shaffer, Miss Katherine Livingstone, Mrs. Elizabeth Church, Miss Maud Muller,
Miss Ryan, and Mrs. Clara Ward, the first vice-president, and Mrs. Stella
Donovan, assisted in welcoming the guests.
Miss Ida F. McCain, Mrs. Maud M. Blair,
Miss Dolores Denechaud, Miss Emma Buckley, Mrs. Carol
C. Rhodes, Miss Ruth O. Pierson, Miss Cecil Watkins, Miss Emily Corkill, Mrs. Louise C. Mandler,
Dr. Catherine Schumacher, Mrs. Gladys M. Perrin, Mrs. Jessie B. Mallery, Mrs. Florence Wellington, Miss Margaret E.
Christen, Miss Ethel Suhl, Pauline Schaefer Eckman, D. D. S., Mary Mentzer,
M. D., Mrs. Jessie W. Sheehan, Edith W. Edmondson, D. C., N. D., Mrs. Katherine
Abben, Miss Dolly Hyams,
Miss Clara Scott, Madame Emelie le Doux, Mrs. Elsie Hoeflinch,
Madame Marie Taff, Mrs. Lillie F. Chalmers, Miss Mary
McKay, Miss Mary Smith, Mrs. Ida M. Haley, Miss Matilde
Kahn, Mrs. Ruby von Schmelling, Mrs. Caroline G.
Jones, Mrs. Irene Jules, Miss Mary J. Tilden, Mrs. Margaret S. Wilbur, Dr. Rideout, Harriet M. Gillespie, Mrs. Opal Keck, Madeline E.
Johns, M. D., Mrs. Evelyn Sresovichson Ware, Mrs.
Sara H., Heine, Miss Anna Tara, Miss Ida Tara, Mrs.
Laura H. Johnson, Miss Laura Kennedy, Mrs. Cora Muller, Mrs. Etta J. Guyett, Miss Florence Barclay, Mrs. Flora Bennett, Madame
Maria C. Marin, Miss Genieve Colman, Avis C. Eaton,
A. B., M. D., Miss Eva Robinson, Mrs. Ida Chernoff,
Mrs. Ella M. Gilbert, were among the charter members who aided in launching the
splendid opening event of the club of active business and professional women.
That the San Francisco Soroptimist
Club may live as a monument of woman’s intelligent service to humanity is my
earnest wish. There is but one thing
that could mar the club’s future and that is the inactivity of intelligent
women, and one of the great factors in its success is a perfect understanding
of true service as given in the Golden Rule; All things whatsoever ye would
that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.
Soroptimist Clubs
based on the principals of the Men’s Rotary Clubs have been formed in various
parts of the State. Oakland has a large
organization. Los Angeles now has an
organization.
Fannie
H. McG. Williams, D.D.S.,
President
Page 185
LEADERS
IN UNUSUAL VOCATIONS
FOR
WOMEN
Unusual vocations for women reveal a rare
diversity of business enterprises. They
acclaim the value of feminine acquisition and point in unmistakable terms to
leaders of superlative ability in whatever may be their chosen field. Mrs. Freda Ehmann,
president of the Ehmann Olive Company, is
pronouncedly one of those leaders. Long
ago she led in pioneer olive planning in her district and prepared the way for
one of California’s best-known producing enterprises. Interesting historical references bring to
mind the planting of the olive trees by the padres to the industrial and commercial
importance they now maintain. The olive
industry in California from the time of its incipiency to the high development
it has now attained contributes interesting data in the history of
horticulture. The belief of Mrs. Ehmann in the value of the olive as a commodity, as well as
a luxury for the table, has been part of the commercial development of fruits
within the confines of the state. It is,
furthermore, the story of a woman’s enterprise and business ability.
Women, who of their own elective preference
“start something” have a distinctive place in the
business work.
Miss California Gibson, or “Miss
California” as her neighbors know her, has the full management of the J. S.
Gibson Company’s half million-dollar ranch, three miles northwest of Williams,
in Colusa County. She controls a ranch
with its section in rice, its model one hundred acre alfalfa field, its $10,000
machine shop and a herd of 120 registered Holstein-Fresians.
As a girl, Miss Gibson was given broad,
social opportunities, but when circumstances placed her in possession of the
2,177-acre property she took full charge of everything connected with it. At the present time the University of
California has a representative on the Gibson ranch checking the records of
cows in the herd that are under test for prize milk production.
On January 28, 1922, Miss Gibson was
appointed a director of the $15,000,000 Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District. Her appointment was made by the Board of
Supervisors in Colusa County. As one of the
three directors Miss Gibson has the great responsibility for the successful
management of the 103,000 acres of land in the two countries and the welfare of
the towns of Colusa, Willows, Maxwell, Williams, Hamilton and many other
smaller villages.
Miss Annie M. Alexander and Miss Kellogg
comprise the firm of Alexander & Kellogg, Suisun, and own one of the finest
herds of Dairy Shorthorn cattle in California, and one of the finest in the
United States. Miss Alexander is a
sister of Wallace M. Alexander of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. The Alexander & Kellogg place is one of
the islands near Suisun.
Mrs. Harry V. Bridgford,
wife of Harry Bridgford of the Bridgford
Holstein Company of
Patterson, California, is one of the most expert pedigree
students in California. Mrs. Bridgford is also a breeder of Kentucky saddle horses. Mrs. Julia Shafter Hamilton, of Point Reyes,
is one of the foremost Ayrshire (dairy cattle)
breeders and fanciers in the state. Her
herd is one of the largest in California.
Miss Mary Holdridge, of San Jose, is a widely
known breeder of Holstein-Fresian (dairy)
cattle. Mrs. Mario Fortini
is an owner of Jersey cattle. She is
known as a Jersey expert and has set her aim in the direction of the American
or large type of Jerseys, rather than the original Island type. Mrs. Annie Donders,
Fresno, has one of the best herds of Holstein-Fresian
cattle in San Joaquin Valley. Miss Annie
Wood is one of the noted breeders of Toggenburg goats
in California. Her place is at Pasadena.
Mrs. Lindley is the active head of Lindley
& Company, wholesale grocers of Sacramento.
She was on the city council of Sacramento; Mrs. R. L. Craig was for years head of the wholesale grocery house of R. L. Craig
& Company of Los Angeles.
The pigeon business is a novel occupation
followed by a woman who started with a one-acre ranch between the two canyons
at the foot of Mt. Lowe in the suburbs of Pasadena. Her business has grown from a flock of thirty-six
pigeons to one numbering practically four thousand. She started in with the Homer pigeon. Then later began to supply squabs for the
Pullman Company and large hotels.
Up in the high Sierra, in the town of
Truckee, near Lake Tahoe, is a Butterfly Farm managed and directed entirely by
a woman known as “The Butterfly Girl.
So far as is known, there are few people in
America, except scientists, who attempt to raise and breed butterflies for the
market. It remained for Miss Ximena McGlashan, a California
girl, to catch the winged jewels and to start a farm for raising
butterflies. During her first experience
of ten weeks, Miss McGlashan cleared $500 raising and
selling butterflies. That was several
years ago. Since then she has
correspondents all over this country and in Europe. As for her markets, a scientist of the
worldwide reputation takes everything she can raise or catch paying a flat sum
for every specimen.
“No capital is required,” says this
original girl. “The work is interesting
and so light that a child can do every part of it, and there are millions of
dollars in the business.”
From butterfly farm to the banking world is
a flight, but in the amount of human energy and thought expended the vocations
are not, after all, so variant. For the banking world holds out to women the same opportunity for
concentrated work, and calls upon the facilities for practically the same kind
of devotion, that of intelligent application and the feminine point of view.
Foremost in the banking world stands the
name of that pioneer in the woman’s sphere – Mrs. Phebe
M. Rideout.
Her grasp of finance surpassed the understanding of her time.
In writing of banking Mrs. Rideout once said: “Although banking is not an occupation
for which women are especially fitted, there are of course among women, as
among men,
Page 186
persons who either start with natural ability in financial
matters, or fall heir to responsibilities which they must learn to carry, and
carry successfully. Banking as a
profession, it is needless to say, contains great interest and fascination.”
Mrs. Rideout, a
director in a number of banks in California, succeeded her late husband in the
varied business interests in which he was engaged
during the formative period of California’s commercial and banking industries.
Many of California’s capable women are now
successfully engaged in the business of banking in the capacity of assistant
cashiers, heads of the woman’s departments, secretaries, or in the other
departments formerly filled exclusively by men.
In San Francisco, the women in the banking world in the several
departments include, in alphabetical order, Miss A. M. Alexander, Bank of California; Miss Gladys M.
Adams, Bank of Italy; Margaret P. Beetz, Mertantile Trust Company; Miss M. A. Cairns, Merchants’ Trust
Company; Miss Anne Featherstone, Liverty Bank; Mrs.
E. D. Knight, Bank of Italy; Miss Caroline Nunlist,
Bond Department Union Savings Branch of the Mercantile Trust Company; Miss Hulda B. Pass, Anglo-California Trust Company; Miss Alice
A. Wright, First National Bank.
In an article written by Miss Bessie
Beatty, she has described a “Woman Behind Magic
Initials,” in this way: “Gilt-lettered
upon the doors of half a dozen handsome offices in the Russ Building is the
same inscription M. V. B. Mac Adam Co., Inc., Real Estate, Insurance, Loans.
“The signs give no hint of the identity of
M. V. B. Mac Adam, and so far as the imposing steel safe in the outer office
and the metal Real Estate Board Membership card hanging on the letter file,
will tell you, M. V. B. MacAdam might be exactly like any other businessman on
Montgomery Street.
“But she isn’t. She is a woman.”
The MacAdam
Company, today, has offices in the Holbrook Building with a peninsula branch
office under the management of Mr. Harry Francis Cavis. Mrs. MacAdam is a
member of an old New York family. Her
name was Victoria Brocklebank. She knew nothing of business life when she
first came to California on a pleasure trip in 1900. She is a member of the exclusive organization
of Colonial Dames and of the Daughters of the American Revolution. By lineal decent she is a member of the
Society of the Nobility (“Societe de Noblesse”). She is the only woman member of the San
Francisco Real Estate Board and the only active member of the San Francisco
Chamber of Commerce.
Miss Jean Hudson, unofficially a sergeant
major, now stationed at the Presidio, San Francisco is the only women field
clerk in the United States army.
An interesting story is told of Mrs.
Elizabeth Church, well known for her charming home portraitures of society
leaders, debutantes and Mardi Gras queens.
It seems that she took a vacation trip from
her post as society editor of the Honolulu Evening Bulletin to visit San
Francisco. The San Francisco Chronicle
immediately engaged her services to assist in editing the society columns. While meeting the fashionable women of San
Francisco and posing them for their pictures, her talent for portraiture work
was discovered and she opened a fascinating studio in the building formerly
occupied by the Francisca Club. Her
business is now an acknowledged success.
Among the women publishers of California
are a number of straight-thinking women.
Many of them are writers on the staff of the dailies, and are publishing
books, magazines and newspapers.
Alice Harriman, of the Pacific Coast, now
of Los Angeles stands out conspicuously as the first woman to take up the
business of book publication. She
started on a very small scale and then went to New York City where her name as
a book publisher became known from coast to coast. Mrs. Harriman is of the feminine type
combining charm of personality and business ability.
Women in the newspaper business as
publishers and editors in California include:
Mrs. S. S. Boynton, president of the Register Company, Oroville
“Register” daily; Mrs. Edythe Dungan,
editor and publisher of the Oroville “Mercury” daily; Mary Schillinger,
editor and publisher of the Colfax “Record”; Mrs. W. S. Green, editor of the
Colusa “Sun” daily; Miss Catherine Burke, editor and publisher of the Concord
“Transcript”; Mrs. Katherine Tingley, editor and
publisher of the “Theosophical Path,” Pt. Loma; Mrs. George A. Oakes, publisher
of the Hayward “Journal”; Elizabeth R. Douglas, editor and publisher of the
Mill Valley “Record”; Dorothy D. Lawrence, editor of the Paso Robles “Press”;
Etta Dittman, editor of the Reedley “Ledger”; Verna
Gates Hosfeldt, editor of the Rialto “Record”; Misses
Downing, editors and publishers of the Santa Clara “Journal”; Susie Piersen Mitchell, editor publisher of the “Veteran
Enterprise” Sawtelle; Miss Ethel G. McDaniels, editor and publisher of the Templeton “Advance”;
Miss Z. Clements and Miss L. Palmer, editors of “The Business Woman,” and
Jessica Lee Briggs, associate editor; Mrs. Lucille Lapachet,
publisher; and Mrs. Z. Kathleen Ayers, advertising manager, “The Business
Woman.”
Page 188
Image of Mrs. Frederick
H. Colburn
WOMAN’S
AUXILIARY
MOUNT
LASSEN RESEARCH SOCIETY
OFFICERS
Mrs. Frederick H.
Colburn, 737 Sutter……………………………….………President
Mrs. William Harold
Wilson, Fairmont Hotel………………………….Vice-President
Mrs. Mary Lenfox, 691 Post………………… ……………………...………Secretary
Mrs. May C. Lassen, Hotel
Regent…………….……….……Corresponding Secretary
Mrs. William Major
Collins, 2701 Larkin………………………..………….Treasurer
ADVISORY BOARD
Mrs. Annette Abbot Adams Mrs. Percy King
Mrs. Jules Alexander
Mrs. M. E. Dittman Mrs.
Bradford Woodbridge
Miss De Neale Morgan Mrs. William Beckman Miss Josephine Blanch
One of the newest of the women’s
organizations in California was formed during the Bankers’ Convention in Del
Monte, May 1922, the nucleus of the new society being part of the research work
followed by California women of prominence in the world of literature, geology
and in historical attainment.
Eventually there will be a representative
of the society in every county and city of northern California. It is intended to co-operate closely with the
Lassen Volcanic National Park Association in making the wonders of the volcanic
area known throughout the world. To do
this effectively the Landmarks Department of the State Federation of Women’s
Clubs will be asked to assist and so will the Native Daughters of the Golden
West, the Automobile, the Hotel and Good Roads Associations. It is planned to have a series of talks
given, both with and without illustrations, before the various women’s
organizations. In short, a campaign in
education very much needed to make the average Californian familiar with the
fascinating history of our volcanic territory.
The well educated and traveled native-born knows not only the
geographical features of Mt. Vesuvius and Kilauea, but their myth, their
legends, and local stories. Many of
these same people however, are profoundly ignorant of the scenic values of Mt.
Lassen. This situation is neither to our
credit nor our profit. The society just
formed will make a determined effort to rectify this error and to place before
the peoples of the world – something historical and geographical concerning our
own wonderful California mountain whose volcanic
eruptions have incited the interest of the world.
Within the past few years, Mt. Lassen has
aroused universal concern among scientists, geologists and students of the
relative sciences, because of the eruptions of Mt. Lassen.
The cry: “Mt. Lassen is in action!” spread
like the molten fire which poured from the mouth of the crater, from city to
city, throughout the entire civilized world.
Many famous scientists hastened to the cities in the Mt. Lassen
district. The world at large was
interested, for the mountain which had for years and years been inert, suddenly
burst into flowing fire, its hot black lava spreading over the surrounding lands
and instilling something strange into the very atmosphere.
The women of California have long been
interested in the scientific causes of volcanic eruptions and when Mt. Lassen,
the “picturesque Mt. Lassen” suddenly burst into action there was a new note in
the very air. It was my special
privilege to see Mt. Lassen in action – and I never expect to see anything more
imposing or mystifying. It was a
realization of my dream come true, for I had always said that this mountain was
a sleeping volcano which would some day awake.
It did, and the sight of it was marvelous.
Our school children should know more about
this great California volcano. It is by
far more wonderful in its historical and geological values than any other
active volcano in the world, today.
Mrs. Frederick H. Colburn.
Transcribed
by Pat Houser.
Proofread by Betty Vickroy.
©
2005 Nancy Pratt Melton
GOLDEN NUGGET LIBRARY'S SACRAMENTO COUNTY