Ladies Do Not Engage in Politics
For many years, women actively sought right to vote. A Marylander was the first American woman to attempt to vote. Margaret Brent, also the first female lawyer, tried to vote in 1647, but was turned away. In 1868, the first equal suffrage amendment to the Constitution was introduced by a Republican Senator from Kansas, but it was not until 1921 that the 19th Amendment was ratified. Maryland did not ratify the Amendment until 1941 – the last state to do so — and did not transmit the document to the State Department until 1950! In 1908, Maryland women voted for the first time to elect town commissioners in Still Pond in Kent County. Twelve of the town’s 75 registered voters were women, three of whom voted (two picked losers). Excuses for not voting included: one who did not want to get her new hat spoiled (there was a rainstorm that day): another wanted to go about the time it rained, and after that she had to prepare supper for the men folks; another said after the rain, the baby awoke and she had to remain with him.
Maryland Republican women began to organize as soon as women had won the right to vote in 1920. A few Republican women suffrage leaders plunged into politics when they campaigned from door-to-door for Republican votes during the 1920 presidential campaign. They compiled a list of women who admitted to being Republicans in the heavily Democratic state. They did not always get enthusiastic responses when they asked women for their party designation and about becoming members of an active organization of Republican women. Mrs. Edna Payne of Annapolis recalled that one woman, representing a widely held viewpoint, stated emphatically “ladies do not engage in politics.” Another acidly warned that “women ought to tend to their husbands or their husbands would tend to their maids.”
Maryland Women Organize
Undaunted by such reactions and cheered by the election of a Republican president, six stalwart women full of ideas and plans met on a November day in 1920 at the Rennert Hotel in Baltimore for the purpose of organizing the Republican Women of Maryland. They were Emma Maddox Funck, Jane Gabriel, Matilda Harkness Kahler, Vera Lewis, and Ellen Sheckells, all of Baltimore, and Edna Payne of Annapolis. After seriously discussing the problems involved in organizing Republican women, the group decided to attract more women and schedule another meeting. They asked the Republican leaders of Baltimore City and all the counties for the names of Republican women in their jurisdictions. Of course, all the leaders were men. Some responded; some did not. Those smart enough to know that the Republican Party needed all the members it could attract, welcomed the request for help to found a new organization, even though they did not expect women to do more than vote. Some Republican leaders were leery of women in “a man’s spheres,” others looked with suspicion on women who were ardent members of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, as were Mrs. Gabriel and Mrs. Payne.
Despite a lack of full cooperation from the men, about forty women gathered at the Rennert Hotel in June 1921, and a formal organization came into being. Rebecca Bowen (later Mrs. George Wright) of Towson was elected President, and Ruthellen Bibbins of Baltimore, Secretary
They resolved to work to overcome both the passive and active resistance of some of the men leading the Maryland Republican Party. They voted to fight for membership on the Republican state Central Committee, which directed State Party affairs, and for equal rights within the party organization. They went on record in favor of Jury service for women, the repeal of all laws discriminating against women, and the right of wives to have an equal voice with their husbands in choosing where their homes would be located and what schools and churches their children would attend.
What is in a Name
The election of officers seemed to be no problem, but what to name the new organization drew some fire, when It was suggested that Maryland Federation of Republican Women’s Clubs would be a good name that would encompass the growth of the organization in the years to come, some objected that it sounded too much as if the women’s organization would be simply an auxiliary to do the bidding of the men. To Dr. Almira Sweeten, an ordained minister of Howard County, it implied the women’s organization would be “a carpet for men to walk on.” She reminded the group that the men already had expressed their attitude by declaring that “we could come to (their) meetings if we did not make a debatable motion.” others objected to the name because of the word “clubs” and pointed out that “ladies” would be loath to join “clubs”. But the majority voted for the name. Then they all pledged to go home and organize Republican women’s clubs in their own communities and thus bring into existence a real federation.
A National Committeewoman is Selected
At a January, 1922 meeting. Republican women were plunged into a long drawn-out struggle over the choice of a woman to represent them on the Republican National Committee, where a man and woman from each state are responsible for fund raising and for directing presidential campaigns. By this time Emma Maddox Funck was serving as President of the Republican Women’s Club of Baltimore, and was the choice of the Baltimore women. But the women of the counties favored someone from their ranks. Two candidates were Mrs. Ε.Ζ. Tower of Oakland and Mrs. Ernest Cory of Prince Georges County, and both had their supporters. The men who led the party had their own Ideas. They wanted a county woman whose social position was “unimpeachable” who had tact and possessed a “sense of politics” Finally, Hannah Randall Lowndes of Baltimore was chosen the first Republican National Committeewoman for Maryland. Hannah Lowndes proved to be a very successful representative for Maryland on the National Committee. Mrs. Lowndes worked to organize new Republican women’s clubs.
Women Who Dared to Run
In the spring of 1923, a young Baltimore lawyer, Emilie Doetsch, Republican, ran unsuccessfully for the Baltimore City Council, the first woman to try for a Council seat. In 1928, Miss Doetsch was appointed assistant city solicitor in the administration of Mayor William Broening: thus, becoming the first woman to hold a salaried position in the municipal government.
By 1924, the league of Women Voters was holding “schools of politics” in Baltimore. League members as well as the women of both political parties worked to get out the vote in every election. Elizabeth Gilman, daughter of the Johns Hopkins University president who opposed the admission of women to the University, made news as she scurried around the state urging women to vote for Robert LaFollette, the Progressive Party candidate for President. In the I920’s, the women got their feet wet politically. They knew only too well that they had a long way to go.
In 1925, when Mrs. Eva Chase was MFRW President, there were 13 Baltimore City Ward clubs and about 509 members throughout the state. Fresh from victory in the Suffrage Movement, members worked diligently to elect women to office, get out the vote, educate women and overcome the lack-luster support of Republican men. Mrs. Chase, re-elected President in 1939, served until 1941.
The decade of the I930’s began with six women candidates for the General Assembly and a woman candidate for governor. Three Republican women ran for the House of Delegates. Helen Elizabeth Brown, fresh out of law school, an ardent woman’s rights advocate, ran from the fourth district in Baltimore. Miss Brown grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, began her career as a newspaper reporter there and came to Baltimore in 1922 as a charter member of the new Baltimore-Post. But law and politics attracted her, and she attended the University of Maryland School of Law at night, graduating in 1926. She was thirty-one when she began her campaign for the House of Delegates, and made jury service for women her major issue. Rose Loefler was a candidate for the House of Delegates from the fifth district in Baltimore, and Lulu Boucher ran from Allegany County, Lulu Wilson Boucher was president of the Allegany Republican Women’s Club, and the Club membership urged her to run for the House of Delegates. A popular member of the Eastern Star and the League of Women Voters, Mrs. Boucher had a good deal of support among the women of Allegany County, and her husband. Dr. Samuel Boucher, encouraged her candidacy as well. She was sixty years old when she began her political career, like Helen Elizabeth Brown she advocated Jury service for women.
A Republican Woman Is Elected
On October 30, 1930, the Maryland Federation of Republican Women’s Clubs held their annual convention at the Southern Hotel in Baltimore where some 300 women gathered. Mrs. John Holmes of Rockville was re-elected President and a half dozen statewide vice presidents were elected. State candidates addressed the convention, including Mayor Broening, the Republican candidate for governor, and w. Newton Jackson, candidate for state Comptroller. Federation members supported and campaigned for the women running for the General Assembly, and those in Allegany County helped elect Lulu Boucher, the first Republican woman to win a seat in the General Assembly. She held that post until she resigned near the end of her fourth term. Helen Elizabeth Brown and Rose Loeffler went down to defeat. Not long after. Miss Brown was appointed to the Workman’s Compensation Department of the Maryland Roads Commission which she served as Chairman
Women Get Appointments
By the I930’s, women had won the position of vice Chairman of the Republican State Central Committee, but very few served on county committees. There was a better representation of women on the Baltimore city committee, including Mrs. Bibbins and Mrs. Lulu Powell, both of whom served a long time. Mrs. Powell had preceded Mrs. Payne as President of the Maryland Federation and been involved in Republican politics since the I920’s. A Baltimore native, she had worked hard for Governor Nice who appointed her Police Magistrate-at-large in 1935. Two years later, she stirred up some commotion when she conducted a closed hearing on an assault case, without members of the press present. The press reminded her that the Supreme Court had ruled that all hearings must be open to the press, and some members of the Judiciary Committee of the House of Delegates called for an overhauling of the magistrate system “to check such abuse of power.” When Republican Mayor Theodore McKeldin appointed her to the Free Public Bath Commission in 1943, Mrs. Powell bristled and retorted, “I do not feel complimented by being named to this place.”
McKeldin also appointed one of his devoted supporters, Helen Elizabeth Brown, Assistant City Solicitor. Miss Brown had fought for women’s rights ever since coming to Baltimore from Texas. She continued to speak out for Jury service and equal pay for women, and was an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment. Active in the Maryland Federation of Republican Women, she served as its legal counsel. Another veteran Republican leader,
Mrs. Jane Gabriel, became National Committeewoman when Mrs. Lowndes stepped down in 1931. Jane Miller Gabriel was born in Hagerstown and educated at Helmuth College in London, Ontario. Her Father, Dr. ٧ictor Miller, dubbed her “Sky Rocket” when she began working for woman suffrage. He did not like it, for as Mrs. Gabriel explained, “He just didn’t believe that women had a place in the management of the country’s affairs and resented my work for suffrage.” But he did not stop her when she asked, “Why did you bother to educate me?” Her husband. Dr. Calvin Gabriel, took a different view and supported her in all her political and civic activities. By 1935, Mrs. Gabriel had served as Vice-Chairman of the Republican State Central Committee and as a member of the Municipal Commission on Employment and Stabilization. Her other activities included Vice-President of the Maryland League of Women Voters and Chairman of American Citizenship for the Women’s Club of Anne Arundel County. In 1943 Mayor McKeldin appointed her to the Welfare Advisory Board, which helped shape policies for the Baltimore City Department of Public Welfare. Mrs. Gabriel was National Committeewoman for one term and was succeeded by Mrs. William Lawson of Baltimore who also served one term. Mrs. Powell then became National Committeewoman, serving from 1940 until 1948.