The Filson Historical Society Blog

March is Women’s History Month. In honor of our female forebears, The Filson is highlighting segments from the popular two-part series, originally presented in summer 2011 by Filson staff, entitled ‘Her’Story: Encountering Women in the Filson’s Special Collections. Stay tuned for future posts on women’s history and The Filson’s manuscript collections.

A series of correspondence written almost weekly between 1939 and 1944 from Margaret “Peg” Allison to her parents, Young Ewing and Margaret Tarrant Allison, illuminates a young woman’s struggles during the Second World War, leading to her enrollment in the WAVES.

Margaret Allison was born in August 1917 to Young Ewing Allison, who later became editor and president of Insurance Field (a trade journal) and Margaret Tarrant Allison, a talented performance soprano before her marriage.  Peg grew up in Louisville and New York City, and attended college in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan and a junior college in Chicago.  A portion of her correspondence these “college” years (1935-1939) is absent, and when the letters resume in 1939 Peg makes vague references to “class” on certain days, but also to work.  She later remarks upon not having “much college” or a degree.

Her early correspondence during World War II shows Peg working at Fields Department Store in Chicago, where she is clearly frustrated and bored with her position; her letters are filled with ideas about other jobs and about all of her “boyfriends”, many of whom are in training, going into service, and being sent overseas.  Peg writes, “Well I guess my nursing is out – 3 yrs is the training and no less and I don’t like to take that long. I’m going to see what else is cooking in defense work – I’m getting very restless at Fields and a defense job would help in the money end and also would be something new – I’d kinda like to get on the woman’s army if they ever really organize it, but I guess that will be never.”  [12 May 1942]

Despite Peg’s doubts, the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corp was established, and Peg talked about joining, writing to her mother, “Tomorrow is the start of registration for WAAC.  I’m going to try for it, tho’ I may not be very lucky. I think I’ll really enjoy the work for a change and I don’t think the war will last forever – and as long as I’ve been away from home it isn’t as tho’ I was leaving you. It will be a change in jobs and that’s all.” [26 May 1942] To her father, she writes, “I know mom doesn’t like the WAAC but I want to do something about this [war] and I don’t feel factory work is the answer and my bond and stamp buying isn’t too high.  So I’ll try to get in and if so I’ll be glad, if not I’ll try something else – but safer.  Tho’ I don’t think we’ll be sent any where out of the US, if so I’ll have joined the army to see the world….” [31 May 1942]

Peg’s letters throughout the summer of 1942 detail her failure to be accepted into the WAAC.  As a substitute, she begins taking a nurses’ aide course at the Red Cross and works at the Chicago Service Men’s Center, organized by the Chicago Commission on National Defense and Major Edward Kelly, which provided housing, clothing items, food, and dancing.

In the fall, Peg applied to be a member of the WAVES – Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service.  This group was the United States Navy’s women’s service, in which women replaced Navy men at shore stations for office work, radio, communications, and storekeeping.  From the very beginning, the WAVES were an official part of the Navy, and its members held the same rank and ratings as male personnel. They also received the same pay and were subject to military discipline.  “Dear Family, your dear daughter is now a “Wave” I passed everything o.k. and was sworn in this morning.”  [29 September 1942] Peg left Chicago for Bloomington, Indiana for 3 months, and her letters home described her training to become a Navy Storekeeper.

Although Peg had been continually seeing various boyfriends in Chicago, one definitely stood out as her favorite, although he had been deployed overseas – Bill Nightingale.  As Peg was being shipped to Corpus Christi for her WAVES station, Bill was fighting in Northern African and was wounded.  He received a Purple Heart and was returned to the United States for recuperation in the Spring of 1943.  He eventually reunites with Peg in Corpus Christi, and they decide to get married.  “Please try and get used to the idea that lots of things in war-time have to change and getting married is one of them…he is good for me and I only hope you’ll agree later on…right now I can see your point but I’ve got mine too and it is the rightest thing I think I’ll ever do…” [7 July 1943]

Things became more difficult when Bill was sent to a hospital in central Illinois while Peg remained in Corpus Christi; her letters began to talk of little but how to get transferred to a different WAVES unit, perhaps in Louisville, or how to get out of the WAVES all together.  Bill was eventually discharged from the army hospital in December 1943 and joined her again in Texas; soon after, Peg sent the following message to her mother “You’ll be the first…I am sure now – I’ve just come from the dr. and the bunny says I’m to be a mama about next Sept. 2 – and the prospect of being out of the navy has made me a new woman in only a short minute it seems.” [20 January 1944]  Due to her pregnancy, Peg was able to leave the WAVES; she and Bill moved to Chicago, both obtaining employment at Fields.  Peg’s letters throughout the rest of 1944 and 1945 do not mention the war, outside of her younger brother, Sonny, who was in Air Force training.  In later years, Bill re-joined the army, and Peg’s post-war letters first described the difficult life of the family of a non-commissioned officer, later juxtaposed with her elevated social standing and housing when Bill became a Warrant Officer.

Margaret Allison Nightingale’s interesting letters illuminate the yearnings of a young woman during World War II who wants to do what she can to participate in the war while loved ones are training and fighting; they also show the realities of day-to-day life once Peg became one of the first women in the armed forces; above all, they illuminate her story.

This summer’s Filson Friday talks by staff members of The Filson included a two part series entitled ‘Her’Story: Encountering Women in The Filson’s Special Collections.  The blog will occasionally be featuring some of the women and women’s organizations discussed during these sessions.

Restricted by legal and cultural practices, religious and education traditions, women did not enter or participate in the paid workforce primarily until the industrial era.  From the first generation of women entering the workforce to contemporary female professionals, women’s experiences are diverse and complex.

The Filson has many collections and writings by women engaged in professional activity, one of which is labor journalist Ethel du Pont. Given the era within which she lived and the great wealth of her prominent industrialist family, Ethel du Pont certainly did not need to work.  While she could have engaged in charity work, as so many other women in her position did, her vigorous intellect, restless curiosity, and passion for justice compelled her into the workforce.  While growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, du Pont lost her mother and was raised by her aunt Zara du Pont, a noted suffragist and civil liberties activist. Along with du Pont’s father, Zara likely had great influence on her interest in liberal politics.  The earliest letter among du Pont’s papers at the Filson is to her beloved aunt in 1918. Fresh out of college, the twenty-two year old wrote about her desire to do constructive, beneficial work, and not to be like, “so many charity workers who have gone straight to charity from school…It seems that you ought to know how to do something yourself before you go to showing others how.”  These proved to be prophetic words for du Pont’s future.  Shortly thereafter Ethel du Pont moved to Kentucky having secured a position teaching economics at the University of Louisville. In this position she began what may be seen as her life’s work: labor activism, specifically trying to improve working conditions for teachers.

She traveled continuously throughout the state, especially in Eastern KY, organizing teachers in labor unions.  She helped coordinate strikes, worked as a field organizer for the American Federation of Teachers, served as president for the organization’s Kentucky affiliate and edited their publication The Kentucky Teacher.

Du Pont was a tireless voice for labor concerns. From 1938 to 1951, she wrote a bi-weekly column for the Louisville Times titled “With Labor’s Ranks.” As a journalist she covered Kentucky’s labor news and issues as well as national labor issues which affected the state.  The column was popular with skilled labor unions but her tenacious pro-labor writing often made her a target with executives and to some degree isolated her from the friendship of her socio-economic peers.  For example, in 1945, she attended a General Motors stockholders’ meeting, where as a stockholder herself, she challenged the company to open its records for the United Auto Workers.

Du Pont family biographer, Joseph Frazier Wall wrote that her agitating activities came at a great personal cost.  Because of Ethel du Pont’s position in a prestigious and wealthy family, she was expected to act like a socialite.  Many of her friends and peers abandoned her on account of her activism and, at times, abrasive efforts to support civil, labor, and women’s rights. What’s more, because of her family connections, labor leaders and rank-and-file members were often suspicious of her motives.

Ethel du Pont’s manuscript collection documents the breadth and depth of her professional life and activism.  Her papers provide valuable research in the study of twentieth-century women’s history, labor, and civil liberties as well as a glimpse into the life of a professor, activist, journalist, and overall indomitable professional woman.

 

[See the Ethel Bidermann du Pont papers, Mss. A/D938 in The Filson’s Special Collections Department and the Encyclopedia of Louisville.]

This summer’s Filson Friday talks by staff members of The Filson included a two part series entitled ‘Her’Story: Encountering Women in The Filson’s Special Collections.  The blog will occasionally be featuring some of the women and women’s organizations discussed during these sessions.

Throughout the history of the United States, women have taken part in activism.  Activism can be defined as “intentional efforts to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change.” Driven by religious enthusiasm, the desire for equal rights, civic awareness, or some other internal urging, many women dedicated a portion, or all, of their lives to improving the lives of others.  Working individually or in groups, some women took up the activist mantle through the Women’s Movement, which is often considered to have begun in the United States in 1848 with the Seneca Falls Convention in New York.  From that point on, the Movement spread via feminist newspapers and woman’s organizations, spreading the fight for women suffrage and equal rights nationwide.

In Kentucky, one strong example of an agitator for women’s rights was Mary Barr Clay (1839-1924).  The daughter of famous Kentucky abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay, Mary Barr Clay was driven to agitate for women’s right to vote after living through the ramifications of her own divorce and the divorce of her parents. Mary is often known for bringing her more famous sister, Laura, into the suffrage movement. Mary herself, however, was the first Kentuckian to hold the office of president in a national woman’s organization, serving as president of the American Woman Suffrage Association from 1883-1884.  Mary and her sisters, Laura, Annie, and Sallie Clay, spent their time making speeches and raising the consciousness of Kentuckians, eventually organizing suffrage societies within Kentucky.  The Filson’s collection of Cassius Marcellus Clay Papers contains correspondence written to Mary Barr Clay regarding women’s suffrage from such famous proponents as Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony.  This correspondence shows that Clay was indeed one of the pioneers of the Kentucky feminist movement.

 

 

In one letter from 1883, Lucy Stone, a leader of the American Woman Suffrage Association, urged Mary to attend the next meeting of the organization. “I trust you will be with us…all the more do I desire this, because it is more than probably you will be elected president for next year.  There should be a report from Kentucky and one speech – let us depend upon you and your sister Laura to have Kentucky well represented.” [8 Sept 1883] In 1887, Stone continues to push for “Clay” representation at annual meetings, writing, “I wish all the Clay sisters could be there to represent Kentucky – But by all means you should come, not only to report but to make one of the speeches.  Can you not promise me…?” [6 Aug 1887]

Mary was also in contact with Susan B. Anthony, leader of the National Women Suffrage Association.  Anthony came to speak in Kentucky in October 1879, and was in contact with Mary about her arrangements, writing, “All I shall want….will be a cup of genuine Kentucky Coffee (not Bourbon Whiskey)…I am anticipating a great deal of pleasure in visiting your part of the state and you may make all the engagements you please….” [20 Oct. 1879]  The next year, Anthony writes to Mary, “Your most welcome letter…reassures me that you are still in the body, and still wide-awake for work for woman’s emancipation.” [29 Oct. 1880] The correspondence between Mary and these national figures ends in 1902, as she became caught up with ill health and family obligations. It would be very interesting to discover if the corresponding letters from Mary exist in the Stone and Anthony papers, as there is little of Mary’s own correspondence here at The Filson.

Along with the papers of individuals such as Mary Barr Clay, The Filson holds the records of organizations concerned with equal rights for women.  One such organization was the Louisville Equal Rights Association (LERA).  The Filson holds its minute book, which documents the group’s work and meetings from 1889 through 1895.  The minute book includes the constitution and by-laws of the LERA, whose stated object was “to advance the industrial, educational, and legal rights of women, and to obtain the franchise for them.” Membership was one dollar, a portion of which went to the Kentucky Equal Rights Association, a state-wide umbrella organization. One issue the women discussed in an early meeting was a proposed “test” of a state law, never before enforced – that a widow who had children from the age of six to twenty, or taxable property, could vote for school trustees. Later entries in the LERA minute book include a discussion on adopting work that was less directly involved in suffrage, in the hopes of attracting individuals who were “not quite prepared to accept the main question”.  The minute book ends in 1895 but an identification tag on the front suggests that the organization was eventually succeeded by the Louisville Woman Suffrage Association in the 1910s.

The LERA minute book records the inner workings of this group of women interested in the cause of women’s rights, documenting their challenges and successes.  While the Louisville sections of groups as this were not as well-known or as active as those in other parts of the state, such as the organizations the Clay sisters were a part of, a small band of committed women kept the issue alive in Louisville.  Eventually, thanks in part to the hard work of women like Mary Barr Clay and the members of LERA, Kentucky women did receive the vote with the ratification of the nineteenth amendment in 1920.

[See the Cassius Marcellus Clay Papers, Mss. A/C619/7-11, and the Louisville Equal Rights Association Minute Book, Mss. BJ/C894, in The Filson’s Special Collections Department.]

This summer’s Filson Friday talks by staff members of The Filson included a two-part series entitled ‘Her’Story: Encountering Women in The Filson’s Special Collections.  The blog will occasionally be featuring some of the women and women’s organizations discussed during these sessions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When imagining women during the American Revolution, one’s mind might immediately go to Abigail Adams, managing the Adams family farm and advising her husband on the creation of a new government; Betsey Ross, designing the American flag; or Molly Pitcher, taking over her husband’s place as a cannon-loader during the Battle of Monmouth.  These women can seem to be larger-than-life characters, participating in major events.  The Filson’s print collection likewise includes images of women who are mostly taking part in what I would consider “unusual” or “crisis” events.  The prints, created in the 1850s, clearly idealize the patriotic role of the woman – we see Mrs. Schuyler setting fire to her cornfields to keep the British from using them; Mrs. Martha Bratton “heroically defying Captain Huck,” and Hannah Erwin Israel saving cattle from the British.

In my research into the Filson’s manuscript collections, I determined that much of our early correspondence surrounding war consisted of letters from men participating in the war home to wives, mothers, sisters, and friends.  While many of these letters focus on the issues the soldier was experiencing, it is still very possible to suss out information on the woman’s experiences of war, which, for the most part, would contain more “regular” than “crisis” events.  In the Filson’s small collection of Shreve Family papers, the correspondence gives a picture of life, military and domestic, for Colonel Israel Shreve and his family during his service in Revolutionary War.

Israel Shreve was a farmer from Gloucester County, New Jersey, who was a Colonel in the Second New Jersey regiment.  During 1779, he was fighting against the Tory-allied Iroquois Indians in upper Pennsylvania and New York State.  Of his wife, Mary, or “Polly,” as she is addressed in letters, very little is known – however, through a letter to her dated October 21, 1779, we can gather some understanding of what her life during the Revolution was like.  Her husband sends cloth, in order that she might make or have made new clothing for him; he also sends her money and spice.  His future movements are uncertain, in terms of any leave of absences for him to return to her and their children.  In his post-script, Shreve notes, I think somewhat peevishly, that Mary had moved into Burlington without consulting or informing him.  “It is reported to me you have moved to Burlington, if so I hope it was for the best. But think it a compliment due to me from you, to let me hear from you.”  He admits that the house she chose was “altogether agreeable to me.”

 

 

 

Even though the correspondence from Mary to her husband is no longer extant, one can determine that when she wrote to him, she might have been asking about his leave in order that he might help her run the farm, manage their children, etc.; she may have asked for money to live on; and she may have explained her move to Burlington, for safety, to be near other family members, or to be closer to resources.  She had become the head of her household, but was still in charge of wifely duties such as making clothes for her husband.  While it is merely speculation to suggest what Mary might have corresponded back to her husband, his letters to her do help shed light on a woman whose experiences would have otherwise been fairly lost to history, therefore illuminating her story.