Blanche Skiff Ross, P.E.O., #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2021

Posted on March 31, 2021 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Blanche Skiff Ross undoubtedly knew of P.E.O. from the time she was a small child. Her aunt, her mother Mary’s sister, was P.E.O. Founder Alice Virginia Coffin. The organization was founded in January of 1869 by Alice Coffin and six of her friends who were students at Iowa Wesleyan University.

Blanche Skiff became a member of P.E.O. in June 1894 when she was initiated into Chapter AO in Newton, Iowa. She was a graduate of Northwestern University where she was a member of Alpha Chi Omega. 

On February 8, 1899, she married Franklin Pierce Ross, who at that time, was a travelling freight agent for Iowa Central Railroad. They lived in Monmouth, Illinois, and she was a charter member of Chapter E in Monmouth. 

Frank Ross went into business with Blanche’s brother, Frank Vernon Skiff. They opened the Jewel Tea Company in 1901 and it became very successful. At first, the company’s main product was freshly roasted coffee which was sold and delivered from horse drawn wagons. They had six routes in 1903, 850 routes in 1905, and today the name is still around as Jewel-Osco stores.

The first Jewel store opened at 643 E. 43rd. Street, Chicago, Illinois, in 1901.

In 1910, the Rosses moved to Oak Park, Illinois, where Blanche became involved in many organizations including the Parent Teacher Association, a garden club, and the Art Institute in Chicago. She remained a loyal P.E.O. member.

In the late 1950s, plans were drawn up for a library building at Cottey College in Nevada, Missouri. The college’s founder, Alice Virginia Cottey Stockard, gave the college to the P.E.O. Sisterhood in 1927. Blanche Skiff Ross and her daughters Verna Orndorff and Diane Fennekohl (a Kappa Kappa Gamma at Northwestern) were major contributors to the library fund and it was named in Blanche’s honor.

Dr. Blanche Dow, President of Cottey College with Blanche Skiff Ross

Dr. Blanche Dow, President of Cottey College with Blanche Skiff Ross (seated)

She spoke at the laying of the building’s cornerstone on September 5, 1962. The Blanche Skiff Ross Memorial Library opened on March 16, 1963. The Georgian-style 27,000 square foot building was fully air-conditioned. It was dedicated on October 13, 1963. She died in 1969. In 1977, her daughters funded the redecorating of the library.

The library at Cottey College

The library at Cottey College

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Leona Baumgartner, Ph.D., M.D., Pi Beta Phi, #NotableSororityWoman, #WHM2021

Posted on March 30, 2021 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Leona Baumgartner became a member of Pi Beta Phi at the University of Kansas where her father was a member of the faculty. She immersed herself in activities including acting in a number of theatrical productions and managing the K.U. Follies. Baumgartner served on the Y.W.C.A. cabinet,  Panhellenic Council and as president of the House Presidents’ Council and Student Government Council.  

Pi Beta Phi, University of Kansas, 1922 (astute Pi Phis will find a future GP in this photo, too)

As President of the Pi Phi chapter, she attended the 1921 Convention which took place in Charlevoix, Michigan. After convention, she camped with Pi Phis at Camp Panhellenic for two weeks. There they assisted a farmer whose cherries needed picking. And making use of her theatrical experience, the group put on a play and raised $125 for a junior high school.

Her B.A. was in Bacteriology and she graduated with Phi Beta Kappa, Mortar Board and Sigma Xi honors. She earned a Master’s degree in Immunology.

From 1925-27, she served as Pi Phi’s Eta Province President, supervising several chapters. From 1923-28, she taught high school, junior college and at the University of Montana. On April 28, 1927, Founders’ Day, she and three Pi Phis in Missoula, Montana, “had dinner together with the ‘winest’ carnations that we could find. Wine and blue place cards in an arrow design were also used. And we all felt a very deep love for Pi Beta Phi. We hope to do it again no matter how many or how few of us there are,” she wrote to the Arrow.

Baumgartner then spent a year in Germany in graduate study. When she returned  home, she enrolled in Yale University’s Public Health Ph.D. program, which she earned in 1932. She earned a medical degree in 1934. She interned in pediatrics for two years. Baumgartner won the 1934-35 Pi Beta Phi Fellowship for graduate study. While at Yale she took part in the activities of the Connecticut Alumnae Club. 

After a short stint in the U.S. Public Health Service, in 1937, she began working at the New York City Department of Health as a medical instructor in child and school hygiene. In 1942, she married Nathaniel Elias, a chemical engineer, but she kept her professional name.

Bronxville Review Press (NY), April 23, 1942

Baumgartner worked her way through the NYC Department of Health. Named NYC Commissioner of Health in 1954, she held the position until 1962. In 1956, a photo in which she and Dr. Harold Fuerst inoculated Elvis Presley with the Salk polio vaccine was published. Presley was 21 years old and ever so sexy. The photo went viral, or the 1956 equivalent of viral, and it prompted U.S. teens to get the vaccine. The rates of teen inoculation for polio were 0.6% before the photo was taken in October 1956. By April 1957, the teen rates of inoculation had jumped to 80%.

While working as Commissioner of Health, she taught at several institutions including Columbia University, Cornell Medical College, and the Harvard University School of Public Health. She retired from Harvard in 1972. The National Academy of Sciences awarded her its Public Welfare Medal in 1977 and other organizations honored her as well.

Nathaniel Elias died in 1964. Six years later, Baumgartner married Dr. Alexander Langmuir. She died in 1991 at age 89.

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Rosaline Greene, Alpha Epsilon Phi, #NotableSororityWoman, #WHM2021

Posted on March 29, 2021 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Rosaline Greenberg, who later used the professional name Greene, was born in Hempstead, New York, on Long Island. The only  Jewish female student at Bay Shore High School, she was editor of the school newspaper and valedictorian of her class.

She enrolled at New York University and became a member of Alpha Epsilon Phi, but according to an oral history interview she did in 1951, she felt “so naïve, so out of my depth.” At NYU she took a drama course and was mortified when she received a “C” in the class – the lowest grade she earned in college. Years later, she was amused to learn that the instructor prided himself on having been her teacher.

Greene transferred to New York State Collège at Albany. She immersed herself in activities – AEPhi, Girls Athletic Association, Menorah Society, Spanish Club, and Advertising of Dramatics Plays Chairman. “Ro,” as friends called her, made time to become one of the first radio actresses.

“Ro” Greenberg is just under the “Phi”

In February of 1924, someone at WGY, a radio station in Schenectady, had the idea to perform plays over the radio. Students at local colleges could try out for parts. Although just a sophomore, Greene decided to audition for she had nothing to lose. She dressed, she later said, in “borrowed finery, with everyone in the sorority house contributing something to make me look grown-up and ‘actressy’.” She won a part in the Merchant of Venice.

The WGY Players troupe out of Schenectady was pioneering in using radio as a medium to perform stage productions. Radio drama was a new field and Greene became a large part of it. Greene reflected on the experience:

I personally think that one of the reasons I was successful in radio drama was that I had nothing of the theater to hamper me. I didn’t have to follow training or tradition. That was what seemed to confuse a lot of stage actors when they came into the radio business. They suddenly found themselves confined to a small space, unable to move around and forced to talk directly into a mike, instead of all around to the characters they were addressing. Suddenly they were unable to portray business either. They were so used to showing movement and business and action by means of stance, gesture, facial expressions, costume tricks, etc. How show all this with a voice alone?

She graduated in 1926 and took a job as a teacher in a private school in New York City. In September of that year she won the perfect voice contest at the Radio World’s Fair. According to a newspaper account, she won “in spite of the fact that the average listener prefers the male voice announcer to the female announcer.” Not satisfied teaching, she returned to radio acting. She even dabbled in theater productions.

The July 26, 1934 Syracuse Herald included a notice about a broadcast record:

the 2000th performance by a radio actress. It’s Rosaline Greene, now the speaking voice of Mary Lou in the Showboat, who has just passed this figure in portraying feminine microphone roles. Rosaline started at WGY, while still in college. In her career on the air she has been an ingenue, a villainess, a housewife, a detective, a barber and even a stooge for Eddie Cantor.

In 1935, she was mistress of ceremonies on the “Hour of Charm” program. It featured Phil Spitalny’s female vocal and instrumental group and aired on Tuesdays over CBS and WFBL. She also had the same mistress of ceremonies role on the “Ziegfeld Follies.”

 

Times Union (Brooklyn, NY), November 11, 1928

Hartford Courant (CT), April 8, 1930, Green was starring in Cleopatra at 9 p.m.

Pittsburgh Press, June 12, 1937

NY Daily News, May 29, 1936

In January 1936, she married Joseph M. Barnett, whom she met 10 years earlier just after she left teaching. They had three children. Theatrical radio programming declined when televisions became more commonplace. This combined with childrearing responsibilities may have contributed to the end of her professional career. While there are references to her performances through the 1930s, they cannot be found in the 1940s.

SUNY Albany Archives, 1974

In the early 1950s, Greene spoke about her experiences as part of Columbia University’s Radio Pioneers oral history project. The 52-page transcript is fascinating. Rosaline Greenberg Barnett died on December 17, 1987 in Los Angeles, California.

 

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Dr. Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, Delta Sigma Theta, #NotableSororityWoman, #WHM2021

Posted on March 28, 2021 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Dr. Sadie Tanner Mossell (Alexander), the first National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. was a woman of many firsts. She served her sorority as National President from 1919 until 1923.

Born on January 2, 1898, she graduated from the M Street School (now Dunbar High School) in Washington, D.C. in 1915. She enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania and earned a degree in education. While at Penn she was in contact with the Alpha Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta at Howard University. Five women were needed to charter a chapter and that was not possible at Penn until 1918. Mossell was the President of the Gamma Chapter after it was chartered in 1918. A year later there were four chapters of the sorority and a meeting was called for December of 1919. It was to take place in the women’s dormitory at Howard but Mossell’s uncle, Lewis Baxter Moore, a dean at the institution, let the women use his office for the meeting. At this first convention, the Grand Chapter was established and Mossell served as its first president.

Pittsburgh Courier, April 28, 1928

All the while she was serving her sorority, she was also pursing her education. Her Bachelor’s was followed by a Master’s in economics, also from Penn. She was able to pursue a Ph.D. on the Francis Sergeant Pepper fellowship. When she was awarded her doctoral degree she became the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in economics in the U.S. and the second African American woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D.

During her tenure as the National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. a scholarship fund was started, chapters were established all over the country and she started the organization’s first national program, May Week. She spoke at several May Week events.

In 1923, she married Raymond Pace Alexander, a lawyer. Dr. Alexander decided to become a lawyer, too, and she was the first African American woman to be admitted to the University of Pennsylvania Law School. In 1927, she became the first African American woman to graduate from the school. And she was also the first African American woman admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar.

She joined her husband’s practice and worked as a lawyer from 1927 until 1982. The Alexander’s specialty was estate and family law but they also took on civil rights cases. Daughters Marie Elizabeth and Rae Pace were born in 1934 and 1937, respectively.

In 1970, she was admitted to Phi Beta Kappa, an opportunity she was denied while an undergraduate at Penn. She was given eight honorary degrees including one from her Alma Mater. In 1980, she received the University of Pennsylvania Distinguished Service Award and a Professorship is named in honor for the Alexanders. And there is a West Philadelphia elementary school named for her, the Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander University of Pennsylvania Partnership School, Penn Alexander for short.

Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander died on November 1, 1989 at the age of 91. She had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and succumbed to a bout of pneumonia.

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Irene Osgood Andrews, Alpha Phi, #NotableSororityWoman, #WHM2021

Posted on March 27, 2021 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

The July 1905 Alpha Phi Quarterly included this letter from Irene Osgood (Andrews) an initiate of the Iota Chapter at the University of Wisconsin:

With the release from college work come the plans for summer changes. The seaside or mountains is the usual end of our desires, but last summer I decided upon a less common atmosphere – that of the East Side, New York City. Life in the Ghetto was even more fascinating than I had imagined. Jacob Riis did not exaggerate. It is quite impossible to describe the crowded condition. Our Fourth with all our country friends in town is not half so exciting or so confusing.

No distinction is made between streets and sidewalks – both are filled. Let a traveling organ appear and the street is immediately blocked with an interested crowd. The children do not stand and stare as do our American children, but immediately break into the dance – not a waltz or two-step, but some graceful foreign movement. It is indeed a happy sight – and happiness is quite characteristic of the East Side, which is both fortunate and unfortunate – fortunate that they not constantly grieve over their lot; unfortunate that they are blind to a different life. But the settlements are rapidly opening their lives and helping them to the fulfillment of higher ideals.

She lived in the College Settlement house, which was started by a group of Smith College alumnae in 1889. The “charming residents would alone compensate for the loss of sea air and mountain lakes.” Women from Vassar, Barnard, Smith and others arrived in a steady stream to work. She reflected on her summer experiences:

In a two months’ visit one gets but a glimpse into social problems – but contact with actual conditions is a strong factor in a liberal education. Also from the subjective point of view, the experiences throws a vitality into one’s philosophy of life that may lead to broader and clearer thinking.

 

Before earning her degree at Wisconsin, she trained at the New York School of Philanthropy and this may have contributed to her career in working to improve the lives of women in the workforce. The College Settlement House had “for many years carried on a series of sociological studies; largely into aspects of women’s and children’s life and labor,” according to a Russell Sage College publication. Perhaps this summer experience laid the seed of the future work that Irene Osgood Andrews would undertake.

As an undergraduate, she was a member of the Committee on National Conference of Corrections and Charities. In that capacity, she attended the convention of Associated Charities in Portland Oregon. At Wisconsin, she was a charter member of the Wislinks, an interfraternity society of about 15 junior and senior women.

According to the chapter report in The Quarterly,she graduated in February 1906. The San Francisco earthquake took place on April 18 and she traveled west to do “relief work among the San Francisco sufferers during the summer. ” She won a University of Wisconsin scholarship in Economics. It allowed her to spend a year in research while working in the University Settlement in Milwaukee. In 1907, she became head resident at the Northwestern University Settlement located on Augusta and Noble Streets in Chicago.

Irene Osgood married Dr. John Andrews in New York City at a 5 o’clock ceremony the day before they were to sail to Europe. The Alpha Phi Quarterly included this info about the marriage:

Irene Osgood, ’06, and John B. Andrews, both of Madison, were married in Brooklyn, NY on August 8, and immediately left for Europe, where Mr. Andrews will act as delegate to four international conferences on labor legislation, at Brussels, Paris, Berlin and London. The bride until recently was an assistant in the work of Prof. John R. Commons of the university. The groom is secretary of the International Association for Labor Legislation, which had its headquarters at Madison, but will henceforth be at New York.

A son, John Osgood Andrews, was born August 6, 1915, but his birth did not seem to slow his mother down. She continued to work for improved conditions for women in the labor force.

In 1918, Economic Effects of the War upon Women and Children in Great Britain debuted. She authored it along with Margaret A. Hobbs. Andrews’ other publications are Minimum Wage Legislation, Working Women in Tanneries, and Irregular Employment and the Living Wage for Women.

The 1919 Alpha Phi Quarterly noted that Andrews had “gone abroad to study labor conditions in the Allied countries. She is assistant secretary of the American Association for the Advancement of Labor Legislation, of which her husband is the head. Dr. Andrews will follow.” A report of the New York City alumnae organization noted that Andrews and Imogene Ireland, Mu Chapter, were members of the “YWCA Industrial Commission in France, England, Italy and Switzerland. They are present at the International Congress of Women which met in Berne Switzerland, May 5.”

A writer and activist, she was concerned about women and the effects of factory work. For more than 30 years she served with the American Association for Labor Legislation as its executive secretary.

As a New York City resident, she helped found the Women’s City Club. Andrews volunteered with the Maternity Center Association and the NYC branch of the League of Women Voters. A widow for 20 years, she died on February 5, 1963 at the age of 86.

 

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Dorothy Mayo Morris, Alpha Omicron Pi, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHW2021

Posted on March 26, 2021 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Dorothy Mayo (Morris) was born on August 11, 1908, in Orono, Maine. After she entered the University of Maine she became a member of the Gamma Chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi. She majored in romance languages and graduated in 1930.

Dorothy Mayo is third from right in the second row from the bottom in the Alpha Omicron Pi photo.

After graduation she was involved with an Alpha Omicron Pi alumnae chapter. Employed by the University of Maine library, she was working at the circulation desk when a newly hired public speaking instructor asked for a tour. She showed him around the library and after he left she realized he’d forgotten his hat. Charmed by his personality, she hid the hat so that when he returned for it, she would be the one to give it to him. A few months later on December 18, 1930, Dorothy Mayo married Delyte Morris, the young instructor from Illinois who was teaching and working on his Master’s degree at the university.

Maine Campus, January 15, 1931 (I suspect motoring to and from Orono to Belleville, Illinois, in the 1930s took a week each way.)

After Delyte Morris finished his degree at Maine, he started on a doctorate at the University of Iowa. There were academic teaching stops at the Junior College of Kansas City in Missouri, Indiana State Teacher’s College in Terre Haute, and The Ohio State University. Dr. Morris, his wife and sons Peter and Michael were in Maine with the Mayo family when the call came with the offer to come to Southern Illinois.

When the family arrived in Carbondale in 1948, it was a small teacher’s college with about 3,000 students. At President Morris’ retirement in 1971, SIUC was a Carnegie R2 university with 30,000+ students. The growth that had taken place under Delyte Morris was phenomenal.

“First Lady” Dorothy Morris played a large role in the success of SIUC. She was a charming hostess who entertained students, faculty and visiting dignitaries with the same grace and charm. Each fall as students arrived, the Morrises would host a watermelon feast on their lawn. She spoke to countless organizations throughout Southern Illinois and shared insights about her husband’s vision for the SIUC with her audiences. The University and those who contributed to the institution – students, faculty, staff, supporters – were family to her. Her genuine warmth and concern was evident in her day-to-day activities.

She helped grow and nurture the SIUC Women’s Club for faculty wives and female employees. As Honorary President of the organization, club events would often take place in the Morris home at 1006 S. Thompson Street, where Faner Hall is now.

She was a member of the Carbondale Women’s Club, AAUW, a garden club, and P.E.O. She was a founding member of the Carbondale City Panhellenic when it began in 1955.

Southern Illinoisan, April 9, 1958

Later in her life, Dorothy Morris was an honorary member of the SIU Foundation Board of Directors. There are  scholarships and fellowships at SIU in honor of Delyte and Dorothy Morris. Each year, the SIU Women’s Club offers a Dorothy Morris Scholarship.

She received the SIU Distinguished Service Award in 1981, a year before her husband died of Alzheimer’s disease. She was awarded an honorary degree from Southern Illinois University Carbondale and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 1998, the first honorary degree conferred jointly by both institutions.

In 2001, anonymous patrons donated funds for the creation of the Dorothy Morris Kumakura Garden and a statue.  Sculpted by Erin Palmer, the statue is by Faner Hall near the site of the former lawn of the President’s House. The garden is at the back of Faner near the small parking lot for Morris Library. 

At her 100th birthday celebration, the SIUC Foundation awarded her its Medallion of Distinction. She died on June 15, 2010, at the age of 101.

 

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Regine Freund Cohane, Sigma Delta Tau, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2021

Posted on March 25, 2021 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.
On March 25, 1917, seven female Cornell University students who were Jewish founded Sigma Delta Tau. Its founders are Dora Bloom (Turteltaub), Inez Dane Ross, Amy Apfel (Tishman), Regene Freund (Cohane), Marian Gerber (Greenberg), Lenore Blanche Rubinow, and Grace Srenco (Grossman).

A male was involved in the beginnings of Sigma Delta Tau. Bloom asked Nathan Caleb House  to write the ritual. “Brother Nat”  is the only man to honored with the organization’s gold membership pin. As the story is told on the Sigma Delta Tau web-site:

After leaving Cornell University, Brother Nat was ‘lost.’ In a chance look through the New York City phone book, Nat was ‘found’ and brought as a surprise to the 1958 National Convention. From that time until his death, Brother Nat attended almost every Biennial Convention and maintained correspondence and visits with many alumnae and collegiate chapters.

Sigma Delta Tau Founders and Ritualist, Regene Freund is on the bottom row, second from left.

Regene Freund Cohane

Regene Freund (Cohane), a Sigma Delta Tau founder, as an undergraduate, was one of three women majoring in law. She was also the organization’s first National President. Her term began in 1918. Two years later, she graduated and moved to Detroit. As a female lawyer, she had a difficult time landing a job because of her gender, but  she persisted. After serving as National President until 1922, she spent the next 35 years as the sorority’s National Counselor.

In December 1924, she married another lawyer, Louis Starfield Cohane, whom she met at a funeral. They formed their own law firm. In the first year of their marriage, the Cohanes became the first married couple to try a case before the United States Supreme Court. Louis Cohane died in 1958, but his wife continued to practice law for 72 years almost until the end of her life.

The Cohane’s marriage information

Cohane was active in Detroit’s Jewish community and served as President of the National Council of Jewish Women in 1933. She was named  one of Detroit’s “Women of Achievement.” In 1991, Sigma Delta Tau honored her with the establishment of the Regene Freund Cohane Outstanding President Award. She died in 1992 at the age of 92.

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Annie Turnbo Malone, Zeta Phi Beta, #NotableSororityWoman, #WHM2021

Posted on March 24, 2021 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Annie Turnbo (Malone) was born in 1877 on a farm near Metropolis, Illinois, a city on the Ohio River just north of Paducah, Kentucky. Her parents were former slaves. During her childhood she accompanied her aunt, an “herb doctor,” as she gathered ingredients. This knowledge came in handy as Malone developed her hair care products. She is credited as the first Black woman to become a millionaire.

Turnbo went to elementary school in Metropolis, but after her parents died, she moved to Peoria to live with her sister Amy. In the early 1900s, she developed products that African American could use that wouldn’t damage their hair. “Wonderful Hair Grower” was her first product and she sold it door-to-door and through the mail. After some success she and a few of her siblings moved to the St. Louis area and her products took off in the African American community. In 1902 she opened a shop on Market Street in St. Louis. One of her saleswomen was Sarah Breedlove Davis who was known later as Madam C. J. Walker. Davis later left the company and began a rival company.

In 1914, Annie Turnbo married Aaron Eugene Malone. Her husband joined her in the business. “Poro” became the brand name Malone used to copyright her products.

Broad Ax (Salt Lake City, UT), December 4, 1920

She built Poro College in 1918. It was a cosmetology school and community center. But it was also a manufacturing facility, retail store, dormitory, gymnasium, chapel, bakery, and office space. There was a rooftop garden and a 500-seat auditorium. In 1920, it had a millinery store, ice cream parlor, confectionery shop, barber shop and tailor shop. At its height there were about 200 employees keeping it running. Moreover, it was a social and cultural center for St. Louis’ African American community.

Annie Malone was a philanthropist and supported many organizations including the Black Y.M.C.A. in St. Louis and Howard University’s College of Medicine. She served as President of the Board of Directors of the St. Louis Colored Orphans Home from 1919-43. In 1922, she helped the organization purchase a facility at 2612 Goode Avenue. The street was renamed Annie Malone Drive in 1986 and the Orphans Home she helped build is the Annie Malone Children and Family Service Center’s administration building. 

In 1946, the home became the Annie Turnbo Malone Home

Malone was an Honorary Member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. The newspaper article below recapped the talk that Malone made to the sixth annual Boule (convention) in 1926. Howard University, the sorority’s founding institution, conferred an Honorary Degree upon Malone.

California Eagle (Los Angeles, CA), January 29, 1926

In 1927, Malone’s husband filed for divorce and demanded half the business. Poro College went into receivership. Although Malone was able to negotiate a settlement, it still left her in a precarious financial state. And the publicity hurt Poro’s wholesome image. She moved the business to Chicago into a former branch headquarters. During the Depression, additional tax problems and lawsuits chipped away at her fortune.

Malone died on May 10, 1957 at the age of 79. 

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May Allinson, Ph.D., Alpha Chi Omega #NotableSororityWomen #WHM2021

Posted on March 23, 2021 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

In 1880, May Allinson was born in Macon, Illinois. She graduated from Decatur High School and went on to the University of Illinois. There she earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. She was a member of the Iota Chapter of Alpha Chi Omega. Allinson was awarded the Fellowship in History for 1907 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She also secured one of four scholarships given to women by Columbia University.

 

At Columbia University she was a Curtis Scholar and a Fellow in the Research Department. Later she taught methods in industrial research at Columbia University.

She had a fellowship from the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union in Boston. As Associate Director of the Union’s Research Department, she conducted investigations and presented her research. The results of the condition of women working in Massachusetts was published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor and the U.S. Bureau of Education. 

While in Boston, she was a charter member of Alpha Chi’s Zeta Zeta Alumnae Chapter. After she moved to New York, she became a member of Gamma Gamma Alumnae Chapter. And for a short time she was in Washington State where she was a member of Iota Iota Alumnae Chapter.

In 1912 and 1913 she was in Italy, Germany and England studying conditions in which women, young and old, worked.

The November 1916 Lyre told of her receiving her doctoral degree in History at Columbia. She was off to Seattle, Washington, where her sister was studying, the Gamma Gamma correspondent noted.

Allinson was appointed as Assistant Secretary of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education in 1917, but was granted a leave of absence to serve in the war effort. She served as Executive Secretary of the Council of National Defense, Women in Industry Service.

A loyal Alpha Chi Omega, she found time in her busy life to be of service. She was chairman of its Advisory Committee on Vocations. Her goal she said was “to connect the girl and the job.” She hoped to create a book about the:

Vocational Opportunities of College Women as seen in the experience of our alumnae. Also I think we ought to be able to make surveys of the vocational opportunities in our several districts through the alumnae clubs and chapters. All of these things will aid the committee members in assisting the girls to get established in a particular district or line of work.

A tribute written by Florence A. Armstrong, Lyre Editor in the April 1919 edition, mentioned that there was talk of Allinson perhaps serving as Alpha Chi’s National President someday:

Alpha Chi Omega, too, has watched th fine progress of Miss Allinson’s public service in the last years, and has been very grateful for her contribution to the cause of women in industry. Because of the wide experience which had come to her, and her understanding of educational problems, as well as on account of her beautiful personality, the National Council of Alpha Chi Omega and many others wished extremely that Miss Allinson might serve as successor to our beloved National President, Mrs. Loud.

Allinson did not get to see those plans to fruition. She died just before Christmas 1918 in Indianapolis, Indiana. She kept researching and writing until the end. Exhaustion is listed as a secondary cause of her death. 

Evening Star (Washington, DC), December 28, 1918

Decatur Review (Illinois), December 26, 1918

 

Dr. May Allinson was recognized as one of the most distinguished researchers in the field of women in industry and the plight of female workers.

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Mary Conway Kohler, Kappa Kappa Gamma, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2021

Posted on March 22, 2021 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Mary Conway Kohler was one of the first women to graduate from Stanford School of Law. She began her career as a lawyer and then a judge. Her passion was as a child welfare advocate.

She became an initiated member of the Stanford chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma on October 25, 1925. The May 1925 Key of Kappa Kappa Gamma includes a snippet that “Mary Conway was appointed chairman of the new social service committee which is making great headway under her leadership.” She graduated in 1926 with a Bachelor’s degree.

Mary Conway is in the top corner of this chapter composite.

Her engagement to John August Kohler was announced at the Kappa Kappa Gamma senior dinner. Her husband was a member of Sigma Nu. They married on June 16, 1926.

Hollywood Advertiser, June 28, 1925

In 1928, she graduated with a law degree. She was a member of Phi Delta Phi.

Kohler became a lawyer in 1929 and went to work as an assistant probation officer in juvenile court. A son was born in 1931 and two other children followed. A letter to the editor in the November/December 2004 Stanford Magazine from Miranda Ow, Stanford Class of 1984, includes this mention of Kohler:

My paternal grandmother, Mabel Chew, worked as a cook and nanny from 1927-28 for the first woman to graduate from Stanford Law School, Mary Conway Kohler. They became good friends; Mrs. Kohler helped my grandmother divorce her first husband, who had run off with another woman. She also later helped my grandmother and her entrepreneurial second husband, Ow Wat, obtain a laundry contract at Moffett Field.

Oakland Tribune, October 7, 1928

She became a referee (judge) in juvenile court in 1935. Kohler divorced her husband after 20 years of marriage. She began a legal and estate management practice in 1945.

In 1953, she went to New York to become a child welfare consultant. She was a special consultant on the Tweed Commission – the Family and Children’s Courts to the New York Temporary Commission on the Courts. The commission was responsible for the reorganization of the New York Court System as well as the development of the new Family Court of New York.

Kohler also served as a consultant to the Ford Foundation on Juvenile Delinquency in 1955. She established NYC’s first Neighborhood Youth Corps. In 1962, she was on the Committee on Youth Employment and a year later she was appointed to the NYC Board of Education.

Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. appointed her to his Poverty Council in 1964. That year she began as a consultant to Human Resources Administration of NYC.

In 1967, she became the executive director of the National Commission of Resources for Youth, an organization she helped found. Its mission was to “promote acceptance by the American public of the idea that youth could be integrated into the adult society at an earlier age.” 

She died of cancer on May 3, 1986, at the age of 82.

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