Shall We Repeat Indian History in Alaska?
Speaker:Ruth Muskrat Bronson
Statement on the Civil Rights Act of 1957
Speaker:Dalip Singh Saund
Women in Public Life
Speaker:Anna Arnold Hedgeman
Testimony of Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Assistant Director, Office of Civilian Defense
Speaker:Eleanor Roosevelt
Speech Before Giving Oath to Women Being Inducted into Marine Corps
Speaker:Major Ruth Cheney Streeter
Colonel Ruth Cheney Streeter was the first Director of the U.S. Marine Corps Women’s Reserve, serving from February 13, 1943 through December 7, 1945. She earned the Legion of Merit for "outstanding services" during World War II. The Marine Corps History Division credits Streeter for “[e]xercising judgment, initiative and ability.” She was also credited for rendering “distinctive service in directing the planning and organization of the Women's Reserve of the Marine Corps and skillfully integrating women into the basic structure of the Corps.” In this role, she was also credited for selecting and training “replacements for men in shore establishments."[note]“Col. Ruth Cheney Streeter,” U.S. Marine Corps History Division, n.d. [/note] Major Streeter eventually earned the title of Colonel, the first woman to do so in the Marine Corps.
On February 14, 1943, the day following the activation of the Women’s Reserves, Major Streeter launched a national tour promoting the organization. She announced at her first press conference that the Reserves “would start recruiting 18,000 enlisted women and 1,000 officers.”[note]"Marines to Enlist 19,000 Women Aides," New York Times, February 14, 1943, 48.[/note] The national recruitment tour, featuring Major Streeter and three aides, promised full salary benefits and upward mobility for enlisted women. On February 19, Major Streeter gave a speech before conducting the first mass induction into the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at the William Penn Hotel.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran an article the following day (February 20) discussing the ceremony and Major Streeter’s speech. It includes the circumstances of the speech, the events leading up to the ceremony, and a synopsis of the Women’s Reserves and the event itself. The article makes clear that “women had served the marines in the last war” and it recounted a story Streeter’s told of a woman disguising herself “as a man” to fight “in the marine corps for three years in the War of 1812.” The article commended Major Streeter’s speaking ability and physical poise.[note]"32 Women Receive Oath as Marines," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February 20, 1943, 4.[/note]
One of Major Streeter’s aides during this tour, E. Louise Stewart, reflected on the event in the early summer of that year.[note]Lieutenant E. Louise Stewart, “Shakedown Cruise,” Marine Corps Gazette (May – June 1943): 36-38. [/note] She stated that the Marines expected the women recruits to know the traditions, rules, and courtesies of the Marines immediately, and recounted how worrying about exceeding expectations was a “source of gray hairs” for this first group of women.[note]Ibid. [/note] Stewart stated that on February 19, 1943, the “entire town [of Pittsburgh] was turned over to us.” The mayor proclaimed the 19th as “Marine Corps Day.” The women’s pictures were featured in newspapers and they were greeted and chauffeured around the city. Lieutenant Stewart recalled, "The evening climaxed when Major Streeter swore in thirty-three enlistees of outstandingly high caliber. Then, Cinderella-like, and still with motorcycle escort and farewell committee, we were whisked back to the train."[note] Ibid. Note: Lt. Stewart claims they enlisted 33 women, while the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette states that it was 32. [/note] Lieutenant Stewart states that they were greeted warmly everywhere they went, never for themselves but “always because we bore the name and insignia of the Marines.”[note]Stewart, “Shakedown Cruise,” 36-38.[/note]
The importance of the Marines' name was not lost on Major Streeter. Women reservists often had titles with a specific reference to their gender, such as WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services) in the Navy.[note]Also called WACS (Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps), Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), and the Women's Reserve of the Coast Guard (SPARS).[/note] When asked at a press conference why the Marine Corps Women’s Reserves didn’t have a nickname, Major Streeter replied, “Well, we thought Marine was a pretty distinctive name.”[note]"Marines to Enlist 19,000 Women Aides."[/note] In many of her public speeches and press releases, Major Streeter emphasized both the importance of the Women’s Reserves and their status as Marines. She was especially proud of the uniforms given to the Women’s Reserves—uniforms, she said, that were “designed” for “work” and strikingly similar to the men’s uniforms.[note]"Women Marines Scorn Nickname," New York Times, February 19, 1943, 10. [/note] Throughout the national tour, Streeter and her aides were outfitted in the Women’s Reserves uniforms of traditional Marine forest green and red trimmed hats.
According to the history of the Marines, there was “considerable unhappiness about making the Corps anything but a club for white men.” [note]Judy Barrett Litoff and David C. Smith, eds., American Women in a World at War: Contemporary Accounts from World War II (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1997), 67.[/note] The U.S. Marines had been the first to form a very small (305 members) women’s reserve in WWI and the last to do so in WWII. When the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve was activated in 1943, apathetic and even antagonistic sentiments were directed towards their service. The animosity toward their service began to lessen due to Major Streeter’s national tour and the publicity they generated in recruiting for the Women’s Reserves. In response to the work of the Women’s Reserves, General Thomas Holcomb, commandant of the Marine Corps, remarked in the March 1944 issue of Life magazine that, “There’s hardly any work at our Marine stations women can’t do as well as men. They do some work far better than men. What is more, they’re real Marines…. They get their basic training in a Marine atmosphere, at a Marine post. They inherit the traditions of the Marines. They are the Marines.”[note] Ibid. [/note]
Major Streeter’s address in Pittsburgh set the tone for the national tour and by the end of WWII, members of the Women’s Reserve were serving in 225 different specialties, filling 85 percent of the enlisted jobs at Headquarters Marine Corps, and comprising between one-half to two-thirds of the permanent personnel at Marine Corps posts.[note]Colonel Mary V. Stremlow, “Marine Corps Women's Reserve: Free a Man to Fight,” in Defense of a Nation: Servicewomen in World War II, ed. Major General Jeanne M. Holm and Judith Bellafaire (Arlington, VA: Vandamere Press, 1998).[/note]
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The Garrison Dam Agreement Signing
Speaker:George Gillette
George Gillette was born October 29, 1902, on the Fort Berthold Reservation. He attended Bismarck Indian School and Flandreau Indian School in South Dakota, as well as the Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas, where he studied carpentry. After graduating in 1926, he married Evelyn Wilkinson in 1930. They raised nine children at the Beaver Creek tribal lands of North Dakota, where they ranched and farmed.[note] Michael W. Stevens, "George Gillette," Biographical Dictionary of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara, 2003, http://lib.nhsc.edu/FortBerthold/TATBIO.htm.[/note]
Gillette was elected as a tribal leader in 1946 representing the Beaver Creek district. He served as chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes when they negotiated the location of the Garrison Dam with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.[note] Stevens, “George Gillette.”[/note] The Garrison Dam project gained momentum in 1943 when heavy rains caused the Missouri River to flood both Iowa and Nebraska.[note]“Iowa Towns Submerged by Missouri Flood,” Washington Post, April 14, 1943, 3.; “Flood Perils Omaha Areas,” Baltimore Sun, April 12, 1943, 15.[/note] In response, President Franklin Roosevelt tasked Colonel Lewis Pick, the regional director of the Army Corps of Engineers, with finding a solution. Pick recommended “a series of dams on the Upper Missouri, with, at its center, a 200-mile-long reservoir. The new Lake Sakakawea would flood 436 of Fort Berthold's 531 homes, as well as every square foot of the enviable farmland tilled by the tribes.”[note]Lisa Jones, “Three Tribes, a Dam and a Diabetes Epidemic,” High Country News, May 23, 2011, https://www.hcn.org/issues/43.8/three-tribes-a-dam-and-a-diabetes-epidemic.; “105 Dams Projected in Pick-Sloan Plan,” Christian Science Monitor, April 5, 1946, 13.[/note] The plan caused distress among the tribes who were hesitant to face the loss of their property and livelihood.[note]George Hellickson, “Dakota Indians Angry, Face Loss of Homes on Site of Projected Dam,” Wall Street Journal, July 22, 1946.[/note]
George Gillette served as the tribal representative at the signing of the Garrison Dam agreement where the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara/Sahnish Tribes surrendered 152,360 acres of their reservation to the project.[note]Michael Lawson, “Dammed Indians Revisited: The Continuing History of the Pick-Sloan Plan and the Missouri River Sioux,” South Dakota, South Dakota State Historical Society Press, 2009, 59.[/note] The Three Affiliated Tribes were united by a history of collective migration. Apart from the joint political representation, their farming and animal rearing practices were also shared on the Fort Berthold Reservation. The area flooded for the Garrison Dam was well known for its fertility and the variety of crops it produced. An agreement was reached after tenacious legal action on the part of the Tribes following the U.S. Corps of Engineers’ attempts to construct the dam without the Tribes' permission at Fort Berthold in 1946.[note]Lisa Jones, “Laugh at the Crying Indian All You Want – The Joke’s on Us,” GRIST, October 6, 2011.[/note] The Tribes protested in Washington and legal action was taken under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851, which prevented the government from claiming land without compensating the Tribes.[note]Ron Meyer, The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri: The Madans, Hisatsas and Arikaras (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1977), 60.[/note] They also argued that the dam construction was unnecessary to deal with the flooding from the Missouri River.[note]Robert Ruth, “Garrison Dam Held Unneeded: Indian Affairs Engineers Oppose Flood Control,” The Sun, June 26, 1946, 4.[/note]
Gillette is famously pictured weeping at the agreement signing, which authorized the construction of the dam on the land of the Three Affiliated Tribes in exchange for $5,105,625.[note]Angela Parker, “Taken Lands: Territory and Sovereignty on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, 1934 – 1960” (doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, 2011), 207; “960 Indians Sell Out to U.S. for 5 Millions," Washington Post, May 21, 1948, 1.[/note] Gillette was also a lay minister for the United Church of Christ, a member of the the North Dakota National Guard, and a tribal judge from 1974 to 1982. He died on October 3, 1985 at the age of 82.[note] Stevens, “George Gillette.”[/note]
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Survey Award Acceptance Speech
Speaker:Edith Abbott
The social settlement movement began in the 1880s in London as a response to social problems created by urbanization, industrialization, and immigration. To mitigate the effects of increasing socio-economic stratification, settlement houses acted as a neighborhood welfare agency with the purpose of creating an improved, interdependent community. Read more.
Forge Negro-Labor and Unity for Peace
Speaker:Paul Robeson
A renowned singer, athlete, actor, and activist, Paul Robeson was perhaps one of the most prominent African American public figures from the 1920s to the 1950s. Born on April 9, 1898 in Princeton, New Jersey, Robeson displayed prodigious academic and athletic talent early in his childhood. Enrolling at Rutgers University at the age of 17, Robeson was top of his class as well as a two-time All-American football player. Robeson also dedicated himself to the “call” of advancing African American equal rights. In his Rutgers valedictory address, for instance, he declared, “We of the younger generation especially must feel a sacred call to that which lies before us . . . We of this less-favored race realize . . . [t]hat neither the old-time slavery, nor continued prejudice need extinguish self-respect, crush manly ambition, or paralyze effort.”[note]Scott Ehrlich, Paul Robeson (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1988), 32.[/note]
After graduation Robeson moved to New York City and quickly immersed himself in the cultural revival of the Harlem Renaissance. He found numerous outlets for his abilities. While studying law at Columbia University, he worked part-time preparing legal briefs, acted in theatrical productions, performed musically, and played professional football. In 1921, he married Eslanda Goode, a chemistry student at Columbia who later served as his business manager. Robeson’s artistic career and advocacy efforts put in him dialogue with many intellectual figures of the time such as Albert Einstein, W.E.B. DuBois, Emma Goldman, James Joyce, and Ernest Hemingway. While his international success as an entertainer continued to grow, he maintained a continued interest in the complex issues of racial and economic equality.
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Robeson spoke out on behalf of many activist causes, including the American labor movement. According to Henry Foner, Robeson “marched on picket lines, assisted in organizing drives, sang in union halls, and was awarded honorary lifetime memberships in more unions than any other public figure of his time.” Robeson’s public activism also played a “decisive role” in the 1940 campaign of the United Automobile Workers in their dispute with Ford Motor Company.[note]Henry Foner, “Foreword: Keynote Address from the 1998 Long Island University Paul Robeson Conference,” in Paul Robeson: Essays on His Life and Legacy, ed. Joseph Dorinson and William Pencak (London: McFarland & Company, 2002), 2.[/note] Robeson’s celebrity also helped advance the cause of racial equality. In 1946, he personally led a delegation that met with President Harry S. Truman to advocate on behalf of anti-lynching legislation.[note]Foner, “Foreword,” 2-3.[/note]
For Robeson, the causes of racial and economic equality were inextricably linked to the decolonization of the European empires after World War II. In addition to advocating on behalf of the rights of workers and African Americans, he also supported national liberation movements in European-controlled territories in India, Africa, Vietnam, the Middle East, and elsewhere.[note]Specifically, Robeson supported pre-WW II African nationalists in London. This meant he mingled with pro-Ethiopian expatriate factions during the Italian invasion of 1935-36, a future leader of independent Kenya (then under British control) in Jomo Kenyatta, and West African trade union organizer I.T.A. Wallace-Johnson. See: Shelia Tully Boyle and Andrew Bunie, Paul Robeson: The Years of Promise and Achievement (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001), 320. Within the Middle East, Robeson visited Egypt, was exalted as a model by Kurdish nationalists, and expressed solidarity with the Jewish people following the horrors of World War II. See: Metin Yüksel, “Solidarity Without Borders: The Poetic Tributes to Paul Robeson of Goran and Cegerxwîn,” Journal of Postcolonial Writing 51 (2015): 556-573; Jonathan Karp, “Performing Black-Jewish Symbiosis: The ‘Hassidic Chant’ of Paul Robeson,” American Jewish History 91 (2003): 53-81.[/note] However, in the context of a rapidly developing cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union, these political commitments were seen by many as subversive. Indeed, American defense planners such as George Kennan warned, “it is not Russian military power which is threatening us, it is Russian political power.”[note]John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy During the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 39.[/note] For Kennan and others, this meant that the true threat to the United States and its allies came from Soviet encouragement for revolutionary movements across the globe more than the risk of a Soviet military attack.[note] During the late 1940s, Soviet oppression taking place in Eastern Europe was not well understood in the United States. See: Anne Applebaum, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956 (New York: Doubleday, 2012), 10, 18-21, 66-67, 193-194.[/note] As a result, American labor and decolonization activists such as Robeson were often suspected for serving as a “fifth column,” unwittingly disseminating Soviet propaganda if not taking direct orders from Moscow. In fact, congressional committees held over one hundred hearings investigating communist links to the American labor movement from 1946 to 1956.[note]Ronald L. Filippelli and Mark D. McColloch, Cold War in the Working Class: The Rise and Decline of United Electrical Workers (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 1.[/note] Robeson himself would eventually be questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1956 over his ties to the Communist Party and the Soviet Union. He would also be subjected to an extensive blacklisting campaign that effectively ended his entertainment career in the United States.
Delivered on June 10, 1950, Robeson’s speech, “Forge Negro-Labor Unity for Peace and Jobs,” reflects many of these political tensions. He gave this speech during the National Labor Conference for Negro Rights in Chicago; he later published the speech as a pamphlet. This address gave voice to Robeson’s “working class internationalism,” or, his “conviction that there was a powerful commonality in the experience of working-class people that crossed lines of color and nationality.”[note]Mark D. Naison, "'Americans Through Their Labor': Paul Robeson’s Vision of Cultural and Economic Democracy,” in Paul Robeson: Essays on His Life and Legacy, ed. Joseph Dorinson and William Pencak (London: McFarland & Company, 2002), 190.[/note] Robeson’s intellectual commitment to this cause, as well as his skill as a speaker honed over his brilliant theatrical career, are visible in this speech.
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A Voice from the Eastern Shore
Speaker:Marie Watson
Marie Watson, a field worker for the Maryland League of Planned Parenthood, delivered “A Voice from the Eastern Shore” on November 5, 1945. It was the only speech given at the annual meeting of the Prince George’s League for Planned Parenthood in Hyattsville, Maryland. The speech was recorded by Georgia K. Benjamin, a civic leader involved in such women’s organizations as the Maryland League of Women Voters. In this speech, Watson argued that Planned Parenthood was a “new way of life” for black people who face significant barriers in accessing affordable housing, quality medical care, adequate education, and healthy food.[note]Marie Watson, “A Voice from the Eastern Shore,” Georgia K. Benjamin Papers, “Speeches and Papers on Family Planning, 1941-1953,” Special Collections, Box 1, Folder 3, University of Maryland Libraries, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, para. 14.[/note] Systemic oppression caused a litany of health problems for African Americans from exposure to rats, typhus, trash, and unsanitary or inadequate food and water.[note]“Summary Report: Prince George’s County Health Study Group, 1948-1949,” Georgia K. Benjamin Papers, “Speeches and Papers on Family Planning, 1941-1953,” Special Collections, Box 1, Folder 3, University of Maryland Libraries, University of Maryland, College Park, MD.[/note] Watson advocated that Planned Parenthood could help combat such health hazards, and she felt compelled to spread the organization’s mission to community members across the Eastern Shore.
The Planned Parenthood League of Maryland formed in 1927. Even though it was headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, it served the entire state of Maryland. Originally called the Bureau for Contraceptive Advice, it was rebranded as the Baltimore Birth Control Clinic in 1932. Soon after its rebranding, the organization became a member of the national Planned Parenthood Federation. By 1942, both local and national groups were officially renamed “Planned Parenthood.”[note]“History & Highlights,” Planned Parenthood of Maryland, Inc., 2018, https://www.plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-maryland/who-we-are/history-highlights.[/note] The mission of Planned Parenthood sought to educate its clients and to bring health care services to residents on the Eastern Shore. But, as Watson emphasized, women faced racial discrimination when accessing health care. In addition to the systemic equalities Watson discussed, there were separate clinics for black women and white women.[note]The landmark decision of Simkins v. Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital ruled that racial segregation in publicly funded hospitals was a violation of equal protection under the United States Constitution in 1963. In 1964, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin for any agency receiving state or federal funding. See: Ezelle Sanford III, “Civil Rights and Healthcare: Remembering Simkins v. Cone (1963),” African American Intellectual History Society, February 4, 2017, https://www.aaihs.org/civil-rights-and-healthcare-remembering-simkins-v-cone-1963/.[/note] To try to rectify these inequities, Executive Director Anne G. Huppman announced that Planned Parenthood of Maryland would serve low-income populations, especially those who seldom saw a physician annually.[note]Anne G. Huppmann, “Mission Statement,” December 17, 1957, Planned Parenthood of Maryland LC215, Langsdale Library Special Collections, Baltimore Regional Studies Archives, Box 1, University of Baltimore, Baltimore, MD.[/note] This tenet of Planned Parenthood’s mission helps explain the organization’s emphasis on preventative care and cancer detection; many of their patients rarely visited a doctor.
In 1945, the same year as Watson’s speech, the Maryland Legislative Assembly made Maryland the first state to provide medical services for the medically indigent. It also allowed care to be given in the home.[note]Georgia K. Benjamin, “The Maryland Plan for Medical Services,” Georgia K. Benjamin Papers, “Speeches and Papers on Family Planning, 1941-1953,” Special Collections, Box 1, Folder 3, University of Maryland Libraries, University of Maryland. “Medically indigent” refers to those who cannot afford health care or are ineligible for health care services.[/note] Despite these policy changes, the 1948 Prince George’s County Health Study Group found the county “20 years behind the times in recognition of its responsibility to protect the health of its citizens.”[note]“Summary Report.”[/note] Overcrowded clinics and a lack of access to health care meant mothers and children suffered. Maternal mortality rates were high and 90 percent of illegal abortions were performed on married women.[note]Georgia K. Benjamin, “Peace Begins in the Home,” Georgia K. Benjamin Papers, “Speeches and Papers on Family Planning, 1941-1953,” Special Collections, Box 1, Folder 3, University of Maryland Libraries, University of Maryland, College Park, MD.[/note]
With so much work to be done, Watson and Planned Parenthood sought to raise awareness of the organization’s ability to help mothers and children, particularly from black families. At the time of Watson’s speech, Planned Parenthood was focused on preventing unwanted pregnancy, offering fertility assistance, and providing marriage counseling. Planned Parenthood meant what its name implies: “parenthood entered into willingly with adequate preparation for the strains and sacrifices it imposes.”[note]Karl Menninger, MD., “Psychiatric Aspects of Contraception,” Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic 7, no. 1 (1943), Georgia K. Benjamin Papers, “Speeches and Papers on Family Planning, 1941-1953,” Special Collections, Box 1, Folder 3, University of Maryland Libraries, University of Maryland, College Park, MD.[/note] The group’s activities included education about contraception and birth control, child spacing, disease prevention, and psychological maturity, all which could help build stable families.[note]“Planned Parenthood. What Does It Mean?,” 1947, Planned Parenthood of Maryland LC215, Langsdale Library Special Collections, Box 6, University of Baltimore, Baltimore, MD.[/note]
One of the purposes of Watson’s speech was to calm anxieties over Planned Parenthood. She specifically argued that its mission was consonant with the mission of the church. Although there is very little information available regarding Watson’s life, her relationship with the church and her relationship with Planned Parenthood is clearly explained in “A Voice from the Eastern Shore.” Watson explained her preacher husband’s disapproval of her work.[note]Watson, “A Voice from the Eastern Shore,” para. 4.[/note] Yet she did not explain how she continued to work with the Women’s Society for Christian Service to spread her message in churches across the region in spite of such opposition.[note]Watson, “A Voice from the Eastern Shore,” para. 10.[/note] As of 1945, her travels had brought her over 322 contacts in 30 religious and women’s groups.[note]Watson, “A Voice from the Eastern Shore,” para. 13.[/note]In 1947, Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam affirmed the relationship between Planned Parenthood and the church by stating, “Planned Parenthood is one of the expressions of the Christian principle that affirms the infinite worth of a human being.”[note]“Planned Parenthood. What Does It Mean?”[/note] The organization sought to save women and children by bettering their physical health, psychological wellbeing, and health care experiences.
Watson concluded her speech with hope and optimism about Planned Parenthood’s ability to save lives and create happier homes and healthier people. To accomplish these goals, she sought to tell the people of the Eastern Shore about its helpful services and to lead the charge for opening more clinics.[note]Watson, “A Voice from the Eastern Shore,” para. 14[/note] By 1947, two years after Watson’s speech, there were six clinics in the state operating under the Maryland League of Planned Parenthood.[note]Benjamin, “The Maryland Plan for Medical Services.”[/note]
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