Capitol Women:
Librarians, Clerks, Janitresses, and Lawmakers 1879-1940
by Valerie Marvin
Thursday,
February 22 - 7:00 p.m.
Library of
Michigan - 702 W. Kalamazoo
When the present Capitol opened,
Harriet Tenney, Michigan’s first female state librarian, held control over
almost an entire wing of the building. The first professional woman to hold a
top tier gubernatorial appointment in the peninsular state, Tenney was aware of
her significance. In her first report to the governor she wrote that “By the
advice of the Chief Executive of the State and with the unanimous consent and approbation of the Senate, on the 31st day of
March, 1869, this Library was placed in charge of a WOMAN.”
In the years that followed, Tenney
was joined at the Capitol by an ever-increasing number of women who worked as
assistant librarians, clerks, secretaries, telephone operators, and
janitresses. Laboring day in and day out, these women fulfilled vital roles in
state government as they kept careful records, operated new technologies, and,
in the case of Harriet’s protégé, Mary Spencer, built a statewide lending
library program that benefitted Michigan residents for decades. Among Mary’s
contemporaries was another fascinating figure, Belle Maniates, who clerked
during the day and wrote short stories and novels at night. In 1912 Maniates
published her first novel, David Dunne,
about a boy who grows up to be governor. Several scenes in it are set in the
Capitol building.
The dawn of women’s suffrage in 1920
brought Michigan’s first female legislators to the Capitol, including Grand
Rapids suffrage leader Eva McCall Hamilton, and, in 1924, Cora Reynolds
Anderson, a Native American educator and health activist from L’Anse. Bold
advocates for women and children, Hamilton and Anderson were praised by some,
and loathed by others, who saw them as distractions and interlopers in the male
legislature.
Learn about these trailblazing women
and the rules—written and unspoken—that both limited and inspired their
successes.
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