Overview
Scrapbook of Ruth Hale, journalist and founder of the Lucy Stone League.
Dates
- Creation: 1923-1925
Language of Materials
Materials in English.
Conditions Governing Access
Access. Originals are closed; use microfilm M-78. Clippings and articles were discarded after microfilming.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright. Copyright in the papers created by Ruth Hale as well as copyright in other papers in the collection may be held by their authors, or the authors' heirs or assigns.
Copying. Papers may be copied in accordance with the library's usual procedures.
Extent
1 microfiche1 folder (1 photograph folder)
The scrapbook contains clippings from United States and Canadian newspapers, several magazine articles, and photographs, and covers the period from June 1923 through September 1925. Its emphasis is on the purpose and activities of the Lucy Stone League, its members, and the controversy surrounding them. Included are articles by and about Ruth Hale, articles by Heywood Broun, and clippings about the poets, Amy Lowell and Elinor Wylie; Doris Stevens, then vice-president of the National Woman's Party; and the first women to get passports in their maiden names. The clippings and articles were discarded after microfliming.
The ten photographs are by Ottilie Amend; they show the Lucy Stone Homestead in West Brookfield, Massachusetts and its current occupants, the family of Francis Stone Beeman, grandnephew of Lucy Stone, and a woman who may be Ruth Hale.
BIOGRAPHY
Ruth Hale, a journalist and founder of the Lucy Stone League, was born in 1886 in Rogersville, Hawkins County Tennessee, to Richard Hale and Annie Riley Hale. She attended Hollins Institute in Roanoke, Virginia, and Drexel Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. She married Heywood Campbell Broun, a newspaper columnist, on June 6, 1917 and their son was born on March 10, 1918. Ruth Hale and Heywood Broun were divorced on November 17, 1933 in Nogales, Mexico.
Ruth Hale began her career as a journalist with the Hearst Bureau, in Washington D.C. when she was eighteen. She was subsequently a drama critic and sports writer for The Philadelphia Public Ledger, correspondent for the Paris edition of The Chicago Tribune during World War I, on the editorial staff of Equal Rights, drama critic for Vogue and Vanity Fair, and a reporter for other newspapers in Washington, Philadelphia, and New York. In addition, she dramatized Elinor Wylie's novel, The Venetian Glass Nephew.
Ruth Hale founded the Lucy Stone League on May 18, 1921. The League's purpose was to promote "the idea that its women are integers and not halves," specifically by encouraging women to keep their maiden names upon marriage and offering to help them with resultant problems.
From May 1925 until early 1933, Ruth Hale spent most of her time on a farm in Connecticut that she called Sabine Farm. In 1933 she returned to New York City and to Heywood Broun for a short time. She died on September 18, 1934.
For additional material on Ruth Hale and the Lucy Stone League see Biography File, Organization File, and the Marjorie White Papers, MC 184, v.92.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Accession number: 77-M36
The scrapbook of Ruth Hale was given to the Schlesinger Library by her son, Heywood Hale Broun, in March 1977.
Processing Information
Processed: February 1979
By: Gay Gibson McDonald
Subject
- Lucy Stone League (Organization)
- Stevens, Doris, 1888-1963 (Person)
- Title
- Hale, Ruth, 1887-1934. Scrapbook of Ruth Hale, 1923-1925: A Finding Aid.
- Author
- Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America
- Language of description
- eng
- EAD ID
- sch00187
Repository Details
Part of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute Repository
The preeminent research library on the history of women in the United States, the Schlesinger Library documents women's lives from the past and present for the future. In addition to its traditional strengths in the history of feminisms, women’s health, and women’s activism, the Schlesinger collections document the intersectional workings of race and ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class in American history.