Mina Van Winkle

In 1908, Van Winkle organized the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women of New Jersey, which in 1912 was renamed the Women's Political Union of New Jersey.[6] She was the head of New Jersey chapter of the Union at the stage when the American suffrage movement clashed with eastern political machines and supporters of lawful drinking fearful that suffrage would lead to prohibition.[7][8] Her tenure as president of the Union included 1915's unsuccessful effort to amend New Jersey's constitution by referendum to give women the right to vote.[9] Following that defeat, the New Jersey chapter of the Union merged into the New Jersey Woman Suffrage Association, whose officers governed the resulting organization.[10]

Near the beginning of the presidential election year of 1916 (and several months after her husband's 1915 death), she announced that she would establish a legal residence in Kansas, which had extended to women the right to vote in presidential elections.[11] It is unclear whether she carried through with that announcement.

As the suffrage movement was on the verge of succeeding through the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, she was a speaker at the 1920 National Woman's Party convention.[12]

Soon after the United States' entry into World War I, the Food and Fuel Control Act of 1917 established the United States Food Administration, with a mandate to voluntarily reduce the domestic consumption of food and produce, while increasing home production. President Woodrow Wilson appointed future president Herbert Hoover as its head, and Hoover appointed Van Winkle to organize and direct its speakers' bureau.[13]

In 1916, the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia began to hire policewomen.[14] In the summer of 1918, Police Major and Superintendent Raymond W. Pulliam established a woman's bureau, originally directed by Marion O. Spingarn. By October of that year, Van Winkle was one of four members of the Bureau.[14] After Spingarn left in February 1919, Van Winkle became the Bureau's director, with an initial rank of detective sergeant (and, by December 1920, as a lieutenant).[14]

The Bureau's initial responsibilities included "girl welfare work," prevention and detection of store crimes, and supervision of movie theatres, dance halls, and similar places.[14] However, its greatest emphasis was on casework. Van Winkle stated that "prevention and protection are more primary than prosecution, and those who have done wrong should be intelligently aided toward a better life."[15] Most of the officers in the Bureau in 1920 were trained as school teachers, nurses, or social workers, and included one lawyer.[14]

The Bureau's creation became controversial on Capitol Hill. In December 1920, a U.S. House appropriations subcommittee questioned Van Winkle and District Commissioner Charles W. Kutz. Subcommittee members Rep. George Tinkham (a Republican from Massachusetts) (and Rep. Thomas U. Sisson, a Democrat from Mississippi) objected that Congress had not specifically appropriated funds for a bureau of policewomen. Colonel Kutz responded that Congress had specifically appropriated funds for police officers, and "there is nothing in the law that requires that policemen shall be of the male sex."[2] During the hearing, Tinkham, an opponent of women's suffrage, asked Van Winkle dozens of questions. When asked why she was doing this work, she replied, "because I have nothing else to do; it is my job in life."[2] Ultimately, the Subcommittee did not withhold the Bureau's appropriation.

In 1919, during a U.S. House Committee hearing that was ostensibly about the salaries of police officers in the District, Van Winkle claimed that the editor-publisher of the Washington Post, Edward McLean, had vowed that he "was going to close up the Bureau" and get rid of two of its officers, one of whom (Carolyn Harding Votaw) was a sister of then-Senator Warren G. Harding. In describing the context of those statements, she gave a suggestive account that involved divergent interests of McLean and the Bureau in the welfare of an unidentified young girl who she said was a material witness in a "white slave" trafficking investigation.[16] McLean later testified that his objection was that the Bureau had taken the girl from a hospital and was detaining her without charge. He denied that he had asked that anyone be fired (let alone the sister of a senator whom McLean considered a friend), but expressed his view that the Bureau was "rather a dangerous toy for a sincere woman to play with," referring to Van Winkle.[17]

From 1919 until the time of her death, she was president and chief financial contributor of the International Association of Policewomen.[1]

In 1922, a more senior officer in the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia charged Van Winkle with insubordination when she refused to release two teenage girls to the custody of two men purporting to be their fathers, because the men's identities had not yet been verified.[18][19] Her defense against the charge was highly publicized, and served to attract further publicity to the particular role of the Women's Bureau within the Department.

She died on January 16, 1933.[1]