Ruth Standish Baldwin

Ruth Standish Bowles Baldwin (December 5, 1865 – December 14, 1934) was an American suffragist and a co-founder of the National Urban League.

Ruth Standish Baldwin
An older white woman, wearing a white dress with a ribbon sash
Ruth Standish Baldwin at a parade in 1925; from a 1926 publication of Smith College
BornDecember 5, 1865
Ludlow, Massachusetts, United States
DiedDecember 14, 1934(1934-12-14) (aged 69)
New York City, United States
Known forCo-founder, National Urban League
SpouseWilliam Henry Baldwin Jr.
ParentSamuel Bowles III
RelativesChester B. Bowles (nephew); John Fulton Folinsbee (son-in-law); Samuel Bowles (grand-nephew)

Early life and education

Ruth Standish Bowles was born in Ludlow, Massachusetts, the daughter of journalist and abolitionist Samuel Bowles III and Mary Sanford Dwight Schermerhorn Bowles. Her parents were friends with poet Emily Dickinson and her family.[1][2] She graduated from Smith College in 1887.[3][4][5]

Career

In 1905, Baldwin joined with Frances Kellor, a social worker and attorney, to form the National League for the Protection of Colored Women in order to protect women migrating to the north who might be "easy targets for con men who could lead them into prostitution". The NLPCW organized to steer women into safe employment instead.[6] She founded the Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negros with George Edmund Haynes in 1910.[7][8] She wrote of the principles behind her work:

Let us work together, not as colored people, nor as white people, for the narrow benefit of any group alone, but together, as American citizens for the common good of our common city, our common country.[9]

From this work, Baldwin became a co-founder of the National Urban League, and chair of the league's board from 1913 to 1915.[10] She helped found Highlander Folk School at the end of her life.[3] She corresponded with Booker T. Washington.[11]

Baldwin was the first woman elected to a permanent position on the board of trustees at Smith College, serving on the board from 1906 to 1926. "The business of the College, transacted in the presence of a mind so clear and sympathies so ardent, undergoes a change," wrote a colleague at Smith. "To express at all what Mrs. Baldwin is and what she has given Smith College would require more space and more art than the present writer has at her command."[12]

Personal life and legacy

Bowles married railroad tycoon William Henry Baldwin Jr. in 1889.[13] They had two children, also named Ruth[14] and William.[15][16][17] Her daughter married artist John Fulton Folinsbee.[18] Her husband died in 1905,[19] and she died in 1934, at the age of 69, in New York.[9] The economist Samuel Bowles is her grand-nephew, son her her nephew Chester B. Bowles, who was notable as a governor of Connecticut and an ambassador. Ruth Standish Baldwin and George Haynes are honored as founders of the National Urban League with a plaque on the Extra Mile Path in Washington, D.C.[20]

References
  1. Dakin, M. R. "Samuel Bowles". Bowles-Hoar Family Papers, Amherst College. Retrieved March 8, 2023.
  2. Dakin, M. R. "Mary Bowles". Bowles-Hoar Family Papers, Amherst College. Retrieved March 8, 2023.
  3. Cutlip, Scott M. (November 5, 2013). The Unseen Power: Public Relations: A History. Routledge. p. 310. ISBN 9781136690006 – via Google Books.
  4. "The Smith Alumnae Quarterly". May 1, 2018 – via Google Books.
  5. Parris, Guichard; Brooks, Lester (1971). Blacks in the City: A History of the National Urban League. Little, Brown. p. 21.
  6. Moore, Jacqueline M. (2003). Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and the Struggle for Racial Uplift. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-8420-2994-0.
  7. "Michigan History". Michigan Department of State. May 1, 1976 – via Google Books.
  8. National Urban League, "National Urban League Celebrates Harlem, 'The Beating Heart Of Black Culture In America'" (March 7, 2023).
  9. "Founder of Nat'l Urban League Dies". The Pittsburgh Courier. December 22, 1934. p. 3. Retrieved March 8, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. Price, Hugh (March 27, 1997). "African-Americans shouldn't forget women's contributions to history". The Times. p. 6. Retrieved March 8, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. Washington, Booker T.; Harlan, Louis R. (November 1, 1984). Booker T. Washington Papers Volume 13: 1914-15. Assistant Editors, Susan Valenza and Sadie M. Harlan. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252011252 – via Google Books.
  12. "The Retirement of Mrs. Baldwin" Smith College Alumnae Quarterly (July 1926): 427-429. via Internet Archive
  13. "The Harvard Graduates' Magazine". Harvard Graduates' Magazine Association. May 1, 2018 – via Google Books.
  14. "Miss Ruth Standish Baldwin's Debut". Brooklyn Life. January 7, 1911. p. 21. Retrieved March 8, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. "Harvard College Class of 1885 Secretary's Report". Rockwell and Churchill Press. May 1, 2018 – via Google Books.
  16. "Miss Cecilia Brewster Engaged to Mr. William H. Baldwin 3d". Brooklyn Life. June 10, 1916. p. 12. Retrieved March 8, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. Goodman, George Jr. (May 20, 1980). "W.H. Baldwin Dead; Public Relations Aide, Urban League Leader; Arbitration Society Official Urban League President". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 8, 2023.
  18. "Miss Ruth Baldwin's Wedding". Brooklyn Life. September 12, 1914. p. 11. Retrieved March 8, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. "The Massachusetts Magazine: Devoted to Massachusetts History, Genealogy, Biography". Salem Press Company. May 1, 2018 – via Google Books.
  20. Dulman, Yael (October 10, 2022). "The Noble Women Honored at the Extra Mile Path in Washington, DC". WWP. Retrieved March 8, 2023.
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