Helen Tufts Bailie (January 9, 1874 – May 1962) was a social reformer and activist. Tufts is known as outing the

Daughters of the Revolution The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) is a lineage-based membership service organization for women who are directly descended from a person involved in the United States' efforts towards independence. A non-profit group, they promote ...

for having a blacklist about individuals and organizations, in 1928. This controversy led Tufts to be banned from the organization and to become an advocate for women's, labor, and social rights.

Early life

Helen Matilda Tufts was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1874. Her father was a Unitarian minister and her mother was a suffragist. In 1875, the family moved to Massachusetts, where Helen graduated from Cotting High School in Lexington in 1892. After graduation, she worked as a proofreader and typesetter at Riverside Press. She then moved on to be a secretary at Houghton Mifflin in Boston. In April 1895 she met Helena Born, a writer,

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...

, and

labor organizer A union organizer (or union organiser in Commonwealth spelling) is a specific type of trade union member (often elected) or an appointed union official. A majority of unions appoint rather than elect their organizers. In some unions, the orga ...

. Born became a major influence on Tufts' lifestyle and activities; Tufts became vegetarian, acquired an interest in the writing of Walt Whitman, and became active in dress reform, anarchism, communism, and socialism.

Daughters of the American Revolution

In 1915 Tufts joined the Anne Adams Tufts chapter of the

Daughters of the American Revolution The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) is a lineage-based membership service organization for women who are directly descended from a person involved in the United States' efforts towards independence. A non-profit group, they promote ...

(DAR). In 1927 she discovered that the DAR maintained lists of "doubtful speakers." These lists included the organizations such as the

National Federation of Women's Clubs The General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC), founded in 1890 during the Progressive Movement, is a federation of over 3,000 women's clubs in the United States which promote civic improvements through volunteer service. Many of its activities ...

, the American Peace Society, and individuals like Jane Addams, William Allen White and Mary Wooley. After investigating, she made the lists public in February 1928. In March 1928 she wrote a pamphlet called
Our Threatened Heritage
to protest the blacklists. Fifteen DAR members, called the Committee on Protest and headed by Bailie, signed the pamphlet and helped to distribute it throughout the United States. Both members and officers of three greater Boston area chapters were involved in the group. At the annual DAR Congress in Washington, D.C., Tufts was accused of "disturbing the harmony" of the DAR organization and harming its reputation, after the pamphlet distributions and her persistence pushing for an explanation about the blacklists. One year later she failed to appeal for reinstatement in DAR.

Later life

After Tufts struggles with DAR and the blacklisting controversy, she continued to be active in the early women's movement and social movements. She formed a letter writing campaign to legalize

birth control Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth contr ...

and in 1935, Tufts organized a campaign against legislation requiring Massachusetts teachers to take an oath affirming the United States and state constitutions. In 1947, Tufts and Bailie moved to

Nantucket Nantucket () is an island about south from Cape Cod. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck and Muskeget, it constitutes the Town and County of Nantucket, a combined county/town government that is part of the U.S. state of Massachuse ...

. The couple moved again in 1954 due to Tufts deteriorating eyesight and Bailie's

Alzheimer Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As t ...

-like symptoms, moving to Yellow Springs, Ohio to live with their daughter and her husband, Water Jolly. In 1956 Tufts book, ''Darling Daughter'', a satire about the DAR blacklists and the

red scare A Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state. The term is most often used to refer to two periods in the history of the United States which ar ...

, was published.

Personal life

Through Born, Tufts met William Bailie, originally from Belfast, who lived in and owned a vegetarian restaurant co-op. Born and Bailie were romantically involved. In January 1901 Born was diagnosed with uterine cancer and died later that month. Bailie and Tufts lived together starting in the fall of 1901, and in October 1908 the two married. Bailie started a basket weaving business, which he ran until his retirement in 1946. The couple had two children: daughter Helena Isabel, born in 1914, and son Terrill (nicknamed Sonny), born in 1916. The latter died of spinal meningitis at age 3.

Death

In May 1957 William Bailie died in a nursing home. Tufts moved to Miami, Florida in 1958 and later to

Ft. Lauderdale Fort Lauderdale () is a coastal city located in the U.S. state of Florida, north of Miami along the Atlantic Ocean. It is the county seat of and largest city in Broward County with a population of 182,760 at the 2020 census, making it the tenth ...

. She died in 1962.

In popular culture

Sheila Rowbotham's ''Rebel Crossings: New Women, Free Lovers, and Radicals in Britain and the United States'' is an account of the activist life of Tufts, along with William Bailie (her husband), Helena Born, Miriam Daniell, Gertrude Dix, and Robert Nicol.

Works

* ''Darling Daughter: A Satire'' (1956) New York: Greenwich Book Publishers * ''Perverted Patriotism: A Story of D.A.R. Stewardship'' (1929) Cambridge, Mass. * ''Our Threatened Heritage: A Letter to the Daughters of the American Revolution'' (1928) Cambridge, Mass.: D.A.R. Committee of Protest

References

External links

Tufts letter "Our Threatened Heritage" written in 1928
and directed towards the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Helen Tufts Bailie papers
at the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Special Collections
Daughters of the American Revolution Blacklist Controversy papers
at the Online Archive of California {{DEFAULTSORT:Bailie 1874 births 1962 deaths 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American women writers American anarchists American birth control activists American political writers American social reformers American women non-fiction writers American women's rights activists Anarcho-communists Communist women writers Daughters of the American Revolution people American feminist writers People from Boston People from Fort Lauderdale, Florida Writers from Newark, New Jersey