Rheta Louise Childe Dorr (1868–1948) was an American journalist,
suffragist
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...
newspaper editor, writer, and political activist. Dorr is best remembered as one of the leading female
muckraking
The muckrakers were reform-minded journalists, writers, and photographers in the Progressive Era in the United States (1890s–1920s) who claimed to expose corruption and wrongdoing in established institutions, often through sensationalist publ ...
journalists of the
Progressive era
The Progressive Era (late 1890s – late 1910s) was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States focused on defeating corruption, monopoly, waste and inefficiency. The main themes ended during Am ...
and as the first editor of the influential newspaper, ''
The Suffragist
''The Suffragist'' was a weekly newspaper published by the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage in 1913 to advance the cause of women's suffrage. The publication was first envisioned as a small pamphlet by the Congressional Union (CU), a new ...
.''
Biography
Early years
Rheta Louise Child was born November 2, 1866, in
Omaha, Nebraska
Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...
. She was the second child in a family of four daughters and two sons born to the former Lucie Mitchell and Edward Payson Child, a New York-born druggist.
[Madelon Golden Schilpp and Sharon M. Murphy, ''Great Women of the Press.'' Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983; pg. 158.]
One night when she was just 12 years old, Child and her sister snuck out of the family home against their father's wishes to hear
Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony (born Susan Anthony; February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906) was an American social reformer and women's rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. Born into a Quaker family committed to s ...
and
Elizabeth Cady Stanton speak on
women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...
.
The experience proved to be transformative and Dorr became committed to the idea of voting as a fundamental right even at this early age.
Child studied for two years at the
University of Nebraska
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...
before moving in 1890 to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, where she worked as a journalist.
[Mari Jo Buhle, "Rheta Childe Dorr," in John D. Buenker and Edward R. Kantowicz (eds.), ''Historical Dictionary of the Progressive Era, 1890-1920.'' Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1988; pg. 119.] While in New York she met John Pixley Dorr, a conservative businessman from
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
.
[Schilpp and Murphy, ''Great Women of the Press,'' pg. 159.] The couple were married in 1892 and moved to Seattle to start a family.
Even after her marriage Rheta Dorr continued to work as a journalist, interviewing gold miners returning from Alaska writing articles for New York newspapers as a freelancer.
Conflict with her traditionalist husband grew and in 1898 the pair separated, with Rheta returning East with her two-year-old son, where she was forced to make her own way financially as a
single mother.
''New York Evening Post'' years
In 1902 Dorr went to work at the ''
New York Evening Post
The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com.
It was established i ...
,'' where she wrote investigative features and material on women's issues.
She made special investigations as a worker in factories, mills, and department stores in order to study the labor conditions for women and children.
Dorr bridled at the unequal treatment afforded women in the workplace. In 1927 she recalled of her time at the ''Evening Post:''
"Although I was a female, I had a man's ability to earn a very good living. I knew that because my services as a reporter and writer were sought by the then most distinguished newspaper in New York. It was a mark of ability to be asked to join the staff, a mark of special ability if you were a woman, because in those days very few women could get a job on a newspaper anywhere. Yet because of my sex I had to accept a salary hardly more than half that of any of my male colleagues. Moreover, I was given to understand that I could never hope for a raise. Women, the managing editor explained to me, were accidents in industry. They were tolerated because they were temporarily needed, but some day the ''status quo ante'' (woman's place is in the home) would be restored and the jobs would go back where they belonged, to the men."
She was eventually named the paper's "Women's Editor," but soon came to understand that she had run afoul of the paper's
glass ceiling
A glass ceiling is a metaphor usually applied to women, used to represent an invisible barrier that prevents a given demographic from rising beyond a certain level in a hierarchy.Federal Glass Ceiling Commission''Solid Investments: Making Full ...
; when she asked her managing editor what her future was with the paper, she was told she had none outside of her current position, ostensibly due to her radical political views which were outside those traditionally held by the paper.
[Agnes Hooper Gottlieb]
"The Reform Years at ''Hampton's:'' The Magazine Journalism of Rheta Childe Dorr, 1909-1912,"
''The Electronic Journal of Communication," vol. 4, nos. 2-4 (1994).
Political activism
![Dorr 4818632678 01ef878891 o](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Dorr_4818632678_01ef878891_o.jpg)
Dorr left the ''Evening Post'' in the summer of 1906 and traveled in Europe,
where she became even more interested in the growing international movement to grant the right to vote to women.
She continued this activity upon her return to America. Dorr wrote investigative features and gritty vignettes on the grim situation faced by urban working women for the short-lived reform periodical, ''Hampton's Broadway Magazine.'' Much of this journalism was collected in hard covers in 1910 as ''What Eight Million Women Want,'' a book which was regarded as influential in its day.
Dorr was briefly a member of the
Socialist Party of America and lived on the
Lower East Side of New York City, where she came into contract with the city's immigrant population and became acutely aware of the economic plight of the
working class
The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...
.
Dorr's political activity included picketing for striking workers in the garment industry and working with the
Women's Trade Union League
The Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) (1903–1950) was a U.S. organization of both working class and more well-off women to support the efforts of women to organize labor unions and to eliminate sweatshop conditions. The WTUL played an important ...
on behalf of social legislation such as the
minimum wage, the
8-hour day, and women's right to vote. Dorr's political efforts were instrumental on building the coalition of social reformers that forced the first major investigation by the
U.S. Bureau of Labor into the conditions faced by female workers.
In 1914 Dorr became the first editor of ''
The Suffragist
''The Suffragist'' was a weekly newspaper published by the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage in 1913 to advance the cause of women's suffrage. The publication was first envisioned as a small pamphlet by the Congressional Union (CU), a new ...
,'' official organ of the
Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage — the organizational forerunner of the
National Women's Party
The National Woman's Party (NWP) was an American women's political organization formed in 1916 to fight for women's suffrage. After achieving this goal with the 1920 adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the NW ...
.
European correspondent
Dorr dropped out of the Socialist Party over its opposition to
American entry into World War I
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, p ...
and her belief that the organization favored the "tyranny" of a German victory in the conflict.
[Dorr, "A Convert from Socialism," pg. 502.] Nevertheless, Dorr for a time retained a faith in the cause of
socialism
Socialism is a left-wing Economic ideology, economic philosophy and Political movement, movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to Private prop ...
, only abandoning her allegiance to that idea in the early 1920s, following her experiences in revolutionary Russia and
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
.
Dorr worked as a European correspondent for the ''
New York Evening Mail
The ''New York Evening Mail'' (1867–1924) was an American daily newspaper published in New York City. For a time the paper was the only evening newspaper to have a franchise in the Associated Press.
History Names
The paper was founded as th ...
,'' with her writing syndicated to numerous other papers. In addition to her journalism, Dorr wrote two popular books on the European situation, including an account of the overthrow of the regime of
Tsar Nicholas II
Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; spelled in pre-revolutionary script. ( 186817 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer,. was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Polan ...
entitled ''Inside the Russian Revolution,'' published in 1917, and ''The Soldier's Mother in France,'' published in 1918.
Dorr returned to
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, after the end of the war and planned to go on a tour of the United States to conduct research for a series of magazine articles.
["Mrs. R.C. Dorr Injured: In a Washington Hospital After Being Run Down by a Motor Cycle,"]
''The New York Times'', November 20, 1919. This plan was cut short, however, when in late in the night of November 18, 1919, Dorr was hit by a motorcycle and was hospitalized with a broken arm and other serious injuries.
The accident effectively ended the active period of Dorr's life, leaving a lasting impact on her memory and health.
[Schlipp and Murphy, ''Great Women of the Press,'' pg. 166.]
From 1920 Dorr became active in
Republican Party politics, working on the Presidential campaign of
Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most popular sitting U.S. presidents. A ...
and becoming a member of the
Women's National Republican Club
The Women's National Republican Club is the oldest private club for Republican women in the United States, and was founded by Henrietta Wells Livermore in 1921.The club grew out of the earlier women's suffrage movement in New York which led to the ...
.
Her personal politics became increasingly conservative in her later years.
She made several trips to Europe in an effort to regain her health, from which she wrote several articles for the American press as a foreign correspondent.
In 1922 Dorr assisted
Anna Vyrubova
Anna Alexandrovna Vyrubova (''née'' Taneyeva; russian: А́нна Алекса́ндровна Вы́рубова (Тане́ева)); 16 July 1884 – 20 July 1964) was a Russian Empire lady-in-waiting, the best friend and confidante of Tsarin ...
with the writing of her memoir, ''My Memories of the Russian Court.''
Thereafter Dorr wrote her own memoir, ''A Woman of Fifty,'' published in 1924.
Dorr moved from her autobiography to a biography of
Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony (born Susan Anthony; February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906) was an American social reformer and women's rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. Born into a Quaker family committed to s ...
, published in 1928, and completed her publishing activity in 1929 with a tome on the question of
prohibition
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol ...
.
[Schlipp and Murphy, ''Great Women of the Press,'' pg. 167.]
Death and legacy
Dorr had one son, Julian Childe Dorr, who was a United States Consul to Mexico during the Presidential administration of
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gr ...
.
["Rites for Julian C. Dorr: Ashes of Former Envoy to Mexico are Buried at Arlington,"]
''The New York Times'', Oct. 7, 1936. (Paywalled.) The former envoy died in
Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital city, capital and primate city, largest city of Mexico, and the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North Amer ...
on September 2, 1936.
Rheta Childe Dorr died in
New Britain, Pennsylvania
New Britain is a borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 3,152 at the 2010 census.
Geography
New Britain is located at (40.299256, -75.178224).
Natural features include Cooks Run and Neshaminy Creek.
Accordin ...
, on August 8, 1948. She was 81 years old at the time of her death.
See also
*
List of suffragists and suffragettes
This list of suffragists and suffragettes includes noted individuals active in the worldwide women's suffrage movement who have campaigned or strongly advocated for women's suffrage, the organisations which they formed or joined, and the public ...
Footnotes
Works
* ''The Thlinkets of Southeastern Alaska.'' With Frances Knapp. Chicago: Stone and Kimball, 1896.
* ''Breaking Into the Human Race.'' New York: National American Woman Suffrage Association,
. 1910
*
What Eight Million Women Want'' Boston: Small, Maynard & Co., 1910.
* "The Women Did It in Colorado: How the Colorado Women Learned to Vote and the Reforms They Have Worked with their Ballots,'' Hampton's Magazine, 1911.
*
Inside the Russian Revolution'' New York: Macmillan, 1917.
*
The Soldier's Mother in France'' Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1918.
* ''A Woman of Fifty.'' New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1924.
* "A Convert from Socialism," ''North American Review,'' vol. 224, whole no. 837 (Nov. 1927), pp. 498–504
In JSTOR
* "The Man Who Set Virginia One Hundred Years Ahead: An Interview with Governor Byrd," ''McClure's,'' vol. 60, no. 2 (Feb. 1928).
* ''Susan B. Anthony: The Woman Who Changed the Mind of a Nation.'' New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1928.
* ''Drink: Coercion or Control?'' New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1929.
Further reading
* Julia Edwards, ''Women of the World: The Great Foreign Correspondents.'' Ivy Books, 1988.
* Ishbel Ross, ''Ladies of the Press.'' New York: Harper, 1936.
* Judith Schwarz, ''Radical Feminists of Heterodoxy: Greenwich Village 1912-1940.'' Revised Edition. Norwich, VT: New Victoria Press, 1986.
External links
*
*
*
Swiftpapers.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dorr, Rheta Childe
1868 births
1948 deaths
Writers from Omaha, Nebraska
Newspaper people from Omaha, Nebraska
Members of the Socialist Party of America
American political writers
American suffragists
War correspondents of World War I
American feminist writers
American investigative journalists
National Woman's Party activists
The Suffragist people
American women non-fiction writers
Washington, D.C., Republicans