Month: September 2012

Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt – First Lady

Everything about Theodore Roosevelt was larger than life. He had an enormous amount of energy and approached everything with exuberance and enthusiasm, whether it was physical exercise, hunting, reading, charging up San Juan Hill, or continuing a speech while bleeding after an assassination attempt. He wasn’t particularly self-aware and often talked too much. In many ways he needed an anchor, someone who could bring him back to reality and be a grounding influence. Edith Carow was that person. They had an immensely satisfying marriage and she was the perfect counterpoint to Theodore’s outgoing, almost overwhelming personality. Edith also was a superb and well-liked First Lady of the United States.

Edith Kermit Carow was born in Norwich Connecticut on August 6, 1861 to Charles Carow and Gertrude Elizabeth Tyler Carow. Edith had impeccable social credentials; she could count an American Civil War general, two British Prime Ministers, and the famous preacher Jonathan Edwards as her ancestors. Her father worked in the family shipping company, but was not as successful as many of his colleagues; however, at the time Charles and Gertrude married, he was still relatively well off and they settled in Manhattan just a few blocks from his childhood friend Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.

Edith was born within a few weeks of Corinne Roosevelt, Theodore’s younger sister, and was friends with the children in the Roosevelt family almost from birth. She and Corinne considered themselves the best of friends as children, although the relationship became strained by the time Theodore became president. The Roosevelt children were taught at home by their Aunt Anna Bullard and Edith was included in the lessons. She was a quiet, serious, somewhat introverted child who loved to read. At 10, she attended Miss Comstock’s finishing school re-enforcing her strong moral sense and her love of literature. Although math and science were not part of her formal education, she loved nature and learned to identify many different varieties of flowers. Charles taught Edith and her sister Emily, her only sibling to survive infancy, sports and the local flora and fauna.

Edith (on the ground) with TR, Elliot, and Corrine

Whether from inability or lack of inclination, Edith’s father couldn’t seem to overcome the bad times that inevitably occurred in the shipping industry in the 19th century. He also struggled more and more with alcoholism as he got into his 30s, around the time he married and his children were born. In spite of his problems, Edith was very close to him and they shared interests in learning, literature, and the theater. As their financial circumstances worsened, the family had to depend on relatives more and more for money and sometimes a place to live. When Charles died in 1883, he left the family in reduced circumstances that eventually required a move to Europe where they could live more cheaply.

Although Edith was friends with all of the Roosevelt children, by her early teens she had developed a special friendship with Theodore, Teedie to the family, and they were often together during family outings on Oyster Bay during the summer. Even though she was 3 years younger, when Theodore went to Harvard she appeared often in his diary and visited him at school. During the summer between his first two years, however, there was a disagreement between the two of them that neither explained with the exception of a reference that Theodore made to the fact that they both had tempers. Whatever happened, the end result was that Edith disappeared from Theodore’s diary and at sometime in his junior year, he met and instantly fell in love with Alice Hathaway Lee. He and Alice were married in 1880, a few months after his graduation from Harvard.

In spite of, or perhaps because of, Edith’s home life, she had developed into a determined and confident young woman, although somewhat reticent and hard to get to know. If anyone thought that she would avoid Theodore and his new bride, they were mistaken. She went to the wedding and encountered them in other social situations without hesitation. She even gave Theodore a party when he was elected to the State Assembly in 1882. The situation was different however, when Alice died, on Valentine’s Day 1884 only two days after giving birth to their daughter, also named Alice. Both Theodore and Edith took pains to avoid each other. He was heartbroken and took off to the Badlands.

Alice Hathaway Lee around the time of her marriage to TR

Although Theodore had a strong aversion to second marriages and saw them as being disloyal to the first wife, a chance encounter brought him and Edith back together in the fall of 1885. Within a few months, they had rekindled their relationship and become secretly engaged. Edith’s family financial situation was such that they had decided to move to Europe and she felt that she had to get them settled prior to getting married, so after the move Theodore joined her in London and they were wed on December 2, 1886. The newlyweds took their honeymoon in France and then returned to the home which Theodore had built for his first wife at Oyster Bay, although he did change the name from Leeholm to Sagamore Hill.

Baby Alice was being raised by Theodore’s sister Anna, Bamie to the family, and they had become very attached. He really didn’t have much to do with the baby, and usually referred to her as Baby Lee rather than by the name Alice. Although Theodore had offered to leave the baby with Bamie, Edith wanted her to come live with them. Five more children were born within the next ten years, giving Edith a large brood of children to manage, plus Theodore. Edith seemed to take it all in stride.

Roosevelt Family in 1903 with Quentin on the left, TR, Ted, Jr., Archie, Alice, Kermit, Edith, and Ethel

Unlike some First Ladies, Edith wasn’t interested in politics, but she knew that it was the life that Theodore had chosen. At the Republican National Convention in 1900, she was hoping that someone else would be nominated for Vice President other than Theodore. She knew that he would be bored simply presiding over the Senate, but it was a good move for him. He had served as Civil Service Commissioner, Police Commissioner in New York City, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, the Rough Rider war hero “Colonel Roosevelt”, Governor of New York and Vice President was a logical next step. What neither of them could have known was that the job would be short-lived and he would find himself the President within a few months.

Edith was extremely organized in managing her household and handling the family finances. She carried these same skills into the White House and in many ways made it her own. She was the first First Lady to add a social secretary to the payroll; she oversaw the renovation of the White House, the building of the West Wing, and separating the private quarters from public offices. When the family moved into the White House in 1901 the children ranged in age from 4 to 17 and Edith wanted to make their lives as normal as possible. This included numerous pets from dogs and cats to Alice’s pet snake, horseback riding, lessons, debuts for Alice and Ethel, and Alice’s wedding in 1906. She handled all of it with a grace that impressed the staff and even the media. White House aide W. H. Crook said that she handled all of her duties “without losing health, strength, or the youthful, vivacious, charming presence that made her personality as remarkable as that of her husband.”

Even though Edith was known for her efficiency, she was a warm and caring person attuned to the feelings of others. During one social event at the White House, she noticed a young woman, whose family had met with financial problems requiring her to take a job as a sales clerk, being ignored. As the woman was about to leave, Edith caught her and led her to a sofa to engage her in conversation. But she was no doormat either. When writing to Ted, his oldest son, just before his marriage, Theodore said that “when necessary [Edith] pointed out where I was thoughtless and therefore inconsiderate and selfish, instead of submitting to it. Had she not done this it would in the end have made her life very much harder, and mine very much less happy.” Even Alice, who was not an easy child to raise, when writing about Edith in her autobiography Crowded Hours, wrote, “That I was the child of another marriage was a simple fact and made a situation that had to be coped with, and Mother coped with it with a fairness and charm and intelligence which she has to a greater degree than almost any one else I know.”

Edith lived a long life. After Theodore died in 1919, she traveled extensively and enjoyed her children and grandchildren. She never was completely free of politics. In 1936, she supported Alfred Landon against her husband’s “distant cousin” Franklin Delano Roosevelt, vehemently objecting when anyone tried to compare FDR to Theodore. Unfortunately, she also had to endure the sorrow of seeing three of her children die; one of whom suffered with alcoholism as her father had, ultimately committing suicide. When Edith died on September 30, 1948 at the age of 87, Life magazine called her “one of the strongest-minded and strongest-willed presidential wives who ever lived in the White House.”

Edith’s official White House portrait

Resources
Edith Kermit Roosevelt: Portrait of a First Lady by Sylvia Jukes Morris
The Roosevelt Women by Betty Boyd Caroli
Presidential Wives: An Anecdotal History by Paul F. Boller, Jr.
TR: The Last Romantic by H. W. Brands

Gertrude Belle Elion – Nobel Prize Winner in Medicine

Gertrude Belle Elion, unknown date, courtesy of the National Cancer Institute (source)
Gertrude Belle Elion, unknown date, courtesy of the National Cancer Institute (source)

“Acyclovir turned out to be different from any other compound Elion had ever seen. It is so similar to a compound needed by the herpes virus for reproduction that the virus is fooled. The virus enters normal cells and starts to make an enzyme that helps it reproduce. This enzyme activates Acyclovir and turns into something that is toxic to the virus. In short, Acyclovir makes the virus commit suicide.”

This is a quote from Sharon Bertsch McGrayne’s excellent book Nobel Prize Women in Science, which explains not only how one of the many compounds developed by Gertrude Belle Elion works, but also exemplifies her approach to research. She wanted to understand how the compounds were metabolized in the body and how they fought disease. Together with Dr. George Hitchings and a team of researchers at Burroughs Wellcome, she developed drugs that would change the lives of many people for the better, reducing suffering and extending lives.

Gertrude Belle Elion was born in New York City on January 23, 1918 to a Jewish immigrant family. Her father, Robert Elion, immigrated to the US from Lithuania when he was 12 and worked hard to graduate from New York University School of Dentistry in 1914. He was very successful, opening several dental offices, and investing in stocks and real estate. Her mother, Bertha Cohen, immigrated alone at the age of 14 to come live with older sisters who were already established. Bertha was 19 when she and Robert married, and although she never pursued higher education, she was a voracious reader who frequently read the books her children brought home from school. She came from an intellectual Russian Jewish family that valued education and knew how important it would be to her children’s futures.

When Gertrude, Trudy to the family, was six years old her brother Herbert was born. Shortly afterward, the family moved to the Bronx where they had a happy childhood. Before the move another person joined the family, her grandfather from Russia. His failing eyesight prevented him from continuing his profession as watchmaker, so after Herbert was born, he spent a great deal of time with Trudy forming a close bond. He was a Biblical scholar and spoke several languages; together they spoke Yiddish, and shared time in the park, the Bronx zoo, and music.

Trudy’s father was also a music lover, specifically the opera. He and Trudy often went to the Metropolitan Opera, a habit that Trudy would maintain for the rest of her life, flying to New York on weekends from North Carolina. Robert influenced her in another way. He was always planning imaginary trips using maps, train and bus schedules. After Trudy became successful, she began to travel, visiting many places in the world before her death in 1999.

Trudy was a successful student in high school, and when she graduated she entered Hunter College in 1933. She was a sponge for knowledge and enjoyed learning just about anything, but her decision to study science was made when she was 15 and watched her grandfather die painfully from stomach cancer. Trudy decided that no one should have to suffer as her grandfather had, so she wanted, if possible, to do something about it. Inspired as a girl by the life of Marie Curie and the book The Microbe Hunters by Paul DeKruif, she knew that she needed to study biology or chemistry, so she chose chemistry and graduated summa cum laude in 1937.

Robert Elion had lost most of his wealth in the crash of 1929, and although he still had his dental practice and loyal customers, there wasn’t much money for college. Hunter College, the women’s section of City College of New York, was free for those who could beat the fierce competition, but graduate school was a different story. Hunter was also an all-girl’s school, and Trudy had never really faced discrimination because of her gender. She placed many applications for fellowships and assistantships, but nothing came through. It was the Depression and there weren’t many jobs available, but there were none for women in fields that were dominated by men. In one eye-opening interview, she was told that she was qualified, but that they had never had a woman in the lab and they thought she would be a distraction!

Trudy’s mother had always encouraged her to have a career of some type, so she finally enrolled in secretarial school, but when she got the opportunity to teach biochemistry at the New York Hospital School of Nursing, she dropped out and took the job, even though it only lasted for 3 months. Finally, she met a chemist at a party and asked him if she could work in his lab as an assistant. He agreed, but couldn’t pay her anything to start. She was willing because it allowed her to continue learning and after a year and a half, she was making $20 a week and had saved enough living at home for one year of graduate school.

In the fall of 1939, Trudy entered New York University with money for one year’s tuition. She worked part-time as a receptionist and took education classes that allowed her to substitute teach in the public schools. In 1941, Trudy completed her Master’s Degree in Chemistry and began the task of looking for the perfect job. Her focus was always to look for jobs that would allow her to learn and get closer to her goal of working in medical research.

When WWII began, the demand for women increased in laboratories across the country. Trudy got a job in a laboratory doing quality control work for the A&P grocery chain. Always concerned with learning new things, when she felt she had learned as much as she could, she applied to an employment agency for research jobs. For about six months, she worked for a Johnson & Johnson lab until it was disbanded. Having gained the experience she needed, she then had a number of jobs to choose from, but was most intrigued by a job as an assistant to George Hitchings working for Burroughs Wellcome.

She found out about the job when her father asked her what she knew about the company after they sent some sample painkillers to his dental office. She decided to call and ask if they had a research lab and a job opening. She and Hitchings were a good match. He explained that he didn’t like the traditional trial and error method of drug research. He was also content to let her learn at her own pace and move from one area to another to satisfy her thirst for knowledge. While she had moved on from other jobs because she felt she had learned all she could, she never moved on from Burroughs Wellcome (now GlaxoSmithKline.) There was always something new to learn and she had the freedom to do it there. But more importantly, they began to make a difference in people’s lives.

Although Trudy started as Dr. Hitchings assistant, within two years she was publishing her own papers under his guidance and by the mid 1960s she had developed a reputation apart from Hitchings. This was in spite of not having a Ph.D. For two years, she worked on a Ph.D. at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute until the dean told her that she would have to quit her job and work full time on her degree. She wasn’t willing to quit her job, so she quit school. It was an agonizing choice to make, but she knew that she had the potential to make a difference where she was, so she stayed.

Her faith in the job paid off. In 1950, Elion synthesized two cancer treatments for leukemia. Both of these drugs are still used today and when combined with other drugs result in close to an 80% cure rate. One of these drugs, referred to as 6-MP, was found to suppress the immune system in rabbits. Reading about the rabbits, a British surgeon tried 6-MP in dogs with kidney transplants and found that it extended their lives. He contacted Elion and asked if they had similar compounds that he could try which might be more effective. One of these, later marketed as Imuran, proved to be very effective in suppressing the immune system and since 1962 has been given to most of the kidney transplant patients in the US.

But what Elion called her “final jewel” was Acyclovir. Prior to its unveiling in 1978, there hadn’t been much research done on viruses. It was assumed that any compound toxic enough to kill a virus would also be extremely toxic to normal cells. Because Acyclovir was so selective to the herpes virus, it was very nontoxic to normal cells. Not only was it a break through in treating herpes, but it was a break through in virus research, opening the doors to many new possibilities including treatments for AIDS.

The intervening years had brought life changes for Trudy as well. In 1941, she had been planning to get married to a brilliant young statistician named Leonard. He fell ill with a strep infection, bacterial endocarditis, and died, just a few years before penicillin became available. Her mother also died of cervical cancer in 1956. Both of these losses served to intensify Trudy’s drive to continue in her research.

In 1970, the company moved its research facility to the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. For a life long NYC resident this was quite a change. She adjusted well however, and it was here that she received the call in 1988 from a reporter telling her she had received the Nobel Prize together with Dr. Hitchings, and Sir James W. Black. She had already retired in 1983, but had remained in a consulting position. Winning the prize gave her a visibility that she had not had along with opportunities to contribute in many other ways.

In spite of the accolades that eventually came her way, what always meant the most to Trudy were the letters and handshakes she got from people who wanted to tell her how her discoveries had changed their lives. Although she never met anyone that could take Leonard’s place and never married, she loved her work, opera, traveling, and had loving relationships with her brother and his family. Gertrude Belle Elion lived a full and rewarding life and died in her sleep at her home in North Carolina on February 21, 1999, with a folder full of letters from people whose lives she had touched and whose lives she had helped save.

Resources
Nobel Prize Women in Science by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne
Academy of Achievement – A Museum of Living History
First Woman elected to the national inventor’s hall of fame 1991 (New York Times)

Read about other Famous Women in Math and Science

Alice Paul – The Final Stretch for Women’s Suffrage

Alice Paul around 1901

During the second half of the 19th century, the two primary women’s suffrage organizations led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (National Woman Suffrage Association), and Lucy Stone (American Woman Suffrage Association) were working on two different approaches: a Constitutional Amendment, and state-by-state legislation giving women the vote. There was little progress on either front by the time the two organizations joined in 1890 to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA.) By 1900, only four western states had given women full suffrage, and the Constitutional Amendment that Susan B. Anthony had championed was not the preferred approach of most of the women’s leaders. Introduced in 1872, it had only been brought up for a vote one time in 1878 in spite of the fact that Anthony and others addressed the House Committee every year. Although a few more states had given the women the vote when Alice Paul returned from her studies in England, she was convinced that the only way to proceed was to push for the Amendment, and she was determined to do her part.

Alice Stokes Paul was born January 11, 1885 to William and Tacie Paul. They were Hicksite Quakers who led simple lives and had a strong heritage of activism and education for women. William was the seventh generation descended from Philip Paul who fled religious persecution in England and established Paulsboro, New Jersey. Alice’s maternal great-grandfather, Charles Stokes, was active in politics and a supporter of abolitionist and women’s suffrage causes. Her maternal grandfather, William Parry, believing in educating women, established Swarthmore College as a co-educational experiment and Alice’s mother Tacie was one of its first female graduates.

Photograph. Britannica Online for Kids

William Paul was a banker and owned a modest working farm. Together they gave the family a comfortable life and provided Alice and her three siblings, Helen, Parry, and William, the opportunity for an excellent education. As a child, Alice read every book in the house as well as the school library, and when she entered Swarthmore in 1901, she studied biology because it was the one subject she hadn’t studied in school. Intellectual curiosity about a subject, however, didn’t make for a good major, so at the advice of a professor, she switched and graduated with a degree in social work.

Alice was definitely academically gifted and in spite of her family heritage, had no real intention of being an activist. No one else would have expected it of her either. On her return from England after getting involved with the British suffrage movement, her mother was quoted in the New York Times (Nov. 13, 1909) as saying, “I cannot understand how this all came about, Alice is such a mild-mannered girl.” But after graduation, Alice had taken a job in the New York College settlement house. She quickly came to the conclusion that she didn’t want to just work to alleviate the suffering of individuals; she wanted to work to change the conditions that led to their suffering. In order to work within the system and help change the social conditions that prevailed at the time, Alice decided to continue her academic career and enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania to study sociology.  She eventually received an MA and PhD through the University of Pennsylvania, and ultimately an LLB, LLM, and a Doctorate in Civil Law. But before completing these accomplishments, she took a “slight” detour into the real world of activism in England.

Her life-changing trip to England began in 1907 with a scholarship to Woodbrooke, a Friends institution in Birmingham. While there, she also became the first woman to enroll in the commerce department at the University of Birmingham to study economics. This is where she first heard Christabel Pankhurst speak about women’s suffrage. Christabel and her mother Emmeline Pankhurst weren’t in the business of asking men politely to give women the vote. For the previous two years, they had been agitating and getting arrested to raise awareness for the need for women’s suffrage. The press had dubbed them “suffragettes”, to distinguish them from the more “socially acceptable” suffragists, using the diminutive “ette” to insult them. Their motto was “Deeds, not Words” and they wore the suffragette badge with pride.

Alice was a petite, delicate even fragile looking woman. She said herself that she was “not very brave,” and had a fear of public speaking. Nevertheless, once she had been “converted to the cause” she met each fear and challenge. She began simply by marching with the women, but quickly took on other activities. She was a “newsie”, passing out the organization’s paper Votes for Women; she was promoted to street corner speaker; and she eventually was invited to participate in a march on the House of Commons. This invitation came with a warning that they might be arrested, and that she shouldn’t agree to participate unless she was willing to accept that consequence. She accepted.

The women in the Pankhurst organization, the WSPU (Women’s Social and Political Union), had been getting arrested for a couple of years at this point. They would ask to be treated as political prisoners. When this request was denied, they would often go on hunger strikes. This ultimately resulted in force feedings. It was a horrible procedure that consisted of being held or tied down and having a tube thrust into a nostril and down their throat. It was brutal and extremely painful.

When Alice was arrested and force fed, she asked her suffrage sisters not to release her name to the media, so as not to worry her mother, but the word got out and it served to greatly increase Tacie’s concern for her daughter. Eventually, Alice decided that she needed to return home, for the sake of her family and to finish her education. She may have underestimated her fame in the US. When she returned, she found that she was in great demand as a speaker, but she had other goals as well. She joined the National, as NAWSA was called, and became the chairman of its Congressional Committee.

Her first major task was to organize a parade in Washington, D.C. for March 3, 1913, the day before Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration as President. The parade was her idea and she was completely responsible for organizing and raising funds. She contacted Lucy Burns, an American woman she had met during the protests in England, and formed a small committee. This was a monumental undertaking that deserves its own narrative, but suffice it to say that the city had never seen anything like it. She negotiated many controversies, disagreements, obstruction from authorities, and the press. Ultimately, women from all over the country and from all walks of life were represented. Wilson had tried to avoid the issue, but was privately against women’s suffrage. The parade made the statement in a big way that the issue and the women, were not going away.

At first Alice believed that the radical methods used in Britain would not be needed in America, but little progress was being made and she wanted to increase the pressure. There were disagreements about tactics within NAWSA, whose conservative leaders had always been a little wary of Alice, so she finally broke from them in 1916 and formed the National Woman’s Party (NWP.) Through the NWP, she began introducing some of the methods used by the Pankhursts. One of their goals was to shame President Wilson into supporting the suffrage movement. They picketed the White House over the next two years in all types of weather, amusing, confounding and finally angering the authorities. The picketers, including Alice, were arrested, incarcerated in workhouses, and force fed. At one point Alice was confined to a psychiatric ward, but the doctor would not be complicit; his report stated that she was perfectly sane.

The pressure finally worked. In January of 1918, President Wilson spoke to Congress and urged them to pass the Nineteenth Amendment for women’s suffrage. The rest as they say is history. In June of 1919, the Amendment passed both houses of Congress, and finally in August of 1920, it was ratified by the 36th state and signed into law on August 26, 1920.

Many women considered the fight over and resumed their lives, but Alice had a broader vision. She went on to write and campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment. Unlike the people who originally wrote the suffrage amendment, Alice was alive to see the ERA pass the Congress in 1972. Unfortunately, only 35 of the required 38 states ratified the amendment before the deadline passed. After suffering a stroke in 1974, Alice Paul died in 1977. No other states ratified the ERA after her death.

I haven’t read all the sources about Alice Paul, but from what I have read, including reviews of other sources, not much has been said about her as a person, her personality, her leisure activities, etc. She doesn’t seem to have had close personal friends. There is an occasional mention of a male companion for dinner or a lecture, but no continuing relationships. Even her letters to and from Lucy Burns are started with “Miss Paul” and “Miss Burns.”  It could be that she was just very private about those aspects of her life, but I’m inclined to think that perhaps this quote from Alice herself explains it best.

“My feeling about our movement, you see, is that it is so pregnant with possibilities that it is worth sacrificing everything for, leisure, money, reputation and even our lives. I know that most people do not feel this way about it but since I do you can see that it cost me a pang to think of anyone abandoning suffrage for any other work.”
~ Alice Paul in a letter to someone preparing to leave the movement.

Resources
Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists by Jean H. Baker
A Woman’s Crusade: Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot by Mary Walton

Visit the homepage of the Alice Paul Institute which was established in 1984 to “commemorate the centennial of Alice Paul’s 1885 birth and to further her legacy.” (Note: This does not imply any endorsement of me or my post by them, it’s just for your information.)