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Alice Locke Park

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Alice Locke Park
Born
Alice Elizabeth Locke

(1861-02-02)February 2, 1861
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedOctober 17, 1961(1961-10-17) (aged 100)
Palo Alto, California, U.S.
Spouse
Dean W. Park
​
​
(m. 1884; died 1909)​
Children2

Alice Elizabeth Locke Park (née Locke; February 2, 1861 – October 17, 1961)[1] was an American suffragist and a longtime defender of women's rights.[2] She served as associate director of the Susan B. Anthony Memorial Committee of California.[3]

Early life

"I am first and last a feminist."

— Alice Locke Park[2]

On February 2, 1861, Alice Elizabeth Locke was born in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1884, she married Dean W. Park; they had two children. Her husband died in 1909.[1]

Career

"Because war will interrupt the regular suffrage work, as war has for long done in other cases, is no reason why we should turn aside from our chosen work and take up other work."

— letter to Carrie Chapman Catt, Feb. 17, 1917[4]

In the late 1870s, Park became interested in the suffrage movement and attended conventions in Providence, Rhode Island in 1877 and 1879.[1] In 1894, she joined the International Feminist Movement.[1] Park became a pacifist in 1898.[1] She was also a socialist and a vegetarian.[5]

She framed two pieces of California state legislation: the 1909 California Bird and Arbor Day Act legislated the protection of trees and birds and established a day for school children to be instructed in these environmental issues; and the bill which ensured equal guardianship of minor children to both parents. In the 1910s, she was State Chairman of the Literature Committee of the Political Equality League.[6]

She was a member of the Women's Suffrage Association for 60 years. Once women's suffrage was legalized in California in 1911, she was a speaker at the Seventh Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in Budapest, Hungary, in 1913.[2]

In 1914, she declared: "I sympathize deeply with the tactics of the militants in London. I am tired of the English women being blamed for crudeness and for their violence. To them a great deal of credit is due for getting the votes for women in California, in giving publicity to the cause. If they did not destroy property and do things out of the ordinary, no one would pay any attention to them, and their action would be a pure loss."[7]

She quit the Unitarian society over its failure to oppose World War I. She was a Delegate to International Women's Congress for Peace and Freedom at the Hague in 1915; in 1915 she was a member of Ford Peace Ship; she was a leader of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). She founded Palo Alto Women's Peace Party in 1915.[2]

She protested Stanford University’s establishment of a female quota for women and battled for women's rights. In her homes (at 611 Gilman and 510 Hamilton streets in Palo Alto) she held meetings for a pacifist group called the American Union Against Militarism. This later became the American Civil Liberties Union.[8]

Animal rights

Park was a supporter of the Humanitarian League, a British animal rights organization, and visited schools to give talks on animals. She won the praise of the organization's founder Henry S. Salt for printing a card, in 1920, that stated: "Be Kind to Animals, For You Are One Yourself."[9]

Death and legacy

Park died on October 18, 1961, at her home in Palo Alto, California. She was 100 years old.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Katz, Sherry J. "Biographical Sketch of Alice Locke Park". In Dublin, Thomas; Sklar, Kathryn Kish (eds.). Online Biographical Dictionary of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the United States. Alexander Street.
  2. ^ a b c d e "Alice Park Taken by Death at 100 - 19 Oct 1961, Thu • Page 35". Oakland Tribune: 35. 1961. Retrieved December 15, 2017.
  3. ^ "Finding aid for Anthony Family Collection, 1844–1945". Huntington Digital Library. Archived from the original on August 18, 2017. Retrieved August 18, 2017.
  4. ^ Bolt, Christine (1993). The women's movements in the United States and Britain from the 1790s to the 1920s. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. p. 246. ISBN 9780870238673.
  5. ^ "Collection: Alice Locke Park Collected Papers". TriCollege Libraries. Retrieved October 29, 2021.
  6. ^ "21 Apr 1910, Thu • First Edition • Page 4". Los Angeles Herald: 4. 1910.
  7. ^ "Militants Owe Lives to Policemen - 07 Aug 1914, Fri • Page 7". The Bridgeport Times and Evening Farmer: 7. 1914. Retrieved December 15, 2017.
  8. ^ "Alice Park". U.S. National Park Service. Retrieved October 29, 2021.
  9. ^ Unti, Bernard (Summer 2017). "A Fresh Look at the Lathams" (PDF). The Latham Letter. Vol. 38, no. 3. pp. 8–9. Retrieved October 29, 2021.

Further reading

  • Winter, Una R. (1948). Alice Park of California: worker for woman suffrage and for children's rights. Upland, CA: Susan B. Anthony Memorial Committee of California.
  • Greenfeld, Paige J. (2003). Yours for Women and Peace: The Feminism of Alice Locke Park. San Diego State University.
  • Alice Park at Social Networks and Archival Context
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