Ruth Hale (feminist)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ruth Hale (1887-1934) was a feminist leader in New York City who worked for women’s rights in the era before and after World War I. She was married to journalist Heywood Broun and was an associate of the Algonquin Round Table.

Hale was the founder of the Lucy Stone League, an organization whose motto was "My name is the symbol for my identity and must not be lost." A biographer termed Hale "nearly fanatical" about women’s rights. She attacked "head-on and without humor, except for mordant satire." Hale's cause led her to fight for women to be able to preserve their maiden name – legally – after marriage. She challenged in the courts any government edict that would not recognize a married woman by the name she chose to use.

Hale was born in Rogersville, Tennessee, in 1887. At age 13 she entered Hollins Institute (today Hollins University) in Roanoke, Virginia. Three years later she left to attend Drexel Academy of Fine Art (today Drexel University) in Philadelphia, where she studied painting and sculpture. But writing was her true calling.

When Hale was 18 she became a journalist in Washington, DC, writing for the Hearst syndicate. Hale was a sought-after writer and socialite, and attended parties at the White House when President Woodrow Wilson was in office. She worked at the Washington Post until she went back to Philadelphia to become drama critic for the Philadelphia Public Ledger. She also dabbled in sports writing, which was uncommon for women to do at the time. At an early age, Hale was working in a man’s world.

Hale moved to New York City about 1915 and was a feature writer for The New York Times, Vogue and Vanity Fair. Hale also did a bit of acting too.

She was introduced to Heywood Broun, a popular newspaper columnist and sportswriter, at a New York Giants baseball game at the Polo Grounds. They were married on June 6, 1917. When Broun was sent to France to report on the war, she went along too, writing for the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune.

In 1918 Hale gave birth to her only child, Heywood Hale Broun, in New York City.

Early in 1921 she took a stand with the U.S. State Department, demanding that she be issued a passport as Ruth Hale, not as Mrs. Heywood Broun. The government refused; no woman had been given a passport up until that time with her maiden name. She was unable to cut through the red tape, and the government issued her passport reading "Ruth Hale, also known as Mrs. Heywood Broun." She refused to accept the passport, and cancelled her trip to France. So did her husband.

In May 1921 she was believed to be the first married woman to be issued a real estate deed in her own name, for an apartment house on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Not long afterward, she was chosen president of the Lucy Stone League. Broun was among the men present, and supported his wife in her endeavors. Other Lucy Stoners were Jane Grant, wife of Harold Ross, the founder of The New Yorker, and Beatrice Kaufman, wife of playwright George S. Kaufman.

Hale and Broun bought a farm in Stamford, Connecticut, but resided in separate homes. She started to spend more time on women’s rights causes and less time in journalism.

In August 1927 Hale took a leading role in protesting the executions of anarchists and accused murderers Sacco and Vanzetti. She traveled to Boston as part of the defense committee, along with Dorothy Parker and John Dos Passos. The men were put to death over their fierce protests. The campaign had a galvanizing effect on her, leading her to fight against capital punishment.

During the 1920s and 1930s Hale continued to write and also worked as a theatrical press agent, while also a leading figure in New York’s writer’s community. With her husband, she was an associate of the Algonquin Round Table at the Algonquin Hotel. She reviewed books for the Brooklyn Eagle.

Hale and Broun were quietly divorced in Mexico, in November 1933. The pair remained close and continued to reside at the same property in Connecticut.

Ten months later, in September 1934, Hale came down with an intestinal fever at her home in Stamford. Broun rushed his former wife to Doctor’s Hospital on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, but it was too late. She died Sept. 18th at age 47.

[edit] Bibliography

Dale Kramer, Heywood Broun, a Biographical Portrait, New York: Current Books, 1949.
Heywood Hale Broun, Whose Little Boy Are You? New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983.
The New York Times, "Ruth Hale is Dead; Feminist Leader", September 19, 1934, page 19.