Emilie A. Doetsch (1882-1969)
MSA SC 3520-13708
Biography:
Born June 30, 1882, in Baltimore, Maryland. Daughter of Louis John Doetsch and Johanna (Pohl) Doetsch. Attended Zion School, Western High School, Goucher College, and Baltimore Law School. Never married. No children. Died in Baltimore on June 8, 1969. Buried at Greenmount Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland.
Emilie A. Doetsch graduated from the Baltimore Law School in June 1906, and on January 29, 1907, became the second woman admitted to the bar by the Maryland Court of Appeals. Due to limited opportunities for women in the legal profession, she worked as a reporter for the Baltimore News. While working at the News, Doetsch participated in the 19 day women's suffrage march from New York to Washington during February 1913, filing daily reports with the paper. Doetsch ran for a seat on the Baltimore City Council in May 1923, the first woman to do so. Running as a member of the Citizens Independent League, she finished seventh in her district, but received 8,000 votes, the most for any candidate of her party. The 1923 Baltimore Municpal election was marked by the largest turnout of women voters in Baltimore since the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. In a 1925 letter to her Goucher College classmates, Doestch reflected on the campaign, saying "someone had to make the break and, even if you fail, it serves notice on the political powers-that-be that women are emerging from their old indifference and that they mean to have their share in the running of the government...I hope, if any of the rest of you have a chance to run for public office, that you won't be scared, but will jump right in. Women are needed in politics, and college women in that respect have bigger responsibilities than others. And whatever the outcome, the experience is worth-while."
Mayor William F. Broening and City Solicitor A. Walter Kraus appointed Doetsch as Assitant City Solicitor in 1928. Doetsch became the first woman to hold a major post in Baltimore City government. In 1931, Democrat Howard W. Jackson took office as Mayor. Under pressure, Doetsch, a Republican, resigned as Assitant City Solicitor in 1932 and entered private practice, opening an office with Marie Prestman, a lawyer and member of the Maryland State Board of Motion Picture censors. The July 1930 Goucher College Alumnae Quarterly noted Doetsch was president of the Women's Bar Assocation of Maryland. In a September 1936 letter to her Goucher classmates, Doetsch noted the problems of maintaining a law practice, especially during the Depression. Following the death of her brother in January 1935, Doetsch found herself looking for a steady income to help support his family. She took over as librarian at the Times Herald in Washington, D.C., while keeping a law practice on the side. Also in 1935, she was a candidate for a vacancy on the bench of the Juvenile Court. Many supporters wrote letters to Governor Harry W. Nice. In 1948 and 1950, she appeared before the Maryland Court of Appeals as counsel for the appellant in Crawford v. Richards (197 Md. 289 and 193 Md. 236).
Doetsch remained politically active throughout her life. A member of the Maryland branch of the National Woman's Party, Doetsch served as managing editor of Equal Rights from 1932-1934. Although she never ran for public office again, she worked "with other Baltimore women to secure worthy political candidates for the less important positions." As she said, "After all...The bosses derive their power, not so much from the leading citizens as from the rank and file in the precincts. This is work that we older women, who have more leisure can do, and if we all pitched in, think what a contribution we could make to good government!" During the 1930s, she supported the admittance of girls to the all male Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. She said, "Girls should have every way in education that boys have. When authorities try to keep girls from getting a technical education on the grounds that it is such dirty work for girls to get under a car or work around machinery, they forget how dirty it is for women to scrub floors, polish furniture and clean kitchen stoves." (Despite Doetsch's efforts, girls were not admitted to Poly until 1974.) She also worked for automatic salary raises for all Baltimore city teachers, and for the inclusion of women on juries. The Winter 1969 Goucher College Alumnae Quarterly noted "Emilie Doetsch, in spite of her confinement to a chair - not even one with wheels - has kept up her interest in political news and reads things she passed over casually when she was young. That's the way to grow old - intelligently."
Emilie A. Doetsch died in Baltimore, Maryland on June 8, 1969, just shy of her 87th birthday. The Winter 1970 Goucher College Alumnae Quarterly contained the following tribute to Emilie:
In the recent death of Emilie Doetsch. Goucher has lost a distinguished graduate and loyal friend.She found her life work in years of service to the cause of women's rights in politics, industry, finance and the family. She was the reporter for the women's march from New York to Washington, which ended March 5, 1913, when the women marched up Pennsylvania Avenue to be received by President Wilson the day after his inauguration. The plea for suffrage was not answered by the states until 1920, when the amendment to the Consitution was adopted.
Emilie edited "Equal Rights" for several years, thus remaining at the center of the continuing struggle for justice to women in industry, in the professions, in property and family rights. The suffrage amendment did not remove all discrimination against women.
The story is that of a pioneer, for she was among the first women to receive a law diploma from Maryland U. when it absorbed the Baltimore Law School.; she was the first women to hold a high office of any kind in municipal affairs when she became assistant city solicitor under Mayor Broening. She was the first womam to run for office in Baltimore when she stood for a place on the Council from the Fifth District. A good showing but defeated.
Emilie served the class of 1903 all these years and will be sadly missed. We never thought of her as a militant suffragist, for she was a good listener - a model which some modern reformers might profitably follow. For she made converts; her reasonableness, so quiet and friendly, made friends who became converts. We like to remember her hospitable spirit, her serenity, and intellectual honesty, and her loyalties. This was our Emilie.
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