Mrs. Conklin / Miss Louie Church: some things I learned about her life
Note: my research on women in brewing is ongoing, I’m writing a book, and these posts may be out of date. Please contact me at [email protected] if you have questions about women brewing in Oregon. ~Aug 3, 2021
I mentioned in my post on Marie Kienlen that I gotten into a bit of a research hole with Arthur and Louie Conklin. Part of what I was trying to figure out when searching for Conklin was whether he'd ever been involved in brewing, or whether he just owned the land.
You can remind yourself how I got here by reading this post: Marie T. Kienlen: Grants Pass Brewery, 1904-1908.
Marie and her husband Eugene purchased the property where their brewery was housed from Arthur Conklin in 1899, the same year that he was reported as the manager of the Oregon Mining newspaper.
There's no indication he was a brewer, but I couldn't let it go because I had to make sure. What if there was a surprising story to share and I missed it?
So I started to dig... And here’s all the stuff I found.
In 1901, Conklin was appointed delegate to the International Mining Congress in Boise. Also in 1901, he was listed as a speaker at a Baptist convention, and was identified as the Rogue River Baptist Association past chair and current treasurer. Clues that maybe he's not super involved in the alcohol trade, right?
The following year he was the Oregon Editorial Association president, and in 1903 he was at an Oregon editors gathering in Hood River - Abigail Scott Duniway was also there.
The Hood River glacier., October 29, 1903 p4
Why is this noteworthy? Scott Duniway was an American women's rights advocate, newspaper editor, and writer, whose efforts were instrumental in gaining voting rights for women.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abigail_Scott_Duniway
There's quite a well-documented link between temperance, suffrage, and Prohibition.
"Those who supported both suffrage and temperance in Oregon included many members of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.) and the Anti-saloon League."
However,
"not everyone who supported votes for women also supported temperance. Abigail Scott Duniway, a leader of the first wave of the Oregon woman suffrage campaigns, viewed the temperance movement as a hindrance to passing woman suffrage."
When I saw Scott Duniway's name I assumed this was a slam dunk against any association with alcohol, an irony I hoped to delight in when sharing this post.
Learn at Century of Action "Suffrage and Temperance: Differing Perspectives"
As is often the case with history and people, nothing is that simple.
Speaking of politics, not everyone was excited about the progressive movement towards equal rights. I included this 1904 quote in my Marie Kienlen post too, but it's worth a repost:
In 1904, Conklin got into some trouble. He was found guilty in libel case because he wrote about a man who swindled a woman; the sentence could have been jail time, but there's no indication in the papers that happened.
The next year I started to see Conklin's wife mentioned, though save one example, she was always referred to as Mrs. Conklin or Mrs. Arthur Conklin.
In 1905, the Conklins visited Ashland - there’s a nice adjacent article on hops.
Daily capital journal., January 28, 1905, p5
In 1905, Mrs. Conklin was actually named with her name (the singular time) in an article in a Salem paper; her maiden name was Louie Church and the article said she was from Salem.
I was delighted.
Armed with this name, Louie Church, I dove in deeper to the newspapers, hoping to find something more about Miss Church's background. But first I did some more grumbling about how hard it is to do research on women when they are always identified as Mrs. So and So.
{insert grumble face}
The first mention of Miss Church is in an September 1901 Morning Oregonian article. She started work at the School for the Blind in Salem, and I learned she was the daughter of the Superintendent for the School for the Blind in Lansing, Michigan. (Morning Oregonian., September 27, 1901, p2)
A month later there is another article, which says she’s a graduate of Oberlin and taught at a school for the blind for 6 years prior to being accepted to the faculty in Salem. (The Daily journal., October 21, 1901, p3)
And we get a picture, which you might notice is actually the first of a person in this series of posts.
Her 1902 trip to Crater Lake got LOTS of coverage, coverage that included a full page spread in the Oregonian. This isn’t entirely surprising, I suppose, since one of the trip participants was the Governor. In addition to lots of details about travel and receptions, this reporting also gives us an idea of the crowd she associated with. Here are some things for you to read, if you’d like...
http://bit.ly/2pJZqdF
http://bit.ly/2pE3mMW
http://bit.ly/2pEkOAM
Her social and political activities were reported on again in an article in 1904 about the Women's Club social, which was raising money for the Public Library Movement. (Daily capital journal., April 15, 1904, p5).
And later that year it’s just her personal life that gets the mention. Her wedding announcement is included in at least THREE papers.
The Sunday Oregonian., December 04, 1904, p23
It’s also in the Rogue River courier., November 17, 1904, P2 and The Oregon daily journal., December 04, 1904, P14. So yes, she married Arthur, and thereby lost her first name. It was replaced by Mrs. and Arthur.
He is described as a real estate dealer and news editor. It’s also noted that he’s well regarded in the community and that she's nice. So that's great. It’s unclear to me where they met or what they might have had in common. What’s also unclear to me is what she was going to do down in Grants Pass - because realistically she wouldn’t keep working, right, since teachers at this time were single women.
After that it’s all Mrs. Conklin... No Louie Conklin, college grad and professional woman. Most of the articles that follow were about him or them together.
By 1909, Arthur Conklin is talked about more in relation to property development than newspaper writing. He had a new building in downtown (1909) and leased it to CP Bishop for the Grants Pass branch of the Salem Woolen Mills store.
By 1911 he was trying to rent out a 24 room hotel he owned in Ashland.
The Sunday Oregonian., April 23, 1911, SECTION TWO, Page 18
In the classified ad, two local natatoriums and an annual meeting of Chautauqua there each summer are noted - are these clues to values/politics?
And what is Chautauqua, you might wonder?
I did, so I went to Wikipedia and learned that Chautauqua was an adult education movement in the US, which was highly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Their chapters expanded and spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s, and during that time they brought entertainment and culture to communities, including speakers, teachers, musicians, entertainers, preachers, and "specialists of the day." The popularity of the Chautauqua movement was attributed in part to the "social and geographic isolation of American farming and ranching communities. People in such areas would naturally be hungry for education, culture and entertainment, and the Chautauqua Movement was a timely response to that need in the late 19th century and early 20th century."
Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chautauqua -- it's quite cool.
At this same time, I found an article about Arthur being the owner of the "Vendome Property," which was "opposite the library" in Ashland. It was reported that this building was to be used for "the new school," which I *think* is now Southern Oregon University. So he owns a lot of property, and he travels regularly between Grants Pass and Ashland.
It's clear that by this time Louie was becoming more active in suffragist politics. August 1912, the Conklins attend a Park Club dinner given for them in Ashland by the Equal Suffrage League.
In September 1912, Mrs. Conklin was elected president Southern Equal Suffrage League.
The Sunday Oregonian., September 29, 1912, SECTION FIVE, p5
And we get another picture of her!
The Sunday Oregonian., September 29, 1912, SECTION FIVE, P8
There was a suffragist rally in October 1912, where Mrs. Conklin was speaker.
Medford mail tribune., October 31, 1912, SECOND EDITION, p1
And of course, that November Oregon votes for women to get the vote. The following year Mrs. Conklin was still active in the community. There was a movement to organize a district federation of clubs and she was appointed secretary. The last mention of them in the digitized newspaper database is in 1916, when they were both in Ashland; he's there for business affairs and she's there to attend the Federation convention.
Ashland tidings., May 01, 1916, p3
As I was concluding tis post, I thought a lot about who and what gets reported in the newspaper. The past three posts I've written on my search for more information about women in the brewing business have been pretty lean, which surprised me. I've taught a lot of library and archival research sessions for students, and I've always praised the newspapers for their view on the "common man," as a place where the stories and lives of the people who may not have ended up in archival collections at a university or historical society might be accessible. But I feel as though what I've learned with this woman, Louie Church, is that it really is the people who make the society page or do things that are "noteworthy" that end up with details about their lives for us to learn about so many years later.
What about Mary Allen, living in Monument, Oregon in 1900? With hints that she was involved in this industry in some meaningful way. But what of the record of her in the "public record," the news that goes to the people on her community and the communities in the little towns that surrounded Monument, Oregon? I didn't find a trace. Will I find a trace when I go to those places? Put myself in front of the county records? Maybe.
Who gets reported in the newspapers? Are the newspapers the great leveler?
And what of Louie Church? She married a land developer. She had advantages and she had connections. It's clear that she followed her independence and advocated for the rights of women through her involvement in suffrage. And I applaud her! As an Oregonian who was allowed to vote when I turned 18, in what turned out to be a fateful election for the fate of women politicians many years later (1992, Bill Clinton), I am so glad that there were privileged women who had a voice and a platform in their communities and in their newspapers.
At the same time, I learned WAY more about Louie Church before she was married. After the nuptials she was someone's wife. She literally lost her name. And as a historian looking for the stories of the lives of women, this is tough. Even independent women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were subsumed by their husband's identity.
In the public record of newspapers we lose them.
I suppose that's why we keep archives.