Alice K. Leopold

Alice Koller Leopold (May 9, 1906 – March 23, 1982) was an American politician, social activist, and government official. She served as Secretary of the State of Connecticut from 1951 to 1953 and as Director of the United States Women's Bureau from 1953 to 1961.

Early life and business career

Alice Koller was the daughter of E. Leonard Koller (1872-1953) and Leonora Edwards Koller (1881-1942). Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, she graduated from Goucher College in Towson, Maryland in 1927 having double-majored in English and economics. After a training course, she became an assistant buyer for Hutzler's, a major Baltimore department store. She soon advanced to being personnel director, first for the female employees and then for all employees. She was later personnel director for B. Altman and Company, a New York City department store.^[1]

In 1931, Koller married New York advertising executive Joseph Leopold and became a homemaker, raising the couple's two children, Robert (1934-2004) and John. While raising her sons she started a successful toy company based on designs she had made herself for places to park toy vehicles.

Political career

While her sons were in the

In November 1953 Leopold resigned to be director of the United States Women's Bureau, first as a recess appointment by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and then confirmed by the Senate in January 1954. Eisenhower probably replaced the previous director, Frieda S. Miller, in an effort to mute Women's Bureau opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment. Leopold focused the Bureau more on the problems of professional women and on women re-entering the workforce after raising children, as she had herself. In 1954 she was given the additional title of Assistant to the Secretary of Labor for Women's Affairs. In 1956 she persuaded Eisenhower to add a call for equal pay to his State of the Union address, and the call was repeated for the remainder of Eisenhower's administration.^[2]

In 1958, Leopold was given an honorary Doctor of Laws by Rutgers University.^[3] She received Rockford College's Jane Addams Medal in 1960, an award given to women who, like Addams, "are pioneers in their professions, outstanding in character, and recognized for their contributions to the arts, sciences, and society".^[4]

During the Nixon administration Leopold served on a Health Services Industry Committee which was intended to develop measures to reduce inflation in the health care industry.

Leopold died on March 23, 1982, at Alexandria Hospital in Alexandria, Virginia.^[6] Leopold is buried in the Chestnut Hill Cemetery in Glen Rock, Pennsylvania with her parents. Some of her papers are in the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University.^[7]

References