Mary Dewson
This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (January 2008) |
Mary W. Dewson | |
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BSW ) | |
Occupation | Social Security Board Member |
Mary Williams Dewson (1874–1962) was an American
Early life and education
Dewson was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, on February 18, 1874. She was the youngest of six children. Her mother, Elizabeth Weld Williams, and father, Edward Henry Dewson, lived in Roxbury when they had their first child, Francis Williams. After moving to Quincy, they had five more children: George Badger, William Inglee, Edward Henry Jr., Ellen Reed, and Mary Williams.[1][4]
Dewson's mother took on a domestic role and took care of the household during Dewson's childhood, while her father worked in the leather business.[1] Dewson was very athletic and played both baseball and tennis.[4] She was not concerned with her appearance, and preferred to play with "boy's" toys like paper soldiers instead of the traditional dolls made for young girls.[1]
She attended private schools, including
Career
Early career, 1897–1912
Shortly after graduating from Wellesley in 1897, Dewson began working as research assistant at the Women's Educational and Industrial Union, an organization that originated in Boston to advocate for the social advancement of women, women's education, and rights of women in the workforce.[1] Dewson was offered this job by Elizabeth Glendower Evans, a reformer from Boston and one of Dewson's mentors.[2] During her time at the WEIU, Dewson conducted statistical studies and reported on women's poor working conditions.[5] She also taught a course on household economics. The lack of reading material for the course inspired her to write and publish The Twentieth Century Expense Book (1899). It served as a basic guide to help American women budget a household and prioritize expenses.[1]
In 1900, Dewson joined the Massachusetts State Industrial School for Girls, located in Lancaster, Massachusetts. By 1904, she became the first superintendent of their parole department.[4] The school's goal was to rehabilitate young women delinquents, especially those who grew up in poverty.[1] Dewson put her efforts towards understanding the different factors that affect female crime and delinquency. She gathered statistical data and used this information to improve the rehabilitation process.[1] She wrote a paper titled "The Delinquent Girl on Parole" about her findings. She presented it in 1911 at the National Conference of Charities and Correction.[4]
Even before leaving the Industrial School (1912), she became involved in the minimum wage movement (1911). She was named executive secretary of the Minimum Wage Investigative Committee, which produced a report that led to Massachusetts' (and the nation's) first minimum wage law. This report brought her national recognition.
Suffrage movement
In 1913, she and her lifelong partner, Mary G. Porter, moved to a dairy farm in Worcester, Massachusetts. By 1915, however, Dewson had recharged her batteries; she entered the Massachusetts suffrage movement. During World War I, both she and Porter went with the American Red Cross to France to aid war refugees. Dewson was chief of the Mediterranean Zone by war's end. After returning from Europe, Dewson worked as Florence Kelley's principal assistant in the National Consumers' League campaign for state minimum wage laws for women and children. From 1925 to 1931, Dewson served as president of the New York Consumers' League, working closely with Eleanor Roosevelt (ER), leading the lobbying effort of the Women's Joint Legislative Conference and playing a central role in the passage of a 1930 New York law limiting women to forty-eight-hour work weeks. As president of the New York Consumers' League, Dewson worked and socialized with Frances Perkins and Clara Mortenson Beyer, both of would go on to work in the United States Department of Labor under President Roosevelt, and who played important roles in New Deal era labor economics.[6]
Mary W. Dewon started her career in Massachusetts reform and suffrage circles. In the 1920s in New York she was a civic secretary of the
She withdrew from the women's division's day-to-day affairs in 1936 because of poor health, but continued to be available to her successors. In 1937 she again returned to active public life when she was nominated and confirmed as a member of the Social Security Board. There she set up effective systems of federal-state cooperation, an issue that had been problematic. However, she again had to step down because of illness in 1938.
Personal life
For several years, she and Porter split their time between New York City and Castine, Maine. In 1952, they retired to Castine full-time. Dewson became the vice-president of the Maine Democratic Advisory Committee in 1954. Dewson died in Castine on October 21, 1962.
References
- "Social Security Board Members: Mary W. Dewson". United States Social Security Administration. Retrieved 2008-01-18.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Ware, Susan (1987). Partner and I: Molly Dewson, Feminism, and New Deal Politics. Yale University Press.
- ^ JSTOR 27778638.
- S2CID 144253797.
- ^ ISBN 9780674627338.
- ISBN 978-0-19-505705-8.
- ^ Barnes, B. (1990, September 27).Labor Expert Clara Beyer Dies at 98. Washington Post.
- JSTOR 23175310.
External links
- History of the Domestic Reform League
- Papers, 1893-1962. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
- Partner and I by Susan Ware