League of Women Voters

During the 1950s, the League became absorbed with the implications of the “baby boom” on the state's infrastructure and resources. In 1955, concerned with the effects of low rainfall combined with the growth of population and industry, the League began to study how to develop an adequate water supply for all New Jersey residents, working for the passage of the Water Bond Referendum in 1958. In 1952, the League supported a bond issue for expansion of the state colleges, and in 1956, supported the Capital Foundation Program for the state-local sharing of the cost of school construction. Beginning in 1945, the League endorsed equalization of the tax burden, proposing a broad-based tax system, while opposing piecemeal taxation and excessive property taxes.

Trenton social worker and community activist Jessamine Merrill (1905-1996) served as president of the League of Women Voters of New Jersey from 1951 to 1956. Here she accepts the gavel of office from her predecessor, Grace Hopkins.

One of the most important roles of the League of Women Voters is non-partisan political education. In 1920, after women received the vote, the League sought to educate women for their new role by setting up “citizenship schools,” which were maintained throughout the decade. The League sponsored registration drives, conducted house-to-house canvassing, and distributed information to election workers and citizens. As shown by this questionnaire, the League also became concerned with the political education of recent immigrants, who thronged New Jersey's cities during this period.

In 1954, the president of the League of Women Voters of the United States launched a nationwide discussion program on individual liberties, known as the Freedom Agenda. As part of this program, local leagues prepared pamphlets on the Bill of Rights, freedom of speech, and other topics. The League conceived this program in response to the Congressional investigations of the period, which it feared were compromising the principles of freedom of expression and freedom of education. The Freedom Agenda itself was criticized by the Un-American Activities Committee of the Westchester, New York American Legion, who accused the League of attempting to show that communism was non-existent. The State and a few local leagues in New Jersey were also attacked during this period. In 1949, Felix Wittmer, a history professor at Montclair State College, claimed that the League was being infiltrated by communists. However, as had been the case with similar attacks during the Red Scare of the 1920s, these accusations seemed to have little impact.

Louise Steelman of Montclair served as chairman of the League's Committee on the Legal Status of Women, founded in 1927. This committee was charged “to secure for women a larger freedom and a true equality with men before the law.” It studied marriage and divorce laws, property rights, women's employment, the care of women offenders and many other issues. In the mid-1930s, Steelman led a campaign to secure full equality for women in jury service. Although women were legally entitled to serve on all jury panels, a League survey revealed that a few counties (particularly Essex, Mrs. Steelman's home) did not include women on their jury lists. In conjunction with Federal Judge William Clark, Steelman arranged for jury schools to train citizens and promote women's participation in juries. In 1937, Clark appointed Steelman as the first woman Jury Commissioner in the country.