March is Women’s History Month and the Capital District does not fall short of women to honor

By Don Rittner

March is Women’s History Month and the Capital District has plenty of women to recognize and honor.

Dr. Elizabeth Van Rensselaer Gillette, who was born in1874 at Granby, Connecticut, is considered to be the first women surgeon in Schenectady County. She began her practice on June 1, 1900 and it lasted almost six decades. She retired in 1959 at age 85.

Gillette lived and died in her home at the corner of Union and College Streets at the entrance to Schenectady’s historic stockade district. Her home was purchased by Schenectady county recently and is undergoing extensive renovations to become the city’s Visitor’s Center and offices for the county historian and Chamber of Commerce’s tourism office.

For a woman to become a medical doctor during the 19^th century was no small accomplishment. It took the 26-year-old Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910) to become the first woman to earn an M.D. degree from Geneva Medical College, on January 23, 1849. She went on blazing the trail for women and in 1857 she opened the New York Infirmary to serve poor women and children, and provided women opportunities to study medicine and nursing.

Blackwell’s medical degree did not go over well in medical circles and a letter in the February 21, 1849 Boston Medical and Surgical Journal condemned "the farce, enacted at the Geneva Medical College." The writer hoped that, "as this is the first case of the kind that has been perpetrated either in Europe or America, I hope, for the honor of humanity, that it will be the last." Most medical colleges agreed – many women like Elizabeth Gillette did not.

Gillette studied medicine at the New York Medical College and Hospital for Women, and received her license to practice in 1899, the year before moving to Schenectady.

Gillette also had politics in her blood. As a descendant of Thomas Rogers, a Mayflower passenger, and Connecticut’s Jewett family, doctors and politicians were part of life. One of Gillette’s relatives was General Chauncey Pettibone (1762-1814), a legislator in Connecticut who served 13 consecutive terms. Another was Governor (and preacher) Jonathan Trumbull, the only colonial governor to support the War for Independence. Trumbull was a close confidant of George Washington, and before making major decisions, Washington would often comment, "Let us consult Brother Jonathan.”

“Brother Jon” became the symbol for the fledgling unified colonies that became the United States, and for years, “Brother Jonathan” was usually depicted in cartoons as an American revolutionary with tri-cornered hat and long military jacket. Our own Troy-based “Uncle Sam” Wilson later replaced this American icon during the early 19^th century after the War of 1812.

Under the influence of Dr. George R. Lunn, preacher and mayor of Schenectady, Dr Gillette ran in 1919 for the New York State Assembly as a Democrat. She won by only 247 votes. She was the first woman in upstate New York to get elected to the legislature and considering that from 1920 to 1964 was the only democrat elected from Schenectady County, it was quite a rare victory.

Gillette’s one-year tenure in the Assembly came at a time of political turmoil. While she focused on legislation dealing with medical issues such as regulating certain drugs, or mandating physicals for children who work in factories, she could write laws, but as a woman could not actually vote for them in a general election. Women were not given the right to vote until the 19^th Amendment was passed on August 26, 1920.

Gillette also served during the period known as “The Red Scare.” In March 1919, the NY Legislature established the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate Seditious Activities (Lusk Committee) at the height of the Red Scare to investigate individuals and organizations deemed radical or subversive.

The Committee operated until May 1920, and watched closely the activities of suspected "radicals," as well as attended mass meetings, subpoenaed individuals and records, and even raided organizations and seized their files.

Women also played important roles on both sides of the investigation serving as "operators" or investigators for the Committee. They filed frequent reports on their clandestine observations. Investigations were conducted on feminists such as Emma Goldman, and women's organizations such as the Women's Trade Union League, and Women's Peace Party. Goldman was an influential and well-known anarchist and an early advocate of free speech, birth control, women’s equality and independence, and union organization. She spent two years in prison for her criticism of mandatory conscription of young men into the military during World War I and was deported in 1919. The Committee also compiled files dealing with birth control, collected leftist pamphlets, broadsides, and other literature, some of it by women.

During Gillette’s tenure, five Socialist Party Assemblymen were expelled from the legislative body on the grounds that membership in the Socialist Party constituted disloyalty to the United States. Ironic, since a few years earlier, Lunn was Schenectady’s socialist mayor.

The socialist assemblymen: August Claessens, Samuel A. De Witt, Samuel Orr, Charles Solomon, and Louis Waldman, along with the Socialist Party, tried to overturn the Assembly action and be seated as legally elected representatives of their respective assembly districts. The Socialist Party organized a special committee to raise funds and hold meetings on the case. The New York State Bar Association also appointed a special committee to plead for the seating of the disposed assemblymen. It was composed of Charles Evans Hughes, Ogden Mills, and Joseph Proskauer. These efforts were unsuccessful, however, as the Assembly refused to reverse its earlier decision.

Gillette was defeated in the next election by 4,585 votes to William W. Campbell, who ran on the Republican and prohibition line. It was a Republican sweep in the legislature, and she went back to practicing medicine at her home at 254 Union, although she continued to practice while serving in the legislature.

Dr. Gillette spent her final years working on her favorite causes that included the Schenectady Humane Society, the Schenectady County Historical Society, and the DAR. She died at her home on June 26^th, 1965. The restoration of her home will include an exhibit to her pioneering work.

Gillette’s simple philosophy can be summed up by one of her quotes from a newspaper interview where she advised women to: “Vote in every election, go to every political meeting possible, learn all you can about political affairs – and always be a lady.”

Don Rittner is the Schenectady County Historian.