Leading Ladies at the AGS

On the issue of gender the founders of the American Geographical Society were more prescient than were the framers of the U.S. Constitution. The latter document required an amendment to give women the right to vote, and a considerable body of opinion holds that full equality of women must be obtained by passage and acceptance of an equal-rights amendment. By contrast, the policy of the AGS founders articulated in the first statement of guidelines for the organization is still functional: Any person of good standing and character may be admitted a member of the society on being balloted for, and having a majority of the ballots (AGS 1851, 2). Over the years the AGS not only has adhered to the policy of gender openness for membership but also has expanded it to all aspects of institutional activities. A crucial divide occurred in 1915, when the AGS was reorganized into a research-producing organization and after which the involvement of women in leadership roles rose considerably. Before then women, few in number, participated in the lecture and publication activities but were employed only in supporting services. After 1915 women were conspicuous leaders in several ongoing AGS projects. In spite of the openness about gender as a criterion for membership, until 1915 the number of women who became members was small. Determining the gender of the membership from surviving records is not easy, but the data recorded by John K. Wright in his centennial history of the AGS are accessible to all interested readers (Wright 1951, 119). He listed the first woman elected to membership as Mrs. Francis Hallock in 1869 and stated that in 1893 only 9 of a total membership of some 1,400 were women. My survey of the records validates Wright;s findings. Many of those women were blood relatives or wives of male members, but it must be noted that a similar kinship pattern of membership is evident for some of the men. However disappointing women's lack of interest in geography and their failure to take advantage of the open policy may be to present-day observers, the pattern is understandable in the contemporary context. Membership in a geographical society lacked the social cachet that came from joining the groups sponsoring horse or dog shows. In those faraway days, geography chiefly meant exploring in strange and unknown places. For a woman to do so was considered unladylike, and she risked being branded as peculiar or eccentric. In addition to membership, women participated in the lecture and publication programs of the AGS. Again the numbers are small. In terms of the future direction of the Society, participation in the publication program was more meaningful than in the lecture series. Three women whose work in the Bulletin or Journal illustrates the pattern are Mary L. Jobe, Ellen Churchill Semple, and Martha K. Genthe. Jobe published two pieces on the Canadian Rockies in the 1915 volume of the Bulletin, the year of the crucial organizational transition (Jobe 1915a, 1915b; Gilmartin 1990). Her approach was in the exploration tradition, and the primary article was exemplary of the genre. Still, she was representative of the past, not the future, of the AGS, and she drifted from the AGS circle. Semple's role in the evolution of geography in the United States during the early twentieth century is so well known that I need not describe it here. Genthe is far less familiar, but as the twentieth century began she enjoyed sufficient status to be, with Semple, one of the two women founders of the Association of American Geographers (James and Martin 1978, 37-38). Genthe's first publication in the Bulletin was the longer of two tributes to Friedrich Ratzel that appeared shortly after his death. The shorter was by Semple. Given Semple's association with Ratzel's work, one would have expected the longer tribute from her and the shorter one from Genthe (Genthe 1904; Semple 1904b). Further articles by Genthe appeared in 1906, 1907, 1911, 1912, and 1913

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