Fair Connections: Women's Separatism and the Lewis and Clark Exposition of 1905

Abstract

DEBORAH M. OLSEN Fair Connections Women sSeparatismand the Lewis andClark Exposition 0/1905 "THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE, MANY ofwhom stood inthehot sunfor hours," gathered at 2:00 p.m. on July6,1905, on Lakeview Terrace by the Columbia Court of the Lewis and Clark Centennial and American Pacific Exposition and Oriental Fair inPortland, Oregon. The crowds had arrived to witness the unveiling of a bronze statue of Sacajawea, the Shoshone woman recently popularizedbyEva EmeryDye inTheConquest:TheTrueStory of Lewis and Clark.1 Visitors who flocked to the celebration made attendance that day one of the largest since the fair's opening day. Speakers at the event? which followed by one day the official closing of the thirty-seventh annual convention of theNational American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) in Portland ? included Abigail Scott Duniway, Oregon's own suffragist, and Susan B. Anthony, legendary leader of thewoman suffrage movement. Regional press coverage of both the NAWSA convention and the Sacajawea statue unveiling was extensive and positive, illustrating the success of Oregon clubwomen's leadership and networking. During the years and months preceding the opening of the Lewis and Clark Exposition, Oregon women sought tomodify theirpractice ofwomen's separatism, a long-standing tradition ofwomen's organizations in the nine teenth and early-twentieth centuries, and to use their experience and exper tisewithin the new model of integration ? that is, towork collaboratively with male organizers of the fair.Many Oregon women were experienced in organizing and financing world's fairs. EdythWeatherred had served as commissioner fromOregon for theworld's fairs inBuffalo and in St. Louis, for example, and Oregonian Mary Phelps Montgomery ? daughter of formerMissouri Governor John Phelps and member of the Board of Lady Managers for the 1904 St. Louis Louisiana Purchase Exposition ? had spent sixweeks in Washington, D.C., lobbying for a loan fromCongress for the St. 174 OHQ vol. 109, no. 2 ? 2008 Oregon Historical Society Suffragesupporters gather in front of the Oregon Building at theLewis and Clark Centennial Exposition. A receptionwas held inhonor ofSusan B. Anthony (center), following theJune30,1905,fairground session of the National American Woman Suffrage Association's thirty-seventh annual convention inPortland. Louis fair. She was well connected and would later secure an appropriation of $35,000 from the state ofMissouri for the Lewis and Clark Exposition.2 When women's efforts towork with the all-male organizers of the Portland world's fair foundered, Oregon women fellback on the skills theyknew best and developed an expanded, modernized version of female separatism. Since the 1876Centennial Exposition inPhiladelphia, American women had often sought to highlight women's work and women's issues atworld's fairs through a separate Board of Lady Managers and a separate women's building featuring women's exhibits.3 In 1904, one year prior to the Lewis and Clark Exposition, however, male and female organizers at the St. Louis Exposition embraced a new model that sought to highlight women's con tributions by integrating women's work throughout the fair.The women's building therewas used only for administrative and social functions and contained no women's exhibits, and the fair'sBoard of Lady Managers served only as an extension of themale organization.4 Although Oregon women were unable to secure support from the Lewis and Clark Exposition's male board of directors for either awomen's building Olsen,Women's Separatism and theLewis and Clark Exposition of 1905 175 or a Board of Lady Managers, they successfully focused fairgoers' attention on two separate but related women's projects: the national suffrage convention and the Sacajawea statue.5 Under the skillful leadership of Sarah A. Evans and other clubwomen, women organizers relied and expanded on theirwell established traditions of female separatism to overcome problems in trying towork with male directors of the Lewis and Clark Exposition Company, the corporation thatwas responsible forfinancing and planning the fair.To cover up their failure inworking with women, the corporation erroneously claimed that ithad adopted the integration model of St. Louis when, in fact, ithad been women's separatism that had won the day. NEARLYALL THE OREGON WOMEN involved inthetwoprojects were white and middle or upper class.6 They were also members of one ormore women's clubs and tended...