Lola Green Baldwin, America's First Policewoman
In recognition of the Centennial of professional female law enforcement in the United States, the Friends of History at Portland State University will be sponsoring a free lecture entitled : " Lola Baldwin's World: Policing Vice in Post-Victorian Portland." on Tuesday, April 1, 2008 in the Browsing Lounge (Room 238) in Smith Student Center starting at 7:30pm.
Lola was the first policewoman hired under Civil Service regulations making the City of Portland the first municipality in the United States to hire a woman to enforce the law. A record in womens history was made on April 1, 1908, when Portland Mayor Harry Lane adminstered to Baldwin the police oath of office. Rated as a "female detective", Baldwin performed preventive and rehabilitative vice policing for the city in a career that spanned over 14 years, ending in 1922.
The lecture will be delivered by Portland State University alum Gloria Myers, (M.A. History, 1993), whose biography of Lola Baldwin, published by OSU Press, stemmed from her thesis research at PSU. Myers will be exploring a time in American history when society had to come to terms with encroaching modernism and the unsettling changes it made in that transitional era.
Signed copies of Myer's book: A Municipal Mother: Portland's Lola Green Baldwin, America's First Policewoman (1995) will be available at the booksigning which will take place after the presentation. The Friends of History is the non-profit support organization for the History Department at Portland State University. Free parking is available in the PSU parking structures after 7pm. For more information call KC Piccard at (503)725-5473.
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
