Delaware Women on Juries for the First Time

laws of delaware, 1787
A 1787 Volume of the Laws of Delaware in the collection of the Indiana State Law Library

Although women gained the right to vote in 1920, they had to push for equal rights when it came to jury duty. The new voting privilege did not automatically allow them to sit on juries or hold office in many places. The Baltimore Sun reported: “Merely because she may help decide who shall be elected sheriff, court clerk, mayor or president it does not follow that she may also decide who is guilty of murder, arson, or wife-beating.” 1.

Many argued that the ladies were too delicate and needed in the home to be subjected to the unseemly business of the court.  After listening to shocking testimony, opponents noted that they would then have to discuss it with strange men behind closed doors.  Anti-suffragists asserted similar arguments during the long struggle for the franchise, raising the specter of women serving on juries as one of the many reasons for opposing votes for women.

A Wilmington newspaper sketched out the entitlements that came with the vote in the First State:  “Not only may women of Delaware be summoned for jury duty and be eligible for office holding in the event of ratification of the suffrage amendment is sustained, but they may be admitted to practice law at the bar of the state, the Evening Journal remarked. 2

Many in Delaware balked at this straightforward interpretation of the jury-qualification law.  For example, in anticipation of women voting and being entitled to jury service, the General Assembly considered a bill to cut grand juries in all three counties from 24 to 12 members each.  “We want to minimize the number of cold suppers while the grand jury is in session, said a friend of the bill. 3 

Once the nation ratified the 19th Amendment, the change perplexed some Delaware officials.  Two days after approval Attorney General Reinhardt delivered his opinion, advising that just as soon as they register to vote, they will be eligible for jury duty.  However, should there be no women’s names placed in the box used to draw the panel, “of course, there would be no women on the jury, but if their names are placed in the box and are drawn, they will have to serve the same as men.”  4 

Delaware Jury Commissioner John R. Lambson questioned whether or not the precedent established in some states of drawing women to serve as jurors would be followed here as the issue had not been decided by the jury commissioners. Adding that he was uncertain about the powers of the commissioners, Mr. Lambson said it might require special instructions from the court.

The first Delaware women to serve on a jury were called by Coroner Bullock in Nov. 1920. Mrs. Lillian Jacobs, Miss Katherine Livsey, Mrs. John Kelly, and Mrs. George Lord, of Wilmington, were summoned to sit as jurors at the inquest on the death of John J. Festing, a motorman of the New Castle Line of the Wilmington Traction Company, whose death was thought to have been due to falling from his car 5   Pleased with the jury, the coroner remarked that hereafter he would make mixed juries a regular part of his inquests. 6

The State delegated the selection process to jury commissioners, the members in New Castle County being Major Joseph C. Lawson and John R. Lambson. They put the names of qualified voters in a box and withdrew names for the various court terms. Major Lawson advised on Dec. 2, 1920, that no action had been taken to summon women as this was a matter for the State Judiciary to consider. When a reporter asked Judge Herbert L. Rice about this, he said the courts had not been asked for an opinion. 7

Delaware women on juries

Within a week, the United States District Court of Delaware drew two women for grand jury duty in the United States District Court for Delaware. The two Wilmington ladies, Mrs. Jessie Thomas Betts and Miss Miriam Worrell Webb were the first to serve in that capacity in the state’s history. However, women had already served on the coroner’s jury. 8

However, this question of being called on for jury duty was “causing much concern to thousands of women in Delaware who have been given the ballot,” the Evening Journal reported. “Women have served on juries empaneled by Coroner Bullock several times recently, and women jurors have served already in the courts of New York and other States.”

When lawmakers assembled in 1923, they struggled with sorting out the changes brought by the 19th amendment.  Senator Hopkins’ introduced a bill to permit women to be relieved from jury duty without being required to give any reason.  He also presented legislation requiring separate quarters for men and women when serving on a panel and separate bailiffs for men and women jurors when they stayed overnight. 

“Women are too sentimental for jury duty” –Anti-Suffrage argument, Kenneth Russell Chamberlain, 1915. Source: Library of Congress

These bills triggered lengthy, spirited debates.  Miss Sanworth, Chairman of the Democratic County Women’s Committee, addressed the senate, saying that women had asked for the franchise, and now all they wanted was equal opportunity.  “If called upon for jury duty, no matter how unpleasant that duty may be, the welfare of the government depended upon women doing their duty.  This was not time to ask for or to desire special legislation because of sex.” 9

Mrs. Florence Bayard Hilles and Miss Marie Lockwood spoke against the legislation at the request of Senator Ridgley. The present law giving the court the authority to excuse jurors who have a valid excuse, applying as it does to both, was sufficient. There should be no discrimination for or against women, the ladies noted. Mrs. Hilles added: “I belong to the National Woman’s Party, which exists for the purpose of taking out of the laws all discrimination against women.  Women are not asking for any discrimination in their favor.  They are merely asking that those against them should be stricken out.”  10

Senator Highfield favored the legislation claiming that under certain circumstances, women could not neglect their home duties or their duties to the children to serve on juries.  “I would like to ask if there is any man in this Senate who would want his wife impaneled on juries on certain degrading cases,” he inquired.  Senator Hopkins added that the women who spoke did not represent the sentiment of the women of Delaware.  Most senators took the same position, approving it with a vote of 12 to 4.  Senators Betts, Lutz, McDowell, and Walker voted against it.  11

In the House, Miss Laura Cune of Wyoming and Camden spoke on the floor.  Saying she was not only expressing her sentiments but those of hundreds of other women in the state, she noted that she had not been an advocate of suffrage because she forewarned of the attending evils of suffrage for women. It was forced on Delaware by the action of her sister states.  Miss Cune said there have been cases and will continue to be cases before juries that reek of filth in a mixed assembly it would be embarrassing for women and men to sit in such cases.  The bill does not curtail the privileges of women, she argued, as they can serve on juries if they so desire. This bill, she declared, was an outcrop of age-old chivalry which had always promoted men to guard their woman folks.  12

Representative Lord said he favored the bill but questioned the legality of it because women and men are equal before the law and the constitution, which provided that all citizens must do jury duty.

Delaware Law Complicates Path to Equality

The House passed the measure by a vote of 29 to 4.  Those voting against it were Representatives Allee, Carlisle, McManus and Lednum.  Representatives Little and Marr were absent.   (State of Delaware, “Juries,” Laws of the State, Jan 2, 1923, Vol. 34, Chapter 237, 679)), 13 

This new law complicated the path to equality in the jury box. It brought into question foundational elements of the jury system, the random selection of a fair cross-section and compulsory service.  It also created a recurrent battle in the General Assembly as “some women” sought to put “women of Delaware on an equality with men in every particular as far as the state laws are concerned.”

The collision of home duties with civic and judicial ones came again in February 1925. That year members of the Senate disapproved of any effort to compel women of the state to do jury duty if they did not desire to serve in that capacity by killing a bill that provided for the removal of all sex distinction for jury duty.  Senator Hardesty explained that the Legislature two years ago passed a bill giving women the right to decline jury duty if they desired.

In March 1929, Mrs. Florence Bayard Hilles and Miss Marie Lockwood spoke for a bill that would have placed women on equal footing with men as to jury duty.  14

Meanwhile, a report circulated that Mrs. Frances V. Buckson of Blackbird Hundred had been drawn for service.  But the sheriff’s office announced that Mrs. Buckson was not the person summoned “as only men are drawn, the law at present exempting women from jury service.”  The name pulled was Francis V. Buckson, a man’s name, but so far deputy sheriff McDowell who had the summons, had been unable to find anyone in that section of the county by that name.  The similarity of Mrs. Buckson’s name to the one drawn caused speculation in the hundred, the Sheriff explained 15

In Feb 1931, the General Assembly considered a bill to place women on the same footing as men for jury duty.  Supporters argued that they should be required to serve on juries under the same condition as men and that law should not allow them to be excused simply on request.  16

After this things proceeded quietly until World War II disrupted Delaware’s selection method. With so many men serving in the armed services or engaged in essential wartime production work, a shortage of prospective jurors existed.  As the pool of available candidates shrank, the jury board started drawing women for service, the first time in seventeen years, according to the News Journal.  This resulted in Mrs. Elizabeth Carroll White, of Brandywine Hundred being selected, but she elected not to avail herself as state law still permitted her to be excused from jury duty upon request.  17

Two Sussex County Ladies, Mrs. Ida J. Fox of Milton and Mrs. Elsie McGee Bryan of near Lewes were also drawn to serve as petit jurors for the term of Oyer and Terminer Court which was convening to try a murder case.  This was the first time women had been drawn in the history of Sussex County. 18  But they failed to see service.  Mrs. Bryan was excused for business reasons while Mrs. Fox although present, was not called.  19

In Kent County Jury Commissioner Walker L. Miffling and Wilbur E. Jacobs also decided to include women on the jury panels for the county courts because of the shortage of men.  Women thus far had never been empaneled in the county. 20

The “foolish man-made statute”

Marie T. Lockwood, the chair of the Delaware Branch of the National Women’s party, noted the results of the “foolish man-made statute of 1925 [1923],” which permitted women to be excused from court service for any reason.  “When women were given the right to vote in Delaware, with it came the right to serve on juries,” she wrote in a letter to the editor.  Because of this Delaware Statute of 1925 [1923], which you mention, women were permitted to be excused from jury service without having an excuse.  Now that men are scarce, being called for other purposes, the jury board at once tries drawing women and met with the results of this foolish-man made statute of 1925 [1923].  Jury service is part of the duty of citizenship.  One should not be excused when there is not a valid excuse.  Marie T. Lockwood, Chairman Delaware Branch of Nation Woman Party’s Middletown, DE April 15, 1942.  21

A bill to repeal the act of 1923, which excused women from being empaneled upon request, was introduced by Rep. Clarence E. McVey in 1945.  22  After the General Assembly repealed the old law, Walter W. Bacon signed it on April 19, 1945. (State of Delaware, Laws of the State, “Juries” Vol. 38, Chapter 253, 968))

Ladies and Gentleman of the Jury

But the inclusion of women in the draws continued to cause legal wrangling. Following a Grand Jury indictment of three Wilmington men two years later, the defense attorney argued before the Court of Oyer and Terminer that the “indictment was illegally constituted because of the exclusion of women.” Chief Justice Charles S. Richards wrote an opinion saying that while the drawing of women on juries is not mandatory, nevertheless, “they should be included at all times on the jury panels from which the jurors are drawn for both grand and petit juries.” Delaware had “lagged behind in recognizing the rights and obligations of women,” he explained.  She statute providing for Delaware juries embraced women as well as men and the jury commissioners should endeavor at all times to select those who are suited and qualified.  In view of the great change which has taken place in the activities of women in public life in this state as everywhere else, we think the “jury commissioners should not only recognize that they are liable to serve as jurors but should include them at all times on the jury panel from which jurors or drawn . . . in order that said juries may be truly representative of every class of citizen . . . .   23

For more on Women on Juries — See

Women in United States Juries

Part I (Delaware Women on Juries); Part II (Maryland Women on Juries — Under Construction).

Endnotes
  1. “Vote Not a Jury Permit,” Baltimore Sun, April 5, 1920, A5[↩]
  2. Evening Journal, Aug. 23, 1920 p 1[↩]
  3. “Levy Court Ripper for New Castle County,” News Journal, March 30, 1920.  P 1.[↩]
  4. Evening Journal Aug 28, 1920[↩]
  5. Evening Journal, Nov. 3, 1920[↩]
  6. Evening Journal, Nov. 15, 1920[↩]
  7. “Women Not on Jury List Yet, Evening Journal, Dec. 2, 1920, 7[↩]
  8. “Draw Women on U.S. Jury Panel,” Evening Journal, Dec. 9, 1920, 8[↩]
  9. Women’s Pleas Ignored:  Excuse Them From Jury, Morning News, Feb. 16, 1923, 1[↩]
  10. “Debate Over Jury Duty for Women,” Evening Journal, Feb. 14, 1923).),  ((“Why Excuse Women from Jury Service?”  Morning News, Feb. 15, 1923, 10[↩]
  11. “Women Free of Duty as Jurors, Feb. 16, 1923, 1[↩]
  12. Evening Journal, March 1 1923, 15[↩]
  13. “Women Need Not Serve on Juries If They Object,”  Morning News, March 1, 1923, 1[↩]
  14. “Women May Still Escape Jury Duty,” Morning News, March 9, 1929, 17[↩]
  15. “Women is not wanted as juror,” News Journal, Marc 5, 1929, 14[↩]
  16. “House Beats Bill Forcing Women on Juries by 9 to 23,” Morning News, Feb. 10, 1931, 1[↩]
  17. Woman is called for u.s. jury duty Morning News, April 10, 1942, 7[↩]
  18. “Sussex Draws Women for July Jury Duty,” Morning News, June 10, 1942, 13[↩]
  19. Laurel Man Gets Life in Sussex Murder Trail,” Morning News, July 8, 1942, 1[↩]
  20. “Kent to Include Women on Jury,” Morning News, December 8, 1942, 22[↩]
  21. Marie T. Lockwood, “Letter to the Editor,” News Journal, April 17, 1942[↩]
  22. “Bill for Judges Raises Presented,” Morning News,  Feb. 7, 1945, 2[↩]
  23. “Court Denies Motion to Quash Indictment by All Male Jury,” Dec. 23, 1947, 1[↩]

Votes for Women in Salem County

Winning the right to vote alongside male counterparts didn’t come easy for New Jersey women.   The 1776 New Jersey Constitution had enfranchised men and women who were worth fifty pounds.  But, this brief period of inclusivity came to an end in 1807 when the Assembly passed a law limiting suffrage to white male taxpayers 1.   Consequently, by the 1840s the ladies had started petitioning lawmakers, demanding the restoration of their former right 2

Statewide and local activism grew in harmony with the national movement, after the Civil War.   As determined activists pressured lawmakers in Trenton, the Assembly granted limited privileges to women in 1897, allowing them to vote in some local school elections.  So as New Jerseyians continued crusading to gain the broader franchise, Elmer and Pittsgrove Township held historic votes, ladies going to the polls six years before the ratification of the 19th Amendment created a universal franchise.

The question that faced Pittsgrove taxpayers was whether the school district should spend $14,500 to buy land and erect a four-room brick schoolhouse.  At this election on April 28, 1914, at the Pole Tavern School, the proposition was defeated by a significant majority.  All but 40 of the 230 voters opposed the outlay  3.  A month earlier, Elmer’s ladies cast over half of the 257 ballots in favor of a $20,000 appropriation for enlarging and remodeling the Main Street school.  “There was considerable local interest in the special election, especially because of the activity of the women,” the Woodstown Monitor Register observed 4.

votes for women
As the votes for women campaign got underway in New Jersey, this map shows where the campaign has had success. (Indiana State Library)

During this period, Equal Suffrage League’s remained active across the county.  In Woodstown, the group offered prizes for the best essay on “Why Women Should Vote” — The first prize was $5.  The judges were Mayor E. S. Fogg, Supervising Principal Shimer, Benj. Patterson, and Mrs. Joel Borton, the president of the League 5.

By 1913, suffragists in nine states had won battles, while in other places, they were slowly converting indecisive politicians.  Spurred on by these successes, New Jersey suffragists got a statewide referendum on the ballot, putting the decision in the hands of men at a special election on October 19, 1915.

As the summer of 1915 slipped peacefully by, campaigning for and against the amendment grew intense, and the women’s suffrage army marched across the Garden State.  That July, Salem County became the center of attention as the activist stepped sprightly into the area.  In Woodstown, members of the Equal Suffrage Association in gaily decorated automobiles arrived, seeking to find converts. 

A few weeks later, in Woodstown, the Rev. William Tatlack spoke about the justness of women voting. And Mrs. Laura G.  Cannon of California addressed the need for a lady’s influence to get good laws passed for better sanitation and conditions for working women.  The principal speaker, Mrs. Jennie C. Laws Hardy of Michigan, told about the success of equal suffrage in Australia, her native country 6.

With a rallying cry of “votes for women,”  Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery, of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association and Mrs. Cannon were on a two-day tour around the county 7.  Masterfully piloting their automobile, the  “Adelaide Victory,” along country roads there were “no delays or mishaps” as they visited “every town and almost every country store.”   Mrs. Aldona L. Dickeson of Woodstown, Chairman of the Salem County Equal Suffrage League, accompanied them.  Everywhere men assured the party they would vote favorably.  Daretown was out in full force to greet the tour, and   Friesburg gave a hearty greeting, people coming out in various conveyances to attend the meeting. 8 

At the Salem Courthouse, on a Tuesday in October Mrs. Robert Irving of Haddonfield made a convincing speech, capably handling questions fired at her.  That was followed on Friday by a speech by Mrs. Cannon, who had been here twice, winning the hearts of Salem people and converts to the cause, the Sunbeam remarked. 9

Dr. Annna H. Shaw, National President of the Woman’s Suffrage Party, arrived in Salem on the evening train from Pittsburg.  She was driven through the principal streets by several automobiles accompanied by many local Salem County Suffrage League members.  Afterward, she was taken to the home of Mrs. Robert Clarke Berry, who entertained Dr. Shaw during her stay in Salem.   While here, she delivered an impressive address on granting the franchise to women in New Jersey.  It was an appreciative audience that taxed the capacity of the historic courthouse on a Tuesday in September.  When she referred to men in laugh-provoking words that pleased many ladies present she received hearty applause. 10 

“You object that politics are so dirty, ‘keep the women out of it,” she said.  “When our houses, clothes, or children are dirty, do you send the women away?  It is the first time I have heard of women being kept out of anything because it is dirty.  Women have cleansed the world since the beginning of time.  Give them the ballot and they will clean up politics.  . . . .  Wherever women have had the ballot they have brought in laws safeguarding workers in dangerous occupations, they have worked to shorten the hours of labor not only of women but the man as well,” she continued 9 .

The churches of New Jersey observed Sunday, Oct. 17, 1915, as Woman Suffrage Day, the Elmer Times reported.  “Societies standing for reform and the betterment of mankind have lined up for woman suffrage. All the viscous forces, such as the liquor traffic, white slavers, gamblers, and exploiters of youth and virtues are arrayed against the measure,” The Elmer Times added.  At the Elmer M. E. Church that Sunday evening, Rev. George T. Billman spoke on Woman Suffrage as a moral issue. The Equal Suffrage League of Elmer, Daretown, and Monroeville attended. 11.  The Elmer editor also remarked that the “Times stood for full democracy and gave the cause of suffrage full support, keeping its columns open to the advocates of woman suffrage  12.

Speakers for the Votes for Women Campaign stopped at the Salem County Courthouse as the suffragists toured the County. (Photo by Dixon)

As election day neared, questions centered on whether Oct. 19, was a holiday, so Governor Fielder sought an opinion from Assistant Attorney General Theodore Backes.  The Attorney General’s Office ruled that a special election to consider constitutional amendments was not a general election so since it wasn’t a holiday the saloons weren’t required to close.   “The decision will be very displeasing to the suffragist because they are being bitterly opposed by the liquor men, and there will be a fear that wide-open saloons on this date may mitigate against a victory for the suffrage cause.” 13

The week before the election, some county papers assessed the situation.  The women in favor of equal suffrage have stirred up the county from end to end, and they gave very favorable reports of the outlook, the Woodstown Monitor Registered wrote.  However, the antis, chiefly located in Salem City, were confident the amendment would fail locally and in the state.  One of the enthusiastic antis declared that his side had canvassed Elsinboro, Quinton, Lower Creek, and Alloway and only found two women who wanted to vote, while the men said they didn’t believe in women voting. 8 

The Salem County Standard and Jerseyman reminded voters that this was a critical question so “every man should make it his business to vote yes or no on the subject.”  The editor said the paper had not taken any side of the controversy believing it was the proper course to allow the voters to express themselves upon this subject without any outside influence other than that put forth by the friends or opponents of the propositions. 14

To ensure there were no dirty tricks, the New Jersey Woman Suffrage Association conducted schools for poll watchers and workers across the state.  Several were held in the county, one on Sept. 21st at the Borough Hall in Woodstown. 

The men of New Jersey decided not to grant women the right to vote by a big majority across the state on October 19, 1915.  In Salem County, the women lost by 395 votes (1626 to 1231).  Of the twenty precincts in the county, those favoring suffrage were: Alloway, Upper Penn’s Neck, Oldmans, Upper Pittsgrove’s 1st district, Upper Pittgrove’s 2nd district, Old Pittsgrove, Pennsgrove north, and Pennsgrove south.  Salem City’s majority against the amendment was 290 (Salem Standard & Jerseyman, Oct. 22, 1915).   “New Jersey was the first state in the Union to have female suffrage and will be the last one to re-adopt it, because the liquor and other interest fear the vote of women, remarked the Penns Grove Record 15

After its defeat, state law didn’t permit the amendment to be reintroduced into the Legislature for five years.  Since it had to be submitted to two successive legislatures for approval, an amendment was at least seven years off.  But women in the Garden State didn’t t have to wait seven years.  In 1919, Congress passed the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which declared no citizen could be denied the right to vote based on sex.  The New Jersey Legislature ratified the amendment in February 1920, making the state the 29th to do so.

The 19th Amendment became part of the Constitution on Aug. 26, 1920.  Thus, the presidential election of 1920 marked the first time the women of Salem County “had the experience of standing up alongside their men folks and voicing their sentiments as to who shall be the president of the United States,” the Salem Sunbeam observed.  Registration showed that there was nearly a doubling of the number of voters. 16  In Pennsville, Mrs. Charles Casperwod had the distinction of casting the first vote in the ballot box, and Mrs. William Kennedy the second vote. 17     

Notes: From an article originally published in the Salem County Historical Society Newsletter, Summer 2018 — “The Suffrage Army Marches in Salem.”

Also see

Delaware Treated to a Spectacle as Suffragists March Across Delaware

The Suffrage Army Occupies Harford County

Endnotes
  1. Lewis, J. E., Rutgers Law Review, Rethinking Women’s Suffrage in New Jersey, 1776 – 1807, (2011) [↩]
  2. E. R. Turner, “Suffrage in New Jersey, 1790 – 1807. Smith College Studies in History, Vol. 1. No. 4: (July 1916): 165-187[↩]
  3. Penns Grove Record, “Public School Proposition Defeated,” May 1, 1914[↩]
  4. Woodstown Monitor Register, “Elmer Women Voe in School Election,” March 20, 1914[↩]
  5. Penns Grove Record, “Woodstown Whisperings,” April 5, 1914[↩]
  6. Penns Grove Record, “Vote for Women Wanted: Equal Suffrage a Success Elsewhere, July 2, 1915[↩]
  7. Philadelphia Inquirer, “Suffragists Tour Salem County,” Oct. 5, 1915[↩]
  8. Woodstown Monitor Register, “Tour of Adelaide Victory,” Oct. 8, 1915[↩][↩]
  9. Salem Sunbeam, “Votes for Women Draws Crowd: Dr. Anna Howard Shaw Addressed Large Audience,” September 10, 1915[↩][↩]
  10. Woodstown Monitor Register, News at the County Seat., Oct. 8, 1915[↩]
  11. Elmer Times, “Suffrage Day,” Oct. 15, 1915[↩]
  12. Elmer Times, “Timely Topics,” Oct. 22, 1915[↩]
  13. Salem Sunbeam, “Special Elections Not a Holiday,” Oct. 1, 1915[↩]
  14. Salem Standard and Jerseyman, “Get Out a Full Vote,” Oct. 13, 1915[↩]
  15. Penns Grove Record, “Women Failed to Win: Penns Grove, Upper Penns Neck and Oldmans Voted for Women,” Oct. 22, 1915[↩]
  16. Salem Sunbeam, “Big Vote,” Sept. 24, 1920[↩]
  17. Salem Sunbeam, “Pennsville,” Nov. 6, 1920[↩]

Wilmington University Professor Michael Dixon

Wilmington University History adjunct Michael Dixon teaches students how to conduct investigations into a well-hidden past.

In Michael Dixon’s case, he was indeed made by history. For him, even from childhood, history has been and continues to be his life.

But not history of the high and mighty, though Dixon, an author, writer, speaker and Wilmington University history adjunct, has encountered presidents and ambassadors on his ongoing journey through the past. Instead, he says, his focus “is the history of understudied people, everyday people, those you don’t find in textbooks or chapters of 19th-century history.”

In other words, the rest of us.

Dixon says his purpose is to encourage our interest in local historical events and places, and help preserve that knowledge and, in doing so, create a bridge between past and present for us to enjoy and learn.

His knowledge of several subjects is extensive — Prohibition, women’s suffrage, civil rights, the Cold War, the C&D Canal, the Mason-Dixon Line, the building of the Conowingo Dam (the construction that cost the lives of at least 20 people) — and also subjects many have shied away from in the past or that were simply forgotten or ignored, like unsolved murders of small-town police officers or lynchings in the 19th and 20th centuries. He is always interested in learning more about topics he comes across in his many travels around the Mid-Atlantic region and beyond.

The article continues on WilmU, the Official Magazine of Wilmington University

professor michael dixon
Professor Michael Dixon at the Old State House in Dover. A photo from Wilmington University Public Affairs Office.

The People’s View: Constructing History through Collective Memory

The People’s View: Constructing History through Collective memory is an article published by the San Fransisco Musem of Modern Art in April 2018.

_______

Mike Dixon first met Rein Jelle Terpstra in a bowling alley parking lot in Elkton, Maryland, in 2015. Terpstra, an artist from the Netherlands interested in the connections between perception and memory, had come to town the day before doing research for The People’s View (2014–18). The project aimed to collect photographs, home movies, and stories from people who had witnessed Robert F. Kennedy’s funeral train as it traveled from New York City to Washington, D.C., on June 8, 1968.

Terpstra had been hanging around an out-of-service train station in Elkton, looking for people who had been there that day 50 years ago. When he noticed the Elk Lanes bowling center across the street, he went over to investigate and saw senior bowling on the schedule for the next morning. Returning early that day, he approached the man at the desk, who took the microphone and introduced him over the loud speakers. While friendly, the bowlers didn’t have any train photographs, but they did have a suggestion: call Mike Dixon. Terpstra reached out to Dixon, who told him, “Hold on, wait half an hour there. Don’t move.” And he interviewed Terpstra with a reporter from the Cecil Whig, a local paper, in the parking lot. After that initial meeting, Dixon began helping Terpstra find leads in Cecil County.

A local Maryland historian specializing in social and community history, Dixon says, “My whole practice is around the people who do not make the headlines. And [Terpstra’s] not looking for the professional journalists, the photographers, the politicians; he’s looking for the memories of everyday people.”

The People’s View: Constructing History Through Collective Memory continues on San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art website.