Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920
Biography of Eva Walling Eno, 1878-1961
By Manya S. Chylinski, Writer and researcher, M.S.L.I.S, Boston, MA
Women's rights advocate and organizer
Eva Eno was born in 1878 in New Jersey and died in Southampton, New York on October 20 1961. Her parents were Jonathan S. Walling and Katherine Applegate, both born in New Jersey. She was raised in Colorado and educated at public school and Wolfe Hall, a Denver boarding and day school for girls and young ladies run by the Episcopal church. In June of 1897 she was back on the east coast when she married Alfred Joseph Eno in Manhattan. Their only child, Ralph Bovingdon Eno, was born in December 1900 and died June 10, 1908. By 1910, the Enos had moved to Queens, New York, where Eva began her work as an activist and organizer.
Eno was interested in the law and in April 1912 studied in the Woman's Law Class at New York University, a class designed to give students the “ability to appreciate those elements which enter into the making of a really competent and efficient lawyer” and is believed to be the first of its kind. After graduating she joined the Portia Club, founded by graduates of the 1901 Woman's Law Class, where she was a member until 1921.
By 1915 she was sharing a practice with Harriette M. Johnston-Wood, at the Wood and Eno Real Estate and Law offices in Jamaica, NY. As an advocate for the welfare of women and children, Eno was involved in several legal cases, including working to convict the assailants after Mrs. Clara Ellert was assaulted by two men in the Democratic Clubhouse in Long Island City; and working to return baby Anderson, a 19-month old boy who was taken away from his parents in fear of having infantile paralysis.
She was an active participant in many organizations in the fight for women's suffrage. In October 1912 she was elected as chair of the Queens Borough convention of the Woman Suffrage Party and served until 1914. Among her activities as chair, she helped plan and raise funds for suffrage parade in Manhattan, where she also spoke. In 1914, she joined the Committee of Two Hundred of the Women's Temporary Committee of the State of New York for representation in the constitutional convention.
Eno worked on the unsuccessful 1915 referendum for a suffrage amendment to the New York state constitution under the leadership of state campaign chairman, Carrie Chapman Catt. She published the Queensboro Equality in 1915, a broadsheet advocating for women's suffrage. In the late 1920s she supported the development of a state correctional institution for women and was the representative for the 2nd district of New York State Federation of Women's Clubs, Division of Penology and Delinquency. She also served as the chair of women workers in Queens Borough for the National Progressive Party.
In addition to her activism, Eno kept herself busy with other work and organizations. In 1917, she was appointed as a census agent and enrollment officer for the city of New York. She served on the auxiliary board of the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York from 1926 to 1929, and in1926 she was also a member and corresponding secretary of the Women's Press Club of New York. She was also a member of the Companions of the Forest of America in the 1920s. After the stock market crash in 1929, the Enos struggled and by 1940, Alfred had died. Eva moved to East Hampton on Long Island where she fostered children and started an employment agency that placed household help.
Source: Quarantine did not curb paralysis, The Sun (New York), October 04, 1916, Page 4,
Eva Eno, Chairman, Queensboro Suffrage Party, Queensboro Equality, 1915
Source: Eno, Evo. Papers of Eva Eno, 1912-1936, MC519, Box 1, Folder 5 [Speeches, letters to editor, etc., n.d.], Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America , Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
SOURCES
Club Women of New York, 1913-1914, https://archive.org/stream/clubwomennewyor04conggoog/clubwomennewyor04conggoog_djvu.txt
Eno, Eva. Papers of Eva Eno, 1912-1936, MC519, Box 1, Folder 5 [Speeches, letters to editor, etc., n.d.], Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, https://hollis.harvard.edu/primo-explore/fulldisplay?context=L&vid=HVD2&search_scope=everything&tab=everything&lang=en_US&docid=01HVD_ALMA212004853540003941
Harper, Ida Husted, et al., eds., The History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 6 [LINK]
National Association of Women Lawyers, Women Lawyers' Journal: Volumes 1-4, January 1, 1911 https://books.google.com/books?id=BO5CAQAAMAAJ&lpg=PA42&dq=%22eva%20eno%22%20suffragette&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q=%22eva%20eno%22%20suffragette&f=false
New York State Death Index, New York State Department of Health; Albany, NY. Ancestry.com website
New York, New York, Extracted Marriage Index, 1866-1937 [database on-line]. Provo, UT. Ancestry.com website
Quarantine did not curb paralysis, The Sun (New York), October 04, 1916, Page 4, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030431/1916-10-04/ed-1/seq-4/
State Census of New Jersey, 1905; New Jersey State Archive; Trenton, NJ, USA; Reference Number: L-12; Film Number: 33. Ancestry.com website
U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1910 Census, Place: Queens Ward 4, Queens, New York; Roll: T624_1065; Page: 1B; Enumeration District: 1280; FHL microfilm: 1375078. Ancestry.com website
U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1940 Census, Place: East Hampton, Suffolk, New York; Roll: m-t0627-02785; Page: 6B; Enumeration District: 52-69, Ancestry.com website
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Fourteenth census of the United States, 1920-Population. Ancestry.com website.
Village Preservation Society, Newsletter, Fall 2017, http://www.villagepreservationsociety.org/newsletters/201709.pdf