Biographical Database of Militant Woman Suffragists, 1913-1920
Biography of Elizabeth Ellsworth Cook, 1884-1981
By Marcie Flinchum Atkins, author and librarian
Elizabeth Ellsworth Cook broke barriers as a woman on Wall Street and devoted a lot of her time and money to the suffrage movement.
Elizabeth (also known as E.E., Cookie, Betty, Bessie) was born on September 4, 1884 in Winona, Minnesota to Charles Button and Lucy Ellsworth Cook. She grew up in Ithaca, New York where she attended public schools and then went on to study at Cornell University. (1)
At Cornell, Elizabeth studied law before switching to finance. She was active on the debate team her senior year. When they faced Columbia University in a competition they objected to competing with a woman. The judges ignored the request, and she won. She received the Woodford Prize in Oratory for her speech, "Men, Women, and Human Beings," where she argued for equal working relationships between men and women. (3)
"Work for Girl Debater." The New York Times, September 28, 1908. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
After graduating from Cornell in 1908, Elizabeth moved to Manhattan to pursue a career on Wall Street. From the age of 21, she was self-supporting. She worked for various firms, selling bonds, and assisting salesmen in their jobs by being the in-house publicity manager. Hundreds of men, both inside and outside her firm, asked to be put on her mailing list because she prepared such thorough information about the field. (4)
Elizabeth was a self-described "non-joiner," but she was involved in the Women's Bond Club, the Municipal Forum, and the Municipal Analysts—all related to her job on Wall Street. (5)
She was the Vice President of the Women's Political Union, headed by Harriot Stanton Blatch. Their organization wanted to support women in the world of work. She also fought for women's rights in the workplace, including for a woman's right to take a leave of absence to have a child, instead of being fired. (6)
Elizabeth worked long hours, but she devoted her nights and weekends to suffrage. "...I have decided that in business, in every act of my life, in my treatment of each individual, I can be a suffragist twenty-four hours a day." She spent her month's vacation from her job doing suffrage work. (7)
Elizabeth Ellsworth Cook, Inez and Vida Milholland, Lavinia Dock, and many others from the Women's Political Union worked as poll watchers in 1910. (9)
While working her full-time job, Elizabeth served as the director of Hefner Association, a weaver of fabrics, from 1935-1955. After the death of her father, she ran his Florida groves doing their bookkeeping and billing, but she eventually gave it up. (10)
Elizabeth told a reporter, "I'm crazy about the security business." She also mentioned, "I never could see finance as a matter of sex...there is no distinction in brain power and it's absurd to say there is." That same reporter described her as a "militant soap-box feminist." When asked about the limit to her career ambitions, she retorted, "Need there be any limit?" (11)
She tried to recruit more women to the finance world, writing articles for alumnae associations about the benefits of working in finance. She wanted to pave the way for future women in finance. "There are still so few women in finance that each one stands as typical for her whole sex to a large group of men. It is of the utmost importance that each acquit herself creditably lest she be a stumbling block to those stronger, freer, better women who are to come." (13)
Elizabeth was involved in the Women's Peace Union, a pacifist organization with many suffragist members. She supported the organization financially, up to $300 a month in some cases, to provide for salaries for women working for peace, such as Jeannette Rankin. With her job on Wall Street, Elizabeth couldn't always attend meetings. At one such meeting, the working committee voted her in as treasurer—without her consent. She told them she wouldn't serve in that role "under any circumstances." (14)
Elizabeth willed "the contents of [her] cranium" to Cornell Brain Society. When the society ceased, she wrote to Cornell to see if they wanted her "total remains." (16)
Sources:
(1) Cook, Elizabeth Ellsworth. "Papers, Elizabeth Ellsworth Cook, 1917-1970," Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
(2) Various nicknames come from correspondence to her and from her found in letters including: Emerson, Willard I. "Letter to E.E. Cook," December 7, 1955. Elizabeth Ellsworth Cook Papers. Women's Peace Union Records, 1921-1940, Collection DG 044, Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Reel 88.10.
(3) The Cornell Alumni News. Vol. Volume 10. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 1907. "Co-Ed Debater Wins." The New York Times, April 27, 1908. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. "Cornell Backs Up Co-Ed Debater." The New York Times, January 26, 1908. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
"Work for Girl Debater." The New York Times, September 28, 1908. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
(4) Stedman, Adelaide. "A Woman in Wall Street." The Caxton: A Magazine for Quality Folks, January 1, 1910. Google Books.
(5) Cook, Elizabeth Ellsworth. "Papers, Elizabeth Ellsworth Cook, 1917-1970," Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
(6) "Upholds Mrs. Peixotto." The New York Times, October 20, 1913. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
(7) "I have decided" quote: Stedman, Adelaide. "A Woman in Wall Street." The Caxton: A Magazine for Quality Folks, January 1, 1910. Google Books.
(8) "All New Yorkers Lovely: Women Watchers Enjoy Courtesy of More Men." New York Tribune, November 9, 1910. Chronicling America.
(9) "All New Yorkers Lovely: Women Watchers Enjoy Courtesy of More Men." New York Tribune, November 9, 1910. Chronicling America.
(10) Cook, Elizabeth Ellsworth. "Papers, Elizabeth Ellsworth Cook, 1917-1970," Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
(11) "I'm crazy about.." quote, "I never could see.." quote, "militant" quote: Porter, S.F. "Women in Finance..." New York Evening Post, June 27, 1936. Elizabeth Ellsworth Cook Papers.
(12) "Need there be..." quote: Stedman, Adelaide. "A Woman in Wall Street." The Caxton: A Magazine for Quality Folks, January 1, 1910. Google Books.
(13) Cook, Elizabeth Ellsworth. "Opportunities for Women in Finance." Journal of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, January 1918. p. 6. Elizabeth Ellsworth Cook Papers.
(14) Alonso, Harriet Hyman. "Jeannette Rankin and the Women's Peace Union." Montana: The Magazine of Western History 39, no. 2 (Spring 1989): 34–49.
(15) Cook, Elizabeth Ellsworth. "Letter to Gertrude Franchot Tone," November 28, 1929. Women's Peace Union Records, DG 044, Swarthmore College.
(16) Cook, E.E. "Letter to Dr. John E. Deitrick, Cornell Medical College," August 10, 1964. Elizabeth Ellsworth Cook Papers.
(17) Cook, Elizabeth Ellsworth. "Papers, Elizabeth Ellsworth Cook, 1917-1970," Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.