Lucretia Longshore Blankenburg

After the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, 1876, the Blankenburgs began their public work. The exposition had called for assistance from all public-spirited citizens and there seemed much to be done when it ended. The Blankenburg business of manufacturing bedquilts, spreads and yarn was doing well, and its head, unlike the average money-maker, thought he could discern equally important duties elsewhere. Blankenburg began by joining a woman's club. A woman who belonged to a club was a somewhat remarkable person in those days. Women's clubs were few and the majority of those in existence were given over to literary and musical events and to the study of Shakespeare and Browning. A committee of the New Century Club, of which Blankenburg was a member and co-founder,[15] interested themselves in starting night classes in instruction for working women, did not think of regarding their work as a civic movement. Blankenburg chaired the Committee on Education of the New Century Club. The beginning consisted of three or four classes held in the building of the New Century Club. Blankenburg had studied bookkeeping and she became the teacher in that department. She also assisted in planning the cooking class, and for coordinating the financing for the adjunct organization, the New Century Guild, an organization composed of working women, to be fostered and helped by the parent association until it could stand alone.[9]

In 1892, she was elected President of the Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association, which office she held until 1908.[5]

A great deal of Blankenburg's work was done directly in behalf of women. One of her first efforts was to get a representation of women on the Board of Education.[15] She succeeded in having Anna Hallowell elected, and later Mary Mumford, and Philadelphia schools benefited by the work of these two educational experts. In 1895, a committee of the Pennsylvania Woman's Suffrage Association, of which Blankenburg was President, secured a law which provided that a married woman who contributed to the support of her children should have an equal right to the custody and care of the minor children. Before this time, the State of Pennsylvania gave this right to the mother only when the father had been proved a drunkard or worthless or had failed to provide for his family. For years, she workedg for the passage of a law which would protect a childless widow equally with a childless widower. At the time, the law was such that a childless widow inherited one-half the personal estate and the use of one-half the real estate of her deceased husband, while the childless widower got all the personal and the use of all the real estate.[9]

Blankenburg was a member of the committee of women who inaugurated the system of police matrons in Philadelphia.[15] The committee was a voluntary one; it had no authority and received no compensation. It did have the entree to station houses and it equipped the first matron's department. Through its efforts, four police matrons were appointed as an experiment. The four matrons were greatly assisted by the committee members. They visited the stations frequently, found clothing, homes and jobs for some of the unfortunate women and generally made the innovation so successful that the police matron became a part of the police system. As a member of the Woman's Health Protective Association, Blankenburg ably assisted in "pushing along" movements to secure trolley fenders, vestibules on trolley cars and sand filtration of water.[9]

In 1903, Blankenburg opened an active campaign against the smoke nuisance. Philadelphia had city ordinances and State laws. But Philadelphia continued to be smoky and dirty. Blankenburg organised a committee to try to persuade the offenders to stop. The committee did everything it could up to the point of the defective legislation. It persuaded and coaxed and forced, and Philadelphia began to be cleaner. In her own district, Blankenburg got up a petition, secured the signatures of several hundred householders and sent it to the offending firms. One firm immediately changed its fuel and put in smoke consumers; a second reduced the number of smokestacks. In order to raise money to continue the campaign and to carry it to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania for better laws on the smoke nuisance, Blankenburg sent out a printed notice asking for contributions. [9]

In 1904, Blankenburg was a delegate from Philadelphia to the Second Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance held in Berlin, and made an address on the legal condition of women in the United States.[6] Blankenburg was a member of the Good Citizens' Club, as well as a member of the Woman's City Party during its lifetime and she worked hard in this connection. In her own district, she was a member of the Tenth Ward Woman's City Improvement Society, and if the residents of the Tenth Ward were unaware of the vital facts concerning their ward and city it was not because of Blankenburg. Very painstakingly and carefully, she wrote a series of Civic Bulletins labelled: "Do You Know the Tenth Ward?" "City Housekeeping," " City Fathers," etc. These bulletins were little primers. They asked every conceivable question about the ward and the city—how many voters there are, how many schools, how many churches, what are the methods of city government, the powers vested in the mayor and council. They were in the simplest English and delivered to every householder as a budget of valuable information.[9]

Rudolph Blankenburg was elected mayor of Philadelphia in 1911.[9] He was a leader in all the reform political movements in Philadelphia in his day. Together, the Blankenburgs worked for the things that uplift humanity, that make for cleaner politics, and for better citizenship.[6] From then, the life of the Blankenburgs was busier than ever. She was made a vice-president of the Patrons' Section of the National Education Association and First Vice-President of the General Federation of Women's Clubs. At first, she was deluged with letters asking for positions. When the people found that she had no positions to give, they began asking assistance. Several asked her assistance in selecting wives, and one asked for help in burying a dead cat. There were hundreds of senseless letters, and there were a great many requests for interviews and innumerable telephone calls.[9]

Blankenburg believed in women's clubs and in the motto "Unity in Diversity." She gave her loyal support to her own city clubs, the Pennsylvania Federation of Women's Clubs, and the General Federation of Women's Clubs since their inception. She held many club offices in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, and was an honored guest and speaker at many of the local club reunions and banquets. In religion, Blankenburg was a member of the Society of Friends.[6] In 1914, with Marie Jenney Howe of New York City, Blankenburg joined a feminist campaign waged against "labelling" married women by their husband's names. The movement was for the purpose of permitting married women to retain their maiden name and eliminating the prefix "Mrs". In this connection she said:— "I am a member of the Society of Friends and the women Friends always have used their own names after marriage. I use my own name. For all business purposes, I am 'Lucretia Longshore Blankenburg'. But for social purposes, if I were sending out invitations, for instance, I might send them out in the name of 'Mrs. Rudolph Blankenburg'."[20]

• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Bellman Company (1912). The Bellman. Vol. 13 (Public domain ed.). Bellman Company.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Bennett, Helen Christine (1915). American Women in Civic Work (Public domain ed.). Dodd, Mead. p. 213.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Friends' Intelligencer Association (1912). Friends' Intelligencer. Vol. 69 (Public domain ed.). Friends' Intelligencer Association.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Lewis Historical Publishing Company (1915). Encyclopedia of Pennsylvania Biography: Illustrated. Vol. 5 (Public domain ed.). Lewis Historical Publishing Company.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Massachusetts State Federation of Women's Clubs (1908). The Federation Bulletin. Vol. 6–7 (Public domain ed.). Massachusetts State Federation of Women's Clubs.

• Clinton, Catherine; Colbert, C.C. (April 30, 1999). The Other Civil War: American Women in the Nineteenth Century. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-8090-1622-8.
• Gordon, Ann D. (January 10, 2013). The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: An Awful Hush, 1895 to 1906. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-5345-0.
• James, Edward T.; James, Janet Wilson; Boyer, Paul S. (1971). Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary. Harvard University Press. p. 170. ISBN 978-0-674-62734-5.
• Library of Congress (1929). Catalog of Copyright Entries. New Series: 1929. Copyright Office, Library of Congress. p. 1978.
• Roberts, Clarence Vernon; Ely, Warren Smedley (1975). Early Friends Families of Upper Bucks, with Some Account of Their Descendants: Historical and Genealogical Information about the Early Settlers in Upper Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Genealogical Publishing Com. ISBN 978-0-8063-0668-1.
• Roydhouse, Marion Winifred (2007). Women of industry and reform: shaping the history of Pennsylvania, 1865–1940. Pennsylvania Historical Association. ISBN 978-1-932304-37-4.
• Samuels, Gayle Brandow; Beard, Lucienne; Libby, Valencia (1994). Women in the City of Brotherly Love, and Beyond: Tours and Detours in Delaware Valley Women's History. G.B. Samuels.