Club a champion of women’s rights

BANGOR – The founder of a college, a state representative, four physicians and a number of businesswomen were charter members of a Bangor organization that once played hostess to Amelia Earhart, and continues to champion rights for women.

Germaine Murphy, who remembers some of those women, a hairdresser for 43 years and president of the Bangor Business and Professional Women’s Club, was 26 when she joined the group in 1968.

“We met at the YWCA,” she recalled. “We were a large group then, with 60 or 70 members.”

Now in its 82nd year, the club continues to support the Equal Rights Amendment for women, awards an annual University of Maine scholarship and works to promote education for women, Murphy said.

“When male-only service organizations opened their doors to women members, some of our membership was siphoned off,” Murphy said, “but the good thing is that women now have broader choices in what [business and professional] organizations to belong to.” That choice was not always available to area women, as the club’s history illustrates.

In early March of 1922, 150 women flocked to the Chamber of Commerce to a meeting of the newly established Bangor Business and Professional Women’s Club.

The catalyst for forming the group was a midnight phone call in the winter of 1921 to Louise Hopkins of Bangor from Mary Arlite Penney of Portland, who was president of the State Federation of BPW Clubs.

A few days after the call, Anna Matoon, Ruth Lord, Jennie Loftus, Dr. Barbara Hunt and Mrs. Charles Walker met with Penney at City Hall to begin the process of organizing the group, which, Penney said, “would do much for the working women of Bangor.”

A little over a year later, 125 of the 150 women who met at the Chamber of Commerce in 1922 were already charter members. At that meeting it was voted to have the charter remain open until April 1 because many women who wanted to be charter members were unable to attend the meeting. They were advised to sign up at the Bangor mayor’s office.

Charter members included Mary Beal, founder of Beal College; Dr. Caroline Colvin, University of Maine history professor and state representative to the Legislature; Gertrude Veazie, a shoe buyer; Anna Mattoon, general secretary of the Bangor Family Welfare Society; four women who were medical doctors; and Grace Rice, BPW president in 1922, who with her brothers owned and operated C.H. Rice Co. on Broad Street.

In those first few years, 300 women enrolled in the group. It was the only organization for women who were financially independent. The aims of the BPW were the same as they are now:

. To further the interests of business and professional women.

. To promote good fellowship and a spirit of unity.

. To encourage an interchange of ideas.

. To gather and distribute information concerning vocational opportunities.

. To stimulate cooperation.

. To create a deeper sense of the dignity of the professions and of business, and to advocate and maintain a higher standard of workmanship and of business and professional ethics among women.

The members were tireless fund raisers, and by 1924 they had given plays, musicales, fairs, rummage sales, cabarets, automobile shoes and lyceum courses. Proceeds helped establish a $1,100 scholarship fund at the University of Maine, and assisted young women through business college and nurses training.

On Aug. 12, 1934, Ameila Earhart made her second visit to town to mark Woman’s Day. After the famous aviatrix made several short flights over Bangor with a total of 200 women, BPW member Gladys Stetson took her to the Bangor House where she was guest of honor at a luncheon given by the BPW. Earhart, an honorary member of the San Bernadino BPW in California, delivered an address titled “Flying and Woman’s Part in the Business.”

From 1928 to 1940, BPW maintained clubrooms on State Street, then met at the YWCA. During World War II, members worked at Dow Air Base Hospital, at first aid stations and in civil defense programs. In 1944, the club adopted a Belgian orphan and provided for her from 1944 to 1950 when she graduated from high school. In 1951, members volunteered more than 1,500 hours at the Bangor Filter Center, a part of an early warning defense system.

“I was amazed,” Murphy said of her impression when she joined the group, “at the intelligence of the women, how capable they were. I was fascinated. Joining them gave me so much confidence.”

Recent speakers, Murphy said, have given members information about investing, organ donation, Special Olympics and women’s health issues.

Although currently no men are members of Bangor BPW, membership is open to them.

In 1992, a second chapter, the Uptown Business and Professional Women’s Organization, was established for those who prefer to meet at noon instead of in the evening.

Bangor Business and Professional Women meet at 5:30 p.m. first and third Mondays at Miller’s Restaurant. To learn more about the organization, call Murphy at 866-3287.