Alice Thacher Post

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Alice Thacher Post
A middle-aged white woman wearing a brimmed hat, a white blouse with a high collar, and a dark jacket
Alice Thacher Post, from her 1915 passport application
BornJune 8, 1853
Boston, Massachusetts
DiedFebruary 2, 1947 (aged 93)
Occupation(s)Editor, suffragist, pacifist
SpouseLouis Freeland Post
RelativesNoah Worcester (great-grandfather)

Alice Thacher Post (June 8, 1853 – February 2, 1947) was an American editor, suffragist, and pacifist. She was a founding officer of the Woman's Peace Party. She was married to Louis F. Post, who was Assistant Secretary of Labor in the Wilson administration.

Early life[edit]

Alice Thacher was born in Boston, the daughter of Thomas Thacher and Catherine Worcester Thacher.[1] Her grandfather, Thomas Worcester, was the first Massachusetts clergyman ordained in the Swedenborgian "New Church" tradition.[2] Her great-grandfather was also a noted clergyman and pacifist, Noah Worcester.[3]

Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Jane Addams, and Alice Thacher Post in 1915, from the Library of Congress

Career[edit]

Thacher worked as an editor at The New Church Messenger, a Swedenborgian publication based in New Jersey, and The New Earth, before her marriage in 1893. Working with her husband, she was managing editor of The Public, a political weekly based in Chicago and in New York, from 1893 to 1913.[1][4][5] She also wrote and published poetry and articles in other magazines.[6][7]

Post moved to Washington, D.C. when her husband became Assistant Secretary of Labor in 1913. She was a founding member of the Woman's Peace Party, vice-president of the American Proportional Representation League,[8] and a member of the American Anti-Imperialist League,[9] among other suffrage, peace, social justice organizations.[10] She addressed a meeting of the Women's Single Tax League of Washington in 1913, proposing that suffrage laws should consider the rights of children to representation at the ballot.[11] She was an American delegate to the International Congress of Women in 1915 when it was held at the Hague,[12] and in 1919 when it was held in Zürich; she also attended the 1924 meeting of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) in Washington, D.C.[1]

Personal life and legacy[edit]

Alice Thacher married widower Louis F. Post in 1893. He died in 1928, and she died in 1947, at her home in Washington, D.C., at the age of 93.[1] Anna George de Mille wrote a tribute to the Posts, as "Partners in the truest sense, these two great people lived gently and bravely, asked little and gave much. They blazed a trail of spiritual dedication to human betterment for all of us to follow."[13] Her papers are in the Louis F. Post Papers, Library of Congress.[14] Her correspondence is also a significant part of the WILPF records at the University of Colorado.[15]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d "Mrs. Louis Post, Editor, Author, 93; Service for Widow of Louis F. Post, Once- Secretary of Labor Champion of Causes". The New York Times. 1947-02-06. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-01-08.
  2. ^ "The Reverend Thomas Worcester". Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved 2023-01-08.
  3. ^ Henry Ware (1844). Memoirs of the Rev. Noah Worcester, D.D. Harvard University. J. Munroe.
  4. ^ Amanda Verdery Young. "Alice Thacher Post". Women In Peace. Retrieved 2023-01-08.
  5. ^ Post, Louis Freeland; Post, Alice Thacher; Cooley, Stoughton. The Public. A journal of democracy. Princeton University. New York [etc.] S. Bowmar [etc.]
  6. ^ Post, Alice Thacher (1907-04-18). "The Salt Red Blood of Him". The Independent. 62 (3046): 901 – via Internet Archive.
  7. ^ Post, Alice Thacher (October 9, 1909). "Women as Managing Editors". La Follette's Weekly Magazine. 1 (40): 11.
  8. ^ Proportional Representation League (1896). Proportional Representation Review. University of Michigan. Proportional Representation League. pp. 68 (masthead).
  9. ^ Anti-Imperialist League (Boston, Mass ); New England Anti-Imperialist League (1899). Report of the ... annual meeting [serial]. Duke University Libraries. Boston, The League. p. 47.
  10. ^ "Post, Alice Thacher (1853-1947)". Jane Addams Digital Edition. Retrieved 2023-01-08.
  11. ^ "Votes for the Children". Lowell Sun. December 9, 1913. p. 15. Retrieved January 8, 2023 – via NewspaperArchive.com.
  12. ^ "Mrs. Post to Speak". San Francisco Call. August 26, 1915. Retrieved January 8, 2023 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  13. ^ de Mille, Anna George (March 1947). "In Memoriam: Alice Thacher Post" (PDF). Henry George News: 5.
  14. ^ "Louis F. Post papers". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Retrieved 2023-01-08.
  15. ^ "Records of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom". Swarthmore College Peace Collection. Retrieved 2023-01-08.