Ruth Morgan

Born in Staatsburg, New York on October 12, 1870, Ruth Morgan was a daughter of William Dare Morgan (1838-1887) and Angelica Livingston Hoyt (1847-1933) and the sister of suffragists and social reformers Geraldine Morgan Thompson (1872-1967) and Margaret Lewis Morgan Norrie (1869-1927), the latter of whom was the eldest of the Morgan sisters and eponym of the Margaret Lewis Norrie State Park in Dutchess County, New York.Gibson, Wendy and Beth E. Brown. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20060924022458/http://www.nysparks.state.ny.us/news/press/view.asp?pressID=238 State Parks Commissioner Announces Projects at Mills-Norrie]." Albany, New York: New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, August 16, 2002 (archived from the original; retrieved online July 18, 2023).[https://archive.org/details/dutchesscounty00federich/page/90/mode/2up?view=theater Margaret Lewis Norrie State Park], in Dutchess County, American Guide Series, p. 91. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The William Penn Association of Philadelphia (for The Women's City and County Club of Dutchess County New York), 1937. Their younger brother, journalist Gerald Morgan Sr. (1879-1948), reported on the Nazi invasion of Belgium for the New York Tribune during World War II.Freedman, Estelle B. [https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3640931.html Maternal Justice: Miriam Van Waters and the Female Reform Tradition]. Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago, 1996.Campbell, "Biographical Sketch of Margaret Lewis Morgan Norrie," in Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000, Alexander Street."[https://www.newspapers.com/image/114690514/?terms=%22Gerald%20Morgan%22&match=1 Rites Conducted for Gerald Morgan]." Poughkeepsie, New York: Poughkeepsie New Yorker, October 15, 1948, p. 22 (subscription required).

Grandchildren of Morgan Lewis, the third governor of the State of New York who was a son of Francis Lewis, a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, Margaret, Ruth, Geraldine, and Gerald Morgan grew up to become prominent members of society and civic leaders in their own right."League of Women Voters Names Officers for Year," The Buffalo Morning Express, April 26, 1924, p. 9. Ruth Morgan received a private education at home through a governess hired by her parents, who were members of the Episcopal Church. When she was old enough to travel, she was sent for further education to the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Tours, France."[https://www.newspapers.com/image/577520734/ Ruth Morgan, 63, Dies Suddenly]." Brooklyn, New York: Times Union, March 12, 1934, p. 7 (subscription required).

As young women, Ruth and Margaret Morgan joined the Colony Club during its first years of operation, and actively helped to recruit Eleanor Roosevelt and suffragist and conservationist Rosalie Edge as new members to the club during the early 1900s.Campbell, "Biographical Sketch of Margaret Lewis Morgan Norrie," in Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000, Alexander Street."[https://www.newspapers.com/image/114505888/?terms=%22Ruth%20Morgan%22%20and%20%22Red%20Cross%22%20and%20France&match=1 Problems of Soldiers in France, Told: Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., Miss Ruth Morgan and Dr. MacCracken Speak at Vassar Institute]." Poughkeepsie, New York: Poughkeepsie Eagle-News, February 18, 1919, p. 5 (subscription required)."[https://www.newspapers.com/image/747343712/?terms=%22Ruth%20Morgan%22%20and%20%22Red%20Cross%22%20and%20France&match=1 Welfare of Nurses]." Columbia, South Carolina: The State, June 16, 1918, p. 29 (subscription required)."Take Good Care of Red Cross Nurses," Ottumwa Semi-Weekly Courier, June 4, 1918, p. 2.

Employed as a manager at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, beginning sometime around 1905, Ruth Morgan continued to work in that capacity into the mid-1920s, dividing her residency time between her hometown of Staatsburg and Washington Square in the city."League of Women Voters Names Officers for Year," The Buffalo Morning Express, April 26, 1924, p. 9. In 1917, she was appointed by New York City Mayor John Purroy Mitchel to chair the Cooperative Committee of Women on Defense."[https://www.newspapers.com/image/114043643/ Miss Ruth Morgan Made Chairman]." Poughkeepsie, New York: Poughkeepsie Eagle-News, April 20, 1917, p. 6 (subscription required).Campbell, "Biographical Sketch of Margaret Lewis Morgan Norrie," in Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000, Alexander Street.

During World War I, she was appointed as a high commissioner for the American Red Cross and served in France."League of Women Voters Names Officers for Year," The Buffalo Morning Express, April 26, 1924, p. 9."Ruth Morgan, 63, Dies Suddenly," Times Union, March 12, 1934, p. 7."Problems of Soldiers in France, Told: Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., Miss Ruth Morgan and Dr. MacCracken Speak at Vassar Institute," Poughkeepsie Eagle-News, February 18, 1919, p. 5."[https://www.newspapers.com/image/836096366/?terms=%22Ruth%20Morgan%22&match=1 Award of Red Cross Pins]." Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post, February 3, 1925, p. 25 (subscription required). She is credited with the planning and implementation of "Flying Squadrons" of nurses who transported food and medicine by automobile to "mobile, evacuation or military hospital[s] where any American soldiers, brigaded with the French, had been sent." Observed Morgan:Marshall, "Red Cross Flying Squadrons Gave 200 American Women Chance for Heroic Service," The Evening World, February 15, 1919, p. 11.

"Wounded and dying American soldiers were being placed in hospitals which were strange to them, and where they were not understood. Our men could not speak French. The French staffs could not talk English. Something had to be done.

No one but the patients themselves will ever fully realize the tonic these women were…. Men who had gone over the top, who had become unconscious on the battle ground and were carried into a French hospital, woke out of their sick faint fearing they had been taken prisoner by the Germans. When they found they could not understand the language, they were sure they had been trapped…. When the flying squadrons reassured soldiers, they relieved the French physicians' curative task."

During the 1920s, Morgan chaired the National League of Women Voters' department of international cooperation for the prevention of war. Among the agencies and initiatives supported during her tenure were the World Court in 1924 and the Kellogg-Briand Pact in 1928."[https://www.newspapers.com/image/888444541/?terms=%22Ruth%20Morgan%22&match=1 Convention Programme for Saturday]." Buffalo, New York: The Buffalo Morning Express, April 26, 1924, p. 9 (subscription required).

In 1921, she chaired the Women's Council on the Limitation of Armaments, which was held in Washington, D.C. from November 12, 1921, to February 6, 1922, as part of the Washington Naval Conference that resulted in the signing of the Washington Naval Treaty."Naming of Women Aids at Arms Parley Praised: 'President Harding's Selection Particularly Pleasing to Us,' Says Miss Ruth Morgan," New York Tribune, November 3, 1921, p. 6 (subscription required).

On April 19, 1922, Morgan presented the opening remarks at a highly publicized New York City League of Women Voters' event, during which she introduced Viscountess Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, the American-born, British politician who had become the first woman to be seated as a Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom. Lady Astor, who had returned to America to participate as a delegate to the Pan-American Conference of Women in Baltimore, Maryland from April 20 to 29, gave a pre-conference address to the New York audience, which included Carrie Chapman Catt and other leading women's rights activists, as well as Morgan's fellow Colony Club members, civic leaders and prominent members of society."[https://www.newspapers.com/image/194063195/ Women Only Can End War, Lady Astor's Appeal Here]." New York, New York: New York Tribune, April 20, 1922, pp. 1 and 3 (subscription required)."Relatives Sit Near Stage," in "[https://www.newspapers.com/image/194063864/?terms=%22Ruth%20Morgan%22&match=1 Lady Astor Arrives with Her Interview Already Typed]." New York, New York: New York Tribune, April 20, 1922, p. 3 (subscription required).Cogan, Alice. "[https://www.newspapers.com/image/556111469/?terms=%22Ruth%20Morgan%22&match=1 With the Women Voters]." Brooklyn, New York: The Brooklyn Daily Times, p. 11 (subscription required).

In early 1925, Morgan participated in the League of Nations Conference in Geneva, Switzerland."[https://www.newspapers.com/image/494224727/?terms=%22Ruth%20Morgan%22&match=1 Women Voters to Hear Ruth Morgan]." Buffalo, New York: Buffalo Evening Times, January 31, 1925, p. 1 (subscription required). In 1926, she chaired the International Alliance of Women's committee for peace and a League of Nations committee in Geneva.

In 1932, she was one of six hundred women who participated as delegates to the five-day National League of Women Voters' convention in Detroit, Michigan. These delegates were appointed and authorized "to decide the participation in government...attempted during the next two years by their constituent State or local leagues in forty-two States, the District of Columbia and Hawaii.""Women Voters Hear Appeal for Peace; Miss Ruth Morgan Declares Hope Is in Youth and That Education is War's Foe. Lauds League of Nations: 600 Assemble at Detroit for Convention—First Official Session Will Open Today," The New York Times, April 26, 1932."[https://www.newspapers.com/image/114070569/?terms=%22Ruth%20Morgan%22&match=1 Women Voters Challenge Political Aims: Ruth Morgan Among Leaders at Detroit Meeting]." Poughkeepsie, New York: Poughkeepsie Eagle-News, April 19, 1932, p. 5 (subscription required).

Morgan fell ill after chairing a conference hosted by the National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War in Washington, D.C. in January 1934. She died at the age of sixty-three at her home in Manhattan on March 11, 1934. Following funeral services at Grace Episcopal Church in Manhattan on March 13, which were attended by her family and friends, including U.S. Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins and Sara Roosevelt, the mother of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Morgan was interred in the Morgan family's mausoleum at the Saint James Episcopal Churchyard in Hyde Park, New York."[https://www.newspapers.com/image/838925127/?article=d4b14ac9-d7f9-4198-944f-5637fe8cb12d&terms=%22Ruth%20Morgan%22 Ruth Morgan, Worker for World Peace, Dies]." Buffalo, New York: Buffalo Evening News, March 12, 1934, p. 29 (subscription required)."Ruth Morgan, 63, Dies Suddenly," Times Union, March 12, 1934, p. 7."[https://www.newspapers.com/image/577521333/ Throng at Funeral of Ruth Morgan]." Brooklyn, New York: Times Union, March 14, 1934, p. 4 (subscription required).

Morgan was a member of multiple political and social organizations during her lifetime, including the:Campbell, "Biographical Sketch of Margaret Lewis Morgan Norrie," in Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000, Alexander Street.

• Colony Club (member and president); and
• League of Women Voters (third and first vice president).

• List of civil rights leaders
• List of feminists
• List of women's rights activists

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• O'Donnell, Joy. "[https://blog.dar.org/new-era-international-policy-centennial-washington-naval-conference A New Era in International Policy — The Centennial of the Washington Naval Conference]." Washington, D.C.: Daughters of the American Revolution, November 12, 2021
• [https://www.womeninpeace.org/m-names/2019/11/11/ruth-morgan Ruth Morgan] (profile), Women in Peace, November 11, 2019

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Category:19th-century American women

Category:20th-century American women

Category:Activists from New York City

Category:American anti-war activists

Category:American feminists

Category:American social reformers

Category:American suffragists

Category:American women in World War I

Category:Clubwomen

Category:Members of the League of Women Voters

Category:People from Staatsburg, New York

Category:1870 births

Category:1934 deaths

Category:American women activists