Staff Writer
Women’s History Month is in full swing across the nation.
Locally, one woman is marking the achievements of notable Long Beach area women, both past and present. Gerrie Schipske, Cal State Long Beach faculty member and former Long Beach city councilmember, has been documenting “Remarkable Women of Long Beach” all month on her website, Long Beach History.
What began as a book project on 20 “remarkable” local women changed when that number grew to 78. Schipske first developed a set of playing cards with 52 of them before moving the whole concept online. For each woman, Schipske created a trading card-style photo and brief description of her life and local impact.
“They’re as important as sports heroes,” Schipske said in a phone interview.
Schipske categorizes these “remarkable” women by a wide range of fields— such as education, business, arts, politics and activism— through which each made her mark, changed things for the better or contributed lasting service. She discovered many of these women while researching her four books on Long Beach history and said she was “amazed” by their stories.
One such woman Schipske documents is Cora Morgan, a stenographer who became Long Beach city clerk in 1916 after managing the campaigns of several city commissioners (now called council members).
“She was known as the unofficial ‘sixth commissioner’ [because she] knew the dirt on all of them,” Schipske said.
However, Schipske added, even though Morgan’s authority included controlling the vendors in the downtown municipal market, she had to sue the City several times just to get paid.
Many other women on the site also strove to make political strides. After California women won the right to vote in 1911, Schipske said, the first three who registered in Los Angeles County were from Long Beach. They had all attended the same Long Beach high school and were members of the women’s basketball team that won the 1912 state championship. One of them, Charlotte Corlin, wanted to run for Long Beach tax collector but was denied by her father. Schipske added that Corlin did serve as vice president of the Political Equality League with president Fanny Bixby Spencer, which had furthered the cause of women’s suffrage.
Many other women described on the site worked tirelessly to contribute their best to their own goals and their communities, stretching the boundaries of women’s roles and influence as they did so. In the field of education, one trading card describes how Grace Bush Eads was only 16 when she began teaching in 1885 at one of first area “schools” — a tent at 6th and Pine avenues. About 100 years later, Alta Cooke became the first African-American high school principal, at Jordan High School.
Trading cards for daring early aviators Amelia Earhart, Kay Daugherty and Barbara Erickson London are also on the site. Earhart and another local aviator, Gladys O’Donnell, in 1929 founded The 99s, an organization named after the first 99 women pilots.
“Amelia wasn’t a very good pilot, but she had a good press agent,” Schipske said.
And there are plenty of current women on the site who continue these legacies. Among them are caryn desai [sic], first woman director and producer at International City Theatre, and the Signal Tribune’s very own publisher, Neena Strichart. According to Schipske, the only other area female publisher was Belle McCord Roberts, who managed the Long Beach Press-Telegram with her father.
While Schipske isn’t on a trading card herself, some may consider her one of these “remarkable women.” A Long Beach native, she is by profession a registered nurse and attorney. Besides teaching and authoring books on Long Beach history, she served two terms as a Long Beach City council member and ran for mayor in 2014.
“These are women who did something, usually [as] the first,” Schipske said of her trading cards. “We need to remind everyone that women have been instrumental in creating communities from the beginning.”
Schipske added that today’s women have the same sense of perseverance. “[The site lets] women know they’re not alone,” she said. “They have a history that says, ‘You can do it.'”
“Remarkable Women of Long Beach” trading cards can be found at Schipske’s website, longbeachhistory.com.
