Dressed in turn-of-the-century clothes and sporting a black hat and large white wig, historian Gloria Myers channeled the first female U.S. police officer, Lola Greene Baldwin, at PSU on Tuesday. Myers, a PSU graduate, stood before a nearly 35-member audience, giving history on and delivering speeches as Baldwin, to recount the life and times of this historic figure. The event was held on the centennial of the day Baldwin was sworn into duty. Portland Mayor Tom Potter also commemorated April 1 as Lola Greene Baldwin Centennial Day.
Becoming Lola Greene Baldwin
Dressed in turn-of-the-century clothes and sporting a black hat and large white wig, historian Gloria Myers channeled the first female U.S. police officer, Lola Greene Baldwin, at PSU on Tuesday.
Myers, a PSU graduate, stood before a nearly 35-member audience, giving history on and delivering speeches as Baldwin, to recount the life and times of this historic figure. The event was held on the centennial of the day Baldwin was sworn into duty. Portland Mayor Tom Potter also commemorated April 1 as Lola Greene Baldwin Centennial Day.
“When you came into the room, you entered a time warp,” said Bill Lang, who introduced Myers to the stage.
Myers recounted Baldwin’s life and work in the Portland Police department, comparing her duty with that of a social worker. The PSU Friends of History group held Tuesday’s event.
Myer’s 1995 Baldwin biography, A Municipal Mother: Portland’s Lola Greene Baldwin, America’s First Policewoman, inspired the name of the Lola Greene Baldwin Foundation, a Portland run prostitution recovery center where sex workers can find help getting out of the sex industry.
Myers said that Baldwin really believed in the idea of women police officers and that she set a precedent in establishing more women in U.S. law enforcement.
Baldwin was in charge of policing vice in early 20th century Portland. Her duty was to patrol and survey hotels, lodges and other locations, creating lists of the establishments that used prostitution and making them public to women and military personnel arriving into town.
Baldwin was tasked with keeping the incoming military and naval personnel entering from the Willamette River from the local brothels and providing them with more “wholesome” means of entertainment.
“Why do girls go wrong?” an in-character Myers asked in her lecture. “Because of prostitution.”
Gloria Myers, who is married to history professor David Horowitz, received her Master’s in history from PSU in 1993. She started her Baldwin biography as part of her graduate thesis.
