Scrapbook of Newspaper Clippings, 1919-1924.
Constance Drexel’s Scrapbook:
The Paris Peace Conference
Women and the League of Nations
U.S. Woman’s Suffrage
and More
Drexel, Constance. Scrapbook of Newspaper Clippings, 1919 [1918]-1920 by Drexel; 1924 on Drexel.
Tall narrow 8vo.; ca. 190 hand numbered pages; two sets of pages numbered 166-75, bellowed referred to by 166-75a and b; hundreds of newspaper clippings pasted in; store-bought black cloth notebook; spine worn, slightly shaken; Parisian stationer’s label on front pastedown. In a specially made cloth slipcase.
An annotated scrapbook of clippings written by Constance Drexel between 1918 and 1919 in Paris, under contract for the Chicago Tribune Foreign News Service; and throughout 1920 in Washington and New York, with occasional dispatches from abroad, for the Philadelphia Ledger.
It is possible that these articles were culled and even arranged by a clipping service, for Drexel’s use in preparing a book publication: Throughout the scrapbook, Drexel’s name is often circled or underlined in colored pencil, and page 174b, which holds no article, bears her pencil note: “1921 is missing. 1921-1922 as Public Ledger correspondent in Washington is missing.” And on another page, bearing only offsetting the size and shape of a clipping, she writes, “where is article?” However, though we have tracked down two titles by this elusive but prolific journalist, Armament Manufacture and Trade (1933) and Disarmament (1935), apparently no book publication of her writings on woman suffrage ever came to pass.
Drexel’s pencil notations throughout take several forms: throughout the first 78 pages, she leaves occasional short notes summarizing content or calling attention to subject matter, cross referencing other articles in the scrapbook, approvals to include or not—again, as if preparing a publication of her selected journalism. Beginning on page 80, when her League of Nations coverage commences, her notes become more bibliographical in nature: dates, publication venues, etc.
Topics covered in these articles include the progress of the international and American suffrage movement, the state-by-state American fight for the women’s vote, the hardships of women’s daily lives, profiles and reports on activities of other contemporary feminist activists, suffragist’s role in forming The League of Nations, and, of course, the World War and the efforts of the international and American women’s pacifist movement to end it, amongst others.
A chronological and topical breakdown of the scrapbook follows, and reveals Drexel’s reputation developing in lockstep with her coverage of worldwide feminism and American woman suffrage.
Pages 1-78: Paris Peace Conference and International Woman’s Congress in Zurich.
Most undated, but early-mid 1919. Drexel was one of two female journalists at the Conference, and the only female journalist at the Congress. As the Paris correspondent for the Chicago Tribune Foreign News Service, devoted to the cause of the role of women in international politics, Drexel covered the Paris Peace Conference. She wrote articles about President Wilson’s visit to Paris, and regularly focused her attention on Mrs. Wilson’s activities, and French response. Nearly all the articles are of a serious nature, pertaining to politics, art, and culture—and women’s role in them—but a handful do discuss more frivolous topics such as the new “feminine pyjama fad.” A favorite headline merits quoting here:
Women Propose to Unscramble Eggs of Peace. Congress at Zurich Offers Six Amendments to Plan for World Peace. All of them Radical. Will Not Approve Present Covenant Unless it is Changed.
This section is unofficially concluded by the appearance spread across pages 77-78 of a group photograph of “Representatives of Various Countries Who Appeared Before the Peace Conference at Paris,” beneath the headline, “They Got Equality for Women in the League of Nations.” Drexel appears to the far left
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