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Kettler, Ernestine Hara (audio interview #3 of 6)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This is the third interview with Ernestine Hara Kettler. This interview was to cover the period that she spent in Seattle and her involvement with the IWW. Kettler had more noticeable memory lapses in this interview than on the previous two occasions, e.g. she had difficulty remembering certain words. Because she was reluctant to discuss the personal aspects of her experiences, it was difficult to get a clear picture of her life during this time, and the chronology of events is sometimes confusing, particularly in reference to the events surrounding her husband A.I. Emerson's arrest. 2/7/1973
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- SUBJECT BIO - Ernestine Kettler was one of the suffragists who was arrested for picketing the White House with the National Woman's Party. She served time at the Occoquan Work House, where she participated in the strikes launched by the suffragist prisoners to be recognized as political prisoners. Shortly after this, Kettler went west, where she worked initially with the I.W.W. (Industrial Workers of the World) and later for various trade unions in both San Francisco and Los Angeles. She remained an ardent feminist her entire life and had a long history of labor and socialist activism. Her involvement with the suffrage struggle, though short-lived, was an outgrowth of both her feminist beliefs and her ties to political and bohemian circles in New York that began in her teen years. Kettler was among the former suffragists who spoke at the Jubilee celebration of woman's suffrage in Los Angeles, and she was referred to the Feminist History Research Project by leaders of Los Angeles NOW. Approximately 7 hours were recorded with her in January and February, 1973, when she was 78 years old. The interviews were conducted mainly in her room at a residential hotel overlooking MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. A petite woman, who was still very intellectually inquiring and physically vigorous, she nevertheless seemed rather depressed. Her health failed over the next two years, and she moved into an assisted living facility, where a final, brief interview was conducted in 1975. She lived there until her death in 1978. TOPICS - Topics covered on this side of the tape include: participation in the NWP campaign for suffrage; experiences in the Occoquan Work House; social and political relationships with the anarchists, socialists, bohemian, Wobblies in New York and Provincetown, Massachusetts and later in Everett and Seattle Washington;Topics covered on this side of the tape include: associations with the IWW and other radicals in the state of Washington; gender ideology of the Wobblies; her marriage to A;L; (Archer Lyle) Emerson, a Wobbly; and their problems with the police;
- *** File: sufehkettler5.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-2:20)... Tape introduction (2:20-6:19)... <take begins abruptly with a discussion on the names of the women that were in her picketing group and with whom she was arrested> There is some confusion as to the women that were in her picketing group. She mentions Lucy Burns, who was listed as being arrested in September 1917, and was credited with developing the political prisoner and work refusal tactics. However, Kettler recalls that Lucy Burns was already in the Occoquan Work House when she arrived. She refers to a demand letter written by suffragists in the Occoquan Work House that seems to indicate that Lucy Burns was the woman who was separated from the other suffragists and almost taken to the psychiatric ward. However, Kettler is convinced that this happened to Peggy Johns. Note: there is a long pause in the tape while Kettler is trying to decipher information in the Appendix of Doris Stevens' Jailed for Freedom , which lists the dates and names of women arrested and sent to the Occoquan Work House. (6:19-10:19)... <Kettler reads from the appendix of Doris Stevens' book, which provides information on women who picketed and were arrested in Washington,DC> A demand letter written by suffragists mentions that the women did not have any communication with each other. During her sentence at the Occoquan Work House, however, the women were in the work room together every day and were also allowed to take prescribed walks through the prison yards together. The women were not out of communication with each other while she was in the Work House. The women were housed in a dormitory that slept approximately thirty; it was similar to rooms in hospital wards. The suffragists and the other prisoners were housed in the same dormitory. The beds were straight, narrow beds positioned approximately three feet apart and very similar to hospital beds. (10:19-14:01)... <Kettler reads a statement written by suffragists in the Occoquan Work House> The demand letter written by suffragists at the Occoquan Work House addressed issues that developed after her imprisonment there. Following her group's insistence that they were political prisoners and the violent encounter with the prison guards, the prison decided to segregate the women who were arrested subsequently - which is what the statement addressed. According to the demands stated in the letter, it seems that the suffragists were not allowed to receive food, letters, newspapers, or visitors. However, during her sentence at the work house, her mother visited her. She does not recall anyone else receiving any visitors or correspondence while she was there. (14:01-16:09)... Hilda Blumberg, arrested on September 19, 1917, may have been one of the women arrested with Kettler. She was also 21 years old and from New York. Kettler notes that they did not have a lot of information on her at the time, which might explain why the appendix did not mention her age or her residency. Note: Kettler continues to review Doris Stevens' book appendix in an attempt to determine the names of the women arrested with her and sent to the Occoquan Work House. (16:09-19:41)... At her hearing, the judge did not believe she was 21 years old because she looked very young at the time. However, the NWP did not allow women who were under the legal age to participate in picketing activities. After further thought, she does not recall if all of the suffragists at the Occoquan Work House were sent to the city jail after the violence with the deputies occurred. She does know that the women she picketed with were sent to the city jail with her, where they spent the remainder of their sentence. The women lost their five days of good behavior when they refused to work at the Occoquan Work House. Note: Maude Malone may be the name of one of the women in her picketing group who was arrested and sentenced to the Occoquan Work House. (19:41-21:38)... When she arrived at the Occoquan Work House there were suffragists already there. After she left , the next group sentenced to the work house were treated very harshly. She recalls that some women were dragged across the floors to their cells, and she heard that one woman had broken ribs, while others were bleeding profusely and suffered from lacerations. During her sentence, the only beating she received was during the demonstration at the superintendent's office following the authorities' attempt to remove Peggy Johns. break in tape (21:38-24:58)... In 1916, she went to Provincetown and met Eugene O'Neill, Louise Bryant, Jack Reed, and Mary Heaton Vorse, among others. She may also have met Crystal Eastman. There were several artists and writers in Provincetown at the time and she became acquainted with many of them. Although she was not sure what year or where she met Hippolyte Havel, she recalls that they were friends by the time she went to Provincetown. She began writing when she was 14 years old. A drama critic from Boston once read a play she wrote and he commented that she had the markings of a near genius. Prior to this, she never really thought about becoming a writer, but some of the radical girls she associated with wanted to create a bulletin and asked her to write some stories. She began writing poems, and the girls thought she was remarkable. She found that writing was very effortless and it seemed very natural to her. She recalls that both Havel and O'Neill read a story she wrote once and believed she was very talented. (24:58-27:24)... After she began writing, she thought of pursuing a career in this area. She regretted not going to school and learning the craft of writing, which probably would have changed her entire life. She still writes a lot of articles; however, after she writes something she puts it aside and then eventually throws it away. She describes her philosophy towards writing, stating that the most important thing is the development of a character. (27:24-30:16)... She was acquainted with Hippolyte Havel for approximately two and a half years until about 1918 when she moved west. While she was in New York, she spent quite a lot of time with him. He often invited her to dinner. If he did not have any money, he sent her to see his friends to get money to pay for the meal. His friends were very loyal and would not allow the proprietor to kick him out or force him to do the dishes to pay for his meal. At the time, he was approximately forty or fifty years old and saw Kettler as a daughter. He called her by the name of a puppy he once had because he considered her a child. She tore a lot of his letters up because she did not have anyone to leave them to. She sent two cartons of paperwork and letters to the Socialist Party for their use. (30:16-34:11)... When she moved to Everett, Washington, there were a lot of socialists and Wobblies in the city. She does not recall anything remarkable occurring during her time there. She lived with a socialist family and opened her own stenography business. Katherine Hodgins assisted her in setting up an office. Kettler managed to pay the rent but she did not make a profit. She was not qualified as a typist or stenographer. Although she finished her courses at a commercial school in New York, she had very little experience working in an office. (34:11-37:29)... She decided to leave Everett, Washington because she was not making any money and was financially dependent on Hodgins. Hodgins had a friend in Seattle who offered to employ Kettler at an AFL union. She moved to Seattle and started working for the Electrical Office Workers Union, AFL. Aain, her inexperience was a problem and she was told that her services were no longer needed. Shortly after she arrived in Seattle, she met a large group of radical elite comprised of anarchists, socialists, and radicals. Although this group was not associated with the IWW, she did meet a few Wobblies through them. She began attending the Labor Temple in the city, which had a section in the balcony reserved for people who were not members of the organization. These meetings provided her with information on what was happening in the labor movement. (37:29-41:55)... The group of anarchists, socialists, and radicals she met in Seattle were intellectuals and very limited in their political activities. Some of the members of the group were professors, teachers, accountants, or others with professional standing in the community. The most interesting individual in this group was Heini Abrahams, who was a homosexual and politically active in the community. This intellectual group discussed politics from a different point of view than the Wobblies, which saw politics from the point of view of industrial work and capitalism. Unfortunately, this view limited their ability to understand political policies within their organization. She believes that the Wobblies were very backwards in their political knowledge, which is why she stayed in the organization for only a short period of time. There were a lot of women in the mixed group of radicals with whom she associated in Seattle. Although she cannot recall any specific conversations or discussions, she believes that feminist issues were discussed within the group because she talked about these issues herself. The men in the group believed it was impractical to denigrate women. However, she does not recall any profound discussions regarding women. At the time, the issue for women was suffrage not complete equality. Personally, her philosophical beliefs opposed discrimination in every facet of human life. (41:55-43:26)... Her attitudes towards marriage, sex, and relationships were consistent with anarchism; she believed in free love and trial marriages. She was not moralistic about marriage and although she believed in free love, she states that she was not promiscuous. (43:26-45:15)... She recalls the time when she was questioned by the police because they believed she was an anarchist by the name of Ernestine Evans. In 1919, following World War I, the authorities and the government began arresting a lot of radicals, socialists, and anarchists and deporting them or placing them in concentration camps for their activism. end of tape *** File: sufehkettler6.mp3 (0:00-4:49)... The first time she met Anna Louise Strong was in Seattle when Louise Bryant invited Kettler to her room for a visit. Strong was scheduled to interview Bryant at the same time Kettler was there. Kettler's impression of Strong was that she was interested in taking the stories of famous people and not those of the rank and file. When her husband was arrested and she bailed him out, she ran into Strong again, who was surprised to learn that not only was Kettler associated with a lot of well known radicals, but she was married to a Wobbly. Strong was a good storyteller and published some very interesting articles about important people in the movement. (4:49-8:07)... During her first year in Seattle, she visited the IWW hall, where she met several Wobblies. The men in the group were dependent on the women for their cooking and domestic responsibilities. She describes the women as "kitchen slaves" because they cooked and served the men at all of the organization's functions. The women were similar to a welcoming committee that met the men as they came into the hall. There were approximately 75 Wobblies and the women made up a third. All of the women were working class women, who were the wives, mothers, or sisters of the Wobblies. (8:07-10:45)... Besides Chicago, Seattle held the second largest population of Wobblies. There were several unions within Seattle and the first place that laborers went when they landed in the city was the IWW hall. The IWW office was located in a basement across the street from the hall. There were several cubicles set up in the office for the various locals. She met her husband, Archer Lyle Emerson, at the IWW office. At the time, she was not working for the IWW, but was working for other unions. She was involved with the Wobblies on a social level and often attended their socials and meetings. She ultimately worked for the IWW in 1923 while living in Butte, Montana, and in 1924 in Chicago when she was returning to the east coast. (10:45-11:57)... Although she was not personally associated with the "Home Colony," her intellectual friends knew people there and she visited the colony on several occasions, staying for two or three days at at a time. The people in the colony were basically anarchists and their communal living arrangements were not working very well. They argued over the communal use of electric power and when these discussions became heated, several people obtained their own electric power. She became disillusioned with anarchism after witnessing these events. (11:57-13:41)... Her social life centered on activities with her intellectual group of friends and the Wobblies. She related to the women in the these groups, but found more fulfillment in her associations with the intellectual group. Although she was naive at this time, she was an intellectual and was developing her own ideas and analysis of society. (13:41-15:03)... When she moved to Seattle, she either lived with other people, or had her own apartment. She married her husband some time in 1918, shortly after which he was arrested and placed in jail. She believes that her husband was in jail during the general strike in February 1919. (15:03-17:02)... Although she was not involved in the birth control movement, she believed in birth control and sympathized with the movement. She once wrote a letter in which she provided information on birth control. When she and her husband's apartment was raided by the police, she distracted a police officer by talking to him incessantly as he read the letter. At this time, Seattle was anti-birth control and a legal stature stipulated a prison sentence for persons publicly advocating or writing about birth control. (17:02-21:24)... In 1918, she married Archer Lyle Emerson, the grand cousin of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Prior to their marriage, he worked as a newspaper journalist, but left that career because of problems with his vision. He then joined and worked as the secretary for Local 310 of the IWW. She met him at the IWW offices. He quickly became attached to Kettler, telling her that when he saw her, he wanted her to be his wife. She did not know very much about his history or background, or how long he had been in Seattle prior to meeting her. They courted for approximately one month before marrying. Upon further reflection, she believes she married Emerson because she needed stability. He was in love with her, but she did not feel the same about him. Although she was young, naive, and unstable when she married him, she was also too sophisticated for him. They did not have a good relationship or marriage. (21:24-25:32)... After she married, she moved into an apartment with her husband. A short time later, her friend, Alicia Rosenbaum, came to visit. When they returned home one day, Rosenbaum was waiting in the apartment with two policemen, who had a warrant for Emerson's arrest. While searching the apartment, the police found a record book for the Young People's Socialist League (YPSL), which provided them with enough evidence to arrest Emerson for sedition. However, the book actually belonged to Kettler, who was the acting secretary of YPSL the league at the time. At Emerson's trial, the judge dismissed the case because it was proven that not only was the book not Emerson's, but that the YPSL was an innocuous group of youths that used the league for social interaction. (25:32-31:47)... After her husband's release, he was arrested again for allegedly carrying pornographic material, which the police planted on him. Apparently, when the police searched her apartment, they confiscated the negatives of nude photographs of Kettler, for which she posed while in Provincetown. The police also confiscated a lot of her writings, poetry, and music compositions. While in jail, her husband was approached by the Musicians Guild and the Writers Guild, both of which wanted to make him an honorary member even though none of the material the police gathered was his. Her husband was charged with a misdemeanor and sentenced to two or three months in a prison camp outside Seattle. She believes that once she married her husband, his activities were scrutinized by the authorities because she was an infamous person and known by the police as an anarchist. During the raid of their apartment, a police officer read a letter she wrote on how to obtain and use a birth control contrivance. If the police officer understood what the letter was about, she risked being arrested and sentenced to a prison term for disseminating birth control information. (31:47-33:06)... There is some confusion as to the exact time that her husband was in jail. She believes he was serving a prison sentence for approximately two or three months in 1919 when the general strike occurred. (33:06-34:31)... During the general strike in Seattle, she was not involved in any activist way. Her husband was released from jail shortly after the strike and their relationship began to sour. They separated and got back together on more than one occasion, but she did not want to discuss these personal matters on tape. (34:31-37:50)... Upon reflection, she recalls that her husband stayed at a jail work house for a couple of months during the general strike in Seattle. They managed to raise the bail money, which was $300 at the time, and once they posted his bail, they left the city and changed their names. They went to Tacoma, Washington where her husband got a job and where they lived for a few months. They then moved to Elby, Washington, which was a small town with approximately 400 residents. They met a woman who permitted them to live on her land; they lived in a tent near a stream. (37:50-40:28)... The woman who owned the farm on which they lived was a drug addict and a former madam of a whorehouse in Butte, Montana. While they were living on this woman's farm, they contracted with her to make moonshine. They stayed at the farm for one summer and then went into town and rented a couple of rooms at a former hotel. At this time, her husband took a job as a lumberjack. (40:28-41:56)... After her husband skipped bail and they left town, Anna Louise Strong became interested in their lives. Kettler's husband was viewed as a Wobbly who was falsely arrested and framed. Strong forwarded their mail to them under their assumed name. After they left Elby, Washington, her husband was never caught by the police. After a couple of separations, her husband finally left Seattle in 1922-23. (41:56-43:36)... After she left Elby and returned to Seattle, she worked for a short period of time and then decided to return to the east coast. She went to Butte, Montana to visit Alicia Rosenbaum and worked for the IWW there. She stayed in Butte for eight months and then moved to Chicago, where she worked for the IWW again. She spent the remainder of 1923 in Chicago and then moved to New York. (43:36-45:57)... There is some confusion as to the period of time she spent in Chicago. (Break in tape.) While she was in Chicago working for the IWW, the split between the communists and anti-communists began to take shape. It is her belief that the communists were trying to control the IWW in both Chicago and Seattle. Note: there is an interruption in the recording, and then it begins abruptly with a discussion of her decision to leave Seattle and return to the east coast. She partly decided to return to the east coast because her relationship with Emerson was over. end of tape
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