{{Short description|American suffragist (1872–1920)}} {{Infobox person | name = Ethel Moore | image = Ethel Moore 1898 (Genealogy and recollections, 1915) (cropped).jpg | alt = <!-- descriptive text for use by speech synthesis (text-to-speech) software --> | caption = Moore in 1898 | birth_name = <!-- only use if different from name --> | birth_date = {{birth date|1872|3|6}} | birth_place = Oakland, California, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1920|10|4|1872|3|6}} | death_place = San Francisco, California, U.S. | education = {{plainlist| * University of California * Vassar College }} | occupation = {{hlist|Suffragist|civic leader}} | years_active = }}
'''Ethel Moore''' (March 6, 1872 – October 4, 1920) was an American suffragist and civic leader. Moore was considered a national authority in playground work, was one of the two women to be recognized by California Governor William D. Stephens when he named the state council of defense, was a trustee of Mills College and sponsor of its building program; as director in public health work, Moore was for many years a recognized leader on the Pacific coast.<ref name="OaklandTrib1920">{{cite news |title=Ethel Moore dies |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/18784966/ethel_moore_dies/ |access-date=4 June 2023 |work=Oakland Tribune |via=Newspapers.com |date=5 October 1920 |page=1|language=en}} {{source-attribution}}</ref><ref name="Reinhardt1921">{{cite journal |last1=Reinhardt |first1=Aurelia Henry |title=Ethel Moore |journal=The Journal of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae |date=January 1921 |volume=XIV |issue=4 |pages=103–05 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A8wmAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA103 |access-date=4 June 2023 |publisher=Association of Collegiate Alumnae at the University of Chicago Press |language=en}} {{Source-attribution}}</ref>
==Early life and education== Moore was born on March 6, 1872, in Oakland, California, to Albert Alfonzo and Jacqueline Anne Moore ({{Nee|Hall}}). She had five younger siblings.<ref name="AAMoore1915">{{cite book |last1=Moore |first1=Albert Alfonzo |title=Genealogy and Recollections |date=1915 |publisher=Priv. print. by the Blair-Murdock Company |url=https://archive.org/details/genealogyrecolle00moor |via=Internet Archive |access-date=4 June 2023 |language=en}} {{Source-attribution}}</ref> She graduated from Oakland High School, later attending the University of California for two years before she entered the all-women Vassar College. She graduated with the class of 1894.<ref name="OaklandTrib1920" />
==Career== Moore's time at Vassar College stimulated her interest in the welfare of women and children, and upon her return to Oakland, she in co-founded the Oakland Social Settlement. The settlement intended to give adults and children opportunities for study and recreation.<ref name="Reinhardt1921" /> She was a member of its board for 20 years, a part of which time she served as president.<ref name="OaklandTrib1920" />
Simultaneously, among Moore's friends and neighbors, she became the first president of the Home Club, original in its planning for a more cordial and democratic social intercourse of family and community.<ref name="Reinhardt1921" />
In 1911, Moore was a leading member of the suffragette movement which brought to California women the right of suffrage.<ref name="Reinhardt1921" /> In that year, she was elected Director of the College Equal Suffrage League of Northern California.<ref name="History1922">{{cite book |last1=Stanton |first1=Elizabeth Cady |last2=Anthony |first2=Susan Brownell |last3=Gage |first3=Matilda Joslyn |last4=Harper |first4=Ida Husted |title=History of Woman Suffrage: 1900-1920 |date=1922 |publisher=Fowler & Wells |page=36, 47 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aX5KAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA47 |access-date=5 June 2023 |language=en}} {{source-attribution}}</ref>
Following this, Moore's attention turned to the education of women for civic as well as domestic efficiency. She began to help draft educational legislation and summoned the alumnae of institutions throughout the country to join in raising the standards of education in the U.S. She became sectional vice-president of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae for Arizona, Nevada, and California,<ref name="OaklandTrib1920" /> and traveled from Imperial Valley to Seattle to preach to women the need of higher educational standards and the practical application of knowledge to daily living. Her vision of the relationship between differing group efforts was shown in her participation in the State Conference of Social Agencies. She brought into this California body the organized college women of the State, on the thesis that education is the greatest of the social agencies.<ref name="Reinhardt1921" />
This same interest made Moore accept the responsibility for planning playgrounds in Oakland. <ref name="Reinhardt1921" /> Mayor Frank K. Mott appointed Moore to the first playground commission created by the city ordinance in December 1908. When the new city charter created the recreation department, Moore was reappointed in 1911, serving eight years. Her efforts received national recognition and Oakland became known for its model recreational work.<ref name="OaklandTrib1920" />
Moore was elected trustee of Mills College in 1915,<ref name="Reinhardt1921" /> and was instrumental in accomplishing the appointment of Dr. Aurelia Henry Reinhardt as president.<ref name="OaklandTrib1920" />
Moore served on the Local Section of May Wright Sewall's Home Advisory Board in preparation for the International Conference of Women Workers to Promote Permanent Peace, held in San Francisco in July, 1915.<ref name="TableTalk1915">{{cite journal|title=To Promote Permanent Peace |first1=Marie Hicks |last1=Davidson | date = May 1915 | journal = Table Talk |volume= 30 |issue =5 | publisher = Arthur H. Crist Company | pages = 270–75 | oclc = 1715377 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=JwJBAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA270}} {{source-attribution}}</ref>
During World War I, Governor Stephens made her one of the two women members of the California State Council of Defense. She was a chair of the Oakland Council of Defense, director of the Hoover Relief Commission for starving Belgium, an organizer of the Women's Land Army, a national director of Girls' Clubs for Community Service, and a member of the National Committee to Secure Military Rank for Army Nurses.<ref name="OaklandTrib1920" /><ref name="Reinhardt1921" />
Moore became one of the founders of the Alameda County Society for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis on whose board she served for 12 years. The idea of acquiring summer camps for children and for adults grew out of contact with the needy in the Playground organization and the Tubercular Clinics. Recreational possibilities turned her creative energies to bringing to California the work of The Drama League and the American Playground Association.<ref name="Reinhardt1921" />
Shortly before Moore's death, she became a member of the Woman's Faculty Club of the University of California. She traveled extensively. Since the death of her mother a few years before her own, she was a constant companion of her father, A. A. Moore.<ref name="OaklandTrib1920" />
==Death and legacy== Moore died on October 4, 1920, aged 48, in San Francisco.<ref name="Vassar1920">{{cite news |title=MISS ETHEL MOORE |url=https://newspaperarchives.vassar.edu/?a=d&d=miscellany19201103-01.2.13&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------- |access-date=4 June 2023 |work=newspaperarchives.vassar.edu |date=3 November 1920 |language=en}} {{source-attribution}}</ref><ref name="VassarQ1920">{{cite journal |title=Contemporary Notes |journal=Vassar Quarterly |date=November 1920 |volume=V |issue=1 |page=63 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jp9GAQAAMAAJ&dq=Ethel+Moore++October+4%2C+1920+hospital&pg=PA318-IA63 |access-date=4 June 2023 |publisher=Vassar College. |language=en}} {{source-attribution}}</ref> The Ethel Moore Residence Hall at Mills College, built in 1926,<ref name="MillsQuarterly">{{cite web |title=An Ever-Evolving Campus |url=https://quarterly.mills.edu/an-ever-evolving-campus/ |website=Mills Quarterly |access-date=4 June 2023 |date=16 March 2019}}</ref> in named in her honor.<ref name="northeastern">{{cite web |last1=Price |first1=Jessica Taylor |title=The Mills campus has it all: Beauty, history, modern spaces—even ghosts |url=https://news.northeastern.edu/2022/06/30/mills-campus-oakland-california/ |website=Northeastern Global News |access-date=4 June 2023 |date=30 June 2022}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist|30em}}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Moore, Ethel}} Category:1872 births Category:1920 deaths Category:Activists from California Category:Vassar College alumni Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni Category:Activists from Oakland, California Category:Suffragists from California Category:American suffragists Category:American women's rights activists Category:American women activists