Josephine Wilkins

{{Infobox person | name = Josephine Wilkins | image = Josephine Wilkins.jpg | alt = A white woman with dark hair parted center and drawn back low on the nape. | caption = Wilkins in 1934 | other_names = | birth_name = Josephine Mathewson Wilkins | birth_date = September 30, 1893 | birth_place = [[Athens, Georgia]], U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1977|5|30|1893|9|30}} | death_place = [[Port Charlotte, Florida]], U.S. | occupation = | years_active = | known_for = | notable_works = | spouse(s) = | relatives = }}

'''Josephine Mathewson Wilkins''' (September 30, 1893 – May 30, 1977) was an American social activist, president of the Georgia State [[League of Women Voters]]. She is a 2022 inductee into the [[Georgia Women of Achievement]].<ref name=GaWomen2022>{{cite web|title=Wesleyan College to Host 2022 Georgia Women of Achievement Induction Ceremony|url=http://middlegeorgiaceo.com/news/2022/02/wesleyan-college-host-2022-georgia-women-achievement-induction-ceremony/|publisher=Middle Georgia CEO|date=February 11, 2022|access-date=February 13, 2022 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220213220535/http://middlegeorgiaceo.com/news/2022/02/wesleyan-college-host-2022-georgia-women-achievement-induction-ceremony/|archive-date=February 13, 2022}}</ref>

== Early life == Josephine Mathewson Wilkins was born in [[Athens, Georgia]], the daughter of banker John Julian Wilkins Sr., and Jessie Stanley Horton Wilkins.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|date=1977-06-02|title=Josephine Wilkins, Civic Leader, Dies|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/06/02/archives/long-island-opinion-josephine-wilkins-civic-leader-dies-founder-of.html|access-date=2020-11-15|issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Doster|first1=Emily Jean|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cQaMPnfjoiQC&q=John+Julian+Wilkins&pg=PA91|title=Athens|last2=Doster|first2=Gary L.|date=2011|publisher=Arcadia Publishing|isbn=978-0-7385-8792-9|pages=91|language=en}}</ref> She attended school at the [[Lucy Cobb Institute]] in Athens, and earned a bachelor's degree at the [[University of Georgia]]. She pursued further studies in the arts in New York City, where she took courses at [[Columbia University]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|title=Josephine Wilkins and Jacquelyn Hall, conducted by Oral History Interview with Josephine Wilkins, 1972. Interview G-0063. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).|url=https://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/G-0063/menu.html|access-date=2020-11-15|website=Documenting the American South}}</ref>

[[File:Facts versus folklore - an adventure in democracy - Josephine Wilkins - DPLA - d2b2e89d9739dff3b2e59bfaacf004f2.pdf|thumb|alt="Address on Citizen's Fact Finding Movement of Georgia, delivered before 66th annual session, National Conference of Social Work, Buffalo, New York, June 23, 1939."|Facts versus folklore : an adventure in democracy / Josephine Wilkins]]

== Career == Wilkins began working for the Georgia Children's Code Commission on [[Child labour|child labor]] legislation in 1925.<ref name=":1" /> When the child labor bill passed, [[Franklin D. Roosevelt|Franklin Roosevelt]] wired his congratulations to Wilkins personally.<ref>{{Cite news|date=1937-03-14|title=President Pleased by Child Labor Bill|pages=22|work=The Atlanta Constitution|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63337358/president-pleased-by-child-labor-bill/|access-date=2020-11-15|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> In 1933, she was part of a citizens' committee to address police brutality towards Black residents of [[Atlanta]].<ref>{{Cite news|date=1933-09-30|title=Citizens' Group Seeks to Aid Negroes' Plight|pages=7|work=The Atlanta Constitution|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/56883166/the-atlanta-constitution/|access-date=2020-11-16|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> She was elected president of the Georgia State League of Women Voters in 1934. "Such an organization takes on new meaning in this period of confusion," she declared in her acceptance speech, "when the tendency to dictatorship is more the rule than the exception, and we in the United States seek to prove that our form of self-government is flexible enough to effect such changes as we may want through the orderly process of the ballot".<ref>{{Cite news|date=1934-11-01|title=Miss Josephine Wilkins Elected President of State Women Voters|pages=11|work=The Atlanta Constitution|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/62699502/the-atlanta-constitution/|access-date=2020-11-15|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> She retired from the League presidency in 1940.<ref>{{Cite news|date=1940-11-10|title=Mrs. Scanling Named to Head Women Voters|pages=48|work=The Atlanta Constitution|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63190605/the-atlanta-constitution/|access-date=2020-11-16|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>

Wilkins worked with Governor [[Ellis Arnall]] with a grant from the [[Rosenwald Fund]], to create the Georgia Citizens Fact-Finding Movement, an umbrella organization for reform efforts. She worked on anti-lynching laws with [[Jessie Daniel Ames]],<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hall|first=Jacquelyn Dowd|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KqgUh-TxVjoC&q=Josephine+Wilkins&pg=PA287|title=Revolt Against Chivalry: Jessie Daniel Ames and the Women's Campaign Against Lynching|date=1993|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=978-0-231-08283-9|pages=287–288|language=en}}</ref> and helped to found and lead the [[Southern Regional Council]] in the 1940s.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Kytle|first1=Calvin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vLT9D9SkceUC&q=Josephine+Wilkins&pg=PR19|title=Who Runs Georgia?|last2=Mackay|first2=James Armstrong|date=1998|publisher=University of Georgia Press|isbn=978-0-8203-2075-5|pages=xix|language=en}}</ref>

From 1954 until her death, she was president of Wilkins, Inc., overseeing her family's business interests and philanthropic work. In 1973, she gave an oral history interview to [[Jacquelyn Dowd Hall]] for the Southern Oral History Program Collection at the [[University of North Carolina]].<ref name=":1" />

== Personal life == Wilkins died in [[Port Charlotte, Florida]] in 1977, aged 83 years.<ref name=":0" /> Her papers were donated to [[Emory University]] by her nephews in 1978.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2006-10-28|title=Josephine Mathewson Wilkins papers, 1920-1977|url=https://findingaids.library.emory.edu/documents/wilkins580/|access-date=2020-11-15|website=Emory University Libraries}}</ref>

== References == {{reflist}}

== External links ==

* [https://archivesspace.valdosta.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/48155 "Letter, 1944 July 27: From Josephine Wilkins of Citizen's Fact-Finding Movement"], Valdosta State University Archives and Special Collections. * [https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/administrator-josephine-wilkins-citizens-fact-finding-news-photo/50491526 A 1944 photograph of Josephine Wilkins]{{Dead link|date=December 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, in [[Getty Images]].

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilkins, Josephine}} [[Category:1893 births]] [[Category:1977 deaths]] [[Category:People from Athens, Georgia]] [[Category:American feminists]] [[Category:Anti-lynching movement]] [[Category:American civil rights activists]] [[Category:Activists from Georgia (U.S. state)]] [[Category:University of Georgia alumni]] [[Category:American anti-poll tax activists]] [[Category:20th-century American women]] [[Category:20th-century American people]] [[Category:American women civil rights activists]] [[Category:Columbia University alumni]]