#UULent #resistance
What do you know about our Lakeland Universalist ancestress, Bertha Steitz? She had a huge impact on the City of Lakeland in the first half of the 20th Century because she knew how to resist! Here’s an excerpt from my thesis about this amazing woman:
In 1912, Steitz started writing for the local Lakeland Evening Telegram newspaper. Her column, “The Ruminations of Uncle Henry” was written under the pseudonym Uncle Henry and became a big hit with the paper’s readers. Steitz, a woman doing what was considered men’s work at the time, knew that writing opinions as a man would be more effective than voicing them as a woman. As one journalist reflects in 1983, “it was such a success because of the unique quality of wit and humor with which Uncle Henry approached everyday problems as well as extending good advice (whether requested or not).”1 Some of these everyday problems were women’s issues, such as advocating for the need for a local women’s club, as well as a literary society and a public library.2 One 1912 Ruminations was especially powerful on this point. Evoking a Florida Cracker accent, she wrote: “There was two things I have been indendin to write about for a long time… One was a womins club for the purpose of advancin the interests of the city. Women is grate on runnin things and I like to see them have a chanct.” Through the guise of Uncle Henry, Steitz was able to boldy approach this progressive subject. She did not stop at asking for people to give them a chance. She continued, with great foresight, looking to support her argument, “there aint a church which could run very long without womin to run it… After the ladys has made the money for the church, they ought to have the chanct to spend it.” Steitz was advocating for power to be given to lay women in the church, an issue the Universalist women’s missionary associations fought for, and an issue she would face eleven years later in Lakeland. “If a man hollers about womin doin things in the busness world, that is allers a small man which knows that if a real smart woman was to take a hankerin to his job she could likely get it and do it better than he has been doin.” Perhaps she was referring to her own experiences doing work traditionally given to men, but one can sense her frustrations with the sexism of the time and the lack of support from men. “I have had a notion all along that they could do things to help this town and that is what I am after… The other matter I was thinkin of is the subjeck of a publick library, and if the ladys undertakes this they had ought to be helped greatly by the men of this town… every man that haint done nothin to help the ladys get one had ought to feel smaller than new pertaters.” In this one ruminations article, she addresses several of the issues that women with vision had for improving society. And standing in the way of all these visions was sexism and the power of men.
1 Martha F. Sawyer, “Once Upon a Time, Uncle Henry Spoke,” Lakeland Ledger, September 14, 1983, 3C.
2 Cinnamon Bair, “Columnist Not What He Seemed To Be,” Lakeland Ledger, March 13, 2000, D1.