Mildred T. Powell papers, 1928-2000

Mildred Towne Powell was a Seattle area political activist and civic leader. She served as the only woman member of the Seattle City Council from 1935-1955, and is the second longest serving woman on the council. She was born on February 9, 1886, in New London, CT, to parents Walter Alanson Towne and Alice Nichols Warner. Following her graduation from New London's Williams Memorial High School (a public school for girls), Powell attended Wellesley College for one year before transferring to Smith College where she received a bachelor’s degree in 1908. She taught school in Connecticut and Massachusetts until 1910, when she married Francis Foster Powell and moved to Montana. In 1923, the Powell family--including children Francis, Jr., Alanson, and Alice--moved to Seattle. Powell was actively involved in the local community, including serving as the president of the Seattle Parent Teacher Association. After her husband died in 1934, she was urged by prominent leaders, among them Bertha Knight Landes, to run for the City Council. She ran as Mrs. F. F. Powell (in honor of her husband) and was elected in 1935. She was re-elected for her second term in 1938 with the highest number of votes of any candidate and was the third woman to ever sit on the City Council. She served in many positions on the Council including the Council President and acting Mayor of Seattle (three times).

At the end of WWII, she was chosen to represent the U.S. to lecture on municipal government in England and Germany. In 1950, she ran unsuccessfully as a candidate for the First Congressional District. She was active in the Moral Re-Armament (MRA) movement, which was based on Christian ideals that promoted world peace and unity and opposed Communism. It was founded by Frank Buchman in the 1920s, was ecumenical in nature, and by the 1950s, encouraged the spread of the MRA ideology through the production of plays such as The Vanishing Island . At that time it maintained a popular international following and worked to stop the spread of Communism. In 1955, she was invited to join a peacemaking journey to 28 countries in Asia and the Middle East by the MRA. She encouraged Myrtle Edwards to fill her Council position. When Mildred resigned from the City Council, more than 40 organizations and leaders, including the Governor of Washington, praised her years of service on the Council. She continued to be active in the MRA for many more years until her health brought her home to Seattle, where she died on June 16, 1977.