Collection is open for research.
Lib. Acc. 26372.
Lola Greene Baldwin moved to Portland, Oregon, with her husband, LeGrand Baldwin, in 1904, and quickly found unpaid work organizing Portland's Juvenile Court and with the YWCA Travelers' Aid program during the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition. She used her experience and connections to deftly create an unprecedented full-time paid position with the Portland Police Department as supervisor of the Women's Protective Division from 1908 until her retirement in 1922. As the nation's first policewoman, she contributed in numerous ways to efforts to improve social and moral conditions for women and girls. Baldwin drew from years of volunteer investigative experience with charitable organizations on the East Coast and her earlier career as a teacher. During World War I, Lola Baldwin supervised the West Coast (Section 7) of the War Department Commission on Training Camp Activities, Section on Women and Girls, reporting on social conditions and vice control near military camps. In her retirement, Baldwin remained an ardent advocate for women.
Lola Greene Baldwin collection, Coll 388, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Papers of Lola Greene Baldwin, Portland, Oregon's first policewoman, compiled by Marian E. Hays. Collection includes biographical materials; family papers; clippings; photographs; correspondence; and reports, including War Department reports (1915-1918) for the West Coast (Section 7) of the Commission on Training Camp Activities, Section on Women and Girls. Also included are a letter by Azalia E. Peet smuggled out of wartime Japan in 1939; materials relating to the Albertina Kerr Center; and two scrapbooks of newspaper clippings (1905-1962).
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