Those Feisty Weintraub Sisters: History Center’s ‘Notable Women of Avalon’ Exhibit Includes These Social Activists
Front steps of 75 W. 32nd Street, August 1911.
The Weintraub sisters of 32nd Street in Avalon were a force during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Thus they will be featured among others in the Avalon History Center’s “Notable Women of Avalon” exhibit at the museum and in mini-displays around town.
History Center curator Bonita Risley and museum assistant Laura Reichert became acquainted with Sarah Louise, Helen, and Georgine Weintraub thanks to a scrapbook donated by their great-niece Letitia (Weintraub) Wenerd. In sorting through the scrapbook filled with pictures, news clips, and family letters collected by Helen Weintraub, Risley and Reichert discovered a storyline involving the earliest women’s rights movement and more.
Photographs of the unmarried Weintraub sisters, sometimes with children or pets on their porch, the beach or in a boat, suggest happy-go-lucky, outdoorsy siblings who enjoyed one another’s company and fishing in Avalon’s beautiful open spaces. A closer look into Sarah Louise, Helen, and Georgine Weintraub’s lives reveals soft spots in their hearts for underdogs of their day in union with steely determination to address social issues and injustices.
Reconstructing the lives of people from the past is “a labor of love,” Risley says. “You never know what you’re getting into or what you will find out … the surprises.”
When it came to the Weintraubs, Risley and Reichert discovered all sorts of surprises.
Sarah Louise and Helen Weintraub were born in Syria in 1861 and 1871, respectively. Their parents were Christian missionaries, Reichert explains. The family returned to the United States in 1874 and settled in Philadelphia. Philadelphia was the birthplace of Georgine Weintraub, born in 1876, and brother Paul, born in 1881.
During their early years, Sarah Louise and Helen Weintraub attended the Mary Anna Longstreth School, a Quaker school for young girls in Philadelphia.
Sarah Louise Weintraub had a significant interest in medicine, and women’s health in particular. So, she studied to be a medical doctor. The oldest of the Weintraub sisters graduated from the first school in the world established to train women to be physicians, Philadelphia’s Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, in 1882.
Two years later, after working for a year in a U.S. women’s hospital, Sarah Louise Weintraub packed her bags and returned to Damascus, Syria with seriously good intentions. The 23-year-old doctor hoped to establish a hospital there and serve the health needs of Syrian women, says Reichert. “Male physicians were not allowed in the harems,” she adds.
Although the young doctor planned to settle in Syria, she spent only three years there. Her efforts to raise a hospital were thwarted by the government. So, she returned to Philadelphia.
Back in the states, Sarah Louise Weintraub practiced medicine as an employee of the Women’s Department of the Philadelphia County Prison for nine years. In the latter part of her 56-year career, she worked within the “moral courts” of the city’s judicial system.
While little is known about Helen or Georgine Weintraub’s education, the scrapbook revealed that Georgine taught in the Philadelphia County School System.
The women’s Avalon years, which begin in 1909, reveal a lot about Helen Weintraub’s ways and role in the family. The middle sister assumed the role of homemaker, or “mother hen,” as Risley says of the sister who is often surrounded by youngsters in pictures.
“Helen stayed home and took care of the foster children,” says Wenerd, 79, the sisters’ great-niece. “As a young person, I met a [married] couple named Nighthammer. They were each foster children who met at the Weintraub sisters’. He was a teacher.”
Though Wenerd was too young to have met her Weintraub great-aunts, her father Richard Walker Weintraub, their nephew who bore a striking resemblance to Georgine Weintraub, shared childhood memories of the sisters, Wenerd muses. “My father said that Helen was like the mother of the group.”
As for the Weintraub sisters’ temperaments, “They were very strong-willed. They would not put up with any jazz,” Wenerd adds, quoting her dad.
Based upon the contents of Helen Weintraub’s scrapbook, the museum’s Reichert describes the Weintraub sisters as “independent, smart, resourceful, and giving.”
Such characteristics likely had a lot to do with the three sisters’ active participation in the Woman Suffrage Procession, a major protest in Washington on March 13, 1913, the eve of Woodrow Wilson’s presidential inauguration. Marchers thought that it was about time that women had the right to vote in elections and demanded action.
First, a small group of suffragists set out on a 234-mile hike from New York to Washington on Feb. 12, 1913, according to a photo-filled article, “The Woman Suffrage Procession,” by Alex Q. Arbuckle on mashable.com. When they made it to D.C., the suffragists were joined by thousands of women from across the United States and around the world who joined forces in the Woman Suffrage Procession to demand voting rights for women.
The Suffrage March Line included: caped women on horseback, delegations from at least 17 other countries, women from women’s colleges and businesswomen, lawyers, nurses, teachers and librarians, some state and federal politicians along with U.S. Army and U.S. Navy officials, and a number of horse-drawn parade floats.
One picture featured in the “The Woman Suffrage Procession” article shows a large parade float dubbed “Women of the Bible Lands” that is loaded with women in Middle Eastern garb. In one of the museum photos dated March 3, 1913, Georgine and Helen Weintraub stand together dressed in Middle Eastern garb reminiscent of family members’ days in Syria. Interestingly, Georgine Weintraub can also be found pictured standing up front on that “Women of the Bible Lands” float bearing a white banner.
Not everyone agreed with the marchers’ point of view that day. At times, women were harassed or worse during the procession. At some points, hostile crowds blocked the marchers’ passage. One hundred women were reported being hospitalized due to fracases.
Seven years later, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting women the right to vote was passed by Congress on June 4, 1919, and ratified on Aug. 18, 1920.
And the Weintraub sisters of Avalon played parts in that milestone for women.
Seven Mile Beach’s suffragist sisters will join other local women of interest featured in the Avalon History Center’s “Notable Women of Avalon’s Past” exhibit that opens on Memorial Day weekend. Featured women include: Jane Cunningham, Ina Cobb, Jitney Alice Klinshaw, Highfield family members, Avalon Corson, Edith Greenan, Rachel Sloan and the Weintraubs.
“How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!” as the late American author, poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou put it.
