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PEF retiree works to bring early feminist out of
history’s shadows
By SHERRY HALBROOK
Crystal Eastman and PEF retiree Faith Hallock are two remarkable women from
different eras, but they have become increasingly linked over time as Hallock
fights to gain Eastman her rightful place in history as a powerful champion of
the rights of women, workers, pacifists and others.
Now past 80, Hallock is well known to PEF Region 2 members, the Elmira community
and many local and state leaders for her strong and forthright advocacy on a
wide range of issues.
More than 60 years ago, Hallock was one of the first women to graduate from the
Civilian Pilot Training Program as World War II loomed.
Many years later she was the first woman parole officer to work at Elmira
Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison where she found strong
resistance to a woman in that role.
She retired in 1983, but she did not slow down.
Eastman’s No. 1 advocate
In July, Hallock traveled to Ithaca to present a large photograph and other
materials related to Eastman to the M.P. Catherwood Library of the Kheel Center
at the Cornell University Industrial Labor Relations School.
“Crystal can rest easy now up on the hill,” Hallock commented afterward. “No one
had a place for her portrait here (in the Elmira area), and I didn’t want it to
go in the trash.”
Hallock said the portrait was originally produced by Wegmans supermarket chain
for a local history exhibit in their Elmira store when it opened several years
ago.
“I kept borrowing it so often to take with me when I spoke to various groups
about Eastman, that Wegmans eventually gave it to me,” Hallock said.
This year, on April 29, in honor of Workers’ Memorial Day, Hallock was presented
the 2006 Crystal Eastman Award by state Assembly Member Susan John on behalf of
the Chemung-Schuyler Labor Assembly. It honored Hallock for “her work on behalf
of all working people.”
Labor Assembly President Peg Costello said Hallock was an obvious choice to
receive the award.
“I’ve admired her (Hallock) all my life,” Costello said.
A year earlier, Hallock had the honor of presenting the 2005 Crystal Eastman
Award to John, its first recipient.
Several years before that, Hallock was instrumental in getting Eastman admitted
to the Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls.
Who was Eastman?
Born in 1881 in Marlborough, MA, Eastman became known as a “radical feminist” of
her era, racking up a long list of achievements before her death in 1928.
Eastman was clearly ahead of her time and many of the issues she fought for so
passionately are hotly contested today, here and in other parts of the world.
A Vassar College and Columbia grad, Eastman co-founded the Congressional Union
for Woman Suffrage which led to the founding of the National Woman’s Party in
1913. In 1919, she organized the First Feminist Congress of the U.S. After women
finally won the right to vote in 1920, Eastman co-authored the Equal Rights
Amendment that was introduced in 1923.
Meanwhile, Eastman helped to lead the fight for worker safety. The only female
member of the NYS Employers Liability Commission, in 1910 she authored “Work
Accidents and the Law,” and was an investigating attorney for the U.S.
Commission on Industrial Relations. Ultimately, she became a driving force in
securing the nation’s first workers’ compensation laws.
A pacifist, she founded the Woman’s Peace Party, later renamed the Women’s
International League for Peace and Freedom — the oldest women’s peace
organization that is still active.
Eastman was executive director of the American Union against Militarism, which
fought to keep the U.S. out of World War I and the Mexican-American War and
vigorously opposed war profiteering, arms manufacturing and the draft.
When the U.S. entered World War I, Eastman co-founded the National Civil
Liberties Bureau to defend conscientious objectors from being forced to fight.
It later became the American Civil Liberties Union, with Eastman as its chief
attorney.
Eastman’s radical writings and positions earned her plenty of enemies and she
was blacklisted as a “Red” in the 1920s. The only paying work she could get was
as a columnist for feminist journals, and and a heavy curtain fell over her
achievements.
Although Eastman was neither born nor buried in New York state, she grew up in
the Fingerlakes Region and in Elmira’s Park Church parsonage where her parents
were co-pastors from 1894 to 1898.
And that is how Hallock came to take up Eastman’s cause more than half a century
later.
“It’s good the portrait ended up at Cornell,” Hallock said. “Many students who
are interested in labor will see it and learn about her there.”
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