By Staff
NILES – The League of Women Voters of Berrien and Cass Counties honored its past presidents and celebrated its 50+1 year anniversary at its Annual Meeting on June 25.
This chapter of the League was formed in Niles in February, 1957 and was originally known as the League of Women Voters of Niles. Later it became the League of Women Voters of Niles/Buchanan and then the League of Women Voters of Berrien and Cass Counties.
There have been 24 presidents since 1957, 22 women and two men. It was decided at the 1974 national convention to admit men to the membership. Currently 26 percent of the local members are men and there are two men serving on the Board of Directors. It was certainly different in 1957 when all the women were identified in news articles only by their husbands' names, as in Mrs. William Kinne, the League's first president. It wasn't until 1974 that a League president was identified by her own name.
The League was involved in every major issue in Niles and Berrien County in its early years and also studied national and international issues (in 1966 they held a forum on China).
As usual, the League was ahead of its time, studying public sanitation in Berrien County and water conservation in 1959!
Throughout its history the League has emphasized voter's service and there were lots of pictures in the Niles Daily Star of League members registering voters, testing voting machines and showing voters how they worked. There were candidate forums and voters guides and workshops on running for election. Always back then the ladies wore dresses and suits and often hats and gloves.
The Bentley Historical Library in Ann Arbor in 2007 asked if the League would give its historical records to the Library as part of its efforts to record the history of women in the state. It seemed like a good way to safeguard these records for posterity, if they could be found. What turned up in attics and basements was a treasure trove of scrapbooks that were meticulously kept from 1957 until 1981.