Berks Barrister Summer 2018 - 21

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Where Were The Women Rest Rooms,
Anyway?
By Brian C. Engelhardt, Esquire

R

atification of the 19th Amendment extending equal
suffrage to women on August 18, 1920 presented Berks
County Commissioners Marcus B. Eaches, Walter
Ringler and Calvin A. Miller with the immediate task of making
accommodations to deal with what would amount to a doubling of
the voting electorate by the upcoming November elections.
The August 19th edition of the Reading Times reported that
for the most part the city and county were both "almost entirely
unprepared" for what it termed "Suffrage Shock," stating that,
although there had been "the signals of several years that suffrage
was coming.... very little had been done along this line." To
address this, the commissioners immediately set up special sessions
to deal with the preparations to register the new voters, including
setting up individual tax assessments on the voters in accordance
with what the law at that time required.
Whatever criticism the commissioners might have deserved
regarding lack of preparation for "Suffrage Shock," their actions
on that front were exemplary in comparison to how they had been
dealing with another situation that they (and their predecessors)
had been facing for some time. In 1920, the existing Berks County
Court House did not contain any rest rooms for women.
Constructed in 1840, the eighty-year-old three-story building,
located on the site of the current court house, was not only in
need of several structural renovations but suffered from a lack
of space not only for storage of files and records required in the
daily activities and functions of the various county offices, but also
for the operation of the offices and courts themselves. A stark
example of its overcrowded condition was that holding cells for
prisoners awaiting hearings were located right in court rooms
where other court business was being conducted. More than a
decade earlier Register of Wills George R. Gregory delivered a

formal letter to the commissioners at that time complaining of a
lack of storage space for records and files. Similar complaints were
expressed by the offices of the Prothonotary, Sheriff, and Clerk of
Quarter Sessions (now Criminal Courts).
Earlier in 1920, the combination of factors - the general lack
of available space and lack of accommodations for the female
members of his staff - caused newly elected District Attorney
Robert Mays to relocate his offices, as well as those of the county
detectives, from the court house to the nearby Berks County Trust
Building. For the same reasons, over the next few years offices
of County Engineer Charles Sanders, as well as several other
county offices, also moved to quarters outside the court house.
The problems with the existing court house - particularly with
respect to the lack of women's rest rooms - were now going to be
exacerbated by the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.
Initially, neither the Times nor the Reading Eagle discussed, or
for that matter, even mentioned, that "suffrage" meant women also
now had the right to serve on juries. However, a few days after
the initial story was published, a short item in the Times, under
the headline "Women May be on Juries," related how, "There is
no danger that women will be called upon to do jury duty during
the rest of this year, although they vote." (Emphasis added.) The
article pointed out that, despite the fact that female voters would
be eligible for jury duty, and may be called, the jury wheel for the
entire next year had already been filled. It added, however, the
county sheriff may be called upon by the court to bring in jurors
who are eligible to serve, if there is a shortfall of jurors. At least in
principle, women jurors may be called upon to serve despite their
names not being in the jury wheel.
Continued on page 22

Summer 2018 | 21
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Berks Barrister Summer 2018

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