Berks Barrister Summer 2018 - 22

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Difficult Beginnings For Berks County Women Serving on Juries
Continued from page 21

The view that the "suffrage" granted to women under the
Nineteenth Amendment included the right to serve on juries
in state proceedings was not universally held in all Pennsylvania
counties. One judge in McKean County and two judges in
Schuylkill County ruled that women having the right to vote did
not mean they should serve on state court juries. However, the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court did not agree with this view and
upheld an indictment found by a grand jury of which a woman
was a member in Commonwealth v. Maxwell, 114 Atl, 825 (1921).
(A detailed discussion of this question in Pennsylvania as well as
other states, matter is found in The University of Pennsylvania Law
Review and American Law Register, Vol. 70, No. 1 (Nov. 1921) pp.
30-35; see http://www.jstor.org/stable/3314117.)
Any dilemma in Pennsylvania on this issue was resolved
when the state legislature passed the "Barnes Act," signed into
law by Governor William C. Sproul on May 5, 1921, which
specifically provided that, effective January 1, 1922, women in the
Commonwealth had the right to serve as jurors in state cases.
Most notably, the Barnes Act also required that suitable
accommodations be provided for women serving as jurors,
including separate rooms in or adjoining the court house to be
equipped with toilets, beds, mirrors, and other conveniences and
further provided that a county court had the right to order local
authorities to provide such accommodations, if they did not exist.
Women in Berks County immediately began to serve on
Coroner's Juries in the latter part of 1920, even before the passage
of the Barnes Act. However, the names of women were not placed
in the "Jury Wheel" for regular trials until December of 1922
for the 1923 Court session, despite the express provisions of the
Barnes Act making them eligible a year before. Both the county
commissioners and jury commissioners blamed the delay on the
lack of accommodations for women, although neither group had
done much to make any real headway in addressing the issue.
A November 21, 1922 editorial in the Times took issue with the
"lack of accommodations" excuse, putting the question to the jury
commissioners, "Why not be frank about it and admit that the
real reason for our failure to comply with the law which extends
jury service to women is a deep-rooted Berks County prejudice
which we are unwilling or unable to shake off."
Two weeks later, county officials met with the "Women's
22 | Berks Barrister

Democratic Club" led by the group's Chair Miss Mary Archer,
an activist in several areas, including animal rights and the prison
system, who had also become active in the Democratic party once
the right of suffrage was granted. (For more on the life and times
of Miss Mary Archer, see Ruth Shaffer, "A Rebel With a Cause...
or two or three," The Historical Review of Berks County, Winter
2017, Vol. 83, No. 1.)
Following the meeting with the county officials, the Club
announced to the press that they had received "assurances" that
names of women would be placed in the jury wheel for the next
term of court, and further that "things will be put in such a shape
that the women can serve and yet be comfortable." The process of
calling women as jurors finally started with the January 1923 term
of court.
Several months later, however, the Eagle reported that a meeting
of the Women's Democratic Club featured a "discussion relative
to the poor accommodations for women jurors at the Court
House," arising from the experience of a club member who had
to stay up all night as part of an effort to reach a jury agreement
in a criminal trial. After re-electing Miss Archer as chair, the club
authorized members to interview court officials and the county
commissioners seeking to "obtain cooperation on the matter." The
hope was expressed that a suitable retiring room would soon be
made available.
The lack of progress in resolving this issue was evident when
more than a year later, Walter A. Ringler, Chairman of the
Commissioners, stated in February of 1924, "For a year and a half,
the women compelled to do business in the court house have been
clamoring for a rest room - for a place where they could have
some privacy.... The judges have asked us to take some action
in this matter. There is no room whatsoever. It is an absolute
impossibility to accommodate the women."
As late as 1930, even after women in Berks County had been
fully integrated into the jury system, the Eagle reported that,
owing to a continued lack of accommodations for women jurors,
the courts did not send any mixed juries out for deliberation after
4 PM, holding the jury over instead until the next day.
Despite extensive research on the subject matter, this writer
could not find anything in either the Eagle or the Times indicating
the issue of women's accommodations was otherwise resolved
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Berks Barrister Summer 2018

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