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Armes attended private schools in Washington D.C. and studied journalism at George Washington University. She began her career with the ''Chicago Chronicle'' in [[1899]]. After a year she returned to DC to join the staff of the ''Washington Post''. Between [[1901]] and [[1903]] she began a collaboration as editor of the poems and writings of Yone Noguchi, and was briefly engaged to marry him. His undivulged marriage to Léonie Gilmour and dalliance with Charles Warren Stoddard led her to break off the engagement. In [[1905]] she left the ''Post'' and moved to [[Birmingham]] to join her brother, engineer [[George Armes|George K. Armes]], and their mother in [[Glen Iris]].
Armes attended private schools in Washington D.C. and studied journalism at George Washington University. She began her career with the ''Chicago Chronicle'' in [[1899]]. After a year she returned to DC to join the staff of the ''Washington Post''. Between [[1901]] and [[1903]] she began a collaboration as editor of the poems and writings of Yone Noguchi, and was briefly engaged to marry him. His undivulged marriage to Léonie Gilmour and dalliance with Charles Warren Stoddard led her to break off the engagement. In [[1905]] she left the ''Post'' and moved to [[Birmingham]] to join her brother, engineer [[George Armes|George K. Armes]], and their mother in [[Glen Iris]].


Armes was hired by ''[[The Birmingham Age-Herald]]'' and also wrote a regular syndicated column which was distributed across the country. In [[1906]] she was hired as editor of ''The Advance'' magazine.
Armes was hired by ''[[The Birmingham Age-Herald]]'' and also wrote a regular syndicated column which was distributed across the country. In [[1906]] she was hired as editor of ''The Advance'' magazine. In [[1907]] [[Birmingham Chamber of Commerce]] president [[Robert Jemison Jr]] encouraged her to document the history of Alabama industry. He formed a committee with [[Truman Aldrich]] and [[Frank Nelson Jr]], to support her work, which was published in [[1910]] as ''[[The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama]]''. Through her research for the book, part of which was conducted during the [[1908 United Mine Workers strike]], Armes became an advocate for higher wages, improved working conditions, and social equality for miners of all backgrounds.


<!-- died after a heart attack in Peterborough, New Hampshire on September 28, 1945. She was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.C.
In [[1911]] Armes was one of the founding members of the [[Birmingham Equal Suffrage Association|Equal Suffrage League of Birmingham]] and served as its first vice president. She helped to establish the [[Alabama Equal Suffrage Association]] the following year. With her help, in [[1913]] the Birmingham Association began contributing a weekly column to the ''[[Birmingham News]]'' to promote their aims and report developments. She was soon appointed to chair the press committee for the statewide association, responsible for issuing reports, editorials and press releases that were printed across the state. Armes was part of a delegation that represented Alabama at the National American Woman Suffrage Association's annual convention in Nashville, Tennessee in November [[1914]]


In 1925, Armes adopted a ten-year-old girl, Catherine Claiborne, for whom she had previously been foster parent.
That same year, ''The Survey'' employed her as its Alabama correspondent. She reported on progressive bills being considered during the [[1915 Alabama legislative session]] relating to child labor, worker's compensation and court reforms.


Armes began her journalism career with the Chicago Chronicle in 1899 and then later with the Washington Post (1900-03). She moved to Birmingham in 1905 to join her mother and brother, George K. Armes (a civil engineer with the Louisville & Nashville Railroad), where she was hired by the Birmingham Age-Herald. Additionally, Armes wrote syndicated columns that appeared in magazines and newspapers across Alabama and the United States. In 1906, she edited the Advance Magazine.
Armes moved to Boston, Massachusetts in [[1917]] and later lived with her mother in New York City. She adopted a foster daughter and by [[1927]] they had settled in Greenwich, Connecticut. Beginning in [[1929]] she was among the leaders working to secure the preservation of Stratford Hall, the home of Thomas Lee and Henry "Light Horse" Lee, and birthplace of Robert E. Lee, in Westmoreland County, Virginia. She lobbied for its recognition as a National Historic Landmark and authored two books about the house and the Lee family. She also co-founded the Robert E. Lee Memorial Foundation and served as its national executive secretary.


During her time in Alabama, Ethel Armes was very active in the local and state suffragist movement. In 1911, she became a founding member of the Equal Suffrage League of Birmingham (later known as the Birmingham Equal Suffrage Association) and was elected its first vice president.
Armes suffered a heart attack and died in New Hampshire in September [[1945]]. She was buried alongside her mother at Washington D.C.'s Oak Hill Cemetery.


In 1912, the Birmingham Equal Suffrage Association published an impassioned invitation to "all men and women of Alabama who wish to further the cause of woman suffrage" to unite in a state suffrage organization, the Alabama Equal Suffrage Association. This call concluded with the following quote: "All over the world the cause of the enfranchisement of women is spreading far and near, from the remote provinces of Asia, throughout Europe and over America until now at last it is stirring at the heart of the Southern states. It is coming like sunrise over Alabama -- a great light, sound and sweet and wholesome, born of the desire of women for a chance to help in the world's work -- for a chance to have and to deserve the rights and respect of souls."
==Publications==
* {{Armes-1910}}
* Armes, Ethel M. (1910) ''Midsummer in Whittier's Country: a Little Study of Sandwich Center.'' University Press of Sewanee, Tennessee
* Armes, Ethel M. (1922) ''The Washington Manor House: England's Gift to the World.'' The Sulgrave Institution.
* Armes, Ethel M. (1928) ''Stratford on the Potomac.''
* Armes, Ethel M. (1936) ''Stratford Hall: The Great House of the Lees.''


Armes's experience as a journalist and writer was invaluable to both the Birmingham Equal Suffrage Association and the Alabama Equal Suffrage Association. In 1913, the Birmingham Equal Suffrage Association accepted an invitation from The Birmingham News to submit a weekly column that would include arguments for equal suffrage, as well as local suffrage news. Armes was likely involved in this collaboration and once called it "our most effective propaganda work in the press line." Later that year Armes was appointed chairman of the Alabama Equal Suffrage Association press committee. In this capacity she wrote numerous press releases and columns that detailed suffrage work being done in cities and towns across the state. Those columns, in turn, were published in Alabama newspapers across the state.
==External links==
* [https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/74136171/ethel-marie-armes Ethel Marie Armes] at Findagrave.com


In November 1914, Armes resigned as first vice president of the Birmingham Equal Suffrage Association, since she planned to be in Chicago for an extended visit with family. By this time, the membership in the Birmingham Equal Suffrage Association had grown to. In November 1914, Armes attended the National American Woman Suffrage Association's Annual Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, along with a group of Alabama suffragists.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Armes, Ethel}}
 
[[Category:1876 births]]
In 1914, Armes was hired by The Survey, a national social work journal, as the Alabama staff correspondent. In this capacity, she covered reform legislation in the 1915 Alabama legislative session on a variety of topics, such as child labor conditions, workers' compensation law, and judicial system reforms.
[[Category:1945 deaths]]
 
[[Category:Columnists]]
Armes moved away from Alabama in 1917. As noted in the Jefferson County Historical Association Newsletter in 2015, her move to Boston was likely due to her "increasing dislike of industrial working conditions and her liberal social advocacy in Birmingham." In 1920, she resided in New York City with her mother and was employed as a magazine writer. By June 1927, when interviewed by a visiting journalist from The Birmingham News, she had taken residence in Greenwich, Connecticut.
[[Category:Historians]]
 
[[Category:Social activists]]
In addition to her work as a journalist and suffrage advocate, Armes was the author of several books, which required her to do extensive historical research. Her first book, Midsummer in Whittier's Country: a Little Study of Sandwich Center, told the history of the village of Sandwich in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
[[Category:Heart attack victims]]
 
While in Alabama, Armes spent several years researching the history of its iron and coal industry, with the financial support of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce. In 1910, she published The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama, still in print by the University of Alabama Press. In the 2011 edition, the preface states that her book "remains the most referenced book on iron manufacture in Alabama." As a results of her extensive research into the iron and coal industry, Armes became a vocal advocate of improving working conditions in mines and she campaigned for higher wages for miners.
 
Armes was able to convey her beliefs and principles through her journalism. Her Birmingham-Age Herald co-workers praised her for having a "delightfully bright and breezy [writing] style." The style and rhetoric appealed to readers, and Armes became a renowned journalist in Alabama. She used all tools at her disposal--including interviews, speeches, letters and company records--to push for social equality in the coal mining field.
 
In 1922, she wrote The Washington Manor House: England's Gift to the World, which detailed the history of the George Washington's ancestral home in Northamptonshire, England. The book was funded and published by the Sulgrave Institution, an organization that promoted friendly relations between Great Britain and the United States. Armes was elected the chairman of the executive committee of the Sulgrave Institution's first women's committee in 1922.
 
In 1928, Armes wrote Stratford on the Potomac, a book about the history of Robert E. Lee's family home in Virginia. In 1929 she led the movement to purchase and restore Stratford Hall, the family home of Robert E. Lee, and ultimately pressed for its status as a National Historic Landmark. In 1936, she published Stratford Hall: The Great House of the Lees, which detailed both the history of the property and the restoration process. Additionally, Armes was one of five incorporators of the Robert E. Lee Memorial Foundation and held several offices, including national executive secretary and campaign director. Before her death, she had been appointed by the Garvin Institute at Yale University to conduct more research for the Foundation. In 2002, Armes was posthumously elected as an honorary director of the Board of the Foundation.-->

Revision as of 17:15, 14 November 2023

Ethel Marie Armes (born December 1, 1876 in Washington D.C.; died September 28, 1945 in Peterborough, New Hampshire) was a journalist, social reformer and historian.

Armes was the daughter of George Augustus Armes, a former Union officer and aide to General Grant, and his wife, the former Lucy Hamilton Kerr, daughter of John Bozman Kerr, a former U.S. Representative from Maryland.

Armes attended private schools in Washington D.C. and studied journalism at George Washington University. She began her career with the Chicago Chronicle in 1899. After a year she returned to DC to join the staff of the Washington Post. Between 1901 and 1903 she began a collaboration as editor of the poems and writings of Yone Noguchi, and was briefly engaged to marry him. His undivulged marriage to Léonie Gilmour and dalliance with Charles Warren Stoddard led her to break off the engagement. In 1905 she left the Post and moved to Birmingham to join her brother, engineer George K. Armes, and their mother in Glen Iris.

Armes was hired by The Birmingham Age-Herald and also wrote a regular syndicated column which was distributed across the country. In 1906 she was hired as editor of The Advance magazine. In 1907 Birmingham Chamber of Commerce president Robert Jemison Jr encouraged her to document the history of Alabama industry. He formed a committee with Truman Aldrich and Frank Nelson Jr, to support her work, which was published in 1910 as The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama. Through her research for the book, part of which was conducted during the 1908 United Mine Workers strike, Armes became an advocate for higher wages, improved working conditions, and social equality for miners of all backgrounds.

In 1911 Armes was one of the founding members of the Equal Suffrage League of Birmingham and served as its first vice president. She helped to establish the Alabama Equal Suffrage Association the following year. With her help, in 1913 the Birmingham Association began contributing a weekly column to the Birmingham News to promote their aims and report developments. She was soon appointed to chair the press committee for the statewide association, responsible for issuing reports, editorials and press releases that were printed across the state. Armes was part of a delegation that represented Alabama at the National American Woman Suffrage Association's annual convention in Nashville, Tennessee in November 1914

That same year, The Survey employed her as its Alabama correspondent. She reported on progressive bills being considered during the 1915 Alabama legislative session relating to child labor, worker's compensation and court reforms.

Armes moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1917 and later lived with her mother in New York City. She adopted a foster daughter and by 1927 they had settled in Greenwich, Connecticut. Beginning in 1929 she was among the leaders working to secure the preservation of Stratford Hall, the home of Thomas Lee and Henry "Light Horse" Lee, and birthplace of Robert E. Lee, in Westmoreland County, Virginia. She lobbied for its recognition as a National Historic Landmark and authored two books about the house and the Lee family. She also co-founded the Robert E. Lee Memorial Foundation and served as its national executive secretary.

Armes suffered a heart attack and died in New Hampshire in September 1945. She was buried alongside her mother at Washington D.C.'s Oak Hill Cemetery.

Publications

  • Armes, Ethel (1910) The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama. Birmingham: Birmingham Chamber of Commerce
  • Armes, Ethel M. (1910) Midsummer in Whittier's Country: a Little Study of Sandwich Center. University Press of Sewanee, Tennessee
  • Armes, Ethel M. (1922) The Washington Manor House: England's Gift to the World. The Sulgrave Institution.
  • Armes, Ethel M. (1928) Stratford on the Potomac.
  • Armes, Ethel M. (1936) Stratford Hall: The Great House of the Lees.

External links

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