Mary Colter and the Scandal of Smoking
In the late nineteenth century when Mary E. J. Colter entered the workforce, smoking was a masculine habit. Even proximity to smokers was considered disreputable for women. Where women were able to find work alongside men like at the US Patent Office, employers banned smoking in corridors and any rooms occupied by “lady employees” to protect their status and reputations. Some science and other professional associations used smoking etiquette to diminish or exclude their female members: they hosted professional dinners, after which the male members retreated to a smoking room to conduct business.
Smoking was not the only activity considered “unwomanly” in this era. Climbing ladders—a professional necessity for architects, among others—and dressing in pants also fell into this category. During her career as a decorator and architect in the early twentieth century, Colter (1869 – 1959) engaged in all of these so-called transgressions. She also used “delightfully salty” language and enjoyed alcoholic beverages.
The stigma faced by women engaging in these activities diminished over time. In the case of smoking, cigarette makers started marketing their products to women as early as 1917, sometimes with claims that smoking would lead to weight loss. By the 1920s, women were seen smoking cigarettes not only in tobacco advertisements but also in mass media. Movie heroines routinely brandished cigarettes, as did women pictured in ads for lingerie and other products.
People had opinions about women smoking. Some were horrified at the erosion of societal norms, while others celebrated women having the right to smoke as men’s equals. “The fact that people at the time reacted so strongly, on either side, indicates that they understood the symbolism: that women did set American social standards, and if those standards gave way in the area of smoking, they would give way in other areas,” scholar John C. Burnham writes.
By the 1920s, Mary E. J. Colter (1869 – 1958) was well along in her career as an architect and decorator for Fred Harvey, a hospitality company in the Southwest. Inside the company, Colter was well-regarded and professionally successful. Still, like most women today, she had to navigate how to avoid backlash for asserting her professional authority. She also experienced role incredulity, as when she signed her business correspondence “M. E. J. Colter” and received replies addressed to “Mr. Colter.”
Colter offering a smoke to a decal on a Harvey Car (Grand Canyon Museum Collection)
We don’t know if Colter started smoking as an expression of equality, to lose weight, or for another reason, but we can tell she had a sense of humor about it from this film still of her offering a smoke to the sun decal on a Harvey Car. (View the four-minute film of Colter smoking, shooting, climbing ladders, and serving tea here.)
While Colter persisted in her “unwomanly” habits and career choice, she did not fully escape the pressures of societal expectations. Later in life, after finding nothing helped her sleep like whiskey in her bedtime glass of milk, she disposed of her empty liquor bottles in a neighbor’s trashcan. She didn’t want to be judged for drinking.
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Sources:
Kara W. Swanson, “Rubbing Elbows and Blowing Smoke,” Isis, March 2017, Vol. 108, No. 1, pp. 40-61
Hildreth Meière Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
MS 656 Box F2, Virginia Grattan Collection, Special Collections, University of Arizona Libraries.
John C. Burnham, Bad Habits: Drinking, Smoking, Taking Drugs, Gambling, Sexual Misbehavior and Swearing in American History (New York: NYU Press), 1993.
USC Department of Nursing, “A Century of Smoking in Women’s History,” March 17, 2017.
Meem Job Files, MSS 790 BC, Box 3, Center for Southwest Research, University Libraries, University of New Mexico.
Virginia L. Grattan, Mary Colter: Builder Upon the Red Earth (Grand Canyon, Arizona: Grand Canyon Natural History Association), 1992.