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| THE FIRST WOMEN IN THE MACPA
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By Barbara R. Stewart, Ph.D., CPA
Towson University, MACPA History Committee
Women currently comprise 32 percent of the MACPA membership, and they play an
active role in the organization. They are 26 percent of committee members, 31 percent of
chapter officers and 38 percent of the directors.
We know, of course, this strong female presence was not always the case. Women did not enter the
accounting profession in large numbers until the 1970s. However, two women became members of the MACPA before they even had the right to vote.
According to the minutes of the March 9, 1909, meeting of the association, the
president reported that "in the recent examination held by the State Board of
Examiners, out of eight applicants four had passed, two of the successful ones
being ladies."
There is no recorded discussion of this advent of women into the
profession in Maryland but, as this was the annual banquet meeting of the
association with 25 gentlemen in attendance, it seems likely the conversation
over coffee and cigars included some opinions regarding the place of "ladies" in the
profession.
Before 1909, 1,085 CPA certificates had been issued throughout the country (42 in Maryland), and only seven of those had been issued to women — four in New York and one each in Pennsylvania, Illinois and Colorado. The Maryland association's listing of early certificate holders, dated May 1, 1905, is entitled "List of C.P.A. men of Md." They probably did not anticipate the addition of women.
The minutes of the April 13, 1909, meeting report the receipt of applications from
the two successful ladies, Elsa Doetsch and Florence Hooper. Again,
there is no reported discussion about women joining the association, but the
minutes contain the following enigmatic entry:
"On motion of Mr. Berry, seconded by Mr. Black, a Committee was appointed to consider certain changes to our By-Laws. This motion was adopted and the following Committee was appointed: Messrs. Berry, Hehl & Greenway."
The nature of these "certain changes" is unexplained, and perhaps purposely so. This paragraph is typed on a separate strip of paper glued onto the minutes page, perhaps replacing a more descriptive statement of the proposed "certain changes."
At the following meeting, "(t)he Secretary was instructed to communicate with
Misses Doetsch and Hooper, requesting that their applications be made to the
association in proper form, when they will be taken up and duly acted upon."
(Apparently, the improper form was not noticed a month earlier when the
applications were first received.)
The minutes of this meeting also report that "(t)he
Committee on By-Laws brought in a report supported by Messrs. Berry & Hehl;
Mr. Greenway verbally dissenting." Then, "the Association resolved itself into a
Committee of the Whole on the change in the By-Laws. The Committee of the
Whole made its report to the Association that they did not consider it advisable to
make the change in the Constitution at this time."
The applications of Misses
Doetsch and Hooper were subsequently received "in due form," and on Sept.
14, 1909, these two pioneering women were elected to membership, joining the 25
male members of the MACPA.
Do these cryptic notes indicate an effort by some members to change the by-laws
to prevent the admission of women into the association? Unless some currently
unknown records are found to clarify the matter, we cannot be sure, but this seems
to be the most likely explanation. While we might wonder about the enthusiasm of
their acceptance of these young women, we must nonetheless commend these
turn-of-the-century gentlemen for their ultimate decision to admit women into
their association. The Maryland State Bar Association, by contrast, refused to
admit women until 1946.
Doetsch and Hooper were active in the association. They are believed to be the
first women to serve as officers of a state accounting society.
Doetsch was treasurer from 1915-17 (when all officers served two years) and in 1917-18, and
Hooper was treasurer in 1917-18 and secretary-treasurer in 1918-19. Each also
served as auditor for several years between 1910 and 1924.
Hooper was one of four Maryland Association members asked to present papers at the Tri-State
Convention of the Delaware, Maryland and Virginia societies in Richmond in
1916. This paper, "Real Estate Holdings of a Foreign Missionary Society," was
subsequently published in the Journal of Accountancy. It was the first article in the Journal authored by a woman.
Doetsch and Hooper remained the only female members of the association while
total membership increased to 47. Finally, in 1924 a third woman, Catharine M.
Koch, received a Maryland certificate and joined the association, followed by
Belle M. Heywood in 1930 and Julia Benton Hopkins in 1933.
Hooper and Doetsch resigned their memberships in 1929 and 1934, respectively. Thus, female
membership briefly peaked at four then settled at three, while total membership
grew to more than 200. There is no mention of the women in the minutes during the
1930s, except for their admissions and resignations and the inclusion of Koch,
Heywood and Hopkins on the Annual Convention and Regional Meetings
Committee in 1938-39.
Why did the role of women in the association decline after the early activities of
Doetsch and Hooper? Numbers certainly must have played a part. Doetsch and
Hooper were two women in a total membership of generally fewer than 30. In this
young organization still struggling to firmly establish the profession, their efforts
were particularly needed, as some of the gentlemen left to fight in World War I.
With the steady growth of the profession and the association, the women
members became a smaller and smaller percentage, leaving Koch, Heywood and
Hopkins as only three women in a total membership of more than 200 at the end of the
1930s. These women also were apparently limited by geography. The association
adopted an associate status for out-of-state members in 1933. Heywood was an
associate member from 1934-40 and Hopkins held this status from 1937-41.
Koch remained a regular member through these years, but her application and later
membership rosters list a business address in Pittsburgh, Pa. Distance, therefore,
would have prevented these women from taking an active role in the
Baltimore-based association.
A newspaper account of the 1910 association banquet reports that Max
Teichmann, holder of Maryland CPA certificate No. 1 and the association's first
president, remarked that "the accountants' profession presented a large field for the
ladies." Doetsch's and Hooper's participation in association affairs during the
following decade seems to support this opinion.
By 1927, however, the climate appears to have changed. In A Sketch of the History of Accounting in Maryland, a nine-page paper written by association Secretary Raymond E. North and presented at the Jan. 17, 1927 meeting, the author makes no mention of Doetsch and Hooper as early members and officers. His report of the 1910
banquet does not include Teichmann's comment on the opportunities for women in the profession, but focuses instead on the wives attending the banquet. He
writes as follows:
"Among other distinctions, the Maryland Association has the honor of being the first accounting body in the United States to have ladies present at a banquet. At least so
the Baltimore American of April 13, 1910 reports in its account of a banquet held
at the Hotel Stafford, Baltimore. The report states that 'the affair was graced by the
presence of several ladies. The local association was the first in the Union to invite
the ladies.' The article also contains the following which may interest those just
entering the profession: 'The next speaker of the evening was Mr. Adam Ross, of
Philadelphia, who said that he was glad to see so many ladies present, and that
there was no profession which should inspire the ladies to feel prouder of their
husbands who belonged to it, as they were most apt to be men of morals and of
brains.'
The role of women in the association had clearly waned. Its revival awaited the changes in society resulting from the opportunities opened for women during
World War II and the later surge of women into the accounting profession.
The author is continuing to research the history of women in the Maryland
accounting profession. She would very much appreciate hearing from members, family or friends with any information regarding the role of women in Maryland accounting.
More on the MACPA's first women
ELSA DOETSCH was born in Baltimore on Jan. 2, 1886, to Louis J. and Johanna Pohl Doetsch, German immigrants. Her father was a lithographer and established a commercial printing business on Lombard Street. She had two brothers and four sisters. All of the sisters had professional careers: lawyer, accountant, librarian, doctor and nurse. The eldest sister, Emilie, was the first woman assistant city solicitor in Baltimore and was very active in the woman's suffrage movement.
Elsa graduated from Western High School and the Woman's College of Baltimore (now Goucher College) in 1907. She received Maryland CPA certificate No. 45 in 1909. A member of the MACPA from 1909-34, she served several terms as auditor, and as treasurer from 1914-17. She was a charter member of the American Institute of Accountants (now the AICPA).
After working in a local accounting firm, Doetsch established an independent practice and was active as a public accountant until shortly before her death on April 1, 1950.
FLORENCE HOOPER was born on Dec. 17, 1886, at Woodberry (now part
of Baltimore City) to Alcaeus and Florence Gees Hooper. The Hoopers were a
wealthy family, with a fortune acquired primarily in textile manufacturing. Her
father was the reform mayor of Baltimore (1895-97), the first Republican elected
to that office.
Florence graduated from Girls Latin School and the Woman's College of
Baltimore (now Goucher College) in 1907. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She
received Maryland CPA certificate No. 46 in 1909. A member of the MACPA from
1909-29, she served several terms as auditor, as treasurer from 1917-18, and
as secretary-treasurer from 1918-19. She was a charter member of the American Institute
of Accountants (now the AICPA) and was the first woman to have an article
published in the Journal of Accountancy. She served as the national treasurer of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church and was active in fund-raising for that organization and for Goucher College.
She died in December 1979.
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