Edna Gleason

Edna Ewarda Gleason, (February 20, 1886 – September 25, 1963), was an American pharmacist and fair trade activist. She was the first woman appointed to the California State Board of Pharmacy. As the president of the California Pharmaceutical Association and of the Independent Merchants of California, Gleason campaigned for fair trade principles and was instrumental in the passage of California's Fair Trade Act and Unfair Practices Act. She served on Stockton's city council for multiple terms.

Early life and marriage Edna was born on February 20, 1886, in Stockton, California, to John and Rose Capurra. She attended St. Agnes Academy.

On March, 27, 1910, Edna married Thomas F. Gleason, a pharmacist from San Francisco. While on their honeymoon in San Francisco, the couple and Thomas's sister were robbed at gunpoint in Thomas's father's home and left bound in ropes. The Gleasons were able to free themselves and contact the police after the criminals left by Edna biting through the ropes binding her sister-in-law's hands.

Pharmaceuticals Edna and Tom Gleason started their first drugstore in 1915. In early 1922, she passed the Pharmacy State Board examination. After Tom died in 1922, she continued to work their pharmacy, opening a second store four years later, and later a third store. In 1929, she joined the San Joaquin County Pharmacy Association.

In 1933, Governor James Rolph appointed Gleason to the State Board of Pharmacy. She was the first woman to serve on the board. Gleason was reappointed for a second four-year term in 1938 by Governor Frank Merriam.

Gleason served as president of the California Retail Druggists Association. Gleason also served as president of the Independent Merchants of California. In 1933, Gleason was awarded the Smith-Wilson Award by the National Association of Retail Druggists for "the most distinguished service to pharmacy in connection with fraternal relations".

Fair trade Pharmacies faced competition from retail chain stores and discount outlets, which sold a wide range of goods at lower prices, offsetting their lower profit margin by the high volume of sales. Discount outlets, then known as pineboards, would set up short term outlets in low-rent commercial space, hire unskilled workers at lower wages, and offer items at prices below cost. Gleason's first battle against a pineboard's predatory pricing began in 1927. Gleason organized a cooperatively-owned discount drugstore with Stockton's Independent Merchants' Association to compete with the newly-opened Kut-Price outlet. The coop, with the reputation of the association behind it, competed aggressively. Gleason bought out and liquidated the Kut-Price store by the end of the year.

Gleason was quoted in 1950 about the fight for fair trade:

In 1929, Gleason, with San Francisco pharmacist and lawyer W. Bruce Philip, began to focus on "reasonable price" provisions of California law. Gleason and Philip consolidated California's two regional pharmaceutical associations into the California Pharmaceutical Association (CPhA), and used its meetings and publications to establish voluntary "reasonable price" schedules. Manufacturers were pressured to enforce fair trade contracts. Association members policed each other for compliance. Gleason earned her nickname, "the dynamite from California", at the July 1930 CPhA meeting when she accused the president of Brunswig Drugs of misrepresentation and predatory practices. (As president of the California Pharmaceutical Association, Gleason had a sign on her desk: "They Call Me Dynamite".)