Eleanor Baldwin

Eleanor Florence Baldwin (1854-1928) was a Progressive Era radical journalist and pamphleteer who wrote newspaper columns, treatises, and gave pro-suffrage speeches in Portland, Oregon. Baldwin was an advocate for labor rights and women's rights, a “critic of finance capitalism with an abolitionist heritage” who denounced the Catholic Church and once wrote an article for the official newspaper of the Ku Klux Klan, The Western American. Her mother's maiden name was Willard. She moved to Portland, Oregon sometime around 1905.

Professional life Baldwin spent more of her life writing about “wage slaves,” or those who are totally dependent on employment income. She was on staff of the Portland Telegram for several years writing daily columns for the editorial page “A Woman’s Point of View,” between 1906 and 1909. She was invited to move to New York to take up a writing job with Arthur Brisbane, a well-known American newspaper editor and real estate developer, but declined as she wanted to stay in the Pacific Northwest.

Legacy and death Baldwin was known for her work on women's suffrage and other social feminist issues, as well as for “linking crass materialism with male power and corruption.” She used her newspaper column for women to address issues of capitalism and progressive populist and reform movements. She advocated for women in the workplace, encouraging those who were finding their way in a male-dominated field. She also was an activist for civil rights, defending people of color while condemning police brutality.

Eleanor died at the age of 74 of carcinoma in her left breast on December 26, 1928. Funeral services were held at her residence by a pastor of the First Divine Science Church in Tacoma, Reverend Henry Victor Morgan. She is buried in River View Cemetery in SW Portland, Oregon.