Esther Lape

Esther Everett Lape (8 October 1881 – 17 May 1981) was a well-known American peace activist and journalist. She wrote in support of immigration and workers' rights, and between the world wars, she was a vocal advocate for the US participation in the World Court. Lape was associated with the Women's Trade Union League and was one of the founders of the League of Women Voters.

Lape was partnered with attorney Elizabeth Fisher Read from at least 1920 until Read's death in 1943. Lape and Read were both political mentors of Eleanor Roosevelt.

Career Esther Lape worked as a journalist, researcher, publicist, and teacher, educating the public about the progressive causes she supported, including peace, workers' rights, and feminism. After graduating from college in 1905, she taught English at Swarthmore College, the University of Arizona, Columbia University, and Barnard College.

In 1923, Lape also became the director of the American Foundation for Studies in Government, a public interest group supporting U.S. participation in the World Court. She remained in this position until her retirement in 1956, after which she served on the organization's board of directors. As part of her work for the foundation, Lape promoted U.S. recognition of the Soviet Union in 1933 and studied access to medical care within the United States.

Lape edited a book on expert medical testimony, Medical Research: A Midcentury Survey (1955), sponsored by the American Foundation. Together with Read, Lape published the journal City, State and Nation. She attended public school in Philadelphia, before entering Bryn Mawr College. She eventually transferred to Wellesley College, where she graduated in 1905. Roosevelt, who had met Lape through Read in 1920, rented an apartment for a time. Nearby, at 171 West 12th Street, lived other lesbian couples involved in the Woman's Suffrage movement and of the close-knit circle of friends of Roosevelt: Marion Dickerman and Nancy Cook, Molly Dewson and Polly Porter, Grace Hutchins and Anna Rochester.

Esther Everett Lape died on May 17, 1981, in New York City, at 99 years old.