Ruth Sterry

Ruth Sterry (May 11, 1883 – June 3, 1938) was an American suffragette, political activist, newspaperwoman, publicist, lobbyist, poet, and advocate for working mothers.

Biography Ruth Sterry was born in Emporia, Kansas in 1879, the daughter of Clinton Norman Sterry (1843–1903) and Louise Augusta Slocum Sterry (d. 1931). She had two brothers, Norman Sterry, and Philip Sterry, both "white shoe" lawyers, and a sister, the public school teacher and administrator Nora Sterry. Her father, Clinton Sterry, had been a lawyer for the Santa Fe railroad.

"Before going to Sacramento we were fond of laughingly asserting that it was the voice of the past which spoke to us from the anti-suffrage camp, but after listening to that voice in various committees and in the senate chamber itself, we heard the inflection of a deadlier voice than thatthe sinister whisper of the special interests, of the powers that speak so stealthily as to be almost unnamable, are menacing not only woman's suffrage but men's suffrage as welleven the very principles of our democracy...What did one of their speakers mean when she said to the elections committee: 'We believe in the republican form of government; we believe that this government is still in an experimental stage and that we will awaken to find that we have opened the door of the franchise too wide?' We have come to believe our fight is not alone for the privilege of the ballot in women's handswe are fighting for manhood's suffrage, for self-government by all the people." Sterry started her working life as a newspaperwoman, writing primarily for the Los Angeles Herald. The L.A. Record reported the news with the comment, "Ruth Sterry is a newspaper woman and a capable one...Inasmuch as it is a matter of common knowledge that a number of the men employees of the Tribune are going to vote for Harriman, it is being asked if they, too, are likely to lose their jobs, or if this particular war is only on women?" During World War I, Sterry did communications and publicity for the U.S. government, as well as volunteering as a nurse.

Around 1920 Sterry quit journalism, and she opened her own public relations and political advocacy firm. She described herself as occupied with publicity and advertising from 1918 to 1932. Under the headline, "Women Should Know Who Pays for Influential Indignation," the Los Angeles Record editorial page asked in 1923, "What weight for instance would a speech by Miss Sterry against the water and power act have carried if it had been known that this clever young-lady had been paid $4019 by the corporations to do publicity organize the Women’s Tax and Bond Study clubs and 'generally circulate among the club women of Los Angeles and among the parent teacher associations?'" In 1930 the L.A. Record described her as "one of the smoothest power trust propagandists in the city". Sterry was also a founding director and organizer for Neutral Thousands, a group of women that initially purported to promote "peaceful labor-industrial relations" From January to June 1921 Sterry was a Los Angeles Parks Commissioner.

Sterry wrote a number of poems that were published in magazines and newspapers; at least one of her poems was anthologized. She was also said to have written articles and novels under a secret pen name. Sterry considered herself retired from the publicity business as of 1935.

Sterry died of a heart attack in 1938 at the Los Angeles home she shared with her sister.