The women of Columbia

The Baltimore Sun

James W. Rouse is widely recognized and warmly revered as the father of Columbia. But as the planned community celebrates its 40th birthday this summer, early residents agree that a significant number of women "mothered" Columbia's culture from its infancy to today.

Starting when the unincorporated city had few established institutions and continuing for several decades, women shaped Columbia -- and Howard County -- by creating many of the area's arts, cultural and social services organizations.

"Look at the history of the nonprofit infrastructure in the community; many of the founders are women," said Barbara K. Lawson, who has served as president of the Columbia Foundation for 18 years and will step down this fall.

"I think there was a confluence of factors that generated this," Lawson said. "The women's movement was active in the '70s, women were taking on different roles and different leadership opportunities ... and it was a community that said, 'We embrace that.'"

Women leaders agreed that it is not unusual for women to be involved in cultural and social service organizations. But there appears to have been a combination of factors that gave women a prominent leadership role to play in Columbia.

In addition to starting many of the community's organizations, women also have led foundations, filled the top positions of educational institutions, started businesses and served as elected officials.

In the late 1960s and 1970s, the new town had mostly young, often idealistic and highly motivated people moving into a place where new institutions were needed.

"You have a community, and there is something you want, and you see that there is a hole," said Brenda Bell, an early organizer and the first (unpaid) director of Howard County Arts Council 25 years ago. "I think it gave women an opportunity to jump in and plug that hole, or at least try."

Added Bell, who now lives in Fort Davis, Texas, "It was a very interesting time. I think women then were just really feeling comfortable about leaving their normal roles and doing much more in their communities."

They also were willing to put in a huge amount of work seeking volunteers, finding office space (or providing it in their homes), advertising events, writing grants and establishing boards that could sustain their groups into the future.

Frances Motyca Dawson founded the Columbia Pro Cantare in 1977 as a way to boost attendance at summer performances of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at Merriweather Post Pavilion. Her group has continued for 30 years, performing locally and around the world, and it is still based in her Columbia home.

"There was an unspoken encouragement that we felt, that any good idea would take hold and grow," Dawson said.

Groups including the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society (HoCoPoLitSo), Eva Anderson Dancers, African Art Museum of Maryland, Howard County Center for African American Culture and Candlelight Concert Series also were started or run by women in the 1970s and early '80s.

"All of us were like settlers moving West," Dawson said. "You could take an organization's wagon and hook it to a star."

In the 1970s, women also played a big role in starting social service organizations. They founded or developed a domestic violence center, a women's center, a local hospice organization, a family life center and a crisis intervention organization, to name a few.

Many of the women who took on leadership roles were educated and had work experience, but were at a point in their lives where they were at home with young children.

That was the case for Pat Hatch, who founded the Foreign-born Information and Referral Network (FIRN) in 1981.

"A lot of educated women that saw possibilities beyond being stay-at-home moms their whole lives at the same time wanted to have the freedom ... to care for their children," Hatch said.

Hatch said Columbia seemed to foster activities for children, cooperative nursery schools, babysitting co-ops and other arrangements that gave women the ability to take on volunteer efforts.

Men were an exception, if a welcome one, at meetings of the Association of Community Services, which helped small nonprofits network and support each other, Hatch said.

Along with the need for new organizations, many community leaders said Columbia was a place where ideals of openness and equality were encouraged, particularly by Rouse and his company.

"There was so much commitment to people discovering themselves and expanding their potential," recalled Susan Jacobson, who served as the third president -- following one woman and one man -- of the Columbia Democratic Club.

In 1974, Jacobson said her group supported a slate of County Council candidates -- then elected as at-large members and not by districts -- that included the first women to be elected: Ruth Keeton and Virginia Thomas.

The club also backed Elizabeth Bobo, who was voted onto the council in 1978 and went on to become the first female county executive in Maryland before moving to the state legislature.

Bobo moved "just on the other side" of Route 108 from Columbia in 1966, but she spent much of her time in the community.

She said the idealism of Columbia not only influenced those who elected her, it influenced her political opportunities and the friendships she made.

"I don't have any doubt that my life would have been different if I had lived in a different place," she said.

Toby Orenstein said Rouse was instrumental in bringing her to Columbia and giving her an affordable place to teach theater to children after Rouse and other company executives saw what she was doing at Burn Brae Dinner Theatre in Burtonsville. Orenstein said she later started Toby's Dinner Theatre in Columbia so her students would have high-quality shows in which to work.

"It was Jim Rouse's vision to bring people with passion to Columbia, of that there was no question," said Orenstein, who started teaching theater to young people in New York. "He said you do everything your passion drives you to do and things will fall as they may."

Maggie J. Brown, who has been president of the Columbia Association for six years and served as vice president before that, agreed that Rouse promoted people, regardless of gender, race or background. "If you had a talent or a skill and he was aware of it, he certainly put you in the forefront," she said.

Brown, who moved to Columbia in 1970, recalled many women becoming involved in their parent-teacher associations, voter registration drives and the Women's Business Network. While she was out of the work force raising three children, Brown said, she volunteered with several groups and became a board member of the Chamber of Commerce, where she saw many women start businesses.

Today, the pioneering spirit is not as overt. More residents are choosing the community for its location and amenities rather than out of a desire for a new way to live.

"They don't understand what a gift Columbia can be," said Penny Friedberg, one of the founders of the Women's Center, which fostered much of the consciousness and mutual support among women in the 1970s. "I think that's too bad. It really was a gift for those of us that came early."

Nonetheless, Columbia, and Howard County remain places where women thrive. Three of five County Council members and five of seven school board members are women, as is the president of Howard Community College and the chairwoman of the Columbia Association board of directors. Many more women serve in key roles in government, sit on boards of directors, lead businesses and run nonprofit groups.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Surveys, 55 percent of women in Columbia have a bachelor's degree or higher and 53 percent of women in Howard County do. Only 26 percent of women nationwide have higher education degrees.

And while a pay gap between men and women persists across the country, women in Columbia earn a median salary of $50,485, compared with a median of $32,288 for women across the United States.

Five years ago, the Women's Giving Circle started channeling the financial power of local women into an endowment to support women and girls.

One of the circle's founders, Yolanda Bruno, said the group has created a $500,000 endowment created by the donations of more than 550 women.

"For so many of us after the mid-'70s and '80s, you went back to school, back to work," Bruno said. "The movement opened up all these doors, and then we split and did our own things. It was great coming back and seeing all these women we had seen before who were still involved still wanted to help. ... They still have the need to give and to be involved in the community."

sandy.alexander@baltsun.com

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