Lenore K. Sullivan Born 110 Years Ago Today
If you’ve spent anytime by the Arch or riverfront you’ve likely walked, biked or driven along Lenore K. Sullivan Blvd. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself who was this woman? If so, here’s your answer:
Leonor Kretzer Sullivan (August 21, 1902 in St. Louis, Missouri – September 1, 1988 in St. Louis) was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Missouri. She was a Democrat and the first woman in Congress from Missouri.
Sullivan attended Washington University in St. Louis and was a teacher and director at St. Louis Comptometer school. She was married to John B. Sullivan, who served four terms in Congress, and she served as his administrative aide. Following her husband’s death in 1951, she served as an aide to Congressman Leonard Irving until she left to run for Congress herself in 1952. She was re-elected eleven times. In Congress, she served for many years as Secretary of the House Democratic Caucus.
Sullivan helped create the food stamp program, which was opposed by Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson and became law in the 60s during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
Sullivan was one of very few members of Congress, and the only woman member of Congress, to vote against the Equal Rights Amendment for women in the early 1970s.
She did not seek re-election in 1976, and was succeeded by Dick Gephardt. The former Wharf Street in front of the Gateway Arch in Downtown St. Louis was renamed Leonor K. Sullivan Boulevard in her honor. (Wikipedia)
Sullivan was 49 years old when she became a widow then she served 24 years in Congress.
Here’s a quote attributed to her:
“A woman with a woman’s viewpoint is of more value when she
forgets she’s a woman and begins to act like a man.”
Her congressional bio:
SULLIVAN, Leonor Kretzer, (wife of John Berchmans Sullivan), a Representative from Missouri; born Leonor Alice Kretzer, August 21, 1902, in St. Louis, Mo.; attended public and private schools; attended Washington University, St. Louis, Mo.; teacher and director, St. Louis Comptometer School; served as administrative aide to her husband, John B. Sullivan, 1942-1951, and as secretary to United States Representative Irving of Missouri until May 1952, when she resigned to campaign for congressional nomination; elected as a Democrat to the Eighty-third and to the eleven succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1953-January 3, 1977); chair, Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries (Ninety-third and Ninety-fourth Congresses); was not a candidate for reelection to the Ninety-fifth Congress in 1976; died on September 1, 1988, in St. Louis, Mo.. (US Congress)
So next time you’re on Lenore K. Sullivan Blvd. you’ll know a little bit more about her. Maybe at a St. Louis themed trivia night some information here will help you team. Oh yes, 110 years ago today was her birthday.
— Steve Patterson
No offense to Ms.Sullivan, who was a fine woman, I was disappointed to see the name change from Wharf Street to Lenor K. Sullivan Blvd. Personally I think we jump to name things after people too quick (the Robert A. Young Federal Building, are you serious?)
Anyway Wharf Street is a much better name, speaking to the history of St. Louis, as well as to it’s location along the river.
Agreed.
Agreed as well. And talk about seperation of church and state…..the Bishop Whipple Veterans building in MN. Worse is naming things after a person still living. Whatever happened to being humble and saying ‘no thanks’?
Agree on the still-living part. When I served on the Parks Board in Denver, we adopted a policy that one requirement for naming or renaming a park was that someone needed to deceased for at least 7 years before the process could be started. Expecting most public figures to be “humble” is expecting a lot. Naming is one of those things in government that doesn’t cost much, yet generates press and rewards friends and/or supporters. We have a finite number of public facilities and an infinite number of people and reasons for which they COULD be named or renamed. In reality, it seems much more important in the heat of the moment, and in many cases fades, often rapidly, over time.
When it comes to Lenore K. Sullivan, it illustrates several points. One, given her service in Congress, naming something locally for her seems appropriate. Two. renaming Wharf Street is questionable – what is/was her connection to the waterfront? Did she play a significant role in securing funding for completing the arch grounds (a likely reason)? And three, some forty years later, many people no longer see the connection or have a clue who this woman was. Is/should her legacy be just a street downtown? Should there be a historical marker? A display in the arch’s museum? Or, is it time to abbreviate the name to just Sullivan Drive, to simplify things for the average citizen, much like how we refer to Tucker, Chouteau or Washington?
I completely agree on the waiting part, even three years is long enough to see if that person is still considered important. But we honorarily named Delmar for President Barack Obama in his first month in office. I support his presidency but not the street designation.
Great info – thanks!
And from Wikipedia: “The comptometer was the first commercially successful key-driven mechanical calculator, patented in the USA by Dorr E. Felt in 1887. A key-driven calculator is extremely fast because each key adds or subtracts its value to the accumulator as soon as it is pressed and a skilled operator can enter all of the digits of a number simultaneously, using as many fingers as required, making them sometimes faster to use than electronic calculators. Consequently, in specialized applications, comptometers remained in use in limited numbers into the early 1990s . . . . “
“A woman with a woman’s viewpoint is of more value when she
forgets she’s a woman and begins to act like a man”. Apparently, she must have been doing the acting like a man schtick when she voted against the ERA. Uh, thanks, Lenore. Were you taking advice from Phyllis Schlafly on this one?
I always will refer to Wharf St. as Wharf St. Don’t really care what she did. Wharf St. is more a part of our City history than she ever was.