The Lookout
Madison Stamper
Gertrude Weil, Embodiment of Womanhood and Progressive Activism Madison Stamper A relatively small town now, tucked in between the capital city of Raleigh and the Atlantic Ocean, Goldsboro, North Carolina was once home to a booming railroad system and a woman named Gertrude Weil. Though Weil died almost forty-nine years ago, her legacy remembers her as a woman of persistence and determination, no matter the cost. Living through Reconstruction, the Jim Crow era, and the Civil Rights Movement, as well as both world wars as a Jew, and dedicating her life to fight for women’s and worker’s rights, Gertrude Weil’s life experiences and activism is unparalleled and unreplicated.21 Fortunate enough to have the ability to do nothing and yet bold enough to sacrifice a life of no worries in exchange for the betterment of others, Weil is largely unexplored outside of North Carolina and yet, is a character in history that once known, is not easily forgotten. Utilizing her natural charisma and influential status for good, Gertrude Weil revolutionized the process and inspired women to fight for what she believed was a natural right, women’s suffrage, on the largely ignored local and state level. Being a Jew in the small-town south during the nineteenth century is seemingly unheard of due to their citizens’ tight-knit and mutual practice of and belief in the Christian faith. Despite this, Gertrude Weil’s family,
specifically her father and uncle, built an incredibly successful business in the railroad hub of eastern North Carolina.22 Their wealth and philanthropy paved the way for Gertrude to live the life of her choosing. Her choosing turned out to be very unconventional as she never married or had any children. Instead, Weil dedicated her life to causes. This is not to say that family was unimportant to Weil, in fact, quite the contrary is evidenced by the relationships she maintained, and the volume of correspondence Weil exchanged with family and close friends throughout her lifetime.23 Descending from German immigrants, Weil was proud of her heritage. Though she lived nearly her entire life in the rural American south, Gertrude Weil was a proud GermanAmerican Jew, and as Leonard Rogoff classifies her, a “cosmopolitan Jew.” 24 Rogoff’s assertion that Weil was cosmopolitan is based on differences between her and the average southern woman. Because her family was wealthy, Weil was educated at Smith College in the north. Gertrude’s mother, Mina, was reluctant to send Gertrude hundreds of miles away for months at a time, but while living in the south during this time certainly had benefits, high-quality education
Leonard Rogoff, Gertrude Weil: Jewish Progressive in the New South. (University of North Carolina Press, 2017), preface vii-xi.
22 Anne Firor Scott, “Not Forgotten: Gertrude Weil and Her Times,” (Southern Cultures), 89-90. 23 Ibid. 24 Rogoff, Gertrude Weil, 1.
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