National Police Woman Day – September 12, 2024

History of National Police Woman Day

The first policewoman in the United States was most likely Marie Owens. She was hired by the Chicago Police Department in 1891. Although police matrons were not a rare sight in prisons in New York City prior to this, they lacked the authority to arrest as Owens did. Alice Wells was hired by the Los Angeles police department in 1910 and was the first American-born woman police officer in the United States. Unlike Wells, Owens had been born in Canada.

In 1854, the first police matrons were hired by New York City to search and guard female prisoners, but they were civilians with no law enforcement authority. The role became quite popular among women and many started applying for similar positions in various parts of the United States. In 1910, the Los Angeles Police Department appointed the first regularly rated policewomen, Alice Wells. Before her, matrons were seen as masculine and not very bright. Wells was a college graduate, a social worker, and had deliberately sought the position of a police officer. She soon became a pioneer in the national movement to have police departments hire women as officers. However, that did not really happen, and women were hired by quotas. This means they regularly faced discrimination, silent contempt, sexism at the workplace, and other double standards. Several court cases were fought to reach equality of employment in police agencies. Cases such as Shpritzer v. Lang, Wells v. Civil Service Commission, and the Joanne Rossi case in Pennsylvania were the landmark ones. The most far-reaching case was the August 1971 class-action suit brought by Veragene Hardy against the City of Oakland Civil Service Board, which demanded a civil service classification for police officers with the Oakland Police Department that would be open to men and women on an equal basis. Today policewomen are involved in all aspects of police work.