Information: The first column shows data points from Farrington, Elizabeth P. (Elizabeth Pruett), 1898-1984 in red. The third column shows data points from Farrington, Ethel. in blue. Any data they share in common is displayed as purple boxes in the middle "Shared" column.
Mary Elizabeth Pruett Farrington (May 30, 1898 – July 21, 1984), more commonly known as Elizabeth P. Farrington, was publisher of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and an American stateswoman who served as delegate to the United States Congress for the Territory of Hawai'i from 1954 to 1957. She was a member of the Republican Party.
Born in Tokyo to American parents on May 30, 1898, she attended Tokyo Foreign School before moving back to the United States. She attended grammar schools in Nashville, Tennessee, El Paso, Texas and Los Angeles, California. After graduating from Hollywood High School, Farrington attended Ward-Belmont Women's Junior College of Nashville and the University of Wisconsin–Madison, meeting her husband, Joseph Farrington, at the latter. After President Warren G. Harding appointed her father-in-law territorial governor of Hawai'i, Elizabeth Farrington moved with her husband to Honolulu to manage the family-owned Honolulu Star-Bulletin. In the early 1930s, Joseph Farrington was elected to the Hawai'i territorial senate and began a long political career in which he relied heavily on his wife for advice.
In 1942, Joseph Farrington was elected to the first of six consecutive terms in the U.S. House as a Republican Territorial Delegate from Hawai'i. Elizabeth Farrington immersed herself in party politics, serving as president of the District League of Republican Women from 1946 to 1948. On January 1, 1949, she became president of the National Federation of Women’s Republican Clubs. After her husband's unexpected death, Farrington was elected to the United States Congress in a special election to fill the vacancy. Narrowly elected to a full term that November, Farrington spent her time in Congress advocating for Hawaiian statehood. She lost her bid for re-election to a third term in Congress and returned to her family's newspaper business in Honolulu.
After leaving Congress, Farrington continued to serve as president of the Star-Bulletin until 1961. Farrington lived to see her husband’s dream of statehood for Hawai'i realized in 1959. She was invited to the ceremony at which President Eisenhower signed the legislation that made Hawai'i the fiftieth state to enter the Union. She also directed and chaired the Honolulu Lithograph Company, Ltd., from 1957 to 1961 and was president of the Hawaiian Broadcasting System, Ltd., from 1960 to 1963. In 1969 President Richard M. Nixon appointed Farrington Director of the Office of the Territories in the Department of the Interior. When the Department of the Interior abolished the post in 1971, she worked in the congressional liaison office until 1973. After retirement, Betty Farrington returned to Honolulu, where she lived until her death.
History, Art & Archives, U.S. House of Representatives, Mary Elizabeth Pruett Farrington, accessed June 2021.
<p>Mary E. Pruett (Betty) Farrington emerged in the mid-1950s as the leading advocate for Hawaiian statehood, serving three years in the House as a Territorial Delegate. Her political partnership with her husband, Joseph Rider Farrington, another champion of statehood, spanned decades and prepared her to succeed him in Congress after his death in 1954. Years before she was elected to Congress, <i>McCall</i>’s magazine chose Farrington, publisher of the <i>Honolulu Star-Bulletin</i> and director of the National Federation of Republican Women’s Clubs, as one of “Washington’s 10 Most Powerful Women,” a list that included First Ladies Eleanor Roosevelt and Bess Truman, and Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith.</p>
<p>Mary Elizabeth Pruett was born to American missionaries Robert Lee and Josie Baugh Pruett, native Tennesseans, on May 30, 1898, in the Tsukiji (foreign resident) section of Tokyo, Japan. She attended the Tokyo Foreign School before the family resettled in 1906 in Hollywood, California. After Mary Pruett graduated from Hollywood High School, she enrolled at Ward-Belmont Women’s Junior College in Nashville, Tennessee. Two years later, she transferred to the University of Wisconsin at Madison and earned a journalism BA in 1918. During her studies, she met Joseph Farrington, son of Wallace R. Farrington, publisher of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, and an early advocate of Hawaiian annexation and statehood. They married in May 1920 and, three years later, when President Warren G. Harding appointed Wallace Farrington territorial governor of Hawaii, Joe and Mary returned to the islands to manage the <i>Star-Bulletin</i>. The couple raised two adopted children: John and Beverly. In the early 1930s, Joe Farrington was elected to the Hawaii territorial senate and began a long political career in which he relied heavily on his wife for advice. “He didn’t make a move without talking to me,” Betty Farrington recalled. Joe Farrington soon succeeded his father as the newspaper’s general manager. By the mid-1940s, Betty Farrington assumed her husband’s duties as publisher and president of the <i>Honolulu Star-Bulletin</i>.</p>
<p>In 1942 Joe Farrington was elected to the first of six consecutive terms in the U.S. House as a Republican Territorial Delegate from Hawaii, propelling Betty Farrington into national politics too. Throughout Joe Farrington’s dozen years in Washington, the Farringtons were frequent entertainers and popular on the capital’s society circuit. Betty Farrington immersed herself in party politics, serving as president of the District League of Republican Women from 1946 to 1948. On January 1, 1949, she became president of the National Federation of Women’s Republican Clubs (later named the National Federation of Republican Women), which included more than 500,000 members. Farrington energized the group by creating a school of politics in 1950 at which precinct workers received briefings on party history, current initiatives, and political techniques.</p>
Wikipedia article, Mary Elizabeth Pruett Farrington, accessed June 10, 2021.
<p>Mary Elizabeth Pruett Farrington (May 30, 1898 – July 21, 1984), more commonly known as Elizabeth P. Farrington, was publisher of the <i>Honolulu Star-Bulletin</i> and an American stateswoman who served as delegate to the United States Congress for the Territory of Hawai'i. She was the wife to Joseph Rider Farrington, whom she had succeeded in Washington, DC. Her father-in-law was the Territorial Governor of Hawai'i Wallace Rider Farrington.</p>
<p>Farrington was born in Tokyo to American parents on May 30, 1898. She attended Tokyo Foreign School before moving back to the United States. She attended grammar schools in Nashville, Tennessee, El Paso, Texas and Los Angeles, California. After graduating from Hollywood High School, Farrington obtained a degree from Ward-Belmont Junior College of Nashville in 1916. She went on to the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she met her husband. She graduated from Wisconsin in 1918. Newly married, she settled in Honolulu. She became a newspaper correspondent for the <i>Honolulu Star-Bulletin</i> through 1957.</p>
<p>Farrington was elected President of the League of Republican Women, an office she served in Washington, D.C. from 1946 to 1948. She was then elected to the National Federation of Women's Republican Clubs and served as its president from 1949 to 1953. In 1952, Farrington was a delegate for the Territory of Hawai'i to the Republican National Convention that nominated Dwight Eisenhower to become President of the United States.</p>
Correspondence, notes, official and committee reports, financial records, minutes, handbooks, and publications concern primarily Batten's term as president of the American Federation of Soroptimist Clubs (1954-1956); they give no information about her personal life or her family. Included are manuscripts and notes for Jobs for the Over Sixty; for an AAUW cookbook, and clippings on the status of women collected by Batten.
Honolulu Academy of Arts. Letters, 1934-1938, to Lewis Mumford.
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Farrington, Elizabeth P. (Elizabeth Pruett), 1898-1984
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Bertha S. Adkins Papers. 1928 - 1983. Personal Files, 1928 - 1983
Bertha S. Adkins Papers. 1928 - 1983. Personal Files, 1928 - 1983
Title:
Bertha S. Adkins Papers. 1928 - 1983. Personal Files, 1928 - 1983
This series documents the career of Bertha S. Adkins including her professional life as an education administrator; involvement with boards, commissions, and organizations; activities in the Republican Party; work with the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare during the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower; and involvement with Federal programs dealing with the problems of the aging. Worthy of particular note is the material related to Foxcroft School, American University, the 1961 and 1971 White House Conferences on Aging, the Task Force on Aging, the Advisory Council of Social Security, the Federal Council on Aging, the Abraham Lincoln Sesquicentennial Commission, the Civil War Centennial Commission, national Republican Party affairs, Presidential campaigns, and the role of women in politics and public service.
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