Hallinan, Hazel H. (Hazel Hunkins)

Hazel Hunkins-Hallinan was born on June 6, 1890, in Aspen, Colorado. She was the daughter of Anna Isabel (Whittingham) and Ensign Lewis Hunkins, a jeweler. According to Hunkins-Hallinan, her mother Anna (1867-1945), the daughter of John and Olive (Gunn) Whittingham, married Ensign (1840-1907), the son of Ensign Sergeant and Sally (Rowell) Hunkins, after he agreed to finance her education. They were married soon after she graduated on October 28, 1885. The family moved from Aspen to Denver before settling in Billings, Mont., in 1903, where Hunkins-Hallinan graduated from high school in 1908. Hunkins-Hallinan attended Mount Ida School in Newton, Mass. for a year of college preparatory classes before attending Vassar College (A.B. 1913). She worked towards her master's degree at the University of Missouri while teaching in the chemistry department before returning to Billings to be near her ailing mother.

Denied the opportunity to teach chemistry and physics because she was a woman, Hunkins-Hallinan was inspired to join the National Woman's Party after hearing Anna Louise Rowe speak. She worked as an organizer in Montana, California, Utah, and New York. Many of Hunkins-Hallinan's suffrage activities were centered in Washington, D.C., where she was a prominent figure in the picket lines in front of the White House. In 1917, she left her paid position with the National Woman's Party to work for the National War Labor Board as a researcher and occasional union investigator. She continued to participate in pickets, which led to her being arrested and sentenced to the Occoquan Workhouse where she and other suffragists participated in a hunger strike.

In 1920, Hunkins-Hallinan moved to London, England. She was joined a few months later by Charles Thomas Hallinan, a journalist. Charles, the son of Carrie (Crampton) and Timothy Hallinan, was born on October 22, 1880, in Lansing, Michigan. He attended Dartmouth College but was unable to finish due to financial difficulties. On April 27, 1907, he married Josephine Redfield (1868-1948); they had one daughter, Frances (b. 1907). They were divorced in April of 1921, following the development of a romantic relationship between Hunkins-Hallinan and Charles. Charles and Hunkins-Hallinan were married on January 20, 1930, and had four children: Nancy (b. 1921), Joyce (b. 1922), Timothy (b. 1924), and Mark (b. 1931).

Beginning in 1920, Hunkins-Hallinan worked as a freelance journalist, notably writing a column under the pseudonym Ann Whittingham for the Chicago Tribune about English society with a focus on Americans in England. In 1942, Hunkins-Hallinan was evacuated to the United States for the remainder of World War II. Between 1942 and 1945, she worked for a number of government offices, including the Foreign Economics Administration. In 1956, she formed Belsize Park Properties, Ltd., a rental company that owned and managed an apartment building located at 15 Belsize Park, London. Hunkins-Hallinan was the author of a children's book, The Story of America (1942), and the editor of In Her Own Right (1968), a collection of feminist essays.

Hunkins-Hallinan was an active member and served terms as secretary and president of the Six Point Group, a British feminist organization. She was involved in several other clubs and organizations, including the Americans for Democratic Action, the Anglo-American Families Association, and the Vassar Club of London.

Charles died on December 2, 1971. Hunkins-Hallinan died in London on May 17, 1982, of respiratory failure.

From the guide to the Papers, 1864-1984, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)