#ruth doyle

Attn: Mrs. Doyle and Gentlemen

In her 1982 oral history interview with Donna Hartshorne, Ruth Bachhuber Doyle detailed her tenure on the Dane County Board of Supervisors from 1953-1960. In this excerpt, Doyle describes how her male colleagues neglected to notice her 1954 pregnancy, during which time she attended all board and committee meetings without exception. 

Doyle made her debut on the political scene in 1948, campaigning for President Harry Truman. On the heels of these efforts, she succeeded in becoming Madison's representative to the state Assembly. Doyle was a staunch defender of gender equity in politics, stating in 1950,

Women need to realize that, just because they were women and mothers, they are not automatically excluded from political life.

In the late 40s and early 50s, she and husband James Doyle Sr. actively sought to energize the Democratic party in an effort to oust conservatives of the likes of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

As one of few women holding elected office, Doyle faced significant obstacles. In her 1982 interview, she recalled an anonymous comment scrawled on the back of an election leaflet: "if you are a housewife and a mother of three children, why in hell don't you stay home and take care of them?" Her response? Doyle surmised that she might have "gone balmy" had she been unable to pursue her own personal accomplishments. 

Later, these accomplishments grew to include her position in the Dean of Women's office at UW (Madison), stewardship of the Five-Year Program for recruitment of minority students, and various roles at the Law School. By the end of her long career in Madison's civic and educational life, Doyle hardly "fit into the woodwork" as she had on the County Board in 1954. 

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Photos and audio courtesy of the UW-Madison Archives.

For more information, contact [email protected] or visit http://archives.library.wisc.edu.