Minor mystery, but still, it nags.
Who is the woman in this photo? This is a chance to play history detective.
Utah Sen. Arthur V. Watkins, Sec. of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, with unidentified woman, on September 9, 1958. Photo by Shipler Commercial Photography, scanned at Marriott Library from the collection of the Utah Historical Society (which holds the rights).
I stumbled across the photo at the on-line archives of the Utah Historical Society. At the time of this picture, Watkins was running for re-election in a race he would lose in November, in a three-way vote split, to Democrat Frank E. Moss. Watkins had run afoul of very conservative Utah politics when he chaired the Senate select committee that investigated Sen. Joseph McCarthy, and recommended censure of McCarthy.
Ezra Taft Benson served as Eisenhower’s Secretary of Agriculture for the full eight years of Eisenhower’s administration. Benson was an arch conservative, closely affiliated with the extreme right-leaning John Birch Society, which officially regarded Eisenhower as a bit of a traitor. Benson later served as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS, or Mormon).
Oddly, the picture doesn’t identify the woman. She’s in a wheel chair. The large stone columns suggest this is a government building, or monument. The microphone is set at the level of the woman, so obviously she was speaking at this event, whatever it was. In an election year, such a scene might be played out in the state of the election, Utah — but I suspect it was a Washington, D.C., venue (was Eisenhower in Utah in 1958?). Shipler Photography was a Utah company, though — what would they be doing in Washington?
Who is that woman? What was the event? Where was it?
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Update: Best guess so far: Louise Lake, a polio victim from Salt Lake City, and “handicapped American of the year” for 1958. See comments.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
elektratig
thanks for the correction
i saw the may 8 date and it just didn’t register
so the award was earlier (the may date mentioned elsewhere) and the sep is probably as you suggest
most of the references to september are fairly recent so the may date seems to have been lost
jah
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Wow! Great suggestions. Thanks, both of you.
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I am not sure what to make of this. President Eisenhower apparently gave the award for “the handicapped American of the year” to Mrs. Louise Lake on May 8, 1958.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=11377
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,864314,00.html
On the other hand, an unattributed Sept. 27, 1958 article (from the Florence [Alabama] Times!) reports that “Mrs. Louise Lake of Salt Lake City was recently awarded a unique distinction. She was the first woman to receive from the President himself his trophy as ‘the handicapped American of the year.'” “Recently” suggests earlier in September, not May.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1842&dat=19580927&id=uiAsAAAAIBAJ&sjid=HMkEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3333,6093736
If the photo is in fact from September rather than May, and the subject is in fact Mrs. Lake, perhaps President Eisenhower was in Salt Lake on a campaign tour in early September 1958 and reprised the ceremony as a campaign event/photo op?
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Shipler Photography was a Utah company, though — what would they be doing in Washington?
—-
taking photographs?
jah
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polio at that time my guess
how about Utahn Louise Lake (the “Handicapped American of the Year”) ?
cf
Each Day a Bonus
By Louise Lake
Deseret Book, 220 pp., $4.95
Twenty-five years ago, while on an outing with an MIA group, Louise Lake was stricken with the deadliest form of polio. Paralyzed from the neck down, she was told she probably wouldn’t live more than a few months.
With great determination and faith in the blessings of the priesthood, Louise proved the doctors wrong. This book tells how, though she has been confined to a wheelchair more than twenty-five years, she has found strength to make a living for herself and her daughter, serve in the Church, particularly with youth, and teach and help rehabilitate physically handicapped persons on two continents. And she was honored at the White House as the Handicapped American of the Year, the first woman ever to be so honored.
Louise Lake’s story is one of great faith and determination, devotion and service. Blessed with a keen sense of humor, a great love for mankind, and a love for and testimony of the Savior, she has inspired and shown all who have come into contact with her how to rise above handicaps and has made of each day of her own life a bonus.
bonus (suggestion loss due more to state politics):
http://www.jstor.org/action/showArticleImage?image=images%2Fpages%2Fdtc.109.tif.gif&suffix=444062
jah
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