Born: 25 March 1880, United States
Died: 11 October 1930
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Edna Brush
The following is republished from the National Park Service. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
Edna Brush Perkins was born in Cleveland, Ohio to Mary & Charles Brush; Charles improved upon Humphry Davy’s arc lamp invention, making it feasible for electricity to be used commercially. Edna Brush, therefore, grew up quite well-off and received training in various arts. She played the piano well and her skills in painting excelled enough to land her three Honorable Mentions out of twelve submissions to the Cleveland Museum of Art May Shows from 1927 through 1930.
Her skills did not stop with music or art, but actually stretched into advocacy & travel writing. Perkins was a staunch advocate for the 19th Amendment’s passage and remained involved until her death in 1930. Edna lost her mother in 1902 and her father was supportive of all of Edna’s interests, except for advocacy. Charles Brush was raised with strict Victorian ideals and still firmly believed that a woman’s place was in the home. Edna married Roger Griswold Perkins in November of 1905 and he did not appear to impede her community organizing and involvement in the suffrage movement.
Perkins was heavily involved in the women’s suffrage movement in Cleveland. She lectured from 1912 through the passage of the 19th Amendment at the national level, training people on how to get after senators & make changes through officials and not just local organization. She was the chair of the Women’s Suffrage Party of greater Cleveland and a founder of the Women’s City Club of Cleveland.
In 1920, Perkins and her friend Charlotte Hannahs Jordan left for Los Angeles to trek out to Death Valley. They had a designated “Worrier” who helped to guide them through the desert while Perkins wrote down her observations and experiences; these notes them became White Heart of the Mojave, which was a travel account released in 1922. Some, such as Dr. Margaret Long, dismiss the efforts of these women because they had a local help guide them. The experiences preserved in Perkins’ book reflect that both Perkins and Jordan still faced dangers and consequences during their month of living in the area.
Her Janus-faced observations still define the Death Valley experience today. Perkins recognized both the aweinspiring beauty and sobering specter of death as defining characteristics of the landscape. Her writing is also displayed in the Furnace Creek Visitor Center on the wall.
After leaving Death Valley to return to Cleveland, Perkins continued to work towards social reform. Her father established the Brush Foundation and Edna Brush Perkins was one of the founding board members. This organization funded research into child development, birth control, and early eugenics projects until the concept of eugenics was disproved in WWII. Then the Foundation underwent a serious change and supported birth control, a woman’s choice, and eventually played a large role in the founding of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. The Foundation’s first grant ($5,000) was given to establish a birth control clinic in Cleveland. Perkins’ sister-in-law Dorothy Brush (wife of Charles Francis Brush Jr., continued his work after his untimely death in 1927 and was a major force behind birth control advocacy in Ohio. Dorothy Brush worked closely with Margaret Sanger.