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Bertha Duppler Baur, Class of 1908

Miss Bertha E. Duppler, born in Wisconsin circa 1875, came to Chicago at the age of 25 to work as a stenographer. By June of 1908, she had completed her studies at Chicago-Kent College of Law and was admitted to the bar. That same year, Duppler met and married Jacob Baur, owner of the Liquid Carbonic Company. Before her marriage, Duppler was employed in the office of the postmaster in Chicago, and a Chicago Daily Tribune headline read “Soon a Bride; Still Works: Bertha Duppler to be Married on Monday, but Stays at Desk.” After her husband’s death in 1912, Duppler took over the reins of his company, and would soon be referred to in the Tribune as “Chicago’s best businesswoman.” In 1920, she became president of the Chicago Equal Suffrage Association, marched in parades of suffragettes alongside Jane Addams and Anna Howard Shaw, traveled to Switzerland as a representative of the International Suffrage Convention, and wrote an instructional pamphlet for women on voting. In 1922, Duppler ran for mayor of Chicago, but did not win the Republican nomination. In 1926, Duppler ran for congress in the Ninth district with a stance against prohibition. She was presented to Queen Mary of England in 1930, served as a director of the Chicago World’s Fair, as Republican National committeewoman for Illinois for 24 years, and was the first woman admitted to the Hamilton Club of Chicago. Duppler passed away in 1968, after a long career as suffragette, businesswoman, philanthropist, and politician.

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