The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2013

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2013 47 Upton said: “Oh, that’s not a bad idea.” Upton indicated that she would support Atcherson’s efforts to find out more about the process of appointment and would speak with the president about it. Atcherson, meanwhile, had officially contacted the State Department, and received permission to take the 1922 Foreign Service exam. She tried to enroll in a well-known “cram course” for applicants in the Washington area. The instructor initially refused to enroll a woman in his class, but agreed to take her on as a private student. While Atcherson prepared for the rigorous exam, others lob- bied on her behalf. Letters poured in to the White House and to Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes from women’s groups all over the country. Both Harding and Hughes, attuned to these appeals, generally conceded that women should be considered eligible for the Service, but Atcherson would have to show her- self capable of passing the examination in order to be considered for appointment. When she passed—with the third-highest score that year— the U.S. Senate moved quickly to confirm her appointment as a Foreign Service officer, Class VIII. An eager Atcherson immedi- ately traveled to Washington, D.C., to take up the appointment. She later characterized her reception by officials at the State Department: “They were suave, courtly, courteous, pleasant and agreeable, but absolutely devastated that this woman had turned up so fast.” Atcherson went to work in the Division of Latin American Affairs, where she did research for the head of the division, Dana Munro, who was writing a book on Central America. When her work for Munro ended, more time passed with no word of an assignment to the field, and she began to feel adrift, consigned to the “off jobs” while languishing in the halls of the State Depart- ment instead of working at an overseas mission. Others who had passed the 1922 exams were receiving their postings to the field, and by early 1924, Atcherson was frustrated enough to decide that if the department refused to assign her overseas, she “wasn’t going to wait forever.” She would resign. Switzerland But she did not want to give up after making it this far. She encouraged women’s groups and others to continue to pressure the administration on her behalf, and took her case for the value of women diplomats to the public during numerous speaking engagements. Women, she explained, “could do much to cement international friendship,” especially in European capitals such as Paris, “where so many American women are congregated for the purposes of study, for art, music and so on.” As an example she cited the “twelve hundred women [who] visit Paris each year,” whose problems “could be much better handled by a woman at the embassy.” For instance, she said, “Very frequently, women present themselves at the embassy door with problems for whose solution they wish the advice of another woman. They don’t want to tell their troubles to a man, however sympathetic and capable he may be.” She believed it should be “natural” that female diplomats would “assist in col- lecting, writing up and transmitting to the authorities in Wash- ington” information about legislation “concerning the welfare of women and children” in foreign countries. Still, she waited for an overseas assignment. When asked later about this difficult time, Atcherson was both diplomatic and reflective about her male colleagues. “They were perhaps a little short-sighted,” she acknowledged; yet, “these were not unkind, ungenerous men.” Instead, she concluded, “they lacked imagina- tion about where women could be.” Finally, the newly formed Foreign Service Personnel Board settled on an appointment for Atcherson, to Bern, Switzerland, where officials concluded that “women are most active outside the home” and therefore “the [female] official might attract no particular notice.” That appointment was made, however, over the strenuous objections of the American minister, career diplomat Hugh Gibson. Gibson worried about how a woman would handle the “personal contact” work of “diplomatic protocol” and the work that depended on “what they do when out of the office” rather than “what they do at their desks.” How, he wondered, would Atcherson compensate for being excluded from “the club life of [male] secretaries,” where “friendships are made over wine and cigars”? Joseph Grew, chief of the Foreign Service Personnel Board, tried to reassure his friend and colleague that Atcherson would undoubtedly “settle into her niche with the least possible splash, and that she will probably prove to be a quiet, dignified and hard-working member of your staff.” By early 1924, Atcherson was frustrated enough to decide that if the department refused to assign her overseas, she “wasn’t going to wait forever.”