Ruth Simpson (activist)

Ruth Simpson—born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio—was the daughter of Ethel and Edward Simpson, pioneers in the labor movement. In the mid-1930s through the early 1940s Ruth's parents organized a UAW, AFL-CIO Union (Local 88) and with only $14 in the treasury, called a strike against the Willard Storage Battery Company, the first factory to be struck because of health hazards in the workplace. The strike was successful and the company was compelled to install ventilation devices over lead burning and lead grinding stations where workers had suffered, and some died, from lead poisoning.

Ethel Simpson had researched the symptoms of Local 88 workers at the Cleveland Public Library while her daughter chose books for the week. It was Ethel Simpson's research that established it was indeed lead poisoning—a little-known disease at the time—that caused the workers' illness. The company doctor had for years diagnosed symptoms as "flu" and, when workers became partially paralyzed, as "dropsy" in order that the Willard Company could avoid paying Workmen's Compensation.

One summer day in 1938, a sympathy strike was called by the workers in Cleveland plants that surrounded Fisher Body's factory, and the families of union members came out to join Fisher Body workers' picket line (the union was having problems attaining collective bargaining rights). Ruth Simpson, 12 years old at the time, says that was the day she learned about the dangers activists faced. Police, both mounted and foot patrol, attacked the peaceful picketers with nightsticks and tear gas. Ruth saw her father, as he raced to help a man with a bloody head, chased by two police. One of them threw a tear gas bomb that hit the heel of her father's shoe, and he went up in a cloud of toxic smoke. Another cop chased Ruth and her mother up a driveway that had a high wall blocking any exit. They, too, learned the smell and pain of tear gas. Ruth says she vividly remembers the sound of wood on bone as heads were beaten and, more importantly, the deep pride for her parents and for the labor movement.

In her early years, Ruth Simpson learned organizational skills, as well as the importance of activism against injustice, from the legacy left by her parents.

Ruth and her partner of 37 years, Ellen Povill, met at DOB and bought their home in Woodstock in 1976. They immediately became active in their new community—Ellen as a videographer documenting local cultural events and programming them on public-access television cable TV. Ruth helped organize Woodstock's first gay group and launched a human rights ordinance drive in the town. After collecting and handing hundreds of signed petitions to town officials, Ruth was told that the town board had decided there would be a public debate in town hall between Ruth and the town's fire-breathing fundamentalist preacher, on Valentine's Day. Ruth reported that the townspeople thought she won the debate hands down. But the town board ultimately decided that Woodstock was already liberal and as such did not need such an ordinance.

Ruth became a library trustee and was asked to teach Woodstock's seniors' writing workshop about two years after she and Ellen arrived in Woodstock. Ellen is still documenting area events for local access and donating tapes to the Library's archives.