Dorothy Eloise Janes Dunn (29 December 1892–11 November 1981), woman's rights advocate, was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was the daughter of Charles Henry Janes, a printer, and Ada Mathilda Shellberg Janes. The family was living in Denver, Colorado, when her father died in May 1897, after which she lived with her grandmother in Albany, New York. Janes received a New York teaching certificate in 1915 and taught for a time in the state's public schools. During World War I she worked for the United States War Trade Board, in Washington, D.C., where by March 1919 she had joined the recently established Woman's Bureau of the Metropolitan Police Department. While studying law at George Washington University, Janes served as president of the Women's Legal Club in the 1923–1924 academic year. She received an LL.B. in 1925 and in June 1926 was one of twelve women who passed the bar examination in the District of Columbia. On 11 September 1923 she married Joseph George Dunn, an engineer. They had one son.

Dunn moved to Arlington County about 1926, although she continued to work as a referee with the juvenile court in Washington. She joined the Organized Women Voters of Arlington County and the Livingstone Heights Civic League, of which she was president for the 1937–1938 term. As a member of the Arlington County Civic Federation during the 1930s, she served on committees related to legislation, legal action, and tax reform.

In May 1930 Dunn was elected a member of the Arlington County Business and Professional Woman's Club. Five months later she became editor of Let's Go, the official publication of the Virginia Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs. During approximately four years as editor of the quarterly newsletter, she promoted the organization's goals of increased opportunities and equitable treatment for working women. Elected chair of the legislative committee for the Virginia Federation in May 1932, Dunn informed members about pertinent legislation; recommended measures for the state group to initiate or endorse, such as a national old-age pension bill and enforcement of compulsory education laws; and lobbied the General Assembly. She spoke on legislative issues at chapter meetings around the state and at regional conferences, commented on the role of women in politics, and urged members to get involved at all levels.

Late in 1933 the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs (later Business and Professional Women/USA) appointed Dunn as its delegate to the Women's Joint Congressional Committee, established in 1920 as an umbrella group for women's organizations to pool resources in promoting federal legislation of interest to women. During the three years Dunn served as the WJCC delegate she lobbied Congress on behalf of the National Federation and was on call to attend congressional hearings. Early in 1934 she testified before the House Committee on Education in support of federal emergency aid for schools, and in April 1935 she appeared before the House Committee on Civil Service in favor of allowing government employment for married women.

Dunn was named legislative chair of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs in the autumn of 1935. The National Federation emphasized legislative work at the local, state, and national levels to secure favorable conditions for women, especially those working outside the home. As the federation's public face during her two-year term, Dunn advocated greater federal aid for education and for the women's and children's bureaus of the Department of Labor; appointment of a Cabinet-level secretary of education; government oversight of the manufacture of food, drugs, and cosmetics; and jury service for women in all states. She attended national conferences on labor and unions, child labor, and the status of women. Dunn led the federation's fight against Section 213a of the Economy Act (1932), which permitted the dismissal of married women from federal employment in an attempt to provide jobs for men during the Great Depression. In a radio speech she argued that such policy established an unjustified precedent for private industry also to discriminate against women. Congress repealed the provision in July 1937. She was not successful, however, in her campaign for ratification of the child labor amendment that Congress had passed in 1924.

In July 1936 Dunn was appointed to a special Committee on Political Techniques to study election participation of federation members and ways to maximize their political influence. That year the National Federation secured a plank in the Republican Party platform opposing discriminatory legislation. The following year Dunn served on a committee to consider potential endorsement of a proposed Women's Charter that several organizations had drafted to guarantee rights for women. Rejecting the charter on the committee's recommendation, the federation instead endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution offered by the National Woman's Party, which called for the equal treatment of women and men under the law.

For about three years, beginning in 1938, Dunn supervised the selection of young men for employment with the Civilian Conservation Corps for the Washington Board of Public Welfare. She was a member of Arlington County's Board of Public Welfare from 1938 to 1943, and in 1944 she served on an advisory board for the county's juvenile court. In 1959 and 1960 Dunn was the publicity chair for Arlington's Home Demonstration Club. She sat on the Virginia Commission on the Aging from 1961 until 1970.

Dunn's husband died on 10 June 1967, followed by her son two months later. Dorothy Eloise Janes Dunn died of bronchopneumonia at an Alexandria retirement community on 11 November 1981 and was buried in Columbia Gardens Cemetery, in Arlington County.

Sources Consulted:
Biography in Durward Howes, ed., American Women (1939), 3:252; Certificate of Birth, Division of Vital Statistics, Illinois Department of Public Health; information provided by daughter-in-law, Dorothy Hickson Dunn (2008); Washington Post, 12 Sept. 1923, 27 Oct., 29 Dec. 1935, 20 Feb. 1936, 6 July 1937, 16 July 1940; Independent Woman 13 (1934): 268–269; ibid. 14 (1935): 275, 410; ibid. 15 (1936): 234–235, 255–256; ibid. 16 (1937): 234–237; New York Times, 29 Dec. 1935 (portrait); Arlington Sun, 1 July 1938; Northern Virginia Sun (Fairfax ed.), 7 Apr. 1961; Dunn's testimony in House of Representatives, Committee on Education, 73d Congress, 2d sess., hearing on Federal Emergency Aid to Education (26 Feb.–1 Mar. 1934), HR 7477 and others, 668:201–204, and Committee on Civil Service, 74th Congress, 1st sess., hearing To Amend Married Persons' Clause (18–24 Apr. 1935), HR 5051, 722:22–24; Papers of Virginia Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs (including issues of Let's Go), Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.; Records of the Women's Joint Congressional Committee, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Death Certificate, Alexandria, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Commonwealth of Virginia; death notice in Washington Post, 12 Nov. 1981.

Image from Woman Citizen, 6 Sept. 1919.

Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Marianne E. Julienne.

How to cite this page:
Marianne E. Julienne,"Dorothy Eloise Janes Dunn (1892–1981)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2016 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Dunn_Dorothy_Eloise_Janes, accessed [today's date]).

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