The Women’s Institute, Comes To Conquer

“Women Come to Conquer” is a short promotional newsreel from St. Paul, Minnesota, probably made around 1939–40, for the newly launched Women’s Institute of St. Paul. The Institute was a citywide women’s organization formed to advance the city’s civic, social and cultural life and to bring thousands of women from across the Northwest to St. Paul’s stores and institutions. In a staged question-and-answer format, a series of wives ask what the Institute will do for them: a retailer’s wife (“Mrs. Public”), a manufacturer’s wife (“Mrs. Jobber”) and a woman whose husband runs theaters and hotels. A narrator answers that it will boost local retail sales, wholesaling and manufacturing, and make St. Paul the region’s entertainment center. Drama critic James Gray of the Dispatch-Pioneer Press is named as the Institute’s adviser on stage and screen. The pitch ends with the promise that keeping St. Paul shopping dollars at home will bring “unbelievable prosperity” within two years. The second half covers the Institute’s opening fashion show. Its highlight is a bridal party in sheer wool gowns led by New York model Georgia Carroll, along with wool evening wear described as “sports clothes gone formal.” The film closes at the evening session, where Governor Stassen praises the Institute as a constructive force for the public good. The guest speaker, Eleanor Roosevelt, says she is thrilled to see women come together to do real work in their own communities.