Some of the following text is directly excerpted from LAPD Online.
LAPD Officer Alice Stebbins Wells, First U.S. Policewoman.
In 1909, Los Angeles social worker Alice Stebbins Wells petitioned Mayor George Alexander and the City Council, requesting that an ordinance providing for a Los Angeles Policewoman be adopted. Not only was the measure passed, but on September 12, 1910, Mrs. Wells was appointed as the nation’s first designated policewoman with all the authority of her male counterparts.*
Many California cities had employed women as "matrons" or "workers" since 1890. These employees specialized in the care of female prisoners, and worked in city and county prisons and other penal institutions.
On the first day of her appointment, Mrs. Wells was furnished with a Gamewell (a telephone call box) key, a book of rules, a first aid book, and a "policeman’s badge." In those days, an officer was privileged to enjoy free trolley car rides while going to and from work, but when Mrs. Wells displayed her badge, the conductor accused her of misusing her husband’s identity. This was remedied by presenting her with "Policewoman’s Badge Number One."
Mrs. Wells was assigned to work with Officer Leo W. Marden, the Department’s first juvenile officer. Subsequent to her appointment, the following order was issued:
"No young girl can be questioned by a male officer. Such work is delegated solely to policewomen, who, by their womanly sympathy and intuition, are able to gain the confidence of their younger sisters."
Her first duties included supervision and enforcement of laws concerning "dance halls, skating rinks, penny arcades, picture shows, and other similar places of public recreation." Among her activities were the "suppression of unwholesome billboard displays, searches for missing persons, and the maintenance of a general information bureau for women seeking advice on matters within the scope of police departments."
In 1911, the position of women police officers in Los Angeles was placed under Civil Service control. By October 1912, there were three policewomen and three police matrons in the Department.
By 1916, Wells’ efforts to promote the need for female police officers led to the appointment of policewomen in 16 other U.S. cities and in several foreign countries. She also helped to organize the International Policewomen’s Association.
Three years later, Wells worked with the University of California, Southern Division (now UCLA) to offer the first college course specifically focused on the work of women police officers. The course was introduced by the school’s Criminology Department in the summer session in 1918.
In 1928, Wells helped to organize the Women’s Peace Officers Association of California and became its first president. In 1934, she was appointed the Los Angeles Police Department historian and held that post until her retirement in 1940. She served as a policewoman for 30 years.
Wells died in 1957. Ten policewomen served as her Honor Guard. She was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles.
* Two other women were designated as police officers prior to Officer Wells. In 1891, the Chicago Police Department gave Marie Owens a police badge, powers of arrest and the title of Detective Sergeant. However, her duties were restricted solely to enforcing child labor laws and, unlike Wells, was not able to exercise the full authority of other Chicago police officers. In 1908, in Portland, Oregon, Lola Baldwin was hired as a “female detective to perform police service.” She served as “Superintendent of the Women’s Auxiliary to the Police Department for the Protection of Girls.” Baldwin's duties were focused on crime prevention and social work rather than law enforcement. She did not wear a uniform or carry a weapon or work from a police facility. LAPD Officer Wells, by contrast, was the first U.S. woman to wear a police badge and uniform and exercise the full powers of a police officer, equal to those of her male counterparts.
L.A.'s second policewoman, Minnie Barton, befriended several homeless girls, while working with young women on parole or probation. Often these girls had nowhere to go and no future prospects, so Barton attempted to help them rebuild their lives by taking them into her home and arranging vocational training for them. In 1917, she founded the "Minnie Barton Home." Younger women, particularly first offenders, were committed to the Home, in lieu of serving a jail sentence. The Home grew to include pregnant women, often left destitute as a result of the father’s jail confinement or abandonment. The Home continued to expand and is now known as The Big Sister League, an agency of the United Way.
Officer Wells was not the only Los Angeles woman to pioneer in law enforcement. In 1912, Margaret Queen Adams became the first female deputy sheriff in the United States when she joined the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Later, in 1916, Georgia Ann Robinson joined the Los Angeles Police Department to become one the nation's first African American woman police officers.