Mina Van Winkle

Wilhelmina Caroline Ginger Van Winkle
Van Winkle, in Food Administration uniform, promoting victory gardening in World War I
Born	Wilhelmina Caroline Ginger (1875-03-26)March 26, 1875 New York City
Died	January 16, 1933(1933-01-16) (aged 57)
Other names	Mina Van Winkle
Education	New York School of Philanthropy (1905)
Spouse(s)	Abraham Van Winkle

Mina Caroline Ginger Van Winkle (March 26, 1875 - January 16, 1933) was a crusading social worker, suffragist, and groundbreaking police lieutenant. From 1919 until her death in 1933, she led the Women’s Bureau of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia (in Washington D.C.), and became a national leader in the protection of girls and other women during the law enforcement and judicial process. Her provocative statements about gender and morality in the jazz age brought her further national attention.

She was born Wilhelmina ("Mina") Caroline Ginger in New York City in 1875. From 1902 to 1905, she worked at Fernwood Home, a municipal reform school for girls in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. She graduated in 1905 from the social work program of the New York School of Philanthropy.

In 1905, while associated with the National Consumers League and the Newark Bureau of Associated Charities, she exposed the harsh conditions in which immigrant child laborers from Italy worked in New Jersey farm fields.

On October 27, 1906, she became the second wife of Abraham Van Winkle, wealthy president of a manufacturing company (and a widower 36 years her senior) who had financially supported the Bureau of Associated Charities. During their marriage, she engaged in social work on a volunteer basis. Her husband died on September 30, 1915, at age 76. She resided in Newark, New Jersey, until approximately 1917.

In 1908, Van Winkle organized the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women of New Jersey, which in 1912 was renamed the Women's Political Union of New Jersey. She was the head of New Jersey chapter of the Union at the stage when the American suffrage movement clashed with eastern political machines and supporters of lawful drinking fearful that suffrage would lead to prohibition. Her tenure as president of the Union included 1915’s unsuccessful effort to amend New Jersey’s constitution by referendum to give women the right to vote. Following that defeat, the New Jersey chapter of the Union merged into the New Jersey Woman Suffrage Association, whose officers governed the resulting organization.