When the law said “no you don’t”
One hundred and five (corrected) years ago tomorrow, a young couple married in Tarrant County, Texas.
The bride: Maud Lillian Cottrell. Born 26 January 1890 to Martin Gilbert and Martha (Johnson) Cottrell and, thus, older sister to The Legal Genealogist‘s grandfather, Clay Rex Cottrell.
The groom: Morris Gottlieb. Born 14 October 1883 to Isaac and Friederike (May) Gottlieb, a jeweler.
The license was issued five days earlier, on 12 September 1912, by Charles H. Rose, deputy clerk of Tarrant County.
The marriage itself was performed by R. F. Peden, a Justice of the Peace for Precinct 1 in Tarrant Coiunty. He filed the return on the 20th of September and it was recorded on the 24th.
All properly recorded in the county records there in Fort Worth, Texas.1
What isn’t recorded in those Texas county records is the other thing that happened 105 (corrected)years ago tomorrow, when my grandfather’s sister married the love of her life.
What you won’t find recorded in those documents is that this Texas-born daughter of a Texas-born father and Kentucky-born mother lost her American citizenship on that September day, 105 (corrected)years ago tomorrow.
In saying “I do” to Morris Gottlieb — an immigrant born in Germany who hadn’t yet become a naturalized citizen — Maud Cottrell had to endure the laws of her own country saying “oh no you don’t.”
Maud was one of thousands of American-born women caught up in the anti-immigrant frenzy of the early 20th century, when a wave of anti-immigrant feeling led the Congress to enact “An Act In reference to the expatriation of citizens and their protection abroad.”2
Section 3 of that act provided, in its entirety:
That any American woman who marries a foreigner shall take the nationality of her husband. At the termination of the marital relation she may resume her American citizenship, if abroad, by registering as an American citizen within one year with a consul of the United States, or by returning to reside in the United States, or, if residing in the United States at the termination of the marital relation, by continuing to reside therein.3
As a result of that statute, every American-born woman who married a man who wasn’t then a citizen automatically and immediately lost her American citizenship. Maud, who hadn’t spent a day outside the United States at that point, became a German national the instant she said I do on that September day in Texas 105 (corrected) years ago tomorrow.
Oh, Congress came to its senses, finally in 1922, when it passed the Cable Act giving women equal nationality rights with men.4 As long as the man she married was eligible for citizenship, an American-born bride could keep her American citizenship.5
In the 1922 statute, women like Maud were thrown a bone: they could regain their citizenship by naturalization.6 By 1936, Congress even tossed these marital expatriates another bone: they didn’t have to go through the whole naturalization process, but could simply file an application and take an oath of allegiance — but only if their marriage had ended through death or divorce.7
No luck there for Maud: her marriage to Morris was long and fruitful and ended only with his death in 1961.8
Maud did succeed in getting her citizenship back, but only through the tedious process of naturalization.9
An American-born child of American-born parents, naturalized.
All because when she said “I do,” 105 (corrected) years ago tomorrow, the laws of her own country said, “oh no you don’t.”
SOURCES
- Tarrant County, Texas, Marriage Book 28:92, Gottlieb – Cottrell, 1912, marriage license and return; County Clerk’s Office, Fort Worth. ↩
- “An Act In reference to the expatriation of citizens and their protection abroad,” 34 Stat. 1228 (2 March 1907). ↩
- Ibid., §3, 34 Stat. 1228-1229. ↩
- An act Relative to the naturalization and citizenship of married women, 42 Stat. 1021 (22 September 1922). ↩
- Ibid., §3, 42 Stat. 1022. ↩
- Ibid., §4. ↩
- “An Act To repatriate native-born women who have heretofore lost their citizenship by marriage to an alien, and for other purposes,” 49 Stat. 1917 (25 June 1936). ↩
- State of New Mexico, Certificate of Death, Morris Gottlieb, 21 Nov 1961; Bureau of Vital Statistics, Santa Fe. ↩
- United States District Court for the District of New Mexico, certificate # 4697969, Maud L. Gottlieb, 11 Sept 1939. ↩
I found this fascinating and stumbled on an interesting example this a few years ago and wrote about it. http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2012/08/fact-checking-can-woman-lose-her-us_23.html Enjoy
105 years ago?
You expect me to be able to count? You know I have a t-shirt that reads: “I was an English [actually a journalism] major — you do the math!!” 🙂
This happened to my great-grandmother, too. American born of immigrant parents, married an English national in NYC in 1899. She got her citizenship back in 1925 when he was naturalized. I only learned about this legal “no-no” when I saw her listed as an Alien in the 1920 census. How could someone born in NYC be an alien? This is how!
What about an American man marrying a foreigner at that time? Was there a double standard?
It was double-standard. Men keep. Women lose. Not until early 1950s did the women finally get to to keep.
As I recall it wasn’t until early 1950s when one woman filed suit over having to apply to get hers restored. She won. Any American woman who married non-naturalized residents, no longer have to apply to get their citizenship restored. They retain.
I have a recollection about American widows of Chinese husbands becoming stranded in China during and after WWII because the Japanese occupation of China and subsequent civil war between the forces of Mao Tse Tung and Chiang Kai Shek made it impossible for them to file the necessary paperwork within the short window of time allowed by the repatriation statutes. It was a truly shameful episode.
Not just in the USA! British women who married foreign men found themselves in the same situation. This didn’t happen in my family, but in the family of a friend (who, coincidentally, has dual US and British nationality, and a German wife!). I wrote about it in a blog post http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/do-you-take-this-man-and-his-nationality/
I always thought that when my grandmother, born in Quebec, married my grandfather in 1918 she became a US citizen because he was born in the US. However, for some reason my mother remembered helping her mother study for her naturalization test! I never pursued it before but this makes me wonder if they also made women who had been naturalized by marriage actually file for their own citizenship papers at some point in time. Just wondering.
From your description she should have been eligible to apply for a certificate of derivative citizenship. But you should order her file from USCIS to see what exactly she did.
Judy,
Some women born in the US lost their citizenship during WW II because their husbands had been born in either Germany or Japan, naturalized citizens or not. The book “The Train to Crystal City: FDR’s Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America’s Only Family Internment Camp During World War II,” by Jan Jarboe Russell, tells their story. FDR knew both countries would want to exchange high-level US POWs for their own POWs. That was the secret purpose of this Internment camp. Russell tells appalling stories of several Japanese-American and German-American families who were exchanged during the war. Most families were released in the US after the war, their US citizenship restored.
I asked the question at GenFed about my grandmother, Emma. She (born in IA) married a Dane in Iowa in 1910. He became naturalized in 1916. I asked the question why I couldn’t find her naturalization papers. And Marian Smith (?) said–because she got her citizenship in 1922. Is the fact that the Dane got his citizenship before 1922 making the difference? (I never asked that question.) When did Morris get his citizenship? Emma voted and represented her constituency at a Republican precinct meeting at the county level in 1930. (newspaper) there is no record of her naturalization at local, state, or federal level.
I was quite surprised when I found my grandmother’s name while searching naturalization records at the national archives in Chicago. Additional research gave me the same results you wrote about.
I will have to look into this, my grandfather was born in London, my grandmother in Philadelphia. They married in 1918. Not sure when he became naturalized, but I think after marriage.
Oh wow! You just answered a question about my grand aunt… I never could understand why an American citizen would wind up married to a Canadian and living in Canada as a citizen. After his death she wound up back in the US and was naturalized as a US citizen. It made no sense to me.
Now I get it!! Thank you so much.
My Us-born grandmother also lost her citizenship when she married my Canadian grandfather in 1915. People don’t believe it when you tell them this stuff. My mother joined the League of Women Voters.