Mrs. Ella Storrs-Webb was part of a reformist movement in the early 20th century and worked in a settlement house. Settlement houses were residences in poor and immigrant areas of large cities, designed to assist those in need, Hull House in Chicago being a famous example. Mrs. Webb occasionally made the news for her outlandish ideas on social reform and editors seemed to enjoy sparring with her in print:
It is worth noting that eugenics was a popular and widespread pseudoscience at the time and many states had eugenics laws on the books (or were developing them). While I am not prepared to draw any conclusion on whether Mrs. Webb was a proponent of eugenics based on the two articles in this post, I feel comfortable saying she used the language of eugenics and would certainly have been welcome in the company of eugenicists.
Also suspicious: she wasn’t a huge fan of dogs.
While her proposal to ban dogs from cities didn’t catch on, she certainly had a way with words and was probably a formidable presence in any debate. As I was unfortunately unable to find a picture of Mrs. Webb, I offer one from her era in its place:
I’d bet the animal rights extremists today would have embraced her thinking…