Anna Kelton Wiley was born in 1877. She enrolled at Columbian University (now George Washington University) and was awarded the Kendall Scholarship. There she joined Pi Beta Phi and on January 5, 1895, she became a duly initiated member. She won the Sterrett medal in physics. Her college friends called her “Nan.” After graduating in 1897, she spent two years working in the library at the Department of Agriculture and 10 years in the Copyright Office at the Library of Congress. In the fall of 1910, she enrolled at the Washington College of Law and planned to become a lawyer. Suffrage and civic betterment were her interests and she devoted herself to these efforts.
Her engagement to Dr. Harvey W. Wiley was announced in December 1910. A newspaper article in the March 27, 1955 edition of the Daily Oklahoman told of the story behind the marriage. Dr. Wiley, known as the “Father of the Pure Food Act,” was 30 years her senior. According to the story, she became the Doctor’s secretary after graduation and worked for him for two years until he was sent overseas. Ten years later the two met by chance on a streetcar. He “opened his watch case and showed her her own picture which he carried for ten years.” Another account told of Dr. Wiley meeting her when he addressed a group of “militant suffragists.”
The couple married in a small ceremony at her mother’s home in Washington, D.C. on February 27, 1911. Two sons, Harvey, Jr. and James, were born in 1912 and 1914, respectively. The press called them the “pure food” babies.
The Elizabeth Cady Stanton Suffrage Club hosted a luncheon in honor of her marriage. A 1911 description of Wiley noted that the suffrage movement was one of her main concerns:
Her sympathies outside her work have been principally bound up with the woman suffrage movement. For the past few years she has held office in the local organizations, helped to organize meetings, worked on the petitions, spoken at open air meetings and attended as a delegate the Forty-Second Annual Convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association.
When suffragists picketed the White House in 1917, Wiley, then a mother of two young sons, was among them. She was arrested and spent 5 days in jail.
Wiley was also an active member of Pi Phi’s D.C. Alumnae Club. In 1924, when Pi Beta Phi gave the portrait of the First Lady Grace Goodhue Coolidge to the Nation, the Wileys hosted a reception at the Library of Congress for the more than 1,100 Pi Phis who descended upon Washington.
Dr. Wiley died in 1930 at the age of 86. In his autobiography, the last book he wrote, he included a dedication to his wife:
To Anna Kelton Wiley, my beloved wife, the mother of my boys, who, without neglecting her motherly and household duties, has devoted her life to the welfare of women; first, to secure for them the right to vote, and second, equality before the law, with my full consent and approval. I dedicated this book, a simple narrative of my life, its victories and defeats. Her character and devotion to me have been strong factors in my success, and her sympathy and advice inspiration in defeat.
Wiley was twice the Chairman of the National Woman’s Party, 1930-32 and 1940-42. She served as editor of the Party’s publication, Equal Rights, from 1940-45. Wiley was a long-time member of the Major L’Enfant Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She served as Chairman of Legislation for DC’s Women’s City Club. At the age of 77, she put her efforts into fighting for an Equal Rights Amendment, which was first introduced in 1923.
In the summer of 1959, she attended the convention of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs in California. She was in her 80s and it was her 23rd GFWC convention, for she had served the organization in many capacities. Wiley looked forward to all the events, from a Hollywood banquet to a Lawrence Welk concert. One of the oldest women in attendance, she likely ran circles around the other women.
Wiley died on January 6, 1964 at the age of 86. She is buried with her husband, a Civil War veteran, at Arlington National Cemetery.
