Crown Princess Louise gives first Chicago interview

June 24, 1926

While her husband, Crown Prince Gustav Adolf was delivering an address at the new Augustana Hospital, Crown Princess Louise sat down for her first Chicago interview, which took place in the drawing-room at the Swedish club.
She "hazarded the suggestion that women have as many brains as men, and then, all inadvertently, proceeded to prove it."

"Women? Why, really there is no fundamental difference between the women of Sweden and the women of America. Oh you American women are known all over the world for your feet, so small and well-shod. But, there is no really
significant difference it seems to me, between the sisters of the two countries.
"As for women entering the fields of industry, business professions. They are beginning to do it all over Europe. There is no reason why they shouldn't. I mean, a woman really has as many brains as a man. Of course, she makes herself weak when she shouts too loudly that she can do anything a man can do. There are some things she can do better; somethings she can't do nearly as well.
"But then," said Sweden's future queen, with a smile, "perhaps that's because her freedom is so new a thing."

The princes, "not a dodging kind," did not dodge the age-old question about women, jobs, and marriage.

"Of course, if a woman is lucky enough to find the right man to love and marry, then there is nothing better for her to do than to care for her home. In rare instances, perhaps, if she is a great doctor, or is doing something big for the world, then she should continue her profession. Or secondarily, a married woman can do much for her country, and for her own interests.

"Now in England, where the women outnumber the men by two to one, I believe, marriage is not possible for all."

She also spoke of America's press: "It is evidence of your people's friendly interest in personalities, rather than in abstractions. And don't think for a moment that Swedish newspaper folk aren't learning from you. They are."

When asked if she had any hobbies, she shook her head and said she could not really decide what was hers. She did not play golf, but she enjoyed skiing in the winter.

The Crown Princess, who was Lady Louise Mountbatten before her marriage, wore an "ecru chiffon afternoon gown, trimmed with ecru lace and a large picture hat, fashioned of the same material." She also "wore a jewel or two, but they were so inconspicuous that one doesn't recall just what."