Ruth Hale (July 5, 1886 – September 18, 1934) was an American journalist who worked for women's rights in New York City during the era before and after World War I.

Her younger brother, Richard Hale, also born in the town, later became a singer and then a longtime Hollywood character actor.

[2] Hale was introduced to Heywood Broun, a popular newspaper columnist and sportswriter, at a New York Giants baseball game at the Polo Grounds.

She was unable to cut through the red tape, and the government issued her passport reading "Ruth Hale, also known as Mrs. Heywood Broun."

In May 1921, Hale was believed to be the first married woman to be issued a real estate deed in her own name for an apartment house on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

In August 1927, Hale took a leading role in protesting the executions of anarchists and accused murderers Sacco and Vanzetti.

She traveled to Boston as part of the defense committee, along with Dorothy Parker and John Dos Passos, but Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in spite of the fierce protests of the group.

In 1929 Edward Bernays decided to pay women to smoke their “torches of freedom” as they walked in the Easter Sunday Parade in New York.

Fight another sex taboo!”[4] Once the footage was released, the campaign was being talked about everywhere, and the women's walk was seen as a protest for equality and sparked discussion throughout the nation and is still known today.

"[6] During the 1920s and 1930s, Hale continued to write, reviewed books for the Brooklyn Eagle, and worked as a theatrical press agent.

[8] Hale and Broun were quietly divorced in Mexico in November 1933, although the two remained close and continued to reside on the same property in Connecticut.