herstory
a collection of stories about women in history
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herstory a collection of stories about women in history |
| "Yes,
I am fond of history." Throughout history, women have struggled to bring fundamental human rights to women of all ages, colors, social classes, and sexual orientations.
Thanks to sacrifice, vision and hard work, women have won the right to
an education, to vote, to equal pay for equal work, to access to fully-funded
school sports programs, to serve in political office, and to serve in
the armed forces in the United States. Much work remains to be done, however,
to assure that these civil and human rights remain secure and that future
generations of women and men will continue to enjoy lives of accomplishment
and fulfillment. Some of the stories featured here first appeared in our Voices newsletter. Others were compiled by Nokomis Foundation intern, Emma Heemskerk. |
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Bella
Abzug "Women have been trained
to speak softly... and carry a lipstick. But women today 'are carrying
a bigger stick,' moving beyond the kitchen table, demanding a place at
all decision-making tables, and actually transforming power, extending
the 'boundaries of progress'." Bella Abzug was born in New York City in 1920. She received her BA at Hunter College in 1942 and then specialized in labor law at Columbia University Law School and worked as editor of the Columbia Law Review. She gained admission to the New York Bar in 1947. Throughout the next 23 years, Bella spent time practicing labor law and working for civil rights while working for various other causes. She focused especially on issues of peace and disarmament. She also defended those accused during Joseph McCarthy's anti-communist crusade. Abzug founded Women Strike for Peace in 1961 and supported many other women's political organizations dealing with issues of equal rights, abortion rights, and child care legislation. Her flamboyance earned her the names "Battling Bella" and "Mother Courage." She helped to found the National Women's Political Caucus in 1971 alongside Gloria Steinem and Shirley Chisholm. Bella wrote the first law banning discrimination against women in obtaining credit, credit cards, loans and mortgages; introduced pioneering bills on comprehensive child care, social security for home-makers, family planning and abortion rights. Abzug was elected to the House of Representatives in 1971, where she served until 1977. In 1977 she was named co-chairperson of the national Advisory Committee on Women by President Jimmy Carter. She actively involved herself in Women USA, a grassroots political action organization, contributed to Ms. Magazine, and was a daily news communtator on the Cable News Network. Abzug was the co-creator and co-chair of Women's Environmental & Development Organization (WEDO), representing the culmination of her lifelong career as activist and stateswoman. She was inducted into the Women's Hall of Fame in 1994. Bella Abzug died of heart complications in 1998. Click here to find out more about Bella Abzug.
Jane
Addams Jane Addams was born in 1860 in Cedarville, Illinois. She graduated from Rockford (Illinois) Female Seminary in 1881. On a trip with a classmate to Europe, they visited the Toynbee Hall settlement house in London, and Addams discovered her calling to reform work. She returned to Chicago and moved into what would become Hull House. In addition to making available services and cultural opportunities for the largely immigrant population of the neighborhood, Hull House afforded an opportunity for young social workers to acquire training. Addams was involved in reforming the first juvenile court law, tenement house regulation, eight-hour work days for women and children, factory inspection, and worker's compensation for injuries. Jane Addams sought justice for people of color and immigrants and advocated for women's suffrage. Addams became the first woman preseident of the National Conference of Social Work in 1910. In 1915 she hlped organize the women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Addams also served as the chairwoman of the International Congress of Women and was involved in organizing the Americal Civil Liberties Union. In 1931, Jane Addams was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. Click here to find out more about Jane Addams.
Maya
Angelou Maya Angelou was born in 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri and raised by her grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. Her birth name was Margaret Johnson, but her borhter gave her the name Maya when whe was young. Her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, chronicles her childhood years in the South during the Great Depression. As a young girl, Maya was raped by her mother's boyfriend. He was later convicted and killed by a mob. In shock, Maya stopped speaking for five years. As an adolescent, Maya moved to San Francisco to live with her mother. In the 1950s, Maya moved to New York City and balanced a dancing career with single motherhood. Maya studied dance with Martha Graham and Pearl Primus, and appeared in the international tour of George Gershwin's opera, Porgy and Bess. She spent time in Cairo, Egypt writing for the Arab Observer and later moved to Ghana to work on the African Review. Maya returned to the United States in the mid-1960s and started working on stage, in film, and in television. She also began writing her autobiographies and poetry. Notable works and awards include: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (autobiography; nominated for the National Book Award), Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diie (poetry; nominated for a Pulitzer Prize), Roots (televison miniseries; nominated for Emmy Award), Look Away (Broadway play; nominated for a Tony Award). In 1981, Maya Angelou gained lifetime appointment to the Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. Click here to find out more about Maya Angelou.
Rachel
Carson "The more
clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the
universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction." Although perhaps most famous for her 1962 book exposing the dangers of synthetic chemical pesticides, Silent Spring, Rachel Carson was, first and foremost, a lover of nature and the living world. Born in 1907 in Pennsylvania, Carson graduated from Pennsylvania College for Women in 1929 and received her MA in zoology from John Hopkins University in 1932. Combining her love of science and nature with her gift for writing, Carson wrote radio scripts and feature articles for the US Bureau of Fisheries, and eventually became Editor-in-chief of all publications for the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Carson devoted her spare time to writing books that would "take the seashore of of the category of scenery and make it come alive." In 1951, her book The Sea Around Us won the National Book Award and remained on the bestseller list for 86 weeks. Carson wrote about nature in an easy-to-understand, poetic style that appealed to many readers. Beginning in 1957, Carson investigated the effects of DDT and other chemicals on plants and animals, including people. She chronicled her findings in Silent Spring, published in 1962. Carson challenged the praces of agricultural scientists and the government, and, effectively, launced the modern environmental movement. Although the chemical industry tried to discredit Carson and her research, ultimately, her work was held to be true. Silent Spring inspired a re-examination of government policy toward the enviornment. In 1963, Carson received the Conservationist of the Year award from the National Wildlife Federation. Carson died in 1964 after a long battle with breast cancer. Click here to find out more about Rachel Carson.
Rachel
Carson "The more
clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the
universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction." Although perhaps most famous for her 1962 book exposing the dangers of synthetic chemical pesticides, Silent Spring, Rachel Carson was, first and foremost, a lover of nature and the living world. Born in 1907 in Pennsylvania, Carson graduated from Pennsylvania College for Women in 1929 and received her MA in zoology from John Hopkins University in 1932. Combining her love of science and nature with her gift for writing, Carson wrote radio scripts and feature articles for the US Bureau of Fisheries, and eventually became Editor-in-chief of all publications for the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Carson devoted her spare time to writing books that would "take the seashore of of the category of scenery and make it come alive." In 1951, her book The Sea Around Us won the National Book Award and remained on the bestseller list for 86 weeks. Carson wrote about nature in an easy-to-understand, poetic style that appealed to many readers. Beginning in 1957, Carson investigated the effects of DDT and other chemicals on plants and animals, including people. She chronicled her findings in Silent Spring, published in 1962. Carson challenged the praces of agricultural scientists and the government, and, effectively, launced the modern environmental movement. Although the chemical industry tried to discredit Carson and her research, ultimately, her work was held to be true. Silent Spring inspired a re-examination of government policy toward the enviornment. In 1963, Carson received the Conservationist of the Year award from the National Wildlife Federation. Carson died in 1964 after a long battle with breast cancer. Click here to find out more about Rachel Carson.
Linda
Chavez-Thompson Linda Chavez-Thompson was born in Lubbock, Texas in 1944. When she was 10 years old, she earned thirty cents an hour sharecropping with her parents in the cotton fields. At the age of 20 she went to work cleaning houses. Chavez-Thompson joined the Laborer's International Union in 1967. She became the only Spanish speaking official, serving as the union representative for Hispanic American members. In 1995, Chavez-Thompson was elected Executive Vice President of the AFL-CIO, where she continues to break barriers for justice. According to the National Women's History Project, Linda Chavez-Thompson "brings to the labor movement the perspective of a woman who has worked low-paying, low status, back-breaking jobs. Her election and work is a constant reminder that, indeed, women are wives, mothers, grandmothers, and sisters, but that they are also leaders. To expand the dialogue, the points of view, and the resulting decisions, she feels it is her responsibility to bring more women into leadership positions." Click here to find out more about Linda Chavez-Thompson.
Sandra
Cisneros Sandra Cisneros is an American novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and poet. She is lauded by literary scholars and critics for her works, which help bring the perspective of Chicana women into the mainstream of literary feminism. While working on her MFA at the University of Iowa, Cisneros first realized that some of the frustrations she experienced with her writing were connected to her experiences as a Latina woman — experiences that were unique and outside the realm of dominant American culture. Cisneros began to write about conflicts directly related to her upbringing, including divided cultural loyalties, feelings of alienation, and degradation associated with poverty. Cisneros’ works include The House on Mango Street, Woman Hollering Creek & Other Stories, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, and Bad Boys & Loose Women. Click
here to find out more about Sandra Cisneros.
Alice
Coachman "I've always
believed that I could do whatever I set my mind to do." Alice Coachman was born in Albany, Georgia in 1923, the fifth of ten children. Denied access to public training facilities because of segregation policies, she ran barefoot on the back roads of Georgia and devised all sorts of makeshift setups to jump over - from strings and ropes to sticks and tied rags. Her parents thought she should direct herself to a more ladylike path, but Alice was determined to succeed as an athlete. Alice overcame the effects of segregation to win twenty-five national titles as well as the Olympic Gold. Emboldened with the spirit of possibility, Alice says, "I've always believed that I could do whatever I set my mind to do." After her Olympic victory, she returned to America to train other women athletes. Her legacy opened possibilities for future generations of women to participate and succeed in Track and Field. Alice Coachman worked to ensure the success of future generations as she passed the torch of opportunity to other American women. In 1994, she established the Alice Coachman Track and Field Foundation, a nonprofit organization that assists both young athletes and retired Olympians. Alice Coachman has been honored with prestigious memberships in eight halls of fame, including the National Track and Field Hall of Fame, the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, and the Albany Sports Hall of Fame. Information provided
by the National Women's History Project. Click here to find out more about Alice Coachman.
Rita Dove served as Poet Laureate of the United States and Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1993 to 1995. Born in 1952 in Akron, Ohio, she has published six poetry collections, among them Thomas and Buelah, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1987. She is also the author of the novel Through the Ivory Gate and the drama The Darker Face of the Earth, which premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 1996 and was subsequently produced at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and other theaters. Her song cycle Seven for Luck, with music by John Williams, was first performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood in 1998. Ms. Dove's honors include Fulbright, Guggenheim, and Mellon fellowships, sixteen honorary doctorates, the NAACP Great American Artist Award, Glamour magazine's "Woman of the Year" Award, the New York Public Library's "Literary Lion" citation, the Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Acievement, as well as residencies at Tuskegee Institute, the National Humanities Center, and the Rockefeller Foundation's Villa Servelloni in Bellagio, Italy. In 1996 she received both the Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities and the Charles Frankel Prize/National Medal in the Humanities, and in 1997 she was honored with the Sara Lee Frontrunner Award and the Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award. Information provided by the African American LIterature Book Club. Click here to find out more about Rita Dove.
Susan
Faludi Born on April 18,
1959, in New York, New York, Susan Faludi first showed an interest in
journalism in the fifth grade, when she conducted a poll indicating that
most of her classmates opposed the war in Vietnam while supporting legalized
abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment. While attending Harvard University
(B.A., 1981), Faludi served as managing editor of the Harvard Crimson,
where she often wrote about women's issues, including a controversial
article about sexual harassment on campus. She graduated summa cum laude
and began a career in journalism. From 1981 to 1986 she was a copy clerk
at The New York Times and a reporter for The Miami Herald
and the Atlanta Constitution, and she was a reporter for the
San Jose Mercury News from 1986 to 1988. In 1990 she joined the
San Francisco bureau of The Wall Street Journal, and in 1991 she won a
Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism. That same year saw the publication
of her influential book, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American
Women. The book, which argues that the media distort news about women
in order to retaliate against feminist advances, resulted in a National
Book Critics Circle Award for general nonfiction in 1992. Information provided by the Women in American History by Encyclopedia Brittanica. Click here to read an interview with Susan Faludi.
Dian
Fossey Dian Fossey was born in San Francisco, California in 1932. Her strong interest in animals led her to enter college as a pre-veterinary student. Soon, however, she switched to occupational therapy and obtained her degree from San Jose State College.Through friends, Dian Fossey became interested in Africa and made a six week trip there in 1963. At Olduvai Gorge, she met Dr. Louis Leakey who impressed on her the importance of doing research on great apes. This meeting inspired her to study mountain gorillas. Determined to work in Africa, Dian won support from the National Geographic Society and the Wilkie Foundation in 1966 for a research program in the Zaire. Political upheaval there forced her to move to Rwanda, where in 1967 she established Karisoke, a research camp in the Parc National des Volcans. In 1970 , her efforts to get the gorillas to habituate to her presence were finally rewarded when Peanuts, an adult male, touched her hand. This was the first friendly gorilla to human contact ever recorded. Dr Fossey obtained her Ph.D. at Cambridge University and in 1980 accepted a position at Cornell University that enabled her to begin writing Gorillas in the Mist. Its publication brought her world fame and helped to focus much needed attention on the plight of the mountain gorillas, whose numbers had by then dwindled to 250. She returned to Karisoke to continue her tireless campaign to ensure the survival of the mountain gorilla and to stop poaching. Dr. Fossey was murdered in her cabin at Karisoke on December 26, 1985. Her death is a mystery yet unsolved. The last entry in her diary reads: "When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate on the preservation of the future." Information provided by the Gorilla Fund. Click here for more information about Dian Fossey.
Fannie
Lou Townsend Hamer "I’ve
heard several comments from people that was talking about with the people,
for the people, and by the people. Being a Black woman from Mississippi,
I’ve learned that long ago that’s not true. It’s with
a handful, for a handful, and by a handful." Fannie Lou Hamer, known as the lady who was "sick and tired of being sick and tired," was born October 6, 1917, in Montgomery County, Mississippi. She was the granddaughter of slaves. Her family were sharecroppers - a position not that different from slavery. Hamer had 19 brothers and sisters. She was the youngest of the children. In 1962, when Hamer was 44 years old, SNCC volunteers came to town and held a voter registration meeting. She was surprised to learn that African-Americans actually had a constitutional right to vote. When the SNCC members asked for volunteers to go to the courthouse to register to vote, Hamer was the first to raise her hand. This was a dangerous decision. She later reflected, "The only thing they could do to me was to kill me, and it seemed like they'd been trying to do that a little bit at a time ever since I could remember." When Hamer and others went to the courthouse, they were jailed and beaten by the police. Hamer's courageous act got her thrown off the plantation where she was a sharecropper. She also began to receive constant death threats and was even shot at. Still, Hamer would not be discouraged. She became a SNCC Field Secretary and traveled around the country speaking and registering people to vote. Hamer co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). In 1964, the MDFP challenged the all-white Mississippi delegation to the Democratic National Convention. Hamer spoke in front of the Credentials Committee in a televised proceeding that reached millions of viewers. She told the committee how African-Americans in many states across the country were prevented from voting through illegal tests, taxes and intimidation. As a result of her speech, two delegates of the MFDP were given speaking rights at the convention and the other members were seated as honorable guests. Hamer was an inspirational
figure to many involved in the struggle for civil rights. She died on
March 14, 1977, at the age of 59. Information provided by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Click here for more information about Fannie Lou Hamer.
Grace
Hopper "I was born
with curiosity." Grace Murray Hopper, one of the pioneers of computer science, is generally credited with developments that led to COBOL, the programming language for business applications on which the world's largest corporations ran for more than a generation. By the time of her death in 1992, Rear Admiral Grace Hopper had left many contributions to the field of software engineering and was arguably the world's most famous programmer. After receiving her Ph.D. in mathematics at Yale, Hopper worked as an associate professor at Vassar College before joining the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1943. She went on to work as a researcher and mathematician at the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corp. and the Sperry Corporation. Having retired from the Navy after World War II, she returned in 1967 to work at the Naval Data Automation Command. At Eckerd-Mauchly, Hopper developed programs for the first large-scale digital computer, the Mark I. She also developed the first compiler, the A-O. She published the first paper on compilers in 1952. The successor to the the A-O, named FLOW-MATIC, lead to the development of the COBOL programming language. Until then programming was done using assembler language. Admiral Hopper's idea was to make a programming language closer to ordinary language so that it could be used by non-technical people, thus opening the practice of programming to the business world and freeing it from the rarefied environments of science and engineering. Admiral Hopper remained in the Navy until 1986 and then worked as a senior consultant for DEC until shortly before her death. She was highly sought after as an enthusiastic and entertaining public speaker and educator of young programmers. Hopper was an early advocate of the use of shared code libraries and developed compiler verification software and compiler standards. Hopper is also credited with applying the engineering term "bug" to computing when her team found a moth trapped in a relay of the Mark II computer. This particular "bug" was removed, taped to the log book, and now resides at the Smithsonian Institute. The term "bug" has since come to mean any error that is computer-related, especially a programming error. Information provided by WhatIs?Com - Tech Target. Click here for more information about Grace Hopper.
Clementine
Hunter Clementine Hunter has been called a primitive artist, a folk artist, and a naïve painter. Her bold, exuberant style defies the conventions of traditional art forms. Spending most of her life working on Louisiana’s Melrose Plantation, Hunter attended school for just 10 days and never learned to read or write. She picked up her first paints in her mid-50s. Almost all of her works were “memory paintings” showing plantation life as she remembered it: picking cotton, harvesting sugar cane, gathering figs and pecans, weddings, baptisms, funerals, and other scenes of daily life. Her descriptions of her paintings became an oral history of the singular events of plantation life. At her death, she was considered the matriarch of folk artists, but during her lifetime, Hunter was more modest about her abilities. “God puts those pictures in my head and I just puts them down on the canvas, like he wants me to,” the artist said. Click here to find out more about Clementine Hunter or to view her paintings.
Florence
Kelley Florence Kelley, born into a privileged family in Philadelphia in 1859, fought to protect women and children working long hours for little pay. Influenced by her father’s notion of justice and her aunt’s Quaker background, Kelley became interested in socialist ideas while a graduate student in Zurich, Switzerland. A core member of Jane Addams’ Hull House group, Kelley lobbied for shorter hours and a minimum wage for women and children laborers. Kelley became the first state factory inspector in Illinois when she was appointed to the position by the governor. Kelley was a founder of the National Consumers League in 1899. As the head of NCL, Kelley organized publicity campaigns exposing labor practices and boycotts of goods produced in sweatshops or by children. Kelley’s efforts were instrumental in instituting child labor laws and shortening the work day and increasing the pay for women. Click here to find out more about Florence Kelley.
Susette
La Flesche (Inshata Theumba, "Bright Eyes") Born in 1854 in a village of the Omaha tribe near present-day Bellevue, Nebraska, Susette La Flesche was the daughter of an Omaha chief who was the son of a French trader and an Omaha woman. The father was familiar with both cultures, and though he lived as an Indian he sent his children to a Presbyterian mission school to provide them with an English-language education. Her sister, Susan, became a physician, and her brother, Francis, an ethnologist. Susette was sent to Elizabeth, New Jersey, to continue her education, and she returned to the Omaha Reservation to teach at a government school. Using her Indian name, Inshata Theumba, or "Bright Eyes," she became involved in her people's struggle for justice. She took up the cause of the Ponca Indians, a tribe related to the Omaha who had been uprooted from their lands by the U.S. government and moved to Oklahoma, where sickness and starvation beset them. When the Ponca chief, Standing Bear, and several of his followers returned to Nebraska in 1879 after a long and arduous journey, they were arrested. In April a habeas corpus hearing brought about at the instigation of Thomas H. Tibbles of the Omaha Herald resulted in the release of the Poncas and the establishment of a legal precedent in recognizing Native Americans as persons before the law. She then undertook a lecture tour of the eastern United States with Standing Bear, also acting as his interpreter. The tour aroused sympathy in influential circles, led by such individuals as Edward Everett Hale, Alice Fletcher, Wendell Phillips, and Mary L. Bonney, and eventuated in the passage of the Dawes Severalty Act in 1887. In 1881 La Flesche married Tibbles. She continued to work against the arbitrary removal of Indians from their traditional lands, lecturing throughout the United States and in Scotland. She and her husband settled on the Omaha Reservation, where she wrote and illustrated Indian stories and helped her husband with his editorial work. She also edited and wrote the introduction for Ploughed Under: The Story of an Indian Chief (1881), an anonymous work. She died on a farm near Bancroft, Nebraska, on May 26, 1903. Information provided by "Her"Story: Women in History. Click here for more information about Susette LaFlesche.
Gerda Lerner was born in 1920 in Vienna, Austria, into well-to-do Jewish family. As a teenager she experienced the Nazi's rise to power, and became involved in the underground resistance movement. She was imprisoned and then, with her family forced into exile. In 1938, she alone was able to find refuge in America. Arriving during the difficult time of the Great Depression, she worried about the fate of her family still living in Europe. She became a naturalized American citizen and married her life partner, Carl Lerner, and had two children. Her strong conviction about the importance of justice and equality for all people was demonstrated by her participation in grassroots, community movements. She worked to create an interracial civil rights movement, for better schools in New York City, for peace and social justice, and against McCarthyism. In 1958 Gerda Lerner returned to college and in 1966 graduated with a PhD from New York's Columbia University. Becoming one of the nation's preeminent scholars, she challenged long-held assumptions about women and their significance in history. Today, Dr. Lerner is acknowledged as one of the foremost pioneers in the field of women's history. Her scholarship was informed and expanded by her involvement and understanding of the power of grassroots, political movements. Her work now spans four decades. In 1971 she wrote The Grimke Sisters, the story of two, white, privileged, Southern women who went North to fight against slavery. Her writings address the need eliminate the invisibility of women and her books fill in the omissions. In 1986 The Creation of Patriarchy and in 1993 The Creation of Feminist Consciousness were published. Her current best seller is Why History Matters. Gerda Lerner's brilliant scholarship and teaching demands that students and readers reexamine old ideas about who women are and what women have accomplished. In April, she will publish her autobiography, Fireweed. In all, she has written 10 books and mentored generations of historians. In 1981 Dr. Lerner became the first woman in fifty years to be elected president of the Organization of American Historians. She continues to encourage the expansion of thought and perspective. Her work is a celebration of the American Spirit. Information provided by the National Women's History Project. Click here for an interview with Gerda Lerner.
Margaret
Mead "If we are
to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize
the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary
social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting
place." World renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901 to 1978) contributed vastly to the understanding of human history. Her work has, and will continue to impact the daily lives of people around the world. Her 44 books and more than 1,000 articles have been translated into virtually all languages. Her data has been carefully catalogued and preserved. She was the first anthropologist to study child-rearing practices. Her work on learning theory and "Learning Through Imprinting," a method by which children learn, is currently being studied further. One of the founders of the "Culture and Personality School of Anthropology", she was the first to conduct psychologically-oriented field work. She was instrumental in forging interdisciplinary links between anthropology and other fields. Her writings and lectures covered a vast array of important topics, what she called "Unmapped Country". She wrote on subjects ranging from mental and spiritual health to ethics and overpopulation. A strong proponent of family, she believed that "Children are our vehicles for survival-for in them there is hope, and through them what has been, and what will be will not only be perpetrated, but also united." Margaret Mead made history by shining a light of understanding on the course of human history. Information provided by the Women's International Center. Click here for more information about Margaret Mead.
Jeannette
Rankin "You can
no more win a war than you can win an earthquake." Jeannette Rankin, a native of Missoula, Montana, worked throughout her life for two main causes: women's rights and peace. Rankin led the campaign to give women the right to vote in Montana in 1914 -- 6 years before that right was granted by the federal government. In 1916, Rankin won for the US House of Representatives and won -- becoming the first woman ever elected to either the House or Senate. Once in Washington, Rankin helped draft the constitutional amendment granting the vote to women nationwide. In Congress, Rankin spoke passionately against the entry of the US into World War I -- and she, consequently, lost her bid for re-election. Remaining in Washington, Rankin put her social work background to work lobbying for women's and pacifist causes until 1940, when she was elected to Congress again -- with the US on the brink of World War II. Rankin cast the only "no" vote as the Congress voted to enter the war. Future President John F. Kennedy would say of Rankin, "Few members of Congress have ever stood more along while being true to a higher honor and loyalty." Jeannette Rankin left Congress in 1943, but remained a peace activist for the rest of her life. In 1968, at age 87, Rankin led 5,000 women in a march on Washington against the Vietnam War. Click here for more information about Jeannette Rankin.
Margaret
Sanger "No woman
can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman
can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will
or will not be a mother." Born on September 14, 1879, in Corning, New York, Margaret Louisa Higgins was the sixth of 11 children. She attended Claverack College and then took nurse's training at the White Plains (N.Y.) Hospital and the Manhattan Eye and Ear Clinic. She was married twice: to William Sanger in 1900 and, after a divorce, to J. Noah H. Slee in 1922. After a brief teaching career she practiced obstetrical nursing on the Lower East Side of New York City, where she witnessed the relationships among poverty, uncontrolled fertility, high rates of infant and maternal mortality, and deaths from botched illegal abortions. These observations made Sanger a feminist who believed in every woman's right to avoid unwanted pregnancies, and she committed herself to removing the legal barriers to publicizing the facts about contraception. In 1912 Sanger gave up nursing to devote herself to the cause of birth control, a term she is credited with originating. In 1914 she issued a short-lived magazine, The Woman Rebel, and distributed a pamphlet entitled Family Limitation, which advanced her views. She was indicted for mailing materials advocating birth control, but the charges were dropped in 1916. Later that year she opened in Brooklyn the first birth-control clinic in the United States. She was arrested and charged with maintaining a "public nuisance," and in 1917 she served 30 days in the Queens penitentiary. While she was serving time, the first issue of her periodical The Birth Control Review was published. Her sentencing and subsequent episodes of legal harrassment helped to crystallize public opinion in favor of the birth-control movement. Sanger's legal appeals prompted the federal courts first to grant physicians the right to give advice about birth-control methods and then, in 1936, to reinterpret the Comstock Act of 1873 (which had classified contraceptive literature and devices as obscene materials) in such a way as to permit physicians to import and prescribe contraceptives. In 1921 Sanger founded the American Birth Control League, and she served as its president until 1928. The league was one of the parent organizations of the Birth Control Federation of America, which in 1942 became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, with Sanger as honorary chairwoman. Sanger, who had traveled in Europe to study the issue of birth control there, also organized the first World Population Conference, Geneva, Switzerland, in 1927, and she was the first president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (founded 1953). Subsequently she took her campaign for birth control to Asian countries, especially India and Japan. Among her numerous books are What Every Mother Should Know (1917), My Fight for Birth Control (1931), and Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography (1938). She died in Tucson, Arizona, on September 6, 1966. Information provided by Women in American History by Encyclopedia Britannica. Click here for more information about Margaret Sanger.
"Women have
to summon up courage to fulfill dormant dreams." The Color Purple, Alice Walker's 1982 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, was inspired by stories of her great-grandmother and shows that "we have to cherish everyone." Alice Walker was born in Eatonton, Georgia in 1944, the eighth child of African-American sharecroppers. Alice was accidentally blinded in one eye as a child, and turned to writing stories on an old typewriter her mother gave her. Alice enrolled at Spelman College in Atlanta, where she became a civil rights activist. She continued her involvement in the civil rights movement when she transferred to Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. Walker's writing career began in 1968 with a book of poems called Once. During the 1970s, Walker published several more books of poetry, short stories, and novels. It was The Color Purple, though that brought Walker national attention. The book is written as a series of letters and tells the story of a Southern African-American woman coping with poverty, isolation, sexual abuse, and racism. The Color Purple won both the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award. The book was also made into a popular movie starring Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey by Steven Spielberg in 1985. Other works by Alice Walker include novels, poetry, and essays celebrating the customs and traditions of African-American women. Her nonfiction book, Warrior Marks (1993), examines ritualistic sexual mistreatment of women in several contries. Information provided by the Scholastic Encyclopedia of Women in the United States (Sheila Keenan, 1996, Scholastic Inc.) Click here for more information about Alice Walker.
Madam
C.J. Walker Sarah Breedlove led a hard life – orphaned at 6, married at 14, a widow and mother by 20. Who would guess she would die a millionaire at 52 – after launching Madame C.J. Walker Manufacturing Co. in Indianapolis. While working as a laundress in St. Louis, Sarah had an idea for a special formula for grooming African-American women’s hair. She developed the “Walker System,” including shampoo, grooming-formula, brushing, and hot combs. After selling her products door-to-door, her product and style caught on. In 1906, Sarah married Charles Walker and started calling herself Madam C.J. Walker. In 1910, Madam Walker opened her manufacturing plant, and with 3,000 –5,000 female employees, it was the country’s largest African-American-owned business. Madam Walker insisted that her employees follow a stringent set of hygiene rules, which later became part of the standards governing the cosmetology industry. Click here to find out more about Madam Walker.
Find out more about women in history on the Internet. National Women's History Project - Site includes news about women's history; biographies of selected women in history; event announcements; background materials to help plan curricula and events; shopping for books, teaching kits, and other women's history products. Internet Women's History Sourcebook - Site includes information about women in ancient, medieval, and modern history; also includes homework and research help sections. National Women's History Museum - Site includes the Cyber Museum featuring women's history exhibits you can view from the comfort of your computer; timelines; news; shopping for women's history products. Women's History in America (presented by Women's International Center) - Site includes a nice overview of women in American history; biographies of a number of American women; and words of wisdom from a select group of women. Women's History Resources - Site includes an extensive list of women's history resources and links for women's history both in the US and outside the US.
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