Women's Equality Day 2015

I know there are some who will object to this special day commemorating women being able to vote because there are some people who don't see women as equals. This very fact that there are these dissenters makes me want to celebrate the few steps to equality women have made.

We have Rep. Bella Abzug (D-NY) to thank for this day becoming official. In 1971, she requested the U.S. Congress designate August 26 as “Women’s Equality Day.”

The date was selected to commemorate the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote.

The history of this massive, peaceful civil rights movement is full of fascinating insights into how hard some individuals will work to hold on to their narrow views and how others will work even harder to change views in order to make a fairer society.

This movement had its formal beginnings in 1848 at the world’s first women’s rights convention, in Seneca Falls, New York.

The observance of Women’s Equality Day not only commemorates the passage of the 19th Amendment, but also calls attention to women’s continuing efforts toward full equality. 

Were any of your grandmothers involved in the fight to get the vote for women?

Have you ever wondered how your neighbors view you?

Have you read the poetry of Emily Dickinson? I find it interesting to exam how the people during a person's life looks at an artist and how a future generation might view this artist with a different lens.

 "In 1882, Mabel Loomis Todd recorded her impressions of her mysterious Amherst neighbor. Emily Dickinson always wore white and had her hair arranged 'as was the fashion fifteen years ago.' 'She writes the strangest poems, and very remarkable ones,' Mrs. Todd noted in her journal, adding, 'She is in many respects a genius.'"

None of us would disagree that Emily Dickinson was a genius. Her remarkable poems are still being taught in schools. Since Dickinson lived the majority of her adult life in seclusion, one wonders how she could write such worldly material. When she died in 1886, her sister asked Mabel Todd to copy and edit the poems. In 1890 the first volume was published and the world discovered Emily Dickinson.

Would love to hear your views.

Some Things Never Change - Louisa May Alcott

Most of us have had bad times in our lives when we didn't know if we could go on or if we even wanted to go on but to find out that a creative talent like Louisa May Alcott had even considered suicide is a big surprise for me.

I am very jealous of her for her opportunity of living in such a time that she would have access to such incredible people as "Elizabeth Peabody boarded with the Alcotts, and John Brown’s daughter lived with them after Brown was hanged. Nathanael Hawthorne was a neighbor who didn’t get along with her father, Henry David Thoreau was her schoolteacher and Ralph Waldo Emerson lived next door. Bronson Alcott’s teaching assistants included Margaret Fuller and Dorothea Dix."

This quote is from the New England Historical Society. They do a really great job of promoting an interest in history. Read their full profile of Louisa May Alcott at
http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/louisa-may-alcott-shakes-blues

We Owe a Debt of Thanks to Dorothea Dix

Two things to be thankful for this morning:

1) Dorothea Dix and her campaign to get the mentally ill people out of jail. It is obvious that her work was very successful. What is not obvious is whether we are doing a good job of not sending mental illness people to prisons today.

2) The Massachusetts Humanities through Mass Moments keeps reminding us of all the great women who came before us and made the world a better place for us. Check out this article on Dorothea.

http://www.massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=96

History Buffs: Great Beach Reads

It is that time of year again where we can sneak away with a good book, find a quiet corner of beach and immerse ourselves in the exploits of those brave souls who came before us.

Looking for ideas? Here are some enticing titles:

http://earlyamericanists.com/2015/04/09/spring-reads

While you are at it, try being a regular reader of the The Junto history blog. Great stuff.

Delilah L. Beasley (1867-1934)

Delilah L. Beasley (1867-1934)
Historian and Newspaper Columnist

At her memorial service, which was a testament

to her life-long crusade for justice, 
all attending stood and made the following pledge—
Every life casts it shadow, my life plus others make power to move the world. 
I, therefore pledge my life to the living work of brotherhood
and material understanding between the races. 

Delilah L. Beasley was the first African American woman to be regularly published in a major metropolitan newspaper and the first author to present the history of African Americans in early California.

Growing up in Ohio, Beasley started writing social columns for black and white newspapers while still a teenager. After her parents’ deaths, she sought a career path that would better support her younger siblings, working as a hairdresser, massage therapist, nurse, and maid for many years. In 1910 she moved to Oakland California where she immersed herself in the local black community and again started writing articles in local newspapers.

 In 1915 Beasley started writing a weekly column in the Oakland Tribune. Her articles protested the stereotypes contained in the movie The Birth of a Nation. Through a column called “Activities among Negroes,” she campaigned for African-American dignity and rights.  Highlighting activities of local churches, women’s clubs, literary societies, along with national politics, and achievements of black men and women, her column aimed to give all readers a positive picture of the black community and demonstrate the capabilities of African Americans.

Deeply interested in the history of black Californians, Beasley trained herself in archival research and oral histories. In 1919 she self-published The Negro Trail-Blazers of California, a groundbreaking book chronicling the lives of hundreds of black Californians from the pioneer period through the early 20^thcentury.

Her book included an unprecedented amount of Black women’s history, focusing on the strong roles women played in their communities and featuring countless biographies of women leaders. 

In the thirties, Beasley was the driving force behind the passage California’s first anti-lynching bill.  She continued her column and was active in the community until her death in 1934.

Women “Computers” Explored the Cosmos – Part 12 SUMMARY

Even though Pickering’s objective was to pay as little as possible, he created unprecedented opportunities for a generation of female astronomers.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, an astronomer who came to the observatory after the women in this series and was a female professor at Harvard University, describes how difficult but rewarding a career at Harvard could be:

“On the material side, being a woman has been a great disadvantage. It is a tale of low salary, lack of status, slow advancement. But I have reached a height that I should never, in my wildest dreams have predicted 50 years ago. It has been a case of survival, not of the fittest, but of the most doggedly persistent.”¹

A Boston Globe reporter concluded in 1893, “These young women deal with difficult problems quite as successfully as do the men in other observatories. To be sure, not all women are capable of working in this field for the work demands special mental qualities.”

“In American Astronomy, the dual labor market that emerged by the end of the nineteenth century relegated women to the lower tier or secondary labor markets, thus sharply restricting their chances for mobility. At the same time men’s perception of women as scientists denied them access in power and in the reward system.”²

Because of forerunners such as Henrietta, Mina and Annie, today nearly half of all astronomy graduate students in the United States are women.

Whether reading or writing women’s history, it is often hard to get beyond the unfair limitations and low compensation given them to see their strength in refusing to let such unfairness stop them from accomplishing their goals. One has to wonder what other discoveries these brilliant women would have made without these restrictions.

The three scientists were actually at the Harvard Observatory at the same time.

Williamina Paton Fleming – 1881 – 1911 (30 years)

Henrietta Swan Leavitt – 1893 – 1921 (28 years)

Annie Jump Cannon – 1896 – 1941 (45 years)

¹Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: an Autobiography and other Recollections. (Great Britain: Cambridge University Press, 1984) 227

²Harry G. Lang, Bonnie Meath-Lang. Deaf Persons in the Arts and Sciences: A Biographical Dictionary. (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1995), 358