On January 11th, 2013 (in honor of Alice Paul’s Birthday) a petition was launched at the grassroots level by those who haven’t forgotten about the importance this legislation means to women & girls nationwide. This petition is on the Whitehouse.gov  website and it’s purpose is to gain support for the ERA and to eliminate deadlines introduced in 1972.

Social media & grassroots organizing has given the ERA new life and the chance to gain the Nation’s attention once more. It has already collected more than 6,000 signatures in little over a week. If you would like to join this cause, CLICK the links BELOW!

Click HERE to sign the petition!!!

Click HERE to join the Facebook group!

Follow the ERA 2013 Action Campaign on Twitter @ERAAction 

Click HERE to follow on Tumblr!  (http://eraactioncampaign.tumblr.com/)

Written by: Kimberly Roush Blog Moderator

Kerber, Linda K., and Hart Jane Sherron. De. “Dimensions of Citizenship III.” Women’s America: Refocusing the past. 7th ed. Vol. 2. New York: Oxford UP, 1982. 719. Print.

Back in the 1920s planes were made of wood and cloth held together with wire. And back then everyone knew blacks couldn’t fly, and neither could women. But this spunky black woman from the cotton fields of Texas did loops above the Eiffel Tower, walked on wings above America, and jumped off planes to the oohs and gasps of crowds.  Bessie could also do a mean Charleston on the dance floor while guys lined up on both sides of the Atlantic. Her admirers included France’s top World War I ace, an African prince, a Florida millionaire, Chicago’s top black newspaperman, and its top black gangster.

She survived broken bones and some broken hearts. She was the first person, man or woman, to open the skies to black pilots. She helped open grandstands on the ground as well, refusing to perform unless everyone could buy a ticket.  She inspired generations of flyers. After years of neglect, she has at last been recognized as one of the leading figures in aviation, African-American, and women’s history.  Tributes include a postage stamp, a street named for her at O’Hare airport, and her photo tucked into a spacesuit worn by the first black woman astronaut as she flew on the space shuttle.

Coleman performed across the country as a barnstormer and daredevil until she was killed falling from a plane after a wrench fell into the gearbox. The question of whether it was an accident or homicide has never been answered.

For more information, a review copy, or an interview with the author, email me at editor@miniverpress.com

Part 2

2012 marks the 95th anniversary of New York women winning the right to vote on November 6, 1917. Here is the second part of a brief summary of what New York suffragists actually did to win in 1917, adapted from the text of “Winning the Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman Suffrage Movement” by Robert P. J. Cooney, Jr.

“A Million New York Women Want the Vote”

An enormously ambitious house-to-house canvass was the main feature of the 1917 campaign in New York. The tactic was diplomatically chosen, Mary Peck noted, because “it demanded service from every worker, did not offend sensitive patriots as more spectacular efforts would have done, and reached into individual homes as meetings never could.”
To answer charges by opponents that most women did not want to vote, suffragists spent more than a year going door-to-door in nearly every city and town in the state, collecting the signatures of over one million women who said that they wanted to vote.
Organizers climbed thousands of tenement stairs, walked country lanes, and visited the homes of the rich and poor. The result was the largest individually-signed petition ever assembled, eventually totaling 1,030,000 names, a majority of the women in the state. For comparison, there were 1,942,000 registered male voters. Suffragists then publicized their remarkable feat as widely as possible.

New York suffragists climaxed their wartime campaign by taking to the streets on October 27, 1917, carrying placards listing the names of over 1,000,000 state women who said they wanted to vote.  It was a compelling refutation of opponents’ claim that “most women didn’t want to vote.”  Male voters in New York approved woman suffrage on November 6, 1917 by 54% – over 100,000 votes.  New York’s political weight helped carry the 19th Amendment through Congress to ratification on August 26, 1920. 

A Patriotic “Woman’s Parade”

On October 27, in a powerful show of pre-election strength, a Woman’s Parade of 20,000 filled New York’s Fifth Avenue led by officers of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and honored guests carrying American flags.
The parade dramatically reflected the impact of the war and the depth of women’s involvement. Divisions of wives and mothers of servicemen marched along with women doing war related work, industrial workers, professional women, and male supporters. Anna Howard Shaw and Carrie Catt led the parade, which included 40 marching bands and took three hours to pass.
The dignity and grandeur of the wartime demonstration made a powerful impression on bystanders. “The men on the sidewalks were visibly moved,” Mary Peck remembered. “It was not half as long as the mammoth parade of 1915; it did not have to be. Women had taken on a value which nothing but war seems to confer on human beings in the eyes of men.”

An emotional Procession of the Petitions served as the centerpiece of the Woman’s Parade. After collecting over a million signatures of women who wanted to vote, Woman Suffrage Party members mounted the petitions on huge pasteboards and carried them up Fifth Avenue, putting the plea of women for democracy directly in front of voters.

Each placard was carried by two women marching eight abreast while banners gave the totals in all the upstate districts. The petitions from New York City were transported in 62 ballot boxes, each one representing an Assembly district and resting on a decorated platform carried by four women. The petition section alone covered more than half a mile and involved over 2,500 women.

City Voters Put New York Over the Top

Huge street banners were hung in all the large cities before the November election. Suffragists held an estimated 11,000 meetings across the state and distributed some eighteen million leaflets, posters, buttons, and novelties. A burst of newspaper advertising climaxed the final weeks with suffrage arguments appearing almost daily in over 700 morning and evening papers, including many in foreign languages.

On November 6, 1917, with over 6,300 women serving as poll watchers, New York voters passed woman suffrage by a 102,353 majority, 703,129 to 600,776. Outside of New York City, the measure lost by 1,510 votes but city voters more than made up the difference. Suffragists were overjoyed and felt confident that winning New York would open the way to certain victory in the U.S. Congress.

Suffragists’ “Big Victory” in New York shared front page headlines on November 7 with other election and war news. One factor contributing to the victory was the decision shortly before the election to keep “hands off” the measure by Tammany Hall politicians, many of whose wives and daughters had become active in the Woman Suffrage Party.

In addition, New York suffrage leaders spent more campaign funds in 1917 than ever before. While in 1915 they had less than $90,000 for the entire state, two years later they raised almost $700,000. “This, at a time when the country was at war, was an achievement which can scarcely be measured. To it suffragists everywhere contributed,” noted Gertrude Brown.

During the campaign, Woman Suffrage Party head Vera Whitehouse and treasurer Helen Rogers Reid decided to raise money the way political parties did – from wealthy men. They succeeded in convincing ten men, including Men’s League stalwarts James Lees Laidlaw and Samuel Untermeyer, to give $10,000 each, and won pledges for lesser sums from many others. In addition, the first payment from the endowment left by publisher Miriam Leslie came in February 1917, adding $50,000 to the campaign fund.

The Political Landscape Transformed

Suffragists across the country were ecstatic that metropolitan, influential New York, with its 43 electoral votes and 43 representatives in Congress, had actually been won. National enfranchisement was finally in sight because of the tremendous energy and resources devoted to the New York campaign.

The number of full suffrage states had not actually changed since 1914, but with presidential suffrage the total electoral votes women had a say in had increased from 91 to 172. New York added another 43. Seven states had passed presidential suffrage during the year, adding to the new sense of momentum.

The night after the election, a Victory meeting in the Cooper Union was “jammed to suffocation with an ecstatic multitude,” according to Mary Peck. When Carrie Catt opened with the words “Fellow Citizens,” the crowd went wild and it was some time before she could continue. Then she urged the state organization to turn without pause to supporting the Federal amendment.

Following the meeting, a New York Times editorial blasted women for “bulldozing Congress to pass the Federal Amendment at once.” An unrelenting opponent, the Times criticized suffragists for going to Washington to lobby for their rights because it “interfered with the vital work of the nation.” Failing to distinguish the moderate Woman Suffrage Party from the National Woman’s Party, the paper further claimed that “it is but a more dangerous form of picketing which these sorely misguided women are about to undertake. . . . Power brings to them no sense of responsibility. They win this state only to browbeat Congress and to seek to impose suffrage on unwilling states.”

Regardless, suffrage lobbyist Maud Wood Park immediately noted a different feeling in Washington D.C. “The carrying of New York was accepted by the politically wise as the handwriting on the wall,” she observed. Politicians as well as suffragists realized that a major turning point had been reached. The enfranchisement of women had become a national issue which even the war could not entirely overshadow.

In two short years, suffragists had helped secure dramatic changes in the political landscape. With new power and renewed hope, NAWSA focused its attention on Congress to finally take up the Federal amendment.

Using similar political skills at the national level, suffragists leveraged their state victories into passage and ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution on August 26, 1920.

© 2012 Robert P. J. Cooney, Jr.

Adapted from Chapter 15 of “Winning the Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman Suffrage Movement,” by Robert P. J. Cooney, Jr. (American Graphic Press: 2005). This excellent, profusely illustrated history was named one of the “Five Best Books” on the subject by The Wall Street Journal. Order from the National Women’s History Project, www.nwhp.org. The author can be reached at agp@ebold.com.

2012 marks the 95^th anniversary of New York women winning the right to vote on November 6, 1917.  The suffragists’ spectacular electoral campaign, waged during the trials of World War I, changed American history and led directly to passage of the 19^th amendment and the enfranchisement of women nationwide.

This election year, we can appreciate anew the determination, perseverance, and skill of these New York suffragists – particularly after being defeated just two years earlier.  We also pay tribute to the far sighted, multi-cultural men of New York who passed the measure.

This election marked a bold chapter in American history and was a key part of the history of the Empire State.  Ultimately, it was a mutual victory where motivated women won equal rights for all women and regular men – male voters, not politicians – recognized the justice of their demand.  The woman suffrage movement offers us one of the best examples of Americans’ love of democracy and dedication to the ideals of liberty and justice for all.

Here is a brief, two-part summary of what New York women actually did in 1917, adapted from the text of “Winning the Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman Suffrage Movement” by Robert P. J. Cooney, Jr.Ÿ          Ÿ          Ÿ          Ÿ          Ÿ

Suffragists in New York State campaigned throughout 1916 and 1917 to win over the most economically powerful and politically influential state in the nation.

After their defeat in 1915, women’s groups throughout the state reorganized into the New York State Woman Suffrage Party (WSP).  Determined to try again, suffragists, as required, won the approval of two successive state legislatures to submit the measure to the voters, which in itself was a remarkable accomplishment.

The war in Europe helped define the theme of the campaign. Suffragists emphasized women’s patriotic contributions and the logic of establishing at home the democracy America was fighting to defend abroad. Still, the suffrage drive took place in the midst of deep anxieties about the war, with citizens experiencing a vast national mobilization which demanded tremendous energy and personal sacrifice.

“The war had cut across the picturesque propaganda activities which had enlivened the 1915 campaign,” noted Mary Peck, and it drew countless women from suffrage work. Gertrude Brown remembered that the suffrage campaign “seemed at its lowest ebb” during the early summer of 1917 but, “as summer waned and election day came nearer, enthusiasm again began to flame up.”

Restructuring the Woman Suffrage Party

Vera Whitehouse led the state Woman Suffrage Party, with Harriet Burton Laidlaw as vice-chair and Helen Rogers Reid as treasurer.  The WSP in New York City, led by Mary Garrett Hay, formed the backbone of the state effort. Under Hay, the WSP built up its own structure modeled on Tammany Hall, the powerful Democratic machine that controlled the city. Party members were organized by Assembly districts and election precincts, each of which had its own captain. In the city alone there were five borough leaders and 2,080 precinct captains.

Learning from their experiences in 1915, suffragists concentrated on strengthening support and weakening opposition in New York City. To that end, Hay appointed numerous women connected to Tammany Hall politicians to positions in the WSP. Organizers also reached out to working families and immigrant communities, heeding Rose Schneiderman’s advice that the way to the working man was through the working woman.

Winning Upstate Voters

Outside of the metropolitan area, over 80 organizers were active in upstate New York, holding thousands of meetings.  NAWSA paid four field workers who, with countless volunteers from New York and other states, spoke at military camps, circularized voters, and prepared special literature for churches.  These field workers crisscrossed the state constantly during 1917, speaking and seeking endorsements as well as collecting signatures. The pace was often exhausting, with long distances to cover between meetings. Suffragists were especially active in Rochester, Syracuse, Buffalo, and other major cities where they advertised on billboards and street cars, and used large electric signs to flash their message at night.

 Trade unionists and settlement house workers were zealous in promoting the suffrage amendment in New York City’s working class and immigrant neighborhoods in 1917. Even though the main suffrage organizations tended to be run by the city’s social elite, support for the measure was strong among Jewish and other northern and eastern European immigrants, and among others who had fled to the U.S.

Woman suffrage was officially supported by all of the state’s political parties but suffragists still had to deal with wartime challenges, major party rivalries, the liquor industry, the prohibition concerns of male voters, and the virulent opposition of anti-suffragists.

Women’s War Work

Like its counterparts in other states, the New York State Woman Suffrage Party established a War Service Committee in 1917 to implement NAWSA’s wartime plan.  Party members sold Liberty Bonds, worked with the Red Cross and YMCA, and helped conduct a statewide military census.  Suffragists also knitted garments and supplies, and planted gardens to raise food for the war effort.

“In order to do all this work and more, we have had to lay aside much of our suffrage work,” reported WSP head Vera Whitehouse in August. However, “The change in sentiment in regard to women, because of the assistance they have given the government at war, has been enormous.”

Anxious not to lose such favorable support, the WSP publicly condemned the picketing of the White House by Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party. Carrie Catt and others felt that the picketing alienated supporters, harassed the president, and confused the public. NAWSA and the WSP were constantly disassociating themselves from the “disloyal” NWP pickets and never objected to the government’s harsh and illegal treatment of the women during the year.

Still, similar arguments were made by both groups. Like the pickets, The Woman Citizen repeatedly argued that “suffrage for women is a part of that complete democracy so aptly named by Mr. Wilson as the object of this war.”  President Wilson did voice his support during the New York contest.

Harsher Opposition during Wartime

Patriotic appeals linking equal suffrage with the war effort were not enough to silence critics. Anti-suffragists kept up their active opposition, spending tens of thousands of dollars and increasing their personal attacks after the war began. Opponents accused Carrie Catt, Anna Howard Shaw, and other suffragists of having pro-German sympathies and claimed it was disloyal and unpatriotic to work for suffrage in wartime.

Groups like the Manhood Suffrage Association Opposed to Political Suffrage for Women advertised against the initiative, characterizing woman suffrage as an “irreparable calamity.”  Association president Everett P. Wheeler claimed that “Rome fell because her women entered public life.”

After a while, “absurd sallies and misstatement of facts grew tiresome,” recalled Gertrude Brown. “It was not those who labeled themselves anti-suffragists who delayed the coming of suffrage,” she emphasized.  “The dangerous opponents of woman suffrage, those who manipulated legislatures and engineered fraudulent elections, did not label themselves.”

With such powerful yet largely invisible opposition, the election was very much in doubt. Even in the fall, when Mary Garrett Hay predicted victory, Catt confided to Maud Wood Park, “I think Molly’s crazy; for she really believes we’ll win, though so far as I know she is the only person who does.”

Coming Soon  Part 2: “A Million New York Women Want the Vote”

Ÿ          Ÿ          Ÿ          Ÿ          Ÿ

© 2012 Robert P. J. Cooney, Jr  Adapted from the text of “Winning the Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman Suffrage Movement”

This tradition was carried on later in the early 20th century by radical libertarian Suzanne La Follette. Though she is the author of the first full-length book on libertarian feminism in existence, Concerning Women, a book which her colleague, friend, and mentor, essayist Albert Jay Nock, called “superb,” she is almost unknown among feminists today. Out of print until 1972 when it was reprinted in the Arno Press “American Women” series, an excerpt titled “Beware the State” appeared in The Feminist Papers, an anthology edited by Alice Rossi.

Born in 1893 on a ranch in western Washington, La Follette moved with her family to Washington, D.C., where her father, the cousin of Senator Robert La Follette, served in the House of Representatives for eight years. She and her brother Chester recalled that the adults in the family were all “good feminists.”

After finishing college in Washington, D.C. in 1919, La Follette plunged immediately into the world of politics with a job on the staff of the Nation. When Nock, whom she had met there, founded his libertarian magazine, the Freeman in 1920, she joined him as one of the editors for the four years of its existence. She continued as an editor and journalist the rest of her life.

After the demise of the Freeman, La Follette began work on Concerning Women, which was published in 1926. Its libertarian theme is aptly summarized by Rossi: “On issue after issue La Follette comes down on the side of the least degree of state interference in the lives of men and women and a consistent belief that it is only through full economic independence and personal autonomy that sex equality will be achieved.”

The economic independence of women is one of the major themes of La Follette’s book. Though not an anarchist, she agreed that the State was the natural enemy of women. Believing that the subjection of women, like chattel slavery or “industrial slavery,” had its basis in economics, La Follette declared that the primary way in which the State hurt women was through legally imposed economic disadvantages.

Another major theme is La Follette’s book is opposition to state-regulated marriage. Like the 19th century anarchist feminists, La Follette did not approve of State control of marriage. Institutional marriage was, in her opinion, simply a way for the State, the Church, and the community to interfere with a personal and private matter: “Marriage under conditions arbitrarily fixed by an external agency is slavery…”

The Church also came under La Follette’s attack. She considered marriage and divorce laws to be impositions of Christian morality, which were in her view, anti-woman, hypocritical, and puritanical. Both in her book and in various later articles, La Follette struck out against hypocritical morality, condemning censorship, laws against prostitution, and laws limiting reproductive freedom. Her radical analysis of motherhood out-of-wedlock anticipated modern feminist thinking. Speaking out strongly against the rejection of the so-called illegitimate child, she saw unwed motherhood as a defiance of the idea of male proprietorship. She herself never married nor had any children.

La Follette’s book received little attention. Though La Follette attributed it to a decline in interest in women’s issues, it is likely that a more significant contributing factor was her iconoclastic views on government and feminism. Only a handful of people carried on the libertarian tradition in the 1920’s and 30’s, a time when socialism was more favored by the intellectuals and individualism increasingly frowned upon.

After the publication of Concerning Women, La Follette turned her humanistic sensibilities to the field of art. “All art,” she declared, “serves humanity by the simple fact of its existence.” Her interest in art, first publicly evidenced by a series of articles in the Freeman, led her to write a second book, again at Nock’s suggestion. Art in America was published in 1929—”just in time for the market crash.” Nonetheless it became a classic of art history, and was reprinted in 1968 by Harper and Row.

La Follette’s approach to art was as individualistic as her approach to feminism and to politics. Writing in the H.L. Mencken’s American Mercury in 1925, she proposed endowing individual artists rather than institutions. “The salvation of humanity,” she declared, “never yet lay in the hands of any institution, not even in the hands of the Church. It is and always has been the individual who has cleared the path of human progress.”

Not only an art historian but—briefly—a poet too, La Follette published two poems in 1927, “Ulysses” and “Wind on the Heath.” Ulysses was reprinted  in The Best Poems of 1928.

La Follette briefly edited a revival of the Freeman, titled the New Freeman, but coming as it did at the eve of the Great Depression in 1930, it didn’t last long. It was, unfortunately, the last public place in which she ever commented on feminist issues. Her relatives and colleagues didn’t recall hearing her discuss feminist issues as such again after the magazine folded. But her brother Chester pointed out that she would have been unlikely to talk about such topics with people who agreed with her.

During the 1930’s, La Follette continued to decry statism, especially New Deal welfare programs and growing totalitarianism abroad. These essays appeared in magazines such as the New Republic, the Nation, Current History and Scribner’s Magazine.

In the late 1930’s, one of La Follette’s most important accomplishments was overseeing John Dewey’s “Preliminary Commission of Inquiry into the Charges Made Against Leon Trotsky in the Moscow Trials.” The purpose was to examine the charges against Trotsky brought by Stalin. The Commission exonerated Trotsky of the charges against him, accusing Stalin of a frame-up. The final report, Not Guilty, co-authored by La Follette and Dewey, was published in 1938. The investigation stripped away any sympathy for the Soviet Union that La Follette may have had; anti-communism was to be a major theme of her writings after this report.

La Follette and her colleague John Chamberlain briefly revived the Freeman in 1950 as a mostly anti-communist publication. When it failed, it was sold to the Foundation for Economic Education, which continues it in a different form today.

In 1955, La Follette became a founding editor of National Review and worked as its managing editor until her retirement in 1959. In those days, recalled her Chamberlain, there was no place for a libertarian to publish except a handful of conservative journals. But, Chamberlain added, La Follette was “not a traditional conservative…we were all anti-statists.”

La Follette retained her feminist views throughout. In 1964, when the New York Conservative Party, of which she was a co-founder, came out in favor of anti-abortion laws, she demanded that her name be dropped from the Party’s letterhead—and it was. “She may not have said ‘I’m doing this as part of the feminist cause,”’ her grandniece Maryly Rosner told me, “but she believed in things that were part of the feminist movement.” La Follette’s colleagues in later years recall that she would not tolerate sexist remarks. “Suzanne would not take any putdown because of sex,” said Priscilla Buckley. Chamberlain remembered that “she didn’t like people criticizing women.”

La Follette passed away in 1983 but is remembered vividly by her friends as a beautiful and cultivated woman, “opinionated,” “overwhelming” but “perfectly gracious,” “extremely kind” and loyal. Her iconoclastic courage to go against the rising tide of a different approach to feminism virtually alone in the early 20th century, standing firm for her ideals, deserves our admiration no matter what our views.

References:
Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, & Paul S. Boyer. Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary, Vol. 5. Cambridge MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004.

Suzanne La Follette. Concerning Women. New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1926 (Arno Press reprint, 1972, in the series  “American Women: Images and Realities”).

Art in America. 1929. (New York: Harper & Row, 1965.) “Beware the State,” in Alice Rossi, ed., The Feminist Papers. New York: Columbia University Press, 1973; New York: Bantam, 1974.

Sharon Presley, “Suzanne La Follette: The New Freewoman,” accessed on June 12, 2012 at http://www.alf.org/lafollette.php

Submitted by Sharon Presley, www.sharonpresley.com

“As Americans, ours is a legacy of bold independence and passionate belief in fairness and justice for all. For generations, this intrepid spirit has driven women pioneers to challenge injustices and shatter ceilings in pursuit of full and enduring equality. During Women’s History Month, we commemorate their struggles, celebrate centuries of progress, and reaffirm our steadfast commitment to the rights, security, and dignity of women in America and around the world. …While we have made great strides toward equality, we cannot rest until our mothers, sisters, and daughters assume their rightful place as full participants in a secure, prosperous, and just society.”

-Barak Obama

Many of those pioneers in education are recognized and honored in the 2012 Gazette publication by the National Women’s History Project.  Representing hundreds of women whose countless hours of work remain uncounted for, these honorees lead the way in improving education for all young women in America over the centuries.  The efforts made by these individuals changed the course of history–or more appropriate herstory.

These Honorees include:

• Emma Hart Willard (1787–1870) – Women Higher Education Pioneer

• Charlotte Forten Grimke (1837 – 1914) – Freedman Bureau Educator

• Annie Sullivan (1866 – 1936) – Disability Education Architect

• Gracia Molina de Pick (b.1929) – Feminist Educational Reformer

• Okolo Rashid (b.1949) – Community Development Activist and 
Historical Preservation Advocate

• Brenda Flyswithhawks (b. 1950) – American Indian Advocate and Educator

Written by:

Kimberly Roush
Blog Manager

Anyways, How to Climb Mr. Blanc in a Skirt by Mick Conefrey surpasses all my prior assumptions. When I first picked up this book, and slightly glanced at the cover and perused the pages. I misinterpreted this book to be a dry account on women’s history. Lucky for me, I read each chapter fully and can conclude that it has yielded a hardcore fan of female adventurers. Me.

This non-fiction account on women in history making and not making succesful voyages opened up my eyes to the trials and tribulations of women breaking into a man’s world, concerning traversing far and distant lands.

This historical travel guide was skillfully written by Mick Conefrey, an award winning film maker and acclaimed writer of The Adventurer’s Handbook.  It takes an empathetic man to write so candidly about the struggles women have encountered from the turning point of the 19th century and onwards. His humor, insight and accurate portrayel  of female explorers  flourish this pepto bismal- colored paper back.

The book, itself, is broken into five chapters: Who, Why and How?; Where?; People; Women Travel to Venus, Men Travel to Mars; and How to survive foreign travel. Each chapter has intricate sub-categories, etched with black n’ white illustrations of what the Middle East, North Africa, Asia and parts of South America were like in an era where exploration was a fresh new concept for Victorian women.

My favorite chapter, thus far, was ” Women Travel to Venus. Men Travel to Mars”.  It opens up with a frank quote from twentieth-century mountaineer, Annie Peck.

“One of the chief difficulties in a women’s undertaking an expedition of this nature is that every man believes he knows better what should be done than she”.   

After turning this page, the reader sees a creative illustration of former Olympic sailor Ella Mallart and of parliament member Peter Fleming enmeshed in sketchings of Chinese architecture, symbols and cameras.  The next page juxtaposes both explorers in  a neat, lineless chart and exposes the hardshipes female explorers, such as Mallart, face in comparison to male explorers. The rest of the chapter follows in that pattern and also gears into narratives of the explorer’s personal lives playing out in their voyages.

Romance, heartbreak, financial disturbances, prejudices and media-laced scandals trail several of these female explorers, poignantly embraced by Conefrey’s rambunctious imagination. It’s a must-read for fans of women’s rights, historical non-fiction and of fine-tuned literature.

By Sherryn Daniel

Diplomats and Dreamers turns a historical narrative into a thrilling tale of adventure, politics and familial bonds. The author has used humor, and surprise to write about a complex subject of Balkan diplomacy and its actors. The text often delights the reader with carefully crafted insights into a world that few contemporaries experienced or suspected to exist. By incorporating the personal experiences of the Stancioff family, covering the periods from 1880s-1950s, the author brings history alive.

A look back to a time when women had narrowly defined roles in society can be fascinating, especially when that look includes reading about Nadejda Stancioff, Bulgaria’s first female diplomat, and her family. Using unpublished primary documents Mari Firkatian has lovingly described a beautiful and extraordinary woman and her family, living during turbulent times. More than ten years of Firkatian’s impeccable research and detailed descriptions provide the reader with a rich portrait of the remarkable Stancioff family and the history of their times.

This book should be a movie. If not a movie then it at least deserves a close consideration for reading for those interested in women’s history, gender relationships, diplomacy at the turn of the last century, and social history of the same period. The family she writes about are extraordinary; first because they come from privileged background but second because they managed to find themselves in unique circumstances and knew how to exploit their opportunities – professionally and personally and finally because they lived in and survived pivotal moments in world history.

This book captivated me from the beginning to the end. The author combines both a historical and literary aspect into her book, making it highly enjoyable and educational to read. So please check out: Diplomats and Dreamers: The Stancioff Family in Bulgarian History By Mari A. Firkatian, University of America Press, 2008 when you get the chance.

By  Scott Scribner

I recently finished a book on the Congresswoman, Activist and Attorney Bella Abzug.  The book is called:  Bella How one tough broad from the bronx fought Jim Crowe Pissed off Jimmy Carter Battled for the Rights Women and Workers Rallied against War and for the Planet and shook up Politics along the way Abzug.

 The story is told from every person Abzug  had ever known, from her children to her collagues and best friends including Gloria Steinem, Marlo Thomas and Ted Kennedy. Each person gave their interpretation of her life,including her firing by Jimmy Carter and her activism for civil rights, women’s rights and gay rights.

The story of Bella Abzug is more than just stating birth work death, it shows that she was indeed a well
rounded person, she raised her daughters in a time when most women were staying at home moms,
she had a nearly 40 year marriage to the love of her life and she spent every moment fighting for causes,
she paved the way for women now, without her, there would be no Hilary Clinton, Sarah Palin or Sonia
Sotomayor.

 Bella was known as a ball buster, she was also equally well known for her wide hats which
were the subject of ridicule. Bella did many things that at the time women wouldn’t even consider, she
went down south to defend a black man accused of statutory rape and she assembled many rallies for
New York..She was literally the voice of the 1970s and she even called out a few biased congressmen
out for setting women back a 100 years.

This book literally takes the reader moment to moment in Bella’s life and even incorporates her own
words to set the scene, you can feel the emotions, the highs and lows of a woman who started out in
humble beginnings and ended with her passing awake from a stroke. This is literally a rags to riches story

As a Kid in the 90s I had no clue who Bella Abzug was because we were only taught five women in
school, Harriet Tubman, Betsy Ross, Abgail Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt and Queen Isabella but as I read
more and more about her, I realized how much she contributed to America and paved the way for a new
generation to speak up and change the world for the better…She was the original bra burner and for
millions of little girls born during her and after her rise in Congress, we’ve become her voice.

By  Nikki Luongo

An excerpt taken from Sylvia Hoehns Wright’s blog pertaining to women’s history. Read the rest here.

“Each time a girl opens a book and reads a womanless history, she learns she is worth less,” says Myra Pollack Sadker.

While almost all Americans can find themselves, their ancestors, or their community through archive research, in celebration of ‘women in history’ , I urge you to take research a step further, document your  heritage through identifying, recording and sharing family stories.

As the child who inherited family photograph albums, I identified as many people as possible; and during this process, developed interest is acquiring their life-stories. In fact, it was through participating in a national celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s legacy that I understood for the first time, the impact of my family’s heritage, Quaker.  Read the rest here.

By Sylvia Hoehns Wright