Welcome to WOW2 — PART A !!
WOW2 has been a monthly sister blog to This Week in the War on Women, but this month I’m experimenting with making it a twice-monthly blog, splitting the month in half, and posting the second half in two weeks.
The purpose of WOW2 is to learn about and honor women of achievement, including many who’ve been ignored or marginalized in most of the history books, and to mark moments in women’s history. It also serves as a reference archive of women’s history. There are so many more phenomenal women than I ever dreamed of finding, and all too often their stories are almost unknown, even to feminists and scholars.
Incredibly, this post marks the beginning of my third year of work on WOW2, and every week I’m still discovering more stories of outstanding women. I hope you will find reclaiming our past as much of an inspiration as I do.
This Week in the War on Women
will post a little later, so be sure to go there next and catch up on the latest dispatches from the frontlines: www.dailykos.com/...
Early September’s Women Trailblazers and Events in OUR History
- September 1, 1773 – Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral published by act of Parliament in England — first African American woman published author
- September 1,1791 – Lydia Huntley Sigourney born, American poet, known as the “Sweet Singer of Hartford,” published under the name Mrs. Sigourney
- September 1, 1815 – Emma Stebbins born, American sculptor and painter; her best-known work is “Angel of the Waters” at Bethesda Terrace in Central Park, New York City
“Angel of the Waters” Fountain
- September 1, 1849 – Elizabeth Harrison born, American educator, founder of National Louis University, created professional standards for early childhood teachers
- September 1, 1854 – Anna Botsford Comstock born, American artist, educator, illustrator and conservationist; advocate for taking students outdoors to study nature; co-author or author of several books including Manual for the Study of Insects and The Handbook of Nature Study
- September 1, 1876 – Harriet Shaw Weaver born, English journalist, political activist and suffragette; publisher and later editor of The Egoist; literary executor of James Joyce
- September 1, 1878 – Emma Nutt becomes world’s 1st female telephone operator, recruited by Alexander Graham Bell for the Boston Telephone Dispatch Company
- September 1, 1883 – Anita Bush born, playwright, founder of Anita Bush All-Colored Dramatic Stock company, which brought theatre to black audiences
- September 1, 1896 – Mary Jones born, behavior therapy pioneer and developmental psychologist, cured boy terrified of his stuffed white rabbit, gradually overcoming his fear with rewards of food
- September 1, 1909 – Hildegard Peplau born, WWII Army Nurse Corps, her 1952 book, Interpersonal Relations in Nursing, launched modern nursing, American Nurses Association President
- September 1, 1919 – Hilda Hänchen born, German physicist, co-discoverer of an optical reflection, the Goos-Hänchen effect, the basis of fiber optics
- September 1, 1920 – Liz Carpenter born, American activist, feminist, author, journalist, media advisor and speech writer; as a reporter she covered presidents Franklin D Roosevelt through John F Kennedy
- September 1, 1933 – Ann Richards born, outspoken feminist politician, 1988 Democratic National Convention Keynote speaker, 2nd woman elected governor of Texas
- September 1, 1939 – Lily Tomlin born, major force in American comedy, performer- writer-producer on Broadway, film and TV, feminist and LGBTQ rights supporter
- September 2,1820 – Lucretia Hale born, American journalist and author; notable novels, Six of One by Half a Dozen of the Other and The Wolf at the Door
- September 2,1821 – Anne Whitney born, American sculptor and poet; her statue of Samuel Adams is in the National Statuary Hall Collection at the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C., and other statues are at the Smithsonian Institute, Harvard University and Boston Public Library; her model for a statue of Charles Sumner wins a competition but she is disqualified when it is discovered she is a woman
- September 2,1849 – Emma Curtis Hopkins born, American spiritual leader, author, theologian and feminist; part of the New Thought movement
- September 2,1894 – Annie Winifred Ellerman born, used pseudonym Bryher, British author, poet and editor, who provided financial support to a number of authors; long-time lover and friend of poet H.D. (Hilda Dolittle)
- September 2, 1948 – Christa McAuliffe born, New Hampshire teacher, first teacher in space, died aboard space shuttle Challenger
- September 2, 2013 – Diana Nyad, at age 64, first confirmed swim from Cuba to Key West, Florida, without a shark cage or swim fins
- September 3, 1803 – Prudence Crandall born, American educator, establishes a private school for girls which is boycotted when she admits African American students; considered the first integrated classroom in the U.S.; she is harassed, then arrested for breaking a local law against teaching "colored persons"; official State Heroine of Connecticut
- September 3, 1824 – Caroline Soule born, American author, editor, ordained minister; co-founder of the Women’s Centenary Aid Association, Universalist Church of American Missionary
- September 3, 1849 – Sarah Orne Jewett born, novelist-poet, A White Heron
- September 3, 1868 – Mary Parker Follett born, American social worker and management consultant, pioneer in the fields of organizational theory and behavior
- September 3,1897 – Sally Benson born, American screenwriter and short story author, known for her collected stories titled Junior Miss, published in The New Yorker and adapted for Broadway and radio
- September 3, 1910 – Dorothy Maynor born, mixed ethnic heritage operatic soprano, known for German lieder as well as spirituals, sang at the inaugurations of both President Truman and President Eisenhower
- September 3, 1914 – Dixy Lee Ray born, marine biologist, work on marine invertebrates led to public television programs, appointed to Atomic Energy Commission, described as idiosyncratic, and "ridiculously smart," elected Washington state's first female governor, known for her leadership during devastating eruption of Mt. St. Helens
- September 3, 1920 – Marguerite Higgins born, American journalist and war correspondent; first woman awarded a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting (1951) for her coverage of the Korean War; also covered WWII and Vietnam
- September 3,1920 – Tereska Torrès born, French author; best-selling novel Women’s Barracks is a fictionalized account of her experiences during the war; first notable pulp fiction to show Lesbian relationships
- September 3, 1921 – Ruth Orkin born, when denied admission to Cinematographer’s Union because of sexual discrimination, she filmed a NY street-scene series. Then in Florence, she shot the iconic photo “American Girl in Italy” (1956)
“American Girl in Italy”
- September 3, 1926 – Alison Lurie born, American author and English professor, known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Foreign Affairs
-
September 3, 1930 – Cherry Wilder born, pseudonym for Cherry Barbara Grimm, New Zealand author, known for science fiction and fantasy including the Torin Trilogy
-
September 3, 1944 – Anne Frank and her family are on the last transport train from Westerbork to the Auschwitz concentration camp
- September 3, 1981 – International Day for the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women: the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), an international treaty adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, goes into force. 189 states have ratified, but several countries signed subject to certain declarations, reservations, and objections. The U. S. has signed, but not ratified the treaty. The Holy See, Iran, Somalia, Sudan and Tonga are not signatories to CEDAW
- September 4, 1905 – Mary Renault born, British author of novels about Ancient Greece, including The King Must Die, The Last of the Wine and a trilogy on Alexander the Great
- September 4, 1906 – Elaine Yoneda born, International Longshoreman’s Union labor organizer, argued for free day care and equal pay for equal work in 1930s; interned with her Japanese-American husband and 2-year-old son in 1942
- September 4,1924 – Joan Aiken born, English author; supernatural fiction, children’s books
- September 4,1941 – Marilena de Souza Chaui born, Brazilian philosopher; member of the Worker’s Party, critic of the capitalist model
- September 4, 1995 – The Fourth World Conference on Women opens in Beijing, with over 4,750 delegates representing 181 countries
- September 5, 1867 – Amy Beach born, composer and pianist, known for ‘Gaelic Symphony’ and ‘Mass in E-flat major’
- September 5, 1899 – Helen Creighton born, Canadian author and folklorist; collector of over 4,000 traditional songs and stories, publishing many books on Nova Scotia folk songs and lore; Member of the Order of Canada (1976)
- September 5, 1914 – Hannah Wormington born, compared American Paleo-Indian artifacts and US minerals with European anthropological findings and minerals, resistance to women scientists prevented her talents being utilized but she remains a model for women in interdisciplinary archaeology
- September 5, 1935 – Helen Gifford born, Australian composer, known for ‘Chimaera’ , ‘Point of Ignition’ and ‘Fantasy’
- September 5, 1939 – Claudette Colvin born, American nurse and activist; as a teenager, she refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white person in Montgomery, Alabama, 9 months before Rosa Parks did
- September 6, 1800 – Catherine Beecher born, half-sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe, women’s education advocate and author, founded school to train women as teachers which became Hartford Female Seminary, founded American Woman’s Educational Association
- September 6, 1857 – Zelia Nuttal born, archeologist/anthropologist, expert in Mesoamerican and pre-Aztec culture
- September 6, 1860 – Jane Addams born, founded Hull House in Chicago, 1st major settlement house, 1st American woman to win Nobel Peace Prize (1931), suffragist, helped establish the American Civil Liberties Union
- September 6, 1870 – Lousia Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming celebrated her 70th birthday by voting, the 1st woman officially to cast a ballot in a U.S. national election
- September 6, 1898 – Emily Mudd born, pioneer marriage counselor/family planning, Kinsey Reports advisor, reviewed Masters and Johnson therapy training methods
- September 6, 1962 – Alice Sebold born, courageously investigated, found and prosecuted man who raped her in 1981, author of The Lovely Bones
- September 7, 1860 – Grandma Moses born, American self-taught painter, discovered by the art world in her late 70s
- September 7, 1887 – Edith Sitwell born, English modernist poet and critic, Façade
- September 7, 1892 – Elizabeth Coit born, American architect, collected and analyzed information for Federal Public Housing Authority, developed more than 150 affordable housing projects for low-income people
- September 7, 1900 –Taylor Caldwell born, English-American author of historical fiction
- September 7, 1903 – Margaret Landon born, American missionary and writer, noted for Anna and the King of Siam
- September 7, 1923 – Nancy Keesing born, Australian Jewish author of fiction, nonfiction and poetry; Garden Island People, The Woman I Am: Poems, Douglas Stewart
- September 7, 1925 –Laura Ashley born, Welsh designer who built a fashion, home furnishings and textiles empire
- September 7, 1934 – Mary Bauermeister born, German painter, art installation creator and garden designer, influenced by Pop Art and Nouveau Réalisme
- September 7, 1943 – Beverley McLachlin, Canadian jurist, Chief Justice of Canada (2000 to present, but recently announced her retirement at the end of 2017)
- September 8, 1828 – Olivia Slocum Sage born, American teacher and philanthropist; as the widow of robber baron Russell Sage, she inherits over $60,000,000 in 1906, much of which she uses to further education, including endowing programs for women; makes large donations to Syracuse University, Yale and Princeton; also a donation to Cornell for construction of a women’s dormitory, and funds for construction at Vassar College
- September 8, 1859 – Mary M. Kimball Kehew born, union organizer, co-founder of Union for Industrial Progress (1892), 1st president of National Women’s Trade Union League (1903)
- September 8, 1863 – Jessie Willcox Smith born, American painter and illustrator
A Girl with a Cat, by Jessie Willcox Smith – Good Housekeeping September 1932
- September 8,1893 – New Zealand’s Legislative Council passes the Electoral Act, then the governor consents on September 19, giving all New Zealand women the right to vote
- September 8, 1914 – Tish Sommers born, co-founded Older Women’s League (OWL – motto: “Don’t Agonize, Organize”) with Laurie Shields (1982), campaigns for better housing, healthcare, and job training
- September 8,1924 – Mimi Parent born, Canadian surrealist painter
La chouette (1991), Mimi Parent, and Masculin/Feminin (1959)
- September 8,1925 – Jacqueline Ceballos born, American feminist and activist; president of New York N.O.W. (1971); co-founder and first executive director of the Women’s Forum, helped found the National Women’s Political Caucus, and founder of Veteran Feminists of America, devoted to preserving the history of ‘Second Wave’ feminism
- September 8, 1937 – Barbara Frum born in America, Canadian radio newsmagazine and TV journalist, notable for her incisive and sometimes controversial interviews on Canada’s highly-rated in-depth news show The Journal
- September 8, 1945 – Esther Rome born, co-creator of Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, basis for groundbreaking health manual Our Bodies, Ourselves
- September 8, 1954 – Ruby Bridges Hall born, American activist and philanthropist, first African American child to attend an all-white school in the South; chair of the Ruby Bridges Foundation, recipient of the Presidential Citizens Medal
Norman Rockwell painting of Ruby Bridges — ‘The Problem We All Live With’
- September 9, 1834 –Mob attacks Prudence Crandall's school for black women in Canterbury, Connecticut. Crandall is forced to close her school. Now the building is a museum that highlights black history and women's history
- September 9,1868 – Mary Hunter Austin born, American author, an early writer about nature in the U.S. Southwest; her classic book, The Land of Little Rain (1903) describes the fauna, flora and people, and their mysticism and spirituality, in the region between the High Sierra and the Mojave Desert of Southern California
- September 9,1878 – Adelaide Crapsey born, American poet developer of the cinquain, a five-line poetic form, who died of tubercular meningitis at age 36
- September 9, 1903 – Phyllis A. Whitney born, young adult and mystery author, President, Mystery Writers of America (1975), Grand Master Award (1988), the Agatha (1989)
- September 9, 1905 – Gladys Towles Root born, flamboyant American criminal defense attorney; graduating from University of Southern California Law School in 1930, was unable to find employment, so she opened her own office; activist for racial equality, humane treatment for sex offenders, and more opportunities for women in the field of law; collapsed and died at age 77 in a courtroom while defending her clients
- September 9, 1923 – Rosita Sokou born, Greek journalist, author, playwright and translator
- September 10,1758 – Hannah Webster Foster born, American novelist and advocate for women’s education; her best-seller is The Coquette, or a History of Eliza Wharton, a fictionalized version of the true story of Elizabeth Whitman, a young woman who is seduced by an unidentified suitor, and dies after the still-born birth of her illegitimate child
- September 10, 1852 – Alice Brown Davis born, first female chief of the Seminole Tribe of Oklahoma, Superintendent of the Seminole Nation’s school for girls
- September 10, 1860 – Marianne von Werefkin born, Russian-Swiss painter, salon host, co-founder of artist groups in Munich and Switzerland, known for Expressionism
‘Red City’ by Marianne von Werefkin -1909
- September 10,1877 – Katherine S. Dreier born, artist, art patron, social reformer and woman suffragist; co-founder with Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray of the Société Anonyme, the first major U.S. collection of modern art and sponsor of numerous exhibitions; her estate donated 28 works by important modern artists to the Guggenheim Foundation
- September 10, 1882 – Flora Dodge La Follette born, woman’s suffrage and labor activist, quote: “A good husband is not a substitute for the ballot.”
- September 10, 1886 – “H.D.” Hilda Dolittle born, poet, novelist, literary editor for The Egoist journal, feminist and gay rights icon
- September 10, 1890 – Rose Norwood born in Russia, Boston Women’s Trade Union (WTUL) powerful speaker and labor organizer, led strikes, organized laundry workers, served on NAACP advisory board
- September 10,1926 – Beryl Cook born, self-taught British painter, OBE, noted for paintings of people enjoying themselves
- September 10, 1935 – Mary Oliver, American poet; won 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1992 National Book Award for Poetry; American Primitive, House of Light
- September 11,1476 – Louise of Savoy born, French Duchess of Nemours, Angoulême and Anjou; mother of King Francis I, serves as Regent of France in 1515, 1525-1526 and in 1529 during times when he goes to war, and while he is held prisoner in Spain; Louise is the principal French negotiator for the Treaty of Cambrai with the Holy Roman Empire, called “the Ladies’ Peace” because it is signed by Louis of Savoy and the Empire’s negotiator, Margaret of Austria
- September 11,1806 – Juliette Magill Kinzie born, history writer, notable for including Native American legends and customs; Wau-Bun: The “Early Day” in the North West (when the ‘North West’ was Chicago)
- September 11,1847 – Mary Watson Whitney born, astronomer; Maria Mitchell’s assistant, she becomes director of the Vassar Observatory upon Mitchell’s retirement, serving from 1888 to 1915, when Whitney herself retires at age 68 for health reasons; charter member of the Astronomical and Astrophysical Society
- September 11,1850 – Mary Elizabeth Lease born, American author, fiery orator, suffragist and Populist
- September 11, 1877 – Rosika Schwimmer born, Hungarian feminist and pacifist; organized the Association of Hungarian Women Clerks (1897), co-founder of Feministák Egyesülete (Hungarian Feminist Association – 1904), also on the board of the Hungarian Peace Society and later Vice President of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF); first Hungarian woman ambassador, to Switzerland
- September 11, 1917 – Jessica Mitford born, British-born investigative journalist and political activist, author of The American Way of Death (1963), participated in trade-union marches
- September 11, 1927 – Christine King Farris born, professor and author; active in the International Reading Association, the NAACP and the SCLC; sister of Martin Luther King Jr.
- September 11, 1960 – Annie Gosfield born, American avant-garde composer
- September 12, 1590 – María de Zayas y Sotomayor born, Spanish author during Spain’s Golden Age, regarded as a pioneer of literary feminism; Desengaños Amorosos (Disenchantments of Love), Novelas Amorosas y ejemplares (Amorous and Exemplary Novels)
- September 12, 1853 – Celestia Parrish born, American educator and pioneering woman in psychology; overcame English-born psychologist E. B. Tichener’s prejudice against women to attend his class and get him to correspond with her so she could better teach her students – later he submitted some of her papers to the America Journal of Psychology, after she founded the first psychology lab in the southern U.S. at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg, VA; after teaching at the Georgia State Normal School, she became Georgia State Supervisor of Public Schools (1911-1918)
- September 12, 1859 – Florence Kelley born, social and political reformer, advocate for minimum wage, 8-hour workdays and against child labor and sweatshops
- September 12, 1897 – Irène Joliot-Curie born, French physicist, 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, daughter of Nobel laureates Marie and Pierre Curie
- September 12,1916 – Adelina and August Van Buren finish first successful transcontinental motorcycle tour by two women, after leaving New York City on July 5, 1916
- September 12,1922 – The Episcopal Church removes the word “Obey” from the bride’s wedding vows
- September 12, 1992 – Dr. Mae Carol Jemison becomes first African-American woman in space, as the payload specialist aboard the space shuttle Endeavor
- September 12, 2002 – Police Woman’s Day is launched to honor members of the International Association of Women Police (IAWP)
- September 13, 1775 – Laura Secord born, Canadian heroine of the War of 1812, who walked 20-miles out of American-occupied territory to warn British troops of an impending attack
- September 13, 1819 – Clara Schumann born, German composer and pianist, ‘Three Romances for Violin & Piano’ ; also gives first public performances of several works by Johannes Brahams
- September 13, 1830 – Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach born, Austrian novelist, highly regarded German-language author of the 19th century
- September 13, 1844 – Ann Webb Young born, one of LDS President Brigham Young’s many wives, who filed for divorce on grounds of cruelty, neglect and abandonment; excommunicated from the LDS Church; author of Wife No. 19, or The Story of a Life in Bondage
- September 13,1844 – Anna Lea Merritt born, American painter; known for portraits, landscapes and religious scenes; worked primarily in England as a professional artist
- September 13,1865 – Maud Charlesworth born in England, known as Maud Ballington Booth, Salvation Army leader and co-founder of the Volunteers of America
- September 13,1919 – Mary Midgley born, British philosopher, advocate for science, ethics and animal rights, author of many books including her autobiography The Owl of Minerva
- September 13, 1933 – Elizabeth McCombs becomes the first woman member of the New Zealand Parliament
- September 13, 1948 – Margaret Chase Smith (R-Maine) is elected U.S. Senator, becoming the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress, serving combined total of 33 years, 1940-1973
- September 14, 1728 – Mercy Otis Warren born, American Revolution political writer and propagandist, published one of first histories of the American Revolution, a three-volume History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution (1805)
- September 14, 1830 – Emily Edson Briggs born, 1st woman White House correspondent, during Lincoln’s administration; first president of Women’s National Press Association (1882)
- September 14, 1857 – Alice Stone Blackwell born, suffragist and journalist, Lucy Stone’s daughter, editor of the Woman’s Journal
- September 14, 1879 – Margaret Sanger born, birth control and sex education pioneer, founded predecessor to Planned Parenthood
- September 14, 1882 – Winnifred Mason Huck born, investigative journalist exposing abuses in the prison system; also a politician, third woman to be elected to the US Congress (R-IL 1922-1923) in a special election to finish her father’s term after his sudden death
- September 14, 1897 – Margaret Rudkin born, founder of Pepperidge Farm Foods
- September 14, 1917 – Joyce Chen born, chef/author/ teacher, emigrated to US from China, opened authentic North Chinese restaurant, authored Joyce Chen Cook Book, hosted TV’s “Joyce Chen Cooks”
- September 14, 1921 – Constance Baker Motley born, American lawyer, judge, politician and civil rights activist; first female attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, wrote original complaint in Brown v. Board of Education, first African American woman to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court; first African American woman to be appointed as a federal court judge; recipient of the Presidential Citizens Medal and the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP
- September 14, 1934 – Sarah Kofman born, French philosopher, author and educator, wrote books on Nietzsche and Freud
- September 14, 1934 – Kate Millett born, American author, artist and activist, wrote the influential book Sexual Politics, advocate for women’s rights and mental health reform
- September 14, 1964 – Helen Keller, Dr. Lena Edwards, Lynn Fontainne, Dr. Helen Taussig, and Leontyne Price receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom
- September 15,1853 – Antoinette Brown Blackwell ordained, first U.S. female minister
- September 15,1868 – Lida Shaw King born, American classical scholar; professor of classical literature and archaeology at Vassar (1894-1897); dean of the Women’s College at Brown University (1905-1922); published in the American Journal of Archaeology
- September 15, 1890 – Agatha Christie born, international best-selling British mystery novelist and playwright, Witness for the Prosecution, The Mousetrap, creator of Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot
- September 15, 1915 – Fawn Brodie born, historian, author, and biographer of Joseph Smith, Sir Richard Burton, Thomas Jefferson, and Richard Nixon
- September 15, 1919 – Heda Margolius Kovály born, Czech writer and translator; noted for her memoir Under a Cruel Star – A Life in Prague 1941-1968
- September 15, 1929 – Eva Burrows born, Australian Salvation Army officer; at 56, she became the organization’s youngest commander, the 13th General of the Salvation Army
- September 15, 1940 – Anne Moody born as Essie Mae, civil rights worker, author of award-winning autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi
- September 15, 1940 – Jessye Norman born, dramatic soprano, noted for performing Wagnerian repertoire