March is Women's History Month!!!!

[girl_dee]

Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Harriet Ross; 1820 – March 10, 1913) was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the American Civil War. After escaping from slavery, into which she was born, she made thirteen missions to rescue more than 70 slaves[1] using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. She later helped John Brown recruit men for his raid on Harpers Ferry, and in the post-war era struggled for women's suffrage.
As a child in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman was beaten by masters to whom she was hired out. Early in her life, she suffered a head wound when hit by a heavy metal weight. The injury caused disabling seizures, narcoleptic attacks, headaches, and powerful visionary and dream activity, which occurred throughout her life. A devout Christian, Tubman ascribed the visions and vivid dreams to revelations from God.
In 1849, Tubman escaped to Philadelphia, then immediately returned to Maryland to rescue her family. Slowly, one group at a time, she brought relatives out of the state, and eventually guided dozens of other slaves to freedom. Traveling by night, Tubman (or "Moses", as she was called) "never lost a passenger".[2] Large rewards were offered for the return of many of the fugitive slaves, but no one then knew that Tubman was the one helping them. When the Southern-dominated Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, requiring law officials in free states to aid efforts to recapture slaves, she helped guide fugitives farther north into Canada, where slavery was prohibited.
When the American Civil War began, Tubman worked for the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy. The first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, she guided the Combahee River Raid, which liberated more than 700 slaves in South Carolina. After the war, she retired to the family home in Auburn, New York, where she cared for her aging parents. She became active in the women's suffrage movement in New York until illness overtook her. Near the end of her life, she lived in a home for elderly African-Americans that she had helped found years earlier.

[Rook]

[Rook]

Felisa Rincón Vda. de Gautier
b. January 9, 1897
d. September 16, 1994



She was born in Ceiba, Puerto Rico. The oldest of 9 siblings, she was politically influenced by her father, Enrique Rincón Plumey, nephew of an earlier Mayor of San Juan. Her mother, Rita Marrero Rivera, died when she was only 11 years old. However, despite this her father was determined to give her the best education possible. She went to school in Fajardo, Humacao and Santurce where she graduated from high school; after this she studied pharmacy and became a pharmacist. Rincón de Gautier later moved to New York City where she learned the art of high fashion design. When she returned to Puerto Rico, she opened a store called Felisa's Style Shop and a flower shop in San Juan.

Rincón de Gautier was a staunch believer that women should have the right to vote and was an active participant in the Suffragist movement and motivated many women to register. When the law allowing women to vote was passed, Rincón de Gautier was the 5th woman to officially register. In 1932, she joined the "Liberal Party of Puerto Rico", which believed in Puerto Rico's independence, and was named representative by the party's president Antonio R. Barceló. Motivated by the political ideas of Luis Muñoz Marín, she left the Liberal Party and in 1938 helped organize the Popular Democratic Party of Puerto Rico.

In 1946, she ran for and was elected mayor of San Juan - the first woman to have been elected mayor of a capital city in the Americas. Under her leadership, San Juan was transformed into a great Latin-American urban center. Rincón de Gautier designed innovative public services and established the first pre-school centers called "Las Escuelas Maternales", which would eventually become the model for the Head Start programs in the United States. She also renovated the public health system and was responsible for the establishment of the school of medicine in San Juan. She worked together with Ricardo Alegría to restore and conserve the historical structures of "Old San Juan" and provided housing and basic services to thousands of people. In 1951, during the Cold War era, she ordered the establishment of the island's first Civil Defense system which was under the directorship of Colonel Gilberto José Marxuach, a relative of hers. She often opened City Hall to the public and personally listened to concerns of the residents in the city. In 1959, San Juan was awarded the All American City Award.

Rincón de Gautier started a Christmas tradition, which would be continued every year by the governors of Puerto Rico. On the Día de los Reyes (Three Kings Day), celebrated on January 6, she would give gifts and treats to the poor and needy children. On 1952, 1953 and 1954, she even had plane loads of snow delivered to San Juan so that the children who had never seen or played in snow, would be able to do so.
She was mayor of San Juan for 22 years, from 1946 to 1968. Upon retiring, Rincón de Gautier served as the American Goodwill Ambassador for four United States Presidents. She served in Latin America, Asia and Europe promoting friendship between those continents and the United States. When Felisa Rincón de Gautier died in San Juan, aged 97, on September 16, 1994, she was given the burial honors of a head of state. Dignitaries from all over the world attended her funeral service.

[Kobi]

Virgie Ammons was an inventor and woman of color who invented the fireplace damper actuating tool.

Mary Anderson invented the windshield wiper.

Dr Virginia Apgarinvented the Newborn Scoring System, also called the Apgar Score, in 1949 that assessed the health of newborns.

Dr Patricia Bath, an ophthalmologist was the first African American female doctor to patent a medical invention. She developed the Cataract Laserphaco Probe, a method for removing cataract lenses that transformed eye surgery by using a laser device making the procedure more accurate.

Patricia Billings received a patent in 1997 for a fire resistant building material called Geobond.

Katherine Blodgett invented nonreflective glass. Her patented film and process (1938) has been used for many purposes including limiting distortion in eyeglasses, microscopes, telescopes, camera and projector lenses.

Rachel Fuller Brown and Elizabeth Lee Hazen invented the worlds first useful antifungal antibiotic - nystatin.

In 1886, Josephine Cochran proclaims in disgust, "If nobody else is going to invent a dishwashing machine, I'll do it myself." And she did.

Martha Coston invented a system of maritime signal flares based on color and pattern. Using various color combinations, these flares made ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore communication possible. In February 1859, C.S. McCauley, Captain and Senior Officer of the United States Navy, recommended the signals to the Secretary of the Navy, Isaac Toucey. Coston sold her system to the U.S. Navy for $5,000, and later sold the U.S. patent rights to the Navy for $20,000. Her system was also adopted by the governments of France, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Haiti.

Actar 911, the CPR mannequin was invented by Dianne Croteau and partners, Richard Brault and Jonathan Vinden in 1989. Actar 911 is a mannequin used to teach CPR or Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation.

Marion Donovan created the first convenient disposable diaper. (Cloth diapers were first mass produced by Maria Allen in 1887.

Dr Gertrude Elion patented the leukemia-fighting drug 6-mercaptopurine in 1954 and has made a number of significant contributions to the medical field. Dr. Gertrude Elion’s research led to the development of Imuran, a drug that aids the body in accepting transplanted organs, and Zovirax, a drug used to fight herpes.

The ultimate convenience invention must certainly be inventor Frances Gabe’s self-cleaning house. The house, a combination of some 68 time, labor and space saving mechanisms, makes the concept of housework obsolete.

Each of the rooms in the termite-proof, cinder block constructed, self-cleaning house is fitted with a 10-inch, ceiling-mounted cleaning/drying/heating/cooling device. The walls, ceilings and floors of the house are covered with resin, a liquid that becomes water-proof when hardened. The furniture is made of a water-proof composition, and there are no dust-collecting carpets anywhere in the house. At the push of a sequence of buttons, jets of soapy water wash the entire room. Then, after a rinse, the blower dries up any remaining water that hasn’t run down the sloping floors into a waiting drain.

The sink, shower, toilet and bathtub all clean themselves. The bookshelves dust themselves while a drain in the fireplace carries away ashes. The clothes closet is also a washer/drier combination. The kitchen cabinet is also a dishwasher; simply pile in soiled dishes, and don’t bother taking them out until they are needed again. Not only is the house of practical appeal to overworked homeowners, but also to physically handicapped people and the elderly.

Frances Gabe (or Frances G. Bateson) was born in 1915 and now resides comfortably in Newberg, Oregon in the prototype of her self-cleaning house. Gabe gained experience in housing design and construction at an early age from working with her architect father. She entered the Girl’s Polytechnic College in Portland, Oregon at age 14 finishing a four-year program in just two years. After World War II, Gabe with her electrical engineer husband started a building repairs business that she ran for more than 45 years.

Lillian Moller Gilbreth was an inventor, author, industrial engineer, industrial psychologist, and mother of twelve children. A pioneer in ergonomics, Gilbreth patented many kitchen appliances including an electric food mixer, shelves inside refrigerator doors, and the famous trash can with a foot-pedal lid-opener. Lillian Gilbreth is best known for her work to help workers in industry with her classic Time & Motion Studies, which supported work simplification and industrial efficiency. Lillian Gilbreth was one of the first scientists to recognized the effects of stress and lack of sleep on the worker.

Sarah Goode was the first African American women to receive a U.S. patent issued on July 14, 1885 for a cabinet bed. She was the owner of a Chicago furniture store.

In 1956, Bette Nesmith Graham started the Mistake Out Company (later renamed Liquid Paper) from her North Dallas home. She turned her kitchen into a laboratory, mixing up an improved product with her electric mixer. Graham’s son, Michael Nesmith (later of The Monkees fame), and his friends filled bottles for her customers.

Bette Nesmith Graham believed money to be a tool, not a solution to a problem. She set up two foundations to help women find new ways to earn a living. Graham died in 1980, six months after selling her corporation for $47.5 million.

Dr Temple Grandin invented improvements to the animal handling systems found in meat plants that decreased or eliminated the fear and pain animals experienced.

Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper (December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist and United States Navy officer. A pioneer in the field, she was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, and developed the first compiler for a computer programming language. She conceptualized the idea of machine-independent programming languages, which led to the development of COBOL, one of the first modern programming languages. She is credited with popularizing the term "debugging" for fixing computer glitches (motivated by an actual moth removed from the computer). Because of the breadth of her accomplishments and her naval rank, she is sometimes referred to as "Amazing Grace." The U.S. Navy destroyer USS Hopper (DDG-70) was named for her, as was the Cray XE6 "Hopper" supercomputer at NERSC.

Mary Phelps Jacob was the first to patent an undergarment named 'Brassiere' derived from the old French word for 'upper arm'. Her patent was for a device that was lightweight, soft and separated the breasts naturally. (In 1928, a Russian immigrant named Ida Rosenthal founded Maidenform. Ida was responsible for grouping women into bust-size categories (cup sizes).

Amanda Jones (1835 - 1914)was awarded two patents for methods preserving food, one patent for a vacuum method of canning called the Jones Process.

Margaret Knight was an employee in a paper bag factory when she invented a new machine part that would automatically fold and glue paper bags to create square bottoms for paper bags. Workmen reportedly refused her advice when first installing the equipment because they mistakenly thought, "what does a woman know about machines?" Margaret Knight can be considered the mother of the grocery bag, she founded the Eastern Paper Bag Company in 1870.

Stephanie Kwolek’s research with high performance chemical compounds for the DuPont Company led to the development of a synthetic material called Kevlar which is five times stronger than the same weight of steel.

Silver Screen superstar Hedy Lamarr (born Hedwig Kiesler Markey) with the help of composer George Antheil invented a secret communication system in an effort to help the allies defeat the Germans in World War II. The invention, patented in 1941, manipulated radio frequencies between transmission and reception to develop an unbreakable code so that top-secret messages could not be intercepted. The technology called spread spectrum, now takes on many forms. However, all the spread spectrum that we use today directly or indirectly, flows from the invention created by
Hedy Lamarr.

Ada Lovelace wrote a scientific paper in 1843 that anticipated the development of computer software, artificial intelligence and computer music. Daughter of the poet Lord Byron, devised a method of using punchcards to calculate Bernoulli numbers, becoming the first computer programmer. In her honor the U.S. Department of Defense named its computer language "Ada" in 1980.

American colonist and inventor, Sybilla Masters invented a way for cleaning and curing the Indian corn crops that the colonist in early America received as a gift from the native peoples. Sybilla Masters's innovation allowed the corn to be processed into many different food and cloth products. The patent was issued in her husband Thomas’ name by the British courts in 1715. That was the unfair law at the time, women and minorities had no rights to own patents. Thomas Masters was issued patents for "Cleansing Curing and Refining of Indian Corn Growing in the Plantations". A second patent was issued to Sybilla's husband for another of her inventions entitled "Working and Weaving in a New Method, Palmetta Chip and Straw for Hats and Bonnets and other Improvements of that Ware."

Ann Moore invented the snugli baby carrier.

“Growing up with cerebral palsy made me a stronger person and very determined to succeed. Inventing has given me confidence and a way to help myself as well as others.” - Krysta Morlan

Krysta Morlan's first invention was a device that relieves the irritation caused by wearing a cast called the cast cooler. The portable cast cooler works by pumping air into a cast through a plastic tube. Krysta Morlan was in grade 10 when she invented the cast cooler. Still in high school, Krysta Morlan then invented the Waterbike, a semi-submersible, fin-propelled pedaled vehicle.

African American, Lyda Newman of New York, New York patented a new and improved hair brush on November 15, 1898. Lydia Newman designed a brush that was easy to keep clean, very durable and easy to make, and provided ventilation during brushing by having recessed air chambers.

Julie Newmar, Hollywood film and television legend, patented ultra-sheer, ultra-snug pantyhose.

Ellen Ochoa invented optical analysis systems and was also the first Hispanic female astronaut.

Betty Rozier and Lisa Vallino, a mother and daughter team, invented an intravenous catheter shield to make the use of IVs in hospitals safer and easier. The computer-mouse shaped, polyethylene shield covers the site on a patient where an intravenous needle has been inserted. The "IV House" prevents the needle from being accidentally dislodged and minimizes its exposure to patient tampering.

Harriet Tubman was a runaway slave from Maryland who became known as the "Moses of her people." Over the course of 10 years, and at great personal risk, she led hundreds of slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad, a secret network of safe houses where runaway slaves could stay on their journey north to freedom. She later became a leader in the abolitionist movement, and during the Civil War she was a spy with for the federal forces in South Carolina as well as a nurse.

Sarah Breedlove McWilliams Walker, better known as Madame CJ Walker or Madame Walker, together with Marjorie Joyner revolutionized the hair care and cosmetics industry for African American women early in the 20th century.

Carol Wior invented the Slimsuit, a women's swimsuit that was guaranteed to take an inch or more off the waist or tummy and look natural.

[charlie1]

for her work with the Human Rights Campaign Fund and the fight for equality for all people.

www.fionadawson.com

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVVHm0uvaOY"]Fiona Dawson at HRC Chicago - YouTube[/nomedia]

[The_Lady_Snow]

[girl_dee]

Bessie Coleman

Bessie Coleman, the daughter of a poor, southern, African American family, became one of the most famous women and African Americans in aviation history. "Brave Bessie" or "Queen Bess," as she became known, faced the double difficulties of racial and gender discrimination in early 20th-century America but overcame such challenges to become the first African American woman to earn a pilot's license. Coleman became a role model for women and African Americans. Her very presence in the air threatened prevailing contemporary stereotypes. She also fought segregation when she could by using her influence as a celebrity to effect change, no matter how small.

Coleman was born on January 26, 1892, in Atlanta, Texas, where she grew up picking cotton and doing laundry for customers with her mother.

The Coleman family, faced many disadvantages and difficulties. Bessie's family dealt with segregation, disenfranchisement, and racial violence. Bessie was a highly motivated individual. Despite working long hours, she still found time to educate herself by borrowing books from a traveling library.

By 1915, Bessie moved to Chicago. There, she began living with two of her brothers. She attended beauty school and then started working as a manicurist in a local barbershop.

Bessie first considered becoming a pilot after reading about aviation and watching newsreels about flight. But the real impetus behind her decision to become an aviator was her brother John's incessant teasing. John had served overseas during World War I and returned home talking about, according to historian Doris Rich, "the superiority of French women over those of Chicago's South Side." He even told Bessie that French women flew airplanes and declared that flying was something Bessie would never be able to do. John's jostling was the final push that Bessie needed to start pursuing her pilot's license. She immediately began applying to flight schools throughout the country, but because she was both female and an African American, no U.S. flight school would take her.

Soon after being turned down by American flight schools, Coleman met Robert Abbott, publisher of the well-known African American newspaper, the Chicago Defender. He recommended that Coleman save some money and move to France, which he believed was the world's most racially progressive nation, and obtain her pilot's license there. Coleman quickly heeded Abbott's advice. Bessie took her savings and sailed for France. She also received some additional funds from Abbott and one of his friends.

Coleman attended the well-known Caudron Brothers' School of Aviation in Le Crotoy, France. On June 15, 1921, Coleman obtained her pilot's license from Federation Aeronautique Internationale after only seven months. She was the first black woman in the world to earn an aviator's license. After some additional training in Paris, Coleman returned to the United States in September 1921.

Coleman's main goals when she returned to America were to make a living flying and to establish the first African American flight school. Because of her color and gender, however, she was somewhat limited in her first goal. Barnstorming seemed to be the only way for her to make money, but to become an aerial daredevil, Coleman needed more training. Once again, Bessie applied to American flight schools, and once again they rejected her. So in February 1922, she returned to Europe. After learning most of the standard barnstorming tricks, Coleman returned to the United States.

Bessie flew in her first air show on September 3, 1922, at Glenn Curtiss Field in Garden City, New York. Bessie became a celebrity. She subsequently began touring the country giving exhibitions, flight lessons, and lectures. During her travels, she strongly encouraged African Americans and women to learn to fly.

Even though Coleman realized that she had to work within the general confines of southern segregation, she did try to use her fame to challenge racial barriers. Bessie returned to her old hometown of Waxahachie to give an exhibition. As in Houston, both whites and African Americans wanted to attend the event and plans called for segregated facilities. Officials even wanted whites and African Americans to enter the venue through separate "white" and "Negro" admission gates, but Coleman refused to perform under such conditions. She demanded only one admission gate. Coleman got her way and Texans of both races entered the air field through the same gate.

Coleman's aviation career ended tragically in 1926. On April 30, she died while preparing for a show in Jacksonville, Florida. Coleman was riding in the passenger seat of her "Jenny" airplane while her mechanic William Wills was piloting the aircraft. Bessie was not wearing her seat belt at the time so that she could lean over the edge of the cockpit and scout potential parachute landing. But while Bessie was scouting from the back seat, the plane suddenly dropped into a steep nose dive and then flipped over and catapulted her to her death.

Despite her relatively short career, Bessie Coleman strongly challenged early 20th century stereotypes about white supremacy and the inabilities of women. By becoming the first licensed African American female pilot, and performing throughout the country, Coleman proved that people did not have to be shackled by their gender or the color of their skin to succeed and realize their dreams.

--David H. Onkst