March is Women's History Month!!!!

[girl_dee]

Originally Posted by femmeInterrupted

Remember this lady? I didn't either.

Irena Sendler

Died: May 12, 2008 (aged 98)
Warsaw, Poland

During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an ulterior motive.

Irena smuggled Jewish infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried. She also carried a burlap sack in the back of her truck, for larger kids.

Irena kept a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto.

The soldiers, of course, wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.

During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants.

Ultimately, she was caught, however, and the Nazi's broke both of her legs and arms and beat her severely.

Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she had smuggled out, In a glass jar that she buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived and tried to reunite the family. Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.

In 2007 Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize.
She was not selected.
Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming.

Please share this to honor the sacrifice and courage of this fine human being who gave so much and saved so many.


http://www.irenasendler.org/

i did ! Check out post #34. She is a SHE-ro for sure! i saw an interview of her and she is a wonderful, humble and shy lady.

[The_Lady_Snow]

Mia Hamm, Olympic Medalist, Soccer bad ass and role model for women athletes!

[girl_dee]

[Kobi]

Fannie Lou Hamer was a Mississippi sharecropper in 1962 when she volunteered to register to vote, even though putting her life in danger. She endured harassment, eviction, arrest, & beatings to become a key organizer in Mississippi Freedom Summer 1964."I guess if I'd had any sense, I'd have been a little scared - but what was the point of being scared? The only thing they could do was kill me, and it kinda seemed like they'd been trying to do that a little bit at a time since I could remember."



Nellie Bly (real name Elizabeth Jane Cochran, above) was a 23-year-old journalist without a job when she walked into the offices of Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World in 1887 and was given the daunting assignment of exposing the horrors of the Blackwell’s Island Insane Asylum. She rehearsed feverishly. She played mad. “Undoubtedly demented… a hopeless case,” said one of the doctors who admitted her. But inside the asylum she chronicled the awful food and awful conditions that spurred reform.

[girl_dee]

Kobi, thank you for posting about "Nelly Bly"

HEre is here ordeal :

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/wom.../madhouse.html

[Kobi]

Mary Louise Guinan—better known as "Texas" Guinan (1884-1933). Getting her big start in Vaudeville in 1909, Mary drifted into film by 1917. First cast as a vamp, she quickly found her niche as a Western heroine and movie star, cranking out westerns for 6 years. In 1922, tiring of the movies, she made her way to New York where she became an icon of the night club scene, intimate with movie stars, partnering with gangsters, she became so notorious as to be barred from entering England or France.




1935 - Only black lawyer in the "twenty against the underworld team," Eunice Hunton Carter led the way for prostitution reform in New York. The underworld took in $12 million a year on prostitution alone during the Depression years, with Charles "Lucky" Luciano, New York's Mafia leader, in charge. The subsequent trial brought Luciano's conviction.It also brought Eunice Hunton Carter an appointment as chief of Dewey's Special Sessions Bureau, supervising more than 14,000 criminal cases each year.

[girl_dee]

i ran across this ad from the 1800's:


WHY ARE
THE MADAME MORA'S CORSETS

A MARVEL OF COMFORT AND ELEGANCE!





Try them and you will Find

WHY they need no breaking in, but feel easy at once.
WHY they are liked by Ladies of full figure.
WHY they do not break down over the hips, and
WHY the celebrated French curved band prevents any wrinkling or stretching at the sides.
WHY dressmakers delight in fitting dresses over them.
WHY merchants say they give better satisfaction than any others.
WHY they take pains to recommend them.

Their popularity has induced many imitations, which are frauds, high at any price. Buy only the genuine, stamped Madame Mora's. Sold by all leading dealers with this
GUARANTEE:
that if not perfectly satisfactory upon trial the money will be refunded.
L. KRAUS & CO., Manufacturers, Birmingham, Conn.

[Nadeest]

Thank you for posting that link, girl dee. It was most interesting, reading about what was happening there.

[Kobi]

Joyce Hilda Banda née Mtila (born 12 April 1950) is a Malawian politician who has been the president of Malawi since 7 April 2012. She is the founder and leader of the People's Party, created in 2011.

An educator and grassroots women's rights activist, she was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2006 to 2009 and vice-president of Malawi from May 2009 to April 2012.

Banda took office as president following the sudden death of President Bingu wa Mutharika. She is Malawi's fourth president and its first female president. Before becoming president, she served as the country's first female vice president.

She was a Member of Parliament and Minister for Gender, Children's Affairs and Community Services. Before her active career in politics she was the founder of the Joyce Banda Foundation, founder of the National Association of Business Women (NABW), Young Women Leaders Network and the Hunger Project.

Forbes named President Banda as the 71st most powerful woman in the world and the most powerful woman in Africa.

[Kobi]

Mercedes de Acosta (March 1, 1893 – May 9, 1968) was an American poet, playwright, and novelist. Four of de Acosta's plays were produced, and she published a novel and three volumes of poetry. She was professionally unsuccessful but is known for her many lesbian affairs with famous Broadway and Hollywood personalities and numerous friendships with prominent artists of the period.

She has been linked to the likes of actress Alla Nazimova, dancer Isadora Duncan, with actress Eva Le Gallienne, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Ona Munson, and Russian ballerina Tamara Platonovna Karsavina. Additional unsubstantiated rumors include Pola Negri, Eleonora Duse, Katherine Cornell, and Alice B. Toklas.

An ardent liberal, de Acosta was committed to several political causes. Concerned about the Spanish Civil War, which began in 1936, for example, she supported the loyalist Republican government that opposed the fascist Franco regime. A tireless advocate for women's rights, she wrote in her memoir, "I believed...in every form of independence for women and I was...an enrolled worker for women's suffrage."

Mercedes de Acosta was not hugely famous. Her contributions to the theater were minimal. Yet her story reveals a woman who stood up courageously for her beliefs and values. She seldom stumbled, even when her friends and peers turned against her. She lived her desire and paid the price. Her love for other women and her struggle for acceptance were certainly sources of her originality and fueled her writing. Perhaps the description of her as "that furious lesbian" should become an admirable attribute rather than a scornful slur.

[lusciouskiwi]

Meet the first known Native American woman engineer: Mary G. Ross (1908–2008), Mechanical Engineer. She was the first woman engineer at Lockheed’s Missiles Systems Division (1952). At Lockheed, Ross designed missiles and rockets, and developed systems for human space flight and interplanetary missions to Mars and Venus. After retiring, she began a second career as an advocate for women and Native Americans in engineering and mathematics.

For more about her: http://www.nmaie-newservice.com/v1i6/

[Kobi]

Jane Bolin was the first black woman judge in the United States. Born April 11, 1908 in Poughkeepsie, New York, Bolin always knew she wanted to be a lawyer. Her father, Gaius Bolin, the first African American graduate of Williams College, practiced law in Poughkeepsie. Bolin graduated from Wellesley College in 1928, and received her law degree from Yale University School of Law in 1931

[Kobi]

Frances Perkins was the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, and the first woman appointed to the U.S. Cabinet. As a loyal supporter of her friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped pull the labor movement into the New Deal coalition.

Frances Perkins, had an unenviable challenge: she had to be as capable, as fearless, as tactful, as politically astute as the other Washington politicians, in order to make it possible for other women to be accepted into the halls of power after her.

Perkins would have been famous simply by being the first woman cabinet member, but her legacy stems from her accomplishments. She was largely responsible for the U.S. adoption of social security, unemployment insurance, federal laws regulating child labor, and adoption of the federal minimum wage.

Perkins had a cool personality, which held her aloof from the crowd. Although her results indicate her great love of workers and lower-class groups, her Boston upbringing held her back from mingling freely and exhibiting personal affection. She was well-suited for the high-level efforts to effect sweeping reforms, but never caught the public's eye or its affection.

The Frances Perkins Building that is the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. was named in her honor in 1980.

Perkins remains a prominent alumna of Mount Holyoke College, whose Francis Perkins Program allows "women of non-traditional age" (i.e., age 24 or older) to complete a Bachelor of Arts degree. There are approximately 140 Francis Perkins scholars each year.

[Kobi]

1655 Elizabeth Key Grinstead, who was a slave in Virginia, won her freedom in a lawsuit based on her father's status as a free Englishman (her mother was a slave and her father was her mother's owner), helped by the fact that her father had baptized her as Christian in the Church of England.

However, in 1662 the Virginia House of Burgesses passed a law stating that any child born in the colony would follow the status of its mother, slave or free.

This was an overturn of a long held principle of English Common Law, whereby a child's status followed that of the father; it enabled white men who raped slave women to hide the mixed-race children born as a result and removed their responsibility to acknowledge, support, or emancipate those children.

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In March 1776, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John Adams, who was rounding up support in Congress for a declaration of independence, recommending- "In the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands."

Her husband wrote back, "As to your extraordinary code of laws, I cannot but laugh...Depend upon it, we know better than to repeal our masculine systems."

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Coverture (sometimes spelled couverture) was a legal doctrine whereby, upon marriage, a woman's legal rights were subsumed by those of her husband. Coverture was enshrined in the common law of England and the United States throughout most of the 19th century.

Under traditional English common law an adult unmarried woman was considered to have the legal status of feme sole, while a married woman had the status of feme covert.

A feme sole had the right to own property and make contracts in her own name.

A feme covert was not recognized as having legal rights and obligations distinct from those of her husband in most respects. Instead, through marriage a woman's existence was incorporated into that of her husband, so that she had very few recognized individual rights of her own.

As it has been pithily expressed, husband and wife were one person as far as the law was concerned, and that person was the husband. A married woman could not own property, sign legal documents or enter into a contract, obtain an education against her husband's wishes, or keep a salary for herself. If a wife was permitted to work, under the laws of coverture she was required to relinquish her wages to her husband. In certain cases, a woman did not have individual legal liability for her misdeeds, since it was legally assumed that she was acting under the orders of her husband, and generally a husband and wife were not allowed to testify either for or against each other. Judges and lawyers referred to the overall principle as "coverture".

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony's first legislative victory came in 1860, when the New York State Legislature passed the Married Woman's Property Act, which gave a wife the right to keep her earnings, own property, share custody of her children, and sue in a court of law. Women in other states began pressuring their legislatures to pass similar measures.
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[Kobi]

Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878 – 1972) Industrial Engineer. Patented the famous trash can with a foot-pedal lid-opener. First women elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Interviewed over 4,000 women while working at General Electrics to design the proper height for stoves, sinks, and other kitchen fixtures.


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Bettie Page: An American pinup model from the '50s who has been called the "Queen of Pinups." Why she's scandalous: Besides being one of the earliest Playmates of the Month for Playboy magazine (Miss January 1955), Bettie Page was famous for her fetish and sadomasochistic modeling. In fact, she's considered the first famous bondage model.

[Greyson]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Perhaps the description of her as "that furious lesbian" should become an admirable attribute rather than a scornful slur.

In my thinking, it is admirable in triplets. What is "furious" in your mind is passionate with action and commitment, in mine.

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by Greyson

In my thinking, it is admirable in triplets. What is "furious" in your mind is passionate with action and commitment, in mine.

From what little I have learned about her thus far, she was a fascinating woman and almost iconic by todays standards. She might have been a little ahead of her time tho.

[lusciouskiwi]

Sister Rosetta Tharpe – gospel music’s first superstar, the godmother of rock and roll, “the original soul sister,” reconstructionist – waiting for The Blues Train in Chorlton, 1963.

With her unique singing style and electrifying stage presence, Sister Rosetta has influenced a range of beloved musicians, including Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bonnie Raitt, and The Noisettes.

In 1998, the United States Postal Service honored Tharpe with a commemorative stamp. In 2003, a dozen contemporary musicians recorded the tribute album Shout, Sister, Shout!. In 2007, Tharpe was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.

[Kobi]

Zelda Wynn Valdes (June 28, 1905 – September 26, 2001) was an African-American fashion designer and costumer. In 1948, she opened her own shop on Broadway in New York City which was the first in the area to be owned by an African-American. Some of her clients included other notable black women of her era, including Dorothy Dandridge and Marian Anderson. She is also most famous for designing the original costumes for the Playboy Bunnies and the Dance Theater of Harlem.

[Kobi]

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852), born Augusta Ada Byron and now commonly known as Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician and writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Her notes on the engine include what is recognized as the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine. Because of this, she is often considered the world's first computer programmer.