WOW2 - June's Women Trailblazers and Events in OUR History

Welcome to WOW2!

WOW2 is a monthly sister blog to This Week in the War on Women. Here, we learn about and honor women of achievement, including many who’ve been ignored or marginalized in most of the history books, and also mark moments in women’s history. 

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. 

Celebrate Gay and Lesbian Pride Month

I had a different introduction already written for this month, before the terrible attack in Orlando. But in the face of unreasoning hatred and blind prejudice,  I think it’s even more important to celebrate Gay and Lesbian Pride Month, which commemorates the Stonewall Rebellion (see more below at June 28)

The backlash against recent gains by the LGBT community has been swift and fierce, and like all backlash, it empowers those embittered and unstable souls, who rage on the margins of reactionary movements, to pick up weapons and kill.

First, we must mourn the dead and comfort the survivors. Then we must fight to end civilian access to weapons of mass destruction. But through it all, we have to celebrate the wonderful rainbow of humanity in all its brilliant colors. Remember the 49. (Their names are here: www.dailykos.com/...)

June’s Women Trailblazers and Events in Our History

I don’t know if it’s the warmer weather, or the longer hours of daylight, but June has been a popular month for killing heretics and witches. Marguerite Porète was burned at the stake in France; Mary Dyer, Bridget Bishop and Margaret Jones were all hanged in New England; and much more recently, Mona Mahmudnizhad and nine other women were hanged in Iran because of their Bahá’í Faith.  

But we also have a number of human and civil rights activists and labor leaders who were born this month; and women who made contributions to mathematics, science and medicine; politicians and heads of state; authors, performers, and a pioneering filmmaker; pilots and astronauts; and historical events on every day of the month, including the founding of N.O.W. 

Not only are women capable of succeeding now, we’ve been overcoming obstacles and doing it all along!

• June 1, 1310 – Marguerite Porète, French mystic, burned at the stake for heresy in Paris, after a lengthy trial, when she refused to recant her beliefs or remove her book, The Mirror of Simple Souls, from circulation. She was condemned for saying that, in the state of contemplative love of God, the soul has no need of Masses or intercession by priests or even prayer.Her book was also suspect because it was written in Old French instead of Latin.

• June 1, 1660 –Mary Dyer, one of four executed Quakers known as the Boston Martyrs, hanged after repeatedly returning to the Massachusetts Bay Colony to protest the banning by Puritans of Quakers for their ‘heretical’ beliefs.

• June 1, 1797 –Abby Hadassah Smith born, suffragist, and women’s property rights advocate, subject of Abby Smith and her Cows written by her sister Julia Evelina Smith. The Town of Glastonbury raised taxes on the Smith sisters and two other widows, but  their male neighbors’ property values had not risen, so the sisters refused to pay the taxes without being granted a right to vote in town meetings. Seven of Abby’s cows were seized and sold for taxes (January 1874). When she protested this seizure of property, 15 acres of her pastureland were also seized for delinquent taxes (June 1874). The sisters took the town to court and ultimately won their case.

• June 1, 1868–Annie MacKinnon Fitch born, mathematician, Ph.D.,Cornell University (1894), dissertation: "Concomitant Binary Forms in Terms of the Roots." Wells College Professor of Mathematics, elected to American Mathematical Society (1897). "It seems to me worthwhile that some women are intelligent about things mathematical even if their own accomplishments are not great." Also member of American Association for  Advancement of Science and League of Women Voters.

• June 1, 1928 – Alberta Daisy Schenck Adams born, civil rights activist for equality of indigenous peoples before Alaska statehood. Instrumental in passage of the Alaska Civil Rights Act passed by the Territorial Legislature 10 years before the Brown vs. the Board of Education decision.

• June 1, 1993 –Connie Chung becomes the second woman to co-anchor the evening news, 17 years after Barbara Walters became the first in 1976

• June 1, 2015 –Ameenah Gurib-Fakim designated first woman president of Mauritius

• June 2, 1816 –Grace Aguilar born, British author of Jewish history and religion, novelist, known for her works The Spirit of Judaism and The Women of Israel 

• June 2, 1899 –Lotte Reiniger born, German animator/director, silhouette animation pioneer, The Adventures of Prince Achmed and The Magic Flute 

• June 2, 1907 –Dorothy West born, Harlem Renaissance author, The Living is Easy

• June 2, 1913 –Barbara Pym born, British author, Fellow of Royal Society of Literature, wrote social comedies like Excellent Women and A Glass of Blessings 

• June 2, 1953– Elizabeth II crowned queen of England at Westminster Abbey. 

• June 2, 1978 –Yi So-yeon born, scientist, first Korean woman astronaut in space

•  June 3, 1924  –Colleen Dewhurst  born, actress, winner of 4 Emmy Awards, 2 Tony Awards, 2 Obie Awards, and 2 Gemini awards. President of Actors' Equity Association (1985-91)

• June 3, 1916  – Gloria Martin born, socialist, feminist organizer who began Shakespeare & Martin Booksellers

• June 3, 1919  –Elizabeth Koontz born, first African-American president of the National Education Association and Director of the U.S. Women’s Bureau (1969-73)

• June 3, 1924  –Colleen Dewhurst  born, actress, winner of 4 Emmy Awards, 2 Tony Awards, 2 Obie Awards, and 2 Gemini awards. President of Actors' Equity Association (1985-91)

• June 3, 1972 –Sally Jane Priesand becomes the first woman ordained by a U.S. rabbinical seminary

• June 4, 1866 –Miina Sillanpää born, Finnish journalist and politician, Finland’s first woman minister, prominent in the workers’ movement

• June 4, 1913 –Emily Davison, militant suffragette, runs on to the track during the Epsom Derby, attempting to grab the bridle of King George V’s horse, Anmer. She is trampled, never regains consciousness and dies a few days later.

• June 4, 1917 –Laura E. Richards, Maude H. Elliott, and Florence Hall receive the first Pulitzer for Biography for their work about their mother Julia Ward Howe.

• June 4, 1919 – U.S. Congress approves 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees suffrage to women, and sends it to the U.S. states for ratification.

• June 4, 1934 –Dame Daphne Sheldrick born, Kenyan author and conservation activist, known for work raising orphan elephants and reintroducing them into the wild.

• June 4, 1966–Svenlana Jitomirskaya born in Ukraine, mathematician, awarded Satter Prize (2005) by American Mathematical Society for pioneering work on non-perturbative quasiperiodic localization.

• June 4, 1972 – Angela Davis is found not guilty of all charges of kidnapping, conspiracy and murder.

• June 5, 1836 –Miriam Leslie born, author, publisher and suffragist. When her husband died (1880), he left his publishing company to her, but it was $300,000 in the red, and his will was contested. She took over the business, reorganized, appointing herself president. The circulation of the Popular Monthly increased 200,000 in four months under her management. She had her name legally changed to Frank Leslie in June 1881 because of the ongoing legal battles. Most of her estate she bequeathed to Carrie Chapman Catt, to be used for the cause of women’s suffrage.

• June 5, 1851 – First installment of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published in The National Era an abolitionist newspaper.

• June 5, 1887 –Ruth Fulton Benedict born, anthropologist and folklorist, President of the American Anthropological Association, member of the American Folklore Society. Wrote Patterns of Culture, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword and"The Races of Mankind," a WWII pamphlet for the troops showing racism wasn’t grounded in scientific reality.

• June 5, 1915 –Denmark amends its constitution to allow women to vote

• June 5, 1949 –Orapin Chaiyakan becomes first woman elected to Thailand’s Parliament.

• June 6,1654 – Queen Christina of Sweden abdicates and converts to Catholicism

• June 6, 1826 –Sarah Parker Remond born, African-American abolitionist, lecturer, American Anti-Slavery Society agent in England during the Civil War, gathered support for anti-slavery cause and for the Union Army, later moved to Italy and became a physician. 

• June 6, 1841 –Eliza Orzeszkowa born, Polish author and Nobel Prize nominee, worked  to improve social conditions in Poland 
• June 6, 1898 –Dame Ninette de Valois born, Irish dancer/choreographer/director, founder of The Royal Ballet, and the Royal Ballet School in Great Britain

• June 6, 1925–Maxine Kumin born, American poet and author, Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (1981-82)

• June 6, 1939 –Marian Wright Edelman born, lawyer and activist, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund 

• June 7, 1831 –Amelia Edwards born, British journalist, author and Egyptologist, known for her book A Thousand Miles up the Nile which she wrote and illustrated

• June 7, 1861 –Alice Moore Hubbard born, feminist, educator and author; Justinian and Theodora and Woman’s Work.

• June 7, 1896 –Vivien Kellems born, industrialist/inventor, lecturer/political activist, co-inventor of a cable grip to pull and relieve strain on electrical cables. Advocate of voting reform, the Equal Rights Amendment, and abolishing income tax 

• June 7, 1899 –Carrie Nation, believing she was called by God, destroyed Dobson’s Saloon in Kiowa, Kansas with “smashers,” rocks wrapped in paper. A leader in the prohibition movement, she and other women smashed saloons with hatchets, in many “hatchetations” 

• June 7, 1909 –Virginia Apgar born, anesthesiologist, developed the Apgar score to assess the health of newborns, increasing infant survival rates. Pioneer in anesthesiology,  helped to raise the respect for the discipline; she warned use of some anesthetics during childbirth negatively affected infants. Also helped refocus March of Dimes organization from polio to birth defects.

• June 7, 1910 –Marion Wolcott born, documentary photographer during the Great Depression

• June 7, 1909 –Jessica Tandy born, award-winning actress, who appeared in over 100 stage productions and 60 films, from the 1920s to the 1990s, including “A Streetcar Named Desire” (play, 1948) and “Driving Miss Daisy” (film, 1989)

• June 7, 1917  –Gwendolyn Brooks born, poet, first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1950), and the first black woman to be named a Library of Congress Consultant in Poetry (1985—86)

• June 7, 1954–Louise Erdrich born, Ojibwe novelist/poet/children's book author, enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, a band of Anishinaabe  (aka Ojibwe and Chippewa)

• June 7, 1968 – Women sewing machinists at Ford Motor Company Limited’s Dagenham plant in London go out on strike. Their actions were a contributing factor to the passage of the U.S. Equal Pay Act of 1970.

• June 8, 1858–Charlotte Angas Scott born, mathematician, one of first English women to obtain a doctorate in mathematics. Thanks to rigorous home schooling, won scholarship (1876) to Hitchin College, first English college to offer a post secondary program. Competed in “Tripos” final examinations (1880) offered at Cambridge. Mastery of Tripos exams qualified her to receive a bachelor's degree with honors, previously only awarded to male Cambridge students. Ranked 8^th in test scores, but not allowed at awards ceremony, solely because she was fermale. Undeterred, got Bachelor of Science degree (1882), then doctorate (1885), both with First Class ratings, from University of London – Cambridge didn’t award degrees to women until 1948. Her snubbing led to eligibility of all resident Cambridge women to take examinations and have their names announced publicly with the men. Taught at Bryn Mawr, establishing their undergraduate and graduate programs in mathematics. Published An Introductory Account of Certain Modern Ideas and Methods in Plane Analytical Geometry (1894), still widely used. First and only woman on inaugural Council of American Mathematical Society (1894), became CAMS VP in 1905.

• June 8, 1860– Alicia Stott born, Irish-English mathematician known for her models of three-dimensional geometic figures, coined "polytope” for a convex solid in four (or more) dimensions

• June 8, 1900 –Estelle Griswold born, birth control advocate and pioneer, defendant in the Supreme Court case “Griswold v. Connecticut” which legalized contraception for married couples in 1965

• June 8, 1903 –Jessie Bernard born, sociologist, feminist critic and author of The Paradox of the Happy Marriage (1971), and The Female World (1981)

• June 8, 1903 – Marguerite Yourcenar born in Belgium, French novelist and essayist, Memoirs of Hadrian,  winner of the Prix Femina and the Erasmus Prize, the first woman elected to the Académie française, in 1980. The Yourcenar Prize is named in her honor.

• June 8, 1929 –Margaret Bondfield appointed Minister of Labour, first woman Cabinet minister in the U.K.

• June 9, 1836–Elizabeth Garrett Anderson born, first woman to complete medical qualifying exams and first woman physician in Great Britain (1870). After a 1859 lecture by Elizabeth Blackwell on "Medicine as a Profession for Ladies," entered training as a surgical nurse – the only woman in the class, she was banned from full participation in the operating room. Rejected by medical schools, finally admitted for private study for an apothecary license, fought to take the exam and get a license. Society of Apothecaries then amended their regulations so no more women could be licensed. Opened a dispensary in London for women and children in 1866. Learned French to apply for a medical degree from the Sorbonne, granted in 1870. Expanded her dispensary (1872), renamed New Hospital for Women and Children, only teaching hospital in Britain to offer courses for women. British Medical Association admitted Anderson (1873), only woman member for 19 years. A lecturer at London School for Medicine for Women (1874), later appointed the school’s dean (1883-1903). In 1890s, contributed funds toward founding of Johns Hopkins Medical School, on condition that the school admit women. Became a member of Central Committee of National Society for Women's Suffrage (1889). Retired from practice to Aldeburgh, elected its mayor (1908), first Englishwoman to hold that office.

• June 9, 1896 – Catherine Shouse born, philanthropist and political activist, benefactor of Wolf Trap Farm Park for the Performing Arts

• June 9, 1921 –Phyllis Wallace born, economist, first African-American woman full professor at the Sloan School of Management at MIT, pioneer in the study of sex and race discrimination in the workplace

• June 9, 1931–Phoebe Burnett Snetsinger born, birder and amateur ornithologist. After receiving a "terminal cancer" diagnosis, she became famous for her birding life list of 8,398 species (out of about 10,000 in the world) before her death, a world record for the time, often traveling to remote areas, some in politically unstable countries. Her copious field notes included distinctive subspecies.She was killed  in 1999, not by cancer, but when the vehicle overturned while she was traveling in Madagascar. Her memoir, Birding on Borrowed Time, was published posthumously (2003).

• June 9, 1949 –Georgia Neese Clark confirmed as first woman U.S. treasurer.

• June 10, 1692 –Bridget Bishop, first person hanged in the Salem Massachusetts witch trials.

• June 10, 1822–Lydia White Shattuck born, botanist, naturalist, and chemist, graduate of Mount Holyoke Seminary (1851), became a faculty member there where she remained until her retirement in 1888, just a few months before her death. She taught many science and math topics, including algebra, geometry, physiology, physics, astronomy and natural philosophy. She was internationally known as a botanist.

• June 10, 1922 –Judy Garland born, singer-actress, recipient of Academy and Grammy Awards for lifetime achievement, The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, A Star is Born (1954 version), Judgment at Nuremberg 

• June 10, 1963 – Equal Pay Act enacted: “To prohibit discrimination on account of sex in the payment of wages by employers engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce.” 

• June 10, 1965 –Susanne Albers born, German computer scientist and academic

• June 10, 1972–Radmilla Šekerinska born, Macedonian politician, Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia (first in 2004 and then in 2006)

• June 11, 1860 –Mary Jane Rathbun born, zoologist; working at Smithsonian Institution, she described more than a thousand new species, specializing in crustaceans

• June 11, 1880 –Jeannette Rankin born, politician, peace and women’s rights activist, first woman elected to U.S. House of Representatives, voted in Congress against declaration of war for both WWI and WWII, casting the only vote against WWII.

• June 11, 1913 – Women in Illinois celebrate passage of a state woman suffrage bill allowing women to vote in presidential elections

• June 11, 1962 –Vivian Malone, with fellow student James Hood, enroll in the University of Alabama as the first African American students at the school. Enrolling as a junior, Malone became the school’s first African American graduate in 1963.

• June 12, 1892 –Djuna Barnes born, artist and journalist, author of “Nightwood”

• June 12, 1899–Anni Albers born, textile artist and printmaker, had  first textile art show at  Museum of Modern Art (1949)

• June 12, 1948 – The Women’s Armed Services Integration Act is signed into law allowing women to serve as regular members of the United States armed forces. Prior to this they could only serve during times of war.

• June 13, 1752 –Fanny Burney born, aka Madame d’Arblay, English author and playwright, known for her journals and diaries, novels Evelina, Cecilia and Camilla, as well as a first person account of undergoing a mastectomy without anesthesia 

• June 13, 1937 –Eleanor Holmes Norton born, politician, delegate to U.S.Congress from the District of Columbia, first female chair of Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) (1971)

• June 13, 2012 – Women’s rights activist Manal al Sharif, writes a letter, signed by hundreds, urging Saudi King Abdullah to grant women the right to drive.

• June 14, 1811 –Harriet Beecher Stowe born, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin

• June 14, 1907 –Norway grants women the right to vote.

• June 14, 1952 –Pat Summitt born, coached Tennessee’s Women’s Basketball team, scored most wins in NCAA history for both men’s and women’s teams

• June 15, 1648 –Margaret Jones is hanged in Boston, becoming the first person executed for witchcraft in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

• June 15, 1901 –Ruth Cowan born, journalist, one of the first women military correspondents, president of the Women’s National Press Club

• June 15, 1916 –Olga Erteszek born, Polish immigrant, established the Olga Company in 1960, maker of women’s undergarments, one of the first companies to offer employee profit sharing

• June 15, 1920 –Amy Clampitt born, poet and author, her first poem was published when she was 58 years old, first book of poetry The Kingfisher (1983) at age 63

• June 15, 1921 –Bessie Coleman receives her pilot’s license after graduating from  the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale,.first African American woman to earn a pilot’s license and the first American of any race or gender to earn an international license.

• June 16, 1892 –Jennie Grossinger born in Galicia, came to America at age 8, highly successful hotelier and philanthropist, ran the family’s elegant resort, Grossinger’s, in the Catskills, the first resort to use artificial snow (1952), It circumvented the anti-Jewish restrictive covenants.

• June 16, 1895 –India Edwards born, Democratic Party political activist, served as Vice Chairman of the DNC from 1950 to 1956

• June 16, 1902 –Barbara McClintock born, biologist, pioneer in cytogenetics field, discovered transposons, ‘jumping genes,’ awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1983

• June 16, 1915 –Lucy Davidowicz born, Polish refugee, historian, prominent scholar of Jewish history and the Holocaust

• June 16, 1915 – Foundation of the British Women’s Institute (the W.I.), the largest U.K. women’s volunteer organization.

• June 16, 1963 –Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space when she pilots Vostok 6.

• June 16, 2016  –Jo Cox, Labour Member of British Parliament, known for her work on women's issues, was assassinated after leaving a meeting with constituents. 

• June 17, 1865 –Susan La Flesche Picotte born, of the Omaha tribe, first Native American physician (1889), fought tuberculosis and alcoholism on the reservation, campaigned for land rights and a reservation hospital (1913), later named for her

• June 17, 1873 –Susan B. Anthony’s trial starts for illegally voting in Rochester, New York on November 5, 1872

• June 17, 1908 –Trude Weiss-Rosmarin born, editor, writer, co-founder of the School of the Jewish Woman (1933), publisher of the “Jewish Spectator” (1936)

• June 17, 2015 – Loretta Lynch is sworn in as Attorney General of the United States. She was sworn in by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and used a Bible which once belonged to Frederick Douglass.

• June 18, 1873 –Susan B. Anthony is convicted of illegally voting in the 1872 presidential election and fined $100. She refuses to pay the fine.

• June 18, 1913 –Sylvia Porter born, economist, New York Post syndicated finance columnist and author, Money and You (1949)

• June 18, 1928 – Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean. She is a passenger in a plane piloted by Wilmer Stultz with Lou Gordon as mechanic.

• June 18, 1983 –Sally Ride becomes the first American woman astronaut as a crew member aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger.

• June 18, 1983 –Mona Mahmudnizhad together with nine other women, is sentenced to death and hanged in Iran because of her Bahá’í Faith.

• June 19, 1888 –Hilda Worthington Smith born, labor educator and social worker, first Director of Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers in Industry (1921)

• June 19,1940 –Shirley Muldowney born, race car driver, first woman to receive a National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) license to drive a Top Fuel dragster, won NHRA Top Fuel championship in 1977, 1980, and 1982, becoming first person to win two and then three Top Fuel titles.

• June 19, 1945 – Aung San Suu Kyi born, Burmese/Myanmar politician and activist, Chair of National League for Democracy, recipient of Rafto Prize, Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, and the Nobel Peace Prize

• June 19, 1953 –Ethel Rosenberg and her husband executed for treason, Sing Sing, NY

• June 20, 1837 –Queen Victoria succeeds to the British throne. She would reign for 63 years and 7 months

• June 20, 1893 –Lizzie Borden is acquitted of the murders of her father and stepmother. No one else is charged with the crime

• June 20, 1905  –Lillian Hellman born, playwright “The Children’s Hour”(1934), “The Little Foxes” (1939) and “Toys in the Attic” (1960); blacklisted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1952

• June 20, 1921 –Alice Robertson (R-Oklahoma) becomes first woman to chair the House of Representatives

• June 21, 1734 – Marie-Joseph Angélique, a slave in New France, is put to death, convicted of setting a fire that destroyed much of Old Montreal. Today there is no consensus on her guilt or innocence, but her testimony provides valuable insight into the condition of slavery in Canada at the time.

• June 21, 1912 –Mary McCarthy born, author and critic, her novel “The Group” remained on the New York Times Best Seller list for almost two years

• June 21, 1957 –Ellen Fairclough is sworn in as Canada’s first woman Cabinet Minister.

• June 21, 1997 – Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) plays its first game

• June 22, 1813 –Laura Secord walks 20 miles to warn Canadian troops of an impending American attack. Canada was aligned with Great Britain in the War of 1812.

• June 22, 1906 –Anne Morrow Lindbergh born, author, Gift From the Sea, Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead, first American woman to earn a first-class glider pilot’s license (1930), married to Charles Lindbergh 
• June 22, 1909 –Katherine Dunham born, dancer and choreographer, combined African movement and classical ballet
• June 22, 1929  –Rose Kushner born, journalist, challenged practice of radical mastectomy in the 1970s

• June 23, 1905 – “Mary Livingstone”Sadie Marks born, radio comedian, Jack Benny’s wife (1927) and showbiz partner (1932-1958). Her career was cut short by extreme bouts of stage fright.

• June 23, 1921 –Jeanne M. Holm born, first Air Force Major General (1973)

• June 23, 1940 –Wilma Rudolph born, track and field athlete, first woman runner to win 3 gold medals in a single Olympics (Rome 1960)

• June 23, 1960 – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves use of Searle’s combined oral contraceptive pill, Enovid, for use as a contraceptive. It was previously approved for treatment of menstrual disorders in 1957.

• June 23, 1972 –Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is signed by President Nixon, one of the most important legislation initiatives passed for women and girls since women won the vote in 1920. Title IX guarantees equal access and equal opportunity for females and males in almost all aspects of our educational systems

• June 24, 1893 –Suzanne LaFollette born. journalist, author, Concerning Women (1926) editor, radical libertarian feminist, managing editor of The Freeman (1950-53) and The National Review (1955-59)

• June 24, 1916 – Mary Pickford signs a two-year million dollar contract as an independent producer-performer with Paramount Pictures, which also entitled her to a cut of the profits from her films. It was the first million dollar contract in Hollywood history, and made Pickford Tinseltown’s highest paid star.

• June 25, 1678 –Venetian Elena Cornaro Piscopia is the first woman awarded a doctorate of philosophy when she graduates from the University of Padua.

• June 25, 1903 – Madame Marie Curie announces her discovery of radium

• June 25, 1910 – The United States Congress passes the Mann Act, which prohibits interstate transport of females for “immoral purposes”. The ambiguous language of “immorality” allowed it to be used to criminalize consensual sexual behavior  (amended since to apply to transport for the purpose of prostitution or illegal sexual acts.)

• June 25, 1923 –Dorothy Gilman born, author, Mrs. Pollifax mystery series

• June 25, 1947 – The Diary of Anne Frank is published.

• June 25, 1954 –Sonia Sotomayor born, lawyer and judge, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court 

• June 25, 1993 –Kim Campbell is chosen as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and becomes the first female Prime Minister of Canada.
• June 25, 1993 –Tansu Çiller takes office as the first woman Prime Minister of Turkey

• June 26, 1902 –Antonia Brico born, Dutch-American conductor, first woman to conduct Berlin Philharmonic (1930) and N.Y. Philharmonic (1938). Founder-conductor of the Women’s Symphony Orchestra (1934-39). When male musicians were admitted, it became the Brico Symphony Orchestra. Principle conductor of Boulder Philharmonic (1958-63).

• June 26, 1911 –“Babe” Didrikson Zaharias born, multi-talented athlete, outstanding in basketball, track and field, swimming, golf, and billiards, winner of 10 major women’s golf championships.

• June 26, 1922 –Carolyn Sherif born, social psychologist, pioneer researcher in group psychology, self-system, and gender identity

• June 26, 1948 –Shirley Jackson’s now-classic short story “The Lottery” is published in The New Yorker magazine causing cancelled subscriptions and prompting hate mail.

• June 27, 1693–"The Ladies' Mercury" published by John Dunton in London, the first women's magazine. It contained a "question and answer" column that became known as a "problem page"

•  June 27, 1880  –Helen Keller born blind and deaf, advocate for the disabled, lecturer and author, Three Days to See

• June 27, 1924–Lena Jones Wade Springs, women’s rights activist, becomes first woman placed in nomination for U.S. Vice President at 1924 Democratic National Convention, where she was serving as chair of the convention’s Credentials Committee.

• June 28, 1778 – Mary "Molly Pitcher" Hays McCauley, wife of an American artilleryman, carried water to soldiers during the Battle of Monmouth. Legend says she took her husband's place at his gun after he was overcome with heat.

• June 28, 1946 –Gilda Radner born, comedian, original cast member of “Saturday Night Live,” the Gilda Radner Hereditary Cancer Program at Cedars-Sinai founded in her memory.

• June 28, 1969 –TheStonewall Rebellion, sparked by a police raid on the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, NYC, which led to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights in the U.S. On June 28, 1970, the first Gay Pride marches took place in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago on the Stonewall anniversary. The Stonewall is now listed as a National Historic Landmark.

• June 28, 1976– The first women entered the U.S. Air Force Academy. 

• June 28, 2000– U.S. Supreme Court declared a Nebraska law outlawing "partial birth abortions"was unconstitutional. 30 other states had similar laws at the time.

• June 29, 1897 –Kazue Togasaki born, survivor of 1906 San Francisco earthquake, physician who pioneered a place in American medicine for women of Japanese ancestry, one of the few physicians ( general practitioner and obstetrician) allowed to practice medicine in the Japanese Interment Camps during World War II

• June 29, 1900 –Margaret Grierson born, archivist, professor, founder and first director of Sophia Smith Collection, a women’s history archive, at Smith College. 

• June 29, 1974 –Isabel Perón is sworn in as first female President of Argentina, after the death of her husband, Juan Peron, and serves from 1974 to March, 1976.

• June 30, 1883 –Dorothy Tilly born, civil rights activist, worked to reform southern race relations

• June 30, 1899 – Margaret Byrd Rawson born, educator and researcher, identified and treated reading disorders including dyslexia

• June 30, 1903 –Glenna Collett Vare born, first U.S. Women’s Golf Champion (1922). Since 1953, the Vare Trophy has been awarded to the LPGA golfer with the lowest average strokes per round in professional tour events.

•  June 30, 1917 –Lena Horne born, singer. actress, civil rights activist, first African American woman to sign long-term Hollywood contract, fought for contractual guarantees that African Americans could attend her shows, Worked with Eleanor Roosevelt for passage of anti-lynching laws. During WWII, U.S. Army refused to allow integrated audiences, so she appeared before a mixed audience of black U.S. soldiers and white German POWs. Seeing black soldiers had been seated in the back rows, she walked off the stage to where the black troops were seated and performed with the Germans behind her. Blacklisted in 1950s for her affiliations with “communist-backed” groups. She was at an NAACP rally with Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, just days before Evers was assassinated. She spoke and performed on behalf of the NAACP, SNCC, and the National Council of Negro Women.

• June 30, 1936 –Assia Djebar born, pseudonym of Fatima-Zohra Imalayen, Algerian author, translator, feminist and filmmaker, one of North Africa’s most influential writers, 1996 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, (for body of work), Yourcenar Prize (see June 8 above!), and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade

• June 30, 1940 –Patricia “Pat” Schroeder born, American politician, first woman to represent Colorado in U.S. House of Representatives, serving 12 terms. First woman to serve on the House Armed Services Committee. A tireless advocate on work-family issues, she was a prime mover behind the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 and the 1985 Military Family Act.

• June 30, 1966 – 20 women packed into Betty Friedan’s hotel room in Washington D.C. during the Conference of Commissions on the Status of Women. Friedan wrote N.O.W. on a paper napkin, and they formed the National Organization for Women, with an initial budget of $135.