WOW2: MAY'S Women Trailblazers and Events in OUR History - 2017

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 has posted, so be sure to go there next and catch up on the latest dispatches from the frontlines: www.dailykos.com/...

The earliest event on this month’s list took place in 1373 — that’s 644 years ago.  It’s the date of the writing of the first book in English known to be penned by a woman (see May 13th).

Most of the history here at WOW2 is from the late18th through 20th centuries, when a significant number of women learned to read and write. There’s just a lot more source material from the past 250 years — letters, diaries, fiction and non-fiction, written by women. Even with all the budget cuts to America’s public schools, and more and more people not reading any kind of books, or doing their reading on electronic devices, 624 million print books were sold in 2016, and more of them were bought by women than by men. The most likely American to read a book — in any format — is a black woman who's been to college.

So it seems clear that the publishing industry is really lagging behind — they keep putting out more books written by men than books by women, ignoring that their most likely customer is a woman, and she’s probably African-American.

One of the worst gaps is in the history section.  According to an article written by Andrew Kahn and Rebecca Onion for Slate:  

We examined a set of 614 works of popular history from 80 houses, which either published books we defined as trade history or landed books we defined as trade history on the New York Times Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction best-seller list in 2015. . .We found that 75.8 percent of the total titles had male authors. Interestingly, the effect was slightly less pronounced among titles that made the New York Times best-seller list—but only slightly (70.4 percent of those authors were male). University press and trade imprints had roughly the same proportion of male to female authors. The persistence of this imbalance, even among authors writing for presses that publish more academics, seems to reflect a continuing gender disparity among academic historians. In 2010, Robert Townsend of the American Historical Association wrote that among four-year college and university history faculty surveyed in 2007, only 35 percent were women.

www.slate.com/...

And the gender disparity continues in the choice of which historical figures get written about:

Biographies represented 21 percent of the total number of books published. Their subjects were 71.7 percent male, with the list dominated by big names like Richard Nixon, Winston Churchill, and Napoleon Bonaparte. While some of the biographies of men were written by women (13 percent), female authors were far more likely than male writers to write biographies about women. Sixty-nine percent of female biography authors wrote about female subjects, and there was a huge gap between this number and the 6 percent of male biography authors who wrote about women. Clearly, there is some relationship between the gender of authors of biographies and the gender of their subjects.

WOW2 proves every month that there are dozens of women who would be great subjects for biographies, and many of them are practically unknown —  very little has been published about most of them.

Historians are jostling each other in a crowded field, where the number of PhD slots are falling, and that means fewer professorships will be available in the future ( www.insidehighered.com/... )

Maybe this year’s crop of budding historians should be asking themselves just how many books about Wars, World or otherwise, and Old White Guys, does America really need?

MAY’S Women Trailblazers and Events in OUR History

• May 1, 1751– Judith Sargent Murray born, poet, playwright, essayist and women’s rights advocate, known for her essay “On the Equality of the Sexes” published in 1790 in Massachusetts Magazine

• May 1(?), 1837– “Mother” Jones – Mary Harris Jones – born in Ireland,  American labor leader and organizer, once labeled "the most dangerous woman in America" by a U.S. district attorney, fiery orator and fearless organizer for mine workers, also helped railway, mill and sweatshop workers, advocate for ending child labor, better working conditions, and the rights of minority and immigrant workers. Staged parades with children carrying signs: "We Want to Go to School and Not to the Mines."

• May 1, 1852–‘Calamity Jane’ born as Martha Jane Cannary, professional scout for U.S. Army, sharpshooter, performer in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show

• May 1, 1950 –Gwendolyn Brooks becomes 1st African-American woman to receive Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1950) for Annie Allen. She would go on to be named a Library of Congress Consultant in Poetry  (later called Poet Laureate) in 1985

• May 1, 2009 –Same-sex marriage is legalized in Sweden

• May 2, 1559– John Knox returns to Scotland from Geneva to lead the Scottish Reformation, and denounce womankind

• May 2, 1878– Nannie Helen Burroughs born, African-American educator, lecturer, civil rights activist, publisher and businesswoman, gave speech in 1900 at the National Baptist Convention,  "How the Sisters Are Hindered from Helping.” Founder of National Training School for Women and Girls in Washington D.C. which offered liberal arts and industrial training.

• May 2, 1885 – Good Housekeeping magazine goes on sale for the first time. In 1909, they established the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Products that bear the seal are tested by the Good Housekeeping Research Institute

• May 2, 1932–Pearl S. Buck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Literature for The Good Earth

• May 2, 1999– Mireya Moscoso becomes the first woman elected President of Panama. She oversees the transition of control of the Panama Canal from the U.S. to Panama

• May 3, 1825– Laura Matilda Towne born, American abolitionist, physician and educator, relocated to Sea Islands of South Carolina in 1862 to provide medical care and education to newly freed slaves, founded the Penn school

• May 3, 1894 – Phyllis Greenacres born, psychoanalyst, interest in physical maturation and psychological development in children led to study of gifted infants, wrote “Swift and Carroll” (1955), a biographical study in applied analysis

• May 3, 1898 – Septima Poinsette Clark born, educator, civil rights activist, developed literacy and citizenship workshops to help African Americans gain voting rights, called “The Grandmother of the Civil Rights Movement”

• May 3, 1898–Golda Meir born in Ukraine, moved with family to the U.S. in 1906; Israeli educator and politician, 4th Prime Minister of Israel (1969-1974)

• May 3, 1901 – Estelle Massey Osborne born, 1st African-American nurse to earn a master’s degree, integrated the American Nurses Association and served on ANA board of directors (1948-52)

• May 3, 1912 – May Sarton born, author, poet, and memoirist, published in “Poetry” magazine at 17 years of age, also taught at several universities including Harvard and Wellesley. Books include A Durable Fire, Journal of a Solitude, and Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing, published in 1965, groundbreaking novel featuring  a positive portrayal of a central lesbian character. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences gives an annual ‘Poetry Prize in Honor of May Sarton’

• May 3, 1917–Betty Comden born, American screenwriter and librettist  

• May 3, 1933– Nellie Tayloe Ross appointed the director of the U.S. Mint, the 1st woman to hold the position, serves until her retirement in 1953

• May 3, 1937– Nélida Piñon born, Brazilian author, won the Walmap Prize, 1970, for her historical novel, Fundador (Founders), known for A Republica dos Sonhos (The Republic of Dreams), President of Academia Brasileira de Letras (Brazilian Academy of Letters)

• May 3, 1937– Margaret Mitchell wins the Pulitzer Prize for her novel Gone with the Wind

• May 3, 1960– The Anne Frank House opens in Amsterdam, Netherlands

• May 3, 1979–Margaret Thatcher forms her government as the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

• May 4, 1749–Charlotte Turner Smith born, English poet and novelist, instrumental in a revival of the sonnet and establishing the conventions of Gothic fiction; forced into marriage at 15 by her father, she spent many unhappy years married to a violent drunkard. His extravagance landed them in debtors’ prison, where she began her writing career in order to pay their way out. Eventually she left him, as his increasing rages made her fear for her life

• May 4, 1898– Captain Joy Bright Hancock, American naval officer,veteran of both WWI and WWII

• May 4, 1907– Mary Hallaren born, director of U.S. women’s Army Corps, 1st woman to officially join US Army, recipient of Legion of Merit with Oak Leaf Cluster, Bronze Star and Army Commendation Medal, elected to the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1996.

• May 4, 1916– Jane Jacobs born, journalist, author, “slum clearance” opponent, wrote The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) showing how urban renewal did not address the needs of urban dwellers, introduced  "eyes on the street" and “social capital” concepts, criticized as a “housewife” and “crazy dame” in male-dominated field of urban planning

• May 4, 1929– Audrey Hepburn, born in Belgium, British-American actress, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, promoted immunization campaigns to end measles, tuberculosis, tetanus, whooping cough, diphtheria and polio; clean water and school building projects; testified before U.S. Congress; and launched UNICEF's State of the World's Children reports

• May 4, 1930– Roberta Peters born, American coloratura soprano, Metropolitan Opera star, recipient of the National Medal of Arts

• May 5, 1809–Mary Dixon Kies is awarded a U.S. patent, for a technique of weaving straw with silk and thread which speeded up hat-making, the 1st woman to apply to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in her own name. Prior to 1790, only men could author a patent. The Patent Act of 1790 opened the door for any male or female to protect his or her invention with a patent. However, in many states women could not legally own property or sign contracts independent of their husbands

• May 5, 1824 –Lucy Larcom born, American poet and author, editor of Our Young Folks magazine, writes songs, poems and letters describing life working in the cotton mills, and the book A New England Girlhood

• May 5, 1864 – ‘Nellie Bly’ born as Elizabeth Seaman, investigative journalist, pioneer in investigative journalism, writing exposés of mental asylums, prisons, tenement housing, baby-trafficking, sweatshop conditions and other ignored social problems, set a record for circling the world in 72 days (1890)

• May 5, 1882– Sylvia Pankhurst born, British suffragist and socialist activist, founder of the East London Federation of Suffragettes which eventually became the Workers’ Socialist Federation, founder of the newspaper Workers’ Dreadnought

• May 5, 1892 – Dorothy Annie Elizabeth Garrod born, English archaeologist, excavated Near East sites (1929-34), including Mount Carmel in Palestine, which put Near Eastern prehistory on the map. Mount Carmel cave deposits spanned 200,000 years of human occupation, over 92,000 stone tools were found, and human fossils, including a female Neanderthal skeleton dated c. 110,000 BC, the first found outside Europe, which added greatly to study of human evolution. Leading Paleolithic authority; 1st woman to receive professorship at University of Cambridge (1939-52)

• May 5, 1911–Pritilata Waddedar born, Bengali educator and revolutionary nationalist, teacher and headmistress at Nandankanan Aparnacharan School in Chittagong; she commits suicide rather than be arrested by British authorities after an attack on a European club

• May 5, 1921– Del Martin born, feminist and gay rights activist; co-founder with partner Phyllis Lyon of Daughters of Bilitis, 1^st U.S. lesbian social and political organization, acted as president and editor of The Ladder, helped form Council on Religion and the Homosexual, and served in White House Conference on Aging. She and Lyon were married in 2008

• May 5, 1922 –Irene Gut Opdyke born, Polish nurse who aids Jews persecuted by the Nazis during WWII

• May 5, 1927–Sylvia Fedoruk born, Canadian physicist,politician and athlete, Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan, first woman member of the Atomic Energy Control Board of Canada, former president of the Canadian Ladies Curling Association, member of the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame

• May 5, 1938– Dr. Dorothy H. Andersen presents results of her medical research identifying the disease cystic fibrosis at a meeting of the American Pediatric Association

• May 6, 1829–Phebe Hanaford born, author, minister, abolitionist and feminist; wrote Life of Abraham Lincoln, 1st Lincoln biography published after his death

• May 6, 1831 –Mary Clemmer Ames born, American journalist and author; Ten Years in Washington and A Memorial of Alice and Phoebe Cary 

• May 6, 1880– Winifred Brunton born, British Egyptologist, painter and illustrator, her portraits of Egyptian pharaohs published in Kings and Queens of Ancient Egypt (1926)

• May 6, 1882– Ann Haven Morgan born, zoologist and ecologist, Ph.D. from Cornell University, Mount Holyoke College zoology department chair (1916 – 1947)

• May 6, 1926–Marguerite Piazza born, American operatic soprano and philanthropist; long-time supporter of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and several other charities

• May 6, 1947 –Martha Nussbaum born, American philosopher, Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago IL

• May 6, 1981– Maya Ying Lin’s design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is selected from 1,421 other entries

• May 6, 2013 – Amanda Berry escapes with her daughter and contacts police. Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, who all went missing in early 2000s, were believed dead. Ariel Castro found guilty of keeping the women captive in his Cleveland, Ohio, home, sentenced to life plus 1,000 years in prison without parole, committed suicide in his cell.

• May 6–12 — National Nurses Week begins each year on May 6 and ends on May 12.  Since 1965, the International Council of Nurses (ICN) has celebrated "International Nurse Day" on May 12, the birthday of Florence Nightingale.  In 1990, the American Nurses Association (ANA) expanded the recognition of nurses to a week-long celebration, declaring May 6–12, 1991, as "National Nurses Week."

• May 6, 2016 — United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon announces the establishment of the UN Zika Response Multi-Partner Trust Fund (MPTF) to finance critical unfunded priority responses to the Zika outbreak.

• May 7, 1429– Joan d’Arc, "The Maid of Orléans" leads final charge ending Siege of Orléans, reportedly after pulling an arrow from her own shoulder. The victory is a turning point in 100 Years’ War.

• May 7, 1748–Olympe de Gouges born,French playwright, philosopher, feminist and abolitionist; Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen (1791); executed during the Reign of Terror for attacking the Revolutionary government

• May 7, 1818– Juliet Opie Hopkins born, nurse, “Florence Nightingale of the South”, during Civil War coordinated civilian medical aid and donation efforts

• Mary 7, 1845– Mary Eliza Mahoney born, 1st African American professionally trained nurse in the U.S., civil rights and women’s rights activist

• May 7, 1927– Ruth Prawer Jhabvala CBE, born in Germany to Jewish parents; her family among the last to escape from the Nazi regime in 1939, emigrating to Britain; she then lived in India with her husband from 1951 until 1975, when she moved to New York after his death; British-American novelist and screenwriter; recipient of the 1975 Booker Prize for Heat and Dust and two Academy Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay for Howard’s End and A Room With a View

May 7, 1940 –Angela O. Carter born, English novelist, journalist, poet and feminist; Nights at the Circus, The Magic Toyshop, Wise Children

• May 8, 1865– Mary Harris Thompson opens Chicago Hospital for Women and Children. Neither of the 2 existing hospitals in Chicago allowed women on staff, and one didn’t allow women patients. Thompson initially opened the hospital to treat Civil War widows and orphans.

• May 8, 1910 – Mary Lou Williams born, jazz composer, became piano chair and writer for Benny Goodman (1931), wrote “The Zodiac Suite” for jazz ensemble, played it at New York’s Town Hall (1945) — starting with ‘Leo’ some selections from the suite:

• May 8, 1927 – Nora Marks Dauenhauer born, Tlinglit poet, short-story writer and scholar of the language and traditions of the Tlingit nation in Alaska. Won an American Book Award for Russians in Tlingit America: The Battles of Sitka, 1802 And 1804

• May 8, 1929–Girija Devi born, Indian classical singer, known for the genre thumri, on the faculty of ITC Sangeet Research Academy and Banaras Hindu University

• May 8, 1946— Estonian schoolgirls Aili Jõgi (age14) and Ageeda Paavel (age 15) blow up a wooden Soviet memorial erected in front of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn, protesting the Soviet occupation authorities’ systematic destruction of memorials to the fallen in the 1918-1920 Estonian War of Independence, even the gravestones of the Tallinn Military Cemetery; the girls are later apprehended, and sent to forced-labor camps in the USSR, but are finally released after years of hardship and able to return home. In 1998, they become the only women awarded the Order of the Cross of the Eagle, as “freedom fighters of military merit”

• May 8, 1999–Nancy Macy becomes the first female cadet to graduate from The Citadel, the formerly all-male military school in South Carolina

• May 8, 2013– The first World Ovarian Cancer Day: Ovarian cancer is responsible for 140,000 deaths each year;  Statistics show 45% of women with ovarian cancer are likely to survive for five years compared to about 89% of women with breast cancer

• May 9, 1865–Elizabeth Garver Jordan born, American journalist,author, editor, and suffragist, editor of Harper’s Bazaar

• May 9, 1874 –Lilian Baylis born, English theatrical manager, founder of the Old Vic theatre, famed for its Shakespearean productions 

• May 9,1906 – Sarah Boyle born, Virginia writer, supported immediate integration in 1962 with “The Desegregated Heart,” was arrested and jailed in St. Augustine (1964), fought against age discrimination in the 1970s and 80s

• May 9, 1906 – Eleanor Estes born, American children’s author-illustrator; TheHundred Dresses

• May 9, 1917 – Fay Kanin born, screenwriter, television producer, won Emmy Awards for “Tell Me Where It Hurts” (1974) and for producing “Friendly Fire” with Carol Burnett (1979), second female president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (1979-83)

• May 9, 1921–Sophie Scholl born, German student-activist , member of the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany, convicted of high treason for distributing anti-war leaflets and executed

• May 9, 1921–Mona Van Duyn born, American poet; Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (1992); National Book Award for Poetry

• May 9, 1953–Eleanor Roosevelt lobbies Congress for a National Teachers’ Day

• May 9, 1960 – Food and Drug Administration approves first pill for contraceptive use in birth control, called Envoid, now used by more than 100 million women worldwide.

• May 10, 1872 – Victoria Woodhull nominated as 1st woman U.S. presidential candidate, for the Equal Rights Party

• May 10, 1897– Margaret Mahler born, psychoanalyst, developed the separation-individuation theory of child development and Tripartite Treatment Model in which the mother participates in treatment of the child

• May 10, 1898–Ariel Durant born in Russia, American historian and co-author with her husband of the eleven volume The Story of Civilization

• May 10, 1900 – Cecilia Helena Payne-Gaposchkin born in England, American astronomer, 1st to apply laws of atomic physics to study of temperature and density of stellar bodies, 1st to posit most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and helium. Awarded Harvard College Observatory Fellowship (1923). Her doctoral thesis (1925) asserted the sun's spectrum consistent with composition of 99% hydrogen with helium, and just 1% iron, refuting the accepted previous calculation. 1st Ph.D. in astronomy from Radcliffe College for her thesis, since Harvard didn’t grant doctoral degrees to women. Reassigned by observatory director from her work on stellar spectra, to star photometry using photographic plates, even though more accurate brightness measurements were being made using photoelectric instruments, a waste of her abilities. 20 years later, her original theory confirmed by Fred Hoyle. Named lecturer in astronomy in 1938, but the courses she taught weren’t listed in Harvard’s catalog until after WWII. In 1956 finally appointed full professor at Harvard, then became astronomy department chair (retired 1966)

• May 10, 1911 –Bel Kaufman born, American author and educator,known for her novel Up the Down Staircase

• May 10, 1927 –Nayantara Sahgal born, Indian author, one of thefirst women from India to receive wide recognition for her works in English

• May 10, 1954 – Diane E. Benson born, of Norwegian ancestry on her father's side and Tlingit ancestry on her mother's side, her tribal identity is T'akdeintaan (Sea Tern crest of the Raven Moiety) and of the Tax’ Hit (Snail House); politician, inspirational speaker, writer and dramatist. In 2010, was Democratic candidate for Lt. Governor of Alaska, but lost in the general election

• May 10, 2010 – President Obama nominates Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court

• May 11, 1771–Laskarina Bouboulina born, Greek naval commander, heroine of the Greek War of Independence in 1821; when her second husband was killed fighting Algerian pirates, she took over his fortune and his trading business, and built four more ships, including the large warship Agamemnon. When the Turks tried to confiscate her property because her husband had fought with the Russians in the Turko-Russian wars, she met with Russian Ambassador Pavel Stroganov, and gained Russian protection. TheAgamemnonwas one of the largest warships in the hands of Greek rebels, and she spent much of her fortune on arms and food for the men under her command, taking part in naval blockades and capturing cities held by the Turks, including Tripolis, where she saved most of the female members of the sultan’s household. After her death, Emperor Alexander I of Russia made her an honorary Admiral of the Imperial Russian Navy, making her the only woman in world naval history to hold that rank until the 20^thCentury

• May 11, 1817–Fanny Cerrito born, Italian prima ballerina and choreographer of Rosida;one of the few women in the 19^thCentury to be acclaimed as a choreographer

• May 11, 1875 – Harriet Quimby born, 1st American woman to become a licensed airplane pilot (1911), first woman to fly across the English Channel (1912)

• May 11, 1884–Alma Gluck born in Romania, American operatic soprano and concert singer, one of the most famous singers of her generation in the world

• May 11, 1894 – Martha Graham born, 70 year career as a modern dance innovator and choreographer, founder of oldest dance company in the U.S.; first dancer to perform at the White House; recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom

• May 11, 1905–Catherine Bauer Wurster born, influential American urban planner, author and public housing advocate; Modern Housing

• May 11, 1906– Ethel Weed  born, U.S.  Women’s Army Corp. Lieutenant and Women’s Information Officer, promoted women’s rights and suffrage in post-WWII Japan. Pressed tirelessly for revisions to the Japanese Civil Code of 1898, especially to advance women’s equality. In the document’s own words: “This Code must be construed in accordance with honoring the dignity of individuals and the essential equality of both sexes.”

• May 11, 1907–Rose Ausländer born in Cernauti, Austria-Hungary, German-American Jewish poet who wrote in both German and English, editor of U.S. German language newspaper Westlicher Herold; most copies of her first books of poems were destroyed when the Nazis occupied Cernauti in 1941

• May 11, 1929 – Annie Webb Blanton founds Delta Kappa Gamma Society International in Austin, Texas, to improve opportunities for women educators and promote excellence in education
• May 11, 1936–Carla Bley born, American jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader; composed jazz opera Escalator Over the Hill

• May 12, 1820 –Florence Nightingale born, celebrated English reformer, founder of modern nursing, and statistician. Ran female nursing staff in the Crimean War; established world’s first secular nursing school at St Thomas' Hospital in London (1860). The Nightingale Pledge taken by new nurses named in her honor, Advocate for improving British healthcare and hunger relief in India, campaigned to reform harsh prostitution laws biased against women, and to expand acceptable forms of female participation in the workforce. Also helped popularize graphical presentation of statistical data

• May 12, 1849–Matilda Coxe Stevenson born, American ethnologist, first president of the Women’s Anthropological Society of America

• May 12, 1862–Louise Phelps Kellogg born, American historian, author and educator; a leading authority on the French and British eras in the Great Lakes region;The British Regime in Wisconsin and the Northwest

• May 12, 1907 – Katharine Hepburn born, actor, performed more than 60 years, won 4 best actress Academy Awards, advocate for women’s rights and separation of church and state, and staunch Planned Parenthood supporter.

• May 12, 1900–Mildred H McAfee born, American educator and first director of the WAVES in the United States Navy, dean of women at Centre College and Oberlin College, president of Wellesley College

• May 12, 1910– Dorothy Hodgkin born, British biochemist; 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, improved X-ray crystallography, confirmed structure of penicillin and discovered the structure of vitamin B12 and insulin

• May 12, 1968 – A 12-block long Mother’s Day march of “welfare mothers” is held in Washington, D.C., led by Coretta Scott King accompanied by Ethel Kennedy

• May 13, 1373 – English anchoress Julian of Norwich has visions which are later transcribed in her Revelations of Divine Love (circa 1395), the first book in English known to be written by a woman
• May 13, 1847– Linda Gilbert born, social reformer, succeeded in placing libraries in 22 prisons in six states, and finding employment for 6,000 ex-convicts

• May 13, 1850– Ellen Spencer Mussey born, lawyer, educator and women’s rights advocate. With Emma Gillett, opened the first ‘Woman's Law Class’ (1896). They began with three students, but the program quickly expanded, with several prominent Washington D.C. attorneys providing assistance. When Columbian College refused a request by Mussey and Gillett to take on the women they had educated for their final year of education — on grounds that "women did not have the mentality for law"— they established a co-educational law school specifically open to women (1898), the Washington College of Law, the first law school in the world founded by women

• May 13, 1888– Inge Lehmann born, Danish seismologist and geophysicist, discovered the Earth’s inner core; longest-lived woman scientist, over 104 years old at her time of death

• May 13, 1907– Daphne du Maurier born, British author and playwright, wrote novels including Rebecca and Jamaica Inn

• May 13, 1995– Alison Hargreaves becomes first woman to reach the summit Everest without oxygen or help of sherpas

• May 14, 1878–Mary Wilhelmine Williams born, American historian, educator, feminist and pacifist, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom member, founder of the California chapter of the National Women’s Party, specialized in Latin America, honored for her work to promote understanding between countries

• May 14, 1890 – Margaret Naumburg born, progressive educator, founded the Walden School in New York, pioneer of art therapy, developed Dynamically Oriented Art Therapy

• May 14, 1921–Florence Allen becomes the first woman judge to sentence a man to death, in Ohio: gangster Frank Motto, convicted of murdering two men during a robbery – she went on to be the first woman to serve on a state supreme court, and one of the first two women appointed as U.S. federal judges

• May 14, 1925– Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway is published

• May 14, 1925–Patrice Munsel born, American coloratura soprano, youngest singer to star at the Metropolitan Opera, at age 17

• May 14, 1943–Tania León born, Cuban-born American composer, conductor and educator, recipient of awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Endowment for the Arts among others

• May 14, 1969–Contraception and abortion are legalized in Canada

• May 15, 1857 – Williamina Paton Fleming born in Scotland, pioneering astronomer in classification of stellar spectra, 1st to discover “white dwarf” stars. After devising her system of classifying stars by their spectra, she cataloged over 10,000 stars in the next 9 years. One of the women “Harvard computers”

• May 15, 1869–Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form National Woman Suffrage Association

• May 15, 1890– Katherine Anne Porter born, American journalist, author and leftist political activist, recipient of the both the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Awardfor The Collected Stories in 1965;Ship of Fools 

• May 15, 1901–Dorothy Hansine Andersen born, American physician and educator, first person to identify cystic fibrosis, first American physician to describe it, inductee into the National Women’s Hall of Fame

• May 15, 1903 – Maria Reiche born in Germany, Peruvian mathematician and archaeologist, for 50 years the "Lady of the Nazca Lines," a series of desert ground drawings over 1,000 years old, near Nazcain in southern Peru. She investigated and protected these etchings of animals and geometric patterns, which are hundreds of feet long, and cover 60 km (35 mi) of desert

• May 15, 1916–Catherine East born, American feminist, worker for Civil Service Commission, and the first Presidential Advisory Commission on the Status of Women; uses her access to official data to disprove claims of opponents to feminist-advocated legislation, and helps reconcile differences between labor activists and feminists; Legislative Director of the National Women’s Political Caucus; Betty Friedan calls her “the midwife of the contemporary women’s movement”

• May 15, 1930 –Grace Ogot born, Kenyan nurse, author, journalist, politician and diplomat, delegate to the UN and UNESCO, helped found the Writers’ Association of Kenya, Member of Parliament and cabinet minister; writes in both English and her native language of Luo

• May 15, 1937 – Madeline Albright Albright born in Czechoslovakia, American politician, diplomat and academic, first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State (1997-2001), recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom

• May 15, 1938–Diane Nash born, American activist and strategist in the civil rights movement, involved in the Freedom riders, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Selma Voting Rights movement

• May 15, 1942– Bill creating U.S. Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) is signed into law

• May 15, 1970– Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington are appointed as first female United States Army Generals

• May 15, 1991– Édith Cresson of the French Socialist Party, becomes France’s first female prime minister

• May 16, 1718 – Maria Gaetana Agnesi born, child prodigy, the “Witch of Agnesi,” Italian mathematician, linguist, and philosopher, wrote about the curve, author of 1st book dealing with both integral and differential calculus. In 1750, appointed chair of mathematics and natural philosophy at Bologna Academy of Sciences, incredible accomplishment for any mid-eighteenth century woman, when  few universities in Europe allowed women to study, let alone hold teaching positions. Later in life, Agnesi, a deeply religious woman, joined a nunnery, devoting her final years to working with the poor.

• May 16, 1804– Elizabeth Palmer Peabody born, educator and translator, founded 1st U.S. English-language kindergarten, business manager for Transcendentalist publication The Dial 

• May 16, 1880– Anne O’Hare McCormick born, journalist, foreign news correspondent for the N.Y. Times who wrote the first in-depth reports of the rise of Benito Mussolini and the Fascist movement in Italy. Interviewed Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Churchill and FDR. Pulitzer Prize winner (1937) for her dispatches, the first woman to receive a major category Pulitzer award

• May 16, 1906 –Margret Rey born, German author and illustrator, with her husband, H.A. Rey known for the Curious George series of children’s books

• May 16, 1925– Nancy Roman born, astronomer, “Mother of the Hubble” and advocate for women in sciences, first Chief of Astronomy in Office of Space Science at NASA.

• May 16, 1929– Adrienne Rich born, poet, author, iconic lesbian feminist, anti-war, civil and women’s rights activist, declined National Medal of Arts in protest of Congressional vote to end funding for National Endowment for the Arts

• May 16, 2005– The National Assembly of Kuwait passes law legalizing women’s suffrage and giving them the right to run for office.

• May 17, 1838 –Mary Edwards Bryan born, American journalist, editor, and novelist; editor for several different publications; one of the better paid editors in New York in 1891

• May 17, 1860–Charlotte Barnum born, American mathematician and social activist, first woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale University

• May 17, 1863–Rosalía de Castro publishes Cantares Gallegos,the first book in the Galician language – celebrated as a national holiday in Galicia since 1963 as Día del las Letras Galegas

• May 17, 1873– Dorothy Richardson born, British feminist writer and journalist, author of a series of novels collectively called Pilgrimage, one of the first modernist novelists to use stream of consciousness as a narrative technique

• May 17, 1903– Lena Levine born, psychiatrist and gynecologist, director of Margaret Sanger Research Bureau of New York, pioneer in marriage counseling and birth control development

• May 17, 1937– Hazel R. O’Leary born, politician, U.S. Secretary of Energy, Fisk University president, first African American woman Secretary of Energy

• May 17, 1990– The General Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) eliminates homosexuality from the list of psychiatric diseases

• May 17, 2004– First legal same-sex marriages in U.S. are performed in Massachusetts

• May 18, 1919– Dame Margot Fonteyn born, British ballerina, appointed Prima Ballerina Assoluta of The Royal Ballet

• May 18, 1953– Jackie Cochran becomes the first female pilot to break the sound barrier.

• May 18, 1970 – Tina Fey born, television writer, producer, and actor,1st female head writer for “Saturday Night Live” (1999), creator of television series “30 Rock”, youngest winner of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor (2010)

• May 18, 1991– Chemist Helen Sharman becomes the first Briton in space when the Soyuz TM-12 mission is launched; she performed medical and agricultural tests as well as photographing the British Isles

• May 19, 1794– Anna Brownell Jameson born, Irish author and travel writer, known for Characteristics of Women, analysis of William Shakespeare’s heroines, advocate for education and working opportunities for women;The Diary of an Ennuyée, The Loves of the Poets

• May 19, 1861– Dame Nellie Melba born, Australian soprano, first internationally recognized Australian operatic soprano

• May 19,1879–Nancy Astor born in America, English politician; first woman in the British House of Commons

• May 19, 1930 – Lorraine Hansberry born, first African-American woman playwright to get a play produced on Broadway, A Raisin in the Sun, named Best Play of 1959 by the N.Y. Drama Critics Circle, nominated for four Tony awards, and had a run of 530 performances

• May 19, 1941–Nora Ephron born, American author, journalist, director, producer, and screenwriter;Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally,and Sleepless in Seattle

• May 19, 1952– Lillian Hellman states in letter to U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities she refuses to testify against friends and associates: “I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions.”

• May 19, 1966–Jodi Picoult born, American author and feminist; advocate for literary gender parity and advisory board member of Vida: Women in the Literary Arts; has spoken out against the death penalty; co-founder of the Trumbull Hall Troupe (theatre for kids);  My Sister’s Keeper, The Tenth Circle, Change of Heart

May 20, 1768–Dolley Payne Madison born, American First Lady whose efforts saved the portrait of George Washington and other national treasures in 1814 when the British set fire to Washington DC, including the Executive Mansion, during the War of 1812 – only a sudden heavy storm saved the city from total destruction

• May 20, 1825 – Antoinette Brown Blackwell born, women’s rights activist, writer and speaker, wrote for Frederick Douglass' abolitionist paper, The North Star. She spoke at the first National Women’s Rights Convention (1850). Her speech was well received and marked the beginning of a speaking tour addressing abolition, temperance, and women's rights.

• May 20, 1856–Helen Hopekirk born, Scottish concert pianist and composer

• May 20,1872–Madeline Breckinridge born, American social reformer; advocate for child welfare, women’s rights and tuberculosis treatment; co-founder of the Women’s Emergency Committee in Kentucky, which successfully campaigned for playgrounds and kindergartens in poorer districts and legislation setting up a juvenile court system, regulating child labour, and compelling school attendance. Helped establish and served on the Kentucky Tuberculosis Commission, co-chair of fundraising for the Blue Grass Sanitorium; advocate for woman suffrage, helped win Kentucky women the right to vote in school elections; vice president of National American Woman Suffrage Association 1913-1915, and largely credited with ratification of the 19^thAmendment by the Kentucky legislature in 1920

• May 20, 1894 – Adela Rogers St. John born, journalist, author and screen writer, dubbed "The World's Greatest Girl Reporter"in the 1920s, covered the Lindbergh kidnapping trial, the abdication of Edward VIII, and Dempsey-Tunney boxing match; also wrote many ‘sob sister’ celebrity interviews as well as short stories for Cosmopolitan and The Saturday Evening Post

• May 20, 1899 or 1900– Lydia Cabrera born, Cuban artist and writer, pioneer in preserving Afro-Cuban culture, beliefs, rituals, songs, stories, and language

• May 20, 1911–Annie M. G. Schmidt born, Dutch children’s author, poet, songwriter and screenwriter; included in the Canon of Dutch History as a national icon

• May 20, 1932–Amelia Earhart takes off from Newfoundland to begin the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean by a female pilot, landing in Ireland the next day

• May 20, 1996 – The U.S Supreme Court rules in Romer v. Evansagainst a law that would have prevented any city, town or county in the state of Colorado from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action to protect the rights of gays and lesbians

• May 21, 1780– Elizabeth Fry born, English philanthropist and prison reformer, tirelessly campaigning for more sanitary and humane conditions, especially for women and children, gaining support of such national figures as Florence Nightingale and Queen Victoria. In 1835, she testified before the House of Commons Parliamentary committee, established to investigate "The State of Gaols in England and Wales." 

• May 21, 1799–Mary Anning born, British fossil collector and paleontologist, although her discoveries were widely known, she was not permitted to join Geological Society of London because she was a woman, and did not always receive credit for her work

• May 21, 1934– Jocasta Innes born, Chinese-English journalist and author, Pauper’s Cookbook, Pauper’s Homemaking Book and the Country Kitchen 

• May 21, 1881– Clara Barton establishes American Red Cross in Washington, D.C.

• May 21, 1944– Mary Robinson born, first woman President of Ireland (1990-97), graduate of Harvard Law School, passionate advocate for gender equality, and women’s participation in peace-building and human rights expansion.

• May 21, 1973– Swimmer Lynn Genesko receives first athletic scholarship awarded to a woman (University of Miami)

• May 22, 1844–Mary Cassatt born, American expat, one of the leading artists in the French Impressionist movement. The Paris Salon accepted her paintings for exhibitions in 1872, 1873 and 1874.

• May 22, 2009 – In Washington state, Linda Fleming becomes 1st assisted suicide under state’s “Death With Dignity” law.

• May 22, 2012 – British Naval Commander Sarah West becomes 1^st woman appointed to take command of major British warship, the HMS Portland

• May 23, 1810– Margaret Fuller born, journalist, editor, author, women’s rights advocate, wrote Woman in the Nineteenth Century, the first major U.S. feminist work. She was the first editor of the transcendentalist journal The Dial (1840). By her 30s, Fuller was considered the best-read person in New England, male or female, and was the first woman allowed to use the library at Harvard College. She joined the New York Tribune staff under Horace Greeley (1844), became one of the first American literary critics, then both the first American female foreign correspondent and first American woman war correspondent while traveling in England, France. and Italy, reporting on the Italian States Revolution of 1848, sending back eye-witness accounts of the uprising in Rome. She met Giovanni Angelo, the Marchese d'Ossoli, a liberal revolutionary who was ten years younger. They became lovers, had a son (1848), and married the next year. After the Roman uprising was put down, they fled to Florence (1849).  When the family sailed for the U.S., their ship ran aground in a storm off Fire Island, NY, in July 1850. Their bodies were never found

• May 23, 1855– Isabella Ford born, English author, lecturer, suffragist and social reformer, worked with female mill workers and trade unionists

• May 23, 1910– Margaret Wise Brown born, children’s book author, Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny

• May 23, 1914– Barbara Ward born, English economist, journalist, lecturer, advocate of sustainable development

• May 23, 1923– Alicia de Larrocha born, Spanish pianist, “greatest Spanish pianist in history”

• May 23, 1926– Aileen Clarke Hernandez born, union organizer, civil rights activist, 2nd NOW national president, co-founder Black Women Organized for Action, San Francisco

• May 23, 2015 – Myanmar President Thein Sein implements controversial population control law requiring women to wait 3 years between births.

• May 24, 1830–“Mary Had a Little Lamb” by Sarah Josepha Hale is published

• May 24, 1898 – Helen Taussig born, pediatric cardiologist, first woman full professor at Johns Hopkins (1959), helped create Blalock-Taussig shunt, a surgical technique which corrected “blue baby” syndrome, contributed to thalidomide ban, 1st female president of American Heart Association (1965), awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom

• May 24, 1930– Amy Johnson becomes the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia when she lands in Darwin, Northern Territory.

• May 24, 1990 – Judi Bari, union organizer, feminist, and Earthfirst! activist, survives a car bombing with fellow activist Darryl Cherney, but FBI places blame on them. They file a civil rights lawsuit. In 2002, a jury finds FBI and Oakland police lied about case, awarding Bari and Cherney $4.4 million in damages.

• May 25, 1905 – Dorothy Wesley born, librarian and historian, one of the first African- American women to earn a master’s degree in library science (Howard University, 1932). As curator of the Moorland-Spingarn Collection at Howard University, she helped make it a world renowned resource on the history and culture of African-Americans.

• May 25, 1910 – Mary Keyserling born, economist, Director of the Women’s Bureau of the Labor Department (1964-1969), Executive Director of the National Consumers’ League (1938), and personal adviser to Eleanor Roosevelt in the Office of Civilian Defense

• May 25, 1928– Mary Wells Lawrence born, first woman executive of an advertising firm, first female CEO of a company traded on the New York Stock Exchange, named Advertising Woman of the Year (1971)

• May 26, 1647– Alse Young is hanged in Hartford, Connecticut, becoming the first person executed as a witch in the American colonies

• May 26, 1916 – Helen Kanahele born, labor organizer in Hawaii, worked with the Women’s Auxiliary of the International Longshoreman’s and Warehousemen’s Union (1949-51) and the United Public Workers union, subpoenaed before the Territorial Committee on Subversive Activities in the 1950’s because of her labor organizing and opposition to the death penalty

• May 26, 1924 – Thelma Hill born, dancer, choreographer, educator, co-founder of N.Y. Negro Ballet Company (1954), founding member of dance troupe that became Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, after an injury she focused on teaching dance

• May 26, 1951 – Sally Ride born, astrophysicist, 1st American woman astronaut

• May 27, 1907 – Rachel Carson born, scientist and environmentalist, wrote “The Silent Spring” which became a cornerstone of the modern environmental protection movement

• May 27, 1909 – Mary Fieser born, organic chemist, co-wrote the textbook “Organic Chemistry” in 1944, and the series “Reagents for Organic Synthesis” (1967-1994) a constantly updated standard laboratory reference

• May 28, 1913 – May Swenson born, poet, wrote 15 volumes of poetry (4 published posthumously), lover of nature, writer-in-residence at Bryn Mawr and Purdue University

• May 28, 1922 – Lucille Kallen born, television comedy writer, novelist, wrote humorous skits with Mel Tolkin for Imogene Coca and Sid Caesar (1950-54), also wrote for Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Dick Van Dyke, wrote mysteries in her late 70s

• May 28, 1943 – Helen Hardin aka Tsa-sah-wee-eh ("Little Standing Spruce") born, contemporary painter who incorporated symbols and motifs from her Santa Clara Pueblo heritage in her work. Featured in 1976 PBS American Indian artists series.

• May 28, 1952– The women of Greece obtain the right to vote.

• May 29, 1851– Sojourner Truth delivers her “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio.

• May 29, 1876– Helen Woodard Atwater born, author and editor, 1st full-time editor of the Journal of Home Economics

• May 29, 1943– “Rosie the Riveter” by Norman Rockwell on Saturday Evening Post cover

• May 29, 1977 – Janet Guthrie becomes the first woman to qualify for and complete in Indy 500 car race

• May 30, 1431– Joan d’Arc, age 19, burned at the stake in Rouen, France, as a heretic. One of the charges against her was that she refused to give up wearing her soldier’s clothing after her arrest — she complained that her guards tried to rape her, but the Inquisitors continued to insist she should wear female garb. Later, the Inquisitor-General reversed all charges on appeal (1456), exonerating her posthumously. 

• May 30, 1901– Cornelia Otis Skinner born, author, Our Hearts Were Young and Gay 

• May 30, 1907– Germaine Tillion born, French anthropologist, ethnologist and French resistance member for which she spent time in Ravensbrück concentration camp

• May 30 or 31, 1910 – Maria Teresa Babin born, Puerto Rican writer, poet, literary critic, and educator, taught in U.S. schools and universities as well as in Puerto Rico

• May 30, 1928 –Agnès Varda born, Belgian director, producer, screenwriter and academic; her films focus on documentary realism, feminist issues, and social commentary

• May 31, 1531 – The "Women's Revolt"in Amsterdam. The Burgomasters ignored a petition by the pious women of Amsterdam not to desecrate a churchyard by building a wool storehouse there, and workmen began to dig the foundation. That night, 300 women with shovels replaced all the dirt

• May 31, 1824 –Jessie Ann Benton Frémont born, American author and activist, outspoken opponent of slavery, known for her writings about her husband, John C. Frémont, and their lives in the western US

• May 31, 1854 –Mary Hannah Fulton born, American physician and medical missionary to China, established the Hackett Medical College for Women in Guangzhou, China

• May 31, 1879 –Frances Alda born, New Zealand-Australian operatic soprano, known for her outstanding voice and frequent partnerships with Enrico Caruso

• May 31, 1912 – Chien-Shiung Wu born, renowned physicist, developed a process of enriching uranium to produce large quantities as fuel, worked on Manhattan Project during WWII.

  In 1956, Wu devised an experiment to prove the theory proposed by her colleagues Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang which would overturn a widely accepted law of physics called the Parity Law, which stated that objects which are mirror images of each other would behave in the same way. Wu’s experiment spun radioactive cobalt-60 nuclei at low temperatures. If the law held, the electrons would shoot off in paired directions. Wu’s experiment demonstrated that they did not. Her work was termed the most important development in the field of atomic and nuclear physics up to that time. Lee and Yang received the Nobel Prize for disproving the Parity Law, but Wu’s contribution was ignored by the Nobel Committee. She was 1st Chinese-American elected to National Academy of Science (1958), and the 1st woman elected President of American Physical Society (1975), received National Medal of Science (1975)

• May 31, 1924 – Patricia Harris born, lawyer and ambassador, 1st African-American woman to: hold a Cabinet position as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare (1979-83); serve as an Ambassador (Luxembourg, 1965); and head a law school (Howard University, 1969)

Sources

www.nwhp.org/...

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