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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: www.dailykos.com/...
The biggest event in Women’s History for July is the Seneca Falls Convention, which launched American Feminism’s ‘First Wave’— the long fight for the right to vote. We all owe a huge debt to Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Martha Wright, Mary Ann McClintock and Jane Hunt, who conceived and organized these two days of revelation for the 200+ women who came together.
At a time when women had no public voice; when married women were legal nonentities; when control of where and how a woman was to live; of how her children were to be brought up; of her property, of the wages she earned; all rested with a father, husband or brother —
Women came together.
And they spoke up.
Some of them stood on the platform and gave speeches.
Women discussed and argued and hammered out, and they voted — for the first time in their lives — on how the convention would be run, on whether men would be allowed to attend, and finally, for a Declaration that would change not only their lives, but the lives of all the generations to come. They voted for a proclamation of the changes necessary so women would be no longer beholden even to the good men in their lives, and to end subservience to the abusive ones.
Oh yes, it was a Revelation. And the start of a Revolution just as profound as America’s break with England — the ripples from both these uprisings continue to spread in the world today.
What a long way we have come. How very far we still have to go.
July’s Women Trailblazers and Events in Our History
- July 1, 1804–George Sand, pseudonym of Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin, born. French author primarily known for her novels, infamous in her day for dressing in men’s clothing, smoking and having well publicized affairs. La Petite Fadette, La Mare au Diable, Consuelo
- July 1, 1826–Ellen Clark Sargent born, American woman suffragist and good friend of Susan B. Anthony, who moved across the country to California in 1852, and established the Nevada County Women’s Suffrage Association, the first in the state. Her husband, Aaron Sargent, elected as a U.S. Senator (R-CA), was the first Senator to speak for women’s suffrage on the Senate floor, and introduced in 1878 a bill with the twenty-nine words that would become the 19th Amendment, a bill would be introduced every Senate session, unsuccessfully, for the next 40 years. Ellen Clark Sargent worked tirelessly for women’s rights as a founder of the Century Club which helped elect women to local school boards, and serving on the boards of the California Equal Suffrage Association and the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Like Susan B. Anthony, she also attempted to vote after passage of the 14th Amendment but was turned away, then she sued to reclaim her property taxes based on “taxation without representation”– she lost the case and every appeal, but it brought attention to the suffrage cause. She died just days before October 10, 1911, when women in California won the vote, On the day of her memorial service, for the first time in the state, flags were flown at half mast for a woman.
- July 1, 1858 – Alice Barber Stephens born, American painter, engraver and illustrator
- July 1, 1873–Alice Guy-Blaché born, French filmmaker, one of the first women directors, pioneering the use of sound syncing, color tinting, interracial casting, and special effects, became the first woman to run her own studio, The Solax Company (1910)
- July 1, 1876–Susan Glaspell born, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, as well as actress, poet, director, novelist, biographer, and journalist. Co-founder of Provincetown Players. Trifles, Inheritors, Alison’s House (won 1931 Pulitzer Prize for Drama)
- July 1, 1885–Dorothea Mackellar born, Australian author and poet; best-known for poem “My Country”
- July 1, 1887–Amber Reeves born, New Zealand- born British author, socialist and feminist; chose getting an education at Cambridge over a Court Presentation as a débutante
- July 1, 1895–Lucy Howorth born, attorney, U.S. magistrate, legislator, suffragist, held positions in federal agencies during the 1930s and 1940s
- July 1, 1903– Amy Johnson born, British pilot, set numerous long-distance records, member of the Air Transport Auxiliary during WWII; she died during a ferry flight in 1941
- July 1, 1904 –Mary Steichen Calderone born, physician and sex educator, Medical Director of Planned Parenthood (1953-1964), principal founder and president of Sex Information and Education Council of the United States (1964)
- July 1, 1906–Estée Lauder, originally Josephine Esther Mentzer, born cosmetics pioneer, co-founder Estée Lauder Companies, originated ‘free gift with purchase,’ became one of the richest self-made women in the world, recipient of Presidential Medal of Freedom. As a philanthropist, funded playgrounds in Hew York’s Central Park and contributed to the restoration of Versailles in the 1970s
- July 1, 1934 –Jean Marsh born, British actor and writer; co-creator and star of the BBC television seriesUpstairs, Downstairs(1971-1975)
July 1, 1941–Twyla Tharp born, American dancer-choreographer
July 1, 1946–Mireya Moscoso born, first woman elected President of Panama
July 1, 1981 – Nell Dunn’s play, Steaming, with an all-female cast, premieres in London
- July 1, 2014 – Vice Admiral Michelle J. Howard promoted to 4-star Admiral, the first woman to achieve the U.S. Navy’s highest rank
- July 2, 1865 –Lily Braun born, German feminist author, leader in German feminist movement, Die Frauen und die Politik, Lebenssucher
- July 2, 1876–Harriet Brooks born, first Canadian woman nuclear physicist and first female to work in the new field of nuclear physics, at Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge England with J.J. Thomson (1901-03). She taught at Barnard College (1904-1906), but the Dean demanded her resignation when she became engaged. She ended the engagement, but resigned anyway, saying “I think it is a duty I owe to my profession and to my sex to show that a woman has a right to the practice of her profession and cannot be condemned to abandon it merely because she marries. I cannot conceive how women’s colleges, inviting and encouraging women to enter professions can be justly founded or maintained denying such a principle.” After that, she worked for a year with Marie Curie in Paris before returning to Montreal
- July 2, 1879–Genevieve Cline born, lawyer, judge and club woman, first woman named to the federal judiciary, advocate for consumer protection, women’s rights and suffrage
July 2, 1896–Lydia Mei born, Estonian painter, known for watercolors and still-life paintings
- July 2, 1918–Frances Reed Elliot becomes first African American woman in American Red Cross Nursing Service
- July 2, 1919–Jean Craighead George born, prolific children’s and YA author, 1973 Newbery Award for Julie of the Wolves; also wrote two guides to cooking with wild foods and an autobiography.
- July 2, 1922–Eleanor Leacock born, cultural anthropologist, studied Native North Americans, and issues of gender and class, racism, and poverty. Her essay"Interpreting the Origins of Gender Inequality: Conceptual and Historical Problems" has been very influential.
- July 2, 1923–Wisława Szymborska born, Polish poet, essayist and translator, described as the “Mozart of Poetry”, recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. English translations: View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems, and Monologue of a Dog
- July 2, 1937–Amelia Earhart’s plane is lost in the Pacific Ocean near Howland Island
- July 2, 1964– President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act; Title VII prohibits sex discrimination in employment
- July 2, 1979– The ill-conceived Susan B. Anthony dollar is released by the U.S. Mint
- July 3, 1790 –Nicolas, marquis de Concorcet proposes “the admission of women to the rights of citizenship,” advocating women’ suffrage for the revolutionary government in an article for Journal de la Société de 1789, and by publishing De l'admission es femmes au droit de cité
- July 3, 1860–Charlotte Perkins Gilman born, sociologist, feminist, author, The Yellow Wallpaper
- July 3, 1901–Ruth Crawford Seeger born, American composer and folk music expert
- July 3, 1908–M.F.K. Fisher, born as Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher, food/travel/memoir writer, founder of Napa Valley Wine Library, How to Cook a Wolf, and Serve it Forth
July 3, 1939–Brigette Fassbaender born, German mezzo-soprano and opera director at the Staatstheater Braunschweig and the Tiroler Landestheater in Innsbruck
- July 3, 1940–Fontella Bass born, singer-songwriter; “Rescue Me” (1965)
- July 3, 1941–Gloria Allred born, civil rights lawyer, high-profile discrimination/women’s rights cases, television and radio commentator
- July 3, 1984– U.S. Supreme Court rules Jaycees may be compelled by a state’s anti-discrimination law to accept women as full members in Roberts v. U.S. Jaycees 468 US 609 (1984)
- July 4, 1868–Henrietta Swan Leavitt born, American astronomer; discoverer of relationship between luminosity and variables associated with Cepheid stars, which allows astronomers to measure the distance between Earth and other galaxies
- July 4, 1876– Suffragists crash the Centennial Celebration in Independence Hall to present the Vice President with the “Declaration of the Rights of Women” written by Matilda Joselyn Gage
- July 4, 1898 –Pilar Barbosa de Rosario born, historian/academic, first woman to teach at University of Puerto Rico (1921), established history and social studies departments there, named official historian of Puerto Rico (1993)
- July 4, 1903–Dorothy Levitt becomes first English woman to compete in a 'motor race.' Also holder of world's first water speed record and women's world land speed record. Popularized motoring for women by teaching Queen Alexandra and Royal Princesses how to drive. In The Woman and the Car: A Chatty Little Handbook for All Women Who Motor or Want to Motor, she said women should "carry a little hand-mirror in a convenient place when driving" so they may "hold the mirror aloft from time to time in order to see behind while driving in traffic," introducing rear view mirrors before manufacturers added them in 1914
July 4, 1910–“America the Beautiful” is published; lyrics from “America” (the poem’s title changed from “Pikes Peak”) by Katherine Lee Bates
- July 4, 1916– Sisters Adelina and Augusta Van Buren begin a successful transcontinental motorcycle tour. Addie and Gussie left Brooklyn, NY, arriving in Los Angeles, CA, on September 8, 1916. America was on the brink of entering WWI, and they proved that women could ride as well as men, so could serve as military dispatch riders, freeing up men for other tasks. They also hoped women serving in a military capacity would remove a primary argument against giving women the vote. They defied convention in dress, wearing military-style leggings and leather riding breeches.
- July 4, 1918–Esther and Pauline Friedman born, twin sisters better known as Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren, American syndicated advice columnists
- July 4, 1934–Yvonne B. Miller born, first African-American woman to serve in both Virginia state legislative houses, first woman chair of a Virginia Senate committee
- July 4, 1936–Zdzisława Donat born, Polish coloratura soprano, notable as the Queen of Night in Die Zauberflöte,Professor Emeritus at Frédéric Chopin University of Music
- July 5, 1755–Sarah Siddons born, British actress, “The Queen of Drury Lane” (London’s theatre district) known for her portrayal of tragic roles, especially Lady Macbeth
- July 5, 1857–Clara Zetkin born, German Marxist theorist, labor, peace and women’s rights advocate; an organizer of first International Women’s Day (1910); Clara Zetkin Medal awarded to women’s rights activists
- July 5, 1888–Louise Freeland Jenkins born, American astronomer; compiles a catalogue of stars within 10 parsecs of the sun; editor, 3rd edition of the Yale Bright Star Catalogue; research on trigonometric parallax of nearby stars, and variable stars
July 5, 1879–Wanda Landowska born, Polish harpsichordist, first person to record Bach’s Goldberg Variations on the harpsichord, instrumental in reviving the harpsichord’s popularity in the 20th century
- July 5, 1899–Anna Hedgeman born, civil rights activist and educator, first African American woman in cabinet of the New York mayor (1954-58), YWCA executive director, executive secretary of National Council for a Permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC), assistant dean of women at Howard University, helped plan 1963 March on Washington
- July 5, 1914 –Annie Fischer born, Hungarian pianist and composer
- July 5, 1920–Mary Louise Hancock born, politician and activist, New Hampshire state senator and Planning Director, recipient of Robert Frost and Susan B. Anthony Awards, July 5th is “Mary Louse Hancock Day” in New Hampshire
- July 5, 1922 –Dutch women vote for the first time
- July 5, 1953–Caryn Linda Navy born, American mathematician and computer scientist. Blind from retinopathy of prematurity; known for her work in set-theoretic topology and Braille technology; graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), honored with the AMITA Senior Academic Award from the Association of MIT Alumnae
- July 5, 2000– President Clinton signs two protocols to U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child: one to prevent involvement of children in armed conflict as combatants, and another against sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography
- July 6, 1803–Sophia Willard Dana Ripley born, Transcendentalist, co-founder with husband George of Brook Farm, an educator who employed child-centered methods of teaching
- July 6, 1907–Frida Kahlo born, Mexican painter, known for self-portraits, considered emblematic of national and indigenous tradition; work described as surrealist
- July 6, 1942 –Anne Frank and her family go into hiding in the “Secret Annexe” above her father’s office in an Amsterdam warehouse
- July 6, 1957–Althea Gibson is the first African American woman player to win a Wimbledon title in women’s tennis singles
- July 7, 1456 – Joan d’Arc is acquitted in new trial, even though she was executed on May 30, 1431
- July 7, 1851–Lillien Jane Martin born, American psychologist, author of Salvaging Old Age, andSweeping the Cobwebs
- July 7, 1852 –Vera Nikolayevna Figner born, Russian revolutionary, doctor’s assistant; participant in assassination plot against Alexander II, sentenced to death, but sentence commuted to Siberian penal servitude; wrote Memories of a Revolutionist
- July 7, 1861 –Nettie Stevens born, biologist, discovered X and Y sex chromosomes, and evidence for chromosomal therories of inheritance
- July 7, 1867–Charlotte Anita Whitney, American social worker, Communist Labor Party organizer, pacifist and suffragist; defendant in the 1920 ‘Criminal Syndicalism’ trial, Whitney v. California, charged with being a member of an organization that was illegal under California law because of its association with the international Communist movement – Whitney’s conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court, but she was later pardoned by the Governor of California, and the Court explicitly overruled Whitney v. Californiain theBrandenburg v. Ohio ruling in 1969
- July 7, 1905– Marie-Louise Dubreil-Jacotin born, French mathematician; the first woman to become a full professor of mathematics in France; expert in fluid dynamics and abstract algebra; author of textbooks on lattice theory and abstract algebra, and a history, Portraits of women mathematicians
- July 7, 1908 – Harriette Simpson Arnow born, writer and educator, The Dollmaker, writer with Federal Writer’s Project of the WPA (1934-39)
July 7, 1910–Doris McCarthy born, Canadian painter of landscapes and Arctic icebergs
- July 7, 1915–Margaret Walker born, poet and novelist, her poem “For My People” (1942) won Yale Series of Younger Poets Award, wrote novel Jubilee
- July 7, 1924–NataliaBekhtereva born, Russian neuroscientist and psychologist; founding director of the Institute for Human Brain, a branch of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, did studies measuring the impulse activity of human neurons
- July 7, 1942 – Heinrich Himmler, with SS General Richard Glücks, chief of Concentration Camps Inspectorate, and Gynecologist Karl Clauberg. outlines program of medical experimentation on Jewish women prisoners at Auschwitz to sterilize them via massive radiation or uterine injections
- July 7, 1948–Kay Langdon, Wilma Marchal, Edna Young, Frances Devaney, Doris Robertson, and Ruth Flora became first six enlisted women sworn into regular U.S.Navy.after signing of the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act in June. Prior the act, women could only serve in the armed services during times of war.
- July 7, 1972–Susan Lynn Roley and Joanne E. Pierce, the first two women FBI special agents, are sworn in (The first woman agent was Emma Hotchkiss Jentzer, who was hired by the FBI’s predecessor, the Bureau of Investigation, in 1911. J. Edgar Hoover, first and longest-serving director of the FBI, initiated a policy of not hiring women, which his successor, L. Patrick Gray, rescinds)
- July 7, 1976 – The first women cadets are enrolled at West Point
- July 7, 1981–Sandra Day O’Connor nominated as first woman on U.S. Supreme Court
- July 7, 1983–Samantha Smith, 12-year-old American, flies to the Soviet Union at the invitation of Secretary General Yuri Andropov after she writes a letter to him. She travels as a Goodwill Ambassador making a plea for peace. In 1985, she is killed in a plane crash
- July 7, 1992– New York Court of Appeals overturns a conviction of two women for exposing their breasts in public; ruling women have the same right as men to go topless in public
- July 8, 1593–Artemisia Gentileschiborn, Italian painter, one of the most accomplished painters of her generation, known for painting strong and suffering women from myth
- July 8, 1821–Maria White Lowell born, American poet and abolitionist, advocate for temperance and women’s rights
- July 8, 1844–Mary Bailey Lincoln born, American pioneer in domestic science, author of Mrs. Lincoln’s Boston Cook Book: What to Do and What Not to Do in Cooking
- July 8, 1862–Ella Reeve “Mother” Bloor born, labor organizer and activist in American socialist and communist movements
- July 8, 1867–Käthe Kollwitz born, German painter, printmaker and sculptor, often depicting the tragedy of war, poverty, and hunger
- July 8, 1902 –Gwendolyn Bennett born, Harlem Renaissance author and artist, wrote “The Ebony Flute” column for journal “Opportunity,” co-founder of “Fire!!” a literary journal
- July 8, 1926–Elisabeth Kubler-Ross born, Swiss psychiatrist and author; theory of five stages of grief; author of On Death and Dying; inducted into the American National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2007
- July 8, 1929–Shirley Ann Grau born, American author; 1965 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Keepers of the House
- July 8, 1934–Raquel Correa born, Chilean journalist, mostly worked for newspaper El Mercurio de Santiago, awarded Chile’s National Journalism Award in 1991
- July 8, 1948–Vietta M. Bates becomes first enlisted woman sworn into the regular U.S. Army, and Esther Blake is the first woman to enlist in the regular U.S. Air Force
- July 8, 1981– U.S. Senate confirms Sandra Day O’Connor to Supreme Court (99-0)
- July 9, 1764–Ann Radcliffe, English novelist, pioneer of the Gothic novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Romance of the Forest
- July 9, 1811–Fanny Fern born, American author and columnist for the New York Ledger
- July 9, 1858–Kaikhusrau Jahan born, notable progressive Begum of Bhopal (ruled 1901-26), improved her people’s living conditions, especially in education and public health.
- July 9, 1894–Dorothy Thompson born, journalist and radio broadcaster, first American journalist expelled from Nazi Germany in 1934, Time magazine in 1939 called her second most influential woman in America after Eleanor Roosevelt
- July 9, 1926–Mathilde Krim born in Italy, American medical researcher, founding chair of amfAR association for AIDS research, recipient of Presidential Medal of Freedom and Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged, given by the Jefferson Awards
- July 9, 1935 –Mercedes Sosa born, Argentine singer and activist, won several Grammy Awards and a posthumous Latin Grammy for Bet Folk Album, UNICEF ambassador
- July 9, 1936–June Jordan born, poet, educator and activist, columnist for The Progressive, Achievement Award for International Reporting from the National Association of Black Journalists; librettist for the musical I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky
- July 9, 1978–In hot, humid weather, 100,000 supporters of the Equal Rights Amendment (E.R.A.) march in Washington DC , with purple and white banners, colors honoring the National Woman’s Suffrage Party of Alice Paul, who turned immediately after the long-awaited success of the campaign for women’s right to vote, to making women’s legal equality a Constitutional amendment. The march supports bill H.J.R. 638, to extend E.R.A.’s deadline of March 22, 1979. Only eight votes by state senators in three states had kept the E.R.A. from being ratified by March 1, 1977
- July 10, 1553–Lady Jane Grey takes the throne of England. “The Nine Days Queen” ruled from July 10 to July 19, 1553
- July 10, 1875–Mary McLeod Bethune, educator, founder of National Council of Negro Women, served as Minority Affairs Advisor to Franklin Delano Roosevelt
- July 10, 1882 –Ima Hogg born, cruelly named by her then-Texas governor father, became a philanthropist, patron of the arts, supporter of mental health and child welfare organizations, and savior of many historic structures
- July 10, 1884 –Harriet Wiseman Elliott born, American educator and public official, Dean of Women at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Chair of the Woman’s Division of the U.S. War Finance Committee, Deputy Director of the U.S. Office of Price Administration, and United States delegate to UNESCO
- July 10, 1891–Edith Quimby born, biophysicist, pioneer in the use of radiation in medicine and the development of standards for radiation protection
- July 10, 1896 –Thérèse Casgrain born, Canadian feminist, reformer and politician, Senator in Quebec, leader in the women’s suffrage movement as founder of the Provincial Franchise Committee, hosted the radio show Fémina in the 1930s
- July 10, 1905 –Mildred Wirt Benson born, American journalist and author of 23 of the 30 original Nancy Drew mysteries (series written by various authors but all books published under “Carolyn Keene”)
- July 10, 1910 –Mary Bunting born, microbiologst, president of Radcliffe College (1959-72), oversaw the integration of Radcliffe into Harvard, founded Bunting Institute at Radcliffe, helped women return to careers after family obligations, first woman on Atomic Energy Commission
- July 10, 1931–Alice Munro born, Canadian author, known for her short stories, recipient of many awards and honors including Canada’s Governor General’s Award, the Man Booker International Prize and the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature
- July 10, 1933 –Jan DeGaetani born, versatile mezzo-soprano and outstanding teacher at Aspen Music Festival and Eastman School in Rochester
- July 11,1851–Millie and Christine McCoy, conjoined twins, born into slavery in North Carolina; after the Civil War, the twins received an education, learning five languages, dancing and music; they were featured as “The Two-Headed Nightingale” with the Barnum Circus until their deaths.
- July 11, 1871–Edith Rickert born, American author and medieval scholar, notable for works on Chaucer
- July 11, 1938–Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, historian, author of A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard based on her diary, 1785–1812 and Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History
- July 11, 1946 - Sarah Blaffer Hrdy born, primatologist, studied evolution of primate social behavior, especially the role of females and mothers in evolution
- July 11, 1960 –To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is published
- July 12, 1879–Margherita Piazzola Beloch born, Italian mathematician
- July 12, 1895–Kirsten Flagstad born, Norwegian soprano, ranked among the greatest singers of the 20th century, known for her roles Wagner operas
- July 12, 1920– Beah Richards born, actor, author, poet, playwright, and civil rights activist, known for performances in original Broadway productions of The Miracle Worker and A Raisin in the Sun, win a Tony Award, 2 Emmy Awards and nominated for Best Supporting Actress Academy Award
- July 12, 1972–Shirley Chisholm receives 152 votes in the first ballot at the Democratic National Convention, becoming the first black candidate for President of the United States from a major political party and the first woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination
- July 12,1990– Dobsonville shanty town women in Soweto, South Africa, strip to the waist and confront bulldozers in a vain attempt to stop the demolition of their homes ordered by government authorities.
- July 13, 1793 –Charlotte Corday stabs Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat in his bathtub. Tried and executed on July 17. She insisted she carried out the assassination alone, but believing that she had an accomplice who was a lover, her body was autopsied. It was found that she was virgo intacta
- July 13, 1863–Margaret Alice Murray born, British archaeologist, anthropologist and feminist, First woman to be appointed as a lecturer in archaeology in the UK, at London’s University College (1898-1935) Worked closely with Sir Flinders Petrie in Egyptology as his copyist-illustrator and assistant, discovering the Osireion temple at Abydos. Petrie gave her full credit for her work, but she encountered male prejudice from others, and joined the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), as well as mentoring several promising women students. Wrote books on Egyptology for the general public. In later years, got into academic hot water over her theories about Christian witch hunts and witch cults
- July 13, 1889–Emma Asson born, Estonian politician, educator and author, one of first women elected to Estonian parliament, contributed sections on education and gender equality to first constitution of Estonia, wrote first textbook in Estonian language
- July 13, 1910 –Josefina Niggli born in Mexico, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, moved to U.S.after penning prize-winning short stories; novels Mexican Village (1945), Step Down, Elder Brother (1947), later wrote television scripts during “Golden Age” of American TV
- July 13, 1918–Marcia Brown born, children’s author and illustrator, won 3 Caldecott Medals for Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper (1954), Once a Mouse(1961) and Shadow (1982)
- July 13, 1927 –Simone Veil born, French lawyer and politician, served as the French Minister of Health and championed the 1975 law that legalized abortion in France, the first woman chosen as President of the European Parliament, and as a member of the Constitutional Council of France. A Jewish survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen, she lost her parents and a brother in the Holocaust
- July 13, 1930 –Naomi Shemer born, Israeli singer-songwriter, known for song Yerushlayim Shel Zahav (“Jerusalem of Gold”)
- July 13, 1935–Monique Vézina born, Canadian politician, Quebec nationalist, and Progressive Conservative Parliament member; appointed as Minister of External Relations, and Minister responsible for La Francophonie, Minister for Employment and Immigration, and several other offices; retired from public service but remained active in the field of international development
- July 14, 1868–Gertrude Bell born, British author, archaeologist, public administrator and spy, influential in establishment of Jordan and Iraq
- July 14, 1911–Gertrude Goldhaber born, physicist, an early researcher into nuclear structure and the properties of nuclei, the third woman to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences (1972)
- July 14, 1916 –Muriel Snowden born, civil rights worker, co-founder of Freedom House (1949) with husband in Boston, community organization to promote self-sufficiency and social justice
- July 14, 1917– 16 women from National Women’s Party arrested while picketing the White House demanding universal women’s suffrage; they were charged with obstructing traffic
- July 14, 1936–Pema Chödrön born, Buddist nun, teacher and author, notable figure in Tibetan Buddhism, possibly first American woman to become fully ordained Buddhist nun, No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva
- July 14, 1940–Susan Howatch born, English novelist, author of sweeping family sagas, Penmarric, The Wheel of Fortune, and the Starbridge series about the Church of England
- July 14, 1957 –Tawya Ateya takes her seat in Egypt’s National Assembly, the first female parliamentarian in the Arab world.
- July 14, 1960–Jane Goodall begins her study of chimpanzees at Gombe Stream Reserve
- July 15, 1858 –Emmeline Pankhurst born, radical British suffragette and political activist, founder of Women’s Social and Political Union dedicated to “deeds, not words”, named one of the “100 Most Important People of the 20th Century” by Time magazine
- July 15, 1890–Florence Yoch born, landscape architect in Los Angeles; with her partner Lucille Council, they broke down barriers against women professionals in a “man’s field.” Yoch designs attracted a wide clientele, from wealthy patrons in Pasadena to Hollywood’s elite, including Jack Warner, David O. Selznick, George Cukor and director Dorothy Arzner, who hired Yoch to design a garden set for one of her films. This began Yoch’s work as the first woman landscape architect to design outdoor movie sets, including the garden for Tara in Gone With the Wind, rice paddies for The Good Earth, and a field of spring daffodils for How Green Was My Valley
- July 15, 1899–Estelle Ishigo born, artist, joined her Japanese-American husband in a Wyoming internment camp during WWII, made sketches of her experience for the War Relocation Authority, published “Lone Heart Mountain” in 1972 chronicling her internment. Days of Waiting is a documentary based on her experiences — here’s the trailer:
- July 15, 1905–Dorothy Fields born, lyricist of over 400 songs for Broadway and film musicals, one of the first successful female Tin Pan Alley songwriters, known for “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” and “Pick Yourself Up”
- July 15, 1919– Iris Murdoch DBE born, Irish author and philosopher, wrote 26 novels including: The Sea, the Sea (Booker Prize), The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (Whitbread Literary Award for Fiction) and The Black Prince (James Tait Black Memorial Prize)
- July 15, 1923 –Connie Boucher born, artist, character merchandising industry pioneer, licensed characters like Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” and Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are”
- July 15, 1939 – Clara Adams completes her trip, becomes first woman passenger to set a world record of 16 days and 19 hours for an around-the-world flight solely on scheduled passenger airlines.
- July 15, 1943–Jocelyn Bell Burnell born, Irish astrophysicist, discovered radio pulsars, although she first observed pulsars and was listed as second author of five on the paper announcing the discovery, she was not included in Nobel Prize Award given to her advisor Antony Hewish and Martin Ryle for the discovery; many prominent astronomers were outraged; became President of the Royal Astronomical Society, recipient of Herschel Medal
- July 15, 2013 – Upper house of the U.K. approves same sex marriage in England and Wales, beginning in 2014
- July 16, 1194–Clare of Assisi born, Italian founder of the Catholic order of Poor Clares
- July 16, 1546–Anne Askew, Protestant English poet, “the Faire Gospeler” (lay preacher, one who had many sections of the Bible memorized) had been so brutally tortured in the Tower of London she had to be carried to her execution for heresy, put on a stool and chained to the stake. When she refused again to recant, she was burned to death. Witnesses said she didn't cry out until the flames reached her chest. The “Act for the Advancement of True Religion” in 1543 restricted the reading of the Bible to clerics, noblemen, the gentry and richer merchants. Women of the gentry and nobility were only allowed to read the Bible in private. Reading the Bible in English was forbidden to "women, artificers, apprentices, journeymen, serving-men of the rank of yeoman and under, husbandmen and laborers"
- July 16, 1849–Clara Shortridge Foltz born, attorney and suffragist; the first woman lawyer in California, first California female deputy district attorney, and founder of the state’s first public defender system. When she discovered that women were excluded from practicing law in California, she drafted an amendment, dubbed the ‘Women Lawyers Bill,’ to the California Code of Procedure, to eliminate both gender and racial discrimination.She joined forces with other feminists in a hard-fought battle to pass it – then refused to leave the Governor’s office until he signed it into law, just seconds before it would have expired. She and fellow suffragist Laura de Force Gordon sued the board of Hastings Law School to gain admission – the lengthy court battle took all her money, and she was never able to attend classes, but practiced law anyway under the amendment she had initiated, and was often referred to as the “Portia of the Pacific”
- July 16, 1862 –Ida B. Wells-Barnett born, journalist, newspaper editor, crusader against lynching, civil rights leader and feminist. Formed National Association of Colored Women (1896), and joined the National Equal Rights League, working to get all women the vote
- July 16, 1880 –Emily Stowe is the first woman granted a license to practice medicine in Canada
- July 16, 1901– Millicent Fawcett is appointed to lead the British government’s commission to South Africa to investigate conditions in the concentration camps holding Afrikaners, mostly women and children, at the end of the Second Boer War; her report corroborates welfare campaigner Emily Hobhouse’s shocking description of conditions in the camps, where an average of 50 children die every day
- July 16, 1907 –Barbara Stanwyck born, orphaned at age 4, spent time in foster homes, actor on stage, screen and television for 60 years, highest paid woman in the United States in 1944, a conservative Republican, who believed if she could succeed, others could without help
- July 16, 1911 –Ginger Rogers born, actress and dancer, partnered with Fred Astaire, won Academy Award for “Kitty Foyle” (1940), a Christian Scientist, refused all medical treatment
- July 16, 1928–Anita Brookner, CBE born, British author and art historian, won the Man Booker Prize for her novel Hotel du Lac
- July 16, 1971 –Jeanne M. Holm is promoted to brigadier general in the United States Air Force, becoming the first woman brigadier general in the Air Force
- July 17, 1762 –Catherine II becomes tsar of Russia after her husband is murdered
- July 17, 1794 – Sixteen Carmelite nuns, lay sisters and externs become the Martyrs of Compiègne, and are executed ten days prior to the end of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror for refusing to obey the Civil Constitution of the Clergy of the Revolutionary government, which mandates the suppression of monasteries and convents
- July 17, 1898 –Berenice Abbott born, photographer, artist, teacher, and writer, famous for her portraitures, documenting the architecture of New York, and science photography
- July 17, 1908 –Carmelita Maracci born, dancer, choreographer, and teacher, created a blend of ballet and Spanish dance techniques
- July 17, 1917 –Christiane Rochefort born, French journalist and author, press attaché to the Cannes Film Festival; bestselling novel Le Repos du guerrier (The Warrior’s Rest)
- July 17, 1921–Toni Stone born, first of three women to play Negro league baseball; played professionally from 1949 to 1953 when she quit to be a nurse and care for her ill husband
- July 17, 1924–Olive Ann Burns born, American author and journalist, wrote for Atlanta Journal ;pseudonym Amy Larkin; novel Cold Sassy Tree
July 17, 1935–Diahann Carroll born, American stage, film and television actor-singer, starred on Broadway, in early films casting black actors, and in Julia, one of the first television series starring an African American woman; recipient of many awards and honors; co-founder of Celebrity Action Council for the Los Angeles Mission; co-organizer with James Garner of Hollywood’s large-scale turn-out for the 1963 March on Washington, in spite of attempts by J. Edgar Hoover to intimidate Hollywood’s elite with phone calls claiming the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement were all Communists
July 17, 1954–Angela Merkel born, Chancellor of Germany
- July 17, 1959– Paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey discovers partial skull of a new species of early human ancestor, Zinjanthropus boisei or ‘Zinj’ (now called Paranthropus boisei) which lived in Africa almost 2 million years ago
- July 18, 1702–Maria Clementina Sobieska born, granddaughter of King John III of Poland, will be arrested by King George I of Great Britain on the way to her wedding in an attempt to prevent her marriage to James Francis Edward Stuart (the ‘Old Pretender’), but she escapes and they are quickly married by proxy
- July 18, 1724–Duchess Maria Antonia of Bavaria born, Electress of Saxony, singer, composer and harpsichordist; her operas are well received, and her harpsichord performances admired
- July 18, 1867–Margaret Brown born, American philanthropist and activist, RMS Titanic survivor, known as “The Unsinkable Molly Brown”
- July 18, 1892 –Doris Fleischman Bernays born, first married woman to gain a U.S. passport in her maiden name (1925), writer and editor for the “New York Tribune,” and publicist
- July 18, 1900–Nathalie Sarraute born, French lawyer and author; of Russian Jewish origin, she was forced to quit practicing law in 1941, and dedicated herself to writing; recipient of the Prix international de littérature for her novel The Golden Fruits
- July 18, 1902–Jessamyn West born, American novelist; The Friendly Persuasion
- July 18, 1908–Mildred L. Norman born, American mystic, pacifist activist and vegetarian, adopted the name‘Peace Pilgrim’; between 1953 and 1981, she walked across the United States at least six times, and died on her seventh cross-country journey at age 72
- July 18, 1926 –Margaret Laurence born, Canadian author, founder of the Writers’ Trust of Canada; The Stone Angel and The Diviners; recipient of two Governor General’s Awards, and Companion of the Order of Canada
- July 18, 1976–Nadia Comăneci is first person to score a perfect 10 in Olympic gymnastics
- July 19-20, 1848– The Seneca Falls Convention, the country’s first women’s rights convention, held in Seneca Falls, New York. Organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, with help from Martha Wright, Mary Ann McClintock and Jane Hunt. Over 200 women came. The first day, only women were allowed to attend. Stanton read “The Declaration of Sentiments and Grievances.” On the second day, some 40 men, including Frederick Douglass, were allowed to participate. Twelve resolutions were passed by the women, addressing lack of property rights in marriage, inequalty in divorce law, inequality in education and in employment opportunities, and the most controversial one, securing the elective franchise for women. A larger meeting was held two weeks later in Rochester NY, beginning the tradition of annual national women’s rights conventions
July 19, 1902 –Anna Marie Rosenberg born, Assistant Secretary of Defense (1950 – 1953), served in many other government positions
- July 19, 1921–Rosalyn Sussman Yalow born, American medical physicist, developed radioimmunoassay (RIA), which allows measurement of biological substances, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine
- July 19, 1984– Representative Geraldine Ferraro (D-New York) is chosen as the first female to run for Vice President of the United States on the Democratic Party ticket with Walter Mondale (D-Minnesota)
- July 19, 1989– The shooting death of actress Rebecca Schaeffer by an obsessed fan prompts the California legislature to pass the first anti-stalking law in the U.S. in 1990
- July 20, 1936–Barbara Mikulski born, Democratic U.S. Senator from Maryland, former member and longest-serving woman in U.S. House of Representatives. First woman chair, Senate Appropriations Committee. Aerves on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and Select Committee on Intelligence, until her announcec retirement at the end of the 114th Congress in 2017
July 20, 1938– Dame Diana Rigg born, British stage, television and screen actor; former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company; memorable as Mrs. Emma Peele in the British television series The Avengers, and as Olenna Tyrrell in Game of Thrones. When she discovered after making 12 episodes ofThe Avengers that the cameraman was earning more money than she was, “I made a bit of a stink. At the time, it was considered very bad form.”
July 20, 1939–Judy Chicago born, American artist, feminist and author, known for large collaborative art installations; her masterpiece, The Dinner Party, now at the Brooklyn Museum, consists of three ‘wings’ with place settings for remarkable female figures in legend and history
- July 20, 1942– First class of Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) at Fort Des Moines, IA
- July 20, 1989–Aung San Suu Kyi put under house arrest by Burma’s ruling junta. She was General Secretary of the National League for Democracy, when it won 81% of the seats in Parliament that year, but the junta refused to hand over power, and nullified the election. She remained under house arrest for almost 15 years, released November 13, 2010. Today, she’s the first State Counsellor and Leader of the NLD. Also first female Minister of Foreign Affairs of Myanmar
- July 20, 2007–Elena Kagan is approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, 13-6, as the Supreme Court’s fourth female justice
- July 21, 1653 –Sarah Good born, would be accused and executed in Salem witch trials
- July 21, 1656–Elizabeth Key Grinstead wins her lawsuit gaining her freedom and that of her son from slavery, her argument based on her father being an Englishman and she was a Christian. The Virginia House of Burgesses later passed laws stating that the status of children would follow that of the mother, not the father.
- July 21, 1856 –Louise Bethune born, first American woman to work as an architect in 1881
- July 21, 1905 –Diana Trilling born, literary critic and author, compiled her feminist essays in “We Must March My Darlings” (1977)
- July 21, 1938–Janet Reno born, first woman to serve as U. S. Attorney General (1993 – 2001, under President Clinton), attorney
- July 21, 1960–Sirima Babsaranaike takes office as Prime Minister of Ceylon, becoming first female head of government in the modern world
- July 22, 1849 –Emma Lazarus born, poet, novelist and translator, wrote “The New Colossus,” (1883), which was later inscribed in base of the Statue of Liberty
- July 22, 1898 –Miriam Underhill born, mountaineer and environmentalist, in first all-women ascent of the Matterhorn in 1932, developed “manless climbing,” all-women climbing groups
- July 22, 1915 –Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah born, Pakistani politician, diplomat and author, Ambassador to Morocco, delegate to the United Nations, wrote works in both Urdu and English including Behind the Veil: Ceremonies, Customsand Colour and From Purdah to Parliament
- July 22, 1940–Judith Walzer Leavitt born, American historian, professor of history of medicine, history of science and women’s history
- July 22, 1958–Eve Beglarian born, American composer
- July 23, 1844 –Harriet Strong born, agriculturist, inventor, patented water storage dams
- July 23, 1892 –Icie Hoobler born, biochemist and physiologist, first woman to head a local section of American Chemical Society and to serve as its national president, Director of the Research Laboratory of the Children’s Fund of Michigan
- July 23, 1917 –Barbara Deming born, influential nonviolent activist, writer and poet, marched for peace, civil and women’s rights, lesbian and gay rights
- July 23, 1928 –Ruth Whitney born, pioneering editor of “Glamour” magazine for 31 years (1967 – 1998), among first editors to introduce relevant social topics to a woman’s magazine, and featured the first African American on the cover (1968)
- July 23, 1999– Colonel Eileen Collins becomes first woman to command a US spacecraft, Space Shuttle mission STS-93. In 1995, she was the first female shuttle pilot
- July 23, 2001–Megawati Sukarnoputri becomes first female president of Indonesia (2001-04)
- Every July 23— National Women in Engineering Day
- July 24, 1868—Marie Goegg-Pouchoulin founds the Association Internationale des Femmes, the first women’s organization in Switzerland, advocating for women’s rights and peace
- July 24, 1897 –Amelia Earhart born, noted aviation pioneer and author, first woman to fly solo across Atlantic, first person to fly solo over Pacific from Hawaii to the mainland
- July 24, 1920 –Bella Abzug born, lawyer, political activist, Democratic U.S. Congressional Representative from New York (1973-77), initiated proposal for Women’s Equality Day
- July 24, 1987–Hulda Crooks, 91-years-old, is oldest person to climb Japan’s Mount Fuji
- July 25,1806–Maria Weston Chapman born, abolitionist and editor of the anti-slavery journal Non-Resistant
- July 25, 1871–Margaret Floy Washburn born, American psychologist, known for her work in animal behavior and motor theory, first woman granted a PhD in psychology in the US, second woman to serve as American Psychological Association President
- July 25, 1896–Josephine Tey born, Scottish author, known for mystery novels like Daughter of Time and historical plays written under the name Gordon Daviot
- July 25, 1920–Rosalind Franklin born, British scientist, made contributions to understanding of the molecular structure of DNA which was foundational for work of Watson and Crick
- July 25, 1984–Svetlana Savitskaya becomes first woman to perform a spacewalk as a cosmonaut aboard Salyut 7
- July 25, 2007–Pratibha Patil sworn in as India’s first female president
- July 26, 1745 – First recorded women’s cricket match takes place near Guildford, England. It was a match “between eleven maids of Bramley and eleven maids of Hambledon, all dressed in white,” according to The Reading Mercury.
- July 26, 1869–Donaldina Cameron born, social justice advocate in San Francisco. At age 25, she became head of the Presbyterian Mission Home for Girls, and began her battle to end the illegal smuggling of Chinese girls and young women by the Tongs to be used as prostitutes or slave labor. She rescued over 3,000 Chinese women held by the traffickers, developing a network of informers to discover the brothels and opium dens where they were held, then leading police to raid them, sometimes carrying an axe and chopping down doors or panels hiding the victims herself. The traffickers called her Fahn Gwai,“white devil.” Enlisting support from church and civil groups, as well as working with lawyers and legislators, she is credited with breaking the back of the early 20th century Chinese slave trade in the city
- July 26, 1902 (?)–Gracie Allen born, actor and comedian, known as partner of her husband George Burns. Burns and Allen were inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1988. She always wore sleeves long enough to cover scars from a severe scalding accident in her childhood. Her birth year is uncertain, due to the loss of all records in San Francisco during the 1906 earthquake and fire
- July 26, 1923–Jan Berenstain born, author and illustrator, co-author with her husband of children’s book series The Berenstain Bears
- July 27, 1891 –Myrtle Lawrence born, sharecropper and labor organizer, worked within biracial Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union from 1936 to 1943, honored on the 1976 Bicentennial Freedom Train Exhibition
- July 27, 1906 –Helen Wolff born, editor and publisher, published many acclaimed translations under the imprint “A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book” at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, founded Pantheon Books with husband in 1942
- July 27, 2006– Peruvian president-elect Alan Garcia makes good on his campaign pledge to draw talent from across the political spectrum by appointing six women to his cabinet, including Peru's first female justice and interior ministers
- July 28, 1819 – Louise A. Knapp Smith Clappe born, American teacher and author, came to California in 1849; her letters to her sister giving her impressions of life in the gold-mining camps, were published as a serial in The Pioneer periodical, from January 1854 to December 1855; taught in San Francisco public schools (1854-1878)
- July 28, 1866– By a vote of Congress, Vinnie Ream receives a commission from the U.S. government for a statue of Abraham Lincoln. She was the first and, at the age of 18, the youngest woman to receive such a commission.
- July 28, 1879 –Lucy Burns born, suffragist, formed National Woman’s Party with Alice Paul, picketed the White House for women suffrage and arrested 6 times
- July 28, 1929 –Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis born, First Lady (1961-63), started White House Historical Association, photographer, book editor
- July 29, 1896 –Maria L. de Hernandez born, Latina activist, first Mexican female radio announcer. Helped start Asociación Protectora de Madres (1933) to help expecting mothers
- July 29, 1903 –Diana Vreeland born, fashion icon, born in Paris, columnist (1936), then fashion editor at “Harper’s Bazaar” until 1962, editor in chief at “Vogue” (1962-71)
- July 29, 1905 –Mary Roebling born, first woman president of a major bank (1937), first woman American Stock Exchange governor (1958-1962), and helped establish first nationally-chartered bank founded by women (1978)
- July 29, 1932–Nancy Kassebaum Baker born, U.S. senator from Kansas (1978-1997), first woman to represent Kansas in the U.S. Senate, instrumental in creation of Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve
- July 29, 1936–Elizabeth H. Dole born,U.S. Senator from North Carolina (2003-2009), first woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of Transportation (1983-1987), also served as U.S. Secretary of Labor (1989-1990), becoming the first woman to hold two different cabinet positions under two different presidents, and she was also president of the American Red Cross (1991-1999)
- July 29, 1974 –“PhiladelphiaEleven” deacons (Merrill Bittner, Alla Bozarth-Campbell, Alison Cheek, Emily Hewitt, Carter Heyward, Suzanne Hiatt, Marie Moorefield, Jeannette Piccard, Betty Schiess, Katrina Swanson, and Nancy Wittig) ordained as the first women Episcopal priests
- July 30, 1939–born, women’s rights activist, co-founder and president of the Feminist Majority Foundation (1987) and publisher of Ms. Magazine, president of National Organization for Women (1977-1982 and 1985-1987)
- July 30, 1940–Pat Schroeder born, U.S. Representative from Colorado (1973-1997), first woman to serve in U.S. Congress from Colorado, first woman on the House Armed Services Committee, promoted the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, president and CEO of the Association of American Publishers (1997-2008)
- July 30, 1942– President Franklin Roosevelt signs bill creating a women's auxiliary agency in the Navy known as Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (W.A.V.E.S.)
- July 31, 1816–Lydia Moss Bradley born, businesswoman and philanthropist, managed her own fortune after the death of her husband, successful in real estate and banking, endowed the Bradley Polytechnic Institute, first woman member of a national banking board; she is the first American woman known to draw up a prenuptial agreement to protect her assets.
- July 31, 1879 –Margarete Bieber born, art historian and professor of art and archaeology, second female university professor in Germany (1919) before immigrating to the U.S., taught at Barnard College and Columbia University, published numerous academic texts, named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1971
- July 31, 1924 –Geraldine Hoff Doyle born, possibly model for WWII “We Can Do It” poster which came to symbolize Rosie the Riveters, women who became factory workers to support the war effort
- July 31, 1981 –Arnette Hubbard installed as 1st woman president of National Bar Association
- July 31, 1991– U.S. Senate votes to allow women to fly combat aircraft