WOW2: August’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 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/...

A major milestone in U.S. Women’s History happened 97 years ago today: the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution was officially ratified on August 26, 1920, granting American women the right to vote.

You can read the dramatic story of how close it came to not passing in the “Battle of the Roses” on August 18 below.  Thank You‘Miss Febb’— a forgotten hero.

Of course, getting the amendment ratified was only the start — women of color faced years of discrimination that kept them out of the voting booth. Then the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s helped end literacy tests and poll taxes. But just when it seemed the battle for the ballot was finally won, the 21st Century Right-Wing Justices of the Supreme Court dismantled vital sections of the Voting Rights Act. Red States have jumped at the chance to disenfranchise minorities, and married women with confusing last names on their IDs, and students who might be harboring leftist tendencies. They’ve even closed Motor Vehicle offices in some more liberal districts to make voter registration there more difficult. And all this was before the current Occupant of the Oval Office, and the appalling increase in aggression by the White Male Supremacists.

WOW2 is getting so long each month I may have to break it into two installments soon, but for all the naysayers who claim that women’s part in human history is negligible, I love having such long lists of evidence to refute them.

So let’s celebrate all the women of our past, and take inspiration from them for continuing this struggle for equality.

  August Women Trailblazers and Events in OUR History

• August 1, 1786–Caroline Herschel discovers the first of eight comets

• August 1, 1818 –Maria Mitchell born, American astronomer and academic, discoverer of a comet, first American woman paid professional astronomer; first woman elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Vassar College professor of astronomy (1865-1888) – when she found out she was paid less than younger male professors, she insisted on and got a salary increase; abolitionist (refused to wear cotton clothing until after the Emancipation Proclamation) and suffragist, friend of Elizabeth Cady Stanton

• August 1, 1841–Lilli Suburg born, Estonian writer and feminist, established a girls school in Pärnu, published the first women’s magazine in Estonia

• August 1, 1905–Helen Sawyer Hogg born, American-Canadian astronomer and academic

• August 1, 1911–Harriet Quimby passes her pilot’s test becoming the first woman in the United States to receive an Aero Club of America aviator’s certificate

• August 1, 1911–Jackie Ormes born, American cartoonist, first female African American cartoonist in the U.S.; her comic strips –Torchy Brown and Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger

• August 1, 1916–Anne Hébert born, Canadian author and poet, honored three times with the Governor General’s Award

• August 1, 1923 –Beatrice Medicine, Standing Rock Sioux anthropologist, focused on the roles of Lakota women in changes facing their cultures in bilingual education, alcohol and drug use, domestic abuse, socialization of children, and identity needs, author of Learning to Be an Anthropologist and Remaining Native

• August 1, 1980–Vigdis Finnbogadottir takes office as the President of Iceland, the world’s first democratically elected female head of state

• August 1, 2014– The Council of Europe (COE) Convention toPrevent andCombat Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence goes into force

• August 2, 1343– Jean de Clisson’shusband is executed for treason without proof being presented, during the Breton War of Succession.  Sheoutfits three ships, all black-hulled with red sails, naming her flagship My Revenge, and forms an alliance with the English as a privateer. As ‘the Lioness of Brittany’ she gains a reputation for decapitating captured French nobles, in her quest to be avenged against French King Phillip VI and her husband’s accuser, Charles deBlois

• August 2, 1858–Catharina van Rennes born, Dutch composer and music educator; composed music for the International Alliance meeting of the Woman’s Suffrage movement

• August 2, 1878–Aino Kallas born, notable Finnish-Estonian author, who wrote in both Finnish and English, one of the first Finnish authors to gain international attention

• August 2, 1896–Sarah Tilghman Hughes born, American federal judge, first woman to swear in a U.S. President, Lyndon Johnson, after John F. Kennedy was assassinated

• August 2, 1902 –Mina Rees born, mathematician, first woman president of American Association for the Advancement of Science (1971)

• August 2,  1942–Isabelle Allende born, Chilean ‘magic realist’ author; widely read Spanish language author of The House of the Spirits

• August 3, 1851 –Isabella Caroline Somerset born, President of British Women’s Temperance Association, women’s rights and birth control campaigner (“sin begins with an unwelcome child”), editor of feminist magazine The Woman’s Signal

• August 3, 1902–Regina Jones born in Germany, first woman ordained as a rabbi; she died at Auschwitz during WWII

• August 3, 1905–Maggie Kuhnborn,American activist, founder of the Gray Panthers, advocate for human rights, social and economic justice, nursing home reform and increased understanding of mental health issues

• August 3, 1920–P. D. James born, British author and life peer in the House of Lords; Adam Dalgliesh detective series

• August 3, 1928–Cécile Aubry born, French author, actress, screenwriter, and TV director; adapted her children’s book series Poly and and Belle et Sébastien for television

• August 3, 1937–Yvonne Kauger born, Associate Justice on Oklahoma Supreme Court, appointed to Court's District 4 seat (1984), Oklahoma Chief Justice (1997-98). Member of Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, founder of Gallery of the Plains Indian and co-founder of Red Earth. Serves as Symposium Coordinator of the Sovereignty Symposium. Inducted into Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame (2001)

• August 3, 1941–Martha Stewart born, American founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, a communications, publishing and merchandising empire

• August 4, 1890–Barbara Nachtrieb Armstrong born, first female law professor at major university law school, Boalt Hall, University of California Berkeley. Served on California Social Insurance Commission (1915-19). Expert on social economics and labor law (PhD Economics 1921), author of Insuring the Essentials (1932). Served as chief of staff for social security planning of Committee on Economic Security, and was major contributor to the Social Security Act.  Her two-volume work California Family Law (1953) regarded as the seminal work in the field

• August 4, 1910–Hedda Sterne born in Romania, American Abstract Expressionist and Surrealist painter, member of “The Irascible Eighteen” 

• August 4, 1920–Helen Thomas born, American journalist, columnist, White House press corps member who covers eleven U.S. presidents from Eisenhower to Obama; first woman officer of National Press Club, first female member of Gridiron Club, first woman member of the White House Correspondents’ Association and its first female president

• August 4, 1938–Ellen Schrecker born, American historian and professor; notable for American Inquisition: The Era of McCarthyism,and several other books on the McCarthy era, also Regulating the Intellectuals: Perspectives on Academic Freedom in the 1980s

• August 4, 1944 – A Dutch informer betrays the hiding place of Anne Frank’s family and their friends. The Gestapo arrests all ten of them and the two Christians who are helping them. Anne and her sister die of typhus in Belgen-Belsen, less than two months before the camp is liberated by British forces in 1945. Only Anne’s father Otto survives

• August 4, 2006–Single Working Women’s Day is started by Barbara Payne, co-founder of the Single Working Women’s Affiliate Network, particularly for young women just joining the workforce and single-parent moms (almost one-third of American families today)

• August 5, 1529 – Treaty of Cambrai signed, negotiated by Louise of Savoy and Margaret of Austria representing her nephew, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Also known as Paix des Dames, or the Ladies’ Peace

• August 5, 1876– Mary Ritter Beard born, American historian, archivist, feminist, social justice and labor movement advocate; author On Understanding Women, America Through Women’s Eyes, and Woman As Force In History: A Study in Traditions and Realities

• August 5, 1880–Gertrude Rush born, first African American female lawyer in Iowa, co-founder of National Bar Association

• August 5, 1888 –Bertha Benz drives round trip from Mannheim to Pforzheim in the first long distance automobile trip. Route now called the Bertha Benz Memorial Route

• August 5, 1918–Betty Oliphant born, Canadian ballet dancer and co-founder National Ballet School of Canada

• August 5, 1926 –Betsy Jolas born, important post-WWII French composer, professor at Mills College

• August 5, 2010– The U.S Senate confirms Elena Kagan as the Supreme Court’s fourth woman justice by a vote of 63-37

• August 6, 1619– BarbaraStrozzi born, Italian Baroque singer and composer

• August 6, 1774–Shaker Founder ‘Mother’ Ann Lee and a small group of her followers arrive in NYC from Great Britain, where she had been arrested and jailed multiple times

• August 6, 1817–Zerelda Wallace born, American lecturer, temperance advocate and suffragist, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary on women’s suffrage

• August 6, 1848–Susie King Taylor born, first African-American Civil war nurse, author and educator; nursed the First South Carolina Volunteers, a black unit, during the Civil War; notable for her memoir Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33rd United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S.C. Volunteers; first African-American to teach openly in a Georgia school for former slaves, teaching both adults and children

• August 6, 1886–Inez Milholland Boissevain born, lawyer, suffrage leader; labor lawyer, suffragist, WWI correspondent and orator; led the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913 on a white horse

• August 6, 1903 –Virginia Durr born, civil rights activist and author, founding member of the Southern Conference on Human Welfare (1938)

• August 6, 1911 –Lucille Ball born, comedian, actor, TV executive, starred in TV series “I Love Lucy” (1950-60), first woman owner of major TV studio, Desilu Productions

• August 6, 1912– The Progressive ‘Bull Moose’ Party holds their convention at the Chicago Coliseum; Jane Addams gives the seconding speech nominating Teddy Roosevelt as their presidential candidate, a first for a woman. Unlike Republicans and Democrats, the Progressive Party fully endorses women’s suffrage, in additions to advocating for child labor laws, and an 8-hour workday. Roosevelt thanked her in a telegram: “I prized your action not only because of what you are and stand for, but because of what it symbolizes for the new movement.”

• August 6, 1917–Barbara Cooney born, American children’s author and illustrator, honored with two Caldecott Medals and a National Book Award

• August 6, 1926 –Gertrude Ederle becomes first woman to complete swimming across the English Channel

• August 6, 1930–Abbey Lincoln, born as Anna Marie Woolridge, American singer-songwriter and civil rights activist

• August 6, 1965 – The Voting Rights Act outlaws the discriminatory literacy tests that had been used to prevent African Americans from voting. Suffrage is finally fully extended to African American women
• August 6, 1991–Takako Doi becomes first female speaker of Japan’s House of Representatives

• August 6, 2009– U.S. senate confirms Sonia Sotomayor 68-31 as first Hispanic, and third female, Supreme Court Justice

• August 7, 1813–Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis born, American abolitionist, educator and suffragist, co-founder of New England Woman Suffrage Association

• August 7, 1848–Alice James born, American diarist, chronicled her life and struggles with mental illness, sister of psychologist William James and novelist Henry James

• August 7, 1864–Ellen Fitz Pendleton born, American, Wellesley College president (1911-36)

• August 7, 1887–Anna ElisabetWeirauch born, German author and screenwriter; actor with the German State Theatre under Max Reinhardt; notable for Der Skorpion, a pioneering novel of lesbian literature

• August 7, 1890–Elizabeth Gurley Flynn born, American author, feminist, Labor activist and orator with the IWW, Chair of the National Committee of the Communist Party USA – the song “The Rebel Girl” was written for her by Joe Hill; founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and a principal activist for their International Labor Defense (ILD), formed in 1925

• August 7, 1909 –Alice Huyler Ramsey becomes first to complete a cross-country automobile trip. She traveled with three friends (none of whom could drive) for 59 days from New York, NY to San Francisco, CA

• August 7, 1928–Betsy Byars born, children’s author, won Newbery Medal for Summer of the Swans

• August 7, 1933–Elinor Ostrom born, American political economist; shares 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences with Oliver Williamson; first woman Nobel Laureate in Economics

• August 7, 1938–Helen Caldicott born, Australian physician, author, activist, opposes use of nuclear power and weapons, hosts radio program If You Love This Planet

• August 7, 1962–Frances Oldham Kelsey receives U.S. President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service for refusing to authorize thalidomide

August 8, 1863–Florence Merriam Bailey, American ornithologist and nature writer, organized Audubon Society chapters, co-author with husband of Handbook of Birds of the Western United States and The Birds of New Mexico

• August 8, 1959– Caroline Ansink born, Dutch composer and flautist

• August 8, 1814–Esther Hobart Morris born, first female U.S. Justice of the Peace, abolitionist; appointed J.P. when previous justice resigned in protest over Wyoming extending suffrage to women

• August 8, 1857–Cécile Chaminade born, French pianist and composer, her work was successful during her life time; largely forgotten today, most popular piece is Flute Concertino in D major, Op. 107

• August 8, 1884–Sara Teasdale born, lyric poet, Pulitzer Prize for Love Songs; also published Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems and Helen of Troy and Other Poems

• August 8, 1896–Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author, Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Yearling

• August 8, 1927 –Maia Wojciechowska born in Poland, American children and young adult fiction author, Newbery Award for Shadow of a Bull

• August 8, 1929– Larisa Bogoraz born, Soviet linguist, author and dissident, organizes a protest in Red Square of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Czechoslovakia; exiled for four years of exile in Siberia; co-author of Memory, contributor to the underground Chronicle of Current Events (1968-1983), run by dissidents for free speech and civil rights

• August 8, 1948–Margaret Urban Walker born, American philosopher, ethicist and author; Moral Contexts, Naturalized bioethics: toward responsible knowing and practice

• August 8, 1969 –Executive order 11478 issued by President Nixon requires each federal department and agency to establish and maintain an affirmative action program of equal employment opportunity for civilian employees and applicants

• August 8, 1970 - Janis Joplin buys a headstone for blues singer Bessie Smith’s grave, two months before her own funeral

• August 9, 1762 –Mary Randolph born, American author, The Virginia Housewife,an influential domestic “how-to” book; first recorded person buried at Arlington National Cemetery

• August 9, 1861 – Dorothea Klumpke Roberts born in San Francisco, astronomer, Director of Paris Observatory Bureau of Measurements, elected Chevalier de la Légion,  first recipient of "Prix de Dames" from Société astronomique de France (1889)

• August 9, 1865 –Janie Porter Barrett born to a former slave, American welfare worker, reformer and educator; founded the Locust Street Social Settlement, the first of its kind for black people in the U.S., and the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls, a pioneer in rehabilitation of  African-American female delinquents, which has become the Barrett Learning Center

• August 9, 1867 –Evelina Haverfield born, militant British suffragette, worked in South Africa during Boer War, during WWI founded British Women’s Emergency Corps, worked as nurse in Serbia. After WWI, set up center for Serbian war orphans with her partner Vera “Jack” Holme

• August 9, 1899 –P.L. Travers born, Australian author of Mary Poppins books

• August 9, 1919 –Leona Woods Marshall Libby born, physicist, only woman on team that built world’s first nuclear reactor, worked on Manhattan Project, professor at New York University and UCLA

• August 9, 1952 –Prathip Uengsongtham Hata born, Thai activist, “Angel of Khlong Toel” slum, where she was born with no legal status. Only able to go to a cheap private school until she was 12, when her parents ran out of money. She scraped together enough out of her own earnings to complete her secondary education in evening classes. Founded “One Baht a Day School” for slum children in her home (a Thai Baht is equal to about 29 cents U.S.) During a fight to prevent eviction of slum dwellers by the Port Authority, her school was publicized, gaining financial supporters, and Thammasat University students as volunteer teachers. The school was moved into a properly equipped building and eventually recognized as a public school. The policy banning children without birth certificates from public education was revised. She received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service in 1978, and used the prize money to set up Duang Prateep Foundation (flame of hope). In 2000, she was elected to the Thai Senate. In 2004 she received The World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child.

• August 9, 1995 –Roberta Cooper Ramo becomes first woman president of the American Bar Association

• August 10, 1858–Anna Julia Cooper born, scholar, author, educator, one of earliest African American women to earn a PhD, from University of Paris-Sorbonne (1924)

• August 10, 1894–Dorothy Jacobs Bellanca born in Latvia, American labor leader; Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA) Joint Board Secretary, and first female Vice President (1934-1946), also ACWA’s first woman full-time organizer; during the Great Depression, served on NYC Mayor’s Commission in Unity, and the Maternal and Child Welfare Committee under Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins

• August 10, 1933 –Elizabeth Butler-Sloss born, British judge, first woman to serve as Lord Justice of Appeal

• August 10, 1941–Susan Dorothea White, Australian painter, sculptor and how-to author of Draw Like Da Vinci

• August 10, 1993 –Ruth Bader Ginsburg is sworn in as the second woman and 107th Justice to serve on the US Supreme Court

• August 11,1862–Carrie Jacobs Bond born, American singer-songwriter of popular music; “I LoveYou Truly” and “A Perfect Day”

• August 11, 1897–Louise Bogan born, American poet, Library of Congress Poetry Consultant (1945), poetry editor of The New Yorker magazine

• August 11, 1912 – Eva Ahnert-Rohlfs born, German astronomer, observer of variable stars

• August 11, 1937–Edith Wharton born, author, Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Age of Innocence, three time Nobel Prize nominee

• August 11, 1941–Elizabeth Holtzman born, youngest woman elected to U.S. Congress, (D-NY, 1973-81), first woman District Attorney in New York City (1981)

• August 11, 1942 – Actor Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil receive a patent for a frequency-hopping spread spectrum communication system, the forerunner of wireless and cellular communication

• August 12, 30 BC–Cleopatra VII,last of Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty, commits suicide after defeat at Battle of Actium rather than be displayed in Rome as prisoner of Octavian

• August 12, 1806 –Elizabeth Oakes Smith born, author, lecturer and women’s rights activist, poem “The Sinless Child” and feminist essay series published in NY Tribune (c.1850)

• August 12, 1833–Lillie Devereux Blake born, American author, suffragist and reformer, Civil War correspondent for the New York Evening Post, New York World and Philadelphia Press; novels Southwold and Rockford

• August 12, 1867–Edith Hamilton born in Germany, American author and educator, known for her books The Greek Way and Mythology

• August 12, 1876–Mary Roberts Rinehart born, American author and playwright, known for mystery and suspense novels, best remembered for The Circular Staircase

• August 12, 1889 – Zerna Sharp born, American author and educator, creator of the Dick and Jane series for beginning readers

• August 12, 1914–Ruth Lowe born, Canadian songwriter, her songs “I’ll Never Smile Again” and “Put Your Dreams Away” were early major hits for a young Frank Sinatra. The recording of “I’ll Never Smile Again” by Tommy Dorsey’s Orchestra with Frank Sinatra was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1982.

• August 12, 1972 –Wendy Rue founds National Association for Female Executives (NAFE), the largest U.S. businesswomen’s organization

• August 12, 1990–Sue Hendrickson discovers largest most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton to date in South Dakota, called “Sue” in her honor. Now displayed at Chicago’s Field Museum

• August 13, 1818–Lucy Stone born, suffragist, abolitionist, co-organizer of first National Women’s Convention, co-founder of American Woman Suffrage Association, founder of the Woman’s Journal, boldly kept her own name when she married

• August 13, 1829–Martha J. Lamb born, American author, editor, historian and reformer; owner-editor of The Magazine of American History; co-founder of the Home for the Friendless and the Half-Orphan Asylum; secretary of the United States Sanitary Commission

• August 13, 1849–Leonora Kearney Barry born in Ireland, American labor reformer and women’s rights activist, only woman to hold national office in the Knights of Labor

• August 13, 1860–Annie Oakley born, stage name of Phoebe Ann Moses Butler, American target and exhibition shooter, star of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show

• August 13, 1893 –Eva Dykes born, first African-American woman to earn a doctoral degree (in English from Radcliffe College in 1921), professor at Howard University, and Chair of the English Dept. at Oakwood College

• August 13, 1918 –Opha Mae Johnson first of 305 women US Marine Corps enlistees

• August 13, 1933– Joycelyn Elders born, American physician and research scientist, public health administrator as vice admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, first African American and second woman appointed as U.S. Surgeon General

• August 13, 2014 –Maryam Mirzakhani wins Fields Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, becoming first woman and first Iranian to win the medal

• August 14, 1782–Suriname forbids selling slave mothers without their babies

• August 14, 1802–Letitia E. Landon born, British author and poet, known by her initials L.E.L., popular in the 19th century; Romance and Reality, The Improvisatrice

• August 14, 1848 –Margaret Lindsay born, Irish-English astronomer, pioneer in spectroscopy, co-author of Atlas of Representative Stellar Spectra (1899) and a contributor to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition

• August 14, 1882–Gisela Richter born, British archaeologist, historian and professor, curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Achievement Award from the American Association of University Women; author of many popular books on art

• August 14, 1899 –Caroline Ware born, history professor, pioneer in “cultural approach to History,” expert on consumer affairs, Chair of American Association of University Women Committee on Social Studies

• August 14, 1901 –Alice Rivaz born, Swiss feminist and author, worked with International Labour Organization, novels Nuages dans la main (Clouds in your Hands) and Jette ton pain (Cast your Bread) dealt with women in art and other feminist themes

• August 14, 1909–Winifred Stanley born, American lawyer and politician; as a member of the United States House of Representatives in the 1940s, she was the first to propose equal pay for equal work in HR 5056

• August 14, 1911 –Ethel Payne born, called “The First Lady of the Black Press,” first African American female radio and television commentator at a national news organization (CBS-1972)

• August 14, 1928 –Lina Wertmüller born, Swiss-Italian film director-screenwriter, first woman nominated for Academy Award for Best Director for Seven Beauties

• August 14, 1986 –Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper retires from active duty in the US Navy, pioneering computer scientist and inventor of computer language COBOL, she was the oldest officer still on active duty at time of her retirement

• August 15, 1818–Bridget “Biddy” Mason born as a slave, separated from her parents, given as a wedding gift to Robert Smith and his bride; she bore three children whose likely father was Robert Smith. When Smith converted to Mormonism, he moved his entire household West, ending in the free state of California, where Biddy Mason filed a petition for her freedom in Los Angeles County Court, but was not allowed testify on her own behalf; when Smith failed to appear, she, her three daughters and 13 other slaves were granted their freedom, a landmark decision in California law. While she had no formal education, she had been trained by other slave women as a midwife, and found work in Los Angeles delivering babies. She saved enough to buy a house and land, one of the first black women to own property in Los Angeles, then successfully bought and sold property during the land boom, amassing a substantial profit, a great deal of which she used to start a daycare center, a shelter and soup kitchen for the poor, and giving much of the money to build the Los Angeles First AME Church

• August 15, 1841–Julia Tutwiler born, American educator and social reformer; advocate for prison reform, Livingston Normal College president; Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame inductee

• August 15, 1848–Edith Nesbit born, British author, poet and political activist, publishes children’s books under the name E. Nesbit, co-founder of the Fabian Society

• August 15, 1860–Henrietta Vinton Davis born, American orator and playwright; first international organizer for the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL); Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World signatory, served as an officer in the UNIA-ACL and later the rival UNIA, Inc.

• August 15, 1887–Edna Ferber born, American novelist and playwright; 1925 Pulitzer Prize for So Big; novels Giant, Showboat, Saratoga Trunk: also co-author with George S. Kaufman of plays Dinner at Eight, Stage Door

• August 15, 1903 –Ellen Winston born, first U.S. Commissioner of Welfare in Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (1963-1967)

• August 15, 1912–Julia Childborn, American author ofMastering the Art of French Cooking

• August 15, 1913 –Aurora Castillo born, community activist, co-founder Mothers of East Los Angeles (1984) working against proposed prison and hazardous waste dump in East L.A.

• August 15, 1913–Tōhoku Imperial University of Japan becomes first Japanese university to admit female students

• August 15, 1918 –Fay Knopp born, pacifist and feminist, prison reformer, member of Women Strike for Peace, pioneered more humane treatment of prisoners based on compassion and a belief that people can change themselves

• August 15, 1970 –Patricia Pailinkas becomes first woman to play professionally in  American football game as placekick holder for Orlando Panthers.

• August 15, 1995– In South Carolina, Shannon Faulkner becomes first female cadet to enroll at The Citadel (She drops out less than a week later because of death threats to her parents. Citadel cadets celebrated openly on campus after her announcement.)

• August 16, 1813–Sarah Porter born, American educator, founder of Miss Porter’s School, a private girl’s college preparatory school; she acquired her education through private tutoring by Yale professors, and her school offers an expansive curriculum, including the sciences

• August 16, 1832–Helen Knowlton born, American artist and author, principal biographer of William Morris Hunt

• August 16, 1836–Virginia Thrall Smith born, American social and charity worker, City Missionary Society member, established Connecticut’s first free kindergarten; elected to the Connecticut State Board of Charities, started the Connecticut Children’s Aid Society, founder of a children’s home that became the Newington Children’s Hospital

• August 16, 1902–Georgette Heyer born, British novelist, detective fiction and historical romance, often set in Regency period. Her description of Battle of Waterloo in An Infamous Army was so definitive, it was used by military history instructors at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst

• August 16, 1945–Suzanne Farrell born as Roberta Sue Ficker, American lyric ballerina, founder of Suzanne Farrell Ballet at the Kennedy Center

• August 16, 2002– The Africa Women’s Peace Train leaves Kampala, Uganda, to run through Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Botswana and finally to  Johannesburg, South Africa, for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). Their goal is the end of the civil wars, corruption and genocide which are making their families unsafe

• August 17, 1937 –Charlotte Forten Grimké born, African American abolitionist, and poet, taught South Carolina freedmen; her diaries published as The Journal of Charlotte Forten

• August 17, 1838–Laura de Force Gordon born, American lawyer, editor and women’s rights activist, editor and manager of the Stockton Daily Leader in 1873, co-leader of campaign for the right for women to practice law in California

• August 17,1858–Caroline Bartlett Crane born, American suffragist, educator, journalist and reformer, Unitarian minister, known for public health and sanitation reforms, inspected and wrote sanitary surveys for over 60 cities, campaigned for meat inspection ordinances

• August 17, 1863–Geneva Stratton-Porterborn, American author as ‘Gene’ Stratton-Porter, columnist, naturalist, wildlife photographer and best-selling author during her lifetime, known for her novelA Girl of the Limberlost

• August 17, 1891 –Marion Kenworthy born, psychiatrist, first woman president of the American Psychoanalytic Association, professor at New York School of Social Work (now Columbia University School of Social Work)

• August 17, 1893 –Mae West born, iconic sex symbol, playwright and screenwriter, (Sex, Diamond Lil, Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It) started in Vaudeville, starred in plays, movies, radio, and television for seven decades

• August 17, 1906 –Hazel Bishop born, organic chemist, created first “kiss-proof” lipstick (1949), founded Hazel Bishop cosmetics, then Hazel Bishop Laboratories, which developed chemical products like leather cleaner and solid stick perfume. Later also successful Wall Street broker and financial analyst, then first Revlon Chair of Cosmetics Marketing at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology.

• August 17, 1920 –Lida Moser born, photojournalist and post-WWII documentary photographer

• August 17, 1927 –Elaine Hedges born, educator, helped create field of Women’s Studies, founding member of National Women’s Studies Association, founded Towson University’s Women’s Studies Program, one of oldest programs in U.S., writer-editor for The Feminist Press

• August 17, 1945 –Rachel Pollack born, transgender essayist, science-fiction/fantasy novelist (Unquenchable Fire, Godmother Night) and non-fiction author (The Body Of The Goddess, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom)

• August 17, 1947 –Syliva Nasar born in Germany, came to U.S. at age four, writer-journalist, best known for A Beautiful Mind, biography of John Forbes Nash, also wrote Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius, her theory on positive historical impact of economics

• August 17, 1949 –Sue Draheim born, classically-trained-violinist-turned-fiddler, played music from Celtic to Zydeco, recorded two albums with the all-women group Any Old Time String Band, which were combined and re-released as one album, I Bid You Goodnight (1996)

• August 17, 1953 –Herta Müller, born in Romania, German author, winner of 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature, Atemschaukel (The Hunger Angel)

• August 18, 1587 – In Roanoke, Virginia Dare is the first English child born in the Americas

• August 18, 1885–Gertrude “Nettie” Higgins Palmer born, Australian poet and essayist, one of Australia’s leading literary critics

• August 18, 1893 –Ragini Devi born, American specialist in classical and folk ethnographic dances, won acclaim from dance critics, wrote Dance Dialects of India in 1972, later performed with her daughter and granddaughter

• August 18, 1902 –Leona Baumgartner born, physician, first woman to be commissioner of the New York City Dept. of Health (1954), advocated for public health education, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (1962)

• August 18, 1902–Margaret ‘Mardy’ Murie born, author and conservationist,”Mother of Wilderness,” worked for wilderness preservation, especially the National Arctic Wildlife Refuge; wrote Two in the Far North, and Wapiti Wilderness

• August 18, 1911–Amelia Boynton Robinson born, American suffragist, civil rights activist and playwright; American Civil Rights Movement leader; founding vice-president of the Schiller Institute; awarded the Martin Luther King, Jr. Freedom Medal

• August 18, 1920–Battle of the Roses– Yellow roses were worn by suffrage supporters, red roses by opponents. Tennessee became the 36th and deciding state to ratify the 19^th Amendment, by a single vote, cast by 24-year-old Harry Burn who had been in the anti-ratification camp and was still wearing his red rose when he voted for passage, He received a last-minute letter from his mother that morning. Phoebe Ensminger Burn, called “Miss Febb,” wrote, “Hurrah, and vote for suffrage! Don’t keep them in doubt. I notice some of the speeches against. They were bitter. I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet.” She ended the missive with a rousing endorsement of the suffragist leader Carrie Chapman Catt, imploring her son to “be a good boy and help Mrs.Catt put the ‘rat’ in ratification.” He explained his sudden change of heart, “I know that a mother’s advice is always safest for her boy to follow, and my mother wanted me to vote for ratification.”

• August 18, 1927–Rosalynn Carter born, U.S. First Lady (1977-81), politically active while in White House, focused on mental health, senior citizens, and community voluntarism, co-founded the Carter Center with her husband (1982)

• August 18, 1997 –Beth Ann Hogan becomes first woman to attend Virginia Military Institute (VMI)

• August 18, 2000 - A Federal jury finds the US Environmental Protection Agency guilty of discrimination against Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo; she was passed over for promotion after repeatedly reporting complaints that a U.S. company was mining toxic vanadium in South Africa; her story helped to pass “No FEAR,” the Notification of Federal Employees Anti-discrimination and Retaliation Act (2002)

• August 19, 1612–The Samlesbury Witches: three women from the village of Samlesbury in Lancashire, England, are put on trial, accused by a 14-year-old girl of practicing witchcraft, including child murder and cannibalism. Ten others accused during the same Assizes are hanged, but the three from Samlesbury are acquitted when the girl is discredited as a “perjuring tool of a Catholic priest”

• August 19, 1692–Five people found guilty of witchcraft executed by hanging in Massachusetts colony, including John Proctor, who with his wife Elizabeth Proctor, would be used by Arthur Miller as major characters in his play The Crucible.Elizabeth was given a stay of execution because she was pregnant, then released after witch hysteria had died down

• August 19, 1814?–Mary Ellen Pleasant born as a slave, American abolitionist and entrepreneur, self-made multimillionaire; she often “passed for white” which helped keep her from getting caught as an Underground Railroad conductor, but changed her designation to “Black” after the civil war; sometimes called the “Mother of Civil Rights in California”– her successful lawsuit against a streetcar company for forcing her and two other black women off the streetcar ended segregation on public transportation in San Francisco, and set a precedent used by the California Supreme Court in other cases ”(her birth year is disputed)

• August 19, 1895 –Vera Weisbord born, radical activist, labor organizer, and feminist, organized women textile worker strikes in 1920s, active in Civil Rights Movement, wrote her autobiography, A Radical Life, in 1977, she was also a painter

• August 19, 1911–Anna Terruwe born, Dutch psychiatrist, noted for work on emotional deprivation and obsessive-compulsive disorders; used writings of Thomas Aquinas as her premise

• August 19, 1920 –Donna Allen born, founder of Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press (1972) to publicize and research women’s issues ignored by main stream media

• August 19, 1934–Renée Richards born, American ophthalmologist, author and tennis player; United States Tennis Association Eastern Tennis Hall of Fame inductee in 2000; after undergoing sex reassignment surgery in 1975, she is denied entrance to the US Open by the USTA; she fights the ban in court – NY State Court rules in her favor in 1977

• August 19, 1981– President Reagan nominates Sandra Day O’Connor as the first woman Supreme Court Justice

• August 20, 1630–Maria van Oosterwijck born, Dutch ‘Golden Age’ painter

• August 20, 1841–Maria Louise Pool, American author, noted for sketches of New England life; published in periodicals like the New York Evening Post and the New York Tribune,then collected in book form

• August 20, 1946 –Connie Chung born, network news correspondent

• August 20, 1958 –Patricia Rozema born, Canadian film director-producer-writer (I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing, Mansfield Park, When Night Is Falling, Into the Forest)

• August 21, 1861–Mary Lizzie Macomber born, American artist in the Pre-Raphaelite style

• August 21, 1886–Ruth Manning-Sanders born, Welsh children’s author and poet

• August 21, 1893–Lili Boulanger born, French composer, first woman to win thePrix de Rome with her composition Faust et Hélène

• August 21, 1897–Constance McLaughlin Green born, historian author, Pulitzer Prize for History for Washington, Village and Capital, 1800-1878

• August 21, 1916–Consuelo Velázquez born, Mexican concert pianist, singer-songwriter, and member of the Mexican Congress; Besame Mucho

• August 21, 1929–Marie Severin born, American illustrator and comic book artist, known for her work for Marvel Comics and EC Comics, Will Eisner Comics Hall of Fame inductee

• August 22, 1762 –Ann Smith Franklin, Benjamin Franklin’s sister-in-law, becomes the first U.S.female newspaper editor for Newport Mercury

• August 22, 1861 –Mary Elizabeth Wood born, librarian and missionary to China, founder of the first library school in China

• August 22, 1883 –Ruth Underhill born, anthropologist and professor, studied with Ruth Benedict who encouraged traveling with native women to learn their history, wrote about Papago Native American culture, and taught in Bureau of Indian Affairs schools

• August 22, 1893–DorothyParker born, American poet , author, screenwriter and critic, known for her satirical wit; two Academy Award nominations, won the O. Henry Award; wills almost her entire estate to Martin Luther King Jr., a man she had never met, when he is assassinated, the bequest goes to the NAACP

• August 22, 1912 –Cornelia “Coya” Knutson born, first woman elected to U.S. Congress from Minnesota (1955-1959), first woman on Agriculture Committee, defeated after infamous “Come Home Coya” letter supposedly written by her estranged husband

• August 22, 1918–Mary McGroryborn, American journalist and columnist, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for her work on the Watergate scandal

• August 22, 1935–Annie Proulxborn, American journalist and author, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize and the U.S. National Book Award for her novel The Shipping News and the PEN/Faulkner Award for the novel Postcards

• August 22, 1986–Kerr-McGee agrees to pay the Karen Silkwood estate $1.36 million to settle her nuclear contamination lawsuit, which had been going through appeals for 10 years

• August 23, 1817–Emily Chubbuck Judson born, author and poet under pen-names Fanny Forrester and Emily Judson; married missionary and went to Burma

• August 23, 1838–First graduating class from Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, South Hadley MA, one of the earliest colleges for women

• August 23, 1843–Lillie Hitchcock Coitborn. ‘Firebelle Lil’ was wealthy socialite fascinated by firefighting, who became a mascot as a teen, and then an honorary member of Engine Company No. 5, often riding along to fires, sometimes scandalously wearing trousers, or when the engine company was in a parade; she left one-third of her estate to the City of San Francisco, which used the bequest to build the landmark Coit Tower, and place a statue of three firefighters in Washington Square Park

• August 23, 1847–Sarah Frances Whiting born, American physicist and astronomer; established the physics department and experimental lab at Wellesley as its first physics professor; author of a physic textbook and numerous articles for Popular Astronomy

• August 23, 1899 –Grace Chu born, cookbook author and teacher, emigrated from Shanghai in 1920 with a scholarship from Wellesley College, taught Chinese cooking, wrote Madame Chu’s Cooking School Cookbook in 1975

• August 23, 1900–Malvina Reynolds born, American singer-songwriter and political activist, known for songs “Little Boxes” and “What Have They Done to the Rain”

• August 23, 1902 –Fanny Farmer opens the “School of Cookery” in Boston, MA
• August 23, 1908–Hannah Frank born to Russian Jewish immigrants, Scottish artist and sculptor

• August 23, 1944 –Antonia Novello born, Puerto Rican physician and public official, first Hispanic U.S. Surgeon General

• August 24, 1552–Lavania Fontana born, Italian painter; she supports the family, her husband takes care of the house and kids

• August 24, 1556–Sophie Brahe born, Danish horticulturalist, genealogist, and chemistry/medical student, also assists her brother, astronomer Tycho Brahe

• August 24, 1890– Ella Rees Williams born, Dominican-English author of novels and short stories, under pen name Jean Rhys; Wide Sargasso Sea

• August 24, 1904–Mary Burchell born, pseudonym of Ida Cook, English activist and author; with sister, Mary Louise Cook, helped Jews escape from Nazis during 1930s;  known for autobiography We Followed Our Stars (republished as Safe Passage.)

• August 24, 1929–Betty Dodson born, American sex educator, artist and author, pioneer in women’s sexual liberation

• August 24, 1950 –Edith Sampson, lawyer and judge, first African-American U.S. delegate to United Nations, and first U.S. African-American representative to NATO

• August 24, 1936 – Antonia Duffy born, uses pen name A. S. Byatt, English novelist and poet;Angels and Insects,Babel Tower

• August 24, 1937–Susan Sheehanborn, American author; Pulitzer Prize for General Non-fiction for her book Is There No Place on Earth for Me?; staff writer for The New Yorker

• August 24, 1940–Francine Lalonde born, Canadian member of the House of Commons 1993-2011 (for two different districts); campaigned for Assisted Suicide/Death With Dignity bill

• August 24, 1950–Edith Sampson becomes the first black U.S. delegate to the U.N.

• August 25, 1828–Jane Lathrop Stanford born, American educator and philanthropist, co-founder of Stanford University; funded and operated the university after her husband’s death in order to keep it open

• August 25, 1860 –Henrietta Vinton Davis, black American elocutionist, dramatic reader-actor, and International organizer for Marcus Garvey’s African Redemption Movement

• August 25, 1910–Dorothea Tanning born, American painter, sculptor, theatrical designer, author who started writing poetry on her 80s

• August 26, 1827–Annie Turner Wittenmyer born, American social reformer, author, magazine editor and relief worker; started a tuition-free school for underprivileged children; field agent during the Civil War for the Ladies’ Soldiers’ Aid Society and later, an advocate for war orphans; first President of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union

• August 26, 1874–Zona Galeborn, American author and playwright; 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the first woman to win for drama, for her adaptation of her novel, Miss Lulu Bett; National Woman’s Party member who lobbied extensively for the 1921 Wisconsin Equal Rights Law

• August 26, 1878–Lina Solomonovna Stern born, Soviet scientist and humanist, pioneering work on the blood-brain barrier; her medical discoveries credited with saving thousands of lives during WWII; Accused of belonging to a Zionist organization, the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in 1949, she is arrested, tried and sentenced to prison, then exile, but is freed and reinstated in 1953

• August 26, 1901–Eleanor Dark born, Australian novelist; The Timeless Land,Prelude to Christopher and Return to Coolami

• August 26, 1903–Caroline Pafford Miller born, American author, won 1934 Pulitzer Prize and the Prix Femina for her first novel Lamb in His Bosom

• August 26, 1908 –Cynthia Wedel born, first woman elected President of the National Council of Churches (1969-1972), president of the World Council of Churches (1975-1983), argued that women should be treated as equals in the church

• August 26, 1920 – Ratification of the 19th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is certified, granting women the right to vote

• August 26, 1935–Geraldine Ferraro born, American attorney, author and politician, member of U.S. House of Representatives (D-NY 1979-1985), first woman to run as vice president for a major US political party (1984); U.S. Ambassador to the UN Commission on Human Rights (1993-1996)

• August 26, 1970– Betty Friedan opens a nationwide protest called the Women’s Strike for Equality on the fiftieth anniversary of women’s suffrage, sponsored by the National Organization for Women. There were 20,000 activists on Fifth Avenue on New York City, 5,000 on Boston Common, 2,000 in San Francisco’s Union Square,and 1,000 in Washington DC.  Smaller groups participated in Syracuse and Manhasset in NY State, and in Detroit, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Los Angeles,and Saint Louis

• August 26, 1971 – First “Women’s Equality Day,” initiated by Representative Bella Abzug, is established by Presidential Proclamation and reaffirmed annually

• August 26, 1989 –Mayumi Moriyama becomes chief cabinet secretary in Japanese cabinet, first woman cabinet appointee; later Japan’s first woman Minister of Education

• August 27, 1796–Sophia Smith born, founder of Smith College for women

• August 27, 1805–Sallie Gordon Law born, American nurse, first recorded nurse in the Civil War, president of the Southern Mothers’ Association

• August 27, 1833–Margarethe Meyer Schurz born, German-American educator, opened the first German-language kindergarten in the United States, won Elizabeth Peabody to the kindergarten cause

• August 27, 1872–Mary Anderson born, labor leader and activist, Women’s Trade Union League, first director of Women’s Bureau in the U.S. Department of Labor

• August 27, 1875–Katherine McCormick born, American biologist, philanthropist, and activist, established the Neuroendocrine Research Foundation at Harvard, funded research into oral contraception from the development and testing of the first pill through the 1960s

• August 27, 1904–Norah Lofts born, British author, known primarily for historical fiction, recipient of the National Book Award (from the American Booksellers Association)

• August 27, 1927 – The “Famous Five” Canadian women file a petition to Supreme Court of Canada, asking, “Does the word ‘Persons’ in Section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867, include female persons?”

• August 27, 1932 –Antonia Fraser born, British author, known for history, biographies and fiction

• August 28, 1834–Clara Erskine Clement born, traveler and author; History of Egypt, and Women Artists in Europe and America.

• August 28, 1915–Tasha Tudor born, illustrator and author of children’s books, Caldecott Honors for Mother Goose, author of series starting with Corgiville Fair

• August 28, 1917 –Woman suffrage protesters outside the White House compare President Wilson to the German Kaiser. They are arrested, sentenced to work camps, and their hunger strike is ended by forced feeding

• August 28, 1924 – Janet Frame born, pseudonym of Nene Janet Paterson Clutha, New Zealand author, known for her literary work as well as her personal history; her book The Lagoon and Other Stories won the Hubert Church Memorial Award just days before she was scheduled to have a lobotomy; she was the recipient of many other honors and awards for her work

• August 28, 1963 – More than 250,000 gather for March on Washington, DC, and listen to Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech

• August 29, 1815–Anna Ella Carroll born, American author, politician and lobbyist, advisor to the Lincoln cabinet during the Civil War

• August 29, 1871–Florine Stettheimer born, American painter, designer and poet; she hosted a salon in Manhattan where she exhibited her work; a book of her poetry, Crystal Flowers, published posthumously in 1949

• August 29,1880–Elizabeth Irwin born,American educator, psychologist and reformer, founder of the Little Red School House, a progressive school in New York City

• August 29, 1913 –Silvia Fine born, lyricist and composer, wrote over 100 songs for her husband, Danny Kaye; also television producer, and teacher

• August 29, 1915–Ingrid Bergman born, Swedish International Film Icon, winner of three Academy Awards, best remembered for Casablanca; in her 45 year career, made 60 films, also appeared on stage, television and in radio versions of literature

• August 29, 1926–Helene Glykatzi-Ahrweiler born in Greece, historian, first woman Principal of the Université de Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne in its 700 year history

• August 29, 1933–Jehan Sadat born, teacher and former First Lady of Egypt as wife of Anwar Sadat, instrumental in reforming Egypt’s civil rights laws and laws giving rights to women; headed the Egyptian delegation to UN International Women’s Conferences

• August 30, 1797 –Mary Shelley born English author, Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus is her most famous work, but she used women characters in her historical novels Valperga and Perkin Warbeck to expand beyond masculine version of historical events

• August 30, 1907 –Luisa Moreno born, labor leader and civil rights activist, emigrated from Guatemala to Mexico, helped organize“El Congreso del Pueblo de Habla Espanola” (Spanish-Speaking Peoples Congress) in 1938, worked for United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA)

• August 30, 1918 –Fanny Kaplan shoots and wounds Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, leading to the decree for Red Terror

• August 30, 1935 –Sylvia Earle born, oceanographer, pioneer in use of SCUBA gear, first woman to serve as chief scientist at NOAA, co-designer and builder of a submersible craft, the first to reach 3,000 foot depths, author Atlas of the Ocean: The Deep Frontier

• August 30, 1966 – Constance Baker Motley confirmed as U.S. district judge and becomes first Black woman on federal bench

• August 30, 1984 – Judith A. Resnik is second US woman in space, traveling on the first flight of the space shuttle Discovery

• August 31,1827–Anna Bartlett Warner born, American author and hymn writer; her best known work is the children’s song “Jesus Loves Me”

• August 31, 1842–Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin born, publisher, journalist, suffragist, civil rights activist, editor of Women’s Era, first newspaper published by and for African-American women, founder of National Federation of Afro-American Women and the Women’s Era Club, co-founder of American Woman Suffrage Association

• August 31, 1942–Mary Putnam Jacobi born, American physician, author and suffragist, leading spokeswoman for women’s health during the Progressive Era, placed emphasis on scientific research rather than traditional or anecdotal evidence

• August 31, 1844–Elizabeth Phelps Ward born, American author and feminist, known for challenging traditional religious beliefs and women’s roles, advocate for women’s clothing reform

• August 31, 1870–Maria Montessori born, Italian physician and educator, her philosophy of education still in use today

• August 31, 1913–Helen Levitt born, American photographer, known primarily for street photography in and around New York City

• August 31, 1919–Amrita Preetam born,, Indian poet and author, wrote in Punjabi and Hindi, considered one of the leading 20^th century Punjabi-language poets, wrote over 100 books of poetry, fiction, biographies, essays, folk songs and her autobiography