Tag: women’s history

A Few Great Resources About Women’s History

I’ve recently “Liked” some new Facebook pages related to History, some specifically about Women’s History, and through these have discovered some wonderful resources that I want to highlight.

Is Mise – on Facebook

Is Mise is a Facebook page “By, For, and About Women” managed by Tracy Livingston a cultural anthropologist. She has wonderful posts and I highly recommend “liking” her page if you are on Facebook.

Century of Action: Women Get the Vote

One of the websites I found through Is Mise is the “Century of Action: Women Get the Vote“, the website of the Oregon Women’s History Consortium.

When the Nineteenth Amendment was passed in 1920, many women had been voting for quite a while. Fifteen states had given women full suffrage and others had received the right to vote in various types of elections. One hundred years ago, in 1912, the women of Oregon won the right to vote. In honor of this event, the Oregon Women’s History Consortium has been formed to “lead the centennial celebration of woman suffrage and to promote women’s history beyond 2012.” At their website you can find information about the long fight in Oregon, the women who spear-headed that fight, documents, and current news and events.

Homefront Heroines: The WAVES of World War II

During WWII, women did countless jobs to free men to fight. We often think about Rosy the Riveter and women who went into the workforce for the first time, but women also went into the military for the first time in jobs other than nursing. Homefront Heroines: The WAVES of World War II is a documentary film about the women who volunteered for service in the Navy during the war. At the website and blog for the film, you can find wonderful exhibits, pictures, and stories of these women as well as a trailer for the movie to be released in August 2012. They have both a Facebook page and a website.

The Zinn Education Project

If you’ve never read Howard Zinn’s book A People’s History of the United States, it is well worth the time. In the book, Zinn looks at our history from a different perspective than the typical history book and tells the stories of people whose voices are often not heard. The Zinn Education Project is primarily targeted toward using Zinn’s book in the classroom, but it’s website contains many resources which will be of interest to anyone interested in United States history. You can explore by theme or time period and narrow the target audience to a specific age group. This site is not limited to women’s history, but we are certainly represented there. They also have a Facebook page.

National Women’s History Museum

I’ve mentioned the National Women’s History Museum before, but I wanted to remind you of it. If you are on Facebook, be sure to “Like” their page. They frequently have posts of the “Today in History” type specifically related to women.

Just a little nugget from this week – During the Revolutionary War, Thursday April 26, 1777 was the day that Sybil Ludington rode all night on horseback to warn local troops that the British were attacking. Her father was a colonel in the militia and she was barely sixteen, but she rode all night covering roughly 40 miles. She accomplished her mission and the men gathered together the next morning to fight. Paul Revere covered less distance and was memorialized in a poem, but Sybil was just a girl helping out her dad.

Actually, there are a couple of statues of Sybil and she has her own stamp, but I had never heard of her. There are so many things we weren’t taught in school!

Mary McLeod Bethune – “Genius Knows No Racial Barriers”

In 1904, a young woman with faith in God and a passion for education opened a school in Daytona Florida with $1.50 and five young African-American girls. Over the next fourteen years, the school would add a four-story building containing dormitories for students and teachers, a two-story addition containing kitchen and domestic science facilities, a twelve acre farm for growing vegetables, raising cows and practical training for the girls, another six acre tract and an auditorium. The woman with the drive and passion to do this was Mary McLeod Bethune and this was only the beginning of her amazing and productive life.

Mary McLeod was born in 1875 to Samuel and Patsy McLeod on a small cotton and rice farm in South Carolina. Her parents were former slaves and she was one in a very large family. She worked on the farm as a young child, but was always ambitious. Eventually, she was able to go to a small mission school in Mayesville, SC. Then with scholarship assistance she continued her education at Scotia Seminary in Concord, NC and Moody Bible College in Chicago.

Mary’s goal was to be a missionary to Africa, but she was told that black missionaries weren’t needed, so she returned to teach school in South Carolina. In 1898, she married Albertus Bethune. They had one son, Albert. She worked as a teacher and in social work until in 1899 the family relocated to Palatka Florida where Mary taught in a mission school. Mary felt strongly that an important way to improve the lives of African-Americans was to educate the girls. She was inspired by both Emma Jane Wilson the teacher in the mission school where she was educated and by Lucy Craft Laney who founded the Haines Normal and Industrial Institute in Augusta Georgia. Bethune spent a year teaching at the Haines Institute and was very impressed with Laney’s educational philosophy.

The Literary and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls in Daytona was founded in 1904 when Mary rented a small house for $11 a month. With five girls as students, her son, and the help of local parents and churches she began the hard work of creating a school that would eventually become the Bethune-Cookman University in 2007.  In addition to academic classes, the girls were given a rigorous Christian foundation and practical skills such as dressmaking, millinery, and cooking.

Daytona Normal School in 1919

Bethune served as president of the school until 1942, but her time was increasingly taken up with fund raising. In spite of this, she was also involved in other activities that raised awareness and improved the lives of African-Americans, specifically women and children. She served as the Florida president and national president of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW.) She attended the Child Welfare Conference called by President Calvin Coolidge in 1928 and was appointed to the White House Conference on Child Health by President Herbert Hoover in 1930. In 1935, Mary brought together 28 agencies to form the National Council of Negro Women. The NCNW sponsored the White House Conference on Negro Women and Children in 1938.

Through these organizations, Mrs. Bethune was instrumental in getting African-American women into officer positions in the Women’s Army Corps during WWII as well as ensuring that black colleges participated in pilot training programs. She lobbied the National Youth Administration to include black youth in their programs. During this time she became close friends with Eleanor Roosevelt. Because of this she had easy access to the White House and became a member of the “Black Cabinet” a group of well respected African-Americans that met informally, but had influence over issues affecting all African-Americans. Among her many honors was being the only African-American woman present at the founding of the United Nations in 1945. She represented the NAACP with W. E. B. Dubois and Walter White.

She believed that education about black people was important not only to promote pride in black children, but to promote understanding among all races.

“Not only the Negro child but children of all races should read and know of the achievements, accomplishments and deeds of the Negro. World peace and brotherhood are based on a common understanding of the contributions and cultures of all races and creeds.”

It seems that she made significant progress toward her goals When Mary McLeod died in 1955, she was remembered in many newspapers across the country for her achievements. Three quotes that I found in Wikipedia sum this up nicely:

She was, “one of the most potent factors in the growth of interracial goodwill in America.”  The New York Times

“So great were her dynamism and force that it was almost impossible to resist her… Not only her own people, but all America has been enriched and ennobled by her courageous, ebullient spirit.”  The Washington Post

“To some she seemed unreal, something that could not be… What right had she to greatness?… The lesson of Mrs. Bethune’s life is that genius knows no racial barriers.”  Daytona Beach Evening News

Mary Jane McLeod Bethune, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, April 6, 1949

Resources
Women of Achievement by Benjamin Brawley (in the public domain)
Mary McLeod Bethune by Emma Gelders Sterne (in the public domain)
These books can be found at the Internet Archives.

National Women’s History Museum

“If society will not admit of woman’s free development, then society must be remodeled.”

Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910),
the first U.S. female medical doctor

From time to time, beginning with Christine de Pizan in 1405, women’s history has been researched and written about, then lost. The National Women’s History Museum is hoping to change that. Currently, it exists only on line, but the effort is being made now to establish a brick and mortar museum in Washington, DC. The funds are being raised privately, but the location must be approved by Congress. Meryl Streep has thrown her support to the cause both financially and by participating in fundraising efforts.

I wasn’t aware of the project or the online museum until today, but I like what I see. Some of the exhibits include

  • First But Not Last: Women Who Ran For President
  • Clandestine Women: Spies in American History
  • Latinas in the New World
  • Chinese American Women: A History of Resilence and Resistance
  • Claiming Their Citizenship: African American Women From 1624 – 2009
  • Profiles in Motherhood

There is even an exhibit researched and written by teenagers with Girls Learn International, Inc. It highlights young women who are worthy role models. I admit I have only heard of 6 of the 30 young women listed. That’s actually embarrassing, but probably not surprising.

History is typically taught from an event perspective, or what I would call a top down approach with everything revolving around world wars, presidents, discovery of America, etc. There is really far too much valuable information to squeeze into the curriculum as it is. And of course, history keeps happening. Creative teachers find ways to inject additional information into the curriculum, but they might not even know about many of the women mentioned here. (Keep in mind, I was a math/science teacher not a history teacher.)

I think this resource could be very valuable to teachers and parents alike who want their students/children to have a more balanced perspective on history and women’s contributions to it. After all, we are half of the population and have made great contributions throughout history whether they have been highlighted or not.

For example, I knew about Victoria Woodhull, who announced her candidacy for president in 1870. Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t even old enough to take office and was actually in jail on election day. But I had never heard of Belva Lockwood (shown on the left) who ran for president on the National Equal Rights Party ticket in 1884. She was a lawyer who won the right for women to argue cases before the US Supreme Court. Only receiving 4000 votes, she wasn’t discouraged and ran again in 1888. Remember in 1884 women couldn’t even vote in most of the US. The 19th amendment allowing all US women citizens to vote wouldn’t happen until 1920.

There is a lot to learn at this site and I’m sure more is coming. Check it out. I bet you’ll like what you see. Let me know what you think and what you learned from it.